#if fantasy life can get a sequel for switch after i mention it ONCE then i can still dream of muramasa

[stfu-im-thinking-abt-blorbo]

Manifesting Muramasa: The Demon Blade for the next Nintendo Direct knowing it's not gonna happen.

[peachscribe]

peach’s summer book list

i had a lot of fun compiling the list of books i read during the 20-21 winter, so i decided i would do a summer one as well! i still have a lot of books i own but haven’t read, so im definitely not lacking in material

if you didn’t see my winter list, how my book list works is basically like this: i read a book that i own but have not previously read, write a short summary immediately after finishing the book, write down my thoughts on the book, and then provide a rating for the book. i also might include background info on why i read this particular book/feelings about the author, but that depends on the book. that’s how each entry works

without further ado, let’s get started!

1. Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith

okay so i absolutely adore another book by andrew smith (written after grasshopper jungle) called the alex crow. it’s one of my favorite books of all time, so naturally i wanted to see if grasshopper jungle would make me feel similarly. just like the alex crow, grasshopper jungle’s plot is. so fucking weird. it stars austin szerba, a teenage polish kid who lives in ealing, iowa, and is often sexually confused regarding his girlfriend shann and his best friend robby. and in ealing, iowa, austin and robby accidentally and unknowingly unleash an unstoppable army of huge six-foot-tall praying mantis bugs that only want to do two things: fuck and eat. and i just have to say: andrew smith’s got an absolutely dynamo writing style. alex crow is similar, where it’s a book about kind of everything all at once, framed in a moment centering around teenage boys. it’s fantastic, and it’s more than a little gross, and i love it. this book made me feel so many things, and i thought austin was such an amazing narrator and main character to identify with. this book has it all: shitty teenage boy humor, fucked up science experiments, and poetic imagery that will make you want to cry. and explicit lgbt characters.

412/10 andrew smith what do you put in your water i just want to know

2. Burn by Patrick Ness

patrick ness has written a plethora of some of my favorite books (such as a monster calls, the chaos walking trilogy, and the rest of us just live here) so when i saw this one in the store i knew it would be a great one. burn is an alternate history fantasy that takes place in 1957 frome, washington, during the height of the cold war, and it begins with a girl named sarah and her father hiring a dragon to help out on their farm. but there’s not just dragons, farm living, and cold war tensions; there’s also a really shitty small town cop, a cult of dragon worshippers and their deadly teenage assassin, a pair of fbi agents, and a prophecy that sarah’s newly hired dragon claims she’s a part of. i think eoin colfer’s highfire was on my winter list, which also featured a story that included dragons and shitty cops, so when i first began burn i thought it was funny to have two books that had both things. you know, if you had a nickel etc etc. but that’s really where the similarities end because burn is entirely it’s own monster (dragon). burn is entirely invested in its world, and its fascinating. not only that, i had no clue where the book would take me next. there were so many surprises and amazing twists that honestly just blew me away. this book also includes beautifully written complicated discussions on family, race, and love - it features interracial and queer romances as the two most prominent romance plots which was such a nice surprise from a book i wasn’t expecting to have that kind of representation. this book is witty, fast-paced, and a very heartening read - i absolutely adored it.

9/10 dragons and becoming motivated by the power of love and friendship are so fucking cool

3. As Meat Loves Salt by Maria McCann

i hate this book! as meat loves salt is a historical fiction novel which takes place in seventeenth century england, which is going through a grisly civil war. the protagonist, jacob cullen, is a servant for a wealthy household and is engaged to another servant in the house. but due to certain events that are almost entirely jacob’s fault, he flees the house and is separated from his wife. from there, he joins the royal army and meets a kind soldier, ferris, and the two become fast friends. jacob and ferris’s relationship begins to bridge past friendly, and jacob struggles with his homoerotic feelings as well as the growing obsession and violence inside him. also, they try to start a colony. listen, i don’t know how to describe the book because so much happens, but it basically just follows jacob and all the terrible decisions he makes because he is, truly, a terrible person. ferris is kind and good, and jacob is scum of the earth. he sucks so bad. the entire time i was reading this book (which took absolutely so long), all i wanted was for jacob to just get his ass handed to him. i wanted to see him suffer. and it’s not like i just personally don’t like him - i believe the book purposefully depicts him as unsympathetic even though he is the narrator. i did enjoy the very in depth and accurate portrayal of what life would’ve been like in seventeenth century england, and i think it was interesting to read a character that is just the absolute worst person you’ve ever encountered and see him try and justify his actions, so if you enjoy that kind of thorough writing, then this book would be perfect for you. however, i did not see that bitch ass motherfucker jacob cullen suffer enough. i’d kill him with my bare hands.

2/10 diversity win! the worst man on earth is mlm!

4. This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

i know ive had a friend tell me how great one of schwab’s other book series is, but truthfully i bought this book because the cover is sick as hell and it was on a table in the store that advertised for buy two get one free, i think. something like that. anyway, this savage song takes place in a future in which monsters, for whatever reason, suddenly became real and out for blood in a mysterious event nicknamed the phenomenon. august flynn is one of these monsters, but he takes no pride in that fact and only wants to feel human. kate harker is the daughter of a ruthless man and is trying her hardest to be ruthless, too, but deep down she knows it’s just an act. their city, verity, stands divided, and kate and august stand on either side - but when august is sent on a mission to befriend kate in the hopes of stopping an all out war, the lines begin to blur. this book rules. august and kate are such interesting and dynamic characters, and the narrative is familiar while still being capable of twisting the story around and taking the feet out from under you in really compelling ways. this savage song is part of the monsters of verity duology, and i can’t wait to dive into how the story continues and finishes.

11/10 sometimes you can judge a book by it’s cover

4a. Our Dark Duet by Victorian Schwab

this is the sequel and finale for this savage song and i’d figure i’d update everyone: fantastic ending, beautiful, showstopping, painful.

12/10 loved it and will definitely be keeping an eye out for schwab’s other books

5. White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

oh boy. okay. white is for witching is about a house, and it is about the women who have lived inside of it. when her mother dies abroad, miranda silver begins to act strangely, and there’s nothing her father or her twin brother seem to be able to do about it. she develops an eating disorder and begins to hear voices in the silver family house, converted to a bed and breakfast by miranda’s dad; and she begins to lose herself in the house and the persistent presence of her family legacy. white is for witching switches perspective dizzingly and disorientingly between miranda, her twin eliot, miranda’s friend from school named ore, and the house itself. this story is a horror story as much as it as a tragedy as much as it is a romance as much as it is a bunch of other things. oyeyemi brings race, sexuality, nationality, and family into this story and forces you not to look away. this book is poetry.

(like i mentioned briefly, this book heavily deals with topics of race and closely follows miranda’s eating disorder. read responsibly, and take care of yourselves)

15/10 this book consumed me and i think i’ll have to read it another 10 more times to feel it properly

6. These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

okay. okay. strap in for a ride. these violent delights is a romeo and juliet style story, taking place in glittering 1920’s shanghai. the city stands divided - not only between the foreign powers encroaching on chinese land, but also between the scarlet gang and the white flowers, who are at the height of a generations-long blood feud. juliette cai, heir to the scarlets, has recently returned from four years abroad and is determined to prove herself ruthless enough to lead. roma montagov, heir to the white flowers, is standing strenuously on his place as next in line due to a slip up four years prior and is desperate to keep hold of his title. and in the midst of juliette and roma’s burning history with each other threatening to combust, an unnatural monster lurks in the waters of shanghai, loosing a madness on scarlets and white flowers alike. this book has it all - scorned ex lovers, political intrigue, deadly monsters, and all set on a glamorous backdrop of the roaring twenties. i absolutely was enraptured by this book and the way it plays around the story of romeo and juliet so well that it easily became it’s own monster, but with the punches and embraces of something classically shakespearan. gong does just an absolutely breathtaking job of fitting this fantastical story amid the larger world of shanghai and the real life historical events that had shaken the city to its core. completely immersive and outstandingly heart racing.

17/10 i was chewing on my fingernails for the last thirty pages and will continue to do so until the sequel is released (our violent ends, 16 nov 21)

7. The Antiques by Kris D’Agostino

you ever heard of the american dysfunctional family story? this is most definitely that. at the same time george westfall’s cancer takes a turn for the worse, a hurricane hits the east coast, and suddenly all at once the issues of his health, the hurricane, and all three of his children’s achingly dysfunctional adult lives are crashing into each other. reunited by george’s death, the westfall siblings have to face their grief, each other, and the problems in their own lives they attempted to put on hold while planning their father’s memorial. this is a nice story about grief and loss and love and somehow finding the humor amidst it all.

(this book does include a depiction of an autistic child who does experience several pretty bad meltdowns due to ignorant people around him not understanding how to cater to his needs. im not an authority on what depictions are or are not harmful, but i do believe this depiction is ultimately loving and well-intended.)

7/10 it made me laugh and cry and was generally one of those books that somehow hit you close to home

8. Fierce Fairytales by Nikita Gill

fierce fairytales is a poetry anthology that reimagines classic fairytales from a modern, feminist viewpoint, acknowledging that the line between hero and villain, monster and damsel, are not as clear cut as the classics try to make you believe. this book also includes illustrations done by the author herself, which i think is really cool. my personal favorite story reimagining was the story of peter pan and captain hook, called ‘boy lost’ which looked at how peter and hook’s relationship began and rotted. all in all, i think this collection of stories had a lot of important things to say and said them in frank, easy to understand poetry and prose.

7/10 beautiful message and pretty prose, but at times a little cliche

and that’s all from the summer! my fall semester starts tomorrow, and overall i feel very good about all the reading i did this summer. i even read four other books not on this list for work! so i definitely feel like i made the most out of my time, and im really glad i was able to read so many stories that made me feel a variety of different things

thanks so much for reading this list, and let me know if you read or have read any of these books and tell me what you think of them!

happy reading<3

[my-hyperfixation-trash-can]

Hetalia’s Russia and DID/OSDD 1-b

Hey! So @autistic-hetalia your blog said you accept neurodiverse head canons and I thought maybe I could share this one with your blog!

I believe the Hetalia character of Russia has OSDD 1-b (Otherwise Specified Disociative Disorder or possibly DID, being Dissociative Identity Disorder) and this is why.

Just a note,

There is no such thing as an evil alter. Do not demonize people with DID or Other Dissociative Disorders! Those with this disorder are victims of Trauma and are likely to continue being victims of abusers, rarely do they become abusers!

Anyways, -cough cough- I’d love if anyone wants to add to this with more evidence!

1. Russia had a traumatic childhood

He is shown to have had abusive bosses who would punish him. He is threatened by one to invent steam power by the end of the week or be punished. Tartar Yoke mentioned by Lithuania as one of his bosses was also known for his cruelty. So the Authority figured in his youth were often cruel and held power over him.

His environment is cold and unforgiving much like an abusive home. Russia often describes his home as cold, quiet and lonely. He rarely found support from his land and often struggled to get by. The environment and home were harsh with little support. It is also implied he froze to death each Winter, and celebrated the year he didn’t.

This is on top of having to deal with other nations attacking him, making him feel helpless. Many nations “bullied” him in attempts to conquer him. He was mobed and pursed every day by Mongolia. That is exhausting to have everyone around you be a threat. (Lithuania and his sisters were the only nations kind to him in his youth) Early on, he learns that force and strength are what matters.

Next point tw sexual abuse and assault

He also felt a great deal of responsibility to care for his sisters. He was close to them, as they were experiencing similar issues and not violent to him. He had to be the strong one. Belarus and her unhealthy attachment to Russia depending on the age she started her behaviors may have also contributed to his trauma. All of the siblings have unhealthy attitudes towards boundaries with their bodies and the bodies of others, implying another type of abuse. Ukraine and Belarus took victim roles. Russia took on an abusers. Ukraine only ever suggests using her body to get what she wants as if never taught anything else, even as a child that’s what she knows. Belarus I don’t know where to begin, but her staring off is certainly dissociative like, paired with other trust issues. In a diary entry she is stated to have possibly messaged Ukraine’s breasts, once again showing more unhealthy boundaries with attachments to loved ones. Someone taught her that. And Russia, who internalized his abusers, acted out his abuse on others as implied with Lithuania looking distressed dressed as a maid and Russia holding a whip. In another non canon game Himaura worked on, Bulgaria in the bad ending is shown tied up and naked implied to be whipped by Russia as Russia says this is “tradition” or possibly more routine implying this is something he does often.

The idea with dissociative disorders is that the repetitive trauma that happens has to be too much for the mind of that individual child in comparison to the culture they’re raised in, and it conflicts with getting their needs met. And to the countries, all of them know Russia has had a life with far more conflicts in his youth than most, and a great deal of pain.

2. Russia has General Winter (GW for short)

General Winter manifests when Russia is being attacked by other nations in order to defend him, or to be a tormentor to Russia himself (such as freezing him to death each Winter).

This is oddly similar to what is known as a persecutor alter. These alters have the goal in mind to protect the host or body, but they’re a bit misguided in how to do that. They might take on the form of an abuser, or something outside the body, this turns into being an Introject. I’ll post a link to more info on DID/OSDD at the end of the post. The educational videos playlist will have a video on alter roles.

Russia’s bosses often abused him, and if he had an alter like this it would make sense that it would take the form of a general, someone in power who feels so much bigger and stronger than him. A boss who can push him around and make him behave in a way that will avoid further trauma from the real abusers. Winter the season, being another tormenting force of the environment, is another abuser, and it makes sense GW would take that into his identity. Russia feels helpless to it. It is also worth noting that other nations who also had to deal with Harsh winters do not have General Winter as an ally. He only protects Russia.

It would also explain why General Winter protects Russia from others attacking him. He took the ideologies of his abusers to heart, so GW pushes people away and treats them like threats. He feels strong by holding power and fear over others and force. If I can be stronger, no one can hurt me or would dare try, this is the mentality.

I believe GW can manifest as he does because Russia has magic. It’s canon that Russia can do magic or has a strange magic of his own, so whose to say GW can’t utilize it too. Perhaps even to let himself manifest sometimes in his spirit like form. This is more a headcanon or idea though.

Russia himself however is shown to be very passive with his bosses. These are people who hold power over him that he can’t really run away from or fight. So his response is to faun or freeze. This is basically stated in the comics (picture below.) and it’s often that alters have a specific role. Russia’s would be to people please those who he can’t fight. Making General Winter’s job to defend from attack.

3. Russia is shown to dissociate

When he is told to do an impossible amount of work, he just straight up loses himself in a fantasy immediately to escape the reality of the situation. There are other instances too, some in his childhood directly, but this was the most overt. This is from To your Hearts content, Russia!

4. Russia Is Inconsistent

There are times when Russia feels very different from moment to moment.

He goes from open about himself to swiftly sadistic and cold. He has moments of childish behavior to moments of maturity. These, when combined with the rest of my points, are worth noting. He both wants to hurt (possibly destroy) the others, but also be liked by them?

You can’t destroy people and have them like you.

The baltic Trio who lived a substantial amount of time with him still are confused by his unpredictable behavior. Each encounter The Baltic’s have with Russia is marked by a fear of what he might do. And not having certainty, thus they say things without knowing if it’s safe or not.

Even to Lithuania, (Whom Russia often shows Vulnerability to, in moments like bloody Sunday and Sharing his dreams in Outsourcing Sequel)living with Russia feels a strange theme park where he never knew what to expect. Lithuania has been shown to be great in strategy and games of wit, and a commendable leader with great people skills, yet he only has a general idea of Russia’s behavior? He is seen advising Prussia and Moldova that Russia likes it when people laugh or cry easily (This being predictable to Russia and thus easier to navigate social situations with) so it’s not like Lithuania isn’t paying attention. Russia shows moments of vulnerability and his thought process in panels like Bloody Sunday, which is quite telling as to what he believes are his responsibilities, and how the world works.

Now the real question is “why is he like this?”

He only understands the world from the point of view of someone who still lives in the abuse and knows no other options. He never had anyone teach or show him different. His world is ruled by who is the strongest, and if you can obey the strong you won’t get hurt or discarded. “We don’t want children who can’t play nice,” sounds like something an abuser told him frequently in his youth.

Russia just doesn’t have a support system due to his strained relationships with everyone. So he keeps relying on old defense mechanisms, hence letting General Winter step in when something threatens his sense of safety.

Nearly Every time (at least that’s what I noticed) Russia is emotionally vulnerable to someone, he suddenly changes to be sadistic or scary. It successfully pushes the person away and Reestablishes the fear of Russia in the individual, returning him to a state of being feared and alone where none of the other countries can hurt him. Examples below.

France talking to Russia after meetings and asking him personal questions would result in Russia ending the conversation by scaring him with a scsry remark and aura suddenly.

Russia Comforting China after Japan turns on him, he is kind and compassionate at first, but suddenly changes at the end.

The Baltic Trio never knows what to expect. He frequently uses fear and force to keep them.

This behavior seems directly contradictory to wanting friends and having a warm and lively home. So GW still reacts with a trauma response, and Russia reacts in line with his wishes of making friends and having others around him. The Use of force and intimidation is naturally the middle ground between their wishes. Russia believes everyone is his friends, and doesn’t see how his behavior is pushing people away. Other times he seems to want friends to like him back, like when he sent France an anonymously written letter to his radio show. However he has wishes that contradict.

Now, I think he sees friends as people he can keep near him that he enjoys the company of. (This doesn’t need to be mutual or involve trust, just force) but those wants directly contradict.

I think GW is passively influencing him with some of the behavior rather than switching out right, but either option still would have the same effects. Passive influence is when an alter is close to the front, or feels/thinks something strong enough that it affects the person at the front. Making them behave in a way that is ooc for them, but not the other who intentionally or unintentionally influenced them.

This would explain sudden shifts to a cruel threatening position with other nations, something that will most likely always be a threat GW needs to defend against. He is particularly cold and defensive with anyone that has a chance to hurt him, (or tries to look into his psyche) regardless of if they made a move to do so.

More on passive influence can be found in the sources at the bottom under educational playlist.

5. Misc. Points of knowledge

Russia’s character originally was meant to be a cry baby, and only when he drinks, has a complete switch in personality. Frankly I’m glad he was changed to the complex guy we have now. However I think this concept wasn’t fully lost.

His character song, Winter, seems to talk of him experiencing freezing to death each Winter. Further adding to his repetitive trauma.

It is not unheard of for nations to have disorders and conditions. Australia has ADHD, Prussia is Albino, Lithuania has severe anxiety (and possibly PTSD), so who is to say a nation like Russia can’t have a dissociative disorder?

It is stated in one of Russia’s character bios that “General Winter is always with him”, however where? I don’t physically see him, but perhaps we can’t because he’s sharing a body with Russia.

In summary

Russia dissociates under stress

Russia has repetitive traumas and an ongoing history of abuse all his life

Russia has inconsistent behavior and attachments

General Winter could certainly be a separate personality and functions exactly like an introject/persecutor alter would to their host.

Russia acts out and damages relationships, acting in inconsistent ways that might play out his own abuse, and/or reflect his desires to keep others near him.

As a note, I actually have DID, so this could be my projecting, but please don’t yell at me about how I made a “villain” have DID and feed into evil alters and split Stareotypes. I would only like to raise interest and provide an example of what a misrepresented disorder can look like. And the links below are there if you want to make your mind up for yourself and educate yourself if this inspires your portrayal of him! This isn’t meant to be insensitive, I’ve been working on this post for months to word it as sensitive as I could while also acknowledging Russia is still responsible for his and GW’s actions. Saying he has DID isn’t to excuse it, just explain it.

Don’t erase his victims, but don’t erase that he also is one.

(This blog below was also really helpful, but this post covers a lot of Russia’s earlier trauma and his mentality)

https://ellawritesficssometimes.tumblr.com/post/175060886956

Research for DID and OSDD 1b below: (along with links to comics)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm56LzW0BA_P7-yL3rK7INZDDozTayJvJ

https://www.hetarchive.net/blog/tag/russia/

http://hetarchive.net/tag/russia/

http://www.hetarchive.net/blog/2013/10/11/blog-entry-1411/

https://hetalia.fandom.com/wiki/Russia

https://www.hetarchive.net/blog/2019/01/29/about-the-fact-that-russias-history-is-too-scary/

Below is for an example of dissociation:

http://www.hetarchive.net/blog/2019/02/28/to-your-hearts-content-russia/

https://youtu.be/ZV3ToVA5BqQ

https://did-research.org/origin/comorbid/dd/osdd_udd/index.html

[prettywordsyouleft]

To Be Continued - Part 1

Summary: As an author, you had created Brian Kang for your current trilogy series to represent the ultimate man that everyone would love, along with Charli Evers - your female protagonist. What you hadn’t expected was for him to find a way out of the story and begin shaping up your world instead

Pairing: Brian Kang x female writer (ft. Park Sungjin)

Genre: writer au / romance / fantasy

Warnings: fictional characters coming to life / a bit of angst here and there / Sungjin as a cop (or does that only affect me?) >_>

A/N: this story idea was created from receiving two prompts for Brian in the YouxIdol drabble game I was completing this year. In this part, you can find prompt #186, “You don’t have to answer right away. I’d wait an eternity for you.”

Word count: 2252

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Epilogue

Brian cupped her cheek tenderly with one hand, smoothing out any worried lines across her forehead with the other. He smiled encouragingly, tears threatening to spill from his eyes with his heightened emotions. “You don’t have to answer right away.”

“I don’t?” Charli breathed back, knowing that her response to his question was already formed. Yet it wasn’t the right time for any love confessions right now. Despite this, her answer rushed to the back of her throat, where she tried to swallow it back down repeatedly.

Brian already knew and nodded softly to let her know of this. “I’d wait an eternity for you.”

“Isn’t that a bit too cringe-worthy?” you wondered, pausing to read the words upon the screen with a frown. It wasn’t out of character for Brian Kang and Charli Evers. And it certainly wasn’t the first cheesy line you’d thrown into Captivated either. Still, you mulled over the scene a little longer, deciding whether or not it should be removed.

“What would Charli do in response?” you asked out loud to no one in particular, a flurry of action from your fingers taking place immediately. You followed the scene until completion before taking a break, switching out of the word document and over to your Discord server.

Smiling as you scrolled through the new comments about the upcoming sequel you were in the later stages of writing for Brian and Charli, you let out a rattle of a cough from your chest, groaning at your illness dampening your mood.

“I’m trying to finish this final chapter tonight,” you spoke out into the universe, casting your eyes to the heavens for effect. “I’ve battled through this cold for a week now. It won’t take me down just yet!”

Reaching forward for more cold and flu medicine, you swallowed the capsules down with a painful gulp of water and then felt your forehead. It was hotter than before, though you waved it off as you answered a couple of messages and returned to the final part of the story.

Captivated was the second story in your new trilogy series since your last series Destined had become an overnight sensation. When you sat down to pen the soulmate idea into something more than thoughts in your head, you hadn’t expected the tale to touch so many people over the world. Nor had you believed you would follow it up with To Love You, Forever, And Always either.

You originally felt that Destined was the reason why Brian and Charli’s first story Encounter was easily shared around. The protagonists had their own charms though and you could tell the fan base for this series was different from the last. They were just as eager, however, to find out when the pair would shake free from the star-crossed lovers’ trope and finally give in to the evident love they had for one another.

“Part three it’ll be,” you surmised proudly and somewhat exhaustedly after typing The End onto the electronic manuscript. Leaning back in your chair, you finally allowed yourself to succumb to the illness plaguing you. In a moment of disillusion, your mind conjured up Brian standing before you with concern etched in his eyes. You let the novel scene play out in your head, wishing he was actually here to help you out of your writing office, down to your bedroom and tuck you into bed.

Swinging gently from side to side in your desk chair, you hummed with delight. Brian Kang was your biggest self-indulgence character. You had created Park Jinyoung in Destined to infuriate your main protagonist, but Brian was the ultimate fictional guy. He was playful and kind, caring and thoughtful. He knew when Charli needed him to stand up in her weak moments, and he fought for what he felt was right even when all odds were against him. He also allowed Charli to see his vulnerability and his honesty, gaining him many fans around the world. And if all that wasn’t enough, Brian Kang was incredibly attractive.

You had really created the holy grail of a dream man.

Laughing to yourself in your sick-induced state, you smiled lazily. “Dream men are just that, Y/N. Brian Kang would never exist in this world.”

You nodded to yourself, agreeing with the proclamation, feeling more single in the moment as you did so. It was funny really, you were a successful author of Young Adult romance novels and yet you hadn’t experienced the touch of a man, let alone any ardent confessions since your university days.

“Right, it’s time for bed,” you decided before your mood plummeted further into despair. However, your limbs felt too heavy to move and so you simply closed your eyes once more, hoping a little nap would help you regain some energy to head off to bed later on.

When you opened your eyes next, you found yourself in your darkened bedroom, smiling gently at bringing yourself to bed sometime during the night that you couldn’t remember. Sitting up slowly, you allowed your gaze to adjust to the dim morning light filtering through the small gap in the curtain, before reaching onto your nightstand for your phone.

You blinked. Instead of finding the device, you saw a kitchen bowl and face cloth resting over the edge of it.

Did you bring that with you in the middle of the night? Surely if you had been attempting to bring down your own fever, the face cloth would have been strewn somewhere in among your bedding after falling asleep with it, not neatly placed back upon the side of the bowl. Looking beyond that, you found a bottle of water with a third of the liquid missing. You did vaguely remember sipping on some water overnight, and that eased your mind from your initial confusion.

Shaking your head, and swinging your legs over the side of your bed, you placed your feet in your slippers before padding back into the office in search of your phone. Maybe you had help overnight after all, and you wanted to check if your mother had come over at your request. She had done that one year when you caught a nasty virus and couldn’t cope on your own anymore. Motherly love was definitely needed, and now that you had completed your obligations with Captivated and sent it off to your editor Lily, you would have no restrictions on who entered your creative space.

“Huh,” you said when you saw your laptop screen still open. You had a habit of closing the screen every night after turning the device off and approached it now with some confusion, trying to recollect what you last did the night before. Nothing rose to the surface immediately and you reached for your phone, blindly hitting speed dial on your mother’s number. And when her greeting rang down the receiver, you were more than perplexed.

“Hey, did you come by last night?”

“No, why?” she answered and then gasped. “Y/N, you sound awful! Did you keep working even though you were sick?!”

“You didn’t come here?” you repeated, fingertips reaching for the sticky note upon the computer screen. “Maybe it was Lily.”

“Lily is out of the country isn’t she?” your Mum reminded and you blinked several times before focusing enough to read the note you held.

 You shouldn’t have worked so hard to complete it! Your health is important too. How will I cope if you get any worse? Make sure you rest up well and drink a lot of fluids. I need my best writer in tip top shape to see where my world continues.

I made you breakfast. It’s not much, but make sure you eat before you sit down at this desk, hm?

- B.

 Dropping the note, along with letting your mouth fall ajar momentarily, you stuttered out a hasty farewell to your mum before hanging up the phone and looking to the doorway. Cautiously, you walked through your house to the kitchen where you stopped in your tracks at seeing a tea towel covering something on the bench. Gingerly peeling it back when you finally approached it, you gasped when you found several dishes underneath, along with instructions on how to heat it up.

For a split second, your mind conjured Brian up again, imagining him in your kitchen preparing all this. It would totally be just like him to make sure Charli was well fed to regain her energy from any illness.

But, you weren’t Charli Evers.

In fact, you hadn’t even based her off your personality at all, rather, a close online friend of yours who you admired a lot. So, whilst Brian would definitely go to all this trouble for Charli, you sure were clutching at straws thinking of yourself in the same situation.

Who came into your home then?

Distractedly, you heated the porridge and brewed up the tea the mystery person had prepared as well. You carried the tray of food over to your dining table when it was done and sat down before taking your first mouthful.

And then you mulled over who could possibly step into your house that had the initial B.

Maybe it wasn’t a B, you concluded when you realised no one had access to your house with that letter, even as a surname. Climbing back to your feet, you rushed to your office where you had discarded the first note and held it up to inspect the handwriting.

“It could be an R,” you mentioned out loud, then shook your head immediately. Even if the handwriting was looser than most that you knew of, it couldn’t be anything other than a B.

After examining it for a few minutes, you sat down with a huff. You’d never seen the handwriting before.

You didn’t know whether or not to be alarmed.

Had there been an intruder overnight?

Jumping back up, you persevered through the dizziness that plagued you from moving so fast, heading down the hallway to the front door. The chain was still latched and there was no sign of forced entry. Again, making your way to the back door, everything was in order.

As was every possession you owned – minus the kitchen where the food had been prepared. But even then, the dishes that had been used were rinsed and stacked by the sink.

You jumped when you heard a sudden mewl at your feet and clutched at your heart, before stooping down to pick up your cat Binks. The black cat nuzzled into you affectionately before meowing again. “I guess you want to be fed, huh?”

Walking around the counter, you stopped when you found his bowl with some food remaining. You knew Binks wouldn’t leave food overnight. Glancing at the cat, you frowned. “Who did this, Binks?”

The feline merely yawned and settled down to nap in your arms. It certainly brought the saying, cat’s got your tongue, to mind and you rolled your eyes at the infuriating situation.

Sitting down on your couch, you stared at the wall ahead of you as you tried to find an answer to all the evidence. Stroking the purring animal in your arms, you nodded determinedly.

“The only answer is that I did it in a sleep-induced state,” you announced and Binks opened his eyes to look up at you before rolling around to start licking at his back leg. You sighed. “Right, Binks?”

You were certain your cat thought you were insane. However, it was all you could find to be the answer.

“I got up and I took myself to the kitchen and prepared the ice water to cool down the fever. And went to bed. Then maybe I got up again, which is when I placed the cloth on the bowl and prepared the food. I washed my dishes, including the ones I had piling up from being too busy with work and-”

Binks leapt from your lap then, sauntering down the hallway from your side. Getting up to follow him, you ended up back in your home office, where he pounced up onto your desk, standing on the keys to your laptop. “Hey! Get off!”

Swatting the cat away from the device, you noticed that it hadn’t been turned off overnight. That was not like you at all. Logging into your account, you sat down in your desk chair and shifted back suddenly when you found a new document open.

 I bet you’re in disbelief about now, right? I guess I would be too. It wasn’t you who looked after you all night long, and did your dishes. Wow, you get behind in things when you’re focused on writing.

Don’t worry. I didn’t look around - much.

Your fever went down over a couple of hours whilst I moved back and forth helping you out. It’s the least I can do after you’ve spent so much time with me. Well, we’ve yet to officially meet.

One day.

- B (your biggest fan)

PS. I fed Binks. He really does have quite the personality.

 “Okay!” you sounded in an octave higher, laughing a little to yourself at the same time. “Someone was definitely here. Who is B and how does this person know so much personal information?!”

You were too preoccupied to realise the document to Captivated was still open behind the other one.

And instead of saying The End as it once had, it had been deleted and replaced with To Be Continued.

_________________

Part 2

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[vg-sanctuary]

The World Ends with You

Jupiter - DS - 2008

[screenshots from Nintendo Life, jack-reviews.com, and LPArchive; please excuse the low res, I couldn’t find better ones]

TWEWY is an RPG with modern (circa 2008) style and character designs by Tetsuya Nomura, the director of Kingdom Hearts. I meant to write about it the day its sequel NEO: TWEWY came out but missed that by a few days. anyway, I think it's reasonable to call this game the epitome of the Nintendo DS. it has every feature to be expected of any game on the wildly unique handheld: a touch-based minigame with wireless multiplayer and little bearing on the main game, a sleep mode puzzle, touch controls, forced use of both screens, and gameplay and plot designed to be enjoyed in short bursts. it's loaded with cool ideas, some of which are more than questionable, even barring the crazy DS features, hence the remakes. (savvy readers will notice I left out the iOS and Switch platforms and, while there are remakes of the game for both platforms that have extra content and a more elegant combat system, they don't hit quite like the DS original.)

I don't fancy myself an RPG fan for the most part. the usual high fantasy themes and turn based combat are boring to me. usually, if an RPG has either one I'm not interested, and this has neither of those. I decided to try TWEWY while collecting DS games, and the plot and combat had grabbed me within two hours. I haven't mentioned the awesome music and visuals, both wonderfully stylish and unique in the same way Persona's UI is stylish and unique, only this game uses the style on its game world and characters instead of menus.

the premise is the antisocial protagonist, Neku, wakes up in a killing game wherein each day has a mission that he and his partner either complete or face erasure. after a week of these missions he'll be free. I can’t tell you the massive general plot spoiler that makes the whole thing so compelling as it goes on, so this section of the post is sadly pretty short. there is an anime that goes over the main events, but it's only four hours long compared to the game's 20, character development is sometimes lacking in detail or totally inaccurate, and it generally doesn't include the hardships you would go through as a player e.g. having to try a boss five times.

almost everything about TWEWY's gameplay is intriguing, so I'll try to be concise. combat is a strange beast that comes from developer Jupiter's need to use both screens to the fullest. by the way, don't let this wall of text scare you away from the game; it introduces these mechanics much slower and it's easier to understand and use. the bottom screen is gesture-based ARPG combat where, for example, short swipes over an enemy makes Neku use a sword attack or touching somewhere on the screen makes him fire a bullet. the exact gestures and attacks are determined by what pins he's wearing. the top screen asks you to use the d-pad to attack with Neku’s partner and navigate along a tree of cards where getting the right card grants a star; enough of those allows you to use a powerful and health-restoring fusion attack. there's this green light puck that passes between characters when the one holding it does a finisher and multiplies the finisher's damage with each successful pass up to five times, but disappears if held by one character for too long. fortunately the game has an auto mode for the top screen that's roughly equivalent to mashing left or right on the d-pad so you don't have to try to split your brain between both, but you get a little more experience if that's turned off. I love the bottom screen and the idea of the top screen but could never really get my head around doing both at once. maybe the intent was to focus on the character that has the puck and leave the other standing still or spamming defense? (in NEO: TWEWY, the light puck mechanic was changed to beat drop combos, where using a different character to attack shortly after a finisher gives you some charge for a super. no attention splitting, just fun ARPG combat with an interesting combo system that can inform what pins you use.)

turning up the game's difficulty makes enemies stronger and mostly drops different pins. there aren't random encounters: you have to scan for enemies and mostly get to choose which encounters to take. you can choose to fight multiple in a row without getting health back between them and multiply your drop rate multiplier, with enemies getting stronger the more encounters you take. you get your health back when you return to the overworld, which cuts out a lot of the obligatory spending for healing items and the trouble of running out for the player. there are still some pins that can heal you during a battle, though.

leveling up, instead of arbitrarily increasing every stat, only increases your HP, but you can turn your level down to lower your HP and multiply the drop rate of pins by one for each level. other stats can be increased with clothes or food, with different foods permanently increasing different stats and have different calories. each character can only eat so much in a single real time day, which is wack but still interesting. the food system in NEO is similar except without the per-day limit, and I think it's a great idea that gives the player agency in terms of what stats they want to increase and whether they want larger or smaller boosts.

pins can evolve when leveled up enough, but may only evolve if you give them the right kind of pin points, which is like experience for pins. there's PP from battles, from the game's proto-StreetPass mingle mode (that you could only get randomly roughly every hour, from other folks in TWEWY's mingle mode, or from other DSes running any wireless software; thankfully this is removed from the remakes but it's a neat idea), and from turning off the game for up to seven real time days. if a pin reaches max level with the wrong kind of PP, you have to go get another one to evolve it, but I don't think there are any super rare pins that evolve. the game doesn't show what kind of PP you need to evolve a pin, so while it's a cool idea, there's a fair chance that you'll miss lots of evolutions and not even notice.

there are lots of rare pins that can be worn as a set to do something ridiculously powerful, but you have to go out of your way to get them, like the Darklit Planets. it's a set of seven pins that are useful alone, but if worn all together they become three times more powerful. they all drop rarely from bosses on the highest difficulty. I love wacky, mystical, obscenely powerful postgame stuff like this but can't be bothered to actually go and get it. some games give you their best weapons last, which is always a shame because there's nothing to use it on, but in TWEWY, there's a boss rush that saves your best time and lots of bosses to re-fight for their rare pins, so you'll have a reason to fight bosses until you've got every one of those rare pins.

speaking of postgame, TWEWY's is rather extensive, with a bonus day focused on the Tin Pin Slammer minigame and goofy non-canon alternate personalities plus four sort of tedious missions for every ingame day that unlock secret reports for much more lore about the Reapers' Game. (one of the missions for every day is "find and destroy the pig Noise," which mostly have puzzle-ish fights; one is killed by closing the DS and opening it again, which is the sleep mode puzzle I mentioned.) if you get them all, it unlocks a special scene in the ending, but again, I can't be bothered to do that kind of postgame. not all of it, anyway, the bonus day's missions are too tedious for me.

in Tin Pin Slammer, the minigame with almost no bearing on the main game, you use your pins to play kinda-sorta Beyblade. every pin has different stats, many of which are hidden, and different amounts of the different weapons to stun your opponents' pins with. it's a rather extensive side mode and a totally unnecessary inclusion, but really fun anyway, and can be played wirelessly with others. there are some other mechanics that are also interesting but not quite worth adding any more words to this ridiculously long post, including a brand trends system and an interesting way to limit running from fights.

even with all of these words and some pictures, I seriously can't offer a glimpse of the vibes, the combat, the music, the story, the characters, the entire energy of The World Ends with You in a blog post, and in my opinion, it's not the same without the crispy DS sprites or peculiar dual screen combat. if you like the DS, 2000s energy, or action RPGs, this is an essential addition to your library if you don't want to track down a DS copy or you prefer more elegant combat, try one of the remakes instead. you're this far into the blog post, so I'm sure you won't be disappointed. (NEO: TWEWY is very good too and has a free demo on PS4 and Switch; while not the same, it's still worth trying. it carries a modernized audiovisual energy of its predecessor, more elegant combat improvements to other TWEWY systems.)

[mgssummergames]

RomeoandAntoinette:✩ Otasune Fic Recommendations ✩

The MGS Summer Games have had me browsing for those fine Otasune fanfics, and guuuuuuys, I've got a plethora to share. Some are newer, some are older. All of them deserve love.

This is a list of works I'm truly passionate about. 

RomeoandAntoinette \ Team Philanthropy \ C1 \ 35 points

Grenades by argus. [NSFW] - 2011 Snake loses his eyesight on a mission, and Otacon seeks a cure for his blindness by whatever means necessary. The two end up switching roles, with Snake at the hideout and Otacon on the field. Major heads up for gore and explicit sex. This six-chapter story is gritty and absolutely merciless. It's one of the only fics where I slammed my fist, had my head fall into my hands, and had to stand up and take a walk. However, past the angst and terror is one of the most beautiful, amazing, heartwarming, happy endings I've ever seen a story pull off. The medical and technical knowledge in this fic is so spot-on that I can't help but think the author must be in one of those professions. You can read and enjoy this fic even if you don't know a thing about Metal Gear Solid. It totally stands alone. It's that good. It was written back in 2011, and was actually my inspo to make this list. I feel that strongly about its quality.

Tryst by berlynn-wohl. [NSFW] - 2020 This is actually a sequel to a fic by the same author called "You Doing Anything After This?" (2019).The plot of both stories revolves around an established relationship between Snake and Otacon. Snake pretends to be an alter ego named Iroquois Pliskin and engages Otacon in a fantasy roleplay scenario. In the sequel, the duo meet up again in a swanky hotel room. This is the only fic I've personally read where the 'roleplay-fantasy-affair' scenario works and doesn't feel forced or dubious. I think this is because they play the roleplay parts so over the top and the characters are self-aware. They take things slower in the first story, but by the sequel, they've got it down. Much like a really couple trying something new. There are a lot of sincere, totally sweet moments between two people who, through the playfulness of the situation, absolutely love each other completely. 

gray conditional by vhscassette. [M-Violence] - 2019-ongoing Takes place during MGS2. We take a trip into Arsenal Gear, but instead of Raiden's perspective, we experience the effects of the virus from Snake's perspective. This means we get glitchy Otacon instead of Rosemary. It's a trippy, smartly-written fic that delves more into the psychological side of Snake and Otacon's partnership.  

It's Been a Long Time Coming by faerieswing [NSFW] - 2014-2019 Post-MGS2 tanker fic. A cipher drone takes photographic evidence of Snake on the USS Discovery, and Snake nearly dies escaping after Liquid Ocelot blows the house down. Otacon saves his partner from drowning in the Hudson River, and the two go into hiding. Of course, feelings start to come to a head. This fic chronicles their budding relationship from MGS2 to pre-MGS4, which is an underused window of time in the Philanthropy timeline. This is a fic I think I reread once every couple of months because I just find it unforgettable. The characterization, imagery and dialogue are perfect. 

Play it by Ear by Reivalk [NSFW] - 2017-2018 Chronological Philanthropy-era one-shots. I like this fic a lot because it has Snake and Otacon divulge their dark family secrets and pasts to each other. This means there are discussions of child abuse, sexual abuse and PTSD. These discussion create realistic (not over-dramatic) tension. Chapter 8 especially is a masterpiece. It's also a slow burn with a lot of flirting. There one chapter in particular where Snake drops hints about being a clone, but can't say the words a lot. this leave Otacon to put the puzzle together himself. I could see these events unfolding in the canon universe.

Rest by orphan_account [T] - 2016 MGS4-era. Old Snake has come to terms with his mortality. He is dying, but happy to spend the rest of his days with Otacon and Sunny as a family. After nine years together, Sunny asks why Snake and Otacon don't wear rings. The result? you'll have to read and see! This story also has amazingly tender moments between Snake and Sunny, and really shows the father-daughter bond between them. This story made me smile and tear up simultaneously. (“I think the ‘until death do us part’ bit is a load of bullshit,” Dave says wisely.)

I also have a fic series to recommend. It's the "Hello world" series by krieger san! This fic series documents Snake and Otacon's relationship post-MGS1 to post-tanker MGS2 all the way to the Philantrophy era. 

But this is a fic list, so let me full a favorite...

Instance by kriegersan [M] - 2015 Snake and Otacon steal a body. Well, Liquid's body! This is a canon event that we never see happen in the games, so I think it's really cool to see it fleshed out. We see them do a lot of things in this fic that the games tell us they pull off, but we never see. This includes networking with other NGO affiliates and outsmarting police. It's all believably written here. Otacon also joins Snake on the field. After the mission, they talk. They talk a lot. As with any fic that delves into Otacon's past, read those tags and listen to them. There's also some gallows humor in this fic. The trust/choking kinks from other parts of the series are mentioned here, but there is nothing explicit in this installation. The conversations and their poignancy really shine here. (He follows his partner’s line of vision, really taking in Liquid’s face. He looks younger like this, relaxed, always having been so angry and vengeful in life. Otacon finds himself sneaking glances to compare the two, the deeper lines around Snake’s eyes, the stress there in his brow. It’s a little surreal, he can only imagine what Snake is thinking.) Like, damn.

[coolgreatwebsite]

Cool Games I Finished In 2020 (In No Real Order)

Oh, hey! Right! I have a website! I’m like a week late on writing this, but what’s a week on top of an entire year of not writing, right? 2020 was... well, we all know what 2020 was. For me personally, it was simultaneously the best and worst year of my life. The worst in both ways you can probably assume and ways you definitely can’t (neither of which I’ll be getting into), and the best in ways I absolutely never would have guessed. That uncertain job I mentioned last year got very suddenly much more certain, at a much bigger company, for a much larger amount of money. That allowed me to get my own place, making my weird living situation much less weird. Still haven’t gotten the majority of my belongings off of the east coast, but if the entire world wasn’t currently fucked up by a global pandemic I’d have sorted all that out too. What I’m saying is that, for the third year in a row, my life has been a complete whirlwind that has left me very little time to get comfortable with any aspect of it. But I did manage to play more video games than I did last year! Which is perfect, because it’s once again time for another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2020.

Astro’s Playroom (PlayStation 5, 2020)

My one word description of Astro's Playroom is "delightful". It's just an absolute goddamn delight. A total surprise too! Included with every PlayStation 5, Astro's Playroom is, in my opinion, one of the best pack-in games of all time.

First off, it's an incredible tech demo for the PS5's new DualSense controller. It was easy to brush off Sony's talk about the controller's haptic feedback and triggers as some Nintendo-style HD Rumble bullshit, but it really is incredibly cool once you get your hands on it. The game is obviously more than a tech demo though, or else it wouldn't be on here. It also just so happens to be an extremely solid and fun platformer on top of that. Astro controls exceptionally well and the levels are all well-designed and fun, even the gimmick vehicle ones designed to show off different features of the controller. It also has an oddly compelling speedrun mode, made all the more compelling by the PS5 notifying you when your friends beat your times and the ability to load into it within two seconds from anywhere on the console. But the biggest thing for me and, call me a mark, because I am, is that the game is an honestly incredible love letter to PlayStation history.

For the first time ever, Sony has pulled off a nostalgia piece without it ending up as embarrassing garbage in the vein of PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. There's a Nintendo-like joyful reverence for all things PlayStation oozing out of every single corner of this game. There are so many nods and references and gags for literally every PlayStation thing of note throughout the the last 25 years, and then on top of that there's a whole heap more for the things that AREN'T of note that only hyperdorks like me would get! A sly reference to the ill-fated boomerang controller? Yep. A goof on the fat PS3's Spider-Man font? You betcha. A trophy you can earn by repeatedly punching a Sony Interactive Entertainment sign until it breaks and reveals the Sony Computer Entertainment sign it was slapped on top of? Yeah buddy. It's deep cuts all the way down, even up until the final boss which had me grinning like a total dipshit the entire time. The game is endlessly, effortlessly charming.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

Animal Crossing: New Horizons was the perfect game at the perfect time. That doesn't mean it's a perfect game, I actually have some issues with it, but it could not have released at a better time than when it did. It came out at the very very beginning of everyone going into lockdown due to the pandemic, and it was the biggest game in the world for a couple of months as a result. I played like 300 hours and that pales in comparison to the amount of time many others put into it.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the most different Animal Crossing game there's ever been, and I'm of two minds on it. Like, I loved the game, I played a ton of it, but it's lacking so much of the stuff that made me love Animal Crossing in the first place. The series has been slowly trending in this direction for a bit now, but it's not really a game that happens around you anymore. It's all about total player control. You select where everything goes, you customize every detail of everything to your liking, hell, you can even terraform the landmass to be exactly what you want. Your neighbors take a backseat in focus and end up as little more than decorations with limited dialogue and next to no quests associated with them. Series staples like Gyroids are missing in action. Facilities and services that have been around since Wild World aren't implemented. It's similar to past Animal Crossing games in a lot of ways, but on the whole it feels like a different thing.

But like I said, two minds. New Horizons strays from what I truly want from an Animal Crossing game, but I can't deny that the game as it is is a hell of a lot of fun. There's SO much you can do and SO many options, it's super addictive. Plus it implemented my long-requested feature of letting you effortlessly send mail to friends online! Too bad the actual online play is as cumbersome as ever.

In conclusion, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a land of contrasts. I'm kidding. It's good, but definitely missing something in a way where I can understand some people being disappointed in it. I had a ton of fun though, and I'm probably going to get back into it later in 2021.

Trials of Mana (Nintendo Switch, 2019)

Late in 2019, with the physical release of Collection of Mana for the Switch, I decided I was going to play through each game on it for the first time and finally find out what this whole Mana thing was about. I went into Final Fantasy Adventure (the first game in the Mana series, because every RPG had to be Final Fantasy back then) with zero expectations and found a totally serviceable little Zelda-like with light RPG elements. I enjoyed my time with it. I went into Secret of Mana with the expectation of it being a beloved classic and found the worst game I beat that year, hands down. That game fucking sucks. I get why it made an impression on people at the time, but it's just so so SO awful to play. Needless to say I was pretty disappointed. Honestly, I would have been disappointed even if I hadn't heard it was one of "the best games" for so long. It would have been a disappointing follow-up to Final Fantasy Adventure, a game that in and of itself isn't anything incredible. Secret of Mana is just that rotten.

I braced myself for more disappointment when (after a much needed vacation from the series) I started up Trials of Mana. This game had a reputation too, as a long-lost classic that never made it stateside. One of the best games on the Super Nintendo, criminally never released for western audiences! Like Secret of Mana before it, I'd heard nothing but effusive praise. Unlike Secret of Mana, however, I was very pleased to find out that Trials of Mana mostly lives up to the hype. From a gameplay standpoint, Trials is an improvement on Secret in almost every single way. It's not perfect. The menus are still kinda clunky, animations for things like magic and items are still frequently disruptive. But the main thing is it actually plays like a sensible video game designed by humans with brains. Attacking is responsive! Hitboxes aren't complete nonsense! You don't constantly get stunlocked to death! There are more answers to combat than casting the same spell for five straight minutes to kill your enemies before they get a chance to move! It's great!

On top of being an enjoyable video game to actually play, the presentation is top notch. Secret of Mana could be a pretty game with decent music in some spots, but Trials is consistently gorgeous and the soundtrack is across the board great instead of randomly having songs that sound like clown vomit. And while Trials of Mana doesn't have the deepest story in the world, it manages to avoid being completely paper-thin like Secret. The story actually kind of has a reason for being a bit straightforward, and the reason is that it has a really cool system where you pick your three playable characters from a pool of six. Each character has their own goals and storyline, some of which line up with other potential party members, some of which don't, and you'll even run into the characters you didn't choose as NPCs along the way. This and the relatively brisk pace of the game make it highly replayable.

I'm really glad that Trials of Mana made it over here in an official capacity, even if it was like 25 years late. It's as good as I expected Secret of Mana to be and singlehandedly saved my interest in seeing any more of the series. I'm aware the quality of what came after is very spotty, but I'll get to the rest eventually!

Final Fantasy VII Remake (PlayStation 4, 2020)

They (almost) did it. They (basically) pulled it off. They remade (a chunk of) Final Fantasy VII and (for the most part) didn't fuck it up. Ok, funny parentheticals aside, Final Fantasy VII Remake is astoundingly good coming off of over two decades of just absolutely dreadful post-FF7 sequels, side games, and movies.

Final Fantasy VII has been historically misremembered as this kind of miserable, angsty, brooding thing, both by fans and by the company that made it. FF7-branded media after FF7 itself is a minefield of changed personalities, embarrassing original characters, and monumentally lame stories. Final Fantasy VII Remake is the first post-FF7 anything that actually remembers the characters, setting, and plot of Final Fantasy VII and what made them memorable and special to people in the first place. Which isn't to say it's a slavish recreation! There's a ton of changes and additions, and I actually like almost all of them! Except for some really big stuff I'll touch on in a bit!

The combat in Final Fantasy VII Remake is great. I was super skeptical about it when the game was first announced, but they actually managed to make the blend of real-time action and turn-based RPG menuing fun and engaging. The characters all play super differently from each other too, which is a huge and welcome difference from the original game. The Materia system fits like a glove in this revamped combat system as well. The remixed music is good as hell, and the visuals are beautiful (outside of a couple of very specific spots that I'm kinda of surprised they haven't fixed in a patch yet). It's a well-executed package all around.

But alas, as always, there are negatives. For starters, this is only part one of the overall Final Fantasy VII Remake project. It goes up to the party leaving Midgar which, as you may or may not recall, is the first six hours of the original game. They compensated for this by fleshing the hell out of the Midgar section the game, ballooning the overall playtime to total of about 30-ish hours. The game feeling padded is a common complaint but for what it's worth, I didn't really feel it until the unnecessarily long final dungeon, There's also the previously mentioned and funny parenthetical'd changes and additions I don't like.

This is big time spoilers for this game so if you don't want that jump ahead to the next game on the list. The Whispers suck ass. Final Fantasy VII Remake should have been brave enough to be different without having to constantly derail everything in the most ham-fisted and intrusive way possible. You can have Jessie twist her ankle without making a spooky plot ghost trip her. I don't want to fight the physical manifestation of the game everyone thought they were getting as an end boss. If you're not doing a straight remake, that's fine, but have the fucking guts to stand by your artistic decisions without feeling the need to invent the lamest deus ex machina I've ever fucking seen. The last couple of hours of this game are 100% about the Whispers and are awful for it. It's a true testament to the strength of the rest of Final Fantasy VII Remake that this aspect didn't completely sour me on it. I can only hope that they stay dead and gone for good in the games yet to come and the remake can be different while standing on its own two feet.

I truly cannot wait for the next entry in the Final Fantasy VII Remake project. I'm excited for Final Fantasy VII in a way I haven't been since the late 90s. I have a bit of trepidation that they could royally screw it up. I mean, they already got kinda close, as I said in my last paragraph. But they got so much right in this entry that, for the first time in decades, I'm willing to believe in Square Enix when it comes to Final Fantasy VII.

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim (PlayStation 4, 2020)

My one word description of 13 Sentinels is "fucking crazy". I realize that's two words, but shut up. A bizarre hybrid of visual novel, adventure game, and strategy RPG, 13 Sentinels not only makes that work, but makes it work incredibly well. 

The story is fucking bonkers. It's told entirely non-linearly and is purposefully dense and confusing, but it does an amazing job of hooking you with a cast of likable characters and some impressively well-paced twists, made all the more impressive by the fact that you can tackle the story in basically whatever order you want. I'll say it again for those in the back, the story is Fucking Bonkers. Wherever you think it's going, it's not going. Where it is going is PLACES. Seriously, if you want a wild goddamn ride, this is the game for you. The presentation is also stunning. It's a drop dead gorgeous game with a really nice soundtrack. Easily Vanillaware's best looking game, which is saying something seeing as looking good is Vanillaware's whole deal.

If I had to levy one criticism against the game, it's that the strategy RPG portion is just kind of ok. It's enjoyable enough, it doesn't get in the way and there's not too much of it, but once it starts introducing armored versions of previous enemy types it's kind of done doing anything different. It is really good at getting people to out themselves as having no idea what tower defense is as a genre though!

Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

I haven't really historically been a "Musou Guy". Not to say I've actively disliked them, they're just not something I've seeked out very often or played very much of. Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition kinda turned me into a "Musou Guy" a little bit? It's good, surprisingly-less-mindless-than-you'd-think fun.

I actually super don't care about the Zelda branding. I think all the fanservice stuff is meh at best. What I do care about is that there's a ton of character variety and a metric shitload of content. There's so many different characters and weapons for those characters that all play differently from one another and SOOOOOO many levels to play. Like the story mode is, again, kinda meh, the real meat of the game is the Adventure mode and there's a ton of it. It's 8 different world maps, each based off a different Zelda game, with each square of the map containing a little mini-scenario with unique objectives and rewards. There has to be at least 1000 scenarios between all the maps. There's so much. And that's not even getting into some of the other side stuff like the challenge modes and the fairy raising. It's a crazy amount of game in this game.

And again, it's not as mindless as it'd seem. It's not really a game ABOUT destroying 5000 guys, it's an area control and resource management game where the 5000 guys are one of those resources. Knowing who to send where and when to fight who is way more important than pressing the XXX YYY XXX YYY on the more than one million troops.

I'd say that if you're even cursorily potentially maybe interested in a musou game, this is the one to try. And if you like it, it could literally be your forever game. A sequel came out recently too, and I'm looking forward to trying that out soon.

Phantasy Star Online 2 (Xbox One, 2020)

Phantasy Star Online 2 finally came stateside in the year 2020, eight years after its initial Japanese release and initial American cancellation. It's no Phantasy Star Online 1, but it is a really fun game in its own right provided you can find the willpower to break through its clunkiness and eight years of confusing poorly tutorialized free-to-play MMO cruft.

The main thing going for PSO2, and this is a major improvement from PSO1, is that the act of engaging in its combat is fun. The combat is just feels really really good. There's a bunch of different weapon types and classes, and once you find the ones that really click with you you're in for a good time, whether you're izuna dropping dudes with wire claws or literally doing air juggles and rainstorm from Devil May Cry with the dual machine guns.

The other stuff around that combat is weird. I generally like it, but it's weird. The story mode is one of the most bizarrely presented things I've ever seen. It apparently used to be something you'd seek out in the levels themselves, but presently it's just a list of scenes you pick from a menu and watch with next to no context until it makes you fight a boss sometimes. There's some weird moments in there that MIGHT have been cool if it were presented in literally any other way?

The systems and presentation are also way more... I dunno, pinball? Pachislot? In very stark contrast to how chill original Phantasy Star Online was, everything in PSO2 is designed in a way to maximize that flashy light bing bing wahoo you got ~*~RARE DROP CHANCE UP~*~  feeling. Which isn't to say I don't like flashy light bing bing wahoo, but it's a weird different thing.

Was it worth the wait? Yeah, sure! For me! This is another one that I played like 300 hours of! I haven't even seen half of it, I fell off right before Episode 4 released because it coincided with my move! I'm gonna go back and see all that shit! PSO2's fun! A different flavor of fun than the original, sure, but fun all the same. Another one that I'm glad finally made it over here.

Riichi Mahjong (A Table, 1924)

Holy shit I fucking did it I finally learned how to play Mahjong and it rules.

It started when I picked up Clubhouse Games for the Switch. I saw that it had Riichi Mahjong and something in my brain snapped. For whatever reason, I decided that this was the time I was going to rip the band-aid off and figure this shit out. It wasn't too dissimilar to the first time I decided to try eggs, but that's a different and much stupider story for a different time. I did the tutorial in Clubhouse Games, looked up some more basics and advice because the tutorial wasn't super amazing, and I kept playing while being aided by the game's nice helper features like the button that pulls up recommended hands. I kept playing and... sorta got it. I learned the basic rules, but none of the strategy. And then I stopped playing for a few months.

In that few months, for whatever reason, a decent amount of people I know had their brains snap the same way? Like a more-than-two amount of people I'm either friends with or following online also decided to learn Mahjong. I decided to get back on the horse and downloaded Mahjong Soul and I don't know whether it was perseverance or the power of anime babes, but this time I got it. I still refer to a sheet with all the hands and whether they work open or closed, and I'm by no means a master player, but I actually honest to god understand what I'm doing and it's an incredible feeling.

Mahjong has such a huge amount of what I like to call "Get That Ass" energy. It is the energy you feel when you get someone's ass. In Mahjong you are either constantly getting someone's ass or getting your ass gotten. Someone puts down the wrong tile and you fucking GET THEIR ASS DUDE! They're got!! They're a fucking idiot that put down the wrong thing and now you have their points!!! Or you draw what you need yourself and you're a brain genius all according to plan and everyone gives you points because you're so wise!!!! It's great!!!!!

Mahjong has long been one of those games where I'd say "I'll learn this someday" and never reeeeally actually try to learn, and I'm so glad I finally took the effort to because it's good as hell. And, truth be told, it wasn't THAT hard to learn? Like you can get to the point where I was where I didn't know the strategy fairly easily in my opinion, and once you do that It's just a matter of continuing to play to understand the rest. I highly recommended that you also go out and learn it if you similarly revel in getting that ass, it's so satisfying once you do.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PlayStation 4, 2020)

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio took a big gamble with Yakuza: Like a Dragon. After seven games (more if you take spinoffs and remakes into consideration) they decided to focus on a new main character and, even more unexpectedly, they decided to change things up by turning the series into a turn-based JRPG. Their gamble paid off in spades. This is easily in my top 3 favorite Yakuza games.

The JRPG gameplay is surprisingly solid. There's definite room for improvement, but they nailed a bunch of it right out of the gate. Some mechanics are a little janky and I wish the job system was more fleshed out or just worked more like Final Fantasy V's, but they nailed one of the most important things and made the battles brisk and fun. It's a great foundation, especially for a team that's never attempted anything like this, and it's way more fun than the combat's been in any of the previous Dragon Engine games. I can't wait to see them iterate on it.

Everything else is top fuckin' notch. The music is great, the side content is fully fleshed out in a way it hasn't been since before they switched to the Dragon Engine, and I love the characters and story so much. Yakuza has a new main character in Ichiban Kasuga, and he's my son and I love him. Kiryu was great, and I love him too, but he was a bit of a passive protagonist. Stuff happened around him and he mostly just stoically reacted to it. Ichi is a much more active lead and it's great. He's a big lovable dope, and his tendency to keep an upbeat attitude and eagerness to leap into action is such a breath of fresh air. And it's not only Ichiban, since this is an RPG you have a whole party of characters and they're all great! Having them with you at all times bantering with each other and reacting to things is another great change of narrative pace, too. 

Yakuza: Like a Dragon just straight up rules. As someone who has historically not been too much of a fan of the Dragon Engine games, it's simultaneously a refreshing new take on the series and a fantastic return to form. I can't wait for what comes next. Wherever Ichiban goes, I go.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (Nintendo Switch, 2020)

After 23 years of Japanese PS1 exclusivity, Moon: Remix RPG Adventure finally got an English release this year for Nintendo Switch. I'm glad it did, because Moon isn't just the very definition of A Sebmal Game. It's the Sebmal Game missing link. In addition to being just a great video game, it helped me make a mental throughline for a bunch of games I love and a large part of my taste in video games.

To keep a long story short (seriously, I have a much much longer version of this saved in my drafts that I'll maybe finish someday), Moon turned out to be not the JRPG I assumed it was, given the title and basic story pitch, but a secret prequel to a game I love named Chulip. Moon's developer, Love-de-Lic, was formed by a handful of ex-Squaresoft employees, many of which worked on an extremely formative game I love named Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Love-de-Lic broke up in the year 2000 and its staff went on to form a bunch of different studios that ended up making a BUNCH of different games I love like Chibi-Robo, Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland, Dandy Dungeon, and the aforementioned Chulip. These games, when you make the connection and line them up, all have a very distinct weirdness in common that makes perfect sense once you've realized many of the same people worked on them. Figuring this all out felt like snapping a piece of my brain back in place, and it was really crazy to come to understand exactly how much this studio that formed and disbanded decades before I'd even heard of them had impacted my tastes and, hell, my life.

So what is Moon, for those who don't innately understand what I mean by "a secret prequel to Chulip"? Moon is an adventure game where you explore a world with a day/night cycle, learn about that world's inhabitants, and eventually solve their problems. Think of it kind of like The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, but if the sidequests were the entirety of the focus with no Groundhog Day time reset mechanic and none of the Zelda stuff like combat and dungeons. You play as a young boy who, after a late night JRPG binge session, is sucked into the world of the game he was just playing. Everything is off from the way it was portrayed while the boy was playing the game, though. The hero he had previously controlled is actually a silent menace, raiding peoples' houses for treasure and slaughtering every innocent animal that crosses his path in an endless quest for EXP. The townspeople seem more concerned with problems in their day-to-day lives than the supposed world threatening crisis outlined in the game's intro. It's up to you as the boy to investigate this world's mysteries, help the townsfolk, mend the damage the hero has done, and eventually restore love to a loveless world.

Speaking of love, I fucking loved Moon. I loved the story, I loved the characters, I loved the music, I loved the way it looks (even though the Switch port is a little crusty in that basic emulator-y kinda way), I loved how constantly bizarre and surprising and funny it was. Like I said earlier, it's the very definition of a game made for me. It was essentially the progenitor of a long line of games made for me, and of games potentially made for me but I don't know yet because I haven't played them due to not understanding Japanese (UFO: A Day in the Life translation next please? Anyone from Onion Games reading this??). For as similar as Moon and Chulip are in their systems and pacing, I think I might actually like Moon better despite it coming earlier? It's not as full force maximum impact absurd as Chulip is, but it is a lot more playable and less obtuse once you get a grip on the time limit mechanic. You don't need a full strategy guide included in the instruction manual for Moon, and you don't need to exchange business cards with every single character to get information vital to finishing the game either.

I truly cannot recommend Moon enough if your taste in games ventures anywhere off the beaten path. Maybe this is a little conceited of me, but I assume if you're reading this article, let alone this far down into it, you relate to my video game opinions at least a little bit? You should play Moon. Everyone reading this sentence should play Moon. Moon: Remix RPG Adventure is my game of the year for the year 2020.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Death Stranding (PlayStation 4, 2019): Death Stranding, much like Metal Gear Solid V, was a game I enjoyed for the gameplay and not much else. The story, characters, and writing were a huge disappointment for me, but man if I didn't enjoy lugging those boxes around and setting up my hellish cross-continental goon summer camp lookin' zipline network. Mr. Driller Drill Land (Nintendo Switch, 2020): I am a known Mr. Driller Enjoyer, and I enjoyed this Mr. Driller. Originally released for the Gamecube, Mr. Driller Drill Land is another long-time Japanese exclusive that finally came stateside this year and it's packed with new and novel twists on the Mr. Driller format. It looks super sharp, the music's great (also the credits music is the most impossibly out of place and extra as hell shit in the world and it's hilarious), and it's just a good ass time. The main campaign is pretty damn short, but if you're a post-game content kinda guy it has that and it's all super hard. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 (PlayStation 4, 2020): They finally made another good new Tony Hawk game, and all it took was perfectly remaking two of the best old Tony Hawk games! Plays exactly like you remember it with the added benefit of the best mechanics from up to THUG1, looks great, packed full of content, even has most of the music alongside some mostly crappy new stuff. It's the full package as is, but I do hope they end up adding THPS3 to it eventually. Mad Rat Dead (Nintendo Switch, 2020): Mad Rat Dead was a pleasant surprise that I only picked up because I saw a couple of people on my Twitter timeline constantly talking about it. A fun and inventive platformer where all your actions need to be on beat with the music. The gameplay feels great (aside from some not so great performance issues on Switch), the soundtrack is fun, and it's got a real good style to it. Demon's Souls (PlayStation 5, 2020): I love Demon's Souls and this is Demon's Souls. It plays exactly the same with some minor quality of life changes. I don't agree with many of the artistic changes, but there's no denying it looks incredible on a technical level. If you want to play Demon's Souls again or for the first time, this is a perfectly valid and fun way to do so. Groove Coaster: Wai Wai Party!!!! (Nintendo Switch, 2019): Groove Coaster is one of my favorite rhythm games, and they finally made an acceptable at-home version with Wai Wai Party. It's not a perfect replication of the arcade game control-wise, I have some issues with the song choices, and the pricing is frankly fucking ridiculous if you're not a Groove Coaster maniac like I am, but the same ultra satisfying gameplay is all there. You can even play it vertically in handheld mode! Flip Griiiiiiiip!

And we're done! Phew! Honestly didn't realize I played that many good games until I typed all this out. Thanks as always for reading this far. I'm gonna try and get back to regularly posting Breviews this year at the very least. Honestly don't know if I'll get anything else up on here, but we'll see. Here's to hoping 2021 is a little bit less of a nightmare!

[supremeuppityone]

This is a sequel to Chapter 81: Part 8 — Klarosummer Bingo in my Klaroline series, A Beautiful Symmetry. This was written for Klaroline Bingo @klaroline-events. Prompt: Working. As con artists, Caroline, Bonnie and Katherine knew the risks, but when the Mikaelson brothers conned them, their fight AND flight response kicked into overdrive.

Chapter 122: The Hamptons — Part 2

“It is safer to beg than to take, but it is finer to take than to beg.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

           Nothing was more satisfying than pushing Klaus’ shiny Jaguar over the cliff. It was the final item on Caroline’s to do list as she, Bonnie and Katherine left the Hamptons. Caroline stood with her friends, refusing to flinch as the sound of shattering glass and screeching metal collided with the jagged rocks below. She got sloppy. She should’ve realized a mid-market convertible less than $100,000 would never have been the vehicle of choice for a jet-setting playboy whose family money went back generations.

           “Fucking Mikaelsons played us,” Katherine snarled, brown eyes flashing angrily. “We set up the perfect con, a final score so we could retire, only for it to blow up in our faces when we found out they were trying to con us!”

           Bonnie opened the cooler at their feet, twisting off the top of the beer bottle and taking a deep gulp. “We got them in the end, though. Posted all their fake identities on that stupid Hamptons gossip site. They’re burned in the Northeast now — I even tipped off the highway patrol to be on the lookout for Kol’s Rover.”

           “Did we use cornstarch or flour to mimic the coke the cops will find in the back,” Caroline asked with a mocking grin, clinking her bottle with Bonnie’s in celebration.

           Katherine chuckled darkly. “Flour. But only on the bottom. The top are a few kilos courtesy of our old Markos connection.”

           The women shared a laugh, but Caroline found her gaze straying back to the wreckage below. It had been years since a man had tricked her. Since she’d let a man get close. Still seething over Klaus’ betrayal, her tone was fierce as she said, “The Mikaelsons no longer matter. It’s time to move on to our next job.”  

          “Working shouldn’t be this hard,” Caroline muttered, her voice muffled behind her mask as she polished the alabaster jar on the lathe equipment. She carefully smoothed the sides, ensuring the machine work wouldn’t be visible.  

           Green eyes narrowed behind her goggles as Bonnie advised, “You should use the bow-drill next to ensure modern tool marks aren’t detected.”

           “Seriously?!” Caroline rolled her eyes, certain that underneath that mask was her friend’s signature scowl. “Do you want to do this instead? It’s not like I’ve ever painstakingly crafted forgeries from five different ancient civilizations. Oh, wait — I have.” She hated how shrill her voice sounded and she knew Bonnie and Katherine were dealing with the same anger and disappointment about what happened in the Hamptons. It wasn’t fair that she was taking her misery out on them. As Bonnie started to storm out of the workshop, Caroline called after her, “Wait. That was shitty. I’m sorry.”

           Bonnie sighed, distractedly running a hand through her sleek bob. “You miss Klaus.” At Caroline’s indignant snort, she shook her head. “Lie to yourself all you want, but I see it and Kat would too if she pulled her head out of her ass. And I miss Kol with his stupid limericks and crazy stories that somehow always start with skydiving and end in the back of a police car.”

           “Kat’s avoiding thinking about Elijah by memorizing campus security and building schematics at Berkeley.”

           The women shared a look of commiseration, knowing that Katherine’s hyper-focusing was almost as dangerous as when she spent too much time at the gun range. She didn’t forgive or forget. Elijah was fortunate that were on the other coast.

           Picking up a steel file, she carefully ran it across the wide base of the jar. “I trust she’s working out the reason why there’s a huge lag time in the security guard patrols on Tuesday and Thursday evenings in the Hildegard Building?”

           Bonnie chuckled, “Figure drawing classes are on those nights. Nude figure drawing. The pervy old guards are trying to make some Girls Gone Wild fantasy happen.”

           “Eww. Also, perfect — I can have the other three jars ready by next Tuesday and Kat can make the switch then.” Caroline was responsible for the main part of the Berkeley con — carve perfect copies of the ancient Egyptian alabaster vessels that Katherine would swap out for the real artifacts. Bonnie already had been hired by Berkeley to authenticate their latest archaeological find. She’d forged impeccable credentials as an Egyptian art authenticator with an emphasis on Old Kingdom artifacts.

           Once Bonnie declared Caroline’s work as authentic, the girls would skip town, leaving Berkeley officials none the wiser that their ‘ancient Egyptian’ artifacts displayed were less than two weeks old. It was a familiar con, one they’d pulled off successfully multiple times across the States. They needed this win. The Mikaelson debacle had shaken their confidence, and the women were desperate to get things back to normal.

           “I’ll leave you to it, then.” Heaving a heavy sigh, Bonnie added, “I should probably go check up on Kat in case she decides setting something on fire would make her feel better.”

           Shaking her head, Caroline got back to work, fervently wishing she knew what would make her feel better. She kept thinking back to the argument she overheard between Klaus and Kol.

           “Don’t tell me this is just another job for you,” Klaus replied angrily, “You got too close to Bonnie and Elijah’s all but forgotten the rest of the world exists thanks to Katherine.”

           Kol scoffed, “And Caroline? I saw that ring — don’t think I’m not aware of what that means to you.”

           She stupidly kept the ring on a long chain around her neck, tucked away under her blouse so her friends wouldn’t see. Why did she do this to herself? Because she heard Klaus’ desperation. However the brothers’ con had begun, somewhere along the way, they’d caught feelings and everything had changed. Just like it had for Caroline and her friends.

           But she also kept recalling little details that she should’ve picked up on, things that could’ve unraveled Klaus’ con sooner had she not been so distracted by how she felt about him.

           With a dimpled smirk from Klaus, Caroline kept forgetting she was in the middle of a con. Despite his seductive smiles, she couldn’t help but notice the genuine excitement he showed when she surprised him with a trip to the art museum. From her extensive research into his background, she knew he had an affinity for art, including a graduate degree in art history. “Isn’t it breathtaking,” she asked, pointing out the beautifully preserved Madonna and Child canvas.

           “It’s an impressive Caravaggio,” Klaus said dismissively, already eyeing the next exhibit.

           Frowning, she asked, “I thought this was a Verrocchio? You’d mentioned he had been your focus when you studied Italian Renaissance art?”

           A slight flush creeped up his neck, and he kissed her knuckles as he purred in his accented voice, “I appreciate a woman who can identify the rebirth of classic antiquity.” There was an endearing hesitancy in his tone as he said, “Actually, I’d like to share my latest passion with you.” With an excited twinkle in his eye, he guided her toward the next gallery, one filled with vibrant colors and bold brush strokes that instantly captured her attention.

           “These are powerful,” she murmured, admiring the series of abstract portraits.

           He squeezed her hand, whispering excitedly, “I discovered GyoBeom An at a low point in my life; his work is an explosive blend of constructing and deconstructing images using a bold, contemporary palette. Even though the brush strokes are strong, almost violent in places, to me, it feels like the art reveals what’s hidden in a whisper rather than a shout.”

           His impassioned speech struck a chord with her, and she was alarmed to realize she’d started to tear up. There were so many things she was hiding from Klaus. So, she told him the only thing she knew to be true. “I’m honored you’d share this with me.”

           Klaus looked nervous, but the sincerity of his tone seemed genuine. “You’re special, Caroline. I wouldn’t share this with anyone else.” And then he kissed her until they were both breathless.

           It was a beautiful memory. And it was all a lie. Just two cons lying to each other, Caroline thought bitterly. She pushed aside the flood of memories that kept trying to break free, and instead bent her head to her work once more.

                              ____________________________________

           Caroline’s expectations for the buyer went up a notch when she got her first look at The Bitter End over on Clement Street. Not only did the bar’s name match her mood, but the grimy, threadbare atmosphere made her feel at home. Better than the pretentious clubs in the Hamptons. Her contact informed her that the dive bar was in a quiet neighborhood away from tourists — the perfect spot to negotiate terms.

           The con was nearly complete — Katherine effortlessly swapped out the ancient artifacts for Caroline’s forgeries and Bonnie had done such an outstanding job ‘authenticating’ that Berkeley had offered her a coveted spot on their latest dig in Karnak, examining a newly discovered series of tunnels underneath the Temple of Amun-Ra. (Katherine was still trying to convince them it was a sign they should take their skills to the exclusive spa in nearby Luxor and run either the Heiress Special or the Desert Rose cons.)

           She crossed the threshold, eyes quickly adjusting to the dim light inside the dive bar. She was there to settle the final part of their con — agree on the price for the ancient Egyptian alabaster jars. Something brushed across the back of her neck, and she turned sharply, ready to deliver an elbow to whichever drunk decided to get too gropey. But no one was there. Suddenly on edge, she headed toward the back booth, where the buyer waited in the shadows.

           The scent of leather and cedar flooded her senses, making her heart pound. He was here. Bonnie would tell her to run. Katherine would tell her to break his nose and then run. Caroline’s curiosity was piqued as she contemplated a third option.

           “Hello, sweetheart,” Klaus greeted her, lovingly caressing the syllables of her name with that seductive accent of his. “Are you armed?”

           “Perhaps. You?”

           Gray eyes twinkling, he replied, “Only with righteous indignation. My brothers and I nearly emptied our bag of tricks calling in favors to make that spot of trouble with the police and the coke disappear.” Leaning forward, his lips curled into a dimpled smirk as he added, “And then there was that unfortunate accident. Going after the car — you certainly know how to cut a man to the quick.”  

           Arms crossed in front of her, Caroline asked defiantly, “Clearly, you scared off my buyer, so you must want something — what is it?”

           “Answers. From you and your cohorts’ actions, it was obvious you figured out what we were up to. You three don’t strike me as cowards — why not confront us?”

           She scowled, not appreciating how close he’d become. He was trying to force a connection. Bastard. “A good grifter knows when to cut her losses. It turned out we were all just con artists trying to scam each other. There was nothing to be gained from staying.”

           A hint of steel entered his gaze as he growled, “Or, there was everything to gain. I thought I fell for a woman that forever would be beyond my reach. The little fictions we told each other gave way to something real. And then we discover we’re even more perfectly suited than we could’ve imagined.”

           Blue eyes widened at his words. What Klaus was suggesting was insane — there could never be trust between cons. “Seriously?! Are you out of your mind? We’d constantly be suspicious of each other, waiting to be screwed over.”

           “Details,” he answered with a careless shrug. “Tell me you haven’t missed me every day since you ran off.”

           “I haven’t,” Caroline answered flatly, refusing to give into this insanity.

           She was prepared for him to lash out, but instead, he flashed her a knowing smile while digging in his pocket. Suddenly, he dangled her long silver chain between them, complete with the beautiful ring he’d made her. That he’d stolen right off her neck.

           Klaus’ desire-filled gaze was intense as he told her, “Good thing for both of us you’re a terrible liar.”

[ziamhaze]

Hi, I hope you're well! I just want to start off by thanking you for all the wonderful fics you have blessed me with!

I just finished Red vs. Black and was hoping you wouldn't mind answering some questions I have. As someone who risks his own life to save others, how does Liam justify being with someone he knows has killed innocent people? It'd be one thing if Zayn had only killed those directly involved with what happened to his family, but he's killed innocent civilians over minor inconveniences (such as the teenagers in the convertible). Does Zayn still think he is justified in doing so? Does he ever feel guilty about it? If not, how would Liam and Zayn be compatible if their moral compasses are so different?

Also, did Zayn's father ever make his way to the UK? Or was that just a lie he told Zayn to comfort him? Does Zayn ever find his family, especially his younger sister?

I know it's a lot, but I'd really love to hear your answers if you want to give them! Again thank you for all of your wonderful works!

So sorry it’s taken me this long to reply, but I didn’t forget!

To start I’d like to thank you for clicking, and finishing, Red vs. Black.  It isn’t the shortest of fics, nor is it the most delicate - to put it lightly.  For the latter alone, thank you.

These are such poignant, important questions.  Ones that are nearly word for word what I asked myself while planning the ending.

                         SPOILERS FOR ALL OF RED VS. BLACK

1)  How does Liam stay with Zayn after learning of all his senseless killings?

Honestly, I questioned this the most when feeling out the concept.  As a fic writer it’s expected of me to write not only a romance, but also a happy ending.  Of course fics exist that do neither, but they’re very rare and not exactly well-loved.  And truthfully, a massive point that I wanted to get across - and which in effect answers this question - is that despite people’s pasts, they cannot overcome them without being given the opportunity.  100%.  No ands, ifs, or buts.  For a prisoner to assimilate back into society and not go back to their old ways, they need to be trusted with a job.  With a salary (no matter how small), they need to trust themselves to be able to not buy anything that may contribute to poor habits: drugs, alcohol, weapons, gambling, a means of transport that will give them the ability to visit bad influences (more of a psychological thing, but still).  A lot of prisoners are never given this opportunity (especially in the United States), and therefore fall back into their old ways, which are more often than not coping mechanisms to deal with the fact that they can’t fit into society as easily as privileged people to begin with; it’s a terrible cycle.  However, there are plenty of success stories of those that truly wish to change and are lucky enough to stumble upon an employer or mentor or sponsor of some sort that hands them an inkling of hope/trust that they use to fight their way back up.  The fic is fantasy, and while Zayn’s story is rooted in real world PTSD, I think the prisoner analogy is easy for us to envision and therefore, understand why Liam acts the way he does.  I also made it a point in the last scene when they’re talking things out to have Liam voice his contingency: if Zayn so much as spits at anyone, he’s done for.  That’s to say, he’s not wiping his slate clean just yet.

2)  Does Zayn still feel his useless killings were justified?

I’m going to answer assuming that you’re referring to the time after the fic ends.

Looking back at his actions is something that would be inevitable when he starts therapy, and this is a perfect example of one of the questions his therapist would ask.  You may not like my answer, but as an author I find it imperative that I speak of my characters realistically and to keep them true, not how I want them to act.  That said, yes, Zayn would still find justification in why he’s done what he’s done.

There are a few instances in the story where this is actually explained.  Take the scene in the bar with fancy mixologists.  Zayn begins to get aggravated over the people in the room simply because they’re ignorant to the feeling of significant pain.  There’s also the scene where he’s back home in Cheshire and Harry straight out tells him, he may be furious at the unfairness of the world, but he needs to learn how to come to terms with it.  It’s not going to change.  This right here is what a therapist would work with him to do, and also why I had Harry be the one to bring this up in the story - he is one.

I know it sounds incredibly foreign to the average person, but trust me when I say that people struggling with anger problems founded in (un)fairness, exist.  I’ve spoken with professionals about it.  Add on crippling childhood PTSD and a villain like Zayn can definitely be born.  It’s why treatment is needed, and why the answer is ‘yes’ in the beginning of Zayn’s journey to peace.  When his answer switches over to ‘no’, that’s when it’ll be outwardly apparent that he’s beating his ailment.  Unfortunately, for many, the inner battle with mental health is lifelong; the answer ‘no’ will never turn solid.

3)  Does Zayn feel guilty about the above?

Again, there are a couple times when I write Zayn to literally mention how he feels zero guilt.  However, if you really really pay attention you’ll notice that these instances aren’t villain related.

For example, meeting Liam’s parents:

After handing his father and Zayn each their tea, Liam looks between them suspiciously. "Leaving the two of you in a room together was a bad idea."

"Don't know what you're on about," Geoff replies innocently. "We were just talking about cars, weren't we Zayn?" Even with all eyes on him, the pressure of lying doesn't get to Zayn. It never does.

"Yeah," he agrees, bringing his drink up to his lips carefully, "cars."

Or, after Zayn walks out from the comedy club:

"It takes a lot of courage to get up there and do something like that, don't you think?"

"Not really."

Liam looks to the side, hoping that he can interpret more from Zayn's answers by seeing the expressions that go with their frankness. "So if I signed you up, you would do it?"

"Why would I want to make a room full of strangers laugh?" Zayn retorts, his right eye scrunching up in distaste, like it's a mannerism of his provoked by moronic questions. "I don't have a superiority complex." Liam thinks he might, but. "I know I'm better than those people, no mediocracy to cover up here."

So we’ve got those, but then we’ve also got this massive character point:

Right as the last of the snake's body emerges, Zayn snaps his fingers, triggering heavy hip-hop music to flow through his headphones and drown out the man's blood curdling cry.

If he could permanently damage people who deserved it, not always because they did something to Zayn, but because he liked to play god and throw them a massive curveball like life had done to him, then why shouldn't he? So long as he pulls his soundproof headphones off the little robot on the inside of his right arm to avoid listening to the pain his choice brutality caused, there's no valid reason he shouldn't take advantage of the gift he was given.

From where he's sitting, he probably won't be able to hear anything, but he fastens the equipment over his ears just in case.

All at once, the atmospheric sounds of central London, mixed with the terrified screams of those in the burning building beneath them, hit Zayn at full force. The sensory overload alone would normally be enough to piss him off, but tack on his protection from audible trauma being taken and being spoken to while in villain mode, and he's seeing red as deep as the pits of hell he knows he's destined for.

I wrote Zayn’s headphone usage as a way to alert that the reader that he does, in fact, feel villain-related guilt.  He can’t act on his anger without them on.  He’ll have his victims screams stuck in his head, and he’d never be able to handle that a.k.a. there’s zero satisfaction from their literal pain.  Think about that and it’ll answer your follow-up question.

4)  What happened to Zayn’s family?

Zayn’s father meant what he said - he’d do whatever he needed to reunite his family.  That wasn’t a falsity at all.  The problem is money.  And politics, but let’s start with the issue of money.  It took Yaser nine years to save up the amount he paid to have Zayn and Waliyha smuggled across the border.  The whole concept of smuggling is that it’s a cheaper option than the legal one.  So if we look at this, you can see how long it would take him to save for three adult visa fees, three adult plane tickets, and enough to stay afloat for a month or so when they get to England.  Now add in the politics of the early 2000s and the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.  We know that Yaser fixed air conditioners for a living.  No person with that average of a background is going to have an easy time immigrating anywhere.  Even so, would it really take him over 18 years?  While it’s plausible, perhaps a man with such determination would find another way.  Or...was that unnecessary because he was fed lies?

Think about it.  After several weeks and no word from his children, don’t you think he’d cause a riot?  He’s the type to drive over to Badar’s house and demand his relatives get in contact with him to find out what’s going on.  But, given the flashback Zayn has, it’s obvious that Badar never planned on accompanying any of the children to the UK, and if that’s the case, he clearly couldn’t return to Quetta.  I imagine a fully rehearsed story was told to all of the children’s parents about how they were killed somewhere along the way.

As for Waliyha, her whereabouts were told to my gang over on Patreon a while ago.  In short, yes, she’s still alive and I plan on pitching the book’s sequel to publishers as a graphic novel series revolved around her location.  Louis’ dark web bot finally found a hint as to where that might be, so Zayn and Liam go on a journey across Europe to find her.  Each issue would (probably) take place in a new city and involve both fighting a single bad guy.

Just a quick reminder to anyone who reads this, Red vs. Black and all involved characters are my intellectual property and cannot be replicated, manipulated, or stolen.

Again, thank you for your question and time!  I know my fics aren’t short and take a huge time commitment to finish.  If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to send them my way!  I’m super busy writing the next story and doing critical work, but I promise I’ll get around to it.

[greengargouille]

At long last I have some time for Mother of Learning’s epilogue, which is great because I’ve been missing checking the tag but I wanted to avoid thinking too much about it before getting some rest So! What happened to our two -now former- time travellers since Zorian last fell unconscious?

-I expected either the ‘good morning’ wake up or a flashforward, but I admit I did not think of the two together. One month already, wow. Also, Zach is on friendly terms enough with Kirielle to rope her into his revenge pranks via PTSD. Neat.

(And Zorian complains about how long will Zach keep up with this, but, let’s admit it, halfway through that month Zorian probably pulled some nasty prank too in retribution, like pretending to have forgotten everything that happened within the loops. You can’t make me believe he never tried to get back at Zach) - “A dozen of people or so”, that’s... kind of a lot? I remembered that the only reason Zorian wasn’t sharing his bed with Kirielle in most restarts is because Imaya allowed her to have her own room while there wasn’t a third tenant for it. *checks previous chapters* Hmm, nope, it does say that there is a bunch of rooms on the second floor. Though I guess with the ‘slightly beyond’ capacity, some people do have to share their bedrooms.

Ah, nevermind, it does seems to be what I initially remembered. Well, one room for Imaya, one for Kael and Kana, one for Zorian and the last one for Kirielle would count as “a bunch”. But how are they sharing that between a dozen people?

(Zorian one evening just come to the Noveda Estate to get a room here, because he just can’t handle that many people under one roof and especially in his room.) (...Wait, is the Noveda Estate in good state, actually, or was it destroyed during the invasion attempt? Though I guess even if it’s mostly intact, it’s not Zach’s yet till he get a fair trial against his mentor)

-Ilsa is here! Did she sleep at the academy too? Or is she just here to watch over her students? I don’t care, I’m deciding she is sleeping here. Look, I might have never mentioned it before, but I have an incredibly soft spot at the idea of Ilsa and Imaya being girlfriends through their school years, and deciding to break up due to not being able to invest time in each other any more, but still remaining good friends. Look, I’m just a simple lesbian that like some wlw of adult age in her fantasy.

-Imaya having the time of her life aaaaaaah my heart, this epilogue only started and I already feel so blessed.

-Zorian ask where Zach is, Ilsa reply by refering to him as [Zorian’s] friend, which is... weird? He is her student too, even if she must not have seen much of him (or Zorian too, either, though he still tried to have mind magic sessions at school so maybe he was more present. Hmm. I do remember him saying to Akoja that he wouldn’t be present much though.) That would also imply that Zach is Zorian’s friend first, and eventually for his other classmates too. Hmmmmm.

...No, really, the fact that Zach was here but couldn’t wait for Zorian to wake up, wouldn’t that imply that he lives here too? Would make sense that he avoids the Estate if he is currently fighting with Tesen. Or maybe he comes to grab breakfast after whoever in charge of cooking at the Estate resigned after the invasion.

...I like the idea of Zach being part of the household, though, he must have spent enough time there through the loops to feel attached to the place. (which means that instead of Zorian going to the Noveda Estate to get at least one peaceful night, it’s Zach instead that come to crash in his room to avoid his shitty mentor outside of court meetings)

-Study groups is something I never thought about but make complete sense given how the academy is supposed to be in a bad state. Cyoria’s importance as a town will probably be massively cut despite the presence of the only rank 6 mana hole, and the academy’s management will be tough for the whole year. I wonder if, by the end of it, it will be able to go back to being the best academy of the country (continent?), or if its reputation will never recover and students will be more distributed across other academies. This could have interesting consequences, economically or politically.

-Ah, confirmation that Zorian was indeed absent from most classes this month.

-Zorian is starting to follow in Xvim’s footsteps, aww :’D

-We get to check up with Raynie, and while I don’t have much to say about it, I do like the... realism of it? The whole ‘putting this young girl with an emotional story up front to cover for other things, but ready to turn on her if it was beneficial’. We’re not left with a saccharine closure for her, but it still feels hopeful.

-Oh, Zorian is openly a mind mage. And here I thought he would really try to cover this up. Guess I will have to make major changes to that sequel fic I was never going to write in the first place

-Akoja finding motivation to become better out of the accident is... oddly sweet, in a way? Her way of explaining it is relatable. It was a terrible thing, and she knows it was terrible and feel bad for all those people, and guilty for how it turned out so well for her- but that’s not going to stop her from getting those opportunities. And she does frame it as “when war came for her again, she would be ready”, not out of altruism or wanting to protect others, which I actually really love?

-Zorian have an ‘uncanny ability to notice the problem people were having, and how to fix them’. I wonder what’s at play there. Is it his empathy/mind magic that helps him, his archmage level experience, the fact he already made training programs for multiple people in the past, or just because he is quite familiar with those people due to the time loop? Maybe all of this.

-Akoja understanding that the image she had of Zorian is flawed, but that she still likes him, is a good conclusion for her- even though the ways she notices in which he diverge from that mental picture are only due to the time loop, when even before that they already had major differences. Still a good step in the right direction.

-Akoja, Kopriva and Kael becoming buddies is nice. I like that the classmates are becoming friends even outside of the ZZ sphere of influence. (The term ‘bedfellow’ is not one I ever heard before, and I was ready to point this out as proof they all share rooms before looking at the definition. Sigh.)

-Ah, Zach is still seen as a ‘clown and a wastrel’ by his classmates, or at least Akoja. Seems obvious, as he didn’t interact much with her and need to stay low, but man, I feel like this kind of reputation could become a problem down the line. Or not. Even if he doesn’t show the full extend of his abilities, he can show enough to get some respect, for example hunting dangerous creatures.

-Kopriva thought Zorian became close to Zach for money, before learning about his sales. But not everybody have her connections. And Zorian is now a known mind mage. There’s probably one or two conspiracy theorists in Cyoria thinking that Zorian is manipulating Zach via mind magic and that’s why their relationship drastically switched.

-Hmm, if Kael is surprised someone got into his room despite the lock and ward, then it’s probably safe to say he doesn’t share it with someone else. Or another classmate, I guess he’s in the same situation with Kana that Zorian is with Kirielle.

-Some investigation ongoing! Seems like ZZ&co did a pretty good job at erasing their tracks. Zorian had probably no choice in leaving so much of the golem’s core behind, but I can’t help but think it means the end of his golem-making career, or he will have to keep it for private use- someone is going to recognise this kind of spell formula if he start producing golems interesting/effective enough to make enough sales despite being a one-man team.

-How much does the Triumverate Church knows about the summoning? Did Zorian went and erased the minds of people that were here when him and Zach first asked for an angel summon, or since it didn’t gave away anything about the loop, they were left alone? Is the fact those two were present at a not only successful summoning, but one that was hijacked by an high-rank angel, known by people higher in the Church hierarchy? Will they become unexpected allies in an eventual sequel when either of them is put in an awkward position by the crown?

-”It may take a year, or even a decade, but they were bound to make a mistake.” Flash forward a decade later, when Elayer learns the ‘saviors’ are the most powerful couple of the continent, and also are behind some of the help/money the investigation team got on other cases, and so it would be pretty bad for him to reveal the truth.

-POV switch to Damien, and we get a reminder that Zorian is basically an impostor who killed the original. Which is not something I, and probably many readers, thought much about at this point of the story, but it’s true this is a moral dilemma. Damien’s acceptance is a pretty normal reaction, though. I think. I dunno, my brother have yet to come up to me and tell me he is actually a time loop clone that killed the original, but I feel like I would be able to accept it.

-”Daimen was pretty sure his little brother would be willing to make an enemy out of the whole family for Kirielle’s sake”, except Daimen was baffled by their mother’s plans for her and wouldn’t go against Zorian, only try to smooth things over, and Fortov... wouldn’t it be hilarious if he actually supported Zorian through this plan. Zorian wouldn’t even know what to make of it since he just doesn’t care about his brother’s opinion.

-’Zorian can pull a grudge’, Daimen thinks, meanwhile Zach have been making petty pranks at Zorian for a whole month in retribution for putting him in an illusion world. The one who makes an enemy out of those two is going to have a very bad day.

-Benisek had to appear at least once in the epilogue, and with his overall contribution to the story it couldn’t have been a big part, but boy is his scene glorious. What a way to reveal some major information to people around :’)

-Spear of Resolve get to stroll openly through the city, how nice. The situation is far from being resolved for the web, and people’s perceptions probably aren’t going to shift even after getting used to them, but they are too important to strike down or ignore, and even before they already had trade relationships with some humans; a lot of possibilities are going to open for them.

-Taiven cameo! Her thriving as a combat mage and being totally independent from Zorian is a pretty satisfying end for her. Spending too much time around him would only make her discover some of his abilities and doubt her own, I’m afraid.

-The Noveda Estate is mentioned as a potential private meeting place, so it’s probably safe to assume it is not only mostly intact, and that Zach is living here/can invite people.

...Which reminds me. Didn’t Zorian have a workshop there (as seen in the chapter where he talks with Novelty and we hear about the pokeball grey hunter trap? Is the reason he asked Zach to buy a place for Kael and not for himself because he already had access to this one?

- “In all honesty, Zorian had yet to hand out even a fraction of the stuff he owed (...) It would take him literal years” This shouldn’t be surprising, given he already mentioned something similar before, but this is still something I wanted to point out, since it does align with a certain headcanon of mine on how the close future would go for him. This post is already pretty long so I won’t develop, might end up making another post about it I already said I won’t write that fic! Someone stop my brain from putting on more projects on me!

-Speaking of headcanons: Zorian is writing a book! My bet was on shaping exercises- a sort of follow up on the 15 variations basic book, putting the most interesting ones he saw during his travels, as well as less well known ones (Xvim did say there were shaping exercices for mind magic too, after all), and basically the kind of book he wished he could have during his training sessions with Xvim. But a mind magic book would actually be pretty great! If he is allowed to publish it. Not sure he can get the peer approval for it.

-Holy heck that Grey Hunter end. Well, that does answer the question of whether that primordial essence would dissolve away after Silverlake failed her contract. Man, I hadn’t expected her to actually have a part, despite joking about it.

-I expected Zach to have more of a role in the epilogue, but you know what? That just mean the unseen interactions are Free Real Estate.

This epilogue felt pretty good to read! It went in unexpected directions and managed to pull a lot of loose threads, while giving enough content to imagine an interesting sequel. I was worried till the end Zorian would date one of the girls he had interacted most with through the story, because this is the kind of disappointing ending stories tend to go for, but it really wouldn’t fit with Zorian’s character and just... the whole ethical problem of being mentally way older, having some major power imbalance and him retaining memories the other doesn’t have. Now that the story is completed I think I can go back and enjoy the passages where said girls appear more? They’re all very interesting characters in their own right, so I’m glad for that.

...I wouldn’t say I don’t want a sequel, but... I’m satisfied if Mr. Kurmaic ends the MoL-verse there (or only come back for worldbuilding posts on his blog). He did said he wanted to edit the story and eventually publish it before starting anything else, and he did want to write a completely different story, so even if he talked about a possible sequel, it wouldn’t be before years, and who knows how he will feel about the idea then. So I’m glad, I’m really glad, that the story ended so satisfying, because I feel like it’s fine for me if it’s over. I want to stay and enjoy the (very small) fandom here on tumblr, maybe contribute to it too, and I’m happy that I can do it without canon spoiling my enjoyment.

Mother of Learning will probably have a special place for me as a story. I wished it had more details on certain points, but it’s still a complete worldbuilding that felt fresh, the story had done amazingly well on Chekhov’s guns and twists, and I never felt like it went lazy or had disappointing answers to its mysteries (okay, maybe on Red Robe’s identity, but I feel that’s very forgivable). The magic system, Zorian’s progress, the time loop... so many elements that could have been badly exploited, but no, it never made characters take the idiot ball, the story didn’t pull power increase out of nowhere, it was all so good. Mostly, what I will admire the most, is that Nobody completed the story. The updates might have been constantly delayed, but it was still at a pretty good rhythm, and in a language that isn’t the maternal tongue of the author. As someone whose one-shots can stay WIP for years before I complete them... It is very inspiring.

I am so, so glad that I decided to read this story, that I was part of this adventure if only as a lurker... And I wish the best to Mr. Domagoj Kurmaic, whatever his next writing project will be- or even if he decides to stop writing at all. Sincerely, thank you.

[oveliagirlhaditright]

I've noticed there are at least 15 main installments of Final Fantasy, but the only ones I see people mention are Final Fantasy 7, 8, 10, and 15. Is there a reason the other game aren't as popular?

Buckle in, honey. Because I’m probably going to go overboard with this. I’m sorry. But it’s the best I can think of to explain it all.

So… full disclosure. I have not played I-VI. All I know about them is from the Dissidia games–where the main characters of those games show up and talk about their games some–and what I’ve read on Wikipedia. I also know a bit more about VI because of cultural osmosis, as that’s one of the more popular Final Fantasy games (and I have watched a teeny bit of VI online). And one day, I do hope to go back and play them all. But any information I get wrong about those ones–though I hopefully won’t–is because of this. And I apologize for it in advance.

Also, you should know that the Final Fantasy fandom is very vocal. And since every game pretty much reinvents the wheel–and everyone has a different game where they started and that is their favorite–everyone has their own idea about what a Final Fantasy “is” and “should be”. And if they get a Final Fantasy game that doesn’t meet that criteria for them, they usually hate it–and will tell anyone and everyone–and think that it “doesn’t feel like a true Final Fantasy”… Like, for years now… pretty much with any new game since X, or maybe even back as far as IX, people hate on it for years… only to years later realize that maybe it wasn’t “so bad, after all, because really the new thing is that bad”. Rinse and repeat.

Okay, so a little history here: Sakaguchi is the father of Final Fantasy, and was involved with I-X (though not as much on X, because I believe he was also working on the “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within” movie at the time. More on that in a minute), back when the company was “Squaresoft” and not “Square Enix”. Around the time they were making X, Sakaguchi decided to try and make a fully 3D Final Fantasy movie–and to release it in theaters (The Spirits Within)–and that movie bombed hard. It’s actually one of the biggest financial failures in cinema history, sadly. And Squaresoft would have gone under because of it, if rival company Enix–mainly known for the Dragon Quest series–hadn’t agreed to merge with Squaresoft, thus turning the company into “Square Enix” as we know it today. And even though it wasn’t all his fault (if any of it? Because surely there were bigger studio heads who okayed everything and maybe even pushed for it themselves), Sakaguchi ended up having to take the wrap for the whole Spirits Within disaster and left the company, if I recall correctly, but really he had to leave, I think. I’m sure he was really fired, under the corporate niceties and stage show.

But you definitely have your purists, who only like I-X (or sometimes only I-IX) and think that Final Fantasy died when Squaresoft became Square Enix and when Sakaguchi left the company.

Speaking of which, I-VI, Final Fantasy VI is an extremely popular game. And that might actually be most people’s favorite after VII (some even like it more than VII). And people are clamoring for a remake for it, too. Like, the heroine Terra is an amazing character who goes through more than any other Final Fantasy heroine, apparently (as she was used as a weapon–as she’s super powerful–by the games’ villain for most of her life until she finally rises up against him). And she’s also the first technical female lead in a Final Fantasy game. People also love the villain, Kefka (and if you go on “What Final Fantasy Bosses do You Want in Kingdom Hearts?” threads, he’s always the one who gets the most votes), who’s this pure evil clown, who loves being bad and just wants to watch the world burn. The Joker, essentially. And he’s the only Final Fantasy villain to succeed: he actually does destroy the world, and you’re then playing in a post-apocalyptic place for half of the game. The character Celes even tries to kill herself over this… I think people like this game because it’s super dark (though not without light moments and humorous things, of course) like VII is.

Final Fantasy IV is also well-loved, but I don’t know enough to rank it in people’s eyes. I through III were pretty bare bones, it seems like (maybe moreso I and II) and with black and white morality. IV was the first game to go away from that, somewhat. As your main character, Cecil, who starts the game as a paladin turns into a dark knight(?). And while at first he’s despairing about this, he then realizes he can still be a hero and use his powers for good? And people adore the Cecil/Rosa ship, that perhaps started there being Final Fantasy romances. This is also a tragic tale about two brothers pitted against each other… There’s also the character Kain, that Riku’s character is probably based on and ideas from this game in general? Or maybe it’s Cecil that Riku’s based on. I forget.

VII is probably, hands-down, the most popular Final Fantasy game (though sometimes the people who love VI–and even IX–can really debate with the VII people. So they’re probably close to being tied). And I think this is because VII was the first to do a lot of things: The first to use 3D graphics (that were something to behold at the time), the first to be on Playstation, the first one that really got people in America interested in Final Fantasy and RPGs in general (largely because of the commercial for it, I’m told? That made people go “What?! There can be an actual story in a video game?! Let’s check this out!”), and certainly because of the Aerith thing. Aerith was not the first character to die in Final Fantasy. But since VII was a lot of people’s first FF–and you couldn’t bring her back; and the developers made a conscious decision to keep it that way for many reasons–this really hit gamers. And is why Aerith’s death is probably the most iconic thing in video game history. The game also did a good job of making her mean everything to you and then feel her absence, since she was your best healer and no one could really take her place after that. This game meant a lot to Sakaguchi, because he wrote it after his mother died–as he was trying to understand life and death… and why it all happens the way it does, and to find some closure there–and I think that you can feel that in the game, which is why it’s so special to so many other people, too. If you’re interested, Super Eyepatch Wolf does a great job of explaining why Final Fantasy VII is such a big deal in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V68GCZ61Rc

I actually don’t hear that much about VIII anymore? I’m not sure it’s as big as a fan-favorite as it used to be, but I could be wrong.VIII is starting to turn into a black sheep of the franchise in some people’s eyes, it would seem. Mainly because the Junction battle system… is broken (though this was really no one’s fault. As I understand it, the designer behind it fell ill before the game came out and never got to finish it properly). And since some don’t like that this game is a romance between Squall and Rinoa more than anything else (some also don’t like Rinoa and think she’s a major damsel in distress in their opinion), and that Ultimecia is evil and wants time compression… for reasons? But to be fair, a lot of early Final Fantasy villains were evil just to be evil. And apparently this game is the anti-VII in some ways? As Sakaguchi or Kitase (I forget which one) said they got a lot of criticism about FFVII when it first released (which is weird to think of now, since now everyone sees FFVII as the greatest thing ever), so they decided to address those criticisms in VIII and made it the opposite of VII in many ways. But there are definitely many who are still all about VIII. Don’t get me wrong. And a lot of Kingdom Hearts fans, trying out FF for the first time, probably go to the ones with characters they know first (I know I did). So VIII is still probably touched for that reason, if not for many others as well. People still wonder if Cloud or Squall is stronger, etc. And for a while, VIII was my favorite. It’s not anymore, but it once was.

IX is the dark horse in this series that might actually win a lot of things. Most people who have played it seem to love IX–I know I do–though not everyone played it, because many were turned off by the cutesy art style at first (IX was sort of a return to basics, as it was a celebration of all the Final Fantasy games that came before it since this was the last Playstation 1 game). But this story’s a lot darker than some give it credit for… One of the darker ones, maybe. Most people who played IX actually list it as their favorite–in fact, IX was voted as the most popular FF game to Japan’s players recently–and many want this game remade, too. This is also Sakaguchi’s favorite in the series, and what he thinks Final Fantasy should be. And there’s just so much heart, fun, and love in this story (Zidane and Garnet might even be my favorite FF couple for how well they’re written). If Sakaghuchi had to leave the company, it’s probably at least nice that he left it on this note (because he was involved in X, but not as much as with this).

I think X is so popular, because this was also a “first” for many people. It was my first Final Fantasy game, in fact (and a lot of people’s in that generation). But it was the first for Playstation 2… the first with voice acting, the first where you could switch party members in battle, the first that had a direct sequel to it, etc. And many believe Tidus and Yuna is the best written romance in all of Final Fantasy, and there’s a good chance that it is. It also has one of the most tragic endings ever, that makes everyone sob when they get to it. Hey. But Final Fantasy X is just a great game, all-around (story, theme, and gameplay-wise. X, like VII, revolves around life and death and cycles). It really is. Though you still have people who hate it (as there are those who hate every single game), usually because they despise Tidus or just look at things like the laughing scene out of context. X might be my favorite Final Fantasy. A lot of the time, the first FF you played ends up being your favorite, though not always (I like it, IX, VII… and XIII and XV, God help me). Edit: And Yuna is everything good in this world. She’s always a favorite Final Fantasy heroine to everyone, for sure. And I think she actually is Japan’s favorite Final Fantasy heroine.

I can’t really talk about XI or XIV, as they’re MMOs and I don’t play those… so these are actually the FFs I know the least about, probably? But I know some think think they’re the best. Well, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, that is. The first version of XIV was a fucking disaster and had to be completely reworked.

Final Fantasy XII is dismissed a lot of the time (though there are those who think it’s the best example of transitioning FF to modern times, doing things that XIII and XV just didn’t think to do or even seem to think to do). Final Fantasy XII is very political, and I think that’s why it’s not talked about much: as there’s a good chance it just went over your head when you played it. I know it did for me, originally. There also really isn’t romance in it (at least not much, and you definitely see the slight romance that is there moreso in the sequel). But they definitely tried something new with this one, and if that paid off or not is up to you. But if you can understand it, the writing in this game is actually pretty genius. Final Fantasy XII was plagued with the issue that VIII had, though, where one of the key people behind it got sick at the time, so all of their ideas didn’t come to fruition. Like, originally Vaan and Penelo were supposed to be much more fleshed out than they were… that didn’t happen in FFXII itself, but did in its sequel “Revenant Wings” (which is so underrated, and the best sequel in all of FF, imo).

XIII… XIII is the black sheep of the franchise, for some reason. And I have no idea why. I loved this game and thought it was fine. More than fine, really. I swear this game wouldn’t be as hated as it is, if the Internet didn’t exist, tbh. But people despise it because it’s linear… when every Final Fantasy game before it was also linear? You were just tricked into thinking they weren’t. And sure XIII could have hidden its linearity better, but meh. People also aren’t big on there being no towns and side quests, even though story-wise it makes sense: you’re the enemy of the goddamn world, so of course you’re avoiding towns and people. People also think the game’s convoluted, but I think most FFs are. Look at FFVII, for goodness sake! And people just don’t like the characters, because they base it on how they are at the start of the game. And they’re all awful and hate each other at first, but that’s the point: because they all develop and grow into better characters, and are a family at the end of it. There are also those who despise the battle system… I’ve heard many say that if you look at this game as its own thing, it’s fantastic. But that if you look at it as a Final Fantasy game, it’s terrible… which I guess could make sense? But I also, personally, don’t see it that way? I guess I’ve just never been one of those “A Final Fantasy game has to be this way, and if it’s not then it’s not a Final Fantasy game to me and I hate it” kind of people. Because I know FF is always about reinventing itself, but whatever. But like with any Final Fantasy, there are also those who adore this one. There are always those who love one, and those who hate it. XIII was also littered with a lot of problems across development–like XV–and probably would have been even better than it was, if that hadn’t happened. Like, I think Nojima wrote the script for part of this game–or at least helped with it–but not all of it. And he’s credited for writing the scripts of most fan-favorite FF games. He also wrote the script for the end of KHI, all of KHII, and part of KHIII, apparently (many think that if Nojima came back for KH, that would fix things there, too–which I could see and maybe mostly agree with, but even he’s not perfect... He also wrote the script for Versus XIII, but not XV, which probably explains a lot. And he came back and wrote the script for FFVII again with the Remake, which is probably why it’s so great).

XV is the game that started its life as Final Fantasy Versus XIII–originally directed by Tetsuya Nomura–but soon after it became FFXV, Nomura was kicked off the project and Hajime Tabata became its new director. And Tabata, it would seem, made a lot of changes to the story (which is why Nomura’s so pissed off about it, and now trying to put his Versus XIII ideas into Kingdom Hearts). But it wasn’t really his fault. The company was breathing down his neck that this had to be the game that “saved Final Fantasy and console gaming in Japan”. And Versus XII was, apparently, the darkest game in the entire Final Fantasy franchise (and it was going to be rated “M”, as opposed to FF games usually being rated “T”), which is why it wasn’t a numbered title originally. So I can get why Tabata probably thought he had to change it to make it moreso appeal to the masses, or was probably even told to do so. I think FFXV is a good game. I do (as do many. XV was actually a lot of Nomura lovers’ first FF game, for obvious reasons). It’s still one of my favorites… for some reason. But the main issue with this game–especially at launch; it’s somewhat better now–is that it was not a complete story, and there were so many holes in it. And you can just tell that this story was rewritten again and again and again. And important plot things are just not told to the player… probably because the developers thought the player knew, because they surely had told them in earlier drafts. But I can still feel what this game was going for, and the heart of it, which is why I like it, I guess. It’s actually a pretty hot debate–of which game is better in people’s eyes: this one or XIII–and I can get both sides of the argument. I like both. And as I’ve said above… as there’s always a camp that loves and hates every Final Fantasy game, there are those who despise XV: for they see how messy its story was… or don’t like the gameplay (as it probably is the most removed from how FF games usually play) or the setting… and some even weren’t big on how dark this game still was, and didn’t think it felt like a FF to them for that reason. 

Yep.

And if you actually got to this point, I thank you… and I’m also sorry for all of this.

Edit: I should also probably mention that originally, most Final Fantasy games had medieval settings (and for this reason, there are those who think all FF games should be this). But they sort of moved away from that with VII and VIII. And since VII is the majority’s favorite, there are those who are more than okay with FF not being medieval. So to keep both camps happy, these days you usually have a few games that are medieval (back to basics) and then a few that aren’t. Rinse and repeat. Since XIII and XV weren’t medieval, that probably means XVI will be. And if the “Agni’s Philosophy” trailers are secretly FFXVI, like some think, that definitely looks medieval. And there was maybe some FFXVI artwork leaked recently, that looks medieval. And many are thinking the director of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn will be directing XVI–he’s said he’d be willing to do it–and I know he’s said he’d want to turn Final Fantasy to medieval, if he were to do a XVI. So, yeah…

Edit 2: And back to the “FF died when Squaresoft became Square Enix and Sakaguchi left the company” camp, another reason some feel this way is Uematsu. If I recall correctly, he composed all the music for I-IX–and I think did the “To Zanarkand” track for X–but I think he also left the company after IX. So his departure is another reason some think the series truly died then. -shrugs-

[soybeantree]

be careful what others wish for pt. 3

pairing: erm…ofc/mark, ofc/jinyoung, markjin…kind of parts: o1 | o2 | o3 genre/rating: LITERALCRACK! fluff. word count: 4.8k    a/n: so this is the sequel to this story here. not completely necessary to read the first story. basically bodies get swapped and craziness ensues. italics is spoken korean.

The stewardess came over the intercom to announce that the plane would be landing soon. Dee sat up and adjusted her chair, so it was in the full upright position. She couldn’t believe she would be back in Korea soon. Yugyeom had managed to get them on a flight that next day. So after a few hours of sleep, she and Mark had headed to the airport for their not so few hours of flying. She had tried to get some extra hours of sleep during the flight, but her brain was hyper aware of the fact that Mark Tuan’s soul sat right next to her.

He did not seem to have the same problem she had and slept like a baby through the whole flight. She supposed it was because he was used to life on a plane. She had only been on a handful of flights in her life and had yet to master the art of sleeping on a plane.

The stewardess came, startling Mark. He apologized and sat up adjusting his seat as well. “We’re here.” Dee nodded and glanced out the window. Lights spread out below them, illuminating the city. Mark leaned over her to look out as well, and Dee caught her breath at the closeness. She could tell her mind that the body was Jay’s a thousand times, but her brain still knew it was Mark. “How does it feel to be back?” Mark asked as he sat back in his chair. “Good.” She paused. “And strange. I never thought I’d make it back, so I’m happy that I have. But at the same time I wish the circumstances were different.” She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. Her emotions were a jumbled mess, and she couldn’t tell how she felt about any of this. She wanted to sit down with Jay in Jay’s body and talk everything out. “I’m excited you’re back because once we switch back, I can keep my promise.” Mark beamed. “What?” “Before you left, I told you the next time you came to Korea that we would spend the day together in our own bodies.” “Oh, right.” She had pushed the conversation to the back of her mind and tried to forget it. The lingering hope of his promise hurt too much because she was certain she would never make it back. Goosebumps covered her flesh at the mere idea of him fulfilling his promise, but she chose to ignore them. “Dee?” The girl glanced over at Mark, and the expression in his eyes captured her. “Why did you stop messaging me?” Dee froze, her mind going blank. She had hoped to avoid this question and this conversation and had thought she was safe when Mark failed to bring it up during their time together. For a month or so after the switch, she and Mark had messaged back and forth, meaningless things, asking about the weather, how they were adjusting after everything. The messages slowly died out. It had been months since the last time she had messaged him. “Life went on.” She lied. “I fell back into my old routine. Work became more hectic. Same for you, I’m guessing.” She forced herself to smile, to pretend, but her farce failed. Mark held her gaze, forcing her to look away. She blinked a couple times to keep herself from crying. It had to be time to land and leave this increasingly suffocating place. “Dee?” “What do you want me to say?” She faced him again. “Huh? You stopped messaging me too, Mark. Why was that? I’m sure it’s the same reason I stopped messaging you.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Everything that happened that day was ridiculous and impossible and neither of us had any control over it. We had to live through it together, but when that ridiculous situation ended, we both realized we had no place in each other’s lives. I couldn’t cling to some stupid fantasy of something happening between us. You didn’t need another fan girl, and it was already hard enough to say good-bye. I let it end there, and so did you.” Her eyes never left Mark’s, and for the first time, she was glad he was in her friend’s body. If she had to watch his true face fall the way Jay’s did, she would not have been able to handle it. The wheels touched down and the force threw them both forward, cutting off any response Mark might have had.

Sitting in the baggage check, Jay switched between watching the arrivals board and the doors which the new arrivals passed through. Jinyoung had accompanied her to the airport and sat beside her, a mask and sunglasses hiding his face. Jay sported both as well, ignoring the discomfort. She knew the importance of anonymity and had no desire to be mobbed by fans at the airport or cause a scene for Got7.

Jinyoung leaned forward resting his elbows on his knees and folding his hands under his chin. Jay watched him from the corner of her eye. As her mind drifted back to the conversation they had had before coming to the airport. She had spent most of the day locked up in Mark’s room because technically the idol didn’t have to be anywhere, and it was easier than pretending to be him. By the afternoon though, Jinyoung had decided that she needed to get out and eat. They had gone to a small restaurant a few streets down from Mark’s apartment. The conversation had been light and friendly until Jinyoung told her, “You’re Korean has gotten a lot better.” The statement had stood on the fence between a statement of fact and a question, and Jay had chosen to take it as a question. “Well, when you spend your days living in fear that one day you’ll wake up in a Taiwanese Kpop stars body, you tend to take precautions.” Her voice was supposed to have sounded carefree and upbeat, but exhaustion had seeped in. “You were afraid it would happen again?” She shrugged. “You never mentioned that before?” The before he referred to was the weeks following the incident.

After Mark gave her Jinyoung’s number, they had messaged back and forth. Mostly, the messages were Jay explaining what had happened, as she had promised she would, and Jinyoung asking questions about the incident. “I didn’t really talk about it with anybody. Not that I could. I doubt there are many people with similar experiences.” The conversation led her back to those early days. “What happened?” His voice was soft and soothing. Jay had leaned back in her chair. “I had nightmares those first couple weeks. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and have to go through a full body check before I could calm down and go back to sleep. After a while, I could just tell myself I was me, and it’d be okay. Then the nightmares came less frequently. They actually just stopped coming. I think I had my last one two months ago.” She had paused, searching through her memories. It really had only been a few months. “I suppose they’ll come back now though.” She sighed as her mind slowly returned to the present. Jinyoung nodded along, saying nothing as she shared the aftermath of her experience. “Mark didn’t go through anything similar?” She asked. A head shake answered the question. “If he did, he never said. Mark’s quiet.” “I can understand that. I didn’t really tell Dee any of this either.” “Really?” Brows rose. “I thought you two were closer.” “We’re probably too close.” Jay had chuckled. “But when it comes to things like this… I don’t know. I tend to keep things like this to myself until I’ve figured them out. I know I shouldn’t. That I should talk to others and lean on them for support but-” She had paused and glanced over at Jinyoung. His eyes had held her firmly in his gaze. All of his attention was hers. She had swallowed and looked away. “Anyways. We should probably getting going. It’s a bit of a drive and their plane will be landing soon.” Pushing herself up, she had started towards the doors, but Jinyoung didn’t follow. Glancing back, she found him still in his chair with his eyes still on her. She had blinked at him and motioned for him to follow, but he didn’t move. With a sigh, she had backtracked and come to stand over him. “Why aren’t you coming?” “You did this last time too.” “Did what?” Jinyoung had glanced up at her through his lashes, and Jay had had to tell Mark’s heart to chill. “When our conversations became more personal, you stopped talking. Why?” His voice had cut through her, and the look in his eyes had left her speechless. When she had stopped messaging Jinyoung, she had thought the idol would be relieved. Her messages had always been long ramblings. Meeting his eyes, she told him the truth. “I’m not stupid,Jinyoung.” “I never-” She had held up a hand to stop him. If he wanted the answer, he had to let her talk because if she stopped, she would never start again. She would bury everything so deep that even she couldn’t find it again. “As I was saying, I’m not stupid Jinyoung or naive. Yes, I’m loud and ridiculous and go off on weird tangents, and I know people think I can’t be serious, but I’m firmly rooted in reality. And the reality of this situation is that I have a huge crush on you. You’re my bias and have always been. For goodness sake, we’re in this whole mess because I made a stupid wish to spend the day with you. However, despite how I feel about you, I know that nothing is ever going to happen between us. Putting aside the fact that you’re an idol and I’m not and that we live in two completely different countries, you’re-” She paused as she searched for the right words. “You’re a crackling fire, Jinyoung, and I’m a firecracker. And I know that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense - like I said tangents - but it’s the truth. You deserve to be with someone calm and level headed who can offer you good advice and support. And I deserve… to probably spend my life with a goat because it’s the only thing louder and more obnoxious than me.” Jay had paused as she let her mind catch up with her mouth. “In the end though none of my reasons matter because even if I like you there’s no way that you could like me because of my aforementioned reason. So when we were talking and I found myself falling even harder for you, I put an end to it before I could embarrass myself or hurt myself.” Jinyoung said nothing when she finished her tirade for which she had been grateful. She hadn’t wanted him to make some half-assed attempt to make her feel better. Not that she really thought he would have. The idol was too straight forward for that. “We should get going.” She had walked off again, and this time, she hadn’t waited for him to follow.

Now they sat together in awkward silence as they waited for their friends to arrive. She was ready for this whole experience to be over, and if she had to pour concrete into that damn wishing well to ensure this would never happen again, she would.

The arrivals board flashed to show that Mark and Dee’s flight had landed, and Jay stood up and walked closer to the arrival doors. If Jinyoung followed her, she didn’t know. The first rush of people flooded through the doors, but Jay didn’t recognize herself or her best friend in the flow. She used every ounce of Mark’s height to her advantage as she stood on her tiptoes to scan over heads. “There they are.” They were the first words Jinyoung had uttered since their meal. Jay glanced to where his finger pointed, and nearly cried out with relief. Dee stood next to her body, glancing around. Rather than waving them over, Jay took off through the crowd. Her arms were around Dee before the girl new what happened. Her friend struggled against the hold and shoved her off. “What the he-” But realization dawned on her as her mind placed the body.  “You really shouldn’t just run up to me like that. I am in no way used to you in this body.” Jay chuckled before turning to Mark. “Do you think it’s okay if we hug?” Mark moved her head from side to side before smiling and nodding. She threw her arms around her body and nearly cried. “I’ve missed you so much.” She whispered. “I’ve missed you too, Jay.” “I wasn’t talking to you Mark. I was talking to my body.” Mark stiffened in her embrace, but she was done with the hug anyway. Pulling back, she scanned him from head to toe before circling him. “What are you doing?” Mark spun during her observations. “I’m making sure my body is still in good condition.” “What do you think I would have done to it?” The two continued to bicker as Jinyoung approached Dee and gave her a gentle hug. “Welcome back to Korea. I’m sorry for the reason though.” Crinkles peaked out from the sides of his sunglasses, hinting at a smile. Dee sighed and nodded. “Thank you. I hope Jay hasn’t been causing too much trouble.” Jinyoung stiffened but shook his head. Dee registered the reaction but chose to keep her silence. The two turned to watch their friends who were still bickering. “Were they like this last time, too?” “Worse actually.” Jinyoung side eyed Dee, and she laughed. “Just be grateful that they’re bickering with each other instead of ganging up on us. Last time, I swore I’d kill them both. They were so annoying. That being said I’m leaving them with you while I go get our luggage?” Jinyoung started a reply, but Dee gave him a quick pat on the shoulder before scurrying away. “Are you both satisfied that your bodies are fine?” The two broke away from their argument to stare at Jinyoung. Jay’s spirit dimmed while Mark’s blazed. He smiled and threw his arms around his friend. The sight left a dull ache in Jay’s chest. She felt like she was disassociating but didn’t know if that was completely accurate for the situation. Yes, she was having an out of body experience, but she was quite literally out of her body. She continued to watch her body interact with Jinyoung and the ache deepened. She believed what she had told Jinyoung, and the truth only made the situation more painful to watch. When Dee returned with the luggage, Jay nearly kissed the girl, and for a moment wondered if Dee would mind. In the end, she had settled for giving her friend another hug and picking up her suitcase while Dee carried her own. The two headed out, leaving the boys to trail behind them.

The four piled into a taxi and headed for the JYPE building where Yugyeom was hiding out. True to his word, he had remained in hiding since the revelation of his role in the switch. The taxi ride was dead silent as each of the four sat lost in their thoughts. When the taxi pulled up to the building, Jay paid the driver while Jinyoung and Mark unloaded the luggage. They entered the building and headed up to the practice room where BamBam was waiting for them.

As they entered the room, BamBam stood up from a couch and came to stand before them. His eyes shifted between the four. Jay and Mark waited patiently for the younger man to process, though both were ready to jump him for his phone. “You’re really Mark?” He pointed at Jay’s body. Mark nodded. “I can prove it.” There was a gleam in his eyes that sent a shiver through BamBam. He shook his head. “It’s still so weird.” The body switchers glared at him, and he chuckled. “I suppose it is weirder for you two. Here stand together so I can take a picture and send it to Yugyeom.” The two moved closer together, and after a shared glance, both lifted up their middle finger to the camera. BamBam snorted as he snapped the picture. His fingers flew across the screen as he sent off the message. His part complete, BamBam turned towards Dee who hovered near the door, her hands grasped in front of her. “Hello, Dee,” he moved to stand in front of her. “It’s nice to meet you in person… again. Though I don’t really remember meeting you the first time. I’m sorry. It was a very busy day.” “It’s okay I understand. I don’t really remember meeting you either. It was a crazy day for all of us.” She smiled. BamBam’s phone buzzed, and four pairs of eyes were on him as he pulled it from his back pocket. “Yugyeom wants to meet Mark on the roof alone. If anybody comes with Mark, he’ll leave.” BamBam’s eyes scanned the screen as he relayed the message. The four exchanged glances as they mulled over Yugyeom’s request. “If it’s what he wants, and it’ll end this wish then whatever.” Jay said as she plopped onto the couch. Dee joined her friend on the couch, giving her agreement to the request. “I can always kill Yugyeom later.” Jinyoung smiled. Mark nodded at each of them and started out the door. He stopped on the threshold and glanced over his shoulder at the assembled crew. “I think it would be odd if me as Jay walked around the building alone.” Three sets of eyes fixed on BamBam who had gone back to his phone. Feeling the pressure of their gaze, he glanced up and gave them a half-hearted smile. “Fine. I’ll go.” The two left and made their way up to the roof.

A fierce wind blew as they stepped out onto the rooftop, and Mark tucked Jay’s hair behind his ears, but the wind plucked it out again and threw it in his face. He would be very happy once he was back in his own body. While there were some perks to being Jay, he much preferred to be himself. “Yugyeom! Where are you?” He shouted over the wind. BamBam huddled behind him. The younger boy had come up without a Jacket, and the winter wind was not gentle. “Come out before BamBam freezes to death!” A rustling sounded over the wind, and the two turned to find Yugyeom coming out from behind the roof access. Mark motioned for him to come closer, and the boy took a few hesitant steps toward them. “Yugyeom, I would like to be back in my body before tomorrow.”

Closing the distance, Yugyeom glanced at the girl who said she was his hyung. “You’re really Mark?” “Do you remember back during our trainee days when you used to stay up late watching Dramas in the practice rooms instead of practicing, and one time an instructor caught you and you lied and said you were practicing with me and ended up calling me at 3 in the morning to cover for you?” Yugyeom blushed and nodded his head. “You said you owed me a favor. Now, you owe me two favors.” Yugyeom spluttered, but Mark raised a brow and thinned his lips. He knew how intimidating Jay could be. The younger boy quieted. “Okay, hyung.” He mumbled. “But how do I finish the wish.” “BamBam introduce us.” The shivering idol glanced between the two but nodded. “Yugyeom, this is Mark as a girl. Mark as a girl, this is Yugyeom.” Mark extended Jay’s hand which Yugyeom grasped, but Mark never felt the warmth of his touch. He lost all sense as his vision faded to black.

“Hyung!” “Hyung!” Two voices desperately screamed. The noise pounded against Jay’s already aching skull. She scrunched up her face and buried it deep in the warmth which embraced her. Arms held her tightly pressed to a chest. As she inhaled, she caught a heady scent of cologne. Sniffing again, she relaxed into the embrace, content to stay there forever if not for the shouting. “Can you please shut up?” She growled. The voices stopped, and she smiled. “You’re not hyung anymore are you?” Yugyeom. Her mind registered the voice, and slowly afterward, the question. Her eyes creaked open, and she found herself staring up at Yugyeom as he cradled her against his chest. The idol gazed down at her, his face the picture of confusion. She nodded in answer to his question. “Are you Jay?” She nodded again. “Are you going to kill me?” She nodded a third time. His Adam’s apple bobbed slowly. “Don’t worry.” She patted his face. “You get to run. I’m gonna kill you, but you get to run.” Yugyeom dropped her, and she flailed as she crashed to the ground. Pushing herself up, she found the rooftop lacked one Kim Yugyeom and that the door to the access shed was swinging. “Are you really going to kill him?” BamBam asked.   Jay stood up, brushed herself off, and rolled her head from left to right until she heard the satisfying pop. “Yes.” And she was off. Even with his head start and long legged stride, Yugyeom was no match for Jay’s fury filled sprint. She caught up to him as he sped down an empty hallway towards an exit. Pumping her legs, she pushed herself forward and leaped onto the maknae’s back. The force thrust him forward, and he stumbled over his legs as he tumbled back and crashed on the ground. Jay clung to him the whole way down even as her back hit the floor. Her legs were wrapped around his torso and her arms locked in a vice grip around his neck. “What the hell were you thinking?” Jay hissed as Yugyeom struggled against her hold. His nails dug into her arm, but she ignored the pain. “Do you think it’s fun to be in someone else’s body?” Gasps were his only response. And that’s how BamBam with the other three in tow found them. Dee rushed to the maknae’s rescue, but Jinyoung held up a hand. “We can leave them a little longer.” “I’m not letting my friend go to jail for murdering that idiot.” She pushed past his arm. “Jay let him go.” She threatened. Her friend immediately unclenched her arms and legs. Yugyeom gasped for air before collapsing back on Jay who lay beneath him panting. “You’re heavy.” She growled as she pushed him off. Whatever protest Yugyeom had was curbed by the threat in Jay’s eyes. Dee extended a hand, helping her friend up while BamBam attended to the idol. “I take it everyone is back in their respective bodies?” Dee glanced between the affected who both nodded. “Good.” She sighed and nearly collapsed from relief. “You’re scarier than Jinyoung.” Yugyeom rasped, rubbing at his throat. “Damn straight I am.”

“No, she’s not.” Jay and Jinyoung’s responses overlapped each other, and the two eyed the other. “I’m much scarier than you.” Jay taunted, flipping her hair back. Jinyoung snorted and smirked at her. “I am putting a stop to this before it starts. Mark and I have had a long day, and I just want to eat and go to sleep.” Dee said. The collective agreed.

Much to Dee’s chagrin all six went to dinner together. She had hoped for a quiet evening with just her and Jay to debrief on everything and allow her time to recover from her conversation with Mark. However, Yugyeom had insisted on taking them all out to dinner after Jinyoung had politely suggested the idea to him. Mark sat to her right, and the full force of his presence in his body left her breathless and dizzy. She had only been around Mark in his body for a few minutes the last time which had been flustering enough. Having his arm constantly brush against hers made concentration impossible. Jay seemed to have a similar problem. The normally boisterous girl sat mutely across from Dee with Jinyoung to her left. She huddled into herself avoiding all contact with the idol. Dee wished she had the same luxury, but with Yugyeom to her left, she was scrunched between the idols. A chair separated Jay from BamBam, and with the way Jay was eyeing it, Dee wouldn’t be surprised if her friend switched seats. “How did you two meet?” Yugyeom disrupted Dee’s attempt to catch her friend’s attention. She turned towards the younger man, and as she did her shoulder brushed Mark’s. With steadfast resolution, she ignored her physical reaction and answered the question. “We met in college. We lived across from each other in the dorms.” “And you’ve been friend’s ever since?” Yugyeom continued. Dee nodded. Through thick and thin, for better or worse, they had remained friends.

“How did you two get into Kpop?” BamBam asked, and immediately regretted. Jay came out of her stupor to glare the boy into remorse. “Why do you always do this to me?” He pouted.   “It’s not just you. She does it to me too.” Dee chuckled. “She did it to our manager too.” Mark added leaning forward on the table. “When I went to the airport last time to say goodbye he came with him, and Jay scared him so much he thought she was possessed by a demon.” Everyone chuckled at that while Jay blushed. “Well, after he screamed my ear off, he deserved it, and you two-” She pointed between BamBam and Yugyeom. “Deserve it for all the trouble you’ve caused.” The two in question bowed their heads and apologized for the thousandth time. “Jinyoung-hyung, has she ever glared at you?” Yugyeom asked, bouncing back from his scolding. Jinyoung sat back in his chair, so his gaze could encompass all of Jay. She stilled under his gaze, and Dee watched the two. Her friend should have been boasting about her ability to scare even the most stalwart of people, but under the idol’s gaze she was mute. Jinyoung’s eyes traced the outline of Jay’s face before coming to rest on her eyes. The pressure of his gaze became too much for Jay, and the girl raised her eyes to meet his. The whole interaction happened in seconds, and the others around the table missed it, but Dee filed it away for later. “No, she hasn’t, and I don’t think her glare would work on me.” A thin smile slipped across his lips. Dee waited for her friend’s rebuttal, but it never came. Instead her friend, shrugged her shoulders and sipped at her water. The reaction dropped the smile from Jinyoung’s face. Before anyone could say anything else, the food arrived. Mark grabbed Dee’s from the waiter and placed it in front of her before grabbing utensils from the center of the table and passing them to her. She thanked him and stared at the food. Earlier her stomach had been on the verge of eating itself, but now she found herself with no appetite. Mark didn’t seem to have the same problem. He wolfed down his food as he laughed and joked with his friends, explaining all the weird things that came along with being a girl.

Jay watched her friend pick at her food. She wanted to lunge across the table and shove the food in her mouth or at least hint to Mark that he should romantically feed her friend, but she did neither. Rather she watched her friend. Something had happened. That had been obvious since the ride from the airport, but the two had yet to have a moment alone to talk about it. “What do you two want to do while your here?” Yugyeom turned the conversation back to the girls. “Sleep.” Was Dee’s weary reply. Jay nodded with her, switching bodies was exhausting. “What about after that?” He asked around a mouthful of meat.

“Are we going to have time to do anything?” Dee questioned. “What time is our flight tomorrow?” The maknae blinked. “Tomorrow? You’re return flight isn’t until after the new year.” Dee’s jaw went slack. Jay just started laughing, a small delicate laugh with the potential to turn manic. Yugyeom’s eyes darted between the two as his mind raced to read the situation. “What? I thought you two would want to stay and celebrate the new year.” He whined, his lower lip jutting out. Dee sighed, the movement making her shoulder’s fall. “That was very thoughtful, Yugyeom. Jay and I have always wanted to spend the new year abroad. Thank you for providing us the opportunity.” Her words mollified the boy who smiled with relief. “This works out perfectly. Now, I can keep my promise.” Mark beamed down at Dee who paled at the prospect. Mark appeared oblivious to the girl’s reaction and re-joined his conversation with Jinyoung.

[takerfoxx]

As it so happens, my unplanned little rant about the Lego Movie sequel kinda ends up being a great jumping-off point, as here is another little rant that I’ve actually been working on and off ever since that discussion about grimdark deconstructions and how to and not to do them, mainly to just get it off my chest all in one go.

See, I (obviously) like darker stories, but like everyone else I got my storytelling pet peeves. And the biggest one is something I’ve talked about here and there, something that I call Redshirt Philosophy. Basically, this refers to the narrative treating the protagonists as the only ones whose lives matter, and any nameless passerby and/or walk-on is free game. By this, I don’t mean that it’s bad to only kill bystanders and side-characters while sparing the mains, I’m saying that it’s bad to treat those deaths like they don’t matter and that they happen with no consequences.

But there’s a sub-category of that that pisses me off even more: the concept of the Unintentional Karma Houdini. Basically, a Karma Houdini is someone who does something really bad and gets away with it. They go upon their merry way suffering no repercussions.

Now, in of itself, this isn’t a bad plot device, and it can be done well if it’s intentional to make a point. However, when a character who is supposed to be the hero does something bad and it’s not treated as something bad, or if it’s just brushed off with no consequences, or if the bad guys switches sides but is never held accountable in any way for their heinous acts…then yeah, that really gets to me.

So without further ado, here’s my list of good guys who did bad things badly and it still pisses me off!

Warning: the following contains spoilers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, Warcraft 3, Elfen Lied, Future Diary, Game of Thrones, and Angel. Yes, I will be saying some bad things about most of those. So...take that for what it’s worth.

1. Protagonists who did bad things and were either treated as being in the right or at least insufficiently called out, but I am still a fan of the series and even still like the character. It’s just that these incidents kind of stick in my craw.

A. Buffy’s “Everyone but Me Sucks” speech, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I’m starting off with the least offensive incident, as well as the most understandable, even if I still think it was bad writing. Okay, some quick background: in season 7, the Big Bad known as the First Evil starts sending its henchmen to wipe out the entire Slayer line by killing off all the girls who had the potential to become the next Vampire Slayer when the current one died (which, due to a weird loophole, actually wasn’t Buffy, but she still had her powers and shit). Anyway, all the surviving potentials get together and go to Buffy for help, who takes them into her house to shelter them and train them to defend themselves, even though they didn’t have any supernatural power.

Now, the thing about the First Evil was that it couldn’t become corporeal and interact directly with our world, which is why it had to work through agents. However, it could take on the form of anyone that had died to speak to people, just not actually touch them. Which meant that it could still appear in Buffy’s house to fuck with the gang, which it did.

The worst incident is when they noticed that a girl named Chloe was late in coming to breakfast, so they went to her room to wake her up. But upon entering, they find Chloe’s body hanging from the ceiling, with another Chloe standing next to her. It turned out that the First Evil had been speaking to her all night, slowly twisting her around and finally convinced her to kill herself.

Naturally, everyone is shocked and horrified. Buffy buries the body by herself in the back and then calls everyone together for a meeting. From there, she has this to say about their recently departed friend.

“Anyone want to say a few words about Chloe? Let me. Chloe was an idiot. Chloe was stupid. She was weak. And anyone in a rush to be the next dead body I bury, it's easy. Just...think of Chloe, and do what she did.”

She then proceeds to ream everyone for hiding behind her and letting her do all the work, giving them the “Get your shit together or die” speech. Of course everyone is offended and angry, but over the course of the next few episodes they start doing just that: pulling themselves together and becoming more proactive in the fight. All well and good; after all, sometimes leaders have to be harsh and tell people exactly what they need to hear to save their lives. It ain’t always going to be pretty, and you do sometimes need to be mean, especially when it’s a matter of life or death. I’m sure commanders out in the field have often had to make similar speeches to their surviving men, especially after one of them cracked and took the easy way out.

There’s…just a couple problems with the execution here.

See, this is the last we ever hear about Chloe. She freaks out, kills herself, and gets verbally bashed by the person she went to for help. And that’s that. She straight up loses, and that’s that. And call me a softie, but I have a real problem with introducing a terrified girl, have her get mentally tortured by the literal embodiment of Evil itself to the point where she takes her own life, and having the final word on her in the whole show be…that. And from the main character no less! It goes back to the whole disposable victim thing, which is funny, considering that the whole reason the show even existed was because Joss Whedon would always feel sorry for the cheerleader who would get killed off at the start of schlocky monster movies and wanted to see them fight back and kick the monster’s ass. Understandable, but it’s weird that that same trope would get used over and over again in his own show, all to make the monster of the week look scary. And again! There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but it’s kind of noticeable when you have a kid’s head explode in one episode and have Buffy just make a joke about it, have a girl get her heart torn out in another and have her supposed best friend mention their bond all of once right after and then forget all about her, and then there’s the whole thing with Jesse in the first episode and…well, you get the idea. Joss, man, what are you doing?

But this wasn’t just a monster tearing out some teenager’s throat out. This was a suicide, followed by a verbal condemnation of the victim. Which, in a real life setting, wouldn’t be as much of a problem, but the fact of the matter is that no matter how much reality you want to inject into your fantasy show about vampires, ghosts, and robotic internet demons (look it up), your show does not exist in a vacuum. It wasn’t just the characters hearing that speech, it was thousands of people all over the world. And if you’re going to tackle a subject such as suicide, then you have to be really, really careful about how you handle it. Did it never occur to the writers that there might be people in their audience struggling with suicidal thoughts themselves, who were constantly told that their problems were all their fault, that they were being a burden, or maybe some of them had actually attempted it, failed, and were all called weak, useless, stupid, what have you?

Interestingly enough, I recently stumbled across an old Buffy message board, which had a thread debating this very topic. And it was pretty fascinating reading the various viewpoints, with many agreeing with me that the writers kinda dropped the ball here, especially since there were many points in the series where Buffy also gave up, succumbed to fear and despair, and even attempted to end her life. Plus, she wasn’t nearly so vicious when the First Evil nearly convinced Angel to kill himself in an earlier season. Others were of the opinion that while harsh, it was something that needed to be said, and that Chloe’s actions were cowardly and selfish considering what it would do to her friends. Plus, given the immense amount of pressure Buffy was under with all the trauma she had already suffered, snapping like that was perfectly understandable. And I can’t lie, I do see where both sides were coming from.

I guess my main problem with this episode wasn’t that the speech itself happened, but that it ended up being the final word on Chloe, which was pretty messed up.

So what would I have done differently? Well, if we must keep the speech, then fine. Have Buffy slag her off to motivate everyone to get their shit together. However, don’t let that be the final thing that’s said about the terrified girl who was manipulated and intimidated into committing suicide.

Earlier in the episode, it’s mentioned that Chloe had been a big fan of Winnie the Pooh, something that the First Evil used to taunt her friends. So, after the speech, after the fight and whatever it was that everyone did to get their heads into the game, just stick in another scene, one that’s just a few seconds long, where, when nobody’s watching, Buffy goes into the backyard and just leaves a Winnie the Pooh doll on Chloe’s grave, indicating that she did feel bad for her but had to say what she did. That’s it, that little bit of empathy is all I ask.

B. Hermione Granger’s scarring of Marietta Edgecombe in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Ho boy, this is a complicated one.

All right. So, Order of the Phoenix is my favorite of the Harry Potter books, mainly owing to Dolores Umbridge being a brilliantly written character in just how incredibly scummy she is, and the whole plot of her versus the school was just gold. And…kind of topical, now that I think about it.

But anyway, though it’s my favorite of the books, it also has my least favorite scene. Quick background: Umbridge has taken over the school and pretty much nixed Defense Against the Dark Arts, which is now needed more than ever. To counter this, Harry and co. take it upon themselves to start teaching it to the students. They form a group called Dumbledore’s Army and make their hideout in a magical room hidden from Umbridge and her minions to practice. However, someone sells them out, the room is raided, everyone is caught, and Harry is rushed to Umbridge’s office to be interrogated.

There, it’s revealed that the traitor was one Marietta Edgecombe, best friend of Harry’s girlfriend Cho Chang. This is discovered because Hermione had hexed the contract she had everyone sign to cause pus-filled blisters write out the word SNEAK across her face, something that apparently none of the brilliant and experienced wizards they got teaching at Hogwarts can remove. In fact, her final scene in the series shows her wearing a veil over her face to hide it.

Of course the heroes get out of their predicament in the end, but it pretty much destroys Harry and Cho’s relationship, as Harry is understandably a little peeved about that whole betraying him and his friends to a sadistic fascist thing and felt that Hermione’s hex had been brilliant, while Cho sticks up for her, saying that she’s actually a good person who had been the only one of her friends to stick with her after the murder of her previous boyfriend Cedric Diggory, and she had just made a (big) mistake, given that she hadn’t even wanted to join the DA in the first place and didn’t trust Harry to begin with, given that her mother worked for the Ministry of Magic, which wasn’t exactly keen on Harry at that point. Plus, she was kinda put out that Hemione had hexed them all without telling them, so basically they fight and break up.

Anyway, this in itself wouldn’t be much of an issue. A bit character that we barely know sells the good guys out, gets humiliated in return, and the good guys prevail in the end. What makes this something of a sticking point for me is due to one of the first of the many controversial social media canon details that JK Rowling would become infamous for dropping: that the blisters would indeed leave permanent scarring, and that she feels that this is wholly justified, given that she, and I quote, “Loathes a traitor.”

Okay.

There is…a lot to unpack here, and it has become even more divisive in the fandom than the Chloe thing I mentioned above. One camp holds that while betraying the DA was a rotten thing to do, the hex still crosses the line, given that scarring a sixteen year old for life for one mistake is really messed up, that she hadn’t even wanted to join the DA in the first place but had been pressured into it, that given that she had a parent in the Ministry of Magic she was probably subject to a lot of anti-Harry propaganda and genuinely thought he was a bad person, and that she had probably been singled out by Umbridge and interrogated, likely with her mother’s job being threatened. The flipside argues that she had to know that she still sold everyone out to a sadistic fascist, that Hermione was a minor herself and isn’t subject to the same rules that an adult would be, that Umbridge’s perchance for torture was well established at that point, that she had to know that her friend Cho would be punished with everyone else, and that teenager or no, there is no excuse for supporting someone like Umbridge. I mean, Hitler Youth and all that.

To tell the truth, like the Chloe thing above, I can see where both sides are coming from. On the one hand, I can see how someone like Marietta could be led to believe that Harry was trouble and feel that she was endangering her family by associating with him. Plus, we have no idea what the circumstances surrounding her betrayal were, though given Rowling’s words on the topic I guess Umbridge didn’t have to probe hard. On the other, she did sell out everyone to get pretty much tortured, so that deserved some kind of retribution, so good points all around.

But that’s not really where I personally have a problem. My problem is that Rowling’s addendum on the whole affair goes against the rules of the world she created, and even the themes of the book itself. Also, if Rowling wanted us to agree with her, then she fucked up the execution.

First, let’s take the bit where it the blisters left permanent scars. This is a world where they can make bones grow back, inflate bodies like a balloon without doing permanent harm, and where even mutilations are temporary (if painful) inconveniences. The only thing that can cause permanent damage is Dark Magic, hence Harry’s scar.

So…how exactly does Hermione’s hex permanently scar Marietta then?

Jumping off that, this isn’t the only instance of permanent scarring in that book. One of the many horrible things Umbridge did to students was force them to write lines with a magic pen that literally carved out those lines into their skin, resulting in Harry picking up a new scar that read I MUST NOT TELL LIES. The fact that this scar can’t be removed with magic is one of the many clues that Umbridge is more than just a pompous asshole and had dealings with something darker.

Look, I’m not saying that the two situations are a one-to-one parallel, but it just feels kind of uncomfortable for the book to treat magically scarring kids as something horrible and unforgiveable (which it is!), only to laud one of the heroes for doing it right after, regardless of circumstances. It…just doesn’t sit right.

Plus, you know, there is the point that when you get down to it, the hex is kind of a problem in of itself. Like Cho pointed out, putting it on everyone without telling them is a little messed up, and it makes it completely useless as a deterrent. Why not use a tongue-tying spell or something? Then again, logic was never really the series’ appeal.

And finally, how the hell are we supposed to feel righteous indignation about a character that gets zero lines, just sort of hovers in the background, and has a character we already know to be sympathetic defend her? With Umbridge we had ample on-page reason to hate her, but we never get to see her finally get her just rewards in the end. The Malfoys are all sorts of horrible throughout the books, but other than some humiliation they apparently come through it unscathed. So really, this whole thing just feels weird.

How to fix? Simple. JUST DON’T PUT IN THE PART ABOUT PERMANENT SCARRING!!! All the rest about the hex can be written off as Hermione just not thinking things through. And without the scars, it sort of works. Marietta still gets paid back for her betrayal but isn’t disfigured for life, and the whole things becomes a lot less uncomfortable.

Hell, why not take advantage of the situation? Give Marietta some character growth, bring her back to redeem herself like they did with Percy, and he was way worse. Hell, Snape was downright monstrous, and he was made out to be this tragic redemption story.

Sigh. I know the movies get a lot of flak for the stuff they’ve changed, but switching things so that Cho was magically compelled to give up the secret and sidestepping the issue entirely was a good idea.

2. Heroic (or at least, portrayed as sympathetic) characters who cross the line so thoroughly that I now loath them and am infuriated whenever I think about them, but I am still a big fan of the rest of the series they appear in.

A. Tyrande Whisperwind’s slaughter of the Watchers to free Illidan Stormrage, from Warcraft 3: The Reign of Chaos.

Yeah…fuck this character.

All right, this happens pretty deep into the plot, so here’s the cliffnotes: demons are invading the world, and the remnants of civilization need to put aside their differences to stop them. In particular, the priestess Tyrande and her husband Malfurion, the Arch-Druid, set out to awaken their people’s sleeping druids for reinforcements. But while delving into the cave where said druids are napping, they come across a strange locked door. It turns out that the door leads to the prison of Illidan Stormrage, Malfurion’s traitor brother, who was imprisoned for turning on the Night Elves due to his lust for magical power. Tyrande has the brilliant idea that they should free Illidan to help fight the demons, BECAUSE THAT TOTALLY SOUNDS LIKE A SWELL IDEA! Malfurion says no, Tyrande tell him that she’s gonna do it anyway, and fucks off to do just that.

Beyond the door, she’s confronted by the Watchers, a group of Night Elves and their forest allies who had been entrusted with defending Illidan’s prison, who respectfully inform her that they will not waver in their duty and she does not have the authority to say otherwise.

So…she slaughters them.

All of them.

She wanted to free a dangerous traitor, the guards said no, and she kills them for it.

Yeah. That is a thing that happens.

But hey! Illidan is free now, and he agrees to fight the demons for her. And wouldn’t you know it, on day one he manages to destroy a powerful demonic artifact that was corrupting the forest and kill Tichondrius, one of the demons’ primary leaders, so that worked out!

…a pity that his lust for power took over and he absorbed all of the artifact’s power, turning him into a monstrous demonic beast and leading to Tyrande and Malfurion to become so horrified that they imprison him once again.

…nah, just kidding. They banish him, basically freeing him to do as he pleases. And as it turns out, what he pleases ends up being summon up a bunch of monsters from the depths and use them to strike at Night Elf villages, massacring its inhabitants.

Good job, Tyrande. You really know how to pick ‘em.

But you know what’s worse? You know what takes this whole ordeal from a massive fuck-up to completely killing any possible redemption for the character for me? As it turned out, Maiev Shadowsong, the leader of the Watchers, was out on patrol at the time and narrowing missed being murdered off with the others. And when she got back and found her friends dead and her prisoner freed, she gathered up what remained of the Watchers and immediately set off after Illidan.

Well, she finds him, but he and his new allies prove to be too much, so she calls for help. And Malfurion and Tyrande answer, with Tyrande even admitting that the whole thing was her fault and thus it was her responsibility to fix! Okay, okay, it’s a step in the right direction. Doesn’t really make up for what she did, but at least she’s…

Oh wait. Maiev calls her out on pretty much everything, and Tyrande’s response is, and I QUOTE, “I did what I thought was right. You are in no position to judge me.”

…

Oh, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bitch, YOU MURDERED HER FRIENDS! YOU FREED ILLIDAN, WHO HAS SINCE MASSACRED YOUR OWN PEOPLE! SHE HAS EVERY RIGHT TO JUDGE YOU!

Hell, waaaaaaaaay back earlier in the series, the human prince Arthas kills all the inhabitants of a city call Stratholme, all whom had recently become infected with the Undead plague, and it’s treated as his moral even horizon, the point where there’s no turning back from his descent into evil. Except…while terrible, he at least had a very good reason for doing what he did. Those people were literally moments away from turning into zombies, and there was no way to save them. Whereas Tyrande causes the deaths of even more innocent lives, whether directly or indirectly, but it’s treated as, at worse, as a whoopsie-daisy on her part. Meanwhile, Maiev is made out to be this revenge-obsessed extremist.

So…yeah. Fuck Tyrande. And hey, I still kind of like him, but fuck Malfurion too for letting it slide.

B. Just about everything about Lucy from Elfen Lied.

All right, cards on the table: of all my favorite anime/manga, Elfen Lied is easily the most flawed. The violence is beyond gratuitous, the nudity is sometimes downright silly in how nonsensical it is, the plot is completely inconsequential, and the sudden mood changes aren't exactly gracefully done.

Still, I’ve always had a soft spot for schlock that embraces its own schlockiness, and it has enough of my personal favorite tropes to make me love it. Hell, it was my freaking avatar for the longest time!

That being said, I do have one major issue with it, and that is the central character: Lucy.

Yes, the chick whose eye used to be my avatar.

I hate Lucy.

Why? Because she’s a psychotic serial killer who’s graphically murdered hundreds of innocent people out of pure sadistic nihilism. One of her first acts upon coming into her powers is to kill a random family just so she could hide out in their house, and that’s when she was a child. There’s a scene that establishes that she’s mastered the art of giving passersby brain aneurysms just so she can murder more effectively without drawing attention to herself. She tears Kouta’s family apart, including his little sister, because she was jealous. She has a breakdown and massacres an entire festival full of people. One of her first acts upon regaining her memories and wandering off is to use that brain aneurysm thing to kill a passing girl…just for walking by!

And that’s just the stuff we see her doing on-screen!

Now granted, the series doesn’t make it out that she’s still somehow a good person, though they do portray her as sympathetic for…reasons, and even treats her like the hero in some parts. However, there is a scene in the anime where, upon learning all this, still forgives her and even kisses her! And yes, that includes learning that she’s the one who murdered his little sister! At least in the manga he tells her off and tries to make her promise not to kill anyone else! And she also gets a terrible death in the process, so there’s that.

But I guess most of my issues come from how others fans still try to stick up for her. I had a friend who once said that she was justified for everything because kid-Kouta lied about the gender of his cousin. Uh, yeah, nooooo. She’s a monster, end of.

Oh, what’s that? She has a tragic backstory of abuse and neglect? Well, whoop-dee-fuckin’-doo. Guess who else has the same? Just about every Batman villain, and most of them are portrayed as dangerous monsters! Except…for the ones who are cute girls. Huh, imagine that.

Wait, she had an alternate personality intrinsic to the Diclonius driving her to kill? Well, I’d just might buy that, except for one problem: Nana exists. Nana, another Diclonius who is shown having the same alternate personality issue but also fighting it off and goes through the whole series without ever killing anyone else, despite enduring even more horrible torture and abuse than Lucy! And that’s why Nana is a ball of love and delight and fully deserved her happy ending and fuck Lucy.

Although…just to be clear, I’m not talking about Nyu: the childish other alternate personality that Lucy reverts to as a result of her amnesia. Nyu’s great. Nyu’s adorable and innocent, and since the series treats her like her own character, I will too.

But yeah, Lucy’s an irredeemable monster and screw anyone who says otherwise. Man, that on top of how much of a mess this series was, why did I like it so much?

=looks down at my Nana-themed mousepad=

Oh yeah.

Thank God for Nana.

And finally…

3. Protagonists who did so many terrible things and were never held accountable for their actions that I stopped liking them entirely, actively rooted for their failure, and eventually stopped liking the series as a whole.

For this entry, there really is only one example: every single one of the main characters of Future Diary.

Oh, Future Diary…

See, I used to be a big fan of this manga. Back when I first started IM, it was my favorite, and I eagerly awaited every month for the new installment. I mean, it was pretty much Battle Royale meets Code Geass, of course I would be a fan!

However, as the series went on and my favorite characters were all killed off, leaving the four mains, I started to realize something:

I did not like these people.

They were all pretty terrible people, in fact. All of them had either done something really, really awful or were complicit in the others’ actions, and they never really got held accountable for what they did, with their actions just treated as, “Oh, BIG SHOCKING PLOT TWIST!!!!” So by the time the series reached its end and they all got a happy ending, I felt no happiness for them. In fact, I was kinda pissed.

Later, when the anime first started airing, I watched the first couple episodes, and seeing their actions actually animated before me made it worse. I hated them, and I hated the fact that nothing they did ever had any real consequences for them.

Now, looking back on it years later, I can really see what a mess this series was. Nearly every aspect about the plot, setting, and character growth is pretty illogical and inconsistent to the point of being outright stupid. But that’s just the icing on the cake for me, and not my main reason for hating this series. My beef comes down to these people, and the things they did.

Yuki Amano

A lot of these people bash this guy for being weak and passive, a bit like Shinji Ikari. Personally, as someone who actually liked Shinji, that part didn’t bother me.

Him deliberately betraying an entire orphanage and gunning down all the orphans sure as hell did though.

As did him almost immediately forgiving his father and wanting to live with said asshole EVEN AFTER HIS DAD MURDERED HIS MOM! And this is just swept aside because yay, his dad is back!

Yuno Gasai

Ho boy, where do I start with the Queen of Yanderes? Well, let’s get this out of the way: I actually don’t have an issue with her creepy stalking. It’s her schtick, and if executed well it can actually work.

It…wasn’t executed well. It just was a long list of making her do crazy shit for big shocks, and outside of her Yuki obsession, she had pretty much no other characteristics.

Also, in the second episode, she deliberately sets off a bunch of bombs that massacres scores of innocent teenagers over a misunderstanding.

And after that happens, it is never brought up again.

So yeah.

Minene Uryu

Let’s start with the fact that she is a literal terrorist who has killed scores of innocent families.

And that she blew up part of Yuki’s school to get his attention, also probably killing several children.

And no, she isn’t held accountable for this. At all. Why? Because she’s cool, I guess.

Masumi Nishijima

Doesn’t kill anyone like the others…but hey, what about him completely ignoring the fact that he falls head-over-heels in love with Minene and even proposes to her, despite knowing that she’s massacred hundreds of innocent people and it’s actually his job to bring her in? Talk about being completely useless as a police officer.

And the worst of it? All the above get one kind of happy ending or another.

Yeah, no. Fuck each and every one of them.

Even though this is by far the worst offender, I’m not going to spend as much time on it, as it’s easier to rant about something that does a lot of things right only to fail spectacularly in one regard. Future Diary instead does so many things wrong that it’s kind of beyond saving and not really worth getting heated up about. Which is a shame, because the concept could have worked in the hands of a better writer, but instead, we got a dumb, illogical mess full of characters that are impossible to root for.

But okay, I’ve ranted on and on about these instances that piss me off, but are there any examples of series doing this right? As if in, actually holding characters accountable and making them suffer consequences for their actions when they usually wouldn’t?

Well, obviously, but there are a few instances that really stand out in my mind, because they’re instances that would normally get glossed over without mention, but the writers actually had the wherewithal to ensure that this wouldn’t happen. And they really make me happy.

A.      Sandor Clegane stands trial for the murder of the Micah the butcher’s boy, in Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.

It’s kind of funny that Ice and Fire would be on this list, seeing how it’s full of innocent people getting slaughtered, tortured, and raped, even by the “good guys’” hands at times. You’d honestly think that I wouldn’t even touch it as a result.

And yet, it is the rare example of someone going all in on the ultra-darkness but actually doing it right. Because no matter who it is doing the bad thing, who they do it to, and how well laid their plans are, they always seem to suffer consequences for their actions.

In this particular example, there is a scene where Sandor Clegane casually murders a little boy named Micah in the first book because evil Prince Joffrey did a thing. And of course, none of the bad guys suffer any repercussions. At the time, I chalked it up to another example of just how unfair this medieval fantasy world is meant to be.

Flash forward another book or two. The king is dead, chaos reigns, and the Stark family has been scattered to the winds. Little Arya Stark, who had been a friend of Micah, falls in with a group of good guy outlaws. And to her surprise, they have taken the now renegade Sandor Clegane hostage.

Naturally, since the Hound had been one of Joffrey’s top henchmen, this is a big catch for them, but since they insist on doing things honorably and giving him a fair trial, they run into the problem of being unable to pin any specific crime on him, since most of the stuff they come up with was actually carried out by other people or they can’t prove that Sandor was involved. But then Arya brings up Micah, which Sandor actually did, and of course the outlaws seize upon.

Now, when I read this, I actually put the book down for a moment to pump my fist. Because holy crap, they’re actually acknowledging that whole thing! It wasn’t just another example of an innocent person getting offed for shock value without the perpetrator being held accountable! It was getting brought up, and not only that, it was being used as a plot point! It was beautiful!

Of course, Sandor does actually win the resulting trial by combat and is set free, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Song of Ice and Fire, as grimdark as it is, is fully committed to holding all of its characters responsible for their actions, and sometimes small cruelties will come back in huge ways, and I think that’s awesome.

Another example from the same series is Theon Greyjoy. Now, here is a guy whose insecurities lead him to betray the family he was raised by, steal their home, execute their associates, and even murder a couple of little boys and cover their bodies with tar just to make his men think that he had successfully killed the Stark boys rather than admit that they got away. Now normally, this would put him right at the top of my shit list, and it did for a while. But surprise surprise, the story actually manages to make him look sympathetic again, by…

1.      Showing full well how his insecurities have caused him to make these mistakes

2.      Have him get called out by pretty much everyone over how horrible his actions are

3.      Show full well that he understands this, and feels rotten about it deep down inside

4.      Have him essentially put through hell as a result, to the point where he’s physically mutilated and mentally scarred by Ramsay Bolton’s…administrations

5.      Have him go through even more hell to try to redeem himself and put his life on the line to protect someone innocent

6.      Make him acknowledge that he doesn’t deserve forgiveness, but he’s going to try to do whatever he can to atone for his sins once he gets his identity back

Through all that, when he finally is forgiven by Jon Snow and welcomed back into the Stark family, it does feel earned, and not through excusing what he did, but by acknowledging it and dealing with it directly.

B.      Spike shows genuine remorse for his past, in Buffy/Angel

Kind of weird to include Buffy/Angel in this section after already calling it out before, but I’m pretty sure these two episodes had different writers.

Anyway, Spike is undoubtedly one of the most, if not the most popular characters in the Buffyverse, and it should come as no surprise that he’s my personal favorite. Quick background for anyone who hasn’t seen the series: he is a British punk-rock vampire renowned for loving violence and besting two Slayers in one-on-one combat. He started off as a main villain, but became so popular that the writers nixed his planned death and spent several seasons slowly bringing him over to the good guys’ side, first out of necessity, but giving him a redemption arc (which was controversial for…reasons) that ultimately ended with him fighting to get his soul back and become an actual hero. So, hoorays all around.

However, there still is the lingering problem of him having spent over a hundred years torturing and killing his way across the world. The last season of Buffy tried to address that by revealing that one of the heroes’ new allies was the son of one of Spike’s victim and wasn’t too keen on working with the monster that killed his mothers, but their execution of said idea was…deeply flawed, to say the least.

Things got better when Spike made the jump over to Buffy’s sister series Angel. In it, a rogue Slayer named Dana, who has been rendered mentally unstable after an evil man murdered her family and tortured her as a child, is deluded into believing that Spike was the man that ruined her life. As such, she kidnaps him, tortures him, and even cuts off his hands (don’t worry, he’s a vampire, they can deal). Then the cavalry arrives to save the day. Dana is captured and handed off to people that can actually help her, Spike is rescued, and goes to the hospital to have his hands sewn back on. Like I said: vampire. They can do that.

Anyway, Angel then uncharacteristically goes to visit Spike, and as a bit of a surprise Spike doesn’t seem to hold any anger toward Dana at all, and instead says something to the tune of, “What? I’m supposed to be angry because hers wasn’t one of the hundreds of families I killed? I spent so much time being a monster, I never stopped to look back at the victims.”

This is great, as it 1, acknowledges the wrong he’s done, 2, shows that no matter what he does to redeem himself, it’s always going to hang over him, and 3, puts no blame on Dana whatsoever. And with that, I felt like I was free to like and root for Spike without having an asterisk hovering over everything.

And honestly, that’s all I ask for. Acknowledgement. Accountability. Acceptance of consequences. Because otherwise, it just leaves a rotten taste in my mouth, and the more I see it happen in fiction, the more it bugs me.

So, that’s my rant about storytelling for today. My next posts will probably be something more positive.

[redrobin-detective]

BNHA Fic Recc List

Ok, so here's my fic recc list (AO3 exclusive) for Boku no hero academia/My hero academia. It's in no order but I order I bookmarked them. I'll probably come back and make edits when I find new stories.

MS- Manga Spoilers, so anything after season 2 in the anime. DFO- Dad for one story

Smile Again AU by Sevi007- a series of stories about mostly Dad Might and Izuku learning to work together and be a little family. Adorable. MS. Platonic/family pairings.

A riddle to guess if you can by PitViperOfDoom- All Might gives the new Number One a piece of his mind. No pairings.

Breach by ForgedObsidian- Toshinori's injury cause bad days but this one just might end up finishing up for good. MS. Family parings.

Solar Flare by jinkiess- The story that spawned my headcanon that young Toshinori was a bitter, angry young man. It's short but man I love this idea for Quirkless Young Might. No pairings.

Getting to Know You by TaurusVersant- The members of 1-A reflect on Midoriya Izuku and their daily interactions. Great characterization and I'm a sucker for people appreciating my boy. MS. Platonic pairings.

Barology by MissAquarius- A beautiful little piece exploring the Izuku/Iida/Urakara friendship. Platonic pairings.

A Shared Consequence by GuardianLioness- The cold causes pain for both Toshinori's old bones and Izuku's injuries. Family pairings.

Reunions, Of A Sort by ForgedObsidian- All Might joins the kids on a trip to a hero museum and reminisces on old heroes with a stranger. MS. No pairings.

Get Well Soon by brickboat- Jirou sometimes eavesdrops on her teachers while bored in her class and hears some interesting things about All Might. Really good, has 2 sequels if you liked. MS. No pairings.

Off Beat by ForgedObsidian- Jirou hears something wrong with All Might's heart. No pairings.

United in the Storm by theslytherinpaladin- The Villain Alliance becomes interested in Izuku and makes a statement by killing his mother leaving Izuku lost and alone. AU. Character death. No pairings.

Out of Character by PitViperOfDoom- Aizawa sees no problem with Endeavor talking to his son after the license exam but Midoriya seems worried. Dadzawa to the rescue. MS. No pairings.

count your blessings not your flaws by PitViperofDoom- probably my favorite Tododeku oneshot. The idea of Izuku thinking that Todoroki would joke about liking and Todoroki thinking that Izuku laughed in his face about his feelings hurts but then becomes sweet comfort

by you gotta get up at least once more by simkjrs- AU where Izuku follows the OPM training regimen and accidently becomes stronger than should be possible for a quirkless nobody. Sounds like crack, is actually about character development and Izuku's incredible perseverance. MS. A couple of hinted pairings (ShinDeku, TodoDeku etc) but nothing outright.

Yesterday Upon The Stair by PitViperOfDoom-  Izuku is given One For All but he forgets to mention to All Might that he isn't quirkless and has the ability to see dead people. Amazing story that twists canon with the addition of Izuku's ghostly friends and enemies. Good depiction of Bakugou's past abuse. AU. No pairings. Some graphic descriptions.

U.A Unsolved by  kabukichou- a silly spin-off of YUTS where the kids at the dorm believe it's haunted by ghosts. Little do they know that it is but because Izuku lives there. Hilarious and a nice break from the stress of YUTS. AU. No pairings

United We Stand, Divided We Fall by CaptainKaruAndTheRedShirts- My favorite of the Mighty Family AU's I've read (All Might is married to Inko and Izuku's biological father). Izuku coping with his father's injury, later being outed as the Number One's son and coping with being a quirkless shame to his dad's legacy. AU. Toshinko.

One Life for Them All (If That's What It Takes) by AthanatosOra- Toshinori comes across a precocious 11 year old named Izuku and considers him for a successor. Little does he know it's actually an adult Izuku who has been sent back to his 11 year old self trying to relive his life, and maybe make a few changes. AU. Family/platonic pairings.

The thin gray line by A_ToastToTheOutcasts-  All Might may have shot down his dreams of heroism but Japan's former #1 vigilante believes Izuku can make a difference. Vigilante Izuku is amazing and wow, yes, so good. AU. No pairings.

know what i've made by the marks on my hands by simkjrs- All quirks are the result of guardian spirits. Izuku is the only one who can see them but he really wishes he couldn't. Sassy Izuku ftw, I love this so much. AU. No pairings.

Mr. Yagi by AoiMikans and Swiftwidget- the men and women who work at Might Tower have come to adore the tall sickly man who serves as All Might's personal secretary. Precious to the max. Minor Tsukauchi/Toshinori.

Erased Potential by theslytherinpaladin- Aizawa has enough going on trying to teach his lazy students but the quirkless middle school who showed up at his door, begging to be trained, shows potential. So so good. AU. Dadzawa.

Daymare by IntrospectiveInquisitor- Izuku lives his whole life pretending to be quirkless because it's better than acknowledging his nightmarish quirk. AU. Platonic pairings and hinted KiriDeku. Warning for graphic horror descriptions and violence.

break your bones not your promises by PitViperofDoom- Look I don’t even like fantasy but I really love Pit’s approach here. It’s a blend of modern life with the fantatsical realm all stuffed into bnha world. The characterization is really good and the worldbuilding captivating. AU

Atimy by milky- Izuku and Yaoyorozu hear a noise in the middle of the night and check it out. The real horror of the story is what's revealed in the notes at the end. MS. No pairings.

Moebius by PitViperOfDoom- Izuku, Urakara, Tsuyu, Iida and Todoroki head to a seaside town for a rest but end up caught in the midst of a deadly attack that repeats itself over and over. Minor Tododeku.

i'm proud to say i got you by taizi- Iida takes notice of the way Midoriya stutters and flinches and draws some unhappy conclusions about the life his friend lived before Yuuei. I'm a sucker for 'Izuku's past abuse is acknowledged and refuted' stories. MS. Platonic pairings.

It's Spelled 'Trader' Not 'Traitor' by JackobolTrades- Izuku is taken in by All For One and given his quirk. Instead of using it for villainy, he sneaks off and opens a quirk trading shop because even AFO couldn't steal his desire to help people. AU. Brief/Unwilling Toga/Deku.

starry eyed and history has its eye on you and another face in the crowd and know who you are and will I ever be more than I’v always been? and who lives, who dies, who tells your story and all the love i dreamt by aloneintherain- beautiful and amazing. Look into class 1-A 10 years in the future as heroes and friends. Various stories told through the eyes of the students and media. Wonderful beyond measure, can't reread enough. Tododeku, Kiribaku, Jiroruzo.

home is just a room full of my safest sounds by aloneintherain- Izuku and Todoroki end up in a cuddle buddy sleeping arrangement for various reasons but end up really coming to enjoy the peace they feel together, super cute.

Conversations with a Cryptid by AMournfulHowlInTheNight- After his capture, Izuku begins having weekly meetings with All For One to extract information but can he really handle the revelations? AU. DFO. MS. No pairings. Izuku's brains get the spotlight and hints at one of my favorite theories

Kidnapping of a Cryptid by AMournfulHowlInTheNight- The sequel to the above story. I can't really give any details without spoiling but this whole series is amazing and I recc it so much. I talk way too much about it but it's so good. AU. MS. Pairing I can't mention

Aphelion by ForgedObsidian- Izuku is kidnapped as a middle schooler by AFO due to his quirklessness. Luckily Izuku isn't alone in captivity and has the sickly Mr. Yagi to keep him company. If only All Might hasn't been missing for several years. AU. No Pairings

Patience and I Would Understand and You Found Me (on a summer breeze) and Guide to Getting Your Teacher a Date and Little Talks by yaanchan- The best 'Aizawa takes in Shinsou' fics I've ever read. I have? so many emotions. Made me ship Erasermic. AU. MS. Erasermic.  Try, Try Again is mostly in this series but Shinsou gets turned into a 4 year old.

Switched and Scattered by kazzarole- The typical bodyswap story but it's really well-done also absolutely hilarious. You'd think it'd be easier to impersonate each other when they're crushing so hard. Tododeku.

Conventional Taste by SoAshamed- Todoroki's grandparents are in town and he'd wish to avoid them so he agrees to go with Midoriya to QuirkCon, Japan's biggest hero convention. Queue Deku being an overenthusiastic fanboy and Todoroki being content just watching him. MS. Mild Tododeku

count your blessings, not your flaws by PitViperofDoom- Izuku has only ever been confessed to as a joke so when Todoroki says he loves him, Izuku can't bring himself to believe it. Tododeku.

a beacon in the dark by Nohaijachi- At 4 years old, Izuku woke up one day unable to see. Completely blind, Izuku does his best to survive in a world with both a disability and a supposed diagnosis of quirklessness. Really good guys, updates very often. Family pairings.

Re-Examined Archives by beachbb- 15 year old Izuku is thrust by a quirk 10 years into the future only to find out he was murdered several years previous by a serial killer. Now it’s up to Izuku, plus friends from the past and future to unravel the cold case and maybe prevent it from happening. MS. No pairings.

Save The Last Dance by Lesetoilesfous- Based off the Fantasy AU ending, Izuku lives in the town of Silvia, home to the great All Might. As the All Might’s successor, it is his duty to confront the evil storm that threatens the kingdoms. With his friends, and a few alluring strangers, they set off on a journey to defeat the evil. AU. Tododeku, Momojirou, Tsuychako, Bakushima, Erasermic. I may be missing some but everyone is gay so there.

Izuku is (Afraid) by sleepingugly- this fic haunts me, it’s SO good and it just put me on edge the entire time and I couldn’t stop reading because the tension was mounting and driving me nuts. Izuku is haunted by the ocean, he attends quirk counselling for a quirk he should have but doesn’t, something sinister is rising. AU. No pairings.

Choices by Fayah- Another AFO is Hisashi fic in which Inko dies in childbirth due to Izuku activating the FAO quirk during birth. Hisashi raises his rambunctious boy alone, all while feeding his son stolen quirks and avoiding an investigation into his activities. DFO. Love it. 

Fun at Hero Con by wolfsrainrules- Pro hero Izuku at hero convention where he’s so busy being a fan he forgets that he’s disgustingly famous. Any fic in which Izuku goes to hero cons and gives his fans heart attacks is the best fic.

Viridescent by darkfire1220- Izuku’s dad is a well-known villain who passed onto his Izuku his very distinctive green fire quirk. All Might still chooses to pass on OFA but Izuku needs to overcome his hatred of his quirk, his father and deal with everyone else’s suspicions. AU. Some Izuku/Toga

Future’s History by Neehl- I LOVE THIS FIC. It’s a super long shot but man, everything about it is stellar. An examination of captainkirkk’s OFA is known AU where everyone knows about All Might’s ability to pass on his quirk. It centers around Izuku trying to keep under the radar then later embracing his fame as the Ninth OFA user. AU

From Muddy Waters by HLine- Another dad for one fic, Izuku and Inko are trying to hide from AFO who they know is a supervillain. Izuku gets into Yuuei by hiding his AFO quirk behind a normal strength enhancing quirk. Someone give this boy a break, he just wants to be a hero and is so stressed out. DFO. AU

Hero Class Civil Warfare by RogueDruid- man what do I even say about this fic? The hero classes are split into hero/villain teams for a 3 day exercise to test strategy and teamwork, Bakugou the hero leader and Izuku the villain leader. Our green bean turns his brain to wickedness and the heroes sure are glad they got to Midoriya before a villain claimed him. Now has a sequel Hero Class Danger Days 

Do What You Will, If That’s What You Want by stanzas- After a few years of being a pro hero, Todoroki, the #5 hero, retires suddenly to follow a new path. He finds himself growing closer to Izuku who is supportive and all too adorable. Terrible description but its really, really good. Tododeku. Momojirou.

Something Borrowed by ThisCat- Izuku has the ability to borrow people’s quirks as long as he is looking at them. He rarely uses his quirk bc it frightens other people but still decides to try and be a hero, applying and getting into Yuuei and working to use his power for good. AU. Lovely idea well executed.

journey to the past by aloneintherain- do you want to cry actual tears and throw up from feels?? This is the fic for you. Izuku has been attacked by villains his entire life but was always saved by mysterious pro heroes who seemed to know a lot about him. He never understood until he reached Yuuei and saw those same heroes as teenagers. I ugly cry every time I read. 

Bloom in Winter by e_va- Izuku was taken by his father at a young age used used his insightful analysis for villainy. Izuku is forced to go along with this for years until, at 14, he’s enrolled at Yuuei to be a spy. He’s always wanted to be a hero and now he’s forced to betray his idols. Save this child. AU

Curse of the anime protagonist by masterdipster- Izuku has a quirk that allows him to sense when people are danger and rush towards them, it’s perfect for hero work, if only he wanted to be a hero. Thought this was crack? psych, it’s actually really heartfelt, hilarious with some stellar writing. AU

Victim of Circumstance by Chalcet- quirkless, orphaned and homeless, Izuku lives on the bad side of town acting as a vigilante to protect his crime ridden city the heroes overlook. He begins training to be a hero to try and change the system from the inside out. This boy, is amazing. AU

i am cold, can you hear me by midoizuku- Todoroki runs across a boy at a hero fight and soon realizes he’s stumbled upon All Might’s illegitimate child. They strike up an odd friendship as Todoroki view Izuku as both a potential rival and someone who can maybe understand his situation. AU. Going towards Tododeku.

Known Variables by pockettramblr- Another OFA is known AU fic which explores Izuku gaining the legacy quirk and how having other students and teachers in the know affects his early experiences at Yuuei. AU

Cardiac Arrest by AMournfulHowlInTheNight- During the battle of Kamino Ward, AFO topples a building in his fight with All Might which crushes izuku to death. AFO grabs the boy’s body and flees leaving the heroes mourning but maybe izuku is going to experience something worse than death. DFO. AU

and while we’re waiting by Kemmasandi- and absolutely adorable one shot exploring the early and good days of Nana and Toshinori’s relationship as Toshi grows from a small stick of a boy to a giant young man with enough power and heart to save the world.

Diametrically Opposed by Golden Wooly and Murky Muse- Most likely DFO story in which Izuku wants to be a hero and thinks he can when AM gives him OFA but his over-protective father sometimes gets in the way. DFO.

The Roots the Clutch by Laquearia- Pro hero Deku tries to stay in touch with old friend Todoroki even after he moves to New York and gets married but Shouto still carries a torch for his oldest friend and first crush. SO much angst my friends, so much goddamn angst. Future AU. Tododeku. 

I’ll carry the secrets, you carry by the umbrella by ArgentCross- Todoroki starts to notice there’s something weird about Izuku and his quirk and decides to investigate. Also may be realizing that he’s got feeling for his friend at the same time. Tododeku. 

Subject: A Comprehensive Report by BonesofBirdWings- AU where young Izuku realizes he can’t be a hero and interns with Nighteye as a hero analyst and shows off his heroic spirit by helping solve crimes with heroes and the police. A fascinating look at Izuku’s strategic mind plus the very hands off writing style interspaced by news articles and interviews is magnificent. AU.  

One Shot Wok by AMournfulHowlInTheNight- A crack AU born in the discord where future Izuku is transported back to his younger self and decides to take care of business by wrecking the LOV and other assholes with a Wok. AFO would be proud if he weren’t confused and terrified. AU. DFO.

The Long Way Around by redrobin1989- casually adding by own story cause why not? Izuku never meets All Might during the sludge monster incident but is inspired anyway to become Japan's first quirkless hero. Slow burn, lots of OCs. AU. MS. No pairings.

[philharmaddy-blog]

Disney Tag

So I think in the coming weeks I’ll be alternating posts between fun/hype and informational, so I thought I’d start off with a Disney Tag! Thanks to Steph for letting me steal her Disney Tag format, you can find her blog on her upcoming DCEP here.

So without further ado, let’s get into it... Grab your snacks, because this will be a long one!

Disney Movie: This is a hard one, but I think I have to go with The Little Mermaid just because of the number of times I watched that movie as a kid on VCR purely because my parents wouldn’t let me watch the behind the scenes footage that played after the movie unless I watched the whole thing through! FUN FACT: I was terrified of all animated movies as a kid, because I thought they were all as scary as A Bug’s Life, the crazy creations of Sid in Toy Story and the two terrifying scenes from Fantasia (Rite of Spring dinosaurs and Night on Bald Mountain)

DCOM Movie: Does The Lizzie McGuire Movie count?

Pixar Movie: The Incredibles. I love that soundtrack so much!

Disney Sequel: Either Lion King 3/1.5 or The Rescuers Down Under. Although I’m sure with Wreck It Ralph 2 coming out soon, my answer will probably change!

Disney Song: Belle. The writing is brilliant, the backing orchestral score is beautiful, and it sets the scene of the small provincial town so perfectly as the opening number of Beauty and the Beast.

Disney Love Song: It’s not a duet (well, it kind of is if you count the Muses), but I Won’t Say I’m In Love from Hercules is one of my favourites. 

Disney Villain Song: This one is easy. Poor Unfortunate Souls is such a classic.

Disney Song that gets stuck in my head: My brain will switch between Someday My Prince Will Come and A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes. But nothing is as much of an ear worm as It’s A Small World...

Disney Soundtrack: If we are including Pixar, it would be The Incredibles, because I love Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band. If it’s strictly Disney Animation, then I would go with Sleeping Beauty since they used Tchaikovsky’s ballet score. Or maybe Princess and the Frog for that sweet Dixieland jazz? I don’t know, it’s too hard to decide! Never ask a musician what their favourite music is...

Disney Quote: “I give myself very good advice, but I seldom follow it” (Alice in Wonderland)

Disney Ride: I think I have to go with Expedition Everest after my younger brother and I tricked my dad into riding it (we didn’t tell him about the bit that goes backwards!). Plus I love that documentary about its construction, even if we now only have the Disco Yeti.... 

Disney Show: Wishes will always be my favourite. 

Disney Parade: Festival of Fantasy, although I don’t know if it’s as good now that the dragon has gone down in flames.... literally...

Disney Food: The beignets at Port Orleans French Quarter

WDW/DL? I have to go with WDW since it’s the only one I’ve visited

WDW Park: Has to be Magic Kingdom since it’s the one that I spent the most time in, but I also adore Animal Kingdom

Disney Photo:  It has to be my amazing candid shot with Gaston. 

Time for some characters!

Princess: Anna, she’s such a goofball!

Disney Princess Dress: I love the classic Cinderella dress. Although Merida’s looks super comfy!

Prince: Either Flynn Rider or Prince Naveen, I love those suave, charming personalities

Couple: Meg and Hercules

Side-Kick: Mushu

Villain: I love all the villains so it’s hard to choose, but I narrowed it down to Ursula and Hades. All the sass!

Animal: Maximus (the horse from Tangled)

Pixar Character: There are so many good ones to choose from! But I think Dory takes the cake

Disney character I most identify with: Probably Ariel or Anna because I am overly enthusiastic about the most mundane things

Pixar character I most identify with: The seagulls in Finding Nemo any time there is food around

Disney movie I would star in if I could: Probably Hercules because I would love to be a Muse.... but really, we could all do with having a new Disney film where the princess is an alto...

Disney movie that makes me laugh: Again, Hercules. Despite how badly inaccurate the movie is to Greek mythology (even the name itself is wrong), I still think it’s one of the funniest of the animated movies. Either that or Aladdin, because Robin Williams is a gem.

Disney movie that makes me cry: Not technically Disney since it’s Pixar, but Up. Every time. Storytime: my state orchestra were doing ‘Pixar In Concert’, where they played medleys of the soundtracks with clips of the movie up on a massive screen. But not for Up, no.... They played the entire first 15 or so minutes of the movie with the soundtrack live. I think everyone in that entire theatre was sobbing by the end of it.

Disney item I collect: I don’t have any at the moment but I’m hoping to start pin trading and collecting signatures once I get there! I’m more of an experience over material kind of girl.

Most treasured Disney item: A card that says “If you can dream it, you can do it”, signed by all the teachers of the music department from my high school that I was given at the end of my final year when I was music captain.

First Disney movie I ever saw: Fantasia. I had a Sorcerer Mickey plush in my room, but I was asleep for the majority of the movie. Except for the two sections I mentioned earlier that scared me off watching more animated movies for years...

What I would like to see in a Disney movie: Please make the princess an alto and non-belter! Please!!! For the sake of all of us girls with low voices who can’t belt out Let it Go or warble along to Sleeping Beauty or Snow White!

What I would like to see at a Disney park: Still waiting for that fifth gate based around Disney Villains filled with thrill rides! Or maybe shooting a bit lower in expectations, a revamped version of the old and forgotten Fire Mountain idea for Adventureland in the form of a roller coaster themed around the volcano from Moana?

Park character I was/am looking forward to meeting: I’ve met Gaston which was pretty great. But otherwise I really want to meet some of the other princes! In particular, Flynn Rider and Naveen. Also can’t wait to meet Chewie in Hollywood Studios!

Best Disney Story: So to set the scene, it’s just as the park is about to open after Extra Magic Hours, I had been hanging out in New Fantasyland solo while my dad was sleeping in. I go to try and find where the meet and greet for Cinderella’s step family are, only to be given the hint by a Character Attendant to get in line for the carousel. I end up on a horse in between Anastasia and Drizella, with Lady Tremaine a few horses away! But that’s not the end of the story… After getting off the ride, I end up walking with Lady Tremaine to her character spot, idly chatting about how awful Cinderella’s hospitality was at the Royal Table last night, how the matriarchy will rise again, etc. Finally get to the character spot and see a massive line has already formed. So I get ready to say farewell to the characters. But no! I get told by Lady Tremaine that I’m a “VIP” and as a lady of such high class deserve only the best. And so I skip the entire queue and get an amazing photo right away!

And that’s all, folks! 

If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! My next pre-DCEP hype post will probably be a full bucket list - so probably even longer than this one!

[sirengenerator]

i am your wish, your dream come true / and i am your darkest nightmare, too.

sometimes ya gotta write a piece about your main antagonist ya dig? sometimes you gotta write about your main antagonist manipulating your other characters. titled after this song from next to normal.

tws for manipulation to the billionth degree and abuse(?) antigone takes on a surrogate-parental role in z’s life in order to manipulate them and it gets sketchy.

Of Antigone’s many forms, there is a single constant. This aspect has become its calling card, in many aspects.

However, you wouldn’t notice that constant unless you were looking closely, so it’s pointless to mention.

Z is a younger siren, characterized by their human appearance and mannerisms. Antigone thinks them acceptable.

It finds them outside of a club. Human social spheres are always bustling, and the light becomes too much for Antigone at times, but it is an easy place to find targets. Victims or otherwise.

Z sits on the bench outside, smoking a cigarette. Antigone takes a seat beside them. The two of them have spoken a few times before, and they will speak again. Antigone needs time to sink its claws into Z in order to truly understand them.

And when it truly understands them, it will be something to fear.

“The thing with younger sirens,” it says, voice low and melodic, “is that they have no place where they truly belong. No motivations.” It has taken the form of a shorter human, with cropped hair and long nails. Its eyes are round and its ears are a little bigger than what would be considered usual.

(It is important to nail the flaws if you want to gain the trust of someone. To seem more human to them, despite employing a distinctly nonhuman part of them; because, and this is crucial, you are appealing to their human side. To the side that wants something worth more than a simple meal.

This is why sirens like Z are ideal. They are profoundly human, and their strings can be tugged accordingly.)

Z snorts, but there is a second where they falter. Where they think, do I have no motivation, and that is the moment Antigone watches for. “And how old are you?”

Too old. Far too old for you to comprehend. “Old enough,” it says, “I do hope you come to understand, Z. Life is not so simple as the younger generation makes it out to be. There are debts to be paid in life.”

“Whatever,” Z blows smoke out of their mouth, “I don’t get you, man.”

Antigone smiles like it knows something—it’s a perfect smile. The kind of smile that Z wants to see—and shrugs. There isn’t much that needs to be said.

“Maybe you don’t understand right now,” their voice in this form is comforting, and that is by design. It’s meant to catch Z off-guard. To make them peek over the walls they have set up. Antigone keeps up its smile.

“Someday you might.” It stands and it walks away.

There is something cruel in that. Something cruel in saying someday you might, because it’s exactly what Z wants to hear.

Z wants to believe that someone holds out a hope for them—that someone wants them to understand. Antigone knows, because its purpose is to know these things. To know the deepest desire of any person that it intends to lure to its side, to employ to its purpose.

It was once every siren’s purpose, but it has been diluted. There are sirens who fight against that dilution, who say that it is a downfall, but Antigone is not one of those sirens, screaming for a history that is confusing and disappointing.

After all, assimilation with humanity—the closest relationship of sirenkind, their prey and their coexisting society—is inevitable. Antigone could not stop such a thing even if it wanted to, and it doesn’t want to. In truth, Antigone is aiming for something far different.

(It wants a proper burial. Redemption for an improper sacrifice.)

"I just. I miss my mom sometimes,” Z says. The statement marks the beginning of their wrongdoing. Antigone nods, sympathy creeping into its body language.

Z stares at the ceiling. They’re in a hotel, because Z has no home to speak of, and Antigone has no intentions other than to sway them to a cause they have no reason to care for. Antigone is there to give Z a reason to care.

They say, “I miss being loved, and I guess that’s pathetic.” Z is self-depreciating and self-pitying. Z is isolated, but not alone. They have a myriad of people who they could go to, but they refuse.

Antigone preys upon that. Upon that weakness. Upon that need for love.

They say, “I miss having people who cared about me, even a little. Even when I didn’t deserve it.” Z is getting choked up on their own words. Gods, they might even cry. Their grasp a handful of the hotel comforter.

Antigone places a hand on Z’s shoulder, “I care,” it says.

(Z wants a mother, says the primeval, whispering voice in Antigone’s head. Z wants someone to care about them.

Antigone will care about them, if that’s what it takes.)

Antigone plays mother when it pulls on Z’s strings. When it sends them to Greece to locate the last of the tribe sirens and when it demands information from them, it plays mother.

Z makes it ridiculously easy to control them, for all they want is praise. To be loved. To be cared about. To have the hand of kindness extended to them.

(There is a saying about the nightmare. The most chilling of nightmares—the one that truly rocks you to your core—does not begin as a nightmare. It is a dream, a blissful unreality, until it twists and turns and breaks.)

Antigone has been using a new form lately. A familiar one. Humanoid and wiry, with brown hair and marks of exhaustion under its narrow eyes. It doesn’t completely imitate Selma—the nightmare must ease into being a dream, lest the ruse be exposed too early—but it becomes part of her. It echoes her.

(If only it could get the fucking eyes.)

Antigone’s eyes, when it shifts forms, are unchanging. The irises cannot change color. Pitch black and void, much like Antigone is when it isn’t imitating, becoming something else, changing.

Antigone’s eyes are its calling card.

fantasies is the unofficial sequel to this if you wanna see z cry about their conflicting feelings.

i’ve switched from referring to antigone by they/them pronouns to it/its pronouns. that’s liable to change if it proves confusing or too difficult but i think it might work better.