#kind of half reconciling and also half exploration of something beyond me?

[moe-broey]

Although I guess I always am exploring incompatibility and love/learning how to love in the most supportive/accommodating way despite that, but kind of exclusively w family dynamics.

[demeterdefence]

kept meaning to make a post and kept FORGETTING to because i'm dumb but i cannot stop thinking of all the loose ends / introduced plots that got dropped without any warning and one that has been sticking out is persephone's "new" abilities after she "lost" her powers

we get a lackluster hint in episode 267, when apollo uses some random magic deus ex machina to "restore" persephone's powers. he starts bleeding from the nose and ears.

also apologies for the terrible quality, i forgot that lo went under daily pass and had to scour my own screenshots lmamdgjsf

it's not explained at the time whatsoever and in fact, the vagueness of the narrative kind of half-heartedly implies that it's an effect of ouranos' magic - it's also completely handwaved away, since no one bothers to ask why apollo is suddenly bleeding from the orifices and able to use persephone's powers.

it's not until persephone and hera decide to visit kronos in tartarus that persephone explains she somehow knew all along what this strange power was! she can apparently make a god rot from the inside!!!

it's not explained at ALL how she figured that out or like ... why she has that specific power. it is mentioned during the solstice where she creates winter that she can only make "decay," but that's a pretty obvious and visual thing - she's quite literally blistered the mortal realm in snow and ice, with all the plants dying on their physical surface.

important context, but other than persephone's attack on minthe, she is never seen using her powers on another person. her abilities are always on herself, or using plants / growth in some way. the fertility goddess nonsense does mean that hades and kronos are able to use her powers to strengthen themselves, but beyond that plot point being ridiculous, it's also something they don't just figure out overnight. kronos being able to escape control the underworld, and hades going godzilla mode during the trial, are clues used to eventually figure out what persephone's fertility goddess powers can do.

in regards to her new winter powers, persephone either figured it out somehow before the scene with apollo, or she figured it out after. with no explanation how.

moving from the how, we then get the last mention to this power, when persephone attempts to stop kronos

spoiler: it does not work. the power is never referenced again.

in terms of lore olympus' many crimes, it's a small thing, but it stands out to me as such a flailing attempt to write some wiggle room into the finale. rachel was struggling to get to the end, that much was obvious, and she was padding out the episodes as desperately as she could so that she could pull on any random thread and find a way to keep the plot moving. in better hands, this might have been a legitimately interesting power to explore for persephone! the goddess of spring, capable of rot, capable of such bone-deep destruction, and how she reconciles that with growth. it could have been a powerful juxtaposition, but it got abandoned as soon as rachel figured out how to give persephone her powers back. presumably, persephone still has this ability, but it is literally never brought up again. we have no idea if there was lasting damage to apollo, if it did anything in particular to kronos, what it can do to a god (the assumption is nothing, since both apollo and kronos seem just fine in their final scenes.)

it's just. amazing to go back and look through all the various strings rachel was knotting together, seeing stuff that might have been genuinely fascinating to explore in some other writer's hands! tiny little things like this, added up together to just be crapshoot after crapshoot. it's no surprise at all that rachel finished the last episode barely an hour before it went live. what a mess.

[bartramcat]

CSI/GSR: Long vs. Short Term Arcs

Okay, this is very off the cuff and inspired to some degree by @addictedtostorytelling and the discussion of Morgan and Greg and Hodges. Some stray things:

We know that the only thing decided about Sara Sidle pre-show was that she was meant to be Grissom's love interest.

At some point, before CSI continued to be a ratings juggernaut that Zuiker figured Grissom would go deaf, and that would be how the show would end.

When Grissom turned Sara down in Play With Fire, TPTB had decided that was going to be the end of that.

Things no one could have predicted:

The overwhelming worldwide success of the show, necessitating a workable resolution to Grissom's deaf storyline.

That no matter what, whenever Grissom and Sara are onscreen together, there is "something" there.

Billy and Jorja both were invested in GSR.

It seems to me the combination of the above is what gave us Season 4. In terms of GSR, a case could be made that they were starting all over again in a serialized novel sort of way.

Now I confess to knowing absolutely nothing about the Harry Potter novels, but, in my youth, thanks to Masterpiece Theatre, I did read all of The Forsyte Saga and Trollope's Palliser novels. What serialized novels have in common is that, for the most part, each novel stands on its own, but the author feels the need to continue to explore aspects of his characters beyond the original scope of the original novel.

In that regard, I suppose we could see 1-3 as a kind of GSR entity on its own. Grissom gets promoted and brings the girl he loves to Vegas, only to discover he can't have both the job and the girl. Beginning in 2, Grissom has two simultaneous arcs: the fear of going deaf and his unresolved feelings for Sara, with the first further compounding the complications associated with the second. What he doesn't discover until season 3 is that his "push me/pull me" relationship with Sara drives her to another man, a fact which utterly devastates him to an extent he could never have imagined.

Still, it is the deaf arc that is of more overriding concern: if he can't hear, he not only loses his job but also his entire sense of self at that point in time. Resolving his feelings for Sara will have to be backburnered, so he decides not to punish her for getting a life, as, at that point, he has no life to offer her, since he's not even sure what his life will be.

Meanwhile, back in Saraland, she discovers Hank is a dog and ends the relationship. If GSR were bad soap opera, the fact that Sara was seeing Hank would have been seen as a primary impediment. The thing is it never was. To me it's just one more nail in the Sara low self-esteem coffin. Also, if it were soap, the lab explosion and Grissom's unconscious revelation of his feelings for her would have led to some kind of positive resolution. The problem is that Grissom's deaf arc is still in play, not to mention all of his other relationship with Sara fears.

Sara misreads the situation; she thinks, finally, he might be ready to take the plunge, but she's completely wrong. By bringing their relationship to an either/or position, she basically pushes him into outright rejecting her, thus ending this phase of their arc. Ironically, Grissom's deaf arc gets resolved in the very next episode, but, by then, he really thinks it is "too late."

The thing about 4, besides it being incredibly hard to watch Sara descend into the abyss, is that, for the first time, the show makes it unequivocally clear that Grissom is both sexually attracted to Sara and in love with her. (The first doesn't always imply the second, although we learn later, for Grissom, it does.)

While Homebodies explores Grissom's fears that he won't ever be able to keep his loved one (Sara) safe--perhaps foreshadowing--Invisible Evidence certainly spells it out that his attraction to her is as physical as it is intellectual and emotional. I doubt anyone could watch those "pin me down" seconds out of context and not think that was a man who was about to fuck the shit out of her. (Of course in context it can't happen, but the desire is certainly there.)

Overall, however, outside of that, Grissom goes out of his way to distance himself from Sara: that "too late" thing again. Then the show throws Butterflied at us (and him), wherein it is made abundantly clear he is in love with her and regrets turning her down. What he doesn't know is that she hears everything he says, which twists the knife. She wasn't wrong: he does have feelings for her, only those feelings aren't strong enough for him to risk it, to take a chance on love.

So what we have for the rest of 4 is Grissom continuing to distance himself from Sara under the misguided belief that he has killed any feelings she had for him, while she continues to sink into depression and alcohol dependence. Given his distancing, he seems unaware that something isn't right with her until late in the season, and then it hits him between the eyes and in the gut in Bloodlines.

In a weird way, 4-6 is the inverse of 1-3. If Season 1 begins with a lot of light-hearted flirtation (and off the charts sexual chemistry) and ends with a seemingly insurmountable rift between them, 4-6 begins with the rift and works its way to their becoming an actual committed couple in a seemingly stable relationship. Of course the frustrating part is that the show neglected to tell us when, where, and how, although it's pretty evident that, for Grissom, Bloodlines is the catalyst for him to try to rebuild their relationship. I do not think he did so thinking the end result would be a "beautiful life" with Sara. More than likely, the best he hoped for was for them to be friends again.

As an aside, in the middle of 1-3, we have Cassie James, Grissom's personal Cassandra, telling him "You don't know what you need until you find it." While Grissom's "need" for Sara is couched purely in work terms throughout 3, season 4 into 5 shows a man who has seemingly come to terms with the fact that he both loves and needs her. The first half of 5 shows him far more in tune with her, and they begin to be comfortable together again. While I think he is perhaps at a place where he might occasionally daydream about the possibility that someday they might be together, I also suspect he thinks that ship has sailed.

And that is why he is completely floored in Snakes. Seemingly out of nowhere, she more or less tells him she's still in love with him, although, unlike in Play With Fire, she has no expectations that he can ever reciprocate her feelings. She, too, thinks that ship has sailed, but, now, she is reconciled to that fact.

I suppose the question for me has always been whether or not he goes to her in Nesting Dolls and tells her that it matters to him, not as her boss but as a man, why she's so angry, if Snakes doesn't happen. A large part of a believable narrative is that one thing must naturally lead to another. As a narrative arc, from 4 to mid-5, we get the following:

Invisible Evidence makes it clear that these two people are still sexually attracted to one another, even though neither one would consider acting on it at this point.

Butterflied confirms Grissom is in love with Sara and regrets turning her down.

Early Rollout tells us Sara may have a serious drinking problem.

Bloodlines is Sara at her lowest point, having been pulled over for a DUI, which signals to Grissom just how miserable she is.

In early 5, they begin to rebuild their camaraderie, with Grissom occasionally kind of sort of flirting with her, in his fashion.

Snakes confirms that, despite everything, she's still in love with him.

After her meltdown in Nesting Dolls, Grissom goes to her and coaxes her to tell him her deepest secrets, after which he comforts her, although what transpires between them after he takes her hand, like so many things GSR, is left vague.

It's always been curious to me that after their conversation in Unbearable that the curtain is drawn on exactly what the nature of their relationship is. I have always read, from Big Middle on, that they act like a couple, albeit a couple in the workplace. We get very little entree into their private interactions, so when and how they became lovers is open to individual interpretation. It isn't until the final scene of 6 that the show bothers to tell us they are lovers, and, judging by their interactions in Way to Go, have been a couple for some time.

I don't know about anyone else, but I think they seem married in that scene: completely comfortable with each other in a way that more or less screams that scenes like the one we are finally privy to have been occurring for a while.

In any event, 4-6 is a pretty remarkable journey in GSR land, as the two characters move from barely being able to speak to one another into a full-fledged love affair.

The amazing thing to me is that both the 1-3 and the 4-6 segments follow a logical progression, with each small insight or revelation explaining both choice and behavior--and leading into the next arc in their relationship.

It really is good stuff.

[thestraggletag]

Silver Tongue, a Rumbelle fic

Summary: Based on this prompt. Royce Gold is determined to confess his secret feelings towards the librarian. Unable to do it in person he sits down to write a letter but a combination of liquid courage and a determination to truly unburden himself made him perhaps a bit too ardently honest. And a bit careless.

This might have a sequel.

Rating: NC-17 

It had taken a long time to arrive at this point, but now that he’d made the decision Royce Gold was oddly calm, as if having made the decision had magically ended the slow-burning agony he’d been in since the library had opened three years ago. He hadn’t much thought he would be affected by the event, and had privately thought it wouldn’t last. He could not see there being any need for a library in Storybrooke, a town where most people had last held a book in high school, if even then. He had thought it would not last long, one of Regina’s many pet projects that was abandoned when it did not justify its constant spending of town funds.

He had been wrong, in the end, because he hadn’t factored in the librarian. Belle French swept into town with her high-end, short-skirted fashion and noticeable Australian accent and he thought the moment he saw her that she wouldn’t last. Too foreign for a small town like Storybrooke. He had been wrong, though. She had soon made friends with the miners, and Granny and Ruby, and even a few of the teachers from the local school. She also made sure to make the library indispensable, organising book clubs and other after-school activities for the children, offering computer literacy courses for adults and a place for the knitting club to meet, as well as regular table-game nights that surprisingly became wildly popular with certain crowds. And had made Granny an unbearably-cocky backgammon champion, two years running.

So she had stayed, and soon he had begun to notice the danger in it. The way he could not stop staring at her in the diner, or as she walked down the street. They way he got tongue-tied when in her presence, and turned softer, kinder. The way his smirks turned to smiles around her, and he laughed easier. She was smart, and learned, and had a delightful sense of humor. Dark, like his. And yet she was a being of light. Kind, always ready to help, and willing to see beyond the surface. Beyond the drunken escapades of Leroy, or the scandal surrounding Miss Blanchard and Mr Nolan, or his own sordid reputation. And it was that thing that made her so dangerous, how unafraid she was of him, and how determined she seemed to be in getting to know him.

He had been half in love with her before he realised it. The attraction he could deal with- after all, she was a gorgeous woman, and he a man with eyes- but the feelings scared the fuck out of him. It was too late to stop himself, however, so he resigned himself to being a besotted fool… from a safe distance. Only the more they interacted the less he seemed reconciled with the idea until it felt like he was choking on his unexpressed feelings. 

That’s why he had decided, in a fit of uncharacteristic emotional bravery, to unburden himself. Confess his feelings, likely be politely refused, and put an end to the madness. Or perhaps, if fate smiled upon him, be rewarded with a tentative acceptance to a dinner date, and perhaps more. It was always a possibility, albeit a small one, but enough to give him the push he needed.

He had decided it would be best to write her a letter. He got stupidly tongue-tied in her presence, after all, and there was something whimsically old-fashioned about a written letter, which he was sure she would appreciate. So on Friday night, after dinner, he locked himself in his study, fished out his Waldmann Tango and his best stationary, and…

Drew a resounding blank.

It was difficult to start writing with a blank page, he reasoned, so he tried at first simply to write the opening line, immediately falling into a ten-minute debate on whether to address the letter to “Miss French” or “Belle” and what to put in front of it “Dear Miss French”, on one end of the spectrum, seemed too dry and cold, and “Dearest Belle” on the other, too forward and presumptuous.

In the end he decided on “My dear Belle”. There was no point in writing a letter declaring his feelings if he could not even bring himself to call her by her given name and the slightly possessive edge to his greeting might come off as ardent rather than off-putting.

The opening paragraph seemed easy at first: “I am writing to you in order to express certain feelings I am sure have gone unnoticed so far, given the pains I’ve taken to ensure they remained hidden, in part due to our mutual circumstances and standing in town…” yet after a few times reading and re-reading it he had the odd, sinking feeling he might be writing the slightly-more-modern version of Mr Darcy’s ‘In vain I have struggled’ speech and that hadn’t gone over well the first time around. Luckily for him, at least, Belle had no sister he could insult while he was at it. So he scraped it and tried again, but soon felt everything he wrote sounded too formal, stilted and lacking in emotion. He was laying it all down like it was a contract to seal one of his deals, and it was hardly conducive to romance, or reflective of his true feelings.

He stood up, going for the wet bar he kept in the corner of the office. He selected a half-full bottle of Lagavulin and poured himself a generous three fingers into his favourite tumbler, deciding to forgo ice altogether. He needed to loosen up and good Scotch always helped in that. He sat down again, downed the drink in one go, and took another shot at it. He wanted to sound… Passionate, he supposed. It was the whole point of the letter, after all, to confess his true feelings. And his feelings were… ardent. Powerful. All-consuming, at times. Like a small, flickering flame that had slowly built into a veritable inferno. Though he did not wish to frighten her, he did wish to unburden himself and leave her with no doubt regarding his feelings.

“There hasn’t been a day since you arrived in Storybrooke that I haven’t felt your presence in some small way. You’ve taken a permanent residence in my mind and my heart, and there are days when I can scarcely think of anything else. All it takes is a small conversation or even a passing smile and I’m rendered useless.”

He fetched the Scotch from the bar and poured himself another drink, deciding it would be best to leave the bottle nearby. He felt he was finally getting into the groove of things, building up to something that sounded less like a legal clause. He downed his second Scotch, feeling the pleasant burn as it travelled down his throat, and took his pen again.

“You need not be concerned if you do not share my feelings. I will respect whatever decision you make. I simply wanted to tell you of the warmth you inspire in me, the way you’ve torn through all the walls I’ve built between myself and the rest of the world. And yet I know you to be, above all things, kind. More beautiful on the inside that you are on the outside, if that’s at all possible. I know that I am safe in your hands, whether you choose to give me a chance or not. Thank you for treating an old beast with kindness and humanity and know that, no matter what the outcome is, you have a friend and an ally across the street from the library, if there is ever anything you need.”

He signed it simply “Yours” because it felt apt. He certainly felt hers, in any case. Below he signed his name, trying to make his signature a bit more whimsical, give it a tad more flourish. Afterwards he stretched, poured himself another drink, and read it. It was… Good. Not too dry, not too passionate. Solid. Respectful but a good representation of his feelings at the same time.

Well… to an extent. He gulped down his third glass of Scotch and poured himself another, ruefully acknowledging that the letter was not quite honest. It was a bit restrained. Or a lot restrained. It felt like the gentlemanly thing to do, to tone down some of the more unbecoming feelings, keep those more intimate urges locked up for the time being. But perhaps, he mused, he could let loose a bit, to try and see if a more emotionally-honest letter would actually be preferable.

He could tell her, perhaps, a bit more about how it was hard for him to keep his eyes off her when they were in the same room. How utterly beautiful she was, small enough to make him wanna crowd her in, whisk her away somewhere and lean over her, feeling her breath on his neck. How he adored her high heels and flirty skirts and wished nothing more than to-

He removed his tie, and scratched out that last sentence, automatically fishing for his drink to try and cool himself down. He was beginning to get inappropriate and, anyway, he did not wish to come across as if he was solely enamoured with her physical appearance. Though he very much was enraptured by it, it was her personality that had made him fall for her. Things like her kindness, her understanding, her insatiable curiosity. He wished to share everything with her. Wanted to teach her all the secrets of his trade, have deep discussions on books they mutually liked, bare his soul to her inquisitive eyes.

“In my dreams, over and over, I am a willing slave to your curiosity, your insatiable need to explore and experience. When I close my eyes I see us in every way two people can be together, entwined till it’s impossible to decipher where I end and you begin. You let me press my mouth against every inch of you, drink from your cunt till I’m satiated, but it’s never enough. I wish to vainly attempt to quench your curiosity anywhere and everywhere you’ll let me, at any time of day. Over and over till neither of us can walk and I cannot remove your scent from my fingers, my mouth, my cock.”

He stared at the paragraph, head tilted to the side. The paper looked a bit blurry, so he checked to make sure he was wearing his glasses. He was. Odd. He reached out for his glass of Scotch, surprised that it was empty. He refilled it, noticing the bottle felt surprisingly light. He re-read the paragraph, trying to figure out if it was a bit too risqué. But, he reasoned, Belle was risqué, in her attire, in her reading choices. Sure she would appreciate him being the same, going out of his comfort sort in order to convey the depth of his affection.

“I dream of fucking you for hours on end. Slowly, with the care and thoroughness you deserve, till we’re both numb and spent. I want to make you ache in places where the pain bleeds into pleasure, and convince you that only I am worthy of making you come. That none of the boys you might have had between your lovely legs were worth a second look. I want to become your favourite toy, there for whenever you might need me, eager to please, to make you sigh and moan and keen till you are hoarse.”

He was hard, he noticed, but it was hardly a surprise, though he thought he might have drunk a bit too much for his body to rise to the occasion. He thought about touching himself for the briefest second, but quickly dismissed the idea. He was on a writing roll, it wouldn’t do to jeopardise that. Instead he poured himself another glass of Scotch, surprised when he had to tip the bottle all the way. He didn’t remember drinking enough to empty it, but he must have. Shrugging, he turned his attention back to the letter.

“I want to take you against the stacks of the library, amidst the books you love so much. I want to fuck you in the backroom of my shop so your smell lingers there. I want to go down on you in my bed for ours, till the silk sheets are ruined beyond repair. I want to consume you anywhere, everywhere, knowing that I will never be truly satiated, that it will never be enough. Have you splayed across my dining room table so I could eat you out as many times as I wanted, as much as you needed. I want to do everything to you, and have you do everything to me, till I can’t scrub you from my skin, the same way I cannot seem to be able to erase you from my heart and my mind.”

It was a bit of a sappy ending, but he supposed it balanced the more physical emotions out. He signed his name at the bottom with a flourish, smiled in satisfaction and staggered to his feet, determined to make it to his bedroom. He would get a good night’s sleep, wake up refreshed, and deliver the letter personally first thing in the morning.

In the morning, once he was done throwing up and had managed to shower, he shook his head at the idea he could’ve ever thought he would wake up anything other than terribly hungover. He popped a couple of aspirin, forced himself to swallow a few bites of dry toast, and dressed himself for the day. Before going out the door he remembered the letter, wincing when he recalled specifically the second draft he had made, clearly in a state of drunken foolishness. He picked up the sheets of paper, thinking for a second about ripping them up. He stopped himself at the last minute, though. The letter might not be fit to ever be seen by Belle, but he fancied the idea of rereading it later. He folded it neatly into an envelope and fetched a second one for the original, much more suitable letter. He would slip that one underneath the library’s door on his way to the shop. 

He was startled by his home phone ringing, picking up to see it was the tip on the estate sale he had been waiting for. He jotted down the necessary information, went back to his desk to retrieve the letter and was out the door a few seconds later. He hurried to the library and, before he could convince himself otherwise, slipped the envelope with the letter underneath the doors, feeling a mixture of relief and anxiety afterwards. He had done it, and though he felt unbearably nervous about the whole thing, he was proud of himself for following through.

Or he was, until he opened what he thought was the unsuitable letter and realised it was the original first draft. He had switched them up by mistake. Ice flooded his veins, and he felt like someone had punched him in the gut, leaving him gasping for breath. This couldn’t be happening. Not to him, not with Belle. The more he thought about it the more his mind recalled fragments of the letter, lingering in its uncouth language and vivid imagery. He was fucked, totally and completely.

Unless…

Maybe she hadn’t opened the letter yet. Or she had, but hadn’t gotten around to read it all. The first page or so was quite reserved. Perhaps he could sneak into the library and retrieve the rest, or swap it for the correct letter. He had the keys to the library, as it was his property, rented by the town. It would feel and likely be a terrible violation of the librarian’s private space, even though he did not intend to go beyond the library, but it would be worse to allow her to be submitted to such basic thoughts as the ones he had written down the other night. 

With that in mind he took the library keys from his safe and went out into the night. Storybrooke, being a small town, was deserted at that time, which was a blessing. Less people to see him slip inside the library using the back door, or hear him as he rummaged around inside, trying to be quiet and not use his phone flashlight, lest that alert Belle upstairs in her apartment somehow. Tentatively he made his way to her office, sure she would have surely put the letter, hopefully unsealed. But when he got close he noticed light coming through the windows of the office, where the blinds were partially-lowered. It seemed that, given his fucking luck, Miss French was still diligently toiling away doing something or the other for the library. Nevermind. He would take a discrete peek, to see if he at least spotted his letter atop her desk, and if he did he would hide in some shadowy corner of the library and wait her out. If he didn’t he would cut his losses and go back home, to try and figure out how he was ever going to face Belle again. 

He approached silently, drawing one of the slats down to peer inside. He spotted Belle right away, leaning back on her office chair with an ottoman propping her feet up. She was reading something and for a moment he appreciated her face, eyes focused on the page, cheeks slightly flushed and lips parted. Then he registered the rest, the shirt tossed above the desk along with her bra, the black silk camisole making her hardened nipples visible and her left hand, which disappeared somewhere beneath her rucked-up skirt. She sighed, head rolling back as she whispered something.

He didn’t know what registered first, whether it was the fact that she was saying his name or that it was his letter she was reading, clutched tightly to her right hand. There was no doubt as to what she was doing, and yet he could hardly believe that Belle fucking French was bringing herself to orgasm in her office while reading his letter. He pinched himself, unwilling to believe he was seeing what he was seeing, but the sting felt all too real. It wasn’t a dream, it was, somehow, reality. Sweet, sweet reality.

He needed to get out. As much as he burned to just burst into the office and let his mouth do what Belle’s fingers were attempting, it wouldn’t do. By some miracle she was not offended or otherwise put off by his risqué letter, but she sure would be by him breaking into the library. Offended and perhaps scared, unsafe, which was the last thing he wanted her to feel, especially in his presence. He would sneak out, quietly, and swing by the library tomorrow afternoon, right after closing time. As much as it would embarrass him to bring up his letter he would know she reciprocated his feelings, or that at least she was open to them, and that would give him the courage needed to ask her out. 

It was a solid plan, a great plan. And it would’ve worked, he was sure, if he hadn’t knocked over a banker lamp as he backed away from her office. The  antique bronze made a horrible noise as it collided with the floor, and the green shade shattered upon impact, making a mess.

“Who’s there?”

Fuck.

[thegeminisage]

hi, sorry for answering you both so late, i am putting your answers together since they are sort of related!

the short answer is, i can’t write a “real” sequel to broken road but the third part of the triptych would be the indirect dean/cas spiritual sequel, except with way more porn. the long answer is:

i just don't think i could write a true direct sequel to broken road set in that same continuity because i don't have anything left to say about john and how he gets along in the real with his family world now that he’s stuck there and they’re all stuck with each other. my main three points of interest that i felt were left unresolved would be the continuation of dean and cas's relationship (more on this in a sec), sam and eileen (ditto), and figuring out if john and mary ever made it work or called it quits for good. so if i wrote a sequel to broken road it would just be a bunch of john/mary stuff that i feel underqualified for because it WOULD involve their sex life and i DO NOT want to write john having sex. them fucking offscreen in broken road was as close as i'm ever getting and even that was weird. and then somehow i’d also have to work sam and eileen into that and it’s not at all related. it would take two fics and i don’t even want to write one. also, i really kind of want to leave the question of john and mary open anyway - i have my own thoughts about how things ultimately end up but i prefer to let the reader imagine what ending they like best, since people have such strong feelings about it. i know that's a little bit of a cop-out and i'm sorry! but it feels beyond the scope of that fic and also a little beyond my scope and area of interest as a writer.

if it helps you any, i imagine going forward their dynamic is a lot like it is in the epilogue, which is part of why i made the epilogue so long, was to give you a good idea of what life is like for them now. but here’s what i imagine might go down after the final curtain call (this is LONG, skip to the section labeled “dean” for the triptych answer):

john & mary: 

john continues to suffer and bite his tongue and probably do a lot of complaining and DEFINITELY do a lot of avoiding being alone with dean or cas or dean-and-cas. john was expecting to retire after yellow eyes died so he really wouldn't know what to do with a family that still hunts for "no reason" and i imagine he'd be pretty pissed that they still hunt at all. i expect he and sam would butt heads over that

mary would probably keep attempting to be supportive and keep being bad at it, and spend a lot of time trying to put a brave face on it while secretly dying inside, because she's constantly at war with herself. here she has john back, but not the john she remembers, and spending time with him is difficult because she wants to let herself have him and take comfort in him and also she doesn't want to be anywhere near him because he abused their kids

eventually mary or john or both would have to leave, though mary would come back - in canon she's in and out a lot anyway, she stays for awhile and visits regularly for game nights. i think john would miss the first game night, get one "seriously?" text from mary, and then show back up every week that he possibly could but also not visit unless it would make things worse if he didn't. i don't think he particularly enjoys spending time with his family for a long time, if ever, because much like season 12 mary he came back to a family he barely knew or recognized (and because of what he knows now spending time with dean would be particularly awkward). HIS sons would be getting married to women and retiring and having biological children. this gay adoptive whatever the fuck makes them feel like they are not his sons. 

anyway, i imagine john and mary would do much better when running into one another outside of the bunker, on their own separate hunts. they might even take one or two together. there’s probably some very guilty sex in their future at some point because mary is real fucked up. john post broken road does a lot of shutting up but i think around mary he would be the most like his old self. they do this will they/won't they dance for the next decade at least before finally making up their minds one way or the other. i do think they all still go on hunts together sometimes, maybe even with the apocalypse world hunters, and since that's sam's deal john is probably kind of quiet and falls in line and does what's needed without chatting much to anyone. i bet the first few times people don't even realize he's sam's father because he's so quiet. it's his way of trying to apologize to sam and also if he steps out of line when sam is in charge sam would <3 deck him. yes. but yeah i see it being very brisk and professional and awkward, until they all get used to each other again

sam: 

as i said earlier the only thing i didn't fix in broken road was eileen, so at some point sam would figure out a way to get her back - since in this verse jack never becomes soulless and chuck never returns and we never get season 15 it's possible she shows back up because she didn't go with her reaper, or because someone fucked up a summoning spell, or sam realized she was in hell and decided to spring her, or she just crawled out on her own like a badass. i think it would be kind of funny if john was involved with her resurrection but maybe accidentally somehow, so it's not like oh sam learns to forgive his dad because john did this really nice thing for him it's more like UGH why did it have to be YOU why are YOU involved in this important thing that has nothing to do with you slkdjfghl but also if you hadn't done it she'd still be down there or something, so, it cancels out. or idk maybe john had to work hard at it or give something up to make it happen. he has to genuinely shut up and be selfless and not fucking complain and feel sorry for himself the entire time, that might be fun too. either way sam would not thank him

(though i do think sam deserves space to explore the fact that he loves john even still, even despite the fact that he also hates him/is very angry with him and always will be. i don’t imagine sam and john ever fully reconcile but i imagine john behaving BECAUSE OF SAM SPECIFICALLY offers sam more catharsis than he thought possible.) 

anyway, john would be so relieved to see sam with a woman even if she is a deaf hunter but then it turns out she hates him like sam does so like. sucks to be him! meanwhile sam and eileen get to catch up and he finally has a willing ear (so to speak) that isn’t cas or mary to talk to about this stuff and of course SHE has someone who very much understands what it’s like to come back from hell. part of what i really love about sam and eileen is the way they sort of instantly and intrinsically recognized and understood one another, even across something that resembles a language barrier, and this hypothetical future would be no exception. there’s no way they don’t get engaged inside a year, and much like in the 15.18 fixit they’d sometimes hang at the bunker and sometimes not. i imagine with the apocalypse world hunters going in and out though it’s never exactly empty or lonely there. 

whether or not their family unit ever retires and/or moves out of the bunker in this verse is sort of beyond me because my feelings on it change daily but you can imagine whatever you like! however i am adamant that the furthest away from each other sam and dean will ever get permanent-living-situation-wise is next door/across-the-street neighbors. their weird little codependency is part of what i like about them and i have a Whole Thing about not “gentrifying” dean. but for the most part sam would be very much doing his own thing which involves john very little, and healing from his own damage with people OUTSIDE of his blood relatives which he very much deserves. and he has moved so completely past the need to care about john that like john is a backdrop in his life, albeit one with baggage. but mostly he becomes someone to keep an eye on in case he makes trouble, no different than a hundred other surly hunters sam’s known. and he can still be there for dean without his life revolving around dean because now dean has other people there for him too. (i ALSO have a whole thing about sam being in the life for dean specifically, that he’s giving up some or all of adulthood for dean because dean gave up childhood for him - kind of the way someone takes care of their kickass single mom in old age. it’s a guilt/love/debt/devotion sort of thing.) 

and speaking of the Eventual future, if babies ever come into this picture (sam and eileen’s, to be clear, dean and cas are probably satisfied with jack, NOT THAT JACK ISN’T ALSO SAM’S CHILD) john is allowed to see them but never unsupervised. i’m picturing like sam and eileen both on their third day of no sleep and sam lets john change a diaper because he’s exhausted and john considers that the best their relationship has been since sam was 6. mary always wanted to raise babies and sam likes her better so she’d get to pitch in with much more enthusiasm (and aw they’d finally get to bond a little more), and dean has raised a baby already so he’d probably try to like help and get waved away a lot like no no raising other peoples babies is no longer your job it’s ok. there is eventually a fight about this

cas & jack: 

castiel lives a great life caring for his newly re-graced son and staring at john when he enters or leaves rooms, and i imagine eventually jack gives him his wings back, since he can do whatever the fuck he wants (i'm not giving jack his own section but he also probably keeps acknowledging dean and cas are a couple like out loud which would be fine except for dean is still half in the closet like a skittish traumatized cat so eventually cas would have to explain very gently that nobody was supposed to know that yet and jack should cool it to give dean time to adjust)

anyway i DON’T believe in human cas, i believe he likes being an angel, so he just gets to stay an angel forever and now he has wings too <3 and he can teleport which spooks john in the exact same manner it used to spook dean in s4 <3 except this time cas is being <3 malicious on purpose <3

cas fully won here because like john does NOT want to speak to or acknowledge him much less be in the same room as him so they tend to have a dynamic where like all 6 of them are in the room and cas dean sam mary and jack all talk to each other and john dean sam mary and jack all talk to each other but cas and john do not talk to each other. cas doesn’t have to threaten him or glare at him constantly anymore like all he has to do is look at him. and john is like. man what’s he gonna do. that guy is having sex with your son and there’s nothing you can do about it! so dean doesnt have to be like ok cool it cas anymore because cas has literally won in every possible way. i think at most it’s very much cas being like “if i were trying to kill you, you’d know it <3″ and john can’t return those vibes to sender because then dean would be like ok cool it at his DAD instead. it used to be cas don’t piss off dad and now it’s dad don’t piss off cas. anyway i think that since cas has let dean lean on him so much it would be nice if he could lean on dean a little. again more on that in a minute

dean: 

and finally, as for dean...i think he needs a year minimum to dean with people acknowledging he and cas are a couple and another 3 for it not to be weird to say cas’s name in front of his dad. absolutely zero pda in front of john ever but he might like eventually get to the place where he and cas can lounge around together on the couch while they watch movies with the rest of fam and it’s not a big deal. sneak an arm around him at a movie theater. kind of the same vibes as the 15.18 fixit but with less anxiety. because like the worst possible thing (getting outed to everyone) has already happened and aside from the outing itself being completely horrible nothing that terrible even came to pass as a result, so he’s just Adjusting. i think he sort of has to unlearn and relearn his habits - his mediator thing, his defending dad thing. i think there’s a lot of times where he just walks out of a room when shit is too much for him to deal with because he has let go of some of the need to constantly micromanage his family’s interactions to make sure they don’t boil over. michael already took that scenario to the max and mary already dumped john so there’s really not much left to be afraid of. i think he gets told “that’s not your job” a lot and maybe listens more than he used to. and to bring us around to the second question...

i also think dean would get weirdly hung up on the fact that he and cas’s sex life is Not Normal - as in, they fooled around a little and that was it. i think dean would have a huge problem with that. like, obviously he has A Few Hangups About Gay Sex given his history but if you’re a couple you’re supposed to bang on the regular and it’s totally homophobic if he doesn’t bang cas as much as he’d bang a lady he was committed to, right? he’s not gonna give cas less than he gave cassie or lisa, that’s not fair to his best buddy and number one pal! 

meanwhile castiel, known asexual, is utterly and wildly neutral to the whole idea except that it’s a way to be close to dean. cas would be just as happy fucking like champions for a six-hour marathon or spending that same six hours curled up in bed together while he plays with dean’s hair. like, same diff. you know that thing about like “cas thinks everything is important he gives the same gravitas to the apocalypse and a nine year old’s birthday party”? like it’s exactly like that with sex and cuddling and sharing a meal together and driving together and watching dumb movies like it’s all time spent With Dean so it all matters just as much.

so we have this conflict where dean is tearing himself apart over the fact that he’s taking a normal human amount of time to “work up” to the whole thing and cas is like. but it’s fine. it’s literally fine. and dean’s reaction to this would be something very offended like hello excuse me i am super hot and fuckable and you don’t WANT me?

if this all sounds familiar that’s because i’ve written similar stuff to it before! if you go to the fic page for broken road, you'll see it's part of a series now (the "triptych"), with my dumb little 15.18 fixit as the prequel. even though continuity-wise these are two totally separate fics i feel very strongly that that fic is the spiritual prequel to broken road, and eventually, a long time from now, after the next @cambionverse​ fic is done or at the very least well underway, i'd like to write a spiritual sequel. a triptych is three works that stand on their own but also make a more complete whole, so even though these three stories would not be related at all in continuity of where they take place in canon, they each set the stage at a different part of the dean/cas relationship. so fic #1, the get-together, had no sex at all, and it was very short. fic #2, pre-established but just barely, had a little sex in it and it was very long. fic #3 then would be pre-established but like VERY pre-established and have a fuckton of sex in it, and be medium length. i’m ha ha basically writing my own nc-17 porn coda since SOMEBODY won’t do it for me (if you got that joke you’re entitled to financial compensation). 

except i actually really do want to tackle this subject myself, it’s stuff i only got to touch on in the other fics because it felt off topic, so in this fic it WOULD be the topic! i really found a groove i like with cas who has almost no trauma around sex but doesn’t care whether or not he has it vs dean who really really wants to have sex but has a minefield of past bad experiences he has to watch out for. and i like writing porn anyway and i didn’t get to write very much these past two fics. i’ve always said that i think dean would snowball (not like that, gross) - it’d take him FOREVER (literally a decade plus) to work up to kissing cas but a fraction of that time to start fooling around with him and a fraction of THAT time to blow him etc etc. the more he does the easier it gets. i feel like it’d be a lot of fun to write. 

so, this third fic would not be an official broken road sequel, because there’s almost no plot outside of the porn to speak of anyway, but if what you wanted was to see how the dean/cas went from where it left off, hopefully that will be satisfying in that regard.

i should say, while the third fic would be almost exclusively porn there is one plot element involving ********** that i am not going to talk about on tumblr because it would ruin the surprise. i have told a few people privately and i will tell you if we know each other pretty well but if you know (or guess) don’t tell anyone! 

see, the other thing i would want to tackle in that fic is how cas has his own traumas and baggage, even if they’re a little different from dean’s, and i think dean sometimes gets so deep in his own stuff he kind of...not forgets that exactly but forgets how profoundly it still affects cas, because by and large cas deals with that sort of thing a lot more quietly and in much healthier ways than dean does. not that his self-sacrificing ass is the poster child for mental health, but for example cas recognized suicidal ideation in himself and actively worked to keep himself away from situations that would make it worse. he translates his bad feelings into meaningful action (well, he attempts to, even if it usually goes wrong). so he hurts kind of quietly and in late season especially most of the worst moments of his life are behind him (barring jack’s death, which doesn’t happen in this verse). so he’s also further along in his healing process which mean dean kind of forgets how fucked in the head he can be. and in the uh...unusual situation...they find themselves in because of this minor plot, it becomes something that he can’t not notice, that they can’t just not talk about, and cas gets to lean on dean a little, they sort of get to know each other better. so that’s part of the point of that one little plot element. but the rest of it really is porn.

i haven’t started work on the third fic yet - i don’t have a title and my outline is just a bunch of choppy ideas and i have about 2000 words of the middle of the fic jotted down out of context. (it was originally going to be a shorter unrelated thing before i realized how well it tied to what i already had.) i have another obligation to see to before i can get started on it (again, @cambionverse​, you should read it if you havent, the concept might sound unappealing but almost everyone who tries it likes it and it’s way better than broken road). so it’ll probably happen a very VERY long time from now! but it IS happening. >:) i just hope after the first two fics in the triptych were so well received that it doesn’t disappoint 🥺

[ansu-gurleht]

sermon 35 annotated: the scripture of love

before i begin, it’s important to note that this is probably the trickiest sermon in the whole bunch to interpret. i’ve spent months mulling this one over, and there’s still stuff i don’t understand. so if you disagree with me on any of this, great! i’d love to hear what you have to say! but here’s my best guess:

- - -

'The formulas of proper Velothi magic continue in ancient tradition, but that virility is dead, by which I mean at least replaced.'

the ways of the velothi remain the same in practice, but the “virility,” the purpose and driving force, has shifted from the good daedra to the tribunal.

'Truth owes its medicinal nature to the establishment of the myth of justice.'

justice means getting down to the truth. to know the truth means to know justice. but vivec says justice is a myth. although, ze could be using “myth” in its other sense, not so much as “a falsehood” but “a tradition.” a tradition still need not be necessarily based in fact, but it’s still an extant thing which holds sway over culture.

'Its curative properties it likewise owes to the concept of sacrifice.'

for something to be true, that means many other things must not be true. many possible truths are sacrificed for one single truth. (likewise, for justice to run its course, it is sometimes necessary that the guilty go free and the innocent are punished.)

'Princes, chiefs, and angels all subscribe to the same notion.'

all three of these offices are of authority, which are responsible for establishing justice, which here is associated with truth and sacrifice. (also, “princes” are daedric princes, “chiefs” are aedra, and “angels” are magna-ge.)

'This is a view primarily based on a prolific abolition of an implied profanity, seen in ceremonies, knife fighting, hunting, and the exploration of the poetic.'

vivec says that the idea of “truth = justice + sacrifice” is based on getting rid of the things you assume are taboo (“implied profanity”). this means exploring the taboo and redefining it. 

'On the ritual of occasions, which comes to us from the days of the cave glow, I can say nothing more than to loosen your equation of moods to lunar currency.'

the first part might be some kind of reference to plato's allegory of the cave - perhaps equating the dawn era to the cave. "loosen your equation of moods to lunar currency" might mean "don't be afraid to turn towards lorkhan” - see: the lunar lorkhan theory (bear in mind, it IS just a theory in-universe, not a given fact)

'Later, and by that I mean much, much later, my reign will be seen as an act of the highest love, which is a return from the astral destiny and the marriages between.'

despite the many crimes of vivec, ze believes that ultimately hir impact on hir people and the world will be overwhelmingly positive. “the astral destiny” is what vivec believes is hir rightful, fated rule.

'By that I mean the catastrophes, which will come from all five corners.'

“the catastrophes” refer to the “the marriages between” of the last line. note that ze refers to hir sexual assault as a “marriage.” 

what are the five corners? the house of troubles has four. the provisional house has four. is this referring to the house of troubles plus tiber septim? it fits best, i think.

'Subsequent are the revisions, differentiated between hope and the distraught, situations that are only required by the periodic death of the immutable.'

history has been, and (according to vivec) must be rewritten on multiple occasions, either out of hope of bettering the people, or to shield them from ugliness. if history is immutable, unchangeable, then rewriting history every now and then is the “periodic death of the immutable.”

'Cosmic time is repeated: I wrote of this in an earlier life.'

if i were more into the concept of cyclic kalpas, this would be a wonderful reference. otherwise, this could refer to a belief vivec had in hir “earlier life” as a mortal, wherein the same (usually traumatic) events happen over and over again. this could apply more generally to certain events recurring, such as the catastrophes mentioned above.

'An imitation of submersion is love's premonition, its folly into the underworld, by which I mean the day you will read about outside of yourself in an age of gold.'

love causes a feeling of being submerged, but it’s only an imitation, a folly. someday, in a better time, you will discover it was always external to you. once you no longer need love, you will understand “its folly into the underworld”

'For on that day, which is a shadow of the sacrificial concept, all history is obliged to see me for what you are: in love with evil.'

“concept of sacrifice,” part of what makes truth healing, is again referenced. but the better time is the “shadow” of that concept, meaning on some level the concept is null, or no longer necessary. 

who is vivec addressing? hirself? “in love with evil?” is this guilt? vivec knows that the sacrifices ze made are no longer necessary, and the reversal in “see me for what you are” might imply that ze sees hirself as the final sacrifice - very messianic.

'To keep one's powers intact at such a stage is to allow for the existence of what can only be called a continual spirit.'

seems to be a reference to CHIM and zero-summing. in order to achieve CHIM at the stage whereupon you see the wheel sideways is to keep existing as you are, not to join with the tower and zero-sum. (this seems like a nonsequitur following the lines before. maybe those lines hint at this one more than i suspect?)

'Make of your love a defense against the horizon.'

horizon = the world, the unknown world beyond your body and mind. by loving others, you expand your body and mind, thereby expanding your horizon.

'Pure existence is only granted to the holy, which comes in a myriad of forms, half of them frightening and the other half divided into equal parts purposeless and assured.'

on some level, mortal existence is sullied. only immortals, divines, daedra and aedra, can have a pure existence, although it takes many forms, as many as there are spheres of dominion. the daedra are “frightening” and the aedra are “purposeless and assured”

'Late is the lover that comes to this by any other walking way than the fifth, which is the number of the limit of this world.'

confusing. what makes the lover “late?” isn’t the fifth walking way love? how is five “the number of the limit of this world?” is this world vivec's world, limited by the "five corners" mentioned earlier? or does the sixth walking way go beyond the limit of the world?

'The lover is the highest country and a series of beliefs.'

the lover is both of powerful physical (political) power, as well as philosophical power.

'He is the sacred city bereft of a double.'

the hortator has a double in the sharmat. but vivec, the lover, has no double, no equal.

'The uncultivated land of monsters is the rule.'

“uncultivated land of monsters” could refer to morrowind, as it is well known for being a dangerous and unforgiving place. but “monsters” could also refer to the “children” vivec has been hunting in the past several sermons.

'This is clearly attested by ANU and his double, which love knows never really happened.'

anu’s double is padhome. anu happened b/c he said he happened. padhome never claimed to happen, which makes him anu’s double, his opposite. he is defined only by how he is distinct from anu.

'Similarly, all the other symbols of absolute reality are ancient ideas ready for their graves, or at least the essence of such.'

reality is relative, not absolute. absolutist ideas are “ancient ideas ready for their graves,” outdated philosophies. symbols cannot represent absolute reality: they are merely signposts pointing towards it.

'This scripture is directly ordered by the codes of Mephala, the origin of sex and murder, defeated only by those who take up those ideas without my intervention.'

not sure what ze’s trying to say here. could be saying, "i become the lover through mephala. only the lover who becomes such of their own power can defeat me," with an implied, "no lover can do this, so no lover can defeat me."

'The religious elite is not a tendency or a correlation.'

to become “the religious elite” is not something you happen into, it’s something you strive to become. this line seems to clarify the previous.

'They are dogma complemented by the influence of the untrustworthy sea and the governance of the stars, dominated at the center by the sword, which is nothing without a victim to cleave unto.'

sea = seht, stars = ayem, sword = vehk. the sea and stars exist on their own, but a sword requires a victim - just as a lover requires a beloved.

'This is the love of God and he would show you more: predatory but at the same time instrumental to the will of critical harvest, a scenario by which one becomes as he is, of male and female, the magic hermaphrodite.'

“God” needs a victim "to cleave unto", but it’s ultimately very important that ze does so, in order to become what ze’s meant to be. also, "to cleave" is to make one into two, and vehk seeks to reconcile two parts into one - mortal and immortal, chimer and dunmer, male and female. this dichotomy of opposites is important. ze cleaves them apart and then cleaves them together, over and over.

'Mark the norms of violence and it barely registers, suspended as it is by treaties written between the original spirits.'

original spirits = et’ada. if you go about violence in the way prescribed by them, you will achieve little if anything. it's all like games played between gods.

'This should be seen as an opportunity, and in no way tedious, though some will give up for it is easier to kiss the lover than become one.'

but vivec seems to claim that these little victories within ancient boundaries can be useful. the lover seems to live within these boundaries, so as to show others how to escape them. but to take such a position is very difficult, much more so than simply accepting the lover’s assistance.

'The lower regions crawl with these souls, caves of shallow treasures, meeting in places to testify by way of extension, when love is only satisfied by a considerable (incalculable) effort.'

there’s some obvious innuendo here, but i won’t dwell on it. but this line really sums up what i think the walking way of love is. it’s creating a network of “lovers” who (through incalculable effort) help bring all of the souls it can into its breast (‘testify by way of extension’), so as to expand the network as well as help those it can to achieve something greater.

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: Why Digimon Tamers Remains The Best Of Its Genre

  When people debate their favorite series in the Digimon franchise, inevitably a majority of the votes either go to the original Digimon Adventure or Digimon Tamers. Both installments are pretty interesting in regard to the themes they focus on. Adventure is a story about adolescence and the lessons we learn as we grow up. It's also the series that perhaps has the least to do with the "digital" half of Digimon. For the most part, the monsters in Adventure feel like flesh-and-blood pals, with the lines between the Digital and Real worlds left to be discussed in further detail in later stories. This aspect doesn't detract from the narrative. In fact, it enhances it, with the friendly Digimon partners of the eight children often representing the joys of childhood we have to either leave behind or reconcile with as we age. 

  Digimon Tamers calls this into question. Why do we form a connection with creatures that don't come from our real world? Why are they important to us? What do they stand for? Tamers is often referred to as the "dark" Digimon series, but this feels more like a way to get clicks on a YouTube video than anything the show actually symbolizes. Because yeah, Tamers does have quite a few emotionally heavy moments, but these are not heavy due to any really "maturing" of the series. Rather, they're effective because Tamers is successful in examining our relationship with the real and the unreal, the world we know and the digital, and it comes to find that, yes, the connection we have with Digimon is just as valid as one we'd form with a neighbor or a friend if we choose it to be that way.

  Image via Hulu

  Tamers begins this quest with the open admittance that Digimon is a product. The Digimon trading card game exists in its universe, meaning that Digimon is inherently something to be bought, collected, and consumed. This is countered by the way that main character Takato's Digimon partner Guilmon is created. Takato literally draws him and thanks to the power of the Blue Card, Guilmon is brought to the Real World. Creativity is something human, a natural exploration of our feelings and ideas. In this, Tamers provides commentary on the entire brand of Digimon itself, something that had also become a line of virtual pets and movies and video games and cards and merchandise at this point. It all had to be created by someone, but where does invention end and exploitation begin?

  Furthering this conflict is the fact that the relationship between strength and progress in Tamers is a much more muddled one than in the series past. In Digimon Adventure 02, BlackWarGreymon struggled with the meaning of his existence, a loneliness derived from the fact that he was concocted to be a final boss monster and, well, that's it. It's kind of a multi-episode look at what happened in Pokemon's Mewtwo Strikes Back film, which also ponders the reasoning behind creatures built for might. To me, this is far more interesting than any vague accusations that series like these are "virtual cockfighting," as they were so often accused. If these creatures are living, or at the very least, digital beings meant to carry the facade of life, then they must have needs in a similar way to humans or animals, needs that go beyond "Learn Hyper Beam at Level 55."

  Image via Hulu

  This kind of thing permeates Tamers, exploring both the desire for battle and the upgrades that come with this action escalation. Takato struggles with what it means to both control and befriend a monster and fears the idea that Guilmon might change in a way that annihilates the connection between the two. Fellow protagonist Rika Nonaka also goes through an arc based around her relationship with Digimon, beginning the series as a cynical battler and over time becoming more and more protective of Renamon. Just like the relationship between art and its consumption, Tamers never puts a firm stamp on whether or not we should raise our Digimon for battles or simply let them be. Instead, it leaves that choice to the individual, whether they be human or monster, and allows the consequences to play out. 

  This is where most of the aforementioned emotionally heavy moments come in, because while Tamers does establish that Digimon are very, very cool, it does not give you a handbook when it comes to dealing with the harsher moments involving them. When Impmon kills Leomon and is then beaten badly, Impmon becomes guilt-stricken and ashamed. In the end, when the Digimon have returned to the Digital World and things have "gone back to normal," Takato discovers that there is no normal anymore. He takes with him everything that happened, even if reality seems intent on moving forward regardless. The promise that the Digimon and the kids would reunite someday at the end of Adventure feels a little empty at the end of Tamers. In Adventure, the past is something we grow from. In Tamers, it's something we carry with us.

  Image via Hulu

  Of course, it's not all skeptical. In the end, Takato discovers that another entrance to the Digital World has opened, meaning that if he wants, he might be able to find Guilmon again, just as the other kids might be able to find their own partners. It's a choice for them to make, though. The creation, the combat, the evolution, the line between what's real and what's a product — in Digimon Tamers, the importance of these things is the importance that we give them. 

      Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features.

By: Daniel Dockery

[malereader-inserts]

One for the Road

Fandom: Game of Thrones Pairing: Jaime Lannister & Brother!Reader Summary: Just as the night creeps upon the unfateful night, whether you or Jaime will live continues to be a mystery - you have one last confession for him to hear.  Word Count: 1,056 Request: “If you're up for it, could you please write something with a Lannister!reader who goes with Jaime to Winterfell and when they get drunk one night, the reader reveals just how much he idolized Jaime when he was a child? Maybe they grew apart as Jaime got closer with Cersei but they've been reconciling since he's started changing for the better? Kind of like an "I remember why I looked up to you so much and I'm so proud of you" moment?” A/n: Sorry, I bent the request

The Lannisters take pride in many things.

But, they’re dysfunctional as the next great house. First of all, you weren’t a full-bloodied Lannister, you were their little half brother. The son of Tywin Lannister and another woman he married, and eventually your mother died under suspicious causes.

Cersei never liked you, at least she liked you more than Tyrion. As the eldest sibling, whatever goes it has to go. She adored you more than Tyrion, definitely, you still had the striking Lannister genes, but she hated for being “weak,” you showed too many emotions, and emotions - in Ceresi’s eyes - was a weakness. And yet, she was envious of the fact that you were your father’s best child.

Jaime loved you, half brother or not, you were still a Lannister. You were adventurous, boyish and yet all so wholesome. You had a little more freedom than Jaime had when he was growing up. You still turned out to be a ser, but you had time to explore, to a kid upon Casterly Rocks. A part of him was ultimately jealous of that.

Tyrion adored you, it was no question and without a doubt that you were the best brother that anyone could ask for. You were the kindest human plagued with the worst house, you were warm and charming, smart and intelligent. You bargained for books and you bargained for life. You were kind to him, you didn’t look upon him as if he was a disgrace to the family name for being a dwarf. 

Things changed between the siblings. 

You were earning trust between the houses, Sansa respected you because you were nice and caring - you weren’t vicious nor evil like your nephew. The Tyrells thought you were smart and you could have the power to the throne yourself if you played your moves right - it terrified Littlefinger. And yet, you continued to be the boyish charmer you were.

But, you couldn’t stand what Jaime had become, as you grew older you became more perceptive and you knew what the twins did behind closed doors. You once looked up to Jaime, but now every time you look at your brother you couldn’t help but imagine him fucking his twin.

When Tyrion ran away, you went with. And you broke his heart. You were the only one who levelled with him, understood him. You were always the good brother, Jaime thought, he could never be like you. 

He wasn’t expecting to see you by Daenerys side though, he could feel Cersei radiate anger when you beam upon Daenerys’ arrival at the dragon pit. 

Since you sailed away to Winterfell that night, without even a greeting to Jaime. He abandoned Cersei to fight by your side, after all, you were an honourable man and if you trusted Daenerys judgement to Winterfell, he had to go after you. 

Which explains why you two were currently drunk as the night creeps on until the wight walkers take claim of the North. 

“You know,” You slurred, leaning back in your seat, just you, Tyrion and him at the fireplace, “I am not drunk enough for this.” 

“Worry not, I’ll find us more wine,” Tyrion ran out of the room in search of more wine.

“I have never seen him run with such purpose,” You commented as Jaime looks at you with a smile.

He wasn’t drunk yet, but watching you drunk was amusing enough. Knowing you, you would get sober as the night drags on. You looked at him with pursed lips before pointing at him.

“You’re a cock,” You sneered, Jaime was taken aback with your hiss, “A colossal cock, I hated what Cersei made you be.”

Jaime raised an eyebrow at your confession, shocked but not surprised, not many people liked Cersei, “Oh, well, yes of course.”

You groaned, rolling your eyes as you threw your head back and looked at him, “I used to look up to you, you know? Big brother Jaime, with his golden hair, flow pretty as he rides his white horse.”

Jaime chuckled at your sarcasm, he should be angry at you for the insult and yet he knew he had deserved this. Also, he hadn’t wanted to ruin any chance of reconciling with you.

“All I wanted was to be like you,” You mused out sloppily, “And then you ruined yourself, you became selfish, you weren’t even that impressive, just a young boy thinking that his big brother was everything. You really disappointed me, Jai.”

Jaime looked at how sad you were and you hurt him even more with your evident disappointment in him, and you wrapped it up with an extra dig at him by using the nickname you had given him when you were younger. You were proud to be his brother and threw it away. 

“I could be better,” Jaime responded, as you looked at him with a raised eyebrow, “I could be a brother that you’ve always wanted.”

Feeling slightly sober you let out a soft huff, a smile creeping upon your lips, “Brienne did say you’ve changed.”

“I’d like to believe that I have,” Jaime nodded, you sat up straight and cleared your throat.

“Then make a promise with me.”

“Anything.”

“You stick by me until we die. No Cersei, no lies, no bad anything. Just me and you like it used to be,” You asked him, your eyes softening.

Jaime stares at you, deep down he cares and still loves Cersei but she had become what he had been title, the Kingslayer. It wasn’t Daenerys he should have been worried, the Mad Queen stood before him and it was their very own sister. But, his love for you, Tyrion and Brienne were far stronger than the one for Cersei.

“You have a life to settle down, Jaime,” You cooed at him as he was brought back to reality, “You still have a page to fill out with your greatest deed, I want to be proud to be your brother, I want to be proud to be a Lannister.”

“And all of the realms shall hear us, Lannister men, roar.”

You grinned as you clasped his outstretched hand towards you, Jaime pulling you into a tight hug as he leans his head on your shoulder. Pride radiated beyond from you as you parted the hug.

“Hear us roar!”

[red-winters]

Thor 4 Unpopular Opinion:

I don’t trust Marvel and I can’t find it in me to be excited for Thor 4 beyond the vague and wary reaction of “Oh, more footage, that’s good I guess? Maybe they’ll fix things...” Because hope springs eternal, apparently.

Ragnarök was fun and all, but after the way they treated Thor in Endgame and basically stripped him of his family and people in Infinity War, I’m not sure I want a Ragnarök-esque Thor just yet? At least until they address all the stuff he’s had to deal with in IW and Endgame.

I mean, I’m worried it’s going to be too flippant when all I want at this point is MEANINGFUL character development and nuanced character portrayals and not just...witty, irreverent quips all the time, everywhere.

Also, I’ve heard TW doesn’t like Loki and that makes me wary, because half the reason I loved the Thor franchise so much was because of Thor and Loki’s brotherhood and the potential for them to truly reconcile! (The other parts were watching Thor being surprisingly kind and or funny/sweet to everyone and his maturing character development into a better man and King than Odin AND admiring all these epic and beautiful looking Realms and mythic beings)

And while a more fleshed out reconciliation is probably something we’ll never get, I’m not sure I want to see what we DID get made into the butt of jokes or just plain forgotten or something by people who are apparently sick of Loki and the franchise’s “Shakespearean” flavor —which differentiated it from the other MCU films in a way I had always enjoyed because the epic, almost mythic, quality to it is something you don’t usually get in any other Marvel film.

I acknowledge the franchise needed a breath of fresh air, but I’ve never felt comfortable with the mocking of the older Thor films like they were mistakes and Ragnarok was the only Good Thing that ever came out of the franchise. Ragnarok was enjoyable, but sometimes I feel like I’m still waiting for the sequel to Thor: Dark World because the abrupt tonal shift made it feel too disconnected and we never got the pay off for all the character development they did in those two movies. They weren’t perfect, Dark World especially, but...there was potential there for growth, especially with Thor’s character that will probably never be explored, I think.

Also, I’m not a hardcore Loki stan, but I CARED about both of them and Asgard and the brighter future Marvel teased us with. Watching it all go to shit in IW and Endgame while being played off for laughs was really disappointing. (Actually, I liked Thor in IW and would’ve been okay with the direction they took in Endgame had it, as I’ve said, NOT been played JUST for laughs) And Thor 4 being handed over to someone who doesn’t even like Loki or the previous films just means likely none of that will ever be put to rest in a satisfying way.

Also, the way they disregarded the other characters in the Thor franchise (I’m still low-key bitter over the casual deaths of the Warriors Three, Jane being dumped out of nowhere, the lack of Darcy and Erik, and just...a lot of things) never sat right with me even though I’m glad we at least got Valkyrie out of it.

But yes. Am I distantly glad to hear Thor is getting a fourth movie when the other Avengers aren’t? Yeah, I guess. But I really can’t bring my hopes up higher than they already are, which is...not very high at all. I hope they prove me wrong, but I’m not going to bother holding my breath over it.

[elliepassmore]

A Thousand Beginnings and Endings Anthology Review

5/5 stars Recommended for people who like: anthologies, fantasy, sci-fi, female-led stories, South-East Asian folklore, Indian folklore, Chinese folklore, Middle Eastern folklore, Japanese folklore, Korean folklore, Hmong folklore Forbidden Fruit: Roshani Chokshi 5/5 stars Filipino Chokshi's story is based on the Maria Makiling folktale based around the spirit of Mount Makiling. The style of writing feels like a traditional folktale, the ones that include morals at the end and cautionary warnings (which is perhaps a redundant statement), and is set in fantasy. I like how Chokshi included cautions about the tale "do not trust the fruits of Maria Makiling. If you find your pockets full of thorny fruit, throw it out the window" (5) as bookends to the tale. In this story, the spirit of the mountain is in the form of a girl, and since it's a love story, she of course falls in love with a human boy. The story is only 12 pages, but Chokshi develops the emotions of the mountain so she goes from curious and solitary to someone who would risk losing her heart, and though we don't really see the village or know what's going to happen, Chokshi also weaves suspense and the development of greed and jealousy within the pages as well. Olivia's Table: Alyssa Wong 5/5 stars Chinese Wong's story is based on the Hungry Ghost Festival, and is set in a mix between modern-day Arizona and the Old West. In this story, our MC Olivia has taken up her late mother's task of feeding the ghosts in an, pun intended, Arizona ghost town during the Hungry Ghost Festival. I really enjoyed Wong's interplay between loss and family and helping others. Olivia's mom died about one or two years before the story began, though she still keenly feels her loss and reveals that it's what led to her girlfriend breaking up with her. Going back to the Ghost Festival to cook the food is Olivia's way of getting closer to her mom--both a figurative and literal attempt, as Olivia hopes her mom will show up as a ghost. As Olivia helps the ghosts find peace and closure through her food, Olivia begins to heal by helping a forgotten ghost and a lady ghost she had a crush on as a kid. I'm not explaining it well here, but it's one of my favorite stories in the collection. Steel Skin: Lori M. Lee 5/5 stars Hmong This is one of the sci-fi stories in the collection, and it's the one that goes the deepest into the realm of sci-fi. Based on the tale The Woman and the Tiger wherein a tiger kills a hunter and sneaks into the home of his family, killing most of them, only to get killed by the remaining family in turn. Lee flips this on its head a little, and even after reading it twice I'm still not sure who's the tiger in the story. Yer is the main character of this story, and she lives with her father and memories of a mother who was killed in an android uprising. Yer's father starts acting strangely and seems to be working in a now-illegal field of technology. The story starts out kind of slow and slowly builds as Yer's dad starts acting stranger and stranger until Yer tells her neighbor/boyfriend she thinks her father's been replaced by an android and the two decide to finally find out what's going on with her dad. Still Star-Crossed: Sona Charaipotra 3/5 stars Punjabi Based on the Indian folktale of Mirza and Sahiba, two star-crossed lovers who end the way most of them do--with one of them dead. This story is a modern reimagining of the original tale, set in New Dehli, New Jersey. This one is mostly just creepy. At first, I thought it was going to be a reincarnating story, where the star-crossed lovers knew each other from a past life and they'd both remember and it wouldn't be quite as creepy. Not entirely the case, though Charaipotra hints throughout the story (and in the afterword) that it's kind of reincarnation for the both of them. However, it mostly seems like the guy remembers the girl and keeps 'finding' (read: stalking) her in hopes she'll agree to hang out or enter into a relationship with him. The twist toward the end makes it even creepier. The Counting of Vermillion Beads: Aliette De Bodard 4.5/5 stars Vietnamese Bodard's story is a reimagining of the Vietnamese tale Tam Cam, which is about two sisters engaged in a jealous rivalry. Bodard turned it on its head and made it so the two sisters are loyal to one another, but have different ideas of what they want and can do in life. Set in fantasy Vietnam, the two sisters are census takers for the emperor. The elder sister, Tam believes they can escape and be free and go back to their home, while the younger sister, Cam, believes that the only way to freedom is through the system. Tam and Cam both tug their own direction, leading to a rift between the two for a bit, until they realize they can reconcile their ideas of freedom into something new. Cam is the narrator and is more passive than Tam, unwilling to view the system they've been a part of and the walls that surround them as a cage for most of the story, which is why the half star was dropped. The Land of the Morning Calm: E.C. Myers 5/5 stars Korean This one is a meld of sci-fi and contemporary, as it is technically set in modern-times, but also deals with a computer game that may or may not have real elements...okay, so it's also technically fantasy as well, since the game centers largely around magical, ancient Korea. Based on the Chasa Bonpuli epic that follows the main players of death: the god of the underworld, a grim reaper, and a guide to the underworld. Sunny, the main character, lost her mom five years prior while playing a computer game beloved by the whole family. Since then, none of them have touched the game. As the story opens, the grandfather is convinced the mother is back as a gwisin, or a ghost/spirit, and is trying to tell them something. Both Sunny and her dad brush it off, though Sunny decides to play the game one last time before it's shut down forever, and is thus transported into the land of fantasy and sci-fi. During the story, Sunny struggles to reconcile the death of her mother and the difference between clinging to the past and honoring it. The Smile: Aisha Saeed 4/5 stars South Asian A retelling of the legend of Anarkali, a girl who danced for the king and purportedly fell in love with one of his sons. I liked the story at first, though there were creepy undertones in this one as well. It's in a more historical setting than a fantasy one, and I enjoyed the way Saeed built the world and the people in it. I also like how Saeed explored consent in a relationship where one is royalty and the other is a servant/dancer of the palace. I mostly docked a star because of the creepy factor and the anger of the prince. Girls Who Twirl and Other Dangers: Preeti Chhibber 4/5 stars Gujarati A contemporary reimagining of Navratri, a Hinu holiday about community and dancing and being good to people. The story intertwines the actions of the main characters in the contemporary, magic-free world with the events happening that create the origin of Navratri. Three friends go to a Navratri celebration together and come into contact with the infamous (to them) Dinesh, who's sloppy dancing on Navratri years ago led to one of them having their skirt come unwrapped. In the spirit of the holiday, they decide to get revenge. It's a funny, lighthearted story and the star drop is mostly just me being unable to handle people being embarrassed, which both the girls and Dinesh end up being, to varying degrees. Nothing Into All: Renee Ahdieh 5/5 stars Korean This is another story about siblings and jealousy, this time based on the Korean story The Goblin Treasure, where goblins give two siblings the chance to gain treasure beyond what they know. Ahdieh is one of my favorite fantasy authors and I really enjoyed her contribution to this anthology. In this one, two siblings venture into the woods in search of the goblins they saw one year. The elder sibling, the sister, still feels guilty for something that occurred in childhood and thus attempts to hide her successes from her brother for fear they'll upset him. The brother has since grown up to be jealous and angry over his sister and what he views as his sister's selfish wishes. Naturally, one finds the goblins and the magic and the other does not and an argument ensues. The story is an interesting exploration through guilt, forgiveness, selfishness, and what one will do for family, even when said family has done wrong. Spear Carrier: Rahul Kanakia 3/5 stars South Asian This is a take on the Mahabharata, a famous Indian epic and, I believe, the longest epic that's ever been written. In the Mahabharata there's a huge battle toward the end of the story, and Kanakia has retold a portion of this battle from the perspective of one of the millions of people/creatures that have shown up to fight. It's another mix between contemporary, fantasy, and sci-fi. This is a story that I'm disappointed I didn't like better, especially since I generally like retellings of Mahabharata stories. I thought this was a really interesting take on the kinds of massive, all-out war we so often see in epics and high-fantasy books, even if I didn't necessarily like the story itself. The narrator of the story seems to be a high school- or college-aged guy who basically ends up accidentally agreeing to be a part of the battle and spends the time thinking of heroism and who we consider heroes and brings up the rather good question of why people were even fighting in the battle to begin with. I think this question, which is what the author says inspired the story, is really what saved this one for me. Let's face it, when we read stories of epic battles, we don't really ask where every soldier came from and why they decided to fight, we just role with it. Spear Carrier offers the answer that people came from all over, from all times, some for good and some for bad reasons, to fight in a war that needs corpses. If the narrator had been less....I don't even know, less preachy and less like the kind of person who thinks that just because they think deeply has few friends it means everyone else is shallow. Other than that, it's a great concept. Code of Honor: Melissa de la Cruz 3/5 stars Filipino This story is based on the aswangs, which de la Cruz describes as "banshee-like beings" (237) in Filipino folklore, and from what I've gathered from research for one of my books, can also be thought of like a cross between vampires and witches. Basically, they're awesome, oft-forgotten in the West, mythological creatures, which is why I'm so disappointed I didn't like this story better. The premise of the story is a good one: an aswang who's been orphaned and is searching for the rest of her bloodline. Unfortunately, this comes through by the aswang attending a prestigious high-school in contemporary New York and then being discovered by the bratty popular girl. With the undelivered promise of the story, the fight in the bathroom scene, and the not-quite-answered questions still left at the end of the story I had to drop two of the stars. Bullet, Butterfly: Elsie Chapman 5/5 stars Chinese Chapman's story is based on the Chinese folktale of Liang Zhu, translated as The Butterfly Lovers, where class and duty keep apart two lovers who, again, like most star-crossed lovers do, end up dying. In the original, these two lovers end up being resurrected (reincarnated?) as butterflies. This is the only dystopian/sci-fi story in here and it actually makes me wish there was more of them. Chapman flips the original on its head a little and instead of having the girl dress up as a guy to go to school, the guy dresses up as a girl to go to the factory. In this world, the girls are the only ones to work in factories until they're old enough to go to war while the guys are stuck at war or in training for longer (unsure how long, I don't think it's specified, but the guys go off first). Viruses keep ravaging the country, which is why the main character isn't off fighting in the war at the moment, he's in recovery. So, he dresses up as a girl and goes to the factory and befriends Zhu. I like the realness of the two of them as they work and get to know each other, the little details Chapman adds, such as the corner they eat lunch in where no one thinks to look. I also like the metaphors she weaves throughout the story, such as the butterfly bullet that's been invented and the gun smoke choking out parts of the country. It's a very metaphorical story based in tragedy, but the characters and their relationships make it worth any heartache. Daughter of the Sun: Shveta Thakrar 4/5 South Asian I believe this one is set in a urban fantasy (or rural fantasy??) setting, though I'm not entirely sure. It retells the story of Savitri and Satyavan from the larger Mahabharata epic as well as the story of the goddess Gangu and King Shantanu. In this story, Savitri is born with a sun heart, and because her parents worry for her, they remain mostly isolated on a large museum-estate. One day, Savitri finds a boy with a moon heart standing by the lake being coaxed into the water by a swan. She saves the boy from drowning and brings him back to shore, and the two become fast friends and lovers, only, Savitri is hiding from him what the swan said and why she was luring him to the water--an incident which he has no memory of. As the story goes on, Savitri realizes that the swan, and the goddess she meets, is correct and she cannot make decisions for Satyavan, even if it means letting him 'die,' and thus she gifts him back his choices. I like the story and I like the characters, but I'm a huge fan of choice, so Savitri's decision to take Satyavan's choices without thenletting him know is a hard no for me, hence the dropped star on an otherwise fantastic story. The Crimson Cloak: Cindy Pon 5/5 stars Chinese Set in a fantasy world with a golden ox, Pon's story is a retelling of the Chinese legend The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, which tells the tale of a cowherd whose talking ox tells him to steal the red cloak of a fairy girl because it will mean she must marry him. The two marry, have some kids, and then are separated by the fairy's mother who makes the Milky Way to keep them apart, only allowing them to visit on the seventh day of seventh moon. Pon makes the girl the narrator and a goddess in this one. In it, the girl, Hongyun, sees the cowherd and sets out to trick him into meeting her because she's curious. The two become friends and then lovers, and then realizing that she cannot give him what he wants, Hongyun tries to let him go. It's a story of loving and letting go and coming back together again and how we remember in parts even if we love whole. One of the things I particularly like about this story is how Hongyun directly addresses the reader "despite how the legend goes, the truth of the matter is, Dear Reader, I saw him first" (282). I think it adds a clever dimension to the story, and even in short stories I feel like it's not something that happens a lot. Eyes Like Candlelight: Julie Kagawa 3/5 stars Japanese Based on the Japanese myth of the kitsune, trickster fox creatures that have the ability to manipulate the mind and transform into humans. The premise of the story is good, it's set in feudal Japan and centers around a young man, Takeo, as he tries to find a way to meet the rice quote for the daimyo's tax. He comes into contact with a kitsune...which is sort of where I stop liking the story. I'm going to be 100% honest, I think this story has some rapey undertones to it. While the kitsune family helps Takeo and gives him the rice he needs to in turn help his family and town, the girl kitsune also heavily manipulates his mind and at the end there's hints that the two of them have had a kid even though they only meet as humans once and Takeo doesn't even seem to fully remembers what happened during that time, despite literally being the third person narrator.

[thetygre]

Arthurian D&D Books

So before the tumblrpocalypse hits us all, I guess I better belt out that mini-review of D&D books that deal with Arthurian legend for @magitekbeth, @fuckyeaharthuriana, and @lucrezianoin. These are specifically 3rd Edition books since that was the edition I started with, and it also had the greatest body of material to work with. 3rd was famous for its glut of books by third-party publishers, and Arthurian mythology was a recurring subject under the Open Source Rules (OSR).

That being said, Arthurian legend has always had some form of presence in Dungeons and Dragons. It is very openly an inspirational source in the fantasy gumbo that is D&D. The original 1st Edition Deities and Demigods included ‘Arthurian Heroes’ in it, along with gods from just about every pantheon. 2nd Edition had a supplement detailing Arthurian legend, though for the life of me I can’t find it.

But let’s start cracking on the 3rd edition books. Atlas Games’ Love and War isn’t necessarily about Arthurian legend, but it is about knights, particularly the romantic characterization of knights that is attached to a lot of versions of Arthurian legend. The book is built around the four concepts of knightly virtue (love, valor, piety, and loyalty), with special knightly orders and character options for each one. It expands outward into fantasy rpg territory a bit more by also offering race-specific concepts for knights, such as orders specifically for dwarves and elves.

Since it doesn’t have to explore Arthuriana, that also gives Love and War more room to explore knight concepts that other books here typically don’t; female knights, knight duos, fallen knights, etc. And as is standard for most of the books mentioned here, Love and War also introduces a variety of subsystems for a chivalric setting, including tournaments, piety, honor, and renown. Interestingly, one of the subsystems is courtly wit, which is a non-combat system meant to emulate the verbal sparring and social maneuvering present in stories about nobility and knights. Again, not Arthuriana, but recommended.

I’ve already talked about I, Mordred before, and it’s what got me thinking about this list again. Like I said there, I just feel like the premise of fighting an evil King Arthur alongside Mordred as the good guy just didn’t go far enough. If nothing else, Morgan le Fay should have been at least Neutral instead of still being cast as Evil. Really, everybody needs to be some kind of Neutral to really get an ambiguous setting of competing factions with no clear ‘right’ choice. Personally, I still want to see a version that goes super-hard with the alignment flip; paladin Mordred and white witch Morgan versus the half-demon warlock Merlin, his puppet king Arthur, and the death knights of the round. But then again, subtlety was never exactly my forte.

But this is where we get into the real good stuff, the books committed to Arthuriana. Relics and Rituals: Excalibur is the book of choice for if you want to plop a faux-Arthurian Britain into a high fantasy setting. It comes at Arthurian legend from a perspective that inherently has multiple races, high magic, and wandering monsters. You can play as not just a human, but a sidhe elf, halfling, dwarf, or even hobgoblin. Even half-orcs have made it in, though reflavored to be their own race of ‘Wild Man’.

Like most extensive themed campaign books, R&R: Excalibur takes an extensive look at what aspects of the base Dungeons and Dragons systems stays the same and what changes. For instance, some player character classes like fighter, rogue, bard, and paladin fit right in to Arthuriana, while other like the oriental-themed monk and the spell-slinging sorcerer are right out. (Regular classical wizards are still fine, though.) And, as is to be expected, there is a new knight class, though the author does note that it can seem somewhat redundant with the fighter and paladin still around, and its use is optional. There are a few prestige classes, with the one sticking out most in my memory being the classic Green Knight, complete with chlorophyll and resistance to decapitation.

There are a variety of essays encompassing everything from tournaments to the importance of knightly decor to honor and, perhaps most importantly, how to manage D&D’s vastly overpowered magic system and magic items into an Arthurian setting. There are no less than two pantheons, one Faerie lords and the other of this new-fangled ‘God’ fellow. Me being me, I mostly remember the chapter on how to treat different kinds of monsters; I was particularly fond of the idea of making the Fisher King’s cursed kingdom filled with undead trying to enact a danse macabre of everyday life, complete with skeleton farmers driving skeleton horses to plow barren fields. But again, that’s just me.

Relics and Rituals: Excalibur is definitely a worthy book for lovers of Arhturiana. But that’s the thing; it captures the spirit and tone of Arthurian legend, but not Arthurian legend itself. There’s definitely an appeal to it; something novel about the idea of jousting on a chimera, or cockatrice fights at the local fair, but it’s not quite the same. It’s high fantasy D&D stepping into Arthuriana, not the other way around. For that, for the real Arthurian legend lovers, you’ve got to get the real gem.

*Slaps top of book* This bad boy can fit so many knights in it. This is arguably THE book for Arthurian mythology in Dungeons and Dragons. Legends of Excalibur: Arthurian Adventures is a love letter to Arthurian legend. It starts with an incredibly brief summary of the history of Arthurian legend, from Wales to La Morte D’Arthur to John Boorman. LoE:AA makes it clear that it’s up to the reader to go research Arthurian legend for themselves; all the book can do is point them in the right direction. After that, it’s right into the content.

There are some pretty drastic changes made to the base 3rd edition D&D core rules before really setting in. The Alignment system is gone entirely, replaced by a character’s honor score. What are the character race options? Get out of here with that; LoE runs old school, so it’s human or nothing. What you do pick, though, is your starting social class, and that can make just as much difference as whether you have pointy ears or not. All the base D&D classes are chucked out except for fighter, rogue, barbarian, bard, and druid.

All that uprooting is fast replaced by a host of new character options. Legends of Excalibur is smaller than Relics and Rituals, but definitely packs more bang for its buck. The new character classes include the fool (with a special nod to Arthur’s fool, Dagonet), the hedge mage (new general mage/spellcaster), the hermit and the priest (for divine spellcasting), the minstrel (meant to represent more traditional Celtic/druid bards instead of the base D&D one), the noble (so that you can finally live out the fantasy of being rich and respectable), the robber baron (which is like the noble, but with more stabbing and shaking people down), the skald (another bard, but for vikings), the yeoman (Robin Hood/archer type), and, of course, the knight.

As if that wasn’t enough, there are a metric ton of prestige classes. Some are fairly bog standard, like the alchemist or berserker, while others are meant very explicitly to play into Arthurian archetypes. Remember how there was actually more than one Lady of the Lake? Now you can be one too. Merlin? Court mage. Morgan le Fay? Fae Enchnatress. And knights? Oh, you bet there are knight prestige classes here. There are no less than SEVEN knight prestige classes, including Quest Knight (specifically for seeking the Holy Grail), White Knight (to replace paladins), Black Knight (to replace blackguards/antipaladins), and practically every color knight in between.

Legends of Excalibur also offers rules for characters that advance beyond the standard level cap in the Dungeons and Dragons system, into the ‘Epic’ character levels. This is actually one of the reasons why I feel like Dungeons and Dragons can be a good fit for Arthurian legend. A character can start out as little more than a wandering soldier and advance to become as powerful as a demigod. While the typical image of Arthurian mythology is of a fairly low-fantasy medieval Europe, the actual source material, throughout its multiple incarnations, isn’t stingy about giving its characters magic powers, legendary equipment, and impossible challenges to face. While it still needs to be toned down to some degree, there is definitely room in Arthurian legend for the kind of superheroic powers that the Epic rules can bring. (Or at least as long as the setting keeps spellcasters to a minimum.)

This book isn’t just a guide to playing Arthurian characters, but the Arthurian world. There is a complete map of Arthurian Europe that has to reconcile Arthur’s given time with accounts of him rebelling against the Pope and fighting in the Crusades before Islam even existed. It’s a wonderful little detail, trying to account for everywhere that Arthur or one of his knights or relatives supposedly lived in or visited. Another detail is accounting for the the timeline; Legends of Excalibur designates five important time periods in the Arthurian cycle, from just after Uther’s death to the Golden Age of Camelot to the civil war with Mordred. Each period has different effects on not just characters, but the geography, people of the land, and magic. Try to go into the forests just after Uther died, for instance, and a character is likely to run into monsters like dire wolves. Go back when Arthur is on the throne, though, and the forest and its animals will be tamer. It’s a world very committed to the idea of Divine Right, and how a king affects the universe.

Of course there are monsters. There’s the standards; white hart, Questing Beast, though some more obscure monsters like a variety of werewolves are here too. There’s individual entries for monsters to describe their individual place in Arthurian Europe; chimeras and manticores are rare, ogres and trolls are common, etc. The real gem of the monster section, though, is giants and dragons; giants and dragons are staples of knightly mythology, after all, so they get special treatment. Just like people, dragons and giants are categorized by class and bloodline; a noble dragon, for instance, will have scales the color of gold and be the size of a castle, where a lowborn dragon looks like the wrong end of a snake and an umbrella. Naturally, there’s more Honor to be gained fighting one instead of the other. It’s a great system that reflects how, along with the King, giants and dragons are tied to the land.

But the cincher, the real hook that I think makes this book worthy of a true Arthurian legend fan, is the sample adventures and appendix. I, Mordred gave you one shot of teaming up with Arthurian big names; Legend of Excalibur gives you three. Fresh adventurers can help Sir Balin kill the invisible knight, possibly even averting the grail cycle by killing the knight before he reaches Pellam’s castle. More powerful adventurers have to choose sides in the civil war, and Mordred is once again an option. But my favorite of the three adventures has the player characters helping a young Arthur claim a castle. It would be satisfying enough to rub elbows with the likes of Merlin or Sir Kay, but then there’s a side-quest where young Arthur sees Guinevere and is instantly smitten, so he conscripts the players into acting as his go-between for her. Players have to deliver Arthur’s notes Guinevere. They can read the love poems he writes for her; they’re awful. It’s just such a wonderful little detail that it’s hard not to love it.

And then, finally, there is the appendix; a whole cast of Arthurian characters statted out. It would be impossible to cover EVERYONE, but Legends of Excalibur makes a fair effort. LoE remembers some characters that typically get left behind; Dagonet, Morgausse, Sir Bors, etc. Some characters, such as Arthur, are presented at different stages in their life. All-in-all it makes a good roundout for what I’d call easily the best book about Arthurian legend in Dungeons and Dragons, if not one of the best tabletop roleplaying.

If you scanned past all that; this is the book to get for Arthurian legend in D&D. Legends of Excalibur is the beginning, middle, and end of the argument for Arthuriana with tabletop roleplaying. Even if you don’t play 3rd edition, or even D&D, it’s still a valuable resource in converting Arthurian Europe into a tabletop fantasy setting. The only way you could get more in-depth is if you made an entire RPG about Arthurian legend.

But maybe let’s talk about that some other time, huh?

[extraplanetarystory]

Part 14

The innkeeper (is that what it’s called here?) was a kjanxe who was more interested in a video screen than interacting with me. It looked like she was watching a race. And judging by the tiny paper she clutched in her hand, I assumed it was a race she had a bet on.

I leaned on the counter separating us, trying to look like I wasn’t using it to hold me up, and slid all the money the woman handed me to her. “I need a room. Just tonight.”

She looked at the money, looked at me, then grabbed it all, pressed a button on the far side of her desk, and pointed to a door across the lobby. “Time’s up at four-daylight.” She slapped her video screen and cursed as a race car spun out.

“What is that in galactic?”

I never really understood the different forms of time keeping, even though everyone I ever asked told me how simple the system was. There was the thirty jul galactic day, time which every planet kept, then there was the daylight-nightlight schedule unique to every planet that corresponded with sunrise and sunset. I guess I understood it in theory, I just could never reconcile the numbers. Even though I spent my entire life on Zi’inra.

“It’s—” Her ears twitched as she looked at a clock and counted on her fingers. Unlike the last kjanxe I saw, her ears were long and straight. Kind of like an elf. “Twenty-two galactic.”

I regretted asking her that in the first place. Cringing preemptively, I leaned toward her. Even if I knew how to convert the times, my day had been royally screwed over by my attackers. “How many juls is that from now?”

She went straight and the pupils in her gold-green eyes became slits as turned them on me. “Are you a kuma?” Her voice was decidedly more catlike and growly than it was a moment ago.

I backed away and pointed to my door. “Four-daylight, thank you.” I’ll just sleep and probably not wake up until she was angrily pounding on the door to leave. I could live with that.

Also, yes I am a kuma.

But when I entered my room, the last thing I wanted to do was sleep. The window was wide open for me to see the cacophony of the District outside. I fell into a chair right next to it and just looked out.

It was like a city in an old sci-fi movie. Dark and bright at the same time, crowded, dirty, loud, lively. It looked like the very definition of a city that never slept. And that made me wonder just what kind of things I could find out there. Was that kjanxe’s race taking place down here? Were there games? Shows? Food? Shopping? Lewd entertainment? Fortune tellers? A theme park? I was sure it was all of the above as I watched a series of hot pink glyphs dance in all different directions on the roof of the giant cavern.

Eventually, though, it couldn’t distract me from my problems at hand. Would I be able to get to the other side of Kellan in full gravity on my own? I knew we were close to it already in our conditioning, but alone?

And what did those men do with Riche’e?

What exactly did they do? They threw me through time and space? Was I really on Zi’inra for that minute? How could they do that? How were they able to do that?

And why? Why the hell would they do that to me? To us?

Was Riche’e okay?

The more I thought about it, the more anxious I became. Those men came out of nowhere, and I was starting to think that was truly literal. That man really did come from thin air and toss us into oblivion.

I looked at the street, at the people walking by, then looked around my room, half-worried I’d see one of the men in any spot. I never got a good look at the first one, beyond the fact he was tall. The second one, though, he was burly. He had thick eyebrows, beady gray eyes, and a square head. And I never wanted to see him again.

Was there a phone in this room? Or, phone-like device, rather?

There was something standing at an angle on a table near the bed that was obviously the exact thing I wanted. It was a clear screen connected to a cylinder base stand, an intricate circle design spinning idly in the center. Moving to the bed, I tapped the screen, and searched the symbols that popped up. If there was double-circles anywhere, I knew I would be able to press it and—aha!

I tapped the double-circles in the bottom left corner and prayed the next step would be just as easy.

Taking a deep breath, I watched the circles spin independently of each other and said in a clear voice: “Call Zega Headquarters.”

The screen dinged and the circles spun faster.

“Welcome to the Space Exploration Administration,” a man said in a telltale secretary voice. “How can I help you at this jul?” He smiled at the screen and I was taken aback. I hoped I would get anyone, but I wasn’t expecting an actual phone operator.

“I’m… I am looking for Pilot.”

This felt so stupid. There had to be a better way to do this, I just couldn’t think of anything.

“Instructor Pilot is unavailable at the Administration Headquarters at this jul. May I ask who is calling to convey a message when he becomes available?” The man’s eyes and smile were glossy and unchanging, and I realized this had to be a robot or AI. It was a business answering machine.

“Give this to any instructor that becomes available,” I said, hoping that was even possible. “My name is Jiaal Foxise and they may have noticed I disappeared from the building with the other new recruits… I am in something called the District. I don’t know the name of the hotel I am at, but I am sure you can trace this call back? I just want to let them know I am here. And if they can pick me up. Any Zega member that can help me...”

‘Mom, can you come get me from the mall now; I wanna go home.’

“I will convey your message to Director Rorn,” the man-machine said. “Goodnight.”

Director—? That was an important person who would definitely not be happy to hear that message. Hopefully the fact I was kidnapped for the second time in my life, and kidnapped by evil time travelers would help. I don’t know how it would help, but I hoped it would help.

The screen faded clear into that intricate spinning design again and I laid back. There was nothing I could do but wait now. I rolled toward the comm device and tapped until I had the double-circles listening to me again.

“How long until four-daylight?”

“Seven juls,” a pleasant voice chimed.

“Set an alarm for three-daylight, please.”

“Alarm set for three-daylight.”

I thought I should slide the shutters closed for privacy sake as I tried to go to sleep, but then I opened my eyes hearing that pleasant voice speaking to me.

“It is now three-daylight,” it said over and over again.

That was easy, I groggily thought, feeling like I was glued to the bed. Okay, so I wasn’t magically attuned to the gravity in the six juls I slept like I half hoped I would be. Why was this never a problem in tv shows?

The voice kept repeating the alarm and I looked out the window. It looked like daylight meant nothing down here. What was I expecting? It’s an underground city.

I slapped at the screen to shut up the alarm. It didn’t work until about the fifth slap.

Looking to the lit up display, I forgot for a moment that I wouldn’t see regular numbers I could understand flashing on the screen and groaned. Whenever I looked at numbers, my eyes glazed over faster than when I looked at letters. They were mostly circles and dots and my head hurt trying to keep them straight. I could understand single digit numbers. One was one dot, two was two vertically, three was a triangle of dots, four was a diamond of them, five was like two with a half-circle connecting them. I knew them individually up to ten. But when they’re written together, I couldn’t tell what was a dot, triangle, or diamond and I stopped trying to separate them before my eyes hurt.

Much was the same this morning. I closed my eyes and sighed. It’s three-daylight. I had one jul to figure out if I should hang around the hotel, call Zega again, or head off on my own.

There was a tap on the window and I jolted upright. Fighting through a back-and-forth wave of heaviness that told my head to lay right back down, I looked and saw a person. Because of course I fucking did, I never closed the curtain.

I stared. They tapped again and tried to wave me toward them. I threw a pillow. It didn’t even reach the chair, let alone the glass.

The person was hooded but it didn’t cover their face. No, the mask on the bottom half of it did. Their bright eyes rolled when the pillow flopped harmlessly on the floor. They tapped again and the way their head moved suggested they may have said something, but I didn’t hear it.

Instead of going toward the window, I rolled across the bed and left the room.

“Oh, by the Eight! She does know time!” The innkeeper sat up at the front desk and clasped her hands, looking sarcastically joyful.

“It was a rough night,” I said. She didn’t need to be mean about it.

I shuffled to the front doors and looked out a window, hoping to see the person from that angle. And I could. They stood some feet away from the building, idly turning in a circle.

They couldn’t be from Zega, could they? No, right? They wouldn’t be dressed all ominously in black with their face covered and knock on a freaking window to get my attention. Right? I mean, who knows how sci-fi organizations like this work in real life.

Still. No. I did not want to go out there by myself and risk it, whoever that person was. They had to be extra shady since they weren’t even trying to come in and talk to me.

I looked at the kjanxe. “There is another way to leave, yes?”

Her scruffy eyebrows knit together as she pointed at a hallway directly behind her. “End of there. What’s wrong?”

“Well, I don’t know, truly,” I looked out to the person again. They were still just standing there.

“Do you need someone run off?” She stood. “I love chasing people away.” She held up her hand like a claw, and I finally noticed just how sharp her nails were. Well, obviously. She’s a cat. Kitties have claws.

“I just want to know who they are,” I shook my head. “I really don’t need another person messing with my life right now.” What if they were with the time travelers? What if it was the one I didn’t see? I started toward the back hall. “No, I think I will just avoid them. I will go behind and hopefully they won’t see me.”

She watched me for a moment then went to the front window to look at my friend. Her hand was on the door handle when I turned and went out the back. I hope she wasn’t going to chase them off because my escape kind of relied on them staying right there until I was far enough away.

The back alley of the building was right up against the wall of the cavern. There was barely even a walkway laid out in the rocks, and I used the dripstones to help keep me steady as I went along. The next two buildings were much smaller than the hotel, but I decided to risk it after the second one and went toward the road. It looked like there was some park, or major foot traffic center not too far away. I could figure out the next step from there. It must be easier to stay away from the person there. It always works in the movies. Hide in plain sight.

Hugging the wall, I peeked around the corner to look for them, and found them backed against the front of the hotel with the kjanxe angrily poking at their chest. Their hands were raised, seemingly trying to placate her. I smiled. She was trying to distract them so they wouldn’t look for me.

Taking a deep breath, I looked across the road and gauged the distance, figuring out just how much strength I would have to muster before I let gravity get the better of me.

Before I let my nerves stop me from doing anything, I shook them out and started fast-walking.

“No, wait!”

I just managed to make it before I heard that shout. Looking back, the person was pointing, stepping around the kjanxe.

Crap! So much for her distraction. She latched on to them, though. I started hustling. Screw the park, I’d settle for anything that looked like a store. Or a restaurant. The road was getting busier and busier so that gave me hope.

This tiny place looked good; I reached for a door.

A loud zip ripped through the air and a person stepped into existence beside me in a flash of pinkish light. When I looked up, it was the masked person, eyebrows lowered. They are a—!

“Jiaal, stop. I—” It was a man.

“No!”

I turned around and ran. I just wanted to get away from him. But he didn’t let me. I barely took a step before he latched onto my arm.

“Ma— Jiaal, I want to help you.”

I hit his hand with a fist and, surprisingly, he let go. But he held it near, definitely ready to jump if I tried to run again. So I held up my fists, trying to look not as weak as I was, and backed up a step.

“Then why do you look like a bad guy?”

He pushed his hood back and pulled down the fabric masking his face. I half hoped I would recognize him but nope. He had brown hair, green eyes, and a chiseled jaw not unlike Riche’e’s but I didn’t know who he was.

“Why I’m here is complicated and I apologize.” He looked at his jacket, which was torn in multiple places. “And I need a new coat thanks to that zikuba.”

I couldn’t help my grin at the fact the kjanxe actually ripped his clothes. “That is what you get for being a creep outside windows.”

“Would you have preferred I entered your room? I know I am a stranger to you.”

“You could have waited for me in the main room.”

“Alryxe, that’s a good point,” he nodded with a sigh. “Look, I’m not supposed to be here and I don’t know how I should go about this. The people I break rules with usually know what’s—”

“Who are you? Why were you at my window?” I held my fists higher. “Are you one of the time travelers?”

“Let’s go somewhere and talk.” He pointed to the park. The brightly lit, bustling park.

I narrowed my eyes. “You go first.”

He huffed. “Jiaal—”

“No. If you want to go anywhere with me, I am following you. To a bench.”

He started walking, but kept looking back to make sure I actually was following him. I was. I wanted to see what he actually had to say for himself. But I also knew that he teleported to me just a minute before, so running was probably pointless at that moment.

And he did just what he was supposed to. He led me to a bench facing a small circular patch of grass surrounding a fountain that spit water in a rainbow of colors. He sat down and looked up at me, raising his eyebrows with more indignance than he had any right to have. He gestured to the spot next to him. I sat as far from him on the bench as I could.

“Who are you?” I was going to lead this conversation.

“Eagol Faxon.” He folded his hands, seeming to get the point. One of them, I noticed, sported a wired glove-like thing. I wondered if that was how he could do it.

“Eagle? Like the bird?”

“No—” He stopped, thought, then nodded. “Yes, actually, let’s go with that. Like the bird.”

“How do you know what bird I’m talking about?”

“That’s not important.”

I raised my fists again, and he laughed.

“I say yes because it sounds like my name,” he said. “So call me Eagle.”

“Okay, Eagle, who exactly are you?” I pointed at his hand. “And what is that?”

He held it up. “This is—” He bit his lip and looked around. He looked like he was waiting for someone to pop out for him at any second. He lowered his voice. “This is called a dymarul glove and it’s how I’m able to be here with you right now.”

“Why are you looking around like that?”

“Because the person I stole it from might show up. Or my mother, and she will be very angry I’m talking to you.” He pulled his hood back up and turned on the bench, facing me more fully but clearly trying to hide from the greater crowd of the park. He peeled off the glove and carefully tucked it into an inner pocket in the breast of his jacket.

“I don’t know which part to ask about first.” I leaned forward after a pause. “Did you steal it from a man? Mean face? Square head? Caterpillar eyebrows?”

He snorted a quick laugh but swallowed it, his face falling. “No, but he is why I stole it and I know he’s come after you already. His name is Steele Eakre-Ta’ash, his companion is named Arim.”

My heartbeat picked up its pace, even faster than it had from the energy I’d already spent. “Who is he?”

“He’s a dymarul deathbent on screwing up the galaxy just to spite—” He stopped, chomping down on his lips.

“Don’t you dare stop there!”

“He’s trying to ruin lives just because he can, and you’re right in the middle of his plans.”

[hachibe]

thoughts on The Legend Of Korra season 3:

for the amount of ranting in this you wouldn’t believe this to be my favourite season ^.^

- oh look! it’s almost as if Korra decided to keep the portals open without thinking of the consequences.

- i’m gonna be upfront and say that i hate that 1) people now just can airbend 2) Bumi can airbend. about #1 i think is kind of stupid, there was no need for more people to be able to airbend (if you disregard Zaheer). and i have this whole rant about the air nomads being reduced to airBENDERS in tlok. and i’ll rant about it when the time comes. what really bothers me is #2. because the whole essence of Bumi’s story is that he thinks he is not good enough because he can’t bend, because he is a regular guy, so instead of giving him a story where he learns his value they decided to just give him bending! like, srly!!!? because people only have value if they can bend? and it’s almost like, did s1 even happened? yes, Amon was a hypocrite but the issue with the non benders were/is still real. but the narrative refuses to acknowledge this! they are all like “what, no! i don’t know her” to this whole issue.

- and i still don’t understand how the spirits prowling the world should fit (or not) with this modern world. that’s a freaking awesome story right there to be tell but the narrative just refuses to deal with it because look! there’s airbenders now so let’s focus all the season on that. and like we did with s1 let’s forget that whatever happened that season had any consequences whatsoever! Korra was just like “fuck this, let’s search more airbenders because fuck this city, who cares anyway?”

- (me from the future: yes, i agree that tlok did a disservice to the portrayal of spirits that we had in atla. instead of unknowable creatures beyond our comprehension we got fluffy cute little creatures who could be good or evil. in a very black and white christian reductionist take. and i should have talked about this in the s2 notes. BUT the spirits are still here, this is something that is happening in the time of s3 but the narrative refuses to deal with it. it shows the audience that the spirits are there, they did caused some disturbance, there are vines in the city and people’s lives are getting disturbed by it. but this is the maximum of what we get from this. (i haven’t started s4 yet, i think there is some talk about it there, i’ll revisit the subject if it’s necessary.) and not once the narrative spends time exploring the implications of living in this modern world, that is constantly changing, that sees technologies and innovations as monoliths of good. we don’t get to see the spirits having to deal with this world. nor the humans having to deal with the spirits and reconciling it with their new modern life. and we never see the consequences in the lives of these people, or of this nation as a whole; or the contrast of the life in this nation as opposed to the other ones. and atla did such an amazing job of showing the world entrenched in colonialism and it’s consequences, not only to one nation but every nation. we saw what colonialism did to the southern water tribe, but we also saw what it did the fire nation. but tlok just drops a bunch of ideas and story lines and then just go focus on other things)

- should i talk about Zaheer? I love Zaheer. s3 is my favourite one because of him. I know, i just spend 2 paragraphs complaining about it. But i think Zaheer is fascinating. To me, with all the writings shortcomings he is still the best villain tlok had. his potential, ma man? i live for that. 

- i want Mako’s job btw, i want to just call my boss and say “hey, so, i’m gonna go on a trip with ma friends, idk when i’ll be back, see ya. don’t forget to mail me the paychecks!!!” ALSO, Mako is such a COP™! Let’s threaten this 13 yo orphan kid that had to rely on a life of petty crime in order to survive. it’s not like Mako himself isn’t an orphan and hadn’t gone through basically the same thing.

- the writers might not have given the red lotus a deep and meaningful story  and a rewarding narrative arch but they look COOL AS FUCK! SRLY, all 4 of them are the coolest looking characters in this whole series.

- the kid runs away in BA SING fucking SE and they send 2 people to look for him. yes!, i’m wasting a comment on this.

- (i saw someone implying that Mako and Bolin’s grandma is that girl Zuko went on a date once. do we know that for sure? note to self: remember to check that later)

- ok, so before we meet Suyin i think i need to talk about why i don’t like this “you’re an airbender, you’re an airbender, everybody is an airbender now” story line. the only real reason for it that i see is that the narrative needs Zaheer to be a airbender. and i get it, they really need it. i guess you can’t explain why only one guy can now suddenly airbend, so a bunch of other people now can too. so i think my issue is not that opening the portals brought back airbending to the world. is more on the fact that so far the narrative acts like airbending is the essence of being an air nomad. Tenzin has lived his whole life with this HUGE burden, trying to hold the single torch of an entire culture, god knows if he only ditched Lin to be with Pema because Pema could get him kids so he had a chance of passing his blood and bending skills to a next generation.  but this is kind of stupid, man! Tenzin is the only of Aang’s kids who can airbend but Kya and Bumi still carry airbending (and air nomads) genes! Idk how genetics in the avatar world works but i think is not that different from our world. Kya and Bumi’s kids could still be air benders. Kya and Bumi are still half air nomads, in the same way that Tenzin is half air nomad. and in tlok is like the whole air nomad culture is reduced to air bending.

- like, take the water tribes for example. Sokka didn’t bend, his parents and the rest of his family aside from Katara didn’t bend. that didn’t make them less water tribe. being a water tribe was not only about water bending. Toph’s parents couldn’t earthbend either, that didn’t made them less influential citizens of the earth kingdom. Mai’s parents all normal people, still powerful fire nation politicians. each nation had their own culture and that wasn’t reduced to their specific bending. so why it is not the same with the air nomads?

- Aang had being collecting “fans” since one of the first comics (i don’t remember which one). actually, i might say he’s being collecting those fans (that later became the air acolytes) since Kyoshi’s Island episode back in atla s1. and we see in the comics how he had being teaching them the air nomads philosophies and life style. and i understand that bending is important and that air bending is in a brink of extinction but i don’t understand how all these other people (the air acolytes) can’t be considered air nomads. let’s say, i move to australia, learn the local language, eat the local food, have kids and raise them in australia, we all have the same costumes as any other australians, why can’t i be consider australian as well?

- and sure, they are not the “real” air nomads, but i wouldn’t be picky if you are all facing extinction. and to be honest Tenzin is not “real” air nomad either because he is MIXED! he is still half water tribe, he didn’t born out of Aang’s forehead! Tenzin’s kids? All not “real” air nomads either, if we are going to ignore Tenzin if half air nomad, we still need to assume Pema is earth kingdom (or is she fire nation? since her eyes are golden. her eyes are golden, right?) And not only Aang could have had his two other kids be good leaders for the air nomads, could have taught them their history, life style, culture. instead of leaving all the burden on Tenzin’s shoulder. why couldn’t Aang have choose good leaders from the air acolytes? instead all we get from them is stupid servants. Pema included. i refuse to believe that anyone who was ever interested in air nomad culture and seeked Air Temple Island (and whatever other places) were all simpletons who never had any critical thoughts on their heads. they were all taught in air nomad culture and history (we see one of them answering all of Tenzin’s questions) but they are treated as servants. as a matter of fact we see Tenzin treat them as inferiors. and i guess this is the whole non benders issue from s1 back again. 

- (me from the future here: i just watched a video essay on youtube about genetics and bending in the avatar world and they said that is mentioned that all air nomads were air benders, the reason being that they were all more connected to their spiritual side. and OKAY, but i still think that most of my points still stand. if you are breeding sky bisons for a while now and you have a bunch of people willing to connect to their spiritual side and follow air nomad culture and life style, why can’t you have them learn air bending from the original air benders, the sky bisons, again? why did it have to be given for free like that? it’s so reducing! and poor! and if you wanted Zaheer to be able to air bend have him learn from the sky bisons! have him be an air acolyte who took the teachings of a air bender Guru to an extreme)

- idk what to say man. I will admit that all this don't piss me off as much as Suyin's story line, that’s for sure.

- so let's focus on Zaheer pretending to be an innocent new airbender seeking knowledge. He is a natural! And why it is that? Because that's a guy who is interested, who learned, who likes and admires and tries to live by air nomad philosophy. a lot of people critique this season because they thought it was stupid to have this guy who never bended before be so good ans skilled in airbending. and okay sure, but it always made so much sense to me because he is a guy who admires the life and teachings of the air nomads. that’s a guy who studied, and not just studied but lives his life according to those teachings. and that makes him a beautiful foil to Tenzin, who is this nerd bookish man, who is a scholar, who knows the teachings but don’t really live by them. ii don’t want to minimize Tenzin or call him a bad air bender (or air nomad. at this point what’s the difference?). but i love to see this contrast of this guy who struggles every step of the way and this other guy, who is a natural but will never be consider a master. their fight gives me the chills.

- I can't even talk about this because Suyin is getting in the way and this whole story just makes me. 

- i don’t resent her existence. in my head she is Sokka’s child, no one can convince me otherwise. but the way they wrote her is just awful. 

- did she just said that the idea of having an Earth Queen is outdated? While she rules a city of her own? AS THEIR QUEEN? and she's harbouring Varrick! "Sure he made a few mistakes in the past but that doesn't mean he should pay for it the rest of his life" sure let's not address the fact that he is only in her house doing business with her because he has business to do (if Varrick was a poor fellow who committed a crime and escaped prison he for sure wouldn’t have the same treatment. and i’m flabbergasted that Lin didn’t arrested him right there). Let's bring in the maglev and forgive the crimes he committed and lives that were lost because of him. Capitalism don't exist in the world of Avatar. Who da fack wrote this? (Oh this particular episode was Michael Dante DiMartino, so there's that)

- i’m not even gonna talk about the disrespect that this whole story does to Lin. This woman don't deserve this . FOR REAL!

- look, I get it, I agree people shouldn't be paying for mistakes or crimes they committed and have being repenting for 30 years. But the thing is, instead of apologising to Lin for what she did she just says "oh you should get over yourself, it's been 30 years, that's why you're an old bitter lady, no wonder Tenzin broke up with you!" and everyone treats Lin like she’s in the wrong. BITCH WTF!!!!????? (Suyin later apologises but not for the right things, she says “sorry i gave you grief when we were young” and honey, that’s not it!)

- and then Lin is like "cured" having kale juice and wearing those silly Zaofu clothes. Honestly! WHO DA FACK WROTE THIS?

- the fight scenes are all bloody impressive tho. the red lotus knows how to work together and they are all amazing.

- and P'Li? I would die for that woman.

- Ming-hua and Ghazan naming the constellations and coming up with stories about the guards ❤️ Also, 2 out of 3! so which one we think is the wrong one? Of course the unspoken attraction between the two is true. So that leaves us with ‘raised by sister’ and ‘had moustache by age of 10′. Place your bets fellas!

- that thing with the Earth Queen? That thing shook people. We were shooked™️ with the s1 finale and we were unearthed when she died. I still can't hardly believe.

- wait a minute, are you telling me that Tonraq, Korra's father, fought together with Zuko and Sokka and managed to imprison all 4 members of the red lotus but never learned what they were called? You are telling me that Guru Laghima fanboy Zaheer that can't shut up about it never dropped his spiel about caos is the natural order of the world? He never mentioned to every single guard who went to feed him that they are called the red lotus? And that this never reached the ears of Tonraq?

- fuck Zaheer but I'm different

- I find it very homophobic that even uncle Iroh we get to see several times, but Sokka only once in a flashback :(

- this fight with the cloudbabies and the red lotus? I get chills every single time. And Tenzin never stopping? Never giving up? 😭

- let go of your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind.

- did you think that the Earth Queen's death was horrible? I present to you P'Li’s.

- i do love the fight scene at the end. i love and it breaks my heart that Korra fights every single second of it, with the poison and with Zaheer. and in the end she remains broken. 

- i love the moment when Tenzin decides that the new air nomads will be roaming the earth trying to bring balance. even if we can later debate the morality of it, i love that he takes this decision out of his own desire to help. he finds a meaning for his people based on the needs of the world right now and not trough a guideline he learned from his father. i really love Tenzin in that moment, and Jinora’s ceremony may or may not have brought tears to my eyes.

- overall i do love this season, mostly because of Zaheer and the red lotus. the writers made a huge mistake in making Zaheer and his philosophy so hypocritical. the same happened with Amon. in order to make them the villains the writers wrote them so hypocritical that it invalidates what they were fighting for. the non benders and benders issue is still big and present, the story just refuses to talk about it. the tirany and the corruption of the systems of government are still very real and still very there in Korra’s world, but the narrative don’t discuss it, or when it does it gives the most bland simplistic take. I do love Zaheer tho, as a character, and what he represents to air nomads and air benders culture, and the role he plays in Tenzin’s arch (even if it’s in a more covert way). i also think that by the standdars of his philosophy he was justified in trying to it makes sense for him to try and kill Korra, she is somehow a world leader and afterall an authority figure. i do resent that the writers made him a bad anarchist. for all the talk he had of freeing the earth kingdom people of their tiranic ruler he did fail in giving the people the means of taking over the government. you don’t simply dismantle a system by killing a monarch. that is a very simplistic view of anarchism and social revolutions for that matter.

- (little note in the finale, that i just realised now: wasn’t the poison made of platinum or something? a metal metalbenders can’t bend? how come Suyin can just bend it out of Korra’s body? is this going on the list of countless things Suyin can do because she is PeRfEcT ? also, the guy putting the poison in Korra’s body, wasn’t him bending the poison? is he just a nameless dude who miraculously can bend a metal no one else can? or is he a waterbender and was only able to bend the poison on Korra’s body because it’s a liquid? if so, why was it Suyin the one to take the poison out and not Kya, a waterbender AND someone versed in healing bending? make it make sense tlok!!!)

[inhumansforever]

Secret Warriors #7 Review

spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers

Quake continues her deadly pursuit of her friend’s killer as the rest of the team races to stop her before she goes too far.  Illustrator, Juanen Ramírez, stays on board for the confutation of the arc, along with writer, Mathew Rosenberg, and colorist, Joe Ranch.  Full review and recap following the jump.

Last issue saw Dante’s niece abducted by the Dark Beast and his minions as well as Quake eliciting the aide of the killer, Bullseye, to help her track down Deadpool.  Deadpool had killed Daisy’s close friend, Phil Coulson, in the midst of the Secret Empire todo and Quake is out for vengeance.  

The issue begins with Karnak being introduced to his new digs at the Enillux Corporation.  Karnak had come Ennilux CEO, Ahura, looking for a job.  Ahura seemed well aware that Karnak must have ulterior motives in asking for this job, but he opted to offer Karnak one when it became evident that he might be able to help out in terms of a labor dispute in a fictional third world country where Enillux has many of their good produced.   Karnak is showed around by an Inhuman employee of Ennilux and he is quick to demonstrate both he positive and negative aspects of his cold outlook on the world.  He recommends firing twenty percent of the workforce in the branch; yet also undercuts the notion that he is somehow special because of his royal connections to Attilan.  

In Karnak’s eyes, being a Royal is not at all special and the sooner the Inhuman peoples can move beyond the old ways the better.   After insisting that his fancy corner office have its windows boarded up, Karnak excuses the employee so he can make a video call to Lunella.  What ensues is just wonderful and I would have been fine with the entire issue just being Karnak and Lunella’s terrific back and forth…

Lunella has to get off the line when a knock comes to the door.  It’s Dante who has come to her looking for help in rescuing his niece from the clutches of the Dark Beast.  Despite the perilous circumstances, Dante doesn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to meet Moon Girl’s mom, but Lunella is not having any of it and makes arrangements for the two to meet up with Ms. Marvel later on. 

Meanwhile, Bullseye has put Quake on the right track for hunting down Deadpool.  Bullseye has basically agreed to help Daisy because he’s bored, a psychopath, and thinks it’ll be fun to see the two rip each other to shreds.   Quake engages Deadpool and a firefight ensues.  

Deadpool seems to realize he’s ill prepared to take on Quake and makes a quick exit by throwing a grenade into a crowded restaurant before running off.  Ever the hero, Daisy rushes in to rescue the restaurant patrons thus allowing Deadpool’s escape.  Bullseye is bemused by Daisy’s choice.  She can be a hero or she can get her revenge, he states; she can’t do both…

Talking things over at an ice-cream shop.  Lunella convinces Dante and Ms. Marvel that it is essential that they recruit Quake in their efforts to rescue Dante’s niece.  Ms. Marvel is reluctant toward the idea.  She’s still upset over the fact that Quake had resorted to torture during their last mission and doesn’t feel that Quake, nor Karnak, is the kind of ‘heroes’ she wants to be associated with.  Nonetheless, Lunella succeeds in getting them to agree to find Quake and they use a mini rictor scale device of her to track her.  

They arrive on the scene of Quake’s battle with Deadpool but show up a moment too late and the trail has grown cold.  Conferring with Karnak, Lunella and the gang are clued into some old fashion detective work and are able to track down Deadpool by way of the use of his credit card.  

Deadpool has used this card to rent out a carnival amusement park that’s been closed for the season… an ideal location for a super battle.  Quake has found him and the two once more engage in a fight.  Deadpool has underestimated Quake’s power and resolve and quickly comes to realize that he’s woefully outmatched.  

Bullseye has been watching on from atop the roller coaster and is disappointed to see that Quake is actually winning.  Hoping to make the fight more interesting, Bullseye tosses down a knife that strikes Quake right through the forearm.  

Quake responds by using her seismic powers to tear down the rollercoaster.  

Deadpool isn’t especially concerned over his losing this fight.  He’s basically un-killable and can regenerate from whatever punishment Quake can dish out.  Daisy realizes this and comes up with an inventive solution.  She isn’t going to kill Deadpoll, she’s going to bury him alive in cement.  And it is here that Deadpool finally shows a little fear.  

Bullseye makes his way out of the debris of the ruined rollercoaster.  Now he’s enraged and looking to end Quake.  Before he can, however, Inferno, Ms. Marvel and Moon Girl arrive on the scene.  Inferno and Ms. Marvel take on Bullseye, yet he’s far from intimidated.  These youngster are no match for him and it isn’t long before the two heroes are on the ropes, about to be killed by the deadly assassin.

Quake uses her powers to push Deadpool further down into the wet cement.  He can tell the end is near; he apologizes for having killed Coulson.  He tells Daisy that he deserves it and she shouldn’t feel bad for what she’s doing.  All this stirs something in Daisy… she’s killed before, but never in such a coldhearted fashion.  This isn’t taking someone out in the heat of battle, this is an execution and she knows it will haunt her for the rest of her days.  

Moon Girl intervenes.  She knows Daisy will regret these actions and tries to stop her.  Moon Girl states that Daisy’s decision is clear: she can take one life or save two others (pointing out that Ms. Marvel and Inferno are about to be killed by Bullseye).  

Quake makes to right decision.  She turns away from Deadpool and distracts Bullseye long enough for Ms. Marvel to use her embiggining powers to kick Bullseye far off into the Hudson Bay.  

Doing so has offered Deadpool the time needed to escape and Daisy is forced to reconcile with the fact that Coulson’s murder will go unavenged.  Still, she has made the right call and has acted in a fashion that would have made her friend and mentor proud.  

The matter essentially resolved, the team can now move on to rescuing Dante’s niece… an adventure that will pose the Secret warriors against the dreadful Mr. Sinister.  Although that tale will have to wait until the next issue.  

This was surprisingly good read.  The build up from the previous issue left me a touch unenthusiastic over the direction of this two-issue arc, but the execution and resolution in this issue was quite satisfying and fun.  The key was writer, Matt Rosenberg’s very smart decision to make the matter character driven… utilizing the situation to further explore Daisy’s journey as well as highlight the extremely fun interplay among the rest of the cast.  

It was evident from the onset that Daisy was not going to kill Deadpool.  Not only because Deadpool stars in a ton of books and is unlikely to die in someone else’s title, but also because being a cold hearted killer just isn’t Daisy’s destiny.  How she got there, however, was nicely done and the narrative continues to really excel at utilizing the other players to help build and develop her character.

My take on Secret Warriors is that it is essentially a Quake solo series, but one in which the extended cast plays a key role.  Daisy is clearly the character Rosenberg is most interested in focusing on, yet Moon Girl, Ms. Marvel and Dante are all well used in providing foils for Daisy to bounce off of.  

That is not to say that the rest of the cast doesn’t get their chance to shine.  Moon Girl was especially important to this issue and Rosenberg does a great job of summoning his inner Amy Reeder and Brendan Montclare, offering Lunella a voice that is absolutely in-tune with her personality in her own title.   And again, any scene that entails interplay between Lunella and Karnak is an instant must-read… so much fun.  

Juanen Ramírez illustration matches the story wonderfully.  His fluid and gritty style worked well for the nourish/revenge tenor of the tale; while his great knack for facial expressions punctuated the more humorous aspects of the story.  A tale that is both mirthful while also sort of noir is not an easy task to pull off, yet Ramírez’s lifework coupled with Ranch’s clever color pallet makes it work quite well.  I especially liked the way in which Ramírez illustrated Dante… it reminded me a lot of Paul Pope’s early work in the pages of THB.  

I’ve been very much looking forward to seeing The Secret Warriors do their thing outside of the confines of the over arching Secret Empire event, and this issue delivers on what I was hoping for.  Extremely fun and highly recommended.  Four and a half out of Five Lockjaws!

[swampgallows]

why do you like garrosh so much pt. 2

to expand a little bit (okay a lot) on anon’s question (which, again, I could do until i typed the skin off my fingers), i will EMBARRASSINGLY ADMIT that i have a 40k+ word ffffaaaannn fiiiiccctiioonnn ive been writing for almost a year now that delves into a lot of my ~headcanon~ and self-indulgence regarding garrosh and his character. i began writing it in the first place to try to identify what my feelings were about him, just stream of consciousness as most of my writing goes. but it got longer and longer, and i tried to make it in reference to a second person, to an amorphous “you”. from there it became a reader-insert story for cathartic garbage (or catharbage as i endearingly refer to it) with about ten different notepad docs dedicated to it and its many drafts. one of these docs is a series of notes to further attempt to analyze my own thinking. the contents are below. es muy largo (over 2k words, plus a 500 word chatlog).

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I had begun playing World of Warcraft in late 2005 and quit in early 2009, just before the release of The Secrets of Ulduar/the Argent Tournament (Patch 3.1.0, released April 2009). Most of my playtime occurred while I was in high school, and upon my first year of college/university I felt I needed to close that chapter of my life and move on.

I kept zero tabs on the goings-on of WoW or those who still played. Something about dragons, goblins, canon pandaren. I was slaving my way through college, mental illness, and abusive relationships (if I had to grade my quality of Self during this time, I’d say it was hovering around the low-C, high-D range).

In September of 2014, I started a new job, had long finished college, and escaped my abusers. Inevitably I returned to Azeroth, and thus a new chapter of my life began.

The culture shock was jarring, to say the least.

Not only was I flooded with a deluge of high school memories, obsolete items (hunter ammo, anyone?), and a friends list like a graveyard (some names legitimately of the deceased), I had to play catch-up for two and a half expansions and five solid years' worth of content. I jumped haphazardly throughout the zones, surveying the damage from the Cataclysm (atop my flying mount!), exploring old raids, and leveling my then-capped 80 main to 90 in preparation for the new Draenor. 

Polar Bear Syndrome took hold in the form of Garrosh Hellscream. He was everywhere and nowhere all at once, name-dropped constantly but tangibly elusive, yet I didn't for the life of me piece together who that was (no thanks to that atrocious, beady-eyed Cataclysm model). Apparently he was the new Warchief ("where is Thrall?!" became a growing concern) but it took a skim through WoWWiki to realize this warmongering bigot was, apparently, the same Overlord of the Warsong Offensive in Borean Tundra that I recalled from many years ago; the "same Garrosh that spent half his life crying into a campfire in Outland", quoth WoWhead user TGFseb15.

I spent over a year trying to digest this character shift. On top of everything else, due to some sleep aids I was trying out at the time, the “Polar Bear” sightings of Garrosh extended into my dreams. I did hours of reading and research, questions becoming insurmountable rather than answered. How did this happen? Why was he like this? Why is he showing up in my dreams? Of course, all this racking of my brain resulted in more dreams, more conundrums. 

In October 2016 I began writing this story in lieu of being able to talk to the man (orc?) himself and ask, "Dude, WTF happened?". In attempting to reconcile my feelings, I had to sacrifice my wishful thinking for who and what the <Son of Hellscream> from all those years ago had become, and accept what had drawn me to him initially: his instability and his depression.  

Garrosh's core character, from all that I can gather, is that he is unstable and miserable. From start to finish, Garrosh is miserable. It is the only way I can imagine the descent of a fearful, suicidal orphan into the fully hardened numbness and apathy and hatred of a genocidal sociopath.

However, I am not attempting to garner any sympathy for Warchief Hellscream (or even the Overlord Hellscream of the Wrath era). My wish fulfillment and "head canon" extends only as far as my attempts to rationalize the myriad conflicting storylines Garrosh was subject to throughout the years and unify them into one semi-coherent character. 

I love that Garrosh was canonically chronically ill as a child (I was too); I love that he was (is?) mentally ill (I was/am too); I love that Garrosh is one of the major canon explorations of the less-than-glorious ramifications of war on an individual level, as memorable to me as the quest for Mankrik's wife. 

When I first played through Burning Crusade ten years ago, I thought his presence was an Easter egg, a callback to those who had played through Warcraft 3 and remember Grom’s sacrifice to ask themselves, “What about those who remember life before the demon blood? Is Grom truly a hero, or is he simply repaying a debt?” (As many a comedian have put it, there is applause for recovery; there is no applause for never having been an addict.)

And to have Grommash’s son, of all potential critics, take the brunt of that, was a bold and interesting consideration. On top of everything it reconnected Thrall to his family: his true name, his biological grandmother, and his “nephew” Garrosh (although by all accounts Garrosh cannot possibly be younger than Thrall). But it also introduced a kind of storyline that I hadn’t seen previously in WoW: we didn’t get a quest to lead Garrosh from the village and make his death look like an accident; we didn’t challenge him for leadership; we didn’t stage a coup; we didn’t even accept the role of Mag’hari chieftain when he offered it to us (unlike our veneration in Ogri’la). Everyone asked you to simply do what Garrosh, “The Impotent Leader”, could not. He was incompetent, but he was protected. He, like everyone else in his village, is doing his best to survive in spite of his affliction, be it physical or mental destitution.

I remember thinking he was Geyah’s son/grandson until the reveal that Garad was her husband, and Durotan her son. Yet from her quest text she had so much faith in Garrosh that I was convinced they were related, especially because he had no faith in himself.

There are three pieces of quest text that have stuck out to me and remain lodged in my brain over the years, paraphrased as follows:

• “Curse you, and curse your ancestors! Only blood can cool my rage, so if that is your wish then... Throw yourself into the heart of the Skullsplitters in the east. [...] May he tear off your limbs and leave you to rot and be eaten by carrion.” — Speaking with Gan’zulah, a defunct quest part of the Saving Yenniku questline • “If you are ever captured by Legion, tell them ‘Xar il romath da tidesbi.’ They will kill you instantly for insulting their god, sparing you intolerable torture or worse.” — Commander To’arch, Hellfire Peninsula [I once posted this line in a creepypasta thread on /x/ circa 2007 lmao] • “Everyone is proud. Proud that we may live to see another winter. But beyond that, what is there? Maybe you should lead this clan, [Arete]. Maybe then I will be allowed to die when the Greatmother passes. Allowed to finally erase the shame of my family name. I long for such peace.” — The Inconsolable Chieftain, [now] penultimate quest in the Garadar questline

You see where I'm going with this.

The only other quest I can think of that stirred such morbid anguish in me comparable to Garrosh’s was the starting quest in Tirisfal Glades where you collect duskbat wings/pelts to stitch into blankets for Gretchen Dedmar, who is succumbing to the chill of Mindlessness/reverting to Scourge. Until WotLK, the motif of “hopelessness” was not one I had personally seen much of in WoW, despite playing a Forsaken. There were sad, sentimental moments. But moments of failure, of bleak resignation, were few and far between. And the most that I did find were in reference to the Scourge or major events that had already occurred (Stratholme, the Sundering, etc.). 

Garrosh and Mankrik’s problems were domestic; pedestrian, almost, like gathering the cactus apples in Razor Hill or disrupting the love triangle of trolls at Swamprat Post. Most of all, they were personal. Mankrik wanted his wife to come home safe. Garrosh does not want to turn out like his father. Mankrik must defend his home from angry quilboar and marauding centaur. Garrosh must defend his village from invading ogres while resisting the urge to off himself for the sake of his people.

And, again, because I main a Forsaken, my WotLK starting zone was Howling Fjord (this is also what I played in the LK beta). I must have done the Borean Tundra quests in a blur because I have no memory of them from that time period, other than Kalu’ak dailies, DEHTA quests, and Saurfang and Garrosh’s conversation in the foyer of Warsong Hold. [Note: I have very little memory of 2009-2010 for other reasons. Reasons much like The Inconsolable Chieftain. And by that I mean suicidal depression. HAHA.] Other than that, I gave Garrosh little to no concern during my few months of WotLK. I saw that Blizzard had carried Garrosh over from the portal to Azeroth to assist in Northrend, and I took it in the same type of stride as “Oh, how nice of them to include this Easter egg for the players. The orc we saved followed Thrall into Azeroth." I had also, apparently, missed the mak’gora.

But it's not as if I had forgotten about Garrosh; I did work my way to becoming exalted with the Mag'har during Burning Crusade to earn a talbuk, and I spent countless hours outside Garadar fishing up and cooking poached bluefish for my raiding boyfriend at the time. “Trading kandi with ogres” was how I referred to grinding obsidian warbeads for rep. And every time I went past the campfire to Warden Bullrok to turn them in, I would /hug Garrosh (and stick around for the Thrall event, should it have been ongoing). 

And Garrosh did not forget about me, either. 

Do not think that I have forgotten what you did for my people in Nagrand, [Arete]. Hellscream never forgets. For that I am indebted to you and it is why I give you this chance now: run. Leave this place and never look back. Return to your home and say a prayer for the dying. (x)

Garrosh apparently talked a lot of big game in WotLK, but I did not bear any witness to it before quitting. I had barely made it into Sholazar Basin and did not touch Icecrown, the Storm Peaks, or Wintergrasp. So the way I interpreted this opening statement from Hellscream was him admitting to me, his friend, someone that he knew he could trust, who knew him as he was before, that he was afraid. After all of Thrall’s encouragement, and Garrosh getting the confidence to leave his village and give himself to the Horde, feeling his namesake redeemed, feeling a future was possible, Garrosh was still terrified. “You got roped up in my business once before, and I am thankful it worked out for the both of us. But I got myself into this mess and I cannot have you bail me out again.” He took a leap in a rogue moment of assurance and then, upon settling back into his depressive median, steps back and thinks, “I have made a terrible mistake.” (>when youre feeling good and make plans >when those plans actually arrive and you have to be social)

This is further heightened by Garrosh’s response to the player if they have not completed the quest chain:

A hero of the Horde, eh? <Garrosh sniffs at the air around you.> Fear... <Garrosh spits.> You won't last long. (x)

He himself is most definitely afraid. But he does not trust you, so this is how he tells you. He accuses you. He affirms this aloud, for himself, passing the blame to you. Anyone would fear standing at the Lich King’s doorstep, most certainly an orc who has known starvation and disease and death and shame, but also blue skies and white clouds and bright sunshine.

The red of Durotar was dismal enough. The gray endless death is even more difficult to bear.

And so, this is the mindset and place where my story begins: after Burning Crusade, after the first mak’gora with Thrall, after the summit in the comics, after clawing their way through the kvaldir and erecting Warsong Hold, but before Garrosh and Saurfang’s conversation, and before the rest of the Horde reinforcements (the players) arrive. I wanted to capture that tenuous period of Garrosh’s ego boost having only barely thrust him out of his dysthymic doldrums, still wrestling with his twenty-plus years of self-resentment, still trying neurotypicality (for lack of a better word) on for size like a garment in need of tailoring. Garrosh yearns to run with the pack but is a coyote among wolves.

This is the Garrosh I knew and remembered. So when I came back to Azeroth... well, you know the rest.

==============

Valkosk - 01/17/2017 It was Garrosh first command experience where he was trying to prove himself amongst his war seasoned clan that he had the brutal edge needed to command the Warsong or Blizzard's writing team didn't think about over arching storyline for their individual heroes. Might be that second one. Keelhaul - 01/17/2017 All he did in Warsong Hold was turtle. He literally brags about it. Arete - 8:52 PM

Keelhaul - 2:43 PM Boreal Tundra Garrosh to player: "I hate you. I'm ignoring everybody who wants to help/needs our help. Later, I'll send you on a suicide mission." Borean Tundra Saurfang to player: "Ignore Garrosh, he's being a bitch again. Here is how you can help us, and also there are others you can probably help in the other room. Later, I'll go behind Garrosh's back to save you from death." Saurfang is the true hero of the Warsong Offensive. Seriously, every quest in that zone comes down to "we need to clean up Garrosh's mess" or "Garrosh is refusing to do anything productive, so we need to go help _ ourselves."

SOURCE? cause garry told ME to go home & pray for my family because he loves me

Keelhaul - 9:05 PM [links the Foolish Endeavors quest dialogue]

Arete - 9:13 PM wtf is a flenser is varidus an elite? is that why you say he sends you to your death alone? or do other npcs call it a suicide mission? i gotta get my characters up to 70 so i can play through the wotlk campaigns again its been almost 10 years since i did saurfang is such a good dad omg

Keelhaul - 9:17 PM You deliver him intelligence some of the Forsaken spies died to deliver, basically saying that a Necrolord is found and such-and-such place. They ask Garrosh for help, he says "I'm just going to send you." The one Forsaken agent spying on him is stunned to learn that you're the only one coming to help, so he moreorless just assumes you're both going to die. The fight begins, and it's immediately obvious that you can't win. The boss stuns both of you, tells an assistant to take you away. The assistant reveals himself as Saurfang, and then basically carries you for the whole fight.

Arete - 9:18 PM damn saurfang is such a fuckin bro garry trusts me because i am strong

Keelhaul - 9:20 PM He's a tool to everyone who didn't see him as a bitch in Nagrand. :stuck_out_tongue:

Arete - 9:21 PM fuckin yikes!!! he was a lil bitch but i was too some of us were beginning our descents into mental illness alongside Garrosh <Son of Hellscream> in Garadar :sob: i mean there's no denying he's a piece of shit idiot post-wotlk he's an incorrigible racist asshole in pandaria it really sucked fo rme to find a character i identified with 10 years prior had been taken down the route he was i had quit wow before the release of ulduar & came back in WoD because i heard there would be new models. i knew nothing about the new xpac storyline or anything that had transpired past black temple so IMAGInE MY SURPRISE WHEn A CHARACTER I THOUGHT WAS JUST An EASTER EGG FOR OnE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE QUESTLInES In ALL OF TBC IS REVEALED TO LITERALLY BE A GEnOCIDAL FASCIST DICTATOR "hey things worked out well for hellscream!!! maybe, despite my depression, things can work out for me too!" 'HAHA nOOOOO BITCH' its just so sad, like what a shame :frowning: im still tryna cope

[end log]

[faint-waves-music]

Discussing Far East Winter.

My new EP, Far East Winter has been a very interesting EP to make and because of that, I wanted to write something of an article in regards to it. So, here we are! I'm going to discuss the background of this EP, my influences, inspirations, some of the ideas I had with this record, a short run through of each track, and a few things I learned along the way. Hopefully this is an informative and interesting read and hopefully you enjoy the record, too.

I had contemplated doing an EP of this nature for some time, in fact, you can hear my earliest inclinations toward this idea on my "Cherry Blossom" single from 2017. I've always been a lover and admirer of sounds from all over the world, but music and sounds from the East and the far East have always really caught my ear. I think so many of the instruments and the scales/notation they tend to use are absolutely beautiful. The only reason I hadn't done this sooner, is because I didn't want to do this just to do it and because I'm not sure I was totally ready to. If I was going to do it, I wanted to do it some semblance of justice. If "Cherry Blossom" was me seeing if I could pull it off at all, "Far East Winter" is the more refined, realized vision of incorporating these elements into my music.

As far as who/what inspired and influenced this record, I'd say it was a good mixture of eastern and non-eastern artists. Many of my ideas were informed by Roxy Music, Prefab Sprout, Tears For Fears, Vangelis, Hiroshima, Kitaro, Hiromitsu Agatsuma, and Himekami, just to name a few. I was in a creative space where I also wanted to kind of continue the easy listening/downtempo/adult contemporary-inspired direction I've been taking Faint Waves since 2017, but I had to do something interesting to really change the pace a bit and since I wanted to do a winter release, I knew the sound couldn't just be sunshine and ocean waves. The result is a more winter-into-spring sounding EP, not necessarily dark or discordant sounding, but a bit more bittersweet and melancholy in places. That's not to say there aren't hopeful moments, as the first and final tracks on the EP are a bit more optimistic than the rest, indicating glimmers of hope amongst the moodier parts of the record.

Much of the record I think has a very soft rock and sophistipop vibe, but there are few moments that are a bit more downtempo, new age, or experimental. I also made some stylistic choices on this EP that kind of set it apart from other things I've done, namely with the drums and bass. I've often relied on a fretless bass emulation for many (the vast majority, actually) of my songs, it's been a tried and true element and staple in the music I've made. However, I felt this record warranted something different, so I've switched things up and used a finger style bass emulation. It has a much deeper sound and I think has given the record a bit more of a soft rock or vintage R&B vibe. As for the drums, I made a similar stylistic decision to go after more of an organic feel. So, rather than using solely Roland and Linn samples as I have in the past, I opted to use more live sounds. That doesn't mean I haven't used those Roland and Linn samples at all, as they're still in the mix. Many of the songs feature a live kick drum layered with a Linn kick and on "Lovers In The Cold", you can very clearly hear the use of a CR-78 hat sample alongside the rest of the drums. Small changes in the grand scheme of things but I think they've made a big difference in the overall feel of the EP.

The first song I had completed and the one that really solidified the fact that I was doing this, was "Lovers In The Cold", which ironically became the last track on the EP. "Lovers In The Cold" is a bit of a sophistipop track with both western and eastern instrumentation, including a Xylophone, Sax, an Erhu (a violin-like instrument of Chinese origin), and a brilliant emulation of the Ruan (a plucked instrument of Chinese origin). I'd say the sound and structure were most influenced by acts like Hiroshima and Roxy Music, while the blocky pad chords remind me more of Prefab Sprout. It's definitely a pretty layered track for me, lots of moving parts. The way I've always seen the song, structurally, is as an argument between two lovers. Xylophone is one party, while the Erhu is another. The Xylophone is very quick moving and aggressive but the Erhu is more relaxed and to the point. They have this back and forth, but every other time the Erhu comes in, there's one extra note that wasn't played the previous time. So, it's almost like someone is getting the last word in there. Then, you have this kind of breakdown in the song where everything slows down a bit and rather than them playing separately, you have the Xylophone and the Erhu playing simultaneously. Going along with the two lovers metaphor, that part of the song could be them reconciling, working together to make things work before everything falls apart again.

There were a lot of demos with this EP, more than maybe any other EP I've ever made. A lot of stuff didn't make the cut or just plain didn't get finished. The next track that saw completion after "Lovers In The Cold" was probably the fourth song I had made overall and it's a tracked called "Only Tonight", which was loosely inspired by "Advice For The Young At Heart" by Tears For Fears. This track was one that definitely went through a lot of changes before it became what it was. It started out very synthpop, with these big electronic strings, before I transitioned to a more organ-centric sound. It took quite a few demos for it to start to take shape as it is now, a piano ballad. I think after the organ became integral to the song, the drums were what really started to make it take shape. Those drums, at least where they start initially, have a very Burt Bacharach feel. That shaker-sidestick combo he's so fond of. It starts in that kind of Bacharach-like place but as the track goes on, the drums get a little more aggressive and eventually the sidestick is replaced with a snare. For the piano, I didn't want a big sound because the organ/bass combo was already doing that for me, so it's pretty much this continuous riff of single notes. Then the piano is accompanied by a Shamisen (a stringed instrument of Japanese origin) and later on, a sax. The track also features a Vibraphone and a Gong sample. The Vibraphone is this kind of arpeggiated-sounding series of a few notes, it really gives the track an underlying sense of movement and urgency. "Only Tonight" is an interesting one because I feel like it became what it is very naturally, but it did take some time to get there. Glad I didn't give up on it though, as it's a favorite of mine.

After that, I think came "Snow Summit", which also went through a lot of changes as it went on. It's kind of a weird one. It doesn't sound like it at all, but it was pretty Vangelis inspired. Vangelis, Yello, and Kitaro are the big inspirations for that one. It went through a lot of changes and I don't think I was ever really sure the track "worked", so to speak. Once I laid down the bass for it, I feel like it all clicked a bit better, but it's still by far one of the most oddball tracks I've ever produced. It was inspired by a Yello song called "Homer Hossa", which if you aren't familiar with, is basically just a lot of sound effects, percussion, and little actual melody. "Snow Summit" is kind of that way, except it basically has this big brass backing track accompanying all these weird sounds. I think my intention with it, is that I wanted it to be as foreboding and endless feeling as the summit of a mountain would be. You're cold, the wind is blowing, there's snow everywhere, and you can see for literally miles. That kind of thing is intimidating and I think I wanted to convey that with this noisy, aimless kind of a track. It's probably the most "experimental" thing I've done. Huge brass, eastern percussion, simulated wind, white noise stabs, and huge bass drops. That's "Snow Summit" in a nutshell.

After that, came "Hatsukoi". Hatsukoi translates to first love, if you're curious. I knew I wanted a beautiful opening song for the EP and after drawing a blank for a long time, this is what materialized. Inspired by Kitaro and to a lesser extent Himekami, "Hatsukoi" is a bit of a new age jaunt. It's basically comprised of strings, a few different kinds of percussion (both eastern and western), a Celeste, a Pipa (a four stringed instrument of Chinese origin), a Xylophone, wave sfx, and bird sfx. This track doesn't really develop beyond the first couple minutes, but I found it very lovely and relaxing and didn't feel the need to add to it. I had a few demos where a flute came in the second half but it was just overkill in my opinion. It's a bit more hopeful and warm than everything else on the EP. It's very much in line with some of the more atmospheric, new age inspired things I've done. It's very much Kitaro by way of Faint Waves, in my opinion. I'd love to explore that kind of sound more in the future, to the degree of acts like Kitaro or Himekami. That kind of Electronica-meets-New Age-and-Classical sound is always brilliant. Exploring that sort of thing could be an EP or album in it's own right, but for this release, I wanted a balance of downtempo/chilled vignettes with more deliberate/aggressive songs.

The next song that came to be was actually an older, unfinished demo that I had lying around. "Tao Of Knowing" originally started as "Charm", a new wave/sophistipop song inspired by Johnny Hates Jazz and Tango In The Night-era Fleetwood Mac. "Charm" was originally much more electronic and instead of a Koto (a stringed instrument of Japanese origin) carrying the song, it was a piano. I revisited this song during my time producing Far East Winter and I found, with a few changes, that it would fit the record. I changed quite a few things; the key changed, the chiffer lead at the beginning of the song became a Shakuhachi (a flute-like instrument of Japanese origin, derived from the Chinese bamboo flute), the main piano riff became a Koto, the poppy drum samples were replaced with the ones I was using for this EP, and I wound up writing a new pad for it as well. Once I had made those changes, the song still went through a few more permutations before it became the song you hear on Far East Winter. The song has a very mystical feel and I think that sets it apart on the EP, in a good way. The original demo had a very new wave feel to it and I think a little bit of that is still intact, particularly in the drums. This one may also be one of the more aggressive sounding songs in the Faint Waves canon, too. Very in your face at times.

The last song to be completed was "City Street". I knew from the beginning that "City Street" was going to be a short interlude kind of a song. My general vision for it from the get go was very similar to how it came to be, I knew I wanted to be very ambient and atmospheric, and to feature a Rhodes. That's exactly how it turned out but I just couldn't seem to get it to materialize. At first, I tried to make the song quicker and more urban sounding, to coincide with the name. It just wasn't working, so I scrapped almost everything except the percussion I had. The percussion I did have, I wound up changing quite a bit, leaving pretty much the bare minimum. Once I was happy with the percussion, I layered a few different sound effects. One was of nighttime ambience (crickets/frogs/etc.), another was just general city noise, and the final was of a little bit of traffic. After that came the Rhodes, which I pretty much treated almost as a pad as I wrote and produced it. I applied a lot of effects to it, reverb and delay mostly, so it would kind of linger well beyond the length of the notes would allow. On top of that, I used a Pipa again, I actually recycled a melody from another song of mine ("Congo") for that and adjusted the notes accordingly. The end result is a very soundscapey interlude that's heavy on ambiance, maybe slightly reminiscent of Kenji Kawai. Good for falling asleep to maybe, as much of my catalogue is.

In conclusion, I learned a lot going into this EP and coming out of it. I did a lot of reading and listening, trying to understand what they were doing as far as Eastern instrumentation and notation were concerned. Reading and learning about scales like the Japanese In Sen scale, as well as putting them to use, was incredibly challenging and fun. I made more songs for this one EP, than I have any release before, and it's because of what I was working with. There's a real beauty and true uniqueness to the music and culture on that side of the world that we don't often see. They do things in music that the West never has and likely, never will. I think my research and desire to understand, is what made this EP so special to me, as well as what has made the EP sound so unique in comparison to the rest of my material. I might have done some familiar things but I don't think I've ever made anything similar to what I've made here. In many ways, I feel like I needed to do a project like this, just to stretch my legs a bit and get out of my comfort zone. This record is a sign of things to come, not in the sense that I'll necessarily be making another record like this, but in the sense that my next record will be just as different. So, stay on your toes and enjoy.

- Faint Waves.