#since i've made a post i'm deathly afraid of posting

[corrupted-starcharts]

-{{ Corrupted Starcharts }}-

A No Man's Sky RP/Ask Blog following the journeys of two Travellers, Raskol and Onfim, also known as the Twin-Iterations.

Character references and info under the cut, as well as a deeper dive into the blog as a whole. Some liberties may be taken with No Man's Sky's storyline and lore.

-{{ Iteration: Raskol }}-

Pronouns: They/Them

Specialties: Astrocartography, Cosmology, Language, Agriculture, Communications.

Raskol is an incredibly old Traveller, one who claims to have been around since the early days; they have lived more lifetimes than they care to count. Taciturn and a bit socially stunted, it was until very recently that Raskol largely kept to themself. They dip their hands into many different projects and fields, but their work begins and ends with, well, the beginning and end of the universe. Known for being particularly grumpy, Raskol is finally learning how to relax and be a bit more... well, fun. It's probably the Nipnip. Particularly sensitive to the v̴͔͒̕ͅo̵͓͑̉i̵̧͇͋̊d̵̗̻̆.

Trivia:

Commander of Korvax freighter CS-16 Parhelion

Overseer of Korvax settlement Okinowa's Blight

Primary starship is a Sentinel Interceptor, callsign: Purged-EVA

Often settles on paradise, swamp, or desert planets

Runs a pirate radio station alongside Onfim; Raskol broadcasts from Isdoraijung Galaxy

Cultivated a strain of Nipnip that will knock your boots off

Spent many lifetimes convinced they were a Korvax entity

Difficult to anger, but their anger sure is terrifying

Raskol's Tags:

Character Tag

Travels

Broadcasts

-{{ Iteration: Onfim }}-

Pronouns: They/It

Specialties: Tech Development, Mechanics, Piracy, Smuggling, Hacking and Data Siphoning.

A much younger Traveller, Onfim met the early legs of their journey with unbounded enthusiasm and optimism. They were reckless and feared little. Onfim loved to dig for information, to pull things apart and study them, but trouble only followed when they dug too far and found only c̵͚͖̝̈́r̸͚̀̇i̵̗͐̒m̷̨̧͑s̴͈͚͗̿o̴̬̜̅n̶͖̓͐̈́ and g̷̩͂̀l̴̡̠͊̔͝a̵̭̲̻͗ś̴̢̄s̵̗̱̀̇. They're back now, though, feeling more stable and yet incredibly discordant. The more social of the Twin-Iterations, Onfim is eager to meet with others and constantly be in a crowd.

Trivia:

Commander of Korvax freighter CS-22 Tresserhorn

Overseer of Vy'Keen settlement Sajiru's Crossing

Primary starship is a particularly nasty Sentinel Interceptor, callsign: Hellrider

Frequently settles on paradise, dissonant, or anomalous planets

Runs a pirate radio station alongside Raskol; Onfim broadcasts from Eissentam Galaxy

A bit of a silly goose to the point of being a menace to society

Deathly afraid of lightning storms

Their physical form seems to stutter, glitch, and lag

Onfim's Tags:

Character Tag

Travels

Broadcasts

-{{ OOC Blog Info }}-

Hi, call me Shy! I'm the fool running this blog, my main is @blackcr0wking, and I have an art blog - @blackcr0wkingart - as well. I've been playing No Man's Sky since 2016, and have fallen off now and then, but currently play fairly actively on PS5. My PSN is saintvoid if anyone would like to add me and/or meet up!

Posts on this blog are made both in and out of character depending on content as well as my energy levels at the time. In- and out-of-character posts are usually tagged as such, though I tend to make clearer distinctions in the text of posts as well, as follows:

》 Raskol's broadcasts are denoted by purple symbols, and ten-.. -kzzkt- ..-o have very little interference.

-{{ Out of character text posts will be in brackets, like so. }}-

》 Onfim's broad-.. -kzzzkt- ..-oadcasts are marked with - with orange symbols, and their corrup-.. -kzzk- ..corrupted signal is - is - is evident in text.

I also have No Man's Sky playlists! Check them out here:

Fell Into A Black Hole But It's Fine // A simple, chill, lo-fi playlist with songs that felt (to me, at least) like calmly drifting through space in your starship, or slowly wandering planetside. Chill beats to explore the galaxy to, if you will.

Corrupted Starcharts // A little bit weird, a little bit sad, and a little bit silly, this playlist somewhat centers around my interpretation of both the canon of No Man's Sky's story, as well as the journeys Raskol and Onfim have undertaken. If I'm being completely honest, it's a collection of songs I'm picturing silly little NMS animations/music videos to. For best/most fun results, shuffle.

-{{ Tag Directory }}-

I'm a monster with an insatiable need to sort things, so I figured this could potentially be helpful to newcomers. Commonly used tags are as follows:

Answered Asks

Vibes

Other Travelers

Memes

Planetary Records

Artworks

Bases

Filler

Old NMS

Queue

Scheduled Posts

And I think that about covers it, thanks for reading! Inbox is always open for questions and such both in- and out-of-character. :)

[savetooru]

balancing act

one of my new year's resolutions was to do a light workout everyday for three months and i am currently on day sixty-four of the challenge. (two-thirds of the way there!) wish i could say i got to this point out of a real concern for my well-being, but in truth all i have is pride. if i'd been left to my own devices, i wouldn't have made it past the first week of trying. no matter how great it feels to maintain healthy habits i always struggle to commit longterm. the only thing that keeps me bolting upright out of bed at 11:30 p.m. to lift weights is the fact that i publicized my counter on an account with, like, fifty of my friends max. 1 social media is definitely a disease but it’s crazy what i can get myself to do with some forced accountability. i’m a simpleton at heart. proclaiming goals feels herculean because i’m deathly afraid of looking lame, or coming off too headstrong. i've got to make an honest effort at whatever comes out of my mouth or i'll end up feeling super embarrassed for no reason. it's a bad case of a big ego. exceeding expectations is the quickest route to seeming like you've got your shit together, so i'm prone to keeping my ambitions to myself in the hope of... i don't even know. being perceived as larger than life and endlessly indifferent about it? i forget how cool it is to just do the thing you said you would.

still, it's tricky. holding myself to a higher standard often feels like walking on a tightrope. i know too much pushing could take me out of the race completely, but too little won't get me anywhere at all. i wanna believe i'm over the bulk of my hang-ups, but god is it hard to unlearn the fear of wanting. 2 like, when you’re a kid they tell you that if you say a wish out loud it won’t come true, and that's the kind of thing that stays with you forever. but realistically speaking? i'm pretty sure i’ve only ever gotten what i wanted by clamoring for it actively— often desperately. much to think about... in any case, i feel stronger physically and am psyched about this! the whole thyroid issue i have made it so i could never hold on to muscle before i started taking medication; i'm happy to report this is no longer true.

don’t know if i’ve got the space for it, but i’m thinking about starting another accountability thread for drawing practice every week. i’m worried it’ll interfere with getting my workouts in since i still have a month to go before the all-clear, but i really want to move forward this year; take this bravado that doesn’t feel like my own and run with it as far as i can.

1: none of whom would judge whether i’m updating it consistently anyway lol 2: my friend misha wrote a really thoughtful post about this exact sort of feeling recently and it's been stewing in my brain for a hot minute ><

[natsubeatsrock]

So, I watched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and...

Not unlike a lot of things that aren't Fairy Tail, I want to talk about it. In a month, I'm going to spend every day for 4 whole weeks talking about things that aren't Fairy Tail. I will talk about Fairy Tail now and then in some of the posts, but the focus of them isn't Fairy Tail. As a warm-up for that, I decided to talk about Brotherhood.

Recent events in the news have made me think about what I like to call "the Scar philosophy". The name obviously comes from my own reasoning about how Scar ought to have seen his quest for revenge. This is the topic of a lot of interesting and often disturbing conversations between fans, especially in regards to Scar's status as hero or villain, within the narrative. I like to divide things into three categories, based on different groups of people related to this whole situation.

The first category consists of only one person: Solf J. Kimblee. He is the man directly responsible for the death of his family. If all Scar wanted to do was find and kill the Crimson Alchemist, this post would be over. I think most people would be fine with his motive and actions. There might be some debate over if he should actually kill him, but considering this is Kimblee we're talking about, I think it would be fine if he did kill him.

The second category is where things start to get interesting. This is where I put anyone else directly involved in the genocide of the Ishvalans. Remember my wording of this category as it will be important later on. The most obvious people in this group are the members of the military who killed soo many Ishvalans. However, this also includes Envy who started the conflict in the first place.

Now, as I see it, this is a section that requires nuance to talk about. Envy and many of the soldiers and alchemists involved were bad and ought to have been punished for their willful and gleeful participation in the slaughter of a people group. However, many of the people who were part of the army recognized the problems with their actions and those above them. They wanted to change the system that was ultimately responsible for the genocide. 

With the end of the series, Roy Mustang prepares to rule the country by learning about the Ishvalan people. If Scar were to kill all of the people in this group, he would lose out on finding people willing to help sustain the restoration of his people beyond their current state as refugees and wanderers. 

One of the big issues with Scar's plan and goals is that it doesn't do much for his people after he's done. Once the state alchemists are done, then what? His rage is satisfied, but the system that he took issue with doesn't change. If anything, his actions could have been used to justify even more oppression for the Ishvalans. 

Now up to this point, the argument can be made that Scar's actions are justified, at least to some degree. Even though people like Roy and Alex Armstrong are sorry for what they did and would like to change things for the better, they still have blood on their hands. In the eyes of some that might be enough for their deaths to the justified by Scar. Their best attempts can never truly replace what was lost. After all, what can equal the value of a human soul? 

That being said, the third category is where my patience for those who argue that Scar was justified ends. This, of course, refers to everyone else who was caught in Scar's path of revenge. The actions carried out to people in this section are what make Scar, at least for the beginning portion of the series, an antagonist. There are two big examples of characters in this group.

The first is the Rockbells. Even as they were working with the military, they were kind enough to treat people, regardless of what side they were on. Ironically enough, it's because of this mentality they were killed. While I am slightly partial to the 2003 explanation for their death, I can't say it was a bad idea to have Scar kill the Rockbells. While it could be argued that Scar did this in a fit of rage, he's willing to let Winry take out her own form of vengeance on him.

Of course, this goes nowhere because of the next example, the Elrics. Remember how the last category was people who responsible for killing Ishvalans? That wasn't the ultimate target of Scar's revenge. His ultimate goal was the death of all state alchemists. That is an important distinction.

While that goal makes sense considering the war got as bad as it did once the state alchemists were involved in the fighting, Ed presents yet another challenge to the logic of Scar's actions. If his ultimate motivation was revenge, then going after the Elrics was useless. If it was the destruction of a group responsible for killing his people, Ed and Al were training with Izumi Curtis when the war happened.

Even becoming a state alchemist is more of a means to an end for the Elrics. They don't enjoy the system they're a part of. They're only using their status for its benefits to their search for the Philosopher's Stone. If there were other ways to get what they needed, I'm willing to bet becoming a state alchemist wouldn't be a part of their plan in the first place.

To be crystal clear, I am not arguing that Scar does nothing right or that he was totally unjustified. The actions committed against the Ishvalans were devastating and unjustifiable. Knowing as much as we do about what happened to make Scar do what he did makes it hard to say that his rage was wholly unjustified.

However, Scar's judgment was still clouded by his vengeance. He purposefully ignored his cultural and religious teachings to hurt people that, at best, acknowledged their wrongs and wanted to make amends for the actions and, at worst, had nothing to do with his reasons for revenge. Even as I would say that Scar's motivation makes sense, he was far from doing the right thing. And it's ultimately because of people that can empathize with him that real change can happen for his people, outside of his search for revenge.

This is one of the many things that makes Hiromu Arakawa's writing of Fullmetal Alchemist so incredibly masterful. Scar's rage at injustice is still wholly justified by the end of the series and his people can start rebuilding. However, he recognizes that there are better ways to achieve a better state for his people than killing people. 

One of the craziest things about this whole theme I realized reflecting on the situation is that his final fight with him isn't against Kimblee. His fight on the Promised Day is with Wrath, otherwise known as King Bradley. Interestingly, his final fight isn't with the man who's directly responsible for the death of his family. It's with the man who, for most people, would represent the ruling powers during the Ishval Civil War.

We do well to learn from this example. The world is a messed up place. The past events of this year alone have been enough proof of that on several levels. Yet, the real issues are, more often than not, with systems and structures that perpetuate injustices. We do well not to castigate all those in said systems and structures without recognizing the many ways that some work to subvert those systems from within. We also especially shouldn't involve people who aren't part of the real problems we're trying to solve. Doing either is more often than not counterproductive to the end goal of true justice.

These thoughts have been stewing in me for just over two years since starting and completing Brotherhood. Between then and now, I've seen a lot of people talk here about Scar's actions on both sides of the "Scar did nothing wrong" debate. And, under normal circumstances, I’m not sure that I would be inclined to add to this discourse, if I’m adding anything to over a decade of discourse by making this post.

However, the real inspiration for this post has come from the more recent events regarding the murder of George Floyd. The outrage is beyond justified and many have made peaceful protests against his death and the system that caused it across the country and even the world. However, many innocent people have been hurt and even killed during the various riots surrounding the Twin Cities.

If you're interested in specific ways to help, click here for a list of funding drives and charities related to the aftermath of what's been happening. This list includes the official GoFundMe's for George Floyd's family and daughter.

[ilkkawhat]

content creator appreciation!! list five favourite sets/art/fic you've made and send this ask to five other content creators! 💕(Spreading some love and self appreciation to amazing content creators! If 5 overwhelms you, choose one, or three! Whatever suits you)

aw bless! I know I complain a lot about the creating process and at times, struggle a lot with appreciating my own works for what they are to me, but this is such a wonderful thing to get those good feelings back! 💜

(and lol...I’m pretty sure I broke the “five” rule but trust me...I have not felt this good about my creations in quite some time)

1. Specimen Stokes - CSI fanfic, currently ongoing

The idea for this one came to me at a pretty difficult time in my life, and is probably one of the only good things to come out of 2020. I got an ask from an anon who probably didn't even intend for me to write the ideas out, that asked me to choose between three AUs and the evil scientist vs detective AU stuck out to me the most--and so much so that I literally ran home (well, walked very fast out of work and drove as safely and quickly as I could lol) to write it, totally intended to make it a one shot and over 50k words later with a 2.5 hour playlist and a ton of visual edits, here we are.

I took a huge risk with this story because while most of my whump fics are probably not realistic for Nick to survive, going full on sci-fi and shrinking him has been such a blast, and while I was super hesitant to do it just cause I didn't know what people might think, I'm glad I did, because it seemed like the people who read it enjoyed the twist (though lmao I'm deathly afraid of how this next chapter is gonna be received)

And not only that but it just opened so many doors for me in terms of creativity, I've been straight up worldbuilding and already coming up with ideas for a sequel, not to mention again, a ton of edits some of which have been the best manips/fanart I've made--my favorite in particular are: this one, this one, this one, and this one (the shrinking gif in particular, since that was something I had never done before) and god I could just keep gushing but just know that this is probably the top creation that I love and I'm sure it shows lol (hell I even bought a bottle of crown royal just so I could have my own bag that hangs over a picture of Nick. I will 100% have my own fic shrine some day with items like these)

2. All In - CSI fanfic, the Veronica Saga (so far 2/3 planned fics have been posted)

The Veronica fics have been both a blessing and a curse for me lol. I'm just gonna very quickly get the bad feelings out and say that maybe I poured a little too much projection into Agony, and worry that maybe I broke Nick too quickly and far beyond repair--and damn, I sure as hell could have went way harder with Atrophy (and honestly I feel I didn't capture as much as I wanted to in that one.) I've wanted to delete Agony in particular so many times which may sound ludicrous given that it's my longest fic yet (over 100k) but...I'm glad I didn't.

If Naomi is my self insert for who I would want to be, how I would want to have a relationship with Nick, etc, then Veronica represents that dark, whumpy side of me that just wants to watch the world burn. I can't tell you how much fun it is to write this villain who's just off the rails crazy and doing things to Nick that make it seem like a horror movie. I've given this series so much thought and though I haven't updated Agony in almost a year, I'm far from finished and can't wait to keep going with the story--the finale especially, I think, is going to be some of my most emotional work yet.

And just like Specimen Stokes, it's opened up many doors for visual creations as well--the chapter graphics (this one is the best one IMO, and would be the cover if this was ever turned into a novel), moodboards (this one is my favorite, encompassing all three fics), and even a trailer for the third fic have given me so much to express, and hell, I'm even tagging certain gifs from george's other works that inspire me for this universe of suffering and it's all just so...great. I def remember the feelings I had when I came up with Atrophy, all of the aesthetics that have swirled in my head for it and some catharsis it gives me when I write the really visceral scenes.

(and for the fic shrine, I have one of those wooden mannequins that I love using for the moodboards to represent Nick in this ficverse)

3. Ficverse: Parker and Madison Stokes - CSI fanfic

There is just so much to this ficverse I love, and so much more I have yet to explore.

As I even state in the description of the series, I really had no direction at first--though I always knew who Parker and Madison's mother was, and am now running with that thread, it took me a few fics to really get a grasp on who they are, how they're like Nick, how're they're different than Nick, etc and I have found myself just so connected with Parker in particular. Their mother, Naomi, was the first OC I made for CSI and grew up with me as I grew up with her and with Parker, I feel like it's like I'm kinda getting more of that, especially with the themes I want to work on in First Flight (a fic which, will hopefully be another one of my best emotional ones though there's gonna be a gut wrench in the middle)

And on another personal level, I had felt so connected with my audience during the process of Last Breath--a fic which was literally handed to me on a platter by an amazing writer with both enough detail to tell me what they wanted but enough freedom for me to do what I wanted, and was made better with some pepper from others, that is an experience I'll always cherish and never forget. All of the discussions I had, all of the twists and turns that came in my head because of it...I didn't want that to end, and I guess that's probably why I'm still writing stories of these two kids, and still feel so invested which is why I'm going harder in First Flight 😂

(also worth noting the again, visual creations--I made an entire chapter of just that, which is a practice I intend to do with all my bigger fics like this one)

And if I ever get to it, I'd love to write the actual like, "San Diego" series I have in mind for Nick leading into this universe (well, and taking place alongside it, because my CSI: San Diego series would probably end with Madison's birth) but until then, I'm having a blast doing the occasional one-offs and again, doing that deeper dive in First Flight (have I said lately how much I am loving what I'm gonna do in that one? cause HOO BOY it's gonna be a trip) and just...having Nick and his kids, and the memory of a character that was meant as a conduit for me to interact with him, and all of the adventures along the way with returning faces and expansions on the newer ones (I love writing Cassie and Eli and how their relationships have evolved with Nick over time)

(and for the fic shrine, I have my own Dallas Cowboys Build-A-Bear named Nina that sleeps next to me every night)

4. Grave Danger edits/gifs

Being that Grave Danger is my all-time favorite episode of CSI, only fitting that some of my favorite photo based works (outside of what I’ve shared for fics cause trust me I am a fan of all of my GD fics too lol) have been made from that episode. I’ve been known to find ways to make so many things from just one episode before (coughDOCTOR WHO MIDNIGHT MONDAYScough) and trust me, if I had photoshop back in the day, I would have tenfold the amount of Grave Danger stuff

But anyway, here’s some of my favs off of the top of my head: running up that hill nick/greg gifset, still script edit, gif script edit (from a version of the script that changes a few things about the episode and make me wish we got it that way instead lol), a nick & grissom gifset--the style of which I did for a warrick version and intended to do a cath and sara one and probably still will someday, a hamilton inspired nick whump edit, down in a hole by alice in chains edit just to name a few!

5. General Nick Angst/Whump gifsets

Kinda cheating with all of this, I know, but I do kinda just lump certain creations together into categories, and this category is concepts made out of inspiration from songs/realizations/just sheer desire to do something grand for my favorite guy, and I have spent hours on a lot of these gifsets, more hours than usual when making gifs (well depending on how fast my computer is going that day lol)

Nick Angst set kinda focused on the trauma that made him a person (warning for the babysitter thing)

my shot from hamilton for Nick (I remember I did this after I had done a request of this for Jack 😂)

a quote that I’m pretty sure I did a mac set before for too, but the “break” gif is probably one of the best gifs I’ve ever made

i was from a very potter senior year for Nick because I was listening to that song on a loop for a whole week

just a crafty Nick whump set based on quotes said to him during times of hurt

[peacockwinchester]

Mairon/Sauron x Misha

Remembered that I have literally never posted a oneshot of my most hammered out story. I have been in love with Mairon for a couple years, he is my comfort character and this story is probably my most well-developed and longest running one. Anyway, I hope it is good!!

Warnings: Relationship issues, general LOTR things, heights, angst with happy ending, actually no curses (Wow, Misha what are you doing?!)

..

~Misha~

I had been invited (more like summoned) to Imladris by my niece, Galadriel. I had already been made aware of the stirrings near Mordor, and I had had many dreams of my husband, even though he would still be without a body for a long time. Beleg had come with me, since he liked the company of Elrond's sons and Glorfindel.

We were greeted at the entrance by Lindir.

"My lords," he greeted us.

"Lindir," I nodded.

"To what do we owe the pleasure? We had not expected you," Lindir asked politely, though I could sense his unease.

"We were asked here by my niece," I replied. "We won't overstay our welcome."

It was always icy with our kin, even after all these centuries. Such was the curse of my family. Lindir nodded briskly and stepped aside so we could enter. We were almost immediately greeted by Galadriel.

"Welcome," she smiled at Beleg and I, speaking in Sindarin, "I hope Lindir didn't give you too much trouble. He is... untrusting."

"Who isn't untrusting of us?" Beleg scoffed.

"There are many, myself included," Galadriel assured us.

"Why did you ask us here?" I inquired.

"A party of dwarves is coming our way. They are led by Olorin, who I believe has worrying news for us. I was summoned here by Saruman."

"Worrying things are beginning across the land. I assume you and Elrond will want my observations?"

"Yes, but you will not speak to Saruman?"

"I feel evil in him, much like my Atar," Beleg explained.

"He has been acting strangely, but we must not jump to conclusions," Galadriel frowned.

"Perhaps," Beleg pursed his lips. "I will leave you to the talking, I am going to look for Glorfindel."

"Alright," I nodded.

Galadriel led me to the council room, where Elrond was discussing the tidings with Saruman. I felt a similar feeling to Beleg's. Saruman had been striking me as off for a while, but I also understood Galadriel's desire to keep the peace.

When we arrived, Elrond stopped what he was doing.

"Lord Misha," he nodded, "Galadriel."

"It is good to see you, Elrond," I smiled.

"Why have you come?" Saruman frowned.

"Galadriel asked for me. It would likely be beneficial to have my experiences. She also tells me Olorin is coming with a party of dwarves," I narrowed my eyes at the white wizard.

"Very well. What have you seen?" Elrond cleared his throat.

I sat down across the table from my long removed nephew and sighed. Galadriel also took a seat at my side.

"I have been having dreams," I steepled my hands under my chin.

"What sort?" Elrond frowned.

"Troubling for our cause. I have seen my husband many times in my sleep. He speaks to me often. I know he will still need time to regain his full power, but his progression is worrying."

"Do you mind telling us what he says?"

I pursed my lips and looked at my hands. To tell the truth, most of what Mairon talked to me about was insignificant. It was the sort of conversations one has with roommates or after one gets home from work. Just like the old days... He sometimes reminisced about times we had shared together, like the weeks he spent healing me or our time in Valinor. I didn't think any of that was vital to our cause.

"I... All I know is that despite all his sentiments towards me, he isn't going to stop," I shook my head slightly.

Elrond and Galadriel seemed to pick up on my unease and quickly dismissed the council.

..

There was almost always a feast at Elrond's house, and tonight was no different. Afterwards, Beleg and I spent some time in the Hall of Fire, before I decided to go to bed. Beleg and I had been given rooms close to each other. I entered mine and put on my night shirt. My bed was comfortable, and I fell asleep relatively quickly.

..

I opened my eyes to see that I was still in my guest room. However, I knew I was dreaming because on the end of my bed sat Mairon. He looked over at me, smiling slightly.

"I always look forward to visiting you," he said.

"I know," I sighed.

"You're troubled..." Mairon frowned at me.

"Of course I am, Mairon!" I scowled. "How could I not be troubled?! You're trying to take over the world and basically kill my people, not to mention everyone else!!"

"Misha- I don't want to kill everyone! I just want to show everyone that we deserve respect, and order!" Mairon argued.

"Mairon, no one will ever respect us if you keep this up! I'm sorry, but I just can't keep acting like you've done nothing wrong. Because you have done so much... and I don't know if we'll ever be the same..."

Mairon sighed and looked away from me.

"I know..." he said quietly. "But they listen to me... The orcs truly listen to me, not like Aule or Melkor who pretended to. Misha, I'm finally important, and I'm not going to stop, because everyone in Middle Earth needs to know how important I am. How important my family really is."

"Mairon," I stopped him by putting a hand up, "Until you stop and you face the consequences of your actions and the actions you're planning on taking... I can't see you. So, please leave me alone..."

Mairon looked stunned at my words, like I had just physically impaled him. But I knew he understood, or he would in time, and he left.

..... Continuity? We don't know her. Time for the destruction of the Ring.....

I had never actually been to Mordor, even after all these years. It was a barren, volcanic wasteland. Looming over everything was the volcano itself and Barad-dur, which was a replica of my own home. My whole head was a hurricane of emotions. I was scared, scared that we would fail, scared of what would happen if we won... Scared to see him.

Frodo and Sam were at my side, disguised in orc armor. But everything was deserted. I swallowed my fear and hesitation and put a hand on Frodo's and Sam's shoulders.

"You two do what we came here to do. I believe in you," I smiled at them.

"What are you gonna do, Mx. Misha?" Sam frowned.

"I'm going to see him," I took a deep breath to steady myself.

"Good luck then," Sam shook my hand.

"You too. I'll see you on the other side," I saluted the Hobbits, before jogging up to Barad-dur.

I stopped just short of the gate. Would he come with me? Would he be too proud to admit defeat and serve time for his crimes? Would everything be too much for our relationship? Almost shaking, I pushed open the giant black gate.

Centered with the door was a large, dark throne, on which sat the person I had been waiting for and dreading seeing simultaneously. I knew it was him by the shock of golden hair and the way he sat. When he saw me walk in, he stood immediately and descended the throne. He didn't come closer yet, probably in fear of my anger. But after all these centuries, I just wanted everything to be over and to heal.

"Misha," Mairon said.

"Mairon," I replied.

"Why did you come?" my husband asked.

"I want to offer something."

"Oh?"

"I want you to come home with me. We can work through everything and you can begin to mend what you've broken. I spoke with Manwe in my dreams, and he's willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I just... I just want all this to end..."

Mairon sighed, finally coming closer. He stopped just in front of me.

"You came with the Ring, didn't you?" he said.

"Yes. Surely you know you can't win," I crossed my arms. "My friends are taking it to the mountain now. There isn't time to stop them."

"I know," Mairon sighed, "Eru, you always were smarter..."

"So?" I held out my hand between us.

Mairon looked at my hand for a long minute, and I almost though he wouldn't take it. I convinced myself he wouldn't and began to prepare to deal with that. I was pulled out of my wormhole by the warm weight of Mairon's hand in mine.

"I'll come with you," he affirmed. "Nothing will ever erase the damage I've done, but I want to start over. I want... to be a family again."

I felt tears slip out of my eyes unwittingly, and as I looked at him, I saw Mairon was crying a bit too. The weight of all the years without him and all the years of wondering whether we would ever be able to be something again finally hit me and I let go of Mairon's hand to throw my arms around him. Mairon held onto me as tightly as he could.

We just stood there for what seemed like an eternity, before Mairon's grip loosened. I let out a gasp, like the air had just been knocked out of his lungs. His knees buckled and I struggled to keep him upright.

"Mairon?!" I asked, panicking slightly.

"Misha... The-the ring's gone..." Mairon breathed.

"Are you gonna be ok?" I asked fearfully.

"I mean.... Probably??"

"Are you sure?"

"Meh."

It was clear that he was a bit loopy right now. I felt a shower of dust fall onto me and I started coughing. I looked up to see the ceiling begin to crumble.

"Mairon!!" I cried.

My husband, clearly out of it, barely managed to throw up a shield to protect us. When the dust settled, we were under a mountain of rubble. Mairon used what little power he had at the moment to burst the shield and throw rubble off of us. When I could see the sky, I hauled Mairon to his feet (he could barely stand and he ended up leaning heavily on me) and began dragging us out of the ruins of Barad-dur.

Once on top, I let out a string of Quenyan curses. The volcano was erupting and lava was pouring out of it, heading towards us. Overhead, I saw large birds circling. Two swooped down on teh side of the mountain and another began descending towards Mairon and I's position. I had only enough time to yelp and squeeze my eyes shut as the giant eagle picked us up.

"Misha?" I heard Mairon ask.

I let out a strained panicked noise and kept my eyes shut. I happen to be deathly afraid of heights, and I did not trust Manwe's eagles one bit.

"Netya hanu, you're ok, I think. I might be dying, actually, um....." Mairon tried to reassure me, despite him being completely out of it.

"Did... did you just call me... pretty boy?" I asked through clenched teeth.

"Did I? Oh... Didn't mean to say that out loud. Did you know you smell nice?"

I laughed, though it was somewhat strained. We were finally done with the Ring and all of that nasty stuff. It was over. Mairon was going to begin mending the hurt he'd caused Arda and we could finally begin to talk through everything. Despite my issues with my current altitude, I was elated.

.....

Hi. Did you like it? I've never actually written down how this all goes down, so I hope it was good. Anywho, if you want more Mairon content, I can be persuaded to write it more frequently :)). Have a great day/night, and take care of urself!!

[gunnerpalace]

hey there! so i used to be a huge fan of bleach, and loved ichiruki, and i was reminded of them today but i haven't been involved with the fandom since the series ended. however, i've heard of different variations of why the series ended/ships happened the way they did, and was wondering if you knew or could direct to me a post that explains that? i apologize if i'm bringing up bitter feelings, but i've always been curious if bleach's ending was a big FU from kubo or if he always intended rr/ih

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a post that really goes over it structurally in that kind of way (from a shipping perspective). I’ll get back to what you actually asked me after some asides, because it’s not so simple to just analyze the ships in a vacuum.

I’ve had my own post about why the ending was a fuck you moment, thematically, because it failed to resolve any of the themes and momentum of the series in a way that would be appropriate (either internally or in the context of the supposed genre of shounen.)

I would also say that the ending was a fuck you moment in terms of lore, backstory, and mystery, because all of the historical and political dimensions (i.e., things involving the Soul King and Great Houses) were unceremoniously shuffled off to Can’t Fear Your Own World. Not that any of those things were ever brought up properly in the manga to begin with; the proper and natural time for that would’ve been at the conclusion of the Soul Society arc, when Ichigo and co. spent a week there, which we saw none of. So I would say that everything in CFYOW is basically retconned bullshit hung off prior convenient plot hooks, and that the same was true of TYBW and LSS/TLA/Xcution as well. There may have been some notes and forethought, but it’s about as “valid” as Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert’s Dune works are compared to the original Frank Herbert ones; it’s second-hand, at best.

(This is setting aside that Bleach was clearly made up as it went along. For example: Noriaki literally admitted that he didn’t know who had killed Aizen in Soul Society until he realized that Aizen not being dead was the most shocking answer; the clear baiting and abandonment of Kisuke as the villain hinted at through various means such as his unclear and later retconned reasons for being exiled, and so on. Bleach was very much a J. J. Abrams-style mystery box work that was made as it went with, at best, rough notes, which is why its themes and focus change, for the worse. I also have a post about why it stopped being special, which is part of a running series I intend to write on how to rewrite it to fix and preserve that)

The best recent thing to compare it to is, really, HBO’s adaptation of Game of Thrones, wherein D. B. Weiss and David Benioff openly admitted to removing or deemphasizing story elements, and ignoring themes in adapting the work. The difference is that Bleach was not being adapted from anything; it degraded due to its own creator not understanding what he had created.

(To put it very simply, because this would be the point of Hyperchlorate Part II and would take a whole post to explain: the ending of the Soul Society arc did not properly establish and flesh out Soul Society as a place with a history, space, and purpose. Instead, the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs decided to be a thematic inversion and deconstruction of the Karakura and Soul Society arcs. This again had an ending that did not establish or flesh anything out after Aizen’s defeat, with an even greater diffusion of focus onto ancillary characters. The Xcution arc tripled down on this by addressing something entirely new and retconned in, only to abandon it midway through in favor of going back to invoking Soul Society. And Thousand-Year Blood War took all of these problems to 11. tl;dr: Noriaki tried themes, people hated it, and so he just shoved in more and more dumb sword fights between people nobody cared about, half of whom hadn’t previously existed.)

So, let’s get back to your question. Let’s talk about ships. I’ve clicked a lot of keys and spilled a lot of ink on this subject over the years, but I no longer particularly feel like searching my own archives (really ought to go back through and organize them better) beyond this post and my own follow-up to it about the chronology of IR interactions, so I’m just going to repeat myself.

First, let’s say that Bleach was not ever a manga about ships.

I’m not disavowing that what Rukia and Ichigo had was special. That was called out multiple times through the focus of the art, the dialogue, and by the characters themselves. (Directly by, for example, Orihime’s outright statement to the effect in Soul Society, and her later jealousy regarding it. Indirectly by, say, Uryuu’s acknowledgement that him saving Rukia first would piss Ichigo off. In fact, the biggest indirect indicator doesn’t even involve Ichigo and Rukia; Shunsui asks Chad why he’s there and Chad says he wants to save Rukia, Shunsui calls bullshit that two months isn’t enough time to risk your life for that, and Chad agrees and says he’s there because Ichigo wants to do it. Shunsui moves on, but his argument is left hanging: why was two months enough for Ichigo? Because, as Orihime will later say out loud, Rukia is special.)

What I’m saying is that that was never the focus. It was explicitly constructed that way.

How do I know? The Grand Fisher fight. The Grand Fisher fight is emotionally charged, bringing up both Ichigo and Rukia’s greatest traumas, and is their one real moment of not understanding each other for a time. It was a triumphant moment that made them truly glad to know one another, and you can see it in their reactions afterward (Rukia thanking Ichigo for not dying, Ichigo asking Rukia if he can keep being a Shinigami). There was a lot to unpack there, and you can see it in the way they look at each other.

What happened immediately after the Grand Fisher fight? Noriaki skipped a whole month. We go from June 18th of 2001 to July 17th of 2001. He deliberately skipped all of the emotional impact of that event, and Rukia being around for Ichigo’s 16th birthday. Just never happened. We never hear about it. Wasn’t his focus as a writer.

Now, I’m convinced that was because he was scared of what he had on his hands. He wasn’t willing to commit to either a couple’s battle shoujo or a shounen with male and female seemingly-heterosexual co-equal deuteragonists who clearly had a strong emotional bond. More specifically, he wasn’t willing to make Rukia a centerpiece of the manga despite having designed her first, having made her the moral and philosophical core of his manga, and having based Ichigo entirely around completing and complementing her. But hey, that’s just my opinion, right? Except it kept happening.

From the Grand Fisher fight onward, the name of the game in the manga, structurally, became keeping Ichigo and Rukia apart.

The moment she was taken back to Soul Society, her prominence dropped. We got emotionally charged scenes of them regardless. Right at the conclusion, after yet another emotionally heavy set of Ichigo and Rukia interactions, we again skip almost a month, from the end of the first week in August of 2001 to September 1, 2001. (Due to some completely unnecessary timey-wimey bullshit with the Precipice World.)

In the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arcs, they have roughly a day together over the course of three months. What happens after every meeting? They’re shuffled apart and split up, and we cut away. This time, for over a year!

Ichigo and Rukia again have a very emotionally charged meeting in the Xcution arc. And what happens at the end of that arc? We skip ahead another month to TYBW. (Xcution ended sometime in May of 2003, TYBW starts June 11, 2003.)

And in TYBW, Rukia and Ichigo barely meet up at all. Indeed, the focus is scarcely upon them.

In CFYOW, neither of them even appear, let alone have any relevance to the plot.

The implication, in my opinion, is pretty obvious: Noriaki was deathly afraid of dealing with the outcomes of their interactions, and that ultimately became him being deathly afraid of allowing them to interact at all to begin with. Why? Well, as I said in one of the last linked posts:

As an author, sometimes you will find your characters will do things you didn’t anticipate or plan for, and you’ve got two choices: you can go with the flow and do what’s natural and deal, or you can fight it and try and impose your vision anyway.

He refused to let his art take the direction it needed to go in.

Now, some people might say he got bored of them, or of having them together. I say that’s bullshit. And the reason I say is down to three things:

He didn’t ignore them, he did his best to keep them apart. I outlined this above.

He did not emphasize anything or anyone else instead. His focus was all over the place. While, admittedly, Ichigo’s prominence also declined, so did everyone else’s.

It would have served him well to focus on their interactions to expand his universe and explore its lore. The things that were detailed in the databooks and CFYOW could’ve been presented naturally and easily if they were together. But that came with a cost of shifting the focus. A cost he refused to pay.

Let’s talk more about (2) and (3) now.

Regarding (2), Chad and Orihime are inextricably linked in Bleach, because they essentially have the same relationship to Ichigo. “But Orihime loves Ichigo, and Chad is his no-homo bro!” someone proclaims. So what? They’re presented as equal and parallel at every step.

They both gain their powers at approximately the same time.

We are told they gained their powers due to the Hogyouku (in Rukia at the time) interpreting their wishes (and no one else’s, such as Tatsuki, Keigo, or Mizuiro), meaning they probably had the same strength of desire.

They both go to Soul Society “for Ichigo.”

They both utterly fail against Yammy and Ulquiorra.

They both spend most of the Hueco Mundo arc doing nothing.

They are both featured prominently in the Xcution arc, and both fail to see through Tsukishima’s powers despite their love for Ichigo. (Meanwhile, Byakuya coolly tries to murder someone who he thinks is his mentor, in Ichigo’s name.)

They both get sidelined in Hueco Mundo with Kisuke in TYBW, doing little to nothing.

They both are utterly ineffectual in the final fight in TYBW.

They are often portrayed together, they are often as effective as one another, and they are equally as developed in their relationship to Ichigo going forward, which is to say: not at all. The loss of focus on IR did not come with an attendant rise of focus on IH, any more than it did with the sudden rise of IchiChad. Nothing was built in IR’s place. There was no emotional or human content which filled its gap.

This is where the IH ending coming “out of nowhere” stems from: it indeed came out of nowhere, because Ichigo was never shown to have any interest in Orihime in all this time, nor an especially close relationship with her. He never hangs out with Chad or shows a bond with him either. He never hangs out with anyone, in fact. (Indeed, “friends” in Bleach do not do any of the things that friends actually do in real life. Nor do parents. You might say that interpersonal relationships and communication largely don’t exist in Bleach. But that’s its whole own topic.)

I would honestly say that more time and emphasis was given on Ichigo’s pseudo-surrogate mother relationship with Ikumi than was spent on him interacting with Orihime. (I would say Noriaki has serious hangups about relationships of any kind, be they romantic, familial, or friendly, and also has some severe hangups regarding mothers and fathers, but that is also its whole own topic.)

Regarding (3), Noriaki apparently wanted this big, Game of Thrones-style world with a long history and political machinations and so on. This is the whole point of TYBW and CFYOW. Trouble is, early Bleach was successful because of its small-scale intimacy. So how do you go from one to the other? You have to lay the foundations at every step. And Noriaki steadfastly refused to do so at every step. Having Ichigo and Rukia interact, and focusing on Rukia while Ichigo was sidelined without powers, would’ve permitted that organically. Indeed, if RR was the endgame, it would have given time to establish that, were it his desire. (Because Rukia never showed any interest in Renji, and frankly Renji always seemed way more preoccupied with Byakuya.) It didn’t serve his goals, but he did it anyway.

It’s much simpler to say he lost focus, and that he started to hate the manga as a whole. Why else would you have Mayuri fighting a giant hand when that achieved nothing, and Kenpachi fighting Thor when that achieved nothing? It became empty. Hollow, you might say.

But that takes us back to the question you posed: where did the ships come from? Nowhere. IH, RR, and fucking TatsuKeigo weren’t established anywhere. They just appeared. Why?

Well, why did every single character wind up doing the exact opposite of their intended and stated goals in the end?

Why did Soul Society revert to its previous attitude and rebuild the Sokyouku?

Why did nothing get resolved?

Why did nothing change?

Why was it all revealed to have been completely and utterly pointless?

In my view, it’s because that ending was a giant fuck you to the readership and Shueisha. There is no other way to interpret an author pulling a 180° and completely nullifying their characters’ arcs, and their work’s themes. Aizen’s little speech at the end is the cherry on top. I read it as Noriaki saying that he’s showing “courage” in telling us all to fuck off.

As to why? That’s an open question. His relationship with Shueisha was contentious, so maybe he was mad at them. (They gave him a deadline once he was dragging his feet, and reclassified Bleach as a joke manga.) His readership was on the decline after the Soul Society arc ended, so maybe he was mad at the audience. I don’t know. I also don’t really care. What I am convinced of is he decided to blow up his franchise and to not leave a single stone unturned when he did so.

That’s where that “ending” comes from, which is why despite it featuring IH and RR, both are thoroughly unsatisfying and without setup: it was the only way to piss absolutely everyone off, including people who wanted that outcome.

In a way, it was his greatest success since the early days of the manga.

Anyway, this was messy, but it’s not a simple topic to address. The tl;dr is that Bleach was a trainwreck from the very beginning that only succeeded on the merits of its characters, and that Noriaki deliberately avoided the promise it had to be something unique and grand. The ships are just a part of that, and cannot be understood in isolation from it.

[littlecommonwealthcourier]

I never did make a proper introduction post so here goes since people are starting to follow me.

I'm Adrian. I go by Adrian/Red/Jolie (primary stripper name, though I've also gone by Piper [yup] and Venus but because of the jokes had to stick with Jolie/Jojo). I'm technically not 22 until midnight, I was born on 11/24 at 11/24 pm. I have one son, named Archer after the show Archer. I tried to name him Liberty Prime but my fiance decided that was a no after our friends made Transformers jokes (a giant robot is a giant robot though). I'm a redhead. My current color is my natural but I might cave and go back to green. I'm an enby (pronouns be damned, no one ever remembers or takes it seriously and I can be super duper feminine so I stopped caring). I'm a huge supporter of sex workers (top 2 pics are from when I, myself, was a dancer/stripper) and sex positivity. My favorite color is green. I have a few super fun disabilities, and I'm very open about my personality disorder so people don't perceive us as evil or abusive. My other fandoms are Studio Ghibli, Watchmen, David Lynch, Ghost in the Shell, Life is Strange, and The Devil's Carnival/Repo! the Genetic Opera. I write, but I'm just now coming out of the closet about it, and will be posting a fic for the first time since April on Monday. My favorite animals are goats and possums. I'm a bit of a chameleon, and I guess now is a good time to compare myself to Deacon from FO4 for that reason (no shit - I actually shaved my head a few times but no pictures of it exist thank GOD). I change my looks all the time. I can not STAND sticking with one look. My favorite band is The Used and I had the opportunity to meet them earlier this year, I got Jason Aalon Butler's sweat on me in the pit at the same show bc he jumped in right next to me and I almost cried. Some other artists I love are Bat for Lashes, Ghost, Rage Against the Machine, Deftones, Depeche Mode, and Jeff Buckley. I have a cat named Mortimer, and I hoard vintage clothing (70s, mostly) but only ever wear leggings lol. I'm a cinephile, and my dream is working in film. My favorite movies are Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Howl's Moving Castle, Planet Terror, Party Monster, Inglourious Basterds, Eraserhead, The Devil's Carnival: Alleluia, Martyrs (NOT the American remake, I have not seen it), and Léon: the Professional. I'm agnostic. I will tell you "I love you" after talking for 10 minutes because I adore kind people and can count my friends on two hands.

I started playing Fallout AFTER 4's release (yes, I am open to roasting). New Vegas was my first, but I dropped it and turned to 4 when the game glitched out. It was actually really funny, the Kings started punching each other for no reason, no one died, and it wouldn't let me progress so I said fuck it aftet watching them dogpile for 20 minutes. I was drawn to 4 because my fiance's room mate had been playing it and ran around jumping off of shit in a hard hat and I thought it looked like a great way to waste time...then took it way too seriously. Ope.

This is my 3rd tumblr in 7 years. I really need to stop ragequitting and deleting accounts on various websites, but I tend to get anxious and dip out of anything involving socialization. Even on the internet. This blog is staying. I'm holding myself to it.

I am deathly deathly deathly afraid of spiders and the uncanny valley. Irony is great. My favorite ice cream is superman and I can often be seen playing with a 110 year old accordion that an ancestor brought from Czechoslovakia. I'm awake at the strangest hours (typically 9 am - 5 am) and will talk to anyone about absolutely anything.

Nazis can get their shit wrecked along with president tangelo and transphobes.