#they also gotta try to kill as many people as possible and imprison as many

[mejomonster]

Republicans love to to after freedom to exist huh

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

[lightrises]

"Only in allowing her to pass..." — Hornet, The Radiance, and the means by which Hallownest turned its victims against each other

A quick note: I read Hollow Knight as an anti-colonialist text. As such I'll be touching on topics related to colonialism as it's depicted in the world of the game, and said analysis will reflect both a sympathetic take on The Radiance and a critique of The Pale King that won't pull its punches. If this sounds up your alley, hello and thank you for the read! Let us be sad about these bugs together.

———

So!! A while back I realized something about pre-canon that felt rather... "curious" is one way to put it, I think. To wit: for all the effort and scheming and determination The Pale King poured into trying to get rid of The Radiance, neither of his plans involved directly killing her.

Was that his long game? Well, sure, that seems clear enough. His tack changed from luring the moths away from their god and creator to a more literal form of incarceration once the infection became a factor, but at its core the end goal never really changed—The Pale King very sincerely wished to destroy Radiance via obsolescence. The Seer lends us foreshadowing to confirm as much:

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from Hollow Knight, showing the Seer and Ghost in the Seer's alcove at the Resting Grounds. Across both screenshots, the Seer tells Ghost the following: "None of us can live forever, and so we ask those who survive to remember us. Hold something in your mind and it lives on with you, but forget it and you seal it away forever. That is the only death that matters." End description.]

(Which, by the way and given the context, talk about an extremely unsubtle allusion to cultural genocide huh!!! Whew.)

In any case, we're left with a whole bunch of machinations which build up to... well, two very roundabout attempts at committing deicide. That's kind of weird, all things considered! Why not just do the deed in one fell swoop and get it over with?

This could be for any number of reasons. Maybe the king was devoid of the means to instantly kill another higher being. Maybe his personal sense of scruples stopped him short of signing off on MURDER murder (although, y'know, the aforementioned genocide + eternal imprisonment = still cool and copasectic apparently!). Maybe the long drawn-out cruelty was the point. Maybe the idea of playing fuckign 4D chess with the circumstances was too delicious for him to pass up—that man did love to tinker and stick his claws where they sure as hell didn't belong—or maybe it was a little bit of All The Things. Who knows!!

But interrogating The Pale King's methodology on this count isn't what I'm here for, at least not really. The main reason I raise this question at all is that in her own way, Hornet did too.

"I'd urge you to take that harder path... "

See, going by The Pale King's actions and what The White Lady explicitly says, they both foresaw two outcomes wrt the infection: it can be allowed to spread, or it can be contained. At Teacher's Archives, Quirrel acknowledges the fact that Ghost is expected to do... something about this, but he doesn't elaborate on what HE thinks that's supposed to be apart from the obvious "Gotta bust into Black Egg Temple first". Hornet is the one person who presents to us—to Ghost—what's framed as a third option: confront and destroy the infection at its source.

And she doesn't bring it up like it's just another tactic for Ghost to consider, prim and indifferent to what they would do. She nudges them towards it, actively, up to the point where she throws herself into the fray against Hollow at a juncture that's uniquely dangerous to her and her alone just to make that option feasible.

Even when she's couching it in disclaimers that this is still Ghost's decision to make (and let's be fair, she's extremely not wrong about that lol), no one can pretend Hornet is unbiased. It's obvious in that buttoned-down Hornet kind of way that she is way the hell done with the increasingly tenuous stalemate that's kept Hallownest's desiccated corpse from collapsing in on itself. Personally it's hard for me not to read some Toriel Undertale-esque "My father was too entrenched in his own foolishness to pursue any course of action that would have DEFINITIVELY ended this" shade into her stance here, regardless of whether that's strictly true in canon.

And that bit—Hornet's hopes for an end to Hallownest's stasis, moreover her grim calculation of what needs to be done to get there—that's the bit I find super interesting but likewise tragic and depressing as shit, on multiple levels. In no small part because a) canon itself gestures towards Hornet feeling conflicted about the very plan she's pushing, and moreover b) she has at least two (2) damn good reasons to feel that way.

So, what do I mean by that? Let's look here first:

[Image description: A screenshot from Hollow Knight, of Hornet and Ghost inside the Temple of the Black Egg, standing in front of the unsealed egg itself. Hornet has been struck by the Dream Nail and her dialogue is displayed as follows: "... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?" End description.]

As the curtain is about to drop on things one way or another, Hornet thinks,

... Could it achieve that impossible thing? Should it?

Now, looking at that last bit it's easy to go "Oh no, Hornet's worried that Ghost won't survive killing The Radiance!" And I do think that's part of it: Hornet is, categorically, not her father. By endgame it's clear she's not content to view her Void-borne siblings as tools to be used then disposed of. She's also well aware that as a healthy autonomous Vessel amongst the countless dead, Ghost is the only person left alive who has a fighting chance against The Radiance. Knowing someone is the only qualified candidate for the job doesn't make encouraging them to embrace a probable death sentence any less of a bitter pill to swallow, though. And odds are on that this sentiment extends to Hollow too, who IS going to die no matter what happens here. To put it bluntly, it's more than reasonable to conclude that Hornet hates the absolute fuck out of this.

But I don't think that's all there is to it either. Remember what I said earlier about The Pale King's bids for genocide? Well, it's not like the man deigned to limit his efforts to just the moth tribe.

"We do not choose our mothers... "

On top of everything else—an infected Hallownest being all she's ever known, the fact that she only exists because of the infection, the list goes on—Hornet has spent her life wedged into a position that's been uncomfortable and terminally unglamorous at best: she is both a daughter of her father's kingdom and of Deepnest.

Deepnest, which like the moths and many others was here long before the wyrm and his lady wife swanned onto the scene and the God Become Bug laid claim to everything the Light touched plus a considerable amount of change. THAT Deepnest, which has fought claw and thread to retain its sovereignty against same-said settler king, and for which Herrah not only surrendered her life but also agreed to bed her worst enemy, all in hopes of securing a viable future for her people (put a pin in that last part by the way, I'll come back to it soon).

Two Worlds, One Family (Ft. An Indigenous Woman Trying Her Damndest To Work With What She's Got Versus An Imperialist Who Only Signed Up For This Because He Needed The Political Favor THAT Badly, So It's The Height Of Dysfunctional Actually). Fun times!!!!

The baggage this entails for Hornet is gnarly enough without implications made by The White Lady and the pre-canon timeline of events and even Team Cherry's dev notes that the king may well have looked at baby Hornet, gone "YOINK", then ensured she spent the lion's share of her childhood reared within the pearly auspices of his Pale Court*. That would be rather advantageous for Him Specifically after all, the potential to mold a born foe into a future ally and even have her trained in combat under the same tutelage as her doomed sibling. And far be it from him to stop a grown Hornet—his own flesh and blood too!—from making Deepnest her forever home if she so pleased. He totally wouldn't be reneging on his "fair bargain made" by doing this one simple thing until Hornet came of age, not t e c h nic c a l l y.

If that is indeed the case, there's a non-zero chance Hornet's formative years were a hot mess of cultural alienation and being a good deal more privy than most to just how much of a bastard her father could be. There's an equally non-zero chance that at some point she stood or sat within earshot as The Pale King finally, finally dropped all pretense and euphemism to name the Light for precisely what (for who) it was.

See, in conjunction with the question that started this whole dang train of thought I've been asking this one too: Does Hornet know? When she speaks of confronting "the heart of [the] infection" does she know she's talking about not just a literal person but someone very specific? The Radiance, who god though she may be shares skin in the game alongside Hornet as a native woman screwed over by the same settler king, likewise deprived of her kin and saddled with a life gone horrendously pear-shaped?

I'll assume for the sake of exploring the possibility and because I think it's a likely one anyway that yes, Hornet does know. She knows, and despite everything can't help empathizing. She might even look at Radiance and see bits and pieces both reflected and slightly inversed in her own mother: Radiance was forced to the sidelines while her people—her children, the brood she was meant to lead and care for—died out under The Pale King's rule, and it's no stretch to assume she's at least as upset about that as she has been about everything else; Herrah too took drastic measures for her people's sake, trying to head off annihilation by relegating herself to the sidelines in an act that was as much calculated risk as an attempt to find wiggle room and leverage in the face of a nasty proposition.

A calculated risk that, if things continue as they are, might well amount to nothing as the rest of Deepnest gets eaten alive by the infection. It survived The Pale King's advances for so so long, only to fall here. Herrah's sacrifice would be for naught; the other tribes—themselves the king's victims—would keep succumbing to the infection too.

And this is where things fall apart.

"... or the circumstance into which we are born."

Let's be clear: I think Hornet is wise enough to know what's what here, that all the carnage and suffering falls on her father's head for starting this slow-motion trainwreck in the first place. Hallownest wasn't always Hallownest. This domain was Radiance's home first, along with many others. It was the worm-turned-king who rolled up on the scene unsolicited and decided this was a ""'problem""" that had to be """solved""".

But the fact of the matter is that he's gone and The Radiance is here, raging, seemingly inconsolable. Above and beyond being Deepnest's rightful heir, Hornet isn't in a position to countenance more splash damage even if the grief and fury fueling it makes perfect sense. She can understand without ever bringing herself to love Radiance, and she can bend her knee to practicality even if she hates the everloving shit out of it because the fact that it "has" to end this way isn't fair.

This lends itself to one last awful conclusion: that Hornet has probably considered and (rightly or wrongly) discarded the possibility that Radiance can be saved, at least not without dragging more collateral along for the ride. If even her mother and every other enemy to the king seemed to dismiss talking Radiance down as an option way back when... well. Why should Hornet hope for any better after things have escalated so far?

Again, it's practical. A practical net good is what Hornet strives for. And again, it fucking sucks.

For extra tragedy points, this makes Hornet's extended crypticness around Ghost followed by her last minute casting about for a reason to tell them "Wait, don't; not just yet" that she never voices even more of a gut punch. She can't bring herself to burden Ghost with the context that haunts her so, least of all when it might weaken their resolve to go through with what (she thinks) needs doing.

It's the "same song, different verse" which led to the mantis tribe and Deepnest being pitted against each other: Hallownest rigged the game so that two women who could have been powerful allies—who have a mutual vested interest in driving out settler rule—wound up poised as enemies instead. And how awful is that? The king for all his being extremely fucking dead still gets the last laugh, because outside of a miracle the game never manifests Hornet can salvage what her mother started and look forward to a future where Deepnest pulls itself back from the brink if and only if The Radiance dies.

Resolution comes at the price of a completed genocide. Add two more dead siblings to the unconscionable pile thereof, while we're at it. That's what it boils down to whether or not Hornet can bear to articulate it as such, and there's no grace or even a properly bittersweet ending to wring from this clusterfuck. And that is rough.

———

* This has been better explained elsewhere, but a quick rundown: The White Lady tells Ghost that Hornet and Herrah "were permitted little time together." On its surface this can be taken to mean that Hornet was still very young when Herrah was shipped off to Eternal Dreamland—except this doesn't jive with the fact that we meet Hornet as an adult. If the stasis kicked in once the Dreamers went to their rest, which in turn halted the aging process for every living bug in Hallownest, AND before all this Hornet experienced little by the way of quality time with her birth mother... I think you can see where I'm going with this.

To top it off we've got Team Cherry weighing in ominously from their dev notes on Herrah: "As part of the agreement for her alliance and her role as a dreamer, King gave her a child (Hornet). Was she allowed to keep this child or was she taken away?" This isn't confirmation by itself of course, but given additional canon details (see above): Can I get a "yikes" in the chat fellas.

[ratcandy]

UHHH THE SECOND IDEA FIRST

OKAY Time's disastrous universe let's get it boys

Below is a VERY long personal-story related ramble because a lot happens here and there's a lot to explain and I'm being enabled (c/w death, a LOT of memory erasure, Gods being idiots, and. If I need to add anythin else here someone better let me know hehehe)

feat some dumb lil doodles here n there because i felt like it

Exposition time first!

At the beginning of everything, eight universes were created, each differentiated by color. A Universe Owner is assigned to each universe, and that entity is then responsible for their universe's laws of reality, the lives of the characters, and... whatever else they decide to mess with. This is so I can allow myself a lot of freedom in making stories in many different areas n such without worrying about it following another story's rules >:)

Okay exposition time done! for now!

One day out of the blue, the God of Time decided that they wanted a universe all for themselves. They wanted to create life!! They wanted to make a world!! It'd be fun! It'd be a whole vibe!

So, against the wishes of the God of Balance, Time made a ninth universe and fruitlessly tried to keep it hidden from everyone else. This backfired instantly. A huge argument broke out between Time and Balance, as the latter was pissed, but Time won in the end and was allowed to keep their universe. Balance is just upset there's not a nice even number anymore. He'll get over himself eventually.

Straight up having a great time now, the God of Time went hogwild and fleshed out their universe to the best of their ability. Beautiful lush forests, stunning pink skies as if it were in a continuous sunrise, crystal-clear waters that glimmer ever-so-brightly!! Yes!! Pretty!! And immediately after, they created creatures!! And people! To inhabit their world!

Elegant flying beasts, colorful people of all shapes and sizes, bustling towns with trade and life and energy and!!! Yes! Yes!! Vibes!!

Time was living their BEST life.

But. Well. This is my story. things gotta go wrong now

SO! First, something to note about how the God of Time works:

Time's primary job is to keep the Time Fire from ever going out or touching the ground. The Time Fire is an eternally burning flame, forever shifting from vibrant color to vibrant color, getting bigger and burning stronger with every passing millennia. It also... y'know. Allows time itself to function. If it goes out, time will stop. If it touches the floor, time will go NUTS and parallel/alternate universes will go haywire, clashing into one another and messing up reality.

The God of Time, luckily, has powerful psychic abilities.. The tall mans just put the Time Fire in a sort of protective bubble, constantly floating above the ground, and left it in a temple at the center of their universe. Epic. All works out

Well. All SHOULD have worked out.

At some point, Time left their universe to have a meeting with the Gods, and on their way to Oblivion - often a meeting place for deities - they witnessed something Very Unfortunate.

One of the Universe Owners, Hesit (white universe), was being torn to pieces by an intruder in the higher realm. By killing and consuming Hesit, possession of the white universe was transferred to said intruder: a big asshole named Vexis. Time tried to confront Vexis immediately after. This was a mistake, as Vexis panicked and attacked Time. Seeing as Gods cannot die, Vexis instead trapped the god in his newly-acquired universe - binding him there forever.

So now Time is imprisoned in the white universe, lost and confused, not knowing how to get back out. And Vexis doesn't plan on telling anyone about this.

The other gods soon realize that Time has gone missing. Very soon, actually, because... well. With Time being swept away into the white universe and being held prisoner there, uhm. A certain something important isn't being held suspended anymore.

The Time Fire.

It hasn't fallen yet, but it's gradually sinking toward the ground, and sometHING has to get a hold on it soon!! Or HELL WORLD!!

Balance loses his MIND!! We have to do something about this before time becomes a catastrophic, unfixable disaster! And also we're missing a god!! This is not good!! At first, Balance goes looking for Time, but realizes he doesn't really uh... have the time to be doing that

So, in desperation, he searches his mind for possible solutions. He gets one, crazy idea, and practically begs the God of Death to help him pull it off. Death agrees, because this is the one (1) time Death acknowledges that the mortal realm being in danger might be a bad thing.

To put a long plan short, Balance used Death to turn the Goddess of Pain into a pseudo Goddess of Time.

Pain had previously been wreaking HAVOC, and Balance was NOT happy about it. Way too many mortals were dying, then not dying, then losing their sanities, then losing control of themselves, and it was just. Very messy. He didn't feel great about using her to replace Time, but he didn't have many options. And he needed someone to take over. So, he and Death worked together to erase Pain's memories and turn her into a Goddess of Time.

They couldn't give her psychic abilities, though. So, how'd they deal with the Time Fire? It now permanently rests on Pain/Time's back. As in, the flame is constantly burning her spine for all of eternity, steadily searing her flesh but never allowing her to die. She's grown progressively numb to it over many, many years, but that doesn't make it any less unfortunate for her.

Balance feels awful about this. Especially since Pain/Time doesn't remember who she was, and believes she's always been Time. This is how it's always been. The universe around her is one she made, one she owns. Anytime Balance stops by to visit (as Time cannot move now from the temple with the fire), she greets him so kindly, so happy to have company... and he just feels terrible, knowing what he's done to her.

Well... at least that's settled. This cannot possibly go awry in any way shape or f----

The new Goddess of Time is trying her best to make creations for her universe. After all, that's what she's always done! These are her children, essentially, and she needs to have more. This, uh... well, the Goddess of Pain was not made with creating in mind, rather destroying. So, despite her valiant efforts, half of her creations come out... a Lil Messed Up. But she loves them all the same and keeps them around!!! Even if they're... worse for wear, or not quite like the rest!! They're her children. Yea!

At some point, however, her creating takes a bit too much from other universes' energy, and a mortal from another universe just ends up appearing in Time's. His name is Dustivan, and he is reasonably confused. One moment, he was vibing with his sister and her wife, and the next-- where the hell is he. why is the sky pink. who is this block man approaching me

The block man in question is named Maurice, and he is a sort of guardian for Time's temple. The Time that's always been here. The Time that has always looked like that and never been any different! (All of the Original Time's creations had their memories wiped, too. This Goddess of Time is the only one there's ever been! That's your mother, see. There is no other Time. She created you. Don't worry about it)

Maurice greets Dusty under the assumption that this man is just another new creation, and is soon told that "Uh, no, I'm... from some place else? I have a family? And a home, elsewhere?" M. Maurice is a lil confused. But he asks Time about this.

Time has no idea what he's talking about, either, so Maurice just... calmly escorts Dusty away, promising to get back to him later. We'll figure this out, man, don't you even worry about it

Now, there's a bit here that's only loosely developed! That being Dusty's stay in Time's Universe! Lil man meets a lotta folks, gets used to this weird world he's living in, makes good friends with Maurice and Maurice's maybe-more-than-friends-:flushed: friend Arin, aaand has a great experience! Because Time's universe is incredibly serene and peaceful, even with the new management!

Straight up vibi--- oh no wait what's this

Somehow, Maurice, Arin and Dusty find out about the whole... thing that happened with the original Time, and Pain being turned into the new Time. Maurice and Arin get their memories back and freak out a little while Dusty is just standing there like "big rip on you guys I guess"

Shenanigans ensue and Maurice goes back to Pain/Time, thinking it'll definitely work out if he tells her everything that happened so her.

Hey so it doesn't work out

Pain regains her own memories, and becomes ABSOLUTELY PISSED OFF, shedding the form forced onto her and returning back into the Goddess of Pain. In her transformation, however, she shook the Time Fire from her back, screaming in the agony that caused her, and. well.

she hit the floor (she hit the floor) next thing ya know, time fire got low low low low low low

Time itself was sent into disarray. The God of Balance felt it happen, FREAKED OUT, picked up the God of Death and just BOOKED IT into Time's Universe, dashing toward the temple. But it... was no longer a temple! It was very much destroyed. Balance is faced with the rubble of the former temple, the Fire just chillin on the ground, Arin bleeding to death after being attacked by Pain, Maurice fretting and trying to keep Arin alive, and Dusty aboutta also fucking die because Pain is angry. Alongside the bodies of whatever other poor creations/people just happened to be nearby the temple when this went down. Which was probably quite a few, as the temple was almost always open to visitors.

Death and Balance did the exact same thing again, though with added struggle. Pain was reverted to Time, the Time Fire was yeeted right back onto her spine (followed by a shriek of... pain), and Balance practically collapsed onto the floor hoping to never get up again

Death, however, forced him up, gesturing to the creations around them and uh. hey. their minds. wipe 'em Balance was very tired by this point, but began wiping the survivor's memories, running into Dusty and realizing "hey wait a minute. you're not from this universe" and just kicking that idiot back to where he's supposed to be. might've forgotten to wipe that one's mind but uh i'm sure that's not important

And that's essentially the end of that plot thread! Life continues as if nothing happened, afterwards. Time was restored (though a fuckton of "discrepancies" are now notable throughout the universes, as if time went Wonky or something), the people are thriving, and Maurice & Arin... the latter of which did indeed survive... are wondering if there's something important they were supposed to remember.

nah. probably not

there's a few side stories with characters in Time's universe, including another survivor of the Pain Realizing Who She Is incident... though he got the hell outta dodge and managed to keep his memories. making him a sort of fugitive as Balance has to track that idiot down and fix that problem but!!! this is already a very, very long post, so. WOO

[kinetic-elaboration]

September 17: 3x07 Day of the Dove

I am incredibly discombobulated today—usual weekend nocturnal shenanigans I guess! Anyway it’s somehow midnight. Gonna try to write up these note on the Classic episode The Day of the Dove in as efficient a manner as possible.

Hmm, a planet with wavy pink Fraggle plants. I like it already.

But where is Spock? Very suspicious.

I really appreciate Kirk giving a little speech to set up the overall question/issue for us. (I know he does this all the time with the Captain’s logs but this is out loud and so… more obviously expository.)

Oh no, it’s our old friends…the Klingons.

I will admit that this ONE TIME, the Klingon is being reasonable. Like, it is reasonable to think that Kirk and the Enterprise attacked his ship, given that his hip WAS attacked, and who else would it be?

Three years of peace between the Klingons and the Federation? That is inclusive of the show so all this tension must technically be “peace” and also implies there was something more like a direct war going on, like, right before Kirk got the captaincy.

Zoolander voice: What is this, a colony of the INVISIBLE?

“We have no devil. But we understand the habits of yours.”

No takers? No takers on the torture? No volunteers to be mercilessly tortured by the Klingons?

Star Trek Beyond could have had Kirk and Chekov bond over being brothers! I mean, to other people.

They’ll kill 100 hostages at the first sign of treachery. He does know there are only 400-some people on the ship right? Maybe you should pace yourself, Kang.

Kirk’s so badass he needs MULTIPLE guns trained on him just to use the phone.

Oh-ho secret message to Spock. Which version of the iPhone will be capable of doing THAT?

The Klingons are “suspended in transit” is an awfully nice way of saying they’re just dematerialized atoms in space. Philosophy major and/or Bones nightmare fuel.

How did Kang not see this coming, by the way? Like, he just says “I’m taking your ship now, me and my 6 men versus your 400-some men, and I’ll do this by simply declaring it to be so. Now let’s beam up to your ship, where I’ll be greatly outnumbered, and there are armed security guards all around me.” Guess he’s been reading The Secret!

WIFE AND SCIENCE OFFICER

Aka the most important part of this whole episode.

Kirk’s face is very ?????? You can have both????

It’s legitimately not even important for her to be the science officer tbqh. Like that is so gratuitous. That’s just in there to drive me insane.

"We're prisoners, somehow, after I demanded to come on the ship, assuming they'd just give it to me without any kind of fight. How DID this happen?”

Federation death camps lol—someone’s been watching Fox News.

I do kind of wonder… is this an actual rumor that goes around the Klingon homeworld or is it something that the alien entity put in her head specifically to make her angrier right now? I mean it really could be either.

I also appreciate this episode for being pretty much the only one to actually attempt to give the Klingons a reason for being as they are. The Romulans… maybe aren’t well-described, but they do have a sort of regalness to them, appropriate for being related to Vulcans, and you can kind of imagine that they are the way they are because they’re Vulcans without the intense self-control. Plus they’re literally only in 2 TOS eps and in the second, the Federation are the aggressors. But the Klingons show up a half-dozen times only to be depicted each time as just like Cartoonishly Bad, aggressive, violent, and selfish for basically no reason. And I mean, some people really are!! But TOS has so much nuance in other places, that it always seemed a little disappointing to me that the Klingons are really just like ‘well we’re just bad and we hate everyone and we really like killing I guess.” At least in this ep there’s a little more added to that: that there is poverty on their world, that they feel aggrieved, that they feel unprotected, that taking and conquering is how they look after themselves…

I think that’s later in the episode though.

He’s detaining them in the LOUNGE lol. With their favorite dishes available to them to eat. Absolutely barbarous conditions.

I can’t believe Chekov is hanging in the elevator with the cool kids. Like, one of these things really isn’t like the others.

Kang is officially sure of himself for someone currently imprisoned in the lounge, that most fearsome of Federation death camps.

Hmm, could the glittery light alien have taken over??

You know what, that's a lot of tasks for Johnson to do all by himself: search the whole ship, fix the engines, and free 400 people.

Sulu would love this: everyone gets a sword!!

“Bridge. I gotta show this to Sulu immediately.”

Klingons have maintained a dueling tradition. That’s interesting. Finally some characterization going on.

Spock is really living up to his logical nature today. Everyone else has gone off the emotional deep end and he’s like “have you considered this completely rational explanation that accounts for the actual, observed facts??”

Whoops Chekov is actually an only child. Scratch that previous Beyond headcanon. (Interesting that his dead brother does really resemble Sam though—killed on a research colony??)

Love that Sulu knows that about him though.

Oh, that’s a pretty schematic picture of the Enterprise. I want that on a t-shirt.

Lol the pan out to the armory, now filled with… swords!!

Do ALL of these men have a fetish for swords? Sulu and fencing, Spock displaying swords in his quarters, and Kirk in his San Francisco apartment, and Scotty salivating over this Scottish blade.

“Klingon units.”

Finally Sulu gets his sword! It’s what he deserves.

Love that the shiny light alien also has a fetish for swords.

Oh no, it’s our old adversary, an alien life force.

What is the alien’s purpose? Um, I’m pretty sure its purpose is to start shit.

“An appropriate choice of terms, Captain.” I don’t even remember what this is referring to but I think it’s pretty clear that Spock is enjoying himself during a crisis again.

Bones, being so dramatic. Were there atrocities? He’s talking about the Klingons as if they were literally hacking off limbs—it’s a few stab wounds here and there, chill.

Oooh, time to behave like military men—strong words. (But I thought it wasn’t the military?? @ S**** P****) (This might not even be my best argument, given the context of this episode, but I’m sticking with it.)

This is like a giant game of capture the flag.

AU that’s just about the Enterprise crew playing capture the flag with the Klingons.

Sulu in the background standing guard with his sword

Damn, turning on Spock with the slurs now!!

Spock was absolutely ready to kill him. Like he would 100% have taken him out with a blow to the head. And he’d been doing such a good job of not feeling the alien’s effects so far! Admittedly, that was a strong provocation though.

Honestly, I really like this scene. It’s uncomfortable and tense and you can really see how the alien is bringing out the worst possible influences of their respective races. And I liked how Spock was definitely full on pre-Reform Vulcan for a minute there. It was a more effective portrayal of what that might have looked like than All Our Yesterdays tbqh.

A result of… stress?

Kirk got himself out of it first. He’s so strong. He knows himself so well, he cannot be outsmarted by any alien.

“We’ve been taught to think in terms other than war.”

“The alien brings out the worst of us—patriotic drumbeating…even race hatred.”

He’s so sad; he can’t imagine thinking like that about Spock :(

Sulu in a Jeffries tube! A man of many talents. It’s okay bb, take credit for turning on the lights.

The alien must have been getting bored. The Klingons must have been doing too well, and the playing field needs to be leveled for maximum shit-stirring.

“Let’s find that alien.” That’s how I ALWAYS feel.

Oh, Kang, you’re so close—“What power supports our battle but thwarts our victory.” So, so close to getting it.

ALIEN DETECTED.

Spock takes his sword, of course.

“Jim.” Obligatory Jim moments hit differently when they’re not so obligatory.

“Jim—stop hitting my protégé. And put that sword down.”

Kirk looks so sad, picking Chekov up to carry him bridal style.

Also in addition to ‘race hatred’ I think we need to add ‘rape-y tendances’ to the bad stuff that the alien is inspiring here.

“A brief surge of racial bigotry. Most distasteful.” Spock winning for understatement of the year.

They're assuming the alien is trying to test out their relative powers but I think it just wants entertainment. I mean, doesn’t it look like a naughty little thing?

Mara’s outfit is… little shorts? Interesting. Usually not my style but she makes it work.

Spock doesn’t even look at Johnson as he falls lol. Another one bites the dust.

“It exists on the hate of others.”

What does this remind me of? Oh, the Vast of Night and the whole “aliens made us do every bad thing ever” conspiracy theory. At least this one makes more sense, in part because it is not quite so overwhelmingly broad!

All hostile attitudes must be eliminated, he says, and there's Mara right behind Kirk giving him a death stare lol.

Kang is so obviously posing. Google Earth, always taking pictures.

Only a few minutes before drifting forever in space becomes inevitable? Good thing Kirk works well under pressure.

“Well… do whatever you can, Scotty. You know the drill.” Doesn’t even bother giving real directions anymore. We’ve been in this scenario before.

“So we drift in space, with only hatred and bloodshed aboard.”

And the 392 people below just get to…live in Enterprise prison, I guess.

Star date: Armageddon. So dramatic!

I’m not even making that up; that’s an actual quote. Can you imagine being an Admiral listening to this?

“Stop the war now.” An actual line, really aired on television.

Spock wants to threaten the wife lol. That's the old pre-Reform Vulcan seeping through. Surak who?

Damn, Kang is cold. “Eh, she gets the concept of being killed in battle.” They’re gonna need marriage counseling after this.

“There is another way. Mutual trust and help.” Yes that’s my hero!!

“No one can guarantee the actions of another.” Can’t remember the context of this entirely anymore, but great line.

The entity is loving this—multi-person choreographed sword fight!!

"Those who hate and fight must stop themselves. otherwise it is not stopped.” Another baller line. Spock has a lot of deep thoughts today. And so does Kirk. And Kang.

Kirk tries to reason with the alien. Nice try.

“Shoo. Shoo, alien. Off the ship, go away.”

Omg that last moment—Kang slapping Kirk’s back way too hard, Spock’s completely ridiculous wide-eyed expression when he does, like some sort of combo of amusement and confusion, and then Sulu just passing on by in the background….

Then the alien just yeets itself into space. And that’s the end!

Always feels weird when there’s no wrap up on the bridge.

Also, what are they going to do with the Klingons? They have no ship. They really did come out of this a lot worse than Kirk and co. No ship, huge casualties—and no one to blame even, but the alien.

I feel like the alien messed up a little in killing so many Klingons. Like, it could have accomplished its purpose, angering the Klingons and turning them on Kirk, by attacking the ship a little less violently—you know they’d react to 5 deaths pretty much the same as 400, and then there would be many more people to fight forever and produce that sweet sweet anger!

Maybe the alien’s powers aren’t strong enough to influence 800 people though. Also it wants equal forces and 800 people wouldn’t fit on the Enterprise, one assumes. So it still makes sense.

That was, of course, an excellent episode. 100% agree with is classic status, even though the main things I remembered going in were the wife + science officer bit, and everyone laughing at the end in a really forced, fake way, in order to make the alien go away.

I thought the Klingons were a lot better/more interesting today than usual. First, I think Kang is a better character, or a better actor maybe, than the others; he has a certain way about him that is… more watchable, more sympathetic. And he’s always saying these really dramatic things that make it seem likely he writes patriotic Klingon war poetry in his off time. Also, including his wife made them seem more… not human obviously, but normal. Not just cardboard cut-out villains. And of course the actual lightly specific motivations I earlier mentioned helped too.

Also, the plotting was very good: it built up slowly but surely over time, so at first the alien’s influence wasn’t that obvious, and then it became more so, and then it became horrifically obvious and extreme. And then you had to re-evaluate earlier moments: was that the alien changing facts in their heads, or a real part of the animosity between humans and Klingons? And it wasn’t always clear, which I appreciated. The tension when the people were at their worst wasn’t overdone, like in that moment with Scotty, Spock, and Kirk—or even in Chekov’s assault on Mara, tbh. The various strategies of the different sides were very entertaining too; there was never a dull moment, and they fit in a lot of straight-up actions and twists into 50 minutes.

The possible threat was truly terrifying, also: stuck in a space ship, forever, unable to die, feeling the worst possible emotions all the time, besieged, angered, despairing, fighting a war that can’t be won, being injured and suffering only to recover and fight again, and it never stops… A perfect nightmare mixture of insanity and violence and pain. And the alien, in encouraging hatred and anger, doesn’t discriminate between sides: they turn on each other just as much as on the Klingons, breeding paranoia and infighting. For eternity.

The episode also felt much more strongly anti-war than I remember tbh. Like it was not subtle. Kirk literally says “stop the war” in so many words. He has a part in his speech where he talks about the possibility of other aliens out there, encouraging other wars. And while I do think “maybe the aliens are making us do it” is a cop out explanation, or would be if it were real, the scenario gave the show a lot of room to say, like, pretty ballsy things: to include “patriotic drum beating” along with “race hatred” in a list of corrupting feelings they were experiencing; to show how the same instincts that lead to warring also lead to sexual assault and the aforementioned ‘race hatred;” to reveal the true horror of an endless war by making the participants unkillable and sticking them in a singular space ship in the middle of nowhere; to imply that the combatants of war gain nothing from it, but outside or third-party entities will pull strings of their own design to profit from the conflict as long as possible; even to make an impassioned plea to camera to stop the endlessness of the conflict. Like I can’t even totally unpack this but it is a lot!

Finally, it was also a great Kirk episode, which of course is my most important factor. He’s smart; he’s strong; he’s so sure of himself and his values that he cannot be manipulated to mindless hatred, he represents the values of the Federation, and the show itself; he treats even his enemies with basic respect and humanity; and ultimately, he saves the day.

Okay I was not efficient in writing this up at all! It is very late!!

[jcmorrigan]

Blakeworther headcanons. I don't have a specific theme or anything in mind. Go ham

Go ham, you say?

GO HAM, YOU SAY?

Sorry not sorry but this is about to become mega cringe time. Because I do *have* a specific set of headcanons preloaded but it is not at ALL what you asked for

I love crossovers, and I want to import the Bastard Trio into my current crossover hell fic. So I was kind of playing with their dynamic in my mind, and one of the ways I test out character dynamics is to send them on little imaginary missions to other crossover worlds in my mind. Now, I’m in the midst of watching a playthrough of Skyward Sword, which I have heretofore not experienced. And I’m not exactly finished with it. But for some mental warm-ups, I was thinking, “Okay. SkSw is the other big fandom I’m trying, and it’s as far from the G4 as you can get, so what if you put three sci-fi guys in a high fantasy setting and watched them go? What if they had to take Link’s journey, except their goal is most certainly not to save anything because they’re swaggering murderers? What would happen then?”

This...is that story. But only up through the part where I watched (the first of the Silent Realms). Maybe a part II later if I keep doing this?

-To blend in, our boys have gotten themselves some Loftwings. While Vincent’s and Victor’s look like ordinary giant shoebills...oh. Oh, dear. Albert...how did you manage to turn it into a Dream Eater so fast? Its beak is white, its feathers are black, it has no eyes and people are STARING.

-Albert refuses to discard or fix the Dream Eater Loftwing. It’s going to be his steed for this entire quest. Joy.

-NOBODY played fair when they had to race against Groose. They teamed up to knock him off his bird and it’s a miracle he survived. Especially since he wasn’t supposed to survive that.

-Like I said, I have no idea what their endgame goal is here because they’re certainly not trying to stop Demise. Or are they? Because they befriend Ghirahim right the heck away and it’s entirely possible they’re like “We’re from the future, this guy will shatter you, you deserve better, please leave Demise in the ground and join our team”

-And when I say they befriend Ghirahim right away I mean ESPECIALLY ALBERT

-Victor loves shopping at the bazaar because he can play-flirt with Peatrice and she’ll flirt right back. Meanwhile if the fortune teller attempts to reel in Vincent ONE MORE TIME there will be blood.

-Vincent Edgeworth is forcibly removed from the Skyloft bazaar

-Victor is the only person who remotely likes Fi, probably because she’s quite visibly supposed to be an AI and he is quite visibly part robot.

-They hit the ground and get going!

-Oh no. Kikwis. They hate Kikwis so much.

-The one that’s up in the tree, the three of them debate how to most quickly get down. Vincent: “We don’t bother and just say we did.” Victor: “If we threw a rock at it, it would fall out.” Albert: “I think we should set the whole tree on fire.”

-They get into the first dungeon, and you know that one segment where you have to vine-swing and the motion controls are so unforgiving? Vincent fell off those vines like twelve times and Victor and Albert lost their shit

-They get the beetle and now that thing’s a Dream Eater, too. Albert please stop doing this

-Back at Skyloft, doing sidequests is their least favorite thing. They do not give a SHIT about Gratitude Crystals if they don’t have to do so. The missing girl’s mom comes up to tell her problems and Vincent just goes “This affects me how?”. The brother says his sister went missing and Victor’s just like “We’ll take care of it!” and as soon as he’s out of earshot “Let’s not take care of it.” Cawlin hands them the love letter to deliver to Karane or Phoeni, Albert rips it in half in front of Cawlin, Cawlin starts bawling, Victor just goes “Actually I kinda wanted to do that one and see if we could start romance drama”

-Into Eldin Province and Mogmas are...only slightly less aggravating than Kikwis

-VINCENT ALMOST EXPLODES WHEN HE LEARNS THE KEY TO THE NEXT DUNGEON IS SPLIT IN PIECES AND HE HAS TO DIG IN THE DIRT FOR IT

-So then there’s that one passage in the valley where if you don’t just book it, your clothes will catch on fire. They blaze through it, and Fi determines that they’ve sustained no damage, which is good, because if they’d been exposed a moment longer, then surely one of them would be naked. Victor, hearing this, promptly tosses some personal item of his back into the high-heat area; “Oops. I dropped it. Go get it, Vincent.” Albert: “YES! GO GET IT, VINCENT!”

-It is only sheer willpower and Victor’s physical restraint that keeps Vincent from beating Ledd to a pulp.

-They actually kinda like hanging around the sacred springs, though. They’re tranquil places. A good way to just...not have to deal with all that noise. They can sit by the water quietly for a while, just watching it ripple.

-And back to business! They enter Lanayru, discover that the Time Crystals can revert this desert into a technological paradise and...yeah, it was way, WAY better in the past than it is now. They poke around some of the tech, taking notes for later in case they can reverse-engineer any of it.

-Dream Eater Beetle has been replaced by a brand-new shiny Hook Beetle! Albert, please don’t turn this one into a - GOD DAMMIT ALBERT. HOW ARE YOU EVEN DOING THIS WITH INANIMATE OBJECTS.

-They get in such a fight about how to place the generator switches. Victor is trying his best but he’s SURE they don’t arrange the way the other two are trying to tell him they arrange

-Every time they pass Ghirahim they stop to chat with him about how the demon uprising is going, also aren’t heroines just so freaking annoying? Zelda, Vanora, why are they always getting in the way?

-Victor of course tries to put the verbal moves on Impa. At this point Vincent and Albert know he just does this for fun, he’s faithful to the two of them, but still, they gotta do the obligatory eyeroll and groan

-”Yes, Victor. She’s very pretty. We’re gay, not blind”

-Vincent actually enjoys playing the Goddess Harp, surprisingly. He can just zone into the music.

-The Imprisoned gets out and hoo boy, they’re really not supposed to be DEFEATING evil just yet but Albert wants to cut off some TOES (and this ends up yielding them knowledge about the Isle of Songs so it’s all good)

-Scrapper annoys them all and visibly offends Victor.

-Vincent likes to use the bellows from the Eldin dungeon to blow away anyone who tries to rope him into a sidequest. Albert then goes “I’ve just realized the potential we have!” and tries to blow people off the edge of Skyloft.

-They hate the remlits until they find out that the remlits go feral at night and now they love the remlits but only after dark

-Into the Thunderhead for the Isle of Songs. And YET AGAIN WE CANNOT AGREE ON HOW TO SOLVE THE PUZZLE THAT LETS US INSIDE

-Down to Faron’s realm to get to the Silent Realm. Once they’re in there and have learned about the guardians...

-Vincent: “Now we have to be CAREFUL and QUICK or else the guardians will expel us immediately, maybe even kill us.” Victor: “You might want to tell him that.” Vincent: “Wh - ALBERT NO”

-Albert is investigating a dormant guardian close-up and decides “I want to take one of these home.”

-Vincent: “NO, Albert, we can’t...hmmmm. Actually, we could probably weaponize them...” Victor: “CAN WE NOT?”

-And then cue them risking life and limb not to get what they even came here for but to pick up AS MANY DARK RELICS AS THEY CAN CARRY

And that’s as far as I’ve watched in SkSw so far. Not sure whether or not I’ll keep using it as a Blakeworther ground, but there, have the AU you *never* wanted

[cosmicjoke]

Okay, I gotta talk a little about chapter 65 of AoT, and really some of the themes being put forth in general in this chapter.  This is probably gonna be totally incoherent, because these are some big brain concepts that largely go over my head, I’ll be real, haha.  But I’ll do my best.

I want to focus on Kenny’s conversation with his Grandfather, because it’s here that we get into some of the more broad ranging and world relevant themes of SnK, particularly dealing with issues of racism, xenophobia, isolationism, and concepts of homogeneity.  

Kenny’s Grandfather talks about how the Monarchy doesn’t hate the Ackerman’s, but rather fears them, because they can’t be controlled.  Because the Ackerman’s, along with very few other bloodlines that somehow ended up behind the walls, are all of different races than the majority bloodline, meaning, of course, the Eldians.  And because of this, the power of the Titans doesn’t work on them.  The Monarchy then comes to think of these other bloodlines as threats to the peace it’s attempted to cultivate among the people behind the wall, because their memories aren’t able to be wiped.  So they end up using threats of violence, death, intimidation, and the like, in order to get these bloodlines to comply with their demands and keep quiet about what they know about the truth of the world and human history.  Most bloodlines end up complying under duress, but the only two that don’t are the Ackerman’s and the Asians.  They rebel and refuse, the Ackerman’s in particular giving up their position as the sword and shield of the Royal Government.  Until the head of the Ackerman clan decides to not pass down any of his generations knowledge to their children, and offers himself up for execution in an attempt to protect the Ackerman’s from being purged.  His efforts end up being in vain, though, as the Royal Government still finds itself unable to tolerate a group of people it can’t control, and thus the persecution of the Ackerman’s continues, until they’re driven to the fringes of society, forced to into desperation and poverty.  

What’s really interesting about this is how it reflects so many real life situations throughout human history, and where concepts of tribalism and nationalism and isolationism come from.  It’s usually because some governing power wants to control its population, its citizenship, and they do this by cutting them off from outside influences, indoctrinating them into a certain belief system and way of thinking.  We see this, for example, in countries today like China and North Korea.  This all is represented in AoT through the erasure of human history outside the walls, and the altering of historical texts to push the narrative that all record of human history older than 100 years has been lost.  The ruling government, in this case, has forced generation after generation to be taught that humanity simply doesn’t EXIST outside the walls, thus stomping out any hope or ambition to get outside those walls, and interact with the outside world.  If there’s nothing there to find, then why bother?  Of course, it’s an imperfect system, given it’s essentially impossible to quell human curiosity and, as another prominent theme in SnK, the desire for freedom, to be able to choose for oneself and have agency over your own destiny, etc...  Not only does the Royal Government employ these false teachings as a way of controlling the populace, but of course, also, the threat of the Titans beyond the wall.  If the “reality” that there’s nothing left of humanity out there isn’t enough to stop the more curious and skeptical among the population, then the threat of a horrific and painful death should do the trick.

If you study any sort of regime throughout human history that utilizes terror as a means of control, one thing they often do is get rid of the smart people first.  They cull intellectuals, artists, philosophers, etc...  They kill them or censor them so that they can’t influence or impact the general populace with rebellious notions, or instigate in people any ideas that their government might not be treating them right.  They want there to be no contention, no differential in thought, no real ideas or any sort of chance for clashes among groups.  They want everyone to look, act, think and feel the same, because when that’s the case, fewer quarrels arise, fewer tensions, fewer instances of rebellion, fewer cases of people clashing with one another, for various reasons, which can lead to critical thinking and ideas forming, to thought patterns and beliefs being challenged.  They want everyone to just sit quietly and not THINK.  They also, often, will target minority groups, and cast them into a kind of scapegoat role, a target for the general populace to aim their grievances at, to blame all their problems on, directing their unhappiness away from the true source of their woes, that being the government itself.  This is something we often see throughout human history.  One of the most prominent and tragic examples is the Jews in Nazi Germany.  Jews were, at first, skewered and debased through propaganda, painting them as the enemy of Germans, the great source of all of Germany’s plights and woes, essentially working the populace up into a frenzy of extreme feelings of bias and prejudice against them, before that escalated into gathering up and forcing them into cut off ghettos, away from the general population, before it took a much darker turn still, wherein they were gathered up and sent to death camps to be exterminated.  

Within the world of AoT, the same thing happens to groups like the Ackerman’s and Asians, and whatever other, unnamed minority groups exist behind the walls.  They’re persecuted, badmouthed, hunted and threatened into compliance, their ability to do business and make money, thus make a living, cut off and blocked.  Pushed into a corner until they eventually start to die out.  

It’s really fascinating, and brilliantly depicted by Isyama, how the Monarchy’s self-delusion leads them to believe they’re preserving peace and prosperity for the homogeneous population by hunting down and terrorizing groups of minority bloodlines and ethnicity’s and races, creating for these subsets of people a world and a life of endless suffering, and blinding themselves to their own, tyrannical exercise of power over a large population.  Of course this sort of thing also leads to greed and a lust for power, a need for ever more control, ever more expansion of that power, which in turn leads to the very thing the Monarchy here claims to want to prevent, which is war.  Even if the Royal Government, and the Monarchy, and the King, started out with somewhat noble intentions, it eventually morphs into a twisted and persistently corrupting power play.

There’s also the theme here of scapegoating an entire group of people, and holding them accountable for sins they themselves did not commit.  We see in Historia’s memories of Frieda, and how she would at times begin acting like another person, how she became vitriolic and almost violent in telling Historia that she can “never cross the fence”, proclaiming that they’re all “sinners” and thus need to be punished by being imprisoned.  This is where the original King’s philosophy begins to become deeply problematic and dangerous.  In order to control the population, he’s forced each inheritor of the world’s memories to also inherit his philosophy, forcing each heir to labor under the belief that the Eldian’s are somehow responsible for the atrocities committed by their ancestors, and thus should continue to pay for them, even though not a single person at this point living behind the walls was even yet born when those atrocities were committed.  The danger here is in the possibility of those people being held accountable for things they didn’t do, realizing the injustice of that, and in turn, growing angry and resentful for being made to suffer for crimes they didn’t commit.  This in turn leads to a desire to hit back, to fight, to defend themselves, etc...  This same scenario plays out on a smaller scale with the Ackerman’s, with the future generations of Ackerman children continuing to be hunted and persecuted, despite none of them having any knowledge whatsoever of the history of humanity or the world.  It’s all a vicious cycle.  

Further, this kind of attempt to play God, by dictating to an entire group of otherwise uninvolved people what they do and don’t deserve, and in turn deciding for them that they should be punished for things they did not do, is morally bankrupt.  Deciding, in general, for an entire population, how they should be allowed to live is also morally bankrupt.  And this exposes the Royal Government and Monarchy as corrupt, among about a million other things in story.  Essentially, it’s a condemnation against the concept of any, one person having absolute power.  That never ends well, for anyone.  

Well, anyway, I’m just rambling at this point, lol.  It’s just really fascinating and amazing how Isyama weaves all of these deep themes into his story, I think, and forces the reader to really think about these kinds of things.

Also, I missed the fight between Levi and Kenny!  I’m glad they added that to the anime, haha.  

I also noticed how Historia might have had an unintentional impact on what Eren later decides he has to do.  She keeps going on and on here about being an “enemy of humanity” and wanting to “destroy everything”.  And while Historia clearly doesn’t actually mean what she’s saying, and is only acting out in her frustration and anger at her douchebag of a father trying to manipulate her into sacrificing herself for his delusions of grandeur, what she also says to Eren about her “being humanity’s enemy, but Eren being her FRIEND.” is clear foreshadowing of what Eren later decides is his best and only course, to do whatever it takes to protect his friends, including killing the rest of humanity.  This probably also ties into Eren’s choice to not reveal what he learns from his father’s memories, in an attempt to protect Historia.  But I haven’t gotten to that point yet, so I’ll come back around to it later maybe.

[elizabeatrice]

Mystery Spot (Chapter 68)

Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga #4

If you get the title reference, I applaud you.

Warning: 1) !!! MANGA SPOILERS UP TO CHAPTER 68 !!! Duh.

2) I dropped a couple of f bombs and several curses here ... I really ranted lmao.

3) This reaction/review is closer to me spewing wild theories rather than an actual review. But these wild theories are my reactions. So. Ehhh these theories are probably wrong anyway. Lemme have my dark, twisted fun, mkay? Not sure if they’re entirely coherent though.

Had trouble copying some kanji this time around ‘cause they’re so freaking blurry! So I got too lazy to write this yesterday haha. Thank you Ropes of Fate for the translation! Truly commendable heroes of the fandom *sobs*. I also used three panels from Chapter 61, translated by Caim.

Let’s jump into it (ba dum tss).

This chapter is a bit shorter than usual and boy do you feel it. Well. At least I do. But I really hope sensei are taking some time to relax. Last chapter was 45 pages, after all. Y’all deserve it you wonderful creators.

First of all I would like to dedicate the biggest f bomb for the villagers because what the fuck. Why the fuck would you sacrifice poor, innocent young girls just to keep yourself safe? And it’s not even a sacrifice to kami-sama! Y’all just droppin’ these girls to be eaten by supernaturals! And y’all practically manipulated them smh.

Are y’all insane?! Y’all could’ve just moved the fuck out. What kind of insane people just decide to stay near a literal pit of hell? Don’t give me the ‘we’ve lived here for generations’ bs okay ‘cause y’all neighbors be getting eaten by supernaturals but y’all rather trade innocent young girls for your own safety. If Berkians and Asgardians can suck it up and be the bigger nation with all that ‘Berk/Asgard is not a place it’s the people’ shit, y’all can too.

I’ve disliked characters in JSHK before. But I’ve never hated JSHK characters before. Until now. Y’all fucking did it, dumbass villagers.

Ahem. Pardon me.

Because my brain is a literal self-debate machine let me just say that I did consider several possibilities in these ‘people’’s defense. There’s the obvious ‘some people back then didn’t know any better and believe a human sacrifice will solve everything’ mindset. Then there’s the possibility of them being trapped in their village for some reason, hence not having any other choice but to sacrifice those girls.

But y’know what else could be the case? ‘Cause my mind really went dark there for a bit.

The Minamoto clan let it happen.

In the last chapter it was mentioned that the Minamoto clan was involved. And this is a bit shocking now that I think about it more ‘cause Teru has always been adamant that all supernaturals are evil and must be exorcised, humans must be protected.

But what if they just let the villagers sacrifice these girls so that the monsters can be contained in this village, in that pit, instead of running amok to other places and cause more trouble?

Which makes me wonder.

Uh. Where did Teru go to? Does he know about this? Did he go to that pit (or that village, if Kamome Academy wasn’t built on its land)?

If he does know, isn’t he interested in saving a fellow human student and underclassman? If he does know about the Akane clan, isn’t he interested in telling his VP, who’s obsessed with an Akane? Unless ... you know ... he meant for this to happen, which I kinda doubt.

He must know something about this. He went out of his way to make Akane promise to protect Kou if something were to happen. What’s more dangerous than the Grim Reaper showing up looking for a sacrifice who turned out to be Kou’s beloved senpai’s best friend? What if Akane had to choose between Aoi and Kou at some point?

Okie next I wanna talk about Hanako. This is gonna sound just as far fetched as the previous bit lmao but here goes.

Boiiii y’all saw it. The pause before his answer. His face drawn out of view, in an evasive body language.

(Hanako my boy pls do us all a favor and stop lying to your girlfriend, we all know how well that turned out in Picture Perfect lmao)

Theory. He knew what’s been going on all along. Or at least the gist of it.

Remember this?

Imma take a detour a lil bit.

The Far Shore/torii gate refused Nene in chapter 67, right? In my Chapter 67 reaction I said it was the bracelet that saved her but now I think the bracelet probably disguised her as Sumire in the villagers’ eyes. So the Far Shore/torii gate refused her, and we all thought it was because she wasn’t an Akane.

But then we found out that Hanako was right about the village. It was just a ‘made up world’ inside Shinigami’s boundary. It’s just a reenactment of the day Sumire died, probably based on Shinigami’s memories, as the first page of Chapter 64 said.

So of course Nene was refused. Because in his memories, Sumire was the one who fell into the pit that day.

Sumire also said in this chapter’s narration that the villagers sacrificed young girls. Not Akane girls. Also, before the sacrifices began, the monsters already ate villagers anyway, right? They didn’t only eat young girls. It wasn’t said as such. The villagers probably just chose young girls because that’s sorta like the equivalent of offering the best meat or smth. Practically a please accept our humble offering of tenderloin wagyu, O Horrible Monsters.

The coveted bloodline thing was probably a plus, not obligatory. Often in stories, people with high ‘spiritual energy’ are supposed to taste more delicious and grant whoever eats their meat special powers or smth (e.g. Tang Sanzang from Journey to the West). Also ancient cultures sacrifice young girls often, that was the trend.

And they proceeded to try to sacrifice Nene anyway, despite her not being an Akane. They said it themselves. “It doesn’t matter if it’s that girl.”

So according to the (rather vague) information we have, it’s possible that the sacrifice doesn’t have to be an Akane or a girl.

Some of y’all have been theorizing that the Yugi twins got involved with supernaturals, and that sorta lead to their death.

What if this is it?

I myself am not sure how it went down if this is really the case. But I keep imagining our boy’s infamous ‘I’m not going anywhere’ being said by Sumire because bruh she’s the epitome of not going anywhere. She was chosen to be sacrificed since she was a child, not given a choice. Even after she died and became a yorishiro, she was imprisoned in this time prison world or whatever, reliving her death every single day with no escape.

And I couldn’t help but think ‘hoooo shit what if???’

I mean. I don’t know who was the chosen sacrifice. Could be Tsukasa, could be Amane. Maybe he killed his brother so that he wouldn’t get sacrificed, and decided that he’ll die along with his brother. I’m not going anywhere. Maybe it also means I’m not letting you send my brother to be eaten by monsters, and since we can’t escape either, we’re staying here no matter what.

And if the Minamotos were really in on it, it makes sense for Grandma Minamoto to accuse Amane of being an evil murderer. He practically got in the way ‘of other people’s safety’ by killing the chosen sacrifice.

banjjakz also said something about the possibility of Tsukasa being a previous sacrifice. Read about it here and here. It’s pretty interesting!

Besides, a wonder whose precious person got sacrificed and later became their yorishiro? That’d be some parallel, haha.

Sure, Sumire said ‘if the kannagi was switched’. But the early narration didn’t mention a sacrifice of kannagi. Just ‘young girls’.

Look just lemme have this, alright?

Oh. Also I wanted to point out the possible tension/trust issues between Hanako and Nene but many other blogs have pointed it out quite well so I’m just gonna stick with my wild theories.

But I will address what Nene said about the pit.

Where is said pit anyway? In Kamome? Why is it open? Is it Tsukasa changing rumors and allowing more supernaturals to cross back to the Near shore? More likely. I mean, he does grant wishes for supernaturals after all.

Oh. Speaking of Nene. Let’s give her a round of applause for her character development. She’s become of better judgement regarding men’s terrible behavior. Wow. That’s my girl. I mean, we still don’t know much about Shinigami, but from what I’ve seen so far, Sumire guuuurrrrllllll you deserve better.

Regardless of my ships, these supernatural boys should take notes from my precious Kou and how he loves so selflessly. Lmao. Remember that one post-chapter panels in Picture Perfect where he said he’ll find Nene a prince in the real world, even though he likes her? Broooo I want ten of this precious boy.

Lastly, Akane and Aoi.

Where are they? They look like they’re stranded in some wild boundary somewhere, the one with half sunken houses and lost things that usually appear in color spreads. I am so hyped, ‘cause I love the aesthetics, and I wanna see more of this place.

Oh. And Akane’s alive. Phew. I gotta be honest though, I kinda looked forward to his death. Not because I hate the kiddo. He’s technically still human, right. I’m just wondering whether his death or Aoi’s would cause Teru to outright declare war against the Seven Wonders because aren’t these folks supposed to protect students like they claim to be? (This, of course, ignores my previous theories about the Minamoto clan)

Basically I just wanna see some shit go down with Teru mkay ‘cause this powerful dude has been useless for quite too long now.

Aoi’s still pretty confusing, too. She went from this weird expression:

to this:

She kinda looked like she was still under the influence of the drug thingy. But she was also concerned about Akane, even though it’s not like how she worried about Nene in the past. And she knew Akane longer than her, they practically grew up together. Real Aoi would be in tears seeing his condition, y’all. So I guess the drug thingy’s effect is slowly wearing out.

Closing! JSHK is dark but usually not in ways my brain expects it to be. (And a lot of times I still get surprised with the amount of comedy it has lmao.) Sooo sensei are probably gonna prove me wrong about most of these, anyway. Haha.

As always feel free to discuss.

[wearesorcerer]

[5e] 9th-Level Spells

You may be wondering why I’m starting my review of 5e spells with the highest level spells available. That’s simple: you only get one.

The 5e Sorcerer table isn’t quite like the 3.x one, but it is like the 3.5 Warlock and Psion: at any given level, you can known X spells and have Y spell level as your maximum. The table is elegant, but you have to know to level your character from first level rather than reading the table straight across if you’re making a higher level character. (I’ve made this mistake many a time. It’s why I dislike this sort of table: it looks nice but isn’t actually helpful.)

If you’re trying to have as many spells of the highest available spell level as possible, you would have from 0th to 9th 6/3/2/2/2/2/1/1/1/1. I find it easier to work backwards in this case, as you can say “I want to reserve X spells known for higher-level spells” and then figure out how many low-level ones you can have instead of getting to a higher level and running into a corner.

The question with 9th-level spells is not “what’s good?” because they’re all good. Rather, it’s “what’s worth taking as my single most powerful class feature?” That should narrow things down a lot.

Primary List

gate · mass polymorph · meteor swarm · power word kill · psychic scream · time stop · wish

I’ve written about wish and time stop ZA WARUDO! (time crunchy noises), but not in the context of 5e. Wish has changed substantially; time stop hasn’t. You have a few options, but the majority of them are boom-boom.

Gate: you can hold open an interplanar portal for as long as you concentrate (up to a minute) at the cost of a 5,000 gp diamond; if you know the name of a specific creature, you can use the spell to summon that creature. For some odd reason, gate is both the most Warlock spell in the game besides planar binding, yet is only a Warlock spell through a UA variant. For a Sorcerer, this could be useful, but you’re making your best spell cost you money every time you cast it. Strategically speaking, this spell is situational enough (read: a Wizard spell) that if you wanted it in the first place you should take it with the Ritual Caster feat, but for some reason this most obviously ritualistic spell isn’t a ritual. There are better uses for your spell known, but this is by no means a bad spell. Save for a scroll or something.

Mass Polymorph: you polymorph (Wis negates) up to ten creatures you can see within 120 ft. for as long as you concentrate (up to one hour), just like with polymorph. It incorporates animal shapes into it. If you want animal shapes, you should find a way of getting it instead: you don’t need a 9th-level spell slot for it (so can cast it more often -- 8th + 9th level spell slots), it lasts for 24 hours, and you can affect more creatures (30 ft. area = radius = 96 squares - the one you’re in = 95 Medium creatures [more if they’re smaller and squeezing together]). I don’t care for the concentration aspect of the 5e polymorph spells. I mean, I get the rationale, I just find it odd for this particular spell -- and I’d rather not give my opponent a tactical reason to target me. Pass.

Meteor Swarm: four fireballs fall from the sky and each deal 20d6 fire + 20d6 bludgeoning (Dex half; average 140 damage), setting everything they touch ablaze. Beautiful. I love meteor-style spells, so this is high on my list even though it’s a boom-boom spell and I’m not particularly boom-boom oriented. The best part of this is that it has a range of one mile, so you can destroy enemy armies without risking getting killed! Yay! Yes.

Power Word Kill: one creature within 60 ft. of 100 HP or less drops dead (no save). 100 HP is more than the average of many high-level characters, so unless the DM gave a boss max HP you can use this to kill even major opponents reliably. An optimizer will tell you that a spell without a save is something you should always take -- and would be correct insofar as it makes you more difficult to stop. I, however, dislike that mechanic: there’s almost no reason a spell shouldn’t have a save. This one should have the choice of Wis (resisting the mental influence) and Con (staying alive despite the heart attack/stroke/whatever). A very good spell, but I’d call it OP.

Psychic Scream: 10 creatures of Int 3+ within 90 ft. take 14d6 psychic damage and are stunned (Int half [damage]/negates [stunning]); their heads explode if they die. The beauty of this one is that it goes off of Int rather than Wis (meaning Wizards are the only targets you really need to worry about) and it automatically avoids friendly fire. Yes.

Time Stop ZA WARUDO!: you get 1d4 + 1 rounds to act, but the spell ends if anything you do (including effects you create) affect other creatures or objects someone else is wearing or carrying or you move more than 1,000 ft. from where you cast the spell. The main purpose of this spell is to buff yourself a lot, run the fuck away, or stack delayed blast fireballs to deal a buttload of damage. That’s all very nice, but it’s a continuation of the 3.0 nerf to the spell: in 2nd ed, you could pull a DIO and attack people or an Over the Hedge and steal things. Now for my main quibble. 3.5′s Player’s Handbook II had the celerity line of spells, which you could cast as an immediate action (choice of reaction or bonus action). Each one dazed (incapacitated) you afterward, but gave you an extra move (lesser), action (no prefix), or round (greater) to do with as you pleased. I’m willing to guess that there are similar spells in 5e. In 3.5, there were ways of becoming immune to dazing; maybe there’s a 5e-compatible build for that. Either way, as a 9th-level spell, I should get to throw knives at people to my heart’s content before dropping heavy objects (like steam road rollers) on them. Good, but I’m going to go to my grave complaining about the restrictions.

Wish: you can do practically anything, but you have a one in three chance of losing your ability to cast your highest-level spell. IT’S A TRAP!

For very personal reasons, I’m torn between meteor swarm and time stop, but psychic scream is also up there. I think power word kill is unfair, but I cannot say that it’s a bad spell. I don’t like mass polymorph, but I think that’s more me not liking how 5e deals with durations. Wish is too big of a risk for a Sorcerer: you have the chance of losing the most powerful class feature you get and have nothing else that can compensate for that loss (unlike a Wizard); it’s better as a scroll. Gate really should be a ritual, but it isn’t, and it’s expensive, so it really depends on how badly you need to move lots and lots of creatures or summon forth an Elder God.

Divine Soul (Cleric) List

astral projection · gate · mass heal · true resurrection

I’ve already covered gate, thankfully.

Astral Projection: exactly what it says on the tin for you and eight willing creatures. I have never understood why this spell is so high-level. Mechanically, it’s riskier and more expensive than casting plane shift, which is two levels lower. Thematically, it’s a mass version of an effect which in folklore is almost always caster-only, which makes no sense, and it’s at max-level when this is fairly standard practice for shaman and shaman-like figures. (Heck, that’s what a bunch of the associated drug culture is about!) Maybe someone can explain to me why you would want to use this spell. Pass.

Mass Heal: heal 700 HP divided as you choose among any number of creatures (except constructs and undead) you can see within 60 ft.; also cures them of all diseases, blindness, and deafness. On the one hand, this seems like a great spell with a raid or during a cataclysm. On the other, you can accomplish everything this does with lower-level spells. Pretty good, but maybe hold out for...

True Resurrection: a creature you touch (or whose name you speak) is restored to life and perfect health (no wounds, no missing limbs, cured of all diseases and poisons, freed from any curses), even if there are no remains, provided the creature has been dead for no longer than 200 years and is free/willing to return. PICK THIS ONE!

Variant List (UA)

Foresight: for eight hours, a creature you touch can’t be surprised, gets advantage on most d20 checks, and causes all creatures attacking it to roll with disadvantage. This is better than the 3.5 version, which was already very good. Yes, this. Very.

Really Cool Spells It’d Be Great to Take If You Could

Or me lamenting about the limitations of the Sorcerer list

imprisonment · invulnerability · power word heal · prismatic wall · ravenous void · shapechange · storm of vengeance · time ravage · true polymorph · weird

Imprisonment: you know any of those fairy tale/folklore/mythology spells that trap someone for, like, ever? This is it. (Combines the spell of the same name, maze, and binding from 3.5.) You’ve got options if you want to seal someone away -- and it lasts until you say otherwise. Sure, it’d be nice if it were a ritual, but it ain’t; you just gotta take a minute to cast it (and throw in 500 gp. of material per HD of the target).

Invulnerability: you are immune to damage for up to 10 minutes (at the cost of “a piece of adamantine” [in D&D, that’s closer to depleted uranium than it is to diamond] of 500+ gp.). Maybe you don’t like the cost for a spell of that level, but hey, invulnerability.

Power Word Heal: target (non-construct, non-undead) regains all HP; has the charmed, frightened, paralyzed, and stunned conditions removed; and can stand up as a reaction if prone. This is a Bard spell, but it’s on the Cleric and Druid variant lists, so probably is an option for Divine Souls. I can see it being handy, but you’d think mass heal would be a better choice.

Prismatic Wall: you conjure up a rainbow wall/sphere (as prismatic spray) that’s a bitch to get rid of. You want an abjuration? This is it.

Ravenous Void: a miniature black hole that needs some errata (how many spaces do creatures and objects getting sucked in move each round?). It’s ludicrously awesome, though.

Shapechange: other than true polymorph, this is what you want out of polymorphing magic.

Storm of Vengeance: let’s say you want all of the boom-boom of meteor swarm but are more meteorologically focused. Here’s your answer. You end up dealing an average of 49 damage (of three elemental types and bludgeoning) to each creature below a storm cloud (360 ft. radius) you conjure within sight. There’s an arbitrary distance beneath the cloud included, as it doesn’t say how far up the cloud has to be.

Time Ravage: you decrepify someone with timey-wimey magic -- but it’s somehow necromancy!

True Polymorph: you can transform almost anything into almost anything else. The limits on this spell are basically to keep you from thinking you’re a literal god and overall I’d think this would work better in a skill-based magic system, but nonetheless it’s quite clearly the best polymorphing spell in the game.

Weird: this is mass phantasmal killer. It’s directly comparable to psychic scream -- Illusion rather than Enchantment, fear rather than stunning, and more potential targets in a smaller burst instead of headsplosions.

[illshowyourhurricanes]

LAST ONE I SWEAR!! #2 for Season 2 Billy

Are you sure, boo? Are you sure?! (I am kidding, I love your requests!) Either way, I am so glad you requested this for who you requested it for because the way it popped into my head for our poor deserving of a redemption arc Billy felt right and I needed to reel in the fluff and get back to my angsty stuff. Either way, I hope you enjoy it!

Swan Song

Image prompt 2: Billy Russo x OC (I got permission for this, y’all!)

Rating: PG-13 to R-ish for language

Word count: 1468

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Special thanks to @its-my-little-dumpster-fire​ for beta reading this (and for the cool conversation).

His inky, dark eyes narrowed behind his mask. 

Billy’s leg was shaking, frustration and confusion further distorting the disconnect in his mind. Dipping his head, he ran the palm of one hand over the hair on his scalp as the other balled up into a fist. He squeezed and released, squeezed and released, yet the fist remained. He was nerve endings on fire yet unconnected, a maze of impulses uncontrolled, and his brain was squeezed too tight in a vise or fucking lies. His face hurt. He was wired and wild-eyed and overly exhausted from lack of sleep and those fucking skulls that haunted him and why— how? Why was he here, how did he get here, why did this happen, what happened, who happened, where was all this bullshit supposed to fit in his life? 

He stood too quickly, causing his chair to fall backward with a loud, echoing clatter. People turned to stare. Billy looked at each of them, sneering behind his mask, tilting his head slightly as his eyes moved from person to person to person. As they each looked away, he shuffled to the far wall, toward the barred windows that didn’t open, and he began pacing the length of the room. 

Though he looked straight ahead, he was seeing nothing. Instead, he was in combat. He was back in Kandahar, Lieutenant William Russo, out of breath, exhausted, covered in a filth of dirt and dust and gunpowder and sweat and blood. His entire body ached just from the effort of staying alive, killing anyone who stood in his way. It was exhilarating. It was a feeling of success and triumph that turned to a hot rush of adrenaline throughout his body, heartbeat felt throughout his chest. 

It was triumph, something that Billy could remember the feeling of but could not conjure up, not anymore.It was one emotion he could not bring himself to feel— what was there to be triumphant about? His face was ruined, sloppily sewn together like fucking Frankenstein. 

Frank. Where was Frank?

Billy stopped pacing, his eyes beginning to focus on his surroundings— sounds of some goddamn loon sobbing in group therapy down the hall, a doctor’s heels click-clacking down the tiled corridor. He slowly turned; they were still there, those intrusive cops that took shifts watching him, always fucking watching him. Billy Russo was a dangerous man, they said. He was a Marine, had gone through extensive training and spent time serving multiple  tours overseas. He was a Special Forces Scout Sniper, trained to kill. 

It was war. 

This life he’d woken up to without knowing how, it was war. But Billy did not have a gun. He didn’t have a sense of identity. He was not a dangerous man. 

His face hurt. Lifting his mask to softly run a hand over his face, his fingers swiped from his forehead down to his chin, over the thick scarring of defeat and ruin. Frank. He made his way to an empty table, noisily scraping the legs of a chair over the floor, slumping down, legs splayed and elbows over the table top. Billy sniffed, moved his head side-to-side, heard the satisfying cracking of his neck. Why hadn’t Frankie… where was he? Billy was locked up in this shithole, all for… for nothin’. Frank, he knows me, he’s my brother, he…

Billy bolted up from his seat, jogging toward the officers. The pair of cops straightened their backs, standing on alert, each of them reaching for the grip of their guns. Billy’s eyes caught the movement, and he swallowed past the immediate craving to have his own gun to use on these pigs. The realization of his hand itching for a handgun hit him, hazing his thoughts… why had he approached these cops? He stood dumbly. Wordless. 

“Frank,” he said finally. “Where’s Frank? Frank Castle, he’s my brother, he knows…” He let out a puff of air, closing his eyes, trying to gather and organize his words. His voice was muffled behind the mask, his tone falling flat like his affect. “You gotta get in touch with Frank.”

The policemen just stared at him, bored expressions on their faces, hands still on their guns. Billy stared back from behind the visage of his mask, clenching his jaw, challenging the chumps facing him. With a deep inhale he turned to retreat to his table, and that was when he saw her. She was sitting in the chair facing the windows, perpendicular to where Billy had been seated. It had been the only empty table in the room. Now, the tabletop was littered with a rainbow of paper, each sheet perfect squares. 

Her hair was the color of honey, and it was clean, brushed and pinned back from her face. Why is she here? Billy approached the table, resigning himself to possibly being presented with small talk. He didn’t do small talk. 

But she was so focused on what she was doing, she didn’t look up when Billy sat. My fucking face hurts. He crouched down back into his chair, his head still but his eyes locked on the girl’s hands. She folded the paper, a shimmering silver, with exact precision. Edge to edge, corner to corner, unfolding and flipping. He continued to watch sideways, and when she was finished, she smiled in satisfaction, perfectly content, and plucked another square from the array of paper— a vibrant purple. She’d not once looked at Billy, nor had she said a word. She folded another bird, then another. 

Maybe she should be in here. 

When she set her fourth paper bird on the table and picked up an emerald green square, Billy spoke. “How many swans you gonna make?” he asked, his voice rough and laced with annoyance. 

The woman finally looked up then, and she didn’t bat an eye at the sight of his stark white mask. It was going to stay white too. Billy thought of his doctor with disdain: what a joke. She wants me to fingerpaint. This joint is far from kindergarten, lady. She should be locked in here too. 

Then, the stranger had the nerve to smile, and so brightly that it lit up her entire face. Billy’s brows raised, not that she could see. Beginning to fold again, she brought her attention back to the paper. “Cranes,” she said finally. “They’re cranes.” 

Billy’s hand rubbed over his skull again, back and forth, once, twice, three times. “How many cranes you gonna make?” He corrected himself, voice dripping with sarcasm. A bird was a bird, he thought, but then he recanted. Raven, it’s Blackbird. 

“Legend says a thousand.” She interrupted his thoughts and it seemed like she was speaking in some kind of riddle. Billy didn’t reply; instead, his eyes darted around the room in paranoia, unconsciously shaking his leg again. His face hurt and it itched and he was hot behind the mask. He couldn’t stand it anymore. Slowly, he gripped the mask and slid it upward until his mangled face was revealed. Her eyes lifted to his face again, two seconds before looking back down. His nostrils flared and he set his chin, raising his head high. If someone was going to look down on someone, Billy was going to be the one looking down. 

“Orizuru— paper cranes—the Japanese call them birds of happiness or paradise. Legend has it they carry souls there. To Paradise.” Her voice lilted and fell like wind chimes. “They’re also a symbol of hope and healing.” She finished by folding the beak downward. She smiled again, and Billy just stared. She’s delusional. 

“Here,” she said, holding out her most recent bird. Sunlight from the false, imprisoning windows reflected off the jewel-toned paper. “For hope and healing.”

Billy stared at the swan, the crane, whatever sort of bird that she held delicately in the palm of her hand. His heart began to hammer against his rib cage, anger rising from his core and threatening to escape from his throat. 

Hope. Healing. Fucking bullshit. 

In one swift motion, he ripped the mask from his head with one hand and grabbed the stupid paper bird with the other. Standing, he caused the chair to clatter to the floor for the second time—third maybe, he’d lost count— and looked down at the girl menacingly. His upper lip was curled in contempt. 

“I don’t need your fucking swan.” He crumpled the perfectly folded paper in his hand, tossing it to the floor and turning to walk away. As he approached the cops, the ones who would be escorting him to his room, he heard her voice call out. 

“Cranes. They’re paper cranes.” 

He stopped short, standing perfectly still for just two seconds, and rolled his shoulders, inhaled deeply. Never looking back, Billy began walking again, throwing his mask to the floor to join the broken crane. He nodded to the cops, each one wrenching an arm back a little too roughly as Billy led them down the hall. 

[darthchic]

Character War: Zoro vs Sanji

Trying to put my own bias aside, and because I’m bored here in quarantine, I was thinking about how I could fairly break down parts of Zoro and Sanji’s characters and compare them. I want to see if I can analytically decide which character is more well realised or well written (just because there’s always that rivalry between both the characters and the fans, you often can’t help but ask yourself these kinds of questions).

EDIT: OH, and SPOILERS if you wish to read this and are not up to date

If the question was “Who’s the more popular character?” though, Zoro wins hands down, no contest.

 So, I broke the two characters down into categories:

–    Design

–    Fighting Style

–    Fights/Achievements

–    Coolness

–    Backstory

–    Gag

–    Development

 Design: Neither Zoro or Sanji have designs that particularly stand out to me, not within their own universe or in anime in general. Seriously, think of some crazy-ass looking characters you've seen in other anime and Zoro and Sanji simply pale in comparison. Heck, they pale in comparison to some of their fellow crewmates (Usopp, Chopper, Franky, Brook etc.) and over time their designs have probably been... how to put this... made more attractive as time goes on? Cause you know, you gotta let the female fans have some eye candy too. And with attractiveness tends to come more “normalness” (not a word but whatever) cause you can't go too crazy with the overall design in case it becomes off-putting. The only thing that really stands out for Zoro and Sanji respectively is hair colour and eyebrows.

–    Still if I had to declare one of them the winner... I'd have to say Sanji, just for his more 'unique' eyebrows. We've seen plenty of anime/manga featuring characters with hair colours that match every colour in the rainbow, so it's commonplace for someone to have green or pink hair and no-one really bats an eye. Peculiar eyebrows however are less common, although not rare (as far as I can tell), but for anime fans, it's something I think people still instantly notice more so than a character's hair colour. So.... point to SANJI! But barely, and it’s not much of a win.

 Sanji 1/0 Zoro

 Fighting Style: Again, neither a sword fighting style or kicking fight style is exactly uncommon, but I am edging towards Sanji's fighting style and I'll try to justify why, even if it is due to my own personal preferences. To me, sword fighting is often the go-to 'bad-ass' method of fighting, cause, come on, SWORDS ARE COOL (can't help but think about the overwhelming popularity of Pokemon Sword vs Pokemon Shield for example). Sword fights/fighters are iconic and that’s the issue at times for me because I feel like I've seen enough sword fights at this point, and not just in anime. So, while they're fun, their overexposure makes me appreciate something different a lot more.

–    To me, Sanji's style has a bit more 'kick' to it (oh yes!) and his reasons for using a kicking style are a bit more unique and interesting as well (being that he’s a cook and can’t damage his hands, the tools to his craft). His style is fun to watch, requires a bit more imagination when designing his moves, but it also has a strange kind of elegance to it which I appreciate. Not that sword fighting can't look elegant (Hello, ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’), but I love that people often joke that some shots of Sanji make it look like he could be a dancer which I find amusing, because it’s true. Plus, I admire the fact that he's the only Straw-hat that fights without either a magic power/devil fruit or a literal weapon (though he has now grown accustomed to the raid suit, so…). But, for the majority of the story so far, the dude has just used his legs and that’s it. And is the 3rd (or fourth if you count Jinbei now) most powerful member of the crew, and still impressively strong overall amongst a massive cast of crazy powerful characters. Also, dude can fly. Actually fly. He can fight in the skies, sing “Walking in the Air” and it would not seem completely ridiculous. So, people reading this may not agree, but, point to SANJI!

Sanji 2/0 Zoro

 Fights/Achievements: I feel that most fans prefer Zoro's fights as he tends to take on the second strongest villains of each arc (with Luffy obviously taking on the strongest), which is automatic epicness. I know some fans even argue that Zoro would have no problems taking on the strongest villains in Luffy's place anyway, though I would disagree simply due to the fact that if Luffy were weaker/equal in strength to Zoro then why would he even be captain? The guy who's gonna be the Pirate King can hardly be weaker than one of his own crewmates, it ain't right!

–    Anyway, Zoro's battles tend to be straight-up badass one-on-one feats of strength, while Sanji's can be a mix of badass and sometimes plain goofy (thinking of Sanji vs Mr. 2 here or Sanji vs Wanze). And I do think Oda makes it clear that Zoro is the more powerful of the two, making his wins a lot more impressive, awe-inspiring, and show how physically far he’ll go in order to succeed (man should really have no blood left in his body). For me personally though, I often found many of Zoro’s fights a bit dull, like his fight with Mr. 1 for e.g. (ha, ironic), and when I watch his big battle with Kaku, while I like Kaku as a character, I had a hard time taking the image of Zoro fighting a sword-wielding Giraffe seriously. Sanji fighting a wolf with a moustache often looks goofy as well, but at least wolves come across as a bit more threatening (unless you have been on a scary Safari tour o__O…).

–    Alas, I would give Zoro the point for fights simply because I know how much the fandom appreciates them and the effort he puts in, BUT.... as for achievements... Maybe I'm being sneaky with this, but for me, while Sanji's fights maybe aren't considered as iconic as Zoro's, his actions towards helping the crew solidified Sanji's usefulness to the crew as not only a fighter but a tactician, and without him at a certain point, there wouldn't be any epic Zoro fights to appreciate. Sanji's rescue of the crew in Alabasta was pretty damn awesome, the fact they wouldn't have even reached Alabasta in the first place if Sanji hadn't gotten a hold of the Alabasta eternal log pose is hilarious, his saving of Usopp and Nami in Skypeia, his enabling of the Merry to escape without being blown to smithereens in the Enies Lobby arc, it's all just undeniably awesome. And to me, just as equally iconic and important as Zoro's fights, sooooo... I'm calling it a TIE!

 Sanji 3/1 Zoro

 Coolness: HAHA! Ok, come on, I love Sanji, but Oda's portrayal of him can get a bit ridiculous at times and sometimes rob him of his dignity, whereas with Zoro, Oda really doesn't humiliate him that much. He's usually always cool and epic and never seems to leave a negative impression in the eyes of fans. So, no question about it, point to ZORO!

 Sanji 3/2 Zoro

 Backstory: Ok, maybe it's just me, but I don't think many are gonna argue that Sanji has the better backstory? There's just more of it, it's better fleshed out, it establishes his character relationships and motives far better, it's just... better? Zoro's backstory perhaps is still to be further developed, but as it stands...

–    Zoro = Wants to become the greatest swordsman because of a promise he made to his dead rival/childhood friend. Nice, but doesn’t feel very original or special. Where did he come from before all that? Where/who is Zoro's family? Why did he want to be a swordsman in the first place? Cause it's cool? It just leaves me feeling annoyed because there’s these gaps and things left unanswered within his story and I can't tell if Oda's even going to give us any answers! But with a possibility that Zoro is from Wano, maybe something is eventually going to be explained? Still, I feel like Oda needs to be careful he doesn't make a repetitive tragic backstory, cause I worry that at some point he's going to run out of ideas on how to make each new backstory more uniquely depressing than the last, to the point where it's gonna be a 'been there, done that' kind of deal. Or maybe he’ll actually reveal that Zoro has a DUN-DUN-DUN living mother. I mean, that’s rarely done in this series, so that would be pretty shocking.

–    Sanji = Born as a quadruplet (still so weird to me) to a royal family, kind mother but douche-bag father. Mother dies saving Sanji's humanity because said douche-bag father violated mother and children by tampering with them before birth in order to make his children into sociopathic weapons. Sanji grew up emotionally and physically abused by father and brothers because he had kindness and compassion, and the abuse got so bad that he was even locked in a jail cell with an iron mask on his face because his father was ashamed of his existence. Mother, of course, dies, leaving Sanji with only an older sister to turn to, who could only be nice to him in secret and laugh at him in public. He decided to become a chef during imprisonment due to his mother giving him the only praise he had ever received and he enjoyed making her happy. Finally escapes douche-bag family thanks to decent sister freeing him, but only after promising to never admit he was related to his douche-bag father, further destroying him emotionally. Next, the ship he worked on was destroyed in a tidal wave, killing all his friends at the time, and left him alone on a rock with little food and a pirate who recently kicked the crap out of him. Went months without food only to find out that the pirate he hated had given him all the food, forcing him to cannibalize himself to survive. And all this happened before he was just 10 years old. So, from then on Sanji grew up with a fixed dedication/appreciation for food, but a clearly messed up self-image due to years of abuse and being told he was a failure by his biological father. Not to mention the man who saved his life, while a good man at heart, kinda has a messed up moral compass of his own, and kinda f**ked up Sanji's head in his own way (seriously, Sanji can't bring himself to hit a woman to save his own life cause he can't bear disappointing/disobeying Zeff, the man who actually loved him like a son? Jeez).

–    For real, Sanji's story is a doozy, and Zoro's just doesn't compare (at least not at the moment). Sorry, but clear point goes to SANJI!

 Sanji 4/2 Zoro

 Gag: Possibly debatable again, but I honestly do prefer (and the fandom majority seem to prefer) Zoro's whole getting lost gag to Sanji being a looney tunes pervert (some of the faces Oda draws, I swear!) I don't mind anime perverts so long as they have some substance to their character, but Oda places ‘Pervert Sanji’ in some situations where you're left screaming, “NOW'S NOT THE TIME DAMMIT!” Some moments can be thrown off kilter by the perverseness and/or fanservice to the point where you're just left face-palming. Arguably, the same can be said for Zoro, especially with his wandering off and getting lost in Wano right before Luffy faced off against Kaido (not that Zoro could do much about that anyway if he hadn't gotten lost), but just how easily he gets lost is so ridiculous that it veers right around from being annoying and returns straight back to being hilarious because of how mind-boggling it is. xD So, point to ZZZZZORO!

 Sanji 4/3 Zoro

  Development: Once again, another debatable one. Too debatable! There's no way around it; some may say Sanji's ‘self-rediscovery’ arc in Whole Cake Island made him the better developed character (or didn’t develop him at all) and some will say that Zoro's “Nothing happened” moment is the pinnacle of character development in One Piece, and to me, too much of it comes down to preference and I find it hard to justify why one is potentially better developed than the other. Especially when there could still be further development for them to come. So.... yeah, another TIE!

 Sanji 5/4 Zoro

So, there it is, I killed some great time in quarantine with this(!) Maybe there’s more ‘categories’ I could have added, but with what I came up with, I really did try not to be bias here. I do think it’s important to have a character that can hit ‘all the beats’, deliver in terms of action scenes, comedy and the emotional hard-hitting moments too. I can’t help but appreciate the male characters who are more in touch with their emotions and show vulnerability, which is what I appreciate with Sanji, and why I probably don’t connect with Zoro as much as I’d like to?

Going through all of this however has made me think that I'm actually fairer than I thought I was. No? Yes? Close call anyway.

[mastcrplanncr-a]

issue #23 made me really heccin’ emo over eggman and sonic. i was prepared for it, but also ?? not prepared??? holy frick im just gonna ramble under the cut.

first of all, i’m just gonna’ idly ramble about some things i noticed.

Eggman, literally 11 issues ago:

he makes these off remarks and then changes his mind whenever it’s convenient for him smh. that or hes a freaking liar and. WELL THAT’S PRETTY TRUE HONESTLY.

i’ma be honest fam starline is a freaking mood rn. it’s ?? so dumb?? LIKE EGGMAN WHERE IS YOUR FUCKING FAILSAFE UR SOLUTION WAS “not touching the robots hurr durr” PL EASE.

In retrospect, though, this is an interesting parallel to Forces because he’d apparently learned from his mistakes. TBF, and it has been brought up elsewhere on tumblr, this is a man recovering from amnesia. He must’ve just not gotten to that part. OR HE’S JUST. DUMB AND ARROGANT. Like, yeah, sure, there’s no vaccine - lol the heroes can’t fix anything & it also means you’re valuable because you’re the one person who can. BUT COME ON EGGMAN.

my friend actually predicted this holy shit. i was rambling abt a discussion we had in the egg cult, where we were talking about the possibility of sonic infecting eggman to blackmail him into getting the cure because he’s reached the point?? hes so done with eggman’s shit??? all his friends are in danger and hes backed into a wall what else is he to do than do the one thing he doesn’t want to: use eggman’s tactics against him?

and my friend was like:

LIKE. IT IS A HUGE RISK, and Sonic went FOR IT. I’M SCREAMING TBH.

THIS CONFRONTATION WAS SO FUCKING RAW YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. I thought I was ready for it but I really, REALLY wasn’t. I love the little details of Starline bein’ like: “oh fuck” - usually he’s pretty cocky around Sonic but uh. HE’S INFECTED NOW. And the zero remark - idk if that’s intentional on the writer’s part but ZERO TO HERO anyone?

anyway toxi broke down crying at this point. you have no idea how much i was sobbing over my blue son just. pouring out his heart to his nemesis. that’s top tier tearjerking material.  also starline passive aggressively readjusting his outfit lmfao. BITCH IM FABULOUS. but man the usage of ‘ BE’ and ‘LIKE’ - Sonic knows who Eggman is; he’d never ask him to be something he’s not. but it’s also a reiteration of sonic’s want to see good in him; being LIKE tinker is a statement in that he wanted eggman to be who he was, but NOT to go back. to do good for the world. have it be his own decision, because deep deep down:

isn’t that what he really wants?

Also, although there are those sickly sweet descriptions, the usage of ellipses in this narrative really fucks me up because you can practially hear the gradual realization in eggman’s voice. his mockery starts out so !!! but it just eventually gets straight to the point, as a list. as a routine. because he was used to it. and because, some part of him misses it. notice the usage of ‘need’ and ‘use’. they needed him, and yet he used the people that appreciated him sm like puppets.

some nice guilt there, huh, doc?

ALSO I SPENT LIKE, HOURS TRYING TO FIND THIS EXACT DIALOGUE, but Eggman has a conversation in Dark Brotherhood with Sonic and makes this remark:

LIKE??? this isn’t new to his character, actually? Ignoring the ken penders thing bc smh. Going by this game he’s actually kind of okay with that set up. And he just works so well with the others too??? this isn’t even taking into account the other games he’s teamed up with them. I’m sorry but my head just goes back to this line so many times; it’s one of the ones that stick with me, along with ‘complicated guy’ from lost world. HE COULD!! legitimately do good. and he actually doesn’t find it too bad??? IM EMO MAN...

and IMAGINE making super cool things that people genuinely like... eggman has a HUGE ego, that much is very apparent; he’s super big on appreciation as comes with. and with tinker? he had that - he felt appreciated and loved. people LIKED what he made, and he didn’t have to bend over backwards to have that. his work felt included and he didn’t have to take that appreciation by force like he did with his lackeys (which half the time was fake anyway) .

first and foremost - WE SEE THAT OPEN YOUR HEART REFERENCE, IDW. also sonic’s frustration here, in comparison to the lil smile the panel before - he’s just!! “WHY CANT YOU WAKE THE FRICK UP OLD MAN”. the justification here seems a tad bit like DENIAL to me. and the justification seems... kind of odd from him? since when does EGGMAN justify anything he does? He does what he wants and when he wants, because he’s the E.G.G.M.A.N. he doesn’t care what anyone thinks... right?

it’s because - especially with the usage of better - he didn’t like where that train of thought was going. for once, he’s justifying himself - because the alternative is admitting sonic is right. that he did like that life. that he’d want to go back. throw it in a hierachy and it’s all so simple, right?

also the inclusion of open your heart lyrics here. the incident with chaos was just as catastrophic. and these lyrics in context of the previous panel, highlights how sonic and eggman both seek unity and peace but in their own ways; eggman’s is just evil. it seems a little bit of a diversion to me - to antagonise sonic and make him forget about it. what better way to do that than to relate to him? ‘own styles that we won’t change’ highlights a stubbornness in ways, too, especially with the current context of eggman denying his old life. ALSO IT IS LITERALLY TELLING EGGMAN TO OPEN HIS HEART.

and ngl this seems like idle banter to hide the fact he genuinely felt remorse for his actions for a second. because lbr he has a habit of being all talk when a plan goes wrong or suffering inside,

which starline does quite pointedly explain.

As I was saying above, Sonic has no choice in what to do now - he’s reaching his limit. OR ELSE. hes pondering doing the thing he doesnt want to do. and honestly, ‘you can’t stop me. no one can,’ is so hardhitting not just because of its looming threat, but because of how much it solidifies for sonic that he can’t take the chance anymore. if anyone is going to change eggman, it has to be himself.

also can i just cry over how much sonic trusts tails. im getting sa2 flashbacks.

also man i’d like to point out the specific use of ‘lock you away forever’. it coooould be a reference to sonic’s time imprisoned during the events of sonic forces. bitterness?

NOT SAYING I CALLED IT, BUT I CALLED IT. it still hurts though. and wow, it really is horrifying when eggman fears his own heccin’ creation, huh?

i live for sonic being passive aggressive with eggman. give me more please.

im immensely concerned the direction starline is going, honestly. but it does say a lot about eggman; how he’ll keep trying the same things expecting different results, but failing and never seeing that. because he’s EGGMAN; every plan is brilliant by default!

i love how sonic just !!! SHOT... THE MOMENT HE WAS REMINDED WHAT WAS AT STAKE. son i love you so much you’re doing great sweetie

also, man, can we talk about eggman avoiding his blatant faults, and shoving his failures onto someone else? because this little scene here - eggman ur literally the one who crashed the thing. it had absolutely nothing to do with sonic. i feel as though this is symbolism of his self-destructive nature, honestly. hes always gotta make things harder for himself. (also starline’s face is killing me)

Eggman does what he has to, but technology won’t work every time you kick it. he thinks he can get everything through force but we have several instances in idw where force did NOT work out; you’re not gonna get far, egghead.

MHM, and just who does that sound like, Eggman? honestly the mirrors between these two are seriously destroying me. although sonic is in a horrible position, so is eggman; he likes to think he’s won the war, but hes surpassed his own expectations, and that’s going to backfire on him eventually. hes stubborn to admit he has NO REIGN over this and they’re all doomed, so he’s pinning his failures / loss on Sonic.

is that the amnesia kicking ya in the shin, eggman? or sonic’s reality check? either way, the doc hates emotions. dammit man why you gotta make him emo

future eggman is going to kick past eggman in the kneecaps. it’s times like this ur reminded how much of a kid he is. eugh but that’s work i want my victory and senseless destruction now. honestly if the doc is after success, he is certainly not getting it this way and I AM FEARING FOR EVERYONE’S LIVES. he’ll probably have to work with what’s left of the resistance like the back end of most games at some point.

I’m getting a little burnt out but i can’t forget my son and how much he hurts me.

first of all that third panel terrifies me. the fact it GOT that far does me great concern. the RED EYES? that’s pushing it fam i dont like that. the expressions are also just freaking destroying me; they’ve been PERFECT this issue. and the fact sonic is at his weakest when he feels like he’s failed everyone hurts me deeply. he has SO much on his shoulders and its getting too overwhelming for him.

also man... the whole thing with eggman... just stuff me man. but it hurts all the more because it’s so glaringly clear that there is?? some good in eggman??? he just. doesn’t want to admit it. and unfortunately these aren’t good circumstances to debate on that.

ANYWAY, THAT ISSUE WAS AGONY AND IM STILL REELING AND HAVENT EVEN. TALKED ALL THAT MUCH ABOUT SONIC HERE (on account of this being eggman’s blog) but idk if i’ll write anything on that.

gonna go cry about an egg now brb

[howanimestuffworks]

Now it’s time for something a little bit out of the ordinary and a little bit different. We all know that at this point in time the world is out of sorts so it’s nice to have that little ray of sunshine every now and again. Luckily for me that ray of sunshine just gotten bigger with me being nominated for the Sunshine Blogger Award!  

I made my first couple of graphics! I think they turned out good!

Like always we have to begin with the rules:

Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link to their blog so that other people can visit them.

Answer the 11 questions put to you by the nominator.

Nominate 11 bloggers of your choosing and provide them with a new set of 11 questions to answer.

Notify the nominees by commenting on one of their blog posts.

List the rules and display The Sunshine Blogger Award logo within your post or on your blog site.

The person that nominated me for the Sunshine Blogger Award was no other then Pinkie from Pinkie’s Paradise, who is one of the many active bloggers I know and has helped me come out of my shell and try and blog more then keep hiding away!

I always love reading Pinkie’s new posts and look forward to any new ones that pop up, I will recommend checking her blog out as her blog is just so CUTE! Especially with all the restyling she has done! (I so need to know how she managed to get a animated background working on her blog!) Anyway onto my answers and if you need any directions to Pinkie’s site just click here!

I am a tad late getting this done (along with everything else hahaha) but I really reaaaally needed to get my training for work completed otherwise my manager will literally murder me with a spatula!

I mean she would if she could, is it even possible to be murdered by a spatula? 

  Q: Have you ever cosplayed, if yes.. what’s your best cosplay? If no what would you cosplay if you could?

Sadly no, I never had enough money to spend on the materials I would need for my cosplay, nor have I had the confidence to pull of a cosplay, I am very self conscious about my body and hate the fact that I still have some “puppy fat” at 33 years old.  Even though I am pretty much self conscious about my body I would still push myself out of my comfort zone and cosplay some of my favourite characters.

There’s a little list of cosplays I would love to pull off from my favourite anime and games, Zelda from The Legend of Zelda series, Hitomi Kanzaki from the Vision of Escaflowne and Chibi Usa from Sailor Moon being three that I would love to go for!

  Aren’t these girls cool! 

Bonus Pic!

Kinda scary shoving Pinkie Pies head on Chibi Usa, give me the willies!  

 Q: What is the least geeky thing about you?

What is the least geeky thing about me…man this one is so so hard! Hahaha! I think the least geeky thing about is that I love love to go for long walks! I just go where my feet take me!

Q: If your life was ever turned into an anime, what type of anime would it be?

Hmm.. I think it would be a dramatic slice of life shoujo that would depict me failing adulthood severely and kinda boring…until my life goes from boring to eventful where I’m transported to another realm to go saving the world with my babble of followers that consist of my favourite characters who somehow got dumped in said realm along with me, and blamed me for that happening cause I had to go poking that portal till it exploded and sucked us all in!

It would all fall on Van and Chise to try and find us a way home without me screwing everything up in the process!!

This was fun to make I gotta admit that, plus I just couldn’t stop laughing!!!

Q:  If your life was ever turned into a video game, what type of game it would be?

It most probably be the same as the anime adaption just more in depth and set out like a JPRG!

Chise would be a perfect character to take the Healer position considering one of her abilities is creating medicine in Mahoutsukai no Yome (The Ancient Magus Bride).

Van would be taking the warrior class, mainly swordsman as he is quite adaptable when equipped with his own sword, though I can picture him cursing his head off about the amount of times I died throughout our adventure.

Hitomi would be our visionary, she can predict things before they happen through visions even though some do take a mental impact on her.

Duo is pretty good at stealth so I can picture him using that to his advantage with some pretty good stealth kills when we cannot attack outright.

Heero is more melee so would just attack outright but he is also good at physical combat and can use that to his advantage.

Luffy would be similar to Heero and would create a good tag team with him.

 Q: If you’d have to choose any other archetype but geek, what would you want to be?

I would be a story teller, one of my goals is to be an author and have my own set of YA Fantasy books out there in the world! It would be a big achievement for me in my life, I have a few brainstorms going on some of the characters but I’m keeping that a secret for now..Suuuush..

I would love to be a well known author and have alot of people adoring my stories and characters!!

 Q: What’s the worst thing you have ever done to a friend?

The worst thing I did to a friend is throw a book at them! I do treat my friends with alot of respect and never treat them all badly, but this friend of mine (who is now my boyfriend, strange things happened ya know) just would not be quiet so I could read, all he ever did was natter away to me and then the book went flying at him…I regret that so much…

 Q: What is your favourite alcoholic beverage and tell us about when you had too much of it.

Believe it or not I have not had one ounce of alcohol pass my lips ever, so I never had any drunk stories to tell. (Which is ironic considering I work in a pub!) It’s mainly tied to my past, I’ve seen what alcohol can do to a person and sadly I was a victim of that, my dad is a severe alcoholic and he used to abuse me, my siblings and my mother, so I never ever touched the stuff.

It’s still quite hard to talk about as it affected me my entire life in so many ways.

 Q: How would you take over the world, in a world of endless possibilities? Be evil!

Firstly I would destroy all the world leaders and then brain wash everyone across the globe to do my bidding and make my cat their supreme leader!! (come on who doesn’t want to be ruled over by an evil kitty!)

I would then force people to constantly pick up litter (mainly because I am so sick of people dumping litter everywhere) and to become my cats slaves and servants and imprison their families if they refused!!!

Okay I’ll admit I am so bad at being evil…

 Q: Which anime character you think could stop the you from question 8.

Can I pick two…I can picture Usagi Tsukino and Sakura Kinomoto tag teaming and defeating me and my kitty! Me and my lovely Videl would pass in each others arms and live a happy and evil afterlife where we destroy Satan and take his throne and become rulers of hell!!

I think they would make a great team!

 Q: Which anime characters would be the henchmen to the you from question 8.

I would brain wash the best of the best to become my henchmen! The Prince of all Sayain’s – Vegeta and of course Goku would be mine and Videl’s guards! Piccolo and Gohan would lead my mighty army!

But they may have a tough time with this lot…we shall see if Usagi and Sakura come up triumphant! 

 Q: If you could make one true wish, but it had to be at least  somewhat selfish, what would it be?

If I could make one wish for myself it would be to be a millionaire and live in a posh mansion that has a pool with all my cats! They would have their own rooms and have luxurious beds like I would! They would also have loads and loads of toys and their own pool side loungers!!!

I’ll be the new kid on the block!

What is the most geeky thing about you?

What is the next Anime that you are planning to watch?

If you could write out your life story, how would that story go?

What was the saddest Anime scene you have watched?

What was the best thing you have done for a friend?

What were your plans this year before the pandemic?

If you could pilot a mech or Gundam, which one would it be?

If you could marry an anime or video game character, who would it be?

Tell me about the last game you have played?

Is there a character out there that is most similar to you?

Last book you have read? 

Truthfully I don’t know that many people considering I’m the new kid on the block within the anime blogging community, I’m basing my nominations based on the few people that I have come to know within the anime blogging community recently.

I’m sorry if you were already picked!!! 

Mari from Starting Life At Zero Who’s brave posts really are inspiring to me and has helped me understand alot of things lately.

Roki Bloop from Secluded Observations who actually stumbled across my blog on twitter and introduced me to a few more bloggers, if it wasn’t for Roki I wouldn’t even be doing the Sunshine Blogger Award at all!

Nabe-Chan from Geek Nabe Another lovely person that I have been interacting with on twitter and has a lovely blog!

Pinkie from Pinkie’s Paradise I am so getting you back! hahaha! Pinkie is so awesome and has such a cute and funny blog!

Steph from Two Happy Cats another blogger that I’ve been following on wordpress since I created my old account.

Kiritonarukami from KiritoNarukami One of the newer bloggers that I stumbled across on here lately.

Mike from Gaming and God Another blogger I’ve stumbled across lately who’s blog consists of not only Anime and Manga reviews but also Gaming reviews!

Lesley from Lesley’s Anime and Manga Corner Another Anime and Manga blogger that I have discovered 🙂

Odyssey from LOFZ ODYSSEY ANIME REVIEWS Another cool blogger that I’ve discovered!

Jiraiyan from Otaku Orbit is one of the two bloggers that I’ve been following on wordpress since I created my old account. (I actually have two accounts but liked the name of this one more.)

Okay I stole this idea from Pinkie but I needed a reason to use this wallpaper!

PS: If you would love to be nominated then you can if you answer this question about me, who is the character I am using throughout my blog? 

    A Pony With Sunburn Is Not A Good Look: The Sunshine Blogger Award! #anime #otaku #blogger #animeblog #blogging Now it's time for something a little bit out of the ordinary and a little bit different.

[howtohero]

Your Friend Has Come Back to Life

Or have they... Your friend -maybe they were a superhero, maybe they weren’t it doesn’t really matter- has died. (We’re very sorry for your loss.) You eulogized them (beautiful speech by the way, very moving) buried them (mmm I like the way you work that shovel), mourned them (again, very sorry for your loss. And for that shovel comment) and eventually you found peace. You found solace in the fact that they were in a better place. You’ve moved on until you too felt that you were in a better place, emotionally speaking. And then this joker strolls right back into the realm of the living like nothing even happened.

Yeah frikkin right.

There’s no way this poser is really your dead and buried friend. Right? It couldn’t be. They died. And sure, it’s notoriously difficult to keep a good hero down but that’s not something that really happens is it? That’s just a rumor. People fake their deaths sure, but actual resurrection? Come on. That’s poppycock. (Such poppycock, except for the fact that happens all the time.) Sure to other people. But this is clearly some type of ruse. Part of some insidious scheme to learn my secrets. (”My”?) Sorry, right your secrets. It’s part of an insidious scheme to learn your secrets, dear reader. 

The best way to put an end to this scheme is to expose this imposter for what they really are... an imposter! (Gasp!) When somebody shows up pretending to be your dead friend you should immediately kidnap them and seal them away somewhere isolated. This way the cretin can’t use your dead friend’s memory to manipulate all of their friends and loved ones. Ideally you do it before they can present themselves to your late friend’s family. Once that happens you’re in trouble. This overjoyed and grateful family, who now believe that a miracle has occurred, is not just going to let you kidnap and imprison they’re resurrected family member. Unless their family is weak and you can like fight them. Then it’s not really a problem.

How! To! Fight! An! Entire! Family! And! Kidnap! Their! Allegedly Resurrected! Loved! One! (Oh yeah, we’re doing this.)

Let grandma know what happens when she harbors an alien shapeshifter/clone/charlatan. Sometimes you gotta beat up an entire family in order to save them from a supervillain masquerading as their dead relative. For the greater good. Don’t sweat the little things (they’re called children) they’re not going to pose a threat to you. Size up this family, who are the strong ones, who are the ones that are going to stand in the background and hurl piercing insults at you, who are the ones that honestly could not care less that this person came back to life? Once you’ve quickly categorized all of these relatives, you can fight them in the following order: 

The elderly: They may seem frail and docile, and most of them are but science(?) shows that one in every four grandfathers has a pocket knife and knows how to use it. So on the off chance that this grandpa is armed or that this granny puts the “MMA” in gramma, you want them taken off the board as soon as superhumanly possible. And hey, if they aren’t armed they’ll be very easy to fight and you could use that kind of confident boost to propel you further in this quest.

Any mothers: Everybody knows that mothers get temporary bursts of superpowers when their offspring are in danger. Sure, technically, this isn’t their son that you’re kidnapping. It’s most likely some kind of bug alien in a skin suit. But mom doesn’t know that, and I don’t know enough about how those superpowers work to say whether or not it matters (But hey, if Mother’s Day for some reason falls on a Tuesday or Thursday this year, expect that to be what we talk about.) 

The physically fit: If there is anybody there who looks strong you should fight them next. 

The, contrary to all appearances, surprisingly fit: Watch out for these scrappy underdogs. They might look unfit, but secretly, they are very fit. Or at least, someone taught them how to punch a kidnapper in the throat. I’d wear a throat guard on this op. 

Everybody else: The actually unfit, the cousin who’s into falconry, “Aunt” Marybeth who isn’t technically related but she’s been friends with mom since college and refuses to leave the house! These folks honestly might not be super invested in this thing, but you’d be wise to fight them anyway. Just in case.

Once you’ve handled the family, you can run off into the night with the poser who is claiming to be your best friend back from the dead. Now you need to interrogate them so you can determine what kind of imposter they are.

How! To! Interrogate! A Slimeball! Who! Is! Pretending! To! Be! Your! Pal! Who! Tragically! Died! (This is happening so get on board.)

There are many different kinds of imposters out there who would just love to fake a relationship with a superhero and have no moral qualms about stealing a dead person’s identity. (Kind of like how you have no moral qualms about beating up an entire family.) Are they just a lowlife shapeshifter who failed to do any basic research? Are they some kind of grifter who did some research but not enough because they can’t even remember that the two of you spent the night before their fifteenth birthday stargazing and mapping new constellations to make each other laugh!!!! Are they a hyper advanced android that actually can answer all of your questions flawlessly and doesn’t appear to be robotic in the slightest but THAT DOESN’T MEAN THEY’RE NOT AN IMPOSTER!!!!! So get your questions ready. Ask them about things only your real best friend would no. Try to get as hyper specific as possible. It’s probably wise to throw in a few questions that your best friend wouldn’t know the answer to, just to be safe. Make sure to heavily imply that torture is on the table so that they confess to their lies and their crimes faster. 

Even if this punk is skillfully answering all of your questions, except for the one’s they can’t answer, which they are honest about. Even If they’re even offering up information about your friend that you didn’t even ask about. You can’t lose sight of what’s really going on here. This person is some kind of conman (or, probably, a conlizard, sent by the lizard mafia to kill you because of all of those outstanding loans) and you can’t be swayed by their cons! However, if you do find your resolve wavering, perhaps out of some foolish desire to believe that your best friend truly has returned from the dead, stay the course. Remember what’s at stake here. My (your) your secrets! Don’t worry, there are other ways of confirming that your friend really is dead.

How! To! Rob! Your! Dead! Best! Friend’s! Grave! (Yeah, we went there.)

The best way to determine whether or not your friend is really dead is to dig up their body and parade it around town. (Make sure to specifically parade it in front of their family so they forgive you beating them all up.) To start you’ll need to get a shovel. (Oh baby.) You’re giving off a weird energy today bud. (I could say the same to you.) Fair enough! Now, back to exhuming your friend’s corpse. The trick with digging up a body is, like all things, to just dig until you find what you’re looking for. Easy peasy. It’s like taking candy from a baby. If the candy was the dead body of your friend. And the baby was dirt. 

If you dig and dig and dig only to find that the grave is empty. Or to find that the coffin is empty except for a note saying “Yo, how crazy? I came back to life! So rad so rad.” Well, then you wasted a lot of time digging for no reason. (I thoroughly enjoyed it though.) Hahaha you need to stop. (What can I say man, I dig a person who knows their way around a shovel.) All righty. Don’t get disheartened though, there could be any number of explanations for your dead friend’s empty grave. It does not necessarily mean that they came back to life. Perhaps some crook stole the body to sell the body parts on the blackmarket. This is especially likely if they were a superhuman. Superhuman body parts go for maaaad cash on the black market...

How! To! Make! Tons! Of! Money! Selling! Dead! Superhuman! Body! Parts! On! The Black Market!

No no. Just kidding. Just kidding. An empty grave could also mean that this fakester was very thorough, and hid the real body so that they could more easily slip into their identity without any questions. But you know better than that. You will not be easily so easily fooled. Which means you need to do the unthinkable. You need to turn to science to prove, once and for all, that this person claiming to be your friend come back to life is nothing but a no good liar.

How! To! Use! Science! To! Prove! Once and for all! That! This! Person! Claiming! To! Be! Your! Friend! Come! Back! To! Life! Is! Nothing! But! A! No! Good! Liar! (Oh, things are serious now.)

Bust out your lab coats and microscopes. We’re about to spit some science. Set up a makeshift laboratory in your basement or hideout or an actual science lab. Then, use that science, to prove things scientifically. (We have a mad scientist on staff you know, want me to call-) Dr. Brainwave! Yes! Great call! Get that rascal in here. I love that guy. (Uh, yeah. Sure thing.) <You called?> Yeah! How would you, a supervillainous mad scientist, prove, using your ungodly science, that someone who claimed to be your best friend back from the dead is nothing but a no good liar. <Oh, great question! Well first obviously you should kidnap and interrogate them.> We did all that, come on, skip to the science. <Ok ok. In order to prove that this person is or isn’t who they say they are you’re going to need a DNA sample. Now, technically all you’d really need is a hair or some spit or blood. But I always say better safe than sorry. The bigger the sample the more likely it is that we’ll get conclusive results, so just chop off an entire arm or leg. To be safe.> To be safe sure, sounds good to me. <Then you toss that leg into a DNA Confirmerjiggeryfloot and you should get the results almost instantaneously. Then when it turns out that this person pretending to be your best friend is a brilliant liar, you can kill him I guess.> Thanks Doc! Brilliant advice from our supervillain corespondent! 

Now, on the off off off off chance that the DNA test comes back with results other than the ones you were hoping for and it turns out that, against all odds, this guy actually is your best friend. And they have come back from the dead. And you did kick the snot out of their entire extended family for literally no reason. Then it may be time for you to come clean with them. And have a candid conversation about the regrettable thing that happened after they, apparently temporarily, passed away.

How! To! Gently! Explain! To! Your! Recently! Resurrected! Best! Friend! That! You! Completely Accidentally I Might Add! Overwrote! Their! Fully! Completed! File! Of! Super! Duper! Fighty! Punchy! Boys! IV! (That’s Right Folks, This Just Got Real)

Yes, it’s true. After they died, you got their video game collection. It turns out they were really good at video games. They unlocked everything and beat every level and every boss in this apparently very hard to beat video game. They won some medal for it or something. You don’t know. You’re not super into video games. How were you supposed to know how big of a deal it was. So yeah, I guess you accidentally erased their saved filed and replaced it with your own. And sure, you’re not nearly as good as they were. You haven’t beaten any levels. You’re bad a video games. Probably you shouldn’t have tried their most prized video game first, but you were trying to connect to them after their passing. Is that so bad??? Is that such a crime??? Sure, maybe they didn’t technically leave their prized video games to you. But if stealing a person’s prized possessions from a grieving family is a crime, then I guess you’re just a criminal. Whoops! So now that they’re actually alive you have to explain to them that you basically erased their greatest achievement and most prized possession in one fell swoop. Because you are bad at things. Gosh this is going to be such an awkward conversation. And to think, if he had just stayed dead, you wouldn’t have to have it. [You can’t kill them.] Well, you’ve been awfully quiet this whole time. [I actually quit halfway through this post, but Brainwave called me and said you’d been acting really weird so I came back.] Glad to have you! I wasn’t even going to advocate killing them. You see, if either of you are dead, you can avoid this conversation. So....

How! To! Fake! Your! Death! To! Avoid! An! Awkward! Conversation! With! Your! Apparently! Actually! Resurrected! For! Real! Friend! (Go read our other posts!)

[jeidafei]

D.Gray-Man: Few Things You Should Know about “Red”

A few facts we DGM fans really should talk about before succumbing to that Red!fic plotbunny pouncing about in our brains!

So I’ve been suffering through another D.Gray fangirling phase. I’ve been trawling Fanfiction.net for every DGM story I could sink my teeth into. I absolutely adore fanfictions about Red. Heck, EVERYONE absolutely adore fanfictions about Red (just look at the number of favs and comments!). Firecracker, A Blast to the Past, Red, etc., you name it. I’ve pretty much read through all of them more than once.

But something just isn’t right about these otherwise perfect fanfictions (well, other than the fact that they’re never finished T T), and it bugs me so much, as I am myself an avid fanfiction writer (of a Thai novel), and I’ve seen this same mistake play out in various fandoms.

It’s Red himself.

I’ve read Lost Fragment of Snow (LFS) whenever I wanted to tear my heart to pieces, and recently I’ve been translating it, so there are a few things I’d like everyone to keep in mind when you come up with little past!Allen plotbunnies.

1. Red does NOT talk back at Cosimo. Or anyone.

Red is rough and bitter, yes, but he is not a big-talker and he is not stupid. He is deeply traumatized, and traumatized kids will not do things they know will only get them more beating-ups.

Actually, I think anyone will know better than to talk back at Cosimo, not just traumatized kids.

So if you have Red yelling his head off at Cosimo, you’re not only giving the poor kid unnecessary misery but you’re also making him look silly.

(C’mon Allen, use your brain. You’re seven years old and a pipsqueak. Unless you’re sure you can beat him up with your Innocence then shut your trap, kid!)

If you look carefully at Red in LFS, you will notice that he barely even talks at all. He could curse them wankers for pages in his head, but he’ll never voice it out.

Hoshino-sensei described Red in the guidebooks as nama-iki, which could be translated along the lines of brazen, impertinent, cheeky, feisty...etc. Red (and later Allen) has certainly shown that side of him to Mana, Cross and Kanda, but even he knows when he must bite his tongue and keep his head down. 

Examples:

1) Cosimo is annoyed when he fails his act, and throws a juggling ball hard at Red’s face, blaming his cursed arm for dirtying the ball.

Fanfiction!Red: What da heck ya stupid wanker! It’s ya own fault ya messed up yer own show! (goes on and on and on until Cosimo knocks the fluff outta him.)

CanonLFS!Red: He thought how performers would blame the propsー and himー for their mistakes. But to Cosimo, he simply glared after his back (and not before he turned and left the tent.) and said nothing...at all.

2) In the opening scene, Cosimo just came picking on Red and started kicking him like a punching bag. Not because Red said anything to him; just because Red (foolishly) gave him an angry glare (he’s seven years old, you gotta forgive him sometimes).

As far as I can see, not a single Whaddya want, ya wanker! I can hear. When you’re Red, you don’t have to go that far to get a kick from Cosimo. You only need to exist.

2. Actually, Red’s life is not that bad.

Please don’t kill me yet and hear me out on this. I mean yeah, it’s bad. Sorry, it’s EXTREMELY BAD at that circus. And I cried and cried whenever I read LFS, but some fanfictions just go waaaay further than the original story confirms the circusーand the world in generalーhas done to Red.

We don’t ever see the Cook poisoning Red or Red recalling he had glass shards or cyanide (smells like almond) in his soup. In fact, it is shown Red has no qualms digging his spoon into his food. He just digs in right away because he’s so hungry he could eat a horse. Yep. I’m still talking about the Red. 

As much as the Ringmaster despised Red, he said it himself he still wants to work Red to the bone until he earns back the gold he paid to buy Red. So why kill Red now when you can still exploit him? After all, who’d do all the errands if Red is six feet under?

Though the Ringmaster did change his mind at the end and threw Red to the lions, that’s after he thought Red had killed Mana and Allen, his top money-spinner. Other than that, he tolerated Red enough to let him live, at the least.

Another thing is sometimes people would have Red mention churches and mental institutions trying to burn or imprison him, but actually, Red remembers nothing but the circus he now lives in and he has never left the circus for the outside world (except of course the occasional supplies-run with the Cook). So how could he have been through all that?

And no, no-one has sexually assaulted Red, either. Not even Cosimo. Red himself never once mentioned anything of the sort in his narrative/thoughts. One might argue it could’ve happened off-screen, but Red would definitely have recalled such a horrifying experience if it had happened, right? 

I’ve seen many fanfictions that has Allen revisiting his old circus (which I will rant about in the next point) and reliving how he was used by the disgusting men there. No, this has not happened to Red. Cosimo beats him regularly, and he is mostly ignored by the other members of the circus, but no one has ever abused him in that way. No! They are disgusted of him and they shun him. That is all.

I’d guess this last part is probably the influence of the legendary Mana, which describes Allen’s long history of sexual abuse in gruesome yet ingenious detail. That fiction was a masterpiece and I read through it despite usually reading only canon. But canon!Red and Mana!Allen is separate, my lads!!

3. The old circus is gone and Cosimo is DEAD. Pe-ri-od. (HOORAY!)

Yes, some fics had Allen meeting Cosimo again in a literal trip down nightmare-fuel memory lane, or musing that Cosimo is probably still alive, and I’d only stumbled upon this mistake recently when I re-read LFS.

This is impossible, you see: Cosimo died along with the other troupe members when the Millennium Earl attacked with his Akuma army, which is disguised as the audience. In fact, as Cosimo is ranting about the show starting without him and stepped onto the stage first, I’d even say he’s the first poof.

Everyone who was in the backstage (which is basically pretty much everyone in the troupe, as Cosimo had called them all in to hear him frame Red for Allen’s murder), save for Mana, died from the hail of Akuma bullets. The only survivors of that night were Red, the Ringmaster and the two performers he had ordered to drag Red to the lions, because they’re in a different place: the warehouse. And of course Mana, because Cross stepped in just in time.

So if you’re going for canon, let’s leave Cosimo in his grave. 

4. Red is truly, EXTREMELY scared of Cosimo

Like, sh*t-his-pants scared.

Well, who can blame him? He’s scrawny, crippled and freaking seven-years-old and the wanker would stomp the daylights out of him if he merely looks at him wrong, and he knew nobody would ever stand up for him.

Nobody...at least until Allen the Dog comes along.

Simply the sight of Cosimo emerging from a tent sent him screaming and hiding behind a tree. Simply the sight of Cosimo standing before him sent his hand trembling. When Cosimo is annoyed his breakfast isn’t served first, Red all but hightail it outta there for dear life.

Red avoids Cosimo as much as he could and would not seek to prolong their interactions or annoy him by talking back.

Red’s friendship with Allen is the only thing that gave him courage to stand up to Cosimo in the end, and when he accused Cosimo of killing Allen, that’s the first and only time we see him actually verbal-sparring with the wicked clown.

5. Red is very quiet and reclusive, and polite when necessary.

No matter how bad they treated him, Red does not talk brashly with the circus troupe members. He talks in polite form (keigo) to the cook, the jugglers, the Ringmaster, as of course he needed food and a roof to live under, and he doesn’t want to be socked (though he did look sullen in general).

And most importantly, it was as Red has always told himself: Things have always been like this, and he’s used to it. (yes, yes, we later know he’s just trying to be strong and he’s really very sad, but you know what I mean XD.)

So no point ranting a paragraph at them, obviously. Red understands already that it has to be this way. So why the rant? Why ALL the rants?

He also avoid interactions unless truly necessary; they ignored him, and he never speaks to anyone first. He doesn’t care about anyone back then. When he does speak, he speaks shortly. If he realizes that even if he speaks for himself, no-one would listen to or believe him, then he won’t waste his breath.

No lengthy tirades about how churches would attempt to burn him and Cosimo would beat him up or that it’s not his fault in the least and Cosimo has framed him and all that blah blah blah blah blah...(seriously, why would he spill this many beans to people he just met and did not yet trust, like Komui?)

//Even when he’s grown up and became the Allen we know, he’s almost never shown talking about his life at the circus, or even what happened to Mana to anyone, for that matter (Link said so!). Yes, he told Lenalee how he travelled with his adopted parent, but it was only happy and funny stories, and he told Bookman how his eye became cursed, but that’s just because Bookman asked and he couldn’t possibly wriggle out of answering. I seriously wonder if anyone knows his full bio except Cross, the Bookmen and the church authorities. It’s simply too painful and he’d only just come to terms with it recently, when he mused about Mana to Link.//

The exception to all this is probably Mana, and that is because he is the first person Red decided to go talk to. And this is solely because Mana is Allen’s owner, and Red is simply curious as to what kind of person he is like. He probably knows Mana is a decent person, being Allen’s owner and the brilliant new clown and all, and so is not afraid to talk casually (and quite a bit roughly) around him.

Anyway, most little boys pretty much talk like that in Japanese. It’s not as if Red’s that much ruder than any normal kid his age, in my opinion. 

At least, Red hasn’t called anyone a “*bleep*head” like that antisocial little chopped-hair, girly-faced douchebag we all love, either. So no need for the T-rating and tone down his language, please, dear DGMers.

.....End of rant! Will keep adding more if I could think of anything else!

Thanks for bearing with this crazy fangirl!

[random-imagines-blog]

Someone Dangerous: A Toni Topaz Story [Chapter Four]

Wordcount: 3093 Summary: The Devil’s Advocates execute an escape plan for Toni, Jughead and SweetPea from the Ghoulies. Warning: Contains violence. Other Chapters: Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Five, Final Chapter

An emergency meeting had been called in the bowling alley. It had been ‘closed for a personal event’ for the night, that way civilians wouldn’t come in and catch any of the conversation, but it would also explain the amount of cars that were parked in the lot. The lights were out except for the ones near the entrance, since no one was actually playing the game. It was much too serious a meeting to be distracted by balls rolling and pins clanking down. Lyn was sitting on top of one of the racks of bowling balls, picking at her bottom lip and fiddling with her wrist band at the same time, trying to come up with a way to get the rest of the Devil’s Advocates to help her get Toni back, without manipulating them into doing something dangerous.

“The Ghoulies deserve all the pain that they can get, but I don’t understand why we gotta break into their headquarters and get the Serpents outta there.” One of the women said, chewing on gum. She blew a bubble obnoxiously and as it popped, Lyn winced. “We ain’t against them but that doesn’t mean we’re with them.”

“Three people, yes Serpents,” Lyn spoke up, getting the attention of the chattering crowd. “Have been kidnapped because they were suspected of doing what we had done.”

“So?” The woman said.

“So?” Lyn said back, turning her head to look at the woman straight on. “Are we just going to let three innocent people go through torture because of what we did? Even if they know that we’re a rival gang, those three people are going to be questioned, put through tests, who knows what else the Ghoulies have in store for them? Whatever it is - they don’t deserve it. Just like our loved ones didn’t deserve what those bastards put them through. If you don’t feel comfortable with a rescue mission, I’m not going to force you. But when you joined in The Devil’s Advocates, you swore to take them down. This is a good enough start to that, now isn’t it? Take what they have. Release their prisoners. They won’t have any power over any gang after that. Maybe we can do it without their knowing, make them suspect one of their own, I don’t know. But I’m saying, as your leader, that this is the beginning of their end. This is our chance. I’m taking it. Who is with me?”

The difference between the other two gangs and the Devil’s Advocates was one thing: The type of people that had joined. Not everyone in this bowling alley was tough, covered in tattoos, looked intimidating at all or decked out in leather. It was made of people who would do anything that was necessary to return Riverdale and the surrounding area to the way that it had been before the Ghoulies had come around and fucked it up. Parents, cousins, all sorts of relatives of people who had been killed or hurt or affected by the spooky gang gathered here. Lyn had looked them all up. There were a couple of married couples, construction workers, business owners, janitors, nurses, just about every profession in Riverdale had some representation here, and all were determined to end this evil. But still - they were reluctant.

“The main reason for a devil’s advocate-” Lyn went on, picking up one of the smooth, heavy bowling balls and held it in her hands, squeezing it to feel the resistance in her arms. “- is to take all sides. All arguments into consideration. Why should we save these three serpents? They’re part of a rival gang, they could be dangerous, they could expose us, this could just be a rouse. But there’s also the other two sides of it.” She spun the ball so the three holes were revealed to the people in front of her. She tapped one of them, then another. “If we let the Serpents go in, it’ll get messy. They have their reasons to hate the Ghoulies, the bunch of traitors. Some of them will likely be killed by being reckless and going in guns blazing, not thinking the way that we would. They might get their three back, they might not. They might lose a large number of their gang and that’s more lives given to the Ghoulies. But if we do our research, and we go? They know nothing about us, our techniques, our resources, they’re sure to underestimate us. We could get in, get out, learn, experience, and save three people. We may even get the respect of the Serpents, have another force on our side.” She put the bowling ball back on the rack. “Consider every possibility, but I have a mission for a few of you if you take my perspective. I’ll know by tomorrow afternoon who is in and who isn’t, and no blame or shame from me to those who stay out of it. You’d feel it for yourselves eventually.”

When Lyn arrived home from a lonely day at Riverdale High, there were two envelopes slipped beneath her door, waiting for her to open. They were delivered by Alec, the only member that she trusted with her home address. She opened up the one which had what appeared to be a sign up sheet. That was a good sign. There were many names. Her speech got through to many of her people, and they had taken up the cause. She believed that they did so because she had given them the choice. She was not a demanding gang leader, like those she had encountered in the past. She was inexperienced and young, but she was firm. She always thought through what she was doing.

The second envelope was thicker and contained printouts from a real estate agency that one of her members worked for - an unassuming man to say the least but one of the most helpful. It was a list of properties that seemed to fit where the Ghoulies may be. She put aside any that were on the South Side, the Serpents would have come across them and done something about it. Nor would they be in central Riverdale or the suburbs because the well-to-do citizens wouldn’t stand for anything like that.

Which left one option. A Lodge Industries property, interestingly enough. Lyn thought of Veronica Lodge, the luxuriously dressed girl who had been kind to her, but seemed distracted by assuring Betty and Archie that wherever Jughead was, he would be alright. The DA  had to get on this before the foolish redhead and the snooping blonde went and got themselves killed trying to take care of it themselves.

The property had attempted to be a lodge, funny, Lyn thought, by Sweetwater River. A place for hunters to relax and rent out and talk about their kills. It had only been open for a month before a forest fire in the surrounding area had taken it out. And due to Hiram Lodge’s imprisonment, and Hermione Lodge’s affair, not much had been done to the property except it becoming condemned by Mayor McCoy and a few signs put up. Seemed like just the place the Ghoulies would live - a haunted-looking, gritty, black house that was little more than ash and some timber.

She memorized the information, went into her bedroom and got on her knees on the second-hand red rug beside her bed. Reaching under, she pulled out a luggage case that she had used to bring her clothes in, unzipped it, then took out a shoebox. In the shoebox was a hairdryer with the electrical cord tied tight around it. Fetching the screwdriver that was in the pocket of the luggage case, she wedged the two sides open and revealed the pistol that was inside. It may just come in handy tonight, though she would pray that she would not have to use it.

But to get Toni back, she intended to use any means necessary.

Fourteen people on a rescue mission for three teenagers against who knows how many gang members wielding weapons, the least of which was a baseball bat or a taser. One of Lyn’s members had ordered devil’s masks from a Halloween Store, and they had been delivered right on time. Most of the gang wanted their identities hidden from the masses, preferring to stay behind the scenes rather than in the forefront.

Four cars took them to the woods, parked in a popular camping area, and then started the trek to the old lodge. Lyn was walking the fastest, the gun secured in a holster around her thigh, and a large gavel-looking hammer in her hands, ready to beat down on some ghoulie head.

The night was quiet. Snow was threatening to fall soon, which made the air feel chilly beneath the dark and cloudy night. The leaves were dead on the ground and caused quite a bit of rustling, especially as the gang members stepped on them. But they were unafraid, all fourteen of them. They were going to secure the innocent,  bring them back to their friends and families and then make sure that this never happens again.

There was a large fire and some whooping noises. The Ghoulies were having themselves a damn party outside of their ‘home’. The flashing flames brought out the shadows in the red masks that the Devil’s Advocates were wearing, and Lyn had never felt more secure in her role as a leader than she did now. They stopped by the trees, crouched low and watched, waiting for their moment.

Jughead, Sweet Pea, and Toni were handcuffed and tied up - The Ghoulies were being precautious - and were forced to sit on a log dangerously close to the fire. Two of the Ghoulies seemed to be questioning them, while the rest danced around in a frenzy which was more intimidating than the interrogation. Lyn couldn’t hear what was being said, but could hear Sweet Pea give a sarcastic answer. In retaliation of that, the two inquisitors kicked the log closer to the fire so they could feel the flames licking at their trapped hands.

“What are we doing, boss?” Alec asked.

“Making a dramatic entrance. They’ll expect something sneaky is going on if we do that, and some of their numbers might leave to look for our reinforcements. Makes smaller groups out of them all. I’ll untie the Serpents. We’ll blindfold them, bring them to the city, let them loose there so they can find their own way home. I don’t want any of you getting exposed for this.”

As Alec had said, Lyn was the boss, so the others followed suit and went with your plan.

To the Ghoulies, it must have looked like an odd Halloween prank. From the shadows emerged fifteen figures, all wearing black except for the blood-red Devil masks that were adorning their faces. Some of the Ghoulies did a double take, which let the group move in further before any action was taken.

They eventually did spring into action, gathering around their three hostages. Malachai, their leader with his wanna-be KISS paint on his face, had a taser in his hand, which he held up menacingly, the electricity flowing enough to show as a wavering blue line. “Not the right time of year for Halloween.” He laughed, menacingly.

“Could say the same thing about you,” Lyn said, taking another step closer. She disguised her voice, making it deeper than it usually was, in as much a Batman-style as she could muster. “Or is there a metal show going on nearby that I don’t know about?”

“Devil’s go jokes now?” Malachai asked, matching Lyn’s stride. “Let’s see how much you’ll be laughing when I send electricity through your body.” He lunged forward with the taser, nearly striking Lyn who had been prepared for it. She ducked out of the way, held tight to the hammer in her hand and hit Malachai square in the ribs. His growl was enough to send the rest of the Ghoulies into the fight.

Alec came up behind Lyn and took over the fight against the leader of the Ghoulies while she adjusted her mask so the eye-holes were realigned. She kept her sights on Toni, and headed in her direction. She was almost stopped by one of the Ghoulies, but another well-placed hit sent them away from her path.

She was by the flames now, and using their light to undo some of the bindings keeping them onto the logs. But the handcuffs would have to stay until they got into the city and found a way to cut them off. She didn’t have anything sharp enough to take care of that, though they seemed more like adult-store handcuffs than police handcuffs.

Sweet Pea was the first to get unbinded, and though his wrists were stuck together, he helped out with the others. “Go down through the woods in the direction of the moon.” Lyn muttered so they could hear. “We’ll meet you there and bring you back to town, drop you off at a secure location.”

“So you’re the Devil’s Advocates?” Jughead asked, always questioning things. Lyn’s eyes shone through the eyeholes of the mask as they linked their gazes together. Lyn was the first to turn away, then she said nothing. She was more careful to avoid Toni’s eye. That would get her caught for sure.

“Yes,” Lyn said in the same voice as before. “Now go on while we settle things here. Go.”

Toni was the only one who was hesitant to go. She watched as Lyn left the log and went back to Malachai. It was only through the urging of Jughead that she finally walked towards the trees and slipped off to the highway.

One of the Devil’s had brought a handgun. On Lyn’s signal, she pulled it out, pointed it towards the sky, and fired a single shot which made the action stop. Eyes were turned towards the woman, who then pointed silently towards her leader. Lyn stood across from Malachai.

“We got what we came for, and no one else needs to get hurt tonight.” She said, her voice strong enough to carry throughout the Ghoulie’s camping area. “This isn’t the scene of our battle, Malachai, but that is coming up soon. The gunshot is likely to bring the police up in a couple of minutes so I suggest you run along and hide until they pass over. We’ll be in touch.”

Sure enough, the flashing lights were seen through the woods just as the sirens could be heard, but by that time, Lyn and the rest of her Advocates were safely in their cars. The three Serpents were in with Alec and Lyn, who had pulled up their hoods to hide their identity better. Alec would be identifiable by his ponytail alone.

“Pull over here.” Lyn said, once they got close to the Whyte Wyrm. It could be seen at the end of the street, but no one from inside of the bar peering out the windows would be able to read the license plate. Alec pulled over, Lyn got out of the car and helped the three handcuffed Serpents out of the backseat.

“Why did you help us?” Jughead asked, and Toni looked at her imploringly, waiting for answers.

“The Serpents aren’t our enemies.” Lyn told them. “Especially you two. It’s the Ghoulies that we hate, and we have our own reasons for that. We don’t want them to hurt any more people.”

“Who are you?” Toni asked. Sweet Pea had already started walking towards the bar, angry that he was still in the handcuffs. He didn’t need to do all the questioning, he was more of a hands on sort of guy, or so Lyn had noticed.

The leader of the Devil’s Advocates stopped cold, wondering whether she should go with her brain or her instincts on this one. Should she reveal herself and lose the trust of the only friend that she had in this town? Would it be putting the others at risk? Or should she keep hiding herself, remaining in the shadows.

She decided.

She undid the straps on the back of her head, releasing the mask from her face. Her hair fell down from the confines that it had been in so that it wouldn’t be seen by anyone who may identify her. She shook it out, then brushed it out of her face with her fingers and looked at Toni straight on.

“Don’t tell anyone, and don’t ask me any questions right now. We just put ourselves in danger to get the three of you out and ... and we need to come up with our next steps, okay?” She pleaded with Jughead and Toni. Jughead was surprised, but he adjusted to it well.

“No questions now, but there will be later.” He said. “And - thanks.” He seemed reluctant to give the last word. It was clear he didn’t trust you now, but that was fine. He didn’t have to. He only had to keep his mouth shut.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Toni asked, once Jughead had started to walk away. The fact that she was still in handcuffs didn’t bother her anymore. She took a step forward towards Lyn, so much so that Lynn could smell the fire’s smoke on her clothing.

“No questions, please.” Lyn frowned. “I can answer anything tomorrow, but just not -”

“I trusted you, I thought you were my friend.”

“I just risked my life and those of my gang to save yours, you think I’m not your friend?” Lyn asked.

“Bring me with you.” Toni said, after a minute of silence. “To your house. Get these cuffs off me and we’ll talk there. Either that or I’m following your car because - because I need answers from you. Tonight.”

Lyn looked to the car where Alec was waiting. He was still wearing his mask. His eyes peering through the holes were dark, and lifeless. He was exhausted.

“Okay, get in the back.” Lyn sighed.