#they literally just feed off of mutual spite

[youcantdateosmosisjones]

"You were a wonderful experience"

"You were... everything"

except I'm a complete liar and that's not even remotely them, but listen anyways

-

Spreaver, except it's Sparrow who's in the mindset of "it physically pains me to admit how much I'm intrigued and tempted by the idea of chasing desire, but considering how I've devoted my entire life to saving Albion- and now that I've got 2 kids and a kingdom to carry the responsibility of- I could never disregard the sacrifices I've made in the name of the greater good. Especially to someone like you. As Theresa has said to me countless times, my destiny is to become something for the people. That is my burden to carry, and something that I will live by indefinitely. Me and you both understand that weight, despite how we refuse to acknowledge that. We are both heros, after all- And we are the only ones left of our little quartet. I do take such comfort in the knowledge that I am human, and that I can't always be my image- That even you, as deplorable as you are, can, too, be human (as imperfect and needlessly complicated as they come). It is something that's become unfamiliar to me as of late. I never regretted whatever it was we had, despite how little it actually meant in the moment. Typically as just another way to deal with your presence without just killing you right then and there- but nonetheless gave me the same level of emotional release. We were both equals, and knew the others limits, I suppose. How far to push- what spots were sore- and just which buttons to press. We both knew the game, and we played- and it was the most mindless, yet instinctive thing I did for quite a few years. It was one of the few things that still made me feel as though I was living a life I could've had... But that will never happen. The only way I know how to make up for the countless lives lost since that fateful day, is to repay them with my own. I still can't shake the feeling of selfishness in my actions in acknowledging you. A Hero- and especially a Monarch- should not be one to indulge, after all. For that, I could never choose a life like yours- nor you. You were never meant to be apart of this; not for long."

And Reaver, who's currently like "You have been quite possibly one of the only conquests of mine that has made me feel alive in the past 200 or so years. There was always the knowledge with us that either one could end the other, which was a feeling I had not known from any other noticeable person (except Lucien, maybe). However, you still wouldn't actively turn your back on me whenever you had the chance. Why ever you did that, I found it of the utmost excitement. Whether it was your power; status; place in society; reputation; or some other grandiose factor that made you so alluring (as many other countless material items have been to me over my life), I still feel as though you were perhaps an equal to me. I'll admit how much potential I saw in utilizing that- I am an opportunist, after all- and yet I still didn't... why I let you become such an obstacle to me, I'll never know. I upped my typical antics in the hopes you'd take an issue with them- I did love our petty banter- but your refusal to respond beyond small petty gestures just made it more of a challenge. And even despite how you so unkindly usurped me, I still made an effort to prove that it meant nothing to me; that'd I was still as glorious as ever. I was Reaver; and no matter how much of a problem it posed to your kingdom, I'd still be right here; unscathed. You were an irritating- unpredictable- and such an unlikely source of such inconvenience to my plans. Perhaps that is why I was so prepared to see you fail... Perhaps that's why I still think of you from time to time, knowing that didn't happen. Not that I'll ever admit such a fact, knowing what you know about me. Still, in the wake of your passing, I feel as though it was all for nothing. That reoccurring thought, that all my countless endeavors somehow didn't make my sacrifices worth the life I gave up so much to live for, resurfaced, just then. I mean- if I couldn't even get back at you for having such an impact on me (my reputation, my empire, my house!! Need I even go on?), why did I ever spend that much effort on you in the first place? Why on earth I let you become something in my mind, I'll never forgive myself for. No... I'd never do that. I'll never forgive you. And for that crime, you will never be a name I bring up again; Stripped of any illusion of significance. In order to completely forget such troubling revelations, I've decided to once again indulge in the short-lived highs of excitement and exploits. In fact, I'll take advantage of this new era and make a name for myself- A proper one. The only way to drive those dreadful thoughts away is to prove them wrong, after all. Meaning: I'll build a new empire for myself. A far grander one. Perhaps, reaching the status you once possessed will finally erase you from such universal importance."

They're so toxic, they've started to rot my brain

I'm a 'petty, stubborn, shallow (masking his deep intellectualism and the torment) bitch' reaver x 'unbothered, "fuck it we ball" (deeply traumatized and not coping as well as they thought they were), throws chairs indiana jones style; sparrow' preacher

[jen-with-a-pen]

If people aren't comfortable reblogging fics to their blog (which I am not, due to a personal history of being doxxed and humiliated to my irl friends and family), are comments sufficient enough engagement or would you rather that reader not engage with your work at all?

I feel like that came out sounding passive aggressive but I truly mean it as a genuine question and am just not sure how to rework it to sound less snarky! I see this discourse on and off from different fic writers and respect both opinions and think everyone should be able to curate interaction with their fics as they see fit.

Hi, anon.

I've been thinking carefully on how to respond to this. I can tell you're not trying to come off as snarky– which i say as someone who can't read tone for shit most of the time and whose own tone can come off aggressive or bitchy when I don't mean it to be.

I'm gonna address your ask as thoroughly as I can, if that's cool. Sorry if it's a long response. I'll put a cut in so I don't interrupt feeds ✂️

First, I want to pose a question to your question, which I mean genuinely with no spite whatsoever: why are you on Tumblr if you're not reblogging or don't even reblog?

As I've stated in other replies to the post I made a few weeks back, from the way I see it, Tumblr is literally built upon the foundation of sharing creations and content. There is no dead-set algorithm here like there is for Instagram or TikTok. Sharing is, quite fucking literally, caring here. We are able to form communities of all sizes because we share things. Reblogging is essential to the upkeep, and quite frankly the existence, of fandom and communities. Without sharing, our communities crumble and become ruins. We are actively seeing this as we speak: many mutuals and authors I follow are starting to quit writing due to passive, demanding consumption patterns and 0 engagement.

I know you probably know this, but I thought I'd restate it for answer's sake.

To answer the meat of your ask, I will pull from both personal experience and mutuals' experiences and input.

In my own personal opinion, if you are solely commenting on fics and are not engaging in anything else (no likes, no reblogs, etc.) then I personally think that Tumblr is not the site you should be on and, frankly, you should go sign up for AO3 if that's all you're going to do.

And I mean this earnestly. If all you want to do for engagement is commenting, then AO3 needs you because sharing does NOT affect authors nearly as much over there as it does here. In fact comments on AO3 are the literal equivalent to reblog on Tumblr: we don't get any and when we do it's like finding an oasis in a never ending desert.

Now in terms of what mutuals and other authors have said on the matter, it seems the consensus is that commenting without reblogging is a case-by-case basis. I'm going to quote a mutual of mine here:

"...if someone is commenting on my work but not reblogging… I'd say it's case by case. If it's just MY fics they aren’t reblogging, then it'd be a problem, but if they don’t reblog ANY [fics] I'd be more okay."

Another mutuals also put it this way:

"... I feel like there *is* both sides in this sense; yes comments are nice and engaging even though they aren't the preferred and most helpful way to boost writers..."

I feel like both of them put it into words where I struggled to. I will also say that I do agree with the point being that if you're not gonna reblog ANYTHING– no art, no content, no photos, no other fics, nothing– AND your profile adheres to the guidelines set forth in basic Tumblr etiquette (not looking like a bot and not a minor) then sure, comment away.

The verdict, in summary with my opinion and mutuals': it depends on your behavior and your interactions with other works and content.

I hate the word content but I couldn't think of another one.

But, my question still stands: why are you on Tumblr when you don't even participate in the basic fundamental function of this site?

I also wanted to take the time to address the other part of your ask regarding the doxxing and people finding out your identity.

It has been very widely known for (close to) two decades now that Tumblr is the place where you can have an anonymous identity. Truly. I've been on here for the collective half of the last decade and have been on the Internet for a little more than half my life, now, and Tumblr and fandom are literally the biggest and best places where you can be someone else. You can be completely anonymous.

The common denominator, however, is you.

The amount of information you have on your blog is what you choose to put on it. If you state your real name, your state and city, have one of those (imo stupid) carrd things or whatever, then honey– and I mean this in the nicest way possible, truly– that is on you. I know for a fact (from good and bad experiences) that you have all of the power in the world to annonymize yourself while still maintaining yourself on the Internet. That make sense?

A couple of mutuals made very excellent points regarding this:

"...I have a best friend irl who has Tumblr and is so close to the fandoms I'm in, and she doesn't know I write here. I am anonymous on here. I'm suprised she hasnt connected the dots because my aesthetics are the same in real life..."

"...I personally think its pretty easy to be anonymous on tumblr. Especially since usually all we ask is you have that you aren’t a minor at the top of your blog..."

"...it's really easy to be anonymous on the internet [...] you can be an ENTIRELY different person on the internet..."

From that last mutual, I'll paraphrase and go off of another point they made: the fact that you do want to participate and comment negates your ENTIRE arguement because someone– anyone– can find you and your blog through said comment(s).

Your digital footprint is what you leave behind. So if you have your city and state and grade and real name and all this other shit in your blog or carrd or whatever, then you are the only one who is responsible for having put said information out there.

Hell, I've been mutuals with some people going on 2-3 YEARS at this point and the only other things they know about me is my state, general city vicinity, my cat, and what I do for a living. That's it. And we span from early twenties to married with a kid or two.

We are in charge of what we share and I implore you– as someone with a certification in legal information technology– to please educate yourself on your Internet privacy and digital footprint. Please take the time to think about your actions and the information you have online. I STILL do this to this day, even after getting certified and being on the Internet for half my life.

I am sorry that you've gotten doxxed in the past. Truly, I am. It's a horrible act and I hope you never have to experience that again. Please know I am not being dismissive of that nor trying to blame you for said acts.

But it all comes down to you at the end of the day. In general, it's you, your actions, and the consequences of your actions. And if you happen to be a minor, then I strongly urge you to rethink your decisions and maybe step away from social media and utilize critical thinking in order to asses your situation and who you surround yourself with, both online and offline. I wish I had someone to tell me that when I was 14– fuck, even when I was 18.

And I mean it when I say AO3 might suit you more than Tumblr. If any fandom site has more capabilities to be anonymous than Tumblr itself, it's AO3.

Anyways, I think that's all I have to say for you. My DMs and ask box are always open and I am open to more commentary on the matter and related ones so long as it is civil and respectful. I refuse to stop having this conversation.

Thank you for listening ❤️

[pikazardtnt]

So I know that everyone uses "The Summoning" by Sleep Token in their Astarion thirst traps on Tiktok but hear me out. I just started my evil dark urge playthrough and I listened to it while doing some stuff and it is such a Minthara coded song especially the chorus/bit that I see all over Tiktok. Let's do some analysis! Keep in mind I JUST got past the grove and couldn't contain my thoughts. "Oh, and my love Did I mistake you for a sign from God?"

She thinks your character is with the absolute. And that the Absolute has great love for you given your strength. "Or are you really here to cut me off? Or maybe just to turn me on"

This line just reminds me of the night you have together in celebration of your bloodbath (why was the scene so in depth though? Like its the longest scene I have seen. Not that I'm complaining). "'Cause these days I would be lying if I told you that I didn't wish that I could be your man Or maybe make a good girl bad"

She literally wants to take you home when this is all done "I would have you by my side" it also makes me think of the "I can make them worse" trope. And I love that. And I think it might be mutual (if you play like I do). Minthara feeding into the dark urge's worst well, urges, the dark urge indulging in the massacre by their beloved's side. Dragging her down to their level in spite of her fear. Though they will be restrained for her, and her alone. She's powerful. They are powerful. They will be powerful together and revel in what said power can do for them. (keep in mind this is just my hypothesis/interpretation from early on)

[cgogs]

I’ve been meaning to leave a nice message in your ask box for a week or two now, ever since I found your writing, but I never have the words to express just how much I absolutely adore your writing. I’m literally just. staring blankly ahead trying my best to make my brain articulate words but goddamn do your fics leave me completely speechless.

I found Oxeye Daisy while searching the c!dnf tag on tumblr in a desperate attempt to feed my brain. I’m a multishipper at heart but sometimes DNF rents out any and all available space in my mind and refuses to leave. Then I saw it, your post. Announcing that the first chapter was up. I followed you, we’re mutuals even, how had I missed it?

I open it. Its only chapter has more than 10k words. It’s c!dnf. I can’t believe it, I hit the jackpot. The first scene has me instantly hooked and I don’t stop reading until I finish the entire thing. I could See the first scene so clearly. it’s so clear that it’s blurry, because I even imagined the rain. Dream and George’s dynamic is a breath of fresh air, it’s exactly what I want to read. It’s messy, it’s complicated, even unhealthy sometimes. They can’t communicate for shit yet they both try, and don’t try, because they love each other.

They make me lose my mind. Like vibrate out of my skin while reading lose my mind. Like the first thing I did after finishing the chapter was run to @dreamslesbian's DMs and scream continuously for an hour lose my mind. And God don’t even get me started on that scene in the mineshaft. Plus the flashback? Them kissing for air? THEM KISSING FOR AIR. OH MY FUCKING GOD I CLAWED AT MY ENCLOSURE, I TELL YOU. The codependency got me so good.

AND THAT’S JUST THE FIRST CHAPTER. YESTERDAY I WOKE UP TO THE UPDATE RIGHT. The first thing I did in the entire day was read it. Like, immediately. I INHALED IT. I LOVED IT OKAY, IT’S EQUALLY AS GOOD AS THE FIRST ONE, IT’S JUST A WONDERFUL CONTINUATION, IT FITS SO WELL. Every time they talk I just @#%&/!=)$?@ GOD. I love how you write them. LIKE GEORGE????? INCREDIBLE SHOW-STOPPING AMAZING WONDERFUL. He’s soooooooooo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love him. Him wanting Dream to want him, to need him. The entire part where he stops talking out of spite? LOVE IT. When they talk about it afterwards? Dream’s response to everything. ALSO THE FACT THAT DREAM IS ERRATIC IN HIS RESPONSES SOMETIMES??? Like the morning after him and George talk, when George takes the arrow out of his shoulder, how he’s acting completely different, closed off, with the mask on??? MY GOD. LIKE YEEESSS IT’S THAT SWEET SWEET TRAUMA LET’S GOOO. AND THE FACT THAT THEY ARE BOTH TOUCH-STARVED AS HELL BUT THINGS ARE HARD AND DIFFICULT AND UEUEUEUE

I feel like they managed to communicate a lot more in the second chapter, even if it was still a mess, and I’m honestly scared for the next chapter but in a super excited ‘i hope they suffer emotionally, i hope they cry, I hope I cry, I hope we all cry’ type of way.

OH AND THE FACT THAT DREAM STILL WANTS TO GO ALONG WITH THE PLAN AFTER EVERYTHING? I N C R E D I B L E.

Also I’m not even half finished like I uhhh haven’t even started talking about for queen and country like uh.

I AMM CRYING FFOR REAL THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MMY LIFR this is making my week my month my year like.

I put so much effort into oxeye daisy like blood sweat tears fingernails , i am so fucking glad to have made content people were hungry for like THE PEOPLE NEEDED THIS FIC... THE C!DNFERS.....

I'm going to reread this message one million times. I wish I could frame it. I'm showing all my friends. And my cat.

[endcant]

aimless musings on subgenre, citypop, and internet subcultures

theres something very interesting about watching citypop become very mainstream in korea and watching that feed back into both western listeners’ opinions and also into the sometimes-cynical efforts of a variety of kpop producers

a lot of people in the youtube/kpop sphere talk about the growth of citypop as if it were a spontaneous wave that appeared out of nowhere with mariya takeuchi’s plastic love getting picked up by the youtube algorithm in like 2018 or whatever, but thats a very like online-ignorant view of the interaction between vintage japanese music and worldwide online EDM production. citypop has been used in future funk and vaporwave for almost a decade by now, and, as a result, a number of citypop songs took off on social media here and there before plastic love’s acceleration— dress down by kaworu akimoto is one of the big examples off the top of my head, but there’s likely many many more.

“Plastic Love” by Mariya Takeuchi (1984). if you haven’t heard this yet, you’d better listen to it now. The video that first went viral was uploaded in 2017

“Selfish High Heels” by Yung Bae, Macross 82-99, and Harrison (2014) is a popular Future Funk remixes of Dress Down by Kaoru Akimoto (1986)

people who haven’t been very aesthetically literate online over the years— musically or visually, since those things are tied in subcultures— treat things like they come from nowhere. there are ongoing subcultural conversations that lead to certain aesthetic choices, and when someone tries to cash in on a trend without understanding what the trend is, that leads people to call bullshit. calling bullshit is not meanspirited, in my opinion, because it very much is like somebody who can’t speak a language getting up in front of everybody and saying “hey, i’m fluent!” and then speaking some vaguely that-language-sounding nonsense. of course people who genuinely speak that language will be outraged instinctively. it feels like being mocked.

that’s why the difference between music producers picking up on a trend cynically and music producers picking up on a trend with earnest interest in that trend’s origins feels different, even if the producers are similarly distant from the original subculture that produced that trend.

“Lady” by Yubin (2018) committed hard to the 80s JP citypop aesthetic, musically and visually, down to the sets, all fairly early in the major resurgence.

i’m sure that anyone with a passing familiarity with citypop and kpop can ascertain that not all kpop producers know what citypop is and what makes it citypop. all they know is that it is on-trend and they have to make it. not all kpop listeners know what citypop is and what makes it citypop. all they know is their idol said citypop as a buzzword in their little prepared statement. all this results in some interesting moments for me as a Music Fan, Online.

here is where i get to the thing that spurred this post: loona “did a citypop” for their japanese comeback. it doesnt sound like citypop.

“Hula Hoop (Citypop Version)” by Loona (2021). It has very odd percussion rhythms and mixing for citypop, no real attempt at a citypop verse, and strangely sparse gestures towards citypop in the form of a few seconds of bass and some synthesized orchestral embellishments that were taken from the original mix …all in spite of a very disco-inspired melody that should have worked perfectly for citypop

this is not a very big deal, and im not mad about it or anything. when a kpop act i like gets saddled with an unfortunate B-Side track i dont tend to take it very hard. however, it did raise a little bit of musical discourse in the loona fandom— in the form of remixes.

“hula hoop if it was actually a citypop song” by loonahatetwinks and Olivia Soul on youtube. this one has an original instrumental that is spot-on for contemporary k-citypop

My most favorite one of these remixes is a futurefunk remix by ZSunder, one of the very best LOONA fan producers. The fact that ZSunder thought to make a future funk remix at all speaks more to an understanding of the mutually supportive relationship between citypop and EDM genres than most kpop citypop producers or fanmixers seem to care to know about.

“Hula Hoop (Future Funk Mix)” by ZSunder is futurefunk made and mixed with such love that it has the infectious summery energy of a polished, big-name future funk hit

in the comments of this video, some people seemed to get the citypop-future funk connection and some didnt. many did get it, don’t get me wrong! but also, its not all that surprising for some kpop-focused listeners to not know much about EDM subcultures and the reasons behind various trends among producers, since kpop as an institution tends to take influences from any genre and culture it likes and then decontextualize those influences by just having their names used as buzzwords in the blurbs the idols have to recite when variety show hosts ask them about their latest single. this isn’t a criticism of the genre or the fans really, it’s just a part of the kpop industry that is used to add shine to an endless firehose-like stream of polished pop tracks. there are some issues with using whole genres and subcultures with complex histories as buzzwords, but god help us if we ever want a pop industry to give its influences their dues.

anyway, the intention behind ZSunder’s future funk Hula Hoop remix happened to remind me me of why i love Yukika’s discography so much, especially the Soul Lady album. I’ve seen some reviews online baffled by parts of Soul Lady, because the album in general is an exploration of that relationship between citypop and modern/internet EDM. i’ve seen plenty of Soul Lady reviews especially baffled by pit-a-pet, saying something along the lines of “what’s with the modern-sounding dance track in the middle of a retro album?”, but i think that pit-a-pet is a futurefunk-inspired track, at least in the chorus. considering both that and the Chill Lo-Fi Interludes, it seems like estimate’s team put together Soul Lady for Yukika in a way that shows that they love citypop and understand the online-specific electronic music subcultures that led to citypop’s resurgence.

“pit-a-pet” by Yukika (2020). the stacatto, bass heavy chorus is futurefunk enough, but the soaring orchestral part in the final chorus seals the deal for my interpretation.

“All Flights Are Delayed (1 hour version)” by Yukika (2020). Estimate literally released an hour-long youtube mix of one of the Lo-Fi interludes on Soul Lady as part of their promotion, clearly inspired by “Lo-Fi anime beats to chill out to,” which is another example of online producers from around the world using Japanese samples as a focal point of their music

Estimate, in the end, is still a Kpop production company, just the same as BBC, so they have no inherent claim over citypop, but the way that their exploration of subgenres clearly comes from passion and interest on the part of their production staff makes it so that their work with Yukika rings true. on the other hand, i really appreciate Ryan S. Jhun’s work on LOONA’s JP comeback, as well as on Not Friends, but the citypop mix thing was so clearly an afterthought to the point where fans of Loona who like citypop seem mostly just irritated by the cynical-seeming attempt.

heres one last good modern kpop citypop MV that has nods to the internet culture that led to its revival in the form of the videography— vaporwave, future funk, lofi, and other internet genres along those lines tend to have videos consisting of looping anime and vhs clips. future funk in particular is known for this, especially since a lot of future funk music, esp early future funk, is just loops of very short, catchy segments of citypop and disco songs. it’s all about the loops

“My Type” by Yoon JongShin ft. Miyu Takeuchi (2019). This song is so dedicated to the retro JP citypop sound that it’s almost beyond my personal taste. The singer, Miyu, was a headlining act at a seoul citypop festival and sang this song as part of her act (:

this video of “Only One” by Conscious Thoughts (2015) has a looped clip as an example for comparison with My Type. it also has a pulsing sidechain compressor working in time with its drum beat in a way that is common for future funk and that i think is a good example for my pit-a-pet yukika comparison to future funk

i guess the takeaway here is that media is more and more online, and the creation and propagation of digital audio and video content has been in the hands of literally almost anybody who wants to do it for the past two decades thanks to garage band and fruityloops and audacity and tiktok and youtube and bandcamp and soundcloud and myspace and newgrounds and p2p file sharing and so on and so forth. and therefore like… as with all things, the consumer class more and more is also the creator class, and therefore every member of an audio-visual subculture will have the ability to discern what is and isnt made with knowledge of the audio-visual language of that subculture

[esepoimipullula]

Alright, so... this is the utterly self-indulgent essay. XD

For any non-Italian readers: remember the introductory note on my translation of Goofy and The Perfect New Year’s Eve Handbook? About Italian Goofy (Pippo) having a huuuuuuuuuge family? Well, everyone in this family is, ofc, either just as quirky or nearly as quriky as Goofy himself... which makes for a lot of interesting personalities. Like Goofy's cousin, Indiana Pipps. Or Arizona Goof, in English. Presumably to make the joke at least a little bit subtler.

... yes, "the joke" is that he's literally an Indiana Jones parody. Who happens to be related to Goofy and look almost exactly (or exactly, depending on the story) like him. He's an "adventure archaeologist" who spends most of his time scouring South American jungles for lost pre-Colombian temples full of traps and treasure, travelling through scorching deserts to find legendary Egyptian ruins, and stumbling into fantarchaeology/Ancient Aliens/magical/mystical relics. He's brave, smart, passionate, confident to the point of being actually a bit arrogant, kind of reckless and hotheaded, a little rough, rather snarky, and has a strong sense of justice... and a bunch of strange habits and quirks. Like his penchant from entering buildings from the window rather than from the door (because that would be too easy), his preference for sleeping bags over beds and tents over houses (though he does have a house just out of Mouseton... in a dangerous swamp complete with crocodiles), his dislike and distrust for city life in general, and his love for a particular brand of strong-flavored liquorice candies called "Negritas" that almost everyone else finds adsolutely disgusting. Through the years, he's fallen in love with a bunch of female characters (starting with Clarabelle Cow, or so the internet tells me... Goof guys trying to steal her away from Horace must be a bizarre family tradition) and he's had a bunch of female characters fall in love with him, as you can expect considering he's the Dr. Jones of the Mouseverse and everything. But none of these crushes has ever really gone anywhere... whether because of a bout of obliviousness preventing him from realizing his temporary sidekick had been head over heels for him the whole time (sorry, Martina), a misguided attempt to present as a more traditional academic for a nerdy professor who unexpectedly turned out to be really into the adventurer type, or fairy law forbidding him to marry his French fairy sweetheart (yup, that happened).

Ironically, his most constant and long-lasting is with his nemesis, Dr. Kranz. (Nope, no name given.) (Yes, this is going to be an "enemies to lovers" kinda thing... except with, like, A Twist. So if you don't like that kind of dynamic or think people shouldn’t like messed-up ships or anything like that, you'd probably better stop reading.)

Kranz and Indiana appeared together in Indiana's first story, Mickey and Goofy in: Raiders of the Lost Temple by Bruno Sarda, and have been chasing each other for one reason or another ever since. Kranz is an adventure archaeologist, too, but despite being (almost) as skilled and succesful at his job as Indiana, he spends an awful lot of time following him around and trying to steal his discoveries... most often by putting on some disguise, stalking him from a distance, and popping out of nowhere with a gun and a mocking smirk as soon as Indiana finds the hidden lost idol/treasure/artifact/city.

Despite some weird occasional foray into the world of attempted world domination, Kranz is (mostly) into the whole villain business for the money and the fame. The money because he loves luxury (especially fast cars and five-star hotels) and sells a good chunk of what he finds or steals to unscrupulous clients or outright villainous organizations to afford to live the good life, and the fame because he has a big ego and (somehow, still) a reputation as a respectable archaeologist that feeds into it... and he's always trying to overshadow Indiana, because he hates being always second best to him. Which is just as well, because Indiana hates his attempts to steal his own discoveries, his criminal activities, his utter lack of ethics, and his greed. Whenever they see each other without either of them ending up on the wrong end of a gun or tied up for the local authorities to find, they usually still end up at each other's throat anyway. Or at least, insulting and teasing each other the whole time.

Except... it wasn't always like that. Back in the day, Indiana and Kranz were actually students in the same college. And roommates (YES, "and they were roommates!"). And "inseparable" best friends who got along very well despite their differences and genuinely cared for each other. And after graduating, even adventuring partners, at least occasionally. Kranz already loved money and luxury, and Indiana had already started to develop his simpler yet more bizarre tastes, but they were good together.

There's actually a recent mini-series about their college years written by Bruno Sarda himself, Young Indiana. It's pretty much a shipper's delight, as it contains high amounts of fluff, overdramatic (and suspiciously coupley imho) friendship drama with a happy ending, hugs, kisses, straight love drama taking a backseat as the focus stays firmly on the friendship drama, and a certain amount of foreshadowing of (angsty) things to come. But their old friendship was already an established fact before that...

Like in the story Indiana Pipps and the Return of Doctor Kranz, where Indiana ends up telling Mickey the story of how they parted ways and became enemies. Which was apparently inspired by something that happened in the Martin Mystère comics, but I've never read them so I wouldn't know. Long story short, Indiana and Kranz where on an expedition together when they unexpectedly found an absurdly powerful ray gun left behind by Ancient Aliens. As it turned out, by that point Kranz had already been in contact with a shady organization that would have paid good money for something like that, so he proposed they should sell the gun to them and share the profits of the sale. Indiana immediately opposed the idea, of course, being all like, "wtf dude idk about YOU apparently but I have morals and also a sense of professional ethics"... so Kranz knocked him out, took the gun, wrote him a note about how you shouldn't slap good luck away, and fled to the other side of the world, where a man from the organization would await him. But when Indiana woke up, he immediately started trying to track him, eventually ruining the sale right before it could go through and throwing the gun into the sea, where it would never be found again. At that point, Kranz swore he'd have his revenge on him by basically costantly tailing him and ruining his life and career, never leaving him a moment of peace.

Which he's sometimes been pretty succesful at, considering there's been a whole story about Indiana being so stressed due to Kranz appearing out of the blue to ruin his day, it turns into some sort of bizarre mania where he believes everyone and anyone is secretly Kranz in disguise. However, the same story also has Kranz being so stressed due to Indiana constantly foiling his schemes that he goes on a cruise to just forget about him and relax for a while... and ends up jumping off the ship when he mistakenly believes Indiana might be on it, too. So, that's a two-way street, I guess.

So, basically... friends to enemies, genuine affection being ruined by greed and ambition and turning into resentment and spite and straight-up hatred, a degree of mutual obsession and general unhealthiness. But that's not really all there is to their relationship.

There's also stories where they're forced to collaborate to reach the same goal and have to behave more or less civilly, or even where they choose to do so willingly and end up actually still being a good team. There's stories where getting good results while working together makes them behave almost amicably, as much as they're able or willing to. Stories where they acknowledge their past together, if not their old friendship, and even the similarities between them. Stories where they find themselves with someone they both look down down or hate even more than each other, and find some common ground insulting and snarking at them in-between doing the same to each other. Where they grudgingly help each other out.

And then, there's Indiana Pipps e il soccorso obbligato. The story I blame for getting me into this ship in the frist place, when I could be here reading and writing Scroldie or Dimeshipping or Donsy or Mickey/Minnie or literally any other of my Disney comics ships that people other than me actually ship.

In Il soccorso obbligato, Kranz gets kidnapped by some shady guys while he's working on a revolutionary archaeological discovery, except he's not been kidnapped and he's not actually close to finding anything that awesome, and it's all just a convoluted trap to get back at Indiana for laughing at him one time because he's terrible. But Indiana doesn't know that, and so he and Mickey rush to the rescue and fly to a whole other continent to find him...

That story really has everything. From Kranz coming up with a ridiculous and ridiculously cruel plan because he might be used to Indiana insulting him and mocking him but sometimes his former friend laughing at him and acting all superior and better than him still hurts, to Indiana actually falling for it and trying to justify to himself why he does, telling himself that after so many years spent (fighting) together there's a bond between them and he owes it to Kranz... and admitting he’s worried about him. From Indiana still remembering little details about Kranz and their past together and looking almost fond as he talks about them, to Kranz being both petty and obsessed enough to leave a journal full of insults to Indiana for him to find as a clue and setting his password to a mocking phrase about him (and Indiana, who should expect some stuff like that or at least be used to it, still getting riled up and planning on giving Kranz an earful when he finds him). From Kranz assuming Indiana would only come save him if he threw an imaginary fantarchaeological discovery into the mix because then Indiana wouldn't be able to resist his "archaeological curiosity", to Indiana considering said discovery more of a secondary concern and actually regretting and feeling almost guilty for mocking Kranz the last time they saw each other before the supposed kidnapping... and recklessly, unthinkingly running over a thin ice bridge over a gaping chasm just to get to him, throwing all caution to the wind even as he tells himself he doesn't even know why he's doing it. And the way they still KNOW each other despite everything that happened, maybe even because of everything that happened! The angst! The complicated, unspoken, repressed things! Being a softie and a sap, I'm always a sucker for "the hero and the villain actually have a bond and care for each other on some level even if it's not the healthiest or most normal thing"... but considering the history between these two? Though the story in itself is very fun and entertaining, it never fails to break my heart a little.

And in all honesty, I might end up writing fanfictions about them. Fanfictions full of angst and pining and conflicted feelings and "we were never lovers but oh god we could have been --- if you hadn't screwed up everything in the end, at least" college stuff with a mess of obliviousness and repressed feelings, most likely.

[bloggerthannothing]

Jesus Christ Superstar is Very Good

[I'm familiar with the 1973 film version, so that's what I'm talking about here. This may or may not apply to other renditions.]

I.

Jesus Christ Superstar is an...interesting rock opera interpretation of the gospel narrative. 

If I had to describe it with one word, it would be "juxtaposition". Ancient Roman guards wielding AK-47s coexist with afro-hippies living in adobe huts. King Herod sings a whimsical falsetto tune just minutes before the thirty-nine lashings of Christ are counted off in an agonized voice by a guilt-ridden Pontius Pilate. 'Tonal whiplash' is perhaps putting it a bit lightly.

But somehow, it works. The anachronisms give it a sort of magical realism which suits its timeless theme. That theme is "idealism versus pragmatism", or perhaps "kindness versus effectiveness." 

The opera opens with a song by Judas, of all people. Judas is depicted here not as a greedy turncoat, but as someone who cares deeply about Jesus, Jesus' ideals, and the welfare of others. 

Listen, Jesus, I don't like what I see

All I ask is that you listen to me

And remember

I've been your right hand man all along

…

And believe me

My admiration for you hasn't died

But every word you say today

Gets twisted 'round some other way

And they'll hurt you if they think you've lied

…

I am frightened by the crowd

For we are getting much too loud

And they'll crush us if we go too far

…

Listen, Jesus, to the warning I give

Please remember that I want us to live

He points out that money spent on expensive perfumes for Jesus could have been used to feed the poor (a topic close to my own heart). We have every reason to believe what he says - that he only wants what is best for Jesus and the occupied Jews. 

But his desire for the movement to succeed pragmatically, for Jesus and the apostles (and himself) to stay 'safe' leads him to be cold, uncaring, and of course, a murderer.

While he obviously cares for Jesus, it's undeniable that there's resentment and even anger in his dialogue (performed amazingly well by Carl Anderson here. Seriously, listen to it, it's incredible).

Nazareth, your famous son

Should have stayed a great unknown

Like his father carving wood

He'd have made good

Tables, chairs, and oaken chests

Would have suited Jesus best

He'd have caused nobody harm, no one alarm

He is overly concerned with how Jesus appears to others, urging Jesus to associate less with prostitutes for the sake of his public image. He prioritizes looking good over actually being good.

At best, he could be said to "indulge" Jesus' claims about being the son of God, and at worst he's outright skeptical of them.

I remember when this whole thing began

No talk of God then, we called you a man

Judas is characterized so heavily because the film revolves around the ideological conflict between him and Jesus. While Judas is pragmatic to the point of being cold and cruel, Jesus is idealistic and trusting to a fault. He refuses to explain himself to others or take any measures to ensure others understand what he means. 

So why would the viewer like or sympathize with Jesus? Because he is shown, not as a divine chessmaster who knows everything, but as an honest and conflicted servant to a higher being he doesn't understand. When a crowd asks him to die for them, we see the fear in his eyes.

At the garden of Gethsemane, he has a gut-wrenching solo performance where he desperately begs God to let him live, or at least explain why he has to die (another amazing performance, this time by Ted Neeley). 

Why, why should I die?

Why should I die?

Can you show me now that I would not be killed in vain?

Show me just a little of your omnipresent brain

Show me there's a reason for your wanting me to die

You're far too keen on 'where' and 'how' but not so hot on 'why'

And that is why Jesus' struggle here is emotional and moving, maybe even more than the canonical Christian Jesus!

The canonical Christian Jesus knew that he was the Son of God, knew that he had to die to redeem mankind's sins, and knew that he would live forever in Heaven after his Passion [1]. He experiences fear and pain, of course, but the guaranteed eternal paradise and his direct line to God the Father give him a kind of solace that no other mortal has ever had access to.

Superstar Jesus Christ? He's plagued by uncertainty, unsure of what his greater role is in God's plan. He is privy to no private information and has no guarantees whatsoever. For all he knows, he'll suffer and die for nothing, leaving his people to be dispersed and oppressed long after he's gone. 

Just like with Judas, we have a character with a truly human blend of mixed emotions. Devotion and faith to God, fear of pain and suffering and failure, and a desperate desire to know why God won't tell him any more, and perhaps even some spite toward that same God he trusts so much:

Alright, I'll die!

Just watch me die!

See how, see how I die!

Oh, just watch me die

…

Why, then, am I scared to finish

What I started?

What you started!

I didn't start it!

His doubt has him end his prayer in Gethsemane with the tragicomic line:

Bleed me, beat me, kill me, take me now

Before I change my mind!

II.

I know that "idealism versus pragmatism" isn't the deepest or most complex theme in the world, but it's portrayed beautifully here. Two people who ultimately want the same thing, who should be the closest companions, are forced against each other by different beliefs about how to achieve their goals under an oppressive regime that hates both of them. 

It's a story that avoids easy black and white morality, despite the fact that one of the characters is literally Jesus! The fairness with which it portrays the different "ideologies" makes it popular even among atheists (according to my surveys of Youtube comment sections).

This entire philosophical conflict comes to a head in Superstar, sung by the ghost of Judas and an angelic choir to Jesus right just he is crucified.

Why'd you choose such a backward time and such a strange land?

If you'd come today, you would have reached a whole nation

Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication

...

Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ

Who are you? What have you sacrificed?

Jesus Christ, Superstar

Do you think you're what they say you are?

…

Tell me what you think about your friends at the top

Now who'd you think, besides yourself, was the pick of the crop?

Buddha, was he where it's at? Is he where you are?

Could Mohamed move a mountain, or was that just PR?

The premise of this song is unique and emotional. Someone who believes in Jesus, and trusts him, wondering how this could possibly be part of a reasonable plan? Wondering why God would send his son to die, and then spend 2000 years doing not much at all? Wondering why there are other religions, with messiah figures who seem just as confident and spiritual and humble as Jesus, while being mutually contradictory with what Jesus preached?

This entire perspective, well...I empathize with it!

I used to be Christian, and these are the exact kind of questions I struggled with. Through Judas' character, this opera is willing to bring up the hard questions you have to answer when you're a modern, critical, utilitarian-minded Christian. 

But it's not a shallow gotcha, trying to expose how dumb Christianity and Jesus are. Both Judas and Jesus are flawed, emotional, deeply sympathetic characters who have remarkably similar tragic fates. One takes his own life from guilt, and one lets his own life be taken from him through inaction and silence. 

And remember: this is the same musical with the hippies and the AK-47 Roman guards and the falsetto King Herod song! The light-hearted aesthetics lure you into a genuinely moving story about the hard choices you face when trying to be a force for good in a complicated, deeply imperfect world.

And did I mention that it has some banger songs? Hosanna, Damned for All Time, and the Last Supper are all great songs in their own right.

What I'm trying to say is - Jesus Christ Superstar is very good.

[1] Okay, that's Catholicism, probably some other branches of Christianity believe slightly different things. But the basic point still stands.

[avatar-index]

Statement 12411023

Lord Dominator is an Avatar of the End. If Wander is to be believed, she is marked by the Lonely.

“Oh my grop! She's not trying to conquer the galaxy so she can rule it! She wants to destroy it! Man, that's evil!”

Upon listening to her one (and admittedly addicting) hit, “I’m The Bad Guy”, I had assumed that she was an ideal fit for the Desolation; after all, she did have fire-related powers and relished herself by the thought of destruction and causing it. Lord Dominator was quite a refreshing break from the usual baddies present in WoY; not giving a damn about control, and just wanting to live in the moment as all that crosses her path gets blasted to smithereens by her own hands and troops. Hell, her shirt has a bleeding heart for a logo- a perfect symbol for the Desolation’s theme of heartbreak.

Yet, with all this talk about destruction and flames, let’s take a quick glance at her targets- being literally everything and everyone this universe has to offer; although it is the end of everything is what she’s after, she isn’t exactly making things personal with its inhabitants. Yes, while she does love their sounds and looks of misery upon destroying their homes and everything they had ever come to be familiar with, that’s not her desired endgame; more like the cherry on the top of her fallen debris sundae.

Allow me to explain- the Desolation is not the fear of stuff breaking around you, it is the fear of everything and everyone that you’ve ever come to cherish throughout your life meeting their end. It is misery, pain, and the knowledge that you will never get what you once loved back, ever. To become its avatar is to feed your inner flame by causing explicit torment onto others, not giving a shit about whether or not that person dies, as long as they are feeling constant inner agony and turmoil for as long as they live.

Now, let’s look at Lord Dominator for a second: in spite of her hyperactive and cheerful demeanor, the concept of closeness and even the term “friendship” are completely alien to her; all she ever came to know in life is the lifestyle of being a commander while everyone else in her sight is either there for her service or is a free punching bag. Upon learning of what the concept of friendship truly means, she immediately brushed it off- claiming that it is overrated and dumb that friends aren’t meant to obey her command.

This is what separates the End from the Desolation- the later focuses on your wellbeing, your stability, and your closest allies and family; while the former is uncaring, for death will come for us all, whether we like it or not. She cannot be under the Desolation because the concept of love is unknown to her- at least Jude Perry was madly in love with both her wife and, later on, Agnes, and to recognize what it means to love and care is what makes the targets of Desolation avatars all the more clearer. The Desolation is pain, the End is in its name- the Earth coming to a halt for all.

Now, onto her Lonely marking; by the series’ end, Wander makes the note that, perhaps, the reason why she’s so bent on all this destruction is due to the fact that she wants to distract herself from the crushing emptiness in her life- so she inflicts it onto everyone else. Though she harshly pushed his helping hand away, for a second, you could see that there was a mutual understanding of the issue, and that, maybe, Wander was right.

Do we ever come to know of her family? Her ‘friends’? Or even whatever colleagues she may have had? If destroying everything in the galaxy was her one way to cope, and the fact that she was completely unaware of what “friends” are, then perhaps cruelty and pain is all that she grew up with, and she later on came to adopt it as her lifestyle and goal.

[smartguyreviewed]

2x5 - Dumbstruck

Original air date:  October 8, 1997

Yay, an episode where TJ is actually acting like a kid! And also an excuse for me to rant about how much I despise group projects.

A very over it Lisa Simpson (played by Yeardley Smith) is handing back tests to her dumb ass students save for TJ and this annoying white kid named Clark that we’ll be introduced to briefly because Mackey ended up being the lead token white on this show, right next to Yvette’s cute friend Nina.

Clark asks how TJ did. He humble brags and Marcus snatches his test to gloat about his brother finally not doing well at something. Sike! TJ got a 110 on his assignment. Marcus is dumbfounded since he clearly doesn’t even put in the bare minimum. 

Lisa has to remind Marcus that demonstrating how you actually studied will get you more points. She gives her lazy, remedial students a chance to make up for their piteous attempts with a makeup assignment, an oral group report on WW2. Now everyone is mad at TJ because he fucked up the curve of the grading system, facilitating the need for a makeup assignment. Mackey is pissed.

Marcus and Mo of course decide to stick all the work on TJ while they go to Dawgburger. TJ, now wanting to fit in with his cool brother and bestie, agrees but is promptly thrown into a garbage can by Mackey and his 30 year old goon when they give him shit for being smart. Because the plot calls for it in this episode, TJ isn’t masterminding a plan to put fudged up charges on Mackey’s record or flunk him out of school forever. 

At the Henderson crib, TJ is attempting to do the assignment but the boys are watching The Three Stooges with non-copyright stock sound effects and can’t be bothered to lower the volume. Even Floyd stops scolding Marcus and Mo to join them. Apparently, TJ thinks being a genius and being entertained by slapstick are mutually exclusive.

Yvette is in the kitchen frowning at her fruitless yogurt when TJ comes in to whine about feeling left out. Yvette, as usual, is there to provide motherly advice and reassure TJ that he’s too brilliant to relate to simpleton humor. She even suggests that he’ll be the only non crooked black politician on the Supreme Court. Aww. TJ will revenge porn her in the future.

Just then, a truck pulls in with daddy Floyd’s wood--hehe--and the boys, including Mo, gather in the garage to bring in Floyd’s wood--last time, I promise--to wherever it needs to go.

Yvette comes in after the gang delegates how the work flow will commence and then commands the plot for the episode when she tells TJ his shoe is untied while Mo and Marcus are handing boards to each other. This ended well.

After passing out, Marcus, who is terrifyingly not alarmed, just calls for Floyd and then we end up at the hospital where it seems that TJ’s relatively light board smack has now rendered him dumb. Not only dumb but more childish than usual.

Marcus cares nothing about TJ’s prognosis, however, because he is a horny teenage boy and the doc is hot. Yvette has to literally drag him out of the room by his ear.

The doctor tells Floyd that this strange concussion could leave TJ acting like this for weeks. Of course Floyd is concerned since TJ is gifted. The next morning, TJ is so forgetful and delayed at breakfast that Floyd and Yvette have to play charades to help him navigate feeding himself.

Marcus comes in and asks if TJ is back to normal because he doesn’t want to do anything that makes him use his own damn brain for a change. After Flody sees this because Marcus did it right in the kitchen where he was about three feet away, he of course takes Marcus aside to tell him to quit badgering TJ to get well again.

At school, Mo thinks it’s a good idea to simply undo TJ’s problem by hitting him in the head again. Since we’re working off corny sitcom logic, he’s not exactly off base here. I mean, it did only take two light hits from a wooden board to turn TJ into an imbecile so why not do the same to get him back to normal, right?

During class, TJ is wowing everyone with his diminished IQ that was announced to everyone in the class for some reason. Eh, it’s Piedmont so I really shouldn’t be surprised that all of his business is out there.

Lisa is pissed because now that TJ is dumb and she hates Clark for some reason, teaching will be damn near impossible because nobody participates. I think I feel her pain because she asks a super easy question (what naval base did the Japanese attack) and nobody but annoying ass Clark answers. Poor thing. She probably came into this profession bright-eyed and bushy tailed, ready to change students’ lives and become the next Erin Gruwell but ended up becoming nothing more than a de facto babysitter.

TJ is taking advantage of being one of the guys by making fun of the more deadly effects of dropping bombs and says it led to radioactive monsters. The boys laugh but Lisa is aggy that nobody is taking this seriously. To spite her idiot students, she makes the reports worth half of their grade. Mackey blames Clark instead of the teacher who literally just assigned it. For some reason, this tickles Clark even though he’s going to end up in the garbage soon.

Since TJ is one of the guys again, he manages to tag along with the crew at Dawgburger, a place he wasn’t invited to earlier since he was going to do their group assignment all by himself. In hindsight, I hated group projects because I did all of the work anyways since my cohorts were dumb as rock boxes, so this wouldn’t have bothered me at all. Abolish group projects!

Post Dawgburger, TJ is in bed reading a comic and shooting the shit with Marcus. This is sweet. I like seeing siblings bond on TV shows because the regular narrative always seems to involve them all hating each other. Here, there’s no drama, just Marcus actually being responsible because he’s studying for the oral report and TJ, in what would be his natural state if he weren’t a genius. They even have a heart to heart when TJ asks if he’ll be okay and what would happen once he’s back to normal. Marcus says he’ll still stick up for him. Aww.

In geometry the next day, TJ’s intelligence just comes right back after he flawlessly recites the Pythagorean theorem when the dorky teacher asks. Once he realizes this, and after having probably the few easiest days in a while, TJ understandably commits to pretending to be a dolt. That is until pops sees TJ’s quantum physics magazine inside of a comic book!

Floyd traps TJ by making up a pretty damn good scenario in the Jughead comics but later confirms the lie by letting TJ know that wasn’t in the comic. He goes into how he likes being dumb with the guys because they like him more. Makes sense! TJ has nothing in common with them outside of attending their school but now he’s intellectually on their level. He knows this would change once he goes back to his regular self. Floyd should know this too but alas. I do love how he tells TJ he won’t rat on him. TJ returns the favor by telling his dad that he should write for the Jughead comics because that story he made up made him LOL super hard.

We cut to school where Mackey is just finishing up his group presentation about the X-Men invading Iwo Jima. Lisa Simpson isn’t impressed. Marcus and crew are up next and poor Marcus is struggling. I think it’s so funny that Marcus, a singer with a whole ass band, has stage fright upon trying to remember everything he studied for but just goes to show that music comes easier to him than school.

The internal monologues of everyone come up. Marcus is trying to remember what he studied. TJ contemplates bringing his brain back. Mo is...fucking beatboxing in his head. This shit had me dead when I first saw this episode. 

However, Lisa ain’t having it. She is two seconds away from using the dreaded red pen before TJ saves the day and begins talking about WW2. The boys are shocked but it helps trigger Marcus’s memory and then he’s able to spew out the facts. Mo doesn’t contribute but he will definitely take the credit! 

Later in the Henderson crib, Marcus is pissed because TJ almost let them fail. Although TJ is reminding Marcus that he put his effort into something and it paid off, Marcus is still annoyed leading TJ to think he doesn’t like him anymore.

Marcus explains that he enjoyed TJ’s company when he was dumb because he finally felt like what he is: his older brother. Kind of hard to feel that way when your younger brother is better at everything you do and a major know-it-all. He even admits that he can’t even pretend now that TJ is smart again because it won’t feel the same. I like when Marcus is doing more than chasing girls every episode because he shows maturity at times that is pleasing to watch.

He offers to instead be an older brother in other ways like threatening other people with violence if they make fun of TJ. Cute, but we all know Marcus is scary. Nice gesture though! Floyd comes in and tells the boys good night. At the end, we see Floyd took TJ up on his advice and is submitting an idea to the Jughead comics. Aww Floyd. I wish we’d gotten a subtle nod to if his idea was used because he seemed really happy with himself afterwards. Eh, whatever. Parents aren’t people so who cares.

Things I noticed:

- Clark being oddly satisfied that he knows Mackey and his fellow middle-aged adult friend are going to put him in the trash. Clark either has a crush on Mackey and didn’t like TJ for the attention he got from Mackey or he has some sort of a trash fetish. Or both. Maybe that’s why Lisa doesn’t fuck with him.

- “Okay students, now watch as I turn left to a right triangle.” I’m a dork and this actually made me laugh. Tough classroom, though.

[good-rwbyaus]

Modern AU: College Romance and Goofy Shenanigans

The college AU where Jaune and Pyrrha meet at a dorm party they get dragged to, and surprise their friends by acting to completely out of character by disappearing for a day and a half and showing up together Monday morning covered in hickies and completely smashed.

Jaune: Surprisingly cheerful fellow with a spotted past. His family are very uninvolved in his life, and while they never derided him for his life choices, they never supported him either. He’s in college studying Law thanks to student loans, working overtime for two years before, and his ‘side-job’ at night. Which is participating in Dance competitions that he wins handily, while making side bets on himself through his friends the Twins and their Uncle ‘Junior’. Has an ex boyfriend who’s something of a stalker, and left his hometown in somewhat of a hurry to dodge him. Participates in renaissance weapon battles in his spare time. Occasionally charismatic, but lonelier than he lets on.

Pyrrha: Former child-model looking to escape that drama, she’s a sports enthusiast looking to study kinesiology. She and her parents moved to Vale last year, and she’s struggling to balance her budget thanks to the near-collapse of the Mistral economy and her subsequent buying their way into Vale citizenship eating at her savings from her career, with the rest being used to support her parents. She’s a shoe in for a sports scholarship, but is hesitant to become a ‘star’ again. Knows Palé (Ancient Greek Wrestling) and is a champion javelin thrower. Really wants friends, and a partner who will look past her ‘famous’ background.

Ren: Former drug dealer. Supported himself and Nora while they were in the orphanage thanks to his knowledge of herbs and their mixes; this led to him doing some shady things to get them the money to go to college. And their car. He stopped because Nora begged him to quit before he ruined his life supporting hers when she was just as willing to carry the load. He’s since gone straight, and still feels guilty about the stress he put on Nora with his actions. Studying culinary arts. Practices Tai Chi and judo in parks, and might have a sleeping disorder. Sells doughnuts and pastries at a kiosk in a farmer’s market every weekend.

Nora: The most cheerful waitress in existence. Works at a pancake house, and is pretty much the company mascot. Studying child psychology, and wants to become someone who helps kids. Worries about Ren, and feels guilty that he had to support them when they were younger, and as such spends all of her generous tips on him, despite his protests. Former champion of her school wrestling team. Low-key writes romance stories and is thinking of publishing them.

Ruby: Youngest of the bunch, and stunted socially. Nearly became a shut-in due to social anxiety attacks in her last few years of high-school. Struggles with socialization and dealing with crowds, but wants to change that, even if the thought scares her. Studies metallurgy and wants to be a blacksmith, but will settle for engineering. Her uncle taught her CQC for self-defence and as a way to get her out of the house. Was made to live in a dorm rather than sharing an apartment with Yang as a way to reintegrate her with society.

Weiss: Singer, heiress, and slumming it in a college her father didn’t pick for her out of spite. When her money runs out after her first semester when he cuts her off, she finds herself managing her finances and getting a job as a lounge singer. Stuck rooming with Ruby due to luck, but wound up having a soft spot for her after seeing one of her anxiety attacks. They may or may not cuddle in the same bed most nights. Fencing enthusiast and studying business.

Yang: Brawler and proud of it. Boxing champ and very proud of it. Not so proud of her criminal record and her sordid history with a ‘fight club’ that she used to pay for her apartment/condo. Made Ruby live in a dorm by lying about having a roommate, leading to a desperate search for one on the sly that led to Blake renting her spare room. Trying to get her life back in order after a rough few years, and studying criminology, hoping to be a law officer like her uncle, father, and mother.

Blake: Former terrorist, and freedom fighter both. Used to help smuggle people into new lives, and took advantage of the system for herself after becoming disillusioned with the White Fang. Wants to live peacefully, and is paranoid about being discovered. Works in a second-hand bookshop owned by other ‘retirees’ and pays Yang in cash rather than anything else. Studying sociology and wants to become an advocate of human rights and to build support groups. Kicks all kinds of ass.

*That time everyone noticed that Jaune and Pyrrha were missing after a party, and were united for the first time in their search for their mutual friends. They decide to hang out together more after everything is done.

*That time Jaune and Pyrrha met up at a party, bonded over their mutual awkwardness, and then connected over their loneliness. Then they ran off and started the whole mess.

They were tipsy enough to decide to go make their own fun: Jaune brought her to a Street Dancing competition, introduced her to the Twins and through them, Junior’s Club. Then they went and crashed at the Twin’ place after copious amounts of drinking, got a show, drinks literally poured down their throats, did tons of body shots, and wound up not having sex due to Jaune being a gentleman even while drunk. Both the Twins, and Pyrrha thought that was stupid, and they all got drunk again that morning just so Jaune and Pyrrha could have drunk-sex and pretend they’d done it the night before, also to kill their hangovers.

They went out for a late lunch, noticed that they were on the other side of town, and wound up going to see a movie. Went out for dinner and more drinks, stopped at another Street Dance-Off, won the couples round and the huge pile of prizes, then they wound up running away from Torchwick and Cinder, who are sore losers. They wind up hiding out in a strip club, and are incredibly awkward. Especially when they get offered a ‘couple’s special’.

They drink some more, talking about their family and money problems, and their jobs. They wind up making friends with two of the strippers, Reese and Arlsan, and go back to their apartment where they chat for most of the night about college and the things the students have to do to support themselves.

The Next morning they’re incredibly hungover, and Arslan fixes them up with a litre of water and a triple of scotch each. They’re wearing fresh clothes that they won off of Torchwick and Cinder, which explains their chase, and are showered and Jaune shaved with a pink safety razor. Arslan kisses them both on the cheek and sees them off, telling them to come back for drinks next weekend.

Their friends finally spot them heading for class hand in hand, nearly out of their minds with worry and asking all their classmates if anyone saw them after a day of searching their usual hangouts and filing police reports. They’re stunned to silence when Pyrrha kisses Jaune on the lips, calls him ‘dear’, wishes him a good day, and Jaune asks if they’re still on for dinner.

*That time they decided to help Ren sell his confections, and wound up dealing with the Pastry-Mafia. Threats were had. There may have been  a rumble in an alleyway after they trashed Ren’s kiosk.

*That time Jaune’s crazy ex Giles showed up on Halloween with a cult and they had to fight off eldritch abominations with Renaissance Fair weapons and superpowers.

*The day after, when Ruby wakes up and everyone else tells her what really happened after she got that concussion: kicking the ass of Jaune’s ex and the gang members wearing masks that he had with him.

Ruby and Yang’s Uncle Qrow, Federal Agent (and not a CIA Spy, no siree) is mighty impressed when he tallies up the damage report.

*That time the crazy serial killer that Jaune’s ex was involved with, Prelati, kidnapped him and Pyrrha smacked the crap out of a cult near single-handedly.

Qrow shares his flask with her, she kicked their asses so hard. He’s that impressed. Also, his nieces need to stop calling him in after shit like this goes down. He’s going to have a heart attack at this rate.

*That time everyone went out drinking and discovered that they were at the club Weiss works at, much to her embarrassment. The standing ovation was touching, but distracting! She’s trying to work here!

*That time Blake needed a date to infiltrate an event to determine if there was oppression for her campus-newspaper article, and brought Yang with her and they wound up going out for coffee after and hooking up when the sexual tension between them reached impossible heights.

*That time Ruby kept sneaking into Yang’s apartment at inopportune times, and was nearly traumatized by seeing Blake and Yang in bed together.

*That time SSSN dragged Jaune and Ren to a strip club and awkwardness ruled them all. And Pyrrha and Nora nearly killed them all. And everyone was stupefied that Jaune was on a first name basis with one of the strippers, Arslan, who offered him a discount, but only after asking if he and Pyrrha were doing okay.

*That time that Ruby met Weiss, made a horrible first impression, got lost going to her classes, spilled her lunch, and worked herself up into a panicked frenzy while imagining a year sharing a room with someone who hated her until she had a stress induced breakdown, and woke up a few hours later to find that Weiss was feeding her Hot Chocolate and Decaf-Coffee while cuddling with her under a blanket, telling her how sorry she is for ‘pushing her over the edge’ like that, and how panicked she was when she saw her curled up on the floor. She called her physician to make a house call, she was so worried.

Ruby just breaks down sobbing and tells her about her social-anxiety and panic attacks, and now her sister is going to show up for dinner and see what a mess she is when she was supposed to be going to college to change that. Weiss finds herself growing attached, despite herself, and takes stock of her roommate’s puffy eyes and smudged makeup.

When Yang shows up, Ruby introduces her to Weiss, who apologizes for covering Ruby in facial cream and nail polish when she was supposed to be going to dinner, they just lost track of time. Maybe they could reschedule to lunch tomorrow? Yang cheerfully says that the three of them are on, while Weiss sputters, and Ruby thinks that she’s smitten.

*That time when Weiss went out on a date with Neptune, and spent the entire evening telling herself that she liked men, while talking about Ruby every time he changed subjects.

*That time Blake borrowed Yang’s motorcycle to chase a burglar she thought might be a former White Fang agent, scratched the paint, and had to beg for Ren and Nora’s help fixing it before Yang came back from visiting her dad.

*That time the girls joined Pyrrha at the gym and hijinks ensued as they tried to compare their physical fitness to hers.

*That time Jaune talked about his relationship with Giles, and told everyone that according to his sisters he was obligated to wear women’s clothes half of the time they were dating, which led to some awkward habits forming, some sometimes funny, sometimes tragic moments going to church, and how their relationship broke down due to social pressure, their mutual and distinct social issues, and Giles’ issues with being seen dating a man.

Jaune admits that, in hindsight, the dress thing probably contributed to the breakdown.

*That time Weiss made it her duty to take Ruby shopping for swimsuits, and wound up giving herself more conflicting feelings.

*That time Yang crashed with Ruby for the weekend, and wound up talking about her sordid first few years away from home while drunk.

*She had a promising boxing career, scholarships on the horizon, and the potential to go to the nationals. But she became addicted to the adrenaline, and when she got offered the chance to make some extra money by doing some underground fights, she jumped at the chance.

She moved out of the house, leaving her father and sister, who she’d taken care of for too long, and lived for herself. She competed professionally less and less, and fought underground more and more, until one day, years later, she looked around her, at the crappy place she lived in, the money she never needed but still gambled, and couldn’t recall the last time she called her sister. And she felt shame.

Her pro-career might be gone, but she learned a lot in that time away. And her father and sister learned to get their shit together without her there. They all grew a little. And now she’s ready to move on with her life.

*That time Ren took ‘The Slothmobile’ and entered a street race in the desert to try and win some extra cash for next year’s tuition, with Jaune as his harried passenger and navigator.

**The Slothmobile is an old, Classic convertible that Ren and Nora have practically rebuilt after getting a good deal on it due to its condition. A very good deal. A very, very, almost suspiciously good deal. The Slothmobile is definitely not stolen. Ren just had very specific instructions to take it to a specific Insurance Dealership, and to ask for a Specific Teller, and to mention the Seller of the car along with their ‘guy-code’ phrase. It was covered in rust, scratched, and faded yellow with a tattered soft cover. They buffed out the rust, painted it in green with hot pink highlights.  (Ren won the color choice coin toss. Nora won the naming rights) They yanked out the busted radio, covered the seats in fake leather covers Nora made, and patched up the soft top with strips of leather and ceramic plates that look pretty good.

***They don’t pay for parking over half of the year, until the snow sets in. Otherwise, they keep moving it around parking lots they know it won’t be towed in for leaving it there.

 *That time Nora entered the ‘Professional Waitress Championship’ of the Kingdom, and needed Weiss’ help with the high-class etiquette portion.

*That time Blake’s ex Adam showed up and Yang winds up kicking his ass, only to discover that he’s a terrorist. Then she gets her Uncle to arrest him.

Blake may or may not bolt to her escape route, stop halfway across the city, turn around and run back to their apartment just in time to pin Yang to the floor when she gets back.

Then she cries. A lot. Especially when Yang starts telling her about her own sordid history, and tells her that she will find no judgement from her, just the acceptance she’s always wanted.

Most of Blake’s stuff (which is very little save for her books) is already thrown into a pair of large duffle bags. They unpack them in Yang’s room.

“Don’t tell Ruby I have a spare room again. Living in the dorm is good for her.” “I’m here as an excuse to keep her out, for her own good. That was our deal…” “Well… I think it’s more than that now…”

*That time Ruby steals all of Jaune’s renaissance weapons, and gets mistaken for an arms dealer by the police.

*That time they all go to the beach and wind up competing in a sand building contest and watching fireworks at night.

*That time Jaune and Pyrrha talk to Ren and Nora about splitting a mortgage and buying a house the four of them can share while they live in Vale.

*That time that everyone helped Weiss record and market her own single album. They ‘borrowed’ a lot of their equipment from the college, and had to sneak it back inside before anyone noticed, and almost got arrested doing it. Shenanigans and chases ensued!

*That time Yang dragged Weiss, Ruby, and Pyrrha bar hopping and they run into Cinder Fall, who is salty about her loss, and they get into a massive bar fight. Pyrrha defendeds Jaune’s honor, Ruby broke a chair over someone’s head, and Weiss stabbed someone with her stiletto shoes. Yang is impressed with all of them. Nora pouts about working that night and missing all the fun.

*That time Pyrrha’s parents came to visit, and Jaune thought they were traditionalists, leading to him trying to hide the evidence of them switching between dorm rooms to sleep with each other. Pyrrha’s parents troll him so much to get a feel for his character.

*That time Cardin Winchester found Jaune on campus, and tried to blackmail him with old pictures of Jaune crossdressing, and Pyrrha kicked his ass.

*That time Pyrrha and Jaune drove themselves crazy trying to plan a perfect valentine’s day gift for the other.

Basically, it’s Undergrads meet RWBY!

Massive AU filled with Fluff and Chaos here. Feel free to submit your own additions everyone! Go wild!

[blondifuckedup]

Philosophy and MTG, How Enemy Colors Combine

https://www.reddit.com/r/colorpie/comments/4br1ez/philosophy_and_mtg_how_enemy_colors_combine/

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^ ^ ^ A HELPFUL PICTURE FOR REFERENCE ^ ^ ^

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. Thank God for spring break. This time, I’m going to reiterate on the conflicts between the enemy colors, explain how the enemy pairs combine into balanced positions and give examples of characters who faithfully represent the balanced positions.

Again, for anyone who cares about intellectual integrity, I have already provided my justifications for why I chose to pin down the colors the way I did. The bottom line is that each enemy pairing represents a thesis and an antithesis; therefore each individual color represents two positions as a worldview. For example, green believes in nature over nurture and teleology over nihilism. These are mutually-exclusive positions with its two enemies, blue and black, who believe the exact opposite for each of green’s individual positions. It’s nice and simple.

And the reason why I chose to represent the colors this way is because I have read every single thing Mark Rosewater has ever written or recorded on the colors. The colors are his intellectual property, and I am merely his prophet who has refined his message into something more substantial. He says a lot of different things about how the colors should look, and I refer to my post "Color Canon and Interpretation" for why I singled on specific and clear aspects of the colors that I took from his own mouth. I hope you enjoy my latest entry on Color Pie Philosophy as I explain how mutually-exclusive conflicts can combine into new positions. My hope is that this helps you identify with your chosen colors more, thereby enhancing your experience of the game.

I. Green and Black, Teleology + Nihilism = Existentialism

I’m going to start off with green and black for two reasons. First, I like to talk about their difference the most. Second, I want to clear the air with any philosophically-literate readers who may have a problem with the way I’m doing this for these two colors.

Green believes in a natural order, therefore green believes in absolute, normative principles that explain and guide how things fit inside of that natural order. I’ve said before that this is a teleological view. Green believes in the principle that everything has a place and function in nature, because it ultimately believes that purpose exists. The root of the word “teleology” is “telos”, which translates to “meaning” or “purpose” in English. Green believes in an absolute purpose that guides how things should be.

Black believes that there is no natural order. Nothing has a purpose--things just exist. Black may even go so far as to say that nothing but itself exists, but the important thing is that black is the antithesis of green because it does not believe that meaning or purpose exists. This is what grants black the freedom in its mind to do what it wants. If there was a natural order, black would be compelled to obey it. But there is no telos. There is only nothing. “Nihil” is the root of “nihilism” which means “nothing”. Black is a nihilist against green’s sense of meaning.

So how do these colors combine in order to manifest as green-black characters? We see a lot of green-black characters in the game. Are they just hypocrites or idiots for believing both things at the same time?

There is a sort of halfway house between teleology and nihilism, and that would be existentialism. Existentialists hold that meaning exists for you based on how you create it. As a belief system, existentialism is not the absolute and fixed sense of meaning that green subscribes to, nor does it completely admit the nonexistence of meaning that black subscribes to. Therefore, a green-black character would be an existentialist. He would be someone concerned with his meaning in life but does not admit that his purpose is something fixed, absolute and external to him. The green-black character may be Nietzsche's ubermensch.

Garruk, Apex Predator

If there ever was an ubermensch in MTG, I would give the title to Garruk or Sarkhan Vol. Garruk serves as my example here, because existentialism expresses his newfound color combination quite nicely. Before, he was a green mage, who believed that his role in the natural order was fixed and clear. He believed that everything had its place, and he knew his.

Thanks to Liliana’s meddling, Garruk has become corrupted by the chain veil, and has now embraced aspects of black’s nihilistic approach. He no longer accepts the previous role that he discovered for himself. He has created a new purpose for his being bent on hunting other planeswalkers. In a way, the fact that he has determined a new organizing principle for his actions reflect an existentialist approach. He is no longer spiritually-attuned to the natural order; he is creating a meaning for himself in the lack of a clear, external focus for his actions.

Venom and the Gitrog Monster

Mark Rosewater gave the example of Venom among others, and I will demonstrate how such characters implicitly embrace a green-black approach to life. I will also use the new frog monster card as an illustration of a creature that is green-black because it is bad for the ecosystem. Maybe it isn't bad for the ecosystem, but I'm going to treat it as if it were.

The reason why characters such as Venom, and the newly-spoiled Gitgrog Monster are green-black, is because they are examples of naturally-occurring phenomenon somehow working out of line with their intended role in the environment. Of course, the question is: “What is their intended role?” A mono-green character would attempt to explain how the Gitrog Monster is an aberration possibly because it over-eats. It is going to eat everything and destroy the environment if it is left to its own devices. It's the same thing with Venom. These creatures will destroy themselves by eating everything else--thereby starving themselves in the long run. Everything dies.

Of course, the whole problem is that green is trying to rationalize how natural things are acting out of line with their intended function, whereas black sees nothing wrong going on. Yet, these entities are not pure-black because green can successfully rationalize how they are good, natural things gone wrong. The Gitrog Monster and Venom are not supposed to be the way they are. Crazy accidents or evil meddling created them, and they represent aberrations of what should be the case. The ambiguity and confusion surrounding what role Venom and the Gitrog Monster serve in the natural order makes them green-black. It’s not like they are existentialists, but they represent the unhappy confusion when good things are twisted, or when bad things attempt to embrace telos (if it exists).

The Golgari

I’ll include an institution in each of my explanations. The Golgari faithfully represent the confusion between the belief in an absolute and eternal telos and the belief in its nonexistence. This is because the Golgari are always bickering and warring within themselves; they cannot decide and stick with clear leadership because they are a tribe of people who cannot figure out what they’re supposed to do. They are Ravnica’s misfits. What they CAN do is process the city’s garbage, and that may be construed as their guild’s true purpose. Yet, the guild’s members and masters are not content with this. They are forever seeking, defining and meddling with the established order again and again and again as its revolutions continue. The Golgari institution cannot reconcile its clear function with the need for more.

II. White and Black, Altruism + Parasitism = Nepotism

From here on out, I’ll be more succinct. It’s needless to elaborate once the point has been communicated. White orients itself altruistically whereas black orients itself parasitically.

I’ve used game theory to explain this before, but the bottom line is that white will act in spite of the risk that others may be taking advantage of it in order to do the right thing. For example, if a white character lives in a socialist society, he will be the guy working and keeping things afloat. He will be the guy who shows up at the farm or factory to work as the parasites leech off of his labor.

Black characters orient themselves parasitically. They will be the ones gaming the system in a socialist society. They will be the ones who game the system and take without putting in. They are parasites.

Given that altruism and parasitism are mutually-exclusive approaches, how does a white-black character express both? The answer is nepotism. Nepotism is targeted parasitism against those outside of your group, and altruism towards the members of your group. A nepotistic character will leech off of the work of others and even betray them, but he will ultimately give back to those that belong to his group.

Sorin Markov

Sorin is the quintessential nepotist, for he has never expressed real concern for anything in the multiverse outside of his home of Innistrad. He has only ever contributed to the well-being of other planes as a side-effect of his protection of Innistrad, and he is plainly parasitic towards his victims whenever he needs to feed.

Within Innistrad, Sorin is black-white because he is trying to balance the needs of the human race and the vampiric race--the latter of which is solely dependent on and parasitic of the former. The problem with the Innistrad vampires is that they would die off if they were allowed to run free and feed on every human until none were left, and so Sorin’s solution was to protect the human cattle with Avacyn who gets in the way of vampires and actually kills them. Sorin is ultimately nepotistic, because he protects the interests of his people while sacrificing his standing with them. None of the vampires like Avacyn. But Sorin is willing to pay the cost of his reputation in order to protect his vampire brethren from themselves.

Mad Max

The character of Mad Max is a man wandering the dystopian wasteland doing whatever he can to survive. His prime directive is survival, and he only interacts with others on the basis of what they can do to further his ends. He is neither needlessly cruel nor benevolent. He does what he needs to survive.

However, Max is forced into positions where he can either abandon innocent people to their doom and survive, or help them and risk death. The turning point of each movie is when he decides to stay and help the innocent resist their oppressors, but he always leaves once his work is finished. Furthermore, it is frequently ambiguous whether helping them furthered his ends. The bottom line is that Max is a sad, lonely and selfish man who finds it in himself to help others even when there is no clear payoff. For the most part, he is a parasite, but he will defy his parasitic nature to engage in acts of altruism that have no clear benefit to him.

Mad Max can’t be clearly construed as a nepotist, but he is black-white because is a parasite with flashes of altruism. He is a mixed-up man with a sad past. Mad Max represents the gray moral character in all of us and how difficult it is to protect and serve others when you also want to survive.

The Orzhov

The Orzhov care for members of the Orzhov and prey on non-Orzhov. They are nepotistic to the core. They are altruistic to their own members but parasitic on outsiders.

III. Blue and Green, Innatism + Tabula Rasa = Evolutionism

In order to stay true to my commitments to Mark Rosewater’s principle that green believes in nature over nurture against blue, who believes the opposite, I will have to place evolutionary theory outside of green’s purview of thinking. I do this though Mark said in one of his articles that green believes in ordered change. However, this means that nothing is added to green when you add blue, which would invalidate the concept of the Simic, who are evolutionists. If you can be an evolutionist inside of green, then you don’t need to add blue even if the Simic do accelerate and meddle with evolution. It would simply be a matter of degree within green, nothing would be qualitatively different.

Green believes that the way a thing is, is fixed from its onset; organisms are the way they are once they are born because of their fixed nature. Green believes in nature over nurture because it does not believe that you can change the nature of a thing once it’s there. It is the way it is because it has a fixed nature. You were born to be as smart as your inherent limitations allow you to. Green does not admit the existence of change. It believes in static, ordered nature.

Blue believes that the way a thing is, is due to how it’s environment influenced it. Anything can be anything as long as conditions are right. The reason why you aren’t smarter than you are is because the conditions weren’t optimal in your environment, because you have no inherent limitations. Nothing has inherent limitations, for anything can change into anything. Blue does not admit the existence of static boundaries. It believes in potentiality and change; nothing is permanent.

Evolutionism is just the word for the belief in evolutionary theory. The theory of evolution admits the existence of permanence and change because organisms remain the same, but they also undergo changes over time. Evolutionary theory admits the existence of fixed limitations like green. A fish cannot walk, but it also admits the existence of change like blue because fish evolved into amphibians which can walk on land (or something like that, sue me).

Kiora

To be honest, I never understood what makes Kiora green or blue. MaRo said the conflict between the colors has to do with nature versus nurture, but Kiora just strikes me as a red character based on how reckless and mischievous she is. Nonetheless, I will try and fit her into the system--a system I did not randomly invent on my own mind you! Mark Rosewater said that the conflict is between nature and nurture! I’m just trying to piece things together!

Kiora expresses or represents evolutionism, because... she introduces change into the aquatic systems she visits by transporting sea creatures from one plane to another. Kiora forces massive changes in the environments she visits by throwing new variables into them. If one plane knows nothing of giant octopi, and Kiora transports a dozen octopus leviathans into its waters, she just permanently altered the ecological character of that plane’s waters forever. Kiora’s recklessness is a sort of inventiveness as she gathers a repertoire of beasts to summon in her endeavors. She is known for introducing and removing variables such as when she stole Thassa’s bident, which is possibly the best tool for altering the environment on the planes she visits.

Dr. Frankenstein

Mark Rosewater used this seminal example of the mad scientist in order to represent the conflict between green and blue. The original conflict is preserved in Dr. Frankenstein because he expresses blue’s belief that it can push the boundaries of what is naturally true, and green’s belief that it must work within the limitations of the tools at its disposal--Dr. Frankenstein can’t create flesh and blood out of nothing. He had to go grave grave robbing. Dr. Frankenstein’s creation proves that biogenesis is not strictly and inerrantly true, a green-inclined belief, but his creation still possesses biological limitations that an inventive, blue man must accept or challenge once more. He is a true green-blue character.

Kruphix

I find Kruphix interesting, because he understands the nature of Theros and its gods better than anyone else. He knows that the gods are fixed entities, but they only exist on the basis of the mortals’ beliefs in them. This means that the mortals’ shifting perceptions of the gods’ and their natures’ can actually change how the gods are and whether they even exist. Kruphix awareness of this phenomenon puts him in a weird position. He knows that his nature is fixed to some extent--he doesn’t change whenever a mortal has a stray thought of what he should be like, look like or is capable of. Yet, he knows that his powers and personality are fundamentally predicated on how people perceive and imagine him to be. He knows he has the power at his disposal to control the mortals’ perceptions of him to give him all power, and this may be why he rules the other gods and is older than them. He is the god who deals with godness itself as it manifests on Theros. He represents the conflict of nature v. nurture since the gods do have fixed god-biologies in a sense, but their natures are liable to change based on their environment. It's so meta.

The Simic

The Simic are evolutionary biologists. They are not just purely blue because they are working with the limitations of physical biology, but they are not purely green because they are trying to test and push those limits as far as they can go. They do not believe that you are as smart as you were born to be (nature), nor do they believe that you have what it takes to be smarter without further modifications (nurture).

IV. Blue and Red, Low Time Preference + High Time Preference = Ambitiousness, Fulfill Short-Term And Long-Term Goals

The difference between blue and red is how far each one is willing to plan for the future. Blue always tends to plan further ahead, setting aside its immediate desires in order to reap a future payoff. Red wants things now, and will sacrifice future payoffs in order to have immediate payoffs in the present.

The way to reconcile the two positions is to construe a third way that acknowledges the necessity of seizing the moment and planning ahead. I call this third way, ambitiousness, because an ambitious person does not merely plan. He also acts in order that his plans payoff in the future. Whereas blue’s negative extreme is to plan, and plan, and plan without actually executing anything, red’s negative extreme is to act without forethought so that it minimizes or destroys the potential payoff it could be enjoying.

An ambitious person sacrifices unlikely, long-term payoffs in order to have definite, short-term benefits. Likewise, he will sacrifice unlikely, short-term benefits in order to have definite long-term payoffs. He is neither consumed by analysis paralysis, nor does he jump the gun and ruin everything for himself. He is ambitious and knows when to seize the moment and plan ahead.

Ral Zarek

Ral Zarek is the perfect blue-red character because he is active enough to account for unforeseen variables in his plans, yet he actually makes solid plans in order to get what he wants. The problem with blue characters is that they need to have prepared a contingency in advance in order to escape a situation. Unforeseen variables are the bane of the obsessive planner, for you cannot account for that which you did not even know needed to be accounted for. Ral Zarek plans ahead, but he can handle unknown obstacles quite nicely. This isn’t to say that Jace can’t handle novel situations without having some kind of plan, but Jace’s tendency is to rely on contingency plans upon contingency plans whereas Ral would likely improvise something in the moment as he did to the Golgari in the Secretist.

Keranos, God of Thunder

Keranos is a fitting symbol of the competing demands of a mixed time preference, because he is the god of visions of the future. If Keranos so chooses, you can use his power to see into the future in order to validate or change your plans. Yet, Theros seems to be a deterministic system, and so it may not be possible to use Keranos this way. Keranos still represents the ideal power suite of blue-red characters who wish to fulfill their short-term and long-term goals, because he’s the master of foreknowledge.

The Izzet

The Izzet work according to the machinations of Niv Mizzet, who has many different plans and projects to implement. Niv Mizzet’s numerous short term and long term goals require a genius mind to manage as circumstances change. Good thing he is a genius.

V. White and Red, Total Depravity + Noble Savage = Persecution

What I’m getting at are two competing views on human nature. John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes believe that humans are scum; we are wicked, violent and selfish. The only reason why we aren’t at each other’s throats right now is due to the state, which monopolizes violence and forces us to get along or else it will punish us for breaking the law. We cannot exactly credit Rousseau for the competing view, but the idea that man is a noble savage in the state of nature takes the complete opposite position of total depravity or “nasty, brutish and short” doctrines of human nature.

White believes that people are naturally inclined towards selfishness, parasitism, greed and violence. We need religion and benevolent, powerful rulership to keep us in line, or else we will be at each other’s throats in a second (not literally, but white tends towards this extreme).

Red believes that people are naturally inclined towards selflessness, altruism, and cooperativeness. Red believes that people can’t be that bad, or else we wouldn’t have been able to survive all this time. Red does not look into the human heart and see a selfish, myopic beast--it believes that everyone has desires and that these desires do not drive us to be necessarily parasitic.

The problem for each of the colors that produces the third way is that each side has to admit some of the other’s position. If white believes that people are bad to the bone, then how can it place any trust in religious or political authorities? They are just as inherently bad as everyone else. Likewise, how does red explain the existence of crime? Is it really the case that people won’t take advantage of others out of sheer empathy? Any intelligent red character has to admit that at least some people are total jerks who get away with hurting others with zero remorse.

The solution for a white-red character is to have a persecuting attitude towards wrongdoers. People who do morally wrong things are somehow defective, because the people who are actually able to participate in society certainly obey the rules. In fact, the mere existence of unapologetic parasites burns in the consciousness of the white-red person. A white-red person understands that not everyone can be perfect, but what is wrong with these people who continue to commit crime? The only logical attitude you can have towards such people is one of persecution: we are the good ones and they are the bad ones. We are the noble ones and they are the depraved ones. We work together and obey the law, but they refuse to participate or reciprocate our efforts to work together. They must be punished, eliminated or changed.

Ajani

Ajani went through a period where he was a white-red character because he was committed to exacting righteous violence on Nicol Bolas, who was ultimately responsible for the death of Ajani’s brother and for the troubles that were befalling Naya, Ajani’s home. In my opinion, Ajani is an upstanding example of a white-red character who is persecuting the right people. Nicol Bolas is a heartless and unrepentant villain, and so Ajani is completely right for self-righteously persecuting Bolas and his willing minions given the situation. Furthermore, Ajani desired no harm nor ill on Bolas or anybody. Therefore, his conclusion that the evil one must be punished and cannot be shown mercy is born out of a correct sense of justice.

Avacyn

I’ll use Avacyn as a negative example of a white-red character who is exhibiting a persecuting attitude towards the humans, whom she sees as depraved relative to the immaculate angels. Avacnynian persecution is fundamentally racist and hypocritical. It is an inability to see the faults in yourself, although you can see the faults in other people. I have to admit though, Avacyn may have a point. The angels don’t do anything that hurts man, beast or stone. The existence of humans guarantees the existence of pain and strife. In fact, a human can be credited for the existence of vampires on Innistrad since it was Sorin’s ancestor who became the first vampire as a bid with a demon to gain immortality. Nonetheless, I consider her to be a negative example of a white-red character.

The Boros

The Boros are excessively violent towards people who violate the civil law they enforce. It’s unclear whether they appeal to the Azorius’ laws or whether they enforce their own moral code on the populace. I can imagine that the Boros are hit-and-miss when it comes to persecuting the right people. After seeing the card “Knight’s Watch” it is apparent to me that the Boros struggle with their eagerness for violence and their impetus to commit that violence against the right people.

Conclusion

I want to give a little background why I care so much about this narrow aspect of a single tcg. Why should anyone care about something like this? It's so specific and obsessive on a topic that doesn't really matter.

Ever since I was young, I loved the idea of competing elements or forces. I played the shit out of pokemon with its elemental concepts. I also enjoyed the Avatar series for the same reason. So many shows, stories and concepts tap into the idea that the universe is made up of several types of things that are naturally strong and weak to one another. I was always enamored with this sort of thing.

What makes magic special is that it expresses every single possible elemental combination through the lens of 5 categories. It is Aristotle's four elements, Manichean good/evil dualism, nature versus artifice, romanticism versus enlightenment and more. The colors can faithfully represent the aesthetic and concepts of every single dichotomy.

My goal is to clear away the muddiness when the colors bleed into each other and start to lose their distinctiveness. The colors are the way they are because they are opposed to their enemies. They don't agree with their enemies, and that's why they are separate categories of beliefs. And so efforts to mash the enemy pairs together should result in something sensible, which is the goal of this post.

[sundogsandrainbows]

After Dawn

Fandom: Dragon Age Pairing: Mahariel x Alistair, 2,4k words Genre: Fluff/Humor, Pre-Relationship awkwardness AO3 link: Here Description: Lenya Mahariel was all but a morning person, so Alistair didn't expect to see her to be up already. Then again, he didn't expect... many things regarding her. Belated Birthday gift for my dear @effelants

Alistair woke before dawn, in the hours were the camp and its surroundings were still covered in the hush of night. It was a habit acquired in his years of his templar training and even many months after leaving the Chantry, he couldn't break away from it. Especially not now, where nightmares of darkspawn and about... Ostagar added to the shortness of his sleeping hours.

After dressing in the warmest clothes he possessed, Alistair ducked out of his tent. He stood straight and stretched to rid himself from the last vestiges of sleep. He inhaled the brisk, dry mountain air, which bore a hint of smoke from the still smoldering embers. Shuddering, he stepped near to the smoking coals, the only source of warmth. The campfire needed tending, new tinder to last throughout the morning till they would break camp to advance further up the Frostback Mountain, toward the Gherlen Pass.

Somehow, the closer they came to Orzammar, the colder it seemed to get. Given how they were marching upwards, by now probably a thousand feet above ground, the immense temperature drop shouldn't surprise him. Nor that the grass underneath his boots was crusted in a thin layer of frosted morning dew. Not when the sun was still an hour or more away from rising.

He grabbed a few of the split branches from yesterday's pile and carefully fed the glowing cinder with a thin stick until it sparked a flame. Then he added another and bit by bit thicker branches, until the fire burned again as it did during his guard duty only a couple of hours ago. Warming his hands near the flames, his gaze wandered to the tent across of his own. Lenya had the last guard shift and naturally was still fast asleep. She generally didn't seem to be the type to rise early by choice, however. Every time where they had to set off at daybreak to manage their daily regiment of marching, she did so grousing and with little words. Then again, this also appeared to be her default mood regarding many, if not all, activities. And being stuck as one of the two Wardens in Ferelden during a Blight, Alistair couldn't exactly fault her for being grumpy.

Chuckling to himself, he retrieved an empty cooking pot near the campfire and set out to collect water from an ice-crusted stream nearby the camp. It were these little, mundane tasks which he enjoyed, for they gave him a sense of routine and normalcy. Especially in a time where everything was uncertain and chaotic.

****

An hour later, Alistair had settled down next to the campfire with a cup of warmed up rabbit stew, still slightly sweaty from his morning exercise. Leliana, another early riser, kept him silent company. From the trees enclosing both sides of their camp mountain birds twittered their song. The sunlight streaking through the weave of clouds roused more colors from their sleepy monochrome. Morning had broken, at last.

Alistair rolled his shoulders and barely suppressed a yawn. It would be yet again a long, tiring day on the road.

"Do you think we will reach Orzammar by nightfall?" Leliana asked all the sudden, as if being able to read his mind.

He looked up to her. While her chin-long, auburn hair was neatly combed, the dark circles under her eyes spoke of her tiredness. It had been an exhausting trip on an uneven, rocky terrain, going only further upward the mountain. Well maybe it had been not so for the golem or the Qunari, since they were more grousing about the group lagging behind than the cumbersome journey. Though Alistair decided people lasting twenty days without food and water in a cage and those made out of literal stone didn't get to complain about them needing more breaks in between. Warden stamina, or not.

"I hope so." He let out a sigh and shielded his eyes as he glanced up to the sky above. "If the weather holds and we are marching through, we could manage that. I mean, according to the map, once we have reached the Gherlen Pass, the entrance to Orzammar isn't far anymore."

Leliana's doubting look and a faint snort told him that his optimism wasn't exactly mutual. "Your lips to the Maker's ears, Alistair." She blew on her bowl of hot stew seated in her lap, to cool it down a bit. "You want to rouse the others? If we want to manage your ambitious goal, we should be breaking up camp soon."

"Ah, no." Alistair shook his head. "I like to be alive. So I won't risk losing my head in poking it into Morrigan's tent, nor Lenya's." He shuddered. "Especially not Morrigan's." The corners of his lip twitched upward. "Besides, I already made breakfast."

Leliana rolled her eyes. "More like you warmed up breakfast than made it."

He gave her a shrug. "Breakfast is breakfast. Besides, be glad that I didn't cook it. You would regret it."

She made a face. "Oh yeah. What was that... uniformly grey soup again you made for supper three days ago?"

"Oh that?" He smirked. "Ferelden Lamb and Pew Stew. Only with um, venison, I guess. Since lamb is hard to come by out here." Seeing her irked face, he already knew the answer to his question in advance, but asked in spite. "Why? Did you like it?"

"Liking would be too strong a word, Alistair. And I don't think the wrong meat in there was to blame for its blandness."

"Aww, you wound me. Me and my cooking skill." Ever since Leliana joined their rag-tag group, he couldn't help teasing her. Unlike with Morrigan, his banter with the bard lacked the sharpness or sting of deep-seated dislike. It was friendly, comfortable instead. "Skill as in singular, of course. As in I am only really good in burning food, when cooking. Or throwing everything in a pot." He paused for effect. "Oh wait, I lied then. These are already two skills."

"Maker, how did you survive in the wilderness all these weeks then?"

"A mystery to both of us, I'm sure." Alistair laughed out loud. "I appreciate how you and my fellow Warden are saving me from starvation, of course."

"Speaking of which..." Leliana nodded toward Lenya's tent, from which the elf had just surfaced. "Look who is up."

"Oh good morning, sunshine," he greeted her, well knowing it would be only draw her ire.

The Dalish only stared at him bleary-eyed for a moment and grunted into his general direction. Her wheat-blonde, long hair was unbound and mussy, and covering most of her pale, freckled face. Her over-sized, dark linen tunic hung loose over her hips and looked more like a mismatched dress than a shirt. Without a further word, she vanished behind the line of tall trees at the other side of camp. Trailing her slouchy and sleepy form till its disappearance, Alistair's grin widened.

Yep, she was definitely no morning person. Which was, in its very own way, endearing somehow.

Shaking his head as if needing to lose this trail of thought, his attention snapped back to the bard. "This leaves only Morrigan then. I wish you luck."

Leliana sighed out. "Fine. I'll go. But you better check the snares we laid out together around camp last night, before dealing with packing up your things. Maybe we caught a rabbit or two in it."

"Mmm, more rabbit stew, can't wait."

Putting her bowl aside, she glared at him for the useless comment. "I can always feed your portion to Revas, if you find it so terrible."

As if summoned by the mere combination of his name and the mentioning of food, the mabari darted out from Lenya's tent, knocking it half over in the process. Barking loudly and with his stump tail wagging, he steered directly toward Leliana. But instead of greeting her like she thought, he made a beeline for the bowl of stew she placed on the ground. The slobbering sound right after told Alistair that the mabari had no trouble finding it.

He could hardly contain his laughter. "Looks like you did this just now, Leliana."

"Ugh, so much for breakfast." She sighed again before standing up. "I better go then and wake Morrigan, if she hadn't turned into a bird and flown away overnight."

"Aww, please don't make promises you can't keep."

Her annoyed look was enough to let him refrain from further commentary. "You better think of checking the traps for game. Our rations are running low and I just want to be prepared in case we don't manage to reach Orzammar today."

Leliana was right, of course. Even worse than repeated rabbit stew for days on end was the prospect of only eating hardtack boiled into a mash. "Yes. I will be going - "Alistair noticed a snuffling snout aiming for his portion of his stew and put it out of Revas' reach. "-soon." He gave the hound a baleful look, but instead of being ashamed of his attempted theft, Revas sat down and whined. To strengthen his emotional manipulation, the dog canted his head and glanced up to Alistair with his sad, brown eyes. It would have worked if he hadn't grown up with mabari around him for years, and thus already knew all their tricks. "Nice try, but no," Alistair said, grinning down at him. "You already had your share. This is my breakfast."

Revas huffed out and walked off toward the Qunari to try his luck for more treats there.

****

Laying out traps was usually a task best suited for Lenya, the trained hunter in their group. Maybe even for Morrigan, as she was called witch of the wilds for a reason. Even Leliana was far more ably in that than he was. However due to duty rotation, Alistair was required to take over these tasks as well, however rarely. Collecting the game in the morning after, if there was any, was the easier duty of the two. Given one knew the places where they had been laid out before, of course. Luckily he'd accompanied the bard the evening before and thus could find them again without much difficulty.

However, four of the six traps turned out to be empty, while the bait was gone. Huh, maybe he should watch Lenya laying out traps instead to see how it was done, since her yielding always seemed to be better. With only two snares left to go, Alistair really hoped to find some less intelligent rodents in it, or it would be back to mushed up hardtack for supper.

Not relishing the thought, he shuddered as he steered toward the fifth trap left behind a line of trees. Alistair stopped in front of them without entering the clearing, because of a telltale hum buzzing in his head. His fellow Warden was still here and hadn't returned to camp yet like he prior thought. Since the stream was on the other side of camp, he wouldn't run into her bathing, or half-naked, at least. That would really be awkward for the approximately five minutes he then had still left to live after that.

Looking upwards to the treetops that appeared to be sky-high, he huffed out a nervous breath. Maker, that woman was indeed terrifying. Alistair was convinced she could make the archdemon leaving and go back to its old god slumber for another thousand years, simply by demanding it from the creature.

With that thought in mind, he entered the clearing, only to immediately halt again a few steps in. Alistair saw his fellow Warden hanging sideways from a sturdy, thick tree branch, her back turned to him. He rushed toward Lenya to help her, since she dangled about ten feet above ground -which was nearly twice her height. But then she pulled herself up with ease until her head was above the level of the branch, then went back to let herself hang for a moment. Right after, she repeated the motion, her legs held completely still as she pulled herself up again.

With the initial panic about her being in danger gone, Alistair also registered that Lenya had forgone her dark shirt, coldness in spite. Which left her wearing only her breastband, and him inappropriately staring at her toned back. The motion of her continued pullups did... interesting things to her back and arms, and... had she always been so lean-muscled? Was this normal for Dalish? The elves he had seen had all been much thinner, nearly scrawny in comparison. And why was he even still watching? He really, really should look away now, as long he still had the chance to somehow salvage this situation. He felt the heat burning in his cheeks, then it trailed further downwards to settle in his stomach. It was suddenly much, much warmer.

Averting his eyes at last, Alistair cleared his throat. It was as much to announce his presence as it was to cover up his own awkwardness. In his peripheral vision he noticed how she let go of the branch and landing gracefully on the ground with a crouch.

"Alistair?" She was walking up to him, sweaty and near half-naked. That fact confused his fight-or-flight reflex to the point of being rooted on the spot. "What are you doing here?"

"Y-you are not dressed," he blurted out, shielding his eyes with one hand.

Lenya let out a groan. "I am not naked either."

"P-please get dressed."

"Fine," she replied in the same annoyed tone and stepped away from him. Presumably to fetch her discarded tunic from the ground. Alistair wasn't looking to check that, though. "You shems and your weird concept of modesty. How you ever exercise with wearing that many layer of clothes?"

It is not weird, he thought, while trying to refrain from thinking of elves frolicking naked through the woods. Bad brain, baaad. "Are you not cold?" he asked instead.

"No. Not anymore." Alistair heard the rustle of fabric as she put her shirt back on. "Helps me to get awake on a shitty morning too."

"I see." He let his hand fall back to his side and opened his eyes again. Sweaty strands of her hair, now tucked up into a messy bun, were plastered to her tattooed forehead. She was breathing heavily and her otherwise fair skin was flushed, heated from the exercise. He blinked slowly, watching her expression shifting into a scowl due to his continued staring.

"I came here to check the snare we laid out," Alistair said then, too fast and out of place. "I -" He left the sentence hanging. Turning on his heels, he darted into the opposite direction, the trap long forgotten.

[thatishogwash]

Shot Through the Heart

KuroDai Weekend Day 3, December 10: Free Day Your Chosen AU 

AO3

“This-” Kenma’s voice was soft, there was a moment's pause as he took a breath.  “-is a terrible idea.”  Kuroo smirked despite himself, in spite of the fact that most of his own people agreed with Kenma.  It was a terrible idea, but if it worked then it would benefit everyone in the long run.  He would be better fit to protect his people and the Fukurdani Alliance would be made stronger.  Kuroo Tetsurou did not have any secret ulterior motives, no, never him.

“Bo already agreed to it.”  Kuroo reminded Kenma, reminded the rest of the people in the room, once again.  Kenma let out a sigh but otherwise ignored this.  Kuroo knew by the shift in Kenma’s thin shoulders and the tilt of his head he had given up this as a lost cause.

“That’s not exactly reassuring.”  Kai Nobuyuki spoke up, voice soft and deep, but still respectful.  He was studying the live feed from the room their  guest was currently asleep in.  Yaku Morisuke was setting up an IV, checking heart rate and blood pressure, mostly pacing around the sleeping man and worrying with his ever present scowl.  Haiba Lev, who had volunteered to be Yaku’s personal bodyguard since the latter was a doctor and not a soldier, was situated in a chair in the corner of the room, his limbs nearly comically long and situated awkwardly.

“He doesn’t look like much,” Yamamoto Taketora spoke up, hesitant at first but gaining confidence when no one told him to shut up.

“He’s the leader of Karasuno.”  Kenma said, before Kuroo could tell Yamamoto how wrong he was.  “He rebuilt a broken empire, he gained control over his district in the Southern Ward in only a handful of years.  Karasuno is small, but everyone there has a specialized talent.  They’ve had a total of 15 attacks on them in the last three years alone, and Karasuno has yet to lose one single person in those attacks.  Only one group has even managed to make it near their compound and they were thoroughly wiped out.”  Kenma reported in a bored tone, never looking up from his phone.

“Do not underestimate Sawamura Daichi.”  Kuroo warned the small group of people in his office.  Even covered in cuts and bruises and gauze Sawamura looked like the boy nextdoor.  The kind of guy who’d help you carry groceries to your car or helped old ladies get their cats out of trees.  Sawamura was that type of man, but he was also cold and ruthless and terrifying when he needed to be.

“If Karasuno is so great why haven’t I heard of them?  And why wouldn’t he join the Group?”  Yamamoto asked, though there was no disrespect in his tone or manner, he was genuinely curious.  He’d follow Kuroo’s orders to the letter, but Kuroo had always encouraged questions, as long as they were done privately.

“Karasuno was a powerhouse for a long time, then they got nasty.  Drugs, prostitution, human trafficking, you name it, they did it.  Their district became a dangerous place to be, the police practically abandoned it, well those who weren’t corrupt anyways.  The only thing holding it all together was old man Ukai, when he was killed everything turned to shit, even worse than it had before.”  Kuroo explained, settling down in his chair as he continued to watch the sleeping Sawamura.  It was a drug induced sleep, but from the dark circles under his eyes he needed it.  “Other groups came in and cleaned Karasuno out, killing off most of its remaining members.  The smart ones went underground.”

“Sawamura Daichi dropped out of the Police Academy, disappeared for a couple years, before re emerging as Karasuno’s new leader, with the help of Ukai’s grandson.”  Kai continued on where Kuroo had left off.  There were very few people who knew that Sawamura had dropped out of the Police Academy because he had been shot twice in the Academy, Kai was one of them though he had never spoken about it after Kuroo asked for his silence.

“He’ll join because it’s the smart thing to do.”  Kuroo said more confidently than he actually felt.  There were always alliances being struck between each group, but you could never truly depend or rely on them.  The Fukurdani Alliance was different, made up of three groups currently but Kuroo was hoping Karasuno would be their fourth.

“It would be mutually beneficial for everyone involved.”  Kai admitted with a small nod.  Striking that alliance would require cunning and perhaps devious methods, Kuroo was all for that.

“Hasn’t Sawamura turned down your offers before?”  Yamamoto asked delicately.  Kenma looked up from his phone for the first time since walking into Kuroo’s office, and even Kai turned a knowing gaze towards him.

“Semantics.”  Kuroo shook them off.  The last time Kuroo had sent Sawamura a fruit basket, Sawamura had sent it back but this time the fruit was arranged to spell ‘Fuck off’.  Kuroo had laughed even though several of his people had looked horrified and offended.  Sawamura was polite even to the worst scum, Kuroo called it a win to be able to get under the other man's skin without much effort put forth.

“Maybe you should have Bokuto talk to him or someone from Ubugawa?”  Bokutu Koutarou was the leader of the Fukurdani group, and Ubugawa was the third group in their alliance.  It was a solid question, an even better suggestion, but Kuroo tossed them both away.  He had to be the one to make Sawamura agree to join the group.  Their past was a bit unfortunate, but it wasn’t enough of a reason for Sawamura to hold a grudge against him for 9 years.  Kuroo needed to know what the cause of Sawamura’s intense hatred for him was.

“It won’t work, Kuroo’s obsessed.”  Kenma was back on his phone again, voice most neutral but there was a hint of disgust in there.

“Do not tell me you’ve made me work on Sawamura for hours just for you to hurt him again?”  Yaku spat out as he entered the office.  All 165 centimeters of him vibrating with disdain at the thought.

“No one touches him.”  Kuroo’s dark tone surprised even him before he cleared his throat and sat up from his slouched position.  Haiba had even stopped mid-walk in surprise at Kuroo’s vehemence.  “I just meant we’re here to talk him into joining an alliance before his own group finds out where he is, talk and perhaps a little bribery.”  Sawamura would never accept bribery, at least the Sawamura Kuroo had known 9 years ago wouldn’t.  Then again the Sawamura Kuroo knew 9 years ago held a dark loathing for all those involved in the groups who ruled the four Wards, and now he was a leader of one of those groups, a group with a lot of blood on its metaphysical hands.

“Good.”  Yaku said, relaxing slightly.  Haiba continued his walk, slamming into the much smaller man as if he couldn’t see him from his tall vantage point.  Yaku swatted him away but otherwise ignored Haiba.  “His wounds are extensive but they are all surface damage.  It seems they didn’t have time to start breaking bones or cut off limbs.”

The Nekoma Group had very literally stumbled upon Sawamura and his captors.  Of course Kuroo had heard that the Karasuno leader had gone missing, but he didn’t think he’d be hidden away in his own district.  Sawamura had been in pretty bad shape when they got him out of the dark, moldy abandoned warehouse he had been in, but cleaned and patched up he looked a little better.

“Has everyone eaten?”  Yaku suddenly asked, frowning around at the group before sighing at their various negative answers.  “Come on, let's get you fed.”  Haiba cheered and Yaku kicked him out of the room before more gently extricating everyone else.

“I hope you know what you’re doing Kuro.”  Kenma said quietly once the room was empty, before following the small group out himself.  Kenma was the only one who knew about Sawamura and Kuroo’s past dealings.  The only one who at least partially understood Kuroo’s obsession.

Kuroo had joined the Police Academy nearly a decade prior, under a false name and to plant himself in a position of power to help the Nekoma Group.  Sawamura Daichi had been at the Academy at the same time, shiny eyed and bushy tailed and extremely attractive, if Kuroo was being totally honest, which he usually was.  Striking up a friendship and later an actual relationship with Sawamura had been thrilling at first, a chance to see if his acting skills were as good as he thought they were.

Except Sawamura turned out to have a great sense of humor and a truly wonderful personality to match along with that greek god-like body, and Kuroo realized the sort of trouble he had gotten himself into.  Then Nekomata was calling him back, and Kuroo knew that if he, or the person he was pretending to be, disappeared off the face of the Earth then Sawamura would never stop searching for him.  So Kuroo made Sawamura hate him, admitted to being the one thing Sawamura hated most in the world.

Now Sawamura was the leader of Karasuno and Kuroo was very much interested in knowing the man he had become, how getting shot had led to him becoming the one thing he hated most.  But Sawamura had decided to hold a decade old grudge against Kuroo, never letting the other man near enough to charm him.

Sawamura couldn’t avoid Kuroo now though, and Kuroo was going to take full advantage of that.  He hadn’t been lying to Yaku, no further damage would be added to the extensive wounds he already had, and Kuroo would hand him over the second Karasuno got a whiff that their leader was in Nekoma’s district but until then Sawamura was all Kuroo’s.

Kuroo decided he could use a little nap and got up with a smirk firmly settled on his features.

-------

Sawamura felt like shit.

Sawamura had been raised by his elderly grandparents, his parents innocent victims in a shootout between two wanna-be gangs.  He had been raised to be respectful, truthful, an upstanding citizen, and about a dozen other things, which included him finding other, more intelligent ways to describe things without swearing.

But Sawamura felt like shit because sometimes “intelligent” descriptors didn’t really get the point across about how terrible a person can feel.

The problem, Sawamura realized after spending half a moment apologizing to his dead grandparents for his foul language, was that he didn’t feel as shitty as he should.  He was sore, just about every inch of him ached in time with his heartbeat, but he knew he should feel worse.  The pain was kind of hazy, and it was with that thought that Sawamura realized his mind was a little hazy too.

They drugged him?  No, that didn’t make sense, they wouldn’t want to let him separate from the pain at all.  Being drugged meant he wouldn’t feel the full extent of the agony of losing a couple fingers or living through his shoulder being purposely dislocated.  All things they had promised to do to him if he hadn’t told them the information they wanted to know.  They had been slow and methodical, working up from open handed slaps to punches to small quick cuts to slow shallow stabs in the more meatier parts of his anatomy.

Sawamura also felt warm and clean.  He still felt a bit sticky and greasy, but cleaner than he should be after being strapped to a chair for three days.  He also seemed to be laying down.

Karasuno.  It’s the only explanation, they found him and he was home.  They knew how he felt about drugs, but Suga must have made the executive decision to give it to him anyways.  Sawamura had always believed he rather feel the full pain of any wounds and have all his mental faculties then be blissed out and unable to defend himself properly.

Sawamura was safe though so he let the drugs lull him back to sleep as he shifted closer to the warmth nuzzled against his side.  It was a person, Sawamura’s slow brain managed to supply, probably Hinata.  He had nightmares and he was known to sneak into various peoples beds, he had probably been making himself sick with worry over Sawamura being missing.  So Sawamura brought his hand up to ruffle the orange locks but something felt wrong.

Sawamura peeled open his eyes, not surprised when his left one didn’t want to comply, he vaguely remembered a punch aimed there.  There was indeed a person nuzzled up to his side, face buried against his neck and black hair tickling his chin.

Black hair?  Sawamura ran through the list of possibilities.  Nishinoya was the first one, but the body against his was far too long to be the 160 centimeter defender.  Ennoshita?  But the name was discarded as quickly as it entered Sawamura’s head.  Ennoshita might be a cuddler but he certainly would never do so with Sawamura, especially by sneaking into Sawamura’s bed when he was too drugged and hurt to say differently.  Yamaguchi?  No, that didn’t seem right either, the hair was all the wrong length too.

“More,” A deep, slightly familiar voice mumbled against his throat before reaching up to tap on Sawamura’s hand, where it had stilled in the messy inky black locks.

Familiar, it was all so familiar and Sawamura couldn’t place why because his brain was too sluggish from drugs to connect the dots.  It wasn’t just the voice that was familiar but the hair and body, even the way their persons were pressed together in sleep was familiar.

“Kuroo?”  Sawamura didn’t recognize his voice at first, it was too raspy and uneven.

“Bingo.”  Kuroo’s answer was breathed against Sawamura’s throat.  “I rescued you, now where’s my kiss?”

“Do you mean punch?  Get off of me before I strangle you.”  Sawamura’s last words were rasped out, his throat completely dry.  Kuroo rolled away from him before reappearing with a glass of water.

“Drink up.”  Kuroo smirked and Sawamura turned his head.

“Piss off.”  Sawamura ground out, felt a lick of shame at the poor language and rude manner, but he shoved that away because it was Kuroo Tetsurou, who deserved nothing better.

“You really have changed, those implicable manners are completely gone.”  Sawamura forced himself to sit up despite his body protesting, quite loudly, that all it wanted to do was lay back down and pass out for another 24 hours or so but like hell was Sawamura going to have any sort of conversation with Kuroo flat on his back.  “Careful, careful.”  The free hand of Kuroo’s fluttered around his body but Sawamura smacked it away, glaring at him and hoping it was effective even with one eye swollen shut.

“What kind of plan is this?”  Sawamura felt like someone was dragging sandpaper down his dry throat, but he forced the pain to the back of his mind.  “Torture me then let me heal before what?  More torture?  Or is this the torture, making me bare your company without a means of escape.”  The drugs must have really addled his brain because Sawamura thought there was a look of hurt that crossed Kuroo’s face before it was replaced with his regular smarmy look.

“That’s very rude Daichi,” Kuroo said his name with slow deliberateness, a gentle caress of forced intimacy that would have Sawamura grinding his teeth if his jaw wasn’t already throbbing in pain.  “I rescued you.”  Kuroo motioned to the spacious, mostly empty room.

“Like I’d believe anything that came out of your mouth.”  Sawamura knew he should play along, make Kuroo drop his guard so Sawamura could escape, but of course it had to be the one person Sawamura could not even fake a smile for.  Kuroo frowned, another look of hurt flashing on his face but Sawamura forced himself to remember that Kuroo was a complete psychopath, he lacked empathy and a conscious, and nothing he did would make Sawamura forget that.  He had the scars to prove it.

“You’re purposely making this more difficult than it has to be Sawamura.”  Kuroo said, disapproving but at least he was using his formal name again.  Kuroo pressed his lips to the glass and drank half of it before holding it out to Sawamura.

Sawamura took the glass in his uninjured hand, careful of the IV, and decided that he was already drugged, if the water held more than it’d make little difference.  He downed the water, his mouth and throat equal parts happy and angry about it.  It hurt to swallow, and it sat heavy in his empty stomach but felt a bit better.

“Hungry?”  Kuroo questioned, looking far too innocent for Sawamura’s liking.  “I’ll go get you something to eat, don’t try to do anything stupid.  Yaku stitched you up and he’ll have my skin if you pop a stitch or open a wound and please don’t purposely hurt yourself just so Yaku will kick my ass, that’s childish.”  Kuroo strode out of the room and Sawamura let out a deep breath, ignoring the ache in his body at the action.

Sawamura had tried not to notice any details about Kuroo, but of course he had.  They had last seen each other when they were 20, still a little awkward in their mostly grown adult bodies but there was no more awkwardness in 29 year old Kuroo Tetsurou’s movements.  The 10 or more centimeters Kuroo had on Sawamura meant he was lanky, but even dressed in a black suit Sawamura had noticed there was lean muscles on every inch of the taller man.  He still had that permanent bedhead, still had that smooth-looking dark skin, and the ever present smirk was on his face.

Sawamura tried to force himself out of the bed, to check out the room, thinking maybe they left a door or window unlocked because they thought he was too wounded or drugged to escape.  He couldn’t stand up, was actually slumping against the bed, his body refusing to listen to his orders, his brain slowly shutting down on him.  He had used up too much energy snarking at Kuroo and he couldn’t fight against the sleep that was slowly blacking out his vision.

-------

“He really hates you.”  Inuoka piped up, his voice surprisingly high pitched for someone his size, though not unpleasantly so.  He looked half nervous and half amused.

“Maybe someone else should bring him his food?”  Kenma offered softly but without any real feeling.  Kuroo knew better, could see the worry by the straight line of Kenma’s usually curved spine, the way he eyed the ramen dripping down Kuroo’s front.

“Stop upsetting my patient!”  Yaku yelled out after he made sure there was no actual damage done to Kuroo.  The ramen had been nearly cold by the time Sawamura woke up on his own and Kuroo had offered it in a flourished movement.  Kuroo didn’t think he’d have gotten a chest full of ramen if he hadn’t been snuggled up to the sleeping Sawamura, but really, he was so peaceful when he slept, how could Kuroo possibly resist?  It was really Sawamura’s own fault.

“Should I call Bokuto?”  Kai asked, dark eyebrows furrowed over dark eyes as he looked at the mess covering Kuroo.

“If he has enough strength to toss ramen bowls then maybe we should strap him down?”  Haiba questioned, making everyone quiet down and stare at him.  “Yaku has to go in there to check him over and if he hurts-”

“Sawamura wouldn’t do that.”  Kuroo waved his hand.  It had only been two days since Sawamura had arrived, and the only real interactions he’d had with the Nekoma group was Kuroo, Yaku, and Lev attempting to be intimidating while Yaku yelled at him to stop getting in his way.

“But Yaku-” Lev begun in a soft whine.

“I can handle myself!”  Yaku growled out, kicking Lev for good measure.  The tall man flinched but continued on.

“You make me stand in the corner and he is refusing drugs and he’s clearly regaining his strength, if he tries to go after you I might not be quick enough.”  Lev hovers over Yaku, shifting from one foot to the other, looking like an overgrown puppy despite the fact that he towers over everyone else in the room.  Kuroo smirked at the interaction despite the fact that he really needs to change out of his sticky, noodly suit.

“Sawamura wouldn’t hurt Yaku.”  Kuroo states again, cutting off their argument, gaining everyone’s attention.

“Kuroo-” Lev wrung his hands in front of him and Kuroo decided to put the younger man's mind at ease.  Lev didn’t worry about much, mostly about food, but Yaku was special to him, despite the older man being vaguely annoyed by the half-Russian one.

“Even at half his strength and doped up on drugs it wouldn’t stop Sawamura from overpowering you or Yaku.”  Kuroo stated simply.  Lev was quick, and when he wanted to he could be quite clever, but until he stopped slacking off in his workouts he’d always be weak, especially against someone like Sawamura who had been training his body since he was 12 years old.  “I’ve left out plenty of things that would be better suited as a weapon then a cold bowl of ramen, but Sawamura has never used them against me and he doesn’t even look at them when Yaku is in the room.”  Though at first Sawamura had been worried about Lev’s presence.

“Why is he refusing to listen to you?”  Inuoka asked and Kuroo could see it was a question that had been on everyone’s mind.  Nekoma was known as being clever and manipulative, one of the more intelligent groups in any of the four wards.  They found weaknesses and struck as a team, but they were also known to be fair and showed a willingness to listen to others.

“About a decade ago I joined the Academy under a false name and background, I was meant to learn their training techniques and find out what I could about how they handled groups so we could better defend ourselves.”  Kuroo went to cross his arms over his chest before he remembered the ramen.  “I used Sawamura to accomplish my goals, he was top of his class and on the fast track to be the head of a department but I was called back to Nekoma after a little over a year.  Sawamura found out what I was, apparently he’s pretty bitter about it.”

It wasn’t the full story.  No one, not even Kenma, knew the full story.  How much fun Kuroo had in provoking Sawamura, who was competitive but too polite to show it.  He had enjoyed showing off his better test scores and tried to beat Sawamura during their field training.  Theirs had been an easy rivalry, and a surprisingly easier friendship.  They ate meals together, Kuroo helped Sawamura with classes while Sawamura helped Kuroo with various obstacle courses and physical training.  They watched movies together, starting on the floor of eithers room then after a couple months ending up together in either of their beds.  There were soft, fond glances before slow, chaste kisses that turned into something more.

Kuroo hadn’t pined away, there was too much work to be done, especially when he was called back from the Academy.  Some of the older members of Nekoma had taken it upon themselves to push past their limits and break some key rules.  It had been Kuroo’s job to make sure those members were properly punished and that no one repeated their mistakes.

Kuroo had other people, but nothing really compared to the quiet comfort he had found with Sawamura Daichi.  Kuroo accepted that, knew that he was unlikely to ever fill that gap in his life with anyone besides Sawamura.  Some people were just irreplaceable, and Kuroo accepted that and moved on.  Or at least he thought he had before Sawamura reappeared as the leader to the fallen giant, the flightless crows that was Karasuno.  Kuroo had thought it was fate intervening, but apparently fate had decided to be a little bitch.

“That’s all?”  Lev asked, sounding unimpressed.  Yaku was frowning deeply, but Kuroo could tell the man was still working something out, not yet ready to discuss whatever was rattling around in his brain.  Kuroo shrugged and finally went to change out of his ruined suit.

-------

“Sawamura, would you mind if I asked you a question?”  Yaku asked, hesitant and soft in a way Sawamura hadn’t seen him be up to that point.  Sawamura found himself nodding automatically as Yaku carefully took out the IV, Sawamura was drinking fluids on his own now so it was pointless.  “Why wouldn’t you consider joining the Fukurodani Alliance?  It is a great opportunity for Karasuno, I have heard you’re quite skilled and strong, but you’re group is still new and small.”

Sawamura licked his dry lips, keeping Lev in his peripheral at all times while keeping his eyes trained on Yaku.  Lev seemed to sit up straighter at the question, it had taken Sawamura a while to realize that the tall, intense looking man had actually been pouting in the corner he had been banished to.

“I cannot make that decision solely on my own.”  He would need to consult with Ukai, though he would never say that outloud.  Of course most people suspected that the grandson of old man Ukai, former leader of Karasuno, was helping Sawamura from the shadows, but no one could pin down Ukai’s location, or even make sure he existed at all.  Sawamura wouldn’t confirm that for anyone, even the good doctor Yaku.  “But even if I could, how could I ever trust Kuroo Tetsurou?” Sawamura tried to keep the disdain out of his voice, because he knew he was talking about their leader, but it showed on the pronouncement of Kuroo’s name.  A completely different name then the one Sawamura had known him by for a year and four months.

“Yes, I thought the problem might be Kuroo.”  Yaku was frowning, clearly not understanding.  “Forgive me for being rude, but he told us about the Academy.”  Sawamura stiffened and those clever eyes of Yaku’s caught the movement.  “He didn’t go into any great detail, just that you were in the fast track to being something great amongst the police and he decided to spark up a friendship just in case.”  Friendship was putting it mildly, and Sawamura suspected Yaku knew it was a bit more than that.

“And he told you how it ended?”  Sawamura asked, not understanding how Yaku didn’t know why Sawamura could never trust Kuroo.

“Yes, but I don’t understand how that grudge could last a decade long or why you would let it get in the way of protecting your people.”  Yaku said, arms crossed and looking vaguely disapproving.

“I’m sorry,” Sawamura said, not sorry at all.  “But you would trust someone with the people in your care after they had shot you in the back?”  Yaku’s eyes widened in surprise and Lev fell out of his chair, the dramatics would have been comical if Sawamura wasn’t so angry.

“What?”  Lev wheezed out, the first word he had spoken in front of Sawamura.

“So he didn’t tell you how it ended then?”  Sawamura asked, not surprised at all.  “He revealed who he actually was to me, walked away and while my back was to him, shot me twice.”

“Excuse me.”  Yaku bowed quickly before marching out of the room, Lev scrambling after him.  Sawamura was left in his bed in surprise.

The surprise faded when Sawamura took notice of something else.  Something Yaku had always been careful to do up to this point.  Sawamura stood up from the bed, ignoring the various aches and pains in his body.  They had been taking surprisingly good care of him but it still had only been a couple days since he had been tortured for three days straight.  But Sawamura knew how to deal with pain, pain and him were old friends.

Sawamura went up to the door and carefully turned the knob.  He bit back his grin as the knob turned in his hand.  Yaku had forgotten to lock the door in his hasty retreat out of the room.

Sawamura was getting out of there today.

-------

Kuroo watched the live feed of the cameras placed strategically around his base.  Sawamura was loaded into a nondescript black SUV, safe and sound tucked back within the arms of his own family.  He had made a call before escaping.  Kuroo wasn’t sure if escaping was the right term since Sawamura hadn’t been a prisoner.

Kuroo would miss sneaking into Sawamura’s bed once the man fell asleep.  It had been a long time since Kuroo trusted anyone enough to actually fall asleep with them, but the warmth Sawamura radiated and his soft snoring, most likely the cause of a broken nose, easily lulled Kuroo to sleep.  Kuroo worried that Sawamura slept so hard he didn’t notice someone slipping into his bed, worried more than it took the other man minutes to wake up fully enough to realize he wasn’t alone.  Kuroo was a horribly light sleeper and could wake fully within the span of a breath.

There only seemed one way to truly solve this and make sure that Sawamura was safe as he slept.  Kuroo would just have to be in bed with the other for the rest of their lives.

Kuroo hadn’t pined away for Sawamura, but having the man in his own compound had made Kuroo realize he was missing something essential in his life.  He didn’t allow himself to be selfish, his family would fall and all the people who stood under his protection would be harmed if he allowed himself to be selfish.  But this was the first thing in a long time, perhaps Kuroo’s entire life, that he would allow himself to be selfish for.

It helped that their alliance would be mutually beneficial to both of them.  But mostly Kuroo wanted to be able to crawl into bed with the other man after a long hard day and let his breathing lull him to sleep.

It wouldn’t be easy.  Sawamura was terribly stubborn when he wanted to be.  Yaku had informed Kuroo that the other leader was under the impression Kuroo had shot him, in the back twice.  Kuroo would find the evidence that he wasn’t the shooter and he would convince Sawamura that they were better as allies than enemies.  Sawamura may be stubborn but Kuroo was patient.

[madamhatter]

Ibara/Sophie...or for the sake of cursed: Che'nya/Sophie?

Send me a ship and I’ll tell you... | accepting

hateship, hateship, hateship

Who asks the other on dates: 

Ibara Saegusa has not left Sophie alone about going out and declaring himself as her partner for the longest time. All of these are empty promises to a game that he loves to play and wants to win, just to see the stalwart seamstress crumble in some shape or form. She has the gull to refute or turn her cheek at him as if he wasn’t having an effect on her -- which shortly feeds his damn antics to continue his pursuit of getting what he wants. 

From handing her tickets that Eden and Adam fans akin would draw blood for to personal appointments in his office, Ibara doesn’t give Sophie a break. It isn’t like she rejects all of them, usually stuck in social pressure if he does it in front of others that are either: mutual business partners or her business associates. Sometimes, though she doesn’t admit it, she may attend an outing of her own interest, just to see how he’d react. 

Though, Sophie has given him propositions in turn to see how he’d react too. She knows he’ll accept and he does, so she’s kind of a dumbass who is surprised by his response. Most of these are usually in regards to her position as a CEO, where she gets the unfortunate invitation to social events that would be populated with media. To her, it would make sense that he’d go, if not purely for the publicity and new access to people to exploit/trick. But, she doesn’t like to admit she just wants to be near someone she’s comfortable with.

Who is the bigger cuddler:

How the hell does Sophie get near him while resisting the urge to strangle him? There’s already hot-blooded hostility between the two of them -- be it because their relationship is tethered between professionalism and “resentment.” Yes, that word needs quotation marks because they’re idiots.

Ibara is more than willing to pull any stunt to get under her skin. Though, it’s usually with physical touch with her that varies tremendously and makes him feel different. He doesn’t admit it, but hey, he’s used to keep it inside.

In spite of this, they do actually settle sometimes when they��re both working together. In the case they both crash in the same couch, it’ll be Sophie who cuddles. It has once or twice because the moment Ibara wakes up and breathes, she immediately opens her eyes, and it’s a long stare. It’s the few times Ibara can get her embarrassed as he laughs -- out right terrified by what he’s feeling -- and she reproaches and tells him bluntly “Shut up!” and murmurs something about not being able to be “arsed about it.” 

Who initiates holding hands more often:

Two touched starved idiots walk beside another and their hands brush against another, what would they do? Ibara is more than happy to watch Sophie recoil, as he reasons he’s far too amused by her antics and stubbornness in whatever she does. Sophie darts her hand away the moment she feels his finger, body overcome with a cold sweat and her instinct kicking in faster than her reason. There are certain things that she refuses to ‘play’ around with, especially in public and what their images are. Getting affectionate in such a public area is beyond inexcusable, even if it’s with people that they know. 

There are moments when the hand-holding can be genuine and intimate between the two of them. But, they would usually look dumbfounded at another. So, they do reach out sometimes, if not to get rid of something egging on their mind. 

Sophie’s look is more suspicious, with her brows pinched and eyes narrowed. It’s a face she only makes when her truly colder, ruthless side emerges and it’s not one anyone should deal with. It is a reality of how much emotion she tries in her everyday interactions not to look emotionless. 

Ibara’s look is one that is equally uncharacteristic for the young man. Brows rising, body frozen, and hand shaking, these are the signals that could indicate to anyone that he is stunted by the turn of events and is unsure of how to process it. It’s a rarity that he, one who plans for everything and pulls the strings, finds himself unable to control this situation. 

Who remembers anniversaries:

Always punctual, both of them will never really break a sweat or ever really forget dates--. A lot of their current lives revolve around schedules and planning months in advance, so I highly doubt that. Though, that is them when they’re actually dating.

Ibara’s the little shit who proposes they have an anniversary date long before they’re even dating to annoy Sophie. The date he chosen out will be decked out with surprises with gifts and a date that leaves the seamstress overwhelmed and wanting to kill him. 

Who is more possessive:

The bastard we know as Ibara is definitely someone who’d be quite ‘in-the-know’ when it comes to who is interacting with Sophie and what kind of things they’re doing. He’s not stupid, he’s the same type of person who’ll exploit people in whichever way he sees fit and would have some concerns about Sophie falling for the same tricks. 

Ibara’s possessiveness comes from a craving for power. He isn’t above actually going into legally questionable tactics to make sure that people know that Sophie is his partner. Maybe he can’t be outspoken about it, as he is an idol, but he probably has several tricks up his sleeve to keep people far from interested in her. 

Who gets more jealous:

Not a doubt that Sophie is one who gets easily jealous and Ibara eats it up and pokes the beast that way she can even get more jealous. She is very straightforward when she tells someone she doesn’t like them (especially if they’re trying something with Ibara) and she will get haughty about it if Ibara teases her about it. 

These are those moments that Ibara can see better what gets at Sophie. It’s an overwhelming concentration of self-doubt and cynicism that she isn’t going to wanted for long and she should get used to it. I think there are points that he wouldn’t keep it up the more he witnesses how much Sophie will drag herself through the mud over it. 

But, he still isn’t above teasing her about it (when it doesn’t get that bad). He looks at her, smirks, and inquires if meet-and-greets really get to her when she has the privilege of being around him for free. And that’s how Ibara gets shut out from their bedroom for the night. 

Who is more protective:

Both. Ibara will not hesitate to use his combat training to put someone in place and he wouldn’t even break a sweat over it -- or even show any sign that he was going to pull it. Sophie, meanwhile, is one that will defend him on the parts that matter because she acknowledges that Ibara can be VERY slimey.

Who is more likely to cheat:

Neither. Can’t see it in character for them to do it, either way.  

Who initiates sexy times the most:

Oh my god. Sophie is definitely the one who takes on the initiative and has the tables turned on Ibara after all these years of messing with her before their feelings for another cemented. Ibara is one that wants to be in control and has a lot of himself repressed about what he wants to do during sex-- So, it’s going to be interesting for them to see how that plays out. All I know is Sophie can’t beat a trained soldier, but she sure as hell is dumb enough to go ‘oh? you want to top? earn it.’ and literally all Sophie can do is initiate it because she just bottoms.. 

Who dislikes PDA the most:

IBARA IS ALLERGIC TO TOUCH. Nah, he’s got a rough past when it comes to physical assault and isn’t exactly keen on being touch or he tenses up. Affection is strictly not going to happen while they’re in public because, even if Ibara just loves embarrassing her, he really isn’t going to compromise his image. PDA already not going to happen, but he’s definitely apprehensive to keep to himself, despite how much he really does want to be touched.

Sophie is a league below Ibara but they share the same sentiment of not really liking PDA and having similar reactions to being touched suddenly. Though, she does find substitutes like leaning close against him and linking arms with him -- making it look more professional and not as intimate as hand-holding. 

Who kills the spider:

Ibara goes for the kill but Sophie tells him no because it means there’ll be less bugs like ants and flies.. Sophie reasons that Ibara shouldn’t get jealous that there’s another ‘little predator’ and Ibara just stares at her because she’s really going down that path and she’s going to regret it. 

Who asks the other to marry them:

Ibara says they’re already dating jokingly and probably has mentioned they’re married jokingly if he sees that as the better response to use. However, the point in which one of those two things become true is when Ibara doesn’t even want the other being a reality. He’s pretty closed off himself and if he’s now in a commuted relationship with Sophie, which he really hasn’t really been in one, it’s him walking in blindly. as well, idols dating, no less marrying, is a big nono. 

But, I would think Ibara would want to propose when they’re dating to see her reaction (or he now realizes how much more annoyed/flustered she gets when he can suggest she is his fiance). He wouldn’t do the whole shebang to get on one knee -- this is more about if other people are in conversation (or know Sophie), he’ll drop that fact to see how they’ll respond and it grows and grows from there until it reaches Sophie and she’s like ‘aw FUCK that isn’t true.’ 

But seriously? It’s Ibara. He’ll need to make the call because Sophie definitely wants to propose but understands his situation and doesn’t even DARE want to push him into anything. 

Who buys the other flowers or gifts:

IBARA DOESN’T STOP BUYING THINGS AND SOPHIE HATES IT. He’s quite frugal in how he spends his money and definitely has developed a budget in ‘how to embarrass Sophie even when I’m not there.’ He has had things delivered to her home office in England when she’s not visiting and also things delivered to her apartment when she visits. 

It is literally the worst thing and Sophie hates it because it’s all ‘anonymous.’ Back home, she is more resistant to make a emotive response, but her sisters see it when she comes back home and they literally devour her with questions and accusations that her and Ibara are serious. Think of large bouquets and ‘sing-o-grams’ because Ibara found it and went ‘ah, something to impede her :).’ In Japan, she fucking knows who left the snake plushie on her bed in her apartment and she’s going to kill the man for breaking into her place again. 

Sophie’s much more subtle in how she bothers Ibara, but she usually makes her own things for him. He doesn’t get embarrassed by it and Sophie just sucks thinking this through when her pride blinds her. 

Who would bring up possibly having kids:

Sophie is very much the one that would bring up kids frequently once there is some steam in their relationship that goes beyond their ‘we’re too stubborn to admit attraction’ phase.  As Ibara is very much an active idol, having a relationship is usually a big ‘no-no’ (but this depends on the agency/contract too) and he isn’t as well fond of the idea of having kids too. It’s more nervousness about what comes with having kids and what he can provide as someone who didn’t have his parents. 

Though, it’ll happen more frequently as they get older and they’re active with another. It might end up being that she asks him ‘seriously’ about it. He asks why the change and she’s giving a nervous smile like ‘About that..’ and that’s when Ibara becomes a dad.

Who is more nervous to meet the parents:

Ibara laughs bitterly in the background about how his parents are most certainly alive and not at all involve in his life. Sophie twiddles her fingers over her canonically dead biological parents and the only surviving guardian she has taking complete advantage of her.

Neither of them are worried about meeting the other’s parents in this context. It’s already much that Ibara met Sophie’s sisters without her prompting it-- more so, it was accidental. Sophie’s usually waaaay too protective about her private life and never introduces people to her sisters unless it’s been a long while (ie: Anzu is probably the only one properly introduced).

Anyways! There isn’t much to be worried about in Ibara’s case too as he can easily get along with Fanny (stepmother to Sophie) and charm her.

Who sleeps on the couch when the other is angry:

Ibara is sentenced to the couch for bastard and horny crimes. Sophie refuses to share the same bed as him (when they’re older) and is indignant for whatever stunt he pulled this time. It is wise to avoid the fury behind Sophie’s cold glare when he oversteps his boundaries and violates certain comforts that she has.

Who tries to make up first after arguments:

Stubborn hatter and idol stuck in their work, refusing to admit the wrongs they’ve done and are preferring to avoid these weird negative emotions building up in them after the fight. It is usually a big storm that goes, but there’s plenty of rain left afterwards that needs to go. It isn’t really easy for them to really get close and act normal after certain fights and they definitely need their breathing space. Their relationship isn’t the healthiest and they both recognize that.

Sophie, though, would be the one to fess up and go into his office to make amends after that. She’s the one to be quiet about it, though. Her arms wrapped around his neck from behind and her face buried into his hair, while he’s busy typing away, somewhat ignoring her. It’s several minutes after that he acknowledges her and pats her head, telling her that they can talk about it after he’s done. 

Who tells the other they love them more often:

Sophie can directly tell Ibara that she loves him much more easier than he can ever say to her. It was a lot more common in her childhood that she reinforced that love for her sisters when she didn’t really receive it from her guardians. She ensured it was a staple in her sisters’ lives and she sure as hell going to remind Ibara anytime she’s able to tell him.

Ibara is much more resistant to saying at all, even with their relationship developed. It is such a foreign phrase and never used in his life that he’s almost allergic to hearing it. Not even his own unit mates can tell him that or make any reference of that to him. Though, as he gets older, he does reciprocate fondly and admits he loves her too -- or even teases her and goes ‘it’s about time you admitted it’ even if they’ve been together for like 2+ years.

[nyxelestia]

Let me assure you, Nyx, that Hoechlin's comments on Sterek (I think you're mainly referring to his comment about Sterek being disrespectful), has by no means been forgotten, and absolutely not in one week lol! Just yesterday there was a long discussion on it between many of my mutual Stereks. The difference about Hoechlin and Posey's comments, though, is the spiteful nature of Posey's comments. He also hasn't tried to apologize or explain his comments, not even to save face, like Hoechlin. 1/2

There are many of us who are very disappointed in Hoechlin, and who are now side-eyeing him. I think there’s a truth to the saying that you don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Lastly, another difference between Hoechlin’s and Posey’s statements is that Hoechlin replied to a question to him, while Posey hijacked a question not directed at him to take out his frustration on fans. 2/2

and

Do you have any links where I can read up on how Sterek fans harassed Posey into calling Sterek fans bizarre, weird and twisted?

I’m pretty sure you are two separate people, but since my response is mostly the same, I’m lumping you into one post.

A slice of what Posey had been dealing with:

People literally not knowing that that his character is the main character of the show, or sometimes not even knowing he’s in it at all.

Panels and cons about Teen Wolf getting constantly derailed by Sterek. There have been bans on Sterek fanart, and Hoechlin avoiding signing Sterek fanart, as a result.

And as someone on Reddit point out (on a post about how Tyler Hoechlin finds Sterek to be disrespectful), the cast and crew may appreciate the publicity and support, but that doesn’t mean the sheer prevalence of the fandom ship doesn’t burn, given, “…it is slightly insulting to the cast and crew. They’re pouring their efforts into doing X, and all they get asked about is Y. Also…people are practically leering at these guys when they ask about it usually.”

Literally cutting Posey out of gifs and pictures to make it about Hobrien (aka RPF Sterek).

Calling for the show to kill off Tyler Posey and make someone else the main character.

It’s not just “shitty people being shitty on the Internet” - this has had ripple effects on cons that Posey has absolutely noticed.

And it’s not just racism - there’s misogyny, too!

Complete with tremendous victim-blaming of Allison.

We don’t see it as much now, but Allison hate was extremely widespread, back then. And this absolutely hit the actress - such as being asked, in a con, “Is Allison going to dress like a slut this season?” So it’s not just Posey watching himself get marginalized - it’s watching a friend of his get mistreated, too, and that’s on top of the overall show getting drowned in a fanon/crackship.

Also, the fact that people claim Posey insulted or slammed on Sterek fans is one of the ways people twist him into something he’s not in order to justify hating him.

Posey never called Sterek fans “bizarre or twisted”. He called the ship that, which sucks - it hurts when someone you like looks down on something you like.

But as so many other Sterek shippers themselves have pointed out, he already had a really shitty history with Sterek fans and fandom.

Given how often Sterek fandom has overtaken everything else about the show, I don’t blame him for overtaking this single question.

Quoting from another Sterek shipper on Poseygate:

“It’s like going up to an actor playing Hamlet each night after the performance and asking him what it’s like playing… Macbeth. Eventually, the guy playing Hamlet isn’t going to want to talk about Macbeth any more… and will get a little pissy when you continue to badger him about it.

When fans and the press focus on the Sterek phenomenon and ignore almost every other aspect of the show, you are not only ignoring the incredible fact that a young Latino is the lead in a popular television show, you are also ignoring the story that everyone who works on Teen Wolf is trying to tell you.”

His word choice was terrible, but Posey was speaking out not against fans of Sterek, but, “anyone who pays more attention to Sterek than the show”. As some of the aforelinked Redditors have pointed out,

“if you’re only watching for Sterek, there’s a 99 percent chance it won’t happen, and you’re missing the rest of the show.”

As another one said,

“It’s okay to watch Teen Wolf for inspiration for Sterek. It’s not okay to demand that the creators include it or to insist the actors discuss fanart/fanfiction about their characters when they are at an interview/panel expecting to discuss the show.”

Yet after “Posey gate”, people were saying Posey needs to get raped (by Hoechlin, no less).

All of this is accompanied by a long history of hatred of Scott - the main character of the show, and Posey’s character - that was largely perpetuated by Sterek fandom. Things like:

Claiming that the show is all about Stiles.

Injecting Sterek-derived Scott hate onto non-Sterek fanart (Sterek derived in that the language, argument, and intent are all derived of Sterek fandom), and saying that Scott needs to die.

People trying to remove Scott from his own story by claiming it’s really about Derek and that everything is from Stiles’ POV, and if he isn’t actually in the scene, we should just assume it was “told” to him and may never have actually happened (which conveniently means you get to ignore quite a bit of Scott’s storyline and development, as well as many of the other characters’ evil and villainy).

Erasing all of Scott’s (and Derek’s!) character development.

All on top of a long history of erasing Derek’s abusive behavior while calling Scott a rapist and victim-blaming him.

Calling Scott selfish for making tough decisions to save as many lives as possible in really shitty circumstances, such as falsely accusing someone he thought to be dead of murder to protect his peers (and then still trying to help Derek anyway, even when Stiles didn’t want to); blaming Scott for Gerard’s villainy and making a choice to save as many people as possible (especially while ignoring some of the Hale mens’ own actions), and erasing Scott scenes to paint him as putting Stiles and Derek in danger so he can spend time with his girlfriend.

And the rest of us can’t avoid it.

For all that people claim Scott-stans and non-Sterek fans go into Sterek tags to bully them, most Sterek fans seem to have no idea just how much Sterek infects other fandoms/the rest of fandom.

People will make non-Sterek fanart, and it still gets tagged as Sterek - even when the post is captioned with Scott, or when there’s some pretty clear disparities in skin tone.

They turned a picture of Stiles and Scott into a post about Sterek. And somehow a Scerek fanart became a Sterek post.

And we’re all supposed to be grateful because turning non-Sterek fanworks into Sterek and getting reblogged by Sterek fans will give it more notes.

Yes, there were crazy fans from all ships sending hate to all the actors, for a variety of reasons.

But, something a lot of people fail to realize is the sheer scale of the Sterek fandom compared to all the rest of Teen Wolf fandom combined. The numbers may have been even worse back then.

The last two paragraphs of that link, neatly summarize why I side-eye a lot of the claims that Sterek fans were unfairly bullied, especially by Scott fans, and my sentiments on the matter overall:

And this is just a sampling of some of what this fandom throws in Scott’s direction (and not even bringing in the shit and the fuckery that they throw at Tyler Posey). So, yeah. In conclusion: you are not a special and unique snowflake because you hate Scott McCall; you are falling in line with about 90% of the rest of the fandom on this count (at least). It is not hard to be a Scott McCall hater in this fandom just because a handful of vocal people call you on your shit when the reasons you give for hating Scott are hot problematic nonsense; most of your fellow fans agree with you and think you’re being unfairly bullied when people criticize you.

No one is saying that you are required to like Scott McCall—but when the majority of the fandom hates him, demeans him, demonizes him, belittles him, flings ableist and racist shit at him on a regular basis, mischaracterizes him in order to valorize their faves, and actively wishes death on him (usually so Stiles or Derek can become the star of the show), and when this behavior and these attitudes are not only common but actively encouraged and supported, with an undercurrent that suggests, “but why would anyone ever like Scott, I don’t like Scott so clearly no one else would ever like him either”? Then yes, people have a right to be pissed off.

In conclusion, as I’ve literally already said before:

If my understanding of a ship was predominantly made up of people erasing me from my own TV show, saying I deserved to be raped and murdered, and making the rest of my friends uncomfortable or harassing them in the process? “Bizarre and twisted” would be the nicest way to say what I think of them.

(In my case, it really is.)

[ruffsficstuffplace]

The Keeper of the Grove (Part 79)

Weiss was in her dreamworld, sitting on the side of her bed in her old room in Manor Schnee—before it had been vaporized by Tinmen with shotguns, at least.

The door opened, Weiss looked up and frowned.

Jacques Schnee sucked in a deep breath, and sighed. “Well, I do hope you’re happy now...” he said as he strode in, his hands behind his back, the disappointment clear on his face.

Weiss didn’t reply.

“How is this new life treating you, Weiss?” Jacques asked. “Enjoying your ‘freedom’? Literally living in the very swamp of civilization, forced to muck about in the dirt, sharing space with these animals?”

Weiss scowled as she looked up. “Those ‘animals’ are my friends, and have been treating me far better than you ever had!”

Jacques scowled. “Really, Weiss?

“All I have ever done, it was for your own good—I feed you, I clothe you, I educate you, I protect you, I go out of my way to provide you every single comfort and luxury you could ever want or need, I introduce you to the best possible connections and try to bring you into the company of success, talent, and genius, whilst keeping you away from the rabble you insist on associating with...

“… And then there’s the romances you’ve attempted.”

Weiss looked back down.

“First, there was your fencing instructor. What a scandal that would have been, had it not been to our mutual fortune that she would agree to settle this quietly and gracefully! I paid for every single session of that damned therapist believing she could tame your worst impulses, kill those naive dreams of true love, and teach you the reality of relationships.

“As you seem so keen on forgetting in spite of all my reminders: it’s a transaction, an arrangement, business, convenience, and practicality when it was invented in the Old World, and still is in spite of all the pomp, the irrationality, and misguided spirituality they’ve infused in it over the millenia.

“If I hadn’t been here to bail you out every singe time those ventures of yours failed, you would have long been bankrupt, pining for your lost loves in the squalor of one of those dwellings for the ‘unfortunate’--though I’m sure your sister would happily jeopardize her own life to coddle you like she had with the Queensguard.”

Jacques let out another heavy sigh. “Did you really think it would be different this time, Weiss?

“Did you really think that because this ‘Ruby’ is not even human, that the differences between you, this alien deathtrap you chose to live in, the questionable and worrying circumstances this ‘relationship’ arose from, that somehow those would invalidate those problems that sunk every other ‘romance’ you’ve attempted?

“Did you really think, that after everything she has shown herself to be, the grand manipulations of these ‘Fae,’ the suspicious coincidences and exceptions given to you, that there wasn’t some ulterior motive in all of this?”

“Do you really think that animal loves you...?”

Weiss balled her fists. “SHUT UP!”

Jacques blinked, before his face contorted in a rage. “What did you just say to me, young lady?!”

���I SAID: SHUT UP!” Weiss said as she shot up out of her bed and stormed up to him, frost pouring out of her hands. “Shut the fuck up, before I am forced to permanently shut it for you!”

Jacques was unfazed. “Threats, Weiss? Really...?”

“Don’t test me, father...” Weiss growled. “I’m not a helpless little kid anymore!”

“And what exactly do you call this temper tantrum?!”

“Standing up for herself, is what!” Nick cried.

Jacques whirled around, found himself facing the barrel of Nick’s lucky plasma pistol, a fresh clip in the barrel, the sides of it glowing bright.

Jacques mirrored the scowl on Nick’s face. “I thought you said you’d never use threats...” he growled.

“That’s because someone using force to get what they want tends to be a real good indicator of someone who shouldn’t have power in the first place, and dead bodies tend to cause more problems than they solve.

“Now scram before I have to throw your dead ass off the balcony.

Jacques pressed his forehead up to the barrel.

“Are you really sure you want to find out if I’ll pull the trigger, Jacques?” Nick asked coolly.

“Like you would actually do it...” Jacques growled.

Fzzshh!

Thud.

“As a matter of fact: I would!” Nick said as he knelt down and pressed the barrel to the back of Jacques’ head. “Since unlike you, I actually follow through on what I say I’d do—‘I’ll take good care of your daughter, your grandchildren, and your legacy’ my ass!”

Fzzshh!

Nick stood up, and waved his gun in the air to disperse the excess energy lingering around the barrel, before he holstered it in his back pocket. He stepped over Jacques’ corpse and to Weiss’ side. “You okay, sweetheart?” he asked as he put a hand on her shoulder.

“No!” Weiss cried. “I wanted to kill him!”

Nick frowned and patted her on the shoulder. “Sorry, sweetheart. Think you can stomach bringing him back to life?”

Weiss debated it. “I think I’ll just watch you throw him off my balcony, thanks.”

Nick nodded as he hoisted Jacques’ corpse over his shoulder. “Frozen or fresh?” he asked as he and Weiss walked over out to one of her balconies. “Whether he splats or cracks, I’ll be happy to see him where he belongs—in the ground.”

“Frozen,” Weiss replied as Nick stood him up by the edge. “I want to preserve that stupid look on his face,” she said as she readied her magic.

Granddaughter and grandfather spent a moment admiring the frozen corpse of Jacques Schnee, permanently caught surprised in death, before Nick threw him off the edge. They leaned over and watched it fall several stories down to a patch of Acropolis bedrock floating in the middle of a sea of white.

Crash!

They both smiled. “Thanks, Grandpa,” Weiss said as she and Nick waltzed back into her room. “I needed that.”

“Any time, sweetheart!” Nick said as he warmed his chilly hands.

“Where’s Grandma?”

“’Somewhere around here in the recesses of your psyche, being repressed as part of this rather strange and frankly questionable coping mechanism/paranormal phenomenon’ as she’d say,” Nick said. “You could call her in if you’d like, but I think you and I both know there’s a reason you only called me over this time.”

Weiss nodded as she sat down on her bed. Nick sat down beside her, the mattress sank and Weiss slid right into his side. He put a muscular, gigantic arm around her shoulders, one that easily dwarfed her small figure like it did with Freya.

“What do I do, Grandpa…?” Weiss asked.

“Well, if you want to go by my example: I’d say try out the ill-advised, unorthodox-to-say-the-least romantic relationship, and see if it’ll work out fine eventually. It’s not like terrible, ill-advised romantic decisions made in even worse circumstances isn’t fucking genetic on my side, judging by Snowie, you, and Winter!”

Weiss nodded. “What made you sure you wanted to confess to Grandma?” she asked.

“Nothing, that’s what!” Nick replied. “I wasn’t sure of shit, just like I wasn’t sure that my little project to go find something to help us humans un-fuck ourselves over, but hell, I figured if the odds of dying horribly out in the Country and coming back with fuck-all didn’t stop me from assembling the original crew, then I shouldn’t let that stop me from telling Frosty I had the hots for her.”

“When did you realize you were in love with her?”

Nick chuckled. “Cliche as it sounds, since the day I met her. Always did have a thing for the older, intellectual types who’ve been around long enough to know that they ain’t taking anyone’s bullshit. Besides, there was something real sexy about a lady that always made sure to ‘properly enunciate’ her four letter words.”

“But didn’t you keep writing about how much you hated her, and how you only kept her on because she could help keep you all from dying of dehydration?”

Nick chuckled. “It’s not impossible to feel both sides of the coin about something at the same time, aint’ it?”

Weiss sighed. “True… but weren’t you worried about the consequences? What if she left?”

“That’s why I tried to find so many ways to try and purify water without Frosty’s fancy techniques and machines.

“For one thing, I didn’t like the idea of not dying of thirst to rely on the saltiest bitch I have ever met in my entire life, for both the risk of losing her and her having that kind of leverage over us; for another, the prototypes could be salvaged and integrated into all the other hodgepodge tech we built like my blaster”--he patted his pistol--”and for a third, I was damned sure she was going to find out eventually, so I may as well prepare for the inevitable.

“I’m pretty sure she wasn’t joking when she said she worked with a secret intelligence agency once—would go a long way to explaining why Frosty just loved herself her secrets and those ridiculous ‘Pythian prophecies.’”

Weiss nodded. “Was it worth all the diarrhea though…?”

Nick frowned. “That… that I really can’t say, considering those shits were horrifying. What did end up happening though was that Frosty was tired of having to stick needles in me to pump rehydration solutions to keep me alive twice or thrice a week, so she asked me:

“’Nicholas, why the fuck are you trying to make all of these crappy water purifiers of yours? Don’t my creations work well enough for the all of us? Or is a doctor of Environmental Science, specializing in Water Management not good enough for you...?’

“So I told her I wanted to talk to her—alone, far away from the rest of the camp, preferably with the same tricks she used to disappear on us when it was convenient.”

“What did Grandma think…?”

“She said she thought I’d finally reached the end of my rope, and she was finally going to see me use a threat for the first time since she met me, if she just didn’t decide to throw me off that cliff outright—she and everyone else knew I could pick her up and throw her one-handed, easily.”

“So what did you say to her?”

Nick took a deep breath. “I said: ‘Freya, I love you.’”

Weiss blinked. “And…?”

“And, that was it! I’ll be the first one to say that I’ve opened my mouth when I shouldn’t way more than when I should have just kept it shut, but in that moment, I decided that it’d just be best to get straight to the point, skip the explanations as to why I got there.

“Like she said, she thought I was joking. But it wasn’t funny to her. Not funny at all.”

Weiss frowned. “What happened…?”

“Much the same like you, actually: she freaked the fuck out. Unlike you, Frosty got physical and verbal, started tearing at me with the fury of people four times her size and six times her weight, so much I damn near fell off that cliff!”

“How did you survive? The journal for that day was corrupted past that point.”

Nick shrugged. “Guess I managed to catch my footing, or Frosty found the leverage to pull someone like me back. Piper knows it wasn’t my first dodge by pure luck, nor the first miracle she’d pulled off with all her science, smarts, and fancy degrees and doctorates.”

Weiss sighed. “And here I thought you could fill in the blanks in your stories from beyond the grave.”

Nick patted her. “Sorry, kid, but it looks like that’s a point for Subconscious Sock Puppets.”

Weiss grumbled. “So was it worth it, trying to make things work with Grandma?”

Nick smiled. “Hell yes. And before you ask: it’s up to you to decide, if you want to try and make things work with Ruby. Sure, me and Frosty were different as can be—about as close to a real world example of the old Fire and Ice analogy as you can get—and we still made it work!

“But, we didn’t have the fate of all of Avalon depending on us popping out some badass babies to kill whatever the fuck it is the Fae is trying to keep out of the walls of the Bastion but still inside the Valley.”

Weiss looked down. “How do I know if Ruby’s worth it?”

“Do what I did: try it out, see for yourself. But also like I did: think long and hard about how you’re going to do that, when you’re going to do it, and maybe go see if there’s anyone else that tried the same thing and see how it worked out for them.

“It’s why we pay so much damn attention to those reviews and ratings on the Info-Grid, don’t we?”

Weiss nodded. “Right. Who, though?”

“Aside from the obvious choice of Taiyang, try asking Abner. Sounds like he and Ily were pretty close, and he’s probably stayed close with all the other Keepers for the past 500 years. Could be a good source of info on Ruby, too.”

Weiss hummed. “I’ll make a note of it.” She hugged Nick’s side, her arms barely capable of wrapping around him for how large and muscular he was. “Thanks for everything, Grandpa—even if you are just probably a sign that this Valley’s driven me insane.”

Nick hugged her back, completely engulfing Weiss in his grip, careful not to squeeze too hard. “Anytime, Weiss, anytime...”

Weiss pulled away. “Can you please leave, and give me some time to think now?”

Nick let go of her and got up. “Sure thing—love ya, Weiss,” he said, saluting her goodbye.

Weiss waved goodbye. “I love you too, Grandpa.”

Nick went to the door, opened it, and left.

Weiss looked around at her old room in Manor Schnee, and frowned; it began to dissolve around her, rapidly replaced by the now familiar mud and dirt of the training grounds, her meditation fountain burbling quietly.

She smiled. “Much better.”

She sat down underneath the fountain, and began to meditate.

Weiss woke up to the sight of a magic-proof box that had been teleported into her cell while she was asleep. She opened it up, found her newly modified gauntlet inside, along with canisters of mana-water and some more colourful and appetizing looking versions of nutriblocks.

Abner’s notes beside it assured her that his “special mix tastes vastly better!” though Weiss found it was like halfway-decent granola bars.

“Better than cardboard and wood chips, though,” she thought as she ate.

She put her glove back on, flinched as she felt her magic muted like Myrtenaster during the Eve of the Ether. The leather hadn’t gotten any thicker, but the metals and crystals had been carved with intricate runes, plus a new switch-like mechanism—the “safety” for her powers.

Weiss tried to cast a puff of frost with the safety on. She felt herself putting in effort to produce it, fighting against the glove doing its damndest to absorb and stop everything.

Then, she turned it off, saw the new carvings light up and heard them hum, and tried again.

Swoosh!

Weiss’ eyes widened, pulling back from the blast of hail she had produced. She sighed as she flipped the safety back on, unconsciously wincing from the sensation—probably what a dog felt like when it was muzzled.

“Looks like the Eve still has some surprises up its sleeve...” she muttered.

She practiced by dispelling the ice around her, before she called for someone to let her out. It turned out to be one of Abner’s golems, dressed up like an Old World London police officer complete with the ridiculous hat.

“Where’s Abner and the others?” she asked.

A holo popped out of its chest, Nivian text explaining that most everyone had gone home to Keeper’s Hollow or back to the hospital, while Penny and Abner had stayed to properly test Winter’s magical capabilities, and were currently at the Raucous Room, seeing them in action.

Weiss asked it to take her there, down came the barrier, and off they went. She wondered just how exactly Winter’s powers were going to manifest, given what she knew of all the many different branches and specializations of Weavers...