#tiny mage bb

[storiesofsung]

The man, the myth, the legend themselves, Yuu 🫵

Malleus x Yuu - drabble

I feel like at one point or another Yuu and Malleus may become a tiny bit too close whether it be strictly platonic or maybe something much more. This would def result in rumors because of of course he’s the 5th most powerful mage in the world

The by product of these rumors is that Yuu may or may not be the future king’s consort to the one of the most (dare I say) exclusive kingdoms in all of twisted wonderland. This would in turn change public of perception of Yuu from being “that weird kid who sometimes fights off overblots” to possible royalty

I feel like yuu would definitely be malleus’s first love. According to the lore 1000 is when dragon fae fully mature and malleus’s canon age being 178 making him a bb.

This is the first time there has been any romantic speculations going around malleus because well everyone is too scared of him and back to what I said he is definitely not yet at that marrying age 😭

People would definitely treat yuu better like they already are the king’s consort of Briar valley, NPCs no longer disregard them as a pitiful magic less human and may even be scared of them now with malleus as an added fact.

Like for example Yuu and Adeuce walks into the mostro lounge and Azul is just like ‘hmm yes yes, vip treatment for you and for you two boys at the back you can fuck off tata” 💀💀

Sebek finally stops calling them human and upgrades to my lady/lord. Yuu just wondering wtf is he smoking

[loosesodamarble]

Yaaaaayyyy! Thank you for taking al my headcanons and responding! Thank you~!

You bring up a good point. Finesse's proximity to the throne might be a reason why she's getting married off. She's considered both a part of House Kira and House Vaude as she's intended to marry the Vaude heir. So is Augustus trying to distance her from the throne by officially making her part of a different family? 🤔 Maybe. Maybe not. I'm presuming that Damnatio is closer to the throne since he's an immediate Kira while Calmreich has a different last name. So perhaps Finesse is getting married off because of her magic and the fact that she's a woman and thus... (disappointed sigh).

Ohhh! I like how you summarize Finesse's actions with possessed!Langris. "The right things to do aren't always the smartest things to do." I just love Finesse's surprising boldness! It's great! There's also her understanding and kindness... It's her own kind of strength which I love so much. She's not trying to be physically strong despite her constitution but instead being strong in heart and mind. (And her understanding heart is something which she shares with Josele, meaning I need to develop the ladies' friendship.)

I'm kinda happy that the biggest flaw with Finesse is her presence in a meta way. She's largely a love interest between the Space Bros. Her personality isn't perfect (one could argue she's too forgiving to the bros because of Finral's flirting and Langris'... attitude) but there's very little to find wrong with her.

FINESSE X MORGEN! I've only mentioned it once before as an arranged marriage ship but it's a tiny little wriggling thought in the back of my head! And honeslty, I think they'd make such a good couple! They're both sweet and understanding and Morgen would definitely share stories of his work with Finesse to give her a taste of adventure and stuff like that!

I wonder if the Fausts' devil work was a secret to the public because when Nacht crashed the captains' meeting, Julius claimed to not know about Nacht being devil-possessed. He could've been lying but what purpose would it serve at that time? I definitely think that the Fausts and their devil dealings are public in the present since Asta can work with Liebe in the open.

Regardless, I'm married to Light Mage Finesse.

A friendship with Nebra seems like it'd be hard to achieve. But I wouldn't call it impossible. It's said that Nebra like to play with her enemies and so someone sheltered like Finesse might be considered boring to Nebra. They could still talk cordially about current events. Finesse's friendship with Mereoleona would also be difficult to get started but I just like the aesthetic of sheltered Finesse experiencing the world through Mereoleona's wild life. And with how understanding Finesse is, Mereo might like a friend who would never tire of her stories.

Blue Rose Knights, huh? The squad does have a rule against relationships with men but we know the ladies broke that rule in secret until Charlotte confessed about Yami (and I'm assuming the rule was dispelled with that) but Finesse's royal status could get her an exemption for her arranged situation with House Vaude. My main choice would honestly be the Coral Peacocks. We don't know the exact vibe of the squad but from Dorothy and Kirsch, I think the squad is a little more relaxed than ones like the CLK and SE. I feel Finesse would work best in a more relaxed environment so she wouldn't have to worry about pushing herself too hard. I also rule out GD and BB due to the Vaude situation and Finesse not wanting to show any bias there.

Hiiiiiiyaaaaaa~! Hi there Laura~! I'm here to appreciate an under-appreciated blorbo! My sweet lady Finesse! And I'm not just here to ask questions, I'm here to give my own thoughts on the questions (I do have one question for you though, tee hee). But like, just please accept my Finesse ramblings.

🍁 - The most interesting thing about Finesse is her proximity to the royal throne. She calls Augustus great uncle so her grandparent is a sibling of the current king. We don’t know how many other people are in House Kira besides Damnatio but Finesse is part of the though (though possibly considered a part of a branch family since her last name is different). But she’s still probably in line for succession. Queen Finesse when? 😤

🍂 - Finesse's strength as a person is her courage. When Langris was possessed and Ratry going crazy in House Kira, Finesse threw herself at his back and begged him not to hurt everyone. She saw that and didn't hesitate to try to stop "Langris". She has no combat abilities, she's frail in general, but the bravery! It's amazing! I also want to point out how positive she is, not made bitter in the slightest by her weak constitution or the fact that she's been placed in an arranged marriage. I love her, your honor.

🌼 - I think what makes Finesse a strong character is her understanding. She shows no fear towards Langris after the elf possession. She forgives Finral for his womanizing ways and seems to eagerly await his efforts to be a man that will make her happy. And I think that's something both brothers need for their character arcs. She's someone to see the worst sides of them (even though Langris was possessed, it's still a bad look) and to still accept them.

🌻 - Literally she's got a weak constitution and is sickly. Enough said. But also... I think she was a little bit dense when trying to talk to a possessed Langris. It clearly wasn't Langris so like, girl, run!

🌿 - Weakness as a character, I'd say it's the fact that she wasn't brought up sooner. Like, Finral was having moments all the way back in Seabed Temple but she doesn't come up until the Royal Knights Exam. I really wish she'd been established sooner, that's all. I want more Finesse content essentially.

☘️ - I strongly believe she has Light Magic. We know it runs somewhere in the Kira family. Plus, I think the pressure to get her married and to sire an heir might be because she has such a rare and beloved magic attribute and the royal family wants that passed on.

🤝 - I’m pulling this straight out of nowhere but imagine Finesse having a friendship with Mereoleona. Mereo has the strength of body and character to be as free as she wishes. Imagine Finesse and Mereo sitting down for tea when Mereo is visiting civilization. Imagine Finesse listen in awe at Mereo’s many adventures in the wild. She’s jealous that she’s not as strong but she loves that Mereo is willing to sit down with her and indulge her curiosity about the world.

💎 - In your opinion, if Finesse had the strength to join a Magic Knight squad and wanted to be a knight (I honestly don't think she's be interested but this is just a hypothetical), which one would she go to?

Hiiiiyyaaa Erika!!! Oh! Finesse! Yes the sweet lady with blue eyes and a kind heart! She most definitely is under appreciated.

🍁- No but that is interesting. I've been rooting for King Nozel and Wizard King Fuegoleon, but Finesse as a Queen would be really interesting. Granted that we don't know enough about the line of succession or the Kiras (or Calmreichs for that matter) to say a lot. The fact that Auggie is eager to get her married does speak about her being very close to the throne, at least in my mind. I mean, why else would Auggie bother? The question is: Does Auggies consider her as a threat or not? XD /lh,hj However, this is a really interesting piece of trivia when it comes to Finesse.

🍂- You're right and you should day it! The fact that she is frail, and knows it, makes her action even braver, because she must've known that she had no real chance of stopping "Langris". And yet, she didn't hesitate. Because she's not the kind of a woman to stand idly by in the face of danger. Might not have been the smartest action to make, but sometimes the right things to do, are not the smart things to do.

Never thought I'd type such a sentence, but .. yeah.

🌼- Exactly! What strength she doesn't have in her body, she has in spirit. And she knows how much it must mean for both of the brothers, to see that they can be loved and are loved even with all their flaws, because everyone has them. Everyone has done wrong things in their life, and it doesn't mean that they don't deserve happiness as a result.

She has strength as most others.

🌻- Ah, the double edge of the sword of bravery. The pleading and talking to "Langris" like he was Langris, was probably out of desperation. I mean... if I was in that situation, I'd probably do the same. But as far as weaknesses go, this isn't a big one, even if it might be her greatest.

🌿- She is essential to the story, granted that it's through the Space Brothers, but it's difficult to place her into the picture because she just exists and she exists as a romantic interest. A part of me hopes that Tabs would give us something more to Finesse, put her in the spotlight because of something and explain more about her, but another part of me knows that she probably doesn't get addressed again.

Maybe that's be my complaint of her as a character too, that she just seems to exist as a romantic interest when there would be so much potential in her too. I mean... a compassionate and understanding Queen Finesse Calmreich when?

☘️- Now... would they have wanted her to marry Morgen in that case? Or would the whole "House of Faust" thing with the devils been too much to handle? Granted that then they might have had another asset (in devil power) very close to the thrown?

Regardless, that is a very good point about her magic to be something rare.

I'm even entertaining the idea of it being something that you'd want to combine with Spacial Magic to create something even more potent than Light or Spacial. What that might be, I'm not true. (Time anyone? XD ) Other than that, it's a bit difficult to say anything about her magic per se, granted that we don't know what it is.

🤝- As I read this, for some reason I imagined her sitting down with Nebra, but you're right. Mereo and Finesse would, perhaps, have a kind of mutual understanding that'd allow them to spend time together and catch up. They also are both the kinds of people who don't put others down to feel good about themselves. Mereo can be harsh, but she wants people to be strong.

So, I think any discussions Finesse has with Nebra might be a courteous get together between... royals.

💎- The Blue Roses, I think. She might not be so... averse to men as Charlotte, but I think that Finesse is a strong woman and someone who could portray a lot of the BRK ideals. My other choice would be the CLK, but I know I'm biased towards the Lions, and we all know that the Lions usually have very physically fit people. (Sorry Finesse.) So, I think that the BRK would be her choice.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #166

Bonjour and Bienvenue boys and belles to another bit on the BB Channel! For today we’re building the boisterous baroness of bacchanalia as one bit Berserk Bewitchment Bloodline, one bit Battery Builder, all for badass beatdowns! All this brouhaha is to say we’re building and buffing the beauteous brat known as BB.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet here!

Next up: Hacking the planet? I think you misheard.

Race and Background

The evil AI from the moon BB is about as Custom a Lineage as they come, giving you +1 Dexterity and Intelligence. She also comes packed with Darkvision to dunk on those foolish human eyes and the Lucky feat to tip the scales in your favor by re-rolling attacks, checks, or saves that directly involve you three times per long rest. Games aren’t fun if they’re fair, silly!

Again, Evil AI from The Moon isn’t going to be a background you can find in most games of D&D. That being said, she certainly likes to put on shows of life and death, so once you get past their obsession with fire I’d bet she’d find a lot of common ground with Rakdos Cultists. This gives her proficiency with Acrobatics and Performance so you too can twirl around on stage and put a little flair into your attacks.

This background also gives you an additional bunch of spells to tack onto your spell lists. When you unlock spellcasting in the first place, you get Fire Bolt, Vicious Mockery, Burning Hands, Dissonant Whispers, and Hellish Rebuke. Your free second level spells are Crown of Madness, Enthrall, and Flaming Sphere. Third level is Fear and Haste, fourth is Confusion and Wall of Fire, and your free fifth level spell is Dominate Person. Don’t look at me like that, how else are you going to keep your daughters in line? BB doesn’t rely on fire that much -yet- but the other spells are absolutely in her wheelhouse. And giving a computer virus a fire wall is just plain funny.

Ability Scores

As a hyper-advanced AI from the future, it’d be a little weird if your Intelligence wasn’t your highest ability score. Your smarts are almost as obvious as how great a kouhai you are, so make your Charisma the next highest. Your Dexterity is pretty good too- that outfit probably isn’t armor, at least not in the practical sense. Your Constitution isn’t too bad either. The saying goes, “if it bleeds, you can kill it,” but you’re made out of data so you don’t bleed at all. Your Strength isn’t anything to write home about, but you can warp reality, so why would you need to lift? Dump Wisdom. You’re not exactly the most stable person in Chaldea.

Class Levels

1. Artificer 1: First level artificers get Magical Tinkering, so now you can put minor magical effects into tiny objects. Most of them probably aren’t that practical, but every event shop needs some junk.

You can also cast Spells this level, using your Intelligence to prepare and cast them. On top of your rakdos spells, you can use Lightning Lure and Mage Hand to mess with people. You can also prepare first level spells, like Identify to scan enemies for their status effects, Tasha’s Caustic Brew to re-enact your extra attack card, and Cure Wounds for a bit of maintenance on your spirit origin. It takes work to look this good, y’know!

Finally, you get proficiency with Constitution and Intelligence saves, as well as Arcana and Medicine. You were built to look after humans, and you obviously know a lot about tech.

2. Artificer 2: Second level artificers can Infuse Items to turn dumb ol’ mundane objects into magical objects! You learn four infusions right now, but you can only keep two of them available at a time, and you can swap them out between long rests. Really lean into it, make the rest of the party fight for the affection of their kouhai.

As far as your actual infusions go, Mind Sharpener is a great one for spellcasters, letting them force their concentration to stick even if they fail a save as a reaction. You can also use an Enhanced Arcane Focus to make your spells even stronger. For magic items, the classic Bag of Holding is always in fashion, and Sending Stones will help bring party communication into the 21st century.

3. Sorcerer 1: Being smart is nice, but it’s time to make things a bit more.. interesting. As a sorcerer, you get another Spell list that uses your Charisma to cast. You also get your own home game version of BB slots thanks to your Wild Magic Surge. When you cast a sorcerer spell that uses a spell slot, your DM can make you roll a d20. On a one, you then have to roll on the wild magic surge table.

If that’s not wacky enough for you, the Tides of Chaos can speed things up. Once per long rest, you gain advantage on one attack, check, or save of your choice. Your DM can also force you to roll on the WMS table when you’d normally get a WMS to recharge it.

You get cantrips like Friends, to make friends with Senpai; Message, to send calls to Senpai; Light, to help with Senpai’s dumb human eyes; and Minor Illusion, for some cheap holograms. For first level spells, Mage Armor makes that outfit less of a tactical issue, and Tasha’s Caustic Brew frees up some prep slots for artificer spells.

4. Sorcerer 2: Second level sorcerers are Fonts of Magic, giving you sorcery points equal to your sorcerer level each long rest. Right now they can be used to refill spell slots, or you can empty spell slots to get more points.

You can also cast Magic Missile for some caster balls. I know you’re not a caster, but you do run around with a magic wand, it’s not that wild a concept.

5. Sorcerer 3: Third level sorcerers get second level spells, as well as Metamagic to make them a little bit more you flavored. Distant Spell doubles the range of a spell (or gives it a range of 30′ if it’s touch), while Subtle Spell lets you cast a spell without all that vocal or somatic component nonsense. Why waste time chanting when you could spend it narrating?

You can also cast Enhance Ability to alter your data in favor of one kind of skill checks, gaining advantage on them for the duration. You also double your carrying capacity for strength checks, avoid small falling damage with dexterity checks, or gain temporary HP with constitution checks.

6. Sorcerer 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Charisma to make Senpai notice you. And also to make your sorcerer spells harder to avoid.

You can also cast Prestidigitation to make more small magical effects, or Alter Self to further improve your being. When you cast it, you pick one of three modes. Mode 1 gives you a swimming speed and the ability to breathe underwater. Mode 2 lets you change appearance as an action for the duration, and Mode 3 lets you grow Natural Weapons that are magical against resistances. Honestly Mode 3′s a bad matchup for you, but you’re an independent AI who don’t need no humanity, I’ll let you make your own decisions.

7. Sorcerer 5: Fifth level sorcerers get Magical Guidance, letting you spend 1 sorcery point to re-roll a failed skill check. You can also cast third level spells like Dispel Magic to bonk Kiara back into horny jail. Probably. We haven’t built her yet, still not entirely sure how that’s going to work.

8. Sorcerer 6: Sixth level wild mages can Bend Luck, using their reaction and 2 sorcery points to add or subtract 1d4 to another creature’s attack, check, or save. You love playing games, but more in the ‘dungeon master’ sense.

You can also cast Clairvoyance to set up your very own BB channel studio wherever you’ve been before.

9. Artificer 3: Third level artificers can always find the Right Tool for the Job, creating whatever tools you might need over the course of a short rest. Thanks to being an Artillerist, you can also bring one of those weird geometric enemies from the CCC event to the battlefield in the form of an Eldritch Cannon, creating a freestanding small cannon or a handheld tiny one. They’re pretty customizable, but they all come in one of three flavors. Flamethrowers deal AoE fire damage, Force Ballistas deal single-target force damage and throw people around, and Protectors give out temporary HP.

You also get the freebie spells Shield and Thunderwave. 

10. Artificer 4: Use this ASI to bump up your Intelligence for better artificer spells.

11. Sorcerer 7: Seventh level sorcerers get fourth level spells, like Ego Whip! If your target fails an intelligence save, they get disadvantage on all attacks, checks, and saves, and it can’t cast spells. At the end of each turn it can try to make another intelligence save (still at disadvantage), but tbh most creatures aren’t that bright compared to you.

12. Sorcerer 8: Another ASI already? Bump up your Charisma to make it even harder to break out of your ego whip, and also grab Banishment so you can deal with that giant pain in your behind, Kingprotea (note: this level description does not contain the opinions of fateandphantasms. fateandphantasms does not condone any kind of Kingprotea hating.)

13. Sorcerer 9: Fifth level spell time! Grab Creation so you can warp reality and make pretty much whatever you might need out of thin air!

14. Artificer 5: Fifth level artillerists can make Arcane Firearms this level, adding 1d8 to artificer spell damage cast from a specific focus. This also means that your artificer spells and sorcerer spells can finally come out of the same wand, though I doubt most DMs would care to correct you before now.

You can also cast the freebie spells Scorching Ray and Shatter now, since you can learn 2nd level artificer spells. Use Heat Metal if you’re feeling sadistic, Invisibility or Spider Climb for some hacks, or grab Lesser Restoration for some cursed cupid cleansing.

15. Artificer 6: Your Tool Expertise doubles the proficiency of all tool-based checks, but you also get two more infusions, and one more concurrent infusion to boot! A Spell-Refueling Ring will give you more energy to deal with your many, many, problem children, while a Radiant Weapon will just make your wand shinier. Not that it’s a bad reason to grab it.

16. Artificer 7: At seventh level, you can speed up your processors to have Flashes of Genius, using your reaction to add your intelligence modifier to an ability check or saving throw nearby. You can use this Intelligence Modifier times per long rest.

17. Sorcerer 10: Your newest metamagic option lets you twin spells, turning a one-target spell into a two target spell. Now you can keep both your daughters under control at once with one casting of Dominate Person!

You also get the Mending cantrip, because let’s be real your outfit probably doesn’t look as good as it did 17 levels ago. Finally, you get the spell Far Step to bip and bop all over the place as you see fit. Remember, if you teleport off camera it’s not cheating!

18. Sorcerer 11: Eleventh level sorcerers get sixth level spells, like Tasha’s Otherworldly Guise! If you’re going to wear a nurse outfit, it might as well come with superpowers. You get immunities to certain damages and conditions, you can fly, your AC goes up, and your weapon attacks use your spellcasting modifier, are magical, and you can attack twice per action. Ramming a giant needle into somebody never felt so right!

19. Sorcerer 12: For your last ASI, grab the Tough feat. All these sorcerer levels have not done your HP total any favors.

20. Sorcerer 13: Your capstone level nets you a seventh level spell, so grab Plane Shift so you can finally escape the Mooncell and show Senpai all the hard work you’ve done!

Pros:

You have a ton of ways to cheat at dice, manipulating the world to always work in your favor. Re-roll dice with magical guidance and lucky, or just stick a finger on the scale with bend luck and flash of genius. Either way, your party will be thankful to have you.

You also make a decent variety caster thanks to the variety of technological goodies at your disposal. Support team communication with sending stones, spy on people with clairvoyance, create whatever the party might need with creation, or just blow people up with thunderwave and your eldritch cannon. You come packing a little bit of everything.

You’re particularly good at shutting down one or two opponents, with Ego Whip destroying their ability to do much of anything, Enthrall and Fear keeping you their main focus, or Banishment shoving them out of existence entirely.

Cons:

Those wild magic surges can bite you in the ass just as much as they help you, so try to make sure you don’t spin a bankrupt on the BB slots. Seriously though they can straight up kill your entire party at level 1. Don’t be unlucky.

Having a bit of everything means you aren’t focused on any one thing. Builds like Ishtar and -god help me- Mephistopheles?? beat you in magic damage, Scheherazade and Kogil beat you for utility, and Medea Lily and Irisviel beat you for healing. It must be nice to have so many senpais though!

Trying to keep on top of all those checks and saves means you’ll burn through your sorcery points really fast, so just... don’t push yourself too hard, you might not like what happens when you run out of power.

[syncogon]

[QZGS TL] Butterfly Blue 2015/08/15 Taiwan Q&A

Hello! Bringing another Butterfly Blue fan Q&A translation here today. This one is from August 15, 2015, for an event he was doing in Taiwan. 

This is a translation of a transcription of a recording. Because it was spoken, there’s some filler words and awkward phrasing; I focused more on getting the gist of what he was saying. A few notes have been included in [brackets]. Also, the transcriber said that they lost the recording of the second half of the talk, so this is only a portion of the event.

The transcription was originally found at this link, http://sinstar529.lofter.com/post/3330e5_7e8c0e7, but the Lofter seems to have been purged. To keep a record and some accountability, the Chinese is included in this post. As always, let me know of any major errors.

past BB translations here: /tagged/bb-interview

Please enjoy! As always, BB has some fun and interesting insights.

********

提问：虫爹我想请问，孙翔当年是怎么被发掘的呢？是在网游里被发现的、还是自己报名训练营的？

虫爹：孙翔他是比较有天赋、比较有才华的，我其实没有想过（全场笑），这样有天赋的选手大家都会比较关注的

Q: Bug Dad, how was Sun Xiang discovered back in the day? Was he discovered in game, or did he join a training camp himself?

A: Sun Xiang, he’s rather talented. I actually haven’t thought about this (audience laughter). People will always pay attention to such a talented player.

提问：王杰希的接班人高英杰是怎么被挑选当选手的？

虫爹：这不是跟上一个问题一样吗？ （全场笑）因为表现得比较有天赋就会比较让人看重

Q: How was Wang Jiexi’s successor, Gao Yingjie, chosen to become a pro?

A: Isn’t this the same as the last question? (audience laughter) Talented performance will always attract attention.

提问：虫爹你觉得杜明追得上唐柔吗

虫爹：我觉得难度可能会比较大一点（全场笑）而且他还只是暗恋，还没有比较主动地去表现出来，所以这样看起来……嗯、我觉得他应该是……追不到（全场笑）←小明不哭（Ｘ

Q: Bug Dad, do you think Du Ming can chase down and get together with Tang Rou? 

A: I think it’d be relatively difficult (audience laughter). And plus it’s still a secret crush, he still hasn’t even taken the initiative to express it. So from that… mm, I think he… couldn’t (audience laughter)

提问：那个，孙哲平和韩队都是那种、硬派的、呃、男人（不然是什么Ｘ），所以我想问，谁感觉比较、爷们一点？

虫爹：他们俩个吗？差不多吧，性格上没必要拿出来比较吧

提问：那如果ＰＫ的话，会感觉谁比较有胜算呢？

虫爹：你说真人ＰＫ吗？ （全场笑）

提问：真人ＰＫ也是可以的

虫爹：真人ＰＫ就不要讨论了吧（笑）不过如果是赛场上的胜负的话是很难说的，那怕是叶修这么强的人都没办法保证百分百能胜过哪个人，所以谁强谁弱的这个，我觉得、恩，不太会有结论。因为打得越多胜负出现的次数也会越多，大概是这样吧

Q: Um, Sun Zheping and Captain Han are both that sort of, strong-willed, uh, men. So I wanted to ask, who’s more, manly?

A: Those two? Probably about the same, there’s no need to compare personalities

Q: Then if they PKed, who do you think would have a higher chance of winning?

A: Are you talking about a real-life PK? (audience laughter) 

Q: Real-life PK is fine too

A: Let’s not talk about real-life PK (laughs). But if we’re talking about the outcome of a match, that’s hard to say. Not even someone as strong as Ye Xiu can 100% guarantee victory over another person. So who’s stronger or weaker, I think there isn’t really a conclusion. Because the more matches played, the greater the number of victories and losses, it’s something like that.

提问：虫爹我想请问一下，莫凡以前是做什么的？怎么有办法说来就来兴欣，然后一直被拐带留在那边都不用回家（全场笑）

虫爹：喔你说他现实里的工作是吧？呃依照设定来说我想就是游戏里的那种职业玩家吧，就拾拾��啊、卖卖装备啊，然后每天换点零花钱这样子，因为他年纪还不算很大，还比较年轻

Q: Bug Dad I want to ask, what was Mo Fan doing before joining Happy? How could he just drop everything and come to Happy, and then get abducted without needing to return home? (audience laughter)

A: Oh you’re talking about his real-world work? Mm according to what I had in mind, he was just a pro in-game player, scrap picking, selling equipment, and then trading this for some spending money every day. Because he’s not too old, he’s still relatively young

提问：请问台湾有可能出巅峰荣耀吗？

虫爹：台湾啊？如果是出版的话还是交给出版社，因为他嫌我现在的字数还有点少（笑）因为大陆那本现在应该是七万七千还是七万八千字左右，但我们这边说至少要到十几万字才有可能出版呵呵

提问：那虫爹可以多写一点番外吗～补上去嘛～

虫爹：这个可能要慢一些，因为一次写两本还是有点吃力，那我写现在的连载，有的时候还是不知道该写什么（惊）所以可能会慢一些

[Q about prequel release in Taiwan - unlikely because too short for the publisher]

Q: Then could you write a bit more prequel content ~

A: This would probably have to be a bit slower, writing two books at once is still a bit of a struggle, and when I’m writing the serialization right now, sometimes I still don’t know what I should write. So it would be slow

提问：虫爹我只是纯粹好奇想请问，沐秋的身高到底是多少？因为我是他的粉丝，所以说很希望可以知道他的身高

虫爹：沐秋啊？这个设定我还没有做到欸，因为我角色设定只做到一半，现在还在做后面的设定，所以这个还没有做到

Q: Bug Dad I’m just curious, how tall is Muqiu? Because I’m his fan, so I really hope to know his height

A: Muqiu? Eh this I still haven’t figured out, I’ve only done around half of the character profiles so far. I’m still working on the second half, so I haven’t done this yet 

提问：那网游时期第一代的大神们有在现实世界中见面过吗？就是在游戏之前，因为有的时候我们在游戏里熟识到一个程度的时候会出来见个面啊、吃个饭啊、聊个天啊什么的，他们有这样行为吗？

虫爹：这个……因人而异吧，我觉得初代的……因为他们后来打到比赛的时候就会见到的，这些活动……我来考虑吧，比如说叶修应该对这些不会有太大的兴趣呵呵

Q: Did the first-generation gods ever meet in the real world? Because sometimes when we’re somewhat familiar with people in-game, we’ll go out together, meet up, get a meal, chat, etc. Did they ever do these kinds of things? 

A: This… probably varies from person to person, I feel that the first generation… Because they’d meet later when playing matches, so these kind of activities… I’ll think about it. For example Ye Xiu probably wouldn’t be very interested in these things haha

提问：虫爹我想请问叶神大大是什么时候开始染上烟瘾这个坏习惯的？

虫爹：呃……这个可能就是在长期熬夜的过程中……这个你问得太细了我没有想过，因为我看我写番外的时候、呃、他十五岁的时候我应该没有写到他抽烟的画面吧？那就是在后面的……离家出走以后吧？

提问：那他有没有考虑要把烟戒掉？

虫爹：我不知道欸哈哈哈哈哈哈

Q: Bug Dad I want to ask, when did God Ye pick up his bad cigarette addiction?

A: Uh… He might have picked it up after many nights of staying up late… Your question is too specific, I haven’t thought about it before. Because when I was writing the prequel, hm, when he was fifteen I don’t think I described any scenes of him smoking? Then it would have been later… after he left home? 

Q: Then has he ever considered quitting smoking?

A: I don’t know hahaha

提问：虫爹我想请问，因为很多人对后面世界邀请赛的部分感到很好奇，那我想请问虫爹会写这个部分的番外吗？

虫爹：嗯我暂时没有想写后面的番外，因为这个结局我个人是觉得非常满意的，如果现在写了我觉得就是个画蛇添足的举动吧，所以我暂时不想写后面，所以我现在写的番外都是之前的，可能把他一些过去的心情啊什么的让他补的更完整一点，那未来的我暂时没有想过要写

Q: Bug Dad I want to ask, because many people are curious about the later world championships, will you ever write about this?

A: For now I haven’t thought about writing any sequels, because I’m very happy with the ending I have. If I write it now, it’d be like drawing feet on a snake. That’s why the extras I’m writing now are all prequels, so I can fill in more details about their past feelings and such, but right now I don’t want to write about the future. 

 提问：江波涛是怎么知道周泽楷在说什么的

虫爹：呃这个问题昨天刚好也有人问过，就是如果大家有玩过网游的话，比如说一些比较常一起玩的朋友，就会比较知道你接下来会有一些什么举动，就会比较有默契，你知道的、呃、默契（全场笑）

Q: How does Jiang Botao know what Zhou Zekai is saying?

A: I think someone asked this question yesterday too. If you’ve played an online game before, for example if you have a few friends you play with often, then they’ll tend to know what action you’re likely to take next, you’ll have that tacit understanding, you know that, uh, tacit understanding (audience laughter) 

提问：虫爹我想请问因为有些同人创作有在写衍生，那我想请问你对衍生的看法是什么

虫爹：因为……衍生可能就是大家对于正��所产生的脑补，我个人的话其实没有看过，所以我不好评价，没什么可介意的，大家开心就好，我不会太介意的

Q: Bug Dad I want to ask, there are a few fan creators writing derivatives of your work, what is your opinion on that? 

A: Mm… Derivatives tend to come from everyone’s thoughts and ideas about the original work. Personally I haven’t looked at them, so I can’t give a judgment, but there isn’t much to object to. As long as everyone’s happy that’s good, I won’t mind too much

提问：虫爹我想请问一下，孙哲平退役期间有跟张佳乐联络吗？

虫爹：退役、呃、我个人觉得，应该是不会有太多联络的，因为他的退役在我们来说是比较呃、难过的、比较无可抗拒的，这种是最无力的嘛，所以我想他可能会……不太会想继续联络

Q: Bug Dad I’d like to ask, during the period of time Sun Zheping was retired, did he ever contact Zhang Jiale? 

A: While retired, hm, personally I think there wouldn’t have been much contact. Because his retirement was rather sad, as we’d describe it, it wasn’t something he could fight against, it was the most helpless kind, so I think that he probably… wouldn’t really want to maintain contact

提问：老师当初是什么契机之下会想要写《全职高手》这部作品

虫爹：全职这个嘛，我在近战法师写到一半的时候就有想写一个、呃游戏类的小说，但是写一个人整天在那里玩游戏好像有一些、呃、不务正业嘛，唯一的办法就是把他变成职业的、比较正经的，那就是电竞，像体育项目一样的事情。所以我当初就想写一个电竞类的，然后我就加了一点网游的部分，因为这样过渡得比较流畅比较自然一点，也不会像一直打比赛那么枯燥嘛，

Q: At the time, what drove you to come up with this work The King’s Avatar? 

A: When I was about halfway through writing Close-Combat Mage, I wanted to write a gaming novel, but writing about a person playing games all day felt a bit, mm, like neglecting honest work. The only way around that would be to make him a professional, relatively official. That’s esports, like normal sporting events. So at the time I wanted to write about esports, and then I added sections about the game, because this kind of transition felt a bit smoother, and it wouldn’t be as monotonous as just having endless matches.

提问：那如果要用一段话形容王杰希的话，你会怎么写？

虫爹：一段话？我在里面写了那么多字你要我用一段话讲ＱＡＱ我写那么多干嘛ＱＡＱ

提问：那最深的印象呢？

虫爹：呃我一时想不出来，但我想他应该是一个责任心非常重，然后对战队有非常非常高的憧憬，怎么说，就像他对微草战队的期许吧，所以有很高的责任感和（？？？？？？��听清楚

Q: So if you were to use one sentence to describe Wang Jiexi, what would you say?

A: One sentence? I wrote so many words in the book and you want me to use one sentence to describe him? Then why’d I write so much?

Q: Then what’s your deepest impression of him?

A: Mm I can’t think of an answer right now, but I feel that he’s the type of person to take responsibility for things, and then he has an extremely high vision for his team’s future - how to put it - like his hopes and expectations for Tiny Herb, so he has a very deep sense of responsibility. [transcriber’s note: “??? Didn’t hear clearly”]

提问：我想问叶修的家庭到底是怎么样的，让他会那么怕他的爸爸

虫爹：呃我觉得会怕家长这是尊重吧，因为不好、太忤逆所以他干脆不敢面对就离家出走了

Q: I’d like to ask, what is Ye Xiu’s family like, for him to be so scared of his dad?

A: I feel that this “fear of parents” is just respect. Because he wasn’t good, too rebellious, so he just didn’t dare confront them and instead ran away from home 

提问：想请问虫爹在写文章的时候会听音乐或同时做其他事情吗？比如说吃东西

虫爹：呃、呃我没有吃东西，听音乐嘛……就是……尽量写吧（？

提问：那请问在写战斗画面时是想像然后就直接打出来吗？

虫爹：你说我、自己还要、打出来吗（惊）当然没有啊（？）只是脑补而已你想太多了←虫爹好像误会了www

Q: When you’re writing, do you listen to music or do other things at the same time? Like eating? 

A: I don’t eat while writing… listening to music, I… guess I try to focus on writing [transcriber note: “?”]

Q: Then when you’re writing battles, do you imagine it and then directly hit it out? 

A: You’re asking me if I – myself – fight out the battle? Of course not? I’m just imagining it, you’re thinking too much 

[transcriber note: “BB seems to have misunderstood”] 
[translator note: I think it’s a pun-misunderstanding of “to type” vs “to hit/fight”?]

提问：那想请问因为听说会拍成电影，那因为有很多游戏的战斗画面，虫爹有想过有怎么表现这一块吗？

虫爹：这个版权已经卖出去有点久了（？！）不过现在还没有到实际的创作阶段，游戏画面的表现的话就是用特效啊，大家看电影都会知道有一些场景实现不了就是用特效

[Q about potential movie, irrelevant now that it’s released]

提问：老师为什么你不会想要写那种、草根少年崛起之类的，就是为什么他是从大神再从头爬起，为什么没有想要写他原本就是默默无名的人

虫爹：因为我之前写的几个故事大体都是这样的，为了做出区别所以，呃比如说武侠小说，像金庸就是你说的这种嘛但我���比较喜欢古龙呵呵呵（嗯？）就这样出来就比较无敌啊哈哈哈

Q: Why didn’t you want to write a story about grassroots youth rising to the top? That is, why is he a god starting over again? Why didn’t you think about writing his origin as a nobody?

A: Because many of my previous stories were all like that, so I wanted to do something different. For example, wuxia stories like Jin Yong’s stories were like that, but I prefer Gu Long’s hehe, where they’re rather invincible from the start 

[T/N: both famous wuxia novelists]

提问：因为刚刚提到孙哲平所以我就想到魏琛，想问魏琛退役之后是真的没有跟黄少天连络吗？因为黄少天是他从网游带进去的，算是他的徒弟了，那他就完全不会想要联络吗？

虫爹：这个嘛，退役就好像退休一样嘛，就要换一种生活嘛哈哈哈，所以虽然他还是在玩荣耀，但网游跟职业圈两者还是不太一样的，所以就不太会再有交集 

提问：那黄少天没想过要跟他连络吗？

虫爹：如果他不见了要怎么联络哈哈哈

提问：但是叶修找到他了ＱＡＱ

虫爹：叶修只是偶然碰到而已哈哈哈，因为叶修有时间玩网游哈哈哈

Q: Since Sun Zheping was mentioned earlier, I thought of Wei Chen. After Wei Chen retired, did he really never contact Huang Shaotian? Because Huang Shaotian was the one he brought in from the game, he was like his apprentice. Did he really not want to contact him at all?

A: This… it’s retirement, you’re changing your way of life, haha. So even though he was still playing Glory, in-game is still quite different from the pro circle. There wouldn’t be much intersection anymore

Q: But wouldn’t Huang Shaotian want to contact him?

A: If he’s vanished, how is he supposed to contact him? Hahaha

Q: But Ye Xiu found him!

A: Ye Xiu just happened to run into him by chance, because Ye Xiu had time to play in-game haha

小编：那接下来还有同学要提问吗……噢有男生欸！

虫爹：噢终于有男生了！

提问：虫爹你好，我想请问《近战法师》的韩家公子和叶修喷啦叽话谁会赢呢？

虫爹：噢，只是言语啦，韩家公子应该会更胜一筹，噢呜，叶修是吧（惊讶脸）叶修哇，我刚刚当成顾飞了，这个不好讲啦哈哈哈哈，而且叶修可能会用键盘打字哈哈哈哈，这个就……回答不了哈哈哈，不好意思我刚刚当成顾飞了，顾飞的言语……他就是用行动的哈哈哈

[the host?]: Then are there any more questions… Oh, a guy!

A: Finally, a male! 

[Q about Close-Combat Mage] 

提问：虫爹想请问你创作的这十年来有什么特别印象深刻的吗？

虫爹：这个要追溯到最一开始的时候，我一开始是先看了一本网游小说，不过他到一半就没有了，当时我不懂说……那不是后面没有了，而是后面是要付费的哈哈哈，然后我就不看了，但是我想……就觉得很委屈嘛，然后我就看到他的第二篇文，就觉得……怎么不写个完呢？那时候我才刚要上大学，我的同学就常常去网吧玩嘛，我们就泡在网吧里，他在打游戏嘛，但我那时候就在旁边开始写小说，就同学就整晚不睡觉在打游戏看影剧，那我就在那边打小说嘛，然后他们就看我在那边努力写，像看白痴一样的看我，那时候比起辛苦我倒觉得写作是一件很高兴的事这样，也没有想到其他太多的东西，印象最深就是最初的这段。

小编：那原先启发你的那篇文你后来有去储币看完吗？

虫爹：噢那时候因为他写到一半就出道了，所以我也不知道他后面还有，那后来因为他是有付费嘛，那我想那我就不要看了哈哈哈哈哈（抓头）

Q: Bug Dad, over the course of these ten years that you’ve been writing, do you have any particularly deep impressions?

A: For this, you’d have to trace back to the very beginning. Back then, I was reading a gaming novel, but after reading half of it there was no more. At the time I didn’t realize, it wasn’t that there was no more, it was that the rest was paywalled hahaha. And so I didn’t read any more, but I was thinking… I felt wronged, you know? And then I saw his second work, but I felt… why not write a complete story? At that time I was just about to start university, my classmates were often going to play at internet cafés, and so we’d hang out in the internet café. They would play games, but I would stay off to the side and start to write novels. Similarly, while my classmates were playing games and watching movies late at night instead of sleeping, I would just be writing off to the side, and so they would watch me working hard at writing, as though I were a total idiot. At that time, it was very hard work, but I felt that writing was a very happy thing for me, and so I didn’t think too much about other things. This early period left the deepest impression on me. 

Q: Then did you ever go back to read that first story that inspired you?

A: Oh, back then it was because he made his real debut after writing half of it, so I didn’t even know that there was more. Later I realized that it existed but was paywalled, then I just figured I didn’t want to read it anymore hahahaha

提问：虫爹虽然这个问题很多人问过了但我就是想知道ＱＡＱ就是张佳乐能拿冠军吗ＱＡＱ

虫爹：这个在现有的情节里是没有拿到的，未来嘛因为我没有写所以也不好回答，就知道你们会这样问哈哈哈，所以大家就不要再问这种未来的，因为我没有写啦哈哈哈

Q: Bug Dad I know many people have asked this question before but I want to know – can Zhang Jiale win a championship QAQ 

A: In the story as it currently stands, he hasn’t won a championship. As for the future, I haven’t written it so I can’t answer either. I just know that you guys are like this haha so everyone please don’t ask me these kind of “future” questions because I haven’t written it haha

提问：那因为虫爹一直都很擅长写这种网游类的小说，那想请问虫爹有没有参考过什么网路游戏或玩过什么网路游戏？

虫爹：我是���玩过因为以前在上学的时候有玩DNF，那全职前面有一些职业都是从那个来的，那职业的设定有一些就是参考这个，因为那时候大陆最红的就是这个啦

Q: Because you’ve always been good at writing these kinds of gaming novels, have you referenced any online games or played any online games?

A: I’ve played before, when I was in school I would sometimes play DNF (Dungeon Fighter Online), so a few classes in The King’s Avatar are from there. The design of the classes was influenced by this game because at that time it was the most popular game in the mainland 

提问：虫爹我想请问因为你是从台北吃到高雄那你最喜欢什么

虫爹：我没有一路吃下来（澄清）呃、每一顿都要叙述一下吗？因为我口味比较重一些喜欢吃辣，感觉台湾口味就是会混搭一些吧，但我个人的话其实我不太喜欢这样，混搭的时候我会觉得很奇怪，但吃习惯了之后其实也还好，那因为很精致，而且分量很小，所以一次可以吃很多种哈哈哈哈，我们家去吃饭你最多最多就是点两个菜，不然你就会吃剩下很多，但在台湾我可以点四五个都还没有问题，就分量会比较小，这点我觉得很好

Q:  Bug Dad you’ve eaten your way from Taipei to Kaohsiung, so what’s been your favorite food?

A: I didn’t spend all my time eating! Uh, do you want me to narrate every meal? I’ve always liked spicy foods, I feel like Taipei’s flavor is a mix of a lot of things, but personally I’m not a huge fan of that, I’d think it’s strange when you start mixing things together. But it’s still pretty good once you get used to it, it’s very refined, and the portions are small, so you can eat a lot of different things at once hahahaha. When my family goes out to eat we usually order two dishes max, because otherwise you wouldn’t finish and there’d be a lot left over, but in Taiwan I could order four or five without a problem. The portions tend to be smaller, which I think is very nice

提问：虫爹我想请问今天有没有更新

虫爹：啊、啊昨晚啊，昨晚昨晚昨晚因为我躺到床上就起不来了哈哈哈哈，今晚回去再写吧

Q: Bug Dad I’d like to ask, did you update today

A: Ah? Last night… last night last night last night… I was lying on my bed and couldn’t get up hahahaha, tonight I’ll go and write

提问：那个我想问跟同人创作有关，因为有满多是女性向的作品，那虫爹有什么想法吗？

虫爹：呃、呃呃，这是大家的脑补嘛，那我也只能说……耽美吧？你说的是耽美，那……大家就是喜欢这样脑补嘛，其实也没有办法说什么，大家喜欢，但其实我要强调原著没有那个属性啦哈哈哈哈

提问：那虫爹对这个有什么看法吗？

虫爹：这个……以我个人来看，写成这样的话其实就不太能算是这个角色了，因为他们就是没有这个属性啊哈哈哈哈

Q: I want to ask a question about fanworks, because most of them are targeted toward a female audience, Bug Dad do you have any thoughts on that?

A: It’s all everyone’s own ideas, right, so all I can say… Danmei, right? You’re talking about danmei? Then… People just like these kinds of ideas, I can’t really say anything, everyone likes it. But I want to emphasize that the original work doesn’t have any of these characteristics haha

Q: Then do you have any opinions on this?

A: This… my personal opinion is that, if you’re writing the characters like that, I don’t really think they can be considered the original characters anymore, because they just don’t have any of these characteristics hahahaha

提问：那那那我想问，叶修喜欢怎样的女生（全场暴动）

虫爹：我……叶修他现在还专注在工作上，还没有时间考虑这个问题哈哈哈，我觉得他应该不会太关心这个问题吧呵呵

Q: Then then then I want to ask, what kind of girls does Ye Xiu like? (audience goes wild)

A: I… Ye Xiu is still focused on his work, he hasn’t had the time to consider this question hahaha, I think he wouldn’t care about this question too much right haha

提问：虫爹你好我想请问一个假设性的问题可以吗？

虫爹：什么性？ ！

提问：假设性。

虫爹：噢噢假设性，那你问吧，问完再说哈哈哈

提问：如果苏沐秋还在，跟叶修组成搭档，他们会拿几个冠军？

虫爹：这个至少开始的三个是万无一失的啊，这个我觉得就不好说得太多，因为其他选手也很强，也不是说有什么人就……因为比赛是不可预期的嘛，可能当天晚上拉拉肚子啊隔天就……所以这种假设嘛我觉得不好回答，回答了也是对其他选手不尊重嘛

Q: I want to ask a hypothetical question is that okay? […] If Su Muqiu were still alive and partners with Ye Xiu, how many championships would they have received? 

A: Well, they at least wouldn’t lose the three at the beginning. But I feel that I can’t say too much about this, because the other competitors are also very strong. You can’t just say that “because they have this person then this would happen…” Because matches can’t be predicted, maybe someone had a stomachache the day before and then… So I can’t really answer these kinds of hypotheticals, and moreover, answering would be disrespectful to the other competitors.

提问：虫爹我想问在写作的时候会不会突然写不下去或遇到瓶颈什么的，如果有的话会用什么方式来解决这个困扰

虫爹：呃这个可能……经常会有啊，因为我每天都要写每天都……那写不下去的话这个就是……断更啊不然要怎么办哈哈哈哈哈，有时候就是花多一点时间啊，有的时候……写不出来就没有更新啊，这个没有什么技术上能够解决的

Q: Bug Dad, when you’re writing, do you ever suddenly find that you can’t write any more, or run into writer’s block or whatnot? If you have, how do you solve this struggle?

A: This… I often do, because I have to write every day, so every day… If I can’t write anymore then I just take a break from updating, otherwise what else can I do hahaha… Sometimes I spend a bit more time, sometimes… if I can’t write then there’s just no update. There isn’t really anything technique-wise that can solve this

提问：蓝雨假如喻文州和黄少天都退役之后是确定小卢会接队长吗？还是会选其他比较有经验的队员来当队长呢？

虫爹：队长的人选他们现在还没有开始做选择，因为小卢……就是卢瀚文，主要是培育来等黄少天退役了之后接手黄少天的夜雨声烦的角色，那队长还不一定是他，也许后面还会有更合适的人选，他还小，他还年轻呵呵

Q: In Blue Rain, after Yu Wenzhou and Huang Shaotian both retire, is it for sure that Little Lu will become captain? Or would they pick a more experienced team member to become captain?

A: They haven’t yet begun to choose a next captain, because Little Lu… that is, Lu Hanwen, he’s primarily being raised to take over Huang Shaotian’s account Troubling Rain after his retirement. So he wouldn’t necessarily become captain. Maybe later there’ll be an even more suitable choice. He’s still small, he’s still young haha

[fuwafuwamedb]

.Hack//Gilfection Pt 3 (Gilgamesh, Hakuno, Rin, BB)

.//Chapters//. – 1 – 2 –

___

Rin was a pain in the ass.

This was the area she had decided on. She wasn’t new to the game, or so she said.

It was a little difficult to believe that she wasn’t a new player with the way she was carrying her character. No grip control. No mindfulness for that large broadsword of hers. She pulled it along behind her like a boat anchor that had been forgotten. When she went to hold it over her shoulder, which she did when they reached the doors to the place, she awkwardly shuffled and tried holding her blade one handed over her shoulder.

That didn’t work, as her dropping of the weapon gave away.

He probably could look at her stats, but it was easy enough to guess what level she was.

And Enkidu had thought that I was hopeless.

The music alone was solemn. The floors were dusted, coated with a texture layer to show that the place had been all but abandoned. Even the air, although clear, held a slight series of flakes, tiny pixels that worked like dust particles in the air.

They moved forward, through the rows of pews.

Only one thing was really worth seeing in this place. There were no rooms to go to, no other areas to visit. The whole immaculate building held but one space, one that was filled with only a singular point of interest: a statue.

Gilgamesh frowned, knowing that figure.

“Take this.”

The girl from before, adorned in white, had looked exactly like this.

The only difference was that she hadn’t been covered in chains. The torn dress on the woman’s body was plastered against herself too, doing nothing to help with the sight of her being trapped beneath metal chain links and locks.

“…There’s no one else here.”

Rin frowned, stepping to the side of the room and looking around. “There’s no one here at all…”

There wasn’t.

Gilgamesh turned his gaze to the altar.

The epitaph… Nanna… Ishtar… Ereshkigal…

The writing was faded from there.

“AH!”

Rin’s shout caught his attention, sending him spinning on his heels, his blades coming to hand and slamming into the beast that had appeared. The small gremlin was easily destroyed, falling back with a small roar.

“…You… You didn’t even flinch…”

“Should I?” Gilgamesh put his blades away. “It’s just a regular weak monster.”

“Yeah… Yeah. Weak. Right…” Her eyes drifted to the statue. “The statue looks so sad…”

What a fool.

He turned his gaze back to the statue for inspecting.

It didn’t take long now.

Rin moved to his side, her hands going to the fencing between the statue and the rest of the room. Her gaze turned downwards, her body trembling a bit.

“I guess… you’ve probably figured out that I’m a noob too, haven’t you?”

Gods, what a child.

Why was he here again? The statue was interesting, possibly enough to give him a clue where to go to find Enkidu’s avatar in this game, but…

“My um… My boyfriend played this game a lot.” Her voice lowered, like she was confessing some secret. “The idiot always got on before bed and would fish in the stream. He let me play once or twice with him, but we didn’t really go to areas. We just fished. He liked the Mac Anu area for that kind of thing.”

“Uh huh.”

“He invited me again, this time, to go to an area. He’d cleared it out and it had this great big moon in the background. I thought maybe… maybe this time he had another reason for inviting me, but the world changed.”

“Things went to a coding area with no scenic view?”

“No, it was a place that had these running numbers and there was this almost lava like place, but the lava didn’t look right.”

He’d just said that-

“Cu managed to smack my PC, totally destroying it. I was so mad and I was yelling at him for ruining the computer that he forced me to take such careful attention to, but…”

“He didn’t wake up.”

Rin looked at her hands, shaking her head. “He lay there so quietly, Gilgamesh. I’ve never had him be that quiet before.”

She’d be useful.

The next area they could go to was that area that the woman had mentioned. Wherever this moonlight area was, he wanted to go straight there next.

“Cu mentioned this code when he had the goggles on. I thought-“

“Let’s head back.”

The heart to heart wasn’t necessarily something he was interested in, but it had given him an insight into the fact that others could have suffered this. There could have been others. He would have to check the forum board when he got out of this area and checked the other.

Rin nodded, “You’re nicer than I thought.”

“Sure.” They could go with that.

He still needed her to work with him. No point in opening his mouth and pointing out the many flaws in her method of thinking, beginning with and not limited to simply trusting any character that came crawling-

BAM!

The doors flew open at the entrance.

A figure, adorned in silver and white armor, held her blade in hand. Her brown hair was loose, flowing over the feathered paldrons on her shoulders and her red accents to her attire showing just beneath her cloak.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!”

“We could say the same to you!” Rin shouted. “YOU’RE BEING RUD-“

“THERE’S NO TIME! GET OUT OF HERE!”

What did she-

The world was glitching, the area beginning to fade a moment before something dropped down.

“Shit!”

Rin leaped behind him, her blade held in both hands. Gilgamesh found himself pulling out his twin blades, but the other was already running forth.

She flew like a great bird, slashing down upon the golem. Her blade cut cleanly, her eyes filled with a deep, defiant look that made his damn heart flutter. He could hardly breathe as he watched the woman spin on her feet, taking that weapon that had just slashed at the golem and sending it slamming into the golem’s gullet.

In and out, a perfect stab.

The world glitched again, a strange green armor coming onto the golem.

“What’s happening?! What the fuck is that!?”

“…Shit, another glitch. These computer viruses have been making these bastards have unlimited defense. It’s basically invincible,” the stranger woman growled.

“…This must be what got him,” Rin breathed. “Get out of the way, I’ll kill it!”

“You idiot!”

She was already sprinting forward though, her broadsword in hand as she rushed at the giant golem. There was no stopping the idiot. She was going to end up getting her character killed!

“Damn it!” The armored woman rushed after the woman, slamming her body against the other. The golem slammed a fist towards the two, nearly smashing them to bits.

The book.

Gilgamesh paused.

Open the book.

Book?

The power it holds can bring forth either salvation or destruction at the whim of the user.

[You used the installation Book, Book of Twilight.]

The controllers were shaking in his hands. The nerve sensors were burning, hurting his hands. He could see a flashing in the background, the world around his character vanishing away and a white base background appearing.

The attire his character had was changing.

Gone was the random red clothing. Symbols were growing up the sides, a deep red set as the color of the fabric turned to gold. He could see the gloves he had, glowing with the same color as the computer virus around the golem.

The color focused, forming a ring around his arm. It blasted a focused ray of light, a series of numbers shooting forward until-

It struck right as the beast went to kill the two nearby.

The golem hit the floor, giving the perfect opportunity.

His armored, feathered knight struck forth, her wings fluttering in the air as she stabbed the beast to die. The final roar rang out again, but this time, the glitches were gone.

As Gilgamesh felt his hands shaking, his body covered in sweat, he felt his character fall to his knees. The figure ahead rose up, her blade slowly being pulled forth from the beast.

“I see…”

See?

“You’re the same… the same as that virus. To think I’d be saved by someone like you.”

“Someone like me? Woman, I should be asking you about that knowledge of the beasts and computer viruses.”

“Recently, there’s been a lot of places damaged by viruses. It’s ruining the game, damaging people’s lives, creating a world that cannot continue. Anyone with that virus… your virus, should be struck down immediately.”

Well, that was a shame, he was looking for the cause of the trouble here too.

“Draw your sword!”

“Draw? Bullshit, woman. There’s no use in that.”

“There is for me.”

The woman was preparing to rush forward when Rin stood up. Her heel slammed against the stranger’s hip.

“YOU! What the hell did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t.”

“Well?!”

“…Hakuno. My name is Hakuno.”

“Put your damn weapon away, Hakuno! Gilgamesh just saved your life and the first thing you do is threaten to kill him?”

“Woman, do you understand what kind of cancerous-“

Rin kicked her again.

“He. Saved. Your. Life!”

“…I still don’t trust you.” Hakuno set her blade back into her sheath, her eyes glaring daggers. “…You did save my life…”

“I did.”

What was her character address in this game?

That’s who he needed on his party. She had to be either an extremely attractive woman or extremely boring.

“I need time to think. That’s why I’m sparing you. If I find out that you are indeed responsible, then I will be killing you.”

She needed to give him her information immediately.

Home address. Phone number.

Body in his bed.

“What an asshole,” Rin shook her head, sighing. “I’m logging out for today. I need to visit my boyfriend in the hospital.”

She logged out, her character vanishing from his side.

He took a deep breath, debating on how to proceed.

~

“That was rather childish of you, knight of the Moon Cell, descendant of the ancient mages of Fuyuki.”

Hakuno paused, glancing over her shoulder at the woman that was standing atop the cathedral. It was impossible to mistake that voice, that purple hair.

“I do not speak to hackers.”

She tried to continue forward, knowing that the woman wouldn’t let him off that easily.

Sure enough, the fool was warping, moving to another of the spindles. BB’s long black coat fluttered softly in the wind as she giggled away with her wand in hand.

“That guy, he’s a friend of your partner’s.”

That, of all things, made her pause.

“Enkidu?”

[i-am-the-hero-alfred-jones]

Fairy Tail’s Fairy Tale’s Chapter 9

((This is the final chapter of my contribution to the Fairy Tail Big Bang by @ft-ez-bb ! I hope you guys enjoy! Please like/comment/reblog/ect. if you did! I’m going to make a master list with all the chapters tomorrow)) 

Wendy smiled and looked in the book again, "This one is silly, it'd be perfect for Natsu!" she said. "Yeah?! Let me check it out!" Natsu looked over her shoulder, "Oh, I know this one! Igneel told me it when I was little!" he said grinning. "A dragon told you fairy tales?" Gray asked. "Yeah, what about it?" Natsu challenged. Gray shook his head, "Nothing." "Come on, Lucy! Let's do the fairy tale!" Natsu dragged her backstage. 

THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA

"Once upon a time, there was a prince who wanted to find a princess- but she had to be a real princess. He met many princesses, but he was never sure if they were real, there was always something not quite right about them. And so he never married. Until one day. . ." Wendy began. 

Natsu sat on a throne in a handsome suit, a crown tangled in his mess of hair. Happy sat beside him on the ground. Natsu whistled, "Sure is a nasty storm, ain't it Happy?" "Aye, sir!" The two looked to the prop door as there was a knock on it. "Who would wanna be outside in this?" Natsu asked. Happy shrugged, "I don't know. Let's go find out!" The two raced over to open the door. A sopping wet Lucy stood on the other side, courtesy of Juvia. "Woah! You look terrible!" Natsu grabbed her wrist and dragged her in. 

"I'm a princess from a far off land, and I've lost my way." Lucy explained, "Can I please stay here for the night?" Natsu shrugged, "Sure. You can go dry off in the other room." "Thank you." Lucy said as she left. "Do you think she's a real princess, Natsu?!" Happy asked, eagerly. Natsu was skeptical, "I don't know. . ." We'll have to test her!" "How?" Natsu paced for a moment. "I know!" he turned to Happy, "We'll put twenty mattresses down for a bed and put one tiny pea beneath them! That'll prove she's sensitive enough to be a real princess!" "Natsu, you're a genius!" Happy praised, hugging him. 

Natsu lead a nightgown-clad Lucy to the door. "Well, this is where you'll be staying tonight. Sleep well!" he skipped off. "Thank you." Lucy tried the knob. It was locked. "Uh, Natsu! You forgot to unlock the door!" she called. There was no answer. "Natsu?! . . . Prince?!" Lucy sighed, "I guess I'm sleeping on the floor tonight. . ." she grumbled, before laying down on the floor. 

"The next morning, the prince was eager to see how the princess had slept." Wendy continued. A bedraggled Lucy stumbled towards a giddy Natsu. "Well, how'd ya sleep?" he asked. "Terrible!" she replied, glaring. "You passed the test!" Natsu cheered, "We can get married! You'll be queen!" Lucy stared at him, ". . . What?" "I put a pea under twenty mattresses to test you! You felt it, you passed! I'll start the wedding preparations!" Natsu dashed off eagerly. Lucy sighed and shrugged, "Why not? This kingdom won't survive if he runs it alone." she followed Natsu offstage. "The two were wed and lived happily ever after! The end!" Wendy finished. 

"Wendy." Carla said gently, "It's getting late." Wendy looked towards the window to see it was already dark. "Oh. . ." "I think we have time for one more story." Carla said, pointing in the book. Wendy looked down and smiled. "Okay! But I want Chelia to be my wife!" Chelia beamed and hugged her friend, "Let's go! Lyon!" "Gray!" The ice mages stopped bickering over Juvia to glance over, then followed the girls backstage. 

ALL'S WELL THAT END'S WELL

Carla began the story fondly, "I will tell you a story I heard when I was young. Each time I recall the ending it seems to get better. There are some stories, like some people, who seem to get better as they grow older." 

"In a farm, lived a couple who owned almost nothing, except for an old horse. One day, they decided to sell it." Carla continued. Chelia and Wendy walked in, wearing peasant rags. "Husband-uh-wife." Chelia giggled, "Take our horse to market. Sell it or trade it. Whatever you do is fine with me." she held out a horse stuffed animal, which Wendy took and began walking in place with, while Chelia left. 

"While the farmer walked," Carla continued, "She came upon a stranger walking a cow." "What a beautiful cow!" Wendy exclaimed, "She must give delicious milk! Sir? Would you like to trade your cow for my horse?" "The man agreed, and the exchange was soon made." Carla said. Wendy tossed the horse into the audience and got a cow stuffed animal in return. Wendy hummed, "Well. . . I have a cow- but I'm gonna continue to the fair to see what else I can find!" She decided, and kept walking. 

"Along the way, the farmer saw a man with a sheep of a rare breed." Carla added. Wendy gasped, "Look at that splendid sheep! Oh, my wife would love that! We can take it in the house in winter! Hello, friend! Would you like to swap?" she tossed the stuffed cow into the audience and got a sheep. 

"Next she came upon a man with a goose." Carla continued. "What a nice creature!" Wendy praised, "And I remember my wife saying she'd like a goose, would you like to trade, Sir?!" she threw the sheep out and caught the good stuffed animal. . . with her face. Carla gasped. "I'm okay!" Wendy assured. 

"Next she came across the tax collector with a chicken." Carla said. Wendy giggled, "What a funny looking bird! Chickens are the easiest to keep. Sir! Would you like to make an exchange?" Wendy threw the goose out and caught the toy chicken- this time with her hands. 

"The farmer decided to go to an inn for some food." Carla continued, "On the way, he saw a man with apple's and traded the chicken for them." Thankfully, they had decided not to throw a bag of apples at the guild's most accident prone member, and simply handed Wendy the bag. "My wife loves apples! She'll be so glad!" Wendy sat at the table onstage and Gray and Lyon approached her in fine suits. 

"What have you got there, farmer?" Gray asked as he and Lyon sat down at Wendy's table. "The farmer told them the whole story." Carla explained. "Wow, you're wife's gonna be mad when you get home." Lyon said. Wendy shook her head, "No she won't. She'll be happy with whatever I bring back." Lyon leaned forward, "Really? I'll bet all the gold on me, she'll be mad." "I'll take that bet." Gray agreed. Wendy shrugged, "All I have to bet is my apples." "We'll take it." the men agreed. 

"The men went home with the farmer." Carla continued. "I'm home!" Wendy smiled and hugged Chelia, "I traded the horse!" "The farmer told the story over again." Carla continued. "Really?" Chelia gasped, "I could kiss you! I love apples!" The two hugged again. Gray and Lyon laughed. "You've won the bet! Our gold is yours!" "That is how I was told the story." Carla finished, "And now you know it. All's well that end's well." 

WENDY'S BIRTHDAY (CONTINUED)

The guild cheered as Wendy hopped down and closed the book. "Thank you guys for making this the best birthday ever!" "Is there anything else you would like?" Carla asked. ". . . Can I keep one of the stuffed animals?" Wendy asked hopefully. Several bodies came forward to thrust the toys into her arms, along with Jellal and Freed's unopened presents. "You can keep all of the stuffed animals." The guild waved as Wendy, Carla, Lyon, and Chelia left. "Bye!" "Have a good night!" "Happy Birthday, Wendy!" "Thank you!" 

Wendy sighed in content as they left, but stopped at the end of the guild's front yard. "They didn't remember my birthday, did they?" The trio gasped and whirled to her. "How did you know?!" Carla exclaimed. Wendy smiled, "I love Fairy Tail. They're my family. . . but they're not the brightest." she admitted, "Especially Natsu." Wendy glanced back at the guild, "But even so. . ." she beamed, "They did all this for me." Wendy sniffled and wiped her eyes on her shoulder, as they were filled with tears of happiness and her arms were filled with stuffed animals and presents. "Oh, Wendy." Carla shifted human to hug her dragon slayer properly. "Thank you, Carla. I love you." "I love you too, Wendy. 

THE END

[aliceslantern]

Beyond this Existence: Atonement, chapter 4

Ansem always had a penchant for strays, so it's not at all surprising when he takes in the orphaned child Ienzo. The boy's presence changes everything, far more than Even is willing to admit. Ienzo's brilliance seems promising, but the arrival of a young Xehanort pushes the apprentices onto a dark, cruel, inhumane path which will affect the future of the World. And even once it's all over with--once Xehanort is dead--they still must pick up the pieces, forgive one another, find a way to atone for their atrocities, and struggle to accept the humanity which has been thrust upon them.

Or: Even's journey from BBS through post-KH3

Read it on FF.net/on AO3

---

He wakes slowly.

He’s in a bed, a bed not his own, in a strange, blank, barren room. He sits up.

“Ah, friend, you’re awake,” says the voice.

He turns towards the source of it. Xehanort is dressed in all black, but it’s different than the lab coats they’ve worn; it’s got beading, zippers instead of a catch.

He blinks, once. His mind is curiously clear. He reaches up to his jugular to take his pulse, noting first that there is one, then that it’s almost unnervingly slow and steady. “I suppose it worked?” he asks, his voice flat. "We've no hearts?"

“Quite--we are Nobodies." He tilts his head slightly. "We’ve been worried about you. You’re the last one to wake. I thought you may not have made it.”

He stares down at his hands; they look the same, and so does the long blonde hair on his shoulder, freed of its usual restraint. “I see.”

“How do you feel?”

“Very much alert,” he admits. Less physically tired than he can remember.

“Emotionally?”

It’s an odd word to hear out loud. He realizes he is numb, but not a human numbness; moreso an emptiness, but a very bearable one. A comfortable one. “My head is clear,” he says instead. It’s true; unfettered by emotion, he processes this all easily, without stress.

Xehanort smiles, but there’s nothing in it. “Excellent. Seems this experiment was a success. While you were resting, we’ve chosen a sign of brotherhood, new names to usher us into this new life. I’ve chosen one for you--should you want it.”

“And what is that?”

“Vexen,” he says slowly. “The Recusant’s Sigil is said to be good luck. I’ve added it to all our names--anagrammed them.”

“How creative of you.” There’s no sarcasm behind it; nothing at all. “Very well. I suppose that is who I’ll be.” He sits up, bringing his legs over the side of the bed. “Where is Ien--the little one?”

“He goes by Zexion now,” Xehanort says. “He was the first to wake, after myself, of course. The boy seems to have taken to this new life easier than I ever could have guessed. It suits him. He has no more fear, no more sensory overload. He’s purely himself.”

Hearing this, Vexen feels nothing for the boy; no concern. It’s liberating, he realizes. “That is good news indeed. Your name already contains an X. Though I don’t suppose only that will do.”

He shakes his head slowly. “They call me Xemnas.”

There’s much to do, and it’s all so much easier than it used to be.

They’re somewhere else now, a place still taking shape. What starts as a two-story building morphs into something far larger than Radiant Garden’s castle ever was. As soon as he craves a resource, it seems to appear, seemingly out of nowhere; soon he’s able to identify this morphing substance as the same that the lesser Nobodies were made of. They study their new bodies for weeks, months; they discover their immense capabilities for magic. Zexion, in a very short amount of time, becomes a rather skilled mage; necessary, as the Heartless target him mercilessly, despite Lexeaus’s best efforts to protect him. While he and Vexen continue to spend time together, for studies, they’re beginning to drift, but Vexen doesn’t care much. There’s nothing behind the boy’s eyes aside from a cold calculation.

They find that they have weapons, extensions of their wills, each personalized to its user; more exciting yet, they have their own magics, in alignment with their personalities, a sort of expression of the deepest essences of the self. Vexen’s newfound command over ice is infinitely useful in his experiments, though it is disappointing that it is just ice, not water.

It seems every time they come to a momentous discovery--of worlds, of hearts, of matter--Xemnas always dangles something out of reach. For this Organization, Kingdom Hearts will be the key to all knowledge. Vexen works towards this goal with pleasure. In the chaotic, entropic nothingness--something entirely different than darkness or light--his experiments thrive, and after years, the replicas begin to take shape, form. They incubate.

Six years have passed in a blink; for the first time Xemnas speaks on his desire to gather more members. He needs a Keyblade wielder, so he says, to reap hearts. So they all, in their own ways, go searching across the worlds. And they do find someone, a humanoid Nobody, a seventeen-year-old boy they call Demyx. But the disappointments come hard and fast with this one. Initially, Vexen is hopeful; the boy’s power over water seems to be something nearly prodigal. But he is not very academically bright. He’s lazy, he would rather fool around with his weapon, an instrument called a sitar. They all can barely tolerate him, though inexplicably, Xigbar strikes up a rapport with the boy. Very well. If someone of high rank can keep him in line, all the better.

Because they have ranked themselves. Of course, Xemnas is the leader; as the youngest, it’s only natural for Zexion to be the sixth of the six original apprentices; Saïx, Axel, and Demyx follow when the latter arrives; but internally there’s some squabbling over the rest of the numbers. Vexen is beyond disappointed with his own designation of only fourth, but no matter, he works alone the majority of the time anyway.

In quick succession, they’re joined by three more--Luxord, Marluxia, Larxene. Not one is a Keyblade wielder, and aside from the passing intrigue of studying the first humanoid Nobody that is a biological woman, they are nothing but a thorn in Vexen’s side. Xemnas’s frustration is obvious, and Vexen feels mostly the same.

All of a sudden Zexion is no longer a little boy, but a young man. He had, more or less, what seemed to be a normal puberty. He never expresses interest in sex or sexuality, unlike some of the other members; but then again, Zexion was never a people person, and while Vexen knows that the scientist in him should want to investigate this potential quirk of Nobody biology, the part of him that once raised Ienzo is repulsed at questioning the young man farther about these matters.

One of these days, when Zexion’s about fifteen, he arrives in Vexen’s lab. “Six,” he says. “It’s a pleasure to see you. Do you require assistance?”

Zexion smiles politely. “I hope to have a word, if that’s alright. I do hope I’m not interrupting anything.” It’s easy now for him to speak, to compose himself; as Xemnas said, purely himself. If anything, the boy is too talkative.

“I can spare a few moments.”

“Very well. Then I’ll be brief. I’m aware our tutoring sessions take up a good deal of our time, time both of us could use more efficiently. I feel I’m far enough in my education to pursue it on my own. Though I must thank you for your years of working with me.” He bows a little. The sight of this old custom unnerves Vexen.

He says it so quickly, so simply. For some reason, Vexen is surprised--though shouldn’t he have seen this coming?

(And is he crazy, or is he feeling hurt? No--mustn’t. Nobodies cannot feel, though the neophytes love to pretend, especially Demyx. The miscreant must be rubbing off on him more than he thought. He curses the fact that they are both part of the reconnaissance team.)

Vexen smiles. “It was my pleasure. You know you’re very intelligent. I have the utmost faith in you. My door is always open for you, Zexion, should you have questions.”

“Thank you, Vexen. Good day.”

The years pass--they cannot find their Keyblade wielder, no matter how hard they try. The others are frustrated too, especially the neophytes, as they’re sent on the most search missions. At least there is some progress--Heartless made, worlds brought under control of darkness, his replicas becoming more stable yet. Vexen hopes he may be able to get one to wield a Keyblade.

Zexion turns eighteen. Vexen’s initial prediction was right; the young man is relatively small, slight, and probably always will be. While his face still is a bit soft, he’ll lose the babyishness in time. As the first person to truly come of age as a Nobody, he allows Vexen to prod him, somewhat indulgently. “I suppose it is interesting, though it would be more interesting if I knew the difference,” he admits, in a moment of unusual candor.

Vexen looks up at him on the table. He gently pulls free the needle that was taking his blood, and heals the tiny wound. Magic has made his doctoring less barbaric, simpler. “Would you rather have been human?” he asks.

He thinks about it. “I’ve been a Nobody ten years--longer than I was ever a human.”

“Yet, not a direct answer to my question.”

He rolls down the sleeve of his cloak. “I don’t believe so,” he says. “What I remember from that time is mostly negative--the panic attacks, the constant inundation of stimuli interpreted as pain, the nightmares, the untreated PTSD. But now… now I am stable, and in control of myself. I do not feel I’ve missed anything--though the neophytes insist the opposite.” He rolls his eyes. “As if I would ever find any of those shenanigans of interest.”

Vexen nods. “As long as you are fulfilled.”

“I am.” He pauses, smiles a bit. “I’m not the one who told you this, but the superior might soon have a mission for us. One elsewhere.”

His interest is piqued; but at the same time, he feels another wave of frustration that number six is more privy to this information than he. “Elsewhere?”

Zexion shakes his head. “That’s all he said. Though who knows--he’s become more and more enigmatic over the years. It is… trying.”

Vexen chuckles. “Well, I doubt I’ll find anything different about these samples, but should there be anything of note, I’ll contact you.”

“Keep it for posterity,” he says, with a wave of his hand. “Who knows, I could be the first of many, to live this way.”

“Child, you have a strange sense of humor.”

---

Two things happen in quick succession--they find their Keyblade wielder, and Castle Oblivion is established as a second base. Roxas is an amnesiac, utterly zombified, more than just Nobody numbness. But considering the stories they’ve heard of Sora from Xemnas, that they were able to capture his Nobody is a feat in and of itself.

He’s forced to release his first successful replica to Xemnas. It really is a puppet--it will walk, talk, perform bodily functions--but it has no sense of self, not yet. He knows it’s too soon to let No. i into the field--it needs more extensive testing. Xemnas insists. They need insurance in case something were to happen to Roxas, mostly because Sora’s allies are searching for him. Not when they are so close to finally making progress on Kingdom Hearts. With it, knowledge and, perhaps for those interested, humanity again.

Vexen isn’t sure of his own opinion on the matter. To be a Nobody is a sort of freedom; he can research, experiment without guilt, without the need for social interaction. But as Nobodies they do not technically exist, literally speaking; doesn’t that in itself negate everything that’s been discovered?

So with what is almost anxiety, No. i is christened Xion, and welcomed into their ranks. But Vexen is not allowed to stay and observe it; he, and another replica, are needed in Castle Oblivion. He, Zexion, and Lexeaus are given dominion over the lower floors; Larxene, Axel, and Marluxia the upper. Most galling yet, Marluxia, number eleven for god’s sake, is made their tentative leader. While Marluxia has proven himself time and again in the field and at the table, why does this man deserve such a rank?

But Zexion and Lexeaus do not want to hear him complain about it. “Everyone’s work is important here,” Zexion says softly, huddled over his lexicon, poetically called “Book of Retribution”--Vexen does not pretend to understand that boy’s mind. “Yours especially. Focus on the task at hand.”

It’s a big task for the boy (the man, Vexen reminds himself, he’s nineteen); they would be using Zexion’s extensive illusions on Sora, as Naminé leaches his memories. They cannot afford a heart that special to remain out in the wide world; not when he actually has the power to put an end to them. Vexen knows Zexion’s powerful, knows of his stamina; but maintaining so many complex illusions for so long was a lot to ask of him. Castle Oblivion seems to like the boy's magic, to hold its shape. Even so. But they discover more is afoot; namely, that the neophytes have insane ideas to overthrow Xemnas, using Sora. Quickly, Zexion, Lexeaus, and Vexen devise a plan. While Sora has arrived, Riku soon follows, lured there by a carefully placed clue in the realm of darkness. They’d use Riku--or some semblance of him--to stop Marluxia from using the boy. It takes a bit of cleverness. They have to make Marluxia think they’re on his side, so the replica again changes hands.

But something goes wrong. The replica isn’t acting under their control, it’s developed its own will (what did they expect, forcing him into this so quickly). Marluxia, oh so casually, says that, unless Vexen can pacify the boy himself, he’ll report him and his failure, which can only go one way. Vexen's long had a feeling that he'd be eliminated once he outgrew his usefulness.

Very well.

So he fights the boy, and it’s much more difficult than he would have thought. The boy truly is something prodigal, something nearly godlike. He’s defeated, but is still alive. He already knows what’s coming, and something gives way. He tells the boy how to get his memories back, how to discover Roxas, giving him the key to a Twilight Town. When they meet again, the boy’s almost worked it out, what they are.

And then, to be crass, it hits the shit.

But he doesn’t expect Axel to be the one to execute him.

[ohhicas]

What's your take on how they all got their powers? Braig already had his warpy thing but that easily could have come from Luxu. The others didn't demonstrate anything in game (though they had admittedly little screen time as somebodies).

This one is hard to draw for ssdjlfe so TEXT IT IS

tbh, Magic is clearly just “A thing” in the world? Learned, sure, but it really looks like some are born with a bigger ability for it over others, so I assume it’s the same for like… what types they know more? Isa, Lea, Aeleus, Dilan, Ienzo etcetcetc were probably born with a magic affinity and just how they were raised/trained decided what paths they leaned for in it? Dilan’s always been able to cast aero-themed magic like it’s second nature, etc 

But then things get very ???? for like, exactly what everything else did to them, after becoming Nobodies. Their weapons clearly came with them, at least in Aeleus and Dilan’s case– they had them in BBS before the whole Nobody shit. So it’s not like Xehanort just threw some really sweet weapons at his new D&D party to win them over for good. But same time, Lea was just shown with those baby versions of his chakram instead of full spike hell so did he get thAT when he was smashed into Axel? I can’t fuckin imagine tiny Isa could wield that Claymore. I mean hell, Saix can barely control it, it mostly controls him. 

BUT THEN AXEL IS BACK TO LEA AND STILL MAYBE? HAS FIRE MAGIC, OR AT LEAST A LOT OF FIRE THEMED THINGS (KEYBLADE) NOW. I don’t know what these rules are anymore but I can’t stop giggling at the idea that everyone’s getting their weapons upgraded or brand new ones handed to them after introduction and Xehanort just like, panics

slaps his hands on his pockets

slaps his hands on Xigbar’s pocketsHands Luxord the deck of cards he found in there

This was a lot of words to basically just say I dunno, I assume all magic users were born with it to some degree and being Nobody’d really amped it the hell up. Some are better at elemental magic. Some are better at Blue Mage spells. Some can destroy you from the inside out by screwing with your head too much if he catches you dog-earring a book again, Braig.

[havingonlydreams]

On why Tiny Herb failed Qiao Yifan

Someone was making some noise about archiving meta, so I figured I might as well move some of my older stuff over. This bit came up during a discussion about how Ye Xiu picked up on Qiao Yifan’s talent when his captain didn’t, and why Wang Jiexi might not have developed Qiao Yifan in Tiny Herb. As the translation has progressed, more details have been revealed that reveal the flaws in this analysis, and there are parts of it that are flat out wrong, but it’s still of uh... anthropological interest to see the conclusions I’d come to at the time.

(it’s because i’m too lazy to do the research to rewrite it now, so sue me)

(originally posted on Discord 9/10/18)

With regards to WJX re:QYF, there are two takes I have on this that don't tend to come up very often:

1. Tiny Herb's Class Composition

As of S10, Tiny Herb runs two witches, a knight, a blade master, a berserker, a sharpshooter, and a healer in the main team. On deck are a ghostblade, a battle mage, and another sharpshooter. We haven't seen this group in team competion yet (i don't think), but that sounds like a lot of mid-to-long range attackers with an emphasis on effect skills. Considering Daddy Jiexi's attempts to recruit battle mages, you could also speculate that Tiny Herb is a little lacking in melee attackers.

Yifan's original character was an assassin: a melee support class. Phantom ghostblade is a close-to-mid support class with a buff/debuff focus. Not only does it overlap range-wise with Tiny Herb's composition, it also competes with the support type skills of their starring witches and their other ghostblade. Tiny Herb didn't need another ghostblade.

2. Qiao Yifan's place in the team

We meet Yifan around season 8.5, when he's already spent his debut year doing nothing, and steadily being pushed out of the team. Besides Gao Yingjie, we don't see anyone else in Tiny Herb that likes him; he's only ever mentioned to be put down. Imagine that Yifan did get the attention and class change that he needed. All of a sudden, here's this unremarkable kid that nobody liked rising up through the ranks to compete with an entrenched senior (Zhou Yebai) for his role in the team. What a horrible, toxic mess that could turn into.

The obvious retort is why not cut off the bullying earlier but,

1. that's hard

2. WJX is just 22-23, leading a team, and hand-raising his successor

and 3. (this is nasty, but) confronting this kind of thing can seriously mess with a team dynamic, and in a choice between QYF or Tiny Herb, i mean, how many rookies do you think drop out of the Alliance every year.

So this is another answer to why QYF may not have had a place in Tiny Herb any longer.

Of course, the obvious reason why for all of this is probably because BB needed to get Ye Xiu a new recruit AND show off how much better his judgement was than WJX, but it can be interesting to overthink things sometimes.

[pandirpus]

top 5 ships with no dudes in it

OH DAMN 

not in the order of my love for them but sort of chronologically

1. Chell/GLaDOS (Portal). It’s just. Really really what I’m here for. I love GLaDOS - awful sarcastic sadistic AI of my heart - and I love the antagonism and dependency and denial and confused attachment. ALAS, this ship is woefully underrepresented in fandom compared to the popularity of Portal. I MEAN: REALLY WELL WRITTEN FUN GAME WITH AN AI AND IT’S AN INTERESTING DYNAMIC BETWEEN A FEMALE CHARACTER AND A FEMALE-CODED AI ( and the GOOD kind of female coded AI without boobs and humanoid sexy body!!) ?? I AM SO FIRE EMOJI

2. The Boss/EVA (Metal Gear Solid 3). This ship is a first, in a way, and therefore deserves a place in this list. It’s the first f/f ship that I shipped when I decided that I needed to fill my craving for more interesting f/f dynamics by putting effort into shipping things. That I had to allow and push myself to look for the ships, even if canon won’t outright give them to me, or I’d fucking starve. What I wanted was not just pure and healthy ships, but I did struggle with finding an approach to really shipping more ‘problematic’ f/f ships - all I knew is that I wanted to, but at the same time I couldn’t find my angle on it, since awful treatment of female characters makes me also very uncomfortable.

But the Boss was this seasoned war veteran mom with so many issues, strict on herself and others, and I fell so hard, and I needed to ship her - and the game gave me an angle for shipping her with EVA, and I was ready to try. And the fics were really good? I was pleasantly surprised at how much I could enjoy this, and how fandom content was exactly the issue-ridden kinds of fics I craved. I’m still struggling a little with letting myself be very self-indulgent in femslash because there’s so much I’m also uncomfortable with, but Boss/EVA was the first glimpse into a whole new world, and I’m still evolving.

3. Korrasami. This is less here for the level of intensity with which I ship it, but it is so important to me for a different reason: It was the one time I was hoping for a f/f ship to become canon - well, not honestly hoping, because I was well aware that kind of thing NEVER happened, but very much full of anger because all the hetnorm in LoK was especially awful and Korrasami was such a good, perfect, way superior option to all the dumb Mako love triangle bullshit - and IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. I very strongly remember when @krokorobin and I watched the finale of LoK, and how I could barely believe it until the very end, and how we both started fricking tearing up, and I’ll always remember that. And the euphoria all across tumblr was so exciting!! It was a promise of more, too, and I want many more of these kinds of moments in my life, please. 

4. Grenedhel. What a fucking ride!! But mostly I just love my tiny trash daughter and the stubborn mage bb and the way their friendship developed gives me life forever and Menedhel crushing on this ace af tiny orc is the most beautiful thing ok. Give me the tsun, the dere, them holding hands, Menedhel and Grul bantering and laughing together and Menedhel being exasperated at Grul and Grul thinking Menedhel’s extra antiques are actually adorable. GRUL CARING ABOUT MENEDHEL WITHOUT ULTERIOR MOTIVES AND MENEDHEL BEING ALL CONFUSE. MENEDHEL FINDING INSPIRATION, AND FINDING SOME PEACE WITH HERSELF. Shipping ace characters and also characters who actually should just take a break from sexual relationships because they have difficulties approaching them in a healthy way after all the garbage they’ve been through is important to me, and I love both characters so much, the development in their relationship is everything.

5. Lodrith. Just BLESS Ties of Lapis for giving me not only a cast full of amazing characters, but finally war veteran moms that are not created by the likes of Kojima, and are just GOOD and WELL WRITTEN, with their struggles, and their emotional stuntedness, the slow development, their families, their issues, and all the strained relationships!! It’s all here - the awkward teen crushes, the estrangement, the desperate war time moments, the what-could-have-beens and the familiarity that they have with each other after all these years. Here it is, finally, a good well-rounded f/f OTP with all the issues and all the drama that I can ship whole-heartedly, and just enjoy in the most self-indulgent way. 10/10 would let them wreck me every day

[septic-dr-schneep]

So if you have a nick name now do you have headcanons about the Egos' nick names for each other? :D

Mwahahahaha, of course I do! I’m still working on my list for theMarkimoos, so at the moment you’ll only get the Septic Boys, but it’s enoughfor a solid post!

Anti:

All of his nicknames are used scornfully and they need no explanation;they pretty much speak for themselves. He almost never uses their actual names.When he isn’t calling them “Puppets”…

He calls Jackieboy “Hero”

Marvin is “the Charmer” or “Cheapskate”

Schneep is called “Doctor”, “Faint Heart”, or “Daddy’s Little Helper”

He calls Chase “the Weakling” or “Boy”

Robbie is “Braindead”, “Dead Meat”, and “Pushover”

Jameson is “Muzzle-Mouth”, “Yapper”, “Sepia” or “Shabby”

Jackieboy:

Aside from using Anti’s name, he calls him “the Glitch”, “Freak”, and—whenhe’s feeling a little less antagonistic—his “blood brother”

When Marvin didn’t have a name, Jackieboy called him “Magic Man”, “SpeedStreak”, “Flicker”, “Mister Magic Master”, “Cat in the Hat”, or simply “the Magician.”Now he just calls him Marv or Marvin

He’s only called the doc “Schneep” once or twice; he didn’t feel like itsuited him. He’s the only one who can call him Henrik without making him feeluncomfortable, so that’s what he uses most

He’ll call Chase by his name, but if he’s teasing him, he’ll call him“Little Brody”, “Slugger”, or “my favorite sidekick” and it usually comes witha complimentary hair-ruffle

He’s always calling Robbie “Stripes” or “Rob the Zomb”, but wheneverRobbie is feeling down about something, he’ll call him “Robert” and it makeshim feel important

While he doesn’t use nicknames for Jameson very often, he doesoccasionally use the names that Chase has given him if he wants to get Jameson’sattention in a hurry (see Chase below)

Marvin:

He usually refuses to call Anti by his name; his favorite term for him is“Defect,” which Anti despises even more than being called a “Glitch”. Marvinknows this and uses it constantly

He always calls Jackieboy by his name or by “Jackie” if he wants to gethis attention in a serious situation

Schneep is and always will be called just that. When he’s particularlyworried about him, however, he’ll call him Henrik (against his wishes) or “YouIdiot”

Chase also receives “You Idiot” when Marvin’s worried about him, but mostof the time he calls him by his name or by “CB”

Robbie is “Robert”, “Bub”, or “Bertie”, but he knows it’s hard for Robbieto remember all of his nicknames, so he usually just uses his name

He calls Jameson “JJ” or “James”. He only uses Jameson’s full name inserious situations or sometimes he’ll use “Jacks” or “Jackson” if he’s angrywith him

Schneep:

Anti is always, always called either “the Glitch”, “Misfire”, “the Monster”,or “the Demon”

Just as Jackieboy calls him Henrik, Schneep drops the “boy” and calls himJackie. Occasionally he’ll call him “Hero”, but he says it with a lot morerespect than Anti does

He’ll call Marvin by his name most of the time but if he’s talkingquickly, he’ll use “Marv” or “Mage”. Sometimes he’ll formally use “theMagnificent”, if he’s talking about him with someone else

For Chase he uses “Buddy” or his full name, “Chase Brody”, the most. Ifhe’s angry with him, he’ll call him “the tiny little Chase brain”, which isbasically his version of “Idiot”

He often condenses Robbie’s full name into “Zobbie”, which Robbie loves,but otherwise he’ll call him “Hobs”, “Bertie”, or “Softy”

Jameson is usually “JJ” or “Jamie”, but if he’s feeling particularlyaffectionate with him, he’ll call him “the little one”

Chase:

He’ll use Anti’s normal name because he’s afraid of him, but he alsoadopted “Defect” from Marvin, which he uses when he thinks Anti might not belistening. The rest of the time, Anti is simply “Him”

Jackieboy usually gets his regular name, but if the two of them arebantering Chase will call him “Bigshot”, “Fancy Feet”, “Flyboy”, or “Pajama-boyMan” to make fun of him

Marvin is constantly called “Marv” or “The Caped Crusader”, the second ofwhich he hates more than he can possibly say, but Chase uses it anyway

Schneep is “Bro”, “Doc”, “Pepto” or—if he’s trying to argue with him—“theStup”

Robbie is “Robs”, “Ro”, “Bertie”, “BB”, or “B-Boy”, but he acts as ifthey’re a secret and calls him by his normal name when the others are around,which naturally confuses Robbie to no end

Chase never uses Jameson’s full name, even when the others are present;instead, he’s constantly getting called “JJ”, “Jem”, “J2”, or “Jays”

Robbie:

Anti is “An”, “Ti”, or “Ati”. Sometimes he’ll call him “Itch”, meaning “Glitch”,simply because he’s heard the others say it so often

Jackieboy is either “Kie” or “Jacks”, and Jackieboy is rather proud of thelatter, given that it’s the same name Robbie uses for their creator

Marvin gets the most in the group: “Mar”, “Marm”, “Vin,” “Mags”, or even “Maim”!The last one naturally freaked the others out at first but eventually they gotused to it

Schneep gets as many rhyming variations as Robbie can think of: “Sheep”, “Neep”,and “Cheep” are the ones that have made the doc laugh the hardest, so Robbieuses them constantly

Like Marvin, he’ll call Chase “CB” from time to time, but his usualnickname for him is “Ace” and Chase loves it to pieces

Jameson is always either “JJ” or “Ames”

Jameson:

He doesn’t call any of them by nicknames, at least not yet. He tends tothink nicknames are impolite, so he’ll use their complete names every time hementions or addresses them—for example, he doesn’t even use the name “Anti”. Hetakes the time to say “Antisepticeye.” Other than that, he’ll call each of them “goodsir”, “ol’ chap”, or “my fine fellow”, but I’m sure he’ll learn very quicklythat he can’t escape from nicknames and he’ll adapt to them.

[deanteros]

Was that PARK JI-HYO? Oh no no, that was just KWAN  “TINI” TIRINI, a CANON CHARACTER from MIRACULOUS LADYBUG. They are 20 (5000+) years old and ARE NOT aware that they are not actually from Washington DC. Too bad they can’t stray from this city for long.

hello sugarplums and daisies, im ananin!! this here is my smol bb tini who actually is tikki from miraculous ladybug. tikki isn’t really a human but a kwami. a kwami is a magical sprite like being created by an abstract idea; tikki’s is creation which was formed at the beginning of the universe making her the first kwami to have been made. she’s over 5000 years old,is red and around 4 inches in height with a large head with three black spots and antennas. the kwamis can’t be detected by humans that was until the mage created these special jewels/miraculouses to make them be able to communicate and help people/the wearers to bring goodness to the world. 

also tikki currently is helping marinette who she finds v different than other ladybugs and absolutely loves her.  so that turned out to be longer than i expected, i’m sorry. anyways let me introduce you to my child.

she’s now a human named tirini but her nickname is tini bc shorten name and she’s also tiny

she works at the local cafe as a waitress/barista where she likes to befriend customers and provide assistance when needed

she doesn’t remember anything from her previous life but feels this strange familiarity with somethings: i.e. chinese, greek, namibian, egyptian, mexican, japanese and vietnamese history and cultures

tini is a vv kind and optimistic although does have her feisty moments

she also can be a bit energetic but the majority of the time she is seen pretty calm 

she’s vv loyal and would do anything for her friends 

she has a sweet tooth for all things sweets (somethings don’t change lol)

due to her false memories, she believes she’s been there for as long as she can remember. according to her memory she has lived there her entire life with her grandmother who past away not that long ago who taught her be just and never let life bring her down. 

[heyscience]

11, 12, 27, and 31 for Kya Trevelyan pls :D i tried to ask questions that haven't touched on topics i already know xx

AAAAFJDEJQIDU XU  I HAVE BEEN SO EXCITED TO GET TO THESE, SORRY IT’S TAKEN ME SO LONG! I AM SO CHUFFED YOU LIKE MY RAGE CHILD. HER AND YOUR BB ELEZA WOULD BE SUCH GREAT FRIENDS AND ALLIES OMG!!!

11. how do they feel about the dalish?

Kya greatly admires the Dalish for going to such great lengths to preserve their culture and isolate themselves from the cities because “never again shall we submit”. She hates that elves experience such a hefty level of oppression and she wants to do whatever she can to help. She also feels angry because she sees the plight of elves as just another crime of the Chantry, who conducted the Exalted March that drove them from the Dales. Another reason to burn the institution to the ground.

12. how do they feel about the qun?

Kya HATES the Qun. She hates the way they treat mages, the fact that women aren’t allowed to fight, and that the whole philosophy is based on the idea that people can’t be trusted with themselves and need a set of strict, arbitrary rules in order to find “purpose”. She almost refused the Iron Bull’s offer to join the Inquisition, but she went ahead with it knowing that his knowledge and expertise would be very useful.

27. as a whole, how do they feel about tevinter + the imperium?

Kya hates Tevinter as well because they’re a country that runs on stolen wealth (slavery). She sees the country as a cesspit of injustice that not only ruins the lives of elves and the impoverished, but gives a bad name to mages all around Thedas. She’s just a tiny bit hypocritical about it though because she would absolutely use blood magic if she felt it was her only option to get ahead politically, but publicly she abhors any and all kinds of blood magic.

31. if varric wrote a book about your inquisitor, how would they feel about that?

Kya would not like it, not one bit. She would never say no to Varric because he’s a famous author so she’d be mad to pass up an opportunity to gain renown, but she would be stressing out because she wouldn’t be able to control her own narrative. She wouldn’t know how Varric was going to spin things and whether he would put her in a positive light. She’d lose A LOT of sleep over it.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU FOR ASKING ABOUT KYA I AM SO HAPPY YOU LIKE HER!!!!!

[crowbound]

Things I want for Kaey: (bolds are top picks)

            • An AU where he’s a supernatural entity that makes deals/trades, like a mix of the crossroad demons from Supernatural & the Outsider from Dishonored. I just really like the idea of Kaey being a darkling little shit with black eyes & dark makeup.

            • Grey Warden!Kaeyonari. Not even like in a Hero of Ferelden way, just him as a Grey Warden. Like I even have a backstory ready for this & everything (a Grey Warden saved him from slavery so when he was older he decided to be one).

            • Because I’m a cliche lil shit: Mermaid!AU. I’d totally dig a pirate/mermaid ship. I even have my own mermaid concepts where they’re kinda like vampires (see this post). I just want a sweet mermaid bb Kaey. & I mean I just love the idea of vampiric mermaids/sirens!

            • On the topic of vampires: vampire AU. Again, because I’m a cliche lil shit. Imagine Kaey as a vampire please. Imagine sweet, delicate Kaey as a vampire. & I don’t care if its a period or modern AU, I just want vampires! & I’m down for experimenting with unique lore, like my concepts for the mermaid AU!

            • Ghost!Kaey. Or some other supernatural, gothic AU. Like I have ideas for a dinner party-esque supernatural murder mystery rp group but I’ve never been good at making group rps. But just imagine Kaey dressed as a Victorian gentleman with a dark secret, like he has a curse or he’s a ghost or a vampire or something else sinister! Imagine this along with a gothic mansion, with rain & lightning & a grim butler that has to tell ppl they can’t leave the estate because the bridge is out or its flooded or something. Give me cliche gothic things!

            • Dishonored AU where Kaey was marked by the Outsider after Daud left the Whalers & he became one of Corvo’s agents but he kept his powers a secret & when Delilah came back in 2 he used them to try & help Corvo/Emily. Also please imagine Kaey with a tiny ‘step on me’-esque crush on Emily Kaldwin, he has a thing for powerful women!

            • Witcher AU where Kaey is a Witcher, or where he’s a Nilfgaardian mage.

           • Modern witchy AU because I love the aesthetic of the witch son & I think Kaey would make a very good witch son who has a black cat & grows his own herbs & spices & he works at a bookstore/coffee shop & he has a crush on the artist/writer who spends all their time there & they happen to be interested in witchy stuff for their project & he starts helping them understand it more all while being like ‘I’m just a spiritualist/Wiccan’ but later he tells them the truth & shows them his magic & they’re surprised & yes !!!

           • Single dad AU, because Kaey raising his girlfriend’s kid or his sister’s kid while she’s in the military is cute. Imagine stay at home, 22-year-old dad Kaey.

           • Night club AU where Kaey is a glamboy that wears pretty makeup & jewelry & is a little punk rock & probably questioning his gender/sexuality. & there’s drugs & sex & other dirty, nitty gritty underground things but the important part is that Kaey is a v punk rock questioning individual who is free-spirited & wears his boyfriend’s oversized shirts as pajamas & who smokes on the balcony in regular clothes without his crazy makeup or jewelry or anything else & he’s smol & he’ll climb his bf like a tree & his smiles are cute & his laugh is contagious & he has a dark past but he doesn’t care bcuz he’s in love & when he cries his makeup gets smeared & he yells & drinks when he’s upset but he always ends up back on boyfriend’s doorstep because ‘I can’t do anything without you’

[pasiphile]

So we saw Arthur: Legend of the Sword last week

and I really loved it.

I mean, it helps if you go in with the right expectations, and in this case, as for every Guy Ritchie movie ever, the expectations were: 1) pretty adrenaline-packed action scenes and 2) pretty men suffering and having Meaningful Relationships with other men.

Movie delivered on both fronts, although there wasn’t as much homoerotic bro-ing as I usually see in Ritchie!movies.. I was also pleasantly surprised that they didn’t shoehorn in a romance - there was a female character but they didn’t really treat her that differently, imo. I was also delighted by exactly how little fucks they gave about the “true” Arthur legend (like, fuck you Belgian reviewer who thinks there’s One True Arthur Legend i.e. fucking Mallory). Like, they really really didn’t care. Mordred as the same generation as Uther instead of two generations younger? Fuck yeah! Uther and Vortigern, of all people, being brothers? Why the hell not? A Ignoring famous knights like Gawain and Lancelot in favour of Tristan and George and only revealing their names at the end? *expressive shrug*

The soundtrack deserves a shoutout too. We got it immediately after we got home and I’ve been listening to it on repeat. It works really really well, brilliant mix between Celtic folk influences, traditional PWAAARP dangerous noises and modern sounds. Props to Pemberton (who is, incidentally, also the composer of the really really catchy BBC-Dirk Gently’s theme tune)

But what kinda surprised me in the most positive way possible was Arthur.I expected him to be the Traditional Action Hero. He wasn’t. And I’m so angry at the reviewer who described Hunman as acting “woodenly, like he’s bored with the movie from the start”, because that was not the impression I was getting.

In case you didn’t know: in this version tiny!bb Arthur is not whisked away to a noble’s household but found and raised in a brothel in Londinium (which looks v v pretty btw) where he - in true Ritchie fashion -  basically becomes a local mob boss. Of slightly ambiguous morals. For example: there’s a scene at the start where one of the Good Guys is hiding in Arthur’s brothel and the Bad Guy Soldiers come in looking for said Good Guy. Arthur notices the Good Guy only after the soldiers have come in, then has a brief chat with the soldiers, who tell him that the consequences for anyone hiding the man they’re looking for would be severe. At which point you’d expect Our Hero to hide the Good Guy and maybe afterwards give him a good grilling. Instead what happens is that Arthur turns to the hiding Good Guy, says I think you should leave, mate, and the guy’s arrested without Arthur even batting an eye. 

Like, Arthur is very much not a Traditional Hero here. He’s conniving, ruthless. But not self-centered - every decision he makes is influenced by his concern about the people he cares about. He’s confident - he swaggers around Londinium in the full knowledge that he owns it, he mouths off soldiers because he knows their boss - but at the same time, when he’s arrested by the soldiers and gets put in front of the Evil King, he immediately acknowledges that he’s just a small fish in a pond and that he doesn’t want to be drawn into the bigger game. And it isn’t just talk. Arthur isn’t ambitious. He isn’t arrogant. But he is very very clever.

And it works really well for me. It felt original. Arthur is still very much a leader, but by giving him the backstory they did, they turned him into something interesting. In one of the nicest scenes, they show in a montage of barely a minute of Arthur growing up - bb!Arthur picking a fight with bullies, bb!Arthur being beaten up, bb!Arthur taking money for a job and putting it safely away; then slightly bigger Arthur still fighting and still getting beaten up, taking more money, then even bigger Arthur finally winning the fight - you get the gist. This is an Arthur who’s had to learn the hard way what survival means, an Arthur who had to fight his way to the top rather than having it handed to him on a silver platter, and it shows. Arthur is still incredibly concerned about the wellbeing of his subjects, if you can call it that - the prostitutes he grows up with, his friends. He’s willing to die for them without much doubt. But he’s also a pragmatist, who immediately sees opportunities and risks and acts accordingly. He’s cocky, but never rash. He fights dirty. And he has no scruples about using or dumping or even killing people outside his little circle, as long as it benefits them.

It’s hard to really explain why it worked so well for me, but there’s something about the combination of on the one hand Upright Hero Characteristics - the unwavering loyalty to his friends, his sense of responsibility, his general kindness - combined with Conniving Bastard Characteristics - the cockiness, the dirty fighting, the willingness to compromise a lot as long as it means his people will be safe - and that all mixed with this impression of someone who’s clever, who’s always watching, who doesn’t show his hand... Like, I mentioned before how there’s not much in terms of romance or bromance and that’s mainly because this Arthur is, in a way, quite isolated. He has friends but he clearly keeps his fears and worries and concerns to himself. He’s a leader, in short, and it’s one of the most realistic portrayals I’ve seen in a while. (and that’s partly due to Hunman’s charisma - wooden performance my arse.)

There are other nice things. Aidan Gillen’s character made an interesting sidenote - the one who keeps getting arrested and keeps escaping, but his fixed look of deep hatred as he finally gets the opportunity to shoot one of his captors and the way he has to be dragged forcibly away says more than a whole flashback can. The Mage - the major female character - was a bit of a strange performance but interestingly written - weary, unsmiling, confident. And Jude Law was clearly having fun, hamming it up but really balancing perfectly on the line between “despicable” and “pitiful”. And the dialogue is often great - the typical Ritchie banter which gets extra-funny when you put it in a fantasy context.

This isn’t a good movie, let me be clear about that. The plot is all over the place, the pacing’s off in places, female characters are painfully absent (poor Katie McGrath)... And it’s a bit ridiculous - yes, those are giant Evil Magic elephants and yes, those are tentacly witch-mermaids hiding in a lake underneath the castle. And if you think of yourself as an Arthur purist (haha) you’re going to be annoyed to death, because they didn’t just take liberties, they just cherry-picked random elements from all the different versions and then did their entirely own thing with it.  But it’s pretty. It’s effective, too; more than one scene I was bouncing in my scene because it was so exciting. It’s just very fun. And Charlie Hunman’s Arthur might be the most fascinating interpretation of Arthur I’ve ever seen since Bradley James.

[rhetoricalrogue]

2016 Writing Review

I was tagged by @zombolouge!  Thank you for thinking of me for this one!

Total number of completed stories: *looks through 2016 files*  50.  FIFTY.  Holy crap, I wrote a lot.  Only fifteen or sixteen of them were written during NaNoWriMo this year.

Total word count: 115,861 words.  For some reason, this year I liked to write stories hanging around the 3,000 word limits.

Fandoms written in: Dragon Age, the Witcher, and a very small stint (like one story and several headcanon posts) in Fallout 4

Looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? I never go into a year with "I'm going to write X amount of words/stories" but I am surprised at the amount of one-shots I worked on this year.  I may even be missing a few that I wrote purely on my blog instead of writing/saving onto my hard drive too.

What’s your own favorite story of the year? (I really need to work on titling these stories) The bittersweet one I did for Olivia/Danse where Olivia took a trip down memory lane at a deserted carnival.

Did you take any writing risks this year? Not any that I actively decided to do.  Maybe NaNoWriMo's decision to write a collection of one-shots instead of one novel length story?  Other than that, I dipped my toes into a bit more smuttier pieces for the first time this year.  @asaucyginger and @thesecondsealwrites were bigtime enablers for that.  Thank you, ladies. *blows kisses*

Do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year? FINISH EDITING A RUSH TO THE START.  (Maker's balls, it's been 84 years.)

Best story of the year? Everything involving Rolfe and Cassandra.  I'm horribly biased towards The Boy.  

 Most popular story of the year? If I go by reblogs, then the Blackwall/Ravena story I wrote where Blackwall has a filthy imagination.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Honestly, I don't know.  I don't really keep track of number of hits/comments I get once I let my stories loose in the wild.  I know that I like my writing. lf one other person likes a story of mine, then that's all the appreciation it really needs.

Most fun story to write: This is a tie between the Kissing Day story with Rolfe writing Cassandra a song, any of my Modern AU Witcher fic involving Lambert and Marle, and that one story where Rolfe got on his soapbox about badly written romance novels.

Story with the single sexiest moment: Oh geez, I dunno?  Um...either the "try not to be so loud" Rolfe/Cassandra sexytimes in camp that everyone still totally heard, "don't let me stop you from writing that report" Blackwall/Ravena Hysterical Literature inspired oral sex, or "cheesy romance coupons lead to stripteases and lap dances" Marle/Eskel moments.

Most sweet story: The ficlet I wrote with a saucy, flirty Vesemir posing for a portrait in his younger days.

“Holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you!” story: I don't think I had one?  I usually stay in my fluff comfort zone.  If not a story, then the summary I wrote about Rolfe's terrible-awful first run where he got no love and didn't get the happy ending that I had originally planned for him.  It spawned some pretty angsty headcanons created while I was still upset about the whole ordeal too.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: Not a story, but having Vivienne in Rolfe's party so I could start to get a handle on writing her.  Previously, she was more of a background character that I rarely took out because Dorian or Solas had permanent Resident Mage slots in my other two Inquisitor's parties.  As such, I never got any of her banter or enough approval to complete her personal quest.  Writing Rolfe has let me discover her and I'm so sorry that I hadn't added her in sooner.  She's a lovely character that I've come to appreciate this playthrough.

Most unintentionally telling story: The Sebastian/Elsa story Stoneware Sets.  

Hardest story to write: The complete re-write of Chapter 22 of A Rush to the Start.  I've never been 100% happy with it, and fiddling around with shifting paragraphs around never sounded quite right with me, so I scrapped everything except the basic idea of where I wanted the chapter to go and started over from scratch.

Biggest disappointment: None of my stories are disappointments for me.  It sounds like a cop-out, but I honestly like everything I've written this year.  I enjoy going back and reading my own things for fun all the time. Biggest surprise: All the world building I did for the modern Witcher AU.  That and wee tiny Miss BB Carlisle.

Tagging: @thesecondsealwrites, @lizmapes, @judicaels, @saibrarutherford.  Purely optional, of course!