#to be fair it is called the empire of /corpses/ so it's not like i didn't expect dead people

[even-disco-baby]

KIM KITSURAGI — The lieutenant’s expression is difficult to place as he ponders the mural.

THE NEXT WORLD MURAL — “TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE ONLY IN THE NEXT WORLD— FOR NEW PEOPLE. IT IS TOO LATE FOR US. WREAK HAVOC ON THE MIDDLE CLASS.”

INLAND EMPIRE — Right on.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — What a slogan! So many layers in so few words. Perfectly crafted to grab one’s attention and keep hold of it for long after you’ve passed by. You wish you’d thought of it.

“Truer words were never spoken.”

“What a fuckin’ bummer, am I right?”

“Not bad, but I like the one we painted in Martinaise better.”

KIM KITSURAGI — “You mean, the one *you* painted,” he says pointedly. “I had nothing to do with that.”

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — He did like your mural. He’s just never gonna admit it. He’s too committed to the bit.

THE NEXT WORLD MURAL — The words seem to tower over you as you and your partner take them in. Once again, you can’t help but wonder how the Belles Lettres managed to paint this monstrously massive mural without being seen.

VISUAL CALCULUS — Surely there must have been scaffolding involved, or some kind of machinery.

LOGIC — They were seen. Just not by anyone who would disturb their work, or sell them out to the police. Which, if the results of the vote are anything to go by, would be most of the people of Jamrock.

“What do you think about the part about true love, Kim?”

“What do you think about the part about the middle class, Kim?”

“Did you know there was a vote on whether or not to remove the mural?”

KIM KITSURAGI — “We did hear about it back at 57,” he admits. “It’s rare for your district to organize a vote like that. Or any district, for that matter…”

He frowns slightly, peering up at the embracing couple. “I’ll admit, when I heard about it, I had no idea how *big* this thing was. I’m surprised that they voted to keep it. You must be able to see it for miles…”

CONCEPTUALIZATION — Eight stories loud, painted over the corpse of a failed real estate venture. A reminder, a call to action, and a threat, all rolled into one. Constant and inescapable. Oh, yeah. *This* is good stuff.

EMPATHY — It makes the lieutenant uncomfortable.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — That’s the point.

YOU — “How would you have voted?”

KIM KITSURAGI — “I wouldn’t have,” he says drily. “I didn’t live here.”

“All right, fair enough.” (Drop the subject)

“Cmon, Kim. If you *did* live here, which side would you be on?” (Press him)

KIM KITSURAGI — “I don’t know that it’s about taking sides…” His sentence trails as he considers the mural.

PERCEPTION (Sight) — He glances at you for the briefest of moments, and then away. Almost as if he hadn’t meant to do it.

ESPIRIT DE CORPS [Godly: Success] — You make him uncomfortable in much the same way that the mural does. Representative of truths that he doesn’t know what to make of.

There was a time when he dreamt of things like true love. And heroic deeds, and brilliant discoveries, and aerostatic pilots. A home that belonged to him. A table laden with food and crowded with people. The future and the past were polar opposites in his eyes— one a painful collage of loneliness and ostracization, the other a blank canvas, and all the more beautiful for it. It could be anything.

It did not take long for the present to beat it all out of him. And then he blinked, and he was forty-three and alone, having spent twenty years of his life on stubbornness and spite, trying to prove himself to people who didn’t and still don’t care, at the expense of the people that he should have cared for. And he realized it was too late for him.

YOU — Too late for what…?

EMPATHY — To do or be anything different.

KIM KITSURAGI — “…I don’t know,” he finally says. His voice is level, but quiet. “But I can understand why people wanted it to remain.”

He tears his gaze away from the mural at last and looks at you. “What about you? How did you vote?”

YOU — “I can’t remember.”

KIM KITSURAGI — He grimaces slightly. “Right. Sorry…”

“But I think I would have voted for it to go.”

“But I think I would have voted for it to stay.”

KIM KITSURAGI — “That doesn’t surprise me,” he sighs. “I’m sure the part about wreaking havoc on the middle class especially appealed to you.”

“You know it, comrade.”

“No, it was the part about true love being dead.”

“No, it was the part about new people.”

KIM KITSURAGI — He looks at you strangely. “…Oh? What do you make of it?”

“There’s no such thing as new people. We’re all the same, and we’ll always be the same, walking in the same old circles.”

“Fuck the new people and their new world that we’ll never get to see.”

“I think anyone can become a new person if they try. It’s a call to action.”

“Even if it’s too late for us to be new, I think we can still change. And we can still love each other.”

KIM KITSURAGI — He looks for a moment as if he’s going to say something… and then nothing. His lips purse slightly.

EMPATHY [Formidable: Failure] — It’s hard to say what he thinks of your little thesis. Matters of love are tough on him.

COMPOSURE [Legendary: Success] — But you get the feeling that *something* is happening within the lieutenant. There’s a crack in the dam that’s widening every day, and he knows it. He’s afraid to let it happen, but he’s equally powerless to stop it.

INLAND EMPIRE — You’re afraid, too. You’re both the same brand of coward.

VOLITION — You’re both a lot of things that you don’t have to be. It’s too late to have never been them. But it’s not too late to stop.

ESPIRIT DE CORPS — Stopping is precisely what he’s afraid of. He wonders what of himself will be left if he ceases to be *this.*

That’s selfish. We’re both so selfish.

It would be better if we ceased to be anything at all.

Whatever is left, I’ll still love him.

INLAND EMPIRE — How do you know he *wants* your love?

YOU — I don’t know. But he has it, anyway.

THE NEXT WORLD MURAL — A cold wind rushes past you, sending a chill deep into your bones. Unconsciously, you both step closer to each other. Seeking warmth.

[kraken-o-doyle]

My delulu brain gives you an assessment of the characters of Blades. Fair warning it's a lot 😂 Enjoy.

Nia, obviously her backstory is literally being snatched up and taught how to use her light from literal birth is controversial to say less. And after joining our party, she began seeing all the things wrong with what she was conditioned to believe - and dear god that would fuick up a person (depends on the matter). Even a year later Nia is struggling with the fact that she is still the shadow creature and I think losing MC made her stronger and less shy, but at the same time yours truly believes she cannot trust anyone - it was only revealed to MC that she is still struggling with the aftermath of Dreadlord dying and turns into this creature when she is in danger BY ACCIDENT OR SHEER DUMB LUCK.(PLOT DEMANDS IT) why is MC still covering for her?????

Imtura at first was literally denying the fact that MC was even alive and to be fair, she is the last person to be recruited into the team in book 1, but in my humble opinion it's evident that Imtura and MC(moi mc)relate more to one another than any other character. And her not making too many friends due to being a ✨princess✨is such BS but you know (I would be more than grateful to be in a princess' corner as a good friend) and as stated in book 1, we weren't told she was a princess because she's a captain of a ship and that way she could keep others' respect before they literally fall over themselves to please her. And when our little party didn't treat her any different before and after knowing who she was, she opened up...

Circling back to Imtura believing MC to be dead; if I was in her position and a friend that I saved the world with just 💨, I would too think they're gone since the other implications are that they are being tortured in a dungeon and bled dry by an empress' daughter. 😳

Mal, sigh, he is just wracked with guilt from losing MC, I kid you not I feel like he made some deals to try and find MC; only for someone like Tyril to find out and absolutely berate him (which is why Tyril in the newest chapter called him reckless). I'm sure there is gonna be more reckless behaviour that Mal had done through the year for both characters to use their first names. And got his stupid ass corrupted by shadow - whether or not he knows if he's infested and becoming a Thrall for the Ash Empire... we'll have to wait and see.

Tyril, from what we know so far tried from beginning to end to find MC (to be honest from what we were told Nia and Mal helped a lot until they stopped? why though - correct me if I am wrong.) even if you are romantically involved or just platonic friends, he literally sees you as an equal and is equally happy to see you back in the land of the living. Him grovelling and desperately trying to find answers on how to find MC shows what type of person he is, but I'm sure he is keeping some feelings or all of them back due to just being happy to have MC back in his life. (And doesn't want to burden MC with his problems)

Aerin better come back because whether or not I missed his jabs at the group and him only having eyes for MC(s phone, do you have some games). But genuinely what did he give the group (only heartache), because if you didn't catch him in book 1 he literally comes in one chapter - takes a stab at MC's celibacy - leaves the next. Where the hell did you crawl off to Aerin, did you go off to finish off someone?the king. Jesus, imagine. Or even worse he won't come back this book...

WILL WE GET KADE, LOOLA AND THREEP THIS BOOK BECAUSE ITS DIFFICULT WITHOUT THEM. I miss them a lot, also definitely not catching up with Kade like we should've; imagine if MC dies and the rest of the group (after saving the world and whatnot) comes back with her corpse with a note attached - sorry. 😐

I would scream if we have a therapy session with some certain characters - say certain someones we haven't seen in the WHOLE BOOK. Very disappointed in that department. Because from where I am sitting we NEED YEARS WORTH OF THERAPY.

[fog-and-rust]

Skyrim Incorrect Quotes

My LDB is called Renata Aquillia, she is like General Tullius but for East Empire Trading Company (problem solver). Her squad consists of Lucien Flavius, Inigo and Redcap.

***

The most accurate incorrect quote ever!

[This takes place in Falkreath graveyard in the beginning of that quest when former jarl Dengeir asks to kill his vampire ancestor]

Renata: Alright, so the vampire's gravestone is—

Lucien: Cenotaph.

Renata: What?

Lucien: It's only a gravestone if it marks the location of a body. A monument honouring someone whose body isn't present is a cenotaph.

Renata: I'm... not sure that's how it works if the body gets up and walks away on its own.

Lucien: There's a precedent for gravestones being reclassified as cenotaphs if the body is later removed and reinterred elsewhere. There's no rule that says the body itself can't do the removing.

Renata: Okay, but the body is very much coming back. That's kind of what we're here to accomplish.

Lucien: So it's a temporary cenotaph.

Renata: And naturally our greatest concern here is avoiding semantic ambiguity.

Lucien: Semantic ambiguity is how vampires get you.

***

Lucien: Inigo, is that legal?

Inigo: When there's no guards around, anything's legal!

***

Lucien: Never gonna make you cry!

Inigo: Never gonna say goodbye!

Redcap: Never. Gonna. Tell a lie—

Renata: I will hurt you.

***

Renata: You ever see something that changes your life and you're just like "huh.."

Lucien: I saw you.

Renata: Honestly that's so cute and sweet but it kinda makes this awkward because I was gonna show you a picture of Inigo drawn by Redcap.

***

Renata: I’m gonna mix a bottle of Cliff Racer with all the ingredients I have and then chug it while Lucien and Inigo chant “Splattering, squishy, squashy, spiders” in the background so I can perceive all Daedra realms at once and find where my soul will go if I die.

***

Renata: Why are the guards at our front porch screaming at us?

Inigo & Lucien: We stole all the sweetrolls in town in broad daylight… It didn't go down too well.

Renata: … Without me?

***

Renata: I screwed up.

Lucien: On a scale of The Potion Incident and That Time We Never Speak Of how badly did you screw up?

Renata: Roughly the same level as The Daedra Disaster.

Lucien: … Oh oh oh.

Renata: Yeah.

***

Lucien: Are we even meant to be in here?

Renata: Honestly? Not really, but at this point, trespassing is the mildest of our many misdeeds.

***

[After the cultists’ attack]

Inigo: This is about to get a hell of a lot more complicated, isn't it?

Renata: Unfortunately.

***

Lucien: Are all daedra this childish?

Renata: Don’t look at me, this isn't even my pantheon.

***

Lucien: Do we really have to go through there?

Renata: Well it's either that, or deal with the consequences of our actions.

Inigo: … Blind leap into the void it is.

***

[In Falkreath]

Inigo: I can't figure out what's more mind blowing. The fact that you slapped a jarl, or the fact that you didn't even get in trouble for doing so.

Renata: To be fair, he was being a moron.

***

[After killing Vittoria Vici]

Renata: And I'd love to be sorry for that, but we all know I've done much, much worse.

***

Lucien & Inigo: Ayo, what in Oblivion is this?!?

Renata, sitting down, surrounded by corpses: I won Blood Horkers, that’s what.

***

[In Blackreach]

Lucien: Where are we?

Renata: What makes you think I’m any less lost than you are?

***

Renata: I would do anything for East Empire Company.

[Later]

Renata, covered in blood: The statement still stands!

***

Renata: Tilde tgm.

Lucien: Hey, this isn't a game-

Renata: *jumps off a cliff with no damage*

***

Inigo, to Renata: Please, picking locks is my specialty.

Inigo: *throws a stone through the window*

Inigo: Okay, let’s go.

***

Lucien: Oh, fiddlesticks! That really ruffles my feathers!

Inigo: Please, just say fuck.

***

Daedra Prince: Hey, I took your soul last month and-

Renata: No returns.

Daedra Prince: *sobbing* But it's making me sad...

***

Renata, to Inigo: ...And I need you, Lucien and Redcap to help, and by "help" I mean "do everything."

***

*Renata is casually searching around the room*

Redcap: Hey. What. Are. You. Looking for?

Renata: My will to live.

*Lucien walks into the room*

Renata: Oh, there it is.

***

Renata: I’m telling you, my team is competent.

Lucien, rushing in: Ren! Redcap tried to make a beverage in your alchemy lab and now it's broken!

***

Inigo, about Redcap: He’s speaking some kind of gibberish.

Renata: Let me handle it. I speak giantic. It's the same thing.

***

Redcap: So. How. Long. Have you. And Renata. Been. Together?

Lucien: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. She and I are not together. No. No.

Redcap: Really? Sixteen ‘nos’? Really?

***

[After "A Night to Remember"]

Jarl: So, Inigo, Lucien and Renata.

Jarl: According to this, you two are being accused of: Armed Robbery, Vandalism, Skooma Abuse, Magic Use…

Inigo: We had a bad day.

Jarl: And… MURDER?!

Renata: It was a pretty bad day…

***

[before she started training him]

Renata: I believe in you, Lucien!

Lucien, to himself: Divines, I must suck. The nicest thing Renata can think to say to me is that she doesn’t doubt my existence.

[historia-vitae-magistras]

"As the first molar forms during infancy, a conclusion of high status, high protein diet can be drawn. The second sample however, suggests marked poverty and high cereal and plant based diet."

Is it possible to cry over a dry statement of scientific facts? Too late, I'm crying. It took me a second to parse it, but... the first molar is from when their mother was still around and they were important and honored. And the second sample is little baby Arthur alone in the world, or maybe with his also-young siblings doing their best to take care of him. My heart is so broken. (Also, I knew it was going to be Arthur and Magnus, but I was still vibrating with excitement about "ooh, the mixed origins of the younger one's stuff!!! That's Arthur!!!!" Also, the mixed origins of Arthur's stuff... bow from Rhys, seax from his own people, figurine indicating specifically the people that make him different from the brother who made his bow... how do you give me emotions from an academic paper???? Not fair!)

“I’m not entertaining the possibility because it’s not possible.” Arthur snapped, pacing about the kitchen. Rhys dragged his hand down his face.

Look, Arthur, you wouldn't be so upset if you weren't worried about the implications. All I'm saying.

Also, huge Arthur move to react to the excavation turning up some very personal stuff by saying "that is not real and I will not permit any more digging." Almost like that's exactly how he deals with emotions.

“They can’t have drug up my corpse from the back garden when I am standing right here!”

“And yet they have.”

I just love the back and forth. I love them bickering and I love Rhys trying to calm his little brother down. (And I feel like he's gotta be having some weird emotions too? Like "hey, remember when your asshole brother who conquered you and most of the planet was just a little kid with a bow you made for him because mama was gone? We found that kid's grave." That has to be doing a number on him.) (And now that I've typed that out, is there some symbolism or commentary with the grave of little mixed-culture Arthur with things from his family vs. the living adult Arthur who's... improving now, but was very much not that kid for a long time? The less-empire-y version of him was literally dead and buried out back while the vicious empire walks around? And now I'm thinking about the axe in his back and how he considered it his fault for being "too weak" for such a long time. It doesn't mention how the younger skeleton died - was it that??? Was the version of Arthur that might not have become the empire literally buried in the empire's back garden???)

Dude, this was short. And at least half "academic language." How did you do all of that??? Like, part of it is me knowing your other fics, but you're still the one who called them to mind!

Point being, my mind is blown, spinning wildly with theories, and I am very very much looking forward to the rest of this fic. Holy shit.

God I am so happy 😭. I can't answer much yet but god thank you so much for caring when I post stuff.

[violetnull]

I've started reading 'the Undying Archive' and I feel the need to talk about it. This book has a lot going on. Spoilers below the read more

'The Undying Archive' is ostensibly mecha sff, but most of it so far (about the first half) is entirely taken up by character stuff, following the protagonist, Sunai, as he navigates life as the chosen of a dead AI god in a nation that hates AI. Which, fair, the AI god that Sunai is the chosen of seems a bit like an all consuming bio-tech monster, something Sunai has some trouble coming to grips with. All of his loved ones, including the two men whom he loves and has loved, are devoted wholly to the god and it's memory, leaving Sunai to deal with his trauma surrounding the god and his sort of "Isaac from the bible" raised-as-a-sacrifice nature on his own. Or at least, he thinks he's on his own. That has been one of my favorite parts of this book: as it introduces more characters that have known him, his own self doubt and self hatred comes into question by me, the reader, even as he refuses to acknowledge that he does in fact enrich the lives of the people he loves, and is not in fact a black hole of destruction and misery as he is so willing to believe. The mecha stuff is also incredibly interesting, with the giant robots in question essentially being the reanimated corpses of other dead AI gods, piloted by people like Sunai, corrupted and chosen in the final death throes of these strange, unknowable machine intelligences.

There is stuff I don't love (the second-person narrative trick has been done better in recent years by others in the "experimental queer sff" track, ie tamsyn did it better), but the world is so fascinating and the characters so compelling that I'm willing to piece together the clunky shifts in perspective to put the whole story together. In particular, I think the part where Sunai is physically incapable of touching the man he loves without forcing them both to relive traumatic and painful memories is going to stick with me for a while. The prose in general is so rich and poignant, it really carries the story when things get messy and/or confusing. I won't lie, I'm also a sucker for gay angst and queernormative sff in general, and with so much of the best of the best in queer sff being dominated by (genuinely amazing and Kind Of Necessary) wlw protagonists and stories, it's really really nice to read a book about a queer man being put into Science Fiction Situations. I am but a bi man craving that sweet sweet mlm romantic angst, after all, and the closest I've gotten with my other favorite books I've read this year has been the wonderfully tragic bisexual political love triangle of Yskander in 'A Memory Called Empire' (honorable mention: 'Cemeteries of Amalo' and everything that Thara Celehar has going on, love that gay elf so much). It definitely won't be supplanting those other titles in the Vio's Faves Folder, but it has definitely earned a place on the list (so far).

[attichoney4u]

Note: The characters presented there are inspired by @allbeendonebefore's work and they have no intention to mock you, rather to entertain you.

Hello again. In my previous post, I talked about the regional unit of Aetolia-Acarnania. Here, I'm gonna present some of its important cities. Starting with the capital itself…

Artistic choices: As with Aetolia and Acarnania in the previous post, I based her design from one of my aunts. Specifically, I made her tall with brown hair. I originally intended her to have scars all over her body, from the three Sieges (that we are going to talk about later) that took place in her city, but I ended up finding this idea over-the-top and she has fair skin. She is famous as a fish farming site, so I gave her clothes that make it easy for her to access waterz like boots, shorts and a plain t-shirt.

Messolonghi (as I prefer to call her) is the capital of Aetolia-Acarnania, despite not being its biggest city (Agrinio holds this position). Think of it like Edmonton and Calgary's case in Alberta, Canada.

It's one of these greek towns that has associated itself with the Greek War of Independence, a War that lasted from 1821 to 1829, and ended with the Greeks receiving their freedom from the Ottoman Empire.

To name, during that war, three dramatic sieges took place there. The first two (in 1822 and 1823) were unsuccessful, but the third was devastated for the Messolonghians.

Let's start from the beginning. Messolonghi is a city protected by a chain of small islands and its lagoon from the sea, and by a wall and the marshy terrain from the landward side. Additionally, it emerged as a fishing and trading settlement. All these made her a place in a vital position and that's why the Ottomans attacked her.

The reason the first two sieges were unsuccessful was due to the fact that the Ottomans focused solely on cutting connections and food from the land and thanks to the town's history as as a fishing and trading settlement, the residents could supply themselves via the sea route.

On the third time, however, the Ottomans came with a much stronger navy, cutting connections from both the land and the sea. The siege lasted till the spring of 1826. The Greeks had grown devastated and weak after a long and suffering winter without supplies, even going as far as to eat dogs, cats and mice from the streets. The residents looked skeletal and you could see corpses on the ground.

It was then that the Messolonghians decided to burst out of the gates and attempt to lead the women and children to safety. Meanwhile, those who were dying and/or too sick were piled into houses packed full of gunpowder to blow themselves up when the Ottomans arrived to kill them.

On the night of 10 April, the Greeks realised their plan, having to face an army of Ottomans who were informed about their escape. 10,000 emerged. Only 1,000 Greeks made it alive.

It's one of the most popular and important event of the Greek War of Independence, as it moved thousands of Philhellenes across the globe, who came to support the Greeks and it inspired works of art, like "The Free Besieged", a poem written by our national poet, Dionysios Solomos.

Here's an unofficial English translation I found on the Internet:

A silence as prevalent as death reigns over the plains

a bird speaks, takes a seed, and the mother envies it.

The famine blackened the eyes. The mother is swearing onto the eyes.

The good soldier from Souli stands aside and cries:

"Lone dark rifle, why do I hold you in the arm,

for you are a burden to me and even the Muslim knows ?"

April and Eros are dancing and laughing together,

and as many blossoms and cores come out, so many weapons enclose you.

A small white hill of sheep yells in movement,

and gets thrown deep within the sea again,

and merges its vast whiteness with the beauties of the sky.

And into the waters of the lake, which it reached in fast,

a blue butterfly played with its shadow,

that felt its sleep within the wild Fleur-de-lys.

The petite worm is also coming on its age.

The nature is magic and a dream in beauty and grace,

the black stone and the dried up grass are vast golden.

It spills itself with a thousand faucets, it speaks on a thousand languages:

"Whoever dies today will perish a thousand times."

The theme of the poem is about temptation and it's easily obvious on the last lines, where beautiful euphemisms are used to describe nature. One could ask "Who would want to die in such a beautiful day?". But as history (or to be more precise, this episode) showed, the Greeks preferred death over becoming slaves of the Ottomans.

In this drawing, you can see a mother about to commit suicide after having killed her kid (which is seen lying in her left arm), in an attempt not to end in the arms of the Ottomans.

The Garden of Heroes, a place dedicated to important military and political figures of the city, particularly from the Greek War of Independence.

Oh, I forgot to say that Lord Byron, a famous English poet and Philhellene died there.

Honestly, I feel like I talked too much about the Greek War of Independence…

On an unrelated note, she's in a rivalry with Agrinio, the biggest city and Economic Centre of Aetolia-Acarnania, but we will discuss it later (honestly, if you're following me for a while or if you've read my #athens and thessaloniki adventures posts, you will have noticed that we Greeks don't exactly get along)…

Artistic choices: I based her body type and hair from my mom, as she grew up in a small village near Agrinio. My mom doesn't smoke, but I made her a smoker, since, as I stated in the fun fact above, Agrinio is known across Greece for its tobacco production. My mom has participated in this when she was a little girl and she has a lot to tell me about it… Plus, she isn't redhead, she's actually brunette, she just likes to dye her hair red (just like my mom).

Enjoy a video depicting the production of tobacco. My mom showed it to me and said its pretty accurate to what she did when she was little.

https://youtu.be/E-F_iOQ88Ds

Agrinio is the biggest city of the regional unit of Aetolia-Acarnania and its Economic Centre. It's not the capital however. It's a similar case like the one with Edmonton and Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

It has acquired one of the worst reputations among greek cities, as a city that you "should avoid at all costs" and its residents as people you "should avoid at all costs". Here, I'm going to dissolve this ugly reputation or at the very least, try to justify it.

Agriniots in general are seen as "savages" that speak terribly greek. The reason for this is because, unbestknown for the majority of non-Agriniots, the people who claim to be from Agrinio aren't from Agrinio. They're from nearby villages, they just say Agrinio to help the listener locate the place. And because villagers have this reputation as being uncivilised and because every village speaks with a different accent, Agriniots earned the aforementioned reputation.

They're also in a rivalry with Messolonghi. The best way I can describe it is like this:

Agrinio: I'm the biggest city and Economic Centre of this regional unit! Why is SHE the capital?!

Messolonghi: I deserve this title because I'm an historic city!

Etc, etc

Artistic choices: He's a lobster, because his name "Astakos" in Greece means lobster and I thought it was funny. However, I don't know how he got that name. I searched information online and I didn't find anything about Astakos being famous for his lobster farming.

Nothing to say, except that it's a nice village to stroll and have dinner if you ever find yourself in Greece. Plus, I liked this building when I visited it.

Artistic choices: When most foreigners think about us Greeks, they think of slightly tanned people with brown or black hair. This is to a great extent true. For this reason, I wanted to create a character that looked less "Greek" and more "foreigner" just for the fun of it. She would be woman, have blonde hair (for the record, there're Greeks who have blonde hair, but there're huge brown hues on it. I wanted her hair to be pure blonde) and blue eyes. And that's how Nafpaktos came to be!

During the time she was under the Venetian Republic, she was named Lepanto. It's also the place where the Battle of Lepanto happened. You probably have heard it at least one in your life, as it's one of the most famous naval battles, and if you're Spaniard, it rings a bell in your ear.

It's considered of vital importance to the Europeans, since it marked the turning-point of Ottoman military expansion into the Mediterranean. Miguel de Cervantes, whom you might know as the author of Don Quixote, participated, where he severely injured his arm. In fact, there's a statue of him lifting his right arm, the arm which he used to write several famous literature works.

She's also the second biggest city of Aetolia-Acarnania after Agrinio.

That's all I have to offer. Have a good day (or night depending on what time exactly you're reading this post) 😘. The next post is gonna be the last about the Aetolia-Acarnanian Gang!

Sources:

A small part where I list all the sources of my information:

For Aetolia-Acarnania:

https://el.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9D%CE%BF%CE%BC%CF%8C%CF%82_%CE%91%CE%B9%CF%84%CF%89%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%AF%CE%B1%CF%82

https://el.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%99%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B1_%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%82_%CE%91%CE%B9%CF%84%CF%89%CE%BB%CE%AF%CE%B1%CF%82

https://el.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%99%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B1_%CF%84%CE%B7%CF%82_%CE%91%CE%BA%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%AF%CE%B1%CF%82

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aetolia-Acarnania

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aetolia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aetolian_League

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acarnania

For Messolonghi:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missolonghi

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_siege_of_Missolonghi

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_siege_of_Missolonghi

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_siege_of_Missolonghi

https://el.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9C%CE%B5%CF%83%CE%BF%CE%BB%CF%8C%CE%B3%CE%B3%CE%B9

https://el.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%88%CE%BE%CE%BF%CE%B4%CE%BF%CF%82_%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%85_%CE%9C%CE%B5%CF%83%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3%CE%B3%CE%AF%CE%BF%CF%85

For Agrinio:

https://el.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%91%CE%B3%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BF

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrinio

For Astakos:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astakos

https://el.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%91%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B1%CE%BA%CF%8C%CF%82_%CE%91%CE%B9%CF%84%CF%89%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%BD%CE%AF%CE%B1%CF%82

For Nafpaktos:

https://el.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%9D%CE%B1%CF%8D%CF%80%CE%B1%CE%BA%CF%84%CE%BF%CF%82

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nafpaktos

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto

https://iaitoloakarnania.gr/2020/04/to-agalma-toy-thervantes-sti-naypakto-o-don-kichotis-kai-i-schesi-toy-me-tin-ellada/

[italianteart]

i watch the empire of corpses and like one (1) russian boi and of course he gets fuckin killed off in the first quarter for bullshit plot reasons.

im salty

[sukirichi]

personal disaster

Toji took the personal invitation to be your personal disaster.

REQUEST. toxic toji + enemies to greater enemies + toji railing reader in front of someone they’re seeing because he doesn’t want to see you happy but he doesn’t want to “keep” you either

PAIRINGS. toxic toji x reader x mafia! leader noritoshi kamo (he’s just witnessing the fun, dw)

CONTENT/WARNINGS: rough sex, slight bloodplay, violence, toxic toji, toxic and abusive relationships, choking, begging kink (you’ll be surprised in what way), degradation, mass murder, mentions of blood, cuckolding, overstimulation, reader is kind of crazy, hate fucking, neck slicing, IT’S DARK okay? unedited too, sorry for typos and grammatical errors 

WC: 3.5k+

masterlist !

Your arm looped with your fiancé’s, his possessive arm wrapped around your waist. He glared at everyone who stared at you with a lust filled gaze, his cold eyes alone enough to send his people staring at the ground with a tug of their jackets to hide their erection. You almost felt bad for them, knowing that they always saw how your pussy took Noritoshi’s cock so well, but that was it.

They could only see but never had a taste of the specimen you were because you were the mafia leader’s fiancé, soon to be the Queen of his empire while you sat pretty next to him, getting richer and richer with each passing second before you fulfilled your duty and birthed him an heir.

Noritoshi wasn’t in a rush, though. He was a man of sensual pleasure, wanting to take his time with you and getting to know you, and take his time he did.

There was not a day that he didn’t have you moaning under his silk sheets, wrists already chafed from the handcuffs he insisted on using you, simply because he was a man who liked to exert dominance and craved being in power. You never denied him – how could you when all you had to do was spread your legs and you got that coin?

You were beyond a slut for him, however, and this much was clear when Noritoshi announced that you were his and his only.

When even that didn’t deter the curious hands of his people from pumping their cocks at the thought of you, Noritoshi have had enough. He roughly slammed his lips to yours before he melted at the sweetness of your lips, soon turning gentle before he slipped a ring inside your finger to make it official.

Noritoshi, dramatic as ever, wanted everyone to know about this engagement as loudly as he could without opening his mouth.

Your fiancé had a flare for the theatrics, which was why he didn’t blink an eye as he got you an expensive designer dress, hand-stitched, and flaunting you around – flaunting his soon to be wife hanging off of his arm proudly.

He guided you into his limousine until you reached a night sky nightclub that was notorious for its luxury. Not even the richest people belonging in the top tier of society could afford a single ticket, much less a private room. Noritoshi made the right choice by walking with you down the hallways, the walls transitioning from a glossy black to a velvet tint, leading into one of the VIP rooms that was already surrounded by his guards.

The whole way there, Noritoshi didn’t loosen his grip on you, making sure his hand was cupping your ass to flash your ring and his.

Several envious gazes and curious ones later, followed by hushed whispers before the pair of you disappeared behind the double doors, Noritoshi loosened up in his seat, satisfied that he’d marked his territory successfully.

Noritoshi uncapped a bottle of fine whiskey served by a shivering waiter, while you sat next to him, legs crossed enough that the poor blushing waiter flushed at the sight of your bare cunt.

You checked your nails, smirking at the velvet black acrylics Noritoshi was generous enough to let you borrow his black card for. The dress you wore was infinitely superb too, the bust firm enough to push your breasts high enough that the outline of your cleavage was just a step away from exposing your nipples – a tease, as always – just as how Noritoshi wanted.

He was like that; always dangling the treasure right in front of people’s mouths as they salivated in hunger, then bringing it back to his grasp just before they took a bite.

How Noritoshi, you thought.

Out of nowhere, muffled gunshots could be heard from the outside, your eyes cat-like as they glared at the door, waiting for people to burst through. Not a second later, one of your guards rudely invited himself in, pushing the curtain that hid a secret exit as he started babbling nonsense about a madman or something.

“What’s wrong?” Noritoshi asked calmly over his glass, swirling the glass with a satisfying clink. “What’s all the commotion about?”

“Sir, you need to leave! There’s an assassin here and he’s easily taking our men down!”

“Assassin?” he scoffed with a pinch of his brow. “What do you mean assassin? This is a private nightclub – isn’t our security tough?”

“Yes, sir, but he’s easily overpowering us—”

“This assassin you speak of,” you stopped inspecting your nails, placing them over your knee instead. A smirk painted your bold red lips when the guard’s eyes trailed downwards to your shaven cunt, his Adam’s apple bobbing at the sight before he turned away, stiffening harder once he met Noritoshi’s glare. “Is he tall, dark, has a scar running down in his lip and has a crazy look in his eye?”

“Y-yes, that’s exactly him.”

“Do you know who he is, darling?”

You scrunched your noise, uncrossing your legs out of poor mercy to this man. He looked like he’d faint soon – seriously, didn’t Noritoshi have enough sluts for his men to fuck? “An old friend of mine, although I could hardly call him that when he took everything from me,” eyes darkening at the memory of him, you pushed yourself off the velvet cushions of the couch, swiping at the gun strapped to your thigh. “You should leave, Toshi. I’ll handle him.”

“You’ll handle him? It’s unsafe – we need to leave—”

Sigh, he always worried too much over you. It was so easy for him to forget you lived an equally dark life prior meeting him, so you pressed your lips against his, making sure to mark the edges red to remind him he had nothing to worry about. As always, it shut Noritoshi up, his hands coming up to caress at your ass.  

“He won’t hurt me,” you assured, palms laid flat on his chest. “Now go.”

Noritoshi wasn’t given a chance when you nodded at his guard, who got the message and dragged his boss away rather harshly behind the curtain. Smirking, you made your way outside, adrenaline rushing through your veins and heat seeping into your core. This night just got a lot more interesting.

Your fun was spoiled, however, when you were met with blood stained walls and limbs torn everywhere. A sneer made its way to your face, not because you were disgusted by the sight, but because he was still as boring and upfront as ever.

He never let you had your fun.

“Toji,” you greeted the tall man sitting on top of the pile of bodies, brows raised because it’s been a long time and he still hadn’t changed. He still wore the exact same fitted black shirt that looked like it would rip into pieces at each of his movements, which to your surprise, never did. “Still as messy as ever, huh?” you clicked your tongue, bunching your dress up with your fists as you stepped over the bodies, making sure not to slip from the sea of blood. “Jeez. You’re not even the least bit concerned about the cleaners.”

“Sweetheart,” he crooned, mirroring your smug expression as he jumped down his throne of corpses, roughly tilting your chin up so you could look him in the eye.

Even with high heels, Toji effortlessly towered over you, reminding you again and again of the strength difference. Though you held your ground pretty well, and he knew this too, otherwise he wouldn’t have struggled so much in his mercenary work the moment you came.

“It’s so nice to see you again – or is that what you wanted me to say?” Your lips stretched for a sinister laugh, Toji beating you to it when his strong hands came to wrap around your neck, slamming you on the wall hard enough he blurred in your vision for a moment. You kept chuckling through the lack of air, tongue darting out to lick the blood of his knuckles. Toji growled, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what you’ve done to me, bitch. You ruined my pretty face with those nails of yours.”

“Can’t blame a woman, Toji, you weren’t letting me cum.”

“To be fair, you were leaving me after you killed all my clients when I kindly asked you to keep your hands to yourself,” Toji sneered, head darting down to rip the diamond necklace Noritoshi got you onto the ground. You whined upon seeing the crystals scatter onto the floor, millions worth now dipped in blood. What a fucking shame. “But you’ve always been a naughty little minx, aren’t you? You just can’t keep your hands off of beautiful men.”

“Trust me, Toji, what’s inside their pockets are a lot prettier than faces,” you giggled as your hand came up to trace the scar on his lips, eyes narrowed into appreciative slits. “Nothing would ever be prettier than this.”

“Is it still a face you want to sit on?”

“Fuck, yes,” you admitted, pushing yourself off the wall to wrap your legs around him.

The momentum took Toji by surprise, forgetting that you were just as strong as him as he staggered two steps backwards. His grip tightened on your hip to steady you both, the sharp blade of his weapon poking against your thigh threateningly.

It didn’t bother you, and you only nuzzled your nose against his almost affectionately, staring him in the eyes as you mumbled, “I fucking missed you.”

“Then why did you leave?” he grunted while grinding you down on his cock, hissing for a split second when your killer heels dug into his lower back. He could feel blood leaking from how the shoe pierced him, but he made no move to push you away, enticing you to kiss the corners of his lips to worship his scar. He was so beautiful, sinfully gorgeous that you always lost your mind around him.

He was your end, your ruin, your destruction – and you left in a poor attempt to keep your heart safe.

“How long has it been since I had my hands on you, huh, pretty thing? Six months, maybe more? Time gets so blurry when I’m not buried in your tight cunt,” Toji buried his nose in the crook of your neck, using the blade of his sword to tear your dress open, leaving your lower half revealed to him.

“Oh, you asshole, that was expensive!”

“Don’t give a fuck, baby,” he rolled his eyes, and of course he didn’t. Toji wasn’t any better than you; both your minds were always clouded and hazy with sex. “You smell different. Got another man?”

“Hmm, and he’s much better than you are,” Your words ticked Toji off, knowing full well he always hated it whenever you poked at his ego. Toji was a man of many things, and every time you implied that he wasn’t something, you could expect that he would fuck you so hard you wouldn’t be able to feel your legs for days. Now that was exactly what you wanted, so you kept going, your nails travelling under his shirt to leave more scratches at his already ruined back – all thanks to you. “He’s rich, classy, handsome, praises me instead of calls me a little slut—”

“Aren’t you?”

“I am,” you agreed shamelessly with a sultry laugh, looking back at him with a devious glint in your eye. “But I like being worshipped every now and then.”

“Haven’t I done that enough? You talk as if I never made you feel good.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, nothing can still compare to your cock, Toji,” Your other hand shoved itself down his pants to feel him, soft pants leaving those pretty mouth of yours when felt his cock bare, the tip already wet with pre-cum.

Of fucking course Toji executed his missions on commando mode – he couldn’t be bothered to keep his fat cock imprisoned.

“But he’s richer. And he’s willing to marry me, breed me until I’m swollen with his children and pamper me afterwards. He’s willing to make me his.”

“You fucking slut,” Toji shoved his tongue inside your mouth, the moans spilling from your lips to his only encouraging him to align his huge length onto your already dripping cunt – always so wet and ready to be filled by him – before he slammed you all the way down. The sudden stretch had you biting on his tongue to muffle your moan, Toji’s hands bruising as he cupped your ass. Toji clenched his jaw upon feeling your walls embrace him warmly, his breaths ragged and faint.

It made your chest swell with pride at the thought that only you could make the infamous Fushiguro Toji this disarranged.

“What is it with you sticking to alpha males all the fucking time?”

“A princess wants her throne beside a handsome prince, Toji. Just because your family didn’t like you, doesn’t mean mine did too. I grew up being told fairy tales while you ran rampant in the streets,” you bit back, the sinister laugh painting the blood red walls dark because you knew Toji better than anyone, and one of the things that always set him off like a bomb was the mention of his abusive family.

You couldn’t wait to see how he would ruin you, and you moaned loudly when Toji grabbed your jaw until your cheeks were squished, the cold of his blade held against your throat sending a shiver down your spine.

“Are you the slightest bit aware of how much I want to kill you right now? Slice your lovely neck and fuck you while you suffocate in your own blood?” You gasped as you felt warm liquid slowly bleed out from the slightest cut, your blood sliding down your chest and under the leftover materials of your dress. Toji used his bare hands to rip the dress apart, your tits bouncing the moment they were freed from its confines.

The guttural groan that echoed from his throat was pure animalistic, similar to the carnal thrusts of his dick that pummelled into you. He pushed you flat on your back until your skin pricked with the shards of glass on the bar countertops, the pain only adding to your pleasure.

Toji kept you locked underneath his arm, his hands choking the air out of you while you clenched around him repeatedly, your walls sucking him in tight enough that Toji lost rhythm in his thrusts. “Only you would like that, Toji,” you choked out in a broken gasp, the man above you growling when you picked up a broken wine glass to push his hands off of you.

Blood coated both your bodies as Toji drove his dick deeper, hitting all the spots that only he could ever reach.

“I’m a man of rare taste.”

“So fucking rare,” you teased. Toji’s middle finger and thumb met once they wrapped around your neck, pulling you off the table to bounce you on his cock, using only his masculine virility and raw strength to fuck you good.

The sudden change of position had the tip of his cock pressing into your most sensitive spots, Toji’s angry grunts sinful yet so erotic as your bumpy walls kissed the veins of his cock.

Toji suddenly wrapped an arm under your breasts, flipping you over until you were met by the sight of Noritoshi standing still outside his VIP room, his gun aimed at the both of you. “Uh-uh – I wouldn’t do that if I were you, pretty boy,” he warned, his words taking a huge hit on Noritoshi when his arm wavered. “One cut is all I need and your lovely fiancé’s body would be swimming in her own blood. Now, you wouldn’t want to waste such a beauty, right?”

“Y/N!” he suddenly dropped his gun, hands raised in surrender beside his head. If Toji wasn’t driving his dick like a fucking animal, you would’ve broken Noritoshi’s nose, ashamed that he surrendered so easily. Noritoshi’s dark eyes turned to Toji’s, heat seeping off of him in waves. “I will never forgive you for what you’re doing!”

“Wasn’t asking for forgiveness, shorty,” Toji pressed, using two fingers to split your lips open, giving Noritoshi the show of his life as Toji’s fat cock stretched you open completely, your puffy lips wrapped around his swollen length.

You knew you looked so dirty right now, skin covered in blood, wearing nothing but your black heels that accentuated your legs while Toji split your body in half.

A strangled moan was pulled from you when Toji hitched one of your legs, his arm hooked behind your knee, completely exposing yourself to Noritoshi. Even though you couldn’t see yourself, the squelching of your pussy taking in Toji’s cream filled dick was so pornographic you couldn’t help the heightening of your arousal, breasts bouncing as Toji kept up his relentless pounding.

“Come on, sweetheart, let him see how much I’m stretching you out. Watch as she loses herself around my fact cock like the fucking whore she is,” Toji laughed, silencing your incoherent fucked out mumbled by shoving a thumb through your lips, smearing your lipstick to the side as if you weren’t a mess already.  “Oh, look at his face. You don’t mean to tell me he doesn’t know how filthy you are, huh, sweetheart?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“What the fuck did you say to me?” Toji slapped your ass, your walls clenching around him on instinct. Noritoshi’s eyes widened when you only moaned in response, the blissful smile on his ace rendering him silent. “Not so threatening now, huh, Kamo?” Toji leered, snickering at the apparent tent growing in your fiance’s pants.

It was absolutely sickening that he got off at the sight of his pretty little fiancé be used by some other man, but Toji respected all kinks, even if he didn’t have much respect for Noritoshi to begin with.

“Come on, sweetheart. Scream for me. Say my fucking name like you always used to. Let’s show this pretty boy here how awful you are before he regrets being with you,” Toji snapped his hips harder into you, causing you to see stars that mixed with the sight of Noritoshi falling onto his knees, your name a plead for his lips.

Toji’s cock only twitched at the sight of seeing someone so helpless, to see the infamous powerful Kamo leader beg for Toji to save you and let you go.

He always knew he had a begging kink, but he didn’t think it would come in this form.

“T-Toshi—” you moaned out, eyes snapped shut. You couldn’t think anymore, the only sounds filling your ears were Noritoshi’s cries and Toji’s ragged pants in your ear, his hand pressing down on the apparent bulge of your lower stomach every time he bottomed out.

“I said, say my fucking name.”

“Toji, Toji, fuck!” you leaned backwards and placed your head on his shoulder while he grabbed your hair to kiss you, that familiar heat beginning to form in your core. Unable to help it, your moans fell left and right, loud enough that it drowned out Noritoshi’s pleads. Toji laughed at both of you – called you the dumbest lovers alive – so he kissed you, more tongue and teeth than lips, his thrusts sloppy and desperate. “Oh, oh fuck, yes, yes, right there, oh!”

“You can never fuck her like I do. You can never make her feel good like I do. See how she’s moaning so pretty for me? You can never have her.”

“You’re so fucking unfair,” you cried out, hands tugging at his hair. Toji never let up for even a moment as his thrusts slowed; the new pace he set slow yet deep. Toji pulled out his cock slowly to make you feel him inch by inch, your walls licking at his cock vein by vein until only the tip was left inside, before thrusting full into you in one swift movement of his hips. “You can’t just break up with me and – fuck – tell me I can’t be with others.”

“I own you, sweetheart – I’m your personal disaster,” Toji taunted, large hands groping at your breast when your eyes snapped open, his last final thrusts turning your pussy to mush.

You came around him, hard and overwhelmingly so. Your hands wrapped around his bicep to steady your shaking legs, his name spoken like a prayer with malicious tone as if to curse him. Toji pushed you off his cock until you fell on the floor, his rough hands grabbing at your jaw again to face him, thick spurts of his cum painting your face.

Taking them all in like a good girl, Toji swiped his length over the slope of your nose and pushed the still hard cock through your lips. His hands gripped your head tight as he fucked into your mouth, nothing but anger shown through that scarred face while your jaw fell slack and sore.

“And I’ll break you over and over again until you’re reminded that you’re mine.”

[butwhatifidothis]

So if it is MEANT to be a villain route...Why are the villanous actions NEVER ADDRESSED by ANY of the characters outside of "Huh. I wonder if there was a better way to do this."

Why did they have Rhea go insane and torch a city? Why make potray Rhea as a villain when you could potray her as the hero whos genuinely trying to do good? Why have a majority of the characters still be able to be recruited regardless of if it makes sense? Why have the ending narration mostly be possible? WHY have Edelgard succeed and somehow turn her tyranny into a society that "ensures a free and independent society fot all."

If it's REALLY a villain route, why is there not a single character ending mentioning things like rebellions and conflict? Hell, the ending narration shows not a hint of villainy and potrays its ending as heroic.

"Embracing her newfound power, Edelgard could at last set about destroying Fódlan's entrenched system of nobility and rebuild a world free from the tyranny of Crests and status."

Again, if it was TRULY meant to be the villain route, it would have been POTRAYED as such. Instead of a villain route, we got "A route where one of the villains is made the protagonist and her views and villainous actions are never questioned OR addressed and outside of the conquest and starting the war, everyone is mostly happy."

Alright so this is going to seem like a nonserious answer, but I'm 100% serious when posting this image as part of a genuine answer to this question:

On CF, your actions are never addressed because of ignorance. On the surface, your actions seem like they've helped Fodlan, but as soon as the player looks any deeper it starts to become evident that something isn't right.

If Edelgard made a free and independent society for all, why are the people spied on in Hubert's ending with Dorothea? Why are rebellions secretly being put down in his ending with Shamir? That's not free, in a general sense or from specifically tyranny. That's a direct contradiction from two of the characters that can only be played on CF, and this is only found on CF.

Rhea is portrayed as a villain because she is Nabatean, and Edelgard hates Nabateans, and you are playing a route that emphasizes her ideals - which include wiping out all of the inhuman, bestial, vile, cruel Nabateans that have been plaguing humanity’s world. Rhea goes insane on CF because unlike all of the other routes, where the player and the lord never go out of their way to trample and spit on their enemies' trauma, that's what you are doing the entire time you play CF to Rhea - for months once Byleth returns, and that’s being extremely generous and not counting the entire war. You help drive Rhea and the other Nabateans away from their homes when taking over Garreg Mach - like Nemesis did to Rhea after the Red Canyon Massacre! You're helping someone try to kill off the rest of her people - like Nemesis did at Zanado! You're trying to kill Rhea with the Sword of the Creator, her mother's mutilated corpse - like Nemesis did! You're doing so with the descendent of Wilheim - spitting on the legacy of the one human Rhea could trust during the War of Heroes! You're literally recreating the single worst moment of Rhea's life, all so that you can help the one who views her as less than human.

Portraying Rhea as "the hero who's genuinely trying to do good" goes against Edelgard's viewpoint of all Nabateans being evil, and you're never meant to question Edelgard or make her change her beliefs. You as the player are actively discouraged from talking back to Edelgard, as she will noticeably get upset whenever you do - many times you will even lose support points with her, and this is especially bad for specifically Edelgard because you have to get to a certain support level with her to enter her route, with you having less chapters to do so because she won't talk to you until after Byleth achieves the Sword of the Creator in Chapter 4.

Look at how Rhea, Dimitri, and Claude are portrayed on CF. Rhea and Dimitri are demonized, while Claude is given some leeway from Edelgard. Now notice who of the three of them always speak their minds over Edelgard's villainy to her face, and which of the three of them bends to Edelgard's view of them as the bad guy. Dimitri and Rhea never allow themselves to bend to Edelgard - they call her out and call her actions evil. Claude, on the other hand, will remove himself from Fodlan and then afterwards make himself out to be a bad guy whom Edelgard managed to take down. He puffs up her ego, and he gets to live, while the two that don't must die. Edelgard is the one always out for the kill, and only by submitting to her is anyone allowed to live - which, I don’t think needs to be said, isn’t very heroic of her.

I've had my fair share of complaints over the characters that can be recruited over to CF, but even with those complaints... look at how those characters behave on CF. None of them are Felix levels of negative character development, but they all act noticeably worse on CF vs how they are on the other routes. To name some notable examples: Ignatz goes from wanting to paint Garreg Mach as it stood five years before to preserve its beauty to wanting to paint the violent downfall of the Alliance, Lysithea wants to abandon House Ordelia, which is in direct contrast to her core character motivation, Ingrid is willing to throw away her lifelong dream of being a knight of Faerghus, which she herself says is her spitting on her dead betrothed’s dreams, Leonie works with Jeralt’s killers, etc. etc.. And mind, CF is the route that locks out the most units - there's the obvious ones like Dedue and Gilbert who were already route exclusive, but then there's Seteth and Flayn, Catherine, Cyril, and Hilda. CF is the only route to have even non-exclusive units be completely unavailable no matter what.

Edelgard doesn't make a society that is "free," like I said above - having a secret police monitor the people's actions, or is ready to put down anyone who tries to rise up against her, is literally the opposite of free. Edelgard can and will ban plays she doesn't like - not free. Edelgard only allows state-sanctioned religion, if she does allow it - not free.

CF is a route that wants to make the player believe the lie that you're not the villain, because you are playing from the perspective of someone who herself doesn't think she's the villain, but like. Look at what you're doing. You're invading two countries for the express, explicit purpose of taking them over and making them your own. You're working with someone who's been trying to reunite Fodlan back under Adrestia as early as the prologue when she tried to have Dimitri and Claude assassinated. You're helping TWS. Your Imperial presence makes Church people flee - which, given that Edelgard wants Rhea and those involved with the Church dead, I don't blame them. You're working with someone who is starving her people so that she can carry on with her war.

CF lies to the player - Edelgard lies, constantly. She says she's willing to let Rhea live, but literally the scene before she says she seeks to fuckin' Exodia Rhea. She lies about Arianrhod. She lies - or is flat-out wrong, which isn't much better - about the Church hoarding wealth and about the Church splitting up the Empire. She lies about not knowing about TWS pre-ts. She helps spread the lie of Duscur being the ones who killed Lambert. She lied about not knowing where Flayn was when she was kidnapped. She lies to her people by making them believe she’s making the orders during the war, not Byleth. There's a student who doubts all of what Edelgard says right before the timeskip happens and who isn't sure about his decision to stay, and then there’s a man who calls Edelgard “a tricksy one” on the last explore section for lying about attacking the Kingdom capitol. She’s wrong about the history of Nemesis and Seiros, calling Nemesis killing all of Rhea’s family a “simple dispute.” She lies to her people about an entire war against a group who just a little bit ago were her allies. Lies and ignorance are staple points to CF as a route, it’s baked into it, so the idea of the CF going “oh no you totally are the good guys” literally as the city burns down around the players doesn’t come from nowhere.

And like... the ending narration “shows not a hint of villainy?” Um.

Her stepping on the flags of the Alliance and Church? Her recreating a painting of Napoleon - that little known imperialist - down to the hand of justice? Her denouncing gods constantly and then being ushered in by a statue with heavy resemblance to Nike, Goddess of victory? Hubert plotting away from the sight of the rejoicing people? Yeah, there’s a lot of hints to villainy.

Again, CF isn’t “portrayed” as a villain route because it’s you falling for the lies of Edelgard. You have a wool over your eyes. You accept everything Edelgard says as fact, even when she actively contradicts herself - sometimes as radically as in back-to-back scenes. You view yourself as a savior to humanity, even when you plunge it into darkness. You don’t think you’re the villain, so your actions aren’t going to be put in an explicitly villainous light - at least, not by anyone on your side.

This post showcases the difference between non-recruited characters fighting non-CF!Byleth vs CF!Byleth. Characters are mostly saddened by having to fight Byleth in the former, while they are mostly betrayed on CF. Byleth is very clearly seen as being wrong for having sided with Edelgard on CF by the non-recruited characters - Edelgard’s actions may not be directly criticized (save for by Dimitri and a few others), but it makes no sense for these characters to be this shocked and betrayed by Byleth siding with her if her actions were so good. Leonie deadass calls you a traitor to Jeralt, Ingrid says that you are not fit to rule Fodlan specifically for siding with Edelgard and the Empire after all she and they have done, and Dimitri questions you as to why you chose Edelgard and her “savage, bloody path,” just to name a few notable examples. You, as the player, are being criticized for siding with Edelgard. You say that the villainous actions are “NEVER ADDRESSED by ANY of the characters,” but what else are these reactions but characters addressing your villainous actions?

And like... “a route where one of the villains is the protagonist” bro that’s a villain route. Like. I’m not trying to be mean, but I am genuinely confused as to what you were trying to get at here.

Like. In a vacuum? I might can get the idea of CF not being a villain route a little better, were it the only route available (though even that is a very big stretch). But you have three whole other routes where there’s no conquest, there’s no working with TWS, there’s no using Demonic Beasts, there’s no killing/exiling the remaining (immediately known) Nabateans, there’s no continuous and long-standing lies that never get outed, the lords never stay flat out wrong about the events of the game, non-recruited characters aren’t shooting Byleth up the ass with accusations of being a traitorous lemming who’d follow Edelgard off a cliff... and they achieve peace. Those endings, with Dimitri Claude and “Rhea” (SS ain’t really her route even though it should’ve been but ye), lack the following in any of their endings:

Censorship

Spying on the people

Constantly putting down rebels in secret

State-sanctioned religion

(mind, this last one is in direct contradiction to CF’s ending narration that says that Church is destroyed)

None of this happens on AM, VW, and SS. They all have peaceful endings. They all have Fodlan see the light of dawn, and that is never contradicted in their endings. CF is the only route to have all of these things happen in it - I think that’s enough for it to be considered a villain route lol

[calamitys-child]

Fuck it. Psychic cannibal Harry Du Bois (sung to Shia Laboeuf tune) (with thanks, apologies, and/or blame, depending on your view, to @heronvicquemare). Don't know if this will ever turn into a full fic at all but I could NOT get this scene out of my brain so it's here now I guess!!

CONCEPTUALISATION: Okay. This looks bad.

For once we don't mean the shoes, or the tie, or the *thing* on your face that thinks it's an Expression. This - against all previous odds - looks worse. Worse than any of it. Worse than all of it put together.

This is the big one, chief. The baddest of the bad. The point of no return.

VISUAL CALCULUS: Let's review.

1. Where am I?

2. What am I doing?

3. Who's here with me?

4. [CONCEPTUALISATION - Impossible] What is going on?

YOU: Where am I?

VISUAL CALCULUS: The room is small, maybe the size of Pryce's office at a stretch. At a glance even the layout is similar. One large central table, walls lined with filing cabinets, a side desk strewn with paperwork. That is where the similarities end.

In here there is no daylight and, unusually for anywhere in the district, strictly no smoking. The floor is dark linoleum, because its easy to clean, and there's nobody to impress with a decent carpet.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: This is the cold storage room off the north wall of Processing.

PERCEPTION [Sight]: The ceiling is tiled with thick, slab-like mercury lamps, all of them turned off. The only light source is the open door to your left. It reflects off the condensation dripping from ocean-cold walls. Highlights are picked out in sharp relief; shadows deepen and lengthen. You, in the centre of this searchlight, have nowhere to hide.

1. Where am I?

2. What am I doing?

3. Who's here with me?

4. [CONCEPTUALISATION - Impossible] What is going on?

YOU: What am I doing?

PERCEPTION [Touch]: One of your hands is beginning to numb from where you've been gripping the icy table edge. The other is slick and wet and no longer warm, hovering halfway between you and the man you are straddling.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Don't look at me, man. Not this time.

PERCEPTION [Touch]: That same wetness covers your lips, smeared a little down your chin in your haste. It's probably in your moustache.

VISUAL CALCULUS: You are fully dressed, except for your blazer, which is tossed over a nearby chair. Your sleeves are rolled up to the elbows despite the cold. The focus you have on this man is - or was, until a moment ago - utterly singular.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: For two very different reasons, neither of you is moving a muscle. Were you to lean forward, duck your head, let your arms take the weight, this could be the best held plank you've ever pulled off.

1. Where am I?

2. What am I doing?

3. Who's here with me?

4. [CONCEPTUALISATION - Impossible] What is going on?

YOU: Who's here with me?

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Satellite-Officer Jean Vicquemare stands in the doorway, his mouth half open. The light in the hallway casts his face into an unreadable shadow. That doesn't matter. You do not need to see his face to know that Jean Vicquemare is gripped with a furious terror he has known only once before in his life.

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging - Success]: It is hard to be sure, but it's a fair bet that one was your fault too.

PERCEPTION [Sight]: It's not hard to guess what, or who, he's looking at. You're looking at him too.

GRINNING CORPSE: He's looking back, but not saying a word. Just looking at you, eyes wide and sightless, while his stale blood drips back from your fingers and into the cavity of his chest.

CONCEPTUALISATION: At least he's laughing.

GRINNING CORPSE: You'd prefer it if he was talking, but you're long past that point. His tongue was taken by the corbies before it even had time to rot.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Your hand trembles.

???: I'LL TALK TO YOU.

1. Where am I?

2. What am I doing?

3. Who's here with me?

4. [CONCEPTUALISATION - Impossible] What -

JEAN VICQUEMARE: "Harry," he says, and that's the worst thing he could call you, in that smoker's voice too frightened to be angry, "Harrier, what the fuck is going on?"

CONCEPTUALISATION [Failure]: That's the million-réal question - and boy, we're broke.

YOU: "Jean-?"

SAVOUREUX: HELLO, HARRIER.

[potassium-pilot]

FFXIVWrite 2022, Day 14: Attrition

“Why is it that every time I should have a dream with you, we always end up in a pub?” Dia asked rhetorically as she sat up in her barstool facing Ardbert.

“I can’t tell if it’s you doing that or me”, Ardbert shrugged. “Either way, it’s not the worst place we could come up with.”

Dia smiled and shook her head. “You know, I have to admit, I’m shocked you still stick around. I get that ours wasn’t quite the same rejoining as the others, but even with that, I would think you’d want peace and quiet.”

“Peace and quiet was never quite for me. Good in short bursts, of course- you have to rest after all- but in the long run, I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

“You are dead.”

“You’re not, however, and like I said, I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

Dia’s eyebrows raised. “You’ve no apprehensions about calling us one person. That’s both concerning and touching.”

“Well, can’t help it when I’m attached to your soul”, Ardbert countered, “At this point, we’re one and the same. I know everything you know.”

“Yeah? Name one thing.”

“You used to make anti-ghost potions when you were a child that consisted solely of grape juice and honey.”

Her eyes widened. “Damn. Good left hook.”

“Now come on. This can’t be a one way street.”

“You’re right, it isn’t, lover boy. I know you used to be madly in love with both Branden and Lamitt.”

Ardbert jolted up. “Oh, that’s not fair.”

“I know, I know. Branden being as married to his duty and madly in love with the princess as he was, you thought he would never, but you didn’t want Lamitt to feel like she was merely a rebound, so you didn’t know how to approach either of them.”

Ardbert gave a nervous, breathy laugh. “So we’re in agreement- we know each other very well.”

“We know each other too well”, Dia smiled.

“Then tell me why I can’t tell for the life of me why we haven’t left the bed in nearly a moon.”

Dia’s smile faded. The band that played in the corner of the pub fell silent, and all the other patrons’ eyes were on him.

“What?” she asked.

“Well…at least I know who’s bringing us to the pub.”

“What do you mean?” Dia emphasized.

“I mean that it’s been weeks since you came back from your fights at the edge of existence. You’ve practically been a vegetable since you came home, and I know you’re not happy about it.”

“Of course I’m not”, she retorted sharply, “But I need rest. The chirurgeons say so.”

“That was weeks ago they told you that. You haven’t asked them since.”

“I’m just…I’m so tired, Ardbert. All the fucking time.”

“I believe you. But this can’t be helping you. Half your body is bed sores.”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

Ardbert thought for a moment, then answered, “When Branden was seriously wounded after one of our quests, he had to follow a physical therapy regimen with the healers of Voeburt Castle. Maybe this is what you need with the chirurgeons of Ishgard.”

Dia sighed. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“You’ve survived far worse.”

“You may be in my soul, but it wasn’t you who suffered planets quite literally crushing them, but me. I took hit after hit from Zenos- if I didn’t, I would only have encouraged him to harm my friends and loved ones again for his precious ‘challenge’. I nearly tore my soul apart keeping tonzes of light aether locked away. I had my soul torn from me mid-battle. I watched families be torn apart by war and blasphemy both. I watched the Scions fall to the Garlean empire in the Waking Sands and again by the Crystal bloody Braves. I found my fathers’ mangled corpses in the remnants of the Calamity. I lost my dearest friend. I…”

The thunder roared so loud that it shook the foundation as she shuddered in tears.

“Everyone keeps telling me I’ve grown stronger and stronger…but I never feel that way. Maybe physically, I don’t know, but I always feel smaller and more pathetic after each journey, and now I’m here, and my body’s only proving it. I can’t even get up to use the swiving bathroom by myself. I’ve finally done it. I’ve whittled myself down to nothing.”

The roof tore off the top of the pub. The rain poured in wildly, each drop almost like a bullet in speed. The floor started to flood, and the wind howled. The conditions were unbearable.

It was then that an umbrella appeared over her head. She looked up to it.

“You’re not nothing.”

Ardbert held it over her head while he withstood the rain. “Zenos is dead and you’re here. What does that say about you?”

“That I got damn lucky.”

“Maybe, but remember how close they were to losing you. Even with four of them on you, you nearly died. But you didn’t. You held on because you’re strong. Because you’re the stubborn aurochs the world needed you to be. Now the world’s at peace for the first time in an age. Will you join them?”

Dia stared up. The rain started to calm slightly, falling at a far slower speed, and the thunder grew more distant.

“You really think I can?”

“I know you can. I know that it’s a deep desire to get back to where you once were, but even if you can’t, maybe we’ll get you close enough.”

Dia smiled sadly. “This is going to kill me.”

“If Zenos and the Endsinger didn’t, this won’t.”

She breathed a laugh through her nose.

“Now could you please put a roof back on this thing? I’m drenched right now.”

She grinned and in a second, the roof reformed, the flooding on the floor had drained, but tables and chairs were still broken and scattered. She also dried Ardbert as a courtesy.

“Thank you. This is much better.”

“No problem”, she said calmly. “I think I know what I want my end goal to be.”

“Oh?”

“I want to get started on Emet-Selch’s little laundry list. Not out of obligation to him or anyone, but because I want to see it.”

“Ha, I like that goal. Cheers to it”, Ardbert lifted his mug.

Dia lifted hers and clinked it against his. Ardbert took the first sip, and promptly spat it out. It was mostly rainwater.

“Why is this salty?” Ardbert complained.

“Like I’d know.”

“I’m making the dream next time.”

“Good luck with that.” The two laughed for a moment, then Dia was pulled by a sudden sensation on her cheek. The bar turned into a white haze before she opened her eyes back in the master bedchambers of Borel Manor.

“Mm, wha?” Dia muttered sleepily.

“Forgive me. You were crying in your sleep”, Aymeric explained. Dia touched her cheek, and indeed, there were the tears he mentioned.

“Oh. Yeah, I guess I was.”

“It must have been a nightmare.”

She didn’t want to say what the hell that was, but simply let him get on with his morning since the sun was peaking in.

“I have to say, even if we’re separated by a floor, working from my home office to be here for you has been quite a boon for my sleep. I just wish I could say the same for you.”

Dia let out a laugh. “Please, that’s what I’ve been spending half of my days doing.”

Aymeric smiled. “Well, don’t let me interrupt you. I dare not disturb your rest.”

“About that”, Dia began, “I know what Captain Whitecape said, but…do you think it’s time for me to talk to him again? See what the rest of my options are?”

That surprised him for a moment. For weeks, she had been content resting there, and considering the grievousness of her injuries, he understood perfectly well why, but Aymeric got over it, and answered, “I can contact Captain Whitecape and see if he can’t make a house call.”

Dia smiled. “That would be nice. Do you think I can do it?”

“Do…?”

“Get back to my normal self.”

“I never thought that in question, Dia. I’ve seen you take on far more impossible odds, though I do not deny the difficulty of what you wish to undertake.”

She continued to smile. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Let me get dressed and I’ll send my retainer to ask Captain Whitecape to make a visit. For now, I do have a busy morning.”

“Understood. I’ll be here.”

He took her hand and gave the top of it a kiss. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” With a gentle squeeze, Aymeric released her hand and rose to greet the morning.

[snowflake-of-destruction]

Lovematcha, 40

exes meeting again after not speaking for years au. Vampires and the supernatural. @complicatedandstained 's musings about Kojiro being the most fun in a world where vampires exist.

The Italian restaurant seemed a particular act of pettiness with the smell of garlic hanging so heavy in the air you could catch a whiff of it every time the door opened--at least to a particularly refined nose. That was before Ainosuke learned about the half-naked tanning, the very embodiment of obnoxious spite.

The last time Ainosuke had seen Kojiro, he'd been lifting the empty body that used to be Kaoru from the ritual alter, claiming Ainosuke had paid too high a price for a cure, calling him selfish. He hadn't even raised his voice but all the candles in the sanctum had blown out all the same, leaving them in darkness that reflected the two hearts that hadn't beat in centuries (Just pretended to beat again for awhile, to still feel. Such a silly thing in retrospect).

"It wasn't for me." The demon Ainosuke had summoned had insisted the only fair trade was a single sacrifice meaning a single vampire cured. Ainosuke had promised that one day he'd give his mate and sire back the sun he missed so dearly and still remembered though empires rose and fell while they stayed underground. That wasn't the explanation he gave. He made it easy. "What interest would I have in being a fragile human once more? In being tethered by their rules and living such a short, insignificant life? The very idea bores me. Like our little Cherry Blossom was starting to. Like you..." He had felt as hollow through and through as his fangs in that moment, forging ahead even after his voice wavered. "I simply sought to take care of all my problems at once."

Kojiro had seen through him. Ainosuke had assumed so at least. He always had a knack for it at the worst times before. Red eyes peered into Ainosuke's soul, and there were no secrets he could hide. He felt cold fingers grip his chest, blunt nails digging harder and harder still until pressure turned to pain, which gave way to skin and muscle slowly giving in. The bones followed, ribcage slowly pried open to show emptiness, black ichor, and a shriveled seed of a once human organ at its core that kept the whole system running inside his lying shell kept alive by dark magic and stolen blood. That was the way Kojiro's gaze had always felt to him, and, deep down, Ainosuke had long suspected that one day this prizing apart would be literal, and he'd die by Kojiro's hand. He'd ask for Kojiro to crush his heart in his fist rather than subject it to the stake. If he ever had to choose, it would be the death he wanted.

That wasn't the day Kojiro was to kill him though. Kojiro hadn't even called out his obvious bullshit. He'd just walked past him, brushing close enough all Ainosuke could smell was the scent of life on him (live blood in his veins, thrumming with oxygen, the start of sweat seeping out of his pores) collected the dead thing that resembled Kaoru in his arms, and walked out.

Ainosuke had waited until the faltering footsteps of Kojiro adjusting to his change in strength as he carried the corpse of the sacrifice through the tunnels had long faded even to his ears before following his path through the tunnels and up to the surface, coming out of the cellar below the home they’d shared, still holding back, taking slow steps instead of giving in to the urge to rush to his side. He’d sent one of their familiars, Tadashi, to track him instead, make sure he at least survived to see the first sunrise of his second life--to see what became of the corpse as well, since Kojiro had insisted on just carrying it around where it would not be easily understood by any polite human society he might encounter once he got beyond the borders of the estate. After that, there were to be no more updates.

Years had passed since then. Not that many in the grand scope of Ainosuke’s life, though loneliness turned the blink of an eye into an eternity.

Kojiro had changed since then: grown his hair, put on muscle.

The changes in Kaoru were far more drastic though, considering he was supposed to be long rotted in the ground instead of laughing behind the cover of a fan, color high on his cheeks--flushed, alive--as he exited Kojiro’s tacky little fuck-you-with-cloves-of-garlic eatery with the man himself at his side, snaking a protective arm around his waist.

Ainosuke reflected that it was nice to know he hadn’t yet lived long enough that he couldn’t be surprised.

[everdreamart]

How I Gravitate Towards You

Rating: Teen and up

Relationship: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widowgast

The Mighty Nein return The Blooming Grove. Essek takes time to think about the events that happened and has a talk with Caleb. Things slowly escalate from there ;)

~~~~~~~~~~

The grove was beautiful. Vines intertwined and tangled with the colorful blooms dotting the landscape. You would almost forget that this was, infact, a graveyard with the amount of life around it. Essek took a second to breathe in the nature around him. A very welcome change of environment compared to Cognoza.

Sighs and cheers of relief and triumph echoed around him as the Mighty Nein bathed in their newfound victory. The sight warmed his chest. His friends. Now there were actually nine of them.

How ironic. Essek thought to himself with a smile.

The Clays burst out of the moss covered temple and started to bombard the group with hugs. Caduceus was practically beaming with joy to see his family again. Jester rambled on about their adventure as the Clays eagerly rushed them inside. They gave curious glances to the two new members, but decided not to say anything about it at the moment.

Within moments food and tea were being prepared. Fjord asked to help with the cooking but was promptly shut down by Cornelius.

"Look at you all! It looks as if you have been through hell and back! Rest. We will take care of it," he said.

The food was delicious. Reminiscent of Caduceus' cooking from that one night in the Xhorhous. He smiled fondly at the memory. Essek's eyes drifted to each member of the Mighty Nein. How did this even happen?

His thoughts spiraled into an assortment of memories. Cold and alone in his study. Ambition gnawing at him as he struggles to progress in his research. Greed and selfish desire as he traded away his country's livelihood for knowledge. Fear as a bloodied human holds up one of the beacons he stole. Rage at the thought that his so very carefully planned espionage would be ruined by a bunch of sell-swords.

When had this ragtag group worn down his walls? Was it Jester's hugs? Or her consistently chaotic messages? Was it Yasha in her soft silence, or was it Beau in her harsh way of loving? Maybe Caduceus, with his gentle reassuring gestures. Or Veth, with her tough but kind way of showing care. Maybe it was Caleb. A mind that matches so perfectly to his own it was almost unsettling. Intellect sharp and piercing, with a gaze so intense he could melt under its warmth.

Essek found his eyes laid on Caleb. The strands of copper red hair falling partially over his eyes. A small part of him resists the urge to reach across the table and push the strands away. He studied his features, as if he hadn't already memorized them. The sharp curve of his jawline, his slightly tussled beard. Eyes so blue it almost felt like looking into the daytime sky. His mouth curved into a soft smile as he talked to Beauregard next to him. Essek lingered on that sight. The stress of these past weeks washed away as he focused on Caleb's smile. Then Caleb's eyes met his. Electricity jolted through him as the spark of whatever it was between them burned. Essek quickly looked away, a slight warmth building in his cheeks. He thanked the Luxon for drow skin coloration.

After food was had, the group gushed over their old (new..?) Friend. Poor man was probably so overwhelmed by the attention. Mollymauk - as Jester had told him - didn't say much at all in response to the Mighty Nein's questions.

"Empty… empty…" he trailed off.

As happy as they all were, exhaustion took over their senses. They were due for a much needed rest. Caleb did not have enough energy left to create the tower (Essek had quite a bit of thoughts he still needed to unpack about that place), so the group decided to sleep in the grove. Yasha lay with Beau snuggled up against her. They hugged and muttered sweet nothings to each other in low whispers. Molly was not too far from Yasha, and was quickly taken by peaceful sleep. Jester lay partially on Fjord's chest, talking about some new prank she wanted to try on her newly reunited parents. Caduceus lay back against the wall and was already passed out - his snore a rather loud one. Caleb lay next to veth, who was already out cold.

There wasn't really a need to be so close - they weren't in the confinements of the dome. And yet, they choose to drift near each other. Comfortable in the proximity. Essek felt very out of place. In the nights prior he could always stay a fair distance away from the cuddle pile, for the sake of keeping watch. But now, with the group all clumped together in the mass of life that was the blooming grove, Essek didn't know quite where to go. He fidgeted in his space as he debated where to trance. He can't go too far, but he definitely can't intrude on this intimate bond they all share. Eventually, Essek sits down a few feet from Caleb. He always seemed to gravitate towards him. Perhaps it was the similarities between them that made Essek feel safer in his presence.

Essek starts to begin his trance, and it is only then that the weight of the day's events crash onto him. The horrors of Cognoza will never truly leave his mind, but it is nothing compared to the absolute terror he felt when they were in that final fight.

The watch of one of the Somnovem caught him early on. The guilt of his actions surged into him tenfold. The lives he took, the families he'd broken, all for the sake of his selfish thirst for knowledge. It was all his fault.

He didn't catch sight of the tower hurled at him until it was too late. Caleb grunted as the weight of the rock (..flesh? It was very confusing) trapped him beneath it. Essek felt a surge of fear as he pictured the worst. He quickly scrambled over to where Caleb laid and desperately tried to pull him out. To no avail, it would seem. Those of his craft were not quite suited for these feats. Essek summoned the bead of possibility he had placed in himself beforehand. With a surprising surge of strength, he got Caleb to his feet.

In a rush of adrenalin,Caleb pulled him close and touched their foreheads together. If this was a different circumstance, Essek would be soaring. A small part of him completely forgot about the raging battle around them. That part focused on the presence of the man next to him. The wood burning autumn scent now mixed with the iron-y tinge of blood. That part of him noticed how close they were. Faces mere inches apart. Essek felt his heart jump into his throat. Then Caleb pulls back, the moment ending as quick as it began.

The ferver gained from this interaction was short-lived as Jester fell. Her bloody and broken corse strewn to the side carelessly. It was then that things started to go so very wrong. Jester was back thanks to Caduceus, mere seconds after she fell, but Esseks attention immediately went elsewhere. Caleb clutched at his torso with a grunt of pain as he fell, unconsciousness taking his form. Essek didn't even know he was capable of the rage that followed. He screamed and tore the very fabric of gravity itself around Lucien.

Then the battle field changed. It was no longer the fleshy horror of a city, but now a calming forest surrounding him. He looked forward to see the Mighty Nein - happy and smiling - with a hand outstretched towards him. It was Caleb. Caleb was calling him over to join them. Excitement burbled into him as he rushed towards the sight. It was only when he reached his destination he realized he had made a grave mistake.

The image of Caleb's torn and sundered body is one that will never leave Essek's mind. The sound it made as his lifeless corpse fell to the ground. The look he gave as the light left his eyes. It haunts him. The amount of terror, rage, pain and guilt he felt in that moment was immesruable. The world faded around him. Only being able to see the bloody shell of what once burned so bright. He fell to his knees, not hearing the final cries of battle around him. Essek's hands shook with emotion as he reached out to grab one of Caleb's. Those bright blue eyes he once knew were replaced by the vacuous expanse of emptiness and cold. He didnt hear the clerics rushing over and saying their prayers. He didn't hear the rest of the group trying to stifle their tears. He only stared into those eyes. Essek didn't breathe until Caleb inhaled once more.

Thoughts swirled around his head like an ocean of violent emotion. He can't trance like this. Essek stood up - trying his best to not wake his sleeping friends - and walked outside.

The calming reverie of the grove helped clear his mind a bit from these nightmares. He wandered around the exapanse, his hand tracing the occasional gravestone as he went. Eventually he came to the edge of the perimeter. Tall crystalline tree-like growths sprouted forth infront of him. Glowing ever so faintly. It was beautiful, the garden around him. So Essek sat and let himself soak up the tranquility of the nature around him.

It wasn't until he heard the rustle of footsteps that he opened his eyes.

"Its a bit late to be wandering the grove by yourself," Caleb noted, taking a seat next to Essek.

"Just… needed to clear my mind a bit." He replied.

"Ja, I get it. That was… a lot." Caleb laughed softly, a small smile playing on his lips. Essek found himself enraptured in the sound.

Caleb looked down, his brow furrowing ever so slightly as if deep in thought. He turned to look at Essek with a burning intensity. "Thank you, Essek."

Essek was taken aback by this. "For what?"

"You didn't have to come with us. You didn't have to risk your life just because I asked. And yet, you came anyway. Thank you." Caleb spoke softly. Appreciative.

Essek's mind whirred with thoughts. He didn't know how to respond. "I…" he trailed off. "Of course I.." Of course I had to come. You asked me to. I would do anything you asked. He didn't say. Instead, settling upon, "Of course I came. I care for you all more than any Dynasty or Empire. And I owe you this much."

Caleb shifted a bit at that. His hands fidgeted for a moment as he looked away. He moved his hand to touch Essek's. The touch was minimal. Almost unoticable to anyone but himself. Essek nearly jumped at the contact. A familiar tingling setting into his stomach.

Caleb's hand slowly grabbed Essek's, calloused fingers meeting smooth ones. Essek tried to map every detail. Every little feeling of the other man's hand in his. Entirely focused on the heat covering his skin.

"What do you plan to do after this?" Caleb inquired.

That startled Essek out of his reverie. "I.. I honestly do not know." He mumbled out. He couldn't go back to the dynasty, not with his situation like this. Could he go back to the outpost? Would that be safer? He was still responsible for people up there. He hadn't noticed himself squeezing Caleb's hand. At least, until Caleb squeezed back.

"What about you?" Essek asked, trying to shift the focus. "What do you plan on doing now?"

Caleb pondered for a moment, before responding with "There is still a few issues I need to take care of. I still have to help fix my home. Remove a cancer before it can spread."

Then, silence. It wasn't uncomfortable, per say, but something hung in the air. After a few moment in this quiet, Caleb turned and placed Essek under the intensity of his gaze. Those blue eyes bore into him with such a warmth. And Essek craved it. He craved to feel those eyes wash over him. He needed to see those eyes, alive and burning with a fiery passion.

The immense gravity of what he almost lost crushes him. The man sitting next to him, tenitivly holding his hand, died. If things hadn't worked out so well, if something different happened, he wouldnt have Caleb here next to him. That thought broke him. His eyes dropped down to look at the ground. Apperently he wasnt doing a very good job at hiding his emotions at the moment, because Caleb's face fell. He frowned and scooted closer to cup Essek's cheek.

"What's wrong, Shaltz?" Caleb asks tenderly. His thumb rubbing Essek's Cheekbone.

Essek looked up at him, and put his other hand on Caleb's as if to confirm that he was really here. "You… died Caleb… you died and I couldn't do anything. What if Caduceus and Jester didn't get there so quickly? What if something went wrong? What if-"

"I'm here. I'm ok. Everything is ok." Caleb cut him off. His voice gentle and soothing.

It was only then that Essek met his gaze. Caleb smiled softly, and Essek realized how close they were. Caleb's breath ghosting over Essek's lips. Essek forgot how to breathe. He could only focus on the feeling of Caleb so close to him. So close and yet not close enough. If he could just close the few inches… It took every ounce of self control that Essek had to steady himself. His pounding heart, the swarm of butterflies in his stomach. He knew he was staring. How could he not? Small freckles speckled across Caleb's face, framed by vibrant red hair.

The hand placed on Essek's cheek moved to the back of his neck, and Essek froze. Caleb painstakingly leaned in. So slow, so excruciatingly slow. As if to give Essek time to back away. To leave. But he didn't. And their lips met. The kiss was so soft, almost featherlight, and Essek's mind went blank. He could only focus on the sensation of Caleb's lips on his, how they were chapped and warm and perfect.

Caleb pulled back, a breaths distance between them. In all of his study of time, all Essek wanted to do now was stop it on that moment. It was over far too soon. Just the smallest brush of lips. He wanted it to last longer. He wanted more.

Essek leaned back in, crashing their lips together. This time the kiss was more desperate. As if scared that the other would pull away. Essek relished in the feeling. The heat of the man so close to him spreading to every inch of his body. Their lips fit together perfectly. Moving together and pressing into eachother. Essek moved his hand to Caleb's head. His fingers combing through the strands of coppery red. It was perfect. He wanted to remember every little sensation. He wanted to chart every little movement. His heart was beating so hard in his chest. He wants this to last forever.

They separate after what feels like a lifetime to catch their breath. Caleb's mouth is still parted as he gasps for breath. Essek savors the taste of Caleb on his lips as his breathing begins to steady. Part of him wants to reach out. To take Caleb's mouth once more. But Caleb speaks before this is possible.

"That was…."

He doesn't need to complete the sentence. Essek already knew.

And they gravitated towards each-other once more.

[whitelotus-ffxiv]

邪恶.

I met evil when I was very young, and it seemed like it was something that would come to chase me for the rest of my life. Something in me knew that from the first time I heard my parents screaming at the Garlean soldiers to spare my brother and me from their flames and steel. 

Maybe it was the way the spirits that had lived in our inn howled as they fled. Maybe one of them, in their fear and rage, marked me by mistake. 

Who’s to say? 

The reason doesn’t matter, at the end of the day. What matters is that I had to learn how to survive the wickedness around me. To avoid being swallowed by the monsters, I had to become one of them. And to me, there are few monsters so terrible as the woman in charge of our province: Camilla goe Titus. 

She cut an impressive figure, standing at nearly the same height as Hui, and she was thin, willowy, with a thick head full of pale gold hair that she usually kept in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. It wasn’t often that she came to the compound, but when she did, she was always flanked by her own personal bodyguards as well as a small handful of Imperial soldiers. And on goe Titus’ hip was a long, formidable katana, one that she once gleefully bragged to me about peeling off the corpse of a samurai that had died defending his Doman lord at her hand. 

I first met her just as I was settling into the compound. She had called personally to see Hui and I - the new ‘recruits,’ as she had called us, observing us like cattle sent to the market to be auctioned off.

“What a shame that such pretty faces are wasted on savages,” goe Titus had said flatly to the oyabun, gripping my jaw between her fingers while I debated whether or not to spit on her. “It can’t be helped. I’ve a son not much older than this one. She may be useful yet.” 

Hui had bristled at that, because he understood what I was too little to, glaring up at the tall woman, and she had raised her eyebrows, turning her attention to my brother with a serpentine smile on her red lips as she reached out to touch a lock of his hair.

“What a handsome boy,” she had purred, and I could see his shoulders stiffening, watched as his slender body discreetly moved between this strange, fair-haired woman and me. “With such clever eyes. Are you cross with me, little savage?” 

Hui was clever. She was right. He wouldn’t put us in danger by saying the wrong thing. It’s a skill I wouldn’t learn for quite some time. 

“No, ma’am,” he had replied. “My baby sister is just wary of strangers.”

“Oh, no, darling. We aren’t quite strangers anymore, are we? We’re allies now. Two fresh young conscripts of the Garlean Empire... What a wonderful cause for celebration, don’t you think?”

Evil, I thought, glaring at her in a way that I hoped might actually drill a hole between her eyes. 

The cold way that goe Titus smiled at me made me think that maybe she could read my mind.

-----------

“How many times must you test me?!” the oyabun roared at me as two of his men kept my arms locked behind my back, forcing me to hit my knees in front of the oyabun as he lifted his cane. “How many times will you disobey me, you rotten, spoiled little brat?!”

The ebony cane came crashing across my jaw, and I felt my teeth rattle in my skull as my head whipped to the side. Blood blossomed across my tongue as I gasped in shock and pain, dripping down my lips when they parted and hitting the floor in droplets. The pain was not unfamiliar. It was more bearable, at least, than what I knew was coming for me. 

I had “failed” another mission. It was the third time since the oyabun had sent me out as one of his assassins. I was fifteen years old. 

“There were children--” I started, daring to look up and into his eyes in the midst of his rage, which only earned me another blow across the face. 

“And were you not a child when you watched your parents die?” he sneered at me as I tried to blink the stars out of my eyes, crimson still dribbling past my lips. Part of me wondered if he had broken the scales on my face off, or if he had shattered one of my teeth with the force of the blow. “What does it matter? Weak. Weak, pitiful, disloyal creature!”

The two men that had been holding me to the ground began yanking me to my feet, forcing me to dangle in the air before I was set upright. My heart was pounding my skull, my vision blurry at best from the amount of pain I was in from being struck with the oyabun’s cane. Still, I forced myself to try to focus on his face, baring my teeth when he glared at me. 

“And even now you’re acting proud... When will you learn? I have been merciful, Xiu. Have I not been kind to you and your brother? All I ask is that you do precisely what I ask, and you fail me. Should I be crueler? Will that finally teach you?”

“Oh, I don’t know how much more cruel you could be,” I snarled, spitting blood at his feet. “I will not kill children. I will not--”

Another sharp blow came across my face, but this time with the oyabun’s bare hand as he slapped me. 

“You will do exactly as you’re told,” he growled at me, grabbing my face between his fingers and glaring down at me. “Who do you belong to, Xiu? Who owns you? Who decides whether you live or die?”

I glared back at him. The anger rising in my stomach felt white hot, like it might set me aflame if I had to continue to stand still. All I wanted was to reach out and put my hands around his throat, to rip at his trachea with my teeth until he was silent -- or else to crumble, to be allowed to fall to my knees and scream and weep and beg for them to just end it. To end me. 

Just as the oyabun was lifting his hand to me again, the door was suddenly flung open, and even the imposing man in charge of the entire Kinoshita-gumi suddenly snapped to attention. His cold eyes lifted from my face to the doorway before he slowly leaned back, lowering his hand.

“Goe Titus,” he murmured, and I snapped my head to the side, looking at the tall, slender woman standing in the door. She was dressed completely in white with golden tassels hanging from her shoulders, the dead samurai’s sword still hanging from her narrow hips. 

“This seems like quite the party,” goe Titus said with the smallest, cruelest smile on her lips, slowly moving deeper into the room. “Is our little Xiu causing you problems yet again, oyabun? I’ve heard that she sabotaged a mission very personally important to me. Is that right, Xiu?”

“Go to hell,” I spat, and goe Titus’ eyebrows raised before she laughed, throwing her head back with the sound that was akin to nails on a chalkboard. 

“Not yet,” she said, her cold, dark eyes glittering with mirth as she looked me over. “But I believe the oyabun may appreciate a hand in discipline. You are a stubborn little creature. The lessons so far haven’t been reaching you. I thought, perhaps, we could try a different approach... The death of this lord was deeply necessary, Xiu. He was housing rebels in his estate - ones actively planning my death. How cruel that you’d not try harder to help me. I thought that, perhaps, you were beginning to learn your place.”

The urge to scream was growing. I wanted to grab this woman. I wanted to take that katana off her hip and drive it through her. I... wanted to run. All I could think of was the horrified look on the Doman lord’s eyes when I descended into his dining room, surrounded by refugee children and their parents. All I could hear was the way that he begged for me to spare them.

The way that the mothers looked at me, with sadness and fear. The children, looking at me with wide eyes and trembling bottom lips when they saw my sword and knives. 

It had been messy. I can admit to that. But I couldn’t do it. I fled. I fled and fled and spared every single person in that room, because... I was Doman. Because I had been an orphan, too. Because I just couldn’t do it. 

Things would change after this day, though.

“Bring him in,” goe Titus called casually over her shoulder, stepping to the side so that she was beside the oyabun, both of them facing me. 

I kept my head turned towards the doorway to see... Hui being escorted in. It had been weeks since I last saw him. We were often purposefully kept apart - incentive for both of us, because we were promised that we could spend time together if we were good and obedient. 

He looked so pale, and even thinner than he usually did. Dark circles were beneath his usually bright eyes, and he just seemed disheveled, like he hadn’t slept in days. I assumed he hadn’t. Spying on the "enemy” meant being awake as much as possible, but... He looked awful. And the way that he looked at me -with fear and confusion - once he registered that I was in the room didn’t help.

“Xiu-Xiu--” he started, his voice cracking, before he was shoved to the ground by one of the Imperial guards that was escorting him. Trailing after the entourage were the soldiers that flanked goe Titus regularly, carrying a small fire pit with burning embers. The last soldier was carrying two brands, one of which was horribly familiar. 

The Kinoshita clan ‘K,’ with snakes weaving in and out of a pair of crossed daggers, burning orange with white at the edges. I was altogether too familiar with it. They had burned it onto my flesh before, and so had Kage in a drunken rage, claiming that the ‘K’ marked me as his "property,” too. 

The second... The second was worse. 

The Garlean flag, burning white hot after being withdrawn from the coals.

“You know that you aren’t the only one who suffers when you make mistakes, Xiu,” goe Titus murmured, the oyabun taking a step back and watching my face, and for a moment it seemed like maybe he... regarded me with pity.

Did he regret this? Did he resent goe Titus trampling on his toes? Did he know what was coming and didn’t bother to intervene? 

“You’re a tough little lotus,” the wretched woman continued as Hui watched me, wide-eyed, once the men holding me forced me back onto my knees. “You can take a lot of punishment, can’t you? You’re like a sweet little martyr, or else some sort of masochist. Pain doesn’t bother you anymore, does it?” 

Hui was thrown in front of me, and I didn’t even immediately realize that I had started to strain against the men holding me in an effort to get to my big brother. His dark hair fell in his eyes, and I noticed that there was a bandage on the side of his neck, where a patch of scales had been. Now the area looked red and angry, like...

Like someone had removed the scales. Messily, at that.

“Your brother isn’t as strong,” goe Titus murmured, peeling off one of her gloves to reach delicately for the brand her soldier was extending to her - the Garlean flag. “He’s always been sickly, I hear. He’s a clever boy, but he isn’t the toughest. You probably don’t know how much he suffers when you disobey.”

“Don’t you touch him, you cunt--” I spat, and goe Titus laughed again, eyes glittering with amusement as I thrashed against the hands holding me. 

I could kill you. I could kill everyone in this fucking room. Don’t touch him, don’t touch him, don’t TOUCH HIM--!

“This is a shame. Hui is such a handsome young man. My favorite little trophy.” The way she purred made me feel like I’d be sick. “My favorite little savage. But I can’t play favorites this time. No - you need to be taught a lesson...” 

She gestured to the soldier who had set the burning container of coals down, and he withdrew a knife from his boot, lumbering over to Hui and slashing his shirt down the middle. Hui closed his eyes for a moment, and then he looked up at me as I started to thrash enough to begin loosening the grip of one of the men holding me in place.

“Don’t,” he said, softly. “Xiu. Xiu-Xiu... be still. I’m okay. It’s alright.”

“Don’t!” I roared, feeling something like electricity pumping through my veins, something like tears pricking at my eyes. 

I screeched when goe Titus shoved her boot onto the back of Hui’s neck, forcing his face into the wooden floor. One of my hands was freed and I was starting to lunge when I was tackled back down by one of the Garlean soldiers, pinned to the ground and forced to be eye level with my quiet, darling, gentle brother.

“To who do you belong, little savage?” goe Titus asked, like she was bored, but I could hear it. She was enjoying this. She was enjoying my fury and the quiet way Hui accepted his fate so that it wouldn’t be worse for me. And, in desperation, I looked to the oyabun.

He was looking out the window, like even he couldn’t bear to watch. 

“I will kill you.” The electricity in my veins was building as my eyes flashed up goe Titus. “I promise that you will die at my hands. The only savage in this room is you-- you bitch, you fucking evil bitch--”

“To who do you belong?” she asked, louder, over my anger and venom. “Tell me. Who owns you?”

She was poising the brand at the back of Hui’s neck, where I knew for a fact he had his beautiful, iridescent scales cut off, leaving only scarred flesh behind. My whole world was spinning. I had to say it. I had to give her what she wanted, or she was going to hurt him. They were going to hurt Hui. I had to do it, I had to--

“Xiu,” Hui pleaded, but I understood that he didn’t want me to answer. He didn’t want me to say it. I met his eyes, taking a sharp breath. 

I can endure, he was telling me. Don’t say it. Don’t give in. Don’t let them force you to give in. I am okay.

I hesitated for too long. I know Hui didn’t want to scream, but he was just a man. He couldn’t help it. The sound of his skin bubbling filled my horns along with his howl of agony as the brand was pressed into his skin. I could smell it burning, and suddenly I was throwing the soldier off of me. I don’t know how, but I did, my body reacting faster than my brain could.

Kicking the soldier to the floor, I grabbed his sword, but one of the other soldiers matched my pace. The brand had been pulled off of Hui, and now he was being held with a knife against his throat, sweat beading down his face and bare chest as he stared at me, shaking his head as much has he could without hurting himself on the knife.

“You must learn to think before you act,” the oyabun murmured, looking over to me as his own men swarmed me, grabbing me once more now that I had frozen after seeing the position Hui was in. “You must keep a level head.”

“Stop,” I breathed, letting my arms get pinned against my sides. “Stop-- don’t-- don’t hurt my brother. Don’t hurt him--”

I felt like that five year old girl on the streets again, pleading with strangers who wanted to take advantage of two orphans - begging them not to hurt Hui. 

“Tell me who you belong to,” goe Titus repeated calmly, tilting her head just slightly as she leaned against the oyabun’s desk.

I have no choice. Swallow your pride. Admit what she wants to hear.

“Garlemald.” The name sawed out past my lips. “To Garlemald. To the empire. To the Kinoshita-gumi.”

The woman’s lips twitched up in a smile, and she laughed again, drumming her fingers against the desk behind her. Hui’s eyes closed as the words fell heavy into the room. 

This was the day I learned to swallow my pride, to say whatever I had to in order to protect the people most precious to me. My loyalties to Doma no longer meant anything. Survival was the only thing left. 

“Very good,” goe Titus mused, waving most of her soldiers out. “I do hope you don’t forget it. Put the brand on her shoulder again, Lord Kinoshita,” she added, glancing to the oyabun. “As a reminder. She is your charge, first and foremost. Hui is just a special favorite of the Empire, but... lest he forget, too...”

She waved a hand again, and this time, I literally saw red.

The Garlean soldier holding my brother slashed his throat, and I heard screaming. It took me a moment to realize it was my own screaming. I don’t know if I was angrier than I had ever been or more afraid than I had ever been or both, but I had thrown off the men restraining me again. I was running to Hui as more hands grabbed me, but they couldn’t seem to hold on. 

I heard screams that didn’t belong to me. Even the oyabun shouted something I couldn’t make out, but he sounded angry. 

“Don’t be so cross,” goe Titus chuckled. “A healer is on the way. The boy will survive. But it’s a lesson neither of them will forget, hm? You work in tandem, Xiu. His failures are your failures. Your failures are his--”

I grabbed Hui as he fell only for more and more hands to drag me away. All I could see, though, was his bleeding throat. His eyes were wide, his hands were clutching at his neck, as he laid on the floor. The oyabun was kneeling beside him, and I knew it wasn’t any member of the Kinoshita-gumi that was suddenly burning me with the Kinoshita-gumi’s brand. 

This particular brand of cruelty belonged to these Garleans alone. I barely felt the heat, though, as I watched my brother, as I screamed for a healer - begged, even, for someone to help him.

They did. Hui lived. He spent a long time in the infirmary. They had to sedate me after I mauled the Garlean soldiers and after they branded me again for it. I think I slept against my will for three days. And each day I was asleep, I relived that moment; Hui’s blood spraying across my face, his wide and terrified eyes as he realized what had happened.

And the realization that we really were owned. We were not free. I could never do anything again to put Hui at risk. I had to be perfect.

I never disobeyed again. I became a monster to live with them. I swallowed my heart and ignored it. I ignored the soft-hearted spirits pleading with me to run, to get away from that place. 

I did what I had to. How selfish of me, now, to hope that I can atone and be forgiven. 

[adifferenttime]

Honest Hearts: A Rough Rewrite

Hey! I’ve been working on an Honest Hearts rewrite-type-thing for a bit and figured I’d solicit feedback/assemble a post to store some of these ideas.

A detailed explanation of the premise is under the cut, but I’ve made this as a more interesting reintroduction to major locations, along with the characters who live there. I also have some lore consisting of letters, scripture, and holotapes that’s still in the early stages, along with a complete companion wheel for Salt-Upon-Wounds (he’ll follow you around for a little if you decide to help him out). Endings are now finished as well. I’m not planning on expanding this into a full mod, but I’m assembling everything in Twine so I can utilize branching dialogue and mimic skill checks.

I want to keep adding to and editing this because I’m having fun with it, so if you have any input, let me know!

Essentially, the story proceeds as written up until the point where Daniel sends you to either kill the White Legs or destroy their war totems. You quickly realize that their camp is deserted, at which point Salt-Upon-Wounds ambushes you, convo-locks you, and tells you that there’s an entirely different side to things here that you might not have considered.

Factions

The Mormons have established a theocracy in the Utah called Deseret, with New Jerusalem - what was once Salt Lake City - as its capital. Large numbers of them survived the initial apocalypse due to their pre-War focus on strong community ties and disaster prepping; over time, they have returned to the model of self-sufficient agrarianism that characterized the historical Mormon state of Deseret that existed in Utah in the 1800s. Their President, who wields supreme executive power, is also their Prophet. The Mormons believe he communes directly with God, but there’s some discontent in New Jerusalem over his hands-off approach to foreign policy and unwillingness to assemble a standing army. The Elders of the Priesthood are pushing him to allow for some kind of formal military to oppose what they see as revived versions of their ancestral enemies: America, Rome, and the “Lamanites” (this is what Mormons call Indigenous Americans; the “Lamanite” idea has historically been used as a justification for racism, and I’m reflecting that here because it’d be kind of heinous not to). In more than a few respects, Deseret serves as a mirror to the Legion and an exploration of the other side of the coin re: the tactics utilized by colonial empires to present themselves as legitimate while still claiming territory and steamrolling the opposition.

The White Legs are now more explicitly Shoshone, and I’m relying most heavily on the Timpanagos Band for names and historical inspiration (apparently the question of whether they’re Ute or Shoshone is pretty controversial, but I’m sticking with what the Timpanagos have said about it until someone corrects me). After migrating south in the wake of the Great War, the White Legs eventually settled in Ogden, about a day north of New Jerusalem. Initial interactions with the Mormons were friendly, but as New Jerusalem grew and its need for farmland and resources increased, tensions rose before culminating in open violence in around ‘76 or ‘77. Deseret’s party line is that the White Legs conducted a “raid” on one of their settlements and had to be driven away from Ogden; the White Legs claim the violence was not a raid, but a revenge killing after a Mormon killed a young man and was found not guilty by Mormon legal authorities (this is a theocracy, so “legal authorities” here can be understood as indistinct from “the church”). The Mormons established a new settlement on the ruins of Ogden, which they called New Canaan, and the White Legs fled to Salt Lake, where they have been dwindling in number ever since. Salt-Upon-Wounds’ plan to seek entry to the Legion is a last-ditch attempt to save his people from eradication when their neighbors and the land itself seems intent on killing them (not that that makes all the war crimes ok, which is a sentiment you’ll be able to express to his face if you engage him in conversation).

The Dead Horses are a pastoral society from out of Dead Horse Point, and are split almost down the middle along political lines. The more conservative, religious side opposes intervention in Zion. Graham desecrates the corpses of his enemies as an intimidation tactic, and because the Dead Horses’ religion is so eschatological and heavily focused on properly cleaning, preparing, and interring the dead, a big chunk of the religious leadership opposes him on that basis - they think his tactics are ungodly. They’re also worried that any Dead Horses who die in Zion and are interred there will be severed from their connection to Dead Horse Point and doomed to a separate, lonely afterlife. The younger, more progressive elements of the tribe are less traditionalist, sometimes less religious, and overall not as concerned about Graham’s treatment of the dead because of the potential benefit they might be able to derive from him. Follows-Chalk is their de facto leader, and while the Dead Horses don’t formally allocate political power, he’s among the most influential people in the informal tribal leadership. Most of the Dead Horses who’ve come to Zion have done so either because they support Follows-Chalk politically, or for practical reasons - namely, Graham’s access to a dizzying number of guns and his willingness to give them to anyone who’ll fight for him.

The Sorrows are now a terrace-farming agrarian society instead of hunter-gatherers (Zion has a lot of agricultural potential, and there’s already a few farming plots in the Sorrows camp you see in-game, so it’s not a huge departure from the canon). I’m keeping their Mexican heritage, but I’d like to give them some Ainu influences as well - partially for selfish reasons, but also because bears are extremely important to our culture and theology, which gels well with the elements of Sorrows culture and religion that appear in the canon. I’d like to keep the Survivalist because I like him, but I want to expand on their faith. One of the ways I’m doing that is by deciding they can still read English, even though they no longer speak it; it’s basically their equivalent of liturgical Latin. They’re also rigidly matriarchal and in contrast to the Dead Horses (who eschew formal political hierarchies) or the White Legs (who elect a chief who serves until he dies, is deposed, or voluntarily abdicates), leadership positions are allocated through matrilineal primogeniture; Waking Cloud inherited her position from her mother. Religious leadership, likewise, is only available to women. You’ll be able to talk to Waking Cloud about some of the ways this framework is incompatible with the Mormon perspective, and can appeal to her desire to retain power.

Characters

Canon Characters

Joshua Graham and Daniel are largely unaltered except through the addition of lore that gives insight into their cultures, motives, and pasts.

All three tribal leaders (Follows-Chalk, Waking Cloud, and Salt-Upon-Wounds) are either given new backstories, a different set of motives, or different approaches to one another/Graham and Daniel. They’re also explicitly leaders now - what power Graham and Daniel have, they derive from whichever tribal leader they’ve managed to attach themselves to. Of those three, I’m altering Waking Cloud the least and Salt-Upon-Wounds the most. Like I mentioned, I have a companion wheel for him so far and the bones of two other conversations - one, where you meet him for the first time, and the second, where you speak to him before the final battle. Will link as I finish them.

Original Characters

Each tribal leader now has a rival or right hand within their tribe so I can reflect the different ways the values of a specific community can express themselves.

Follows-Chalk’s primary rival among the Dead Horses is a man who refuses to tell you his name. That’s because using someone’s name in casual conversation is considered unspeakably rude, and the fact that Follows-Chalk is willing to share his own with you is, to Mysteriously Named Old Man Character, yet another sign of how disrespectful and laissez-faire Follows-Chalk is about their shared traditions. Old Man Character is suspicious of you initially, but if you speak to him more he starts to warm to you. The goal is to give you a sense that this he’s pretty xenophobic but for good reasons, and despite his political conflicts with Follows-Chalk, has a lot of love for him. He just wants what’s best for his family, and Follows-Chalk is part of that, even if Mysteriously Named Old Man Character thinks he’s making the wrong choices.

Kiiki is Salt-Upon-Wounds’ right-hand woman and intended as a contrast re: the approach to war and its costs. Salt-Upon-Wounds has done some horrible things and gets a fair bit of dialogue about that, but Kiiki is willing to go even further than he has with very little prompting. Her chief copes with what he’s done by trying to assure himself that the ends of war are worth the cost; Kiiki deals with it by trying to convince herself that the means weren't so bad, actually, and that anyone who isn’t nailing corpses to walls is being naive. All of that makes her sound pretty shitty, but she’s nowhere near as devoted to the idea of a Legion alliance as Salt-Upon-Wounds is. It only takes one very low Speech check to convince her that going Legion is a bad move, and one of the paths involves assassinating Salt-Upon-Wounds and installing her as the new leader as a way to stop the White Legs from joining Caesar. I haven’t added this path to the ending Twine because I’d like to finish Kiiki’s dialogues before I do that.

I’m replacing White Bird as the Sorrow’s spiritual leader with a woman named Imekanu. She’s incredibly old, savvy, and knowledgeable - she’s never been outside Zion, but has a store of books in English, Spanish, and Japanese that have allowed her some insight into what caused the war, if not the current state of the world. She’s also aware of the Survivalist’s origins - not because she’s entered any of his hideouts, but because she’s read over the scriptures and has correctly identified them as letters. Her perspective is that the Father in the Caves was a human being, but that doesn’t diminish his religious value. She sees him as analogous to the Buddha or a Catholic saint: human, sure, but still with access to some deeper truths about the purpose of man and the nature of human goodness. You’ll discover that this idea (that the Survivalist was a holy man rather than a literal god) is the most common perspective among the Sorrows, and you can talk to her about how this departs from Daniel’s perspective that the archetypal Father is divine, not human.

Quests

Each tribe has a specific quest that will either lower or bypass some of the penultimate checks that will determine your ending (people are more likely to believe what you’re telling them if you’ve already won their trust).

The Dead Horses: Joshua Graham has been putting the heads of the fallen up on pikes across Zion. The Dead Horses’ religion is deeply concerned with proper treatment of the deceased, and Graham’s decision to desecrate the corpses of his enemies goes against virtually everything they believe. The old man who won’t tell you his name asks you to take the heads off of the pikes and bury them deep in Zion, and to bring Follows-Chalk with you so you’ll have someone to tell you how to treat them properly. Over the course of the quest, Follows-Chalk will share some of his own beliefs about death, and you’ll have the opportunity to share your own. If you complete this quest without sabotaging it, Follows-Chalk will be willing to betray Graham to the White Legs before the final battle.

The Sorrows: This is basically just Ghost of She, but after defeating the Yao Guai you’ll discover a holotape revealing that the girl wasn’t killed by the bear, but by one of the murderers from Vault 22. Waking Cloud will speculate that maybe the Yao Guai wasn’t the ghost of the little girl at all but some other force that wanted to push you to discover the truth. If you wait until the end to tell Waking Cloud about the death of her husband, you’ll have to pass a Speech check of 75 to convince her you’re telling her the truth; completing this quest drops the check to 50.

The White Legs: Salt-Upon-Wounds will ask you to help him sabotage the Mormons’ preparations for the battle. If you help him with this, it’ll drop the Speech check for you to convince him to leave from 100 to 80. It’s not necessary at all to get the tribal confederacy ending, but a new note will appear in your inventory if you finish it and meet a couple other requirements (asking him certain questions, not attempting that one Speech check about religion, etc).

Endings

I’m trying to incorporate as much variety as possible, but there are three main ending paths: siding with the White Legs, siding with the other two tribes, and peace. The basic idea is that the outcome is predicated less on your direct intervention, and more on how other people act based on the facts they have available to them. Most of your influence is through your choices to hide or reveal key pieces of information, and the skill checks you need to access certain endings are less you convincing a character to do something and more convincing a character to believe you’re telling them the truth. There’s one major exception to this, it requires maxed Speech, and the ending it gives you is markedly bittersweet because you’re trying to get a guy to act against his own best interest. I’m writing all the endings up here, and will probably edit them as things change. The post where I explain them in more depth can be found here.

And that’s the story so far! Thank you for reading, and again: if there’s anything here you think is poorly-conceived, let me know. Thank you to @baelpenrose, who’s a grad student in the history of the American West, for helping me workshop a lot of this stuff. If you’ve got expert knowledge on any of the concepts I touch on or are personally a member of any of the groups I’m describing, please feel free to hmu: anon is on, and you’re always welcome to DM me. I’m just doing this for fun, but I still want it to be as not-shit as possible.

[clove-pinks]

🔪: for the “worst of” / worst moments for Marryat! 🙂

Ohhhhh man, I chuckled a little bit ruefully at this (as much as I walked right into it). I genuinely like Marryat and feel sympathy for him: but there is a lot of material here. Particularly since our modern mores are pretty hard on warmongering imperialist colonialist guys, and that's like the fabric of Marryat's entire world.

Every so often I think about Marryat at his fashionable peak, living in London in a house full of animal pelts and exotic curios like some cartoonish Imperialist overlord. As his daughter Florence described it, literally using a synonym for 'looted':

There was scarcely a room in Wimbledon House that was not decorated with some of the spoils which Captain Marryat had collected in his travels round the world. A Burmese shrine with silver idols, rifled from a pagoda; the carved tusks of a sacred elephant; opossum skins from Canada, embroidered with porcupine quills and coloured beads; toys in tortoiseshell and ivory, with precious stones and curious shells, were scattered everywhere, recalling memories of the Rangoon war, America, India, and the Celestial Empire.

— Florence Marryat, The Life and Letters of Captain Frederick Marryat

(See also: how DID Captain Marryat get all those wonderful objects to donate to museums?) It's apparent that Marryat's culture allowed for raiding the corpses of fallen enemies—he cut precious stones from dead Burmese warriors, and described picking over the dead bodies of the French for valuables in Frank Mildmay.

If you ask Marryat's biographers, they probably concur that one of his lowest points had to be that time he got into a brawl in Trafalgar Square, on Guy Fawkes day in 1834. It “illustrates a disagreeable side to Marryat’s character,” wrote Oliver Warner, and Tom Pocock lamented that it “should have been a trivial and easily resolved misunderstanding.”

A nobody civilian named Johnson Neale, who was a fan of Marryat’s works, tried his hand at writing nautical novels. But Marryat was offended by a fictional character based on Admiral Troubridge, and despite Marryat writing many hostile caricatures of real people in his own novels, he began attacking Neale in his Metropolitan Magazine. Neal challenged Marryat to a duel, Marryat declined the duel on the grounds that Neal was not his social equal and heaped on some more insults, and eventually the two men ran into each other in a public place:

‘Keep your distance,’ replied Mr. Neale, extending a walking-stick, ‘You are a liar, and a scoundrel, and only want the courage to be an assassin.’ To this charge Captain Marryat did not answer, but began to untie his cloak, which Mr. Neale gave him full time to do, and, stepping into the road, placed himself in a position for the attack, which he evidently meditated.

Having allowed Captain Marryat to divest himself of his cloak, and hang it on the palings of the National Gallery, Mr. Neale no sooner observed him in a fair state to defend himself, than he struck at the Captain with his stick. Several blows now quickly passed between the combatants; Mr. Neale being a man of half the calibre of the Captain took the advantage of his activity, and, as fast as he struck Captain Marryat, he retreated a step beyond his grasp. In doing this, however, he backed against a heap of Macadamized stones, and immediately fell backwards.

Captain Marryat then flung himself upon his assailant, and planted his knee upon his chest, and placing one hand upon his throat, with the other he gave him several blows on the head with a stick [...] Mr. Neale at the same time made a violent effort, and Captain Marryat rolled over in the mud. Mr. Neale now sprang to his feet, as did also the gallant Captain, who was again advancing to the attack of his unarmed foe, who, having lost his stick, caught up some of the rubbish, on which he had fallen, and directed it at the Captain’s face.

— Oliver Warner, Captain Marryat: A Rediscovery

The bitchfight continued, cops were called, and both Marryat and Neale appeared at Bow Street, charged with causing an affray. Marryat refused several attempts to defuse the situation and apologise. It doesn’t reflect well on him, but at the same time, you can make some excuses for his volatile temperament.

It’s less easy to excuse some of Marryat’s truly awful takes on social issues. He did eventually move to a position of strongly condemning slavery, but not before some really yikes maybe-slavery-isn’t-so-bad moments in Frank Mildmay and Newton Forster in particular, which is dismaying, but probably not too shocking for the son of a career anti-abolitionist. (One time, when I was trying to look up Marryat’s older brother, also named Joseph, I found father and son in the Legacies of British Slavery database. It definitely answered some questions about the family’s privilege and wealth, not in a good way).

As soon as I started reading Marryat, it struck me that his moral compass was slightly askew. Which might be true enough, although that’s a very harsh judgement to pass on someone. (And I would hate to smugly think that of course I’m so much less racist and bigoted than Marryat, when who knows what unquestioned prejudices and bad attitudes are in my heart, and how much progress I still have to make to become a better person than the world that created me.)

I am currently reading Olla Podrida, as Marryat called his assorted magazine essays that he collected together in a book, and my God does he sound like a stupid obstinate Tory bastard sometimes. He has some empathy for poor and marginalised people, but then he snarks any attempt to create a social safety net and sneers that, thanks to the new Poor Law Bill, “the poor man walks into the vestry with an insolent demeanour, and claims relief, not as a favour, but as a right.” (And??? You really wrote all that and think you sound like the good guy here, Fred??) I haven’t wanted to throttle the Captain recently, but it’s never too late for a revival of that sentiment.