#ultra bandit

[don-dake]

Bluey S3E31: Onesies [Part 1 of 2]

[aparticularbandit]

What You Have Tamed: Chapter One

Summary: Life in space is not as Monaca Towa imagined it.

It's boring, and her supplies don't last long enough, so she can't get far enough out to find aliens at all.

Worst of all, when she comes back for supplies, she keeps running into Servant.

Why won't he leave her alone?

Chapter Rating: M for implications and discussions of past child abuse. Fic Rating: M for implications and discussions of past child abuse, as well as general Danganronpa reasons.

If you have trouble with the content in UDG, then this fic is not for you, as it is expected to address the abuse the Warriors of Hope went through.

AO3

next chapter

Space.  The Final Frontier.

….

It kind of sucks, actually.

Monaca has spent the past several months up here, thinking it would be an end to her boredom, but no.  It’s empty.  Lonely.  She thought maybe she would find some sort of alien race or species or whatever and then people back on Earth couldn’t hate her anymore.  Or maybe she’d convince the aliens to be her bestest friends and then they could take over Earth.  Then they could be the next wave of Monokumas, and she’d be an even better next Junko Enoshima, because she’d brought the aliens, and the aliens brought despair, and then they’d win when she couldn’t.

And then there’d be another glorious war between hope and despair and maybe despair would win this time.

(It wouldn’t win.

Big Sis Junko was better than any alien Monaca could ever find, and she hadn’t won, so no one else can either.

That’s the thing: if she brought an entire alien race to take over Earth, then everything Big Sis Junko did would pale in comparison and be forgotten.  That’d be the worst option of all, probably.  So maybe it’s a good thing she hasn’t found any alien race or species or whatever.)

Monaca doesn’t even look outside anymore.  There’s just stars.  And more stars.  And no planets with singular roses on them.  It was kind of pretty the first time, but after a while, it gets old.  It’s all just stars.  Sometimes big hunks of rock.  Sometimes bigger hunks of rock.  There’s no spaceships.  No satellites.  No probes.  Nothing they’d sent out here before Big Sis Junko’s Tragedy.  Just Monaca and her van and her Monokumas to pilot her around.

No food.

No water.

She’d brought some of that.  But it didn’t last near as long as she thought it would.  And while technically, yes, the van is equipped with the ability to turn her pee into water, she hadn’t thought she would actually get to the point where she needed to drink it.  Sure, yes, it’s water, but that’s still disgusting.

Besides.  She’s out of food.  She can’t really do anything about that without eating shit – literally – and she’s not about to do that.

….

It’s not sanitary, first of all, and also any of the healthy stuff that would have been in said shit has already been taken out and used by her body, so it’s not even useful to eat.

Not that Monaca would eat it even if it was useful.  Eat her own shits?  No.  Ew.  Gross.

….

Which, unfortunately, means that she will have to go back.  Periodically.

For food.  And water.

(And a shower using water that wasn’t made from her own pee.  Which is a much better use for that than drinking water, but it’s still kind of gross.)

Of course.  To be fair.  After a few months in space, wearing that Monokuma hooded blanket constantly and not really brushing her hair out and really only having the one outfit and not really taking the time to wash any of that – because, well, the whole water thing – Monaca is kind of. grotty.  Gritty.  Disgusting.  Her long green hair is all matted and tangled.  She might be clean, but she still smells.

…so probably also she should get some new clothes, too.

Maybe Monaca should have thought this whole hide out in space thing through a little better.

(Maybe Monaca should think it through a little better before she goes back up.  It’s not like she’s going to find anything new.  Even if she goes in the exact opposite direction, it’s just going to be more space and more stars and more rock everywhere.  No aliens.  No spaceships.  And she’ll make it just exactly the same amount out there before having to come back for food and water.  Maybe a little further, if she gets more food and more water, but the van can only hold so much, and then what?  Then what?)

~

Monaca steps out of her van atop the roof of one of the most prestigious buildings she can find.  One of her Monokuma servants rolls a red carpet out for her, and it’s not nearly as soft as she thought it would be.  But she’s spent the past several months without shoes; she doesn’t want to wear them now.  Not to mention they don’t quite fit anymore.

She steps out of the van like an exiled ruler coming to roost, and she looks up at the now quite dark blue sky with the hood of her Monokuma blanket dropping back, and she lets out a sigh.  It should feel good to come home.  It should feel good to see that the world is healing after everything Big Sis Junko did to it.

It doesn’t.

It especially doesn’t feel good when a voice she faintly recognizes calls out, “Monaca Towa?”

Immediately, Monaca cowers.  She turns to flee back into her van, pressing a handheld button to set two of her Monokuma servants into attack mode.  That should be enough.  She should be able to get away.  That should be—

Someone places a hand on Monaca’s shoulder, and she whirls with long, uncut fingernails to lash out at their face.  The red paint chipped off long ago.  Mostly.  Not that that matters, or anything.

He keeps that hand on her shoulder but raises another to his face.  “Ow.”  He nearly stumbles back but doesn’t.  “Ow.”  His jade gray eye peeps through his fingers, staring at her, and he smiles.  “I’m not going to hurt you, you know.”

Monaca glances behind him, where both of her current Monokuma servants have somehow trained their sights on each other and subsequently exploded.  Then she meets his eyes and raises an eyebrow.  “Come again?”

“You attacked me, when I have never been anything but your faithful Servant.”  Servant steps back and drops his hand from her shoulder.  “But if you would like to run, then please, by all means.”

His arm gleams metallic in the dying sunlight.

Monaca hesitates.

Her eyes don’t move from that arm as she asks, “How’d you know Monaca would be here?”

“I didn’t.”  Servant tilts his head to one side and flashes another grin.  “I’m just lucky, I guess.”

“Lucky puts you on top of this building?”  Monaca examines him curiously.  “Lucky puts you here just when Monaca would be?”

Servant shrugs.  “Lucky means I got picked up in a freak storm and thrown here.  Lucky means I’m mostly unhurt.”  He taps just next to his eye, where Monaca’s nails have raked through, leaving claw marks around it.  “I thought you were up in space…unless you ran out of food?”

Monaca’s gaze drops.  She doesn’t blush, not exactly, but her lips purse together, her cheeks puff out, and her hands clench into fists.  “I need more clothes,” she says, a half-lie only because it’s just as true as her needing more food.

“Ah.  Growing girl.”  Servant pinches his nose with one hand and steps back from her.  His voice is nasally when he starts to say, “Do you need any—”

Monaca turns away from him and stalks back into her van.  Two more Monokuma servants disentangle themselves from the outside, and with another pair (who hadn’t been switched into attack mode), they lift the van off the building and fly off.  She doesn’t need this.  She doesn’t need him.  Besides, she doesn’t smell that bad.

She raises one arm and sniffs at her clothes.

Grimaces.

Yech.

~

Now.

The next several times Monaca tries to land anywhere, Servant is there waiting for her.  She’s not sure that really constitutes as luck.  In fact, she starts to land in one place, scours the area for him, does not see him, and then lands just to see his fluffy white hair pop out from a sewer drain a few seconds later (only significantly less white and fluffy).  If he was really as lucky as he says he is, he wouldn’t be in a sewer in the first place.

That said, Monaca holds that for the future, and the next time she lands and he shows up, she grins at him, hands on her hips just like her Big Sis (and she’s not thinking about that because it hurts, but she’s not not thinking about it either), and says, “Who’s the stink one now, Servant?”

He meets her bright, matrix green eyes with his faded jade gray ones, head tilting to one side, and offers her an awkward smile.  “I believe that would still be you, Monaca.”

Monaca purses her lips together and glares off to one side, tapping her foot.  “Yeah, but Monaca is not the one who was stuck in a sewer.”

“A lot of time has passed since then, Monaca—”

“Only thirty minutes!” Monaca interrupts, stamping her bare foot on the red velvet carpet her Monokumas still roll out for her at every stop.  (Or, at least, they try to roll it out for her at every stop.  Sometimes she makes them roll it back up before she makes it one step out of her space van.)  “You can’t have fixed sewer stink in thirty minutes!  Not and gotten here!”

“Oh?”  Servant tilts his head to the other side, and his normally fluffy hair looks…heavier than normal.  “You must have missed the rainstorm.  Luckily for me, the lightning struck just over there!  Missed me by a few millimeters, but wow!  It was beautiful!”  His eyes dazzle with—

Yeah, no, she doesn’t want to see that.

Monaca turns away again, arms straightening at her sides until her elbows pop, hands clenching into fists again.  “Quit! Following! Monaca!”  She steps back into her space van.

“Monaca, wait,” Servant says, voice soft but still piercing through the world around them.  (It’s followed by the rumbling of thunder, which isn’t ominous at all.)  “I’m not following you.  I would be quite happy to never run into you again.  But my luck keeps drawing us back together—”

“Oh, poopie on your luck!”  Monaca glares back at him.  “Sewer poopie on your luck!”

“Yes, well, that is also part of it.  Bad luck followed by good luck, more often than not.  Particularly when I’m not controlling it.”  Servant gives her a soft smile.  “Like now.”

Monaca scowls at him.  Sticks her tongue out.

Servant ignores that and keeps talking.  “Which means it must be good luck that I keep running into you.”

“Or worse luck and something really good is still coming.”  Monaca rolls her eyes.  “Don’t know what kinda good luck is attracted to a stupid Servant like you, but Monaca knows she doesn’t want to stay and find out.”  She turns back inside the van.  “Going now.”

“If I were you, I would reconsider.”

“Monaca isn’t you, so—”

All of a sudden, the front half of the van lurches forward.  Monaca stumbles in that direction and then whirls back to Servant, glaring at him again.  “What did you do to Monaca’s van?”

Servant shrugs, lifts his hand, and flicks something from one metallic finger.  “I didn’t do anything.  But I trust that my luck did.”

“But I trust that my luck did,” Monaca repeats back in a mocking baby voice as she stomps out and towards the front of her van.  As soon as she stomps off the red velvet, though, her bare foot lands directly on a shard of broken glass.  She lets out a shriek, starts jumping around on her other foot, and then trips backward before landing square on her butt.  (Fortunately for her, on the velvet instead of off of it.)

Monaca stares off into the distance.  She takes a deep breath in, hands clenching so tight her knuckles hurt, foot twinging where the glass is still stuck in it.  There was a time would she would throw a tantrum over lesser things, but something tells her that throwing a tantrum right now and slamming her clenched fists into the velvet beneath her would just lead to more pain.  Even so, her eyes well up with tears.  She sniffles.

Out of the corner of her eye, Servant steps forward.

“Don’t!” Monaca screeches out, refusing to turn to him.  “This is all your stupid luck’s fault!”

“I warned you that it would be wise to reconsider.”

But Servant stays just where he is, not stepping any closer.

Monaca sniffles again.  She wipes her nose with the back of one hand and tries not to think about how dirty her Monokuma hooded blanket already is, tries not to smell it.  (At least she isn’t using it to blow her nose.  She mostly uses her shirt for that.  But she can’t do that in front of Servant; he’d think she was gross – more gross than he already does!

Not that she cares what he thinks, or anything.)

“Do you want me to get that glass out of your—”

“You just want an excuse to talk to me!” Monaca whines.  “I don’t wanna talk to you!”  She slams her fist into her own leg.  It hurts, but not as much as the glass does.

“If you want me to leave, I will,” Servant says, crossing his arms.  “After all, I’m nothing but your faithful—”

“If you were my faithful Servant, you wouldn’t be following me everywhere!  Not when you know I don’t want it!”

Servant sighs.  “Unfortunately for the both of us, my luck doesn’t much care what I want.”  He twirls a finger around one of the still damp locks of his hair.  “So perhaps, if we want it to quit causing you problems, we should have a little discussion.  Just to appease it.”  His gaze moves away from her, to the front of the van.  “That should give your Monokumas more than enough time to change the busted tires.”  He raises one eyebrow as he glances at her again.  “You do have other tires, right—”

“No,” Monaca spits out.  “Monaca doesn’t need tires in space!  Why would I waste precious room on—”  She bites her tongue.  “Ow.”  She finally turns to Servant and glares at him.  “You did that on purpose!”

“I would never.”

Monaca crosses her arms.  She looks away from Servant again and stares straight ahead.  Pouts.  Big tears pool in her eyes.  She’s on the edge of a tantrum, even if she knows that’s a bad idea, and that desire grows ever larger as Servant crouches down directly in front of her face.  She turns away from him, her nose in the air.  “You stink.”

“Oh?”  Servant raises one of his arms and sniffs at it.  His nose scrunches.  “You’re right.  How unfortunate.  And here I thought the rain would have helped.”  He sniffs again.  “Perhaps it did.  It’s hard to tell—”

“Doesn’t matter.  You stink.”  Monaca waves him off with one hand.  “Go away.”

Servant sighs.  He does not go away.  If anything, he settles, crossing his legs beneath him and sitting squarely in front of her.  “Give me your foot.”

Monaca whirls her head to face him.  “Ew, gross, no.  You’re all stink and nasty and dirty, and my foot’s hurt, and I don’t want your dirty nasty gross hand all over my foot!”

“Then we need to go in your van,” Servant says, as patiently as he can, “and clean up so that we can get the glass out.  You don’t want this to get infected, Monaca.”

“Monaca can get it out on her own!” Monaca barks out at him, arms still crossed.  “She does not! need! your! help!”

Servant raises an eyebrow.  “Well, if you insist.”  He pushes himself up by pressing the palms of his hands into the carpet in front of him and stands in one easy, fluid motion.  “I suppose I’ll just leave you here, then, won’t I?”

“Hmph.”  Monaca makes a great snooty sniffling noise.  It takes a moment before she checks, before she looks to see if he’s really gone.  She doesn’t see his scrawny ass anywhere.  Good! Riddance!

Except.

Except she really does still have glass stuck in her foot.  And it is going to be really hard to get it out on her own.  And she’s not sure she even has any of the pliers or stuff needed to get glass out of her foot.  And while she can have her Monokuma servants steal some tires and fix her space van up, it’ll take a bit, and she’ll be stuck here while they do.

Trying to get glass out of her foot.

That she’ll only be able to see in a mirror, and then she’ll have to mirror her actions to try and get the glass out.

(Or trust one of her Monokumas to do it for her, which she absolutely does not.  They’re not that precision skilled.)

Monaca sighs.

“Servant?  I’ve….”

How to word this without sounding like she was wrong?

“Monaca has reconsidered!  You can…you can come help her, if you want!”

Her voice sounds weak.  Feeble.  Like it did when she was a child, when she was pleading with her stupid dad, her stupid brother not to—

Monaca winces.  She hates asking for help.  It sounds like begging, and begging has only ever made things worse.

Not that she’s asking for help now.  She is giving permission.  That’s an entirely different thing.

It still stings.

For a few moments, Monaca stays seated on her red velvet carpet.  She stares at everything and nothing, her bare feet propped up, heels plopped in the plush fabric, that one foot still stinging and the other crusted over with mud and dirt.  She hangs her arms over her knees and lets out a huge sigh.  It’s not like she regrets sending Servant away.  She is a bear!  And bears do not regret!

That’s what Big Sis Junko would say, anyway.

And then it starts to rain.

Monaca stares up at the cloudy sky.  Hit me, she thinks, as the rain soaks through her clothes.  Hit me.  It’s not as though anyone cares anymore.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, Monaca catches that white hair, and a disgusting growth of warmth blooms in the center of her chest.  Somehow, his hair seems fluffier, as though he’s been electrocuted or something.  (Maybe he has.  It wouldn’t surprise her.)  She wipes her eyes – she was not crying!  it was just the rain! – and glares at him.  “How dare you?” she accuses, throat raw.  “Abandoning Monaca here!  All by herself!  With nothing but Monokumas to assist her!”

Servant holds a hand out defensively.  “My apologies, Monaca.  I thought you didn’t want me.”  He gives her another awkward smile and seems to almost chuckle.  Of course, he doesn’t come out of nowhere this time, just comes out of an alleyway with a gallon of clean, new water, with a first aid kid and a bag full of…of something.  He must have chosen to come back even before he’d heard her call after him.  Maybe he hadn’t heard her call at all.

When Servant kneels down in front of her, Monaca can’t help it.  She is afraid.  It has been too long since she has been around another living, breathing human being, even longer since she has been this close to him.  “I don’t want to be Big Sis Junko anymore,” she says, voice quiet, remembering the dark words of encouragement he’d spun for her nearly a year ago.

“Neither do I.”  Servant holds his metallic hand aloft, wiggles his fingers twice.  “It’s nice to keep bits of her alive in us, except they don’t always function properly, do they?”  His lips curve slightly.  “No one else will ever be Junko Enoshima.”

“Don’t say her name.”  Monaca glares up at him, glares through the frazzled, wet green bangs that have grown long enough to fall in her eyes.  “Someone like you…should never say her name.”  Not like that.  So blunt.  As though he’d known her any better than Monaca had.

Servant’s expression doesn’t change.  “Of course.”  He examines her carefully.  “Would you like me to lift you?  I wouldn’t want you to step on any more shards.  You could hurt yourself—”

“Yes.”  Monaca cuts him off without a second thought.  Servant always did have a tendency to ramble.  “And be quiet while you’re at it.”

“Of course.”

Monaca glares up at him again.  “Didn’t Monaca just say to be quiet?”

This time, Servant only smiles.  He scoops her up in his arms easily enough, even though she’s grown a bit larger since the last time he saw her, and then he carries her, gentle as anything, back into her van.

~

The first thing Servant does is wash her feet.

Monaca knows how dirty, how gross, how disgusting her feet are.  Normally walking barefoot isn’t a problem, since she’s only in her van and she does bathe, you know, but she’s also been walking barefoot for the past several days in desperate need of a hot bath, has been walking barefoot off and on for the past several hours in alleyways and on rooftops and a lot of other places where maybe she shouldn’t have been barefoot, where maybe much worse things than glass shards might have happened to her if she hadn’t been avoiding Servant in the first place.

(His luck extends.  Maybe.)

But Servant doesn’t say anything about any of that.  Maybe because Monaca told him to be quiet.  Instead, he silently gathers one of the green bowls from her sink (her least favorite of them, which is maybe why it’s the only one that’s still clean), inspects it and then rinses it just to make sure that it’s safe, and then fills it with water from the gallon he’d brought with him.  Then gently, gently, he washes the dirt, the grime, the ick from her feet.

The water is pleasantly warm.

“Aren’t you going to get the glass out?”

Servant looks up at her with those jade gray eyes.

Monaca sighs.  “You can talk,” she says, waving one hand dismissively.  “Monaca won’t mind.  Too much.”

Servant nods and returns to his task, gaze dropping back to the foot held steady in his hand.  “If I don’t wash first, it could get infected.  That would be worse for you, wouldn’t it, Monaca?”

“Fine.”  Monaca scowls.  She crosses her arms.  “Why do you know that, anyway?”

“This isn’t the first time someone’s needed my help.”  Servant catches his words, corrects himself, as Monaca shoots him a look.  “The first time someone’s allowed me to assist them, I mean.”  He doesn’t look up when he says, “This may hurt.”

Monaca rolls her eyes.  “You forget.  Monaca is used to pain.”  Worse pain, even, than shards of glass stuck in her foot.  It isn’t as though the wheelchair fixed everything.  No, it just meant they were more careful with what they did.  Couldn’t break Monaca all at once, couldn’t break her again at all, because someone would figure something out.

(It’s the oldest trick in the book, saying she fell down a flight of stairs, except really she fell down five, and really she didn’t fall because someone dropped her, but they couldn’t say any of that, could they?  Not, they said she fell, and the crack in her skull kept her from saying otherwise, and no one noticed the bruises around her neck (or if they did, they were paid well to ignore them), but the wheelchair….

The x-rays said Monaca’s spine was fine, but they couldn’t account for potential brain damage.

(The Ultimate Neurologist was free, provided Monaca was enrolled in Hope’s Peak’s elementary division, and he knew she was lying, so Big Sis Junko knew she was lying, but at least Matsuda-senpai noticed what everyone else chose to ignore and lied to her half-brother, her sperm donor on her behalf.  She could have a miraculous recovery later, if she wanted, when she was far enough away from them to be considered safe.

She didn’t know then Matsuda-senpai’s relation to Big Sis Junko, but it’s fun, sometimes, to think that even then, Big Sis Junko was looking out for her.  Before they even met, Big Sis Junko was saving her.  She can’t hate her for that.))

Servant washes her feet, and he falls silent, and he gives Monaca the slightest of notices before he starts to remove the glass from her foot.  Each shard he sets on a new, clean towel he pulls from his plastic bag, careful not to let the tweezers touch the fabric.  When he’s nearly done, he lifts Monaca’s foot with that cold metallic hand, examines it carefully, and then says, “I’m going to need to use the needle.  I’m sorry.”

Monaca’s eyes widen.  Needles mean syringes mean toxins means being forced to pass out means Servant might take advantage.  But he holds the needle aloft for her to see it – a sewing needle, not a medical one, which eases some of her immediate panic – and then shows her exactly what he means to do.  Some of the shards, he explains, have gotten far enough under her skin that he cannot reach them with the tweezers alone.  He will need to use the needle to lift the skin to get them out.  She nods her acceptance, refuses to be glad that she allowed his assistance (although there’s no way she would ever have been able to get those shards out on her own, not even with the Monokumas), and then presses her hands on the floor to either side to hold herself steady.

The tweezers hurt the same way pulling a splinter out hurts, but the needle hurts even more.

Monaca grits her teeth, even as she wince, even as tears creep into the corners of her eyes, tears she refuses to actually shed.

When Servant finishes, he wraps the towel on itself and tucks it into one of Monaca’s many, many garbage bags.  Then he empties the bowl, rinses it as neatly as he can, and returns, washes Monaca’s foot again, and then gently – gently because everything he’s done has been oddly gentle – wraps her foot with a fresh bandage.  He looks up and leans back, then, both of his hands resting on his knees.  “Monaca,” he murmurs, “may your Servant make a proposition?”

(She wiped the tears away when he went to the sink, but she’s sure he still notices the traces of them, and she hates him for it.)

“You have earned Monaca’s favor for today,” Monaca says, eyes lighting on that metallic arm and then narrowing, “so she’ll listen.”

(Sometimes, when she speaks in third person like this, Monaca imagines Big Sis Junko at the end, when she’d revealed herself to the group who’d killed her.  Monaca is not a queen, so she does not speak with the royal we the way Big Sis Junko did, but she might be a princess, the little sister of a queen, so that should count for something.  She thinks, maybe, that Big Sis Junko would have laughed at that, might have thought it their little joke, might have leaned until their noses just touched with that bright grin on her face.

Sometimes, when she speaks in third person like this, Monaca pretend that Big Sis Junko is still alive.)

~

Servant lays it all out for her – his idea – that if Monaca lets him know when she needs supplies, he will meet her wherever she lands and have all of them ready for her.

At first, Monaca recoils.  The idea of telling anyone when she will return feels like a trap, like if she tells him, he’ll just find a way to tie her down and force her to stay here, on Earth.  She doesn’t think Servant will make her pay for her “crimes against humanity,” but that doesn’t mean he won’t try to make her Big Sis Junko again, won’t try to make her fight again.

She’s still so tired.

Too tired.

But – and she will never admit it in a million years – Monaca’s lonely, too.  Space is empty and vast and boring, when it’s just her and the Monokumas.  Even if they do speak with Big Sis Junko’s voice, that’s not the same, not when they only ever say what she’s taught them to say.  They don’t have any real intelligence, and even worse, they don’t fit in the van.

Still, she says no, and Servant leaves, and she thinks that’s the end of it.

~

Then Servant shows up – by sheer luck – the next three times she lands for supplies, and eventually, staring at that metallic arm, Monaca accepts.

He’s just going to be there anyway.

Might as well put him to some use.

~

(Back in her van, back in space, Monaca pulls out an old notebook and starts a new design.)

[oshinsimblr]

so if you didn't know, i'm ultra obsessed with the kids show - bluey. courtesy of my kids, i have 3 boys and we are bluey stand in this household. after making burke, i realized his personality reminded me so much of bandit. cool dad vibes. obvi had to make him a sweet partner, and thus - georgia was born. i envision this is them before kids. i'm giving them a "i think i like this little life" life and never letting them die <3

[dr-spectre]

I haven't been able to stop thinking about Rainbow Color Inkantation because oh my god this song is so damn hype and cool.

Like... okay, it's not the best Calamari Inkantation we've gotten but it's still incredibly good, at least in my opinion I think its good. 3Mix still beats it in my mind but this song is a STRONG second place.

This song perfectly captures Splatoon 3 to me, it's chaotic, loud, in your face, it celebrates the past, acknowledges the present and has a futuristic edge.

It's so damn blood pumping and adrenaline inducing as each Idol battles for attention and control. It's what you want in a song that's used for the final day of the Grand Festival. It's literally NOW OR NEVER! GO! GO! GO! THIS IS IT!!!

The Idol specific parts when you get the Ultra Signals are my favourite sections of the song, it's SOOOO GOOOOOOODDDDD!!!!! UGHHHH!!!!!! The Squid Sister's section is so sweet, happy and cute as they play the song that they were announced with 9 years ago. Further cementing that their arcs from Splatoon 1 have been finally completed. They sing together in this incredibly harmonized way... It's... it's beautiful...

Off the Hook's section feels so hopeful and inspirational, it feels like Pearl and Marina are just singing to each other and expressing their love for each other... I can imagine Marina hugging Pearl and spinning her around as they sing Ebb & Flow...

Deep Cut's part is pure fucking hype! I LOVE ITTTTT!!!!!!!! I love how they sing something completely original it's so sick man. THEIR CHEERS AND "HA! HA! HA!" So good oh my friggen god bro. Just like the team they represented, their section gives me hope that these three cheeky bandits will continue on and keep making bangers.

I wish i was an expert in music to better explain why i really like this song but alas, i ain't no Anthony Fantano....

I also wanna end off by talking about the final 10 seconds...

Oh. My God. Out of all of the Now or Nevers we've had, those final 10 seconds is my favorite ending to a Now or Never like song... EVER! It just pumps you with so much adrenaline, it's like the song stabbed you with 2 EpiPens in your ear drums. It's so anxiety inducing that you could make a crowd at a rave faint right there and then.

Seriously, go listen to the full 7 minute version of the song if you haven't already, it's pure magic i tell you.

Also, i headcanon that these three helped with the production of the song.

Some of parts of the song reminded me a lot of DJ Octavio's signature style and i think it would be cute if him, Captain 3 and Acht helped with the production of the song.

[resunke]

human! Megarod for my Gladiators AU

Megatron was kidnapped as a young man by bandit leader Unicron. They forced him to become a gladiator. While in captivity, he met Soundwave and they became friends. Little Ravage was bought to be an exotic entourage at gladiator fights and later they wanted to get rid of him, but thanks to the stubbornness of Megatron and Soundwave, he survived. Their goal was to kill Unicron. Megarton made several attempts but always failed. Soundwave was able to contact government official Ultra Magnus and tell him about their longterm slavely and Unicrons base location. Ultra Magnus sent the team which was managed by Rodimus to destroy Unicron. He found a beaten Megatron in Unicron's room, where he had left him after the scandal. Megatron was waiting for Unicron with a gun, but it turned out that Rodimus did all the work for him. They were in the hospital after that. Soundwave silently confused because didnt think that govement will help them, and Megatron lost his main goal in life - to kill Unicron. Having been slaves for a long time, Megatron and Soundwave are poorly socialized and unhappy. They are forgot how to live in normal world, and they understand it. They have a long road to recovery, but fortunately they are getting help.

[yamcha-thelonewolf]

🫀The Heart's Savior.

Today I want to discuss a fairly complex topic that I will have to divide into three parts. I do not know when I will publish the remaining two, but I will certainly try to be as quick as possible to complete it as soon as possible. Well, the title of this topic is clearly a pun. King Kai would probably love it, because as you can imagine the word "heart" is musically related to the word "earth." This creates a close connection between two terms that are absolutely linked in Dragon Ball. The point is that in our story we often talk about earth's saviors, which is normal since the goal is to save the planet at all costs. However, it seems to me that nowhere is it written that only muscles and ultra-powered energy balls are always needed to protect the earth. Sometimes the heroic gesture happens even beyond the battlefield, and it does not even have to be addressed to the whole world. It would be enough to help even one person, and that could make all the difference. From this point of view Yamcha has done a lot, but unfortunately his good deeds have always gone unnoticed or foolishly ignored. So today I will try to bring back to the forefront his personal heroism, which as far as I am concerned had its little best between the Androids Saga and the Cell Saga.

I will divide the three parts in a temporal sense. The first part will be about the past, the second part about the present, and the third part about the future, so that it will be very clear to everyone how Yamcha's contribution has seriously saved the whole arc of Dragon Ball.

So... Let's not waste any more time!

Are you ready, wolfpack? Let's get started!

PART 1: The Past.

In order to better understand all that will follow, it is good to specify once again what Yamcha's role in the story consists of: he is basically a support. This does not mean that his character automatically takes a back seat, but simply that his personality causes him to behave in a certain way, surely different from all the other warriors who immediately take the field. Many people laugh that Yamcha is a coward who prefers to shy away from battles, but that is not true. Yamcha is there. He has always been there, and no matter what, he has always tried in his own way to help.

Few people notice it, but I cannot help but realize how in these two arcs he has fought the most dangerous battle of all. No, guys, I am not joking or overestimating the character. Keep following me and you will understand better.

The chapter "The Past" is perhaps the one that most shows what I think, as well as the most important. Here we will talk about the one and only Goku, who has been part of Yamcha's life since the days when they were a child and a young boy respectively. You know, the one between Yamcha and Goku is a long-term friendship. Think of it, it is even longer lasting than the friendship between Kuririn and Goku, since he met the bald kid some time after meeting the desert bandit. I know that time is relative when it comes to relationships, but I only want to emphasize this precisely to point out how much more intertwined Yamcha and Goku's lives are than you might think. For this reason, Goku won the first chapter. It is a symbolic way of saying that Yamcha cannot help but give thanks to his past.

Let's go in order.

The Androids and Cell Saga is certainly one of the most fascinating and memorable. The plot is considerably more intricate, a historical enemy, the Red Ribbon Army, returns, and most importantly we have the full Z-Fighters for the entire duration of the story arc. What is most beautiful is that everyone, in one way or another, makes a contribution, even those thought to be "weaker". For example, Tenshinhan's intervention trying to stop Cell's second transformation from absorbing Android 18 is unforgettable.

But... what about Yamcha? It really seems that he did not do much in the battle, but that is not the case. Well, he certainly fought less than Piccolo and Vegeta, but that doesn't mean he helped less than the others. First of all, we must take into account an absolutely essential event that strongly influenced Yamcha's future actions: upon the arrival of androids 19 and 20 he was the first to risk death. No, I should correct myself: he almost died. Had it not been for the Senzu bean, he would surely have died within a very few minutes, and even if he eventually survived, that does not mean that Yamcha has forgotten the pain he felt from that horrid hand completely perforating his chest.

This is a a full-fledged trauma. Not only that, it is also an epiphany for him, because at that moment he realizes that he is unable to cope with two such terribly strong monsters. Think how discouraging it must have been for him to have to accept the fact that he was knocked out practically at the beginning. If we then want to add that all this coincides with the separation from Bulma, which he certainly did not take well, let us say that this period was not the best for his already fragile personality hidden behind his great charisma.

However, a little later something extraordinary happens. It is a scene that I personally find as moving as it is realistic, simply because Yamcha proves once again that he is the most human of all. Unfortunately, this scene is seen by everyone as Yamcha's usual ridiculous moment, but the truth is that this is where he demonstrates all his greatness. I'm talking about the time when Goku suddenly gets sick from the disease and someone necessarily has to accompany him home to start treatment. Gohan is the first to offer, of course he is his father and cannot do otherwise, but he is immediately stopped by Yamcha who offers to do it for him.

This is the first time ever that Yamcha puts aside the pride that has often made him tenderly cocky and admits in front of everyone that he is the weaker one. I would have many things to say about this consideration of him, because I strongly believe that his problem is precisely that he has come to hasty opinions of himself precisely because of his fragile personality, but I will not discuss that now. Here, an interesting point is that he calls it pathetic to stand aside, but he is very wrong. There is nothing pathetic about accepting one's limitations and giving way to someone more capable. It is also a very good strategy. If Gohan had left, the chances of others being defeated would have been much higher. Taking away a strong member of the team would have only made things worse, so it makes sense that it should have been the least strong person to leave. This to me is the most exemplary test of courage of all. In Dragon Ball we have always seen proud, swaggering characters constantly bragging about their strength, but few times have we seen someone take a step back because staying might have only gotten in the way. The hole in his uniform is the greatest demonstration of this. You can see that he is ashamed of it, that a silent anger simmers inside him and that all the frustration accumulated over those years has reached its peak, but boy, let's just say that in saying that he is more badass than those who do not accept being second best. That's why I say Yamcha is incredible. He is the only one who took a step backward, not knowing that by doing so he was able to go beyond. This is the way of life. At some point you stop running aimlessly, you look inside yourself, and you realize that in order to move forward you must also know how to go back. That's what Mr. Popo had told him to do, but he was too young and blustery to listen to him. And that's okay. He's a human, let's never forget that.

I could end here. Yamcha leaving the group and entrusting the mission to heroes stronger than himself, but this is where the fun begins.

Just before getting up in the air, Piccolo warns him that there may be a risk that Goku's illness may be viral. This means that Yamcha, being in close contact with the infected, risks contracting the virus as much as the saiyan did. Actually, it is not confirmed anywhere that the virus is contagious. Piccolo assumed this from Trunks' words when he explained to Goku what would happen in a few years.

We only know with certainty that senzu can do nothing against this disease and especially that not even a super saiyan can recover from this illness. Did you get it right? This means that an earthling is totally unable to survive this disease. I mean, if a saiyan has no chance, a human being is triply doomed. We are back to square one. Yamcha is risking his life again, and this time against an absolutely unbeatable enemy that has defeated even Goku. Do you understand? Goku. If there was a margin of possibility to beat the androids, in this case it is completely impossible. So by agreeing to help Goku, consequently Yamcha also agrees that he can surely die. But this time he is not backing down. This time he is sure of what he is doing, just because his greatest goal is not to survive and avoid death but to support in his own way. Coward, huh? From here it is clear how dying is not his problem at all. Or rather, it is, but it does not matter if it means helping the one he loves and, in this case, the one who could save the entire planet.

This is how Yamcha's true nature comes out. Actually it is possible to notice it long before, but this time it is practically evident. I imagine him constantly searching for his place in the world, but the truth is that he has already found it, he just hasn't realized it yet. He hasn't realized that his job on the team is precisely to take care of everyone, even more than a magic bean can. It is a shame that even the authors did not realize this aspect of him. What the hell... Seriously, did no one notice how heroic Yamcha was at this point in the story? He remains there with him, keeping vigil for his friend, and with great bravery faces a battle in which emotions are also at stake.

The scenes in which Chichi and Yamcha care for Goku are among the sweetest in all of Dragon Ball. Yamcha is not required to stay because Chichi is already in the house, but he once again makes himself available to help as much as he can. Notcing how Goku struggles in pain, Yamcha's strength may be needed to block the saiyan and prevent him from unintentionally hurting himself or Chichi. What's more, assuming a worsening of the disease, thanks to the ability of flight Yamcha could transport him anywhere else in no time.

In some ways, he is also taking care of Chichi. A wife who sees her husband in so much pain can never cope alone, she needs support, comfort, someone to tell her that everything will be all right, and Yamcha is absolutely perfect for this role.

No one else among the Z-Fighter would be able to instill serenity in Chichi as Yamcha does. His patient, friendly temperament, always ready to reassure anyone, has surely prevented her from any crisis or attack of fear. One can well see how Yamcha's sensitivity goes beyond fine words. His mental elasticity leads him to reason quickly about all possible eventualities, so without a second thought he even suggests that Chichi take the medicine with him. Yet more proof of how he really loves everyone.

For example, this is a scene that explains very well what I mean. We're talking about filler, but I don't care. Whoever decided to do them must have understood that Yamcha deserved more. It is only a small detail, but at least it is highlighted how Yamcha's presence was crucial for Chichi and Goku himself. Here we can see Goku once again being sick, so Yamcha warns Chichi to retrieve the medicine again, but when she rushes to look for it she cannot find it, perhaps because she is so panicked that she does not understand anything more for a few moments. Sensing her confusion, Yamcha turns toward her and in no time comes to her rescue, pointing her to the exact spot where the medicine is. She grabs it and so Goku can once again stop suffering. I like to think that Yamcha's sixth sense, or ultimately his well-developed spirit of observation, helped him easily memorize where the medicine was at that time. His cool-headedness, coupled with his gentleness, were definitely a staple in Goku and Chichi's most intimate and fragile moment.

He also does so during the Cell Game, and this time together with another great character who deserves equally: Tenshinhan. This is one of my favorite scenes. Two great friends of Goku, initially villains and then both reformed to become his allies, stand before Goku when he is in trouble, to protect him from the Cell Juniors. It doesn't really matter that they are not strong enough to defend him forever, but just being there for him, acting as his human barrier, is one of the best moments. When I say that they could create a lot of good content for Earthlings, I am also referring to these kinds of scenes. It would be nice if they could recapture the atmosphere of this arc, where everyone lends a hand and everyone fights in their own way, even if they don't necessarily win.

Well… I know I've said as much as I know I could still say as much. I would just like to point out something. Doesn't it also seem to you that Yamcha is a bit like a guardian angel for Goku? Pay attention to that. Yamcha took care of Goku at the very time when he was most vulnerable. This shows how he has always been that big brother to him who has always watched over him. He took care of his heart at a time when not even a senzu could help him feel better, and going back to the past… He took care of Goku even in his most unconscious state, which is when he transforms into the Great Ape. The first time, being the only one who realized that his weak point was his tail, he had managed to stop him by cutting it off with Puar's help. But it is when Goku transforms for the second time that Yamcha shows off all his love for his friend, running up to Jackie Chun to stop him from hurling the kamehameha at the monster.

In the end, the moon was the target, but Yamcha and the others certainly could not have imagined that. I find it extremely emotional to see him desperate and ready to even hurt himself in order to prevent the death of his little friend.

As you can see, protecting Goku has always been part of Yamcha's instinct, and it is a pity that many have forgotten or ignored it. He is the character who most of all is moved by love, in every possible sense.

Therefore, while someone else gets the title of Earth's Savior, Yamcha absolutely wins that of Heart's Savior.

He's not pathetic. He's a true hero.

Well thank you, guys, for getting this far, whoever did it. Stay tuned for the other two parts of this topic and remember to never stop loving this beautiful wolf!

[goodberrygay]

I downloaded Native Camera Tweaks a bit ago and am still playin around with it, forgot you could ultra zoom in on everyone and got a screenshot of the entire group (minus tav) I'll probs get a better screenshot later, with better lighting but for now this is what everyone looks like.

If I had money I'd def buy Otis_Inf camera mod but unfortunately I'm unable to do so. If anyone has camera mod suggestions let me know! Thinking about looking into reshaders too

Current Gear being used:

Gale- Battlemage’s Resolve (from Delfinition's Armor) [dyed with Purple Dye], Bracers of Defence, Mystra’s Grace boots

Lae’zel- Astral Plate Armor, Astral Plate Boots, Gloves of Uninhibited Kushigo

Shadowheart- Sharran Plate Armor (alt), Sharran Plate Gauntlets, Disintegrating Night Walkers

Karlach- Pugilist’s Leathers [Dyed with Faewild Green and Dun Dye], Astral Plate Gloves, Plated Leather Boots

Astarion- Wide Shoulder Drapes, Harper Armor, Harper Boots, Wondrous Gloves [all dyed Black and Gold from Basket Full of Equipment mod]

Wyll- Rich Cloak, Adventurer’s Gear (Low Cut, Bandit Belts), Adventurer’s Boots, Daredevil Gloves Most of the Gear seen is from a mod called Extra Gear

Bracers of Defence, Mystra's Grace, Gloves of Uninhibited Kushigo, Disintegrating Night Walkers, Wondrous Gloves and Daredevil Gloves are all Vanilla.

(edited to add the mods for the armor)

[crusabre96]

Something different I thought i'd show off my Zona Alfa/This Is Not A Test warbands primarily based off the S.T.A.L.K.E.R video game series.

I have two normal S.T.A.L.K.E.R Warbands, A Bandit Warband, A Cultist Warband and a Military Warband.

Most of these miniatures were made from Anvil Industrys bits both 3D printed and resin cast aside from the Military Faction models which were from Empress Miniature's Ultra Modern Range.

Next time i'll be showing off my NPC models and after that my expansive terrain collection.

[fibula-rasa]

Lost, but Not Forgotten: Two Kinds of Women (1922)

Alternate Title: Judith of Blue Lake Ranch

Direction: Colin Campbell & George C. Bertholon (assistant)

Adapted Scenario: Winifred Dunn

Based on: Judith of Blue Lake Ranch by Jackson Gregory (novel)

Production Manager: R.J. Tobin

Camera: Dev Jennings

Editing: Pauline Frederick (editing supervisor), Colin Campbell, & Dev Jennings

Studio: Robertson-Cole (Production & Distribution)

Performers: Pauline Frederick, Tom Santschi, Charles Clary, Dave Winter, Eugene Pallette, Billy Elmer, Jack Curtis, Jim Barley, Sam Appel, Otis Harlan, Clarissa Selwynne, Jean Calhoun, Tom Bates, Lydia Yeamans Titus, Frank Clark, Bud Sterling, Elise Collins, Joseph Singleton, & Stanhope Wheatcroft (not mentioned after release, but listed during production: L.C. Shumway)

Premiere: Opened at Loew’s State Theatre on 3 February 1922; preview screenings for reviewers in NYC, 27 January

Status: presumed entirely lost

Length: 6 reels,  ~6,000 feet (a few sources say 5, most say 6)

Synopsis (synthesized from magazine summaries of the plot):

Judith Sanford (Frederick) inherits the sizable Blue Lake Ranch after the unexpected death of her father. Upon her arrival, she discovers that the ranch’s manager, Trevors (Clary), has been systematically undermining the value of the ranch. Judith confronts him, fires him, and wings him with her pistol as severance. 

The horse foreman, Bud Lee (Santschi), had suspected Trevors’ dirty dealing, but questions if he can work for a woman. Regardless of his doubts, Bud respects Judith’s goals and remains loyal to the ranch.

As there are still men working on the ranch loyal to Trevors, Judith’s employees are divided. One of Trevors’ hires, Quinnion (Curtis) rebukes Judith and suggests she can’t even ride. She challenges him to bring her a horse he thinks she can’t ride. Judith successfully rides the wild broncho and Quinnion is cowed, leaving the ranch bitterly. The incident wins Judith the respect of the men, including Bud and Carson (Pallette), the cattle foreman.

Judith’s next point of action is tracking down the staff Trevors ousted, most importantly the ranch vet, Doc Tripp (Clark). Tripp returns and uncovers that disease-infected animals have been intentionally introduced to the ranch’s stock. Judith runs Trevors’ vet, Crowdy (Appel), off the ranch.

Hampton, a city boy and one-third owner of the ranch, is unhappy when he hears of Trevors’ firing and decides to pay a visit to Blue Lake. (In reality, he’s dodging his creditors.) The visiting socialites are rankled by Judith’s cowgirl togs and no-nonsense demeanor. Alternately, the ultra ladylike Marcia (Calhoun), Hampton’s fiancee, finds a new devotee in Bud.

On the night of their arrival, Judith learns that the employee she sent to collect the payroll has been robbed. Bud races to the bank overnight to return to pay the staff the following day. As Bud is on his way back, his horse is shot out from under him, but he manages to reach the ranch just in time.

That night, Bud and Judith set out to track down the bandits and recover the stolen payroll. At a cabin in the mountains, they catch the robber after a shootout and find it’s the discharged vet, Crowdy. They agree to stay overnight to guard the injured Crowdy. To pass the time, Judith pulls a book from an unexpectedly well-stocked library in the cabin and sees that the books belong to Bud! They’re interrupted when Quinnion attacks to save Crowdy and another shootout ensues.

Fortunately, Judith’s absence from the ranch was noticed by Hampton. He has mounted up with Bud’s assistant, Tommy, and they arrive in time to save the pair and manage to capture another of Trevors’ agents, Benny (Barley). Benny is locked up, but is freed overnight, meaning there are still more of Trevors’ men lurking. Bud pledges his loyalty to Judith, but then has a romantic foray with Marcia.

Despite the hubbub, the annual Blue Lake dance is held. Carson kits out the workers in suits mail-ordered from Sears-Roebuck, which they accessorise with guns and ammo belts. Bud, it turns out, has a tailored suit of his own that he unpacks and presses for the occasion. He is bewildered when he arrives at the dance and sees a perfectly feminine Judith in a fashionable Parisian gown. Fully enamored with “the real Judith,” Bud whisks her off to the porch and kisses her.

Judith is surprised to find an urgent note from Doc Tripp awaiting her after the dance. The note explains that he has uncovered another Trevors mole and has been wounded. Judith rushes to Tripp, but is waylaid and kidnapped. She manages to remove the mask from one of her abductors and it’s Trevors himself! 

Three days pass. Hampton suddenly orders Carson to prepare 500 head of cattle to be sold at a loss. Immediately suspicious, Bud rides to the ranch house and is told that Judith left for San Francisco three days prior. Given Hampton’s fishy assumption of command, Bud and Carson tie him up while they investigate Judith’s real whereabouts. They discover the forged note and confirm with Tripp that he didn’t write it. With mistrust toward Hampton building, they place him under guard and ride to confront Trevors.

In all that time, Judith has been kept prisoner in the mountains by Quinnion. When Quinnion attacks her, Judith seizes an opportunity to escape, but quickly learns that her prison is set among perilous cliffs. Quinnion gives chase, they struggle, and he plummets to his death. Hopelessly lost and exhausted from her ordeal, Judith makes a last ditch effort for rescue by lighting a signal fire before losing consciousness.

Bud and Carson find Trevors and a wild fist fight breaks out. Bud trounces Trevors and Trevors is forced to leave town for good, but not before revealing where he’s hidden Judith. Bud rescues Judith and they all return to the ranch. After they have had time to recover from their respective tribulations, Bud and Judith reunite and embrace.

——— ——— ———

Points of Interest:

Pauline Frederick made 55 silent feature films in her career. Of those 55 films 45-6 of the films are presumed lost or mostly lost. [One film’s status is unclear ATM.] Of the 9 known to survive, 3 are incomplete (2 are missing at least one reel and the 3rd survives in an abridged cut).  Of the surviving 9, three have had home video releases [Three Women (1924), Devil’s Island (1926), and Smouldering Fires (1925)]. Of the 6 surviving films that haven’t had home-video release, 2 have been screened publicly in the past decade [The Love the Lives (1917) and The Moment Before (1916)]. A very rough record for a big star (who didn’t spend most of their career at Fox) to only have a 16-18% survival rate.

——— ——— ———

Winifred Dunn, prolific writer from a young age working in many genres, wrote/edited 33 silent features, 20 of which are presumed lost.

——— ——— ———

Two Kinds of Women was part of the schedule of R-C Pictures’ releases for early 1922. This was a crucial moment in the history of the company, as it was soon after re-organized into F.B.O. The founders exited the company, but so did Pauline Frederick, Sessue Hayakawa, Tsuru Aoki, and Doris May—their biggest stars going into 1922. 

While the contemporary critical response to TKoW was generally positive and exhibitors across the US and Canada cited good ticket sales, it didn’t leave much of a legacy. At least one contemporary critic, Laurence Reid, considered the film of decent quality but ultimately forgettable. Whether TKoW would have stood the test of time or not, we can’t know. Lost or not, I’m sure the re-organization of TKoW’s distributor affected its potential for long-term popularity. There is at least one instance from after the re-org of a theatre owner receiving a faulty print of the film. So, even by 1923, it was hard to come by a decent print of TKoW.

The reason I’m confident in placing blame on R-C/F.B.O. is that, of the slate of 20 films they released in late 1921 and early 1922, 16 are currently presumed lost and only 3 appear to be completely extant:

Lost: The Lure of Jade, The Sting of the Lash, The Foolish Age, Eden and Return, Five Days to Live, The Vermillion Pencil, A Wife’s Awakening, Silent Years, The Call of Home, The Barricade,Two Kinds of Women, Boy Crazy, Salvage, The Glory of Clementina, Gay and Devilish, and At the Stage Door  Extant: Where Lights Are Low, The Swamp (would live to see this one BTW), and Beyond the Rainbow

☕Appreciate my work? Buy me a coffee! ☕

Transcribed Sources & Annotations over on the WMM Blog!

[mercutio-the-velaryon]

Hello stranger, I saw you asking about gen v supe names so I come bearing offerings:

For Marie, the best I've heard so far is Heartstring (which I think would work especially well if we're imagining vought's influence, and trying to push Marie as the new Starlight) I also like Heartstopper and Queen of Hearts, but I think those lean more towards villain names

For Emma, she could keep Cricket, but I like the idea of her picking something to do with her giant form, so: Giantess, or Colossa, or Titania

For Jordan, (now realistically vought would chew them up and give them the most cliche, cringy name possible, but ignoring that) my personal favorite is Pulse or Pulsar.

For Cate, I've seen Push as a good option, but I also like Siren, Whisper, or Piper (as in like the pied piper)

For Andre, I hate to say it but I think he'd just take up Polaris. Though I also think Magneta, (I know it sounds like magneto but TB universe doesn't know that) or Steel would work, I could also see Vulcan (the Roman god of metal) being cool but that might be too niche. (Metallo would be my first choice but it's been used sadly)

For Sam, tbh Sam's powers are pretty stock, so he could probably pick anything he wants. I could see him taking up something that follows the same format as his brother, so: _____ boy (ironically the first choice that I think would come to Sam's mind is superboy, but that is of course off limits, though personally, I'd find it hilarious) maybe Ultra Boy or Power Boy, or the Strong Man (who am I kidding these are all terrible, I've got nothing for Sam... Super Sam?)

Really though when you look at naming conventions (both in the boys and in superhero tradition overall) a lot of heroes' names don't have a ton to do with their powers and are either: highly generic (Superman, Mr. Fantastic, Captain Marvel, Wondee Woman etc) or have to do with a gimic that isn't necessarily related to their powers, so there's actually quite a bit of wiggle room, to just pick whatever sounds good.

Omggg these are great, I wanted to write an au set in the near future, where the cast had their superhero names so thank you for this if you would kindly allow me to steal these names for that purpose 👀👀

Heartstring is so good, it fits Marie so perfectly I gasped because yes exactly. I was thinking Emma should have a name change to kind of symbolise her regaining her autonomy from her mother with how she was forced to portray herself, I'm feeling Titania tbh. I really really like Pulse for Jordan simple effective love love love. Siren for Cate is insane cause not only does it encompass the nature of her powers but it also speaks to how she's used them, how she's lulled her friends into a false sense of security then caused them harm (wiped their memories) like yesssssssss. Ugh this is such a good listttt. Andre I think would change his name from the one he'd inherit from his dad, I was workshopping something like Silver Bandit, Heavy Metal or Ironclad (already in marvel lmao fml) or Steel Knight to pay homage to his rebel without a cause energy. I wanted just Steele but that's already a version of superman I think, John Irons I believe holds that mantle. I think even just Ultra would work as a name for Sam. Or maybe just The Boy like how Kimiko's The Female idk.

Thank you this is so helpful!!!!!

[chzdavmpr]

Ok so I have read all of the manga Versus (The one by the author of One Punch Man) that is currently out, and this post will just be a collection of thoughts I have about it. Btw, if you haven't read it, I would definitely recommend reading it, or at least the first 2-3 chapters to see if it's your cup of tea. Go in completely blind tho. Trust me. Spoilers below for chapters up to 10a.

Firstly I gotta say, the concept is a very enjoyable one. One might say it's a little close to the multiverse concept, which many people are tired of at this point. But for me the idea is different enough here in execution that I feel it's still nice and fresh.

The worldbuilding is very fun. The way each of the 13 worlds (that we know of so far, I don't think they'll introduce more but who knows) look different visually, to where you can easily tell which one a character is from just by their clothes, or which world a location is from just based off looks, is just super satisfying.

I love how the concept is almost an inverse of One Punch Man and Mob Psycho. Where instead of the protagonists being overpowered beyond belief, it's every single enemy that's OP. It makes for a really fun dynamic, especially when written by One.

That being said, as of writing this, the most recent chapter is released is 10a, where Hallow is just about to fight Kiva, and I really really hope that they do not just have Hallow become strong enough to beat him. I feel that would defeat the point of the whole story. We saw a bit of that when Alio was able to somewhat hold his own against the giants and new humanity using a super ultra final technique, admittedly he still lost after like 20 seconds, but I think that for this story that's 20 seconds too long.

It takes a few chapters to just kinda introduce the premise, but once it got that out of the way I really liked the characters. They have very expressive designs, unique character traits, and work off each other very well even the nobodies just introduced in the giant mission to die have so much character (except the machine world ones, since they all have identical armor) it really makes you invested in them, and ups the stakes when the story shows that they do not have any plot armor and all of them can die.

Kayla is especially great. So far giving big neurodivergent vibes. Zaybi is another standout character.

The Natural Enemies are all pretty fun. Some of them seem pretty simple, like the giants, but others I want to know more about so much. Like what's the deal with Recreation Hell World? Couldn't they just go in there and start shooting the games? Do they like hypnotise you to force you to play? Or Misfortune World, do they just have kaiju or do they just have a lot of natural disasters? If it's the later how are they suppose to fight bad luck? Aren't the bandits of Lawless World definitely like the least of a threat since they are just humans? How is Mad God World going to fit into any of this, cause that one seems like a big deal? All of these questions and more are the kinds of things that keep me wanting to read more the most, it's such a fun setting.

Small note: WHERE ARE THE GAMERS? They literally appear in 2 panels (seen below). They are in the war room, they accidentally explain what their natural enemy is, and then they just aren't even in the background of any of the other panels of that room, or anywhere for that matter. Did they just walk home and no one stopped them?

I love the fashion of New Humanity.

I do not like PanePane.

[aparticularbandit]

What You Have Tamed: Chapter Two

Summary: Life in space is not as Monaca Towa imagined it.

It’s boring, and her supplies don’t last long enough, so she can’t get far enough out to find aliens at all.

Worst of all, when she comes back for supplies, she keeps running into Servant.

Why won’t he leave her alone?

Chapter Rating: M for implications and discussions of past child abuse, as well as implications of past abuse. Fic Rating M for implications and discussions of past child abuse and abuse, as well as general Danganronpa reasons.

If you have trouble with the content in UDG, then this fic is not for you, as it is expected to address the abuse the Warriors of Hope went through.

AO3

previous chapter

Monaca gets into the habit of alerting Servant of her supply list as soon as she passes the first satellite.  She still explores space, of course, because if she just spent her time hovering around Earth, then some brand new government or other would try to shoot her down with missiles or something like that.  Just because she doesn’t know what the new governments are like – or what parts of the globe they’ve taken over – doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what they’re like.  If they perceive a threat, they’ll attack, even if it truly is no threat.  Especially if it’s some unidentified object floating around in space.

At least, that’s what all those movies Big Sis Junko loved said, anyway!

Sometimes, Monaca lies flat on her back, stares up at the ceiling of her space van, and regrets not bringing her huge poster of Big Sis Junko with her.  It would certainly make that empty space look better than all the metallic ribbing does.  But, then again, that ribbing would keep the poster from lying flat, and Big Sis Junko would look weird with all of those stripes running through her.  Maybe she should see if she can find some of her smaller photos and make a collage?  Like how other people do with roses and stickers and that sort of thing?

But she can’t exactly ask Servant to go through her old headquarters for pictures, can she?  Even if she wants all of her old photos of Big Sis Junko, she’s not sure the room where she kept them even still exists.  Haiji would have destroyed it by now, if he found it.  Besides, hadn’t the airship collapsed?  Exploded?  Something destructive?  She’s not sure exactly what happened to it in the end; she only remembers being crushed beneath the weight of the chunk of ceiling, passing out, and then waking up later to find Servant carrying her on his back.

(Luck, maybe.  Just like it was luck that her spine hadn’t truly, finally, been broken beneath that huge concrete chunk, like it was probably luck that he’d been able to pull her out of the wreckage mostly unscathed in the first place, completely on his own, with only that one hand able to do much of anything.

But Monaca doesn’t like to think about luck.  It’s a variable she can’t control, and so, she can’t account for it.

Won’t account for it.)

~

The first time Servant shoes up with supplies, Monaca makes sure to go through all of the bags to make sure that everything is there just as she asked.  He gives a look over her space van, rubbing the back of his head with that shining metallic arm, which seems suspicious, but he doesn’t say anything about it.  Instead, he pats the hood of the van, calls it a serviceable vehicle, and walks off.

He also trips over the edge of the roof, but when Monaca calmly walks over to see if he’s gone all splat on the sidewalk below, she catches the flicker of his bland, faded forest green jacket outside of a now quite broken window before it disappears entirely.  There’s a flag pole next to the window.

Luck.

What a stupid thing.

~

Every now and again, when she’s really bored, Monaca pulls herself up, wraps herself in her Monokuma hooded blanket, turns all the lights out, and watches one (or more) of those old horror space movies Big Sis Junko liked.  Once, she binged all of the Alien movies straight through and then covered her mouth with an old shirt to make sure nothing crawled into it while she slept.  She still doesn’t quite understand all of the movies; one of them is especially confusing – she likes HAL and Dave, but the rest of the movie is so hard to follow that she doesn’t enjoy it (which, to be honest, is probably why Big Sis Junko liked it so much) – and yet….

Sometimes, it feels like Big Sis Junko is actually with her again.  Whether Monaca feels like she’s sitting on her lap again with Big Sis Junko’s arms wrapped around until she points at the screen with an exclamation – “See?  That’s what makes it so great!  Don’t you see my vision, Monaca?” – or it’s Big Sis Junko lounging on her side while stealing unpopped popcorn kernels from the popcorn bucket and cracking them with her back teeth, yawning – “This is so predictable, but the practical effects?  Fan-freaking-tastic!” – or even Big Sis Junko hunched over on her stomach with her head propped in both of her hands, eyes gleaming with ideas – “Can you make Monokuma do that?” – as though Monaca couldn’t and then grinning and cackling when she says that she can – “This is going to be the best!  The absolute best, Monaca!”

Then Monaca beams.

…up until the moment that she remembers it didn’t matter – doesn’t matter.

That Big Sis Junko’s plans went wonky the moment she let herself be locked into that school.

That she’s still….

Then Monaca pulls her notebook from its hiding place beneath her pillow and continues brainstorming her new project.

~

The third time Servant shows up with supplies, Monaca is almost into the dark void before she realizes he’s crammed some of the bags with vegetables and fruits – things she definitely did not ask for.  She video calls him almost immediately, waits while it rings and rings and rings, and then, convinced that he is ignoring her, hangs up completely.

There’s not a lot of time for him to try to return her call, especially not with the Monokumas suddenly put on full blast.

~

(It’s not that Monaca doesn’t like fruit.  She does!  …sometimes.)

~

The fourth time, Servant doesn’t even have supplies because Monaca didn’t ask for any.  Instead, she throws the rotten vegetables and fruits at his face, completely uneaten, and rockets back off into the sky.

(A few moments later, Monaca lands on the other side of the country, hacks into the video feed to prevent it from catching her, and snatches fresh apples, pomegranates, and – after considering it for far longer than she’s considered most of her food choices – three bags of raspberries.)

~

Pomegranates and apples are both forms of forbidden fruit, and blue raspberries are a lie.

At least, that’s what Big Sis Junko used to tell her.

Of course, when Big Sis Junko told Monaca all this, she would often have a pomegranate split straight down the middle the way some people split oranges.  She would hold half out to Monaca and grin with mischief when Monaca took the fruit and ate all of the seeds she could.  More often than not, Junko would finish hers first and then snatch a few seeds from Monaca’s half, but sometimes Monaca wouldn’t even make it through hers before stealing some from Junko’s.

Junko always beamed when Monaca did that, although Monaca never understood why.

Now, sitting up in space, splitting another pomegranate in half (and carefully not slicing her thumb open the way she did last time – Monaca should be able to use whatever knife she wants!  Even a cleaver!  In fact, she didn’t slice her thumb open!  The knife bit her!  And she’d thrown it into one of the van’s walls as punishment!  (And then rethought that and been very glad that the handle hit the wall instead of the sharp edge.  Suffocation is not a fun way to die; she knows, not from personal experience, but from seeing other people’s personal experiences))—

A whole pomegranate is too much to eat on her own.

Monaca sets the other half next to an insignificantly small construct she’s been fiddling with and waits to see if it will eat any.

~

Servant doesn’t need to know what Monaca wants her supplies for, and fortunately for her, he never asks.

Sometimes, though, Monaca is sure that he’s piecing some of it together.

She’s just not sure she cares.

~

“You didn’t put any more of that icky stuff in Monaca’s supplies this time, did you, Servant?”

Servant trades the new cloth bags full of supplies for the empty ones from the last drop.  “You’re a growing girl, Monaca.  You need to eat more than just—”

“Monaca! Did! Not! Ask! For! Your! Opinion!”  Monaca sets the full bags just inside her van and then immediately starts going through them, just as she did that first time, scowling when she finds healthy food hidden beneath the supplies she actually wanted.  She throws the first tomato she finds at Servant’s face.

However Servant’s luck works, he isn’t able to dodge it, and tomato juice splatters a bright, blinding red against his fluffy white hair.  He doesn’t even flinch.  “You really want to stunt your growth?”

Monaca throws another tomato at him.

Servant sighs and moves over to the bags.  “Here,” he says.  “I know where I hid everything.  Let me help you.”

As he goes through the bags one by one and takes out a lot of extra food, Monaca examines each item in turn.  “What did you think Monaca was going to do with tomatoes anyway?  You’ve been inside her van.  She doesn’t have a stove.”  She grimaces.  “And uncooked tomatoes are disgusting.”

“They’re fine with a little salt.”

“You’re disgusting.”  Monaca sticks her tongue out at him and then crosses her arms.  She sits halfway inside of her van, feet dangling outside of it, legs more than long enough to reach the ground but stretched out and crossed at the ankle.  Last time, Servant brought her a pair of brand new brown boots with black fur at the top, a zipper on the side, red laces – nearly identical to Big Sis Junko’s, but without the heels.  She still doesn’t wear shoes when she’s in space – what’s the point, when her van is just fine without them – but she’d stared at these for quite a while after finding them and made sure to put them on when she arrived on Earth.

Monaca taps her heels together a bit like Dorothy, only she doesn’t have a home to go to anymore.  “You really thought Monaca would eat those plain?”

“You really don’t have a kitchen in there?” Servant answers Monaca’s question with one of his own.  “How do you cook anything?”

“Microwave.”  Monaca gives a half-hearted shrug.  She doesn’t want to say that she never learned how to cook.  What would be the point in that?  She doesn’t have a kitchen.  Everything she needs is prepackaged.  She’s fine.  Obviously.  “What did you mean about stunting my growth?”

Servant rocks back on his heels, hands on his legs.  “Would you like a kitchen?”  His gaze doesn’t move to the van, focuses fully on Monaca, even as his head lowers just enough to acknowledge her superiority.  “I have a friend who could modify your van to allow for one.”

“No!” Monaca exclaims all at once, eyes wide, hands instinctively clenching into little fists.  “No one else knows about Monaca!  No one!”  She grits her teeth together, cheeks flushing with her anger.

“He was a friend of Enoshima-sama’s.”

Monaca shoots Servant a look.  He knows better than to say Big Sis Junko’s name in her presence, even if he says it with such respect.  But by now, Servant has returned to going through the bags, which means he misses the sharp look.

It also means that Monaca can stare at his metallic arm without his notice.

The last time she’d seen him before she went into space, Servant hadn’t had an arm like that.  He’d had a normal arm.  She hadn’t ever seen him use it; in fact, it just dangled at his side with a huge striped mitten covering it.  But he’d had it.  Somehow, in the time since he’d saved her and she’d returned, he’d traded that arm for this one, all metallic and robotic.  But not robotic.  Not artificial intelligence.  Somehow able to connect directly to his brain and act just like a normal arm, even though a normal prosthetic—

“Big Sis Junko’s friend.  Did he make your arm?”

Servant continues going through the last bag, but the tiniest hint of a smile betrays him.  “He had a hand in its creation, yes.”

Monaca nearly laughs.  (Puns remind her of Big Sis Junko.  The pain of it keeps the childish laughter from breaking out.)  “Fine,” she says, turning her gaze away, nose in the air, before Servant can catch her looking.  “I will meet this…this friend.  Big Sis Junko’s friend.”

With a little hum, Servant leans back from the bags.  One of the empty bags from the last set of supplies is now full nearly to overflowing with all of the things he’s removed.  The last one, though, he holds aloft: a bag of raspberries.  “I wasn’t sure whether I should take these, or—”

Without a second thought, Monaca snatches the raspberries out of Servant’s hand.  She presses her lips together, cheeks puffing out, and then stuffs them into the nearest bag.  “Monaca wants those.”

“Of course,” Servant murmurs with a fond smile.  “Of course.”

~

Monaca’s not a great artist.

Everything she does is more technical schematics.  She was the head of Towa’s Robotics Division, which means robots are what she does best.  Robots and sales and monetary gain, but really, it’s the robots she cares about more than the rest.  In fact, she’s always been taking things apart and putting them back together again – better, stronger – with a voice, with a personality.  That’s why her mama was always so annoyed with her, after all; she’d find Monaca taking something apart and flail and yell and kick at her, then throw all of the pieces away before Monaca could finish fixing it back up.

Of course, Monaca would take the pieces out of the trash later and play around with them until she created a little friend for herself.  The first time her mama found one of her little friends, she smashed it under the flat of her shoe.  Then she chided Monaca about how she could really hurt herself if she kept playing around with electronics.  She could be killed.

Monaca hid her friends after that.

Not that it mattered.  Her mama abandoned her with her no-good lousy rotten sperm donor and his family shortly after.

She doesn’t usually wonder what happened to the robots she’d left behind, but….

Those aren’t good memories.

(Big Sis Junko always thought Monaca’s little friends were ingenious.  That’s why she’d asked her to help design the Monokuma servants, after all; she’d said Monaca’s brain was just right for creating fun little robots who could be super destructive if they needed to be.  That she could make something fun.

Of course, Big Sis Junko brought Monaca some initial specs and let her play around with them to her heart’s content, too.  She’d never been mad when Monaca took them apart and put them back together again.  In fact, she’d been excited.  She always wanted to hear about Monaca’s new ideas, always wanted to see them in action!

These are good memories.)

The point is that Monaca’s not a great artist.  Even when she sketches out her designs ahead of time, they can be incredibly hard for other people to follow.  She doesn’t always put down exactly what she intends, and she doesn’t necessarily give a full-on sketch either.  Her schematics aren’t for other people!  They’re for her!  And she uses bits of shorthand she can follow, even if no one else can.

Besides, it’s not like anyone else is going to look over her schematics in space anyway.

Monaca tugs her lip between her teeth and stares down at her newest sketch.

Maybe, if she asks nicely, Big Sis Junko’s old friend will add a room for inventing, too.  She’s going to need a lot more space.

~

Monaca takes longer than normal before returning to Earth again.  She stretches her food for as long as it can last; she stretches her water for longer.  It isn’t that she’s afraid.  At least, that’s what she tells herself.  It’s that every adult she has ever been around has wanted to use Monaca for their own purposes, even Big Sis Junko, who she loved.  Sometimes, she thinks she’s learned what Servant wants, even though he’s been weird lately.  But whoever Big Sis Junko’s friend is…she doesn’t know.  She has no idea.

That doesn’t scare her, exactly, but it certainly doesn’t make her want to see him.

…even if she does want to know more about the construction of Servant’s new metallic arm.

Despite this, despite knowing that she very easily could land wherever she wants without notifying Servant of her approach (even if that means risking his stupid luck), Monaca still notifies him as she draws closer to Earth.  She keeps the tremors out of her voice; she’s always been very good about that, except when she thought it would help her.  But Servant isn’t trying to hurt her.  Probably.  And to let him know that she is afraid (she isn’t!) in such a visible, auditory way would….

Showing fear means showing weakness.

Only Big Sis Junko can see her at her weakest.

(Even if Servant did pick all that glass out of her foot.)

Servant replies by giving Monaca a new place to land, instead of relying on his luck to find her, as they have been up to this point.  He gives her coordinates, and Monaca plugs them into her Game Girl Advance – she’d modified it maybe a little bit in her boredom, and by modified, she means made better.  It still does everything a normal GGA does, but now it does other stuff, too.  (She didn’t need a special robotics room to play around with that.)

Monaca peers at the coordinates, at the map her GGA displays.  She doesn’t know where this place is; it looks like it’s in the middle of nowhere, which makes her even more uncertain.  But she goes anyway.

Besides, if Servant tries anything, she’ll just fly off again.  That’ll be fine, right?  Right?

~

The van floats down slowly but surely to a landing pad built onto what appears to be an otherwise completely deserted island in the middle of nowhere.  Ocean, as far as Monaca’s tired eyes can see.  If it were sunny out, it would be sparkling – blinding – beneath the sunlight, but given that it’s dark….

Sure, it makes the ocean dark and terrifying and treacherous, but Monaca is used to what looks like nothing more than a black void engulfing her, sparkling through with glimmers of light.  This way, the island looks more like a planet in an expanse surrounded by stars.  Before space, she might have looked out on a sky unpolluted by light and felt something like a sense of awe, but now she’s so used to that sort of thing that she doesn’t even look up, that she yawns as she steps out of her van.

There’s no one here.

Monaca glares around her, cheeks puffing out.  Normally, it doesn’t matter what time she shows up; Servant is always ready and waiting for her, partly because his own special brand of luck hasn’t let him escape.  Maybe this time it’s letting him sleep or whatever because they had an agreed upon spot ahead of time.

Or maybe she landed at the wrong spot.

Monaca pulls her Game Girl Advance out from her pocket and checks it again.  No, no, this should be the spot.

Unless Servant lied to her.

Unless this really was all just a creative ruse to get Monaca to land somewhere where he could—

Her heart doesn’t sink.  She doesn’t grow cold.  In fact, part of her thinks she probably deserves this, for letting him convince her to come here in the first place.  She knew better than to trust any stupid stinking adult.

Monaca turns on the heels of her fluffy Monokuma slippers (just because she should wear shoes doesn’t mean they have to be shoes) and stalks back to her van, hands clenching and unclenching, elbows so straight they might as well be locked, shoulders hunched forward.  Although she wants to run, she doesn’t.  If it’s a trap, it’s a trap, and if she’s stuck, she’s stuck.

It’s just as she steps back into the door that she hears him, calling for her.

“Monaca!  Hey, wait!”

She glances over her shoulder and glares at Servant.  “You! Made! Monaca! Wait!”  Her stomach tightens, and that boiling bolt of fear barks out through her lips, louder, harsher.

Not that she cares, or anything.

Servant walks out of shadows, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.  There’s no one else with him – no secret old friend of Big Sis Junko – and there’s nothing with him either – no bags, no supplies.  He’s not even fully clothed, in Monaca’s opinion; all baggy sleep pants and something like an unzipped hoodie but with the sleeves cut off.  His metallic arm stretches up to his shoulder, but where it’s connected with his kin is covered by the fabric.

What’s even the point of leaving so much exposed if Monaca can’t see the one thing that actually interests her.  Ugh.

“I didn’t—”  Servant yawns, covers his mouth with that metallic hand, and makes a soft sound.  “Sorry.  I thought you would—”

“You! Didn’t! Think!”  Monaca stomps down from her van and over to Servant, emphasizing each word with a stomp.  “Monaca! Lives! In! Space!  She doesn’t adhere to your…your stupid human time!”  She glares up at him, pushing herself up on her tiptoes to get as in his face as possible.

He smells like coconut oil.

She scrunches her nose.  “Were you tanning?  Under the moon?”

Servant chuckles.  “No, I….”  He rubs the back of his neck, huffs, and then glances over his shoulder.  “Why don’t you come inside?  We’ve got a nice little—”

“Come inside?”  Monaca’s heart leaps in her chest and not in a pleasant way.  Her throat closes.  She forces her words to be evenly spaced, to not be tight.  To not show her panic.  “Monaca’s not staying—”

“Big Sis Junko’s friend isn’t going to be able to add a kitchen that quickly, Monaca.”  Servant looks down on her, but even though it’s not in a condescending way, it still forces her heartbeat to skyrocket.  “Surely you knew that.”

Monaca doesn’t say anything.

Servant starts to set his hand on her shoulder, and Monaca flinches away.  Her fingers twitch, relax.  “You don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable—”

“You…you want Monaca to stay…to stay alone in some…some island house with two…two grown men?  All by herself?”  Monaca can’t help it; she screeches, barks, loud in her fear.  Of course, she stands her ground.  Instinctively, she reaches into her pocket for her mini control, to push the button that will set her Monokuma servants into attack mode, to force them to protect her.

“No, no, no, no!”  Servant backs away from her, both hands in the air in front of him, defensive.  “You won’t be alone!  We—”

“You told someone else about Monaca?”

That is worse.

That is a betrayal.

Servant wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, just Big Sis Junko’s friend, to help with the van, and now he’s told someone else.

Monaca bites her lower lip hard to keep from crying.  It doesn’t work – tears still spring useless to the corners of her eyes, and she feels them trickle down her cheeks – but she tries anyway.  She turns away from Servant and starts to stomp back to the van.

“Only the person who loved Enoshima-sama the most in all the world,” Servant says, voice hushed.  “Not as much as you, of course,” he says just as quickly afterward, trying to cover up what must be a mistake.

Monaca whirls back to him at his words but stays where she is, eyes narrowing.  No one loved Big Sis Junko as much as she did.  No one went to the lengths she did to make her successor.  No one even tried!  So no one—

“Her girlfriend—”

“Big! Sis! Junko! Didn’t! Have! A! Girlfriend!”  Monaca stamps her foot once, but there isn’t that same satisfying thunk to it that there normally is.  Doesn’t matter.  It still feels good.  “Monaca would know about her!  You’re lying!”

Servant shakes his head.  “I’m not—”  He yawns again, holds up a finger.  “I’m not lying.  Junko didn’t tell you everything, Monaca.”  He sighs and crosses his arms, glancing away from her.  “She didn’t tell anyone everything.  You know that.”

Monaca grits her teeth together.  She does.  Know that.  Of course, Big Sis Junko didn’t tell her everything.  She’s a kid, and Big Sis Junko was….

She wasn’t an adult, not really, because all adults were evil, and if Big Sis Junko was really an adult, she would have been evil, too, and she wasn’t.  She might have been older than them – might have been older than Monaca – but she was still just a kid.

And kids keep secrets.

….

Big Sis Junko might have kept this from her.  It’s not…it’s not like Monaca ever asked or…or anything.  And it’s not like…it’s not like she’d ever…like she would have ever felt comfortable around…around another….

Maybe Big Sis Junko meant to tell her and just didn’t because Monaca wasn’t ready to know.  Maybe she was waiting.  Maybe she would have told her, if she’d lived past—

Monaca wipes the tears from her eyes.  “F-f-fine.”  She hates the stutter, hates the uncertainty of it.  “Monaca will…Monaca will stay here.”  She stamps her foot again.  “At her van.  Until…until Big Sis Junko’s girlfriend comes to get her.  When she…when she wakes up.”  She tugs her lower lip between her teeth, sucks on it.  Maybe she should say something else.  Maybe she should do something else.

Oh.

Right.

Monaca presses a button on her mini control, and two Monokuma servants detach from her space van and leap into position on either side of it.  They giggle – a sharp Puhuhuhu!~ that reminds her of Big Sis Junko.  (It is still her voice, after all, even if it’s been distorted for the drones.)  Then she passes between them and back into her van.

They’ll protect her while she sleeps.

Servant and Big Sis Junko’s friend and Big Sis Junko’s girlfriend won’t force themselves through them.

She hopes.

~

Monaca doesn’t sleep.

Monaca can’t sleep.

She lies on her back on the floor in her space van and stares up at the ceiling and not for the hundredth time regrets losing her pictures of Big Sis Junko.  She’s tried to draw her – once, twice, a thousand times, maybe – since going into space, and every time she’s tried (and hasn’t needed the sketches for specs), she’s pasted them up there.  A million different expressions, a million different examinations, a million different Junkos in a million different childish attempts at art smiling at her, grinning at her, beaming at her.  There are other expressions, too: Junko in pain, Junko upset, Junko laughing, Junko frustrated, Junko rambling, Junko sad (although she’d had to be creative with that, since she’d only seen Junko like that once, and she’d never seen her cry) – all of those expressions, but Monaca always focuses on the ones where it feels like her big sis is proud of her.

None of them are well done.  She knows that.  None of them really capture the true essence of Junko Enoshima.  But, if she’s honest, her original collection of pictures hadn’t done that either.

A lot of them are specs.  Covered with a hundred and one other notes, diagrams, comments, equations, notes, and tidbits.  Monaca has run through those in her mind over and over so much that she’s memorized them, trying to catch flaws, corrections.  She scans them again, fingers interlaced together and cupping the back of her head.

Then she pushes herself up and starts taking them all down.

~

When Servant arrives early in the morning with two others, Monaca doesn’t move.  She remains on the little step into the main body of her space van, bare feet curling into the plush red velvet carpet her Monokuma servants rolled out for her at her request, while a single trash bag of the stuff she wants to keep with her sits on the wooden landing pad next to her.  Two of her Monokuma servants stand on either side of her, framing her like silent sentinels.  She curls her arms around her knees, rests her head atop them, and presses her control again.

The Monokumas let out a Puhuhuhu!~ in unison, harmonizing with each other.  That only happens when there are two or more of them together, and even then, sometimes their laughter is intentionally discordant.  Sometimes they laugh in a round, one starting halfway through the other’s laughter, and go back and forth until something stops them.  It’s really a toss-up what they do.  Today, they harmonize, and Monaca regrets not having more of them set up, not having so many parts to the harmony that it would be overwhelming, not just to the three people walking toward her but to her as well.

The last time Monaca was left anywhere with nothing but a trash bag of valuables to her name was when her mama abandoned her on her sperm donor’s doorstep.  (Neither of them wanted her, but at least her mama hadn’t intentionally broken her.)  When Big Sis Junko took her and the other Warriors, there’d been no time to go back to take anything with her that wasn’t already at the school, and in all honesty, she hadn’t wanted to take anything with her anyway.

Big Sis Junko gave her a new life.  Why would she want to take any of her old scraps with her?

Monaca waits to see if Servant or his companions flinch at the sound of the Monokumas’ laughter, as though that would be an indicator of something, an indicator of anything.  The girl to Servant’s left – Big Sis Junko’s girlfriend – trips at the sound, and Servant immediately reaches out to steady her before she falls, his metallic arm gleaming in the sunlight.  Why Big Sis Junko would want someone so clumsy—

(Don’t be jealous, Monaca.  She chose you, too, remember?)

She doesn’t look up as they approach, instead fiddling with the control in her hand.  Flipping it one way or the other, twisting it, turning it.

That doesn’t mean she doesn’t see them, doesn’t take the newcomers in.

Servant’s still Servant.  He’s still got that shredded hoodie on, but he’s exchanged his sleep pants for light blue swim trunks covered with a floral pattern so shining white that it makes his hair look dirty.  The boy to his right – Big Sis Junko’s friend – is wearing a black beanie in tropical weather, which means he’s an idiot.  Sure, sure, it cuts a nice contrast with his hot pink hair, but it’s still a stupid decision.  Worse, although he’s got a full neon green jumpsuit unzipped at the top with its arms tied about his waist, he’s wearing a black wife beater, which.  Black is just going to make the heat worse, you absolute buffoon.

(Even worse, Monaca got most of this fashion knowledge from Big Sis Junko, which means the idiot should know all of this and is just ignoring it.  She has very strong words about this.  Very strong words.)

And then there’s the girl.

Big Sis Junko’s girlfriend.

Who actually seems to have paid attention to Big Sis Junko’s advice, unlike the idiot on Servant’s right.

Her hair, the same color as a fading bruise (and Monaca is so used to the color of fading bruises), would probably be just past shoulder-length if it was down, but it isn’t, pulled back instead into a high ponytail to keep it away from her neck.  A flowing, semi-transparent shirt covers both a white bikini top and pink shorts the same shade as Big Sis Junko’s hair but lighter; the shirt has a brighter design that’s apparent even with its transparency – equally floral to the one on Servant’s swim trunks, but with flowers the same bright pink as the other boy’s hair but threaded through with white, with deep forest greens – tropical, tropical, tropical, but thin enough to not hold the same heat that idiot’s black tank-top does.

The closer they get, the more Monaca sees, and her eyes widen at the scars interlaced along the girl’s left arm – circular cigarette burns, slices, gashes – and when the girl approaches Monaca first of all of them and crouches in front of her, she sees smaller, thinner white lines along her waist.  (She shouldn’t be able to tell, under the thin fabric of the layered, flowing shirt, but she can.  She has some of the same.)

Before the girl can even say anything, Monaca glances up, meets eyes the same color as her hair, and asks, “Who hurt you?”

The girl smiles, a soft and broken thing, and reaches out for Monaca’s hands.  “May I?”  When Monaca nods, she places her hand over hers, and it’s just as soft as her smile.  “I’m…I’m Mikan,” she says.  “M-M-Mikan Tsumiki.”  She forces the words out, an emphasis on the first syllable of her last name as though she’s spitting it out, but not in, like, a mean way, or anything.

Mikan stammers the way Kotoko did in private, when she wasn’t putting on a performance, the way Masaru did the first time they met, whenever he had to speak with one of their teachers.  The way they’d spoken before Big Sis Junko found them, anyway.  Before she’d filled them with pride and hope and love.

“Big Sis Junko’s girlfriend,” Monaca says, half a question and half a statement, searching the other girl’s eyes.

“Y-y-yes,” Mikan admits, her cheeks flushing with…with something that might be shame but might also be a stifled longing.  “I-I was, y-yes.”  She turns away from Monaca to Servant and the other boy.  “And…and that’s Kazuichi—”

“Call me Kaz!” he interrupts, flashing them a big smile and a thumbs up.

Idiot.

But before Monaca can say anything to him, Kaz approaches one of her Monokuma servants and runs his hand along its metal body.  “Towa bots aren’t as good as the ones I made Junko, but they’re tough, yeah?”  He frowns.  “Miss the furry body, but mass production can’t really do the same thing that a highly specialized creature does, huh.  And it’s not like these were made for that.”  He raps a knuckle against it.  “Pretty sound for mob control and mass destruction.”  His head tilts to the side, and he meets Monaca’s eyes with an appreciative smile.  “Ya did good, for a pipsqueak.  Real good.”

The faint praise makes Monaca’s heart beat a little faster, and it makes her stomach clench with anxiety.  She licks her lips and turns back to Mikan, not ignoring Kaz, but putting off that interaction for just a little while longer.  “Monaca,” she says, finally.  “Monaca Towa.”  Her gaze drops to Mikan’s waist again, and she nods at the scars.  “I have those, too.”

“I know.”

Monaca startles.

“Junko-sama told me.”

Monaca’s head pops up, and she meets Mikan’s eyes, searches them for the barest trace of a lie, and finds nothing.  Her cheeks grow warm.  “She told you about me?”

“Mm.”  Mikan nods, but her gaze shifts away.

“Did she say something bad?”

Mikan bites her lower lip and then turns back.  She brushes strands of Monaca’s green hair back out of her face, tucks them behind her ear.  “Junko-sama said a…a lot of things.”

That’s true enough.  Big Sis Junko did say a lot of things, and now she won’t say anything else ever again.

Unless….

Monaca pushes herself up and gestures for one of her Monokuma servants to grab her trash bag full of things.  She finally turns back to Kaz and says, “You can take him apart, if you want.  Make him better.  Monaca won’t mind.”  It’s the barest hint of a hesitation before she spits out, “Peasant.”

Now Kaz flinches.  He reaches up, pushes his black beanie half back, and does not turn to her.  “Really like talking like Junko, don’t ya?”

Quit saying her name like that like you know her.

Like you were ever worthy of her.

But Monaca shrugs, keeping those words to herself.  They wouldn’t matter to him anyhow.  “If it walks like a duck and it looks like a duck, then—”

“Monaca.”

Mikan’s voice is soft, so much softer than Monaca’s is, and yet she silences her easily.  (Because Monaca wants to listen to her, the same way she’d always wanted someone to listen to her.  (The same way Big Sis Junko had, eventually.))  She takes Monaca’s hand in hers, interlaces their fingers, and gives it a gentle squeeze.  “W-w-we’re going to be sharing a…a cabin.  Is…is that okay with…with you?”

For a moment, Monaca considers.  She presses her lips together.  (Servant hasn’t said anything since appearing again, and that worries her.  She doesn’t know why.)  Then she squeezes Mikan’s hand back.  “Okay.”

As Mikan leads her away, to the cabin they’ll share, Monaca pauses.  “Wait.”  She glares back at the idiot.  “Don’t touch Monaca’s van until she gets back, peasant!”

“I’m not a fucking—”

Monaca ignores him and turns back, glances up at Mikan.  “Okay,” she says, trying not to be afraid.  “Monaca’s ready.”

(Mikan is clearly not ready.  But that’s okay.  Monaca’s already certain that she likes her.  Big Sis Junko chose her, too, after all.  Why wouldn’t she like her?)

[harveybwabbit92]

[While Haruki and Akari are waiting for the extraction team to come get them from the research outpost after falling 16 levels into the monster crater, Akari noticed a growing red stain on Haruki's arm.]

Akari: You're bleeding.

Haruki: Oh, yeah. Don't worry it's not that bad...

[Akari looks at him skeptically.]

Akari: Yeah, usually when I hear people say "It's not that bad." It's usually pretty bad. Now lemme see yer arm.

Haruki: Yes, Ma'am.

Akari: And don't call me ma'am, it's weird.

{She pulls a First-Aid kit out of one of the storage cabinets.]

Haruki: But you're older than me.

Akari: And I'm also younger than you, so just call my Akari.

(Akari examines his arm]

Haruki: Right, sorry. Akari...um, so, what's the damage?

Akari: You have a small laceration it needs stitches...

Haruki: Um, does it have to be stitched?

Akari, Takes out her slugger ax (mini-sized): Would you prefer the alternative?

Haruki, panicked: Y-YOU'RE GONNA CUT IT OFF?!

Akari, looks at him incredulously: What? No. I was going to cauterize it.

(Her ax blade starts to glow bright red in seconds as a drop of water dripped from the ceiling on the hot blade; sizzling on contact. Haruki swallows nervously, Cut to Akari calmly stitching Haruki's arm up.]

Haruki: So... Are you some kind of prodigy or something?

Akari: No, the Bandit camp I grew up in just had a really shabby doctor who let me use his stuff.

Haruki:

Akari: I'm joking. *Haruki relaxes* ...Ol'Butcher's a pretty decent doctor even with the lack of resources. But, the real reason is my mom, she was the field medic for the the original Ultra Guard and I figured it would be a bit of an insult to her memory if I didn't at least get some medical training under my belt, ya know?

{Haruki nods as Akari finishes stitching his arm up and bandages it, just as the outpost started shake like something very big and heavy had landed nearby, they were going to investigate when Z's eyes appear in the observation windows.]

Z: Haruki, Miss Akari are yo-ACK! *gets shoved out the way by Zero*

Zero, looking his sister over: Akari!? Are you hurt? did you break anything?!

Akari: I'm fine, Zero. It'll take more than falling to a monster infested crater to take me down.

Z, noticed Haruki's arm: Haruki your arm!

Haruki: It's fine, Zero's sister patched me up. I owe her one.

Beliarok, who had hovered into the outpost: You the owe kid way more than one.

[Haruki didn't understand what Beliarok meant until after they were flying back up to the surface, Haruki was in Z's ultra-space and looked down and saw a giant crater the shape of an ultra that got smaller in the impact center, He realized that's where he and Akari had landed, she had shielded him from becoming a pasty mess on the black coral like canyon's floor.]

-----------------------------

[Level 16 of the Monster crater is called the False Reef: the environment resembles that of a coral reef only on land, though there is some form of water flow {it's about ankle deep} that helps keep the coral and it's inhabitants hydrated. Though where the source of the water comes from is unknown as studies have shown it's not rain water seeping in from the surface nor is there any indication that it's coming from other levels below, the most common monsters found on this level are: Eleking, Ragon, Guesra and Gubila.]

[waeirfaahl]

Why the Ultra-Robots made sense as vessels of the demonic blood

Small addition to my big analysis. Although I already in pretty detailed way explained, why 5 season makes zero sense, as well as why Aku has no reason and motivation to visit random fanatics he knew nothing about and to give them his blood for unmotivated and impossible reasons (again, he knew nothing about them and had no idea about their intentions and goals etc), I still have something to say about the Ultra-Robots. I can confidently say that these unexplained, appeared from nowhere and created only for symbolism cultists literally have no single reason to exist as well. Plus, Aku's entourage always consisted exactly of scientists, demons, robots, bandits and bounty hunters, but mostly exactly scientists, demons and robots. In fact, in the classic seasons Aku as a patron of technologies, progress and science is opposed to the past, where mortals had only their spirituality, religions, fixation on cultural/national identity, traditions etc (also you can notice that independent tribes, mostly human tribes on Earth, who saved their ancient culture after eons, either have no technologies or use them at the very minimum, and they are against Aku's influence or at best neutral to it). So, the entire idea of 5 season with these sudden fanatical cultists from nowhere is a blatant bullsh*t. But now let's return to the Ultra-Robots. On the one hand, it's obvious that a robot or supernatural enemy is harder to kill and more effective as a successful killer in contrast to a mortal. Moreover, in their arsenal, in addition to fast running, invisibility, grenades, bombs, a flamethrower and a mini-nuclear explosion (at least visually it resembles exactly that) and other deadly weapons, the Ultra-robots also had the ability to self-study and to copy the skills and fighting style of the enemy, i.e. reading and assimilation, not to mention their armor, made of a special metal, which even Jack's sword couldn't damage until the sword got the support of Jack's ancestors.

This ability is utterly terrifying. On the other hand, there's the one important detail, which totally explains why Aku's experiment with these robots makes sense and why he decided to make them to be vessels of his blood, which can get more power from his blood. The Ultra-robots were INITIALLY created exactly as totally EMPTY shells WITHOUT personality, without the ability to feel and to be alive (what were X-9 or robot-scientists or the servant-robot from 8 episode of 4 season), i.e. they did NOT have the functions and ability to be alive and emotional and intelligent etc. They are just empty vessels that will unquestioningly obey the order of the master, whose the blood inside of them, and therefore will NEVER rebell against him and will not use his power against him (although from "The Aku Infection" and "Birth of Evil" episodes we know that Aku's blood is poisonous and deadly for living organisms and will devour them to death out of inside, still a robot is a better and way more reasonable choice than vulnerable and weak mortal; especially after Jack was strong enough mentally and physically to stay alive and to defeat Aku's deadly blood inside of him — although Aku had no idea about Jack being infected by his blood, the demon still was smart enough to not try to do it intentionally).

So, yes, in the classic seasons Aku has thought of everything in this specific aspect.

[melonthesprigatito]

Before Legends Arceus came out (so, two years ago whoops) I started coming up with my own Hisuian Ancestor and I spent a lot of time brainstorming (cough, cough daydreaming) about a hypothetical scenario of what their encounter would be like in the actual game. I tried to make it realistic as possible by making it seem like an actual event that could happen in the game, and the one thing I have to say is that it serves as the obligatory "Spooky Encounter" that's been in pretty much every Pokémon game since the Old Chateau.

I'm not going to tell you which character is the descendant of this ancestor just yet, because the story is better if you don't immediately know what's going on. All I can say is that this ancestor is the ancestor of a Gen 7 character.

The quest is intended to be more of a post game thing because it eventually leads into an Ultra Beast catching quest involving the space time distortions (which isn't the main focus, more of a bonus quest really). Think of it as a second update story quest like the Daybreak Update. I'm just going to call this entire thing the Nightfall Update I guess.

WARNING: SUPER LONG POST, FULL OF PLOT SUMMARY, HEADCANONS AND ART (Uh.... Don't read the post tags before clicking the blue read more button pretty please. Kinda spoilery

To start the story quest you have to buy a special charm called the Otherworldly Charm from Lucille in Jubilife Village. Item description: ("A Mysterious charm made of an unknown material, discovered in Obsidian Fieldlands. It bears an inscription of a six pointed star.  Perhaps something will happen if you keep it around.") Why does she have this? Oh, she just found it lying out there in the field and thought it looked neat. Someone must have dropped it.

After you complete your expedition for the day, a short cutscene will occur. A random merchant from the Ginkgo Guild is making his way though the forest when he suddenly hears a noise behind him. He looks around, but it's completely silent. 

All of a sudden the merchant gets ambushed by the Miss Fortune Sisters. Unable to defend himself, he has no choice but to drop his goods and run. The bandits laugh among themselves at the successful robbery. They're still pissed that their scheme to steal the Origin Ore went up in smoke and they're just SOOO frustrated that the Player (in my case Akari) keeps absolutely destroying them in battle so this ambush was a morale boost for them.

Suddenly they hear a noise. Clover suspects it's another poor defenceless merchant unfortunate enough to cross paths with them, about to be robbed blind. A mysterious hooded, deathly pale figure with glowing eyes watches them from the treeline. The bandits are unnerved but launch into their motto anyway, because they're idiots, but become highly offended when the figure doesn't respond or show any sign of emotion at all. How dare they not acknowledge their perfectly rehearsed intro that strikes fear into people's hearts?! Coin says "Forget this, let's just rob them!" and lunges at the ghostly figure and she instantly gets hit with a blast of lightning coming from the figure's hand. 

The screen goes black and it cuts to the beginning of the quest.

Quest [Insert Number Here Because I Forgot How Many Quests Are In This Game]: The Witch of the Woods 

The sidequest continues when you talk to Ginter from the Ginkgo Guild. He is upset because some of the guild's merchants have been suffering from an increased number of attacks from bandits and supplies in the village have started mysteriously vanishing. At the same time, people have spotted a mysterious pale figure sneaking about Jubilife Village in the dead of night, stealing items such as food and clothing and rumours have started to spread around that it might be the evil witch that supposedly lives in a dark cave, deep in the woods at the edge of the Obsidian Fields which has gotten everyone in a panic because they're afraid that the witch might go after their children next.

Ginter doesn't believe in witches so he suspects that this supposed witch might be behind the thefts of the Ginkgo Guild stock, so he wants the player to look into the rumours and put a stop to them. At this point Zisu approaches them because she's heard ALL about this wicked witch and is really eager to join the investigation. As the Captain of the Security Corps, she feels that it's her duty to defend Jubilife Village from any threat so she wants to look into the rumours about this supposed witch so she can come up with a plan to defend the village from them if she needs to.

Current objective: Investigate the rumours in Jubilife Village (I'm using these quest objectives as a way to break up the giant wall of text. I can't remeember if the quest objective does update as you progress because I haven't played in months but whatever)

So Zisu tags along with the player and they start asking around Jubilife Village about the witch to gain more insight into the rumours. Several people recount different bits of information, but the most damning evidence is a tale from one farmer in particular who tells them a story about how one night when he was working in the fields, a big hole opened up in the sky, and what came out of it was this inhumanly pale woman with glowing eyes that spoke in a language he didn't understand. The farmer had the everloving crap scared out of him because he was convinced that this woman was an evil being that emerged from the underworld (a kid friendly way of saying that he thought it was a demon from hell) so he gathered some of the other villagers and they chased the witch off into Necro Forest.

Zisu is excited because "Sweet! Now we have enough evidence! Let's go investigate that forest then!"

Current objective: Head to the Necro Forest, north of the Obsidian Fieldands

What happens next is an escort mission where the player has to take Zisu across the Obsidian Fieldlands by fending off any wild Pokémon to a new area unlocked exclusively by this quest called the Necro Forest (Eterna Forest in the modern day) which is filled with Ghost Types. The background music is the Night Time Field theme no matter what time of day it is, or maybe a remix of the Old Chateau theme.

Later the Miss Fortune Bandits are encountered in the Necro Forest and they're running for their lives as they crash into Akari Barry Style (Charm dragging a paralysed Coin behind her). Charm is immediately aggressive but resists the temptation to battle Akari, especially because she's accompanied by the head of the Security Corps. Zisu asks what happened to Coin, and Clover freaks out about a witch in the woods that casted a lightning spell on Coin.

Akari wants to help Coin but the other two bandits are vehemently opposed to accepting help from some "Galaxy grunts." So Zisu purposefully drops a Cheri Berry on the ground and is like "Oh noooo, I dropped my berry! It would be a shame if it got stolen by bandits!" and Clover begrudgingly "steals" it, and the flee the scene, saying that you'd have to be stupid to go after the witch.

Eventually the Player and Zisu reach the cave which is supposedly the witch's home and at first Zisu doesn't want to go in because she's been pretty spooked the whole time in the forest, then she tries to play it off like she's not scared at all "What? I'm not f-f-frightened or anything! Let's just go!" then she dashes into the cave.

Current objective: Explore the Necro Cavern!

There is no cave in modern day Eterna Forest. The idea is that the land was dug into and smoothed out in order to build the Old Chateau on top of it. Its a small cave with a suspicious lack of Pokémon inside. The music is the cave theme that only appeared in the cave with the torches that you pass though with Ingo. I dunno, I just think that theme should have played in more than one location.

At the end of the cave, they discover an open chamber filled with signs that it's been lived in, such as scraps of food and clothing lying everywhere as well as a makeshift bed on the floor. Zisu finds the stolen merchandise in the far end of the chamber and runs towards it, while the player notices some weird looking metal things lying in the corner. Zisu comes screaming in the opposite direction "IT'S HER! IT'S THE WITCH!" and immediately uses the player as a human shield. The player turns to see a pair of glowing eyes in the darkness, orange pupils with silvery blue irises. As well as the eyes, she has weirdly pale blue skin and she's wearing a stolen dark green torn cloak over some sort of dirty grey and blue futuristic clothing. Her hair is an absolute mess, riddled with sticks and leaves and she has sun burns all over her face.

All in all, she does look like some sort of evil forest witch, and she's started to freak out about the intruders, showing a particularly negative reaction to Zisu in particular and Akari gets dragged into a Pokémon battle. The witch sends out a Poipole aka a Pokémon that no-one in Hisui has ever seen before, and honestly if the player has any Psychic or Ground Types it gets defeated very easily.

After the battle, the witch is still freaking out, but now she just seems more terrified and upset. She quickly grabs a stick and starts brandishing it at Zisu, trying to scare her off. Zisu squeals like a little girl because she thinks the witch is waving some sort of magic wand at them but Akari puts herself between her and the witch and tries to diffuse the situation.

Nothing seems to be working until Akari has the idea to show her the Otherworldly Charm in case it belongs to her because the charm resembles the other strange metallic objects in the cave.

Akari holds the charm out as a peace offering and the woman recognising the charm, hurriedly snatches it out of the Akari's hands and backs away again. It finally hits Zisu that she's not a witch at all, just a really strange looking desperate woman.

The witch calms down a little because now she knows they're not a threat since they're not attacking her and the Player was kind enough to give her the charm back, but she's still really uneasy.

Zisu tries to ask her who she is and what she's doing here, but she doesn't understand a single thing she's saying. The woman shakes her head and tries to respond and it becomes very clear that the woman doesn't speak the Hisuian language at all and Zisu doesn't recognize the language she speaks either.

Zisu is perplexed at how they're supposed to help her when there's a language barrier, but she decides that at least they should tell her their names and try to get across that they want to help her in some way.

Zisu points at herself and says "Zisu", then she points at the player and says "Akari" (or whatever name you picked for your player) and the woman is confused at first, but then she catches on to what she's trying to say, so she points at herself and says "Hijiki."

Hijiki frowns for a moment until she suddenly decides to do charades to try to communicate with them. She mimes writing in a notepad and Zisu grabs a pen and a notepad from her bag and hands it to her.

Hijiki finds it way easier to communicate with drawings so after a while she flips the notepad over again to show them.

The first drawing is an image of a sad face and some strange device that has smoke coming out of it. Zisu is confused and Hijiki gets frustrated and points at the pile of metal objects. She walks over and grabs a small device from the pile and Zisu acknowledges that it even though she has no idea what it is, it looks very broken.

The second image is a crude drawing of several Pokémon: Luxray, Raichu, Electabuzz and Jolteon, surrounded by lightning bolts.

The third image is of lightning striking the device, making it look shiny and new, with a picture of a smiley face beside it.

Zisu is still confused but she deduces that Hijiki needs the Pokémon in the image to fix whatever her strange device is. The idea is that she needs electricity to charge her device again and it's up to the player to go out and catch these Pokémon and bring them back to her. Zisu decides to stay with Hijiki DEFINITELY not because she doesn't want to go back into the forest again, no sirree, she has to protect Hijiki and although Hijiki doesn't want her to stay with her, it's not like she can speak up and object so she just stays silent and anxious.

Current Objective: Catch the Pokémon from Hijiki's drawings and bring them back to her.

One catching quest later, the Player gives Hijiki the Pokémon and she starts tinkering on her device with whatever tools she has on her. The Pokémon strike her device with lightning and when she's finished, she attaches the device to her belt and has a distinctly relieved look on her face.

The device gets switched on and immediately Hijiki starts to speak English (well, the text is English, but in universe she's speaking whatever language the Hisuians speak), much to Zisu's shock. The device she fixed was a universal translator and she's so glad that she can finally explain herself she doesn't have to keep producing those terrible drawings with her embarrassing lack of art skills.

And with that, the truth finally comes out and the mystery is solved. Hijiki explains that she's from another dimension called Ultra Megalopolis and she and her Poipole fell into this dimension through an Ultra Wormhole. She lost most of her memories and woke up scared and alone in the Obsidian Fields, having no idea where she was. When she spotted civilisation, she tried to get help but because of her appearance and the language barrier, she got chased off and fled for her life into the Necro Forest. Because of how badly the first contact went, she assumed that the inhabitants of this world were extremely hostile, (hence why she attacked them on site) so she created a shelter for herself inside a cave to hide from them.

She then explains that there is no natural light in her world, so it was impossible for her to travel outside of the cave during the day because she got blinded and burned by the harsh sunlight. All she has is the clothes on her back and a few gadgets and tools that were in her backpack, so in order to survive she had no choice but to ambush passing merchants venture into Jubilife Village at night when it was dark and where no one could see her so she could steal supplies for herself.

She's very sorry that she had to steal from the Ginkgo Guild because stealing is a crime in her world as well. She didn't mean to scare anyone and she really wishes she didn't have to live in the wild anymore but she's too afraid of being attacked by the villagers again to try to ask for help.

Zisu is very shocked and saddened by Hijiki's story, and after a few moments be asks her if she wants her to escort her back to Jubilife Village. Hijiki doesn't want to because she'll get attacked, but then Zisu says "No you won't! I'm the Captain of the Security Corps. Everyone trusts me to keep the village safe, so if I say that something is not a threat, they'll listen to what o have to say, so I'll clear up the misunderstanding for you!"

Hijiki is still sceptical. She finds it hard to believe that the villagers will accept her just like that, so Zisu sighs and says "Maybe we should report to Commander Kamado about the situation, and give the village a heads up first?" 

Hijiki thinks that's fair enough. She's willing to wait in her cave for the Akari and Zisu to come back for her.

Current objective: Report back to Captain Kamado!

Zisu and Akari have a meeting with Ginter, and Commander Kamado to discuss their findings. Firstly Zisu reassures Kamado that there's no threat to the village. The witch of the woods was really a faller from another world like Akari and Warden Ingo and one of the Pearl Clan's Wardens. She was driven to stealing for survival after the villagers attacked her and drove her away even though she was lost and confused, and most likely in pain from the suburns.

Kamado is incredulous when Zisu tries to argue that they should take her in. Kamado is against inviting Hijiki to stay in the village. Akari is already on thin ice about being allowed to stay and the villagers only tolerate her because she's been busy quelling the frenzied nobles and slowly earning their trust. To invite someone who's KNOWN TO BE A WITCH would be disastrous. Zisu insists that Hijiki isn't magical, she just has some gizmos from her world that haven't been invented in this world so they only seem like magic. She tries bringing up the Pokéball, it looks like magic too but it's really just an ordinary object.

But Kamado is firm in his decision, even if Hijiki does have technology that seems like magic, what if she were to use her technology against the village? And some of the most superstitious villagers wouldn't accept that she's not dangerous and would still consider her to be a bad omen. Letting Hijiki stay would be too much of a risk.

Zisu is worried and disappointed. Even though she was one of the people who was terrified of the forest witch, now that she's discovered that she's actually an innocent person who's suffering hard, she feels absolutely horrible that they can't do anything help her. Zisu decides that they should at least head back to Hijiki's shelter and tell her what Kamado said. Maybe they could formulate a different plan, maybe the Diamond Clan or Pearl Clan could take her in instead?

Akari and Zisu return to the shelter to find it completely ransacked and Hijiki is nowhere to be found. Zisu finds a ransom note among the rocks. Turns out that the Miss Fortune Sisters had been spying on them ever since they bumped into them. After they found out that Hijiki wasn't really a witch, they wanted to take revenge on her for attacking Coin, so they kidnapped her and stole all her technology. Seeing an opportunity to spite Akari as well, they wrote on the ransom note that they took Hijiki further north to the Alabaster Icelands. If she wants to get Hijiki back she has to go the ice caverns in the Bonechill Wastes.

Zisu is outraged, but warns Akari that it's most definitely a trap. The Miss Fortune Sisters are most likely using Hijiki as bait to lure her into an ambush far away from where she can get help, and they're probably intending to leave her to die in the frozen wastes. But Akari wants to go save Hijiki anyway so Zisu decides to head back to the village to rally some of the Security Corps as backup and tells Akari that she'll meet her in the Icelands.

Current objective: Chase after the Miss Fortune Sisters!

Meanwhile, Hijiki has been thrown into the the ice pit in the Bonechill Wastes and the Miss Fortune Sisters are currently occupied. Clover is whining about how cold it is as Charm and Coin go through Hijiki's belongings.

She had things like her taser, an aura scanner, a GPS, an Ultra Smartphone etc but they can't figure out how any of them work or what they're used for. Clover is whining about all the effort they put in ended up being for nothing because everything "the witch" has is useless junk, but Charm snaps at her. At least they might be able to sell this overworldly technology on the black market after all. Coin isn't convinced. Who would buy useless garbage that don't work?

Coin starts threatening Hijiki into telling them how to use her gadgets, or else she'll sicc Toxicroak on her, but there's just a slight hiccup. Hijiki is unable to understand what they're saying because they took her translator away so all she does is stare blankly at them. All three of them are oblivious to the fact that Hijiki can't speak Hisuian at all, and that they all sound like nothing but enraged gibberish to her.

All this really does is piss them off. Clover starts yelling at her again, just completely exasperated and baffled. She's literally being held captive by bandits and tossed into an ice pit, probably freezing to death. How could she possibly feel so blasé about it????? Does she not realise the situation she's in right now??? Coin has had enough and decides to let Toxicroak attack Hijiki anyway. If they can't get any use out of her things, at least she'll be able to get payback for the "lightning strike"

At that moment, Akari shows up just in time. The Miss Fortune Sisters do their motto and start evil motive-ing about how THIS TIME for sure they'll win against Akari and leave her to perish in the ice forever. This time they're going to attack her with all three of their Pokémon at once instead of one at a time like the last few fights and overwhelm her with numbers.

Charm and Clover release their Pokémon and instead of joining in, Coin decides to sit it out. She tells the other two that she's still going to attack the witch with Toxicroak and that they could stall Akari long enough to let Toxicroak get enough hits in. Charm and Clover start arguing with her because that was NOT the plan, but Coin just tells them to shut up.

Charm and Clover go 3 Vs 1 as Toxicroak attacks Hijiki, with Charm substituting Toxicroak with her Rhydon. Akari beats them because of Main Character Plot Armour and Charm goes full villainous breakdown and just decides to attack Akari herself, but then out of nowhere, Hijiki's Poipole breaks out of it's Pokéball and glues the Bandits to a rock. Akari jumps down the ice pit to save Hijiki and you end up battling Toxicroak with Poipole instead of your Pokémon.

With the bandits finally defeated for good, the Security Corps show up to apprehend them. Akari stays with Hijiki who's in a really rough shape. She tried to avoid Toxicroak for as long as she could, but it eventually weared her down, and now she's lying unconscious at the bottom of the pit. Zisu immediately orders the two Medical Corps people to take Hijiki back to the village to get her medical attention. The medics are like "You want us to WHAT-" because that would involve taking THE WITCH TO THE VILLAGE, but Zisu yells at them again and they have no choice but to do what she says.

A day later

Scene transition to a day later and Akari is waiting in Kamado's office. There was quite a uproar in the village when the Security Corps returned with the famous Miss Fortune Sisters somehow stuck to a rock and near mass panic occured when the Med Corps rushed the rumoured witch of the woods to the hospital room in the Galactic Building. Professor Laventon runs in, very upset. He can't get any work done with the noise of that many people crowded around the entrance trying to catch a glimpse of the witch to see if she's really as terrifying as people say she is. Kamado informs him that he already sent Cyllene to get them to leave.

Pesselle arrives from the hospital room to give them an update on Hijiki's condition. They're currently treating her for Toxic poisoning, as well as suburns and eye damage. Pesselle is clearly shaken and explains that she's never seen anyone like Hijiki in her life, she's not even sure that she's human. For starters, her eyes are extremely unnatural looking and she's so deathly pale that her skin looks pale blue. Not to mention that she appears to have bioluminescent eyes and freckles.

She's willing to take Zisu's word that Hijiki is still a normal human from another world, but she wonders what kind of world would have people who are so obviously weakened by sunlight. Kamado thanks her for her help and Pesselle returns to her duties, not before telling her to bring this supposed witch to his office once she's recovered enough.

Professor Laventon talks to Akari about the strange purple Pokémon that was following Hijiki around because he's having trouble identifying what it is. Rei speculates that if the witch is from another world, then maybe the purple Pokémon is too. Laventon nearly explodes with excitement because they have the chance to document a Pokémon from another world! Maybe he could ask the witch if he could have a look at it, which is something he immediately goes to do. Rei runs after him in a panic.

Zisu enters with Ginter. Ginter confirms that they managed to get back some of the things Hijiki stole from the Ginkgo Guild, though obviously things like food couldn't be recovered. Zisu asks if he wants to press any charges, and Ginter considers for a moment before ultimately deciding not to. From the sound of things, Hijiki went through a lot and he would feel terrible if he added to her suffering. Zisu regretfully tells them that the Miss Fortune Sisters got away. After they were freed from the glue, they used a smoke bomb and escaped in the confusion, though she thinks that hopefully the bandits would think twice about confronting Akari again.

A while later, Pesselle brings Hijiki up to Kamado's office and the poor woman is shaking like a leaf, half from because she's still weak and the other half because she's obviously terrified of Kamado. In a scene echoing Akari's first meeting with Kamado, he stares Hijiki down and she loses her nerve instantly, backing away and hiding behind Akari. Pesselle scolds Kamado because this is clearly no way to treat a patient, but he reminds her that this is an outsider he's dealing with, and he must test her by having her face him in combat like he did with Akari.

Hijiki stammers and tries to say that she has no idea how to do that "creature combat thing" that Akari and the bandits did and Kamado clarifies by saying he meant PHYSICAL combat, not a Pokémon battle. Hijiki freaks out because she'd just die if she did that. Kamado retaliates by saying that surely someone who is capable of survived in the wilds and ambushing Ginkgo merchants MUST be able to fight, and if she wants to prove herself, she has to.

Hijiki takes a deep breath and just edges close to him, hesitating to even touch him AAAAAND Kamado throws her. Cut to black with a CRASH! text box and fade back in to see Hijiki flat out unconscious on the floor again. Cue Pesselle totally ripping him a new one, yelling at him about how that was totally unnecessary, why does he always have to do this, has he no shame, as text box after text box hits the screen going by too fast for the player to read.

Zisu helps Hijiki to her feet but she's distressed because Kamado managed to dislodge her translator from her belt so she doesn't understand him when he says that someone so cowardly and unwilling to fight clearly isn't a threat to anyone. Hijiki quickly retrieves her device and turns back to Kamado, saying

Hijiki: "I'm very sorry, my translator fell off. I don't speak in whatever language this is so I couldn't understand any of that. Could you please repeat what you said, sir?"

Zisu: "He said that someone so cowardly and unwilling to fight clearly isn't a threat to anyone."

Hijiki: "Oh…"

Kamado then says that if she wants to stay in Jubilife Village she has to be able to contribute to society, so what skills does she have? Hijiki thinks for a moment because she can't remember much but she does have a vague idea of what her old job. She remembers that she was probably a Poipole handler which is why she has one with her, and she was one of the people tasked with taking care of them as they were typically adopted as companions or to help with construction because of their glue (kinda a Zookeeper/animal shelter worker kind of deal)

Pesselle speaks up and says that it kind of reminds her of the people who look after the Pokémon in the village's pastures. Kamado turns away, thinking about it. He would half to discuss it with Zisu because that falls under the Security Corps jurisdiction. Zisu barges in like "DID SOMEONE SAY SECURITY CORPS?" at that moment and startles everyone. She's 100% on board with letting Hijiki help at the pastures.

Hijiki interrupts, unfortunately she can't work during the day because the sun is straight up harmful to her so she doesn't know how useful she could be. Zisu turns to her and proposes that she'll give her a lodge in exchange for her services at the pasture on the night shift. They're needing more people who can stay up all anyway.

Hijiki is stunned. They wouldn't really do that for her, would they? One encouraging grin from Zisu is all she needs to accept the offer and become a full fledged member of the Security Corps.

Catching Poipole

Hijiki thanks the player for everything, and as a reward for completing the sidequest, she gives the player her Poipole because she feels that the player would be better at taking care of it in this new world…. If she can catch it that is.

Catching Poipole plays out like a Legendary Pokémon battle like how you catch Enamourus. As in, it flies around attacking you with poison blasts and you have to stun it before you can throw a Pokémon to battle it.

After this, Hijiki just becomes an ordinary NPC that you can talk to near the pastures (though she can only be encountered at night.) Her appearance changes, as she's now in the Security Corps uniform instead of her Ultra Space/ cloak get up.

As a little easter egg, you can have a rematch with her and she battles you with the Pokémon you gave her in the sidequest. She excitedly explains that Zisu taught her how to partake in "creature combat".

Her dialogue is mostly showing amazement at how cool everything is in Hisui and how she really wishes she could go out and investigate everything like the Ultra Recon Squad. She realises that Akari wouldn't know who the Ultra Recon Squad is and she explains that they're basically her world's equivalent of the Galaxy Team.

She's heard of the legends about Hisui from Rei and is just as intrigued by them as he is. Though her main complaint is that Hisui is a little… behind, technological wise. Though she expresses interest in the player's Arc Phone as it seems a little out of place in this world…

Since the quest is available during the post game, she talks about how scared she was when "the sky turned red and green" (aka that part of the game when the Player is banished from the village and the sky distorts. She remarks that thought that the Blinding One had escaped from the Tower and drained Hisui of it's light, but apparently it was something else. She figures she shouldn't worry about it since it's not this century's problem anyway. The Tower isn't predicted to break down for another two hundred years anyway (Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon Necrozma foreshadowing!)

Ultimately she doesn't affect the story in any way and her sidequest is completely optional, but it is required if you want to be able to catch Ultra Beasts.

Sidequest: ??? The Beasts from Beyond

To trigger the next quest, you have to enter a Space-time Distortion. The next day, Melli barges in to the Galaxy Team headquarters demanding to speak to someone, ANYONE. He claims that he was minding his business, in the Coronet Highlands when all of a sudden a pile of bricks just up and attacked him! They completely ruined his day and scared Lord Electrode and he demands that someone does something about it! Nobody takes him seriously and Rei just thinks he's gone nuts.

But the next day, Warden Palina shows up, looking really worried. A strange pure white Tentacruel creature showed up in the Coastlands and has been behaving aggressively towards anything that approaches it, and even the Alphas won't go near it. Cyllene calls Akari into her office because she's been getting continuous reports of strange monsters being sighted across all of Hisui that apparently emerged from the space-time distortions.

Hijiki runs in, and quickly excuses herself for interrupting. She's really panicked because she heard from the villagers that Hisui is being invaded by monsters that sound suspiciously Ultra Beasts. She volunteers to help because they're creatures from her homeworld so at the very least she's familiar with them and knows what to expect if Akari goes out and attempts to catch them.

To learn about where to catch the Ultra Beasts, you have to talk to Hijiki. She's heard rumours of monsters and such from the people who visit the pastures to see the Pokémon and she thinks she knows exactly what the monsters really are. She has dialogue talking about each Ultra Beast and a hint as to where it's found.

"There's a ghostly figure floating around the Deadwood Haunt. I don't know much about spirits but it sounds an awful lot like Nihilego. It would float around like a ghost, I think." (Deadwood Haunt, Cobalt Coastlands)

"I heard from someone in the Pearl Clan that an insect with huge muscles is challenging an Alpha Machamp to a flexing contest…. I don't understand, do Buzzwole normally behave like that…?" (Arena's Approach, Alabaster Icelands)

"There's a Pheromosa going wild in the bog. What terrible luck to fall into a wormhole and end up in a place so muddy. It hates getting dirty." (Scarlet Bog, Crimson Mirelands)

"That rude man can't catch a break. Apparently his Electrode is being bothered by a Xurkitree that's trying to eat it's electricity… " (Moonview Arena, Coronet Highlands)

"I've heard that a Celesteela has taken root near the Floaro Gardens. The soil there must be very fertile. It's a giant creature that blasts off like a rocket and- Wait, have rockets been invented here yet? Never mind." (Floaro Gardens, Obsidian Fieldlands)

"I've heard that a sharp creature that looks like paper has been cutting down trees in the Heartwoods. It's Kartana, I'm certain. That Lord Kleavor must be jealous of it's cutting edge sword techniques…" (The Heartwood, Obsidian Fieldlands)

"Oh, this is absolutely terrible! A huge monster is eating giant lumps of ice and snow in that tundra! Sounds very uncomfortable, chewing ice hurts my teeth… Oh wait, what was I saying? Yes! Guzzlord! You must stop it before it consumes everything in sight!" (Avalugg's Legacy, Alabaster Icelands)

"The creature that's that looks like a pile of bricks in must be Stakataka, I'm certain. Where did that unpleasant man say he encountered it? Must have been near some ruins?" (Celestica Ruins, Coronet Highlands)

"Um… What's a volcano anyway? I've never heard of such a thing… Apparently there's been the sounds of explosions coming from the volcano that's making people worried. I don't think the explosions are coming from the volcano itself, sounds more like a Blacephalon is causing them." (Firespit Island, Cobalt Coastlands)

To get Naganadel, talk to Hijiki. She'll explain that Poipole have been selectively bred to be unable to evolve by themselves. They must be taught a special move that lets them evolve that only experienced handlers know how to teach, because it's stronger form is too wild and dangerous for the average civilian to handle. She's seen Zisu teach Akari's Pokémon new moves and tells Akari that she needs to get Zisu to teach Poipole the move Dragon Pulse.

Other stuff

And that's everything I've got about Hijiki. If you haven't worked it out already, she's the ancestor of Zossie from the Ultra Recon Squad. Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are kinda my favourite 3DS Pokémon games and there was a time when I was absolutely obsessed with the Ultra Recon Squad and I was so sure that they'd come back as an explanation for being able to catch Ultra Beasts in the post game of future Pokémon games that I felt ROBBED when they never showed up in the Crown Tundra.

So with the dawn of the idea of Hisuian Ancestors, I thought "Wouldn't it be cool if the ancestor of one of the Ultra Recon Squad fell into Hisui and got mistaken for a supernatural creature because the locals thought their technology was magic?" Because of how massively technologically advanced Ultra Megalopolis is, I figured that even if it was 200 years ago, it'd still be way more advanced than Hisui so anyone who fell through a wormhole would be in for a sort of time traveller-esque fish out of water scenario but without the time travel.

Hijiki is Zossie's great great great great great great great great (however many greats that can fit in 200 years) aunt. She can't be Zossie's great great grandmother because the grandmother has to stay in Ultra Megalopolis for Zossie to even exist at all.

The name of Necro Forest has a double meaning. As soon as you walk into it you think "Oh, Necro = Death because of the Ghost Types" but it's also the first foreshadowing that the ancestor is from Ultra Megalopolis. Who stole the light from Ultra Megalopolis? Necrozma.

If you're one of the 47 people who played USUM, you'd remember that the Ultra Recon Squad had to wear full protection against the sun, which Hijiki lacks, hence the sun burns.

Hijiki is scared of Zisu because she's been stealing from the Ginkgo Guild and she recognises that she's part of the village's law enforcement so she was afraid that she came to catch her and punish her for the thefts.

About the whole glowy eyes thing, that's a headcanon I have about how the inhabitants of Ultra Megalopolis have bioluminescent eyes. It's based off official art of the Ultra Recon Squad where Dulse's eyes appear to be glowing in the dark. What is canon is the whole thing where the Ultra Recon Squad has silver irises and pupils that match their hair colour. If you zoom into their concept art you can see it.

I picked the name Hijiki because it has the same seaweed theme naming that the individual members of the Ultra Recon Squad have. The seaweed she's named after has been part of the Japanese diet for centuries. (At least according to Wikipedia.)

But what was that "lightning magic?* It was just an ordinary taser. Hijiki just nonchalantly tased Coin. You can find the taser among Hijiki's other gadgets in the cave

Bonus: my thought process while reading over part of this:

"Ok, so Hijiki jumps Gingko merchants in the woods and mugs robs them. Wait... wasn't Volo a Ginkgo merchant---"

The result:

This post took me two years of procrastination to make-