#unrelated to everything in this post but i would not survive star wars

[jaceyneedsabetterusername]

Aliit Be Cuur

Pairings: Mando x Reader

Summary: While waiting in the hospital in Mos Pelgo after you were inured in the attack on the Krayt Dragon, Mando accidentally learns some life changing information for the both of you. You’re pregnant. 

Warnings: Description of injuries, Pregnancy, Talk about miscarriage, Mando sees a sonogram-like image of reader’s uterus while she’s unconscious, general discussion of pregnancy while reader is unconscious and unaware, made up Star Wars level medical equipment

Word Count: 2800

Read Part 2 Here!

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Watching you lay unconscious, body littered in cuts and burns, had to be the most terrifying thing Mando had ever experienced, and that was coming from a man that had seen some horrific things in his life. It was his fault you were hurt. If only his plan to kill the Krayt Dragon had gone as it was supposed to, you wouldn’t be in this position. This was supposed to be what he was good at. Killing. Sure, he killed the dragon, but at what cost? 

When the initial plan of luring out the dragon and detonating the explosive just at his weak spot under his belly had gone south, he knew he had to think of something else. He could not leave the Mandalorian armor with Cobb Vanth. He needed it back. 

The plan to use the bantha as bait had come to him quickly but he should have known better than to not tell you what he was doing. There was just no time. Everything had happened so fast. After months of travelling together, he’d hoped that maybe by some miracle, you could read his mind and know that everything was going to be okay when he allowed the dragon to swallow him with the bantha. 

You were with the villagers and Tusken Raiders, struggling to fix the devices you’d built to throw the harpoons so you’d have a fighting chance. Being so caught up in your own tasks, sweat beading on your forehead from the heat and pressure, you hadn’t known Mando had strapped explosives to the bantha and was using it as bait. A loud screeching roar from the dragon ripped your attention away from the trying to kick a piece of wood back into place just in time to see the dragon’s mouth open, massive teeth bared, as it plunged down, straight on top of Mando and the bantha. 

You screamed in horror, running towards the beast, “MANDO!” About halfway there from your post, you whipped out your blaster and shot at the beast as it dove back into the sand. The lasers were useless and you knew that but it was the only thing you could think of to do. Your legs fumbled to a halt, the realization that Mando was really gone actually hitting you. 

But then something else hit you. 

There was a loud explosion and a wave of fire, rocks, sand, and dragon flesh hit you, throwing your body back. The last thing you saw was the wave of orange and red coming at you before everything went black. 

Just as planned, Mando had managed to escape the beast’s clutches before the explosion but suddenly regretted every decision he’d ever made when he saw the little figure of your body running towards where you assumed Mando to be. Even from dozens of feet in the air, he knew it was you. He couldn’t imagine anyone else there willing to run straight at the monster to try and save him. The bombs were sure to detonate any second but by the time he’d noticed you, it was too late. The bomb detonated with a massive wave of heat and debris. 

He watched in horror as your body flew back at least twenty feet before sliding another fifteen across the sand after the impact. Time seemed to stop around him as he jetted to you in less than a few seconds. He couldn’t breathe, fear that he had caused your death choking his airways. “Y/N!” He yelled, landing harshly on his feet right beside you before falling to his knees. You were lying face down, eyes closed. “Y/N, talk to me.” Mando looked over your body and, by some miracle, there didn’t appear to be any broken bones, at least not any that looked immediately disfiguring. With a nearly effortless nudge, he rolled your body over. Your clothes had been ripped and/ or singed in many places. Multiple large holes in your pants revealed reddening burns and blood dripping from sand scraped skin. Your shirt was torn in multiple places, the left strap of your shirt torn so severely it could barely count as a sleeve. The side of your face that was on the sand was also scraped up, thankfully not too deep, but enough to cause bleeding. 

Now the two of you were in the little hospital in Mos Pelga, along with the rest of those who'd been injured in the attack. You slept now, bandages covering large portions of you body that was now largely exposed. They had had to strip you down to your underwear to reach all the wounds but had wrapped your chest in wrappings in place of a bra for the sake of your privacy. Mando had pulled his cape over the majority of your body, knowing you'd be upset if you were to wake up practically naked in front of everyone. 

He hadn't left your side since the explosion. He carried you to the infirmary. He laid you down on the cot. He watched as both human nurses and medic droids worked to patch you up and take blood for tests. They had told Mando that they wouldn’t know anything for sure until the tests came back. Even with the bacta that they’d lathered on you, it would take time for it to work and there was a possibility for further damage that they couldn’t see on the outside. 

The child had been sleeping in his little cot, sealed up safely inside the levitating metal object. Mando had just been sitting beside you on a crate, leaning forward on his knees. This was his fault. He should have known you’d run in. He should have known that something like this could happen. 

“Mandalorian.” A robotic voice gently called for Mando’s attention. 

He looked up at the awkwardly proportioned grey medic droid who stood on the opposite side of the bed. “Is she going to be okay?” 

The droid spoke again, its body shifting unnecessarily to emphasize some of its words, “Patient 728, also known as Y/N. Female. Age: (Y/A). 2nd degree burns on the abdomen, arms, and legs. Superficial graze abrasions on the face, neck, arms, hands, abdomen, and legs. Bruising on face, back, hips, and legs. Probability of death: 7%. No damage to the fetus. Probability of miscarriage: 19%.” 

Mando found a hard time finding any solace in the words of a droid. When a young male nurse walked up beside the droid, Mando immediately turned his attention to him.

“It’s a miracle the baby survived unharmed. I’ve seen much less cause a miscarriage.” The nurse mused, flipping through the clipboard in his hands. 

Mando stood up, brows furrowed beneath the helmet, “That must be someone else’s chart.” 

The nurse flipped back to the front page, “Patient 728? Y/N L/N?” The young man confirmed.

“Yes.” 

He shook his head, “Nope, this is hers.” 

Mando gestured to you, “There must have been a mistake. She’s not pregnant.” 

The young nurse looked at the beskar helmet that he was actually slightly taller than and swallowed hard, “I’m sorry. I assumed that you were the father. If not, this is confidential information that I can’t share with you.” It was obvious that the man was afraid to stand up to a Mandalorian, surely hundreds of stories of their superior killing ability running through his head. Nonetheless, he held fast to what was right. 

Mando’s head was reeling and all he wanted was to run and take off the helmet and take actual, non-filtered breaths. Instead, he was wide eyed and silent as thoughts ran through his head a million lightyears an hour. The beskar betrayed none of his emotions. To the rest of the world, he appeared frozen, standing strong and staring right at the nurse when in reality Mando had zoned out somewhere off to the side. 

If you were pregnant, the baby had to be his. For the last few months, the two of you had had an unofficial relationship of sorts. Nothing was ever said, no official labels, but the two of you behaved like any other couple, or at least a much less touchy-feely version of one. After a night of confessions brought on by an unrelated argument, it had become an unspoken truth that you were only taken by each other. You were his riduur, no doubt, and, as far as he knew, he was yours. You would never lay with another man as long as you and Mando were together, that much he was sure of.

“If she’s pregnant, I am the father.” His voice was calm as always but he thanked the modulator for the slight distortion. If it hadn’t been there, he would have sounded shaky. 

The nurse sighed, choosing to believe him because he really didn’t see much use in lying over something like this. He flipped to the next page on his chart and walked over to stand beside Mando, pointing at some numbers that meant nothing to him. “hCG is a hormone that’s created in the placenta and is only present in pregnant women. According to her levels, I’d say she’s about eight weeks.” He paused for a moment, allowing time for the new information to sink in. “You really didn’t know?” 

“If I’d have known, I wouldn’t have let her fight the Krayt Dragon.” Mando snapped, almost angry at the mere suggestion that he would put his own child in that sort of danger. 

The nurse put his hand up in defense before continuing, “Do you think she knows?” 

Mando shook his head. He believed that you still would have jumped into battle even if you had known, at least from a distance. It was just who you were. But he really didn’t think you had any idea that you were pregnant. Mando had been trained to read people his entire life and surely such news would have brought about some change in your demeanor. Mando hadn’t noticed any change in your behavior. Besides, he would like to believe that you would have told him if you knew.

He couldn’t believe this. How were you pregnant? Okay, well he knew how you could have possibly gotten pregnant but the two of you had always tried to be as safe as you could to avoid this exact scenario. Neither of you were in a position for children, the Child being a special circumstance. Your life was full of danger and violence. How could Mando protect you for an entire nine months while pregnant and then for the rest of forever, while also protecting the Child against what felt like an entire galaxy that wanted him at any cost? 

“Do you want to see?” The nurse’s voice brought Mando back to the present and his helmet tilted in curiosity. 

“See what?” 

“The baby. I need to do a scan to ensure that it's still doing alright. You can see the fetus on the screen while you scan.” He set the clipboard at the foot of your bed and procured a moderately sized glass panel with a metal border that he’d had pinned between his arm and side while he spoke to Mando. 

With a few taps on the glass, bright blue words and images appeared. He tapped on one selection and the middle of the screen cleared, aside from a thin column on the right hand side that had stats and vitals. “See, if you put anything under this, it will show you an interior view of the body. This mode shows organs and blood vessels and stuff like that. See?” The nurse put his hand under the glass panel. The screen showed a light blue version of his hand but instead of skin and nails, it clearly showed the lines of his muscles and the veins that overlapped them clearly. 

Politely as he could, he pulled the cape that had been draped over you down just enough to expose your lower belly, stopping just above the hemline of your underwear. The only thing indicating that you were even alive at this point was the deep inhale you took, drawing both Mando’s and the nurse’s attention. It was the only time Mando hoped that you weren’t waking up. He had no idea how to explain this new situation to you. Hell, he was still having a hard time understanding it for himself. Thankfully, a deep breath was all it was though. You were still asleep. 

The nurse moved the glass panel over your lower stomach, just about where your belly button was, and the image began to form on the screen as he adjusted a few things. Mando’s helmet tilted forward as he leaned over to see the image. 

A nearly perfect view of your reproductive system appeared as a blue digital image. Mando felt uncomfortable looking at the image, feeling like he was violating you in some way. He knew he shouldn’t be looking at this without your permission but then the nurse zoomed in on your uterus to the point where the only thing that could really be seen was a little being. 

Mando’s first thought was that it looked like a little alien. There was an identifiable head that appeared to be looking down and the cord that was attached to you through its belly. The rest of the body was curled into a fetal position. 

The nurse tapped something on the screen and there was a rapid thudding sound that emanated from the device. 

“Is that the heartbeat?” Mando asked, knowing that the answer was probably obvious. For someone who was used to working under pressure, he felt like his brain was only receiving radio static. 

“Mhm, nice and strong.” The nurse said with a warm smile. He tapped a few notes onto the board and then turned it off, the blue image disappearing and the amplified heartbeat ceasing. 

Mando couldn't believe this was happening. How could you not know you were pregnant? He was no expert on the female body, aside from the basics, but weren't you supposed to be throwing up or missing periods or something? He couldn't wrap his head around how you were eight weeks along with seemingly no clue of your condition. 

"Look, I can see that clearly this was something unexpected. I don't know if this is something you want to tell her or want me to, but either way, there are some conversations you two need to have." The nurse told Mando matter-of-factly while gathering the few things he’d brought over before leaving. 

Mando shifted on his feet and reached down to pull his cape back up over your torso so you wouldn’t be cold and exposed, though it was mostly for the second reason. It was next to impossible to be cold on Tatooine, at least during the day. That was when he noticed the small, barely there bump on your lower stomach. It was such a slight variation from its normal size that he never would have noticed it had he not just learned about the life now growing inside you. It was so slight that he imagined you probably would have just attributed it to bloating perhaps, since you were unaware as well, considering all the less-than-pleasant food you both came across in your work. 

Part of him wanted to place his hands over the ever-so-slight swell of your belly, just to see if by some chance he could feel anything. Mando decided against it, shaking his helmet at himself with a heavy sigh. He would wait until you woke up and the two of you had a chance to discuss everything before he did anything relating to the baby. 

Gently, he pulled the cape back up over your body and sat down on the crate again, leaning his elbows on his knees where he sat with his thoughts for several minutes in a zoned out daze. His attention was only broken by the cooing from the Child’s metal pram. Mando tapped on the controls on his arm, opening the pram, and removing the little green baby who was now wide awake. 

“Hey, buddy.” Mando breathed out, watching as the baby stretched his arms out to you, “I know, I know. She’ll wake up soon.” 

The Child looked up at Mando sadly before snuggling down onto his lap, sitting there comfortably. The weight of such a small being had become comfortable and normal for Mando now after all this time with him. He was, by Creed, his son now. Mando was already a father. You had stepped up as a mother for the young child. So why did this feel different? 

Mando imagined the new future, assuming you had decided to stay with him and care for the baby together. He had every intention of raising the baby with you and would do whatever it took to keep the two of you safe. He loved you more than he knew was possible to love another person and the last thing he wanted was to leave. Mando hoped that, one day, you would be officially bound by riduurok. Once the Alor approved it, Mando’s clan of two would become an aliit be cuur. Clan of four. 

[hashtagartistlife]

IR hunger games AU

pt 4/???

pt 1 | pt 2 | pt 3 | pt 4

bonus comics under the cut + some more exposition 

bonus cut 1: 

bonus cut 2: 

Recap of the story so far: yuzu gets picked as tribute for the hunger games. Ichigo manages to volunteer in her place. Rukia gets drawn to replace yuzu, and ichiruki end up being the tributes for district 12. 

Ichiruki then meet urahara, their mentor, on the train to the capitol. On this train they may or may not have a conversation regarding the fact that Rukia saved Ichigo’s life as kids, and that they have consequently been dancing around each other for years now. I reserve the right to add more to this section later. Either way, they are awkward at best and frosty at worst as they enter the capitol. 

At the capitol, they meet their stylists, uryuu and orihime. They are new stylists, who only graduated last year. This is their first official stylist job. This in itself is not that surprising, as district 12 was unpopular and often stuck with the inexperienced or not-quite-so-talented stylists. However, though uryuu and orihime are inexperienced, they are the furthest thing from untalented or unpopular - since they had been students, they have been somewhat of a rising star in the styling community. So, everyone is surprised when they both (separately) apply for the district 12 styling job, because they really could have had their pick. 

Ishihime were both born and raised in the capitol, but their childhoods were far from the lavish, glamorous lifestyle commonly associated with capitol citizens. If the capitol had a caste system (which they do — it’s just unspoken, is all), they would be on the bottom rung — orihime grew up under her brother in as close to poverty as what you can get in the capitol, dreaming of the glitz and glamour of the upper crust life. Ryuuken, meanwhile, is very rich, but for whatever reasons uryuu ran away from home young and has been surviving on his own since. The fact that they both clawed their way up the ranks to become hunger game stylists out of pure talent and tenacity was a novelty for everyone, and contributed to their rising stardom. 

Ishihime hadn’t met prior to their appointment as district 12 stylists, but they HAD heard of the other— it was a pleasant surprise to both of them that the other had also applied for the job. Though they only meet on the job, they click instantly and develop an easy working partnership to create a sensation with ichigo and rukia’s opening ceremony outfits. The outfits had a fire + ice theme, based on the fact that district 12 was a mining district (coal > fire, diamonds > ice). 

Orihime applied to the district 12 job because of Ichigo— she saw him volunteering for his sister on TV and maybe fell a little bit in love with him, with the idea of him— how romantic, how heroic of him, how noble to be able to volunteer for his sister like that— the same age as her, and so handsome, too, she wants to be by his side, she wants to help him, she wants to make sure he looks his best at the games so that he can maximise his chances of returning to his sister… as stated previously Orihime grew up entrenched in the capitol mindset so she is not yet aware of how fucked up the whole system is. Uryuu, meanwhile, nobody is particularly sure why he applied for the job… he said something trite about wanting to use his skills where it’s most needed, how he likes a challenge, but orihime wonders if that’s really all there is to it— outwardly, he’s the picture perfect new graduate, enthusiastic, happy, proud of his job— but there are moments when they are being applauded for their latest creations when she thinks his expression goes a little sour… it’s always fleeting and gone so fast that she can never be sure however 

Ichiruki, meanwhile, are the talk of the town. What with their stunning entrance at the opening ceremony and rukia’s public confession, all they have to do now is ride this wave of popularity all the way through the games for an easy win— unfortunately, they are both terribly bad at knowing how to manipulate this situation to their advantage. They both understand the gist of urahara’s plan — act like they’re falling in love— but neither of them understand WHY or HOW this will work. Why would the audience be invested in their falling in love? What exactly do they want to see? HOW do they act like they’re falling in love? (and, in Rukia’s case— how much of it should be pretend, how much of it is real?) 

Enter Rangiku, the previous district 12 stylist. She and gin grew up in one of the districts, both hating the games and the capitol, until one day at 14 yrs old, gin said to her ‘i’m gonna make it so that you don’t have to be afraid of your name being called at the reapings no more’, volunteered as tribute, won the games, and promptly disappeared from her life. 

Years later, rangiku sees gin on tv as the new host of the hunger games. She’s stunned and infuriated— she thought they both hates the capitol for what they did to the districts and now he’s WORKING for them? What the hell is he thinking? So rangiku packs up and moves to the capitol— her plan is to try to see him, to talk things out, surely there must be some kind of misunderstanding— but gin is all rich and famous now, and very heavily guarded, and she’s a nobody. There’s no way anyone will let her within ten feet of gin at all— so, rangiku decides she’s going to have to join the circus to talk to its head clown, and becomes a stylist. 

Unfortunately, even as a stylist, she can’t get a word to him edgewise— and she’s starting to suspect that maybe it’s not that she can’t get to him, but that gin is actively avoiding her. She COULD climb the ranks until he can no longer avoid her— she is very good at this stylist gig, much to her surprise— but she doesn’t have the heart to do the backstabbing and bribing necessary for that. She is constantly warring between ‘I cannot pour my talent into something this morally bankrupt’ and ‘but maybe if I do my best, I’ll give my district’s kids a fighting chance’. 

Eventually, by the time ichiruki step up, rangiku is so sick of having to dress kids up nicely for slaughter that she hands in her resignation, gives up on gin, and is getting ready to move back home to her district. That is, until she sees what an absolute record-breaker ichiruki are becoming, and start to hope again— that maybe, this year things will be different. That maybe, they will be different. That maybe, at least one of ‘her kids’ won’t go home in a coffin this year, will instead require outfits for a victory tour instead— a victory tour that is accompanied by their stylists… and the host. 

So, rangiku comes back in an unofficial capacity to help ichiruki refine their act a bit more. But with less than one month left till the games commence, will what they come up with be enough to carry them through the entire games? And, even if it does— what will happen if at the end of it all, the two people who remain are ichigo and rukia— when only one person gets to return home alive? 

Very unrelated point, but: ichigo apologised to rukia for grabbing her wrist post-tribute interview. Just wanted to clarify it is NOT alright to grab at people under any circumstances— ichigo did it in the heat of the moment, but when everything was cleared up he apologised for it. Had to mention this somewhere because it bothered me so much while drawing this installment— Ichigo you have NO room to be scolding the reporter for grabbing rukia, you did it not too long ago yourself! Having said that, that’s probably why he’s being very touchy about this— it was something that had been a sore point for him too very recently. 

To be continued! 

[raevenlywrites]

Okay, so. The point I wanted to make earlier was something like this:

TL;DR: Not knowing that hyperfixations were a thing hurt me, and cost me not only enjoyment of a thing, but more serious social and emotional growth potential. More kids need access to a broader range of what Normal is, and Normal needs to be opened up and expanded to include things that are perfectly harmless because the harm of excluding those things is immeasurable.

(Did I just put a tldr at the START of my post? why yes I did. why? because i’m about to drop this entire damned ESSAY under a read more because it’s dash destroying (think of it as an abstract on a scientific paper) ... (no, it is nothing like an abstract on a scientific paper. wtf did I say that) ... (anyways))

(Can you tell its an ADHD night? are there enough parenthetical asides in this yet?)

...

(no)

.

ANYWAYS

When I was a teen, I read a book called In The Forests Of The Night. I’m sure you’ve heard me mention it before, but believe it or not, it was only TONIGHT that it occurred to me that this book and its fellows is my hyperfixation. Because, for the first TWO THIRDS OF MY LIFE, I didn’t know to think of myself as someone with hyperfixations. Hell, I didn’t even know what a hyperfixation was. I am one of the countless adults who has self diagnosed as ADHD or autistic or SOMETHING, and this is the story of how not having a diagnosis growing up hurt me.

So. I read this book. My now-wife-then-unbeknownst-crush gave it to me as part of our ignorant teen courtship. You’ll like this, she said, trying to share an interest with me in order to bond. Thank you, I said, not knowing I wanted to smooch her face. Unimportant, but I like reminding myself when I look at back my teen years how queer I already was without knowing. And this story is mostly for my benefit of getting it off my chest, so smoochy thoughts included.

So I read this book. It’s short, 200 pages or so, and if I’m honest with myself as an informed adult, nothing spectacular. It’s not bad, but its not ground breaking. None of the books are. But they broke new ground in Me, and what grew out of them has literally shaped the course of my entire personality.

Raev, I hear you say, it’s not great to base your entire personality on a bit of pop culture.

Shut up, I said, I’m telling this story and anyways insert-edgy-media-here dudebros have been doing it forever. Anyways.

So I read this book. I read it again, and again. I read all the books that went with it, but I stayed especially hung up on Forests. Why? Partially because it was the first one I read. Partially because the MC and I share a name, and therefore in my little teen head a connection. It was the first time “Rachel” felt like an identity, instead of just an identifier, and one that way too many of my classmates shared. Rachel was a badass, stifled by her Christian upbringing and the expectations of the day on women. I was a badass, stifled by my Christian upbringing and the expectations of the day on women. Rachel became a vampire, spiteful and spitfire the entire way. She did it on her own terms (so my teen reading of the text went), spurning every attempt of her kind to show her the ways of the vampire. She had a nemesis, a clear, concrete reason for her pain, and took charge of that pain and overcame it to be a complete and utter badass by the end of the book (again, so my teen reading went. Part of the problem here was my teenness. Part of it was my neurodivergence, which I will get to (you didn’t think this would be a SHORT story, did you? I warned you I have ADHD and that this was my hyperfixation; how did you think this was gonna go?))

So I identified heavily with the protag, and with its shocking author. This lifechanging book was written by a teen, like me! Holy cats, I said to myself, why, if she can do it, so can I! I had just started writing my own first novel (a shameless retelling of Star Wars, hyperfixation of my grade school years), and immediately trashed it to write my own vampire thing. Because vampires were clearly IT and I was gonna be a cool badass author hero, just like the MC of the second book.

Then the shapeshifter books came out, and so did I.

It’s really unrelated, but that was a fun transition, and as previously stated, author-type. Anyways.

So I came out to my girlcrush, angsted about that a lot, and continued to gobble up the books. Did you know there’s a website, she said. There’s like a whole fan community and everything.

Now, part of the problem here was being part of the first generation on the internet. It was relatively new, and so stranger danger and not being entirely comfortable on the internet and all that had its part to play. But this is also where the hyperfixation finally comes into play.

I liked Nyeusigrube A LOT. A lot a lot. So much so that I made my own conlang, my own mythos, my own entire story universe patterned after this one but not exactly this one. For whatever reason, it never occurred to me to self-insert, just to shamelessly copy. That one I can’t explain, but this one I can now understand through the lens of an adult.

Nyeusigrube was my especially special interest, and I had no idea that was a normal, healthy thing.

So tangled up in all this was my raised-too-conservative freak out about being Not Straight. I had finally figured out I liked girlfriend, if not that I was incredibly bisexual yet, and that was a Big Deal. Super cool author I hero-worshiped was one of those “Do I want to BE her or just want her?” kind of idolations, but again, didn’t know that at the time either. So these two very normal things that I knew NOTHING about were getting tangled together in a rat king of Issues with a generous slathering of Shame glue to hold them all together. Add to it the paranoia/RSD/general not-great-at-social sides of my neurodivergence, and basically I had decided I was Too Weird and liked this book Too Much and if I so much as LOOKED at the websites/forums/etc, everyone would know and that would be Bad.

Did I have a clear idea of how that would look? Not really? I didn’t need to. Just the thought of checking out the fansites was enough to send me into a panicking guilt/shame spiral about how much I enjoyed the books. Everyone will KNOW, I thought, and it will be BAD. The End. It was Not Normal how much I liked the books and I will freak everyone out.

So.

If I had just KNOWN that hyperfixations were a thing, I might have still felt weird, but I don’t think I would have AGONIZED (and I do mean fucking AGONIZED) over how shockingly Not Normal my level of interest went. I might have still felt bad, because I didn’t have a diagnosis, and therefore probably wouldn’t have given myself permission of admit I had a hyperfixation, but at least I wouldn’t have wallowed in ignorance. Now, if I’d had the knowledge and the diagnosis, I probably would have still been too shy to interact, but I wouldnt’ have wasted hours of my life in panicked/guilt/shame spirals. If I’d have a diagnosis and a support group? If I’d had a diagnosis and been raised with the normalization of being queer? If I’d had medication, role models, a safe place to open up and communicate, so on and so on? Like, you get the idea, right?

I consider myself immeasurably lucky that my love of writing and vampires and high school girlfriend survived all this. (My equally intense boy crush of the time did not (not because I don’t like boys but because I fell down another hyperfixation spiral and no PERSON should ever be subjected to that but I digress)). As I said, this is my especially special hyperfixation. I can’t imagine how many hours of enjoyment I might have gotten out of the forums, the fan arts, the roleplaying groups, the FRIENDSHIPS, my gods, can you imagine the friendships? Anyways, what I’m really saying is that it caused me real emotional Pain and Trauma, thinking something was Wrong with me for my level of interest. A lot of people have regrets about like not trying out for the team or not asking so and so out or whatever, but mine is a stupid fansite. I have deep and palpable regrets about letting my fear and shame keep me from something so harmless and silly, and as I said before I don’t think I have a concise or tidy ending, but this was what I wanted to say on the matter so there it is.

TL;DR: (hey, didn’t you already post this part? Yes, yes I did. I’m doing it again, but this time its the In Conclusion bit instead of the summary bit) ...(abstract. they’re called abstracts)...(this is still FAR from a scientific paper) (ANYWAYS) Not knowing that hyperfixations were a thing hurt me, and cost me not only enjoyment of a thing, but more serious social and emotional growth potential. I was stunted and harmed by this lack of education, and I guess my point is I hope no one else has to go through that. If my stupid little story can fix a thing, I want it to be that. More kids needs access to a broader range of what Normal is, and Normal needs to be opened up and expanded to include things that are perfectly harmless because the harm of excluding those things is immeasurable. Thank you for coming to my TED talk

[calebdumes]

I’m back with more Inquisitor!Kanan that no one asked for! If I keep this up (who am I kidding I probably will) I’ll have to make it a Real Thing™ and post it on AO3. Thanks to all who give it a read! I appreciate you!

Fandom: Star War Rebels

Rating: T (mild violence, vomiting)

Word Count: 1.6k

~

Kanan was shaking. From cold or fear, it didn't matter, his body was trembling uncontrollably. The binders on his wrist cut into his skin, leaving behind small nicks of blood but he didn't notice it. He was too busy watching the Inquisitor. He was a Pau'an with dark red markings that stood out on his grey, skull like face. His yellow eyes were ringed with red and watched Kanan with a sickening hunger. The darkside dripped off of him in lazy rolls, twisting and curling around Kanan making it hard to breathe. He shook harder. 

Six years. He had been on his own for six years and never once did anything to catch the Empire's eye. But then he had to go and save the life of an ungrateful Devaronian from dying a horrible death under a mountain of rubble. He hadn't even been actively thinking about using the Force, it just happened and that was all it took. One well placed security camera and Kanan's inability to let fate run its course had him in chains bound for certain death. 

He had heard the stories of what happened to the Jedi that survived the Purge. None of it was good. Kanan could only hope for a quick death but from the sinister glint in the Inquisitor's eye, he had a feeling he was in for something, much, much worse.

Kanan felt the transport shuttle jolt as it touched down. His heartbeat thumped loudly in his chest as the other two inquisitors who came from him jumped down from the cockpit. The Pau'an smiled at him, revealing his pointed teeth. No one said a word as the ramp lowered, emitting a cold and biting salty breeze. One of the other inquisitors yanked Kanan to his feet and pushed him out of the shuttle. The inquisitors flanked him as he stumbled down the ramp. He stepped onto the thin walking platform that was suspended above still water that stretched as far as the eye could see. 

The platform ended at a tall dark spire that speared the glassy surface like a dagger. In the sky was the hellist glow of Mustafar. 

With every step Kanan took towards the spire he could feel the darkside tighten its hold on him, weighing him down until he didn't think he'd be able to move at all. The P'aun Inquisitor behind him gave him a forceful push, causing him to falter as the doors to the spire loomed before him. He dug his heels in but the bodies around Kanan were undeniable. 

Kanan lost track of time, the Force moving around him thick and hazy that he couldn't recall entering the Inquisitor's fortress or how he ended up strapped to an interrogation chair. But he did remember the pain. It coursed through him like fire, ripping his skin and muscles down until they were exposed nerves. With every shock his body convulse violently, straining against the metal vices that held him in place. Kanan bit through his tongue trying to hold back his screams. Hot blood filled his mouth, choking him as another round of pain washed over him. 

The Pua'an never asked him any questions - never said a word. He just kept sending bolt after bolt of electricity through Kanan's body until he wasn't even sure he had a body left. Time lost all meaning. He didn't know how long he had been strung up in the chair, at the mercy of the Pua'an, years could have gone by, centuries. When it did stop, Kanan slumped against his restraints, panting, bleeding, and wishing for a death that would never come. Not yet. 

The Inquisition had a new play thing to torture. They wouldn't let him go now that they had him. 

Kanan blinked weakly against the harsh light as a door somewhere out of sight hissed open. Mechanical breathing filled the space and with it a chill that sunk right to the bottom of Kanan's bones. Beside the Pua'an inquisitor stood a masked figure that had Kanan instinctually trying to scramble away, his legs kicking fruitlessly at the metal surface of the chair. 

"What have you brought me, Grand Inquisitor?" the masked figure asked in a deep voice. 

"Depa Billaba's Padawan my lord." the Pua'an responded in a crips Core accent.  

"Ah, the lost Padawan." There was recognition in his tone that made Kanan's skin crawl. "Caleb Dume."

Kanan shook his head, ignoring the spark of pain that flared behind his eyes. No, no that wasn't him. His name was Kanan, Kanan Jarrus - not Caleb. 

"We shall see." the masked man said, his voice echoing in Kanan's mind. He reached his hand out and everything went dark. 

"Follow along younglings." Master Luminara said. "And do try to stay together." She led a small group of three Jedi younglings through the busy hallways of the Republic Senate building. Species from all over the galaxy roamed the gleaming corridors, running to and fro with data pads in their hands or having hushed conversations as they wandered by. Caleb watched them all with curious eyes. He could already feel the questions bubbling to the forefront of his mind.  

Sammo could too and sent a sharp elbow into his side. "Don't even think about it Dume. We haven't even been assigned a Senator yet."

Caleb stuck out his tongue but his Twi'Lek friend had already turned his attention back on Master Luminara. Nerves ate at his belly. Today they would be assigned a Senator to shadow for five rotations to learn how the Senate worked. Some of the older initiates and Padawans had told stories about how boring it was or how mean some of the Senators were. Caleb tried to brush their tales away but some of the fear still remained. 

No, not  fear. A Jedi didn't fear silly things like meeting Senators. He was just cautious, that's all. And Master Kenobi always said it was wise to have caution.

The graceful Mirialan Master stopped outside of an arched silver doorway and waved her hand over the door chime. The doors parted silently and she ushered the younglings in.

Caleb, pushed behind Sammo and Tai, stood on the tips of his toes to try and see the Senator they were being assigned to. 

"Senator Amidala," Master Luminara said. "These are the younglings who will be shadowing you this week. Sammo Quid, Tai Uzuma, and Caleb Dume."

Caleb darted to the side of Tai to stand in line with the other members of his cohort, smoothing down the folds of his tan tunic.

Senator Amidala was beautiful, with dark hair pulled back away from her kind looking face and held in place with thin golden strips of metal. Her gowns were a deep purple that shimmered like twilight. She stood before them with a warm smile that chased away all the fears Caleb had about this assignment. 

"Hello younglings." she offered kindly. "I look forward to spending-"

"But why?" Caleb whispered. They were in the Senate Chamber, thousands of worlds represented in one echoing room. Chancellor Palpatine stood in the center on a raised dais, calmly listening to two senators arguing with one another.

Senator Amidala smiled down at him. "You certainly like that word don't you?"

Caleb blinked, confused. "What word?"

"Why." She chuckled.  

"He doesn't know when to stop using it." Tai grumbled from the other side of the Senator. 

"Well I think it's a wonderful thing.”

Caleb blushed. "I guess it is kind of annoying."

"There is nothing wrong with asking questions youngling, as long as you are asking the right ones."

"But how will I know if they are the right ones?"

"Now, that is a question I can't answer for you. That one you'll have to figure out on-”

Senator Amidala wrapped him up in a warm hug, placing a gentle kiss on the top of his head. "I'm going to miss having you younglings around!" she said, taking a step back.

Caleb could feel the heat color his cheeks. Sammo's face was more purple than blue. Tia, well Tia was Tia but Caleb could tell that she appreciated the Senator's praise. "I hope to see you around after you pass your trials."

"Maybe so if we ever put an end to this war." a new voice said from the doorway. Senator Amidala's face lit up as she looked at the Master who came to collect them.

"Ani - I mean, Master Skywalker. What are you doing here?"

"I came to get these younglings out of your hair." Master Skywalker smirked. 

Caleb felt his heart stutter in his chest. Master Skywalker! Master Skywalker was going to take them back to the Temple! Maybe he could give him some lightsaber pointers or maybe he could explain how -

Kanan slammed back to the present. Bile climbed up his throat burning the abused flesh. He barely had the energy to turn his head before he retched. Tears and snot ran down his face as he heaved, his mind a swirling mist of polluted memories. Tendrils of the darkside clung to him, unrelenting in their torment. 

The Sith had torn into his mind with calculated anger and vengeance. Ripping into long forgotten memories and tossing them aside until he found what he was looking for. And when he did, Kanan didn't think he'd ever be able to think again. The pain was more than physical, it was more than just a passing moment. It was everything. 

"Leave us." the Sith said. Kanan couldn't stop the whimper that escaped his lips.

"My Lord?”

"I said leave us." 

The Sith reached his hand out yet again and Kanan screamed.  

[jaelijn]

Some thoughts on S4

Following on from this post, because I was thinking about this all afternoon and I need to put it into words once and for all.

Under the cut primarily for length and also possibly for an unpopular opinion, from the impression that I’ve gathered over my time of immersing myself in the fandom. (Aka I need you to click this button to agree to see things that you may disagree with and respect that my interpretation is still valid (while I afford you the same courtesy in saying: as is yours).)

Off the bat, I don’t subscribe to these two interpretations:

That Avon becomes intrinsically progressively more of an revolutionary or “is coming around to Blake’s point” (without qualification)

That Avon’s primary motivation is Blake, aka that everything Avon does is because of Blake (without qualifications)

Without qualifications. I’m saying it again because I know how easy this is to overlook, and it matters:

I am not saying that either of these interpretations is utterly and completely wrong. I can see where they come from, and both have their evidence and their justification. I just think it’s far more complicated than that, and not to acknowledge that complexity at all is doing a disservice to the integral complexity of Avon’s character unrelated to his relationship with Blake. That is, to me, it’s the equivalent to reducing Avon’s character to what he is in relationship to Blake, and ignoring everything Avon is and does that does not relate to Blake, as a character in his own right.

I am not disputing that Blake has a huge influence on Avon. I’m really not.

At the same time, I don’t think that it’s a case of Avon “seeing the error of his ways” and now suddenly wanting to do all the things he fought Blake over because he realised how wrong he (Avon) was.

Yes, Avon does not abandon the rebellion entirely after Blake is gone (while or if we consider that nothing outside of himself would prevent him from doing that anyway). This can be read as Avon becoming progressively more supportive of the rebellion. But I think there is a tendency here to forget that Avon doesn’t ever really fight Blake over whether or not the Federation ought to be fought. He argues over methods, and risk, and feasibility. He doesn’t really think they will succeed. But he never argues against the basic idea that the Federation needs to be fought, not even in his very first episode.

So, my reading is that there is nothing for Avon to be coming around to - he was never opposed to Blake on that level in the first place. What Avon does disagree with most is method, and I don’t think that we can argue that, after Blake is gone, Avon comes around to his method. I’ve said it before and I will say it again here: to me, a lot of the things Avon does as de-facto leader speaks to me of trying not to be like Blake in method, S4 included.

Blake led a guerilla war, relying on the military advantage of a superior spacecraft. He made a few abortive attempts at working with / accumulating allies, but mostly Blake’s approach is a fight led by him, and a matter of destroying key targets with his core group. Blake, in my mind, leads a military campaign, and it culminates in the (attempted) destruction of Star One. Note here: Blake only ever wants to destroy Star One. He claims it’s out of fear of corruption, but he shuts down any alternative suggestion immediately, even when reminded of the very real consequences of Star One’s destruction - aka the substantial death toll, or, if you will, the collateral damage.

I agree that this is Blake at his worst, but the fact remains that Blake’s campaign is a military one.

Avon, on the other hand, shows very little interest in destruction. I agree that Avon comes around so far as to agree that running will not be his best chance at survival, and that he is more likely to survive with the Federation gone. But again, I don’t think Avon ever wanted to preserve the Federation in the first place, or even that he ever really was indifferent to its existence. I think Avon has enough reason to hate the Federation; it’s just that he doesn’t think that anyone else is better.

The character development in Avon that I do see on this point is that, perhaps, Blake made him believe that getting rid of the Federation could be done (aka made him believe that it is feasible), that Avon owes something to Blake / Blake’s memory (after all, for all he knows at the start of S4, Blake is dead), and that Avon no longer believes he will be better off if he runs (as he may have done in S1 or S2, but these seasons also very much work on showing that he can’t run, by the force of outside influence).

As for whether it’s primarily because of / for Blake or because of Avon’s only long-term chance at survival, or because Avon continues to find some other value in fighting the Federation for himself - I think it’s all of this at once, and reducing it to one or the other takes away the integrity of Avon as a character and reduces his complexity, rather than showing him becoming a “morally better” character. So I think it’s all of the above, and that includes some influence of Blake’s. 

What I don’t buy is that Avon comes around to Blake’s guerilla tactics or Blake’s methods in general, that is, I don’t think Avon ever thinks he was wrong in his criticism of Blake and tries to step into Blake’s shoes because he “saw the error of his ways”. I don’t see Avon as a character in need to be reformed on that level, because I don’t see him as that oppositional and morally corrupt in the first place.

So, while Avon may feel somewhat responsible for destroying the Federation in Blake’s memory, so I grant that Blake’s influence is a part of Avon’s motivation, I don’t think Avon feels in any way obliged to Blake’s revolutionary methods. When Vila calls Avon out on being like Blake (for refusing to abandon his crewmates and run, not for attacking the Federation!) in “Traitor”, Avon’s response is pure derision at his own actions and Blake’s, and it is a failure to overlook that Avon can be extremely cutting about the things he does himself “for sentiment”.

VILA [...] For pity's sake Avon, get this ship moving while we still have a chance! AVON Slave, I want an infrared surface sweep every thirty seconds, immediate notification of any launchings. SLAVE At once, Master. VILA That'll be too late. AVON I don't think so. We can't be sure that anything has happened to them. SOOLIN Maybe it just wasn't convenient for them to answer. VILA Right, like their arms are being pulled out at the shoulders. AVON Vila, until we are attacked, we are staying. VILA Blake would have been proud of you, you know. AVON I know, but then he never was very bright.

Avon’s decision here isn’t “fight the Federation or not” it’s “leave Tarrant and Dayna to die to be 100% safe or take some risk staying to get them back”, and in situations like this Avon has a record of staying, as much as he may verbally deride sentiment.

In terms of going against the Federation, I think Avon is stuck between a rock and a hard place, and I think the decision he makes is this: Well, if I can’t run, then I have to fight the Federation in my own way as best as I can.  

And yes, the destruction of the Liberator plays into this, as it removes the relative safety of a superior spacecraft, but S3 is equally low on any kind of military attack against the Federation (they’re looking for Blake, they’re looking for potential bases/allies, they’re taking care of some personal issues). And in S4, Avon’s approach is far more focused on gaining strategic advantages that are equally against the Federation as they are essential to ensuring their survival, because these two things have become one and the same.

I don’t think Avon’s refusal to run is because he has discovered his revolutionary fervor: he is as cutting about Blake and Blakeian methods as he always was. The thing is that he is backed into a corner where the only option he has at long-term survival is in getting the better of the Federation, but his method is and remains entirely Avon’s: technological advantages and scientific minds (Remember the S2 detector shield, that was entirely Avon’s idea? Yeah.), financial means, and an alliance to subvert the Federation’s drug control (It isn’t a military alliance! In fact, Zukan’s military power is a threat to the alliance!). And as for that scene in “Traitor” - again, this is hardly the first time Avon risks his life for a potential chance at rescuing his crewmates, so we can’t blame that on “Blake’s good influence” either.

While Avon’s is also an approach that is directed against the Federation (which, again, I don’t think Avon ever had a problem with), it is not the same as Blake’s guerilla approach. It is, perhaps, the prerequisite to an eventual military offense against the Federation - but while that may be a long-term plan, Avon’s immediate approach is an entirely different one. It’s about buying time and gaining a long-term advantage, where Blake’s was about needling the Federation and the destruction of key targets, aka immediate effects, with little (though, granted, there is some) evidence of cohesive long-term planning (even so far as there being no real plan for after the destruction of Star One). It is only when Avon has nothing else left that Avon, literally and figuratively, returns to Blake, and that, I think, is narratively significant.

So yes, Avon’s different circumstances may influence his chosen strategy massively, even though we have some indication that this has always been Avon’s preferred kind of strategy. Either way, to say that Avon is acting increasingly like Blake because he “comes around to being against the Federation” or, in more negative terms, becomes “a revolutionary fanatic” himself, is at best oversimplifying things, and does an injustice to Avon’s morality in earlier seasons.

So I very much disagree with the idea that Avon becomes a better person through “fighting Blake’s fight.” I think the pressure to fight Blake’s fight destroys Avon, utterly, especially as one after the other of his own strategies fails for reasons that have nothing to do with Avon’s planning. Even though a lot of people blame Avon, characters and fans, there is very little evidence that the failure is because of Avon - and that, to me, is the special tragedy of “Orbit”, because in it Avon does everything right. He outsmarts Egrorian and Servalan, he obtains the tachyon funnel, successfully - only then it all goes wrong anyway, because the shuttle is trapped. And Avon doesn’t hesitate to throw the massive advantage that they have just gained against the Federation out in order to give himself and Vila a chance to live.

He does everything right, and ultimately ends up backed into the horrible corner of choosing between living and killing his friend, killing himself, or both of them dying pointlessly, with nothing to be gained from their deaths at all (and probably delivering Orac into Servalan’s hands at the same time). Fanon fix-its and facetious alternates aside, that is the impossible dilemma presented by the episode, and Avon should receive at least some credit for a) not thinking of jettisoning Vila of his own accord and b) immediately jumping to the chance of saving both of them when he sees the chance, even at the risk that he may be far far too late (and may fail without Vila’s help, killing them both after all).

And after “Orbit” and “Warlord” end in catastrophe, Avon gives up. He presents it as pulling a secret out of his hat, but there is nothing left: What he has done hasn’t worked, and the only thing left is Blake, so he returns to him and that fails, too. And I don’t think we can pin that one entirely on Avon, either. Orac, Tarrant, Arlen and Blake are all at least partially at fault. And I don’t see any of the rest of the crew knocking aside Avon’s gun arm, either!

At any rate, that pattern - doing things right and still failing - is what I see in S4. I don’t see Avon doing things wrong. I don’t see Avon being “irrational”. I don’t see Avon trying to be a better person and failing. I don’t see Avon trying to be like Blake and “doing it badly”. I see Avon doing everything he can and still failing.

Someone said somewhere that the thing about tragedies is that the tragic hero is in the wrong story, that in other circumstances their tragic flaw would have saved the day. That, I think, is what also holds true for Avon. And I don’t think the tragedy of Avon (and ultimately the whole series) is that of a failed revolution/rebellion, or at least not only. I think the core tragedy of Blake’s 7 is far more personal. I think the core tragedy of Blake’s 7 is a question of the pressure of impossible odds and a question of trust.

If Avon has a tragic flaw, it is that he struggles with trust in the first place and all circumstances conspire to reinforce that trusting will get him killed. In other words, more often than not Avon is proven right not to trust, so can we really blame him for not trusting more? And yet Avon does trust his crew, and therefore it also is Blake’s (possibly new-found) inability to trust on Gauda Prime that makes him test Tarrant, and sets off the chain reaction that ends in Avon killing him.

Trust, to me, is the most essential theme of the show. That is where I see Blake’s influence on Avon, not in converting him to a revolutionary or a morally better person for being a revolutionary in Blake’s image, but in being a person that trusted Avon, and that Avon probably trusted, too. It’s a question of the ability to trust, the inability to trust, the impossibility to trust. Ultimately, “Blake” ends the way it does because of both lack of trust and overabundance of trust. If Blake had trusted Avon less. If Avon had trusted Blake more. If Blake had trusted Tarrant more. If Avon had trusted Tarrant less.

And frankly, I like that there is no ultimate right or wrong in this.

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

To Do List:

What's up, my Herd of Nerds?

Anyway, as you can tell, tomorrow is AU Sunday. But, because it's one after a 'my input' one, it's a follower input AU day! Yay!

So, send me your AUs and I'll put all of em in a hat to pick one randomly. The winner is picked and posted and we'll all try and make headcanons about your AU.

Done:

Zombie Apocalypse AU :: (https://hermitcraftheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/618314308275863552/zombie-apocalypse-au-masterpost)

Pirate AU ::

Currently In The Raffle:

-Toy Story AU.

-Ever After High/Descendants/Vaguely 'nex gen priness' AU.

-Eldritch Horror AU :: Or if that's a bit too out there, a more normal Monster AU. I don't care, but in my heart, I know Cleo is some kind of eldritch horror. Zombie is far too easy.

-Eldritch Monster AU! Hermits are all Lovecraftian horrors who all individually decided that they wanted to pretend to be normal and are all trying to hide their otherworldliness. I also feel like Mumbo or X or someone as the one actually "normal" player on the server would work well. Most hermits don't know that everyone else isn't normal either, but some find out about friends maybe.

-Rabid Debate Club AU :: Random weird au idea where it's basic hs/uni au but like two of them try to start a debate club, then invite some friends just so there's enough people; cut to like two months later, it's all the hermits just fighting over whether or not pineapple should go on pizza or not lol it isn't very good i'm sorry but ya know rabid debate club AU.

-Animal/shapeshifting AU :: (Suggested Twice.) Every hermit can shapeshift into one token animal. (If it's something like "dog," they can only turn into one breed and color of dog, EXAMPLE: doc can shift into a black sable belgian malinois, but not anything else.)

-Wedding Planners AU :: Hermits work in various unrelated businesses such as a bakery, flower shop, etc., but see each other semi-often bc they're semi-often called upon to work together by another hermit's wedding planning business (obvs if you couldn't tell i know absolutely nothing abt wedding planning & businesses n shit lol but it's the /concept/ of it yannknow)

-Avatar: The Last Air Bender AU. (Suggested Thrice.)

-Fusion AU :: (Also suggested by Anon.) (Suggested Twice.) What if Hermits could fuse with each other? (Viva and Jumbo fused into MumboJumbo.)

-SCP AU :: The hermits have spooky powers and are kept locked up bc of it (or they have to keep the world safe from monsters and cursed objects!)

-RPG AU :: I feel like someone already thought of that but I am just wondering about it lately :p -🍋

-Adventure Time AU :: The hermits live in a post-apocalyptic world and the Lich (bad guy) is making everything decay. They need to gather all the gems (belt colours) to unlock the Enchiridion (a book) and have one wish each granted from Prismo (multiverse wish granting dude) before the Lich does. Only 4 elements can enter the multiverse: Slime (The Lich & Jevin), Redstone (Tango or Mumbo?), Ice (Stress), and Dirt (Grian, much to his dismay). Only the elementals can see the book. Grian's the protagonist with his sidekick Scar. He originally started collecting the belts because they were shiny but eventually decided to read the book and find out what they were for when Scar said he didn't see it. Doc, False, and Iskall are major obstacles because they don't believe the book exists.</p>

-Total Drama Island AU.

-Magical Girl AU :: Zedaph's the lead magical girl and rounds up a bunch of other magical girl hermits.

-Pokeman AU :: What are the Hermit's roles in this world? Who's the Champion, Elite Four. Are they scientists? Trainers? Do they compete in competitions, do they specialize in types? Who's everyone's starter? Has anyone encountered any legendaries?

-College AU

-High School AU

-Wizard101 AU :: I (🦊) recently got this AU idea and recently started going off somewhere with it in terms of writing, but, like, Hermitcraft meets Wizard101. Tons and tons of magical shenanigans, monster hunting, and idk what else.

-Magic AU

-My Hero Academia AU :: Headcanons can be about which hermits would have what quirks and occupations based on them.

-So I'm writing an AU where there's a second game of Demise but 5 years later. So far the first 2 hermits (Joe and Xisuma) have died, and their dead forms are cracked with an arrow in his chest (Xisuma) and cyborg (Joe). So since it's Saturday, I'm looking for what some skins would look for.

-City AU :: I mean this is really just a normal everyday AU.

-School AU.

-Terraria-Minecraft Fusion AU :: Who chooses what class? what events do each hermit prefer? how to they deal with the world infections? preferred biomes? Favourite NPCS? It has potentiallllll.

-70s/80s Teen Horror AU :: (like Stranger Things, Carreie, The Lost Boys, Halloween, etc.) -🦇

-Demi-God AU :: Sort of like percy jackson (everyone being the children of different gods from all different cultures.)

-Supernatural AU

-Marching Band AU :: Xisuma is the band major and all the show music is the remixes. I need to come up with some ideas for uniforms. Outfits and flags for the colorguard too.

-Different Eras AU :: (Suggested Twice.) All the hermits are from different time periods or eras. Like Wels is from the mediveal/dark era, Mumbo is from 1890-1920's, Iskall is from 2030, TFC is from 2020(?), Cleo is from 2130, etc!!! Like the mobs/animals became feused with humans, is when the mob players came from.

-Star Trek AU :: Like maybe they could be on one ship and each have different roles like engineers or doctors? I don’t know if this has been suggested but hope you enjoy! - 🐦

-House Mates AU :: ApartmentAU but scaled down?

-Atlantis AU :: (Could be merged with Mermaid AU???)

-Fighting Game AU :: Some influences would be Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Ultra Instinct, that kind of stuff.

-Time loop AU :: The hermits each have to deal with their own time loop.

(All those above in red are from our community's lovely Anons!)

-Superhero/superpower AU :: They each have a unique power/powerset that is in some way connected to their personality. (ie Mumbo *could* control electricity because of his love of redstone) Some Hermits may even choose to be "villains" and prank their other servermates. If you need power ideas, I've got a couple. (12u3ie)

-Daycare AU :: The recap peeps are the caretakers :P (-@tikauniverse.)

-Incredibly Long Cross Country Train Ride AU :: they all are in the same train car, telling stories of where they’re going, backstories.)

-Stuck In An Airport AU :: pretty similar to train au but they can be going diff places.

-Doctors AU :: they’re all doctors working at the same hospital.)

-Circus AU (Also suggested by an Anon.) (Suggested Twice.)

-Spy AU (Also suggested by @shadeswiftdraws.) (Suggested Twice.)

-Runaways AU :: The hermits are all teenagers who have run away from home, they all live on the streets until TFC takes them in. Head canons can be about backstories, living on the streets, or when they’re with TFC.

-Criminals and Police Officers AU

(-@lookitsspacekween)

-Dancer AU :: I mean, I already got a list kind of planned out, but headcanons for why specific styles are chosen would be appreciated! :) (usedtobelucythefallenangel)

-Broadway/Musicals Hermits AU :: The hermits are all casts of various musicals and when this newly-built theater opens up they all fight for which musical gets to play in it first (they have a riff-off maybe?) musicals mainly included are Hamilton, BMC, DEH, SiX, Beetlejuice, etc (feel free to add more!) (-@heyitsroby.)

-DnD AU (Also suggested by Anon.) (Suggested twice.)

-Mermaid AU :: In honor of the end of Mermay

-Space exploration AU :: There could be different ships, command centers, aliens.... Maybe someone could even get stranded/crash on a new planet? Who knows, could be fun.

-Paranormal/ghost hunter AU :: A couple Hermits could be the ghost hunters going to haunted locations to prove/disprove their hauntedness, others could be camera crew, owners of haunted buildings, or even the ghosts themselves.

-Camping/Vacation AU.

-Summer Cottage AU :: They all spend summers/weekends along the same shoreline and do different summer activities together. Outdoor fun and shenanigans!

-Space AU :: like star trek or similar.

-I would say evil clone au but I think that's pretty much the entire Hermitcraft tumblr right now lol. (Suggested twice.)

(-@shadeswiftdraws.)

-Magic AU :: Magic exists and all the hermits have powers. They can also summon a weapon but what that weapon is depends on the hermit. I'm thinking it'll take place in a sort-of Demise 2 in S7 with a big war. So far I've got: Grian - Cloning himself to his different personas (each has a different power). Xisuma - Making barriers, teleporting, and transforming into different mobs. Scar - Making mutant plants & boosting other hermits' attack & health. (-@datsaltyperson.)

-Demon AU :: Something enters the overworld and turns into a supernatural style-demon through Dimentional Distortion. Who gets posessed first, who goes crazy, and who actually kills it? Honestly I think that, if anything, Tango would know how to gank it, for obvious reasons. (-@fireflower-dusk.)

-High Street AU :: Everyone owns a different shop on the same street or some run a shop together (-@violets-arepurple.)

-Cat AU :: Either they're were always cats, or Hels turned everyone, including himself, into a cat, and they have to survive and overcome challenges in the Season 7 world. An example of a challenge would be Cub's a Sand Cat(the cats that always look like kittens no matter how old they are and live in deserts), and everyone's not sure if he can actually swim, so they have to find a way for him to get around without involving water. (-@scp10000.)

-How about a secret AU.. Every hermit has their big secrets and when Grian joined. He doesn't really know anything about those secrets even till season 7. Not many hermits talked to him in S6 anyway.. Mumbo was the closest to him so they would have regular chats For Iskall is mostly business related things Grian wants to know why so he set out on a quest to force the others to at least talk to him so he wouldn't be lonely. (-@babylightstudentbiscuit.)

-Hermit Family AU :: Xisuma is very busy dad but when he isnt busy the kids and younger hermits annoying the hell out of him. Grian once asked to use Xisuma's computer and crashed the whole thing trying to download illegal gamesites and get money off the internet. Mumbo and his trains run through the entire house and Xisuma trips on them daily. (-@gamerutx.)

-College AU!! But they are not students. THEY ARE THE TEACHERS (-@ivi-prism.)

Ones I planned to do anyway but Hermitblr Hivemind and all that:

Battle of The Bands AU: i believe u once mentioned a bands/ battle of the bands au... thats my jam... (Anon.)

[hypexion]

A Pile of Fanwalkers (Part 3)

Part three of all these fanwalkers. Now it’s time for all the ones who are mean, and should not be trusted. Sometimes because they’ll stab you, and sometimes because they’re just... kind of massively evil.

The basic format for each planeswalker will be a Name/Colour Identity/Pre-Ignition Typeline/Homeplane blob of information, a quickish description of them and some “fun“ facts, and then some hits and misses for extra flavour. Also, I’m going to split this into three posts - “Heroic“, “Okay“ and “Villians“, for I believe I have the moral authority to judge my creations.

Also some of these are going to be from fanplanes, which will go undescribed beyond whatever tidbits come out the character flavour. Others will just have a ?, representing a lack of knowledge and/or sufficent worldbuilding. With that out of the way, let’s go!

Villians

Evil is not a state of being. It is a form of intent, and a form of action. Some of these Planeswalkers can be trusted. Some of them may even appear to be nice. But make no mistake. They have caused suffering. They have altered lives for the worse. Either by design or consequence, their effect upon the multiverse marks them as villians.

Aster - B, Human Warlock, Zodyas - Aster was born under the influence of a bad star, which granted him the ability to draw power from negative emotions. But don’t think that makes him a bad person. Aster’s powers do not compel him to perform evil deeds. They simply enable him. Motivated by nothing greater than his own self-interest, Aster is the truest example of a disaster with a point of view. He was, while it lasted, a member of the Infinite Consortium. After Tezzeret forget how to run it, Aster managed to… convince a number of cells to accept his leadership. While lacking a grand plan for his splinter group, he’s interested in expansion, if only for the sake of increasing his own personal power. Aster may possess a certain kind of charm, and some level of restraint when compared to other ‘walkers, but do not be decieved. The moment harming you becomes worth the effort, Aster will be ready to do so.

Aster is often described as being pale of skin and dark of hair. There’s some weird magic causing that, since different cultures usually focus on different things when describing others. Aster prefers to dress in the fashions of power, whether that happens to be expensive robes, hand-tailored suits, togas or other such clothing. He preferes to wear darker colours, but if opulence is the style of a plane’s elite, then opulent he shall be. While he does carry a mean looking dagger, his primary form of defense are his so-called attendants - humanoid shades he commands via magic. These can perform many tasks, such as “fetch me more wine“, “open that door“ and “kill them“. When Aster planeswalks, he dissipates into a fine black mist. Interestingly, if he’s thinking about planeswalking, his magic generates a similar mist, that trails from him as he moves.

Hits: Power, influcence, tormenting his enemies, using people’s guilt to literally physically crush them. Misses: The undead, constructs, Loxy, Constellation Cults trying to recruit him, being around Ashiok for too long.

Galina - WB, Human Advisor, Ithmorne - In her early life, Galina leaned much more towards the White aspects of her personality. Even as a member of the Zoriac Imperium, she valued their goal of peace greatly, and was one of those that saw certain practices as a detriment to that goal. However, this did not last. When the outpost she was in was raided, everything changed. The ignition of her spark saved her life, but not her right eye. Fortunately for her, Galina arrived on Ravnica within dragging distance of a Simic emergency care clinic, where it was assumed she was an Azorius member who had suffered a run in with the Gruul. This was a role she was happy to take up for real, once the chance provided itself, seeing the Senate as an obvious parallel for the Imperium of her homeplane. In fact, Ravnica seemed to have many similarities with Ithmorne. This could only be due to the work of Azor, the great Sphinx who had brought peace to her warring plane so long ago, and whose Compact still enforced it now. Galina soon realised that her ability to traverse the multiverse would allow her to find more worlds ‘saved’ by Azor, and in turn learn more from them. Ultimately, she decided, those factions on Ithmorne too small to be affected be the Compact would be forced into co-operating. And if not? Then they would perish. Such would be the price of peace. The process had already begun, Galina believed, and if accelerating the pace was necessary, it would be done.

Galina has white skin and long brown hair. Additionally, the events that led to her ignition left her with a noticeable scar, running from her temple, across her right eye, to halfway down her right cheek. Many wonder how her right eye survived such a wound, and the truth is that it didn’t. Instead, she had it replaced by the Simic while on Ravnica. Galina generally wears the standard uniform for those in her position in the Zoriac Imperium - navy blue military robes, kept in the best condition possible. Rather than carry a weapon, Galina relies on her mastery of law magic, using it bind and impede her enemies. She is also capable of many of the standard black mana abilities, especially those which weaken her foes. When combined, these make her a formidable, and potentially deadly opponent. Galina’s planeswalking effect is a jagged and chaotic burst of darkness, which can cause minor damage to living things that nearby.

Hits: Peace through power, Azor, law and order, her own take on the concept of justice, Simic biomagic. Misses: “Barbarians“, insubordination, traumatic memories.

Malius - UBR, Human Wizard, Innistrad - In every profession, there are those that push boundaries. They look at the rules, and wonder which are truly needed. These are the kind of people the majority of Innistrad distrusts. And in the case of the stitcher pariah Malius, they are completely right to do so. While his fellow skaberen found his “wolf with werewolf arms“ experiment a daring new idea, even they had limits. Rumors began that he had started to use demons as a source of parts, and that he consorted with diabolists for unknown purposes. These rumors contained some truth - Malius was interested in demons and had, for a time, used them to “improve” his creations. But over time, he had become interested in the nature of demonic pacts, and how one might acquire the benefits without having to pay the price. Somehow, he was able to construct a device that extracted the source of a demon’s power, and began using it to infuse himself with dark power. For a time, not demon, nor mob, nor torch-wielding monstrosity could stop him. The destruction of the Helvault was an opportunity to Malius, bring him yet more specimins. Everything was going well, until an angel arrived. She cut through his creations, and had both the strength and motivation to kill Malius. In an act of desparation, he activated the extractor, aiming it at the angel. She exploded (don’t worry - she got better (sort of)). This would have been incredibly fatal to Malius had his Spark not ignited, sending him across the Blind Eternities to Zendikar. And so, he soon discovered all sorts of new things to stitch. Including Eldrazi. In fact, Malius was straight-up ecstatic during the events of Eldritch Moon.

Malius’ various experiments have left him with sickly, pallid skin, and pale white hair. His eyes no longer appear human, and those who spend time around him soon feel uneasy. Malius wears the standard dress of the stitcher, a white labcoat, brimming with tools and notebooks. Malius often manipulates his tools via telekinesis, either to work upon a new creation, or as a method of attack. In dire situations, he calls upon the demonic powers he has infused himself with, physically taking on the form of a demon. This grants him signifigance strength, speed and endurance while it lasts, but prevents him from planeswalking, making it as risky as it is useful. When Malius planeswalkers, he disappears in cloud of dark and burning ash, crackling with lightning. This occurs even when he cannot actually planeswalk due to being a demon.

Hits: Extracting demonic power, demonic infusions, terrifying creations. Misses: Angels, torch-weilding mobs, basic medical ethics.

Skath - WBG, Naga Assassin, Orpheri - At first glance, Skath is like any other planeswalker assassin you might meet. She kills people for money, and she does it well. However, she is still a member of the organisation that trained her, a religious order of assassins on Orpheri. So Skath will not kill those standing on sacred grond, those not old enough to be an adult of their kind, and she requires more than just a payment before targetting a diplomat or member of a religious order. Beyond the rules of her faith, however, Skath kills without hesitation, selling death for gold and jewels. When not killing, she is surprisingly thoughtful, a writer of poetry and cultivator of interesting plants. And while unrepentant, she not always unrelenting. Put up enought of a fight, or simple hide in a shrine for a few days, and Skath will move onto easier targets.

Skath has copper-brown scales, and no hair, because Naga don’t have hair on Orpheri. She wears light armor on her torso, which is engraved with protective magic. Her favoured weapons are two scimitars, enchanted to deliver venomous strikes. She also carries a dagger, and a number of poisons, so that she might have the perfect tool for any assassination. In a pinch, she can bite someone, however the Naga Assassins of Orpheri consider this an act of last resort. Mainly because once you identify the cause of death as Naga venom, finding the killer is fairly simple. Skath planeswalks with a flash of pale orange light, leaving behind traces of sand. Interestingly, she is capable of being incredibly precise with her appearance on a plane, and has sometimes managed to planeswalk into a room based on it’s relative position to a know location.

Hits: Getting paid, botany, the statisfaction of a job well done. Misses: Cold places, oath-breakers, Locke, people attacking her from sacred ground (this is actually a bad idea - her religion sees this as an act of desecration, meaning you ultimately forfeit the protection provided).

Look at all these not nice people. It’s probably best to keep a distance between you and them. Of course, their motivations differ greatly, so if you were to find yourself in close proximity to them, you might be able to avoid getting stabbed. Or worse.

[sometimesrosy]

Why this fandom is so extremly stupid, now making drama about posts, interviews words that JR said years ago, he is quiet now, he did not say anything, this fandom is the worst i am so sorry for what i am gonna say now, but i am gladly to not be part of the 100 fandom anymore , is the worst fandom specially antis but bellarks are too.

Ah see, the bellarkes are antis. I call them the blorke antis. They ship a fanon bellarke, and because it is not the same as canon bellarke, they now hate canon bellarke. 

They keep making JR the enemy, whether he says something supportive of Bellarke (they call that bait,) says something supportive of another character (they call that hating on bellarke,) says something unrelated to bellarke (he is ignoring bellarke,) says something about fandom (they will willfully misinterpret that to make it evidence that he is the devil,) says something unrelated to the 100 at all (they will take it as evidence that he hates bellarke,) or says nothing at all (evidence that he hates bellarke, is full of ego, is neglecting bellarke, is the devil.)

It doesn’t matter what he says or does, they take it as reason to hate on him.

When a person or a group of people hate someone for EVERYTHING he does, whether he does what they ask or not, then the problem is not with the person. It is with the group. THEY hate him. REGARDLESS of his actions. Therefore, it has nothing to do with his actions, he can’t do anything to change their opinion, so it isn’t about HIM it’s about them. They are biased against him and unwilling to change. 

I’ve been called JRs whore multiple times. They say I kiss his ass. And do other things. Just because I like his show and the story he’s telling and disagree with their interpretations. And it’s really funny, because there are blorke antis who DID actually kiss his ass for connections and interviews, and then drag him behind his back and call him names and spread gossip. But no one calls THEM asskissers, despite all the asskissing they did in full view of us all. 

I don’t know JR. I have never met him. I have never had a conversation with him on social media. If he has read my meta, I haven’t heard of it. I have had conversations with Javi and with a PA on the 100 staff who thanked me for being positive and probably found me through the tags. That’s the extent of my interaction with the cast and crew of the show. 

I am JUST an educated viewer with an interest in storytelling and writing and science fiction. I have been observing fandom, along with canon, and yeah. It’s pretty bad. I’m not sure it’s WORST. I think Star Wars might be worst. Whenever you have such a big audience things can go bad. People have opposing viewpoints and if even. 1% of the fandom is psychotic and cruel, that’s a hell of a lot of people with loud voices. And those things effect us all.

I think the problem with the 100 fandom might have started when some unethical reviewers saw the potential for a wlw story that we hadn’t seen in pop culture, and decided that the show was ABOUT Lxa and would be a beautiful love story-- a romance with a happy ending, despite what the show was actually about (the 100) the genre (post apocalyptic survival action tragedy) and who the main character was (Clarke, who was NEVER the love interest, but the hero. And Bellamy, who was NOT the villain, but the secondary protagonist.) They drew in an audience, and told them a different story than was on screen. And because they believed in what the reviewers told them OVER the canon evidence in front of them, they began saying that those who focused on canon, or saw Bellarke, not CL, were delusional. And then that JR hated Bellarke and so did Bob and Eliza. To add to that was JR pretty crappy social media behavior where he did play favorites. It might just have been because he loved the CL storyline, and wasn’t going to give away his longgame story but it still read as favoritism, which exacerbated the ship wars: Daddy likes us better than you. Then Daddy killed off L and they turned on him like rabid hyenas. 

Were they hurt? Yes. Was it foreshadowed from the beginning? Yes it was. Did the unethical reviewers erase the canon that foreshadowed it and keep telling us that CL was the epic love tale they had been waiting for? Yes they did. THEY made the fandom expect CL to be endgame and lovely, and erased the story. This then became the way fandom related to canon. ANYONE who focused on canon instead of fanon (including their definition for love: kiss/confess/sex) was called delusional.

Now in the end, when we have bellarke closer than ever, in an epic love story that was meltingly romantic and heartbreaking and amazing, the fandom no longer believes in canon. Or in bellarke. Or in the story. Or in romance. And definitely not in JR. 

They believe in hate. And they believe in any meta that spreads hate. If meta points out the way that JR is the devil, they believe in it. If a review points out the way JR betrayed bellarke, they believe it. If a tweeter spread unconfirmed gossip that bellarke is dead with no evidence whatsoever, THEY BELIEVE IT, over the canon evidence they see with their own eyes.

The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. --George Orwell, 1984

*Sigh*

Just stick to the text, folks. That’s how we know what’s happening on the show. Compare theories with the canon evidence, and if there’s enough to support it, and no evidence to dispute it, then you can go with that theory. If someone tells you that Bellarke is dead, and yet Bellamy brings Clarke back to life with an intimate and powerful scene where he tells her he needs her and gives her the kiss of life, and then they are tender and intimate afterwards and he is withdrawn and a comrade to Echo, and the drama ends with Bellarke hugging in romantic light with swelling emotion and intimacy (and then cuts to a tag of B/E being unromantic and business like) then the evidence of the canon disputes the stupid gossip that Bellarke is dead. So we can cross that fanon bs off our list of things to pay attention to.

If someone tells you to believe them and ignore the evidence on screen, then they are about controlling your thoughts, gaining power, and ego. Over what? Their behavior won’t change the story. JR’s still going to tell the story he wants. He’ll give us what we’ve been asking for all this time, and then those antis will come back and say he did it wrong because otherwise they would have seen it and it was bad writing.

I know this is going to happen because it already happened and continues to happen. Fandom rejects the story and evidence in favor of a fanon told by a biased and self centered fandom.

There’s something wrong with fandom. And we don’t have to agree to play. We can create our own bubble in fandom in which we enjoy the things we enjoy and do not chase someone to hate. 

[atamascolily]

Lily reads Star Wars: Red Harvest, part four

In which sentient plants offer excellent advice, but it doesn't help, and the zombie mayhem at Sith Hogwarts begins.

(If you’re just joining me, check out the “Red Harvest” tag on my blog for previous posts)

At Sith Hogwarts, we learn that the Big Bad is even more devious than we previously assumed:

Her name’s Hestizo Trace,” the Whiphid said. “She’s the orchid’s keeper. It needs her to—”

“Survive,” Scabrous said. “I know. That’s how I knew you were bringing me the genuine article.” He reached up and touched her face, his gloved hand cold against her cheek, like leather wrapped around an iron rod. “It was the one piece of information that I withheld about the orchid.”

PRO-TIP: DON'T DO BUSINESS WITH THE SITH. THEY *ALWAYS* CHEAT.

The Sith Lord nodded. “My droid will pay you on the way out.”

Time for another double-cross? That droid ain’t a HK for nothing...

Anyway, horrible Sith experiments follow using the orchid. Other Sith students spy and scheme. The student Scabrous tortured to death rises from his cage and breaks free. The zombie's first act is to bite off part of Darth Scabrous's face. Good for him, though it doesn't take.

Metal struck metal with a flat, declarative clang that reminded him somehow of the sound of training blades clashing at the top of the temple. It was a noise that said: Things have been put into motion, and whatever happens next, there will be no going back.

#accurate

More Sith students die, but it's hard to care because they're such terrible people. (Though we also learn that some of them were conscripted into the Academy, so they didn't necessarily start off as terrible people, but they sure are now!) I'm skimming a lot because it's all incredibly violent.

Zo escapes in the chaos. Darth Scabrous does some awful Sith alchemy to keep from turning into more of a monster than he already is. Zo eavesdrop on the Sith masters explaining to the students that it's just another Tuesday:

Zo realized as she listened that she could hear a slight but unmistakable tremor of concern in the Master’s tone. He was doing everything he could to cover it up, and perhaps the students were fooled, but to her mind he might as well have been wearing a placard: I’M DOING MY BEST TO SPIN A SITUATION THAT I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO ABILITY TO COMPREHEND, LET ALONE CONTROL, AND—

The orchid talks to Zo and warns her of trouble, but it doesn't help. The bounty hunter shows up again and grabs her before the infected students do. Cliffhanger!

Meanwhile, we meet a Sith nerd who just wants to translate secret Sith scrolls for Ultimate Power--who is also the only female student we've seen thus far. There's a sentient tree librarian in a crumbling library and I'm here for it.

“Something unsettling you, Kindra?” His voice was thick and raspy. “Some uncertainty of the mind, yes?”

“No.”

The librarian didn’t respond, just continued to slither his branches downward until the great bulk of his trunk dangled upside down in front of her, the warty, centuries-old eyes narrowing with myopic consideration. Dail’Liss had been the curator of the library for as long as anyone could remember, perhaps going back a thousand years or more. Although his elaborate root system was permanently embedded somewhere deep in the foundation, a seemingly endless network of branches and limbs allowed him to slide unimpeded through its walls and hollows. Ironically, it was this constant writhing and squirming that undermined the infrastructure of the building itself. Rumor was that it would only be a matter of time before the Neti brought the library down on top of him, sealing himself forever amid his own precious holdings—a fitting enough end, when Kindra thought about it.

“Look.” Kindra shook her head, increasingly irritated by the librarian’s evasiveness. “Either you have answers for me or you don’t. Either way I’m not going to stay in here and hide.”

“Best course of action, I would say.”

Tree!Librarian is right. She's not going to survive is, she? But I'm still kinda rooting for her, if only because everyone else is so awful in comparison. We haven't seen Kindra doing anything evil yet, but I'm sure she has, if only because she's still alive in this place and kindness is anathema to baby Sith.

The Tree!Librarian also doesn't seem evil... yet? How did he get here? What's his deal and why? I am so curious and this is all the backstory I'm getting, which is to say, almost nothing. Sigh.

One of the students gets bitten. His arm starts rotting.  This Is Fine.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Meaning what?”

“I’ve got a bad feeling.” ...

“About what?”

“I don’t know—this night, everything. You feel it?”

“Nope.” He shook his head, feigning an indifference that he didn’t even remotely feel. “Just another day in paradise, as far as I’m concerned.”

LOL, irony.

More zombies. More attacks on Sith students. Chapter Twenty is called "Lockdown" and I just can't even. Most of the Sith students are literally locked in the cafeteria with their ex-colleagues, and then the bloodbath starts. They're using the Dark Side to fight the zombies. It doesn't go well.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, this whole premise is fucking genius, because again, everyone at a Sith Academy is a horrible person doing horrible things in their horrible gothic nightmare castle, so it's hard to feel bad when they are horribly murdered by horrible Sith zombie alchemy monsters. It just feels like Laser-Guided Karma.

Shit just got real because Not!Qui-Gon arrives at the Sith Academy. The mechanic who greeted the bounty hunters is now missing, presumed dead It's tough to be psychometrist when everything you touch generates visions of violent death.

Meanwhile, a handful of surviving Sith students team up, kinda:

Ra’at held Maggs and Hartwig in the same regard that he did the rest of his classmates, with a kind of suspicious indifference. Their motives were purely selfish, as were his; he had no intention of sharing information that didn’t somehow improve his own situation. At this point they all knew something had gone very wrong, contaminating the academy or the entire planet; for the moment they were allies of opportunity.

These Sith can't even work together long enough to survive the crisis. No wonder the Jedi eventually kicked the Siths’ collective asses through the Power of Friendship.

Here, have some conspiracy theories along with your nightmare fuel:

“We all feel something kind of bad in the air, right? Like maybe some kind of a … disease. But who’s to say it’s not just one of Scabrous’s drills?”

Kindra’s eyebrows went up. “Excuse me?”

“For all we know he started this himself.”

“Why?”

“Maybe it is a training exercise,” Maggs put in. “Or maybe he’s culling the weak students. It’s happened before. Remember the unakki eye spiders?”

“This is worse,” Kindra said.

“Don’t be so sure,” Hartwig said. “Eleven students went blind. Two of them died. Remember Soid Einray?”

“Soid Einray was a defective already.”

“Maybe, but he still hung himself afterward. And then we found out that Scabrous had reactivated the fertilized spider eggs from the pathogen bank as a nerve-reflexivity drill.” Hartwig refused to lower his stare. “I still wake up with blood in my eyes sometimes.”

Just another day at Sith Hogwarts, am I right? What a terrible place.

Ra’at began concentrating solely on himself and his own survival, forgetting all the others. The Masters at the academy had trained them to fight as a unit when necessary, but a Sith warrior’s true strength lay in his or her own personal will to power. When you could trust no one, fighting alone was axiomatic, a natural state.

Flattening himself to the wall, he felt the Force’s dark side coursing through him, a crackling electric chill that rendered fear and apprehension obsolete, and welcomed it. In that moment, he felt only a ready vigilance, weightless and unrelenting. Since arriving here on Odacer-Faustin, it was the closest to happiness that he dared let himself experience. Yet in so many ways it was superior to any happiness he’d ever encountered. It made traditional happiness look anemic by comparison.

The POV Sith students watch the cafeteria zombie attack on the security cameras, and realize what they're up against. Meanwhile, Zo is also realizing how much trouble she's in, and the orchid is having a breakdown:

They can’t be killed, a voice whispered from the back of her mind, they’re already dead, look at them. At first she thought she was hearing her own thoughts, and then she realized it was the Murakami orchid, roiling in its own guilt and misery, yammering out words that she alone could hear. Dead but alive, Hestizo, dead but alive, I did this to them, it was my fault, when Scabrous put me into that horrible vat, and now I’m inside them—

Poor orchid. I really like that it isn't evil and is just as horrified as Zo about all this. I’m still not sure how that’s possible, or what actually happened, but that’s okay, because none of the character do, either!

Zo is about to be eaten by the zombies, but then--

I’ve got an idea, she told the orchid. Grow.

What?

You’re in them now, she said, aren’t you? You’re a part of them. You said so yourself.

The orchid does, and the zombies explode through Plant Power.

She concentrated harder—she could actually see the flora growing inside the things now, driving it harder, farther, faster from within, even as the orchid began crying out, begging her to stop, telling her that this hurt, it couldn’t do it anymore—

A lot of screaming follows. But it does work. Once. And then the orchid passes out and... becomes evil? Oh, no, I hope not. Turns out the bounty hunter is still alive, and she's working with him now to survive, like you do. I bet he’s regretting his life choices right now, too.

At that moment, Scabrous had assumed that what he’d seen was a kind of exaggerated nervous twitch, a biochemical accident that the drug and the orchid had triggered inside Nickter’s body. But now—

I wasn’t kidding when I said nobody knows what’s going on; not even the Big Bad has any idea of the forces (ha!) he’s unleashed. He determines that Zo is fleeing for the library, and prepares to trap her there. Will not!Qui-gon get there in time?

Spoiler: not quite.

[tenleaguesbeneath]

Since the person I’m running this game for isn’t on tumblr, I think I can post this here. Some brainstorming for a one-on-one game of Stars without Number sort-of inspired by Alexis Kennedy’s style; it helps me to work things out through dialogue but also to write it down (Eli, if you’re reading this, don’t click the cut)

an idea I really like for this is the association between dream, psionics, and metadimensions. There are already rules about what kind of intelligences can become psychic/are prone to MES, and I’m thinking in my world dreaming, proper dreaming (which has not been fully replicated with AI, though some experiments might have come close) is necessary.

Dreamers, especially those who are psychics or have histories of metadimensional travel (especially if they’ve lost bubble stability, even for a moment), might have visions of or even project themselves into things in metadimensional space. The entities that exist there are thus somewhat shaped by dreams; this makes them, to an extent, comprehensible and also a “common language” for all psychically-sensitive sentient life (sapient or otherwise). In the game world’s prehistory, this is probably a factor in the evolutionary development of dreaming, and so one need not have prior metadimensional experience to experience this.

Psychic echoes of past events might also linger in metadimensional space. The sensitive may experience them as dreams. These events were often traumatic for the original sufferer(s), though the collective nightmares of an alien species may be completely unintelligible to a human except as a psychic impression, a translation of an emotion.

I’m not sure if any metadimensional entities independently evolved there free of relation to the species living in standard space, or if all of them are creations.

An alien species I want to have, probably the oldest one anyone will interact with, is a species of plasma entities that live in the upper layers of stars (I’ll work out the details of what temperature range they inhabit later). They evolved on one of the oldest stars when the universe was young, and when that star went supernova escaped through various means (physically through metaspace, by projecting “spores” of electromagnetic waves that would impose the basic pattern of their species onto another star, and by other means). They dream, and are highly adept psychics. They’re probably the size of a continent, or at least a mountain.

One of the things that I like in particular as like, an early influence they might have is a dream of a sensation like the loss of home, like a deep cold that strikes all the way through your body all at once but that can’t be called “bonechilling” because the concept of “bone” is meaningless, like being trapped in an endless void after surviving the end of all ends.

Where they are power players, they appear to be metadimensional in origin at first, but are actually aliens. The dream-palaces that they have created in metadimensional space are probably easier to interact with than their actual presence inside stars. They might use these palaces to allow communication between entities inhabiting different stars.

I like the idea that one of them (maybe more than one) has some means of psychic time travel, or at least getting information from their future self to the present, and has hurled themself(/ves? at the scale they’re on unitary consciousness might be impossible. on the other hand, it’s an illusion in humans so idk) into a black hole, and as they approach the singularity, they see all of time lined up before them. With their psychic knowledge transfer, their sacrifice means that in the moment they pass the event horizon, they can answer anything.

I could see a star being swallowed by a black hole serving as a sort of monastery like this, actually.

I’m thinking they need an enemy. This one might be purely metadimensional, maybe created from their terror or something. an opposite counterpart. Whatever their conflict is, it plays out on a timescale far far greater than human. Maybe to the point that both sides guide organic evolution toward metadimensional susceptibility because the dreams of the organics (who are vastly more numerous than the combatants) set the terrain of the battles in metaspace

On that note, I think it’ll be a third (meta/alien) faction that works on a timescale closer to humans, unrelated to either of these two (the timescale difference makes the concept of an “alliance” weird) who has created some species of human-appearing monsters like D&D’s doppelgangers and things like that by engineering from a human baseline. Their appearance is human, but their larger motives are ahuman.

Also, I’m not sold either way, but given the implication in the rulebook that there’s a spectrum of metadimensional space and that the spike drive allows you to travel up and down that spectrum, I’m thinking most metadimensional entities can dream higher into metadimensional space than their basic existence. As higher metadimensions are full of the dreams of more and more metadimensional entities and powerful psychics who have adapted their minds specifically to metadimensionology, and fewer and fewer commonplace people, there are fewer and fewer touchstones to make them comprehensible to the uninitiated the higher you go.

The Scream, of course, was the culmination of a move in the war between the old species. That pretty much falls out of everything else I established. Not sure which side did it or if it was deliberate or an accident

[dregstrash]

Fever Dreams and Shadow Games

A/N: Ahh!!! Chapter 5 of this amazing collab with @wafflesandkruge​. We’re getting close to the end and both me and wafflesandkruge want to write the best chapters we can, but life is getting in the way so we’re going to be posting every two weeks from now. Thank you for sticking with this story and for showing it all the love and support!!!

AO3

Tagging: @aditiiparasharr​  @strummoner​  @itsbrilliantjustlikeyou​ @but-she-was-aelin-galathynius​ @shadowbusiness @privateerrezni​ @roonill--wazlib​ @the-jennster​ @the-regal-warrior​ @kazual-crow​ @ipizzippy​ @inkpot-dreamer​ @bookwormsincebirth​ @hollyblue2171​ @ysitsohardtofindaname​ @fluffy-hedwig​ 

Previous Chapters: 1 ||  2 ||  3 ||  4 ||

CHAPTER 5: Dinners with Jesters

The crowd was collectively holding its breath. Even Nikolai felt his grip on the seat tighten as Kaz moved towards the grand finale of his act. The heavy material that lay flat on the surface couldn’t have been hiding a trap door. Nikolai knew the layout of the grounds where the Cirque de Lie was set up. There’s nothing but hard packed dirt, and yet with a flourish and a spark, Kaz twisted the heavy material and out appeared three large boxes decorated in the circus’ colors. With dramatic flair that could rival a film star’s, he kicked open the boxes to reveal that they were weighed down with heavy lead pipes, a fact that made his feat all the more impressive.

The people roared and Nikolai joined them. He would have to ask Brekker how he did that. That is, if he chose to tell him the truth.

“You’re acting like a child,” Zoya said as she got up from her seat and smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress.

“You mean I’m properly appreciating magic,” he corrected, brushing off popcorn kernels from his suit.

“You mean tricks?” she countered.

Nikolai opened his mouth to counter her point when Wylan reappeared at the entrance.

“If the gentlemen and the lady would follow me,” he asked formally. “Mr. Rollins, will Alby be joining us?”

“I suppose not,” Rollins sniffed, “He seems to have disappeared.”

“I’m sure he’ll turn up, sir,” Wylan responded stiffly, his brassy accent stark against Rollins’s polished one.

Nikolai and Zoya were the last ones to exit the closed off section. Vasily and Rollins followed Wylan closely, but Kirgin fell back to walk beside them.

“Truly spectacular show tonight, don’t you think?” he asked, clapping Nikolai’s back good-naturedly. If he was any other man, the behavior would have been suspicious. But Kirgin had always been a simple man with a penchant for debauchery and any sort of title that would make him seem a little more honorable. Up until this election, he was a dear friend of Nikolai’s.

“It was indeed,” Nikolai responded absentmindedly. He watched as Vasily bent down to whisper something in Rollins’s ear.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen that particular acrobatic routine done before and I was just at last night’s show!” Kirigin continued, not seeming to notice Nikolai’s inattention.

“You go to the circus often, Kirgin?” Nikolai asked, surprised.

At this the other man gained a bit of a flush and side-eyed Zoya before leaning in towards Nikolai conspiratorially. “I find the circus’ company a bit more….flavorful than regular women….”

Nikolai forced a smile. “No need to say anymore.”

“And when your brother invited me for another night I could hardly resist,” he said at a normal level.

“Why did he invite you along?” Zoya asked, wedging her way into the conversation.

Kirgin’s face brightened even more. “I haven’t the faintest, Miss Zoya. Something about smoothing over relationships and good shows of faith.”

While he was busy staring at Zoya, her eyes caught Nikolai’s and they held each other’s gaze in an unspoken question.

If Vasily brought Kirgin along to show the people that there was no bad blood between them then that couldn’t have been a coincidence. Either Vasily was overconfident and bringing Kirgin was merely part of him flaunting the fact victory was almost his. Or his brother knew something he didn’t.

“Welcome, welcome!” A woman’s cheery voice greeted them at the entrance of a large circus tent and Nikolai forced his mind into the present.

Nina Zenik had changed out of her performance clothes and in its place she wore a low-cut red dress that clung to her in all the right places. The glitter that made her sparkle under the firelight during her act was still lightly dusted onto her face and shoulders, casting her skin in a beautiful glow. She made eye contact with each of the guests, but let her startling green eyes linger obviously on Rollins.

“We hope the gentlemen and lady enjoyed tonight’s show,” Nina purred as she and Wylan helped get them seated around the large wooden table ladened with different foods and drink, “And we hope that tonight’s supper can measure equally.”

Nikolai was seated to the left of the head of the table with Zoya to his right and an empty seat directly in front of him. Next to Zoya was Nina who was giving her utmost attention to Rollins. Vasily was across from him sitting directly next to Matthias—who looked like he was ready to snap his plate in half with every giggle out of Nina’s mouth. Kirgin was placed next to Jesper closer to the end of the table and, from what Nikolai could see, the pair were already chatting away.

As the company sat, waiting for their illustrious host to make an appearance, Nikolai couldn’t help but marvel at the strategy of their placements. With Rollins and Vasily far enough from the head of the table and properly engaged with the rest of the circus cast, whatever conversation Nikolai and Zoya night have would be protected.

“Hope you enjoy the food,” a dark voice said suddenly. Kaz emerged from another entrance of the tent. He wasn’t wearing his dark red coat when he came and sat by Nikolai. He was dressed more in the fashion of respectable gentlemen with a dark coat and a simple vest. His gloves were still on.

“It’s a bit rude to keep your guests waiting, is it not Mr. Brekker?” Vasily asked, looking down his nose as Kaz leaned back in his seat.

“Unlike pretending to run your father’s business, running a circus is quite complicated, Mr. Lantsov. It must take up a bit more of one’s time when the show ends.”

Twin spots of red appeared on Vasily’s cheeks, but before he could spit out whatever retort was on his tongue, Kaz had already moved his attention to Rollins. And Nikolai was sure that he didn’t make up the darkness that flickered over the depths of Kaz’s eyes. While he looked at Vasily like he was a child to be pushed away, he looked at Rollins like a cat playing with a mouse.

“I hope you find the food to your satisfaction, Mr. Rollins,” he said. To his credit, his voice didn’t betray an ounce of the malevolence his eyes held.

The man tore his attention away from Nina to give Kaz a patronizing smile.

“I’m sure it’s of a fine enough quality for common people.”

Nikolai felt Zoya stiffen beside him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked calmly, which was never a good sign. Nikolai had had to apologize to enough people who’d suffered Zoya’s wrath to know.

“Let’s not pretend that the circus business is so ludicrous that it would have the finest of foods.” Rollins smiled as if that made it better.

“Not everyone has a taste for richer foods,” Nikolai said. He painfully remembered the days after he got home for the war. His parents had thrown him a luxurious party. All of his schoolmates were there, drinking to his survival and to their victory. And as far as the eye could see were cakes and meats drenched in rich sauces and dips.

He could clearly remember himself painfully smiling through the crowd while pretending that every loud noise or every bang of a chair didn’t make him tense-- always waiting for the next gunshot or attack. Then someone had pressed a plate of food into his hands and he’d had no choice other than to take at least a nibble to be polite. Years of eating hard bread and watered down soup had made his tongue a hard and unrelenting thing that only ate to live. His mouth was not prepared for the assault of the spices or the density of the food.

It was a miracle that he had excused himself gracefully enough to throw up in the bathroom where a soft knock had interrupted his retching.

“It’ll get better,” Zoya had said quietly, slipping into the bathroom. Nikolai had been too sick to even tease her about what other people might say if they had seen her. She had placed a wet towel against the back of his neck, cooling the burning there. “The first time my aunt had tea, I could barely keep my eyes from watering when I ate the cake she ordered.”

“I hate them,” Nikolai had grumbled, his head pressed against the edge of the sink. “I hate that they eat and drink as if it were easy. As if there is always going to be food. Dominik--”

“Wouldn’t want you sulking,” Zoya had said crouching down to where he was. Her dress had been silver and it wrinkled as she knelt beside him. She had forced him to turn his head to look at her and he steadied his racing heart in the blue of her eyes. “Forget about them-- You don’t have to be who they want you to be anymore.”

He had barked out a laugh. “Of course, I do. Which of us has been lying to their aunt that they’re looking for a husband amongst that lot?”

Zoya rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. You were almost blown out of the sky, Nikolai.” He winced as a memory of fire and thunder flashed in his mind. “You should have died, but you didn’t.” She was holding his face now. “And that means everything after I picked you out of the sky is extra. Every heartbeat, every moment you have right now is extra life and that means you can do whatever the fuck you want with it.”

Nikolai remembered those words so vehemently. He remembered the moment they fully sunk in and took root in his mind. The small seed grew into a tree of possibilities and had given Nikolai enough strength to walk back out of that bathroom with a smile on his face and a determination that belonged to a renewed man.

A renewed man, but a man who never forgot the pains of the old life.

“Forgive my brother, Mr. Rollins,” Vasily interjected. “It seems his tastes have been much affected by the war.”

“What would you know about it?” Nikolai asked struggling to keep his voice in control. “I don’t remember you fighting in the trenches.”

“A gentleman never forgets his manners.”

“And an ass never seems to stop being one,” Zoya retorted, loudly enough that Jesper had to use a coughing fit to cover his laughter.

“Anyways,” Nina drawled, breaking the tension by pulling Rollins’s attention back to her. “May I interest you, Pekka, in a fortune reading? I don’t do it for free for just anyone you know? Kaz over there makes me charge normal guests two pence each fortune.”

“I don’t know, Miss Zenik,” he purred disgustingly as his hands wandered a bit too low on her back. “I’m really not one to believe in all that hocum.”

“Oh, just give it a try.” She winked at him as she pulled out a deck of tarot cards from her sleeve. “You never know, you may like it.”

Nikolai wanted to watch as Rollins finally gave in and Matthias looked like he wanted to lay him flat, but Kaz chose that moment to lean into his ear.

“Watch your back, and Nazyalensky’s too. Things might get a little get messy on your end, Rollins and your brother are planning something.”

“What?” Nikolai couldn’t help but let out a cough of surprise.

“Local gang is involved. That’s all we have for now. I’ll send a couple of my guys to trail you tonight.”

“I’m assuming your acrobat is on the hunting grounds,” Nikolai said gesturing to the empty seat in front of him.

“Inej is….out there. But don’t worry that pretty little head, Lantsov. We’ll try to get you out alive and on top.”

“Kaz Brekker, did you just call me pretty?”

The younger man smirked at him and leaned away, leaving Nikolai to turn this piece of news over in his mind. Vasily was willing to hurt him? He could expect some of that behavior from Rollins, but his own brother? Maybe a small part of Nikolai wanted to believe that despite all their differences, there could still be a way for Vasily to be the older brother that he used to admire. Looking at his smug face from across the table, he knew that he was being naive. Vasily was a selfish prick at birth, he didn’t stop being one in his adult life.

“Oh my dear, how wrong your little spirits are.” Rollins had somehow gotten even closer to Nina’s side, and brushed the hair at the back of her neck off her shoulder. “Are you sure you heard them correctly?”

“Why yes of course I heard them correctly.” Nina smiled as she brushed her hand across his chest. “The cards very clearly say that your closest friends are the esteemed Mister Buckley, Lord Cavenaw, and Mister Kantor.”

“No, no, no.” A knuckle on her cheek, a dangerous look in his eyes. It was a disgusting display that Nikolai was surprised Kaz allowed for one of his closer circus performers. “You wound me, my dear. I’ll have you know that I run with a finer circle of gentlemen, not the riffraff you described. Why, I just dined last night with Lord Chamberly, Lord Terrence, and Lord Christansen. Fine men that keep this city running.”

And keep you in office, Nikolai thought as he took a sip of his wine. Rollins had half the city’s politicians in his pocket. Keeping the rich where they were and leaving the poor to suffer and suffer. But his reign of terror was ending. With Kaz’s plan he could change everything. He just had to survive long enough to get elected.

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

Nina needed a hot, rose petal bath. She needed one this instant with a plate of chocolate dipped strawberries and a glass of champagne. It’s what she deserved after a long night of flirting with that awful man and his cheap cologne. But what she had instead was a half-empty bottle of vodka the kitchen staff saved for her.

She understood why bad men did terrible things, but why did they also have terrible taste in scents? Rollins’s disgusting musk clung to her clothes and despite her attempts to breathe through her mouth, nothing was helping.

Matthias was silent the whole way as he walked her back to her tent, and she almost wanted to tease him about having a lot of restraint tonight, but that also would make her remember the hot sweat of Rollins’s palm on her cheek. She swiped a sleeve across her cheekbone, trying to get rid of the phantom touch, but all that accomplished was wafting his scent right into her nose. She grimaced.

“Are you going to be alright?” Matthias stopped her at the entrance and placed both hands at the sides of her face.

“Of course, I am,” Nina scoffed, leaning into one of his palms. “And you shouldn’t worry so much. You sound like a fussing mother.”

“I know you hate those jobs,” he said instead bringing her closer, shifting his arms to wrap around her waist.

“You hate those jobs, Matthias. I just hate awful pigs who don’t know how to properly dress themselves.”

“Your insults are weak tonight.” He placed a kiss between her eyebrows.

“I can get nastier if you want me too, my love,” she said sleepily.

“You should rest. I will see you tomorrow.” He kissed her sweetly and let her go, and Nina couldn’t have loved him more. It had been a long road to get the sweet, soft-hearted boy hiding behind the large group of muscles to come out, and the wait had been worth it. Matthias knew when to give Nina space and when to love her gently. He knew what her favorite snacks were when she was upset or when she was happy. He was everything she deserved.

Nina watched Matthias turn out of view before starting to walk inside her tent, but not before she heard the sound of sniffles coming from inside.

“Inej?” Nina cried incredulously. Her eyes adjusted to the dim lamplight, and still she had to blink a couple of times before she could comprehend the sight sitting on her bed. Inej hadn’t changed from her dark leather and cotton and was hugging her knees to her chest as tears slid down her cheeks. “What’s wrong?”

“Arjun left.” Inej said it so quietly that Nina was glad she had moved to sit on the bed beside her. “His cover is blown. My whole unit is gone. Everything fell apart.”

Nina knew that Inej had something to do with the Indian liberation. She never spoke much about it or gave her details, but Nina was Inej’s closest friend and she knew how much that work was worth to her. But it was more than that, Nina realized, because Inej was crying and with a little more silence Nina knew why.

“You didn’t go with him,” Nina said. Inej didn’t say anything. “I thought you’d always planned on going home.”

Inej didn’t confirm or deny Nina’s statement, but her tears came faster.  Nina didn’t want to push. So instead she waited, which was never really one of her strong suits.

“I- I almost did,” she said shakily, “I went as far as the pub. Then I couldn’t. I looked back and I saw the tops of the circus tents and I thought of you and Wylan and Jesper and Matthias and--”

She cut off abruptly, but Nina understood.

“Kaz?” She wasn’t trying to finish her sentence. Nina had asked an all encompassing question that went beyond the list of people that had become part of this mismatched family that had somehow banded together.

Inej nodded.

Nina sighed.

“I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you what a bad idea having feelings for Kaz Brekker are considering you’re one of the smartest people I know. But are you sure about this?”

“I- I don’t know Nina. It’s not just about Kaz.” Her voice  hitched on his name, but she continued talking. “There’s so many of my people still trapped here. And I’m just supposed to give up because of one man? I’m just supposed to stop caring because someone decided that it wasn’t safe anymore?”

The tears stopped and with every word Inej’s voice got stronger.

“This is the last job, Nina,” she declared, finally taking a deep breath. “After this scheme with Lantsov, I’m-- I’m going to quit the circus.”

“What are you going to do?” Nina asked, already unscrewing the top of the vodka bottle.

“I want to do more for my people. I want them to stop living like second rate peasants just because of the color of their skin. I can do more. I know I can.”

“Oh you will,” Nina said, smiling and pouring her a drink in one of the glasses on her bedside table. “Because you’re Inej Ghafa the greatest acrobat and wraith to ever live. You can do anything you want.”

Inej finally smiled and took the glass.

“And Kaz?” Nina tried after taking a drink. The vodka left a pleasant burn in the back of her throat.

Inej’s smile dropped slightly. “I don’t want to talk about that-- at least for now-- Can we just drink and pretend we can do anything?”

Nina laughed and toasted Inej’s glass. “My dear, we don’t have to pretend at all.”

[nextstarblazers]

EPISODE 13

“My home! Mother! Father! Mother! They were gonna meet me here at the bus stop! Where are they? Mom, dad!” - Derek Wildstar

The next episode of STAR BLAZERS didn’t make all that much of an impact on me when I was a younger viewer, but it is absolutely chilling as an adult, even with all of the editing that was done to it. It’s an episode that captures the real-world pain experienced by the animators who made it, and contains a number of sequences that I’m surprised made it onto American airwaves in what was marketed as a children’s cartoon. For all that it pulls the worst of its punches, it still hits like a ton of bricks.

There are a whole string of episodes right here in the middle of the first YAMATO series whose content wound up being blunted and neutered quite a bit by the differences in broadcast standards between the United States and Japan. Consequently, many of these episodes are largely treated by American fans as being filler between the big, satisfying battles–whereas in reality, they are among the most satisfying installments in the canon, at least before they were tampered with.

This particular episode starts off with an unrelated prologue, in which Leader Desslok is called away from a relaxing soak to award a medal to one of his front-line generals, Lysis. Lysis tells Desslok that he’s heard about the Earth ship encroaching on Gamilon territory, and he asks for the honor of being allowed to destroy it. He’s to be the next recurring enemy that the Star Force will face over multiple episodes, and he’s instantly painted as far more formidable and dangerous than the late Colonel Ganz.

Meanwhile, for no readily apparent reason, Wildstar, Conroy and the Black Tiger squadron is flying a scouting patrol ahead of the Argo. They come across a Gamilon patrol and engage the enemy in combat. This winds up being another underwhelming space dogfight, especially to viewers who were fresh from STAR WARS, but it was still a step up from the previous one in Episode 4. During the skirmish, one of the Gamilon planes is damaged but not destroyed, and Conroy lines up a killing shot (”If I do get him, Wildstar, it’s one less we’ll have to fight tomorrow!”) But Wildstar has a different idea, and he and Conroy shoot tethers onto the crippled Gamilon fighter, towing it back to the Argo.

In the fighter bay, everybody is excited about the prospect of seeing just what a Gamilon really looks like (”I wonder what those Gamilons are really like!” opined Eager, “I guess judging from their advanced science, they must be extremely intelligent creatures!”) no one more so than Doctor Sane, who’ll be conducting the examination. Everybody seems to have forgotten about Episode 6, where Wildstar, Nova and IQ-9 got an up close look at a Gamilon soldier. But that guy wound up buried in an ice slide on Titan, so this is really the first opportunity anybody on the Star Force has had to speak with or study an actual Gamilon.

STAR BLAZERS tries mightily to disguise the fact that, as Doctor Sane makes his examination of the enemy pilot and the crew watches from the observation deck, Derek Wildstar is growing more and more agitated–to the point where he races downstairs and breaks into the examining room. This whole sequence is heavily edited from YAMATO, in which Wildstar doesn’t just jump at the guy, but rather grabs a knife from Doctor Sane’s tools and attempt to out and out kill the helpless prisoner. Wildstar is suffering from post-traumatic stress, and we’re about to find out why.

The episode segues into a flashback to the events of seven years earlier, at the start of the Earth’s war with Gamilon (and it’s pretty incredible that they whole affair lasted for seven years, given the technological superiority of the Gamilon forces, to say nothing of their eventually-revealed need to emigrate to Earth.) Again here, STAR BLAZERS needs to take some liberties, because this extended flashback clearly takes place in Japan, in the traditional Japanese home of Wildstar and his family. All sorts of cuts and trims needed to be made to transform the place into the location-neutral “Great Island.” 

The sequence opens with Derek and his unnamed mother meeting his older brother Alex at the bus stop, as Alex is returning home for leave from Cadet School. At home, friends and family gather, and Alex is peppered with questions concerning reports of interplanetary bombings that are beginning to spread. The older Wildstar sibling hasn’t got any better intel to provide to his family. (Sequences of the gathering dancing traditional Japanese dances and eating in the style of the culture were all excised.) Derek himself is shown to be a sensitive and emotional child, who is a bit jealous of all of the attention being lavished upon his elder sibling.

That evening, “Great Island” is bombed, awakening both Derek and Alex and causing the latter to be called back to his post. These sequences are plainly very visceral for the Japanese animators who are crafting them, working out the complex emotions of the only civilization to have had an actual Atomic Warhead detonated upon its cities. Again, STAR BLAZERS softens all of this in tone, but even the footage that remains is quite powerful and chilling when viewed with knowledgeable eyes. Also affecting is the scenes of the devastation left in the wake of the bombing, and the manner in which the citizenry pull together to help one another out during these difficult times, a reflection no doubt of the true experiences of the Japanese.

Things grow more dire as the Earth in total, and Great Island in particular, is bombed many times. Construction begins on the underground cities that the survivors will relocate to, enormous city-sized bomb shelters situated deep below the surface of the Earth. But building them takes time, and the population rows ever more panicked and fearful about its survival.

Derek visits Alex at his base, bringing his older brother a Bento lunch that their mother had made for him. (STAR BLAZERS has Alex call it “chocolate cake” even though it is fairly clearly sushi and rice balls–sushi hadn’t quite come over from Japan yet at the time when STAR BLAZERS first aired.) Derek is a scared kid, and he rejects Alex’s encouragement that he should go into the armed forces. “Oh, I forgot,” the senior Wildstar says, “My little brother doesn’t believe in fighting.” This is worlds away from the Wildstar that we have witnessed throughout the first half of the series, who can hardly restrain himself when the opportunity arises to lay the smackdown on some Gamilon attackers.

Back at home, Derek’s mother and father head out to the bus stop to meet his returning bus. Along the way, they share a lovely little story about their proposal of marriage, one that serves to humanize them both a bit (despite the fact that neither of them is given a name.) Wildstar’s mother muses that it’s still a lovely place, despite all of the surrounding devastation. But Derek has missed his bus home, and so mom and dad are still standing at the bus stop when a planet bomb lands practically on top of them, vaporizing the both of them almost instantly.

Again here, STAR BLAZERS cuts the actual moment of impact–which is a good thing, as it’s a pretty difficult moment to watch. But there’s no getting around the fact that Mr and Mrs Wildstar are very much dead, and that Derek is now an orphan. What’s more, as Wildstar, himself caught up in the shockwave from the blast that overturned the later bus he was on, makes his way unsteadily to where his parents are meant to be waiting for him, it is clear that he blames himself and his delay as the reason why they had been standing at ground zero. The rage and trauma and guilt turning him from the sensitive butterfly-collecting child we saw at the outset into the angry, revenge-hungry young man of today.

Back in the present on board the Argo, Venture, IQ-9 and Doctor Sane are able to talk Wildstar back to his senses, and he drops his knife, ashamed of himself. But it’s only a momentary reversal, as the Gamilon pilot takes this opportunity to go for the weapon, intending to end his own life in ritual suicide. Wildstar is able to stop him by knocking the blade out of his hands, but then he loses control completely, pummeling the Gamilon crazily until the two of them are spent, tear-filled, breathless sacks upon the floor. STAR BLAZERS cuts all of this business with the knife and the suicide attempt, but does allow Wildstar to go apeshit on the prisoner, a more violent action than most other episodes might have allowed. With everything that needed to be trimmed here, I expect that the bar was set a bit higher in terms of what was deemed acceptable for this episode.

STAR BLAZERS also introduces a bizarre bit of nonsensical business that wasn’t in the original YAMATO episode. As Avatar and Sandor attempt to interrogate the prisoner, the narrator reveals that, before each mission, each Gamilon pilot has his memory erased so that he can’t provide information to an enemy if captured. The source material simply had the captured pilot being of low enough rank that he knew nothing of value that he could tell the Star Force–I’m guessing that somebody realized that just the location of Gamilon itself would have been valuable intel that any pilot was sure to know, hence this contrivance.

Either way, the finale is the same in both YAMATO and STAR BLAZERS: the Star Force is operating with a very limited food supply (a situation that will grow more dire in the coming days), so they can’t afford another mouth to feed. Once Sandor has repaired his plane, Avatar orders the Gamilon released. And for all that food is a precious commodity, Avatar makes his wishes known to Wildstar subtly: “You know, he hasn’t had anything to eat all day.”

In the hanger bay, just before he takes off, the Gamilon pilot is surprised when Wildstar races up to him and gives him a package of food to take with him on his journey home. The two enemies share a smile between them, and the tension is broken. We’re told that the pilot eventually made his way back to his unit, while the Star Force continued on towards Iscandar–now with only 305 days remaining until the human race is completely wiped out.

[beatnicksellar]

MLH: Trade Paperback: Issues #1 - 6

Issue # 1 – Big Premiere Issue Panel one exterior winter of 1880 an open field on the prairie A nosy crow is perched on an uprooted stump in South Calgary The night sky unobstructed and the stars luminescent yet wary His hefty wings bring slaking rains but he will always be thirsty Behold the crow is a bad omen Worse still it is a gossipy totem So it knows who will be chosen And how their tale will be woven When all of the constellations dim for just a moment An indigo fireball falls from the darkness in atonement It streaks across the sky before making a large indent Inset in the snowy soil of the turf Crow hears its lament Magpie lands on the uprooted stump afterwards with a raspy chatter Witnessing the smouldering mound she squawks ‘What’s the matter’ ‘The Above People are not happy’ Crow replies to Magpie’s banter ‘Mother Moon and Father Sun expelled their new earthly daughter’ Magpie cackles for she has no tears to shed Her kind eat carrion even of their own dead Branded devils since one touched Christ’s head A solitary sighting now portends coming dread Magpie screeches ‘It has been a very, very long journey’ Adding ‘I’ve followed THAT mortal and I’m still so hungry’ ‘Where are your chicks?’ Crow enquires with some worry ‘As I said it’s been a long trip - Everything is quite blurry’ While they caw a Cree guide enters the impregnated pitch Coldly turned away at Fort Calgary his stomach has an itch Attracted to the indigo glow Ka-Ki-Si-Kutchin feels it bewitch Nestled next to the sizzling slab he dreams of gorging on flitch Meanwhile as celestial matter seeps from the stone into the mortal ‘Tell me more about troubled Gods’ Magpie requests with a chortle Crow cannot refuse an opportunity to chinwag about the immortals ‘Things are awry in the sky’ he chirps ‘I heard it is a damaged portal’ Dawn breaks on the turf and Ka-Ki-Si-Kutchin wakes to a greater hunger Hunger that gnaws not only at his gut but his soul like a spell he’s under Almost as if a famished creature crept into his mind and torn it asunder However he needs to return to Fort Edmonton before the first thunder Magpie prepares her wings to fly Crow cries a cautious goodbye Magpie croaks her callous reply ‘I’m going to watch this mortal die’ To Magpie’s chagrin Ka-Ki-Si-Kutchin is feverish but able to run So he swiftly sprints 300 kilometers north like a shot from a gun When the pair reach his log cabin Magpie’s wings weigh a ton She rests as Ka-Ki-Si-Kutchin enters and eats ALMOST everyone…

Issue #2 – The Wendigo

Kill the Plains Cree inside so that the famine can thriveReplace what has died with insatiable instinct to survive The generous bite-mark on Hausis’ right foot will deprive Thus she will limp for eternity if she gets out of here alive A newborn hung flaccid from the remote log cabin ceilingGranny’s hide and Uncle’s thighs are no longer concealing Avarice spirits infected father who cannot stop his feeding Craving their untainted flesh even through their screamingReturning from Fort Calgary with a fever in the frigid wintertime of 1880 Swift Runner approached his Fort Edmonton log cabin and ate his old lady Weeks passed and one member was left to be stirred into his sinewy gravy Suddenly the Mounties busted in and arrested their trail guide gone crazyHe was handcuffed and escorted to the gallows situated at Fort Saskatchewan Five-year-old Hausis was declared deceased and nicked by Constable Gagnon The officer took Hausis to his cottage to be nurtured by his barren wife Dawn She cherished her adopted home for a spell until the fevered dreams spawned When the Mounties found the mutilated bodies the 10-year-old was long gone‘Kill the Indian in the Child’ Hausis recited in her mind as the inscription readShe was ushered through St. Barnabas Residential School to a flea-ridden bed Assimilated on Tsuutʼina Nation by Indian Affairs where tuberculosis spread Ailing patients lined the deified corridors and kept the ravenous adolescent fed Unfortunately her hidden horror could not keep the hulking and hallowed at bay Or the depraved Dr. Pope who desired savage subjects to poke, prod and splay A fledgling eugenics advocate keen on taking Indigenous inception rights away Glaring into Hausis’ wildfire stare Pope killed the child inside the Indian that day A week before Hausis is to become an adult it is announced the school is closing Tired of dining on the ill Hausis grabs a sinful priest’s throat and starts choking In Ponoka Dr. Pope assembles members of The Board which is covertly forming At that same time South Calgary is plagued by a limping wendigo out roaming… Issue #3 – The Board In the civil twilight of the year 1939 like begets like A city aldermen and a military engineer take a hike Alongside an architect who grips a new rock spike With the landowner’s hammer in hand he strikes The snow crusted canola patch turns eerily silent The immovable stone stirs then becomes violent Discharging shards that impact with frantic intent Buried in their chests the impaled abruptly glow violet Without saying a single word every one exits the field When each man arrives home their cavity has healed Inseminating their wives with the radiance they wield Each man then takes their life before reaping the yield In the nautical twilight of 1949 four 9-year-olds look unusually alike Unrelated but near identical in diagnosis of having an emotional dike No touching, no talking or eye-contact from either of the remote tykes So they are sent to Ponoka Insane Asylum off the Highway 2 turnpike Therein John, James, Robert and frail Dot are confined for being dumb Handed over to the government to be handle for their frustrated moms Their only matriarch an elderly Indigenous woman calling them all plums They’ll glow indigo next to her until the termination of the imminent hum Now they stand before the Alberta Eugenics Board declared mentally deficient Drs. Pope, MacEachran, Mason and Kinso confirm the candidates are sufficient Youngest degenerates to undergo sterilization at the behest of the omniscient Before the operation CFB Calgary calls with something a little more proficient In the astronomical twilight of 1947 scientists at Currie Barracks conduct a trial Wherein they dose 43 infantry troops with pulverized purple pebbles in a vial Immediately all involved begin parading around armed with a psychotic smile Ten are neutralized and 33 survivors are shielded from the pull of the immobile In a hole inside an outbuilding the stone is fettered by extremely low frequency However scientists exposed to it suffered sterilization without traces of

insanity‘Like Begets Like’ is what Pope says before he removes his patients’ immortalityWith no military use the stone is offered to HIM for the betterment of humanity… Issue #4 – The Movie Theater Clickity-clack and a-clickity-clack Ascending the 14th streetcar track Dependable #7 always comes back Past Currie Barracks looping by the lilac Atop a hill secluded from the booming below A commercial quarter stands quarried by crows The movie theater the hub where everybody goes Escaping the low frequency hum with the late-late show Presented by Marc + Mada who met in a medical tent during the second war They had shared dreams of working concession and taking tickets at the door They carried on like old acquaintances never truly aware of what was in store However when it happened both would have to be lifted off the field tent floorUnable to conceive they believed that the cinema would be their post-war baby Hoping to unite cynical civilians and returning GIs by bringing back normalcy They achieved this with the premiere of Martin & Lewis’ At War with the Army A new favourite of Dennis from the Currie Barracks who is also secretly a MetisA mix of European + Blackfoot Dennis is attendant to the venerable Dr. Pope A single father of one and an escort for lost souls who have abandoned hope After a show Dennis always confided in the amiable owners in order to cope He would breakdown as he spoke of unfortunates he has bound with ropeFor example the 4 identical 10-year-old orphans with an autistic diagnosis As well as that eerie old Cree woman trapped in a deep-seated psychosis All of whom are being purified by the good doctor’s unnatural osmosis Imprisoned underground they inhale the senescent clinician’s halitosisThis is top secret information conveyed to close friends in confidence But when asked of the drone exiting the hole Dennis feigns ignorance Ongoing renovation at the City of Calgary’s reservoir is his best guess In truth he buys two nightly tickets in order to escape the hum + hiss Clickity-clack, clickity-clack and a-clickity-clack The #7 loops by the theater at the end of the track The matinee crowd exoduses and the #7 heads back Descending the hill it foreshadows an imminent attack One that will leave a marriage and a theater ransacked… Issue #5 – The Scavengers A splash page of a pudgy and rumpled magpie on a wireMere feet from where two movie theater owners expireAroused by the awful sounds she senses something direUnexpectedly a crow alights and enthusiastically inquires‘Now where have you been?’ its razor claws clasp the taut cable‘Tell me was there an accident,’ Magpie probes ‘…was it fatal?’‘They took her parts away,’ Crow confirms ‘it was paradisiacal’‘I’ve been with the Cree guide’s kin’ Magpie admits ‘past the maple’The jealous Crow croaks at Magpie’s claim demanding to hear moreMagpie gladly regales him with tales from before either world warWhen after leaving the residential school Hausis decided to go exploreAdrift in the Great Alone a trail of fur-traders she never had to answer forFree to be her selves wearing pelts and antlers to be seen as a true carnivoreUnresolved trauma and the ravenous ailment distorted her life into folklore‘I’ve never ate better’ Magpie digresses ‘…until she regained her Cree scruples’‘Became a guide like her old man’ she whines ‘then things got a lot less brutal’Magpie cites the time Hausis met David Cranmer and he offered her a jewelHe was killed at their wedding potlatch for not having BC government approvalHausis tracked the Indian Agent down months later in a pool hall nursing a beerArrested for wearing ceremonial attire she was committed for biting off his ear‘Fat as me when RCMP caught her’ Magpie details ‘had that doc quaking with fear’‘Swift-Runner Syndrome…those wildfire eyes…was all that I was able to overhear’Adding that the foul doctor had moved her and others to lie next to the indigo stoneContented Crow briefs Magpie on the damaged portal into the Above People’s homeWith no real gossip he entertains her with the backstory while she chews Styrofoam‘Feather

Woman slept in a field’ Crow begins ‘…alone underneath the glittery dome’He tells of how she loved the Morning Star so much that he came down to kiss herAnd of when they travelled to Sky-Country to meet his Sun father and Moon motherBoth Gods were pleased with his Blackfoot bride as well as their new granddaughterBut when Feather Woman did something that was forbade they expelled her forever‘Where’s the dumb mortal now’ Magpie squawks as the air around them buckles‘In that noisy hole with your old wendigo’ Crow caws ‘…all locked up in shackles’The incessant hum ends as the sadistic scavengers share a rambunctious cackleAll is quiet across 33rd avenue before the screaming starts and gunfire crackles… Issue #6 – The Streetcar ‘I can fix this’ the nubile nursing sister says with dread Inside of a vast RCAMC tent on a Bramshott homestead As she ineptly begins stitching up the wincing GI’s head Humming ‘…Over the Rainbow’ as she coaxes the thread The fetching GI quips about looking like Dorothy’s Scarecrow She introduces herself then darns intentionally, sinfully slow They talk about movies before he nervously asks her of a beau She speaks of graduating and her training then readily says no When the crooked suture is complete they agree both are glad they met Promising to look each other up in Calgary after the Axis paid their debt They say their goodbyes in the embrace of a instant they’ll never forget An instant that’ll be sullied by the looming raid on the beaches of Dieppe ‘I can fix this’ Marc the movie theater owner nervously repeats inside his head Standing outside on a ladder mending the marquee with pal Dennis as his stead Dennis talks of adopting the Barrack kids but he is already a dad with no bread Marc’s lissom wife Mada exits the lobby and offers up the theater’s bunk beds Clickity-clack, clickity-clack and a-clickity-clack The #7 streetcar approaches the loop in the track Here to pick-up the Currie GI’s and bring them back When one spots Dennis and gives him a heap of flak He starts threatening to expose Dennis’ Blackfoot blood to Pope That way the doc can neuter him alongside those 5 other dopes Dennis throw’s a punch but the soldiers put him against the ropes The pavement overflows with fists until Marc and Mada cannot cope He hits the sidewalk she lands in front of the #7 and is severed from wedded bliss Mada’s body lays static on the cement her lips pursed in one final departing kiss The quarrel quiets down until the only sound on 33rd avenue is that hum + hiss Rapt with guilt over Mada Dennis grabs both of her halves and gasps ‘I can fix this’…

[curriebelle]

Episode Ignis Feels Like Fanfiction and That’s a Good Thing

Ok so I’m having a Thought.

You know when people say something reads “like fanfiction”, and it’s meant to be a criticism? The phrase is one of those intangibles, one of those agreed-upons, where no one can define it quite accurately but everyone thinks they know what it means. Usually it’s a combination of deviation from the original tone, bleaching out character flaws and complexities, a lack of understanding of nuance, and a reverent or worshipful attitude towards old characters, moments, settings, and iconography (and iconography is just the Stuff. Star Wars iconography is lightsabers, wookies and Jedi robes).

That’s a pretty reductive description of fanfiction of course, because a lot of fanfic - whether it’s well or poorly written - doesn’t necessarily follow those patterns. Weirdly enough, saying a sequel or reboot reads “like fanfiction” often implies that the writer doesn’t understand something about the source material - that they’re oversimplifying, or they’re fanning about while failing to understand what a “good” sequel would actually require. And that’s pretty ironic, because fans - obsessive detail-hoarding, secondary-character-worshipping pastiche-crafters that they are - often know the source material better than anyone, sometimes better than the creators themselves, and they are very aware of what they are erasing or changing when they move Marvel into a fluffy coffee shop AU. 

But I’m kind of digressing, because my point is that “this feels like fanfiction” shouldn’t be seen as a criticism, but rather as a gut feeling that we need to unpack. Sometimes it leads to legitimate criticism that, while worth addressing, actually has very little to do with fanfiction. And sometimes it leads to this weird 4:30 am conclusion: Episode Ignis is when “this feels like fanfiction” should be deployed as a compliment. Spoilers onward, for both Episode Ignis and FFXV.

I’m talking specifically about the alternate ending, here, which is tantamount to an FFXV fix-it fic. In this version Ignis averts the tragic ending of FFXV, and though he prepares to sacrifice his own life to do so, it ends up costing nothing. Ignis survives with even prettier hero-scarring than he gets in the regular plot. The episode fills in a sizable story gap after Leviathan knocks Noct out, and closes a few additional plotholes (I wondered what happened to that one obnoxiously overdesigned Imperial guy: turns out Ravus stabbed him). It spends some time with likable characters (Ardyn, yeeee) and underdeveloped characters (again, Ravus). Ignis gets roughed up and drenched, loses the glasses, and I’m 90% sure the animators made his eyes bigger in the cutscenes for extra pretty. He gains maximum plotline power, and Adam Croasdell voice acts the shit out of some sassy comebacks and anguished screaming (ok, this is unrelated, but when he’s doing the regular stormbind combo, it sounds like he screams FUCK in one of his battle grunts and it makes me laugh every time). He can liberate Altissia more or less by himself, and that’s before he drives a goddamn speedboat away from pursuant megarobots. So for anyone calling Mary Sue, yes, Ignis dives headfirst into that. He basically becomes Magic James Bond.

The whole episode is also pretty blatantly queer-coded. We get a very cuddly flashback to kid Noctis, and Ignis’s vow to stand at his side. Ignis is monomaniacal when it comes to finding Noctis. Noctis eiher drops the l-word, referring directly to Ignis and the freshly fridged Lunafreya (I’m still salty about that one, sorry), or says Ignis will always be in his heart depending on the ending. There’s a fantastic gifset going around of the official couples in previous Final Fantasies (Squall and Rinoa, Tidus and Yuna) declaring the exact same thing Ignis does in the alternate ending. “Rinoa, even if the world turns on you, I’ll be your knight”. “There’s no way I’ll let Yuna go”, even if I have to break all the rules of your stupid religion. Even if it costs my own life, I won’t let you take Noctis away. The queer subtext here is one of those things where it’s purposefully vague - just enough emotional evidence and physical contact that you can read romantic feelings there if you want, but just short of an actual romance to leave interpretations open. If you’re convinced Noctis and Luna were in love, Episode Ignis probably won’t debunk that.

So Ignis and his Episode are both powerful, emotional, pretty, potentially kinda gay, and ridiculously awesome.

And honestly, it is phenomenal.

Episode Ignis is a blast to play. His combat style is very fun and quick and fluid and flashy, and the grappling hook in the first portion makes you feel superheroic. Killing Ardyn, meanwhile, makes you feel godlike. It is an incredible surge of adrenaline to take on armies and deities by your lonesome. The gameplay and narrative reflect each other here, just like they do in the base game. FFXV seems happy at first, and the combat is pretty entertaining with all the goofy combo-attacks, but that game is a tragedy. It’s all the more tragic by how fun it is to begin with, and by the end it is painful to play. Characters get older, places fall apart, people die, and you have to escort Ignis around for a chapter while he grows used to being blind and Gladio constantly bitches at you for walking too fast. The photo mechanic is introduced to break your heart later, to show you how fleeting youth and pleasure can truly be under backbreaking destiny.

And in retaliation, Episode Ignis thrives on the power of Fuck You. Long commutes by car, mundane in the moment but peaceful upon reflection decades later? Fuck You, I have a grappling hook. Sections that force you to walk slowly through a dungeon and think about what you’ve done? Fuck You, I’ve got two daggers, lightning teleportation and button-mashing hands. Musings about the ravages of time, and aching nostalgia for youth? Fuck You, Ignis is prettier than ever. A tragic ending pre-ordained by prophecy? Fuck You, Ignis is going to re-write that fate by being clever, patient, and brave enough to sacrifice his life, but double Fuck You, he gets to live as well. Bullets flying, health bar low, multiple explosions and Atlas Ripped decking airships in the background? Fuck. You. It’s time to make some fucking soup.

With all that in mind, it makes sense that people might accuse Episode Ignis of being tone-deaf, of being fanfiction in all the “bad” ways - it neglects the nuance of the original, and papers over complex themes so everything can end up hunky-dory, but I still think that’s too easy.

Here’s the thing: Episode Ignis can only exist as fanfiction - or as alternate-ending DLC, I guess. FFXV is the story of Noctis and his story has an ending and it’s horribly, horribly sad, but it’s also what the story is built around. You might find it too depressing or too grim or you might find it just right, but it is well-structured. FFXV is careful with its themes and patterns and foreshadowing.

Because of that care, Ignis screwing Ardyn’s plans out of whack and saving Noctis from his fate couldn’t occur in the main game. FFXV is not about Ignis. It’s about Noctis. And the gameplay, built as it is around creating nostalgia - photographs, long car rides, camping, friendship - wouldn’t work if the ending wasn’t agonizing enough to make you long for the good old days. Maybe Noctis didn’t have to die or maybe he did, but the ending of FFXV was always going to hurt.

FFXV is an emotional project, and that project is to make the player painfully nostalgic. With that intriguing goal achieved, Episode Ignis exists as a response, and it can never really be more than that. It’s an ending I like better, but it is an alternate ending.

If you think about it, Episode Ignis didn’t need that alternate ending. It could have existed perfectly well as a companion to FFXV, filling in a much-needed blank (and without the alternate ending that’s exactly what it does). But in making a response to FFXV instead, they challenged a lot of assumptions FFXV needed to make in order to tell its story. FFXV assumes its prophecy is the only answer, as do its characters. FFXV yanks a great deal of agency away from Ignis, Prompto and Gladio when it asks them to sit still for a decade and wait for their friend to die without hunting for an alternative

Why can’t they try something else? Why can’t they defeat their nemesis on their own terms? I mean, who the heck does Bahamut think he is, anyway? Who says the ending can’t be happy, and the future can’t be bright?

Those are exactly the questions a fanfiction writer would ask. FFXV created those questions, and Episode Ignis addresses them, but in a way that acts as more of a breach than a closure. It’s one route to a happy ending - so maybe there are more. This is also the reason I brought up the queercoding in Episode Ignis. If there is any genre that needs a complete overhaul from grimdark tragedy into happy endings, it’s the scourge that is the modern queer romance story. There are so many of those bloody stories ending in anguish or separation or suicide or displeasure, and not nearly enough fairytales. Having a tragic ending overturned by the power of queer love is an insanely empowering experience, and that’s probably why you see so many posts about how Ignis’s gay love can pierce the veil of death and save the day. Episode Ignis didn’t need its queercoding any more than it needed its alternate ending, but the two make sense together: both of them are stories that people are absolutely aching for.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything quite like this - a company actively revising their story, overturning its mood, questioning its plot, granting a completely different ending, and then asking fans to pay 6.99 for it. It’s different from alternate film endings, because those are DVD extras and one always wins the theatrical release. It’s different from re-imaginings or adaptations because Episode Ignis is...just not quite that. It can’t exist on its own, unlike most remakes. Video games are always fluid texts to a certain extent, but now developers are even relinquishing the solidity of lore and cutscenes. It’s so odd.

At the decision point of Episode Ignis, you can use R1 and L1 to flip the camera back and forth, moving between a shot of Ardyn and a shot of Ignis. It’s a tiny, insignificant moment, one that almost feels like a mistake - like maybe the developers couldn’t figure out how to stage a normal shot-reverse-shot. But that moment became an oddly powerful synecdoche for what Episode Ignis was to me. If you want to look at this story from a different angle, well, go for it. Here’s another place you can point the camera. Maybe the sun will rise over there too.

[thebastardofgloucester]

all the posts collating reactions to The Empire Strikes Back or writing mock Rotten Tomatoes reviews to imply that the criticisms of this film aren’t worth paying attention to are just…so missing the point

exactly two works that said what ‘Star Wars’ was existed at the time of Empire’s release in 1980: Star Wars (not yet renamed ‘A New Hope’) and Alan Dean Foster’s 'Splinter of the Mind’s Eye’ (a sequel written in case Star Wars was a flop that could be filmed on a shoestring budget and without Harrison Ford. It’s Wild and puts the lie to the idea that Lucas had any idea where the Skywalker story was going; highly recommend)

in the year of our Lord 2017, The Last Jedi was released as the third film in a revival of a six film, single creative vision franchise, with the added baggage of over two decades of novels, comics, video games, and other media (the only thing ever fully expelled from canon was the infamous holiday special, which, honestly, had greater creative merit than some of the stuff that got to stay)

what’s the point? Expectations. No, not people who didn’t want anything to change and are Mad About It or whatever facile narrative the authors of those blog posts and reviews are using to explain why this film is probably more divisive than the goddamn prequels. The problem is that not only does The Last Jedi clash with decades of fandom, it is even at loggerheads with its sister films in this particular revival. and it doesn’t get the same benefit of the doubt that ESB got because that’s not how franchises and fandoms actually work. you don’t get to ignore everything that came before to tell your own story. they have to work together. 

Sure, not everybody read the EU (and trust me some of them are better off for it). But almost everybody saw The Force Awakens, most of them saw Rogue One, and a fair number of them, old and young fans alike, eagerly consumed the New EU content that offered glimpses into how the events of The Force Awakens came about and what mysteries were set up in what was effectively a reboot rather than a sequel. Generally, you know, regardless of how much you hate 'puzzleboxes,’ it is reasonable to expect that what one film sets up will have a payoff in the next, particularly when the first film takes such care to be sensitive to what the fans want (as JJ and Kasden did with TFA) - because while this is a money faucet for Disney, sure, there’s no point in bringing this franchise back without those fans (and of course, their kids) - and what they got from Rian and the Lucasfilm story team was…a confirmation that they had been wasting their time. It’s all well and good to pull the rug out from under the audience (as this film does incessantly) but it’s cynical bullshit to basically bait them with promo material and the preceding canon and then to deliver on basically nothing and expect everyone to just be okay with it. This film effectively penalizes the people who cared the most and spent the most time engaging with The Force Awakens and rewards people who may not have really been here for what Lucas was selling to begin with. As one review put it, it ‘does not care what you think about Star Wars’.

But when you set expectations as deliberately as Kennedy and the Lucasfilm Story Group did in JJ and Kasden’s TFA, it’s not great writing to blow them to pieces mid-narrative. It’s just lazy. the idea that Rey has no connection to the Skywalker line? a good idea, potentially, but clumsily executed, as it is played out less as an important revelation and more an excuse to not actually give any kind of answer to how Rey came to be Ben’s equal on the Light (or why she even is ‘Light’ honestly; I love Angry Rey but there’s seemingly no danger in her temptation) or where she got a skill set rivaled in this franchise only by literal Space Jesus Anakin Skywalker. Snoke is a one-noted villain; having him be betrayed by Kylo in the midst of his own villain arc? a very good idea. it belongs as the climax of the film, not the end of act 2 so there is no time for anything to breathe, just more never-ending crises and hardship.

Like, spare me the 'force visions are unreliable’ (Rey’s was unlike anything we had seen before, it wasn’t Anakin’s nightmare or Luke on Dagobah) bs; the film didn’t say that what Rey saw was wrong for x reason, it just pretended that it never happened and Rey didn’t say anything about it); spare me ‘our heroes have to fail and sometimes all the plans don’t work out’ we know that, we live in the real world of 2017 but while making your clever point you have wasted the presence of three extremely talented actors of color, and let down the audiences waiting for a chance to see people who look like them be the heroes for once. instead it turns out they didn’t actually matter all that much, but maybe next film! 

It’s not clever. It’s not visionary. It’s cheap, it’s cowardly, and it isn’t actually that original because the film leaves us exactly where we expected. Poe is the leader and Leia’s heir to command, Finn is a newly-committed Rebel brimming with unrealized potential, Rey is a Jedi character (amorphously defined) who we know exactly as much about as we started, Luke is gone, even if he went out in pretty spectacular fashion, Carrie’s death means that Leia will be leaving us soon, and Kyle Ben has become the big bad. That’s the only real development - Snoke’s death and Ben’s rejection of his redemption - and it’s buried under Rey, our erstwhile heroine, being a vehicle for the villain’s character development. The only character this film particularly cares about is a white fascist who gets every chance to be redeemed and rejects them while the film expects us to keep caring. 

So, yeah. People are mad. Not because of the same ‘the series is changed forever now’ shit that the haters of ESB were on about. Because the real changes? Ben being the real villain, the smallfolk of the galaxy being the source of light and conduits of the Force? I don’t see anyone complaining all that hard about them. 

the complaints are about the damage done to beloved characters for…not all that much of a payoff. the misuse and marginalization of the characters of color. the disdain with which the script treats the nostalgia of the Force Awakens. the unrelenting pace of the film that just grinds the Resistance (and the audience) down and just tells them to trust us, even as more and more and more is taken away. Rey’s parentage isn’t the only thing cast aside - promises of developments in Finn’s story - his identity, his potential to cause a revolt in the First Order, even his force sensitivity (you want a force user from nothing? how about a child soldier from a nameless family who as we are continually reminded used to be on sanitation crew) - are broken. Rey has her dream of family taken away…and replaced with…well the film doesn’t really bother to say because she’s a plot device for most of act 3. We don’t get to see her reject Ren and leave him. Because this isn’t her story; it’s his. Kylo is unconscious, so the scene is over. Tell me how that is a satisfying arc for our erstwhile protagonist? Poe’s character is completely uprooted from what we’ve seen before to make him an obnoxious hotheaded menace whose emotions threaten the survival of the Resistance if two old white women aren’t able to keep him in check. Rose says a lot and gets to do almost nothing. Luke…Luke is torn down to justify the fall of Ben Solo, never given the chance to establish a meaningful bond with his erstwhile successor, and is only given the chance to atone by acting as a diversion to give the others time to escape. he dies alone, a failure, even if he is at peace with how things turned out.

last year we were shown a movie in the wake of one of the more traumatic political events in the life of the people on this website where a diverse and sympathetic cast fight hard and are entirely wiped out. But their deaths come in a spectacular and charged finale that carries the desperation and grief and pathos through into the beginning of the story we know and love. it all feels worth something. Rogue One has its flaws as a film but it comes together in a way that The Last Jedi does not. In the end, what Jyn and Cassian and the others do is just enough to get the plans away, to start the sequence of events that will lead to the Empire’s destruction.

Here?

there’s just not enough left. not enough of the Resistance, not enough story, not enough hope. 

to have that hope repeatedly stripped away and cynically exploited through a narrative that drags the characters from crisis to crisis without bothering to justify itself or its role in the story (while retreading the highlights of Episodes V and VI without the emotional depth to back them up), and in so doing wears down the audience as much as the characters is not why I have devoted so much of my life and emotional energy to this series about space wizards and their galaxy-destroying family squabbles and eventual chance for redemption. for all his many, many faults, George Lucas understood that.

you can’t just talk about hope. sooner or later you have to see it. You have to feel that what you are suffering will be worth it. The text needs to tell you as much. it’s clumsy and cliched and it is necessary. In the Empire Strikes Back, after Han is captured and Luke is beaten, the turning point is Lando. Lando changes the course of the movie, rescuing Leia and Chewie, who rescue Luke. They live to fight another day, and at the end they are wounded but among friends. 

the moment in The Last Jedi where that could have happened was when Leia’s signal went out. How terrific would it have been if after being betrayed by a scoundrel the original scoundrel with a heart of gold, Lando Calrissian, arrives at the head of a fleet made up of all the alien races so inexplicably missing from the sequel trilogy so far, fending off the First Order long enough for the Resistance to escape with most of the survivors on Crait?

But Rian had to have one last twist of the knife. so nobody came. only Luke, and only as a distraction to buy time that ultimately cost him his life and reduced his legacy to giving everything to atone for his past sins. there is no Lando moment. there is no turning point, no moment where a larger victory is hinted at. and no, a single stable boy far, far away from the war is not the same thing. It makes an interesting point about the force and the metanarrative of Star Wars. It is not what this film needed after everything it put its characters and audience through.

and so at the end I’m not hopeful. I’m just tired. So, very tired. And I miss what made me fall in love with this series about space wizards and the Skywalker family in the first place

[thisdaynews]

BREAKING:Buhari and his Government is coming to an End – Fani Kayode

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/breakingbuhari-and-his-government-is-coming-to-an-end-fani-kayode/

BREAKING:Buhari and his Government is coming to an End – Fani Kayode

Fani Kayode Recounts all the warnings he had given to Buhari’s Government but he refused to Listen, now they have started to Happen.

He said this in a statement titled “FOR THE RECORD”

READ BELOW:

“My opposition to the Buhari Government for the last five years has been as constant as the northern star and it remains as strong today as it ever was.

“I warned Nigerians what would happen if he came to power in 2015 and I was proved right. I warned them again in 2019 and again I was proved right.

“I have spoken and written more than anyone else in this country over the last 5 years about the atrocities of the Fulani herdsmen and Boko Haram and the tyranny, wickedness, evil, corruption and incompetence of the Buhari regime.

“I have also suffered more, lost more, been humiliated more, been persecuted more, been incarcerated more and been insulted more than most people in the country due to my unrelenting opposition to them.

“They have literally taken everything from me and it is only by the grace of God that I am still alive and that I have not been killed. This is because my opposition is not just to Buhari but to the dark and sinister forces that he represents and what he stands for which is beyond the comprehension of the overwhelming majority of the Nigerian people.

“They think they know how evil those extremist forces are but in reality they still don’t have any idea.

“I have risked all and I have exposed and done more damage to those forces than anyone else in this country in the last few years by their own admission.

“I have also spoken up for the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the deprived, the voiceless and the persecuted across ethnic, religious and party lines. And I have done all this right under the noses of those in power and not from distant shores or foreign lands.

“That does not however mean that I have lost my humanity. That does not mean that I will relish in anyone’s death. That does not mean that I will dance on the grave of others because death comes to us all and doing so diminishes us as human beings and makes us little better than beasts.

“For the last 30 years I have written and spoken out against the atrocities and the hegemony that the people of the south and the Middle Belt and the Christian community have suffered in the hands of our collective oppressors since 1914 and over the last 106 years.

“I have also consistently argued that the people of the south-east were subjected to nothing less than genocide during the civil war and that if we really want peace we must make the necessary amends and atonement for this and they must be treated in an accommodating, reasonable and compassionate way and with far more decency and sensitivity.

“The Christian minorities of the north, who have suffered in the hands of the hegemonists immeasurably and have also been subjected to ethnic cleansing, mass murder, crimes against humanity and genocide over the last 60 years deserve no less and also need to be treated with more sensitivity and have their self-respect and dignity restored.

“This, to some, now counts for nothing and that is to be expected. God alone vindicates and rewards and posterity and history will judge us all by what we did and said when evil darkened the land and the oppressors held away. Thankfully we cannot be defined by the words and reasoning of mere mortals and shallow men.

“What lies ahead for our country is frightful and chilling because the extremists and hardliners in the Federal Government are now in full control with no-one to moderate, restrain or put them in check. This is a major challenge which needs to be taken very seriously.

“What makes it worse is that the President has hidden himself in the Aso Rock bunker and has refused to step out and offer direction or provide strong and purposeful leadership.

“What we have today is a dangerous power vacuum and, unless the President has the prescience of mind to resign or to step up to the plate, rid us of the nepotism and the ethnic and religious divisions that plague the land, heal our wounds, change his ways and lead us fairly and boldly it will not end any time soon.

“Sadly the next few months and years will be difficult, harsh, unpredictable, unstable, bloody, vicious, brutish, hard, retrogressive, divisive, nasty, horrendous and nightmarish for our dear country and there will be little respite for anyone because that is all our Government has to offer.

“If you think it was bad before wait and see what will happen in the next few months and years. If something does not give then we are really in trouble as a nation and we may not survive it as one.

“What is likely to happen in Nigeria will make the ugly events that unfolded in Zaire and the Congo DRC over the last few decades and the horrendous events that occurred in Rwanda in the early 90’s look like child’s play. That is the monumental challenge that we are facing and that is what we should be hoping, working and praying hard against.

“For those that doubt this I say the proof of the pudding is in the eating and, as always, time will prove me right.

“The only saving grace is that God, and not any man, shall eventually deliver us. That is my hope and my prayer.

“Meanwhile those that doubt my commitment to the struggle and to the resistance simply because of my tribute to an old friend of 40 years who passed on are entitled to their opinion and are free to stop reading my contributions and commentaries.

“The last thing I need is validation from any man. Why would I crave for that when I have the love of God?

“Regardless of their disposition towards me I will continue to hold on to my views and express them.

“I owe myself, my God and my nation that much if nothing else. I wish you well. Shalom.