#you have to admire that degree of commitment to being bad at writing the relationships you mean to write

[crimsonhydrangeavn]

I have several questions about your characters that I'm really excited to explore, especially because I'd love to draw these scenarios and learn more about them. However, if any of these questions make you uncomfortable or if there are just too many, please feel free to disregard them and only focus on the first one.

How would the love interests (LIs) react to a main character (MC) who has a childlike, playful side? Picture the MC enjoying activities like singing and dancing while preparing breakfast, engaging in pillow fights, playing hide and seek, or running around the house in a game of tag. How would each LI respond to these playful, light-hearted moments?

How would the LIs feel about an MC who is extremely romantic? Imagine an MC who regularly brings flowers, writes love poems, and makes declarations of love. Would the LIs react positively to such frequent displays of affection, or would it be overwhelming for some?

Example for this question: Suppose the MC is talking to Rita about someone they have feelings for. The MC speaks in a very affectionate, almost lovestruck way, showering this person with compliments and jokes. The MC then ends the conversation by saying, "And you know this person very well," revealing that they were talking about Rita the whole time. How would each LI react to this kind of romantic and playful revelation?

Final question: I imagine Garret has noticed the MC admiring his beautiful garden of crimson hydrangeas. If the MC asked for a bouquet, would Garret be willing to give them one? How would he approach this moment, and what might it mean to him?

Haha thank you so much for you interest in Crimson Hydrangea! I'd love to see any and all artwork/ fanwork that you might create in the future! It took be a little while to get through all of the questions, but I hope the wait was worth it!

How would the love interests (LIs) react to a main character (MC) who has a childlike, playful side? 

Garret would find your lighthearted and playful attitude adorable. They would probably indulge each and every one of your whims and do everything in their power to make sure you feel comfortable enough to continue being you.

Marcelo would have a lot of fun encouraging and joining in on your silly antics. He’d match your energy and surprise you with his own light hearted moments. 

Camilla would absolutely be your partner in crime. She’d not only join in, but up the stakes somehow. You want to sing and dance while making breakfast? Well get ready for an hour long karaoke session!

Rita would playfully tease you about your childish antics, but she would always reluctantly join in. However by the end of whatever activity you started, she would be having a fun time and giggling up a storm.

It would depend on Teagan’s mood. If they were in a bad/sulky mood you might have to push and poke them a little before they finally stopped sulking and joined in. However if they were neutral/ happy they would not only join in, but raise the stakes to several degrees.

How would the LIs feel about an MC who is extremely romantic?

Garret would absolutely eat it all up. He’s a pretty big romantic, so if you went out of your way to do something sweet/ romantic for him, you can bet he’d try to do something 10x more romantic for you.

Marcelo would be a little shy at first when it came towards the romantic gestures. Usually he’s the one doing the pursuing, and the fact that you’re going all out for him would fluster him a great deal. However once he gathered his bearings and got used to being in a committed relationship with you, he would make it a point to return the romantic gestures tenfold.

While Camilla would certainly appreciate the romance, she might feel slightly uncomfortable at first. Oddly enough, she’s far more comfortable with the sexual side of things than she is with romance. She’s not the most romantic person out there and it would be quite a transition for her, but she would work on becoming more romantic if that was something you wished for her. 

Rita is a secret romantic at heart. At first she wouldn’t be able to hide her surprise, or pleasure, at the romantic gestures. Once she got a little more used to it, she would actually make it a point to do something romantic for you every day, or several times a day. Your actions would give her courage to finally embrace her inner romantic.

Like Garret, Teagan would welcome your romance with open arms. They would gush about how wonderful you were and then try to do something even MORE romantic and grander for you. Unlike Garret, they wouldn’t know when to stop or when they were going too far, so they would need you to tell them when enough is enough and that more isn’t always better. 

Example for this question: Suppose the MC is talking to Rita about someone they have feelings for. The MC speaks in a very affectionate, almost lovestruck way, showering this person with compliments and jokes. The MC then ends the conversation by saying, "And you know this person very well," revealing that they were talking about Rita the whole time. How would each LI react to this kind of romantic and playful revelation?

Garret would somehow manage to keep a pleasant smile on his lips the entire time. However the warmth in their eyes would quickly disappear with something far colder and intimidating. However, he would quickly blink it away when you revealed that it was him you were talking about. Only then would you see a true affectionate smile grace his handsome features as he chuckled and reached out to ruffle your hair before telling them that the feeling’s mutual. Oh, and don’t expect him to admit that he was jealous, because he’ll absolutely play dumb. 

Marcelo would visibly deflate as you spoke about this mystery person. He’d quietly nod along and wrack his brain trying to figure out who you were describing. However once it was revealed that it was him, he’d be dumbstruck for a few moments. Eventually he would llet out a loud nervous laugh before lying and saying he knew it all along. After all, how could you not love someone as great as Marcelo the magnificent? Yet, despite his grandiose words he would immediately confirm whether or not you meant what you said.

Camilla would have a surprisingly good poker face the entire exchange. However when you revealed the truth of the mystery person, she would crack a big old grin and playfully push your arm in retaliation. She’d call you a jerk, but visibly be in a far better mood afterwards. 

Rita would quietly listen doing a stellar job of keeping her emotions and expectations in check. She might look a little thoughtful, but you wouldn’t really be able to see her emotions at first. After the reveal Rita would pause before turning the darkest shade of red imaginable, practically short circuiting at the revelation. Really? You have feelings for her of all people? It would take a little more convincing on your part before she would bashfully thank you.

Teagan would be in a FOUL foul mood the entire time you were gushing about this mystery person. You would visibly see them becoming more and more impatient as their mouth twisted into a scowl. However when it was revealed that it was them, you can bet that their expression would turn to one of shock. However once it sunk in they would begin laughing with relief and playfully lecturing you about how you should have started off by telling them it was them the entire time!

Final question: I imagine Garret has noticed the MC admiring his beautiful garden of crimson hydrangeas. If the MC asked for a bouquet, would Garret be willing to give them one? How would he approach this moment, and what might it mean to him?

So, there is a lot of symbolism in the Crimson Hydrangeas for Garret, some of which has already been revealed in game and a lot that hasn’t. I don’t want to disclose too much since it would delve into spoiler territory but I’ll do my best to answer this question the best I can. 

If you ask for a bouquet of Hydrangeas prior to knowing the full context of them, he would be amused and be more than happy to oblige. He’d meticulously pick the biggest and prettiest blooms before beautifully wrapping them in parchment paper and a beautiful black bow. He’d proudly present them to you, not thinking of much else aside from the beautiful smile on your face.

If you ask for a bouquet of Hydrangeas after knowing the full context of them, he would have a completely different reaction. He’d carefully watch your reaction to see if you were being genuine. Once he saw that you were, he’d ask a few more questions before finally agreeing to it. Unlike the first time around, he would be a bit more self conscious, thoughtful, and considerate when fulfilling the task. He would feel a lot more exposed and vulnerable because you’d know the full significance of the crimson hydrangeas and what they truly mean to him.

[mayihavethisdanse]

“What is this, the Dark Ages?”

Or, Arthurian themes and allusions in the Brotherhood of Steel mythos as seen in Fallout 4. (But that’s a lot of words.)

Yep. We're doing this. 

First, some obligatory caveats: there is no single Arthurian canon, just 1500 years of assorted fanfic based on the whims of whoever was writing at the time. For this extremely highbrow Tumblr meta, I have ignored most of it and drawn on my favorites. Also Wikipedia.

Also, I am not an expert in Arthurian literature (or Fallout lore, come to that), and I preemptively beg the pardon of anyone who is.

Finally, in no way am I claiming that all these parallels and thematic echoes are deliberate or even significant. In fact, I'd break it down into:

Clearly deliberate allusions, whether in or out of universe;

Probably coincidence, but could be someone deliberately capitalizing on a coincidental similarity;

Almost certainly coincidence, but fun to speculate about; annnnd

Blatant Monty Python references. (Because of course there are.)

I'll start with the big one.

Arthur Maxson, boy king and unifier

(source)

So across all the retellings and variations of King Arthur’s life story, there are a few consistent elements, particularly in his early life and rise to power. Some of these threads are echoed in the Fallout universe, specifically (and unsurprisingly) in the person of Arthur Maxson.

Both the legendary King Arthur and Arthur Maxson were born with a claim to power lying in their ancestry, both were fostered away from their families, and both proved themselves in combat at a young age. 

King Arthur united the warring kingdoms of Britain into a single entity, making them stronger against outsiders and receiving general admiration and acclaim. Arthur Maxson united the divided factions of the BoS after the events of Fallout 3 and is held in similarly high regard by his men.

The name Prydwen is a reference to the ship of the original King Arthur. Presumably, Arthur Maxson (or someone in the BoS who anticipated his promotion) christened the airship in a deliberate homage to the Arthurian myth.

King Arthur is associated with his legendary sword. I think it’s notable that Maxson’s legend is associated with a bladed weapon, too. ("He killed a DEATHCLAW with a COMBAT KNIFE!”)

Probably coincidence, but fun: the historical emperor Magnus Maximus, who pops up a lot in early Arthurian legend, was known in Welsh as... Macsen. (⌐■_■)

Round Table, but make it dieselpunk

(Continued under the cut.)

Moving away from obvious allusions and into some looser parallels:

Like the Round Table, the Brotherhood is an exclusive knightly order with its leader being the one able to open it up to his chosen few.

Like the Round Table, the BoS sees itself as defending human civilization against forces of chaos. (I’ll touch on their tech-hoarding tendencies when I get to the Grail stuff.) This idea of civilization in the face of chaos goes back to the BoS’s founding, even though the level of isolationism we see in most of the Fallout franchise is not exactly what founder Roger Maxson had in mind: “Notably, Maxson's ultimate intention was to establish the Brotherhood as an organization that works closely with people outside of the Brotherhood, as guardians of civilizations, not its gatekeepers.” (source) In a lot of ways, Arthur Maxson represents a return to his ancestor’s original ideals.

Renegade knights? Internal politics? Traitors within? We gotchu.

In both the medieval legends and in all chapters of the BoS we’ve seen, there’s a big focus on bloodlines (ew). Ironically, it’s probably Arthur Maxson’s unquestionable ancestry that allows him to be more progressive than either of his East Coast predecessors when it comes to boosting Brotherhood numbers by recruitment (even though you can still see a clear division between “born Brotherhood” and recruited soldiers, but that’s a topic for another day). Maxson sees himself as an Elder who "cares for the people"—however misguided and patronizing that attitude might be—and whatever else you might say about the guy, you can't say he doesn't believe he has a duty. Which brings us to…

Know Your Enemy: Danse as Gawain

Before I start this section, an acknowledgement of authorial bias:

Gawain, as portrayed in the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is my very favorite of King Arthur’s knights. (Other stories aren't always as flattering, but like I said at the outset: I'm sticking to the ones I like.)

That poem is my very favorite piece of medieval Arthurian literature. In this section, I'll refer to the modern English translation by Simon Armitage.

...that’s it, I have no other biases to disclose. 

What? 👀

(Art: Clive Hicks-Jenkins)

All right. So in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, you’ve got this himbo loyal knight of Arthur’s who finds himself caught up in... you know what, let me just paste in the Wikipedia summary. (The Toast, RIP, also did a pretty entertaining and more-or-less accurate recap.)

It describes how Sir Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who dares any knight to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him with his blow, at which the Green Knight stands up, picks up his head and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain, Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving the lord and the lady of the castle where he is a guest.

Don’t worry too much about the plot details, though; for this post, I’m more interested in the thematic parallels. The Green Knight story is full of contrasts: order vs. chaos, civilization vs. wilderness, mortal man vs. Other... but let’s start with Gawain himself. 

Some stuff to know about Gawain:

He was "as good as the purest gold, devoid of vices but virtuous and loyal". Gawain took his principles more seriously even than the rest of Arthur’s knights, not out of pride but out of humility: "I would rather drop dead than default from duty," he says. 

He’s faithful and honorable and never even tempted to betray an oath, even when offered every variety of seduction and riches, except for a single moment of weakness in a desperate desire not to be executed for random shit by powerful forces for reasons he doesn't understand.  

Even though he doesn’t really understand why he needs to die, he sticks to his oath. Gawain's one weakness is a moment of desperate, private, human desire for survival. He'll submit to the headsman’s axe if he has to, but he'd still rather live. 

Above all, Gawain is the ideal of a human man: he might be the bravest and loyal man there is, but he’s still fundamentally human.

You can probably see where I'm going with this.

A few more fun facts about Gawain that resonate with Paladin Danse’s story:

He’s got a bunch of really shitty brothers. (No comment.)

Gawain (SPOILERS!) doesn't actually end up beheaded, but he does willingly kneel for his execution and gets a cut on the throat as a reminder of his sin. And, uh, Danse can also get his throat cut! It doesn’t end as nicely but it’s, you know, a thing that can happen.

Gawain might be a really good guy, and he tries really hard to be one, but in the end he’s nothing more than that: there’s nothing supernatural about him, he has no special powers beyond his own principles and devotion. He’s just a dude doing his Best. 

Wait, why not Danselot?

Oh, that guy? Here’s the thing.

Lancelot personifies the continental ideals of courtly love that became popular in the High Middle Ages. Central to his story is the prioritization of personal relationships and romantic feelings in a way that you don’t really see in Gawain's, at least in the Green Knight tale. (Later stories hook Gawain up with an extremely delightful lady, but even that is a different flavor of romance than Lancelot's and has more to do with Gawain honoring his word and his egalitarian treatment of women (hell yeah). In the poem, Gawain is impressed by Bertilak's wife but resists her temptation; in fact, the biggest risk is not that he'll yield to her advances but that he'll be discourteous to her, i.e., violate his principles and cause dishonor to his king and his host.)

Lancelot is driven by passions over principles in a way that Gawain never really is (at least in the stories I’m talking about; later writers have committed character assassination to various degrees). Yes, you could argue that both Gawain and Lancelot betray their oaths, but Lancelot’s betrayal is never, um, blind. He knows what he’s doing and makes a deliberate choice to prioritize his love for the queen over his love for the king. It doesn’t make him a bad guy—he too is an ideal knight with one fatal flaw—but his character isn’t as comparable to Paladin Danse. 

Yeah, Gawain is (in most stories) a prince and a kinsman of Arthur’s, but he’s ultimately a native boy who doesn’t break the mold of a Knight of the Round Table. Likewise, Danse is portrayed as competent and valuable to the BoS, but not exceptional or breaking the mold of what a BoS soldier should be: he simply represents the ideal. Meanwhile, Lancelot is a foreign prince who was marked from childhood as special and fancy, and his storyline goes alllll over the place. (Much like this post.)

For example, Lancelot goes to absolutely absurd extremes to prove his devotion for no other reason than to prove it. (“I’ll do any useless humiliating thing you want. I’ll betray every oath except the one I made to you. That’s what love is!”) Gawain would never. Danse would never.

Ultimately, Gawain's tests are of his character and not of his love. And like Gawain, Danse’s devotion is to service and his principles, not to another person—even Arthur Maxson.

All that said, there are some similarities: both are beloved by Arthur, both are held up as the ideal of what a knight should be. And even if their fatal flaws are different, both make the point that no matter how good and brave and loyal they might be, no human being can be perfect. 

(Except Galahad. Who is, as a result, very boring.) 

I’ll conclude this section with a quote from someone else’s take on the Greek Knight poem:

I like Gawain. He’s not perfect, but he’s trying his best which is all any of us can do. He’s not like the other knights in the Arthurian legends who occasionally ‘accidentally’ kill women on their little adventures and then feel hard done by when they have to deal with the consequences of that. Gawain holds himself to a high standard – higher, it seems, than Arthur and his knights hold him to considering how hard they laugh when Gawain tells them how bad he feels about the whole thing.

I think Gawain is very relatable in this story. We all want to be better than we actually are.

And that, more than anything else, is Danse.

The Grail myth

What’s that? Lost relics of power? Better send some large armed men after ‘em!

The parallels to the BoS’s tech-hoarding ways are obvious enough that the games themselves lampshade them (albeit by way of Monty Python). But it also ties into the larger themes of “purity” versus “corruption” and the BoS’s self-image as a bastion between civilization and chaos. (See Maxson's line in response to the Sole Survivor’s quip about the Dark Ages: “Judging from the state of the world, it wouldn't be a stretch to say we're living in that era again.”)

But the ultimate futility of the Grail mission is also worthy of note. The BoS might want the power of prewar tech on their side, but they’re no more to be trusted with it than any other group of human beings. No matter how they try, the “corruption” of humanity can’t be overcome as long as they’re striving to harness power for their own ends. You can only achieve power by surrendering control of it.

The death of Arthur

The nature of gameplay being what it is, it's not guaranteed that the Arthur figure will be fatally betrayed, bringing Camelot down with him—but it's not unlikely, either.

Awkward.

Some final spitballing:

Outside the Brotherhood, there are some fun parallels of the Arthur myth with the rest of Fallout 4. Betrayal by one’s own son, for example.

The key difference between the BoS and the legendary Round Table: King Arthur’s knights, for all their flaws and human weaknesses, are usually presented as unambiguous Good Guys. The BoS is... a little more ambiguous...

...but damn if they don’t think they're the good guys. 

A-ad victoriam, fellas!

[nashvilledreams]

My Naya, my Snixxx, my Bee. I legitimately can not imagine this world without you.

7 years ago today, she and I were together in London when we found out about Cory. We were so far away, but I was so thankful that we had each other. A week ago today we were talking about running away to Hawaii. This doesn’t make sense. And I know it probably never will.

She was so independent and strong and the idea of her not being here is something I cannot comprehend. She was the single most quick-witted person I’ve ever met, with a steel-trap memory that could recall the most forgettable conversations from a decade ago verbatim. The amount of times she would memorize all of those crazy monologues on Glee the morning of and would never ever mess up during the scene… I mean, she was clearly more talented than the rest of us. She was the most talented person I’ve ever known. There is nothing she couldn’t do and I’m furious we won’t get to see more.

I’m thankful for all the ways in which she made me a better person. She taught me how to advocate for myself and to speak up for the things and people that were important to me, always. I’m thankful for the times I grew an ab muscle from laughing so hard at something she said. I’m thankful she became like family. I’m thankful that my dad happened to have met her weeks before I did and when I got Glee, he told me to “look out for a girl named Naya because she seemed nice.” Well dad, she was nice and she became one of my favorite people ever.

If you were fortunate enough to have known her, you’ll know that her most natural talent of all was being a mother. The way that she loved her boy, it was truly Naya at her most peaceful. I’m thankful that Naya got that beautiful little boy back on that boat. I’m thankful he will have a strong family around him to protect him and tell him about his incredible mom.

I just hope more than anything that her family is given the space and time to come to terms with this. For having such tiny body, Naya had such a gigantic presence, a void that will now be felt by all of us - those of us who knew her personally and the millions of you who loved her through your TVs. I love you, Bee.

My favorite duet partner. I love you. I miss you. I don’t have words right now, just lots of feelings. Rest In Peace Angel, and know that your family will never have to worry about anything.

We started out as the closest friends and then like all new things, we went through a bit of a rocky phase. However, we stuck by each other’s side and created the most beautiful friendship built out of love and understanding. The last I had the chance to see you in person, I had left oranges outside our home for you to take. I wanted to say hi through the window but my phone didn’t ring when you called (which it never does, f*cking T-Mobile), so instead you and Josey left two succulents on our doorstep as a thank you. I planted those succulents and I look at them everyday and think of you. I still listen to your EP on repeat because from the moment I heard it, it struck me and I always wished the world knew more of your voice. You sent me over 5 dozen SnapChat videos when you and Josey woke up in the morning and I kick myself that I didn’t save one of them. You always shared recipes and I admired your love for food. We vowed to spend every Easter together, even though Covid stole this last one from us. You are and always will be the strongest and most resilient human being I know, and I vowed to carry that with me as I continue to live my life. 

You constantly taught me lessons about grief, about beauty and poise, about being strong, resilient and about not giving a fuck (but still somehow respectful). Yet, the utmost important lesson I learned most of all from you was being a consistent and loving friend. You were the first to check in, the first to ask questions, the first to listen..you cherished our friendship and I never took that for granted. 

We never took photos together because we mutually hated taking pictures...our relationship meant more than proof. I have countless pictures of our babies playing, because we shared that kind of pride and joy. So I’m showing the world a photo of our little goof balls for you, because I know that meant more than anything and they remind me of you and I. I speak to you everyday because I know you’re still with me and even though I’m feeling greedy that we don’t get more time together, I cherish every moment we had and hold it close to my heart.

There are no words and yet so many things I want to say, I don't believe I'll ever be able to articulate exactly what I feel but... Naya, you were a ⚡️ force and everyone who got to be around you knew it and felt the light and joy you exuded when you walked into a room. You shined on stage and screen and radiated with love behind closed doors. 

I was lucky enough to share so many laughs, martinis and secrets with you. I can not believe I took for granted that you'd always be here. Our friendship went in waves as life happens and we grow, so I will not look back and regret but know I love you and promise to help the legacy of your talent, humor, light and loyalty live on. 

You are so loved. You deserved the world and we will make sure Josey and your family feel that everyday. I miss you already.

She was bold. She was outrageous. She was a LOT of fun.⁣

Naya made me laugh like no one else on that set. I always said it while we were working together and I’ve maintained it ever since. Her playful, wicked sense of humor never ceased to bring a smile to my face.⁣

She played by her own rules and was in a class of her own. She had a brashness about her that I couldn’t help but be enchanted by. I also always loved her voice, and savored every chance I got to hear her sing. I think she had more talent than we would have ever been able to see.⁣

I was constantly moved by the degree to which she took care of her family, and how she looked out for her friends. She showed up for me on numerous occasions where she didn’t have to, and I was always so grateful for her friendship then, as I certainly am now.⁣

And even as I sit here, struggling to comprehend, gutted beyond description- the very thought of her cracks me up and still brings a smile to my face. That was Naya’s gift. And it's a gift that will never go away. ⁣

Rest in peace you wild, hilarious, beautiful angel.

How can you convey all your love and respect for someone in one post? How can you summarize a decade of friendship and laughter with words alone? If you were friends with Naya Rivera, you simply can’t. Her brilliance and humor were unmatched. Her beauty and talent were otherworldly. She spoke truth to power with poise and fearlessness. She could turn a bad day into a great day with a single remark. She inspired and uplifted people without even trying. Being close to her was both a badge of honor and a suit of armor. Naya was truly one of a kind, and she always will be. 💔 Sending all my love to her wonderful family and her beautiful son.

Dear Naya, 

I’m failing miserably to process this news. I always imagined old future senior moments where we would hear your infectious laughter down the hall knowing that our funny bone was in for a treat. To many people, myself included, you were the life of the party. Not only able to rock when fun was to be had after a long day but that shining friend that was always willing to listen, offer sympathy, perspective and at times, give much needed levity to any situation. 

You were a beast on the show. I admired you as I watched you nail multi page monologues that you learned moments before and pour your heart into every performance with an energy that had that snicks special written all over it. Our deep conversations about life inbetween scenes are some of my favorite moments with you. Getting to hear about your hopes and dreams for the future and with Josey’s arrival, ‘Your greatest success’ I was so happy to see your dream turn into reality. 

You deserved more. I’m so sorry but you deserved more. You gave life your all and I hope all the good that you have given to the world will be returned in abundance when you reunite with our brother in the heavenly skies. I’m so grateful for our memories. We will make sure to keep your legacy and spirit alive so Josey will grow up to know the incredible woman you were. Love you, Naya. You are already missed. Eternally. 

-HSJ

Naya and I fell into stride with such ease, she was my first friend and ally on our show. In the pilot, our characters came and went with such swiftness. Our enthusiasm brimmed with all of the unknown. We tried to grasp what the other cast members must be feeling as we were working in such separate manners. We dared to dream. What if this show worked? Wouldn’t that be something? Something was brimming, it was palpable. And thank god it worked. Naya’s magnetic talent was going to be unleashed, we just didn’t know it yet. ⁣⁣

I’ve been revisiting Naya’s performances on our show and it has brought me great joy. To work with her was a gift. There was a great deal to absorb - her work ethic, her fearlessness, her talent - supreme. Naya had a laugh that would envelop you and hold you captive. She was mesmerizing. That twinkle in her eye, her luminous smile. Naya lead with truth, humor, wit. I loved her for all of these reasons. ⁣⁣

I loved her sense of curiosity and wanderlust. I was lucky enough to be her travel partner for some of my most favorite adventures. As I write this, I’m grinning with swelling memories of a spontenaous 36 hour excursion - one might even say diversion - to Paris. With Naya, everything was possible and would often simply unfold before us, almost magically.⁣⁣

On this particular jaunt, within ten minutes of checking into our hotel, we found ourselves strolling the halls of L'École des Beaux-Arts, sipping wine from paper cups with students showcasing their latest work. It was fantastic. We were united in our commitment to discovery. And there was always a list of cleverly curated ideas in Naya’s back pocket, should we need it. ⁣⁣

I cannot make sense of this tremendous loss. I will hold onto her and these memories for the rest of time, alongside our Glee family. Please hold space for her, her family, her beautiful boy. ⁣⁣

In absolute, loving memory.

Naya The world is at such a loss and I am truly heartbroken. I still remember the day I met you. You Walked straight up to me, grabbed me by the face and drug me around until I met every single person on set, introducing me as “new booty”. You were one of the first people who made me feel like family when others saw me as an outsider. I didn’t know then that you would become my family and that’s just who you were to everyone.. A Mother, Sister, Daughter and most of all a friend. Your massive heart and bright spark is what carried our entire show, when at times we all felt like giving up. 

You always showed up for me when I needed some wisdom or was down and just needed someone to talk to. You took care of everyone around you in a way that was so warm and comforting and you sure knew how to throw a hell of a party! 

I always admired your bravery and passion to fight for what’s right even when it seemed like you were up against the world. Your spirit is contagious and you continue to make everyone you have touched a better and stronger person by knowing you. 

My favorite part of glee was getting to watch you perform and shine up close every day. You really were the pulse of that show. Anyone who was blessed enough to see and experience your raw talent knows it to be true. You’re one of the smartest and most gifted people I have ever met. There is no one like you and there never will be.

You have changed peoples lives all around the world and you continue to change mine forever. I will never forget your love and kindness. Thank you for sharing your spirit Angel.

I will miss you always. I Love you Naya

For the last 7 years the 13th of July has shattered our hearts beyond repair. There aren’t enough words to describe the pain we are feeling, we are truly heartbroken at the loss of @nayarivera .

Naya, Cory loved you so so much. He cherished your friendship more than you will ever know. From the laughs you shared, to the strength you gave him when he needed it the most. Cory truly adored you. He was in awe of your incredible talent, the way you gave everything you had to each performance; the slap in the auditorium was one of his favourite stories to share. You once said Cory was like a member of your family; you will always be a part of ours. We’ll carry you in our hearts forever. We miss you. Friends reunited for eternity.

We send all our love and strength to your beautiful boy, your family, friends and fans 💔🐻💔

[ranmanjuu]

—gen z mc with uesugi-takeda + misc. forces

ahh, i’m so glad people liked my gen z oda hcs! lol it’s usually pretty slow from my writing blog experiences until now, but i’m rlly happy! i was planning to do u-t and the others but then i decided to stop at oda and continue another day. thx for the asks tho! and yeah, i do take requests but it’s more of a pasttime, since this whole blog is just my stupid ideas written out and shared out there.

also someone said that a gen z mc could be old enough to romance the warlords, like, early twenties. and yes, very fair if u wanna romance ur mans with memes and existentialism go for it!! i just think it adds more to the comedy side of this child they have to babysit, while not fearing death or any consequences from their dumb of Ass decisions. someone who fears no death and armed with no braincells is a fool, but a Child who fears no death and armed with no braincells is also a fool, but more bizzare and has That Vibe y’know

@niphredil-14​ and @arthotsglasses​

tw: s*icidal, violent jokes treated in a light manner

also spoilers to some things of their characters

—kenshin:

who is this,, , sassy lost child??

he first saw you prepared to throw hands with ronins who were being Elite Dickheads. ofc, armed with nothing compared to the sworded-adults, he had to interfere.

no matter how cold he treated you, masking his secret !!!-like concern, you seemed so unfazed through it. you still interacted with him like normal,,,,, why?? do you want a death wish?

and each time he threatened you with,, anything, you responded with, “the only one who gets to hurt & kill me, is ME”

...... what?

he’s convinced you’re the biggest fool of a person. and he’d be right but even so, he has a weirdly strong need to protect you as you two got closer. you’re often with sasuke, so it’s harder to avoid you.

even with all the Horrible jokes you make on a daily basis, if your passionate side with everyone having equal rights of being treated as human, for him it shows a side of you that makes you seem precious and pure and kind hearted.

and the overprotective side increases.

which is, ,, a bit problematic sometimes cause you have the tendency to target and piss off anyone in a 10 meter range by just one (1) sassy comment, along with your lack of impulse control and blurting out everything in your mind. it’s made you a lot of short enemies in the sengoku period, and kenshin would always be ready to slice them down behind you.

sasuke has to tame him down with his Masters degree in kenshin-wrangling.

at banquets, kenshin would often have you beside him. if you’re too young for sake do age for drinking exist in sengoku? probably not. it’s more of sasuke advising for him to not give you alcoholic drinks he’ll have you pouring for him or just munching away at pickled plums or food.

—shingen:

(ngl i kinda had a hard time with this since it’s erasing a big part of his overall character,,, flirting)

once he heard the news that oda had taken in somone as young as you during honno-ji,, ,,,he’s in a very “how dare that demon >>:( taking such a pure soul,....”

and when you’re taken to kasugayama as a captive, you’re,,, surprisingly very calm and whelmed. you don’t have much sign of fear or anxiety in your overall demeanor meanwhile you’re busy dissociating and spacing out to feel those

you actually don’t seem to hate your captor. but shingen isn’t sure if your ‘fingerguns’ is a good thing or not cause it depicts you pointing guns @ him,, (dw is good shingen)

while yes being held hostage—no matter how good you’re being treated—isn’t ideal and kinda not very cash money, you consider shingen v chill. man has a kindheart!! “i diagnose you with good vibes.”

if he ever sees your righteous side, as everyone else, he’ll deeply admire you. he himself is someone who believes in such as well. and hearing the circumstances in the modern world regarding those things (blm, etc.) his heart truly does go out for you. he feels sympathy for such a young person like you having to take action

also your dirty humor around him, echigo’s player, kind of makes him question where and how you learnt it

and,, his illness.

through getting straight to the point and not falling for it each time he changes subject/dodges the question, you managed to get to the bottom of his illness. shingen himself thinks it’s not something you have to burden with knowing—you’re so, so young.

but that doesn’t matter to you. the world’s given you such a shit time, you’re mature enough to understand the situation at least.

and as he finishes his explanation, all there was is silence. it felt wrong to say any of your usual quips,, so all you did was slowly came there and hugged him.

that was more than what he’d ask for.

—sasuke:

oh hell yeah

you are in your element with him. the chillest guy to talk to, and probably the first one you’re the closest to

your phone was dead after like 2 days of use, and you were miserable while hideyoshi, like a typical parent, told you to go outside and into town. sensing your bad mood, sasuke asked what’s up. you deadpanned, “my phone game ended and now i’m ready to commit not breath.” you oslemnly look out in the bustling streets and clutched your fist like an Anime Protagonist, “those boomer memes were right all along... i am absolutely Miserable and Useless(^TM) without it.”

in response, you could’ve sworn he did the Anime Glasses thing as well, “then we at team Moderately Awesome Sengoku Ninja are happy to announce the launch of a DIY phone charger, made with the electricity from a fruit and the main functionality of a solar panel. and has more durability than samsung’s.”

there were Stars in your eyes now. with a big grin, you thank him, “i’d die for you, sasuke.”

“then perish.” he said with a blank look. (yukimura, in the bg: ???!!!??!??!?)

the next day he consentually breaks in through the ceiling and gives you the weird contraption. you’re now saved, soul-wise.

the memes start coming and they don’t stop coming from the two of you. in any situation. whether it’d be at a teahouse, or at a battlefield that can determine your life and death.

and you can have discussions about current world events, or the past ones, with him and he’d understand completely what you’re talking about. it’s those rare nights when you’ve been thinking and have a deep conversation with him in his room, and as an adult, it makes for interesting results as well.

the others are endlessly confused, but you’re both so unapologetically yourselves.

and he’s super protective if the circumstances are tough. he feels bad for dragging another person in the sengoku with him—much less when they’re so young like you.

if you’re enough of a lil shit, once you’re taken into kasugayama, in the nights where you can’t sleep because brain at what would be 3 am, you’d probably trudge over to his room and wake him up to tell him what kind of mind-blowing shit you realized.

—yukimura:

when he saved you from falling to your death, your reaction already set off weird Vibes inside him. what do you mean, “you stopped me from fleeing this fleeting world by the sweet embrace of death” ?!?!?! are you crazy?? yes

he doesn’t waste time getting blunt with you at all either.

once he goes into azuchi as a merchant, he silently observes you talking to sasuke for a bit. what’s with your weird language?? and crude humor???? never in his life has he met someone in your age act like that wtf

even so, he still operates on the basis of ‘‘if sasuke trusts you, i trust you’’, no matter how utterly concerned you make him feel

you have a dirtier mind than him! unsurprisingly. along with everyone else, you often tease the poor soul, a nd you’d gladly tell him what the innuendoes mean ( 69, etc.) and maybe sprinkle in some gay jokes in there

and why do you keep mentioning this “bromance between him and sasuke” ?? what us,,, a bromance????? and why is sasuke in it??

he takes you out to teahouses to eat chestnut dumplings and other desserts with you. you always seem to target the one he doesn’t like the most and have a bit of banter

your relationship is built on banter but what’s different rlly

he treats you much more maturely than other people your age. as in, he doesn’t pull back his punches in words most of the time. you don’t seem to around him also, it looks like.

and, he’s also very protective of you. he regards you as his little sibling, as rat as you may be. and he does care about you—he might just be a bit unwilling to say it

—yoshimoto:

you think he’s very chill, if a bit unique but who were you to judge. and he is, if you ever meet him in echigo or even azuchi

his big liking to art and something of apathy to people is osmething you can respect. there’s something about that kind of Vibe that you find oddly a mood.

and oh boy oh boy you wasted no time pulling up your phone and showing images of what art is in the future. whether it’d be a screenshot of anime, fanart, aesthetic-like ones, palette-themed—the whole shabang. 

and, somehow, you were left ranting to him  about how some artists in the future get it so shitty for theft, reposting, not crediting, the list goes on (please be a decent human being to artist, sincerely the author) and he can’t help but just listen in silence and kind of thinking about how you’re so passionate about the Struggles of artists. and it isn’t something he sees often in the sengoku era—where war rules most things.

and he does find art from the modern times interesting, how they’re so different and vast in styles. and not only that, it’s not like the future only has one major style like then, each hand can draw such different pictures and still have beauty in each. he appreciates and admires that.

and he does tell you his thoughts ^ while you give your own insight. it’s so fascinating to see someone like you having strong opinions on this.

because, well, rn art is a big thing in our lives as we’re stuck inside. a part of entertainment is looking at any media of art—and he finds his view of art and yours quite the same. you two came from a time of turmoil (one moreso than the other) but still think art isn’t exactly irrelevant just because it isn’t a cure to diseases or the Ultimate Weapon.

you had to Surgically Remove him from your phone so you can use it and to stop him from draining your battery looking at the art

and he often drags you out to town and admire pieces when you’re holing yourself in too much. your comments are always unknown to him, “radical”, “that’s one i can vibe with ngl”, and the list goes on.

and you occasionally call him pretty boy as a compliment rlly

—kennyo:

when you first saw him at honno-ji, and he won’t forget the one (1) line you gave him, all you said to his warning of ooo spooky demons was, “that’s lit fam gtg tho”

and that alone was enough to stun him for a few seconds

honestly you told the others of your meeting with kennyo before they told you it could be kennyo. just a throaway line of “oh yeah there was this dude with a scar across his face.” / “,,, ,....that’s kennyo. he’s really dangerous actually—” / “oh, poggers”

you’re probably kind of half the reason the oda forces found who dun it.

and it was an eye for an eye, kennyo himself found out that you were their child chatelaine, and very close to the others. as per his villain-schedule, he kidnaps you .

he laments about how “such a pure soul such as yours is not to be stained by the demon’s hands”

oh how Wrong he was.

you were the definition of the opposite of pure. and you seemed unfazed, which surprised kennyo but shrugged it off. he was willing to face you screaming and panicking, along with shouldering the sin of doing the deed. but instead, he was met with a raised eyebrow and, “this is unexpected and probably not welcomed but what am i doing here.”

he was stunned for a moment before explaining what he can. 

“......... fuck.”

he cringed ever so slightly at your curse. but your attention seems to stray so quickly off of the fact that you were bounded and helpless, to the fact that you have the man doing unspeakable things to civilians and you absolutely don’t approve.

throwing your common sense to maybe be civilized, you went off on a rant of how human rights and how to not be an ass to him. all he could do was just listened, shocked to even cut you off.

when he did, he gave the whole ‘unsaved demon’ shtick, and you weren’t taking that kinda shit. he believed he was truly unsaved—you knew that. but that doesn’t make it okay.

eventually, he left you with a cold end of the conversation.

he admires your spirit in a way—but with what he’s experienced,,, it’s a bit of unreachable for him.

if at any point you saw the soft side of his with animals, you just gaped at him for a split second and whispered, “the gap moe is strong with this one.”

also old man died inside when you said that you’d fight god, along with many things.

all in all, to him, you’re insufferable. but weirdly,, fascinating.

you’ve totally ok boomer’d him once cause he rlly looks old

—motonari:

,,. if your speech to kennyo was bad, he’s going to rant hell.

motonari already knew you were interesting even when his men just spied on you. your behavior, so brash and impulsive, is going to be so fun to have, he thinks.

through some planning to stir up more chaos, he kidnaps you and brings you unto his ship. same as kennyo, you showed no clear sign of surprise, and that’s when he decided you were either used to this in any way, or a fool. both answers, he liked.

you’re kind of really confused on why he’s doing what he’d doing. “i get it, i like to stir up chaos myself but it’s harmless,, most of it—but not until the people are in danger, bitch.”

and by that line, motonari leans towards you with a deadly smirk, “now, i can bite, ‘kay kid? you don’t wanna be in the receiving end... do you?”

“do it, coward.”

and before he could let out even a wheeze of laughter, you continued on on a lecture of, again, not being a dick and letting people live their life in peace. and much less all of this damage, for what? chaos?? yeah you wanted to see the world burn but it wasn’t literally.

however, his patience was running thin. he shuts you up forcefully, and leaves.

even so, after a cooldown period, he still talks to you (,,,, well, that’s kind of a generous term) because, right he was, you were so fun in his eyes.

an interesting observation he made,,, was that you picked up on his big dislike of physical contact. and he’d think with how annoying you were at times, that you’d weaponize it. but you didn’t—in fact, you kept your space (not that you were planning to get close) and respected his boundaries.

he thinks you a bit of peculiar for that decision, some wary, and perhaps naive.

one of the days—the more dangerous ones—he was planning to take you to the oda as bait or something. and you weren’t taking it like that. two days before arrival, a storm racked up. you stood upon the edge of the ship with the rest of the crew watching you like you were a madman.

“the oda won’t want me if i’m dead, would they now?”

motonari stands in his composure, guffawing, “all i need is to make sure they believe you’re alive, kid.”

a smile that showed absolutely no fear and 1000 percent spite spread in your face, “not unless i decimate my own body until all the trail left is my blood. the only one who gets to do that shit to me, is me.”

finally, a look of wavering shows in his face.

you were saved last minute,, and the rest is history.

[reverielix]

Helloo, we just talked about it so yea here's my chart and I'm looking forward to your analysis in terms of compatibility hehe ;)

Ahhh yeah let’s goooo!!!

5th house in Capricorn — dating and overall “self-expression” area of life

Your approach to romance is rather traditional and restrictive: you strive for long-term commitments and experience rather slow-paced romances with many potential hurdles to overcome. After all, you grow together by experiencing negative things here with Saturn as the house ruler. You are mostly attracted to people who are composed, responsible, mature and committed. People with a rather serious and “boney” look (accentuated jawline and cheek bones, maybe strong eyebrows, more serious looking) may catch your attention. You express your love in dating by showing your hard-working nature as you are impressed by people who are high achievers. Somebody who keeps their reputation clean and cares about their image projected into the world could spark your interest here. You can be cautious, calculative and serious in love as you want to evaluate the other person before you even decide to date them. Saturn in the 11th means you may like getting to know your lover in groups rather than in one-to-one settings, which gives you space to observe from a distance. You may seem closed-off at first, but you express your love in a rather friendly way, though it’s hard for you to express romantic affection and you might come off as weird/feel weird because you don’t know just how to express all the love you hold for somebody. You’d enjoy rather intellectual conversations and fall in love with their mind rather than actually being all lovey-dovey. But once you trust somebody, you will let them in the wall, shell or layers you’ve built around yourself for caution and protection. Overall, though, you feel motherly over your lover and strike feel comfortable and maybe even domestic in love, but I will get into that later when talking about your Venus since it’s also in Cancer, just like your Saturn. Keeping the members in mind, Jeongin may make you feel special with his sun in your 5th house. He can make you feel admired and understands your love language and initial distance perfectly as an Aquarius. He may not have a traditional approach at all and could make you feel like you just wouldn’t work out because he is rather fast to move in relationships that are often short-lived and hang on by a spark while you rather want to build a solid foundation for a solid and stable future. Here, Chan and Minho (along with Changbin, Hyunjin and Seungmin) could give you that devotion and dedication to really believe that you could have something long-term.

Sun in Cancer in the 10th house - you

You may feel special when you can nurture or be nurtured emotionally. I get the feeling that you have a plan to succeed as something bit later in life (maybe even beyond your 30s)👀 Anyway but your self-esteem and self-perception could be determined by your success, so when you fail, you may feel like your value decreases (which is obviously not true) and your cancer sun can give you a rather, like Capricorn, closed-off nature. You don’t want to be open with your success, self-perception or any of that. You like keeping that to yourself and putting work in at home. You may feel the need to always be in touch with your family and value them a lot as you also value your career and ambitions: this placement is basically the definition of domestic bliss lol. The danger here is that it may occur to you that you push people away when you feel like you don’t deserve them e.g. when you didn’t achieve that goal or haven’t spent time with your loved ones. The way you treat your loves ones can also reflect how you treat lovers (when it comes to how much time you spend with them, so like home-work balance and just in general how much affection you show,...). Regarding aspects, your sun squares your Jupiter, your Mars and trines your Uranus. First off, the aspect Sun square Jupiter gives great opportunities for success but also some tests of character along the way. You’re very fortunate but also have to make your own luck. Lucky breaks and popularity can lead to an inflated ego and other excesses in life. Your impulse to expand and learn new things may be in conflict with who you are or express yourself to be. Maybe you have a hard time going out of your Cancer shell and expanding into a more non-traditional and light-hearted way of being. Further, the Mars Sun square may indicate that you are your “own worst enemy” and tend to be aggressive and abrasive on yourself. You have set goals of how you want to be and seem to the outer world, so whenever you don’t achieve that, you’ll tear yourself down in a little violent way. This can make you unsusceptible to somebody like Felix, Seungmin, Jisung (and Chan) who gently want to love you because you simply won’t let them. Lastly, the Uranus Sun aspect allows you to express your uniqueness in a flowing and harmonious way that does not upset others. You tend to be comfortable with being seen as different and your self-esteem is enhanced by this heightened self-awareness. You can be controlling about how you show yourself to others (maybe you can feel many eyes on you at all times as you develop into or show yourself) and at the same time have taken time to understand and appreciate your individuality. This would, for instance, appeal to Chan, since his Saturn singleton visualizes just how much effort he puts into his reputation and success.

2nd house in Libra (conjunct Jupiter) - self-worth and self-esteem

You value partnership in conjunction with delegating responsibility to be shared with others. It is ingrained in your personalvalue system to be attuned to others and accommodate them as you may feel the need to meet others’ needs strongly. Alongside that sharing ideas and creating a space for your intellect may be highly regarded virtue. You see partnership and marriage as a way to share burden, combine recourses, and survive easier as a team. A harmonious life balance (work-home for instance), optimism, good relationships, positive decisions and feeling beautiful among other factors are of big influence when it comes to your self-esteem that can change the lens you see yourself through. Felix, Chan, Seungmin and Jisung could heighten your self-esteem by showing you love and affection through words and intellectual stimulation. Furthermore, Jupiter conjunct the 2nd expresses optimism and an elevated sense of self-worth, and also a lot of luck when it comes to finances. Your faith in positive things coming your way attracts good luck especially with possessions and you have an overall good sense of self-worth, which means that, in regards to your 5th house, you have a very clear picture of who deserves to be with you and who you can open up to or enter a relationship with. (The danger of over optimism and arrogance may also exist with this placement) This reminds me of Changbin and his Virgo Venus as this placement indicated high expectations, just like you are protective of yourself and expect somebody specific (with Neptune in your 5th it can be suggested that you have an imaginative picture of who you’re attracted to and who you want to attract into your life). So let’s look at the house ruler now...

Venus in Cancer in the 11th house - love-style and how love is received

Safety and the emotional bond between you and your partner is what love is centered around for you. You crave comfort and a venue to share your ideas and activities with others. You may meet a lover during group situations and are a generally cheerful lover who doesn’t show love and affection in traditional ways. You promote the emotional bond you have with a lover in a rather non-traditional way and like goofing around with your lover, though you take love ver seriously in general. The conjunctions with Mercury and Saturn hint at you being a very loyal and caring lover, while you can also have trouble showing it. This can lead to a degree of delay and restraint in forming close relationships. Lack of self-love or self-respect is usually the main reason for any shyness or inability to maintain close relationships. As said previously, your success determines the way you see yourself a lot. You know your self-worth and that you deserve good relationships, but throughout the timeline of a romantic relationship there’s no going out for you: as said, you look for lifetime love, because once you let them in, you feel too vulnerable to them, which results in you being afraid to let go or hand your confidentiality to somebody new. You may close off again when somebody doesn’t treat you the way you deserve. Sometimes it is you who lets them treat you in a way you don’t deserve because you feel bad about yourself in a moment. At the same time, referring to Mercury now, you are charming, poetic, refined, and polite. Even though Mercury conjunct Venus people are typically strong and smart, cunning, and gregarious, you also have a delicate air that's hard to explain. You may come off as mysterious to your lover as you don’t really know how to express your love, so you may write your lover letters, since, like that, you don’t have to tell them face-to-face. You have a way with words when it comes to romance and always strive to learn about your partner and with your partner. To expand, in a way. And here we are back again at Jupiter and now also the sextile it’s in with your Venus. This aspect is overall pleasant, harmonious and positive. You love life and people, which makes you easy to be loved by others. You have a good sense of humor that is typically subtle and adorable. Fun and romance go hand in hand with this placement. Your lover is your best friend with a way different and deeper emotional bond. Chan and Minho have Sagittarius on the 7th house cusp while both also have a Scorpio Venus in the 6th house. Both could give you confidence and feed into your self-esteem, though Minho doesn’t have such a complicated relationship with reputation and the 10th house, which could teach you how to perceive yourself apart from your achievements.

Moon in Pisces in and conjunct the 7th house - your emotions and safe-space + the area of one-on-one relationships and romance in life

Your emotions likely come in waves as they tend to change a lot considering Pisces' mutable modality. On top of that, your emotions are likely to influence your perception of things around you as it's a back-and-forth between your surroundings and emotions since they impact each other strongly. You're the perfect definition of hard-shell-soft-inside as this placement indicates sensitivity, empathy and generally a highly intuitive as well as emotional nature. Your moon setting (so moon conjunct the descendant/7th house) suggests that you possess a sensitivity toward people’s behavior or own emotions, especially in one-to-one situations. That means; when your partner has a bad day, you, too, have a bad day. Moreover, you are open about sharing your feelings with others, especially your close friends and partners. However, you may become overly dependant on others for emotional support. This depends on your early relationship with your mother or the person who most cared for you when you were young. This maternal relationship has a great influence over the kinds of people you form intimate relationships with. A lack of boundary setting can also make you feel overwhelmed by others. You could attract moody and overly emotional close friends and partners that you then want to mother or be mothered by, depending on your relationship with the maternal role in your childhood. Referring back to the members, you may attract Hyunjin or Jisung into your life. Pisces on the 7th house cusp is often an indication of unrealistic ideals and romanticized relationships. You may find this part of yourself to be weak or unwanted, you usually reject this softer and more emotional, wishy washy/unclear/abstract part of yourself. A partner may bring this part out of yourself and make it flourish, which can result in you pushing them away. Somebody who accepts and is attuned to your emotions as well as communicates emotional understanding to you will be desired when you also take the Cancer Venus into consideration: you desire a deep emotional bond and comfort with somebody, but first you have to come to terms with yourself and your own feelings and learn to not reject them anymore. Let yourself feel and stop judging yourself for your feelings and romantic wants/ideals/endeavors. Here, I consider Seungmin to be a fit since he has high emotional intelligence according to his chart and his moon in Cancer could not only appeal to your Venus but also help feel your Pisces moon understood and nurtured. In a relationship you would both be emotional givers, though Seungmin possesses the ability to set boundaries with his emotions so it doesn’t get too messy as he can help you figure out your boundaries as well. Now onto the 7th house ruler in your chart...

Neptune in the 5th - unconditional love and the merging of two souls

You may show unconditional love in generous, creative ways (as previously said, you may write love letters or such for a significant other, but I can see how you use any type of art like drawings or music here as well). With your 12th house in Leo, this can only be fortified: expression of unconditional love comes natural to you. Sensitivity and intuition take over. You may not even realize you start becoming like/adapting to the person more and more. Neptune in the 5th house may be victimized. It is suggested that you are willing to suffer and even accept anything from a person you’re in love with. Also, this natal placement can give victim/savior relationships, sometimes with a rather dramatic and dreamy atmosphere that reminds of movies. You view your environment through rose-colored glasses and are always hopeful that good things are either here or coming your way very soon. When you date, you may want to sit back and observe first, considering other placements, though the way you date is almost religious in a way where the physical world can wait and idealistic where—you’re gonna do this subconsciously—your expectations may be projected onto another person so that the observation becomes way more subjective and emotionally biased. The way you feel, after all, influences your way of perceiving things around you. With the square to Jupiter it’s the potent dream world that you create which is both the source of your creative potential and the cause of your challenges in actual achievement. The problem is that often your dreams remain just dreams, an inner world into which you retreat, a world that you invest much energy in maintaining. Dreaming becomes too addictive for you, and your life becomes an unrealized dream. This frustration is often caused by a lack of self-discipline and too much self-indulgence and time-wasting. With Jupiter conjunct the 2nd a self-permissive tendency could be the culprit. This aspect is rather contradictory to your Capricorn 5th house. You try to stay objective and observing but you start judging by emotions and expectation.

In conclusion and considering every aspect analyzed, I consider Seungmin to be most compatible with you. (I actually thought of this lots lol it was a pretty hard decision)

There are lots of harsh aspects to work with here (your Uranus being badly aspected with his Jupiter and Pluto, his Venus and your Saturn-Mercury conjunction in a square + some more minor aspects)

But I chose him because

You’d just be each other’s safe place for emotions. You’d be so well attuned to and affected by each other emotionally that you would feel the other’s pain deeply as well. It’s mutual nurturing and taking care of each other as this relationship gifts you the very emotional bond you long for.

With your Pisces moon and his in a trine, he could awaken the 7th house part of you in a way that you’d feel comfortable with considering that you usually surprise that feeling of yourself or dislike it, he may teach you to love it.

Your Mercury and his Sun are in a good aspect along with both your Saturns

Your Mars is well aspected which could bring out a more suppressed part of you as well and encourage you to be entirely yourself along with other positive things

You may achieve a lot together with the Mars Saturn aspects and start many projects, which can boost your confidence

In general Seungmin is more the type to take it slow, especially with that Mars in Virgo, which could ease you into it (though his Libra placements may stir up some conflict)

Overall, he may provide you with a lot of emotional care, though maybe your goals in life don’t match up. This is the case with nearly every member for you though. Apparently your style of dating isn’t commonly shared among the stray kids members lol

[capricornlibraries]

4 years and a hell of a lot of heartache

“This is what I thought I thought you'd need me This is what I thought so think me naive I'd promise you a heart you'd promise to keep Kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep” (“Prelude 12/21” by AFI)

The anniversary of the day she left this world has come and gone for the fourth year in a row. Her absence no longer brings me sadness, but the thought of all she has and will miss does. My growth as well as everyone else’s has been so amazing these past few years. Sadly, I don’t think, if she was still here, that that growth would be as admirable. I think it’s the appreciation for the growth. A certain embrace of life that only happens following the death of someone close. I see death as more of a blessing than a curse. It starts out in a devastating way, but much like fire, there’s a following rebirth. There’s a reason Uranus follows Saturn. “How beautiful… the agony in the moment of destruction” (Sailor Saturn, Sailor Moon, vol. 8).

The day she died was a new moon. This year it’s full, in the sign of Aquarius, the water-bearer she was born under. Pluto cozied up with my Venus, Neptune winked at my own in 13 degrees, and Saturn hit my 3rd house cusp going backwards. The day of her deathiversary, the moon peaked full right where her natal Saturn nestled in her chart. How saturnine.

How strange it was that we both owned Saturn cars, hers white, mine black. She an Aquarius with her Saturn in Aquarius, me a Capricorn with my Saturn in Capricorn. When she died, my sun began its progress into Aquarius. The beginning of my Saturn return would soon follow. In the following Aquarius season, my journey into seriously studying astrology began, and so did the reclamation of my life.

I loved her so much that I would have taken a bullet for her. But that passion wasn’t returned and therefore unhealthy. She wanted me to love her for so long, but as soon as I was ready to commit to those feelings, she rejected me. I’ve matured enough to understand that we were both just queer, neurodivergent children in high school exploring ideas of sex and love through the lens of puberty and the closet in a world where we were outcasted. At the time though, I felt so scathed, that I was simultaneously angry and heartbroken. Angry enough to live a life through spite, depressed enough to die from a broken heart. It hurt so much to see she didn’t need me, and she didn’t want me. I listened to Pink’s So What on repeat. I dived into fandom to keep my thoughts occupied. She haunted my dreams every night for a year and a half. She still makes appearances in them even now.

Honestly, there is still a lot of anger, but there’s more sorrow and repentance. I’ve done shadow work to see where in our relationship I was toxic. I was overcontrolling, overbearing, and could be quite cold. I wish I could tell her I’m sorry for how I was, but I wonder if she would have ever done the same for me. She only ever apologized when she felt cornered. She lied to me a lot and gaslit me when I would figure out what she fibbed about. It would get to a point that I would have to provide scrupulous amounts of evidence, but then that’s when she would say the reason she didn’t ever tell me the truth was because she was afraid of my reaction, then later, accusing me of implying she couldn’t do anything right. At one point after the heartbreak, we talked to each other, and I had thought she had said sorry to me, but then ghosted me after that interaction. Months later, my friend had ran into her and she had mentioned me. My friend mentioned how she didn’t talk to me after she apologized to me, to which she replied “I didn’t apologize because I had nothing to be sorry for.” So I feel like even if I could apologize to her, face to face, or through text now, that she would have accepted it but would have returned no apology, and in fact, would have used mine as her high horse, leaving me to think it was all my fault in the end, instead of a combined effort of miscommunication and teenage angst.

Her death placed her on a pedestal amongst her friends. They’ve all been so devastated from her loss, understandably, but in such a way that all they remember was the good and none of the bad. She backstabbed a lot of people throughout the years; she could be pretty two-faced when it needed to benefit her. And maybe that’s just how people approach death. They only want to remember the good. But it’s difficult for me, when she caused me so much pain, to only ever hear about how wonderful she was. I feel like a recently divorced, ex Mormon who had to leave an abusive relationship with all the calamity from church goers insisting that they’re betraying god. I know that they all loved her, hell I did too, fiercely, but she also hurt me, and I am so tired of having to keep that part of me locked away because it’s a version of her that doesn’t fit the narrative everyone has made of her. She already made me seem like the toxic one ever since we broke up in high school, and now I feel like, if I were to speak my truth, I would face only backlash and accusations that I am lying, seeking attention, and playing the victim.

For three years, from about 8th to 11th grade, we resided in our imaginations in a fantasy world we had created together with up to 100 characters, different planets, and enmeshed relationships. We filled notebooks and email inboxes of roleplays back and forth to each other, as well as getting together before school, at lunch, and after school speaking the roleplays out loud to one another. This was how we communicated our feelings to each other, getting lost in emotions as we went from intense plots to slice of life storylines. If only I could share our expansive world to everyone, they would see how beautiful our creation was… but every time I try to write those stories, I find myself lost, wishing she could assist. She was my muse, another part of me, and I loved her with every fiber of my being for so long. But I also hated her because of the power she held over me, the way she left me behind to fend for myself as she rebuilt her life without me so easily. I still feel like I am easy to throw away, and it disrupts all my relationships to this day. I will try to get close but then shy away, feeling like people are better off without me. For others, she was the light of their lives and now they can’t face the darkness she has left behind. For me, she was pain and suffering, and I had fallen in love with the darkness.

So I use this full moon to release these pent up feelings, emotions that ran deep from her death on the Leo new moon 4 years ago. I have since then faced some of the darkest parts of myself and embraced them, dived into myself to reach a hand out to my inner child who I am still learning to soothe and let their voice be heard. I want to be able to speak my truth without feeling afraid. I want to be taken seriously, seen as someone who is capable and smart. I am a great friend who didn’t deserve to be thrown away; I deserved compassion and understanding in my weakest moments. The person she left in senior year of high school deserves to have their voice and story heard, even if it’s years later, and she is gone. I release the anger, the pain, and the sorrow. I embrace loving myself and speaking my truth. I loved her, but I also hated her, and both those parts of me deserve recognition and compassion. I know my worth now. I am worthy, I am loved, I am wonderful. I am a light in people’s lives; I have faced my darkness so I no longer need to see myself as only a shadow; I am both the shadow and the light. I may be saturnine, but I have Jupiter in Leo in my 10th house. The expansive, abundant planet in the sign of creativity and generosity shines above me, as I hold Saturn close to my chest. Maybe Saturn appears first, but don’t be afraid, because Jupiter lights the way towards bigger and better things.

[mirrinbelde-shitposts]

Hello ma'am I'm D and idk if I'm guessing it right or not but i really have noticed that you don't use that much emojis, so from my experience i guess MAY BE MAY BE IF POSSIBLE you might have an earth mercury (like virgo mercury something like that). I'm really sorry if my guess was wrong. And this is my birth chart.

Thankyousosomuch🥂💕🌼

Oh hello! I do have an Earth Mercury, although it is Capricorn instead of Virgo, but good guess! No need to be sorry :)

Welcome to your reading. Please remember to send feedback.

First impressions when looking at your chart: you almost have a mystic rectangle, only Pluto is too close to the beginning of Sagittarius

SUN IN CANCER

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about this sign is intuitive. You are probably rather intuitive, even if you don't pay much attention to it. You are, of course, calm, caring and loving, especially toward your family. There's a significant connection to your family, as well as to your home. These aspects allow you to feel emotional security, which is something that you crave very much. You are probably shy with people that you don't know. You much prefer to be surrounded by the people you know and love. You need to feel loved and cherished every day in order to feel well. However, Cancer Suns are known to be manipulative. With your unaspected Sun, Pisces degree and Gemini Mercury, I think this can be especially true.

SUN IN THE 6TH HOUSE

Here, the Sun is in the house of Virgo. This means that you can find your sense of self-worth through things and activities associated with this sign, like career, routine and health. Firstly, you may feel accomplished through your job, especially if it is a profession related to the direct service of others. Being useful makes you feel good. You're not one to just sit around all day doing nothing. Then, you may prize your daily routines because they allow your life to continue running smoothly. It may very much upset you if things don't go like they are used to happen. Lastly, health is very important to you. It is crucial that you connect mind and body and secure the well-being of both because you can be prone to diseases, from which it may not always be easy to recover.

MOON IN TAURUS

The Moon is exalted in Taurus. Placed here, the Moon is quite happy, for this sign goes nicely with its characteristics: family-oriented, home, comfort, calm, familiar things, loving and caring. You may place a big importance on material things and develop an emotional attachment to some belongings of yours, perhaps because they provide you security. You’re the kind of person to stay home and enjoy a hearty meal, cuddle in front of the fireplace and enjoy sleeping in a comfy bed. You’re quite calm and caring; however, expressing your emotions may not be your strong suit. You should work on your deep attachment issues because they can destroy you if the object of that attachment abandons you.

MOON IN THE 3RD HOUSE

This placement allows the Moon, or your emotions, to connect to Gemini, the thoughts of yourself and others. You may have a tendency to be quieter because you prefer to observe and ascertain what other people are thinking and feeling. The placement adds to the intuitiveness of the Moon. However, what you gather from your observation and rationalization may be affected by your emotions because this is the Moon we're talking about, not Mercury. Whereas Mercury is objective, the Moon is subjective. You should approach the situation with a clear head and try not to let your emotions cloud your judgement. Also, you may have a not-very-motherly relationship with your mother, since the 3H represents siblings. She may act more like a sister to you than a mother; or, you may have had to be a mother to your siblings.

MERCURY IN GEMINI

This is one of the two signs ruled by Mercury. Gemini embodies the more chatty, talkative side of Mercury. You are curious, intelligent and love to possess and acquire knowledge of every kind. You are good at both writing and speaking; however, speaking is probably the thing for which you are known. Gemini is known as the sign that never shuts up; this is particularly true in your case, with Mercury in this sign. However, since your mind is always racing, you may lack an attention span, always going from one thing to the other. Staying committed to tasks and goals may be a problem for you because you get tired of things quickly. You are good with words and love to socialize. Emotions may be rationalized.

MERCURY IN THE 5TH HOUSE

This is a great placement for artists, especially those whose fields are ruled by Mercury, such as writers. It allows you to pour all your creativity and originality into your craft. Your many ideas are expressed in fun ways and your show a jovial way of seeing things. You may enjoy puzzles or other activities that involve strategy, as well as sports (yes, because sports also require tactics). Basketball, for example, would be a good sport for someone with this placement. Additionally, it’s a good Mercury position for someone who works with kids or teenagers, as well as parents. You are creative and fun and it shows.

LEO VENUS

Venus feels well here. You are showy with your emotions and you probably go for people who admire and adore you. You are like that yourself as well, of course: your partner is your whole world to you. You love gifts, both giving and receiving, as well as surprises. You're dramatic in the way you show your feelings and you probably like it when your relationship is in the spotlight. Other than that, you are quite creative and artistic. You shine brightly and you embrace those vibes. Venus also gives you a good taste in art and fashion and a natural charm that makes people look up to you. However, like Leo in general, you may value your opinion too much and other people's too little. This is all well and good, but it can cause a lot of problems with your partner. Relationships are all about compromise; if you're unable to do so, they won't last.

VENUS IN THE 7TH HOUSE

The 7th is the house of Libra, which falls under the rulership of Venus. This placement places a great emphasis on relationships, namely romantic ones. These can serve as a means to acquire greater self-value and self-esteem. You may seek the “perfect” partner and have quite a lot of thoughts regarding your idea of perfection. Beware of this, because all your fantasies and expectations will probably fall short and nothing is perfect in life. The saying “Love is blind” very much applies to this placement. Venus actively seeks “the one”, but they may not be who you imagine. You may also have too great a rose-coloured glasses idea of relationships and may struggle when they struggle too. You need to learn that they require hard work. This placement favours unions but also enhances jealous tendencies.

CANCER MARS

Mars is in Fall in Cancer. This means that you may struggle to take action, perhaps due to the shyness associated with this sign. You may remain neutral in a lot of situations for fear of taking one side. However, your moods can change often and your emotions are felt intensely, so, if you are on a bad day, you may attack and have ugly outbursts. You have a fear of being hurt by those closest to you. This is also a placement that can lead to emotional manipulation, as well as feelings of neediness and jealousy. You probably hold grudges and have a hard time forgiving and forgetting those who've wronged you in the past.

MARS IN THE 6TH HOUSE

The planet of action has its joy in this house, according to the principles of Hellenistic Astrology. Mars strongly wants to take action, but the 6th house forces it to be more methodical and less impulsive. Your workplace may become your figurative battlefield. You need to be active in everyday life, but you also want to feel that what you’re doing is meaningful and makes you feel useful. Mars here acts strongly and concretely in areas of life that are related to work, mainly career, as I mentioned. This seems to be a good position for a leader in the workplace. 6H Mars may worry a lot about the body. A great deal of your energy may be directed into taking care of it, perhaps going to the gym is an activity you enjoy.

JUPITER IN CANCER

Jupiter is exalted in this sign. The planet of expansion and luck finds in Cancer a good means of expressing its energy, for the sign is a sensitive one. Whilst Cancer is already sweet and caring, Jupiter expands these traits even more. You are generally a calm person, who empathizes with people’s feelings and has a need to both listen and talk to others. However, you can become very fierce when someone messes with those you love. You probably have a very motherly side to you that draws people in. Additionally, I have said that Cancer is the most intuitive sign: Jupiter in Cancer only makes this even more so. Listen to your intuition, which is quite accurate; learn to trust your gut feelings.

JUPITER IN THE 6TH HOUSE

This placement may seem, at first, difficult, because this is the house of Virgo, in which sign Jupiter has its Detriment. Whilst Jupiter is all about the higher mysteries, philosophy and the bigger picture, Virgo prefers hard work, concrete aspects and attention to detail. You should seek to find meaning in life through your job, as well as acts of service. Also, this placement may manifest in more ways than one: you may be able to take on the Virgo traits by achieving focus in one thing, or, on the opposite, you can move from one thing to the next, in a bid to help everyone and achieve everything. Jupiter here needs to find a middle ground between the mundane and the mystical.

SATURN IN GEMINI

Saturn here may cause you to be unsure about the themes of Gemini: communication, thinking and expressing yourself. This can cause you to be afraid to speak in public or to withhold voicing your true opinions. You may delve into the study of every area of life or, on the contrary, avoid it at all costs. You probably ponder your words before you speak them. You may have a tendency to be introverted due to this. In a past life, you may have misused your voice, so your purpose in this life is to learn the power of your words. Also, you probably struggle with order, discipline and setting realistic goals. Saturns wants you to learn how to deal with these topics in this lifetime. You may have a lack of self-esteem due to the problems aforementioned. It is important that you work on these blockages.

SATURN IN THE 5TH HOUSE

Saturn here prevents a positive expression of your creativity and expression. Perhaps in past lives, these aspects of yours yielded bad results, so, in this lifetime, you struggle with them. As a child, you may have felt trouble expressing who you truly were (maybe your parents didn't accept that, or your teachers), so you felt better off repressing those parts of yourself that caused problems. Now, later in life, you may completely disregard having fun and dedicating your time and energy to hobbies and fun activities. You probably, instead, commit yourself to your work and don't allow yourself any time to relax and unwind. This can cause you to maintain a harsh, stiff approach to life even now, showing only what you think society will accept. Your challenge in this life is to free yourself by embracing and allowing others to see who you truly are and how unique and special you are as a person. ⬛

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Email sabbaticals

It's been a decade since danah boy introduced me to the idea of "email sabbaticals." That's when you go away and turn off your email.

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/12/08/i-am-offline-on-email-sabbatical-from-december-9-january-12.html

Not just setting an out-of-office message, but rather deleting all inbound mail and asking correspondents to try again after the break. In her message, boyd explains to those correspondents who know how to reach her mother that this is the only way to reach her.

Here's the rationale: if you allow email to pile up while you're trying to unwind, it'll take months to catch up on when you get back, and you'll immediately burn out, incinerating all the value you got out of your break.

What's more, you'll still fail to clear the backlog - you'll have to declare "email bankruptcy" and fail everyone who'd contacted you anyway. It's a bad deal for you AND for the people who email you during your break.

Here's how boyd's email sabbaticals work: six months prior, she informs her collaborators that she'll be taking some protracted downtime; a month before she confirms her commitments to collaborators and composes a checklist to ensure that she meets them prior to departure.

A week in advance, she warns everyone again that she's going offline and shuttering her inboxes. Close family members and her network administrator are given instructions for reaching her while on break, but no one else is.

She leaves, and shuts down her email. She knows she's going to miss new, time-sensitive stuff, but makes peace with it. In return, she gets the peace of mind that comes from knowing that she's going to come home to an empty in-box.

At the close of business today, I'm going on email (and work) sabbatical until Jan 4, 2021. Apart from one live event (the remote Chaos Communications Congress on Dec 27) I won't be accepting emails and I won't be replying to DMs or other messages.

https://rc3.world/

I really, really need it.

Over the years, many people have expressed their admiration at my "productivity" - but the dirty secret of that productivity is that work is how I cope with stress.

It's not the worst problem to have: I wrote a whole novel since the crisis, while also launching four books and keeping up with my day-job at EFF.

But working to cope with stress has its limits. It's a good temporary fix, but it's no long-term solution.

For one thing, I've got a serious, untreatable, degenerating chronic pain condition, and working is how I hope with the pain, too - distraction works far better than any prescription meds for me.

But ignoring your body's pain signals is a dangerous tactic. It's why I'm now experiencing the worst continuous pain of my adult life (it's been a stressful year). Last week it was so bad I was walking with a cane.

I say all of this not to humblebrag about my commitment to my work, but rather in the interests of transparency. I'm keenly aware that we live our own blooper reels and everyone else's highlight reels.

I'm grateful for my work habits, truly - but they come at a really high cost, and balancing work-as-distraction and work-as-pathology is really, really hard. If you're wondering how to do what I do, have a little peek into the blooper reel, first.

It's been a high-stress, crazy year. We nearly went broke, then had a spectacular recovery (thank you, Kickstarter backers!), have tried our best to be good parents (with varying degrees of success). We've gone through blazing rows and many sleepless nights.

I've spent most of the year with sores at the corners of my mouth, which I only get under in the most extreme times of stress.

And we've had it GOOD. We're solvent, safe, and healthy. Thinking about what this would be like if any of those changed is terrifying.

Hanging out with my digital community is a huge net benefit to me, but unplugging from that community is something I increasingly value as I head towards my 50th birthday next July.

My first digital community experience was sending IMs to other users of the timeshare mainframe we plugged into when I was six years old, in 1977, when my dad brought home an acoustic coupler and my mom found 1,000' of brown paper towel to feed into the teletype.

Some (most) of my life's most important relationships, friendships, and discussions have taken place over this medium, and an enormous amount of that good stuff started with a conversation with a stranger.

I never felt the outrage that attended the introduction of the telephone into Edwardian England: "Anyone -- any wild fool off the street -- could simply barge bellowing into one's office or home, preceded only by the ringing of a telephone bell."

https://www.mit.edu/hacker/part1.html

For me, finding my people (and being found by them) has been the highlight of my half-century. Touring and speaking turned these digital relationships into personal ones.

But: moderation in all things. I'm writing four of these threads this morning, doing a couple interviews and meetings, and then putting my lid down until 2021 (save for a brief dial-in to CCC on the 27th).

I'm going to swim in our lovely outdoor public pool, which, thankfully, has figured out how to remain open during the pandemic. I'm going read in the backyard hammock and hike in Griffith Park.

I'm not going to answer - or accept - email while I'm gone.

And I say all of this because it's taken a decade for me to really understand what danah was getting at (she's a very smart person and I often benefit from reflecting on our conversations).

And also, to show you a bit of the blooper reel. Coping strategies are great and necessary, but they're no substitute for addressing the underlying problems. I'm proud of the work I do, but I'm also still learning how to do it right.

Image: Alex Watson: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sifter/440685338/

CC BY-NC 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

[sally-mun]

I know I mentioned in another recent post that I really want to get back to doing my “shows,” but before I can get started I have a couple of other things to finish first, one of which is working on zines. The one I’m currently working on is a Ranma ½ zine, and it’s been an interesting experience -- both because of working on the zine itself, and because of my own history with this series.

That’s right, it’s time for another rip-roarin’ Sally-mun ramble!

My first encounter with Ranma ½ was on my 15th birthday. A friend of mine, one of the only other anime fans I knew because it was still relatively unknown in the US, got me the second graphic novel, which is as much as had been officially translated at the time. Going into the story with no context was confusing to say the least, but it also intrigued me enough to look up whatever info I could find on the few stray bits of internet that covered the series, and it was enough to get me hooked.

That said, I also had kind of a difficult time being a fan, because I honestly didn’t like Ranma himself. Like, at all. I found it confusing that the author would write the protagonist to be so blatantly and outwardly unlikable, and as a result I found myself just sort of looking past him and trying to follow the lives of the other characters. I was appalled at the sort of things he would say to Akane; his constant jabbing that she’s not cute, she’s stupid, no one will ever like her because she’s a tomboy, his frequent judgements of her body... I gotta say, they really resonated with me. I couldn’t help putting myself in Akane’s shoes, and in a weird way I felt personally hurt by his insults. I really admired Akane’s strength and the fact that she never let his bullying get to her, because I know it probably would’ve destroyed me. And this is just the way he treats her; I was equally uncomfortable with the way Ranma antagonizes and harasses several other characters in the series as well. I loved the series and I enjoyed following it, but there was always this uneasy feeling inside of me anytime Ranma opened his mouth.

The last time I read or watched this series was probably in my early 20′s. I worked really hard to track down all the DVD seasons (which were exceptionally rare and expensive at the time), and once I completed my set, I felt such a relief and satisfaction that I put the story down and, it turns out, I hadn’t picked it up again since. It’s been a decade or so since I was actively engaging with this series, so when I got accepted to work on this Ranma ½ zine, I’ll admit that there was a part of me that felt a mild degree of panic. Yes, I’m still a fan, but I’m not very deep in the weeds right now; I honestly wasn’t even sure if I could decently write the characters, including and especially Ranma himself. In fact, I realized, I didn’t want to write about Ranma. I didn’t want to write about a character that I probably wouldn’t willingly spend time with in real life.

In the end, however, none of that mattered, because I signed on with this zine and I needed to be an adult and honor that commitment. Since it’s been such a long time since I’ve read or watched this series anyway, I decided to binge on the anime again for the first time in all these years. And this is why I’m writing this long-ass post tonight, because even though I’m only a couple seasons in right now, I have been absolutely shocked to find that my perspective on this story has completely changed. My teenage self can’t even believe I’m saying this, but I seem to have switched sides. I now find Ranma extremely sympathetic, and Akane to be the bully.

Although there is still a part of me that feels for her when Ranma really digs in with his insults, it pales in comparison to how upset I get with Akane over her treatment of Ranma. The fact that she’ll purposefully go as far out of her way as possible to paint Ranma as a jerk is honestly something that’s interfering with my enjoyment of the show. She does have her nice moments here and there, but if any opportunity arises for Akane to scream about Ranma doing something allegedly reprehensible, she’ll take it -- no matter how many people point out the very simple and innocent alternate explanations.

With Akane relentlessly campaigning against him, it honestly comes as no surprise anymore that Ranma snaps at her and antagonizes her. It’s about all he can do to vent his frustrations sometimes, and if she’s going to depict him as a jerk no matter what, he may as well let off some steam in the process. Ranma’s situation is difficult enough just having to deal with his curse, but then to also get forcefully engaged to someone who intentionally sees the worst in him? If anything, I’m now surprised at how much he holds back. He could easily be as nasty to her as she is to him, but he actually takes it kind of easy on her, all things considered. And don’t forget, he rarely gets a break from her; they not only live together, but also go to school together. They’re in each other’s faces all the time. I’m pretty sure I’d have had a few choice things to say to her too if I were in his shoes.

It’s even more frustrating when you consider that she doesn’t even have a good reason TO be treating him this way. This all started because of a mishap that was nobody’s fault. Ranma’s not at fault, Akane’s not at fault, NO ONE is at fault here. Ranma had no reason to believe that anyone (let alone Akane) would walk in on him getting out of the bath, and Akane had no reason to think a boy would be in there. I’m sure she felt embarrassed and violated and wronged, and I DO feel for her in that regard, but that is not his fault. If, IF, IF we’re going to assign fault to anyone, it could honestly only be hers, because one could argue that Akane could’ve at least knocked or announced herself prior to joining Ranma (as a female) in the bath. Furthermore, she doesn’t even acknowledge that this mishap went both ways, as Ranma points out himself that she got a good long look at him, too. He was just as exposed as she was, but she immediately disregards his point and tells him “it’s different when a girl sees a boy,” whatever that means.

Akane is too stubborn to admit to herself that she’s the only one you even could assign blame to, too hypocritical to acknowledge that she wasn’t the only victim, and too immature to just let the damn thing go. It’s a really bad mix that becomes the driving force behind her relationship with him from day one. Akane wants retribution for the crime she’s convinced herself that Ranma committed, so she INSISTS that he’s a no-good pervert because she’s mad that no one was on her side that day. If she couldn’t convince them then, then by god she’s going to convince them eventually, which is why she just will not fucking stop trying to paint Ranma as a perverted jerk. She takes any opportunity she gets to show off his allegedly bad intentions, because to her it’s just another step closer to getting people to see she really was justified on that first day. And Ranma is forced to keep tolerating this, day in and day out, regardless of what he does or doesn’t do.

So what does all this mean?

I think this means that this series is exceptionally well-written, more than anything. At the time that I first discovered this series, I was only marginally younger than Akane herself. I related to her so strongly that I was only capable of seeing the situation from her side, and only able to relate to her emotions and her experiences. As I stated in the beginning, I felt like Ranma’s insults hurt me personally, rather than just empathizing with Akane for him hurting her. This tells me that, for all of her faults, Akane is exceptionally on-point for a girl in her mid-teens. Yes, she’s being immature and petty and unreasonable, but she’s also only 16. That’s how we are at that age, and sometimes it’s easy to forget about that once you grow past it. Teenage years are that shitty point in your life where you feel like you’re so sure that you’ve FINALLY got everything figured out, when in reality you aren’t even capable of understanding the depth of how much you don’t know. Akane holds her grudge against Ranma because she’s so sure she’s right, and she’s determined to find validation for that if it’s the last thing she does, because that’s how most of us viewed the world at 16.

But that’s one of the things that makes my revisit to this series so extraordinary: Akane’s not able to grow and change, but I am. I’ll never be able to view the series the same way I did as a teenager, because I’ve had so many new experiences and so much time to grow since then. I can certainly remember the point of view I had and why, but I’ll never actually have that same view again. I’ve learned so much more about the world, about people and relationships, about morals and ethics... all kinds of things that she can’t, because she’s necessarily frozen in time as a character in a story. Akane doesn’t get to evolve with her readers over the years, and it makes for a fascinating snapshot of where I was mentally and emotionally at that time.

I think the biggest and most critical difference between then and now is my self-esteem. When I first connected with this series, I had basically no love for myself and no confidence that anyone else would ever see anything valuable in me. I was in a place where it was not only very easy for words to hurt me, but for those words to stick with me, sometimes for years after the fact. Ranma, despite simply being a character in a book, was effortlessly able to hurt me on a particularly deep level because that’s how delicate I was at the time of reading it. He hurt me so much that I was completely unable to see his point of view; all I could see was someone being cruel for seemingly no reason, and as such I saw Akane’s treatment of him as completely justified.

20 years later, however, it now reads as a completely different story. I don’t share Akane’s kneejerk reaction to these situations anymore, and I’m more focused on thought process and reasoning. I’m more able to recognize when I’m missing information and need to investigate more, more accountable for when I’ve done something wrong, and more willing to let small things go. Hell, I have a better understanding of what “small things” even are. When I was Akane’s age, none of the incidents happening in the story seemed like small things, but now? Now I just don’t have time for that kind of minutia. It’s... wait for it... childish. Because teenagers are still children, no matter how much we didn’t want to admit it at that time.

But that’s part of the genius of how this series is written. Not only did I instantly fall into the same mental trap as Akane when I WAS her age, but now that I’m not anymore, I look back on it as just kids getting wrapped up in their microcosm of the world. No matter how much I get frustrated at Akane for being horrible to Ranma, I can’t not admit to myself that she’s not an adult yet, so in some way it’s me being the unreasonable one by trying to hold her to adult expectations. She’s still got a lot to learn because she’s still just a kid. I literally used to be just like her at one point in my life. If I was able to mature past that sort of behavior, then I’d like to think that, if Akane were able to age, then she probably would one day too.

[back-and-totheleft]

“I’m not sure I’ve modified my thinking”

“It’s a strange place, England,” Oliver Stone informs me at the start of our Zoom call. “You’ve managed to make it worse than it was,” he says, speaking from his home in Los Angeles. “You’ve turned it into World War Two with your attitudes over there. The English love punishment, it’s part of their make-up.”

You sure know how to break the ice, Mr Stone. It’s a slightly galling accusation, given that he has hitched his wagon to Russia, hardly a paragon of enlightenment. The New York-born writer-director has never shied from ruffling feathers, though. Stone has taken on the American establishment to thrilling effect in his movies, from Platoon to Born on the Fourth of July, JFK to W, Salvador to Snowden, and still emerged with three Oscars. And he has admiringly interviewed a string of figures whose relations with Uncle Sam have rarely been cosy, including Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and Vladimir Putin. Those had more mixed receptions, as has his support for Julian Assange.

Yet at 74 he is still a thorn in the side of the military-industrial complex and is set to remain one for some time, having just had his second shot of Covid vaccine. This being Stone, he got his jab in Russia. A recent trial showed the Sputnik V vaccine he was given to have 92 per cent efficacy and he’s palpably delighted. Angry too, of course. “It’s strange how the US ignores that. It’s a strange bias they have against all things Russian,” he says. “I do believe it’s your best vaccine on the market, actually,” he adds, sounding weirdly Trump-like.

If his bullishness is still intact, Stone reveals a more vulnerable side in his recent memoir, Chasing the Light. The book, which he discusses in an online Q&A tonight, goes a long way to explaining his distrust of government, society and, well, pretty much everything. There are visceral accounts of him fighting in Vietnam, and fighting to get Salvador and Platoon made. “The war was lodged away in a compartment, and I made films about it,” he says. “Sometimes I have a dream that I’ve been drafted and sent back there.”

The crucial event in the book, though, is his parents’ divorce when he was 15. Stone realises now that his conservative Jewish-American father and glamorous French mother were ill-suited. Both had affairs. What really stung was the way he was told about their split: over the phone by a family friend while he was at boarding school. “It was very cold, very English,” he says. “I say English because everything about boarding school invokes the old England.” He’s really got it in for us today.

With no siblings, he says, “I had no family after that divorce. It was over. The three of us split up.” His world view stemmed from his parents being in denial about their incompatibility, he writes in the book: “Children like me are born out of that original lie. And nobody can ever be trusted again.”

That disillusionment took a few years to show itself. “All of a sudden, I just had a collapse,” Stone says. He had been admitted to Yale University but his father’s alma mater suddenly felt like part of the problem. He felt suicidal and sidestepped those thoughts by enlisting to fight in Vietnam, putting the choice of him dying into other hands.

The Stone in the book was described by one reviewer as his most sympathetic character. “It’s true probably because it’s a novel,” he says. Well, technically it’s an autobiography, but it’s a telling mistake. Fact and fiction can blur in his work, from the demonisation of Turks in Midnight Express (he wrote the screenplay) to the conspiracy theories in JFK.

Writing the book allowed him to put himself into the story, something he says he’s never been able to do in his films. He has tried. He wrote a screenplay, White Lies, in which a child of divorce repeats his parents’ mistakes, as Stone has. “I had two divorces in my life [from the Lebanese-born Najwa Sarkis and Elizabeth Burkit Cox, who worked as a “spiritual advisor” on his films] and I’m on my third marriage, which I’m very happy in.” He and Sun-jung Jung, who is from South Korea, have been together for more than 25 years. They have a grown-up daughter, Tara, and he has two sons, Sean and Michael, from his marriage to Cox.

White Lies is on ice for now. “It’s hard to get those kinds of things done,” Stone says wearily. Will he make another feature? It’s been documentaries recently, the last two on the Ukraine. “I don’t know. It’s a question of energy. In the old days, there would be a studio you’d have a relationship with, and they’d have to trust you to a certain degree. And that doesn’t exist any more.”

He thinks back to the big beasts of his early years. Alan Parker, who directed Midnight Express; John Daly, who produced Salvador and Platoon; Robert Bolt, who taught him about screenwriting. “Those three Englishmen had a lot to do with my successes,” he says. I think he feels bad about all the limey bashing. “John was a tough cockney, but I liked him a lot.” He liked him more than Parker, whom he describes as “cold” with a “serious chip on his shoulder.” He smiles. “Sure. Alan did a good job with Midnight Express, though.”

You wonder if Netflix could come to Stone’s rescue. They have given generous backing to big-name directors, from David Fincher to Martin Scorsese, Stone’s old tutor at NYU film school. Surely they would welcome him? “Well, that’s why you’re not in charge! Netflix is very engineering driven. Subject matter such as [White Lies] might register low on a demographic.”

Isn’t he also working on a JFK documentary, Destiny Betrayed? That could do better with the Netflix algorithms. “I’m having problems with that too. Americans were so concerned with Trump, I don’t know that they wanted to hear about some of the facts behind the Kennedy killing. They don’t recognise that there’s a connection between 1963 and now, that pretty much all the screws came loose when they did that in ’63.” He smiles. “I know you think I’m nuts.”

Well no, but you do wonder at his unwavering conviction that there was a conspiracy to murder Kennedy, probably involving the CIA. JFK is a big reason why a majority of Americans believe in a conspiracy and, according to Stone, led to the establishment of the Assassination Records Review Board, which he claims is “the only piece of legislation in this country that ever came out of a film.”

Yet several serious studies, including a 1,600-page book, Reclaiming History, by the former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, conclude that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. That book accused Stone of committing a “cultural crime” by distorting facts in JFK. “I feel like I’m in the dock with Bugliosi. I didn’t like his book at all,” Stone says. “Believe me, you cannot walk out of [his forthcoming documentary] and say Oswald did it alone. If you do, I think you’re on mushrooms.”

Stone knows whereof he speaks regarding psychedelics. On returning from Vietnam he was “a little bit radical” in his behaviour, he says: drugs, womanising, hellraising. He recently took LSD for the first time in years. “It was wonderful,” he says. He hallucinated that he was “moving from island to island on a little boat”.

What was radical in the Seventies can be problematic now. He has been accused of inappropriate behaviour by the model Carrie Stevens and the actresses Patricia Arquette and Melissa Gilbert. “As far as I know I never forced anyone to do anything they didn’t want to do,” he says. Has he modified the way he behaves around women? “Oh sure, no question.”

At the same time, he is disturbed by “the scolding going on, the shaming culture. I don’t agree with any of that. It’s like the Chinese Cultural Revolution. It scares the shit out of me. I do think the politically correct point of view will never be mine.”

He’s not a slavish follower of conspiracy theories — QAnon “sounds like nonsense”, he says, as was the theory that Donald Trump was “a Manchurian candidate for the Russians. That was a horrible thing to do and it hurt that presidency a lot. I’m not an admirer of Trump by any means, but he was picked on from day one.”

What does he make of Joe Biden? “I voted for him, not because I liked him, but as an alternative to Trump’s disasters. He’s got a far more merciful humanitarian side. But he also has a history of warmongering.” Fake news, he says, has “always happened”, in the east and west, on the left and the right. “I mean, back in the Cold War, the US was saying Russia was lying and Russia was saying the US was lying. Each one of these wars the US has been involved in was based on lies.”

It sounds as if Stone has been on the Russian Kool-Aid himself. He is making a documentary, A Bright Future, about climate change that advocates pursuing nuclear power in the short term, and has visited some Russian nuclear plants. They are “very state-of-the-art,” he says. “The US is not really pursuing the big plants, the way Russia and China are. I believe in renewables, but they’re not going to be able to handle the capacity when India and Africa and all these countries come online wanting electricity.”

Putin liked the interviews Stone did with him in 2017, he says. “I think they contributed to his election numbers.” Wasn’t he too easy on the Russian leader? “That’s what some say. But I got his ire up. I did ask him some tough questions about succession. ‘I think you should leave’ — that kind of stuff. The pressure that Russia is under from both England and the US is enormous,” he adds. “Unless you’re there I don’t know that you understand that. Because you take the English point of view, and they have been very anti-Soviet since 1920. You talk about fake news — I feel that way about MI5 and MI6.”

You can’t help but admire Stone’s conviction. If he’s modified his behaviour that’s probably a good thing, but as he says, “I’m not so sure I’ve modified my thinking. I express myself freely. I don’t want to feel muzzled.” Whatever you think of him, be grateful he hasn’t been.

-Ed Potton, “You talk about fake news. I feel that way about MI5 and MI6,” The Times of London, Feb 8 2021 [x]

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #273

ew, wtf is this new /tagged formatting???? ugh.

What is something you dislike about the dating world? I haven't dated around enough to have first-hand experience, really. But from an outside view, people don't seem all that interested in serious commitment. Don't fwm if you aren't into the idea of working towards a whole lifetime together. What gives you confidence? Bitch nothing lmao. Have you ever dated someone with very different sexual tastes than you? No. What is the most meaningful gift you’ve ever given? Both Jason and Sara got a huge list of reasons I love them for certain relationship "milestones," both which really did take a long time because there were loads. I did it with each because I really did feel like it was a very personal, uplifting, and full-of-adoration gift, not just for the sake of recycling an idea because I had no others. I have a shitload of romantic ideas, ngl man. Do you feel as though someone ‘won’ in your last break up? Neither of us "won" or "lost," really. It was a mutual agreement that now just isn't the time for a relationship between us. Whatever happened to the first person you ever loved? Sometimes I'm scared to know. Do you still shop at the same stores you liked when you were a teenager? Yeah. Thankfully Hot Topic became more accessible to plus-size people. Is there anyone significantly older than you that you would date? No. I won't go over like... nine years. Even eight it pushing it. Please share your embarrassing and weird celeb crushes. Post pictures. What do you like about them? I don't have any "embarrassing" or "weird" ones. What is something your partner does that is unattractive to you? N/A What is something that would have made the show better/you would have liked to see happen on one of your favorite series? I honestly wish Weed in Ginga Densetsu Weed was more realistic and realized Hougen was worth killing himself. The lightning seemed cheap and anti-climactic. He had EVERY reason to kill him, and it sounds weird to consider killing as a form of growth, but I feel like it would've been. Maybe that's just a personal thing, believing killing is sometimes justified, but it actually annoyed me. Nevertheless, fucking fantastic show. How do you feel about celebrities that are silent about political or human rights issues? Do you think celebrities should use their platform to speak out? I have... mixed feelings. I think most of me says to use their prominence for good, to be a loud voice to look up to and bring greater attention to issues, but at the same time, some people just like/feel safer being non-political. When you were a kid, what child characters did you admire or relate to most? BINDI IRWIN!!!!!!!!!! I still follow and fucking adore her. Y'all she recently got married and she is just so beautiful and so happy and the Irwins are just genuinely angels on this earth. Tell me about a time that you were bored in a relationship (can be romantic or friendship). What was it about them/the situation that bored you? I've never been romantically bored, and not really with a friendship, either. Sure, I've been bored in another's presence, but it was never a consistent issue. Who’s your favorite Tiktoker? I have never even touched it. How high or low is the barrier to entry in your field or desired field? It's tough, but not that high. More than anything, photography depends on who you know to help get you out there, sadly. It's luck, too. There is most certainly skill involved, but yeah... building your brand up to stand out with only your own hands is ridiculously hard. But that's really any small business/self-employed position. Where would you look if you were looking for a job (e.g., indeed.com, company websites, asking a friend…)? I've pretty much always used Indeed, or I hear from family/friends. How much lower than your ideal salary would you take? What would the job have to entail for you to take a less than ideal wage? Hi, I live in America, where the government doesn't give a fuck if you can support yourself on minimum wage or not. :^) But anyway, this is a difficult question to answer with how little experience I have. I can say, however, that I will fucking not work to just barely scrape by with minimum wage. If I'm going to bust my ass, it's gonna be fucking worth it. Even if you were able to support yourself/your own family, would there ever be a situation in which you would choose to live in a shared house with another family or individual, be it your parents or a sibling’s family, or some other housemate? Sure, I wouldn't mind. Especially family. Do bridges make you nervous? To a degree. Are there any movies that you find so dumb, you find funny? Napoleon Dynamite, of course. How often do you vacation? Pretty much never ever. Do you think it’s cruel to leave a live fish to die in an ice box? I am genuinely concerned for you if you say no to this. Have you ever done anything sexual with someone of the same sex? Yes. Have you ever pawned anything off at a pawn shop? No. Do you have stomach abs? OH, HUNNY- Do you know anyone who is trying to physically impersonate a celebrity? No. Have you ever seen a shuttle launch? I mean, on TV, but even then I didn't seriously watch it. Are we having signs of the apocalypse? I don't believe in the "apocalypse." We're going to fall through natural methods. We're definitely heading deeper into destruction in some ways, though, by our own hands. I'm quite sure humans themselves will be the end of humanity. Would you rather see The Blue Man Group or Fear Factor live? BLUE MAN GROUP!!! They're dooooope. Do you have any exciting plans for this upcoming weekend? No. I'm staying in the goddamn house like we're fucking supposed to. What color of colored contacts would you like to have? To wear regularly? Sapphire blue. Ohhh, maybe one that, and the other icy blue. What’s on your bedside table? It's more a shelf than a table, so I have quite a bit. My medicine basket, fan, a drink, books, sketchbook, some other miscellaneous things. What’s on your bed? A bedsheet, comforter, two pillows, and me, ha ha. Your floor besides furniture? Nothing. Your dresser? All my meerkat stuffed animals, plus some others. The top shelf in your closet? Ha, good question. Are there any dead stuffed animals in your house? No. What’s the best prize you’ve won on an amusement park/carnival game? *shrug* Have you ever done anything sexual in a school? No, I was a good noodle. Have you ever been indoor skydiving? No. Would you have any interest in going on a cruise? Not really. What did you have for dinner last night? I made some hot wings. What's your ideal indoor temperature? High 60s, ig. It’s hard to really tell because my room is always the hottest in the house and I have a fan on me, so I don’t really feel the “normal” temperature most of the time. Does your kitchen have a theme? No. What's the grossest thing u have found in your food? Probably nothing worse than a hair or something, idk. Are you a flip flop lover? I am NOTORIOUS for wearing flipflops absolutely year-round. A little bit of snow on the ground? I’m wearing my gd flipflops because they’re just easy to slide on and I care about convenience probably too much lmao. What namebrand dishwashing liquid do u use? … Dawn, I think? I don’t really pay attention. Do you like ice cream sandwiches? UGH yesssssssssss hunty. Do you prefer hard or soft shell tacos? I hate tacos, but I’d definitely rather have a soft shell than hard. Ever worn a flower in your hair? Maybe as a kid? Name five random things in your kitchen? Nothing abnormal, really… no, wait. You know those sticky cylinder things that flies are attracted to and die a slow death for their brazen intrusion upon your property? We have one of those hanging up in there. Magnets and pictures on the fridge is considered pretty normal, right? Name four things in your fridge? Milk, apples, a bigass bag of pepperoni, and some cold water bottles because I strongly prefer cold water. Name two things in your meds cabinet? We’ve got a load… Different kinds of pain pills, things like Pepto, etc. Name six things in your family room? A couch, a reclining chair, the TV, Mom’s bed, loads of pictures on the walls, and uh… sidetables? Name three things in your bedroom? My snake, my bed, and my dresser. Name three things in your yard? A bird feeder that squirrels like to steal from, a random fucking dolphin statue thingy that deadass looks like a distorted dick (it’s been here since we got here, idfk), and two sheds. Name two things in your bathroom? Our bathroom is tiiiny, so very normal stuff. Y’know, a toilet and sink. What health problems do you have? A lot that I don’t feel like thinking through. Fave name brand of water? Essentia. Do you have a trampoline? Not since I was a teenager. The last time you were in the fridge, what were you looking for? Jam to make a pb&j. Do you like clowns? No opinion. Are you listening to anything at the moment? Surprisingly nothing, but Halocene’s cover of “My Immortal” is seeeeeriously jammed in my head. Do you twitch when your falling asleep? YES. They’re more like muscle spasms. Are your dishes in the dishwasher clean or dirty? We don’t have one; we have to wash by hand. Buuut that house we’re moving into has one! :’) When is the last time you were on a bicycle? Not since I was a teenager. I used to love love loooove to ride my bike after school. What have you eaten today? Special K cereal and aforementioned sandwich. Do you own a strapless bra? Fuckin Y I K E S that would not work w/ my size lmfao. Does the person you like know it? Ye. Did anything brighten up your day today? Our lawn FINALLY got mowed and the bushes trimmed. We had to tidy it up before we can move. It looked like a jungle, deadass serious. Do you ever wonder how other people see you? Only all the time. What is one good thing you're known for? I write well. How about one bad thing? I’m very dependent. When was the last time you sang an ENTIRE song? Wow, no clue. I rarely sing, never mind an entire song. What is one thing that is currently bothering you? Actually my stomach kinda hurts. What did you do today? Wander around the Internet looking for something to even mildly entertain me, play World of Warcraft for a very brief period since I’m going through a bored phase of it, read for a bit, showered… not a lot, but later today we’re celebrating my mom’s birthday early, actually. Do you consider yourself to be attractive? No. I think my dimples are kinda cute, but that’s it. Do you regret going out with the last person you did? Not at all. Do you realize it when you curse? It’s so normal in my vocabulary that generally, no. I’m very mindful around kids, though. I still remember the first time I said “fuck” in my mom’s presence without realizing it and she just like f r o z e. Have you ever been extremely tired but refused to go to sleep? Yeah, for various reasons. That is veeeeery rare nowadays, though, partially because I’m so fucking bored that I’m just happy to close the day. What's the longest amount of time you've been stuck in traffic? An hour or so is my guess while traveling. I don’t recall any specific instances. Best field trip experience? We went to the zoo!!!! It was the one and only time thus far that I’ve seen meerkats irl. What is the most amount of money you've spent on a meal before? I’ve never really been able to buy my own meal, never mind something expensive. What museums have you visited, if any? Just local ones centered around art or science, generally. What's your worst traveling experience? Idk. Sims 1, 2, or 3? Why? Never played. Not my kinda game. What area of math are you best at? Worst? lol I suck at them all. How do you feel when you meet someone with the same music taste as you? It’s exciting! Do you believe in luck? Why or why not? No, because I don’t believe in any “magical” influence over events that occur. Shit just happens, sometimes to good people, sometimes to bad people, and everything in-between. How often do you "half-ass" things (put little effort in)? IIII tend to do that a lot.. Do you ever feel self-conscious when you eat around other people? Not really. Have you ever missed a meeting/event that was required/necessary? You could say so, but it turned out fine that I missed it anyway. What's something that makes you incredibly nervous? Talking to people I don’t know or being alone with a man. If you don't have glasses, how would you feel if you had to get them? N/A If you do have glasses, how would you feel if you didn't need them anymore? I’d be fuckin’ stoked, I could get my undereye dermal without it looking stupid. How many vegetarians do you know? I’m not sure. Have you ever considered going to art school? Does Photography count? I majored in that. Otherwise, no. Have you ever had problems falling asleep in class? No, I was always very attentive in class. Are your parents supportive of you? Very.

[sorneth]

Interview: Sorneth Caduceus

► Name ➔ He grinned. “Ser Sorneth Caduceus, Bard of renown, and teller of stories. ...Also a knight of Ishgard now apparently” he offered with a side ward slant of his eyes “bit of a funny tale that one.” ► Are you single ➔ He chuckled warmly, as a smile formed that not only curved along his lips but brought a fond narrowing of his eyes. “Not in the slightest. I’m the husband of Maxia Caduceus, and happily so. While we do have our problems sometimes, that’s simply the way of it. A relationship is like a garden, you tend it together, and you enjoy both the good times, and weather the bad side by side.” ► Are you happy ➔ He offered a nod. “Most of the time. I have many, many things around me that bring a smile to my face, and a warmth to my heart. While occasionally my mind does get the better of me, I’m fortunate that I can often find pleasant company to help ease me back into my usual, jovial self.” ► Are you angry? ➔ The bard falls silent for a moment, a frown pulling across his lips as the fingers of a gloved hand curl inwards towards his palm briefly. “Overall?” his tone flows gently upon smooth silver “No, I’m content and at peace. It’s merely specific subjects that are likely to light a fire in my blood. But they rarely if ever surface in normal conversation.” ► Are your parents still married ➔ This brought the man’s head to tilt, before giving a brief huff of a chuckle. “I don’t even know my parents, but I imagine they still are. Divorce is not an option where I come from, I’m... pretty sure the marriages are pre-arranged as well. Aids in the selective breeding.”

(Cut for Length)

EIGHT FACTS

► Birth Place ➔ The bard’s eyes closed gently... “A place far more ancient then you can fathom. My people have been around since the star was torn into fourteen pieces. Isolated and kept safe in a homeland so deep beneath the surface of our world, that not even the veins of corrupted aether from the fragments of Dalamund’s fall could reach or affect it. I -am- from the Shroud, just way more vertically down then most forest-born.” ► Hair Color ➔ He grinned, as a hand lifted to pinch one of his bangs within his fingertips. “Naturally this silver, even the white highlights mixed in.” ► Eye Color ➔ His head tilted, offering a better view of his eyes as the moon-white iris’ seemed to glow against the dark grey backdrop. “Moon white, I was told this is the result of those born beneath a Full Moon, on the Winter Solstice. The night influenced me, and thus my eyes reflect my connection to the sunless sea. It’s a rare trait among my people, near to the point of prophecy.” He shrugged “If there is one about me, I don’t know it. I simply am who I am.” ► Birthday ➔ He frowned gently.. “Aside from having been born on the Winter Solstice? Well, that’s if the stories of my eyes are true. Honestly I... actually have no idea. I use the solstice to track my years, when it passes, I consider myself a year older.” ► Mood ➔ He grinned again, this time with one that even narrowed his eyes with mirth. “Playful, flirtatious, good humored, affectionate, creative, modest, honest, loyal, kind, generous. Depends on the day, depends on the time, depends on the company. But generally I’m told that I can be quite a darling, and that I’m pleasant to be around, and easy to get along with.” His smile softened to one of nearly being bashful as he lowered his head and scratched at his cheek. “I just try and give people a reason to smile, there’s enough in the world to feel horrible about. Bard’s are meant to lift people up, after all.” ►Gender ➔ He offered a rich, deep laugh as his arms flowed out from his sides with upturned palms. “Male, obviously. Though... if you want to open up my pants just to make sure, your welcome to...” he offered a wink. “I’m like a museum, can look as much as you want - just don’t touch anything.” ► Summer or winter ➔ “Winter” he stated without a breath of hesitation “I hate the heat, and enjoy the snow, cold, and peacefulness that comes with the season. While game can be a bit more difficult to hunt, I still prefer it over the thick of summer any day.”  ► Morning or afternoon ➔ His smile sweetened. “Morning, very early morning just after midnight. That’s usually when my day usually begins, and I can still drink in the starlit skies as I go about my training routines. It’s quiet, tranquil, few people bother me, and I can lose myself to the routines as if they were meditation.” He sighed out blissfully... “It also lets me finish, come back to the house, and start on breakfast right as my beloved starts rolling themselves out of bed.”

EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE

► Are you in love ➔ His smile grew fond, eyes closing to a gentle, reflective half lid as a soft sigh of contentment parted his lips. “I am fully, and without a doubt in my heart.” The words flowed with a steeled resolve, and an embers warmth as his hand lifted to run the pad of his thumb along the wedding band on his finger. “He is my guiding stars, my strength, my resolve, my present and future. My beloved has claimed me utterly, mind, heart, and soul. Even when were apart, my thoughts drift to him effortlessly, my muse behind everything that I do.” ► Do you believe in love at first sight ➔ The bard’s head tilted, only to tilt again in the other direction before his shoulder’s bobbed in a gentle shrug. “Yes and No. I believe that for some, those who have lived before, there is the chance for a re-kindled connection upon first crossing paths with the one who loved you before. A recognition of their soul, just as they recognize yours in kind. But that.. is merely remembrance.” He lifted a hand to tap two fingers over his heart. “Love, is something you fall into all over again - even with such a destined lover. You grow to know them as they are in this life, finding a fondness for them all over from the beginning. A connection is at first sight, love... grows after.” ► Who ended your last relationship ➔ The frown that flowed over the man’s lips was near a sneered grimace. “...The Ishgardians, their ‘inquisitors’ in fact. They arrested my last lover for writing ‘unhalonic’ texts and distributing his fiction to the general public.” He sighed out softly... “They held him for a long time, over a year, and by the time he was released... I had already left Ishgard and had resumed my way of life long before. If they had not, I likely would have stayed, likely continued to grow what we had between us. ...We were close.” ► Have you ever broken someone’s heart ➔ The bard’s head was swift to shake. “No. Never. It’s why I’m always as clear in my communication as I am, honest, genuine, sincere. Unlike most bards, I don’t desire to eat hearts where I go and leave them shattered within my wake. I... have far too much respect for people to do that.”  ► Are you afraid of commitments ➔ The bard grinned, and merely lifted up his hand to show the Ishgardian Steel wedding band shaped like a dragon that circled his ring finger like an Oroboros. “...Does this answer your question?” ► Have you hugged someone within the last week? ➔ He chuckled warmly as a wolfish grin settled over his features. “Of course! My hand’s can’t keep themselves off of my beloved, for one. For two, my friends are used to that being simply how I greet them.” ► Have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ He offered a sharp, loud, huff of a laugh. “I wish, if only for the experience...” he smirked “If I have one, their so secret even I don’t know about them.” ► Have you ever broken your own heart? ➔ The bard winced, before offering a soft frown as his eyes closed with a side ward flick of his gaze. “...Many times. To spare others pain, hardship, complications, or torment I have had to walk away when I’d rather I not have to on many occasions. It’s how I’ve managed to avoid breaking the hearts of others, my own takes the blow on their behalf, many I imagine aren't even aware of it.”

SIX CHOICES

► Love or lust ➔ The bard huffed out his breath with a shake of his head... “Come now, you can’t possibly make me choose between those?” he arched a brow, only to frown when the question was indeed serious. “Stars, for me you can’t have one without the other. I don’t have sex with people, just to have sex with people. I have to be fond of them to some degree, otherwise it’s just using another person for your own pleasure, which is something I can’t stomach.” His shoulder’s shrugged “When I’m in love? My love is both emotional and physical. If I can’t explore my beloveds likes, dislikes, passions, and build a dynamic with them. If I can’t set my blood on fire and show them how I feel in the most intimate manner known to mortal kind. What then, separates our bond from just having a very deep, platonic friendship?” His head shook, and a palm lifted with a shake as well. “Not for me, my beloved better accept that I’ll be an outright horn dog for them, and realize that it’s because of the fact I love them so much.” ► Lemonade or iced tea ➔ He grinned. “Tea, without contest. Specially when sweetened with honey, or fruit juice mixed in with it.’ ► Cats or Dogs ➔ “Dogs” the wight didn’t even hesitate, though after a moment of thought he did quirk a brow. “..Unless you mean cat men and women, in that case I’ll heavily consider changing my opinion.”  ► A few best friends or many regular friends ➔ The bard smirked a smile, fond and sweet. “Few best friends. As a bard acquaintances and regular connections are helpful, and do well to ease the quiet and loneliness at times. But they are infrequent, and prone to falling out of contact on that individuals whim. Such is why I prefer a few close, stable, consistent people in which to invest myself and a bond with.” ► Wild night out or romantic night in ➔ “Romantic Night In” the words came with a sharp, swift fondness as a smile curled into place along his lips. Even his hands lifted, flowing as he continued... “A candlelit bath, incense scenting the air, two glasses of blush wine laced with just a small hint of clove oil to spark the desire. Worshiping your beloveds skin with the fond caress of fingertips, and the reverent kiss of lips. Exploring them, making their breath catch within their throat, and their heart quicken. A romantic sensuality...” ► Day or night ➔ “Night” he said plainly and with a swiftness. “The Sunless sea is the home of the celestials, my deities. To be beneath it is to be as if within a church, and thus I do most if not all of my activities of import beneath a starlit sky. Cloaked in their blessed shadows, and illuminated by moonlight. To have something of importance happen in the suns light is to welcome ruin to it. Or so my people have long believed.”

FOUR HAVE YOU EVERS

► Been caught sneaking out ➔ “Not yet, though I think my beloved’s senses are slowly becoming keener to my methods. For now however, they seem to only notice my absence after a few hours have passed, and I’ve yet to be caught in the act.” The bard then reached up a hand, and promptly knocked on the wooden part of the wall behind him.  ► Fallen down/up the stairs ➔ “Unfortunately...” the sigh that left his lips was a heavy one as his eyes rolled. “Take it as advice, or wisdom. But do not get drunk within the forgotten knight and then attempt to navigate the pillars of Ishgard while intoxicated. It does not end well for you, or the unfortunate parties having to tend to you afterwards.” ► Wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? ➔ “To want for something unobtainable, is simply an excuse to use it as motivation towards a means to obtain it. But when that want is for a person?” he sighed softly... “That is a pain not so easily twisted into optimism. Nor does acceptance come easy, or quickly.” ► Wanted to disappear ➔ The bard offered a chuckle. “I have, and succeeded. That is all I will offer on the matter, as I would very much desire to keep it that way.”

FOUR PREFERENCES

► Smile or eyes ➔ The bard’s hand lifted, before pointing two fingers to his moon-white orbs. “Eyes” he stated firmly “For some, a smile has become impossible to form as they’ve long forgotten how over the duration of their suffering. But if you look into their eyes, you can see even in the depths of their pain, their fighting against the inner demons, the shimmer of warmth that tells of the difference you’ve just made. No matter how brief.” ► Shorter or Taller ➔ He grinned. “Shorter, there is a lot I can do romantically with someone smaller then me. From sweeping them off their feet, to curling up around them in bed. Besides, it’s hard to find people taller then me, and of those that do - generally were more for sparring outside of the bedroom then in one.” ► Intelligence or Attraction ➔ “Intelligence” he offered swiftness and a smile. “A pretty face is pleasant, but a sharp mind is what I thrive on most. The trading of sass, wit, sarcasm, humor, and being able to collaborate with another over my creative ideas are things I cherish.” He then offered a rich, deep laugh. “I often say, the fastest way to get me to fall in love with you, is to roast me so well that I’m left with the only option of laying in the grave you made me dig for myself without even realizing it.” ► Hook-up or Relationship ➔ The bard offers a firm nod. “Relationship. While hook-ups are fun, for a while, they loose their luster easily enough and leave the heart wanting more. Thus, is why I invest my time into my relationships with others, be they romantic or platonic. It’s these meaningful connections, nurturing them, growing them, developing them, that bring me the most fulfillment.”

FAMILY

► Do you and your family get along ➔ The bard offered a thick, sarcastic laugh. “I was separated from my parents as soon as I was old enough to pick up a wooden sword, as is custom. The only brothers I’ve ever known, are my fellow hunters and we... Well, we get along like brothers. If were not drinking together, were fighting one another either to settle an argument, or out of sheer pleasure and enjoyment. So I shall leave that up to your interpretation.” ► Would you say you have a “messed up life” ➔ His head shook gently. “No. While some who hear my story, and are privy to the more guarded details, may surely think so. I never once considered myself of having been subjected to a ‘tragic backstory’. My life is what it is, and had to be what it was, for me to become what I have.” He shrugged. “My life is what it needed to be, to be what it is, and will become.” ► Have you ever ran away from home ➔ His head shook again. “No, never. I’ve been loyal to the end, and left home only when there was no one else there to linger around for.” ► Have you ever gotten kicked out ➔ His shoulder’s bobbed with a deep, rich chuckle. “I was... voluntarily exiled” he stated slowly, and with keen purpose. “When we become hunters, we are condemned to live out the rest of our lives on the surface, fulfilling our duties until the day the Monsters we hunt succeed in killing us.”

FRIENDS

► Do you secretly hate one of your friends ➔ “Stars no!” the answer came swiftly, and with a turn of the bard’s head in worry. “I have so few of them, and new ones don’t just grow on bushes in the middle of the forest. I’m an honest person, if I have a problem with someone, I tell them so. Now... if that results in me being punched in the face for it or not, is another matter.” ► Do you consider all of your friends good friends ➔ The bard’s head shook lightly. “I have two good friends, the rest are... barely more then acquaintances. While I would desire more, that is not up to me but rather others to decide if they wish to get to know me or not. But I can see how a white eyes, silver haired, silver tongued Wight can be intimidating.” ► Who is your best friend ➔ “Honestly?” he sighed softly, and his head sank into his hand with a rubbing of his fingertips against his temples. “...My horse. I tell them everything I do when not with them, and they witness everything I do when within their company.” ► Who knows everything about you ➔ “My horse, for reasons previously stated..” 

Tagged by: @umbralich​

Tagging: All of my followers who have not done this yet, and desire to. It was quite fun, even though it took over four hours to do.

[mediaeval-muse]

Video Game Review: GreedFall (Spiders, 2018)

Genres: action RPG, fantasy

Premise: Players assume the role of De Sardet, a human noble who arrives on the recently-discovered island of Teer Fradee. Able to ally with either the natives who inhabit the land and/or any of the foreign nations competing to colonize it, De Sardet seeks out a cure for the mysterious illness that plagues their family, while also battling monsters and magic.

Platform Played On: PC (Windows)

Rating: 3/5 stars

Disclaimer: My rating is in response to multiple aspects of the game, not just its politics. If I were evaluating solely on politics and gave the developers the benefit of the doubt that they were trying to make something with a good message, my rating would be around the 1 to 2-star range, depending on player choices.

***Full review under the cut.***

I am evaluating this game based on four key aspects: story, characters, gameplay, and visuals.

Story: I’m immediately wary of any pop culture item that tries to tell a story about colonialism and Indigeneity because it usually ends up indulging in colonialist fantasies rather than critiquing them. Complex, morally-grey stories are great and all, but when it comes to tales about colonialism, “both sides” narratives tend to look a little insensitive. So, I can’t tell you why I decided to play GreedFall, other than I heard that it filled the Dragon Age-sized hole in people’s hearts. Since I’d rather use my own judgment than read video game reviews, I bought this game on sale and gave it a go. If nothing else, I told myself, I could use my history and literary analysis chops to say something intelligent about it.

In terms of politics, I don’t think GreedFall was as terrible as games where the goal in itself is colonization, but I also don’t think it achieved a narrative that was critical enough of colonization. De Sardet’s primary goal is to achieve balance between all the nations (which I’m calling factions because they’re mostly that). While I can admire that GreedFall really pushed for peaceful relationships, as well as pushed back against abuse and racism, I ultimately thought the developers didn’t consider how the struggle for balance actually facilitates colonialism. This game presents colonialism a diplomatic issue, so as a result, Teer Fradee is kind of a fantasy where colonists can settle on native land while maintaining friendly relationships with Indigenous peoples (at least, if you play it that way - at worst, you can seize absolute power). The experience was similar to the one I had playing BioShock Infinite, whose politics involve a “both sides” argument - the difference is that BioShock Infinite made explicitly clear by the end of the game that Booker was the true villain. With de Sardet, it’s a bit more ambiguous, depending on how you play, but I do think the game pushes you to be diplomatic rather than power-hungry. As a whole, it brings up the very valid question of whether or not colonialism should be in media period, or if there’s some value to be derived from consuming problematic media that tries to do good and talking about it.

Still, I have to give credit where credit is due. GreedFall had the guts to actually try to tackle little-discussed themes in this game, such as forced conversion, abuse within the sciences, and institutionalized bullying. While the missions associated with these big themes were accomplished with varying degrees of success, many of them added emotional depth to the game. Companions would have emotional reactions to these quests that tugged at my heartstrings, and there were never any shots of graphic violence or mutilated bodies, so it didn’t feel like I was playing the game for an edgy thrill. All of the side quests had a lot of bearing on the main plot and the worldbuilding - I don’t think I encountered any “fetch quests,” so most of the things I was doing actually related to enhancing my understanding of the world and its social dynamics.

The game also did a good job of presenting players with factions that were constantly in conflict with one another, lending an added layer of complexity to all the political aspects of the plot. Character’s personal quests were also very well done and had emotional depth. Vasco’s arc about learning about his true family was a nice exploration of birth family vs found family (he’s a sailor whose birth family gave him to the naval faction, the Nauts). Kurt’s quest was also a good one about the bonds between military recruits and really showed his commitment to people over institutions (he’s de Sardet’s commander at arms). Siora’s quests were more about staying true to her culture (she’s a native and daughter of one of a now-deceased tribe leader), while Aphra’s were about learning to be open minded when learning about a different culture (she’s a scientist interested in plants). Petrus’ were a mix of taking down the head of his Church and helping your character find their roots (he’s something of a pastor who also wields magic to fight). You can tell that the developers were inspired by Bioware games in that you can cultivate reputations with your companions and eventually romance them. Many of these romances are available to both male and female PCs, so there’s potential for a queer ship.

I will say that by the end of game, I was emotionally wrecked, despite all the political problems. So, I do think the developers of this game have a good sense of storytelling - I just wish they had done better politically.

Characters: Similar to Mass Effect or Dragon Age, GreedFall gives players a player-controlled character (PC) and a host of companions to take on an adventuring party. De Sardet, the PC, doesn’t have much personality when they’re being diplomatic, but I did enjoy the moments when they were confronted with information that impacted them emotionally. I played a female de Sardet, and the voice actress did a good job of balancing emotion with the facade that’s required of a diplomat. Constantin, de Sardet’s cousin and governor of New Serene (one of a few colonial settlements on Teer Fradee), is also carefully written as a charismatic, sympathetic nobleman’s son who wants to prove his worth. He and de Sardet share a close bond, which made moral decisions a bit more personal and emotionally difficult. I do think he became a scapegoat for all the evils of colonization, though, and I wish more was done with him to implicate every colonizer on the island. The companions are likewise very likable and fairly unique. Each of them had personal quests and stories that were compelling and sympathetic. I do wish there had been more opportunities to chat with them, or that they talked to each other during exploration (like Bioware companions do). I also appreciated that the Teer Fradee natives weren’t one, homogeneous group. I think too often we see pop culture try to write Indigenous peoples as having the same culture and goals, but with this game, there was some variety regarding what the best course of action would be against an invading force. I’m sure, however, that the depiction of the natives overall was problematic, but I’m not well-versed enough in native representation in pop culture to articulate the issues. While they weren’t portrayed as primitive or child-like (at least, I didn’t think so), I don’t doubt that there were tropes in there that I just couldn’t recognize (for example, Siora maybe a Chief’s Daughter/Indian Princess trope - it’s complicated). I suggest finding and reading an Indigenous critique of the game. (There’s also this one, which is valid, and I do think the game’s efforts and failures are worth talking about.)

Gameplay: This RPG mainly relies on balancing skills, talents, and attributes. Skills define what weapons you can use and how (one-handed blades, two-handed blades, firearms, magic, etc). Talents are things like charisma, science, or lockpicking - stuff which will affect the way you interact with the world. Attributes are mental and physical abilities like strength or willpower which affect how you wield weapons. Overall, the process of leveling up and gaining points to spend in these areas was pretty straight-forward, and I enjoyed the mental challenge of building a character that fit my play style.

Combat was a little clunky; basic attacks ran just fine for me, but there wasn’t much grace in the way characters dodged or rolled. I also kept getting thrown off by the fact that you can’t press space to jump! But in all, it wasn’t the worst experience. Enemies had helpful health bars, and I enjoyed the combination of a pistol and a rapier to finish off my foes. The diplomatic elements were by far the best part of gameplay for me. If players assign their skill points well, de Sardet can use a number of different tactics and choose from multiple dialogue options, from intimidation to taking advantage of intuition to laying on the charisma. It was fun to figure out which tactic would work on which characters, and how my skill sets translated into consequences for my decisions. I do think, however, that more options could have been presented to players in terms of dialogue choices and role-playing elements. While players make important choices regarding how to handle any given situation, there was little opportunity to purely role play. More opportunities to influence the direction or tone of the dialogue in non-crucial situations, I think, would have helped and made my De Sardet feel more unique.

Visuals: Aesthetically, I very much appreciated that we were given a fantasy game that wasn’t set in the faux Middle Ages. I loved the 18th century vibe to all the clothing and town layouts, and each of the maps were distinct and fully-realized, from the urban settings to the natural ones. There was a bit of repetition in the urban layouts; the palaces, for example, were the same, and some houses were recycled, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as Dragon Age II. I also appreciated that there were people of various races and genders in all positions and all social circles. There were women in the guard, women working on ships, and so on, without any hint that it was unusual. There was also a fairly wide variety of skin tones, with people of color being included in higher social classes and not relegated to lowly servant roles. There are some problems in that “diversity washing” detracts from the racial conflicts that were very present in the 18th century. I don’t think the developers thought through the implications of putting POC in positions of power where they could commit violent colonial acts against the natives. The creatures on the island were interesting to look at. Their designs frequently combined natural imagery (such as vines and wood) with horror to create foes with an eldritch, elemental vibe. The same creepiness was reflected in the fictional disease that afflicts the colonists; the afflicted had black, vine-like tendrils running through the skin, and there was an impending sense of dread whenever I looked at someone who was infected. Despite all the things I liked, GreedFall’s biggest problem is its animation. For a game that was made in 2019, facial expressions and combat are quite clunky, to the point where the characters felt robotic. I understand that not every video game needs to have top-tier level animation, but playing GreedFall was similar to my experiences playing the first Witcher game or the first Mass Effect or Dragon Age: Origins games. Still technically playable, but it feels very outdated.

In-Game Triggers: violence (especially racial violence), colonialism, racism, religious zealotry, torture, 

I feel the need to point out that while I don’t think this game is gory or explicit in any way (PG-13 would be my rating), there are some scenes that people may find triggering. There’s also one where a Native is killed by a religious zealot, and I found it extremely upsetting (it happens when you first enter San Matheus, if you need a heads up). Other than that, you never actually see characters torture native peoples, but you do hear about it later.

Recommendations: I would recommend this game if you’re interested in the 18th century, the age of imperialism, role-playing games, and fantasy. You might also like this game if you’re a fan of Bioware RPGs.

[solaetis-moved-blog]

CASTER (MEDEA) HEADCANON AND PORTRAYAL SUMMARY DUMP

Just a rundown of all the myth & canon interpretations I follow! I do not stick with one version alone. I mix them and take what for me makes the most sense for the character of Medea that I know of.

For Fate/Stay Night roleplayers, I can write her in any route. I will go along the with the route of your muse 'cause I'm flexible like that. I can play her at any canon point in Fate/Hollow Ataraxia as well.

For Fate/Grand Order roleplayers, all routes in Fate/Stay Night are sort of canon for my Medea. This doesn't mean all of it happened to this specific incarnation, just that she has recollections of all the events that transpired during the fifth war including the bad endings.

More info below!

She learned Magecraft through the Moon Goddess Hecate and from her aunt the Goddess Circe, who was also a disciple of Hecate.

She was very close to Circe and respects and admires her in great amounts and was always her ideal vision of a true witch.

Medea, in truth, is not really a witch. She is skilled in Magecraft, but it did not make her one. Her title as a witch is only granted to her as an attempt to berate and demean her for having magic powers.

She was cursed by Aphrodite to fall in love with Jason under Hera’s orders.

She was very to devoted to the Greek Gods despite not being Greek herself which earned her a place in Elysium where she was said to have eventually married Achilles. She has no memories of her life in Elysium as a Servant.

Medea is Colchian and not Greek. This makes her an Asian woman. 

She has utmost respect towards Heracles for the time she spent with him and the Argonauts. He also gave her a place to stay when she had nowhere else to go in exchange of healing Hera's curse upon him.

Because Medea was not Greek, she was often shunned, if not envied, by those around her. After Jason, there was nowhere she could return to. There was no place left that will accept her.

Theseus was with the Argonauts, but he was young at that time and Medea did not recognize him when they met once again, this time in Athens and she became Aegeus' wife.

Aegeus didn't know that Theseus was his son and wanted him dead for his powers were a threat to Aegeus' position as a King. For Medea, who bore him a son, Aegeus learning Theseus' birth right was a threat to her son Medus.

Medea tried to poison Theseus after he returned successful in his quest to capture the Marathonian Bull. But Aegeus' realized that Theseus was his son due to his sword and sandals and knocked back the cup of poisoned wine. Medea fled afterwards with Medus.

There is no consistent depiction of how Medea's life has ended, so I have mixed some interpretations I've read.

When Medea fled Athens, her son Medus was exiled and he returned to Colchis only to find out that King Aeetes was murdered by his brother.

Medus was then captured by King Perses so that there was no one who could challenge his claim to the throne. Medea, having heard this, returned to Colchis to free her son. She deceived Perses and made Medus the King. She died of old age, grieving still.

My Medea did not kill her children. The Corinthians killed her children, but because she found the bodies first and have been caught by Jason holding them, she was accused of their murder.

Her Fate incarnation knows that she killed them to hurt Jason as a result of her lore being bastardized, but she has no recollections of doing so. She simply believes this because it's what's installed in her Spirit Origin.

Her hatred is not restricted to Jason alone, but towards the world who had betrayed her without an end. Still, majority of her agony is a product of his actions.

My interpretation of Medea is heavily focused on this. It plays a huge role in how I write her, so she's not as chill as she is in canon.

Medea's hatred towards Aphrodite and Jason is clear.

Being told that she was coerced to fall in love with Jason mocks her for it was the only thing she had left of value. She also believes it takes away the responsibility behind the cruel acts she made because of her love for him.

If Medea has to acknowledge that she fell in love with Jason because of Aphrodite, that would mean that she cannot take responsibility for her crimes. So she does not, for she knows to herself that she committed vile acts of her own volition.

Her acknowledging her crimes and knowing it is wrong is her only proof that her love for Jason was real and not manipulated through celestial means. She did them because she wanted to be useful and she truthfully loved him.

My Medea despises Berserker!Heracles because his existence disrespects the hero that he used to be. She thinks he is nothing but a pile of muscle with a face and wants nothing to do with him.

She doesn't acknowledge Jason, Achilles & Perseus as heroes.

She dislikes socializing with men in general, especially the handsome, cunning and eloquent ones. She has learned first hand that sophisticated men aren't to be trusted.

I'm a slut for Medea/Kuzuki, Medea/Women & Medea/Respectful Master. 

She helped Jason steal the Golden Fleece in exchange of him agreeing to marry her and he did.

She left Colchis with the Argonauts alongside her brother Apsyrtus, which she cut to pieces and scattered his flesh into the seas to delay the pursuit of her father King Aeetes.

Medea's room in Chaldea is dark and brooding with no signs of modern technology. Even her door can only be opened by dispelling the field that surrounds it. She has various skeleton pets inside of her room that she uses to help her in certain activities such as Myrmekes as cleaners, Alectryon as an alarm clock, Crows for water fetching etc.

Medea named her skeleton creatures after her family members from Colchis as a way to help her cope with the fact that she can never return to them anymore. So when she returns to her room, it signifies "coming home". This is why she considers her room sacred. Should one be given the permission to enter her room in Chaldea, know that it is a heightened level of intimacy for her. Invading it, however, is a high grade insult and thoroughly offensive. She will hate you for it.

Medea makes tea brews that she only shares to a few people. Each are named after certain ties she had in life such as Golden Fleece, Argonautica etc. They range in hundreds that she displays on a large cabinet.

In Fate verse, Atalante was indeed with the Argonauts, making Medea and Atalante the only women to ride the Argo Ship. They've had a very genuine friendship, but parted ways afterwards, Whether or not Atalante retained her respect to Medea when things went downhill is unknown.

SOME RANDOM RAMBLINGS

since erika and i are talking about it... remember when i said that medea's wish is to go home? and her idea of going home is simply not returning to specifically to colchis but to possibly revert the life she had when she decided to leave so medea's idea of "going home" is returning to the time wherein she was still princess of colchis and she never left. if she never left, her relationship with her family will not be compromised. she would have avoided a large scale of tragedy. medea dies as an ambitionless old woman in my interpretation. she had spent her remaining dies waking up, sleeping, monotonously doing her everyday routine. in her every revenge completed, a part of her dies, and she has died completely when everything was over and done with. she wants to use the grail for that. to return to the time where she was most content with herself. as a servant she's incarnated with her hatred of the world being her only pillar to keep on going. medea wants to be a normal person so she's desperate for the grail.

if i have to explain medea's feelings towards aphrodite, eros and hera it's really all too simple? she lamented that they have had a hand in her suffering but medea knows the workings of the gods and there's no law which states that they have to be fair in the first place. one man would wish something from the gods, and another would wish for something which opposes the other. it's always a matter of having to choose who deserves their assistance more and medea accepted that the three favored jason more because he prayed to them the same way hecate, circe and zeus favored her because her prayers for them were stronger and they were medea's revered gods. so yes, medea hates being a tool for gods' entertainment, but not to the point wherein she'd kill one because she still respects them to some degree

[whiterosebrian]

One Year Later, Part 2

This is the second half of a reflection on the year since I made the difficult decision to walk away from Catholicism. If you haven’t done so already, please go back and read what I typed in the first half. It’s necessary to fully appreciate what I’m about to type in this post.

I’m sure that I restated the various points in the previous post within in multiple previous posts. Why do I repeat them now? I think that yet again I needed to offer a reflection on what pushed me out of the Catholic Church. Given how much I still speak of the Catholic Church, I wonder if I am to work on building bridges. At the same time, I also believe that I am not a sage but instead a late-blooming cartoonist.

There once was a time when I constantly looked for wise leaders to guide me on the right path. When talking to a few folks in spiritualist or neo-pagan circles on the web, I am now told that I need to look deep within or look to my “higher self”. Am I ready to do that? I don’t know. What if one’s mind is misled by noxious lies or one’s spirit is malformed by pride and cruelty? Isn’t that a legitimate concern? Isn’t there a need to properly form one’s inner spirit and learn what is true, good, and beautiful?

I can say this, however. I do accept that God’s image, the imprint of the God of life and love, is in people’s hearts—not restricted to some redeemed obedient remnant elite, but within the heart of every ordinary person. That is something that I learned from the finer teachers within the Church. Sadly, that too seems to be dismissed as a heresy and apostasy by self-appointed Defenders of the One True Faith. They just might have pushed me into heresy. It would seem as if James Joyce was right about the flesh-and-blood human person being the heresy most abhorrent to the Church. Evidently, a wolf is a heresy, a falcon is a heresy, a deer is a heresy, a beetle is a heresy, an octopus is a heresy, an oak is a heresy, a sunflower is a heresy, a mushroom is a heresy, a waterfall is a heresy, a river is a heresy, a crystal is a heresy, and the very ground on which we walk is a heresy. Who is proving James Joyce wrong? Why can we not see God’s presence in humanity or in nature at all?

Why do I seem to obsess over Catholicism even now? First of all, being such a massive institution, it would do much good if it were truly as life-affirming as apologist claim it to be. Second, you can probably guess that I am still in pain over the breakup. Losing faith is like a very bad end to a deeply committed relationship. For nearly twenty-five years as a convert I hoped to find the God of love within life on earth. Upon looking back, I now believe that I rarely ever caught a glimpse. I wish to see, hear, taste, and feel a true presence of a Godhead as the source of all life and love. I wish to experience life as a joyous journey with magic and spirits, not as a dictatorship of fear or merely following orders. I do not view moderate or liberal Catholics as fools. I accept that they mean well and are trying to make a difference. I’ve simply come to the conclusion that Catholicism will not be good for me for the foreseeable future. Considering how vocal and driven and even well-funded the whole Christian Right is, those folks may be fighting a losing battle to boot.

I did read up a bit about Kabbalah. There was far too much dense theoretical theologizing for me to fully absorb. I did, however, sense that God was indeed a communion of light and love. That too is something that I learned within the Church and still sensed as I began exploring esoteric spiritualties. I still might want to explore it to some degree, even as a vaguely spiritualist gentile. I could respect and admire Jewishness and even as a practicing Catholic. There are reasons why I incorporated “Solomon” into my pen-name, even if I’m using the Anglophone form (I have no intention of stepping on the toes of actual Jews, pious and otherwise). I might even look into “practical Kabbalah”, though I do accept that it can be vulgarized into power-grabbing sorcery, meaning that I’ll have much careful reflection to do. Nonetheless, the basic ideas behind Kabbalah and general Jewish mysticism and magic resonate with me as much as aspects of my Northern European heritage and the heritage of the land where I live, North America. It seems that baptism (recall how even the Church has recently affirmed roots in Jewishness) has left an impact on my soul indeed. One book that I have on my wish list on Amazon, which my parents will order from for Christmas presents, purports to offer anew early Jewish tribal practices. I do wish to connect with the Godhead and the spirits and the earth as well as my fellow humans.

I have made multiple attempts to get myself into a properly calm and meditative state. I felt like I failed every time. I have tried to stay still before a shrine to positive spirits and the Godhead that I set up. I have tried to ground myself by going barefoot into the back yard of a house that I moved into with my parents early in the year. I have tried to meditate with native-style flute, rain-stick, and frame drum. I knew that becoming properly meditative would take much time and practice. Lately I have also tried to meditate on the Tree of Life and draw positive energy from crystalline pyramids.

I hope that my life settles down more now that I have a new part-time job and the process of moving into the new home is nearly complete. Where do I go from here? Eat more plant foods? Yes, I can do that and I am attempting to do so, even if there are aren’t many plant foods that I actually like. Exercise more? I hope that I’ll find more steady opportunities with a steady work schedule. Going outside for grounding will not be particularly feasible during the winter months and I doubt that my parents would understand. Draw more? I still wish I had the energy to draw more often. Write more? Maybe, but I’m still waiting on feedback regarding the first-draft prose treatments for my story, as I want to make sure to get it going strong before I go deeper into the development. Setting up a lovely space in the basement (go ahead and crack those jokes about basement-dwellers) serving as my art studio and idiosyncratic library might help with getting started.

Where would my self-healing lead?

It is my hope that I will bloom into a happy, healthy, and noble soul. I hope that I will become empowered and carry that power to cultivate and heal the world around me. You might already know that I dream of eventually creating truly beautiful things. I wish to connect with both heaven and earth and with new friends both visible and invisible. I wish to leave something wonderful over the course of my life on this earth. At this point I may be repeating myself. If I am indeed a mess, forgive me. Ultimately, this pair of journal entries is just a reflection as I restart my search for true spirituality, true beauty, and true love. Please send many blessings my way.

[impracticaldemon]

The Dragon and the Kitsune

by impractidemon (Ikemen Sengoku fandom) Words: ~ 3800  Also on:  AO3 | FFnet

Art by and story for @taiyaki-boy who has drawn me wonderful Ikesen art!  You are a gem and your art deserves lots of love! ♥

** I must apologize for how long this took, but (a) keyboard woes; (b) my planned drabble turned into 3700+ words; and (c) it took a turn for the (mostly) more serious when I really, truly meant to write more of a romp. **

Behind the scenes with Masamune and Mitsuhide. They're both perceptive, they tend to understand each other better than most, and they're both intrigued by the same woman. Thoughts, scenes, and conversations that *might have been* in the original story. Rated M for one passage featuring sexual themes / behaviour (moderately explicit). Strongly implied Masamune-Chatelaine. 

The Dragon and The Kitsune

“How is she today?” They'd been watching the foot soldiers drill, but Mitsuhide had deftly slid the question into their conversation about new recruits and training techniques.

Usually too wily a dragon to be caught off-guard by such tactics, Masamune had found himself answering the question.  That in itself told him a lot about his preoccupation with the new chatelaine-seamstress of Azuchi Castle.  She was obviously getting to him, even if he wasn’t quite sure why.

“She’s fine, as far as I know.  She’s still avoiding me.”

“Oh?  I wonder why she would do that?”

If Mitsunari had asked the question, it would have indicated sincere confusion.  Mitsuhide was an entirely different matter.  They’d been friends for a few years now—if friends was the right term—and Masamune knew every twitch of those mobile brows, and every nuance of that persuasive, sometimes amused, often sarcastic voice.  Mitsuhide already knew, or guessed, the answer to the question.  After all, Masamune had chosen to talk to Mitsuhide about what had happened during Sanada Yukimura’s escape, and the lass’ strange behaviour and reactions.  

Others would question his choice of confidante, no doubt, but Masamune preferred Mitsuhide’s sly truths and omissions to the polite lies of others. He was a fox—though the townsfolk used the term kitsune in the superstitious, quasi-malicious sense—and it took work to follow his quicksilver mind and slippery words.  That said, he saw things for what they were, and Masamune respected that.

“…Are we friends, Mitsuhide?”  He was changing the topic, but now that the question had occurred to him, he was curious.

For once, the man appeared to be caught off guard.  His unusual golden eyes widened perceptibly, and his pale eyebrows arched.

“What an odd question, especially from you.”

Masamune recognized temporizing when he heard it, but Mitsuhide was right.  It was unusual for him to want to go beneath the surface of a relationship.  After all, as he’d recently told their lovely chatelaine, in these troubled times, people changed sides, allies became enemies overnight, and regardless, death walked with you every step of the way—you never knew who you would lose, or when.  Or how.  Sometimes it would be your own doing.

“I think we’re friends,” he told Mitsuhide firmly.  “Nobunaga keeps his own counsel about why and how far he trusts you, but despite the way you try to trick me into drinking sake at every reasonable opportunity, I think we understand and value each other. That’s good enough for me.”

“What a fey mood you’re in!  Honestly, Masamune, you warm my shrivelled heart with your words.”

“Sounds like it needs watering, not warming!  And don’t worry, I don’t expect a real answer out of you.”

“…Well, that’s good.  I was beginning to think I should check you for a fever or something.  Though I suppose that friends is as good a description as any.  You’re far more perceptive than you appear, which is irritating at times, but the fact that you’re virtually impervious to barbs and sarcasm is occasionally something of a relief.  I admire strength, and respect openness—in others, of course.”

Masamune let the words roll off him, listening instead for the undercurrent that told him that Mitsuhide also perceived this relationship of equals that they had, and appreciated it.  Masamune was among the very few who noticed things about Mitsuhide the person.  For one thing, he’d learned a lot over the course of his long—and so far, losing—battle to feed the man decently.  Moreover, Mitsuhide didn’t intimidate him with his apparently all-knowing cynicism, nor did Masamune exasperate Mitsuhide with his so-called recklessness.  For as long as they weren’t enemies, they would most likely look out for each other, if not always in the most obvious ways.  He wondered whether the lass would consider them friends, and wasn’t sure.

“She doesn’t know what to make of us, Masamune,” Mitsuhide told him, his characteristic, razor-edged smile back in place.  He had a bad habit of answering unspoken questions.

“…No, not yet, but she wants to.  Sometimes she runs away, or tries not to look, but I think she truly wants to know what makes us tick.”

“I know.  But do you want to try to understand her?  You said you did, but I’m not convinced.”

He probably hadn’t tried hard enough, Masamune acknowledged silently.  The woman’s views were just so impossible—so wrong-headed, from the point of view of survival.  And yet… A hand clapped him lightly on the shoulder.

“Enough brooding, Masamune! It sits poorly on you.  For whatever it’s worth, I think you’ve found an interesting woman for once.”

He ignored the implication about the very ordinary nature of his past dalliances. “Interesting?  Yes, but frustrating!  She’ll get herself killed for nothing!”

“And you’ll mourn her passing, acknowledge her courage, and then move on, right Dragon?”

Masamune stared at his pale-haired probably-friend.  “Yes, of course.”  Was that a note of uncertainty in his own voice?

“You just don’t want her to die in a wasteful, ignorant kind of way, correct?  Her death in and of itself is not—cannot be—of particular concern.”  Mitsuhide assumed an understanding expression that didn’t deceive his companion for a minute; Masamune knew damn well that he was being prodded unmercifully, although toward what end wasn’t clear to him.  He decided that he wasn’t in the mood to either counter—or simply ignore—Mitsuhide’s loaded comments.

“I don’t want anybody to die except my enemies,” he snapped, realizing at once that his uncharacteristic ill-temper was bound to amuse Mitsuhide even further.  To his surprise, the expected jibe didn’t come.  Instead, Mitsuhide seemed thoughtful.

“She is an odd woman, our chatelaine.  She gets frightened, but that often drives her to fierce action.  She’s naïve to an unbelievable degree, but not stupid.  She’s ignorant of the strangest things, and then—did you hear that she immediately recognized Nobunaga’s short rifle—his new gun?  I found that odd, given that none of the rest of us had seen such a thing before.”

Masamune smirked at him.  “Well, there’s no secret to that, is there?  I’m told that she said from the start that she was from five hundred years in the future.”

Mitsuhide regarded him thoughtfully.  “You heard about that, did you?  And believed it? I thought I was the only one who had given it any real consideration.”

“After she claimed it for the truth to my face—“

“So you drew on her, did you?”

“—I saw no reason to doubt her, and besides, why not go with it?  But just because I believe her doesn’t mean I understand her.  A unified, peaceful country—well, that’s a dream many of us share.  But she’s lived it, and it’s given her expectations of the world that make no sense in the here and now.”

“Poor Dragon.  She won’t adapt and let go of her ideals, and if she doesn’t adapt then she may die.”

It was as simple as that; Mitsuhide was right.  But why did he care?  So, she wouldn’t share his bed, and  she wouldn’t kiss him again.  Well, there were others, even if they weren’t as interesting.  He felt Mitsuhide’s eyes on him and forced a shrug.

“Point is, I don’t like it when people don’t do the best they can with what they’ve got.  There’s no good reason for her to keep acting the way she does.  Facts are facts, and she needs to get a grip and start living in the present—not the future.”

“Says the man who won’t compromise his ideals for anything, beginning with his own life.”

There was a longish silence after that, and Masamune saw the bridge to the castle up ahead with something like relief.  Still, in justice to the lass he had to add one last thing:

“She does have ideals, and rules—too damn many of them, to be honest!  But she acts on what she believes to be right, I have to give her that.”

“Indeed.  The lady is nothing if not stubborn verging on reckless—a little like somebody else I know.  I believe Ieyasu has already commented on the resemblance.” Mitsuhide paused before parting from Masamune.  “She’s very attractive, isn’t she?” he noted, almost conversationally.  “Not just pretty—or even beautiful—but something more.  I doubt you’ll find your usual playmates as enticing as they once were.”  The golden eyes gleamed.  “Is cute and willing still enough for you, I wonder?” 

Masamune wondered too, as Mitsuhide strode away.  It wouldn’t be the same, that was certain.  He hadn’t meant anything by their kiss by the lake—or no more than genuine, friendly interest.  But it had been a surprisingly exciting kiss, and most of the women he’d known were considerably more—he searched for the right word—passive in comparison.  There was nothing passive about the lass.  He felt heat rise unbidden and unexpected in his cheeks and neck; felt the sharp excitement of desire as muscles tightened in his abdomen and lower still.  He couldn’t make the commitment she seemed to think was necessary before sharing a bed—another of her rules!—but she was attracted to him, and they enjoyed each other’s company.  Or they had, before the run-in with Sanada and the ninja.  Well, he still liked her—enough to want to fix things between them, and despite the way she had protected her ninja friend at the cost of who-knew how many Oda lives on the battlefield later.

Would she ever welcome his touch again?  That was the question.  He could tell that he’d shocked her badly, but he’d only been doing what duty and honour required of him.  His people depended on him, and he owed it to them not to falter, regardless of personal cost.  Sanada Yukimura and one of Takeda’s—or Uesugi’s—ninja!  He should never have let them escape.

But you did.  I wonder why?  That’s what Mitsuhide had never asked directly, but was no doubt thinking.  Masamune had no clear answer, and it troubled him.  What had stopped him from simply going through the lass to get to his enemies?  And why was he so bothered that she now shunned his touch?

The maidservant who had brought him water and towels before the war council had been more than happy to be  flattered and cuddled.  She’d blushed a little when he’d kissed her, but hadn’t been unduly timid.  Masamune didn’t take advantage of innocents, nor did he persist in attentions that weren’t welcome.  For one thing, it would be a contemptible use of power, and he took such things seriously.  For another, it wasn’t necessary.  There were willing lovers enough in Azuchi, and if some were more attracted by status or coin than by lust, then so be it.

Unfortunately, Mitsuhide was right, as usual. The brief interlude with the maid had left him dissatisfied in a way that he couldn’t identify, but keenly felt.  When the young woman had paused at the door and fleetingly met his eyes, before respectfully bowing herself out, he’d registered the unspoken invitation, but had felt no inclination to  accept.  He couldn’t ignore the fact that desire for Azuchi Castle’s unusual chatelaine had somehow displaced his easy acceptance of more readily attainable pleasure.  It was an unfamiliar feeling, and one he’d thought relegated to his mid-teens, when he’d learned the hard way that preference always came second to duty, so that it was best not to tie one’s happiness to any particular lover.

Unsettled in mind, and frustrated in body, he’d attended that evening’s war council and done his best to throw himself into preparations for the upcoming clash with the Uesugi-Takeda forces.  That had been reasonably successful, since the danger was both real and imminent, and the prospects exciting.  And yet… he missed the lass’ smile, and the way that her eyes would scan the room looking for him whenever she was ordered to join them before Nobunaga.

“I’d offer you sake, but you wouldn’t accept,” Mitsuhide told him after the meeting, the mild humour in his voice not reflected in his sharp eyes.  “Perhaps the lass has bewitched you?”

“Damn right I wouldn’t accept!”  Masamune glared at his friend for a moment and then banished his temper with an effort.  Another early, hard-learned lesson was how to rein himself in at need—which would likely surprise the majority of the Oda forces.  Of course, Masamune defined “need” differently than most.  At the same time, Mitsuhide was rarely surprised by anything—that he showed—and that went double for Nobunaga, who had been keeping an eye on the Date clan for years.

“Witchery it is, then,” murmured Mitsuhide.

“You would know,” Masamune replied, with a mischievous grin.  In a thoughtful voice belied by the sparkle in his one blue eye, he added, “And not just about enchantments, either, kitsune—I’m not so sure that your own interest in the lass is as innocent as you’d have me think.” 

The half-lidded golden eyes shifted to his face for an instant, but otherwise the other man was his usual self.

“My interest in people is rarely innocent, Masamune—you know that.”

“Say what you like,” Masamune told him blithely.  “It won’t change my opinion.”

Mitsuhide shrugged gracefully.  “Very little does, Dragon.  That’s part of your problem.”

They parted ways on that note, and Masamune’s improved mood seemed to evaporate.  He worked late on paperwork—both for his distant, north-eastern fief, and concerning the coming war—and then flung himself into bed, exhausted.  His mind strayed to that moment by the lake, when he had kissed her, and she had undeniably, unreservedly, kissed him back.  The image was overlaid by the angry, scared, loathing look she had given him after the matter of Sanada Yukimura and the unknown ninja, but lust overtook and banished it, to his sleepy relief.

Her lips parted for him, and he twined his tongue in hers, before kissing her ever more deeply.  Her eyes were mostly closed, and her cheeks were flushed.  The soft sounds she was making were as beautiful and arousing as she was.  He could feel her soft breasts under him, as he pressed closer, tasting and exploring each part of her mouth, indifferent to wet clothes.  Perhaps tonight… They were too exposed here, as pleasant as this was.  He could tell that she would mind if they were found, and besides, he found himself oddly possessive of the way she looked just now.

Time passed in a blur, which was unusual, since it tended to crawl along when he was looking forward to something.  Ieyasu had insisted on having the lass ride with him back to the castle, and while his stated reason—that she would be warmer with him—made sense, Masamune had known there was more to it than that.  But the man had brought his sword and his horse, and his concern had been evident.  Besides, Ieyasu wasn’t a true rival for the lass’ affections.  Not that he discounted the lad, but the young contrarian was too late.

She laughed at his attempt to disguise her voice, when he finally had time to stop by her room.  They both laughed… And then—and then?  She looked just as lovely in the lantern-light as she had under the bright sun, but he could sense hesitation.  No... that couldn't be right.  Fortunately, when he drew her into his arms, pulling her slim curves tight against his body, she’d relaxed, and smiled up at him.

He caressed the dip of her waist and then the roundness of her hip, and first nuzzled, and then nipped at her left ear.  Her reaction was immediate, and gratifying.  Her soft moan as his teeth and tongue moved down the smooth column of her throat, biting and teasing, stirred the same, heated arousal in him as he’d felt by the lake, but this time there was no reason to hold back.  Her skin was hot, and her breathing shallow; it was clear that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.  He wound one hand in her pretty hair and slid the other down her back and over her ass.  She reciprocated by twisting against him and then dragging his mouth onto hers.

By the time he bore her down onto her futon, he’d stripped her of her obi and kimono, so that only the thin under-kimono still hung around her shoulders.  She’d managed to remove most of his clothing as well, and their sweat-dampened skin clung together.  Now that he lay above her, he could feel how wet she was and how ready…  Their bruised lips met again, and then he shifted lower, so that he could kiss and suckle the taught nipples of her breasts, and stroke the slick folds between her legs.  She gasped his name, and her fingers tightened in his hair.  He loved the way that she showed him all of her—not just her body, but her unambiguous reactions to his touch, and her passion… He must have imagined the earlier hesitation.

He’d meant to bring her to the very edge of bliss well before reaching his own limit, but that was suddenly, unaccountably, beyond his control.  He found himself grinding his stiff cock hard against her, and her face blurred as he lost focus and realized that he was about to come, and couldn’t stop.  Even through the shuddering pleasure of release, even as his hot seed spurted and spilled from him, he knew… he knew… he was...

He was alone.  Alone in his futon, and alone in the dark of his own room, sweating from heat, and sticky and flushed from still-vivid, if ephemeral passion.  The thrumming pulse of climax was instantly dimmed by a rush of the old panic, the one that he did his best to hide from everyone, even himself whenever possible.  Breathing hard, he battled his beleaguered mind and body into submission, reminding himself again and again that he hadn’t killed the lass—no matter how tactically unsound the decision—reminding himself that she was alive, and warm, and breathing, even if she wasn’t here with him now.

It took a long time to master himself completely—to gain enough perspective to shake his head ruefully over the dream, and to shove his nightmare back under lock and key.  The first wasn’t so bad—such dreams happened, and there was nothing surprising about this one, despite its intensity.  He would shed any lingering embarrassment over it soon enough, having decided long ago not to be embarrassed about giving or receiving—or feeling—pleasure.  The nightmare was a different matter, and it wasn’t until near dawn that he was able to overcome the fear that she was dead and cold and gone for good.  He knew the probable cause for these occasional fits of mad panic, but the past was the past, and both duty and inclination led him to focus on the future.

What he needed now was a short bath, fresh clothes, and the chance to get out and do something productive.  And food, of course.  By the time that the sun crested the horizon, Masamune was on his way to the castle to tell Nobunaga that he was off to inspect the scout force—mostly his own men—stationed in the forest directly between Azuchi and the Uesugi-Takeda army.

When Mitsuhide heard from Nobunaga that Masamune had left ‘on a whim’—Hideyoshi’s words, of course—he wasn’t surprised.  Interestingly, their dear chatelaine seemed rather relieved by Masamune’s absence; however, careful observation suggested that she was in no way over the man, merely shaken and unsure what to do next.

After a little thought, Mitsuhide decided to try to nudge matters along himself, should a suitable opportunity arise.  For one thing, it would be moderately entertaining.  For another, the woman hadn’t managed a proper smile in days, and that was starting to weigh heavily on the more susceptible of the Oda commanders.  Hideyoshi’s stress was reaching new highs, Ieyasu was being even more disagreeable than usual, and Mitsunari had unaccountably—and wholly inadvertently—made drinkable tea for everyone during the most recent war council.  It was inevitable that, in the confusion, much of it had ended up on Ieyasu, who had stalked off in uncontrolled disgust. 

In any event, when word came back two days later that Masamune and his scouts had been involved in a skirmish with the enemy, and needed extra hands to tend the wounded, Mitsuhide had ignored or overridden her protests, and all but ordered Azuchi’s chatelaine to go to their aid.  She hadn’t been happy about it, but she’d yielded to persuasion (and carefully applied guilt) and gone.  Hideyoshi had lost his temper when he’d found out, but by then it couldn’t be helped, and Nobunaga had merely looked thoughtfully at Mitsuhide before ordering the war council to resume.  If enemy forces—even advance scouts—were so close to Azuchi, then Uesugi Kenshin and Takeda Shingen were about to get serious.

“Not knowing Kennyo’s location is going to be a problem,” murmured Mitsunari, his expression more sombre than usual.

“We’re close,” Mitsuhide replied.  It was the simple truth.  While he couldn’t pinpoint the place exactly, it wouldn’t be long.  Mitsunari was correct about the danger, however.  If they couldn’t find and crush Kennyo before leaving for the main conflict, they’d most likely have to split their forces.

Before Mitsunari could become flustered by the thought of having implied some sort of negligence on Mitsuhide’s part, Nobunaga leaned forward, and all eyes turned to him.

“Will you find him in time, Mitsuhide?”  The deep voice held no anxiety. Whatever the answer, Oda Nobunaga would plan accordingly.

Mitsuhide responded with equal calm:  “We’ll find him before we face the Uesugi-Takeda.  It is not yet certain that we’ll find him in time to crush his forces and still have our full army ready for the more difficult battle.”

“I see.”

The council concluded late, and Mitsuhide returned to his meticulous search for the missing monk.  However, despite all that was going on, he found his thoughts returning to Masamune and the woman they both considered ‘interesting’.  Would the Dragon make another effort to understand her?  Would she give him the chance to do so?  Mitsuhide turned a mocking smile on himself. It would have been easier to contemplate had he truly felt the detachment that he feigned

[END]

A/Note:

I will have to write more another time! My plans to go onto the happy (eventual) resolution, at least from Masamune’s point of view, got put on hold by a wonky keyboard and the way so-called real life has been behaving!  Still, I hope you enjoyed this peek behind the strictly canonical scenes.

@acrispyapple @nalufever @flower-dragon @shell-senji @eliz1369

@fic-writer-appreciation