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ohmygodtheywereparabatai · 3 years

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Salt Takes: The Double Standard of Child/Adult Soldiers

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The last thing I want to do is get tangled in ATLA fandom drama, but I choose violence, so short and sweet it is.

This scene.

People race to defend Azula here, claiming she was a child who didn’t understand the full atrocity of what she was witnessing. That she was molded from the beginning to believe her cold sneer and clutched fist were her faith in justice served showing. Then all fingers point to Zhao as the grown adult who displays full-blown sadism.

Cool. So, er, half-assed interpretation and apologism at its finest.

Look, ya big brained. You want to pick apart early psychological development in the Fire Nation princess? Great. You’re onto something. But this scene, at face value, is blatant characterization. Azula has no remorse. She thinks what she’s seeing is deserved. These statements can and should co-exist before further analysis, because the first statement is visibly, directly implied for seven year olds to pick up on and file away.

Kids’ show. Aired on Nickelodeon. 6-11-year-old demographic. Gucci? Gucci.

Zhao, on the other hand, is the bass-boosted version of S1 Zuko. He’s not a child soldier, damnit, but he is a soldier.

When Zuko knocks him down in their Agni Kai, the instinct to, uh, avoid getting your face burned off is overridden because he acknowledges the hand dealt to the loser, stares right back at him, and says - “Do it.”

A bit gorey to imagine what would have happened if Zuko obliged.

When they face off in the North, Zhao makes his position clear: “You're the Blue Spirit, an enemy of the Fire Nation! You freed the Avatar.”

“You should have chosen to accept your failure, your disgrace. Then, at least, you could have lived!”

So aside from the fact that he is, by definition, doing his duty by dispatching a disgraced prince responsible for treacherous action... it’s also his character. Azula is as driven to perfection and loyalty for her nation as she is conniving and vicious. Zhao is as driven to immortalizing himself in history and bulldozing the enemies in the Fire Nation’s path as he is a smug, walking dick. They’re both every inch the product of an imperialist agenda as they are the villains of their respective seasons. They’re bad, they’re rotten, but they’re soldiers.

To drag the comics into this for a moment, the vilification of the other nations began as early as pre-genocide. Soldiers were brainwashed into associating the Avatar and his people with their own doom. It’s no mind-blowing inference that the same notions were hammered into cadet Zhao, or that little Azula was spoon-fed the same story.

Shifting the lens when they’re in the same shot - assigning sadist status to one and victim status to the other, ain’t gonna fly. Try again.

Ahh, and someone was slick enough to point this out, but Iroh’s flinch in this scene, next to Azula’s fist of satisfaction?

Oop!

Perspective is so funny, isn’t it?

Next thing - the godforsaken ‘Zhao is a creep’ angle.

I don’t even want to dig my fingers into this one. This take is so obviously for purposes of Zuko whump that I’m going to spare myself the loss of braincells. While I have nothing against exploring this in fic, don’t even try to tell me it’s rooted in canon. It’s 100% true that interpretations of source material are infinite, but that doesn’t mean all of them are right.

What happened to the creep angle during this scene? Oh, yeah, it sparked hot, steamy Zucest.

I found about two to three sources while hunting down these images alone that (aptly) explained Azula’s sexualization as a “temptress” femme fatale-esque character, and even touched on Grey DeLisle’s sultry voice acting that did nothing for the portrayal of a fourteen year old girl. I’ve got nothing against any ship as long as the shippers are respectful... but hmm, do I spy another Zhao-Azula double standard?

(You okay back there, Iroh?)

Oooohh nooo, it’s the predator eyeing his next prey!! It just can’t be Jason Isaacs’ “wonderful, cunning evil vibe” poured into another role... Do I have to pull up several Lucius Malfoy/Harry Potter oneshots based on the scene where he hooked his cane on his shoulder to show you how asinine this take is?

Azula and Zhao both target Zuko’s insecurities to get a rise out of him. Azula and Zhao are both complicit in the conquering of the Earth Kingdom. Azula and Zhao both believe (respectively) that they were given divine right, that they wield the superior element. Azula and Zhao both grin like maniacs while Zuko is getting his face torched - it’s who they are. They align so closely that exploring the weight of a poisoned upbringing, deadly ideals, and raw firebending power drawn from a different root than the first masters is impossible without owing consideration to both characters. Both their arcs end in fucking insanity. Nationalism does that to people. Talk to me about that next time.

Jesus. I need a cold shower. Thanks for reading.

#long post #the uncrispiest of double standards #an S for you an M for you and an H for you #tw cussing #atla #avatar the last airbender #atla meta #zhao #azula #admiral zhao #zuko #ok i’m going to be soft again 🥺 (but ready)#omgtwp’s salt takes

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hellishhin · 3 years

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And They Fell

Length: ~1,500

Content warnings: Violence, blood, injury, magical attacks, electrocution, unconsciousness

Post themes: combat

Summary: This post is a little different because it's just the subsequent combat scene following up from the last post. This is my first real combat scene ever and I got a lot of great advice for it. If you want to, I would really love some solid critique on how this went. A few questions I'm wondering about most: is this confusing? Does it pace correctly for a fight scene? Did I jump around too much? You can reblog/reply with as much or as little critique as you want. You also can just read for fun and you don't have to critique anything if you don't want to! I also may repost this as a rewrite depending on advice I get, we will see :)

Intro with links to all previous posts

[next post]—-[previous post]

Taglist: (adds/removes always open!) @betwixtofficial @taerandcalentavar @talesfromaurea @faelanvance @definitelyquestionit @drippingmoon @dontcrywrite @a-wild-bloog

One time fight scene tag: @author-a-holmes thanks for being willing to look it over!

Kireen’s blade sang from its sheath and her warrior’s mind kicked into action. This was enough evidence to start an investigation so it was clear they wouldn’t be allowed to escape. Two strides, sword in motion, but it came to a jarring halt against two elvish scimitars belonging to the crossbow man’s comrade. Kireen was able to stave off the biting steel but she couldn’t match the speed of two swords forever.

Another bolt was being loaded but Kireen was too preoccupied to notice so K’lai’a’la, throwing knives at the ready, sent them hurtling in his direction. One caught the wood of the crossbow which did no more than mar its polished surface. The second struck his upper arm. She saw the crossbow shudder in his hands and his lips tighten but he slammed the bolt fully into place. K’lai’a’la knew it was coming. With her reflexes, it was nothing to sidestep the bolt and hear it clatter against the stone. Before he could load another, her attention was drawn to a battle cry from Brimir who had drawn his own sword and plunged into contest with the two remaining elves. Sadie seemed to be safely keeping behind the lines so K’lai’a’la drew her own scimitar and stepped to Brimir’s side.

It was vital to keep to one’s strengths so as her friends stepped up to engage the elves, Sadie stayed back. As another bolt was prepared, she knew she must target him to keep his attention off her friends.

“Hey!” she called and he turned his attention to her “if arrogance and stupidity had a baby, you would be the afterbirth.” Each word was wrapped tightly into the weave and entered his mind like a dozen shards of glass. She watched him recoil but regain his composure quickly and loose a bolt just for her. It breezed through her hair as she flinched away, unharmed. He was quickly placing another bolt and she shouted at him once more. “If you don’t start using your head for more than a hat rack, I’ll start using it to store my swords!” His shot went wide and lacking the patience to reload, he tossed the crossbow away and yelled something in elvish. Sadie grinned, knowing in her soul that she was just insulted, but his carried no magic.

A man twice her height barreled down on her but she drew her rapier and held her ground. One misdirection and his blade went wide. She went in for the groin but he backhanded her blade away. She could hear his blade whistling toward her again but she didn’t move in time, giving her a stinging bite across the jaw; her vision blurred. She thrust blindly and felt it give into something soft. She heard a grunt, steel flashed, her rapier lifted in defense to take a moment and make sense of the blur in front of her.

The elf who had intercepted Kireen was not prepared for her draconic strength. He was parrying her blows but losing ground and Kireen saw it. She pushed harder, increasing the force of each swing but she faltered when the man with the crossbow discarded his weapon and charged past her to where she knew Sadie was standing. Her opponent took his opportunity to step into her guard and thrust his sword into her underarm. Sensing his move she twisted so the armor took most of the blow only leaving her with a sharp ache. With him inside her guard, a quick pommel strike to his head crumpled him. Kireen spun and saw Sadie with blood dripping off her chin, barely holding her own against the onslaught. With a roar, Kireen charged.

Sweat beaded, muscles burned, breath rasped sharply but K’lai’a’la and Brimir kept pace with their two opponents. They all bled from several minor cuts but the pain heightened their instincts. One slip was all it took and when K’lai’a’la over-rotated her wrist, the enemy sword broke her guard and cut deeply into her arm. With a feral snarl she lashed out with pure instinct and landed a similar blow across his shoulder. Brimir’s peripheral caught the break in motion. He flipped his sword out, sinking the point into the other elf’s thigh but the one he had engaged swung for the opening. Brimir brought his arm up, catching the sword on his bracer and he winced at the force.

Seeing her opponent stumble to Brimir’s sword, like a predator to the weakest prey, K’lai’a’la redoubled her efforts. As her sword whistled through the air, she watched the elf’s lips move. The air around him rippled and he sidestepped, disappearing entirely. Her sword continued through the air with such force that the tip struck the ground. Brimir’s opponent balked, realizing it was now two on one. He retreated toward the open door just as an older elf with vicious blue eyes stepped through it. Lightning arced through his fingers and K’lai’a’la could hear the arcane language on his lips.

The draconic roar behind him made the elf turn his attention away from Sadie to see a blur of red scales and teeth grab him by the front of his armor. Kireen made to bite his face but he pulled away in terror and she only grabbed the side of his neck. Her mind was set on protecting Sadie so the elf’s dagger plunging into her side surprised her and she pulled away. This left her open for two more dagger thrusts to her gut almost bringing her to her knees. A third was incoming but was pulled up at the last second when Sadie’s rapier plunged into the back of the man’s thigh. Kireen was about to rally when a second set of swords appeared seemingly out of nowhere and began pressing her back.

There was a carnal satisfaction that flashed through Sadie when she saw the elf’s features contort with pain while her rapier embedded itself further into his thigh. All Kireen needed to do was take advantage of his distraction. Then the second elf from across the room stepped out of a ripple in the air.

The enemies were aware that the dragonborn was the bigger threat. With Kireen already weakened, Sadie knew it was now or never. With a deathgrip on the weave she twisted the strands around the mind of the elf who just appeared before them. His strangled mind succumbed to her power. He began to laugh, a horrible cackling laughter that rang above the clash of swords and scuff of boots. Sadie’s laughter rose with his but the elf laughed so hard he dropped to his knees. Presented with the opportunity, Kireen took it, her sword sprouting from his back in a wash of blood. He died with a twisted smile on his face.

Kireen’s entire body burned but whether from wounds or exertion she didn’t know. There was now a second elf or she was seeing double. Either way she was swinging frantically at both until one of them began to laugh. Once on his knees she thrust and found that it was no illusion. She wrenched her sword free of his corpse but her strength flagged, she was backed against the wall, her breath came in ragged gasps. Then she couldn’t see. Everything was white, her muscles contracted all at once and fire seared through her. She couldn’t even scream. It stopped as fast as it started and she welcomed the coolness of the floor on her cheek.

The arc of lightning ripped through his body and he staggered but managed to stay on his feet. Beside him, K’lai’a’la was not so lucky. She succumbed without a cry of pain, collapsing into a heap. He looked over his shoulder and saw Kireen fall as well but to his relief, Sadie remained standing. He had one chance to save his friends. One well-placed sword thrust and this mage would be done. Brimir made it one step before there was a silent concussive force around him and the man spoke a word. “Kneel”. The word echoed around in his thoughts erasing all others. He dropped to his knees.

When she could finally breathe again, Sadie let out a sob. She looked to Kireen for reassurance but saw her friend lifeless on the ground. Her thoughts were sluggish, looking to call K’lai’a’la for help but she too was on the ground and Brimir was kneeling before the man in the doorway. She was the only one left. It was up to her to get them out of this. Emotions hit her like rolling thunder and a scream of rage pealed out of her. She released her grip on the magic she handled with such care and brought her hands together. A shattering crack echoed around the room loud enough she thought the roof might collapse.

When the dust settled, all the elves were still standing. She had failed. Her last hope was to heal them, she had the magic, she could help her friends. Sadie took one step but a hand in her hair halted her. Pain blossomed across her cheek from a sadistic backhand and that was all it took for the world to go dark. Silence fell along with Sadie. Pure chaos, over in seconds that stretched out into a lifetime but not even the chaos stirred the unconscious people still laying in the corner.

#original work #high fantasy #oc #d&d #writeblr #sadieblaze #kireen #k'lai'a'la #brimir #combat #violence cw #blood cw #injury cw #electric shock cw

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howlingday · 3 years

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Jaune: Once again, my team and I gave ol' Specialist Schnee the slip. I was honestly surprised by how well she took it.

I finally got my hands on the top secret police file I've been trying to get all my life and avenge my family by regaining our most valued treasure.

It all began when I was just a kid, bouncing on my dad's knee. See, I come from a long line of legendary warriors who kept their ancient secrets hidden in the family book, The Arcus Atlas. I read it to become especially strong, fighting monsters and bad guys. After all, there's no honor, no challenge, and just no fun picking on the weak. You beat down a tyrannical dictator, and people know you're a hero.

Unfortunately, on the night I was to inherit the book, five visitors came to our door. My father fought to protect us, but the gang of villains known as Children of Grimm ransacked our home until they found... The Arcus Atlas!

Our family's manual of heroic deeds and greatness fell into their filthy hands! They tore the book into five pieces and split it up, each villain splitting to the farthest corners of the world to commit dastardly crimes.

Alone without my sisters or my mother, I was dumped at the nearest orphanage. There, I met two people who would become my lifelong friends and members of my crew. Oscar, tech genius and oldest soul I've ever met in a young person. Sun, part-time thief, and full-time loudmouth. Together, we vowed to track down the Children of Grimm, avenge my father, and take back the Arcus Atlas!

It was going to be the toughest mission of my life. I would either become a legendary warrior like my family before me, or fail and allow my family name to bite the dust.

Watts: How delightful! We have a guest. The only problem is... I HATE UNEXPECTED GUESTS!

Jaune: Listen, Watts; you kill my father and take what's mine, you should more than expect company.

Watts: Oh, I'm so sorry! How sloppy of us to not finish the job. Obviously, we should have snuffed you and your sisters out as well. So without further ado, allow me to make amends by, let's say... TRIPPING EVERY TRAP IN MY CHAMBERS AND SQUASH YOU LIKE THE INSIGNIFICANT GNAT THAT YOU ARE!

Jaune: Bring it on!

Watts: Damn it all! You've beaten me! Well, gloat all you want, Jaune Arc. You're no match for Hazel, my cohort in Mistral! You'll see... Haven Academy will be so guarded, not even an army could charge in without losing every man!

Jaune: Details in Watts' section of The Arcus Atlas held secrets of my Mistralian ancestor, Daisuke Arc and his Shinobi Slayer skill, which helped him fight off many a crafty ninja as they attacked the feudal lords he protected.

Getting out proved to be especially tricky with the unexpected arrival of Specialist Schnee. She could catch me, so she settled for Watts instead.

Hazel: Hmph. My men have been warning me of their experiences with a supposed knight in shining armor, breaking bones and absorbing hits, and this is it? You're the thorn I've had in my side all week? A child playing pretend with a garbage can lid? ...Hm. That garbage can lid looks familiar.

Jaune: Maybe my father broke your nose a few times so you wouldn't forget?

Hazel: Your father? Ah, I see. You're an Arc, and one of the more foolhardy ones, as well. Perhaps if you were sensible like your sisters, you would have abandoned your childish fantasy of being a hero and become something more valuable. After all, these pages are worthless, childish drivel.

Jaune: I guess you wouldn't mind me taking them, would you?

Hazel: After you destroyed my years long operations, decimated my supplies, and grievously injured my men? Yes, I would mind. Prepare yourself, child.

Hazel: Impossible! Me, a hardened veteran with decades of experience, bested by you, some child trying to play pretend. Take your pages, but know it won't serve you any purpose. As we speak, Tyrian is mobilizing his forces against Menagerie's rebels, and no "heroes" could ever dream of stopping him.

Jaune: Hazel's section of the Arcus Atlas contained information on my gunslinging, sunset-riding hero, Patch Willy Arc. His specialty was horseback cavalry and iron-horseback cavalry, fighting styles he perfected in the lawless lands of Wild Vacuo.

Getting out, once again, was harder than getting in, since Specialist Schnee didn't until she had me in cuffs. She eventually gave up and went for the next best thing, Hazel, and dragging him off to jail.

Tyrian: (Shudders) My tail is all tingly! Only two things could make it do that; and since I don't hear screaming, it's not my goddess. Which means, an Arc!

Jaune: Yeah, well, you give me the creeps, too, pal! Arming out a hate-war for unwilling and peaceful faunus isn't exactly a fun thing to sit back and watch!

Tyrian: (Chuckling) You say so much, and mean even more! It's almost enough to make me... Kill him, but only enough so I can deal the finishing blow myself.

Jaune: (Fights through White Fang, Tyrian leaps away) Get back here! You can't run forever!

Tyrian: I suppose you're right. Hmm... Ah, I got it! We'll play a game! You swing at me, and I dodge, all in one motion, and then I swing while you dodge!

Jaune: Uh-huh... And what's the catch?

Tyrian: No catch! Although, you have your hands full, while I... No, I think you'll figure it out yourself.

Jaune: I get it. You'll be using up to four limbs, while I can only use two.

Tyrian: Ooh! You are smart! I'm so glad you caught on so quickly, unlike your father.

Jaune: Well, I'm about to show you how unlike my father I am.

Tyrian: (Giggling) Oh, that was so much fun! No one has beaten me so well at my game since my goddess! Ha... Unfortunately, your game ends here. Cinder Fall is in Vale and she doesn't play games like us. You try and, well, even scorpions have predators, don't they?

Jaune: Well, if she's anything like the rest of you, I think I'll manage.

Jaune: The section of the Arcus Atlas that Tyrian had told me the secrets of Jarl Svendin Arc, my viking ancestor. His notorious berserker mode helped him beat impossible odds to protect his people.

Right on schedule, Winter showed up just as I was leaving. Apparently, trying to start a coup with the White Fang isn't something people just look the other way for, earning Tyrian a life sentence behind bars.

Cinder: I see you carry the shield of the legendary Arc warrior family. Let me guess; you're here for revenge, and take back the Arcus Atlas.

Jaune: Originally, yeah, that's all I wanted, but now I'm going to shut down your entire vigilante/criminal empire and bring peace back to Vale.

Cinder: Why should you care if I wipe out a few criminals? I'm doing my duty as a hero, just like you.

Jaune: Sorry, but you're only half right. I am a hero, from a long line of legendary heroes, and I pick up this sword and point it away from the innocent to protect them. You? You're some abused and neglected orphan who turned into a homicidal vigilante monster!

Cinder: You despicable wretch! I will punish you for your disrespect! ...But I will honor your heroic ancestry by slaying you with the power of my newly mastered technique: Dance of the Fall Maiden!

Cinder: You... really are a hero... aren't you? Where were you... when I needed... one?

Oscar: Jaune! OZPN just finished it's analysis about those crates of black goop we found, and it turns out there's only one place in the world you can find the wood those crates are made of- Atlas. The last of the Children of Grimm should be there!

Jaune: Cinder's part of the Arcus Atlas gave us insight on the brilliant designs of Johann Arc IV, genius inventor and world-class entrepreneur. He had an illness that prevented him from fighting like my other ancestors, but he still saved hundreds of lives with his medical breakthroughs and tactical mind on the battlefield. Working with Sun, I'm sure he and I can make a few modifications to our weapons, thanks to these designs.

Frustrated she didn't catch me on my way down, Winter tossed Cinder in jail, ending the dark crusade of Vale's worst hero.

Jaune: While trying to find details on the Children of Grimm's final member, I began to notice something weird. In every picture of my ancestors in the Arcus Atlas, there's a shadow of a woman in the background. Even weirder, these shadows look almost identical to what police records have of this mysterious "Salem". Is there a coincidence, or is there something I'm missing?

To be continued in...

Jaune Arc in:

THE BLACK HEART OF HATE

#rwby #jaune arc #sly cooper #oscar pines #salem #sun wukong #tyrian callows #hazel rainart #cinder fall #arthur watts

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how-about-you-rogal-dont · 3 years

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Wrote a thing, felt like sharing

some background:

I'm an aspiring writer, and I have a collection of CSM, CU, and general Chaos OCs do not steal blah blah blah (feel free to steal). I decided to write a bit about how their most recent addition joined the crew! Specifically, a Sororitas Meleficarum of the Order of the Verdant Chalice called Zethra. This bit of writing is a bit long, so I'll put it under a read more. TW for: violence, nurgle shit, space marines. Enjoy, feedback appreciated.

The inner halls of the Seventh Hell were a maze of lush gardens and fetid swamps, overtaken by the crawling filth that marched with Norvegicus’ every step. This ship had been under his sway for a very long time. Hives of unknowable daemonic parasites honeycombed the walls, squeaking rodents scuttled underfoot, and the buzzing of flies threatened to drown out any spoken communication. I could feel disgust rising in my throat with every step we took further into this despicably lush realm. It was difficult to read the other’s faces, sealed as they were beneath layers of steel and ceramite. None of us dared to bare an inch of skin in this place.

I looked over my shoulder, Cataphractii plate growling with killing instinct as my eyes fell upon Zethra. Despite her desertion from Norvegicus’ host, my skin still crawled at the thought of having my back watched by a member of the Plague God’s chosen. How much further? I did not bother holding my disgust away from the sending.

There was a slight click as Zethra tuned in over the vox. “Two hundred meters ahead, then we’ll be in the welcoming hall.” If she noticed my contempt, she did not care to remark on it.

“What manner of warship requires a welcoming hall?” Came Kalus’ voice a moment later. The duelist-marksman was walking with a casual gait, baroque bolt rifle slung over one shoulder. His helmet, like his armor, was the deep amethyst of his birth legion, with an obscenely loud crest of white feathers running down the middle. In all things, ostentation. Kalus never changed.

Djehouti spoke next. “This vessel was not always solely an implement of destruction. During the great crusade, when it still bore its original name, it would be host to all manner of dignitaries. Visitors from other legions, surrendering leaders of target systems, the like. Though I am surprised they have kept it for its original purpose.” Djehouti walked briskly, clearly struggling to keep up with the lumbering gait of my terminator plate. A brush against his mind revealed a certain distance in his thoughts, as though he were not entirely paying attention to the situation. I closed my mind off from the others, sending my thoughts to him and him alone.

Are you well, brother dearest?

Zandros. Yes, all is well. Forgive my absence. This ship brings back memories. Of course it did. It reminded him of our time aboard the Endurance during Horus’ rebellion. It stank of the same decay.

You are remembering our time as Ahriman’s emissaries to the Fourteenth. It was not a question. With my brother’s memory fading more with every day as the Wych’s toxins worked through his mind, any memory he could manage to grasp was worth ruminating on.

Djehouti’s response came slowly, tinged with more emotions than I could name. Yes.

We were younger then.

Young. Foolish. Power-hungry. A nostalgic smirk tinged his thoughts.

We might not have changed as much as we would like to think.

At this, he gave a single, forceful exhalation. After a moment of silence between us, with only the trudging squash of our armor against the filthy deck to break the monotony, he sent again: Zandros, should we survive this excursion, I have something to ask of you.

Anything, brother. What would you wish of me?

Djehouti smiled beneath his helm, coloring his thoughts with a whistful sadness. It can wait. I nodded.

“We’re here.” Zethra’s voice came abruptly, with a fuzz of static. I returned my gaze to the corridor ahead of us. It open up as we stepped forward, widening in size from a hive street to a grand causeway large enough to admit a Warhound Titan. It was here that Norvegicus’ touch was most evident. The ‘welcoming hall’ did not resemble the gilded splendor of an Imperial-built spacecraft. Instead, it was covered, every inch, in growths of flora both natural and empyrean. The room was lined with twisted, pale mangrove trees, drinking greedily from shallow pools of green scum that spread beneath their shade. A thick coating of mud covered the floor, with mushrooms of every color and shape sprouting from beneath the diseased soil. The walls were covered completely in snaking alien vines, bulbous pustules of ichor pulsing at irregular intervals. The ceiling was hung with lichen, smothering the lumiglobes almost completely. Cackling Nurglings stalked and butchered each other for sport in a twisted mockery of children at play. All in all, the room was so overgrown as to leave only a single foot path traveling down the center clear of the grove’s touch. But the centerpiece of the room was undoubtably the warrior standing sentinel at the far edge.

He was an astartes, and massive even for one of the XIV. Like I, he was clad in Cataphractii plate. That was where the similarities ended. His armor was a rich green, the trim a burnished bronze. He carried no visible firearm, instead leaning on a massive two-handed chainscythe. What singled him out amongst his brethren of the death guard was the total lack of decay visible on his armor. Not a single fleck of rust could be seen, not a single dribble of pus or twisting bone growth. Indeed, to the naked eye, he seemed completely devoid of Nurgle’s taint. But beneath that clean exterior, there was a certainty. A fear. Where other champions of the Seventh exemplified to terror of rotting flesh, the pungent smell of blight, this man seethed from within with the hushed fear of infection. Held breaths, averted eyes, a populace knowing there was disease among them, but not knowing when or from who it would come. He was the knowledge that every breath you take could doom you, that shaking your neighbor’s hand would have you dead within a week, the simple truth that you were not safe and that the threat could not possibly be fought against. His helm swiveled to meet our gaze, red lenses glinting in the sickly light.

“Miscreants. You walk the halls of hallowed ground. Your unholy sanitation is an affront to the beauty of these luscious halls.” His voice was deep and harsh, with the barest hint of a Barbarusii accent. The vox-grille of his helm rendering it a predator’s growl.

Mizi’s mind connected with mine in an instant. I’ve got a shot. The sending came with a series of images: Crosshairs held steady over a green helm, the kick of a rifle thumping against a shoulder, the red smear of a head bursting.

I stepped forward, my external vox opening with a barely-audible click. “I am Zandros Lucarian, and I speak for the Ashen Hunters. State your name, that I might know whose death I command.”

A series of sharp barks escaped the warrior’s helm. After a moment, I realized he was laughing at me. “You speak for a mongrel warband of bastards and thin-bloods. But you shall know my name. I am Holgius, seventy-seventh scythe of the Deathshroud.”

The minds of those at my side sharpened instantly. Before us stood a member of the Deathshroud, the chosen blades of the lord of the Seventh Legion. This was no petty champion, no pit brawler elevated above his brothers by savagery alone. His deeds had been enough to draw the attention of the Rotten King himself. To face him would be to invite ruin in a thousand different forms.

And so, of course, it was Kalus who stepped forward, twinned cutlasses slithering from their sheaths with a crackle of energy. “I’ve always wanted to kill a Deathshroud,” he purred. “Never thought that one would volunteer.”

Holgius did not turn his gaze from me. “Does this wailing peacock speak for you, Zandros Lucarian?”

A poorly-contained snicker distracted me as Mizi’s aura smeared with mirth.

“In as many words.” The challenge had been issued. Kalus knew this dance. Like the Samar-Hai of ancient terra, warbands were fond of sending champions forth to duel to the death before the commencement of a slaughter. It was clear that the rotting creatures that served as crew aboard the Seventh Hell understood the significance of Kalus’ headstrong challenge, too. Obese nurglings crowded the fetid canopy above us, clamoring for a better look at the contest. Through my sixth sense, I felt other, more ethereal eyes lock on to our plight.

The Gods were watching.

Holgius stepped forward, revving his chainscythe in a squall of tortured metal. Kalus did likewise, his blades twirling in lazy, lethal arcs. The Deathshroud regarded him for a moment, then rolled his shoulders into a hunched combat stance. My champion crossed his blades over his sternum, lowering himself into a catlike stance. “You seem confident.”

Holgius’ response was a husky, rasping laugh like a knife scraping the rust from ancient metal. “When set against such a meager creature as you? I see no reason why I should not be.” He had begun to pace their arena now, his boots trudging puddles in the floor.

Kalus raised his blades to compensate for his foe’s movement. “Now you seem overconfident.”

The first blow was struck faster than the eye could follow. With a snarl of servos, Holgius swept his weapon towards Kalus. Kalus was already ducking below, spinning into a strike that was both parry and riposte. The scythe roared harmlessly over his head, guided further upwards by a flick of his left blade. His right was already lashing out like a silver viper to bite into his opponent’s knee. There was a flash as the strike connected, but the armor held. Kalus danced out of engagement range, and I did not need my psychic gifts to see the wry smile spreading below his faceplate.

Holgius was already spinning, keeping the momentum from his first missed stroke into a crushing downward blow. I watched frantic realization bloom in Kalus’ mind as he realized that the warrior had guessed his plan, and was already striking towards where he stood crouched. Even he could not evade in time, and so he crossed his blades over his head, braced to take the strike. It impacted with a scream of micro-engines. Pain flooded Kalus’ aura as greenstick fractures began to spread down his arms. He was holding the blade, mere inches from his marble helm, but the clash of weapons was straining his swords’ power fields to their limit. Thousands of miniscule impacts from the teeth of the chainscythe built until the haze around the blades began to flicker and dull.

Kalus spun aside, letting the natural weight of his opponent’s weapon buy him precious nanoseconds as its tip ground against the muck. Two more flashing strikes thudded into Holgius’ side, opening deep gashes in the ceramite. Holgius lashed out with a hand, thudding a fist against Kalus’ helm. Kalus soared through the air, landing with a splat against a pale, warp-touched tree.

Holgius did not pursue his quarry, instead looking down at his dented armor. The gashes opened by Kalus’ strikes had not penetrated his plate. Neither had my champion angled his strikes for the weaker joints in his opponent’s hide. Holgius raised his gaze to Kalus, now standing with defiance in his eyes. “You are mocking me.” The barely-controlled rage beneath his voice shone like a beacon to my sight.

Kalus was rising from where he had fallen against the fetid flora. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” His breathing was ragged and labored; the pain that smeared his aura evident of a punctured lung. Still he stood, mischief painted across his stance as it was his face.

Holgius gestured to the rents in his armor. “Three strikes against me,” he said accusingly, “All of them botched. Every one could have been fatal. You are mocking me.” The grating fury in his voice had been restrained to a dull seething just below his skin.

Kalus shrugged. “Well…” He struck again, faster than we could see. Holgius swept his blade upwards, but too slow. Like lancing a boil, the blade in Kalus’ right hand plunged into Holgius’ forehead with terrifying ease. As his opponent wavered, not yet realizing he was dead, Kalus met his eye, their faceplates inches apart. “…Maybe a little.”

What happened next is difficult to describe. Not in terms of the physicality of the matter, for what took place was simple, if incredible. Holgius went slack, held aloft by misfiring nerves, hands twitching in the final throes of a death rightfully earned. And then… he bloomed. His armor split apart, ceramite shearing away and peeling back like the petals of a diseased lotus. In its place, bloated, pestilent flesh swelled and bulged outwards, throwing Kalus’ sword free. Knots of warped bone split forth from his shoulders, piercing skywards with the promise of infection. Row upon row of greenish fangs crowded his human teeth. While all of this happened, he was growing. We watched on in horror as he swelled from a giant of a man to a corpulent, heaving mass of filth. The Daemon within him, so well camoflauged until now, had been forced into the open by its host’s death.

What my sixth sense saw was altogether more complicated. In his human form, Holgius had been choked thick with the warp-spun false memories of a population terrified of the plague in their midst. Now, with his possessor revealed, those emotions took on a whole new context. Before me stood a daemon born of realization. For so long, the fear it gorged itself on had been limited to the sight of one’s neighbors covering their face, the scent of decay on the air, the primal certainty that something was terribly wrong. But here was the terror of a society advanced enough to look within, and realize that it was dying. The full extent of the infection revealed, and there was nothing to do but watch.

The thing that had been Holgius was on Kalus before my champion could react. Bloated, sore-pocked fists pummeled into Kalus with preternatural strength. A horrific shriek of tearing metal shuddered through us as Kalus’ breastplate split, caving inward under the force of the daemonic assault. Holgius grasped the broken pieces and hauled the cavity open even wider, exposing pale flesh to the diseased air of the Seventh Hell. A weak gurgle escaped from Kalus, carried to us over the vox. Holgius raised his fists to finish the job.

I commanded his death with a single word, spoken clearly and calmly over our group’s Vox.

“Mizi.”

The cracking report of a las-fusil accompanied the split-second in which the entire chamber was washed with red light. When the momentary blindness had cleared, Holgius stood slack-jawed over Kalus. Mizi’s shot had scorched a deep, blackened pit into his misshapen head. Steam curled from the crater as his dying mind struggled to comprehend what was going on. The daemon riding within his veins howled in rage as its handhold on reality began to slip away. As his spirit began to fade, Holgius met my eyes.

“C-co… ward…”

An insult that had long since lost its bite. I informed the Deathshroud as such, before tossing his limp corpse aside with a whim of telekinesis. I pulsed my orders throughout the chamber, calling my bound to follow.

Forward.

I was nearing the far end of the chamber when Kalus spoke. He was a ruin, his helm torn off to allow him to breath through a mangled face, his torso a bloody ruin, bone protruding near his pectorals. Still, he stood, swaying back and forth as he forced words out.

“I… would have… had him…” I smirked at that. A rudimentary scan of his mind revealed he truly believed it, too. He began to waver, and his legs would have given out if Mizi had not arrived at his side, steadying him. “I would have had him.” He repeated, firmly this time. Mizi shot me a look. I didn’t need my second sight to register the exasperation in her thoughts.

I am sure you would have, cousin. I extended a hand, willing his riven flesh to reknit itself. Kalus winced as the psychic impulses began to do their work. I am not so naïve to believe I can be rid of you that easily.

#warhammer 40k #warhammer 40000 #chaos space marines #fanfic #mine

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creative-frequency · 4 years

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Inquisitor!Cal Kestis x Reader: Free Time

Word count: 1564 Pairing: Inquisitor!Cal Kestis x Reader Notes: I had a mighty need for inquisitor Cal, asked what kind of scenarios would you guys like to read and here we go.

My Writing Masterlist

He is always training.

Alone.

You don’t know much about this new Inquisitor who some call unofficially the Eleventh Brother. There would be plenty enough numbers available among the first ten. Some even whisper that he is the next Grand Inquisitor. He doesn’t look that special to you, but you don’t want to go close enough to get a better look.

With the way he handles the red lightsaber, it’s clear that he is no stranger to the weapon. After a few sparring matches, the Purge Troopers quickly learned to avoid him in training spaces. Everyone gives him a wide berth.

Former Jedi Cal Kestis is always training because when he isn’t, he can hear his own thoughts, screaming inside his head. There is no one to talk to, no one to drown the thoughts with. The other Inquisitors barely treat him as equal, most often settling for avoidance. The feeling is mutual.

Cal feels the yearning for companionship, but there is none he can trust now. None who would comfort or encourage him. Getting physically exhausted and falling into dreamless sleep makes his new life somewhat more bearable. There is no light in his existence now. Just aimless darkness where he wanders, trying to hold his head above the surface. He is just surviving.

Attending to your duties at the Fortress Inquisitorius, you have no time to stare at the new Inquisitor, as handsome as he may be. He is swinging the double-bladed lightsaber in a speed that makes you dizzy. You don’t like the way the Second Sister looks at him, like a trophy from a hunt. It makes you feel sick but there is nothing you can do, especially show your disgust.

Nur wouldn’t have been your first choice, but one can’t exactly say no to a direct order. So you just focus on the job and hope that a new order will come soon.

It’s been two years.

Working in maintenance isn’t the most exciting career under the rule of the Galactic Empire. At least you don’t have to torture or murder anyone, only look the other way when someone else does. Things like that tend to numb people. You’re not proud of it. You’re just surviving.

Most of your coworkers are droids. Sometimes you hear people joking that you’re leading an army of your own. You tend to avoid the Troopers and especially the Inquisitors. Keeping a low profile is not just the best tactic to stay alive on the planet, it’s a necessity.

With a job that mainly requires only hands, you have too much time to think and wait for the comlink to spark into life.

“Requiring maintenance on residential level. Over.”

An everyday occurrence. You sigh. “What seems to be the problem? Over.”

“Another blasted lock. Apartment 2-5-7-K. Over.”

Gripping the comlink, you bite your lip. Shit. Anything over 250 means it’s an Inquisitor’s door. You’d best hurry.

“I’m on my way. Over.”

A blasted lock. You wonder what the reason is this time. What Trooper was stupid enough to draw a weapon in the hallways? They probably paid for the insolence with their life. Maybe there was a skirmish with one of the prisoners or someone tried to escape. Wouldn’t be the first time. You try to think of something else.

The hallway is fortunately empty so you speed walk to the right door. 257K. After a short inspection it seems that the lock is not actually broken, the door just needs some basic maintenance. The room hasn’t been in use for a long time but apparently someone has moved in recently. You make a mental note to bump it higher up on the priority list and to make sure a droid is taking care of it.

“It just needs adjustment, right?”

A scream almost flees you and you drop the servodriver.

The red-head Inquisitor stands next to you, slightly crouched to see better what you’re doing. You didn’t hear anyone approaching.

“Would’ve fixed it myself if I had the tools,” he continues, ignoring your almost heart attack.

“I’m sorry! This’ll be ready in a minute,” you say hastily and try not to look at the freckles on his face.

The Inquisitor’s brows crease closer together when you don’t look him in the eye.

“Okay,” he simply replies and leans against the wall, arms folding on his chest and looking like he isn’t going anywhere soon. If anything, he seems to enjoy watching you panic. A light smirk on his face and all.

You feel the eyes on your back as you work as fast as you can, checking and testing the connectors. Some of them need to be changed soon and that requires another order of spare parts. You just love paperwork and spending the Empire’s credits.

“Can you take a look at the AC inside? It’s been acting up.”

The servodriver almost falls from your grip again. You turn around to bow your head to the Inquisitor. Your eyes are obstinately drawn to the lightsaber resting against his thigh. “Of course, sir.”

The constant feeling of “I hope he doesn’t kill me” in your gut makes your hands shake but somehow you manage to make sure the lock works again. The Inquisitor still leans on the wall, looking like he has all the time in the world to just hang out. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him outside the dojo.

“There. Is it okay if I go in to check the AC now?” You don’t want to look him in the eye and with your every cell hope that he will leave now and let you work in peace.

Not a chance.

He shows you inside and stays hovering nearby as you try to calm yourself enough to work. He can’t seem to take his eyes off you. Something about you, watching you is… itching him.

“The thermostat seems to be broken, sir.” You dare a peek at the Inquisitor. He doesn’t seem as intimidating as the others and is actually younger than you initially thought. “I’ll need to go fetch some parts but I’ll set a static room temperature for now.”

“Okay.” He runs his hand through his ginger hair and sighs. “Can’t you just make a droid bring the parts?”

You blanch. “Uh, yes. Of course, I just thought it’d be faster if… I go… myself…” Your voice trails off under the cryptically meaningful look in his eyes.

Cal examines you, circling around in a slow, lazy arc. He has noticed you before even though you actively make every effort to not stand out. He felt something spark inside him in the hallway and he needs a moment to realize it’s curiosity that brings life to his dull existence. The feeling has some exhilarating new shades and he wonders is it because you look like a cornered animal, shaking in fear.

It excites him.

“Sir?” you squeak and can’t form the follow up question because Cal takes a step towards you.

“Who are you?” he asks slowly, gaze trained onto your face, eyes boring holes into your mind. His pulse is quickened like in the thick of a combat and he cannot understand why.

“Um, I’m not sure I– I’m just a technician. I’ve got clearance, y-you see… I can show you my ID…” you stutter and fumble a hand into your chest pocket to fish out the ID card. “See?”

Cal doesn’t even spare a glance at it.

“Yeah. I’m not interested in that,” he says coolly. He stands close enough to either strangle or hug you – though you know he wouldn’t need to get close and personal to kill you. You’re starting to panic.

“Sorry…” you peep, “Can I…”

Go?

You can’t finish the sentence because the Inquisitor leans forward and plants a gloved hand against the wall over your shoulder – a predator enjoying one last sniff of his prey before the killing blow.

All of your jittering ends and you completely freeze. The whimper that escapes your lips doesn’t sound like you at all. He has so many freckles and the feeling they enact in you acts as the perfect opposite to what their owner is doing. As good-looking as he may be, getting within a kissing distance to the Inquisitor wasn’t on your bucket list.

However, while you’re waiting perfectly still – in spite of your racing heart – for his next move, Cal hesitates. The excitement that spurred him into taking the initiative is gaining an altogether different tone. He is suddenly nervous and has to ball his hand into a fist to stop it from shaking.

You stare at each other, mere inches away and lightly gasp for breaths. The menacing Inquisitor aura is gone and you curse him for toying with you like that since there’s no way you can forget this ever happened. For a fleeting moment, you think should you just kiss him and be done with it – and gamble your life on his goodwill.

Cal finally loses his nerve and leaves without so much as a word or a glance at your direction.

You wait for a few stunned breaths to hear if he is coming back after the fateful sizzle of the door. Your head is positively spinning by the time you make it out alive from the quarters of Inquisitor Cal Kestis.

You hope nothing breaks in his room again.

Part 2

#cal kestis x reader #cal kestis #inquisitor cal kestis #inquisitor cal kestis x reader #jedi fallen order #swjfo #swjfo fanfiction #star wars #my writings #requests

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beastars-takes · 4 years

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Zootopia Takes: The Power of Really Liking Each Other

Our main event, Beastars Takes, will resume soon, but in the meantime I want to talk about one of my favorite movie relationships:

Has this been talked about to death by other people? Yes. But this is my blog and I write it for free so I can do what I want.

Note: this is not a shipping post--this is just an examination of their canonical relationship in the movie and why it rules.

At first glance, this is your typical enemies-to-friends story. I love those. But while the typical arc tends to involve two characters who can’t stand each other, who eventually develop a grudging respect for one another (often through some kind of shared ordeal) and maybe thaw into actual friendliness at the end. Zootopia packs all of that into the first half--by the midway point they are clearly not just allies, but friends, and by the end of the film they’re inseparable.

It’s important to recognize this isn’t just for the hell of it, or just to be cute--the closeness and trust they build is the linchpin of their success in the final moments of the movie.

All the reasons why, after the jump.

Something I talked about in the previous post was the messaging of Zootopia, and I don’t want to rehash it too much here. It’s a movie about prejudice, and the work it takes to overcome it. A key theme (one that it shares with Beastars, incidentally) is that friendships with those who are different from you are hard--but they are worth it.

Part 1: They Hate Each Other! (Right?)

Now...it goes without saying that when these two first meet, they bounce off each other hard. Each is seeing the other at their absolute worst.

Judy can’t stand Nick because he takes every bit of optimism she has about this world and throws it back in her face. She want to use him as a prop in her vision of an equal society, where “not all foxes” are crooks. He laughs at her. He humiliates her. All he has to do is walk away, but he takes his time. He twists the knife.

For his part, Nick sees a laughably ineffectual bunny who condescends to him and threatens him with jail for the crime of...humiliating her. She may not personally be a threat to him, but she wields the institutional power of the ZPD--a power he has plenty of reason to be afraid of--and she does it irresponsibly.

On first viewing, Nick inarguably wins this exchange. He avoids arrest, reads her to absolute filth and leaves her stuck in cement.

And he makes her really sad. Nice!

But, and I don’t pretend to be the first person to have pointed this out, on second viewing it’s obvious he can guess her story so well because it’s basically his story. The only difference, in his mind, is that he’s accepted the reality that he’ll never be allowed to live the life he wants, while she is still vainly pursuing hers.

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but the people I’ve met who have always most pissed me off are the people who remind me of things I hate about myself. The people who seem to embody the flaws I’ve worked to minimize. Nick’s naive hope is what has brought him the most pain in his life. He sees this bunny full of the same naive hope, surmises that she’s facing the same failures he did and yet stubbornly refusing to learn from them. It’s irritating.

Pictured: irritation.

Maybe I am projecting, but if Nick is anything like me, he probably didn’t walk away entirely happy from this exchange. Yes, he “won,” but he was also reminded of everything about himself that he least wanted to think about.

Part 2: They Are Not Very Good at Hating Each Other

So, the thing about Judy is, she is naive. By default, she assumes people are her friend. But she’s not stupid.

Nick assumes she is stupid, not least because she hasn’t wisely given up on her dreams like he has, and...he learns that she maybe not so fun to pick on after all.

So they wind up doing the first part of this enemies-to-friends routine, allies of necessity.

So, naturally, because he is Him, he makes it his mission to torment her.

In fact, we get two whole scenes where all he does he does is watch her struggle and make this face.

The first read of this behavior is that he’s just enjoying the failures of someone he hates. He says as much later. But I would also argue--from a viewer’s perspective--Judy is ridiculously entertaining and charming throughout these encounters. She wears her heart on her sleeve, and it’s hard not to like people like that.

Is there more happening here than just schadenfreude? I won’t pretend to know for sure. But worth considering.

By the time they’re investigating the limousine, his sabotage has diminished into something more like gentle trolling. And you can’t see this face, in context...

...and tell me she isn’t starting to like him, at least a little bit.

He’s also starting to help! By the time they’re past the minor detour of almost being murdered by a mob boss, he’s entirely cooperative, helping her conduct interviews and look for clues. The movie doesn’t call particular attention to this, but it almost did.

Finally, let’s look at Nick’s behavior when they’re being chased by a rabid jaguar. He could have absolutely booked it, with no regard for the cop who was blackmailing him into helping her.

These moments go by so quickly, but they’re hugely revealing of his true character, even before he defends her in front of Chief Bogo.

He picks her up when she falls.

More importantly, when he gets to the skytram, his first instinct isn’t to jump in--it’s to hold the door for her:

He sees she can’t make it, and she even tells him to leave without her. He doesn’t. He holds the door until he can’t anymore, and as a result he’s nearly killed.

Nick is a good boy.

Part 3: They Are Friends Now

She save his life, so he saves her job. This is a key story beat, and it’s a Disney movie, so there’s not a lot of subtlety (except how the specular highlights in Judy’s eyes fade as Bogo asks for her badge--the light literally goes out of her. Go watch).

But it’s such a sweet moment of teamwork--he was contemptuous toward her from the start because she believed in herself. This is the first time she’s simply given up in the whole movie, and he steps up. Because he believes in her now.

And she believes in him! Or, she wants to.

Judy’s supportiveness here is sweet, but it’s also still a little selfish. It’s not that different from their interaction at the ice cream shop, really: she wants to meet a fox who defies stereotypes, who is easy for her to like. Someone who ticks all the boxes to prove her family wrong.

When he starts being more foxy, later--self-identifying as a predator, showing his claws, challenging her--we learn that her supportiveness is conditional.

Am I being too hard on her? Sure. She’s been in bunny country her whole life. She’s new to this and she’s trying. But that’s where she’s at.

But still! They’re friends now. They’re no longer pretending they don’t like each other. Judy’s openly encouraging, Nick is fully in her corner, and we get a few cute sequences where they keep being more and more impressed with each other.

He’s still not above affectionately messing with her, and she’s getting worse at pretending to dislike it.

And he trusts her enough to let her flush him down a toilet...

Which gives us this heartbreaking shot where he thinks she’s drowned. He cares a whole lot about this bunny.

She likes him too! Enough to want to team up on a more permanent basis. This is pretty standard-fare enemies-to-friends stuff now, but considering where we started, and considering they’ve known each other for all of two days? Not bad!

It’s clear this moment means far more to him than it does to her, too. It’s actually taken very little persuading from Judy to get him to step up and be brave and helpful and trustworthy. The fact that he’s turned around and opened up to her so fast suggests he’s been ready for an opportunity like this for his entire life, and never got it. I mean, look at his face.

The foundational flaw in her worldview is still there, though, and it’s about to do almost-irreparable damage to their whirlwind friendship.

Part 5: Fuck!

So Judy gives her press conference, and gives a great example of why police usually answer every question with “the matter is currently under investigation,” or “we’re not prepared to comment further at this time.” Honestly, though, this is on Bogo--I had coworkers who once did some press interviews, and they spent over a week doing media training. They didn’t even break a major kidnapping case. So, you know.

So she repeats some weird race science stuff she assumes is true because someone in a lab coat said it, which is amusingly similar to how race science (or “race realism”) often propagates--people with low-rent doctorates from crappy universities write a bunch of scientifically shoddy material and people say “well, he has a PhD!”

And then Nick has a PTSD flashback? I don’t want to be irresponsible and make an armchair diagnosis, but also...that is absolutely what is depicted on screen.

You’re not immediately “better” after something like this, which is why I cut Nick a bit of slack when he basically blows up their friendship.

Judy...doesn’t get it. It’s completely heartbreaking, because she likes him, and doesn’t understand why he’s mad, and isn’t self-reflective enough to stop and think maybe he has a point. Not until it’s too late. He tests her, and she fails.

Their friendship has always been a little inequal. He’s trusted her with everything, shown her his deepest vulnerabilities. She’s never trusted him completely.

So he leaves.

I don’t want to impugn her professionalism by suggesting she wouldn’t have quit the force if she hadn’t had that friendship-ending fight, but, you know. Maybe.

This is the second time she gives up, and this time he’s not there to pick her up again.

Judy is intensely goal-oriented, and I don’t think she realized what Nick’s friendship meant to her, as the first person in the city who truly believed in her, until it was too late. Judy is sweet and well-meaning but emotional intelligence is not really her strong suit (which is actually cool to see in a female Disney protagonist, imo).

So, while it would have been nice for her to track Nick down immediately and apologize, I think it makes sense for them to spend time apart. Her own self-perception has been shattered, and she needs time to figure out how she went so wrong.

So when she does come back, she delivers one of the best animated apologies I’ve ever seen. Only AtLA compares, in my mind.

Part 6: They Are Much Better Friends Now

Nick forgives her, because of course he does.

(Sidebar--people talk about how he kept her carrot pen the whole time they were apart. He also kept his handkerchief from Ranger Scouts, AND he only wears shirts that match the wallpaper in his mother’s house. He desperately needs a hug.)

Credit to Nick also, who can’t fight and has no police training whatsoever, who has multiple times been almost killed helping her out, now agreeing to help her out again. She’s not even threatening him with jail this time!

We, the viewers, are then rewarded with this great montage of them being best friends.

She’s finally stopped pretending not to be amused by his shenanigans.

(One other sidebar here--Nick is canonically a really gentle character. For all their adventuring, this is only time in the movie he gets physical with anyone: to protect the bunny. Again, he definitely can’t fight and immediately gets smacked across the room. But it’s the thought that counts, right?)

Per the post title, more visual evidence of them really liking each other.

Judy trips on a dead body, and here we get the second time in the movie that Judy tells Nick to leave without her, and he won’t--this time, he refuses explicitly.

Which then gives us the opportunity for the big moment--the culmination of all this care and intimacy and trust.

In order to con Bellwether, she lets him stalk her, and bite her throat. This has been often pointed out, but it’s important--throughout the movie, Judy’s wriggling rabbit nose has been used as a signifier of fear and suspicion. It wriggles when she’s spying on Nick at the beginning. It wriggles like hell when he confronts her after her press conference.

Not here. Doesn’t move. It’s a great, clearly intentional animation choice that tells a close observer (or more likely, a repeat viewer) that she’s completely unafraid.

She trusts him.

I could write a whole other post about how well-scripted this movie is, how every scene is doing half a dozen different things, but the way the personal and the professional come together here, the way the threads of prejudice and friendship and the police case all tie together in this moment. It’s good shit.

This is basically where things end, in terms of character development, but we get a bunch more shots of them clearly adoring each other:

So there it is.

To sum up, certainly not suggesting this movie invented “characters liking each other,” or anything like that. But it goes above and beyond in portraying a friendship that’s not just one born of circumstance, one that’s authentic and unmistakably loving. Characters who enjoy spending time with each other, regardless of what’s going on around them.

I hope everyone is able to experience friendships like that. I absolutely treasure the few I have.

Appendix: The Shipping Thing

I hope I’ve made all this ship-agnostic, which was my intention. I personally like the ship, and I think the reason it resonates with people is because that love and trust and closeness is clearly there, and a romantic relationship creates a lot more easy opportunities for dialing those things up even higher.

I would also argue, if pressed, that the amount of teasing and physicality that happens reads as pretty flirty. If they were humans I knew in real life, I’d definitely think there was something going on there. But I’m an American, where touching and emotional intimacy tends to be read as romantic. Also, animals are a lot more cuddly than humans. So who knows? I think it’s perfectly reasonable to read them as platonic friends until the end of time.

But, one way or another, they love each other a lot. Shout out to this, one of the most emotionally rewarding relationships I’ve ever seen in a cartoon.

#zootopia #zootropolis #zootopia takes #judy hopps #nick wilde #disney

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souberbielle · 5 years

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Lily Evans is Not a Bad Friend: A Closer Look at the Courtyard Scene

The courtyard conversation in The Prince’s Tale is not a scene I like. I hate the decision to set the Highly Amusing Murder Prank before the Snape’s Worst Memory incident, in my opinion shafting almost every participant’s character arc. I still hate that. That has not changed. But I also, and I am far from alone in this, hated what seemed to be Lily’s atrocious treatment of the boy she called her best friend, taking his bully’s word over his, and blowing off news that he nearly died. Except I’ve just examined it again, prompted by reading several essays and fanfictions based on that same interpretation, written by some of the snazziest people in the fandom – and I think we’re all wrong.

To come to that, from what I’ve seen, nearly universally-accepted conclusion, you have to assume that Lily and Severus have not previously spoken about the Prank, and that the version of events Lily heard came from James Potter. But neither assumption is warranted.

I had previously assumed, as a lot of people do, that this conversation was the first one the friends had had about the Prank since it happened. That doesn’t really hold up, though. It’s been at least a day or two – Lily says it took place “the other night,” not “last night.” Still, it’s possible they haven’t gotten a chance to talk since then. However, if what Lily heard about “what happened the other night” is the first clue she’s gotten that anything happened that night, you’d think she would open the conversation by asking him about it. Instead, she only brings it up when Snape himself mentions the Marauders. It’s not unreasonable that she doesn’t ask if he’s okay or for his side of the story; she already knows he wasn’t hurt, and he’s had his chance to explain. Her reproachful “I heard what happened the other night” is more likely to mean “I found out about that thing you refused to tell me about” than “I just learned something awful happened to you.”

Why wouldn’t Snape give her his own account? I don’t think he could.

In PoA, Lupin’s account of the Prank tells us that, following the incident, Snape was “forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody” about Lupin’s lycanthropy – and possibly about the Prank itself. This could mean that Snape simply made a promise and was expected to keep it or face punishment. Or it could refer to a magical gag order, perhaps something like the Tongue-Tying Curse put on Grimmauld Place by Moody to keep Snape from revealing its location. His incoherence later in the courtyard scene, attributed by the narration to his “bitterness and dislike” could potentially also be related to such a restriction.

If the only thing keeping Snape from telling anybody were his own honor, he would tell Lily. We know this because he is trying to tell Lily. Dropping heavy-handed hints about his werewolf theory is a clear violation of the spirit of Dumbledore’s injunction. If he could say, “Remus Lupin is a werewolf and he nearly killed me,” he would do it, so it seems he cannot.

Now, about that theory…

Lily responds to Snape’s leading questions about Remus as though they’ve been down this road before and she’s sick of it. “I know your theory,” she says. Which is odd. If this established, well-known Werewolf Theory of Snape’s predates the Prank, why would he knowingly go down a tunnel to follow a werewolf who is about to transform? The whole point of the incident was that Sirius knew the danger he was sending Snape into, but Snape didn’t. So, either the theory Lily is talking about is something other than lycanthropy (unlikely) or it’s a very recent development. The Prank happened just “the other night,” but Lily is already weary enough of the topic to call Severus “obsessed.” It seems like Snape has been desperately trying to get around his gag order. He’s probably been answering all questions about “what happened the other night” with werewolf hints. In his mind, he’s trying to explain in the only way he can, but Lily would see it as an attempt to deflect and avoid her questions, the way he really is deflecting and avoiding her concerns about Avery and Mulciber.

So, she gets the story from another source, one she apparently considers reliable enough that she presents their version to Severus as hard fact. Most people assume this story came from James Potter or his friends, either directly or through the gossip mill, and therefore criticize Lily for taking the word of the boy she calls “an arrogant toerag” over that of her best friend. But, again, that assumption doesn’t bear out.

For one thing, are the Marauders really likely to circulate a version of events that includes the fact that there’s a “tunnel by the Whomping Willow” and something “down there” that could kill someone on a full moon night? Sure, Snape’s Worst Memory shows they can be cavalier about discussing secrets where they might be overheard, but they have just been reminded of the dangers of a breach of secrecy. Are they really going to spread around the existence of the Willow tunnel, when that’s exactly the information that nearly got Snape killed? Do they really want people to pay close attention to who and what goes in and out of that tunnel? And do they want to be caught by teachers sharing this secret after what just happened with Sirius?

Additionally, Lily presents the information like it came from a trustworthy source. Considering her view of James Potter, she’s likely to give his accounts of his own accomplishments about the same credence as, say, Gilderoy Lockhart’s. If the tale came directly from him, she wouldn’t state it as unbiased fact. The same thing applies if she heard it through the grapevine. She would begin, “People are saying...” instead of “I heard what happened.”

Even if she were gullible enough to just accept gossip as gospel, her actions suggest the story isn’t common knowledge. She “drop[s] her voice” before introducing this new subject. Why doesn’t she want to be overheard? It can’t be that she doesn’t want people to hear her upbraid Severus, because she’s been doing that the whole conversation. It must be the content she’s worried about, which means it isn’t a story that’s already circulating.

My guess is that she heard it from the faculty, most likely by eavesdropping on teachers’ private conversation, but possibly by asking Slughorn, who has been known to share behind-the-scenes Hogwarts info with his favorite students. Information from a teacher wouldn’t be inherently suspect the way student gossip or Potter’s boasting would, and the story fits with her interpretation of Severus’ behavior. Since she has no reason to think the Werewolf Theory has anything to do with the Tunnel Incident (because why wouldn’t Severus just say so?) it does look ungrateful of him to hide the fact that James saved his life by making up nasty rumors about his sickly friend. She didn’t mention it until Snape forced the issue himself by harping on Lupin, in the same way that she didn’t bring up Petunia’s letter to Dumbledore until Petunia insulted the world she’d been so eager to join. (The similarity of these incidents – she even lowers her voice both times – may be another indication that Lily found out both secrets by snooping.)

So, contrary to popular belief, Lily Evans is not being a bad best friend to Snape in this scene. She’s just fed up with him distracting her with Scooby-Doo mysteries when she’s trying to hold an intervention.

((It’s possible this is old news to the fandom. Apologies if that’s the case. But I’ve literally never once seen this interpretation anywhere, and I’ve read a lot of Snape and Lily fic and meta. People have varying views on whether Lily’s behavior is justified and whether it’s intentional on Rowling’s part, but I’ve always seen it presented as a given that she is condemning her best friend on the word of James Potter, without giving Severus a chance to defend himself. Until one hour ago, I believed that too. So, I’m sharing my revelation.))

#severus snape #lily evans #lily potter #harry potter #harry potter meta #this is a mess #my apologies #(and now back to not being on tumblr)

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officialtrashbin · 5 years

Text

Follow Through

Rating: T (for a sexual innuendo with Corvus’ glaive) A continuation of First Meetings, in which Corvus and Proxima have a conversation that gets very out of hand very quickly.

“Tell me, Devil—” Proxima boosted the crate of nuclear fusion cells and essential tools onto the platform, and the impact rattled the floor of the shuttle as if it were hollowed out. The reverberation shook Corvus’ feet. “Does it hurt to die?” she finished asking, watching his back; he was hunched over the control panel, trying to understand why the configurations were so stupidly misaligned with their readings, and his only response was a grunt acknowledging that she had opened her mouth and started talking. “I cannot, for the life of me, decide what reasoning compelled you to come work for Thanos, of all the galactic sociopaths you could have earned credits from.”

“My reasons are my own,” Corvus replied sharply.

They had been fixing the ship since it was almost shot to oblivion while hijacking supplies from a patrol fleet in Xandar’s occupied quadrant. Proxima and Maw flew together like clockwork and managed to navigate them back to Sanctuary before the shuttle’s engines gave up completely. The interior was, somehow, worse than the exterior; Proxima heard the acute thump of Supergiant applying a sheet of titanium to the hull, followed by the thick scent of welding metal, courtesy of Dwarf. Maw was preoccupied with delivering the reports to Thanos, leaving Midnight virtually isolated with Corvus Glaive.

“And,” he added, “of course it hurts. It means I’m alive.”

Proxima glanced at him. She considered the tone in his words, how it dropped its previous hints of irritation—not with her, surprisingly—and she perched on the crate, folding one leg over the other. “We are not in the business of dying peaceful deaths,” she said to him.

“I cannot stay dead.”

“I am more than fully aware, but the price of immortality is the inevitability of glaring weakness.”

Corvus turned his head to look back at her. His eyes glinted crimson in the shadow, and she felt a dangerously cold rush under the surface of her skin. Then, he twisted his whole body around, the black cloak billowing in his wake like an unfurled sail—he went to her, silently, not quickly. Proxima dug one hand into the lip of the crate, anticipating all of him to descend upon her, while the other went to the back of her utility belt and traced the handle of her pistol. It wouldn’t do her any good. Yet, she was compelled by the weight of it and the knowledge that, at the very minimum, she could get the upper hand by shooting out both of his kneecaps.

“Tell me then, Proxima Midnight,” he hissed, stopping a single pace out of her reach, “of this weakness.”

“If I told you that, I would no longer have the advantage.”

“That’s the point.” His mouth split open as he grinned, exposing rows of sharp, sharp teeth. It made her feel strange to be in the same room as him with nowhere else to go. “We are, as the saying goes, in the same boat, and an advantage against me is far from proper strategy.”

Proxima considered him like some puzzle piece, detached from the bigger picture. How out of place it looked against such a comprehensive canvas.

“Your glaive,” she said.

It hadn’t been a command, but he lowered it to her shoulder all the same and she ran her forefinger curiously over the edge of the aureate blade. Her touch was feather-light, studying the masterwork with her hand while maintaining eye contact. In the last few years of working together, she had never observed it so closely; Corvus seemed to tense as if the weapon reflected his own nervous system, when she traced the elegant langet to the very tip and applied just enough pressure to almost, almost rupture the thermal layer of her glove.

“To be nothing without it,” she said, “and to be bound to its omnipotence. You are quite the curious creature.”

Corvus didn’t withdraw his glaive; he was entranced by her motions. Proxima’s fingers glided down to the socket, where she curled her grasp around the neck of the polearm and coaxed the weapon from his hand. He allowed her to take it. To wield it like an uncovered artifact from a forgotten time in a long-ago place, fingertips sliding over the polished details and intricate design in wonder. His empty hands furled and unfurled in subconscious apprehension as she examined it. Whatever it was she was making him feel, it seemed to scour bone deep.

“Two weaknesses, I believe,” she said after a moment.

“Two?”

His throat sounded dry. She chalked that up to the suppression panels in the hull and told him, “Why, a formidable fighter such as yourself? You must certainly have a lover back on your home world, or wherever it is you were spawned from.”

Corvus rolled his shoulders. “I must confess…I have—I have never before considered feelings for anyone else. My brother is very much a romantic, and though I have contemplated the occasional possibility, I was unable to—” He hesitated, treading over the memory that haunted the back of his mind. “You will find that I am considered a devil on my home world, as well.”

Proxima’s finger fell still against the flat side of the blade. “You poor creature,” she said. From this distance, she could feel the warmth that radiated from him, as if there was an eternal fire burning in his chest. “Though I suppose it would be unfair of me to pity you when we are, as you said, in the same boat.”

“You are considered a devil by your own people?”

“I took no flames with me when I left,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Have I told you that on Andavaar, I am a princess, second-cousin to a long line of nobility? On my planet, freely courting is reserved for everyone else but our family. To court a noble was to go through the process of combat with a high fatality rate, to fight for a place in the bloodline.” Proxima dipped her thumb into the underside of the glaive’s neck and rubbed free a speck of dried ichor.

Corvus raised his brow. “How many died for your hand?”

She didn’t look at him when she said, “None, so far.”

Proxima grasped the throat of the polearm and thrust the glaive out. Corvus took it in one grip. With the other palm, he covered her hand, a touch so uncharacteristic to his violent personality that she startled and flicked her eyes up to his.

“You are quite beautiful, Proxima Midnight,” he said. “Curiously, the most beautiful being I have seen. It is…quite a shame that you have not been given a throne of corpses of those vying for your hand.”

Heat rushed to Proxima’s face; she stood, lightning quick, snapping her hand away from him. “You must learn when to hold your tongue, Devil.”

“I apologize, Lady Midnight, I did not mean to cross a line—”

“That is not what I—you mustn’t compliment me unless you plan on following through. It is only proper. Were you not listening to my story?”

“Oh.” He clutched his glaive with both hands. “Will you allow me, to follow through?”

Proxima’s fists balled up at her sides, and she turned away from him to take several steps towards the open rear of the shuttle. Instead of leaving, as Corvus might have suspected by her demeanor, she all but shouted, “How could I possibly allow—are you truly that dense? We have an important job to accomplish, and personal distractions—” She was starting to sound like Maw, stumbling over lame excuses while calculating the risks involved in physical diversion.

“A simple no will suffice,” Corvus said distantly.

Proxima reminded herself to turn back around and look at him. Though his irises flared in the bracket of shadow cast from his hood, his eyes were gentle when they befell her; it had been months since she last saw that glimmer of predatory delight. It reminded her of their proximity in the shuttle, close enough to touch—how they had been getting closer for the last year, his step by step motions, measuring the distance by word quantity and volume of blood he’d shed taking a blow meant for her. Closing the distance as a diligent predator would.

This time it wasn’t him who was hunting. She was the one coming closer, advancing on him with the barreling might of her stride. “You are dense, Corvus Glaive—infuriatingly so! I have seen you follow through on nothing but killing and being killed! How can you devote yourself to Thanos and allow him to end your life a hundred times yet compromise all of it with—”

“Because I deserve it,” he uttered. “I deserve what he does to me.”

She ground to a halt. In here, there was nothing stopping her from learning, as there was nothing to stop him from being exposed. The shadows were thin, made artificial by poor light coming in from everywhere. The length of them to the back ramp of the shuttle was cast marginally larger by their closeness.

“What we deserve is made possible by what we give,” she hissed to him. “All you’ve done is ask for permission to have. To be given to. Do you not understand what it is we do?” Corvus opened his jaw to respond but she seized the front of his cloak and drew him against her, wild fire burning bright behind limpid eyes. “I will not allow you to court me if you do not deserve it, so if this, if I, am what you truly want, then you need to grow a spine and prove that you deserve to be a part of it—the Order, the plan, us—”

“You would want a devil like me?” he asked, arcing his glaive around and slamming the blade through the floor. Another thing to fix when they weren’t occupied with the collateral damage between them.

“You have one chance to find out.”

It was the permission he needed. His hands grasped her, one on her cheek, the other her hip, claws threatening to pierce through the material of her suit; Proxima hadn’t considered whether she reflected his feelings but in the moment his lips pressed to hers she decided it didn’t matter right now. She needed this to know him. There was that discernible sharpness of his teeth as they kissed, the glowing heat that emanated from him and spread to her chest by proximity, a comfort that made her get closer, one arm around his waist and the other hand to the back of his neck to take him in. The wet sliding of their tongues and the pounding of her blood in her ears.

Then he was ravenous. She was pushed back and pushed back, first at an angle and then up against the wall between the rafters and the exposed arteries of wires they still had to fix, where the warmth of the engine lifted through the ventilation and was bounced inwards by thermal layers. She opened her mouth for his tongue, eyelids slid shut to focus on the sensation of him working on her, all primal instinct, it seemed. His clawed hands took her wrists from where she had her hands on his face and pinned them to either side of her head, their fingers intertwining. Heat pooled into the dip of her stomach.

The rush overwhelmed them so suddenly, so strongly that Proxima broke the kiss first to catch her breath; they were panting from the sheer exertion of it, of skin melding into skin. Corvus knocked his forehead against hers. His eyes were no longer hauntingly crimson, but a soft and burning gold that gave her the sensation of standing deep underground.

“Two weaknesses,” he said breathlessly.

Proxima titled her chin up and laughed.

#corvus x proxima #corvus glaive #proxima midnight #inappropriate use of a glaive.mp4 #i mean really you have to read between the lines but the intentions are obvious

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bythexdreadwolf · 5 years

Text

30 DAY PROMPT CHALLENGE.

day 02: dance.

SOLAS (FEN’HAREL)//NERYS LAVELLAN. WORD COUNT: 1,833. BY KAZ. AO3 LINK.

Her hand wraps briefly around the well-worn lover’s knot at her wrist, fingers gently grazing the ragged twists and knots as her eyes close. She inhales, once. Twice. Those that have seen her on the battlefield know that this is the calm before the fury of the storm is unleashed. Her weight rests on her left leg, while her right foot barely hovers above the ground directly behind her stave. In a flash, those golden eyes fly open and she kicks up the stave, and the fight begins.

She launches her assault against him immediately, aiming a four-point strike to his midsection. He blocks and she grins, throwing her weight into where their staves crash against each other. He’s momentarily caught off-guard; he’s seen her in battle, he knows what she’s capable of. But watching it and being on the receiving end of those blows, even without her magic, is completely different. For a moment, a sliver of doubt crosses his mind, especially as he remembers her almost-hungry grin when he accepted her challenge to practice. That same predatory grin is on her lips now and he scowls.

“You’re the one who said no magic, Pavus,” she reminds him, before ducking under his forward blow and spinning out of the way as if she weighed nothing. He has no blows to her four. The first to ten or the first in the dirt buys the other whichever book they desire from Val Royeaux. Not even ten minutes in, and he wishes he’d just cut his losses and handed her the gold.

“Yes, and I am beginning to regret that decision.”

“Oh? Is the big bad Altus admitting defeat so soon?” she mocks, spinning on the ball of her foot as he tries to strike at her ribs. His own are smarting from her blows and he’s yet to return the favor. A crowd’s begun to gather.

“Never,” he growls and launches a flurry of blows at her, each of which she expertly blocks before resting her stave across her shoulders, dancing through the dirt away from him. This was what she loved, the thrill of the fight, the familiar ache of exhaustion in her muscles.

“Stand still, damn you.”

Nerys simply cocks an eyebrow, though her eyes flash with amusement. She’s too good at this. Her years training as First to her clan meant more practice with combative magic. To protect herself, to protect her clan, that was her sacred duty. This dance was as natural to her as breathing. She kept her weight on the balls of her feet as she dodged, light and swift. Twice he managed to catch her on the thigh.

Four to two.

“Knock him on his ass, Boss!” the Iron Bull called from the sidelines, and then that amused grin turned feral.

Her assault was relentless as she lithely jumped back into the fray, spinning her staff in an arc around her body that struck him in the ribs and momentarily stole the breath from him. Even with the way she was holding herself back, there was still enough force behind the strike that it was going to bruise.

Five to two.

Another four point strike, two of which he blocks, two of which he doesn’t, but he lands a hit on the base of her spine that sends her hissing.

Six to three.

“I do believe I’m winning,” she says, pushing a sweaty curl out of her face.

He just laughs and brings his staff down to meet hers with a thunderous crack. He tries to press the advantage he has on her in size and strength, but she simply ducks out of the way, spinning and smacking his backside before she spins again and knocks his feet out from in under him.

“Yield?” she asks, one foot on his chest as she leans on her stave.

He glowers up at her, that perfectly primped moustache still, somehow, miraculously intact. He must magic the damn thing into place.

“Never,” and one hand is reaching out to swipe her ankle. She topples with a yelp, dropping her stave into the dirt, landing on top of him. For a moment they both grapple, both fighting to pin the other. The crowd is jeering at this point, Bull’s cries of ‘Kick his ass!’ ringing the loudest, before she uses his weight against him and pins him to the dirt with her knees on his chest and her hand at his throat.

“Yield?” she presses with a grin and Dorian lets loose a string of curses in Tevene that she must get him to teach her.

“Very well, you cheating little vixen, I yield.”

She clambers off of him and helps him to his feet as the crowd cheers. She dusts him off and gives him a one-armed hug.

“I do believe that’s going to bruise.”

“It is simply your ego that has suffered, Dorian, not your backside.”

Dorian smacks her on her calf playfully on his way out of the sparring ring, muttering curses the whole while. She makes her way over to the fence and retrieves her water skin, uncorking it and surveying the crowd around her. Many of them offer their praises on the display of her abilities and Dorian’s, but she doesn’t really hear them. Despite the chill in the air, there’s sweat beading down her back. She ties her tunic under her breasts and sweeps her hair off her neck, tying it back with a leather thong she keeps on her wrist. Her muscles ache in that delicious way after a good fight, and she finds she’s wanting more. She wants to practice until she collapses into a deep sleep, until exhaustion claims her body and her mind and she can forget everything.

Forget her clan. Forget her daughter. Forget the atrocities she has seen and the fact that she’s going to die in this gilded cage because to abandon this fight is to abandon her clan for true. She tilts the skin back and takes a long, icy drink, the cold shock of water soothing her parched throat. She’s so lost in the hammering of her own heart and her thoughts that she almost doesn’t hear his near-silent footfalls approach her through the crowd of soldiers chatting and taking up their own arms to spar.

“That was a well-fought match. My congratulations on your victory, vhenan.”

He’s surveying her with a sense of pride and awe and something else that has his pupils blown wide. Hunger. One predator to another. She knows that look well. She wears it every time he kisses her. It’s been a long time since anyone’s looked at her like that.

“Ma serannas, Solas. Care to join me? I could use a challenge.”

He laughs, deep and throaty, and she feels a heat blossom in her belly. What she wouldn’t give to feel that laugh ghosting over her ear, or on the hollow of her throat, or on her lips…

“Ma nuvenin, vhenan. Without magic, I presume?”

“I wouldn’t want to hurt you,” she smirks.

He climbs over the fence with a grace that seemingly doesn’t fit his unassuming demeanor, taking Dorian’s discarded stave from where he’d stashed it on the weapons rack and rests it across his shoulders. His movements are lazy, slow, the careful air of someone who is in their element.

This should be fun.

She crouches into a different stance than the one she used with Dorian. Solas is harder to read, more prone to stealth attacks than flashy moves or brute force. He is as seasoned a warrior as herself, and part of her wonders what manner of things someone who claims to simply adventure to learn more of the Fade has come across.

She makes the first move, an overhead strike that he manages to parry. It sends a shockwave down her arms and she laughs, high and light. His face is carefully blank as he spins the staff around his body with him, aiming for her hip.

She doesn’t dodge quick enough. One to nothing.

An uppercut misses its mark as he knocks her staff away. She lands a hit on his shoulder. He catches her on the arm. He’s restraining himself, even more than she had with Dorian. It’s frustrating and exhilarating all at once. She’s lost herself watching him fight before. He’s graceful, elegant. Deadly. It sends a thrill through her as they circle each other, and she wishes he would just let go. She wants to see just what he’s made of.

Nerys rushes in and is blocked. Her breathing is becoming labored, but aside from the furrow in his brow, he’s showing no signs of strain. Two to one. They’re too well-matched. She tries to duck into his space, but in a move she doesn’t see coming, he manages to trap her between his body and his stave, the wood held lightly against her throat.

“Dread Wolf take you,” she hisses, though there’s amusement coloring her tone. Three to one. She can feel, rather than see, his smug smile before he releases her and she thrusts, trying to take advantage of his open core. Parried. She’s starting to understand Dorian’s frustration. They keep at it, and the crowd that was watching her and Dorian has now tripled in size. She thinks she spies the Commander in the background and Cassandra beside Bull, but there are no catcalls this time.

No noise permeates the crowd as they watch the two mages circle each other, each trying to find an opening, waiting for one of them to expose their weaknesses. There’s a tension in the air.

Apostate versus apostate. She takes a second to ground herself, feeling the cold, packed earth beneath her toes. Pitted, from too many fights. Easy to lose your balance, she notes, and she side-steps his staff to find more even ground. Balance, Deshanna echoes in her mind. Find your balance.

And then she lets go. In the ring, he is not her vhenan. He is simply an obstacle that must be overcome. He matches her blow for blow, his breathing becoming labored. She lands another hit. Then another. Three to three. But they feel like hollow victories. She gets the sense that he’s toying with her, like a cat plays with a mouse. She missteps, and he pins her against his chest again.

“Do you wish to yield?” he asks, sounding amused.

“Never,” she echoes Dorian, and she reaches and grabs his stave with one arm, momentarily taking him off guard. With a yank and a twist, she slips out from his arms and whacks him on the hip. He laughs, and the sound is so genuine it makes her pulse flutter. And then, suddenly, he’s turned the fight. Not that it took much effort on his part, really. He hovers on the balls of his feet above her, smirking.

“I do believe this dance is mine.”

#solavellan #solas x lavellan #solas x female lavellan #solas x inquisitor #dragon age fanfic #da fanfic #char: solas #char: dorian #char: nerys #:story time with k

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neuxue · 5 years

Text

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 34

Everything from fireworks to Fourier transforms, because why the hell not. Oh and Mat is there. (Or is he?)

Chapter 34: Legends

Oh it’s Mat.

I have very little enthusiasm for Mat, especially this book’s Mat, but at the same time maybe it’s good to have a chapter that isn’t guaranteed to ruin me, just for a change of pace and a chance to catch my breath and regrow my limited supply of emotions.

Occasionally, the wind would blow, and a small sprinkle of dead pine needles would shake free from the boughs above

I see what you’re doing there, with your wind associated with death and release.

Mat’s clearly still a little shaken by Hinderstap, and is not particularly keen to go running into this next town. Can’t say I blame him.

This time he would plan and he would be ready. He nodded to himself in satisfaction.

Yeah, no, still not getting the cadence right here. It’s too…deliberately set up to be funny. Exaggerated. It’s like he’s being written as a caricature of himself.

Apparently it’s a woman who’s looking for him…I thought the pictures of him and Perrin were linked to Moridin’s directive to kill them – we’ve seen at least one attempt on each of them since then – but this sounds like someone who just wants to find him. Who, though? It doesn’t seem like it could be Tuon, and most of the other characters are tied up elsewhere, and none have recently mentioned trying to find Mat.

And it would probably be more efficient to just…read and find out than to try to list out all of the named female characters in the series thus far and cross-reference them against Mat’s story to figure out why they might be looking for him, wouldn’t it? I’ll leave the listing of ladies to Rand.

We’re getting fireworks as signal flares again, and I do have to applaud the ingenuity of the charactesr in this series. So far we’ve got fireworks used as: a distraction, entertainment, currency, battering ram, therapy, weapon, communication device. Have I missed anything?

Also, the red-for-danger, green-for-all-clear system brings another question to mind that maybe someone out there has an answer to: why do we continue to rely so heavily on red/green for important signalling distinctions (port/starboard, stop/go – things you really don’t want to mix up) when red-green is the most common spectrum of colourblindness?

I suppose the choice of colours predated any solid statistics on things like rates of colourblindness, and boats have the whole whistle system as well, and traffic lights have position as well as colour, but still.

Maybe it’s a chemistry thing? If red and green are the easiest colours to make in a fire or lamp or flare or light, it would make sense that those would have become the colours used for signalling when coloured lights were first used in such a way, and then it’s the kind of thing that would stick. So maybe lithium/strontium/barium/copper were more readily available, or happened to be used/discovered as colourants first?

And that was a tangent.

Meanwhile, Mat’s pulling a whole Argo here, creating false identities for the people he’s sending into the town. Okay, a reverse Argo, maybe, as that was exfiltration and this is infiltration but shhh. (Great movie, by the way, if you’ve not seen it – one of those ‘stranger than fiction’ true stories).

“Wait, Mat,” Mandevwin said, scratching his face near his eye patch. “I’m to be an apprentice gleeman? I’m not certain my voice is suited to fine signing. You’ve heard me, I warrant. And with only one eye, I doubt I’ll fare well at juggling.”

So I think by now we all know my thoughts on what ‘give up half the light of the world’ means, what with Mat being as Odin as it’s possible to be this side of actual Norse mythology…and yeah that doesn’t bode well for his juggling and knife-throwing skills, does it? Now I wonder if those skills were given to him intentionally not just as a fitting trait for a character of his archetype but to twist the knife a little in that sacrifice. Like Rand’s skill with the sword and then the loss of his hand.

(Also his skill at being a person and the eventual loss of his sanity, but we’ll just leave that one alone for the moment.)

“Aren’t I a little old to be an apprentice, though?”

“Nonsense,” Mat said. “You’re young at heart, and since you never married – the only woman you ever loved ran away with the tanner’s son – Thom’s arrival offered you an opportunity to start fresh.”

“But I don’t want to leave my great-aunt,” Mandevwin protested. “She’s cared for me since I was a child! It’s not honest of a man to abandon an elderly woman just because she gets a little confused.”

“There is no great-aunt,” Mat said with exasperation. “This is just a legend, a story to go with your false name.”

The thing is, if you take it completely out of context – as in, out of the Wheel of Time completely – there’s nothing particularly wrong with this exchange. It’s not the funniest thing I’ve ever read in my life, but it’s entertaining and a fun sort of ‘yes and’ game between characters. It builds a sense of their relationship, adds a little bit of depth to Mandevwin, presents Mat as creative and a little more fond of stories than he might admit while being a general…

But you have to completely dissociate it from the actual characters for it to work. It’s an alright scene, if it’s not about Matrim Cauthon in The Wheel of Time. If you read it as being from a different story entirely, with characters that just happen to have these names.

And that’s pretty much the problem with Mat. Other characters may see their lexicon shift a bit, or their tendency to externalise their thoughts a little more, but Mat’s been replaced with another character entirely.

I mean, so has Rand, but that’s his own damn fault.

“Too late,” Mat said, rifling through a stack on his desk, searching out a cluster of five pages covered in scrawled handwriting. “You can’t change now. I spent half the night working on your story. It’s the best out of the lot.”

I could almost give the rest a pass, because Mat coming up with false identities that make a fine story but will probably end up falling apart is not too far out of character, even if the conversation felt nothing like him – it’s not unlike what he did with himself, Egeanin, Tuon, and the others when they ran away with Luca’s show, after all – but Mat spending half a night writing up stories for each of them? I can’t make that fit.

“Are you sure we’re not taking this a little too far, lad?” Thom asked.

I think it’s meant to be a little out of character, as a way of showing how on edge he is. The fact that Thom comments on it serves as a narrative cue that this is intentionally off. But it’s too far and not quite in the right direction, so instead of helping us understand where Mat’s head is right now, it’s just…weird.

“I’m tired of walking into traps unprepared. I plan to take command of my own destiny, stop running from problem to problem. It’s time to be in charge.”

And the fact that Mat is so off in this book makes it hard for me to say anything about his actual story or character, because I don’t completely…trust any of it enough. So on the one hand I want to unpack this line, because there’s a lot there in terms of Mat’s own character arc, and his struggle between denial and acceptance of his role, and between luck and improvisation vs planning and strategy. But on the other hand, it’s hard to find any real motivation to do that when I feel like this isn’t really Mat. If that makes sense.

So actually, I’m going to do something a little out of character myself, here. I’m going to read the rest of this scene before commenting further, just to see if I can get a better sense of what’s going on from the general shape of it than from following it line-by-line.

Okay. Mat talks Talmanes through his own constructed backstory, then goes and inspects the camp and thinks about the Band and their current situation and also crossbows, and now he’s visiting Aludra so I’ll stop here for a moment before we get into that.

The bit with the crossbows comes closer to feeling like Mat again. The rest…still feels like it belongs in another book entirely. Also, weird how Mat knows two guys named Talmanes, right?

There are two main issues at play here, as far as I can figure it. The first is the issue of perception and distortion, which, broken down, looks something like this:

Jordan creates the character of Mat in his head

Jordan commits that character to writing. There’s distortion and filtering even here, because words are limiting and no writer isthatgood, and some information will not be conveyed or will be conveyed only obliquely, other things given more prominence, etc. Just like a photo is never going to be a perfect representation of an actual person, because you only have two dimensions to show something that exists in three.

Sanderson (or any reader) reads Mat. Filtering happens here because of how brains work; we’re not perfect machines that can take in every piece of information and give it equal and unbiased weight. Different things will register differently with different readers based on everything about them.

Sanderson (or any reader) creates a mental image/construct/version of Mat, adding the new information to it as it comes along – like making a sculpture from a drawing of a photo. This again is prone to filtering and distortion because of what information registers more or less strongly, how it’s interpreted, and all kinds of other factors.

Sanderson commits his version of Mat to writing, imperfectly portraying his own mental image of the character.

The reader reads Sanderson’s version of Mat, repeating steps 3 and 4.

Obviously this would apply to any character, not just Mat, but I think with Mat it’s an issue of a stronger filter/bias at steps 3, 4, and 5 but especially 4.

It’s something you see a lot in fanfiction, actually, especially in fanfiction centred on characters that can be strongly linked to a specific archetype. If you have the mental fortitude for it, check out some Avengers fanfiction sometime, and you’ll see a huge variation in how these iconic, archetypal characters are portrayed. Because they go through these processing and reconstruction steps, and so much of that is affected by each person’s own experience with or existing idea of the shape of those archetypes.

So we get into things like confirmation bias – if you have a pre-existing ‘outline’ of a character in your head based on the first impression they give, you’re going to end up paying more attention to things that fit into that outline, and ignoring things that don’t. And with these kinds of archetypal characters, it’s hard not to have that pre-existing outline unless you’ve been literally living under a rock for your entire life. In which case you have bigger problems. Also, I think with those sorts of characters, because you have this pre-existing model, your brain is more likely to essentially take short-cuts and go ‘yep, I know what this is’, whereas with characters that aren’t so easily categorised or immediately identified, you’ll rely more on the information directly presented, rather than on that outline.

That affects what you pay attention or give weight to, and that affects how you reconstruct the character in your mind, which creates an ongoing feedback loop but/and also affects how you portray the character yourself, should you ever do so.

It’s a process akin to…okay the first analogy that comes to mind is a Fourier transform followed by the addition of noise or any kind of alteration to any of the resulting frequencies, followed by an inverse Fourier transform to bring you back to something that no longer perfectly resembles the original. Because I’m a fucking nerd. In case that wasn’t already abundantly clear from everything about me.

But perhaps a more broadly accessible analogy is the game of taking a word or phrase or song or whatever and sticking it through a few different languages on google translate, and then translating the result back to the starting language and laughing and how ridiculous it ends up sounding.

(On a tangent from my tangent, I think this is part of why outsider POV can be so interesting. It’s a chance to watch this entire process take place in the minds of other characters, who essentially each create their own version of the character in question.)

Anyway, I think this is the first issue: Sanderson reads Mat, his brain goes ‘oh look, a trickster/rogue! I know what that is!’, which colours how he continues to read and interpret Mat, which shapes the Mat that lives in his head, which shapes how he then writes Mat.

The second problem, I think, is that Sanderson is somewhat aware that he’s doing this. Why is that a problem, you ask? Because it means that, while he’s not writing Jordan’s version of Mat, he also avoids committing completely to his own style of portraying a trickster/rogue. Which leaves us stranded somewhere in the middle, and you can feel the uncertainty and discomfort and tension between what he thinks he’s meant to be doing and what he wants to do. And Mat’s not the kind of character you can commit to halfway.

Okay, picking back up in a more normal fashion, hopefully (unless this next scene goes the way of the first).

Aludra’s making fireworks, Egeanin’s helping, and Mat’s trying to remember that he is a married man now.

Mat still had trouble figuring out what to call the woman. She wanted to be known as Leilwin, and sometimes he thought of her like that. It was foolish to go about changing your name just because someone said you had to

I like this, because it can be extended to a broader commentary on changing not just your name but your identity based on who or what you believe you must be. Tuon has the power, in the society in which Egeanin was raised, the society that shaped her mindset and identity and sense of self, to command that she take a new name and a new place. And that sticks even when – and perhaps even because – she chooses to remove herself from Seanchan society. She is a different person now, and the name is part cause and part symbol of that.

But it has a broader meaning here, for Mat himself and for Rand and for Egwene and for so many others. It’s the question of accepting a name or an identity that is given – the Dragon Reborn or the trickster or the Prince of the Ravens or son of battles or Amyrlin or wolf king. Prophecy and Pattern demand those roles be filled, and ask that they fill those roles, and so do they change to do so? Do they take on those names and fit themselves to those outlines, and if so is it by choice or by force?

Seems like all is not well between Mat and Aludra these days. Another word of advice: try to avoid pissing off the person who makes your explosives.

Honestly, I thought I was unqualified to give dating advice. But Mat and Gawyn and honestly the whole lot of them are really making me question that.

Then again, I thought Aludra and Mat were fine after Aludra made it clear she wasn’t interested in pursuing or being pursued by Mat once he began courting Tuon. Has he done something since then to irritate her?

“Are these the plans for the dragons?” Mat asked eagerly. He knelt down on one knee to inspect the sheets, without touching them. Aludra could be particular about that kind of thing.

“Yes.” She was still tapping with her hammer. She eyed him, looking just faintly uncomfortable. Because of Tuon, he suspected.

“And these figures?” Mat tried to ignore the awkwardness.

“Supply requirements,” she said.

So one thing I’ve been thinking about, and which this exchange highlights rather well, is why Mat seems to be the one so closely linked with and arguably credited with the weaponization of gunpowder, when in reality it’s pretty much all Aludra.

I’m curious as to whether this is just me, or whether it’s true of fandom as a whole – that gunpowder is linked and credited to Mat. Because narratively it seems like it’s set up that way – he plays with the fireworks Aludra gives him in TDR, and then there’s Egwene dreaming of him reaching up to grab a firework from the sky and knowing this will change the world, and dreaming again of him bowling with human lives as the bowling pins and knowing it’s linked to the same thing. And he’s the one who plans the battles in which Aludra’s explosives are used.

But he doesn’t actually come up with any of the ideas – he just incorporates them. She already has plans for her ‘dragons’ when she sets him the bellfounder riddle. She’s already thought through how her fireworks can be altered for various uses in battle. She doesn’t have the funding or resources, but she has the rest of it.

So I wonder if my brain has just taken the shortcut here of crediting Mat with the advent of gunpowder weaponry because he’s a far more major character, he’s the battle strategist, and he’s given all these pieces of foreshadowing and prophecy that link him to this innovation.

I also wonder if some element of it is unconscious gender bias on my part – that while I love the fact that it’s a woman who invents this, and that there’s no downplaying of the rather dark and destructive potential this has to change battle and war and the entire world, some part of me finds it much easier to associate that with a man than a woman. Something to think about, I suppose.

How would the common people react if they knew that the majestic nightflowers were just paper, powder, and – of all things – bat dung? No wonder Illuminators were so secretive with their craft. It wasn’t just about preventing competition. The more you knew about the process, the less wondrous and more ordinary it became.

There’s a great deal of truth to that.

And that, actually, seems like a very in-character observation for Mat to make. It’s something a trickster and a gambler and a strategist or general would understand: the value of knowing how things work, but also the value of misdirection and sleight-of-hand.

It’s a fitting realisation as well in a series that deals so much with the nature of information and knowledge and perception, and the interplay between them.

“This is a lot of material,” Mat said.

“A miracle, that is what you asked me for, Matrim Cauthon,” she replied, handing her nightflower to Leilwin and picking up her writing board. She made some notations on the sheet strapped to the front. “That miracle, I have broken down into a list of ingredients. A feat which is in itself miraculous, yes? Do not complain of the heat when someone offers you the sun in the palm of her hands.”

Hard to argue with that.

I do like Aludra – I always have; she’s a fun character. And a more complex one than her relatively little screen-time would ordinarily allow. As she has to be, I think; her place in the story but especially in her world is itself complex. Her innovation will change the world, and once unleashed that’s not something you can take back. Introducing gunpowder to a world is a heavy role for an otherwise bit-part character, but she’s written in such a way that it works. I do think that’s part of why the narrative leans on Mat so heavily in that regard, as a way of…offloading some of that weight onto a more central character.

“The Dragon Reborn, he can afford such costs.”

If nothing else, he’ll be relieved to be dealing with high costs in such an ordinary currency, after having had to pay such steep prices in less conventional ones – flesh, soul, sanity…

Maybe Rand could manage costs like these, but Matcertainly couldn’t. He’d have to dice with the queen of Andor herself to find this kind of coin!

I think Elayne would quite enjoy that, actually.

But that was Rand’s problem.

Honestly, Rand has well over 99 problems and I’m not even sure this makes the list. But okay.

Burn him, he’d better appreciate what Mat was going through for him.

At this point it’s all he can do to appreciate things like the fact that Nynaeve wants him to live, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.

“How many bellfounders are you going to need for this project?”

“Every one you can get,” Aludra said curtly. “Is that not what you promised me? Every bellfounder from Andor to Tear.”

“I suppose,” Mat said. He hadn’t actually expected her to take him literally on that. “What about copper and tin? You don’t have an estimate of those.”

“I need all of it.”

Okay, this is genuinely funny. Most of the credit goes to Aludra, who is written better than pretty much anyone else in Mat’s chapters so far this book. But this is great.

But then you stop laughing, and it becomes very much a sign of how non-trivial the invention of cannons and weaponised explosives is. This is not a small endeavour. This is not something that will be used in one battle and can then either catch on or fade back into obscurity. This is huge, and world-changing. A larger scale than Mat dreamed of and now he’s having to face the full reality of it. It’s one thing to see this in battle and know theoretically that this is going to change everything. It’s another thing to see it written out in figures that demand all the copper and tin that can be found on an entire continent.

Their eyes met for a moment, and Mat realised he’d probably been too curt with her. Maybe he was uncomfortable around her. A little. They’d been getting close before Tuon. And was that pain, hidden in Aludra’s eyes?

“I’m sorry, Aludra,” he said. “I shouldn’t have talked like that.”

She shrugged.

He took a deep breath. “Look, I know that…well, it’s odd how Tuon—”

She waved a hand, cutting him off. “It is nothing. I have my dragons. You have brought me the chance to create them. Other matters are no longer of concern. I wish you happiness.”

I guess I’m just confused because I thought we already did this, with Aludra telling Mat that she wouldn’t tell him the secrets that would make him blush and that she had no plans of being juggled. I sort of figured that was it. But I also thought it was just a bit of fun for both of them, while this would suggest that there were maybe a few feelings involved – just one or two, mind you – which I suppose would account for some continued awkwardness.

That and the fact that Mat has no idea how he’s supposed to behave around women now that he’s married.

Nice of him to offer a sincere apology, though. I’ll give him that.

“But it will take much time, and yet you refuse to tell me when the dragons will be needed.”

“Can’t tell you things I don’t know myself, Aludra,” Mat said, glancing northward. He felt a strange tugging, as if someone had hooked a fisherman’s line about his insides and was softly – but insistently – pulling on it. Rand, is that you, burn you? Colours swirled. “Soon, Aludra,” he found himself saying. “Time is short. So short.”

The storm is coming, and we must go north.

Mat tells Egeanin that he doesn’t want her giving the secret of these weapons to the Seanchan, but…yeah, this isn’t something you’re going to be able to control, once they’re used. And I think he still doesn’t quite see that, doesn’t quite grasp the magnitude of what this is. Which isn’t all that surprising, because it’s the sort of thing that’s almost too much to wrap your head around until it happens. It’s like trying to imagine the ubiquity and myriad uses of smartphones when you’ve only just figured out how to harness lightning.

“By the way, I nearly forgot. Do you know anything about crossbows, Aludra?”

Ha. This is such a classic ‘I know nothing about your field/profession, so I figure you do all of it?’ It’s like when my grandmother asks me to predict the weather because that’s definitely covered under ‘geology’…

She’s the closest thing to an engineer he has, so sure, why not? And your paediatrician could probably perform a bit of neurosurgery on the side, right?

Now, if you wanted to modify a handheld projectile weapon so that its projectiles exploded…

Oh hey it’s the mystery person who’s been looking for him. OH. An Aes Sedai.

OH HEY IT’S VERIN.

Haven’t seen her since she left Rand with that letter and went off to conduct her own mysterious business. What have you been up to, Verin?

How long ago was that, in this timeline? Rand’s apparently a head of the rest of them now, if he saw Mat in Caemlyn, so maybe this isn’t actually all that long after Verin left Rand in KoD.

But why did she leave and why is she here and hi, Verin!

Well that solves one problem for him: she can Travel, so he can get to Caemlyn in time for supper. Time to move the plot along.

He hesitated, eyeing Verin, forcing himself to contain his excitement. There was always a cost when Aes Sedai were involved.

“What do you want?” he asked.

GOOD. QUESTION. Yes, Verin, tell us. What exactly do you want?

She just says she’s been held here because of his own ta’veren effect. Which…is certainly possible, but almost as certainly not the entire truth.

Next (TGS ch 35) Previous (TGS ch 33)

#TELL ME YOUR SECRETS VERIN #Wheel of Time #neuxue liveblogs WoT #The Gathering Storm

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saile212 · 6 years

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The Link (Re-written)

Please note: I'm making a few changes, and I've been slowly going back to the start of my RP with Verlai Devereaux to get to know the character again. She was the first ‘muse’ I ever discovered RP on, and I know that I've grown as a writer, and with my knowledge of WoW lore. Because of that, I've decided to do a little bit of re-writing/editing/face-lift of a few stories that go back to the root of her. No -drastic- changes, mind you. The original will be linked! I hope you enjoy!

The Link

(Original work, Verlai, age 18)

Her body was braced against the thick trunk of the tree, hand looping casually around a limb the hung from above as she looked down at the troll. Her perch was roughly fifteen feet above him, the shadows from the thick canopy above offering the concealment needed to remain unseen, unheard, unnoticed.

The huntress inhaled deeply, eyes closing for a brief moment as the faint scent of blood from their earlier encounter invaded her nostrils, causing a shiver of excitement to race up her spine. It was a bad habit to toy with her prey, she knew, but it was also part of the fun. She could have killed him outright, a single arrow sent sailing through the air to end his life, but where was the fun in that? It was pure enjoyment in making him believe he had a chance, his ‘superiority’ nothing more than a falsity as she fought him in close-range combat and making sure none of the injuries delivered to the male were fatal.

Verlai led him on a chase through the mountainside, quickly scurrying up the very tree she found herself in now where she would wait.

//’Keep Reading’ given for story length//

Her eyes opened and she peered at him now, taking in the pale blue color of his skin, blood smeared along his arms, neck, and face. Not all of it was his own, however. He’d gotten his own blows in, evidence of the wounds she carried now mingling and mixing with his own life essence. She twirled the dagger in her hand, giving a slight smile at the sight as she enjoyed the color contrast of the subject below.

In his current form, the troll was a work of art that she’d helped to create.

His weapons were drawn as he walked past her slowly, eyes scanning the thick forestry and ears straining to hear past the symphony that nature provided. Her free hand came down to pull another dagger from her hip in silence before she suddenly vaulted off the tree, both arms arcing down in front of his head, slicing at his neck as she landed in a crouch behind him. Blood spewed in front of him in a glorious arc as he fell to his knees, the weapons falling from his hands to reach for his throat in a vain attempt.

Both daggers were slammed into the ground before the huntress stood up and moved in front of the male, hands resting now at her hips as she looked down at him with a sneer. Blood poured from not only the wound she’d created, but bubbled up and spewed forth past his lips as he coughed, as he choked. It was a beautiful sight for eyes to feast on before her boot was set to his chest and she pushed him backwards, little force needed. His arms fell to his sides as the gurgling sound that accompanied the choking of his own blood came to an end, lifeless eyes staring up at her.

She moved to stand over him, legs on either side of his waist as she crouched down. Reaching a hand out, her fingers traced over his skin, just barely swirling in the medium his body offered, when she froze in place.

A gruff warning slipped through her mind to send a chill running down her spine. This time, however, excitement was far from present at the sensation. It was almost as if she could ‘feel’ the words rather than hear them, but there was no denying the warning.

‘Behind you.’

Startled by the deep ‘whisper,’ Verlai abruptly stood, hands moving to lift the bow from her shoulder with one hand, while the other withdrew an arrow from her quiver in a blur of motion. She turned, looking out at the valley below the mountainside, spotting another troll running towards her roughly thirty yards out. With an irritated roll of her emerald eyes at the interruption of enjoying her kill, she nocked the arrow as she pulled the bow up and lined her shot. Her arm was back as she aimed for the troll’s head, exhaling a steady breath as she released the arrow. It soared through the air with a quiet whisper towards her target. A smirk appeared over the huntress’ face as the projectile lodged itself in his forehead, causing him to fly backwards with force and collapse to the ground, death immediately claiming him.

A second arrow was readied, stepping away from the troll’s body at her feet as she searched in all directions for the source of the warning. She found nothing. She was sure she heard it, felt it, the sensation something she’d never experienced before.

She was peering out at the tree line to the North when her vision suddenly shifted, blurred, and changed, now seeing herself from behind at roughly twenty yards away.

Her jet black hair pulled tightly behind her head, the muscles in her arms flexed and defined as she held the bow like it was an extension of her body instead of a mere weapon or tool. Her form was sleek, yet toned and defined, her agility apparent just from the sight of her alone.

Her weapon was lowered slightly as she closed her eyes and shook her head roughly. An undertone of panic swept over her at the sudden change, and when she opened her eyes again, her vision had returned to normal. The woman slowly turned, peering at the set of trees behind her in the distance. She stared for a long moment, yet that which she sought still went unnoticed. Several minutes passed with this standoff, her guard lowering as she chalked up the experience to nothing more than a lucky ‘sixth sense’ moment.

Glancing down at the body once more, she crouched down as she slung the bow over her shoulder and returned it to position. Reaching past her kill, both daggers were pulled from the earth as a sigh passed her lips. It was clear that she wouldn’t be able to enjoy this one. Not any longer, anyway, still on edge about the experience only moments prior. Rituals were meant to be enjoyed, and this one had been ruined.

But still, she was unable to help herself, even given the dire situation. At least should could enjoy one small thing.

Two of her fingers to uncurl from the corded leather hilt of her dagger, pulling them through the blood at the side of the troll’s face before it cooled completely. Her fingers were brought up, eyes closing as her tongue darted out to slowly trail upwards over the digits, and she let out a quiet groan.

Eyes opened as she peered down once more, but her vision changed immediately. The huntress peered at herself from behind, the angle seeming to be crouched close to the ground and steadily getting closer. But instead of a warning ‘spoken’ it was more of pleading.

‘Hunger.’

With a rough shake of her head as she gasped for breath, her vision blurred as she turned around quickly, her daggers coming up in front of her. She came face to face with an extremely large, male tiger. He had a gorgeous mane of thick, silver fur with red and orange stripes flowing around his body in a stunning design. His eyes were a startling green, the color matching her own identically.

He was a piece of art.

She stared at him in awe, feeling something stir inside her. She didn’t fear him as she thought she should have, but instead felt a connection to him; deep respect and understanding calming her immediately and chasing away any sense of unease that had been attempting to take root.

The woman could clearly ‘hear’ him and see through his eyes in some way; there was no mistaking that. She’d never had a companion before, preferring to be alone more often than not when she was hunting. She’d heard stories of the very few, rare hunters who had a link with their companions, but she’d always thought they were just tales passed around the fireside for children to ‘ooh’ and ‘awe’ at. These gifted hunters were able to look through the eyes of their companion, making them invaluable in battle, and communicate with them without the use of spoken words. Was it possible that she and the beast had this connection?

Testing her theory, she let a thought slide through her mind directed towards the great beast as she let her daggers drop the ground beside her.

“Can you… hear me,” she thought, her head tilting a fraction of an inch as she looked to him, gauging whatever reaction she’d receive, if any at all?

The response was felt once more.

‘Yes.’

Her eyes went wide, a smile curling her lips as she let out a shocked huff of laughter. She sat back on her legs, feet tucking under her as she tentatively lifted a hand to run lightly along the tip of his ear, bringing it around to his jaw to scratch along the thick, coarse fur.

“Do you have a name?” she asked aloud.

‘You are mine.’

She closed her eyes, letting out a deep breath as she felt the link between them. A solid, strong presence could be felt inside her. After a few long moments of staring at him, she spoke again.

“And you are mine.” She let her eyes roam over the corded muscles in his arms and back, the large black claws that extended from his paws. He was frightening, an obvious predator, though she felt no fear when she looked at him.

“I’ll call you Gruff. I’m Verlai,” she said, then turned to look at the corpse beside her, a smile still on her face. Looking back towards Gruff, another thought was sent to the beast with a grin.

“Enjoy your snack.”

#the past #the huntress #my writing #going back to the roots #enjoy #ic #revelations & masks

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crazygirlsworldofbooks · 3 years

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Review: When the Stars Go Dark

Book: When the Stars Go Dark

Author: Paula McLain

My Rating: ✯ ✯ ✯ (3 Stars)

Read: April 9, 2021

Synopsis:

A detective hiding away from the world. A series of disappearances that reach into her past. Can solving them help her heal? Anna Hart is a seasoned missing persons detective in San Francisco with far too much knowledge of the darkest side of human nature. When overwhelming tragedy strikes her personal life, Anna, desperate and numb, flees to the Northern California village of Mendocino to grieve. She lived there as a child with her beloved foster parents, and now she believes it might be the only place left for her. Yet the day she arrives, she learns a local teenage girl has gone missing. The crime feels frighteningly reminiscent of the most crucial time in Anna's childhood, when the unsolved murder of a young girl touched Mendocino and changed the community forever. As past and present collide, Anna realizes that she has been led to this moment. The most difficult lessons of her life have given her insight into how victims come into contact with violent predators. As Anna becomes obsessed with the missing girl, she must accept that true courage means getting out of her own way and learning to let others in. Weaving together actual cases of missing persons, trauma theory, and a hint of the metaphysical, this propulsive and deeply affecting novel tells a story of fate, necessary redemption, and what it takes, when the worst happens, to reclaim our lives--and our faith in one another.

My Review:

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with this arc in exchange for an honest review. This was one of those books that I had a really hard time placing between four and three stars. While there were many things that I liked, there were just as many things that either irritated me or just put me off to the story. I originally got the arc a while ago and even though it took me a long time to finally read it, I am definitely glad that I did because even if the story wasn’t the most exciting, there are some really deep truths about assault victims and I found the novel to be extremely moving in that regard. I would still recommend this book but know that it’s not your typical thriller mystery but if you want to be profoundly touched then it just might be for you.

First of, When the Stars Go Dark is about a missing persons’ detective, Anna Hart, who flees from her current family life after a tragic accident back to her childhood home, which stirs up a lot things she left behind and then she is forced right back into her job when a girl goes missing and she can’t resist her need to help find the girl. I thought the plot was okay and this is one of my first tropes like this but the story progressed rather slow and I don’t think it had to be this long. Things were revealed too slowly for me, especially because I prefer things coming to light all throughout the novels that I am reading, not just at the end. That is what I mean when I say that it’s not your typical suspenseful thriller, the unfolding of the story definitely didn’t keep me holding onto the edge of my seat.

Secondly, the characterization was probably the thing I enjoyed the most about this book because we really get a good look into Anna’s psyche and what makes her tick and we really understand what compels her to be so immersed and obsessed with her job. The writing style definitely helps with that because even though it’s more drawn out than I’d prefer in my thrillers, it is also very deeply profound and gets Anna’s soul across beautifully. Not something I would expect from a thriller but I enjoyed that aspect of it.

Thirdly, the writing style is beautiful and flowing but a little bit too much for me, especially in a thriller, which I am used to being fast-paced and exhilarating. For this reason, I found it to have progressed extremely slowly. I did enjoy all the deep truths in regards to assault victims, which I haven’t pondered that deeply myself yet, I just wasn’t prepared for it and thought I was going into something completely different.

In conclusion, even though this book wasn’t my favorite, I think readers who enjoy long flowy sentences and an abundance of descriptions would really enjoy this one. However, if you are looking for a fast-paced, mind blowing, shocking thriller, I did not find this to be it.

#when the stars go dark #mclain #book review

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atamascolily · 6 years

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An incomplete review of the Star Wars EU/Legends canon

I never thought I would say this, but I'm actually very thankful there will never be another Star Wars EU/Legends book in the old - now non-canon - universe. I've been revisiting those books recently as part of my recent Star Wars kick, and let me tell you, I stopped reading them just at the right time - when Vector Prime came out and they killed Chewie off. It's all downhill from there.

Anyway, the Legends universe is a hot mess, but for me, the five Thrawn Books by Timothy Zahn - Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, Specter of the Past, and Vision of the Future - are amazing and totally canon in my heart for pretty much everything. Everything else is pretty much "meh" except for a few books that evoke some late '90s nostalgia (because really this blog is all about late '90s nostalgia).

So in my head, Luke and Mara Jade are happily married, and so are Han and Leia; their three children, Jacen, Jaina and Anakin, are all happy-go-lucky teenagers who can use the Force with their besties - Tenel Ka of the Hapes Cluster, Chewie's nephew Lowbaccha, and Tahiri Veila - and getting kidnapped/saving the galaxy every few months. The New Republic is alive and going strong on Coruscant (which never gets invaded by aliens from outside the galaxy), Luke runs the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV; the remnants of the Empire are scattered and disorganized and sue for peace with the New Republic and Captain Pelleaon finally gets the retirement he deserves. It's really great.

But let's face it, I read just about all of the books published prior to 1999 because I was a Star Wars geek and that's just what you did in the late '90s. (They were New York Times best-sellers so I know I wasn't the only one.) In general, I love the art on the books because it looks just like movie posters for films that were never made and that's exactly what I wanted.

Random thoughts on said EU/Legends canon cut below, for length:

-Ben Kenobi's last appearance to Luke in the Legends AU: "You're not the last of the old Jedi... but the first of the new." (TAKE THAT, DISNEY EPISODE 8!) -Awesome things from the Thrawn books: Mara Jade - check. Talon Karrde - check. Art as a major form of military strategy - check. Secret commando ninjas - check. Leia's title as "Lady Vader" - check. Borsk Fey'lya -check. Camaas Document macguffin-thingy- check. Ysalamiri - lizards that block the Force - check. Vornskrs - Force-sensitive predators - check. Insane Jedi master- check. Lots of clones - check. Lawful Evil Imperials - check. Mara fulfilling her orders to the Emperor in the most badass way possible in The Last Command - check, PLEASE. -Jacen, Jaina and Anakin Solo forEVER! -Also, Coruscant and New Republic forever!! -Shadows of the Empire: WTF, Xizor/Leia sex pollen (okay, pheromones) seduction scene???; Dash Rendar is a Han Solo expy, you're not fooling anyone. -Truce at Bakura: wow, Ssi-ruuvi are full of Fridge Horror, powering their tech with human life force; maybe the Imperials aren't so bad after all; Luke and Gaeriel have no chemistry and also her entire religion is against the Jedi on principle, and she's not interested in changing it for you, Luke, sorry; of course Dev dies after his redemption arc; watching the force-ghost of Anakin Skywalker try to talk to Leia is amazing, because Leia is so not interested in his shit. -The Courtship of Princess Leia: I love the Hapes cluster, but man Han buying a planet in a card game and kidnapping Leia with the Hapan Gun of Command (pretty much what it sounds like) is NOT OKAY; Teneniel Djo is awesome and so is Dathomir in general. Isolder is okay once he gets over Leia, which takes most of the book. Also on the cover on one edition, Leia looks like Sarah from Labyrinth during that dream sequence with Jareth - what? On the other, she's wearing her Endor outfit, as are Han and Luke and there's a Rancor there, too for no good reason that I can recall. -Jedi Academy Trilogy: Yay getting to see the Kessel spice mines; I'm not so into the Sun Crusher and the Maw Installation, but Qwi Xux and Wedge Antilles are adoreable together, poor Admiral Daala and Imperial sexism (yet another reason Tarkin is an asshole); yay for a Jedi Academy on Yavin IV; Kyp Durron seriously needs to chill, Luke's in a coma for a lot of the series, Exar Kun is not as clever as he thinks himself. -I, Jedi: I'm supposed to like you, Corran Horn, and I'm just not interested and your narrative voice is kinda annoying.... Just sayin'. -The Crystal Star: super weird and trippy, Han and Leia's kids are kidnapped by "The Empire Reborn", which is as dark and terrible as it sounds, Crystal Star explodes, do not read. -The Black Fleet Crisis: super dark and trippy, especially the Yevethan culture; reveal that Luke's mother was one of the Fallanassi - pacifist Jedi who hid when the Empire was formed - only it turns out to be a huge macguffin, which is too bad. -Children of the Jedi: EVEN TRIPPIER AND DARKER THAN THE CRYSTAL STAR, HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE; Luke gets a love interest who's a Force ghost trapped in a ship's computer; sacrifice, body-swapping, creepy song motifs. -Darksaber: Hutts try to build a Death Star, what can possibly go wrong? Luke's new Jedi girlfriend can't live without her force powers when she loses them, so she leaves him. -Planet of Twilight: Luke goes chasing off after Callista and they don't get back together, so that's good. Also dark and trippy. -The New Rebellion: SUPER DARK AND TRIPPY, LOTS OF MASS MURDER, NOT A FAN. Thank goodness for Mara Jade and Talon Karrde showing up with ysalamiri to turn the force off so Leia can shoot the Evil Dark Jedi behind it all with a blaster. I can't believe I read this. -Ambush at Corellia/Assault on Selonia/Showndown at Centerpoint: also weird and trippy. Han has an evil identical cousin. Luke has to go back and ask Gaeriel for help (she's married now and it's awkward). Lando tries to marry for money and after some awkwardness ends up with Tendra Risant, who is awesome. Lots of things blow up. Kids save the day at the last minute. -I only read one of the Junior Jedi Knights series, Lyric's World, about young Anakin Solo and his friend Tahiri, taking some time off from their Jedi studies to help a friend metamorphose into a new life stage, and I remember it being really charming, despite the inevitable intelligent secret animal sidekick. I later learned that Anakin and Tahiri were kinda an item and then it went horribly wrong in New Jedi Order so I'm glad I didn't read that. -Young Jedi Knights: yay young adult Star Wars novels from the '90s; I stopped reading after Diversity Alliance, but these were fun - especially Tenel Ka, who was a badass, and I quietly shipped her and Jacen (and then that ALSO ended badly in later books - why can't we have nice things?) Especially good in my memory: Shadow Academy (trying not to get corrupted to the dark side at an academy for Dark Jedi), Lightsabers (Tenel Ka has to deal with losing a hand during a training accident); Diversity Alliance (aliens get pissed off at human dominion in the New Republic government but decide that killing the humans off is the only way to achieve justice).

We're not going to even go into all the stuff that happens post-Vector Prime, because it is truly awful. Go look it up if you're curious.

I did read a few stand-alone books this week, though:

-The later Zahn novels lack the spark and vigor I remember from the Thrawn books. Scoundrels couldn't keep my interest. Allegiance and Choices of One feel very weird to me because Luke and Mara manage to work together without actually meeting each other. Survivor's Quest ought to have been good except somehow Luke and Mara encountering the Outbound Flight expedition was BORING and it shouldn't have been. It's not clear if reading the follow-up novel set during the Old Republic era - titled Outbound Flight - will help with this. -Also, I dislike the retconning so that Mara and Luke make references to Naboo and the Trade Federation, which they didn't do in earlier books, and also Thrawn's major motivation for everything is getting the galaxy ready for the impending invasion of the Yuuzhan Vong in New Jedi Order, which I just - really don't like, especially since NJO was pretty awful. -Also, there are an awful lot of Jedi healing trances in Survivor's Quest, which are only tolerable because the code word that Luke and Mara use to snap each other out of it is "I love you". D'aww. -Also, perhaps this is just me reading too much fanfic, but would it hurt to have at least an allusion to the fact that Luke and Mara have sex on occasion - in addition to snuggling and having Force mind-meld sessions? I'm not asking for porn, mind you, but just anything beyond platonic Force buddies would have been good. -Kenobi, by John Jackson Miller was another, relatively recent Legends book that ought to have been good. I mean, it's Obi-wan Kenobi hanging out on Tatooine, dealing with Tusken Raiders and moisture farmers - I eat that sort of fanfiction up - but although there were some good bits, it just really didn't work for me. -Those handy timelines in the front - listing every single book and how it fits into the convoluted chronology - is really helpful, though! The only thing that would make it better would be to add authors and dates. But that is what the Internet is for, I guess.

Conclusions and Follow-Up Questions to Research:

-Wow, the '90s were an interesting time. -Bantam Spectra line of EU novels: mostly good, some weirdness. Del Rey line: ARGHHHHH. -Wow, there are a lot more Star Wars books out there then I remember. -Wow, Mara Jade is awesome. -I have a lot of strong opinions on the subject. -Since they stopped putting out Legends novels as of April 2014, I never have to care about keeping up with canon or anything I don't like about this universe ever again. -Has fanfiction spoiled me for the "real" thing? Or is it just a failure of the published works to address the topics I'm REALLY interested in? -Is the Disney EU canon any better? (My guess, given how I feel overall about the direction of the recent movies: probably not for me, but maybe worth checking out.)

#star wars #book reviews #star wars feels #star wars legends #'90s nostalgia

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scottadamsblog · 7 years

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The Turn to “Effective, but we don’t like it.”

Prior to President Trump’s inauguration, I predicted a coming story arc in three acts. Act one involved mass protests in the streets because Hillary Clinton’s campaign had successfully branded Trump as the next Hitler. Sure enough, we saw mass protests by anti-Trumpers who legitimately and honestly believed the country had just elected the next Hitler. I predicted that the Hitler phase would evaporate by summer for lack of supporting evidence. That happened.

I also predicted the anti-Trumpers would modify their attack from “Hitler” to “incompetent,” and that phase would last the summer. That happened too. The president’s critics called him incompetent and said the White House was in “chaos.” There were plenty of leaks, fake news, and even true stories to support that narrative, as I expected. Every anti-Trump news outlet, and even some that supported him started using “chaos” to describe the situation.

Now comes the fun part.

I predicted that the end of this three-part story would involve President Trump’s critics complaining that indeed he was “effective, but we don’t like it.” Or words to that effect. I based that prediction on the assumption he would get some big wins by the end of the year and it would no longer make sense to question his effectiveness, only his policy choices.

How does the anti-Trump media gracefully pivot from “chaos and incompetence” to a story of “effective, but we don’t like it”? They need an external event to justify the turn. They need a visible sign of the White House moving from rookie status to professional status.

They need General John Kelly to replace Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff.

Done.

Watch in awe as the anti-Trump coverage grudgingly admits things are starting to look more professional and “disciplined” at the White House. And as the president’s accomplishments start to mount up, you will see his critics’ grudging acceptance of his effectiveness, but not his policy choices. We’re entering that phase now with the help of a new Chief of Staff that even the mainstream media can’t hate. Generals command respect from both sides of the government because they have fought for both sides. No one forgets that.

Expect to see lots of stories about General Kelly bringing efficiency and effectiveness to the White House. Reporters and pundits don’t want to criticize a four-star general who fought for them. At best, expect the anti-Trumpers to say the Chief of Staff is calling the shots, not the President. That’s the predictable fake news attack. But I don’t think it will stick through the end of the year.

By year-end, expect “Effective, but we don’t like it.”

Now for some related fun. I have often said Trump supporters and anti-Trumpers are in the same movie theater but watching different movies on the same screen. You’ve seen lots of evidence of that, but I’m going to give you an experiment you can try at home. It might blow your mind.

1. Identify your most lefty, Trump-hating friend or family member.

2. Share this link of President Trump’s accomplishments while you are in the same room so you can watch them read it.

3. Watch as your lefty friend turns “cognitively blind” to the list of accomplishments as if it is not really there. Your subject will KNOW President has accomplished nothing, and all of his or her friends know it, and the television channels they watch know it. So how-the-hell could there be in existence an extensive list of legitimate accomplishments that make perfect sense and can easily be verified?

The only way that list of accomplishments can exist in your anti-Trumper’s world is if the anti-Trumper has been in a hallucination for months, duped by the media and everyone they love. The existence of the list of accomplishments will form a crack in their reality. It simply can’t exist. That’s the trigger for cognitive blindness. The list will simply be “invisible,” but not in the literal sense, only the mental sense. If you check back in two days, your anti-Trumper will claim once again no such list exists. Watch their eyes when they say it. It will be freaky.

Some anti-Trumpers will pick any one or two items from the list, argue that they are not good for the country, and use it as an excuse to see the rest of the list as nonsense. Some will simply tell you Trump has shepherded no “major legislation” through Congress, which is true. It is also true that he intentionally waited for Congress (and Obamacare) to fail hard before he got serious. The harder they fail, and the more dire the situation, the more power the president will have to push creative solutions on a weakened Congress. Keep in mind that President Trump is a predator when it comes to deal-making. He would have been an idiot to enter the fight hard and early when Congress was at full credibility and strength. That gets you nothing but a committee-made crap-law that may or may not have your name on it. By waiting, he accumulates leverage and widens his options. That’s how I would have played it. I would wait for the lobbyists, Congress, and my critics to punch themselves out before I involved the public and put together a plan to shove down Congress’ useless throats with the help of social media.

I think the President would have been modestly happy with some kind of “skinny” win on healthcare. It would have been good for momentum. But he’ll be much happier with a real health care solution that takes advantage of innovation. (Our constipated Congress ignored innovative solutions, as far as I can tell.)

Frankly, I don’t know how much the world really needs tax reform or infrastructure spending. The stock market doesn’t seem to move on the news of either thing becoming more or less likely as we go. My prediction is that President Trump’s reelection chances (should he run again) will depend mostly on what happens with health care. If President Trump gets that right, on top of the things already going well, Mt. Rushmore could get crowded.

---

You might enjoy reading my book because you might want to have some accomplishments of your own.

I’m also on...

Twitter (includes Periscope): @scottadamssays

YouTube: At this link.

Instagram: ScottAdams925

Facebook Official Page: fb.me/ScottAdamsOfficial

#POTUS #generalkelly #healthcare #Trump

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icharchivist · 5 years

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Oh no your answer was great! I hadn't thought about it much but Kanda's Innocence is being pretty gentle w/him all things considered. It's like toeing the line between sticking to, I guess, Innocence code but also showing mercy and understanding because Kanda's motivations are good. Lenalee's Innocence ignored her until she promised to work w/it again. Then it bowed in respect. Compare that to Suman who got violently punished (shoot Mugen didn't hurt Kanda even when Kanda helped awaken Allen's-

2 Noah side. Kanda even originally wanted Allen to turn and destroy the Order out of hate. You think he would have started turning back when he had kept the 14th’s awakening a secret).

I’m cutting the ask there quickly to say, yes agreed with all of this! I think there’s a lot to think of about how each individual innocence behaves especially with thir accomodator and i pretty much agree. Had Kanda’s innocence be only slightly like Suman he wouldn’t have had just some warning like he did. Even if i don’t know how long the Innocence will tolerate it.

Back to Chaoji, he was a pretty chill and mature dude pre Allen fugitive status. Post Ark he kept silent about the Allen gossip even though he could have told people about Allen wanting to save a Noah. He also didn’t antagonize Allen post Ark either. But now he’s very crass and antagonistic. Even to other people.-

3 Even though he wasn’t close to Allen he should know Allen’s beliefs don’t invalidate what Allen did in the past. It’s not a secret to Chaoji (or anyone) that Allen fought hard to save everyone, even all alone, during the Ark and Order Invasion. The only reason Allen is even a fugitive is because Allen chose saving Kanda and Alma over orders. You think Chaoji would give Allen some credit for saving the person he idolizes the most but he doesn’t.

It’s actually really interesting when you -

4 compare Chaoji’s hate of the Noah to/Allen’s original hate of the Thirds existence. Allen himself said he felt hate towards the Thirds but after hearing about their past he felt bad about it. Allen thinks hate, particularly ignorant hate, is a scary thing. This causes him to find the resolve to understand others even like the 14th before he decides anything. Even before then Allen showed how much he was willing to save them even if he hated what they did.

I feel like Chaoji’s attitude is -

5 going to backfire on him big time. Ark Freakout aside, Chaoji used to show good control over himself. Now he’s not. He’s getting angry at his comrades for just having feelings when they haven’t even messed up. He’s isolating himself way more then he has before. When you think about it Chaoji’s only close friends are those 2 Finders. He’s never been shown close to any Exorcist. He’s usually just standing there w/them during training. Recently he seems more unattached (besides his own team). -

6 ex; in a extra showing Krory and Chaoji going to where Allen and co were. The Finder w/them notes Krory has been bearing is Innocence non stop out of grief over Allen and Lavi. Chaoji meanwhile is completely ignoring them, looking away w/a big happy smile on his face. This kind of struck me. You think he’d either look stoic or irritated over Krory’s depression. But he’s not facing him. He’s acting oblivious (from the glare he gives Krory later we know he’s not). I feel like this is more -

7 foreshadowing that Chaoji is becoming (for us) the face of the ignorant who need/want to hate who don’t fit in their black/white view that most of the Order/Central has. It’s scary because Chaoji is a good guy w/his own trauma caused by the Akuma/Noah. But he’s letting his hatred take over and affect how he treats and will get treated by those who support Allen. They’ll certainly keep him in the dark about a lot concerning Allen on account of not trusting him. Has already losing trust/faith-8 in Krory and the others (how ironic the Exorcists helping Allen the most are his most trusted teammates; Kanda, Marie even Teidoll). I can’t help but wonder if he’ll be used by Central somehow because of this (which will somehow tie into him being a unknowing Noah spy if he unintentionally leaks valuable info to the Noah)? It’s a unnerving to see how hate can make a once friendly nice guy like Chaoji turn very cold and uncaring to even his comrades and ignore anything against his prejudices.

I honestly kinda agree with all of this- his attitudes had been off, and he’s truly antagonizing everyone. And there is the fact he has a parasite from Fiidora inside of him that will sort of play into game. I think it’s pretty interesting to set up that he’s the exorcist who is the most loyal to the Order (rather than to Allen) that ends up being the bias in which the Noah spy on them. The realization of that will destroy Chaoji and this sort of anger might blow up to anyone’s face.

If I might add though:

One of the thing that deserves to be mentioned is that he was poisoned by Fiidora when him and others Noah kidnapped Bookman and Lavi. It was shown that the finders found Chaoji in great pain agonizing on the floor and losing his mind while Lavi and Bookman disappeared. And I don’t think Chaoji might take it well.

From the look of Chaoji so far, he has a major survival complex. He is one of the only survivor of Anita’s boat and was left behind by his crew who refused him to die with them when he wanted to - living therefore with the eternal idea that he could have died with the people he loved and he wanted to, but he had to live on. And afterward, in a mission: two of the people of the Order that have a major impact on the mission (Lavi being one of the first people Chaoji met, and was part of the group when Allen Lenalee and him showed him “how human the exorcists could be”) disappeared and it left him alone. He’s the one they found back. They don’t even know if the Bookmen survived, so he might as well have been the only one who survived- he could have died against the Noah in the fight, he could have been dragged with the Bookmen, but he wasn’t.

I think that can create a sort of guilt that would push him to over-take responsabilities as “if there’s a reason i’m not dead while the people I was with were killed, then I will work through it to make it justice.” That’s often the prisme i used for Chaoji in general because of the focus on losing Anita’s crew.

I think that might also play in him not making more bounds that the finders - who were themselves after all, members of Anita’s crew, survivors, people who signed up as Finders specifically to watch over Chaoji as a group, a family. This is not by choice that Chaoji really befriended them and it was a bound that predated Chaoji becoming an exorcist.

The guilt of being alive, to have survived, may easily lead to isolation and refusal to befriend others people. He cannot avoid his finders friends from before, but he can avoid others.

With Krory the scene you notice is worth noticing indeed but again: Chaoji was there and couldn’t save Lavi. the Finders point out that Krory is in such distress over the disappearance of Allen, yes, but also Lavi, who was with Chaoji that day, that he’s pushing the limits of his body. Overhearing this conversation, Chaoji has to be aware of Krory’s pain and be an uncomfortable reminder that he survived that attack and that he was there free to walk along Krory while one of the people Krory wanted to see were gone. (or also he was really just mindlessly looking away, just looked back at the picture, he’s looking at a butterfly and the Krory dialogue is rather kept quiet? so ye)

The thing is that this guilt can be overwhelming and in any cases it’s the Akuma and the Noah that hurt people. If Chaoji could overlook Allen’s compassion for them after the Ark arc, the development of Allen becoming a fugitive makes it hard for him to look away from what is happening. And at this point, like i said, it’s more reaspons for Chaoji to believe it’s his time to take the responsabilities. That if he survived this far perhaps he should work on why.

He’s letting his duty define him because this is the only way to reason why he survived when others did not. And by doing so, he undermines the human connection he and everyone else had with Allen, to the point of antagonizing the others.

I agree with your analysis btw, I think it’s pretty spot on, but I think that’s just a point to remember about why he came to this. Perhaps i’m reading a looot into it though but considering how big was the scene showing him insisting on dying with Anita’s crew and how they insisted on him having to survive, and the fact a similar scenario happens again with the Bookmen, could really work well with his psyche.

And the more he lets his duty devour him, the more he will give information to the Noah all while antagonizing himself from the more “grey” exorcists. And that will blow up to everyone’s face.

Take care!

#ichafantalks dgm #Anonymous #ichareply #sorry for the late reply i thought i saw a dash at the end of part 8 and was waiting for part 9 jkdhfd #i realized only before sleep that it was over sorry about that

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