#(stories are much harder than bullet points this was a terrible choice)

[babydaddyleorio]

falling for you

pairings: Dabi x fem!reader

word count: 1,757

warnings: a shit ton of angst, grammatical errors

The truth was It was over for the two of you. It was a hard pill to swallow, but one that you had to unfortunately accept. 

You and Dabi stood back to back on the rooftop as helicopters twisted and turned above your heads. The spotlight harshly shined across your scathed face and you had to cuff a hand to shield your eyes from the intensity of the brightness. You turned your head, analyzing the current state your boyfriend was in since he endured the most damage. Dabi staggered in his spot as If to be chasing his balance, holding on to the wound that was placed on the side of his stomach. 

The League had tried to carry out the mission of dismantling the hero society completely, using you and Dabi as pawns to infiltrate UA. They wanted to start by eliminating everyone that was present in the school, relieving the city of any future hope they harbored for heroes. The plan was foolproof in your opinion, but It inevitably was sabotaged since the League had a mole planted unbeknownst to them. By the time you and Dabi had arrived at your positions, the heroes were already waiting for you with smiles on their faces. Being severely outnumbered, the both of you were left with no choice but to flee the area. Of course the Heroes were such pests that they ended up trailing you, stopping at nothing to obliterate you and Dabi. You sucked your teeth in annoyance as you recounted all the injuries Dabi had gotten just from trying to protect you.

Your eyes shut themselves, the intense wind from the blades of the many helicopters making your hair fly in all types of directions. Dabi grabbed your hand, feebly looking for any exits that could save you both in this moment, but It was futile since they had already cornered you like flies on a spider’s web. 

“Give yourself up, League of villains! Or else we’ll have no choice but to open fire.” The man who you assumed was the chief policeman yelled into his megaphone while staring down at the both of you with malice in his eyes. Dabi tsked to himself angrily, shaking his head while gripping his body tighter.

“We can’t go out like this.” You spoke suddenly while gazing towards Dabi with creased eyebrows. Dabi chuckled lowly, turning to look at you with a smirk shaping his lips.

“Don’t worry, I got you-”

Before you could even blink, a bullet pierced Dabi straight through his chest, causing him to stumble off the ledge of the building from the immense force. You gasped with wide eyes and flung your body towards him, grabbing on to his hand just before he fell into the black abyss below you. 

“Hang on, I’m going to try to pull you up.” You grunted into the air and mustered all your strength to yank his body, but pain mercilessly shot up your arms as little progress was made from your attempts.

“Stop, It’s no use.” Dabi rasped, sucking in a breath at how unbearable his pain was becoming shortly after doing so. Dabi couldn’t believe how terrible life was looking for him right now. It vexed him that he was able to endure the agonizing suffering Endeavour put him through for years, but a few measly bullets was what was going to take him out of this world?

“No, I think I can do It.” You expressed quickly, continuing your hardest to lug him back to the rooftop. Dabi looked up at you, watching through hooded eyes as you tried your best to keep him afloat. His throat felt dry as he finally came to terms with what he had to do for the both of you right now. His expression became dull as he relaxed his body to fall slack, and confusion blanketed you as you wondered why Dabi had stopped his movements.

“Leave me and save yourself while you still can.” He demanded  and you finally stopped your tugging, in fact your whole body had gone still at his words. 

Leave him? No you could never do such a thing.

“Don’t do this to me, Dabi. We’re a team, I’m not going to leave you.” You insisted, ignoring the nonsense he was currently spewing. Dabi smacked his lips, the pain in his stomach starting to eat away at his patience. 

“Y/n, look at where we are right now. The cops and heroes have surrounded us, I’m hanging off the side of a 200 feet tall building with wounds everywhere, and you can barely hold on.” Dabi squeezed your hand firmly and the feeling still lingered across your palm as you licked your dry lips. 

“It’s time you let go.”

Your mouth fell open, unable to process what Dabi meant by that. You hadn’t realized It yet, but your eyes had begun watering which tampered with your clear vision. You told yourself that this could’ve just been from all the debris that was flying into them, but deep down you knew that your sore eyes was sparked by the ending of your story being closer than you had hoped.

“You know I can’t do that.” Your voice cracked as you spoke and your hands had become overwhelmingly sweaty as you kept an iron grip onto his. Dabi slowly looked up into the obsidian sky, a series of events suddenly playing in front of him as If he were watching a movie. Realization finally hit Dabi as he saw himself and you appear in the clouds.

It was his life flashing before his eyes.

The first scene he saw was the day he first met you and his heart pounded heavily against his chest as his eyes captured the bright smile that swept across your face when he introduced himself to you. What he wouldn’t give to go back to that day. 

The next thing that appeared in front of him was your wedding day. You wore an angelic white dress with your hair done elegantly, and the way your skin glowed as you walked down the aisle was enough to snatch Dabi’s breath away from him. I wish I could have proposed to you and met you at the altar. 

The last thing that was shown above him was Dabi holding you in his arms, your belly being swole as your hands rested endearingly on It. I’ll never get the chance to have the family I’ve always dreamt of.

Tears steadily dropped from Dabi’s eyes, his stomach churning as a helicopter suddenly blocked his view of the future you could have had together.

“Dabi? Do you hear me?” You frantically asked him, having to raise your voice slightly higher to grab his attention. Dabi’s gaze seemed far away to you, but you quickly were reminded that he was still there by the tear you saw roll down his chin.

“I really wish I could’ve been with you until the very end.” Dabi sniffled with a strangled voice and your eyebrows shot up at what he was implying.

“You will be with me until the very end!” You shouted confidently, but Dabi’s vacant gaze was still placed on the black sky. His eyes then shifted down towards you, and your breath caught in your throat as you got a glimpse of the small smile that adorned Dabi’s face. With the little strength Dabi had left, he moved his free hand so that It laid on top of yours. 

“It’s time.” Dabi announced and you moved your head back in disbelief. The sound of what you assumed was the squad of Heroes and policemen's footsteps attacked your ears as they stomped up the stairs that led to where you were at. You couldn’t believe this was all happening and all of It felt as If It were moving too fast.

“No…” You said, barely above a whisper. The wind circulating around you blew harder, and the feeling of uneasiness had sunk down to the pit of your stomach

“Surrender now!” You heard the police yell through his megaphone again, his loud voice now closer than It had been when he first used It.

“Shut up.” You hissed in response, clenching your jaw to the point where It hurt. 

“Let me go, y/n.” Dabi urged, and by now your ears had begun ringing from the police sirens that surrounded you.

“Shut up.” You were pleading now, shaking your head side to side as tears streamed from your swollen eyes.

“Give yourselves up right now or we’ll do it by force!” The chief shouted into his megaphone once again and your whole body started to convulse as a sob took over you.

“Shut up, shut up! All of you just shut up!” You yelled repeatedly, closing your eyes tightly as their voices invaded your head. You didn’t want to give yourself up, and you didn’t want to let go of Dabi either. You banged your fist on the cement ground as you heard the footsteps of the police get louder.

“Don’t you think this hurts me too? I don’t want to leave you, but I need to do this. You’ve helped me so much, I don’t know where I would be without you.” Dabi yelled over everything, hoping to be the one that captured all your attention. You looked down at him and saw the pain that was sprawled across his face, hiccuping as the spotlight stopped over you once again.

“Please, do this last favor for me y/n.” Dabi begged, this time his voice desperate. “Please let me go.”

Your hand was tired and at that moment you could see that Dabi was too. His eyes were low and blood had now seeped across his T-Shirt, making It crimson instead of the white It was before you left your home. You felt claustrophobic as everyone demanded that you listened to their commands and with one last look at your shaking hands, you had decided what to do. You inhaled a deep breath of the frigid night air before slowly nodding your head.

“Okay.” You finally said, the door behind you bursting open, showcasing the many heroes and policemen that were here to execute you.

“Okay.” Dabi smiled weakly, his eyes shining under the harsh light.

You turned your head to the side while shutting your eyes, letting Dabi’s fingers slip from yours. 

“Y/n, look at me.” Dabi requested and you reluctantly opened your eyes to see his face one last time. The policemen were closing in on you now and It had finally dawned on you that time had run out for the two of you and It was nothing you could do to get It back. 

Dabi’s hand dropped out of yours and you watched with a heavy heart as his body plummeted to the ground. Dabi’s hair had covered his eyes, but you still were able to get a glimpse of his upturned lips as he grew farther and farther away from you.

I love you, he mouthed and your bottom lip quivered as you mouthed It back.

I love you too, Dabi.

 Dabi closed his eyes, spreading his arms wide as the air tickled his skin.

He heard your piercing scream as gravity pushed him down faster, a lone tear managing to cascade down his cheek.

“I’ll see you in our next life.” Were the last words that fell from Dabi’s mouth before his world went blank and your loud cries filled the air.

#dabi #mha dabi #bnha dabi #mha #bnha #bnha x reader #mha x reader #dabi x reader #dabi x you #dabi x y/n #dabi angst #dabi imagines #dabi imagine #dabi oneshot #dabi todoroki #toya todoroki #toya x reader #toya todoroki x reader #boku no hero academia #my hero academia

[op-sheepy]

ok so I'm particularly interested in

Bellamy Law

Law and Bible stuff

Law is a substitute kindergarten teacher

shichibukai applications

reverse hanahaki disease (?? do u spit out flowers when your nemesis walks by?)

if you feel like elaborating on any of these!

This is gonna get long and I actually contemplated posting them separately but would that have been more work? Yeah, that felt like more work so for anyone interested, check under the cut. :D

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Bellamy Law

Hm… This would be an attempt to explore the parallels and contrasts between Bellamy and Law. I've always found it fascinating that the former was a foil to the latter.

They both come from well-off  towns in the North Blue.

Bellamy left because of boredom. Law had no choice because Flevance.

Both ended up seeking Doflamingo  because of  his notoriety as a pirate. Both admired him initially

Doffy favored one over the other though. Bellamy always sought his approval but was never really part of the inner circle Doflamingo cared about.

Law got the dubious privilege of being part of the family despite being absent for so long. Even offered one of the highest seats by Doffy's side for seemingly nothing.

Law had no trouble turning his back on Doffy once he realized the man's nature. Bellamy tried to stick to his principles until the end despite admitting that he new he was wrong.

Bellamy can (and did) quit piracy after his ordeal with Doflamingo. Having the option to live peacefully, perhaps a return to his previous life (the one he considered boring). Law can't do that quite as easily what with his Devil fruit and his reputation.

I thought it would be interesting trying to explore what Bellamy was thinking. Did he hear the Donquixote Pirates talk about their missing 'family'? Did he get to see Doffy be amused at Law's rise as a Supernova while he kept being reminded of his own status? Did Law save Bellamy partially because he also saw what he could have been had Corazon not saved him?

On principle, Bellamy should have hated Trafalgar Law. Does. Bastard even saved him without him wanting it. But there was something about the shadows haunting those eyes and Bellamy started to wonder.

He had heard the family talk about Law before. The child personally taught by Doflamingo, chosen to be his right hand. Never was he compared to the man because Law was just obviously better. Smarter. Stronger. Bellamy was ever just an uncouth thug.

He was allowed to 'borrow' Doflamingo's symbol while Law had an empty seat waiting for his return–a seat Bellamy had wanted enough to risk everything for.

Maybe he had resented, Trafalgar Law for carelessly rejecting the things he had that Bellamy had always desired. In the end too, Trafalgar Law did prove to be better. He'd done as a child what Bellamy had trouble doing even as he was now.

But having been given the chance to observe the other man as they all recovered, he wondered, perhaps for the first time, whether despite Law being better than Bellamy, Bellamy had had it better–barring the poor life choices.

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Law and Bible stuff

This is just me wanting to know how many biblical parallels and themes I can draw from Law, the Donquixote brothers, the characters associated with them, and his backstory. Honestly not sure whether this would become a fic and in what style or I'm gonna give up and just make it a post.

Not gonna elaborate on them much but here are the ideas in more bullet points (yay):

Law gets familiar with all four horsemen of the apocalypse: conquest, war, famine, and death. He even survives them.

Law is like the son in the parable of the prodigal son to the Donquixote pirates. Except the themes are inverted.

Doflamingo and Rocinante -> Cain and Abel

Ope Ope no Mi -> Granting eternal life by sacrificing one's own life

Gods descending or living among humans. Also, Homing and his family being prosecuted for other people's sins.

That scene where they were hanged by their arms outstretched looks like a crucifixion. Also, Rocinante was on the right while Doflamingo was on the left. Similar to how the penitent thief was on the right and the unrepentant one to the left.

Flevance being considered a paradise with walls/fences/gates and somewhere Law cannot return to.

In the panel where the Donquixote pirates are seated at the table, there were thirteen of them with Doffy at the center. Same as The Last Supper

There are a lot more of these (David and Goliath, Solomon, Jonah, Job, etc.) but I kinda lost the notes and some are more visual so I can't really explain it too well. This would is a drabble series to emphasize or highlight the parallels so no proper snippet for this one.

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Law is a substitute kindergarten teacher

Originally an idea to get around most of the Heart Pirates being nameless but evolved to include other characters as kids. Chopper is a kindergarten teacher and he convinces Law to take over his class for a week because somehow Law has the qualifications to and free time. Naturally, he wasn't able to say no.

Unfortunately, despite not being terrible at handling children, Chopper's class is filled with menaces. Also, despite not being terrible, Law can still be awkward so...

"Mr. Trofao–fargar—"

"Trafalgar."

The kid—which one was this one again? Shit, he should really get them name plates or something—scrunched up his face and tried harder, "Tar-pal—"

"Law. Just call me Law."

"Mr. Low"—eh, close enough—"can I go to the bathroom?" Wide imploring eyes stared up at him.

"Sure, go ahead." Law gestured towards the exit of the classroom with his head.

The kid just stared expectantly at him and he tried to suppress the need to narrow his eyes.

"Is there… anything else?"

"Mr. Chopper always comes with me to hold my hand."

Really?

"Mr. Chopper isn't here. You should practice doing it on your own now." He said after a deep inhale.

"But the monsters might get me…"

"No, they won't."

"You don't know that."

"I do." Before the kid could open his mouth again to argue, he added, "Besides, children taste terrible so you're safe."

The kid looked stricken and took a step back from him. Uh oh. Glistening eyes, wobbling lower lip… "Alright! I'll go with you." The kid did not look reassured. In fact he looked like going alone with Law was the last thing he wanted to do. Guess, he kinda implied that he ate children didn't he? Oops.

Well, the kid needs to go and he's not going to be cleaning up after him if he wets himself.

Law glanced at the rest of the children. It was Arts and Craft time and they seemed preoccupied enough. Still, Law doubted Chopper ever left these kids alone–already he could see some of them glancing up at him, waiting for him to leave no doubt to cause trouble. That Monkey kid in particular looked extremely suspicious.

He stood up from his crouch and clapped twice to get everyone's attention.

"Alright. Fall in line. Single file."

There was some grumbling and questioning directed at him. "What's going on?"

Law shrugged. "You're all going to the bathroom."

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Shichibukai Application Forms

Crackfic where the World Government and relevant parties review various Shichbukai Applications. Most submitted by the pirates applying themselves, some produced by their own staff. They discuss and debate. As well as judge pirate resumes.

She scanned the document. Terrible format, really. If you fail to impress within the first page, you've failed entirely. There just wasn't anyone promising enough in this batch of applications or any of the other ones before. The last one had been that clown. "Apprentice to the Pirate King," was a pretty hefty credential.

"Oh, how about this one? Three years experience pillaging, and they even listed all the towns they looted." One of the newly transferred administrative staff said.

"None of these are worth considering at all. You know, when Mihawk was asked to submit his application, he hadn't bothered with all of this. He just sent us a card with his name on it and the title "World's Strongest Swordsman," underneath."

The staff perked up. "Oh, there was an application like that." There was scramble and some shuffling before a plain white card was produced. "Here."

"'From Trafalgar Law'. What does this even mean?"

"Well, it did come with a big box..."

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Reverse Hanahaki Disease

(?? do u spit out flowers when your nemesis walks by?)

Haha. At first it was going to be that way (because it is hilarious) but the inflicted would probably choke to death too soon. Or if both enemies had it, they'd end up just coughing flowers at each other until they stopped being enemies.

The version I ended up going with was that this variant of Hanahaki, instead of afflicting those with unrequited love, affected those in denial instead. The reverse part comes from the original idea that this would usually happen if you somehow fell in love with your nemesis (someone you originally hated). So it's not the thought that the other person can't love you, it's that you can't accept that you love that other person. You get cured by confessing to the person sincerely.

This is actually another KidLaw (surprise!). And the flower coughed up directly represents the person they're in love with (I went with Oda's flower representation for them because I found it funny for plot)

So the idea is that, you get sick but you don't automatically know (maybe) who it is because that's part of being in denial. Kid and Law have many enemies after all. In this story they both get it though not exactly at the same time and not known to the other.

He survived Amber Lead Syndrome only to be killed off by a stupid flower disease that apparently knows more about his own feelings than he does.

He glared at the petals. Tulips. Red.

An image of a cocky grin and a shock of red hair flashed through his mind and—nope. That's not right.

He coughed harder, tears stinging his eyes with the effort. More flowers. Now he has enough for a bouquet.

Alright, he was a doctor. He could do this. Differential time.

First, which variant does he have. He doesn't particularly feel unloved or hopeless. There wasn't anyone he wanted in particular to love him. Ok, nothing. It was maybe safe to say he had that other variant.

Which was stupid because Law had many enemies and he hated all of them.

And cue the racking coughs. More red. He was very familiar with that particular shade.

New theory. This was a new variant that somehow makes you sick when you think of the person you hated the most.

Yes, that had to be it. He thought as he all but collapsed on the floor from the sudden paroxysm.

I knew this was gonna get long. :) Oh well...

Thank you for playing. :D

#One Piece #One piece fanfiction #wip game #trafalgar law #donquixote brothers #donquixote doflamingo #donquixote roci #donquixote homing #donquixote pirates #one piece bellamy #bellamy the hyena #eustass kid #kidlaw #trafalgar d water law

[asleepinawell]

Been having a lot of Thoughts about the nier series recently and the larger themes of both games and wanted to jot them down and toss them into the void of the internet.

Massive spoilers for nier automata follow, including for ending e. Do not read this if you ever intend to play nier automata. There are spoilers for nier replicant as well, though not for ending e.

One of the biggest themes both nier games tackle is the tragedy of an uncaring universe. Bad things happen to good people, people who think they're good and doing the right thing find out they were actually committing atrocities, the very idea that there's 'good' and 'bad' people is dissected and rejected. At the end of the day, the universe doesn't give a shit about any of us and none of it matters. Enjoy your existential despair!

In nier replicant, the main character starts off as an optimistic young boy who wants to save, not only his sister, but the entire world. After the time skip, nier is a young man whose optimism has (partially) been tarnished and whose goal has narrowed down to just saving his sister. As you move through each route you understand more and more how tragic the world is and how, despite your best intentions, you are only adding to the tragedy of the world. The original 4 endings of nier replicant are all tragic in some way. Ending D has a glimmer of hope in it in the form of nier being able to save kainé at the cost of his own existence, but it's a bittersweet ending and the world is ultimately doomed anyway.

Which brings us to nier automata. Even more so than replicant, automata hammers home the meaningless of everything, the uncaring universe, tragedy both avoidable and unavoidable. The main characters are locked in an endless loop of violence and despair. The worst that could happen, does, again and again. It thrives off the type of tragedy porn I usually hate.

Except....

Except it doesn't. If endings a and b are the opening statement, endings c and d are the facts and body of the essay, but then there's ending e, the concluding paragraph which takes everything we've been told and gives you the chance to draw your own conclusion from it.

Route e starts after you've gotten both ending c and d and is no longer about the characters in the game at all. Route e is about you, the player, and what you believe. It says "we've given you a story of complete despair, we've shown you the universe is unfair and doesn't give a fuck about you, we've shown you things that end in tragedy. despite all of this, do you still believe it's worth fighting for the hope of something better?"

And then it asks you to prove it.

Route e is the ending every fan has asked for when they've said "I'll fight the creators to give my favs a happy ending." Today is your lucky day!

Route e is the ending credits of the game, except that the ending credits have turned into a bullet hell mini game. In fighting the actual credits themselves, you are fighting the game devs. You are saying fuck you I don't believe that everything is pointless. Fighting for better is always worth it. The meaning that we imbue in life is important to us and that matters.

The bullet hell of the end credits starts out fairly simple and gets harder and harder as you go, lasting something like 15 minutes total, which is a brutally long time to be playing something that requires split second timing and 100% of your focus. It's meant to feel insurmountable, just like the challenges the characters in the game faced (the larger plot challenges, not the combat). You will likely die a lot and check points are few and far between.

But there's more to it than that. The first time you die, a prompt comes up:

And then when you die again:

Except now, there’s a message on the screen. A message that appears to be from another player, somewhere in the world.

And again:

(this one really fucked me up, but that’s for a different post).

And then finally:

(thank you user MR-YE-1996)

When you accept the rescue offer, you go back to the bullet hell again, but now you have a wall of other players around your weak little avatar, shielding you from harm. The music, which has been a single vocal track up until now, gains an entire chorus of voices to represent the army of actual players who’ve shown up to save you (and there’s a lot I could say about the use of the (exquisitely good) music in the nier games, and especially about the difference in lyrical themes between ashes of dreams and weight of the world). Every time a bullet hits one of the players surrounding you, there’s a message saying that user’s data has been lost. Users from all over the world are sacrificing themselves to help you. It’s a very nice, heart-warming moment that you still don’t understand the full impact of quite yet.

After you beat the credits, you’re rewarded by a final cutscene. The android protagonists have been reconstructed and will receive a second chance at life. The narration at this point talks about how life exists within the spiral of life and death we are all trapped in. One of the two pods talking points out that even though the androids are being given a second chance at life, there’s a possibility that things will go just as poorly once again. And the other pod agrees, but adds: “However, the possibility of a different future also exists.”

And then the scene ends with this quote: “A future is not given to you. It is something you must take for yourself.”

And this is really the final conclusion of the game. There is no inherent meaning in the universe, so the meaning we give our lives is the most meaningful thing. (And the ‘you’ here isn’t necessarily an individual either. It can be, or it can be humanity as a whole, or even one group). And you, the player, thought that it was worth fighting to give these characters a second chance, and other players out there in the world thought it was worth helping you to do so.

It’s such a wonderfully beautiful piece of meta interpretation posing as a game ending, and also a departure from the final conclusion of previous Yoko Taro games. It feels like a much more mature and nuanced interpretation of the world than the ending of replicant was (I won’t comment on the new ending e of replicant just yet since it didn’t come out that long ago). (Also, for the record, I love nier replicant and the characters in it with my entire heart. This post is not bashing it).

But the game has one more surprise in store for you. After the cutscene ends, you’re given one last choice. The game asks if you have any interest in helping other players the way you were helped. And if you say yes, you’re told that the only way you can do this is to sacrifice all your save data.

I think that sacrifice hits differently for different people. Some people genuinely won’t mind that at all. As someone who probably still has save data from games I played 20 years ago, it felt like a gut punch. To me, save data represents all the time and emotion and energy I’ve put into a game. Games are so deeply important to me in so many ways and have been since my childhood when they were one of the few ways I could escape from a lot of terrible shit going on in my life. (There’s a reason my blog title is what it is). I could talk a lot more about that point, but I’ll leave it by saying that when I saw what the game was asking of me it felt like someone had knocked my legs out from under me.

For more practical players, it also is locking you out of chapter select, the best way to go back and get all the things you missed and grab the achievements/trophies you still need.

The game will point out that you’ll get nothing in return for this (not a lie, there’s no secret reward), that you will likely never know if or who you helped, that you won’t be thanked, that the person you help could be someone you intensely dislike, etc. And with all of this comes the realization that all those people who came to help you in the credits had already done this. Those people whose data was sacrificed to help you get to the final cutscene had already sacrificed their save data to help you.

We’ve now gone from a world where everything is meaningless, to a world where other real actual human beings out there have sacrificed something that represented hours of their time and a varying amount of emotional investment without any hope of reward to help a stranger see a message of hope.

When I was younger, I was more drawn to dark, hopeless stories. Stories about how dark and meaningless the world was. The world was a terrible place then too. 9/11 happened when I was in highschool (an incident that influenced yoko taro’s creation of nier replicant and had a huge impact on me at the time), the pointless wars that happened after and the recession and a million other things seemed to infuse everything with hopelessness. In that world, stories about everything being meaningless and hopeless felt correct. They felt validating. Yes, everything really does suck that much!

That sort of story lost its appeal for me later on. Pointless and horrible things continued to happen, and still continue to happen. The world events of the last few years have been an unnerving reliving of those earlier years, except even worse. The cycles of tragedy are still there with no end in sight. I’m exhausted from all of it. It really does feel hopeless a lot.

But stories that stop at that point no longer appeal to me. Stories like nier automata--stories that say yes, things are terrible, but there’s always hope, you can create your own meaning, it is always worth it to fight for better even if you fail, your life is worthwhile simply for existing--those stories are the ones I think we all need more than anything.

#nier automata #nier automata spoilers #nier spoilers #nier #nier replicant #niermp #mp #sitting around having existential thoughts on a sunday afternoon #as one does #nier meta

[rpf-bat]

My Cellmate’s A Killer

Pairing: Gerard Way x Reader

Genre: Drama, Romance

Summary: Written for Gothtober 2020, Day 22. Prompt: “Prison”.

Gerard is a convict, currently serving time for murder. When he receives a serious injury, the prison warden brings him to the hospital, where you work. As you nurse him back to health, you form an unexpected bond with him. But, can you really trust a killer? 

Trigger warnings for mentions of past violence, and sexual assault. 

The doctors told you that the patient was a criminal. He “lived” at the maximum security prison on the edge of town. Apparently, he’d gotten injured in his cell, and the guards had no choice but to bring him here, to the hospital, to receive surgery. 

You didn’t care. You were a nurse - that meant you would treat any person that needed medical help. You nervously approached the police officer, who was guarding the front door of the hospital room. 

“It’s time for Mister, uhh….,” you glanced down, checking your chart. “Mister Way’s next dose of medicine.” 

“Alright,” the guard nodded, allowing you past. “Be careful in there, miss. He’s a dangerous man.” 

You peered through the window, before entering the room. The dark haired man lay calmly on his cot. His hands were handcuffed behind his head. 

“Was it really necessary to restrain him like that?” you frowned. 

“We can’t allow him an opportunity to escape,” the guard reasoned. 

“He just got thirty stitches in his leg,” you pointed out. “I don’t think he could walk out of here, even if he wanted to.” 

“Just go give him his pills,” the guard huffed. “And stop asking me questions.” 

“Yeah, alright,” you sighed, and entered the room. 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

“Hi, Mr. Way,” you smiled, trying to treat him like any other patient. “It’s time for another dose of hydromorphone, okay?” 

“Call me Gerard,” the man said softly. “What’s your name, Nurse?” 

“I’m Y/N,” you introduced yourself. You began puncturing the blister pack that contained his painkillers. 

“Is it a pill you’re giving me?” Gerard asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Yes, sir,” you nodded. “A standard eight milligram dose.” 

“I don’t exactly have a free hand to take it from you,” Gerard chuckled, glancing at the cuffs, that held his hands fast. “What are you gonna do? Feed it to me?” 

You blushed at this suggestion, taking a closer look at him. His long, dark hair framed a pale and handsome face. He looked more like a magazine model, than a convicted felon. The idea of bringing your fingers to his lips sounded….both appealing, and wrong, all at once. 

But, if his hands are incapacitated, you considered, stepping closer to his bedside, what other choice do I have?

“Come here,” Gerard chuckled, “I promise, I won’t bite you.”

“The cop at the door says you’re dangerous,” you hesitated. 

“Well, yeah,” Gerard said dryly, “I was convicted of second-degree murder.”

“M-murder?!” you gasped, jumping back. He confessed to it so casually, as if it was nothing. 

“It’s true,” Gerard said, sounding frighteningly unrepentant. “I killed a man. But, I had my reasons.”

“What reason could possibly justify taking a human life?!” you cried, horrified.

Is he some kind of sociopath?, you wondered, shuddering. Should I be scared, being alone in a room with him like this?

“....Do you really want to know?” Gerard asked, gazing up at you, with his cold, hazel eyes. 

The truth was, you’d always had a weird fascination with true crime documentaries. It intrigued you, hearing the motives, that would drive seemingly ordinary people to kill. 

“...Yes,” you decided, setting down the pills, and taking a seat, beside the bed. “Tell me.” 

“I have this little brother,” Gerard explained. “His name is Mikey. He was in his junior year of high school. Some classmate of his, decided that he looked gay.  Whatever that means. And then he decided, that he needed to beat him up, just for, I don’t know, existing too gay-ly.” 

“That’s terrible,” you frowned. You never understood, why kids bullied each other, for such stupid and prejudiced reasons. 

“They beat Mikey so bad, that they put him in the hospital,” Gerard recalled with a pained expression. 

“I’m so sorry,” you said sympathetically. You wondered if little Mikey was okay. 

“It’s okay,” Gerard shrugged. “I paid the bastard back, by putting him in a grave.” 

You gasped, at this chilling admission. 

“You don’t understand, Nurse,” Gerard said insistently. “The son of a bitch hit my brother in the face so hard, that he went blind in his right eye, for the rest of his life!” 

“That poor kid,” you frowned. 

“Well, he’s not a kid anymore,” Gerard clarified. “I got revenge against the worm who hurt my brother, in 1997. I was sentenced to fifteen years in prison….and I’ve already served seven years of that.” 

“So, you have eight more years to go?” you calculated. 

“Yeah,” Gerard said sadly. “Mikey will be thirty-two, by the time I get out.”

“What does he think about your decision to avenge him?” you asked curiously. You imagined how much you would miss your own siblings, if you were separated from them, for over a decade. 

“He visited me in lockup,” Gerard replied. “He said it brings him peace, knowing the bastard can never hurt him again. So, say what you want. But I ain’t sorry, for putting a bullet between his eyes.” 

“This hospital is the first place you’ve been, other than that prison, in such a long time,” you realized. 

“Yeah,” Gerard nodded. “I ain’t sorry for what I did to get sent here, either.” 

“What did you do?” you asked, eyes wide. 

“I got a new cellmate,” Gerard explained. “His name’s Bert. He just started a five-year sentence, last week.” 

“What did he get convicted of?” you asked curiously. 

“Drug trafficking,” Gerard replied. “One of the harder ones. Prison life is gonna force him to get sober, though. By the looks, withdrawal has been a real bitch for him so far.”

You recalled the symptoms of drug withdrawal, from your medical textbook. Shaking. Vomiting. Rapid heartbeat. Seizures. It was nothing you would wish on anyone - even a dealer, who had sold the poison to others.

“I’m sorry he’s going through that,” you said empathetically. 

“Well, he almost went through something way worse,” Gerard grimaced. 

“What could be worse than that?” you wondered anxiously. 

“We were in the showers,” Gerard recalled, paling. “Some big guy, from Cell Block A, tried uh….he tried to…..touch Bert. In a way he didn’t want to be touched.”

“Oh,” you gasped. You heard about these things happening in men’s prisons - but it was still a sickening thought. 

“I clocked the sick fuck,” Gerard snarled. “Knocked him the fuck out.” 

“....Good,” you said, without thinking. Maybe you shouldn’t encourage a confessed killer, to commit more acts of violence. But, if he hadn’t done what he did, his friend would have been sexually assaulted. Preventing such a thing, was a noble motive. 

“Problem was, the guy was in a prison gang,” Gerard sighed, continuing his story. “After I bloodied him up, all over the bathroom floor, his buddies came after me. One of them had a shiv. Shanked me right in my fucking leg.”

“.....That’s why you needed all those stitches?” you realized. 

“Yeah,” Gerard replied, sinking back into his pillows. “That’s how I wound up here.” 

“Let me give you your pain medicine,” you said, standing up. His stab wound must hurt him terribly. 

“You’re not scared of me?” Gerard asked softly. “After everything I just told you I did?” 

“You’re a violent man,” you considered. “But, I don’t think you’re an evil man, Gerard.” 

“....Really?” Gerard’s eyes widened.

“Truly,” you nodded. “You attacked two men, yes. But, they were bad men. Men who hurt innocent people.” 

“I’d never hurt a nice lady like you,” Gerard whispered. 

You took the pain pill, and put it between your fingers. “Open up,” you instructed. 

Gerard, to your surprise, blushed. 

“What’s wrong?” you asked. 

“I haven’t had  a woman this close to me in seven, long years, Nurse,” Gerard said shyly. “Let alone such a beautiful one.” 

It was your turn to blush. He thought you were beautiful? 

“C-come on, now,” you stammered. “Say ah.”

Gerard opened his mouth wide. You glanced down at his pale pink lips, as you leaned over him. Your hair brushed his cheek, making his whole face go red. 

You gently placed the pill on his tongue. His lips closed around your fingertips for a moment, almost sucking them. You drew back from his touch, startled. 

“What’s the matter, Nurse?” he asked, a sly look on his face, as he swallowed the tablet. 

“I -I told you,” you mumbled, looking away, “my name’s Y/N.”

“Can you do me one more favor, Y/N?” Gerard asked quietly. 

“What is it?” you asked, heart pounding. 

“....Ya think you could scratch my nose for me?” 

You burst into laughter, at his odd request. It wasn’t what you were expecting. 

“I’m serious! It really itches!” 

Overcoming your giggles, you glanced again, at the handcuffs on his wrists. The guard had, perhaps unwisely, left a key on the bedside table. 

“....I really don’t think you need to be tied up like this,” you confessed. 

“They don’t want me on the loose,” Gerard shrugged. “Told ya, I’m a killer.” 

“If I were to unlock the cuffs for you,” you asked, your voice a whisper, “do you promise to stay in your bed?” 

“I won’t try to escape, Y/N,” Gerard said seriously, staring up into your eyes. “I promise you. If I went on the run now, I’d never see my brother again. It’s not worth it to me.” 

“...Then, I’ll do it,” you decided, grabbing the key. You prayed that you were not going to regret this. 

The key turned in the lock, and the cuffs unclicked, releasing Gerard’s hands. He didn’t lunge at you, or jump up. He simply scratched his nose - exactly as he said he would. 

You breathed a sigh of relief. 

“I know you got other patients to look after, Nurse Y/N,” Gerard said, looking suddenly sleepy, as the medication started to kick in. “So...have a good night, alright?”

“Good night, Mr. Way,” you smiled, and walked out of the room. 

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The next day, you came to provide another dose of hydromorphone. The guard glared at you, as you approached the door. 

“What the hell were you thinking last night?” he asked. “You gave the prisoner an opportunity to escape!” 

“.....Did he escape?” you asked, your heart suddenly aching. Had he manipulated you, into feeling sorry for him, so he could go on the lamb?

“....No,” the guard shook his head. “I guess we got lucky. The prisoner is still sittin’ in there, like a good boy. Exactly where you left him.” 

You breathed a sigh of relief. Gerard had kept his promise. 

“...May I give him his medicine, Officer?” you asked, staring the guard down.

“Yeah, lady,” the cop said, with a defeated look. “You go on ahead.” 

You entered the room, shutting the door behind you. “Hi, Mr. Way,” you greeted. 

“I told you, Y/N,” your new favorite patient smiled, “the name’s Gerard.”

“Hi, Gerard,” you corrected yourself. “How are you feeling today?” 

“Not so good,” Gerard confessed. “As you can see, Officer Jackass put the cuffs back on me this morning.” 

It was true - he was, once again, shackled to the bed. 

“I guess I’ll have to feed it to you again,” you mumbled, cheeks aflame. 

“You kinda looked like you were enjoying it, the last time,” Gerard smirked. 

“N-no!” you denied, blushing harder. 

“Oh, really?” Gerard teased. “Well…..I know I sure did.” 

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” you stammered. You were a medical professional. He was a patient in your care - and a convicted murderer, to boot! You shouldn’t let him flirt with you like this. 

But, although you hated to admit…..he was right. Something about your fingers in his mouth, had been strangely attractive to you. 

“What can I say, Nurse Y/N?” Gerard shrugged. “I got nothing to lose. As soon as I’m healed up, they’re gonna take me back to the penitentiary. I won’t see, or touch, a woman again, for the rest of this decade.” 

“That must be...lonely,” you breathed. 

“I knew the price I was gonna pay, when I got Mikey his justice,” Gerard sighed. “It’s far too late, to start having regrets now. But…..if I could have just one wish….”

“What would you wish for?” you asked, your heart hammering. 

“Just one kiss,” Gerard begged. “Before they lock me back up, and throw away the key.” 

“....I’ll grant your wish,” you decided, in a whisper. You felt so hot, all of a sudden. 

“Wh-What?” Gerard stammered. 

“Sssh,” you shushed him. “Hold still, and say ah for me again.” 

You leaned down, beside his bed, and kissed him softly, on the mouth. Despite the sterile scent of disinfectant in the room, the taste of the moment, was incredibly sweet. 

He struggled against his chains, trying desperately to bring his body, closer to yours. You sat on the bed, closing the gap. 

Now practically in his lap, you kissed him harder. 

“Ahhh!” he cried. 

“....Did I hurt you?” you gasped, pulling away. “Did I sit on the leg that was injured?”

“....No,” Gerard panted. “That…..wasn’t a noise of pain.”

“....Oh,” you flushed. 

“I’d be greedy to ask for a second wish,” Gerard said seductively. “But, if I could have one….oh, pretty, please, Nurse, would you do that again?” 

You nodded, pushing him back, into the bed. “You can wish for it, as many times as you like.”

#gerard way imagine #gerard way x reader #gothtober #violence tw

[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamuy chapters 269-270.  The cliff notes meta edition.

This will be a less detailed meta as I’ve just been spread too thin recently and the current events of the manga have been underwhelming to me, making it harder to engage with the content.

Having an online presence has been a double-edged sword for me and as we mark 1 year of pandemic life, it is hard for me to invest as much time in it since I have to do so many more things online for work.  Sitting down to write meta isn’t as fun and relaxing as it once was when you have 7 zoom meetings over the course of several days. Add on the fact that I have not left the county were I live since February 2020 nor I have a seen any of my family or friends . . . yeah writing meta isn’t a much of a priority.  As an aside, I think more people need to be stating that being ‘productive’ and ‘leveling up’ during these times is either unrealistic and even more damaging by creating completely unrealistic expectations of how we should respond to things.

[steps off of soapbox]

Chapter 269, quickly shows us how the chaos that Tsurumi unleashed on the divided Ainu resulted in a tragedy and Wilk is the only one who managed to survive the massacre.

Tsurumi is able to sort out that there were eight Ainu, and that Wilk staged his own death by working quickly to conceal the identity of the dead partially by removing the eyes. 

Kikuta is the first one to find the man who dies soon after discovery and Tsurumi seems to be in awe of Wilk’s escape plan.

KIkuta also shows he’s a more empathetic individual worried about how they contributed to the death of Ariko’s father.  Did Tsurumi push Kikuta away after the war since he knew Kikuta would feel bad about doing the ‘things’ needed to be done for the gold?

It further highlights that Usami and Kikuta were never on the same page.  I do like how the following page shows both Kikuta and Ariko continuing to tie the narrative that Kikuta feels a connection with the younger man.  Shiraishi and Sugimoto spot Ariko, calling him Ariko Ipopte, which is an interesting choice to use a hybrid name for him.  Kikuta uses his full Japanese name, while these men use a mix.

The final panel showing a reflective looking Kikuta walking alone in the rain really emotional connects with the grief surrounding all of this unnecessary death.  Tsurumi sought to be a leader of men by giving them love and being the stand in father for them.  I think that Kikuta is the character who is the natural and honest father figure - we know he has a deep relationship with Ariko and we also know he has some sort of connection to Sugimoto.

Tsurumi continues his ‘discussion’ of events with Asirpa and Sofia.  Tsurumi has such a complicated relationship with Wilk.  He’s both in awe of the man’s determination to survive but at the same time he wanted him destroyed at such a great cost.

Tsurumi really lays on the guilt to Asirpa that Wilk did everything to protect her - under the assumption that she’d be unfairly treated if her father had killed all of those men.  Perhaps that is the case, perhaps not.  It seems contradictory to his own actions where he gave Ogin and the Lighting Bandit’s child to Huci to care for it.  He has this weird approach to the impact of the ‘sins of the parents’ on the child  . . .

Tsurumi doggedly pursues Wilk and they immediately recognize each other and he flees onto the lake with his canoe.  By shooting at Wilk, he forces him to capsize the canoe and items sink down into the lake.  Honestly, I’m not sure what Tsurumi was hoping to achieve by this - make him swim so that he could capture him more easily.  We don’t know how skilled Tsurumi is with a rifle and I’d be more concerned about killing Wilk and loosing the information.  It seems reckless in my opinion since the ultimate outcome was Wilk appealing to Inudou thus achieving protection from the 7th.

I think Tsurumi was fueled and blinded by his emotions which only made things more complicated and drew the hunt for the gold out even longer (to the present time).

The rest of the chapter explains how Kiro felt.  First, the grief at the loss of Wilk, trying to move on my having a family, but ultimately coming back to realize that Wilk was still alive after the war.  Really, Wilk underestimated Kiro’s intelligence since he figured out that Kimuspu was the seventh man, not Wilk.  As a Kiro fan, I of course favor him, but he really showed he’s a good leader and actually willing to take risks.  What is most important is that having a family only lead him to want to fight for them - even more.

Kiro sees the flaw in Wilk’s plan of Hokkaido as an independent unit as a place for various native peoples, while ignoring all of the logistical issues that Kiro already pointed out to him previously.  The Far Eastern Federation has the flaw that it is connected by land to Russia, but would me much harder to lay siege to.  But Hokkaido as an island could easily be cut off - and with not much industry within itself, you still can’t do a whole lot with all of those raw materials if you can get industrial technologies from elsewhere.  If it were blockaded they’d be screwed.  Sure, you wouldn’t starve, but you wouldn’t be able to advance quickly.  All that gold and nowhere to spend it.

Thus, Kiro believed he was acting in regard to their original goals and had no choice but to remove Wilk from the equation.  As Wilk had become the very wolf that he had observed as a child and played with its pelt.  That is some next level foreshadowing by Noda, if I do say so.

In the end, Kiro remained much more committed to their fight as partisans than Wilk did.  You have to give it to him, he stuck to his original plans and he died believing he did the right thing.  Now, looking back at how upset Sofia was when she first saw Kiro, we know why she slapped him in the first place.  I’ll take it to mean that she was upset by Kiro’s actions but at the same time understood what he did.  But then Sofia let it go, as she would soon go on to also speak fondly of Wilk and his desire to be like the wolves.  Therefore, I don’t think Sofia was completely angry with Kiro, instead she knew the decision that was made and perhaps, she too, would have understood that there were divided in their goals once they moved on with their lives.

The next chapter starts off with the bottle mobile boys and Ariko on horseback as they determine what to do next.  Sugimoto is amazingly still not rushing in like a maniac which is out of character for him.  Are you okay Sugimoto?  Or have your encounters with Kikuta and Boutarou begun to have an impact on you without being aware of it?

The settle on letting Ariko go ahead, even though he doesn’t answer their question.  I’d say he doesn’t have a clue what side he is on.  He likely cares about Kikuta.  But he wants to see Asirpa succeed since he feels ashamed by his own approach towards life in Hokkaido as an Ainu.

Off he goes alone to figure out how to rescue Asirpa.  Really, a terrible idea since sure he’s a tough guy, but we don’t know what his fighting skills are like in the first place. . . . At least he isn’t a hothead, so sending him in alone will be less of a disaster than Sugimoto.

The action returns to Tsurumi trying to turn up the heat on Asirpa.  She asks him about Kiro’s fingerprints at the crime scene - a lie that Tsurumi fed to Inkarmat to get her to help him.  He writes it off as him doing a good thing for her - she closed a chapter of her life - then again - he doesn’t know that Koito let Tanigaki and Inkarmat escape.  The next several pages are a slow psychological technique that builds up to Tsurumi reveling that the bullet that killed Fina and Olga had been from Wilk’s pistol.  Dum da duuum!

So, according to Tsurumi it is Wilk’s fault all those Ainu died.  That he should have never left Russia for Japan.  That even his time in Russia resulted in Fina and Olga’s deaths.  Everything is Wilk’s fault!

This page ends with how Tsukishima let go of the woman he had loved and his memory of her - yet Tsurumi kept the bullet and the finger bones of his family!  We can see that Tsukishima is barely holding it together, so upset by this knowledge!

As a master manipulator of people, Tsurumi thanks Sofia for what she has contributed to the story - he can help her feel better by telling her that she did not kill his wife and child. . . .  on no, he only uses it as a way to add even more pressure on Asirpa!

To Tsurumi, Asirpa is no child, she is the direct tie to all of his anger and pain and his twisted soul.  

I mean, he kept Wilk’s skinned face and he’s using it to get her to break! What is more interesting is after the initial shock, Sofia quickly regains her calm while Asirpa - well she’s clearly buying into Tsurumi’s explanation of things.

She is thinking about how her father ‘turned’ Tsurumi into the person he is before her . . . . I’d be willing to say that Wilk influenced Tsurumi - as much as Tsurumi influenced Wilk.  Yet, Tsurumi as a human being is responsible for his decisions and he alone can respond to them in a constructive or destructive way.  It is clear Tsurumi went for the latter.

Sofia’s calm in this pressure situation is clear as she asks him if it was for revenge.  She’s a smart woman and has lived long enough to see these types of things through.

Tsukishima is ready to kill Tsurumi - it would make him a hypocritical leader - having him let go of his own earthly attachments only to serve a man bent on revenge.  Koito is listening closely as well, unsure of how he’s going to respond.

Tsurumi makes it clear he could have killed Asirpa any number of times.  I think this is another case of Tsurumi playing a verbal slight of hand.  He’s asked if he’s doing this out of revenge, and his answer is - I haven’t killed her yet.  Gee, based on how messed up you are Tsurumi, we both know that there is more than one way to take revenge. Killing someone in retribution is one way to take revenge or the worse way - make their life a living hell.  It is clear that Tsurumi is going for the second one to break Asirpa.

There is a dramatic two page spread as he explains that he is doing this for Japan - and the implied increasing militaristic activities of the late Meiji government to expand their domain.

If feels - like a performance to me as a reader.  The pages are remarkably light in tone giving it an optimistic and feeling of purity.  Yet, Tsurumi is a broken and corrupt man . . . cruel in his intentions.  He only says this as a way to combat anyone who were to contradict him . . . .

It is too perfect - too convenient - too good for Koito and Tsukishima to believe in my own opinion. As both of the men seem relived to have heard these very words as a type of closing statement.

Tsukishima looks relived that Tsurumi is continuing on the behalf of all of their fallen comrades and families.  Again, this sounds too perfect like Tsurumi’s speech isn’t for Asirpa nor Sofia, it is for Koito and Tsukishima who are eavesdropping.  Since Tsurumi is a next level planner/manipulator he likely came up with this well rehearsed speech to placate all issues around his inability to move on from his family’s death.  It makes him look mature and that he’d moved on from his more basic human needs.

Koito looks like he’s trying really hard to believe Tsurumi and how Tsurumi’s words would comfort Tsukishima.  But is that how you really feel Koito?  That face looks - so - fake.  Like Koito is overdoing it again and is actually unsure how to react.  So, he he looks elated, Tsukishima will feel better - or something.

What I really want to know is why they are just there hiding and watching Tsurumi?  If they are wanting to think independently and beyond Tsurumi why do it while hiding?  It seems no matter what either man may think, they are still under Tsurumi’s thumb as far as how they react to his behavior and the current events.

And I’m gonna have to hold things here while I find a way to read the  more recent chapters with non-shady software to decompress the files since I’ve been using Mangadex the entire time I’ve been reading GK (in addition to the english versions of previous chapters).

#golden kamuy #golden kamuy meta #asirpa #tsukishima hajime #koito otonoshin #kiroranke #tsurumi tokushirou #sofia #wilk #sugimoto saichi #Shiraishi Yoshitake #warrant officer kikuta #ariko rikimatsu

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Other Kinds of Writing than “Pantsing” improvisation or “plotting” Outlining

So, usually people set up a false binary, because why not Europe the world and make everything a binary... so I’ll give other options of how Writers write. (From my vast reading of author notes and interviews and pros and cons of each...) ‘cause whatever you are doing might not be working the best for you, so why not try other ways?

How the Story is written

Improvisation

This means just start somewhere and let your subconscious take over the plot. The downside is if the readers figure this out (which there are markers for it), then they can guess ahead of you by figuring out the best gut punch for the time. The markers for it--though people don’t believe me... are excessive set up at the beginning of scenes, larger plot holes and repetition of plot points which were not caught during editing. I can tell you wrote the story this way when you keep trying to remind yourself of previous plot points in the text. Slash those when you edit. Look specifically for plot holes because your subconscious is likely to change their mind about certain things and you need to track them separately. Famously, Jack Kerouac was known to do everything on impulse and thought it was the highest form of writing. He didn’t want a single word edited. Advantages: Being impulsive can lead to some crazy ideas which can feel new. This is particularly good for character impulsive decisions. Or characters who go by their gut. The characters also tend to be a lot more willful, but it also means you need to keep them occupied with interesting events. Suspense and Thriller tend to benefit for such writing. Writing is fast, editing is slow.

Disadvantages: OMG, the editing is a nightmare. You have to write down every plot point on a separate piece of paper and then make sure you didn’t screw it up. It’s terrible for High Concept plots and where things have to come together neatly in a certain order to make sense. (Which is why Agatha Christie didn’t use it for And There Was None and it tortured her for a year since she was used to improvising everything. She explicitly said she’d write it like everyone did it and then drop the final clues to make it click at the end, which is a sign of an improviser or at most a milestone type.)

(Strict) Outlining (Separate sheet of paper)

Means you write down the plot points one by one. Sometimes writers use a spreadsheet so they can visually see what is happening at the same time. She whose name shall not be spoken, does it this way.

Sometimes it’s just a list of bullet points. The markers for it: It tends to be much neater in plotting. Things interlock neatly. If you have a large complex plot, this is one of the ways to do it. The markers for this are more spotting the way the plot comes together and also often unfortunately marked by flat characters because the event chain was thought of without the characters.

Tolkien from everything I’ve read of the man, mostly outlined his stories. I have a flagging suspicion on one story--which is my favorite, which is a bit more impulse-written because it’s much more introspective and philosophical--two things that don’t do well with outlining. Most epics, for this reason in the modern sense are done with outlines. Some, but not all mysteries are outlined.

Advantages: Having a large interlocking plot suddenly come together can be satisfying. All those desperate parts seem like it’s great. The events come back together. Less editing is always good.

Disadvantages: Flat token characters who don’t have to be there and have cursory agency merely to move the plot along. For Newbies, the plot twists aren’t that interesting and don’t interweave properly with the character’s set ups or choices. The events, then, feel like what the writer wanted to happen, rather than what would have naturally happened. (You can fix this, though, by thinking through the character and how they change and be willing to rework your outline every time the character makes a different choice than expected--don’t fall in love with the event chain--fall in love with the character agency to make change.)

Also, if you screw up one event because of lack of research, it can send your entire book into a tailspin since the point of outlining is to neatly get everything to come together.

Don’t forget to put in some “God events” on purpose. You can throw people off and make them guess it wasn’t heavily plotted by putting a few seemingly random events at the beginning that click or are red herrings which lead to dead ends.

Versioning

NK Jemisin did this... It combines a bit of the outlining with improvisation, but it tries different versions of the same events. I have a suspicion that Patrick Rothfuss also does a bit of this with his claim he also outlines... but I’m not 100% sure on that. This might explain why the books take so long to write. (Versioning and outlining don’t marry too well for speed. If you’re backing up, and then having to rework the outline based on backing up, that’s a total slow down every time.) Markers: There are very few markers. Sometimes people may spot dead end plots, but if you did a good job editing, you took those out.

Advantages: If you edit well, then no one will notice the difference. And you are 100% sure this is the best sequence of events for this character. Also helps when the character is extra bit willful for reasons you can’t crack.

Disadvantages: Time--it takes so much more time to edit the draft. Plus there are versions you have to, by nature of the project throw out no one will get to see. (Wasted paper and energy). Plus it’s super hard to edit because you have to choose which of the many paths you will take and justify it to yourself before making final drafts. How do you know you’re not doing it because you’re enamored of the idea, but it’s not the best version after all? Bad for indecision.

One sentence at a time

Chuck Palahniuk does this. One sentence, perfects it, then moves to the next.

Advantages: You are sure that sentence is perfect and therefore, the whole book doesn’t need editing by the end of it.

Disadvantages: The amount of time it takes to write the book is slow. The wording might also feel pretentious or overworked.

Milestones

I used to play this game called “Mille Bornes” which means milestone. A milestone in a person’s like are things like they were born, married, died, had children, etc. So the idea of this is that you set out things that the character has to hit in order to get to the next set of events. In order for cause A, they need to hit this event first. Because the outline is looser, it still allows them to act within the framework with agency. Also because it’s not a huge outline one has to rework every time, it allows the writer to bounce around more because they already know what their character is going to do to react to said event.

Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, Anne McCaffrey all said they used this method. Markers: The plot doesn’t always have that neat clicking sound feel to it. But the character seems to hit important events in regular well-paced order despite that. You can trick the reader by spacing the events and word count for those events differently. Usually these people pick out the ending ahead of time to make sure it doesn’t wander too much. But the ending can also feel a bit flat if one isn’t careful. If you don’t trim your events, side plots can overtake your story where there is no meaning to the overarching plot. Slash those. Newbies who use this method often end up deviating hard from the main point and that’s how one catches them.

Advantages: Takes the advantages of outlining and makes it looser. Takes the advantages of Improvising and gives it structure. Disadvantages: Editing still is a chore. Pacing might also be harder if you aren’t able to predict word count well. People can get too married to their event structure without regard to how the character has changed. They can box the character in. For the reader it feels half directed, and half not. It’s a bit harder to predict, but if you run out of event chains, and the reader guesses your tastes, they will be able to plot the entire book ahead of you and then you’re dead in the water. So plot against your preferences and towards your preferences too. Flat characters for this method are your worst enemy. The events you don’t find exciting, you might skimp out on. Make sure to rework the “boring” events. And cut as many side plots as you possibly can.

Order the story is written:

Linear Forwards- Plot from beginning, start there until you get to the end. Most writers tend to rely on this method and can’t think otherwise. Mercedes Lackey in her notes, beyond making notes about scenes she’d like to include, Anne McCaffrey, Agatha Christie (from how she said she writes), Sir Conan Doyle (Who, BTW, outlined a fair bit, though not completely--you can feel a bit of his impulsiveness peak through), Jane Austen (from reports of her manuscripts etc) and the bulk to writers stick to this method.

Linear Backwards- Know the ending you need and figure out the events that led there--mysteries do this a fair bit. Also some Japanese authors play with this quite a bit.

Skip around- Usually better for thematic or tone plotting. Or High concept. When you want a certain feel for the book, sometimes it’s better to choose on themes and events, write them quickly, then edit. Editing is a pain when done this way because places and seasons can shift by accident. Watch for plot holes. Diana Gabaldon skips around by using a bit of research and then making a scene out of it, and then stringing it together later.

Mixed- Bounce around between the methods... super messy. Lots of editing. And also sometimes lots of skimping on the “boring” bits, which isn’t a good idea.

Try ALL of them in different types and orders. Find which one suits you best and which one you struggle the most with. Get good at the one you like, then try to defeat them all and find out how people react to the story being written that way and what you need to delete and edit per way you wrote it. If there are more ways people write books... then try those methods too.

#Writing #writing advice

[pathogenic]

Chapter 6: The Drowned Crew

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Necromancer

Chapter 2: The Prophet

Chapter 3: The Hag

Chapter 4: The Brigand Vvulf

Chapter 5: The Brigand’s Cannon

Chapter 6: The Drowned Crew

Chapter 7: The Siren

Chapter 8: The Swine God

Chapter 9: The Formless Flesh

Chapter 10: The Ancestor

Epilogue

Warning for violent character deaths

With our sights set upon the Cove, I decided it was best to send our fastest men in to scout the place and attempt to figure out what could be stealing the inhabitants of my Hamlet. Heading in blind was a sure fire way to ensure that we lost more people, but even to this day, the last thing I had anticipated was news that spirits were haunting the coves. Initially I thought that I was the victim of a jest, but I had never known Dismas to lie in his reports, so I believed him. After all, at this point, was it truly so strange compared to everything else we had fought?

I was, at the time, unfamiliar with how they worked. Everything I knew was from stories passed around campfires to try and scare the more faint-hearted, so I called Alhazred to try and understand what we were against. He explained to me that some ghosts are harmless, but others should be feared. Those who are bound to this world through malice have been known to cause physical harm. It could be that the missing citizens heard something odd and decided to investigate, but their curiosity costed them their lives when the specters found them.

With a unique enemy on our hands, I attempted to assemble the best crew for dealing with these ghosts. Alhazred was a natural choice given his area of expertise. He was confident that if we found these ghosts, he could seal them away and prevent them from causing any further damage. Dismas was another natural choice given the fact that he was the one who had done the majority of scouting in the area. If anyone was going to know the safest paths within the coves, it was him. Tardif and Jingles were not additions I planned on making, however. Jingles offered his services both to keep things calm in the face of these spirits, but also because he was a more capable fighter than he appeared. He promised he would not slow us down. Tardif was ultimately allowed to come as well given that he could deal with anything more physical should we encounter trouble within the Coves beyond the ghosts.

As we walked through, Dismas attempted to explain more of what he saw. He explained that due to his time as a highwayman, he came to recognize other types of criminals. The clothes the ghosts wore were not quite uniforms, he explained, but they resembled more of the outfits of pirates. They would often blend different uniforms along with whatever cloth they had available. The lack of a coherent uniform was their tell-tale sign, essentially.

Fortunately for Dismas, he didn’t have to wait long for his explanation to make sense. As we traveled further within the Cove, we started to discover the shattered remains of ships. Initially it wasn’t much, just a plank here and there, half rotten and covered in seaweed and the likes. As we followed the trail of wreckage, we started to see more of the ships, and with them, the first of the ghosts.

They were not so different from the skeletons we had seen back in the dungeon, save for the fact that they had an unnatural blue glow about them. The first we saw was simply walking across the broken mast of a ship before all at once he lifted his head, quickly looking around as if he was alerted to something. We were careful not to make too much noise and to try to pass by him, but all at once, his head snapped in our direction. The specter howled and then charge. I didn’t notice it at first, but looking back, he did not pay my companions any mind, but instead he was charging at me. It didn’t work out in his favor as Alhazred was faster.

It continued like this as we pressed further and further in. It seemed like the deepest parts of the cove were nothing more than a ship graveyard. There seemed to be an endless supply of specters to attack us, or rather, me. At the time I did not know why they had such an intense hatred for me, but I had my suspicions as to who I could blame for it. Regardless, I started to wonder how much more we would have to put up with. I asked our Occultist what could be done about the countless ghosts. He chewed at his lip as I saw him wrack his brain. I feared that perhaps he had not been as honest about his knowledge and that we were in over our heads to deal with this problem, but as I was about to ask if he truly knew anything on ghosts, he spoke up again. He said he had a suspicion that there was a curse that was binding them to this place. If he could either break it or find a way to render them powerless, then the problem would be solved.

He then turned to Dismas and asked if he knew anything further on the pirates that we were encountering. The highwayman paused to give the question some thought. He then said that it seemed as if they weren’t all from the same crew. Some uniform pieces were simply too old to survive sea that long. He then motioned to the broken ships around us, suggesting that perhaps there was an original ship that is the source of the curse, the rest were simply pulled into it. They were unfortunate enough to crash into this cursed location, and now they were just a part of fit. Alhazred gave a nod and said it was a good observation but voiced his concern about figuring out which was the first ship. No one had an answer for that, so the scholar sighed and said we would just have to keep going. With some luck, it would be obvious.

The deeper we traveled, the harder it was to dodge the bits of ships that we found. Eventually we found ourselves having to walked through cracked hulls in order to continue our path, but that all came to a stop when we saw the most curious sight. Where the water just met the Cove, there was a ship hull. Attached to the hull was an anchor bound in its own chains. Within the chains were old bones that had long since turned yellow from exposure. I told Alhazred that if anything was bound to be cursed, it was going to be that anchor. I could not think of a single way such a tragedy could occur naturally, and he agreed.

Cautiously, we approached. Tardif stayed behind to keep watch in case anything tried to ambush us. As we got closer, there was a terrible feeling that washed over me. I could already taste the salt from the sea water in the air before, but now it was thicker. It took everything I had not to start coughing and hacking. Alhazred must have felt it as well as he held his skull closer, muttering to it, likely repelling whatever curse haunted the anchor away from himself. Dismas and Jingles were quick to back off, and I could not blame them. If it felt like an option, I would have stayed behind as well.

Once we finally made it to the cursed anchor, Alhazred reached a hand out and attempted to touch it, perhaps to get a better understanding of the curse, perhaps because he was just curious, but regardless of intent, it caused the crew tied to that anchor to suddenly spring to life. Behind us we heard the horrible sounds of someone choking. Quickly I looked back to see one of the skeletal figures bending over Tardif. In it’s boney hands, it held a boat hook that was stuck firmly in his his shoulder. The bounty hunter was doubled over as he fell to his knees. Even from my distance, I could see the water that he coughed up through his helmet. Dismas attempted to save him, firing upon the figure, but it hardly budged as it continued to curse the bounty hunter until he didn’t struggle anymore.

I barely had a moment to process the fact that I had watched Tardif drown on land when I heard the most discordant screech from a violin that had not been tuned in years. My shoulders tensed and all I could do was cover my ears to try and block out the horrible, cursed tune. At once, Jingles attempted to play over it. It helped take the worst of the sting out of the horrible screech of those strings. This quick thinking allowed Alhazred to focus once more. His hand was firmly planted on the anchor at this point and I could hear quick, hushed chanting, though I knew nothing of what he said. Regardless, the candle on the skull in his hands started to flicker and burn brighter as he spoke.

Seeing as how I could be of no help to Alhazred, I backed off and returned to Dismas and Jingles’ side as the rest of the crew continued to manifest, attempting to close in on us. Our attacks seemed to do very little as my sword would pass through the apparition. Bullets hardly seemed to do much either, but their attacks found us just fine. The only thing that seemed to phase them was the sound of Jingles’ lute. The more pleasant sound seemed to cause them to recoil and it kept Alhazred safe for as long as the jester played.

We stayed close, hoping that Jingles would not grow tired as he kept the ghosts at bay. The only thing Dismas and I could do was watch as more manifested with each round of chanting that Alhazred performed. Eventually, we saw what we assumed was the Captain of the cursed ship. Unlike his companions, he seemed to have the ability to press through Jingles’ music and we noticed it far too late.

Initially he stayed back with his crew, but his reactions were not the same as those around him. It was likely the captain was a poor actor in his life as his recoils were half-hearted at best. Dismas and I noticed this at once and attempted to move between the ghost of the captain and Jingles, but it seemed that the captain was faster on the draw. As he saw us move, he pulled the pistol from the holster on this chest and fired. Our poor jester attempted to raise the lute to save himself, but it fired through. He dropped to the ground, not dead yet, but gravely injured.

All at once, the ghosts rushed. We failed to protect Jingles, but we would not fail Alhazred. Dismas and I did the only thing we could and stood between him and the ghosts, ignoring the choking feeling the anchor gave. The ghosts attempted to attack, but we took the hits until Alhazred’s final chant ended. We heard the chains loosen on the anchor and drop the bodies it held. At once, the ghosts began to fade. At this moment, we rushed to the aid of our injured companion. Alhazred joined us and, despite his very obvious exhaustion, attempted another spell.

The gunshot wound attempted to close, but it was not enough. Alhazred was too tired to see it through and our friend bled out before our eyes. In that moment, I felt ashamed. Was there truly nothing we could have done to protect him? I felt as if I went into a battle with half baked ideas again and two people paid the price this time. I could feel my hands shake, and I wasn’t sure if it was due to the shock of having two more people die, or from my wounds.

My companions sat with me in silence as we mourned the loss of Tardif and of Jingles. After what felt like hours, Dismas finally spoke up. He pointed out that Alhazred was likely about to faint after performing such an impressive act and that we had our own wounds that needed treatment before they became infected. Someone else could come by and collect the bodies. Alhazred voiced his agreement and started to move towards the door, waiting for me and Dismas. The highwayman offered me his hand and I took it. I found myself leaning on him before we left the cove. The act helped me from breaking until we reached the Hamlet.

From there, we visited the healers at the Sanitarium and had our wounds cleaned and treated. They asked about our other companions and Dismas informed them of their demise. They tried their best to comfort me, but their words felt hollow at the time. I knew it was my fault, their reassurances that I couldn’t have known felt wrong.

Once we were released, Dismas refused to let me return to the Estate, insisting that I shouldn’t be alone for now. He steered me towards the Tavern and had me sit at our usual games table. I told him that I was in no mood to play, and he said he understood. So instead, we talked. We talked about what we did before we arrived at the Hamlet. I learned of how he learned his tricks he used during games, I told him about my studies. He told me why he gave up his life as a highwayman, I told him of the agreement I made with Damian. He gave me lots of strange looks about Damian and told me to be careful.

I suppose Alhazred had told the others of what happened, for slowly but surely more of our companions arrived and invited themselves to our table. They didn’t speak of the deaths, but the sympathetic looks were enough to tell me that they knew. Still, I found myself appreciating their company. Dismas was right, if I were alone with my thoughts that evening, I have no doubt I would have fallen apart. Before I finally decided I needed to rest, I bought my friend a drink and I embraced him. We lingered for a moment before he told me to please get some rest. The Hamlet needed me at my best.

When I returned, I found Damian resting already and decided to leave him be. I returned to my chambers and fell asleep soon enough. However, when I woke up, I had a strange lock in my hands. I looked up to a large set of wooden doors and realized I had never seen them before in my life. In a blind panic, I looked around to try and figure out where I was. I had a feeling I was underground as there was a lack of light except for what came from an open door behind me. I dropped the lock and dashed for the door and found that it opened into a long hallway. That ended in a trapdoor that I frantically climbed out of. At last I saw the familiar sight of the wine cellar below my Estate. I wondered how I never noticed the trap door until I looked around the room and noticed the table knocked over. At this point, the room started to grow lighter as Damian descended the stairs, lantern in hand.

He looked at me with a confused expression and I frantically tried to explain what had happened. He had me take him into the basement and show him the lock that I was holding. He seemed just as perplexed as me but decided that it was best to leave it be for now. He noted that it smelled like something was rotting on the other side. I then noticed the smell and scrunched my nose. He was right. It was that sickly, sweet smell of putrefaction. We decided that there was not much we could do about it in the dead of the night, so we returned to the first floor of the Estate instead.

At that point I was too shaken to rest. I told him that I found myself having strange dreams and then I’d wake up in a different room in the Hamlet, but this was the first time I woke up in that room with a lock in my hand. He asked me to detail these dreams, but I found it difficult to recall much at the time. I admitted that I was pretty shaken between the deaths and waking up in an unfamiliar place, so my memory was patchy at best at the time. He seemed genuinely surprised by this news and so I had the unfortunate job of informing him that we had lost two more heroes that day.

He listened and then he asked if he could offer me something. I said he could, and at that time Damian began to explain what he had learn from his time in the Church about death. He knew I didn’t believe in the Light, but he said that no matter what I did believe, they were at peace now. They were heroes, the Light would be foolish to banish them into the dark. It is true that I didn’t believe in the Light and their teachings, but still, his words were comforting. It was something to ease my mind, I suppose. It’s funny, isn’t it? The idea that the dead are resting peacefully is somehow a comfort. They’re still dead, they’re still gone, and yet hearing that they are not suffering is enough to make someone feel a little more at peace with what happened.

I thanked Damian for the kind words before retiring to the den. He came with and we continued to talk about nothing in particular until eventually I fell asleep. I don’t recall when it happened, but I recall waking up to the morning light coming in the window. There was no sight of Damian, he had likely gone to his own duties for the day, so I decided it was about time to do the same.

#Darkest Dungeon #Press F lads

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Manga vs Anime: Episode 1 "WenKamuy”

So since it seems we will get a Golden Kamuy 3rd anime series, I thought it wouldn’t hurt (at least not too much) to rewatch the 1st and 2nd series plus OADs and compare it with the manga version because there are quite a lot of differences between the two and it would be interesting to point them out…

Okay, okay, I’m not sure I’ll manage to go through it all but well, we’ll see.

Now, for this I’ll use the Blu Ray version of the anime and the volume version of the manga. Keep in mind it’s a ‘manga versus anime’ rambling, so I’m not going to compare the TV version and the Blu Ray version unless something REALLY different happened.

We already know the Blu Ray version is drawn better than the TV version and people way better than me has already made comparisons between the two so I’m not going to try to make another. Sorry about it.

It’s also worth to mention that, as manga and anime are two different medium, differences between the two are meant to exist and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Anime have the potential to improve thinks… or worsen them. I’ll consider differences case by case.

So let’s start.

Some data first.

This episode last 23:42 minutes and doesn’t have an opening, just the ending. It covers 2 chapters of the manga, the 1 & 2 for a total of 90 pages as those are pretty long chapters (I’m discounting the covers).

And now into the anime.

When the narration for both manga and anime is the same, I’ll tell what’s going on only once and later I’ll dig into the minor differences if there are some, when the scene differs in a relevant manner I’ll tell what’s going on for the anime and what’s going on for the manga.

INTRODUCTION

Manga: In just an info box we’re told we’re in Meiji 37 at 203 hill. Below it there’s supposedly 203 hill, drawn in a not really noteworthy way.

Anime: On a black background appears the writing of the year we’re with, Meiji 37 (1904) then a much better than the manga view of 203 hill with the additional writing we’re in the Liaodong Peninsula, Lushhun.

My two cents: The anime was much more informative and with a better visual and took advantage of how it could introduce the scene with much more atmosphere than what the manga did.

PREPARATION OF THE BATTLE

Manga: We’ve a panel of the soldiers in the trenches in which all the soldiers are in green EXCEPT for Sugimoto, who’s in red immediately drawing the attention on him and on how he’s placing his bayonet on his rifle, a hint something violent is about to happen.

Anime: We’ve a long shoot panning on the Japanese soldiers in the trenches, from two different positions, without drawing the focus on one of them.

My two cents: Personally I like a lot the manga choice but I understand the anime can take advantage of longer times and its choice isn’t bad either. It gets you into an atmosphere of historical anime and calm before the storm. Also, for a Japanese viewer, it could be interesting to see how the Japanese troops were positioned.

SUGIMOTO EATING THE ANT

Manga: We first see the ant on Sugimoto’s finger, then Sugimoto’s face, then him eating the ant. Although he spits it claiming it’s sour in the manga this isn’t really visible as the panel in which this happen is small.

Anime: It starts the same, by showing us the ant but then it doesn’t show us Sugimoto’s full face, just his mouth as he eats it and then spit it claiming it’s sour. Only after this we’ll finally see his face, even if it’s only a profile and not a close up as the manga. The visual the anime chooses is interesting as the camera shows us Sugimoto as if it was peeking at him from under the arm of another soldier, the arm ending up on framing Sugimoto’s figure and giving him a certain relevance. Basically the visual of the scene reminds me of the first panel in which Sugimoto was shown in the manga, the one in which he was drawn all in red to better identify him.

My two cents: The manga takes advantage of the close up to show us Sugimoto isn’t in his best state as there are many stress lines under his eyes and his lips are chapped but it’s overall not noteworthy, it’s just a way to make us see well his face. The anime choice is more artistically interesting. We see Sugimoto’s lips are chapped but overall we get the impression of a tougher guy and drawing mystery on him by not immediately showing his face causes viewers to notice him more. I’ll say the anime did a good job here even though it seems more focused on showing us Sugimoto’s toughness than the misery of his condition as a soldier (by the way seeing Sugimoto eating the ant without hesitation ended up reminding me of Upashy-chan’s sad end… really, I should have expected Sugimoto would have eaten him but…).

SUGIMOTO SAYS HE’LL EAT RUSSIANS IF HE DOESN’T GET FOOD

Manga: The scene is merely a panel, Sugimoto looks firm in his statement he won’t die here but nothing exceptional. Of course, coped with the previous scene in the page in which he ate the ant we get the message even more.

Anime:  Sugimoto looks much angrier in the anime compared to his manga version as he says he’ll eat Russians and FINALLY gets a close up. It makes him look more dangerous but also it makes harder for us to know if he’s a bad guy or a good guy (unless you’re really against Russia or pro Japan and therefore you’ll judge whoever is fighting Russia automatically as a good guy).

My two cents: We’re just at the beginning but the anime subtly start giving us a different view on Sugimoto. If in the manga he’s someone worn out and desperate to survive, in the anime he seems rather angry for the situation he’s in, even his eating of the ant seems more dictated by anger mixed to hunger than just by hunger.

THE CHARGE

Manga: The charge… is really short here, it almost seems that as soon as the Japanese got out of the trenches (we can’t even recognize Sugimoto among them, they just jump out at the same time as a single body) they were immediately brutally murdered by the Russians. It’s desperate and gruesome (the holes in their bodies are giant sized and they all seem to be hit) and gives a sense of futility as if they were just sent to death.

Anime: The charge is much more detailed compared to the manga, the anime taking full advantage of how it can animate it. Although there’s a huge focus of Sugimoto charging while screaming angrily, we also see the other soldiers jumping out of the trenches and various other details like the cannon shooting and the soldiers advancing running and then cutting the barbed wire, the explosions hitting the ground and the Russians using the machine guns. The scene is a lot less gruesome overall, sure we see some dead soldiers and we see some soldiers being hit but this translates in us seeing some small spray of blood coming out of them.

My two cents: The anime gives out a more detailed feeling, which is good, but also makes it look more heroic and less gruesome than the manga so we don’t really get an immediate feeling that ‘war is terrible’ but just that we’re at war. Of course this probably couldn’t be helped as anime tends to be less gruesome than manga due to the different target at which they’re aimed… but it’s a pity the idea that ‘war is terrible’ gets toned down as the damage war caused to Sugimoto and Co was an integral part of the story.

SUGIMOTO GETS HIT IN THE NECK, CHARGES ANYWAY AND REACHES THE RUSSIAN TRENCH

Manga: This basically takes the third and last panel in the spread pages that showed the charge. We get a close up of Sugimoto’s face and the hole made by the bullet, although not as big as the ones on the other soldiers, is clearly noticeable. Considering how all the other soldiers died in a gruesome way if we forget how Sugimoto was in the spread colour page with the title, we might even think that Sugimoto, the guy we’ve just met and who expressed his wish to survive no matter what, is going to die there and his death will become a tragedy relevant to the plot. War is just gruesome as, as soon as men charged, they’re shoot brutally. However, as we turn the page we see that although Sugimoto faltered for a moment and seemed to faint, his pupils and irises disappearing, they came back a panel later, his irises going white and he resumed charging screaming and with a ferocious look, as if that wound had been nothing to worry about, before immediately jumping in the enemy trenches.

Anime: We don’t see any hole, we just hear the sound of a shoot and then Sugimoto seems to fall backward, blood spraying out of his neck. Honestly I’ll question how the anime portrayed the almost fall of Sugimoto. They basically stretched it for too long, making it look as if he has reached an angle from which it would be impossible for him to recover and return standing straight.

The anime focuses on his eyes, depicting them impossibly open then Sugimoto gains pack his footing (how, I don’t know) and, screaming, Sugimoto charges the Russian. His cap shadows his face, making it creepy and his open wide eyes with the irises reduced to tiny dots give him a crazy look. Sugimoto resumes running and although the Russians resume shooting at him they can’t hit him so that Sugimoto have no problems jumping in their trench.

My two cents: Honestly my only qualm is against Sugimoto’s almost fall in the anime. They pushed him too backward for him to recover balance. At this point they should have just let him fall. Also the major time spent on Sugimoto’s run toward the trench play against the anime because here we see how Sugimoto runs STRAIGHT toward a trench but the machine guns right in front of him don’t hit him again not even once, which makes him look as if he has a convenient plot armour that causes the bullets to avoid him or implies the Russians have a pathetic aiming skill as Sugimoto is just too close to miss. The manga’s choice to have Sugimoto IMMEDIATELY leap in the trench has if he’d been really close to them might be a little unrealistic as well (as it’s unlikely he was already that close) but you just don’t notice as the action is so fast you don’t get the time to think this charge had simply been TOO FAST as if the Japanese and Russian trenches had been really close by. In the anime instead the oddness of Sugimoto not getting hit when he’s SO EXPOSED and PROGRESSIVELY CLOSER is easy to immediately notice.

In the manga the scene of Sugimoto getting hit also seems to mark the switching for poor hungry soldier to berserk for Sugimoto, where in the anime he seemed already aggressive enough remarking how Sugimoto wasn’t an inborn aggressive person but it was just his survival instinct who drew out his aggressiveness.

SUGIMOTO GOES BERSERK IN THE TRENCH

Manga: Sugimoto’s slaughtering of the Russians is brutal but well done and it seems to make perfect sense he takes them one after the other, the manga showing us a Russian after the other, almost as if they got not time to defend themselves as if they were caught on surprise. Sugimoto’s expression as he challenges them to kill him and tells them to die (not to go to hell) is clearly crazed, no light in his eyes and his irises clear. As he does so we see a balloon calling his name, ‘Sugimoto Saichi-san’, preparing us for the transition from this scene to another in a smooth way.

Anime: The anime expands the scene, showing that Sugimoto is surrounded but evidently Russians commanders never read the ‘The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord’ list which is also an useful reading if you’re just going to become a commander of men and especially never read point 75 ‘I will instruct my Legions of Terror to attack the hero en masse, instead of standing around waiting while members break off and attack one or two at a time.’ As a result although Sugimoto is surrounded they don’t attack him en masse but one at time, watching him as he murders their companions, so that he can finish them off one after the other easily enough.

Although the anime was faithful enough to the manga, they also did their best to tame everything down so that it only look gruesome in insight. The scene ended differently from the manga as Sugimoto, after blinding the Russian, screams like a madman ‘he’s Sugimoto the immortal’ before the scene switches abruptly.

My two cents: Boys, the Russians watching Sugimoto as he fight their mates one after the other and not trying to stab him with their bayonets in the anime didn’t add to the drama of Sugimoto being surrounded, it made only look the Russians dumb. Had at least the anime depicted them as frozen on the spot because scared by Sugimoto it would have worked a little better but like this it felt just stupid. Overall though the anime makes things easier for the viewers, as it placed a lot of focus on Sugimoto and the fact he’s ‘Sugimoto the immortal’ so the anime viewers will remember this better and will also understand HE’s the main character… although this Sugimoto seemed much more aggressive than his manga counterpart as we weren’t shown him having a not angry mode. The transition is abrupt and in a way the fact we learn in the anime that this guy is ‘Sugimoto the immortal’ where in the manga we first learnt he’s ‘Sugimoto Saichi’ and only afterward we learn he’s Sugimoto the immortal, remarks how the anime finds more interesting ‘Sugimoto the immortal’, the awesome and ferocious fighter who never dies versus ‘Sugimoto Saichi’, the person who ended up tossed in the war. In short the anime is more interested to what it presents as Sugimoto’s heroic side than to Sugimoto’s human side.

SUGIMOTO AND GOTOU

Manga: The transition that started when Sugimoto told the Russian to go to hell and was called by name by someone continues here. Sugimoto’s eyes are still wide open but they seem more normal and his image is actually reflected in water. In the following panels we realize even though he has his army cap he’s not in the army anymore, he’s dressed like a commoner, his hair is longer and he is panning for gold with a rocking board. He turns and we see a man with a bottle is the one who was calling him with the implication if Sugi hadn’t answered him immediately was because he was either lost in war memories or in his task. The man asks him how’s going and Sugimoto recognizes him, asking him if he’s drinking again before complaining he can’t find gold and giving us some historical info in the process as well as letting us know the gold is the reason why he came in Hokkaido and how he wants money, he NEEDS it. From Gotou’s dialogues we get although he’s just warming himself at the fire and drinking he’s also a gold panner but acknowledge he, like Sugimoto, is an amateur and many other like them never found a thing. Gotou also suggests Sugimoto to use the rifle he has to hunt, to which Sugimoto replies he would have even more problems to gain something as a hunter hinting at how his aim is poor and remarking again how he needs a ton of money fast.

Anime: The anime switchs from the previous scene to an image of another mountain, the writing telling us now we’re in Hokkaido, near Otaru.

We’ve then a couple of images of the place,

They images of Hokkaido aren’t ugly but not noteworthy enough you’ll remember them. We switch to Sugimoto searching for gold in a river. This point is also where we see the title of the episode ‘WenKamuy’ which in the manga is the title of the second chapter, the first being titled ‘Sugimoto the immortal’. The method used by Sugimoto to search for the gold is expanded in the anime compared to the manga as first Sugimoto uses a catcher to move the rocks on the rocking board and then uses it to pan. Gotou calls Sugimoto twice, first just ‘Sugimoto-san’ then ‘Sugimoto Saichi-san’ but Sugimoto won’t reply to him. All the dialogue I mentioned before which was in the manga is cut.

My two cents: The anime transition is less clever and much more abrupt than in the manga but it’s a transition that’s much simpler to follow as it cut the scenes and then tells us exactly where we are. All this hints to how how the anime isn’t trying to be artistically clever in its choices, just as simple and immediate as possible. The fact that the views of Hokkaido aren’t something that you’ll remember for their beauty isn’t really a good thing. Most of Golden Kamuy is focused on reconstructing Hokkaido, Noda’s homeplace, as it was back then and giving us info about it. The anime had the chance to make it also much more visually interesting than the manga but it didn’t really focus much on it (the basically cured more how they depicted the battle scene). Golden Kamuy anime scenery are often hardly remarkable and people won’t really go around showing screenshoots of them. Titling the episode ‘WenKamuy’ an Ainu word Japanese viewers might not know, instead than ‘Sugimoto the immortal’, can make viewers curious and, since Sugimoto has already introduced himself and the episode isn’t just about him, it works well and in itself is a good commercial choice. I also like how the anime paid more care in showing how Sugimoto searched for the gold. What’s not so good is the lacking of characterization in Gotou but in Sugimoto as well. In both versions Gotou calls Sugimoto twice but, while in the manga we could assume Sugimoto didn’t immediately answered because he was lost in war memories and therefore he didn’t immediately registered Gotou calling him (he seems startled by his voice), to then turn toward him when he finally does, hinting to how Sugimoto is still plagued by the war while in the anime it seems Sugimoto is ignoring Gotou, especially if you consider how he never turn toward him, making him look less social than what Sugimoto actually is. Cutting the dialogue between the two means cutting Gotou’s characterization almost totally but also Sugimoto’s as well. In the anime we don’t know Sugi clearly knows Gotou by a while and is in an amicable relation with him (showing Sugi isn’t really good at recognizing murders first glance) and his hurry and need to find the gold are skipped as well as the reference to his poor aim which will become relevant when he’ll miss the bear later. In short cutting all this is bad and personally I would have found a better idea to keep it than to expand the Russo-Japanese war scenes.

GOTOU POINTS OUT TO HOW SUGIMOTO IS A WAR VETERAN WHO WAS NICKNAMED SUGIMOTO THE IMMORTAL

Manga: At this point Gotou questions Sugimoto on his past as a war veteran, on how he was called ‘Sugimoto the immortal’ because he fought like a Kishin (a Japanese wrathful deity, for more info look here), the visual showing us Sugimoto murdering a soldier in a brutal way, and that he survived and healed fast from any sort of wound. Sugimoto confirms the stories are true as he can’t seem to die and Gotou remarks how it’s unbelievable a war hero like Sugimoto should supposedly be is living as a pauper, panning gold. Sugimoto says he got no rewards because he almost killed an official. Gotou laughs and implies he doesn’t believe in anything of all they said but still he likes Sugimoto, his face red as he’s clearly drunk.

Anime: The scene is overall similar in dialogues. The visual of Sugimoto killing the soldiers is creepy but less gory as Sugimoto is now standing on a pile of corpses with a creepy look. Although it’s possible to speculate he’s murdering the soldier he’s holding, despite this being animation the scene seems much more still than in the manga and the focus is on Sugimoto’s creepy expression and not in what his body is doing. The result is if you aren’t a manga reader you might miss Sugimoto is slaughter him. Sugimoto won’t confirm he can’t die and will FINALLY talk to Gotou only to tell him he didn’t get a reward for his actions because he almost killed an officer and now he needs money. Gotou will laugh but won’t question Sugimoto’s works as if he believes them.

My two cents: Again the characterization, although in a smaller measure, is changed. Sugimoto not replying to Gotou at first paints him as less social than in the manga. His only reply can be read two ways, either he’s trying to scare Gotou into leaving him be (he almost killed an officer he didn’t like and so far he acted like he didn’t like Gotou) but, considering he didn’t say it in a creepy tone, it can also make him look a bit pathetic (he’s just there because he needs money, he doesn’t want to brag about his past and wants to be left quiet). However is desperate need to find money doesn’t really come out from all that (we get he’s poor but doesn’t sound desperate as he did in the manga where he kept on remarking he needed a lot of money fast) which will influence how we’ll perceive his participation to the gold hunt and his worry for Umeko. Gotou really seems a random bystander who just stumbled on Sugimoto for the first time and questioned him, making me wonder if the anime decided they didn’t want Sugimoto to be friendly with him because they didn’t want Sugi to be friend with a murderer. Gotou’s lack of questioning of Sugimoto’s words enforces the idea the story is absolutely true.

THE CHAT ABOUT THE GOLD

Manga and anime: At this point Gotou decides that he’ll tell Sugimoto an interesting story because he likes him and he’ll basically explain him about the gold rush, the Ainu collecting gold, the gold getting stolen, the thief getting captured and tattooing the prisoners telling them to escape as well as the escape of the prisoners, how they’re still uncaught and no one knows about the gold. Sugimoto tries to question him as he seems to know a lot about it, wondering if it’s another tall tale as in the past Gotou told him he saw an Ezo wolf which Sugimoto claims should be extinct. Gotou however has fallen asleep and Sugimoto, who has stopped searching for gold, dresses up and comes near the fire as well.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Sugi turned toward Gotou when the man told him he would tell him an interesting story. In the anime he does so when Gotou says his story deals with gold, stopping in his track and remaining in an hunched position for a while listening to Gotou.

- where the manga shows us gold panners, the anime shows us a map of Hokkaido, just in case viewers don’t know where Hokkaido is and how it looks like, gold falling on it.

- When we see the corpses of the Ainu we can see that the head of one of them is cut, a hint they were chopped into pieces. In the anime that’s not the case.

- When Gotou says how much gold was stolen in the manga Sugimoto seems surprised, in the anime sceptical.

- In the anime we see that when Gotou says one of the guards was an horrible man in the anime Sugimoto finally stops trying to pan for gold and fully turns toward him while Gotou makes a gesture that implies cutting something.

- When Gotou asks Sugimoto what would he do to escape from Abashiri, in the manga Sugimoto is smiling and apparently enjoying the story as he claims he has no idea how he would do and asks Gotou to hurry and tell him. In the anime he just stands there, looking serious as he asks the same.

- The anime shows Nopperabou’s eyes and how they’re big and blue something the manga kept hidden.

The visual also seems to imply all the tattooed prisoners were around Nopperabou when he told them to escape so they could have half of his gold.

This is not in the manga. The line to how the bodies spent so much time suffering together is also gone.

- In the manga when Sugimoto question Gotou’s story he’s again smiling. Sugimoto clearly seems to take this as some sort of tale, not a real story but he’s intrigued. In the anime Sugimoto is serious as he questions Gotou’s story. He will remain serious until Gotou will explain one needs all the tattoos to decrypt the code. At this point he’ll smile as if approving the idea.

- In the anime the prisoners’ had and feet are unharmed but the same isn’t true for the anime where they sport cuts and scars and are overall pretty dirty.

We also clearly see a glimpse of Hijikata’s grinning mouth, a scene absent in the manga.

- In the manga for once we aren’t shown in details the corpses of the soldiers killed, although one seems to be without pants. In the anime we get a good view of them and they all wear their pants.

- In the manga when Sugimoto asks ‘then what?’ he seems curious, but he’s not smiling, in the anime he’s grinning. In the manga Sugimoto will grin only when he’ll ask where Gotou heard that story while in the anime his face will be kept hidden at this point.

- the anime shows Sugimoto dressing up and noticing Gotou has fallen asleep. He then finishes dressing up but before he can wear his scarf we get a glimpse of the scar of the wound he got in the neck… which the manga showed us when Gotou turned toward Sugimoto.

My two cents: As in the anime so far Sugimoto has been extremely unsociable, it feels weird how Gotou opens up with him. One might wonder if Gotou wants to show off BADLY or if he’s just a VERY talkative guy, much more than in the manga where the two had a good relation. It’s very good how the anime had the good sense to keep the whole story as it was told. Regarding the visual differences, Sugimoto turning toward Gotou when he heards the word ‘gold’ makes him look like he’s much more interested than in the manga since so far he had been ignoring Gotou, but only because the story Gotou is sharing talks about gold. In the manga Sugimoto paused and turned when Gotou just told him he would tell him an interesting story, hinting how Sugimoto was okay with making a break just to hear Gotou talking. The scene of the gold falling on Hokkaido is a nice touch. Nopperabou’s apparition with hands dripping blood is dramatic and well done. I’m not really sure why the anime felt the need to change Sugimoto’s expression, making him all serious and making him grin at a different time. It gives me the feeling Sugimoto is taking the story more seriously in the anime than in the manga. The anime glossed over the poor treatment of the prisoners but it was nice it referred to it visually, by showing the poor conditions of their hands and feet. The spoilers about Nopperabo’s having clear eyes and the glimps of Hijikata’s face are actually a nice touch if you ask me. On the other side showing the convicts being all around Nopperabou is wrong as such thing couldn’t happen or the convicts would know each other and this is not the case. The anime should have kept this in mind. The anime choice to keep the part in which Sugimoto claims Gotou told him other stories makes Sugimoto’s initial coldness toward Gotou even more marked. It basically seems as if Gotou isn’t someone he’s friendly with but someone who comes to bug him with lies.

THE DREAM/FLASHBACK

Manga and anime: During the war Toraji invites Sugimoto to go with him in Hokkaido, once the war is ended, to pan for gold as he wants to find money for his family. Toraji claims he has to hurry then entrusts Umeko to Sugimoto as he cries. When Sugimoto turns toward him, Toraji’s limbs are missing and he claims he can’t go back to Japan as he starts sinking in a red sea, Sugimoto crying as he is unable to stop him.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Toraji first said he wanted the money to allow his kid to study, so he would grow up smarter than him and then in order to have a good doctor look at Umeko’s eyes as her eyesight is getting worse. In the anime though, Toraji doesn’t mention his kid.

- In the manga, when Toraji says relationships between America and Japan will go downhill at the end of the war Sugimoto questions this, saying they’re in good terms with the Americans, a line cut in the anime.

- In the manga the scene of Toraji being limbless is gruesome, intestines and bones coming out of him and we also see other people in the sea in which Toraji is sinking, in the anime is less so. Toraji misses his limbs but there are no intestines or bones in the view, nor corpses in the sea of blood (although there’s something but they seem to be scraps of clothes and nothing more).

My two cents: Overall this is transposed well although I don’t get why the mention to Toraji’s son was cut (they shows Umeko has a kid on his back so it’s not like anime viewers didn’t know about him). Even if tamer than the manga the sinking scene is pretty well done.

GOTOU’S MURDER ATTEMPT AND SUGIMOTO’S WAY TO DEAL WITH IT

Manga and anime: Sugimoto wakes up from his nightmare to discover that Gotou is pointing his rifle at him, claiming he had told him too much. Sugimoto grabs the rifle and points it at himself, asking him if he wants to see if he’s really immortal before hitting him with a rock, getting back the rifle, removing the safe and charging it. At this point Gotou escaped.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Sugimoto has tears in his eyes when he wakes up, the same isn’t true for the anime

- In the manga when Gotou point his rifle at Sugi he’s pretty creepy (his attempt to charge him where not visible, we only hear the sound of it) while in the anime it’s clear he doesn’t know how to use it well as we’re shown how he’s not good at charging it so his attempt at creepiness fails flat.

- In the manga Sugi is attentive when Gotou says he said too much, before grabbing the rifle and pointing it at himself, in the anime he seems emotionless.

- In the manga Sugimoto is really excited when he realized Gotou’s tale might be true, he’s all sweaty and his eyes are open wide, while in the anime he’s grinning but he looks a lot calmer.

My two cents: I really, really, really mourn how the anime decided not to show the tears in Sugi’s eyes as they well delivered how much the matter hurt him to the point he won’t just dream he cried but he’ll cry in his sleep. Gotou being more clumsy than creepy and Sugi being more emotionless/calm aren’t really good choices either, the first because it lowers the tension, the second because it makes Sugimoto less emotional (Sugimoto is a very passionate person) in an attempt to make him look cooler but okay, they aren’t that big.

SUGIMOTO, GOTOU AND THE BEAR BEING KILLED BY ASIRPA

Manga and anime: Sugimoto tries to track Gotou down claiming if he let him go Gotou might come to kill him. He ends up finding his body buried in the snow. When he pulls him out he discovers a bear killed him and ate his guts and that Gotou has a tattoo on his body which tells Sugimoto Gotou was one of the prisoners. Sugimoto tries to take Gotou away and sees a cub bear before being attacked by the cub’s mother. He’d like to use his rifle but the sling got tangled in Gotou’s leg. He falls off a slope but the bear chases him and when he’s about to rip him apart the bear is hit by an arrow. Sugimoto turns to see an Ainu girl is the one who hit the bear.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga the scene of discovering Gotou was eaten is pretty gruesome as we see a huge hole where his stomach used to be and his spinal cord, while in the anime it’s pretty tame as there’s just some blackness and blood.

- In the manga Sugimoto is simply more expressive than in the anime, which yes, sometimes makes him more comical but also more lively and relatable.

- In the manga Sugimoto’s fear for the bear is clearly visible thanks to the use of close up, increasing the drama. In the anime not so much as they don’t really close on Sugimoto’s face and have him merely look around.

- In the manga Sugimoto tries to escape climbing the trunk against which he had fallen, in the anime he has fallen already on the other side of it and the bear is immediately after him.

- In the manga Asirpa is just calm and serious where in the anime she seems much more tense and ready to throw another arrow.

My two cents: This part is pretty faithful to the manga, scenes often drawn as they were. Yes, it’s less gruesome but it’s okay, I’m not in Golden Kamuy for the gorey. Sugimoto keeps on seeming less emotional than in the manga, the anime trying to make him look as if he’s less scared while, ironically, the apparently emotionless Asirpa looks more emotional in the anime. I can’t really say I approve of this as Asirpa being emotional in the beginning and then slowly warming up to Sugimoto and becoming more emotional was part of her growth and of her improvement in Sugi’s company. It’s again no big but it’s still detrimental to the characterization.

THE ANIME PLACES HERE AN EYECATCH

THE AFTERMATH OF THE BEAR’S DEATH, SUGIMOTO’S ATTEMPTING TO ALLY WITH ASIRPA AND THE CUB’S DEATH

Manga and anime: Asirpa deals with the corpse of the bear and finds out the bear isn’t the one who killed Gotou and tells him he has to leave Gotou where he is or the bear will chase them. As Sugimoto refuses she tells him he’ll have to kill the bear but she’ll point out how this will be dangerous and how the weak will get eaten. Sugimoto then decides to involve her by showing her Gotou’s tattoo and telling her he has an interesting story to tell her. We’re then shown how the bear who killed Gotou now has killed and eaten the bear cub and is searching for him.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Sugimoto helped holding the bear paw out of the way for Asirpa to open the bear up. In the anime he didn’t.

- In the manga when Asirpa says the situation is bad for you her expression is almost mocking and Sugimoto worries a lot. In the anime she’s just serious nor she specify it’s bad ‘for Sugimoto’ and Sugimoto is not worried, just serious.

- In the manga Sugimoto’s uncomfortable yet funny expression as he says he wanted to carry Gotou to a village is clearly visible, in the anime not so much as the camera is not closing up on him.

- In the manga Asirpa’s calmness and lack of emotional reaction make her look more adult, in the anime she frowns when Sugimoto says he can’t do as he says, looking like an upset child, the camera high above her, making her look even smaller, her voice being more emotional as she asks if Gotou is part of Sugimoto’s family and that important to him.

- Again in the manga Sugimoto seems more afraid of facing the bear (we can see he’s sweating, making his smile a nervous smile) than in the anime where he just grins in a cool manner.

- In the manga Asirpa is outright scary as she says the weak gets eaten and even if she’s much shorter than Sugi the angle of the image makes her look as if she’s towering over him. In the anime the camera is still above her, although not as much as before and she doesn’t look scary at all.

- In the manga Sugimoto seems more hesitant to involve her, he’s sweating as he thinks at what to do and he’s still sweating when he starts telling Gotou’s story to her, in the anime he just lowers his head a bit frowning determinately, no sweat involved which implies less nervousness in involving a kid in this.

- In the manga the scene of the bear eating the cub is gruesome, in the anime not so much as the bear doesn’t eat the cub, it only steps above him after he had killed him.

My two cents: While the overall plot hadn’t been changed I don’t really like how the anime tends to have the camera above Asirpa, subtly remarking she’s a child because it takes away authority from her. In that moment Asirpa wasn’t a cute child, she was an Ainu hunter and Sugimoto should defer to her and that’s why he involves her, because he realizes he needs her. It’s a subtle matter of characterization, it seems minor but it affects how we see Asirpa.

SUGIMOTO AND ASIRPA’S ALLEGIANCE

Manga and anime: Sugimoto tells Asirpa the story Gotou’s told him, thinking to how he’s doing this for Toraji and Umeko and remarking how he’s desperate for money and she agrees to help as one of the men killed was her father. Then she instruct him on what to do. They prepare by lighting a fire and Sugimoto moves the corpse near to hit when Asirpa notices that due to the way the tattoo is done the man doing it intended for the prisoners to be skinned. The two then prepare to fight the bear.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga after thinking he’s doing this due to his friend’s request Sugmoto thinks at Umeko calling him ‘Saichi-chan’ and at himself calling her ‘Ume-chan’. In the anime this isn’t present as the camera merely focuses on the image of Umeko in the photo and on her apparently empty eyes.

- In the manga Sugimoto is desperate as he loudly says he needs money more than anything, in the anime just sad yet determinate.

- In the manga Asirpa is first surprised then shocked as he realizes the truth behind the tattoo, in the anime just serious.

- In the manga when Sugimoto says their only option is to kill the bear he holds his rifle, in the anime that’s not the case.

My two cents: While normally in the manga Asirpa was more emotionless, when she expressed emotions those stood out well, and it was important they would stand out well when she realized the truth behind the tattoos. In the anime this doesn’t happen so the scene ends up seeming more tame when instead what Wilk did was pretty terrible. On the other side it’s okay for the anime not to have Sugi get the rifle as the manga did so only to end the episode in a cool note and Sugi won’t hold it in the next chapter but in the anime the scene continues without interruption so it would have been pointless to have him getting it only to place it away.

CHAPTER 1 OF THE MANGA ENDS HERE

PREPARATIONS CONTINUE, THE BEAR ARRIVES AND A BATTLE ENSUES

Manga and anime: Asirpa explains to Sugimoto what a WenKamuy is, how they need light to fight and what to do to keep the fire on. The bear appears and destroys their bonfire. Sugimoto punches the bear to no result. Asirpa tells him to grab onto the bear’s belly as she tries to aim at the bear. Asirpa throws her arrow at it but Sugimoto stabbing it causes her to hit the head and therefore be ineffective. The bear then runs after her stopping her from throwing another arrow. Sugimoto ends on the ground and Asirpa pulls out her knife but Retar appears and attack the bear. Asirpa instruct Sugimoto on where to shoot the bear but Sugimoto misses but the bear charges him and jumps on him ending up on stabbing himself on Sugimoto’s bayonet. Sugimoto though shows he survived and when Asirpa comments on how he used an Ainu method to kill the bear Sugimoto explains it was a coincidence as his body just moved on his own and asks her to help him getting out from under the bear. They also exchange names.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Asirpa’s explanation is a bit more detailed while in the anime they cut it short.

- In the manga we see Sugimoto’s expression as he says humans are weak but that’s not the case in the anime.

- In the manga Sugimoto and Asirpa carry a big amount of long wood, in the anime it’s just Sugimoto, Asirpa wandering around with her torch doing nothing, and the amount Sugimoto carries is a lot less and smaller.

- In the manga Sugimoto and Asirpa are more worried that the bear is there compared to the anime both of them sweating profusely.

- In the manga Sugimoto’s expression as he tries to hit the bear is scared while in the anime he seems confident.

- In the manga Asirpa is worried as she tries to aim a second time. In the anime she’s calm.

- In the manga Asirpa is clearly pushed down by the bear. In the anime well, it seems almost as if she had jumped back on her own.

- In the manga Retar seems scarier than the anime.

- In the manga Asirpa goes back to looking emotionless as she tells Sugimoto where he should shoot. That’s not the case in the anime.

- In the manga Sugimoto seems much closer to the bear than in the anime when he shoots it.

- In the manga Asirpa smiles when she comments on how Ainu use that same technique and she’s surprised Sugimoto knows it. In the anime she’s serious.

- In the manga when Asirpa helps Sugimoto get out from under the bear they grab each other wrists, which is much more functional, in the anime they grab each other hands.

- In the anime it’s when Asirpa helps Sugimoto to get out from under the bear she explains to him what a Sisam is. In the manga it was explained by a note when Asirpa realized Sugimoto managed to grab to the bear’s belly.

My two cents: Again the anime tampered with the characters’ expressions to no good end. The worst part though is when it placed Sugimoto farther from the bear so as to excuse his failure at hitting it in the right spot. They also changed the way Asirpa helps Sugimoto to get out from under the bear, likely to turn the gesture into a symbol of allegiance as if they were shaking hands. It’s less functional and in the manga it could still represent helping each other instead than just joining forces.

RETAR, ASIRPA’S STORY AND THE FORMING OF THE ALLIANCE

Manga and anime: Sugimoto asks where ‘that dog’ went. Asirpa shows him where it is and explains it’s a wolf not a dog. Later Asirpa explains Sugimoto what she knows about the incident with the gold while taking care of the corpse of the bear. Sugimoto suggests they’ll join forces to find the convicts but Asirpa points out this would mean to kill and skin them. She then gives him part of the bear and explains him how to sell the various pieces of the bear. Sugimoto claims half of the bear should go to her but she claims she wants nothing of it and wants just the first bear she killed as that other bear killed a human and Ainu do nothing with such bears as it did evil and will end in hell. Asirpa concludes she doesn’t want to kill anyone. Sugimoto comments if killing people sends you to hell he’ll clearly go there, thinking back at how he did so in the war. Sugimoto explains, as he skins Gotou that the gold wasn’t found yet but that if it were to be found the guy who killed her father would be murdered as it would become useless and remarks that’s what Asirpa wants. He promises her he’ll be the one getting his hands dirty asking in exchange for her wisdom as he wants the money and she wants revenge so their destinations are different but the path is the same and together they’ll be unstoppable.

Minor differences between the two:

- In the manga Sugimoto is worried about the white dog in the anime he isn’t.

- The anime adds the image of Asirpa looking at the howling Retar lovingly.

- In the manga Sugimoto comments on how Asirpa’s village wasn’t informed about Nopperabou being captured or about the tattoos because likely the ones involved in the case are trying to find the gold themselves. The anime cuts this bit.

- In the manga when Sugimoto says to find the gold Asirpa asks him what’s his plan if he plans to track down and the convicts and what he would do with them, pointing out the one tattooing them wanted them to be killed and skinned. In the anime when Asirpa asks about his plan Sugimoto replies they’ll track the convicts and then she asks him what he plans to do with them, asking him if he would kill and skin them.

- In the manga Asirpa says she’ll ask the villagers to help her take it home, in the anime this is cut.

- In the manga the memory of Sugimoto killing people is pretty gruesome. In the anime it’s just a close up of Sugimoto pointing his rifle around.

- In the manga when Sugimoto smiles thinking he’ll go to hell his lips are unheven, hinting he might be not so content with the idea but smiling to hid his nervousness. In the anime he looks perfectly calm, his lips a straight grinning line.

- In the manga Sugimoto pants a lot as he skins Gotou, his hands sweaty, in the anime that’s not the case and we later even see him grinning as he skins Gotou.

- In the manga Asirpa is uncomfortable as she hear Sugimoto speaking of how her father’s murderer is still alive, in the anime she’s just serious.

- In the manga Sugimoto looks highly uncomfortable as he holds the skin while in the anime he’s okay with it.

- In the manga Sugimoto turns toward the viewer with a smile as he says he and Asirpa have the same path. Asirpa also is looking in that same direction albeit she looks again expressionless. In the panel below them the manga shows a pile of tattooed corpses. In the anime the scene ends with Sugimoto and Asirpa looking at each other, both serious the anime never showing the tattooed corpses.

- In the anime, after the theme (it’s actually the opening theme but this time is used as ending theme on a black background) we see a man with a white cape finding tracks of the fire Gotou and Sugimoto light. This scene is absent in the manga.

My two cents: While the anime tried to tame down things by not showing how gruesomely Sugimoto killed people, ironically made the skinning worse. Sugimoto panting and sweating hinted how he wasn’t okay with it in the manga, in the anime he grins and doesn’t pant or sweat, which makes him look perfectly comfortable with skinning a man.  The anime has a weird way to go with Asirpa. When she’s emotionless in the manga it gives her emotions, when she has emotions in the manga it draws her just serious. Personally I also think the ending of the manga is more powerful compared to the one of the anime and hints at how this supposedly cool allegiance stands on the idea of a pile of tattooed corpses (and therefore is not a good thing). On another side the idea of showing a glimpse of Ogata already hunting for tattooed prisoners generate expectation for the next episode. We can’t know if he’s a soldier, another prisoner or a mere bystander casually passing by after all but the fact he’s holding a rifle makes him look dangerous.

TO SUM IT ALL

The first episode is by no means bad as a transposition although it made some questionable choices.

It was okay to remove the gore to make it more appealing to viewers but here and there they changed the characterization and, while the changes seemed minor, ultimately they impact with how a viewer, who’s not aware of the manga, will perceive the characters.

This is detrimental to both Sugimoto and Asirpa as in the attempt to make Sugimoto look cool, he looks cold and less human while Asirpa looks more like a child and less like an authority in hunting as well as ‘more boring’ since he’s constantly serious while in the manga alternated moments of emotionless to moments of emotions.

Also in the anime it’s a lot less noticeable how Noda subtly criticizes war as a source of trauma in men and the killing of people to get the gold.

The quality of the animation and the care of the backgrounds and visuals is nothing special (and okay, I know you want to hear me saying so, therefore yes, the bear is poorly animated, had they simply drawn him it would have looked better) and so is the direction of the story.

Personal impression here, I’ll have to say the musical background is not ugly but nothing impressive and wasn’t always present. Honestly no song remained within me. Think just at when Sugimoto has his nightmare. At first there’s a tame, gentle music but then the music disappear as Toraji shows himself limbless. There’s no music to underline the trauma of that moment, same as there was no music during the attack in the war or when Gotou pointed the gun to Sugi. The music we hear when Sugimoto begs for Asirpa’s help just doesn’t seem to work to me.

Still this episode can be good enough you’ll watch the second episode but it’s definitely not something that’ll make you want to sing praises for it’s animation.

An anime based on a manga has it ‘easier’ as the plot is already created and all it should worry to do is to improve or at least well represent it. It’s okay to change or cut things, as long as they improve the story or better transpose it into animation.

“Golden Kamuy” in this episode doesn’t really makes anything noticeable except maybe adding details to the Russo-Japanese war and to the method to pan gold, it can work to promote the manga but nothing more. Compared to an anime like “Boku Dake ga Inai Machi” which beautifully transposed the manga on which it was based it definitely shows itself to be inferior.

Well, this was all for the first episode. We’ll see if I’ll manage to talk about the second.

#Golden Kamuy #Sugimoto Saichi #Asirpa #Wilk #Hijikata Toshizou #Golden Kamuy Episode #Golden Kamuy Manga vs Anime

[eisforeidolon]

Episode: Atomic Monsters

I watched this at least a week ago, but just didn't get around to rewriting my notes into a post 'til now.  I did actually find this the best episode so far, but lets be real, that's such a low bar to clear at this point it says basically nothing.

The opening sequence is really fun!  I found the whole thing genuinely enjoyable, both the action itself and that it included exactly the kind of return cameo I can actually get behind.  No retcons or resurrections that make death somehow even cheaper or ruin the original finish to the character's story!  Not even to mention that, instead of existing just for the sheer fanservice of it?  A sequence like this is actively improved by giving us a familiar face we have investment in to keep it from being all just random unfamiliar cannon fodder getting offed.

Unfortunately, this isn't the rousing endorsement it could be when we know that both expanding to a big action sequence and bringing Benny back for it were actually Jensen's ideas.  Not even to mention that the thing which really works best in the episode?  It's the dream sequence that's not actually connected to anything else and doesn't have to worry about continuity to work. This is my surprised face.

I enjoyed the exchange between Sam and Dean in the kitchen.  The meat man conversation over the bacon was rather silly, but in a fun way. I've seen some people reading things into it (it's insulting Dean doesn't know the slang, Sam is randomly vegetarian now) that I didn't really see there.  I did appreciate how Sam was weirdly jumpy and had trouble meeting Dean's eyes after the creepy alternate world dream.  I thought it worked really well for both slice-of-life and Sam’s reaction.

In terms of the Winchester's case, well, for the most part it could have been worse.  I don't honestly believe even if I hadn't been spoiled that I wouldn't have immediately suspected the parents from their introductory exchange about how Billy playing in the big game was more important than a cheerleader's death.  I think it was supposed to be a retroactive subtle clue, but it was more of a clue-by-four.  So the “mystery” of tracking down the monster was pretty lost on me.  I did like that the one girl having braces was a clue!  But I also thought the scene with her rehearsing her speech on a live mic in an empty auditorium was weird and contrived.  I straight out cannot forgive that a girl was literally abducted from the school campus and NOBODY checked the security footage near her car fucking IMMEDIATELY well before Sam & Dean.  C'mon.  Then, of course, a couple random middle-aged suburbanite humans get the drop on Sam and Dean, because Dabbernatural really just loves to make them incompetent so plots happen.

Then the big reveal and blah blah blah, kid accidentally ate his girlfriend.  WHAT WERE WE SUPPOSED TO DO???  Um, maybe try not being scumbags?  Idiotic scumbags at that, abducting a second girl from their son's own school instead of somebody that wouldn't be missed or even, hey, maybe encouraging him to try harder not to eat people.  Don't try to sell me on this pseudo hallmark 'but they just love him so much' bullshit.  At least the kid has more self-awareness and conscience than his fuckwad parents.  

Then we get to the infuriating character assassination part of the programme.  Having Sam and Dean say that they'd do the same thing as the dad for Jack their “son”?  Fuck you very much, show.  I could maybe, maybe, see Sam or Dean kidnapping and draining the life out of an innocent to save the other at their most desperate worst.  Though I think the only time they even really get close to that kind of an actively, knowingly evil choice is with Doc Benton.  Not only do I not buy for a second that they would do that for the totally-really-their-actual-child-for-reasons albatross Dabbernatural has shoehorned into their lives?  Struggling to do the right thing even when it hurts used to actually mean something – it was always a very important qualifier that while Sam or Dean might make that choice, the other would not let them.  So having them both agree this kind of straight up villainy would be a-okay for oh-so-totally-loveable-no-really-woobie-blob Jack ...

Like carelessly assassinating every human in the BMoL headquarters, it fundamentally fails to understand what it is that keeps Sam and Dean from being the monsters.  Hint: it's not just that the show centers around them.  “We do the ugly thing so that people can live happy” - these moronic hacks seem to be actually trying to parallel Sam and Dean saving innocent victims and the world to human monsters that were going to selfishly help their son eat his way through the entire goddamn cheerleading squad.  Am I getting this wrong somehow?  Is there some other, less appalling, reading here that I'm missing? This whole scene honestly made me nauseous.

They talkity-talk on for a while longer, but it's really not much better.  Sam declaring that God was totally done with them was the writers putting those words in his mouth based on nothing.  At it’s very best, it was Sam’s bad habit of convincing himself conclusions he’s come to are true because he wants them to be.  So them both just deciding to believe it's true after Chuck has admitted to orchestrating their entire lives … I'm not sure if we should conclude the Winchesters have brain damage or if that's just the writers.  Especially when the underlying reason for it is nothing more compelling than , “Watch the Winchesters see-saw on the angst fulcrum completely at random!  Yay!”  If this was actually well written, there would be some precipitating reason for Sam to suddenly be the one being all fatalistic while Dean is accepting.  Instead, the writers  just slap some coin-flipped angst angst angst on the page and meander on in a supposedly forward direction.

So then there's the other half of the episode, the Becky storyline. Am I the only one a little disturbed that Becky's first reaction to seeing Chuck was to look scared and try to run away?  Like, they're exes and all, sure, but she doesn't know any of the god stuff yet – I think the only thing she even says about their breakup is that Chuck dumped her.  Is that reaction supposed to be yet another bit of “new canon” showing how Chuck was just that terrible all along? But then she does let him in, so maybe we're just supposed to take it as Becky still having a tendency towards dramatics?  I honestly don't know, but it was weird to me.  

I do genuinely love that they had Becky go to therapy and realize just how absolutely fucked up what she'd done was and ultimately sort herself out to become someone who seems to be a well-balanced adult. A well balanced adult that didn't have to give up being a fan for that!  Seriously, kudos to the writers for this, because 7.08 is such a loathsome episode that otherwise ruins Becky as a character.   Though I do have to nitpick a bit – while I get that they wanted to put SPN merch in Becky's home as a callout to her still being a superfan?   In the show's universe, Chuck's books were never that popular, so I'm having some suspension of disbelief issues that there would be Funkos for them.  We could pretend they were customs, but she's got at least one Impala, so even that doesn't quite work.  I'm not entirely sure who “people only want them sitting around doing laundry anyway” is a dig at, but I'm giving it the side eye.  

I also am not entirely sure what to make of Chuck's whole no one needs me I kinda hate me I'm all lost and don't know what to doooooo shtick.  Is this a game he's playing?  Is he really that wishy-washy? Did some of Dabb's sad internal monologue as showrunner somehow end up in a script by accident?  

He goes on like that and laments he's lost the Winchester's trust and had words with them or whatever, and then he zaps Becky and her family away at the end.  Like, if he cared enough about Becky to care about her opinion, why does he turn on her, too, just like that?  I guess we're supposed to see it as him having found his mojo in her space and vanishing her because taking over her space that's working for him currently is his latest whim.  I suppose they're intending to show Chuck as just being that capricious and flighty, but I don't know that it works for me.  The way they've been writing him he's acting so randomly and impulsively that it's kind of unbelievable he can even sit still at a keyboard long enough to write another Sam and Dean installment.  Again, I definitely find it unbelievable that the Chuck they're giving us now would be capable of playing the long game that he would have had to for him to be actively behind everything.  Until he suddenly got impatient and lazy and popped up in the cemetery at the end of the last finale ... for reasons … and is now just … like that … because.

Not to mention that his powers are, big shock, just as arbitrary as everyone else's in the current show.  He can't actually see what is happening to Sam and Dean because of the bullet sapping his power or whatever, but we're supposed to be worried about the ominous ending he's writing for them because … he's got those god powers to make it happen, I guess?  Uh...

I will grant that the ominous bobbing of Sam and Dean Funkos' heads to Chuck's furious typing was a wonderfully foreboding shot to end on.  

#negativity for ts #long post #anti dabb #anti jack kline #writer incompetence #spn season 15 #spn 15x04

[thebloodfridge]

Does Ragna try to take the easy way out?

Probably a pretty silly question to pose about the character whose theme is “Rebellion”, or I would hope it is but the fanbase has surprised me before. In fact, I bring this up because someone argued for this very point and I am hard pressed to think of a time when someone has misunderstood a character so badly. At least when the person also claims to like the character and isn’t trying to purposefully misrepresent them, at any rate.

Now, on its face, I can see someone believing this argument has some merit. Ragna’s lazier mannerisms and multiple moments where he insists to others that the is not who he is to avoid trouble could lead someone to believe he does indeed seek the easier route in life. If they haven’t seen much of him anyway. Still, to anyone who has played through the story and paid attention to his character, the thought is ludicrous.

And I can prove it, too, for those who consider it necessary.

The simplest place to start would, naturally, be the beginning of Ragna’s story. We all know what happened when Terumi came a knockin’ and what followed. Once he understands the situation, he is faced with a choice with what to do next, and he decides to fight. He commits roughly a decade to training with Jubei learning how to fight, use his grimoire, cook and likely more general knowledge and survival skills. Not terribly easy, I’m sure we could all agree, yes? This is all in preparation to fight what is essentially the world government almost single handed, mind you. This was all made abundantly clear to him, as well, when Rachel explicitly spelled out to him that he would face hell, and he readily accepted it.

How about we jump ahead to CS, though? Ragna finally finds Terumi only to discover he is no match. He seems absurdly powerful and even Rachel says Ragna has no hope of defeating his arch enemy. She goes as far as to assure him she will have it handled and its best he remains on the sidelines for the time being. Does he just nod and understand he isn’t ready to face Terumi yet? Not one bit. He takes the challenge and he charges ahead knowing full well he might not survive. Moving toward the end of CS and after he saves Rachel, which is out of his way in and of itself, he is told Noel cannot be saved and he has no choice but to kill her. An easy enough task for him, especially after Hakumen softened her up, but instead he sacrifices his only remaining arm to bring her back. No walk in the park there.

We can skip to CP and while he wasn’t allowed to do much of anything, by the end of the game he makes another big decision to rescue Nu. This is despite her attempting to violently murder him earlier and stabbing him moments after he makes the decision. She is actually actively denying his attempts and I think everyone can agree it would be the much easier choice to give up on the deranged girl, but he keeps at it all the way through CF. Speaking of… The entirety of CF. He is on his last legs, there is no getting around that, but he repeatedly denies any helping hand. Amane offers to Observe him in Rachel’s place and he says no and for no real reason. We then have others like Kagura and his gang insist they help him in his endeavors, but he still says no and only begrudgingly accepts assistance towards the end. This means over the bulk of that game he is knowingly making things much, much harder on himself.

Now, in the interest of discussion, the counterpoint was made that things such as these are irrelevant because of his personal investment. That these are not valid examples of him choosing the harder path because these choices would be a given for him. I would call a point like this moot for a couple of reasons. The first being that is not the topic at hand. The question is “Does Ragna try to take the easy way out?” As in, do we more often than not see Ragna attempt to avoid exerting effort? It is irrelevant what he gets out of the given situation or what he is saying he wants, because what matters is the actual actions he takes and by his own choice. This is especially important for a character with such limited agency like Ragna (which is a whole different can of worms) because so little is in his control. As for the second reason?

Well, lets try some smaller examples, shall we?

It would be easier to push Litchi aside and kill Arakune in CT rather than let the creature which is trying to eat him (and briefly succeeds in the very next game) roam free, but he doesn’t. It would be much easier to walk away from the crazy cat girl who just tried to rob him, especially after he beat her down, but instead he takes her to a restaurant. Even just giving her money would’ve been easier, but he took her himself. It would be easier to just run away from Tager instead of fighting him seeing as he is so slow, but Ragna stands his ground and fights instead. It would also be easier to kill Tager their first meeting seeing as Sector 7 is no ally of his and we as the audience knows Tager will go on to pick a fight with him every game, but Ragna always spares him as a detriment to himself. Family or not, Ragna would be making things much easier on himself were he to kill Jin, the man who attempts to kill him more than once and had a hand in the destruction of his life, but he always lets him go. He would’ve saved himself a lot of time and pain if he didn’t pull his punches so hard against Carl at the start of CS, but he decided he’d rather give the kid the option to retreat instead of forcing him. You can refer back to his run in with Tao for what happens with his first run in with Platinum. It would be much easier to stand back and let the others handle Azrael when Bullet and Celica are in trouble (especially seeing as Rachel and Kagura do just that), but Ragna runs right in despite being virtually crippled at the time. In fact, accepting any fight in that condition was exceedingly more difficult for him than if he were to lay low like he was told. Also…

The entirety of CF.

Heck, I can even include a plug for myself and suggest reading my last post where I shine a light on his extremely limited use of the Azure Grimoire for half the games because that is him making every fight harder for himself considering if he turned that on he would win almost all his fights in seconds.

The final point being you can look across the four games and you will see while he often is not happy about it, Ragna will not shy away from doing things the hard way by any means. Whether this is thanks to personal investment, some kind of honor code, pride, or what few morals he still has left is up for debate and very much circumstantial, but the common theme should be clear to everyone. Whether he is aware of it or not, Ragna does tend to make things harder on himself and always follows through even if it is with all the complaining in the world backing it.

Personally, I would argue this is one of the strong points of his character seeing as vocal reluctance to take on more challenge and responsibility is very human (a trait many anime styled protagonists lack), and the fact he marches on all the same is what makes him more compelling but I digress…

Honestly, I probably put more effort in this than necessary. People screw up a lot of things about BlazBlue and especially Ragna, but I can’t bring myself to believe this one is a common sentiment. I can’t imagine the majority of people actually think Ragna of all characters is actively avoiding trouble.

So, share your thoughts if you like. If you read all that and disagree, well, I guess I’ve still heard worse.

#blazblue #Ragna the Bloodedge #long post #probably #his theme is called Rebellion though

[youngster-monster]

Day eleven // memories

As soon as Petra tells him Uldren is alive, Jolyon has no choice but to go see for himself. She knows it, too. That’s why she doesn’t say anything as she watches him leave, but her pitying look is heavy on his back, charged with meaning.

Why do this to yourself? Why bother? Why can’t you let it lie?

And Jolyon knows, alright? He knows he's only hurting himself with this. But he can't help it.

Uldren's madness had been an open wound, left to fester for as long as Uldren had been locked up in the Prison of Elders. His death had been an emptiness, a void, the hole left after digging out the dead flesh. It kept him awake at night, feverish with grief, regrets like a lump in his throat.

(Uldren has always been like a sickness in his blood, burning him from the inside out. He never learned to resent him for it.)

His resurrection is like an itch. A scab he can’t help but to pick at. It would be healthier to leave it alone, but it feels wrong after all the two of them have been through, like he owes it to Uldren to lay his memory to rest once and for all. Bury him himself. He can’t do that if someone’s walking around wearing Uldren’s body.

Pain is an integral part of the Sov experience, anyway. Uldren left scars like marks of ownership: once upon a time, Jolyon readily accepted them like proofs of affection, of battles won and quicksilver smiles in the privacy of a sniper’s stake-out. Mara was much the same if Sjur was to be believed, though more subtle than her brother — as was usually the case. She said I love you more often. This is their only real difference. He can't tell if it was a kindness.

At least Uldren was never cruel.

Petra stops him on the steps of his ship

“You know he won’t remember. He won’t be the same”

“I’m hoping for it,” he says, voice soft with a well-worn kind of grief. “I don’t know what I’d do if he were.”

With the help of Petra’s intel it doesn’t take Jolyon long to track his fireteam down to Nessus. And isn’t that an odd thought, Uldren so comfortable in his role as a Guardian he is part of a fireteam?

It’s easier than expected to catch Uldren alone. Jolyon calls out to him as he’s wandering off away from his fireteam, legs dangling off the branch of a giant tree.

Uldren looks up, his expression closed up, wary.

“You know me,” he states, like it’s a terrible hassle. “Are you here to kill me?”

“No.” Never could, never will. “Anyway, I think you’ve become remarkably harder to kill than the last time anyone attempted.”

He tilts his head, lips quirked in an amused smile. “Hasn’t stopped anyone from trying before.”

Familiarity is like a punch in the guts, leaving Jolyon briefly breathless. He shakes it off.

“I do want to talk, though.” He gestures to the branch he’s sitting on. “Join me?”

Uldren does. Now his reckless assurance has a basis in reality: easier to pull a stunt like storming the Black Garden when you’re basically unkillable.

If only they’d known. If only—

“Who are you?” He asks. That pulls him out of his thoughts with the effectiveness of a bullet in the heart. He seems to realize and looks away, awkward. He won’t say sorry, though. Prideful bastard. It’s not like he can help it, anyway. Guardians never remember anything. He does offer an explanation, a new but welcome development. “People keep coming up to me like they know me. At this point it’s quicker to ask outright.”

“I’m- Jolyon.”

There’s not way to summarize their entire relationship in a way that is both concise and not too weird to hear out of the blue, so he doesn’t bother to try.

Uldren takes it in and for a wonderful second Jolyon can almost believe he’ll remember… something. Then he shakes his head and sounds almost apologetic when he says, “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Didn’t expect it to.”

“Were we… close?”

That takes him by surprise. He glances at Uldren, but the Prince— well. Not Prince anymore. He’s looking away, one knee brought up to his chest. He always tries to pass it up as a casual sitting position, a way to offer his arm a support, but in truth he only does it when he’s uncomfortable. Like putting something between himself and everyone else can protect him, somehow.

“We were,” he says with absolute certainty. At least he likes to think so. “I was your partner. Fought at your side more often than not. You were my look-out in the field.”

“Alright.” A simple acceptance, like it’s an objective fact that isn’t remotely connected to him. In a way, it isn’t. “What are you here for, then? Trying to rekindle an old flame?”

“It’s not- we weren’t… like that.”

“You look like you were.”

This time it’s Jolyon who looks away. “You- It didn’t work like that.”

“Yeah, I’m getting the feeling old me wasn’t big on interpersonal relationships.”

“No he wasn’t. We were friends, though.” He looks off into the distance and sees eyes dark with the revelations of the Black Garden, the words Uldren never meant to let slip out but didn’t care enough to stop. How can I care for something that never surprises me? “I just don’t think he knew how to love things that loved him back.”

“That’s fucked up.”

This shocks a laugh out of him. He watches Uldren’s outraged expression in the corner of his eye and his heart clenches at the familiarity of it. “Yeah. Yeah, it was. Living with Mara Sov has that effect on people.”

They die or they become… weird. Often both, in either order.

Silence stretches for a moment before Jolyon lets out the question burning his tongue.

“You really don’t remember- Anything? Anything at all?”

Uldren sounds genuinely sad when he replies, “No. Guardians are a blank slate when they’re brought back. We’re not even supposed to seek out our past. Guess I’m just lucky enough to have it seek me out, instead.”

He says lucky like a curse. Jolyon can relate.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You have a right for closure, I guess.” A shrug. “I’m just not the right person to ask for it.”

He jerks his hand up, seems unsure what to do with it, combs his fingers through his hair for something to do.

“I just… I hate it, you know? All those people coming to… kill me or talk to me or whatever. I don’t know them. I wish I did. Or that I was someone else. Though I guess I am, and isn’t that the whole problem? Can’t be tried for the other me’s crimes, can’t be seen as someone else because we share a face.” He chuckles, a harsh, tired sound. “Hey, maybe I’m more him than I thought. It’s awfully easy to talk to you, considering you’re a stranger.”

It’s a long time before he finds the right words to reply. He wants to joke, say I have that effect on people, but he doesn’t know how this Uldren would react. His Uldren — if he could ever be called his — would laugh with him, punch him in the shoulder. His Uldren never sounded like he wanted to cry.

Maybe that’s the point, though. This is a whole new person. He just has to learn everything about him again.

He settles for positive affirmation. “You are,” he says. “A different person, that is.”

“You look at me like I’m the same.”

“Yeah, because I was in love with the guy whose face you’re wearing. I can’t just ignore that.” He shrugs. “Worst thing I’ve happened. And in the end, I’m... glad. That you’re not him.”

Uldren frowns in surprise, turning to look fully at him. “You are?”

“He wasn’t easy to love. All… sharp edges. Him and his sisters were more walking piles of issues than people, some days. And in the end- It wasn’t even him anymore. I’m glad he got to rest, and you get to… do some good in his name.”

“But I don’t want to do things in his name!” He whines.

Another shrug. It feels good to fall back into their old dynamic, the impassive counterweight to the petulant prince. Some things never change.

“You don’t get a choice on that. People will always see you as him, whether you like it or not. All you can do is make up for his choices by being better than him. Give another sense to his name.”

Uldren grumbles but doesn’t say anything else. They sit together, the silence not quite companionable, until a voice calls for Uldren. His fireteam leader, probably. Jolyon stands up, goes to leave before she can find them.

“Wait!”

He stops.

“Do you want to- would you like to talk? Again?” His hand is outreached toward Jolyon. He frowns slightly when he notices it, lets it fall, tries to cover the gesture with words. “Maybe you can tell me some old stories,  try to jog my memory some.”

“I thought you wanted to move on from him. And for your past to stop seeking you out.”

“Well, my past is going to seek me out whatever happens. A Guardian being resurrected so soon after their death is rare, the whole… don’t go looking for your past doesn’t really apply to me, I think. I did too much stuff before I died.” He rises to his feet, dusts himself for an excuse to look away from Jolyon. “Anyway, it’s like you said. I need to- be better, right? Might as well start with being a better friend. You’re nice. It wouldn’t be too much of a hassle.”

Jolyon sighs. It sounds like a bad idea. They usually do, with Uldren. Past or present. But he could never say no. He steps forward.

Uldren doesn’t waste a second to fish a pen out of his pocket, take his hand and scribble a series of numbers on the back of it. He feels warm, solid, alive, in a way that sends lightning coursing up Jolyon’s arm all the way to his heart, shocking it out of rhythm.

“Call me whenever.”

“Sure,” he says as he moves away.

Uldren calls out after him. “Don’t be a stranger!”

“I already am!”

He doesn’t turn around, no matter how much he wants to. The numbers burn against his skin. He moves to rub his hand, stops.

Wouldn’t want to smear them.

#writing #destiny 2 #LGBT Destiny Month #uldren sov #Jolyon Till #im love them #also this is the perfect prompt for GUARDIAN-RELATED ANGST

[soniatucker-blog]

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[thedistantstorm]

A Shipwright Worth Her Salt Chapter 12

In which: Sloane is a woman on a mission, Zavala is beside himself, and Amanda comes clean. (ft. Enoch Bast and Marcus Ren)

(References to suicide and self-harm. If those topics bother you, please proceed with caution or click away from this post.)

-/

“Listen to me, and listen carefully,” Sloane is saying, her eyes dark and hard, her arm wrapped around his neck in a rather constricting headlock. She would not actually harm him, but she would definitely stand there with him in that position until he begged her to end his suffering. “You are going to tell me everything you know. Now.”

Marcus holds up both hands in an apologetic way, casting a glance at Enoch, who looks incredibly guilty. Sloane had just threatened to deploy him to Mars for the next two centuries if he didn’t lead her to Marcus. He had no choice but to force his Hunter friend to fold.

“She paid me to pick her up. I’ve worked with her before. She’s paid me for birds, done work on some of mine. Didi and I like her well enough but it’s not like we’re super close.”Sloane released him and he worked out the tightness in his neck as he returned to his usual height.

“Well, it’s in the Vanguard’s best interests that we return her to the Tower. Perhaps you should have checked before you picked her up from our exclusive hospital? What if she had been a suspect to a crime?”

“Flygirl is only dangerous if she’s racing you. There’s not a malicious bone in her body.”

“‘Flygirl,’” Sloane quotes, testing out the nickname, “Is recovering from a serious injury. Or did you miss it-”

“Nope, didn’t miss it.” He motions to his right leg with a slashing motion. “Kind of obvious.”

“You have a way to get in touch with her? Or any idea where she is?”

He sighed. “She’ll never work with me again, if I contact her for you.”

Sloane shook her head. “I’m sure she’ll forgive you. I, however, will not. The Commander is rather serious about her safe return.”

“The Commander?” Enoch looks at Marcus, surprise on his face. “Like Commander Zavala, the Commander? Dude, what did you get us caught up into?”

“Dude, yourself, Bast.” Marcus rolls his eyes. “I asked her why she had his radio and she didn’t tell me. It’s not about the radio, is it?”

“The radio?” Sloane pauses. She turns her palm up and her Ghost immediately appears. “Contact the Commander. Ask him about the radio.” A shiver, one flash into light, and some sparks later, her Ghost reappears.

“His Ghost thinks we might be able to hack it remotely. Will send you coordinates.”

Sloane nods, and regards the unlikely duo. “If they can hack this radio, you’ll both be lucky.”

“She said she wasn’t in trouble,” Marcus says defensively. “I just gave her a rover. Nothing crazy.”

The female Titan nods, and picks up a mostly broken data-pad on his workbench. “She’s not really in trouble. I think.”

“You think.” The male Titan looks perplexed.

Sloane sighs. It’s obvious this isn’t her usual cup of tea. “It’s a difficult situation. Need to know information, Bast.” The lightest warg of sound from her Ghost comes with an updated target in her HUD. Target is South by Southeast. “Looks like cyber team was successful.”

As Sloane turns to leave, Didi chimes, “You know, you could come around once and a while for fun! I know you like a good Sparrow as much as the rest of us!” The Deputy Commander raises a fist in acknowledgement as she leaves, and Didi scoffs. “She’s always got her knickers in a bunch. Thank goodness I’ve got you as my Guardian, Marcus. I think I’d die of boredom as her partner.”

Both male Guardians laugh, before looking at each other. They’d dodged a bullet there. Things were never dull around this damn City. It made patrols a welcome break, once in a while.

-/

Sloane does not make a sound as she enters the building. She follows her Ghost’s intel via their neural link. Third story, last room on the right. The rover was parked a block over, and there’s the obvious scratch marks from crutches on the floor in front of the door. She knocks tentatively. She knows this whole thing needs to be handled with caution - which is why she’s the one doing it, not the Commander. Even if he means well. He’s an absolute wreck. This requires a lighter touch.

There’s a thump, and the clink of crutches, before the door opens a crack. The girl gasps, and Sloane bites her lip. She doesn’t look well - like she hasn’t slept since she left the Tower. There’s a haunted look in her eyes and they are very bloodshot.

“Can I come in?”

Her left hand twitches on the crutch she’s holding onto. She tries to peer around the larger woman. “Who’s with you?” Her throat sounds incredibly scratchy, like she has a cold.

“My Ghost. No one else.”

“Does Zavala know you’re here?”

She shrugs. “At this second, no. He has me looking for you, so I’ll have to report back to him at some point. Can I come in?”

Amanda shrugs, saying hoarsely, “You’ll let yourself in if I don’t, right?”

Sloane sighs and replies, “No, but I’ll probably end up standing here until Zavala does.”

“C’mon then.” She undoes the chain and pushes the door open.

The room is small, obviously meant for only one inhabitant. Sloane makes sure to move away from the doorway instead of backing up to it like she’d prefer. Amanda limps back to the half made bed, and flops onto the side of it. She’s bundled up in clothes like she’s feverish. She’s obviously not taking good care of herself.

“I’m sure you know why I’m here.”

Amanda nods, not looking at her. “To take me back. But I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to mess anything up for the rest of them.”

“You won’t.”

“They’re all fighting bout me.”

“They fight no matter what.” Sloane doesn’t buy it. Truly. They fight over literally anything, without anyone’s help.

“The Speaker‘s concerned about me being there ‘fecting Zavala’s sense of duty,” Amanda finally admits, after several minutes of silence. The wheeze in her voice is mildly distressing. “Heard Cayde and Andal talking about it.”

“Idiots,” Sloane rolls her shoulders back, kneeling in front of the teen on the edge of the bed so that they are at eye level with each other. “Look. The Speaker is concerned because Zavala chose you. You’re a brat, if you ask me. But you’re his brat. Zavala is beside himself right now, worried about you. Fuck the Speaker. There were plenty before him, and there’ll be plenty after him. You don’t need his personal approval. Kapeesh?”

The girl looks at her with big green eyes. “That’s what you think?”

Sloane puffs her chest, levels Amanda with a serious gaze. “That’s what I know.”

The ensuing staring contest is severe, despite the younger blinking several times. “I trust you,” Amanda says with a rasp. “Titans don’t lie.”

“To a fault,” She agrees. “I piss a lot of people off that way.”

She nods. “They just can’t handle the truth.” She winces and reaches for her stump, rubbing it gingerly.

“You okay to ride back with me to the Tower? I’m gonna get pinged any second now, and you should really get checked out.” She blows a puff of air into her bangs as she stands. “If we go before he contacts me, I don’t necessarily have to tell him. Means he might not be waiting at the gates and you can talk in private without the whole tower knowing your business?”

Amanda nods gratefully. “Please Just need a second for the cramp to pass,” She grits, rubbing it harder. A little later, she’s shoving Sloane outside so she can change into the only remaining clean clothes she has.

The Guardian lifts her gently when they go downstairs. She flushes in embarrassment. “Sorry I’m so useless,” She murmurs, before Sloane sets her down at the bottom.

“You’re not useless. Stop beating yourself up. It’s stupid.”

“Yeah. Thanks,” Amanda says with a wince when she bumps her bad leg with one of the crutches. “Says the Titan with two legs.”

“You still have two, one is just shorter than the other.” Sloane isn’t feeling the self-pity. “You lived. Plenty of Guardians wouldn’t. They’d chicken out and let their Ghosts take away the pain. You don’t get that luxury. It makes you tougher than the rest of us. Takes balls to keep on keeping on. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

She helps Amanda onto the Sparrow first, before hopping on in front of the girl, who wraps lanky arms around her waist and leans into the back of her chest armor. She should have a helmet, the Titan thinks. Sloane removes the piece that transmats onto her head automatically, twisting back to face the girl. “Here.”

Amanda looks at her. “It’s okay.”

“Put it on.” The Titan’s tone brokers no argument, and Amanda caves. The helmet is a little bit too big, but it does the trick and smells like citrus shampoo. She leans back against the Titan, who starts the bird and lets it squeal before they jet away. Once she gets to cruising speed, Sloane takes one hand off the handlebars and squeezes it over Amanda's interlocked ones.

It’s with this action that Amanda decides she likes Sloane well enough. She’s passionate and serious and doesn’t take any shit. And, she's not terrible at driving like Andal is, or a speed demon like Cayde who has no finesse. She really needs details on how Zavala is on one of these things.

They take the long way up the Tower. Sloane walks with her quietly, not upset that the girl’s pace gets slower as they get closer to their destination. “You feeling okay?”

She nods, stifling a cough. “I’m alright.”

They continue down the hallway until they reach an area that requires a code. Sloane enters her own, and the doors whoosh open in a rush of air. “I’m going to take you to the Commander’s office first. He can choose what to do with you. Unless you think you need to be checked out immediately.”

Her tongue peeks out from her lips as she thinks. “Nah,” She decides. “I should probably get the hard part over with, huh?”

“I don’t think it will be as hard as you think,” Sloane says sincerely. “But I do want to tell you something.”

Amanda stops, and looks over at the Deputy Commander keeping to her left. “Yeah?”

“If,” She sighs. She can rally troops, but pep talks on these sorts of things aren’t really her forte. “If you feel like you’re going to do this again, or… whatever, just talk to someone. If I’m free, I’m all ears. Don’t run. You’re not a coward.”

She nods. “I’ll try.”

“Good girl.” Sloane pats her back once, then clears her throat. “The Commander’s office is the next door on the right. Ready?”

The blonde shakes her head. “Not really, but I guess I gotta do this.”

The Titan can tell. “I’ll get the door.”

Sloane knocks once, and hears the gruff affirmation that they may enter. Amanda looks up at her and nods. Sloane nods back and opens the door.

“Sloane. I didn’t think-”

Amanda crutches with Sloane into the large office. She’s trembling again, but she’s not looking back or shrinking away. She’s made of tougher stuff, the Deputy Commander thinks fondly enough, realizing that she’s falling for the girl, the same as the rest of them.

“I’ll take it from here,” Amanda says with a quiet rasp to the woman beside her. “If that’s okay with you?”

The Deputy Commander nods. “I’ll leave you to it. Remember what I said.”

“Will do.”

Sloane regards her superior with a cool nod. His eyes are on the girl, shock, relief, grief evident. “Commander.” It’s like he doesn’t see her, and that’s fine. She has a feeling this one’s going to be too touchy-feely for her, anyways, and lets herself out without waiting for a response.

“Where have you been?” He asks, when they’re alone. His voice is shaking.

Amanda’s eyes water. “A boarding house in the South-Central ward,” She says quietly, sure to keep her eyes up. Once they drop to the floor, she isn’t sure she’ll be able to raise them back up to face him again.

“Why?”

She looks at him. His eyes are unbearably bright, more than usual, and she realizes that there’s a reason for it. There’s tears in his eyes. She’s the reason for them. ‘You’re a brat,’ Sloane’s words echo in her head. ‘But you’re his brat.’ The confirmation makes something twist in her belly.

“I didn’t wanna mess anything up, for you or anybody else,” She admits. “But by tryin’ not to I just made everythin’ worse, didn’t I?” Her voice gets squeaky and pinched toward the when her throat constricts and she fights the urge to cry.

“Foolish child.” He shakes his head, and his eyes are less glossy when he does. “Come here.”

She treks over to him, and he guides her to the couch tucked off in the corner. It’s got a cozy crochet blanket on it that’s orange and blue, and she sighs as she’s able to take a load off her sore arms and leg. Her other leg is aching dully, but it’s been the constant and she ignores it. He sits down beside her, his body turned to face her.

“You look horrible,” She quips, looking at him up close. “You’re not sleeping.”

He shakes his head, murmuring something like, “Unbelievable,” before he says, “Neither are you. And you've fallen ill.” She doesn’t deny it. He tucks a stray lock behind her ear and looks down at her.

“Are you mad at me?” She asks quietly, looking away.

The Commander sighs. “No, Amanda. I am not angry. I am afraid.”

She cocks her head at him. “You? Of what?”

“That you will do this again and I will not be able to find you. That something will happen to you. That I am not making you feel safe enough.”

She reaches for one of his hands. “No. It’s not your fault. I’m stupid. I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t want to cause more trouble. I just thought if I got outta’ dodge it would make things easier.”

“I thought you truly didn’t want to stay here.”

“I want it more than anything,” She shyly admits. “But I’m not a Guardian. I don’t deserve-”

“You deserve more than I can give you,” He says fiercely. “You deserved to have my protection against those scoundrels-” He closes his eyes and closes his other hand over hers, so that both of his shelter her littler one. This isn’t the time for that. Her gaze is heavy on him. “You deserve to be protected and cherished.” He sighs. “Allow me to do so. Please.”

She swallows. “But, I’m all messed up,” She says in a whimper. “I can’t handle-”

“We will get through it,” He promises. “Together.”

She nods, and curls up against the back of the couch, pulling her good leg up and her cheek to her knee. She sits silently for a long while, processing something. Then, “Can I tell you something?” She worries her lip. “It’s... something I did. Somethin’ bad.”

His heart beats in a frantic staccato in his chest, but he nods. “Anything.”

She nods, tilting her head to stare straight ahead. “I, uh, tried-” She takes a deep breath, clears her scratchy throat. She pulls her hand out of his and unwinds the familiar red scarf around her neck, handing it to him. The line is purple-red, the intentions behind it clear.

“How?” His voice quivers again, and he keeps his eyes trained on her face and not on the mottled bruising that rises above and below the laceration line. Her eyes are bloodshot for more reasons than lack of sleep, and it’s like someone’s dropped the floor from underneath him.

“Shower,” She works up the nerve to explain. “The rod was rusty and broke. I think I lost consciousness. I kinda... woke up on the floor.”

He pulls her to him, and it isn’t until she feels twin saltwater drops on her cheeks that she realizes that he is crying. That’s not accurate though, because she can feel the sobs like small earthquakes in his chest, shuddering through her tiny frame.

“Don’t cry,” She tells him, swiping at his cheeks with cold fingertips. “It’s okay, I’m fine. ’m here. Throat doesn’t even hurt ‘nymore.” That’s a lie, told to try to make him feel better. “I realized I was an idiot,” She continues. “Y’all went through all that trouble to save me, and here I was throwing away all your effort. I won’t do it again.”

He only cries harder at that, and she looks up at him, his eyes are scrunched so tightly closed she wasn’t sure he’d be able to open them again. He does though, making no effort to quell his tears or wipe them away. “Look at me, Amanda.”

She does, his tone rendering it impossible not to comply, though it is incomparable to the depths of his luminescent eyes brimming with tears.

“My sweet, precious child,” He swallows hard, trying to find the right words, trying not to shout or frighten her with the force of his emotions. “I do not care about the effort it took to extract you from that wretched garage. I care about you.” His nose is nearly touching her own, he’s so close to her, but he maintains eye contact. He has to tell her. She has to know. “I love you. Your life is so unbelievably precious. Please believe me. I beg of you.”

“You-” She pauses, stunned. “You love me?”

He nods, and his chin quivers from the effort not to crumple into sobs again. “So very much,” He whispers, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

His tenderness is her undoing.

Strong arms wrap around her as she sobs pitifully, air coming out in gasps between hiccups and coughs - it sounds wretched. The Commander does not hide his own emotions, they’ve surpassed that point now.. His own grief is more easily manageable thanks to his age and experience, but he will not deny his heartbreak. Eventually her sobs die down, and become soft, little rasps. Her hands come to the front of her throat, where the bruising is the worst, and the laceration is the deepest. He shudders.

“What do you need?” He asks her quietly.

She shakes her head. “This,” she answers, dropping her hands and holding onto him tighter. Her throat is really starting to hurt, but she isn’t willing to move right now.

“I’m proud of you,” He tells her, when her grasp eases around his middle. She blinks up at him in confusion. “For telling me,” He elaborates. She looks away. “No, look at me, please,” He says quieter. “I know this is difficult. We... need to talk about these things. We need to continue to do so. And why you feel this way. It’s important. You’re important.”

She nods, and looks down. He puts a hand on her head, and it makes her straighten. “You did this once,” She says quietly, putting both hands atop his on her head. She closes her eyes. “Before. You probably don’t remember-”

“I do,” He intones warmly. “Shaxx had called me away. I believe you were trying to convince me to let you fix my sparrow?”

“It was the first time someone touched me that wasn’t scary since my Ma ‘n Pa,” She whispers to him, her scrunched shut in memory. “I was so scared and alone, in the City,” She said. It seemed to apply both then and now. “But you always made me feel safe. I knew I-” She shakes her head and opens her eyes, casting a glance up at him. “I didn’t wanna scare ya off, some little girl all clingy-like,” She coughs. “But I do,” She says with a nod, refocusing on his face. “I love you, too. So ya know. I’m sorry.”

“I am, too.” She relaxes against his chest and he allows it, smoothing her hair gently for a few moments. He hears the high-pitched rasp in her breathing now that it’s silent and sighs. “You’re going to have to go back to the med-bay for a bit,” He says softly.

She nods into his chest. “I know.”

“I will be limiting some of your interactions,” He says, just as quiet. “You’ll have a guard posted at your door if I am not there.”

“What?” She looks up at him in astonishment. “That’s insane. I don’t need-”

“Amanda.” His eyes are serious. “You’ve just told me something very important, that you did, unsupervised, after being able to run out of the Tower in the middle of the night. I am certain, had Marcus known exactly what you were going to do, he would not have come to get you for all of the glimmer in the system.” She flushed hotly. “You aren’t going to be locked in that room all day and night. You have my word. You will, however, have someone with you at all times. Without exception. Do you understand?”

“Yeah, okay,” She replies meekly, then yawns.

He pulls the blanket down off the back of the couch, and pulls it over her. “You can breathe alright?” He designs to confirm, to which she takes a deep breath in and out before nodding into him again. He hears the raspy wheeze again and tries not to think about why for a few heartbeats. “We can wait a few moments. I’ll handle some things before I take you over.”

He re-positions so that her head is on his thigh, and she’s curled up on two-thirds of the couch. He puts his palm on her head, and she relaxes immediately. She’s asleep less than a minute later.

Aashimah flashes into corporeal existence silently, her eye flickering in an emotional way. “Oh Guardian,” She says to him, “We’ll get her through this.” She flutters to his cheek and nuzzles him in her way. He leans into it, a rarity. “You did really well with her. I can’t imagine-” She floats over the girl, her neck still visible. “This kid,” She twitches. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. She’s worth it.”

He pulls the crochet blanket up to her chin. “Definitely.” He changes tracks. “Send for Ikora. Tell her to be discreet.”

“On it,” She bobs in midair and disappears in motes of light. He scrubs a hand over his face, erasing any evidence of his previous breakdown. No going back on this, old man, he thought to himself. And despite feeling unbelievably out of his depth, and knowing how hard this was going to be, he knew he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

#amanda holliday #commander zavala #deputy commander sloane #marcus ren #enoch bast #destiny fanfiction #destiny2 fanfiction #destiny 2 #destiny ff #swhs fanfic

[mst3kproject]

Trained to Kill USA

Looking at my catalogue of Episodes that Never Were, I realize I have been rather biased in my choice of genres.  It’s not something I did intentionally, I just happen to like monster and mad science movies, and such films are often my favourite episodes of MST3K, so naturally they’re the first thing I go to.  But the show never limited itself by genre, and though I’ve managed to dig up a couple of Eurospy and 50’s Rebellious Teens movies, there are several things notably lacking.  I have not yet tackled a proper western, for example, nor a biker crime spree picture.  Time to pick up the slack.

I therefore present Trained to Kill USA, which I ran across quite by accident while searching for a copy of She-Gods of Shark Reef that didn’t make me want to claw my own eyes out (I never found one).  It’s got Sid Haig from Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II in it and Richard Slattery from San Francisco International, and it’s a nihilistic revenge movie as depressing as The Sidehackers and featuring an incongruously cheerful opening theme song that makes me think of Girl in Gold Boots for some reason. I’m not sure why, but Trained to Kill USA particularly reminds me of the latter movie, maybe just in its general late-60’s-early-70’s aesthetic and Ted-V-Mikels-like incompetence.

We begin with a couple of thugs under the leadership of a man called Prophet, robbing a liquor store and then fleeing from the sheriff, to the accompaniment of a terrible song and some egregious pan-n-scan. They stop at a farm where they assault the owner, elderly Mark, break his stuff, and try to rape his daughter Mary, but then flee when the man’s son Ollie arrives.  Mark wants Ollie to come with him and chase the two down, but Ollie refuses.  Later, however, the gang decides to steal Mark’s gun collection so that they can rob a bank in town, and during this heist Mark shoots Prophet’s buddy Parrish.  Believing Ollie to have been the killer, Prophet vows revenge.

That’s quite a truncated summary – a great deal actually happens in between the first and second attacks on the ranch, and almost all of it feels irrelevant.  Prophet and his men commit crimes, and Ollie sits around and drinks and has flashbacks. I know these scenes are supposed to be establishing character and so forth, but they just come across as filling time before the final showdown.  A family in a camper van get killed.  Ollie’s army buddies beat up Prophet’s men at a gas station.  Prophet fights with his girlfriend.  None of it’s presented in a way that makes the audience want to care.

Like a number of other movies I’ve reviewed, Trained to Kill USA is not this film’s original title.  It was released as The No Mercy Man.  Multiple titles are a common feature of terrible movies, but what’s interesting here is how the change re-focuses the audiences attention.  The No Mercy Man referred to Prophet – his friend Parrish uses that descriptor for him, and it suggests that this is his story we’re watching.  Trained to Kill USA, on the other hand, is obviously a description of Ollie, which leads us to expect rather more of him than the movie initially offers.

The film is actually equally about both men and their inability to fit into society.  Ollie is too damaged by his experiences in war to ever lead a normal life, while Prophet exists in a world where black men are automatically assumed to be criminals and there is simply no other role he can fill.  I think we’re supposed to see them as a pair of tragic figures driven inevitably to a confrontation that destroys them both.  It’s a little hard to say, because the movie is really bad at driven inevitably.  When it tries to set up fate and forces beyond these characters’ control, all it manages are a set of coincidences.  If there’s supposed to be a feeling that this all means anything, the movie misses it by miles.

Even more damaging to what I assume are the film’s ambitions (I’m really not at all sure what this movie is actually trying to do) is the fact that neither of these guys are characters we can root for. Prophet complains that his intellect could have taken him places were it not for his appearance: he is a tall, intimidating black man, and so people treat him as a thug.  Yet Prophet is the very stereotype of that thug, gleefully and gratuitously violent and a rapist of white women.  In both the RV theft and the bank robbery his original plan is to commit a crime in which ‘nobody gets hurt’, but in both incidents he drops this idea the moment something starts to go wrong.  The movie tries to bring some depth to him in his apparently sincere affection for his girlfriend Sally (the moment when he leads her in a circle around the fairground is the only thing in the movie that feels like real emotion), but he turns on her in the end, too, blaming her for the loss of his job.

Then there’s Ollie – he is a steaming mess of PTSD and we feel sorry for him, but we do not like him.  Actor Steve Sandor behaves like a robot and rather creepily looks like one, too. There’s something about his skin that makes him look like plastic.  If he is to be a tragic figure we should really have some idea of who he was before the war hollowed him out, but we see him only as the damaged hero, surrounded by people who are making his trauma worse.  His father is an old grouch living vicariously through his son, and his friends brag about his accomplishments in a way that triggers him repeatedly while they don’t seem to give a shit.  The movie seems to want us to root for him to give in to the violence in order to protect his family, but that is exactly what Ollie himself does not want and, indeed, is the worst possible thing that could happen to his already fragile mental health.  We do not want Ollie to be a hero.  We want him to get away from all this and into an environment where he can heal.

I honestly think the writers were trying to do something with this movie.  They believed they were going to make an important statement about war and racism and how both are damaging to the psyche.  They were trying to give us a tragedy about two gifted individuals who could have been so much more than what the world forced them to be. All they managed, however, was Trained to Kill USA, and the movie sucks.

The photography was bad to begin with and the pan-n-scan did it no favours at all – many shots look bizarrely off-centre, as is evident in the screencaps.  The characters are as flat as a creationist’s earth.  Fight scenes are awful: I don’t remember a single punch that I believed hit anything.  People go leaping over fences ahead of explosions that are obviously nowhere near them.  The ‘Vietnam’ flashbacks are shot in front of some trees in someone’s back yard.  The dialogue is terrible: characters say things like ‘Ollie, you’re the most decorated man in the state!’ and that’s supposed to be subtle exposition.  The Oblivious Camping Family have ‘victims!’ written all over them, to the point where they seem to belong in the opening scene of some slasher movie more than they do in this.  And at the time the film was made it didn’t matter that everything in it was outrageously, garishly seventies, but in the hindsight of a more fashion-conscious age, It just makes it that much harder to take any of this seriously.

The harder this movie tries to build tension, the worse it fails.  There’s a scene in which the criminals confront the Sheriff outside the bank, and while we should be on the edges of our seats, waiting for the bullets to start flying, all we’re seeing is a bunch of guys standing around awkwardly, exchanging terrible dialogue that aims for ‘badass’ and falls on its face.  The bank robbery itself is a free for all of guns and bombs.  It’s hard to tell who’s on which side because we’ve never met half these guys before, and both the criminals and Ollie’s army buddies seem to take such joy in violence that it’s hard to care about what they’re fighting for. The most memorable bit in the scene is the stunt guy who does a perfect flip as he falls from a roof.

At the end, the criminals attack Ollie’s family and he is forced to relive all the things he most wishes to forget as he finally takes them on.  This fight scene almost becomes effective in its brutality and crudeness.  There’s no choreography or sense of justice, just Ollie and Prophet beating the shit out of each other for reasons that have almost nothing to do with either of them.  When Ollie wins, it’s not in any way a victory.  Under constant pressure to give in to the violence, Ollie has lost, and it’s impossible to tell what the movie wants us to feel about this.  The ridiculously cheesy final song, with lyrics like no-one understands you ‘cause you can’t be understood, seems to agree with my gut instinct that this is a disaster, but didn’t we just spend the whole movie waiting for Ollie to kick some ass?  Haven’t we been told over and over that he is the only one up to the challenge Prophet presents?

As the credits roll, we’re left in a similar place to where we were at the end of The Sidehackers – nobody won.  Ollie will continued to be a shattered man held together by alcohol.  Prophet, who was supposed to look redeemable, is now beyond redemption because he’s dead.  What happened to the girlfriend Prophet blamed for getting him into all this trouble, we’ll never know.  How Ollie’s family feel about what he’s now done we’ll also never know, which is particularly annoying because their opinion of him was so important earlier.  Shouldn’t they come to understand why they’ve been treating him badly?  If you try to take their stories at face value, Ollie and Prophet both deserved far better than this shitty fucking movie.

#mst3k #reviews #trained to kill usa #episodes that never were #tw: rape #fuck this movie #70s

[bluerosesburnblue]

Liz Liveblogs Bravely Second: Chapter Two

And we’re back, baby! Finally back with the second chapter of Bravely Second: What’s Past is Prologue

Buckle up, pals. This one’s a long one. Lots of ranting about sidequests and one amazing reveal

Warning that I start cussing more than usual around the mid-chapter reveal, should anyone care about language

Geez, yeah, Yew actually got shot last chapter. Glad to see that he’s alright

He’s also still upset about what Janne said. Turns out Janne had a point: Yew only did what he did because it was his duty as part of House Geneolgia and the Crystalguard. He doesn’t think any of his life has been his own choice

The rest of the team disagrees. Duty dictates that Janne should be executed as a traitor, but Yew consistently keeps trying to reason with him out of compassion

Edea’s giving a speech about how the Crystalguard’s actions may have been black, but the organization as a whole may have been a lighter shade of grey or white with a black mark on it. Coming from last game’s foremost “black-and-white morality” thinker, that just goes to show how much Edea grew during Bravely Default, especially since she’s no longer painting entire organizations as a single color, but noting that they’re a mixture of both good and bad people

Agnès is crying and now Tiz is SUPER pissed that they may have hurt her. Turns out it’s just the smoke irritating her eyes and making it hard to breathe

So... to Eisen? We’re gonna need a bigger boat!

Edea and Magnolia talking in their sleep is keeping Yew up at night. I feel ya, buddy. Edea’s snoring is grating as anything

Oh god Yew’s getting accosted by a mysterious voice with a music box backing track. Run!

“I... haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about” neither do I, Yew. You wanted a boat and this voice went on a tirade about cabbage

Voice’s advice is use your rowboat and go through a whirlpool that MIGHT go away. That’s TERRIBLE advice. Just rent a boat! We have SO MUCH money thanks to my level grinding

Guess the whirlpool IS gone. Still

*Insert months long break for college* At least this liveblog lets me know where the hell I am in the plot

The boat ride to Eisen is super long even with encounters turned off. Who thought the canoes on shallow waters only idea was good?

Oh! OH! Fox girl! She’s the one with the Yōkai job that I heard was super broken oh please let me get the demonic summons (unavailable until Chapter 6. Aw)

Ah, she’s the princess of Yunohana and is looking for her missing brother. And she’s joining us temporarily! Normally I’d be excited because she seems cool, but RPG experience has taught me that most of these situations end in betrayal, so now I’m suspicious (especially since the Yōkai asterisk involves summoning demons)

Princess Yōko is flirting HARD with Yew and Magnolia is so offended (older siblings Tiz and Edea are giving the most backhanded compliments right now)

Commander Goodman is back at Eisen Bridge! Good to see some old faces again, even if it’s under less than ideal circumstances

How good of a shot is Aimee that the entire Eisenberg army is at her mercy?

“Yew Googlymoogly and his three yutzes” is the new party name. It’s taken “ Agnès’s Avengers,” put it in a stranglehold, and had it beg for mercy it’s so strong

Giving the cowgirl a Boston accent is bizarre to experience

God she is just smitten with the Patissier boy, huh?

Magnolia just saved Yew, but Aimee... psychically moved the bullet to hit Goodman when it missed? Guess that explains the cross-continental shot

“The wound is deep” the man was wearing full plate armor. At that point it’s more blunt force impact damage than a bullet wound

The Hartschild festival looks great! I still love the graphical upgrades in this game over Default’s. The town looks gorgeous

How on earth DID we carry Commander Goodman to his home half a continent away?

Patissier boy is funding all of Hartsfest. He’s also absurdly tall like what

Aw, Yew and Magnolia are on a goldfish scooping date. Edea ships it so hard it hurts

Yew got flowers for Yōko and Magnolia, but I sense some cultural confusion happening on Magnolia’s end

Yeah, Magnolia thought that giving a flower was a marriage proposal because that’s what it is on the moon and now she’s crushed because she legitimately thought Yew was her maybe-fiance

DAMN YŌKO. HARSH. MAGNOLIA JUST RAN OFF CRYING

That was some mood whiplash. We just went from a heartbroken Magnolia to HEY GOODMAN’S DOING FINE YAAAAAAAY

Eleanor’s missing and the culprit is probably Patissier Angelo, using his cupcakes to mind control the town because duh. What else would Aimee’s boyfriend do?

Oh for fuck’s sake. Voice is writing in Yew’s journal and he’s soliloquizing about ONIONS now

He knows French. Potential moon person?

Yōko’s brother is here and he’s not a fox boy. Shame. Though the sibling matching clothes are cute

Danzaburō’s hair kinda looks like the Kaiser’s, but it’s hard to tell under the hat. He doesn’t sound like Kaiser, though, so it’s probably just coincidence

So a samurai’s gonna help us fight a sniper. Rad

It’s been so long I forgot about warp pig. How could I forget warp pig?

Ughhhhh the inn’s out of commission. Damn, that makes journal grinding so much harder. Ugh. Okay. Better solve the Hartschild disappearances first

This sidequest is starting with a grandpa and granddaughter moving into the old boat shack. I’m certain this will end in failure

YEAH THERE’S PROFITEUR’S FAKE MOON PERSON ACCENT

And HOLLY. Because you two were just my FAVORITES in Default

Actually, I already spoiled this one skimming through the TVTropes page, so reminding everyone that I am actively making the this The Worst Timeline: we’re siding with Holly. Probably for the best, as I technically already have a healing job

Does this grandfather... have a face? He looks like a yeti. It’s just all hair

So what I got is that Profiteur wanted to buy the sea shack from the family, probably to fix it up and flip it for commercial use. Which was fine because it had been abandoned for years, but the family suddenly came back. And Holly was just here... and against it for some reason

??? Does the sidequest not continue until you’ve solved the Hartschild problem or am I just missing something?

Man, Yōko ADORES her brother. Yew is sighing and musing about how nice that relationship is. Jealous?

Danzaburō’s plan is for the party to use the aqueduct to go under the bridge and sneak up on Aimee from behind while he distracts her. Not a bad plan at all

Damn. He just sliced a bullet in half in midair. Woah

And Hartschild’s fine now? Ooooor it’s only active at night? Is this a town of vampires now? Is that why there’s a “play with dog until dusk” option?

Profiteur wants the inlet to turn it into a trade port. “Old Codger” objects because the inlet is pretty. And Holly is projecting her own childhood sadness onto that girl and that’s why she’s intervening

So unlike the impression I got in Defualt... Profiteur is actually a decent businessman? He was scoping out Eisen Bridge, too

Profiteur does make a decent point. The party’s been mostly listening to old, retired men who aren’t directly effected by the changes, they’re just against the idea of change in general. Ask the young folk currently in the workforce and they’ll want to try anything to make things better. Nostalgic emotions vs practical problem solving

And another good point! They can’t ship things through Eisen Bridge due to the fighting, but the Empire doesn’t have a hold on ocean trade. Siding with Holly really is the worse choice here. That little girl being sad about moving is a worthy price to pay for improving the lives of all Eisenberg citizens

Aaaaaand the little girl’s missing. She left to try and get a job so they can keep the house. Children are bad at big-picture thinking

Oh good she’s in the Mythril Mine. That never went poorly for any child, ever

Damn, Profiteur came to help the kid? I’m liking him more the longer I do this quest

Holly, I don’t need your whole dang life story about how your grandfather worked so hard he ended up neglecting you. It’s sad, but you’re gonna subject a lot more kids to that if you keep harping on this one girl

Holly, it’s not like Profiteur hired the miners. They were working there on their own. Because the economy is bad. This ain’t his fault. He’s trying to fix this exact problem

“Is this the cost of rebuilding a nation?” Did you listen to a thing he’s said? He’s trying to open up trade ports so that they DON’T have to rely on the mine!

Is it obvious that I have little patience for characters who think emotional gratification gives them moral superiority yet? Or characters who prioritize it over actually solving the damn problem?

“It may not be feasts and finery, but isn’t it better just to live together, as long and as happily as you can?” WHO SAID ANYTHING ABOUT FINERY. These people are scrounging to EAT, Holly. They ain’t gonna be LIVING for long if they don’t get the money to buy food and shelter you useless high school economics flunkie

Sorry game. One sad girl and her grandad do not outweigh the needs of a nation. But I’m siding with them anyway, because Worst Timeline

“There’s something wrong with driving a family out of their home for the sake of a country!” NO EDEA THERE REALLY ISN’T. JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING MAKES YOU SAD OR UPSET DOESN’T MEAN IT’S WRONG. YOUR EMOTIONS ARE NOT A MORAL SCALE

“What is zis sentimental nonsense you fools are spouting!?” THANK YOU PROFITEUR FINALLY SOMEONE WITH LOGIC AND SENSE

I don’t know if I ever mentioned it, but I appreciate that the game gives you a summary of the two potential sidequest jobs before you make the choice, as well as warning you that you only get one. It’s nice, clear, and considerate

“It seems you’re having trouble understanding simple economic theory” is the theme of this sidequest

I don’t see why they had to give Profiteur generic villain quotes when you fight him. He was doing so well this sidequest

I don’t think I’ve ever seriously used the Merchant class and I doubt I will now

I don’t want your approval, Holly

AND THE PAYOFF WAS THE KNOWLEDGE THAT BARRAS WANTS TO SETTLE DOWN AND OPEN A CLINIC WITH HOLLY this was not worth it

At least Profiteur’s bestiary entry has Magnolia comment on his accent, even if it’s more tongue-in-cheek “wow he sounds dumb who would talk like that” than “...was he secretly from the moon, too?”

I don’t think I noticed before, but if you Brave multiple spells together it seems to merge them into one animation and that’s cool. Not sure if that’s something related to Yew being a Bishop or Magnolia being a Wizard, since it only seems to do that for Yew

This is the most lava-riddled sewer I’ve ever seen in my life

*gasp* Ancient ninja artifacts have been found in the sewers! Clearly Konoe Kikyo must have been here (and since she’s on my sidequest list for this chapter, I imagine she’s nearby)

I’m so overleveled for every dungeon. The joys and pains of bestiary completion

Why are there so many dragon men in these sewers?

Oh no! Yōko’s been shot trying to protect her brother! Time to conveniently exit the sewers with dramatic timing an end this

Is Aimee’s guncleaver just the next step up from gunblade?

Yew, that was the saddest cheer I’ve ever heard. Good to know Aimee still ships Yew/Magnolia, though

I’ve accidentally made Edea a physical attacking monster. I think she just took out half of Aimee’s health singlehandedly

And the gunslinger goes out apologizing to the Patissier boyfriend. A lot of dying apologies in this game

Gotta get Tiz up to Level 8 Catmancer before fighting her boyfriend. I want 100% completion and there’s a skill in that fight

Yōko’s giving a dramatic death speech and then Danzaburō cuts in with “she’s fine we’re taking her to a hot spring to relax.” Already loving the sibling dynamic

...I just noticed that her fox ears were actually a bow. The small details in this series are incredible

Aw, that’s cute. Magnolia wants to travel the world and eat every food she can because they’re all so different from moon food and from dishes in other regions

Edea’s all for it. Of course

And we’ve just crossed the border from medieval Europe into feudal Japan. Eisenberg is weird, but the music here is great

Aw. Danzaburō is carrying Yōko. What a good big brother

I now present to you: A Generic Anime Hot Springs Episode in a Medieval Fantasy

Oh I’m so glad Danzaburō’s hanging out in the hot spring with Yew and Tiz. And that he wore his hat in

Yew please. We all know Danzaburō has great pecs. They ain’t even submerged

Girls come on. You JUST gave the guys a talking to about peeping. Don’t you three go turning it around on them like that. Guys have a right to privacy, too

Does Danzaburō have a chinstrap beard or is that the actual chinstrap of his hat?

“We should peek back” “If you peek on my sister I will murder you without hesitation” This is exactly what I expected

Ah, Yōko’s asking Yew about a Sword of the Brave. MacGuffin senses tingling

Awww. She wants it because her father won’t let Danzaburō take the throne until he returns with it, since he’s not the emperor’s son by blood. An impossible task, and I suspect that the emperor doesn’t want Danzaburō to succeed

And Yew knows more about the sword than he’s telling, so I’m sensing a tragic sword-related backstory

Oh, damn. Yōko went after the sword on her own, didn’t she? Great

And another sidequest. Sorry Yōko, you’re gonna have to wait a bit

Aw great we’ve injured a delivery man. Nice going Edea

Ominas Party... Guess Black Mage is coming up. And they hired Artemia. It’s a safe bet we’re doing Ominas vs. Artemia this quest

It looks like 1/4 of all undead in the game are in Grapp Keep. What the hell happened there?

Earthquake happens and everyone falls unconscious + stairs are out of commission? At least we have food

Seems like the conflict is going to be Ominas wants the food for himself, and Artemia wants to ration it

Jambalay, Risotto, and Paella? Ominas, dude, you guys are screwed. When your hired help is named after food during a food shortage you know things have gone bad

So the moral conflict is mutiny with Artemia so no one starves or side with Ominas because he’s funding it and nominally in charge. Guess I’m siding with Ominas for Worst Timeline reasons

I don’t mind it for gameplay reasons, though. I like Ranger. It was one of the jobs I used most in BD and I already have a spellcasting job in Wizard

...that Currently Alive status screen was more worrying than necessary

Ah, so the conflict is a little deeper that I thought. Ominas is training his d’gon to smash the rubble out of the way, and I imagine he’s gonna want the food to keep Bahamut’s health up. So do we get out faster by prioritizing Bahamut, or do we wait for the search party while keeping everyone alive?

Ominas is still an ass, though. So I’ll have to side with him regardless

Oh. He wants Bahamut to learn Femto Flare to kill the Ba’als. I know the game isn’t gonna go this route, but I’d love it if I could side with Ominas and learn Femto Flare, and then loop and side with Artemia, but still teach Bahamut Femto Flare after we’re out of threat of starvation

I also have the benefit of meta knowledge. We have to make it out alive so there’s no real threat of at least the party dying. Similarly, I doubt Bahamut is gonna solo the final boss for us, so learning Femto Flare will be useless in the long run. Artemia’s solution ensures that the NPCs survive to be rescued, while Ominas’s only ensures Bahamut’s survival and little gain for our future because the game has to have Boss Fights for us. Also, assume someone never did the sidequest. No Bahamut either way

Worst Timeline prerogative sometimes makes this game hard to get through. It’s better to get it over with now, but still. I really like Artemia and I so want to side with her, but time to give Ominas’s baby dragon the rest of the food

Wow we tied Artemia up? Seems a little much

This actually ended pretty well. Ominas managed to teach Bahamut Femto Flare early and everyone made it out alive. Artemia ain’t even mad. ...did I fail to make the Worst Timeline?

“Hustle, don’t hurry” is some pretty good advice, Tiz

So Magnolia’s learning to cook and just ended up making as many rice dishes as she could, because the team likes carbs. At least Edea’s into it?

So the Geyser Grotto gimmick is that each room has you start the battle with a different status (ex. Magic Up, Berserk) due to the spring waters. It’s a neat concept, but wildly inconvenient for my bestiary completion

Welp, Yōko found the sword and it’s pulling a Sumrbrandr from Magnus Chase and speaking

Ohhhhhh shit Yōko made a pact with it to claim its power and said she’d pay any price, so it took Danzaburō’s sword arm. It never said she’d be the one paying

Yew’s having a trauma flashback! Awww, he had an older half-brother that he loved a whole lot and was so excited for him to inherit House Geneolgia, but their dad picked Yew as his heir

Their dad gave Yew’s brother the ultimatum of “prove yourself by finding the sword or leave forever” and his brother left, so Yew went looking for the sword to get his brother back

You know, I’m playing Hogwarts Mystery at the same time as this, so between Yew’s brother, Danzaburō, and HPHM’s Jacob, that’s three instances of “older brother leaves/disappears and devoted younger sibling goes to fix the problem” in games I’m playing

These drawings of baby Yew are adorable. His hair’s a complete disaster

And since this is a flashback relevant to the current situation, Yew’s brother finds him just as Yew is about to make a pact with the sword (which big bro Geneolgia claims is a demon) and the sword attacks Yew’s brother as the price. He survived, but disappeared and no one’s seen him since

Wait, so Yew had this whole flashback, none of the party heard it, and then the second he wakes up he goes “I’ll tell you everything” and we get a fade to black as he tells the party what we just saw in flashback? Why not just have the flashback be Yew telling the party? This is a baffling structural choice

His brother was also going to be the leader of the Three Cavaliers, and the only reason Yew joined was to take up his brother’s position. Yeesh, kid, you’re 16! When did all of this happen, when you were 12? How the hell did you accomplish all of this?

Whhaaaaaaaaaat the fuck? What the... Okay, I knew Yōko was the holder of the Yōkai asterisk and that it involved collecting “Sins” that act as dark summons, but I was not expecting her to be a literal yōkai fox demon using illusions of the sword and creating the characters of “Yōko” and “Danzaburō” (who is not real) just to elaborately fuck with Yew

My actual theory was that Danzaburō was the son of the Emperor of Yunohana and Yōko was a demon (or half-demon), but also his adopted sister, and the whole “find the Sword of the Brave” thing was actually going to be to name Yōko the heir, not Danzaburō, and he’d just lied to Yōko about the real reason he was looking for it. Maybe Yōko had lost her memory of being a demon, so Danzaburō and their father made up a story to cover it up, explaining why she thought Danzaburō wasn’t the true heir of Yunohana. Guess I was pretty far off

Wait, does this bring my missing big brothers in games count down to 2, since Danzaburō wasn’t real? Man, that’s not an impressive number at all!

“You, who let your poor little brother die. Has finding a new “little brother” freed you of your guilt?” Bitch, I was literally just about to say how Yew and Tiz were good for each other because they filled the familial roles that the other had lost. Do NOT speak ill of my brOTP. It is a relationship of mutual healing

She’s also accusing Magnolia of defeating Ba’als just to run from the pain of losing people on the moon

OH HELL YEAH I KNOW THAT VOICE AND MUSIC. The sweet, echo-y tones of Alternis Dim!!! Just as Yōko was about to go after Edea, not-quite-Ringabel-but-close-enough shows up to save the day, to the theme of last game’s Asterisk fight theme, “That Person’s Name Is”. THAT PERSON’S NAME IS ALTERNIS DIM, BABYYYY!

...well he got blown up fast. Typical Alternis

Well, Yōko thought this whole thing was fun, so she’s gonna let us live and give us some information. Go to the Temple of Fire. That’s it. That’s the information

Alternis confirmed that no one died in the opening sequence when  Agnès was kidnapped. He’s also glad to see Tiz awake

If only “you know who” could be here... Edea, are you talking about Agnès, who has been kidnapped, or was that a really harsh dig at the fact that you love Alternis’s alternate timeline self more

Awww, she tied a bow just like hers on Alternis as a bandage. Girl, he’s already in love with you you’re just gonna drive him nuts like this

Aternis: UHHHH WELL IT’S BEEN FUN GUYS but I’m gonna go chase after whatever the heck that demon was byeedeabyetiz

So the Fire Crystal is going out of control, just like what happened when you charged the crystals in Bravely Default. So the Kaiser is overloading the crystals to bust through to another world, like Airy did. Only a Vestal can do that, though, and Agnès claims that she hasn’t been doing that, and they never replaced the lost Vestals from the previous games. So either Agnès is getting controlled randomly and forgetting, or there’s someone else with a Vestal’s power hanging around

...didn’t Bella refer to herself as a Dark Vestal? I assumed she was dead, but she could still be alive. That, or the Kaiser has assembled a few “Dark Vestals” for this purpose

So the plan is to beat the Kaiser to Florem, where the only crystal he hasn’t visited yet is

...dammit Janne, you edgy loser. How many times am I gonna kick your ass? I was like, 10 levels too high for the last dungeon. What are you gonna do? Make scary wolf moves with your stances again?

Was that dialogue specifically because I defaulted the first few turns, or is it based on the amount of turns I took regardless of my actions?

“Fight like you mean it!” Yew’s my healer, Janne, I don’t think he’s gonna

Oh nooooo Janne fell from the bridge. He definitely not gonna come back I promise. That’s why there’s still a bestiary entry for him! Dude is so extra

Being able to turn off random encounters is so good for backtracking. I appreciate the variable combat frequency feature a lot. It’s great. Cuts down time for bestiary entries and grinding, and makes travel faster (though no less tedious at this point)

Kaiser’s got a robot hand. I imagine that that’s all that scene was for. I wonder where this could be going (I already know I was spoiled on the Kaiser’s identity, but for potential readers I’ll keep my mouth shut)

Nikolai: Janne’s gone maybe we should look-

Anne: Nah

Kaiser: Nah seconded, let’s book it

And Patissier boy works for the Kaiser. Like, duh. He was Aimee’s boyfriend, why wouldn’t he be?

It seems that relationship may have been one-sided. Angelo says he doesn’t care much for Aimee, but Anne thinks he’s bluffing

Are those soldiers Angelo’s admirers from town? Did he recruit random Hartschild women, or were they spies while in Hartschild

And back to Sidequest corner: Knight Heinkel vs. Ninja Kikyo! Ninja was the only one of the two I used in Default, but Worst Timeline prerogative determines the outcome here

Sholmes and Whitson? Seriously? We’re gonna solve the mystery of Edea eating Yew’s dumplings?

So Sholmes is Heinkel’s nephew, Heinkel is now an Inspector for the Yunohana police, Sholmes is going to interview for a position somewhere, and I imagine that Kikyo is the other person they mentioned

She is. She’s a private eye and apparently also related to Sholmes on his mother’s side? She’s his aunt?

Both cancelled the interviews to investigate a Starkfort murder! I imagine this is gonna be a battle of who each person thinks the culprit is

Man, so in the first game Heinkel and Kikyo went the whole game without mentioning either of their siblings AND the fact that their siblings were married to each other. Weird

The location card reads “Starkfort (For Sale by Owner)” oh my gosh???

Lord Earl Gulliver. This man has too many titles (I know that’s probably his first name, but still)

So our three witnesses are Gulliver’s wife, Madam Goldiga (pronounged “gold digga”), the owner of Starkfort, Lande Lessor, and Gulliver’s financier, Noah Entreste

Sholmes please. This is serious. You can’t just scream that someone in the room must be the murderer, even if someone in the room is probably, definitely a murderer

(It’s us. The party has killed people in the past and they shall do so again, even if this game made most of the murders in the first game non-canon)

You wanted Starkfort as a vacation home??? It is literally infested with demons

Goldiga left during some point in the tour for seemingly no reason, so she doesn’t have an alibi. The real problem is figuring out if the game is cliche enough to make her the killer, or if they’re gonna subvert it

Kikyo believes that the murderer was someone Gulliver trusted, since there was no sign of a struggle. That rules out Lessor, as they hadn’t met until that day. She suspects either Entreste or Goldiga because Entreste could move about freely since he was the owner and presumably had the keys, but the method of murder points to Goldiga

Edea accuses Kikyo, and Kikyo just hauls off on every way the murderer was an amateur. The blade was rusty, which would’ve taken two hands to use. It was poisoned, but a slash on the belt indicates that they missed, but the presence of poison suggests that the murderer had weak upper body strength, indicating Goldiga. Hell yeah you go Kikyo show that assassin knowledge

I actually do like this sidequest. I’ve got a thing for mysteries and solving this one is fun

Lessor and Entreste both wanted the sale to go through. Lessor wanted this demon-ridden property off his hands. Entreste is a banker looking to make a sale. They met that day. Goldiga has the most motive, though Edea and Heinkel are skeptical, as I was

Can I guess now that the culprit was Gulliver and he accidentally killed himself with his own poisoned dagger like a chump

Actually, scratch that. I want to say it was Whitson. He’s using too many ellipses

He’s going on about how his entire family has just been the assistants to the members of Sholmes’s family. It was definitely him

Goldiga’s dead you say? I’m so shocked! I could not possibly have seen this game attempt to subvert expectations!

She had a note reading “I shall follow where you go”. So now it’s a question of planted to make it look like a suicide, or an actual suicide

So Sholmes and Whitson worked at Starkfort years ago. Whitson is the murderer is looking more and more likely

I think I was wrong about what the conflict is. It’s should Sholmes be a police inspector or a private investigator. Honestly, I’d say neither, but at least Heinkel could whip him into shape. So let’s pick Kikyo

Man, that pissed Whitson off

There really isn’t a “worse” option here, I just personally think the police office is better for Sholmes. He needs someone to tell him when he’s out of line, and I feel like Kikyo would sooner ignore him and go off on her own than help. Besides, Heinkel’s trained worse, and he could do a lot for Sholmes in terms of training. So naturally I’m gonna tell Sholmes to go with Kikyo and kick Heinkel’s ass

Damn, I forgot how hard Heinkel could be. I ended up spamming my Zeus’s Wraths near the end of that

It WAS Whitson! Actually, Whitson was Heinkel, at least for that fight!

So the epilogue says that Whitson told Goldiga about the hidden passages in Starkfort, and she killed Gulliver. She tried to get Whitson to help her. The note was from Gulliver. It was part of his novel. Sholmes is working solo and acting as a police consultant a la his namesake

Kikyo actually likes Sholmes and she’s proud of him. “I feel compelled to come to every crime scene with a batch of freshly baked cookies.” You know what, I like Kikyo. She’s good

Off to get a decent boat! And meet the lord of Yunohana. For the boat!

Kusatsu Arima, Lord of Baths. Can that be my new title?

He... only has a gondola. And only makes soap and bath puns. And oh Angelo’s here. Team’s about to get pastry drugged, aren’t they?

Aaaaand now Tiz is unresponsive because I let him eat first

Oh was this the boss fight already?

Tiz just faded from existence? Because his cakes literally whisk you off to heaven? And he did that to all of Hartschild?

Tiz is a ghost in this fight and can only use magic BUT DOES THE CATMANCER ABILITY STILL WORK???

Well, I completely murdered the girl who gives the Catmancy skill, so it doesn’t matter. Oh well, I think there’s more in Florem

I had ghost Tiz summon a Tiz doing a gun special attack and that wrecked everything. I feel it was poetic considering Angelo’s trash talking Aimee

Angelo just tried to commit Suicide by Cake. He was stopped by a ring with a farewell note from Aimee tied to it that I imagine she shot into the air when she died, and because she’s just THAT GOOD of a shot it made it to Angelo at precisely this moment

Her last request was for Angelo to open a pancake shop and make everyone as happy as he made her, as long as he loved her even a little. And he’s gonna do it, even though he’s calling her annoying as he was agreeing to do it

Can the hot springs cure Tiz’s... ghost status?

Oh they dumped spring water on him and it worked. Okay?

Just Yew and Tiz in the baths again, since it turns out Danzaburō wasn’t real so they were alone in the first place

Aw, Yew and Magnolia are talking about the accidental engagement. Magnolia admits she overreacted, but she was so touched when he proposed

Ah! Voice is here! Man with the Purple Pen that for some reason everyone’s cool with!

So the hot springs were a boat, and Voice just unanchored it

The lord’s actually excited about this. He gave us the boat. So now we can take the springs to Hartschild and save the people Angelo ghosted

Edea’s gonna drive? Where’s Alternis when he’d actually be useful?

I was wondering what the last icon on the bottom screen was gonna be for. It’s boat access and switching to the raft

We just accidentally adopted bath lady Sakura as our mom

Oh come on, I just want the chapter to end. We did the boss fight! Why are Sergeant Sapp and Private Piddler here!?

That fight sucked

And we have fixed Hartschild. Nice. And Goodman’s okay! Nice.

Magnolia, stop waxing poetic about Goodman and his wife having to put their love aside to fulfill their duties. I get how it’s relevant to you and Yew, but can we just end this chapter?

Yew has named our boat the Rubadub. Cute

The Skyhold has been hit! By a laser! CHAPTER END

Female voice monologues about memory and regret. Every day was meant to change you into a better person

And theme song. Is this gonna happen every chapter? Not that I mind, because it’s a good song. Gives the whole game structure a very anime feel

FINALLY. This chapter feels like it took me a century. I’ve been on it for several months, at least! That’s not to say it was BAD (certain sidequests aside) but boy did it feel like it was dragging on forever. I’ve gotta wonder if the arc fatigue was just due to how I was playing the game, or if other people felt it, too. The Yōko reveal was pretty stellar, though

Hopefully the next chapter won’t take me at least 1/4 of a year to finish!

SPECULATION SPOILER CORNER

Rereading this to edit, I’m pretty sure Danzaburō ’s physical similarities to the Kaiser weren’t just a coincidence like I brushed them off as above. That had to be intentional on Yōko’s end. Yew’s jealousy about Yōko and Danzaburō ’s relationship also makes much more sense now

#bravely default #bravely second #liz liveblogs bravely second #oh man it's finally here: the liveblog a whole two people read #the holly/profiteur sidequest just killed the momentum for me #but we be back

[smokeybrand]

Poppycock

Last night, i read a ton of the Crossed comics. I’d been seeing the Horsecock meme for a few years now and finally decided to pull the trigger to see what all the fuss was about. I’m always curious about ho the US does mature content in anything other than cinema because it rarely ever turns out decent. So how does Crossed fair? As something that wears it’s graphic nature on it’s sleeve, is it the unicorn that finally executes mature content, overt sexual situations, and storytelling in a way that is both satisfying and rewarding to the reader? No. No it does not. Crossed sucks. There shouldn’t be fuss because this sh*t is trash. Aside from the fact that the art is ugly as sin, making it incredibly difficult to want to keep reading, the actual narrative content is mediocre at it’s best and a whole ass dumpster fire at it’s worst. This sh*t is peak, teenage, edgelord, nonsense and it’s weird there are so many f*cking issues in the franchise. How is Crossed so successful? F*ck, dude, The Walking Dead does this entire narrative better. It’s like someone read that, removed all of the compelling character work and intricate world building, amped up the gore to cartoonishly ghoulish levels, and sh*t it out into a public too lazy to do the work. The Walking Dead is a story where the violence is a consequence of the plot. Crossed is a narrative that in service to, and almost an afterthought of, the violence. It’s the Michael Bay of this specific genre and i hated every minute i spent reading this trash. Also, and i can’t stress this enough, the art in these books is f*cking ugly. Not disgusting like they want it to be, but fundamentally poorly drawn.

Now, i may be a too hard on this series. May be. I’m not entirely sure but i feel like I'm not. I as raised on Eighties era Japanimation. That’s what we called it back then, not anime. Weebs weren’t a thing a yet, we were Otaku. I had a subscription to Newtype when i was, like twelve, that’s how deep i was into that sh*t. That’s how deep i am still into that sh*t. It’s wild seeing the culture shifts and how everything gets sanitized as appeal broadens but that’s a different essay. My point is i grew up on sh*t like Angel Cop, Dark City, Battle Angel Alita, and Akira. Tits and gore and sex and ultraviolence. It was intricately detailed and never skimped on the grim reality but was drawn with a passionate reverence for the art form. Hell, even films that have cultural significance and are heralded as high art like Grave of the Fireflies, never shied away from the brutality necessary for that narrative. I’ve seen a lot of f*cked up sh*t before my tenth birthday because of my love for the Japanese imports so i might be desensitized to this kind of stuff. That said, i know shock schlock when i see it and Crossed is definitely that. It’s an ugly, bloated, meandering, franchise filled with bad writing, poor art, and uninspired storytelling. We’ve seen this narrative before. Something triggers an apocalypse. Terrible people are terrible. Earnest people are trying to survive in the new status quo of nightmare and brutality. Now and Then, Here and There, did this much better, with less mutilation and more character development. The f*cking Mad Max franchise is built on this sh*t and Fury Road won Oscars for it. You don’t have to be Hemingway but, f*ck, give us something! Crossed doesn’t even present the bare minimum

Nothing is in service to a narrative. It’s all just murderrapezombies just for the shock of murderrapezombies. Holy sh*t, there’s incest in Family Values? That’s horrifying! Yosuga No Sora. They murdered those kids in the first limited? How f*cking bleak! Erased. I’ll admit, there are some interesting choices made in how to tell these pedestrian ass stories, Psychopath really stood out on that front, but the story, itself, is f*cking dumb. The first limited flirted with being pretty good over all but I've seen it done better elsewhere. Blood-C is a great example of that sh*t. Graphic violence, ridiculous gore you can feel, and still a damn decent overarching plot to tie it all together. The violence never overstays it’s welcome. It’s there to accentuate the powerlessness of our principals, never the main f*cking point of the story. I mentioned Alita before but if you want to focus on character, that’s your bet right there. The adventures of Gally are some of the most devastating situations you’ll ever experience. That chick has lived a life. Belladonna of Sadness is a horrible time but a beautiful watch. Want to go wide? An ensemble type narrative? AD Police. F*ck, dude, Devilman exists! Everything just mentioned, came out at least thirty f*cking years ago. Why is Crossed so bad when there is a plethora of material you can read that does this sh*t better? How can you not tell this type of story, when you have literally hundreds of example on how to tell this story properly, both contemporary and historical? And I'm only using Japanese content because that’s what I'm most familiar with. The French can give the Nihon a run for their money with some of the sh*t they’ve dropped over the years. Metal Hurlant, Heavy Metal when it skipped across the pond, is a straight up pioneer in this type of content. That motherf*cker has been publishing since the Seventies. It’s entire thing is mature storytelling and it does it in a way that’s compelling, easy on the eye, and rewarding to experience. Crossed does none of that.

Crossed is just gore porn trash. There’s no substance to be had . None of the characters are actually compelling. All of the violence is gratuitous. It’s never used as a mirror to humanity, just bloody viscera for the sake of it. It does nothing with that naked violence that has merit outside of just being there. Why do the Crossed f*cked each other to death? Is the fact that there are a mother and son character f*cking matter outside of the intrinsic revulsion humans are supposed to feel toward that type of sh*t? Where is the narrative reward for that guy f*cking a moose corpse? I can’t express how try-hard all of this comes across. There’s so much rape and mutilation in this thing, it just becomes normal. All the carnage s just background noise at some point and you’re left with lackluster storytelling for the remainder of the read. Like, there’s a scene where a bunch of these assholes are circle jerking into a bowl of bullets to turn people they shoot. That’s a scene in this comic which had potential. You could have explored how maybe the Crossed are more capable and build them up as a far deadlier threat. Nope. Another shows a bunch of Crossed eating baby corpses in an long abandoned delivery room. Why? What’s the point of this scene? How much harder would it hit if it wasn’t Crossed eating the fetus jerky, but regular people? This is how low some people would stoop just to live another day, even if that day is in a living hell. I read Sweet Tooth a few weeks back and it has a lot in common with Crossed. They can be companion pieces. Sweet Tooth is infinitely better. It does all the things you need to do, in order to tell this type of story. Emotional anchoring, strong motivations, a unrelenting sense of bleak struggle; Sweet Tooth is everything Crossed should have been. Instead, i got horsecock.