#I HAD TO ORDER THEM BY SIMPLEST TO MOST COMPLEX TOO HUH

[chickensarentcheap]

Sanctuary -Chapter 41

WARNINGS: Dark Tyler.  Angsty Tyler,  I suppose.

Tagging: @c-a-v-a-l-r-y​, @thorsbathroomchicken​, @alievans007​, @innerpaperexpertcloud​, @valkyrie-of-the-light​

The storage facility lies on the outskirts of town; in the middle of a derelict portion of an industrial complex.  Abandoned warehouses flanking it to both the east and west, long abandoned train tracks to the north and a sewage treatment plant to the south.  Weeds manage to thrive within the chips and cracks of old concrete,  litter caught up in the rusted metal of a chain link fence. There hasn't been true signs of life in these parts for years; the factories that were still thriving were more than a kilometre, and no one aside from those wanting to take belongings out of their lockers ever visited the area.  The sense and appearance of abandonment and neglect adding something dark and dreary to an already sinister plan

He's the last to arrive; parking the SUV among the small group of vehicles already gathered by the front gate.  The security system for the facility had long ago been vandalized; someone had broken into the security system and stolen all the intricate parts, rendering the keypad useless. All that exists now are loose wires and scattered bits of metal,  the gate permanently left open for anyone...whether it be thief or transient...to gain access.  He kills the ignition and checks his phone; reading through unopened text messages, the engine softly ticking as is it cools. Letting his wife know that he'd arrived safe and sound at his first destination, but not giving any details.

The less she knows the better; some things are better left unspoken, some plans better left just between the people actually getting their hands dirty.  All his resolve is gone. All his patience shredded. Any and all mercy has ceased to exist. He's at peace with his decision; resolved, determined, calm.  With not even the slightest bit of hesitation or an inkling of remorse haunting him.   And he tells himself that this could have been avoided had McMann not crossed that line.  If he'd simply had the balls to go right to the source of his issues instead of taking a coward's way out. This is on him now. Whatever happens...whatever plan begins to unravel...the moment Tyler steps up of the car, it is a fate that the other man has brought onto himself.  No one will find him out here.  No one will be able to hear the suffering, the begging, the pleading. No one will be able to come to his aid. And in the end, when he finally thinks it's over and he's about to be shown mercy, he'll be handed over to begin another nightmare all in itself.

He sends her a second message. Telling her that he loves her. Reassuring her that everything is going to be okay.  That he'll message her once the second part of that day's mission is done and McMann has been taken care up; holed up somewhere under lock and key, where he'll be kept until the IRA has made up their mind.  And he adds : 'I'll see you when I see you', the exact words he's used for the past four years every time he abandons her and their children to go and solve someone else's problems.  

“What do you think?”  Yaz asks, when Tyler joins him at the front gate.  

He'd been there for an hour now, arranging things exactly as had been requested. Their own surveillance feed that they can view from their cell phones or their laptops; cameras placed at the front gate, the doorway of the unit Tyler had rented using a fake name and stolen credit card, and three within the actual storage locker itself. There'd be eyes and ears on McMann twenty four hours a day; no one aside from those who knew of the storage locker and the plans for it would be going in or out. The situation would be controlled. Monitored. Right down to the very second.  And if he somehow managed to get away and make a run for it, he wouldn't get far; Yaz would be installing an ankle monitor the moment McMann arrived on site.

“I think it's perfect,” he replies, as they fall in step alongside of each other and pass through the gate.  Dirt and gravel crackling under the soles of his combat boots; kicking away any wayward rubbish that lies in his path. The storm the night before had brought the humidity; sweat glistens on his brow and trickles down his temples; the back of his t-shirt already damp.

“Esme's okay?”

“She's sick. Can't keep anything down. Not even water.”

“The baby or...?”

“Could be the baby. Could be stress. Could be nerves. She's been sick before; with all the others. But nothing this bad.”

“A sign maybe? That something is wrong? With the baby?”

Tyler frowns. “Why  the fuck would you even say that?”

“I'm not saying that there is something wrong. And I'm not wishing or hoping there is. I'm just saying that...fuck...I don't even know what I'm saying.”  He's nervous. Despite all the jobs that he's assisted with, all the perilous and high stakes situations he's been in, the nerves have been rubbed raw. This is a first for him. When they'll actually be inflicting the damage instead of trying to end it.

“she's fine,” Tyler says, more an attempt to reassure himself than Yaz. “The baby's fine. She's just freaking out. She's thousands of miles away from home. From her kids. She's worried about them, worried about Ovi and Chloe, worried about me. This fucking sucks, mate. That she has to go through all of this. Especially now. This should be a happy time. We just found out we're having a baby. We should be ecstatic. And instead we're dealing with this bullshit.  She deserves better than this. So does that baby.”

“Well at least we can kind of see the finish line now,”  Yaz reasons. “We're a hell of a lot closer than we were two days ago, that's for sure. Heard anything from the IRA yet?”

“Flynn said it would be two days at the earliest, four at the latest. I don't expect to hear anything from them for a while.”

The air inside the storage building is stifling; humidity hanging heavily. The air conditioning unit is ancient and had long ago stopped working, and the owners of the facility seemed to be in no hurry to fix it.  A foul stench lingers in the air; a mixture of rotting garbage in the bins outside,  pollution from the factories and the mills only a kilometre away, and the tell tale odour of mould and mildew. Not the most pleasant, but after wading through that sewer in Dhaka and having to wait there for more than hour for Gaspar to pick them up, smells rarely bother Tyler anymore.  But he notices the way Yaz scrunches up his nose; a scowl appearing on his face before he begins to cough and gag.

“What if they don't agree to this?” Yaz asks. “What if this is all for nothing?”

“Even if they do say no, it won't be for nothing. Trust me.”

“How long will you keep him here? If they don't want him.  How long does he have before...you know...”

“I'll kill him when I'm good and ready. And I will. Kill him. If they don't.”  

He's calm as he says it. Matter of fact. There's no hesitation. He'd made the decision on the drive over. If the IRA didn't want McMann, then he'd take care of the problem himself. But not before the other man was taught a very valuable lesson. It's the first time he hasn't experienced even the slightest bit of remorse or guilt over the thought of taking another life.  Killing had never been about satisfaction or pleasure. He's killed because he's had to. Because his own survival came down to it. He's never been proud of the reputation. Or the body count. But this is different.

This is personal.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Yaz asks, as motions towards the last door on the left.  Garage style; black aluminum that rolls up into the ceiling. He'd rented the largest one possible; so whoever was in charge of watching McMann during set shifts would have a place to eat and rest.  There'd be a team of four, switching out every six hours.  And always a set off eyes on either laptop or cell phone.

“It's what I need to do,”  Tyler replies. “For my wife. For my kids.”

“Do you think she'd really want this, Tyler? If she knew exactly what you were up to? You think she'd want to know what you're capable of?”

“She already knows that, mate. She saw what I was capable of five and a half years ago in Dhaka. She knows who I am. She knows what I do.”

“But this? This goes above and beyond what she saw. What she knows. Do you really think she'd want to know about this? About what kind of man you can be?”

“No,” he admits. “Probably not. She'd probably hate me. Or be scared of me She'd probably never trust me again. Maybe she'd even leave me and take my kids.”

It's the bitter and hard truth of the situation; in the middle of trying to protect and avenge his family, he could in fact end up losing them.  But she'd understand. If she'd listen to him long enough. If she gave him a chance to explain, she would realize that he'd done it for her. For their kids. To protect the only things that truly mattered in his life. She'd saved him. Given him a second chance. And McMann had threatened that. To take away the one person that he had held on for.  

And he deserved to pay for it.

“Then why do it?”  Yaz asks.  “Why risk it? Why risk losing everything over one person?”

“Because,” he replies, and steps over the threshold of the storage unit. “He fucked with the wrong man's family.”

***

“Things are coming together,” Mark says, his hands on his hips as he watches two of his Marines -Nathan and Zak- secure the last two cameras; one above the door, the other in the middle of the room to the left, three inches from the ceiling.  The remaining member of his team has been assigned to stay behind at the hotel, ordered to stay glued to Esme's hip at all times until Tyler's returned from the his meeting with McMann.  “Not too shabby for a couple of jar heads, huh?  They're determined to get shit done, that's for sure.”

“It all gonna be ready for when he gets here?” Tyler asks. He doesn't want to leave any stone unturned. Not even the simplest of details can be overlooked. There is no room for error.  And even the smallest mistake could spell disaster.

“Should be. Come check this out...”

There's a crude metal chair in the middle of the room; a sack made from heavy black fabric that will be used to cover McMann's head and a package of zip ties sitting on the seat.  But it's  meal table pushed against the far wall that Mark leads him too. A wide selection of knives and handguns nearly arranged on top of it, along with the lesser used tools of the trade.

“We've got the usual,” Mark says, as he nods down at the objects on display. “Standard run of the mill shit. But these...” he takes two steps sideways.  “...this is where the real nasty stuff is. The ones that can really pack a punch. We've got a couple of tasers, a few box cutters, a ball-peen hammer, crowbar. Even a couple pairs of pliers. You know, for the little jobs and small spaces you need to get into.”

Tyler picks up a handsaw; inspecting the edges, the handle, the sharpness of the blade.

“That was my personal addition,” Mark says. “Right from my own collection. She's seen some dirty jobs, if you know what I mean. Hasn't let me down yet.”

Tyler smirks. “You do this kind of shit often?”

“Things used to get a little wild in Iraq. We used to have to resort to some pretty extreme things when dealing with the terrorists. Especially the ones we caught that were guilty of doing unspeakable shit to women and kids. You know, the kind that needs to meet the karma bus head on. I'm sure you saw some things in the Middle East.”

Tyler nods. His final three tours with the Australian army had been spent in Kandahar. He'd seen first hand what the Taliban had been capable of doing to women and children. He'd been on night patrol when his platoon had managed to capture a man known to be a serial rapist and pedophile. It's where he'd seen and learned the most savage of tricks in his playbook.  Committing every act of depravity his commanding officer had inflicted upon that Iraqi to his memory.  He had hoped that he'd never have to use any of those things; that a gun, knife, or fist would be the only weapons he'd have to rely on while on the job.  But now the inevitable is right there in front of him. And instead of horror and disgust, he feels nothing.  

He has nothing left to give. The job has taken it all. Every ounce of compassion and humanity that he'd ever possessed.

“You don't have to do this,” Mark says. “I know why you're doing it. And I get why you feel like it has to be done. But you don't need to do it, Tyler.”

“Yeah...” he picks up one of the box cutters and clicks open the blade.  “...I do.”

“Once you cross that line, you can't come back. You realize that, don't you? Once you go from killing out of necessity to killing for sport...for revenge...you'll never be the same.  Once we become that monster that's been living inside of us for years...for decades...that monster never goes away.  That monster is going to live with you for the rest of your life.”

“If that's the way it has to be...” he shrugs as his voice trails off.

“Kid, listen to me. I've been in this type of situation before. I've had to resort to some pretty sick and twisted shit to get things I needed. To teach someone a lesson.  And it fucks with you. It does something to you. Up here...” he taps the tip of his index fingers against his temple. “...it changes you. To the point you won't even recognize yourself. You're going wake up one morning and you're going to look in the mirror and not even know who the fuck you are anymore. Is that really what you want? To become some former version of yourself? And I'm not just talking about what it's going to do to you. I'm talking about what it's going to do to Esme. To see you like that. To not even know who you are anymore. Is that really want you want?”

“I'm not the same man I was when we first met. That man died that day on the Sultana Kamal Bridge. Five and half years ago that man died and this is who was left behind. Do you think that was fair to her? That she had to see that? That she had to sit there while I was dying in her arms?  That she stayed behind just to save my life? She gave up everything that day. She was never the same. Neither of us were.”

“She stayed because she wanted to be with you. Because she was in love with you. When Esme loves, she loves hard. With everything she's got. Do you really think she sees you the way you see yourself? You think you died that day. She thinks she saved you. She thinks she's the one that kept you hanging on.”

“She was,” he admits. “She's the only reason I did hang on.”

“She doesn't see you any differently now than she did back then. You're the same Tyler in her eyes. She doesn't look at you and see someone damaged and broken. She just sees you. That's it But this? What you're going to do here? That will change you. You will become a different person. And not a better one. Is that what you really want for her? Do you want her to look at you one day and not know who the fuck you are anymore? Because this is going to haunt you. This is going to eat at you. And she's going to be the one that pays the ultimate price.”

Tyler nods, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth. It's a nervous habit. Or one he resorts to when emotion is beginning to overwhelm him. He won't be able to keep it a secret forever. He knows that. But if he can hold it together just long enough to be victorious over his own monsters and his own demons, he can spare her the knowledge of just who he is and what he's capable of.  If he can keep the secret just long enough...to the point where it doesn't eat him alive from the inside out...everything will be okay.

They'd be okay.

“You've got this amazing thing going  on,” Mark continues. “You've got a wife, four kids, one on the way. Why would you want to fuck that up?”

“I don't,” he clears his throat noisily. “That's the last thing I want.”

“Think about those kids, Tyler. Your kids. You won't be the person they know right now. You won't be the same dad you are this very second.  Is that really what you want? They're just babies still. The oldest is only five. Five! And you're going to go back to those kids and slowly you're going to become a different person. Right in front of them. Think about what that's going to do to them. When daddy suddenly isn't daddy anymore. For fuck sakes. Tyler. You do not have to  do this.”

“Yes. I do,” he insists.  “They deserve this.”

“The fuck they do. Look, I get it. You're pissed. McMann fucked with the wrong guy.  He never should have went after your family. But they're safe. You took care of things. You found out before it got any further. You got your kids out. You got Ovi and the girl out. You protected them. Now they're safe and that's all that matters. What is this going to do? You doing this? Other than fuck you up?”

“He needs to be taught a lesson. I warned him. Before I even got on that plane to come here. I told him that if I found out he was fucking with me and going after my family, I'd make him sorry. And that's what I'm going to do.  I'm going to make him sorry. He's going to pay. I'm going to teach him a very valuable lesson. For as long and as painfully as I can.”

“But why? Why the fuck do you need to do that? Jesus Christ, Tyler. Do you realize what you sound like? Do you realize who you sound like?  You sound just like those crazy fucks that you have to rescue people from. This is the kind of shit those people do. What guys like Mahajan and Asif did to people. When did you cross that line? When did you stop being the hero and start being one of them?”

“Let's get one thing straight...”  Tyler's voice is low, menacing, as he turns to face Mark.  “...I've never been a hero. I've never claimed to be one. I never wanted to be one.  I help people because it's my job. I go in there, I get shit done, I get paid. That's it.  I don't do it to be a fucking hero.”

“But you're still one of the good guys. You still go in and help people. This? This is not helping people. This is far from it. You don't kill because you like it. You kill because you have to. To save yourself. To save your mark. But this is intentional, Tyler. You have this all planned and all thought out and you're acting like it's no big deal. That it's just a normal day for you. This is not normal!”

“He needs to pay,”  Tyler growls.  “He needs to pay for going anywhere near my kids. For taking me away from them. For bringing my wife into this fucking mess. And I'm going to make him pay. And there's not a goddamn thing you can do about it.”

“I could tell Nik.”

Tyler gives a dry laugh. “What the fuck is she going to do? She has nothing to with this. This all me. I'm in charge here. So go. Run off to her and tell her. I don't give a shit. She can't stop me either.”

“I'll tell Esme, then.”

Tyler's eyes narrowed. “Don't do that. Don't bring her into this.  That's fucking low and you know it. Using her against me? Using my own wife as a weapon?”

“She's the only one that can stop you from fucking your whole life up.  She saved you once. Let her save you again.”

“I don't need saving. I need revenge. I want him to pay. For what he did to my family. For what he's put them through. What he's put her through. She deserves that. She deserves revenge.”

“She doesn't want revenge, Tyler. She want her husband. She wants the father of her kids. As he is now. Now what he's going to become if he goes through with this. She wants a normal life. With you. And that won't happen if you do this.  This has gone far enough. You're going to hand McMann over and he can be the IRA's problem.”

“And if they don't want him? What then?”

“Then you kill him. Nice and clean. None of this shit.”

“No,” Tyler shakes his head. “That's not enough. That's not nearly enough.”

“This is fucking insane and you know it. You're unhinged. You need to get your shit together. You need to get your fucking head on straight. Forget about this. You don't need to do this. Because I will tell her. I'm not bullshitting. I will call her right now. Is that what you want? You want me to call her right now and let her know where you are and what you're up to?”

Tyler's eyes narrow, his nostrils flare. “Don't do this.”

“Fuck this,” Mark removes his cell phone from pocket of his hoodie. “If you're not going to back down and get your shit together, I'll let her handle this. She's pretty good at reining you, right? She's gotten used to having to keep you under control.”

“Don't do this,”  Tyler repeats. “Don't fucking do this.”

“You did this. You did this, Rake. And if you're not going to save yourself, maybe she can.”

He only manages to get the screen turned on and the first number pushed, Tyler's elbow slamming into his face and sending him sprawling backwards into the floor.  And there's a clamour as chaos erupts within the storage unit; the two Marines quickly bolting to their boss' side; ladders toppling over with a crash.

“Rake... you fucking asshole!” Mark bellows, as he struggles to his feet, a hand clutching his broken and bloody nose. “...what the hell is wrong with you? Are you fucking crazy?!”

“You should have just stayed the fuck away!” Tyler roars. “You should have stayed away from her. You never should have showed up at my house. You have no right. You have no fucking right being anywhere near her!”

“Is that really what this is about? Is that what you just did what you did? Because you're jealous.”

“I'm jealous?! What the fuck do I have to be jealous of. She left you, remember? She got tired of your shit and she left. Do you buddies know what you did? Do they know how you treated her? Huh? Did you tell them any of that? Or did you just make her out to be the bad person?”

“You're going to resort to that? You're going to resort to bringing that shit up? Are you that fucking desperate?”

“Did he tell you?”  Tyler asks the Marines.  “Did he? Did he tell you that my wife is his ex wife? Did he tell you why she left him? Did he tell you about how he got a blow job from a stewardess coming back from his honeymoon? I bet he didn't tell you that.”

“You're really going to do this?” Mark rages. “You're really going to bring this up?  It's none of your fucking business!”

“She's my fucking business! She's my wife. That makes her my business. I bet you didn't tell them that you liked to beat on her. That at first you started hitting her where she could hid the bruises with clothes. But then after awhile you just didn't give a fuck anymore and you'd give her black eyes, split lips, bloody noses.  How about the two times you put her in the hospital? Do you blokes now about that? Well if you didn't, you sure as fuck do now.”

“Whoa...whoa...” Yaz finally appears from the corridor, having been caught up organizing and setting up any remaining technology.  “What the hell is going on here?”

“He's fucking crazy,” Mark nods in Tyler's direction. “That's what's going on here.”

“I'm just letting these guy know what an upstanding citizen their boss is,”  Tyler explains.  “You know, the kind that likes to beat on women. The kind that likes to cheat on them. The kind that's a narcissistic dick bag that gas lighted her into thinking she was the problem, That she wasn't good enough. That she'd never be good enough.  Or how about how he blamed her for losing a baby the doctor said never would have been viable in the first place.”

Mark's eyes narrow.  “How'd you...”

“You fucking dumb ass. Did you really think I wouldn't ask her when you told me about the baby she lost? Did you honestly think I wouldn't want to know? Because I knew it couldn't be a problem with her because we have four kids. I've never had a problem getting her pregnant. And all those kids arrived safe and sound.  No issues whatsoever. She showed me the pathology report.  It was a severe abnormality passed down through the y gene. Meaning you, asshole.  It came from you. And you still fucking blamed her. You still made her think it was her goddamn fault.  How fucking sick do you have to be to do that your own wife? When she's already upset that she lost a baby in the first place?!”

“Okay...okay...” Yaz claps a hand down on Tyler's shoulder. “...this is private stuff, man. This doesn't need to be brought up. No one needs to hear this.”

“He needs to hear it,” Tyler nods in Mark's direction.  “Because he's been playing these fucking games for ten years now. Ten years she's held all that shit inside of her. Thinking she isn't good enough. Being told no one would ever love her because of how messed up she was. Do you remembering telling her that? Don't deny it. Don't stand here and lie to my face. Be a man. For once. Be a man and admit it. Own it. That you fucked with her head. That you made her think she'd never find anyone better than you. That's what you told her, right?”

“I admit it. I said some...things...”

“Yeah, you did. You sure fucking did, mate. You fucking broke her.  And you know what, I came along and I helped put her back together. All those things you told her? About how no one would ever love her? I proved you wrong.  I came along and I loved her. With everything I fucking have. Everything I am. I made her forget about you and you can't fucking stand it.”

“She's way too good for you.” Mark gives a dry laugh.  “And one day she's going to wake up and wonder why the hell she wasted so many years of her life with you.”

“You keep telling yourself that, mate. Whatever helps you sleep at night. Because guess what? While you're sleeping alone? I'm sleeping next to her. With her.  And you can't fucking stand the thought of it.”

“Enough!” Yaz snaps. “Both of you! Enough is enough. Now I get there's some issues. Between the two of you. I get shit is messy. Mark, you crossed a fucking line by ever showing up at Tyler's house looking for Esme. You went there to try and cause shit between them and it blew up in your face and you can't handle that.  Tyler and Esme are tight. Their bond? You can't break that shit. No one can. Now, we need to all work together here. We need to get this asshole and make him pay. Can't we all agree on that? That McMann needs to go down for all the shit he's pulled? Right?” he stares pointedly at Tyler. “Right?”

Tyler nods.

“Right?” he turns his gaze to Mark and the two marines, all three nodding in confirmation.   “For fuck sakes, this is not the time for shit to be falling apart. We're all working towards a common goal here. You three have your reasons for wanting McMann to suffer, and Tyler has his reasons. And it doesn't matter if I agree with how Tyler is going about things. What he does when he's left here with McMann is his business. Just like I won't give a shit what you guys to do him.  But this is my boy...”  he claps Tyler on the back of his neck. “...this is my brother. This stupid fuck...this ugly face...has been through more shit than the three of you together. And you know what? His stubborn ass just keeps getting back up.  I saw this guy near death. Like right on its fucking doorstep. And he made death his bitch. So if you've got a problem with him, you've got a problem with me. And my sister. And our entire team.”

“We have no issues with him,” Nathan speaks up. “With either of you.”

Zak shrugs. “I've got no problems.”

“So it just you,” Yaz smirks at Mark. “Time to let shit go, man. She's not yours anymore. She's his. And he's not letting her go. Deal with.”

Mark gives a snort, then turns on his heel to stomp from the room, purposefully bumping Tyler's shoulder with his on the way out.

“What a drama queen,”  Yaz shakes his head. “Why didn't you tell me you were going to knock him the fuck out?  You know I wanted to see that. You know I wanted ringside seats! The fuck is wrong with you? Doing me like that?”

“Next time I'll let you know. So we can watch.  Hey about what you said...”

“I said what I said. Don't go getting all little wuss bitch baby on me.”

Tyler grins. “Actually, I was going to ask if you really think my face is ugly.”

Yaz smirks. “You know you're my boy crush. Now quit riding my jock and get the fuck out of here.  Go and see your wife. Spend some time with her before you go and meet McMann. You both need it. That time.”

“Yeah,” Tyler nods.  “We do.”

“And I'd say wrap it before you tap it but you've proven time and time again you don't know what  that means, so...”

“You're a real fucking dick, Yaz,” he laughs as he heads for the door.

“Maybe. But you love me. And you'd miss me if I was gone.  Admit it, Tyler! You'd miss me!”   He frowns when he receives a smirk and the middle finger in response. “Why you do me like that? Why you do your boy like that?”

He receives no answer. Just the sound of the soles of combat boots as they disappear down the hall.

#tyler rake #tyler rake fan fic #tyler rake fan fiction #chris hemsworth character #sanctuary #extraction

[gascon-en-exil]

FE16 Black Eagles (Edelgard) Liveblogging

Chapters 13-14. This route just keeps throwing me off.

The Lions route skips the calendar month for Chapter 13, but with Edelgard you get a part of it since your army doesn’t have to reclaim the monastery. Being able to prepare your forces is always preferable to having them all thrown into battle as is.

Edelgard is a physical powerhouse no matter what I’ve done with her, but armored lord wastes her on a class with bad move and nothing else to show for it. At least Ferdinand is well on his way to great knight by now so his time in fortress knight is nearly finished.

I don’t know if other people do this, but I always find it worthwhile to train faith on magic users even if they don’t have much to offer with it long term, ex. Hubert. Heal and Nosferatu don’t take much to learn and provide useful general utility.

Linhardt got Warp. The limited range keeps it from being able to completely trivialize maps, and the fact that everyone who gets it learns it so late prevents you from abusing it earlygame, unless you spend a bunch of Renown on later playthroughs to max out these characters’ faith ranks. Dorothea’s Meteor meanwhile is incredibly useful for its AoE damage effect, but outside of gremory she only gets one use per map.

Early reviews claimed that the Eagles (the church or Edelgard, or both? Not sure) have the simplest maps of the routes, while the Deer have the most complex. Hard to judge that at the moment as all of this route’s unique maps thus far also appear in the Lions: Garreg Mach under siege, the Great Bridge, Derdriu. I don’t think they’ve had nearly as many enemies, though.

You have the option to recruit Lysithea even if you didn’t do anything with her in Part 1. Huh, that’s not something that could be said of any of the other houses’ students on the Lions route. I killed her, along with Ignatz, Leonie, Judith (guess we’ll get her story on the Deer route), and Hilda. I was really expecting Hilda to be a chapter boss considering Edelgard’s route is the only one where she can’t be recruited, but she’s just hanging out with her Relic in the middle of Chapter 14 waiting to die. I allowed Claude to live too, likely setting up a post-epilogue scenario similar to that of the Lions.

Story/Character observations

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is a lesbian for Dorothea. It’s downright unfair how explicit the writing is with her...but then there is a noticeable difference between the presentation of M/M and F/F subtext in media generally.

Caspar/Linhardt is meanwhile flat up through their A support. This “pairing” lives and dies off the Ike/Soren visual allusion, because there’s nothing else to it really.

Shamir continues to be one of the more thought-provoking non-student characters in supports, mostly in how differently she plays off everyone. Manuela and Hanneman have some good ones too with Edelgard and Hubert, and all of them are nice enough to explain their reasoning for leaving the church and answering Edelgard’s summons in monastery dialogue. 

There’s some NPC dialogue about the Eastern church joining the rest of the church in exile in Fhirdiad ahead of the Alliance’s defeat. Edelgard’s relationship to the church outside the big dragon conspiracy and the Crests continues to be hard to parse. At least the game finally confirms that Edelgard didn’t order Jeralt’s death, and it solidly places the blame for the magical torturing on Those Who Slither.

I nearly forgot, but m!Byleth/Hubert is shockingly gay at the very end. The guy’s got layers despite being so thoroughly and gleefully evil.

A criticism: the Lions route provides a plausible reason for the political and military stalemate during the timeskip - Faerghus was leaderless, and the Lions don’t reassemble until their promised reunion - but in this route the Black Eagle Strike Force has occupied the monastery the whole time. Were they just hanging around and not resolving all their UST for five years until Byleth showed up and motivated Edelgard to finally do something by nothing more than their presence? If the combined forces of Faerghus and the church, helmed by a presumably less schizophrenic Dimitri, were unable to stage a counter-invasion during that time the Empire must clearly not be lacking for military force, so this really does look like a case of the protagonists needing the Avatar to function. Bleh.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Spoilers

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Doctor Strange (2016)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

No.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Two (16.66% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Ten.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

A mediocre story that mostly relies on its special effects in order to appear interesting.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

The only time that Christine and The Ancient One share the screen is when the latter is unconscious and dying, so the failure here is particularly unsurprising. For that matter, you could even argue that ‘The Ancient One’ isn’t much of a name for a named character to have...

Female characters:

The Ancient One.

Christine Palmer.

Male characters:

Kaecilius.

Stephen Strange.

Billy.

Nicodemus West.

Etienne.

Jonathan Pangborn.

Mordo.

Wong.

Daniel Drumm.

Dormammu.

OTHER NOTES:

Kaecilius produces two blades simultaneously for the beheading of the librarian, but the head is removed in a single slice, which means that one of those blades was being waved around purely for the Cool Points of dual-wielding. All about that aesthetic.

Someone sure did enjoy Inception, huh?

Remember that thing about how Iron Man balanced Tony Stark’s initial self-absorbed asshole behaviour really well with his journey to heroism in order to make him palatable enough to watch in the first place? Strange categorically does not get that treatment. He’s just an egotistical jerk who is tedious to watch, and while his arrogance is variously addressed by other characters, him going through an emotionally redemptive process is presumed by the script rather than actually being included.

If they really, really wanted Benedict Cumberbatch for this role, I feel like they should have just allowed him to be a British doctor living and working in the States. The guy cannot do accents.

My sister saw them filming the scenes in the streets of Kathmandu. Small world.

I understand that The Ancient One was an Asian man in the comics, and while I applaud the decision to make the character female in this film (especially considering that the only other significant female character is the awkwardly-included personality-lite love interest Christine), they shoulda done it without the white-washing. Tilda Swinton is great, though.

...Mister Doctor.

in an altogether lacklustre film, The Ancient One’s final moments are a highlight.

Also a highlight: the reverse destruction in Hong Kong, a much better use of the bountiful reliance on special effects in this movie, where so much of it previously had been empty spectacle.

So, let’s talk a bit about that well-known writing rule: Show, Don’t Tell. 

While this movie certainly does a lot of showing in the showy sense of the word - the frequently-empty spectacle of special effects as mentioned above - that’s not the type of show from whence story comes, and it leaves the thin plot to be almost exclusively told, without active support in the content of the film. Having characters charge around in the mirror universe doing weird spatial warping shit may be visually entertaining enough to hold the audience’s interest (at least the first time around), but it doesn’t help us to comprehend any aspect of the plot, its rules, what drives it, what matters, etc. It’s just...empty spectacle. Doctor Strange doesn’t pretend to be complex or deep storytelling outside of that anyway, and that’s ok insofar as there’s no reason it has to be or even should be, but what it is, when you set that spectacle aside, is...kinda nothing?

The game of ‘recount the plot as simplistically as possible’ goes like so: arrogant doctor suffers a seemingly incurable injury, searches for a cure anyway, finds a temple of the mystical arts, learns some mystical arts, fights some rival magicians, thwarts their evil plot, the end. As I’ve noted before, the ability to distill a plot to its simplest form is not in itself proof that the plot is somehow bad or lacking; the question is what does the actual film do to make that simplistic plot work for it? When the answer is ‘...kinda nothing?’, that’s a bad sign, and particularly unfortunate here because the whole mystical arts and magicians and the freakin’ multiverse thing has no excuse for being this boring. As a simplified plot, Doctor Strange still sounds like it could be intriguing, it’s brimming with potential, and yet the only thing it exploits that potential for is an excuse to over-indulge in special effects. It’s a waste of story ideas, to start with, and considering the cast, a waste of actors, too. If you’re not gonna make the most of their skills, you might as well cast a horde of unknowns and save the casting portion of the budget for, I dunno, another gravity-defying skyscraper battle?

It should come as no shock at this point that I’m about to make this about the greatest resource of any story: the characters, both because that’s what I always do, and because damn, did they forget about characterisation being, y’know, a thing you actually have to write into the script? You can cast the greatest actors in the world if you want, and they’ll do their best to make a symphony out of the single note you give them to work with, but even then all they can do is make thin material look its best; they can’t magically generate story action and development in the places where their characterisation should have been. Let’s talk about Kaecilius as an example, because as the plot’s antagonist, he’s the most egregious of the lot: why is Kaecilius the villain? The part where he’s positioned opposite the protagonist characters and their ethos is an indicator, yeah, but why is he there, doing what he’s doing, what are his motivations? The basic answer is that he wants to bring Dormammu and the power of the dark dimension to Earth because he thinks it will bring peace and life everlasting. How do we know he wants that? We’re told so in the dialogue. Why does Kaecilius think this is a good idea? Don’t know. Turns out Dormammu’s bad news, but we don’t know how or why Kaecilius was misled on the subject. Power from the dark dimension is apparently bad news too - we know because we are told so in the dialogue - but why exactly this is and what the consequences are is unclear. We don’t have the information we need in order to understand why Kaecilius turned so severely, why certain rules exist or why they are being broken; everything we know, we know because it’s delivered to us in plain speech, not because we see it demonstrated in the events of the film, and considering that the core of the conflict seems to have come from distrust in The Ancient One’s teachings, it’s pretty ironic that the narrative then expects the audience to know or believe the truth in anything that she or her acolytes utters. If we were shown the truth of it, or at least shown the reasons to doubt or contemplate alternatives, we might be able to build a story out of this, but instead, we get ‘fuck you, it’s like this coz we said so. He has metallic purple eyeliner, isn’t that enough?’

This lack of character building spills out to impact the rest of the characters too, naturally; the criminally-underused Mordo suffers especially as a result, since everything from his reason for coming to Kamar Taj, to his supposed rigid outlook on life, to his disillusionment with the cause, all relies on the audience simply shrugging off the idea of being shown the evidence in behaviour, the influence of the past, how it shapes his perspective in the present, etc, just forgoing anything that could be considered characterisation (and therefore, fodder for character development), and settle for ‘he’s like this: we know because another character said so’. Functionally, Mordo is hardly a character at all, he’s just The Other Guy that Strange sometimes interacts with, and big revelatory moments for him - Strange outing The Ancient One’s use of dark dimension power, Mordo grappling with his shaken faith - fall flat because we haven’t seen why this should matter, why Mordo can’t bring himself to see shades of grey in a situation, why The Ancient One has kept these secrets in the first place etc. The Ancient One herself fairs only marginally better as a character because the only thing we know about her (mostly because we’re told) is that she’s secretive; that said, ‘she’s secretive’ doesn’t work all that well as a sneaky way to avoid actually fleshing out a character, and the fact that instead of having any more meaningful secret revealed other than her power usage (which, again, isn’t that meaningful really because we aren’t shown a genuine reason to attribute it meaning, we just know that the characters are saying upset words about it), The Ancient One simply dies without ever becoming less enigmatic, means that we’re still left with more of a shell of a character than a real one, just the concept of a person, not an actual person with motivations and decisions we are privy to or could understand (and therefore, could judge or attribute meaning).

Strange, at least, is shown to be an arrogant jackass, but, as noted, that personality template is presented in a very cliche manner that - in the context of the MCU - reads much like a Tony Stark knock-off, only without any of the character nuance or developmental arc to pull it off in a palatable or entertaining fashion, and part of that problem is the fact that while Strange’s initial personality is shown, his process of change is...not. Like anything else in the film that should have been dynamic, it’s told to us in words more that it is demonstrated in actions. The earlier portion of the film is somewhat slow and low on intrigue or tension due to the fact that Strange doesn’t know the extent of the world he has become involved with, and he’s wholly occupied with his quest for a cure (though, frustration with his progress or with the fact that none of his training seems relevant to it is pretty light-on, as are any moments of struggle with his own self-interest vs the greater good - Strange’s hands are just a means to an end so that he has a reason to find Kamar Taj, rather than a sustained part of his struggles on a physical, mental, or emotional level). As soon as Strange learns that there’s a bigger battle out there, Kaecilius attacks (very convenient timing), and the story changes gears to launch headlong into its final act, with only time for The Ancient One to tell Strange that this is not about him (though, again, his self-interest has not remained centralised enough nor created continued strife necessary to make this declaration seem revelatory) before Strange is faced with either playing the game, or letting Kaecilius bring Dormammu and end the world. As such, Strange deciding that endless dark dimension torment is a bad thing isn’t really a big forward step (or even a selfless one - he could still be 100% focused on returning to his old life and leaving the multiverse to the pros, he just obviously can’t achieve his own self-interest with Dormammu around). Technically, we never see proof that Strange has given up his old ways, bettered himself as a person, or made any kind of decision that isn’t about his own ego (sticking around to become a universe-saving time-lord sorcerer is, um, a distinct step up the power trip ladder, after all). The idea that this character has actually gone through anything more than a career shift is just kinda assumed, rather than being demonstrated, and consequently, the idea that this is a character worth rooting for now is also, just assumed.

Ultimately, the moral of the story is pretty obvious - ‘show, don’t tell’ doesn’t have to mean ‘never provide exposition to explain anything’, but it does mean that you should try to demonstrate essential things like worldbuilding and characterisation as often as possible, if for no other reason than because letting your audience see that something is so is much more engaging and powerful than just telling them how it is. If all you’re gonna do is tell, you might as well just stick with reciting the plot aloud, it’d be cheaper and less time-consuming, and while it wouldn’t really take advantage of the fact that film is a visual medium, just churning out a bunch of special effects shenanigans without a plot to underpin them doesn’t take as much advantage of that as you might think, either. Imagine what an interesting, dark, twisty film we could have made out of this story if, say, questioning The Ancient One’s teachings (or cleaving to them unflinchingly) had been made a prominent concept, so that rifts in trust and the shaking of core beliefs about the universe were more meaningful developments? Imagine if Dormammu was a more significant idea about which we heard conflicting information from unreliable sources, imagine if we could see how tantalising Kaecilius’ perspective was, if Strange struggled at all with who to believe and how to reconcile his ego with the smallness of his existence in the vast multiverse, etc, etc. Imagine if the plot had some sort of core concept instead of just empty spectacle and placeholder characters. Imagine. What a waste.

#Marvel Cinematic Universe #Doctor Strange #MCU #Bechdel Test #female representation

[feelingfredly]

The Fox Guards the Wolf

Part Nine

Fighting Impulses

“So…” Ichigo stared around the room. “This is the Sanctum Sanctorum.”

Kisuke raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, and Ichigo frowned.

“Somehow I imagined more bubbling beakers and giant static electricity generators in Frankenstein’s lab.”

Still no response.

“It looks like an altar to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, with a dose of Miyamoto Shigaru thrown in for good measure.”

That did it.

“The beakers and Bunsen burners are down the hall.  The generator is in the basement.  And it is much more Miyamoto than Gates or Jobs, if you don’t mind.”

Ichigo smiled. “Gotcha.”

Kisuke sighed and shook his head a little.  “Yes. I admit it. You got me, and you didn’t even have to tell me my baby was ugly.”

The redhead grinned and wandered over to an empty desk in the corner.  “Is this for me?”

He nodded.  “I promised you time to write, didn’t I?  I need you to be close in case I need to handle something in a hurry, and this way you still have your own space.”

That earned him another smile. “Next you’ll tell me I can keep a toothbrush next to your sink.”

Kisuke couldn’t resist. “My sink is just down this hall, and you can keep anything there you want, Ichigo-san.” He watched as the red head snapped up to look at him and fought not to give himself away with a smile of his own. “And my bed is big enough for two if you get tired and don’t feel like trekking back up to your apartment.”

An interesting flush crept up Ichigo’s neck, and Kisuke wondered if he reacted that way to everyone.  He hoped not.

“Why do people keep trying to kidnap you?”  Ichigo punctuated the statement by dropping his backpack on his desk and pulling out his computer. Kisuke assumed that meant playtime was over.

“My fascinating personality?” He dropped into his chair and pulled two keyboard trays towards him, hitting a careful progression of keys to unlock the computers, while Ichigo plugged in his laptop.  

A few beeps and whirs later both men had their respective workstations up and running.

“Seriously,” Ichigo spun his chair to face him. “If I’m going to keep running into these guys I should at least know that much.  Is it leverage?  Money? Access?”

Kisuke pushed back from his work for a moment and considered how much to explain.

“I suppose,” he said, “in its simplest terms, they want to know what I know.”

Ichigo frowned harder than usual.  “Do you mean they want to know how much you know, or they want to have the same knowledge you have?”

Kisuke admired how quickly Ichigo recognized the potential layers in his explanation. Always the wordsmith.

“Mostly the latter.” He pulled his fan out and tapped his chin a few times.  “Although, the former is something they wouldn’t mind knowing either.”

“So basically, they want to force you to make whatever it is you’re making for them, and they want to know how much about them you and the others here,” he waved his hands to indicate the office building, “know about their plots and plans to take over the world.”

Kisuke nodded. “That’s about the size of it, yes.”

“Huh.”  Ichigo looked disappointed.  “Here I was hoping for something exotic, long-ranging and complex, but it’s really just business as usual, isn’t it?”

“I beg your pardon?” Kisuke stared across the office at his companion.  It was the first time he’d heard anyone associated with the Onmitsukido, even as tangentially as Kurosaki, declare that one of their conflicts was basically… boring.

“I mean, you’re working on something that’s new and different, but that’s not the plot is it? The plot is someone wants something that doesn’t belong to them, and they’ll do what they can to get it.” Ichigo shrugged, unimpressed.  “Am I wrong?”

“Not really.” Kisuke gave a half-hearted smile. “I think the only things that change are the names of the people involved, and how many times they’ve stabbed each other in the back to try to get an advantage over the other side.”  

He thought of Okura Kagetaka sadly. “I’m not even sure some of them know which side is which anymore.”

“Is this thing you’re working on something that would work for anyone?” Ichigo asked.

Kisuke considered the combat AI and how it could be applied.  “Yes.  And before you ask, I considered that when I started designing it.”  He looked at his computer screens, taking in the bits of code sitting there, and tried to imagine never having started the project. Never having mapped out how it would work. Never having mastered the intricacies of Yoruichi’s AI function. It made him terribly sad.  “I just couldn’t not create it. Do you understand?”

Ichigo’s brown eyes looked at him full of sympathy.  “I do. Probably more than most.”  He laughed a little under his breath.  “Do you have any idea how many times my friends and family have asked me what the hell I’m doing taking a year off to write a novel?  I know it isn’t the same.  My stories are never going to earn me a place on the cover of SuperSpy magazine, but when they’re in my brain I just can’t ignore them.  They’re too real for me to just let them fade away.”

Kisuke nodded. “You do understand, then.”  He looked back down and started typing, trying to get his suddenly jumbled thoughts in order.

Ichigo watched him quietly for a moment and then turned back to his own work.

***

Ichigo stretched and his back cracked ominously.  He really needed to work on his posture while he was typing.

“Why is it so hard to dispose of a body?”

Kisuke didn’t look up from his work. “Human body?”

Ichigo snorted. “Yes. Human body.  What other body would you worry about disposing of?”

Kisuke made a noncommittal sound. “Well, if you’d taken out an animal but were trying to disguise your presence you’d need to worry about disposal.  A dead gorilla would be a dead giveaway to anyone tracking you through the jungle.  Gorillas don’t have many natural predators, and none that would leave the same marks as most weapons.”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t be worrying about disposing of the body, I’d just want to temporarily hide it, probably in place because I wouldn’t be able to drag something that big very far from where I killed it.”

“True.” Another noncommittal sound. “So, how much time do you have?”

Ichigo huffed. “Time for what?”

“To dispose of the body, of course,” Kisuke huffed.

“Uh,” Ichigo rifled through his notes, “Ten hours?  Well, ten hours to remove it from the first site and get that cleaned up. After that I don’t care how long it takes to dispose of it, as long as it doesn’t lead anyone back to me.”

Kisuke hmm’d softly. “You want to move it as soon as possible if you can.  Leaving it in place gives you too many variables.  Plus, it makes clean up much worse.  How much blood?”

Ichigo stared at the blond. Were they really having this conversation?  “None. Hopefully.”

“How’d you kill him? Drugs?  Poison?” Kisuke still hadn’t looked up from his computer.

“Scopolamine. Accidental overdose.”

“Classic.  Too bad it was an accident.”

Ichigo tried to figure out what he meant by that but couldn’t follow the train of thought.

“Why is it too bad?”

“If you meant to kill him, you could’ve used the scopolamine’s effects to get him to go wherever you eventually intended to dispose of the body under his own steam. Then you wouldn’t have the transport problem.  You’d have to make sure no one saw you with him, but that’s not a significant obstacle most of the time.”

“It really works like that?  The whole Devil’s Breath, thing?” Ichigo was fascinated.  

“Yes.  The drug cartels in Colombia have been using it for decades.  Scarily effective.” Kisuke stopped typing and finally looked up.  “But it’s better if you don’t write it that way.  You might make some people…  nervous.”

Ichigo weighed the idea and nodded slowly.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

***

Kisuke touched the sensor behind his ear and Yoruichi’s voice greeted him. Hello Kisuke.

“Update data files on Kurosaki Ichigo.”

A few seconds passed, and the voice purred at him again. Data files updated.

“Did you say something, Urahara-san?” Ichigo pulled his earbud out and turned to look at him.

“Just talking to myself, Kurosaki-san,” he said.  It was true. There wasn’t anything in this Yoruichi that wasn’t him.  Just an enhanced him.

“I think I’m going to head upstairs for dinner.” Ichigo looked back over his shoulder.  “Do you have plans?”

Kisuke looked at the clock in surprise.  He hadn’t realized it was so late already.

“I’m so sorry, Kurosaki-san.  I completely lost track of the time.”

Ichigo just smiled. “So did I. I can’t believe how much progress I made today. You want to come up for curry?  My sister Yuzu sent enough for an army.”

Kisuke stared at the redhead.  No one had ever been happy with his losing track of time before.

“Curry sounds delicious.”

***

“Did Tsukabishi-san say there was a gym in the basement?” Ichigo finished drying the last bowl and put it back in the cabinet. “I really need to get a workout in tomorrow if possible.”

Kisuke nodded. “There are two.  One has the basic treadmills, weights, and so on, and the other is for sparring.  I’m sure you could find a partner if you’re interested. It isn’t like a dojo, though.  Down there pretty much anything goes.  It’s more about efficacy than style.”

If he thought that was going to be a deterrent, he was in for a surprise.  The redhead actually looked more interested.

“It would be a good to stretch myself against someone who isn’t just going to use traditional judo. I haven’t had a real fight since high school.”  He laughed, but Kisuke could sense the excitement bubbling just under the surface.

Every time he thought he had a handle on Kurosaki something happened to prove him wrong.

“Don’t tell me your father encouraged fighting.”

The younger man grinned and picked up his cup of tea. “Encouraged is a strong word.  Let’s just say that my dad understood that it was likely to happen, and believed that if I was going to fight, I’d better be good enough at it to both walk away the winner, and to leave no permanent damage behind me.”

That sounded like the Kurosaki Isshin Kisuke remembered.

“No permanent damage, hmm?” he asked, pouring tea for himself as well.

“He always said it was because he didn’t want me to turn into a thug and it was important to think about the long-term consequences of my actions. But I know the truth.”

“And what was that?”

Ichigo took a drink and met his eyes over the top of the cup. “He didn’t want to have to do the paperwork afterwards, of course.”

Kisuke didn’t choke on his tea, but it was a close call.

***

The exercise rooms were surprisingly crowded.  Or not surprisingly crowded, if you thought about the jobs most of these people had. This was an associated branch of the Onmitsukido after all.

Ichigo looked at the people sparring and was impressed by the sheer variety.  There were young and old, male and female. He heard Japanese, English, Korean, and an African language he couldn’t identify, but they all had one thing in common. They were all kicking ass and taking names.

“You must be Kurosaki Ichigo-san.” A pleasantly non-descript young woman in her twenties appeared at his elbow.  “Welcome to the team!”  She gave a brief bow that was respectful enough to make him feel like he was actually welcome, but somehow conveyed the message that he still had some question marks beside his name. “I’m Tanaka Midori.”

Ichigo returned the bow. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Tanaka Midori-san.”  He indicated the people scattered across the mats.  “Is it always this crowded?”

The young woman looked around and nodded.  “Most mornings, yes.  Everyone likes to get their workout in early in the day so they don’t end up missing it if their schedule changes unexpectedly.”

That made sense. Maybe he’d do better to put off his workout until later in the day.

“Kurosaki-san.”

Ichigo turned, only slightly surprised to see Kisuke standing behind him.  “Good morning, Urahara-san.  What brings you out of your lair this morning?”

Tanaka stiffened beside him and he supposed he should be more respectful to Kisuke around his coworkers.

Were they his coworkers?  He’d never seen anyone around except Tessai.  He’d have to ask.

“I realized after our conversation last night how long it had been since I’d gotten in a good sparring session.”

Tanaka stared at him slack-jawed and Ichigo wondered if that indicated that Urahara was lying about sparring, or that just seeing him outside his lab was disconcerting enough to throw her for a loop.

Considering the physical control he’d seen the blond exert, he was betting it was the former. But, if he wanted to pretend he lacked skills, who was Ichigo to protest?

He wandered over to the corner where they had an area for stretches and sat down next to the wall, legs spread as widely as possible, and slowly scooted forward until he felt the insides of his thighs begin to burn. He sat like that for ten seconds and then rotated into a Chinese split, and held that, breathing deeply as he felt his muscles first protest and then relax into the familiar movement.

Urahara had taken the opportunity to prop one foot on a waist-high beam and lean into a hamstring stretch that looked completely effortless.

They stretched like that for a few more minutes in silence, until Ichigo figured it was time to roll the dice.

“Shall we shake the dust off, Urahara-san?” He pretended not to notice the audience they were gathering.

“Nothing would suit me better, Kurosaki-san.”

***

The sparring areas were simply mats spread out through the basement with walkways between, and Ichigo led them to the nearest unoccupied set and bowed before stepping on them

“Rules?”

Kisuke shrugged. “Why don’t you decide this time. It is too early for me to be making decisions.”

Ichigo cocked his head to one side and he half expected an argument, but the redhead surprised him again.

“Let’s try to keep it civil, then.  No knee shots or eye-gouging, and I’d prefer not to be singing soprano afterwards. Good for you?”

He couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped. “Good enough, Kurosaki-san.” He faced the younger man and settled into a comfortable stance.  This was going to be interesting.

Ichigo slowly moved counter-clockwise a step and then another, and Kisuke played along, but unlike many of his sparring partners, he didn’t dance around.  No, the redhead was much more cautious, watching his feet and hands, trying to see when the tendons tightened to move.

So, Kisuke did the same.

They measured each other that way, judging reach and angles, until Ichigo sighed.

“This is boring.”

In a split second the younger man had closed the space between them, lashing out with his left leg, first kicking low and then high without withdrawing to rebalance.  Kisuke took the first kick to the calf and then blocked the second, moving quickly to the side before landing a closed fist strike on the inside of Ichigo’s thigh just above the knee.

There was an indrawn breath behind him, and he wondered what their audience would think of what came next.

As expected, the thigh strike threw Ichigo off balance, but he quickly regrouped, and sent a flurry of punches and strikes—arm, chest, arm, turn and strike to the back—and Kisuke flowed into his defense.  Blocking he could tell that Ichigo was still feeling him out, measuring how much force to use to strike without over-committing, and he leaned back, using his superior reach, and swung his right foot up, just missing the redhead’s chin.

A scowl appeared for a moment on Ichigo’s face, and Kisuke knew his intentional undershot had been recognized and unappreciated.

It might not have been Kisuke’s best idea.

He watched as Ichigo changed stances, dropping his traditional karate positioning into something looser and dirtier.

Kisuke threw a short punch, snapping Ichigo’s head back from the quick jolt, but as he pulled back, he noticed a strange short slide of Ichigo’s foot.  Somehow the smaller man channeled the energy behind his punch, translating it into a modified backbend, and he watched in surprise as Ichigo dropped both hands to the floor behind him and kicked him first in the hip, then the chest, and then finally in the chin, before flipping over and away from him after landing the shot that Kisuke had chosen not to.

He couldn’t remember the last time someone had actually landed a hit like that on him.

He grinned.

Two quick shifts later and he had Ichigo’s elbow stretched to its natural limit, but before he could lock it into place to force him to the mat, his foot was lifted just enough for Ichigo to spin him in a half-circle, drop to one knee, force the overextension of his own arm but in a way that pulled Kisuke forward and over him, so he could then ram upward and headbutt him in the solar plexus.

The two separated, breathing harder now.

Kisuke noticed that the redhead was gently shaking the arm he’d just sacrificed, and he quirked an eyebrow.  Ichigo shook his head in silent refusal, and they faced off again.

This time Ichigo went straight for a judo throw, lunging forward and grabbing the front of Kisuke’s gi.  He slid his right leg between Kisuke’s thighs, and pulled him forward with all his strength, sliding him up to where he was practically sitting against Ichigo’s hip.  As the shorter man prepared to pull him over, Kisuke forced himself further forward into the hold, and then wrapped his arm around the redhead’s throat.  Ichigo realized that if he threw Kisuke at that point, he’d basically strangle himself in the process, so he performed a quick release, and shoved instead, sending Kisuke backwards with a stumble.

Their audience had grown, and he could hear mutterings from the crowd.

It was his turn to attack.  Low punch, elbow block, hit to the ear, and then grab the redhead by the gi and use his own bodyweight to throw him to the floor. But instead of faceplanting, Ichigo hit the mat on his hands and made a perfect leg sweep, catching Kisuke’s leg just enough to keep him from following through with a floor hold and pin.

By this point Tanaka Midori and the others had seen enough.  No one in the gym would wonder why Ichigo had been brought onto the team. Now it was time to really push things.

Ichigo’s face was flushed and his eyes were wide and bright.  There was a sheen of perspiration on his skin, and Kisuke could practically feel the weight of his focus. It made his skin hot, and his heart race, and it had nothing to do with the exertion of sparring.

It would always be like this between them, he thought.  

He crossed the space between them and jabbed into the brachial nerve cluster at Ichigo’s right shoulder, eliciting the first true gasp of pain from his opponent.  He followed that up with a side strike to his neck, and then flipped the smaller man around, pulling both arms up into a full nelson.

He pressed on the back of Ichigo’s neck, forcing his head down, cutting off his air, and reducing the blood-flow to his head, and he started a slow ten count.  

Ichigo groaned, and Kisuke could feel it vibrate under his hands.  He’d reached six by the time Ichigo tried to counter, dropping his weight a little, but he wasn’t concerned.  Once the gray started setting in, it would be over.

Ichigo raised his hands to his own head.  It was probably pounding from the restricted circulation, but he hadn’t tapped out yet, and Kisuke was a patient man.  But then, suddenly, the redhead struck himself in the forehead, and the shock of the impact both snapped his head back allowing a rush of blood to travel back in, and it loosened Kisuke’s grip just long enough, that when Ichigo dropped his weight entirely, stomping backwards on the arch of Kisuke’s foot, and rotating his hip to pull Kisuke completely around his body, he was caught completely by surprise. It was such a novel sensation that he simply released his hold, and let himself be pinned.

Ichigo looked down at him, their breath mingling their faces were so close together, and Kisuke could feel the redhead’s heart pounding where their chests were pressed into the floor.

A murmur was spreading and Kisuke could hear whispers of he pinned Getaboshi from the crowd.  Ichigo must have heard it too.  He pushed off and rolled to his feet in an easy movement, offering Kisuke a hand as he stood.

“Thanks for taking it easy on me, Urahara-san.” He gave a polite little bow and turned away from the crowd standing around. “We’d better get cleaned up, though. Tsukabishi-san wanted me to remind you that you had an appointment at eleven, and I don’t think either of us would come away from that fight in once piece if I let you miss it.”

Kisuke watched as the spectators dispersed, Ichigo’s comments reducing what would normally have been gossip mill fodder for a month into just another sparring session.  He had controlled an entire room of trained agents with three sentences.

Kisuke’s heart sped up noticeably enough that he didn’t need Yoruichi in his ear informing him of it. How was it that Ichigo managed to keep him so off balance, so fascinated?  

They pushed the button for the elevator and waited, listening to the sounds of sparring starting up again behind them. Kisuke could feel the heat pouring off the man next to him, could smell the faint tang of perspiration.

The door opened. They stepped in.  The door closed.

“Why’d you let me do it?” He wasn’t sure what Ichigo meant.

“Do what?”

“Why’d you let me break loose so easily?” Ichigo’s voice was a little rough and he hoped he hadn’t injured his windpipe with the throat punch.

Kisuke remembered the vicious heel to the instep, and the elbow to the ribs, and wondered what Ichigo would think of as hard.

“We were sparring,” he said as the door opened on his floor. “Anyway, my ego is healthy enough that I don’t have to win.” He gave a little half-smile.  “At least not all the time.”

Ichigo stepped further back into the elevator, his eyes fastened on Kisuke’s, that fascinating flush on his cheeks again.

“Okay,” he said, “But to be fair, I’ll let you pin me next time.”

The doors closed.

[sinsiriuslyemo]

Okay, so I am fricken living for these two right now!! So, in case you’re wondering; my main projects right now (aside from Cuba v DR) are this one, Switching Roles and of course the requests I’m still working my way through. I have another project on the back burner, but I wanna take my time with that one, so I won’t be posting anything for it yet.

Also, I one again tagged anyone who commented that they enjoyed the last two parts of this, and again if you prefer not to be tagged, feel free to let me know!

tagged: @bullet-prooflove, @delia26, @ghostofachancewithyou, @whiterose2664, @blown-transistor, @esparza-army, @mikeydodds, @southern-magnolia

3. The Thing About Dating

The thing about dating was that he knew how easily he could get swept up in a moment. On the few occasions where he had tried to court someone, he’d gotten lucky and the other person had reciprocated his energy, though not necessarily his intentions. Sebastian Everette was a hopeless romantic, a man who longed to feel that special connection he always heard about in love songs. He had felt it before, unfortunately no one he’d ever gone out with had.

There were times in his life when he’d been convinced that someone like him could never find the person who understood him or his notions about love. Even his best friend, Casper, had told him time and time again that the kind of love Sebastian spent his life believing in didn’t exist. That love was just what people said to each other once they realized that they could probably spend the rest of their days together and be content, happy.

“There are six billion people in the world. It’s hard to find the one person who’s right for you.”

Even now, Casper’s words echoed in his mind, repeating themselves over and over, and still Sebastian couldn’t find it in himself to give up hope. It was too early to know whether Rafael was the one person he’d been waiting for, he kept reminding himself, but still he hoped.

Sebastian began to fidget as he stood in front the Skat Cat, waiting for Rafael. The butterflies in his stomach hadn’t shown any signs of settling since the first conversation they’d had at the bar. His pulse quickened at the thought of the well-dressed ADA and the corner of his lips naturally lifted into a gentle smile. Leaning back against the building behind him, Sebastian sighed and tried to calm his nerves by focusing on his breathing. He also tried not to notice that Rafael was twenty minutes late.

While a reasonable person might chalk the ADA’s tardiness with a slow moving subway or traffic--if he’d decided to take a cab--Sebastian had a tendency to overthink the simplest of things. He imagined that was part of the reason why he was single, most guys appreciated their freedom to be on time or be late if they pleased without their significant other taking it personally. The musician was well aware of his insecurities and, after years of solitude, had gotten them fairly under control. At least he hoped. Which was why he refused to let himself think that Rafael wouldn’t show up eventually.

As if an answer to his prayers, the prosecutor jogged up the sidewalk, briefcase in hand and an apologetic smile on his face. “I’m so sorry, the subway got delayed on 14th--”

“Oh, it’s okay,” Sebastian answered, smiling at the other man. He took a deep breath in attempts to silence the nagging voice in the back of his head.

“No hat tonight, huh?” Rafael asked with a smile.

“Yeah, well, you know...thought I’d keep things interesting,” Sebastian answered. Rafael chuckled, nodding in appreciation. “Shall we?”

“Yes.”

Continuing to focus on his breathing, Sebastian was able to reign his nerves once more. “So, tough day, huh?”

“Something like that,” Rafael answered as they walked side by side on the walkway. “The case I’m trying right now is...complex. I won’t bore you with the details but suffice it to say that it’s one case I’m not sure I’d win. I’m hoping the defense will be open to a plea deal.”

“Hm.”

Rafael knitted his brows as he glanced at the man walking beside him. “What?”

Sebastian bobbed his shoulders. “I don’t know, you just don’t give off the vibe of someone who gives up.”

“It’s not that I’m giving up, I just...jury trials are always a crapshoot. You go in hoping that the jury will be able to make sense of all the evidence, but there’s always a chance that it could work against you.”

“Well, yeah, but I mean if you have evidence that something went down, they have to take that into consideration, right?” Sebastian asked, casting his eyes to the slightly taller man.

“Yes. But a good defense attorney--and this guy has one--will do what it takes to create reasonable doubt. All it takes is one juror to turn a trial inside out,” Rafael answered.

“Sounds pretty complicated,” Sebastian mused. “I mean, I get it; innocent until proven guilty and all that, but if this cat really did something wrong and you have evidence that proves it--”

“--He also has evidence that contradicts mine,” Rafael said.

The pianist raised his brows as he nodded once. “Oh…”

For a moment they walked in silence, the quiet between them filled with the rustle and bustle of every other New Yorker walking to one destination or another. Sebastian bit down on his bottom lip, wondering if he should offer an apology and also wondering why he’d felt the need to offer an opinion in the first place. It wasn’t as though he knew very much about the legal system anyhow.

“But enough about that,” Rafael said softly, offering him a smile. “Tell me about your day.”

The musician smiled back, grateful to have not ruined their time with his nonsense. “I spent most of it working.”

The ADA furrowed his brows. “Working? I thought you said you were off today.”

“Well, a different kind of working,” Sebastian answered, smiling through the warmth that spread on his face. “I’m uh...writing a musical. Or trying to anyway.”

The corner of Rafael’s lips curled upward as they reached Miyabi Sushi and the pianist opened the door, holding it to let Rafael in first. “Really..?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian answered with a faint smile, stepping inside behind Rafael. “It’s a work in progress. A long, long progress.”

“What’s it about?” Rafael asked, following the musician to a corner table, where they sat down.

“Love. Loss. Grief,” Sebastian answered, running a hand through his hair as he chuckled. “I know, it sounds like every other musical since the beginning of time.”

“Well,” Rafael mumbled as he bobbed his shoulders and took off his jacket. “Love, loss, even grief are often times subjective. There is no one-fits-all experience.”

Sebastian tilted his head in the form of a shrug. “I don’t know, for the most part people tend to go through the same emotions when it comes to things like that.”

“Well, yes, but they don’t necessarily experience them the same way,” Rafael countered.

They shared a moment of silence as their server brought over menus and took their drink order. When they were left alone again, Sebastian looked up at the man across from him, eying him appreciatively before he continued to read the menu.

“I’d love to hear it sometime,” Rafael said, eyes still looking over the laminated list of dishes as the server came back their drinks.

Sebastian felt the heat rise in his cheeks, traveling all the way down to the back of his neck. “Maybe. If I can ever actually get it finished.” He took a sip from his beer, gesturing to Rafael’s menu with his chin. “Anything look good?”

“Think I’m in a sashimi kinda mood,” Rafael answered with a smirk as he set the menu down. “How long have you been working on it? The musical.”

“Seven years,” Sebastian answered in a sigh, offering a smile. “I’ve thought about scrapping it a couple of times. My buddy, Casper, has told me I should start over but I just can’t let it go. Too stubborn, I guess.”

“Seven years, that’s…”

“Pathetic?” Sebastian offered in a chuckle.

“No, it’s admirable,” Rafael replied. “Means you really believe in it despite any struggles.”

The musician bobbed his shoulders. “It’s a constant struggle, but I guess I figure if you’ve got no fight left in you, you might as well be dead, ya know?”

Rafael smiled, nodding his head as their server came back and took their order. Sebastian let out a breath as his gaze caught that of the prosecutor. He took a moment to admire the depth of the other man’s eyes--a much darker shade of green due to the dimness of their surroundings--and the way his hair was so perfect combed away from his face. His hook nose only seemed to add character to his other features and the beautiful pout that seemed to be permanently curled into a gentle smirk.

Sebastian couldn’t help but grace the other man with a smirk of his own. “I gotta ask you something…”

Rafael swallowed, eyes holding the other man’s stare. “What’s that?”

“How is it that a guy like you--handsome, successful--is single?”

An eruption of goosebumps freckled Sebastian’s skin as Rafael blushed and cast his eyes down to his hands. He followed the attorney’s gaze and dear God, how had he not noticed his hands? His large, gorgeous hands, long, graceful fingers and veins that raised the smooth skin so naturally.

“I think it’s the classic story of working too much to really meet anyone outside of the job, plus...my work is…” He sighed as he shook his head. “Grim at best. Horrifying at its worst. It’s sometimes difficult to be good company for anyone, let alone be romantic. My social life has taken a back seat for quite some time. After a while, I hardly noticed it anymore...until recently,” Rafael answered, bringing his eyes back up. “Though I could ask you the same thing.”

“I don’t know that I would call myself successful persay.”

“You make a living doing what you’re most passionate about; making beautiful music,” Rafael replied, smiling. “In my book, that constitutes being successful. Plus you’re charming and talented--”

“--Alright, easy,” Sebastian chuckled. “I can take a compliment and all, but my knees start knockin’ when you turn on the charm full-blast.”

It wasn’t far from the truth, the reality was that his heart had been hammering in his chest since Rafael had walked up to the bar to meet him. His stomach had done somersaults every time the ADA smiled at him. He felt anxious and calm, insecure and safe all in the same breath.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Rafael said with a smirk as he placed his forearms on the table to lean towards Sebastian.

He paused, swallowing and trying to choose his words carefully. “I...feel things pretty intensely.” Was that too honest? “When I like someone, I tend to throw my whole heart into it, and um…sometimes I get too far into my own head, I overthink, I…” Shut up! “I let my insecurities get the best of me.” Talking. He was doing too much of it! He sighed and took a deep breath. “I dunno, I guess it...freaks guys out.”

Why? Why had he said all of that?! He could’ve just said he simply hadn’t found the right guy yet and left it at that!

He chuckled under his breath, keeping his eyes down.

“Sorry, that got a little heavy. I didn’t mean to freak you out, too--”

“--No,” Rafael answered, shaking his head as his hand reached across the table to rest on Sebastian’s. “It was honest...and it doesn’t freak me out at all.”

“It doesn’t?” Sebastian asked with an arched brow. “So you’re just as crazy as I am?” he teased, lacing their fingers together.

“That’s actually a strong possibility. I did once get a defendant on the stand to choke me with a belt just to prove a point,” Rafael answered.

Sebastian laughed heartily as their food arrived, though neither of them moved to acknowledge it.

“Seriously,” Rafael said, holding the other man’s gaze. “I even provided the belt.”

The corners of the musician’s lips curled in amusement as he nodded once. “My turn to be impressed.”

Rafael’s head tilted in the form of a shrug as he smirked. “It worked.”

For a moment that seemed like a lifetime, Sebastian could--in his mind’s eye--see the two of them together, sharing so many tender moments, so many firsts, so many milestones. He swallowed when he caught himself wondering what Rafael would look like holding a newborn baby. Blinking twice, he slowly pulled his fingers from Rafael’s to reach for the chopsticks beside his plate.

He could hear the sounds of the city outside and began to feel grounded again as he picked up one of the pieces of sashimi and popped it into his mouth. “So…” He chewed and swallowed as he tried to think of something to say. “Where’d you go to law school?”

“Harvard,” Rafael answered. “What about you? Did you go to school?”

“Manhattan School of Music,” Sebastian answered.

“Did you always know you wanted to be a musician?”

“Yeah, ever since I was a kid. Started teaching myself piano when I was six,” Sebastian replied. “My mom didn’t have much money for lessons, but our neighbor had this great Wurlitzer Console that she hardly ever used. She used to babysit me while my mom worked the night shift at the diner on the corner of our street. The minute I first touched those keys, I remember it was like...this electricity going through my fingers. Music was a way for me to express how I felt inside in a way words couldn’t, like a piece of my soul made up of crescendos and legatos.”

Way to sound like a tool, he thought to himself.

Rafael smiled as he chewed a piece of raw fish. “You make it sound so beautiful.”

A pink hue graced Sebastian’s cheeks as he gathered some rice with his chopsticks. “How about you? Were you one of those kids that argued with everyone over everything?”

The prosecutor laughed. “Often. I’ve always had a bit of a mouth that I, still to this day, utilize. Sometimes a little too much, some might say.”

“Your parents must’ve loved that,” Sebastian teased with a grin. He could've kicked himself when he looked up and saw Rafael biting down on his bottom lip, looking as though he was trying suppress a terrible memory by staring at his sashimi. “Hey, I’m--Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

The lawyer looked back up at him and shook his head. “No, no, I just…” He paused as if to gather his thoughts. “My father was not very good man, he was in and out of the picture most of the time.”

Sebastian frowned, reaching across the table to lay his hand on the other man’s forearm. “I’m sorry,” he said again in a whisper.

“It’s okay, you didn’t know,” Rafael answered, one corner of his mouth twitch as if trying to form a smile.

Sebastian let a moment of silence settle between them before he glanced down at the other man’s half-eaten plate. “So, what do you think? This is a great place, right?”

Rafael seemed thankful for the change in subject, smiling as he nodded. “I can’t believe I’ve never been here before.”

“Let me guess, you’ve walked by it a bunch of times, but never thought to go inside?” the pianist quipped with a wink.

Rafael narrowed his eyes as a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “Clever.”

“I thought so,” Sebastian answered with a bob of his shoulders as he continued to eat.

When they were finished with their respective dinner’s, Sebastian--after refusing to split the bill-- paid their tab and polished off his beer. Standing, he waited for Rafael to walk in front of him, blushing when the attorney made a comment about him being such a gentleman.

As they stepped out into the crisp fall air, Sebastian tucked his hands into his front pockets as he and Rafael settled into a leisure walk back towards the club. Conversation with the ADA came so easy and Sebastian mentally cursed the short, one-block walk to the Skat Cat. He could’ve spent the whole night talking to Rafael without so much as noticing whether it was daylight yet. As they approached the spot where they’d began their night, Sebastian sighed, turning to face the other man with a smile.

“Thank you for dinner,” Rafael said.

“I’m glad you called. I had a really great time,” Sebastian replied.

“So did I,” the ADA answered, grinning at the slightly shorter man. “What are you doing for breakfast tomorrow?”

Sebastian cast his eyes upward, as if he would find the answer somewhere in the air above the other man’s head. “I think I still have some pop tarts,” he answered, smiling when Rafael chuckled.

“We should meet at the cafe by Gristedes. They have the most amazing French lattes,” Rafael suggested.

Sebastian grinned and nodded. “I’d like that alot.”

“How about we meet back here at, say, seven?”

Again the musician nodded. “Okay. Seven it is.”

For a moment, he was unsure as to whether he should try for a good night kiss. Was this even a date? It had certainly felt like one for most of the night.

What if he did kiss Rafael and got carried away? Even if he wouldn’t be opposed to things going a bit further, he knew it would only sink him in deeper than he already was and it was only the first date. If it even was, in fact, a first date.

“I should go,” Rafael said softly, reaching out with the hand that wasn’t holding his briefcase. Sebastian took it in his all too willingly and stroked the ADA’s skin with his thumb, lifting the corner of his lips.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, earning a nod from the other man.

“Good night, Sebastian.”

“Good night, Rafael.”

Sebastian watched as the ADA continued walking down the street and he let out a sigh as he turned to go in through the door beside the entrance to the Skat Cat. He climbed the narrow staircase and unlocked the door to his apartment, shedding his jacket. For a moment, he stood there, replaying the last moments of his evening with Rafael and he closed his eyes as he huffed out a breath.

“Fuck, I should’ve kissed him,” he hissed.

#rafael barba #rafael barba x male #law and order svu #the prosecutor and the piano bar #vanity project

[no-zaku-boy]

DA:O Appreciation Week - Day 3

Questions of the Day:

Who is your favorite LI in Origins? ZEV ZEV ZEV ZEV ZEV. I’ve already written about my love for him this week, so I won’t gush too much, but I do think he’s the most well-written and interesting LI in Origins. He’s all about consent, his romance is arguably one of the healthiest emotionally in the whole series, he’s totally devoted to the Warden and alghlksgoasj I just love him so much aaaahhh

Which character was your Warden’s worst enemy in game? Lalia has two very emotional Big Bads: the Broodmother and Caladrius. The Broodmother is a horrific look at what could be, and as I mentioned yesterday, it deeply affects her. As for Caladrius, well, killing the slaver who stole and sold her people, her family, is only the second time she ever truly relishes taking a life. Up to and during that fight, she’s nothing but cold rage, but after he’s dead, she’s tempestuous and volatile and only finds calm after sparring with Alistair, blurting out some things she regrets, and realizing what an ugly mess she’s being and how she could be doing more useful things with her energy.

Lyna, on the other hand, takes most enemies in stride and is arguably her own biggest hurdle, in a sense. The conflict that most affects her is that between the werewolves and Zathrian’s clan because it makes her really consider that a) the quickest answer isn’t always the best or right one and b) shemlen lives and problems aren’t all terribly different from Dalish ones. Prior to that, she’d killed Connor because simplest solution, duh, and would have defiled the ashes had she not had a couple fussy shemlen with her, but seeing the two sides of the story in the Brecilian Forest changes her way of thinking somewhat. She still leans toward the most straightforward path, even if it’s the bloodiest, but she’s willing to consider other options more thoroughly from then on and slowly opens herself up to her shemlen companions as equals.

More under the cut because this got long whoops

Prompts of the Day:

Who did your Warden romance?  Did the romance last beyond Origins? (as in did your Warden die at the end of Origins, did they break up for some other reason, did you leave Alistair in the Fade in DAI if you romanced him, or are they together after DAI?)  If your Warden didn’t have a LI in Origins, why not? Did this Warden gain a LI from later games in your headcanons? Lalia romances Zevran. She assumes his flirting is just a game for a long time, but once he makes his intentions clear, she more than makes up for lost time. As open as she is with simple emotions like happy!! or mad!!, she’s bad at identifying more complex ones but doesn’t shy away from them when she realizes they exist, so when Wynne accuses her of being in love with Zevran, she’s like, “Huh, whaddaya know, I sure am,” and that’s that. Zevran obviously is less cool about his own feelings, but they work it out and are better for it. They split after an argument some time during Awakening (Lalia is experiencing the Calling early but doesn’t want to worry Zev, Alistair spills the beans, Zev’s furious and hurries to Vigil’s Keep to confront her, Lalia says something nasty, Zev leaves) and remain separated for a couple years before Zevran returns to her one day out of the blue. After lots of apologies from both sides, they’re all but inseparable.

After some initial animosity between the two, Lyna romances Alistair. As she’s willing to take the role of leader without complaint, her companions all become Hers, in a protective sense, and Alistair most of all because, as a Warden, he’s the only other one like her and has to see the Blight end. That’s how it starts, anyway; as she opens herself up to shemlen, his good qualities quickly endear him to her, and vice versa. While they started out heavily at odds, their relationship becomes one of total mutual support, with Lyna not considering for a moment forcing Alistair to become king against his wishes and Alistair defending Lyna’s actions as Warden-Commander. They stay together in the order after the Blight, and when she gets word that Alistair was left behind in the Fade, Lyna drops everything and devotes herself 100% to finding a way to bring him back in one piece.

Who was your Warden’s best friend in Origins, and how did they become best friends? Lalia builds strong friendships with everyone in her party, so this is a hard question to answer for her. Alistair is probably her closest companion after Zevran, with Morrigan and Sten coming in close behind. She and Alistair butt heads a little at first, mainly because neither of them are well-equipped to suddenly be The Wardens, let alone be The Leader of The Wardens and Decider of Things, but they both have a good sense of humour and are pretty gregarious, so it doesn’t take long for them to overcome their differences and get close.

Lyna’s BFFs are Sten and Shale, easily, but mostly the former. She bristles at Sten’s insistence that her place is not as a warrior, and he finds her narrow-mindedness to be a bad quality in a leader, but they bond over sparring and the attitudes they do have in common pretty quickly. Sten comes to appreciate her as a capable leader over time, and Lyna finds solace in his quiet company and straightforward personality. They’re quite similar in a lot of ways, so they naturally gravitate toward one another once they overcome their initial assumptions.

#dragon age origins appreciation week #dragon age origins #da:o