#and look lord knows we’ve all got trauma i see that and i respect it but i also feel like not everyone gets told from day dot | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cassianandfenrysaremyboyos · 3 years

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hey! I only recently started reading acotar (i'm on the third book) and I love love love Lucien, and I'm super excited at the prospect of him and Elain... actually they are the main reason I'm reading at this point but all I've seen on twt is about the other ship for Elain 😔 Is there any hope for Elain x Lucien in the later books?? I'm asking bc I don't want to get major spoilers but also I'm tired of getting my heart broken by non endgame ships lol

Welcome to the Lucien and Elucien train!! We're very happy to have to you! 😊💕

I wouldn't worry about what people are saying on twitter. Just because one part of the fandom is more vocal doesn't mean their ship is more popular or that it has more chance of happening in canon. Right now neither ship is canon. But absolutely there is hope for Elucien!!

First Elucien are mates. Sarah loves mates/soulmates. We've seen that with Feysand and Nessian, and I don't know if you've read Throne of Glass but the main ship in that series are also mates and the main ship in Sarah's other series, Crescent City also show signs of being soulmates. Sarah loves writing about that deep soulmate type of love! They might have to overcome obstacles but ultimately they choose each other.

Also Sarah has talked about how in her early planning she briefly considered making Nesta and lucien mates but quickly realised they wouldn't work together/would tear each other apart. If Sarah really wanted to write about a rejected mating bond she could have left Nesta and Lucien mates and had them reject the bond. But she didn't because she loves soulmates.

Sarah has also said this about Elucien "there was actually a great deal of tension, growth and healing to be found for both of them together" She's never said anything ever about the other ship as far as I know? Certainly nothing romantic.

There is so much potential for healing between Elain and Lucien. One of the things I love about Elucien is they have so much in common. They're both gentle souls. Some people might not realise that about Lucien, but he really is. Lucien is someone who is deeply traumatised from violence, you see it in the first book in the scene when the injured Faery is brought into the Spring Court manor and he's deeply distressed by it. It clearly triggers his ptsd from his own trauma, but it also shows us that Lucien is someone who can't stomach violence, at least not in the way some of the other characters do. And Elain, well at this stage, since we haven't really seen her development or gotten her pov yet, being a kind gentle heart is really her defining character trait. They're two characters who would cherish a peaceful life away from war and violence. Two characters with the potential to be so soft together, to provide each other with a safe space to be vulnerable, and show their weaknesses and talk about their trauma. And be comforted by the other and have the other understand. They have such complimentary personalities. Something the other ship doesn't have. Azriel is a torturer (I love Az btw so this isn't a critiscm just observations about his character) he is filled with a cold hard rage, something Elain hasn't seen from him/doesn't truely know about him. And currently he's most definitely not one to open up and share about his own trauma, which certaintly doesn't work for two characters making a healing journey together. Something Sarah, as shown above see's as important. Elain and Azriel are simply too different imo. And I know people can argue opposite's attract. But opposite's attract only applies to a certain point, with certain things. If two people are just fundementally different a relationship won't work between them long term.

Meanwhile Elain and Lucien have just enough differences that they're not too similar but have enough in common to mesh really well together.

And even their differences are complimentary. Lucien has a bit of bite and sass about him, and that's something I think Elain needs to help bring her out of her shell. Elain is someone who has been coddled and infantalised and sheltered, people don't challenge her or speak freely to her, they censor themselves around her. Very minor spoilers seeing as you're only up to the third book, but in the 5th book, Acosf there's a moment where Nesta snaps/swears at Elain, and Nesta immediately regrets it because you don't talk to sweet precious Elain like that. But Elain just laughs. Elain wants people to speak freely to her, to stop sheltering her and show her some sass and bite. And who's the perfect person to do that, our boy Lucien!! Again some minor spoilers but I love this comparison

Lucien in Acotar

Elain in Acosf

Look at this parallel between them *chefs kiss*

Like Sarah said these are two characters that will push growth in each other and challenge each other. In a way that Azriel and Elain don't. Azriel, and this is very apparent in Acosf, coddles Elain, he speaks for her, makes choices for her, wants to stops her from doing things, without ever thinking about or asking Elain what she wants. He does it to protect her but is disregarding her choice. Lucien on the other hand, and again some spoilers if you haven't reached the end of Acowar yet this is after the final battle

He's clearly worried about her but he doesn't let HIS worry/fear get in the way of HER agency.

"And I heard you made the killing blow" He sounds almost proud of her, like he would encourage her despite his own worry, and wants to see her strong and flourish.

What I also love in this scene is that again it shows how their both gentle hearts. "Well I never want to fight in another battle as long as I live" Lucien will fight and do what he needs to (and so will Elain if she has to). But Lucien isn't a warrior he would much rather never have to see war or battle ever again.

And then we have multiple references to Elain needing sunlight, needing to get outside, needing light to thrive. Again minor spoilers but there is also a scene in Acosf where Elain is wearing black and it's mentioned how she looks plain, overwhelmed, subdued by the colour, like it doesn't suit her at all. There are a lot of subtle references suggesting Elain doesn't quite truely belong in the Night Court, that it's not where she can thrive. And who is associated with two courts, Spring and Day, where Elain could thrive? Who is associated with fire and warmth and light? Who is the heir of the day court? You got it our boy Lucien. Elain needs light and Lucien is light!! Literally the name Lucien means light! Coincidence? I think not.

Another similarity between them is Lucien is a diplomat, someone who uses words and charm and communication to keep the peace between courts. And Elain is said by Feyre to be be able to convince people to do anything, to charm them, to excel in social settings. And she was the one who kept the peace between her family, was the bridge between her father, Nesta and Feyre. And Imagine if in the future Lucien takes on a role in the day court or (and I'm sorry Helion) for whatever reason becomes the High Lord of Day Court, Elain could be an amazing Lady of Day, would flourish and charm at court balls or social occassions. Not to mention they both have great hair and are always put together/dressed immaculately. Like they would be A PAIR!

Then there's the gifts Lucien gives Elain (again minor spoilers for Acofas and Acosf) which are so thoughtful. In Acofas he gives her magical gardening gloves knowing gardening is something she loves and that she doesn't have any. And in Acosf he gives her pearl earrings, and pearls are somehing that are mentioned in relation to Elain a couple of other times. But it's like Lucien has noticed they're something she likes? These are just minor things but it's interesting that Sarah included them in her writing. It's almost as if she's subtly trying to hint that Lucien notices things about Elain, and see's her in a way that perhaps other's don't?

Also there's that Elain is very traditional and adheres to a quite a traditional type of femininity and Lucien is a complete and utter gentleman, who absolutely respects Elain and her needs. The potential for them to have an old fashioned courting romance asdgjkgfsa my heart the softness!! I also think they're going to end up being the epitome of your lover is your best friend.

And lastly, in Acosf there is a bonus chapter from Az's pov which ends with Azriel's focus on another character, and I would say personally that this chapter very clearly sinks that other ship.

Anyway in conclusion Elucien are going to be the most beautiful, softest, sweetest, supportive, with some sass as well, ship. So don't worry my friend. And even in the very small chance they don't become canon we can still enjoy all of these things about them in fanon. They will be canon though lol

#elucien #lucien vanserra #elain archeron #lucien #elain #asks #long post #this got really long I'm sorry lol #but i hope this allays some of your fears anon

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jaeheewillalwaysbemyfav · 4 years

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Obey Me: The Brothers Accidentally Trigger an Abused MC (Mammon) (2/7)

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert on abuse or mental health. I’m not portraying how one should respond to these situations, only how I think the characters might. Abuse and trauma in particular are very complex topics, and people respond in all sorts of ways to them, and sometimes it gets really bad on all sides.

I can only draw from my personal experiences as well as those of people who have shared their stories or who I’m close with. There’s no one narrative of abuse and how it affects someone, so what I’m familiar with might not be what you’re familiar with. Let’s try and all be respectful of each other.

Content Warnings: Heated arguments, reference to past abuse, parental abuse, trauma response, breaking down in tears, this is quintessential hurt/comfort y’all, buckle up

Mammon’s turn! I love using characters’ flaws against them.

Lucifer (X) Mammon (you are here), Leviathan (X), Satan (X), Asmodeus (X), Beelzebub (X), Belphegor (X)

MC has a very complicated relationship with Mammon. He initially got on their every nerve, constantly complaining about how annoying it was that he was assigned to watch over them and actually throwing them in the face of danger more often than not. But as time went on, MC realized that Mammon’s attitude was an act and he actually cares for them deeply. He’s just bad at expressing his feelings. They decided to work on it with him, and had gotten to a point where their communication was pretty solid.

It makes his recent behaviour all the more upsetting.

“I told ya, MC, I’m fine! It’s nothing to worry about!” Mammon says as he waves off MC’s concerns yet again.

“Nothing to worry about? You haven’t stayed a full day in school for almost two weeks!” MC retorts.

The two are in MC’s room, Mammon pacing around it in circles while an agitated MC guards the exit.

“I can take care of it!” he snaps.

“Talk to me, Mammon! What’s going on? Is it those witches?” He bristles. “You said you’d managed to pay off your debt to them.”

“I did! ...Almost…”

MC shoots him a withering glare. They open their mouth, probably to reproach him further, but he cuts them off, “Why do you care so much anyway? It’s not your problem!”

“Because I’m your friend, you idiot!” MC shouts. They grab him by the arm and force him to face them. “That’s what friends are supposed to do. You look out for your friends, and you step in when they need you.”

Normally, Mammon would find this incredibly touching. But normally, Mammon isn’t being drawn and quartered by the warring facets of his life. Watching a vulnerable and reckless MC; keeping up with his responsibilities as a lord of Hell and a member of the RAD student council; working off his ever-increasing debt to those damn witches; and all the while his brothers mock and belittle him for the same flaws they’re all guilty of.

He rips their hand off of him. “What makes you think I need you? The only thing I would need you for is if someone wanted a piece of meat to snack on! Do you even know how much a demon would pay for a soul like yours? You should be grateful I keep you around at all!”

Grateful. The word echoes around the room, and suddenly MC is back in the human world.

Do you even know what your mother and I do for you? You should be grateful you have a roof over your head at all!

Be grateful you have a phone at all, MC.

You ungrateful bitch! I give everything to keep this family together and this is how you respond?!

“I should be grateful?” MC’s tone is low and even, but their eyes are locked with Mammon’s. “What’s there to be grateful for? I didn’t ask to be babysat by some selfish, stupid, greedy egomaniac!” They’re yelling now, and tears are blurring their vision, but they don’t care. “I’ve been so patient with you, Mammon, and you’ve done nothing in return! You come to me with all your problems and I help you out as much as I can, and I ask for one thing in return, one thing, and you can’t even do it!”

“You call tricking me into a pact ‘patient’ and ‘helping me out’?! You can literally order me to do anything, so if ya want something, just ask!” He says sarcastically, throwing his arms out into a mock bow.

MC chokes back a sob. “Get out,” they say softly.

“Sorry Mx. High and Mighty, I didn’t hea-”

“I order you to GET OUT OF MY ROOM!” MC screams, and the pact mark on their back burns with the command. “And don’t come back!”

The effect is immediate. Mammon struggles against the command at first, but the compulsion of the pact lights up his nerves and forces him to leave, slamming the door behind him. As soon as MC is alone, they collapse, their tears falling freely.

They don’t know how long they stay in that spot, unable to stop their shuddering cries.

The image of MC, words full of venom but eyes full of hurt, never leaves Mammon. Even as their order sears him from the inside out, he keeps pounding on their door, demanding to be let in, to let him see them, to talk. He keeps it up for hours, snapping at any of the brothers who dare try and stop him, even Lucifer, who is unusually relenting after seeing the expression on his brother’s face.

Eventually, his efforts are rewarded. Mammon doesn’t even notice at first. It’s only after he yells himself hoarse that he hears MC’s soft, “I’m opening the door. You can come in.”

They do. And while the magical pain of the pact is gone, seeing the state MC is in fills Mammon with a stabbing agony no spell could match. Bloodshot eyes, face streaked with tears, hair tangled and disheveled at the sides of their head, almost certainly from the way they were gripping it earlier: he can hardly stand to look at them knowing he caused their pain. He tears up and though MC is still wounded themself, their heart melts.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t-“

“No no no!” Mammon exclaims, sniffling. “I’m gonna apologize first.”

A pregnant silence fills the room.

“S-stop starin’ at me like that, jeez,” Mammon shrinks under MC’s waiting stare. “Look, I didn’t mean what I said earlier, okay? I know we’ve been working on… communicating and stuff, but I’ve been really stressed lately and it’s… it’s hard for me. Sayin’ what I’m feeling, I mean.”

Another pause. When Mammon speaks up again, he’s much quieter. “You’re not disposable to me, MC. I’m not sure how I even got this far without you. You matter a lot to me and you’re always so kind and I just threw it all back in your face. I should be past that and today I wasn’t.” His tone picks up again. “But I promise, no more of that! I, the GREAT Mammon, will ensure from now on that I don’t say stupid things!”

MC, smiling, raises an eyebrow.

“I won’t say stupid things about you.”

And he doesn’t. In fact, Mammon’s diligence with watching his mouth starts bleeding into his other relationships. His brothers are pleasantly surprised by this change, even if he still slips up sometimes, and the House of Lamentation experiences more peace than it has in a long time.

But his efforts yield no results. MC refuses to open the door. They’re heartbroken and angry, at both Mammon and themself. They trusted him, they worked so hard, and yet…

He’s still outside their room. He hasn’t stopped trying to get them to open the door, ranging from begging, to threats, to just banging on the door so hard MC’s scared it’s going to break. Eventually MC can’t take it anymore, and they enlist the help of the other residents of the House of Lamentation to remove Mammon from their door. They reluctantly explain what happened, clarifying that this is the last straw for them and they can’t forgive Mammon for what he did. Lucifer then forbids Mammon from interacting with MC, and the rest of the brothers rotate supervising them at RAD and out in the Devildom.

Even still, Mammon never gives up. He can’t approach MC both because of the pact and the threat of Lucifer, but that won’t stop him. MC finds increasingly expensive and personalized presents showing up in their room while they’re out, sometimes accompanied by notes in sloppy handwriting about how sorry he is and how much he wishes they could forgive him. He digs himself deeper and deeper in debt, and yet no one can get him what he truly wants. There isn’t a soul in the three realms who is willing to try tampering with the most protected human in Hell.

Mammon’s attempts at reconciling with MC become so disruptive that they ask to move to Purgatory Hall.

He never lives this down.

#obey me #obey me:swd #obey me imagines #obey me! mammon #obey me headcanons #mammon #mine #my writing

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pastrnaks-sainz · 3 years

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My Whole Life

Pairing: Matt Grzelcyk x female!reader

Type: Fluff

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1.9k

Summary: You had always looked at Matt one way. You met him in high school and instantly became best friends. Over time, you’d developed feelings for him. But the thing is, you hadn’t known it until he went to play for the Boston Bruins and you saw him again for the first time in five months.

A/N: Repost of a Grizzy fic I got a while ago because the link decided it didn’t want to work okay here we go

~~~~

Freshman year of high school was the best year of your life. See, freshman year was when you met Matt Grzelcyk. He was a better, closer friend than the ones you’d had since you were a kid. You did everything together. Not a day went by where you weren’t joined at the hip. Your friends had joked about planning the wedding, both of them only being half kidding.

The friendship you had with Matt survived all four years of high school. You both decided to attend Boston University, Matt with a full ride hockey scholarship and you with one for law studies. Matt always joked that you’d one day leave him for Harvard. Little did either of you know that it was him who would be the one leaving for bigger and better things.

When Matt told you about his contract with the Bruins you could not have been happier for him. You were the first person he told. He told you before he told his family. However excited you were for your best friend, it paled in comparison to his excitement when you get accepted to the Harvard Law Program. ‘My best friend is gonna be a lawyer’, he’d said, the excitement in his voice made you light up like a Christmas tree.

Over time, you’d fallen head over heels in love with Matt and you had no idea until he left to play hockey. You’d been blind to the feelings growing in your heart and in your mind and you had no idea how in love you were.

You hadn’t spent more than two days apart from each other, and now, with you buried in your studies and Matt playing in the NHL, you were apart for six days a week. You managed to get together for coffee or dinner or a movie every Sunday. But all that changed pretty quickly. You passed your Bar Exam and Matt had made a place for himself on the Bruins roster. With everything going on in your lives, you hadn’t seen each other in person in months.

Working for the DA’s office had taken up all of your time as you worked your ass off trying to climb the rungs and leave the DA for a private firm. And Matt? Well, Matt was off becoming a star NHL player. Between both your career paths taking up your entire lives, you’d been relegated to texts and FaceTime calls. They mainly fell between your court cases and his practices and games.

Your boss at the firm had finally taken notice of everything you were doing and forced you to take a week off. You’d been lucky in the fact that it had coincided with the All-Star break. The first thing you did when you got back to your apartment was call Matt. You hadn’t heard his voice in so long, so when he picked up on the second ring and answered with that cheery tone you hadn’t heard in months, you nearly broke down crying.

“Y/N Y/L/N,” Matt said. You could nearly hear his smile on the other end of the line as you let yourself fall back to your bed. “Now there’s a name I haven’t seen cross my screen in many a month. How you been?”

“If I see one more dickwad loser drunk drive himself into a telephone pole then sue the bar for emotional trauma I am going to throw myself off a cliff,” you huffed as you desperately tried to ignore the pang in your chest at the sound of your best friend’s laugh.

“That sounds like hell,” he said. “So, why are you calling? Did something happen, is everything alright?”

“God, you are adorable,” you giggled and shook your head. “Everything’s fine, Matt. I just wanted you to know that I was forced to take a week off and I know you’re free this week and I figured it’s time for us to get together. It’s been too long since we’ve done something together.”

“Yes,” Matt said. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

“Sleeping in for the first time in five months,” you huffed.

“Alright when you wake up I’m gonna pick you up and then we’re having a good old fashioned Matt and Y/N day, okay?” he said with a small chuckle. There was that pang in your chest again.

“Okay,” you said. “Goodnight, Matt. See you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

You woke up the next morning at nine o’clock to the smell and sound of sizzling bacon. Something you hadn’t done since you were in high school. Wait. Bacon. Your roommate was away on a girls’ trip to Vegas.

“Mornin’ sunshine,” Matt smiled when you walked into the kitchen. Your chest panged yet again. Something in the back of your mind couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to wake up to this sight every morning.

“I would ask how you got into my apartment but since you made me bacon, I’ll skip on pressing charges,” you said with a smile and walked around the kitchen counter and straight into Matt’s arms.

Matt engulfed you in his arms, holding you tight to his chest. You wrapped your arms around his waist and took a deep breath, breathing him in. He ducked his head to the crook of your neck and buried his face in your hair. Your heart sped up on its own accord at the physical contact with your best friend. Your mind raced. You had never felt like this when you hugged Matt before. You had no idea where these sudden feelings were coming from and, if you were being honest, it made you nervous.

“I missed you,” Matt mumbled after a few moments of silence. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”

“I missed you more,” you laughed lightly before pulling away from him, despite your heart screaming at you to stay in his embrace for as long as you possibly could.

“So I thought there was no better way to start a classic Matt and Y/N day with a nice, home cooked breakfast. Well, nice home cooked bacon. I uh, I don’t know how to make anything else,” Matt chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. He’d always done that when he was nervous. You never found it adorable until now.

“Well lucky for you I make a mean bagel,” you laughed and reached for the bag sitting next to the toaster. “Still like it burnt to a crisp?”

“Hey,” Matt laughed, bumping your hip with his. “I like it slightly blackened.”

“Burnt to a crisp it is,” you smiled. “So what do you have planned for the day? Do I need to wear anything special?”

“A sweater,” Matt responded as he stepped up beside you at the oven. “I have a fun day planned for us.”

“Can’t wait,” you tossed a grin up at him, still ignoring the pang in your chest.

“Y/N, I swear, I thought he was gonna rip my head off,” Matt laughed as you walked through the lobby after breakfast. “It was terrifying.”

“What did you expect when you decided to fight Deslauriers?” you giggled, locking the door behind you. “Good Lord it’s cold out here.”

“And you don’t have gloves do you?” Matt asked, glancing over at you. You shook your head and shivered. He wordlessly took your hand in his. Sparks ignited from where your skin touched. You shivered again, this time not from the cold.

“So,” you cleared your throat, desperately trying to brush away the thoughts your mind was tossing before your eyes. “Where are we going?”

“I wanna see if you can guess,” he said, tossing a look at you. You raised your eyebrows at him and pursed your lips. “Fine, it’s the first place I took you when you moved to Charlestown.”

“I always thought you were crazy for bringing me to a graveyard,” you laughed as the Uber Matt had ordered pulled up in front of you. He opened the door for you, letting go of your hand briefly as he climbed in beside you.

“Bunker Hill Cemetery, please,” Matt told the driver. He nodded and pulled away from the curb. Matt looked over at you and held out his hand again. You sucked in a subtle breath and laced your fingers with his. He’d never done that before and it had your lawyer senses kicking into overdrive trying to figure why he was doing it now.

“Remember when I tripped over the tree root and tore up my knee?” you asked, pointing to a gnarly, overgrown tree root that had cracked one of the headstones straight up the middle.

“Yeah,” Matt laughed. “You could barely walk, I had to carry you home.”

“Good times,” you sighed, looking around the snow-dusted graveyard. It was creepy, sure, but where you used to be scared of it now, when you were with Matt, you felt safer than you ever had before.

“Next stop?” he asked after you completed your round of the graveyard. You nodded, grinning up at him.

“So I know it’s a little out of the way,” he said as you got into another Uber after hitting all your childhood haunts. “But I thought you might be up for a North End visit?”

“Cannolis from Modern? Absolutely,” you giggled.

“Modern?” he asked with a chuckle. “Everybody knows Mike’s is better.”

“Mike’s? Are you kidding me, Matt?” you gasped. “Every self respecting Bostonian knows Mike’s is a tourist trap.”

“It might be a tourist trap but it damn well has the best cannolis,” Matt protested.

“Did Deslauriers punch you too hard?” you asked, shaking your head. “You’re crazy.”

“Fine, we’ll get cannolis from Mike’s and Modern then go back to my place and have a cannoli taste off then watch movies,” Matt decided. “Deal?”

“Deal,” you nodded, laughing to yourself. “A good old fashioned Matt and Y/N movie night is just what the doctor ordered me to do with my time off.”

“Just you wait,” Matt smirked as the Uber pulled the curb between Mike’s and Modern. “Mike’s is wipe the floor with you precious little Modern.”

“Just you wait,” you retorted. “Modern is gonna beat the crap out of Mike’s.”

“Oh my God,” Matt mumbled, his mouth full of a cannoli from Modern. “I digress, you were right.”

“I was what?” you asked, smirking at him, desperately trying to push the pang that was still in your chest out of your mind.

“Shut up,” Matt laughed, wiping the powdered sugar from his mouth with his sleeve. You glanced up at him to see a spot of sugar still left on the corner of his mouth.

“You, uh,” you paused before reaching over, your fingers hovering just above his skin. “You missed a spot.”

Matt looked at you as you wiped the sugar away. He was shocked. This was the first time he was seeing you in this light. He watched the way your eyes glimmered in the low light of his living room. He had looked at you countless times, seen the way you looked in every light imaginable, and only now, only today after not seeing you for five months, did he realize how completely and utterly in love with you.

“Y/N,” he whispered. “Can- can I kiss you?”

His question took you aback. But your heart and your mind didn’t argue in saying yes.

“Please,” you said, your voice needy.

Matt cupped your cheek and kissed you instantly. You felt yourself melt into him as his lips, chapped, pressed against yours. You and Matt relished in the moment. Neither of you knew just how much you wanted to kiss each other until now. You never thought how amazing it would be until now. You never thought you would find yourself kissing your best friend.

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themattress · 3 years

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My Top 30 Favorite Video Games

Inspired by @ultraericthered’s Top 30 Favorite Anime post.

Although I’m doing mine in countdown form, ‘cause it’s more fun that way!

30. Super Mario Bros. - Arguably the first “blockbuster” game to be released, not only does Super Mario Bros. still hold up over 35 years later but it’s a gift that keeps on giving with how many different incarnations, remixes, fan games using its assets, etc. that we have now.

29. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - OBJECTION! While I cherish the entire original Phoenix Wright trilogy of the Ace Attorney franchise, I’ll always be the most partial to the original outing. The sheer audacity and hilarity of the concept, which is grounded by endearing characters and compelling mysteries, shines brilliantly in this little, easily accessible game.

28. Trigger Happy Havoc: Danganronpa - While similar in many ways to Ace Attorney, Danganronpa boasts a variety of more actual gameplay than mere point-and-click text scrolling. But what really makes this stand out, beyond gameplay or even the strength of its concept, story and characters, is the atmosphere it creates. For good and for ill, traversing the pristine, neon-lit hallways of the abandoned Hopes Peak Academy looking for clues as I’m forced to play by Monokuma’s twisted rules is an experience that will stay with me forever.

27. Star Fox 64 - Beyond all the entertainment this game provides through memes, it’s really just a fun, reasonably simple but just moderately complicated enough game that’s accessible to any player even if they usually don’t go for aerial shooters. It’s also one of the earliest console games that I ever played, so of course it’s going to hold a special place in my heart.

26. Batman: Arkham City - It’s an impressive feat when an open world game can still feel so claustrophobic in all the right ways, and that’s what Arkham City accomplishes. This game is essentially The Dark Knight to Arkham Asylum’s Batman Begins, escalating the action, suspense and sheer Batman-ness, providing unlimited opportunities to enjoy yourself playing as Gotham’s defender and facing down the greatest Rogues Gallery in comic book history.

25. Red Dead Redemption - Look, I know that Red Dead Redemption 2 is technically the superior game. But its complicated story, sprawling cast of characters, and vast canvas of a world can be pretty daunting, whereas I feel like the original Red Dead Redemption struck a much better balance. Allowing open world freedom within the confines of the straight-forward story of John Marston’s redemption really makes you feel like you’re in an old Western film, and the way that choices you make as a player impact the way that film ultimately turns out is one of the strongest arguments for video games being worthy of consideration as true art.

24. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - So, ten years ago an open world adventure video game series releases its fifth entry...and to this day, we’ve had no sixth, in favor of expansions and updated re-releases of said fifth entry. But that’s not a sign of laziness; it’s a sign the developers know they hit such a peak in quality that they have no need to rush anything further out the gate, as Skyrim is a gift that keeps on giving. Addictive in how unlimited in possibilities it is, with each playthrough never being the same as the one before, Skyrim is a gaming masterpiece that I don’t think I’m going to get bored with playing anytime soon.

23. Super Paper Mario - This may be an unpopular opinion, but I vastly prefer this game’s action-platform-RPG hybrid gameplay style to the prior installments’ traditional turn-based RPG style, which feels more at home in stuff like Super Mario RPG and the Mario & Luigi series. But gameplay aside, I think this has the strongest story of any Mario game, trading in the usual “save the kingdom/princess” fare for saving all of reality, with legitimate emotion and drama and even character development. It’s one of the Wii’s shining gems, to be sure.

22. Epic Mickey - This game’s graphics are by and large unremarkable, its gameplay is fraught with issues (that camera is unforgivable), and it’s nowhere close to the best on its system or genre. But Epic Mickey is a case study in where the effort put into crafting the game’s world and story, not to mention the obvious love and respect for the material being worked with, pays off. Any Disney fan will love this game for its story, which puts Mickey front and center as an actual character rather than a mascot and dives deep into his history as he meets his “half-brother” Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, and its mystical, unique atmosphere - what the graphics can’t deliver, the fucking music more than makes up for. All of the game’s flaws mean nothing compared to the sheer heart on display, and I treasure it greatly as a result.

21. Batman: Arkham Asylum - I already mentioned that Arkham City is the superior game, but as was the case with Red Dead Redemption and its sequel, personal preference strikes again. The simpler story and narrower confines of Arkham Asylum just appeal to me slightly more, and I feel like the borderline horror atmosphere this game has could never fully be replicated by all of its sequels and spin-offs. Also, you can play as the Joker in this. WIN.

20. Metal Gear Solid - And on the subject of Arkham Asylum, it owes much to this game, which created the template of a lone badass hero having to use stealth and weaponry to liberate a government-owned island from the lunatic terrorists that have taken over. Hideo Kojima famously never wanted this game to have any sequels, and I can definitely see his point, as it’s a complete and wholly satisfying experience in of itself and I don’t feel like it’s ever been topped. At the very least, it’s certainly the most enjoyable of the series to me.

19. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - Also, speaking of “borderline horror atmosphere”, we have the freakiest game that the Legend of Zelda series ever put out. What was supposed to just be a gaiden to Ocarina of Time mutated into this beautiful monstrosity that’s become just as iconic. Nobody who plays this game is ever going to forget that fucking moon and all the constant jumping back and forth in time across three days as you try to prevent the apocalypse of Termina. It’s the kind of gaming trauma that’s well worth experiencing.

18. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories - Like Majora’s Mask, this game is a case study where you can take a bunch of recycled assets and gameplay, and then make something unique from it if you have a well-crafted story with a dark and disturbing atmosphere. It’s hard to experience or appreciate the transition between Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II without playing this midquel, which takes the narrative and characters to deeper levels without being pretentious about it and sets the stage for the proper console sequel perfectly. And if you can’t get into it being on Gameboy Advance, then just play the PS2 remake (which is arguably the superior version anyway) and you’re good! Just...don’t mind the cards, OK?

17. Sonic CD - And now we have another game about jumping back and forth through time to prevent an apocalypse! See the common threads at play here by this point? Sonic the Hedgehog is at his best in 2D gameplay, and I personally enjoy this the best out of all the 2D games in the series. As obscure as the Sega CD was as a system, it was powerful enough to take the blue blur’s speed to its maximum level, set alongside beautiful graphics and a kick-ass soundtrack (well, two different kick-ass soundtracks; and I actually prefer the US one).

16. Pokemon Black & White - While there were advancements made to story and graphics and gameplay features in the third and fourth generations of the Pokemon series, nothing felt as truly ground-breaking as the second generation games until the fifth gen with its Black & White games. This was arguably the game series’ peak in quality on all fronts, but its specifically the story that lands it on this list, as its well-written and paced, subverts many formulaic elements from the previous games, is set in one of the most unique regions in the Pokemon world, and has a timeless message that has only grown more relevant with age.

15. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - The whole series could really go here, but fortunately the most recent entry is the perfect embodiment of said series, with every playable character there’s ever been and then some. The sheer variety is unmatched by any other fighting game out there, and its story mode, “World of Light”, is quite possibly the greatest video game crossover in history given how many characters are featured as both fighters and spirits.

14. Super Mario 64 - I’m pretty sure this game used to be higher in my favor, but replaying it on the Nintendo Switch recently has made me aware of how, as the first game on the Nintendo 64 and the first 3D platformer, it’s poorly aged in several areas. However, I must stress that it is still a very good game. The fun of going to the various worlds within paintings in Peach’s Castle hasn’t changed, nor has how smoothly and seamlessly Mario managed to make the jump from 2D to 3D. Just like Super Mario Bros., the number of games that owe something to this one is too great to count, and that’s an achievement that remains timeless.

13. Dark Chronicle - Also known as Dark Cloud 2. I hadn’t heard a damn thing about this game before renting it on a whim many years ago, and I was caught off guard by just how good it was. It’s got a simple but effective story and likable characters, a timeless atmosphere, beautifully cel-shaded graphics, dungeon-crawling gameplay, action-RPG combat gameplay, literal world-building gameplay, and even a fishing minigame! This game can actually stand besides the Zelda series without shame; it’s truly an underrated gem.

12. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Oh, speaking of Zelda, this game goes full Lord of the Rings-style epic fantasy with it and it is glorious. Between the near perfect gameplay, beautiful 3D graphics, and one of the best stories in the series (with one of the best characters: Midna), Twilight Princess’ most prevalent complaint from critics all the way up to its own developers is that it wasn’t even MORE expansive and awesome given how long it was hyped, and if that’s the biggest issue with the game then I’d say it’s in pretty good shape.

11. Super Mario Galaxy - Super Mario 64 may be held back a little by how its aged, but no such thing is holding back Super Mario Galaxy. Super Mario Odyssey might be as good or possibly even better, but I just don’t hold the same feelings of amazement and respect toward it that I do for this game. From the blitzkrieg-style attack on the Mushroom Kingdom by Bowser to the discovery of Rosalina’s space station, this game had me hooked from the first few minutes, especially with it blaring that awesome orchestral score the whole way through. To this day, I maintain that this is Mario’s greatest 3D adventure. It’s simply magnificent.

10. Final Fantasy X - Ha! See what I did there? This game has caught flak for some of the awkwardness that comes from being the first fully 3D entry in the series, but I think that’s tantamount to nitpicking when compared to all it does right. To me, this was the last really good installment of the main Final Fantasy series, with a story and world so brilliantly developed that the game earned the immediate breakthrough success and acclaim that it found in its native Japan. 20 years later and, as the HD remaster has shown, it still holds up as one of the most engaging JRPG experiences I’ve ever had the pleasure of having.

9. Banjo-Kazooie - At the time, this was basically Rare’s copycat version of Super Mario 64, although considered about as good. Now, however, there’s a difference: the aging issues I mentioned for Super Mario 64 don’t apply for Banjo-Kazooie. Whether replaying it on the Nintendo 64 or on whichever Xbox you’ve got, this game is still just as fun, imaginative and hilarious now as it was back then. It’s quite possibly the greatest 3D platformer ever made.

8. Pokemon Crystal - The definitive edition of the Gold & Silver games of Pokemon’s second generation, taking what was already a phenomenal advancement and improvement to the first generation and making it even better with additional features such as the ability to play as a girl for the first time and a more clearly defined storyline centered around the legendary Pokemon featured on the game’s box art. Pokemon had been written off as just a passing fad up until this point. This was when its staying power as a video game juggernaut was proven.

7. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Talk about a win right out of the gate for the Nintendo Switch! This game returns the Legend of Zelda series to its roots while also applying all that has been made possible in video games since the original game’s release, and the result is an enthralling, addictive, open world masterpiece that has set a new standard of quality for both the Zelda series and for many modern video games in general.

6. Kingdom Hearts II - The Final Mix edition to be precise, although in this day and age that’s basically the only edition people are playing anyway. This game is the apotheosis of Kingdom Hearts as both a video game series and as a concept; filled to the brim with Disney magic and Square Enix RPG expertise and paired with some of the most refined action-based gameplay there is. And when it comes to bringing the original Kingdom Hearts trilogy’s story to a close, does this game ever stick the landing. The series could have ended right here and I would have been completely satisfied (and its reputation would be a lot better off, too!)

5. Pokemon Yellow - While I maintain that this game, the definitive edition of the original first generation Pokemon games, still holds up as fun to play even now, I’ll admit that it’s pure bias that it ranks so high. It was the first proper video game I ever played, there was no way I was leaving it off the top 5! Its blissful nostalgic atmosphere is always such a delight to return to.

4. Banjo-Tooie - Remember when I said Banjo-Kazooie was “quite possibly the greatest 3D platformer ever made”? The “quite possibly” is because its in stiff competition with its own sequel! And personally, I’m in Banjo-Tooie’s corner; something about how inter-connected its worlds are and the addition of so many things to do all while maintaining your full moveset from the original game is just beautiful to me. Both it and its predecessor are like obstacle courses that I never tire of running through, which is the hallmark of brilliant game design.

3. Kingdom Hearts - Another case where the sequel may be the superior game, but my own personal preference leans toward the original. And in this case, it’s a highly personal preference: this game and my memories of playing it for the first time are so very dear to me. The characters and worlds of Disney put into an epic crossover RPG was like a dream come true for me and no matter how far the series it spawned has deteriorated, nothing can detract from the magic of this game. It’s got a certain, indescribable feel and atmosphere that’s never truly been replicated, and that feel and atmosphere still holds up whenever I revisit it. The gameplay may not be the best, particularly when compared to Kingdom Hearts II’s, but the charm of the story and the characters and the world and the very concept more than makes up for that. As far as I’m concerned, it’s one of Disney and Square’s greatest masterpieces.

2. Final Fantasy VII - I was aware of the hype this game got and was totally ready to call it overrated, but damn it, it got me! I don’t know what it is about this game with its blocky early 3D graphics, poor sound quality to its excellent soundtrack, and frequently mistranslated script that proved to be so gripping and enjoyable to play through, but man did it ever Limit Break its way into my heart. This is considered a JRPG classic for a damn good reason.

1. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - Do I really need to explain this one? It’s famous for being frequently cited as one of the greatest video games ever made, and like Final Fantasy VII, its hype is well-deserved and totally justified. Whether you’re playing it on the Nintendo 64, the Gamecube, the Wii, the 3DS, and hopefully the Nintendo Switch in the future, there is a magic quality to this game that permeates through every step you take in its fully 3D world. It’s a triumph that has stood the test of time, cementing the Zelda series as truly legendary.

#Video Games #Opinion #Analysis

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theloyaltyofthewolves · 4 years

Text

chan and jisung

these two are special. because they’re the og pair, aren’t they? we’ve all heard the stories: jisung was just some kid who’d wandered in off the streets in malaysia, bleeding talent over everything he touched. chan must have known about him the moment he showed up. the monster trainee who spoke kinda funny, talked kinda loud, picked too many fights and got on everyone’s nerves. that’s one hell of a first impression. it kinda seems impossible that they could have met and got along: jyp’s golden child and the insolent new kid with authority issues. but that’s the thing about both of them: they love to defy expectations.

i think chan met jisung and saw it right away. maybe jisung’s loud, maybe he talks too much, maybe he says things he shouldn’t and starts shit he can’t finish and takes on things twice his size because he’s too fucking stubborn and reckless and hot-tempered, but he’s also scared of the dark. scared of loud noises. he gets lost in big crowds and his hands shake when he talks to strangers and he can’t make eye contact to save his life. he needed chan when they met, maybe more than any of the others have ever needed him. he needed someone who would stand in front of him, who would pick up his fights where he left off, who would hold him down when he couldn’t find ground. someone who would love him for who he was, not who everyone else was trying to get him to be. chan saw jisung as he was and loved him because of it, not in spite of it.

to be honest, i look at jisung and i see most of the markers of trauma. all his blustering, all those fights he picks, all the noise he makes, they’re distractions from the way he makes himself very small in large crowds and jumps at loud noises and flinches whenever people move too fast or catch him off-guard. they say he’s dealing with whatever kind of damage he’s carrying, but it can’t be easy for him and it can’t be easy for his team. even so, chan has been there for him every step of the way. the one brief moment he addressed jisung’s anxiety on vlive, he talked about it exclusively in absolutes: we have been supporting him, we will continue to keep supporting him. no conditionals and no doubt.

chan has always fought for jisung, he’s always been fierce about keeping jisung safe. because jisung’s always needed it a little bit more than the others. not because he’s sensitive or weak or vulnerable. more like he’s the kind of kid who’s spent most of his life being told to apologize for himself and chan wants to be the one person in his life who will never ask him to. the person who stands his ground against jisung’s ghosts because he knows that the dawn will come and jisung will light the way home.

i think in return, jisung has given himself up to chan. which makes chan special because jisung strikes me as the kind of person who doesn’t really believe in a whole lot. he’s always seemed like a cynic. it’s not that he’s aloof with stays or disenfranchised from the idol lifestyle—i think he likes the fame, i think he likes the fans, i think he likes the royalties and the music. but he doesn’t engage with his idol status with the same fervor as the others. he doesn’t post selfies or do vlives or indulge the expectations and realities of living as a kpop idol. he doesn’t like doing it by the rules, you know? if he had it his way, he probably wouldn’t even play the game at all. but he does the bare minimum and i think it’s because chan asks him to.

because jisung doesn’t believe in a lot, but he does believe in chan. he does. he’s devoted to him, he treats chan with a respect he doesn’t give anyone else. jisung’s a spitfire. he’s got a temper and a serious attitude problem, he’d rather die than let someone tell him what to do. he could have been anyone, done anything; lord knows he’s got the talent and the spine. instead, he chose chan. chan and his insane dream, his dauntless courage, his relentless hunger, his crazy scheme that would take a miracle to pull off. i want to make it to the top and i want to do it on our own terms. i want to build something that’s going to outlive me. i want to burn the world to the ground and i want you to help me set the fire. jisung was his first. the very first. the start of something a whole lot bigger than just chan. jisung, who lit up the room just by being in it, who spoke and sang and breathed with everything inside of him. chan must have seen jisung and known, deep in his soul. that this was it, this was his catalyst. his supernova. this five-foot-six hell raiser who would follow him into war with a smile.

chan and jisung have been together for a very long time. they know each other inside and out, to the color of blood, the sound of ribs cracking. chan has watched jisung grow into his fire, jisung has watched chan grow into his crown. they are partners, they are best friends, they are unrepentantly ride-or-die. they have fought for each other, their hands are stained with the blood that they’ve spilled for one another. nothing brings out chan’s teeth like a threat on his boy’s heads, jisung would walk across a burning ocean to save chan from himself. they are bonded, tied together with red ribbon and barbed wire. they have sacrificed and they have broken bones for each other and there is nothing that could pull them apart from each other. to the end of the road, you know? they’ll bleed together until the end of the road.

“i’d cut my soul into a million different pieces just to form a constellation to light your way home. i’d write love poems to the parts of yourself that you can’t stand. i’d stand in the shadows of your heart and tell you i’m not afraid of your dark.” – andrea gibson

#they're rly something special these two #the king and his witty rogue #chan #jisung #stray kids #banghan #skz #long post

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shadowfae · 3 years

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1- Not much tbh, just what you've posted, and 2- To be honest I quite like your long answers. It can definitely wait though, you should get some sleep.

Is your warpriest link a constant thing? Does it ever fade into the background? I'm contemplating forming a second link, something happier than my copinglink, and I'm not sure how to tell when to tell when the line of a link vs a persona is crossed when not worn out of necessity.

And the original ask so I have it on hand. I did take a look at your original context, and if you're cool with it, I'll edit this post with a link for those who may find this is a useful answer and need that on hand. Otherwise, it'll stay a mystery.

But yes, it seems like my Sabe experiences would be a useful thing to talk about here. And in order to do that, I need to go over four things: who and what Sabe is, why he exists the way that he does, what that does for me, and lastly what I think he is in terms of terminology and why.

To start, here is his toyhou.se profile, if you want to read more about his actual story and thoughts and whatnot. But I doubt you'll have the necessary context for that, so let me go into it. RuneScape (RS) is one of the oldest MMORPGs in existence. WoW might be older but I doubt it. Basically it's a medieval magic fantasy that's very long running and you the player end up the World Guardian, aka the guy that stops the gods (who are very powerful folks who just don't die of natural causes and typically stand for some philosophy) from blowing the world up because Guthix, the dead god of balance, asked you to. Well, he voluntold you. And that makes you a major chess piece, Elder Gods get involved, it's a big mess.

But before all that happened, back in 2006 when I was introduced to the game and very shitty at it, well. I liked the lore insofar that I've always liked the lore, it was interesting and I liked thinking about it. I didn't have membership and I sucked at playing so I just read the wiki and the God Letters over and over and sometimes the Postbag from the Hedge. Alongside my two friends, we played at being children of the then-triad of main gods: Saradomin, Guthix, and Zamorak.

I liked Zamorak best, but I didn't think his ideas would be the best for society as a whole, so I ended up playing child of Guthix. Eventually we grew up and grew apart but every couple of years I'd go back to RuneScape, read the lore, settle on what choices I'd make if I could play, and think about being the player character. In 2010 I discovered a fic - dawn by khayr, it's on Ao3 and dA - about Iban, son of Zamorak, right around when I was reading Percy Jackson. Cue him showing up as a soulbond and an older brother figure and guiding me right up until the end of sixth grade. Iban got me through the ruthless bullying that would later set the stage for all my major suicidal-ideation and self-hatred for the entirety of high school: even then, I was more stable than I might've been otherwise, because he interfered.

Saradomin stands for strength through order. Procedures and law and diplomacy and war strategy. He was originally kind of a ripoff of the Christian god, but he's grown to be more of an order-over-peace character and is quite well-written. Guthix stands for strength through balance, and has been all over the board in terms of what he's done and will do. He's kind of a dick, actually, but his heart's in the right place.

Zamorak, as you've heard, is strength through chaos and personal strife. It's no "the strong over the weak" or "the strong take care of the weak", it's flat-out "everyone is strong, and just need the right circumstances to tap into it to be the best they can possibly be". Now, his philosophy is kind of more for warriors and scholars, but if you tilt your head, it applies to everyone. Chronically ill folks will find their chaos in fighting to get up every day and maintain a life. Folks in traumatizing, abusive situations find that chaos in their very survival. Scholars challenge themselves and their fellows and their predecessors trying to find the answers they so need. Nobody in lockstep, no such thing as "we've always done it this way."

A lot of human Zamorakians and Saradominist propaganda says that Zamorak is simply absolute evil: and to be fair, when most of that was written, he kinda was because he was based loosely on the Christian devil. Later writing says that they're typically mistaken on that. Zamorak isn't evil. The very first thing he did upon becoming a god was fulfill a promise and lead a slave rebeliion. (The Avernic uprising, if anyone's curious.) He stands for the downtrodden and says "You are never going to get your dignity by going through the motions and trying to peacefully show you're worth respect. Burn some shit down and prove that you won't stand for this bullshit."

Zamorak in a Saradominist's eyes is someone whose banner you wear when you want to be a crazy murderer. Zamorak in a Zamorakian's eyes is the singing voice who murmurs "Get up, this isn't enough to kill you, you can still do this," when transphobic laws get passed or you hear a slur thrown your way on the street.

And as someone who grew up queer and nonhuman, yeah, that resonates, and the older I get the more I think "Guthixian philosophy is best for a society at large, but Zamorakianism for individuals is good." Because Zamorakianism can't really apply on a theocratic level. It really doesn't. It turns into American bootstrap culture and no social services and all that shitty stuff.

The funny thing is that Zamorak himself has no issues helping out if he thinks you need it. (If he didn't, he wouldn't be cool with asking for help, or giving it when he's asked. Which he does do repeatedly so. The man has more kindness in him than people want to admit.) What I do find fascinating is what he thinks of the actions of some of his longtime subordinates, who clearly support him, but I don't think support his actual philosophy. Because if you ask me, he'd side with the downtrodden humans of Meiyerditch, not the vampire lords that treat them like cattle. He's proven that he likes humans, and doesn't see them as unworthy. I do wonder if Jagex will show us what he might do about that.

Either way. Ahem. Over the course of a decade and a half, I keep going back to RuneScape, refining my philosophy and side, thinking again what I would do playing the game proper. About... I want to say five years ago, Jagex opened up the Sixth Age and I finally noticed, and they rewrote every god's philosophy because they wanted every single one to be actually playable. Not just "hurr durr evil" but actually have a logical line of thought. They probably didn't have pop culture paganism in mind, but the gods of RS are incredibly well-suited to it.

Well, I found that out, and immediately went through every god's philosophy, and reasoned my way through it. What does a worshipper of this god look like? What sort of life would they lead? If i apply this to me, what does that look like from that perspective? Do I understand this? Is it comfortable to exist in?

And as it turns out, I understand Zamorak the most, followed a close second by Armadyl, which was quite surprising. Zaros remains incomprehensible and I don't trust like that. (That's another story.) So I thought about it more, and it stuck even when I wandered off to different fandoms and interests. But what happened was that I ended up internalizing it, unknowingly and without meaning to.

It meant that when, two years later, I ended up in a horrific and traumatizing situation, the anchor I hit that held me together was a mixture of being a Devil - I am a fucking God you will obey me and recognize my power - and Zamorak's core philosophy: this cannot kill me, this cannot stop me, this is pure fucking hell and I am going to laugh in the face of death because people are forged in hellfire and I will walk away knowing what I'm made of.

And I was right. Honestly, out of everyone who was there with me, I think I'm the only one that was that deeply entrenched and walked out without trauma. I do not believe I could have done that had I not internalized Zamorak's philosophy. (That isn't to say if the others had that philosophy they wouldn't be traumatized, because there were absolutely other factors I wouldn't know about and some that I do and didn't do them any favours; but I am saying that it saved my ass and without it, I might not have been okay.)

I walked out of that with zero regrets. Zero. Even now, I don't regret a thing. Because it doesn't matter what happened or how much I was lied to or if he deserved my kindness. I know what I perceived to be happening, and I know how I reacted, and when the pieces were down I was stronger than steel, gave kindness without considering the cost, and I walked away unscathed.

How many people can say they've looked death in the eye and laughed? More than there should be, not too many that knowing what I'm capable of when put into pure chaos isn't somehow impressive. Because it is. And Zamorak's words proved themselves, or rather, I proved him entirely correct.

And when I last went back to RuneScape, and thought about it with enough time to put it all into hindsight, well. Aw, shit, he was right. Then vaguely around that time I went back and read Dawn, which was unfinished, tracked down the author and demanded to know how it fucking ended. (She told me and we're still friends like three years later. xD) Then I went back and found my old OCs, and decided fuck it, I'm making my own World Guardian.

So first thing I did was log in and jump over to the Makeover Mage and make myself into a boy. Kept the plateskirt though, I wanted to have the RS equivalent of a limp wrist to prove I'm Very Queer. Then I went about remaking my character. I wanted to make a self-insert, I was old enough to know it wasn't cringey, it was just fun, but I didn't want to use my default avatar with the black hair over one eye and the Chaorruption. I wanted to make a new self-insert based in nothing I was already using.

So I made the most beautiful man I could! Long, dark brown hair, pretty semi-dark skin, looked Kharidian, and then I said fuck it and made him Zamorak's youngest son. Originally, he was adopted when he was young by Iban and Clivet, and suffered serious imposter syndrome when being WG meant he'd never get demigod powers. But as I grew more confident in myself, he ended up getting powers? And then eventually I rewrote his backstory, and then wrote about his mother, and her relationship with Zamorak, and then he had friends like Blaire and Icthlarin (who was also my furry awakening, rip me).

Then with the most recently questline I've been getting a bit more into RS magical theory, and I've been mulling it over lots, and Seanan McGuire's Middlegame definitely helped; and I figured out how I wanted him to handle being World Guardian: it didn't make sense for him to be openly Zamorak's son, the other gods would just target his family to manipulate him. So I had him play neutral openly and Zamorakian to his friends, effectively living a double life.

Then he just looked up one day and said "Oh, by the way, my father won't acknowledge me to keep me safe but I don't know that so we have a very unsteady relationship because I don't know if he loves me", and then Children of Mah came out, and he was all "Oh and I think I just got disowned (I didn't, Zamorak was protecting me, but I don't know that) so my relationship with Zamorak is Fucking Shitty" and he was stuck that way until I figured out how to save their relationship.

It culminated in Sabe not knowing how his Mahjarrat powers worked and guessing, and hating himself for being half-and-half, and missing everything about being a Mahjarrat, and literally you couldn't have gotten more obvious in order to tell me I was having Fucking Issues coming to terms with the fact I didn't have any understanding or knowledge of my own heritage, but whatever, eventually I noticed that.

And as I've been working to understand myself and my heritage, so too has Sabe been doing that with his Mahjarrat heritage. But for the longest time, no matter how I put him and Zamorak in the same room in a scene to try and get them to talk it out, it wasn't working. Something wasn't right. Sabe resented being World Guardian, hated having to betray his family, didn't know if he was wanted, and hated himself for having to kill Mah, the mother of his species.

Not that long ago, a few months actually, he informed me (which is my shorthand for 'I suddenly figured out this happened, and it genuinely feels like remembering that one fucking word you have on the tip of your tongue, I always knew and just forgot for a while') that no, he'd been ripped in two by a hope devourer, brought to his father's stronghold, and Zamorak split his magic between mortal and divine in order to get around his godproofing and heal him. Zamorak's intense worry for his youngest son was what caused Sabe to break down and tell him honestly what was going on and how he was feeling, which caused Zamorak to do the same, and they finally, finally made up.

A week later, I noticed the connection between Sabe's Mahjarrat issues and my Irish issues, and started to wonder if he was a linktype.

I mean... he's a self-insert. He makes the choices I would, the me in the here and now, that I think are best. He's not a person I was and still know myself to be, he's not someone I grow into, he's not living his life beside me like a shadow. He's me, choosing the things I do, because I say so. But he's also me in the things he reflects, the things he struggles with, and things I had zero fucking conscious input on.

Sabe is the person I am when a crisis hits and I have to deal with the chaos. Sabe is the person I am when I need to lead. Sabe is the person I am when I am desperate to be known and loved by those I consider family. Sabe is the person I am when I want to be sure in where I came from, where I will return to, and the things that I will always be. Sabe is a man of darkness who knows the light as an acquaintance and nothing more, who is cruel and careless and kind.

Sabe is a warpriest of Zamorakian philosophy, because it took me twenty fucking years to put into words how I see the world, and now that I know, I will argue them to death and use them to help others. Drakath may have wanted a messiah to share the hivemind with others. Sabe is a warpriest, spreading the word and calling home the broken and the damned. He is the Last Rider, not the last of the Ilujanka but the one who keeps riding towards the chaos and never falls, no matter what.

Some of who Sabe is I have conscious input on. A whole lot of him was unintentional and perfectly reflects me.

So when it comes to terminology... I don't know what he is. A self-insert, yes. A linktype, maybe. A kintype, also maybe. Sabe doesn't feel like my past linktypes, because Sabe isn't always catharsis and comfort. Until he made up with his dad, Sabe was brutal and hurt a lot and constantly yearning for his foundation and slowly going mad. It wasn't fun. I just refused to do anything but see the story through. I was going to get it right. I wanted to see it to the end. I wanted to be the Last Rider, even though I didn't phrase it that way.

But to answer your actual question, of what he feels like when I'm not actively being him out of necessity, desire, and active thought. If it fades into the background.

And like... it can? Sabe as he is, recognized for what and who he is, is kind of a new thing. Sabe as a concept is very old, but Sabe as what he is right now is new, and confusing, and honestly I'm still trying to figure out what to make of it.

Like, seriously. Sabe is Zamorak's son. Am I Zamorak's son? Is he keeping an eye on me as I am? Would he be proud of me? Would he offer his approval of my progress? Does that make me, in some way, the World Guardian?

I have not a clue, buddy. Not a goddamn clue.

So what it means is that I've been paying attention, really. I don't just become strong in times of crisis. I've been trying to do better. Be better. Learn, and listen, and rethink myself. Break out of lockstep, of doing things the way I've always done them. Try to always do better than I did, build habits I like, stop waiting for things to change and just do it. Become the chaos, instead of waiting for it to hit me.

It means I need to live up to what Guthix told Sabe to do. It means being gentler, being kinder, not burning bridges when I'm not sure. It means keeping an eye out for any sign Zamorak's listening, in case I am his son, in case I really have to decide what I'm gonna do about being the son of chaos incarnate.

But other than the questioning, what it feels like is just... what I was already dealing with, just a little more at arm's length and easier to deal with. Once I recognize that his issues are reflective of mine, if I solve his, I have a pretty good idea of how to solve mine. Some of it won't work exactly right - Zamorak will always forgive him for not being the son he expected he might have had, my own parents may not, yay I'm queer and pagan - but it's a good rule of thumb.

It's also just comforting to know that when in doubt, nothing can kill me, because I simply refuse to die. I am World Guardian, I am a demigod of chaos incarnate, all the hellfire in the world can do nothing but strengthen me. And if I present those to myself as unshakeable beliefs, because for Sabe they are, then I'll be okay. It probably couldn't stop most disasters or tragedies, but I got hit by a car, broke five bones, and walked away with a record recovery time, so I mean... I can't prove that I can't die by some accident or tragedy, but you also can't prove that I can. (Trying to do so usually falls under what we call 'murder', and I personally believe I can't be murdered. Only assassinated.)

But really, I think the worst that could possibly happen with a new linktype is that you learn what not to do. It's new, it's scary, it's chaotic, and from where I'm standing, that's the best way to learn.

#asks #anonymous #on copinglinking #on voluntary identities #on questioning #my experiences #here have me yelling about runescape and complaining about questioning #You Asked For This #essays of the skyrose garden #actually yeah this is an essay

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a-crimson-lion · 4 years

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I Need To Stop Reading Into Things…😂

Yet again for @kiricookie .

[Check out this post first.]

So… we’re here again. Lord forgive me, I’m back on my bulls***.

Okay, jokes aside, I really should stop doing these things, but I am a stubborn individual. Plus, I wanna see how our notes compare, and try to have more civil discussions on the internet than I see on average. I’d reblog, but again, your post is already long as is (not incredibly long, but still), and I’d rather not occupy dashboard space more than I need to.

Alright, I think I’ve said my piece. Let’s talk about your post…

Oof. Starting right in the heart of the issue, really.

I am aware that Izuku is… incredibly likeable. I am aware that some of his issues, while perceived by some as noble, are heavily problematic and probably need to get sorted out before the boy gets a close audience with death. I am also aware that some of his habits are less than courteous in some circumstances, though like you said, Izuku has the benefit of having no malicious intent when it comes to these actions, even if they can come off as annoying.

Now, regarding Katsuki’s snail pace development… I get what you’re trying to say, but that doesn’t make it come off as any less frustrating...

As much as I want to believe that Katsuki’s upbringing in society is what’s stunted his growth so badly, I wish the narrative was more willing to show it. All we’ve gotten of Katsuki’s past are flashbacks from Izuku, remarks during the visit to the Bakugo household, and the “raised with violence” line from the Remedial Course arc. Now this understandably paints a pretty terrible picture, but uh… what has Katsuki done to try to fix it? How has Katsuki tried to demonstrate that his upbringing wasn’t justified? Why is he imitating the behaviors he supposedly despises, that supposedly keep him held back, instead of trying to find a workaround? I’ve only seen a few growth/redemption arcs of antagonistic characters, but even if the arcs took long, there was always an ultimate reason for doing so. And Katsuki doesn’t have that. At least, not yet.

It’s been implicitly established that Katsuki’s growth will be the mother of all slowburns. I’ve mentioned it in this old post of mine, but this is doing Katsuki no favors, at least for me. Now don’t get me wrong, I love myself a flawed character, but there’s only so much I can stomach before a flawed character becomes less “flawed” and more “asshole.” I personally believe that his true growth doesn’t get started until “Deku vs. Kacchan 2” (Episode 61), but if we really wanna consider that “Bakugo’s Start Line” (Episode 8) is his… well, start line, then that only makes it worse. Because again, his character arc is, as we’ve established, slow. But the fact that it’s slow enough for several other character arcs to transpire (Shoto, Tenya), as well as slow enough to allow “background characters” some significant development and return to relevancy (Eijiro, Hitoshi), I start wanting to stop holding my breath for his arc’s supposedly inevitable conclusion. Now I know you personally consider the suspense a positive, but it’s the opposite for me. I’d chalk it up to impatience, but again, MULTIPLE character arcs have transpired, and a few have been far more believably gradual compared to Katsuki’s.

While it is impressive that Katsuki was willing to pour out his feelings to Izuku, I’d like to argue that it wasn’t as… well, sentimental. Remember that society and Izuku’s peers before UA regarded him as the lowest of the low. The weakest, the most worthless. “The pebble in the path.” Considering that Katsuki lost the Training Exercise AND technically got outsmarted by Izuku, who was considered this until VERY RECENTLY, I’d imagine that’d be one hell of a blow to his ego. It is still significant that he’s willing to talk to Izuku about this, but it’s not exactly because he’s humbling himself. It’s because he’s begrudgingly admitting that he’s not the best, and it’s been well established that he HATES not being the absolute best. And I don’t know about you, but suddenly getting your high expectations crushed after years of nothing but “positive reinforcement” should not be made as big of a deal as it is here. I’m not saying to get over it, because you’ll never get over it, you have to live with it and learn from it, but don’t make it seem like it’s the end of the world and a half like Katsuki did in that scene. Plus, didn’t he essentially reaffirm that he was going to do what he planned to do from the start of his tenure at UA? I mean, good on him for his dedication, but you’d think the guy would want to take a step back and actually try to learn from others if they were so impressive.

Now, the DC Superhero franchise falls in and out from my radar at times, but I don’t think Katsuki and Batman are a good comparison for the point you're trying to make. Yes they both use violence, and yes they’re both intimidating, but for entirely different reasons. Batman uses fear tactics because he finds them efficient; I don’t know what they’re doing with his character nowadays, but from what I can gather in his earlier incarnations, Batman’s not out for blood. Vengeace, sure, but he doesn’t waste time getting there beating the snot out of his enemies. He takes care of them, sends them off, and keeps on trucking. Before they tried making him even more edgy, he didn’t kill and he kept away from firearms because he was well aware of any issues he had. He may not be a goodie two-shoes like most heroes, but he does show definitive empathy in some of his earlier incarnations. Remember, Batman was the kid who lost his parents to injustice. That was his entire reason for taking up the cowl, for becoming more than Bruce Wayne. In the Justice League Unlimited Episode “Epilogue,” he has the option to kill Ace, a teen villain with dangerously growing psychic powers. He doesn’t do that. He takes the seat next to Ace as she begins to die. He offers his support as Ace has to confront the terrifying realization that she is dying. He’s helping another scared kid, because he knows what it’s like.

That’s heroism. That’s Batman.

Katsuki’s motivations and actions aren’t as sympathetic. Him lashing out isn’t for anything strategical; early on in the series and even after his “Start Line,” up until the Endeavor Agency Arc, I believe, Katsuki’s sole motivations are victory and bloodlust. Even if it seems like he’s growing more chivalrous with his resolve, he backslides so many times back into the angry loudmouth trope its hard to want to keep hope, because if he can backslide multiple times before, what’s to stop him from backsliding again? It ruins the suspense for some people. And people are intimidated by Katsuki, but that’s because he’s borderline unhinged. I’d be scared s***less too if a pyrokinetic powerhouse was gunning on me with his eyes glowing like the fires of Hell as he radiated killing intent (an exaggeration, but still). I have yet to see Katsuki use this intimidation “tactic” of his beyond the fact that he appears to be enjoying it, either.

Alright, enough of that, let’s analyze that penultimate question: why hate Katsuki? If you asked me early on, I would say that yes, I don’t like him because he hurts Izuku. But as I’ve continued looking throughout the series, I now say that I don’t like him because, contrary to what he says, virtually everything is handed to him. Most of the time, its people mistaking his battle thirst as chivalrous determination, whether it be against a villain or just a standard opponent. He never tries to make himself any more “likeable,” and while Class 1-A is quick to call him out for this in the USJ Arc, by the Sports Festival they’re all flocking to him, and I have yet to understand any proper reasoning for this. It’s less like Katsuki proving there’s more to him than meets the eye and earning the respect of his peers, and more so that people latch on to the abstract concept of Katsuki’s coolness and strength, and he just begrudgingly tolerates them from there.

I mean, Eijiro was wholeheartedly against Katsuki’s actions during the Battle Trial, yet by the USJ the difference is night and day, and it doesn’t help that he’s interpreting Katsuki’s desire to beat up villains as “faith in his classmates.” Shoto was abused by Endeavor, so the fact that he can’t at least draw some comparisons between Katsuki and his sperm donor is slightly concerning, and while I want to chalk it up to his stunted social skills, I feel like Hori and/or his editors trying to shove in a friendship to increase their overall likeability (especially Katsuki’s) is more likely. Don’t even get me started on the hoops they jump through in the Joint Training Arc. Not even gonna touch that…

Okay, finally made it to the last paragraph. So, here’s something about me you may or may not like: I don’t like people dying, good or bad. Unless their actions are comparable to that of Satan, or at least close, then they shouldn’t get the axe. Why?

Because a dead person can’t change… and a dead person can’t suffer.

Believe me, even though I’ve fallen off the bandwagon a long time ago, I want Katsuki to change for the better. And he can’t do that if he’s dead. The manga’s most recent arc has been hella frustrating because of that, and no spoilers, but the two deaths that did occur did not leave me in high spirits. Hawks, Shigaraki, you both are on thin f***ing ice I swear. So no, lucky for you, I do NOT want to see Katsuki dead just because he happens to be an ass. What I wanna see is proper repercussions that go beyond being a villain hostage and having everyone else’s potential trauma downplayed for the sake of giving Katsuki more sympathy points.

Also, I’m well aware Katsuki’s death would absolutely ruin Izuku. I am also well aware that it is one of the few concrete facts I hate with nearly every fiber of my body. Not because of what it says about Izuku…

...but because I am sick and tired of Katsuki continuing to be the arrogant s*** he is, whether it be his genuine feelings or merely a front. I am sick of the fact that for as smart and aware that someone like him is, he still insists on trying to act like a badass when there is no need or overall expectation to do so. I am sick that he continues to decide to put himself and others in jeopardy, all for the purpose of maintaining his ego. I am sick that he gets all this support, all this help, and yet his development is still worse than a snail’s pace, and the narrative continues to keep letting him off with love taps and leaving him unfairly unprepared for the kill shot.

...maybe Katsuki deserves to get better. But is this really the best way to do it? Really?

Thanks for listening. Hope you got something from all of that.

-Crimson Lion (24 August 2020)

#bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia #don't really know if these count as anti baku anymore. still tagging just in case.#anti bakugo #anti bakugou #character analysis #charater comparissons #character meta #meta #rant #response #Word Count: 1906 #...why do I keep doing this to myself? :'-D #yo kiricookie #while you're waiting to see heroes rising have this to tide you over #hope you enjoy it

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eponymous-rose · 4 years

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I’ve also further progressed in my Vorkosigan re-read! Memory was as wonderful as I remembered (Illyan and Miles going fishing via improvised hand grenade out of boredom is always a highlight).

I love the way Bujold structures her books---I talked about that a bunch with Mirror Dance---but Memory is just brilliantly laid out. Miles is spiraling, Miles fucks up, Miles gets fired (the closest pop-culture parallel I can think of is a superhero having to permanently revert to their mundane secret identity), Miles’s friends manage to yank him out of the mire, and then... surprise bizarre out-of-sequence murder mystery! The victim’s not dead! Miles keeps finding clues out of sequence and realizing he was meant to be framed! And god, you’re so sure it’s Haroche right at the start and then you have that moment of “oh well shit of course he thinks Miles might have it in for the boss that just eviscerated his identity” and so you’re still surprised when that first instinct was right! And then he offers Miles his life as Naismith back. Even Cordelia placed a bet on Miles giving up his life as Vorkosigan. And... he doesn’t. Mirror Dance was about Mark fracturing himself to survive. Memory is about Miles dragging himself back together to live.

I love how Illyan takes the loss of his memory chip---it’s fundamentally a piece of him gone, but it’s also freedom from thirty years of being a tool of his emperor (and then of Aral), and his embracing this destruction of his identity and learning to move forward is such a great foil/foreshadowing for Miles’s revelation. Everything in this story is about moving forward, not without regrets, but moving forward. It’s so fitting that the romance story going on in the background is Alys and Illyan, two 60-somethings, falling in love (and god, I love the scene where Miles wanders in on them in the morning and thinks something like “huh that dress is more of an evening style isn’t it?” and then like ten hours later the penny drops).

And god, Miles and Elli. I love how this was done, how it’s made apparent that you can love someone, and they can love you, and you can be very good for each other in a lot of ways, but your circumstances can still be such that marriage will annihilate one or both of you. It’s nobody’s fault, but the inevitability and recognition of it means it’s not always a devastation: “He could feel the letting-go in them, with the easing of the tension and the terror, with the slowing of every pulse of their blood. Not pain, or not so much pain, but only a just sadness, a due measure of melancholy, quiet and right.” Even when they’re quite bizarre relationships, the relationships in these books are very mature and well-thought-out from a narrative point of view, and this is a wonderful example.

Just a really, really lovely book:

No wonder he was laughing. He wasn’t mourning a death. He was celebrating an escape.

“I’m not dead. I’m here.” He touched his scarred chest in wonder.

[...]

Harra Csurik had been almost right. It wasn’t your life again you found, going on. It was your life anew.

Aaaand on to Komarr! God! I love this book! The most Miles possible meet-cute for his future wife: board at the home of her family on an investigation, have combat flashbacks on a shopping trip with her, and wind up watching her husband die horrifically while chained to a rail on a planet with a toxic atmosphere, knowing if he reacts too strongly he’s likely to have a seizure that’ll dislodge his own breathing mask, killing him in the same terrible way. You know. Rom-com stuff.

Speaking of relationships portrayed well, Ekaterin and Tien’s disaster of a marriage is extremely chilling in its realism. Even as you absolutely detest Tien, you can see how Ekaterin got yanked into that orbit, and it’s all all all so tied in with the very same aspects of Barrayaran culture that we’ve seen Miles face: Tien destroys everything because of his perception of what the response would be to his illness (where Miles, for better or worse, never had the option of hiding it), and because of his shitty insecurities about Ekaterin’s fidelity (echoes of a young Aral come to mind). We’re given explanations (his brother’s literally impossible-to-live-up-to example) but are never expected to see them as excuses, which is a very fine line to walk. The end result is a believably fucked-up relationship that draws on parallels with every single time you’ve ever thought to yourself about a friend, “Oh god sweetie you can do so much better than him”.

And Ekaterin’s thoughts about being bound to this marriage are right along the lines of the most stick-in-the-mud traditional Barrayaran loyalties we’ve seen Miles exhibit, all tangled up in language about honor. And even though it very shortly (and mortally) becomes a moot point, I love that she gets the chance to decide to leave Tien in spite of that.

I also love the scene between Tien and Miles, talking about Nikki’s jumpship obsession, partly because of the obvious contrast between the two of them, but mostly because it illustrates how much of Tien’s awfulness is because he’s just... fundamentally a bitter coward with no imagination.

"Well, every boy goes through that phase, I suppose. We all outgrow it. Pick up all that mess, Nikki.”

Nikki’s eyes were downcast, but narrowed in brief resentment at this, Miles could see from his angle of view. The boy bent to scoop up the last of his miniature fleet.

“Some people grow into their dreams, instead of out of them,” Miles murmured.

“That depends on whether your dreams are reasonable,” said Vorsoisson, his lips twitching in rather bleak amusement. Ah, yes. Vorsoisson must be fully aware of the secret medical bar between Nikki and his ambition.

“No, it doesn’t.” Miles smiled slightly. “It depends on how hard you grow.”

The alternating POVs between Miles and Ekaterin are charming because we get to see Miles from an external (non-hostile) point of view and get all excited about each small revelation, and then we get to see Ekaterin both from Miles’s point of view and from the point of view of her own very active inner monologue, giving us insights we would otherwise have missed since she, as Miles says in the understatement of the century, has a tendency to underreact.

Their relationship is built up very carefully: there’s an obvious mutual interest practically from the first, but they both have reason to be cautious. There are those moments of genuine rapport early on, and then the shopping trip! It’s such a clever revelation, and so layered!

Miles was traumatized at Dagoola IV by watching Beatrice fall from the shuttle in front of him: he reached out to try to catch her, and just missed, and she died. And then we have this perfectly safe little parallel, with himself and Ekaterin falling off a water feature in a shopping district, and he manages to catch her, this time... and they both go over. It’s cute and oddly triumphant...

...and then he realizes exactly what it means. If he’d caught Beatrice, he’d have gone over with her. They’d both be dead, and that revelation hits right after he’s had a whole book to figure out just how badly he wants to live. And to Ekaterin, it’s a very quick summary of what and who Miles is: he’s the man who would not let go. BUT Ekaterin ALSO frames her leaving Tien in that context: she’s not just watching him fall, but purposefully releasing her hands. It’s so twisted and so complicated and such a weird little microcosm of their respective states of mind. And while part of it is Ekaterin giving Miles the little push he needed to properly process that trauma, fundamentally and on a larger timescale it places Miles as the “I’ve been in this hole before and I know the way out” path to Ekaterin’s healing. It’s so well done.

There’s also a hell of a parallel in the physical aspect of Miles’s seizures coming on unexpectedly in moments of great stress versus the psychological aspect of Ekaterin’s whole coping mechanism being built on trying desperately not to flinch or show strong emotion.

(And I don’t know where else to put this but special shout-out to the running gag of Vorkosigan House getting gradually overrun with cats, to the point where Miles starts, apropos of nothing and on a totally different planet, asking strangers if they’d like a kitten.)

These kids! Will they make it work? I may be only halfway through the book, but I have a funny feeling things might work out...

Also, here’s the “rescue” scene in full, because it delights me so:

The root-compacted soil of the edge sagged under her weight, and she began to slide precipitously forward. She yelped; pushing backward fragmented her support totally. One wildly back-grappling arm was caught suddenly in a viselike grip, but the rest of her body turned as the soil gave way beneath her, and she found herself dangling absurdly feet-down over the pond. Her other arm, swinging around, was caught, too, and she looked up into Vorkosigan’s face above her. He was lying prone on the slope, one hand locked around each of her wrists. His teeth were clenched and grinning, his gray eyes alight.

“Let go, you idiot!” she cried.

The look on his face was weirdly, wildly exultant. “Never,” he gasped, “again--”

His half-boots were locked around... nothing, she realized, as he began to slide inexorably over the edge after her. But his death-grip never slackened. The exalted look on his face melted to sudden horrified realization. The laws of physics took precedence over heroic intent for the next couple of seconds; dirt, pebbles, vegetation, and two Barrayaran bodies all hit the chilly water more or less simultaneously.

The water, it turned out, was a bit over a meter deep. The bottom was soft with muck. She wallowed upright onto her feet, one shoe gone who knew where, sputtering and dragging her hair from her eyes and looking around frantically for Vorkosigan. Lord Vorkosigan. The water came to her waist, it ought not to be over his head---no half-booted feet were sticking up like waving stumps anywhere---could he swim?

He popped up beside her, and blew muddy water out of his mouth, and dashed it from his eyes to clear his vision. His beautiful suit was sodden, and a water-plant dangled over one ear. He clawed it away, and located her, his hand going toward her and then stopping.

“Oh,” said Ekaterin faintly. “Drat.”

There was a meditative pause before Lord Vorkosigan spoke. “Madame Vorsoisson,” he said mildly at last, “has it ever occurred to you that you may be just a touch oversocialized?”

#vorkosigan saga #vorkosigan saga spoilers #long text post

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postmodernmulticoloredcloak · 4 years

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Avatar: The Last Airbender episode 3x18 ･:*:･ﾟ’☆

Oh boi we’ve gotten to the final batch of episodes. It feels like yesterday that I started the show. Oh man. I’m not ready.

Aang is having his firebending lessons with Zuko. “Now let me hear you roar like a tigerdillo! ...That sounded pathetic, I said roar!”

Awww it’s a small thing but Momo intimidated by Aang roaring hiding behind Zuko’s leg is the cutest thing. When the kitty trusts you that’s it, you’ve won.

Zuko is a hard teacher but everyone else decides to have a beach party and make sand sculptures. Awww Toph’s been working on sandbending!

“Zuko’s gone crazy! I made a sand sculpture of Suki and he destroyed it! ...Oh, and he’s attacking Aang.” Priorities XD

Zuko is bewildered that they’re wasting time when the comet is due in three days, but Aang has decided to wait to attack the Fire Lord after the comet, not feeling ready for the task yet. Everyone’s reasoning is that Aang needs more training and the Fire Nation’s already essentially won the war, so things can’t get any worse... but Zuko knows more than them. Oh, it’s about the famous war meeting that basically opened Zuko’s eyes about everything!

“The people of the Earth Kingdom are proud and strong. They can endure anything as long as they have hope” “Yes, you’re right. We need to destroy their hope” “Well, that’s not exactly what I--” oh, muffin. It’s obviously poetic that everything comes down to the Earth Kingdom, which has been Zuko’s home after being thoroughly rejected from his own, where Zuko found a place and connected with the people, empathized with their struggles, genuinely saw them as actual humans. And of course the circular structure of it all, everything started when Zuko participated to a war meeting and spoke out in defense of people who’s be purposely sent to death. Now he participated to a second meeting, at this time with his father allowing him to speak and in fact asking for his opinion, and is also horrified by a plan that would mean a full genocide, but stays silent, endures the shame of that silence, but processes the meaning of it all and chooses to join the resistance.

Zuko’s character development is peculiar because he starts off as someone who has specifically selfish goals. Which in fact would normally be “bad”, because selfish goals are usually associated to being a bad thing, except that in his role selfish goals are actually a good thing, temporarily speaking, because of who he is, i.e. the son and heir of a genocidal dictator. He doesn’t go after the avatar to further the success and glory of his nation, but to go home, to acquire respect and love. He never really cares about his nation, even about his position as the heir to the throne; he only cares about regaining the respect of his father. And that’s the key to his salvation because he never is a cruel or violent person, but a compassionate person whose trauma closed him off into a shell of selfishness but that could slowly come out of that shell once he was forced to set his goal aside (in the Earth Kingdom). He temporarily regressed but of course that was necessary for him to fully realize how empty and meaningless that original goal was - the respect of his father means nothing because he’s a genocidal dictator. And his experience in the Earth Kingdom has allowed him to really grow into a compassionate person, because he lives among refugees and ordinary people, as a refugee and an ordinary person, instead of being a prince in a world of power.

He had a potential for empathy which his experience in the Earth Kingdom fully realized, and when Ozai decides to literally burn the Earth Kingdom away, that obliterates all the the value Zuko placed on his father’s respect. It obliterates all the respect he had for his father at all. He looks at him with the eyes of all the people he’s empathized with during his journey outside the Fire Nation, and sees the enemy.

And now he tells Aang that he might not be ready to save the world, but once the comet comes there won’t be a world to save anymore. He’d never told them about Ozai’s plan before because he was still under the assumption that the deadline was before the comet, and possibly he assumed that the rest of the gang had a full grasp of how evil the Fire Lord actually was. Funnily enough, the Fire Lord was always “the enemy” for the rest of them, but somewhat an idea, a concept, while Zuko’s experience of his father is very real and concrete. Heck, he carries it on his face.

Aang is distraught, but they tell him that they’re going to fight the Fire Lord as a group. They have a powerful bender for each element plus two weapon masters, their group as a collective has the full power of the avatar. Team Avatar indeed :)

“Get over here, Zuko. Being part of the group also means being part of group hugs.” Awwww <3

Zuko teaches Aang the technique to redirect lightning that Uncle Iroh invented and taught him. Zuko describes the experience of being passed through by lightning as “exhilarating but terrifying” because it’s so incredibly dangerous. Again, Aang is reminded that it’s either the Fire Lord’s life or his, but he’s obviously not okay with the idea of taking a life.

Meanwhile Sokka has come up with a plan to take down the Fire Lord. Or, in this case, the Melon Lord. They practice it--Toph has a great time playing the Melon Lord. If she were the avatar the Fire Lord would already be dust.

I mean, all due respect for Aang but sometimes people need to be physically eliminated, even if it doesn’t feel good. Then again, I’m not a monk or a particularly good person, so maybe it’s me. They have two days and no alternative...

It gets worse when Katara finds a picture of baby Ozai, which humanizes him even more.

They have a fight over it, and Aang mysteriously disappears into the sea... They decide to split up and look for him.

“I’m going with Zuko! What? Everyone else went on a life-changing field-trip with Zuko, now it’s my turn.”

Suki and Katara only find the actress!Aang...

Asdfghjkl Toph rants about her difficult childhood to Zuko but he’s not in the mood to listen XD

Aang is nowhere to be found...

“What should we do, Zuko?” “I don’t know. Why are you all looking at me?” “Well, you are kind of the expert on tracking Aang.” “Yeah, if anyone’s got experience hunting the avatar, it’s you.” when you have 2 experiences on your curriculum and one is tea server but the other is a highly specialized research that suddenly gets in demand.

Oooh Zuko indeed has an Idea(TM).

Meanwhile what I assume are the preparations for the arrival of the comet has begun.

Ooh. Azula was supposed to be with her father in the attack to the Earth Kingdom, but Ozai has decided that she’ll stay behind. She is upset at first, but he explains that her task is to watch over the Fire Nation... and she will be the new Fire Lord, as he becomes the king of the entire world. The Phoenix King in fact. Which is a really cool name, admittedly.

He’s already got a whole aesthetic ready. Damn, the dramatic gene is strong in the family.

Oh, Zuko’s idea is to recruit the bounty hunter from that other time!

Meanwhile Aang wakes up, with no memory of getting there...

#marghe watches atla #atla

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copperhawks · 3 years

Text

The Don Monologue

I promised the Don Monologue from Discord and Dee saw the promise, so this is gonna have to go up now lol. It’s getting some edits though due to the recent chapter with Don’s POV.

It's interesting re-reading Don scenes now that I know so much more about him. He IS self-righteous and self-absorbed in some ways. Particularly with regards to the mages and to Sav and the ways their relationship (both romantic and not) affected Sav’s self worth. But, Sav also never expresses those feelings to Don (understandably so, in my opinion, given the imbalance of their positions, but Don is not a mind reader and has 4 years less life experience so he is not to BLAME for Sav not saying anything and if anything WERE going to change for the better to make them more equal, it had to start with Sav opening his mouth. I think it’s pretty clear from the past chapter that had Sav said something, Don would have changed his behavior to ensure Sav never felt that way again).

But he's also just... SO lonely and so traumatized and he's reacting to that in bad ways, yes, undeniably but he also has a way of reaching out to people and SEEING people he cares about in a way pretty much no one else can. We see this with Constant in particular, though we see it with Daine, as well in Don’s first scene in the fic back in Chapter 9.

He's reactive, very much so. He hates Numair ON SIGHT mostly because he thinks Numair is a prostitute Sav has brought home and he's instantly jealous. This mainly comes up in how he reacts to “blood” as Daine puts it. And up until the most recent chapter, it has been mostly aimed at people who hurt Sav (which goes back to the whole argument that if he knew HE’D been hurting Sav somehow, he’d have immediately worked to correct that). We see him within the fic try to immediately get Sav to murder an assassin in cold blood for him and we hear Daine talk about how Don ordered the immediate whipping of a servant who struck Sav. While I’m obviously on Don’s side in terms of not hitting children, a WHIPPING is a very over-the-top punishment for that particular crime. And this is a punishment that his mother, the current Queen, claims is actually soft for the crime. So, you know, that’s the environment he’s being raised in. Daine claims Don regretted this order later and the Queen refused to undo it, but we don’t really see the same reaction with the assassin, although Sav does refuse to actually murder her. Who knows how Don would have reacted had Sav actually followed through.

Most recently, we see him reacting to the death of one of the few friendly lords, Adel, and the threat of Constant’s death with Don practically going feral and trying to kill the new assassin himself. While this comes off as obviously very heroic in the context, it’s the... more heroic side of his reactive tendencies which we’ve seen in much more negative contexts. It’s one of Don’s flaws, indisputably, and something he has to work on. But it’s not something irredeemable and it’s not something that can’t be utilized in a good way. If Don can learn to get a handle on his immediate anger/rage, he could 100% hold it back for an appropriate moment with an appropriate reaction.

But he's a traumatized 22-year-old who's been handled responsibility of a kingdom even though NO ONE around him actually wants him to do any real ruling and is constantly trying to manipulate him. And it's also super clear that Don is afforded exactly zero respect from most people in his life and the few who used to respect him have almost all left (mainly Sav and Daine who are keeping him from Constant). His guards in the scene when Constant falls off the roof REALLY don't respond to his orders AT ALL. They aren't even really bothering to try to save Constant from the stormwings. When Don yells at them and orders them to try to go find help, they obey eventually, but it's explicitly stated that they move VERY slowly while doing so, forcing Don to decide to do it himself and he runs off.

Don makes decision with regards to mages and magic that has some consequences on poorer people and appears to be having even more ripple effect consequences on their harvests and general overall health of both people and livestock due to a lack of mages able to work legally. This is obviously a major problem, one that did not get thought through initially when the decision got made. But with the Queen having just been publicly murdered with magic after so many noble families had been massacred by mages themselves, something had to be done. Since finding the culprits doesn’t seem to have been do-able immediately, a different solution had to be found. Don does the bare minimum of what he thinks he can get away with, despite his trauma, despite his own fears, and even that is backfiring on him now. Because the people are hungry and scared and other countries are looking at Galla as easy prey for their own agendas. All of which has now put Don in-between a rock and a hard place because he’s fighting outside influences as well as revolution from his own people and he can’t please everyone, no matter what he does. He has to feed the people, but feeding the people means inviting slavery into Tortall or marrying the Mage King’s witchling daughter. Easing the restrictions on mages might help stave off starvation and plague, but it would piss off the nobility whose massacred families have yet to receive justice.

He's impulsive in the worst situations, for sure, but take him out of the political scene, put him somewhere that's just... quiet and simple, and he's FINE. He didn't ASK to be king, it's not like he ran for the job knowing he had zero experience and got it anyway, he got thrust into the position due to a combination of ableism and sheer bad luck. He's doing his best and his best just... isn't good enough, not with the situation he got thrown into.

I think for me, he's not always necessarily a LIKABLE character, but I feel for him and I love the journey I know he's on as a character. Like a lot of characters who have similar redemption arcs, it's hard to write them in their more unlikable stage and still have the reader root for them to get better. But I think Don’s starting to move away from that stage as we get to know him more and through different points of view, including his own.

We have mostly seen Don through everyone else's eyes up until Chapter 31, his first POV chapter, so we've learned about him via Numair, via Daine, via Constant, via Sav. Sav is on very hostile terms with Don, Daine seems to be somewhat siding with Sav though she’s not quite as hostile, Constant seems generally unwilling to just take his siblings’ word for it that Don is “bad” and is only just starting to figure out some of the nuances to the situation, and Numair is... sort-of still forming an opinion. We know he was comparing Don to Ozorne in Chapter 25, but by Chapter 31 he seems more willing to believe Don is redeemable, that Don can be saved and isn’t completely lost like Ozorne. I’m the kind of person who will often follow along with the POV character’s opinions quite a bit, and in this fic, that’s mostly Numair. Numair seems to be softening on Don, seems to be willing to root for him a little at this point and that’s promising.

There's hints here and there to let the reader know that there's more to Don than there would appear and, while I don't think anyone without the author’s behind the scenes info would necessarily be ROOTING for him yet, they should certainly be questioning how much of what we're seeing is truly Don and how much is the person Don's been manipulated into. They should certainly be hoping to see more of him, the true him. Especially after the look into his mind we just got.

#tamora pierce #tortall #the immortals #the immortals quartet #daine au lb #king donatien

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pastrnaks-sainz · 4 years

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can i request a best friends to dating with matt grzelcyk? also i love your writing sm omg 🥺🤍

My Whole Life

Pairing: Matt Grzelcyk x female!reader

Type: Fluff

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1979

A/N: remember y’all, my requests will CLOSE on Sunday!!! and omg bb thank you so much!!!