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vyragosa · 6 years

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vyra, i was so inspired & encouraged by you posting ur fanfiction! i loved it so much! i had written this a week or so ago, but i didn’t have the courage to figure out how to send it.

i dont know i want to put my name to it because i dont think tonbokiri and sengo are fully in character (though i would like to grow as a writer until i can write them well), and i also dont want to spam ur blog with it, but i did write it as a kind of “thank you” for streaming mihotose the other week, and i thought that, if you have the courage to post yours, then i want to have the courage to send you this gift, even if mine isn’t all that good.

because of its length, don’t feel pressured to post it onto your blog if you don’t want to! i don’t mind either way. it’s entirely up to you, because as far as i’m concerned, it’s your gift for you to do with what you like. you don’t have to comment on it if you don’t want to, or you can choose to; you don’t have to post it unless you want to; etc. im not sure if this is the best way to send you this, because im still not 100% on how the “submit” feature works, but i hope this is readable;

(put the rest of the message under the cut with the fic v )

(ok so first of all i couldn’t wait to be home and read during a break in the freezing cold and i literally could not stop crying involuntarily, literally unable to stop still) your grasp on them, i just, how raw

the way you wrote their fears and tears? tonbo being so excessive to the point of being incredibly self-destructive, thinking that his words are never appropriate when each time, they are? disregarding his own self for others, for him

sengo being so, so self-contained to the point of facade completely shattering from a single world (which reminds of his face almost choking back tears in mihotose being told he isn’t alone i’m NOT ok) wanting to take care of him instead, to make him realize no one should go that far for him, and especially not tonbokiri

thank you so much for taking the time to write all of this? i’m a bit at loss of words i’m afraid i can’t praise it as much as i think of it but i genuinely cherish it with all my heart, and please don’t downplay yourself like this in the future you don’t give yourself enough credit that i can’t put in words

“Did you sleep better, back then?”

Sengo’s face has turned back to the window, not fully, but so all Tonbokiri can see is the apple of his grinning cheek tremble.

“I would take those unpleasant memories from you, if I could,” Tonbokiri says. He says it quietly, because if he spoke any louder then his voice would crack with its own weight. “Sometimes I wish I could, if it would ease your suffering.”

Sengo laughs wetly. "And then we’d never have met.” “I’d find you still.”

i have another ao3 account invite arriving hopefully soon, so if you want this to be more clean, i could post it there maybe if that would be better. & i have never written for anyone before, and i don’t think anyone has seen anything i’ve written in a few years, so please don’t think too harshly on my characterisations, writing, dialogue, pacing, etc. because i’ve never had anyone to critique my mistakes.

(i also think i started writing this with the intention of it being an au where they had been human but very much like that spies or assassins, like i saw on your blog, so if anything seems strange, it’s because of that! i didn’t mention anything explicitly, but i wanted to give myself some room because i’m not fully familiarised with the canon yet, so that’s why some things may not be in line with canon, even though they may call themselves “spear/sword.“ i wanted to write something in between the phases of them being very traumatised by their life experiences and starting the road to recovery; between them still considering themselves weapons lacking autonomy and them starting to think of themselves as people who can make their own decisions.) as i said, i know there are places where it definitely feels even to me that tonbokiri and sengo are ooc, but i hope you’ll forgive those moments while i begin figuring out how to write them properly. even if you don’t enjoy this so much, hopefully you can use this at least as something to give you different ideas.

~ Tonbokiri is woken by Sengo.

He knows this even before his eyes are open. If he could not tell by the thin fingers brushing back his hair; or the sound of his sleep-husked voice, unusually quiet, unusually tremulous, calling his name; or even the faint smell of cherry blossoms still sticking to Sengo’s skin after they’d taken Monoyoshi to see around the city and the nearest park just the day before … if he could not tell by any of that, then Tonbokiri would know just from habit.

It is in the nature of things like them to awaken fighting; to burst into consciousness at the slightest sounds; to feign sleep while reaching for their knife under their pillow, or to listen to the sounds of the building adjusting to the new weight with wailing creaks and then to launch at their attacker. That is in their training. It had taken some time - though, not nearly as much as either of them had expected - for Tonbokiri and Sengo to adjust to each other’s presence, but now that they have, if he is woken in any manner and his body allows the haze of semi-consciousness to fog his mind, then Sengo must be near, keeping him peaceful.

He is woken by Sengo most nights in some way or another, though not usually for long. A leg thrown over his waist might catch his attention, their hips budging as they shift might stir him, fine hair in his face and tickling his nose will wake him with a sneeze, or the blankets being pulled further to one side than the other might cause him to wake just enough to pull them back. To all of these, Tonbokiri will smile, ensure that nothing in the room is out of place and disturbing him, and drift back to sleep. On less pleasant nights, he is woken by Sengo’s fitful dreaming. Not his nightmares, or at least not the fully-fledged ones - while he knows Sengo has periods where his dreams give him pain, he too often wakes himself first, quiet enough or still enough to never wake Tonbokiri, and instead lets him rest unknowing; and so Tonbokiri only ever catches the after-images of these nightmares: the restless attempt to fall back asleep again, tear tracks on Sengo’s otherwise dormant face, smiles the next day that are a little too wide … all signs of something that Sengo endured right beside him that Tonbokiri missed. Sengo brings them up occasionally, but never seriously, only to tell him something particularly gruesome that he thinks might scare Tonbokiri away, or with a wink and a fluttering hand as if he’s trying to convince them both that he’s telling a particularly overblown ghost story rather than his own memories.

They haunt him like ghosts, certainly, but they’re no less real.

Tonight, Sengo had woken him, but he’s already awake himself, face scrunched into something just a little more serious than his usual pout.

“Muramasa … ?” he murmurs. This is strange to him, and his body is reacting frustratingly slowly. Lovingly slowly; it - he - trusts Sengo implicitly; he can almost imagine his resting muscles asking what such a rush is for, if Sengo is here.

A light is already on in their room, a dim amber glow in the corner from a lamp. Just hazy enough to leave deep shadows in haloed curves around the furniture, but just bright enough to leave a pleasant highlight on Sengo’s face.

“Ah, you’re awake.“ His fingernails scratch pleasantly at Tonbokiri’s scalp, brushing through his hair. Sengo is sitting with Tonbokiri’s head in his lap; he is surprised none of the movement woke him sooner.

“Of course,” he repeats, forcing his eyelids to remain fully open despite his comfort. “Of course,” he repeats, “didn’t you call me?" He thinks he remembers Sengo’s voice, whispering his name. "Is something wrong?”

“Don’t you remember? You were having a nightmare.”

The fatigue seeps from him in an instant, leaving him cold and awake. The cold centres in his chest like ice, but Sengo’s hands near his head are still warm. So it was me who woke him first … It’s troubling to think of how he may have disturbed what little peaceful sleep Sengo had earned just with his own bothersome thoughts. “Oh,” he eventually manages. “Yes, I don’t remember at all. Thank you for waking me from it so quickly.”

Before he can apologise for waking Sengo himself, Sengo’s pout changes shape, and his warm hands travel to Tonbokiri’s chest, thawing that frozen feeling. “But your heart is racing, can’t you feel that?”

“Ah, that,” he says. He notices now that it’s been pointed out. But he smiles up at Sengo rather than think about it. “My heart always races when I look at you.”

Sengo splutters slightly in surprise, face turning a soft pink, glowing in the dusky orange lamplight, framed by highlights of long, feathery hair. Tonbokiri could stare at him for so long …

I wonder if it just got faster. He puts a hand over Sengo’s, both of them over his heart.

The flush doesn’t fade, but Sengo adopts a wry, amused smile, wrinkling his nose mischeviously, eyes twinkling. “Pardon the intrusion, then, if I’ve interrupted a dream in which I’m undressing.”

“It’s no interruption, if you’re the one who wakes me." How could even the most pleasant dream he conjure compare to the real thing? Ah, embarrassing, even the thought makes his cheek heat. "And, I am sorry,” he manages, next, before he blurts out something even more sentimental.

Sengo’s smile doesn’t vanish, but his eyes go wide and study him carefully, scrutinising.

“For waking you,” Tonbokiri explains. “I–”

He is distracted by a flash of deep red slashed across the palm of Sengo’s hand, made noticeable as he moves it from Tonbokiri’s chest to his own lap.

He shoots upwards, almost knocking Sengo backwards with his speed and size. In the light, with the movement, the red shimmers. Tonbokiri forces himself to think rationally despite his hammering heart, to come into a sitting position beside Sengo and move slower; Sengo’s muscles have clenched, shoulders tightened, and his gaze is scanning the room for whatever threat he thinks must have made its presence announced.

Tonbokiri scolds himself internally. He knows what they both are, and he was foolish to react in a way that has left Sengo waiting for an attack, and after Sengo woke him up so gently. His breathing slows purposefully, steadily, and he outstretches his hands to take Sengo’s. Slowly, so that if Sengo wanted to knock his hands away, he could.

But Sengo offers the hand faster than Tonbokiri asks, eyebrows high on his head, offering a faint, “What’s the matter?” into the open air.

Tonbokiri’s thumb presses into the heel of Sengo’s hand as he turns it to examine it closer. A thread of his own hair, dark red, had caught itself on Sengo’s ring finger. His hands had been so gentle that Tonbokiri hadn’t even felt the roots tug in his scalp, even as the strands were drawn with the movement.

His exhale is a heavy huff of relieved air. His thumbs trace the lines of Sengo’s blessedly unblemished palm. “I thought I’d cut you." The red like a river of blood deep in Sengo’s skin … all just a strand of his hair. It had just shone oddly in the light, is all. It had looked like something it wasn’t, and his mind had jumped to its own conclusions.

"You didn’t,” says Sengo, flexing his hand to better see it himself. Then, thoughtfully, almost like a challenge. “You couldn’t.”

Tonbokiri almost traitorously thinks, I have, remembers the dragonfly, then silences that weakness. No matter what his body is capable of, has done, he won’t let it harm Sengo.

“Huhuhu, even without saying any words, the things you think are so loud,” says Sengo, tapping Tonbokiri’s temple with his unhurt hand. “You didn’t, and so what would it matter if you had? I thought you told me you didn’t remember you’d had a nightmare.”

“I can’t remember it,” begins Tonbokiri. “And it would matter, if I’d hurt you.”

Sengo flicks his wrist to dismiss that thought. They’re sitting so close together, and yet Sengo’s face has turned at an angle impossible to read. “But you seem so alert, after waking." With an insincere edge, "Would it make you more at ease if I undressed right now?”

He frowns. “If I can’t remember it, I’d say it hasn’t bothered me so much,” he says. “But … you worry me. Are you alright?”

“You’re such a worrywart. Aren’t you the one with bad dreams?”

“We both have bad dreams." Tonbokiri leans closer now, and Sengo gives him reluctant eye contact. "Did it trouble you when I woke up?”

Now Sengo smiles. It’s tight on his face; a mixture of the false, teasing grins he wears for the others, and the pained, bittersweet twist that sometimes unwillingly slips onto his face. “You didn’t.”

“Trouble you?" Then he realises. He lowers his gaze. "Wake you.”

It isn’t a question, but Sengo still confirms it with a half-shrug, doing his best not to look bothered about it.

“I’m glad, then,” Tonbokiri decides. “That I had that dream and you woke me. No one of us should be awake alone at this hour.”

Sengo shrugs again, more haphazard this time, rising to cross the room to their window and look out over the night. “It’s not so bad. I used to stay up and stare at the stars, before. I would wonder which unlucky one I must have been born under." He flashes a playful grin over his shoulder, one that Tonbokiri can’t return.

Before. Before he was Mihotose. Tonbokiri himself hardly feels as if he’s been here long, although he feels so at peace with the team. But he had spent so long as the spear belonging to just one man before this; Sengo has had many handlers. Does it feel so differently for him? Does time pass differently? There are times when Tonbokiri worries that Sengo feels isolated for being the last of them to join.

"Did you sleep better, back then?”

Sengo’s face has turned back to the window, not fully, but so all Tonbokiri can see is the apple of his grinning cheek tremble.

Sengo crosses back, but so quickly Tonbokiri barely catches a glimpse of his face. His hands grasp Tonbokiri’s shoulders, and his purple head rests above red. “How peaceful … but then I’d have almost no memories whatsoever.”

“Then I’d wish for you to have a different life. A normal one. A human one." Speaking as if they aren’t humans. But, some days, it would be almost more impossible to believe they are.

Sengo laughs wetly. "And then we’d never have met.”

“I’d find you still.”

A drop lands squarely on Tonbokiri’s head. He pretends that it could be possible for it to rain inside their room, rather than feel the deep sorrow in his chest knowing that Sengo is crying.

“I am Sengo Muramasa,” Sengo declares. Bold, but sad. “And not that stranger who lived some normal, human life. If this Tonbokiri … if he has regrets,” he speaks softly, with no judgement, “then I’m sure that that other Muramasa is out there … instead of inside this room, where you’re trapped with the demon.”

“How can I have any regrets in this life that took me to you?" His voice is heavy and wet.

"In this life that’s given you nightmares … you have no regrets? You wouldn’t change it?”

“No.”

“You’d take all those lives again? Walk down this path that you’ve walked down?”

“If you were waiting for me on it, yes.”

A smile curves against his temple. “Liar." Two more raindrops fall from the shadow of a violet cloud above. Tonbokiri is held so closely that he can only see Sengo’s collarbone, from how tightly he is held. "Merciful Tonbokiri”–here, Sengo traces the Siddham on his chest–“he would never shed all that blood for anyone less than his old master. Let alone for something like me.”

Merciful Tonbokiri. He wants to be, he aspires to be, but. He can’t remember what his nightmare was, but he can imagine. His past has given a lot for his dreams to work with. “If there is a price to pay to keep our lives together, to be paid in blood, at the cost of all I’ve shed and all you’ve shed, I would gladly give it all, straight from my own heart." He guides Sengo’s finger from the Siddham to his heart beside it. "If you’d have me.”

Sengo makes a choked noise. His hand curls, his knuckles brush and must surely feel Tonbokiri’s pulse. “So desperate to keep your own misfortunate life, and to make me change mine?”

“Only if it’d make you happy.”

“But how could I possibly be happy if we were living different lives?”

“I’d pay it all the same, if it’d make you happy in this one.”

“Huhuhu, sometimes, you can be a little slow, Tonbokiri." Sengo pulls back so they can see each other, face-to-face. There are tears rolling down so quickly they fall into his smile. "I already am.”

Tonbokiri leans carefully up to place his mouth on Sengo’s. Sengo freezes, one hand still on Tonbokiri’s shoulder, and the other helplessly pressed against his heart. They are still so new at this, and Tonbokiri’s face turns as red as his hair and Sengo starts in surprise almost every time they’ve tried, between failed attempts where they bump noses and turn away, too flushed, before they’ve even gotten close enough.

They part reluctantly, but still so close. Tonbokiri can taste tears on his lips, and he leans his forehead forward against Sengo’s. Sengo’s lips are still parted, upturned.

“Sometimes …" He frowns at himself, for breaking the silence–the ease. For doing it so clumsily, instead of sharply and neatly like the spear he is should be able to do. "Sometimes, it feels as if you aren’t.”

“As if I’m not …?”

“Happy.”

“Sometimes it feels as if you aren’t, either.”

“There is nothing to be concerned about." But, at Sengo’s deadpan stare, he admits, "I … am. More often than not. Being here has helped.”

“That’s not fair, then; you’ve been here longer than I have,” Sengo accuses, biting his tongue playfully at Tonbokiri. “Perhaps even this demon sword could learn to live a happy life if it stays here long enough.”

“Demon sword?” asks Tonbokiri with a laugh. “I don’t think I know of that stranger. I don’t think such a thing lives here, even. The last person to come live with us was, hm, definitely a man, not a demon. One of the kindest and gentlest I’ve ever met.”

“‘Kind and gentle’? Are you certain that you and I are thinking of the same thing?”

“Well, I have met, and talked to, and experienced, and … loved Sengo Muramasa. And I think that both he and I know who he is far better than any of those strangers who spread rumours of demons. Even better than those voices who live in his head and try to convince him those lies are true.”

“'Loved,’” repeats Sengo quietly, in a strange, hoarse voice.

“Yes. I haven’t much experience with it, but I think that’s it.”

“One shouldn’t tease, you know,” Sengo rushes to say, “or play jokes. Not on this demon who is just learning to become a man. That would be cruel even to a Muramasa.”

“I would never. Isn’t it you who says I don’t understand humour very well?”

“And so what you say …”

“… I am always honest with you, Muramasa.”

Sengo laughs, a happy outburst. There are still tears on his face. Tonbokiri kisses him again, before he can think better of it. Sengo’s hands cup his cheeks, and Tonbokiri wonders if he can feel his grin.

They are still so close, chest-to-chest, that when they pull away, Sengo murmurs again, “Your heart … it’s still so fast.”

“I told you; so long as I can see you, my heart races.”

“Then it would be best for me to turn off the light, or you’ll never get back to sleep.”

“That’s alright,” says Tonbokiri. He looks to the window. It’s still so dark outside. But the shadows are hardly daunting when it is so bright in here with both of them. “I think it would be okay for us to stay up just a little longer.”

#submission #unbelievable #unbelievable how raw and emotional

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ramajmedia · 5 years

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Ghost Parade Preview: Indonesian Folklore Meets Metroidvania

Gamers might not be familiar with Indonesian video game studios, but Lentera Nusantara's Ghost Parade seeks to change that in the coming months. Their debut release, set to be published by Aksys Games, is an ambitious and elegantly animated metroidvania whose style and themes draw inspiration from films like Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away, the animated indie hit Ori and the Blind Forest, and the wide array of unique recruitable creatures to be found in Pokémon.

Having the opportunity to actually see Ghost Parade in motion, there's also something of an immediate visual connection to George Kamitani’s work with his studio Vanillaware, including previous console generation classics like Odin Sphere and Muramasa: The Demon Blade. Much like those titles, Ghost Parade has a slightly marionette-animated and painterly look, featuring smooth movement and dark contrasting colors that reflect the haunted forest environs.

Related: Wasteland 3 Preview - Prepare Yourself For The All-Mighty Kodiak

Ghost Parade is Lentera’s first formally-released game project, though the founders of the studio have been working in and around the space for over a decade. Co-founder and CEO Azizah Assattari, who doubles as Creative Director, originally worked as a researcher and lecturer in various fields around the arts and multimedia efforts prior to the studio's origins. A few other games from this Southeast Asian nation have made a splash with Western audiences in recent years — Toge Productions' Rage in Peace garnered considerable praise last year, including its soundtrack, which featured local Indonesian bands — and Assattari and her team are looking to attract further attention to the bustling Indonesian game dev scene with their sizable, visually striking adventure.

Players take on the role of Suri, a young girl diverted through the woods on her way back home after school. Suri is a precocious, violet-haired nine-year-old who happens to have the strange talent of being able to see ghosts (known as “lelembut,” a word Lentera defines as "the local term for all supernatural beings including creatures, such as yokai in Japan, or wandering spirits of dead people"), a variety of whom are tucked throughout Svaka Forest. She decides to take a shortcut through the woods to get home on time, and is soon drawn into their supernatural intrigues, delayed but entertained by this assortment of spirits, who range in sensibility from the buffoonish to the macabre.

According to the studio, Ghost Parade’s storytelling was originally part of Assattari's research for her master’s degree, contained in comics which can now be read in a fresh and recently released English translation. The scrolling webcomic is generally light-hearted, but the story in this IP also regards the deforestation and systemic burning of Indonesia’s woodland due to logging, agribusiness, and global-capitalist demands, a nationwide epidemic that's been broiling for several decades now. This theme doesn’t seem to be exactly front-loaded in the Ghost Parade narrative, but the studio does seek to shed light and attention on this ecological concern, in addition to making a fun game. The studio remarks that, “The main conflict in this game’s story exists because people started to destroy the forest, which is home to many ghosts and animals. In this game, we want people to believe that humans can be more dangerous than ghosts!”

So how does it play? Screen Rant was able to secure a preview opportunity to check out Ghost Parade in person. Unlike Ori and the Blind Forest or Bloodstained, there’s a much floatier, hazy feel to the character movement, which manages to slot into the ghostly themes nicely. Suri initially gets a bright lantern which she can use to strike enemies, which is a nice change of pace from the more violent conventional weapons in other games; also, interestingly enough, "Lentera" translates to "lantern" in English. Many of the ghost familiars she encounters throughout the journey join end up joining her team, offering her an additional offensive function or spell, like firing a projectile or creating a shield or platform.

All of these ghost characters factor heavily into gameplay, and there are over 30 which Suri can recruit throughout the story, each of which have a special function mapped to a controller button that can attack enemies, assist her in navigating through the forest terrain, or offer other benefits. Three of these ghost companions can be “equipped” simultaneously at any time, and their unique abilities can also be modified and upgraded by leveling up one of Suri's specific attributes. It all results in a mix that feels like one-part empowering metroidvania, one part skill-based platforming, with many areas containing a strong sense of verticality and multiple routes, including tricky paths through more dangerous territory that lead to tucked-away treasures.

While we were able to see only a limited amount of the grander narrative, it featured plenty of dialogue with other ghost denizens of Svaka Forest (apparently there are 100 individual ghosts to converse with throughout the adventure). In a manner quite familiar to Western ghost stories, each of them have a quest or purpose that Suri can help activate and assist with during her journey, and the conversations tends to be brisk and accessible. The broad strokes of the story seem cutely energetic, with Suri’s can-do demeanor quickly endearing the different ghost personalities over to her side.

There are also a plethora of checkpoints planted throughout each area, which manage to ease any related punishment due to misplaced jumps or deaths due to spike hazards. Rather than render the platforming meaningless, these shrine-like safe zones allow Lentera to set up plenty of tricky precarious leaps and surprises, while also never forcing the player to have to begrudgingly replay lengthy areas to get back to where they originally were. It’s a design choice that encourages experimentation and failure, and the heart of it feels reminiscent of Super Meat Boy’s clever die-rinse-repeat philosophy for each level.

It’s not completely clear what Ghost Parade will fully evolve into by its upcoming release, but the intriguing visual presentation already sets it apart from a good number of games in the genre, and the different abilities of the ghosts promise a healthy amount of experimentation if players intend to access all its content. Lentera expects approximately 10 hours for a complete playthrough, but hints at secrets related to specific companion abilities that will be up to the player to puzzle out.

Additionally, even though the gameworld seems to primarily consist of the forest itself, it's a region filled with bizarre ruins and architecture that mixes up the general look of the environments, so you’re not just staring at trunks and leaves the whole time. If you ever wanted to drag a few Kodama from Princess Mononoke along for a rambunctious quest through the woods, Ghost Parade is worth a closer look.

More: Preview: Borderlands 3 Boss Fights Are The Best They've Ever Been

Ghost Parade is currently on track to release in October — though that expected date may be subject to change — on PlayStation 4, PC/Steam, and Nintendo Switch.

source https://screenrant.com/ghost-parade-preview/

#screenrant

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