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azucanela · 4 years

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FAULT | BAKUGO KATSUKI X READER

SUMMARY: Y/N accompanies her mentor, Aizawa Shouta, to the homes of her fellow students after the incident at Kamino Ward. One moment with her classmate Bakugo Katsuki stands out in particular.

WORD COUNT: 1.7k

WARNINGS: injury, insecurities, self-blame, is damn a curse word?

A/N: this is chill, i wrote it pretty quickly because i wanted the idea out of my head and onto the computer screen so lmk if its bad pls ashdkjashdjh

“Why exactly is she here again?”

Toshinori Yagi, better known as the Pro Hero All Might, stared at the girl that stood beside Aizawa Shouta. Scrolling on her phone with one hand, and the case that held her hero outfit in the other. Y/N L/N, one of the top students in Class-1A, and the entire Hero Course. Since she’d gotten in on recommendation, her name had been on Principal Nezu’s list of potential successors. After seeing her skill, he understood why, and to gain Aizawa’s favor? That was a talent in and of itself.

Shrugging, Aizawa brought his capture weapon and scarf further up around his head in an attempt to shield his face, they’d already been harassed by reporters about a dozen times and he didn’t want to be in any of the photos, “we have training after this.”

It appeared this young girl was also Aizawa’s protege, though the man would likely never admit it, Toshinori could tell he’d taken a liking to the young girl, and taken her under his wing. She’d received additional training from the Pro Hero just like Midoriya received extra training from Toshinori.

“So... I can go retrieve young Midoriya?” They’d just left his house, and now they were heading over to Bakugo’s. Y/N knew him fairly well, he’d insisted they train together when she’d scored better than him on quirk tests, and then he insisted they study together when she’d performed better on written work as well. In exchange, he helped her with the more physical aspect of being a Pro Hero. Her least favorite part if she was honest. But it was worth it, training with Bakugo was difficult, but it had certainly helped her improve.

Their time together had gone from... strictly competitive to competitive and fun she supposed. Y/N had found that after spending a while with Bakugo, it was easier to understand that he had his own way of expressing his care for you. When Y/N forgot to bring lunch, he’d call her an idiot but he would share his own nonetheless, and this was a frequent occurrence so Y/N was shocked when he’d told her to stop trying as he’d slammed another lunch down in front of her.

He’d made her lunch everyday since then. Nobody dared comment on it purely out of fear for their life. It was an unspoken rule not to discuss the way that Bakugo treated Y/N, the different way he treated her. Of course, this was a rule Kaminari and Kirishima broke frequently, earning them quite a few —empty— threats.

Watching her teacher, Y/N rose a brow as he practically glared at the former Number One Pro Hero, “absolutely not.”

The man opened his mouth to protest, only for Y/N to interrupt before the pair of teachers could argue, “I’m not interrupting anything by waiting outside.” Looking up from her phone, she offered him a smile, “if one of the parents happens to have a problem with it, I don’t mind waiting in the car.” Sitting outside was much more enjoyable than staying in the stuffy car with the scarily silent chauffer, but if she had to do it, then she would.

Aizawa gave Toshinori a look as Y/N spoke, and the man simply sighed in acceptance. “Onto the home of young Bakugo then.”

Y/N had been to his house a few times. Whenever the café they usual studied at wasn’t open, they either went to her home, or on rare occasions, his home. Of course, Bakugo had ensured his parents weren’t home whenever they did this, though Y/N wasn’t sure why. Regardless, most times at his house they’d get sidetracked, much to Bakugo’s dismay, and end up in his kitchen.

Pulling up in his driveway, a smile found its way onto Y/N’s face. She’d suggested numerous times that they have a picnic on his neatly trimmed lawn, though Katsuki shot her down most of the time.

Stepping out of the car and sitting on the steps that go up to his front door, she watches as Aizawa and Toshinori enter with few questions from Bakugo’s mother. She looked a lot like him if Y/N was honest, and from the sound of it, they also shared a similar personality. Y/N could hear their yelling from outside.

Smiling at the sound of Bakugo yelling out insults, Y/N let out a small laugh as she leaned her head back against the wall. Though her laughter came to an abrupt stop when she heard what his mother yelled next.

That it was Bakugo’s fault he’d been kidnapped.

Y/N found herself sitting up as the boy grew silent, coming to a stand to see if she could see his living room from the window beside the front door. But there was no view of Bakugo himself.

Perhaps thats because he was the one slamming the front door behind him, coming to a stop when he noticed Y/N’s attempts at snooping. She immediately turned to him, trying her best to look normal, though it was clear he’d noticed what she was doing. They made eye contact, and Bakugo opens his mouth, only to shut it as he narrows his eyes at her, “how much did you hear?”

His voice is oddly calm as his stare pierces into her soul, and its an odd change of demeanor for him, one that takes Y/N a few moments to understand.

He was embarrassed.

If Bakugo was honest, Y/N was one of few people he actually respected. She’d exceeded him in certain areas of school, and helped him improve in more ways than one. To make matters worse, despite his intent to get through his years at UA without a... distraction. Y/N had somehow wormed her way into his heart, no matter how hard he tried to keep her out of it. The fact that she’d come to his rescue when he was kidnapped, despite the potential consequences, hadn’t helped. She’d seen him at his weakest.

“Bakugo-”

His name alone is answer enough as Bakugo lets out a noise of frustration, moving to leave, only for Y/N to grab his hand despite the pain that spreads through her own at the feeling of small explosions emitting from his palm. Yanking him back towards her, Bakugo is opening his mouth once more, likely to yell at her for her idiocy as he attempts to remove his hand from her grasp. But Y/N doesn’t relent as she sweeps her foot under his leg and knocks him down, effectively allowing her to straddle him and hold him down.

“Let go of my hand you damned idiot!” There’s a panicked look on his face as he speaks, but the only thing Y/N can think of is the fact that he hadn’t threatened her yet. He hadn’t aggressively shoved her away with his free hand, nothing.

No, his concern was different, and Y/N’s concern probably should’ve been the same seeing as she could practically feel her skin sizzling from the heat of his own, but at that moment, she didn’t care as she grinned down at him, “bet you regret teaching me that move now, huh?”

He pauses his writhing beneath her, chest heaving as he glared, “are you serious-”

“You know, what your mom said isn’t true.” This makes him go silent, and Bakugo finally allows his head to fall onto the grass as he looks away from her once more. “It wasn’t your fault Katsuki.

Bakugo inhales deeply, “I ruined All Might-”

In response, Y/N uses her free hand to push his shoulder harder into the ground and hold him still, “no! You didn’t.”

“Didn’t I?” He finally manages to snatch his hand away from her, flipping the two of them over, Bakugo plants his hands beside her head, the grass singeing black because of the misuse of his quirk. Almost instantly, he frowns, “I can’t even control my stupid quirk-”

“You have some of the most impressive quirk control in the class, is that a joke?” Y/N brings both her hands—including the one that probably would’ve hurt a lot more had it not been for the adrenaline flowing through her veins— to his face, and as Bakugo brings his hand to her wrist, Y/N wonders if he’s going to rip her hands from him as she speaks, “Katsuki it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t ask to be kidnapped, and at the end of the day we are just kids. You can’t be expected to save yourself against villains.” His hand remains on her wrist, but he doesn’t remove it from his face as Y/N inhales deeply. “If anything it’s my fault-”

“Shut up.” The hand still beside her head clenches, tearing at the grass. “Shut up.” He repeats, exhaling sharply as his eyes squeeze shut, Y/N realizes this is because a tear successfully managed to fall down his cheek, despite his attempts to prevent it. “Don’t be dumb.” He practically growls at her, trying to hide his pain with aggression once more.

Brushing her thumb against his cheek, Y/N offers him a smile, “then I guess its nobody’s fault.”

He’s silent for a moment, eyes piercing in hers as he tries to figure out what to say. “Sure,” he grumbles in response, gently pulling her hand from his cheek, Y/N allows him to examine the damage, his brows furrowing at the sight of charred skin. He doesn’t say anything as he does, but Y/N can practically see the thoughts running through his minds at a million miles per hour. His fingers brush over the now raised skin, and when Y/N flinches, Bakugo’s fingers immediately leave her palm, causing her hand to drop.

Pushing herself up on one forearm, Y/N presses a kiss to his cheek, and she can practically feel his skin warm as she speaks, “it’s fine.”

He averts his gaze from her as her cheeks redden, “ I hurt you-”

“I’m fine.” Y/N disregards his words as she moves out from under him.

Bakugo’s brows furrow as he moves to a stand as well, “come over next weekend,” his words sound like more of a demand than an invitation.

“Sure, but can I ask why?”

He grabs her uninjured hand, moving to bring her back inside his home, “let’s get something to help with your hand.” Bakugo doesn’t turn back as he continues, “and I owe you a picnic.”

Needless to say, it was a very nice picnic. One that Y/N left with a boyfriend.

A/N: this idea came to me at exactly 9PM

#katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #bakugo x you #bakugou x you #bnha x reader #mha x reader #katsuki x you

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kuromichad · 3 years

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the main thing that bugs me about ao3 discourse is i just. i never see anyone lay out what they actually Want from ao3 besides 'delete everything i think is bad' like theres no. sense of practicality? what exactly do you want added to the tos. what is the exact expected process for reporting fics and evaluating those reports. disclaimer before anyones like 'Oh so youre unilaterally defending them' i do extremely think they should at the least not allow rpf of irl minors. but when it comes to enforcing policies that aren't related to like, laws, i just wonder how you expect it to work... should they just delete anything/anyone who gets reported a lot, like plenty of sites do? then people are gonna exploit that system and get people mass reported over petty shit, just like on twitter. should there be a moderation team instead? who picks that team? who's on that team? what if the team makes decisions you don't like?

especially when you're talking about creating some kind of policy for 'eliminating racist content,' like-- what counts? i'm guessing that like, troll works that are just a wall of slurs already get deleted (if they don't then they should be because that's pretty simple) but like. who decides what's 'bad enough' to merit outright deletion? if it's done by volume of reports, wouldn't that essentially be arbitrary moderation because it depends on a random group of people who potentially all have different problems with a fic and those problems can vary wildly in severity? like, what about when it comes down to nuances of how a character is treated? dramas like we had with finnpoe discourse, where either character topping might invoke different racist tropes, so how does one walk the line and how do you cope with how not everyone who attempts to walk it will be successful?

i saw one post giving the example of a fic that just like, rewrote the events of last year's protests to be set in the transformers universe, and yeah that's tasteless, there's been offensive 'current events' fic happening for a long time and it sucks. but should there be an explicit ban on that genre? how would that clause be worded? does Everyone agree that it's something that's impossible to do tastefully? if a black person does want to work through their feelings on current events through fanfiction, is that still banned because it's presumably impossible to do well, or should it be allowed because they have the right perspective? do they have to meet a certain standard of 'doing it right', and who evaluates that? and how are ao3 moderators supposed to know or believe they have that perspective? (we've already seen people racefaking to get 'permission' to write tacky racist fic just due to social pressures. imagine the lengths people will go to if their work or account is on the line.)

like-- sorry if this is a gauche comparison but since it's something i'm familiar with and able to speak on. what if the next wave of criticism is 'ao3 needs to crack down on transphobic content'? how will you define that, beyond 'delete fake fics that are just slurs'? would entire tags like omegaverse, or 'boypussy' and 'girl!penis', or even 'genderbend' get deleted? what about trans authors using those tags? do we become the only ones allowed because we can do it 'correctly'? how do we deal with the fact that not all trans people agree on what's 'correct'. like i don't think genderbending is inherently transphobic, it's down to individual choices and portrayals. same with omegaverse, same even with 'boypussy/girl!penis', since like. people might take issue with the entire premise of 'characters have this type of body and it just doesn't like, mean anything' as being fetishizing of trans bodies/erasure of trans experience and i sympathize with that. i'm not certain where i fall on the matter either, it's very much a case by case thing.

so then, how do you moderate that? do we get rid of those tags because someone decided nobody can use them responsibly or should like the premise at all? again, do we appoint moderators to decide when an idea is handled 'correctly' and again, who are the moderators? what happens when they make a decision you don't like? how do you distinguish between fic with a 'wrong' premise and fic with an 'okay' premise that is executed imperfectly and leads to interpretations or implications that upset people, especially when many fic writers are young and amateurs? should someone who made mistakes be punished with deletion just as much as someone who, like, intentionally wrote character-bashing/abuse fic for racist/transphobic/etc reasons?

like, none of what i'm asking here is supposed to be applied to general discussion of these subjects, it's not like i think offensive content should never be taken down, i'm not pulling some kind of 'everything Could be offensive so actually nothing is' or 'if they didn't mean to then it doesn't count' or anything like that. but we aren't talking about interpersonal discussions, or the handling of mass media, or anything like that. we're specifically talking about the concept of 'just delete everything that's offensive and exploitative' and how that would potentially be implemented. because ao3 is not a person who said something tasteless on twitch and can be reasoned with and led to make an apology. ao3 is a website hosting all sorts of ideas from millions of users, specifically in the form of fiction, and the way fiction conveys biases and shapes people's thinking is itself a really fucking complicated subject, and people are trying to demand that they try to tame that massive volume of content from different people in very specific ways, with no suggestion of how to actually go about doing that.

i know you think 'delete the stuff thats obviously bad' is a simple principle but it's literally not because no two people will ever 100% agree on what's 'obviously bad', particularly in this case because people don't consistently agree on whether depiction always equals endorsement AND it's so difficult to reliably tell whether depiction that seems to be endorsed was intended to be endorsed. so again, the primary, most practical options for 'delete things that are bad' are to either delete everything that anyone reports for any reason or to have moderators that make flawed human choices. i just want to feel like any of the people making 'ao3 bad' posts have actually like, considered that, and have some sort of opinion on which one it should be, if theyre gonna fight about this.

and, yknow, if they did have to hire a massive team of additional moderators to actually read every fic and take the time to make subjective decisions about whether it's offensive... they would need to pay those people... and they would still need donations. so lmao.

im not saying like 'youre not allowed to want things to change' like there's definitely room for improvement but. please god. start explaining what you want those changes to be because 'delete everything i personally think is bad' is not a moral imperative or a coherent category or a helpful suggestion in the least, if you think with your brain and not your gut instinct of disgust.

#and i genuinely dont even have the energy to get into the donations thing more like #yeah literally there are more important things to send money to than a fanfiction site. but #the like mindset people are advocating for. of constantly being aware and like living in penance for the fact that there's always people wh #and always bad things happening and all of this is Your Fault through inaction or 'wrong' actions that prioritize yourself #is just. its not healthy bro. it really sucks

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sarahlevys · 2 years

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2021 Fic Year in Review

Thank you to @lilythesilly @davidbrewer @5ambreakdown for tagging me!

Total number of completed works this year:

80??? (for comparison, i wrote 24 last year after joining the SC fandom in September. god help me.)

Total word count:

the official log is 398,147, but this is skewed by collabs and the bach au, which we started in 2020 but is showing in 2021 bc that's when it was last updated. A rough estimate puts me at 253,340...ish.

Fandoms I’ve written in this year:

Two – Schitt's Creek and Ted Lasso.

Did you write more/less fic than you thought you would this year, or about what you expected?:

um, lmao. way more than i thought i would. i also didn't realize it was quite so many. i tend to write short lil plot bunnies to get them out of my mind, and i guess they added up.

What’s your favorite story you wrote this year?:

here's my top favs:

heaven is a place not too far away (twylexis musical soulmates au)

we'll get together then, dad (alexis comes out to johnny)

Café Tropical (Schitt's Creek, ON) Has 3.96 Stars On Yelp (a canon retelling through yelp reviews)

salt air and the rust on your door (stevie/ruth/alexis/twyla grow up together)

Rollin' With the Homies (twylexis clueless au

mile by mile (ted/alexis/twyla post-canon; alexis runs a marathon).

Did you take any writing risks this year?:

i don't know if i necessarily pushed myself out of my comfort zone significantly, but i did write david POV a few times, my most difficult POV.

honestly, my biggest writing risk was writing so much in such little time. starting with tropefest, i got into the dangerous habit of writing the bulk of my fest fics during the fest itself, then submitting via extension. i managed okay and the works turned out well, but it wasn't enjoyable. i'm going to try not to do that again.

(oh, i did write about death, which isn't my usual thing. [you'd always go past where our feet could touch - mind the tags!])

Most popular story you wrote this year?:

excluding co-written stories and drabble collections, by hits it's (but if baby i'm the bottom) you're the top (twylexis porn... just straight porn) and by every other measure, it's Café Tropical (Schitt's Creek, ON) Has 3.96 Stars On Yelp.

Most fun fic to write:

salt air and the rust on your door was an amazing collaboration with @schitthappens, Amanita_Fierce, @schittposting, @roguebebe, and @sunlightsymphony. producing it for elevate was a lot of work, but it bonded us all together and deepened in our friendships in a way that paralleled the ongoings of the fic.

i also collaborated with a lot of those usual suspects (@schittposting, Amanita_Fierce, @rhetoricalk, @sunlightsymphony) on measure by measure (stevie/alexis/twyla band au) and had a blast composing and playing music for the pod in addition to writing.

Biggest surprise:

i went from 'ruth? who's ruth?' to 'i would die for ruth!!' in 0-60. show this town how to kiss these stars (ruthie's first date) holds a very special place in my heart; it felt very natural to develop my characterization of ruth, and i'm really happy with how this turned out.

also, i remain deeply honored (and, still, surprised) by all of the people who took the time to make podfics of my work this year. thank you ❤️

Do you have any fanfic/podfic goals for the new year?

finish you and i and nobody else (the twylexis bach au). make more music fics/pods with my friends. help twylexis surpass 350 fics and ruthie surpass 150. lessen my fest participation to help my sanity. write more long-form fics.

i have no idea who's been tagged already and who's done this. if you want to do it, please do!!

#my writing #meme response #fic: you and i and nobody else #fic: show this town how to kiss these stars #fic: measure by measure #fic: salt air and the rust on your door #fic: café tropical (schitt's creek on) has 3.96 stars on yelp #fic: (but if baby i'm the bottom) you're the top #fic: you'd always go past where our feet could touch #fic: heaven is a place not too far away #fic: we'll get together then dad #fic: rollin' with the homies #fic: mile by mile

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chalkrevelations · 3 years

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WELL. Episode 3 of Word of Honor.

First of all: If you are NEW or JUST VISITING, this is a re-watch, so there are SPOILERS not just for this ep, but for the ENTIRE SHOW. A lot of them, actually. Scroll away and come back later if you haven’t seen all 36.5 eps and want to watch it unspoiled.

So, this ep feels a little disjointed. I don’t think it actually is, not in the way the back nine are a speedrun where the writing starts to feel like it’s thisclose to coming off the rails, but it feels like it, in that we’re now getting a double handful of threads thrust at us that are only just starting to be woven together into a plot, and it’s the kind of hot mess that any fiberwork looks like before the pattern starts to show itself, particularly when you’re using 15 different color threads from jump. There’s generally a major theme or issue or overriding concept that stands out to me in each ep that, you may have noticed, gets primacy of place in these reactions, but honestly, y’all, I really struggled to figure out what that might be for this episode, because a lot of this, on re-watch, strikes me as groundwork for later developments. Wen Kexing gives us an “as you know, Bob” speech about the Amory and the Glazed Armor, we meet approx. 3.2K new characters, and I feel sort of like I should start keeping a chart of who’s supposed to have a piece of the Glazed Armor and who actually does have a piece of the Glazed Armor, but it’s already so confusing that it might be too late.*

ANYWAY, on re-watch, I can absolutely see the value of spending Eps 1 & 2 on introducing us to Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing and getting us pulled into their orbit, because then we have scenes we’re already invested in to maintain our interest as the background politics begin to frustratingly play out with a bunch of people we don’t know or have any investment in yet. I mean, y’all. I forgot just what an ill-tempered gremlin ZZS was in these early eps. He is so fk’n put out that these people will not let him drink himself to death in the gutter in peace! Or, you know, in occasional Nightly Nails Torment. And the exasperation from both ZZS and Chengling over WKX’s antics – both of their faces are priceless in the scene when they discover he’s the one who’s bought out all the rooms at the inn. I literally lol’d. Again. Even knowing it was coming. All of this interaction is so delightful. This is actually the ep that provoked my very first WoH keysmash flailing Tumblr post and inaugurated the “wen kexing’s thirst is practically a third character” tag. I guess the biggest throughline for this ep is that we can continue to see how everything changes when we know about their previous relationship – things like WKX’s insistence that they have a “deep bond through fate” take on additional layers of meaning rather than just sounding like some dude who’s trying to pick you up at last call. Interesting that ZZS describes WKX at one point during their push-pull conversational dance as “like a wretched soul that keeps haunting around.” You mean, like a GHOST? Like a Ghost Valley ghost? Like the almost forgotten memory of a past life ghost? ZZS wants to know why WKX keeps following him around, and it would be nice if WKX would just come clean, but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

ZZS, re: Chengling: I do my best to ensure what was entrusted to me.

WKX: :makes (already! in ep 3!) yet another in a series of bad decisions not to say anything about the fact that he, himself, was in fact entrusted to ZZS:

Show: Here’s the first of many helpings of heartache to come. EAT IT. EAT IT ALL.

(Me: Well, here’s another AU idea: What would the course of this relationship be like if WKX flat-out asked ZZS what ZZS’s relationship to Four Seasons Manor was, and bare-faced claimed sanctuary as long-lost shidi Zhen Yan at this point? Because I bet there are plenty of ways that could actually go wrong. Not to mention the deliciousness of just watching them navigate a relationship shift that sudden. I feel like, at this point, WKX would have to be actively confrontational about it, would have to throw it in ZZS’s face – it would need to be something he did in the heat of anger, in order to have this pushed out past all of his fears. Like, you say that, but where were you when I needed you? Also, you think so, well what if your responsibility actually turned out to be the TERRIFYING GHOST VALLEY MASTER, what then, huh? And ZZS, still pretty actively suicidal over all of his failures, having to deal with what’s now being presented as YET ANOTHER FAILURE.)

Also, the theme of “knowing” (zhiji, the one I know) is starting to slide in sideways – we’re seeing a lot of back and forth between them asking about seeing the other’s “true face.” WKX says that he’ll tell ZZS what he (WKX) wants from him once he gets to see ZZS’s true face (LIES, it’s going to take a lot longer than that). ZZS asks to see WKX’s figurative true face, and WKX looks kind of sad and contemplative as he warns that it may be unappealing or terrifying. So, you know, we’re starting to poke at all the softest, most tender places and the issues that are going to stab me repeatedly in the heart for the rest of the show. We’re also already seeing the way Xiao Chu just layered in references throughout the script when she wrote it that call back to each other – it’s like almost any line of dialogue references three other lines of dialogue (and that’s without even getting into all of the literary references that I’m missing because I don’t have cultural context). You get things like WKX’s little speech right at the end that it’s hard to tell a ghost from a human, which on its face might be referring to the two “ghosts” that were coming for Chengling that he took care of and act as an admonishment to ZZS not to be so quick to assume they’re actually from Ghost Valley, but it also refers to WKX, himself, and specifically lays the groundwork (“someone wearing a ghost mask is not necessarily a ghost”) for his conversation in a later ep with ZZS when he asks if ZZS thinks he’s a good person, and also calls back (“someone who looks human may not be human”) to the line from earlier in this ep, itself, when WKX tells ZZS that perhaps WKX’s true face is terrifying. And so we get a nicely little wrapped package of the dichotomy of WKX and his issues. (As a somewhat related aside, A-Xiang’s little face when Zhou Zishu says all of the ghosts of Ghost Valley are full of evil (at 6:55). D: This reaction is obviously for herself, but also may be the first time she acts as proxy for Wen Kexing, as well.)

What else, what else?

So, nobody has a good opinion of the jianghu. WKX is going to be constantly all, “You killed my father, jianghu, prepare to die,” but ZZS also goes off about how it’s just about greed, hatred and ignorance, and yeah, I guess he’d have a pretty bad impression of it, when Prince Jin and Tian Chuang seemed like a better option than the pressure he was facing, trying to keep Siji Manor Sect alive back in the day. We talk a lot about WKX’s childhood trauma, because it’s so awful and right in our faces, but I don’t know how much we actually talk about the fact that ZZS was a teenager not much older than Chengling when he inherited a sect and tried desperately to keep it from being torn apart by the rest of the jianghu. I think we see some bitterness come out in the first few episodes – frankly, in this ep, he doesn’t seem to make much of a distinction between Ghost Valley and the rest of the jianghu. Also interesting that the metaphor he uses about the jianghu’s and Ghost Valley’s greed for the treasures of the Armory is “reaping without sowing,” given what we find out is actually in there in Ep 36.

We see our metaphor of light get pulled out again – this throughline strikes me as more like beads on a string than a thread, at this point, but maybe I’ll notice it more on this second time through … Anyway, WKX’s comment at 9:11 that it’s almost dawn is notable. Indeed, but is it because your plan is beginning to work and you can see the destruction of Ghost Valley and the jianghu coming down the pike, or is it because you’ve found your shixiong?

I notice WKX has color-coordinated ZZS and Chengling in the robes he bought for them, has already grouped them together, marked them as belonging to each other – he’s already subtly treating them as each other’s family. The show, with a particular lack of subtlety, also will have ZZS there to wake up Chengling from nightmares later in the end of the ep, as Chengling calls out for his dad in his sleep.

OK, Deng Kuan is the guy in charge of the Yueyang sect contingent that arrived in time to see the Mirror Lake chaos in Ep 2 and has taken charge of cleaning up the bodies in this ep. I actually overlooked him, pretty much, the first time around, but here, he’s already got Shen Shen yelling at him (in a completely ridiculous fashion) for not getting there in time to save the Mirror Lake Sect, so he’s just going to be a punching bag through the whole show, apparently. Shen Shen is wu-di, fifth (little) brother, and he refers to Chengling’s dad as si-ge, fourth (older) brother, so Shen Shen appears to be the youngest of the Five Lakes sworn brothers, leading me to believe that some of what makes him so insufferable through a lot of the show is baby brother syndrome. Also, Shen Shen and his group find the Soul Winding Threads of the Hanged Ghost … supposedly. I mean, the Hanged Ghost was the guy who we saw get got in Ep 1, soooooo …. (remember these Soul Winding Threads, btw).

*This got super long so I’m’a put this last bit under a cut, but I did try to start a running tally of who’s holding a piece of the Glazed Armor:

Each of the Five Lakes Alliance sects is supposed to have a piece of the Glazed Armor, yes? So, as of the end of Ep 3 (hierarchical bro-titles are from didi Shen Shen’s POV):

- Yueyang Sect, led by Gao Chong (da-ge) - presumably still has his

- Tai Hu Sect, led by Zhao Jing (er-ge) – presumably still has his

- Danyang Sect, led by Lu Taichong (san-ge, presumably) – apparently the sect has already been attacked off-screen (by “Ghost Valley?” and WHEN?), as we learn in Ep 3 that Lu-zongzhu has been killed and his remaining two tiny disciples have fled to the protection of Ao Laizi and Tai Shan Sect, one of the lesser sects, and are believed to have taken Danyang’s Glazed Armor with them. We learn this from Tao Hong, Lv Liu and Begger Gang Chief, but I notice that Gao Chong only mentions the Mirror Lake massacre as the precipitating event for the Hero’s Conference and total war on Ghost Valley – he doesn’t even mention Danyang Sect, so does Five Lakes not know about this yet?

- Mirror Lake Sect, led by Zhang Yusen (si-ge) – Zhang-zongzhu killed by “Ghost Valley” in Ep 2, Glazed Armor “missing” and speculated POST EP 2 to have been taken by Ghost Valley (but will turn up in a few eps, thanks to our little Goldbean)

- Dagu Shan Sect, led by Shen Shen (wu-di) – presumably still has his

And then we move to:

- Tai Shan Sect, led by Ao Laizi – in-world speculation is that he now has the Danyang Glazed Armor. We do see him near the end of the ep with the two tiny Danyang shidi, where he makes the intriguing comment that he’s going to follow their shifu’s last wishes and keep their Glazed Armor from falling into the hands of the Five Lakes Alliance, so what exactly was going on between San-ge and his sworn brothers at the time of his death? This group also is apparently being pursued by Shen Shen to get their Glazed Armor, and they make him sound awful. You need better PR, Shen Shen.

- Ghost Valley – POST EP 2, speculated to have taken the Mirror Lake Glazed Armor (FALSE)

NOTABLY, “Ghost Valley Master” set a lot of this chaos in motion in Ep 1 when he claimed that Hanged Ghost (who got got a scene earlier) had stolen HIS piece of the Glazed Armor, although he shouldn’t have a piece (supposedly) until after Ep 2, when he’s believed to have taken Mirror Lake’s. So, what piece would that be, exactly, Terrifying Ghost Valley Master? You wouldn’t be lying in pursuit of chaos would you? (Somewhere, WKX gasps theatrically behind his fan, and he doesn’t even know what motivated it, this time.)

#zhou zishu #wen kexing #gu xiang #zhang chengling #shen shen #deng kuan #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

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msotherworldly · 3 years

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The Black Rain: Chapter One

In my previous posts, I mentioned my series in progress, The Children of Pandora, and how it was technically a multi-protagonist project. While Eradica is the main protagonist of the books, Insula and Rowan also have their own occasional books. The chapter below is the first in Rowan’s story - like The Blue Door, it’s still in need of editing.

If this whole multi-protagonist business sounds confusing, check out my earlier posts. You’ll be introduced to the characters, their stories, and my comparison to Narnia on how this functions.

CHAPTER ONE: THE POSTCARD

The afternoons when I could be alone were the best, because they were also a relief. Outside, clambering over the rusty playground and dodging around the scattered beer cans, the children played. The place, with a few stunted shrubs for it’s fence, was filled with litter: there was a discarded tire, a few cardboard boxes, and some dirty clothes. The children used them as their toys, but I had my own toys to play with.

From the window, I could see the mountains. They partially blocked a watery sun, which already fought a swath of cloud. I didn’t know that day would seem bright, when compared with the ones to come. I didn’t know a lot of things, such as what Dad looked like.

I only knew his handwriting. I turned the postcard over. The writing was spidery and small, but I had looked it over at least once a day for the past three years. I flipped it over to the picture on the front: palm trees swayed in the wind, casting long blue shadows over the fancy cars and the newly paved roads. There were green hills, and a beach side resort with shirtless old men and grinning, skinny twenty year olds, most of them blonde. I had bought into a myth of my own making: if you stayed in the sun long enough, it turned blonde...but you had to live where it was hottest.

At eight, that myth seemed flimsy. I curled a strand of brown hair around my finger, which was also brown, but sort of gold.

The Palm Tree Place, where Dad lived, was like something from a dream. It was funny how it made me deeply happy and deeply sad at the same time.

“What are you doing up here?” a voice hissed. Ms. Brocklehurst ambled into the room. A Seagull Anthromorph, she was a confusion of frayed feathers and pinstripe clothes. Her skirt was bunched around her knees, and her jacket was too loose on her thin frame. Glasses slid down her sharp, dirty beak.

“I was just-”

“If you don’t get down, I’ll switch you good.” Ms. Brocklehurst’s beady eyes narrowed. “Actually, I think I will anyways. You’ve already disobeyed me, haven’t you?”

“Please, I was only-”

“Bend over.” Ms. Brocklehurst took a cane down from the wall. “Now.”

A lump formed in my throat. Hot tears spewed from my eyes. Mom always said I was a baby. What was the word she used? Ingrate? That’s what I am.

The pain thudded over my back, and I screamed. That was bad, but I couldn’t help it: it whistled through the air. It hit harder. It bit. I screamed louder. My eyes were glued to the floor. A piece of it peeled away.

Whoosh, whap, whoosh, whap. The sounds were so gentle, but they felt so hard. I tried not to count the hits. That always made me hope, and that made it worse somehow.

The next hit didn’t come. I remained bent over. Snot streamed from my nose. The floor was a blurry mess, like a painting.

I heard the cane being hung up. That was such a happy sound. I heard a stomp of taloned feet, squeezed between black shoes.

“Down, or I’ll give you another set.”

My back burned as I straightened myself. My whole body ached; my legs stung, and it was hard to move. I was stiff.

I shuffled past worn beds with identical gray coverlets. The walls were gray; everything was. It matched the cobwebs that hung in the corners. It matched the rickety stairs that had been brown, but were now rotting and bleached from too many days of sun exposure.

I stopped at the foot of the playground. I realized I was still holding the postcard. I shoved it into my pocket. I wore a pair of jeans that were always sliding down. My pink hoodie was baggier, or I was just too skinny.

I saw Emma Ruth skipping along a hopscotch she had made from snapped twigs. I wandered over to her, smiling.

“Hi, Emma.”

“Hi, freak.”

“Can I play?”

“Sure. Just don’t touch me. I don’t want to catch your freak bug.”

I hopped along behind her. I felt oddly cheerful. It was one day at a time, right? Also, nobody was hitting me. That was always a plus.

“Do you ever think about your parents?”

“Don’t talk to me.”

“Maybe they’ll come back for you. Or maybe a rich man will come here and adopt us all. And he’ll check back in to get any new children that come in. And then Brocklehurst will sell the place to him. He’d be a billionaire, and he would make his money selling children’s clothes. But he’d buy all our clothes for free!”

“You’re really stupid, aren’t you?” Emma hopped along behind me. We went in a circle. “That stuff only happens in storybooks.”

“My dad wrote to me right before I came here. It was his only letter, but he told me how palm trees grew. He talked about coconut milk and-”

Emma shoved me to the ground. My head hit the edge of the playground box, and pinpricks of light, golden and white, flashed across my eyes.

Emma looked big, though she was only a tiny girl in a dress, red and white and checkered like a picnic blanket. She crossed her arms, her blue eyes growing small. “Just leave me alone, freak.”

A mean picture came into my mind: Emma’s dress on fire, her face as she screamed. I brushed the picture away. How could I have a thought like that? How awful! It wasn’t Emma’s fault I was weird. What if I could give it to her? I guess I’d be afraid too. I didn’t want to hurt Emma. The meanness was gone, leaving behind cold.

And she’s sad too. We all are. We’re in the same boat.

A bell rang. Children rushed past me. I stood up. My butt was damp. I realized the grass was wet, glinting in the gray-gold light. It must have rained. I wiped my hands on my jeans; the palms were stained green.

I was sure I would have hated school, even if it was a nice one. Math just didn’t make sense, though the other children seemed to get it, and science was sort of creepy. I only really liked art and language.

Ms. Brocklehurst passed out our papers. We had been tasked with essays. As usual, mine was covered in red circles, red underlines, and red comments. These said things like, “Do you hate commas, or are you just dumb?” There was also, “My brother could write better than you, and he’s illiterate.”

The comments might have bothered me, but Emma Ruth’s paper looked like it was dripping with blood. I know it’s mean, but it’s kind of awesome, too.

We were asked to write short stories. This was the part I liked. I flew into another tale about a lost prince and the king who had sent him away because dragons were looking for him. He lived alone in a cottage, but he could see the castle from his window, surrounded by palm trees. The king drank coconuts for breakfast, ate pineapple for lunch, and dined on mangoes and watermelon in the evening.

Emma snickered. “You’re writing that story again?”

“I like it.”

“You don’t have much of an imagination, do you?”

I blushed. “It makes me happy. I wasn’t going to publish it or anything.”

“I hope not. Otherwise people will be vomiting everywhere because it’s so bad.”

“You’re just unhappy because your stories get picked on too.”

“Excuse me? You don’t know anything, freak.”

My face was on fire, and shame coated my stomach. “I didn’t mean...but I understand, Emma. I like your stories. I’m glad they have happy endings.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“No! My favourite was the one with the golden haired Elf. I’d run away with him in a heartbeat, though I probably would make us move somewhere warmer than in the story.”

Emma stood up. Her chair scraped over the floor. She raised her fists. “Keep talking.”

“Okay.” I didn’t understand sarcasm. “Um, I liked the one with the blue Dragon, too, and how it had green polka dots. I probably wouldn’t date him, but he was really cool.”

Emma’s fist connected with my lip. It felt dull, the pain spreading in a blanket through my whole jaw. I fell to the floor. The chair caught my elbow, and I yelped. I could still hear the wet thud in my head; the moment replayed itself through my spinning head. I pressed my cheek to the floor. It was cold, and felt good on my hot skin.

“What in the name of Genitrix-”

“She made fun of me!” As I rolled onto my back, Emma pointed to me. “She made fun of my story!”

Ms. Brocklehurst glared at me. She slapped a long ruler in her hand, before trotting forward. She stood over me. “Up! What are you, a dog?”

I scrabbled to my feet. I sank into my chair. I wanted to cry that it wasn’t fair, but what good did that do? I pressed my lips together, keeping the tears in.

“Put your hands out.”

She’s just doing her job. I spread my fingers out over the desk. Below them lied my sketch of the prince. He had brownish gold skin, brown hair, and eyes that were so dark they were almost black. His lips were full, his nose wide and hooked. He looked just like me, except that his hair was cut short, almost a buzz.

Mine hung down my back in a lank ponytail. The prince also has a shower everyday. He bathes on the beach, and waits for the king to collect him.

The ruler came down with a slam. It was louder than the cane, but less painful. Even as I teared up, I couldn’t help thinking how funny that was. My fingers wrinkled back, bending at the knuckles. She hit me three times. That was easy to count.

Addition is the only math I like. I felt dazed. My stomach growled. Was it the hunger or the pain? But subtraction sucks. I only like the math where numbers get bigger.

Ms. Brocklehurst stocked to the front. I resumed my story, like nothing had happened. Because nothing did. She’s doing her job. She thought I was being mean, and that’s okay. So she was wrong. So what? If I had been mean, I would have deserved it. I glanced at Emma. She’s just scared, is all.

A second voice, the one I thought of as The Meanie, answered me. Keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better.

I will. There’s no need to be gloomy all the time, or nasty. Gloom settled in the pit of my stomach. Despair clutched my heart like a hand. My chest sank on the inside. My eyes stung.

“Not fair,” I whispered. I glanced at Emma again. “I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to be mean.”

Emma furrowed her brow. She returned to her writing, shaking her head. All around me, pencils scratched. I wanted to read all the stories. Weren’t they all good in their own way?

A delightful idea came to me. I had to struggle through math first, and the equations made me weep—literally. I was dreading algebra when I got older. That was when math stopped making sense for everybody.

When class was over, I rushed to enact my plan. It was like clockwork: the kids tossed their last stories into the recycling bin. They dumped out their books.

I knelt by the blue plastic container as they filed out. When the last kid, a Dog with Rottweiler markings named Jimmy, trotted out, I shoved my arms, elbow deep, into the paper. I plucked tales and drawings from the mix. I ordered them carefully, clicking them against the floor to make them straight.

When I had collected them all, I had a fat, albeit unbound, book in my arms. I scurried up the stairs, ecstatic over my treasure. I didn’t have any books to read, but now I could read everyone’s stories.

I flipped through the papers, knees pulled to my chest. I sat on my bed. I felt like a jeweler, surrounded by gleaming rubies and emeralds.

I found Emma’s story, and put it at the front. The heroine (who always looked like Emma, with blue eyes and blonde curls) was falling in love with a Bear this time. She took half a page to describe his bulging muscles and glossy fur.

She’s going to be a great romance writer someday! The story made me happy and warm all over. I decided it was my new favourite.

I put my story at the back. It wasn’t that good, and I knew how it went. When I had read through all the stories, including mine, I pulled out the postcard again. Even though I loved Emma’s tales, this would always be my favourite thing to read.

I closed my eyes, smiling. I sank into sleep. In my dreams, I saw the palm trees, and a sign with the postcard’s address: Similo, Sapphire Crest, Calidi, Queen Street, 4321.

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venenatum · 2 years

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[The Scarecrow may find himself getting a little Christmas gift, even if Koonak may be the one to have to deliver it... A neat little parcel that reveals itself to be a journal! Well, a journal cover with one already inside. While fashioned to look like a patchwork mess, very well taking notes from other Spooky Books in horror movies and the like, it's rather well put together... the back panel extends to wrap around the front, where it is held closed by a pen slipped into place. There's some additional orange stitching here and there, a little embroidered JC in the corner. The front page of the journal is some neat little writing followed by a tiny doodle.]

Happy holidays! I hope you're doing well! I've enjoyed our chats, I hope to maybe know you better in the upcoming year. Stay spooky! ~ Angie

It had been awhile since Jonathan had even considered opening Tumblr, let alone return to his home. Poison Ivy had been missing, trying to find her for more than a week now. He’d spent the holidays alone, the only time really averting from his primary concern to gift Koonak something. He still hadn’t even shipped out the rest of his gifts to others yet.

Finally, coming back home after a long while- he noticed the gifts that had been here for who knows how long. Since he’d been living in a derelict medical pavilion, nobody cared to come around here. Good thing they weren’t stolen.

Taking the two delivered what he assumed to be presents inside, he sat down at his primary desk. Opening one, it revealed the neatly made journal, which had taken him off guard. Moving his clawed hand, he made sure not to accidentally tear it. Noticing all the fine details, taking his time examining it- even the pen. Grabbing the thin object, he opened the rest of the journal and spotting the drawing. Ah… now he knew who this was from.

Taking his gauntlet off, his hand had now been free. The metal constantly resting upon his hand had made it go raw or even sometimes calloused, hence wearing the bandages. In the front of the journal, the very first page- he grabbed the pen. It was mostly a test to see how fine it wrote, printing his name with it. The utensil wrote smoothly- as well as being satisfying to write with. He’d definitely use this gift- as well as send Angie a message later… perhaps a late gift.

For the next one, he opened up the bag, removing some tissue paper first. There looked to be some sort of dark fuzzy object. Pulling it out, it was very soft- a delightful feeling for his strained hands. It seemed to be a crow… which he found to be a tad amusing not knowing if it was some sort of small pun or not. Looking to the tag, he realized it was from Koonak- who was the only one he sent a gift to in time.

A small smile curved to his lips, not huge, but definitely noticeable if anyone else were here with him. He’d been shown so much kindness as of late… it slowly warded off his ‘grinch’ sort of persona. Of course he still didn’t enjoy Christmas for personal reasons- but still could indulge in the parts for friends. Both Angie and Koonak made this old man feel quite elated- and dare I say happy this night. It was definitely needed after stressing so much over Pamela. Maybe he could return the favor by sending New Years gifts instead.

[Thank you so much for sending this in! I am very sorry for taking so long to respond. Happy Holidays!]

#ic #scarecrow posting #[thank you for your patience!]

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missnight0wl · 4 years

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Unpopular opinion: I wish dating was never introduced to HPHM.

I was always rather open about the fact that I don’t have much interest in dating content in HPHM, so you might say it’s very subjective rambling. But I think I also have some more objective arguments for that statement, so… hear me out (or don’t; I can’t tell you what to do).

Some spoilers for the Festival Fun TLSQ, the Celestial Ball TLSQ, the First Date TLSQ, the Valentine’s Day TLSQ, the All-Wizards Tournament TLSQ, and “Cooking Up Trouble” SQ.

First of all, I want to address the most obvious counterargument for my wish: “but people want dating!”. Yeah, I know. But here’s a thing. A long time ago, almost at the very beginning of the game’s existence, when we were only speculating about any love interests, people were referencing one article. The article where the creators claimed that romance is planned for the future (among other things). And if you ask me, it was their mistake. It was a mistake because it created expectations which they had to react to. The problem is that they were never ready to introduce such type of content. I mean, just look at the past events. Andre mentioned dating when he was first introduced back in Y3 (!), and he said then that most people don’t date until they’re in the fourth year. And yes, the Celestial Ball was eventually placed as Y4 Achievement, but the main story was well into Y5 already! What I take from this is that at best, they had only a rough idea for the ball when they wrote Andre’s comment in Y3 (if it took them so long to actually create the quest). And so, I have to wonder – why they even talked about dating in Y3 if they were not ready? Now, I’m not saying that nobody would ask for dating if Jam City didn’t mention it in that article, or Andre omitted that topic in Y3. There’d definitely be people still wishing for some romance. But there’d be no actual reasons to expect that. Because HPHM was created as a mystery story (even if people don’t remember about it anymore), and a mystery story doesn’t really need romance.

The second thing I’d like to point out for the sake of this discussion is that the dating quests require quite a lot of work from the devs team. Admittedly, the quality of those efforts is sometimes questionable, but still. I’m also no tech or game design expert, but here are some things which I believe make dating quests more time-consuming than most of the others:

Designing outfits. Each of the datable characters is given a new outfit (+ new outfits for MC). I also want to notice that most of those outfits are one-time-use. Well, except maybe for the bundles available to buy for real money…

Creating new locations/characters. To be fair, some of “regular” quests require those too, although the majority uses things already existing and being used in the main story.

Creating new animations: dancing, holding hands, pecks on the cheek, more (new) dancing.

Creating multiple routes for different date options – and even if it’s mostly copy-paste, it takes time nonetheless.

To be clear, creating new things for the game is not bad. My point is that basically every dating adventure required ALL of that invested in one single quest – and pretty much none of that can be reused outside of dating. In fact, they’re not even reusing those animations completely for each new date. The kiss from the Valentine’s Day was different from the recent one, the Festival had new dances added to make it more diverse in comparison to the Celestial Ball etc. And what those unique quests have to offer? One cute moment with your date, which is… kind of meaningless. I’m sorry, but dating stories are basically irrelevant in the bigger picture. I mean, yeah, they’re adorable, but that’s it. And it’s just NOT proportional to all the work put into them. Because look…

The dating quests add very little to nothing to flesh out the characters – and if they do, it has nothing to do with dating.

The Celestial Ball did a pretty great job at adding to Rowan and Ben. People often criticise MC for “forcing” them to come to the party, but the problem was clearly about them feeling not good enough to go (not necessarily about them not wanting to go), and so I really loved working on their self-confidence. Bill also grew a lot in that quest, overcoming his rejection from Emily Tyler. Andre discovered his styling talent, so he was no longer “just” a brilliant Quidditch player. Even Penny had some insecurities to face as she wanted to prove that she’s not only popular but she can also create fantastic decorations. So… couldn’t it just be a quest about FRIENDSHIP and our friends growing? The whole dating subplot felt kind of forced to me, or maybe rather detached. Not to mention that THAT was kind of a dick move to leave Rowan and Ben after using the argument:

The next quests were more oriented on dating itself, but at the same time, they’re focused less on the characters’ individual personalities. Sure, there are some differences between dates, but it’s more about distinction than adding anything new. For instance, in the Festival Fun TLSQ, every character yells out loud that you’re on a date (unless you chose to keep it a secret), MC just points out that it’s unlike them in the case of Talbott, Jae, and Chiara. Next example: I thought it’s pretty amusing that Jae writes dreadful poems with cheap rhymes, but it turns out that the note with Butterbeer could also be left by Barnaby. I know that in MY playthrough, Barnaby didn’t leave it, but I can’t see it as Jae’s characteristic, simply because it wasn’t written for his character – it was written to fit Jae and Barnaby, so it’s kinda meaningless in my eyes.

Another thing is that even if those dates added something individual, it’d be relevant only for a limited audience. Like, I’m really happy for people who wanted to date Badeea, but for me, she barely existed in this quest. It added NOTHING to her character. During the First Date quest, Tulip revealed that girls in her family are being named after flowers (her cousin is called Marigold), which is a pretty neat fact, but I wouldn’t know it if I didn’t put extra effort to see different options. And believe me, there’s a big part of the payers who don’t do it. I’m still seeing on social media people being surprised that Rowan’s gender and House are connected to MC’s.

And speaking of that already: this is why the dating options are being cut off. And honestly, it sucks, but I get it, I really do. The devs have to spend the same amount of time on a character dated by 6% of the players as on a character dated by 36% of the players. Let’s add real money to that, and let’s say that 10% of all players buy gems/energy on TLSQs. Jam City will make more money out of that 36% than out of 6% - it’s as simple as that. At the end of the day, they are a business. Would it be nice to make all players happy? Of course, but it’s easier to keep the majority happy.

The dating quests don’t really matter for the main story – and they won’t matter more in the future.

Why? Because it’d be too complicated at this point. All we’re getting (and what we’ll ever get) are subtle differences in dialogues. And you know what? Even that doesn’t matter much. For example, in Y6, there’s a scene where Talbott calls MC to the Owlery and offers his help in searching through the letters. He talks then about their friendship, and if you took him on a date, he mentions it as well. The thing is that Talbott is pretty heart-warming here in general, how he opens on us being friends:

Sure, that one additional line is pretty cute, but again, is it really a satisfying pay-off from the dating quest, considering how much was put into it? And I don’t think they even can do more because they always have to keep in mind the players who didn’t manage to finish TLSQs in time or just didn’t want to do it.

I don’t want to be only negative about dating because that’s not really my point, so here are some ideas on how to invest all of that time better (and no, it’s not just the lore and in-depth history of the Cursed Vaults because I know I’m in the minority who cares about it):

More outfits for NPCs which could be used for variety. I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of seeing characters like Penny, Merula, Ben, or Talbott in their full school robes ALL THE FREAKING TIME. Ideally, I wish every character to have three outfits: full school robes, some variety of a uniform (so something like Tulip and Barnaby) used in the school but outside of classes, and something totally casual used outside of the castle.

More animations between characters like hugs, patting on the arm etc. Anything which could be used almost on a daily basis, and which would make our interactions looks more natural and less stiff. Seriously, I’ll take a supportive hug instead of a peck on the cheek ANY DAY.

More character-centric quests. So many of our friends need their own SQ: Tulip, Badeea, Liz, Diego. The rest could probably also use them to expand their characters – because those SQs do a great job at this. Like, I took Jae to the festival, and it was alright, but to be completely honest, his “Cooking Up Troubles” SQ was SO MUCH BETTER for his character. We learnt new things about Jae, we had some really cute friendship moments (like this and this)… And it was a super simple quest with only seven parts in total! It just needed to be written: no new locations, animations etc. Yet, the pay-off was just… better, more meaningful.

Another thing that could be done in those character-centric quests is more focus on the relationships between our friends because, in my opinion, this is needed as well. I want to talk here a little about the “All-Wizards Tournament” TLSQ, which I think is really underrated. This is probably because of people claiming that Jam City is reaching too much to reference the books events AND because of Rowan’s absence. And don’t get me wrong, those are valid objections. But when it comes to the characters… this TLSQ was pretty great. We saw a lot of our friends' insecurities (Barnaby, Jae, Liz), we saw their more competitive side (Andre, Badeea)… Badeea was especially interesting to me as she showed that she can be quite cunning when she somehow learnt about the first task. She also didn’t reveal that information to Merula and Ismelda because they were occupying the training dummies, but she did share with MC (meaning that you really want to have her on your side…).

It somehow made me think about the situation from Y5 when she admitted that she tricked Jae into thinking that she knows Apparition by using an Invisibility Cloak. It’s nice to know there’s more to her than meets the eye, which was also cohesive with the main story (even if we don’t see it much). The TLSQ also showed some dynamics between our friends, like Jae and Andre (which I mentioned here). And of course, I really enjoyed the ending conclusion: that some tasks can be dealt with only when you work together. Again, I’d love to see this theme being explored more because it creates such a compelling contrast between Jacob and MC. Jacob didn’t have many friends at school. We only know about Duncan and Olivia, and it’s still unclear if Olivia was an actual friend or a colleague they worked with. Not to mention that it was implied that for some time, Jacob was working all alone. Meanwhile, MC has basically the whole army at this point. It’d be interesting to see that this is one of the things which makes MC stronger than their brother.

Now, the reason why the “All-Wizards Tournament” TLSQ could focus on all of that is because we didn’t waste the time on all of “secret admires mystery”, “oh, who should I choose” etc. So, just as a thought experiment, let’s think about how the Festival Fun could improve if we’d eliminate the dating aspect. First of all, more characters could get more screen time, like Badeea, maybe Tulip… Liz? Diego (our dancer!)? Ismelda? Even Talbott didn’t have a big role unless you chose him as a date. The plot could also be more dynamic instead of a whole bunch of stalling. I’d leave the investigation with Andre because I think it’s a great addition to his character, but it’s also fucking sad that any development he’s getting is around dating. Like, the boy deserves so much better. So, let’s change that! Let’s say he asks MC for help because he’s styling some summer outfits for the upcoming festival, but one of his fabrics is missing. Perhaps it’s a bit more expensive material, so they suspect that Jae might’ve “borrowed” it to make some money. Jae, of course, is deeply insulted because he’s a smuggler and an occasional cheater, but not a thief! They argue with Andre, but eventually, they come to understanding. Then, MC remembers that Badeea wanted to experiment with painting methods, so perhaps she decided to incorporate some fabric into that. We find Badeea and Barnaby, they don’t have what we’re looking for, but there’s some action going on there, maybe including Talbott… Long story short, it turns out that Tulip needed it in preparation for Cruppies race or something. I don’t know, I’m coming up with it pretty much as I write. The point is that the time spent on talking about dating could’ve been used on something more specific, individual, which could be more meaningful in the light of the main story. And since there’d be no routes, all of that would be relevant for everyone after completing the quest. Want it to be even better? Make it a regular side quest, not time-limited.

All right, but couldn’t we just have both: characters development and dating? Of course, that’d be ideal. But as I said before, Jam City is a business and rarely any business is ideal. They’ll always prioritise a limited number of things, and since people whine about dating, we’re getting dating. And again, I’m not saying that dating is totally worthless, and I get that people find it cute and whatnot. I just believe that what dating ultimately adds to the game is not proportionate to the time and effort those quests require to be created. That it could’ve been invested better. Dating is basically stopping us from getting better content (at least in some areas). And we’re kind of asking for that…

#long post #hogwarts mystery #hphm #hphm spoilers #hphm mc #jacob's sibling #andre egwu #jae kim #badeea ali #talbott winger #hphm dating #jam city #unpopular opinion #let's talk

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lorei-writes · 3 years

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Match-Up #21

Ah, yes, yes, @readerinsertfanfiction, doom is the right word, indeed, surely.

Hmm... Being sensitive may mean being prone to feeling emotion well and responding to it with great intensity. I presume suitors who would be a bit of emotional roller-coaster or who could be hurtful - either with harsh words or very casual approach to the relationship (at least initially) - may be not the best choice.

Nobunaga (-1) Mitsuhide (-1) Ieyasu (-1) Masamune (-1) Kenshin (-1) Yukimura (-1)

Empathy seems to be a universally cherished trait and I think all relationships could benefit from it. As such, all warlords get +1 point - so nobody gets any.

Now, to protectiveness. I think it would be crucial to find a balance here. Protecting others may be rewarding in itself, but what if the partner was self-destructive? I believe it would turn draining. Also, suitors who feel offended by a suggestion that they need protection could react to this poorly. Additionally, combined with sensitivity, I suppose it could result in her being able to realise when her partner’s emotional state was off?

Nobunaga (+1) Mitsuhide (+1) Hideyoshi (+1) Mitsunari (+1) Ieyasu (-1) Masamune (+1) Kenshin (-1)

Passionate! Conviction! Power! Determination! And so, the new PowerPuff girl wa... I put a wrong CD on. Regardless - I think that passion and being a hard-wrorker combined would be held in high esteem by some of the warlords who do have specific goals in mind.

Nobunaga (+2) Mitsuhide (+1) Hideyoshi (+1) Mitsunari (+2) Ieyasu (+1) Masamune (+2) Kenshin (+1) Shingen (+1) Yukimura (+1)

A hard-working perfectionist? This may lead to a disaster. I think a partner with similar traits could even amplify the problem. However... I don’t think somebody too overbearingly caring would help it either. I think they could even seem annoying.

Mitsuhide (+1) Hideyoshi (-1) Ieyasu (-1) Masamune (-1) Kenshin (-1) Shingen (+1) Yukimura (-1)

Hmm... I think a cynical person would understand some suitors better. However, she may also find herself annoyed by pure idealists and perhaps those who want to adhere to some sort of rules. To balance it out, I presume I would not recommend any of the pessimists.

Mitsuhide (+1) Hideyoshi (-1) Ieyasu (-1) Masamune (-1) Kenshin (-1) Shingen (+1) Yukimura (-1)

Prideful? A scythe found a stone. I presume she could find suitors similar in that regard rather interesting... Or at the very least, she would be able to handle them.

Nobunaga (+1)

As for being manipulative and scheming - I think it would push away suitors who value truth and honestly a lot. The ones who are used to such approach would not flinch though, I presume.

Mitsuhide (+1) Hideyoshi (-1) Masamune (-1) Shingen (+1)

1st Summary:

Mitsuhide (+4) Shingen (+4) Nobunaga (+3) Mitsunari (+3) Hideyoshi (-1) Masamune (-1) Yukimura (-2) Ieyasu (-3) Kenshin (-3)

Point distributed for likes:

Nobunaga (+3) - Go, Entrepreneurship, I suppose a mix of the remaining ones could be enough for an additional point Mitsuhide (+3) - the koto, dancing, mixed point for all the remaining ones Masamune (+3) - Entrepreneurship, kendo, mixed point as above Shingen (+2) - Entrepreneurship, the koto (I can see him enjoying it)

Points distributed for dislikes:

Nobunaga (-1) - surprises Mitsuhide (-1) - unpredictable (I suppose?) Masamune (-1) - unpredictable

Shingen was not given any points based on surprises/the unpredictable point, as later life with him seems to be rather stable and not too full of those.

2nd Summary:

Mitsuhide (+6) Shingen (+6) Nobunaga (+5) Mitsunari (+3) Masamune (+1) Hideyoshi (-2) Yukimura (-2) Ieyasu (-3) Kenshin (-3)

Only characters with positive value by their names will be considered in the final stages of the match-up.

Nobunaga (+5) - at least at first, Nobunaga may push her away from achievig her goals. He also doesn’t understand feelings well at first, so he could call her overly sensitive then.

It doesn’t seem that the remaining suitors would scratch any of the listed pet peeves.

Oh? Plus points for honesty!

Mitsunari (+1) Masamune (+1)

Oh, see, our Ninja didn’t even show himself!

Final Ranking

Mitsuhide & Shingen (+6) Mitsunari (+4) Masamune (+2)

Oh. Well, it appears That we have a small draw here! Well... What do I dooo... In all honesty, I think that either Shingen or Mitsuhide would work best. However, I wrote results for Shingen plenty too many times and dear Nemo already got Mitsuhide once. So let me invite you to a little humorous ending with Mitsunari (who, at least at end of his route, shows that he can actually be quite capable and responsible).

Mitsunari

Confessed first: Airi. She could not stand waiting any longer.

Makes tea in the morning: Airi. Mitsunari can do it too, but he usually takes too long.

Hogs blankets at night: Airi. Mitsunari tends to bring in more blankets then. Those get inevitably stolen too, however.

Is the little spoon: Airi.

Possible points for conflict: Mitsunari generally tends to be inclined to operate based on logic rather than emotion. At times, it may lead to miscommunications, some of which he could miss due to his issues with understanding some of the social interactions. However, he is more than willing to try to understand the other point of view.

Free time ideas: Discussing her goals with Mitsunari and trying to adapt them to the era (it may be well possible, given how knowledgeable he is), browsing through the archives, just sitting in the garden and listening to Mitsunari telling her stories (as he tends to remember well most things he has read), training together (with Mitsunari not holding back - remember, he was able to stand his ground against Kenshin)

Favourite date spot: The gardens outside your room.

A secret they share: It is not so much clumsiness, but Mitsunari generally struggling with fine motor skills. If Airi has enough time on her hands, he sometimes accepts her help (even though he still feels a bit uneasy about troubling her with it) and dictates his reports for her to write down.

His favourite thing about her: How passionate and driven she is. It inspired him initially and he is well aware that he wouldn’t have found his motivation without her.

His message to her: “Airi? I think I found a solution to the problem you’ve brought up. Would you like to hear it?”

#match-up #ikesen match-up #ikemen sengoku match-up #ikesen #ikemen sengoku

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the-river-person · 3 years

Note

I really appreciate how much you've expanded on jerry's *ahem* Seamus' personality. You've made him such a compelling three dimensional character. Especially that part about him always complaining but only about small insignificant "issues" to cope with everything else around him. That really stuck with me. What was your inspiration for that?

*We stan introspective mature papyrus and a sans that deals with his issues and overcomes them*

Oh that? Yeah that's because I do that a bit. Not nearly as much as Seamus does, but I like to grumble quietly about minor inconveniences as I move about and talk to inanimate objects, telling them to stay put or else, or to not be ridiculous you silly thing. My favorite bit is while at work I run the self checkout computers and whenever anything goes wrong (about once every three minutes) I mutter under my breath and call them the "Thrice accursed fiends". I'm not really a very technologically inclined person and those computers in particular are going to spell my death one day, I know it. So when I played Undertale and saw Burgerpants working in MTT's Burger Emporium.... I somewhat hated him. I think it was the purposefully horrific sprite art that might have put me off. But as I took a closer look at him for this fic, I really started to see more there. And obviously most of his real problems have their source in Mettaton, and could easily be rectified if he put any real effort into it. But he doesn't. Nobody in the Underground fixes their problems. Why bother? Asgore is just going to get the Human Souls and free everyone. And nobody wants to think about working long term solutions because that would mean having to admit that they might be down there for a very long long time. As I got to like Seamus more and more he evolved his character, and I saw his exaggerated reactions to relatively minor and totally fixable problems in his life, and knew exactly what it reminded me of. Of course, its not a very healthy coping mechanism when used his way. It's best to have a balanced approach to things, grumbling and complaining can be cathartic, but also going out of the way to find the positives in addition to that can help you achieve a healthier mindset. The relation to Seam from Deltarune... wrote itself somehow. I'm not really sure. I guess they're both sort of cats (cat-monsters?). But it seemed right and suddenly to my surprise, Burgerpants, now renamed as Seamus, was the grandson of Seam. And the rest I just tried to think of how someone with that personality might change and grow with time and certain people around them. The same sort of thing applies to Jerry, actually. He's written in the game as the person nobody likes. Arrogant, narcissistic, having atrocious hygiene, disregard for the feelings of those around him (or unawareness of it), and just general obnoxious behavior. But the thing is, he's not an evil person. Unlikable perhaps, at least in that state, but not evil. He's also quite strong as revealed when you fight him in the genocide route, being a support character he has no attack of his own but only serves to increase the offense of other npcs, yet when attacked he has strong defense. It occurred to me to wonder what would happen to a person who everyone ditched all the time, who everyone hated and mistreated. They might stop taking care of themselves, they might stop caring about other people and their feelings, they would just harden their hearts (souls in this case) and push through with whatever they want, because everyone hates them anyway. And I started to realize that exactly that is a possible reason why Jerry is already the way he is, and the only thing I could do was continue unraveling him to the natural consequence of that. Someone who can't keep themselves from causing trouble and violence, who finds themselves in the same screw up situations again and again, who knows what they are but don't care because they're just...angry. Really the only way someone might be able to break out of that kind of downward spiral is if someone else stepped in and forced a change that might lead to a better way. I didn't cover the rest of his story, but I'd like to hope that Papyrus found a job that suited Jerry. That he was given a job he liked, but was also challenged at and had to work hard. I suspect Papyrus got him some kind of job that has to do with maintenance for the Underground's version of a Radio Tower. Jerry seems to like his phone, its probably up his alley. And it might even be good for

him. (I've no idea what "stan" means exactly, but I assume its something along the lines of "I generally support this character and/or person". So yes, we absolutely do "stan" an introspective mature papyrus and a sans that deals with his issues and overcomes them.)

#aeontale #aeontale asks #asks #ask #feel free to ask

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salmonthestoryteller · 4 years

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The Old Guard

Spoilers abound in this, so if you haven't watched the movie, be aware of that.

This post isn't so much headcanons or meta, though I have so many thoughts about that too, it's more of a - I can't believe I got all this in one movie. Because I feel like someone took all these things I've been writing rants about over the years, put them all in one movie and said - Here you go.

Found family is one of those tropes I can never have enough of, and that is one of the main things The Old Guard gives you right from the start. Nile is the new addition, and part of her character journey is realizing that despite of the life she's losing with her newfound immortality, one thing she does gain is this new family who will always be there for her. And, for once, that includes platonic male/female bonds! Where most "new addition" science fiction/fantasy stories always have the new addition be the main romance of the show, that isn't the case with The Old Guard. And it isn't just Nile who has a platonic bond - it already exists between Andy and her boys as well.

And if that's not awesome enough, if there is one subject I have probably written thousands of words on - it's Committed Relationships in Fiction and their disuse in Science Fiction and Fantasy Genres specifically. I'm always on about that subject, how you can have committed relationships, they aren't less romantic, you can have all the same dramatic moments a new romance has and even moments a new romance doesn't, etc etc. Everyone who follows me is probably familiar with all my rants on the subject.

And The Old Guard is like, hm, what if we make the main romance in the movie a couple who have been together for literal centuries? And not just some throw away reference to them being together, we'll have them captured and Joe make the type of impassioned romantic speech that is usually only given to new romances in other films. And, we'll make it a gay romance to boot.

That's like, here, have your cake and eat it too. Though, frankly, that's the entire damn film to me. Because, wait, we're not finished.

I wrote a rant fairly recently about how if there's a past tragic loss of a female character and the connected character is male, nobody questions that he had romantic feelings for her. But if the connected character is female, oh no, it's always, "She was her sister/mentor/best friend."

Except The Old Guard, which is like - oh, hell no Quynh was the love of Andy's life and they made an oath to be together forever that Andy feels she has broken because she wasn't able to find her and save her.

And, wait, still not done because I also ranted how the male character's loss is always romantic, but the Old Guard is like - yeah, no again. The loss that haunts Booker and is the reason he betrays his dearest friends isn't romantic - it's the death of his youngest son, and his accusations he didn't love him because he couldn't share his immortality.

And to top all of this off, I like to rant about how happy endings aren't boring and killing characters doesn't make your story cooler, edgier, or more realistic. (I like my Greek Tragedies, too, ngl, but sometimes I honestly just get tired of character deaths because it doesn't feel truly necessary to the telling of the story itself.)

So, from the moment Andy's loss of immortality was revealed, I was waiting for her character death. That's how this goes, right? It's the work around - let's introduce immortals, but let's have it come to an end eventually. So if you have that happen to one of your characters, clearly it's so they can tragically die.

I have never been happier to be wrong. The fact that we end the movie with not one of the main characters dying is icing on the cake, and I can't even explain how happy it makes me.

So basically the whole film is everything I've been ranting we don't get in Fantasy/Science Fiction shows for years.

And I absolutely adore it.

#the old guard #writing #character thoughts #plot thoughts #salmon rants

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annamiasworld · 4 years

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Detain the Dangerous [Gravity Falls: Ford x Bill]

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Note: This is my first fanfic ever which I publish here on tumblr so I would be indiscribably happy if you could leave some feedback in the comments. Plus this is the first time I wrote about Gravity Falls so if you notice any mistakes concerning the timeline of the story etc. point that out if possible. Also goes for typos because english is not my first language. This fic was inspired by the song “Dangerous” from David Guetta by the way. Other than that I hope you enjoy reading this!

Summary: This work is about Ford and Bill during Fords researcher period in Gravity Falls. It’s pretty much Fords thoughts without a real plot and takes place before he realizes that Bill bertayed him.

Warnings: None

Requested by: @zirandem

Word Count: 1,5k

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When Ford woke up the first thing he saw was an overthrown cup of coffee and a brown viscous substance soaking itself into his paperwork.

“Oh not again” he mumbled still sleepy and stretched his back. That action caused more pain then it actually should and the noises his body made sounded anything else then healthy. He still got up – probably a bit too fast because his head immediately began to throb and for a few seconds everything went dark in front of his eyes. Ford rammed his fingernails into the wooden table he was sitting at a few moments ago until he got his orientation back.

A heavy sigh left his lips. He hadn’t slept through for more than a week now because of his project. It simply took up all of his time and energy. He knew that he could never handle all of this on his own and that’s also why he was so thankful for the help he got from Fiddleford. And of course not only from him…

Fords eyes quickly skimmed the room while he asked himself if he’s being watched. An uncomfortable feeling rushed through his bones, making him shiver. He definitely needed another cup of coffee.

On his way to the kitchen he turned on all of the lights. He wasn’t paranoid or anything but lately he felt like something changed. It felt like the air was full of electricity and something heavy and dark built itself up becoming more and more dangerous every day. For most of the people this description would seem weird but Ford was sure that he was right. Still he kept these thoughts to himself because he knew others wouldn’t understand. Except maybe…

“Hey Sixer!” a familiar voice called. While Ford had begun to make himself coffee Bill Cipher casually appeared behind him floating just above the table.

“Morning Bill” Ford said. He had expected that his friend would turn up but he also knew what that meant. It meant going back to work again and right now he really wasn’t in the mood. He just woke up feeling horribly tired so all he would like to ask for was one single morning where he could sit at the kitchen table eating a proper breakfast. But he knew of course that this wasn’t possible. Not before their project was finished.

“I hope you were diligent in my absence.” The triangle grabbed Fords coffee and took a long sip.

“Of course I was”

“Well then I suppose you wouldn’t mind me taking a look at your notes”

Ford took a deep breath and prepared himself for letting Bill inside his mind. After that his memories went blank.

He found himself sitting in front of his table again with Bill next to him. His friend was in a good mood as always when he pointed to Fords work.

“This was really impressive! The additional notes about the invisible wizard could be very helpful for building the portal!”

Ford smirked. Bill always knew how he could get him. They just shared the same passion when talking about supernatural stuff. And secretly Ford was extremely glad whenever Bill praised him.

“Well for sure not as useful as the materials he kept in his shack!”

“You have a point there” Bill laughed.

“I wonder if there is a way to see the invisible wizard. I could try to reinforce my glasses with…”

But Bill interrupted him. “Listen, I know that there is still a lot to discover but let’s focus on the important thing first. The invisible wizard won’t run of. I mean it’s impossible since we locked him in that closet.”

Now it was Fords turn to laugh. “Well then what’s the order of the day, muse?”

Bill ensured him that he would wait at the car until Ford got himself ready and disappeared. Ford hurried to the bathroom, not wanting to make Bill wait too long. With a glance into the mirror he saw that he looked just as horrible as he felt. But he had no time to wallow in self-pity. Bill was waiting.

While brushing his teeth the strange feeling he had felt during the last few days returned. Since he met Bill a lot had changed. Through him he discovered that there are creatures at places he would have never found on his own. Also the portal would be a huge step to finally understand how all of the dimensions worked together. And once he had summed up all the facts he could make the information available for everyone. Nobody would dare to call him crazy anymore when he had proofs for everything. To the contrary he would be the greatest scientist of all time.

But suddenly a question popped up in his mind. What is Bills benefit? He tried to get rid of the thought, explaining to himself that Bill was a muse or he probably had to serve somebody like a genie, that there was a logical explanation but he still couldn’t stop thinking about it.

“Well I could just ask him, right? We are friends after all.” he muttered while walking down the stairs.

As soon as he sat into the car seat he gathered his courage. Why was it so hard for him to do this? It was just a simple question, right?

“Listen Bill, I’d like to ask you something…”

The triangle appeared on the passenger seat the moment Ford started talking, giving him an interested look.

“Spit it out already Sixer. What is it?”

He swallowed. “I know that you only want to help me… but… why? What’s in this for you?”

There was an oppressive silence and Bill examined him carefully. After what seemed like minutes to Ford he finally said, “Do you doubt me Stanford?”

Fords eyes opened wide. His question had exactly the impact he didn’t want to attain.

“No, no, no, no, no! I was just… I only wanted… I thought maybe…” he stuttered awkwardly.

Bill dropped his gaze and sighed.

“It’s okay. I knew that you would ask this at some point. But you still hurt me.”

“This wasn’t my intention. I’m sorry Bill.”

“I know. Yet I owe you an answer.”

Ford waited silently while Bill tried to search for the right words.

“Of course I’m doing this because you are my friend. I see an enormous potential in you. But you are right. There are other reasons too. I’m trying to show you as much as possible but there are dangers in which I don’t want to put you. Sometimes it’s better not to know everything, Ford.”

Ford felt really ashamed. Why did he always have to question everything? He was never the guy who had plenty of friends and now he risked to lose his best one.

“I’m really sorry, Bill. Please forgive me.” Ford apologized again.

“It’s okay, Sixer. Let’s just… forget this conversation.”

Ford nodded relieved. He would never dare to mention this topic again.

“Are we ready to pay the Geodites a visit?” Bill changed the topic skilfully.

“We totally are.”

The second time Bill left Fords mind they were at a different place again. The triangle had lead them to a mine at the foot of a mountain. There were debris all around the entry and it didn’t look very stable but he still walked towards it. Bill told him that the Geodites are simply living geodes. They are hard to destroy and could be a good binder for some immobile parts of the portal. If they managed to catch some of course.

He wondered how he could explain the function of the new commodity to Fiddleford. His former college friend was a good soul and a fabulous engineer but Bill has warned Ford to tell him only the bare necessities. Unfortunately Fiddleford tended to be instable concerning his mental health so he could easily get nervous when Ford brought some new materials he found with Bill.

It didn’t feel right to keep a secret from his colleague but Ford had no choice. Maybe when they had reached their goal, when they finished the portal and activated it, when he understood more and visited other dimensions he could inaugurate Fiddleford. He would surely be glad that he was part of this project when he only saw all of the profits they could draw from other dimensions.

Ford knew that something about this wasn’t right. He was out here in the wild, discovering things that aren’t meant to be discovered. It almost felt like an addiction. A possibly deadly dangerous one. But he wasn’t alone. Bill would protect him, right? That’s at least what he hoped. That’s at least what he promised him.

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for-your-therapeutic-smile · 4 years

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They Never Teach You How to Stop

Rarely do I lack the words to express myself. Perhaps this reflects my failure to maintain my journal consistently throughout 2020. Here goes an honest attempt to capture and document my mental state and the fatigue of Covid, the inertia of this shelter-in-place, the anxiety of this political crisis we face as a nation, the pressure of being a 1L in law school against the backdrop of civil unrest and Justice Ginsburg’s death, coming out - my dad told me he was disappointed -, the possible erosion of my relationship with someone I love, and this feeling of absolute dread and resentment for a system that continuously fails my and future generations (robbing us of a social contract that promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness), among many other things I’m too tired to consider. When did we accept a $0 baseline as the American Dream? Oh, to be debt free - free from this punishment for having pursued an education. Stifling the educated to prevent them (myself included) from organizing and mobilizing the masses so we can supplant this system with a better one is the overall objective of the oppressive class (read: Pedagogy of the Oppressed); it’s the conflict between the bourgeois and the proletariat. The proletariat has swallowed the middle class, leaving only the ruling class. I am essentially on autopilot, forcing myself to go through the motions so I can survive another day. I know others join me in this mental gymnastics of unparalleled proportions, one social scientists and medical researchers will soon study and subsequently publish their findings in an attempt to explain the unexplainable. Despite a lack of air circulation, we are breathing history; the constitution, like our societal norms, must adapt accordingly. Judge Barrett: there is no place for originalism. While I seldom admit weakness or an inability to manage life’s curveballs, this series of unfortunate events seems almost too much to bear.

And yet somehow I continue to find the energy to submit assignments due at 11:59 p.m., write this post at 1:38 a.m., “sleep”, wake at 7 a.m. so I can read and prepare (last minute!) the assigned material leading into my torts or contracts class. I find the energy to text my boyfriend (or ex-boyfriend) so I can attempt to salvage the real and genuine connection we have, cook elaborate meals to find some solace, wrestle with whether or not to hit my yoga mat (I don’t), apply to a fellowship for the school year and summer internships, prepare my dual citizenship paperwork, manage a campaign for two progressive politicians, and listen to music in an attempt to stay sane . . . ~*Queues John Mayer’s “War of My Life” and “Stop This Train”*~ . . . I realize I have to be kinder to myself, give credit where credit is due. I hate feeling self-congratulatory though.

Mostly, I am too afraid of the repercussions if I stop moving at a mile/minute, that I can just work away the pain and be the superhuman who numbs himself from the low-grade depression and nervous breakdown. My body tells me to slow down, as evidenced by the grinding of my teeth, but I take on more responsibility because people rely on me. I must show up. I am a masochist in that way. This is what I signed up for and I’ll be damned if I don’t carry through on my promise to do the work. Pieces of my soul scattered about like Horcruxes, though they’re pure, not evil, so I hope nobody resolves to destroy them.

My mind rarely rests. It’s 3:08 a.m., one of the lonelier hours where night meets morning; it’s the hour for and of intense introspection. It makes you consider pulling an all-nighter, one you reserve for an “important” school or work deadline. We always put our personal lives on the back-burner. 3 a.m. sets the tone for a potentially awful day. But that doesn’t matter right now. I’m letting some of my favorite albums play in the background: Joni Mitchell’s Blue, Mac Miller’s Circles, Rhye’s Blood, Alicia Keys’ ALICIA, Coldplay’s Ghost Stories, Frank Ocean’s Blonde, Miley Cyrus’ Dead Petz in addition to other playlists, Tiny Desk performances, and tracks (I unearthed last week, like When It’s Over by Sugar Ray). I need to feel something. I need to feel anything. I need to feel everything. We experience such a broad spectrum of emotions throughout the day that we lose track of if we don’t pause to absorb them. Music reinforces empathy; it releases dopamine.

I spent the past two hours reading through old journals and posts, as scattered as they were, on a wide range of topics: poems I had written about falling in and out love, anecdotes about my world travels, and entries on personal, political, and professional epiphanies. The other night I found one of my favorites, a previous post from my time living in Indonesia, centering on the dualities of technology. It resonated with me more than the others. To summarize, I wrote about my tendency to equate the Internet with a sense of interconnectedness (shoutout to Tumblr for being my digital journal; to Twitter for being a place of comedy and revolution; to Instagram for curating my *aesthetic*; to Facebook where I track my family’s accomplishments and connect with travel buddies displaced around the globe all searching for a home). And yet I feel incredibly lonely and disconnected whenever I spend too much time using technology, so much so that I set screen time limitations on my phone recently to curtail this obsession with constant communication and information gathering. Trump and Biden admitted that it’s unlikely we’ll know the results of the election on November 3rd during their first presidential debate. Push notifications don’t allow us to learn of trauma within the comforts of our own homes. I’m already fearing where I will be when that news breaks.

This global pandemic and indefinite shutdown of the world (economy) undeniably exacerbates these feelings. This is some personal and collective turmoil. But I was complicit in the endless scrolling and swiping of faces and places long before Covid-19. Instead of choosing to interact with my direct environment (today’s research links this behavior to the same levels of depression one feels when they play slot machines), I am still an active on all these platforms, participating the least in the most tangible one: my physical life. I am tired of pretending. I am tired of being tired. I am tired of embodying fake energy to exist in systems that fail me. I am tired of the quagmire. Like Anaïs Nin, I must be a mermaid [because] I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. This particular excerpt from that 2016 entry was difficult for me to read: “The fantasy of what could have been if a certain plan had unfolded will haunt you forever if you do not come to peace with the reality of the situation. I hope you come to terms with reality.” I am not at peace with my current reality. But is anyone?

It’s a bit surreal for my peers to have suddenly started caring about international relations theory. It’s transported me back to my 2012 IR lecture at Northeastern: are you a constructivist or a feminist? Realist or liberalist? Neo? Marxist? The one no one wants you to talk about. Absent upward mobility, this is class warfare. But I cannot be “a singular expression of myself . . . there are too many parts, too many spaces, too many manifestations, too many lines, too many curves, too many troubles, too many journeys, too many mountains, too many rivers” . . . It feels like America’s wake-up call. But I know people will retreat into the comforts of capitalism if Biden wins and, well, we all enter uncharted waters together if the Electoral College re-elects #45. For those who weren’t paying attention: the world is multipolar and we are not the hegemon. Norms matter. People tend to be self-interested and shortsighted. Look to the past in order to understand the future. History, as the old adage goes, repeats itself. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Taxation without representation. Indoctrination. Welcome to the language of political discourse. Students of IR and polisci have long awaited your participation. Too little too late? Plot twist: it’s a lifelong commitment. You must continue to engage irrespective of the election outcome or else we will regress just as quickly as we progress. Now dive into international human rights treaties (International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights; International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights), political refugees, FGM. No one said it wasn’t dismal. But it’s important. We need buy-in.

While I am grateful for the continuation of my education, for this extended time with family, for this opportunity to be a campaign manager for two local progressive candidates (driving to Boston to pick up revised yard signs as proof that the work never stops), it would be remiss of me, however, not to admit that I am lonely: I am buried in my books, in the depressing news both nationally and globally, and in precedent-setting Supreme Court cases (sometimes for the worst, e.g. against the preservation of our environment). In my nonexistent free time I work on political asylum cases, essentially creating an enforceability framework of international law, for people fleeing country conditions so unthinkable (the irony of that work when my country falls greater into authoritarianism and oligarchy is not lost on me). I am fulfilling my dream of becoming a human rights lawyer which stems back to middle school. I saw Things I Imagined (thank you Solange). I have held an original copy of the Declaration of Independence that we sent to the House of Lords in 1778 and the Human Rights Act of 1998 while visiting the U.K. Parliamentary Archives as an intern for a Member of Parliament. This success terrifies and exhausts me; it also oxygenizes and saves me. Every decision, every sacrifice, has led me to this point.

“It’s the choosing that’s important, isn’t it?,” Lois Lowry of The Giver rhetorically asks. This post is not intended to be woe is me! I am fortunate to be in this position, to have this vantage point at such an early age, and I understand the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. My life has purpose. I am committed to the work that transcends boundaries; it is larger than life itself. It provides a unique perspective. But it makes it difficult to coexist with people so preoccupied in the drama they create in their lives and the general shallowness of the world we live. It feels like there is no option to pump the brakes on any of this work, especially in light of our current climate, and that pressure oftentimes feels insurmountable. Time is of the essence. It feels, whether true or not, that hardly anyone relates to my experience, so if I don’t carve out this time to write about it, then I am neither recording nor processing it.

Tonight, in between preparing tomorrow’s coursework, I realize that I have an unprecedented number of questions about life, which startles me because typically I have the answers or at least have a goal in mind that launches me into the next phase of life or contextualizes the current one. These goals, often rooted in this capitalistic framework, in this falsity of “needing” to advance my career as a means of helping people, distract me from asking myself the existential questions, the reasons for why we live and what we fundamentally want our systems to look like; they have distracted me from real grassroots community organizing until now. They distract me from the fact that, like John Mayer, I don’t know which walls to smash; similarly, I don’t know which train to board. Right now feels like we are living through impossible and hopeless times and I don’t want to placate myself into thinking otherwise despite my relatively optimistic outlook on life. As we face catastrophic circumstances – the consequences of this election and climate change (famine, refugees, lack of resources) – I do not want to live in perpetual sadness. I am searching for clarity and direction so I can step into a better, fuller version of myself.

It’s now 3:33 a.m. Here is the list of questions that I have often asked myself in different stages of life, but recently, until now, I have not been willing to confront for fear that I might not be able to answers them. But I owe it to myself to pose them here so I can have the overdue conversation, the one I know leads me to better understanding myself:

Are you happy? Why or why not?

What do you want the future to hold? What groundwork are you going to do to ensure it happens?

What does your ideal day/week/month/year/decade look like? Why?

With whom do you want to spend your days? Why?

Who do you love and care about? Have you told people you care about that you love them? Does love and vulnerability scare you?

What do you expect of people – of yourself, of your partner, of your family, and of your friends? Should you have those expectations? Why or why not?

What do you feel and why?

What relaxes you? What scares you? What brings you joy?

What do you want to improve? Why?

What do you want to forgive yourself for and why?

Does the desire to reinvent yourself diminish your ability to be present?

Do you have a greater fear of failure or success? Why?

How do you escape the confines of this broken system? How do you break from the guilt of participation in it and having benefited from it?

How do we reconcile our daily lives with the fact that we’re living through an extinction event? This one comes from my friend (hi Jeanne) and a podcast she listened to recently.

How do you help people? How do you help yourself? Are you pouring from an empty cup?

How will you find joy in your everyday responsibilities, in the mission you have chosen for yourself? What, if any, will be the warning signs to walk away from this work, in part or in its entirety? Without being a martyr, do you believe in dying for the cause?

So here are some of the lessons I have learned during this quarantine/past year:

“I’ve Got Dreams to Remember,” so do not take your eyes off them. Chasing paper does not bring you happiness.

Be autonomous, particularly in your professional life.

Focus on values instead of accolades.

Do everything with intention and honest energy.

Listen to Tracy Chapman’s “Crossroads” & Talkin’ Bout a Revolution for an energy boost and reminder that other revolutionaries have shared and continue to share your fervent passion . . . “I’m trying to protect what I keep inside, all the reasons why I live my life” . . . When self-doubt nearly cripples you and you yearn a few minutes to run away when in reality you can’t escape your responsibilities, go for a drive and queue up “Fast Car” . . . “I got no plans, I ain’t going nowhere, so take your fast car and keep on driving.”

With that said, take every opportunity to travel (you can take the work with you if absolutely necessary). Go to Italy. Buy the concert ticket and lose yourself in the moment. Remember that solo excursions are equally as important as collective ones. But, from personal experience, you prefer the company. Find the balance.

Detach from the numbers people keep trying to assign to measure your personhood.

Closely examine the people in your inner circle and ask them for help when you need it.

“And life is just too short to keep playing the game . . . because if you really want somebody [or something], you’ll figure it out later, or else you will just spend the rest of the night with a BlackBerry on your chest hoping it goes *vibration, vibration*” (John Mayer’s Edge of Desire) . . . so love fiercely and unapologetically.

Be specific.

Go to therapy even when life is good.

#reflection #covid #quarantine #late nights #music #revolution #diary #politics #john mayer #alicia keys #tracy chapman #love #dear diary #travel #writing #personal #mental health

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enchanted-prose · 4 years

Text

#10 Renegade Niece

i’m treating myself because I liked writing this and I wrote an impossibly long essay :,)

Word count: 5,294

Characters: Roden, Jaron, Ayvar (Original character), Jamie Todd (Original character), Merry (Original character), Nila

Notes: Edited and my goodness I just loved writing this. Also I forgot to put in lines for the last two submissions and I’m so sorry. There is one important vibe that I’m going to discuss; consider how it feels when your pet begins chewing something they’re no supposed to, and when you tell them to stop, they start chewing faster leaving you no choice but to run at them.

Sleep wasn’t something that Roden excelled at. He fell asleep whenever and wherever he did.

And it just so happened that this time, he’d fallen asleep with his head on his desk.

“Rise and shine!” Bellowed an all too familiar voice, successfully bringing a wave of sound into the once silent office.

Startled, Roden lurched backwards, his chair tipping dangerously backwards until it hit the floor, taking him with it. He shut his eyes. “Good morning Jaron.”

“There’s business to discuss, we can’t have you sleeping.”

“I know, Jaron, I know. Give me a moment, I already have a list of things I need to do.”

Although Jaron was standing at the opposite end of the room, Roden could sense his smug grin. Jaron cleared his throat. “I only wake you this early because I have to ask a favor.”

“And that is?” Roden asked, sincerely hoping it had nothing to do with waxing the hair off of his legs. Jaron had proposed that once, and every member of the king’s circle learned the importance of keeping Jaron occupied with trivial matters in addition to his political duties.

Late morning light glowed all around the room. Roden blinked several times as his head began to plant itself in the waking world. Jaron was dressed in his usual plain clothing, lucky him.

Roden wanted to scrub his teeth clean.

He hated it when he slept in his office.

“I, ah, told Mott to take it easy today because of the events from two nights ago. He has a few reports that need to be looked over and signed.”

“How many reports are there?”

It didn’t actually matter, Roden had every intention of doing them anyways

Jaron scoffed, “I don’t know the answer to that.”

“And when do they need to be finished?”

“Tonight, if possible.”

Roden groaned, and dragged himself to his feet, pulling a piece of paper from his forehead. “Alright, consider them done. But I won’t be able to spar today, Jaron, I have too many things to do.”

“It’s not a problem,” Jaron scratched the back of his head. He looked tired. “Feall is convinced that we have a vital playing piece in our custody, the girl who was captured the night he was attacked.”

The details from that night were still fresh in Roden’s mind.

He went over them as often as he could, always trying to find connections. The girl who’d been taken into custody, a member of the Faola, was somebody Roden had met before. She’d been in the Vaults one night when Roden was on patrol, and allegedly she was assisting another member of her gang in saving a trio of children from a horrific fate.

She’d told him her name: Ayvar.

Ayvar with scarlet hair who bent the rules to help other people.

It was hard to believe that somebody who would brave the Vaults would be driven to cut the head off of another human being.

There was something not quite right about the situation.

“I can see smoke coming out of your ears, are you thinking?”

“Shut up, Jaron.”

“Definitely thinking. Be careful, it’s dangerous.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Roden pinched the bridge of his nose for a split second. “Have you received any information about Queen Danika’s representatives?”

Hesitation visibly weighed on Jaron’s every move. He finally nodded. “They’ve been combing through nearby towns, and will be here tomorrow. I suspect that they will want to interview the girl who attacked Feall.”

“I told Amarinda she was allowed to visit Ayvar if she wanted, I think she’d have more progress than a group of investigators.”

“Good move, is it wrong to say I’m curious about the results?”

“So long as nobody is hurt in the process, I think it’s fine to want to know how it all ends,” Roden gestured to the door. “I’m going to check on her if you’d like to come with me.”

“Amarinda? I don’t think she’d like to be-”

“Ayvar, I meant. I’d be responsible if something happened to her.”

Jaron stepped out of Roden’s office, and combed his hand through his unruly hair. “You think she’s innocent?”

“I try to believe everyone isn’t as bad as everyone says until it can be proven true,” Roden shrugged. He rubbed his eyes.

The dungeons in the castle were odd, particularly because they provided a decent amount of space in each cell. Roden had seen all too many dungeons crafted out of caves and tunnels only big enough for a child. The scent of moldy food was a smell Roden would never come to appreciate. Jaron laughed at him when he stepped away from the mangy guard dog.

There was no telling what would happen if the mongrel bit him.

Roden tried not to think about how he’d die, but he certainly didn’t want his cause of death to be because of a nasty, dirty mutt.

Ayvar had been placed in the last cell. She’d braided her flaming hair around her head, likely to keep it out of the dirt. When Roden and Jaron approached, she sat straight up, her hands cradling her knees to her chest.

“Everything been alright?” Roden asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I suppose,” Ayvar frowned. “I’d rather not be here.”

“I’d rather that you didn’t attack my friends.” Jaron’s biting tone caused her to flinch.

“You don’t really think I was stupid enough to do that, right?”

“I’ve seen plenty of people doing stupid things.”

Roden nodded in agreement. Just the other day, he’d watched Merry shove herself into a barrel and roll off of a bridge into the Roving River. He’d also seen Jaron almost get away with sledding down the grand staircase in the throne room. However, Mott had been there to save the day.

But that unfortunately didn’t stop Jaron from trying to do it again.

Ayvar scowled, “It. Wasn’t. Me.”

“But you were there,” Roden pointed out.

“I was there because I didn’t think the plan would go through!”

“So you knew there was a plan. Who thought of it, if it wasn’t you?”

“I-,” Ayvar jumped to her feet, fire blazing in her eyes. “It’s probably a false name. Goes by all sorts of nicknames, we started calling her Patches. But the arbitrator is a woman, like me.”

“I hate false names,” Jaron mused.

“Ironic,” Roden noted.

"You have to believe me when I say that I wasn't responsible," Ayvar's voice was rising. "I don't care what anyone else says, it wasn't my fault!"

Her voice echoed through the dungeon, and received a bark of disapproval from the guard hound.

Jaron inhaled, "If what you say is true, then we'll release you, I can promise you that."

"It is true and I'll prove it. If Harlowe won't listen to me, then I'll go to Feall. He and I fought our patched enemy together."

"I do recall you saying your patched enemy was actually your friend, at one point," Roden noted. He was still getting used to having a surname to claim.

"That's not true anymore, otherwise I wouldn't have been left in here."

"I'm sorry."

"I don't want your pity."

"Then you won't get our company either," Jaron shot back as he walked away from Ayvar's cell.

Roden stared at Ayvar, but left before she could throw any words at him. She went back to sitting in the corner, and said nothing as footsteps rang through the quiet dungeon.

A courtier was waiting for them halfway down the steps, and promptly dragged Jaron away to attend a meeting with King Oberson. Roden seized his chance to return to his chambers and scrub his teeth and face.

He'd almost managed to shave when he heard the clatter of stones from the courtyard.

Through his window, Roden could see a group of pock marked boys, their sizes varying, but their intentions the same: Torment Ayvar by throwing insults and rocks into her cell.

Abandoning the razor, Roden left his chambers, tugged a doublet over his head, and prepared himself for shooing away a gaggle of bored brats.

Too much had happened during the past few weeks. The stone-throwing boys were added to Roden's long long list of things that annoyed him.

One of the boys stood out from the rest, Jamie Todd. He'd thrown the first stone. Roden recognized him. Jamie was among the boys who were desperately hoping to somehow gain a knighthood. Hoping to mean something more.

That wouldn't happen so long as he was throwing stones at a girl in a cell.

Was having a little bit of peace in the courtyard too much to ask?

A loud whoop erupted from the boys, one of the stones had probably found its mark. Jamie waved his arms above his head as he did an odd victory dance. They'd been clever enough to draft up a little song:

When Daftie Ayvie passed away,

Whadya think they done?

Chopped her up a fishin’ bait:

Copper for a ton!

Devils have the guards on patrol who let the stones be-

A newcomer had joined the group. A girl. A head shorter than half of the boys. Much shorter than Jamie Todd, who was almost the size of Mott.

Mangled hair, holes in her chemise's shoulders. Merry had come to pick a bone.

"Fe-fi-fo fum!" Merry jabbed her finger at Jamie. "I smell the stink of a big boy's bum!"

"Hey!" Jamie cried, all of his attention glued to Merry.

Roden should have seen it coming.

Merry jabbed her elbow into Jamie's stomach, and down, down, down he went. The other boys scrambled away as Merry grabbed Jamie by the ears.

"She's going to tear them clean off!"

"Get some help!"

"My ears! Don't! You'll rip them-!

"Can't help it! Your ears are wonderfully handy!" Merry taunted. "They're like mug handles!"

Roden dashed across the courtyard as Merry slammed Jamie's head into the ground, resulting in his howls echoing across the courtyard. She triumphantly demanded an apology for throwing stones at Ayvar, but none came.

"Somebody help me!" Jamie bellowed, moments before Merry cracked her head against his.

"See the lovely stars, Jamie!"

"She's kilt me!"

"You're going to wish you'd been kilt you mangy, slimy, son of a-!"

In Merry's hubris, she'd forgotten about pinning down Jamie's hands. He swung his fist into the side of her head. Although she wobbled, she didn't topple over.

"I see a bit of brains dribbling-!" Smack! "-out of your ear!"

"Get off of me! Help! She's kilt me!"

"Pity your mother didn't cook you longer," Merry snipped, prepping to bash Jamie's head into the cobblestones again.

Roden finally managed to wedge his arms between Merry and Jamie, while Lieutenant Alistair picked up Merry by the waist, and dragged her off of Jamie. Roden nodded his thanks as Merry cursed and kicked and Jaimie wept as he covered his ears. He was convinced that his brain was bleeding out from his nose.

"I'll take care of the kids," Roden noted, motioning to the large fountain in the middle of the courtyard.

"Yes sir!" Alistair boomed as he somehow managed to keep Merry from escaping to beat the other boys as well.

"Stand up," said Roden as he let go of Jaimie. He then instructed him to follow his finger as he moved it back and forth in front of Jamie's eyes.

He wasn't sure how rattled Jamie's brains were.

"I'm kilt," he wailed. "I'm a member of the undead. I’ll never be a knight now!"

"Not quite, but I hope you've learned something."

"I learned that I hate girls!"

"You'll have a lonely life then, I suppose. Don't throw stones at people worse off than you Jamie, it's not what a knight would do."

Jamie wiped his nose, which had finally stopped bleeding. "I'm- I'm sorry we were- we were just bored."

"Don't apologize to me. You have my permission to be inspected by the castle physician. I'll have my lieutenant escort you."

If he hadn't just been smacked around, Roden was certain Jamie would've fallen to his knees with gratitude. Speaking to the captain of the guard and being around Sir Alistair Derforgall in one day? It was any aspiring soldier's dream.

Roden had been in those shoes once. Idolizing Carthya's heroes.

But you couldn't be a hero and throw stones at prisoners in cells.

Alistair had seated Merry on the edge of the fountain. She crossed her arms. “I’m too angry to give a genuine apology right now, but I do feel bad, so I’m sorry. Give me a few hours before I have to say it to Jamie. I don’t like giving empty apologies.”

“Weren’t you just telling me about being safe while throwing a punch?” Roden asked.

“That’s because I’d- gah, don’t remind me.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the Dragon’s Keep?”

“Ayvar is my friend, I came to check on her,” Merry shrugged. “Dawn gave me twenty minutes, but I’ve used up that time in, ah, not very smart ways. Did you forget to shave?”

Roden held completely still as Merry trailed both of her fingers across his stubbled face. “I was in a hurry.”

“I kind of like it.”

“Really?”

“I mean, I just like you, shaved or unshaved.”

“You’re a grisly sight. Best mop you up before you return,” he grinned. Roden then pointed to his left eyebrow, where a long, thin scar started just above his eyebrow and dipped down to the top of his cheekbone. “I’ve had a few head wounds myself.”

A smile tugged at Merry’s mouth, and she visibly tried to fight it with a frown. “I suppose we’ll match.”

“We’ll have to see.”

“There’s no point to life if I don’t have a scar that makes people wonder if I’m secretly a pirate.”

“Are you secretly a pirate?” Roden pulled a spare handkerchief from his doublet pocket, “I suppose it’s my turn to clean you up, would you prefer your own spit or fountain water?”

“I’d prefer your spit, actually.”

“I’m going to pretend like you didn’t say that.”

“Because it makes you uncomfortable?”

“Quite the contrary, I think there’s a better way to exchange spit than-,” Roden cleared his throat. “I take that back. It does make me uncomfortable.”

It seemed that Merry was uncomfortable too. Her face had gone redder than the blood dripping from the cut on her forehead. “I’ll take water. It’s, ah, really warm.”

She was right, the summer morning sun was beating down on the two of them. Roden cupped the unbloodied side of her face as gingerly as he could. He wet the cloth, knelt on the ground in front of her, and forced himself not to grin as he began wiping the blood off of her forehead.

The frown faltered.

“So,” Merry said.

It wasn’t exactly a question, it was more of an invitation. There was no obligation for Roden to say anything if he wanted to. He was allowed to speak about anything that he chose to do. He could talk about the situation with Ayvar. He could talk about how his niece, Nila, wanted to have a picnic for her tenth birthday and that he didn’t know what to get her. He could talk about how he’d begun to see his childhood friend’s death in his dreams.

How he feared that there was something hiding in plain sight.

Something awful.

She was giving him a choice.

And that made him want to tell her everything.

“I have extra reports I need to file tonight,” Roden said as he wet a new portion of his handkerchief. “But I’ve spent too much time in my office. Makes me lonely.”

“Don’t your friends pay attention to you?” Merry arched her unbloodied eyebrow.

He shrugged, “From time to time. They don’t tell me colorful stories about fish hitting my face.”

That made her smile.

“By the way, I never thanked you for the coin you gave me. Where’s it from? I don’t recognize the design.”

“It’s from my home, but it’s not accepted here. Figured I’d give you a trinket. Have you considered getting a pet mountain cat to keep you company?”

“Unfortunately, the royal mountain cat keeper is fresh out of them.”

Merry’s eyes drifted shut, and Roden did his best not to think of the way her body relaxed as he continued supporting her. “Why not come to the Dragon’s Keep? It’s the slowest day of the week, I can help you. I can even promise extra lemon cream tarts.”

“Would I have to share?”

“With me, of course.”

“Promises you’ll make sure it’s a fair share?”

Merry pressed a bruised hand to her heart, “I never lie, Captain Harlowe.”

He hoped she didn’t see his ears beginning to burn. Roden managed to clear away the drying blood on Merry’s face, and ordered the nearest page to get strips of gauze. “I, ah, I’m going to make sure the wound doesn’t bleed through. Is that alright?”

“I only ask that you make me look as much like a plague victim as possible,” Merry was fiddling with her hands.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

To his surprise, when Roden drew away from Merry’s face, she pressed his hand back into place. “No wait, I’m hoping I can siphon away your extreme battle abilities.”

“Not quite sure how true that is.”

“I told you before, I don’t lie.”

“Not quite sure how true that is either.”

Once again, her face flushed bright red. Merry shoved his hand away, “Thanks, ah, uh, thanks for helping me.”

“It’s only fair.” Roden scratched the back of his neck.The page returned with a small roll of gauze. Roden began setting strips of it on the horizontal gash on Merry’s forehead. “You should probably come up with a story about why you look like a plague victim.”

“I’m thinking that I had three eyes at one point, but I tragically lost my third eye while hunting for a golden potato.”

“Not quite what I was expecting, but I’ll take it. Is there more to it?”

“Do you like hearing me talk, Captain?”

“I’ve told you it’s alright to call me by my name,” Roden said, deftly avoiding her question.

She patted the side of his face, “Captain, my friend, at one point I had a third eye, and it helped me see into the ground. I could find all sorts of buried treasure, making me the most valued person in the Eranbole sea. . .”

Words of third eyes and buried treasure fell short on Roden’s ears. As Merry continued weaving her grand story about pirates and sea monsters, his gaze fell on a curious mark on her bare shoulder.

A jagged scar.

As he finished setting the last piece of gauze on Merry’s cut, he found himself brushing his thumb over the scar, wondering where it came from.

Scars carried stories, whether good or bad.

What had Merry done to get a scar on her shoulder? There were others near it, many of them were hiding underneath her printed chemise. Marks of the past. All pale and pink against her skin.

Merry went completely silent, and Roden flinched once he realized what he’d done.

Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.

Devils have him. Roden looked right at Merry’s crimson face, stared right at those mausoleum grey eyes.

Don’t be the first to look away, don’t be the first to look away-

Suddenly the cobblestones became very interesting.

“I, ah, I’m-,” she stuttered, both of her hands going to tug on her earlobes.

Roden all but jumped to his feet, “I have to go now.”

“I don’t think so, I’m not quite finished with our conversation.”

Roden rubbed the back of his neck, desperate to be away from his mistake.

But he couldn’t bring himself to walk away.

“Treat me like a princess, Roden, please,” Merry said, bouncing back from the awkward moment. She held out her hand, palm down, expectant.

A series of scars were visible on her third and fourth fingers, just below the nails. Roden forced himself not to look too long, and took Merry by the hand, “My apologies, lady.”

In a grand motion, Merry waved her hand across the open air, “No apologies are needed sir knight. You’ll find I am quite spotted all over, and not from freckles.”

“I’m really sorry if-,” He began, but Merry was one step ahead of him.

“No, no, don’t be sorry, it’s really alright. I got that scar as a child. My favorite method of travel was jumping rock to rock, and I missed my target once.”

“I’m sure all toads everywhere envied your skill.”

“Oh they did, trust me, they did. I’d ah, I’d tell you more . . But you’ll have to forgive me for leaving so soon, Dawn’s going to have my head if I’m late.”

He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t like watching her leave.

----------------------------------------------

Nila sat on his desk, swinging her legs. Her long golden hair had been pinned on her head, and yet despite the obvious effort that had been put into it, several strands had managed to escape. Dirt stains pooled at her elbows.

She was doing a wondrous job holding a stack of papers for Roden.

“I found a cool feather today, but I dropped it in the river,” Nila mused, a slight frown appearing on her rosy face. “It had stripes.”

“A striped feather, you say?” Roden made a face.

“Black and white, I thought it would look cool as a mast for a stick ship, but I got so excited about it, I dropped it.”

“Then I’ll have to help you find another one.”

Nila tapped her boot heel against the desk, “I’m free on every second day of the week, but only in the afternoons. I can fit you into my schedule.”

“You have a schedule now, do you?” He caught himself chuckling. “I would gladly take any available time that I can.”

Everywhere, there were reports hiding. Roden managed to gather all of Mott’s reports, but unfortunately, had managed to lose track of half of his own. He pawed through every drawer he could, every shelf and cabinet.

If it weren’t for Nila keeping track of what had been found and what hadn’t, he would’ve wasted much more time.

How could he let himself get so disorganized?

Roden ran his hands through his hair, “I think that’s all we’re going to find.”

“I can take a turn looking,” Nila offered. She grinned, a pair of dimples making their appearance. “You’ve obviously got something else on your mind.”

“I don’t- I, ah, everything’s under control.”

Although everything didn’t really feel like it was under control. Roden once again ran his hands through his hair, thinking of anything he might’ve missed. Several hours had passed since he’d last seen Merry. It wouldn’t be long before sunset.

“Are you meeting somebody?” Asked Nila, her boot beating out a new rhythm. “Are you going on patrol again?”

“No, no,” Roden said, walking from his desk to the door. “I mean, yes, I’m going to be with a friend of mine. No patrolling for me though, that’s tomorrow night.”

“That’s interesting. Much more interesting than my evening, anyway.”

“I thought you had a busy schedule, sounds pretty exciting to me.”

“Being busy doesn’t mean I’m having fun. Where are you going?”

“Sounds like you’re planning on trying to come with me. . .”

Nila frowned as deeply as she could. “I’m just asking!”

As he paced back and forth, Roden smiled. He was walking to the beat of Nila’s boot hitting the desk. That drew a grin out of her once he mentioned it to her.

He loved being with Nila. She was charming and bursting with life, and made his day a little bit brighter. In time, he saw her as more of a little sister than a niece.

There were many things Roden would always regret.

Things like never knowing his dead brother; Nila’s father.

Too many opportunities had been lost, and Roden was determined not to lose any more precious moments. He’d been cheated out of years and years of memories.

It was time to make new ones.

But he wasn’t sure if taking a ten year old girl to a tavern was one of them.

“Please, please, please, please, please take me with you,” Nila begged. “I don’t want to have to take tea with Lady Orlaine’s whatever they are.”

“Lady Orlaine’s wards?” Roden offered.

“Yes! Them! They’re mean to me, dreadfully boring too. I call them the Greys. Because they make everything grey around them, get it?”

Roden took the numerous papers from Nila and shoved them into a satchel. He’d have to depend on Merry for ink, he didn’t trust himself not to spill any as he walked across Drylliad.

He wouldn’t be able to know if the Dragon’s Keep was truly empty until he got there, and he’d rather not risk taking Nila to a place not quite appropriate for a child.

She took the rejection well, however, Roden wished he’d been able to bring her with him.

The regret was even worse the moment Roden stepped into the Dragon's Keep, only to find that it was as empty as Merry claimed it was.

Aside from the old man strumming a lute in the corner, the only sound was a ghost of a conversation from the back.

Dawn was behind the counter, her grey streaked hair piled into a bun on top of her head.

Another barmaid was sitting in the corner beside a young man. No sign of Merry.

"Captain! It's nice to see you!" Dawn called, waving her cloth in greeting.

"It's nice to be here," Roden countered with a smile.

She turned around, and retrieved a large tankard, "Are you looking for a drink?"

"Oh! No, no, I'm looking for a person, actually. It's Merry, actually, she wanted to talk."

"I'm sure she did, I'm sure she did. Merry! It's rude to keep a guest waiting!"

The conversation grew louder, louder, louder, until finally, Merry came strutting out. She’d changed her chemise, this one was green and hid her scarred shoulder. A patterned scarf rested neatly over her hair and behind her ears.

She pointed at the mass of gauze on her head, “Still in one piece!”

“I’m not surprised, you can hold your own,” Roden grinned. Now comfortable, he set his paper filled satchel on the wooden countertop, and perched on a tall stool.

“You should see her fight a door, it’s quite frightening,” teased Dawn.

“They are the bane of my existence.” Merry stared hard at the front door, and shook her fist at it before bursting into a series of snickers.

“A truly noble quest.”

Merry snatched a used tankard, and began scrubbing at the insides. Her smile faltered, “How’s Jamie Todd?”

“He’s alright, just a little concerned that he was caught throwing stones at a person.”

“Good, that’s good. You sure he’s fine?”

“Saw him myself a few hours ago,” Roden said. He retrieved a few reports, and set them on the counter. “Do you have-?”

“Ink? Right here,” Merry reached below the counter. “And we have a variety of writing tools to choose from too.”

“Don’t use the quill!” Dawn ordered from the other end of the bar. The door opened and closed. “Take care of that guest!”

The glass Merry had been scrubbing at clinked against the counter. Her brows screwed together, “I’ll take care of it.”

“What are you-,” Roden began, but Merry snapped her fingers near his face. He brushed her hands away, “I know, I know, I need to get my work done.”

“I’ll check back in on you in a moment, have that other guest to see,” Merry leaned over the bar, and smoothed her hand over Roden’s head.

He glared at the first report waiting to be finished. Check the details. Signature here, signature there. Next report. Check the details. Signature here, signature there, and so on and so forth. He caught a few snippets from Merry’s conversation with the new guest.

Something about lemon cream tarts.

Saints, he really wanted one of-

No! He had to do a report first!

Report first, tart later!

Merry set a hand on his shoulder, “Your handwriting.”

“I know, I know, it’s messy,” Roden shrugged.

“I was going to say that I like it, sir knight.”

Oh.

She disappeared behind the bar, reappearing moments later with a lemon cream tart in each hand. Roden received his first, much to his delight, and technically, he did manage to finish two reports.

He deserved a tart.

“-I completely understand! Court life is horrifically boring,” Merry said, her voice barely audible above the lute strings.

“I’m glad somebody gets it!” Chirped the guest, their voice oddly familiar.

But not familiar enough to draw his attention away from his blasted reports.

The lemon cream tart made it easier to bear.

Snippets of the conversation still drifted into Roden’s atmosphere. Merry laughed, “And is there anything else I can get you?”

“No thank you, but I do appreciate that you asked me,” came the reply.

And then Merry’s hand was back on his shoulder, asking him if there was anything she could do to help. Unless she was good at forgery, there wasn’t much she could do.

Roden scribbled through report after report, firmly aware that Merry was watching his every move.

He managed to finish the tart just as he finished his first pile of reports.

“And onto the next one,” Roden mumbled.

“Ah, ah, ah, take a tiny break, Captain,” Merry chided. She set her hands on Roden’s, “One stack is worth a victory celebration.”

“Do I get another tart?”

“Possibly, unless you’d prefer a pie.”

Pies were good, when baked properly.

Merry’s hands were cool on his palms.

Cool on his battle torn hands.

They fit too well in his own. A little too nicely. It was impossible to timidly turn his palms up, impossible not to hold Merry’s rough fingers.

He supposed he preferred that to a tart.

And a pie.

“Why are you holding hands with him?” Asked the other guest from right behind Roden.

He jumped, his eyes flying to the voice’s owner.

Only to find Nila with a little bit of lemon cream still on her top lip.

“Oh, uh, because-,” Merry stuttered, however, Roden had a better prepared retort.

“What are you doing here?”

Nila shrugged, “I was bored, so I followed you.”

“And you saw her come in, but didn’t tell me?” Roden asked, turning his attention to Merry.

She made a face, and clasped her hands behind her back. “I only did what I was told.”

“I wanted to surprise you, mostly so I could prove that it’s perfectly acceptable for me to go with you to things,” Nila pointed out. She clambered onto the stool beside Roden. “And I’m very helpful. I can read through your reports. All you’d have to do is sign.”

“Doesn’t mean you’d understand what’s going on,” noted Roden.

“That’s not important, all that matters is that everything is spelled correctly.”

Merry nodded, “She does have a point.”

A smile spread across his face, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t be rid of it, but he did manage to contain it to a slight smirk.

He handed a stack of papers to Nila.

Every so often, Roden glanced up to make sure Merry was still near, and watched as she cleaned tankard after tankard.

She beamed at him each time she caught him looking.

And all he could think about was the way her cool hands felt when they rested on his own.

#roden #ocs #prince jaron #fic friday #fic Friday except its a thursday #this #was literally #too fun #shamelessly fluffy #also nila is absolutely the best #I love her #shes a chaotic blonde child #wait #nila = cosette from les mis confirmed #the ascendance series #the ascendance trilogy #the false prince

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ask-de-writer · 4 years

Text

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT : Part 6 of 83 : World of Sea

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to World of Sea

SEA DRAGON’S GIFT

Part 6 of 83

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

140406 words

written 2007

Reproduction in any form, physical, electronic or digital is prohibited without the express consent of the author.

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Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights. They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact. They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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New to the story? Read from the beginning. PART 1 is here

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Kurin and her class watched the tides carefully. At the highest tides, they could get useful data to guide boats doing traditional soundings. The boats were a necessity to get the detail vital for so dangerous an area.

The task was complicated further by the seaweed mats growing everywhere and making it difficult going for the boats. The shoals were thirty to sixty feet down, most of the time.

For a reference point to base all of her measurements from Kurin chose a shoal that was easily seen at all tides by the violently swirling currents that it created. Small boats were sent out to take soundings, their positions controlled by the officers using the range finder and Kurin’s quick, precise beating of directions to the boatmen on the hailing drum.

As quickly as one boat was positioned and began its sounding, she turned the big tubular drum in its swivel to repeat the process for the next boat. Its sound carrying great distances across open water, enabled them to map a mile from the ship in all directions, a circle two miles across. The chart began to grow, as each new reef or safe channel was added, circle by overlapping circle. It took nearly a whole Wohan to finish it to Kurin’s satisfaction.

A Dragon tide could drop the sea level twenty five feet in under three hours if conditions were bad. That was not enough time for a ship to escape these reefs, as others had found before. This necessitated keeping the Longin in safe waters beyond the shoals at all times.

With the Captain’s encouragement, Kurin’s class in how the oceans spoke with the deep waves, and what they told, began to understand what she was teaching. Children and young people fared best at feeling the waves. Older people had spent a lifetime filtering out what they were now trying to feel but were often best at making and reading the charts, based on what others told them. The older folks teamed up with the younger ones made a formidable combination. Only a few of the adults, Captain Mord among them, were able to set aside a lifetime’s habit of ignoring the ship’s roll and pitch and learn to feel the sea anew.

As the two charting methods worked together, the true form of the Ship Killer began to emerge. It was a large group of nearly circular areas of coral with central lagoons filled with dangerous coral heads and other obstructions. Each ring or group of rings had wide, shallow, treacherous edges. There were safe passages and some that were trickier. At most tides, the whole complex could be sailed over with serene security. The Longin only drew twenty four feet.

At the celebration to mark the end of the charting, a copy of the new map was weighted down on a big table in the mess for all to see.

Master Juris was looking at the plot with a jaundiced eye. He was soured that his new journeyman, actually still his apprentice, had got so much attention and spent so much time away from the boat shop. As a result, he had paid as little attention as possible to the whole process. His mood was worsened by the fact, plain to see, that he had been right in the first place. It was time well spent.

He ‘accidentally’ slopped a little of his water on a note in one corner of the parchment sheet as he leaned forward to stab with his finger at a feature.

“Pulled a Silor there, didn’t you Kurin? That whole big lagoon’s not charted,” he sneered.

Before Kurin could react to such an outrage, Silor finally took his chance to even a score, even if it meant defending Kurin. “White Head, there did the right thing! If you were able to pay attention to anything at all,” he riposted, “You’d have seen the note that you slopped water on! ‘L-24 not charted — Wide Wing rookery!’ We all talked about it at meals, trying to figure a way to do that lagoon.” He grinned triumphantly and held a sounding line out to Master Juris. “Go on, you do it!”

Master Juris looked around the mess hall for support and found none. In a small voice he said, “If those Sea Hawks even thought I was a threat to their young, they’d all attack at once. I’d be ripped to shreds!”

Gently and utterly crushingly, Silor said, “I know.” He laid the sounding line on the table by Master Juris and left before anything could spoil his moment.

“Look here, Captain,” Old Sorra, one of the Longin’s most experienced fishermen, gestured at the new Cliftos Reach chart. “Here’s my notes on places where we’ve had luck before, and here’s that chart we made just a few weeks ago.”

Captain Mord opened the window of his cabin for more light, illuminating the precise navigational water-clock hung in a gimbal on the forward wall, and above it and to both sides of it the shelves of books. The Logs of the Longin occupied nearly an entire shelf. There were books of tables of the angles of all three moons and the sun, for navigation. In addition there were books full of the Laws and traditions of the Naral fleet and others besides. His bed occupied the space between the bookshelves and the window. It, like almost everything, including the ship itself, was made of glue laminated Strong Skin. The surface layers of the glue in his cabin had been tinted in light blues and greens and inlaid with expensive iridescent shell in abstract fish-like designs around the door and portholes. Fish and seabirds of shell sported along the edges of his book shelves as well.

He studied the notes and the chart together, a few minutes. He smiled the smile of one who senses a fortune near at hand. “Glue Fish,” he pronounced. We always catch them near here in the early part of the day.” He pointed at the three underwater hills near one end of their Cliftos Reach home waters.

“It appears that if we set our drag net to fish about a hundred feet or a bit deeper, we might find the Glue Fish schools where they are sheltering for the day.”

“Exactly my thought,” Sorra replied, gesturing ahead, toward the bow. “We are already making for the place, in hopes of a few Glue Fish and some those tasty little Skelt. If we drag a net deep down through there, what harm?”

Two days of sailing later, they deployed a net and adjusted the lines to pull it behind the ship, a hundred feet down. Only an hour later, it was pulled in filled with flopping riches. Glue Fish.

While the big boats were out fishing deep for the Glue Fish, smaller four and six oared boats spread nets near the floating seaweed mats to ensnare schools of Skelt. The wild paddle ducks nesting on the mats thought that concentrating the Skelt was a fine idea and promptly made a nuisance of themselves by diving into the netted fish and helping themselves.

Marad, a journeyman cook was in charge of the big solar cookers used to process the fish. The reek of boiling Glue Fish permeated the ship, but nobody minded. It was the scent of wealth.

“Hi, Marad, can I help?”

“I don’t know Kurin. Can you reach high enough to skim the cooker?”

“Sure, if I stand on something.”

I’m not comfortable with that, Kurin. The tallow is awful hot, and the sea isn’t the smoothest today. Why don’t you bring molds for me to fill from that stack? Then you put them over there to cool. When the tallow gets hard there is a big tub of water that you can quench them in. The deck-hands can take the finished blocks to the cargo handlers for stowage.”

“You’ve given her my job,” protested Gren, one of the apprentices.

“Well you can have the job, if you want it, but I thought that you and Mikka were ready to handle cookers number three and four by yourselves.”

Gren visibly swelled with pride at being given the responsibility. “I think that we can handle them,” was his answer, along with a fast check of the cookers’ alignment with the sun.

Kurin had used the time to get several molds ready. Tallow from the Glue Fish was already rising to the surface of the big cooker. Marad let it get to a thick layer before he began skimming with a wide scoop. Each scoop load went into the waiting mold until it was full. Marad was careful not to let any water flow into the molds along with the tallow. Kurin took them away to cool and quench, which freed the blocks from the molds.

The deck-hands were fetching the tallow blocks of the apprentices, but not Kurin’s. Silor told them, “Let the little show-off do some real work. She can bring her blocks to us.”

When Kurin saw that they were not coming for her blocks, she began carrying them to the deck-hands, without complaint. Captain Mord came on deck to take a sighting of Carsis, the middle sized of the three moons, and saw at a glance what was happening. He took his sighting and went below. Shortly, he came up a companion-ladder near the bow and quietly watched.

After a bit he wrote on a tallow-slate and came down the deck to Silor. Kurin could not hear the exchange, but it was short and sharp. Silor signed the tallow-Slate sulkily. As Captain Mord went back to his cabin, deck-hands began picking up her finished blocks, too.

“Mumph,” grunted Marad looking into the cookers, a measure of fish in hand, “Doesn’t look like I can fit any more fish into either of these. Kurin, drag over the spare pots and put them into their cradles. Don’t want to spill anything.”

“Sure, Marad,” returned Kurin, glad to be real help. “I thought that the pots were only half full of water when we started.”

“They were, but we’ve been adding fish steadily. As they cook down, we get tallow on top, but what on the bottom?”

“Glue,” she replied chagrined, “should have thought of it.”

Marad attached lifting tackle to the big pots. One by one he brought them over, clamped on a handle, and poured the boiling water off into the new pots. Setting the glue filled pots aside, he lifted the water pots into the focus of the reflectors and added more fish and water to make up the losses from boiling. He used the crane and handle pour the glue through a strainer, and into more molds that Kurin had waiting.

Soon a procession of glue blocks, one of the two monetary standards of all of the world of Sea, was heading to the hold for stowage.

Every so often, Marad had to clean the detritus of muscle, bone bits and skin from the strainer. He dropped the waste onto a sheet of greased cloth and let it cool and harden so that it could be thrown away.

The cycle repeated itself endlessly, and would for a week.

On that first day, Roper came by to watch. He and several of the other children were too small to help. He grabbed several of the chunks of Glue Fish waste.

Holding them, he asked Kurin, “How deep is the bottom around here? Silor says that it’s so far down that you couldn’t hit it if there was no water and you fell all day.”

She grinned, “Either Silor is pulling your leg or he’s run up on dry land. Either way, he’s wrong. It’s only about two hundred feet down, not as deep as the Longin is long, from stern to forward cargo hatch.”

“Oh, then I’ll need about two hundred fifty feet of number two cord,” said Roper scampering off with his offal.

“What was that about, I wonder?” Marad asked.

“I have no idea, but he wants to reach the bottom for something. Maybe he wants to try for flounders.”

TO BE CONTINUED

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#SEA DRAGON’S GIFT #Part 6 of 83 #World of Sea #Written by De Writer

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