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teecupangel · 1 year

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okay i just rewatched Pacific Rim for the millionth time and, hear me out, a Modern Pacific Rim AU?

Like, the Masyaf Eagle having been originally piloted by the Al Sayf brothers but a nasty battle kills Kadar and takes Malik's arm so now Malik serves as an engineer/command center for the Eagle's new pilot Altair who is in search of a co-pilot. And the only one who can successfully drift (synchronize) with him is Desmond. (Altdes)

Ezio Auditore who inherited the Eden Assassin after his father and brother were killed in battle. Ezio who lost his co-pilot and dear friend Yusuf in a battle. Ezio who is trying to stop his sister from becoming his new co-pilot because he's so scared of losing her like he's lost everyone else.

Edward Kenway and Adewale being totally awesome troublemakers and pilots of the Jackdaw

Haytham and Shay being co-pilots of the Morrigan Revenge and having a ridiculous rivalry with Connor and Arno, pilots of the Phantom Aquila

Jacob and Evie co-piloting the Victorian Conqueror and setting records for fastest kaiju kills.

Bayek and Aya becoming pilots after losing Khemu during an attack and piloting the Hidden One.

Kassandra and Alexios being terrifying co-pilots of the Spartan Misthios

Totally out of left field co-pilots Eivor and Basim who seem so unlikely because they spend most of their free time arguing, but being badass pilots of the Raven Destroyer.

idk i just got really excited

Nooonnnnnyyyy!

You got me excited as well because I love mechas and kaijus! Pacific Rim is one of my most favorite movies ever! (Although, as a huge Del Toro fan, that’s not really surprising XD)

Making it AltDes makes me go jshdafjkhjbhsdasadg

Okay, okay.

I think Shaun and Rebecca could be K-Science Officers focused on why these Kaijus are attacking humans in particular. Now, I was thinking we can make Al Mualim the Marshal in charge of Altaïr and Desmond’s Division and we can keep him as a ‘good guy’ in this setup but, if you still want him to be ‘evil’, perhaps he’s secretly in charge of some kind of illegal project that uses Kaiju parts to create a new type of Jaeger.

Why are we making Al Mualim the Marshal?

Because we’ll make Desmond a second generation of Jaeger Pilots. His father, William Miles, was known as the hero who saved South Dakota from total annihilation so there was a lot of pressure for him to do well.

Hell, he didn’t even want to become a Jaeger Pilot and he had actually run away but he was called back after he got ‘visitors’ who insisted he needed to be escorted to a PPDC base where Altaïr is trying to find a co-pilot. They spar and found out they were compatible but their first few Drifts were so bad everyone starts to doubt that they were actually compatible and, honestly, Desmond and Altaïr didn’t understand why they’re being paired together.

They had nothing in common.

That’s when Al Mualim tells them that they have one thing in common that was clear to everyone during their Drift sessions.

They both had walls around themselves, keeping them from fully synchronizing.

And, surprisingly, it was Altaïr who pushes Desmond to talk to him, to try and understand one another.

Only to be surprised when Desmond asks him, “You’re doing this because Al Mualim told you, aren’t you?”

Later on, Altaïr corners him once more and asks back, “How’d you know?”

And that’s how Desmond realizes that their compatibility might stem from their similar upbringing because Al Mualim was Altaïr’s own William Miles.

Other Unorganized Notes:

The AltDes in this one would be more in line of ‘reluctant allies’ to friends to lovers… probably.

When they become lovers, everyone suffers because they're that kind of couple.

Masyaf Eagle mainly uses a one-hand sword but has a secret short blade on its left arm. It’s projectile weaponry is primarily throwing knives but it will get a gun upgrade on its right arm later on.

Ezio befriends Desmond easily and has a friendly rivalry with Altaïr. He also likes to joke about asking Desmond if he’d like to be his co-pilot instead which just makes Yusuf laugh. After Altaïr and Desmond get together, he makes the same jokes just to get a rise out of Altaïr. (Claudia is in a separate base for training and Ezio always finds the time to visit her or send her messages)

Eden Assassin is mostly known for being versatile, having both short and long-range capabilities. It’s also known for its left hand having a hook blade attachment.

Edward and Adéwalé are one of the oldest Jaeger pilots still on the field. Edward is also Haytham’s older brother and he worries about him a lot. Edward also likes to spoil his young nephew. A lot of people are actually curious how the two of them could be co-pilots considering their personalities but Adéwalé and Edward never answer any of their questions. It is clear that they are loyal to one another.

The Jackdaw has a chest blaster which blasts out four shots (as a reference to how Edward usually has four flintlock pistols on his chest harness). Jackdaw is primarily a ranged Jaeger and its main weapon is a twin pair of gunblades.

Haytham transferred to be Shay’s co-pilot after a huge disagreement between Shay’s old co-pilot erupted and ‘corrupted’ their Drifts too much that they could no longer operate Morrigan Revenge. Haytham usually just lets Shay lead but any time Haytham wants to take the lead, Shay backs down immediately and follows him. Haytham does not approve of Ratonhnhaké:ton being a Jaeger pilot.

Morrigan Revenge primarily uses a long one-handed sword and a short dagger. It also has a grenade launcher on its right shoulder. It’s mostly known for having a head that looks like a taco. (no, I’m not sorry, I will forever talk about Haytham’s taco hat)

Ratonhnhaké:ton and Arno are the youngest Jaeger pilots currently in the field. Ratonhnhaké:ton doesn’t have a good relationship with his father but he’s cordial to his uncle. Arno is the son of Charles Dorian who died in a Kaiju Battle piloting a Jaeger. He actually became a Jaeger pilot to follow his step-sister who pilots a different Jaeger.

Phantom Aquila is an experimental Jaeger and its main experiment is if it’s possible for a Jaeger to have two forms. A humanoid form and a quadrupedal form. It’s faster on its quadrupedal form and it usually takes that form when it’s providing support or distractions. Its humanoid form uses primarily a tomahawk-like weapon and has a crossbow on its left arm.

Victorian Conqueror has the highest record for the fastest Kaiju kills because Evie and Jacob actually cannot handle being drifted to one another for too long. Everyone is keeping it a secret and only their main engineers and support team (led by Jayadeep Mir) know about it. They believe the main reason for their low drift timeframe stems from Ethan Frye’s death… not that Evie and Jacob believe them.

Victorian Conqueror has a cane sword and a kukri-like blade. It also has invincibility capabilities but they’re still working out how to make it useable as it can only be activated if Victorian Conqueror does not move.

Aya and Bayek were actually retired Jaeger pilots. They returned to the field after their son’s death and still uses Hidden One which is one of the oldest Jaeger still on the field.

Hidden One has a lot of possible weaponry at its disposal but they primarily use either a shield and a one hand sword or twin short blades. Supposedly, Aya prefers the short blades while Bayek prefers the sword-and-shield combo.

Alexios and Kassandra are known for having lots of friends… with benefits… Sometimes the same friends even. They also came from a family of Jaeger pilots and are very close. On their time off, they usually go off base to visit their mother. Their step brother is also a Jaeger pilot while their step father is a Marshal for another base.

Spartan Misthios uses a sword and a short blade. The short blade is special as it actually came from an older Jaeger model named the “Spartan King”. Spartan King is legendary for protecting thousands of civilians against a horde of smaller but faster Kaijus, holding down the line as everyone escaped. By the time the Spartan King had been overwhelmed and both of its pilot died, everyone had managed to escape. One of the pilots was Kassandra and Alexios’ grandfather and Spartan Misthios is considered to be the Spartan King's successor.

Eivor and Basim have… very soap-opera level of drama. Raven Destroyer's original pilots were meant to be Eivor and Sigurd but Sigurd was discharged after just two Kaiju battles. Rumors say that he had been dishonorably discharged due to how he acts. Basim was transferred as one of the candidates for Eivor’s co-pilot and they didn’t exactly start well (Eivor punching Basim hard enough that he actually flew across the room may or may not be exaggerated). Still, they do work together whenever they’re in their Jaeger… only to go back to bickering afterward.

Raven Destroyer has a shield on its left arm. It switches from a hand axe or a pair of daggers at any given time and even its fighting style changes from pure brute force to hit-and-run tactics in a blink of an eye, making it a hard opponent to fight.

All Kaijus have codenames based on gods and goddesses.

#holy crap #did i just make desmond shinji???#get in the fucking robot desmond #no usual tags because #altdes #ask and answer

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freddy-ryland · 3 years

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scene ii: the art of memory

turn up the volume I'm not listening the dialogue is static and I start to panic and the music fades

The dull roar in her ears was familiar as she stepped out of the glowing green flames, hurrying forward a few steps to make room for the tell-tale whoosh of a similar traveler. The teenager was sure to wipe her sooty palms off on a handkerchief, straightening out her jumper before approaching the visitor's desk. There was a long winding line behind the little gate, stamped with the Ministry Seal, but she sidestepped it and waited for the man to wave at her.

There were a few noises of annoyance as Freddy cleared the line, but a singular glare from the attending Auror shut them up. Freddy patted Amara Bone's arm, who flushed and continued to stand ramrod straight. The elder Hufflepuff had always been kind to her at Hogwarts; she'd woken up with Amara carrying her back to her room many times after passing out around the castle. Amara always cut a surprisingly imposing figure, despite being one of the softest people Freddy had met in her life.

"Another top-secret meeting with our magical mimes eh Lil' Ry," The man had a shockingly bad case of bedhead and a lazy eye, he told her tales that he popped the eye out during the war to scare Snatchers so he could get the drop on them in a fight, and it never healed right. "Thinkin' that you might as well become a mime yourself, missus."

"Gerald, I think I've had my fill of our devout Unspeakables," she flashed him a smile as he continued to process her wand, a rigid formality, "and I've every intention to make a grand escape of them once I graduate."

"A grand escape, eh?"

"Oh yes, it's all very planned out, our lovely chats will come to an end. I'll be sure to send you a postcard." She had a map of every place she wanted to see, already marked up and pasted to her wall.

"You do that girl," Gerald smiled, he was missing his front tooth, and it always gave his words a distinctive whistling sound, "you get outta here an' far away from those mimes before they trap you in their circus."

"I was thinking of joining the circus actually, as a fortune-teller. Get some real-world experiences," Freddy grinned, "though I have plenty of experience working with mimes and clowns." Gerald's whistling laugh followed her through the marbled Atrium as she squeezed by, fixating her visitor's badge to the front of her sweater.

More than a few ministry workers recognized her, between Micah and Uncle Kinglsey and her Mum being the Healer for the rich and pure, Freddy had been around these halls since she was born. Most offered small smiles and mayne some gently awkward small talk and returned to their lives. An older red-haired woman held the elevator door open for her as Freddy thanked her profusely, having nearly missed it after being waylaid by some friend-of-Mom's-patients-nephew. It wasn't unusual to see teenagers at the Ministry, between internships and family, but it was unusual to see 'Department of Mysteries' embossed on her visitor's badge. It earned her a few looks on the crowded elevator so Freddy simply smiled and watched the arrow tick. Slowly the overfilled elevator began to empty until it was just Freddy left. Kicking her heels against the ground, the teenager started to gently sweat under her loose top, a pit opening as she watched the arrow tick down and down towards 9.

Finally, the door opened, and the Hufflepuff stepped out into the Atrium, a cold desolate place. The floors were disconcertingly white, the kind of white that reminds you of dying, shined to such a high polish that Freddy could see up her own skirt. The walls were covered in etched runes and spells in Latin, Greek and possibly more than a few ancient, dead languages. There were no portraits adorning the sparse walls, only four statues in each corner of the room, all of which were humans in some sort of distorted way. Unspeakable Hawkins once told her they were reminders of how the human soul can twist when experimenting with unknown magic, a warning of sorts to the workers. A reminder. One she didn't need as Freddy looked away from the child chimera hybrid writhing on the ground below the impatient glare of an older woman who held a gnarled rod above it’s body. There was a distinctive clicking noise that was the only sound in the room, and Freddy moved towards it, keeping a careful eye on the statues.

The Hufflepuff hated when they moved, or decided to watch her.

A woman sat behind a similarly Spartan desk, typing away and glaring at the man sitting at the lone mid-century chair that looks like a child's under his bulk and stature. His shock of royal purple and gold robes were dazzlingly out of place in this room, and as the receptionist sniffed at Freddy in her voiceless greeting, Kingsley Shacklebolt looked up. His lips pulled into a comfortingly wide smile.

"Uncle King?" Freddy hurried across the marble, taking care not to slip on the slick surface, "what are you doing here?"

"Just wanted to check on your progress with Madame Basnet--"

"Unspeakable Basnet, Mr. Shacklebolt," the receptionist, Alisha snapped, her box braids whipping around her head so she could level a cold glare at him, "do remember her title, Sir." The clack! clack! clack! continued it's metronome and paper continued to feed into it with twitches of her pinky.

"Forgive me, Madame Kieta," his grin might’ve been charming to anyone else but the living statue at the desk.

Her face pinched returning to her typing, the clack of the typewriter going faster as the door in front of them began to open. Freddy never understood how she opened it when her fingers never left the typewriter. "Mr. Shacklebolt has already taken his Vow of Silence, he may enter. As for you, Ms. Ryland, the statues will tell if you've been following your end of the contract."

Following her end of the contract, a contract she took when she was still a child and was somehow so binding it made her keep having to coming here every goddamn week. Just the notion of still being forced by a decade old scrap of parchment was enough to make her want to cuss Ms. Kieta out.

But, Uncle Kingsley held his arm out, and in the fashion of any proper young woman of magical society, she took it with a gentle bob of her knees. Long schooled into her by her Mum. She kept her mouth shut, teeth grinding on sharp words until they became soft powder.

The statue from the corner crawled over as they crossed the invisible barrier between the rest of the world and the Department of Mysteries. It was an eyeless thing, mouth carved open and gapping with marble streaks of drool. Truly it would’ve been an impressive piece of art if it wasn’t so gruesome. Its movement caused a grinding sound of stone on stone; the magicked creature prowled around her ankles before coming up behind her shoulder.

Freddy stood stock still, eyes screwing tight. She'd seen what happened when someone broke their Silence Vows, and the statue found it. The teen remembered how fast they moved and the high-pitched whistling sound they made for an alarm. She remembered how the woman's skull cracked when marble met marble with a body between. Freddy had been tugged in by Unspeakable Ellie, and sat down with comforting head pats from folk who didn’t know how to pet a cat without being constipated.

The teenager let out a sigh, not unlike a balloon, as the statue nudged her hand, cold and hard, before retreating to its sentry position in the corner.

"Horrible creatures," Kingsley whispered; his knuckles were white, and the bulge of his biceps were stone beneath her tightened grip, "wholly unnecessary for someone of your position." For all that he was a war hero her Uncle always did take far too much pride in their family position at the Ministry, but that was just pureblood upbringing for you.

"The Department must have their protections, even from someone overly familiar."

Kingsley made a noise of disapproval before they entered the real Atrium. The place was a madhouse in truth, positively Frankenstienan compared to the cold room they just left. Messenger papers were flying above their heads and the distant sound of a boom. Desks were smashed together while massive runes covered thick paper; one desk was dedicated to writing implements -- quill, pen, pencil, charcoal, blood ink, unicorn blood ink, paint, chalk. In addition, there was a large bookcase stretching from floor to ceiling and filled to bursting with papers, books, and more than a few stone tablets.

Unspeakable Hawkins was rushed past, jostling a cauldron and a papyrus scroll. He offered a cursorary wave before cursing as he tripped over a series of tangled wires. In a distant corner, Freddy noted a man talking to himself, Keith? Kai? Kyle? She couldn't remember his name, nor what they spoke of, nor anything about him. His name started with a 'K,' and he always looked half beaten to death with exhaustion. Unspeakable Ellie (who refused her surname for security purposes) was orchestrating a jostling crowd of marmosets, succulents, several hummingbirds, and a single cacti in a floating box headed towards a door marked with green. Freddy could see the bone thorns on her shoulders and arms peeking between the folds of her bulky Unspeakable robe even from this distance. There were doors all around them, moving in and out of existence. It reminded Freddy remarkably of Lib-Con, without the fun of it. Only hurried, furious magical workings, the scent of stale coffee and the ambiance of lab rats on a wheel chasing only certain death via science (or magic). The doors that led to the various Halls of Magic were locked to her personally, but employees busted in and out at breakneck pace. The smaller doors belonged to offices and various other tinkering workshops where booms and clangs shook the floor and no-one batted a single eyelash. It was an orchestra of chaos, with no conductor keeping track, time or tempo.

Above all the noise Cassandra Basnet walked like a whisper, in a tight business uniform that seemed more in place with the Department of Law Enforcement. Not even a single item of turquoise or jade adorned her person, no jangle of obtrusive jewelry or an obnoxious scent of sage or patchouli marked her for a Divination expert like others in the field. There were no stray tea leaves or frog spawn in her pockets, nor a deck of tarot cards in hand. Hair pulled back in such a severe bun that it would make Headmistress McGonagall wince. Yet, even with the power walk of a misandrist girlboss, no one could deny that Unspeakable Basnet is beautiful with her high cheekbones and startlingly green eyes, always decorated with minimal make up and on occasion wire frame glasses. Her walk slowed, dodging desks, the tenseness in her arms softened as she came closer before wrapping Freddy into a familiar hug, tugging her straight from her Uncle's arms.

Freddy tensed but hugged back, politely but wincing as she felt the surprisingly heavyweight of Cassandra's arm. It was a show of dominance, and all parties knew that as she pulled away, keeping a possessive arm around Freddy's shoulders.

"Mr. Shacklebolt, I had no idea you'd be joining our little shindig today." Her smile was florescent bright. "My little crystal didn't send a word."

"I simply wanted to do a quick drop-in. It's so difficult to plan these sorts of things these days."

"Well, I am always happy to have someone of your esteem in our halls. Come to my office. Today is hectic, we've had more than a few breakthroughs, so everyone is very excited. They'd probably want to drag Freddy to show off, and we can't have that."

Moving through the zoo, they found a deep maroon door that came into the similarly stark office, the wall covered in crystal balls, palmistry books, more than a few photos of Freddy in various states of having a Sight or Vision. Several papers on her desk and a bronze paperweight in the shape of a jaguar, which Freddy knew to be her Patronus. A plush couch pushed up against the wall with a gauzy veil over it to block light. Freddy had passed out many times on that couch after long days working with her powers and had woken up an unknown number of times under a heavy weighted blanket that laid folded up neat against the arm. The desk was minimalistic, and there was a single dark brown leather armchair in front of it, where Kingsley settled his imposing mass into, without so much as an invitation, lounging like a panther.

Freddy dropped herself onto the couch, pulling her sweater tighter around herself, wishing with all her might that a pit would open beneath her butt and drop her from this incredibly awkward situation.

"So, Mr. Shacklebolt, have you any questions about Freddy's instruction here with me? Concerns?" She kept her voice even and relaxed, puttering around the office shuffling and filing papers, pulling out an all too familiar folder more than three inches thick. Quills marched to their places on the desk with muttered incantations. She was absolute crap at wordless magic for all of Basnet's abilities, and her wandless magic was abysmal. All in all, Freddy regarded her as a less than average witch, but no one could deny that she had some sorta latent power and her mind was a whetstone on which she sharpened it.

"Just wish to observe as much of Freddy's instruction as possible. Our family has begun to worry that perhaps she has grown stagnant in this environment. Our Freddy may need some more... varied instruction" though his tone remained polite, there was a distinct sense of 'fuck you' in each curated word. She knew her parents were worried, but she hadn't realized how nervous her Mom had asked her esteemed cousin to attend. "You know, young wix, always needing to be pushed in the right direction, teachers can make or break a future."

"Of course, however," Basnet pulled down several more books and smiled, "there is a point where I will have to ask you to leave. Your Vow of Silence only goes so far when it comes to more... delicate magical workings."

"I will respect that; however, if Freddy should ask me to stay, then I'd like to push that envelope."

"We'll see if you have any questions--"

"Believe me," his eyes flickered towards Freddy before back to Basnet, steel entering his voice, "I will speak up."

"Alright, now," Basnet turned her piercing gaze onto the teenager who squirmed in her seat, "Freddy, what did you have for breakfast?"

It seemed a harmless question if it weren't for the fact that she couldn't remember.

"I believe I had some toast and tea."

"Do you believe or know?"

"Believe," Freddy answered, clipped and strangled.

Basnet noted something down on parchment, "This morning, what time did you wake up?"

"Seven o'clock; I went for a walk with Micah." She could smell the lavender, see the brick they walked on. She was sure of that.

"Where did you walk to?"

"The shops down the road had to pick up some things." The man greeted them, or was it his daughter? What day was it... Tuesday? His daughter then.

"What things? List them."

"Milk, bread, some cleaning supplies for mum. I wanted one of their cookies."

"Flavor?"

"Chocolate." Her fingers ran over the packaging still in her pocket, the embossed words 'Ghirardelli' guiding her answer.

"Good, you had breakfast when you came home?"

"Yes, I had a small vision while we were walking, just a flash."

"What was it?"

"A child screaming."

Basnet frowned, "Just a flash?"

"Just her and the sound, then it went away, lasted less than half a second."

Kingsley was watching Basnet's hands like a hawk, no doubt trying to decipher what she was writing.

"So you believe you had breakfast, then you came straight here."

"Yes." Freddy shifted her weight.

"Who helped you at the Visitors Gate?" The question came fast, a little voice in her head that sounded suspiciously like Tierney whispered 'Your Mom.'

"Gerald, we chatted for a few minutes, nothing crazy. He was asking about my plans for post-grad." she ground her teeth. "I told him I was leaving after graduation, maybe to join a circus." That earned her two eye-rolls from both adults. "I said I had enough experience working with mimes and clowns." Basnet sneered and continued to jot things down.

"Who was the Auror on guard?"

Freddy stopped.

Fuck. Wait, no, she had seen them. They had waved them through. She knew them, but their faces were blurred. Their robes weren't trimmed with any color.

"I'm not sure of their name!" She answered brightly, "I don't know everyone in the Auror Department." She hoped the lie would stick.

But Basnet pressed further, steepling her fingers and peering at her over the tips of her chipped manicure. "Who were they, Freddy? Surely you would know most of the Aurors; give me an image, a gender."

"Now it's insulting to assume they use one of the binary genders, Madame Basnet!" Freddy was grasping at straws now, plowing through her memory over and over again. Who was standing there? Had they smiled? Did Freddy touch them? Sometimes the Aurors give her high fives or slip her a candy. She patted her pockets; they were empty except for the cookie wrapper and some lint. So who was at the Gate? "I can't-- I don't. I wasn't paying attention."

"It was Auror Amara Bones," Freddy's mouth went dry, and unshed tears came to her eyes, "but you can't remember that can you? Who held the door open for you on the elevator?" It was a woman, right? Freddy began to tug on the sleeves of her sweater. Maybe it was a man, a tall man? That didn't seem right... "What did you have for dinner last night? Who did you have lunch with last week? What is the name of the delivery boy at your work?"

Questions began to pile up before Freddy finally shook her head.

"I--"

"What. Is going on." Kingsley stood from his chair, coming around to press a hand to the top of Freddy's head. "What are you badgering her for?"

"Short-term memory loss," Basnet finally said, "her memory it's," she wiggled her fingers, "going wonky for lack of a better term. Her power is a mental one. The more it gets used, the stronger it gets, the more it affects the brain."

"What does that mean?"

"What it means, Mr. Shacklebolt is that Freddy is losing her memories, short blips of time are being lost in her day-to-day life, and your visions are getting stronger, more detailed, aren't they? What did your vision smell like?"

"Piss." It came sharp, "The child was screaming and smelled like pee, the ground was brick, and it was cold out."

"All that in a flash requires a mind to remember. As they get stronger, her daily memories get lost."

"What is your plan?"

Basnet shook her head, "There really isn't one; we can just continue to manage the Visions, work on keeping them longer or stopping them when they start. But the memory loss is a side effect, like her migraines, like her nosebleeds. So it can only be managed, not healed."

"So what you're telling me is that all this is a waste of our goddamn time?" Kingsley was angry now, but his voice boomed from deep within his chest. "She is coming here just to have you manage her?

"Teach her to handle it better, Mr. Shackle--"

"Get up, Freddy," the teenager flinched as Kingsley seemed to dominate the room, though Basnet sat pristinely and seemingly unaffected at her desk, "we are leaving. I will not have you waste your time as it gets worse."

"Freddy, stay."

The teenager hovered at the couch, her fists tightening under their equal gaze.

"Freddy, you know you can't leave yet, don't you?" Basnet's voice was sugar-sweet, "Your time isn't up today, as agreed upon."

Persephone chose her place with Hades, she decided to eat the pomegranate seeds, and Freddy desperately wished to throw hers up.

"Uncle... The contract says 8 hours a week during non-school time. I can't leave yet."

Her Uncle was breathing thunderclouds before sitting back down in the chair, "Continue," he ground out.

Slowly Freddy walked through last week. She could count up at least 20 instances of purely lost memory. More than 50 flashing visions, and 5 of the longer ones. They continued to record and tally up each one until finally they were done at the two-hour mark. Taking a deep breath, Freddy leaned against the back of the couch, her legs pulled up against her chest despite being far too tall for such a position.

"I think that is enough for the day," Basnet finally hummed, "We can make up the hours later this week, perhaps Friday?"

"Sure, I don't work that day."

"Excellent, now I want you to keep a notebook, make notes of when you forget things. Then, start playing some muggle brain games. I've heard Sudoku is helpful, and we'll talk to St. Mungo's about their memory-impaired patients and what they do. So that'll be my homework." Freddy nodded, hopping off the couch and stretching out her tensed limbs as her Uncle stood by the door, opening it.

"Mr. Shacklebolt," the man didn't look at her, "next time, do tell me when you plan on dropping by, we can have a more formal session planned, and it won't be as startling then while we do our work."

"Thank you for your time. Freddy, let's go."

The duo strode through the Department Atrium. They passed into the white marble room, where the receptionist quirked a brow. She knew that Freddy's sessions were usually much longer. Then they stepped into the elevator, and with a murmured silencing charm, Kingsley looked down at her.

"I want to see that contract."

"Dad has it."

"I want a legal team to search it," there was a lightness in her chest, "she is a goodman quack, you are getting worse, and your control is minimal at best."

Freddy grimaced because, in truth, it was better than it had ever been, but neither her Uncle nor Basnet needed to know that. She didn't need Basnet poking around her head any more than she usually did.

"We can find other help. There are many bright wix in the world who can help you, other Seers."

"I know. But we need to stop talking about it, the wards..." watching the arrow tick up and up.

"Of course," they both fell silent as the voice rang out -- "8th Floor!"

Freddy leaned against her Uncle's arm, and he curled her tighter against him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I had no idea how bad your condition has gotten." She nodded slowly, trying not to let a tear fall. "We'll get you out of this contract, get you some real help. Basnet has done well with your control, but frankly, it's not enough anymore."

"She tried--" Freddy started weakly before closing her jaw together with a click. The wards were in place, and Freddy was far too terrified to talk too much about what Basnet had her doing. What envelopes she was pushing. Freddy could only think of the swirls of the room, the way she'd wake up, her memory blank and energy drained, the way she'd vomit blood up, and the glare of a timer going far, far past the agreed 10-minute mark. Breaking the Vows of Silence for the Department of Mysteries led to tragedy. Though Freddy had looser restrictions than any regular Unspeakable, she hardly wanted to test the boundary here.

"Trying to use the wrong family's kid is what she’s trying to do.” He was tense, every inch of him and every movement militaristic. “I'll have the Head of the Department investigate her. Then we'll see where we're at with getting you a new teacher. I’ll speak with my Mother, she has connections with the other magical schools." So this really was a family matter.

But, Freddy knew that it would take a lot more than the Shacklebolt name thrown around to get her out of the contract. But she let her Uncle have the optimism and simply let him crack jokes and tell funny anecdotes for the rest of the elevator ride up. Freddy popped in on occasion, exchanging a quip or describing a new story about her friends from school and things going on at the candy shop.

Freddy hardly noticed they were already at the Visitor's Gate, a low thrumming headache forming at the back of her skull. She rubbed gently at her eyes; they were aching too. Maybe she ought to get checked at St. Mungo's to see if they could get her any more potent headache potions.

"Gerald! I didn't know you were working today."

"Huh, lassie? You were just here, not even 3 hours ago? I checked you in, remember?" Gerald gently took her visitor's badge, "We were chatting..."

Freddy's face fell, and Kingsley tensed as she tripped over her words before finally exiting. Amara stood there, concern blatant; Freddy peered up at her before sharply turning away. They paused at the fireplaces, and Freddy looked at Kingsley, tears in her eyes, and whispered quietly. He seemed deep in thought.

"Uncle King?"

"Hmm?"

"Do you know if I Flooed in this morning?"

Kingsley Shacklebolt looked down on her, a feat with her height, and gently slid his hand into hers and tugged her into the Floo, gently calling out "Ryland Residence, Falmouth."

Freddy let her world go up in flames and didn't remember stepping out of them this morning.

#scene ii: the art of memory #sp #sp: the art of memory #on freddy #freddy ryland

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life-after-bang · 4 years

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I will be slowly asking you for hcs in no particular order for the aurora boys, so buckle up! How about our precious baby Damir :) Also, you are so sweet, I’m going to cry 💜💜💜

[Aaw, thank you, sugar!💕💕 No worries, I’ll complete all requests, but why only aurora?;) I’m not sure what particular hc you ask so, I suppose, it was a general relationship hc, right]

Damir relationship headcanons

• Once he’s into a relationship, he takes it very serious, as the memory of his parents relations is still painful. He never wants to be like his father.

• Damir is reliable as a Swiss knife. Prudent, down to earth, a bit lack of sense of humor. He’s always there for you.

• Being raised in Kazakh traditions, he acts respectful to women and will be very respectful to you. But he’ll expect the same attitude in return.

• He cares about Spartans much, but especially about you. He always asks about the way you feel to make it sure that you’re healthy and cheerful.

•It may make him feel himself annoying from time to time, but once you assure him that it’s all right, he’ll calm down. For some time.

• He may seem strict and grouchy the majority of time but in fact he is very understanding, delicate, and caring.

• Very patient, he will calmly listen to your endless talkings, nervous mess and all.

• It would be challenging for him, but he’ll ask you to stay with him on Kaspiy. If you refuse, he will stay with the team but will keep in mind his people left in the wasteland and will try to find the way to stay in touch by the radio.

• He’s sad cause he knows that he will never be able to introduce you to his mom.

• “She would’ve been absolutely kind to you like to her own daughter”

• He’s quite a strong guy so he’ll lift you up on hands often just in order to have some fun for both of you and demonstrate you his strength.

• He’ll never show his feelings in public because of his upbringing: he’s convinced that all closeness should stay behind closed doors.

• He’s a real sweet tooth and won’t miss an opportunity to get some sugar or something. Despite its rareness, he will certainly share the last piece with you.

• Constant “I told you it would be like that”

#correct me the next time if I was wrong #metro exodus #metro headcanon #headcanons #metro games #damir #romantic #hc #metro headcanons

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sovietniik · 3 years

Text

when : early evening , — december 1920 where : the fruit and vegetable shop who : @maryasky

the flat itself is falling apart . peeling pastel floral wallpaper , creaky wooden floors , a leaky kitchen sink that would keep him up all night if he was the sort to get a decent night sleep ( he isn ’ t , so instead it will keep him company . ) the length of the room is twice its width , giving it the impression that he is living in a hallway . aleksei has always been ambivalent about his living quarters despite an upbringing that never left him wanting for anything , so this does not bother him much . spartan is just fine with him . he ’ s moved in with one suitcase and one suitcase only , and the only thing he ‘ s managed to unpack in the day he ‘ s been here is his ashtray . the ceramic dish teeters precariously on the window sill now as aleksei enjoys the swirl of nicotine in his lungs ; smoke curls into the sky like a chimney . the same window sill , with chipped green paint , oversees the fruit and vegetable shop of one marya sergeyevna and this is the only reason aleksei is putting up with this place .

from here , he can just make out the dark mahogany locks and slender frame of the medik in the crosshairs of his vision . the sovietnik ’ s head has made a home for the hum of his suspicions ; most days he hears that wasp nest sound somewhere in the back of his mind . it is a white noise that bleeds into the cacophony of the rest of the world and there is a comfort in it , he ‘ s found . a reminder that he is still alive and alert , at least for another moment . aleksei is SUSPICIOUS of everyone and marya is no different . there ‘ s blank spaces in the history of her . the medik is just one of the changes that has occurred in his absence, and aleksei can only stand a state of ignorance for so long . he decides if he has to buy a flat now that he is back in the city , it might as well be the flat across from marya ’ s fruit and vegetable shop . two birds with one bullet , as the saying goes . the sovietnik is certain only good will come of such proximity and observation : he will either identify and isolate a weakness or they will grow closer because of it . besides , if his pakhan insists that he stay in one of two locations to preserve the secrecy of his identity , then aleksei will make the most of it .

he stubs out his cigarette when it ’ s burned down and without much more ceremony than that, he grabs his jacket and descends to the street ; the movement not unlike lucifer descending from heaven - it ’ s a stroll , not a fall .

aleksei finds the smell of fresh fruit and vegetables pleasant ; something to be enjoyed for its sweet effervescence . ❛ marya , ❜ he calls out for her attention as he makes his way to the storefront . they ’ ve passed before in the hallways of the volkov estate . he knows those sharp , bright eyes will recognize him . ❛ it ’ s not my intention to disturb you, but i thought i would come over and say hello . . . seeing as how we are to be neighbors - ❜

he points to his little green window across the street . he offers no smile but his voice holds a semblance of kindness . . . and it simply is a semblance , just barely the real thing . because here is the thing : aleksei petrov does not believe in KINDNESS - but he believes in SURVIVAL , and there are moments such as these that he finds that in order to ensure one , he must succumb to the other . a fucking tragedy, really. he looks at marya down the slope of his nose ; a cat wondering if he’s staring at a mouse - will there be a chase ?

❛ - seems i have every excuse to visit now. ❜

#man its late i should be asleep im sorry for how terrible this is #ii ; INTERACTIONS ;#; marya sergeyevna ;#; marya sergeyevna 001 ;

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jackalopingintothevoid · 6 years

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I loved that so much!! I love how you really paid attention to John’s touch starvation

I’m so glad!! Touch starvation is such an important part of this story, at least at the start. It’s what will get John so attached so quickly to these strangers during a time when he has every reason to be distrustful. Sampoorna is very nurturing as a person, but while Mochou is more curious than cautious she would definitely have struggled to let go of that initial wariness without it. It’s one of the things that will get Alouette to change her mind, what will convince Fiona not to be standoffish.

He’s going to display a lot of thought processes and behaviour that will be reminiscent or neglect or abuse. His inherent selflessness, his Spartan upbringing, his strict self-discipline, the subconscious markers of his experiences of loss and war, even his shyness– or more specifically, how those aspects of himself have come together to shape him– will present him without context as someone who has learned not to complain, talk back, ask for help or even admit to personal preference. Some of that will ease as he becomes familiar with these new people, but some of it will be harder to move past, and it clearly and correctly shows the crew that he is someone who has suffered a great deal for a long time.

War can make people hard and cruel, but it can also make them immeasurably kind. Yes, there’s going to be shenanigans and fun outings and hilarity, but at its core this is a story about broken people being kind.

#anon #anyone know this john doe?#john 117 #master chief

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ezra-brainrot · 3 years

Text

“you find adventures in places i couldn’t see” retrospective - ch 1

Spoilers for Howl’s Moving Castle the book, the movie, and my fanfic below!

Hello! So - this is me trying something a little different. I’ve seen writers review / lampshade their works before so - this seems like a perfect time to go back and explain a few bits and share some rly dumb coincidences and try to help explain some random plotholes as they come about.

This is a Howl’s Moving Castle AU so - if you’ve seen the movie or read the book (and seriously - read the book! It’s super neat!!) then a lot of it should be familiar. This background commentary also has spoilers for - well, everything.

Other random asides - the title comes from a line in a song called “Nothing in this World” by Taxiride. No relevance, I’m just a music nerd.

The biggest difference between the book and the movie is that the book is its protagonist. There’s a joke that the movie is told from Howl’s perspective (where he is suave, tragic, romantic, and likable) whereas the book comes from Sophie’s (Howl is aggravating, annoying, over-dramatic, a liar). But the bigger thing with the book is that Sophie, as the POV character, refuses to believe she’s the protagonist of a fantasy romance because she’s “too boring” to be a lead character. She very stubbornly insists that she’s nothing special as she’s the eldest daughter of a well-off businessman and she doesn’t hate her stepmother all the while ignoring that she’s a very powerful witch that has the power to give “magic” to inanimate objects around her. So - I guess I should start?

The wicked wizard Hugor was causing trouble in the highlands north of New Galatea. His castle, a big, blackened assembly of sharp weapons and grey stones, sputtered around the rolling hills, disturbing all the goats and sheep and cows that normally spent their lives peacefully grazing on the highland grass and blue wildflowers.

This is how the book starts.

Few people lived, once they’d met Hugor in the flesh. It was said he would descend into the town late at night and challenge young men to duels

Kind of true, but only twice.

and feed their souls to his blood-red blade.

Not true, if only because Felix doesn’t have a soul-sucking blade and red is a tacky color for it.

It was said he’d carve out the virtue of young maidens should they be outdoors after the sun disappeared beneath the horizon.

Only once. This is from the books (Howl eats hearts of the women he seduces) but it really paid off to include it!

It was said that his eyes glowed with burning hellfire where his heart had once been.

100% true and the first hint of a connection between Felix and Sylvain.

Dimitri did not care as much for the possessed sword bit. But mostly, he was rather perturbed for the livestock.

Dimitri is very much a protector, even if it is only initially about goats and sheep and cows. Their feelings matter too!

“My, they are getting quite large, aren’t they? All of you will become the most impressive goats in all of Faerghus, won’t you?” Dimitri asked as he leaned down to rub behind a black goat’s ear. His owner, a rather short farmer named Albert, simply glowered at the sputtering black eyesore on the horizon.

(It was true actually. New Galatea’s livestock, without fail, took home the blue ribbons in the annual Faerghus Farming Fair. Old Gertrude, a cow nearly as old as Dimitri, was the current record-holder for “Very Large Cow.”)

This is the first nod to Dimitri’s ‘power’ which is mostly to give blessings to others as well as affect reality in small ways.

I was trying not to go too broad because if this was longer and/or more dramatic, I imagine Dimitri would very much have a crisis of believing he could curse people with just a nasty word said. But in general, Dimtiri’s “power” only works so long as he is not selfish with it and it’s up to “Faerghus” (the land / spirit of the land / whatever magic runs the country) to decide how to implement what Dimitri says. So his control over his own abilities is actually very limited.

Whereas Felix, being a talented wizard, can do just about anything so long as he knows how to cast the spell properly.

Tl;dr - Dimitri’s magic powers are significantly stronger but not really under his control due to the being a part of the royal line; Felix might be a little weaker but he’s also the one who can actively control his magic.

“They aren’t doing anything so long as that vagabond is drifting about.” Albert huffed and stared pointedly at Dimitri. “When’s your pa going to scare that ragamuffin off?”

I’d like to think the farmers of New Galatea are all secretly the type of people that live in a magical fantasy land and just say “Yeah, whatever, I have work to do.” and find the entire thing really silly. If you’ve ever read Discworld, they’re meant to invoke Lancre where kings are seen as a necessity but very boring and not special if they can’t do a day’s farm work.

Dimitri awkwardly brushed a strand of hair behind his ear. “Yes. Well.” He bowed. “I will see what we can do.”

Dimitri’s hair is still very Boy Scout-esque in this fic although he’s been letting it grow just a little bit longer.

Albert nodded approvingly. “Do that. Can’t have the mayors falling down on the job with no king to guide us, you know.”

The king, it was said, was on his deathbed - yet another thing that had most of Faerghus uneasy. The heir died many many years ago in a fire and the throne would inevitably fall to the king’s brother - by all accounts a lazy skirt-chaser who cared nothing for the Flame Witch to the high north or the Adrestian Empire to the south.

I… didn’t really think up much of a backstory here besides “fire.” Ultimately it just came down to everyone losing track of the heir who somehow ended up in New Galatea orphaned and with amnesia but young enough that everyone kind of collectively assumed he was someone’s child. Alois and Gertrude adopted him after his initial family died and Dimitri was brought up in a loving household despite the terrible, terrible puns.

“I will speak to my father upon my return. Do give your wife my regards.” Dimitri bowed once more and, after a moment, made sure to scratch the goat’s ear one last time.

“Yes - it is very important indeed that we protect the cows. Or should I say - provide sheepcurity.'' Alois, Sothis bless him, made a sharp snort before shaking his head. “Really. To have all this trouble at such a time - surely the Goddess is laughing at us.”

Alois was, by all accounts, a very caring man and an effective enough mayor for a small-sized town. He was friendly and boisterous enough to handle crises and loud and physical enough to handle the vagrants that occasionally would come through and threaten the peace. He’d taken care of Dimitri ever since Dimitri’s parents met an untimely death and indeed, Dimitri had not a single complaint of his upbringing save the occasional painful pun.

They were funny when he was a bb!Mitri. “What do you get from a holy cow?” was his favorite.

“I could go up to the wizard and speak to him?” Dimitri offered. They were both sitting in the small, spartan mayor’s office as Alois parsed through letters and notes and muttered over a map of Faerghus. Dimitri didn’t miss the several little red circles that indicated Adrestian forces drifting through, supposedly under the pretense of searching for some lost princess that disappeared years ago.

I really hesitated on including Edelgard here but I thought it would make a nice parallel that the two major countries lost their children, as well as that if you’re going to make the Flame Witch, there’s not many characters to draw from. I’ll try and go into more detail later there though.

Lost princesses and dead princes and wizards and witches running about. Perhaps Sothis really was playing some sort of joke upon Fodlan.

“You shouldn’t need to do anything, my boy.” Alois reached out to pat Dimitri’s shoulder. “You know, I heard Ashe did indeed receive knighthood at Gautier. Perhaps you should follow his footsteps? I hear they’re looking for young men to help with the border there and, after all, you’re quite adept with a spear. I would hate to see you spend your life looking out for this place.”

Dimitri smiled although the effect was more than a little strained. It was true - he remembered the day Ashe had set out and their last conversation where he’d reassured Ashe that he would certainly end up as a knight the second he set foot in Gautier.

Second mention of Dimtiri’s power, although it was really Ashe’s hard work. Dimitri’s blessing just provides the ‘in.’ Dimtiri’s aware enough and empathetic enough to note things about people; his blessing just helps them achieve it.

And Mercedes, bless her, who went off to serve in the church. Dimitri always did speak highly of her ability to soothe troubled souls.

Third.

And Dedue, his dear childhood friend, who had opened a restaurant to great aplomb, just as Dimitri knew he would. Dedue had, Dimitri noted, never burned a meal in his life.

Fourth.

But Dimitri was different. He was not the son of a poor farmer who, as a general rule, found out they were related somehow to some long-lost nobility and had some great destiny to fulfill. He was not the youngest child who tended to rise to the greatest fame and fortune and he got along quite well with his little sister Hannah instead of some great sibling schism that always led to blood and tragedy. He did not have any magic beans or long-lost artifact that needed to be returned to its owner. He did not even have an evil stepmother as Alois’s wife Gertrude was quite kind and devoted to her children.

Very much invoking book!Sophie here and the “I can’t be a protagonist because protagonists fulfill very specific criteria.” It’s not the refusal of the call - it’s assuming the call just has the wrong number and wants to talk to the farmboy three doors down.

This meant that Dimitri would forever live a life of mediocrity in a medium-sized town. At some point, perhaps, he’d dreamed of more but he was happy enough. Someone had to look out for the farmers and the sheep and manage merchant disputes.

Again invoking the book and the “Oh well this is good enough for me.” I was a little unsure starting out as to whether it was Dimitri holding himself back out of obligation / duty to those around him or general unease about adventuring as Dimitri in canon very much has issues with duty and obligation and who to provide his duty to. So - he’s looking at the small picture here, I guess, instead of following his own inner desires and has convinced himself that it’s all fine because someone has to do the small town jobs.

“Please don’t worry about me.” Dimitri pulled a letter from the stack. “I’m sure I’ll be quite fine.”

New Galatea was considered a quaint pass-through to most of Faerghus. Few people paid it any mind but no one spoke ill of it. The weather was quite nice, especially in comparison to northern Faerghus’s bitter cold. The inside of the town was usually bustling with activity as it had a rather well-known haberdashery

This is Sophie’s career in the book and the movie.

and a bakery that sold the most delicious pastries made with the most impressive goat cheese around.

This is what one of Sophie’s sisters does as she never wanted to be a magician and instead liked baking. The book does a lot with “wrong assumptions all around.”

At the center of the town was an old, creaking water wheel that had gone through so many iterations and repairs over the years that no one could remember why it was built or what it looked like to begin with.

Idk - I just hadn’t written a water wheel yet?

Dimitri had memorized each route, each bridge, each door of the pathway. He smiled pleasantly and greeted each and every member of the community and inquired politely about their goings-on. Each afternoon he spent some time in a private area of the back alleys to perfect his lancework, just to spend some time gathering his thoughts together.

And yet this afternoon he felt somehow - small. There was nothing unusual, aside from the speck of Hugor’s castle whirling around somewhere past the town limits. There was no danger, no bandis, no upset merchants that he could tell.

It was just him.

Alone.

Trying to invoke a feeling of “It’s fine that I’ve done this 888 times before and will do 888 times more.”

Dimtiri thought of Ashe and then Dedue - perhaps one day he would venture out and visit them. One day. There was still so much that needed to be done and Alois certainly had his hands full as it was. Perhaps -

Dimitri felt eyes on him.

He turned, pausing to look up as someone drifted into his field of vision. It was a young man - perhaps his age, if not slightly younger. He wore soft blues and had dark hair and a sword tucked against his hip.

Dimitri fixates very heavily on Felix’s looks. Everyone else will get a passing mention to set the scene but Dimitri always notes what Felix is wearing and his hair.

“May I help you?” Dimitri asked politely. Mercenaries and swordsmen weren’t an unusual sight but usually they stayed very close to the center of the town before going on their way. This one was rather -

Pretty -

Perhaps a knight from one of the lords then?

“Where did you learn to do that?” The stranger asked in a low, measured tone.

Okay so - going ahead in the fic here as well as spoiling a good bit of the book.

Book lore - The Witch of the Waste has almost been fully consumed by her fire demon. The fire demon, needing a new host, goes after the wizard serving the king and takes him (literally) apart to build the “perfect” wizard. His extra pieces become a dog, a skull, and a scarecrow. There is a lot of “Because Magic” involved here.

Howl is of particular interest because he’s clever but also a coward and so keeps slipping out of the Witch’s grasp. Howl thinks it’s because he jilted her which is - partially true, but also not really because the fire demon’s involved too and needs Howl to complete its new wizard host.

Fic lore - Lambert sent Rodrigue and Glenn out to search for his missing son upon realizing that baby!Dima wasn’t dead at all. Of the two, Rodrigue was captured by the (unnamed) demon and replaced / put under a deep sleep.

Glenn came to New Galatea as he was getting very close to figuring out Dimitri’s location because Glenn is an expert at investigation and hunting. He runs into the Flame Witch who, under influence of her flame demon, tries to capture him. Glenn had just enough time to shapeshift part of himself into a dog and run away. Glenn lives the normal life of a sheepdog even though a little part of his mind keeps fixating that he’s supposed to do something important.

Upon “Rodrigue’s” return to Fhirdiad, Felix recognizes that the “person” isn’t his father and so he bolts to hide out in his very own castle (which isn’t really a castle so much as a small cottage with moving rooms hiding behind the guise of a scary sword-castle) while still trying to track down his older brother and figure out what to do. This is also hindered by him starting to lose himself as Sylvain can’t help but burn through Felix’s heart which makes him less and less empathetic and ‘good.’

And so - Felix goes to New Galatea where he coincidentally runs into a most attractive young man who is wielding his lance suspiciously exactly like the king in his younger years.

Dimitri awkwardly spun his lance around, more out of habit than showing off. “I taught myself.”

The swordsman raised an eyebrow. He stepped closer, slowly -

Dimitri lifted his weapon just as the stranger charged. He blocked a high blow, then a lower one, then he whirred around to counter as his opponent deftly swung his blade downwards.

On impulse, Dimitri shoved his weapon forward, catching the stranger in his sternum. He fell back to the ground and Dimitri pressed the blunt tip of his spear against the other’s stomach.

Hey you remember the wicked wizard challenging young men to duels? Good thing he didn’t have a soul-sucking blade!

Dimitri and Felix should always meet in a duel it is romance.

And then Dimitri jerked back, flushed and embarrassed.

The stranger ‘s expression remained neutral but there was a slight upturn of his lips. “You’re good.”

Felix, inwardly, “Oh. He’s hot and talented.”

“Oh. No.” Dimitri shook his head, trying to settle the solid thud of his heart. “I do apologize for my recklessness.”

The stranger stood up, casually brushing the stray dirt off his trousers. He tucked his sword back in its sheath and went back to considering Dimitri.

“Hot and talented and probably the king’s son.”

“You could come with me, you know.” He tilted his chin northwards. “I’m headed for Fhirdiad.”

Felix is being self-indulgent here because sparring partner? That wins? That might be the prince? He’s still not going to admit to being the son of the duke though because Felix is also avoiding that particular subject and you don’t want to tip off that someone is really the prince unless you’re absolutely certain.

Dimitri bowed his head apologetically. “That’s not necessary. I am quite happy here.”

“”Be that way then.” The stranger sniffed disdainfully. “Keep living as some old, stubborn bore.”

“Why good looking maybe-prince not want to spar with me? :|”

And then he turned on his heel and walked off, not sparing a moment’s glance backwards.

Dimitri gripped his lance and wondered why he felt so - disappointed.

“Why good looking mysterious swordsman just spurn me? :(“

That night he stood in his very small room and stared into his very small mirror and sighed.

“Perhaps I really am an old boar after all.”

And this is where Dimitri creates his own curse.

He did not sleep very well.

Rain moved in to the highlands the next day. Dimitri did not remember the scholars predicting such but New Galatea weather was rather fickle.

Second part of the entire Dimitri is a magical prince bit - he can (passively) affect the weather. I really want to do a more overt Fisher King Dimilix AU someday but this is not it.

Alois packed his things and announced he would set out to speak to the regional governor to try and shoo off the bothersome wizard. Dimitri smiled and promised to mind the mayor’s office so that Gertrude and Hannah could accompany Alois on his journey.

Perhaps it was his bout yesterday but he’d noted a dull pain in his joints. If that was how one felt after a spar, he could only imagine the aches Ashe received!

Still, it was quiet. Few people would venture out in such a heavy downpour. Dimitri read through tax form after tax form and then, after that started to give him an odd case of eye strain, he turned his attention to the map of Faerghus.

This is to hint that he’s already aging rapidly here.

The door opened.

He blinked, looking up to see a small woman in bright red silk and black furs. Her light, almost white hair was fixed in tight braids. She carried herself with a grace Dimitri rarely saw around New Galatea.

Edelgard / Flame Witch is trying to track down Felix. At some point in the past they had an altercation where he cut out a small piece of her heart as he recognized the same fire demon connection as he had. It was partially a mercy, partially Felix being vindictive because he thinks she’s responsible for Glenn’s disappearance. (She is, but not the reason for it!)

I didn’t write / create a full backstory for either of them but they both made a connection with their fire demons when they were young teenagers and a little more reckless than is healthy. The difference is that Sylvain’s pretty easy-going and he and Felix are fast friends whereas Edelgard’s demon is greedy and malicious and burning through her pretty darned fast so she’s lost much more of her humanity. If Dimitri didn’t cut the curse when he did, Felix too would eventually become super-cruel and warped and fixate only on things like swords and himself.

“May I help you?” Dimitri asked, trying to sit up straight. Something inside felt wary; almost hesitant under her gaze. A mouse waiting to see what a cat would do to them.

“What did he want with you?” The woman asked, crossing her arms. “The wizard?”

Dimitri’s brain stuttered. “I beg your pardon?” He hadn’t ever met a wizard - not in all the years he’d been about. Surely he’d remember such. Wizards were rare and, aside from the wicked ones, served as advisors to royalty.

“I know he found you.” She pursed her lips. “There’s no need to be coy.”

Dimitri just does not want to think he’s a protagonist in a story here.

Dimitri rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “I can assure you - no one found me. I have no idea who you’re - “

He stopped.

The swordsman yesterday did not have glowing eyes. He most definitely did not perform any magic. Surely it was not -

No. This woman was - was quite dangerous. He could tell. “I’m sorry. I cannot help you.”

“Very well then.” The woman took one step back. “Continue to be stubborn, if you must. I’ll find him one way or another.” She turned to head back towards the door and paused, her hand hovering against the doorknob. “By the way - you will not be able to tell a soul about that little curse of yours. Have a good day.”

Edelgard does curse him, but only that he can’t speak about his situation. Dimitri’s just not aware of it because magic likes semantics.

I didn’t want Edelgard to be overly-malicious here because she’s basically Felix’s parallel and a lot of it is limited to Dimitri’s very limited POV. She never actively harms Dimitri because well, she’s just after Felix for taking away her heart and the flame demon working through her.

And then she was gone.

Dimitri rubbed at his nose again, tired, somehow even more aching and -

He looked down, startled to see wrinkles on his skin. There was an unfamiliar age spot against his knuckle, and then another.

He tried to jump to his feet but his bones protested with each and every aching movement. He shuffled weakly to the nearest mirror and stared -

An old man with ghostly white hair stared back at him. His skin was covered in wrinkles and age spots and his nose was more snout than human. Atop his wispy hair were two pig-ears, folded over and downright absurd.

In retrospect I… kind of needed to write the pig-nose part better. I handwaved it with most of the people Dimitri interacts with are just used to magic shenanigans and too polite to ask what’s going on there.

Well.

Dimitri felt strangely distant as his own hand went up to touch the wrinkly pig-man’s face. He felt skin like dry paper, hardly that of a young man.

Distantly, he went to the back area of the mayor’s office and gathered some plain cheese and dried bread, a coat and, after a moment of guilt, reached for one of Gertrude’s old light blue shawls. He tied it slowly around his face and shrugged the coat on, noting how much heavier the fabric felt.

In my first draft I forgot about the raining business and nearly had him going outside completely unprepared. Glad that I caught it!

Before he left, he wrote a short, one-paragraph letter in scrawling, shaking handwriting that he was most sorry but was going off due to an unforeseen circumstance.

The farmers would not be pleased to meet with an old man, let alone one with a pig nose and pig ears. The sheep would be put off too, surely. Best not to upset anyone, let alone Alois and Gertrude who would be most troubled about taking care of an old man.

Sophie leaves in an equally shocked / distant state of “Oh. I guess this is fine.”

There was no one in New Galatea that could undo curses. Perhaps no one at all aside from another witch or wizard, and Dimitri doubted he would run into one on the side of the road!

Dimitri messing with Fate again here.

Slowly, carefully, Dimitri left the mayor’s office. He made sure to turn the sign in the window to “CLOSED” and apologized profusely for failing in his duties.

In my first draft I forgot about him switching the sign over and was like “GASP he would not be so irresponsible as to leave the place unlocked!!”

He tugged a coat tight around his shoulders and walked slowly, the rain pelting on his head, towards the highlands.

There was nothing to be done about it but leave after all.

#hmc au fic review

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renlyisright · 4 years

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Season 8 Episode 3 - The End

The end of the world has come. We are doomed, doomed! No one can stop it!

Or can she?

This episode was movie-long, or would be if movies weren’t so much longer these days. And all of it was battle. Battle, fighting, loud noises, battle. It was exhaustive to watch at the last 30 minutes, I have to admit, but it was earned. After teasing the monsters for so long and setting up the battle for several episodes, this was the time. The show has long since moved on from the battles being quick fades to black to spare the budget, so there’s been a lot of them lately. And now this Promised One should be the biggest of them all, with all the 80 minutes received for watching people die.

Oh, and there’s still three episodes, several villains and the whole game of thrones to go. After the end of the world. Life goes on, which I guess is a positive message?

The episode starts with a quick heads up of where everyone is, and where the armies are, ready to fight. The only thing missing is the enemy. It is out there, somewhere in the dark.

Watching into the abyss. Nothing watches back, or not?

A lone rider approaches, but it’s not a White Walker. Melisandre arrives from the night and gives Jorah cryptic orders. Jorah just rolls with it at this point, and Melisandre makes every arakh of the Dothraki burst out in flames. I have to say, those are some well trained horses. Then Melisandre moves inside the walls.

I feel like I’m hitting the same dead horse every time when I ask about how much does the Lord of Light see beforehand, and what his end goal is? Everyone being in his religion? And since no one can pray for him if everyone is dead, he tells his priests how to save the world.

But the light of the arakhs gives the Dothraki the courage to charge straight at the darkness, which could hold anything, starting from holes in the ground, and that’s the end of them. The greatest cavalry in the world, Dothraki on the open field, snuffed out just like that. And the battle has lasted for a minute.

So, Lord of Light, did you know that would happen? And you did it anyway? Because you needed them - and Ghost! - dead, for some future purpose? To make Jon suffer more? Otherwise the Night King wouldn’t have come forward? Is that what you are going to go with if someone asks?

What I have gathered is that this is not the usual theodicy problem of “If the God is all-powerful and all-good, why do bad stuff happen?” No one has said that the Lord of Light is all-good, he likes human sacrifice. He is also not all-powerful, as his arsenal seems to be “Tell people to do X, and what is going to happen if they do or don’t”, and some tricks with shadows, fire and resurrection. If he was all-powerful, I don’t think he would have the patience for any of that.

Of course, if you can see everything that people will do if you tell them X, then that is very powerful by itself. What have the other gods to offer? The Old Gods, if they are real and the reason Bran has powers, show what happens now or in the past. The Lord of Light can see the future. Or just calculate well enough as to guess mostly right every time?

Anyway, trying to figure out the motives and methods of an extranatural being, whose only interface to the story is through what the priests say, is a fool’s errand. But I don’t like it if everyone turns out to be a plaything for some mysterious thing who is never seen and can’t be punched in the end.

The first part of the battle ends abruptly, a quick breath and here we go for the next hour. On my first watch I couldn’t figure out what was shown in that very short glimpse of the enemy before the camera moved back. On pause I see that it’s a giant wight. It felt like a whole wall of the wights, which put in my mind a funny visual. Think about it, them standing on each other’s shoulders, and then the whole wall of them falling on top of the Dothraki when they come near. Splat.

As they say, what you can’t see is more scary than what you can see… or more funny in this case.

Jorah survived the first clash. Ghost didn’t. Goodbye Ghost, I enjoyed your constant companionship and presence just out of the frame. Maybe he didn’t die, but went there. Just out of frame, living happily ever after.

The dead come out of the darkness and instantly wreck all the defenses the defenders have, catapults, shield walls, everything. That was expected, considering how well shield walls usually hold in TV (maybe ten seconds). Everything becomes confused, Daenerys and Jon attack from above. Why didn’t they attack with the Dothraki? Well, when the enemy leader can one-shot your dragon you don’t go blindly to the enemy in the dark, showing right where you are with fire. Unlike Jorah and the Dothraki. That was very stupid.

Jon sees the White Walkers on the border of the Wolfswood, but before he gets to attack them, the winter arrives. The Night King brought it with him. The winds of winter wreck everything even further.

Nice, I wondered what the Dead can do against two dragons who can burn thousands of the enemy in a minute.

In the confusion of the storm of swords, Sam gets to see one of his last friends die. I was certain that Edd would survive. That’s what he does! He’s the grumpy guy who somehow turns up alive every single time, no matter how unlikely he himself deemed it. And he was a delight. But no. At the same time, Edd represented the last of the Night’s Watch. Jon has moved away to larger circles, and Sam, while still a brother, has been training to become a maester. Edd was the only named character still fully in the black, and after this episode the Night’s Watch is not needed anymore.

In this story, I mean. Is this the end of the White Walkers? Or will they return, one day, when the nights grow cold and the kings forget… Was the Night King the first Night King? And how much of the strength of the Walkers now can be blamed on Craster, who outright gave them more members?

The wildling population has been decimated, and decimated again, and after this night the Walkers are as well, so what is there to guard against anymore on the Wall? I can see it falling out of use if the people think that the Walkers are gone and the Lands beyond the Wall are now empty (and could use settlers from the South side of the Wall, if anyone wants to move there anytime soon). There’s also the matter of the spells in the Wall’s foundations. Can anyone remake them?

The dead’s tactic is to just run towards the enemy in absolutely no formation and then kick, bite and hit it with weapons until it stops moving. I’m sure that there are ways to counter that kind of attack, if it can also counter the enemy having no concept of self-preservation and there being a lot of them.

The retreat happens, with the Unsullied making sure that it happens in good order. I read a bit about Spartan upbringing, which was absolutely horrible, and surprisingly ineffective in action. It was good for propaganda and to make the enemy scared of you, but abusing people for their entire childhood did not actually a supersoldier make. But in this universe it does, and the Unsullied are the best at handling the situation of standing your ground when thousands of moving corpses are pushing your shield.

And then Grey Worm sacrifices them, or would have if they didn’t die already before the trench got lit. Melisandre prays the Lord of Light to light it, and he takes his sweet time with it. To make sure that as many of the Dead are in the trench as possible? Which means waiting until all the Unsullied on that side are dead. Hmm.

Poor Hound, the best weapon they have against the Dead is also the best weapon against him.

Bran goes to borrow the ravens, and locates the Night King. He is just ordering his forces to walk into the fire and stay there. Talk about lack of self-preservation…

It works, they get through and start to make a pile next to the wall.

The next ten-fifteen minutes are a blur of a battle. The wights attack and get further and further into the castle, people die a lot, named characters get to show their great skillz and so on.

In previous large episode-long battles there has been people on both sides whom we have followed and who have their own dreams and plans, and season-long arcs clash in the battle which determines how the rest of the show will go. Comparing them to previous large-scale fantasy battles I watched before this show was a thing (LotR, Narnia, Harry Potter), the difference was exactly that. In those the other side was made up of existential threat monsters, and the possible defeat meant that everyone is dead now and the story is over as everyone is dead. In previous seasons it was clear that some characters would die if they lost, but the show wouldn’t have been over

But this battle, this battle is exactly that. Which is why I had no doubt of its outcome. The Dead have to get defeated, the last episodes won’t be Cersei hearing that the North has fallen and getting on a ship to another continent. But many will die, like in the next scene, where Lyanna Mormont is guarding the gate when someone knocks on it.

They should really get a giant-proofed gate to Winterfell, this is a second time that one has wrecked it. Of course, if all the giants are dead and unmoving after this night, it doesn’t matter.

Lyanna gets a warrior’s death. Shame she doesn’t get to grow old, she would have been a good bannerman and a leader, by the Northern culture’s measures. But she had the choice, and she picked this death and protected her people. Hopefully it mattered, I don’t remember seeing any other giant wights after this one was destroyed so maybe this was the last one and the crypt isn’t breached or Theon smashed to the ground too early because of Lyanna. Thank you.

Jon and Daenerys climb over the storm, and the resulting view is very background-worthily beautiful. Westeros is beautiful when it’s not covered in blood and excrement.

Aaaand there’s the Night King with his dragon. He attacks, and is then gone again, baiting Jon and Daenerys to come back to the storm. They comply.

Arya sneaks around in Winterfell’s library and other rooms, hiding from the wights. The situation has very Battle of Hogwarts vibes. The enemy is in the place which has meant home and safety for this character (for Sansa the Boltons poisoned the place a lot but Arya didn’t see that).

She can’t hide from the forever, and when they hear her, it’s time for screaming and running. And running again. This castle is really big. Finally she gets to Beric and the Hound, and it’s time for a Last Stand.

If Joffrey had been a nicer kid he would have gotten a great sworn shield out of the Hound, he does take the job seriously when he actually cares. But the Last Stand belongs to Beric Dondarrion, he has the most experience.

All three get to the hearth hall, but Beric is too wounded to live much longer. His final death bought the life of Arya. And Melisandre comes to tell that this was why the Lord of Light brought him back so many times. “You’ve kept him alive so that he can die at the proper moment”, Snape would say.

Arya gets the hint of what her role is according to the Lord’s plan. Nice callback to Syrio Forel. “What do we say to the God of Death?” And, as everyone has been saying, Death is what they are up against.

The Night King gets bolder. He goes to attack Winterfell himself. And gets immediately slammed by Jon and Rhaegal. And it’s the dance with dragons as the body of Viserion and Rhaegal go at it with claws and teeth.

The clash of kings ends as the Night King falls into the storm, annoyed. Rhaegal is hurt and goes to the ground, dropping Jon. No idea where it went after that. Daenerys finds the landed riders and starts blasting the Night King with everything she’s got.

Aaand… dragonfire can’t harm him. No idea if it would have worked with the regular Walkers, as in Hardhome that one Walker just walked straight over a regular fire. Anyway, now Daenerys gets to see how it feels when someone else does the same trick as her.

After being blasted by dragonfire, the Night King looks only annoyed. He has just two facial expressions, serious and annoyed. He was given simple instructions: Destroy humans, and now he just tries to do his job if people would let him.

Here’s Jon trying to get a final duel to determine the future of the world. Since the beginning he’s been the greatest swordfighter, who has practiced and fought with ser Rodrik, Allison Thorne, wildlings, Rast, Thenns, wights, White Walkers, Ramsay Bolton, more wights… and now when he meets the final boss face to face, one to one, on the apocalyptic empty battlefield… the boss doesn’t have time for this, he has his job to do, and he can pull thousands of new underlings to deal with Jon.

The feast for crows gets delayed, as the dead defenders rise for a second turn on the same map but on different colors. Now everyone still alive has many many more problems. And from the quick shots it can be seen that the named characters already are almost alone. How did they hold even this long? It’s because of the camera. When it’s not looking, everyone can relax. A long time ago Robert died off-screen but that hasn’t been a problem for characters for a long time.

The Walkers want to be a part of the victory and do some actual walking. And when they do walk, they do it very menacingly, so I understand why it’s their brand.

When the Walkers were seen for the first couple of times in the early seasons, they were usually shirtless. But since Hardhome they have used more clothes. Why?

It will stay a mystery, they won’t tell.

Tyrion spends a lot of time in the crypt thinking that if he just were up there seeing what was happening he would figure out something. Sansa thinks he would just die, and I agree with that, especially as he is so out of his depth nowadays. I didn’t figure out the twist of them being in the crypt and the enemy being able to raise the dead, as obvious as it is in hindsight. But Tyrion is smarter than me and he still missed it. And if I had thought of the possibility before it happened I would have waved it away thinking that the bodies must be too old by now to be of any use even if they could be raised. Well I would have been wrong, they are springy for their age. But Ned isn’t one of them, decapitation has been useful against the Dead. That’s perhaps a relief, Sansa wouldn’t want that kind of a reunion.

Daenerys rescues Jon but makes a rookie mistake of landing in the middle of an enemy-occupied battlefield. Drogon gets swarmed but gets off, without Daenerys. Luckily Jorah is savvy enough to know that Daenerys hasn’t yet not got herself into these situations every time she is in a battle, so he knows to be there to help her.

Music starts. First on piano, then other instruments join in. Last time that happened the piece was called “Light of the Seven”, and it ended with an explosion. So the end is near, the clock is ticking.

The complete destruction of everything. Jon tries to get to Bran but the body of Viserion enters the arena. Now Jon gets to fight a dragon, on foot. You missed the big boss but here’s a dragon, you get to be a proper fantasy hero, just slay the dragon.

In the weirwood the wights stop attacking Theon, as the Night King has arrived. The rest of Bran’s defenders have died. Theon brought a small force of Ironborn to Winterfell, again, and they were no match for attackers, again. Theon has been deemed a failure and a loser by about everyone (including me back when he tried to be a villain but sucked at it), but he has succeeded in three things now: Saving Sansa, saving Yara, and now saving the world by holding the dead and the Night King back for long enough.

Bran comes back to his body to give comfort to this lost and found man. “You are a good man. Thank you.” Now was this Bran Stark who said that, or The Three-Eyed Raven Who Was Bran Once?

Theon takes his cue and tries once again. And fails. The Night King isn’t exhausted, and kills Theon with a simple stroke. And then it’s the end.

The Night King walks to Bran, and wants to show him how the fear is for the winter. He savors this final confrontation, which perhaps is allowed after so many millennia of trying. Similarly how this episode is the end of those eight and a half years the Others have lurked in my mind, ever since the first vision of them beyond the Wall. No wonder this is also my longest post yet.

Just when everything was going well for old Nikey, Arya arrives out of nowhere, and goes all assassin on the Death itself. These blue eyes shut down now, and he becomes part of the winter landscape.

The Walkers explode as well, and the Dead fall. The sound of their screeches moves back to the songs and legends.

Epilogue: Now Melisandre is no longer needed for her Lord, so she gets to die. Of her own choice? Does she have any choice? She drops the necklace, and walks out of the castle, to be claimed by the ices of winter, with the fires of the rising sun harboring a dream of spring.

The End.

Or no, wait, there’s three episodes left.

Just how big casualties this battle had, anyway? Is there any sort of army left here for either Daenerys or Jon to challenge Cersei? Pretty much everyone in the end was completely swamped by the dead, it’s lucky there’s anyone left.

Stannis said once (only in the book if I remember correctly), that he used to think that he had to get the throne to save the realm, but then he realized that he had to instead save the realm to get the throne. And then he went and got himself stuck in the snow, because it seemed smart to him at the time.

Anyway, now Daenerys has saved the realm. The hole in the Wall and the giant pile of the dead bodies outside and in Winterfell (or a giant pile of burned bodies) should show to any doubters that it was real. How much of an opinion boost will she get from Cersei’s bannermen and allies for that? Or does it matter at all, as they seem to be happy being under Cersei even though she is, you know, Cersei. And blew up their religion’s most holy building.

So I don’t expect there to be any big riot that would topple her from the throne, the resolution (in the form of a big battle, of course) will happen long before the good people of King’s Landing can do that. I mean, they tried, in the form of the revolutionary High Septon, and it didn’t work.

I have become much more sympathetic to the old chap after his torturing, humiliation of prisoners and pressing for confessions are fading from memory, and Cersei’s reign is on the forefront. His end goal would have been breaking the wheel too, and seeing how the rulers’ main complaint of him was not that he was enforcing horrible laws in the name of his gods, but that he was applying those same horrible rules to them too (how dare he!)... yeah.

There’s not much room left in the show to build up for another Great Last Battle (and it would feel redundant), so Cersei, Euron and the future occupier of the Iron Throne have to be wrapped up without anyone spending a night wondering about the coming armies and the possible end of everything. After the Army of the Dead, how hard can it be?

#renly is right #game of thrones #long night

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japanessie · 7 years

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Hi shelly, since you brought mama mori's book. I'm bother by my curiosity on whats in her book like I want to know how its like to be celebrity mom of two rock stars and their childhood stories and that the only book that I can't have 😁 which is frustrating😣. So if you don't mind to spoil even if its just a context..

You can get the book from here at Amazon Japan which is where I bought mine. Amazon is still essentially the world’s biggest online bookstore (^^)I haven’t really read the book. There are 5 chapters total. It will take me ages because I will have to input every Kanji character I don’t know or can’t remember into the Google translate app. I have only gone through the front cover and skimmed* through the Prologue.

* that means reading by ignoring all the Kanji I don’t know which are A LOT XDThe book isn’t about how it feels for her having two rock star sons. It’s about her values and principles as a mother in raising her sons to be the independent men she wanted them to be. Also, it is mainly about her own upbringing from a shy little girl to a successful singer to marriage to divorce to bouncing back from the heartache.

The front cover:

i. It mentions her parenting style as Spartan. You may read on about the history of Sparta where children were basically raised to be warriors (you may google “Sparta child”). She is a strict disciplinarian.ii. She wants her sons to be 「メシが食える男 / meshi ga kueru otoko / a man who can eat」. It means “independent”. Other than “to eat”, 「食える / kueru」 also means “to make a living, to survive”. The phrase is similar to how it’s expressed in my native language Malay. Basically, an independent man will know how to “make a living to feed himself”. Hence, “a man who can eat”.iii. If I’m not mistaken it was her own mother i.e the boys’ grandma who called her 「あんたが鬼のような母親 / anta ga oni no you na haha-oya / you are a demon-like mother」 because she could be overly strict sometimes.

The prologue:

She mentioned that being a mother is her ultimate dream since she was a kid. Being a superstar singer was something that just happened in her life. In other words, we can say that having the boys is her greatest joy and that she never regretted leaving her career for full-time motherhood. She also mentioned that she may not be perfect or correct all the time but she just wanted to share her triumphs and failures in raising them, hoping that she had done the best.

The highlights:

I had stated that I haven’t really read the book. So, I’m going to just list out some of the things in it that were highlighted when Mama Mori went on TV to promote it.

i. She called the boys by their birth order numbers. Taka is １番 / No.1, Tomo is ２番 / No.2 and Hiro ３番 / No.3.

ii. When Tomo came along, Taka started acting like a baby in order to get the same attention his little brother was getting. Cheeky XD

iii. When any of the boys misbehaved, she would make him sit and hear her lecture for at least ½ hr. I have this feeling that Taka is at the top of the list XD

iv. She’s very strict about table manners. The eldest would get the chopsticks first. They must use their right hands to eat. Tomo was a leftie child and she would tie his left hand to the chair to make him use his right hand. Anyone who didn’t finish his meal would not get the next meal.

v. She came back to her solo singing career partly because she needed to be financially independent again but also because her 3 sons encouraged her by saying “Mama, I would love to hear your song”. This one was on Yahoo e-news too which is where I originally read it.

vi. Her now legendary “younger child must speak to the older child using honourific language” (^^).

So, those are more or less what the book talks about.

What people have been saying in reviews

At least on the Amazon.jp reviews. Many gave it a 1-star. I feel that they were questioning her parenting style which may appear like mental torture to some and were judging her claim based on her sons’ behaviour and messages in their lyrics. Taka’s rebellious years and quitting school. Then, Hiro questioning “what is love and family” at the Budokan. Would those two get to the points they are today if it wasn’t for their inborn talents instead of her parenting method?

My two cents

I felt kind of like wading through the reviews of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. Honestly, I feel like these people don’t really look at the bigger picture. Mama Mori’s sons obviously adore her. Taka never said anything about her disciplinarian way. All he ever said was always, “my mom is so kind and gentle”. It was his dad whom he called strict. Taka didn’t enjoy school because he was not an academically inclined person. Hiro felt unloved because of the divorce where he saw everyone walk away and not because Mama made him the bottom of the family hierarchy. He misses their life together everyday of his life in fact. Mama would always try her best to grant her sons’ bento wishes. I remember watching a video of her showing rice balls decorated like soccer balls because her sons asked her to. Maybe her love and care far outweighed her “spartan” way.

I encourage any OOR or MFS fans who want to learn Japanese to buy the book as a side motivation to learn the language.

Meanwhile, I will take my own sweet time with it. Even if it takes me 5 years to finish XD

#reply #my first story #one ok rock #hiroki moriuchi #takahiro moriuchi

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oadara · 7 years

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my point about lyanna is that we don't know. maybe she was manipulated. we have no idea. concretely blaming her is unlike blaming dany for her white saviorism in slaver's bay. lyyanna was selfish but to act like she was definitely not caring for her fam based on circumstantial evidence, because that's what the evidence is, is wild when y'all excuse dany for things we see her do because her motives are good lmao I can't. blame Rhaegar all you want. he deserves it.

mentioning that we don’t have lyanna’s pov or that what we have is circumstantial evidence on what/when lyanna knew is excuses? I wonder what the yt people dany defense essays of her actions in slavers bay are. I was softening towards dany and her yt savior nonsense that got brown people killed bc of her mismanagement and had slaves sell themselves back into slavery. but if we’re taking an hardline position, then wonder what a defense of dany/slavers bay (book) is but an excuse of the outcome

Anon,

These are two separate asks but I because clearly you are the same anon and by the way you write I’m pretty sure I know who you are. Why don’t we get a few things straight and then you can leave my mailbox alone for all eternity

I see that you mentioned the books, which is fantastic because I can finally set you straight on your delusion that the Slaver’s Bay was only populated by people of color, which is untrue, it was mixed race. Slaves from the Free Cities, Qarth Lhazareen, Dothraki, etc. populated Slaver’s Bay.

Here, why don’t you read this, it’s straight from the horse’s (GRRM’s) mouth:

“And meanwhile, you’ve got Daenerys visiting more Eurasian and Middle Eastern cultures.

And that has generated its controversy too. I answer that one to in my blog. I know some of the people who are coming at this from a political or racial angle just seem to completely disregard the logistics of the thing here. I talk about what’s in the books. The books are what I write. What I’m responsible for.

Slavery in the ancient world, and slavery in the medieval world, was not race-based. You could lose a war if you were a Spartan, and if you lost a war you could end up a slave in Athens, or vice versa. You could get in debt, and wind up a slave. And that’s what I tried to depict, in my books, that kind of slavery.

So the people that Dany frees in the slaver cities are of many different ethnicities, and that’s been fairly explicit in the books. But of course when David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and his crew are filming that scene [of Daenerys being carried by freed slaves], they are filming it in Morocco, and they put out a call for 800 extras. That’s a lot of extras. They hired the people who turned up. Extras don’t get paid very much. I did an extra gig once, and got like $40 a day.”

Finally, I can get that off my chest. Now, let’s address your other points, that I give Dany a pass because but won’t give Lyanna a pass because of her you. Let me say this for what it feels like the one thousandth time, Daenerys Targaryen has made many mistakes. This has never been a problem for me, it’s one of the reasons I love her so much.

Having said that, I have a hard time equating Dany’s mistakes with Lyanna’s mistakes. If you look at their upbringing, the education, the values they were thought, and the impetus behind their actions you see why this comparison falls short. So let’s look at the background for both Lyanna and Dany to see where these two young women are coming from.

Lyanna as the Lord Paramount’s daughter would have had an excellent education, training as a lady, as well as a very stable upbringing. She was clearly allowed to indulge in the things she liked, such as riding and learning how to fight. Her father might not have approved of the fighting but he wasn’t against it enough to stop her from doing it. I think it’s safe to say that there was very little that Lyanna would have gone without while growing up at Winterfell.

We should all know Dany’s story by now but I’ll repeat for the benefit of those who constantly seem to forget it. A few days after she was born she had to be rescued because the new king of Westeros had sent his brother to her home in Dragonstone to assassinate her and her brother. They ended up in Braavos and for about four year’s she had a good life but then her care taker died and she and her brother were thrown out into the streets. They lived in the streets and on the kindness of strangers for the next nine years. Dany remembers sailing on ships at least 50 times in this time period, so there was a lot of moving around. She lived in nine of the Free Cities and can remember times when buying a sausage was a luxury. Throughout all this, she lived in fear because her brother believed that king Robert was sending assassins after them. Her training and education were handled exclusively by her brother and whatever she thought herself through books she would read while staying with some rich benefactor who would take them in for a few months. Whatever sense of right and wrong she learned she did so on her own because clearly, Viserys had a very skewed view on those.

Before we continue we should note that there is an age difference between the two, at this point in the series (the end of ADWD) Dany has just turned 16 year’s old and Lyanna, who died at 16, died close to her 17th birthday. But if we want to find a point of comparison, Lyanna was running away with Rhaegar around the same time Dany was conquering Slaver’s Bay. So, let’s look at these two events to see the difference in their actions.

Let’s start with Lyanna. We all know the general story and we are going to assume, given some information we have, that Lyanna ran away willingly with Rhaegar. She could have done it for a variety of reasons but whatever the reason it falls into one of three categories, she was in love with Rhaegar and wanted to be with him, she bought into the prophecy of TPTWP and thought she would save the world by doing whatever she needed to do to make that happen, or she was so against her upcoming wedding with Robert that she would rather run away. I know there is another theory of maybe Aerys finding out her identity and going after her, but that’s when you run home to Winterfell and have your dad and your betrothed sort that out.

Looking at Lyanna’s background and support system and what we are told about her she was a very strong-willed and clever girl. Even taking into account her being in love, or believing in a prophecy or not wanting to get married to Robert, I can’t imagine that the ramifications of her actions never crossed her mind. She was raised a noblewoman, she was around nobles her whole life, the actions that she decided to embark upon would have been considered disastrous by any standard. And if she was taking a calculated risk for say the good of the world, she must have known that her family was not just going to sit at Winterfell and do nothing.

I do take into consideration Lyanna’s age and that a person her age is also highly impulsive, but that still doesn’t absolve her of culpability. She is still responsible for her actions whether they were impulsive or not. In addition to all this is the amount of time she was gone, she didn’t get pregnant right away, at least 4 months had gone by before that happened. And of course I put most of the blame of Rhaegar, he was the adult in that situation, he had a wife and children, a father who he knew was mad, and it was his decision to run away with a young, unmarried girl, who happens to be the daughter of a Lord Paramount and she’s also engaged to another noble. Rhaegar being mainly responsible for what happens still doesn’t absolve Lyanna of her part in this mess and the destruction that took place because of her and Rhaegar’s actions.

If Lyanna’s actions are night, let’s go to the day and briefly review Dany’s actions. So you have this girl who’s recently lost her brother, husband, and child and has no more family and no support system at all. She’s 15 year’s old, on her own, and she actually finds herself responsible for other people. Because she has no family and her father and older brother almost extinct their House, she feels responsible for avenging her family and recovering what was theirs. She goes to Slaver’s Bay to get herself and army, but while she’s there she sees that she has landed in the pit of hell. Little boys being mutilated, babies being murdered in order to train the Unsullied, children slathered in honey and thrown at bears for the amusement of the Master and just general slavery disgustingness.

So, Dany having been sold herself and not appreciating the experience decides to do something about it, because “you know what? This ain’t right”. So she concocts a plan and voila Dracarys Motherfuckers. Now, a lot of Dany’s mistakes stem from how she left Astapor, which she left with a ruling council but without any defense and then the mistakes she made in Meereen. And while Dany’s actions did cause a great deal of death and destruction ultimately hundreds of thousands of people were freed from slavery and therefore free to chose their own choices. And in addition, her actions started a revolution in Volantis which will ultimately free hundreds of thousands of more people, if successful. Which means that in the long run millions of people would potentially be saved from continuing to be slaves or becoming slaves in the future.

Can you see the difference in their actions and the outcome of their actions? If Rhaegar and Lyanna did what they did because of a prophecy, their actions were based on a belief which neither of them could prove was real. And in the meantime thousands upon thousand of people died, lives were ruined, families destroyed. And while you can turn around and say thousands died in Dany’s revolution, I can then turn around and say but hundreds of thousands more lived and were saved from a life of slavery. At the end of the day, people had hope when they might not have had hope before.

Their actions are not comparable, no matter which way you cut it.

TTFN

#lyanna stark #daenerys targaryen #asoiaf #got #q&a

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vgwriter · 5 years

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Metro Exodus: A Review

The End of a Trilogy

The Metro series is based off of the books by Dmitry Glukhovsky, with each game set in the world of Metro 2033 (the book) and at times, having Glukhovsky writing them. Metro 2033 came out in 2010 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and was met with critical praise for its setting and horror aspects. Last Light came out in 2013 and built on 2033, adding better graphics and AI. Last Light was one of my favorites on the 7th generation. Exodus came out in February and took the series in drastically different direction. The complex and narrow Metro is traded in for large maps and non-linear missions. The changes are handled well by 4A. This game still brings great tension and story to the FPS genre but unfortunately still has bugs that have persisted through the entire series.

The Good

*SPOILERS*

#1-The Story

4A does something that not a lot of developers do when they make a modern FPS: they focus on the story. Exodus is the third installment of the Metro game continuity but it doesn't really build on the previous two, which were focused on the Dark Ones. Instead, it takes the story in a new direction with exploration outside Moscow and into Russia. The game explores several themes and ideologies with its story including religious extremism, slavery, the inherent violence and love in humanity. The player follows Artyom, his wife Anna, her father Col. Miller, and a half dozen Spartans as they go through nuked out Russia in search of a new home. They pick up a few people as the game goes on as well.

The story starts out with Artyom wanting to explore the outside world in hopes that there are people in it. Everyone says he is crazy but it turns out he is right and they steal a train to go explore Russia. They go to a marsh and pick up a nurse and her kid and one of the soldiers hits on her by making her tell him if her daughter knew her father was dead... it's really a touching scene. They get married later but Anna ruins it by coughing really loudly because she fell down into a toxic bunker two chapters ago (somehow no one saw her sickness coming). Then Artyom and Miller have to go and find her medicine all while Miller and Anna give Artyom back handed compliments or saying this all his fault for getting them kicked out of the Metro. They think they've found a home but turns out it's controlled by Petra Pan and the Lost Boys and Girls. Then they finally get the medicine and the ending depends on how the player played the game. It's not an original story by any stretch and has some dips in execution but coupled with the enviroments, it is a good enough story to warrant another post-apocalyptic setting in a rapidly saturating genre.

Now, there are a few big plot decisions that effect how the story plays out with the morality mechanic in this game. Basically, if the player kills people and does stuff that people normally do in a FPS game, they get the bad ending. If Artyom is just a sneaky little Russian, the crew stays together and they all live happily ever after. Well, kind of, it is a Russian story after all. Pretty simple choices but they do change the tone of the game considerably and for that I will give 4A props on making in game decisions matter.

The dialogue can be a little iffy at times and there are some parts that are roughly translated (Miller uses his Russian name instead of his Anglicized name during one scene) but each character is their own person and brings a great voice to the ensemble. My personal favorites were Anna and Nastya. Over all, the game tells an effective and gripping story of people trying to survive a moralless wasteland and remain the honest people they were before.

#2-Maps and Enviroment

The story is broken up in to 4 large maps with smaller train sections linking the travel to them. It's actually a great move and a refreshing change of pace from all the gigantic map games that have come out recently. The first two maps are just large enough to warrant not having a fast travel system while still making exploration interesting. The other maps in the game are more linear in design with the first and last map being down in the Metro again. This variety in maps keeps the game fresh and makes each area refreshing and interesting instead of an over used chore.

Where this game really shines is the enviroments. Each map feels completely brand new, with very few reused assets like in many other open world games (especially western). Each level seems fully realized and lived in as the player and Artyom pass through areas that feel like someone else's home. The best thing is that each level feels this way. In terms of enviroment, there are no dips in quality in any of the chapters. Each level has this realistic level of destruction and a shared struggle to survive that seeps into every corner of the game. The place where this really lifts this game up is the last level, Dead City. Without the enviroment, the story really wouldn't have landed well with its obvious forshadowing and unoriginal overarching story. The desolation of the city and constant danger everywhere do a great job of putting the player in Artyom's mind with his anxiety and desperation in trying to save Anna. The enviroments throughout the entire game lift up the psychological undercurrents of the characters and really put this game on an artistic level despite its other problems.

#3-Weapons and Customization

The weapons in Metro are the best kind of customizable in that the options the player makes for what weapons and how they customize them actually matter. There are five kinds of weapons: revolver, shotguns, rifles, sniper, and special. The specials are the air rifle and crossbow (there is also a railgun but I never figured out how to equip it). Each have different positives and negatives to them and feel different to play with in game. The customization is also diverse with each gun having different parts that the player can find out in the world. Unlike other games where the player must find several different components or blueprints (looking at you Andromeda and Fallout), 4A just gives the player the customization if they find it. It provides a great utility in the game without focusing on it, which is how customization should be.

The Bad

#1-The Combat

It is clear that 4A's focus on this game was stealth. The character is slow, the aiming for PS4 is absolutely terrible even after trying to tweak it, and the enemies are super shifty. All of this adds up to a bad combat experience. I can't count the number of times I just said "f*** it" after failing to hit the same guy 3 times only to discover that Artyom was caught in a corner of two inch ledges. This games combat is severely unpolished and makes the otherwise great game difficult to play for bad reasons. When compared to other fps's like Far Cry 5, this game feels definitively last generation. It's like the Crash Bandicoot of fps, really precise shooting on imprecise controls (don't @ me cause you know it's true). This really sapped the fun out of the game.

#2-The Clingy Map

I mentioned this in the last paragraph but the enviroment is not fun to move through. Artyom sticks to everything. There were times when playing this that I would try to be sneaking and come across a small step that I had to get over and couldn't. I had to jump and when I did the enemies who I was sneaking from would discover where I was instantly. They also messed up going down stairs, even though I'm pretty sure they discovered that technology in 2004. When Artyom "walks" down the stairs, he keeps his forward momentum and goes in an arch over the stairs he is "walkig" over. The maps do have a great feel about them but they are not fun to walk around and that really hurts this games replayability for me.

#3-Unpolished, Epic Games, and Bad Camp Design

I've heard and seen all sorts of bugs on the PC version but the PS4 has no shortage of bad glitches either. My very first shot, the first time I ever fired a gun in the game, it didn't make a sound. That sadly set the tone for the whole game. Each chapter was more frustrating than fun and that was caused for a number of reasons but all of them could go under the umbrella of unpolished game design. There have been several recorded game breaking glitches or the AI just acting real dumb. Aside from that the game is an exclusive on PC for Epic Games. Normally I don't concern myself with PC master race bullsh*t but Epic Games has some very shady business practices on a platform that has a great storefront in Steam. Sadly, this does effect the overall game for consumers and that is why I mention it in my review.

The last bad thing I'll mention is the camp conversation interface, or lackthereof. The characters just start talking and they never seem to stop. Being raised in a polite household has taught me to never walk away when someone is talking to me and this game made me rethink my entire upbringing. The conversations are okay but they are sooooo slow and there is no way to control them at all. They just talk to you and it is honestly annoying, easy to ignore but still annoying.

The Non-ESRB Rating

This is tough to give but Metro Exodus is a 2/5. While I love this game for everything that it adds, it is just more of a hassle to play than fun. The combat and general unpolishedness of the game are what really sink this game for me. I really hate that it does this too because the story and enviroments are really cool and enrich the story so much. The tension in the game is real and the map design is refreshing with its variety and design depth. This game had so much potential but it just feels wasted on such a buggy and unpolished product.

#metro exodus #review #video games #artyom

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right-or-ron · 7 years

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It is said that God is in the details. That may be so. But in Montreal it occurred to me that God just might also be in the decor; and that, for many, the greatest way to a profound spiritual experience is through art. Yet for me in my upbringing, art so often had little to do with God and, subsequently, my gift seemed to me to have little value.

My family and I recently returned from a trip to the city of Montreal, the sublime and engaging jewel of La Belle Province. For someone who is aesthetically inclined, Montreal is an artsy wonderland. On our final evening, we went to St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal. This is what is called a “minor” Basilica in the Roman Catholic Church but it is massive and imposing. Just climbing up the various stairs, a feeling of continually ascending, is a spiritual exercise (in more ways than one). You can’t help but feel like you are rising up to something beyond the mundane of your life. I’m sure that effect is intended as the Basilica bids millions of faithful pilgrims per year to climb its heights.

For me, as I continue to reflect on my own artistic sensibilities, on creating, on the way these things impact my life and my world, I was struck by the use of art in absolutely every aspect of this place. From the soaring architectural design that is equal parts Gothic, Renaissance and Contemporary, to the countless paintings, statues, bas-reliefs and mosaics; from the asymmetrical and abstract cast iron gates to the stained-glass windows; from the various miscellaneous artworks that fill the place to the use of museum-like dioramas; from the subtle use of light and shadow to the warmth of wood against cold stone – St. Joseph’s Oratory is an impressive testimony to the role art and artists have in creating a spiritual environment and experience. There seems to be no corner, no wall, no doorway, no opportunity lost to use the creative arts to communicate the Divine.

The display of artistry and craftsmanship is very impressive but it remains foreign to me. Though I am a Christian, I am of the Protestant variety that has more of function than form in its worship spaces; i.e., many of the churches that make up my brand of Christianity are uninspiring, utilitarian places. I am currently part of a church that meets in a large, chilly school gymnasium. It is about as spiritual a place as a warehouse. Let’s just say that the atmosphere of the building has rarely played a role in the experience of my faith, that is, in the elevation of my spirit or the growth of my spirituality. As an artist who also happens to be a Christian, my aesthetic sensibilities have taken a beating over the years. And I have often thought that my gifts and points of view, and those of my fellow artists, are not given much weight in my tradition.

Dating all the way back to the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, it could be argued that many babies were tossed out with the bathwater. Protestants take a wide birth around iconography, the use of statuary and relics and icons in prayers and worship. To many it is idolatry and akin to the occult. To some it is downright Satanic. This fear of idolatry and a belief that iconography is a sin led to extremely Spartan worship spaces and continues to influence architectural choices and decor in church to this day. In some ways, the Protestant church has been afraid of art. True, in the last couple of decades things have improved and more thought and creativity has gone into the use of art in Protestant worship. But it remains something not in the DNA of most churches and denominations.

I don’t really want to get into a theological debate on the subject or dive into the divide that has existed between the two big camps of Western Christianity for so long. But I do wonder if part of my assessment of my own artistic gifts has been influenced far too much by the Christian tradition I am a part of. That is, have I always subconsciously shelved that part of myself over the years because I felt it was less important, less viable, less of what I was supposed to be? Because I grew up in an aesthetically wary Protestant context, did I grow up believing my gifts and points of view were not as valid, as worthy, as spiritual as others?

This is going to take some thought. If there is truth to these feelings in my own life, then there are decisions and choices I have made that have definitely been influenced by it. And not just for me but for millions of other artists who grew up in a Protestant context, be they visual artists or musicians or dancers or playwrights, etc. If we have felt in any way that we have been marginalized or misunderstood, or that our gifts and sensibilities have been minimized or compartmentalized by the institutions that we were raised in, then we have all been deeply impacted and the church has suffered because of it.

I am an artist and I am a Christian. So often that has felt like a necessary tension. Does it have to be? I’m not sure. I would be the first to say that God has given me the gift of being an artist. It would follow, then, that he would want me to use that gift in my role as his image-bearer. Yet there are times when creative expression doesn’t seem accepted in my religious experience; when a kind of leash is placed on artists, giving them only so much room to create for fear that they might go too far. But keeping any kind of artist tamed and toned down mutes the impact of their art. And this is not right.

For me, this is a topic I am going to have to explore further. It is getting at the very heart of who I am and the uncomfortable dichotomy I have felt for many, many years. If you are an artist reading this, and also someone who follows God, I wonder if you have felt similar things, either consciously or unconsciously? Maybe it’s time to lose my aesthetically wary religion and embrace a way of following Christ that embraces me and my artist brothers and sisters. This will take some serious thought. Stay tuned…

A Year of Creating Dangerously, Day 9: Losing My Aesthetically Wary Religion It is said that God is in the details. That may be so. But in Montreal it occurred to me that God just might also be in the decor; and that, for many, the greatest way to a profound spiritual experience is through art.

#Art #Catholic and Protestant #Christian art #Christian artist #Iconography #Religion #St. Joseph&039;s Oratory of Mount Royal

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