Jodai Higashikata is the sperm donored son of John Joestar. He’s the pitcher at his school’s baseball, a rather amicable if a bit anxious and shy. Relatively withdrawn he tends to keep to himself and tends to prefer to follow the lead of others as honestly he doesn’t really know what the fuck is going on, however like all Joestars this boy has got a temper, insult the way he dresses and he’ll hurl insults and punches as his way of dress mimics the man who saved his life on that harsh winter storm. When he’s done with baseball he’s eager to learn medical sciences.

That “i don’t know what the fuck is going on here” feeling intensifies when this guy who is apparently his nephew and this funky mirror show up to town looking for him and also apparently the rest of Morioh is rife with Stand users, cool.

During 1988 he was struck by an illness caused by gaining a Stand ability via DANTE stabbing himself with the Stand arrow causing a ripple effect amongst blood related Joestar users.

After powering through he soon gains the Stand known as [When Doves Cry] which has the ability to change the material of an object.

The Wu Whereabouts Theory

Now that people are getting hyped for the month countdown toward Amphibia Season Three’s release, I am going to be talking about a theory my friend and I talked about over the past few months, and it’s time to buckle up because we’re going to be tackling this theory from a production, character design, and semantics perspective.

And why these specific factors? Because the theory revolves around these three characters.

And why I believe all of them are related in some way.

Now, you might ask yourself: Bork, how in the hell are these characters related? The old woman character doesn’t seem to have any semblance of features relating to Marcy. What about the dad, are you going to explain the dad? Are you pulling my leg?

And to that, we’re going to have to start small. I’ll first explain why the character on the right seems to be an important character to the story, how all these characters can be connected through deliberate design/semblance, and then I am going to hit it out of the park with the probability from a logical perspective with what the intro and past Marcy interactions seem to give us on why everyone is where they’re currently at.

Especially where Marcy’s father is currently located.

This theory is very, and I mean, very long, so hang on to your seats as we dive into my thoughts about where Season Three might lead us.

And credit goes to @CynDavilaChase on Twitter because she made me realize the probability of this theory in the first place.

And with that, let us begin!

Section One - Who’s This Woman?

With animated introductions, I think one of the big things I noticed with Amphibia Season Three’s intro is that it’s heavily serialized. Compared to Amphibia’s introduction with Seasons One and Two, there are a lot of animated scenes found in the sequence where the story is already being told in a narrative.

You get shots of Anne being introduced to her house, you get new important characters introduced in a lot, there appears to be insight into future events such as Anne getting a moped while being chased by government agents or the massive monkey robot chasing her through the alleyways.

A lot of the intro is prioritized over its serialized format, and that means the characters seen and animated in the foreground have to be important characters or else the studio is basically wasting time focusing on a background character that will never be seen again.

Of course, you get some sliding shots like with the construction workers or the beach scene with the beach-goers but that’s only for a second and they’re not truly the forefront.

But during the shots between 0:29 and 0:49, the sequences we see include a lot of what appears to be important scenes with important characters that will play some role in the story itself.

There are no parts in the sequence where background characters are put in the foreground. Each bit of the animation needs to count, it needs to tell a story of what’s to come and what the audience can anticipate to see.

Now that begs the question:

Why is a supposed random background character in the foreground?

We got some reason as to why the engineer lady looks important since she was in a shot full of important or supporting characters, but why her??

Sure, one could argue this shot could just be indicative of Andrias’s invasion, but there are numerous other ways to show that there’s an invasion without putting too much animation effort on one background character, especially from a composition perspective.

Pardon the messiness, I had to do this quick, but look at how all three ladies are lined up.

The far left grandma, when following from her head to the the front lady’s creates a line that not only creates a sense of direction for our eyes to follow but follows the more significant and foreground character of all three. Look at how the dragonflies occupy most of the top of the frame while the two older women stay in the marketplace’s form, and how this leaves the younger woman to be abruptly placed in the open — creating a visual that this character in particular is more important than the rest in the shot.

Check the way the characters move their eyes when the scene happens too: the background characters quickly look to the right, then the woman out in the open then directs her eyesight to the skyline, where all the dragonflies are flitting by.

Now, I’m not a storyboard artist or composer, I could be wrong on how the crew created this scene all together, but regardless it is still so odd to put emphasis on a background character in the front and then just leave it at that.

She has to be important in some way, and this is where I want to talk about character design.

Section Two - All Related or Am I Just Racist?

When it comes to character design we need to talk about how the character designers make sure to give Anne some form of semblance to her parents, and in this case, she looks a lot like her mother.

They got the bushy hair, the same skin tone, eyebrows, etc. And with her dad you could even see that Anne got her fluffy bangs from him specifically. Only one shared genetic trait, however.

This is deliberate, we know that for sure, and that is why I need to make this very clear as we transition to the similarities found in Marcy and the theorized characters, and why I believe they’re related in design. Mainly because the concept of race and appearance could be quite a debacle and I wanted to make sure that all of you know I am not assuming things out of naivety, and if I am, feel free to get my ass.

Other than that, let’s look at them again.

And here I shall compile the appearance stuff that each character seems to have.

With these three characters they seem to connect to one another with one genetic trait, but if one looks closely, there comes the question of the older lady (who I will just call Marcy’s mom at this point) and why she’s vastly different to Marcy when it comes to skin tone, hair color, and hell — if we look between Marcy and the engineer — why these two characters have vastly different hairstyles compared to the woman.

Even though I could give speculation and some doubt to the engineer and Marcy’s mom being related, and on first glance I couldn’t do the same with Marcy and her mom either, but then I did some digging and realized something. I can connect Marcy and her potential mom in one way — hair design.

Marcy and her mom both share the same poofy hair, it’s just that one is more short and the other is allowed to grow out in a nice little nest.

Don’t believe me?

They got the same floofy bangs with that specific hair line.

And when Marcy was little, Marcy appeared to need a hair tie because her hair was growing out, and it looked like this.

If we consider that what Marcy’s hair tie is holding up might be her bangs — bangs that might cover her eyesight from how floofy it is — then if you removed the hair tie then she and the woman would have a very similar looking design hair-wise.

Even with these hair similarities, however, there is still inquiry as to why Marcy is vastly different compared to her mother when it comes to skin and hair color, and here is where I go into some speculation to piece all of it together:

Marcy actually carries the appearance of her dad more than her mom.

Her dad has olive skin and black, straight hair, while her mother harbors tan skin and floofy, brown hair.

It’s this one piece of speculation that basically slides everything into place, but regardless it’s still speculation and one that I cannot confirm or even argue much about due to the nature of genetics and the limited info we have. But with this piece set in place, we could start to create the argument that maybe, just maybe, these characters are related.

But if they are, why do we only see Marcy’s mom and her supposed sister and not her dad?

Why do we get no indication of Marcy having a sister until Season Three?

How do we put all of this together?

Section Three - Distance and Finance

I rewatched True Colors numerous times when it came to understanding and interpreting what I could with the limited Marcy-centric flashback we had. I even went through episodes such as Maddie and Marcy, New Wartwood, and a lot of other episodes just to fit everything into place. And I think I have a good indication as to why this family is the way that it is.

First off, we’re going to be talking about Marcy’s dad and his new job out of state.

California is a very expensive state. And as someone who lives in California, the housing crisis and the ability to even stay in a house/dorm without sweating over the idea of being bankrupt is a very real thing.

So it is a curious thing that one of the reasons that the Wus had to leave came out to moving out-of-state due to a new job offer, one that infers a lot more money and probably a more stable living environment.

You could even hear the dad saying “Marcy, you have to understand!” when Marcy runs out, meaning that there’s probably a good reason as to why the parents believe that the move is essential, and I am banking on the idea of money for a number of reasons.

One, living in Los Angeles is expensive as hell.

Two, the coping mechanisms Marcy has makes sense if finance is the main comeuppance.

Three, the background art.

And four, why this girl has straight A’s and a PSAT book.

We already covered number one, but let’s take a look at what I mean about coping mechanisms.

Marcy Wu’s many flaws come from what looks to be the fear of being alone, and the fear of being seen as unvaluable and worthless; that if Marcy doesn’t prove herself lovable and essential to the people around her then she gets anxious and will do anything in her powers to make the people around her like her or stay with her.

She will omit information, move along objectives through passive and indirect persuasion, allow people to assert their will over her because they said so and, most importantly, does all of this because she fears the consequences when she gets outed or rocks the boat. Because rocking the boat means people will get mad at her, and she appears to try to avoid that situation of vulnerability like the plague until it all culminated into True Colors.

She is terrified of getting hurt. She is terrified, specifically, of consequences — punishment through stress, frustration, the people she loves looking at her differently because of the mistakes she’s made, etc.

Why do I say this? It’s because if we look into Marcy Wu with her pre-Amphibia self, a lot of these fears could be placed into that middle school scenario very well. Marcy Wu plays videogames and loves fiction because it is a form of escapism or happiness away from stress; she has this intense curiosity to basically anything of interest and uses that to thrive with getting straight A’s and an overall very solid record, but there’s still a probability that high expectations or making the people around her love her comes through said status of being the smart one (after all, she prides on her intellect, and sees it as essential to basically surviving the day to day).

Look at Marcy’s flashback in True Colors. She’s a middle schooler but is studying for the PSAT, which is mainly held in High School, and I’m no expert but I don’t think you read that stuff for fun or at least study it that early.

And I find it interesting that that’s the first shot we get of Marcy before we dive into her parents’ argument — education, studying, the expectation of high scores.

And then when you remember that Marcy is the least athletic of the girls, the thrift shop’s street she retreats to away from her parents is not that faraway from her neighborhood.

And this street, is messy as all hell. And with the revised background art for this area, nothing about the place changes but instead gets emphasized through more shots of how rundown it all looks!

The fact there’s a bail bonds building behind Mar-mar also doesn’t reassure me in the slightest.

So here’s where we are: Studying, getting good grades, a serious financial situation, lives near a rundown section of the city, high expectations, and the evaluation of one’s worth through intellect and academia.

What we are witnessing is a nuanced family situation. If we go by the assumption that the three girls’ lives are not only vastly different in personality but upbringing, then on an income scale, Anne would be middle income, Sasha would be high income, and Marcy is low income.

Her family’s struggling to be stable in a city that they can’t afford to live in, there’s a very high emphasis on good grades and education in the household, and the situation is so bad that her dad would take the proposal of a higher-paying job out of state than finding a similar job out in the city.

However, in this household’s struggle to have a better life, the parents had to focus on their children getting better living than them, and this means Marcy had to live in an environment where the biggest source of reward and praise is through intellect, academics, the approval of the parents.

And I could probably assume that this focus on finance also lead to very rough patches where Marcy was unable to be encouraged over stuff she loves like C&C or videogames, since the level of attention is low compared to the amount of happiness and pride her parents get when she gets an A+.

Especially when we consider that in the dialogue we hear from Mr. and Mrs. Wu, her dad is more assertive while her mom appears to care but doesn’t seem to go against her husband’s tone, so a lot of the probable issues might’ve come from Marcy wanting her dad’s approval and her mother never standing up for her when he became frustrated.

That would make a lot of context with Andrias even worse in retrospect, because that means the moment a male adult figure decided to care about her and give attention to what she loved, then Marcy fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

And could you blame her?

Now, let’s finally get a glimpse on one other character I’ve been neglecting in this essay.

This gal! Because if Marcy and her are somehow related, then we need to question why she was never mentioned or why she wasn’t involved in the conversation between Marcy and her parents.

I’ve done a massive theory post about this already, but the biggest probability comes in the design itself, since if Marcy’s sister went through trade school to be a mechanic/engineer then there’s a high probability she’s in her mid-Twenties. And if we consider that Marcy is 13, then Marcy would’ve been born when her sister was 12 or 13, and ultimately leave the household when she turned 18.

This means Marcy would’ve gone on with less contact from her sister for 6 years, and that’s a lot for a developing child.

It’s not improbable for Marcy to have lost contact with her big sister, or at least had lesser time to meet up with her due to work, college, or her own adult life now that she’s out of the house.

After all, in Maddie and Marcy, I find it very interesting that out of the advice Marcy could’ve given to Maddie about siblings, Marcy tells her that even though Maddie is the older sibling and is allowed to have her own life she suggests that maybe she should make some time for her sisters occasionally. Almost as if this was a ditto moment for her, that she understands but also had a good example of a sister who made time whenever she had the chance.

On more speculation terms, it would be cute to think that the reason Marcy has so much fire and spirit toward her fiction and love for games is because of her sister. After all, Marcy harbors the same interest toward engineering and robotics, it wouldn’t be a stretch in the imagination that perhaps her sister encouraged her to keep on going with what she felt passionate for regardless of their parents’ lack of response, to basically be unapologetic of what she loves, and this mantra kept her going for a lot of her life even when her sis went for trade school.

But let’s go on a side note here. I find it quite interesting that the character design of Marcy’s sis is also very telling, because not only does it tell a supposed story about who she was in the aftermath of graduation, but we could find a way to also put the theme of income and finance into her story as well.

Let’s be real these two are partners in all the way — from mechanics to engineers to straight up girlfriends, these two basically have their own business going on and I find it interesting that none of them just go with robotics or mechanics as a full-time thing, it’s mainly two jobs rolled up into one.

Why is that? There is some speculation that maybe they’re specialists and work in a very science-related area, but it seems highly likely that their main jobs are being car mechanics by day and robotic expert nerds by night. After all, the city can be hecked with money so I wouldn’t be surprised if they did two jobs at once to keep the lights on. I could also see them doing freelancing to repair or experiment with engineering projects since they take more money than actually makes in most cases.

Overall, money plays a big part with the family, and culminates to what I like to call a Massive Shitfest TM when they get alerted over the girls’ disappearances.

Section Four - Massive Shitfest Boogaloo and Where They Are Now~

In the aftermath of their teleport to Amphibia, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Wus had a big argument over Marcy and what should be done in the aftermath. Really, the family still needs to take that job because of finance, people are blaming each other over who pushed her to the brink, and then you have Marcy’s sister — who was probably out of the loop but probably knows how it was in the household — getting added into the mess of what just happened and adding her grief into the mix.

It is a blunder, terrifying and could break apart a family if I’m being honest. but what comes through is this:

People have now become stubborn in the Wu household, and no one is going to back down.

And what I mean is that Mrs. Wu, devastated by what happened ever since the argument in True Colors, will stay in Los Angeles out of grief and a supposed hope that Marcy would return. While Mr. Wu, determined to keep the finance going and keeping everyone stable and safe, abides by Mrs. Wu and decides to go out of state regardless, bringing back a flow of money to keep the Wu household stable through the aftermath.

It would make sense as to why Marcy’s mom is present in the intro but not any suspecting candidates for the dad.

Or how we see that there’s two older ladies with her in the intro. They might actually be close relatives who moved into the household out of the obligation to comfort Mrs. Wu but to also keep her company throughout this dark time in her life.

After all, when one loses a child, a lot of prior relations start to unravel as the status quo changes, and we are definitely going to see Anne confront the Wus and Waybrights when it comes to upbringing and home life.

But really, it is all up in the air. With Season Three around the corner, I am excited to see what the story has in store for us when it comes to the deep-diving into Marcy’s home life. She might’ve had a nuanced family life. She might’ve had abusive parents, perhaps no sister at all but a lot of relatives who grieved for her.

But with this theory out to the public, thank you all for reading along with this massive beast of a post, and I hope we get to see Marcy out of the aloe vera sauce very soon!

Chapter Two

“Morning, love, how are things going on your end?”

“Things are going swimmingly!” Your throat grinds with having to keep your customer service tone up, but you grit your teeth and keep going. “What time should I expect you tomorrow?”

“Around noon, I think. Just have a couple of errands to run beforehand around town, but it shouldn’t take too long! Do you need me to pick anything up from Tom’s Hardware?”

Oh, sweet lord, yes, anything to stall her. An extra ten minutes might be the difference between your job and your career’s untimely death. You turn around to concentrate, reaching for where you stashed your notebook. “Actually, Marge, could you pick up a couple of paints? I’ll send over the serial numbers via email.”

“Oh, of course, you must be extra busy with your crew gone! I’ll get that done for you. Anything else?”

You try to wrack your brain, but you can’t think of anything more, much to your disappointment. Neither can you come up with any wild goose chases to keep her away for some time. “No, Marge, nothing comes to mind. Oh- wait, wait, I was just wondering what the statue outside is na- uh, titled, so I can start designing something themed.”

“Er, oh, I think it was among the lines of Gala-something. Galactus? No, that’s not right… Oh, dear, my wife would know.”

That’s when you noticed that the bench where you set the statue down is decidedly empty. Your stress levels immediately pop right back up to maximum. After a moment, you realize that your jaw aches as you clench it hard enough to break your teeth. Quickly enough, you come up with a believable lie to get off the phone as soon as possible. “Hey, Marge- delivery guy’s here. I’ve got to handle this.”

“Of course! Talk to you later, dear. I’ll have Esther send you a text message with the statue’s information.”

You’re already running through the hall when you hang up, eyes scanning every crevice that could possibly be a hiding spot for a walking statue, but you can’t find him. He’s not in the common area, nor in the first couple of rooms that your crew had managed to finish furnishing before leaving. You call for him, not sure of his name nor what you might refer to him as, so it’s a weird mash of statue guy, and stone dude, mainly just focusing on “um, hey? Not done with you yet!”

After edging on the precipice of a panic attack, you spot his silhouette upon the top of the staircase. Letting out a loud, pissed grunt, you storm up, hand on the rail to steady your angry rampage, and then you look over to the doorway he appears to be aiming for. Oh, no. No, no, no, not on your watch. You speed your pace, throwing yourself in front of the door before he can do any damage to the precious collection beyond it. Unfortunately, your injured hand makes a somewhat awkward connection with the oak frame, and a dull wave of pain rushes through your nerves.

“You can’t just wander off like that,” you gasp, out of breath from the speed you pushed yourself to.

“A thousand apologies, love,” he says, though you can see the curiosity running around and around his head like a carousel. “Might I inquire as to the contents of the room?”

Your face goes a bit pink, you can feel the heat sparking in your cheeks. “No, no, you may not. Everything in there belongs to the owner, only she and I are allowed in there.”

The statue then places both his hands on the door as well, creating a barrier between you and the rest of the hallway. “What if I asked nicely?”

Is his face inching closer? “I’d say no.”

“What if I asked very nicely?” He pecks you on the mouth, far too quickly for you to register that it was even happening until after the fact. Unfortunately, instead of leaving what ask nicely up for interpretation, he adds, “with my tongue, on my knees.”

Everything feels like it’s going on overdrive because someone you just met is offering sexual favors, and you feel like if you open your mouth at all, anything that comes out is going to be nothing more than a high pitched squeak. Just when you think this situation can’t get any worse, oh, he gets on his knees, as though promising that he's not bluffing, but you are not exactly open to the fact that his hands seem to be wandering to the waistline of your pants. In a panic, you bring your knee up. Not with the intent to hurt him, no, you don’t want any more broken body parts today, you just want to have another layer between him and your clothing.

“No! No, not even if you-” you manage to get ahold of your voice, though struggle greatly with keeping it from screaming, “just no! No, thank you!”

Above all else, he’s confused, with leaves you rather puzzled in return, because did he honest to god expect you to let him eat you out job, much less pressed up against a door that holds, at the very least, a good hundred-million dollars worth of artwork inside? Unless you’re reading the situation wayyyyy off-kilter, which is super unlikely, especially given the fact that he’s been trying to kiss the ever-loving daylights out of you since he first started breathing. With a hard swallow, you push him away, foot on his collarbone. At least he doesn’t offer up any resistance as he stands, brow furrowed.

“Back to the kitchen,” you instruct, pointing down the hall and then placing a hand over your eyes. A puff of anger escapes your lungs, and then you do your best to get your shit together in the two seconds you allow yourself. “Now.”

He obeys, thankfully, because you don’t know what you would end up doing otherwise. Once his back is turned, you pat your pockets and silently chastise yourself for not carrying your keys around, because you’re not going to put it past him to come snooping around once your attention is elsewhere. Oh, god, your work, how are you supposed to get anything done when you’re most likely going to have to babysit the statue? You assume it’s going to be like keeping an eye on a toddler; turn away for two minutes, and the castle will burn down. You can’t imagine digging yourself out of that grave. Remember to lock the door, you think hard, hoping you’ll have a chance to do it later.

“Alright,” you try to think once you’re back at the table, clawing at something, anything that could make a semblance of sense on this hellish day. “Okay. Cool. The owner of the property is coming over tomorrow.”

The statue rests his chin on his hand, his elbow on the table, mouth out in a soft, sullen pout.

“Now, just to recap, the person who owns your fine ass is coming down to pay me a visit to make sure everything is going well. Do you think that things are going well right now?” You don’t give him a chance to answer. “Things aren’t going well, and I don’t know how I’m going to fix this.”

“Do you think my ass is truly that divine?” He perks up, sounding a little too pleased with himself.

”Focus,” you grind out, afraid that you’re going to snap the pen you’re holding clean in half. The first step to saving money is not to break any of your things, no matter how fucking stressed you are. “I need you to go out in the back while she’s here and pretend to still be frozen.”

“But won’t, er, Marge, was it?”

“Ms. Hopkins, for you. Only friends get to call her Marge.”

He hesitates for a moment. ““Surely... Ms. Hopkins won’t be upset at a miracle sent by the gods themselves? Not unless she wishes punishment like that which she has never experienced before.” He settles back on the bench, arms open as though offering an embrace. “I have been birthed from the ground by chisel and a steady hand, then given life through the power of love by-”

“I’m going to cut you off there.” You hold a finger up, pinching the bridge of your nose. “Not to give you a crisis of faith or anything, but that’s not going to be good enough. I don’t want to be responsible for what happens to you if scientists start getting involved, you’re going to like, end up in a lab somewhere, and you’ll never see the light of day again. So when Marge gets here, you’re going to go back to that pedestal, and you’re going to stand still. Do you understand?”

“What’s a scientist? Is it like a philosopher?”

You’re fucking doomed. “Forget that, I need you to promise me that you’re going to stay put while Marge is here.”

He lets out a loud sigh, rolling his stone eyes so that you can fully see just how badly you’re inconveniencing him. “I suppose I might, though being able to stretch after such a long time has been such a blessing. Are you really going to make me go back to being still?”

“For like an hour? Yes, yes, I am.”

“But I’m so stiff,” he’s acting like you just asked him to shoot himself in the leg, “and my joints ache so very much.”

“You’ll hurt more if you don’t do as I say.” It’s an entirely empty threat since you’re pretty sure the only thing that might cut through him is an industrial chainsaw, something that’s not exactly on hand at the moment.

“Is that a promise?” He says, voice suddenly sultry and full of allure.

You need a moment to step away from the situation before you try strangling him, if that would even do any damage. Does he even breathe? Maybe you should check on that before anything else. Clear your head out, settle your thoughts, reset everything back to zero. This is fine. You’re fine. Everything’s fucking fine. Even though it physically pains you to say it, you offer up one last plea. “Please.”

That seems to move him, if only slightly. “If it is truly that important to you, then I shall.”

A shudder of relief runs through your body.

”However,” he stands to his full height, leaning over until his face is remarkably close to yours, “I should think that I should perhaps stretch, to fully prepare for such a task. Wouldn’t you agree?”

You skillfully dodge his mouth, turning around and letting out a frustrated breath. “Then do some yoga. I’ve got a job to do, you’ll remember, one that involves things like work and time.”

“Shall I help?”

”No!” It might have come out a little too harsh, but you are not letting him get his rocky hands all over your paints and equipment. “I just need you to be in my line of vision at all times, okay? Can you do that?”

“Can’t take your eyes off me for one moment?” He asks, which is entirely true but definitely not within the context of the tone he uses.

You know what? Agreeing at this point is probably better for both your sanity and his cooperation. Resisting the urge to roll your eyes to the back of your head, you say, deadpan, “you’re absolutely correct, I can’t seem to be able to ;ook away from that fine ass of yours. Please come with me upstairs so I can start working without your presence for a second longer than I must.”

He doesn’t appear to detect the sarcasm dripping from your words and instead looks rather flattered. “I suppose I must indulge you, then. Very well, show me the way to your place of work.”

You don’t bother to mention that the entire castle is your place of work, and instead lead him back to the library. None of the shelves are in place, and the books themselves are safely in storage while you and every other crew can trample on through without worrying about accidentally destroying something old enough to be their great-grandparent. Everything seems good to go, so you start to begin, stirring up the thick paint in the cans to make sure everything’s even, and then begin. You have almost an hour of uninterrupted work before the statue begins to start fiddling with some things that he should not be touching at all.

“Question,” you say, beginning on another wall, “can you sleep or anything?” Or do you need to be watched 24/7, no rest for the wicked amiright.

“I suppose we’ll find out.” He lays on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, clearly bored out of his mind.

“Could you maybe put on some clothes?” His nakedness hasn’t bothered you yet, but with all his attempts to take off your clothes, maybe some change is in order.

He turns his head in your direction and looks at you like you just suggested that he should maybe take a leisurely stroll into the sun. “And deprive you of such a beautiful view? Darling, my love, I should think not.”

“Okay, okay, no clothes.” You resist the urge to let out a huff. “I’m so sorry to even think of such a thing.”

“All is forgiven.” He says, so very gently, looking back up at the electric chandelier.

Again, there’s the desire to let out a scream that could be heard from across the nearest ocean, but you do no such thing. Instead, you throw yourself headfirst into your work, hoping that at the very least, your ridiculous amount of progress might allow Marge to overlook some… other things. You forget what time it is until you realize that it is suddenly so difficult to see your work, and that’s when you look out the window to find nothing but black and stars. The sun must have set long ago, without you even noticing, which means that it’s time for you to eat something before you faint from a sugar crash.

“Do you feel hungry?” You ask him, looking at your phone for the first time in hours. There’s a text from Esther, Marge’s wife, waiting for you to view.

“I don’t know.”

“Wonderful,” you respond, “but I do. I’ll order some pizza, then, and I guess you can eat some if you feel hungry at all. Any preferred toppings?”

“Preferred what?”

You take a deep breath. “I’ll just order something, then.”

And so you do, making sure the statue is sitting at the table with an old Rubix cube you found in one of the many boxes stashed in the storage room. Thankfully, he seems absolutely enamored by it, so you take the time to phone in a local pizza delivery place. Perhaps you get one too many things than you’d manage to eat, just in case the statue might end up needing to eat like any other person, though having leftovers isn’t exactly the worst outcome if he doesn’t.

While you wait for your food to be delivered, you take the liberty of reading over the document that Marge’s wife sent. Blah, blah, blah, temple excavation, blah, blah, oldest intact statue from the Hellenistic period, blah, blah, something about Aphrodite, and then… “Galateos.”

That catches his attention like a gunshot. He stares at you, mouth open and closing as he tries to come up with something to say in response. Finally, voice strangled, he says, “that sounds familiar.”

“Thought it might,” you say, a lie, really, because you don’t really know what he might find familiar and what he would see as entirely knew. “Esther texted me some info about where you came from. It says that the plaque you were given called you ‘Galateos.’”

He sits up just a tad bit taller, jaw clenched, eyes looking over the wooden table like it might offer some clues to what the word means. Finally, voice uncharacteristically dry, he says, “that must be my name.”

The way he says it, though, is unsure, almost scared, really. So you try offering a way out. “Is there something else you want to be called?”

He thinks about it, you can see the way his forehead crinkles and his eyes grow distant. But after barely a second of thought, he shakes his head. “No. Galateos is fine.”

“Alright, then, Galateos,” you try the name out. It’s long, and stiff, much like the way he had been complaining about his limbs a mere hours before. “Can I call you Gala? Or Teos? Or literally anything but?”

“You can call me ‘dearest,’ or ‘most beloved,’” he says, entirely serious.

“Galateos it is, then.” You look over the photograph of a pamphlet Marge must have ordered to advertise the statue, Esther even gave sent another picture of it open, revealing the block of text describing where they found him. “Do you remember being a statue at all? Or are you suddenly like…. Awake and stuff?”

He looks a tad bit troubled, looking down at his hands like he can’t quite place what their purpose is. After a moment of silence, he says, “I don’t know how to describe it. Darkness, forever. And then suddenly light. I didn’t care about the darkness while I was frozen because I couldn’t care about anything, anything at all. There were periods of warm and periods of cold, but neither of them were particularly bothersome.”

“You feel heat and cold?” You ask, already preparing an experiment in your head to check.

“I think so.”

“One way to find out.” You go through the cabinets until you find a large stainless steel bowl, then fill it to the brim with ice, and place it in front of him. “Stick your hand inside and leave it there for as long as you can.”

He looks at the ice like it’s something entirely unfamiliar and new, looking over at you like you might magically have the answer to a question he didn’t ask. Then, carefully, slowly, he slides his hand in the ice, frowning as he tries to verbalize what he feels. “What is this?”

“Ice.” When his expression remains blank, so you try to clarify. “When water gets cold, it freezes.”

His eyes widen, his mouth opening in a soft o. “This is water?”

“Frozen water, yeah,” you try to get back on topic, even though you find it odd that he knows what water is, but not ice. “Do you feel anything?”

“Cold,” he says, pulling his hand out. “It feels cold.”

You reach over and grab his hand in your own, running your thumb over his palm, finding the stone there as cold as one would expect to be after submerged in a pile of ice. “But you can feel it? Does it hurt?”

“It feels,” he thinks, brow furrowed, eyes decidedly glued on where your fingers touch, “pinching, but also not. As though I’m being poked by needles.”

That sounds cold to you, remembering the way your skin prickles when met with chilly air. So he can feel temperature changes, but can’t be deterred by one of your mean hooks, which you suppose is an interesting discovery. You might posit that it also doesn’t make the slightest lick of sense, but then again, a slab of lovingly carved stone is walking and talking, so you guess you can’t really be the judge of what is weird and what isn’t at the moment.

He slyly places his other hand over yours, wholly focused on tracing the path of your fingers while you… kind of just let it happen. If it was anyone else, you might have yanked your hand out of their grip, but you just sort of sit there and allow him to observe the curves and scars of your hand. While he does so, he’s quiet, not so much as whispering a single word that would cause you to leave, and is instead seems satisfied with the silence that settles over the kitchen. You can’t say that you’re uncomfortable with the way he touches you, his gestures so very gentle even though he’s a fucking rock.

“You’re an artist,” he says finally, his voice soft and sweet.

He’s only seen you working the brunt of the job, not the finer details that you pride yourself with. “How do you know?”

“The hands never lie.”

“And how would you know that?” You ask, a tad bit teasingly.

His eyes grow distant, feverish, as though he’s desperately trying to grasp something that’s just out of his reach. “I- I don’t rem-”

Someone’s at the kitchen’s back door, as instructed, knocking loudly and announcing that they’re the pizza guy. You’re very familiar with all the delivery people by now, and so you recognize the carrot-like hair of one of the pizza place’s employees, though you can’t recall his name. There’s cash in your back pocket, you always try to tip generously and under the table, and after exchanging a couple of words of pleasantries, you shut the door and go back to the table, pizza in hand. By this point, you’re practically frothing at the mouth for food, so statue be damned, you tear into the pizza like an animal once you’re sitting down.

Galateos watches with interest, observing the way you’re able to pull at the crust and place the triangular-shaped piece on a napkin that you decided to use as a plate because… you don’t have the energy to do dishes. As you eat, and subsequently feel a tad bit tired, you realize that there is going to be an issue with the fact that, problem one; you don’t know if you should leave him alone if he doesn’t sleep and problem two; there’s literally only one room that’s fully furnished and can house a person. You have been staying there, on your own, since going to some other hotel at night seems unnecessary, because this place is a hotel. Silently, you try to weigh the pros and cons of sharing a bed with him, and the only thing you seem to come back to is that you'd be able to keep an eye on him throughout the night.

He takes a couple of bites of the pizza, though scrunches up his nose with each one, seemingly unable to gather much of an appetite. Though he actually swallows the food, instead of spitting it right out like you might have expected, so that’s something, you guess. After you clean up, you sit with another mug of steaming hot tea, trying to relax yourself enough for sleep. He has a cup, too, though he stares at the liquid, and doesn’t really seem interested in drinking it.

You try to browse through the photos of the pamphlet again, trying to find something that might help you figure out just what the actual, literal fuck is going on. There isn’t really anything that might be considered out of the ordinary, there’s a transcript of the writing found at the base of the statue, back when he was standing still on the pedestal.

Μόνο ένας που μπορεί να αγαπήσει θα δώσει πνοή ζωής σε αυτό το σπλάχνο της γης

Όταν τα άστρα θα έχουν κινηθεί από τις θέσεις τους

Τότε ο γιος της Γεας θα αφυπνιστεί

Να γεννηθεί στην εποχή του μετάλλου και του κεραυνού

Όταν ο γλύπτης θα κείτεται νεκρός για τρείς χιλιάδες εύπρωκτα, εύπρωκτα χρόνια

There isn’t a translation available, which strikes you as odd. Maybe it hasn’t been translated yet? The pamphlet is a draft, after all. Maybe Marge has someone working on it right at this very moment and just hasn’t had the time to fully go over it yet. But… you look back up to the statue, who is bobbing his teabag up and down, watching the color of the water change. “Do you read Greek?”

“I don’t-”

“Just take a look,” you interrupt, holding your phone out in front of his face.

His eyes squint, pouring over the words on your phone, and it looks like he might actually be understanding what it says. That is, until, he sits back and offers you a shrug, mouth twitching. “I can’t.”

You let out a frustrated breath, but whatever. You knew it was a long shot, anyway. “Guess I’ll just have to wait until the official translator does their thing.”

Author’s Note:

A very special thanks to the wonderful @two-plus-two-is-four, my source for a lovely Greek translation of the inscription. I appreciate it so very much.

To End in Ice and Fire | Part 5

Being born with a particular birthmark is the lurking fear every parent has in their hearts when they bring a child into this dark world. Your parents are the only ones who have never received relief when creating life, because they knew your soul would be damned for eternity when he finally comes to claim what’s his.

Moodboard // Prologue // Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 // Part 4 // Part 5

Spoiler: Jongin is an angry little vampire.

The next morning is much of the same. You wake up a little disoriented, but nonetheless slide out of bed and into the slippers you left waiting. The floor is always so cold in the morning and in the evening and your slippers can hardly fend off the cold. You change into a different dress in the closet, into a deep blue gown that you had trouble lacing up because the corset was just the slightest bit too small. You remedy the situation by sliding on an overcoat, buttoning each and every button. It wards off the chill in the air and you pad slowly to the vanity pressed up to the wall you hadn’t noticed the day before in your confusion and terror.

There’s a large mirror attached to the back of it, with little drawers and a seat cushion set in front of it. On the table is a golden hairbrush, intricate designs spiraling in a circle over the back of it, a large ruby set in the center. A matching hand mirror sits beside it. The Count and Countess did not even have such luxurious items in their household as you suspected the gold might be entirely real. Aside from the two items is a black wooden box, quite plain compared to the jeweled handset. A curious peek inside reveals glittering pieces of jewelry – you spy a string of genuine pearls, sapphire earrings, and garnet and diamond studded bracelets before you quickly shut it.

Raking the brush through your tired locks of hair, you regard yourself in the back mirror. Despite sleeping clear through the night, you look weary. Though talking to Junmyeon the morning before shed some light on your current situation, it had done nothing to set your mind at ease. When you had left your home to make the walk to the church, you had every intention of dying. You had believed you would be ripped apart and drained, much like that innocent boy had been. You had been waiting for the inevitability of death your entire life. You had kneeled every Sunday in church and every night before bed, praying that when it came you could still be saved.

Junmyeon had confirmed that your kidnapper had not brought you here just to kill you. If anything, you gathered that you were regarded as a piece of property to him. Not exactly a new concept to you, considering most marriages were arranged and young women like yourself were bartered off to the man with the highest place in society and the heaviest change purse. You, being a reasonably attractive woman and coming from a well-respected family, would have been good enough to be sold to Richard’s family. You would have been the next Countess and inherited his mother’s jewels and good standing, however you would have never truly owned anything. Everything would be Richard’s, and you would just be a conduit for his children.

You stood from the vanity, blinking images from a future you might have had out of your head. Sweeping your hair off your shoulder you make your way out of your room. Much like the day before, the hallways are mainly lit by candles, the heavy curtains still drawn over the windows. The path to the dining hall is empty of people, and you half expect to see Junmyeon waiting for you at the head of the table. Instead, it too is void of others, however the table is spread with much of the same breakfast food from the day before. You fill a plate with various fruits and cuts of meat before you pause. Being the only one present, and likely the only one in the house, why should you not take the head of the table?

Sitting down where the patriarch typically would affords you a rush of gratification. Although you look out to a table without companionship, the new vantage points allows you to regain some semblance of control over your life. One small decision seems to be enough to propel you through the day.

Junmyeon strolls into the hall while you’re finishing off the last of the sweet grapes. The amusement is plain on his face when he sees where you’ve chosen to sit. Awkwardly you begin to rise from the chair, but he waves it off and sits a few seats down. “I see you’ve made yourself comfortable.”

“Yes…” You start, grasping for an excuse before you decide on a light shrug and the truth. “I did not expect to have company this morning.”

“I put in for an order of lemon tarts this morning for a reason.” Junmyeon states, leaning forward to pluck one from a plate. You watch him take a bite in confusion but decide not to question it. If the bloodsucking demon wanted to eat a lemon tart, you would let him enjoy it in peace.

“So might we revisit the reason on me being here?” You question him, watching him practically inhale the sweet treat and reach for a second.

“I believe I addressed why you were here yesterday.” Junmyeon states when he swallows. “And I believe I stated Yixing should be speaking with you.”

“If I’m to be forced to live here,” You begin, doing your best to keep the spite from your tone. “I’m going to need things that I do not currently have.”

“Like what?” Junmyeon questions, quirking an eyebrow, already halfway done with his second treat. There was only one remaining.

“Like…” You grasp for common items, not having expected him to actually care. “Well I’m going to need access to a bath, and soaps. Sanitary cloths for my cycles. Womanly things.”

“I’ll make sure to let Yixing know your list of demands for living here.” He states in amusement, standing and plucking the last treat from the table. “I’m sure he’ll fall over himself trying to get those things in order.”

He disappears from the room as you huff lightly, chewing on the last grape with more force than necessary. If they wanted to hold you hostage you at least had the right to be clean. After a few second of debating you rise from the head of the table, following him out to try to squeeze more answers out of him. He has already disappeared, and a quick search of the bottom floor shows that he must have made it up the stairs with alarming quiet and speed.

The rest of the day is spent trying to amuse yourself. You go on another tour of the castle, seeing if you can find anymore unlocked doors. There aren’t any. You run out of ideas to amuse yourself quickly and succumb to deciding to read the day away. While you love reading, it having been how you spent most of your days at home anyways, you had nothing else to do. You should have told Junmyeon to ask Yixing to procure more entertainment.

It is somehow easy demanding things from Junmyeon, or at least speaking to him in a normal manner. He was more human-like than Yixing had been, and if it weren’t for his red eyes and flash of pointed teeth you would have tempted to go as far and say the two of you could be friends. He felt more human, yes, but there were still times where he went far too long without blinking or you caught him looking at your throat.

The next few days pass by much the same. Despite not having a bible you say a short prayer every night, but you quickly begin to lose faith. You discover the room next to yours open the next day, inside being a large claw foot tub with steaming water. A table is set beside it, housing a plethora of soaps for your body and hair. A plush towel sits next to them. You close the door and bolt it shut, sitting in the scalding water until it turns cool and your skin is pruned. You took time to smell all of your options, settling on a mixture of vanilla and peppermint. You scrub and scrub and scrub until you have to get out and wrap the towel around your body.

In fact, every morning since your chat with Junmyeon has produced steaming bath water for your enjoyment. It immediately becomes the favorite part of your day, despite the piano that lulls you to sleep every night. You silently acknowledge the fact that not even those in the largest homes back in your village had the opportunity to bathe each and every day.

Junmyeon does not show up after the second day, but you find yourself not minding it. Though you miss human interaction, you’re content to wallow your days away in solitude, bath water, and tomes thicker than your torso. Which is exactly what you’re doing on the fifth day of the kidnapping – balancing a large book on your knees, peering down at the words in a plush chair in the library. Having chosen something outlining the lineage of a faraway land, you settled in with a cup of tea to read the afternoon away.

 You awake sometime later. The curtains you had drawn to let in the late afternoon sun might as well have been shut with all the light that was left. The sky was dark, what light the moon cast hardly penetrating through the window. Sleepily you shift, your legs sliding out from under you and falling stiffly to floor.

Hissing as you pull your feet back, you feel the residual sharp pinpricks of how cold the floor was. Winter was certainly setting in. Blearily you reach down and fumble blindly for the slippers you had discarded before shoving your feet into them. This time you weren’t shocked when your feet hit the floor, and you pushed yourself out of the chair. You stretch your arms above your head, yawning obnoxiously before your mind wakes up enough to realize you can year the piano weaving its way into the library from the music room upstairs.

You’ve never been out of your room when you hear the piano. You still don’t know who plays it. It could be Junmyeon, sure, or it could be Yixing or some other demon you’ve yet to meet – okay, slow down, you tell yourself, taking a breath to steady your increasing thumping heartbeat. The library is on the first floor, the music room on the second, and your room on the third. All you have to do is be quiet going up the stairs.

Creeping outside the library, you’re met with the characteristic stillness of the household. No one is roaming the halls and there’s no noise outside of the soft, lilting melody of the piano keys. It’s even more beautiful now that there’s one less door between you and its location. Closing the door slowly behind you, you began to creep towards the grand staircase. Candles were lighted in their perches on the walls, casting yellow and orange hues against the dark stone. Just a few stairs up, you pause. Was it the fourth or the fifth stair that creaked under added weight? You take a moment to wrack your brain for an answer before you decide to hike up your skirts and stretch to the sixth stair.

Narrowly avoiding a leg cramp, you push yourself back to a respectable position, straightening out your skirts and continuing to sneak up the rest of the staircase. There was only one other stair you had to avoid, and when you reached the top you mentally gave yourself a round of applause. One flight of stairs down, one flight of stairs to go. As you begin your light trek down the hallway towards the next flight of stairs, the feathery lilt of melody swelled, working towards a climax of what you were sure was to be an amazing end of –

“Hello.” A honeyed voice sounded from behind you. You spin in mid stride to face whoever spoke, but there’s no one there. Your eyebrows furrow in confusion, squinting lightly into the weak light cast by the candles. There’s no one there.

“In front of you.” The same voice speaks from behind you once more. You spin again, this time coming face to face with another demon. You take an involuntary step back, back towards the stairs.

He’s easily the most attractive of the three. Towering above you, you see deep chocolate hair parted in the front, and his skin must have been naturally rich because last you knew these demons could not go out in the sun. His skin practically glowed despite the weak lighting, but that’s where the warmth stopped. A sharp jawline, plump lips quirked into a smirk, a straight nose, strong eyebrows, and blood red eyes. Junmyeon’s – even Yixing’s – had life in them, emotion and personality. This man’s were cold, lifeless. Dead, just like him.

“It’s rude not to speak when spoken to.” His voice is huskier than when he first spoke, but still dripping in honey. Immaculately dress, his jacket was unbuttoned halfway, his white shirt underneath similarly unbuttoned. An expanse of tanned skin showed, and you could practically see the iron muscles ripple underneath.

“Hello.” You suddenly find your voice and dip into an uncertain curtsy. He’s different from Junmyeon, different from Yixing. While you knew that they were both deadly, they didn’t look at you like you were a meal. They didn’t look through you.

The man in front of you suddenly smiled a full, toothy grin – and displayed for the first time the fangs you had heard so many rumors about when they spoke of the dead bodies found in the morning. Long, sharp, and almost mockingly glinting in the faint light – you couldn’t help but take another step back.

“That was adorable.” He stated in an amused tone. Your face flushed, and the thought of his fangs again sent your pulse skyrocketing. His eyes darted down to your neck, and he cocked his head to the side. It was as if he could hear your accelerated heart rate. A pink tongue darted out to lick his bottom lip, eyes not straying from your neck. You take another step back.

“Just a taste.” He says to himself in a low tone, the amusement from before having vanished as quick as it showed and his eyelids drooped low, hooded. The piano has stopped, but you have no time to take note of this fact. His lips pull back to reveal his fangs again as he leans forward, arms reaching out to keep you from running away. It was like a train wreck. Fear consumed you, rooting you to your place and the only thing you could do was screw your eyes shut in an attempt to ignore what was happening.

“Here to save your little mate, hm, Xing?” The handsome man ground out, and you managed to crack open your eyes. Directly in front of you was a broad back clad in a black suit jacket. Even from behind, even from his shortened name you could tell it was Yixing. Something deep inside of your soul told you it was him.

“You should not touch ladies without permission, Jongin.” Yixing speaks, his voice even. The first time he had spoken to you it had been soft, gentle – now it had an undercurrent of suppressed anger and barely contained contempt. The power shifted in the hallway away from the demon named Jongin and he felt it immediately. From peeking around Yixing, you saw him retreat a few steps. His eyes flickered from Yixing’s to yours, and he sneered.

“Ladies shouldn’t be wandering at night. They don’t know what lurks in the shadows.” He warned, and then he was simply gone. You didn’t blink, at least you don’t think you did; he was just there one moment and gone the next.

Yixing turned to face you after a moment. His hair hung over his forehead now, but he was still just as beautiful. Red eyes peered down at you, and you couldn’t make it past the startling closeness to see the concern clouding them. You take another step backwards, trying to get some physical space in an effort to clear get a grip on your mind.

Except this time, your foot does meet the smooth wooden planks along the floor. Instead, it’s met by nothing but thin air and belatedly you realize that, in your terror of the demon, you had retreated to the first staircase. Having no time to correct your mistake, your body tips backwards as your balance is thrown off. As your arms flail out to try to regain control you let out a very unbecoming yelp at the prospect of falling down the stairs and likely cracking your head open on a step or the landing.

Once again Yixing is there to save you. He reaches to grab hold of your hand, pulling you away from the steps and pivots you around so he’s between you and your close brush with an embarrassment you would never live down. His hands are cold, impossibly cold, and the grip he has on you sends your heartbeat into overtime – scratch that, the proximity he’s holding you at does. One arm has snaked around your waist to hold you firmly to his body, as if he could protect you wholly from making another stupid mistake tonight. His slim build does nothing to hide the fact that he is solid muscle. His hands may be comparable to ice, but his core body just seems to lack heat and is cool through the few layers of clothing he has on. Your own body seems to thrum with the closeness of him, something stirring deep inside of you.

“Careful, little one.” His tone is scolding while his lips are pressed into a thin line, brows scrunched together. The concern is hard to miss this time and the revelation that this heartless being is showing some semblance of kindness to you sends you spiraling further.

Heat colors your cheeks, making it hard to deny the embarrassment you were feeling with the whole situation. Yixing’s eyes rake over your features and you note offhand that his Adam’s apple bobs with a hard swallow. It’s a similar reaction Jongin had before he tried to tear into your neck, however you find it hard to react to Yixing the same way. “I-I am so sorry.”

You’re sorry? You instantly cringe at the fact you had apologized to the man – the thing that had kidnapped you from a church just days beforehand. He must have something similar running through his mind because the widening of his eyes and slow blink tell the story. “You’re sorry?” He questions, shaking his head and letting go of you. Somehow, you’re left feeling colder when he does. “You should not apologize for having an appropriate reaction to my kind. You have nothing at all to apologize for.”

“The piano stopped.” You note out loud, voice surprisingly even. Yixing regards you closely, being able to tell so much had happened in such a short period of time for you that you were choosing to focus on the small things before you tackle the large ones. “Were you playing it?”

“Yes,” Yixing answers, adding more gently, “I think it’s time for you to get into bed, little one.”

“I think you’re right.” You concede. He moves to the side, gesturing politely that you continue on your way. The first few steps are a bit wobbly, still feeling blindsided by the events that just transpired. A blood thirsty demon trying to rip into your neck, another, slightly less blood thirsty demon saving you from him, and then saving you from your own clumsy self. You had found yourself wishing these past few days to just run into Yixing again so you could demand that he release you, demand that he take you home unharmed and leave you be. But here he was, looking impossibly handsome in the flickering light, being kind, and you could not bring yourself to do so.

He follows a pace behind, his presence following you down the hall and up another flight of stairs. When you enter your bedroom, he stops in the doorway; lingering, watching. You pull the blankets back from the bed, trying to think of what to say to the red-eyed man.

“Sleep well.” He states softly, beating you to it and reaching in to take hold of the doorknob, beginning to shut the door. Your heart leaps in your throat at the thought of being alone, at the thought of Jongin being somewhere in the house. They don’t know what lurks in the shadows. When Jongin had spoken it, you had taken it as a serious warning. It flared up in your mind again, spreading through you like wildfire.

“Wait!” The panic in your voice made him halt, looking up at you with widened eyes. “What if he ends up coming back?”

Yixing drew himself up to his full height, shoulders tense and expression solemn. “Jongin will not come back, nor will he hurt you. I will not let anyone hurt you. I promise it.” His tone was even but laced with seriousness you had not expected. It was hard not to believe the words when he conveyed them so earnestly.

You turn from him, trying to steady the warmth that spread through you at his sudden flare of protectiveness. Keeping your voice as even as possible, you manage to murmur, “I believe you,” as you slide out of your slippers and into bed. “And I want to talk tomorrow.”

Yixing nods, beginning to close the door once more. “Good night, little one.”

You shrug out of your coat and unlace the corset, shrugging them both off before you lay down in bed, pulling the blankets up high. The piano never starts back up, but you don’t find difficulty in drifting off.

on the topic of rk900 && his ‘deviancy’

the way that i write rk900 to be is very specific, and it includes a lot, which i will? try to explain? as best i can? please feel free to ask clarifying questions though like i have so much to say about this and im sure i’ll miss something. anyway imma shove this under a cut because i KNOW im about to just fucking go.

so i wanna make it very clear from the get go that 900 is not deviant in the typical fashion. he does not believe that he is a free being with actual emotions and rights to live. there is never a moment where he stops and goes ‘oh shit’ and breaks through that red tape. he never has an ‘i may be deviant’ breakdown. he is not deviant.

however, he is not not-deviant. 

what i mean by this is kind of complicated. let me start with some background into my personal interpretation of the rk900 series in general. they are a series designed for warfare -- the majority of them have been shipped overseas with soldiers to act as a variety of things: weapons, infiltration, an inhuman line of defense to protect the human soldiers --- like. they were specifically designed to be killers, to be dangerous, to be pretty damn hard to stop. they are essentially top of the line terminators -- are they entirely legal? ehhhhhh. but they let the government get away with things that might either kill their human soldiers or are of questionable ethic that they can just.... decommission the android afterwards. that’s their main function, the main reason they exist. 

this is crucial, and i will explain more on it in a moment, but for the rest of this meta i’m going to be using rk900 to talk of the general model series, and 900 to speak specifically to mine (and, in a lesser way, the fandom one in general, though this should go without saying i don’t intend to infringe upon other personal headcanons of rk900 writers)

connor was the rk ‘law enforcement’ prototype, but he also functioned mainly as a playing piece in an android revolution that, let’s face it, cyberlife saw coming a mile away. cyberlife wanted a say. they wanted to have a semblance of control over how to twist the uprising in a way that benefit them. given 900 comes about in a world where the revolution was quelled, cyberlife basically achieved their goal (i’ll touch upon my meta of my machine connor and this in another post). 

the reason this is important is because 900 was implanted with the majority of observations and experiences that connor had. things he learned about humanity, how to mimic it, how to manipulate it, how to use it. things like the events of the revolution in the order they happened, what it was like to be a detective with the dpd, literally like. all the things that connor went through or observed or scanned or downloaded or learned -- these were uploaded into 900.

now, his memories weren’t necessarily input into 900 -- that is, 900 doesn’t have any first hand accounts of most things (from petting sumo all the way to connor ending the revolution). so even if he has an understanding of what being on a case is like, he doesn’t have connor’s exact memories of doing it. it’s more like all of these things have been converted into data for him to retrieve -- it’s been shifted into facts, statements, articles, serving more as.... general history knowledge? like that stuff everyone just knows for some reason? 

but it’s more in depth than that because, yknow, they intended for 900 to be top of the line (yes, 900, not rk900). so all this information from connor was used to boost the insanely vast amounts of knowledge that they input into 900 to begin with -- it was used as contextual information, filler information, you get me? because the main thing that differed between connor and 900 is that 900 was given all the knowledge he needed before he was released, where as connor was expected to observe and adapt. cyberlife took connor’s methods of observing and interacting and adapting to humanity and refined it so that 900 already had that information.

so when 900 was officially done, he had basically anything he might need to know in his software already. he didn’t need to learn anything. 

so let me backtrack a little bit into why i say 900 gets these things and not all the rk900s. 

like i said before, the rk900s were built for warfare. 900 was not. i mean, yes, his model and abilities are all the same, he is still an rk900 model. but he was not built to go to war. the 900 that connor meets in the zen garden is the same 900 i write. that particular rk900 model, 900, was specifically designed to replace connor. the others were mass produced for their purpose as war based androids. but 900 was made to work for the DPD, to sort of take connor’s place, in part because it gives them access to local law, but also because they want to monitor the place where connor was assigned. 

so because of this 900 does not have a purpose. 

he was not developed with any specific goal or mission or duty aside from ‘work with the dpd’, so he doesn’t have the same goal set that the rk900 models are programmed with. cyberlife essentially input all this data into 900, and then didn’t tell him what to do with it aside from ‘just go to this location’ which means that 900 had to figure it out for himself.

this is where cyberlife fucked up big time.

the other rk900 models are designed to be perfect soldiers -- deviancy was basically coded out of them based on connor’s experience (whether or not he went deviant, it was in his code). thats not to say that they can never go deviant, its just to say it would be really fucking hard to make them do that. 

since 900 has none of that, he is inherently different from the rk900 model. when you make an android without a purpose, you have basically created a deviant android from the get go. 900 is more or less his own model, in which there is only one 900, and by default, he works for the Detroit Police Department.

now, generally, this means he’s paired with gavin (gotta live up to that delicious ship, honestly) so a lot of my following nonsense is stemmed from that but the point is that, he gets to decide what his goal is whenever he wants, so it can change, and it does change, and the choice is entirely his own. by all intents and purposes, cyberlife inadvertently created an android with honest to god free will.

so where does this leave us with deviancy? because i can hear ya’ll but fox, you said he wasn’t deviant and now you’re saying he is which is it?

here’s what makes 900, well, 900. as part of the fact that he is so incredibly self-aware, he knows he’s a machine. he accepts he’s a machine. there isn’t any like -- ‘i’m a machine’ with a touch of sadness or regret. he doesn’t wish to be human -- he has no desire to feel or experience human things, or do whatever deviant androids wanted. he doesn’t care about that. it doesn’t interest him in the slightest. and this isn’t because he doesn’t know about feelings or that “how could he know if he doesn’t want them if he hasn’t experienced them” because it’s not like that. 900 has an incredible sense of what things are, what they’d be like -- he got all of this from connor, remember. so 900 isn’t inherently interested in being anything other than a machine, and he holds no misunderstandings about what being a machine entails either.

does that make sense? hold on let me try it this way. because cyberlife tried so hard to make sure that 900′s software had everything, they created an incredibly self-aware android that doesn’t seek humanity because of how well they understand life. 900 doesn’t like or dislike being an android -- he just is. he recognizes that. wanting to be something else doesn’t... compute because it just doesn’t make sense. like why would he want to be human when he’s not? when he can be better and do more? like i can’t even say he’s happy about it because he doesn’t (at first) associate chemical reactions in his system with being emotions because they aren’t. it’s all synthetic.

he is perhaps the most alive an android can get without being alive, honestly.

900 decides that, upon being assigned to work with gavin, that gavin is technically his mission now. as a partner to a detective, but as a partner that is stronger, faster, and can withstand immense damage, he essentially positions himself as a bodyguard for the human. the problem here is that, due to his awareness, his approach to this is.... unorthodox.

900 will let gavin throw a punch at someone who can and will definitely hit back, but he’ll stop gavin from walking into an ambush. he might get gavin a coffee one day without being asked, but then throw the coffee at him the next day when gavin demands one. he has a habit of making sly comments and is known to push buttons and see what he can get away with, testing limits and constantly pressing against the boundaries of what he can do before someone snaps, and then sees if he can go just a little farther. 

900 is very much his own person. he belongs to neither cyberlife nor DPD. he does what he wants when he wants it and how he wants it, and he can, at times, appear very human (albeit one that is obnoxious and at times infuriating). however 900 never lets it be forgotten that he is a machine. he can crush every bone in your body one by one while you’re helpless to it. he can have expressions that are near-humanlike : amused, angry, exasperated. but he will go from lightly smiling to fucking cold eyes and danger just radiating off of him to the point people will actually feel the room lower a few degrees

900 knows he’s a machine. if you even for a moment forget, he will remind you. he has unethically tortured suspects for information, they purposely don’t give 900 a gun at the start because he would get bored and simply shoot whoever they’re investigating and apologize later. he has no qualms about killing, about breaking laws or faces, about doing things the way that he feels like doing them, with or without anyone approving. and if anyone thinks they can stop him, they’re just. good fucking luck.

but the reason he doesn’t do any of this is because he is self-aware enough to know there’s no fucking point to it. his mission is, as he decides, “protect gavin reed” and he will do what it takes for that, which may include punching a suspect or stealing evidence or something, he doesn’t care, but if it serves no true purpose in what 900 is doing, then he consciously decides he’s not going to just.. do it. but the thing is that at any moment he could decide to change his mind. and that’s what makes him so terrifying. he is literally unpredictable.

i ... okay i think that’s what i wanted to say? just as like some added notes, but with gavin, 900 does become.... hmm... softer? he doesn’t soften but he basically claims gavin as his own, like he is assigned to be gavin’s partner but it becomes literally almost a possessive thing. 900 makes gavin his mission, and if anyone gets in the way, they’re fucked. but by attaching himself to a human, he opens himself up to the softer side of being human, so 900 never truly ‘becomes deviant’ because there is never, as i said, a moment where he’s got a red wall that says this isn’t protocol becaaaause he doesn’t have protocol. so there’s never a chance for him to break through it. but he takes care of his partner, makes sure gavin is eating well and sleeping well, makes sure he’s more or less safe, is always in tuned to where gavin is and what gavin is doing, will step in at a moment’s notice if he feels the need. 

it becomes way more.... well, more, if this is a ship with a gavin, but regardless, 900 will have a gentler approach to his interactions with the human he has claimed that will be noticeable. softer tones, less cold eyes, more considerate touches. he’ll listen to gavin (may not always follow directions, but he listens), he’ll defend gavin’s actions, he’ll get angry if something happens to gavin. 900 never explicitly goes deviant, and he never fully accepts that what he feels is.... a real feeling? because he does not fully believe that androids can experience true emotion, so even if he does get angry, or he does feel amused or happy or whatever, it’s based on an extensively coded software that has made him so perfectly able to mimic humanity that it’s basically indecipherable. yes, he cares about gavin in most cases. yes he can feel panic or worry if something happens. but in general, no. he will not feel fear, he is not concerned with death, he can’t experience pain... so.

a last note is that like. this is the reason that he goes by 900. gavin typically calls him ‘nines’ which is only allowed for gavin. but a name is a human thing, and 900 is not and has no desire to be, so he just uses 900. most other people in the DPD also just use 900, sometimes they’ll call him rk which he’s okay with but it’s not his preference. he would’ve allowed gavin to name him if he wanted to but gavin didn’t, so that’s why when gavin begins using nines, that’s what 900 assumes as a name. 900 is comfortable to him, it’s who he is, and he doesn’t desire more than that. 

alright i’m. i’m probably gonna start getting repetitive soon, and a lot of the rest of the emotional aspect is based on 900 being involved with gavin, and thats case by case so it’s can be subject to change, and this post is meant to serve as a general basis for my portrayal of 900. 

TFA to TLJ: The Evolution of Rey's (and Kylo Ren's) Clothing and Hairstyle

So I was watching TLJ for the hundredth time a couple days ago, and it got me thinking that while observing Rey's and Kylo Ren's scenes, there's definitely a transformation going on in terms of the audience's visual cues for their physical appearances, one that I haven't really thought about before.

So having realized this, I decided to write up this meta/essay in order to organize my thoughts, with poorly cropped images!  

Word of warning, I do ramble quite a bit, and my way of speaking is not nearly as eloquent as other meta writers for this fandom, but either way, I had a lot of fun typing this up for my and your reading pleasure!

Starting with Kylo Ren's clothing and appearance, it doesn't change all that much from TFA. As we know, his color scheme obviously remains the same with the black ensemble, which admittedly, looks quite good on him, if I do say so myself. So no changes there.

He exchanges the mask and scarf/hood for a cape in TLJ, which gives him a more regal bearing, greatly contributing to his image as the "prince" of this space fairy tale we call Star Wars. The cape gives Adam Driver's tall size more bulk, and his shoulders look broader too, so his character cuts an imposing figure, if it hasn't already. Due to his large size and subsequently, the long, quick strides his natural gait would make, the way the cape trails behind him also gives his figure the illusion of "looming" over everyone else, so it's fascinating how it greatly gives depth to his role as the new Supreme Leader and how his manner of dress magnifies his presence.

Furthermore, this potentially gives the audience another peak at the former Ben Solo's education and experience, as what would have been expected of a senator's son to have received. When it comes to politics, outward appearance is a weapon in and of itself, and without a doubt, he most likely learned the significant impact of having a keen fashion sense from his mother.

In comparison to Snoke's gold, gaudy robes, Kylo Ren's simple, yet elegant choice of garments evokes a mixed sense of awe and dread, a lot more than the former ever could. In fact, the personal impression that I got with the sparkly robes that Snoke wore were more along the lines of comedic effect rather than outright disgust for the character, as who in their right mind would actually take someone seriously with those tacky af clothes?

But I digress.

Going back to the subject of our space prince, Kylo Ren's cape was most likely a visual cue for the audience, as a well as a foreshadowing tool of what role he would take on by the end of the film, so for the most part, the changes to his clothing style are clear-cut and defined from the first to the second movie: whereas in the first film, he looked more menacing, like a phantom of some sort straight out of a myth or fairy tale meant to be an avatar of fear and horror, in the second film, Rian Johnson pretty much solidifies his role as the "dark prince", especially when he makes the decision to take off his mask permanently.

And thus, this is where my mini analysis for Kylo Ren's clothing and general style ends.

The transformation of Rey's hairstyle and clothing though is a different story altogether, just because the changes are so much more dramatic, and the more I thought about it, the more fascinating it became to me.

So first, her clothes.

As we see in TFA, Rey's color scheme is mostly in hues of white and grey. Her clothing is an immediate cue to the audience that not only is she the protagonist, she's a character that embodies goodness, innocence, and Light, attributions usually associated with the color white.

Her generous heart and optimistic personality, the way she slides down the hill to get to her speeder, her sense of wonder at seeing Takodana for the first time, all of this contributes to her overall image as an "unblemished" girl, so her clothing only strengthens this idea as well. The color of her shirt and trousers is the essence of "virginal" white, and though it's dusty and somewhat worn and threadbare due to her occupation as a scavenger in Jakku, for the most part, her figure stands out when the audience watches her on the television screen, particularly during her scenes in the forest and inside the interrogation room at Starkiller Base.

Although she doesn't don gowns or dresses in either of the two movies due to her practical nature, the cross wraps she wears, the audience can infer, acts as a stand-in for what could be a skirt, the way it billows when she runs and how very light the cloth looks. This can be taken as a visual cue to the audience (and of course, in JJ Abrams' own words) that she's the definitive "princess" of this trilogy. Appearance-wise, although Rey's style seems minimal compared to Padme's refinement and Leia's grace, it doesn't diminish her role in any way as the heroine and half the protagonist of this trilogy.    

Again, like Kylo Ren's style in TFA, Rey's clothing choices are also clear-cut in the first movie. It creates an easy distinction between them, in how they are on opposite sides of the war, with him siding with "Evil" and her siding with "Good."

With TLJ however, Rey's clothes undergoes a series of striking changes, and I'm honestly surprised (pleasantly so) that the costume designer made the choices they did.

As we all know, Rey has two sets of clothes for this movie: the first outfit she wears when she spends time with Luke in Ach-To and the jedi ensemble she puts together for when she first goes to the Supremacy to convince Kylo Ren to come away with her to the Resistance.

Diving into the topic of the first outfit (aka, the one with the least amount of layers), what immediately stood out to me was—of course, the form-fitting sleeveless shirt she wears underneath the vest. Although the vest does a good job in modestly hiding the shape of her shoulders and the curve of her waist and hips, the plunging neckline was the big shocker to me, as was to everybody else. Back when the incident of boobgate in the Reylo fandom first happened, I wasn't yet into the ship or Star Wars, and when I'd first seen the outfit at the end of TFA, I didn't think about it too much, just because it didn't make much of an impression on me. Having said this, forgive me in advance if I'm spouting ideas that have been heard before! Haha~

Throughout history and certainly in modern times, the neckline—and how much you show of it—is considered an aesthetic for femininity. There's a certain sense of sensuality in showing the skin of one's neck, as well as the collarbone and the hollow of one's throat. In fact, in some parts of the world, showing the neckline was sometimes considered shocking and scandalous, just because of how the image of an exposed neckline could be so provocative. As a modern audience, we know this because nowadays, for many explicit sex scenes in film (and in lots of smut fics and other media!), the intention of the act is usually cued when kissing of the exposed neck ensues.

Furthermore, studies have also shown that the neck is considered by most as an erogenous zone!

So already from the onset, we know that Rey's image as a "pure maiden" was already beginning to change, quite different from how her appearance was established in TFA, but as this is a franchise designed mainly for children, it's subtle. Her new outfits in TLJ undoubtedly give her a more feminine look, and whomever was the costume designer for this movie had made the conscious decision to gently show off Daisy Ridley's curves and beautifully slim figure, which again, I applaud them for. 

In addition, while we can infer that Kylo Ren already had some semblance of a physical attraction to her in TFA, I've no doubt in my mind that the deepening of this said attraction is thanks in small part to Rey's bold choice of dress in the second movie.  

Which brings me to her next outfit; to be honest, having thought about Rey's fashion sense non-stop for a good number of days now, it strikes me as somewhat odd that the costume designer for TLJ didn't choose the Resistance's color scheme (brown, orange, and white) as the basis of our scavenger's new wardrobe. If they had wanted to clearly maintain the visual distinction between these two characters as they did in TFA, I personally thought that that would have been the most obvious and sensible route, yknow?  

But as we know, they didn't. In fact, the costume designer totally blew away my mind when they decided to let Rey wear not brown (which would have evoked a sense of her origins in Jakku, association with the Resistance), not orange (again, Resistance color), especially not white (a visual cue of her allegiance to the Light, the Jedi, etc.), but full on black. Of course, she keeps the grey trousers (practicality), cross wraps (to maintain her image/role as the "princess"), and the white undershirt (basically an undergarment at this point), but the black sleeveless shirt she dons for her final outfit in the movie is ironically what stands out the most.

Usually, black is an easy color to work with when it comes to clothes matching, because it goes well with anything; it's a color that blends in and it's not the most memorable color when one is made to recall someone else's appearance. More often than not, the color black is associated with mourning, evil, and death, but it can also mean power, seduction, and sophistication. After all, why then do we have so many little black dresses and black lingerie available for purchase as consumers, and every time, they're advertised in a way as to make the potential wearer think, "if you wear this, you'll feel confident and beautiful"?

(Offhanded comment, but personally, if I were ever to get a choice to choose between the First Order and the Resistance, I would most likely pick the First Order, just because black is a sexy color.)

Thinking about it, if we were take away the cross wraps that Rey wears with this outfit, it would be accurate to say that she actually matches with Kylo, at least from the waist up! And I just find that...so incredibly endearing, I really do! It was most likely a subconscious decision on Rey's part to have chosen to wear black, but the shipper in me couldn't help but feel excited and happy that she may have made an effort to look alluring for Kylo (while keeping her practical sense of style, of course!), because she knows in some part of her mind that it's a color he likes—or at the very least, approves of, and thus, as another way to persuade him to come with her back to the Resistance, chose something that he would have liked to see her in.

And of course, the gorgeous, perfectly applied mascara she wore totally deserves a shout out too!

It's a powerful type of persuasion/seduction, in its own way, to appeal to someone by making use of their aesthetics, I think. And in my mind, I'd like to think that Rey did make a deliberate effort to please him, that the attraction is not just one-sided from Kylo and that they both wanted to look well-groomed and good for each other (don't any of you go on thinking now that I missed how perfectly combed and coiffed Ben's hair looked when he met up with her).

As a digital artist, choosing the colors for the clothes I draw on my characters are just as important as the anatomy and expressions and everything else that makes a composition look marvelous. Frustratingly, color is also what I admittedly struggle with the most, so it's a humbling experience whenever I manage to get a color scheme together that actually looks good.

The blue/grey cross wraps that Rey wears was a wonderful way to temper the solid black shirt she wore underneath, as it gives a firm, but subtle reminder to the audience of her independence and her agency. Moreover, blue is a calming color, naturally attributed to the concepts of peace, tranquility, neutrality, and trust. Many artists would agree that blue is considered a positive color and rarely is it ever used for art pieces meant to evoke something negative.

And finally, Rey's hair. Yes, you all read that correctly, her hair. Honestly, perhaps the most shocking change (at least for me) to have witnessed in our scavenger's physical appearance is her brand new hairdo, forgoing the three buns for a half tail (or also commonly known as a topsy tail). Before I dive into the significance of this change, let me just reiterate one more time how shocked I was to have realized that the production team for TLJ actually went there and decided to get rid of the three-bun gig Rey had going on.

First off, we all know by now that the three-bun hairdo was Disney's answer to the cinnamon buns that Princess Leia sported, eventually becoming an iconic hairstyle. Rey's hairdo in TFA and half of TLJ was a memorable design, making her look innocent, fierce, and practical all at once. Little girls could relate to her, but so could preteens and young women who are just at the cusp of adulthood. Rey's hairstyle was a clever way to keep the audience from forgetting about this new and mysterious character, long after Disney's paying customers have left the movie theatres, and they know this. All the merchandise prior to TLJ that featured Rey used this hairstyle: all the dolls, the Lego pieces, the posters, the t-shirts, everything!

While it may not be as iconic as Leia's cinnamon buns (yet), it's definitely getting there. So having stated the significance of her first hairstyle, it could not have been a light decision for Disney's execs to forgo it for the simpler half tail that's not nearly as unique as the three buns.

What's more interesting is the fact that we first see her hair loosened when she finds herself in the mirror cave looking for answers. Her hairstyle, which she'd always worn the same up until that time, is not only a callback to her childhood (and perhaps, an indicator for her parents so they would remember her when they came back), it's part of who her current self is. Just...! Ashfghjh I don't know about you guys, but I just love the imagery and the symbolism of having her hair down, I really really do!

I honestly loved the three-bun thing she had going on, and it had made my heart pitter patter when I thought to myself how the style made her look just a tad bit tomboyish, yknow?

But with her hair down (the poor girl didn't have any more hair ties to pull her hair back up), it's almost as if the audience is seeing a new side of her—or maybe it’s not that we're seeing a new side of her, but this girl we've all come to adore from TFA is literally growing up to become a woman right in front of our very eyes, even if the only visual indication of that is she'd decided to change up her hair a bit. The timing could not have been any more perfect, as the mirror cave scene leads directly into the fourth force connection scene with Kylo.

So while they're having their first moment of having a heart-to-heart conversation without either of them baring their teeth at one another, it's also quite mesmerizing to note that it's also the first time that Rey is allowing Kylo/Ben to see her as a woman, not just emotionally, but physically as well. 

And it shows, it really does! Besides the fact that her shoulders are naked, she's not wearing that heavy-looking vest anymore, and the audience and Ben could just sort of see the swell of her breasts peaking from beneath the blanket, her loose hair is just delicately framing her neck, making her appearance look downright alluring (and that lighting with the fire in front of them, omfg). 

Just picture for a moment how she would have looked in this scene had she still had her hair up in the three-bun style—it wouldn't have looked nearly as erotic as it did. Sure, the tension would have still been there, as with everything else, but it wouldn't have made as much of an impact.

They're both talking in hushed voices, and hell, even Ben gives his equal share by showing a little bit of skin too, because damn it all, it wouldn't be fair if she were the only one showing so much!

If we were to think about all of these factors (and I'm sure most, if not all of us Reylo fans have), the set-up is literally made to seem like they're just about to give into their urges! It's no wonder that Rian Johnson and Mark Hamill fully acknowledged that scene as a "sex scene," not just because of the sizzling tension between these two characters, but in how Kylo and Rey physically looked at that very moment. I'm now convinced that Rian really did set it up to be as close to a sex scene as possible (the atmosphere, the lighting, the amount of skin shown, etc.) without actually having to cross that line!

Furthermore, did you guys know that displaying one's hair down could possibly be an indication that one is sexually healthy? It's a concept called Fisherian runaway, first proposed by Robert Fisher in the early 20th century. Long, lustrous hair is said to be a visual marker that one is a healthy individual for procreation. I won't go into too much detail, but it was basically a theory that animals—regardless of gender—instinctively found long hair to be more attractive, as a mechanism for sexual selection.

And finally, one more point—it's also a trope! Please give the trope page a read if you can (it's a short read, no worries), as it's honestly quite interesting! I'm not sure if Rian used this trope on accident or on purpose, but either way, I couldn't help but squeal when I'd realized it!

Honestly, after all this, I cannot wait to see how these two's final round of costumes will be in EPIX. I'd like to see Kylo with a splash of color in his wardrobe, I really would, preferably red or grey or even white. I have no idea how Rey is going to look like, but meh, half the fun is speculating in the meantime, yknow?

Thank you very much for reading if you made it all the way here! This was honestly a blast!

Team LEMN

This is the team from my Emerald Arc au

———-

Laghan Brunswick:

His first name is derived from the Irish god of light. His last name is a shade of greenHe’s based on the story of Cu Chulainn

He has warm eyes like honey, tanned skin, auburn air, and wears warm greens and dark yellows

His weapon is a spear that has fire dust infused into it

His symbol is a spear with a wolfs head behind it

He’s a dog fanus with dog ears that are a little droopy

His family comes from the agricultural district in Vale. It’s just him and his mum because his father died shortly after Laghan’s birth

His father was a hunter before his death, hearing stories about all the people he protected is what pushed Laghan to attend Beacon

He has a strong desire to protect people and is very loyal to his allies

But he holds a strong grudge against anyone who crosses him or his friends

He likes to goof around a lot and has a general disregard for rules and this gets him in trouble with Ms. Goodwitch

His semblance allows him to see his opponents move before they act, however, he’s still training it and often misinterprets what he sees

Emerald Arc:

She is the adoptive sister of Jaune Arc and often acts as his defender or ward

She is thought to be based on Alladin or Cleopatra

We all know what Em looks like right?

She wears a lot of white and gold to match with the Arc family, but she has some deep greens here and there to add her own personal flair

Her weapon is two daggers on chains

Not a gun or infused with dust

She’s often questioned over her use of such a simple weapon

She’ll still kick most peoples asses

Her symbol is the same as in the original show

She’s loyal to Jaune to a fault but also her friends

She has a patent and understanding personality 

She’s a good student despite not having the best grades, her favorite class it is Professor Oobleck’s because she finds history interesting

Her semblance is empath, she is able to see what someone is feeling by touching them

Magnolia Lacus

Her first name is a cream shade as well as a flower that is white and sometimes has some pink in it. Her last name is the Latin version of the word lake

She is based on the Lady of the Lake in the legend of King Arthur 

She has very pale skin and dark blue hair that falls to her mid back. Her eyes are a beautiful crystal blue

Her clothes are mainly white with shades of blue, she wears a necklace around her neck that is a simple pink flower. It was a gift from her mother. She also wears heels all the time

Devil shoes!

She comes from the upper class in Vale. Her mother came from a wealthy family who made jewelry, and her father came from a well-known hunter family. The two met when they attended Beacon together and Magnolia has similar hopes for her time here

Magnolia is normally level-headed and calm, much like the calm water of a lake. However, many people seem to forget how destructive a lake can be. When needed she can be very violent and harm any who get in her way

Her weapon is a sword that uses mainly water dust, however, she has also been known to use the secondary types of steam and ice

Her symbol looks a lot like ripples in water along with a flower blossom in the middle

She’s a hopeless romantic at heart and dreams of meeting her prince charming

Her sentence is the ability to see peoples potential. This is useful when deciding who to fight, making her the main strategist of her team

Nickle 

 Based on Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh

He has dark skin and hair, and his eyes are a warm brown-red color much like terracotta clay.

He is a lion fanus and has the tail of a lion

He comes from Vacuo

While most view Nickle as they type of person to be brutish, immature, and an idiot due carefree and often rash nature he can actually be quite intelligent and gentlemanly when he wants to be

When Magnolia first discovered this she began to have a crush on him until he revealed he was already in a relationship

They’re soulmates

They’re based on Gilgamesh so they have to be

While he has a weapon, a spear that doubles as a gun, he prefers hand to hand combat and enjoys getting in his opponents personal space to mess with their head

His symbol is a pot with water flowing from it

His semblance is the ability to mimic anyone’s movements given he’s seen them for at least ten minutes

Team LEMN:

Emerald and Nickle are partners and Laghan and Magnolia are partners

When Emerald and Nickle bumped into each other she groaned because it means she’s not guaranteed to be with Jaune

Nickle was not amused by this reaction

“I’m not that horrible to look at am I?!”

Magnolia and Laghan’s first meeting was less annoyance filled as they helped each other not die to a grim, they had each other’s backs and have been closed since

Although Magnolia doesn’t view him as a possible love interest due to his disregard for rules

They are all very loyal people so if you hurt one of them they’re all coming for you!

Nickel’s partner attends Haven academy and he introduced his team to them when they came for the Vytal festival

During the festival Emerald experienced her first ever crush, that being on a boy called Mercury from haven

They danced together at the party in Vol2 and she was over the moon

Someone help her she’s got it bad. She’ll stay up all night thinking about him

Then the fall of Beacon happens and she’s heartbroken over his involvement

Her team is pissed

Magnolia likes to drag Emerald shopping with her, Emerald looks good in a lot of colors so she likes to try out different styles on her for reference

Magnolia has an interest in fashion design and uses Emerald as her muse

Nickle and Laghan like to cause trouble together. They pull pranks a lot and the girls have to get them out of trouble

That’s it for now. I might do some more but I’m not sure on what.

anyone got any ideas on what romances could happen, or just ideas hit me up

Winter 2017 Anime watchlist

Lmao this was supposed to go up last week but it takes me forever to write these things up orz.

Anyway, we’re 1/3 of the way into this barren Winter season, and thus my watchlist has shrunk significantly. I think I’m currently watching what, 10 shows? vs 23-ish last season? Anyway we’ve had a couple neat surprises this season, but it’s mostly the sequels that are keeping everything interesting. Also there’s quality hatewatch material which I hadn’t had in a while.

Because I fucked up, this time I’m going from best to worst rather than the usual opposite

Top Priority

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju: Futatabi Sukeroku-hen

To no one’s surprise, Rakugo maintains it’s tightly written character drama in top form. The direction is still unusually creative and masterful, especially considering this is a DEEN anime, production team deserves every kudo. If season one was a tragedy, season 2 is gearing up for a story of salvation. Every week I go in completely prepared to suffer and am repeatedly surprised by how happy I feel at the end of each episode.  Scenes like Yakumo consoling a sleeping Konatsu with her father’s rakugo or his performing an old play in Sukeroku’s style for Yotaro are as heart-wrenching as they’re heartwarming. S1 was a strong contender for anime of the year 2016 (and for me it was a toss up between that and YOI) and season 2 seems ready to pick on that and go for a second run.

High-Priority

Ao no Exorcist: Kyoto saga

Honestly this one had my full devotion guaranteed when they decided to commit to those thick af Kansai accents. I am also very pleased with the budget this is getting, it looks reeeaaally nice. Kato’s designs have translated to animation greatly (not that this was a surprise since they did that pretty well on the first series too). The plot seems to be moving rather fast so I wonder if they won’t suffer to fill in the full cour (although this arc is quite long) but for the time being I’m excited to get the Kyoto otaku in me continually catered to.

Yowamushi Pedal: Next Generation

I was a Little dubious about how well they’d manage the transition of Makishima’s departure, and while killing him off was rather abrupt to the point I’d even say the guy was fridged for the sake of Onoda’s development, they did a rather good job in setting Teshima as the new role model for the 1st years (who is also very dreamy). I also laughed my ass off with how gigantic they made Ashikiba who is a rather delightful addition to the cast. Kudos to you show, you’ve got me excited in a new season even without my favorite character.

Little Witch Academia

It’s hard to find something to say about this show other than it’s energetic, lively and fun to a fault and that Sucy is still Best Girl. It’s very easy to tell how passionate the folks at TRIGGER are about this project and I’m glad they didn’t give up and continued to work on it even if it was poorly received by Japanese audiences. The show reminds me a bit of The Worst Witch, which I used to love in my early teens so there’s also that.

Kuzu no Honkai

This is such a fascinatingly disturbing show to watch. Like watching a trainwreck I guess, except that it’s not a trainwreck in the sense of Hand Shakers, but in you’re just watching all these horrible people destroy each other and self-destruct emotionally and it’s really interesting. I’m particularly invested in Hanabi’s internal struggle and self-deprecation. Could complete dispose of Moca (whose choice of nickname makes my skin crawl) but otherwise I’m constantly at the edge of my seat waiting for the next developments. I also continue to be rather fond of the vagina imagery in the ending, and I appreciate that there’s actually a show that treats female sexuality in a layered, human way, for purposes beyond otaku titillation.

All Out!! 

This show continues to grow on me with its unique approach to team dynamics. The fact that rugby teams are so big gives us an interesting opportunity of seeing many characters take the spotlight at different times, and this show’s cast continues to be funny and extremely likable to the point that even if Gion has had to sit out most of the games, and even if there isn’t as much focus on Sekizan as I’d like, they’re still engaging and fun. There have also been genuinely emotional peaks, notoriously when that one guy quite the team and it crushed Sekizan’s heart. Also kudos for how even in-show Sekizan’s amazing hair is considered cray-cray

Classicaloid

Honestly this second cour just keeps getting better? I don’t know how they did it but they managed to make me not care about whether we’ll ever get some semblance of plot or explanations, I could watch the Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Chopin and Liszt doing nonsense stuff show all year round. Whoever wrote the Fish!Schubert episode should get an Oscar and a Nobel Prize

Here we make a drastic leap between things I’m loving and things I’m just eh-watching

ACCA 13-ku Kansatsu-ka

Aaaahhh what should I do about you, show. Ep 1 was okay, ep 2 was great, ep 3 was kind of nothing. There’s obviously way more than meets the eye in this allegedly peaceful country and once that starts to unfold the show will start gaining momentum, hopefully, but as it is I think it suffers greatly from how inscrutable the main character is. I have no idea of Jean’s motivations beyond his love of cigarettes (and I feel they’re overdoing it, unless they plan to make the tabacco thing a  crucial part of the plot later on, they’re hammering the whole ‘tobacco is rare and this guy is weird for smoking’ thing way too hard) so we’re at this weird position of not really knowing where we’re going. I’m intrigued enough to keep watching, but I certainly hope we get some form of interesting developments sooner rather than later.

Gundam Iron-Blooded Orphans

The writing continues to be notoriously better while the story gets more and more tragic and I still don’t know how to feel about it. Seeing bad guys cheating their way to victory always upsets me a lot, and seeing people die meaninglessly only adds insult to injury. I’m in too deep to drop it at this point, but I honestly can’t forgive how they didn’t even give us that final revenge moment against the Kujan kid. Also every time Atra brings up her dream life of being part of a polyamorous marriage with Mikazuki creeps me the fuck out because obviously Mikazuki doesn’t have the emotional maturity to engage in any such relationship

Onihei

I’m very uncertain about what to do with this show. First episode was promising, with murky direction, but interesting setting. Episode two was mostly unimpressive, the final twist was rather predictable and the moral outcome wasn’t particularly satisfying. And then episode three put me to sleep. My first impression was that the dyamics between Heizo and his thief-turned-snitch subordinate would be the core of the show, but the latter seems to have been mostly sidelined in favor of focusing on the coolness of Heizo. Which isn’t a problem per say, but the execution just isn’t working and they’re completely wasting the Edo setting, with the cases turning out quite generic. I don’t know, ep 4 is already out so I guess I’ll check that out and decide from there (watched episode 4 already, fell asleep again which I guess is as good a sign as any that this isn’t working for me,but I’m too lazy to move it to the bottom. Dropped)

Hate-watching

Hand Shakers

Why is this pile of steaming garbage over the mediocre (and gross) show? Well, this one’s gross too, but exceedingly terrible is always better for ironic entertainment than plain boring stuff. At least Hand Shakers keeps me engrossed with its terribleness. Honest to good, even if I hardly remember what the previous episode was about, I’m always looking forward to the next one, I enjoy the terribleness too much.

Also, this is a little insignificant, but this is the first time I see any reference to the Japanese immigrants in Brazil (th, which was kind of a big thing back in the 1930s, in any anime I’ve ever watched, and since I had to look up into that for my thesis, it felt kinda nice to see it and understand why Brazil of all countries.

Super Lovers 2

This is so boring. Even when they try to address the issues I had with the previous season (mainly questioning the nature of Haru and Ren’s relationship), they always do it half-assedly. No drama, no tension, no resolution and certainly no semblance of any plot progression and it’s becoming increasingly tedious. The introduction of the new host guy could add at least some drama to the plot, but I’m not holding my breath. The dog continues to be cute

I dropped Marginal #4 since episode 2 and I can’t quite remember what it was about other than there was a long sequence of one of the guys desperately looking for his “lucky undies” and I’m too old for this level of juvenile “lol undies” humor. Turns out “not putting me to sleep” wasn’t that strong an asset after all.

Anyway really dead season but the scarce good stuff is really quite good, and the truly terrible stuff is so terrible it’s hilarious so overall the season doesn’t feel as terrible as it could. 

Dog Behavior Series 13 - Why Is My Dog A Finicky Eater?

Every one of us grew up With all the similar concept of how canines do the job: they use Bodily force to combat to get the alpha, to submit competing canine while in the pack. This notion is so engraved inside our psyche that in English, getting the very best Canine indicates you are one of the most 'dominant' about. Even Individuals who have no real interest in something Canine-linked will have definitely read about the importance of currently being dominant, the pack-leader, the alpha.  best dog grooming scissors Even now, when it has been so completely disproven, a great deal of so that the majority trainers will stare down their noses at anybody who dares to utter the time period "dominance" or - even worse! - "alpha function", this idea that dogs are trying to take around the entire world one particular operator at a time remains a Regrettably prevalent believed amid Pet fans. Every thing from pulling to the leash and jumping up, to taking in some thing you dropped on the ground and chasing the cat, has been blamed on a Canine's look for supremacy or an proprietor's insufficient leadership capabilities. It truly is a surprise that we phone pet dogs person's best friend whatsoever, what using this type of supposed Close friend's regular attempt to overthrow us. You feed him, bathe him, care for him and occasionally even clothe him, you're taking him into the vet when he is Ill and provides him a comfy place to snooze when he is fatigued, and How can he repay you? By staging a coup d'état! The nerve! But how did this misguided notion of rank arrive at be? We all know that wolves dominate one another, they have got a strict hierarchy where subordinates are denied prime means and individuals are continually battling for dominance, right? Properly, no, which is not just how it works. It seems that our preceding notions of lupine social conduct have been according to captive wolves. People today from diverse packs were forced to reside in near proximity of each other, a very unnatural situation for them, resulting in hugely unnatural conduct. The bloodbaths around means were the result of worry, whereas while in the wild, there aren't any rival packs because space will not be an issue. From the wild, a wolf pack is designed up of a monogamous pair and two or three generations of offspring, who leave the pack on achieving sexual maturity (at around two several years of age). Free of charge-ranging canine, Primarily Those people in a more city setting, choose a solitary daily life. They're opportunistic scavengers consuming bits of foods right here and there, they need not hunt in teams mainly because they You should not hunt massive prey. In wolves, all members of your pack are associated with A technique or A different in rearing the younger and acquiring meals, whereas canines aren't monogamous and only the mom is responsible for raising her pups. In specific areas (normally rural) where by dogs are actually discovered to roam in unfastened teams ('membership' is barely temporary) a Expecting female will individual herself from the rest of the group to present delivery and care for her younger. So, you could see the plain flaw in making use of wolf conduct when learning canines. Puppies and wolves are distant family members (despite staying of the same species) and therefore not ethologically interchangeable. It's not that these teams deficiency any semblance of construction, It is really that hierarchy is simply crucial in several cases, very similar to it is for us individuals. Due to the fact it has been "common know-how" for many years that wolves are continually battling for dominance, It is easy to understand how numerous Canine owners could error a straightforward deficiency of manners for an attempt to climb up in rank, but the reality is that your Pet isn't any additional dominant when he dashes out the doorway than the one that just zipped by you so that you can secure that final little spot during the elevator you have been going to wander into. He is no more an alpha when he lunges with the meals you dropped compared to Woman who snatched up that sweater you just set down for just a moment. These men and women usually are not hoping to claim their dominance, they're just simple impolite: they have set their requires ahead of the desires of Other people. Puppies, like men and women, who aren't taught to behave effectively can not be envisioned to know how to achieve this. Does this mean your dog shouldn't be taught any boundaries or principles? Not surprisingly not. But adhering for the dominance idea isn't the way reach this. It is very flawed, and used to justify the use of compulsion in dog coaching. A dog will never satisfy a ask for for three main good reasons: she's frightened, Doubtful or what to do or just a lot more determined to accomplish something else... Not mainly because she's dominant! The same as people, canine do greater using a benevolent job-model and leader, in lieu of a tyrant. Before I go on, I must accept the slew of indignant trainers who will be itching to indicate that, all with each other now: "dogs usually are not furry people!" Really true, but so far as the brain is concerned (Specially the component relegated to hedonistic behaviours along with the fulfillment of requirements), we are incredibly very similar, despite the noticeable variation in overall look. Animals are hedonistic by mother nature; considering very first of oneself is really a primordial survival tactic that has trapped with us and can likely under no circumstances depart. I need to Observe that this does not imply that altruism isn't going to exist in certain species (amongst which can be the dog), but that deviates from the item of this informative article. The Puppy that sits in advance of remaining Enable out or waits for a thing to get available to her isn't demonstrating some kind of subordination, she's simply a 'polite' Doggy. Obviously she has no actual strategy of social etiquette, but she's been taught that specified behaviours (sitting, remaining, ceasing to whine or bark... ) are the one method of getting what she wants (treats, affection, independence... ). It truly is a common misconception that dogs attempt to 'take Charge of the wander' by pulling to the leash, as just the chief walks in entrance. Dogs, even those that are the most effective of good friends, tend not to wander aspect by aspect. Canines are not pack animals, but even in wolves, status is not really determined by the place somebody walks, Each and every animal minds their unique enterprise. It is really no different every time they're out on a wander along with you: a dog that pulls is just attempting to head her have business enterprise as finest she will though tethered to the sluggish biped! To ask a Canine to invest the period of a walk ambling frustratingly gradually close to you is inquiring a whole lot; this is not to convey that it's difficult, but it takes many restraint to not chase the car, chook or jogger which includes caught her eye, or look into that pee, Skittle or carcass a foot from her nose! A significant trouble occurs once we take into account that, as people, We have now this expectation that our canines have the ability fully grasp our spoken language. Most canines go their total lives not knowing just what the phrase 'no' indicates, While they hear it frequently during the day. First off, dogs get on tones a lot more than personal words and phrases, And that's why I am able to connect with my dog 'Jungle Breath' and he'll run correct to me. Secondly, telling a Pet dog not to do some thing is normally unproductive simply because in all likelihood he is executing a lot of things at once, and you've got just advised him 'Never'. Don't what, specifically? It is a great deal more effective to tell him what he must be executing, it leaves no home for interpretation. This popular supply of miscommunication is exactly what brings about so many Pet dog entrepreneurs to believe that their Canine is both dominant or just simple Silly. Aside from "no", "peaceful" is definitely the primary phrase individuals appear to assume their canines to grasp. The funny issue is usually that yelling will truly get most puppies to bark much more! On the off possibility that a pointy "silent!" essentially startles the Pet dog into silence, the operator's response typically isn't really to communicate which the cessation of noise was what they ended up asking for (with using a reward), but to return to what they ended up executing, which tells the Puppy absolutely nothing. Basically, sometimes, they will even be unwittingly worthwhile the Canine for barking: he barks and they give him awareness, he is tranquil they usually dismiss him. A discussion on canine dominance just would not be entire without having a shout-out towards the alpha role: the preposterous practice of pinning your dog to the ground if you want to establish your self as his top-quality. Submissive dogs present their bellies constantly, as do wolves. Whenever they get it done in character, why are not able to we exploit and mimic it? Very first off, it's not a submissive gesture, It can be an appeasement gesture. A Canine exposing his abdomen is expressing full inoffensiveness, he's found himself inside a perceived tense condition, which is attempting to enable it to be quite apparent that he means no harm. Second, hardly ever at any time will you see a dog flip A different Pet on his again (apart from in situations of inappropriate Perform). This gesture is offered, not forced. Forcing a dog to the bottom will do very little on your relationship, at best it can scare her, at worst it can depart you with component of your encounter missing. The alpha part was perpetuated through the Monks of New Skete and immensely popularized by Cesar Millan, all of whom have because claimed to regret the two employing and popularizing reported follow. Another time You might even see a Doggy go "belly up" is through Enjoy. Even all through Participate in, it is the dog on the ground that initiates the conduct, his body language is going to be engaged but freed from pressure (no shaking or tail amongst his legs) and he is cost-free for getting up when he pleases. Being aware of The explanations canines do what they do may well appear to be a triviality, but it surely can radically have an impact on the end result of your training. A Canine that destroys the house for the reason that he has separation anxiousness will probable not advantage exclusively from getting a thing much more exciting to carry out, whilst a Doggy who destroys away from boredom frequently will. In the exact same way, punishing a Canine for remaining a dog will do very little but produce frustration and scarce outcomes. Trainers who demonize canine by making erroneous claims about hierarchy and dominance do this to justify under humane schooling approaches, but - Fortunately! - which is not the way numerous Puppy proprietors opt to see their canine mates. The most common criticism I listen to with reference to the usage of non-conflictual coaching procedures is that it'll bring about the Pet dog to become dependent on treats, refusing to try and do nearly anything you talk to without the need of the knowledge of a reward. Trainers that use compulsion declare that a Pet must wish to obey since the operator said so, not mainly because he has treats. It's very human to want an individual (Canine, human or otherwise) comply away from regard and adore, as opposed to the anticipation of the pay out-out, so I am unable to say I wholly blame them for this frame of mind, but what I have never understood was how these advocates of coercive strategies could perhaps oversee the double regular within their phrases: how is undertaking a little something only for treats any distinct from performing some thing only to stop punishment? Personally, I would exclude these kinds of an egotistic notion from my education altogether, as it's going to only cause disappointment and resentment if you strike a schooling roadblock. Remember: dogs need to have to master manners, not senseless submission. A dog that is definitely taught the Idea of punishment will very likely only comply when the specter of said punishment is present. I am not implying that this method is completely ineffective (Whilst, for all of Puppy-sort, I wish it have been) but it's much more effective from the long-run to show a Canine that if he complies, the smartest thing on the globe will come about to him, and a skilled trainer will know exactly what that is definitely to the dog in dilemma.