Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland

Speaking of my evening walk, turns out this lit jogging route turns the lights off at 22:30.

I am in the middle of the woods, it's probably about a kilometer to the next street light and it's quite dark. The moon is a thin crescent and the clouds don't reftect the city lights much.

Reftected lamp

© Josef Maria Lips

@tricksterfinale continued from here!

"...thank God. I’m not sounding like a pretentious imbecile who’d say this to impress people for how I see things. I've always believed in them more than my colleagues and work environment,” Her hand twitched visibly when the part of her needing help from the Thieves came up. Of course he knew you weren’t fucking around with these hypothetical questions! Now you exposed yourself - wait all hope isn’t lost yet. Stop that negative self-talk and try to get some gain from this.

Naoto leaned on the wall when speaking more loudly again. "...what do you mean I’d be asking that - oh, fuck it. It seems that neither of us can hide anything efficiently. As much as it pains me to admit this, yes I do. I need to get rid of a certain corrupted politician for purely personal and professional reasons, or get him to admit every crime he has committed. The grey zone is pretty much my option since the official forces are tainted and it would most likely make my situation worse if they got to know about this request of mine." She sighed and mentioned how it would also help hundreds of others who were struggling in a similar situation as her, so it wasn't fully selfish. 

Her next question was naturally if he would hear her out or not, with the perk of her giving every crucial piece of information he needed to infiltrate his Palace. She was dead certain on how they shared their distaste towards Masayoshi, but double checking never hurt anyone, right? 

I guess the Columbia lore might reftect the 'american dream" illusion? Or rather, to that part where an idea of free and good country is used to lure in fresh blood, influence the populations of the country's competitors into taking its side and to cover up much darker, shadier things. Like. Rim Billiton and Columbia are both "ame-expy" but if it is just "one is for good parts of AMerica and other is for bad" it wouldn't be the all shades of grey setting

I think that’s kind of the idea, yeah. Columbia being both a country with a lot of potential and opportunity but also corruption and abuse and violent expansionism well reflects its namesake.

Rim Billiton however I’m not sure counts on the same level because as far as I’m aware Rim Billiton is less of a country and more like an independent corporate city. It’s said to be a location that one can be born in / from, and travel to, but Rim Billiton Mining Corporation is how it’s referred to directly.

Another difference is that Rim Billiton seems to be closer to the part of the world that Rhodes Island operates in. Columbia is said to be rather distant and inaccessible (understandably if it also shares the analogue of being on another continent), while Rim Billiton isn’t close but its most certainly connected by land to our current operations in our analogue of eurasia, given that the Rhodes Island ark is said to have travelled from there.

So I don’t think Rim Billiton so much serves as a second analogue for america but rather something else; perhaps transnational corporate interests? Hard to say with how little we know, other than it seems to be where the bulk of the Cautus / rabbits come from, including our own Amiya.

Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland

Bay of Kotor, Montenegro

Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland

Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland

Grindelwald, Switzerland

Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland

Lisbon, Portugal. February 2022

Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland

Kleine Scheidegg, Switzerland

"Hey, Nao-chan." He's here for a hug. Dunno why, but he wants one.

She hugs Hikaru almost instantly. She knows damn well how he usually doesn’t want one out of a blue and looks at him concernedly. If it was the school situation or any of the idiots causing this... they’d get her anger. “Hey, talk to me.”

@tricksterfinale

Instead of winding up dead, I wound up in a therapist’s office.

EVERYTHING BEGINS AND ENDS AT THE KENTUCKY CLUB -SENTENCE STARTERS

“I am only glad to see you not dead, and realizing you need help. It can be too hard to get until it is too late.” She had been concerned for the longest time about Hikaru’s ex and what a pest he had been, and the mental torments he’d had. They had been worse in a different way what she had gone through and Naoto saw no reason to dismiss them or claim they were less exhausting than being blackmailed for the majority of your real career.

She mused how staying alive and keeping people who she deeply cared of were number one priorities in her life now.

@tricksterfinale