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dsoe-masteroftheheavenlyyard · 3 years

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Chapter 5–BLACKBOX; Scene 5

master of the heavenly yard pages 115-123

Arth took refuge inside the palace with everyone who had been nearby.

It was a spur of the moment action, but it appeared to be a fairly correct decision.

“We should be able to hold out here for a little while.”

“…But there’s no guarantee we’ll remain safe here,” Anne replied, remaining calm even as she listened to the illusory palace creak.

Someone staggered as they came down the stairs.

“Miss Lily!”

Yukina went to go greet her, supporting her by the shoulder as she walked her over to Arth and the others.

“Looks like you’ve been through an ordeal, young miss Muchet.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be much use, Your Majesty. …What is that box?”

“Not sure…But we figure it’s the ‘method for erasing souls’ that Mariam was talking about. Judging by the fact that its effect seems weaker against this palace—an imaginary object that souls have created—”

“So it really is a weapon that specializes in the erasure of souls. I wonder what’ll come first, the destruction of the palace or the abatement of the box’s power…”

“Nothing’s going to get resolved from wishing. We have to do something about it…”

But there was no one who could make any suggestion to the king on how.

“…”

Despair.

The word that Arth hated the most.

But he couldn’t think of any other phrase that could convey their current situation.

Is there…is there nothing we can do!?

“—My my, look at the man who was king of Lucifenia of all people making such a timid expression.”

Everyone present turned to look toward the voice they could hear from the entrance.

The first to give a cry of surprise was Yukina. “M-miss Gumillia!?”

But the other woman shook her head.

“…No. It’s just an accidental resemblance?”

“B-but, even so you look just like her—”

“In this world, people who resemble each other come in threes.” Then she briskly walked up to Arth. “King, don’t lose hope. The more agitated everyone becomes, the faster the palace will be destroyed.”

“…What’s the meaning of this?”

“The palace has taken shape by the imagination of everyone here. If their will wavers then naturally—"

“I’m not asking about that! I want to know why your appearance has changed.”

An expression of shock came to her face at those words. “--! You—know my identity…”

“Though it sounds like I’m the only one who’s realized.”

“Looks that way…But please, call me ‘Nemesis’ for right now. I want to avoid riling everyone up any further.”

“Alright. Well then—Nemesis. Do you have some idea?”

“I do. Just leave everything to me now. I shall safely put a stop to that box.”

“…Then I will rely on you. Try not to do anything rash.”

Nemesis nodded and then walked past Arth.

--She was heading for the roof of the palace.

The force of the “Blackbox” had not grown weaker, the black vortex continuing to spread.

The box itself had gotten quite close to the palace.

Nemesis looked upon it with an air of composure.

At this range…it should connect.

The “Blackbox” could make use of a power that was unrivaled when it came to souls.

However, when it came to a soul like Nemesis, protected by a physical body—a “spirit cage”—it had no effect.

That “black box” wasn’t a weapon to start with.

It’s simply a device for use in experiments. It’s delicate equipment.

Kyle had been unable to destroy the box.

A monster making use of the power of the “Demon of Pride” was without a doubt the strongest around—but ultimately he was nothing more than a soul himself.

I’ve come to know…quite a bit about that box, and the rules of this world.

It was true that even if one was a soul, they could still touch physical objects, and have an effect on them.

But it seemed this had limits.

If a soul were to attack an item or person that actually existed, their power level was reduced dramatically.

I was never really the type to play computer games, but…

Nemesis recalled a conversation she had once exchanged with a friend long, long ago.

“—Ah, that’s not right, Miss Barisol. Magic doesn’t work on that guy.”

“…Hey. Do I have to keep doing this? I want to get back to my research soon.”

“You need to take a breather every once in a while. Play a game, even.”

“…Feels like I’m getting more stressed, not less.”

“Anyway, the cyclops has a magic resistance of 90%, so you’ve gotta attack him with physics.”

“I don’t get this. How can such a puny man as the protagonist have any effect on such an enormous monster just by swinging a sword around?”

“It’s a game.”

“Sigh…”

“You should learn the combat system of this game first, Miss Barisol. Generally attacks on things with opposite attributes doesn’t work in this. Use physics for physics, and magic for magic!”

“Alright alright, I got it…Miss Hazuki—"

Evillious, Lucifenia, Elphegort—

All of these names had been given by Hazuki.

She had said that they were names that featured in her favorite game.

If this is like the “Blackbox” that I know, then its structure should be largely unchanged. The frailest point in it that’s the easiest to break should be…”

Nemesis readied her gun.

The bullets were loaded.

But she only had five shots left. She didn’t have any spares.

She couldn’t waste a single one.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…

She carefully set her aim.

She aligned her sight towards a gap in the box…a place where wiring could faintly be seen.

…Physics for physics!

As she cried that out in her mind, she pulled the trigger.

The tremors in the palace stopped.

Upon seeing that, Arth looked up to the ceiling.

--Did you succeed, Elluka!?

Yukina ran to the window, and immediately let out a cheer.

“…She did it! The box is falling to the ground!”

Allen looked on in amazement as the box ceased functioning and started to fall, shooting out fireworks.

--But he quickly regained himself and shouted at everyone, “Fall back! It’s heading this way!”

Germaine and the others heeded his words and started to run in the opposite direction from the box.

A few seconds later—

BOOOM!

With an enormous thud, the box crashed to the ground.

“…There was no need to get so worked up,” Leonhart muttered, turning around. The box had landed farther away than they’d anticipated, as though it had changed course mid-fall.

They all decided to watch it for a little while, to be on guard against any explosions.

“—It’s over,” Mariam said to Allen, her expression one of great suffering.

“Yeah. But…at the cost of a lot of victims.”

“…I wonder what happened to the people who were sucked up into the box?”

“Nemesis said that the ‘Blackbox’ might have the function to shift souls to an alternate dimension.”

“Nemesis?”

“Ah, erm…I mean Elluka. Some things have happened, and that’s the name she’s going by now.”

“--! Where is she now--?”

“She came to the battleground with me. I’m positive that she’s the one who brought the box down just now.”

“I see…Then well done, Elluka,” Mariam whispered earnestly.

But then her expression immediately grew grave again.

“If it can move them to another dimension, then that means—”

“…We may never see them again…”

The battle had ended in favor of the improvised Lucifenian army.

But the souls that had been swallowed up by the dreadful box would never return…

…Or so they thought.

“Heeey, yannow!”

They could hear a careless shout from the direction of the box.

Everyone there immediately knew who it was from.

“Chartette!”

Germaine broke into a run, and others followed suit.

--Chartette was walking towards them, supporting a once again human Kyle on her shoulder.

<<prev------directory ------next>>

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gashousegables · 6 years

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sometimes the world is full of big-ass forehead and gap-toothed girl erasure

#thoughts and whatnot #it's me and my physical description #I also can't stand having a fringe because I don't like hair on my face

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him-e · 7 years

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In the interview in wich grrm talks about the unkiss , he says it is to prepare the stage for a more important memory gap what was he refering to ?

The relevant quotes:

“Well, not every inconsistency is a mistake, actually. Some are quite intentional. File this one under “unreliable narrator” and feel free to ponder its meaning…” (The Citadel, So Spake Martin, Sansa’s memory)

“The Lion’s Paw / Lion’s Tooth business, on the other hand, is intentional. A small touch of the unreliable narrator. I was trying to establish that the memories of my viewpoint characters are not infallible. Sansa is simply remembering it wrong. A very minor thing (you are the only one to catch it to date), but it was meant to set the stage for a much more important lapse in memory. You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom… but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it’s a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on. (The Citadel, So Spake Martin, SF, Targaryens, Valyria, Sansa, Martells, and more)

Note that George has Sansa mixed up with Arya in the second quote, because it’s Arya, and not Sansa, who misemembers the name of Joffrey’s sword. So George, too, is an unreliable narrator!

All joking aside, it’s clear that with the Unkiss and with other instances (such as Sansa not remembering correctly the events of the Trident), Martin is trying to establish Sansa as a particularly unreliable narrator: her mind tends to rewrite reality to make it fit into familiar patterns, the ones she learned from the songs, where knights steal kisses from their ladies rather than threatening them with a dagger, pretty princes generally tend to be good and villains are always easy to identify. And if there’s something that deeply unsettles her, and that she isn’t ready to deal with yet, it gets swept under the rug… until either she is ready, or reality hits her like a ton of bricks (which happened with Joffrey and Cersei).

This rewriting/erasure is not a conscious choice on Sansa’s part—in other words, she isn’t aware at all that her brain does this. The Unkiss is the most evident example of this mechanism: there’s no real reason for Sansa to fabricate (not just fantasize about) a false memory of a kiss that never happened, other than the fact that she has no idea how to cope with Sandor’s simultaneously assaulting her and pleading to let him rescue her AND she can’t deal with her own feelings for him, so she rewrites the whole incident into something in which the implied (Sandor’s fixation on her, his instinct to both scare and protect her) becomes explicit, but normalized into a more chaste narrative (a “romantic” kiss).

Now, the big blind spot in Sansa’s narrative—the one that could potentially have huge repercussions on the overall plot—is Littlefinger. Sansa, VERY deep inside, knows something really important about him:

“Tears, tears, tears,” she sobbed hysterically. “No need for tears… but that’s not what you said in King’s Landing. You told me to put the tears in Jon’s wine, and I did. For Robert, and for us! And I wrote Catelyn and told her the Lannisters had killed my lord husband, just as you said. That was so clever… you were always clever, I told Father that, I said Petyr’s so clever, he’ll rise high, he will, he will, and he’s sweet and gentle and I have his little baby in my belly… Why did you kiss her? Why? We’re together now, we’re together after so long, so very long, why would you want to kiss herrrrrr?”

Sansa’s heard Lysa’s last words which revealed Littlefinger as the mastermind behind Jon Arryn’s murder and the Stark/Lannister conflict… yet, her pov shows no traces that she’s aware of this. It’s like she never registered what she heard, and imo the problem isn’t that she didn’t “understand”—I think Sansa is very intelligent and perfectly capable of putting 2 and 2 together and realize what kind of “tears” Lysa put in Jon’s wine and why did LF ask Lysa to lie to Catelyn—but that that information was too overwhelming for her in that specific moment, so she put it aside; and now that she’s completely reliant on Littlefinger, that knowledge is like the skeleton in the closet that her brain is too terrified to revisit. So she just ignores it and keeps going. It’s the only way she knows how to function. And this isn’t the first time that Sansa acquires and immediately shelves away vital information about Littlefinger:

Queen Cersei looked at each of the councillors in turn. “I won’t have Sansa fretting needlessly. What shall we do with this little friend of hers, my lords?” Lord Petyr leaned forward. “I’ll find a place for her.” “Not in the city,” said the queen. “Do you take me for a fool?” The queen ignored that. “Ser Boros, escort this girl to Lord Petyr’s apartments and instruct his people to keep her there until he comes for her. Tell her that Littlefinger will be taking her to see her father, that ought to calm her down. I want her gone before Sansa returns to her chamber.”

This is shortly after Ned’s arrest (AGOT, Sansa IV). Under Sansa’s eyes, Cersei tasks Littlefinger with disposing of Jeyne Poole, Sansa’s best friend. Who we know was put in LF’s brothel where she was raped and abused horrifically only to be sold to the Boltons as Ramsay’s token “Stark” wife. Yet it never occurs to Sansa to investigate on this, and she doesn’t even seem to remember the fact that Littlefinger is probably the person to ask in the first place (we learn later that Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again). Another buried/rewritten memory waiting to resurface?

Oh yeah and there’s also this:

As he led her below, he said, “Tell me of the feast. The queen took such pains. The singers, the jugglers, the dancing bear… did your little lord husband enjoy my jousting dwarfs?” “Yours?” “I had to send to Braavos for them and hide them away in a brothel until the wedding. The expense was exceeded only by the bother. It is surprisingly difficult to hide a dwarf, and Joffrey… you can lead a king to water, but with Joff one had to splash it about before he realized he could drink it. When I told him about my little surprise, His Grace said, ‘Why would I want some ugly dwarfs at my feast? I hate dwarfs.’ I had to take him by the shoulder and whisper, ‘Not as much as your uncle will.’ ” The deck rocked beneath her feet, and Sansa felt as if the world itself had grown unsteady. “They think Tyrion poisoned Joffrey. Ser Dontos said they seized him.” Littlefinger smiled. “Widowhood will become you, Sansa.”

The above (ASOS, Sansa V) proves that Littlefinger manipulated both Joffrey and Tyrion—he brought jousting dwarves so that Joffrey could publicly humiliate Tyrion, and give him a “reason” to “murder” him that everyone could see, so to seal Tyrion’s culpability in Joffrey’s assassination. If Sansa considered this through, she’d probably realize that it wasn’t the first time Littlefinger manipulated Joffrey… that maybe he also whispered in the little king’s ear to convince him to behead Ned. But she doesn’t. Yet.

And of course, there is her inability to see/acknowledge/admit that Littlefinger is slowly poisoning Sweetrobin to death. Though she doesn’t have enough knowledge of poisons to understand that a slightly higher dose of sweetsleep can be fatal, she saw Maester Colemon’s anxiety and reluctance to give it to Sweetrobin too often, but, again, she doesn’t seem to register it as a red flag.

It’s possible that Sweetrobin’s death (or finding out what happened to Jeyne) is the eye opener, the triggering event that unlocks Sansa’s ability to remember correctly what she’s always known, connect the dots between the hairnet, Sweetrobin’s poisoning, Littlefinger’s behind the scenes manipulation of the Purple wedding and Jon Arryn’s death via Lysa’s “tears”, and finally see the bigger picture in Littlefinger’s modus operandi and uncover his role in causing the war of the five kings and her own house’s downfall. (yes, I totally think that Sansa will be LF’s undoing in the books like she was in the show, and that she will ~finish what her father started~ and I mean her REAL father, who died investigating on Jon Arryn’s murder, but could never get as physically close to the truth as Sansa eventually got).

The other instance in which I can see Sansa’s altered memories come into play in a big way is her recollection of the events leading to Ned��s arrest and death, specifically the fact that she mindlessly revealed critical information to Cersei which resulted in her father eventually losing his head. It’s interesting that Sansa rarely ruminates about this in her pov. I think this is one of the memories that cause her the most excruciating pain, so her brain keeps it on a leash, and might have rewritten the entire sequence of events to make her subconscious guilt less unbearable. It’s possible that at some point in her future narrative someone (likely Arya, sort of like what happened in the show) discovers what she did and questions her about that, causing a major crisis in Sansa’s psychological balance (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

There might be something even bigger than that coming up (and it’s also possible that Sansa’s memory lapses are preparing the reader for another character’s memory lapse, even), but these are my top guesses at the moment.

#anon #asks #got asks #sansa**#asoiaf spec #the unkiss #sansan for ts #sansa and lf for ts #sansa's memory #grrm #quotes #rape tw #jeyne poole #sweetrobin #unreliable narrators

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asscadet-blog · 7 years

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made out w the baddest most charming gap-toothed lesbian after sharing experiences getting racially fetishized, discussing bisexual erasure, and watching sex documentaries lol

#poly vibes strong #queer militant vibes are strong #gap teeth are my weakness

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olympus-summit · 3 years

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Nesting Owls | Carmen + Nemesis + Shinobu | Epilogue

[ General CWs for full document: Dehumanization, PTSD, unwanted romantic advances, victim-blaming (both internal and external) ]

When the illusion imprinted upon them finally comes crashing down, another family takes root in the wreckage of what was once their reality. It takes a while for them to truly bloom, but after over a hundred and fifty years, what’s waiting a couple more years gonna hurt? They finally have a future ahead of them.

- - -

In a rare moment of rest among the hours of tireless work - dutifully studying over a century of information, with as much skill and precision as she did in her collegiate era - the Doctor decides that she really ought to decide on this new name.

Her new moniker is one of practicality, one forged for survival - she could not bear to be falsely referred to as Adelina any longer, and she needed a replacement. So she found some justice, in asserting her title. After countless colleagues looked down on her and refused to acknowledge her work, after they echoed the years of dismissal she got for factors beyond her control, they would now be forced to respect her title or not refer to her at all. It was almost poetic.

But she’s never been one for poetry. It served its purpose in the moment, but the moment has passed - she does not live out of spite. She does not wish to be defined by those who despise her, not in any way shape or form.

She’s decided on a new first name, at the very least. Carmen. After Carmen Rivera - who is her own mother, in a sense. She is not Adelina, but she did live with her for 24 years - she maintains her memories, until their paths diverged. She still remembers Mama’s work ethic, her grit and determination, her ability to get through to even the most problematic students. She still remembers Mama’s off-key singing voice and her gentle kisses and her kind words. She still remembers loving and being loved.

She’ll need that energy, in the long years to come. She’s long dead - but she can still honor her, still keep a piece of her with her.

Eventually, she comes up with a middle name - also to honor a woman she loved who has passed. Carmen Grace. After her late sister-in-laws maiden name. A connection to the past she’s lost without dwelling on it.

But then there’s the damned last name.

And she’s just not sure. And she’s been stuck there, because she really can’t justify to herself trying to research last names during a time like this.

Conversely, Nemesis had decided on a last name immediately. He hadn’t announced it right away, there were other things to focus on, but even on that first day when he’d realized he wanted a new name, the ideas had come to him. It felt almost natural, inasmuch as anything about this situation could. And so when the topic comes up with Carmen, he mentions casually enough what he’s chosen - Lechuza. Like the story he’d shared with Setsuna all those days ago, like the one Evren’s mother used to tell him, that had stuck with him for so many years. It felt like a nice compromise of the new while acknowledging the old.

She asks to take his last name - which would sound like a pickup line if they weren’t so no hetero. But she likes the sound of it - Carmen Grace Lechuza. She and Nemesis - he’s her best friend, he’s like a brother to her. She quite liked it. Sharing a last name with him.

So she began her new life.

- - -

Just as Shinobu had promised, they take on the job of supervising Team Prometheus throughout their stay on the airship, acting as both a communication proxy to keep different parties from coming into direct conflict, and a wedge to separate people when tensions do boil over. That isn’t to say Shinobu is perfect: They can’t be in every conversation at once, of course. Shinobu also quickly learns that having to relay everyone’s requests and grievances recenters much of the stress onto themself – even worse when it turns out there are matters that can’t be compromised on and that trying only makes everyone more upset.

Shinobu de-stresses by splitting their free time between the pool and gym, and the library. The former because they are familiar pastimes, and because some strength training might come in handy if a fight actually does break out (and maybe a few extra pounds of muscle will finally shut up Montgomery if he starts on his gamer bro b.s. again). The latter because… because at the end of the day, Shinobu doesn’t have any practical skills to offer to either the Councilors or the world as a whole. Their sociology education is not just incomplete, but obsolete, and if Shinobu ever goes into that field again it will have to be by starting from square one, after it’s safe to land the airship for good.

Plus, there are gaps in the Council’s knowledge that aren’t covered by doctors and programmers and revolutionaries. If they’re going to distribute all of Titan Production’s agricultural secrets to the public domain, then someone here’s gotta learn how to grow a damn potato. When Shinobu supervises Team Prometheus as they prepare themselves for farm life, they make sure to take their own notes. They wouldn’t dare call themself an environmental expert, but at least they’ll have some idea which suitable climates to raise Titan’s proprietary crops in without destroying the local ecosystem already there. Besides, being an ambassador to the real ecological experts will probably be less stressful than being an ambassador to their own torturers.

Until the day comes that they can return to society, Shinobu continues to work, cramming studies in not just the environment but in language, hoping to one day be fluent enough in Spanish and English to not rely on auto-translation devices. While they aren’t certain yet if they even have a place to call home anymore… Right now, home feels like Room 2. Home feels like Carmen commenting on her discoveries about the present-day world and how she plans to reclaim her life and education when she returns. Home feels like Nemesis grumbling about the complications in reverse-engineering Titan’s technology. Home feels like bringing them both some fried rice, because someone here’s gotta make sure they’re both eating well and Shinobu’s getting used to making low-effort bulk meals now.

If this is the sort of home Shinobu can expect in the future too, then the least they can do is make sure they’ll fit in.

- - -

Much of Nemesis' remaining time on the ship is spent closing the hundred and fifty year gap in his technological knowledge, a task made easier as much by the decades of stagnation as his own genius, and on coding and coordinating the takedown of Titan. It goes remarkably smoothly, so much so that even for weeks afterwards he continues the systematic dismantlement and erasure, making sure he leaves not even a scrap for them to work with long after the public has learned too much for Titan to ever re-stabilize anyway. He goes through their servers with a figurative fine-toothed comb and bricks everything he gets his talons into.

It's not quite as satisfying as it would have been to see them burn, but Nemesis isn't who he used to be. The people he's formed connections with have made him better. No less angry, but now with a reason not to give into that anger - several reasons, in fact…

There isn't a lot of free time in the early days, but Nemesis fights his innate workaholic nature to make room for talks with Shinobu. Being around them is the closest he can get to feeling relaxed. There's no pressure, no sense of obligation, no concern about how they'll handle any particular truth about him, because they already know it all. It's unlike any relationship he's ever been in before, though the discussion over what their relationship is only seems to make it more ambiguous. They agree to take their time, to let things happen naturally, to get done the more pressing matters that need attending to and then see where that leaves or leads them.

Mostly, Nemesis finds, it leads them to keep sharing a room, and collapsing into the same bed at the end of a busy day. Even after the airship has landed and they've all received asylum in Castanea, when there are more than enough rooms to go around, the only times he gets any sleep at all are when he's curled up next to Shinobu. And he thinks he's alright with that.

They’re alright with Nemesis, too. More than alright. Even if they’re often too exhausted from work to do more than curl up together to share a meal or a nap, it’s moments like those that reassure Shinobu that they can be a normal person living a normal life, and that there’s a more personal reason besides vengeance and justice to fight for a better future.

The truth is, though, it isn’t just the current priorities that make Shinobu want to slow the pace. Knowing everything about Nemesis means knowing about the impact left on him not just by Titan and the Summit, but by Evren’s memories. Shinobu never wants to make him feel like he is obligated to be with them just because they’re the only guy here he can date. Nor do they want him to think they only care about the solace he offers.

Shinobu refuses to make Nemesis ever feel used and discarded again. They won’t dare allow themself to promise a future together before they’re absolutely sure their feelings are genuine. Shinobu’s found that a lot of things about themself they assumed were genuine had been manipulated by the Summit, after all. Their slow-burning pace is as much for their sake as it is for Nemesis.

Still, though. Still, their heart flutters every time they see the way Nemesis’s face lights up whenever he makes a new discovery about modern technology. Still, their breath catches in their throat when they wake up and find he’s still sleeping peacefully by their side. Still, their stomach churns with anxiety over whether or not they’ll be able to stay together after their work is done. Still, they’re overcome with a wave of relief when the airship lands, no one dies, and Nemesis embraces and asks them where they want to go next, together.

Still, Shinobu thinks they might be falling in love. (And they’re not the only one.)

- - -

And life continues.

#chapter 6 #adelina #evren #shinobu #submission

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