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deafeninggardenerpanda · 8 months

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i'd love to hear about manmaru metadede !!! i heard it's really Gay but no one ever details it. not a lot of it is translated too, as far as i know, but i really like it.. any excuse to talk about something you like is good too

NO YEA not a lot is translated and the manga itself is already more niche compared to like, mopupupu so its not too well known. translation efforts have really started picking up the past year though (shoutout to @/kirby-manga-translated they do great work). if it needed to be restated for new followers since i havent tl'd in a while, i know a decent amount of japanese so i read them on my own :)c

shoutout to my guy @/rosakikoza as well for giving me his scans hehe. the majority of images below are his or taken from his scans. the rest are mine

*deep breath* the tangent. im gonna need to put this under a cut dont mind me 😍😍😍 did i say 3 paragraphs? i meant 20. like 20 paragraphs

meta knight is absolutely pathetic and incredibly down bad for dedede this manga. its adorable. multiple people ive talked to or seen have come to the conclusion it seems like he has a huge crush on him. a quick brief for those who dont know but this mangas meta is admittedly Veryyyyy different from how you'd expect a meta knight to be. uncharacteristically friendly and cheerful and. pathetic is really the best word for it. hes kinda a loser. incredibly protective of dedede, he switches between two modes of fussing over him quite a bit and semi-often going into incredible rage bloodlust modes over protecting him or his image (youll see a good amount of jp fanwork depict this version of him as a yandere for that reason)

theres also been more than one occasion where meta knight tries to commit seppuku upon accidently doing something he sees as unforgivable towards his king (its in the chapter i just screenshotted above too, another time he broke dededes clock and freaked out about it). i-. dont consider this a cute ship thing for the record im just stating it to emphasize the extent of metas obsession towards dedede this manga. the mans got Problems...

apart from that, also quite differing from most interpretations of both of them, both of them seem to genuinely really like spending time around each other all the time. it comes off as casually domestic and is very cute...

regardless of my attempts to brief it, i dont feel like im explaining this very well so lemme just show you a frankly ridiculous amount of reasons for why i keep feeling like this mangaka ships metadede

-fake kiss: self explanatory

-fake proposal: also self explanatory

mk: Will you marry me!?

ddd: Yes!

context for this scene is that theyre rehearsing for a play, but actually its later revealed that meta knight is playing the princess while dedede is playing the male protag so im not exactly sure it makes sense that hes the one proposing here. my speculation is that to make the proposal seem legit for the gag they Had to use meta LMAO but thats just my take

also to be noted, right after kirby hears the proposal he immediately runs off and tries to tell everyone the news before ddd+mk stop him and explain that its fake. hes not thrown off or weirded out at the idea that they could be getting married in the slightest. kirby says gay rights Real i love him sm

-this one is from what i call the memory loss chapter:

dedede loses his memories from getting hit in the head too hard. the gang figures out that beating dedede up or otherwise causing him injury causes him to regain some of them back though, to which kirby attempts to harm him with increasingly violent means, much to meta knights horror. mk spends the entire chapter trying to protect dedede from him, and it doesnt work obviously, but after a particularly hard hit dedede remembers everyone again... except for meta knight. to which meta knight gets upset about and lets kirby lay into dedede for real. you see where people get the yandere personality from now right. i dont recall this trait coming out too often but ill talk more about it later

-the whole chapter thats a cinderella retelling with dedede and meta knight. also also self explanatory COME ON LOOK AT THIS ONE. LOOK AT IT.

mk: Y…You're…

ddd: Wow, he's so beautiful!! It's like I'm dreaming…!

-theres the mangaka chapter which is a more recent one

the gang makes manga for dedede. meta knight's manga is about how cool, brave, and heroic dedede is. mysteriously enough however the only thing hes good at is drawing dededes face and nothing else. the implications of this one drive me absolutely insane. is it supposed to imply that meta knight stares at his face all day?? admires his appearance??? he looks at him so much he basically has his face memorized????? HUH???????? theres no heterosexual explanation for this. acting like a teenager with a crush out here got damn

=various images im sharing out of context because they r cute

head pats. holding hands and reaching the goal together. peak.

KNIGHT DRESSUP FOR THE KNIGHT. AHAAHGH

ddd: Hoho, pretty spiffy don'cha think?

mk: Ohh!? It suits you!!

fellas is it gay to shout "OHH! META KNIGHT!!" with a dopey grin on your face upon being saved like a damsel in distress

sometimes meta knight acts domestic as fuck too. his copy abilities as he states are: cook! clean!! and sleep!!!

regarding my thoughts on their dynamic in this series overall, i think theyre absolutely adorable. meta knight emits dog energy in this one. eager golden retriever towards dedede, though dedede has his sweet moments towards meta knight too. (viewing it with a shipping lens just for this post ofc) while meta is the more active crusher, some of the stuff above seems to imply that dedede has feelings in return as well :') they just get along really well too its great. theres a different chapter where they perform as a comedy duo. theyve done plays in multiple chapters. its my hc for these versions of them that they love doing performances of all kinds together and do a lot of rehearsals and writing in their free time...

and the yandere stuff i feel like i should address as well. i try not to take some aspects Too seriously because its to be expected things are over emphasized for the sake of the joke with gag mangas. but oh man the man definitely has problems. he needs therapy. i tried to be transparent in listing those aspects as well so people can make their own conclusions on it But theres one more thing id like to mention regarding that

meta knights personality has been shifting to be different from what i listed, as of the most recent volume. my beloved forgotten land arc... a first for this series in that, while the chapters still retain their gag humor and dont take themselves that seriously, its a serialized story that mostly follows along with the game plot that lasts nearly the whole volume (as opposed to other game arcs in this manga being episodic stories, using the games as their theme rather than a full on setting). with the more serious tone of the serialized story, theres a frankly startling hint of character development i never wouldve expected from a gag manga at the end of it

kirby gets ko'd the first round of the meta knight cup so meta knight joins the meta knight cup instead. turns out when he does that the final boss of the cup is dedede. meta knight Really doesnt want to hurt dedede and so dedede promptly kicks his ass without a second thought and wins the tournament. while the crowd cheers for dedede's victory, meta and dedede have a small talk where dedede tells him he doesnt need to fuss so much about hurting him/him getting hurt. presumably this is supposed to mark the end of meta knights intense overprotectiveness because (its never been clear-cut due to the nature of the manga previously, so its a lil hard to say) dededes shown he can handle himself, or like, isnt some fragile thing. i really hope itll stick around because i think its a great addition to both of their characters. the meta-knights have also been appearing way more frequently as of very recent chapters (ones that havent been compiled into a volume yet) which seem to also hint to meta knight getting more independence to his character from dedede's loyal servant. im very excited to see where it goes :D

and like, last last disclaimer if anyone needed it; even tho i love metadede and i like to see things through ship glasses sometimes i absolutely try my best to keep my biases out of my translations. putting out accurate translations means a lot to me! this entire post is me purposely putting the ship glasses on so please dont take it as "omg metadede is canon in this manga". you know way back when i was the only active translator for this manga someone tweeted at the mangaka on twitter mentioning that there were english translations around and he replied to that person. didnt respond to the fan translation thing specifically but the fact that he could know who i am definitely kinda terrifies me. if anyone goes around saying that his manga is the metadede manga because of me and he even has the slightest sliver of a chance of seeing that i will kill yall fr LOL

#asks #anonymous #metadede

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graymarketblackdiamond · 10 months

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a very quick doodle of my main charr, Taistel the Unforgiving, which got me thinking about her and her frozen heart, and how delighted i was to discover the frost legion for the first time

some ramblings underway (its a bit long. whoops!)...

taistel was the second character i ever made on gw2, and was my gateway into the charr themselves. she's a blood legion order of whispers combo, so she's a bloodthirsty warrior with the open nature of a stuck glue jar. i didn't dabble with the idea of her being ice themed until way later, but it seemed to fit her pretty well. the idea of her being like ice, cold and frigid and certainly deadly when you aren't careful around it. the cold is often described as fierce, and blizzards are unruly and unforgiving (much like her name!). it all tied in so well with her.

(an old image. i loved taking pictures of her in frostgorge)

the juxtaposition of her being a guardian sat very well in my head. guardians of course have means to protect, but she isn't protecting others by any means. her selfish, guarded and frankly quite nasty nature shined through all these little tidbits of storytelling that really just told themselves as i played the game. something clearly happened to her that really was so unforgiving that it twisted her deeply, her mentality driven to this state of being constantly on the attack (or in this case, on the defense. haha).

then HoT dropped, and i classed her into a DH, which i still can't quite let go of (im sure firebrand is better in some respects, but boy do i love smacking buttons and doing instant damage)

dragonhunter has a bit of a ring to it. in her story i had so far, she was friends with my main commander and his funny rat-tag group of friends in their in-canon guild known as Vagabond's Trek. now my commander is a sylvari dude, chipper guy who's a bit goofy. Taistel herself isn't easy to win over, but when faced with an idiot who dives into danger head first and comes back with trauma and a funny quip to go with it, it's hard not to want to see him a little safe. my hardened characters can have a soft spot as a treat.

so when the threat of mordremoth comes about... becoming a dragonhunter feels like a direct threat toward the threat itself. its like a command, a promise, a sworn seal of vengeance for corrupting (or, attemtping to corrupt) a friend. ice burns arent common, i dont think, but boy would she burn the jungle to its knees if it came to it. kill the pest and torch its house, so what if the pest is a dragon?

PoF brought its own issues and problems, of course, but man. the icebrood saga. mordremoth and kralk were easy to mash like mincemeat

but jormag would have been a real problem for her.

(i wish i had this permanent infusion in the game ): its so cool)

whipsers and promises of power and glory must be like gold candy for charr. whispers of protection for people you care for would have been exactly what taistel would have wanted to hear. nevermind that her friend had already nearly fallen to corruption, this was different, you see. for her whole life she knew that slithers of ice could cut the skin and make you bleed out, chunks of ice could bludgeon you and leave you concussed...

but jormag's ice could fortify and could protect. what a wonderful change of pace that would be, to go from this ferocious, deadly weapon to the protector she always could have been. an actual, true guardian, one that could live up to the name of the class she picked up as a young cub. well, it would have been perfect! it would have been the perfect path for her to follow. her vision of ideal couldn't have been colder, couldn't have been more perfect. the dragons claws were at her shoulders...

but of course, we all know how that eventually turns out for the other charr, like the unfortunate ryland. its a good job she had people to fall back on when it all fell apart. so much shame she would have felt after that. so many allies she had slain in the process, too. (the cache champs being charr you met along the way still pulls at my heart tbh...)

... but anyway, i just love how some of the stories in this game tell themselves. its easily why ive been playing it for so damn long.

#guild wars 2 #gw2 #charr #gw2 oc #doodles #art #taistel the unforgiving #its so nice to get these thoughts down #i love this game sooooooo much

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panpanpanini · 12 days

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detco salt. tl;dr i am officially in the 1000s now and i wish i was in a better mood about it

i already said my piece about 1000/1001 as failures of commemorative specials but 999 really wasn't much better either. like really not. they super dropped the ball on a real milestone section of the series, huh... to say nothing of smile village and frying pan of hatred which come right before this too

i don't actually have -that- much to whinge about on this one [spoilers: i proceed to whinge on and on about it] bc it IS just filler at the end of the day but there are times when i'm just so, SO confused about the messages detco is trying to get across. its stance on certain things, especially as pertains to morality and justice, are sometimes just so wildly inconsistent (as is expected from a show with over 1000 episodes and 27 movies, but still). to save you 20 minutes, in episode 999 the victim-- a man who can only be described as a serial abuser of emergency services-- is first assaulted by a restaurant patron, then later found dead by his colleague. he did not die from the assault, instead it was his colleague who dealt the final blow. the victim had wronged both people with his frivolous tattling, so to speak. the episode ends with conan/kogoro reading the first assailant--the restaurant patron-- as a guy who consciously chose not to follow through with murder and praising him for "controlling himself" in the end. which. ugghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

i remember this being a bigger issue in some of the earlier episodes but...to put it bluntly... -attempted- robbery/murder/assault is still a crime, is it not????? i'm not talking about how -bad- of a crime it is, getting halfway through the crime -is- still a crime, right?? why on earth does this show sometimes try to impart that it isn't?

i just find it so weird every single time the series insists that justice is black and white [1] because it's not and [2] for as many instances of moral binaries that exist within the show there are just as many grey areas that it creates to which it applies those binaries anyway, even if it fails to address them like a deeper crime show would. morality is a gradient and that gradient is different from person to person, from culture to culture, and oftentimes the laws which write this code into the legal system don't reflect those shades of grey, but. i think most people would agree that trying to commit a crime is still... committing a crime... and stooping to a thesis statement which basically boils down to "you get a gold star for only assaulting a guy when you could've killed him" is horrifically careless. ESPECIALLY literal seconds after the same character chides the murderer as a guy whose crime is 'unforgivable.' is the bar really so low? what the hell is this weird double standard? i understand what they were trying to get across (that is, "this could have been much worse") but wowee zowee it's so badly executed and frankly probably shouldn't be your first choice of message in this situation. who wrote this???

episodes like this cause me to wade in disappointment because like plenty of other detco filler, there's opportunity to explore other things which make the detective genre endearing beyond serialized whodunits. in isolation the idea of a guy being fooled into believing he may have gone too far and killed someone is interesting. speculating on why he didn't follow through with killing the guy in the first place is interesting too and could be an exploration of character. the guy who did actually end up doing the killing could also be explored since it's never really established whether he premeditated the exact circumstances that led up to the murder, especially since he wasn't in cahoots with the first assailant-- rather, he comes across as an opportunist who already had it in mind to take out the victim and just saw that the time had come. in short... there's just a lot more to comment on here than capping the episode with something weird like "good job on not 100% killing the guy who ruined your life." why not consider something like regret, or whatever the criminal equivalent of buyers' remorse is?? more than once detco episodes have said some bizarre pieces on situations like this and, at least to me, transcends from [weird OOC dialogue] to [mouthpiece for the writer.] is it a crime in itself to plan a murder but not act on it? if not, how far is too far? when does someone cross the line from fantasy to premeditation? the victim was the type of person to call the police on people who "looked suspicious" - we can agree that this was cranked up to cartoonishly karen levels for the show, but there are definitely people out there who behave similarly, with behaviors having roots in things like systemic unconscious bias or xenophobia. how does the law deal with these people who call emergency services willy-nilly? is there legal punishment for such people who abuse the system (and in the presence of vigilante justice, as is what ultimately happened here, does that suggest there is none)?

these are all things that are infinitely more intriguing than the final product. and i didn't make any of it up either, i pulled all of this from what we were shown; the groundwork is there but time and time again detco does this low-key infuriating thing where it just doesn't ask questions. more than anything that i mumble and grumble about in this series i find this above all to be extremely annoying. like i almost can't take it sometimes, there have been a few other episodes like this where i can't really do anything but be bewildered (553 comes to mind as THE worst offender so far). i would argue that detective fiction is one of the greyest brands of storytelling out there, so for detco to consistently-- and seemingly willingly-- avoid shades of grey like water and oil is utterly baffling to me and i'm mostly sure this is The Thing that will eventually drive me away from it again [context: i fell back in love with detco in 2021, the first was in 2004 and my interest tapered off in 2007/8 or so]. i'm pessimistic it will ever change course to the degree that i would like (that's a silly expectation), but... there are episodes peppered throughout its catalogue that do, at the very least, acknowledge that these questions are out there (ie 956/957) but rather like other story beats and character developing moments it's almost like the series is cursed to rubber band back to the status quo each time it takes a risk! why??? (this is rhetorical, i'm not looking for an answer)

[huff]

okay. that's all. i didn't like episode 999 lmao

#salt #dcmk #commentary #thoughts

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system-of-a-feather · 11 months

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To preface this, this is not at all meant to be a response, retort or anything to the post on this topic that had us internally talking about it and quite frankly, that post is fair and they have a right to say it, so our direct commentary on that will end there

But when the topic of "unforgivable parts" come up, Riku and I always look at one another and go ".... ehhhh" and have a short sentimental giggle cause as far as parts doing horrible shit to another, we both have piles of dirt on the other that we wouldnt be wrong at all for being angry at each other about. I'm a lot more of a typical sounding "ex persecutor" (I dont ID with the term because I dont agree with the term as a role in the first place beyond system community common verbage) but a case could be made that Riku was by far a worse one - a thing theyd admit. The whole dynamic of ours is why we threw the role "persecutor" out the window and changed it to "persecutory behavior".

But anyways, we really fucked eachother up pretty bad and as far as other "persecutory" parts go, we've had some really really shitty internal interactions, one of which can be partially "blamed" for the reason "Riku" as a part is a subsystem - but honestly? I don't think our system has ever found something that was "unforgivable" if solely on the account that there really doesn't seem to be anything that we could do to one another that would allow us to foster that sort of self hate at this point in our healing as a system.

That being said, not all systems are equipt to handle the more extreme persecutors, not all systems are able to hold the understanding that even their most "atrocious parts" are still them, and just in general, the mind set is not practical or fit for every system in every situation and while theoretically you shouldnt force persecutors silent or whatever, chasing theoretical ideals when living as a system is honestly how you probably ended up with DID.

The need to live to a theoretical healthy standard and best practices is good and important to keep in mind, but you have to leave space for the reality of the moment as well as the genuine experiences that come with it and work with what you genuinely can give at the moment. Trying to work above that, 9/10 pushes and reinforces an EP/ANP divide that is foundational in DID so its important to learn to accept that while you know the theoretical healthy and best thing to do, from time to time you have to accept that you AREN'T perfect and can't live to an ideal perfect standard of healing and that you first have to focus on the reality of your moment and what you can bear right now.

You are allowed to experience your mental illness as a mental illness and honestly, people who criticize you healing "imperfectly" really need to focus on themselves and their own life rather than people on the internet (exceptions apply imo but thats another topic)

... lol this post went an entirely different way than I intended, cause I was originally planning on talking about persecutors and the nuances of their behavior as I'm our systems "persecutor wrangler" but I think what ended up being said is more important anyways lol

Anyways, thats my gym cardio ramble of the day.

#alter: xiv #persecutor recovery #persecutor alter #actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #xiv rambling #xiv rambles #jock posting #cardio rambles #recovery #healing

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gemma-collins-ily · 2 years

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Kaz's Previous S/O Remains His Rival

a/n - here's part one! Why do I love writing people to be kind of super evil???

Warnings: little bit of self-hatred, taking enjoyment in people's downfalls and bullet wounds.

Part one!!!

you were having a grand time, ruining everything Kaz had worked so hard to build

it was really quite easy, to decimate the so-called 'King of the Barrel', and he seemed more like a scuttling sewer rat now, desperately grasping at jobs you left as scraps

your recruits were only too happy to continuously call it your 'charity' to him, the allowance of insignificant heists that barely provided the money he needed

now, you supposed there were no more new suits with fanciful embellishments, instead old waistcoats with fraying ends and splitting threads

more than once, you imagined him having someone comb over his outfits readily pressed and starched, snipping any meticulous strings that reeled undone when tugged even slightly

just like how easy it had been to destroy him

every now and then, you felt guilt for all you had done twisting in your gut, vile and unforgiving in its tight grasp on your lungs, constricting breath and spiking your eyes with glassy tears

but, you didn't cry anymore

not over him

you wouldn't let yourself feel sorrowful or reproachful at what you had done, because he had deserved it

the thing that made you carry on, the fuel for your plans, was the way he so clearly treated people around him

like he was the typical hierarchical man, not minding the people he may crush beneath his perfectly shined shoes or ruin the reputations of with a singular glance

barely able to imagine the mortification they must have felt in his presence

now, for them and for you, there was no need

you had constantly been on edge, even when it was supposed to be a peaceful night between the two of you and he had spared you an admiring flicker of his eyes to your form

that was exactly the problem

he was finding himself sparing you things, not giving them

Kaz was surely a busy man but at a point, there was no excuse as to his behaviour

frankly, now you found both him and, every so often, yourself pathetic

him for the way he was now practically grovelling, really at the true bottom of the barrel, scraping up the few shreds of dignity he had remaining

you for the way you spared him the jobs

constantly reprimanding yourself for even casting anything aside for him

he never cast anything aside for you, why should you for him?

yet you did, and loathed yourself for it

then came a difficult job in which he'd shown up with the Dregs, alerting the guards to the fact that there were two gangs there trying to steal some quite expensive jewels by knocking over a bronzed statue

after you had scraped by and escaped, you found someone to project your anger onto yet again

Kaz Brekker

from then on, you saw it less as you gifting jobs to him but more as casting aside the ones not worth your time and effort to the man not worth them either

"Are we doing our charity work today? Passing anything off to Brekker?" "Just the one job. He needs to know just how insignificant he is against us, starting with swindling far less income that he doesn't deserve."

it may have seemed hypocritical, the way you stole and pulled off heists but wouldn't allow him to

because that's what it was before

an allowance

something that may cause a miniscule blip in plans if he attempted to collide with one of your heists, and a small, almost unnoticeable incline in the Dregs' income

but now, that was practically nothing in comparison to your gang's money, amounts that were shared out equally between all of you

once, you had ran into him personally on a job, and frozen for all of two seconds

however, those two seconds were enough for you to be torn off kilter by a stray bullet that buried itself deep into your flesh

once the searing pain wrenched your gaze from his, you were forced to duck behind a wide marble column together

you were disgusted with yourself for not having detested every moment of it

but, sure enough, your dislike for him had festered into something much more twisted

a hatred

you couldn't stand to think about him but found a microscopic part of yourself whirling at the scene playing out before you

your were glad that you stopped yourself and immediately decided to distract from anything to do with him by digging your fingers into the wound and victoriously pulling out the silver coated bullet

he gaped, unsure of the new territory that seemed to be you

Kaz wondered if you had always been like this and he had just never known

he was partially correct

after a while near him, and double-crossing him to put yourself first, your heart had become harder, had built more walls you had refused to let him see before you left

Dropping the bullet to the ground, you watched with a grim fascination as the flecks of blood painting the weaponised metal a shade of carmine spattered over the ground, a speck even landing on the tip of his shoe. You didn't make the mistake of wasting time to gaze at his face again. Instead, you pressed an uncomfortable hand to your wound and turned to join the fight.

you did run into him again, just once, turning the corner of an alley, away from a snivelling higher-up, who had gotten just what he deserved and was now cowering in the little cul-de-sac, trying to press himself further into the corner between two walls

this time you had learnt from the excruciating pain in both your heart and body when you saw him last, and did not care to look him in the eye

you breezed past, acting as though a gun were not twirling on your finger and a smirk was not playing on your lips

It was a gravelled whisper, tendrils of his voice almost seizing you in their grasps.

"Do you ever think... think that we could have been different? Can be different?"

You didn't waste your voice on him: the heel of your shoe only scuffed the dirt backwards, it landing in a fine dust at his feet.

And you strode away, leaving him where, as far as you and your crew were concerned, he belonged.

just because you hadn't bothered to say it in front of him, that night you found yourself whispering a single admittance, one you wouldn't dare to say again, for the fear of awakening long lost feelings that you wished to remain seeping into the very Fold itself

"We could have been different; if only you'd tried."

then, you had cast away the tears ready to become a torrent at your waterline, closing your eyes and letting yourself revel in one last bittersweet memory of the two of you

one in which you had been naive and hopeful and innocent and everything apart from what he was

Your eyelashes graced your cheek as you breathed a shaky inhale, heart rate wavering and delicate. His hand was held before you, gloved fingertips curled and slowly, meticulously slowly, tracing the path of your cheekbone.

He stopped and you were completely content with that, opening your eyes to let them twinkle at him joyfully, so proud he had managed to be near you.

after that day, he never touched you again

and that was perfectly fine, you coming to the conclusion he would tell you when he was ready to do anything more, or even less

until he didn't invite you to his office in the evenings, until he stopped talking to you completely

you tried to understand for the longest time that maybe he was scared he had let you in

but then, further down the line, you realised he had just thought you were stopping his business, ruining his reputation, and that he simply saw ignoring you, perhaps eternally, as a transaction

"They only slow me down. It's all they've ever done, and something I cannot allow anymore."

you grew far more bitter after that, knowing you were worth more than what he said, even if there were times your belief in yourself was not at all concrete

him reducing you to questioning if you were good enough was what you saw as a continuation of a fire, not just the first spark of anger

no, that had been long beforehand

him cutting you out of plans and meetings was what made you snap

suddenly, you were sneaking into his office at the times of the jobs, looking over future plans and plotting yourself

it was like a snowball effect, frustrations building to a summit before you finally crafted an act of true sabotage one day

You painstakingly traced out the map with careful precision, eyes squinting in the dim light until you had a complete copy, a few streets altered to look like they led into different entrances or exits.

It was what Kaz deserved. Replacing the original blueprint map with your faux one, you stashed Kaz's copy away in your room.

And the next day, Kaz was questioning everyone in the Dregs, even asking Jesper if it were some kind of joke in his fury.

But, if you had never been told about the heist by him, he thought you never would have known. You remained in the clear.

after the day in which he had asked the all important question, wondering if you could be different, you claimed you had let a heist go because of a bigger one occuring at the same time

no one in Ketterdam knew the number of people you had recruited into the Hyacinth gang, but they knew it was plenty enough for having a team on each heist

but Kaz was too desperate at this point to allow suspicion to take a deep hold, and maybe he still remembered you as the person he had trusted for a moment

you were aiming to show him that you were very much not that person anymore

members of your gang had already actually carried out the heist, a vast sum of money stolen from the docks and replaced with flash paper, a crisp and thin stack that would burn as soon as a flame came into contact with it

one of the guards for the money was careless with a lighter and that was in your knowledge

when the Dregs fought against him and the others, silently taking them down with little trouble (they may have been out of practice on larger scale heists, but they by no means lost any talent), the lighter fell from the man's hand, flame about to flicker out just as the small object rolled to touch the paper

their supposed money went up in flames in moments

it may have been cruel, but you even left a business card for the Dregs (they did not have one of these, but the Stadwatch wouldn't care to know that)

of course, Kaz managed to make enough from the Crow Club to pay off the Stadwatch, but only for a small while

you had caused him a world of trouble

even some of Kaz's crew began to believe he had somehow manufactured it as a test, and that the money was actually hidden away, or already spent

more came to your gang, recruited by a ploy that had nurtured their distrust of their own previous leader

and despite themselves, Jesper and Inej began to question Kaz too

if only for a moment

but you had definitely planted a seed in their minds, and now all you needed to do was let it become a noxious weed until they couldn't stand by him any longer

you had acted garrulously, even innocently, in conversations and generally, working your operation right under his roof until you managed to practically steal all he had apart from that

after all, you had learnt to play the long game

and by the Saints was it worth it

#kaz brekker x reader #I totally got the flash paper idea from Now You See Me 2 :)#kaz brekker x you #kaz brekker x y/n #gn!reader #kaz brekker imagine #kaz brekker fanfic #kaz brekker fic #shadow and bone #shadow and bone x you #shadow and bone x reader #shadow and bone imagine #shadow and bone fic #grishaverse #grishaverse x you #grishaverse x reader #grishaverse imagine #grishaverse fic #kaz brekker angst

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fancyfade · 8 months

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With Omni-Man coming out to MK soon, I wonder if you can provide any of your favourite Superman moments!

ooooooooooooooh I can do that!

Ok so 1 of my favorite superman moments of all time takes place during Superman: Exile in Space and other stories. It is after Superman's self imposed exile from earth, before he gets captured by War World. He's floating around angstily, and he encounters a planet that he had made a brief stop on that is now destroyed by something called the Union*. The Union is a collection of brains joined together that kill people's bodies to make them join the union, and the World-Bringer is the guy who finds more brains to join them**

anyway

Superman tracks down these guys b/c what the hell you just destroyed a whole planet's worth of people? And World-Bringer manifests a collection of the Union's thoughts as Eon, and Superman and Eon battle. Their battle destroys some of the tanks that the brains of the Union hive-mind were in, and Superman immediately stops and tries to re-form the tank to protect the brains inside.

Seeing Superman trying to save one of their members, even though they were just trying to kill him, makes Eon/Union realize how much they have diverted from their original purpose. What I like about it is it captures Superman always trying to save people, even if they were just enemies, even if its hopeless. And what ends the fight is not physical force, but Superman's kindness.

okay anyway more moments along those lines:

This quote (which is delivered in a series of tiny boxes over almost an entire issue) I think is very Good Superman moment (he's fighting various villains)

"Most everyone needs a second chance at some point in their lives... and most of them deserve one. do you realize how powerful those two words are, second chance? I don't think there's a greater gift you can give to someone. a second chance in life. My heart is beating through my chest right now because this is where I'm supposed to haul you in and lock you up. But something has to change, doesn't it? It just has to. So... I'm offering you a second chance. Put the past in a box and take my hand in friendship. It won't be easy, and I'm not ignoring what brought us here in the first place. But frankly, I can't do anything about any of that. The past is hard and cold and unforgiving. I can only change the future... and so can you. you have such power. gifts. Do you know what you could accomplish if you just tried? You could make the world beautiful. You could change everything." - action comics 783

also any of superman's love my wife moments (link)

*OK it had many names I can't remember which name was being used at this point.

** Canonically it was unclear whether World-Bringer started the Union, or was just directing them for a time.

#paigeoforacle #dc comics #ty for ask!#clark kent #superman

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vvatchword · 6 months

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Oh my jesus christ. Writing villains is my absolute favorite fucking thing. When I tried out for parts in One Act Play, I aimed at the villain roles. There is nothing more fun than just bringing out every human flaw and shooting them into overdrive. I think part of it is an excuse to FEEL those horrible things, to work them out of my system, but harmlessly so.

If I can't be an actor, I can certainly do that with characters in literature.

I have to work to get into every character's mind--including Johnny Topside and Augustus Sinclair, the two characters I prefer to write about--with one exception.

Stanley Poole. Stanley-fucking-Poole. A two-bit journalist character. One of the most easily-forgotten side characters in all of BioShock 2. All I did was bring in a few disparate traits--insecurity, vanity, talent, hypocrisy, and covetousness with a heavy dollop of self-loathing and -denial and an out-of-control temper. If you write, you know that it's not enough to nail the right kinds of perspectives in a single moment: properly chasing a living character identity in action, as an organic and evolving thing, can be an exercise in frustration.

But with Stanley, I do not have to try very hard at all: he just works. And when I say he works, I mean that writing his sections are absolutely effortless. What's the equivalent of brain lube? Whatever it is, he's slicked in it. Appropriate, because he's a huge cock.

He has a job I actually know something about, which might be part of the ease, but the rest of it is his delightfully unforgivable behavior. Stanley is petty, explosive, calculating, and cruel; he has few, if any allies, and the ones he does have don't particularly like him; and he is always trying to make trouble for someone somewhere. That makes him intensely interesting. He's like my favorite shirt/jean combo: we fit each other perfectly.

Frankly, the fact I can slide into Poole's shoes so easily might be a bad sign, but we won't talk about THAT

Then there's Dr. Sofia Lamb. She's a whole different animal. She is not fun to write, per se--but only because she's emotionally constipated. Where a lot of my characters are the emotional and psychological equivalents of fireworks--they light easily, pop off reliably, cause a lot of shocking friction with each other, and set off lots of bright and colorful chain reactions--Dr. Lamb is like the quiet, inexorable chain of atomic reactions leading to a nuclear explosion. She is quiet and still until she's suddenly very much NOT.

Part of what makes her uninteresting to me is that she's mature enough to take social blows without taking them seriously, or at least without considering retribution. Where emotional feedback in a story is deeply satisfying, the equivalent of a full-course meal, she provides a different kind of meal entirely--an intellectual one.

That intellectual exploration is actually one of my very favorite things. The problem is that I'm starving for good old-fashioned creature comforts at the moment--lust and rage and bloodletting. She's not a horndog like Topside or Sinclair, nor emotionally unstable like Poole, nor violent like Subject Delta. She doesn't inspire any of that--not usually, anyway. Now, this may be a failure of my own; she was never fully developed by 2K Marin, so in attempting to write her, I've got to fill the blanks. ("Why is she a villain?" 2K Marin asked. "She has literally always wanted to be one! We're writing a gnostic allegory! Hahaha! Great story mark")

That said, she's incredibly valuable. Besides being a foil to Johnny Topside's rising star, she utilizes many of the same themes, such as the consequences of fame and the unintended side effects of being the right person at the right time. Moreover, part of why I love BioShock and the literature it takes cues from is its intelligence and its willingness to ask big questions--and unlike most of the characters in-story, she gives me those opportunities.

There's a part of her that's terrifying, but I have to grow it by degrees. I think half of my issue with her at the moment is that I'm having some difficulty easing her into the villain role. That's because she doesn't really start as a villain: she starts out completely laudable. Where Poole is an obvious motherfucker, she is far more subtle, and I'm having some trouble finding out where her corruption begins. I'm looking forward to when I can simply unleash her.

In any case, I'd probably better chunk 2,000 words into the ether before the day ends or I'll start sweating blood

#vvatchword #only man #uprising #nanowrimo #fanfiction #writing #bioshock

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seyaryminamoto · 1 year

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I’ve been rereading, & I noticed Sokka has a ton of scars across his body! I tried to keep up but have lost track lol T.T So my question is, how many does our gladiator have (currently), and the locations if you don’t mind? XD I’m trying to visualize it for some odd reason lol I swear I’m not weird >.< On a more serious note - Will he have the strength to not beat Iroh to a pulp if they cross paths?? Will we ever see Hama? Will Kat ever know about Yon Ra? O.O TYSM for this amazing story! <3

Oh, you're not crazy for noticing this, I actually tried to do a general butt-naked Sokka reference sheet so I could keep track of his scars... and then I never did finish it, oops. Frankly he has a lot of scars, of variable severity, I'd say. There are some that will have faded more easily over time, others that haven't (for instance, the spike through his shoulder, courtesy of Toph back in chapter 17? that one's probably a very noticeable scar). Right now, off the top of my head, the ones I can remember are:

One on his shoulder, caused by Toph, chapter 17.

The burn on his stomach after his fight with Azula back in chapter 2, that then got basically smoothed over in 126, also courtesy of Azula... so his skin there has become smooth, kind of a rare situation where the scar just got flattened and isn't very noticeable anymore.

Light lines over his neck, also Azula's doing back, in chapter 2.

Also scars over his thighs, from Jet's fight in chapter 30.

The scar across his back from his fight against Rhone in chapter 114.

The childhood scar from having two fishhooks in his thumb... :'D

Multiple scars in variable locations from his time in the Amateur League, most of them are bound to have faded plenty by now.

... While he got decent medical assistance for those wounds eventually, I doubt the events from 236 + 242 didn't leave at least a few scars, especially burn marks. They might fade over time, but he definitely must have some lasting marks from it.

... Aside from all of this, I feel like maybe I've had Sokka growing strong enough to avoid serious scars through most of Part 2. While he often falls off places and takes damage when that happens, he's innately resistant to blunt force damage, I'd say (courtesy of canon and its cartoon physics, if they're going to make this man endure all damage miraculously just for shits and giggles, I'm gonna take that and make him OP for REAL).

About your other questions...

It's one hell of a challenge for him, and he absolutely hates being anywhere near the guy... but Sokka does indeed succeed at holding back from attempting to skewer Iroh simply because doing that would severely hamper his possibilities of saving Azula and ending the war. Much as he has told Ursa... saving Azula is his top priority. Revenge isn't what he needs when the person he's trying to save is, for all he knows, in a battle against time against Ozai's perpetual and very dangerous wrath. As far as Sokka is concerned, Iroh's unforgivable role in triggering this disaster will be something for him and Azula to weigh together once they're back with each other... and he firmly believes that, since Azula was the one Iroh's actions hurt most deeply, she's the one who should decide what to do with him.

... Which is a much scarier prospect for Iroh than getting beaten to a pulp by Sokka, I have to say...

Regarding Hama, she has died by now in Gladiator. I tried to think of how to incorporate her into the story long ago, but the more I pondered it, the less likely I found it for her to survive long enough to take up a role in the story. She was already quite old in canon, and we're talking about a survivor of severe torture and terrible imprisonment conditions, which most likely took a toll on her health. As she was found guilty of many deaths with her bloodbending shenanigans of locking people up inside a mountain (since Team Avatar of course wasn't here to stop her), Hama was imprisoned again regardless of her old age... and she passed away at some point afterwards. In a way, not a very different outcome than she faced in canon (she was captured too, presumably turned in to the Domestic Forces eventually), it's just a more definitive one on my part since I do believe she's dead at this point in time, whereas I doubt canon will ever talk about how long Hama lived after being caught in The Puppetmaster. Sorry if you hoped to see her :( but I really do think I would have been pushing believability too far if I brought her up in the story, unfortunately.

As for Katara and Yon Rha... while it's not impossible that she'll learn more about Kya's murder some day, I have no plans of revealing that to her during the story. Worth mentioning that I also don't believe her reaction would be what it was during the show, not only is she older and wiser in many ways, she's also been through certain experiences that would ensure that she doesn't react as impulsively to things as she often did in canon. There's several possible examples of that, but the first one that comes to mind is the strong contrast between her emotional reactions in the swamp when she sees Kya in canon vs. Gladiator: in this story, she realizes it's a mirage, even if it's a very painful one, and she understands it's a spiritual happening that will guide her onwards. In the show, the swamp certainly was being a lot more merciless to them (see what it did to Sokka, ffs...) but there's no instance of self-reflection on Katara's part, she simply breaks down over her vision of Kya. Evidently, she's ten years older at this point in Gladiator, hence the greater maturity, even if she still feels her emotions as powerfully as ever... but she has also faced certain challenges canon sure didn't throw at her, all of which has helped Katara grow stronger in Gladiator, in many ways. Enough that even if her initial impulsive reaction upon hearing about Yon Rha were the same, she wouldn't rush out to act on those impulses at once.

Another thing worth noting is that, in canon, no one but Yon Rha is held responsible for what happened to Kya... in Gladiator, we have our particular explanation of how the Fire Nation found out that there was a waterbender in the South Pole. And the people who are ultimately responsible for orchestrating Kya's death (Azulon, who wanted any new waterbenders killed, and Rhone's parents, who gave away information about Katara's powers to the Fire Nation) are already dead. While it's absolutely possible for Katara to want revenge on Yon Rha, who committed the murder... she would likely also learn that he's not the only person responsible for Kya's death, which muddles matters further here. Doesn't help either that Rhone is ALSO dead, and that learning about what Rhone did (if she ever does, though she's also not going to find out about it for a long time at least, Sokka is hellbent on keeping her from learning about it for the time being) would probably cause her to slow down if she starts craving revenge: Rhone killed his own parents in retaliation for what happened to Kya (though he thought it was Katara who had died, but anyway...), and he spiraled on and on into becoming an attempted mass murderer, an indiscriminate firebender murderer, and his worst choices had repercussions so severe that Azula is still dealing with those consequences to this day... it's not a pretty mirror to look into, and I do think that would give Katara's vengeful urges some pause. If she ever learns about Yon Rha and decides to seek him out, she'll definitely do it from a place of much more restraint than the impulsiveness we saw of her in canon.

(... also, worth noting that our Zuko isn't exactly eager to find Yon Rha just to make Katara like him, he doesn't have that kind of insecurity about his place in the group here, and he can strengthen his usually wobbly friendship with Katara through much healthier means, as he already has across the latest Gladiator arcs, so not having an instigator, ride-or-die, whatever you want to call it for this potential mission would probably make Katara think about that a lot more thoroughly...)

So yep, that's what's up with that :'D

Thank you for the question and I'm glad you've enjoyed the story! :D

#anon #I knew someone would eventually wonder #about Sokka's many many scars #maybe a lot of people have and you're the one who asked #I wish I'd done a better job of keeping track of them #*sobs*

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recursivetransformarray · 2 years

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ive been following you a while and i love your ultrakill posting and your art even though i dont know much about ultrakill aside from cute blood robot go brrrrr. i have one big question though. why is there a christian guy what does he do how is he relevant to the game's plot? is he another robot or a guy

"christian guy” is frankly an apt descriptor of Gabriel but is also an understatement; he's an archangel who acts as the game’s central antagonist (...so far). he attempted to stop V1 from traversing further down into Hell but was defeated, which got him punished by his higher-ups and now he's out for revenge

a lot of lore mentions him as he’s tasked with guarding Hell from outsiders as well as keeping its residents in check and thus is part of a lot of the game’s backstory. he’s described as being “beloved among angels due to his radiant personality” but is also described as... unforgiving when punishment is in order.

side note most of the fanbase (including his own voice actor and the game dev) has been part of a very successful crusade to take all the piss out of him and/or objectify him before this second act drops tomorrow. anyway he’s neat

#ask #sorry. I have a curse that makes me write paragraphs every time I get asked about this game #I don't actually... post about him much but I like him a lot. he's a cool character and has some neat dimension and duality to him #I also like him because I'm gay and I have EYES

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themattress · 1 year

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As cluttered and clearly written in a hurry the script for “The Brothers Jones” is, the fact that it needs fine-tuning still doesn’t hamper its enjoyability for me as an episode, and this scene is a major reason why. I’m no MRA-type who harps on about shit like this, but there is a frankly heinous female-centric double standard at play among many fans when talking about what went down in 5A with Dark Hook and Dark Emma. After suffering from the effects of the Darkness in Camelot, Emma finally breaks after Hook is mortally wounded while saving her family and pulls a selfish Rumple-esque move by forcing the Darkness onto Hook and turning him into a Dark One so that he can stay alive for her sake rather than for his, since he was begging her not to do it because he knew it would corrupt him. Immediately worried about the consequences of this, she forcibly controls Hook with Excalibur, pressing what she ought to know damn well is his greatest trauma trigger. Hook, who had been trying to resist the Darkness, gives in and murders Merlin so that he can be brought to Storybrooke and bring the souls of the past Dark Ones there, which will allow him to get revenge on Rumple.

Emma then wipes everyone’s memories, Hook’s included. In Storybrooke, she gaslights him, emotionally manipulates him, and ultimately captures him and chains her up in her basement as part of a plan to force all the Darkness onto Zelena and kill her once she’s found a way to heal Hook’s mortal wound, telling Hook through all his objections that “it’s for his own good.” After she fails, Hook gets his memories back and goes on the warpath: tying her up and leaving her, later showing up to her again to verbally and emotionally abuse her in order to “hurt her like she hurt him”, and then later stopping her from trying to save her family from being sent to the Underworld by the resurrected Dark Ones’ magical marks on them, even magically impersonating her son to lower her guard so he can do it. In the end, he snaps out of his mania and sacrifices himself to stop what he put into motion and destroy the Darkness.

Tl;dr version: Hook does good but will die as a result -> Emma does bad -> Hook does bad -> Emma does bad -> Hook does bad -> Hook does good and dies as a result. It’s a tragic cycle where Emma and Hook are abusive and toxic toward each other. And yet there are fans who ignore everything on Emma’s part in order to depict it as just Hook being an abusive boyfriend who does horrible, unforgivable things to Emma out of nowhere, and say it’s nonsensical Emma and her family would want to go to the Underworld to save him after that.

Which brings us to this scene, where Liam calls Emma out on the fact that what she did to Hook in Camelot was selfish and, to a lesser extent, so is what she’s doing now: saving Hook from Hades is one thing, but wanting to bring him back to life is quite another. And to all the fans who asked “how can she still want him back after what he did to her?”, the answer is here plain as day: because it will alleviate all the guilt of what she did to him. Emma wasn’t some blameless innocent victim; as Dark Ones she abused Hook as much as he abused her. The Underworld Saga is about both of their redemptions for all of that, not just Hook’s.

#Once Upon a Time #ABC #Emma Swan #Captain Hook #Killian Jones #Liam Jones #Opinion #Analysis #Fandumb #Stupidity #Sexism #Hypocrite #Double Standards #Defense #Truthbomb

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voluptuarian · 1 year

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It's constantly nuts to me how unacceptable it is in current beauty standards for women to have upper bodies. I'm not even talking fat or muscle, just frame. Like you had athletic, big-breasted amazon-types on tv in the 80s and broad-shouldered super models on runways in the 80s and 90s, and then they got replaced with waifs and its like they could never go back. (Even Cindy Crawford, supermodel extraordinaire-- her mini-me daughter conveniently has a little Tinkerbell frame somehow and so instantly gets work, but if she had her mother's body and not her face, she wouldn't have a career now).

Like our current Wonder Woman has less upper body mass/frame than Anita Ekberg did! It's like this unforgivable sin that a woman might have chest structure and broad shoulders-- she must remain bony-shouldered and with her snappable collar bones sticking out, even if her triceps are iron. It's bizarre, and not really talked about, but its so prevalent... I really hate it so much.

UPDATE because I wanted to show you how much I was not kidding about Wonder Woman

the "strapping powerful amazon woman" of our times and she's outgunned by a romantic sex symbol (which is not a drag on Ekberg at all, rather pointing out which of these roles would seemingly call for a developed or heavier upper body, and which wouldn't).

Like, just look how much smaller Gal Gadot's shoulders are compared to her head. Ekberg has INCHES on her.

And even with a workout regime to get her ripped, Gadot's chest is so shallow her breastplate sticks out from her body-- meanwhile Anita Ekberg's bust is very voluptuous, but is clearly being supported by a broad chest, and her chest muscle mass rises up from her sternum, rather than sinking in-- if she were wearing a similar piece, it would sit flush to her body. In this shot you can see her rib cage in general was quite large, giving her a very statuesque physique, entirely at odds with what modern filmmakers are apparently willing to accept, even for super-powered amazons.

like, this isn't "fat," it's not out of proportion, it's certainly not unattractive, there's no explicit reason why this body type should be underrepresented, but you NEVER see women with half that build in almost any role, even ones they are good body matches for! A woman with Anita Ekberg's body type is by no means a threat to the current Hollywood beauty standard, and yet--!!!! It's stupid, it's unfair, and frankly, I think it's tragic.

#I'm not going to go into my immediate assumptions about increasingly powerful women in real life #and increasingly petite child-like and frail-looking women in media #and what that might say about the men developing or consuming that media....

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infizero · 7 days

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pokespe reread: ruby & sapphire chapter - closing thoughts! 🔴🔵

i've finally reached the end of the ruby & sapphire.... im now gonna start from the beginning and work my way back up to FRLG like i said i would!

first though, some overall thoughts!!

(also im gonna say right off the bat that i am only talking strictly ruby & sapphire here, not anything that happens in ORAS - i'll get to THAT when i get there. eventually - or any other arcs)

ok first off i said i would talk about the way the narrative portrays norman once i had finished the whole arc. and now that i have.... yup its basically as i had already been feeling as i read. they dont know wtf they're doing with norman. sometimes it feels like they're so obviously portraying him as a threat and a bad person, but they just cannot accept that and keep trying to make him sympathetic.

and i dont think that giving norman more layers as a character is a bad thing! but you can just tell that when you learn that norman WAS going to give ruby permission to do contests before he ran away, or how norman gave up his shot at being a gym leader to pay for ruby's childish mistake, the intent is not to add layers to an otherwise unredeemable character. the intent is for the reader to go "oh, he's not so bad after all! he actually IS a good dad!"

and thats. i mean i dont think i need to describe why thats horrible. the way norman treated ruby is unforgivable and he is NOT a character that should be so easily redeemed. they cant even portray his abuse without downplaying it!! like how do you depict norman beating his 11 year old child up in such horrible upsetting detail and then immediately have the other characters in the story undermine it and go "aww hes not such a bad dad after all!" RIGHT AFTER SAID ABUSE! it doesnt matter that norman was going to give ruby permission, it doesnt matter that he sacrificed for ruby when he was younger, none of that matters when its put up against norman BEATING THE FUCK OUT OF RUBY! (and like i already said in my norman analysis post, even the contest permission thing isnt that good of a deed bcuz it doesnt come with any actual change in behavior from norman)

all that to say, a very clearly abusive father is depicted here and yet the narrative is dead set on trying to make you think that his abuse isnt that bad and that hes actually a good guy deep down. which is just frankly gross and i really wish it had been handled better.

secondly, i already said this but oh my god the thing with celebi is so fucking stupid. like this isnt even cause i want norman to have stayed dead, this is just objectively a stupid writing decision. you have these characters die and add so much drama and stakes to the story, and then at the last moment you reveal that ruby SOMEHOW had caught celebi back in johto and just???? had it with him THIS ENTIRE TIME and it never came up once?

and everything just magically gets fixed and the consequences of that are just not addressed. this is just bad writing im sorry. it happens so quickly and so nonsensically it instantly makes everything that happened feel so much less consequential.

and to be clear the problem isnt that it was solved with magic! this is pokemon after all lmao. the problem is that celebi was not set up AT ALL in the story. there was absolutely NO BASIS for this reveal so it feels completely random and like a terrible deus ex machina. needless to say in my personal canon this does not happen and everyone who died just stays dead lol. (maybe not steven. we'll see once i revisit ORAS, if he really needs to be alive then i can make an exception and just say he doesnt die in the first place here. but norman and courtney at the very least gotta stay dead like cmon man)

third, here are my thoughts on how the narrative portrays ruby and sapphire's gender nonconformity overall (again, STRICTLY IN R&S) which ive been waiting to talk about!

i'll first say that i was nervous the whole time since i couldnt really remember how things were by the end, but im actually pleasantly surprised! i do have some criticisms which i'll go ahead and get out of the way first.

first of all, there is some weirdness with how sapphire is portrayed. most of the time she is tough and masculine but they occasionally hamfist in these moments where she's like "hey but i am a GIRL yknow. i can like cute things and have crushes and stuff" and it just feels. off

like im not SAYING that sapphire cant also have SOME interest in traditionally feminine things. but the way it's presented can make it feel a little like sapphire is really a "normal" (feminine) girl underneath it all and that her toughness and masculinity are all just a front. i dont think thats true and from the way they portray her other times i dont think that is supposed to be the takeaway. but it can feel like that sometimes

like it definitely feels like in contrast to ruby, they were scared to make sapphire TOO masculine without giving her certain traditional markers of femininity. yes she's like this but also look she's squealing over her crush on ruby! she is still a GIRL after all!

this can be seen as well in her appearance - while i love her fangs and wild expressions, she is still depicted as this pretty feminine looking girl. she's skinny and fairly curvy, she's got long pretty eyelashes, she wears a short skirt, etc etc. (yes ik ruby made those clothes for her but on a meta level that IS what she has been chosen to wear. and i also know that they have to use the gameverse designs BELIEVE ME I KNOW. im just commenting on it)

and again irl none of this really matters ppl can do whatever they want gender-wise and presentation-wise. but this, being a story and all, is a conscious decision to create this character this way, which might i add was made by men. sapphire is remarkably brash and masculine and i dont want to undermine that, but it really feels like they were too scared to really go all the way and not add little "oh but shes still feminine in this way of course" disclaimers throughout the story

another negative is that, while i do love ruby and sapphire's backstory, it does come with the unfortunate side effect of once again calling their gender nonconformity's genuineness into question.

having ruby and sapphire be a traditionally masculine little boy and a traditionally feminine little girl when they were kids, with seemingly no qualms about this, can make it feel like those are their "true selves" and that their gender nonconformity was ENTIRELY just bcuz of their trauma. as in, sapphire is ONLY masculine bcuz she wanted to get strong enough to protect herself and others, and deep down she actually is a feminine girl; ruby is ONLY feminine bcuz he was scared of hurting others with his strength, and deep down he actually is a masculine boy.

now this isnt actually true, and the narrative shows us this since in the little epilogue they're still acting in their usual gnc ways. but it does sow an unfortunate seed of doubt in the mind of the reader that really doesnt need to be there.

but with that out of the way lemme show some love for the positives of ruby and sapphire's portrayal bcuz i just love these guys so much

first of all, it's never even so much as implied that ruby doesnt ACTUALLY like contests or sapphire doesnt ACTUALLY like battling. if the intended narrative really was that it was all a front post-trauma and they're actually gender-conforming deep inside, then this wouldn't be the case.

secondly, im really happy that the story ends with reaffirming these things about them!! by the end ruby is decorating sapphire's cave, fawning over cute plushies with his signature Gayass Face, and bragging about his skills brushing pokemon. and sapphire is still battling, running around with her dirty pokemon, and rolling her eyes at ruby's decor. this IS who they are. ruby IS feminine and sapphire IS masculine. the narrative does not let you think otherwise by the end

third of all, i just really appreciate them being portrayed like this at all. like i said sapphire's depiction could have been played a lot less safe, but she still is a pretty masculine character and she embodies a lot of qualities that werent rlly common for these characters at the time. she's freakishly strong, she's brash, and she's constantly running around being a hero to everyone she meets, in contrast to ruby not really fitting the label of hero at all (at least until the end)

and ruby is just so overtly feminine and well. queer. it's still astounding to me. ive said before, i obviously dont agree with everything kusaka's ever done, but i will always thank him for fighting against the editors to let pokemon have such a feminine male protagonist. that really means a lot, esp back in 2002!

ruby is a very flawed character (i mean that in a good way!) and it can sometimes feel like the narrative is laughing at him a bit, but at the same time he IS the protagonist and you are supposed to sympathize with him. and like i said before, there is never any reveal that actually ruby DOESNT like these feminine things and he was just forcing himself to after the salamence incident.

he just IS feminine, even by the end of the story after all his character development. that part of him is never depicted as something that he would be better off without, that's just who he is! even after beginning to battle again. and i appreciate that!

alright and finally. just some notes on how ruby and sapphire's romance is portrayed. i've already said a lot of this but i wanted to repeat it here

basically, OVERALL i like how their romance is written. i love franticshipping, i think they're so cute and i love how they've got the whole opposites attract, enemies to lovers thing going on

i think kusaka overall does a good job of showing them starting to care more about each other in a way that feels well written, but then sometimes he just throws in some stupid cliche fanfiction bullshit that completely disrupts the slow burn going on.

the perfect example of this is the scene where sapphire rushes into granite cave to save ruby:

the way that she just instantly bolts into danger without thinking the second she realizes hes in trouble already tells you SO MUCH about how far their relationship has come and how much she cares about him, just on its own.

but then kusaka apparently decides that this isnt enough and he needs to really make it obvious, so he slaps in this weird moment that feels really off tone-wise:

like this is a dangerous situation! its tense! being treated seriously! and then all of the sudden we're hit with this comedic cliche little "it's not like i like him or anything!!1!" moment that just feels really forced. esp since brawly literally just called ruby a friend of hers. i'd take sapphire getting embarrassed/defensive at ruby being called for her friend, but there is no reason she needs to just flat out go "it's not like i have a BIG FAT CRUSH ON HIM!!" like girl. no one was saying that. what are you exposing yourself for 😭

this happens a couple other times where these random moments of making it extremely obvious that ruby and sapphire like each other are unnecessarily inserted into their otherwise slowburn romance. and it just doesnt need to be there man. the story would be much better off without these moments, if we JUST got the subtle displays of care, some blushing, etc leading up to the eventual confession. like that just makes it so much more engaging!! rather than just straight up telling the audience "they like each other!" like ik this IS for kids but damn bro cmon let me figure that out myself with my brain 😭

i also think that ruby forcefully preventing sapphire from helping him save the world near the end should have had more attention drawn to it. like ik he was just trying to protect her but i think sapphire should've been allowed to get mad at him for that!! at the very least i think it should've been brought up in the aftermath and ruby should've apologized or something. it just feels like sapphire's agency was totally stripped from her in the climax of the story and because it's never addressed, the narrative basically says that there was nothing wrong with ruby doing this.

(hmm wow ruby ignoring sapphire's agency and doing things "for her own good" without actually consulting her? that feels..... familiar........

oh god. it's right behind me isn't it

ACK. BACK FOUL DEMON. it's not your time..... not yet....)

but yes, other than these moments, i think their romance is well-written. they are just sooooo freaking cute i love them so so much. this arc may not be flawless (none of them are lol) but it did give the world charmer ruby and conqueror sapphire so. let's end on that.

overall i really enjoyed rereading thru ruby & sapphire with a new perspective now that im older, and i cant wait to do so with the rest of pokespe!!!

see you all next time for whenever i finish rereading RGB!

#serena.txt #pksp reread #ruby & sapphire reread #HOLY FUCK MAN. THIS TOOK ME LITERAL HOURS TO WRITE #also i do wanna clarify that i havent reread ORAS since i was a kid. obviously thats the whole point of this reread thing #but it does mean that when im bashing on it i am bashing on it based on very vague memories of it lmao. so apologies if anything #i say seems a little off. i just have very strong feelings about it even tho i cant exactly remember why

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45jailbreak · 7 months

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Jyuto’s Gallery

For years now, Jyuto had developed romantic feelings for Kieran, but he was completely oblivious to them. Usually, the cop knew exactly what he was feeling and why, though when it came to the secretary, his mind and understanding of himself dissolved entirely. He could never pinpoint exactly what he felt towards him. They irritated each other, argued nearly every time they came into contact, Kieran despised him, and yet Jyuto chose to continue forcing himself in his life by appearing randomly or following him around. Kieran had valid reasons to hate Jyuto, yet he couldn’t get him away. Their past proved to be brutal with some unforgivable mistakes, and yet despite Kieran never forgiving him for anything he had done, rightfully—He stuck to his side like glue.

Jyuto summed up his emotions by assuming he just enjoyed the thrill. He enjoyed having a gullible person around that he could taunt and tease to no ends. The officer believed he cared for Kieran just as he did every other innocent civilian. After all, it was his job to keep the streets safe and citizens out of harms way. To him, Kieran was no different than the average person. Or rather, that is the lie he convinced himself. In actuality, Jyuto cared for Kieran more than anyone else. The man occupied his mind every single day. Even when he knew Kieran wasn’t thinking of him, he was thinking of Kieran. Jyuto repressed his feelings for one particular reason—his past. In his past, everyone he has ever cared for ended up with the same unfortunate fate—that drugs would take his life with no mercy.

Though, Kieran’s addiction had nothing to do with drugs. Similar to Jyuto, he had negative feelings towards illegal substances. Despite that, Kieran still had a different present addiction—alcoholism. The man relied on heavy drinking to get through his stressful life. Alcohol gave him a euphoric feeling that nothing else managed to do, and even helped wither away his fears. Kieran’s biggest fear along with mirrors was photography. More specifically, photos taken of himself. If there was a camera located in a room, he’d do his best to stay in its blind spot and rush to a different room. In his Akasaka home, he even had all mirrors in his home blocked. Bluntly, the man was absolutely terrified of any sort of reflective surface that he could see himself in. Most of these fears were present due to his awful and crumbling self-esteem. Though, there was one thing that helped him deal with his problems when it came to photography—alcohol. When wasted, any sort of fear withered away instantly and he grew quite a liking to taking pictures of himself. Frankly when drunk, Kieran became an entirely new person. It partly was the reason why he was so addicted—it felt good to get out of his own skin once in awhile. Meaning, nearly every night.

Due to their past, Jyuto nearly knew everything there was to know about Kieran. His messy history, his insecurities, his legal records, his addictions, his worries, his lifestyle—the real him underneath this perfect act. He knew all of this information at Kieran’s dismay, of course. Jyuto held himself to a certain regard over the others in Kieran’s life just because he knew the real him. The officer also took it under his belt to be the one that kept Kieran under control when indulging in his habits. Over the course of five years of knowing him, in the past year Kieran began to text Jyuto when drunk. These texts were usually filled with rage and cruel names in the beginning, but by the morning it ended up turning into a mobile therapy session with Kieran venting to Jyuto in all the drunken typos and grammar errors glory. Along with the ranting, Kieran found himself often sending the images he took. The photos were never model material though, with the tendency to be blurry and teary eyed. A common occurrence for Kieran when drunk was to experience inconsistent heat waves, which led him being shirtless often or at least have his unbuttoned work shirt on. In the past, Kieran often sent shirtless photos to the man he hated.

While Kieran was most likely running all around Minato to run errands for his incompetent childish boss, Jyuto had been sitting on the couch in Samatoki’s office for the past thirty minutes while Rio sat on the one across from him. As always, Jyuto quickly lost patience with the yakuza boss who always ran on his own schedule at the expense of others. With a frustrated groan, he glanced over at Rio who was firmly sitting straight with his arms crossed over his burly chest. “Where is he? I swear that imbecile is always running late.” The cop heavily scoffed, disappointed in Samatoki’s consistent behavior. While reaching for his back pocket to grab his pack of cigarettes and lighter, he continued to complain. “Isn’t he the one who called for this meeting? 5:30 on Friday. It’s past 6 now.” The brunet sighed heavily, a slight irritation present in his voice.

The main reason Jyuto felt especially frustrated tonight is because he knew Kieran would arrive home sometime soon after the meeting. Every Friday night without fail, the personal assistant would let loose by drinking heavily and relax after a busy week. The bunny cop felt slightly nervous that he wouldn’t be around by the time he started. He nearly took it as his responsibility to be the one to stop him from making stupid, irrational decisions when drunk.

With no one else in the room, Rio replied to the officer’s annoyed remark with no anger looming in his own voice whatsoever. Not only did he also expect this behavior from the yakuza boss, he chose not to judge. Also, not to mention, it took quite a bit to upset Rio—unlike Jyuto. “I suppose he had other business to attend to. I’m sure he will arrive soon. Let’s be patient.” Rio took a quick glance at the door that led to the exit. “I’m going to step outside for a moment. I’ll return soon.” He placed his attention on Jyuto, waiting for his approval. As soon as he nodded, Rio stood up and made his way out the door and quietly shut it behind him.

“No problem, go on.” Jyuto replied, letting out a deep sigh and resting back against the cushioned couch. Flipping the cigarette box open, he patted it against his knee to have one of the cigarettes pop out. Using his teeth, he pulled it out of the box and placed it down. With his thumb, he rolled the spark wheel and set the tip of the cigarette aflame. He took the cigarette in between his index and middle finger on his right hand, pulling it away from his lips and breathed out a puff of smoke. The time was just continuing to get later and there was still no sign of Samatoki, but he wouldn’t leave Rio waiting on his own. At least, not yet. He’d give Samatoki just a bit more time to revoke his ‘no-show’ status.

Jyuto noticed his phone resting on the cushion behind him with an idea in his mind of how to pass time. Using his dominant left hand, he reached for his phone and inputted the passcode, 1028XX. Or more notably known as October 28th, XXXX—Kieran’s birthday. Once he first learned about Kieran’s birthday during their first encounter, the date has always served to be a special occasion for him even if he has never directly celebrated with him. Every year, he would send him a message and it would be a 50/50 chance Kieran would see and respond. It was hit or miss if Kieran was out of work yet or not, but he assumed not considering he always stayed late without fail. But, he hadn’t received a drunk text message quite yet so he presumed not yet. With his thumb, Jyuto swiped back and forth until he found his gallery and opened it up. Being an older man, he didn’t find much use of the gallery unlike younger people, especially not the organization features but he used it for a couple reasons. Collecting travel photos, appealing photos of Yokohama especially at night, interesting moments that occur during his job, but the one he had most interest in scrolling through currently was his collection of drunk Kieran photos. Close up photos of himself, blurry ones, messy clothing, and even some with him shirtless. Jyuto had been collecting them since they began texting each other more frequently. Kieran always felt ashamed of the photos in the morning and deleted them, threatening Jyuto to not say a word nearly every time. Luckily for Jyuto, he was smart enough to save them immediately after he sent them.

Jyuto opened the organized gallery and pressed on the most recent photo. It was a portrait photo of Kieran, completely shirtless. His face had a bright red blush covering his cheeks and a dazed, lost expression. His pink-tinted lips glossed over with his his curly hair all messy from the long day at work, and dark freckles covering his cheeks and shoulders. Jyuto placed his right hand over his mouth in awe of the man. Even when wasted, Kieran still proved to by model worthy to Jyuto’s standards. He placed the cigarette back between his lips, exhaling another puff of smoke and pulling his right hand away from his mouth. The officer took a cautious glance around the room, ensuring he was completely alone before beginning to scroll. The next photo was also from that same night, but before Kieran had lost his clothes. In this photo, his work shirt nearly entirely unbuttoned and an undone tie loosely wrapped around his neck. At this point, Jyuto’s cheeks also began to burn a bright pink. He continued to scroll, even partly forgetting about his cigarette as he stared at Kieran’s photos.

As he scrolled, he almost entirely lost his train of thought and any semblance of the time as he went through the collection. Though none of them were directly lewd, they still had the ability to make him flustered. Especially the shirtless ones. —

Upon leaning over to check Jyuto’s phone to see what he was so interested in, Samatoki muttered under his breath. “What the hell…?” Without another moment to think, he impulsively reached to grab Jyuto’s phone and scoffed out, mostly out of shear surprise at what he discovered. “Huh… Would you look at that! The government’s bunny rabbit has a crush on Dracula!” He spoke judgmentally, turned the phone screen to face Jyuto, waggling it back and forth in front of him as the officer watched frozen and in shock at how the situation unfolded. “Hey, isn’t he a bit too civilian for you? Shouldn’t you go for a government official and not someone who hates you?”

Samatoki turned the phone back towards himself, curious in the other photos Jyuto had stored in here. Jyuto having romantic feelings towards Kieran was nothing shocking. In reality, Samatoki had known about it for a long time. The cop did a terrible job hiding it, considering he had the tendency to stare at the secretary with eyes filled with adoration every time they stumbled across Urban Legends in person. The only person he was hiding it from was himself and Kieran, who were both absolutely oblivious to it. The current photo that Jyuto left off on was a photo taken of Kieran at the latest Division Rap Battle. He pressed out of the current photo, eyes widening at the sight of not only one photo of Kieran—but a whole gallery full. “Yo, dude… this is an obsession.”

Jyuto stood up from the couch and rushed over to Samatoki, attempting to grab his phone back from the yakuza boss. To which, Samatoki childishly turned his body away from him and scrolled down to the beginning of his gallery and clicking on the very first Kieran photo he saved as he began to swipe through with an evil grin covering his face. “Give it back. You can’t grab someone’s possessions without their consent.” The officer attempted to reason maturely, though it wouldn’t last for long as Samatoki continued being his usual immature self. “I don’t have a… crush on him. Stop being idiotic!” As Samatoki inched closer to the more lewd photos in his possession, Jyuto’s heart raced as panic started to set in. Not only would it expose himself and Samatoki would always consider him a creep, but he also felt a sense of jealousy loom over him at the thought of another person seeing him in that state. Samatoki didn’t give up on the fight, continuing to move away from Jyuto with determination to see everything this man was hiding.

The white-haired man even decided to use his own strength to his advantage, using his elbow to hit Jyuto right in his stomach, which led Jyuto to groan out in pain. “Hell no!” The cop snarled, losing all sort of patience he had for Samatoki’s antics as he reached up for his left wrist, obtaining the handcuffs from his buckle and snapping it in place. “The fuck? Are you that angry? I’m not Kieran, you shouldn’t be putting these on me.” He dangled his wrist in front of Jyuto’s face, listening to the metal cuffs jingle as the chains clashed together. “Or does your ‘boyfriend’ not allow it anymore?” Samatoki continued to hold his right hand up high, tightly gripping onto Jyuto’s cell phone like his life depended on it.

Jyuto’s adrenaline was pumping with annoyance and frustration in his veins. Not only did he steal his phone, but he knew the exact words to irk Jyuto and get the blood boiling. It had to be a skill he had mastered by now. His face was a bright red, embarrassed by being exposed and now belittled. With no hesitation, he gripped onto Samatoki’s white collar and roughly pulled him to face his direction. “Shut up! You know nothing!” Jyuto felt passionate about his relationship with Kieran and had beliefs that he knew the secretary more than anyone else personality and history wise.

“Oh yeah? But I do know that you don’t have him. You just fantasize.” Samatoki remarked as Jyuto’s gloved hands only tightened, his smirk only slightly widened furthermore as he witnessed just how upset he was making him. Now instead of just being a nuisance, his goal was to get Jyuto to admit that he liked Kieran. From outside, Rio heard the commotion and knew that Samatoki must’ve arrived. Samatoki and Jyuto always had the tendency to argue like a group of kids when alone, and it was usually Samatoki who started it. Before it got too violent, he knew he’d have to step in as he usually did. Neither of men were normal whatsoever.

The cop grumbled and bit down hard on his inner cheek. He tugged on Samatoki’s clothes, bringing him close to his face as he yelled with all his might. “Oh, you’re in for it!” Just as Jyuto planned for his next action, the two men felt a strong hand press down on their shoulders. Simultaneously, both the men turned to find Rio looming over them with a disapproving expression. Instantly with no further fight, Jyuto pulled away and glided his hands over his own suit to fix it up, immediately wanting to cover up his childish actions in front of Rio. “My apologies. I don’t know what came over me.” From the corner of his eye as he adjusted his tie, he could still see Samatoki waving his phone around tauntingly, which lead him to scoff lightly under his breath.

Rio allowed his hands to drape off the men’s shoulders as he proceeded to cross his arms over his chest firmly. As always, Rio had to be the one pulling them apart and forcing them to make up. Glancing at the both of them, he took the time to analyze the situation and come up with his next response. He first noticed the obvious—the cuff on Samatoki’s left wrist and then realized the phone in his right hand wasn’t his own at all. For being mid-to-late twenties, the men fought like elementary children at a park. “Samatoki, why don’t you give Jyuto his phone back? Then he can take off the handcuffs.” With an eye roll and a bit of hesitance, he plopped the phone back into Jyuto’s hand as he quickly snatched it back, firmly placing it in his back pocket. With the key in hand, Jyuto pulled Samatoki’s hand close forcefully and undid the lock. Using his thumb and index finger, Samatoki rubbed over the area on his wrist with a light scoff. Despite the fight being over, the cop continued to glare at Samatoki. They both knew well that as soon as Rio left again, the argument would pick back up. There was no chance Samatoki would ever let his discovery go to waste like that.

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ncfan-1 · 1 year

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Today in writing...

Wrote 2.4k for Chapter Seven of An Arrow Piercing the Heart’s Eye, bringing the chapter word count to 9.1k.

Warp, Rescue, Silence, and Fortify were the most complex and difficult to perform of the Faith magic spells commonly taught throughout Fódlan. Marianne knew that there were other white magic spells of comparable complexity and power that had either been lost to history, or which were the specialties of certain noble hoses and were never taught to outsiders, and what little she had heard of them frankly boggled the mind. As to these four, though, Silence was the only one she had ever mastered. To cast Silence felt as natural to her now as casting the most basic of healing spells, and no more tiring, that smothering feeling of binding someone’s magic to their bones for a time no longer bothering to her in the slightest.

“This’ll save your life some day,” Professor Manuela had once said, full of pride for the only one of her students in white magic that year who had actually managed to cast the spell successfully, and she had been right. It had saved Marianne’s life, multiple times. There had been times as well when it had enabled them to capture, rather than kill, a foe, and this, too, was proof of its value.

As for the others, Marianne at least grasped the theory behind Fortify, though she had never been able to translate that into application. In theory, anyone who could cast Physic could potentially cast Fortify, but in practice, splitting her power and focus between multiple targets was taxing, and her concentration unraveled too quickly for the spells to actually reach a single person. It was, Marianne gathered from watching Mercedes’s face go gray and gaunt after casting the spell just a couple of times, the most draining healing spell any of them were ever likely to encounter. Though Flayn had never shown any similar signs of wear from casting the spell, Marianne was not certain how much that signified, for Flayn had always seemed to be operating at a much higher amount of innate magical power than any of the rest of them. Mercedes’s experience seemed far more typical.

She at least understood the theory behind Fortify, even if she had never successfully executed it. As for Warp and Rescue, however, the theory was precisely where everything unraveled. Marianne could not make heads nor tails of the way the channels of power were meant to flow, nor how they were supposed to reflect upon the lines of the sigils, let alone the processes of using magic to move an object or a person.

Marianne understood that most mages ran into these stumbling blocks, and that precious few were ever able to surmount them. Still, reading the entries for these two spells in textbooks had never failed to make her feel utterly, unforgivably stupid. Perhaps it would have been better if she had at least had black magic to look towards, but unlike Linhardt, Mercedes, Lysithea, and Flayn, though Professor Hanneman had at length managed to train her in the use of a few spells, Marianne had never had any gift for Reason magic. Learning those spells had felt like beating her head against a brick wall in the hopes that she might break the wall open and find a better, smarter head waiting for her inside. Casting them still felt bizarrely unintuitive. Futility and humiliation, that was all there was, and Marianne would not go seeking it out to sup of it again—certainly not when it found her so easily already.

Marianne’s only experience of either Warp or Rescue was as the former’s subject, on an occasion when Raphael had been impaled upon a polearm and Lysithea had warped her to him to see that his slowness to move out of the weapon’s path would not be his last mistake. Marianne shuddered just to recall what it had felt like; how anyone could unsheathe their sword and fight directly after being transported thusly would mystify her for the rest of her days. It had been as being enveloped in dark, rushing water, if this had also unmoored her entirely from every last thing in the universe. Those moments she had spent in the in-between, she had been as a thing which was incapable even of breathing, which did not possess the parts necessary to take in a breath, and let it out again. A few moments had stretched out to an eternity. When she had finally been loosed from the spell’s grasp, she had found herself immediately bathed in cold sweat, weak and shaking, so disoriented that she barely even remembered to hurry over where Raphael lied on the ground, the blade of the by-then broken polearm still protruding from his belly. She certainly could not say that she was looking forward to going back to that purgatory again.

#Today in writing #ncfan's writing process #An Arrow Piercing the Heart's Eye

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