#related! that means for the first time he had interest with “ humanity ”! he's very clumsy and ignorant
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Gardener/Botanist Reader Headcanons
P x (gn) reader
A/N: Completely self indulgent. I love plants, flowers, mushrooms— any sort of flora mystical or otherwise. I think, considering how much was delegated to the puppets the need for gardeners would be less and less. That aside, people are stubborn when it comes to art and caring for such plants is, in my opinion, nothing short of art.
Warnings: Game spoilers just all around, P and Gemini are a little stupid in this one (I am very fond of them), Lots of bouncing around concepts, tell me if I need to add more
The art of gardening was dying amongst the people of Krat, despite its rich ecosystem and peculiar plants, as it had been delegated instead to the Puppets of the city
When the puppet frenzy set in, almost all of the knowledge gained from Krat’s flora died with its people and with its puppets
Except you had survived, taken in by Antonia in the hotel, and offered her your services as thanks for the safety and security the Hotel provided
You were close with Antonia, saw her almost as a peculiar aunt. In turn she was fond of you and loved to share any of Krat’s secrets during the few times she could muster the strength to visit the gardens or you took a break and stepped inside.
When P first came by and stopped at the inner gardens, you gave him a once over before bluntly telling him not to mess about the bushes. You weren’t otherwise perturbed by his presence.
One of the few things Antonia seemed to hesitate speaking about was Gepetto, and so you had your reservations about a puppet made by him. He seemed… nice, though. Polite. Definitely very sweet.
He had come to check out the puppet dummies Eugenié was talking about, and was intrigued by you.
You kept him coming back to the garden, but most times he’d make an excuse about wanting to try out a new weapon of sorts. Not that he needed to make one— as long as he didn’t out right hurt the plants you didn’t mind.
Honestly avoids touching the plants incase some complication arises and they die or something. Doesn’t want to disappoint you, the silly guy.
Every subsequent visit comes with his awkward (albeit endearing) attempt to get to know you, and what starts off as a tentative friendship blooms into mutual pining.
P is a quiet visitor when he’s in the gardens, content to ask a question and hear you ramble on for however long you want to.
That doesn’t mean he won’t indulge your questions.
He’ll spend just as long recounting his adventures in Krat if you ask for it, sheepish and sweet as he censors the more… unsavoury moments of his journey.
In game, your character gives a bit of exposition to the flora of Krat. You tell him the certain conditions some plants thrive in, talk about the weather conditions in relation to that, etc. but you also talk about the meanings of each one. It’s from you he learns to communicate through flora.
More than that though, when you mention something specific of certain flora, it becomes a little sidequest for him. He’ll take back a little piece of it to show you and you start trading him items every time he does.
Not wanting it to be a one-sided thing, you give him pressed flower charms, amulets, floral accessories, and even some shiny things you’d picked up like quartz.
The greatest reward is maybe like a little gardener costume. To match with you, you know.
And listen, whatever you give P, he treasures. If you gave him a spare gardening uniform he’d wear that the whole way throughout Krat he’m so silly.
There’s a lot of clumsy and endearing gestures from his end.
One time he accidentally misunderstands you and makes a bouquet asking for your hand in marriage and you about have a heart attack.
You explain both the message and meaning of the bouquet to him, and while he isn’t fussed or embarrassed at his mistake he makes note of it
As he progressively becomes more human, his expressions more lively and his voice more open, your relationship develops further.
His own interest in flora flourishes. He starts trying to record the plants he comes across somehow— either by learning how to draw or asking Venigni to make some sort of camera.
He often thinks of you when he finds a peculiar plant, wondering if it would be ok to take it to you. If he had the means to just take record of it instead he’d show that to you
Doesn’t mean he doesn’t get you flowers still though. He’ll pick out flowers while weighing in his mind if it’d disrupt the ecosystem too much, and once he has them he does his best to arrange them in a pretty manner.
Gemini actually helps him here, giving him ideas for things like the wrapping, telling him to do things like use newspapers or something of the like to bundle them up
At some point the two idiots genuinely consider breaking into an arts and crafts shop because Gemini thinks it might be a good idea, and P just doesn’t know enough to argue that it isn’t
“I mean, the shop is closed down right? Nobody would mind if we just stole a ribbon… or two! Nobody’s using them anyways!” — Gemini
When he regains Carlo’s memories, he feels a little embarrassed about that and refuses to ever mention it again. Gemini makes fun of both of them somehow without being ashamed
When even Gemini fails at figuring out how to decorate flowers, P goes to the other Hotel inhabitants
Sophia’s got such a lovely eye for them, and knows how to arrange a bouquet beautifully and loves to help, and Antonia finds the whole thing adorable and loves to tease P lightly but offers genuinely good advice
Polendina is the perfect butler of course, so he knows his bouquets and is happy to help with them, and while he’s seen metal more than he’s seen flowers at the factory, Pulcinella is just as good
God forbid he asks Eugenié or Venigni though. They might be great at what they do but they’ll put together the most foul colour arrangements known to man.
Eugenié finds out about one (1) poisonous plant and decides it’s a great idea to make a whole bouquet of them. Venigni just picks out the flowers he likes the most, or the ones that match with his outfit, without… really knowing how to match it to his outfit.
I don’t even want to bring up Geppetto. Man would probably sit P down and spend hours agonizing over the arrangement of the petals and pollen like the little control freak he is.
But it gives P a nice break from Krat’s troubles, and your joy at the bouquet makes it worth it every single time
By the end of it, the flowers spill into the hotel, spotting the place with life and colour that makes it feel like maybe the world isn’t as dead and gone as it might be
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Why BakuDeku will be canon and not IzuOcha? Connection between TogaChako and the entire Love Square...
So this is pure hypothesis and I should clarify that I'm not a shipper when it comes to MHA. I just love the story, its premise and the various themes that it involves and I love to see what happens next. I don't particularly support any ships and so with all that being said, let's jump into it!
So, Ochako said that "You should never hide your true feelings or that face of yours".
Horikoshi is very very clever with the panelling.
While most people were debating on whether or not it was an IzuOcha ship bait, I think it signifies something completely different.
Notice how Ochako was thinking about Deku as she said those lines but even in Ochako's imagination, Deku wasn't looking at her.
HE WAS LOOKING AT BAKUGO.
I mean, look at it.
He was a bit embarrassed and looking at someone else. It is most probably a memory from when they were training before the second war (when Bakugo was showing his new move Cluster to Deku)
But why would Ochako think about Deku looking at someone else during such an important time?
It parallels how Toga thinks about Twice in a completely platonic sense. He was more of a brother to her (Toga and Twice->brother sister bond)
Plus it also signifies Ochako's journey of self acceptance. Think about it!
When we met Ochako in the beginning, she had an inferiority complex about her hero motivation and background.
She met Deku, who played her knight in shining armor, who had this cool quirk and everybody loved him.
He was a Hero, and always in the spotlight. Even All Might was interested in him (according to Ochako because she never knew about OFA)
So she admired him and wanted to be like him as in wanted to be a great hero like him but it backfired because Ochako is Ochako and Deku is Deku.
Throughout the series, we see these feelings grow.
But with admiration, what Ochako always felt was jealousy....envy.
The theme of envy has been very prominent in the series. Bakugo is the biggest example of it.
I admit that Ochako might have had a tiny bit of crush on Deku because who wouldn't?
He is a cute, clumsy boy, well natured, a crybaby at times but a real hero at heart. Who wouldn't fall for that?
Plus it's not wrong to have feelings.
But in Ochako's case, she always felt that Deku is so far away.
It is such a literal representation!
Deku was moving forward while Ochako felt like she was lacking, like she is behind him, literally and figuratively.
We saw how she was struggling to deal with whatever she was feeling.
At first it looks like she is struggling to deal with her feelings for him, but at this particular moment her feeling could only be described as envy.
Admiration could easily be confused for love but!
You're never jealous of the person you love!!
Because till season 3 Ochako was feeling both admiration for his best friend (which everyone else confused for love) and jealousy.
It was especially awkward because they were friends and their other friends kept on pointing in that direction.
But the real change came in the war arc when Ochako got Deku's letter and realised that maybe Deku is not that special after all.
They are good friends, and she was worried about him because she realised that behind the Hero persona that Deku has, he is also human.
Being a fellow hero, it was more relatable to her.
"Special powers are one thing but there is no such thing as a special person" she said in her speech.
Humanizing all heroes and villains.
I also wanna talk about this specific panel after Bakugo's apology.
Something about Ochako's expression here really struck a crod.
As Deku falls in Bakugo's arms, the camera pans on Ochako who just stands there observing, what true love is.
She didn't feel anything, because she realised the bond between BakuDeku is a bond of love.
Which is why she never made an effort to follow Deku's footsteps again.
The famous cliff scene: the day before the second war! Both of them knew they could die the very next day and yet they chose to say nothing... Nothing as in love confession, because there was nothing to confess.
Ochako realised that Deku loves and admires Bakugo and she's ok with that, so she'll focus on more important matters, like the Toga situation.
Because she realised, she can be her own Hero.
And now she wanted to help Toga. A girl like her, that was crying.
Because she has seen so many happy faces, she cannot help but wonder what made Toga cry.
Plus Toga said that only heroes and the people they protect are counted as people and the rest don't even matter.
As a person, Toga should be free to love whoever she wants but because of her quirk she is constantly judged by people except LoV.
Toga was mad because nobody accepted her throughout her entire life, her parents, her friends, Heroes and the one place where she found home was also snatched away from her.
Everyone is free to love and admire heroes then why not Toga. Everywhere she went, she was rejected.
Even Deku's quirk pointed out that there was no real malice behind TOGA's actions. Her love is so strong that it puts people in danger.
Heck, Danger sense didn't activate in the beginning because Toga didn't wanna hurt Deku.
But it was after she was rejected so badly, that she turned against them.
It was not about a girl asking a boy out but a villain asking a hero out.
And Deku not only rejected her completely but also judged her.
So if the world rejects her, she is bound to do the same!
Which made Ochako the perfect person to face Toga. Both are girls full of love but hide deep inferiority complexes.
Ochako understood this and told Toga her smile is beautiful.
Why? Because Ochako realised it the hard way, what happens when you suppress your feelings which is why she admired Toga and told her that Toga is right and she should never hide her feelings or her face because she is beautiful.
She admired Toga for her genuine honesty and told her that it is nothing to be ashamed of.
Toga went on a rampage because Deku hurt her (he was the final nail in the coffin) but just because Deku rejected her doesn't mean the end of the world.
Toga is free to live her own life, just because Deku rejected her doesn't mean her life is finished and if she really wants to have a girl chat, Ochako will always be there!
She'll give her blood to Toga for the rest of her life..!!
It's just Ochako's way of telling Toga that just because a boy rejected her doesn't mean her life has ended. That Toga is beautiful and has a lovely smile. And if toga wants to talk about it, Ochako will be more than willing to listen and support her for the rest of her life.
And such is the beautiful dynamic of TogaChako.
Cheers! Sunshine!
#uraraka ochako#ochako uraraka#bnha ochako#ochako urakara#bnha uravity#bnha uraraka#ochako#togachako#togaocha#toga himiko#togachaco#bnha toga#himiko toga#ochaco#urakara ochako#uraraka#mha uraraka#bnha himiko#bakudeku#bakugou katsuki#bnha izuocha#mha izuku#izuku midoriya#bnha izuku#bnha bakugou#toga x uraraka#bnha manga spoilers#bnha 393#bnha 394#bnha meta
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Stumbled on your AU and it sounds SO COOL, the female protags often get sidelined and I really loved reading about them here! :D I was Immediately expecting Hikari to be full of ghosts or a time traveler with the comment about her way of speaking and bearing and it's so cool! ALSO man,,,I love protags being older than base game lets them be,,,,I love to see it
Question about your Hikari specifically; from what I can tell as Akari she is still in Hisui. Will she ever be able to make her way home? Or is it like a concurrent, conflicting timeline thing? I hope this doesn't sound mean dxfcgv I'm just really interested in how they work out in story!
Also if it IS a fall and then return, did she know the other protags prior? Does it change how she interacts with them?
REALLY love that Leaf is as nonverbal as Red, that's something I really enjoy about Red that I like to see for her as well! Esp since Leaf Green was the first game I owned (borrowed my cousin's Blue for One [1] car ride but yeah) so I am especially attached to her as the protag. ;w; Green I am sure has no idea how to handle her sincere congratulations because that MAN he is....he sure is. XD
LOVE TO SEE SOME LOVE FOR FEARSOME POKEMON YOU GO KOTONEEEEE so so glad you still have Kris present as well, very attached to her dxfcvgbn
Me handshake Haruka I too want every single pokedoll in existence, what is her favorite pokedoll she has? Is there a story behind it? Has she ever learned how to make her own? Also LOVE to see a sea shantier, heck yeah. Does she have a favorite shanty? Or favorite vibe of shanty I guess dxcfvbghn
LOVE that Touka suplexes Boldores, has she always had that strength or did she have to slowly run a gauntlet of suplexing Pokemon until she got there? Did she ever suplex a train- I saw you're a fan of ferriswheelshipping and I enjoy that your Touko and N both share the desire to protect innocents, is it maybe something they bond over?
I feel Mei's clumsiness on a deep level because I swear I run into things every DAY, at least she has someone to keep her from getting hurt too badly. XD I really like that she's both doing Pokemon things and looking for her prince; in a lot of media I feel like one is often sidelined for the other, and it's nice to see what looks like it'll be a healthy mix! Also I have to ask, do her Enamorus attempts end in success or catastrophe? Who has she most famously [or infamously] gotten together?
Love what you've done with Serena as well! Does she ever Rhyhorn race herself?
AND WE LOVE A GHOSTY PRANKSTER as someone who just Absorbs behaviors from those around me I really really enjoy the thought of someone doing that with ghost Pokemon. And love the callback to the hex maniac line heheheheheeee
RIP GLORIA YOU ARE NEVER GONNA RECOVER FROM THAT ONE OH NOOOOOOO but love the use of valiant bcus it's not used enough and it also like. Paints a picture. Like in a crisis, this Gloria would stare it down and do everything to avert it, and I really like that.
I've barely even touched Paldea szdxcfvg so I know nothing about it BUT love a straight A scholar, and I love Juliana's naming scheme too! Does she have any favorite courses? Any specific part of Pokemon research she may enjoy?
ANYWAY THIS GOT. REALLY LONG. I'M SORRY. But I also gotta ask my favorite question for any Pokeoc/Pokeau, which is what is everyone's favorite Pokemon type and why is it Bug type
FEEL FREE to not answer all my rambles sdfxcggvh I know it's a lot, but I really love what I saw on the protags page and I wanted to know more! :D
I agree that the protagonists are prone to being sidelined; it's been a steadily increasing occurrence ever since character customization was introduced to the series. That's actually one of several reasons why I began this blog!
These girls are so very important to me.
Now, to address your Hikari-related question: Hikari, or rather Akari, is determined to return to her time, reunite with her companions (both human and Pokémon), and continue striking terror into the hearts of challengers as Sinnoh's ruthless Champion. But she may tempt a boy into following her home, though...
And yes! Akari has in fact met the other protagonists prior to being sent to the Hisuian era! The narration of the story I'm currently writing even mentions a few of the other girls, showing that she does indeed know them, and well enough to apparently be familiar with some of their various quirks.
All of them meet one another sometime shortly after the events of Black 2 and White 2, at the World Tournament in Driftveil City. It's sort of similar to that scene in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a collective realization of "You're like me...(!!)"
But about Hikari's/Akari's manner of speech. This is something I'm struggling with somewhat, since I'm afraid that what's written in her character profile may be misleading. I'm aiming to give her an elegant way of speaking, but this is more meant to allude to her not sounding unusual at all when she's swept away to Hisui - which ironically only makes her seem even more suspicious to those like Kamado.
My decision for Leaf to also be mostly nonverbal was partly because it sounded interesting to write, but also because I wanted to try a different approach with a silent character - normally they're depicted as shy or standoffish, but Leaf isn't either. She's as vibrant as can be, and loves to interact with people.
Kotone's team isn't set in stone yet, but aside from Eva, her Typhlosion, she has a Gyarados (Carmen), and I would love to give her a Tyranitar too! All three quite fearsome!
And Kris taking the role of Kotone's friendly rival - I dislike adapting characters out, I want to give a role to everyone, especially the first female protagonist in the series. Even though she's the friendly rival, Kris is intended to be just as tough of a challenge as Silver - she has the starter weak to Kotone's, which is a Chikorita, but she very quickly covers her partner's weakness.
Haruka doesn't exactly play favorites with her Poké Dolls; each is a valuable member of her plushie family! She freaks out if even one is unaccounted for. About her sea shanties, she does have a few she's fond of, like 'Paldean Ladies', and one that you may be familiar with that goes something like,
"O'er across the ocean's tide
Rays of sunshine far and wide
Wingull they sing of cheerful things, in circles passing by!"
Not a sea shanty, but she also enjoys singing 'Rainbow Connection'.
Touko's strength is tied to her passion to protect the innocent! It all began when she was young - she would beat up anyone that bullied Bianca or her "baby brother" Touya. Her having Pokémon now doesn't really stop her from pummeling people (or trying to), though-
She and N, while they're connected on wanting to protect innocents, throughout the events of Black and White, they constantly butt heads on the best method to do that. Touko also calls him "geek boy" after hearing him speak math one time.
Mei's most notable attempt at playing Enamorus... well, I'm certain if you think about it long enough, you'll figure it out!
Serena enjoys Rhyhorn riding more as a recreational activity rather than something to seriously pursue. It's more like Rhyhorn strolling when she's on the back of one.
Mizuki is meant to be this girl in FireRed and LeafGreen!
Another reason she admires Leaf is because she didn't even so much as flinch when she and her Ghost-type pal pranked her. Her eyes just widened in surprise, no scream as expected!
As for Gloria's past crush, Hop is a good boy and lets sleeping Yamper lie. But her big brother Victor... "But Leon, you CAN'T go! I LOOOOVE you!" And he carries on until she has to slap him-
Juliana doesn't have a favorite class because she loves everything about her academic experience. But Director Clavell is her favorite member of the staff.
Everyone's preferred type? Well, I wouldn't say anybody has one since their teams are relatively balanced. Haruka and Kotone show appreciation for Bug-types, though!
This response has gotten rather lengthy as well, but thank you for showing such interest in Sisterhood!
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W e l p, my DP nostalgia decided to bite me enough to wanna revamp one of my oldest and dearest OCs from back in the day... Morgan Fenton~ 🥺💜 Had alot of fun sprucing some new life back into her once again, so I hope the rest of yall enjoy her too~
More info on this sweetie can be found both below and over on my DA, for those who wanna learn more about her! :3
(Bio):
As the second-born daughter to Amity Park’s hero, Danny Phantom, Morgan Fenton had alot to live up to from the moment she was born. With her birthplace being within the Ghost Zone itself, along with her natural snow white tufts of hair, almost everyone was quick to assume she'd grow up to have as many ghostly powers as both her father & older sister, Lili. Still, to her folks they did what they could to ensure Morgan would have as normal of a childhood as possible (some clumsy misadventures in her youth aside), counting the years to when her powers would spark to better defend herself…
And they continued to count… and count… and yet by the time Morgan reached puberty, no powers were spotted within her. Further investigation and some trips to Clockwork confirmed that Morgan was in fact, a normal human after all. As much as Danny and Sam (alongside Lili) tried reassuring their daughter that they love her just as she is no matter what… this kind of blow really struck a chord in the girl deep down, as she felt like everyone was counting on her to follow in her Halfa relatives’ footsteps. For the longest time, Morgan began to seclude herself away from everyone in a slump… not feeling the confidence to open up as much to her family anymore.
Further, Morgan would’ve continued to close herself off… if it weren’t for the efforts of Darryl Foley (son of Tucker and Valerie) reaching out to offer Morgan a chance to prove herself as a ghost huntress, working under Valerie’s very own hunting team established within the town. Though a little intimidated at first if she could really “handle” such a lifestyle, after many months of training, dedication and stern (but necessary) discipline by Valerie’s leadership… Morgan’s confidence began to rise better than ever.
The thrill of blasting off and wrangling ghosts with just a few gadgets and MMA moves became Morgan’s new calling, and now three years later she’s established herself well as a member of Val’s team (even given the codename “Ultra-Violet”, or “UV” for short). It’s hard to tell where Morgan’s future will grow from here, how many allies/friends she’ll make, what love life she’ll have, or what other kind of ghostly dangers she’ll stumble across next… but one thing’s for sure, its best not to underestimate a snowy cutie like her anytime soon~
(Fun Facts):
-Within her time as a ghost huntress, Morgan’s preferred weapon of choice is a staff bo (which can double as a vaulting pole when she needs to cross over floating Ghost Zone rocks in case her glider-board and/or jet-pack won’t work).
-Has a deep interest in subjects pertaining to the sci fi and supernatural, often spending many late nights watching documentaries centered around space, urban legends, and so forth. Has a soft spot for anything “oddly” cute like reptiles, aliens, and squishy creatures (such as jellyfish).
-Tends to feel the closest to her mother Sam the most in her family, as not only can they both relate on being non-powered humans (and sharing an interest in goth subculture, or in Morgan’s case “pastel” goth), but Sam’s more down-to-earth nature tends to help ease Morgan’s anxiety on certain things whenever they spend time together. As for Lili and Danny; Morgan often finds herself a bit “overwhelmed” by her sister’s bubbly energy/naivety (though she knows Lili means well at heart), whereas with Danny it’s… kinda hard for Morgan to always see eye-to-eye with him given his “famous” status in town (and sometimes he just kinda tries too much to be “cool”/relatable with her age-group). When it all comes down to it though, there’s nothing the Fenton family wouldn’t do for eachother as the spookily sweet unit they are~.
-When she’s not busy ghost hunting, Morgan can often be seen gaming in genres like RPG, racing and fighting tournaments. Recently she maaay or may not be picking up an interest in visual novels on the side (thanks to a certain “perky” school-friend of hers pushing them on her like crazy lol).
-Her favorite foods includes soft-serve ice cream, french fries, and sour gummies; whereas her favorite drinks includes a classic milkshake, grape soda and matcha lattes (mainly before a big hunting gig with how early her schedule is).
-Ever since she was a kid, Morgan’s always had a fascination for exploration and what’s “beyond” the normal human and Ghost Zones she’s seen. With the organized map she’s planned out in her room, she wishes to go through as many portals as she can to see what colorful worlds await her.
-Has a pet gecko by the name of “Zipp”, who was given as a present to her by her folks a couple years back to help lift her spirits. A very squeaky and clingy fella he is, preferring to perch on Morgan’s shoulder whenever she’s relaxing in her room from a hard day’s work. Anyone who tries to go near or “mess with” Morgan in Zipp’s eye will be given a blaring alarm squeak and a swift bite to the fingers.
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149 HIROTAKA TAKAHASHI [GLOOMY/TALENTED/SNOB]
a gloomy master vampire who happens to be a fast learner in many areas. he’s very loving to his family, maybe to the point of being a pushover for them. he first knew divya as his apartment neighbor, but their relationship gradually escalated into marriage partners. you can often find hiro in his bedroom crying, playing video games, or taking a nice bubble bath.
150 DIVYA TAKAHASHI [MEAN/AMBITIOUS/INSIDER]
a spellcaster who tends to forget she is a spellcaster. divya is more concerned with mortal affairs, like beating up blarffy or trying to figure out the clusterfuck of human emotions and relations. she also holds grudges well, though if no one would say this about her except divya herself. divya has known yuta longer than hiro, though this is a secret for the involved pair.
151 JANHVI KUMAR [CREATIVE/CHILDISH/EXCITABLE]
janhvi is quite different from her sister in appearance and personality, but they’ve maintained a close relationship, as their parents passed away while they were young. janhvi immediately tends to follow up on her instincts, though tumaini sometimes advises her to think things over one more time.
152 TUMAINI YOUNG [NATURALLY FUNNY/LONER/OPEN-MINDED]
unlike most of the takahashi/kumar family, tumaini is a normal human, though her general serenity and wisdom leads people to think otherwise. she quite enjoys being alone, but she often says that being alone is best enjoyed with a selective few (she interprets loneliness as another matter). despite being a loner, she has more friends than janhvi. tumaini and janhvi always have a different story to tell about how they started dating, but the core truth is that they met as adults and hit it off immediately.
159 MONCEF YOUNG [CLUMSY/SENSITIVE/LONER]
tumaini’s oldest son and aspiring trophy malewife/model/influencer. moncef was adopted as a teenager, but nevertheless is extremely attached to and adoring of his mother. his adoration is so overwhelming he avoided visiting her for months after promising to introduce her to his ex he had planned to marry; the plan obviously fell out, but he lacked the guts to tell his mother so. moncef’s appearance and clothing sense is deeply telling of his current mental state (beard, printed t-shirt, sandals; he’s faring terribly). moncef is suspicious of yuta but is unable to pinpoint the reason for it.
0XX YUTA TAKAHASHI [GEEK/SELF-ASSURED/PROPER]
hirotaka’s half-brother and a fellow vampire. yuta brands himself as “some guy,” though he may have the most interesting story to tell out of the members of his family. yuta personally considers himself more “manipulative” than “clever,” but since his means and end goals are often good, people neatly categorize him him as clever. he likes to stick in the shadows, directing the spotlight toward his family members.
154 MSHINDI KUMAR [GOOD/CREATIVE]
mshindi is a good kid with simple goals, maybe so good that he is seen as boring by some people’s standards. he isn’t bothered by that at all though, because he always has his gaze on his personal enjoyment of life. mshindi inherited tumaini’s meekness and control and janhvi’s aloofness.
155 TAICHI TAKAHASHI [ADVENTUROUS/MISCHIEVOUS]
a boy with a good head on his shoulders. though he excels academically and earned an excellence bunny for his efforts, taichi struggles with conveying his emotions. perhaps, the years of watching his mother and father’s domestic dramatics has created his emotional constipation.
161 NYOTA YOUNG [INQUISITIVE]
the newest edition to the kumar/young household.
#sim: archive#sim: yuta#ive been organizing these archive posts' images from oldest to youngest but#vampires and other immortals go by the age they pose as. yuta is way older than hiro but only a few ppl know abt that#he has a Mysterious Past (-w-#i want to give moncef more piercings eventually. i think he'll go thru a phase bc of his breakup LOL
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Arcadia, Chapter 1
My submission for the 2021 Hinny birthday challenge for the HG discord! Thanks to Liza for organizing, to @accio-broom for the Brit-pick, to @secretkeeper13 for the beta, and to anyone else who helped (I'm probably forgetting a few folks, apologies).
The challenge theme this year was content based on TV! This is an (extremely loose) X-Files AU, but you absolutely don’t need to be familiar with X-Files to understand this :D
TW (spoilers): swearing, references to (severe) mental health concerns, (eventual) consensual relations
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D A Y + O N E
The woman probably finds herself charming as she stands in their driveway, her hands clasped in frozen excitement.
But Ginny just finds her creepy.
Really fucking creepy.
Harry drops hired car into first gear as they pull in. This woman— the head of the village council, Ginny reckons, the one she spoke to on the phone— wears perfectly-pleated Chino pants with a lavender jumper draped across her shoulders.
Her attire is standard for a posh village… especially a new-build village, one with a covenant and loads of stupid rules. It’s the woman’s eerie, opened-mouthed grin that shoots a chill up Ginny’s spine.
Her stark white teeth glint in the sun, but her smile doesn’t move an inch… and the longer Ginny stares, the more unsettled she grows. The only thing larger than her grin is the mane of yellow hair that surrounds her face like an ersatz halo.
Harry clears his throat as he turns off the car; Ginny realizes this is the first sound either of them has made since leaving London.
Awkward.
She reaches for her door handle, but the random woman gets to it first.
“You must be Jenny and Henry!” she shrieks, yanking on Ginny’s shoulders before she’s even unbuckled. “Oh, sorry! Love, do let me get the strap!”
Ginny’s on her feet and pressed to the stranger’s perfumed bosom before she has a chance to tell her she can manage just fine herself, thanks.
“Lovely to meet you in person!” the woman cries, nearly shaking with enthusiasm. It’s not until Ginny’s returned a weak squeeze that the vice-like grip around her middle weakens.
Rubbing her aching shoulder, she sneaks a glimpse at Harry; while she fought for air, he apparently climbed out of the car, only to stare at the two of them like a deer in the headlights. Now his elbow’s at an awkward angle, his hand behind his back, which could only mean one thing: he’s reaching for the wand in his back pocket.
Shit.
Ginny shakes her head and hopes her eyes convey what her lips can’t: She’s just a standard Muggle weirdo. Relax.
“I’m Jane. Jane Connors. In the flesh!” The woman (whose voice Ginny now finds painfully familiar) throws her hands in the air and twirls on the spot. “I take it you’re Jenny and Henry Petri!”
Harry interrupts with a booming chuckle before Ginny says a word; in three quick steps, he’s wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “That’s Pee-tri, actually. Like the dish,” Harry— Henry— adds with a wink. “And speaking of dish…” His eyes travel over Ginny, his voice going all deep and silky.
She bites back a shudder, hating the way her stomach drops as his fingers graze her arm. All that keeps her grounded is knowing the truth: Harry’s good at his job, nothing more. The only reason he’s suddenly become a skilled actor is that his career demands it.
Hers does too, she reminds herself firmly. And if she has any intention of successfully completing her first solo mission, she needs to get her shit together. Now.
Ginny blinks up at Harry, appropriately sobered; his eyes glimmer with mirth. As suspected, he’s only doing his job. Touch is just part of the assignment description. He has no way of knowing what it does to her— because really, truly, it shouldn’t.
And maybe if she keeps telling herself that, it’ll eventually come true.
Harry winks at Jane, tugging Ginny against his side. “My new wife and I had a long journey from the city! We were hoping to get some alone-time before tucking in, I’m sure you understand.”
Jane looks puzzled. “You— but it’s 5:43!” An uncomfortable giggle burbles from her lips. “You must be moved in by 6. Surely you’ve read the covenant rules?”
“Erm… may have missed that one,” Ginny lies. “There’s quite a few, see. We’re used to—”
But Jane shoves her fingers into her mouth, cutting her off with an ear-piercing whistle. Just as quickly, another chill races up Ginny’s spine. People up and down the street emerge from their semi-detached homes and race towards them, their faces in downcast unison.
They’ve all been watching. Waiting for the signal. Ready.
Ginny’s not sure how long ago the Department of Mysteries delivered the moving van and left it on the street, but the horde of random people aren’t fussed with the details, either. Within five seconds of Jane’s whistle, the strangers throw open the back door and begin an unloading process that reeks of military precision.
“Here’s the house key!” trills Jane, pulling it from her pocket. “Oh, and Petris!” She turns to Harry and Ginny, wagging her finger. “I’ll also need a copy of your car key, ASAP. We’re firm believers in the buddy system here in Arcadia.” She returns her attention to the stone-faced neighbors, who are now scurrying to the door. “This way, friends— right this way!”
“I— that’s really unnecessary,” Ginny says, bewildered, as people rush inside their new house, boxes in arms. “We’re perfectly able to—”
“Nonsense!” cries a man with grey sideburns as he takes a box from the back. “We’re neighborly here. You’d better get used to it.”
“Yes!” chimes another voice. A chubby man wearing a Polo and a golden necklace emerges from behind the lorry, hurrying up the walk. “We’re like a family here. We all— oh no!” He lets out a startled cry as a box labeled FINE CHINA topples from his arms and lands on the pavement with a thump.
He rushes towards it, face falling, but Ginny’s main concern is the box’s silent descent; she runs over, making a mental note to have a word with the designer of these props. Would something noisy and fragile have killed them? For fuck’s sake...
“Sorry,” the man says with a pained wince. “I’m just so clumsy. I-I promise, I’ll—”
“It’s fine,” Ginny soothes, dropping to her knees. “Don’t worry, really. We aren’t too big on dishes.”
Maybe if she keeps him talking, he won’t realize it’s bloody empty. Seriously, this is amateur shit. Luckily, he’s too distracted to notice.
The man offers a sheepish smile. “I’m Mike. Mike Snodgrass. You may have seen Mike and Jess in the resident guide, but erm…” He trails off, sadness in his voice.
Ginny cocks her head to feign confusion, but of course she’s familiar with Jess Snodgrass, 25, reported missing last November. Her photo’s been on Ginny’s desk for almost as long. Even now, Jess appears in Ginny’s mind with such startling clarity that she can almost see her beside Mike... all 5 feet of her, with curly red hair, bright blue eyes, and a lopsided grin.
Jess Snodgrass… Arcadia’s third missing person. The first to disrupt the couples-only disappearance pattern.
Mike shrugs. “But erm… it’s just me now,” he repeats. “I’m a primary teacher at Saint Julian’s, just up the road.” He nods to his left. “So if you’ve got any homework or school questions, give me a ring!” He pastes on a smile that doesn’t match his eyes; it’s an expression with which Ginny’s well-acquainted.
“I’ll have to remember that, Mike Snodgrass,” Ginny says, shaking his hand.
She immediately regrets it.
Seeing Mike Snodgrass on paper is one thing, but touch makes him human. His hand feels big and warm, his smile earnest and sweet; he reminds her so strongly of Neville that her stomach aches. Ginny breathes through her nose and focuses on the way his necklace — a medallion of Saint Julian, appropriately enough — sparkles in the sun.
“Like I said, I’m all alone,” Mike repeats, offering his hand to help her up. “If you ever need anything, Jenny, don’t hesitate to ask!”
Ginny taps her chin. “Actually, I do have a question! I reckon it’s just a rumor, though. You don’t have to confirm or deny.” She winks at him and leans in as a woman in a fleece jumper rushes past.
Mike’s smile widens, his face brightening… and ah fuck, that one hurts, because she’s about to break his heart.
“Mike…” Ginny murmurs, studying his expression. The more she says his name, the less he reminds her of Neville; she wants to keep it that way. “With everyone being so bloody hospitable here, how come there are so many disappearances?”
Mike stops bobbing. His smile vanishes as quickly as the former occupants of Jenny and Henry’s new home. When Ginny looks back into his eyes, her gut plummets with a sensation of wretched familiarity.
Because she expected sadness on his face… the same type she saw when he mentioned Jess’ name. Sadness she can deal with; sadness is painful, but she sees it all the time.
She sees something worse, though.
Fear.
And not day-to-day fear. This isn’t like hating needles or avoiding clown movies. Mike’s face is filled with the sort of wide-eyed, gripping, primal terror that seizes your insides in a vice. This is how you’d feel if your entire family were held captive in a dungeon, and a single word to the wrong person would spell their deaths.
Or how you’d feel if your ex-boyfriend were the corrupt government’s most desired fugitive… and you still fancied him very much, indeed.
“I… n-no idea,” Mike finally stutters, blinking. Then he sucks in a deep breath through his nose, his expression brightening again.
“So what do you and Henry do for work?” he asks in a booming voice, his grin now unnaturally wide. “We’ve got a carpool to the city if you’re interested. Reducing our carbon footprint is of utmost importance here in Arcadia!” He finishes by spreading his hands in each direction before placing them on his hips, that shit-eating grin still plastered across his face.
In another life, Ginny might’ve laughed. There certainly would have been a lot to cackle over, if she had the luxury of easy laughter. After all, she may as well be living in an am-dram nativity performance, complete with an overeager Joseph beckoning her to the stables after her harrowing desert journey.
Now, though, his reply only fills her with sad, professional detachment. Because fucking hell, how much did this poor man rehearse to get that line right?
She takes pity on him and snaps the bait. “My husband and I work from home,” she says, matching his volume. Someone’s clearly listening; it’s the least she can do. “You won’t see us out much.” Ginny brings the box to her hip. “And seriously, don’t worry about replacing the dishes, either. We mostly do takeaway.”
“No, let me bring you new ones,” Mike insists, his eyes pleading. “Tomorrow? Would that be—”
“What is this?” a voice demands from the back of the truck. Ginny peers around Mike’s shoulder. The man with the gray sideburns stares inside the lorry with a look of disgust.
“A trampoline!” Harry says, stepping aside as another neighbor races past. “We’re thrilled to put it in the garden, aren’t we, Jenny Cakes?”
Jenny Cakes. Is he fucking serious? Two can play at this game, prat.
“Indeed we are, Hen,” she croons, leaning into his side. “Jen and Hen.” She heaves a dreamy sigh and stares into his eyes. “We even rhyme!”
“Rhyming or not, this isn’t allowed,” the man barks, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’d have to apply for a special exemption with Mr Gogolak, but in the meantime…” He checks his watch. “5:53. Seven minutes. It’ll have to go in the garage tonight. I’m Oliver, by the way— Oliver Skinner.”
Harry gives him a theatrical scowl. “I’d say nice to meet you, but those who are enemies of trampolines are generally enemies of mine.”
Ginny bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing, but Oliver remains unamused. He raises his pointer finger as if to say something, but Harry gets there first.
“Onnnnly kidding!” Harry winks and claps his shoulder. “Hope we can be fast friends, Oliver.”
Oliver just glares back. “Count on it.”
_______________________________________________________
Ginny’s taking this whole thing very seriously. Not that Harry blames her.
Her voice echoes against the walls of the empty home as she paces around the sitting room, her camera flipped outward to record.
Despite his five-year Auror career, Harry has no real concept of what Unspeakables do. Which, he supposes, is by design. He knows they… know things. Secret things. Things you’d be happier not knowing. He also knows that Kingsley isn’t fond of them. Or perhaps it’s Attica Monkstanley, Ginny’s boss, who King dislikes in particular. Attica’s famous for her refusal to disclose anything — ever. This ranges from potential terrorist plots to her favorite type of sandwich. Thus, Attica isn’t particularly popular. After a career built on helping absolutely no one outside her department, the request for Auror backup on an undisclosed, top-secret endeavor went over about as well as a hippogriff stampede in a posh tea room.
Harry sighs at the blank walls of their would-be living room. King’s in charge now. Big in charge. He or Robards were the obvious choices to accompany Ginny — sorry, Unspeakable GW — on this mission, but when you’re Big In Charge, you call the shots. The shot King called was to pass the assignment to Robards, who in turn passed it to Harry; Robards decided he didn’t need to (direct quote) “take off a week from pre-existing assignments for some fake marriage, new-build village bullshit in the arse-end of Muggle nowhere.”
Admittedly, Harry’s in a bit of a lull at the moment. He’d been assigned to track and recover Yaxley, but that trail went cold on the border of Romania. Harry’s certain he’s just beyond their reach, maybe hiding in a cave, but seeing as how Harry’s not Big In Charge, his opinion doesn’t exactly matter.
Which is precisely how he’s found himself in this bland house in the village of Arcadia, pretending to be married to his ex-girlfriend… who, incidentally, he’s still hopelessly infatuated with, even five years after he ended things.
Because Harry Potter is nothing if not pathetic.
There’d been no realistic way to decline the assignment, though. Not that he’d tried. Seriously, imagine explaining that to your boss: “Mm yeah, sorry King, I can’t do my job because I still wank to the memory of Unspeakable GW riding my—”
Ginny’s narration jerks him from his thoughts. “It’s 6:15 PM on our first day of the assignment,” she dictates into her phone. “Auror Potter and I are secured in the home, posing as Muggle couple Jenny and Henry Petri.”
“Pee-tri!” Harry corrects, throwing his voice across the room.
He hopes he’s loud enough for the camera to detect, but he isn’t exactly brave enough to find out. Harry picks up their empty curry boxes and scampers into the kitchen without so much as a backward glimpse. He may have been forced into this assignment, but he’ll be damned if he can't have a bit of fun.
Her narration stops as he dips out of sight; if Harry were the gambling sort, he’d bet all the gold in Gringotts that she shot him a two-fingered salute away from the camera.
For some fucked up reason, the thought stirs something warm and exciting that lies dormant in his stomach. What’s worse is this feeling almost makes him smile.
No.
Harry draws a breath as he enters the kitchen.
As Kingsley’s told him several times, this arrangement is strictly business— regardless of his past with her. And in retrospect, yeah, the whole setup is an easy way for King to A) refuse responsibility himself, and B) put Monkstanley in a tough spot if it goes pear-shaped.
Harry pops open the rubbish bin. This is just the sort of liability King’s always looking to avoid, really, but— wait. He blinks down into the bin to make sure he’s not just seeing things, but nope… for some reason, the interior is divided into three sections, each in a different color.
Huh! Harry mulls this over before picking the blue bin at random and tossing the containers in. Maybe he’d know what each color meant if he bothered to read the covenant rules. Fortunately, he had much more exciting plans that particular evening involving Ron, loads of butterbeer, and a Canons/Falcons match from hell.
Whatever. Surely Arcadia would make an effort to clearly explain their recycling system if they really cared about the planet.
He returns to the living room just as Ginny’s providing a more in-depth introduction. “Right. I’m Unspeakable GW, badge number”— her voice becomes garbled gibberish, an extra level of concealment, before slipping back to normal speech— “and we’re here to investigate the series of unexplained Muggle disappearances in the village of Arcadia. As this may involve a potential escapee from the Thought Chamber, the Department thought it best for me to investigate. The Thought Chamber’s been my area of expertise for four years…”
Harry sinks into the sofa as she continues; he’s unsure if he should be sad or impressed that this is teaching him more about her job than she ever shared. Not that she did this for long while they were actually together, mind. Nonetheless, his chest flutters again with that stupid bittersweet pride as Ginny scans the room with the phone camera. All of this pageantry is necessary for her job, he knows. Careful documentation. Detailed recordings.
But for fuck’s sake, look at how much she’s done! She’s the youngest Junior Unspeakable in history, soon to become Senior, if this mission works out. She’s composed, she’s eloquent, she’s graceful. Another smile threatens to break through before Harry suppresses it; he just hopes that there’s someone in her life to remind her of how special she is.
She’s really dressed for the part, too. Harry’s certain that none of this is actually in her wardrobe. Seeing her out of jeans and a jumper is off-putting, but she’s done it so damn well. She once told him that most of her clothing choices were based on how easily she could wear them flying.
He swallows the sadness creeping up his throat. He doesn’t even know if she still flies, but she doesn’t in this outfit, that’s for damn sure. Her trainers are impeccably white, with a floral button-up blouse done up to her neck. She’s a bit like a young, beautiful Aunt Petunia; Harry reckons this is more or less the goal, but when she turns around to describe the stairwell, his eyes drop to her arse.
Shit.
He glances away as quickly, but he got a good look. Her casual trousers are rolled at the ankles, but they’ve done nothing to make her look… plain. Harry shuffles on the sofa, desperate for anything else to think about. Somehow, Aunt Petunia’s face still puckers in his mind’s eye, but now he can’t escape the mental image of her bent over the oven of 4 Privet Drive, only this time sporting a round, perfect—
“Potter’s here for backup,” Ginny says, returning to the sitting room. “I’m on primary investigation.”
Thank God; he sighs at the welcome distraction before remembering that bantering with her has always been an effective palate cleanser. So he does that, instead.
“Well, you know what they say,” Harry calls, leaning back against the cushions. “There’s nothing less interesting than the suburbs. Which is why I could never do your job, Jen.” He ends with a wink, resting his hands behind his head.
Ginny arches a brow, holding the camera in front of her. “And please take note, Attica, that the next time this happens, I’ll be the one to choose the names.”
She means it casually… he knows she means it casually. But something in her words pricks him. Irritates him. Wedges beneath his skin.
“Quite an assumption I’ll ever spend this much time with you again,” Harry mutters under his breath.
Shit.
He freezes. He didn’t mean to say that out loud, at least not so… bitterly. Once upon a time, he possessed the social graces to think before replying like that— but days of interpersonal nuance are long gone. They belonged to a carefree teenager with few thoughts aside from the next time he’d run his fingers through the thick, red hair that currently swayed in a long ponytail.
By the time he looks back up at her, Ginny’s face is filled with disappointment. And she’s closed her phone.
“I’ll have to redo that last bit of filming,” she says with a sniff. “But for what it’s worth?” She raises her chin. “You didn’t mind spending time with me in the distant, distant past, Auror Potter.”
Ha!
That was a tremendous understatement.
He’d been in love with her. Stupidly. Disgustingly. The first six months after the war were a blur of sex and mourning. They’d been so punch drunk and delirious that they probably used each other’s bodies more than either of them knew. He really thought they’d have a future, though… that they’d end up getting married and buying a house. Except theirs would have been different than this one. Filled with far more character and history and warmth. Their home would have smelled like baking bread and sounded like kids giggling and felt like a soft blanket on a cold night.
But none of that had anything to do with the way he snapped. So why bring it up, really?
“Sorry,” Harry whispers, tucking his hands beneath his bum. “That… I didn’t mean. I’m sorry. I just meant that we don’t see each other much, and…” He lets out a slow breath. Best to stop talking before he digs himself deeper.
“I forgive you,” Ginny says quietly. A full second passes before she offers him a smirk. “As long as I can still call you Pookie Pie in front of the neighbors.”
Harry blinks at the carpet with a sad smile. “Deal.”
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Diabolik Lovers VANDEAD CARNIVAL ;; Sleeping Vampire ー Mukami Ruki
Source: Diabolik Lovers Vandead Carnival
Seiyuu: Takahiro Sakurai
Audio: Part 1 ll Part 2
→ LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!
“...Hm...? What’s wrong? You woke up?”
You ask Ruki what he is doing.
“Aah, my bad. Did you wake up because you were curious what I was up to? I was going to read till a good stopping point, but the book only made me feel even more awake. More importantly...What’s wrong? It’s unusual for you to wake up at this hour. Did you have a strange dream, perhaps?”
You nod.
“I knew it. I’m just about to start a new chapter (1). Instead of reading my book, I’ll talk with you instead. Try telling me what the dream was about. It might not be bad to listen to your idle talk every now and then like this...”
You start explaining the dream.
*TIMESKIP*
“ーー I see. So that’s what it was about. A picnic with the five of us, huh? That’s definitely an odd dream. However, they say that dreams reflect one’s wishes. You were wishing for something like that?”
You panic a little.
“Heh...Look at you get all flustered. Seems like I was spot on. Well, why not? It might make for a fine change of pace.”
You seem surprised.
“...Why are you giving me that look?”
You note you did not expect that.
“...Unexpected? Just who do you think I am? A cruel-hearted man who wouldn’t even grant a single wish of his own livestock?”
You quickly shake your head.
“Pfft. ...Don’t try and deny it now. Honestly, I do not mind how you look at me; Now that I think about it, it is true that I have yet to do something for the sake of making you happy. I’m a dull man. Humankind tries to enjoy their life because they know their time is limited. However, Vampires don’t have this limit, right? As we live on, we become blind to the value or fun in life...And at some point, we even forget what exactly it is like to enjoy something. That’s why I never thought about entertaining you. Even if you find me boring because of that, I simply cannot deny it.”
You point towards the book.
“A book? You’re talking about this one? What’s wrong with it?”
You explain.
“...Aah, I suppose reading could be seen as one way to enjoy oneself. However, this is simply a means to kill some time. When you walk the path of eternal life, there are times where the nights feel very long. Although I doubt that is something a human such as yourself is able to grasp.”
You frown.
“...Don’t make that face. I am simply stating the truth, there is no other meaning behind it. Nor do I intend to refute the dream you saw or your wish. You are free to desire whatever you want after all.”
You tell Ruki he doesn’t need to force himself to go.
“I never said I don’t want to go. ...Do you really want to go on a picnic with me?”
You nod.
“Heh...Well, if you want to go with me, I don’t mind tagging along. However...Taking the others along as well will have to be for another time. If we’re heading outside and I have to watch over all four of you, it’d take an immense amount of effort.”
*Rustle*
“If it’s just the two of us...I’ll accompany you.”
*Rustle rustle*
“Oi, don’t get up. ...Good grief. Hey, don’t flip over the blanket.”
You scoot closer to Ruki.
“Heh...What a strange woman you are, wishing to go on a picnic with a Vampire. I’m sure it’ll be boring? I’m a dull man after all.”
You tell him it will be fine.
“...I wonder. Well, I suppose it isn’t up to me to decide how you will feel about it. If I go with you...I might just be able to remember what it is like to have fun.”
You ask what he said.
“...Nothing. I was simply thinking which book would be nice to read outside.”
You pout.
“What? Got a problem with that? You’ve sure come to think highly of yourself if you believe you have the right to comment on my preferences?”
You quickly try and apologize.
“Pfft...I was joking, idiot. I’m not upset. However...Learning about their Master’s tastes is part of your duty as my Livestock. Why don’t you give these a read sometime as well?”
*Flip*
“This book was written during the Neo-Latin period quite some time agーー”
You ask about the language.
“...This? It’s Latin.”
You are impressed.
“There is nothing impressive about it. Anyone can read this with enough practice. ...However, I suppose it may be a bit of a challenge for you. The other day, you didn’t score too well on the foreign language test, did you?”
You ask him how he knows.
“Of course I know. I am your Master after all. I know my Livestock in and out. Well, I suppose you’ll just have to study a little more. Try your best on the next exam, okay?”
You promise to give it your all.
“Heh...So, what will you do? If you wish so, I don’t mind reading it out loud for you.”
You hesitate.
“...No need to be modest?”
You shake your head.
“...I see. I thought it would make for a fine bedtime story though. I guess for women or children, a tale from the One Thousand and One Nights is more suitable.”
You nod.
“Well then, you should go back to sleep soon. You don’t need to force yourself to stay awake with me.”
*Rustle*
“Make sure to cover yourself properly with the blanket. Come on. ...Close your eyes.”
You close your eyes.
*Flip*
“...”
*Flip*
You open your eyes again.
*Rustle rustle*
“...What? You woke up again? Didn’t I tell you to sleep?”
You explain.
“You feel wide awake? Haah...You’re such a child at times. That being said, I suppose I am partially responsible as well. ...It cannot be helped. Try telling me what might help you lull to sleep. I’ll do whatever you want.”
You offer to chat for a bit.
“...Talk? You’d be able to sleep if we talk for a while? But you declined by offer earlier, did you not?”
You explain.
“...Pfft, I see. It has to be in a language you understand, huh? However, this is catching me a bit off guard. Right...Should I imitate you and try talking about my dreams?”
You seem curious.
“As of late...I’ve stopped having nightmares. As a result, I can sleep well.”
You ask him about his dreams.
“Hm? What kind of dreams I have? Let’s see...Now that I think about it, I don’t have them often.”
You pout.
“...Oi. Don’t make your disappointment so clear. It hurts me a little too. Unlike me...Seems like you see all sorts of dreams? Am I wrong?”
You confirm his statement.
“Right? That’s what I thought looking at you. ...Heh, there’s no deeper meaning behind it. ...What kind of dreams do you see? Just pick one you remember. Tell me about it.”
You start talking about your dreams.
“...Hm...Heeh. Hm...? What’s wrong? Why did you stop talking?”
You assume it is boring to him.
“It isn’t boring. Stop having those ridiculous worries. I don’t dislike listening to your stories. While I won’t deny that you aren’t the best story-teller, and since you are talking about your dreams, the story is somewhat inconsistent and all over the place. However, I never expected a perfect story from you in the first place, so rest assured.”
You ask about his expectations.
“...Who knows? I’m not quite sure what exactly I was expecting. It’s just, right...I suppose I might have simply wished to listen to your rambling. I will admit that I have lost my edge to be satisfied by such a clumsy story. So...Don’t worry and tell your story the way you want. I want to listen to you talk.”
*TIMESKIP*
Ruki has dozed off.
“...”
*Rustle*
“Nn...Aah...I had nodded off a little.”
You blame your own story being boring.
“That’s not it. However...How do I put this? I feel so very at ease when listening to your voice. Furthermore, the content of these wishes reflected in your dreams are like those of a child, it is rather adorable.”
You start blushing.
“...What’s wrong? Why are you pulling a weird face? Aah, because I called you cute? ...That’s a little upsetting. I am pretty sure I have always doted on you like this, haven’t I?”
You get upset because he was sleeping instead of listening to you talk.
“Heh...Rest assured. Even if I’m dozing off, I’m still listening to you. On top of the dream about the picnic, you had ones about a house made out of candy and als one where you went to an amusement park, right? Finally you talked about a dream where you rode on top of the clouds. When you put them next to each other like that, all of your dreams are about having fun, aren’t they?”
You are impressed he could list them all off.
“See? I remembered, didn’t I? What do you think hearing them listed off like that? Don’t you think it only makes sense I would perceive them as childish?”
You go quiet.
“...Haha. Seems like you can’t deny my statement.”
You protest.
“You’ve had more mature dreams as well? Hooh, now that is interesting. I would love to hear about those.”
You flinch.
“Why do you seem uneasy? You’re the one who brought it up. Now explain yourself.”
You move away.
*Creaaak*
“Oi. Think you can get away?”
Ruki quickly pulls you back to his side.
“Did you really think you could deceive me by saying you’ve suddenly gotten sleepy? If you want to lie that badly, at least come up with something a little better.”
You nod.
“...I’m glad you understand. If you were truly thinking of deceiving me, I suppose I will have to discipline you again. ーー Well then.”
*Rustle*
“An adult dream, was it? Try telling me about it. You’re stuck like this until you do.”
*Creaaaak*
“Exactly, pinned down underneath me like this. Your fate is in your own hands.”
You get flustered.
“...What are you turning red for? Could it be...Something you can’t tell me about it? Hm?”
You protest.
“Aah...I get it now. This ‘adult dream’ you spoke of is related to me. That’s why you can’t tell me. ...Aren’t I right? Heh. You really are an open book. However, in that case, I am even more curious now. Try telling me. From beginning till end, without trying to cover anything up.”
You start talking.
“...Hm...Hah...How ridiculous.”
*Creaaaaak*
“Since you flushed red in shame, I was already wondering what kind of dream I should expect but...Let me break it to you, that is without a doubt another one of your childish dreams. I embraced you gently and we kissed? What exactly is so ‘mature’ about that? On top of that, it was like a Prince’s kiss? Children are the only ones who should still believe in that nonsense. Utterly ridiculous.”
You frown and lower your head.
“...Haah. Don’t be so down. I was a little too harsh with my words as well. However...I only just told you that dreams reflect one’s desires, right? I felt as if you were trying to express your dissatisfaction with the kisses I usually give you...So I became a little upset. Even right now, I’ve been trying to be kind to you in my own way...But it seems like the message did not get through to you.”
*Creaaaak*
“I can’t just turn a blind eye to what you said. That wish of yours...I shall fulfill it right now.”
Ruki embraces you.
“I have to gently hold you in my arms first...Right? Thenーー”
*Rustle rustle*
“A Prince’s kiss, was it? ...Nn...”
*Smooch*
“...Are you satisfied now?”
Your eyes widen in shock.
“Heh...Why do you seem so surprised? I kissed you in your dream, did I not? In that case, I don’t see a problem with me doing it to you in real life as well. Dreams reflect our desires. In short, you wanted me to kiss you.”
You pout.
“Hehe...So? What did you think of my gentle kiss?”
You whisper your response.
“...Pardon? I can’t hear you.”
You repeat it.
“...It caught you off guard so you couldn’t tell? Haah...How boring. You really are a dull woman...”
You protest.
“Pfft...I know. I’m just kidding. You truly believe that’s how I feel about you? However, if that’s the problem, I shall start asking for your permission first from here on out. When I embrace or kiss you. Even when I touch you, I will only do it after asking. What do you think?
You shake your head.
“Oh? You don’t like the sound of that? Good grief, you are such greedy Livestock. ...Hehe. However, I don’t want to do something you don’t enjoy either. If it makes you happy, I’ll treat you with kindness any time you want.”
You smile.
“...Are you starting to get sleepy yet? We’ve been chatting for quite some time after all.”
You shake your head.
“...You feel even more awake? Heh...Because of the kiss? You really are still a child if that’s enough to keep you awake at night. Well, if you close your eyes and lay still, I’m sure you’ll eventually grow sleepy.”
You ask if he’ll sleep as well.
“Me? I’m not tired yet. I’ll continue reading my book for a little longer. ...Come on. You should hurry up and sleep. It is the optimal way to give your body some rest.”
*Flip*
“...”
*Flip*
“...”
*Flip*
“...Did I not tell you to sleep? What do you gain from looking at my face? If there’s something you want to tell me, then spit it out.”
You tell him he looks very handsome reading like that.
“...I was not sure what to expect, but you sure say the funniest things, calling a man in his pajamas ‘handsome’. ...Think before you speak.”
You insist it was meant in a positive way.
“...Yes, exactly. Even if it is a compliment. ...It would distract me and I won’t be able to focus on my reading. You’re the type who always voices their thoughts and emotions out loud. It makes you hard to handle. Well...I will admit that it doesn’t feel bad to receive said compliment from you.”
You ask for permission to watch him.
“...You’d still do it even if I say no, right? It can’t be helped. Only for today, okay? However, don’t say any more unnecessary things, okay?”
You promise.
“...Exactly. I don’t need to hear your impressions. I won’t ever be able to get some rest if I don’t get to a good stopping point. Don’t prevent your Master from getting his sleep. Understood?”
*Flip*
“...”
*Flip*
“...”
*Flip*
“...Oi. You want to fall asleep in that position?”
*Rustle rustle*
“You have to lie down properly to sleep. Otherwise you’ll hurt your body. Come onーー”
*Creaaaak*
“You don’t need to sleep while looking at me, do you? Go for a sleeping position which is the most comfortable for you.”
You protest.
“You grow curious? Because I’m next to you? ...Okay. In that case, I’ll return to my own roーー”
You quickly stop him.
*Rustle*
Ruki: Oi, don’t suddenly pull onto me. ...You don’t want me to leave, huh? You’ve gotten quite skilled at tempting me. However, you can’t sleep when I’m here, right? I suppose it wouldn’t be a problem if I were to sleep as well, but I’m still going to be awake for quite some time. In that case, sleeping separately would be much more effective.”
You ask him to sleep as well.
“...What do you mean ‘motivation to sleep’? How exactly should I try my best to fall asleep?”
You pout.
“...Fine. In that case, I’ll hit the hay too. That’ll solve the problem, right? I could no longer concentrate either because you kept on catching my attention. Let’s go to bed so we’ll be well-rested in the morning.”
*Rustle rustle*
“Good grief. You sure are a handful. Come on, stop looking at me forever. Close your eyes. In that case...I don’t mind embracing you, shrouding you in darkness that way?”
*Rustle*
“Yeah, I suppose I’ll do that. I’ll be able to sleep quicker that way too.”
You seem reluctant.
“Heh...You really are a child. You still don’t know just how nice it feels to have someone hold you in their arms. Seems like the contents of your dreams won’t be changing any time soon then.”
You pout.
“...Don’t sulk. If you get upset, you’ll only have even more trouble falling asleep. If I can’t embrace you...How about stroking your forehead like this? They say that children enjoy having their head patted. Doesn’t it put you at ease?”
You nod.
“...I see. As long as it helps you get some sleep.”
You smile.
“...My hand feels cold and refreshing? Little late to notice that, don’t you think? I’m a Vampire, remember? Exactly. A Vampire is going this far for you, so just get some rest already, okay? If you really can’t fall asleep, I don’t mind sucking your blood until you grow anemic. Then you’d be able to sleep soundly, no?”
You protest.
“Heh...If you don’t want that, perhaps I should return to my own room after all? ...You want me to stay here, don’t you? In that case, be a good girl and sleep.”
You sigh.
“You’re to blame for refusing to sleep. Come on, scoot closer.”
*Rustle*
“You said you’d be too nervous to sleep when I embrace you but...Try looking at it this way. You should simply think that right here...that being in my arms is the most cozy place in the whole wid world. You...held my hand while I was sleeping in the past, didn’t you? This is no different. Think of these arms as something which bring you peace. By doing so, I’m sure you’ll be able to relax. ...What do you think?”
You admit feeling relaxed.
“I see. Then fall asleep like that. You can watch my face to your heart’s content again in the morning, can’t you?”
You ask Ruki if he will stay by your side.
“...Yeah. I’ll still be here in the morning. So rest assured and close your eyes.”
You close your eyes.
“...Good girl.”
You doze off.
“...Seems like she fell asleep. She really is still a child who needs to be put to bed, huh? ...Making such a pleased expression, I wonder if she’s having a dream right now? I wonder what kind of dream it is?”
*Rustle*
“One where she has childish fun? Or perhaps part two of the picnic? Or maybeーー A dream about me? I’ll have you tell me tomorrow.”
*Creaaak*
“Heh...When asleep, she leaves herself even more vulnerable than usual. ...Dreams, huh? This might be one of her wishes as well but, what if...Nn...”
*Smooch*
“...She might just get me actually kissing her ass she sleeps like this mixed up with her dream. That would be very much like her.”
*Creaaak*
“I suppose she’ll wake up again if I keep talking for too long.”
Ruki closes his eyes.
“...Suppose I’ll get some shut-eye as well.”
He closes his book.
*Rustle*
“I don’t see fun dreams like you do, nor do they interest me. But when I look at your adorable, relaxed sleeping face...I feel like I’ll be able to see an enjoyable dream just like you do. ...Especially tonight. I hope that you too...Will have a fun, long dream. ...Nn...”
*Smooch*
“...Goodnight.”
ーー THE END ーー
Translation notes
(1) 区切り or ‘kugiri’ is used to refer to a breakpoint in general. Since he is reading a book, this seemed like a fine translation in English.
#diabolik lovers#dialovers#ruki mukami#vandead carnival#diabolik lovers translation#rukisleepingvampire
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The Star Plasma Vessel:
When I first read Gojo’s past arc, Riko Amanai and the whole dynamic created between all of the characters and how fast a strong bond can grow, really interested me.
⚠️Spoiler warning ofc ⚠️
But... I was so confused over the Star Plasma Vessel. I was so confused and thought I missed something because I didn’t even know who Master Tengen was. And the site I was reading the manga didn’t have chapter 72, but after re reading it... the Star Plasma Vessel and Master Tengen are... still suspicious as hell.
So Let’s talk about it!
Who is Master Tengen?
In the Nara Period (710-794) Tengen spread Japanese Buddhism and ‘preached what would become the foundation for Jujutsu sorcerers(JJK.wiki)’. They were first mentioned in chapter 53 by fake Geto.
At this point, the only information about Master Tengen was that of their jujutsu. Jogo asks Fake Geto who’s stronger; Tengen or Gojo? Fake Geto simply states that “it’s immortality not anti-aging” and that Master Tengen doesn’t interfere unless it involves the barrier. He also makes this comparison with a tree? However, I’m not sure if the tree metaphor is comparing Tengen and Gojo or describing/comparing Tengen’s technique.
During Gojo’s Past Arc, we find out more about the specifics of their jujutsu and how powerful and important they are. Tengen’s jujutsu is immortality but it doesn’t stop the aging process. The cursed technique tries to switch bodies roughly every 500 years. If Tengen doesn’t get a vessel, then they will ‘evolve’ or ascend to a higher state where they have no will. If in this higher state, they could become a threat to humanity. If they do get a vessel, then they rewrite the body’s genetic information.
On top of all that, Master Tengen’s ability strengthens the barriers that protect the jujutsu world and keep the amount of curses limited to Japan. The Jujutsu world wouldn’t be working the way it has for so long if not for these barriers. It isn’t specified whatsoever what Tengen would do that would make them a threat to humanity, but my guess is that it would have something to do with allowing curses to run free and unrestricted.
In the reccent chapters, Fake!Geto used a remote activation technique that Yuki orginially mistakes as an attack on the barrier. He’s disrupting the balance that’s for sure, but I believe that he could have broken the barrier. He had the option and probably the power, but he didn’t. This implies that Tengen is a force that even our antagonists fear or don’t wish to get involve. They said that they were stabilized even after Riko Amanai died, but... considering Ep. 18 where Principal Yaga goes ‘I’m going to see Tengen” after the Curses break onto school grounds implies that maybe he is weaker. Gojo even talks about how in the end, Tengen’s barrier hides rather than protects and that it’s weak once infiltrated, which raises a lot of questions. And maybe Tengen plays a part in this whole scheme because of the talk of how much chaos the world would be thrown into had the barrier been broken by Yuki and Fake!Geto’s questionable response.
Who is Riko Amanai?
Riko Amanai was the Star Plasma Vessel in 2006. It is implied that she was pretty wealthy, and when she was younger, her parent’s died in a car crash, but she survived. Between the years of her parents’ death and her death, she was cared for by Misato Kuroi, a non combatant jujutsu sorcerer who can fight curses, well educated in the curse world, but might not be able to use cursed energy/techniques. It is unknown with who Misato is affiliated with and if Amanai became aware of her status as the Star Plasma Vessel at an early age.
When first introduced, she is very willing and seemingly okay with the merger. When Gojo expresses his surprise over Amanai’s reaction to her attempted assassination attempt and the whole concept of the merger, she simply proclaims “Master Tengen is me and I am Master Tengen!”. She then goes on a rant about how the merger and death are different things and how after the Merger, her will and spirit will live on. However, this statement was contradicted earlier, when Yaga describes the Merger as an ‘eraser’. Later, Geto even talks about how after the Merger, Amanai will just be forced to be beneath the school and has to get rid of all mortal connections. It just happens to be that, she has no relations besides Kuroi... suspicious....
Riko is spunky and fiesty. During her rant, Gojo and Geto comment on how she probably has no friends based on how she talks. She is clumsy, and honestly just... funny. I keep on hoping someone in the main timeline says something similar to the “Liar, you look a liar... and whats with those bangs” line in reference to Fake!Geto. Getting back at hand, Riko is also brave. When Kuroi gets kidnapped, she insists on coming with Geto and Gojo despite having no fighting or curse capability. When nervous or in an emotional confrontation, she has a habit of scrunching up part of her skirt in her fists.
Despite putting up an image of content with the Merger, Riko is a normal teenage girl. Moments before her death, Riko’s inner monologue focuses on how she was always told she was ‘special’ and ‘different’, and how despite everything that happened, she always survived. Now, being told that you are special and different at a young age is something that affects people heavily. Weather it is being told that you are a ‘gifted’ kid or that you are just ‘different’ can lead to a lot of self separation from others. One might see themselves as better than others because of these skills or believe that someone else like them can’t exist and struggle when meeting someone similar or in a similar situation. Before her appearance in the story, it is implied that she had good relationships with her friends, classmates, and Kuroi, but didn’t really value them as much as she should due to this idea of being special or having a destiny. (Damn, a Gojo parallel maybe hmm) This led her to be really lonely and she believed that she would be okay with the merger because she thought that the loneliness and sadness would disappear. In the last three days of her life, Riko got to spend time with her friends at schools (the last she saw of them was them teasing her for her ‘hot cousin’ Gojo), spending time with Kuroi, and developing a strong bond with Gojo and Geto. She realizes that the sadness and loneliness could and would leave as long as she had strong bonds with others.
“I want to be with everyone more! I want to go to more places, see more things with everyone... More!!”
After Riko comes to terms with what she really wants, she dies at the hands of Toji Fushiguro/Zenin. Her death sets an entire series of misfortunes and rifts between the Strongest Duo and she serves her part as... well the plot tool she doubles as.
A Choice:
Before her death, Riko is given a choice. Geto gives her instructions on where to go for the merger, before saying “Or you can turn back and return home with Kuroi.”. He gives her a choice. A choice to go through with the merger and ensure stability despite no one truly knowing what is happening, or a choice to live a life of her choice. We find out that Yaga gave hints that there is something wrong with the Merger due to the way that he described it as an ‘erasure’ and how he isn’t one to ‘beat around the bush’.
We find out that Gojo and Geto decided beforehand that if the Vessel wasn’t willing to go through with the merger, they wouldn’t do it and that they, the strongest duo, would fight Master Tengen. Gojo and Geto were the strongest and Geto says that no matter what she chooses, they will protect her future.
Riko decides to go home, wherever that may be, instead of the merger, but of course, dies.
As established before, this whole concept is suspicious. Yaga knew there was something wrong with this. Gojo and Geto both knew there was something wrong with this.
In chapter 138, Yuki goes “it’s about time I confront Tengen.” This opens a box with even more questions. What does she mean by this? Why is it ‘about time’ and how casual is it for sorcerers to talk to Tengen? As mentioned before, Yaga is apparently in communication with Tengen when he needs to be. And Yuki is the one who told Geto that Tengen was stabilized after the failed merger and that the vessel was probably reborn...
Conclusion:
I honestly hope more than predict that we get to meet Riko Amanai reborn or the next SPV. Tengen is a name that is getting thrown around recently so there is no way that he is just.. not going to be relevant in the coming chapters.
I know a lot of people have found comparisons to Buddhism and the Jujutsu world, and I am not that well educated in this area, I do know that rebirth plays a big role in it. Rebirth is viewed as a negative cycle one should want to escape from called “Samsara”. I personally headcanon/theorize that the Star Plasma Vessel and the soul of Riko Amanai, is one that gets reborn constantly and is stuck in a cycle where they experience a lonely and sad life before getting a taste of a full and happy one right before the merger. In terms of the 500 year thing, the Star Plasma vessel would have first been born( created?) during sometime in the in between of the Heian Period (794-1184) and the Muromachi Period (1392-1573). The Heian Period is implied to be the Golden Age of Curses and when Sukuna was in full power despite being known in history as a peaceful time for Japan, so I definitely believe that there is some connection if my math is correct (which it probably isn’t. I hate math).
Right now in the story, vessels... are really important. According to Fake Geto, he released what is like a thousand Itadori Yujis, so I think that bringing back the star Plasma vessel would fit really well. However, they would roughly be around 12 years of age in 2018, meaning that they might not even be able to do the merger because I think the vessel has to be sixteen and older and have a full moon.
(Edit: added 4/1/21: Also, it might not be Riko reborn, but just another Star Plasma Vessel. Like Yuki says that either they had another vessel at hand, or another one was already born. So like... the new SPV might be the age of our main characters or possibly even one of the characters we already know!)
I also think it will be really interesting to see how it would play off with the fact that Gojo/Geto are no longer involved in the story. Gojo is sealed and the real Geto is dead. When thinking about how the SPV would be in the story, I imagined a picture of a younger girl in a uniform and with a braid holding the sealed Gojo and staring up at the fake Geto. I’m not over what happened to Riko Amanai if you haven’t noticed and I feel like she deserves to have this other chance. I also think it’ll set up the eventual meeting or confrontaion with Master Tengen which I’m personally dying to see.
So what do you think? I don’t really have any solid predictions other than that the SPV reborn will make an appearance, but what about you? Do you guys think Tengen will play a big part? Do you think Tengen may end up becoming a big threat or a good ally? Do you guys want to see Itadori and the SPV interact? Or am I just over analyzing this?
Thanks for reading!
#jujutsu kaisen#jjk#jjk spoilers#gojo satoru#geto suguru#riko amanai#jujutsu kaisen gojo#jjk theory#yaga masamichi#yuki tsukumo#jjk brainrot#kuroi#jjk mangacap#fun times in jujutsu kaisen#jujutsu kaisen geto
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Books of 2021: The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson
I have a few things to acknowledge here before we get into the proper review - this is REALLY LONG and VERY CRITICAL. I promise you I do genuinely love The Stormlight Archive, but if you are someone who doesn’t like to see criticism of Sanderson or Stormlight, then please don’t read this.
This review has spoilers for The Stormlight Archive - you have been warned.
I’ve made no secret of my love for the Stormlight Archive - it’s my favourite ongoing fantasy series. I’ve also avoided reviewing it, and I’ve been putting it off since I first read it back in 2016 (could be 2017? It was a while ago.) How could I review something I love so much? How do I approach reviewing a 1,100 page epic fantasy novel? I just didn’t know. To be honest, I still don’t. I adore this series, it’s become part of my identity - if you asked any of my friends what’s Lizzie’s favourite book they would probably say Stormlight. Maybe Lord of the Rings but that’s a different kettle of fish.
I’ve reread The Stormlight Archive annually for the last five years. I promise myself I won’t reread it and let myself come back in anticipation for the next book. I’ve failed miserably every year. And these aren’t small undertakings - they’re each 1,000 pages and there’s four of them now! For context I usually only read 2,500 pages a month.
So, I’ve finally decided to review these doorstoppers dressed up as fantasy novels. These reviews are mainly for myself, they’re going to be self indulgent, long, and focus on what I want to discuss like characters, structure, and prose - rather than reviewing the things I should probably talk about (like the actual plot…) I want to work through all the things I love about this behemoth of the modern fantasy genre, but also focus on its flaws. The praise for Sanderson is everywhere, so I want to work through my honest opinion of these books, work out why I love them, and I’ll invite you on this journey of self discovery with me.
Structure
I’m yet to work out why I’m starting with structure but we are, I guess it helps with the framing. In case you’re reading this having not read The Way of Kings, each book in the Stormlight Archive is made up of 5 main parts that follow major viewpoint characters, and the parts are split up with small interludes that expand the worldbuilding, follow important secondary characters, or foreshadow future moments. Everybook is centred on a key character - in The Way of Kings it’s Kaladin - who we follow in the present day as a major viewpoint character and explore their backstory through a flashback sequence. Each book also has a prologue which retells the assassination of the Alethi king, Gavilar Kholin, and an epilogue from Wit.
Firstly, this book takes FAR too long to get going and even longer to get into as a reader. I’m not joking when I say there are FIVE introductory chapters: the prelude, a prologue, Cenn’s second prologue (technically the first chapter but it’s a prologue), Kaladin’s introduction, and Shallan’s introduction. It’s too much. We’re jumping around, nothing really makes sense, and we’re not sure how these characters are related. They could be taking place in different worlds for all you know on a first read.
When I first read this book I was a lot more patient with long introductions and multiple false starts - I had the time to dedicate to getting into the story. I could, and did, forgive the THREE false starts to this story before we get to Kaladin’s first chapter. However, the opening structure of this novel is a mistake. If someone gives up in this section I honestly don’t blame them - if I was reading this for the first time in 2021 I probably would too.
The prelude and prologue are both excellent. The prelude in particular is weird and confusing but also sets up a clear mystery and sense of the sheer scope of this story. Szeth’s prologue, the first time we see Gavilar’s assassination, is flawed but still wonderful. The fight scene needed a bit of cutting, for my tastes, and I think the introduction to the magic system is clumsy - there’s far too much obvious info dumping and it needed some serious editing, especially as the complicated use of the magic that Szeth uses is barely relevant in this book. However, I think the Herald’s giving up the Oathpact and a magical assassin is great! They’re a bit weird and you’re not sure what’s going on, but it’s engaging.
Then there’s Cenn. Poor, innocent Cenn. I’m sorry but he’s completely unnecessary. Independently of the rest of the introduction to the Way of Kings Cenn’s chapter would be a pretty good prologue as he’s there to set up our main hero Kaladin from an outside perspective. We love Kaladin and Cenn’s chapter is fine for establishing him as a typical fantasy hero – he’s a warrior, cares about the people, and so forth.
However, Cenn’s chapter in the context bogs down the opening too much. It’s too long, not particularly relevant, and adds yet ANOTHER prologue to this already enormous book. Cenn’s chapter offers nothing to the reader that we don’t learn later on in the text when the content of Cenn’s chapter makes more sense. We even see the exact same sequence of events from Kaladin’s perspective in a flashback! Not having Cenn’s chapter would add more interest to Kaladin’s character and add more weight to the flashback sequence because we wouldn’t have met Kaladin at his peak (sort of…?)
Kaladin’s flashbacks aren’t that engaging as it is, he’s a fairly standard fantasy hero from a small village who ends up leaving his happy family to go to war. So leaving a small mystery around him in addition to ‘how did he become a slave’ would help with my engagement. It would leave me wondering how reliable is Kaladin as a narrator, is he really as good with the spear as he claims? I wouldn’t know but Cenn’s chapter removes all the mystery apart from ‘how does Kaladin become a slave’. It needs to go to make Kaladin more interesting and cut down on some of the unnecessary page count.
While we’re at it… Just cut out ALL the interludes in this book, except for the Szeth through line. I KNOW they are here for the Cosmere connections and to foreshadow things much later in the series. However, new readers and Stormlight only readers don’t know this and, quite frankly, they SUCK. In later books the interludes make sense but here they add so much tedious, pointless crap to an already bloated book. They’re too much and add next to nothing – other than seeing Szeth lose it as he kills people, that was fun (in a disturbing, creepy way… Can you tell I like Szeth?) Either this stuff needs to be relevant to the book we’re in now, or painfully obvious that we’re coming back to this stuff in later books. I still don’t know why we got Ishikk’s interlude with the Worldhoppers, and I completely forgot Nan Balat had an interlude. I’ve read this book 5 times… THAT IS HOW POINTLESS THEY ARE! Sanderson should weave the necessary foreshadowing into the main text, intersperse the perspectives we do need for THIS story into the main sections, or cut them out. When I get to the interludes I physically sigh and sometimes put the book down - now I just skip everything but Szeth - but on a first read they’re really off putting.
To finish up with my complaints about the structure, and this is a big one for me - why do we have huge chunks of this book without major viewpoint characters? I’m biased here but Dalinar is probably the most important POV character in the story because he introduces the real stakes of the story. He has the groundbreaking visions of the past, he is the viewpoint we get into the politics of the war, he is the character who does and continues to have the most impact on the development of the story on his own.Yet, we don’t meet him until we’re 190 pages in…
Sanderson alternates Shallan and Dalinar’s chapters between the five different parts and that means they vanish for 400 pages at a time. Why? I ended up caring about them right as we’re about to lose their viewpoint again for the next part. We needed to see the three major POV characters interwoven together throughout the five parts, not randomly dropped and picked back up again. The structure of this book was a mistake.
Okay, I promise I do actually like this book…
Worldbuilding
Something I do love is the worldbuilding of Roshar, and I usually don’t care that much about worldbuilding. I can really appreciate good worldbuilding, especially on the history side of things, but for most novels it’s just fine? If I roughly know what’s going on with the world then we’re good, I can just get on with the story and not worry about it. However, Roshar is genuinely beautifully built! It takes A LOT to get me to visualise a world as I’m not a visual reader. I can feel the atmosphere, get to know characters, but can I imagine a face or setting? No.
There are three fantasy worlds that have allowed me to actually see the world and it’s landscape: Middle Earth, Discworld, and Roshar. The bleak, storm weathered landscape of the Shattered Plains is so embedded in my mind it’s ridiculous, the only place I can picture more is the Shire – and Lord of the Rings has a film to help it!
Now, to be fair it’s hard for me to separate the worldbuilding in The Way of Kings from the rest of the series, so I now have 4,000 pages worth of worldbuilding in my head… However, it’s certainly strong and I distinctly remember having a vivid image of understanding this world, the atmosphere, landscape, and so forth, on my first read. Although it did take me until Oathbringer to realise that everything, except humanity, was basically a crab… (I think that was just me being dense.)
I do think Roshar needs much more of its history to be expanded on. We don’t have much between the Last Desolation (don’t ask me to spell it's in-world title!) and it shows at times. I don’t expect something on the level of The Silmarillion for Roshar, however, I do think we need to see something more substantial in the period between the Desolations and the present day. We know about the Recreance, the attempted takeover of the Vorin Church, and the Sunmaker? That’s 4000 years! To put it into context it’s the distance between us and Jesus’s birth TWICE, it’s like we know about the end of the 11th Dynasty of Egypt, the Reformation, and the British Empire in our own history... We need to find a balance, especially as we get so much development of science in the later books. More history please - but this is a personal issue and a series wide problem, not just The Way of Kings.
Magic System
Now, this is controversial for Sanderson, but I’m going to skip this for now. This review is already well over 1,000 words long and I’ve not even started on the meat of the novel yet. The magic system isn’t really fleshed out in The Way of Kings, we only really know stuff about the Windrunners (in an abstract kind of way) and the very basics of the Knights Radiant in general. So I’m going to discuss the magic when I get around to reviewing Words of Radiance, Oathbringer, and Rhythm of War, basically whenever I have the energy and more space.
Safe to say I actually really like the magic system in the Stormlight Archive. I usually dislike hard magic systems (I think I’m the only person who dislikes Mistborn’s Allomancy - while very well developed, it’s a bit silly and is far too much for my tastes...) as they often take some of the wonder, mystery, and excitement of fantasy out of the story for me. However, I think surgebinding is a fun system and there is a lot more of it for use to discover, preserving some of that mystery. Oh and, if you were wondering, I would be a Skybreaker!
Prose
Okay if you read the structure section and were wondering - why is this woman still reading these books, you’re in for another head scratcher.
If you’ve ever talked to me about literature you’ll know that there are two things I look for in a really good book: characters and prose. Now characters are something Sanderson does phenomenally well in the Stormlight Archive, but that’s not something you can tell 100 pages into a 1,000 page tome. You have to sit with the characters for a long time and give the author some page time to familiarise you with the people you’re following. If you trust him, Sanderson pulls off some stunning character arcs, especially in the long term and I’ll talk more about characters later on (or you can just skip this section? Up to you really!).
However, prose is something you notice immediately, and Sanderson’s is…utilitarian at best. At worst it’s abysmal. These days I’m very picky about prose, a utilitarian style is fine but a book is unlikely to become a new favourite of mine without good writing. This doesn’t mean I want or expect the writing to be flowery or elaborate, but it does mean I want, and appreciate it when, the prose suits the tone of the narrative and world. I must acknowledge that I’m in a (vocal) minority here, a lot of people either don’t notice Sanderson’s style or like it - I certainly didn’t mind it when I first read ther series - so this is definitely a subjective opinion but one I’m certainly not alone in.
Nevertheless, for me Sanderson’s prose is overly simplistic, repetitive, and very American. Okay so the American is probably only noticeable if you’re not American. However, I’m used to fantasy having a certain Britishness to the writing style, even when the author isn’t British, but to me (as a Brit and fantasy reader) the Americanisms are painful at times… There is no way in hell I’m ever going to acknowledge that aluminium is aluminum no matter how many times Sanderson uses it!
Yet it goes beyond a spelling issue because, let's be honest, in this day and age American English is widely spoken and regularly used in fantasy literature - you can’t escape from it as much as I want to. It’s in the style of writing and construction of sentences. The entire narrative reads like an American has decided to tell me a story using their colloquial, everyday speech. It’s a deliberate choice on Sanderson’s part to make things accessible and digestible, and for some people this works. I do think he has a fantastic style to get readers in, especially readers who are getting to grips with high epic fantasy as it’s one less barrier to entry in an already difficult novel. But it does mean rereading isn’t always the best experience and sometimes the writing can jar me out of the story.
In places it’s too simple and colloquial, so much so the writing becomes clunky, clumsy, and unrealistic to the world he’s creating, especially in descriptive passages and dialogue. It reads like Sanderson could have used more lyrical or formal writing but deliberately chose not to - at the detriment of the prose. This is particularly noticeable with characters like Jasnah Kholin. Jasnah is a princess, brilliant scholar, and political mastermind, she’s known for her poise, elegance, and intelligence. Yet she often speaks like an everyday 21st century American and other characters who haven’t had the same education or training as she has? I can’t believe this for a moment, her dialogue is so egregious in places that it’s like I’ve been hit over the head with my own book! I physically cringe when she says things like ‘“scoot over here”’ (chapter 70, p.1083). WHY is Jasnah talking like this?! It doesn’t make sense to me – Shallan maybe, but Jasnah? No. It doesn’t fit with what we’ve been told about her character.
(Just as an aside, I loathe the word ‘scoot’ – it should be burnt from the English language as an abomination!)
Part of the issue with this is Sanderson usually doesn’t distinguish between the character's voices, both in the dialogue and prose. Most of the time if you dropped me into a random section of the Stormlight Archive with no context I honestly couldn’t tell you who’s speaking or narrating without the signposts Sanderson gives us. This isn’t a huge issue as he’s writing in third person limited, and with context and the chapter icons we know who we’re following. However, it does mean we don’t have any idea of character voice – in the general prose, internal narration/thought, or speech. What’s the difference between Kaladin’s dialogue and Jasnah’s? I have no idea from the sentence construction or speech patterns. Certain descriptions of how characters speak help to differentiate (Jasnah is commanding, Shallan squeaks, Kaladin grunts, etc.) but from their speech patterns I wouldn’t have a clue.
All of this comes back to Sanderson’s overly simple and Americanised style. It’s his choice and it does work for many people, but personally it doesn’t always work with the characters or story. I’m not expecting him to write like Robin Hobb or Guy Gavriel Kay, but some finesse and awareness of character would be appreciated, especially if it helped to differentiate character voices.
I’m also going to throw this out as a very personal issue because I’m not sure where else to put it… Sanderson has the worst sense of humour I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. The comedic moments are occasionally amusing… However, Shallan’s puns are worse than my Dad’s jokes. Every time she says something apparently ‘witty’ and someone else remarks how clever and funny she is I want to hit them... At best she’s mildly amusing, at worst she’s cruel. It’s never funny. (This only gets worse with Lift, I almost DNFed the entire series because of the Lift interlude in Words of Radiance. And don’t get me started on Lopen.)
Characters
At last! Something I genuinely love and the reason I read these books! Sanderson has created some of the best characters in modern fantasy in this series and they are the only reason I’m still going. I like the worldbuilding and plot, but I adore the character work in this book and the series as a whole. The characters are generally so good that, even when I dislike them, it's because I dislike them personally, not that they’re badly written characters! Usually I love Sanderson’s characters though, even when they’re incredibly flawed (looking at you Dalinar!) because he’s particularly good at complex character arcs.
Szeth – I love Szeth, slightly irrationally for how much he’s in both this book and the series as a whole, but he’s one of my favourite “secondary” characters in the series! Szeth is actually the character who made me fall in love with the series in the first place, which feels weird to say because he only has five or six chapters in the entire novel. However, a magical assassin with a strong, if morally dubious, sense of duty and obligations? Sign me up! The opening prologue from Szeth’s perspective is wonderful - it’s far too info-dumpy but it’s highly engaging and one hell of a way to open the series.
What really intrigued me about Szeth was his role as the interlude throughline character for The Way of Kings. His internal conflict between his obligation to follow the Truthless’ laws and his personal morality is fascinating. Szeth’s character development has been one of the highlights of the entire series for me, especially as we explore his personal morality, questioning of power, and commitment to law and justice. This conflict is one of the reasons I love the Skybreakers in general and I sincerely hope we get to see more of this (and their conflict with the theoretically similar, although realistically very different, Windrunners) in book 5. However, Szeth is a promise that Sanderson hasn’t kept yet. So much has been built up around his character and we haven’t explored him properly (as of Rhythm of War) and I’m mad about it! He’s an incredibly interesting character, morally and thematically, and I hope Sanderson can live up to the hype he’s built up around him in the first four books of the series.
Kaladin – Okay the real reason we’re all here, the shining beacon of the Stormlight Archive, everyone’s favourite heroic bridgeman: Kaladin Stormblessed. Confession time – I didn’t love Kaladin the first time I read The Way of Kings. Don’t get me wrong I liked him but I’m generally not a massive fan of underdog superhero narratives. (I’m still not a fan of Bridge Four in general for the same reason, I would apologise but I’m not sorry…)
Kaladin spends most of this novel running bridges for Highprince Sadeas on the Shattered Plains. Unjustly enslaved by a corrupt member of the aristocracy, Kaladin is fighting to keep himself and his bridgecrew alive during one of the most pointless “wars” I've read in a fantasy novel - the pointlessness isn’t actually a criticism. He’s facing systematic oppression and disregard for human life, as well as battling his own depression and forming a bond with a spren named Syl (I absolutely adore Syl! But I want to talk about her in my review for Words of Radiance.)
So… I’ve always been frustrated with Kaladin’s fundamental drive to save people and take responsibility for people’s deaths, even when there was nothing he could have done to save them. This book is probably the worst for it out of the four currently published and I just found it a bit much because I personally struggle to relate to his attitude. This level of personal responsibility is a completely alien concept to me, at least to this level, and it’s Kaladin’s entire thing - his driving personality trait - and I just didn’t get it. Kaladin and I are very different people and for a long time I really struggled to relate to him on the same level everyone else seems to in this book. It also didn’t help that the main plot around Kaladin running bridges, struggling with his depression, and trying to keep his men alive is very repetitive… So when you’re in the midst of it and struggling to connect quite so deeply with Kaladin this book can become a slog - yet, the pay off for his struggles is so satisfying and it is very much worth it for making the end feel earned.
However, my issues with connecting to Kaladin is definitely on me and this is by no means to say Kaladin is a badly written character, I’ve always admired how well Kaladin is drawn in this book. Within a few chapters I understood who Kaladin is, and really loved the conflict he had with his depression and role as a fantasy hero. It's beautifully painful to watch and, even when you’re a bit ambivalent about Kaladin, you really care about whether he and Bridge Four are going to survive the bridgecrews – and the climax sequence with Kaladin becoming Stormblessed again at the Tower is still one of my favourite moments in the entire series!
However, on this reread of the series I had a completely different experience to what I’ve had on previous reads, and a lot of this is down to Rhythm of War. I don’t want to say too much here because it’ll involve spoilers for Rhythm of Warm but having seen Kaladin confront his, as Ron Weasley would say, “saving people thing” and really struggle to keep functioning as Stormblessed, I was so much more on board with this book. Rhythm of War’s much more personal approach to Kaladin really helped me understand him as a person, not just the underdog hero. The struggle with his sense of self, the way his depression impacts his ability to act, and the way he’s moving forward in Rhythm of War let me appreciate the character work for Kaladin in The Way of Kings. The struggle, graft, and determination, especially given his mindset, is much more admirable when I can strip away the focus on doggedly protecting everyone no matter the personal cost.
Kaladin and I are very different people, but that’s okay and I’ve come to appreciate him a lot more in the last 7 months. Now I can happily adore him alongside everyone else, and not just nod along with the rest of the fandom because I understand he’s objectively a well written character. Also Kaladin’s mental health rep is some of the best I’ve seen in an epic fantasy series. However, I would approach this book, and series, carefully if you’re sensitive to depression.
Shallan – confession time round two: I hate Shallan. I really loathe her on a deeply personal level. And I’m still bitter about it because I used to love her, when I first read this book she was my favourite character! This was partly due to relating to her and partly due to my frustration with Kaladin. However, as I read Words of Radiance I grew uncomfortable with her and by Oathbringer it became a full on HATED of her…and it’s never gone away.
I first met Shallan when I was a shy 18-year-old, budding historian and scholar. I got Shallan, I loved her plotline, and found Khabranth a lot more interesting than the endless bridgeruns with Kaladin (sorry Kaladin!) I connected with her because she represented (projected) a lot of what I was at the time - and still am today, just an older version of that person. She was the main character that really drew me into the story - yes I loved Szeth and thought he was brilliant, but Szeth is largely absent from this novel and Shallan is the main female lead.
And then I got hit in the face by the infamous Words of Radiance “Boots” chapter, and I immediately got iffy vibes, then there was the Chasm sequence, and so many other moments that made me uncomfortable. I’ll avoid spoilers and, for now, just say I got hit in the face by Shallan’s innate privilege, her causal abuse of social rank, and complete lack of social and self awareness. To top it off the narrative gives her no consequences for this and even rewards her for her behaviour, rather than making Shallan work through the issues around classism (something I, as a Brit, am hyper aware of and it SHOULD NOT under ANY circumstances be ignored, especially with Kaladin’s narrative running parallel to Shallan.) However, this is later book issues and a major dropped theme that I’m fuming about, but I still found I liked Shallan in THIS book when I reread the series.
Not this time.
There are moments in The Way of Kings where we can already see Shallan’s privilege and complete disregard of anyone who is remotely lower than her in the Vorin hierarchy. The scene with the book merchant stands out. No one in that scene is innocent, and I’m much less annoyed by it than I am at the “Boots” scene, however, it shows an early form of Shallan’s complete inability to reflect on her own behaviour towards those with less power than herself. She’s casually abusive and manipulative, but no one really calls her out on it. The few moments when someone does confront Shallan about it, and the narrative consistently forgives her because Sanderson allows her to come across as the victor in each of the arguments. This isn’t to say Shallan’s causal abuse of the Vorin social system shouldn’t be present in the book. It’s actually very realistic, in our world white people (especially white women) have behaved like Shallan for centuries. However, what does matter is the narrative framing. However, I’ll dig into this when I get to reviewing Words of Radiance because a lot of my planned review for that book is centred around this issue.
I’m also resentful that Shallan’s character in The Way of Kings is a complete lie – we don’t know her at all, but not in the same way as Dalinar? We KNOW something is off with Dalinar, we KNOW he was a terrible person and a warmonger from the way people talk about the Blackthorn – but Shallan’s reveal largely comes out of nowhere in some respects and I HATE that the person I loved so much 5 years ago was a complete lie. I’m a bitter person and I will continue to hold a grudge until Shallan dies or the series ends, whichever comes first.
Jasnah – my problematic QUEEN. Is Jasnah a shitty person? Yes. Do I love her anyway? Yes. Difference is I knew Jasnah was shitty from the start… I like problematic characters, I just hate being lied to (*cue insincere smile at Shallan*)
Jasnah is a difficult character to talk about in this book because we don’t know much about her other than her public persona, however, she’s a large part of why I love it so much. I just like brilliant women who would kill me, okay? It also helps that she's an historian, I have a soft spot for murderous historians. I’ll talk more about Jasnah when I review Oathbriner, hopefully that won’t be in another 5 years…! I just wanted to highlight that I do love a female character in this book!
Actually on the topic, Sanderson is still a shitty author for female friendships – he has included more female characters in Stormlight but why are there no female friendships that aren’t rooted in backstabbing and lies?!
Dalinar – if Jasnah is my problematic Queen then Dalinar has to be the problematic King. Dalinar is my favourite Stormlight Archive character. I could wax lyrical about what a BRILLIANT character he is. You may not like Dalinar, you may not forgive him, but you have to admit he is the best written character in ANYTHING Sanderson has written, and one of the best in modern fantasy. Nevertheless, much like Jasnah I’m going to wait until I review Oathbringer before I talk about Dalinar because I can’t do him justice without his flashbacks. However, I will tell you a story about the time I first met Dalinar Kholin.
So, I first read The Way of Kings on my commute back and forth to Worcester Cathedral because I had a work placement in the Cathedral’s archives. I’d been doing this commute for months and reached the point where I knew when to get off the train by feeling, no need to check the stations (this is relevant).
I was on my commute home, and as I was walking to the train station I started part two. I met Adolin and he was fine. I was a bit confused because this was a whole new perspective and set of characters, but I was doing okay. (Yes I was walking and reading, no I do not recommend this arrangement for health reasons.)
And then I met Dalinar. As I got on the train we got into his own head, with the mystery of the visions just starting, the hints towards his complicated relationship with Elhokar, and the amazing fight with the Chasmfiend. Bearing in mind I was automatically doing my commute through this – I’d become so invested in Dalinar, I missed my transfer on the train. I’ve never done anything like this before in my life. I’m paranoid about it! But I was so engrossed in this aged general, who was potentially going mad, that I missed the stop on my train and didn’t even notice until we hit Birmingham New Street.
I was so in love with Dalinar Kholin that I travelled to the wrong city… And my love for him has only gotten stronger*.
Conclusion
Overall I have a complicated relationship with The Way of Kings, and The Stormlight Archive in general. I love this series, I particularly adore the characters and character work Sanderson is doing as the books continue. However, it is severely overhyped. There are a lot of flaws in this book, especially with the writing and structural aspect of this novel. It’s poorly paced, clumsily written, and lacking finesse. For me Sanderson is an okay writer but a wonderful storyteller. As a storyteller he’s made a huge contribution to the fantasy genre and I’m here for the major improvement he’s made in popularising more complex character work and the inclusion of mental health representation. We’re just seeing the start of this shift in the fantasy genre and I’m excited to see where Stormlight and fantasy are going to go with this movement.
However, as a writer he has a long way to go in improving his craft of writing. These are big books, and I will often forgive mistakes with narrative structure in books of this size because they are so huge. However, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t acknowledge them when reviewing the novel. Mistakes were made, especially in The Way of Kings, and are still being made but Sanderson has been slowly improving with the later books.
There’s a lot to love in The Stormlight Archive - the worldbuilding is insane, the characters are incredible, and the plots are gripping. I love them, and I will continue to eagerly await the next installments! But they’re far from perfect, and that’s okay. Sanderson has captured the imaginations of thousands of fantasy readers and I would highly recommend you give these books a go, despite my critical review. This is a fabulous time to be a fantasy reader and The Stormlight Archive is one of the most exciting reasons to be reading the genre!
*Dalinar and I are going to be on thin ice if Sanderson continues with his character as he did in Rhythm of War, but again I’ll address that when I review Rhythm of War.
#the way of kings#the stormlight archive#brandon sanderson#cosmere#book review#kaladin stormblessed#dalinar kholin#jasnah kholin#szeth son son vallano#not tagging a certain character because last time I had really nasty comments#i promise i really do love this book#i'm just critical of everything I read these days#especially when I've read it five times
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Beads and Braids - Kili x reader
Type: Imagine
Pairing: Kili x reader
Summary: post BOTFA, everyone lives!AU, in which Y/N, a girl from Rohan seeking shelter in Erebor, befriends the Princes, and the mischievous Kili needs better ways of confessing his feelings.
Warnings: ‘fuck’, ‘shit’
Word Count: 2735
All italicised, non-English words are in Khuzdul, one of the main Dwarvish languages.
Y/N was no stranger to being alone, nor was she unused to being unusual. Being on the run from a dangerous league of hunter assassins that were sweeping through her hometown of Rohan, spending months trying to reach Erebor, the Mountain of Gold, then arriving only to be turned away, had taught her not to care too much about loneliness.
Sure, she’d been allowed in eventually, after she’d insisted to the stingy King Thorin Oakenshield that she had ‘absolutely no fucking interest in your goddamn gold’, but the reminder that she wasn’t wanted in Erebor still stung dully day after day, even as she attempted to bury the emotion beneath layers of stone.
Although, she was no longer completely shunned while in Erebor. The first few weeks had been difficult, especially as she was at least eight inches taller than everyone else, even as a relatively short human - Y/N was surrounded by Dwarves, and it was a transformative experience (she enjoyed being tall for a change).
But as time went on, the Dwarves became far more accepting - mostly because when Bard visited with his children, Sigrid and Tilda (who was the reason they were there, to say hello to the ‘lucky Dwarves from the toilet’, namely Dwalin, her favourite) and saw her, he spouted a whole speech on the helpfulness of humans in the Battle of the Five Armies, especially how a number of them had charged Azog’s numbers, saving the line of Durin. That made Thorin begrudgingly become kinder to her.
Y/N spent most of her days outside the cold fortress, reading old books on Dwarven culture and their previous interrelations with other relations on the ramparts or the grasses below the Mountain. It was on one of such days that she ran into someone who would change her life.
Well, Y/N didn’t run into him.
He really ran into her.
Y/N had been sitting on the ramparts, her legs swinging over the side and continually tucking her h/c hair behind her ears as the wind blew it into her face. A large book with a f/c leather cover that had stood out to her in the towering shelves of the Library was sitting in her lap, gold-leaf lettering across the front of it boldly proclaiming ‘A History of the Honourable Line of Durin’. She’d been told by Balin (a frequenter of the Library) that it was updated often with the latest triumphs of the youngest of the Line of Durin: Thorin, Fili and Kili, the Royals Under the Mountain.
Y/N wouldn’t lie, she was mostly reading it to make fun Thorin, but then again, history was interesting.
She looked up from a particularly hilarious passage about Thorin’s ‘incredible bravery and innumerable acts of service to the Throne of Erebor’ at the harsh cry of a raven. It circled around her, cawing enthusiastically with something less akin to malevolence and more to happiness in its black eyes, before flying off.
Y/N had been smiling but she frowned when she realised that the raven was not flying towards Erebor, as most did, but away from it.
Then it had to be flying away from something … Y/N connected the dots just as the door to the battlements whipped open and something slammed into her back just as she was turning around, knocking her off the ramparts.
She screamed loudly, looking at the ground beneath her and envisioning the fifty different ways she would splatter all over it.
A hand encased in a brown glove but for the fingers suddenly swung into her view, catching ahold of hers in a startlingly tight grip.
Y/N looked up, seeing a Dwarvish face that was at once familiar and entirely seperate from her small existence in Erebor, and she couldn’t put a name to him.
His brown hair reached just past his shoulders, and was not braided. Paired with his beardless, kinda attractive face (stubble did not count in Y/N’s eyes), Y/N reached the conclusion that he was still young, definitely under 100.
He was holding onto her with one of his hands and his other was held by a blonde Dwarf with much more facial hair than the former and a messy blonde mane like a lion who stood behind the battlements where she had been sitting prior to being knocked off by (presumably) one of the two.
Y/N was very impressed that the Dwarf was holding her up with one hand, as she was at least more than half a foot taller than him, but she had no energy to be focused on that emotion beyond the hot fear coursing through her veins.
“Oi! Pull!” the brown-haired Dwarf yelled, and the blonde did so, clenching his teeth and heaving, until all three of them were safe on the ramparts.
“I am so sorry for my brother’s clumsiness, Miss Y/N!” the bearded, seemingly older Dwarf apologised.
“Itkit! (Shut up!)” the younger brother hissed, giving the blonde a scathing glare. “But I do apologise, Lady Y/N.” He emphasised the title he gave her, though it was definitely not one she actually possessed.
“I’m sorry,” Y/N replied to the two enthusiastic Dwarves with confusion etched all over her face. Here they were, having knocked her off the side of a fucking Castle, calling her ‘Lady’ and apparently knowing her name when she could not match a name to either of their faces. “How do you know my name? Do I know you?”
“Oh, that’s right,” the brunette said thoughtfully, turning to his brother. “Uncle Thorin said she was new.”
“He also said she was a-”
“Oh Mahal, shut up! How many languages do I have to say that in?”
Uncle Thorin? Oh shit ....
“Anyway. Prince Fili-”
“-and Prince Kili-”
“At your service!” they both chimed, bowing low in unison and springing back up with wide grins that made them seem a lot younger than they probably were.
“Fuck...” Y/N muttered under her breath, curtseying as low as she could. “My Princes, I apologise-”
Her embarrassed apology was cut short with a squeak flying from her mouth as she was yet again jerked up by Kili, who brushed off her f/c dress that was dirty from falling off the ramparts.
“Lady Y/N, you needn’t apologise; it is technically my fault for knocking you off the walls of Erebor!”
“Then you needn’t call me Lady Y/N,” the girl retorted, almost instantly regretting the familiarity with a royal figure, but also proud when Kili gave a loud laugh and wide smile. “I’m just Y/N.”
“Alright then, Just Y/N,” Kili teased, wiggling his eyebrows and taking her hand, kissing it gently. “On behalf of the Prince of Erebor-”
“-Princes, you little shit,” Fili interrupted, casually spinning a knife on his fingers.
“... Princes of Erebor,” Kili rolled his eyes. “Welcome, new friend.”
---
“You two are unbelievable,” Y/N complained, though a wide smile was affixed on her face.
“We know,” Fili and Kili replied, both still covered in flour from when they’d begun to throw it like snowballs in the middle of baking with her.
“Well, at least we salvaged-” Y/N cut herself off as she took the cake out of the oven. “Mahal. What is that?”
The cake was less a cake, and more a complete mess. Half of it looked gooey and porous, and the other half burnt. Y/N just turned to the brothers, raising an eyebrow.
They eyed each other too, shuffling their feet.
Y/N sighed. “This is why we don’t have food fights in the kitchen, guys.”
Fili and Kili had the decency to look a little sheepish as Y/N turned to dump the mess in the bin. As she did so, she glanced out the window and flinched.
“Shit! I’m meant to meet Bard soon - it’s a meeting of great importance. And I’m not ready, there is flour everywhere, my hair is a mess-”
“Well, we can handle at least one of those things,” Kili told Y/N, lightly pushing her into a chair, his hands clean of flour now. “I know a really good hairstyle for special occasions - our mother used to wear it.”
He began to run his fingers through her hair, gently untangling the knots with a brush Fili gave him (honestly, how much did that Dwarf have in his coat?) and braiding it. Y/N closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of his hands in her hair and its soothingness. Suddenly, she opened her eyes, flushing red.
Was she falling for the Prince of Erebor?
No, surely not. After all, he was a dwarf, and she a human: a human the King of Erebor didn’t exactly have a partiality towards. It would never work out.
That doesn’t mean feelings just stop, dumbass. Y/N’s brain reasoned. She rolled her eyes at herself.
“Alright, it’s done! And Fili and I will clean up the kitchen,” Kili announced, pulling her up and lightly dusting off her f/c dress, careful to avoid any areas it was improper to touch, a small hint of pink on his cheeks as he did so. Y/N pulled some of her hair around her shoulders - Kili had done several braids amongst her loose hair, most of them tied with black bands but one with a beautiful bead in it that she didn’t get a proper look at.
(A/N - imagine this hairstyle, but only one bead, and that bead has lots of jewels all in different colours)
“We’ll clean up what?” Fili protested. Kili smirked, pushing her out the door.
“We’ll see you later, Y/N!”
---
Y/N ran as fast as she could, considering her annoyingly impractical skirt, and she finally skidded to a stop in the snow outside the great doors, taking in who was there.
Bard bowed his head in greeting, his eldest daughter, Sigrid by his side. (Y/N had thought she had heard faint giggles from inside, meaning Tilda was hanging out with Dwalin again), Thorin stood impatiently, leaning on his sword, and next to him, keeping a petty distance was …
“My lord Thranduil,” Y/N bowed, having also read all about the infamously glamorous Elvenking of Mirkwood. “I apologise for my tardiness.”
“You are on time, Y/N,” Bard said, giving Thorin a side-eye. The damages of the Battle of the Five Armies went far beyond death.
Thorin chose to sit on a ledge that a) placed him higher than all of those present and b) allowed him to rest. Recovering from being impaled by the Pale Orc was a lengthy process, and one still far from finishing.
“What is the importance of this meeting?” Y/N asked, eager to go back to her chambers and think on the startling discoveries she’d made on what her heart told her about Kili Durin.
“The purpose, Y/N, is for this …”
---
After the meeting, Y/N went to leave, but Thorin called her name, stopping her.
“Yes, my King?”
He reached for one of the braids Kili had put in her hair, smiling kinder than she had ever seen him do so.
“Kili’s bead. So you have not tamed the Lion, but you have chosen the Fox. Loyal, yet cheeky and sweet.”
Y/N opened her mouth, confused, but Thorin kept speaking.
“I congratulate you on your courtship, Y/N. I wish you much love and happiness.”
“My King, I’m sorry, but I am not courting-”
He swept off in a majestic swirl of furs, leaving Y/N with a finger raised and her eyebrows wrinkled in confusion.
“Courting?” she wondered aloud. “What in Middle-Earth ...”
Suddenly, she recalled Thorin’s observation of ‘Kili’s bead’, and she pulled her hair in front of her face, scanning it for the singular, beautiful silver bead, with its nine differently-coloured gemstones, and some vague thought buried in the back of her brain called to her.
“That Dwarf ...” Y/N cursed colourfully, tossing her hair over her shoulder, picking up her skirts and running as fast as she could to the most familiar area of Erebor.
The Library. Shelves upon shelves, thousands stretching out further than Y/N could see from the entrance. She raced for the section on Dwarvish customs, pulling a dusty red tome titled ‘Dwarves and Their Secrets - The Rites and Customs of Their Culture’ and flipping through it, coughing as swirls of dust swam into the air.
Finding the page she was after, she slammed the open book onto a nearby table, running her finger down the page as her h/c hair fell in her face.
“That little fuck,” Y/N hissed, closing the book with a slam and sliding down one of the shelves until she sat on the floor, her arms curled around her knees, her face hidden from the world and vice verse by her h/l hair.
“So you found out,” a meek voice said, prompting Y/N to lift her head as Kili sat next to her.
“You bet your non-existent beard I did,” Y/N grumbled.
“I’m sorry,” Kili mumbled, burying his face in his hands, which were large, the same size as yours. “I didn’t know how to tell you that I liked you. I chose the coward’s way out.”
“I can understand that,” Y/N admitted. “Although telling everyone that why were courting via my hairstyle was not the smartest way of going about it.”
“Well, technically, your hairstyle doesn’t say you are dating. (A/N: this part here is completely made up) These braids in this style, paired with the loose hair actually means unrequited love. And seeing as I did your hair, and I have a matching braid-” he briefly pushed his hair behind his ear, pulling on a small braid, that was, indeed matching, even with a simpler version of the bead, with only two gems. “-it basically tells everyone that I have a crush on you. Uncle Thorin just misunderstood because he only looked at the bead, which he knows I own.”
“What do the gems mean?” Y/N asked, knowing she was avoiding the topic of Kili’s love for her and her possible love for him, but too afraid to cross that bridge.
Kili smiled nervously, already flushing from what he anticipated Y/N’s reaction to be, and he pulled the bead from her hair, pointing to each gem as he explained their meaning.
“The white one with the blue sheen - moonstone. It means patience, like how I am willing to wait for you. This pink one is morganite. It symbolises divine love and prosperity. These two are the ones that I have in my matching bead.” And Y/N saw that this was indeed true.
“The red ruby, which symbolises passion.” Kili’s cheeks looked as red as the jewel as he hurriedly moved on. “An emerald, green, which is fertility. Not only in children, but fertility in the soil that grows the flowers of success. Old wive’s tale. The purple one’s an opal - which is for emotional purity. It’s meant to guard against jealousy and anger. The garnet and the citrine - orange and the yellow - both stand for protection, though the citrine also provides prosperity and success.”
Y/N was completely entranced by his knowledge of the gems, even as he came to the last few.
“This pastel blue one is for fidelity, although I don’t think you need that, you have loads of it.” Y/N and Kili laughed together, and Kili fixed the bead back in her hair.
“Wait! You didn’t explain the last one!” Y/N protested, eager to hear more.
Kili stopped, smiling. “Oh. That’s a sapphire, which means trust, like how I’m trusting you with my heart. But I put it in there because it’s the exact colour of your eyes.”
Y/N was so touched by this last one, that he trusted her with his heart, even after she heard that it had been broken by the death of the Mirkwood elleth, Tauriel, that she threw her arms around him, squeezing him tight. On the floor, they were a similar height, and he hugged her back lightly.
“You know, Kili of the Line of Durin,” Y/N said teasingly as her arms lingered around his neck, though she pulled back so she could look him in the eye. “I think I need to thank you for the bead and the braids, because you made me realise something.”
“What?” Kili breathed.
“I realised I’m kinda in love with you.”
And hidden in the endless shelves of the library, Y/N kissed him, right there and then.
Hi there guys! I’ll be putting up a dialogue prompts request list soon for you to request UP TO THREE numbers.
Thanks for reading! Please feel free to heart this imagine, give me a follow and/or request (it makes my day so much!).
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Humility
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader
Warnings: yandere, obsession, swearing, mentions of misogyny; this story will get darker as it progresses.
Words: 1380.
Summary: Everything was too different now. He fell out of time, and he didn’t need another reminder about that.
P.S. Yeah, I know Sam in this one is more like Anthony Mackie, but this man is just incredible! And yep, the question Bucky asks the reader is the exact question Sebastian Stan was asked during one of his interviews. _____________________________________
Bucky never felt so stupid in his entire life. Sitting at the counter in probably the fanciest club in New York, he stared down at his glass filled with whiskey. The music was so loud he couldn’t hear his own thoughts, and all those ridiculously dressed people around him didn’t make him feel any better. Bucky had no right to object, though, since he felt he was even more ridiculous than any of them. He wore that expensive black suit Sam got him – they spent the whole fucking day trying to find something that would fit his massive body – as if he were a businessman of some kind. He let out a dark chuckle when Sam said it out loud. Bucky didn’t look like a businessman, he looked like a bloody mob.
It was Sam’s idea to get him acquainted with NY nightlife when he learnt Bucky was going to the same small bar close to his house after every mission. Barnes didn’t protest much thinking it might be a nice change, but it was not even close to be as good as he had imagined. It was nothing like before. The music was wild, too rhythmic, thundering, getting on his nerves. How could they dance to this? Although the way people moved was making him sick too. Yelling, spinning around themselves, shaking their asses – it was utterly disgusting. The only good thing was lack of light since Bucky couldn’t see all the sodomy.
He expected everything to change, but it was like a completely different planet. Where were all those nice slow dances? Where was the intimacy between the dancing couples, gentle touches, and humble smiles? These people behind his back were grinding on each other like fucking dogs.
Bucky emptied his glass in one shot and looked at his expensive watch he got from Natasha and wore for the first time. This place was getting on his nerves, and he intended to leave in the very next minute after paying for his drink.
“Enjoying yourself, man?” Sam’s jolly voice forced Bucky to turn around and see him with a group of pretty women, all wearing flashy revealing outfits and shiny jewellery, their hair and makeup done as if they were some fashion models.
Though in his time models looked way more reserved than that.
“I do.” He said in a firm voice, and Sam immediately read through the lines. “Didn’t know you were a ladies’ man.”
Women he brought started laughing at his remark, their skin glistening in the warm light coming from pendant lamps above the counter. One of them had her hand on Sam’s arm just above his elbow. Were they prostitutes? Bucky watched them intently.
“It’s all my natural charm,” the man winked to the girl close to him, and she sent him a smug grin.
God, females became too full of themselves. Bucky didn’t hate bold women, but there was a huge difference between a girl like Peggy Carter and these narcissistic sex-obsessed furies.
“Don’t be fooled by his façade, this gentleman over here is a great guy and my best buddy!” Grinning, Sam patted him on the shoulder. “His name’s Bucky, we’ve been serving together for quite some time.”
These women started saying hello and introducing themselves, but he didn’t care for any names. His memory was too precious to waste it on this.
Then they were talking about some stupid things like why they were here – one of the girls got a promotion, and Bucky was almost sure it had nothing to do with her being a hard worker – and what they did for a living. Sam briefly mentioned both of them were in Air Force before but didn’t push it. Then all of them had more drinks, and then they talked again, and drank again. Bucky thought he was rather unlucky: if he could get drunk, he wouldn’t need to listen to all this bullshit.
“Hey, let’s go dance!” The woman Sam took liking to pulled him by the arm gently, and he smiled at her. “Are you coming, girls?”
“Sure!” Most of them were ready, leaving their empty glasses on the counter. “Are you, Bucky?”
He shook his head apologetically, thinking of nothing but leaving this place and never coming back again. Everything was too different now. He fell out of time, and he didn’t need another reminder about that.
Most of women had already left when he ordered his last glass of whiskey. There was one of them sitting close to him and smiling to her friends dancing. Apparently, she drank too much to move from her spot. When she realized he was looking at her, she suddenly got all red and turned away from the crowd, staring in her half-empty glass of champagne.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you.” She said slightly embarrassed. “I just don’t dance much.”
“You’re not bothering me.” Bucky replied shortly and made a sip of whiskey, burning his throat again. Her closeness almost annoyed him. “Why don’t you dance?”
“I don’t know. It’s just… I don’t feel very comfortable.”
Interesting. He glanced at the girl in a long sequined dress, her knees covered by a strange shining fabric. Her cleavage wasn’t on display either. Although her outfit was too extravagant to his tastes, she looked the most modest among her friends. She was probably the humblest one, too, since he couldn’t remember her speaking much.
“Besides, I can only waltz. I don’t think I can fit in here with my dancing skills.” She laughed a little and took her glass, watching the little bubbles going upwards inside.
Waltz. He remembered dancing a waltz with his mother when he was a kid, stamping on her feet constantly. Regardless how clumsy he was, she kept teaching him until his legs were sore, but he was grateful for her lessons later. Girls loved dancing with him.
“Me neither.” He smirked, and she stared at him with wide eyes. “In fact, I’m not a big fan of places like this.”
The girl smiled again, and he find himself smiling back at her. Maybe coming with Sam wasn’t as bad as he thought. Beautiful women like her never payed him any attention in normal circumstances.
In the next few minutes, he found himself talking to her about some small things like favourite music and movies the two of them watched not so long ago. To his pleasant surprise, she liked old Hollywood movies – the ones that came out after he had been captured, but still old – and their charm. She said those movies had a soul, and Bucky couldn’t agree more. Sam took him to the cinema multiple times, but most modern blockbusters, thrillers and fantasy movies felt empty and too unreal to relate.
“My most favourite one is “12 Angry Men”, I think. Have you seen it?”
“Guess I did. It’s about 12 juries deciding upon whether a kid is a murderer or not, am I right?”
“Yeah, exactly!” Her face was glowing, and he found himself staring at her excited expression. “Don’t you think it’s impressive that almost all the action took place in one small room? It was nothing but pure actors’ skills that made this movie so good. It had neither special effects nor big budget comparing to movies today, and yet nothing could compare to it.”
For a few seconds he was just watching her, her cheeks pink from slight embarrassment and the alcohol she had. He strangely adored the way she spoke and how she looked at him while explaining why she was so passionate about the movie. Maybe she had too much makeup on her face, but he could easily wipe it off her face. He could take her fancy dress off and see her perfectly human body, no different than any other women’ of his time. She would moan beneath him like a few of them did, too. And the next morning he could give her another dress and dance a waltz with her like all those years ago.
“What is the first thing you see in a person?” He asked abruptly, and she blinked, seemingly uncomfortable but still ready to give him an answer right away.
“Humility. And… and kindness.”
He chuckled. She was definitely the one.
#bucky barnes x reader#dark bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes#dark bucky barnes#bucky x reader#winter soldier
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Thank you all so much for sending me your James headcanons, it was so fun to read them! Of course, if anybody has any more, I’d be happy to add them to this post as they come, but for right now, here’s the compiled list of what everybody sent me:
1- mother hen
2- James being the best friend to Remus and them having an incredible friendship
3- bisexual
4- #1 husband and dad
5- himbo
6- poc
7- he loves his parents too much
8- adhd
9- *throws water bottles at friends* I love and appreciate you!
10- the asshole that pulls the blankets off you
11- morning person
12- he’s messy af
13- always one inch taller than Sirius
14- interested in muggle culture
15- that he was a crackhead 87% of the time
16- he and Sirius were actually related (their stupid incesty ancestors)
17- he breaks his glasses all the time (kinda like Harry)
18- In the afterlife, he’s kinda mad at the dumb shit Harry names his kids
19- he could never sit still
20- when he first shifts into Prongs, he’s off balance cuz he’s not used to having antlers
21- he’s just really clumsy (which is often why they get caught for their pranks)
22- he would always try to touch Sirius’s hair (never ended well)
23- he was always kinda jealous of Remus and Lily’s friendship
24- really smart
25- was so uneducated in muggle culture and had to desperately try to keep up with all the references Lily makes to muggle music and movies
26- was so into everything his friends did and tried to indulge in their interests
27- walked around shirtless in the dorm 80% of the time
28- was always the first to fall asleep at a sleepover
29- bought his friends little gifts all the time
30- cuddled with all of his friends
31- a big hugger, also puts his arm around people when he’s walking next to them
32- his favorite season is winter because he loves Christmas
33- pretends not to be afraid but actually hates horror movies
34- he’s actually really good at yoga for some reason
35- an amazing human being who deserves all the love <3 <3
And for your viewing pleasure, a few of my own that haven’t already been mentioned:
1- he’s got anxiety
2- he can play the guitar
3- he’s a very tactile person, he just understands things best by being able to touch them and experience them for himself
4- for this reason, he also finds touch very comforting. Like, when he’s upset, he just wants to curl up on the couch in the common room with Sirius, not talking, just being together
5- he’s definitely quidditch captain
6- he and the other marauders call McGonagall “McGee” (no, I will not be taking complaints at this time)
7- once he and Lily are dating, he totally uses his invisibility cloak to sneak up on her and kiss her
8- he totally neglected some of his responsibilities as head boy, let’s be real. “Should I get Sirius in trouble? Yes. Will I? No.”
9- Loves fizzing whizbees. And I mean LOVES them
10- When Star Wars comes out, Lily takes all of the marauders to see it, and James is OBSESSED with the force. Like, he’d use wingardium leviosa on everything in sight and he’d hold out his hand and pretend it was the force. (also, he and Sirius totally had lightsaber fights with sticks)
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Vegeta’s Character Analysis Looooooooooong Read
Oh my, what can I say? I just really love to write long essays in a language that isn’t even native to me, lol.
Well, nobody’s perfect, I guess. ... Were you expecting a Cell joke here? I may not be perfect, but that doesn't mean I have to be that predictable.
Ahem, anyway.
This isn't exactly a psychological analysis of the character - more like, hmm, a storytelling analysis. Or something in between, really.
You may not find anything fundamentally new in this text, but I definitely had fun writing it, haha.
It's mostly amateur. I have a useless psychology degree, but not a literature one.
My classic rant about vegebul fics is included, of course.
Summary: proper psychological analysis requires a single continuous personality, which Vegeta simply doesn’t have.
The more I think about Vegeta, the more I come to the conclusion that he is only pretending to be a consistently evolving character.
In fact, he's a bit like 10 different characters in one, which abruptly replace each other (and that's without considering the difference caused by the voice actors’ approach and the changes in his looks). Essentially, Vegeta's a collection of disparate images, arbitrarily lined up by Toriyama and hastily glued together. And the beginning of this line is so far from the end of it that these two extreme images cannot be perceived as belonging to the same person. Well, because human psychology just doesn't work that way.
(Not that Vegeta is unique in this respect – it’s a common feature of characters in long stories that authors compose as they write. Still, his case is quite extreme and interesting as example.)
I mean, take Vegeta in the Saiyan or the Namek arc. He's a complete psychopath. He clearly doesn’t suffer at heart from the unnecessary violence (as, for example, Guts from Berserk). His behavior looks like something natural for him, not an unhealthy defensive reaction. He enjoys it, he smiles happily, killing and torturing weak innocent people. And such a degree of psychopathy is not something that can be healed by a couple of deep personality crises or years of peaceful family life. Vegeta's redemption arc works through strong emotional impact and forgetfulness of the audience, but makes very little sense when viewed in retrospect.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Perhaps the biggest, hmm, splitting of the personality occurred with Vegeta right after the Namek arc. Toriyama had already made a small retcon of the character’s motives before (to include Vegeta in the context of the Freeza army after the Saiyan arc), but it didn't feel that drastic.
You see, until Vegeta was invited to Bulma’s house…..
(Gosh, Toriyama, you could’ve done it more subtly, really. Vegeta killed Yamcha, threatened to kill Bulma, gutted Zarbon in front of her eyes, slaughtered an entire Namekian village... Oh well.)
…Ahem, anyway, right up to Bulma's invitation, Vegeta looked to me like a character who, hmm, has a life of his own? I mean, you have always felt that his motives and behavior were generated by the bizarre social system, not related to the little world of Goku and his friends. Simply put, Vegeta was a natural product of the big space civilization, an organic part of it. His whole personality was formed by it, all his plans, motivation and ambitions were associated with it. And although in the Saiyan arc, he gave the impression of an independent entrepreneurial chief at the head of a small hierarchy, in the Namek arc it was revealed that Vegeta is actually far from independent. He lost his throne and his people, he was in slavery to the tyrant all his life, and wants to take power for himself. So, his social background and the motives caused by it post factum get much more complex. But in short, Vegeta wanted a highest possible position in the hierarchy he knew. In this way, he was… social? His belonging to the Saiyan race was only a small (although important) part of the overall picture. Because the Saiyans were dead, but the Freeza Empire was alive.
But when Toriyama realized Vegeta's popularity and decided to keep him in the story after Namek, it came as a blow to the character's personality. Apparently, the author simply couldn't come up with an elegant way that could keep the character in all its complexity around, and therefore did a very clumsy thing. He roughly cut Vegeta out of his social context and almost forcibly glued him to the main character group like a poorly done appliqué. But although you see rough edges and glue drips, the story moves on rapidly, distracting you with Freeza and Future Trunks, and you don't stop to think about what happened. This is how, almost imperceptibly, Toriyama changed Vegeta's motives (and, consequently, the basis of his personality). Yes, Vegeta's saiyan pride was also significant part of his character previously, but when it became his sole and central motivation after Namek, you feel like a very big and important piece of him has been arbitrarily cut off. This wouldn't have happened if Toriyama had followed the logic of previously established social motives, rather than his desire to make Vegeta a convenient figure. Now, bound hand and foot by the author, the character is forced to behave as the plot requires.
Still, all this can be justified by the fact that Vegeta experienced a deep emotional shock as a result of death, which forced him to rethink his life priorities and wait for Goku (especially in the manga, where he just lived with Bulma for a whole year after Namek, without even trying to use dragonballs) ... And then he waited for the androids (despite the final death of Freeza and his father, which was an excellent chance to try to take over the decapitated empire). Anyway, this rationalization doesn't negate the fact that the character, as a result, has lost a significant part of the fire that he demonstrated in the Namek arc. His new energy, the energy of obsession with surpassing Goku, turns him into a new character – bitter, marginalized and focused on training.
(Ironically, the very splitting that made him a less attractive character in my eyes allowed vegebul to take place. After all, imagining the romantic relationship of the nice Bulma and Vegeta at the height of his villainous ambition is really difficult. That just would be a psychologically implausible story.)
In the Android and Cell arcs, after brief glimpses of the SSJ superiority, Toriyama turned Vegeta into a plot tool, whose personality flaws he could use to spoil the situation favorable for the heroes. As a result, Vegeta continued to be an angry and unhappy character who has lost most of his charisma, but on top of that, he also started to be really annoying. ... Still, also kinda amusing thanks to his truly impressive inability to draw obvious conclusions from the ego bruises he gets.
(If you ask me, the character's biggest contribution to the Cell arc was to ignore the existence of condoms, lol. Although strictly speaking even it was an achievement of Future Vegeta (RIP). But seriously, Vegeta's relationship with Trunks turned out to be one of the few things that I was really interested in about this part of the story.)
And then there was Goku’s death and the 7-year-gap. ... At the end of which Vegeta still didn't look like a happy man who has found his place in the world. Even though he had seven whole years (and a spaceship) to change something. I mean, this is the case when it'd be logical to expect changes in the character, but for some reason they didn't really happen (or they did, but veeery quietly and unstable). I mean, Vegeta trains with Trunks, yes. And he's married to Bulma now, apparently (which we learn only at the end of the arc though). And he hasn’t killed himself yet, which means that he sees some meaning in his existence. Hurray, I guess?.. The problem is that when we first see Vegeta after the timeskip, he keeps walking around with such a sullen expression, as if Goku had died just yesterday. (Remember Vegeta in the Saiyan arc? He smiled quite often. For the wrong reasons, but hey.) Basically, Toriyama tried to sit on two chairs at the same time here - 1) keep Vegeta as recognizable as possible (because he hasn't decided what to do with him yet) and 2) keep him around (which doesn't make sense for the character if he hasn't undergone significant changes during the timeskip). And the result of this hesitant approach is an undesirable effect - it feels as if Vegeta hasn't built a new life for himself all these years, but only waited for Goku to return.
As if the man is unable to evolve without Goku's influence. Until Kakarot does or says something, or is just around, everyone else in Vegeta's life and his own reflection has little or no meaning. Old social ambitions? His wife and child? New insights gained from life on Earth? Pffft. Goku is able to destroy the seven years’ worth progress (no matter how small it may seem) in one day, and at the same time, one fight with him is enough for Vegeta's character development to jump forward explosively. It sounds like a solid ground for shipping, but In fact it’s just a direct consequence of the author's poorly chosen narrative structure.
The thing is, Toriyama tend to avoid romance and slices of life, and shows Vegeta's personality mainly through fights and their consequences. And at the time Goku just turned out to be the only significant character for Vegeta, the fight against whom could be used as an excuse to develop the character in front of the audience. Well, Toriyama couldn't get Vegeta to fight Bulma or himself, you know.
I believe that the plot structure chosen by the author (rapidly changing action events immediately after a long timeskip) is not a very good basis for a redemption arc. For a good redemption, a character had to have screen time during which small changes accumulate gradually, between the big points. And Vegeta simply didn't have it. Besides, the scheme by which Vegeta develops is really messy. Because at first, Toriyama kinda froze his development at the neutral point (thereby partially devaluing the influence of Vegeta's family on him). Then in one moment, the author abruptly reversed even this the-end-of-the-Cell-arc development with Majin Vegeta (this time completely devaluing the family factor, because the betrayal was Vegeta’s conscious decision). God, how I hated the Majin Vegeta idea. And in the next scene, the author made a quick retcon, which gave the family’s influence the status of a ground for Vegeta’s personal growth again for no apparent reason. It's as if a huge bundle of family values was post factum squeezed into the character in defiance of everything that we just saw with our own eyes. This is a complete narrative mess.
But... oddly enough, Vegeta's redemption still manages to work, and work spectacularly. My guess is that it's because by that time the audience is already SO sick of Vegeta, frozen in his bitter anti-heroism, that it desperately wants the author to finally do something new with the miserable guy. Well, at least get him out of his misery. So people are willing to accept it in any possible form.
... And the author chose the form of a powerful emotional catharsis. The explosion was legendary, haha.
I don't even know if this is a good reason to call Toriyama a genius (after all, he found a very clever way out of a difficult situation, in which he found himself thanks to his own bad decisions.)
The only thing I'm sure of is that despite everything I was very sad because of Vegeta's death. I didn't even realize that I had become emotionally attached to this asshole until he made such a spectacular exit, lol. As if something had broken inside of me, and all the analyticity of my mind couldn’t prevent it. I was surprised when I found myself crying really hard - usually my emotions don't reach this level due to fictional stories. (Well, maybe it was due to the fact that my own father was dying of cancer at that time, and the moment just triggered my emotions. ... Oops, it seems a little too personal, doesn't it? Well, at the end of the day, this fact is an integral part of my unique dbz experience. Come to think of it, in dbz, fathers die regularly).
But while this scene greatly affects emotions and forces a new viewer (or reader) to truly reconsider their attitude towards the character for the first time, the absence of a neat gradual movement towards this moment weakens its influence somewhat.
At this point, Vegeta’s character splits once again (perhaps the last time within DBZ). You simply cease to understand who this man really is and who he was before.
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Now, when I look at all the images of Vegeta in general, I come to the conclusion that I like this character the most in the first two arcs and in the end of the last arc. Two directly opposite moral poles.
(Funny enough, because my initial reaction to Vegeta and Nappa was annoyance: "Well hello, the next stereotypical villains who like to chat and laugh maliciously instead of simply killing their victims." (Still, against the background of Freeza, Vegeta turned out to be a much lesser evil in every sense, haha). You see, usually I'm not a person who likes villains. Basically, I only distinguish such characters from others as a result of romance or redemption. It’s only after that I begin to see aesthetics in their villainous charisma as well.)
And now, in retrospective, I believe that at the beginning of the story Vegeta is at the maximum of his vitality and charisma. Especially compared to his ever-crisis moody version (who supposedly lives happily with a loving family). In the Saiyan arc, he's objectively the most powerful character (Freeza didn’t even exist in Toriyama's head at the time). Vegeta is domineering, playful and unpredictable, but most importantly - his self-confidence is fully justified. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. He's really in control. These are, if I may say so, quite exciting qualities in a man, haha. Even if he looks like an evil dwarf in stupid armor and bullies some weaklings. I'd even say his demeanor in the Saiyan arc (especially with the voice of early Horikawa) is suspiciously easy to translate into a sexual context (well, until he loses control and gets hysterical, lol).
The Namek arc, placing Vegeta in a broader context, somewhat spoiled his original image (after all the big words, it turned out that he was running errands for Freeza all this time), but gave him a more interesting background and a strong drive. He had ambitions and a socially significant goal, and he actively and passionately fought for them against a clearly superior enemy. In addition, his inability to defeat Freeza by brute force forced him to use his brains from time to time, and not just pull another power up out of his ass, as is now traditionally done in DragonBall. (Needless to say, I consider high intelligence to be one of the most attractive traits). All this made his position in the plot as interesting as possible. He literally sparkled with energy.
Well, we know what happened next. Brain Death, an eternal chase after Goku, and an off-screen family life on a backwater planet that Vegeta is supposedly happy with. Until he suddenly became a really beautiful character without a proper justification for this (well, at least the explosion was spectacular). Really, I like the general concept of redemption, and yet... the way Toriyama portrays it in the story just doesn't work convincingly enough for me.
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Another point I’d like to cover in this already too long essay ahhh I'm a monster is Vegeta’s personality in fanfiction.
Reproducing (?) Vegeta is a bit like playing with a lego set - his personality and behavior is always the result of a conscious reconstruction, which is based around a specific point on the long contradictory line. Depending on which end of the spectrum the chosen point is, the author is forced to shade facts related to the opposite end, or to give new context to Vegeta's past (or future) actions. It's always noticeable when the author extends the later, sympathetic Vegeta's image to an earlier segment of the story. Apparently, it's possible to kill the person who raised you (with an evil smile on your face) just because the situation was too stressful lol. Likewise, when the authors allow Vegeta to remain a charismatic psychopath, the story wouldn't work without ignoring some parts of the later canon.
(And, of course, there is always a "medium" type of Vegeta - Vegeta from the 3-year-gap, whose personality is almost entirely based on anime fillers. Yay, here comes the promised vegebul rant
Honestly, I'm pretty tired of this "gravity room exploded again woman grrr" type of Vegeta.
Because if you take the manga, we have no idea how Vegeta actually behaved with Bulma and her parents, what his training regimen was, and what he did in his free time besides unprotected sex. People elevate his rudeness and irrational self-torturing to the absolute because of all these filler patterns, but this is just one of the possible versions of the events and the character's behavior during this time (albeit partly canonical). But... there are also alternatives. There are smart Vegeta, curious Vegeta, civilized Vegeta. Honestly - I don't think Bulma would've married him later if there was nothing in his personality that’d make communication with him enjoyable. I mean, she's a rich modern woman, she doesn't need a husband just for convenience and Vegeta is a marginal freeloader anyway. And if we subtract good looks (which people often attribute to Vegeta) from the equation, then the idea that he has no interest in anything other than training and cannot maintain an interesting conversation becomes completely unconvincing. Toriyama clearly didn't attach much importance to the fact of their marriage, and generally avoided romantic scenes as if they were on fire (and, perhaps, did the right thing), but these two just had to be capable of adequate and mutually pleasant personal interaction in order to take this step.
In general, Toriyama's lack of attention to most aspects of the characters' lives other than fighting and training, on the one hand, can be considered a drawback of DBZ, but on the other, it creates a lot of room for fans' imagination. But not everyone uses it. Most authors generally repeat the same tropes over and over again and don't try to look at the three-year-gap from a new angle, although the canon provides all the possibilities for this. Because of this, fics in this genre often seem boring. But in fact, it's not the setting itself that is boring, but only dusty formulas in the heads of the authors.)
Ahem, so where were we?.. Oh yes.
Actually, Vegeta's inconsistency is a very handy character trait for the authors, as it minimizes the chance of accidental OOC. Indeed, it's quite difficult to make someone to behave out of character if he has many different canon versions of himself, lol. On the other hand, this leads to the fact that the character seems to... kinda disintegrate. You never see his whole face, because he simply doesn't have it. As a result, Vegeta turns into a mosaic that must be reassembled each time. And I keep staring at this crazy kaleidoscope like an idiot.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, that's... quite a lot of contradictions in my relationship to Vegeta, haha. Still, life without contradictions would be somewhat boring, I guess.
Thanks for your attention I suppose?..... lol, as if someone really got to this point
The End.
P.S. 1: The antisocial version of Vegeta who doesn't understand stupid human rituals and hates crowds, but puts up with it for the sake of his family is my spirit animal, haha. This is just so damn relatable to my autistic personality. Maybe I'm an alien myself.
P.S. 2: Actually, my favorite dbz character is Piccolo. Yep.
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Whatever you do don’t open your eyes” for the prompt!
So, I’m not entirely sure what one says before posting fanfiction on Tumblr, but here we go! This is decidedly not horror at all, but uh. Maybe more fitting for something posted on the eve of Act 3, which will inevitably destroy us all.
I’ve never posted fanfiction before, and this is the single longest creative work I’ve ever written, fanfiction or not. Not to mention I haven’t written anything creative, really, in almost a decade. All this said, I hope you enjoy!
The Ins and Outs of Surprises
Content warnings for panic attacks, dissociation, and tooth-rotting fluff.
Summary: In which Jon has a little bit of a rough time with knocking and then goes on to have an unquestionably fluffy evening. Featuring: kitties, the author projecting mightily onto Jonathan “Jon” Sims | The Archivist (as is tradition), good-natured teasing of everyone involved, and loads (and I mean loads) of affection.
(An AO3 link will be added to a reblog.)
Jon whipped his head up from his laptop screen at the loud knocking on their front door. This was a situation in which The Beholding would have unhelpfully supplied information about acute tachycardia and panic attack onset signs—if he and Martin hadn’t averted the apocalypse and banished the fears, at any rate. They could scarcely believe their luck some days, could scarcely believe that they’d both managed to live to see an after, to see time march on once more unperturbed by cosmic terrors.
These days, Jon had to recognize the symptoms of an imminent panic attack and allay them himself. Well, Martin helped, kind and loving soul that he was. That Martin had stuck around after they’d ceased being two of a handful of fully conscious people left in the entire world was another thing Jon couldn’t believe sometimes, but he couldn’t be happier that he did.
The knocking continued to barge in on his thoughts every several seconds as he sat stock still at his desk, flanked on both sides by bookshelves filled to the brim of his and Martin’s books and various knick-knacks: Polaroids of the two of them with their friends leaned up against the spines of their books, souvenirs purchased from museums around London, and a collection of small ceramic cats of different breeds and colors. A brief vision of everything on those shelves coming tumbling down in what is solidifying as an inevitable scuffle ratcheted up Jon’s anxiety even more.
He was tempted to get up and look about their flat for anything that could serve as a weapon, but there wasn’t much other than perhaps a chef’s knife, dull with constant, loving use, that Jon was likely to find, and he was just as likely to harm himself with it as the intruder. Jon’s hands found their clumsy way to his upper arms, gripping them tightly enough that surely there’d be half-moon divots left where his nails bit into his skin. His chest was starting to feel tight, as if someone were sitting on it in spite of Jon’s verticality.
On one hand, he wished desperately that Martin were here because surely they’d be much more capable of taking on an impending intruder together now that Jon was “powered down,” so to speak. On another hand, he was so grateful that Martin wasn’t here to possibly get murdered. Better him than Martin, who’d been through so much (and largely on Jon’s account).
All this, and someone was still loudly rapping on the front door. The regularity with which the knocks came didn’t suggest an urgency or an immediate threat, so why hadn’t the knocker announced themselves? Maybe this mystery person was just trying to get his attention? But who could possibly know The (former) Archivist lived here? Was this even related to his status as Doom-Bringer? Jon remained in his seat where he’d been sending correspondence to the copyright holders of the next drama he was arranging for his theatre club to perform, paralyzed by indecision and a million swirling questions.
The person demanding his attention pounded their door once more, but this time a voice rang out, clear as a bell in crisp winter morning air.
“—you please open the door? I had to leave my keys in the car!”
His heart stammered and shuttered in his chest—much like Jon himself when he was excited, talking in stops and starts about the latest subject that he’d found interesting, but there was everything wrong with this kind of excitement. Martin had always found it endearing, or so he claimed, but he was sure he wouldn’t find this endearing, seeing Jon wavering on the precipice of panic. Jon, mouth gone bone-dry, croaked a response: “M-Martin?”
A little louder, Martin shouted, “Are you there, Jon? I don’t remember you saying you were going out today.” He audibly jerked the door handle, clearly checking to see if the door was locked. Even knowing who was on the other side of the door didn’t stop Jon from panicking. All sorts of gruesome scenarios danced through his mind. What if someone was using Martin to get at Jon, making it seem safe to leave their home only to ambush him once he was exposed?
Suddenly, all noise outside stopped, and this sent Jon spiraling further. He hadn’t really been taking note of his breathing this whole time, but he felt the encroaching fuzziness that he knew came with dropping oxygen levels.
“Mar...tin?” Nothing still. Martin hadn’t returned yet. Gripping his cheap particle wood desk that carried none of the same gravitas his elaborate oak desk had at the institute, Jon stood up. It was a precarious thing, his legs shaking and threatening to send him to the floor if he moved too quickly, but he needed to know what happened to Martin.
Just as he had been about to take his first wobbly step toward the door, Jon heard the faint sound of a key sliding into a locking mechanism. In no time at all, his dear heart was in front of him, saying something Jon couldn’t parse.
“—okay to touch—Jon?” He sounded worried for some reason, his voice pitching up just that little extra bit, something Jon knew happened when Martin felt powerless in the face of someone in danger.
Where was the danger? Who was in danger?
Something light brushed against his shoulders and stayed there. In the back of his mind, he was sure Martin had meant it as a comfort to focus on instead of the menacing fuzziness. “Why don’t you sit down, Jon. Everything will be all right. Hey—hey. It’s okay. Just sit down, love, and breathe.” So Jon did.
For a while, he drifted, sightless and senseless save for the tightness in his chest.
When he came back to awareness, Martin was there; he’d pulled another chair up close to Jon and pulled him into a loose embrace, loose enough that Jon could escape with very little effort if he needed to. Soft shushing noises filled the room.
Jon lifted his head from its position buried in Martin’s chest and immediately lost himself again in Martin’s eyes. Dark and speckled as soil and just as full of life. Jon had read enough comparisons to celestial bodies in his lifetime (and made similar comparisons himself once upon a time when their relationship was new and Jon had no idea how to close the distance between them, so up on a pedestal Martin went) to think them useful now. Martin’s beauty didn’t come from being a lonely, unreachable, incomprehensible light in the night sky. Martin was beautiful for far more mundane reasons. He celebrated life and the ups and downs of it all. He sowed seeds of happiness whenever he could and hardly anyone left his presence the poorer. Certainly, Jon recognized, he was somewhat biased, and, no, Martin wasn’t a perfect human being and had his bad days when being around people was too much to bear, when he’d snap and sneer and hide, but those bad days were fewer and further between as time went on.
Martin was talking to him, as it turned out. Maybe he should pay attention to that? Push through the words upon words criss-crossing and overlapping in every direction and orientation. Like microcurrents in the ocean just off the coast of Bournemouth. He’d been warned off from swimming too far from the coast by his grandmother when he was younger. Not that he would have regardless (too many tourists, too many people looking to see only what they wanted to see of his shore-side city), but Jon’s wanderings only made her more fearful of what lurked beyond their small bubble.
Focus, Jon. Focus.
“Are you with me? I’m starting to get more worried here.” Ah, there’s the helpless sarcasm.
Not able to speak just yet, he leaned back, loosening Martin’s hold on him. Without really comprehending the in-between, Jon’s arms wrapped around Martin’s middle. There was a rather inviting spot on his chest that perfectly pillowed Jon’s head when the opportunity arose, but now wasn’t the time. He’d be lost for hours in the comfort of it all. Instead, Jon looked at him.
“I’m with you,” he said, the gravel that rumbled around in his throat more pronounced than usual.
A full sigh blew out of Martin as he glanced away from Jon. “I’m so sorry, Jon. I totally forgot about the knocking….” This was when the guilt set in. A momentary indulgence, Martin told him once when the world was still Wrong. Time to put a stop to that.
One of Jon’s hands pulled Martin’s face back into view and stayed flush against his cold cheek. “Martin, it’s all right. Most days it wouldn’t bother me, but today…. Something about today has me a little on edge. It feels like something’s about to happen, but I don’t know what.”
Martin still looked worried. “Something is happening today, but it wasn’t supposed to happen like this.” Mirroring his gesture, Martin raised his own hand up, thumb following the path of Jon’s cheekbones, gently passing over the scars left by Jane Prentiss’ worms.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. I promise it’s a good thing, though. No traps, no ulterior motives, no earthy manifestations of eldritch fear entities. It’s completely terror-free!”
“You promise, huh?” Jon said with a teasing lilt.
“I mean, as long as you discount the constant low-grade terror of living in a city with several million people and where anything can happen to you at any time.”
“I must say, Martin, you’re exceptionally reassuring today.”
“Thanks! I try.”
Jon just hmmed.
With a hand still stroking Jon’s cheek and the worried look on his face softening by degrees, Martin said, “How are you feeling?”
Jon took a moment to honestly assess himself. He’d been trying to do that more often since distancing himself from the institute and everything it had represented to him. No more unreasonably late nights of work when he could just as easily spread his work out over the next day or several, and even when he couldn’t, Martin helped him make sure he stopped working no later than seven o’clock each evening. And while his pushing aside his bodily needs was a complicated matter with multiple causes, he’d been working on communicating when he needed to rest, when he was on the verge of pushing past his limits. (He’d been slowly coaxing Martin to do the same, though he’d just as often brush it off when Jon brought it up to him.)
After some examination, Jon replied, “I’m a bit tired, I suppose, but I’ll be all right once I get moving again.” He half-smiled at Martin, hoping to convey a sense of earnestness. Martin trusted him, he knew, and would take Jon’s words at face-value, but it didn’t hurt to lay it on thick sometimes.
The hand on his face was so soft. So pleasant a feeling it was, Jon nuzzled his face into that hand, eliciting a light-hearted giggle from Martin.
“Well, then,” he started, “Up we get! I’ve got something to show you. It’s a little chilly outside, so let’s grab your coat.”
Jon looked puzzled. “Outside? What’s outside?”
Martin gasped loudly. “It’s a surprise, Jon! How could you possibly ask me to spoil a surprise? The sheer audacity—I can’t believe it,” he exclaimed, clutching his chest and a look of profound offense on his face, completing the ensemble of mock outrage.
A warmth settled in Jon’s chest. This silly man was the person he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, no matter how long that ended up being. He let himself be overcome with affection and took the hand Martin had been using to stroke his cheek and brought it to his lips, placing a sweet kiss onto his palm.
“Oh, Mr. Blackwood, whatever can I do to repay you for this betrayal?” Jon crooned, that sloppy half-smile morphing into something a bit more mischievous. He would take any opportunity he could get to coax Martin’s infamous blush into existence, a handsome spreading of color across warm tawny skin, reaching as far as the tips of his ears.
With the expected flush rising on his features, Martin eyed Jon with a mixture of equal parts amusement, affection, and disdain. He gently removed his hand from Jon’s hold and walked over to their coat closet. “What you can do for me, Jon, is come over here and let me help you into your coat!” There was no heat in his words—no, Jon would tease that there was none left to imbue Martin’s words because it was stuck preciously under his skin—and Jon chuckled as he rose from his chair and followed Martin over walked over to where Martin was waving Jon’s pea coat in front of him expectantly.
“All right, all right,” he said, turning around to face the direction he came from, back to Martin, allowing him to guide one woolen sleeve then another over Jon’s arms. (Their bookshelves were intact, if disorganized, to his mild surprise.) Martin tugged on the collar, a signal for Jon to face him.
Though he managed to retain most function in his right hand, despite Jude Perry’s desolate flame ravaging it, it was sometimes painful to flex his fingers. Thus, it became customary for Martin to help him into his outer layers. Buttons were especially difficult some days, but Martin would grab Jon’s lapels and bring him in close enough that only several centimeters separated them and he’d fasten Jon’s buttons for him. Today was no different, though today it was more about the casual intimacy that underlaid the gesture than it was about the practicality of it.
Almost ready to face the damp cold outside, Jon asked, “What’s the rush about, Martin?”
A royal purple scarf suddenly in hand, Martin said, “Well, it’s getting late, and Georgie is still waiting outside with—well, waiting outside, and she and Melanie have a date soon, so we can’t keep her waiting.” Martin curled the scarf around Jon’s neck just so. “Not to mention how miserable it is outside. And I had to turn the car off to take the keys when you wouldn’t answer the door, so it’s probably cold by now, and….” He trailed off, looking at the ceiling with a far-away expression as if contemplating what else to tell Jon in this moment. “In any case, we are in a bit of a hurry, so get your boots on and let’s go!”
Aforementioned boots on and otherwise bundled up, Jon cocked his head to the side. “But, why is Georgie—” He stopped. He didn’t need to know right then. He knew Martin would answer his questions when he felt he could. This was knowledge that could wait. “Lead the way, then, dear.”
They turned toward the door hand-in-hand. Before opening the door, Martin looked back at Jon and said, “I meant it when I said this was a surprise, Jon. I want you to close your eyes and not open them until I say to, okay?”
The proposition of keeping his eyes closed for an indeterminate amount of time didn’t exactly appeal to him, but he trusted Martin. Before he could provide his assent, however, Martin pressed on.
“I know you don’t feel safe when you can’t see anything, but it’s only for a short walk to the car, and I’ll be there every step of the way to make sure nothing happens to you,” he assured.
Jon could let himself be caught in Martin’s gaze forever, sunny and bright as it was. Now wasn’t the time, he realized. Later on, Jon would lead him to their overstuffed couch by hand and drape himself over Martin and press kisses underneath the line of his jaw and down the line of his throat, as he knew Martin loved.
“I trust you, Martin.” Jon closed his eyes and used his unoccupied hand to gesture to them with a flourish. “Lead on.”
A blast of cold, saturated air assaulted them as Martin opened the door. Taking their first steps outside, Jon tried to place the temperature, figuring it was no warmer than five or six degrees. It was still kind of novel, not having the exact knowledge he was looking for beamed into his head without his consent.
“Hold on, Jon. Stay right here for a moment. I have to close the door. Don’t want our heating bill to go through the roof.” Jon did as he was told, resisting the urge to open his eyes in spite of Martin’s insistence and already missing the solid presence of his hand. As if he were the one with omniscience, Martin yelled back, “Whatever you do, don’t open your eyes!”
Thoroughly thwarted, Jon waited for Martin to take his hand again before moving.
They parted the slow-moving air around them as they walked. Not forceful enough to be considered wind in his book but enough to siphon some of the scant amount of warmth his body produced away from him. People breezed by them, heeled shoes clacking against the sidewalk and snatches of conversations not meant for them drifting in and out of focus. “You said Georgie was here, right? Where is she? I don’t hear her at all.”
“Georgie has been sworn to silence. Come on; we’re almost there.”
Martin pulled him forward, careful indeed to guide Jon around deposits of snow, soon to be gone, and depressions in the uneven sidewalk filled with slush. London and the surrounding area often got like this in the dead of winter; it didn’t snow overmuch, but when it did, rain soon followed, the temperature never remaining cool enough to sustain large amounts of snow for very long.
“Okay, Jon. We’re here. Keep your eyes closed for a little while longer.” Jon heard the tell-tale sound of a car door opening. The anticipation was roiling in him now; it was hardly bearable. He alternated between centering his weight on the balls of feet and then his heels—and back and forth—trying to dissipate some of the unease.
Just as Jon’s anxieties were building in intensity to a roaring crescendo, Martin spoke again: “You can open your eyes now, love.”
In front of Jon was a cat carrier—no mistaking it. He knew their shape intimately from all the hurried trips to the vet after The Admiral had gotten into food he shouldn’t have. The time The Admiral had eaten a sizable chunk of cold margherita pizza Georgie and he had left out on the table came to mind easily. Several frenzied Internet searches later, words like pancreatitis and anemia rolling around in their minds, they rushed The Admiral to an emergency vet. (It turned out that he hadn’t really eaten enough of the pizza to really worry about it, and the vet had a laugh at their expense, but the experience stuck with both of them.)
Someone had thrown a blanket over the carrier, making it difficult to make out what (who?) was inside, so Jon crouched down to get a better look. He could only imagine the look on his face right then.
A Maine Coon cat stared back at him, its amber eyes searching his and its head displaying a rich coat of golden yellows and deep browns. Jon was nigh speechless. “Who is this, Martin?” he whispered reverently.
Martin crouched down with him. “Well, as far as I know, she doesn’t have a name, not an official one anyway. I started feeding her a while ago on my way back from Tesco, and eventually she started following me back home. I wasn’t sure if she was actually someone’s cat or if she was a stray, so I always shooed her away before we got close to home.”
“That doesn’t answer why she’s here.” He wanted desperately to open the door of the carrier and run his hand through her fur, but Jon settled for poking his finger through the grate. The yet-to-be-named cat sniffed his finger from a couple angles and proceeded to rub her nose and face all over it. Jon nearly wept.
“I can answer that one,” Georgie interjected, having been nearly forgotten by the other two. She came over and kneeled down with them, eyeing them both with mild concern. “Remember those couple times Melanie, Martin, and I all took off while you were working? Well, this guy was waffling on what to do with Goldie here”—Jon mouthed “Goldie? Really?” at Martin, who could only shrug helplessly—“and came to Melanie and me, your resident cat parents, for advice.
“We discovered pretty quickly that Goldie was a stray, or at least not microchipped. That made the decision that much easier. I walked him through all the different tests he’d want to get done to to make sure she was healthy and spayed and all that. The vet figured she’d been a house cat at some point, seeing as she was fairly clean and decently-well fed, even taking Martin feeding her into account. But no microchip, no tags, and no other indicator of who she belonged to, and the several weeks this guy had been asking around the area to try to find her owners with nothing to show for it?”
Martin shot her a look. Georgie laughed, saying, “Oh, there was no way I wasn’t going to mention that. You talk a good game of resisting her charms, but you knew you were going to try to bring her home. You exhausted all your options trying to find her owners before we even showed up! The point is, we figured Goldie would find herself in good company with you two. Plus, I know how much you’ve missed The Admiral, Jon.”
This was too much to take in. He hadn’t been aware of any of this happening. In one sense, it was relieving: another piece of evidence to add the mounting pile that The Beholding had truly lost its grip on him. But how could Jon have missed all of this? Surely he joined Martin often enough in his London travels to have noticed him asking around about this cat.
“Hey.” Martin bumped their shoulders together. “I know what you’re thinking. I tried very hard to keep this from you in case it didn’t work out. I didn’t want to tell you about Goldie and get your hopes up only to find out that she had a loving family looking for her. And you’ve been so preoccupied with your theatre club’s new show; I wanted this to be a pleasant surprise.” Jon remembered the playbills scattered around his desk, a cursor left blinking, hovering over a supplicating email.
“You doing all right there, Jon?” Georgie leaned in closer to him, eyebrows furrowed. “We should get Goldie inside soon. It’s awfully cold.”
He’d heard enough. Standing up without warning, Jon waited for the other two to follow suit.
There was a moment when nobody moved.
In a (in hindsight) hilarious attempt to force both Georgie and Martin up to their feet, Jon grabbed a hold of their collars and pulled, not too hard as to choke but enough to make his intentions known.
Jon advanced on Georgie first and threw his arms around her shoulders in a tight hug. This was familiar; this was safe. It took them a long time to return to a place where they would love each other like this after everything. He’d thought once that it would be impossible, too many misunderstandings and too much unintentional harm a seemingly unending flood under the bridge of their relationship, but here they were.
Pulling away slightly, Jon pressed a brief kiss to Georgie’s dry cheek, a pleasant contrast to their overwhelmingly wet surroundings. He stared deep into her eyes and said, "Thank you for your part in this, Georgie. For helping bring—heh—Goldie to us."
Eyebrows shockingly close to the edge of her hairline and eyes wide, she stuttered out, "Oh! Yeah, sure."
He turned on Martin next, who stood stock still close by, watching the scene with rapt attention.
“Martin.”
Jon didn’t give Martin a chance to respond, stealing his words with a kiss. Several kisses, really, all short and soft and sweet, with little regard for location. Nowhere was safe: Martin’s nose, cheek, temple, jaw, hair. All had kisses laid upon them in pretty short order.
As if just realizing he had an armful (and lipful) of Jon, Martin pulled him in closer. “What was that for?”
Jon let his smile take over his face. “For all the kindnesses you do me—big and small, extravagant and simple, whether you believe them to be or not.” And he pressed one more kiss on Martin’s forehead. “Thank you.”
“Oh,” he said. Wobbly, he continued, “Of course, Jon.”
Passersby walked around them. How Jon managed to forget this was a London street where people other than him, Martin, and Georgie existed was beyond him. He only noticed them at all because the chill of the languid London wind was starting to make a home in his bones. Better to work on getting everyone inside before the cold became too much.
“Where’s Melanie? I know she’d hate it, but I want to thank her as well.”
“Oh, Melanie would have loved to be here, if only to laugh at the hilarious conclusion of this rom-com movie plot we’ve all found ourselves in. But a meeting with one of the families she’s been working with ran late.” Melanie couldn’t talk too much about her work for fear of violating the confidentiality of the people she worked with, but from what Jon understood, she had essentially created a career adjacent to social work, in which she helped people living with the aftereffects of the fears’ full emergence reintegrate into society at large. She reasoned she was in a good position to help others shed the influence of the fears, given that she’d spent the last almost year before the Change doing the same.
Georgie clasped Jon’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, though! I’m going to be telling her a~all about this.”
“Are you trying to give me a coronary? Melanie can’t know I have feelings.”
Georgie threw her head back and laughed. “Consider it our payment for the invaluable advice we provided throughout this harrowing process that Melanie will get to tease you about how disgustingly cute you two are later.”
The two bickered for a little bit like this as the sun sank further further beneath the horizon, Martin occasionally chiming in with support for whomever would create the most chaos. He may have been the love of Jon’s life, but Martin could still be a little shit when the mood took him.
Georgie was right earlier. It was cold and starting to get colder, and, frankly, all Jon wanted to do right now was pet this cat that he was legally obligated to rename to something more dignified. Something like The Duchess or Empress Dowager Cat or something else of equal stature would do. He’ considered having Martin help him decide, but if “Goldie'' was anything to go by, then perhaps it’d be better to leave him out of the proceedings.
Starting to move the blanket away from Goldie’s carrier, Jon said, “It’s about time we brought her inside, don’t you think, Martin? I’d like to get her settled in before dinner.”
Georgie stayed a couple extra minutes to help get Goldie, some food she and Martin had picked up for her on the way back, and a few toys into the flat. Jon offered to walk her to the tube station, and Martin offered to drive her back to the flat she shared with Melanie, but Georgie refused both and sent the two of them on their way to go bond with their new furchild.
As Georgie rounded the corner of their block and left their sight, waving to them all the while, Jon and Martin returned to the warmth of their flat. And there she was, lying against the grate of the carrier, not a care in the world. He and Goldie would become fast friends, Jon was sure.
-------------
Outerwear hung up to dry and boots neatly sequestered on their drying mat, it was finally safe to allow Goldie to explore their flat, which she accomplished in approximately 5 seconds, zooming around from room to room in a series of excited dashes. She stopped in the middle of the living room floor and made several pointed sniffs into the air.
Martin looked over to where Jon stood; he looked positively gleeful with a loose fist poorly hiding a still obvious smile. Frizzy fly-away hairs haloed around his head with some plastered to his face and the rest of his black, silver mottled hair in a hastily-done up-do. It was well known that Jon's hair expanded a good thirty percent in moist air, and today was no exception. It was so charming, seeing this man so unguarded, so unmade compared to his historically meticulous appearance.
Choosing this moment of loving staring to make herself known once again, Goldie wound herself in around their legs in figure eights, rubbing her scent onto their closes and purring loudly. Jon couldn’t stop the high keening noise that escaped from his mouth.
"Are you all right over there, love?" Martin snickered.
"Quiet, you."
Jon turned to face him. It didn't happen too often, but every once in a while, Jon would gain an extra depth of color in a delicate line across his nose and cheekbones, a warmer brown than what otherwise lived there. Martin was wholly pleased to see the color now, and that it arose from something he helped make happen made his heart soar.
"This is your fault, you know," Jon said mildly.
"What's my fault?"
He huffed. "These entirely embarrassing reactions I'm having."
"Oh, is that all? Sorry that I can't find it myself to feel guilty, then. I happen to love all these embarrassing reactions you're having." Placing a kiss on Jon's temple, he continued, "You're adorable when you're like this, you know."
"I know you think that, you incorrigible man."
“You are!”
Jon laughed fondly at this. “There’s no sense in arguing with you about this, is there?”
“Not really!”
Seemingly sensing the end of their dispute, Goldie plopped herself down on Jon’s foot. It didn’t seem possible that she could purr any louder than she was a couple minutes ago, but Martin’s life had always taken one look at his expectations and summarily ignored them.
“Are you seeing this, Martin?” Jon whispered, the awe in his voice unmistakable. “Her Most Esteemed Empress Dowager Cat has deemed me worthy of her attention. I am honored to be in her presence.”
It took everything Martin had in him to not bark a laugh at that. “I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t quite hear you. What are we calling our cat?”
Their cat. Their cat that they’d be taking care of and cuddling together. Somehow the thought hadn’t occurred to him before, and it threatened to make him speechless now.
Jon muttered indignantly, “Like your name was any better.”
Martin gathered Jon into his arms easily, despite Jon’s defensive posture.
“Why don’t we come up with a proper name for her tomorrow. We’ll call her Goldie for now”—Jon started to protest, but Martin pushed on—“because that’s what she’s been answering to, but let’s just make dinner and enjoy her company tonight, hmm?”
A short moment later, Jon replied, “Yes, that sounds wonderful.”
They debated the relative merits of whipping up a quick curry versus spending a bit more time on a soup with a homemade broth and eventually decided on the former. The sounds of chopping potatoes and the clinking of glass jars containing garam masala, turmeric, red chili powder, cloves, star anise, and everything else necessary for aloo kurma spread throughout the flat. And if Goldie leapt onto the kitchen counter once or twice, knocking over bowls of ingredients and leaving inordinate amounts of fur in her wake, well. That was just fine with them.
#tma#the magnus archives#jonathan sims#martin blackwood#jonmartin#jmart#georgie barker#fanfiction#rosy cheekx#ombre answers#ombre writes#panic attacks#dissociation#friends tag#ombre writes fic
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Dragon Prince Hot Takes
!!! Full Spoiler For “The Dragon Prince” Seasons 1-3!!!
So I finally got around to watching The Dragon Prince. Timely, I know, but better late than never i guess. I’m not completely caught up yet as I only got as far as S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” in this first sitting. Considering I haven’t binged any series in almost two years, I think that’s pretty respectable. This means I won’t discuss the last few episodes here, except for a couple of things I was unfortunately spoiled for already, hence full spoilers.
These are basically my first thoughts and opinions after the binge and a good night’s sleep. It’s gonna be a lot so if you don’t care or don’t want spoilers…
TL;DR: 7½/10. Generally enjoyable, there are some aspects I’m not exactly fan of, but no dealbreakers
Firstly to everyone who told me that this was the new ATLA: you all need to rewatch Avatar stat! Like seriously. There are definitely parallels and given the cast and crew I think that’s what they were going for too (which is why I think it’s fair to compare the two), but still, no.
Secondly I love most of the worldbuilding and love that the series at least tries to give it to us in a bit of a non-linear fashion, even if it is kind of clumsy at times. I know some people are put off by expository dialogue and flashbacks, but I’m an epic fantasy nerd, I need that sweet, sweet lore to live as much as you mortals need food.
I like that there was clearly an effort made to integrate the worldbuilding in more subtle ways. For example you may initially find it kind of weird that all these different human ethnicities are existing perfectly integrated in what looks like a medieval society, until you remember from the opening monologue that the Human Kingdoms are the result of a massive diaspora following the human exodus from Xadia, so obviously people got all mixed up everywhere. It’s representation with an excellent in-world reason and that just brings me joy.
I also love the magic system(s) even though we haven’t really gone into that just yet. it really feels like there was a genuine effort made to create underlying mechanics for the magic rather than just making each spell a vaguely elemental themed ability. I really hope we’ll dive deeper into that in coming seasons.
I also like the little nods to other works of fantasy: Ezran’s ability to talk with animals is a reference to Tolkien’s world where some royal bloodlines had the ability to speak with animals, specifically birds; Primal Magic and its spells being cast with Ancient Draconic runes and words might be reminiscent of the Ancient Language from the Inheritance Cycle etc.
Thirdly the main cast is great. Callum, Ezran and Rayla are all interesting and relatable characters in their own right and as a group. I’m not going into each of them individually here, but while I think the series as a whole falls short of ATLA, as protagonist parties go I dare say this one is nearly on nearly on par with the gAang.¹
And yes, I love Bait, which I really did not expect following the first few episodes. I love his weird pug-toad-chameleon design, I love that he works like a flashbang whenever somebody says a quote from Scarface (I wish they hadn’t dropped that later on) and I love how done he is with everything and everyone at all times. I’ve only had him for 25 episodes, but if anything happened to him I would kill all of my followers and then myself.
On top of that, and speaking as someone who god knows is really not into shipping, I love Rayla and Callum’s relationship. It’s believable, it’s refreshing and it brings out the best in both characters without changing basically anything about them. Just two good friends who fell in love. A++, maybe even S tier.
Unfortunately though I can’t sing the same kind of praises about the villains. None of them are terrible (as in terribly written, most of them are pretty awful people), but with one exception they just don’t stand up to the protagonists in quality.
I could simply not take Viren seriously. Even now that is probably the single most powerful magic user in the world, he just has such strong Karen energy, every time he finishes a speech I am overcome with the urge to say “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” and it does not help the mood. I’m not even sure why. It might’ve been the voice because the guy who did Viren (Jason Simpson) also does a lot of kinda slimy characters in various anime dubs, it might be that over-the-top walking stick, idk.
What I’m saying is that as a primary antagonist he simply did not work for me. Which is doubly a shame because this kind of tarnishes the real “Big Bad” of this story by proxy. Aaravos, even as an invisible ghost, with his voice coming out of a caterpillar and next to no info on his backstory, has more style and gravity than all the human antagonists combined. It helps that he is by far the best designed character and Erik Dellums has the voice of a young god, but I’d argue even without that unfair advantage he has the potential to be a top tier villain. While he is stuck as Viren’s “little bug-pal” though he is just being dragged down.
(I’m aware that as of the final episode the caterpillar familiar is undergoing metamorphosis, probably to create a new body for Aaravos’ spirit to inhabit outside of the magic mirror, so I’m definitely hyped for more of him in the coming seasons.)
As for Soren and Claudia, I’ve got mixed feelings. This was one more aspect of the show that a lot of people compared to Avatar and while I see the parallels to Zuko & Azula, they are still very different, at least where Claudia is concerned. I’d also just like to mention that a lot of people told me that they thought the direction in which their storylines went were really surprising and I can’t disagree more. I predicted that Soren would defect to the protagonists on episode 5 right after Viren told him to kill the princes and I knew Claudia was going to stick with her father from episode 12 onward. My point is, it didn’t feel like some kind of plot twist, the way some people made it out to be, and which I don’t think was the intent.
I definitely got the sense that Soren was at least a Zuko-type character, though still not a Zuko clone, and as with Zuko I was consistently able to empathise and sympathise with him and his predicaments. I also appreciated that his dilemma is the result of his convictions and not him being kind of dense, which would’ve been all to easy and probably would’ve ruined his character for me. As it stands he is extremely milktoast, but perfectly functional for his purpose in the story and I can definitely see him evolving further and getting more interesting as we go on.
Claudia is where it gets complicated. Again, I can see the Azula parallels. But unlike that character, who is her father’s animal 110%, Claudia doesn’t strike me as a victim of Viren’s manipulation the way Soren undoubtably is. The way she talks about and uses Dark Magic, how she talks down to Soren and how even Viren finds it difficult to communicate with her, tells me as an audience member that she is an independent person.
Which tells me that the cruelty and enthusiasm for causing harm she regularly displays is her own will. And that was before she straight up leads Callum on to manipulate him.
On the other hand I can absolutely relate to her devotion to her family, her big sister role (even though she is younger than Soren) and the way both the separation of her parents before the story and Soren’s injury in episode 16 must’ve affected her because of this. I know that, if my brother had become paralysed from the neck down and I knew a way to heal him, I would not have hesitated to kill that fawn either. Then again her relationship with her father is very different from parental relationships I am familiar with, so I can’t really say I see why she is so devoted to him, other than she promised her mother to stay with him years ago? ¯\(o_Ō)/¯
So basically Claudia falls into an emotional grey space for me. I can’t really tell how to feel about her either way and I’ll just have to see where she goes from here, which, while fine, isn’t necessarily great for an end of season cliffhanger imo.
Seeing as I’ve already talked about some of the show’s shortcomings, I think it’s time to dive into some of the what I would consider flaws.
Firstly this show needed at least 12 episode seasons. I have never made a secret out of my dislike for the modern short seasons and while I recognise that in the current climate in the industry giving everything full 25 episode seasons isn’t really doable, the pacing of this show, especially for the first season is just outright bad at times. It works as of the second season, but the first season alternately feels like it’s either rushing through or crawling along the whole way through.
The believability of Rayla’s and the princes’ relationship really suffers from this the most. It comes a bit out of nowhere on the boat ride and is then taken for granted way to quickly. Like Callum, seriously, this girl tried to kill you and your brother not even a day ago and you are currently cut off from all allies you have ever had until now. A little skepticism isn’t misplaced here. I also wold’ve liked if we’d just gotten a bit more of a sense of movement with the characters. I get that this is not the kind of show where we can just make an entire episode about the characters travelling and camping, intercut with plots centred around a more expansive supporting cast, but still I really would’ve preferred if Xadia didn’t feel quite so around the corner.
Another issue is with setup and payoff, which I think is partially a consequence of the pacing as well. A lot of smaller plot points are set up within the same episode as the payoff just wreak havoc on the narrative structure. A good example is the episode where they ride down the river in a boat and Bait tires to go into the water, but is saved by Ezran, who then explains the story behind Glowtoads and how they are pefect bait for large water predators. Then Bait falls into the water and is attacked by a massive water monster. This happens within five minutes of one episode and never comes up again. To me that looks like sign of rushed editing, which is probably not entirely the crew’s fault, given that they are on a schedule from Netflix, but it’s still a point of critique.
It unfortunately also manifests in the occasional line of horribly forced dialogue, often for things we can literally see happening on screen. Again, this is mostly the case in the earlier episodes, but it never completely goes away.
Finally, and this is where i get into serious issues that made me want to write this, we gotta talk about representation in this show.
First: disabled representation, meaning Amaya. Why is Amaya deaf? Because it’s good to have disabled representation.
Why is Amaya deaf and a high-ranking military officer? Because they didn’t think it through.
I know this may be a contentious opinion, but it is my belief that the purpose of representation, particularly of disabilities characters may suffer from, in fiction is to, y’know, represent people as they are in life. That includes especially the struggles they face and have to overcome, sometimes their whole life. This is not just me talking out of my ass either. A couple years ago I discussed this with several people that are disabled, specifically blind or otherwise severely visually impaired, in a different context obviously, and the general consensus was that it’s better to have representation that shows their life and their abilities as they are, rather than how they might wish they could be.
A mute or deaf person cannot be a medieval fantasy army general, no matter how good they might be in melee combat or who’s sister they are, because at the end of the day, they’re not able to give commands while they are holding a sword and shield. That such a massive logical oversight, especially in comparison to the extremely well done example of representation I mentioned above, and has so little impact on the plot that it leads me to believe, this aspect of Amaya’s character was tacked on in the last minute without being given any thought for the sole reason of the story having a disabled person in it. All this does is necessitate the existence of two otherwise entirely unnecessary characters, Gren and Kazi, both of which achieve nothing, aside from sometimes being literal set dressing.
That is where representation ends and tokenism begins.
And unfortunately this generally lacklustre attitude also extends to the LGBT+ representation on the show.
As of S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” we have had two onscreen gay couples on the show (onscreen in the sense that both partners were onscreen and they were somehow confirmed to be in a relationship on the show). One of these, the queens of Duren, literally die in the same flashback they are introduced in, which incidentally also features them invading a foreign nation to poach a rare animal and subsequently starting the conflict at the series’ core. Not a great look.
Aside from serving as a tragic backstory for their daughter, the most impact they had on my viewing experience was that they made wonder how the fuck royal succession works in Duren. (People who know me are rolling their eyes right now because I’m bringing anarchism into this Dragon Prince review, but I’m telling you, this why fantasy monarchies aren’t compatible with LGBT+ politics in the same setting. Dynastic governments are inherently bigoted, you can’t have it both ways.)
The other couple are Runaan and Ethari, Rayla’s caretakers, although if I’m being honest you wouldn’t be able tell based on Runaan’s treatment of Rayla in the first episode. By the time we actually meet Ethari and find out about their relationship with Rayla, Runaan is suffering “a fate worse than death” (direct quote from the show) trapped in a gold coin.
I mean come on. That’s about as “technically not ‘bury your gays’” as it gets.
I think I need to reiterate here that my point is not that this show or its creators are somehow malicious. As i stated in the TL;DR: I don’t think this is a dealbreaker for liking this show. But it does demonstrate that they are prone to slipping to some potentially harmful tropes and this needs to be criticised and pointed out to them.
In conclusion, I really love this show. It’s not ATLA, it never will be, nothing else will ever be ATLA no matter how badly (and terribly) Netflix tries. But it does and should not have to be.
What it has to do though is improve. A lot of the building blocks are already there, such as Aaravos or Claudia’s development, Callum’s father, the origin of Ezran’s ability, the purpose of the “Key of Aaravos”, the true fate of King Harrow (we all know his soul is in the bird, right?) etc. Some things like the treatment of Amaya’s disability unfortunately won’t be fixable as far as I can tell, but if they at least manage to fix the gay representation I can make my peace with that.
¹ I know I said I wouldn’t go into each of the characters individually, but a) you should never trust a stranger on the internet and b) I really want to talk a bit about Callum. Specifically the “mystery” of why the hell he is connected to the Sky Primal. I write “mystery” because I think it’s fairly obvious from whence this talent came: there is only one humanoid species we know of with innate access to the Sky Arcanum and one of Callum’s parent’s is unidentified, presumed dead. 2+2=4. Callum’s father was a Skywing Elf. That’s why he recognised Nyx’s boomerang weapon. He remembered one like it either from his very early childhood (remember that he has photographic memory) or Sarai kept one and he found it at some point.
On top of that the name “Callum” or at least the pronunciation is clearly derived from Latin “caelum” meaning “sky” or “weather” and I already mentioned that Ancient Draconic is just bad Latin. It’s not very subtle. Unless they pull a complete 180 concerning the lore about Primal Magic he’s definitely going to be a half-elf, which would also just so happen to make him the perfect mediator between the Human Kingdoms and Xadia. Hmm, it’s almost as if they are planning ahead.
My question: How the fuck did that happen? Or rather: how did that fuck happen? I don’t think even Harrow knew or he probably would’ve
a) paid more attention when Sarai advised against poaching the Magma Titan, because obviously she’s gotten around Xadia more than him, if y’know what i’m sayin’ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) or at least
b) put it in his final letter to Callum. Unfortunately we know basically nothing about Sarai except that she was a soldier alongside Amaya and already had Callum before marrying Harrow. So does Amaya know? This is probably the most interesting plot thread in the whole story and as far as my friends told me it’s not going to be touched on anymore in the last two episodes than it already has thus far, which is basically not at all.
#the dragon prince#dragon prince#netflix's the dragon prince#tdp#tdp spoilers#tdp s1#tdp s2#tdp s3#tdp s4#callum#tdp callum#ezran#tdp ezran#rayla#tdp rayla#rayllum#zym#tdp zym#tdp viren#claudia#tdp claudia#soren#tdp soren#series#tv series#netflix series#netflix#animation#animated series#review
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Liyada’s Fics Masterpost
It was time I wrote a Fic Masterpost.
So for everyone who is interested by my fics, firstly I invit you on my AO3 where you can litteraly find everythng, especially since I don’t post the fics directly on Tumblr.
And if you want the details, here we go!
Also here the plan, because the post is really long lmao-
I/ Pokespe
1. Multi-chap fics
a) Three Years
b) The Magical Dexholders
2. AUs
a) Yorozuya no Lack-chan
b) Legendary Dexholders
c) Blonde Family
d) Yokai AU
3. Stand-alone OS and Drabbles
a) OS
b) Drabbles
II/ Other fandoms
a) Champion (Marvel)
I/ Pokespe
1. Multi-Chap Fics
a) Three Years
This one is my baby, the one I had been working on for 2 years and a half, the one I progressed the more in, and also the one I haven’t updated in a year even if I have 6 chapters ready to post, cause I’m lazy af. Also the ones where you can very easily see how much my writing progressed since I started writing for Pokéspe.
Warning: Graphic Description of Violence, Major Character Death (though this one is complicate and don’t fully apply)
Genre: Angst, Adventure.
Words Count: 69,567
Statut: In Progress
Characters: The whole Spe cast up to SM.
Relationship: Background Frantic, Entourage, Agency and Laverree, a lot of other friendships.
Summary: Some secrets should never be revealed. Or should they?
After a strange explosion, X and Y fear the apparition if a new threat for Kalos, and decide to get themselves implicate. But things are not as simple as they look, and nothing will go the way they want. And as those attacks take bigger scales and start to involve a large number of people, they would have no choice but to find the motive behind them to stop them; even if it means getting back on some bitter memories from three years ago they all would have preferred to forget...
List of chapters: Part I: Kalos
1. The Explosion
2. The Lumiose Badlands
3. Shalour City
4. The Attack
5. Next Action
6. Lumiose City
7. Blackout
8. Chase in Lumiose City
9. The Next Day
10. Couriway Town
11. Sunrise
12. Tic Tac
13. Terminus
Part II: Unova
14. A Day in Driftveil City I
14.5. A Day in Driftveil City II
15. Welcome to Unova I
15.5. Welcome to Unova II
16. The Twist Mountain I
16.5. The Twist Mountain II
b) The Magical Dexholders
This one is purely self-indulgent fic, where I basically write the dumbest thing that get in my mind. Aka some Dexholders become Magical Girls or Boys, but they’re dumb, but it’s okay because the bad guys, their friends and their world in general is dumb.
Warning: No Warning applies
Genre: Parody, Humor, Friendship
Words Count; 27,944
Statut: In progress
Characters: The whole Spe cast up to SM, and some OCs
Relationship: Diamond & Silver, Blue & Yellow & Gold & Platinum, Green & Crystal & Pearl
Summary:
It’s an emergency! The Darkness Power Of The Terrible Evil has invading the Pokespe world and take over the region of Kanto! Some magical fluffy creatures needs help in order to stop the Darkness Power Of The Terrible Evil!
The day Dia met a strange professor fan of Magical Boy and a strange pink creature, he knew his life would never be the same...
In the meantime, Blue and Yellow have to face a terrible threat to get back their home, but get new abilities in exchange.
List of chapters:
1. A story is not interesting if nothing go wrong in it
2. If you are a Magical Boy, don't forget to take an insurance for building destruction!
3. If the authorities say that a radioactive cloud did magically stop at the border, you can totally trust them!
4. You can’t be a protagonist if you don’t have an ultimate move, a dark past or a secret identity!
5. No matter how good it looks on TV, sh*t stay sh*t!
6. An homage to a work becomes a fanfiction when it becomes an important part of the plot, you moron!
7. If you update on the 1st April everyone's gonna believe it's a joke, even if it isn't, so update on the 31st March!
2. AUs
Those fics are not multi-chap fics, but more like OS and drabbles that are related between each others.
a) Yorozuya no Lack-chan
Heavily inspired by Gintama, AU where Lack did not get back in Interpol and started doing odd jobs instead. Serie of Drabbles.
Warning: No Warning applies
Genre: Parody, Humor, Friendship
Characters: Lack-Two, Whi-Two, X, Sun
Relationship: Lack-Two & Whi-Two, Lack-Two & X, Lack-Two & Sun
Summary:
When Whi-Two bumped into Lack-Two after months, she was not expecting him to went from Interpol officer to dog walker. And neither that he’d get her, and this guy from Kalos, to join he’s odd jobs agency.
List of chapters:
Dogwalker Lack-Two in action!
The Blazing Begining of Odd Jobs Yorozuya no Lack-Chan!
b) Legendary Dexholders
In a world where being a legendary Pokémons can be boring, the legendary Pokémons decides to have a little bit of funs. Shenanigans ensue.
Aka the legendary Pokémons decides to become humans, and of course they happen to be our favorite DHs.
Warning: No Warning applies
Genre: Friendship, Family, Supposed to be comic at first but also goes on the character study sometimes
Characters: Silver, Giratina, others for next OS.
Relationship: Implied Preciousmetal, Blue & Silver
Summary:
When Whi-Two bumped into Lack-Two after months, she was not expecting him to went from Interpol officer to dog walker. And neither that he’d get her, and this guy from Kalos, to join he’s odd jobs agency.
List of chapters: Giratina
c) Blonde Family
In which Yellow, Pearl, Bianca and Y are all cousins. Shenanigans enssue.
Warning: No Warning applies
Genre: Family, Comedy, Crime
Characters: Yellow, Pearl, Bianca, Y
Relationship: Yellow & Pearl & Bianca & Y
Summary:
Family reunions are rarely all peace and calm. But when, out of four cousins, you have three Dexholders and a clumsy professor assistant, things are bond to be messy.
List of chapters: To be a cousin, Don't listen others confessions or you'll end as responsible as them
d) Yokai AU
What if yokai existed in the Spe universe?
Warning: No Warning applies
Genre: Supernatural, Friendship, Adventures
Characters: Pearl, Schilly
Relationship: Pearl & Schilly
Summary:
Pearl had first seen them when he was four years old. And he had learned to live with this world only he could see, to maintain his balance of a normal life.
He had just not expected one of his junior to also see them.
List of chapters: Chilling Party
3. Stand alone OS and drabbles
a) OS
Here you can find the 1K+ words stand-alone OS. Links are in the tittles!
A Good Christmas Movie is Made of Hot Chocolate and a Fire-Breathing Cat
Warning: No Warning applies
Genre: Horror, Parody, Christmas, Hallmark Movie, Specord Winter Writing Event 2020
Words count: 4093
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Y, Sun
Relationship: Implied Laverree and Delivery shipping, Y & Sun
Summary:
Everything is perfect in Y's life. Too perfect, like in a Christmas Hallmark movie. Now, with a fire-breathing cat name Sun, it's up to her to find a way out of this Christmas hell.
One-shot wrote for the Winter Writing Event on the Specord, with the prompt X & Sun, Horror and Parody, My Life is a Hallmark Movie and PMD, and Chuck E Cheese's Ball Pit.
Celebi-rities in Distress
Warning: No Warning applies
Genre: Parody, Friendship, TV Show
Words Count: 5017
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Sapphire, Lisia, Ruby, Emerald.
Relation Ship: Background Franticshipping, Sapphire & Lisia, Ruby & Emerald
Summary:
Sometimes, it only takes a silly TV show, weird games and arrogant prissy boys to make a new friends.
Or how Sapphire became friend with Lisia to teach Ruby and Emerald a good lesson.
Bonding on the Grand Line
Warning: No Warning applies
Genre: One Piece AU, Pirate
Words Count: 2948
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Pearl, Cheren, Sinnoh and Unova Gym Leaders
Relation Ship: Pearl & Cheren, Mentionned Commoner Shipping, Past Pearl & Diamond & Platinum, Mentionned Cheren & Black
Summary:
In a world where Gold Roger is still an unknow name, Pearl and his crew left North Blue for the Grand Line. But are they ready for everything waiting them?
Of Swords & Of a Gun
Warning: No Warning applies
Genre: AU, Angst,
Words count: 4209
Statut: Two-Shot, in progress
Characters: Pearl, Cheren, Sinnoh and Unova Gym Leaders
Relation Ship: Soudo & Bede, Bede & Rose, Soudo & Schilly, Schilly/Hop, Bede & Schilly & Hop
Summary:
In a world where everyone has a Sword, Bede is an abnormality who has a Gun.
In a world where the Tsurugi family is the best blacksmith clan of Galar, Soudo fails to meet people's expectations.
In a world where they have to fight and find their places, will the two of them discover why they exist? Maybe the answer had been in front of their eyes since the beginning.
Pallet Association
Warning: Graphic Description of Violence, Major Character Death <3
Genre: Cyberpunk AU, Pokespe Amino Festival 2020: Kanto Week, Angst, Dystopia, May be a bit OOC for certain characters
Words count: 3637
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Green, Blue, Red, Yellow, Prof. Chen
Relation Ship: Green & Blue, Green & Blue & Red & Yellow, Green & Prof. Chen
Summary:
In Pallet City, one of the biggest megalopolis in the world, the Pallet Association controls everything. Blue, Red, Yellow, and Green decide that it needs to change.
But Green may have forgotten to mention a few details to them.
(This OS have two alternative endings because I couldn’t picke one)
Storytelling
Warning: No Warning Applies
Genre: Fluff, Domestic, Comedy, Pokespe Amino Festival 2020: Johto Week
Words count: 2843
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Silver, Gold, Crystal
Relation Ship: Silver & Crstal & Gold
Summary:
Silver has apparently never heard a fairytale of his whole life, so Gold and Crystal decide to give him an express fairytale class. Turned out that it was a really bad idea.
Festival War
Warning: No Warning Applies
Genre: Comedy, Pokespe Amino Festival 2020: Hoenn Week
Words count: 2843
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Emerald, Latias, Ruby, Sapphire
Relation Ship: Franticshipping, Emerald & Latias, Emerald & Ruby & Sapphire
Summary:
It's the summer, it's time for festivals, but with the Hoenntrio and their love for bets and contests, it could only go wrong.
Family Business
Warning: Craphic Description of Violence, Minor Character Deaths <3
Genre: Angst, Villain AU, tw: Drugs, Weapons, Pokespe Amino Festival 2020: Sinnoh Week
Words count: 3596
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Platinum, Diamond, Pearl
Relation Ship: Implied Entourage
Summary:
Because she was the heir of the Berlitz family, she will continue to develop their wealth and their power, no matter what it takes. No matter if the path she’ll take was full of blood and corpses and crimes.
Parent-Teacher Reunion
Warning: No Warning Applies
Genre: Comedy, School life (but it’s still in the canon universe), Pokespe Amino Festival 2020: Unova Week 1
Words count: 2638
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Cheren, Black, White, Bianca, Iris
Relation Ship: Agency Shipping, Cheren & Black & White & Bianca & Iris
Summary:
Did you ever wonder how was Black's school life? Well, welcome in this parent-teacher reunion where Cheren have some things to say about his childhood friend...
Crimes Movies are Sad Except When Everyone is Dumb
Warning: No Warning Applies
Genre: Crime, Comedy, Pokespe Amino Festival 2020: Unova Week 2
Words count: 5565
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Whi-Two, Lack-Two, Hugh
Relation Ship: Whi-Two & Lack-Two & Whi-Two
Summary:
It was a normal day for Whi-Two.
A casting, a murder, two former classmates coming from nowhere...
... Wait, what?
Strength
Warning: No Warning Applies
Genre: Character Study, Pokespe Amino Festival 2020: Kalos Week
Words count: 2198
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: (Malva’s) Delphox, Trevor, Furfrou, Floette
Relation Ship: Delphox & Trevor, Delphox & Furfrou & Floette
Summary:
Delphox was strong. Malva was strong, too, but Malva's had lost, so Malva was weak.
Delphox had lost too, but she could not admit she was weak too.
No, she was strong.
It was the boy who was weak.
Treasure
Warning: No Warning Applies
Genre: Negative Spe AU, Adventure, Friendship, Pokespe Amino Festival 2020: Alola Week
Words count: 1649
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Sun, Moon
Relation Ship: Sun & Moon
Summary:
Sun always liked helping at the soup kitchen, seeing the smile and laughs of everybody around him, but the lunch breaks were always the best moment.
Too bad that this girl decided to ruin this one.
The Child of the Outdoor
Warning: No Warning Applies
Genre: Character study, pre-canon, Pokespe Amino Festival 2020: Galar Week
Words count: 1317
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Schilly, her Pokémons
Relation Ship: Schilly & her Pokémons
Summary:
Schilly always loved outdoors. It was joy, fun and great memories.
It was her Pokémons, too.
Professor Santa
Collab with @coppertrapinch for the Specord Secret Santa Event! (Check her work she’s amazing!)
Warning: No Warning Applies
Genre: Comedy, Christmas, Specord Secret Santa Event 2021
Words count: 3623
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Prof. Oak, Prof. Birch, Prof. Samson Oak, Prof. Rowan, Prof. Juniper, Crystal, Gold, Sapphire, Trevor, Soudo, Schilly, Prof. Magnolia
Relation Ship: Prof. Oak & his need for a break
Summary:
Something was bound to go wrong with Gold organizing a party... but a Secret Santa on top of that?
Poor Crystal was just too stressed at work... it was time for Professor Oak to step up to the plate. Can the renowned Professor save Christmas in time without gaining another wrinkle?
...No. No he cannot.
The Christmasly Idiotic Adventures of Pearl and Lack-Two, or the time when two idiots stopped an evil organization while being on a gift hunt
Warning: No Warning Applies
Genre: Comedy, Christmas, Specord Secret Santa Event 2021, Crime (??), Adventure
Words count: 5326
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Pearl, Lack-Two
Relation Ship: Pearl & Lack-Two
Summary:
Pearl liked Christmas. Really. Well, except when some (false) "Gift Fashion Specialist Journalist" disturbs all his plans and ruins his gift hunt. Why do he has to get a present for such a brat anyway?
Screw up Secret Santa! This year, we're gonna kick some ass for Christmas!
b) Drabbles
Ok no big presentation here cause it’s only very short drabbles (>1K words)
Valentine Day 2020: Laveree Shipping
Valentine Day 2020: Entourage Shipping
X teachs incorrect French words to Gold
Crystal is scary and very powerful
Soudo and Chilly don’t like they English localized name, and Marvin is too young for this
II/ Other fandoms
a) Champions (comics)
Heat-Haze Days
Warning: Graphic Description of Violence, Major Character Death <3
Genre: Angst, inspired by the Kagepro song “Kagerou Days”, Time loop
Words count: 4213
Statut: OS, Complete
Characters: Miles Morales/Spiderman, Kamala Khan/Miss Marvel, Sam Alexander/Nova
Summary:
It was a normal summer day, everything was fine... But the heat of haze had decided otherwise, and it was up to Miles to try to find a way out.
#fic#pokespe#marvel champions#Liyada's fics#fic masterpost#trainer red#trainer green#trainer blue#trainer yellow#trainer gold#trainer silver#trainer crystal#trainer ruby#trainer sapphire#trainer emerald#trainer diamond#trainer pearl#trainer platinum#trainer black#trainer white#trainer cheren#trainer lacktwo#trainer whitwo#trainer x#trainer y#trainer sun#trainer moon#trainer schildemilia#trainer schilly#trainer sou
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