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justshekthings · 3 years

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just for a moment - park jisung fanfic (part 1)

“Continuing to run you turn around with a huge smile across your face, locking eyes with the boy whos awestruck expression turns into a comforting smile. Somehow without even knowing each other's names you both felt as if you've managed to escape reality, like the two of you were the only people in the universe, a feeling so rare, a scene only in movies, an occurrence never forgotten and yet was just experienced by these two individuals, even if it was just for a moment.”

Park jisung x reader

Word Count: 8731

Reading time: 1h 7m

Italics = thoughts

“normal” = spoken

*IMPORTANT PLEASE READ*

Authors note: Since this a fanfic, therefore fiction, there story is set in your last year in highschool with the rest of the dream members who are all the same age. The school year will also be following the korean academic year system, just for some realism. I also made up a few characters with a korean name generator so please don’t overthink! I will also be releasing this story 4 chapters at a time with 3 parts in total, making a total of 12 chapters #quickmaths. Apologies in advance if my uploads are slow or my grammar is awful. Make sure to like and comment any suggestions or thoughts, but try to be kind, it’s my first time writing a fanfic.

Enjoy reading~

March: March, although somewhat an afterthought or rather a shadow of winter, left with only it’s remains, it sets the groundwork for the rest of the year. March plants seeds that grow from mere sprouts to full grown plants during the course of the year.

It’s early March, the month when the snow starts to thaw in preparation of the well anticipated season of spring. The feel of the winter air has managed to remain in Seoul, resented by the thousands of students forced to return back to school for the first semester. One of those poor unfortunate souls is you, y/n l/n, an 18 year old girl and you’ve come back to start and, hopefully, finish your senior year at Seoul Highschool. Although what does seem to make your experience there a little more bearable are your two friends Seo Kyung-Hu and Hu Mee-yon, while those two have been friends since primary school, you only met them in Middle school when you first transferred and they being the only nice enough kids willing to approach you, the three of you clicked instantly and ever since your trio have stayed a complete set.

Unlike your two friends, you could care less about school purposefully staying up late in hopes of sleeping through your alarm and having a valid excuse to miss the first day of school. And your plan worked… to some extent. Your mother on the other hand was keen to send you to the school you paid money for, as you should. You were fast asleep dreaming about exo performing as ot9 was suddenly awoken by the screaming of your mother. “YAH Y/N WAKE UP AND GET TO SCHOOL BEFORE I TAKE ALL YOUR EXO POSTERS AGAIN!” hearing that was enough to make you jump out of bed and start getting ready, not without a few complaints of course. Walking into your washroom you take one good look at your face in the morning, “oh god” you’re at least grateful your skin decided not to break out on the first day of school however your face was still puffed and quite dull. You continued washing your face, brushing your teeth and putting on that god awful, ugly, disgusting, and horrific uniform, as you described. Objectively your uniform wasn’t at all bad however you had the tendency to well… overthink. (the uniform looks like the A-teen beige uniform)

It being 8:35 and school starting at 8:45, you speed walked and slightly ran to school attempting to cut the initial 10 min walk in half with at least 5 mins to spare just in case. Fortunately enough you managed to get there on time to check what your classroom was, before the bell. Room 215? Ok… WHERE IS THAT AGAIN?! Somehow the break managed to erase most of your memory of the school, although there wasn’t much worth remembering about your most hated location on planet earth. You run around frantically desperately trying to find your homeroom before a teacher, or worse a hall monitor. You stop in the middle of an empty hallway to text your friends where the hell room 215 is, until you hear a unfamiliar voice reach out to you, “Are you lost babygirl” WHAT THEEE it took a second for you to process what the guy had said until out of instinct you start to laugh uncontrollably with your eyes starting to tear up. You turn around, hand holding your stomach, “What did you just say?” you ask, unable to take the male standing in front of you seriously. He stares at you, seeming to enjoy that you understood his reference, “What so you’re telling me you’re not totally turned on by that comment?” With a slight over exaggerated gasp at the end of his sentence, obviously showing that he was joking. “No no your question was valid just-” unable to finish your sentence you rerun the moment that had just unfolded through your head, succeeding in making you burst out in laughter again. His voice cuts through your laugh, “No but seriously you seem lost” finally regaining your composure, you take a minute to examine his appearance, and his attractiveness, and realizing you’ve been staring for a bit too long you panic quickly trying to cover it up, “YEAH UM i'm lost do you know where room 215 is?” “New student?” “no just dumb” He laughs at your honesty and points you in the right direction like a true gentleman. “Oh my god thanks so much, hope I see you again cute stranger!” you end your sentence with a wink and then run off after getting a glimpse of his dumbfounded expression although close enough to hear him yell out, “The name’s YangYang!”

The odds were in your favour managing to slip into class before your teacher arrived and you had a mini-mental celebration before choosing to sit in the empty window seat in the middle row with an empty seat beside you to limit the amount of human interaction you get. Sitting down in your seat and see the teacher walk in and start the generic beginning of the school year talk, you text your friends to pass the time, who were lucky enough to have their class together, while the class goes through the course outline. After waiting a few minutes at the front, you see both of your friends, Kyung-hu and mee-yon or as you called them kyuhu and mimi to simplify their names, walk out and you guys greet each other before the three of you walk in the direction of your neighborhood, talking about what you all did during the break, all the annoying teachers and most recent gossip.

You’d notice that the first week of school would follow this routine, passing by quite quickly and finding it uneventful as your teacher didn’t give a lot of homework as it was the first week of school. During the first week you concluded that there was no one in your classroom, or in the school for that matter that piqued your interest except for the fellow that helped you on the first day but has managed to slip your sight every time you scanned your surroundings to find him. Although just as fast as the first week passed by, the weekend went just as fast, and based on how your school operates, it’d be the only free weekend you’d have in a long time. And much to your dissatisfaction, you found herself in the same situation from a week ago, tired, lazy and lacking any motivation to go to school. Despite this you actually made an effort to wake up early, too early, to get ready for school to escape the never ending nagging from your mother over calls from the office over your tardy attendance. After eating a good enough breakfast, you open your door expecting a cold breeze to meet you as it did last week but to your surprise the outside was bright and dry, with no traces of snow, almost as if the weekend magically changed Seoul from winter to spring. However the leaves on the trees would need a lot more time than a weekend to grow back to their former glory. Remember when I mentioned you woke up too early, you were exactly two hours early when you arrived at the school, which suddenly made sense to you when you realized that no one in your house was awake yet and the roads in your neighborhood felt deserted. After walking around the campus you finally settle on a familiar tree on the outskirts of the school grounds, its location the very reason why you and your friends chose it as your casual lunch location for the past two years. You set your bag on your lap hugging it like a pillow laying your head on it for support and almost immediately you start drifting off the sleep.

Unbeknownst to you, your perfect sleep would be ruined by one Park Jisung, you see park jisung made the mistake of waking up 20 mins before school started not taking into account it was his very first day at the highschool and he was bound to get lost on the way to school and if he even managed to find the school, he’d have no idea where his classroom as he also missed orientation for all new students. Late and lost, jisung looked around the front of the building in search of someone to help him but since school had already started most staff and students were already inside. Although it would’ve been easier for jisung to walk inside the building somehow he noticed a figure under a tree not too far from him, jisung assuming it was a student figured it’d be easier to ask a student then suffer a scolding or even awkward small talk with a teacher. He runs up to the sleeping person under the tree and realizes it’s a girl from the long hair and skirt, legs criss crossed under a bag you is hugging and sleeping on. Reluctant to grab your attention, awakening you from your slumber, but he must do so if he ever wishes to get to class. “Excuse me?” Jisung repeats this a few times first with a shy voice growing in volume in desperation to wake you up. In your dream EXO OT9 were just about to sing love shot, one of the comebacks lay missed out on, when you heard a reluctant voice repeatedly saying excuse me disrupting your peace and not to mention exo’s performance. Jisung seeing that his voice was not enough to wake you up he starts to get physical. You try to ignore the voice hoping it’d go away until it actually starts poking your shoulder, now you have no choice but to let go of your perfect dream and wake up to respond to the thing that dares interrupt your nap. Jisung notices the girl moving, satisfied that he finally woke you up, he watches as you yawn and rub your eyes, cute he thinks to himself admiring the girl’s sleepy and adorable state. You open your eyes to see a timid but tall boy crouched beside you, finger still pointed after persistently poking you. “Yes?” glaring at the poor boy with the rudest voice you could muster expecting him to get the hint to leave you alone. “U-um can u help me?” Looking at the nervous state of the boy you empathize with his confusion seeing as you were in a similar dilemma a week ago. Softening your expression you say, “yeah what's up?” using a tone completely opposite of the one a second ago, causing Jisung to relax and become more at ease after noticing your change in attitude, “oh can u tell me where this classroom is?” Jisung points at his paper, saying Room 215. He watches your face light up, “Oh! That's my classroom you can just follow me!” And you give the boy an eye smile, happy that you can help him and possibly become friends with the boy. Jisung’s ears turn pink admiring how cute your smile is and touched by your hospitality. you stand up dusting off your skirt and checking if you had any dirt on your clothes or legs. Putting your backpack on and adjusting the straps you ask the boy what time it was. “Oh it's 9:00 am” Jisung says to you sheepishly hoping he doesn’t shock you by how late they both are, “OH SHOOT'' After hearing the time realizing just how fucked you were, acting quick you grab the new boy’s hand and start running towards the building. Jisung trailing behind the small girl is blushing due to the sudden skin ship and can feel his heart pounding due to the spontaneousness of the girl's actions along with the running not at all helping with his heart rate. Running across the field underneath the sunlight causes an increase in heart rate, a mutual feeling felt by the two, but you both recognize it as a mere adrenaline rush as you both try to take in the predicament you find yourselves in. Jisung staring at the hand who had taken his own so boldly, looked up staring at your hair that had turned from a raven black shade to a chocolate brown in the sunlight admiring how it swayed while you ran. Continuing to run you turn around with a huge smile across your face locking eyes with the boy whos awestruck expression turns into a comforting smile. Somehow without even knowing each other's names you both felt as if you've managed to escape reality, like the two of you were the only people in the universe, a feeling so rare, a scene only in movies, an occurrence never forgotten and yet was just experienced by these two individuals, even if it was just for a moment.

April: April bears us spring, which in turn prepares us for summer. The weather is unlike any other, it follows the frigid temperatures of winter and yet precedes the intense heat of summer, the month is in equilibrium.

You watch from the safety of the other side of the field as Jisung is teased yet again by his new found friend group. As cliche as it sounds he managed to land himself with the “popular kids'' group despite this school not caring much for social norms, even if there was a popular group it’d be them and they’ve accepted him wholeheartedly as if he spent the last two years with them. Much to everyone’s surprise Jisung was capable of fitting in despite him being the new kid and it being the last year, it was almost as if he was the missing part of their friend group. The group consisted of Chenle, Renjun, Jeno, Jaemin, Haechan and Mark and they weren’t just popular, they were rich and attractive as well. “Oh how he’s blossomed” you say to yourself while admiring Jisung for coming out of his shell and express himself freely “Oh god please don’t tell me you just said that” “You sound like a pedo” As if on cue your two friends arrive at your spot under the tree, slightly creeped out by your confession. “YA I didn’t mean it like that!” you say pouting at your friends' judgmental remarks. “It’s just that he’s grown so much and it’s only been a month'' taking one last glimpse at Jisung having fun before turning to your best friends who have already started to eat. “Jisung was an innocent shy boy when you met him, your maternal instincts kicked in when you first saw him, so helped him out and get comfortable at the school and now you feel like you’ve raised him but now that he’s found a proper friend group you’re sad blah blah blah yes we get it.” Shocked and speechless at what Mee-yon just said, you shake your head looking down before resting your head on your arms placed on your knees while meeting their gaze, “Did I really sound like a pedo?” this time Kyung-Hu was the one to reply “yes you definitely did” nodding innocently while getting it to you straight. And with that final blow you hide your head in your crossed arms similar to a fetal position, accepting your defeat at their teasing.

As you hear your friends move on to a new topic you just keep your head down too tired to raise it and decide to take a mini nap to hopefully make up for the 3 hours of sleep you got the night before. It wasn’t like you and jisung falling off bothered you that much you actually rarely thought about it, but for some reason today you were bothered. I guess we were never really friends. I guess more like friendly acquaintances? What about the time we hung out after school or skipped class together, did that mean anything? You sighed letting go of the memories of jisung and started falling asleep unaware of the glances from the same person you were just thinking about. You dreamed about the day you two met, after getting too tired to run the whole way there, since the two of you were already late you decided to just walk the rest of the way to your classroom while in the school, to give Jisung a mini school tour. “You just transferred here right?” “yeah I used to live in Inseon” “so why’d you decide to move here and transfer just a week after school started?” “My mom got an unexpected promotion she couldn’t refuse so we had to move to Seoul, but you sure ask a lot of questions'' you remember him teasing you for that “Well do you blame me? I’m curious.” You catch him off guard by your retaliation, “so do you miss it?” asking another unexpected question that causes a change in mood after bringing up his old home. “Of course I do, I grew up there, I had friends there and I had memories” you turned around noticing his melancholy expression while reminiscing and looked at him with concern, feeling sorry for the boy who was just staring at the ceiling almost as if he was trying to find something that was not even there. He notices the silence and makes eye contact with you realizing he must’ve worried you. “Oh but it’s better this way!” He says happily to ease your obvious concern and you stare at the nervous boy, eyebrow raised not convinced by his sudden change of heart. You let it go and the two of you walked a little bit more in silence before stopping, well at least you stopped, Jisung was absent minded enough to not realize you had stopped walking and bumped into back, you instantly looked up and stared at the boy directly over you. Jisung as the shy boy he was, panics and steps back slightly red which causes you to chuckle at his innocent behaviour. “Well here we are room 215” but before jisung was able to walk into the classroom, you turn around and stop him holding out your palm showing the universal symbol to stop, before extending it as a handshake. “Before you hear it from anyone else, I'm y/n” while grinning from ear to ear and jisung grasps your hand and gives you a light handshake, “hi i’m park jisung” returning you the same enthusiasm through a smile. After holding each others hands a little longer than expected, you let go awkwardly and enter the rowdy classroom filled with talking, laughter and pure ruckus.

You didn't know one was capable of dreaming of a memory but you just did, and just as it was before, your nap was interrupted by noise, this time in the form of whispers, many whispers. You lift your head using your right hand to rub your eyes to adjust to the light and you meet eyes with the very boy you were dreaming about. “Jisung?” you ask with open eyes, confused and surprised. “O-oh hi y/n we meet here again” he answers, scratching the nape of his neck sheepishly. His friends beside him, snicker at his awkward response and continue laughing amongst each other mocking him, jisung notices this and pretends he’s about to hit them so they’d stop making you feel uncomfortable. He looks back at you even more embarrassed to explain his presence in front of you, “so-” “Why are you here, and where's kyung-hu and mee-yon” You notice that your two friends are nowhere to be found and you become more and more anxious being alone with practical strangers. “Funny you should mention that, they actually-” “We went to get some snacks!” Although kinda mad at them for leaving you alone, at least they showed up before this conversation could get any more awkward than it already was. Jisung feels quite relieved sparing him from the awkward exchange however his friends can’t get enough of his uncomfortableness bursting out in laughter when he was interrupted, not once but two times. Jisung and his friends move themselves to the tree beside you guys resting under the shade after mee-yoon and kyung-hu return back to their seats. After waiting until they were at a comfortable distance you start yell/whispering at your friends, “WHat the fuck guys you dont leave me alone with strangers!” “Oh don’t worry at least you finally talked to him instead of staring at him all day. Plus we needed to get enough snacks for all of us and we all know one person can’t carry all of that food. So please consider this strawberry milk as an apology.” Kyung-hu offers you the drink with Mee-yoon nodding her head in agreement. “Ugh I guess this was worth that horrible experience” you take your favourite drink after barely eating anything due to your lack of appetite.

The bell goes off and everyone starts to leave the field and head under the main building including you and your friends and since those two had a class together you took a different hallway hearing footsteps behind you before realizing the only person that could’ve been behind you was someone in your class, god please kill me now. And before the awkwardness kills you, you turn around and break the silence “hey thanks for watching me while I slept I understand my friends prolly asked you to do it as a favour and I really appreciate it” Jisung looks up after staring at his feet initially scared to stare in your direction. “No problem, i'm sorry that woke you up from your nap under that tree, it feels almost like deja vu” Both of you shyly laugh at his reference to your first encounter reminiscing the past memory. “Tell me park jisung why is it always you that must ruin my napping time? What have I done to deserve such cruelty.” Your exaggeration and choice of words managed to put a smile on his face and even a chuckle out of him. “Hey that's not my fault you’re obsessed with sleeping under that tree.” “But it’d be a waste not to, the weather this time of the year is just right, you can feel the heat but it's not overbearing it comforts you, it doesn’t require you to add layers nor remove any. We don’t need to change, not one bit. I can’t afford to take these moments for granted.” Jisung stares at your back taken aback by your sudden seriousness, not to mention the topic being the mere weather. Coincidentally the roles were now reversed, it was now Jisung that was perplexed by the change of mood similar to how you were a month ago. Although he could tell your words held more depth than they let on and decided not to speak on the matter moving on with the conversation. “But seriously no need to thank me after all I do kinda owe you for helping me out, plus you’re my friend, actually my first friend at this school” flashing you a smile which eases the awkwardness of your conversation. “Friend?” you widen your eyes at the title, unaware he saw you like that considering the limited time the two of you spent together. “Yeah that's what you call people you care about right?” your eyes follow his figure with a speechless expression on your face as he passes by you and walks ahead to go back to class, but just before he walks in he steps back to look back at you, “are you coming, friend?” before winking at you, emasked in the sunlight coming from the classroom, changing his eyes a lighter shade, before completely walking into the classroom. He leaves you baffled and blushing at his new found confidence and you are still processing what just happened, did he just wink at me? You shake your head trying to forget his words in hopes of calming your heart rate and enter your classroom sitting in your seat, on the other side of the class. Despite how much you try to hide your embarrassment, you just couldn’t hide how pink your ears were, same as jisung who might have put on a brave front, is slightly regretting and yet at the same time, proud of what he said. Both of you refusing to look anywhere else but down and especially not at each other, lost in your own thoughts but if the both of you had just looked at eachother even if it was just for a moment, you both would’ve found out something crucial about each other.

May: May does not only serve as the last stretch of spring but as a period of freedom. It enables the ability to be free enough to have dreams and independent enough to act on them.

Unlike the last two months you and jisung actually managed to talk more, although more doesn’t necessarily mean a lot but considering you and him have only shared a few meaningful conversations over the span of two months, your current relationship was a huge upgrade. Disregarding the occasional partner project or pairing in physical ed, in which you and jisung had always chosen each other considering both of your friends were in different classes, you’ve developed somewhat of a casual and low maintenance friendship, that didn’t need frequent conversations but had few but worthwhile moments, all of which were cherished by the both of you, as they reassembled the same serenity the two of you shared the first day you met each other. The moments you shared rarely felt forced and if they were, due to the immature pressures of both of your friend groups, the two of you had no trouble slipping into your own world. As naive as it sounds the friendship the two of you shared was purely platonic, no doubt there were moments of butterflies and heart racing however it only lasted just for a moment, quickly fading away. However someone you were interested in was the guy that helped you on your first day, although all that you knew about him was his name, yangyang.

You and your two friends approach the stands taking your seats to watch the soccer game hosted by your school after getting invited to sit beside jisung and a few of his friends to cheer on Jaemin, playing as a forward and Jeno, the goalie. As you look forward at the field and someone wearing the number 24 caught your eye. You found the haircut and build of number 24 familiar. You struggled trying to figure out just where you saw someone with similar features as 24, but it was only until he finally turned in your direction, getting a good look at his face. “That's him!” you accidentally stood up, hands covering your open mouth and jisung who was having a conversation with his best friend chenle, turned around to look at your stunned expression. “Hm? What happened?” You looked around embarrassed by drawing attention to yourself and sat back down awkwardly, leaning towards jisung who sat in the row in front of you to whisper, “do you know who number 24 is?” “Yeah that’s yangyang but what about him?” “Yeah I KNOW what his name is, but like who is he?” “I hope you realize how stupid you sound, but why are you asking me, I’M the new kid remember? Not the person who has been attending this school for the past two years.” Jisung raises his eyebrow to you confused as to why you don’t know who this guy was, expecting the both of you to have already met at least once. “So what you’re basically saying is that you got nothing?” “No I never said that, for your information yangyang is our age but he only transferred here last year from Germany. I guess he keeps himself lowkey, soccer is really his only extracurricular.” “bruh you should’ve just led with that, not with any of this new kid bs” “I think you meant to say thank you” Jisung gives you a deadpan look disappointed by your ungratefulness, you catch a glimpse of his face and laugh at how annoyed he is. Hoping not to make your friend upset, you lean in and stick out your tongue playfully in a teasing manner before flashing him your signature smile, “Thank you Jwi~”. Taken aback by his nickname (jwi means mouse in korean) along with the hint of aegyo in your voice, blood rises to his cheeks and to his ears but before you properly see it, he covers his face with his hands while looking down although his ears, like always, were giving him away.

But before you could tease him the announcer's voice filled the outdoor stadium, “Ladies and gentlemen the game between Seoul Highschool and Apgujeong Highschool is about to commence!” Suddenly you hear everyone in the stands start screaming yelling to the top of their lungs. “We will first introduce the starting lineup of the home team, starting with co-captains Na Jaemin and Lee Jeno!” You, jisung and both of your friends stand up and start cheering on the duo running onto the field, as you have become quite friendly with jisung and his friends so it was only fitting for you to support them. After their introduction you paid no attention to the remainder of the names until, “Now introducing number 24 yangyang!” Your head that was previously resting on your palm was raised after hearing that familiar name and you lean in trying to get a closer look at him before going beside jisungs ear. “Ya” Jisung, scared by the sudden noise, flinches back leaning on to chenle, who was too distracted talking to Renjun to notice his best friend but jisungs reaction does cause you to grin. Pointing at the smiling boy on the field, you say “Do you know what class he’s in?” “Oh him?” He takes a double check looking you up and down weirded out by your enthusiasm and interest in the soccer player. “Yes we were literally talking about him like 10 seconds ago” you rolling your eyes at his forgetfulness, you find it hard to believe he could be this oblivious knowing he was acting like this to tease you. “Yeah I know what class he’s in” you glare at the boy already knowing you’d have to do the most for him to finally spill the tea. “Uh would you like to tell meee?” you, not caring if you seemed desperate. “Lemme think, hmmm yeah no i'm good” “YAH PARK JISUNG'' you see his amused expression before coughing to regain your composure and trying another strategy “Can u please tell me~” you try to act as soft and cute as possible and although aegyo tears away at your soul, you know jisung couldn’t bare the sight of it. “STOP OH GOD” He tries to cover your face so he wouldn’t need to watch your aegyo any longer but you being determined, keep dodging him so he could see every cute action you’d do. “Please jisung~” “OKOK FINE JUST PLEASE STOP!” You quickly change your expression to a serious one which slightly scares jisung “so tell me what his classroom is” you say in a threatening tone while stabbing his ribs with your fingers causing him to flinch away, he sighs and slouches showing his surrender, caving into your antics, “fine it’s room 105” “Thank you! See that wasn’t so hard now was it?” You happily smile at him but you can see he obviously didn’t reciprocate the same feelings of joy and instead glaring at you. “Easy for you to say I have to bleach my eyes and tend to my wounds” Jisung cries out while holding the ribs you just stabbed, you roll your eyes yet again and scoff at his over exaggeration. “You’re such a kid.” “I'm legit older than you soo you’re the child here” him feeling proud at his comeback, looks up to catch your reaction but you’re pouting, hand crossed over your chest upset by the undeniable fact, which he finds kind of adorable. “Anyways why are you so interested in this guy anyways? Do you like him or something” jisung asks with his eyebrow raised while poking your leg suggesting that you do hold feelings for the boy, you feel your face become slightly hot by his suggestion. You swat his hand away and say, “N-no, the answer is no. How can I even like him, I hardly know anything about him. I’m just...” “you're just?” you start glaring him for interrupting your sentence and for teasing you. “I’m just interested” you finally end your sentence returning a playful wink to jisung just as he did a month ago. “Uh huh” Jisung says with a suspicious tone before turning around showing his back to you and properly watching his friends play in their first game of the season. Not satisfied with his answer you decide to talk a bit more, “what, can’t a girl be interested in a guy? I can’t just sit around dreaming about the day he approaches me, when I want something, whatever that may be, I go get it! Plus don’t you have anyone you’re interested in?” Still refusing to turn to you, you assumed he was just ignoring you, not paying attention to your question but jisung’s act backfired when you noticed his ears turn pink after hearing what you asked. “Heoll~, our jisungie has a crush?” (heol is korean slang for omg) you start shaking his shoulders out of excitement of this discovery. Still not looking at you, jisung puts his head in his hands to hide his embarrassment, amused by his timidness, you try to make him turn to you but he won't budging, unable to look at you to spare himself further embarrassment. In truth jisung didn’t have anyone he was interested in, so he was confusing himself but it was probably the question itself and the possibility of him having a crush that made him embarrassed, or at least that’s what he told himself. “Yaaaaa jisunggg tell me~” You say in a teasing voice but realizing your strategy wasn’t gonna make him turn your way, you smirk hoping that if anything were to get him to turn around it’d be this. So you start tickling him hoping he was even ticklish which fortunately he was, severely ticklish at that too. He starts to spasm due to the tickling laughing uncontrollably using his hands to block your hands and move away from your grasp. “YA STO-” turning around to yell at you, unaware at how close you got when trying to tickle him, he stops mid sentence finally realizing the lack of distance between the two of you. He takes a small gasp interrupting what he was going to say, speechless by the sudden eye contact, but it’s too late your eyes were already locked. “Ah there you are~” you say that in such a gentle tone that it was more of a whisper, inaudible to anyone besides you and jisung. Once again you guys find each other in the sunlight, which lights up both of your eyes making them seem as clear as honey, unaware of everyone standing up, cheering as yangyang just scored a goal. Both of you too lost in each other's eyes to notice anything else besides the smallest details in each other's iris’. However the gaze is suddenly broken when you look around and realize the cause of celebration, clueless to jisung's lingering gaze. “Oh my god look yangyang just scored a goal!” You tell the boy in front of you eyes glimmering with admiration, much to jisung's displeasure. Jisung was slightly upset at the soccer player who was the reason for breaking your eye contact, along with the fond expression brought to your face when looking at yangyang rather than himself. And although jisung might never admit it, deep down he’d wish for you to look at him like that even if it was just for a moment.

June: After months in the cold waiting for the arrival of summer, at last June has arrived. The month does not only represent a drastic change in temperature but in emotions as well, this month is when mere feelings can finally develop, for better or for worse.

“I like you” the words you hear coming out of your newest friend, whom you’ve become quite close to and bonded with over the past month. “Yangyang I-” “it’s okay you don’t have to answer, I just wanted to tell you” The boy says before winking and smiling at you with confidence. In the distance you could hear his friend Hendrey call out to him in a distance and you see him turn around to wave at his friend and turn back around, “anyways y/n I kind of need to go now, my friend is calling me” He says scratching the back of his neck, reminding you of another male friend of yours, using his thumb to point back to hendrey. He runs off to his friend, not forgetting to turn around, giving a cute wave before Hendrey wraps his arm around his shoulders walking off to who knows where. Now you’re left alone dumbfounded, behind the school building with a stunned expression, while physically you look as if your mind is blank your thoughts were far from that of panicking at your friends sudden confession. In retrospect you were kind of expecting this to happen as at some point considering your relationship was never just friends, you yourself started talking to him with slight romantic interests involved. Although it was, at least for you, a bit too soon. Still baffled by recent events you failed to notice the running footsteps of two boys come from behind you. “YA CHENLE GIVE THAT BACK!” You remain stuck in your headspace as both boys suddenly stop when they notice your strange figure and start whispering to themselves. “Yah isn't that y/n?” Chenle says to the jisung who steps closer to get a better look at you standing alone, he turns back to his friend “Uh yeah I think so?” There’s a second of silence as the boys try to figure out the odd circumstance, before Chenle says, “oh well HAVE FUN!” sticking out his tongue and running away while laughing uncontrollably hoping jisung doesn’t try to go after him after successfully figuring out his password and stealing his phone. “YA” jisung lets out a heavy sigh giving up trying to get his phone back and turning towards the dazed girl, shaking your shoulder a bit to get you out of your trance “Y/n?” “H-huh? Jisung? W-what're you doing here?” “I should ask you the same thing, I mean you're all alone out here” “Oh I was? I guess I didn't notice.” You shake your head trying to forget yangyang’s confession and bring yourself back to reality not noticing jisung turning his head to the side to hide the slight blush after seeing you in a confused state. Confused as to why he had suddenly spaced out looking in another direction, “Jisung?” You ask him while tilting your head cutely, an action jisung was still able to see in his peripheral vision which made him want to keep his head turned away even more. It was now you trying to get his attention so you smile realizing the irony of the situation,”Y-yeah?” “You wanna go to class now?” You say smiling before walking ahead of him with a slight skip in your step. “Yeah sure” you hear him say awkwardly following you to class. The two of you walked in silence from that moment on side by side, you taking a few glances to check up on him as he did with you and whenever you two did make eye contact you both gave each other a smile that although a bit awkward, was comforting in some way.

It was almost a week after yangyangs confession and since then you’ve fortunately managed to avoid him, still confused with what your answer, but it wasn’t whether or not you had feelings for him or not because you knew the boy could make you laugh, smile and give you butterflies at soon as you laid eyes on him, but you felt as if it was rushed. You considered it as only a crush than deep feelings for a committed relationship, simply put it was too early. And yet you knew you’d regret rejecting him because you didn’t want your relationship to end, rejecting him would risk losing, what would've been a perfect relationship due to your own indecisiveness. Ugh I hate feelings, you trying to decide your answer, was exactly what caused you to get lost during your late night walk you took to clear your head. Realizing that you’d been spacing out, you take a look at your surroundings and you had absolutely no idea where you were. “Oh shit” although what you could recognize is a neon sign at the end of the street that spelled out Convenience Store with a couple tables and seats at the front for eating. Feeling your stomach give a loud growl, you unlock your phone just to check if you have time to spare to eat some ramen, before your mom yells at you for staying out too late, 9:00 only? “OK! Lets go!” you celebrate to yourself, pumping a fist in the air before skipping towards the store and greeting the cashier. While you run your finger through the shelfs scanning the inventory trying to find your favourite ramen, “cheese ramen, cheese ramen, cheese ramen” All of a sudden you hear the door of the store open due the iconic bell and you hear a voice, a male voice greet the cashier as well, “Good evening~” FUCK! You instantly recognize the voice cursing inwardly at the chances you’d bump into him at a convenience store of all places. You immediately move to the next aisle, away from the entrance praying that he wouldn’t see you hiding behind the end of the aisle. “This literally cannot be happening to me” “What can’t be happening to you?” you let out a shriek, jumping back startled to hear ANOTHER voice. Please don't be him, please don't be him, you open your eyes that were shut due to fright, to look up at the stranger that just scared you “J-jisung?” “Yeah who else?” You wonder why you didn’t recognize his voice initially but you see his confident grin while looking at your distressed state, it somehow pleased him to see you like this. “So you gonna answer my question or are you gonna keep on staring at me?” Realizing you must look completely crazy, you fix your posture to look at jisung straight in the eye, “none of your business.” And you walk away from the boy taking your former spot using the aisle to block anyone’s view of you. You occasionally peek your head out just to check on the whereabouts of the mystery boy and jisung takes notes of this, standing behind you, hovering like the giant he is. He chuckles at your childishness, “who are you hiding from?” He asks out loud not caring if anyone heard him, you panic quickly putting your hand over his mouth to shut him up. “Jheez can u be any louder? Plus did I not make it clear, none. of. your. business.” Jisung pouts at you before licking the inside of your hand causing you to let go of him and give him a look of a disgust while you try to wipe his saliva off your hand with your sweater, but all he does is flash you a playful smile satisfied with your reaction. You roll your eyes at jisungs shenanigans and turn around to continue your spying seeing that the boy stayed by the cashier examining the gums and candies. Jisung follows your gaze tryna figure out just who you’re so afraid of before realizing who it was and his smile then turned into a thin line. “Him?” “Ya what do you mean him? That's yangyang!” You hit jisung offended by his reaction to your crush. Jisung flinches pretending that your hit actually hurt, “yeah did I stutter?” you ignore what jisung just said, too focused on predicting the movements of yangyang, maybe focusing too hard that just when you thought he was going to leave without noticing you, you two accidentally make eye contact and you quickly hide behind the aisle hoping he didn't see you. With your chest going up and down, you struggle to control your heart rate placing your hand on your chest to hopefully help lower it down. Jisung widens his eyes seeing you so flustered, “why what happened?” he looks at you, concerned thinking you’re having a heart attack. “He saw me” you slide down now sitting on the floor with your legs folded in front of you while you hide your face in your hands breathing into them, trying to calm yourself down. “What am I gonna do, what am I gonna do” you continually repeat those words slightly scaring jisung in the process, although after seeing you in this condition he realized he needed to help in some way. “Okok just stay here” patting your head before walking off leaving you to curl up on your own. Jisung walks down the aisle that yangyang just saw you in, already meeting face to face with the boy that had walked in your direction trying to check if it was really you or a hallucination. He stops when he sees jisung, taking a step back confused as to why he’d see him there of all places, “Jisun-” “Oh hey Yangyang funny seeing you here, isn’t it a bit late tho? Based on what jeno and jaemin were talking about I swear you guys have soccer practice in the morning tomorrow at 6, no?” Jisung interrupted yangyang, rambling on about a made up soccer practice, jisung thought of on the spot, while putting his arm around the clueless boy's shoulders pushing him until they made it out of the store and before yangyang could process what was happening. “O-oh they never told me we had practice” “oh well good thing you heard it from me, tho you might wanna double check just in case, ok?” “y-yeah ok, but wait-'' but before jisung could hear his question concerning you, and then be forced to answer it he turned around and walked away allowing the convenience store door to shut thus ending their interaction, leaving yangyang completely dumbfounded as to how he ended up outside of the store instead of inside looking for you. Jisung gives a sigh of relief upon returning to the scared figure on the ground in front of him, “It’s okay now” you hear those comforting words escape his mouth and you lift up your head to look up at him, “is he gone now?” Suddenly, jisung feels heat rise to his cheeks when looking down at your curled up body, resembling a scared child and somehow your question triggered a protective instinct in jisung, who felt the need to protect you from all the things wrong in the world well at least all the things that you couldn’t protect your own self from. Finally calming down after your nervous breakdown you stand up wiping away the dust on your clothes before turning to jisung with a smile on your face, “Now let's go eat some ramen!”

Both of you walk out of the convenience store after finding your cheese ramen and his spicy one, cooking it using the hot water at the store. You both sit down on one of the tables in front of the store met with a cool breeze that cooled the two of you down a bit from the summer heat. After taking a few bites and many loud slurps from the ramen, the two of you take your time to chew creating a moment of silence so jisung turns to you, “so you wanna tell me what happened in there?” You feel obligated to give him an explanation especially after how he helped you out, swallowing your food you lay your chopsticks down and explain to him the situation of yangyang confessing to you and you being nervous and confused. “Heol, yangyang actually likes you? Whaa” You throw a piece of your trash at him offended by his question, “Ya what do you mean actually liked me, what is their not to like” you say while flipping your hair back confidently, “Mhm you keep telling yourself that” his comeback slightly surprising you but you stop there not trying to take anymore insulting comments. “Ok but I was really nervous back there, if I wasn't so antisocial or if I actually understood my feelings then maybe yangyang and I would’ve already been dating and doing whatever couples do.” Thinking about the possibilities you pout and shove a bunch of noodles in your mouth to chew angrily, showing just how stressed out you were. Jisung lets out a laugh which earns a glare from you after being charmed by your inexperience and instead of making fun of your fantasies with yangyang, he empathizes with your situation thinking of a mature answer to help you out. “Do you seriously think anyone understands themselves? Because they don’t. People may put on a convincing facade but trust me when I tell you everyone is just as confused as you are. We’re teenagers for god sakes, we’re supposed to be going through this. You may not know what you want now, but in the future you will and how are you ever gonna figure it out unless you try? I have no idea what you’re feeling right now but I do know it’d be a waste to push those feelings aside because you’re scared. You’re the only thing stopping yourself and for whatever the reason is to why you're scared, whether that be getting hurt or getting embarrassed, just know it's natural and what’s meant to happen will happen but only if you allow it to.” In awe of jisungs words and yet curious as to how he developed all that wisdom. You stare at him, trying to read his face trying to understand what he was thinking. Instead you notice the soft glow of the neon sign on his features, his hair and face slightly lit up. You soften your expression while examining the details of the boy in front of you, who’s sitting with a slight slouch while spacing out, looking down at his ramen that makes you giggle inwardly because it looks like he’s glaring at his own food. You notice just how innocent and vulnerable he looks, and yet on the contrary you are unable to understand his thoughts now matter how you try. You find yourself spotting traits about jisung that you never realized before, like the glimmer in his eye or the sound of his sniffle while eating hot noodles, or how his cheeks puff out in the slightest and his hands inter cross when trying to focus. Even if he was sitting right across from her, he felt beyond reach and in the perspective you found jisung in, he was what they call picture perfect. If only I could just read his mind, even if it was just for a moment. However you stop yourself from staring at your friend for any longer and look down to take in his words, the same words that caught you off guard. You take a minute to absorb jisungs advice and just as quickly as yangyang said those three words to you, three words of the same nature slip out of your mouth, delivering the long awaited answer you were trying so hard to figure out, “I like yangyang.”

If you were able to read this far, I love you~

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paraclete0407 · 3 years

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Going to give away all my story-ideas a la George Johnston’s ‘The Fire Sale’ since I feel as if Lucifer has been unleashed against me for the destruction of my flesh that I might learn not to blaspheme -

‘The Winners 2012′

With the prototype of my ‘Three Kings’ ultimate self-idea-hero, the Vice Principal or Ass’t Headmaster forced to play basketball, also something about a novel about violoncello and female self-satisfaction, inner life or pseudo-inner-life and my attack on Harvard people for their emetic unending self-celebration, which turned out to be a sort of Kim Jong Il three-day massacre-banquet + they really have a huge problem with alcohol, rape, at the same time they were right IMHO to be eating blueberries and protein-goop and so on sleeping 2hrs a night. Princeton students doing math in lucid dreams. I too would have but in retrospect I literally methinks I deduce that my bio-parents and Waqas my Paki roommate were trying to give me heart-failure in the cause of sociohistorical justice and/or ‘family tree’ hyper-narcissism. I was watching ‘Reply 1997′ and that song ‘Confession’ but I thought ‘I am gonna one day hang out with my friend again and drive through the NJ woods and it’ll all be alright b/c they are gonna have theirs and I am gonna have mine and in the end they will still be able to follow my lead and feel I was worthwhile.’ ‘Headmaster’s Wife’ something something Robert James Waller bidding for continued relevance after ‘Madison County’ but even in 2012 I just honestly wasn’t that fascinated with women or their hobbies at all. I like the Korean poem that says to look at your spouse’s brow, check homework, share food. Everyone wants a room of their own in which to produce bad art, get worse as a person, do that which others could do better. USFK bases are like huge campuses with super-nice beds and the soldiers all appear to need like 5,000 KCAL per diem or they’ll pass out. I had been in the habit of sleeping bolt-straight till I got here and liquified my form. ‘Winners’ got totally out of hand where the Ass’t Headmaster started cruising around looking for anyone and everyone to talk to and never got what he was up to - never ever ever realized that he could minimize his life and walk away, that he was manager-material at Cryan’s Irish Pub or sth, that the principal really might retire one day or just let him step up, if he didn’t keep trying to ‘discharge responsiblities’ or lay the ground for some super-daughter-figure to fulfill the mission that he had been waiting to incipit; and too, he was sort of a priest to begin with and avoided his vocation for years and decades for reasons unknown. My ex-friend from Harvard bragged about staying up for 36hrs doing something and there was President Obama saying ‘Heyyy Harvard Columbia but I also like flip-flops, chips, Occidental, jackass, fag.’ Obama had such an uneven series of statements. I used to blow up on the radio like 1000000% affirmative action; Thomas Sowell is 10000% right that the Ivies were disillusioning and damaging generation of Blacks who couldn’t read fast enough - therefore, better to go back to K-12 / HS and try to give younger people a general preparedness so that they wouldn’t leave it to mercenary oft CCP-seduced (Vogel) and it turns out oft pedophilic prof’s (Alexander Theroux is in the habit of calling Dershowitz ‘dirt’ though I actually agree with him about a lot and hope that he is still in favor of rule of law at this bizarre hour) to form or confer their identity and bequeath their sense of mission in life...

‘Thanksgiving Day’

Possibly my ‘most characteristic novel’ that predicted me never being understood or read with my own grain at all though it contained terrorist threats basically. Of all Korean pop-music with its numerous melismas in a way he most ‘abject’ was Sunny’s song from ‘Story of Wine,’ ‘Finally Now’ which made me realize actually I was gonna get cut up at all the dinner-parties, all my understandings would be met with anti-understandings, everything I simplified would be complicated, whether I throw rock paper or scissor all my ex-friends from Gov School are throwing CCP massive retaliation deepfake AI bury-the-scholar-alive fireballs. So they drove to the South Mountain Res where the homosexual pederasts are acting pedagogical and ‘adoptive’ and they are sitting there like, ‘Well soon it will be deer-hunting season + Chris Christie was saying how teachers like to make kids’ faces light up + give them indelible memories but under all his generosity of acknowledgment / crediting all the while CC was also saying / dogwhistling / inciting if not demanding or ordering, “Eat the poor,”which Obama was also arguably saying.’

I still like Sunny or did like 18 months ago - Tizzard and friends are mad at Cho Kuk; I tried to defend the governing class though this actually clashed with my own belief in people that came from dirt being best qualified as long as they don’t turn utterly prideful; and I’m a monarchist megalomaniac b/c I thought of Kissinger saying, ‘The illegal we do immediately the unconstitutional takes a while’ which I did not eve n intend to mean ‘Milwaukee antinomianism misrule carnivalesque total inversion of values’ and IZ*ONE were ‘rigged’ (destined), ‘Sunkyu’ is a good safe name that I know of and at the end she is like, ‘He is a loser; I am going back to the party anyway; he belongs in a Cistercian monastery or somewhere; it is not wrong to have monks and nuns and celibate married couples and/or those who wat a long time after marriage to have a child...’

‘Everything’ (Everything 2015 / Everything 2021)

Words never said, ‘I’m everything’ - therefore how can you not play my games and _ _ _. This was such an abject apprehension(?) in my own life; I had an ideal solution to the problem and in those days I actually had no acute anxiety nor did I feel this distance(d) awe from anybody but only a low-level thrumming or basso continuou worry or ‘meditation’ (Purpose-Driven Life). I guess now if someone isn’t asking a clear question it might be beside the point to imagine it’s worthwhile to answer and if somebody proffers you a certainty in any part of speech it is best it is best just to respond or non-respond without ay semblance of personality; deflection; without wanting to add anything or change anyone’s mind b/c in the end they who open their wings prematurely will get shot down all the more; and will also become their own worst enemies at times due to the conceits of ‘my nobility; fallen flower; I was Elect; I was anointed [sth. from ‘Sentimental Education’ abt women’s hearts]’

When I was 15 I started thinking a lot about reality and who is real to whom; my favorite piano-piece though in retrospect I might’ve ust listened to it then moved on with better things was Frederic Chopin’s ‘Berceuse’ op. 57 a.k.a. ‘Lullaby’ though originally it was simply ‘Variations.’ Simple left hand, very testing right hand. Michelangeli made a version in which nothing was thrown away or left to chance and a lot of pianists add a deep D-flat to the last chord which I disagreeith b/c the whole point of not using that is taht in the end it’s not a big deal. Best is Kempff 1946 because it’s utterly affectionate, fatherly, almost forgetful. I had once regarded this version or ‘rendering’ as being Kempff’s message to post-Nazi Germany saying, ‘Dream a new dream for a while.’ His left hand is spelling and his right hand is tracing. I used to make up words for this piece ‘I’m real God can’t you see / to break your shield’ but that was with a different count or tempo than the actual notation. Also, the version I heard first was Idil Biret or someone and they made the left hand cycle or reciprocate with a false completeness like an underlying clock when the essence of the ‘Berceuse’ is that the inner voices form a tolling or droning. I years later turned to the even more violent psychopathic Chopin that gave me hand-tremors and I think it is very bad for humans of which the apex was the last page or so of Nocturne 55-2 which is basically heart-explosion into embers. After going to KR I never wanted to touch a piano again except for anything related to Kempff and would walk around Lake Park, Wahl Street, considering Russia, simplicity, ‘c/Chimes.’ Didn’t then realize George Frost Kennan grew up around there and was considering Russia his whole life. I saw ‘Cat Street’ and was put in mind of a Singaporean market or square where they let songbirds talk to each other but it’s ancient history now. Maybe in future no one will care about cats, birds - I don’t really except I grew up in white trash degenerate Mass. where they burned frogs for fun (I was like 3) and put skull-flag all over their rooms. I oppose Mao sparrow-genocide, am fond of dandelions and the Ku Sang poem about dandelions from ‘Infant Splendor.’ However my generation and the people of that time were arguably over-equipped and in one way over-covered in another under-covered.

Voice in my head saying ‘They want Maoism man.’ But I really did believe in those days that others’ futures were like my own past and I perhaps overestiated my own chance of any future understanding, ‘trust-ness,’ and, either stable interiority or cognizable reliable plain-as-day face-to-face exteriority.

I also read Somerset Maugham’s critiques of ‘the Russian sense of humor’ which I approved of and my mom recently dreamed of the cat running out with his tail burnt.

There are perhaps only so many possible variations or stories and ‘today’s character’ is a real human being in the present moment and placement not just your favorite actress or whatever or whomever that would follow you to the ends of the Earth. I have almost no idea right now whether others want what I want or not; I had fantasized about writing speeches and always taking my family with me on the campaign-airplane which in retrospect is not perforce responsible and might’ve been mental Bidenism. I had only felt that it would or could be good for people in the future / future Man to be aware of one another’s burdens like let your son or daughter know when you’re working really hard instead of playing / representing Santa Dad when you’re really storing up UncleHammer and CrushFather vengeance, whether motivated by presumption and reactionary atavism or by the Will of God in the case of Mr. David James Johnston must be pulverized in to ‘coulisse bright dark tragic chiaroscuro’...In ‘Coming Home Again’ Changrae Lee’s mom was telling him how hard his psychiatric dad worked in graduate school and that is something I believe kids should know but there again what if immgrant young people really do grow up or ‘come up’ with this ‘Minima Moralia’ (Adorno cf. Vatican Censoriate) sense that ‘wrong life cannot be rightly lived,’ a horrific desolate phrase, that existence is a ‘battle life’ and that evth we do right today is a down-payment on wrong tomorrow.

In the ‘diaspora(?)’ of Evangelical Christianity following the passing away of a very famous and beautifully simply and consistent apologist Ravi Zacharias there was a cataclysmic revelation concerning his treatment of masseuses, first in terms of sexual harrassment and later unless it is all ‘fake news’ the discovery of a trove of actual records of abuse. I‘m Reddit ButBothSides relativism but it really almost feels as if there had been the mentality of a ‘treasury of merit’ but I don’t even want to say anything like that. Strange keepsakes! I feel as though ‘everybody deserves to know’ I am pretty certain I could be indicted for sexual harrassment in the Republic of Korea from a specific instant I recall very vividly + it might be good to do so in view of the current society’s determination to stop driving women toward suicide but IDK whether I ough to say that to anyone in Milwaukee b/c around here they’re racists and polyamorists and it’s more CCP paleo-peudo-Confucian mistress-culture where my dad is checking out my girlfriends and orgy and procurement are considered acts of unconditional love(?). Many years ago I looked at the Joongang Daily and say a ‘diptych’ of ‘T-ARA to release new song in November’ and ‘Uhm Taewoong arraigned for solicitation in [’my last stop’]’ + I adored TIAMO but it made me sad that the yougest member of this group was posing ith little girls all carring playing cards b/c it was lke a Chaim Potok novel that said mutatis mutandis ‘child-rearing is all gambling’ which goes against my sense of what is possible and even practical with a proper chain of care and ‘absolute ownership.’ And there I had been eager to join in the American Families Plan but then it really is still public schools where (Chesterton), ‘ The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent mistakes from being corrected.’ Professionalism, fair compensation, training, re-training, good data, involving parents. I am just sad b/c I realized I don’t really get how good or bad the SoE’s are anymore but the costs of Chromebooks and such are immense and I’m almost 100% certain the kids still have noisy homes, no good desks, + many of the staff are single moms nursing etc. + teacher-tenure and ‘middle class wages’ IMHO have been drawing mercenary self-righteous ideologue-automoton mental Boomers for decades and they still don’t get it but I’m super-sad b/c I just have no way I know of finding out!

I like talking to psychiatrists b/c they get stuff about autism as well as in some cases literal demons and matters such as handwriting, Arabic script going ‘backwards,’ but in the end they too appear committed to doing whatever the current overlord(s) of the world order are going to do. At the mental hospital they’re writing stuff like ‘schiz- ____’ nd saying ‘sign I’ll date’ and when I say ‘that’s an official document’ the union pozzers around here are like ‘it’s my document’ like Hell it is. You’re on strike against truth and morality and that’s no joke! You better give me heart-failure tonight or I will eventually bring a suit against your ‘whole host’ but that itself is beside the point because of Delta and drones and the fact that this is a revelating(?) era and a literal Judgment of God, which I had been hoping to weather and eventually execute my long-incubating intention but I truly am concerned what could present roll over and through this city.

This spectre or menace of a saturating, superceding, overriding ‘raison d’etat’ in the earthly world order soon to come and everything going to be unsealed anyway so that your private life is really just ‘a paper heart merit-badge that says “private life” on it’ and in future even a confirmation of something or someone is not really a confirmation. Puts in mind of the MLG song ‘Kiss Me’ about ego and commitment and the valences and intersections(?) of different potential promises or forecasts. My old friend Miles used to write about kissing a lot and I had reflections about kissing and such matters but IDK now if he’s a cultural Maoist advocating to defund the LAPD or he just ‘keeps his virtue to himself’ and feeds trash the ‘Arab Street’ about not protecting weak people from criminals.

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a-coda · 3 years

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Advent of Code

As a child, advent calendars always added to the sense of anticipation in the lead up to Christmas. In my day you would be lucky to get a small picture behind each of the doors. These days, children expect chocolates or sweets. My wife has once even had a "Ginvent Calendar", with gin behind each door.

This year I marked Advent by having a go at the "Advent of Code" which has Christmas-themed programming puzzles posted each day. Most days are in two parts, with an easier puzzle followed by a harder one. Traditionally, I've posted a (mostly ignored) programming puzzle to our development team each Christmas. Last year I just recycled one of the Advent of Code puzzles, but this year I suggested we attempt the whole thing. The puzzles are so well thought out, in comparison to my efforts, that it seemed pointless to compete.

In the end, several of the team had a go. Some of the puzzles were harder than others, but I managed to solve them all by Boxing Day. What follows are some personal anecdotes from the various days with some general thoughts at the end. Note that there are some spoilers and the notes won't mean much if you've not done the puzzles. So in this case just skip to the end.

a sum-finder. I implemented the search tree via recursive calls. I drifted into using Python right from the start. It just felt like the easiest way to hack the puzzles quickly. In the past I had thought about using the puzzles to learn a new language. A colleague had done that with Rust in a previous year. Despite these good intentions, expediency took a firm hold. That said, in several puzzles I would have liked immutable collections or at least Lisp-style lists.

a pattern counter. Not that interesting except patterns were emerging in the programs themselves. Regular expressions got used a lot to read in the puzzle data. I learnt about things like match.group(1,2,3) which returns a tuple of the first three match groups, so you don't have to write (m.group(1), m.group(2), m.group(3)).

a grid tracer. The first interesting one because it was unfamiliar. Some other patterns started emerging: problem parameters got promoted to command line arguments, and data structure printers got hacked to help debugging. These two were often added between part 1 and part 2 of each problem.

a data validator. This felt like a bit of a slog. It was mostly about capturing the validation rules as code. Even though I made a point of reminding myself at the start that re.search doesn't match the whole string I still forgot it later. Duh.

an indexing problem. I patted myself on the back for realizing that the index was a binary number (or pair of binary numbers as I did it). At this point the solutions were still neat and I would do a little code golfing after the solution to tidy them up a bit and make them more concise.

another pattern counter. Pre-calculating some things during data reading kept the later code simple.

a recursive calculator. This was one of those puzzles where I had to reread the description several times to try and understand what it was asking for. It entailed a slightly tricky recursive sum and product, which was again made easier by creating more supporting data structures while reading the input data.

an interpreter. Probably my favourite individual puzzle because it was so sweet, especially after a bit of refactoring to make the language more data-driven.

another sum-finder. I found I didn't particularly like these.

an order-finder. This was the first one that made me pause for thought. An overly naive search algorithm from part 1 hit a computational complexity wall in part 2. I beat the problem by realizing that the search only had to be done on small islands of the data, but a colleague pointed out there was a better linear solution. The code was starting to get a bit ragged, with commented out debugging statements.

the game of life. The classic simulation but with some out-of-bounds spaces and some line-of-sight rules. It helped to print the board.

a map navigator. I liked this one even though I forgot to convert degrees to radians and that rotation matrices go anti-clockwise. I even introduced an abstract data type (ADT) to see if it would simplify the code (I'm not sure it ever did - I mostly used lists, tuples, strings, and numbers). The second parts of the puzzles were starting to get their own files now (usually bootstrapped by copying and pasting the first part's file).

a prime number theorem. I actually got stalled on this one for a bit. It eventually turned out I had a bug in the code and was missing a modulus. In effect I wasn't accounting for small primes far to the right. I left the puzzle and went on to complete a couple of others before coming back to this one. I checked what I was doing by Googling for hints, but in the end I had to take a long hard look at the data and find my own bug.

some bit twiddling. Part 1 felt like I found the expected bitwise operations, but part 2 felt like I was bashing square pegs into round holes.

a number sequence problem. Another pat on the back, this time for keeping a dictionary of recent occurrences and not searching back down the list of numbers each time. Another recurring pattern is evident: running a sequence of steps over the data. I liked to code the step as its own function.

a constraint solver. A nice one about labelling fields that satisfy the known constraints. Half the code was parsing the textual rules into data.

another game of life simulation. This time it was in more dimensions. I generalized from 3 dimensions to N instead of just doing 4. This made it more of a drag. I started naming auxiliary functions with placeholder names (social services should have been called). Also, I tacked on extra space along each dimension to make room at each step. This felt very ugly. I should have used a sparser representation like I did for day 24.

an expression evaluator. I used another actual ADT and wrote a simple but horrible tokenizer. The evaluator was okay but I hacked the precedence by inserting parentheses into the token stream. Don't try this at home kids.

another pattern matcher. Probably my biggest hack. My code compiled the pattern rules into a single regular expression. This was cute but meant the recursive rules in part 2 needed special treatment. One rule just compiled into a repeated pattern with +. Unfortunately, the other rule entailed matching balanced sub-patterns, which every schoolchild knows regular languages can't do. Perhaps some recursive pattern extensions might have worked, but I assumed there would be no more than 10 elements of the sub-patterns and compiled the rule into a large alternative of the possible symmetrical matchers. Yuck.

a map assembler. I did this one the most methodically. It had proper comments and unit tests. Overall it took the most code but perhaps it was just dealing with all the edge cases (ba dum tss). But seriously, it seemed to take a lot of code for rotating and flipping the tiles even after knowing how they must be connected. So probably there was a better approach. It was still satisfying the see the answer come out after all that work. Curiously, this one involved little debugging. I wonder if perhaps there is some connection between preparation and outcome?

a constraint solver. I tried a dumb approach first based on searching all the possible bindings. That didn't look like it was terminating any time soon. So I reverted to a previously successful technique of intersecting the associations and then then refining them based on the already unique ones.

a recursive card game. This card game playing puzzle seemed to be going okay, but the real data didn't converge for part 2. Had a quick Google for a hint after battling with it for a while, and the first hit was from someone who said they'd misread the question. Sure enough I had too. My recursive games were on the whole deck instead of the part dictated by the cards played. Duh. The description was clear enough and included a whole worked game. I just hadn't read it properly. It still seemed to need some game state memoization to run tolerably fast.

a circular sequence. Took three attempts. A brute force approach using an array was good enough for part 1, but no way was it going to work on part 2. Even optimizing it to use ranges was still 'non-terminating' for the array-based solution. So I Googled for a little inspiration and found the phrase "linked lists" and slapped my forehead hard. I switched to a dictionary of labels to labels and the solution popped out very easily, without any further optimization. Embarrassing. Was it time to ceremonially hand in my Lisp symbol and fall on a sharpened parenthesis?

another game of life. This one sounded neat because it was about a hex grid, but I didn't know how hex grids are usually indexed. So for the first time I did a little bit of general research at the start. Turns out there are a bunch of ways to index a hex grid. I opted for using 3-axes as that seemed natural despite the redundancy. The map itself was just a dictionary of locations. I should have looked up how to have structured dictionary keys in Python (implement __hash__) but I couldn't be bothered so I (look away now) serialized and deserialized the locations to and from strings. I still had a bug which I couldn't find until I hacked a crude hex board printer and realized I wasn't carrying the unchanged cells over from one iteration to the next.

a cryptographic puzzle. Came out quite short but only after some faffing around. Main trick seemed to be to keep the transformation ticking along instead of recalculating it from scratch each time. There was slight disappointment (tinged with relief) that there was no part 2.

Some general lessons I felt I (re)learned:

Read the questions very carefully, then reread them.

Try and use terms from the questions. Don't invent your own terminology and then have to map back and forth.

Make the trace output exactly like the examples to help comparison.

Next time I'd consider using BDD to turn their examples directly into tests. Next time.

Try the problem for a while by yourself, then think about it offline, and only then Google for hints.

Next time I'd consider using some form of source control from the start, or just a better set of file naming conventions.

Regular expressions go a long way, but can then they can get in the way.

Next time I'll consider doing it using a language I'm learning.

Sometimes when you get stuck you have to start again.

During some low moments it all felt like make-work that I'd inflicted on myself, but in the end it was a nice set of training exercises. I'd encourage others to have a go at their leisure.

"Practice is the best of all instructors." -- Publilius Syrus

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malphiguswrites · 4 years

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ANALYSIS of Together

Denada Permatasari. 6 November 2017.

Fig 1.0 Photograph of Osman bin Mohammad’s Together, taken at Fort Canning Park, Singapore.

I have chosen this sculpture (Fig 1.0) titled Together by Osman bin Mohammad, a sculptor from Brunei Darussalam made in 1988. This sculpture is 3 meters tall and is made of stainless steel. Together is situated in Fort Canning Park’s sculpture trail, and is a part of the ASEAN Sculpture Garden, along with other five sculptures representing the original members of ASEAN.

I think that this sculpture is the most interesting sculpture in the whole trail because I understand its meaning just by looking at it. Other sculptures may have more interesting shapes and abstract, but because I do not understand what they mean, their significance is lost to me. I also find that Together is aesthetically more pleasing than rest of the sculptures in the trail.

The six flagpoles represent the six members of ASEAN at the time, which is Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, and Brunei Darussalam. What makes this sculpture stand out –especially in the context of the ASEAN Garden- is this one of two sculptures in the ASEAN collection representing six figures. The rest of the sculptures (Fig 1.1) have five figures as symbolism for the ASEAN members (Singapore’s Balance is a sculpture divided into five parts; Philippines’ Fredesvinda has five pairs of ribs; Indonesia’s Unity has five vertical sticks jutting out and five crisscrossing “pinheads” in its center; Thailand’s Concentration which is made up of five separate steel plates together; with the exception of Malaysia’s Augury which has six points going up). I found that this exception is due to Together being made last, as originally, Brunei Darussalam was not a member of ASEAN when the collection was made. The sculptures were made for the first ASEAN Sculptures Symposium held in May 1981. This symposium was hosted by Singapore.

Fig 1.1 The rest of the sculptures in the ASEAN Sculpture Garden. From left to right: Singapore’s Balance, Thailand’s Concentration, Malaysia’s Augury, Indonesia’s Unity, and The Philippines’ Fredesvinda (courtesy of the National Parks Singapore).

It is known that Singapore was improving its infrastructure rapidly during the 60s and 70s, proven from “its massive planting of instant trees in places of high visibility” (Gwee 17). In fact, the genius lies in the background of the ASEAN symposium:

Sculptures were introduced to improve the quality of the landscape by creating interesting landmarks in parks. The ASEAN Sculpture Corner was created at Fort Canning Park, as part of the ASEAN Sculptures Symposium in 1981, to ASEAN unity and cooperation. Sculptures were donated by each member country and installed at the Park (Gwee 18).

From that excerpt, I can say that Together was not just a diplomatic, political show of cooperation from Brunei, but instead, it is that and a genuine attempt to beautify Singapore.

The meaning of this artwork is also apparent through its looks. From Together’s aspects of form, it is easily the most understandable sculpture in the entire bunch. The sculpture just shows six flagpoles with five flags connecting them. Together resonates closest to the theme of the camaraderie of ASEAN members. Flags are widely regarded as nationalistic symbols, high and prideful, broadcasting a country’s presence and identity (Artic).

Fig 1.2 Zoom in shot of Together, showing the connected flags clearer. Taken from a low angle.

The way the flags themselves are arranged also has meaning behind it, for the flags in Together are connected on one flagpole to another. The artist could have made conventional flag displays, each separate from the other, but this conscious design choice is actually the main reason why this sculpture is rightly titled Together. Through the connected flags, they make the relationships between the poles, or the countries, interconnected and interdependent on one another. The connecting design makes six separate pieces –countries– into one, stronger, wholesome unit.

Even the shape and the curvature of the “flags” carry meaning. The wavy, dynamic form of the flags (Fig 1.2), as if blown by strong wind yet still anchored firmly unto their poles, speaks of the artist’s vision for the ASEAN members. The wind here is a metaphor for difficulty and challenges that a country faces, as echoed by the concerns of Narciso Ramos, the Philippines Secretary of Foreign Affairs at the time, that:

“’The fragmented economies of Southeast Asia,’ [Ramos] said, ‘[with] each country pursuing its own limited objectives and dissipating its meager resources in the overlapping or even conflicting endeavors of sister states carry the seeds of weakness in their incapacity for growth and their self-perpetuating dependence on the advanced, industrial nations’” (ASEAN).

The fluid, almost water-like curves of the flags can also act as a metaphor for the ASEAN members’ flexibility and potential for the future.

The number of flags, five, in comparison with the number of flagpoles, six, is also another point of intrigue. Why did the artist deliberately left out one pole without a flag? At this point of the essay, I must admit to the very limited number of accessible analysis of this artwork, therefore I resort to making my own assertions. I would guess that it was to make the sculpture have an opening gap. If there were six connected flags, the sculpture would be a closed circle. In turn, this could mean that Osman wanted to convey the openness of the ASEAN countries, in particular, their openness to cooperation and change for the better.

Figure 1.3 A simplified diagram of Together, from a bird's eye perspective. Note that this diagram is not up to scale.

Through my own observation, I have noted that the placement of the flagpoles is also curious, and worthy of further analysis. I have made a diagram (Fig 1.3) to illustrate more clearly how the artwork is arranged. The black-outlined circles are the flagpoles. The blue wavy lines are the connected flags. The yellow box on the side is the artwork’s information. The red circle is the viewer, along with the direction of sight that the viewer will naturally have if they should see the artwork. This is to affirm the orientation of the sculpture.

For one, the arrangement is not perfectly symmetrical. Though there is a recognizable formation, I think the imperfect placement is deliberate, though the meaning of this is not very obvious. I choose to interpret it as that Osman acknowledges the countries, and especially ASEAN itself since at the time, ASEAN was still in its infancy. The sculptor realizes that they are not perfect and that there is room for improvement. However, the main highlight of the arrangement is the middle pole in the outer three that juts out from the rest.

This flagpole stands nearest to the viewer, as if a leader or a commander of the group. This could be taken as placing one of the countries as the leader, or in this context, the host, which is Singapore. Or, it could also mean that the flagpole in question is a newcomer, not yet fully aligned with the others. If it is the latter case, then the metaphor shifts from Singapore to it being Brunei, as Brunei Darussalam was the newest addition back at the time. If this is so, then this speaks of the sculptor’s awareness of the status of his country and chose to acknowledge it.

Stainless steel as a material is also a point for discussion. Stainless steel are known for its long-lasting properties, resistance to rust, and durability (BS Stainless). I feel that this gives the meaning that through this sculpture, the six ASEAN members are portrayed as strong, enduring countries.

Last, but I think that this is critical to analyze, is the location of the sculpture itself, which is at Fort Canning Park. It occurred to me that out of all the public parks in Singapore, why Fort Canning? Why were the results of the ASEAN Sculptures Symposium placed in Fort Canning Park? Is there something particular about Fort Canning Park, or was it just one of the many parks in a checklist?

I found out that even the placement in Fort Canning Park was deliberate, as said by Mr. S. Dhanabalan, the Minister of Culture at the opening of the symposium:

I am happy to announce that the sculptures will be given pride of place in what will become one of Singapore’s most beautiful parks. A sculpture garden will be created to display the finished works on the site of the Central Park in the heart of historic Singapore. … We could not have asked for a more appropriate site, for it encompasses those institutions that have come to be associated with out artistic and intellectual life, namely, the National Museum, the National Library, [and] the National Theatre … (Natl. Archives).

The simple fact that Fort Canning Park used to be called Central Park during this time is already telling in of itself. Further research reveals that Fort Canning Park is one of the main historical sites in Singapore, from it being a center of power about 700 years ago, then as a military base in the mid of the 19th century, again in World War II, and finally a place of lush greenery for relaxation today (Walton). The gesture of placing the ASEAN Sculptures in the heart of the country is not lost on anyone; Singapore is proud to have international connections to other South East Asian countries through ASEAN. I believe that this is one of the rare moments where the meaning of an artwork is amplified by an external party, unbeknownst to the artist himself.

To conclude, I would like to posit my final thoughts regarding Together: I find it extremely curious that Brunei Darussalam still wanted to donate a sculpture even after seven years later the symposium was held. This persistence speaks of Brunei’s attitude with international relations and status; the country cared about contributing to a collective. The use of flags is also simple and effective, especially in consideration of the ASEAN theme.

I think that the straightforwardness of the subject matter is the sole reason why I think Together is the most interesting sculpture in the trail. Its simplicity, especially in comparison with the other ASEAN sculptures, makes it the most available and legible for viewers. Even more impressive is that Osman managed to imbue so many meaningful metaphors and symbolism to his seemingly straightforward sculpture without making it abstract like the others. Whether or not he intended to include the metaphors there through his aspects of form, as information regarding the artist is scarce, is ultimately irrelevant; I, as an outside viewer, managed to draw meaning just by looking at the sculpture, and therein lies the true genius of Together.

Works Cited

Gwee, June. Case Studies in Public Governance: Building Institutions in Singapore. Routledge. 2013. 17-18.

“What is the importance of a flag?” Artic. N.d. 5 Nov 2017 <http://www.artic.edu/~hkang2/importanceofflag.htm>.

ASEAN. “History: The Founding of ASEAN.” Association of Southeast Asian Nations. N.d. 5 Nov 2017 <http://asean.org/asean/about-asean/history/>.

BS Stainless Ltd. “Why Use Stainless Steel?” N.p. 6 Jan 2012. 5 Nov 2017 <https://www.bsstainless.com/news/2012/january/what-is-stainless-steel-and-why-use-it.html>.

Natl. Archives of Singapore. Archives and Oral History Department Singapore. Speech by Mr S Dhanabalan, Minister for Culture at opening of ASEAN Sculpture Symposium, at National Museum Art Gallery. Singapore, 5 Apr 1981 <http://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/data/pdfdoc/SD19810401.pdf>.

Walton, Millie. “Singapore Stories.” LUX Magazine. 2 Aug 2014. 5 Nov 2017 <https://www.lux-mag.com/2014/08/02/singapore-stories-fort-canning-history/>.

#together #osman bin mohammad #brunei darussalam #asean #sculpture #flags #stainless steel #fort canning park #park #june gwee #millie walton #malphigus #malphiguswrites #art #analysis #essay #2017

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wayfindersstory · 4 years

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Kingdom Hearts 3 - Captain Marvel - Chapter 2 - Wear That Flannel

“This one of your skrull?” Fury asked.

However, before Vers could answer, Kairi summoned her keyblade. “No.” Kairi denied. “Worse.”

“A heartless?” Vers asked.

“Again.” Kairi said. “Worse.”

“Yet the blade have I risen and you are so quick to denounce me.” Xehanort said.

“If you’re not a skrull, then what do you mean by what you said when you walked in?” Vers asked.

“He means that he’s possessing another’s body.” Kairi answered.

“We have never met, yet you still contain much knowledge of who I am.” Xehanort said. “Even though I do not recall discussing my name to any of you.”

“Then who are you?” Fury asked, his hand reaching for his gun in his pocket.

“I may not be in my true form, but I can assure you.” Xehanort said. “I am Xehanort.”

“Ok, I really am getting sick of all this gibberish.” Fury said.

“Then get sick of this.” Xehanort said as, around the bar, heartless rose up from darkness.

“That’s it.” Kairi said before charging at Xehanort, swinging her keyblade at him as Vers started fighting the heartless while Fury worked on escorting the bartender to safety.

However, Kairi’s attack was quickly blocked by Xehanort, who’s keyblade pushed her away, shooting purple balls of fire that Kairi blocked with her barrier guard. “What do you want with this world?” Kairi angrily asked Xehanort.

“Congratulations, girl.” Xehanort said. “The most important question you could ask has been spoken, and now, you shall receive.” As he was talking, Kairi tried to fire firaga spells at Xehanort, but he merely blocked Kairi’s attacks with his keyblade before walking toward her.

“This world is full of more hearts than you could possibly imagine.” Xehanort said as Kairi threw her keyblade at him, teleporting to the keyblade right when it hit Xehanort’s keyblade, initiating a struggle. “More hearts than almost every other world combined. So many hearts that it even has its own seven pure hearts, separate from the seven of other worlds.”

Kairi’s face was now in surprise. “Seven pure hearts?” This caused her to let her guard down, allowing Xehanort to overpower her, knocking her back again as the building started to catch fire from the flames.

“Seven pure hearts.” Xehanort repeated. “In case you and the others fail to find your seven guardians, we’ll have a world full of them to use. That’s why I’m here. After-”

Before he could continue talking, Vers knocked him away, through the wall of the building, interrupting his darkness rant. She then grabbed Kairi’s arm and ran with her out of the burning building before the bar exploded.

“That’s it.” Fury said. “Can someone tell me what on Earth is going on?”

“So let me get this straight.” Fury said, now wearing sunglasses after hearing an explanation while driving the two to Pegasus. “The skrull sim alien races to infiltrate and take over planets. The heartless are what we become when the darkness in our hearts take over. You’re a Kree? A race of noble warriors?”

“Heroes.” Vers corrected. “Noble warrior heroes.”

“And the kid is a keyblade weilder?” Fury asked. “Some kind of Jedi sword wielding group?”

“Jedi?” Kairi asked.

“And also from a place that doesn’t know Star Wars.” Fury added.

“Star Wars?” Vers asked.

“That makes two of you.” Fury said. “So, um, what does Xoonet want with-”

“Xehanort.” Kairi said. “That’s how it’s pronounced.”

“Xehanet?” Fury asked.

Kairi sighed. “Sure.”

“So what does Xehanet want with this world?” Fury asked.

“He...” Kairi began before realizing they were both just going to be even more confused. “... It’s a lot to remember. Just know there are seven pure hearts and he wants them for purposes that include destroying everything.”

“I have to say.” Fury said. “That sounds ridiculous, but congratulations on simplifying it this time. So back to the skrulls, what do they want with Doctor Lawson?”

“They believe that she developed a light-speed engine at Pegasus.” Vers explained.

“Light-speed engine?” Fury asked. “Ignoring the Star Wars part of that, gotta admit, that’s not the craziest thing I’ve heard today.”

“Well, it’s still early.” Vers said.

“And you two.” Fury said. “What do you want?”

“To stop the skrulls before they become unstoppable.” Vers answered.

“To stop Xehanort from unlocking Kingdom Hearts.” Kairi said.

“And?” Fury said. “Aside from all that mumbo jumbo?” Both Kairi and Vers were confused. “Look, war is a universal language. I know a rogue soldier when I see one. I also know a kid trying to protect her friends when I see one. You both got a personal stake in this.”

Fury pulled up on a gate on a desolate mountain road. A voice on an intercom spoke to them. “This is government property.” The man on intercom said. “Turn your vehicle around.”

“Nicholas Joseph Fury.” Fury said. “Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Place your thumb on the pad.” The man on intercom said as Fury did so. “One moment.”

“Nicholas Joseph Fury?” Vers asked. “You have three names?”

“I only have one.” Kairi said.

“Everybody calls me Fury.” Fury said. “Not Nicholas. Not Joseph. Not Nick. Just Fury.”

“What does your mom call you?” Vers asked.

“Fury.” Fury answered.

“What do you call her?” Vers asked.

“Fury.” Fury answered.

“Your friends?” Kairi asked.

“Fury.” Fury answered.

“Your enemies?” Kairi asked.

“Fury.” Fury answered.

“What about your kids?” Vers asked.

“If I have them, they’ll call me Fury.” Fury answered.

“Anyone who doesn’t?” Kairi asked.

“Perhaps god does.” Fury answered. “Actually, no. She calls me Fury.”

Fan fiction writers also call him Fury.

“You are cleared for access.” The man on intercom said.

“Thank you.” FURY answered.

After driving inside the secret base, Fury parked the car inside this large, subterranean facility. “I’m letting the kid in, but she better stay with me at all times.” Fury said.

“If you’re not gonna call me Kairi, I’m calling you Nicholas.” Kairi said.

Fury pondered before saying something. “Deal, Kairi.” They got out of the car. “Oh hold up.” Fury looked at Vers. “You look like someone’s disinfected niece.” He threw her his baseball cap with a bird on it. “Put that on.”

Vers looked at the cap, wondering what the bird was. “What is it?” Vers asked.

“It’s the S.H.I.E.L.D. Logo.” Fury answered.

“Does, uh, announcing your identity on clothing help with the covert part of your job?” Vers asked as she put the hat on.

“What were you wearing when I first met you?” Kairi asked.

“What are you wearing right now?” Vers asked.

“Oh, and give Kairi your flannel.” Fury said before tossing Kairi another cap. “Kairi wear that flannel normally.”

Vers threw Kairi her flannel, rather aggressively, before Kairi put on the flannel over the pink outfit she already wore, dropping to the length of her skirt, covering her entire outfit except a bit of her skirt.

They walked to a balcony overlooking a hangar full of many different kinds of jets. “How can I help you?” The security chief asked, walking toward them.

“We’re agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Fury said, taking out his identification, handing it to the security chief.

“Didn’t know they were taking such young agents.” The security chief said, looking at Kairi.

“We’re looking for a woman named Lawson.” Vers said.

“A Doctor Wendy Lawson.” Fury added.

“Do you know her?” Kairi asked.

“Follow me.” The security chief said.

Two minutes later, the three found themselves sitting in a security office. “You familiar with the term ‘welcome wagon’?” Fury asked.

“Yeah.” Kairi said. “Not what I’d call this.”

“Agreed.” Fury said, putting his thumb against a fingerprint scanner by the door, but it flashed red. He then took something from his pocket.

“Is that a communicator?” Vers asked.

“Yeah.” Fury answered. “State-of-the-art two-way pager.”

“I have a gummi phone.” Kairi said, taking out a red and yellow phone.

“I do not know what the kids these days have.” Fury said.

“Who are you paging?” Vers asked.

“My mom.” Fury answered. “Don’t worry. I didn’t mention you.”

After putting her thumb on the scanner and failing to open it, Vers looked through a list of rooms on the desk. Kairi watched as she stopped at records in room 511.

Meanwhile, Fury took tape from a dispenser on the chief’s desk and used it to lift a fingerprint from a spot on his identification the security chief had touched, leaving the fingerprint stained on to the tape. “Whoo-hoo-hoo!” Fury said in delight as he pressed the tape against the dispenser, unlocking the door. “After you two.”

“Impressive.” Vers said, walking through the door with Kairi, both of them knowing full well they could have done that more easily.

“Oh, you should see what I can do with a paperclip.” Fury said.

They exited an elevator on the fifth floor, making their way to room 511. An orange tabby cat came out from the corner, walking up to Vers.

“Hey there!” Fury said as he and Kairi walked up to it. “How are you?” He was about to pick it up, but Kairi did it faster.

“Oh my goodness.” Kairi said. “Look at you. Just look at you. You are just the cutest little thing. Oh yes you are. Yes you are.” She looked at its collar. “Goose. Aww! That’s adorable, just like you!”

“A cool name for a cool cat.” Fury said.

“Kairi, Fury?” Vers interrupted them, standing at the door of the records room.

“Hmm?” Kairi asked before Vers nodded toward the door. “Oh, right.” She put the cat down as she and Fury walked toward Vers. “We’ll be back.”

“Oh.” Fury said, looking at the scanner. “Let me get my fingerprint out.” He took it out and started opening it up while Kairi stood on the wall at opposite of the door at pointed her keyblade at that door. “Just let me unravel this puppy.”

However, before Fury could finish, he was interrupted by the white beam that came out from Kairi’s keyblade, going through the scanner, unlocking the door. Fury looked at her. “You sat there and watched me play with tape when?” Fury asked. “When that keysword is a literal key?”

“I mean, if she didn’t have that keyblade, I would have just opened it with a photon blast.” Vers said.

“We didn’t wanna steal your thunder.” Kairi said as Vers walked into the room. As they all entered, a light went on, revealing loads of record shelves throughout the wide room. They walked through, stopping at a set of shelves marked L.

“Hang on.” Kairi said. “I’ll scan the room. Make sure that we don’t have any unwanted visitors.” She broke from the other two, wandering around the record shelves. However, things got strange when she saw a record in the X row that confused her: Xehanort.

“Some always find it fascinating when to find something with my name on it.” Xehanort said, standing on the other side of the room.

“Xehanort.” Kairi said in alarm. “Why is there a file with your name on it?”

“That is for me to know...” Xehanort said, teleporting to her, forcefully taking the record from Kairi’s hand before pushing her back. “... And you to find out very soon.” Kairi swung her keyblade at him, striking against the newly summoned opposing keyblade. “I am a keyblade master.” Xehanort said. “One who is currently in the possession of one who came so close to being one himself, even striking down his own. What makes you think that a novice can beat me?”

“This.” Kairi said before kicking him back, throwing her keyblade at him like a boomerang, teleporting to it right before it hit Xehanort in his chest, actually getting a hit in on him, knocking him against the wall, and getting an entire combo against him as he staggered.

“Impressive.” Xehanort said before finally blocking an attack from Kairi. “I actually felt that.” He then started his own combo on Kairi, but much to Xehanort’s dismay, she was able to block most of his attacks, starting a loop of immediate back and forth strikes until he was blasted ten rooms away, Vers getting front of Kairi.

“Come on.” Vers said. “We’ve been compromised and need to get out of here.”

“He is caught off guard way too easy.” Kairi said.

#kingdom hearts #captain marvel #kairi #carol danvers #marvel

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kierongillen · 5 years

Text

Writer Notes: The Wicked + the Divine 43

Spoilers, obv.

Issue 44 comes out tomorrow at the time of writing. As I’m on the west coast of the USA, it will be just after midnight GMT by the time they’re online. So abstractly, this is the first time ever which we come out when the next issue is out. Abstractly. I’d say the day counts as where I am, and doesn’t Comixology come out a little later? We’ll see.

It’s also been so long that I almost wrote notes for issue 44. This is a weird goodbye, this period.

Anyway – Issue 43, wherein we finish explaining all the big stuff we’re going to explain.

I mean, there’s more in issue 44 and 45, but it’s all details, with the denouncement really being based around the characters’ response to this issue. They know the truth. Now what are they going to do about it?

That was the main note I gave in the script to the team – if there’s any really big questions you are confused about, now is the time to say, as this is the best clarification it’ll get. As such, we worked on it a lot to nail what we wanted to say – and what we didn’t. Sometimes this meant actually simplifying a little to avoid repeating huge amounts of stuff and leaving people even more confused. More often it involves sliding in a little nod to something someone would be thinking about.

It’s an interesting issue, I think. It’s where we show a lot of our hand.

It also involved a lot of crunching.

Jamie/Matt Cover

Cassandra finally gets her head cover. Normally a cover relates to a key beat, which isn’t true here – except in the widest possible sense that it’s where Cassandra gets to say I Told You So to everyone, including herself.

Jason Latour Cover One of the fun things about commissioning these covers is getting to see a creator’s process close up. Jason’s process on this was amazingly never-ending – he was always tweaking, and trying things and moving in a different direction. Where he ended was stunning – very him, and very WicDiv too. I remember us and the Jasons semi-jokingly about swapping books for an issue – they do WicDiv for an issue and we do Southern Bastards. This cover absolutely makes me wonder how amazing that hypothetical issue would have looked.

(Our story would have been about a Taylor-Swift-esque-singer/songwriter-before-she-got-big in the town. And probably murder, as it’s Southern Bastards, right?)

IFC

That “Life goes on” still creeps me out.

1-2

Opening vignette that lets us establish what Minerva’s plan is now, as well as re-establish Beth and her crew, and actually let us define their current position, and even give their codenames, which have existed in the Bible document since issue 1, I believe.

(Oddly, calling people “Boss” is one of my verbal ticks. It seemed fun to give it to Beth here.)

As such, Minerva immediately HiveMinding them when they’ve just stated their agency is plain harsh. Jamie’s large panel on page 2 sells it incredibly well – the statues, Minerva walking away from us – it’s all so casual.

It’s also the running theme of the issue – what Mini has been doing all these years. This is just a particularly direct example of it.

Three panels on second page to try and stress the seriousness of what this is (Space = Meaning, remember). Of course, as the issue shows, this isn’t the real part of the issue – but you have to at least believe this is a real gambit. And it is – I mean, it’d be awful if Mini pulled it off. But in people’s guts they’d realise this isn’t how WicDiv goes, right?

Minor glorious Matt Wilson note – the crackle of green in panel 3 is wonderful. Give that guy another Eisner. He deserves a hat trick.

Show time in the showbiz and the “time to show you everything” sense.

Establishing the stakes and situation for the heroes. There’s a draft of the issue I wrote which is a couple more pages long, which would have pulled this out a little more. In the end, we decided it worked better shorter – I’ll tell you why when I get there, and we could use the space elsewhere.

Key thing is showing some response to Cam’s actions at the end of last issue – it’s important to know that they haven’t just walked away, right?

In the first panel, the “identify who is speaking” is a tricky one. The “say the character’s name” is a little brutal move, and I avoid it. We’re not that book. Dio is easy – and Lucifer, bless her, is immediately identifiable by her idiom. Her line also reminds people of what she’s like, which sets up the last page.

Laura’s captions here again, doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

It says so much about this issue that the last two panels are only a half page total. These are big rock and roll images, presented in a tiny space. Jamie’s composition makes it land really well, selling the drama.

Page 5

It says even more that we did all this in a page.

Tara’s move in the original version was basically a page, but looking at it structurally it actually left it even more underwhelmed – a fight kicked off, and then heroes were losing, and then Tara does this cool thing, and they’re winning, before immediately the hive mind kicks in and they’re losing again. This does not sell the joy of Giant Woman.

This works better, not least for sheer audaciousness. I used to have a thing about tableau based storytelling – the idea that you can create a large image which people can explore and juxtapose it with a few captions to create a larger conceptual space. This is very much that.

“People treating people like meat” reminds me for the second time when re-reading this issue of the line from Pratchett: “Sin is treating people like things.” The first time was the puppets bit. I’d agree with Pratchett, clearly.

In the original draft of the script I had a line “You want more? Go re-read Rising Action” which is a bit too cute, so I lost it. It’s not really the sort of thing WicDiv does, anyway.

Yes, Giant Woman is a Steven Universe nod. Putting aside that image of Giant Tara kicking ass which has been in my head forever, there’s so much to love in the image – to pick a small part, how about the Norns blasting in triplicate? We rarely see them act like this.

You can also trace via the colouring which of Beth’s crew have duplicated which God’s powers.

Page 6

There’s been a lot about people copying people’s powers in WicDiv, and trying to find out what someone can and can’t do, and then using it against them. This switches it up. The thing about being creative instead of a straight plagiarist that creative people make up new shit. That’s kind of the point of them.

Once more, Matt showing the dance of the colouring between the Woden green (haunting the series like a ghost now) and the joy of Dio is (er) a joy.

Page 7

Another Matt moment – we step out of the club, and we drop to greys, before building the energy up.

I’m not quite sure how long Robin has wanted to punch Beth for. Or how long I planned to do it, even. I can imagine Robin thinking of this a lot though – she’s the one who takes a long time to snap.

There’s a dual structure here too – there’s two main compare-and-contrast bands in WicDiv. Beth’s and Cass’…

Page 8

And this is a very different kind of band break up.

The problem here is different – I want to give much more space. First draft it seemed that they got talked into it really easily. But it’s all the space we had so what to do? Once more, captions. Silent panel with captions can be timeless, and gives room for our minds to populate it. It’s been so long I can no longer remember if the fact the two almost-silent characters are shouting, but we’re not allowed to hear, because it’s private seems relevant.

Page 9-10

Hard cut made easier with the caption. Captions are great. Trust captions.

The shot of Mini at the edge, just looking back with space either side is great. Just the isolation of it.

The “try to sing” on the page turn seems a meaningful reveal. Can she?

No she can’t. This is another very old beat in the founding documents – it’s hinted at on page 9. Mini says that she gave it up – and she said the same in issue 9. I’m not sure I believe her. When planning it I realised that some people would take it as a comment on Work for hire – don’t get stuck keeping a story alive forever, as it will eventually atrophy your talent. It wasn’t planned, but I’d be fine with it as a reading. When Chrissy read it, she took it as “Don’t get stuck in art management.” which works too. Readings are fun.

Anyway – a performance. That the big thing in the issue is a performance rather than a fight is very much WicDiv turning towards its core concept as we head towards the final straight. Of course we’d do this.

Yeah, Matt and Jamie, killing it on the final panel of the second page – the Persephone-esque tentacles made something else, because she is something else now. The numinous expression of Minerva. Amazing.

Page 11

The borders in this sequence harking back to the Persephone performance in issue 18.

I may actually try to tweak this sequence in the trade and have a different execution of “When I was 14” and all the rest, to work a little more like a LOC CAP rather than a speech. We couldn’t make it work given the time before deadline. That’s the odd thing about our extended issues – just because it’s taking longer doesn’t mean we have more time to do tasks, right? Some things are only possible when the whole thing is together. It works, I think, but part of me wants to push it harder.

Anyway – these two. I loved writing them though. I said it back in the other flashbacks, but how the two of them dance is a delight. Hell, doing them across a lifetime is a delight.

Okay – I’m going to give you a name for Ananke’s sister. It’s the one I used in my notes. It’s no more her name than “Ananke” is really Ananke’s.

It’s Demeter. Ask me about it another time.

Page 12

The “god” in panel 2 is a Proto Norn.

This primal gathering brings to mind issue 9 as well.

Demeter’s expression in the penultimate panel? Love it.

Page 13

The captions are Laura’s style, but changed colouring. That Laura is helping Minerva performs means it comes across in her voice, was our thinking.

Captions are once more useful though – trying to get something that is evocative, but also clear was the battle.

(The Colours here!)

She-in-Thirds is a name-behind-the-name. The Maiden/Mother/Child archetype – the one which Ananke subverted in a few pages time.

Page 14

I find myself thinking whether the return to a close-to-eight panel for much of this is meaningful. This is kind of Bronze Age Phonogram.

Reading this I wish I had capitalised The Rebel – it’s another archetype. Proto-Lucifer. I’ll tweak for the trade.

I forget when the metaphor for a song for the “godhood” in WicDiv came to me, but it feels like the right one. It’s how songs often feel to me.

Page 15

If you go back to issue 34, you’ll see some of the details of this plan are different to the plan that Ananke has put into play there. In fact, the deal that she strikes in issue 34 is akin to what she wants here. It’s mainly for clarity – the reader needs to be reminded of what’s actually going on, as they won’t necessarily remember the details from way back then. I figure this is the plan she wanted to do, then found something else when Demeter wasn’t into it, before swooping around to something closer.

Page 16

“After all my friends were dead” gives a little flex in the timeline.

I do like Ananke’s hat.

“The Great River” being the Nile, and the pantheon we saw back in issue 36.

In terms of lists of things in this issue I was looking forward to write, the first meeting between Ananke and Minerva was certainly one of them. I tried to get something of the oddness here. Jamie and Matt manage to get the mood of issue 34 again too – I really do like this bronze-age western vibe. There’s a project I keep on thinking about doing, and it has some of that too it. Hmm.

Yes, page width panel of character delivering a line remains a key WicDiv tool. There’s so much I love here – the touch from Ananke, whose PoV we’re in. Minerva speaking to herself, speaking to us, etc.

That the knife is just sentimental is a minor beat I’m very fond of.

Page 17

Once more, Captions, as Laura makes sure we all Get It.

One of the debates in WicDiv fandom has always been whether the gods are picked by Ananke (i.e. Anyone could be a god) or whether they’re actually people with a gifts. Of course, the answer is that it’s both.

The thing I least like about WicDiv’s mythology is that the 12 people are people with this gift, for obvious “Ugh Chosen Ones” reasons. There’s some things that mitigate that a little, I hope, and not least that it’s clearly transferable to wherever you are in life. The core of it is “if you find yourself with a gift, be careful with it and use it responsibly.” It’s a book about the power, privilege, dangers and seductions of being an artist and all that. It’s only when writing that sentence do I realise how tired I am. This has been a busy week. Excuse me if the writing is looser than usual.

Anyway, I’m probably over-worrying. If X-men is fine, we probably are too.

So – end of the page is a download of some of the explanations of stuff folk will inevitably be going “Wait – what?”

And then Tara steps up.

When you’re writing a large group scene, with limited space, there’s choices you make of who speaks and who doesn’t. Who’s going to have the strongest counter-argument to something? Who’s going to have the biggest reaction? Them. They’re the one who carries the scene.

Which is Tara. Perhaps you could make an argument for Baal, but Baal is reeling through all these issues – plus if you choose one or the other, you tie-breaker would be who hasn’t had spotlight.

Page 18-21

And the counter is equally inevitably Cassandra (who is also in the process of beating herself up). Being Cass, she puts it harshly. Clearly, this is going to get a response from Tara.. and Cass opens up herself and makes herself vulnerable. Which is a hell of a thing for her, right?

I’ll stop this – I’m just walking through the emotional flow, but I love these two women here.

Which segues into the last formalist style thing of the issue. Once again, we have a space = meaning problem. This is clearly the most important sequence of the issue, but we have so few pages. We turn to one of the core WicDiv moves of black panels in a six panel grid, and loading them up with text. Suddenly we have a sense of ritual, a lot of dialogue produced in a stylistic way and most of all a whole extra page (hence an extra page of weight).

It’s also a complete showcase for Matt. The last godly panel of them is them at their most Godly, this final little iconic burst. A confession, and it’s gone.

I cried when I got the colours for this. I forget which one it was – there’s just some wonderful Jamie expressions in there as well.

Choosing the confessions was definitely tricky. We have space, but too much is too much. Some of them I kept simple, and others needed a little space to explain. The ordering was also one of those processes where you feel out the character, and think how they’d speak. Dio would clearly jump in, then Inanna, then Mimir trying to just piece it together, and all leading to Baal.

I did try and write a Baal caption, but any words were just too small.

And then, of course…

Page 22

You’ve probably seen me talking about year 4 as Solving The Equation. Yes, we knew lots of the key things, but there’s lots of elements of the execution were worked, and rethought and discovered. I may be able to talk a little more about this in the last issue’s notes.

This was a big one. I was chewing over the synopsis and thinking… a battle against Ananke/Minerva is a little underwhelming after everything, right? At this point in the story, Minerva is a busted flush. In reality, Laura (and Demeter) won the intellectual battle against Minerva in Mothering Invention. She’s already beat her. It nagged at me. There was something else.

Then there was the other thing – I knew that Lucifer was going to get her body back, but I wasn’t entirely sure what she’d do when she had it.

The two came together: of course, the final confrontation isn’t between Laura and Minerva. It’s with Lucifer, the person who brought Laura into the world, the person who brought us all into the world. The girl who wanted to be on stage, no matter the cost. That’s the final battle.

And best of all, I had no idea what would happen.

Well – not quite, but suddenly a whole lot of things was up in the air.

Page 23

Song reference, obv. Always connected to something in my head in my early career. If I do writer notes for the playlist, I may actually tell you.

Oh – some people wondered whether all the skulls meant everyone was dead. No – it’s just there’s no god in the slot. I’m not that kind of shithead.

Anyway – issue is out tomorrow. Or maybe today, depending on where you are. It ends the story, with 45 being an epilogue with a somewhat different tone. Clearly, it’s a huge issue, so be a little careful with your tweeting. The last cover is especially a big spoiler.

Thanks for your patience and thanks for reading.

#WicDiv #the wicked and the divine #jason latour #writer notes

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muthaz-rapapa · 5 years

Text

StarPre Ep 29: Planet Saaman, the Frontier (??)

Alternatively, “YEARSH, MOAR LALA!!”

Sooooo many things to discuss about this episode (yay!) as I expected as much with going back to Lala’s homeland.

Therefore, I should go through everything efficiently (ahahaha~).

*cracks knuckles* Let’s begin!

1) Saaman, a world ruled by AI + Lala, the anomaly

I believe by now, most of us have consumed enough media to understand that a utopia run completely by a computer is NOT the ideal world it paints itself to be.

While there are certain perks in efficiency, the lack of freedom, authenticity and most importantly, the limit on a person’s individuality and true potential (among many other things) are so alarmingly concerning that such a reality is not worth it.

However, Saaman is just that. Its citizens not only thrive on their reliance of the AI, they are also super (!!) content with a machine deciding every single aspect of how they live.

Which suggests that Saaman’s current social infrastructure and foundation must have lasted quite long already (probably centuries) for the entire population to rarely, if ever, question the decisions that AI “Mother” made for them.

Save for one. Our lovely Lala-chan.

I mean, can you blame her for not going along with the norm like her family and fellow Saamanians do?

AI Mother’s evaluation of her determined that she was most suited to investigate garbage.

After everything we’ve seen her done, how much she’s experienced and grown on this journey, of course, she can never be satisfied with that!

Lala deserves SO👏MUCH👏 FRIGGIN’👏MORE👏 (give her the galaxy!) than to sit hours upon hours sorting through junk!

Unfortunately, given the longstanding situation and culture of her planet (again, a reminder that the people of Saaman have no problem with this lifestyle), it would be incredibly difficult for anyone to actually voice their opinions of disagreement with Mother’s decisions.

Especially Lala, whose parents are big shots in Saaman and older brother is the poster child/epitome of Saamanian values.

When the majority of your family is so ensconced in societal conventions, it’s not surprising that they would push the “lesser” relative to be more like “everybody else”.

Please don’t make the mistake that this means they don’t love and care about Lala because it doesn’t. It’s so obvious that they worry for her and only want the best for her.

BUT! It’s also obvious that they don’t really know Lala nor can they be considered close to her (she calls her parents by their given names instead of simply “Mom” or “Dad”, for stars’ sake!).

Lala’s family doesn’t understand her or her unhappiness with her assigned role on Saaman. They’re so content with their own jobs that they fail to see anyone else can feel differently about theirs. So the only solution they can think of to “help” Lala is to push her further into it, believing that eventually she’ll become content.

It’s something that happens to a lot of people and perhaps the reason why Lala left Saaman in the first place. She couldn’t exactly rebel so she ran away from the pressure on her spaceship. Maybe she didn’t intend to be away for an extended period of time but still, she left hoping to search for something that Saaman could not, would not, give her.

Then she fatefully bumped into Prunce and Fuwa running away from the Notrayders, met Hikaru, became Precure and the rest was history (or rather, destiny~).

At least, that’s how I see it.

2) Madoka relates

Y’know, at first, I thought Madoka empathizing with Lala’s discomfort was based on their similar upbringings.

Despite how close Lala and Hikaru are with each other, it’s Lala and Madoka who have the most in common out of all the other members of their team and I’ve been waiting for the writers to touch on that for some time now.

From birth or early childhood at the very least, everything was already decided for them. What they will be when they grow up, what their routines will be every single day, what expectations they’re supposed to fulfill, etc.

It’s a suffocating position that doesn’t leave a lot of room for argument and what shaped these two girls into having very detrimental perfectionist outlooks before that changed after meeting Hikaru and becoming Precure.

And now that Lala finds herself under stucky circumstances with her family, unable to enjoy the same openness with them as she does with her friends, I thought Madoka was going to try to encourage Lala not to let that get to her. She’s going through the same thing with her own father, after all, so if anyone can tell Lala’s going through a hard time, it’d be Madoka.

But turns out, that’s not quite the case here as the issue lies with them keeping their Precure identities and duties secret from their families instead.

Which is fine because at least Lala still has someone who can understand her on that.

Anyways, it’s a problem because being the upstanding, honest and serious types they are (majimeko) and both coming from families with high reputations, it’s really difficult for Lala and Madoka to not tell the people who are important to them about another part of their lives that is very important to them.

For Madoka, she feels that she’s betraying her father by hiding the fact that her friends, the very first and truest friends she’s ever made, are either aliens or helping the aliens avoid being caught.

For Lala, she’s torn between her duties as a Saamanian and wanting the acknowledgement of her family and community against the desire the protect her friends from the consequences of acting on the former.

And they are right when they suspect things would probably be worst off if they were to reveal that they are Precure.

Sure, they can probably expect to receive some more substantial support from the officials of their home planet (more from the Starscape Alliance than Earth’s government, sorry Madoka)...but at what cost?

The Star team can operate and travel smoothly throughout space precisely because nobody else is aware of who they really are. If they reveal their identities, there’s no doubt they will be targeted to be controlled.

Because sadly and not to get too political or anything, that’s just what governments do. They have to control the situation, they have to think about the interests of their own countries and more often than not, they extremely suck at it and turn everything into a huge mess (and this is just massively simplifying the general for length).

If they let other people get involved, the team’s balance and even their friendship will likely absolutely be affected and strained because no way will the universe at large care about a bunch of girls getting along as much as they do about using them for its own needs.

Which I’ll get more into on Point #3 below.

But for certain, that’s one of the reasons why Lala and Madoka are unable to tell their families about being Precure.

Yes, it makes them very uncomfortable to keep this huge secret...a secret.

But at the same time, it feels even more wrong to expose it because once that happens, nothing will be the same. Nothing can stay the same.

Even if they avoid all the worse case scenarios, the ones who will definitely suffer the most will still be the girls.

Perhaps that sounds selfish because they’re putting their friends above everything else but it’s not like the Star team isn’t also doing their best to keep the villains at bay while trying to save the universe at the same time. And they’re already doing an exceptional job without anyone breathing down their necks about it.

*cough* Sorry, getting off track a bit.

Anyways, the point is, they’re following their instincts this time which is a BIG deal for people like Lala and Madoka who have tendency to lean more towards logic.

After meeting Hikaru, after letting Hikaru teach them about valuable things they didn’t know before, both Lala and Madoka learned that there is much more to the world than the structures built around them.

Sometimes, the right answer doesn’t lie in the data or the rules, cold and fair in judgement.

Sometimes, simply trusting what you feel is just more correct.

Nobody ever said doing the right thing will be easy (in fact, many times, it never is) but the heart can never lie to you after all. And it’s even more dangerous to ignore it and live through the regrets afterwards.

So which would you choose?

Going with what you feel and doing everything you can to get the best outcome? Or choosing the opposite, knowing that doing so, the best outcome becomes more impossible to achieve and you can only hope for the best of the worse?

Eh..my phrasing isn’t very good but you get what I mean, right?

Anyways, it’s just very meaningful for Madoka to be the one to say these words to Lala.

I wouldn’t say she and Lala have completed their personal journeys yet (we still have like 20 more episodes to go after all) but I do believe that this particular moment marks a very significant point in their arcs.

Having been exposed to more of the world out there beyond their own, they would never go back to being the same Lala and Madoka from the beginning.

They are still unsure about whether their choices will lead them to what they’re looking for but they both know there’s no point in looking back. They can only move forward, trusting in what they feel as right.

Which it will be and not just because this is Precure but because it will leave a very bad taste in my mouth if I wrote all that and the right doesn’t end up prevailing. :P

3) The next step...

I’ll give you a straight up “NOPE!” to that, Pops!

Apologies for letting some of my RL views seep into this post (though can you blame me when it’s been disaster after disaster out there?) but I’m positive that “joining” the Starscape Alliance (their terms, not Precure’s), no matter how well-intentioned they are, will hurt the Star team more than benefit them.

Again, cuz it will allow busybodies to unnecessarily butt into their affairs and make things harder for the girls than they already are.

Moreover...

This is just Lala’s boss being an incompetent ass-for-brains idiot but if the Starscape Alliance is anything like him or even thinks remotely like him, then the Star team coming under their control spells doom for all.

Seriously, this is another level of messed up stupid. They just got terrorized by a flamboyant tengu woman and the person he accuses of trying to steal the Princess pen is Lala?! Even though the wrecked video footage is NOT enough sufficient evidence to point her as an accomplice to Tenjou? Even though Lala’s safely holding onto the pen in the aftermath, is noticeably NOT running away with it and showing concern for her boss?

WHAT THE SERIOUS FUCKING FUCK?!?!

D:<

That said, I hope that in midst of all the chaos of next week’s episode, Lala’s family will at least refuse to believe Lala is a thief and try to find a way to talk to her to know what’s really going on.

Because if they can’t even do that and join the chase to jail their own daughter, then I have another concern to worry about and will immediately fly to Saaman, lay waste to it, take Lala home with me and file to adopt her as my own child (don’t laugh).

But seeing how Lala fought so hard, despite her awkward relationship with her family, to make sure Lolo’s efforts weren’t for nothing, I’m sure it’ll be alright.

Having both her parents and Lolo come to understand Lala would be ideal...but if not, then either one or the other. I’m banking on Lolo atm since he’s her twin but he can be the type who chooses the system over his own kin, too, so...

The screentime we were given just wasn’t enough for me to grasp where each of Lala’s family members stand on their respective relations with her so I can only hope for the best. :/

Ooo, and also, Cancer Star Princess gets revived next week! Yay~! :D

#i gotta go #spent all morning doing this #star twinkle precure #hagoromo lala #kaguya madoka

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crystalelemental · 4 years

Text

Alright folks, there’s a lot of leaks, and a lot to get through. Bear with me, this is not going to be coherent.

Let’s start with my favorites, and the Pokemon I’ve considered using. Hatterene! Healer and Anticipation are garbage-ass abilities, in every way, shape, and form. Thank god for Magic Bounce as a hidden ability, eh? Not clear how we’ll even get Hidden Abilities, or if they’re available at all in this game, but that’s at least something for the poor creature. Stats are...honestly really good. 57/90/95/136/103/29 (BST: 510). I’m sure by now, everyone knows what I’m going to say. Why is HP so low? That’s almost certainly going to be a damning feature. Gardevoir has better special bulk all-around than Hatterene. All Hatterene has is better physical bulk, and for some reason a base 90 in Attack. The hell is it going to do with that? Should’ve shaved off 20-30 points from Attack and put it literally anywhere else. The only thing it truly has over Gardevoir is higher special attack, and obscenely low speed for Trick Room abuse. Which...Gardevoir runs a fantastic Scarf set with Trick, so it really depends what kind of speed control game you want to play. They’ll both have unique roles to play, though, which is all I can ask for. That said, I’m anticipating UU. No Moonblast. It really doesn’t learn anything useful for Singles. It has Psychic naturally, thank god, and also packs Healing Wish, can learn Nuzzle through egg moves, and gets both Giga Drain and Mystical Fire through TMs, which...I kinda love that Mystical Fire is a TM, not gonna lie. TRs give about nothing. Psyshock, which it somehow doesn’t learn naturally because this game sucks at movepools, and Dark Pulse, which isn’t going to be too useful as it is. All in all, it’s not bad, but lack of Moonblast or seriously good coverage options barring maybe Mystical Fire will be a hindrance. Gigantamax may force it into OU. God, I hope they consider Gigantamax forms separate from base forms...

Alcremie! 65/60/75/110/121/64 (BST: 495). It’s about as stock standard a Fairy as any. Oh, except it doesn’t learn Moonblast. Yeah. Apparently GameFreak’s solution to Fairy types being too strong, was to just not give the new Fairies any access to Moonblast, but still let it exist on everything else that already learned it. So that’s...you know, that’s a choice. A shitty, shitty choice for idiots. But a choice. Sweet Veil kinda sucks, only preventing sleep, while Aroma Veil continues to be better and shuts down things like Taunt. It also learns Mystical Fire and Giga Drain, hysterically, as well as Psychic/Psyshock through TMs. But still, no Moonblast. Kind of damning. Unless Moonblast received a nerf, this is honestly a slap in the face for these two.

Frosmoth! 70/65/60/125/90/65 (BST: 475). Why? Why is it so slow? Yes, I know it gets Quiver Dance, but come on! Shield Dust isn’t a great ability, but it’s not terrible. Ice Scales, though? Halves all damage taken from special attacks. It’s like reverse Fur Coat. Which...honestly, it’s going to be nuts. That’s not just a halving of its obscene weakness to Fire, but a halving of all special moves. Physical attacks will drop it like a real life moth being hit with a rock, but still. It gets access to Defog, Quiver Dance, Bug Buzz, and Aurora Veil, but somehow only gets Blizzard and not Ice Beam. It can learn Giga Drain and Air Slash through TM, and Ice Beam and Dazzling Gleam through TR. All in all...frankly the best of the Pokemon I’d consider. Yeah, weak physical bulk hurts, as does its slowness, but it comes with a solid base kit. It does really need that hidden ability to work at all, though. Without it, it’s...going to suck. Royally.

Thievul! 70/58/58/87/92/90 (BST: 455). To the shock of absolutely no one, it fucking sucks! Go figure. Run Away is useless, Unburden is only helpful if you actually have an attacking stat to work with, but Stakeout? That’s...actually not too bad. Pure Dark isn’t that good defensively though, so it’s not exactly scaring much out, but doubling the base power of moves against things that switch in is really nice. That said, it didn’t save Gumshoos, and it won’t save Thievul. All of its learned moveset is physical. Because of course it is. It learns Nasty Plot, but have fun using it with all nothing you learn. TRs are the only options to teach it anything, and all it gets is Dark Pulse, Psychic, and Shadow Ball. Considering Dark and Ghost hit the exact same types super-effectively, this is essentially a wash. Not even Mystical Fire? It’s a fox for fuck’s sake! I guess it also has Grass Knot. Oh, and Round! Those will save the meta. Fuck off.

Honestly, I’m done here. There are others I’m interested in, but you get the picture: movesets this generation are absolute ass. Which is extra shitty, considering many hyper-critical TMs are now relegated to TRs, which are Gen 1-4 TMs, where they’re single use and gone forever. No confirmation on whether you can get more than one in a playthrough. At best, it requires BP. Which, if there’s no Mantine Surf equivalent, sucks ass. At worst, they’re single-acquisition. Which means if you have a team of Pokemon, and you want more than one to learn Earthquake? Fuck you, play the other game in its entirety, teach nothing Earthquake, and trade over the TR. God, this sucks. But to really hammer home the point? Coalossal. It’s the final form of Rolycoly, a Rock/Fire type. It’s a big behemoth thing, so you know, kind of a big deal since those are a fairly popular type, like Aggron and the like. As a Rock type, it gets two Rock moves of potential value: Rock Slide, and Stone Edge. Guess which one it learns naturally. Trick question: neither. It learns Rock Blast. At level 54. As the only Rock move it learns other than Smack Down. And no, Skill Link is not a move it can learn. It’s completely useless. This is Gen 3 Aggron all over again.�� Such a cool looking Pokemon that should kick all kinds of ass, and it learns exactly nothing of value.

The whole system of learning moves is entirely fucked if BP isn’t easily farmable. All the most important moves are TRs now, and are therefore one-turn use. TMs are mostly nonsense, with a few outrageous picks like Giga Drain and Air Slash allowed in for infinite reuse. With movepools not making sense either, even Pokemon who should learn the moves naturally may not have access. Moonblast seems like it takes a serious hit overall, especially with poor Hatterene and Alcremie. I just...I hate it.

But hey, the meta must be fixed, right? They said they’d be fixing it, so they must have succeeded just like the last two generations! Yeah, it’s...it’s a shitshow. Aside from the disaster that is movepool accessibility, which doesn’t simplify or impact the meta, just makes the acquisition of needed moves that much harder to access for no fucking reason, we also have disasters in the ability field as well! Ice Scales is busted as hell, Ice Face seems to replenish each turn when Hail is active and takes physical hits as if there were a substitute, among others. Then there’s Perish Body, which sounds like a great way to finally put a halt to physical sweepers using Dragon Dance and Swords Dance sets, is only on Cursola, who has...wow, 60 base HP and 50 base defense! So knocked over by a light breeze. Spectacular, so much for that working out.

Oh, but then there’s the other horrors. Terrains are still in the game, folks. That’s right, Surge abilities are here! The Grass starter? Yeah, Grassy Surge is its hidden ability. The other terrains are just as available. Psychic Surge is on both forms of Indeedee, which, while we’re here, which is which? My guess is the female form is the one that loses power and speed for more bulk, making it objectively worse than its male counterpart, again, for like the billionth time they’ve made a male/female split on the same Pokemon.

But the worst, by far...is Libero. The Scorbunny line’s hidden ability. “Changes Pokemon’s type to the type of move it’s about to use. Depending on when this goes into effect, this is a buffed Protean. If it changes start of the turn, this is a straight upgrade. Because now, even if you catch it off-guard with a Scarf or something, it’s just going to change type and you have no idea what to. We’ve got Fire, Flying, Fighting, Psychic, Poison, Steel, and Normal as the best options with physical moves learned. I’m sure someone can piece together the best possible combination of four moves to just never take super-effective damage ever.

This is what pisses me off. The meta isn’t balanced. At all. It hasn’t even started and I can tell you that much. You left all the broken tools in the game, under different forms. Yes, the Tapu are gone, but the Terrains still exist and are just as devastating as always. You got rid of Greninja, fantastic, but now Cinderace exists with the same broken ability, but possibly buffed, and with higher offensive stats. You still gave a ton of new Pokemon the “Average across the board” treatment, or weaknesses in critical areas like Frosmoth’s low speed or Cursola’s low physical defense or Hatterene’s low HP, and they’re not going to perform well because of it. Meanwhile others get to be obscene, like Cinderace or Dragapult with its 142 base speed. And then there’s Thievul over here whose highest base stat is 92, so good fucking luck making that work. You told me the dex removal was for balancing purposes, and this is what you deliver to me? This literal shit? I’m so irritated by this. They’ll have to pull something really substantial off to make these Technical Records not feel like a severe step backwards in accessibility.

#pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon sword and shield spoilers #pokesalt

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houseki-no-suffering · 6 years

Text

The Lustrous’ writing system

(contains minor and major spoilers from the manga!!)

Writing and reading are recurring elements in Houseki no Kuni. Phos’ first job is to write an encyclopedia and we know that the gems possess a vast library. Writing is so important that Peridot’s main occupation is making paper for other gems to use, just like Alex’s job is being a scholar and writing about Lunarians.

Also, while Admirabilis, Lustrous and Lunarians seem to share a common language, they do not share the same writing system (when showed a dépliant of the Moon facilities, Phos is unable to read it). So which script do the Lustrous use?

Since it’s sensei that educates the gems in writing and reading, we can assume that he taught them a type of script that humans used when he was originally created, so we can try to identify it starting from the scripts that exist today.

First of all, there are many types of writing systems, each with their own conventions, and they are classified according to what the different symbols of the system stand for. While linguists still kill each other in their sleep over classifications criteria, for the sake of this post I’m going to adopt a simplified version of Daniels’ classification. So we have:

Logographic: like Chinese, each symbol is a morpheme (a single unit of meaning, like 王, king)

Syllabic: like Japanese kana, each symbol is a syllable (け, か and こ, ke, ka and ko)

Alphabetic: like our Latin alphabet, each symbol is a distinct phoneme, vowels included (like A, B, C etc)

Abugida: or alphasyllabary, it’s in between Alphabetic and Syllabic, sequences of consonants and vowels are written as a unit like in Devanagari and Tibetan ( क् + प/ पे = क/ कॆ, K + a/e = Ka/Ke)

Abjad: like the Alphabetic, but symbols are only for consonants, like in traditional Hebrew and Arabic (ב‬ ,ג‬ ,ד‬, B, G, D)

Featural: the shape of the symbol resemble that of the sound, like in Korean Hangul (like ㅁ, M, that looks like a mouth)

Another thing to account for is the direction of writing: when the gems write they go top to bottom, vertically and right-to-left like we can see from these pictures:

Pic 1 is of one of Alex’s drawings: the paragraphs align on the right side of the paper, while there’s room left on the opposite side of the sheet, at the end of the second paragraph. The second pic is of Rutile: while it looks like they’re taking notes left-to-right, they could also be editing what they just wrote because the entire page is already densely written. Also notice how they write with a stylus, not a brush, because this detail will be important later.

Similarly, here we have Ghost, Sensei and Phos reading right-to-left, starting from what would be the last page from a Latin script user’s point of view. Notice how the titles of the books are on the left of the binding. Sensei is also reading right-to-left: this is from the panel where he’s teaching a new book to young Phos so he’s reading the first pages, the ones on the right.

So we have a top-to-bottom, right-to-left script, which hints at the gems’ writing system being based on an East-Asian script, since they’re the ones most often written vertically&RTL.

It would make sense for the Lustrous writing system to be Asian-based: the story is highly influenced by Buddhism and the mangaka is a Japanese woman. Yet, while I do believe that the script the gems use is Asian (or, well, similar to known Asian scripts) I don’t believe it’s Japanese. Let’s look at some examples:

(Lustrous script vs Chinese/Japanese cursive)

(regular Chinese/Japanese vs cursive form vs Lustrous script)

The gems’ script does resemble Japanese and Chinese cursive, but there are a few issues. First of all, cursive is hardly intelligible even for skilled readers, because it is regular writing that was drastically simplified and smoothed out to create a beautiful and abstract appearance: it’s more of an art form than an ‘actual’ writing system. Also, cursive is created by the movement of the brush never leaving the paper, so we would expect the gems to write with a brush when we know that they actually use a stylus.

Finally, since cursive is just a type of calligraphy, we would expect some of the writing we see in the series to look like regular Japanese and Chinese, like the script on the left in the first picture, yet it never does.

(Lustrous script vs Traditional Mongolian)

What we do have examples of are the tidy and geometrical vertical lines that characterize the Lustrous’ script. They write vertically in a continuous swirl of characters that is similar not only to Chinese Cursive but also to another East Asian alphabet, with whom the Lustrous script also shares a lot of other characteristics: Traditional Mongolian, a script derived from the Old Uyghur alphabet, a distant relative of the Egyptian hieroglyphs.

I have a couple of examples to raise my point and they have to do with the few images of single letters/symbols that we see in the series, like the one below, from ep.12.

I couldn’t find a higher resolution picture, but look at the paper sheets on the wall of Alexandrite’s room: the one on the left is about the different types of Lunarian apparitions, while the one on the right is about the island where the gems live.

If you squint your eyes a little, you can see that, above each portion of text in the image on the right is a symbol, probably a letter or a number to classify the different types of information. Same thing for the left image: there’s a symbol next to each ‘model’.

When Alex tests Phos’ knowledge, they do refer to numbers to classify the different types of models, so let’s say for a second that those symbols are numbers. Even if the picture is not super clear they are not angular enough to be Chinese/Japanese numbers: 一十二三四五六七八九十 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Now look at Mongolian numbers:

They look swirly and rounded like those in the picture. Also, remember how Mongolian writes top-to-down? If you stack these numerals up in vertical sequences (like in dates or two+ digit numbers) they will acquire the same length of the ones showed in the picture.

Finally, we must also take into consideration the type of script. Remember that very long list at the beginning of this post? Well, how do the gems differentiate among symbols and sounds? Do they use an Alphabetic script like Mongolian or a Logographic one like Chinese? Do they use something different altogether?

Thanks to Phos’ never-ending curiosity, we do have one example of how the Lustrous’ write sounds and it’s from when Phos tried to speak with the Lunarians and heard them saying ‘fu’ and ‘a’:

When they write those sounds down, they use two different characters: one for ‘fu’ and one for ‘a’.

Now, the manga is written in Japanese and Japanese uses a syllabic script, so it can’t write single consonants. Instead, it attaches the vowel ‘u’ (or sometimes ‘o’) to a consonant to suggest that it should be read by itself. So we could think that the ‘u’ in ‘fu’ is mute and that the Lunarian said ‘f’ instead of ‘fu.’ However that ‘fu’ is used to make a joke just a couple of panels later, suggesting that it could also exist as a syllable on its own, not a single consonant.

This would change the type of script the Lustrous use, because if Phos wrote down ‘f’ and ‘a’ (instead of ‘fu’ and ‘a’), then it would mean that the gems use an Alphabetic script, like Traditional Mongolian. On the other hand, if Phos heard ‘f+u’ and wrote down the syllable ‘fu,’ then the gems’ script could be Syllabic, like Japanese or an Alphasyllabary like Tibetan.

As for other types of scripts, I don’t think they are using a Logographic one (like Chinese), because if they were, then Phos would have written all the different ways in which the sound ‘fu’ could be represented, just like when Japanese speakers tell each other which kanji to use to write their name correctly. This is because each symbol stands for a morpheme (a unit of meaning), not a phoneme (a single emission of sound), so the same unit of sound can be written in different ways.

Phos is looking at the sounds they just wrote to come up with an idea about what they could possibly mean: it would make sense for them to write down all the possible combinations of sounds for ‘fu’ and ‘a,’ not just one.

What we can say for sure is that the Lustrous’ script is not Abjad, because the vowels (like ‘a’) have an independent symbol. And speaking of independent symbols, if we come back to Mongolian for a second, we can see that the symbols for ‘initial fu’ and ‘independent a’ do look a little like what Phos wrote down:

If this were true, then the Lustrous’ script would work like Mongolian: an alphabetic script where letters have different forms depending on their position in a word (initial, medial, final or independent).

There is one problem with Mongolian, though: it’s written vertically, top-to-bottom like the Lustrous’ script, but left-to-right rather than right-to-left. So if the gems are indeed writing in some sort of descendant of the Traditional Mongolian script, then it was modified to allow right-to-left vertical writing, like in a mixture between Chinese cursive and Traditional Mongolian.

For example, the two Lustrous letters above look like a mirrored version of the Mongolian letters below, and that could explain how one system writes RTL and the other LTR.

Among all the existing writing systems that I have analyzed, I think that Traditional Mongolian and Chinese cursive are the ones that resemble the way the Lustrous write the most. Among the two, I believe Traditional Mongolian shares more features with the Lustrous script than Chinese cursive, except for the fact that Mongolian writes left-to-right.

If the gems really did write in a parent script of Mongolian, then it would be interesting to know if they also spoke a descendant of the Mongolian language or if sensei taught them Mongolian script because he was created in Mongolia, but this post is already long enough.

I’d love to hear what you think about the Lustrous script though, and if I made some mistake or forgot to mention something, feel free to add to this meta.

#houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous #hnk #meta #long post #writing #writing system #script #hnk headcanon #mongolian #linguistics #lustrous writing system #meta tag #best

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ask-de-writer · 5 years

Text

DARING DO and the Gryphon’s Quest! : MLP Fan Fiction : Chapter 17 of 19

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to MLP Fan Fiction

DARING DO

and

The Gryphon’s Quest!

Chapter 17

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

and

Carmen Pondiego

Cover art by Wind the Mama Cat

29584 words

Writing begun 03/29/16

This is a Fan Fiction based on My Little Pony. Canterlot, Princess Luna and the name Daring Do are owned by Hasboro Inc.

//////////////

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.

1.) They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact.

2.) They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

3.) All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction are actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

For new readers, this link leads to the beginning of

Daring Do and the Gryphon’s Quest!

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Chapter 17. The Coward’s Weapon!

Daring Do was pleasantly surprised at just how good her half brother Blendin was at specimen preparation. There was another surprise for her too.

Friend spent much of her time crooning to her Eagle eggs. She did frequently leave her nest and lend her green magic to the task, usually greatly simplifying the work. It was the greatest assistance at particularly difficult or delicate times in the preparation of the failed nymphs that she had loved so dearly and watched over for so many centuries.

Almost any time that they took a break from the arduous task before them, Friend would leave the eggs and nest protected by a nearly invisible glow of green magic. She would take a place beside Daring Do and purr/croon softly. Daring Do found real rest and comfort in the love that Friend shared with her. She often rested her head against the changeling’s horn and shared thought and memory.

It was from that sharing that she learned something surprising about Friend. When her hive was attacked by war equipped and battle ready unicorns, Friend defended the hive’s precious eggs.

She slaughtered ten of the enemy, literally tearing them to pieces in the defense of those eggs. When her shared hive mind felt the Queen die, she went briefly berserk. Four of the ten attacking unicorns that she killed fell in those few moments.

It was duty and love for the eggs that she tended that brought her back to something resembling sanity. Taking all of the eggs that she could carry, she fled into the night.

The world outside of the hive was a strange and confusing place at first. By luck alone, she found a long disused road that led to the mountains. She did the best that she could but it was not enough. One by one, she felt the spark of returned love die out of each of the eggs. Her heart was torn asunder by the loss.

Daring Do knew the rest of the story. What she did not know was the sheer depth of feeling that Friend had developed for her. She meant it when she said that Daring Do was Matunen, Hive Queen, in the ancient tongue of Early Middle Equestrian.

Friend was totally contented for the first time in ages. That in no way interfered with any whit of her egg tending.

Blendin saw his half sister’s serene relaxation around Friend and was glad. The Apprentice Librarian of the Great Library in him was glad too. He was learning things about conservation of irreplaceable delicate artifacts and relics that would apply to his work in the Great Library.

Once everything was ready, he stared at the results of their work in wonder. He had not only helped to prepare the whole foundation for the creation of an entire intelligent species, he had it and all of his half sister’s notes cataloged for the Great Library!

Together, they sent a note of their progress to the Empress.

The door, upon opening, showed the Empress, Grata, and the Right Wing of the Imperial Throne. The hallway was blocked by heavily armed Imperial Guards in full battle armor.

Daring Do was about to ask if such precautions were necessary when a loud, harsh voice from up the hallway demanded, “This is all Blasphemous! Even if it were the truth and showed our ancient roots, it would still be blasphemy! The Holy Legends declare that Faith alone is sufficient and seeking truth beyond its holy pages undermines Faith!

“Whatever is here must be destroyed!”

The Empress responded, “What is about to be destroyed is YOU, Krapper! You have fifteen seconds to be around the curve and out of OUR sight before I order my troops to open fire!”

“You would not dare!”

“Nine seconds left, Krapper.”

There was a clatter of claws on stone as the speaker retreated!

The Empress drew a deep breath, her crest showing disgust. “The entire lot of First Creation Idiots want to destroy the only real history that our kind has.”

Friend spoke up, “Your Majesty, they are wrong. This I/we know. Before I/we loved the eggs that became the nymphs of your kind, I/we saw changelings. I/we saw unicorns. I/we saw Eagles. I/we saw pegassi.

“I/we helped matunen Daring Do and brother Blendin to be sure that these failed nymphs truly show how I/we loved the eggs that became the nymphs that are your kind.”

The Empress, crest showing deep thought, began tracing the development of her kind. She was reading the placards set by each step of the way. Looking over to the true mother of her whole species, she asked, “Why did you go from pony to big cat for our hindquarters?”

Friend crowded over to point as she spoke. “Not all big cat. See how these bones go? That is from the pegassus. The head was carnivore, Eagle. The hindquarters had to eat meat too or fail. I/we did see a lion in mountains once, close enough to feel its insides by loving it. I/we used what I/we knew.”

Grata, crest rippling in laughter, exclaimed, “We are so lucky that she didn’t see a bear!”

After the fit of laughter passed around the room, the Empress asked, “How will this all be presented, Doctor Do?”

Daring Do sketched rapidly. “The case, to be portable must be of stout woodwork. The front viewing window should be made of glass that has been spell strengthened like a Magic Net mirror.”

The Empress nodded, crest showing some concern. “You mentioned not risking the real relics and that is a good idea.

“We have General Iron Hooves here with some of his munitions experts. The team that they are consulting with is known to you, though we know that you do not like them much.

“V.I.L.E. Is here. They have sent Carmen Pondiego, Baron Von Nighthoof, Marehem Skadefryd, and Kiros Asbhy. I understand that they have also got a number of Agents here too.”

Crest smiling, the Empress went on, “I was warned to be sure that I still have both mandibles of my beak after dealing with them. However, they will be absolutely honest with family.

“They have several missions. One is being worked on now with General Ironhooves and his aides. Another is to be the agency for creating your cases and making the copies for display. I will be ordering twenty sets.”

Daring Do, looking doubtful, did agree, “I have to admit that when it comes to museum quality duplication, Mom’s company is unexcelled.”

An all too familiar voice caroled from the doorway, “So sweet to hear you actually say something nice about my company! Of course we are honest! V.I.L.E. has never been caught or proved to be guilty of ANY crime at all!

“Suspicions? Poof! Suspicion and a cup of tea will get you anything from a nice Bergamont to bag of Lupton’s Worst!

Carmen Pondiego strutted into the room in her trademark porkpie hat and fire engine red dress. She called over her shoulder, “General, Dear, would you please come in and see for yourself what my daughter found that is causing all this mess?”

General Ironhooves entered the door. He was in his simple field uniform.

He tipped his Campaign Hat to the Empress and her Wings. He approached the study tables, examining the relics with care. He picked up Daring Do’s voluminous field notes and sketches, seeming to leaf through them, except that once in a while he stopped long enough to separate pages that stuck together.

He put down the books and turned to the Empress. “Ma'am, you have chosen your battlefield perfectly. Better, you have the enemy in the sights of your artillery.

“I hope that it does not come to armed conflict, but if it does, after consulting with Carmen here, I think that you will have a LOT of surprises for them!”

Daring Do managed to look skeptical. “Only them?”

Before Carmen could snark back, Marehem wandered in, right past the security detail. He grinned. “Helps to be a misfortune changel …”

His eyes bugged out. It was the first time that Daring Do could remember that her uncle Marehem was caught totally off guard!

“An Egg-tender, HERE? How did that happen? How can she live without a hive?”

Friend looked up from serenely turning the eggs in the nest. She smiled as she said, “Matunen Daring Do.”

Uncle M stopped like he’d hit a brick wall headfirst. “Adora, Matunen? A queen?”

The Empress nodded, crest rippling amusement. “It hit us like that too, when we realized that Friend is OVER two thousand years old. She was the sole survivor of a destroyed hive.

“Tending eggs kept her sane. She is the Mother who loved an unstable and fatal hybridization into becoming our strong race. I gather that for her, loving means something other than a simple feeling.”

Marehem got it together to say, “It sure does. The eggs a queen lays are sort of neutral. They will develop as random kinds of changelings. Give them to an Egg-tender and tell her how many of which sort, worker, other egg-tenders, drones, even a queen, and that is what you will get. Their love is a very complex magic that no other kind can do.”

Daring Do, eyes twinkling, suggested, “Make the order for V.I.L.E. twenty one copies. We will donate one to the Nightmare Wars Collection of the Royal Museum!”

General Ironhooves grinned hugely. “You really want to shaft those First Creationists, don’t you?”

Daring Do simply said, “Yes. They defile and deny the history that I have devoted my life to.”

Carmen pointed to the work tables and said, “Will you take a real compliment from your mother, Adora? This, notes, restorations, preparation and all is a fantastic piece of work.

“V.I.L.E. will duplicate it with the greatest of care. With your permission, we will keep a copy for our own private museum.”

Mutely, Daring Do nodded.

She saw Uncle M talking to a Magic Net mirror and turning it to show everything.

Carmen pointed to an especially fragile relic and said, “Be especially careful of this one, Baron.”

One by one, the laboriously prepared relics, notes and all quietly vanished. General Ironhooves simply noted, “Handy trick, that!”

Daring Do, Friend, with her nest, and Blendin were brought to a large suite with an open airy feeling. One Gryphon port was open enough for the Eagles to get in and out but not Gryphons. The rooms were swarmed with Eagles.

Friend immediately shared that soft green magic of hers to include all of the waiting Eagles. The way that they crowded close about the nest, it was clear that they had been waiting for Friend’s loving magic. Several shuffled aside and one reached out a beak and snagged Daring Do’s tunic, making her join or get a torn tunic. She joined the Eagles in luxuriating in the literal glow of Friend’s shared love.

After a few days of resting up, Rahak came by. Crest at attention, he requested, “Doctor Do, master Blendin, would you come please? The display copies are ready for examination.”

They followed the Wing Commander back down to the workroom. There were twenty one large cases of fine solid woodwork, each faced by stout glass armored by a spell to the toughness of steel. The contents were beautifully displayed to make the whole progression from hippogriff to Gryphon utterly clear. Each item of the display had its explanatory placard.

Neatly done on each placard was an exact copy of a reference to the actual original Legend Document, with translation. After that part was a clear, simple note explaining the item.

Central to the whole display was Daring Do’s detailed sketch of the remains of the failed nymphs in place, as they were found.

The whole thing had such an impact that Daring Do’s breath drew in, in a way that she had heard so many times as a child riding her mother’s back in a knapsack, when her mother saw some beautiful thing that she was about to steal.

Turning to an equally awestruck Blendin, Daring Do said, “Tell Carmen that this is the best display preparation that I have ever seen.”

“Thank you, dear,” said a familiar voice. A khaki colored unicorn mare in a form fitting fire engine red dress stepped out of the shadows. Daring Do was shocked to see bags under her eyes.

Carmen Pondiego told her, “The General is sleeping now. I have been working along with every agent that I have available. I cannot tell you what we have been doing. Imperial Security is involved. I only hope that it has been enough to prevent the war.”

Rahak suggested, “Let us all prepare for this evening’s banquet. That is when you will make your presentation, Doctor Do.”

Daring Do was looking around the Imperial Banquet Hall, at the many war banners that fluttered in the light breeze. There were also the banners of the provinces of the Empire. The wood and stonework was outstanding for its solidity and rich carving.

Perched on every place that they could find claw room were hundreds of Eagles, looking expectantly at Friend. Her nest had been placed conveniently close to Daring Do’s place.

The dining tables were all set so that every diner could see the big glass fronted case with its display. There were two small books by each place.

One was a copy of the original document of the Legends, written some time shortly before 54 Post Nightmare Wars. It had an exact copy of the document itself, a line by line literal translation and a third line in modern Gryphon with notes to explain the meaning of idioms used when the original was written. No commentaries. No editing. Only a foreword explaining that this was a true copy of the Legends that they all revered and tried to follow. Commentaries were dispensed with in the hope that the reader could understand what the words said and form their own opinions based on solid fact.

It was signed and sealed by the Empress herself.

The other small book contained copies of Daring Do’s expedition notes and sketches that were relevant to the display showing the origin of their species.

The First Created believers started to scream, “Blasphemy!”

The Empress herself cut them off. “Silence, Krapper! These are the Legends that you CLAIM to revere!”

“You have left out the rich and ancient commentaries!”

Her crest rippling with laughter, the Empress exclaimed, “Ancient? Krapper, the FIRST commentary was inserted into a small book like this only thirty five years ago! It had a note that it WAS NOT HOLY WRIT, only opinion. That note was removed and further commentaries added. More than half of the mass of your book has been added in just the last five years!

“It must be wonderful to be able to write up whatever you please, insert it into the next edition of your book and have it called HOLY WRIT!”

“Our Book is the true Law! Holy Word is higher than mere secular law!”

“NO, Krapper! That is direct sedition! Guards! Stand behind Krapper! If he utters one more word of sedition, cut his wing tendons at once. He will be given the LONG DROP at sunrise for the crime.”

The Empress paused for effect and added, “Now, we have a banquet laid before us. Let not Krapper’s ill manners spoil your appetite. After we have eaten, we will hear from Doctor Daring Do, whose actual facts, well documented and proven may provide you with much food for thought.”

The server placed a plate in front of Daring Do, commenting, “I hope that we got it to your taste. It is a sauced alfalfa steak. We don’t eat such fare, so we are not much used to cooking it.”

Daring Do replied with a smile, “I am sure that it will be fine. You have been doing well the last few days.”

She cut a bite and began to chew. Numbness spread from her mouth. She gasped and could draw no air. Her vision was fading slowly.

She heard, “The Blasphemer has been struck down! Any means to strike at blasphemy is honorable, the Holy Writ is clear!”

The voice of the Empress cried, “Poison is the Coward’s Weapon! Seize them! Do not wait for the Long Drop! Kill them now!”

The voice of Friend cut across the fading din, “No! Matunen still has love. I/we need them! They will wish for your long drop! I/we promise …”

Then no sight. No sound. No touch. No taste. Nothing …

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#Daring Do and the Gryphon;s Quest!#Chapter 17 #MLP Fan Fiction #Co written by De Writer and Carmen Pondiego

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klimp42 · 5 years

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Metroid (NES) Retrospective: A Look Back on a Classic

So with Tumblr deciding that naughty bits are no longer allowed on their site, let's look back at one of the first sexy ladies for huge nerds and degenerates, Samus Aran! Bet you thought I was going to talk about Lara Croft, no we are going back to the oldest of schools, with a lady that most people probably didn’t know was a lady when they first played it in ‘86.

Alright, now I know it might be weird to talk about a review and retrospective in a game that is not only 30+ years old, but has been made non-canon in the Metroid story with the remake Metroid Zero Mission being a thing, but trust me I have reasons for wanting to review this. The first reason is that a friend of mine gave me a NES Classic as a Christmas gift, second I am a huge fan of Metroid and have always wanted to play the original, and third I thought up that opening line and thought it would be funny, I know its okay at best, but shut up. So for this little retro review, I am going to break this down into three categories, story, gameplay and legacy.

When it comes to the story of Metroid, it has the same level of complexity to the story as any other NES game from the time, if you just play the game and don’t bother to look into the booklet, its a game about a person going around shooting things and doing flips and then they fight a thing in a jar and escape from a timed bomb. Yet, like a lot of games from the time, the way to get the story was to read, as there simply wasn’t enough space on the cartridges to have a bunch of text and images next to a game of this magnitude at this stage of the consoles life (I say that because games like Castlevania III eventually did just this only 3 years later). So lets break down this galactic tale of a bounty hunter fighting life-sucking aliens and a supercomputer that controls them.

In the far-flung year of 2000, all of the planets came together to make the Galactic Federation, and things were good till a bunch of dick aliens decided to be Pirates of The Carribean in Space and just cause all kinds of space problems. The space 5-0 were super bad at there job so the Galactic Federation created Space Hunters, who were way better at stopping Space Johnny Depp. So while all of these things are happening the space cops find a small egg of an unknown life form on the planet SR388 (which is actually super important and is the location of the 2nd game), and it is believed for no reason other than plot that this small egg probably is the reason the civilization on SR388 was destroyed. So the spacops and the galactic boys decide that this should be brought in for studies, but Captain Hook in space decide it would be pretty dope to have something that might have destroyed a whole civilization, so they can have a biological weapon to rip apart the galaxy, yeah jokey names aside the space pirates are actually really evil for the sake of being evil. So the spirates run off to their main hideout on the planet Zebes and the Galactic Federations men can’t get in so they call on their better fighters, the space hunters, well specifically Samus Aran, a cyborg who strikes fear in the space pirates and is a “man” with a mystery, that mystery being that he has no wangus and is a woman.

Well the only thing left for the story is what I already said, Samus enters the planet Zebes and has to go kick the brainy ass of Mother Brain and destroy any Metroids she finds, what was inside the small egg thing found on planet SR388, that have been awakened and multiplied by the pirates in space. So let's move onto the gameplay of Metroid, which is simple when you look at just the base controls. You can run, jump, and shoot a short distance at enemies with the ability to eventually be able to swap with the select button between rockets and normal energy shots. Yet this game led to the creation of an all-new gameplay style of side-scrolling and backtracking over huge areas, which sounds like a whatever concept, but it is honestly really fun...for some reason, that genre being Metroidvania, the vania coming from the Castlevania franchise. I am simplifying it, honestly, you have tight controls and upgrades to your arsenal as you play, things like the Varia suit to lower the amount of damage that you take, long shot and Ice beam to shoot your shots farther and freeze enemies in place. You also have upgrades that change gameplay like the morph ball (or the Maur Mari as its called in this for some reason) which morphs you into a ball that can get into small places and the ability to drop bombs in that ball form, the high jump that makes you do just that, and the screw attack that is used to say I would like to not shoot things that aren't bosses or Metroids anymore. Seriously the screw attack, like it is in most Metroid games, is just so good, just jump and kill everything.

Alright, so controls is one bit but what about the actual game, so it is interesting, especially being in a unique location like planet Zebes, the music is a bop, just a straight heater of a soundtrack, and the fun of hidden blocks and rooms that let you get the feeling that you are exploring through a labyrinthian planet. However, problems do show up really quickly, first thing being when you start a game you only have 30 health, alright that's tough but okay the first area's enemies in the corridor before Brinstar don’t hit to hard so it isn’t too bad. But then you find you first Energy tank which fully heals you and adds a pip to your health, so now instead of a cap of 99 health, you have 198 health, sick!. So you keep playing, maybe you go to far and hit were Ridley is, one of the bosses and poster boys for the franchise, shit you died, so you’re sent back to the start of Ridley’s area and what’s this? Your health is back at 30, which sucks but also you need to now hit a cap of 198 instead of 99! Though this becomes less of an issue as you get more E tanks, but man does it suck in the beginning to just be like oh cool this sucks. Like I get it, this is NES hard, enemies are bullshit on purpose to hide the fact that you can beat this game in less than an hour if you know what you are doing. Speaking of enemies, damn do they look super cool or super dumb, with the top of the spectrum being the Metroids themselves or Mother Brain, and the bottom being the weird ball things in Ridley’s place, Ridley himself, or those damn Cheerios ( just google Metroid cheerios if you don’t know what I’m talking about). The enemies in this game range from slowly moving annoyance to this homing at me bullshit is getting on my last nerve, so expect to take alot of hits from both of them.

Traversing around the game is alot of fun and it feels greet, but there is a little bit of a problem if you want to play this game now, see in the 80’s you had this like outline of where you where going, an idea of what to expect in the next area, cool right? Well that was in the booklet you got when you bought the game, no such thing in the NES classic or on the Switch’s NES collection. So unless you have a damn good memory you are probably going to want to pull up a map that you can use for your first time, or you might get lost, or maybe you are way better at the whole keeping track of yourself then I am and you don’t need a map.

Now, what is a game without boss fights right? So let's talk about some of, and by some I mean the three total boss fights in the game. For this let's go in order of easiest to hardest to get to, in my opinion, so Kraid, Ridley and then Mother Brain. So Kraid in this game is way smaller than he is from every other time he has, or I guess, will show up in Metroid titles, he is about the size of Samus and also from some reason there is a second one of him in his lair. His attack is what it is for all of his games, he shoots spikes from his chest and throws energy talon things, you just have to hit him to damage him, but it's difficult because he has the whole chest spike things blocking your shoots so you have to let him shoot and then land some hits. Ridley is only like his future self because he can shoot fire out of his mouth, but that's it and sometimes he will only shoot in a huge arc so you just close the distance and this boy is easy as hell to put down. The final boss of the game is Mother Brain and good god is she hard to just take down, one getting to her is the world’s biggest chore, and there is so many cheerios hitting you that trying to shoot missiles into that small window to attack her just sucks, and to get to her you have yo take down this glass tubes that regain health as you dont damage them, so you either get through really quickly, or it takes a thousand years. Also make sure you don’t in the last fight because it is back to the start of Tourian with 30 health, yay. Listen, the game has some hard fights when it comes to the bosses, except for Ridley, but it is still enjoyable to beat them and if you take the time to learn the fights it is actually really easy to exploit them, like Ridley.

Okay, so you beat Mother Brain and the only thing left to do is run to the surface of Zebes to escape it before it explodes, you do it and if you beat the game in less than 5 hours, you get to see the biggest twist in gaming, Samus is a girl! And if you beat the game in less than 3 hours you get to see her in her famous Zero Suit, and if you do it in less than an hour you get to see her in Bikini, a reward for only the most experienced gamer boys and girls! This game is rough, it's clear to see where the love of the game came from, it was unique for the time and it shows, the Metroid franchise has grown and improved with each entry, except for Other M, and was one of the reasons that the Metroidvania genre even exists.

So would I recommend playing this game? If you like classic NES games then yeah I would recommend it and if you have a Switch and just want to play the ending of the game there is a special version that starts you with all upgrades at the fight with Ridley. Also if you are a fan who has never played this game before, I would say that you should give the grandfather of the franchise a try. Now if you don’t really like old NES games or you just want to see the story of the first game, I would recommend just playing Metroid Zero Mission, it’s a complete remake of the first game with better controls and it's much easier, and if you enjoy it you could go from there to the original Metroid, or just play the franchise from there!

#metroid #nes #review #retrospective #gaming #samus aran #ridley metroid #classic #retro #switch

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the-nysh · 6 years

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Whats your opinon of kiri//baku and todo//deku?

!!!!! 👀 Oooh, *takes deep breath* so I’ve finally been askedthe big question. (Thank you for courteously using the /s to block the ship names out of the tags) Because I DO have opinionsabout them. I’ve mostly kept them to myself, but since I’ve been prompted, Iwill try to be as honest and thorough as I can. :’)

Disclaimer: If you high-key shipeither of the two, please proceed with caution!

To preface:

If it wasn’t already obvious from the content I reblog (and rave about in thetags), my decisive fav character of the series is Kacchan, and similarly, my otp of the series is with him and Deku(as bakudeku, aka bkdk for short – which is how it’scommonly called on twitter). So going in, that’s my given stance already.

But it wasn’t always this way! :O When I first started theseries I went in pretty cautious, wary, and undecided; I actually never plannedto fall so hard for either the character or the ship (and I rarely ship things tobegin with). That is, until Hori repeatedly bludgeoned me in the face and heartwith all the reoccurring and carefully consistent character development, to thepoint ch120 became the final, decisive nail in the coffin - the point of noreturn for me. :’3 So now, I’m fully invested in seeing how their story pulls through to the end, nomatter what it might become (it doesn’t even need to be shippy). With them thematically established as two sidesof the same coin – on opposite ends of the same spectrum of heroism – the twohalves of All Might who both win and rescue:I want to see how they push each other towards greatness and mature into a pairof the best heroes. It’s a long-term investment of hope and a case of slowburn positive development, in direct (and on purpose!) contrast to its rockyand strained foundations (they ARE immature and emotionally constipated teensafter all), but it’s all been carefully laid out through a steady path ofnarrative foreshadowing. Where the prospects at the end of that path – of mutualsupport, understanding, reconciliation, cooperation, teamwork, trust – arebeautiful and rewarding things that make their ongoing journey of growth worthit. So…for Hori to smash any original expectations I might have had, and makeme fall hard for something I never intended to happen, are examples of whatI consider GOOD writing.

After I realized this, I went and did my research. Which inmy case, is reading up on countless character/relationship meta and fanfics togauge how the fandom sees their potential too. So I am very aware of the multiple sides of existing arguments and the dramathat’s already happened in the fandom (from across both tumblr and twitter). Iknow the western fandom considerably favors kr/bk and td/dk (at least for now), BUT in the eastern fandom,it’s actually bkdk that’s more popular. Hmm, curious why that is?

One of the reasons is partly thanks to the widespread availabilityof fan mistranslations (FA group) that have greatly exaggerated certain characterizations(ie Kacchan), leading to fandom fearmongering and the perpetuation of stigmasagainst the canon development of certain relationships (ie bkdk), which in theoriginal text, were never nearly thatflanderized or as offensive in context to begin with. Include also, adifference in cultural expectations/values, and we get a prickly concoction ofmisunderstandings ready to brew. It’s a poor and unfortunate case of important subtleties/complexitiesgetting lost in translation, while the bad things are blown way out ofproportion, to the point the story’s original intent is sidelined, or worse, canonis deliberately obstructed by translators who already dislike seeing suchcontent (because it’s ‘not their ship’) – so they prevent and hurt othersfrom fully enjoying the progression of the series as the author intended. Peoplecan like what they like (that’s perfectly fine), but in all of my lurking, Ihave SEEN examples of these things (andworse) actively happen, and quite frankly, the spread of this blatant toxicityand compulsive collective ignorance sickens me. So, I choose not to getinvolved with it, and instead focus on the positive.

Because of my preference for meta and faithfulinterpretations of the text (making sure available translations are reliablefor analyzing, for instance), I’ve gathered enough information (andacknowledged enough counterarguments) to make an educated decision for myself onwhat I value most and want to see from the series. Unless Hori veers offotherwise, I’ll stick by that conclusion and enjoy following the series throughto fruition (regardless of what the rest of the opposing fandom might say).

For example, one of the first dedicated and respectful metawriters – back when only the FA scans were available, but who ALSO providedcorrections from the Japanese text where necessary, came to this conclusionabout Deku and Kacchan’s characterizations:

From ryokure:

“Deku is such a super special case that if a fanfichas him and Kacchan in it - no matter the parings - and they don’t have somecase of mutual obsession, I actually consider that OOC.”

Which, after everything I’ve seen of the characters, I can fully concur withthat statement.

MEANING, if the fandom portrays them off alone, together, or involvedin relationships with other characters and they lack this intrinsic magnetism that binds them together (for betteror worse) – if they can somehowfunction completely normal without being influenced by the presence of anotherand magically not even care about each other anymore, then my suspension of disbeliefbreaks. They’re too OOC. (Unless it’s a fic au where they never met or grew uptogether.) These two are TOO canonically wrapped up in their mutual complexesto simply cut ties, wrap up all their unresolved issues with a band-aid,and essentially ignore a core issue of the series for the sake of ‘shipconvenience’ with others. Their canon relationship is too complex to make such simplifiedportrayals of them believable, or even such flimsy ‘solutions’ for their issuesfeasible. Thankfully, we have Hori actively doing all the hard work for us sowe don’t have to worry about such transgressions like that happening in canon. (InHori’s consistent characterizations we trust!)

Now then, with all of THISestablished, I can finally answer your main question: my opinion on kiri/bakuand todo/deku.

Let’s start with todo/deku:

Because believe it or not, when I was still new to the fandom and in my earlyresearch stages, I actually lowkey shipped them and read plenty of fics aboutthem too! I was open to them as a pair, but still undecided and wary because I didn’t know who to ship withDeku: either Todoroki or Bakugou. I saw all the widespread (western) fandomcontent for td/dk, with the apparent foundations for the ship based on eventsfrom the Sports Festival, where Deku ‘saves’ Todoroki and acts as the catalystto allow him to defrost his issues with his father and realize his true power.I thought, ‘ooh there’s something interesting in there worth looking forwardto; I’ll keep an eye on how canon develops their relationship from here.’

Unfortunately…canon didn’t give me anything else substantial to build on. Andin my case, those are foundations I NEED to be fully on board and convinced fora ship. It was the equivalent of fandom hyping me up for something to lookforward to, with me sitting there with a huge smile and my arms raised inanticipation…only for the rest of the manga to leave me dry. It was a hugedisappointment. Because except for a few scattered incidents, like from theStain arc and maybe the recent ‘it’s ok for heroes to cry sometimes too’moment, canon progress for their relationship has been severely underwhelmingand virtually nonexistent. Todoroki has chilled into becoming a supportive (yetstill socially awkward) friend for Deku yes, but even Iida has had more canon incidents of concern for Deku’s wellbeing,and challenges Deku into becoming a better person/hero with their interactions.(And yet, fandom support for Deku and Iida is virtually nonexistent incomparison, because their friendship resembles the camaraderie between bros, Iguess??)

So then I was like, ‘wait, am I missing something here? WHY does the fandomlove td/dk so much, when their canon interactions are so limited, and the onlybig thing that’s happened between them was all the way back in the SportsFestival??’ So, I went and investigated the potential of their relationshipfurther in fanfics (which are quite numerous and popular on a03 I might add).

After taking a look, I began to see trends. Most td/dk fics are heavily skewed in Todoroki’s favor, tothe point of being practically one-sided in character development. The mainconflict in almost all their ficnarratives revolves around solving Todoroki’s issues with his father and comingto terms with HIS powers, leaving Deku as a passive, supporting participant inhelping Todoroki out with his problems. Which, while the two of them could bondtogether over their missing/difficult father issues, after a while this same familyconflict gets old and stale. What else is there? What about Deku’s problems for equality’s sake?He’s the main protagonist! How abouthis difficulties in learning how to make One for All his own too? Ah nope, hecan’t canonically confide in Todorokiabout the secrets of his quirk, now can he. ;) Oh wait. What about his problems with Bakugou? Is the biggest elephant in the room going to be ignored for the sakeof typical couple melodrama, or is my fav character going to be demonized so that Todoroki, the ‘prince’on a white horse, can ‘save’ Deku, the ‘damsel’ in distress, from him?! No way. And THAT is another hugeproblem I have with the ship.

Because in all the fics I’ve read of them, I never once was convinced ofDeku’s feelings for Todoroki. I can understand Todoroki gaining a passing crushon Deku thanks to their fight in the Sports Festival. But Deku? How does heeven fall for him? Just becauseTodoroki is nice and considerate and listens to him? Like a friend? (Deku has Uraraka and Iida forthat too, what makes Todoroki any more special than them in Deku’s life?) Thisties in to my previously mentioned suspension of disbelief and ooc territorynow. Because Deku is not some haplessdamsel in distress ready to be swept off his feet and easily charmed by somepotential suitor; he’s a BAMF with a heroic spirt that’s even feared byBakugou. And these traits are so rarely utilized to their full potential intd/dk fics - Todoroki’s influence rarely even challenges or inspires Deku toBECOME the best he can be to draw out his latent potential. (Iida’s canonicallydone more in that regard thanTodoroki’s ever done.) Again, it feels too one-sided in Todoroki’s favor toimprove as a better person/hero.

Oh yeah, and since Deku became one of Todoroki’s first ‘true friends,’ forTodoroki to fall for him feels like putting too many eggs in one basket,without giving Todoroki the chance tobranch out and make normal/healthy relationships with OTHERS first beforesettling down. He’s a socially awkward kid emotionally repressed by domesticabuse; for him to latch onto Deku, the ‘first’ person he’s finally (andliterally) warmed up to, feels like the budding symptoms of unhealthy copingmechanisms and compensating for Todoroki’s deeper emotional issues. Where it thenbecomes Deku’s ‘responsibility’ to care for the turnout of his wellbeing, whenNO - Deku’s got plenty of his OWN issues to become burdened with someone else’s on top of those. Plus in canon,Todoroki’s doing just fine and is perfectly capable of handling his personal problems onhis own without having to depend on Deku.

Again, it’s all touchy territory that feels like it sidelines the mainintent of the series itself – by branching off into the deep end of Todoroki’sangst at the expense of Deku’s, or worse: simply wrapping everything up with afluffy bow called ‘the power of love.’ Nuh-uh, not only is that immenselyidealistic and unrealistic, but it’s totally not the kind of content I signedup for when I started the series. I’m frankly not interested in delving into thoseoff-tangent topics in opposition to canon, where Deku’s problems are oftensidelined, his characterization compromised, and my fav character (Kacchan) eitherbecomes an exaggerated, antagonizing impediment to their ship or is simplytreated like he doesn’t even exist. (My patience and willing suspension of disbeliefonly go so far.)

In the end, Todoroki’s a supportingcharacter. In a tertiary tier after the protagonist (Deku) and the deuteragonist(Bakugou). Yet in td/dk fics he’s almost always turned into a main protagonistsomehow. I can understand his appeal and why he’s so popular in the fandom, yes(and I like him too!), but there’s a point where this exposure becomes TOO much,the limit to his available canon issues becomes saturated and repetitive, and itultimately becomes so tiring to keepcoming back and addressing the same topics in fanon when canon has alreadymarched on to focus on more pressing issues. I’m more interested in exploring those other things.

So nowadays, whenever I see td/dk content, I go ‘ayy that’s nice (or cute),’and keep on scrolling. It doesn’t bother me, but it doesn’t interest meanymore either. I probably won’t touch anymore fics of them together either;I’ve seen and had enough. I’m actually more receptive to seeing Todorokiinteract and develop friendships with other characters, like Inasa (the wind guy from the rival school)or even Momo for instance. Either of those ships I see around, I’m cool withtoo.

The final line: I don’t ship them (anymore), because canon swayed me over with the more pressing and compelling developments of bkdk.

NOW, it’s time to talk about kiri/baku:

To start, I actually LOVE Kirishima as a character. And I’ve alreadyestablished upfront that my fav character in the series is Kacchan. So whatgives? It turns out their ship has neverbeen on my radar.

Kirishima is a great character, but I’ve only ever seen him as a supportive bro. To EVERYONE in their class. Whichis precisely how Hori designed him: to be a compassionate/empathetic nice guywho bridges the gaps between the class with his vigorous enthusiasm and support(same role that Denki shares, by the way). And he fulfils this role splendidly.But he ALSO has his own insecurities and developing friendships with manyothers in the class – Denki, Mina, and Deku included. All of those people areimportant to him (and I’m cool with all their ships with him too). Kirishimadoes not solely revolve aroundBakugou.

It’s true that near the beginning of the series, Bakugou was an angry loner,Kirishima trailed after him on his own accord, and after seeing his version of‘manliness’, decided to stick by him and support him, because Kiri saw thepositives of his character that ‘no one’ else bothered to see. (NOT true; Dekuhas always seen and admired Kacchan’spositive traits since they were children.)And so what’s canonically established is a budding friendship where Kirishimafulfils his given role to bridge gaps (whenever Bakugou strays away from theclass), essentially working as a rubber band plot device, and as a secondperspective – aka a fresh lens, for the audience to view Bakugou’s positivequalities.

All of this I’m cool with. I actually enjoyseeing their canon interactions and the kind of fun, slapstick way they bounceoff each other. (I even like the concept of Dragon!Kiri too!) BUT, it’s whenfanon starts twisting their canon relationship into shippy territory, that’swhere things start getting…ugly, at least for me.

Remember, I’ve always only seen Kirishima as a supportive bro, and I MEAN that. They have the samered eyes. The same style of spikey hair. The same pumped up mannerisms whenthey get going. Too many similarities that rub me the wrong way when put in aromantic context. (The only difference is that one of them is the soft-hearted ‘niceguy,’ and the other is the outwardly prickly ‘asshole.’) To me, to ship them feels like the equivalentof taking the parallel ends of two polarized magnets: you can manually forcethem close together, but in the end, they cannot touch because the same ends ofmagnets naturally repel. Now, flip one of those magnets around (aka turn it intoDeku), and boom, the opposite ends attract with explosive force. And THAT ishow bkdk feels to me in comparison.

However, the kr/bk fandom doesn’t stop there. I know there exists plenty of fics about them, but I’ve never read any, and frankly, I never will, not even for curiosity’ssake. Because from the overabundance of otherfandom content, I already know what their ship dynamic is about. And it doesnot appeal to me at all.

Remember how I said Kacchan is my favorite. I do not appreciate when thefandom warps him into either a demonized or castrated caricature of himself –aka when they turn him into someone he most definitely is NOT, all for the sakeof a ship. Or worse: when they use Kiri’s relationship as a means of changingBakugou into a character they findmore appealing. NO. Even more worse: when they treat Kiri’s whole character as awalking plot device for ALL of Bakugou’s positive character development. Fuckno! Kirishima doesn’t deserve this dehumanizing treatment by the fans, andneither does my fav, getting subjected to this…betrayal to his whole character.

What am I talking about? When fans insist that Kiri is the ONLY personBakugou can be ‘nice’ to, outright forsaking or ignoring the canon developmentseither of them have with other characters – what about Denki, the rest of the‘Bakusquad’? Or Deku? Remember my dislike for ignoring the elephant in the room back in my spiel about td/dk?Well here, it’s infinitely times worse.

Because Kiri does not become aconvenient narrative replacement to ‘solve’ all of Bakugou’s problems or themeans to correct his bad behavior. It’s not even Kiri’s business orresponsibility to do so! (Same deal if Uraraka is shipped in Kiri’s place.) Hispresence doesn’t challenge Bakugou’s current conduct or world views to improvehimself as a better person, OR actively affect his drive to become the best hero.At most, Kiri endures the brunt of Bakugou’s outbursts when they happen(because he can harden with his quirk, he can ‘take’ it, and their banterbecomes ‘humorous’ and ‘harmless’…no, it absolutely does not) and amicably slides off any further implications with a ‘heyman, that’s not cool’, or excuses/accepts it with a ‘it’s fine because he’s justbeing himself.’ Now we have a situation where Kiri becomes a passive ‘butt-monkey’to Bakugou’s whims and actually enableshis unacceptable behavior to persist. And Bakugou somehow becomes fully invested in a single confidant who babies andpicks up after him (how the heck? no way would he allow himself to get ropedinto a relationship like that, if any at all. He’s strong and independent enoughto handle himself fine.). Even when it’s portrayed where Kiri is the ‘only’ oneBakugou’s nice to, they’d exist in a vacuum tunnel, sealed off from the influenceof others, and become a spiraling fester-hole of static development. None ofthese prospects are the ‘healthy’ long-term results that fandom seems to claimthey are. Tell me, if Bakugou was reallyan abusive character, would his behavior magically ‘fix’ itself simply thanksto Kiri’s passive influence or ‘the power of his understanding kindness and love’?The answer is a resounding and definite NO. The only person who can canonically stand up to Bakugou’s behavior (andnot brush it off), fundamentally challengehis world views and complexes, match him in equal and opposite intensity with themutual drive to be the best, and receivethe full extent of his turbulent feelings, is Deku.

This is what I’m referring to when I say fandom often ‘ignores the elephantin the room,’ because THIS (Deku and Kacchan’s relationship) is an established,ongoing and important core issue of the series itself, that many shippers wouldrather sideline for the priority, current gratification, and fluffy convenienceof an opposing ship. Aka, simply slap them together with the first nice friend theymeet (in both Todo and Baku’s cases, it’s the ‘too many eggs in one basket’problem again…), who will solve all their problems and work to ‘change’ theminto better people…somehow? No, that’s the case of unrealistic, wishful thinking bad writing andtaking the easy way out when something -the elephant in the room- is too challengingand complex to tackle head on. Thankfully, Hori IS tackling their story head onas purposely intended, so I don’t have to worry about canon jumping the sharkon the progress of their relationship.

So, instead of Kiri being shipped with Bakugou, I much prefer him as a supportingcharacter (a supportive bro!!) who helps ease Bakugou into social/emotionalsituations that he’d normally avoid (which is how Hori originally designedhim??? to bridge those gaps -aka Bakugou’s loner distance - in the class) I’veread plenty of bkdk fics where Kiri becomes the mvp BECAUSE of his natural abilityto do this! With him as a much-needed wingman, voice of empathetic reason, and trustedsecond opinion who Bakugou can confide in to help confront his chronicemotional constipation over Deku. Shipperscan claim that Kiri helps Baku come to terms and become receptive to ‘softer,’ affectionatefeelings when they’re together, when it’s actually the opposite: Kiri becomes astepping stone for Bakugou to learn how to ‘make friends’ with other people whenthey’re apart. ‘Other people’ meaning: Denki, the ‘squad’, Todoroki, the restof the class…and most importantly, Deku.Let my son -Kacchan- learn how to form healthy, genuine relationships withpeople again, so he can gain the necessary experience and maturity to reproach hislifelong treatment of Deku and decide to patch up their relationship on his own terms. This, I feel, is a much more satisfyingoutcome and effective use of Kiri’s character, both in his involvement withBakugou and for the long-run benefit of the series itself.

But instead of seeing it this way, much of the (western) fandom overexaggerates the importance of Kiri and Baku’s relationship, to the point it notonly overshadows the content of other ships, but obfuscates the actual translated GEN contentof canon itself. (WHY!?!) I’m not even going to touch the propensity, hypocrisy, and irony of their shippers to harassand bully others for their opposing shipping preferences (that’s a whole other can of worms). Overall,it’s gotten so bad and obnoxiously rampant that I’ve been forced to block the ship tag for my own sanity and enjoyment of theseries. The ONLY time it’s ever beenrequired for me to use the blacklist function here, and that’s saying something.

Therefore: I support their friendship as supportive bros, but kr/bk as a ship was never on myradar. I’ve never shipped it, and I will notbecome interested in their potential as a pair. I used to be ok with seeing fan content of them around…until thefandom essentially and unfortunately soured it into a notp for me. Welp!

And there we have it, my full opinion on both ships. I hope that satiatesanyone’s curiosity on the matter, as so far I’ve had plenty of personal reasonsto stay in my own lane and only show my avid support for bkdk. This I’ve confidently decided and I will continue todo so, for as long as I’m invested in the series.

For some further reading and similar informed opinions:

http://explodo-smash.tumblr.com/post/165154054112/not-to-pit-ships-against-one-another-but-i

http://explodo-smash.tumblr.com/post/163895267877/why-do-you-ship-bakugou-and-deku-if-its-abusive

http://tinyshinysylveon.tumblr.com/post/168731953134

https://punkbakugo.tumblr.com/post/170514358890/do-you-think-that-the-fandom-over-exaggerates

Also related: my opinions about Kac/chako. And Izu/Ocha.

Edit: now cross-posted on a03

#Anonymous #replies #bnha #bkdk #meta #shipping #rom it’s time to bring out our salt shakers because it’s PARTY TIME 8D #(whoever makes it thru the nearly 4000 words gets a cookie :'D)#honestly i never expected to get an ask about this but time makes it inevitable i suppose :')#therefore i put in both the time and honesty to speak for myself and other bkdk supporters #my opm followers are welcome to check this monster out too #just to see how much salt i’m packing and normally hold back #(this will not become a regular occurrence - unless i'm explicitly asked for more of my opinions on the matter)#anyway for those with similar solidarity: enjoy! :)

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cutiecrates · 6 years

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Cutie Reviews: Yume Twins May 18

See, I’m already making progress. It’s been a while since I’ve done two reviews in such a close span... hasn’t it?

Theme of the month: (U・x・U) Pom-Pom Sunshine

Before we get into this, I thought It’d be kinda fun to look over the description of this months box to help get a feel for the theme. It does play a large role in judging and I usually don’t elaborate upon it outside of name. Keep in mind that I took out the non-important stuff.

“What does Pompompurin and sunshine have in common? They both have a kawaii pastel yellow color! Pompompurin also loves going out and enjoying the outdoors making the most of his day. In this box, you can find many cute yellow items that represent May’s nice weathers and Pompompurin!“

Not to be a downer but I don’t like yellow.

But the point is not to judge the box on it’s color choices but its content, so please keep that paragraph above in mind.

Contest & Yume Prize

As usual, we have a contest featuring some very randomly chosen Sailor Moon facial masks, earbuds, and a puzzle. I’m not complaining though, who doesn’t like Sailor Moon?

The Yume Prize caters more towards the theme however, which I do appreciate. They usually do pretty good with that. Although, without sounding like a brat, I don’t see how this stuff can cost over 500 dollars other than the high quality being on a name brand product that belongs to its brand; you know, like if you find a toy at an official Disney store, it’s probably going to cost more than like it’s Walmart Disney toy variant?

In fact I can guarantee it because one of my favorite bloggers did a comparison on them a few times....

Kawaii Culture

I really should be including this more often, so here it is now :3 May’s Kawaii Culture celebrates the very first permanent Pokemon Cafe in Nihonboshi Tokyo back in March. You can shop for Pokemon-themed goods like accessories, toys, figurines, and even get some cute themed food.

Okay! So let’s get along with the review shall we?

Pompompurin Roll Cushion

The second of 3 Sanrio Roll within Yume Twins, last month we got My Melody in the easter-themed box, and next month we’ll get the third and final one of the set. You’ll have to wait for that review to see who it is- but in the mean time feel free to guess or think up an answer. I wish the image within the booklet didn’t spoil each one though because the shapes made them very obvious. There wasn’t a surprise element for us who subscribe to it.

As I mentioned in the prior box, I love these cute Sanrio, tube-like tsum tsum cushions. They’re so cute and soft.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

These are very simplified, but well made roll plush/cushions. Comfortable enough to snuggle with and use for the head or to rest a limb on. They even go full out with details... by that I mean they included his button.

and by button I mean... button; you know, typical Pompompurin inclusion. If they didn’t want people to know it was there they wouldn’t put it <3<

Kawaii Leisure Sheet

Ironically I just reviewed one of these in the Doki Doki April box. I think this one may be a bit bigger, I didn’t think to compare the two to see like I probably should have. Anyway... as a rehash of DDAB’s sheet, this sheet is for activities you would probably down sitting down outside. The bottom half has a thin layer of Styrofoam, while the top is textured (I assume to wash off dirt or stains).

This game in four styles, featuring Rilakkuma, My Melody, and 2 different Sumikko Gurashi.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Rilakkuma is always cute and I love this design! It feels so.. spring-to-summer vibey. But I also feel like this could work in the fall too. The mat is thin, but it still feels comfortable sitting down on. It could also probably work for several other things, like putting shoes on, or as a plate mat for a room or something. If I was going to the park or on a picnic or something I’d probably bring it.

Japanese Canvas Tote Bag

A mini-tote bag made in India that apparently costs 1,000 yen. It’s not very big but it gets the job done no problem and offers a lot of space. It also has an inner-pocket, which I like because I hate bags that have no storage compartments and just make a mess you need to waste five minutes digging through. There was 5 designs, including this one, two with cats, and two with sumo wrestlers.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

For a bag to get in one of these boxes I’m actually pretty impressed by it. It’s extremely well made and you can fit necessities and more in it, so it’s very practical for all sorts of occasions. I also like the simplistic and colorfully repetitive design, it makes me feel happy.

Cafe Holographic Stickers

I love sparkles, and food stickers! I got pretty excited seeing this in the box, you can see just how holographic the packaging is alone. There are 6 types (Honey toast, a drink, pancakes, a frappe, cheesecake or fruit tart, and a donut), 8 for each. There is also 2 large stickers with a design based on the front of the package.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

First I want to say adore this packaging. It’s so sparkly and shiny, and I just think it’s really cute looking with the cafe items covering the front and back. I like the variety and the stickers are like average stickers, but they do have that holo that everyone loves and makes everything better~

Taiyaki Squishy

Everyone’s favorite item in these boxes (I assume anyway), a squishy! Taiyaki is a baked pastry filled with things like red bean paste or chocolate. They’re super-popular and can be available fresh (which seem more cake/dough-like from what I’ve seen) or crispy pre-packaged ones (which I’ve tried before and really liked).

This was available in strawberry, chocolate, regular, matcha, and... white. Sorry, I’m not sure what a white one would be. It’s like they knew I wouldn’t be a fan of the Yellow color theme for May and gave me my favorite color to appease that.

I know that isn’t really the case, but it’s ironic isn’t it?

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥

It’s very cute, and I’m happy I got this strawberry-colored one. But I did notice mine has some air bubbles in the rubber/fabric (?), and around the mouth the coloring is lacking. What really killed it for me though, is the fact that it smells like body odor. I have no idea why it would, it’s been in the box and the box doesn’t stink. The inside of the box actually smells good...

Oh, and if you’re curious its a like a... 8 out of 10 in terms of rising speed. It’s quick but not instant.

Chick Kitchen Spoon

This is our final item of the box, and also the featured one. It’s an adorable chick-themed spoon perfect for stirring soups and sauces, scooping rice, tossing a salad, etc. It’s feet are removable- I assume for easier holding and washing.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I love cute kitchen items, so I instantly took to this one. It’s pretty much like any other large spoon you’d have for making foods, but it’s just unique in design- so there isn’t actually much I can say about it. I do like that it stands though, because I hate laying spoons down on various surfaces and either making a mess or worrying over germs and having to get a whole new one.

♥ Cutie Ranking ♥

Content - 4 out of 5. I liked everything enough, I’m not sure what of it I’ll actually end up using because for me personally, it kinda feels like this is one of those “put it aside and come back to it“ boxes. I didn’t instantly say “I’m gonna put that out right away!“, except for the chick spoon for obvious reasons.

Price - 5 out of 5. Unlike the past two boxes I feel like this one was definitely worth the price we pay for them. Two items were small, in comparison to having a bunch of small and cheap items.

Quality - 4.5 out of 5. Everything is spot-on, nicely detailed, etc. I’m only marking this down because of that smelly Taiyaki squishy.

Theme - 2.5 out of 5. The theme was yellow, and two of our pre-picked non-randomized items were indeed yellow. By some dumb luck one of my items is mostly yellow. But two ended up being multicolored, and one was pink (but had a yellowish one in the set). Another portion was pompompurin, who could have been represented more, as well as sunshine, a summery vibe I honestly didn’t feel with this box outside of the vibrant color.

Total Rank: 15/16 out of 20 Cuties. Lately I’ve had complex and uncertain feelings about boxes, but with this one I felt like I liked it more/better even if it left me without that excitement that I look for in a new box.

♥ Cutie Scale ♥

1. Leisure Sheet - Not only did I feel like this embraced the theme the best, but in general it’s just a super-kawaii design!

2. Cafe Holographic Stickers - I was quickly won over by the sparkly, shiny rainbowness of the packaging- plus the stickers are cute.

3. Pompompurin Roll - Very cute and squishy-soft, but generic Pompompurin you know?

4. Tote - A repetitive and simple bonsai plant design, but it’s charming.

5. Chick Spoon - It’s cute but in a generic sense to me, so I thought the other items were much cuter.

6. Taiyaki Squishy - It’s a stinky, but still kind of cute squishy. And Pink, so...

Alrighty, we’ve come to another end of a review. Wasn’t so bad was it? Next will be the usual NMNL, followed by Kira Kira crate. I’m hoping to get those both done within the next few days to try to get myself back on track of posting more often- especially since I got so behind >3<

But if anyone sticks it out with me and continues reading then I’m happy. So until next time stay warmly pompompurin cute!

#yumetwins #yume twins #pom pom purrin #pompompurin #sanrio #holographic stickers #taiyaki squishy #squishy

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freechoicedreamer · 4 years

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Body and Soul (Ch. 2)

AO3

A side note: a potential plea against the 'canon-compliant' claim - a fundamental premise set out to both stories of this alternate Final Season series - may come from the background seen on the thematic illustration of this chapter. It is a screenshot of the United Realms, as portrayed in one of the final scenes of OUAT series finale. Despite the clear visual evidence, I refuted the idea of all realms being this closely gathered around Storybrooke, seemingly as if they were mere aggregated parts of one single town. I based my assumption on the likelihood that practical production/logistics issues were more prevalent than the need to craft more carefully a setup that would not imply on geopolitical garbage and storytelling nonsense. To be honest, that came with no surprise, even for OUAT typical narrative patterns, well known for not going beyond a superficial and only apparent coherence; after all the series finale condition loosened the need of establishing a minimum continuity level. As a matter of fact, the image appears to be just an iconic concept instead of an accurate representation of a real (and reliable) geographic distribution of the united realms. Actually, it looks - more likely - as a random collage of castles and kingdoms (taken from some OUAT-CGI database) quickly assembled for just one single and short scene. In other words, one may argue that this conclusion is open to interpretation but I may counter argue that the concept all realms physically gathered like all-stuck-together has not been consolidated-by-a-solid-narrative enough to acquire the 'canon' status. In summary, in any feasible configuration, even taking into account the innumerable storytelling possibilities opened by the 'magic' combined with 'mixed fairy tales' formula, the realms should be, at least, a little bit more physically spread, say... throughout the territory of Maine, for instance. That would assure to each kingdom a minimum space to breathe without culturally suffocating their neighborhood neither being suffocated in reverse, thus preserving their original identity. That is the premise I chose to assume, as proposed by the thematic illustration on the previous chapter.

Opening theme

There are people who paint it as the absolute absence of heat; there are those who imagine it as the infinite absence of cold. Neither cold nor heat, neither ice nor fire, there are souls who know it as the absolute absence of love, the pinnacle of hopelessness, the utter void of hatred, the utmost devastation of war, the despair of hunger and thirst, the desolation of loneliness, the consummation of envy, the slavery of the ego, and the corrosion of jealousy. For as far as these souls know, more than the absence of the breath of Life, more than Death itself, Hell is the lack of Significance.

Storybrooke, Sweet-Jones home

Emma and Emm are spending the afternoon together, one more afternoon in a recent row of three afternoons together at Hope's insistent requests, always justified as being “very important, Mommy”. Visiting Luna, Missy, Aunt Em, and the Belly Babies is the recurring excuse. Usually, Emma does not like to fulfill all requests for not spoiling her daughter too much but, given the current exceptional circumstances, she has found it best to give in to the girl’s wishes. And for her it is also nice, she loves talking to her sister. Each day the two realize how deeply bonded, by mysterious ties that transcend any purely familiar connection, they are. And so, here they are, sitting by the kitchen counter for a little snack while Hope runs around the house playing with the two pets. If times were different, Hope would be at Storybrooke’s Kindergarten so that Emma could work half term, but because of the exceptionalism of the moment, she took a leave of her Sheriff duties thus freeing herself to observe– and to protect - her daughter more closely.

“It's amazing how the loft became the exact expression of you and Key, Emm. I never imagined that you two would be able so soon to superimpose your personality on the legacy of who was once known as 'Mary Margaret'. The aggregated details are just a few pieces and touches here and there, such as the paintings on the walls, new curtains, a new rug, other quilt covers on the beds, but all the little details make up a whole that adds to the atmosphere in an incredibly harmonious way, not to mention the musical instruments on the mezzanine - where once was my room, creating a magical atmosphere. Your music is really magic, you know that, don’t you? It lights up the house."

"Thanks, Emma, coming from you the compliment has a special significance to me. While Mary Margaret lived here under a curse that prevented her of being close to her daughter, in a parallel reality, my mother was fulfilling the dream that was denied to yours: the dream of seeing her kid growing up, of being able to raise her daughter together with her Prince Charming. Therefore, it is a deep honor for me to live in this space, you know, it is with reverence that Key and I add such 'little details' to the vintage decor. You see…” she then starts to pointing to the objects, “these nautical-motivated paintings are all Key’s, except that canvas that we both painted ‘magically’ during the Sweet Suite adventure. There are also those oceanic-motivated frames and the big starfish, which is a magic connection with Alice - her and Robyn’s gifts to us, something like our ‘wedding gift’, and those two landscape paintings near the sofa, which are my Henry's gift. Other than that, the curtains, the bedspreads and the rug were manually woven on Hearty Island, one of my hobbies there. Now, about the magic music, I think you and I have it in our heart – and I know that not because I watched your ‘music in the heart’ story through the magic mirror, but because I feel it. Music is as much of your essence as it is of mine. Our stories may have shaped us differently: I may not have developed the warrior side towards being a bad-ass - as you use to say. Nor may you have not developed the domestic docility side, but in essence, our magic has the same origin, our essence has the same substance, our strength will always show itself – on its own style - when necessary."

“I agree with you, I also feel this connection with Music, even though I have not had a formal music education, I feel this force so deeply, like an explosion of feelings. You know, it is really impressive how mysterious this empathy between wish and non-wish versions is. For example, in my turn, I understand and deeply feel the loss of your parents and I know - I feel - that you understand on a deep level the difficulties I had in childhood mainly, to cope with the abandonment of my parents, unaware that through Music in my heart I was always connected to them. This degree of empathy doesn't just happen between us, look at our husbands, or even see how my parents feel connected to you and, I believe, to their deceased wish counterparts. This is an incredible mesh of love and union entwined after an evil wish of Split Regina - it’s really incredible..."

"Yes, it is a Mystery, one more in the Book of Mysteries: Split Regina... Back in Hearty Island, I used to hate her. I’m not very proud of that feeling, but it is the truth, I simply could not accept what she did. But… ironically, it was this wish, driven by dark feelings, that originated, in a distant past spread to the present, the duplication of worlds thus creating the wish and non-wish versions. She changed our lives with only one wish against you – and me. And then, I also hated the Good Queen because of her cruel method to bring your memories back – at least that’s how I used to think based on what I had watched. You know the story, thanks to the gods’ intervention, who kept me in touch with my parents’ souls, I could finally understand, accept, and forgive her. And thanks to all of that, Key and I could find each other, could live on its plenitude our true love. And then… there is also Wish Regina, the Evil Queen I grew up fearing and hearing about, now a reformed sorcerer in charge of the Social Assistance Ministry of the United Realms. Too many turns and plot twists with too many Reginas, don’t you think?” she asks playfully while watching Luna in Hope’s lap, both surrounded by a watchful Missy.

“Too many, I agree. I have had my own dose of struggle to deal with them, that is, rigorously speaking, with the first two of them, but I also have learned to cope, to accept and to forgive them… About their names, Killian told me that Captain Nemo suggested a numbering system to simplify their identification but they are still reluctant to accept that. Particularly, I think this may be a good ID system. Differently from the multiple wish/non-wish people, who come in pairs, in their case there are 3 of them!!" Emma chuckles.

Thoughtfully, Emm caresses her belly, "yeah, coming in pairs..."

“Confirmed then?” Emma asks tenderly.

"Twins, indeed…" Emm nods. “We have to concede this one more credit to our little Pythoness’ account!”

“Yeah…” sighs little Prophetic Priestess’ mother, “get ready for a daily renewed surprise brought by your little products of squared True Love! Wait for squared surprises, in your case!” Emma grins reticently, noting in awe the tiny points of light Hope is creating in the air to entertain Luna and Missy, and then completes her question: “How are you feeling about that? How are you and Key dealing with the idea?”

“I’m feeling truly happy and scared at the same time. You see, it is intense in two extremes: extremely amazing but also really scary given the present uncertain context and then… things are changing so quickly that Killian and I… oh, rephrasing, Key and I, had no option rather than adjust ourselves really fast to the news. Perhaps, if the circumstances were different we would have more time to freak out about the prospect of being parents of twins. But given the scenario, we both went into ‘protecting offspring at any cost’ mode and then we calibrated our momentum in that direction.”

…

As the afternoon falls and the sisters’ conversation continues, Hope and the two pets eventually join them for a snack. Emm mentions that she and Key were positively surprised and became very fond of Dr. Stephen Maturin, not only because of their personal rapport with him but, also, for his patience to explain in details all medical procedures they will follow along the pregnancy. She confesses that, despite having had a good preparation about the modern world, it was not enough to provide all the knowledge related to what she would deal with. In this sense, Dr. Maturin’s empathy is natural since he experienced the same learning stages when he came from the Land of Untold Stories less than 10 years ago. In terms of adaptation, strictly speaking, Dr. Whale's entire medical team has been updating their skills because the 21st century medicine was recently introduced to them with the arrival of those who lived in Hyperion Heights.

…

“Mommy, why Daddy and Uncle Key did not come for a snack with us yet? They are hungry too and I miss them."

"They won't be long, Sweetie, first they had to meet with Grandpa David. They learned that two other kids of Storybrooke also had sad visions that same day you had a sad vision and, as it happened with you, they didn't like it at all."

"Aye, I did not like it, Mommy, too scary... Want to know why?"

“I do, only if you want to talk about it, Honey. If you are okay with that, tell Mommy and Aunt Emm, please, why nobody liked the vision…”

“Because.... it was dark, it had a green river... Hmmn, what more… it had other colored rivers… it had Mommy, Daddy, Hope, Uncle Key, Aunt Emm, Belly Babies, everyone and… all scared… and it had empty bodies and empty souls. Luna and Missy saw everything too, they told me what ‘body and soul’ is; I did not know before, but now I do.”

Exchanging glances with Emma and changing the subject of the conversation, Emm intervenes: "Speaking of emptiness, I'm seeing two empty bowls and one empty glass of juice, so... Who will want more rations with water and more juice with chocolate cake? Raise your hand, who has a hand, and wag the tail, who has a tail!!”

…

In the late afternoon, Killian and Key arrived and joined them at the snack table. Hope asked to bathe in Aunt Emm's tub and is now in the bathroom playing the game of ‘sailing the pirate ship’ while the two couples continue to talk. Emma comments about the girl's revelations and the brothers, in turn, tell them that Storybrooke's other two children also spoke about the world of the dead. Gradually the pieces of a huge puzzle begin to fall into place and some shapes and contours begin to unfold. In this way they already know that there is indeed a threat coming from the Underworld.

Embracing Key, head resting on his shoulders, Emm mutters under her breath: “It would be so good if my parents could talk to us now, as it happened on Hearty Island through the magic mirror...” Turning to Emma and Killian she explains: “even though it has been installed on the mezzanine next to the same musical instruments as before, the mirror never turned into a magic screen again. Maybe it was the case of going upstairs tonight and trying to contact them; I could sit at the piano, meditate, concentrate and then, if I am fortunate to be inspired, play a heart-dictated song… I really wish I could talk to them again, if only the gods gave them permission...”

Elysium, Islands of the Blessed, Wish White-Nolan’s home

Sitting on the lakefront pergola at Wish Charmings' home, Rumple, Belle, W. Snow and W. David silently watch the parade of images reflected by the calm water mirror. As if watching the scene, the whole landscape of the garden - birds, leaves of the trees, flower bushes… everything is quietly still. The only movement comes from the black and white images transmitted by the retinas of Luna and Missy in their dreamy state on Earth.

"Fascinating and disturbing," Rumple breaks the silence to comment. "So .... Every time Luna and Missy sleep on Earth they broadcast images, like journalists reporting to you the latest news?"

"Not always," Snow replies. "In general, they do not communicate at all, that is, if there is no transmission, we infer that there are no problems and we are released to our eternal rest in peace, even though there are times that they dream happy dreams and we can watch our Emma with the other Snow and David, or with her twin sister, their respective husbands, and Hope. Luna and Missy simply love the sweet little girl, a special child indeed, as far as we could observe..." she sighs, turning to the lake, worried with the sequence of projected images showing the scary visions shared by Luna, Missy, Hope and the other seer children.

"I have one question. Well, actually, I have several questions, but I will start with this one," Belle chuckles trying to lighten up their mood before continuing, "exactly, do you know who Luna and Missy are?"

David shrugs before saying, "to such a straightforward question, Belle, an equally straightforward answer: exactly, we don't know. Now, by inference, we know that they are beings of Light most likely sent by the gods to the Heart-shaped Island as a company to our daughter, to look after her. I believe the time will come when we will know the exact answer to your question but until then, the inaccuracies and doubts are many..."

Snapping her fingers, as if remembering useful information, Snow goes on. "We also have a mirror in our living room that has functioned as a magical screen transmitting colorful images from Earth; actually, it used to function as a screen when Emma was in the Heart-shaped Island, it never worked that way since Emma moved to Storybrooke," Snow remembers. "It was through this mirror that we were able to talk to her, you must remember when we told you the story."

"Yeah, we do remember," Belle confirms, "… and now that you mentioned it, you see, there is a mirror in our living room as well, but it has never worked as a window between worlds. So far it has been just a mirror..."

"We should confess something," Rumple interrupts Belle. "It’s about what brought us here. It all started with a philosophical talk about rules of incarnation, a curiosity that led us to wanting to talk to the gods about the subject and that, by its turn, ended up on us missing our son and triggering our memory about the story of your communication with your daughter. We know that it happened thanks to a divine intervention so, because of this sequence or reasoning, we decided to visit you. What happened during our teleportation to your house, on the light of these transmitted images, adds more relevance to the case: Belle felt an inexplicable concern, an intuition about a metaphoric storm getting close to Gideon, which should be enough to increase our initial need to meet the gods. Now, seeing these premonitory images clearly indicating a real threat originating from the Underworld hovering over the Earth – I assure you that the need has just become an urgency."

“Well, what I can tell you is that they found us…” David explains, thoughtfully searching his own words for clues on how they should act in the present situation. “To be precise, the gods found us. Actually, Zeus found us; he came to us and told about an intense outburst, from our Emma, addressed to the Sea gods from the sands of the Island. He said it was a completely justifiable outburst that deeply touched them to the point where he came to meet us in our house and allowed us to talk to her. The rest is history but I have no idea how we could try to contact the gods...”

“There is no need, they have already contacted us…” says a voice coming from the backyard, approaching the group. They all turn to the voice direction and meet a smiling Merlin, accompanied by his loyal Apprentice, Jack.

…

After everyone exchanged greetings, Merlin revealed the reason for his and Jack’s visit. He told them that Jack was meditating in the tower, where they live, when a mirror on the wall began to display the image of a cocoon opening and morphing into a transparent-winged butterfly. Almost in a trance, he called Merlin and they both witnessed the butterfly turning into a woman of extraordinary beauty.

She introduced herself as Psyche, the goddess of the Soul and the wife of Eros, the god of Love, and told them that she was, once, a mortal princess that became immortal because she drank the gods’ nectar of ambrosia. She then explained to Merlin that the origin of his full name, Merlin Ambrosius, dates back to the desert oasis where he was born. The first trees whose fruits came to be known as ambrosia were original from that oasis although, initially, they had no magical property. Only later, when planted in the orchards of Mount Olympus and irrigated with waters of the Holy Fountains, did the fruits acquire special properties, among them to confer immortality on those who drank the nectar produced from them. Psyche then reveals to Merlin that it was this nectar, drank in the Holy Grail, which made him an immortal Wizard. Or rather quasi-immortal, since immortality is not synonymous with invulnerability - and Merlin, better than anyone, knows this Truth.

"And why did you come to me to reveal this story?" Merlin asked.

"Because the Ambrosia trees from the Olympus Orchard are drying up, as well as the waters of the Holy Fountains. Some gods - my husband included, believe that the source of the problem lies in the Underworld Rivers, and we will need the help of the Elysium souls as well as some souls in the Underworld, under the command of Persephone, to locate and neutralize this source. If the problem spreads, everyone may be affected, especially the mortals, on Earth."

…

The visitors are already gone and W. David and W. Snow are now in their living room. Sit in front of the mirror - functioning again as a magic screen, they watch their daughter playing a piano piece she has dedicated to them. The harmonious notes cross the spaces until pulsating in sync with the two monarchs’ ethereal hearts and, although not seen by her, they feel that she feels their presence. Resigning themselves to what they are allowed, the two send to their Emma - and to the two little points of light shining in her womb - the blessings of their eternal love.

“And they say rest in peace for all eternity…” David mutters.

“Yeah,” Snow chuckles, “they never mention the stormy weather in between two lulls.”

“What can we do, Snow? Psyche didn't explain much beyond what she briefly told Merlin. According to him, she only warned that we will be – her words – ‘activated’ when the right time comes. Until then ... what can we do, Snow?"

"We can listen to the music our daughter is dedicating to us, David; we can send our beloved ones all our best energy. We can keep in tune with the other Snow and David. In practice, they are our representatives on Earth and worship our daughter as their own. In addition to looking after our loved ones, we can keep the flame of Hope alight - theirs and ours...”

On Earth, sensing the presence of her parents, Emma raises her head and looks at the mirror. In a flash, she sees their smiling faces mouthing ‘I love you’ while their image dissipates.

Enchanted Countryside, White-Nolan’s home

“Neal!”

From the porch of the ranch headquarters Snow shouts for her son, whom she hasn't seen since early in the morning, at the breakfast table.

Looking around, she sighs. The Charming Farm is the fulfillment of an old dream of David combined with more room for the vibrant energy of a preteen practicing light magic and within easy reach for Snow on her way to work. They were well adapted to the routine of a country life close to an urban life but since David accepted Regina's invitation to the Ministry of Defense the farm has not been so carefully taken care of. Snow would not say it has been neglected; on the contrary, it would not be fair to belittle Anton's good work as a farm administrator, but the lack of David's almost magical touches everywhere - in the stable, in the pastures, in the corral - is remarkable. Exception, of course, for the magic bean plantation, always over zealously cared for by Anton. Although magic beans are no longer needed to open portals between realms, as they are now unified into the same time-space dimension, the delicious feijoada prepared with them by Snow for special occasions, an adaptation of the classic Brazilian feijoada - became famous. In fact, its fame crossed the borders of Storybrooke and for the Summer School closing dinner, in Camelot, in response to everyone's insistent requests, she prepared a cauldron of feijoada that deserved the highest praise. The ceremony just couldn't be as triumphant and joyful as Snow would have liked because of the worrying news that began to come from various parts of the United Realms…

PUFFF!!!!

Lost in thought, Snow jumps in fright at Neal's sudden appearance on the porch, surrounded by a pale blue cloud.

“Did you call, mom?”

“Neal, how many times do I have to ask you not to scare me like this? Yes, I called you, my boy. Although we are discussing in the Ministry about setting up a school recess while dealing with the current crisis, classes have not yet been suspended. Are you ready to go?”

“I do but… look, there comes Dad; he seems in a hurry - as always, recently.”

“Snow! I just got a call from Killian warning that Nemo is about to land on the northeast coast. He reported an anomaly in the Enchanted Sea on the same day as the premonitions. It seems that, with the exception of humans and humanoids, all other inhabitants of the oceans exhibited, during a few hours, a completely chaotic behavior as if in a collective trance, an underwater hysteria that only ended with Poseidon's intervention - neither Triton nor Ursula could contain the sea fauna fury - the seas have been very rough, it seems. If that happened with the creatures of the Ocean, now I’m worried about the inland creatures. I’ll call W. Robin, Merida and Kristoff asking for a report on the Enchanted Forest, the Enchanted Highlands’ and the Enchanted Mountains’ wildlife; maybe it’s the case for increasing the vigilance in these areas to protect the animals.”

“Dad, you are thinking Wish Cruella may be behind all of it, isn’t it?

“Yeah… I'm suspecting she may be behind the erratic behavior of the sea creatures, indeed.”

“Then, Dad, I'm telling you what I am thinking. I think I should work on the protection spell that Gideon taught me so that Wilby won't be left defenseless. And I think we should leave him indoors, is that okay?”

“Agree about protecting Wilby, good idea, son. If you feel safe preparing the magic, go ahead, maybe we should ask Anton to help you in extending the spell to the other animals. Do you think you can manage that? You will be late today for school but it will be worth.”

“Sure Dad, be back in a minute!!” Neal answers already puffing himself into the house to get the ingredients he will need.

“David,” Snow says, “I do not want to increase the overall worry or to generate another panic wave but, is that a case to sanction a general school break?”

“Maybe, but we’ll have to talk to Regina and some ministers first. We will deal with that in Storybrooke, after Neal works in the protection spell, okay?”

…

On their way to Storybrooke, Snow and David talk about what they are working with and what they would love to do. David knows he is much needed in the present crisis but he wishes he could go back to his farm activities, he misses the country life. Snow is happy in her dreamy work, being able to promote a real revolution on Education…. They keep talking and end up commenting on the good partnership the two Killians are developing at Storybrooke’s PD, despite Emma’s temporary license, and that reminds them how the two Emmas are becoming as close as two close sisters. To be quite honest, they have to admit that not only the two Emmas are tightening their emotional bond, they feel that the ‘girls’ are more and more becoming their very dear twin daughters...

“David, because of the fuzz yesterday night caused by Hope’s description of her vision, I forgot to mention that Emm had called me earlier with good news: they are indeed having twins!”

“That’s great news, Honey,” David smiles at his wife and sighs, “at least one really, really good news.”

“Yeah… two more babies for us to love,” Snow completes, looking at the countryside landscape through the car window.

“Mom,” Neal cut them from the back seat, “isn’t that Zelena’s farmhouse entrance? Look, there is a car getting into there!”

“It’s Robyn’s,” David explains, “she and Alice are temporarily living there while deciding where to move for good, to finally settle down – I guess they are tired of being on the roads. They have traveled a lot in the Land without Magic since they got married.”

“Oh, that reminds me of another novelty, Charming. Did you know that Zelena and Chad are our neighbors now, I mean, sort of?” Snow asks.

“Really? How come? What about Chad, doesn’t he have relatives that will want to visit him?” David asks, impersonating his Defense Minister mode.

“Split-Regina didn’t enter into little details, we talked just a bit, while waiting for Neal and Coralline at the school door, but what I know is that Zelena and Chad moved to Portland, Maine, a couple of weeks ago. It seems that he got a transfer to the East Coast in a scheme that appears to be safe, David, no need to worry. Living in Portland will allow Chad’s relatives - as well as the couple’s friends from San Francisco - to visit them without any suspicion. Regina told me that their house is near Storybrooke’s town line, it looks like Zelena has created an amulet for Chad so that he may cross it whenever he needs regardless of whether she is with him, so they both have free access to the United Realms."

“This is so cool…” Neal smiles dreamily, “I would love to have a strategic base for horseback ridings and explorations outside the Realms…”

“You can get your little horse out of the rain for now, young man. As long as the current crisis is not abated, the only strategic base you are allowed to have is our home, next to your parents," David warns him playfully..

Portland, Maine, Zelena and Chad’s new home

“You were right, the view from the room at the tower top is really beautiful, Zelena: a panoramic view of the city and the sea. A view of Paradise, with this blue sky; and I can imagine how incredible it might be during starry nights, I’m sure they will love it!”

“I agree, it’s perfect for them. It’s not a hexagonal room with a balcony, like ours on the floor below, but it has the exact breadth of sight they asked for. It was really fortunate that we found this house in such particular coordinates and with such an architecture that satisfies Robyn's poetic request, and I quote: an architecture that reminds towers but, at the same time, invokes free space, liberation; a tribute not only to Alice's experience of breaking free from her prison in the tower but also my passing ritual of giving up magic in favor of becoming an archer, thus embracing the dream of honoring my father’s memory: a tower symbolizing a springboard for us to fly freely.”

"Poetic… Robyn was quite inspired when specified her dreamy room in our home if we were to buy a house. Listening to this quoted description leave me with no doubt, they will love their towered room. The house is beautiful. To be honest, it’s a bit too much for just the two of us but it’s fitting to be always full of life and visitors. Besides Robyn and Alice, I hope to get more guests occupying our 4 bedroom house,” he turns to Zelena.

"They will come, from the Realms and from the West Coast, I’m sure. I will love to welcome your parents and our friends from San Francisco. This is a fresh start for us, Chad, but it is also continuity. I am happy to be here, near my family and friends from the Realms and, at the same time, to keep the door open for the world we built to ourselves in the Land without Magic."

All of a sudden, interrupting Zelena's words, a feminine voice echoes off the hexagonal tower walls: "the doors of this house are also open to the worlds below and the worlds above, Zelena!"

Petrified by fright, Chad can only move his eyes toward the woman's form materializing before him and his wife. "What the hell!?" he mutters.

"Technically, not necessarily a 'hell', Chad." Smiling, the beautiful woman walks slowly towards the couple and continues, "please, do not be scared, nor fear, I come in peace. Oh! What a bad behavior on my part... I did not knock neither introduce myself. Forgive my bad manners… So, I ask permission to come in. I’m Persephone," she bows extending both hands to them, “nice to meet you”.

“Persephone, as in…. the goddess? I mean, Greek Mythology? Really?” he asks incredulously taking one of her hands.

“Says the Wicked Witch’s husband!” Persephone replies with a small chuckle and immediately corrects herself, “actually, ex-Wicked Witch, nowadays, a respectable sorceress. It’s an honor to finally meet you, Zelena.”

“Yeah, sure, ah… permission granted, I guess, and, thanks… my pleasure too, Persephone.” Zelena and Persephone shake hands. “I’ve wondered so many times about you and your whereabouts, you have no idea. Hades once spoke to me about you. Despite the hardships you couldn't quite solve, he said you were determined and firm…” Zelena returns the compliment and invites her to the living room on the first floor.

…

“You must be curious about my visit," Persephone explains, "it is natural to be so. I'm not planning to go around in circles, because time to lose is something we no longer have, but... I believe it is necessary for me to explain the context of my visit to you. As a start, I think it is important to make it clear that, in the time count, Hades and I broke up for over a thousand years. While in a marital life, our marriage arrangement was described in the literature with reasonable accuracy. I did in fact alternate - and still do - my stay on Earth and Underworld with a periodicity of six months, although the part that associates this alternation with the creation of the seasons has been very romanticized and mythicized. In other words, there are truths and there are myths related to that. Truths refer to the majority of storylines dealing with my relationships in a more personal level, the mythicized part, to the creation of the seasons. You see, I’m not affirming that there is no relation between the cycles of my stay and the seasons; I’m just saying that everything is much more complex and intricate than a metaphoric legend, or myth, describing something that is real but too complex for the rational mind to absorb completely… there are Mysteries and Secrecies that are so named for a reason; for decoding them one needs to combine wisely all sciences, all areas of human knowledge, so to speak...” she smiles reticently.

“But resuming this not so short ‘introduction’, in general Greek myths are about an early world; usually, they explore themes of parental treachery alternating with tales of filial betrayal, love and loyalty - all the essentials of good plot-lines linking birth and cosmic creation. Seen today, they have become ancient stories and part of the ancient mythological worldview. But, believe me, gods and goddesses, existed then and still exist now. We may be known only for the ancient part of our existence, but we are still ‘around’. This way, to contextualize, Demeter is in fact my mother and Zeus, her brother, is, indeed, my father. Athena, Aphrodite, Ares, Apollo, Artemis, Dionysus, Hermes, and Hephaestus are indeed my brothers and sisters. And Hestia, Hera, Demeter, Poseidon, Hades and Zeus are, indeed, brothers and sisters…”

“The moral code of your family is, indeed, quite different from ours,” Zelena mutters with high dose of sarcasm.

“Indeed,” Persephone agrees, with a wink, “but you must remember that we are talking about early human civilization. I understand that incest is a taboo now, but it was considered ‘normal’ and most prevalent in families of royal lineage to keep the bloodlines ‘clean and pure’. Non-royalty rarely participated in incest. Maybe that is the origin of all the drama in my family, that and our immortality, but, looking cautiously, even in many religions and traditions of nowadays, the myths of creation start with the narrative of incest…”

“You are right, when we really think about we see that most of them do start this way,” Chad concedes.

“Of course they do. The key is to never be too judgmental and keep in mind all historical and cultural context. We are talking about metaphoric stories explaining complex transcendental science. These stories usually use hyperbolic language to exaggerate some colors, or to emphasize some attributes. Take Hades, for instance. He was not as bad as they usually say, at least until the Olympian Crystal incident. As the god of death and the Underworld, he suffered a bit from a bad image. He is often treated like the Greek version of devil, but that’s a bit of a stretch. To start, Hades never chose the Underworld as his domain. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, drew straws to see who would be lord of what realm. Zeus drew the Heavens and the Upper world, Poseidon drew the Seas, and Hades drew the Underworld. As the Underworld rulers go, during the time we were married he was a pretty decent king. When Orpheus descended into the Underworld to retrieve his bride, Hades was moved by his pleas and agreed to let the woman go, on the condition that, when leaving, Orpheus wouldn’t look back. You know, he did, of course, and lost her – but that was not Hade’s fault. Today, when I think about it, I see how Hades started to downgrade into darkness because of that passage, which led him to cut the Ambrosia tree in the Underworld. That used to be the only tree of my garden - in that quadrant - that wasn't dry… But it is important to note that he was not responsible for the condemnation or redemption of souls. Those who died were subject to the judgment of demigods, not Hades. As for me, although he did in fact, tricked me to stay in the Underworld - he kidnapped me - after a deal with my father he became a respectful and good husband. Differently from most gods and goddesses, we were both faithful to each other – and quite possessive, I must confess. There was a time that he fell in love with a nymph and I turned her into a mint plant so that my husband wouldn’t be able to have her as a lover. That is not my most glamorous story, I know, but, as far as a marriage between gods goes, those were good times for us,” she sights reminiscent.

After a pause, while Zelena and Chad exchanged discreet glances but didn’t say a word, Persephone continues. “Anyway, things deteriorated fast between us because of that ancient crystal, shaped like a crude lightning bolt, the Olympian Crystal. Because of an old sibling rivalry, the crystal, which belonged to my father, was stolen by Hades. My father, by his turn, cursed Hades' heart and, since then, Hades changed radically. He could not love, he could not feel. You know the story, Zelena. For us, that's when we parted and he became the cruel, vengeful god without noble feelings. Only you, Zelena, was strong enough – and I admire you for that – to penetrate his petrified heart and break the curse with a true love kiss. You were able to see his remaining good, but even that was not enough to lead him into a redemption path. On the contrary, with his distorted mind he deceived you, he schemed against you and your sister, and he caused suffering and losses. Eventually, he ended up losing his immortality. Not even his soul could be saved and, sadly, disintegrated. The irony is that he ceased to exist because of the illegitimate power he wanted to possess. That was the end of Hades but that was not the end of Evil, and that is the reason of my visit today.”

“Are you implying that you came because you didn’t like me not only killing Hades but also disintegrating his soul and your father’s Crystal? Well, I’m sorry and not sorry at the same time. In my defense, I had no option, he was going to disintegrate my sister in the same way he tried to do with Robin right in front of us. You see, I did love Hades, but not to the point of living with the burden of Regina’s death. At the end of the day, after all struggles, many curses and turns of the world, here I am. I met a man who loves me as much as I love him and we built up a healthy and happy life together. Even Regina, despite not being allowed to live side by side with the love of her life, came out of all that victorious. She was able to save his soul by opening her heart to host his soul; in other words, their love was so strong that they could overcome the soul disintegration power of the Olympian Crystal, did you know that? ” Zelena vents, holding tight to her husband's hand.

“Yes, I did, they were impressively brave. And let’s be clear, I’m not here because of Hades or of what happened to him and the Crystal. As I told you, Hades and I rarely spoke or saw each other for over a thousand year. You see, the Underworld is big enough to ‘accommodate’ its King and its Queen in such a way that I always managed to keep my distance from him, mainly because I didn't approve his evil behavior. Only after his death I went back to where you and your friends have been, that place he called Underbrooke - a section of the Underworld he built to please you. There, I helped Arthur to reorganize the broken kingdom, as Arthur used to call it. Thanks to my intervention, Arthur was able to rescue and to retrieve the essence of some lost souls who had accidentally fallen or been thrown into the Lost Souls river before being judged and without deserving such a sad fate. Actually, to be extremely honest, my coming here is indirectly connected with Hades. Going straight to the point, I came because of Hades’ legacy, the evilness he planted in a land that cannot be called fertile unless the sowing is dry, hard, and… cruel. For Evil, the ground is fertile, and that is what Hades sowed. Unfortunately, it seems, the harvest has just began. In fact, the process started a few months ago, a period of great light and love for people from the United Realms thanks to the harmonious waves of the Sweet Suite. Meanwhile, the counterpart was being unfolded downstairs, so to speak, as reported to me by Arthur, when he noticed the first anomalies in the smoke coming from Tartarus.”

“Anomalies?” Chad, increasingly frightened and uncomfortable, interrupts to ask. “What kind of anomalies do you refer to? Could you be more specific?”

“Of course,” Persephone concedes, “I’ll get there. Continuing, I was talking about Arthur. Although he and I have taken every precaution in our bailouts, some lost souls not supposed to get free and to recover their evil ego managed to escape without our help, probably they were helped by the one who took over the Underbrooke’s City Hall and became a stumbling block in Arthur's path: Cruella Deville. Apparently obsessed with the idea of returning to Earth and taking revenge on Emma Swan, who killed her to save her son's life, after freeing some lost souls Cruella stole from the library of Hades one of the ‘Mysteries & Secrecies’ books accessible only to the gods and a few humans who get permission – in this case, granted by me to Arthur."

Taking a sip of tea, Persephone inhales and exhales deeply before continuing. "Here, a parenthesis is needed, since you and others have already been in the Underworld and may wonder about what I'm about to reveal. Despite having similar buildings, as you must know Storybrooke and Underbrooke do not share exactly the same layout - quite the contrary, actually. Particularly, downstairs, the public library - where Wish Belle, a soul with unfinished business, works - is adjacent to Hades's forbidden sector. Belle isn't allowed to get in there but she has been given permission to borrow some books from there. To read and decipher their ancient texts she uses a magical translator, a gift of mine, an appreciation for her good behavior and impressive achievements as a researcher. Now, closing the parenthesis and going back on track, Arthur and I found out that Cruella not only had stolen Belle's translator but had also broken the magic lock to the forbidden library. We managed to prevent her from stealing all banned books but one of them she hid and, especially with the help of two other souls, Pan, whom she rescued from the river of Lost Souls, and Wish Rumple, she managed to read - and learn - the content of a very specific Mystery & Secrecy tome: ‘How to clone human bodies’.”

“Is that a Mystery, or a Secrecy, really?” Zelena interrupts Persephone with a nervous chuckle. “I mean, not that I don’t believe the seriousness of what you are telling us, but I’ve seen so many wish and non-wished versions of people, or split versions, of whatever that it’s really doubtful this is such a mysterious secret…”

“There's a big difference between what you have seen and what I’m referring to: you have seen body-and-soul alternate versions of people, duplication even triplication of people in a so-called quantum process of magic involving the concept of infinite possibilities. I am referring to cloned bodies, you can think about them as empty bodies, ready to host deceased souls in a process that does not involve reincarnation as we know it. It does not involve a restart, a reset with forgetfulness and detachment of the past life, with the loss of ego for starting all over again aiming at a spiritual evolution. In short, their plan is to clone bodies – your bodies, before killing you so that in a fraction of seconds they will magically switch places with your souls which will force your souls to descend to the Underworld. This way, by taking your place, they will enter your clones. They also plan to clone all gods’ bodies, after drying our source of immortality. The process of this kind of cloning involves a hibernation state of the cloned body until the new soul enters the empty ‘vehicle’.”

“Bloody hell…” Chad interjects.

“You have no idea how bloody this hell is,” Persephone acquiesces. “The anomalies refer, as I said, to a kind of smoke that may change Nature's behavior across all kingdoms - including the Underworld. They precede, as an alarm, the main and final cloning magic, which involves the use of a special fruit cultivated in the Olympus associated with water from a special fountain there. With them we have indications that our enemies are on their way, unfortunately. Although we managed to send Pan, Cruella, Gaston and James Nolan to Tartarus, attempting to avoid the problem, now we think that sending them may have increased the likelihood that it will occur. Wish Rumple hasn’t been judged yet and remains in Underbrooke, Arthur and I will see what we will do with him, but I guess sending him to Tartarus will not be a good idea…”

After a prolonged silence, during which Zelena and Chad processed the huge amount of information, Persephone concludes: “There are some facts that we don’t know yet, for example, it seems that they have a connection on the Upperworld, some sort of help coming from the United Realms, and we really fear that, led by Pan and Cruella’s souls, the condemned souls may be plotting from Tartarus. As I said, there are lots of things we still don’t know but we do know that the situation goes beyond what our power alone can handle. We need you, humans from Earth and souls from Elysium, to help us. There is a major disaster with proportions that I would not like to think about being forged and we need to prevent that. So, there you have it, the reason of this unexpected visit of mine. I came to ask for your help.”

Enchanted Seashore, Wish Regina and Roland’s home

“Roland, where have you been? After my sister Queen announced, this morning, the suspension of classes, I didn't see you anymore; I was starting to worry and thinking about using a location spell... I waited but you took so long that I decided to have lunch first. Now… let's go to the kitchen, my dear, to warm up your food.” Wish Regina tells the 15-year-old as he begins to climb the back porch staircase.

"No need for worry, Gina, I won’t go too far from here, promise. I was in my other room, at the tree house and didn’t hear you calling because I was chatting with Lucy, Neal and Coralline. Neal and Aline are staying at Lucy's house while their parents are in a meeting with the Queen and the others, at the City Hall."

"I see… Well, as you know, I attended this meeting via Web, as well as a few other ministers who did not travel to Storybrooke, but in my case I only needed to be present for 2 hours. We decided that, at the moment, the activities of my Social Assistance Ministry will remain in a standby mode, waiting for more information regarding the mysteries behind the children visions and the ocean ‘turbulence’. By the way, one of the absent ministers, Nemo, warned us that he is about to land near our house and I have, since then, been waiting for the Nautilus, cooking a few dishes, a couple of apple pies… I guess they shouldn't be long. Now, about you: seriously? 6 hours of chat?" she asks playfully. “Thankfully, the power consumption of the equipment developed by Nemo and the Dragon is 100% self-sustainable, otherwise people with magic in all United Realms, working in sync, would not be able to energize all transponders that the young people use!" she quips.

“I see no problem in talking too much. Adults can spend a whole day in conversations and meetings – which is accepted as normal. What about us? This is our world too, what happens now affects our future. The current crisis seems to be so serious that the four of us needed to get together to discuss our positions, nothing that won’t be coordinated with what you will decide, don’t worry. Adults are in charge - and we know that, but we needed to align our claims and we can help. Neal and Coralline have magic, Lucy is a True Believer and I am a champion Archer, not to mention our cunning intelligence! And do not forget: as the senior of the group, I’m kind of their leader!” Roland responds proudly, already devouring a heated lasagna.

“We will see about that, young ‘senior’…" Regina’s reply would be longer but, fortunately for Roland, the conversation was interrupted by the arrival of Nemo, Liam Jr, Wish Brennan and Liam Senior, together with Ursula and W. Ariel, who traveled swimming by the Nautilus' side, “just for the fun of it!”

…

"Like Lieutenants Martin & Harris who, by the way, opted to have lunch and stay nested aboard, those four out there are becoming inseparable couples, if you know what I mean..." Brennan smiles muttering under his breath to be heard only by Liam Senior and Regina, the three sat on the oceanfront balcony. He refers to the couples walking arm in arm along the shore with the excuse of digesting Regina's hearty meal but, in fact, looking for an alone time. That is especially valid - it seems - to Liam Jr and W. Ariel, moving away as if in search of a more private corner.

“You prepared a real feast for us, Regina, everything was delicious,” L. Senior says, between sips of an herbal tea.

“Thanks, Liam. Knowing that six people were coming was an ideal excuse for me to try and forget about the problems. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to prepare anything special, I hope you stay long enough to enjoy something more elaborate. Oh yeah… something that doesn't involve seafood, out of respect for Ursula and W.Ariel. Maybe a cheese soufflé with a good red wine...” she plans dreamily. “You know, cooking for me is a therapy, especially when I'm just like now, really worried. There was a time when I used to vent going to the 'witch's cauldron', instead!!” Regina and L. Senior have a good laugh at that, and she goes on, “but now that my witchcraft times are past, my hobby is cooking, I love to try new recipes, combine new seasonings and condiments ... Sometimes I resent from not having a taste keeper more open to novelties, you know, since Roland is not that much given to spices - especially seafood, I must confess. Well, I love the sea, no wonder I chose to live in front of it taking care, obviously, to find a seaside location close to the Enchanted Forest, which is Roland's natural habitat.”

“Well,” Liam Sr. replies bluntly, “if registration for tasting your cuisine is open, I'll be the first in line to appreciate the Chef's production!”

Rubbing his beard thoughtfully, Brennan interrupts the flirtation to ask about Roland, and Regina goes on to explain how the two eventually got closer, and today share a bond resembling the one between a son and a mother.

…

Approaching the balcony, Ursula, accompanied by Nemo, asks:

"Regina, do you know why we came to your house before going to Storybrooke?"

“No, I don’t. Although I feel much honored by your visit, I must confess that I was curious about it,” Regina replies.

“The reason is simple and complicated at the same time, but I'll try to summarize it,” Ursula explains. “The location of your home is special. In fact, Nemo and I found out that some homes in the United Realms are very specially located. I do not know whether by the architects’ intuition or knowledge of occult sciences, or both, but many houses are located at points of telluric energy chakras and they are very useful as a communication channel for the members of my family. You probably know my family tree from literature – so you might know that I'm the daughter of Poseidon's union with Amphitrite and I'm Triton's sister. You might also know, I imagine, that I have many uncles, aunts, and cousins, including my cousin Persephone, daughter of Zeus and Demeter. So… yesterday, Persephone telepathically contacted me to let me know that she was going to visit your half-sister, Zelena, at her new home in Maine. Although it is located outside the borders of the United Realms, Zelena chose a house positioned at one of these energetic crossing points to which I referred, and that opened Persephone's passage to the Earth plane coming from the Underworld. I don't know exactly the subject of their talk, but I do know that my cousin asked me to be at one of these energy points because she needed to talk to me too - with urgency - and the conversation would be lengthy, thus more complicated to sustain, via telepathy, if I were outside of them. In face of that, Nemo and I searched in his maps to locate the nearest point in relation to where we were – in other words, your home was the answer. And this is, my dear friend, the original reason that brought us to your welcoming house. The extra bonus, that is, our great time here and the opportunity to strengthen the emotional ties that bind us, might be a result of one of Cousin Eros’ romps,” Ursula mumbles and Nemo giggles.

“I see, interesting…” Regina replies, pensive. “Well, while Persephone doesn’t contact you, I invite the two of you to join us in our tea time and, then, if possible, I would like to know more about these energy lines and points, that is, if you or Nemo, or both, could teach us about them. If I got the idea roughly right, they may be useful for us to deal with what is coming even though we don’t know yet what it is.”

“I will tell what I can for now,” Nemo addresses the small audience, soon joined by Roland, Liam Jr, and W. Ariel, while Ursula quietly retreats to the living room, “so that Ursula may be free to relax and meditate. Well… let’s start from a scientific fact: there are straight fault lines in the earth’s tectonic plates, to many people known as ley-lines. It’s also scientifically known that through these cracks the magnetic energies released are very powerful. Our ancestors have known about these lines for thousands of years: each culture on the planet has known about them yet with different names. Native Indians of this same region where we are right now, for example, used to call them spirit lines because their electro-magnetic energy helped their Shamans to contact the spirits. The druids called them mystical lines. In Wales, as in eastern countries, they were called dragon lines. For the aboriginal people of Australia these lines were known as dream lines. Throughout history all megalithic structures have been strategically built on top of these so called ley lines. These electro-magnetic lines may be seen as veins that receive energy from the sun, thus connecting and affecting every living thing on this planet. The atoms of our bodies, because they are surrounded by electrons, are connected to the earth’s electro-magnetic fields and our heart, as a battery, may be charged by them. Right now, Ursula is in the living room, meditating on one of these crossing points, or megalithic centers, to elevate her electrical aura, intellect, and connection to her higher self, which will activate her energy centers (or chakras).”

“Wow...” Roland exclaims softly.

“Of course there are dark forces that are knowledgeable of these lines and concentrate effort to manipulate these fields and to control or influence the geo-electrical grid. For this reason the access to this knowledge is not allowed to every mortal and few cultures have it completely mapped - the maps in my possession are a rare treasure, among the few out there with the complete grid involving all alternate and superimposed realms – such as the United Realms, which is superimposed to Maine, the Upper world, the Underworld and the Olympus. Around the world, multiple alternate realms, aligned to multiple cultures and traditions, are superimposed, which explains how Henry Mills, our Author, ended up in a realm with another Rapunzel, another Cinderella – which is made possible due to a magic quantum process of infinite possibilities.”

“I have a question, Sir!” Roland raises his hand.

“Go ahead, young man,” Nemo replies in a benevolent tone.

“How is it possible to converge, to the same time and space, characters and stories, known through literature for hundreds of years, which were, according to their origins, mismatched in time and in space? And how come that they all speak the same language - English, in our case?"

"Wow, I'm positively impressed with the complexity of your question... what's your name again, my boy?"

"Roland, sir."

"Very well. So, Roland, the ley lines - which I usually refer to as Earth’s meridians of energy, in an analogy with the millennial Chinese medicine, allow connections that mix time and space and activate, on those that are transported through them, the necessary adjustment of language skill and, sometimes, cultural adaptation. In other words, they equalize the inner communication channel of the person crossing a portal. This means that you need portals, like those opened by magic beans, like the ones I used to open, for the Nautilus, with kraken blood fuel - thanks to Ursula, this is a method I no longer use - or any other magical means to open portals between realms and dimensions. They translate different temporal and spatial planes to converge into the same plane. Before you ask – yeah, I’m seeing your eyes shining while your mind is processing the information - let me tell you one thing. Time travel in the same realm is far more complicated than that between planes of different realms and often requires dark magic. So, back to the convergence of characters originated from different times in History into a common space-time, you’ve got to remember that they are characters like all of us, right here and right now. We obviously know that these characters and stories are absolutely real – we are real!" Everyone laughs at that, before Nemo resumes, "the fact that we are known in the Land without Magic literature is also explained by the Earth’s meridian theory: during their dreams, writers, supposed to be our creators, travel through the dream lines and visit our original and very much real realms, they get to know real people that they turn into fiction characters, and by doing it the way they do, they frequently translate their dreams into mixed distortions of our real stories, you know the rest. In summary…” he sighs and pauses for a little while, “there you have it. Are you happy with my answer, Roland? "

"Very, Sir, thank you very much," the boy responds with a distant, dreamy look, sailing the waves of imagination fueled by Nemo's response.

Concluding his explanation, Nemo takes another sip of his tea and finally states, “to conclude, the Grid, with capital letter - that is how I call my maps, establishes higher levels of consciousness in a scale of 7 keys, but this is something to talk about in another day. Let’s hope Ursula will help us in understanding what is going on in our present situation and, also, in knowing what we should do to prevent chaos or to fight potential enemies.”

Underworld, Underbrooke

The air is dry, reddened by the pollution caused by a high dose of toxic gas spewing from chimneys spread along the sidewalks. However, for those who inhabit the decaying town, the existence of the permanent anomaly does not affect them yet: they do not properly breathe with lungs; though through their semi-densified souls, molded in the shape of the body they had on earth, runs a viscous liquid which - under the effect of torture, in Hades' time, gushed and bled.

The streets are empty; most of Underbrooke’s inhabitants are gathered in an assembly promoted by Arthur and Persephone, at the City Hall. The subject of the meeting may be or may be not new to everyone except for the two beings walking down Main Street: Wish Belle and Wish Rumple discussing and, in vain, trying to seek an understanding, a convergence of viewpoints.

…

"Rumple, no matter how hard you try to justify it, the fact is that you lied about not acting dominated by your Dark One persona. Dark Ones trick, Dark Ones lie! When Baelfire came back from Neverland, you tricked him and lied to me!"

Tousling his hair with his hands in exasperation, Rumple continues to argue. "Belle, we were a happy family until Regina killed Baelfire and you. We lived years of peace, harmony and love. What difference does a harmless lie make?"

"Harmless? Really? It's the cornerstone of everything that went wrong later, Rumple. It's the first domino, the first lie followed by a string of more lies. It means that all our happiness was grounded in lies. Our harmony was false, and I no longer know if your love was false too. Your love of power has corrupted your noblest feelings, Rumple.”

“How dare you?! Of course I loved you! I love you. Everything I did was because I loved you and Bael more than anything!” Rumple cuts her.

“Rumple, you know that I've always been able to see beyond the Beast, to see your primary light source despite your Dark One persona. The fact that you can't understand a truth as basic as this: our happiness was built on a lie, makes me wonder. It makes me think that you continue, even after you are dead, trying to delude yourself and, as a byproduct, to fool me too!"

"I lost everything Belle, I lost you, I lost my son, differently from the other Rumple I was left with nothing. My only option was to give up. I know I am worse now than I was when you died but ... I had no choice but to surrender to darkness. I lost Hope."

"Don't you see the pattern? Everything and everyone to blame but you! You're victimizing yourself again and we're going around in circles. I know it got harder for you after Bael and I died. But it was hard for me too! After dying we arrived here but he quickly moved on to the Islands of the Blessed. Meanwhile, with this hellish unresolved business called Rumplestiltskin, I've been here for almost 12 years now, always in a library, reading, studying the human psyche, and waiting for my unresolved, unfinished business to come in. Then you arrived, a soul completely darkened but … still, I still hoped, I still do, Rumple. I have not given up on you or on us. I wait because I'm your Hope. Can't you see, Rumple? You haven't lost Hope."

“Nah… you are the one not seeing, Belle. I know that I had lied to you and to Bael but I had good reasons. I did that so that I would be able to trick Regina and Hook by making them believe that she would cast the dark curse and he would follow me in a world where I would be vulnerable. I made them believe that I needed to go the Land without Magic to find my son when, in reality, I had already found him and we were secretly living in peace. All I wanted was Hook to cross the realms and be trapped there, staying there for the rest of his life. And why should I care in betraying Regina? She was Evil, she was a villain. So, I plotted with the fairies to capture her and to steal her magic – in one way or another, the result would be positive: the Enchanted Forest would get rid of two villains. What happened was not exactly what I envisioned, but it worked well, for a while at least. Hook moved to the other Enchanted Forest, to raise his daughter, and we neutralized the Evil Queen’s power - all realms benefited from that. I was convinced, and still am, that the end justifies the means - and the end was noble: to live in peace with you and my son, being a family of nobles with noble attitudes: charitable, generous, fair … Bael became a knight and married a Princess! We lived a happy life, we did!”

“Until we did not,” Belle sighs, and continues, “I don’t know what else I could do or say to make you see, Rumple. I don't know how far you still have in your soul traces of the connection with the Dark Ones lineage, or if it's all just you. I do not know how far you have not understood that lying is like non-consensual, abusive, sex; it is the absence of resonance, of transparency, of respect. There is no nobility where there is a lie. Nobility is, above all, a state of honesty, of sincerity. I’m not saying you did no good to a lot of people, I’m saying you did no good to yourself, mainly. Once I read a text, written by a man called Carl Gustav Jung, in his ‘Memories, Dreams and Reflections’, stating something like: You may feed the hungry, you may forgive an insult, and you may love your enemy…these are undoubtedly great virtues… But what if you should discover that the poorest of beggar and the most impudent of offenders are all within you, and that you stand in need of your own kindness; that you are the enemy who must be loved? What then?”

“Are you implying that I should love myself? Well, dearie, that would be the opposite of what you have always said when you accused me of being selfish, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely not, these are two different things and there you are again, trying to locate a loophole in my reasoning. I’m saying that you are your own enemy. Don’t trick me with your word playing, Rumple. You know what I meant. We are both too old and too dead for this kind of game.”

“One more reason for us to go back to Earth, to inhabit healthier and younger bodies, Belle...”

“Please, Rumple, not this nonsense again. I asked Arthur to come for a walk because he knows how and why I know the news he and Persephone are, right now, communicating to everyone and trying to find out who else, besides you, is behind the plan. He knows I’m aware of you being behind the sad news…”

“I still don’t see the sad aspect of it. You are neglecting a unique opportunity to keep your memories as Belle intact and be given the experience of a new life without repeating the same mistakes of the previous life. Look at my dark soul, I could evolve towards the light, don’t you see? I would be able to learn what still needs to be taught to me. Just imagine, you and I together, no dark magic this time, no magic at all, no tricks, and no lies: a new beginning – a reincarnation without forgetfulness. The prospect is fabulous: a new life in young bodies ready to express physically the pleasures of loving and being loved. Would you do that, Belle? For us, would you build with me a new life? Would you go back with me, if you knew that the cloning plan would work as it is supposed to work?”

Sighing, despite not breathing, just out of habit, Belle responds. “I love you, Rumple, I honestly do, I know – I sense – that underneath your darkness there are resilient seeds of goodness. But I could never go ahead with you in this craziness. And … you know what? I’m so tired; I need to evolve, I need to rest in peace.” Slowly, head down, Belle walks away from him, leaving Rumple completely alone.

…

"Fate behaves irrationally, and the energy of life inconveniently demands a gradient agreeable to itself; otherwise it simple gets dammed up and turns destructive. It regresses to former situations. […] Psychic energy is a very fastidious thing which insists on fulfillment of its own conditions. However much energy may be present, we cannot make it serviceable until we have succeeded in finding the right gradient. […] Life can flow forward only along the path of the gradient. But there is no energy unless there is a tension of opposites; hence it is necessary to discover the opposite to the attitude of the conscious mind. It is interesting to see how this compensation by opposites also plays its part in the historical theories of neurosis. Freud’s theory espoused Eros; Adler’s the will to power. Logically, the opposite of love is hate, and of Eros, Phobos (fear): but psychologically it is the will to power. Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking. The one is but the shadow of the other: the man who adopts the standpoint of Eros finds his compensatory opposite in the will to power, and that of the man who puts the accent on power is Eros. Seen from the one-sided point of view of the conscious attitude, the shadow is an inferior component of the personality and is consequently repressed through intensive resistance. […] The conscious mind is on top, the shadow underneath, and just as high always longs for low and hot for cold, so all consciousness, perhaps without being aware of it, seeks its unconscious opposite, lacking which it is doomed to stagnation, congestion, and ossification. Life is born only of the spark of opposites…" (Carl G. Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology)

#Body and Soul #Ch 3

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