#its finally the last part of the trilogy where they find themselves

[destinygoldenstar]

Here's an idea for how to fix Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitsu (despite there being a lot of ways)

The Oni Trilogy is the first introduction to the ninja's new designs, which acts as an age-up to the ninja adjusting out of teenagerdom and into adulthood.

(Yes I know they say they're teenagers. They also say they're grown up teenagers. Which is 18-19. That's technically adulthood. At least where I'm from.)

It’s an aspect of the show I never knew I needed until I got it. Allowing its characters to grow up with its audience.

That sounds like a given, but you’d be surprised.

The ninja in the Oni Trilogy FEEL like older, more mature versions of their characters. (Except or Kai, but you can make an argument that's him healing after being forced to grow up at five) They're functioning without any mentor to guide them. They're taking solo missions. Jay and Nya get engaged. Something teenagers don't do.

Dragons Rising, they're also very clearly adults. They kind of need to be for that story to work.

And then right at the start of s11, they're going back to the status quo, and silently acting like the ninja are minors again. Wu is back mentoring them and treating them like kids, for example. The capability they had in the Oni Trilogy without him is gone.

They even remove the mentorship angle the four ninja had with Wu. Irony galore.

I CAN understand why the writers did that. This is a kids show, after all. It's more appealing to kids to have their heroes also be kids. And they wanted a lighter tone than the Oni Trilogy. As light as Frozen Genocide can be. I understand that.

I am not against a lighter tone. But you can have a lighter tone and still push the narrative of the ninja being adults now. And also not make them dumb as a post at times.

For first change I would do is s11 is: NO reverting back to teenagers. It's a continuation of the growing pains of a new chapter in their lives as they transition into this new age category.

Like, they could be attempting their ideal happy endings they can finally achieve now that they're old enough. (Because they think all crime and evil is over.) Like, say, Lloyd is taking care of a retired Wu and trying to find part time jobs to hold up the monastery bills (his Green Ninja status could be a detriment to finding one).

Cole could be trying to uphold a cake decorating career, even if he's not good at it.

Jay and Nya are getting married. I can't stress that enough, I WANT TO SEE THEIR WEDDING.

(Bonus if Kai is late to it because he had to get a wedding gift for his sister from downtown and it took forever. Jay doesn't get a gift from him because 'screw my in law')

And the narrative setup for s11, a fire/ice rivalry, is that the only ninja who don't know what they want to do/can't accept the change, is Kai and Zane.

Kai is very content with his status as a ninja and considers that the best version of himself he could ever ask for. He's found family he could cherish. He's got a sick job as a hero. But there's no crime anymore, and his friends are moving on and doing other stuff, and Kai is not. He doesn't know what else he could be doing with his life besides this. He doesn't exactly have the best relationship with his parents even after the reunion, and his blacksmithing only reminds him of the past which was... miserable. (You tell me Kai had a happy life before he met Wu, you're lying) Plus, he already became an adult the moment he was abandoned, so he can't process the idea of becoming an adult physically. This is the best chapter in his life. If that chapter doesn't last and goes away... what is he?

Zane is, well, PROGRAMMED to protect those who cannot protect themselves. That is his whole life purpose. So there's no more crime to stop. And there's nobody TO protect. Which means that Zane has no purpose. But knowing Zane, he still tries to smile and be supportive and be kind to his friends, being happy for them. However, he is starting to process the reality of his situation when understanding this new stage in life. Zane outlived his inventor, who died of old age. His friends have aged up. Zane's going to outlive them unless the worst happens. He'll watch them age and die too, and there won't be anything he can do about that. And it's HAUNTING to Zane, even if he doesn't want to talk about it.

Cause, you know, robots. Robots be immortal. Being immortal sucks in this regard.

Both of them are visibly isolated from the other ninja as they seem all happy and content with the changes, and said changes are taking everything away from the two. (Also perfect time for the Fire Chapter to have Zane and Kai friendship moments. You know, before everything goes wrong.)

By the time the other ninja realize their friends aren't stable and need reassurance, it's already too late. Kai's powers are gone, solidifying that his glory days are over and he's nothing important to anyone anymore. Zane's banished to the Never Realm with a twisted mindset on how he can keep his programming and stop the human aging problem. "Protect those who cannot themselves. Everyone will be protected from everything when everyone's frozen solid."

Maybe the Forbidden Scrolls are they keys to solving all their problems. With them, they have the power to make sure nothing changes. By their logic, Kai should've been able to react to the scroll, (idk why he couldn't) so imagine if he could use it, and he started using it as a crutch and clinging to it more than the others. It becomes an unhealthy way of coping with his problems.

There's two scrolls, right? What if both the fire and the ice ninjas took one and got corrupted for the worst? We'd have a rivalry of two corrupted ninja on the opposite spectrum of power, duking it out in a war.

Or if you don't want evil Kai, he could still be with the ninja, and clinging to the scroll for his own gain, and we see through the village how bad the corruption gets on his end. (So we can kind of understand how bad it went for Zane, who endured it for years) And upon realizing what he's turning into, the others help him get off the scroll, and try to use his powers normally again. And he becomes the Firemaker, and the village's hero, which would probably be later into the story than it does in the original.

It also makes the full rejection of the scroll, and this awesome dragon slay moment from Kai all the more powerful.

There's kind of obvious other ninja reactions that they have to confront these two and make it clear they still care about them, change is not going to break their bonds apart. Change happens, but the best thing you can do is try to find a healthy way to adjust to these changes.

Cause if you don't accept your own vulnerability/mortality, you live your whole life in a lie.

This is just one idea though. There are a lot of ways you can improve s11, there's a lot of potential with the season that's wasted, and I don't actually think it's an overall Wildbrain issue, just an issue for this season.

#ninjago #ninjago kai #ninjago zane #kai smith #kai jiang #zane julien #ninjago secrets of the forbidden spinjitzu

[ninefourzerozero]

Pokemon Romhack Review: Pokemon Nameless

Nameless was fighting an uphill battle. When I downloaded the game on a whim, I did so half-remembering two things about it: 1.) that it was on several "greatest pokemon rom hacks of all time" lists and 2.) that it was the game the hack maker had created before pokemon mega power, which was held in similiar regard. I was wrong on that second front. In fact, Nameless is the third entry into a trilogy that starts with Mega Power, which then had a prequel in resolute, with Nameless serving as a bridge between the two. This lead to me missing. a Great Deal of context for the story, but all the same I want to start there.

Pokemon Nameless has a lot of text. Or at least, it feels like a lot. It might technically be more accurate to say that Nameless has very very dense text, sporadically. Story segments are very dialogue heavy and, wishing to be as kind as possible to the poor soul who has put their blood sweat and tears into this free project that I did enjoy, the writing is very bad. It's extremely repetitive, it goes in circles, the same information is communicated multiple times, it repeats itself, topics are brought up and reintroduced and rerereintroduced in one conversation, and it's repetitive. More than that, the game makes the classic mistake of conflating something dark happening with something meaningful happening, and while Nameless does have a theme, its the same theme as a million shonen anime. The game starts with our protagonist, Chronya, escaping dangers on a boat with another before the boat is attacked and Chronya washes ashore, trying to put her life together. She immediately meets, is protected by, and forms a paternal bond with some Dudes, who within an hour of playtime have, for the most part, been violoently killed in front of Chronya. The last words of one of these Dudes is that she must fight for others, and Chronya takes this to mean she must be strong enough by herself that she can protect everyone, before we cut 12 years later and take Chronya on a journey to find the surviving father figure who has gone missing, all while learning - say it with me now - the power of friendship.

This is the intent, at least. In practice, a lot of characters thrust themselves into chronya's company and she gives a slight gesture at resistance before becoming their best friend. Many of these characters are incredibly indistinct. They wear dark clothing, have dark hair, and some number of them are ninjas. One was one of the father figures from the prologue, and I only realized it was him when the game pointed it out, to which I wondered "wasn't he killed" and the game replied by not acknowledging it.

You may have noticed I called this the story section and then did not spend much time talking about the actual plot, and that's because it is incredibly difficult to follow. Threads are brought up and dropped with clockwork regularity, some questions are handwaved away (presumably, answered in the related works, but the hack creator stated playing the other installments in this series was not necessary), and the big finale introduces time travel, multiverse bullshit, and an off-hand explanation for who the mysterious killer The Shady is that's shortly thereafter contradicted.

That being said, did say earlier I did ultimately enjoy this game, so why all the nay-saying? Well, truth be told it all starts with that original point of criticism: the dialogue is bad and dumped on you by the truckload. I would not have spent so much time being critical of the plot if I didn't spend so much of my time with Nameless trying to understand the war-and-peace-length dialogue sequences I was presented with. Because as much as I did not care for this game's story, its gameplay was enough to keep me engaged throughout.

The way Pokemon Nameless works is pretty novel. Rather than a gym and a pokemon league, the region of Cyenne has arenas in several towns, where you can either challenge a defender or take on challengers as a defender. Defenders are one big fight, analogous to a gym leader, while defender fights see you take on 3 trainers with weaker pokemon. Clearing a defender makes you a defender of that level, and defending your title allows you to take on the next level of defender. If you level grind, you can clear the entire league in the first town with an arena. It's neat! But the real interesting thing is that all of this is strictly optional.

Rather than HM's, Chronya is an athletic woman who can smash rocks and swim all by herself. However, if you want to push strength rocks, or clear whilrlpools, you'll need Strength Training Lv 2 or Swim Training Lv 2, and the best place to find skill trainers is in the defenders of specific towns. The thing is, you don't need any of these skills. You are more than capable of clearing the game with the base level skills you have at the start of the game, and the leveled up skills just grant you access to side areas. And there's a fair bit of side areas! the map is filled with fun little areas you can find if you have a keen eye and the right skills. Most of these sideareas have worthwhile content too, usually ranging up to legendary pokemon.

And. Ok before I move on with gameplay I do want to really quickly address the elephant in the room. Like I said, to make this system work, Chronya being athletic and muscular makes sense. However, the way this is communicated is that Chronya is, at all times, only wearing a two-peice swimsuit. Other characters frequently comment on Chronya being muscular, and on two occasions, comment on her being naked, for which she retorts "I do a lot of swimming, so I can't wear any outwear!! It'll get wet!!" along with attributing this to the fact that she nearly drowned in the prologue sequence. And like. Sure man but that doesn't explain why she's posed with her feet to camera in the skill screen (pictured above). To be clear, my problem isn't that this is extremely obviously horny. That's fine. I'm bi, and muscular women are hot. But come on man. If you're gonna acknowledge it, own up to it.

Anyway. Diversion aside, the openness does present some design issues in pokemon. Open world design is known to cause issues of level curves in pokemon games, and Nameless is no exception. Generally, you either need to flatten the level curve to account for the player going any of the directions chosen (as in Johto) or you need to set high level Gates to further content (as in Paldea). Nameless, for the most part, choses the former, but makes its intentions plenty known. Each route, boss fight, or story event will have some sort of message before it giving a reccomended level. This isn't a level cap per se, but it does help establish to the open world player which route is good to go down, and which routes are good to turn around from and do some exploration. The experience is ultimately very rewarding, although there is one quirk of design which kinda causes things to fall apart.

So, those arenas. I mentioned that the defense fights consist of fighting some number of weaker trainers, and beating it once levels you up, but you can defend an unlimited number of times. This makes level grinding trivial, since your pokemon are healed between every fight. While doing some exploration is the intended solution to finding a level wall, grinding is an equally valid option that makes it very easy for the player to optimize the fun out of the game. It's extra funny too, since each route with trainers has an NPC on it that you can pay to make all trainers rematch-able, but Why Would You Ever When You Can Do It At the Arenas For Free Forever. This doesn't ruin the experience, but it does mean I can't give this game a gold star for its structure, as much as it is so close to earning it.

And lastly, the most important part of any pokemon game is the pokemon themselves. This game is... kinda strange in this regard actually. There's a good mix of pokemon from gen 1-6, plus some gen 7, 8, and even 9 representatives, but something is distinctly Off. My suspicion is the creator had most of the sprites and game data for pokemon available to him, but none of the signature moves or abilities due to when the game was released. This has the very funny consequence of things like shed skin mimikyu or the strongest water stab for urshifu being Waterfall. That being said, the encounter variety is still very nice and the post-game is packed with legendary encounters. There's even some custom pokemon towards the very very very lategame, so if you give this a try, keep an eye out for that.

That about wraps it up. My final verdict is this: If pokemon Nameless were just its gameplay, it'd be a solid reccomend. However, its gameplay is muddled by a convoluted and poorly written story and the blindingly obvious fact that our player character is essentially naked the whole time. I enjoyed my time with it, and you might too, but if what I've said so far has turned you off of the project, it's probably best to stay away.

#pokemon #pokemon fangames #pokemon rom hack #pokemon nameless #zoe's romhack corner #<- new tag i'm gonna try and make some use out of

[redadm1ral-moved]

Fanworks Friday Flash Rec List

Hey y'all! I decided to do something I haven't done before and put together a quick and dirty Modern Warfare rec list for @onlycodcanjudgeme's Fanworks Friday! This list is in no particular order, and I'll be linking each author's AO3 profile—if you're an author whose work is listed here and you have socials you'd like me to add links to, let me know and I'll edit it in!

This is gonna be a short one, and a bit of a mixed bag, but hopefully you'll find something you like! When jumping into a fic (especially in the COD fandom), remember to heed the tags, and be sure to leave a kudos and/or a comment on the fics you read! To preserve y'all's dashboards, I'll be sticking my recs under a readmore.

Without further ado, here's a handful of fics I recommend!

Thanatos Denied by UrgentOrange

*MW3 AU* After their nearly fatal encounter with Shepherd, Soap and Price are forced to lie low in Afghanistan, but soon find themselves on the run from former allies.

Thanatos Denied is one of my favorite fics, one that I definitely recommend you give a shot! It's a MW3 AU that takes place immediately post-MW2, following Soap and Price while they survive the fallout of the events of MW2. (Classic trilogy, obvs).

With 28 chapters and over 120k words, it's the longest fic on this list, but a worthwhile read for sure. Heed the tags with this one; it can get pretty heavy.

2. The Barracks (Part 1) by doberman

The Barracks is a military-inspired inn based within Hereford, England, where good friends Soap and Ghost work. One day during his lunch, Soap sketches a handsome stranger in his journal. What he didn't know was that this stranger would later come to not only save him, but impact his life in more ways than one.

The first in a series of fics by the same name, The Barracks is a slow burn, strangers to lovers Soap/Price AU! It deals with some heavy themes, but is overall a light read! It's also a little over 31k words long, with 12 chapters.

The series has 3 parts, with the next two parts focusing more on Ghost and Roach's relationship. Part 3 is still in progress, with its last update being in 2021. I definitely recommend giving it a shot if coffee shop AU-adjacent romance is your thing!

3. mushroom by isototes

Glowing bright, flashing, climbing the sky. Yuri sighs.

yuri handles coping by smoking and playing 4d chess with his bestie

Mushroom is a short, sweet 700-ish word Makayuri oneshot that takes place in the aftermath of the nuclear detonation in MW1, focusing on Yuri's reflection of the bombing and his building resentment toward Makarov. If you're like me and really like sitting inside a character's head (and Makarov-flavored fucked up-ness), this is a great read!

4. Desk Duty by Otter_Lukas

Captain John "Soap" Mactavish really likes your work ethic and tends to treat you to favors when you finish your work.

And finally, to round out this list, Desk Duty is a Soap/male!reader smut fic, clocking in at just under 3k words long. It's pure smut from the very beginning, so definitely something I'd only recommend for mature readers (18+).

What stood out to me is the male!reader: Otter_Lukas' reader-insert fics usually feature a male or gender neutral reader, which is something I deeply appreciate as a dysphoric trans man who loves reader inserts but can't always read them! If you're like me and crave reader insert fics, but don't want to get misgendered, give Desk Duty (and any of the author's other reader insert fics) a shot!

#call of duty #cod:mw #mw2 #mw3 #rec list #john soap mactavish #captain john price #vladimir makarov #cod yuri #reader insert #makayuri #soaprice #chaptered #longfic #oneshot #drabble #fic rec #long post #fandom events

[ribbonscene]

ㅤ️ㅤ️ㅤ️ㅤ️ㅤ️ㅤ️ anne and her tales 𓆩♡𓆪 𝅄 ⋆

ᅠㅤ️act i : who is anne?

ㅤ️welcome, lovelings. hereby you are entering anne’s fairytale. now... you may wonder, who is anne and what do you need to know about her? well, you have taken a great start here. ♡

ㅤ️anneliese claire is an alter-ego created by ralynsha clairanne, a normal corporate worker who spent most of her time crushing herself against life and the problems within while half of her mind wandering around what she called “beyond the universe”. unlike ralyn, anne is a free-spirited ego who isn’t afraid to speak to her truth. and like a little kid, just as pure and as curious about the world, anne finds beauty in the mundane; spending her days writing about her layered feelings, to let out what ralyn can’t due to her principals.

ᅠmeanwhile, most people have a back-to-back different alter-ego, ralyn and anne got each other’s back like a figure and its shadow. what ralyn couldn’t say, anne would. and what anne couldn’t do, ralyn will pursue.

ㅤ️both ralyn/anne often describe themselves as an orange cat, having infp-t as their mbti, and a proud libran all the way. she preferred being addressed using feminine pronouns, and in case you are bewildered with all this new information, you may address the human form with both names {let’s just say it’s the same person, different name}. :]<3

ᅠㅤ️act ii : what intrigues anne?

ଙ♡ generals : anne/ralyn likes anything pink, sanrio, and positivity contents. she believes in manifestations and the power of mindset; universe, and everything in between. she has always been a one-true worshipper of makeup, skin and body care, food, and perfumery. she indulges in fiction books a lot, as it helps her to write better. and one of her quirky qualities is that she is always curious. be it you started to talk about science, which she isn’t fond of, she will spend her times to search around for answers so she could have a conversation with anyone. she loves strawberry, green tea, and mochi a lot {you would find her talks about these three things a lot}. she loves learning new things as she treasures what’s already there.

ଙ♡ music : she is fond of k-pop music since her early years of living {nowadays her lenses are focused on enhypen, seventeen, theboyz, riize, ive, newjeans, le sserafim, aespa, csr, itzy, and stayc}. besides those, she is an avid listener of taylor swift, niki, mitski, beabadoobe, olivia rodrigo, melanie martinez, laufey, dept, hivi!, bruno major, nadin amizah, gracie abrams, and so much more musicians! ♥︎ her life rotates around music and always will, and listing all her favorite musicians will be a long-life job she couldn’t finish.

ଙ♡ movies and series : during her worst days, she found reading books overwhelming since the letters were running around her head; thus, cinema helped her recover her feelings on those times. two of her favorite genres is romcom and child flick; as she could watch movies with those genre forever. before trilogy, 13 going on 30, 10 things i hate about you, mean girls, wild child, legally blonde, la la land, the devil wears prada, you are the apple of my eye are some of her favorite movies to watch. while modern family, brooklyn nine-nine, young sheldon, superstore, anne with an e, reply 1988, extraordinary attorney woo were some of her favorite tv series. she likes cartoons {especially anne} and disney is the one who accompanied her growing up. besides that, she loves the baby boss series and studio ghibli productions! well... the list is taking too long, isn’t it? shall we stop now?

ᅠㅤ️act iii : where is anne?

ㅤ️you are reaching the last’s part of anne/ralyn’s mega-bank {phew, finally...}! now that you are here and before you find out about where you could directly speak to both anne and ralyn, i think it’s best for you to know that the place is her safe place; so if it’s uncomfortable for you to stay around with all her stuff going around, please always know that you are allowed to skim her presence from your life. and she would prefer new friends whom she could talk to; so if you aren’t up for that also... please skip this message, kindly. c:

ᅠㅤ️✧ㅤ️anne’s main-residential

ㅤ️ㅤ️✧ㅤ️ask anne anything!

ㅤ️ㅤ️✧ㅤ️hot-or-cold tea sesh with anne

ㅤ️ㅤ️✧ㅤ️anne and her ancient tales.

and that is that, anne and ralyn hope you enjoy your short stay here. and she is looking forward to see you somewhere above. see you on the other side! 🤍

[lacytales]

ㅤ️ㅤ️ㅤ️lacy and her tales 𓆩♡𓆪 𝅄 ⋆

ᅠ

ᅠㅤ️act i : who is lacy?

ㅤ️welcome, lovelings. hereby you are entering lacy’s fairytale. now... you may wonder, who is lacy and what do you need to know about her? well, you have taken a great start here. ♡

ㅤ️lacy moeremans is an alter-ego created by aurelie rosetta janvier, a normal corporate worker who spent most of her time crushing herself against life and the problems within while half of her mind wandering around what she called “beyond the universe”. unlike aurelie, lacy is a free-spirited ego who isn’t afraid to speak to her truth. and like a little kid, just as pure and as curious about the world, lacy finds beauty in the mundane; spending her days writing about her layered feelings, to let out what aurelie can’t due to her principals.

ᅠmeanwhile, most people have a back-to-back different alter-ego, aurelie and lacy got each other’s back like a figure and its shadow. what aurelie couldn’t say, lacy would. and what lacy couldn’t do, aurelie will pursue.

ㅤ️both aurelie/lacy often describe themselves as an orange cat, having infp-t as their mbti, and a proud piscesian all the way. she preferred being addressed using feminine pronouns, and in case you are bewildered with all this new information, you may address the human form with both names {let’s just say it’s the same person, different name}. :]<3

ᅠㅤ️act ii : what intrigues lacy?

ଙ♡ generals : lacy/aurelie likes anything pink, sanrio, and positivity contents. she believes in manifestations and the power of mindset; universe, and everything in between. she has always been a one-true worshipper of makeup, skin and body care, food, and perfumery. she indulges in fiction books a lot, as it helps her to write better. and one of her quirky qualities is that she is always curious. be it you started to talk about science, which she isn’t fond of, she will spend her times to search around for answers so she could have a conversation with anyone. she loves strawberry, green tea, and sushi a lot {you would find her talks about these three things a lot}. she loves learning new things as she treasures what’s already there.

ଙ♡ music : she is fond of k-pop music since her early years of living {nowadays her lenses are focused on day6, seventeen, ive, newjeans, xdinary heroes, and xg}. besides those, she is an avid listener of taylor swift, niki, mitski, olivia rodrigo, melanie martinez, laufey, lomba sihir, nadin amizah, gracie abrams, and so much more musicians! ♥︎ her life rotates around music and always will, and listing all her favorite musicians will be a long-life job she couldn’t finish.

ଙ♡ movies and series : during her worst days, she found reading books overwhelming since the letters were running around her head; thus, cinema helped her recover her feelings on those times. two of her favorite genres is romcom and child flick; as she could watch movies with those genre forever. before trilogy, 13 going on 30, 10 things i hate about you, mean girls, wild child, legally blonde, la la land, the devil wears prada, you are the apple of my eye are some of her favorite movies to watch. while modern family, brooklyn nine-nine, young sheldon, superstore, the big bang theory, anne with an e, hospital playlist, reply 1988, extraordinary attorney woo were some of her favorite tv series. she likes cartoons {especially lacy} and barbie is the one who accompanied her growing up. besides that, she loves the baby boss series and studio ghibli productions! well... the list is taking too long, isn’t it? shall we stop now?

ᅠㅤ️act iii : where is lacy?

ㅤ️you are reaching the last’s part of lacy/aurelie’s mega-bank {phew, finally...}! now that you are here and before you find out about where you could directly speak to both lacy and aurelie, i think it’s best for you to know that the place is her safe place; so if it’s uncomfortable for you to stay around with all her stuff going around, please always know that you are allowed to skim her presence from your life. and she would prefer new friends whom she could talk to; so if you aren’t up for that also... please skip this message, kindly. c:

ᅠㅤ️✧ㅤ️lacy’s main-residential

ㅤ️ㅤ️✧ㅤ️ask lacy anything!

ㅤ️ㅤ️✧ㅤ️hot-or-cold tea sesh with lacy

ㅤ️ㅤ️✧ㅤ️lacy and her ancient tales.

and that is that, lacy and aurelie hope you enjoy your short stay here. and she is looking forward to see you somewhere above. see you on the other side! 🤍

ᅠ

[golcha]

ahhhhhhhh golchas having a comeback ♥️

#hella good news #but my pooor wallet is crying lmao #oh well #😭😂♥️ #its finally the last part of the trilogy where they find themselves #im sooo excited #chlstxt

[vickylamore]

Tuebor | I

Summary: You didn't regret it. If the same option was given to you again in the future, you'd do it without question for the people of Orian. However, what you did did not help your current situation at all, especially now that you're babysitting a literal outsider all the while trying to make amends with the gods.

Pairing: ??? x Female! Reader, NCT (127, Dream, WayV) x Female! Reader (with appearances of other idols under SM).

Genre: Magic Realism, Fantasy, Slight Comedy

WC: 11.7k

Warnings: Mentions of killing, mentions of torture, blood, slight injury, swearing, mentions of toxic relationships, death, mentions of death, violence, attempted murder (sorta), mentions of religion (name drops like archangel Micheal, Azarel), mentions of lynching, toxicity, sexism (slight), misogyny (if you squint), too much foreshadowing lol.

Notes: This is a very quick post before I vanish for another month lol. My favourite fic I've written for far and I have so much more planned for it. This will be a trilogy, the first part being the shortest and last being the longest (one of, it depends on which route I'm choosing for the ending). I hope that you enjoy this just as much as I did! There will be a tag list for this so feel free to send an ask/leave a comment!

Disclaimer: This is a work of FICTION. The idols used in this fic are solely for character use only. I do not condone any actions committed in this fic. The pairings are for lore purposes ONLY and are not real in real life because again, this is fiction. Thank you.

Tag List: @stayarmytinyzenmoa-l (mwah)

Someone was going to die tonight.

It wasn’t the best way to start your morning, to start your day, but the ache in your chest was climbing up your throat and pressing onto your vocal cords, almost suffocating your entire body. You couldn’t move, nor could you speak in the hallowed room. It was so damn quiet that you could hear the little pitter-patter drizzle of rain from your window.

Someone was going to die tonight, your intuition was telling you as much. The phrase was banging in your head like a loose screw in a cookie jar. Constant sounds bouncing from one end of your head to another, and it was getting unbearable.

You flicked your wrist to the side, the curtains automatically pulling back only to reveal the dead and quiet neighbourhood you recently moved into. The solemn high-rise apartments were gloomy and the dirty chocolate-coloured brick walls looked disgusting in this weather, especially since the sun wasn’t out— which is almost every day. Even the plants that were on the window seal were dying, fawning out and losing their green hue. No birds were out, no chirping or singing. It was eerie, almost like it was setting up your day.

Your mother always said that nature was connected to the bad vibes of the atmosphere, that they were connected to the future. You didn’t know how much you believed that however, you were never connected to the elemental lineage of your family tree.

You let out a heavy breath, your throat finally relaxed after the minutes of the dreadful ache and managed to swallow the lump in your throat. Your feet dragged themselves out the door to your nearly empty bedroom and immediately walked into the kitchen seconds later. A hot mug of the darkest coffee beans you could find in Athlar was now in their liquid form, swirling in the mug in your hand. Yet, even then, the taste wasn’t as strong as you’d like it, and you’d probably end up throwing the entire bag of coffee beans down the portal back to Larizmar and shove it down the throat of the shopkeeper that sold them for à whopping three hundred crystallines.

A waste of money. You let out a laugh, a sharp sound of annoyance before placing the mug on the counter. Six days before the council made their decision about what the hell they were going to do with you, it was only a matter of time that they got rid of you. You didn’t understand why Taeyong made you leave your villa in Khisfire just to live here… in Athlar; the city of demons and dark angels, the city where you wouldn’t dare step into unless you wanted to be devoured by the first demon who laid an eye on your weak, power-deprived figure.

It wasn’t even that bad compared to the rumours that spread about the city. Alright, maybe they weren’t exaggerating when they said the entire city was depressing and lacked life and the king of Athlar was a total asshole that you’d love to pluck his eyes out and shove them down his disgusting rotten mouth, but you were already in enough trouble with the council as it was, there’s no way you’d survive if the king of Athlar had something to say about you.

Stupid, it was stupid. The entire council would’ve been in coffins six feet under if you didn’t do what you did. And instead of being the grateful bastards they are, they threw you in jail with a ten thousand gold bail on your head. It was rising to twelve thousand just because you shouted, abolish the fucking council, in Medrain, Khisfire’s square while they tried dragging you to the jail cell. Bunch of misogynistic entitled fucking assholes. Except like two of them, but still.

A knock on your door disrupted your thoughts, and it was only increasingly frantic the more you stayed in your kitchen, debating on whether you should open the door or not. It’s not like you had anything better to do except mope around the literal empty space that was given to you as a little hideout.

You walked towards, sighing before opening the door with a blank expression, only to groan and close it, locking it with a lock spell.

You waited, and waited, probably a good ten seconds before the door burst open, revealing an angry-looking archangel with his black wings sprawled in the hallway glaring at you with less-than-impressed eyes. You raised an eyebrow.

“It’s seven in the morning.” The archangel merely rolled his eyes and dispersed of his wings, closing the door before him with a loud clack. “It’s seven in the morning.”

“Does it look like I have time for your shit?” The black-haired man boar his ink turned eyes into your skull, veins turning black at the sudden frustration that overcame his senses. You merely shrugged and moved towards the couch, leaning against its back with your hands stuffed in your hoodie’s pouch. “I should be asleep right now.”

“Well, you’re here are you not?” You asked with a raised eyebrow, nudging your head towards the end of the hall, “there’s a bed in the bedroom, shocking I know. Use it if you must.”

“Get dressed.” Jaehyun looked at you impatiently, arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were back to their original brown colour, but his veins were now grey, meaning he was still frustrated with you at the moment. “Taeyong got you a deal with the council.”

You squinted before letting out a laugh, “Taeyong literally is the council.” You got up and walked towards your bedroom, slamming the door shut. “He’s the supreme archangel, the hell you mean he got me a deal? You guys should buy me a way out of here.”

“The council is made of four other members,” Jaehyun’s voice echoed through the small apartment complex, his voice a lot closer which told you he was right outside your door. “You’re even lucky he got you a deal before they behead you in front of the entire population of Orian.”

“Not the entire realm," you scoffed. "And you know that’s not true; they're just abiding orders from the king,” you laughed and finished getting dressed into your garments. “Even if they did want to behead me, there are so many ways that will go wrong.” You turned and opened the door, sending a small grin at the man in front of your door, “you forgot I’m quite popular with the people of Khisfire, and the many allies I had will make the entire council shake in their boots.”

“You’re not wearing that.”

You raised an eyebrow and stared down at your outfit, “why not?” you asked. “Isn’t it appropriate that the supreme sorceress of Khisfire wear this outfit that was gifted by the council oh-so-many years ago to her beautiful demise?” He could tell you were mocking your title, ex-title if you plead guilty, which you will. The council aren't a bunch of sympathetic saints.

Jaehyun clenched his jaw, seemingly rethinking his entire decision of helping you in the first place. “I genuinely do not have time for your shit; you know exactly why you can’t.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you ignored his complaints, “it’s the whole ‘I only listen to and serve Taeyong so please don’t get me in trouble’ crap. I’m not changing.” The black-winged creature inhaled deeply, probably counting his lucky stars to possibly avoid an infuriated archangel, that is if he had any left.

“You think the death of a man will stop me from wearing my favourite outfit?” You brought your hands to your hips. “A man at that, if he was a she, maybe I’d reconsider.”

He whispered under his breath and shut his eyes, “angels give me strength.”

“The angels don’t like you.”

“Will you please shut up?”

You shrugged and walked around the archangel, your heels softly clicking through the empty hallway. You waved your hand to close the curtains and with another flick, you close the door to your room, causing Jaehyun to turn around with a heavy sigh, sounding more like a low growl.

Let’s just say that you and the archangel went as far back as your fucking birth. Always in and out of your life, never with you for longs periods of time as he, Taeyong, had his shit with the council and you had your business. You were rather a young sorceress; your kind could live to hundreds of years before dying and going back to the elements of the world. The man in front of you was an archangel that had close ties with your family. You were one of few warlock families that helped the different species in Orian when the great war broke out between the council and the faes, the angels, archangels, demons and so many more. Hell, even the supreme archangel and the warriors and vampires were helped during the war. The archangels and a few different groups were extremely grateful for the help brought to them. Although you weren’t alive during the time of the war, you were born sometime later barely twenty years ago.

Let’s just say that some archangels owned a lot to your family and what better way to repay them than to take care of their now orphan daughter?

Long story.

Anyway, despite the shit your family did for half the council, they’re still a bunch of ungrateful and unappreciated grade-A assholes. There is no sense of loyalty except if it is for their own, and even they’re a bunch of two-faced, backstabbing pricks.

“Okay and so what if I killed someone in this outfit? It wouldn’t be the first time.” And honestly, it was your favourite dress you had. It was a two-piece jumpsuit that had a cape-like piece that attached to your lower back and flowed as you walk. The colour changing from a deep blue to an emerald colour from the top to the bottom, except the white belt and white lace flowers that ran from your torso to the baseline of your neck.

All of that said, it was a gorgeous dress. A dress that was handcrafted by the council as a gift for becoming one of the most powerful and youngest sorceresses in the city. Guess they’d want it back now.

“You killed the commissioner.”

You opened the front door to your temporary house, “I’ve dealt with plenty of commissioners.”

Jaehyun was behind you in less than a sec, slamming the door shut again. You let out a heavy breath and turned to him in annoyance, a spark lightly grazing your fingertips. “It’s seven in the morning.”

Jaehyun held his gaze with his hand still pressing against the closed door, his much taller figure looming over your own by more than a few inches because of those overanxious boots the archangel wore. The look on his face made you look at him; as it was grim and twisted with a serious aura that, given the circumstances, made you feel uneasy. “You don’t get it, do you?” he asked in a low, serious voice. “You killed one of the head commissioners of the Celestial Army who happens to be a pureblood angel and the Orian king’s son.”

The angels were never ones to mess with, not with their soldiers, not with their full-bloods and most definitely not with their children or their royal line. The only difference between full-bloods and purebloods of any species was that one of them wasn’t a part of the royal line. The angels cared immensely for their pure bloodline of royals; they’d raised Hell for both the prince and princess of Orian. The purebloods angels; gold eyes when upset and red when livid, blue when sad and purple when in mourning. The colour code was excruciatingly long and unnecessary to remember; you didn’t need to know what shade of blue means they’re starving and what shade of orange means they’re tired. You genuinely did not care enough to make an effort to memorize the stupid colour list.

The purebloods angels were one of the highest-ranking species when it came to the power they possessed, second right behind their father; the Orian king, also known as the almighty angel. Technically, the almighty angel and the supreme archangel had incredible amounts of strength and power that either came from the high peaks of the divine regions or the darkest pits of the abyss. No one really knew which one of the two was stronger, most didn’t want to know. As for the purebloods angels and pureblood archangels, there isn’t a comparison; there aren't any pureblood archangels, only half breeds. And although they were quite powerful and stronger than some full-blood faes and vampires, they were nothing compared to the angels. The mother of the pureblood angels was weaker than them and other purebloods like the pureblood faes, pureblood wolves, pureblood vampires and so many more. The purebloods, any kind, were legit pains in the ass. Stuck-up, spoiled royal rich kids.

The sky only knows how they react when upset.

“Like I told you, the council and the fucking royal family; Liu Yangyang was not the beloved prince they thought he was.” Your eyes pierced his and, for a moment, one of the leading archangel soldiers of the Uriel region felt inferior under the cold gaze dethroned from a very powerful and young sorceress. If looks could kill, Jaehyun would’ve been in the tower’s sanctuary for the umpteenth time this year. “I still don’t understand why exactly I’m being hauled for doing the entire realm a fucking favour.”

A conspiracy was what started your investigation. A conspiracy against the oh-so-beloved angel prince, one of the greatest leaders of the entire realm. Those who didn’t know his true intentions would say that. The angel was an amazing deceiver, you’ll give him that; a manipulator, a narcissist. He was greedy, wanted many things for him. He had the power to wipe out cities upon cities if he really wanted to. And he nearly managed to do so, your own kind probably wouldn’t have survived the attack if he was successful. There was no way the faes or the wolves would have survived, the mermaids? Maybe. The sorcerers? Not so much. The council, except for the few, would have survived, and it would’ve been the worse ones too; the angels only know how much the Athlar king despises you for just being in his realm.

“I did what I had to do, you guys are just trying to find someone to blame.” You cocked an eyebrow and crossed your arms, watching as Jaehyun slowly removed his hand from the door. “Instead of taking responsibility for their son’s actions, the almighty angel is having the council kill me.”

“They haven’t decided yet.”

“So what?” The smallest lump appeared in your throat at the mere thought of being executed for doing everyone a favour. Unappreciative jerks for sure. “Taeyong might have negotiated some type of deal with them but it doesn’t mean I’m gonna walk later today.”

“He’s not going to let that happen,” murmured Jaehyun, opening the door. “He isn’t going to let them kill you, not with all the history between your family and us.”

Confusing. It was all confusing, the link between the archangels and our family fucking tree. Your parents lived for centuries before they succumbed to their age a lot faster than planned a few years ago. However, before they died, they did a lot for the archangels. One great deed was the help during the war that started nearly two centuries ago and only ended a few decades before you were born. Sorcerers and archangels usually don’t mix, hell, a great portion of them are legitimately terrified of them. Again, except a few. So when Jaehyun said that Taeyong wasn’t going to let them kill you, you believed it.

The archangels had a knack for keeping their word and allegiance to any family whether it be years or centuries or millennials in the future. The bond was that strong. Your parents never told you what exactly they did to have an entire colony of archangels fight for your survival, whether those archangels were forced or not, you didn’t care. You befriended some without them knowing who you were. And the supreme archangel, as well as your most acquainted friends, blatantly refused to tell you so you just gave up after years of trying.

“I feel so much better.” He could practically hear the sarcasm slip from your tongue as you walked out of the apartment, heels softly clinging once more. “This is a fucking death wish.”

“A lot of things you do are death wishes.” The archangel said with a scoff, “now you’re worried?”

“Yeah, well,” you put your foot in the doorway right before Jaehyun was able to close the door, sticking your arm through the small entrance space and flicking your wrist and fingers, “the after-dawn activities I have are always in my control.”

Jaehyun looked at you and leaned against the wall, tongue poking the side of his cheek and a contemptuous expression danced on his face, “you summoned Azrael two weeks ago?”

“Azrael is a very nice demon, thank you,” you defended the archangel of death in a split second, looking back at the man in front of you, “just needed a few things from him, that’s all— where the fuck is it?”

A clutter of noises emerged from inside your temporary home, from keys being thrown to the floor to glass shattering made Jaehyun wince. You really gotta practise your magic in Athlar, the elemental resistance is ridiculous in this realm.

“The hell are you looking for?”

Finally, you brought your hand out of the apartment complex, the last hues and sparks of purple and silver disintegrating in the air. Before the door closed, two items flew out. The first was a double-layered silver choker with a black obsidian pendant hanging from the first layer. The last was a gold rhinestone glove bracelet, enveloping your entire forearm and had a black onyx pendant that rested on your index finger.

Jaehyun’s mouth curled upwards, “you’re bringing your shield?” You turned towards the older male flexing your fingers until they cracked and the black onyx glistened under the dull light in the hallway.

“Of course I’m bringing Soteria’s bracelet if that’s what you’re asking,” you said it as if it was the most obvious thing to anyone. Jaehyun only huffed, you added, “the Athlar king is going to be there right?” A nod. “Exactly, that man hates my guts and does not care if the council is present or not. He will kill me if I piss him off enough or anyone else— am I missing anything?”

“Phone?” You opened your door again and fetched your phone the same way you got Soteria’s bracelet and the collar. You locked the door soon after.

Soteria’s bracelet was a gift from the eldest sorcerer, the bracelet in the form of a glove that cuffed around your wrist and half of your forearm. A protective seal, alerting you of any possible threat that might act on their vicious actions. An energy enhancer, enhancing all your magic if needed.

Jaehyun got off the wall and stretched, looking from left to right before chuckling under his breath. You raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, you practically read his mind. You keep summoning his demons (Y/n), doesn’t mean he can be a bitch about it.

Jaehyun was one of the first archangels you’ve ever met, Taeyong being the first. Archangels you knew existed, archangels that were feared in multiple cities for their reputation and history with the angels and demons. It was bloody and treacherous, the tales and stories of what their kind did to others, to elderly to children. The deals they had to stay in power, how they’d manipulate the weakest to stay on the top of the food chain.

Predators, the archangels were the predators of Orian. The lions of the Savanna, the sharks of the ocean. Archangels aren’t ones to be messed with, it doesn't matter if you’re a demon or angel. Even Micheal wouldn’t deal with his own fucking people, which is why he left all the responsibility to Taeyong.

It’s funny how you met the most important people at funerals and memorials. The people you didn’t think ever even heard of your name making a grand yet subtle entrance at your parents’ funerals years ago when you were only sixteen. Funny, really, how the supreme archangel said his condolences and even gave a eulogy in honour of your parents. People you didn’t know but knew what their kind was were surrounding the room. Offering condolences was one thing, it was a bigger issue when the archangels are actually present. Again, your parents never really talked about them, never really spoke about their friendship with the archangels. Nothing was left behind, no explanation of the sudden interest after their deaths or what exactly they did to be honoured in such a way.

They were just gone and left you in a state of mourning for months.

“So,” you started walking down the hallway, Jaehyun right beside you, hands stuffed in his dress pants. Only then did you notice how well-dressed he was. “Where are we going?”

Jaehyun nudged his head towards the staircase, and while climbing up, he whispered the location. Your heart fell to the pit of your stomach. Of course, this was where you were headed.

No wonder Jaehyun tried convincing you to change your outfit.

To the Orian palace, you go.

Any mentally sane person would’ve taken a portal, hell would’ve teleported to the palace. Something normal, something that wasn’t over the top, especially after assassinating the prince of the entire world. You didn’t know if Jaehyun thought this through, obviously, he didn’t think a lot of things through because as of right now, you laid on his back while he flew in the air. People were staring, and they were staring hard; whether because the prince’s assassin was in the air or if the archangel’s figure was that damn attractive. He was such an attention whore, my god.

The sky was a beautiful orange and blue hue, the pinkish-purple clouds were clearing as the sun was now coming up, the clouds that were once filled with water and cast a light drizzle on the corner of Athlar had long been gone and dispersed elsewhere. Khisfire’s weather was always the nicest in the morning, you still can’t believe that Taeyong made you move into that dump to ensure your safety.

Ensure your safety my ass.

Jaehyun gazed in the air for a second, and it was then you realized that you were just above the gates to the palace. You sighed into his shirt, closing your eyes, nausea overcoming your senses. “Next time we do this, can you not go so fast, I get motion-sickness easily you know.”

“I’m sorry princess,” he mocked with a curt laugh, “I can drop you off right here—”

“Don’t your fucking dare.”

Jaehyun laughed again and swopped down towards the ground, a series of laughs ripping through his throat while you tried your best to keep your eyes shut and avoid hurling the half cup of coffee you drank this morning. Archangels and their fucking thrill for heights will never not confuse you. Nor will their history with the demons but that was truly a story for another day or hour. It depends on how today’s meeting will go.

He finally landed on the square, concrete pavement right in front of the looming silver gates. You got off his back and hunched forward, dizziness clouding your head. “I think I’m going to hurl.”

“Great first impression.”

“I killed the prince, that’s enough of a first impression.”

The Orian palace was located on one of the three floating cities right above Khisfire but under the clouds. The floatings cities were the homes to the angels, some creatures live there as well like faes, nymphs, pixies and any flying species in the realm who were exiled by the Seelie queen. Octavia, home to the Orian palace and the Orian royals, was the city in the middle of the other two, Tarrin and Ellesmere. The other two were also homes to water, fire, air and earth spirits, the basic elemental elements of the realm.

The palace was a giant white castle with angel warriors and guards flying around the premieres. The palace nearly reached the top of the clouds, a white aura radiating from angel to angel. The sun beamed down on the city like a spotlight, the trees from the fruit in the crates brimming in gold hues. There were a bunch of markets surrounding the castle, a handful of angels walking and discussing among themselves. It was so different from Athlar, not too far off from Khisfire. The main difference was the atmosphere surrounding this place; it reeked of pure magic. Not that you hated it, but it was so damn overwhelming that it made you want to hurl— again.

“Come on,” ushered Jaehyun as you got back up, lightly touching your arm. “It’s not safe out here.”

You raised an eyebrow and were about to question why exactly landing in Octavia was already dangerous to both of you, but you straighten your back and almost immediately felt the laser beam stars and knife-throwing glares that bored into your skull. The whispers were so quiet yet so loud, a clutter of them mettled into à pot and you were able to hear the gist of most. Murderer. You shivered slightly, feeling the unwelcoming chills from nearly every angel, you were spared by those who haven’t spotted you yet.

You followed Jaehyun towards the main entrance. You played with the collar around your neck, the dull thud of your heart bounced in your head. You and Jaehyun continued walking towards the entrance of the palace, where a bunch of guards were standing, wings spread and brown and gold garments lingered on their bodies. You sighed heavily and glanced at Jaehyun, who only stared back in return but didn’t say anything.

It was either go one of two ways; either they know that you’ve been invited to the castle for a deal or they have no idea why archangels are in their city and kill you on the spot. You wouldn’t be surprised if the second of the two scenarios were to occur; the angels were known for their looks and not their brains, one of them was going to pull their spear to your face.

As you approached the group of archangels, you felt a certain gaze glaring at you— not that no one else was excessively staring you down, but this one was different. This one felt menacing, and it was coming from above. You refrained from looking upwards because you neared the station of diving winged saints but you knew that the same gaze would bore into your skull as soon as you stepped foot in the castle.

You settled in front of the guards, the guards eyeing you both suspiciously. You bit back a groan as Jaehyun spoke first, “here for the meeting with the council.” God, you could feel the hostility towards Jaehyun, your own was borderline unbearable at this point. The stares from the guards, who were supposed to be expressionless while on duty were practically giving the middle finger as soon as you stepped foot in their city. Guess the angels and the Athlar king have something in common; they both despise you, one of them wasn’t even justified.

“You can pass,” the guard told Jaehyun but his blue eyes pierced your own in a matter of seconds. With à deep, gruff voice, he growled, “this one doesn’t have permission to enter.”

“The meeting revolves around me dipshit—” you bit your words as soon as Jaehyun let out a cough. You would’ve kept going if the situations were any different, Jaehyun couldn’t just boss you around if he wanted to. The only reason you stopped was… everything was against you right now and because the glare the angel shared with Jaehyun was absolutely terrifying.

Angels and archangels, a simple case of cat and mouse except it had a millennium's worth of history and bad blood that no agreement could ever put an end to the war before the fallen angel and divine angel. Both were equally as petty, one was just as stubborn as the other and just as vicious. If you had to choose who’d within a fistfight, you’re biased and would pick the archangel. But the way the tension was thick and suffocating, you weren’t so sure.

Not that you had no faith in Jaehyun, but it was one against eight with each of them having spears and stones that worked so much better in Octavia than they would in Khisfire. Just like how your powers work immensely well in Khisfire compared to Athlar.

“She’s coming with me, whether you want to or not,” Jaehyun said with a shrug, eyebrow cocked to the side. “Check with the royals if you need to. In the meantime, we’ll be entering now.” Oh, if things were just as easy, life would be a piece of cake.

Jaehyun was always a cocky son of a bitch, Jaehyun was always an overconfident asshole. It was one of the reasons you liked him so much; the man had an excessive way to show his power over others, whether, with a glare or cocked eyebrow, any facial expression will do. It was easy to get whatever he wanted, he was one of the most powerful archangels in Orian, no one would dare cross him.

You? Huh, not so much.

If everything was that easy, you would’ve gotten away with the prince’s assassination. If life was that easy, you would’ve been one of the most powerful people in all of Orian.

But of course, something had to go wrong.

As soon as you even attempted to move, the swift movement of the guard who denied you entry did not go unnoticed. In a split second, a spear nearly caught your neck, the tip light grazing your skin; it would trigger a bled if he moved it just a bit more. “Well,” you laughed, pinching the bridge of your nose, and glanced at Jaehyun, “this is awkward.”

“I told you,” the angel looked at Jaehyun again, spear still laser-focused on your neck. “We don’t accept murderers in our palace.”

You wonder what he’d say if the prince was alive and well while half the realms mourned their people and loved ones. You wonder just how much the angels knew of the entire situation, how much anyone knew what the prince intended to do unless the Orian king kept quiet. Liu Yangyang’s death was a necessary one, his life was eliminated to keep the peace between the realms. You scoffed and looked at the spear, the sharp end grazing your collar a little more. You’d honestly love to hear all the beautiful rumours spread about you.

Like every mistake, there’s some sort of solution. To everything, to ever fuck up, there’s always something to hold it in place and fix it before it completely blows over. Every action has its consequences and although you didn’t know what it was, Jaehyun’s sudden head tilt and smirk told you everything you needed to know.

Lighting thundered in the sky, black bolts lingering in the sky one after another. The warm weather suddenly chilled and nearly everyone was shivering from the bitter and sudden cold. The sky was no longer a bright blue colour, instead, it was now a filthy black and purple, as if a storm was quickly approaching. The lightning bolts became more and more constant, bigger and shorter-lasting in the sky. The sound emitted from the sky sounded like loud cracking noises and came closer and closer to the floor. Thunder roared across the sky, the last much more focused than the first. Every angel stopped staring at you and focused on the sky, dreadful expressions on their faces and flew away as fast as they could.

And finally, four huge black orbs of energy that spurt silver lighting swirled closer and closer to the ground before crashing onto the gravel, denting it in the process, right on your left, a few feet away from you. The black fog lasted for only a few seconds before four figures slowly got up from the floor, the side of their faces lingered with visible silver veins that looked straight out of a mutant experiment movie.

They sprawled their ink-black wings and their ink-black eyes looked around them, taking in their surroundings. Every angel knew better than to glance in their direction, even the children looked away when one of them started. They wore what any archangel would; having a very similar attire to Jaehyun, whether it was for the meeting or regular clothing, you didn’t know. The one in the front groaned once he clicked his feet on the pavement, noticing the caved-in stone.

“They’ll have to send me the bill later.”

“We all know you aren’t going to pay for it.”

The man fixed the cuffs of his dress shirt, looking as unbothered as the now minding-their-own business angels who'd flown as soon as he made his appearance known. With a side look, his voice came out as a sort of chant, like a warning, “soldier, I suggest you put that spear down.” His eyes turned black for a split second as he fully glared at the soldier, whose spear was now far, far away from your neck.

The power of this man was unimaginable.

He dispersed his white fading black wings and rolled his head and shoulders, blonde hair reaching the back of his ears and brimmed against the sun of the now normal sky. The men around him are doing the same. They made their way towards you and Jaehyun, less than impressed expressions lingered on their faces.

The colony of angels that blocked the entrance fully froze in their movements, eyes whining slightly yet some were literally shaking. You raised an eyebrow at the angel in front of you, “not so tough now huh?” you whispered under your breath, smirk tugging your lips. The angel clenched his jaw and closed his eyes. “Mh-hm, that’s what I thought.”

Funny how the angels were almighty and powerful until an archangel step in the proximity of them. Shaking in their boots like a bunch of children scared of a clown. The difference between their auras was overwhelming as well, the blond-haired archangel’s aura was black littered with darkness, death and abyss property that you wanted nothing to do with. The angels’ aura was white and reeked of pure and divine magic, their auras clashed against the archangels, a true fight between black and white.

However, the archangels greatly outweighed the angels, even if they were less numerous than the latter. The power system was an interesting one.

“This was inconvenient, pray to the skies that it doesn’t happen again.” The man was truly a menace to society. He might not be the buffest or tallest archangel, but his power was immense, it couldn’t be measured on scales. He knew that too, for his eyes flicked from one end of the line of angels to the outside. “Gentleman, if you would.”

Again, if it was that easy, you wouldn’t be in this damn predicament fighting your life. The angels moved into two groups, creating a clear pathway and letting you walk as freely as you could until you’d eventually reach the entrance of the palace. Commanding the angels in their own city, embarrassing. The man motioned for you to walk into the field of stone pavement, beyond the gates first and he followed suit after, the rest of them, including Jaehyun, followed from the sides.

The man right next to you didn’t even wait half a second into walking to let out a low, menacing growl. “You make my job one hundred times harder with that fucking outfit.”

“Good morning Taeyong,” you exasperated and looked over your shoulder to the other archangels, “Doyoung, Johnny, Yuta. Haven’t seen any of you in a couple years.”

“Tell me about it,” Johnny laughed bitterly, his hands in his front pockets, “wish we could’ve seen each other under better circumstances.”

Doyoung hummed from beside him, “hmph, all that protection and you can’t use it properly?” You rolled your eyes and twisted the black obsidian around your neck, the pendant glistening and a purple hue encased the stone.

“I didn’t think I’d be attacked at the gates,” you defended. “It’s activated now, happy?

“Anyways, we’ve been busy,” Yuta sent a subtle glare at Taeyong. “We’ve got debts to pay.”

The debt system wasn’t uncommon between archangels. Usually, a fae or vampire would have to pay their debt toward an archangel for a favour the latter has done. You can buy protection, wishes, money, nearly anything except freedom. Once you pledge your soul to an archangel, you have to pay debts over the years. An example would be a warlock who made a deal with an archangel for money. The archangel now had the power to summon the warlock for spells, information and any of the sort. Other fallen angels will acquire a pension from their clients. It was also common for archangels to have a debt towards another archangel.

The Venom Guard. The “council�� of archangels. You’d describe it more as a group of the most powerful archangels that lived in Uriel as well as the deepest parts of the abyss. The Venom Guard was a group of seven archangels that reigned over Uriel, the realm of dark beings. From chimeras to skinwalkers, the land was filled with being with black to grey auras. The Venom Guard pledged allegiance to the supreme archangel long before the war broke out. They had an endless list of debts to pay if they ever wanted to be free again. It was how the debt system worked. You never asked what kind of things they’d have to do to clear their debt, but you had a few ideas.

“And how’s that going for you?”

It was genuinely a harmless question, poking fun at an archangel could go one of two ways. When Yuta’s glare went from Taeyong to your neck, you shut your mouth and climbed the last steps to the palace. You’ve been to the palace once in your entire life, and that was to receive congratulations from the royal about your title a few years back. At the time, the prince was a year older than you and the princess had just turned fourteen. Five years. It’s been five years since that happened.

You reached the entrance and looked down the hallway of the unbearable white and light silver walls and white and gold marbled pavement. It truly was a huge cathedral if you were honest, especially if you went up to the third and fourth levels. Two angels stood as guards at either side of the door. Taeyong nudged his head forward, the rest of the archangels continuing forward into the palace.

You raised an eyebrow, “what?”

You couldn’t tell if Taeyong was completely tired of your bullshit or if he didn’t want anything to do with today’s meeting. You can tell by the way his face was tight and his eyebrows were scrunched that something was on his mind. “How much did Jaehyun tell you?”

“Not a lot,” you replied and followed suit after him when he started walking into the palace, the archangels far in front of you. Your heels clicked on the marbled floor and you turned the corner. “Something about a deal you made with the council.”

“Nothing else?”

You shook your head and flexed your fingers slightly, the dull ache from the bracelet cramped them for a split second, rippling impulse shot through your arm. Taeyong glanced at your bracelet but you shook your head, shaking your arm to get rid of the tingling sensations. He didn’t say anything else, only moved the strand of blond hair that lightly skimmed his eyebrow to the side. “Don’t say anything rash.”

You scoffed, “I’ll try.”

“Don’t try, act on it,” he said sharply, voice low and menacing. “Keep the games outside the banquet room. If you don’t think you can control yourself, Jaehyun can bring you back to Athlar or the soldiers can bring you down to the dungeon.”

Your surprised face altered into a sly smirk and your fingers met your pendant around your neck once more. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Something was on his mind and it was nagging to the point where you had to ask. The supreme archangel glanced at you for a second before staring straight ahead. “I’m telling you everything you need to know.”

“Which is nothing at all?” He didn’t reply.

Mysterious. Incomplusive. Obscure. The entire deal was still a mystery to you and it didn’t help that the man who struck it refused to tell you anything. The less you know, the better it is for everyone. Taeyong’s words rang in your head after you had asked him what exactly happened between the archangels and your parents to have infinite protection the first time you met. The archangel had a smirk on his ring and fingers to his lips, dismissing the questions as soon as it had risen. Odd how someone could be so powerful yet so secretive and kept to himself.

He loved to make himself known, state his presence in the room and had a sort of carefree nature. But when it came to matters of the council or his own business, he kept quiet; like a shadow in the dusk, unable to be seen by the eyes of many.

You finally made it to the antic banquet room at the end of the hall after rounding the last corner. The white door, covered in black angel encrypted writing, was closed and guarded by an angel servant dressed in all white. The heirlooms hung on the wall of the hallway and various artifacts such as paintings and swords decorated the halls. The rest of the angels were gathered in the hallway to the left, Taeyong leaving your side to brief them for whatever reason. He had told you that you could enter the room and wait for him there. You nodded with a less-than-interested expression on your face. With nothing better to do than mope and sit around, you twirled towards the angels, skirt flowing in the air and watched as the door opened before you.

Slowly, the door opened. And the more it did, the faster your expression went from bored to alert and hostile. You felt it, you felt the same orbs who stared you down outside the palace return to haunt your surroundings and they— rather, she glared with deep blood-red eyes. A battlecry left the young woman’s throat, despite the yell from the man behind her. Her entire arm’s veins turned to gold and an arrow of pure, white divine magic shot its way out of her palm and towards you like a bullet.

Honestly, maybe she could’ve done some damage. She had the guts and certainly had the spirit.

But the arrow ricocheted off your body and flew right towards the group of archangels who were emulsified in the sudden attack. Taeyong’s hand caught the arrow before it could’ve done any initial damage to Jaehyun’s face and, it slowly disintegrated into white sand-like dust.

Ugh, you just gotta love having protection. You’d have to thank the angel who nearly slit your throat at the entrance, and Doyoung as well— if you hadn’t activated the obsidian around your neck, you would’ve succumbed to your injuries moments after acquiring them. The woman in the room certainly wasn’t happy though, not with her eyes still blood red.

“I appreciate the welcome gift,” you chuckled, staring from the white dust to the angel, your own eyes glinting sparks of purple and silver. You shared a heinous glare with her. “Next time, keep the present for yourself, princess.”

The room was unbelievably quiet, so quiet that you could hear the gritting teeth of the angel across the long, brown table. The archangels were outside of the banquet, at the end of the hallway to be specific. Direct guests are only allowed to participate in today’s discussion. Unless you were in the royal family, no one could intervene, even in the case of emergencies. You averted your gaze from your lilac faded white nails back to the woman who was only looking down at the table, red hair as intense as the internal hatred she kept for you. You scoffed.

Ridiculous. Imagine attacking the person you invited— forced to or not— to talk about this so-called meeting you still had no clue of. And she still had the nerve to sit at the other end of the table, her bodyguard sitting next to her.

“Control your face,” the archangel chirped, mimicking your movements. Your head quirked to the side and you clenched your jaw. “Not a good look on you.”

“Tell princess to control her fucking anger then,” you smiled and locked eyes with Taeyong. The archangel found this amusing, you could tell by the slightly twitched corner of his lip. “We wouldn’t be so hostile if she learned to act civil.”

She scoffed from the other end of the table, head snapping up, “did you act civil when you brutally murdered my brother?”

She loved pushing buttons, hitting nerves and sticking her nose in places it doesn’t belong. It was either listen to her and succumb to all her worthless babbling or she’d make your life a living hell, pun intended. It took everything in you to not turn the entire banquet on its head, and you would; an army of angels didn’t scare you. But an archangel who would not hesitate to stop your dumb shit? You wouldn’t try unless you choose to die.

If YangYang was the heavens’ warrior and protector, NingNing was their divine grace, pride and joy. The Liu siblings, snakes disguised in divine glory and pure magic. Usually, female pureblood angels would take after their mother’s last name, but Orian’s pride and joy loved power a little more than her mother, finally switching her name to Liu nearly seven years ago, at the fucking age of eleven.

Yeah. It should be enough to give everyone an idea on how spoiled the little brat actually is.

YangYang was most definitely a mama’s boy, and NingNing was her father’s precious gem. They were both close to their respective parent, yet argued with the other like the world would end the next day. If only their people knew how manipulative the siblings were.

Sinking further into the chair, you rubbed your fingers against your temples, eyes shutting to block out her gaze. “If she doesn’t shut up, I’ll be on trial for two pureblood deaths.”

“Excuse me?”

“Enough, NingNing,” the man beside her, probably a lesser threat than her— at the moment—, jabbed from under his breath, leaning in the chair next to her. She scoffed but sat back, angrily crossing her arms over her chest like à toddler that was refused their favourite toy. The black-haired man sighed. “Save the arguing for later.”

“There won’t be any arguing,” Taeyong spoke up, looking between both angel and the warrior. “It’s just a matter of agreement.”

“You got it all figured out huh?” Hendery said leaning onto the table, a small smirk tugging his lips, snarking tone and jabbing comments followed, “you really think the council will agree to whatever deal you have planned?”

“I’d watch your tone if I were you,” the archangel merely laughed, his smile only getting wider, “in any case, keep your thoughts to yourself, members of the council ideas only.”

The doors to the banquet opened and two people walked in, a man and a woman, although the woman was advancing further into the room compared to the other. She looked around, displeased eyes scanning item to item, either out of disgust or disinterested. Her heels clicked against the floor while she clicked her tongue. Your seat was facing the door, but you didn’t bother looking back, you noticed those footsteps from anywhere.

“Your mother never knew how to decorate this room.” The woman caught eyes with the princess, and with an already annoyed tone, she hissed with a curt laugh, “you also look displeased— where is she?”

You raised your hand over the chair, eyes still shut but a smile fully planted across your lips. “My queen, I am right here.”

You could practically feel the smirk as she walked closer to her, her probably six-inch heels skimmed the floor. Her dark, elegant yet malicious aura went from one corner of the room to another before her presence was right behind you. With a tap to the shoulders, you felt her many rings and the top of her long nails. She ushered, “fix your posture love,” and chuckled, her hands on your upper back. You groaned. “Queens don’t slouch in chairs.”

“Are you fixing her posture for the execution in a couple days, your highness?”

God, it would take one second to shut her up. You snapped your eyes open, glaring at the princess but didn’t say anything. At least, you wanted to, but the Seelie queen beat you to it.

“We don’t listen to the wrong patch of eggs,” she quipped without even glancing in the angel’s direction, and ushered you to sit back up and straight, “know your place when in my presence; snakes belong in cages after all.”

She didn’t even whisper or talk in a low tone— no. The Seelie queen practically chanted the words aloud, making sure the angel pureblood understood where exactly she was coming. You couldn’t help but smirk, tongue skimming your back teeth while swallowing your mocking laughs.

“Taeyong,” she rested her hands on the top of your head and glanced at the archangel with cautious eyes, “you will not disappoint me, right?”

“Irene,” Taeyong used the same tone as the Seelie queen and fully turned his attention to her, head resting on the palm of his hand. With a smug smirk, he twitched his eyebrows. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to let anything happen to her?”

“Debatable.”

“Reconsider.”

You looked between both immortals, a questionable look bouncing between your eyes. “You guys talking as if I’m not right here.”

“Ssh,” Irene tapped the side of your head and let out a soft chuckle, “love, the immortals are talking.”

The Seelie queen had unique characteristics compared to the other member of the council; dark green and brown vine-like-veins ran from the left side of her face staring from her ear and covered the entire left side of her body. Bright brown eyes under the rays of the sun that turned a dark orange whenever upset and threatening. She always wore her crown when in her realm, but today, she was wearing her classic long-sleeved dark brown jumpsuit with beads running against her sides, silver jewelry— from earrings to bracelets to rings— enhanced the beauty she already held.

How were you so lucky to be friends with one of the coldest leaders? The Seelie queen, whose name remains unknown apart from Irene, ruled over all seelies, fairies, nymphs, pixies, earth and wind spirits alike in Veritas, land of nature and divine creation. The most powerful fae in all of Orian, the most cunning leader and probably the most cold-heart out of the council.

Not towards you— you were a completely different story when it came to your well beings. Just like the archangels, the faes owned a lot to your family, however, the Seelie queen took interest in you ever since you’ve been a child. Whether she knew how powerful you were at a young age or because she knew you’d be a powerful ally in the future, you didn’t know and you honestly— just like with the archangels— didn’t care.

You had the Seelie queen on your side, that’s all you had to know.

“Love the family reunion and all but the Seelie queen isn’t what’s most important right now.” You turned around upon hearing the deep, growl-like voice. The man that entered beside Irene exclaimed, one hand stuffed in his front pocket and his pinky skimming against his front teeth, moonshine ring glimmering under the gold light. “Which one of you cowards decided to have this meeting on a full moon?”

“There are sticks outside, Alpha,” Irene shivered in disgust, her eyes roaming him up and down while he dug his nail further into the crevices of his teeth. “Use a toothpick if you must.”

“A piece of thin, dull and old wood won’t get dinner out of my teeth,” he growled and gave up soon after, “no point in doing it now.”

“Junmyeon please,” the archangel bellowed, crinkling his nose, “take it outside.”

There are the seelies, faes, pixies as well as the angels, archangels and sorceresses. The werewolves were the canines of the realm. The alphas to put it. Egotistical, self-centred and highly sexist wolves who always had to have the last word, even if wrong. Of course, not all werewolves were horrible. You were friends with some of them,.some of the best people in your life. But Junmyeon's pack? The worse decision if ever someone tried crossing them.

The de La Lune pack was vicious, power-hungry and narcissistic assholes that every time you had a conversation with at least one of them, you wanted to pluck your eardrums out to stop hearing the bullshit that littered their mouths. It was even worse when the alphas walked and talked in pairs— horrible if it was all nine of them.

Their leader wasn't any better but you did like him a lot more than the Athlar king— who has yet to arrive— for obvious reasons. Yes, the de La Lune back are conservative and play by their old laws, they were at least civil about it. For the most part; some of them needed a good slap, or four, to get their gears turning again.

You did pray for the women in their pack, especially the younger ones who didn't give two shits about the law. May the sky help them.

"Alpha Junmyeon," the pureblood angel smiled upon seeing the werewolf. "Thank you for arriving, it won't take too long."

"I wouldn't get my hopes up princess," he scoffed lightly and switched his gaze towards you. "This one always had a trick up her sleeve."

Was he wrong? Right now, yes he was. But you didn't dare go against his words, challenge him in a city where no doctor would heal you if he decides to rip you to shreds right now. Sorcerers and werewolves don't exactly mix; it's like physical strength versus magical ability, it already puts both parties at odds. Faes and sorcerers, archangels and demons, werewolves and vampires would mix. Only in a few cases, like your own, would faes, archangels and sorceresses would be seen remotely close together.

But the werewolves would do anything to disassociate with witches. The de La Lune pack was no different.

You rolled your eyes and mumbled under your breath, "I fucking hate wolves."

"We feel the same about you, you aren't damn special."

Fuck alpha werewolves and their stupid fucking enhanced and ultra-sensitive fucking ears. Nothing could go past them, more of a curse than a blessing if you were honest. Hearing everything, especially in the dead quiet of night would be a nightmare. Forget hearing crickets singing, what about the owls’ miles away? A hard pass.

And technically, he was wrong. Not all the wolves felt the same about you. They wouldn’t say it aloud but you knew a certain pack always had your back. And you theirs. But were you going to say it? No. Of course not.

"Your kind isn’t the only one that despises sorcerers," the door to the banquet opened and as soon as the voice ran through the room, the Seelie queen's hands tensed on your shoulders. A small noise, like hiss, escaped her throat. Taeyong and Irene caught eyes, and for a moment, hatred swam in their eyes. “Especially those who commit such vile actions.”

The room suddenly dropped in temperature, you could’ve sworn that the hairs on your arms stood straight and fixed their posture. The room leaked with ice and venom, blood-reeked clothes had an odd sweet scent to them but the eyes that skimmed their gaze through the room were less than kind. You caught eyes with NingNing, for who smirked with a mischievous gaze and stood up.

“Empress,” the princess bowed, “so glad you could make it, things would’ve been out of hand if it weren’t for you.”

“Given the guests in the room, I’m not surprised.”

Why was she so close? Disgustingly close that made your skin crawl and you wanted to sink back into your chair. But with the Seelie queen’s nails practically digging into your shoulders that they felt like nails ramming through a hard concrete wall. You couldn’t even bear to move, at this rate if you tried moving in the slightest, the sudden jolt would rupture all the nerves in your shoulder. You swallowed back a yelp when you felt the skin break underneath your clothing, ever-growing cool blood seeping down your back. At this point, you’re more glad that your outfit is dark enough to hide the streaks of red.

Taeyong must’ve noticed though. “Fingers on the chair, less into her shoulders.”

“Who would’ve thought that the Seelie queen hated the Lamia empress so much that she injured her favourite playtoy,” Junmyeon whistled while smirking, his toothpick logged into his two side teeth and was set across from you. “Just like a dog picking his favourite bone.”

The empress laughed mockingly, “Seelies do betray their own kind, are we shocked?”

“Do not mistake me for a bloodsucker.”

Slowly but surely, the wounds started to heal; Irene’s palms glowed a light green and the veins on the left side of her neck glowed, her energy transferring to you. Seelies had interesting powers, from camouflage to talking to wildlife. The Seelie Queen had many abilities; communicating from water, talking to the wildlife, transferring and gaining energy and strength, and healing. You’re sure there’s so much more you didn’t know. Finally, the wounds healed. “Sorry, love,” she whispered, comfortably rubbing your shoulders, “I tend to see red when someone I dislike gets too close to me.”

“I tend to see red when I’m feasting,” the empress expressed playfully, “but I guess I have that effect either way.” She finally walked past you, her long and overly ink-black dress dragged behind her before merging with the lace-coloured red corset at her torso and ended with blood-red sleeves and ruby red jewelry.

Stereotypical. Vampires that wore red and black as their go-to colours were stereotypical. If you voiced it out, you’d earn a hum of agreement from Irene, a small laugh from Taeyong and a glare from the Lamia empress herself. Lamia, vampire in Latin. Bloodsucking demon, monster of the night, nosferatu, or whatever the fuck other names they had— vampires suck— not only blood.

And the empress was truly the worst of the worse.

She sat right next to NingNing, nodding her head to Hendery as a form of acknowledgement before turning in her seat, moonlight brown hair tied back and braided, gaze piercing yours. Now if you really could sink into your chair, you would.

“It’s been a while since I fed on sorcerers,” her tongue skimmed her lips, a smirk tugging them upwards. “What time does the meeting end?”

“Worry more about your minions lurking in my realm than someone’s neck Taeyeon,” the archangel deadpanned, “they’ve pestered my market and my soldiers, call them out before I make them.”

Taeyeon sadly sighed, exaggerating it to no end and tapped her long black nails in order on the table, palm holding her head up. Puppy eyes. You didn’t think you’d see the Lamia empress give someone puppy eyes but there’s a first time for everything. “If I knew you’d talk to me in that tone, I wouldn't have been with you in the first place.”

There’s definitely a first time for everything and it’s definitely the very first time you’re hearing of an archangel and vampire relationship— let alone Taeyong and Taeyeon. You should really be up to date with the council drama but never you would've thought that they were ever a thing— especially with the way the archangel is boring bullets into the other’s skull.

And if you thought you were shocked, the princess had to close her mouth before she caught flies. For a moment, you understood her shock, both of you making eye contact to address your surprise but quickly stopped when you realized who exactly you were looking at.

The Lamia empress was manipulative and a seducer. Anything she’d want, she’d get; giving out empty promises to those suffering in her realm for intel or convincing some leaders to turn on each other was her specialty. If anything, she always knew what was going on before it was ever spoken by anyone. Which made you think…

Did she know about the prince? Either answer would shock you if you were honest, whether she knew or she kept quiet didn’t matter now; the council was slowly turning into each other and benefiting her, in some way, in the end.

She’d do anything to get what she wanted or disperse of anything or anyone that got in her way.

Though she isn't afraid to cross anyone, there are only a few who she wouldn't dare upset, not when her entire realm dwells on the protection of a certain king of Athlar. You watched as her eyes widened slightly before she sat up, her lips pressed in a thin line. Her eyes grew cloudy, a mist of red swam in her pupils before the door opened once more.

Now, if the room grew cold because of the Lamia empress then the room, as of right now, is freezing and feels like you were caught in a winter blizzard. The walls grew small ice crystals and the jewelry nearly everyone was wearing we're covered by a harsh cloud of ice-cold mist.

The banquet echoed, the floor vibrating under the weight of his footsteps. The air grew tense, as thick as blood and as heavy as the humid summer air. Your skin crawled at the sudden change, a pit forming at the bottom of your stomach. No one said a word, no one dared to speak or mutter anything aloud.

God, your throat was tightening, as if being choked by the wrath of the king himself. Even the Seelie queen's fingers tightened on your shoulders, refusing to tremble out of fear and discomfort. The supreme archangel didn't say a word, nor looked interested in the arrival of the king. Instead, he simply sighed and closed his eyes.

Demons and archangels, best of allies yet the worst of foes.

The footsteps ceased. The air stopped moving. A curt, short and brisk chuckle bounced from one wall to another. "Hmph, tough crowd." His voice boomed so much louder than your heartbeat. His scent was overbearing and overloaded your senses. It was putrid, awful and horrifying.

The difference between archangels and demons was simple; one was created by the heavens and the other was created by the deepest abyss of darkness. Taeyong’s scent— rather, his aura — was not as potent or as dark. He still had some sort of divine element that merely morphed with the elements of Uriel and the abyss. The king's aura was authentic; the true product of the abyss and was overloaded with sin and corruption.

You felt his eyes skimming the room, pupils piercing every head and everybody before settling on the Seelie queen's neck. Somehow, in some way, his glare went through her body and attacked yours in the blink of an eye. You shut your eyes, anxiety climbing up your throat like acid coming from your stomach.

The princess got up with shaking booths and an uncomfortable smile tugging her lips. For someone who wanted the Athlar king at the meeting, NingNing isn't as welcoming as she should be. "My lord, welcome." If the situation was any different, you'd laugh at her quivering voice.

The princess took a deep breath, "I hope your travel was well—"

“This place stinks.”

May the skies have mercy on your soul. May they find some way to forgive because it took everything in you not to let out a loud, mocking cackle while the banquet was dead silent. You might despise the Athlar king but you must admit that the man has a great sense of humour and boldness you can't help but admire.

A smile didn't stop itself from tugging your lips and as hard as you bit them down, the smile just grew larger by the second. The Seelie queen's fingers tapped on your shoulders, seemingly sensing the laughter in your throat. They were warnings— to be careful of how you act in front of others, especially those who disliked you.

"I find it a bit ironic how you're the one complaining about the stench." Those warnings weren't applied to her, not with the unpleasant tone that dripped through her words. "You practically reek."

"Seemed you built the courage to speak," the empress cut in, leaning on the table and glaring at Irene. "Although, I don't think you're in the right position to be talking."

"Because I'm going to listen to someone whose breath smells of mundane blood half the time."

"Don’t be mistaken, I'm a woman of modesty."

"Where's your father?"

The Athlar king didn't boom out the words or even say them at normal speaking volume. He merely had to whisper the word father to gain everyone's attention. And suddenly, everyone's gaze was glued to the princess, including your own, awaiting an answer. Where is the almighty angel? With that kind of title, it'll be quite unprofessional to not appear in the meeting, then again, the same could be said about your outfit.

NingNing seemed to stare off in the distance as if remembering something for her gaze was unfocused. You raised an eyebrow and looked at Taeyong, you simply shrugged and leaned the temple off his fingers. Your already quirked eyebrow only rose when Hendery gently touched her hand and gave her a reassuring squeeze.

"My father cannot make it today, nor can my mother as they are both grieving for the loss of their only son and finalizing the arrangements for the Adieu Ceremony. Which is why I’m here."

Oh. They're actually doing it. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes. You couldn't blame them; losing your only murderous and highly destructive son to a sorceress that did a huge favour to the city? Must be hard. It did make sense now that you think about it, NingNing isn’t even part of the council and yet, she’s here as a representative.

“Is he now?” NingNing nodded at the King’s question. “Can’t say I’m impressed.”

The table went silent, everyone’s eyes either glued to the table or in front of them— anywhere except the Ruler of Demons. As the King walks towards a seat far, far away from you, a loud and dragged-on sigh echoed through the room. Your eyes widened like saucers and not-so-gently threw your head to the side, glaring at Taeyong.

Sometimes, you didn’t understand the nerves the man had, especially since one would think they’d rebel against the angels.

But Taeyong looked up at the Athlar king and said in a tired breath, “let’s get this over with, I don’t have time for your little feud with the almighty angel.”

“And you think I have time for this meeting?”

“Please,” Taeyong had scoffed under his breath, his fingers drawing figure eights on the wooden table, “the only real reason you’re here Onew, is because you want to see what kind of punishment (Y/n) is going to receive. We both know you’ll say no to whatever deal I have to offer.”

Both men seemed to glare at each other, for the room sat in silence for a few moments. You glanced between both leaders but cleared your throat and caught eyes with the ceiling when the demon king locked eyes with your own. Taeyong certainly had the balls to stand up to him but good for him— you, however, will stay far, far away from the man that wants you killed.

“Gentlemen!” Both Taeyong and the Athlar king broke eye contact with each other and gazed at NingNing. “We will now start the meeting. My lord, if you may take a seat.”

The Athlar king took a seat next to the Lamia empress, specifically to her left and sat a few chairs away from Junmyeon, who was still very uninterested in the topic at hand. The alpha sat near no one, a couple of chairs vacant to each of his sides.

To your left was the Seelie Queen and to your left was the supreme archangel. You, in the middle of both of the leaders, sat directly facing the princess while her guard and brother's best friend sat on her right.

The air was dense, whether because you held your breath for so long or because everyone had some sort of grudge with someone in the room. You only and genuinely hope that their hidden-pretty-baldy hatred and signs for one another don’t interfere with the fate that bestows soon.

But like you said, someone was going to die tonight but you sure as hell know it wasn't going to be you.

#nct x reader #nct #nct 127 #nct 127 x reader #nct dream x reader #nct dream #wayv #wayv x reader #exo #red velvet #red velvet x reader #exo x reader #nct imagines #nct fic #nct angst #vickylamore #vickywritings #supermwritersnet #nct 127 fic #nct dream fic #wayv fic #nct scenarios

[beybladefanboy]

Beyblade Seasons Ranked

Here is my personal ranking, from worst to best, of the seasons of Beyblade Metal Fight: Metal Fusion, Metal Masters, Metal Fury, and the awkward spin-off Shogun Steel. Yeah, let’s get into that:

4 Shogun Steel

Honestly even if I did like Shogun Steel for what it is, it would still be at the bottom just by default. It can barely be considered part of the Metal Saga. The main characters in the last three seasons are either absent or reduced to supporting roles in favour of new characters who aren’t nearly as interesting or likeable. It is by definition a spin off. It feels very disjointed from the rest of the series because of these factors along with the lighter tone, the changes to the Beyblade system, and even some continuity errors particularly with Fury. Bringing back Doji again was also the biggest leap in logic this whole series made and feels downright lazy. The whole story just feels like a watered down Fusion with many of the story beats being similar and some characters never growing past mere echoes of the old characters. Some of the bey battles are fun and Ren and Takanosuke are decent characters but there’s a reason this show doesn’t get much attention. It falls into the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy trap of being overly dependent on original series sucker punches for its appeal and not putting as much effort into the new stuff. So as a result, the new stuff, some of which has potential, isn’t as fleshed out as it should be. This show is honestly fine on its own but awful when compared to the Metal Saga and it is comparing itself to the Metal Saga. This show intentionally put itself in the Metal Saga’s shadow and seemed content with being just that: a shadow of greatness.

3 Metal Masters

Okay, this is where I’m gonna start pissing people off. Don’t get me wrong, Masters is great and I don’t think it’s clearly worse than the other two seasons or anything. I think the main three seasons are very close in quality and putting them in any kind of order was incredibly difficult. However, I do think Masters is slightly weaker than Fusion and Fury. First off, it introduces Masamune. I don’t like Masamune. I find his whole “I’m the number 1 blader” shtick incredibly obnoxious and he’s everything I don’t like in real Americans: self absorbed, disloyal, big mouthed, entitled, and just annoying in general. He did have good character development over the course of the season but I personally can’t stand him. The pacing of this season also isn’t the best. With the exception of the Dark Tsubasa arc (which I’ll get to!), the season is just a normal world tournament until they get to America, which I don’t find very interesting. Kenta is also criminally underused. In Fusion he was basically a second main character and there are some episodes specifically following him. Then in Masters, he’s pushed aside in favour of side characters. People say Fury underused characters, and I’ll get to that, but holy crap, Masters gave Kenta no room to grow. Aside from him though, the other characters are used really well. I particularly like how Kyoya and Ryuga are incorporated. This is actually the season where I grew attached to Ryuga during my viewing in December. I was starting to like him in Fusion but this season cemented my newfound attachment. This season also gave us the dark Tsubasa arc, which is one of my favourite plot points from the show overall. It’s a fascinating look into the mind of a character I already really liked and it allowed Tsubasa to develop a lot. I love the conclusion that you cannot drive out the darkness in yourself, you have to accept it as part of who you are in order to properly control it. It’s brilliant, and I can personally relate this message to my own life. The dark Tsubasa arc is probably the strongest part of the season overall as the rest of it until we get to the HD Academy conflict kind of drags for me. However, when we do finally get to the HD Academy conflict, it is very fun. The whole “spiral energy” thing was actually pretty creative and while brainwashing isn’t a new concept for this show, I think they went more in depth with it in this season and it was pretty interesting. So yeah, still a really good season.

2 Metal Fusion

If I was ranking based on nostalgia, this would be number one. In fact, it probably deserves to be number one. However, I do have a few problems with this season that hold it back and it’s not the pacing. Actually, out of all the seasons, Fusion probably has the best pacing. The main villains, Doji and Ryuga, are introduced early in the season and all the characters are developed throughout the season, building up to the final tournament: Battle Bladers, which is also set up fairly early. The story is predictable but very well-structured. My biggest problem with this season is the plot twist with Gingka’s dad. Not only is it painfully obvious, but the reveal of the twist drags the plot to a screeching halt for nearly an entire episode, hurting the pacing and making an entire episode an exposition dump. It also made Gingka’s dad a terrible character. You can argue that him abandoning his teenage son and making him believe he was dead was for the greater good, although I personally still think it’s messed up, but breaking Gingka’s point counter like that was a step way too far. That moment serves to further the story by forcing Gingka to work harder to get into Battle Bladers. But did it have to be his dad who broke the point counter? I argue it didn’t. Gingka’s dad was flat out abusive to his son on that occasion and was pretty cold to him in general as Phoenix and yet the plot and even some of the characters praise Ryo for doing this. Why?! The way the story is structured puts Ryo in the right for abusing his son which disgusts me. That is my biggest problem with this season and possibly the whole series to be honest. I hate it that much. However, apart from that and those random filler episodes with Sora that in my opinion were boring, this season was really solid. Like I said, the story is told well and the characters are all introduced and developed well. Battle Bladers is definitely the highlight of this season, having the most intense battles and hardest hitting moments. Those episodes are exhausting to watch, because of Reiji and Ryuga. Reiji was randomly introduced in Battle Bladers and decided to try and rival Ryuga in how much he could traumatize the characters (and younger me). I have no idea why they decided to do that, but it worked. Ryuga in this season is the best villain in the whole series. He has such a presence to him: his (dubbed) voice, his sadistic expressions, his abilities, the music that plays when he’s onescreen. He’s over the top but in my opinion, Ryuga is the perfect balance between entertaining and intimidating. He’s even slightly sympathetic by the end of the season when he gets taken over by dark power and is seen trying to fight its control. They managed to both make Ryuga an irredeemable psychopath and found a believable way to redeem him. I love that in the end, Gingka isn’t fighting to defeat Ryuga, he’s fighting to defeat the dark power, which came from the greed and hatred of humans. Basically, the problem isn’t humanity, it’s humanity’s greed/hatred and being consumed by these feelings lead to evil. That is genius. This season also had two of my favourite battles in the entire series: Kyoya vs Ryuga, and Gingka vs Ryuga.

1 Metal Fury

Yeah, I said it. Fury is my personal favourite season. It probably has more wrong with it than Masters and Fusion but honestly, Fury’s strengths more than make up for its weaker parts for me. The only problem I have with Fury that actively hinders my enjoyment is Kyoya’s poorly handled arc, which I’ve been over multiple times and wrote a whole fanfiction rectifying. To sum it up briefly: it was rushed and weakened Kyoya’s character when it had the chance to develop him. I will admit this season also had too few episodes. I don’t think it was rushed per say, it just feels like parts are missing. There should’ve been more leading up to Nemesis’ revival and an actual epilogue episode because as it stands now, Fury ends really suddenly without much actual confirmation of where the characters we know and love ended up. It’s kind of jarring. Overall however, I really love Fury. I love the adventure style story and there's so much variety to the bey battles this time around, both in terms of the beys themselves and the stadiums. It’s just more interesting to watch. It also did a great job giving all the major characters victories, not just Gingka. This is something Masters also did well and a gripe I have with Fusion: Gingka gets all the major victories in Metal Fusion and pushes the other characters to the wayside. Well, Masters and Fury fixed this issue in my opinion. The very final fight of Fury against the shadow Nemesis could’ve been executed better in my opinion. However, it hits all the right emotional beats for a final battle and still grabs my attention rewatching it, so I can put aside my criticisms of it while watching it. Also, I like that “destiny” is something these characters are controlling themselves and can go either way rather than being some unstoppable force that they will all give in to eventually otherwise they’re villains. Because that’s how Yugioh does it and it’s probably my biggest problem with that show. In that series, it feels like the characters are all just blindly accepting “destiny” and those that don’t, Kaiba and Marik most notably, are deemed villains for wanting to take control over their lives and not be governed by some invisible force. Yes, I know Marik went to some horrible extremes using this logic but it still bothers me that the only characters in that show that don’t throw their lives away blindly following someone else’s whims are deemed villains. It’s just kind of messed up. Fury thankfully subverts this. “Destiny” is not an unstoppable force in Beyblade, it’s the will of the characters and those characters are allowed to make their own choices. It makes the story more interesting and the characters more likeable because the characters are the ones driving the story, which feels so much more natural. Yeah, I really like the characters in Fury. Honestly, I’m more attached to Yuki, King, and Chris than anyone introduced in Masters and the other legendary blader characters all bring something different and interesting to the table that I don’t think older characters could have. I also like how the old characters are used. Sure, Tsubasa and Yu are underused this season. But guess who also got a lot of focus last season? Tsubasa and Yu. And some of the characters who were underused in Masters, Kyoya and Kenta, get more focus in this season. They did mess up Kyoya’s arc in my opinion but the effort is there and I appreciate his presence before and after that. Kenta especially was severely underused in Masters so this season decided to make him relevant again and they did it in such an endearing way. You all know how much I love Ryuga and Kenta’s friendship. It’s one of the things that should have gotten more focus but what we do get is good enough build up. This season was the one that drew the most emotion out of me during my most recent viewing and that was because of Ryuga and Kenta. I was devastated by Ryuga’s death (even if he may not actually be dead, that’s certainly what it felt like in the moment) and the scene where he gives Kenta his power was the most touching moment in the entire show for me.

Well, that ranking probably pissed some people off. Again, I love the classic three seasons. (I’m not a fan of Shogun Steel but it has its moments.) Choosing between the three of them like that was incredibly difficult, especially Fusion and Fury. In the end, I just had to go with my gut.

#beyblade #beyblade metal fight #beyblade metal saga #metal fusion #metal masters #metal fury #shogun steel #metal fury is underrated #i mention Yugioh as well #I talk about that show on my main blog #I do recommend it #but damn do I hate the way it handles the destiny theme #honestly fury is the only story I've seen that handles the destiny theme well #fusion handles it decently too #but the way fury did it kinda blew me away

[drazavonia]

Kairi’s MEMORIA FORMS

ATLA

For the majority of Avatar the Last Airbender, Aang "accessed" the Avatar State in moments of immediate and genuine danger.

The Avatar State is the pure cosmic power of Raava that greatly enhances Bending Capabilities.

However, as the reincarnation cycle went on the spirit of each Avatar became tethered to Ravaa, giving them their connection to each succeeding Avatar.

During Aang's time as the Avatar, when the Avatar State activated, the previous Avatar spirits took control of his body. They use the current host as an "Avatar" to exercise their power and control acting as a defense mechanism for the Avatar.

The best example of this would be in Book 1 Episode 8. After learning of his goal from Roku inside his chamber, Aang was about to be assaulted by a firestorm waiting outside so Aang/Roku activated the Avatar State. 

Once shot with fire, the spirit of Roku blocked it and returned fire. Roku used Aang as his Avatar to protect him from mortal danger.

In Final Fantasy VII, Mako crystallizes into Materia. “The knowledge and wisdom of the Ancients is held in the materia. Anyone with this knowledge can freely use the powers of the Land and the Planet. That knowledge interacts between ourselves and the planet calling up magic... or so they say.” -Sephiroth

“Materia is crystallized Mako. Metaphysically, Materia calls upon the wisdom of the Lifestream to manipulate nature manifesting as the phenomenon of magic for most Materia, although other Materia enhance the user's abilities.” 

In Final Fantasy IX, a Crystal is the progenitor of every world. An entire world’s existence begins with the crystal and its’ entire lifespan is recorded within the crystal until its’ death. This includes the individual lives and memories of all living things inhabiting said world.

**In Lightning Returns Final Fantasy XIII, after Bhunivelze is defeated, all of the souls Lightning collected and used as a sword, had traveled to “The Void” and culminated into a crystal. **Once Lightning, as the Savior, touched the crystal of souls, all of the memories of the XIII trilogy played through her mind. The original world’s history or memories were recorded and preserved in the Crystal through the rescued souls. The Progenitor Crystal then bursts heavenward, sending the souls contained within to the new world to be created.

*In Dissidia Final Fantasy NT, the warriors called upon by Materia and Spiritus left behind their memories in a crystal by touching it. Spiritus was able to give shape to these memories in the forms of the characters. In cutscenes that take place after their creation, these “doppelgangers” act no different from their true counterparts. They also talk about themselves and the events of their games as if they were participants. In other words, these memories were all that was necessary for creating completely new replicas of the main protagonists, minus a heart/soul. After Spiritus gave these “vessels” containing previous memories form, Materia gave them souls in order for them to “exist”.

KH MOM

This theory may only make sense for now if Nomura is using similar thematics and lore of the crystals from Final Fantasy.

In KH3R, it was revealed Xehanort had crystallized Kairi’s heart in a similar fashion to Serah in XIII. When Sora gathered all seven of Kairi’s crystal heart fragments, to assemble them, all of the guardians were needed. Using their keyblades, the hearts of the guardians transferred their light to each of the heart pieces, forging Kairi’s heart anew. 

I think this may be the equivalent of the guardians touching Kairi’s crystallized heart, and immortalizing themselves as a part of Kairi’s heart.This includes the memories and experiences of their entire lives.

Sokai’s joint situation command is called One Heart. The name implies Sora and Kairi’s hearts are intertwining to become two halves of a whole or literally becoming one heart that they share when they are together, like melding.

The wings and feathers of One Heart consist of memories. The memories that are the main focus of the attack are those consisting of Sora and Kairi. However, 13th Vessel found that within the code of ReMind, the wings consisted of memories and experiences from the other guardians who helped put Kairi back together.

This would explain how Melody of Memory could take place from Kairi’s perspective, from within her heart. Kairi traversed her heart to find a clue about Sora and that heart contained the memories of all the Guardians of Light.

When Kairi got to the end, her final heart fragment took the form of Xehanort as a response to Kairi’s desire for information. When Xehanort  overwhelms Kairi, he initiates the final blow only for the Kingdom Key to appear in Kairi’s hand followed by her transforming into Sora. 

I don't believe this to be the heart of Sora, because right after that scene Xehanort states, “Your voice can’t reach us here. Now I’m certain of where your heart is.” And it was essentially confirmed by the end.

The figments that appeared within Kairi’s dream were, The Memory of Sora and Xehanort. 

Similar to how Aang was the Avatar for Roku’s spirit to come through and protect him in episode 8 of Book 1, Kairi became the Avatar for Sora memories to come through and protect her in the Final World.

Kairi is a princess of heart, being one of the only seven remaining hearts consisting of pure light. This is a lot like Raava, the spirit of pure light and all good in the world.  

Artist: GeorgePg

In KH3 it was even confirmed that the pure lights of the princesses can be passed on to new pure hearts, just like the Avatar reincarnation cycle.

KAIRI’S AVATAR STATE

Aang couldn’t go into the Avatar State willingly, each time the previous incarnations of the Avatar would take over Aang’s body when the Avatar State activated in response to whatever mortal danger Aang was currently in.

Aang eventually opened his seven chakras, proceeding to let go of his romantic feelings for Katara, allowing him to enter the Avatar State by will (only once before Azula killed him). Aang gained control of the Avatar State by the end of the series, and revealed he could enter or exit at his behest.

Kairi’s memories of Sora manifested as his Keyblade first, then her form changed to Sora. 

So, here are some of the ways this new Memoria power could be shown:

Projections

All of the abilities Riku gained while traversing the sleeping worlds were still his to use. Sora and Riku were able to use the Dualism Blade from the sleeping worlds as well.

Kairi’s princess powers pretty much break a lot of the conventional rules concerning darkness. She was able to restore Sora’s true form as well as project her light from within the Heartless Storm to guide him through.

This makes me think that she can either project her memory powers the same way keyblades are simply materialized, as formchanges or as links from KH3.

Essentially form changes for Kairi. However I would compare the way these could possibly work to Drive Forms.

Kairi’s usd Sora’s fighting stance as a base for developing her own fighting style. 

From the fights we’ve seen her against with Xemnas and Xehanort, Kairi is a very close quarters fighter. Much like Terra, melee is her main focus, but unlike Terra if you pay close attention to her, she kinda just attempts to wail on her enemies, forgoing a lot of defensive maneuvers. Kairi doesn't have a refined fighting style.

Through training with Aqua, I’m sure she’ll be able to iron out her base combat, but if she does go on a world tour, similar to the Dark Road Mark of Mastery Exam, she would have to gain new skills and use them repeatedly on her journey to refine them. (Like us, the player.)

In MoM, Sora’s Kingdom Key materialized first. This could mean that like Xion originally, Kairi can either produce copies of the guardians’ keyblades or she can transmute keychains out of them. Either way aside from maybe enhancement abilities or shotlocks, they’re essentially just basic keyblades for her. No transformations or forms from the keyblades themselves.

Memory Links

The new Memory Links could start as Rage Form* situation commands. When her HP dips into red, she can call upon the memories of the guardians to take over for her. This would unfortunately mean that we’re not necessarily playing as Kairi, but all of the other guardians. 

Alternatively, they could mechanically work as Links/D-Links. Kairi channels these memories, summoning them as the guardians to aid her in combat.

As she grows into her own, instead of having to rely on the guardians to bail her out of trouble, just like Aang she can learn to gain control of these Memory Links to use as she wants. Kairi could gain experience in the different fighting styles of the guardians, kind of like the bending forms (preferably cutscenes, but I couldn't see them taking it that far).

MEMORIA FORMS

Artist: GeorgePg

The Memoria Forms would be the final evolution of her memory powers. Instead of summoning the guardians to fight by her side or take her over completely, Kairi could weave the Memories of the Guardians into form changes or drive form like power-ups blended with her light powers. 

M-Form (Sora): Second/Limit Form

M-Form (Riku): Dark Form

M-Form (Aqua): Spellweaver/Water based form

M-Form (Ventus): Wingblade/Wind based form

M-Form (Terra): Rockbreaker/Earth based form 

M-Form (Axel): Firestorm/Blaze based form

M-Form (Roxas): Dual Wielding(I'd imagine having a heart that literally cannot be defeated darkness would make it capable of wielding two keyblades. The Duel Attack Reaction Command/Generates OKP & OBV keyblade projections.

M-Form (Xion): HOLY?

M-Form (Mickey)?: ULTIMA?

SYMPHONIA FORM

Artist: GeorgePg

Essentially, The Final Form equivalent for Kairi. I stated the concept in another theory, but it would be the Namine Fusion Concept from Dead Fantasy.

If Kairi can use or project the keyblades of the guardians, then perhaps by the end of her training, she can materialize all of them at the same time.

There’s also The Nameless Star and the power/memory she could pass on to Kairi if she chose to reside in her heart.

It’s entirely possible that this power is limited to her dreams. It’s also possible that this could’ve been a one time thing with no further significance. But apparently none of that stopped me from putting way too much thought into this theory. 

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts 3 #Kairi #kairi kingdom hearts #kairi kh #sora #riku #aqua #ventus #terra #axel #Roxas KH #xion #mickey #avatar the last airbender #aang #avatar aang #Melody of Memory #kingdom hearts melody of memory #Xehanort #Final Fantasy #final fantasy vii #Final Fantasy XIII #Final Fantasy Versus XIII #dissidia

[renegadeontherunn]

happiness by taylor swift is a disaster lineage song, sorry I don’t make the rules

okay so yes I should be writing or doing homework instead of making this extremely rambly, slightly incoherent post but it’s friday so I’m vibing and you lovely people get to join me!

this is the ultimate star wars grief song for our tcw trio and I see it in three different contexts:

Ahsoka’s POV to Anakin, Obi-Wan, and the Order after she leaves in the season 5 finale

Ahsoka & Rex during/after Order 66

Obi-Wan & Ahsoka to Vader (Obi-Wan on Tatooine and (REBELS SPOILERS) Ahsoka after her duel with him in The Twilight of the Apprentice—for reference, I’ve only seen parts of Rebels so if some of that stuff is inaccurate, let me know!)

so we go . . .

honey when I’m above the trees / I see this for what it is

on a ship, in the Force, in hindsight

but now I’m right down in it / all the years I’ve given / is just shit we’re dividing up / showed you all of my hiding spots

#1: Ahsoka’s years learning in the Order, being a Padawan, her dedication to the Jedi and her faith to their teachings (”the values of the Jedi are sacred to me”), all the years she’s given are just completely thrown away as soon as there’s suspicion against her (in the unfinished episodes, Anakin says “well what choice did we give her? the moment there were any suspicions about her loyalty the Council turned their back on her.”) they both share this anger about her expulsion, and Ahsoka brings it up later during the Siege of Mandalore when she says “and what? defend the Council’s actions? I hardly think I’m the best person for that.” 

#2: again, Ahsoka’s years fighting alongside the 501st, growing close with Rex and Jesse and everyone else to suddenly find them turning on her (this is before she knows about the chips, of course). she could also be feeling this in tandem with Rex—“those soldiers, my brothers, are willing to die and take you and me along with them!” all the years Rex has given in the 501st, with his brothers, fighting for the Republic, having to watch his brothers be killed and not be able to do anything, all his hardship just means nothing. their attempts to be themselves, to be unique, to not just be “another number,” were useless in the end. the “showed you all of my hiding spots” line points to the closeness and friendship that they had with each other

#3: again again, pretty self-explanatory, all the years Ahsoka and Obi-Wan have given to teaching and learning from and loving Anakin are just completely thrown away by his fall to the Dark Side and him ultimately trying to kill them. the same for the last line applies here, they were brothers, they were sister and brother, they were a family and then it was all ruined.

I was dancing when the music stopped

In each of the scenarios, they were preoccupied, in the middle of something else (the war, capturing Maul, defeating Grievous, helping Ezra, etc.) when everything stopped and collapsed. each situation was completely unexpected and each time, their worlds fell apart.

and in the disbelief / I can’t face reinvention

#1: all Ahsoka’s ever known is the Jedi, and now without them (without anyone to help her or any connections or support), she has to completely change her way of life, as well as lie or invent a new background for herself (”Skywalker Academy,” “my older brother taught me,” “I used to live on the upper levels of Coruscant,” etc.)

also—Ahsoka becomes Ashla, and then Fulcrum (reinventing herself over and over again) and Obi-Wan becomes Ben. obviously, they don’t want to have to change, and again with “in the disbelief,” each of these events was unexpected and a complete gut punch.

there’ll be happiness after you / but there was happiness because of you / both of these things can be true there is happiness / past the blood and bruise / past the curses and cries / beyond the terror in the nightfall

I don’t think this line needs any explanation, but I’ll give some anyway! In a meta-sense, the audience started Star Wars with the happiness after all three events, but especially Vader. the Original Trilogy showed the end of the Empire, the Rebellion, the happy endings of Luke, Leia, Han, etc. in-universe, both Ahsoka and Obi-Wan hold this sense of bittersweet nostalgia (because how can you not?), both with Obi-Wan training/looking after Luke and Ahsoka joining the Rebellion and helping the characters in Rebels. they’re both trying to ensure happiness after Anakin. 

but, of course, of course there was happiness because of Anakin, that’s what The Clone Wars shows us! we see them happy (or, at least, somewhat) in tcw, which obviously makes everything much sadder, but still. they were happy. and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka both know it—we see it explicitly with Ahsoka meditating to Anakin’s holo and reminiscing in Rebels. they found happiness and love and family in the war, where there was so much death, so much destruction, so much darkness and terror. they found each other, they found happiness anyway. this can also apply to the OT, since that trio also found family and happiness in the midst of the Empire.

it’s this inherent optimism that both Ahsoka and Obi-Wan share that Anakin doesn’t (or didn’t) that’s keeping them afloat. it’s the adherence to the light, to kindness, to compassion. 

haunted by the look in my eyes

#1: going back to our three scenarios, you could say Ahsoka was probably haunted by the look in the Council members’ eyes—especially Yoda, Plo, Obi-Wan—when they expelled her. as well as, of course, the look in Anakin’s eyes when he begs her to stay and she says no. the ending image of season 5, the last image we ever saw of tcw for years—with Anakin’s sad, wide eyes—yeah. that look.

#2: overall, this context has less to it, but I’ll still argue that the look in Rex’s eyes, in the clones’ eyes haunted both Ahsoka and Rex, probably especially Rex. or even, not seeing his brothers’ eyes and instead seeing their blasters pointed at him. their final scene, with the eyes of the helmets (Ahsoka’s eyes painted on) stuck on sticks. yeah, that definitely haunted them both.

#3: Obi-Wan and Ahsoka both get horrifyingly clear images of Anakin’s gold eyes. Anakin’s look when he shouts “I hate you!” surely haunted Obi-Wan, as well as Anakin saying “Ahsoka” and “then you will die” with a very clear, obvious image of Anakin’s gold, scarred eye through his mask. 

that would’ve loved you for a lifetime

#1: Ahsoka was prepared to be a Jedi forever, for a lifetime

#2: Rex, more in this case, but both he and Ahsoka did and would’ve loved the clones forever. those were Rex’s brothers and it’s so clear, especially with the scene of him crying in the hangar bay, that this is killing him

#3: Obi-Wan and Ahsoka would’ve loved Anakin for a lifetime—and I’d argue they did, despite everything (”you were my brother, Anakin! I loved you!” and “my Master could never be as vile as you” and “to the best of us”)

leave it all behind

#1: sorry if this is getting repetitive, but yeah, Ahsoka left everything, her entire life, everything and everyone she’s ever known behind

#2: Rex and Ahsoka leave everything on that moon, including her lightsabers that she just got back and then had to give up a second time

#3: Obi-Wan leaves everything behind and flees to Tatooine. Ahsoka tells Ezra this—to let Kanan go, essentially leave the past behind him. And she can’t “save her Master” either. she too must let him go. 

tell me when did your winning smile / begin to look like a smirk?

this is just so Anakin slowly falling to madness and the Dark Side. Ahsoka and Obi-Wan thinking about the signs they’d missed, if there was some way they could’ve stopped it, if just one thing had been different, if they’d just noticed. trying to figure out where it all went wrong. 

when did all our lessons start to look like weapons pointed at my deepest hurt?

#1: “the values of the Jedi are sacred to me”—and then she’s expelled and told that it was part of her great trial in becoming a Knight. a foundation of the Jedi Order and its process gets turned against her.

#3: this line becomes literal—Padawan lessons, sparring, suddenly became dueling Anakin to death, for both Obi-Wan and Ahsoka

no I didn’t mean that / sorry, I can’t see facts through all of my fury

#1: you could argue that Obi-Wan is right when he said Ahsoka let her feelings cloud her judgement in leaving; that she couldn’t see the facts through the pain of being betrayed by the Council. and then, when she comes back in the Siege of Mandalore, immediately, she and Obi-Wan start arguing, and then both of them are clouded by their feelings, both feeling hurt by the other and lashing out.

#3: again, this is just so Anakin turning to the Dark Side. he obviously doesn’t realize that he’s being blinded by fury (or maybe he does and just doesn’t care, or probably, thinks that is the only way). but he is. he’s completely blinded to logic, to reality by the fury that Sidious has spent years amping up and harvesting and Anakin himself has spent years bottling.

you haven’t met the new me yet

this line is really painful if you view it from Anakin’s perspective. they both believed he was dead, but no, turns out he’s a Sith Lord, in fact the Sith Lord that’s been the Emperor’s tool in causing immense pain and destruction across the galaxy. it’s this evil, excited little line from his POV (think that ROTS comic: “please say it’s Kenobi. Lord Vader gets such a thrill from killing people who care for him”)

there’ll be happiness after me / but there was happiness because of me / both of these things I believe

again, there’s that optimism, that desire to help people, to do good in the world, and this faith that Obi-Wan and Ahsoka both have. that’s why Obi-Wan helps Luke, that’s why Ahsoka joins the Rebellion. it’s all to ensure that there will be some happiness, some light after them (and maybe a little because of them. again, see the first chorus. they were happy once, and they both know it. “we’ll be fine, as long as we stay together.”)

there is happiness / in our history / across our great divide

I see this mostly as Ahsoka and Anakin (and Obi-Wan) during season 7. there’s still a connection, of course, love and happiness between them, despite the ending that’s right on their heels, as well as the great divide of Ahsoka leaving the Order.

there is a glorious sunrise / dappled with the flickers of light

Anakin does end up returning to the Light Side and his reunion with Obi-Wan is surely like a “glorious sunrise” that ended the darkness of the past twenty+ years. the second part I just see as a fun, literal line—flickers of light are lightsabers, blaster fire, the Light Side

I can’t make it go away by making you a villain

in short, Obi-Wan and Ahsoka can’t make the pain or the past happiness go away because Anakin’s now Vader. they still both remember Anakin fondly and with love, despite his fall. they loved him, still. in ROTS, when Anakin says “from my point of view, the Jedi are evil!” Obi-Wan doesn’t say “then you are evil,” or even “you are wrong,” he says “then you are lost.” lost. as in, can be found again. not evil, not unworthy, not wrong. just lost. there’s this goodness that Anakin has that he is ignoring and straying from (”there is good in him”). and in the context of Order 66, Ahsoka can’t and doesn’t make the clones villains because she knows they’re actually the victims. as much pain as it causes, they’re not the villains and she can’t act like they are. 

so I know there’s a lot of discourse about Anakin apologists or whatever, so all I’ll say is that George Lucas has said that the prequels are to show how a “nice little kind kid, who has good intentions” turns into Darth Vader. the whole point of the PT is this line—while Anakin/Vader is no doubt the villain in the OT and in ROTS to a degree, that doesn’t make everything else go away. the other stuff doesn’t excuse what he did, all the pain he caused, but we can’t make it go away, just because he’s a villain. that’s one of the beauties of the prequels, that we get this extremely fleshed out, torn and struggling kid who ends up making all the wrong choices and becoming the terrible villain we see in the OT. 

I guess it’s the price I pay for seven years in heaven

while none of these scenarios is seven years exactly, it does continue to drive the point of “all the years I’ve given is just shit we’re dividing up.” everything these characters had, individually and with each other, just gets utterly, completely ruined. 

in a more meta-sense, the ending of The Clone Wars is the price we, the fans, pay for seven seasons of the show. 

no one teaches you what to do / when a good man hurts you / and you know you hurt him too

this could point again to Ahsoka and Anakin, but also Ahsoka and Obi-Wan after she leaves the Order. when she comes back, none of them really know what to say, what to do, how to act around each other. this obviously comes out as arguments and words that are so close to what they really want to say, but just short. they’ve all been hurt and none of them know what to do about it. 

and, of course, Obi-Wan and Anakin in ROTS. Obi-Wan doesn’t want to believe that Anakin’s fallen to the Dark Side, and later on Tatooine, knowing he’s hurt and been hurt by Anakin, doesn’t know what to do

after giving you the best I had / tell me what to give after that

again again, all the years they’ve given. all the love they had. everyone they knew & loved. gone. 

leave it all behind / and there is happiness

#fiona speaks #what do i even tag this? #my writing #i guess? #HA anyway i refuse to proof read this or reread it bc WOW it's long #and if you chose to open this post and read the whole thing then you're probably somewhat used to my ramblings #hopefully i articulated all my thoughts well #bc i have so many thoughts about this song so i hope they came across!! #if yall have any additional thoughts lemme know cause this song is just UGH *chef's kiss* #wow i just said the word thoughts three times #fun fact! this song is taylor's only song in the key of b #which means she has a song in EVERY key #isn't that cool? #anyway this was so fun i get the hype with doing this #thanks to daisy caroline and mel and honestly so many others for THEIR wonderful analyses of taylor swift songs and tcw #which inspired me to actually make a post about it instead of continuing to let this doc sit in my drive #i originally wrote this on wait one sec lemme check #december 28 and then did one w more words on feb 15 #but now it's here! in one (mostly coherent) post #oof anyway #taylor swift #star wars #taylor swift and tcw #can you tell i'm procrastinating writing my fic exchange? #song analysis

[latenightcinephile]

#718: 'The Golden Coach', dir. Jean Renoir, 1952.

One of the most bizarre things that happens with this list happened once again when I was reading up about Jean Renoir's The Golden Coach. Heading to the Wikipedia page, which is where I usually start, I found not much had been said about the film, except for Andrew Sarris's remarks that it was "an international failure" upon release. This seems to be pretty common with films on the list - it's apparently a requirement that good movies be detested originally - so I went to the book itself to see what Tom Charity of Time Out had to say about it.

Turns out, not much either. Charity provides a brief plot summary, quotes Truffaut, who called The Golden Coach "the noblest and most refined film ever made", and says that Vivaldi "provides the soundtrack", which is a bit too active-sounding, considering Vivaldi had been dead for two hundred years at that point.

So, why is Renoir's film on the list? I'm not really sure. But I quite liked it, so it's worth exploring.

Jean Renoir is not well-known for his later films, of which The Golden Coach is one. His major fame came with the release of more realistic satires in the 1930s: La Chienne (1931), Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932), La Grande Illusion (1937), La Bête Humaine (1938), and The Rules of the Game (1939). Despite their often comic plots, these films were steadfastly realistic and drew on local times and places. The release of the latter film was disastrous, though. Despite frequent re-edits, French audiences detested The Rules of the Game and Renoir's known Communist sympathies resulted in the film twice being banned. When the Germans invaded Paris in 1940, Renoir fled, first to Rome and then to the United States. He made several films in Hollywood - some critically acclaimed, others not - before returning to Europe a decade later. It was then that he began work on a loose trilogy of films about theatre and artifice. The Golden Coach is the first.

The film really belongs to its lead actor, Anna Magnani, who brings such vivacity to her performance that the rest of the cast are basically just dancing around her. She plays Camilla, a performer with a commedia dell'arte troupe in the role of Columbine. The troupe has come to 18th-century Peru to perform, and are forced into a contract with the local innkeeper, who insists on being reimbursed for paying their ship's passage over to the new world. The only reason that the troupe's performances are successful is that two men become smitten with Camilla: the Viceroy (Duncan Lamont), a milquetoast with all the money and none of the sense, and Ramon (Riccardo Rioli), a famed toreador. Ramon's attentions make the commedia popular with the masses, and the Viceroy's make it popular with the court. The Viceroy even gifts Camilla with a golden coach, causing jealousy among the other nobles, who threaten to have him stripped of his post. In the midst of these two men, and a third, Felipe (Paul Campbell), Camilla's happiness in the theatre is steadily eroded and almost completely replaced with the difficulties of real life. Only a last-minute resolution worthy of a Shakespearean comedy returns everything to rights.

Pictured: an unappreciative audience. Peruvian philistines.

Some writers theorise that Renoir's turn to more overtly theatrical subjects are partly autobiographical: that is, after what could be called an exile from his home country he made these films as a sort of manifesto about the importance of performance - that imagination and playfulness are far more important than most cinema critics believe them to be. Audiences shunned his work, this theory goes, and so Renoir felt compelled to put forward this particular vision. As well as this, though, Sarris remarks that The Golden Coach has a melancholy undercurrent to it, most notably in the final moments of the film. Camilla is drawn back to the stage, reassured by the leader of the troupe that the only place she will ever find happiness is when she is pretending to be someone else. Camilla notices that the Viceroy, Ramon and Felipe are all gone. "Part of the audience, now," Don Antonio (Odoardo Spadaro) tells her. "Do you miss them?" Camilla pauses. "A little," she says, before Renoir cuts to a wider shot of her standing at the proscenium arch. In this scene, it's unclear whether Camilla actually can find happiness in the theatre. What is most important throughout the film, it seems, is the idea of possibility. Real life will eventually force Camilla to choose one of the lovers, and yet her decision at the end (to give the golden coach to the bishop, and therefore to stop the Viceroy from being overthrown and to have Felipe and Ramon released from prison) returns all three of the men to the role of potential love interest. It's interesting that the arrival of the bishop feels like such a deus ex machina, because within the wider frame of the film it makes very little sense. Camilla suddenly hits on a 'solution' that seems to conveniently restore everything to how it ought to be, but it does so in such a quick and efficient way that it feels very artificial.

Does it happen at all? At the beginning and end of the film, the curtain rises on a stage which shows part of the Viceroy's palace (the image seen above, with the Viceroy’s chambers through the door at the upper left, and the street behind the golden coach at the lower half). The opening and closing moments are explicitly a stage play, but the camera moves onto the stage and enters the world of the 'play' seamlessly. What was two-dimensional becomes three-dimensional. My gut interpretation of what is happening here is that the viewer is drawn into suspending their disbelief, as they do with all films. We enter the world of 1700s Peru, and the plot carries on happily enough until the end. Camilla has to choose between an unsatisfying but real end to her story, or to retreat into theatre and fiction. She chooses the latter, and the implausibility of it is so violent that it throws the viewer back out of the fictional world, back to the other side of the stage. We're back in the audience again, with the complicated people who don't fit neatly into a comedy plotline.

What we do get to do, though, is reflect on what we're seeing. There is a vibrancy in The Golden Coach that doesn't appear in many of Renoir's other films. Renoir makes the images colourful and lively, and this vibrancy is in itself entertaining. We're made to laugh at the antics, the effete lip-service that the nobles give to the king, the duels seen briefly through open doorways, and the timing of the commedia plays themselves. The mediocre acting (outside of Magnani) gives the film a roughspun, poor-theatre quality which is invigorating. We probably can't do what Camilla does and immerse herself permanently in this world, but Renoir's film makes no secret of the fact that he clearly thinks it's vital that this world exists, and that we're able to visit it from time to time.

#1001 movies #The Golden Coach #Jean Renoir

[moonshinesapphic]

So you were disappointed in Throne of Glass...

 (DISCLAIMER: This post does not intend to offend anyone who loves ToG. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and likes and dislikes and is allowed to express that. This post is meant to share books that have similar qualities to ToG for people who were disappointed in the series, like myself, but anyone who does like ToG can absolutely find great recs here! However, if you don’t want to hear anything ToG critical I recommend skipping over this post. Thank you!)

So last week I finally got rid of all my ToG books. I was mostly relieved that I now have more room on my bookshelf but I also felt a little sad. It was a series I really enjoyed when I first read it two years ago, and on some level it will always have a special place for me. It was one of the many books that got me back into reading after a five year slump, it’s the reason I became friends with the wonderful Nicole (@/rainbowbooktheif on Instagram) who was the first person irl to make me feel less alone as a bookish nerd, and it, unintentionally, helped me hone my critical reading skills. However, I slowly began to care less and less for the story and characters as the series progressed and ended up not reading the last two books because I just stopped caring. I wondered why a series that I loved so much in the beginning went down hill so fast for me, but in the process of falling out of love with ToG I realized I wasn’t the only one who felt this way about the series! The lack of diversity (and misrepresentation/mistreatment of diverse characters when they were there), sexism, lazy editing and lackluster world building, among other things, came up many times for me and other former ToG fans when discussing why we became disappointed in the series. But the pitch for the book (badass morally gray assassin taking down a tyrant king for her freedom, so cool!) and some of the elements (romance, female friendships, magic, trials) sounded so amazing even though in the end it was executed poorly. So, I decided to compile a list of books that I have read and loved that have some elements and themes of ToG. This list is by no means exhaustive and is limited by the books that I have read (which is not many when you look at how many books exist in the world) so I would love to see your recommendations! Please feel free to add onto this post any recs that you have! Now onto the list!

1) Graceling by Kristin Cashore

I read this book the summer before I started ToG and completely loved it. It was one of the early books that got me back into reading and it was honestly the perfect book for that. It was exciting and I couldn’t put it down. It follows an assassin for a tyrannical king who begins to realize her own gifts for killing are more then she ever thought they could be. Cashore does a fantastic job developing the lead character Katsa and the ways that she dolls out information to the readers slowly is impeccable. While this book is technically the first in a trilogy of books taking place in the Graceling world, it can be read as a standalone fantasy (which I feel like are very rare). Another part of this book that I really loved was the romance. I usually don’t read very many straight romances (due to the sexist/problematic aspects many of the ones that I’ve read have) but the relationship between Katsa and Po is honestly a breath of fresh air when you’re used to a lot of toxicity and sexism with cishet romances in books. The two take care of each other and their relationship is very balanced. There are no gender roles pushed on either of them and they truly grow to become a team throughout the story and it’s wonderful to see! I would consider Katsa and Po, while canonically cis (there isn’t any explicit queer rep in this book), both quite androgynous characters who often express themselves in a fluid manner which I really appreciate. Over all this is an amazing classic YA fantasy that everyone should check out!

Synopsis: “Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight—she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but Graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug.

She never expects to fall in love with beautiful Prince Po.

She never expects to learn the truth behind her Grace—or the terrible secret that lies hidden far away . . . a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.

With elegant, evocative prose and a cast of unforgettable characters, debut author Kristin Cashore creates a mesmerizing world, a death-defying adventure, and a heart-racing romance that will consume you, hold you captive, and leave you wanting more.”

2) Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

This book is the first in a five book series about three royal sisters raised to battle it out for the throne. I must admit the first book in the series is a little lackluster due to the fact that it’s setting up a lot but the second book just blows everything out of the water in a fantastic way. This series is dark and bloody and intriguing. I got completely hooked on this series and it brought out a lot of emotion to the point where I was gasping and shouting and throwing my book around as I was reading it (I got very invested)! I think that’s one of the things SJM can do well is get you hooked on her characters and Kendare can do the same (if not better). I love the dynamic between the sisters, this book does a great job at exploring the darker side of familial and female/female relationships (mostly platonic.. there isn’t very much queer rep unfortunately) that I really appreciate. The magic system and wolrdbuliding are also something that I enjoyed and I though was quite well done. Kendare does a good job at weaving in worldbuilding and magic system seamlessly into the story and I love that so much. Three Dark Crowns is just a fun and exciting series that I think anyone who loves fantasy YA should check out!

Synopsis: “ In every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born—three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.

But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins.

The last queen standing gets the crown. “

3) The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

So a little disclaimer, this book is one of my favorite fantasy books of all time. I read it over the span of a few months last summer (its a long one guys...800+ pages) and it was one of the greatest, most well thought out fantasy books I’d ever had the pleasure of reading. I loved the characters, the world, the plot, the magic system etc. I loved everything! There’s some great political intrigue, dragon riders, epic battles, prophecies, weddings, funerals, romance and just general badassery and kickassery happening. Shannon clearly put so much time and effort into this book and it shows. That kind of dedication that shows is something that I really appreciate in a book, especially a fantasy book. Another aspect that I loved so so much is the diversity in this book. It came so naturally and didn’t at all feel like tokenism. The characters, with their differing genders, ethnicities, sexualities, ages, and nationalities etc, and their relationships with each other are truly what made the story. This book also has one of the BEST f/f romances I’ve ever read (as a queer woman I really loved that representation so much and felt very connected to both of those characters). Priory is a long one but if you have the time I highly recommend it.

Synopsis: “ A world divided. A queendom without an heir. An ancient enemy awakens.

The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction – but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained to be a dragonrider since she was a child, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep. “

4) Truthwitch by Susan Dennard

As a queer woman, I’m always a little on edge when someone mentions f/f friendship in a book. This is entirely because of the erasure many many f/f romances experience when they are just brushed off as friendships (we’ve all heard the term “gal pals”). It’s frustrating and even though I love a good f/f friendship when the f/f romances get erased and replaced by friendships it gets exhausting. However, Truthwitch is a true f/f friendship that I can fully get behind! Dennard is an author that I had been following for writing tips for a while before I finally picked up her book. I knew that she’s someone who is invested in making her series diverse, even if she herself doesn’t fit into those categories, and accepts criticism because she want’s to do her characters justice. That’s something I really appreciate seeing from white cishet authors and is one of the reasons I picked up Truthwitch. It’s so much fun and the heart of the story truly is the relationship between the two leads Safi and Iseult. Their friendship reminds me a lot of my relationship with my friends. Books about f/f relationships (romantic or otherwise) are few and far between so I really love that this book exists. Strong platonic relationships are so often pushed aside for cishet romantic ones so it’s SO refreshing to see a series where the book would not exist without Safi and Iseult’s bond. They are truly soulmates and their relationship with each other is the most important one in their lives and that is just beautiful. Not to mention this book has got an awesome magic system and is building up to an amazing fantasy series! There’s pirates, priestesses, princes and, of course, witches! It’s loads of fun all around!

Synopsis: “ Young witches Safiya and Iseult have a habit of finding trouble. After clashing with a powerful Guildmaster and his ruthless Bloodwitch bodyguard, the friends are forced to flee their home.

Safi must avoid capture at all costs as she's a rare Truthwitch, able to discern truth from lies. Many would kill for her magic, so Safi must keep it hidden - lest she be used in the struggle between empires. And Iseult's true powers are hidden even from herself.

In a chance encounter at Court, Safi meets Prince Merik and makes him a reluctant ally. However, his help may not slow down the Bloodwitch now hot on the girls' heels. All Safi and Iseult want is their freedom, but danger lies ahead. With war coming, treaties breaking and a magical contagion sweeping the land, the friends will have to fight emperors and mercenaries alike. For some will stop at nothing to get their hands on a Truthwitch. “

5) Monstress by Marjorie Liu (Writer) and Sana Takeda (Illustrator) 

Another disclaimer! This book is my favorite graphic novel, period. There is really nothing like Monstress out there and I think that it’s criminally underrated. Liu and Takeda are the perfect combo of writer/artist to make this GN come together. I’m constantly in awe of the world, characters, and story Liu built and the frankly stunning art Takeda creates to go along with it. It’s steampunk and dark and dirty and beautiful. The lead character, Maika, is one of the few truly morally gray characters that I’ve read. Her decisions will make you question if you’re a good person because you still love her despite the fact that she just killed that guy... and that guy... and those other guys. This graphic novel series is very reflective of the dark animes (like Tokyo Ghoul and Castlevania) that we are seeing more recently and I personally believe Monstress would make a fantastic animated series if it were ever to get an adaption. This book has also some great representation of queer women (Maika herself is a queer, disabled, WoC). It’s totally the norm for the world and all of the lead female characters are queer, which I just love. This story has amazing woldbulding, magic, characters etc. It’ll give you everything from giant dead gods, to talking cats with multiple tails, to demonically possessed teenage girls who need to eat people. It’s honestly amazing. (I would give a major trigger warning for blood/gore so as long as you know you can handle that I think you should check it out!)

Synopsis: “ Set in an alternate matriarchal 1900's Asia, in a richly imagined world of art deco-inflected steam punk, MONSTRESS tells the story of a teenage girl who is struggling to survive the trauma of war, and who shares a mysterious psychic link with a monster of tremendous power, a connection that will transform them both and make them the target of both human and otherworldly powers. “

6) The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen

I never thought I would love a cishet romance as much as I love this one but here I am. The Bridge Kingdom is not really the kind of book I would normally pick up but it was on sale on kindle so I thought “why not!” And I was not disappointed. This story follows the assassin princess, Lara, who was raised to be married off to her fathers rival kingdom and kill the king. However, things get sticky when she begins to actually fall for the king and starts to realize that her father isn’t exactly who he says he is. Not only was this romance steamy as hell (this is an ADULT book folks so there are some explicit sex scenes, beware) but the world is super cool. The political intrigue was something I really enjoyed and I loved to see the world unfold from Lara’s eyes. I also totally loved Lara’s character. She’s complicated and cutthroat but ultimately want’s to do what’s right and is a character made to change and develop. I usually don’t go for that character trope that Lara fits into (beautiful and badass and despite being the MCs they somehow end up being very bland...) but Jensen managed to create a very mature and ever changing version of the YA trope that I ended up loving completely. If you love steamy fantasy romances with cool worlds and intriguing characters this is absolutely the book for you!

Synopsis: “ Lara has only one thought for her husband on their wedding day: I will bring your kingdom to its knees. A princess trained from childhood to be a lethal spy, Lara knows that the Bridge Kingdom represents both legendary evil - and legendary promise. The only route through a storm-ravaged world, the Bridge Kingdom controls all trade and travel between lands, allowing its ruler to enrich himself and deprive his enemies, including Lara's homeland. So when she is sent as a bride under the guise of fulfilling a treaty of peace, Lara is prepared to do whatever it takes to fracture the defenses of the impenetrable Bridge Kingdom.

But as she infiltrates her new home - a lush paradise surrounded by tempest seas - and comes to know her new husband, Aren, Lara begins to question where the true evil resides. Around her, she sees a kingdom fighting for survival, and in Aren, a man fiercely protective of his people. As her mission drives her to deeper understanding of the fight to possess the bridge, Lara finds the simmering attraction between her and Aren impossible to ignore. Her goal nearly within reach, Lara will have to decide her own fate: Will she be the destroyer of a king or the savior of her people? “

#the bridge kingdon #danielle l jensen #graceling #kristin cashore #monstress #sana takeda #marjorie liu #truthwitch #susan dennard #the priory of the orange tree #samantha shannon #three dark crowns #kendare blake #tog #book recomendation #book lover #booklr #book list #fantasy book #fantasy book recomendation #anti tog #queer books #queer book recs #anti sjm #bookworm #graphic novel #ya books #my post

[violethowler]

The Heroine’s Journey of Sora

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks writing out my thoughts on Kingdom Hearts and the way the series follows the framework of the Heroine’s Journey. Rather than a bunch of drabbles or a single long-winded post, I’ve decided to break up my explanations of the Heroine’s Journey and the way Kingdom Hearts fits into it as a series of ten essays posted weekly. I will put up a masterpost once all of them are finished, and in the meantime I will have all of them on my blog under the tag ‘Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine’s Journey.’

Due to the length of this essay, I will be putting the full thing under a cut. 

What many Kingdom Hearts fans do not realize is that while Tetsuya Nomura does sometimes make up the details as he goes when it comes to the writing of Kingdom Hearts, he does do things with a plan. 

In the KH3 Ultimania [1], he talked about how he’d had the conclusion of the Dark Seeker Saga outlined by the end of Kingdom Hearts II’s development. In an April 2012 interview [2] with Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, he indicated that he’d had a general framework up to Kingdom Hearts II planned out when the original game was first announced. And in a 2004 interview after the original Chain of Memories was released on GameBoy Advance, he mentioned that he’d already come up with the “last scene” that would serve as the definitive ending of the entire series[3]. 

So while some details may be hard to predict because Nomura comes up with lore and backstory details as he goes, he does have a plan in mind where the overall story is going. And the central arc of the series is entirely predictable once you understand the framework that the story fits into. 

Since the late 1800s, scholars have been studying the common patterns that repeat in stories, legends, and myths across different cultures around the world. One of the most well known templates developed from such research is the Hero’s Journey. In his 1949 book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, literature professor Joseph Campbell published a 17 step formula of storytelling. Campbell held up this framework as the monomyth, an ultimate narrative archetype from which all other stories are derived, and in discussion of his work expressed his view of The Hero’s Journey as a universal framework that showed how people grow from youth into adulthood.

However in the 1980s, Maureen Murdock began work on her own narrative framework. Believing that Campbell’s view on the universality of the Hero’s Journey did not encompass the experiences of every identity like he claimed, Murdock developed what she called The Heroine’s Journey as a critique and response to Campbell’s monomyth. Other authors have shared their own variations of the Heroine’s Journey, but for the purposes of this analysis, I will be focusing on Murdock’s model. Hers is both the oldest one I know of, and the one that I personally have the most familiarity with. Though originally conceived as a therapy tool, the core concepts of Murdock’s template have resulted in its use in storytelling for narratives about protagonists overcoming the ingrained biases and preconceptions of society. 

Some notable examples of stories that follow the Heroine’s Journey template, albeit most with different formulas, include 

Beauty and the Beast

The Hunger Games trilogy

The Princess and the Frog

Tangled

Howl’s Moving Castle

Labyrinth 

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy*

Voltron: Legendary Defender*

*Note: Voltron: Legendary Defender and the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy are examples of 3-act narratives that followed the Heroine’s Journey framework in the first 2 acts only for behind-the-scenes conflicts to result in the formula being abandoned in the final act. 

Despite the name, it is possible in theory to have a male protagonist follow the Heroine’s Journey, much like how you can have a female protagonist in a Hero’s Journey.  While nearly every story I know that follows the Heroine’s Journey template has a female protagonist in the lead role, Kingdom Hearts is the first example that I’ve discovered of a male protagonist following this formula. Sora’s arc across the series follows Murdock’s framework so precisely that I was able to correctly predict the broad strokes of how Re:Mind would go three months before the DLC was released. 

Part I: The Beginning

While the Heroine’s Journey mimics the Hero’s Journey in its early stages, it ultimately goes in its own direction. I plan to go into further detail about the differences between the two in a later essay, but for now I will say that while Campbell’s monomyth describes physical plot points and the themes they represent, the Heroine’s Journey formula focuses on the emotional conflict of the narrative and the psychological development of its main characters. The pattern of the Hero’s Journey is fluid and doesn’t have a fixed central theme, while the core element of the Heroine’s Journey is a protagonist coming of age in a society that consciously or not regards them as lesser because they do not fit in with the expectations of the dominant social group. 

I know that some people who decide to read further will be put off by the fact that the names and descriptions of the Heroine’s Journey feature gendered language and focus on discussions of masculinity and femininity, so allow me to explain. The reason for this is that in a Heroine’s Journey, the protagonist is attempting to conform to a set of traits that the audience’s culture values. In pursuing this external validation, the main character has to suppress a vital part of who they are, cutting themselves off from achieving their full potential. The traits they are suppressing are the ones which are often regarded as feminine, while the ones they are trying to conform to are typically associated with masculinity. We see this pattern frequently in movies where the female lead tries to succeed in a male-dominated career field, only to feel lonely and unfulfilled when she finally gets what she wants because she sacrificed the parts of herself that made her who she is along the way. 

Now that I’ve given you a relatively brief summary of the Heroine’s Journey, I can get down to business and walk people through the steps to this template and how it fits with the story of Kingdom Hearts. Note that this is only a basic rundown of the steps of the Heroine’s Journey and how it relates to these games, and I will be posting additional essays shortly which go into greater detail on the themes, character archetypes, and other different layers of the framework that are present in the series. 

Murdock’s version of the Heroine’s Journey begins with the “Separation from the Feminine”. This is the stage where, as mentioned, the protagonist suppresses a core part of themselves in pursuit of external validation. It often takes the form of the protagonist sacrificing their emotional strengths and focuses exclusively on proving themselves in the physical sphere. Sora has demonstrated again and again that his greatest strength is his empathy and his willingness to make connections with others. It makes him a strong unifying force because of how well it complements the people around him. But because this isn’t something tangible in the same way that physical strength is, he doesn’t see the value of it, believing that without the strength of his friends he’s nothing. 

From the way the other kids on Destiny Islands talk about their competitions, Sora’s focus is on trying to prove that he’s just as strong and capable as Riku is. But he’s so focused on proving himself in physical challenges that he doesn’t notice the signs of Riku’s jealousy that lead his friend into the arms of Maleficent. And we see through Anti Form and Rage Form that Sora is still repressing his own negative emotions in Kingdom Hearts III. His narrow focus on external skills has cut him off from achieving the full potential of his internal ones. 

When Sora awakens in Traverse Town after the destruction of Destiny Islands, we come to the second stage of the Heroine’s Journey, “Identification with the Masculine and Gathering of Allies”. This is where the main character chooses to align with the traits and roles that the dominant social group sees as desirable in order to achieve their goal, and where they acquire the allies who will help them in their quest. With the adults around him focusing on his ability to destroy the Heartless, Sora latches onto the Chosen One status that implicitly comes with having a Keyblade. His interactions with Phil and his disappointment with the status of Junior Hero in subsequent games paint Sora as being focused on heroism in the sense of overcoming obstacles with force. Even Donald and Goofy, in the beginning, are focused on Sora’s value as a Keyblade Wielder in terms of how their fight against the Heartless can lead them to King Mickey’s location.

By setting off with Donald, and Goofy, Sora embarks on the “Road of Trials” stage of the Heroine’s Journey. This is one of the few points of similarity between the Heroine’s Journey and the Hero’s, corresponding to Campbell’s “Tests, Allies, and Enemies” stage. This is where the main character faces the initial obstacles and challenges of their quest. In the first few Kingdom Hearts games we have Sora face off against Maleficent, Ansem, and the Organization, before reuniting with Riku and Kairi in The World That Never Was. The final stages of Kingdom Hearts II correspond to the “Finding the Boon of Success” stage of both the Hero and Heroine’s Journeys. 

Part II: Interlude

In a Hero’s Journey, the Boon of Success is the end of the story. They slay the dragon, save the princess, and go home to live happily ever after. I suspect this is one reason why a lot of gamers in the KH fanbase tend to think of Kingdom Hearts 2 as the best game of the series - because in their minds Sora’s quest had been completed now that he had found Riku and Kairi like he set out to do in the first game. His journey, as far as they were concerned, was done. 

(This may also have an affect on how some fans reacted to Kingdom Hearts III, expecting it to be a grand epic finale that wrapped everything up with a bow and left a completely blank slate for the future of the series)

But in a Heroine’s Journey, the Boon of Success is not the end of the main character’s story. They have achieved their external goal, but they have not addressed their internal motivations for seeking that goal in the first place. And as their story continues, they find themselves facing challenges that their attitude thus far has failed to prepare them for. Finding The Boon of Success typically occurs early during the second act of the story. Usually it is achieved in the second half of Act II, but can sometimes happen as early as the end of the first act. For Sora, this was of course finding Riku and Kairi so that they could all go home to the Destiny Islands together.

But because the protagonist of a Heroine’s Journey has not addressed the underlying insecurities which set them on their current path, they “Awaken to Feelings of Spiritual Aridity”. 

They begin to learn that the conflict they find themselves involved in is not as clear cut as they previously believed, and the challenges that come with this new knowledge are ones that their current way of doing things has failed to prepare them for. They may have found their boon of success, but things quickly begin to go wrong until they are ultimately forced to sacrifice their reward. 

The first game already showed through Riku and Mickey that Sora was not the only person able to wield a Keyblade, but because of his heroic deeds the story still framed him as the Keyblade Master and treated him as having a more significant role to play in important events than anyone else. It’s only after he hears from Mickey of the Keyblade Wielders who came before him that it begins to sink in for him that being a Keyblade Master is not a special Chosen One status. He thinks that because of all that he’s accomplished, he doesn’t need the recognition that comes with the official title, and because of that he’s careless and almost gets himself Norted at the end of DDD. 

His failure in the exam is a blow to his self confidence and shows that despite what he had said at the start of the test, deep down he really does want that kind of external validation. His insecurities and doubts continue to eat at him over the course of KH3, culminating in his breakdown at the Keyblade Graveyard. Outside of battle, we see him bottle up his doubts and other negative emotions because his friends (Except for Riku. More on him later) brush his concerns and problems aside. It is very much like Joy from Inside Out doing everything to keep Rylee happy and refusing to let Sadness take the controls. 

When their current way of doing things ultimately costs them their boon, the protagonist tries to go back to the way things used to be. To return to a simpler time and avoid the pain of the present. When literally going back to where their journey began isn’t possible, a Heroine’s Journey story will use this stage symbolically. The main character will cling to a person, object, or relationship that they associate with a simpler time. But as comfortable as the sense of familiarity they get from that is, it ultimately cannot truly address their inner pain in the long run.

This is reflected in the Re:Mind DLC, where Sora goes back in time in order to find the pieces of Kairi’s heart and bring her back. One of Kairi’s most consistent character traits is her fear of change and desire for things to remain the way they were. 

At the end of the DLC, Sora compares his connection with Kairi to the bond between Ventus and Chirithy, a friendship explicitly strained by distance, time, and Ven’s amnesia. In an interview at E3 2018 [4], Nomura commented about Kingdom Hearts III tying into a theme of childhood friendships changing as one gets older, a plotline that Merlin calls attention to after Sora’s visit to the 100 Acre Wood. And in a 2006 book titled Character’s Report Vol. 1, Nomura specifically calls attention to Kairi’s anxiety about growing apart from Sora and Riku as they get older. [5] All of these details combined frame Sora’s quest to save Kairi as an attempt to symbolically recover the innocence he lost when he began his journey.

But while he is able to find a way to renew his connection to Kairi, it can never be the same as it was before, and attempting to go back to how things used to be is ultimately doomed to failure. By the time he brings her to The Final World at the end of Re:Mind, Sora has realized that he and Kairi cannot stay on the same plan of existence anymore as a consequence of his actions. So he takes her on a tour of the worlds to re-establish their connection before fading away at the end of KH3. Thus, we come to the final act of the Kingdom Hearts narrative. 

Part III: The Future Story 

It is at this point that the protagonist of a Heroine’s Journey begins the “Initiation and Descent to the Goddess” stage. Having failed to achieve meaningful success through their old way of doing things, they must look inward and examine the cause of their insecurities and accept that in order to move forward they need to heal themselves. In this step, the main character travels to either a dream world or a physical location that is closed off and forbidden to them, like the West Wing of Beast’s Castle in Beauty and the Beast. In Jungian psychology, this metaphorical dark cave represents the main character’s subconscious, and entering it triggers a dark night of the soul for our protagonist as they are forced to confront the parts of themselves they’ve been keeping locked away.

While Sora knows in his head that darkness is not inherently bad, he continues to rely entirely exclusively on light, on his connections to others, and has not properly accepted it in his heart. In order to truly finish his coming of age narrative, Sora must learn to balance his inner light and darkness the same way that Riku has. And to do that, he needs to look inside himself and figure out why he feels so badly that he needs his connections to others in order to be strong. And in order to achieve that level of understanding of himself, he needs to understand his Animus. 

Derived from the psychological theories of Carl Jung, the Animus in a Heroine’s Journey is an external representation of the protagonist’s masculine-coded traits in physical form. While not every Heroine’s Journey features an Animus, many of the stories I’ve seen that follow the formula do. Usually the Animus appears in the form of a deuteragonist who often functions as the protagonist’s Shadow, an archetypal character that embodies the aspects of the main character’s personality that due to their immaturity they either aren’t aware or don’t want to acknowledge that they have. 

In order to complete their character arc, the protagonist must symbolically integrate with their Shadow by learning to embrace the parts of their psyche that the Shadow represents. In many stories the protagonist has more than one Shadow figure, all of whom challenge the protagonist by forcing them to become faster or smarter to stay one step ahead, giving their interactions with the main character a push-and-pull dynamic as they drive the main character to grow. Shadow figures who fill the role of the Animus also challenge the protagonist to look inside themselves and examine their own emotional needs. With an Animus, the push to grow runs in both directions, with the main character motivating their Animus’ growth just as much as the other way around. 

In these types of stories, every aspect of the character is tailored to make the Animus and the protagonist fit together like Yin and Yang. In visual stories such as film, television, and video games, the Animus’ entire look is designed to complement the main character and they are framed in the narrative as the protagonist’s equal physically, intellectually, and spiritually. This serves to emphasize that despite their surface differences, much of the conflict between the protagonist and their Animus comes from the ways in which they are fundamentally similar. While their circumstances may have led them to drastically different lives, the characters are ultimately two sides of the same coin, and their character development is driven by learning to balance their contrasting traits.

And within the structure of the Kingdom Hearts series, there is only one character who fulfills all of these qualities in relation to Sora’s journey. 

The same character who Testuya Nomura said in the KH1 Ultimania was designed to balance Sora; [6]

Who series producer Shinji Hasimoto said was part of the core of the series alongside Sora [7], as has been repeatedly emphasized by the number of games where he is given a major focus and is a playable character alongside Sora. 

[Image Description: Riku walking towards a door to light in the opening of Kingdom Hearts III. End Description]

While Sora and Riku have addressed some of the latter’s behavior in the first game during their conversation on the dark beach at the end of Kingdom Hearts II, they have yet to truly dig deep into why Riku felt the way he did in the first game. Riku has not told Sora about how he felt like he was being left behind and forgotten. And since that conversation, Riku has gone to the opposite extreme, dealing with his emotional problems on his own instead of lashing out at others like he had done at the start. Likewise while Sora has accepted that darkness is not inherently evil he has yet to apply this to his own negative emotions, as seen in Kingdom Hearts III. Neither character has truly achieved an ideal balance yet, and they cannot until Sora completes his journey. 

After the protagonist returns from their spiritual journey, they experience an “Urgent Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine.” As the main character recovers from their period of soul searching, they embrace the parts of themselves that they had neglected in their pursuit of outside approval. Their Descent allowed them to recognize their value as a person and an individual outside of their ability to fulfill the role that they were expected to fill. Following this realization, they go about “Healing the Mother/Daughter split”. Reclaiming the aspects of their personality they’ve been repressing gives the protagonist the clarity necessary to gain a different perspective on their old way of thinking. This new understanding is what will allow them to find the inner balance needed to truly complete their journey. 

The Japanese version of the “My friends are my power” mantra often repeated across the series is “Connected hearts are my power.” For Sora, who has long relied on his connections to others as a source of strength, he should come to realize that these connections go both ways: that his friends draw strength from him just as much as he draws strength from them. This should help him come to accept that he is still strong and worthy all by himself. Ven’s version of the mantra from the English version of BBS summarizes it best: “My friends are my power. And I am theirs.” After he accepts this, Sora will finally be able to use the full extent of his emotional abilities.

After achieving that new perspective, the protagonist’s next step is “Healing the Wounded Masculine Within”. This is the stage of the Heroine’s Journey where the main character, having come to understand themselves, reconciles with their Animus, thereby symbolically integrating the aspects of their psyche that the Animus represents and permanently healing the rift between the two characters. This will be where Sora and Riku need to have a longer, more in-depth conversation than the one they had on the Dark Magin at the end of KH2. Where they talk about why Riku acted the way he did and finally address the underlying reason for why he was so jealous of Sora in the original game. 

The final stage of the Heroine’s Journey is the “Integration of Masculine and Feminine”. This is the point at which the main character and their Animus finally achieve a perfect balance between them. They are united both internally and externally. There are no more secrets between them, and they are now free to move forward and overcome the main antagonist together. 

Part IV: Conclusion: 

While there’s too many different possibilities to completely predict every twist and turn of the series’ lore in future games, once you understand how Kingdom Hearts fits into the framework of the Heroine’s Journey, the broad strokes of how the story will go in terms of Sora’s growth and character development are entirely predictable. When Re:Mind first released and the rest of the fandom was reacting on Twitter, I was sitting back with a smug smile on my face thinking:

[Image Description: Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi sitting aboard the Death Star II with the caption ‘Good, Good. Everything is going according to plan.’ End Description.]

While I didn’t expect the precise mechanics of how Sora went about saving Kairi, Re:Mind was exactly what I expected it to be in terms of themes and its place in the Heroine’s Journey framework, and then the Secret Episode came along to reinforce that the next game is going to be Sora’s Descent.

While there isn’t a complete guarantee that the series will continue to follow the formula, I find it extremely unlikely that it won’t. Kingdom Hearts follows the stages of this framework too precisely for me to ever believe it happened by accident. So as long as there is no corporate interference from Disney like what happened to Voltron, I’m confident that Nomura’s plan for the finale of the series will be exactly what the Heroine’s Journey predicts it should be, no matter how unexpected future additions to the lore may be.

Special thanks to @dragonofyang and the rest of Team Purple Lion for everything I know about the Heroine’s Journey. I wouldn’t be as enthusiastic about analyzing the story of Kingdom Hearts if they hadn’t taught me the vocabulary to realize the kind of story that Nomura has been telling right under my nose for the last 18 years.

Sources:

[1] “Kingdom Hearts III Ultimania interview with Tetsuya Nomura”; March 12, 2019

https://www.khinsider.com/news/Kingdom-Hearts-3-Ultimania-Main-Nomura-Interview-Translated-14763

[2] “Iwata Asks: Nintendo 3DS: Third Party Game Developers, Volume 12: Kingdom Hearts 3D [Dream Drop Distance], Part 3: Square’s Intentions”; April 2012.

https://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/creators/11/2

[3] “2004 GMR Nomura Interview 2004!”; Translation by Kingdom Hearts Insider posted May 5, 2012. 

https://www.khinsider.com/news/GMR-Nomura-Interview-2004-2563

[4] “E3 2018: Tetsuya Nomura on If Kingdom Hearts 3 Is the End of Sora's Story”; June 14, 2018.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/14/e3-2018-tetsuya-nomura-on-if-kingdom-hearts-3-is-the-end-of-soras-story

[5] “Character’s Report Vol. 1 Translations”; Jul 16, 2014

https://www.khinsider.com/forums/index.php?threads/characters-report-vol-1-translations.195560/\

[6] “A Look Back: Kingdom Hearts Ultimania Gallery Comments Part 1″; August 30, 2019;

https://www.khinsider.com/news/A-Look-Back-KINGDOM-HEARTS-Ultimania-Gallery-Comments-Part-1-15519

[7] “How Kingdom Hearts III Will Grow Up With Its Players.” September 24, 2013

https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/25/how-kingdom-hearts-iii-will-grow-up-with-its-players

[X] “The Heroine with a Thousand Faces”; June 13, 2019;

https://www.teampurplelion.com/heroine-with-a-thousand-faces/

[X] Murdock, Maureen. The Heroine’s Journey. 1990.

[X] “Maureen Murdock’s Heroine’s Journey Arc”. The Heroine Journeys Project. https://heroinejourneys.com/heroines-journey/

#kingdom hearts meta #kh analysis #meta analysis #kh sora #kingdom hearts and the heroine's journey

[goonlalagoon]

We start small || Leagues and Legends

A series rewrite AU for @ink-splotch​‘s fantastic Leagues and Legends books.

Spoilers for the whole trilogy below!

Read on Ao3

 When George was fifteen, her village left her out for a dragon. The blacksmith slipped a knife up her sleeve as they went, and in the press of bodies she couldn't ask him why. She could only guess at what mercy he was handing her. The villagers would live with shame under their tongues for the rest of their lives, but they would live. The dragon ruled the hillside, great and golden, scales bright against the purple lupins that bloomed there every year, and they pretended it was fear that made them shudder at the sight.

Maybe Jack still survived the bandits who attacked the merchant caravan he was travelling with. Maybe he travelled on with them, bounced from place to place until he found a cause to throw himself into, on some distant shore far from the Forest where he had grown up. Maybe he didn't, one fourteen year old boy with no training and no battlefield experience, just a big heart and a bit of luck on his side.

There was no Dragon Slayer. It would be years before someone earned the old title Giantkiller, and it wouldn't be a red headed forest boy who tried to stand tall under the weight of that history.

Liam Jones powered the towns and villages of the mountains for weeks. The Seeress was almost blind with the burning light that drifted up through the floor, and the afterimage it left behind when it finally winked out was almost worse. There were no tales in the mountains of the Pied Piper.

Beatrice Tanner would never know any of their names.

On the day when in another life she might have opened her door and let a third soul into her shuttered heart, Bea woke as always before the sun to put the bread on to rise, and while the ovens warmed she rolled her dog eared map out over the old wooden table and traced her fingers over hidden paths and scant shelters. She had a network, small but growing, owed petty favours and moments of kindness. She had a list of lives saved, and a list of those she knew were at risk and could possibly be convinced to leave. She had a list of losses, a bitter sting under her tongue and a cold motivator to keep trying.

People still didn't believe her warnings, most of the time. They hushed her for telling children to be careful, to be hidden, and she did it anyway whenever she saw gold glittering in the corner of her eye, when she saw children play with sparks that didn't burn. Maybe they wouldn't believe her, but maybe they'd check over their shoulder anyway. Maybe the children would curl their hands into little fists and ignore the skin of the world pressing in on them, scared by this woman who hissed nightmares at them in the street. She didn't want children to be afraid, but she wanted them to be safe, and when there was a monster on the loose fear was what kept you alive.

She said as much, one day at a market, snapping warnings at children and glaring at the uniformed man who'd asked her what she was scaring children for. She had no patience for coddling, and she had little for the Bureau either. But this one blinked at her, and scratched at his clean shaven chin. 

"Stealing mages? Say, d'you mind repeating all this to Sarge? He's the boss of our League, and this sounds like something we should know about." Bea eyed him suspiciously, but the possibility of getting more people to help outweighed her faint distaste for the Leagues. 

It was only a few weeks later that May told her that it was really just May, not short for anything despite what the Bureau paperwork said. Bea wasn't quite sure whether this was a sign of trust or of just how much May wanted to get out of her padded armour and into something that didn't chafe quite as much on the healing gash down her side.

Sarge had sent coded reports back to headquarters, and was glaring at the responses. Flash was twisting his fingers, safe with his training and his league, staring sleepless at the ceiling with visions of those who weren’t keeping him awake. They couldn’t give themselves wholly to this cause; the Rangers had a job to do and it was one that badly needed doing - but part of their job was to keep people safe from monsters, so when they left they took some of her gathered information with them, and kept their eyes open. 

They sent her news, dropped by the markets they knew she liked to give her the names of people who had helped, people who believed them when they whispered warnings. They sent people to her, frightened or angry or numb, but always desperate, and she sent them on. She didn't ask anyone to be a hero, because heroes were for stories and legends, for Bureau badges and official postings. She just asked people for a little bit of help, and then they offered it again and again. 

It was over a year after she met them that they sent her the Giantkiller. 

Kay had thick ropes of scarring over his side and arm, the pockmarks of claws pressed deep into his shoulder. He was a child when rocs tried to carry him off, struggling and screaming. He was lucky - the Rangers heard the commotion and brought the beast down, two arrows in its heart, a net of golden fire to catch him as he fell, to pour into gaping wounds and knit flesh back together. When they had to stay camped out for a day while the mage weathered an Elsewhere storm, their Guide showed him how to mix a paste to help the scars heal out of ingredients he could find within an hour’s walk of home.

His father's fury when he said after they left that he wanted to be a Leaguesman too was a burning thing, a bitter thing. He jerked his head down the road the Rangers left by, and listed every time they could have been of use before one lucky day. Kay fiddled with his spoon, because it was true - but that was the point of joining up, wasn't it? To be the person who was there when he was needed. But his father was bitter, furious, so he held his tongue. 

When his father was out working in the field and Kay was supposed to be chopping wood, he fenced the air with a stick for a sword the way he'd watched May and Sarge practice in the early morning, as they let Flash sleep late to regain his strength and they kept a wary eye out for any returning rocs. He stumbled over his own feet and knew he was no good.

When he was younger, he'd practiced with his sling until his fingers blistered, and his father smiled over the small game he brought in, the crows he scared away from the crops with a sharp stone to the claws. Kay practiced still, every day, and now he imagined bigger targets.

The rocs came again, as they did every year, and one tried to carry off not a child but the neighbours' sheep. Kay sent it crashing back to the ground. Its neck snapped as it landed and he stood over it, shaking and fierce and frightened. The men arrived at a run from the barn, and Kay's father looked proud and scared and bitter. 

"You see?" He said, later, when they’d butchered the carcass and he was watching Kay sort the feathers he'd asked to keep. "Rocs every damn year, and no Leagues here to help."   

Kay hummed, non-committal, thinking but I was. 

He was too young for the Leagues anyway, he knew. But he wasn't too young to help, so when there were rumours of Things haunting the woods nearby he slipped out his window in the grey dusk and went hunting. He had a handful of mage spelled stones, even if they were spelled for gentle warmth not damage, a gift from Flash to help ease the ache in healing limbs. The Things shrieked like the stones burned, and he was sick behind a bush afterward but the nest was gone, and Things shriek but he'd heard the families who’s homes were closer to the woods than his weeping too, and he knew which he'd choose. His father was pacing when he got home in the soft light of dawn, and he knew without asking where Kay had been. He knew what Kay was making himself into and he was furious and so scared, but Kay couldn't go back to waiting for someone else to save his people. 

Kay set out the next morning, when his father was already out in the fields, working off his anger on the weeds. He packed a satchel of food and clothes, his sling and pouches of stones. He slipped the little carved flute his father made for his last birthday into the side of his bag, and set off down the road, refusing to look back.

When he met the Rangers again, it was in the shadow of a giant, the wreckage of a village. They were too late to help bring it down, but they found him digging through the fallen buildings for survivors. Sarge glanced at the sling at his hip first and Kay tensed. They were already whispering about him, the survivors, about the Giantkiller and his sling, and he knew the price of being a vigilante. Sarge said nothing, just gripped the other end of the beam he was trying to lift, hauling it up so Kay could drag the wounded boy underneath into the light.

They had a hushed conference, the Rangers and the Giantkiller, carefully out of sight because they could only shirk this particular duty if no one knew. May shook her head over him but bullied him through a basic staff work drill. Sarge watched, and nodded thoughtfully when Flash muttered "think the Baker could use a field agent?"

His story rolled ahead of him, growing as he went. He cleared a nest of Things in one village and took down another roc in a narrow pass, had a brief run in with bandits that he barely survived. He helped stock a woodpile for a hot meal and repaired a fence for another. There hadn't been a Giantkiller in the memory of anyone younger than his grandmother, and he listened to the old stories that were being dusted off. He hoped no one expected him to live up to all of them. 

Bea heard him out, polite but not friendly, and he tried not to shuffle in his seat under her level gaze. She shrugged, eventually, and let him tag along as she smuggled a woman and her sister through the checkpoints in her cart. Kay tucked his sling out of sight and played a sullen teenager for all he was worth so that she could scold him loudly and the guards would shake their heads over the disruption instead of searching through the carefully stacked flour bags.  

Someone wrote to her a week later saying they had a wyvern problem - people had long since started writing to the Baker for any help they needed and couldn’t afford from official sources, to see if she knew someone who could help. She sent Kay as a response, and he came back with a burn on his leg and pockets full of scales, scrubbed clean - but he came back. She grew to expect it, became used to keeping his room ready and leaving space at the table for him.  

The first time he broke into the Graves' keep, he slipped out of the bakery after she'd gone to bed. They hadn't reached these ones in time, and he'd watched the way her shoulders fell and her lips thinned when he came back too soon, no rescues in his wake and no stories about how he'd helped them escape. He'd looked at her map, and thought but I'm still here.

The keep was easy to break into, because no one else was fool enough to try, and the Seeress was still working her way into her father's toolkit. He'd never held a lock pick but he knew how to remove hinges from a wall so he opened the doors that way, until one of the terrified mages shook off the stupor and started melting through them for him. They fled, and he scrawled the ward diagrams Flash had sent to Bea in the dirt for his rescues to copy with the sparks of power that were left to them. They had suspicions, Bea and the Rangers, dark thoughts about how their foe was finding prey so easily. They had wards that would cloud them from the sight of a seer, briefly, enough to break a trail, and they worked.  

Kay led them to the bakery, where Bea fed them and sent them on, and when the house was empty again she wrapped her arms around Kay and hissed don't you dare do that again, don't you dare Kay, you don't disappear on me. He nodded and promised, but they both knew he meant he wouldn't slip away in the night. Kay was young, true, but he wasn't a fool. He could promise not to go without a word, but he couldn't promise he'd come back. 

There was no Dragon Slayer, no Piper, a different Giantkiller - but it had never been just about those three friends. They were the ones whose legends were told, but theirs had never been the only hands buried in this war.

In a different village, there was a girl with the Elsewhere pulling gently on her bones. Kay took a warning, because if he and Bea had heard of her then so would the Graves’, and her sister narrowed her eyes at him as she went pale with fear. For all that he was the messenger not the threat, Kay took an instinctive half step back. "If anyone thinks they're taking my sister, they're going to get what's coming to them."

Rosie and Susie had friends, and those friends had already lost people to the machines, vanishing in the night and dropping out of contact. When Kay warned them, told them what he knew, they listened. They planned. When slavers came in the night, Elsewhere cracks tucked in their pockets, they thought this would be easy. The Seeress had seen an orphan girl with magic. If she had seen anything else, it had been shadowy faces with nothing to make them stand out. This is the peril of a Seer; you fall into the habit if thinking that if you don't see something it can't matter.

Slavers came in the night, and never left.  

They started calling them Snow White and Rose Red, these sisters with deep roots in the mountain soil who grit their teeth and refused to run, refused to hide. Theirs was a mountain village, no Bureau-sanctioned guard and no walls to defend them, so they built their own. Bea smuggled out every person unwilling to become a civilian soldier, who wanted safety not defiance, and the rest built a fortress.  

Kay helped, hands familiar with hammer and nails, the cost of freedom. He made friends, not just with the sisters but with Doc and his sons, the taciturn blacksmith and his two apprentices, the cheerful woman who ran the inn and the cynical one who presided over the fledgling community garden, with a few scattered kids his own age with fire in their veins and fear in their eyes.

(Or was it fear that ran in their blood, twitching at shadows and hearts pounding when they woke at night, and fire in their eyes, a stubborn, worn down fury?)  

They named it Challenge, carved it deep over the main gate, a name and a purpose. 

Their first siege had been a holding action in the mines, Doc and his sons collapsing tunnels and digging new ones until winter came on and forced the Graves' soldiers back to their own walls. The vigilantes stayed in the mines, huddled together for warmth and comfort, elated and terrified at their own victory. Rosie and Susie roamed the passages, after, speaking to everyone and inviting a selection to a council - Kay was invited too, and sat awkwardly listening to them lay plans for rebuilding, how to build sturdy walls the moment the snows cleared enough. Their second came days after they carved Challenge over the gate, while Kay was still getting all of the sawdust out of his hair.

He went back to the bakery afterward, to pour over maps with Bea and be sent out on missions. They couldn't save everyone. They couldn't save most people, but some was better than none. Kay stared at the ceiling through long, sleepless nights, trying to convince himself that it was okay that he couldn't work miracles. People knew him by sight, now, and some days he didn’t feel he should be looking over his shoulder whenever they called out Giantkiller!

It was a long, slow war, their quiet campaign against the Graves family. Bea’s network grew and grew, despite their heavy losses - mages who escaped and ones who didn’t, the non-magical casualties who weren’t quick enough with a lie or a dodge, or were simply unlucky. Susie and Rosie were a fierce pair, exchanging razor sharp letters with Bea to plan out strategies and contingencies.

(It wasn’t until after his third siege at Challenge that Kay would realise that Bea had never actually met either of the sisters; she had never met Marian, either, but they had never communicated directly so it was easier to recall. The sisters and the Baker sent word back and forth for years, but barely knew anything of each other outside of their shared plans besides what he could pass on - for all that Bea would like to see Challenge, there was bread to bake and travel could be dangerous. Better not to give the Seeress any reason to look again at this sleepy village that she and hers had already gutted for fuel.)

Kay was no natural physician, but he helped to wrap bandages in Doc Frederickson’s infirmary whenever he was in Challenge, between meetings and sentry duty. In the streets and villages people expected him to be a hero; in the infirmary, Doc just expected him to be useful. He cracked bad jokes as distraction, fetched water, and peered over a bewildered man’s shoulder at a neat formula that someone had stumbled through the gates clutching. She didn’t remember where she’d found it, but it had been tucked into the lining of her coat. There was a note on the front in her own handwriting, for all she didn’t recall writing it - My first rabbit was called Snowball, and this is real, not a joke.

Doc’s hand shook so badly that he had to put the unfolded note down before he dropped it. Kay clutched the edge of the desk hard enough to hurt, looking between the message and the woman sat on the edge of an infirmary cot, gold dripping sluggishly from her fingertips to pool on the fabric. It would stain, leaving smudged hand-prints on the sheets and faintly in the mattress below, but they would consider it a miracle not a nuisance. She was sitting, fingertips trembling but no worse this morning than they had been any day of her journey north. She had been dragged from the cells, away from the machines that should have killed her, and rather than dying grateful for a final view of the sky she had found herself weeks to the South, in a town she hadn’t known and a recipe in her pocket in handwriting she didn’t recognise.

It wasn’t a cure, but it was still something no-one had thought to hope for. It was a medicine, true, but it was also a message: somebody, somewhere, was trying to save their mages too. They weren’t the only ones resisting this blight.

This, too: after that first midnight venture of Kay’s they had never been able to rescue anyone from the Graves’ keep. They had fought to prevent people being taken, rescued people from mage warded wagons, hissed warnings to make people hide or flee. They had built a town, walls and watchtowers, a beacon of resistance. But they had never managed to make their way into the keep itself undetected a second time, for all the desperate families who had tried, for all the curses the Seeress and the Mayor hissed when they found the doors open and cells empty. Kay and Bea would exchange long looks over the bakery table, and wonder who on the inside was setting people free and laying the blame at their convenient feet.

(In a lab none of them had never seen, Jillit Chu was saving life after life of people who she knew would never remember her name, secrets written in invisible letters on her skin when she went home at night. Thorne was pouring over reports, Jill’s own records, Jeremiah’s much less successful and yet officially far more vital analyses, the dispatches from his spies in the mountains. He wanted the Graves family dealt with, of course - but he wanted their secrets, too. Thorne was a Bureau man, and while Mayor Graves was always careful not to upset the Bureau, he was no more affiliated with them than the vigilantes that plagued his operations. It had never been the means of production that Thorne objected to, or the Graves’ would have been out of a business years before.

Spider didn’t know this; Andrew Molina had given years of his life to bring the machines down, weaving a web to tear it all down. He was trying to find a gap in his plans to let Sandry slip through; he knew where Sam had gone even if she didn’t, thought if he could get her out too then there would be a life for her away from the wreckage of her father’s dreams. If he had to, he knew he would let her fall with it and take the regrets, but he was an excellent Bureau agent - he liked his odds for achieving both. He wasn’t reaching out to Sam just yet - they were working to weaken the system, but it was slow work. The Baker and her resistance were an irritation, but they weren’t yet causing enough of a disruption to have materially disrupted production, to have strained the system, to be convincing the less dedicated that this was a fight they were going to lose.

Thorne had other agents, he knew, and they heard things the Spider didn’t. Reports that when put together said that this was going to be the work of more cold years - he measured them in people lost, and tried when those the Seeress saw were children to make sure he was spotted on the road, that whispers spread before him, warnings. He couldn’t let everyone slip away, not if he wanted to bring it all down, but he tried to save as many as he could - he felt every mage who burned for other people’s light as a weight on his shoulders. He kept walking, the Seeress’ right hand man, and did not stumble under that burden.)

Robin Hood died on an otherwise unremarkable winter’s day, stumbling back to the treeline with them, held up as much as their rescues. Marian’s hands didn’t shake as she lit the pyre, and Kay wondered if she would stay that cold for the rest of her life. She left with a handful of the Merry Men, the ones who’d been thinking of warmer pastures or those like her couldn’t stand to be beneath the trees without Robin. Kay wasn’t sure if she was angry at him or the world - Marian wasn’t, either. She had fought sieges at his side, before he begged Robin’s help for the last time; she knew his history, this mountain born boy who became a legend. She wouldn’t write to him or the Baker, but Little John would drop mentions into his occasional messages, and some days she was glad for the news.

When Kay had first stumbled into the Woods, an injured mage leaning on his shoulder and pursuit on his heels, it had been Marian who coolly shot down the armed guard and guided them beneath the trees. She had helped bandage up his rescue, and Robin had dropped down next to him at the fire. Kay wasn’t sure he had ever felt as safe as he did that night, curled up beneath the towering trees with their cheerful assurances that he didn’t need to worry about any armed followers tracking him here, dozing off in a borrowed bed roll on the hard ground. The Merry Men weren’t all kind to outsiders, but they loved Robin and respected Marian - if they were told he was a friend, he was a friend. Kay watched the smoke rise, the snow melting around them, and wondered if Robin would still be alive, if Kay hadn’t thought of him as a friend.

The remaining Merry Men stayed out of the fight, after that, nursing wounds physical and metaphorical, but Little John made it clear that the paths through the trees were still open to Kay and his rescues. More than one trembling mage and their shaken family were escorted safely south by the Merry Men after a night or two beneath the trees.

It was a long war, and Kay measured it first in months rather than days, then years rather than months; the Seeress was spreading her gaze further afield as the mountain villages became wary, as anyone with sparks at their fingertips fled before they needed warning. Kay gained scars from vicious brawls with guards, with the long limbed Spider, a bullet wound in the shoulder that would ache in the cold for the rest of his life from Spider’s deputy.

Kay was by no means the only person fighting this war, but he had become one of the lynchpins, the one who most often acted directly against the Graves’ network - his was the face the Seeress saw most in the wake of plans dissolving like smoke. She had a bespoke curse tucked in a pocket, and one vindictive day she set it loose. Bea watched the Giantkiller turn pale, shaky on feet that a moment before had been steady, and crumple. She caught him before he could hit the ground, and carried him gently to his room. She sent out frantic messages through her network, looking for healers, looking for anyone who could help. After three nights of fever, Little John crept into the bakery, cradling a pouch in his large, gentle hands. He was no trained healer, but he knew old stories, knew how to walk into the shadowed trees on a full moon night and ask for help for the deserving. He did not know what he had done, to mix this medicine, but when the sun had risen it had been in his hands.

Kay spent another three nights tossing and turning, but he woke with the sun on the seventh day. It would take weeks until he felt fully rested, and Little John warned him that full moons would make him restless for the rest of his days. He spent his time sorting Bea’s correspondence and helping her in the bakery, until she declared him fit for field work again. Even then they were wary, cautious. They had no doubts who had sent a curse to strike him down, for all they sneered at the hypocrisy - they watched for any sign that the Seeress had known where to strike, but found nothing amiss.

One morning, Kay woke to the sound of shattering crockery in the bakery below; he was wary, fresh bruises on his knuckles and sleeping light, recently home and still listening for ambushes. He crept downstairs, and found Bea pinned to the wall of her own kitchen with strings of golden fire, the butter dish broken on the floor. The slingstone he pitched through the door landed, but its target had moved in time and took a glancing bruise to the arm rather than a blow to the head. She held up calloused palms, but he could see the gun at her hip and the gold holding Bea in place: he wasn’t fool enough to think that she was anything other than ready to take him down if he moved. She smiled, a precise and practiced thing. “Hello. Apologies for breaking in, but I needed to speak to the Baker and the Giantkiller, and I believe this is the right address?” Her smile turned feral, a fierce grin that looked more at home on her lips. “I’m an agent from the Bureau quiet branch, and I thought you might want to know we’re planning to bring the Graves’ down in a few weeks’ time.”

Bea made a scoffing sound, the gold fire glittering off her eyes, and the woman flicked her fingers to twist the fire into nothing again. Kay itched to go to Bea, check that she was alright, but he knew better. There were two of them and one armed intruder - better to keep her looking in two directions, for all that she seemed to think she was on their side, for all that he had no doubt which of them would win, if it came to a fight. Kay had years of experience, true, but you didn’t make it to being a field agent with the quiet branch without a fearsome skillset to your name.

She eyed their distrust with amused, approving resignation, and patiently laid out the bones of the web she and Spider had been steadily weaving, the tipping point that was coming. Kay frowned at the hints, puzzling out tactics, and Bea traced her fingertips over her map - the markers of lives saved, the ones of lives lost. There was an empty room upstairs she still couldn’t bear to use, years later. Kay did not and would never know that sometimes when Bea woke from nightmares these days they had been about waking to find the house cold and the curtains in his cosy room billowing in the night air, for all that he was no more a mage that she was. She eyed their guest with as much professional disregard as the woman had shown her, breaking into a house warded over the years by careful, grateful hands as though it was nothing.

“And why now? Why are you and yours only tearing down the Graves’ now? We know who you are, Agent, and for all I’ve heard of you you’re in the Graves’ pocket, the Spider’s precious protege.” She curled a lip, a mountain woman from a village that couldn’t afford walls, that had begged and begged for Bureau protection and been told to come back with gold in their pockets. “Why have the Bureau decided that now they can deign to get involved? Why are you here, breaking into my home, to tell me you’ve finally decided to care enough to stop it?”

"They killed my brother," snapped Laney, an old, bitter hurt - and the Baker looked back at her coldly, as though that didn't explain anything at all.

"They've killed a lot of people." The sharpshooter stiffened, hand twitching as though she might have gone for a gun if she hadn’t needed them alive. Bea didn't flinch from the movement, expression hard and unforgiving. "How many have you helped them kill? I could tell you, I think, because I hear almost everyone's story about the ones they lost, sooner or later. Do you know what we call you, when we whisper warnings? What legend did you think you were building, in your brother's memory?"

The Ballad of Agent Jones

Laney Jones had stumbled at her brother’s beloved heels for years, until he left the desert in search of new horizons. Years later, she had followed in his footsteps once again, Academy papers in her pocket and a handful of hard-won fire clutched close to keep her warm on the journey. She was planning to find her big brother, one day. She was going to show him what she could do, what she had made of herself, and she was going to see the pride in his eyes once again. It was a warm thought, one she had clung to through cold nights of hidden practice and long days of doubting her worth.

In her second year at the Academy, armed men broke into the fish shop where her study group were having their first meeting. When Thorne took her aside in the days after, to have a private chat with such a promising young woman, he glanced over her skin tone and the name in his file, and paused. He asked, carefully, if she had any connection to a Liam Jones, another powerful mage he had heard of. Laney beamed with familial pride, and a certain quiet joy that she had been put on the same level as Liam. "My brother, sir. He whistles up his magic, though I never had the knack for it."

Thorne called her in again a week later, for another chat, but his face was serious and even the glint of his glasses seemed subdued. There was a thin file on his desk, L. Jones scrawled on the outside. Laney's heart froze, because she knew there was no reason for the Bureau to have files on her, not yet.  

"I am sorry, miss Jones, but Liam Jones died almost seven years ago, in the mountains." He pushed the file towards her, sympathy but not pity in his voice. "There are people there who - deal in mages. It seems that there was no one to warn him to hide." He pressed a clean handkerchief into her hand and went to fetch water for the kettle. He could have called for someone to bring them tea, but Thorne understood that people sometimes needed a moment alone with their grief.

The contents of the file had been heavily redacted, because the work of the Bureau quiet branch investigating the trade in mages was an ongoing thing, and a sister's grief didn't give you rights to all of the carefully gathered details. But there were a few stark lines that were intact - a description, a date of capture. A short summary of a doomed escape attempt that made her smile with fierce, pained pride. A date of death.

What had she been doing, that day? Where had she been, when her brother's song vanished from the world?  

Thorne made her tea and made no comment on her damp eyelashes, told her she could speak to him at any time if she felt she needed someone who was aware of the situation to listen. He asked for her family's contact details, so that he could write to tell them the terrible news personally. He straightened the papers on his desk and promised to tell her when he sent it, in case she wanted to write as well, but he said that it shouldn't be her job to break it to them unless she wanted it to be.

Laney signed the quiet branch's letter of employment before the week was up.

She would never run the backstreets of Rivertown with Rupert; he would perhaps have trusted Sez, Bart and their secret, steady work to fellow Academy students, if a bit warily, but not to someone with Thorne looking over her shoulder from the beginning. Laney spent her spare hours at the Academy in the library or out on the firing range, and felt trapped, burning in her own skin.

When the battle of Driftwood Island came, when she realised that the monsters of fire were slipping in from the Elsewhere, it was Thorne she went to, to say she could help; she stitched the rift closed while the Rangers held their own in the wreckage above. She didn’t tell Thorne how she’d done it, exactly, but she agreed that they shouldn’t tell anyone it had been her - no point in making her a target, after all.

(Laney wouldn’t remember any of this for years;  until then, so far as she could recall she’d spent the whole battle helping to shield sections of lower Rivertown from fire damage. If there was a gap in her recollection - well, it was so easy to lose track in your first real battle, for everything to blur together. The Rangers couldn’t recall exactly who had stitched the rift up while they bought time, and it nagged at them for years, too)

On her first day at the Bureau’s quiet branch as a junior agent, Laney made her way to Thorne's office, shoulders carefully square and chin held level, and asked him what she would need to do to become part of the group working on the mage slave trade case.   

Thorne had known her brother's name, his description; not just the dates of his disappearance but those of his escape attempt and death, the clinical numbers documenting how much power had been wrested from his bones. Laney had known, even in the midst of grief - these were not things you could learn without someone on the inside. These were not things you knew, the shadowy quiet branch of the governing powers, unless you had plans to do something with the information.

Laney had her own plans; she had always intended to use the Bureau just as much as Thorne had planned to use her.  

When the Seeress saw her, Spider’s newest potential recruit, she smiled slightly in recognition, sinister and small. She asked Laney why she was applying to a role with the Graves' network. Laney had looked her dead in the eye, shoulders relaxed and everything gold around her shining true.

"My brother was a mage, a powerful one. I grew tired a long time ago of being a shadow because I don't have gold dripping from my fingers."

Neither Kay or Bea trusted the Agent and her casually mentioned ally - Spider had been a nightmare in the mountains for longer than Kay had known of this fight, and had never slipped into the Baker’s net to whisper secrets to her deputy. In another life, the Baker’s right hand had been a girl who saw nothing but blood and ash on her palms, who had once let a whole village die, unseen, because she wanted to live; in another life, the Spider had been confident that the Dragon Slayer would understand the price he was paying. He would have offered himself as an informant, trusting in her pragmatism to take his information and keep the source to herself. In another life, Bea had years of listening to George talk haltingly about the place she had once called home, the dragon they had given her a legend for, and would have listened to her, taken the information even if reluctantly.

But the Giantkiller had no such weight on his shoulders, and Spider had spent too long working himself into the Graves’ good graces to risk his position on that kind of gamble.

They didn’t trust Agent Jones or the Spider, let alone the Bureau man with twinkling glasses who slipped into Challenge with a promise of information and a cheerful litany of all of Kay’s illegal activities, but they couldn’t afford not to take their warnings. Challenge prepared for another siege, hunkering down to withstand whatever the Graves’ threw at them, and Kay decided when the Rangers arrived to support the defenders that his life was worth the gamble and followed two shadowy spies into the Keep, a decoy captive.

He’d been here just once before; after that, the Mayor had finally listened to Sandry’s murmurings about weak points in their security, and no-one had broken into the keep since. Spider let them in through a side door, and Kay shuddered as it clicked closed behind him. They burned the machines, Agent Jones lighting the mage blasts, but the engineer wasn’t there, the careful blueprints and plans stored somewhere other than this cold office. Kay turned a corner and ran into the Seeress, the first time he had seen her face to face. They stared at one another, frozen; she was frantically figuring out how the Giantkiller had made it into the keep unnoticed - and he had no idea who he just run into, unsure if he should tell her who he was and hesitating to use force on someone he thought might be an innocent.

Spider stepped up behind him, and the Seeress’ cold mask slipped, fractured as she looked between them, Sandry feeling her steady ground shift beneath her feet. Spider’s hand settled warningly over Kay’s shoulder, yanking him back and cuffing him to a stair-rail to keep the boy in place as the recognition dawned, while he frantically whispered at Sandry - telling her to leave, to slip out of the side door and hide, that she could join her brother and start over. The Seeress snapped out sharp retorts, demanding to know what exactly the Bureau knew of her baby brother, and Kay felt an abrupt, unwelcome fellow feeling - he knew what it was, to fear the extent of the Bureau’s files, to want the names of you and yours kept secret. The Seeress was trembling, torn between drawing herself up and in, hurt and terrified of showing it, and wanting to trust, for just a little longer, that the Spider was on her side.

Mayor Graves turned the corner, calling for the Seeress, his useful little monster, because someone had been in his office, burned his papers to ash. He was clutching a weapon that pulsed gold (in the cells below, there was a trembling body, the magic in their blood ripped free and pushed into a new vessel), concerned but not frantic. He spied Kay, and his face broke into a smirk. Spider stood with a relaxed stance, hand on his holstered gun, face a mask while he weighed options. The Seeress straightened her spine. Her father had told her all her life that mages were selfish, hoarding power, that their work was a sad necessity for the wellbeing of the many.  He was holding a gun that took that power and put it in his own two hands - Sandry had made Spider teach her to shoot years ago, on the quiet, because she wanted something she could do, to defend herself and her brother, something to hold onto that would give her power that didn’t rely on words. She knew that this was a power he had made for himself to cling to.

The Giantkiller was a child, still, and almost as young as her brother had been when she pressed a bag into his hands and told him to flee. Her father was pointing a gun at a boy barely older than his son, and everything in him was twisting gleeful with it. She murmured, dispassionate, that the boy might have useful information. That Spider should take him downstairs for questioning, to find out about the gaps in their defences - a security breach such as this must be investigated carefully, for all their sakes. Spider could dispose of the pest, after. Mayor Graves had never been in the habit of listening to his daughter, and she wanted to scream it at him as he dismissed her again without even a word.

The Mayor took an experimental shot at the Giantkiller, burning the ground by Kay’s left leg to cinders, and crumpled to the ground. Agent Jones slipped out of the shadows behind him, ash dusting her fingertips, pistol held steady and familiar in her hand. She glanced down at the body, cold, and wondered if she would regret never getting to tell him exactly why she’d taken aim, a sniper’s precise shot under cover of his own.

Spider stepped casually in front of Sandry, and with a glare Agent Jones holstered her gun before striding briskly by both her mentor and the Seeress to release the bindings holding Kay in place.

“C’mon, Giantkiller. Let’s get you back to your friends at Challenge, and the boss in here to sort out everything else.” She slid her eyes sideways towards Spider. “I’ll be sure to tell him that you have the Seeress in your custody, sir.” Spider gave a resigned sigh, but made no other objection. Kay felt he ought to protest, to argue against leaving the Seeress unchained, to snap that it should have been him who took down the Mayor, but this had never been just his fight, for all his was the name the Seeress had hissed in the wake of foiled plans. He let himself be guided out, Agent Jones brisk and efficient, a polite smile pasted on her face.

Thorne was waiting for them outside, cheerfully confident in his Agents and the Giantkiller. He told Kay that Challenge had withstood the final siege, but couldn’t tell him the cost. Kay, seething, bit his tongue at the man’s oily reminders that in the quiet branch’s service, any messy rumours about illegal activities would be swept under the rug. The Giantkiller jerked his head back at the keep. “The mayor is dead, but the Seeress is still alive in there.” Thorne pursed his lips, nodding. “Good, good. The mayor had to be removed, though alive would have been…preferable. Young Cassandra can take over, however, to maintain consistency - with supervision, of course, before you say anything.” Kay scowled. “She fed mages into his machines for years.” Thorne smiled at him, condescendingly, shaking his head like a kindly grandfather.

“We cannot simply remove every political figure we disagree with. She is young. She will be managed. You should be making your way to Challenge, however. I’m sure your friends will want to hear the good news.” Agent Jones watched the boy stalk away, carefully keeping her face neutral. She was an old hat at manipulating people, after years of practice - she could see that Thorne was trying to collect another recruit. She could also see that he was going about it in entirely the wrong fashion, but she didn’t think it was worth pointing that out.

Thorne glanced at her sideways. “The mayor is dead, Agent Jones?” “Yes sir. An unfortunate necessity to avoid further loss of life.” He heaved a sigh, but didn’t question it. “Very well then. Let us go and debrief Spider, and explain the new order of things to Miss Graves.”

Even with the Mayor gone, the keep was still hostile territory; Agent Jones was on high alert, so when she heard a door click softly closed as they walked through the entry way she waved Mr Thorne on ahead of her, waiting until Dadlus thought it was safe to emerge again. She tackled him to the ground, and had him cuffed and cursing by the time Thorne, Spider and the Seeress made their way back down the stairs. Thorne’s face turned gleeful when he saw her captive. He rubbed his hands together. “Excellent! Good work, Agent Jones.” The Seeress’ head snapped toward him, eyes widening fractionally in surprise before he spoke. “I have a Bureau engineer who desperately needs to pick your brains, particularly as it seems the Giantkiller was able to burn all of the blueprints. You're going to be very valuable to us.”

Spider was staring between Thorne and Dadlus, ice slipping down his spine as he put the pieces together, discovered the game Thorne had been playing all along. He had spent years working in this keep, shoulders weighed down by so many lives he had been unable to save, who he had sacrificed to ensure he could bring it all to an end. He took three long steps forward and slid the knife he always carried up his sleeve between the engineer's ribs. "I didn't let children die for years so the Bureau could turn around and do the same thing all over again." Dadlus slumped to the ground, blood pooling under him. Thorne went for his gun, but Agent Jones was quicker - in a different life, it would have been dragon’s fire that killed Gerald Thorne, but in this one it was handfuls of Elsewhere fire that Laney had been carrying around her wrists for years, hidden even from the Seeress.

Cassandra stared at them both over the cooling body, shaken - she had always seen everything, every secret and every weakness, and here she found both: her lieutenants had been hiding secrets upon secrets, tucked carefully away where she hadn’t found them, and so she was weak where she’d thought her back was guarded. She wondered if it would be a bullet or a blaze that came for her, whether Spider would help or if he would pull her out of the way.

Agent Jones didn’t glance her way: she and Spider were eying each other, weighing up their priorities and potentials. Spider wanted Sandry to go free - she had barely been an adult when he arrived at the keep, for all that it had taken him weeks to discover she wasn’t cold years older. He had realised within those first months of working his way into her network just how young she must have been, when the Mayor told her she was a monster and turned her into a tool.

Laney had always wanted revenge for her brother, justice for the other victims. She had burned the machines with glee and felt no guilt for shooting the Mayor down. She felt no guilt for burning Throne, either - she wanted the machines gone as much as Spider. But she knew who it was who had found her brother, who had sent armed thugs with Elsewhere cracks in their pockets after Liam. She had told herself she would feel no guilt for shooting the Seeress, either, even when she saw the date of birth in the briefing files.

But Laney had spent a year now with Sandry and the Spider; she remembered the squeaky sage in her second year study group, the one she still sometimes met in the University library to chatter over Elsewhere theory. She had heard Sandry talk about Sam, but she had heard Grey talk about Sandry, too. She thought she talked about Liam the same way, sometimes.

“Thorne said we would leave you in charge,” she spoke softly, as though the words were of no importance. “So we will. But you do not re-start operations, and Spider and I will make sure of it.” Agent Jones holstered her gun, turned to the Seeress, and raised an eyebrow. “But the people around here will freeze in winter, without help. Your people, now. So, I’ve a challenge for you - I know you’ve studied how the machines work, how to make them more efficiently. But have you ever tried to figure out how you can wrest this power from thin air and turn it into something useful?”

Laney Jones pressed her hand up to the skin of the world and broke it; in the glow of the Elsewhere she was radiant, and Cassandra would have shielded her eyes if she’d been able to bear looking away. All her life, she had been told that what they did was the only way, only fair.

She stared, eyes stinging, and thought I have never seen a mage burn so bright.

Kay spent the weeks after at Challenge helping to shore up the damage; Bea left the bakery to help, bandaging the wounded and scolding him for taking foolish risks. They knelt side by side in the community garden, repairing damaged trellises and trying to see which of the fragile growths could be coaxed back into health and which needed to be turned to compost. One water break, surveying the rows they’d managed to restore, he idly turned a stone over and said, “What are we going to do now? What’s next?” She didn’t pretend he was talking about the garden, though she didn’t reply until they were carting the next load of dug up plants to the compost heap.

“I don’t know. It’s been so long since I didn’t have -” And he put his arms around her and let her cry into his shoulder; Bea had turned herself to stone in so many ways, over the years, since she woke to a cold house and an empty bedroom, and now her war was won. There would be pieces to pick up, rebuilding that would take years. The Seeress was still in the keep, and for all that Agent Jones assured them she wasn’t going to be a problem it still sat bitter under both their tongues. It would take months for the mountain villagers to feel safe, for a child with sparks flicking between fingertips to inspire joy not terror. It would take years, a lifetime - several lifetimes. There was work for Bea to bury herself in still, but for now there was sun on her shoulders and there would be no mages lost in the night. For now, she could realise they were safe, as safe as you could ever be, and weep for all those who hadn’t been.

Later, shoulder to shoulder in the crowded inn, Kay would rest his head on her shoulder, quiet.

“I think I should go back to the farm, for a bit. See my dad, yeah? Make sure he knows I’m okay.” He nudged her with an elbow, gentle. “I’ll come back, though. But I promised I wouldn’t leave without telling you, so I am. I’m going to head back to the farm and get shouted at, so you aren’t even going to be the only one nagging me about taking risks, then I’m gong to come back to the bakery and chop wood for you.” She laughed softly.

“That’s your life plan?” He grinned, and it was a younger face that looked back at her than she’d seen for years. He was still a child, really, for all that he was growing tall and gangly. He shrugged. "For now. I’d like to go a few weeks with no-one trying to kill me, it’d make a nice change. Later - well. Maybe I’ll go get myself a Badge, I'm almost old enough. Sarge told me plenty of times he reckons I could do it, and I’ve daydreamed about it for years, you know? Be a proper Hero, join the Rangers as an intern. Agent Jones told me Thorne is dead - I didn't ask for details, I thought she might shoot me - and that I didn't need to worry about my name being in any paperwork with the Giantkiller, so long as I say Thorne was tragically killed in the fight with the Mayor. I could do it, if I wanted.” They sat in silence for a while longer, watching the crowd. After a while, Bea ruffled his hair gently. “Maybe you should go to the Academy, get yourself a career lined up. But if you’ll take an old baker’s suggestion - I think you’d make a better Guide, all things considered. You've had enough practice at being a hero.”

In the morning, before he set out for the old farm he hadn’t been back to in years, Kay climbed up the flights of stairs to the uppermost platform of the wall that surrounded Challenge. The wooden posts were riddled with marks, from flung weapons and the sooty streaks left by stolen mage fire, idle carved graffiti left by bored sentries - names and old in jokes, defiant records left when they knew they were all inviting battle to their doorstep. He stood looking out at the surrounding peaks as the sun rose, thinking about the Leauges and Bureau policy, about a roc digging claws into his shoulder and long summer sieges, the machines burning and Mayor Graves crumpling lifeless to his plush carpet, and dug out his pocket knife.

We were here.

#my writing #Jack is a Beanstalk #Beanstalk #Echoes of a Giantkiller #Remember the Dust #this one went way more off canon than usual #I was planning to spend more time with more of the background characters #Sorry Susie and Rosie I'll have to give you more screentime another time #because Kay kind of...took over #L&L fic #the mountain vigilantes never become the mountain vigilantes #other people still step up to the fight #Leagues and legends

[duhragonball]

So the only two Terminator movies I hadn’t seen were Salvation and Dark Fate, which was why I bought this box set.  I was looking forward to T4, but wasn’t very impressed with it.   T6, on the other hand, yeah it’s pretty damn good.  But, like T4 and T5, this was also meant to be the first part of a reboot trilogy, and just like T4 and T5, it didn’t perform well enough at the box office to make that plan a reality.  

I don’t know what the future for this series holds.  The Wikipedia article for Dark Fate talks about plans to make a Terminator anime on Netflix, which sounds pretty stupid to me, but I thought that Sarah Connor Chronicles show was a bad idea, and I seem to recall it did okay.  People seem to think there’s money to be made off this franchise, but it feels like each new attempt ends in failure, sort of like how Skynet keeps trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. 

Just to recap...

T1: Kyle Reese travels back in time to protect Sarah Connor from a Terminator, so that her yet-to-be-born son can lead humanity to victory in the Future War.  Ironically, Kyle turns out to be the father of Sarah’s baby.  

T2: Skynet sends another Terminator to kill John Connor, but the Future John sends a reprogrammed Terminator to protect him.   Meanwhile, Sarah Connor is determined to prevent Skynet’s creation.

T3: John Connor thinks the Future War has been prevented, but he can’t quite believe it.   After surviving another Terminator attack, John realizes that Skynet’s rise to power is inevitable, and he reluctantly accepts his fate as the leader of the human resistance.

T4: Fifteen years after Judgment Day, John Connor has to save Kyle Reese from a Skynet plot to wipe out the Resistance.  

T5: Repeated time trips and assassination attempts have left the timeline from 1984 to 2029 unrecognizable.    Skynet captures John Connor in the future and converts him into a T-3000.   This new John is tasked with facilitating the rise of Skynet in 2017, but he is defeated by Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese, and a T-800 sent from the future by an unknown benefactor.

There’s a lot of details that prevent these movies from fitting together into a single storyline, but the broad themes still make for a good meta-narrative.  The first movie introduces Sarah and the central conflict, the second movie introduces John and provides an origin for Skynet.   The third movie depicts the worldwide nuclear strike that marks the beginning of the Future War.   The fourth movie shows us the middle of the Future War.   Finally, the fifth movie depicts the end of the war and the part where Kyle goes back in time to start the cycle again.   Circumstances change from one movie to the next, but you can chalk these up as the result of all the various time travelers.    I mean, a lot of people get killed in these movies, and they sort of act like it doesn’t matter much in the long run, but it could add up in a hurry.  

Knowing all of this about the first five movies, I was really curious to see what the sixth one would even be about, especially with Linda Hamilton returning as an older Sarah Connor.  She was dead in T3 and 4, and T5 recast the role and overhauled the character.  Of course, T6 just sort of pretends those three movies never happened, but even so, what else is there to do with Sarah?

Well, Dark Fate opens with John Connor getting shot in 1998.   In this movie, the effort to prevent Judgment Day in T2 was successful, but Skynet had sent multiple Terminators throughout the 1990s to hunt down John, and they kept looking for him even after Skynet itself ceased to exist.  

It’s a ballsy move, but it’s almost inevitable.   They literally did every other thing there was to do with this story.   It’s not even the first time John has died to a Terminator.   The T-850 in T3 did the honors in 2032, albeit off-screen.   In T5, Skynet decided that it had to team up with John in order to win, so it turned him into a Terminator.   I’m not sure if he was killed in that movie or not, but it might as well have been his death.    But those were future versions of John, and Skynet’s goal was always to kill him before he could defeat it, not after.   And so, T6 decided the only road left was to let the coyote catch the road runner.

So John’s dead and Skynet’s gone, so now what?   Well it turns out there’s another dark future down the road, and this whole formula plays out again.  This time, the bad guy is a “Rev-9″ Terminator, sent to kill Dani Ramos.   But the Rev-9 isn’t working for Skynet, it’s working for Legion, which is just another AI that became self-aware, took control of the world’s defenses, etc.  

Ramos’ protector from the future is a human “augment” named Grace Harper.   She looks cool and kicks ass but she’ll run out of gas if she doesn’t take her augment medicine.   Also, she isn’t powerful enough to beat the Rev-9.   Luckily, Sarah Connor steps in and offers to help, because she’s been hunting Terminators ever since John’s death, and because she knows what it’s like to be in Dani’s shoes. 

Over the years, Sarah’s been getting tips on where new Terminators will show up from a secret informant, and Grace’s orders are to proceed to a particular location if things go poorly, and it turns out that’s the same place where Sarah’s been getting her tips from.  They go there and find an old T-800 named Carl.   Carl’s the one who killed John in 1998, and afterward he had no purpose and no further instructions to follow.  He eventually studied human behavior and developed the AI equivalent of a conscience, then married a human wife and helped her raise her young son.  

Sarah still holds a grudge, but they need Carl’s help to survive, so they all join forces to have a big showdown with the Rev-9.   Grace and Carl sacrifice themselves to help Dani win, and the movie ends with Sarah promising to help Dani prepare for the future that’s to come.  

At first, Sarah assumed that Dani would be the mother of the eventual leader of the resistance against Legion, just as John was fated to lead the resistance against Skynet.  But eventually it comes to light that Dani herself will be the leader who saves the world, and Sarah realizes that she’s the new John.   I guess that’s Sarah’s character arc for this movie.   She loses her own son, spends the next 22 years without a purpose, and then she discovers a new purpose.   It also allows Carl to redeem himself for John’s murder.  Now that he’s grown a soul, he can choose to die for Dani instead of killing for a Skynet that no longer exists.   Grace’s arc is probably weaker than the others, but she initially saw the Rev-9 as a threat that could only be avoided and not defeated, but in the end she stood and fought, so I guess that’s good enough. 

More importantly to me, though, is that T6 serves as an answer to the previous film.   Skynet was obsessed with John Connor, like he was the only thing that allowed humanity to defeat it.    So in T5, Skynet decided that if it could just convert John to its side, it would be unbeatable.    That always struck me as silly, because without John Connor, someone else would have stepped in to fill the void.  And T6 demonstrates this by introducing Dani.   Legion and Skynet might as well be the same idea, but even without John Connor, there’s another human leader who can rise to the occasion.   And if something happened to Dani, someone else would step up, and so on.   

Skynet thought it could win the war by defeating John, but it’s reasoning was flawed: it had to defeat what John represents, and there isn’t a Terminator powerful enough to do that.   As long as it kept pursuing the man, it would never succeed.  It would have to kill every human to achieve the victory it craves, but it couldn’t seem to make that work either.

So with that conclusion reached, I really don’t see where else this franchise can go.    They could do a movie about Sarah and Dani fighting more Terminators, but that would just be a retread of the previous movies.  And the outcome is already understood to be pointless.  Either Dani will prevent Legion’s creation in the present-day, or she’ll tough it out and win the Future War in the 2040′s.  We know that’s inevitable, or Legion wouldn’t have sent a Terminator back in time in the first place. 

This reminds me a lot of my initial thoughts after seeing Genisys in 2015.   It seemed like Skynet was getting increasingly desperate to find away to avoid losing the war.   It couldn’t beat the humans on the ground, and time travel never seemed to help, and hijacking John Connor didn’t help either.    Now we see that killing John would make no difference either.  So it seems like the only option left would be for “The Machines” to sue for peace, or accept defeat.    I’m not sure that would make for a very good movie.  

That might be the only major flaw I see in T6.   The action’s great, and I never got bored watching it, and the story is compelling, and it’s a great sendoff for Arnold Schwarzenegger if he ever stops coming back for more of these movies.   But it’s also kind of redundant.   This movie just reinforces lessons already learned in previous movies.  

I really hope this is the last one.  I suspect that a lot of the themes that made T1 and T2 so successful have been superseded by other franchises.  You can get a lot of the same gonzo action sequences out of an Iron Man or Captain America movie, and the threat of “technology gone too far” isn’t exactly novel anymore.  There was a scene in T6 where Dani’s brother lost his job to a robot, and that seemed downright quaint.    They were doing stories about that in the 80s.   T6 does some thought-provoking stuff with the Border Patrol and their detention facilities, but I’m not sure we need a Terminator movie to cover that ground.   I’m not saying the Terminator movies aren’t allowed to get into social justice topics.   It’s been doing that for decades.   But it’s hardly unique in that respect.   By now, the question James Cameron and the others need to be asking is “What problem would a new Terminator movie solve?”  It’s not going to be a financial success, and critics probably won’t like it.   So what are we going for here?  I’m not sure there’s been a good answer in a long time.

#mike watches the terminator

[bagheerita]

So I just finished Empire of Gold and need to gush about The Daevabad Trilogy for a minute.

(I try to be vague, but that's exactly when I up and hit you with low-key SPOILERS, so be aware.)

My rambling is only barely organized into the format of randomly selected topics in order to provide a vague outline for my outflowing of affection for each book.

CITY OF BRASS

Favorite character: Definitely Nahri. I love a woman who isn't afraid to go after what she wants, and boy howdy do I love me a pragmatist. AND do I love me a girl who can keep her head on her shoulders even when she's in-lust with man. As much as she is truly falling in love with Dara, she never forgets the way he looked at her when he thought she was shafit and his relief when Ghassan said she wasn't. She would have married him if he had offered I think, but she was smart enough to make him take the first step to cross the gap that his prejudice had put between them.

Most impressive thing: The way the author uses her narrator to tell a story that the narrative character doesn't always fully understand. This mostly comes through Ali's chapters at this point cause he's a little naive, but it's really skillfully done.

 KINGDOM OF COPPER

Least favorite thing: There are some moments that just felt... weirdly written. There's three big ones that come to mind...

At the beginning- the way the writing describes the environment. I'm paraphrasing because it's been a week since I read it and I don’t remember details, but it's like "the only sound in the graveyard was the distant sound of cats fighting" then, five minutes later "The only sound was the sound of coins jingling in her basket."  Like, where were those coins five minutes ago?! Also, why does an experienced thief put coins in a jingly basket that is easy to steal or drop instead of hiding them on her person??? (That's super nitpicky, but it was the first chapter, so I noticed it more.)

The second big moment that annoyed me was... okay so Dara learns that Muntadhir is bisexual through mind-reading powers that he's never previously demonstrated? I mean, there are enough clues about how he does it, and it makes sense to the character's history that he can sense peoples’ desires, but it felt weird that this is the only time we really see him use this power- here, as the inciting incident to the third act, where so much of the plot revolves around it. Dara already knew that Ghassan was planning to force Nahri to marry Muntadhir, they'd already talked about this, so I'm not sure what about Muntadhir being in a relationship with a man, as opposed to the multiple women he’s slept with this week, was enough to make this prospect so immediately repugnant that Dara goes absolutely stupid about it and incites the climax of the book.

Then there's the epilogue that basically just exists to point out what we already learned about Muntadhir and Jamshid. I thought that was kind of unnecessary, as no one in this epilogue scene, including the reader, doesn't already know about this relationship. Though the epilogue does also contain what I think was supposed to be foreshadowing, but which sent me off on a weird mental tangent where I spent most of the second book thinking Jamshid was the reincarnation of Rustam...

Favorite character: Muntadhir, hands down. There is one scene in particular, where he sasses Dara while dying of poison that is just my favorite scene in the entire book. I mean, I think part of my enjoyment was that I had been worried that he was about to be a victim of the Bury Your Gays trope, so when he shows back up still not dead I was so relieved to see him I literally squeeeed, and then he's bragging to Dara about something I explicitly know didn't happen, just actively involved in assassinating his own character because he has nothing else he can give to save his brother at that point except trying to distract Dara by enraging him... omg, do I love me some brotherly feels- my second favorite scene was the three siblings in a closet plotting a coup.

Least favorite thing: Dara lying to himself and justifying Manizheh's actions for the entire book. I get that the fact that he was lied to and betrayed by the people in power that he should have been able to trust is a big part of his arc, but I was not excited to have his POV added to this book just to have him and everyone around him spout off more prejudiced victim narrative bullshit every time I flipped to his chapters, like I wasn't getting enough of that from practically every other character in the story.

Most impressive thing: The author draws some really great parallels and contrasts between the 3 main characters and their journeys that I absolutely love. In chapter 2, Nahri says something like "Where's your sense of adventure?" to her new friend and then literally in the next chapter Ali says "Have you no sense of inquisitiveness?" to his new friend. (I don't like to call ships that early in the story, but I was like- these two are fated to be best friends if not something more.)  A bit later in the story, Dara is presented with a choice: to do the easy thing or to do the Right thing, and he chooses the easy path even though he knows that it's wrong. After this, Ali is presented with a choice: to do the easy thing or the Right thing, and he does the Right thing, even though he knows that it ultimately probably won't help. I just really love that this story always feels like every narrative POV and every chapter fully develops the character and contributes to the world. 

I also really love the twists and turns that Ali and Nahri’s relationship has taken over these first two books. They really have grown as individuals, and have believed the best and worst of each other, and understand each other in a way that is a great foundation for a truly lasting friendship (which is, of course, the best bedrock for building a more intimate relationship).

 EMPIRE OF GOLD

Favorite character: Sobek. I have a soft spot for unrepentant murderers who have a soft spot for the people they find interesting.

Least favorite thing: It ended? I know this book was long enough to be an entire trilogy on its own, but I would have loved more at the end from the side characters. Like, I want 100 more pages just about Jamshid and Muntadhir. I was explicit confirmation of what Zaynab and Aquisa are up to, and a sequel trilogy about their adventures. I want more about Fiza and what her plans are for the future. I want orchard shenanigans with Mishmish. I want more about Sudha and her family. I want more about Nahri conning everyone into making a functional government, and I want more about the trials of everyone in the city learning to not hate and judge as a first reflex. Just MORE!

Most impressive thing: Overall I was just impressed with this entire book. If I had to pick one thing, I would probably say I was most impressed, and pleasantly surprised, by Dara's ending. By this point in the story, I was certain that Dara had transgressed every transgression that it was possible to transgress, and lied to himself the entire way, only deciding upon the Right course of action when it was exactly 2 minutes too late, so I was prepared for him to find Redemption in Death. But once again I was pleasantly surprised at this story's refusal to follow popular story tropes, when it instead granted him true freedom as he perhaps had never known in his life, and the ability to choose who he would live that life in service of- choosing to help those who, like him, had been victims of the ifrit. 

I want more stories like this, about characters who are unforgivable, but who are forgiven- not by people or by those they have wronged, but by the narrative itself. Who are able and allowed to rededicate their lives to something, choosing to see their own actions and commit to helping people instead of just blindly following.

 OVERALL

Favorite character: I want to say Nahri, though I also really appreciate Ali and his quiet growth from being naive and kind of annoying to a man who is finally comfortable with and understands himself. But I think I’m going to have to choose Jamshid. I really like characters who are honest with themselves about their motivations, and I really admire his willingness to be open to change, to having his entire world and beliefs be turned upside down and try to go with the new way of being instead of holding on to the past, to confess his sins and be honest with Nahri, to believe in the people he knows rather than in what others say about them when Manizheh tries to manipulate him, to have been through everything he's been through and still retain a sense of humor and a generally upbeat personality.

The author does a good job of presenting all of the characters as fully rounded people so that there isn't really a character that I find poorly written. I definitely disagree with a lot of characters, and dislike them as individual people, and Manizheh comes the closest to being someone I truly hate, but you can see the paths that brought these people to be who they are. There are some great lines- where I think it's Nahri who notes that Ghassan's father make him like he was by his abuse, as he had twisted Manizheh  up with his own abuse, and that Muntadhir could have easily become just like his father. All people have the potential inside of them to be good or to be evil, and they are formed by the circumstances of their lives, the choices they make, and the power they give to the relationships they have.  I also loved that, once she learns the truth about her parents, Nahri notes how much of herself she gets from her Egyptian mother, just as much as she got her Nahid heritage from Rustam, and that it's a part of her that she can be proud of and celebrate.

 Most impressive thing: I don't like "realistic" fantasy, where lots of people die, because that tends to be an excuse for the book to just be really depressing. This story really surprised me by being realistic but in a way that was still full of hope. Sometimes people are terrible, or they are broken by the world and can no longer see anything beyond their pain, and a lot of the time the institutions we have created are terrible and are built on terrible things. But there is still always a need for people who do the right thing, who stand up for those who are being treated unfairly, who are willing to make sacrifices to break down the "us" and "them" that divides people. Who are willing to see change not as something to be feared but as a beautiful potential.

Least MOST favorite thing:  As Chakraborty herself notes in her afterward:  "There are days when it feels silly and selfish to spend my days crafting tales of monsters and magic. But I still believe, desperately, in the power of stories. If you take any message from this trilogy, I hope it is to choose what's right even when it seems hopeless - especially when it seems hopeless. Stand for justice, be a light, and remember what it is we were promised by the One who knows better.

“With every hardship comes ease."

I also believe in the power of stories, and I’m so excited to have been able to experience this one.  <3

#book fangasm #the daevabad trilogy #the daevabad trilogy spoilers