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j-minte08 · 3 years

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Why do I award BalanWonderworld as a masterpiece?

Introduction

⚠️I'm using a translator, so I apologize if any parts are difficult to read.

In this article, I will write about why I award Balan Wonderworld as a masterpiece, with answers to criticisms.

When I played the demo version, I thought this game was SO BAD. But I believed Yuji Naka and bought the full version. (Before I knew it, I had bought four of them...) I'm not raving blindly about it.

At first, I was hopelessly disappointed because nothing had changed from the demo version. However, in chapters 2 and 3, I was impressed by the three-dimensionality and beauty of the stages, and in chapter 4, I realized the comfort of gaining freedom through the acquisition of costumes.

By the time I was completely finished, I was convinced that this game was a great piece of work.

This is an article that I wrote after spending nearly 100 hours on this game.

I hope you will read it.

Main part

First of all, this game is not a game with flashy action as its primary objective. (Flashy battle action is possible in some scenes.)

【Puzzle】　【RPG】　【Exploration】

It is structured around these three main components.

The game also features a "Balance AI" that senses the player's movements and makes changes to the difficulty and world. There is also a presentation of my own work, so please take a look!

Please read with the above in mind.

■ One button action is stressful.

▶︎ As mentioned earlier, this game is not intended for flashy action. At its root, it is an RPG and does not require multiple buttons. The reason it's a simple operation is because it doesn't need to be.

There is only one button, but instead the player is given the freedom to select up to three actions of their choice. The way to play Balan is to find your own strategy within these constraints.

Some people point out that you can't jump, but only a few outfits limit jumping. Most of them are attack-oriented outfits. It's up to you to decide whether you want more attack power or more movement power.

If you're still not convinced, this game just isn't to your liking.(If that's you, I recommend the Wii version of Rodea.)

NiGHTS and Sonic are also action games with simple controls, but the concept is different from Baran, as explained below.

From the very beginning, NiGHTS and Sonic are one-button games that allow for exhilarating action. The action feels good and allows for improvement through trial and error.

However, Balan begins in a state of helplessness. One of his goals is to use his wits and eventually gain the power to run freely around the three-dimensional stage.

Freedom from discomfort. This catharsis is the best part of Balan.

It is also linked to the story's theme of opening closed minds.

■ The structure of the puzzle is sketchy.

▶︎ There is an intention behind this. By making the puzzle structure more flexible, the player is given more choices.

Therefore, each player will have a completely different solution to obtaining a single statue.

Also, each time you play the game, you will find new strategies, making it a game that can be played repeatedly.

This is the reason why Yuji Naka was so confident about this game.

Personally, I think that this action with a puzzle concept has a similar point of view to card games and rock-paper-scissors.

The Mega Man series is a typical example of a game that requires you to observe the situation and your opponent's movements to find the right technique and move. In fact, there is a famous episode where it was derived from rock-paper-scissors. This is also a game where you can enjoy improving through trial and error, but I think the structure of the rules is similar to that of Balan.

■ It's a pain to stock up on costumes.

▶︎ There is no need to overstock costumes. The minimum number of costumes needed to clear the course will naturally be available. Dependence on certain costumes can make the game monotonous. Also, the BalanceAI can sense your movements and take countermeasures.

As the difficulty level increases, you will have a hard time because the costumes will not come back.

The game is made more interesting by the style of play that allows you to use all the costumes to their fullest extent and bring out the true value of each one.

If you run out, explore the stage while collecting costumes. It may lead to new discoveries.

Even if you don't have a specific costume, there are many situations you can get through by applying other costumes.

This degree of freedom is what makes Balan so interesting. The strategy is left to your imagination.

■ The stage is curved. Isn't this a useless design?

▶︎ The curvature of the map allows you to see every corner of the stage. You may be confused because there is no other game that tries to do something like this. However, this is an ideal map for exploration games.

The basics of this gimmick are used as of chapter 1. Chapter 7, which has particularly large differences in elevation, makes good use of this gimmick.

■ The difficulty level is too low.

▶︎ Basics → Application → Review (Boss battle)

This game is designed to follow the above flow thoroughly. As a result, the difficulty level in the early stages is kept low, but the endgame is quite difficult. I almost lost my mind in chapter 12.

The bosses are easy to defeat. However, it is difficult to conquer all three strategy patterns.

Also, if you keep defeating enemies quickly without taking damage, the difficulty level will increase.Stronger and faster enemies will appear in large numbers.I found the difficulty level increased at chapter 3.

In other words, the difficulty of the game depends on how good you are.

■ I want to have a HP separate from my costume.

▶︎ This system prompts the player to use a different costume in case of failure.

Depending on the situation, you can either sacrifice valuable costumes, or use inconvenient but well-stocked costumes... The game throws a variety of choices at the player. This gameplay becomes more apparent as the difficulty level increases.

If you separate the HP from the costume, this tense gameplay will be lost.

The system of choosing outfits based on what will happen next fosters the ability to think and survive on one's own. It will also help the child's ego independence.

■ I need more explanations and hints. It's designed in an unfriendly way.

▶︎ It's not a game that requires you to do anything difficult, so if you think about it, you should be able to understand it to some extent. All you have to do is immerse yourself in collecting statues by any route you can think of.

Some people criticize Balan for being old-fashioned, but they are missing the point.

Games are essentially content that teaches you to think and act for yourself. This is a posting of what games should be, and a refreshing return to the basics.

However, I don't mean to criticize modern games. The immersive feeling of being in a movie, and the friendly design of the UI that shows you where you are going so you don't get lost. I think it's a beautiful evolution for today's hectic world where it's hard to find time to be alone.

However, to be honest, it is abnormal to say that only works that follow the latest trends are evaluated, and it is difficult to say that there is creativity in such works. Evolving technology and the presence or absence of originality have completely different meanings.

I would like to say that games like Balan, which have their own rules and think for themselves, are what we need today.

■ I don't understand the story. I want subtitles.

▶︎ With both video and dubbing, the amount of information is extremely high. By not using real words, all the people in the world have the exact same experience. Very romantic, don't you think?

It's not to dismiss the unspoken parts as non-existent, but to let your imagination run wild and have fun with it.

Since ancient times, there has been an aesthetic in Asia that finds meaning in blank spaces.

If you want a more substantial story, I recommend the novel version, which probably has what you want. It is available for Kindle.

At the end

Balan Wonderworld is a game designed to grow with the player the more time they spend playing.

Despite its gorgeous visuals, the reality of the story is deep and Yuji Naka's philosophy shines through, making it a masterpiece that can be called a compilation of his work.

At first, you may find some scenes difficult or the system annoying. However, they all have a meaning and will make sense as you continue to play.

Balan is built on a very complete system.

EVERY MOMENT IS AN ADVENTURE... This tagline is true.

But the fact is that Balan is a very peaky game. But that's also true for Sonic and NiGHTS.

If you have enjoyed Yuji Naka's past works, you will surely understand the quality of Balan. I recommend that you take the time to face this game first without any preconceived notions.

Now that I've spoken highly of Balan, I'd like to offer some criticism of the official advertising.

I think the main reason for this failure was the poor choice of stages included in the demo version, which made it difficult to convey the fun of expanding the degree of freedom by acquiring costumes, the sense of freedom, and the fun of being able to create a number of unique strategies.

As for the official SNS, rather than introducing the costumes and the storyline by themselves, the official should have done a better job of showing how they are all connected to make this game interesting.

That's how it looked from my personal point of view, but I believe that the current situation is the result of continuous failures in the area of advertising.

I'm so disappointed that this masterpiece is being buried, and I hope that the officials will have the guts to turn its reputation upside down even now.

Hopefully, this game will get the recognition it deserves. I love Balan Wonderworld.

#balan wonderworld #game #square enix #game review #yuji naka #naoto oshima #バランワンダーワールド #playstation #bww #nights #nights into dreams #sonic #sonic the hedgehog

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yanderecandystore · 3 years

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Yandere dog man in heat, please.

At first I got really confused, and I came up with three different scenarios of how this could play out:

Medieval Monster Dog Man: Kinda like a werewolf, really feral but maybe he can't transform into a human (making it a different type of monster). In this setting I imagined monsters and humans being kinda against one another.

Modern Anthro Dog Man: Beastars basically, a world where either everyone is an anthro animal (furry lol-), or a world where humans and anthro/monster animals coexist in a modernized setting.

Anime Neko Style: A dog man with more human features than dog-like, leaving his tail and his ears and a couple of mannerisms.

Let me see what I can do for you, boo.

TW/Tags: basic horniness (nsfw stuff: mentions of pillow grinding, vague biting kink, sexual frustration, implied sex after ending, slight mentions of breeding kink, etc) // gender neutral/nonspecific reader // I decided to go with a semi fantasy setting, although vaguely described so you can imagine this universe the way you like // I consider him to be from some kind of monster species-

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Partners through tough and thin [Yandere!DogMan/Monster?? x GN!Reader - Headcanons]:

Let's start with a bit of an off-topic: Did you read my mind boo? Did you know that I was planning on adding a section to the Masterlist dedicated to humanoid/animalistic monsters? I was thinking more about driders/insectoid monsters actually- But I don't really mind this.

Regardless, let's set up the context!

🎇 Let me set the stage for a quick sec!🎇

So, I won't talk for too long this time, just a quick basic talk about your relationship with Flint (don't @ me, I'm terrible at picking names out of the blue-).

You two meet each other pretty much by coincidence, both of you were looking for people to form an adventuring party with- But ultimately finding almost no luck.

To be fair, you weren't really looking for an adventure with strangers, as mostly you just wanted to gain more knowledge by exploring your vast world with someone you would at least want to be near with. You were a couple of ranks above him, yet you found him to be such great company that you two formed some sort of bond over the time you guys spent together.

Expedition after expedition, and it started to feel like you two were more than random colleagues being together just for the sake of finishing a task, it felt like you two were mutual friends that were so accustomed to working together that it felt weird being separated or near strangers.

You were surprised to find someone so easy to rely on, so sweet and kind and extremely gullible. After seeing so many narcissistic jerks who only wanted someone to carry their stuff and do all the hard work while you stood by and watched them take all the glory of completing their quest- It felt like a breeze of fresh air to find Flint looking for someone as well.

Which was weird considering how easily any of them would have taken him to be their personal walking inventory.

You two didn't get along right away, but you guys did warm up to each other as the time passed on. You thought Flint was too childish and Flint thought you were too stern, and even after five years of working with each other, nothing seems to have changed.

Nothing except a better understanding between you two. Even with your differences, it was as if you two were inseparable at this point.

Flint is a lovely guy, you can't tell if it's because of his dog side, but he radiates Good Boy Energy™. He is loyal to you as an adventuring partner, and he is the best friend someone can have, yet you would be lying if you said you knew everything about him.

Flint is not the best at hiding things, especially his own emotions and even he knows about that! Throughout these five years you two spent together, Flint would always try to keep his distance from you in certain times of the year.

At first you didn't understand why did he act so weird and be so distant from you- Until you realized what was happening and you started to feel stupid for not getting it sooner- Fling goes through a heat cycle every six months and that has proven to be quite the interesting change to your routine- Considering you never knew (and still doesn't know-) what to do about it.

Flint always told you it was fine- It was a normal thing to him at this point and you didn't need to worry about it- You just needed to keep a reasonable distance from him and… Close your ears every night through these cycles.

It was fine, you know? I mean- To you it's a bit of an awkward situation as you aren't the same species or him/or don't go through these heat cycles as him- But to him it was absolutely normal. Inconvenient, but normal.

You have no idea what he does to himself to stop it from getting in the way of your partnerships- But one can't help but be curious, especially since he could just stay home if he wasn't feeling alright, he didn't need to continue this journey.

For some reason he always preferred to ignore it and keep going, to focus on his task to be able to give in to the carnal instincts brewing inside him. That was before he met you, however.

He always had dealt with his heat by occupying his mind, and it worked for the most part- But why does it feel so strong now? Why does it feel so unbearable?

It's been a couple of days that he can't find peace anymore, even if he tries to ease his pain each night, it nevers seems to get better. Whatever medication/potion or spell he could use to stop it, it wasn't working anymore, he somehow felt just as if not more sensitive than he was before he took those.

It wasn't just his body that was struggling to find some rest, his mind was also being haunted by mockeries of his own fantasies- To be fair, he hasn't been in peace with himself for a long time now, probably longer than he thinks, but you know how it is- You don't know you have fallen in love with someone until it's too late, and he has just recently discovered the seed of affection towards you growing into something more and more.

He had a crush on you, he doesn't know for how long yet it feels like it has been an eternity- It doesn't really help that you two spend more time with each other than with other adventurers and explorers, and it doesn't help that while you're sleeping in your tent, approximately 15 meters away from his own, as his mind is filled with worse and worse thoughts about you-

It's way too late at night for him to be feeling so needy- He's been trying to relieve himself for maybe 3 hours already, yet he still hasn't been able to calm down his mind and body. He has been carefully listening to each sound that came from outside, more specifically from inside your tent. Every snore, every breath, every whine you give in your sleep is making him mad with feelings he shouldn't have let it grow to this extent. He was supposed to be listening carefully to make sure you're safe, but instead he is having lewd ideas about your sleeping noises.

The feelings and thoughts that are suddenly coming to his mind are nothing short of disgusting to him, he knows he shouldn't be thinking I'll of an friend he loves so much, he shouldn't be craving someone to this degrading extent- Yet he can't stop biting his pillow and imagining it to be you, constantly breathing out your name while crying pathetically as he continues to indulge in this act while his mind is in a half sleep state.

So sleepy in fact that he hasn't heard you coming inside his tent- He wasn't even sure if your soft caressing was real or just a figment of his own twisted mind. He feels so grossed out by his own mind, he would rather believe this is all a dream then to realize he was being so loud you decided to come inside and see if he was okay-

Please, he is already the worst being alive just for fantasizing about you- Don't tell him he woke you up with his whining, it makes him feel more pathetic.

It's such a bittersweet situation, you came here genuinely deciding to help him out however you could- Not because of pity, but for something more than just wanting to help him ease his urges- But even if he is earning for this with all his heart, he feels too bad about himself to stop crying and apologizing for what he was about to do. You two seemed to have your hearts in the same direction, but can he control his instinct to take you for himself and breed you?

It doesn't really matter if he can or not breed you, his mind is already lost to countless nights without sleeping and constant thoughts about loving you and making love with you- Whatever sense of logic has been thrown out of the window.

However, maybe he isn't completely lost! Maybe he'll try his best to be more romantic about this, as it wasn't really how he expected it to happen. Even if he is currently acting like a lovesick lust beast, you don't need to worry because the good boy as your partner is commonly known for will be back in the morning, just a bit more clingy and overly protective of you.

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

#yandere #sheep stuff #sheep's stuff #yandere x reader #yandere monster #yandere mosnter x reader #yandere monster headcanon #yandere heat #yandere headcanon #yandere monster x f!reader #special delivery headcanons #special delivery request

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im-auntie-social · 3 years

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JB exchange recs part 3: now with themes!

(see part 1 for disclaimers/justifications and an uncategorized list of a few fics that seemed like they were written specifically for me, only one of which actually was)

(see part 2 for some angst, as well as some warm fluff)

I don’t know about you but I like grouping things and seeing patterns where there really aren’t any. And I saw a lot of probably-nonexistent patterns in the @jaime-brienne-fic-exchange fic offerings! For instance...

Vaguely WWII/postwar-flavored: however long the night, the dawn will break again (M, 3.6k) has Jaime and Brienne as ships passing in the night... ships with history. Coming Home from Lonely Places (T, 4k) declared war ON MY EMOTIONS as rival spies Jaime and Brienne come into contact at different points in the war(s).

A heaping helping of Cersei: I enjoy a good not-totally-crazy-and portrayal of Cersei, I’ll admit it. On the fun side, Cersei survives but is doomed to live as Aunt Celia (N, 2.6k) (also featuring a lot of good, practical women who don’t put up witih Jaime’s shit either). On the gothic side, I won’t give away what’s up with the Lannister siblings in the atmospheric-as-hell Half-Life (T, 19k) but it’s great. And on the deep-character-analysis side, I adore how in the dark, I thought I saw you (T, 17k) progresses in POV from Jaime, to Cersei, to Brienne.

Dream time: Technically I could list Those Who Favor Fire (T, 9k) under the space AUs, but the awesomely weird and dreamlike effects the mysterious planet has on our heroes is the best part of it. More on-the-nose for this section is To Sleep, Perchance to Dream (T, 3k) which has Jaime and Brienne sharing a strange liminal space in their dreams, even though they don’t know each other in real life. Both of these just nail the weirdness of dream logic and the outside-of-reality feel.

G-g-g-ghoooooosts: In a post-book Casterly Rock, Brienne is bothered by supernatural shenanigans In the Hall of Ghosts (N, 6k). From the post-show category, A Different Choice (T, 3.7k) has a particular spirit offering post-bricks Jaime a second chance. And in the modern AU Haunted (T, 19.k), Jaime is driven out of his apartment by what he swears is a ghost, forcing Brienne to let him sleep on her couch.

Food as a love language: Companion (T, 9k) explores Jaime and Brienne’s canon relationship through food-focused vignettes, which is a fantastic idea and extremely well-executed. The hot gold hush of noon (T, 1.5k) has Brienne taking Jaime through the Australian outback on a foraging trip, doing extraordinary character work in such a small space.

And then, two of my favorite tropes/themes/flavors:

Fun With Pantheons: I adore a good mythology. The Girl who had Two Gods (T, 4.4k, Jaime/Brienne/Arthur Dayne) is a beautiful story of Brienne being born at an inconvenient moment and getting assigned some lesser-known deities to be her patrons. The Jaime-Arthur dynamic is absolutely wonderful, and the absolute softness of Brienne being incorporated into it just made me melt. On the other hand, Brienne gets to be the deity in come in with the rain (T, 2.3k)-- in fact, as the goddess of Spring she’s the only one who responds to young Jaime’s prayers after he fails to kill Aerys’s pyromancers in time to stop King’s Landing from going up in flames. She wasn’t supposed to do that, and he’s, you know, a kingslayer, so they go on the run together. I loved minor-goddess Brienne standing up to the Seven (and the Seven themselves are really well done), and this one has I one of my favorite Happily Ever Afters.

Modern + Magic: Aw yeah, that’s the good stuff. On the shorter side, I love the deft way The Girl Who Painted Lions (T, 2.2k, and gifted to the same person as The Girl who had Two Gods, which doesn’t *for sure* mean they have the same author but it’s a fair bet) weaves the magic system into the story of Jaime and Brienne meeting, separating, and reconnecting (and something about Jaime being able to cast protection wards just makes me feel so warm inside). And I know I’m not the first to bring it up but electric boogaloo (T, 11k) is such a masterclass in worldbuilding, connecting the magic system and types to the factions and families from canon in a way that is absolutely perfect. And it takes place at a series of annual masquerade balls! And Brienne’s mask is made of lightning. Swoon.

So there you have it, an incomplete list of what I enjoyed over the last three weeks (god has it only been three? what even is time?). Hopefully more to come when I actually finish all the reading! And thanks, all possible thanks to the exchange mods-- @slipsthrufingers, @firesign23, @nire-the-mithridatist, and @samirant --who worked tirelessly and over many time zones to make all of this possible. And who also let me-- invited me to, even-- play in the sandbox of exchange data! (oh you can bet there’s some infographics incoming this weekend, just you wait....) (that’s a threat)

#jaime x brienne #jaime x brienne fic exchange 2021 #fic rec

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jorvikzelda · 2 years

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anyway that post filled me with the urge to delve into some Zelda lore/backstory/headcanons so here’s a few

- grew up on a farm with a very horse/animal-oriented family in Sweden and moved to Jorvik straight out of secondary school to fulfil their lifelong dream of joining the Jorvik Rangers

- even back home, they were always recognised to be more in tune with animals/horses, so finding out they were a Wild Whisperer was the least surprising part of the whole Aideen biz

- they don’t mind having been pulled into Druid/Soul Rider business all that much, besides the overwhelming nature of the weight of the responsibility they’ve been given due to their powerful powers with the Circles, and they don’t really view Ranger business and Soul Rider business as two separate things, but moreso as parallel/interweaving paths; they’re both focused on helping Jorvik, in one way or another

- they didn’t fully start to figure out their whole gender thing until they got to Jorvik and felt like they truly had an opportunity to start over

- remember in the Making of Alex video when they said something like ”we just wanted to make it clear that this girl lifts”? she does. with Zelda. theyre workout buddies

- the hc I made up to canonise the sheer amount of horses in my stables in a semi-sensible way is that Zelda’s current most important role with the Rangers is training young horses for their future ranger duties and taking in retired ranger horses (cmon those things cant go around in the forest until the day they kick the bucket thats hard work)

- adding to this, most of Zelda’s horses aren’t actually their own; as of now, I’m imagining that only their soul horse, their Rune Runner, their Jorvik Wild (whom they met on the Ranger expedition to Wildwoods), are their own horses. decision very much pending on the Soul Steed, but I’m leaning towards she’s genuinely just like feral and is mostly there because she’s besties with Zelda’s other JWH. I’m probably going to make a ”Zelda’s horses” page sometime because that feels like the sort of thing I’d do

- out of everyone they’ve met on Jorvik, they’re closest with Justin, Maya and Rania, though the Soul Riders are definitely also up there—they especially started growing closer and making sure to spend more time together after Anne’s rescue, perhaps in part to cope with loss

- on a similar note, I feel like Zelda has been trying to spend a little extra time with Anne to make up for the time they couldn’t get to know her like they could the other three

- their favourite place on Jorvik is Cape West Fishing Village because it reminds them of their hometown which they miss dearly, but they don’t live there because it’s so remote and especially far from Wildwoods which is inconvenient and sad for the two Jorvik Wilds that live with them (this is why they live in Firgrove; it’s the perfect transit stop between populated Jorvik and Wildwoods)

- Rowan taught them to crochet during the short time they were living in Redwood Point for the Wildwoods expedition. they’re extremely bad at it but they still do it from time to time, especially when they’re at the Redwood Point station

- for a short period of time their soul horse was injured and they had to borrow a horse to ride—never quite got to be the same thing & they were really happy when they could go back to riding their soul horse

#like a disproportionate % of my characters they also graduated hs a year early #because I love to insert my life into my characters’#also they grew up in/near Strömstad in case anyone was wondering about the hometown thing #I’ve never lived there but I did go there this summer and it reminded me a lot of Cape West #sso #alex originals #zelda lore

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handonhaven · 3 years

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So um there is certain group that in this fandom(I'm not gonna name which one but I think it'll be pretty easy to figure out) that have taken to editing articles online to make it seem like their ship is happening and pretty much everything else they wish would happen on the show. Granted the edit to the articles don't last very long before they get changed back. But still I feel like that just a whole new level of sad. To go through all that trouble and they're just feeding into their own "I feel like I been lied to" thing. That's why if it's not one of those websites where Brett and other cast members do their interviews(the website that can't be edit) then I don't pay no mind or believe anything it says

Okay I know I'm really late with this one(and sorry if you answered something like this already) but Lizzie and Josie just made me mad to no end in 3x16. First let me start by saying I get them being upset that Hope ditched them and stole their car. That's understandable. But the fact that they didn't care where Hope was or where she went or if she was okay etc. That made me so mad, and then the only thing Lizzie cared about was making sure Hope would be in a relationship with someone other than Landon(don't even get me started on the comment she made about them and sex 😡😡). Because why shouldn't Hope be with the one person who loves her truly just the way she is. And does whatever he can to make sure she's okay and does whatever he can to help her unlike everyone else at that school, as well as a million other things I could add. And then at the end of the episode when Hope was back at the school both Lizzie and Josie go talk to her and try to act all high and mighty in a way. Asking Hope of it meant nothing to her what happened between them in 3x15. Clearly it meant nothing to Lizzie and Josie because they spent all of 3x16 not giving a crap about Hope. I mean they say they want to be there for Hope and help her and so on but then turn around and do the exact opposite. I honestly can't.

I think I can honestly say after this season. I would sacrifice anyone if it meant that Hope and Landon could be happy. I would throw anyone and everyone under the bus if I had to. Heck I would throw someone to malivore if I had. Just so they could be happy. Because all the trauma they went through these past 3 seasons plus all the trauma they went through before hand. They're done, like let them be done going through trauma. Just let them be happy of once, I don't care who has to pay what price let someone else go through something. I know it would suck for another character to go through pain I do. But Hope and Landon has had 3 seasons of nonstop trauma. That's way more than enough. Just give them a break and let someone else go through something. I don't care who they would throw under the bus to make that happen. Just make it happen, so that way Handon can deal with and possess all the trauma they've been through and move past it and just be happy. I know it's wrong to say let another character through pain so they can be happy, I do. But after three seasons of only them going through some much this is how I feel now. Yes I know other characters went through stuff too, but it was never to the extent to what Hope and Landon have been going through. And they even got a break from it and got to deal with. Hope and Landon have never gotten that.

So my friend came up with this theory that 4x04 is going to be a parallel to 3x04. Because at the end of 3x04 we had to watch as Hope watched Landon melt right in front of her. Which was heart breaking enough by the way. Then the end of 4x04 will be Landon watching Hope die right in front of his eyes. Just thinking about something like that happening just breaks my heart 💔💔💔💔. It was bad enough having to see that once. But they have see that twice.... I think my heart will jump out of my chest and fall into the ocean somewhere never to be seen again. There's no way I could take seeing something like that twice.

Okay so I know everyone has there own thoughts on this one, but I would love to hear yours. So if Klaus was alive and met Landon what do you think he would think of him? I honestly think he would love Landon(even though he wouldn't come out right and say that). For the person he is despite everything he's been through in his life, and how he's always trying to better himself. For how good he is to Hope and how happy he makes her. And for how he's trys to help Hope with everything, and does what he can to help keep her safe. And so on.

Seriously?? Wow. So that’s how they’re spending the hiatus? That’s definitely sad and absurd, the kind of stuff they do continues to reach new levels. I just don’t get what the point is of trying to temporarily deceive people by doing that... so that they can feel like they’ve won for a little while? They must be pretty desperate. And they really are just lying to themselves at this point, and are going to great lengths to lie to other people too. Idk what sites even allow them to do that, at least the articles get changed back though. But yeah, I’m gonna stick to only looking at legit articles and websites, and official info from people who actually work on the show. That’s just incredibly stupid, honestly.

I actually did talk about that a bit in a response to an ask here x. But yeah, same. I understand them being upset about Hope ditching them too, but Hope clearly did it to keep them out of what she was doing because there could’ve been danger. That’s nothing new for Hope, and since they’re supposed to be her best friends, shouldn’t they know that? And even though they were upset, they still should’ve been more concerned about Hope’s safety, which they weren’t. And yes, exactly. Yes to all you said. It was all so frustrating to watch and made me mad too. And so true about Hope and Landon, Hope should be able to be with him, he’s all those things you said and more. So there was no good reason for Lizzie to try to find Hope someone else when she still loves Landon and wasn’t interested in moving on. And I agree about the end of the episode as well. Once again, their concern was the fact that Hope had ditched them, not if she was okay. Exactly, it doesn’t seem like 3x15 meant anything to them since they were so quick to give up on Hope. Just one thing went wrong, which was really more of an inconvenience for them, and they didn’t even try to be there for Hope. They got offended and did nothing. So it makes me worried for when Hope has to deal with Malivore and whether or not they’ll really be there for her.

Yeah, I mean, hopefully no one would have to be sacrificed for them to be happy. But it’s really sad that it’s gotten to the point where it feels like it would take something that extreme to make it happen. It’s truly insane the kind of trauma they’ve gone through and how they can never get a real break and be happy. I agree, if anyone deserves to be happy at this point, it’s them. And I wouldn’t want someone else to have to suffer either, but if the writers are so insistent on having someone suffer, they need to have it not be Hope and Landon for once! They need a better balance of what goes on with all the characters instead of just putting Hope and Landon through everything all the time. Exactly, they seriously have gone through nonstop trauma, they can’t go through anymore at this point, it’s too much. I agree, they need to be able to recover and heal after all they’ve been through so that they can be okay and be happy. I honestly don’t know how either of them have even been able to keep going after all they’ve experienced, it’s so horrible. And yeah, it’s not that the other characters haven’t gone through stuff too, it’s just not at all like what Hope and Landon have dealt with. And like you say, with no breaks, no time to heal. I just think it’s ironic how they wanted this show to be lighter, yet they still put these characters through terrible things, Hope and Landon most of all. They have them constantly dealing with trauma and pain and death, they just lighten up the tone and throw in some comedy amidst all of the tragedy to make it seem lighter when it’s really not. Not for Hope and Landon anyway. I wish they’d make their actual lives and experiences lighter overall, and let them live and be happy for a bit, it’s what they deserve.

Oh my gosh! So I’ve also wondered if Hope is gonna die in 4x04, but I didn’t even think about how that would be a parallel to 3x04! 😭 It will be so painful if it happens, I’m not sure I can take it either! Although, if Landon is there if it happens that could also make for an amazing scene. Like seeing Landon crying over her, or his reaction to it triggering his Phoenix powers again, or maybe even getting healing tears? I’d lose it. It would definitely be heartbreaking, but as long as they wouldn’t get separated again like in 3x04 and they could still be together after, hopefully we would survive seeing something like that again!

When it comes to Klaus and Landon, I have so many thoughts about that, I could make a whole other post about it. But I completely agree with what you said. Every time I see people say Klaus would hate Landon, that he would’ve killed him, etc. like... it makes me mad but I also wanna laugh. Because there’s just no way that Klaus would feel that way about Landon, and whoever thinks he would either didn’t actually watch The Originals, or at least didn’t pay attention to it or understand it. I don’t know how anyone can watch that show and come away from it thinking Landon isn’t the kind of person Klaus, Hayley, and the rest of Hope’s family would want for Hope. And we already saw Klaus’s reaction to Landon dancing with Hope. He was smiling and happy to see Hope with him. He’s already basically approved of Landon. But I really do think he would love Landon too. He wanted Hope to be happy, and Landon is the one who makes Hope happy. So I think that alone would be reason enough for Klaus to like Landon and want him in Hope’s life. But also the other things you said as well, I think he would really admire Landon and the kind of person he is after all that he’s been through. I’ve always thought it was interesting how, in some ways, Landon went through similar things in his childhood like Klaus and Hayley did. He was abused, and Klaus was also abused, and was in foster care with no real family, like Hayley was. And I think for Klaus to see the way Landon has handled that and didn’t let those things change who he is as a person, and still chose to be a good and kind person even after being treated so horribly, I’m sure that would mean a lot to Klaus. To see the way that Landon has been able to overcome darkness in his life, and that’s what Hope needs as well. Klaus and the rest of the Mikaelsons always wanted Hope to be better than how they had been, and Landon helps Hope to be better and helps brings out the best parts of her. And of course with the way that Landon treats Hope, and how much he loves her, how loyal he is, and the way he fights for her and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep her safe, I’m sure Klaus would be so grateful to Landon. Like, just imagine Klaus’s reaction to what Landon did for Hope in 2x11, along with everything else he’s done. How could Klaus not love someone who loves his daughter that much and is that devoted to her? I could go on about this, but this has gotten ridiculously long so I’ll stop. But yeah, I definitely think Klaus would love Landon and be so glad that Hope has him.

#answered #s3 #handon

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fireflyhwufanficwriter · 3 years

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My thoughts on Dr. Stone’s S02E03 (“Call from the Dead”)

My thoughts after watching Season Two, Episode Three:

01. Taiju and Yuzuriha have different types of shoes – that’s a nice detail 😊

02. Leave it to Yuzuriha the arts and crafts club member to notice a detail like the dirt around the grave being different!

03. Day after day… I wasn’t expecting them to visit the grave THAT often. I like that they used the same phrase (“mainichi mainichi”) as last time – in Season One, Senku used it to describe Kohaku’s dedication to her sister, and now in Season Two, Nikki used it to describe Taiju and Yuzuriha’s dedication to their friend 😊

04. I liked Kohaku and Ginro’s excitement at hearing Taiju’s voice. This is the first time they’ve heard an outsider who they knew right away wasn’t an enemy! (Well, second time for Kohaku, since Senku saved her the day they met.)

05. The next time I’m on the phone with somebody, I’m going to imagine the same huge arc of electricity that Kaseki did 😁

06. Senku was so emotional – eyes shining with tears, smiling as he listened to Taiju – and then it all went away because he had to remind his friend that HE was Senku 😆

07. Just like how Gen is the stand in for the audience (modern timers, but generally clueless compared to Senku), Kokuyou and Ruri are the stand-ins for how incredible the phone must seem to Ishigami Village 😁 Come to think of it, Kokuyou’s had that role since last season – he’s far away enough from the main cast that he doesn’t know all of their adventures (and that distance makes him like the “normal” villagers), but close enough that he gets to share his thoughts and theories. It was through his eyes that we saw the big impacts that bottling and furnaces had on Ishigami Village 😊

08. I know it was short, but I like how Senku greeted Yuzuriha separately. They haven’t had that much screentime together since the anime began, but I like how Senku and Yuzuriha have their own friendship, instead of Taiju being their go-between or something like that.

09. “He’s been screaming all day.” All day? Have they been there longer than just the few minutes we’ve seen?

10. Kohaku noticed the defensive reason for why they had to speed things up! 😊 And I liked her observation about Senku and Taiju 😊

11. It’s could be easy to just write Taiju off as a loud blockhead, but it’s scenes like his allowing Tsukasa to hit him in Season One and his question about bloodshed in Season Two that really show you the kind of admirable, pacifistic guy he is 😊

12. “Gen will be back tomorrow or so.” Okay, so we have an estimate of how far the two kingdoms/empires are from each other. I’m glad they mentioned this!

13. Magma and Chrome’s loud conversation really shows how much anime can improve upon manga. When you’re just reading, you do know characters are talking and being loud, but when you’re watching anime, it drives home the fact that they’re being SO LOUD and that they need to SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP! Poor Gen… 😆

14. Thank you for finally saying Ukyo’s name, Gen 😆 Anime only folks get important information, and manga readers can sigh in relief that another character’s name has been revealed 😁

15. I’m with Magma. Chrome’s so selfish, worrying about his own life like that! 😡 Not like Magma, who’s strong and noble and self-sacrificing and only thinks of others and their safety 😁

16. You have to feel sorry for Gen… he’s trying to get the two of them to just SHUT UP 😆

17. I doubt Magma was seriously thinking that Chrome would go along with that plan, so he must have been joking… and the fact that we have Magma JOKING around with main characters after being the main antagonist in the middle part of Season One… they’re really pals now, aren’t they? 😲😊

18. Chrome’s battery has 15V… how much is that compared to an AAA battery for a remote control? I'll look it up later 😁

19. I’m a modern era person and it would have never occurred to me to use a wire to connect two ends of a battery and throw it into the grass to start a fire. Either Senku told him that battery stuff fairly recently and it was stuck Chrome’s mind because he was in charge of the heating team, or he’s just that much of a genius that nobody explained that to him but he intuited it anyway… or I’m just that stupid 😆

20. It’s expected that Chrome would sacrifice himself, but Magma… very impressive character development 😁 (I mean, I’m a manga reader, so I knew this was going to happen, but still 😁)

21. Gen’s eyes are blue? I never noticed until this episode.

22. Poor Gen… first, in Season One, he had to run like the wind from the shed of science to the Cave of Miracles while he was SEVERELY injured, and he had to do it as fast as possible to help Senku stay safe, and he was the only one who could do it… and now, he has to run like the wind while dealing with the knowledge and guilt that two of his comrades sacrificed himself for him, and he has to do it as fast as possible to be able to start his extremely important deception mission, and he’s the only one who can do it.

23. Gen really needs to get Kaseki to build him some kind of cable car system or a limousine so that he can travel in style between the two kingdoms/empires instead of exhausting himself all the time running back and forth 😲 Or at least a bicycle!

24. Since it’ll take Gen at least one day, possibly longer, to reach the shed of science, that means that Taiju and Yuzuriha must have talked to Nikki one or more days after they spoke with Senku. Anime helps with some things (like sound), but it can sure confuse people about the passage of time…

25. Copper swirly! 😊 I like Kaseki’s name for it better than Senku’s name for it 😆

26. Kohaku’s eyes! She’s SO fascinated by how the copper swirly is being used 😁

27. Nikki’s SO hostile 😲 I get that she’s a guard and everything, but she doesn’t really have a reason to be this hostile to Taiju and Yuzuriha, does she? It’s weird O.o Unless maybe she wanted to do something else (hunting/training/etc.) but she was forced to be their guard specifically because she’s a woman and can stick to Taiju AND Yuzuriha like glue? (Like Brienne from Game of Thrones.)

28. Why are her eyebrows a darker shade than her hair? This is sort of like Kokuyou’s weird hair colors, but to a lesser extent.

29. The punches are… she’s really hostile. Maybe it’s just to emphasize how much she changes later on and the episode, but it’s still so weird.

30. Didn’t Senku “die” on a cliff, out in the open? Kohaku was able to see him from (presumably) far away, and all that stuff with the gunpowder and the huge rock… am I remembering it wrong? Was it NOT a cliff after all? Because the rocks around this grave make it look like some kind of natural, concealed fortress!

31. Senku’s Sebastian voice sounds so silly 😆

32. I wish they had done Lilian’s voice differently. Gen’s fake Lilian doesn’t sound like a native English speaker while speaking English. Maybe they’re counting on the people they’re talking to not knowing the difference between foreign language accents… but still, this could have been done better. Maybe the studio just didn’t want to hire a new person to speak just a few lines. Or maybe they did this on purpose so that Nikki could notice something was off with her voice?

33. Yuzuriha being quick on the uptake again! 😁

34. This has to be the most stressful, rushed, and mathematical estimating of CD sales and body measurements ever 😆

35. The video game music was used in such a fun, light way last season (choosing the third mining team member) that hearing it in this scene for this situation sounds so weird 😲

36. That crouching backwards, pointing straight ahead Lilian pose seemed really out of place when the music is this really soft, gentle song 😲

37. I wonder if the stadium they showed us is based on a real stadium in Japan?

38. “Lilian doesn’t exist in this world anymore. Am I right?” Oh, Nikki… 😭

39. Senku’s eyes were shining when he replied to Nikki… I wonder if talking about Lilian reminded him of Byakuya… somebody who was in space with Lilian and also doesn’t exist in this world anymore… 😭

40. I love how Senku doesn’t lose anything or inconvenience himself at ALL by making that promise, since he’s going to protect the glass recording anyway because of Byakuya 😆

41. Okay, after Nikki committed to the plan (welcome, Nikki!), they zoomed out and the grave is seriously surrounded by all those vertical rocks. There is NO WAY this grave is in the same place Senku and Tsukasa last talked. No WAY.

42. I was SO surprised when the episode ended there 😲 That was NOT what I was expecting. This episode felt so short!

43. I still love this ending theme! 😁

44. About the ending theme (“Koe” / “Voice” by Hatena), songs mean a lot more to me when I understand what the lyrics mean, so I went to YouTube hoping to find an English cover or English subtitles or something. I found this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scv09Dtby-8) by a YouTube channel called AniComet Music, and from 0:12 to 0:34, the lyrics are, “I keep struggling and suffering, but still / I’ll gain strength from the feelings I’ve had for you / It’s a story that will never change / Even though I knew I’d never be a match for him.”

45. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel the song is from Senku’s point-of-view, and both the second and fourth lines could be about Byakuya (especially the fourth line) – in a father/son context, of course – of how he gets strength and inspiration from Byakuya and how he feels his father will always be beyond him and more than him 😭

46. With that said, even though my interpretation is really meaningful to me, it doesn’t really make sense, since “you” and “him” are obviously different people, and when you read more of the lyrics, “you” can’t really be referring to Byakuya. Maybe my interpretation will change when I listen to the song more and read more translations, but this is the first English translation of the ending song that I’ve read, and it really speaks to me 😊

https://firefly-hwufanficwriterrrrr.tumblr.com/MyDrStoneEpisodeMangaThoughts

#dr stone #ishigami senku #dr. stone #oki taiju #ogawa yuzuriha #asagiri gen #hanada nikki #lillian weinberg #ishigami byakuya

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steve0discusses · 3 years

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S4 Ep38: Awkward Hugs Episode

Remember how excited I was about the good storyboarder? Well this episode has the opposite of that. It looks a lot like they hit some sort of crunch and this entire episode got shipped to Singapore so that some other animation studio could deal with their problems. It’s got some jank.

And like listen, animation is hard, there’s a billion moving plates, there’s a lot of office politics and deadlines, this season in particular is very long and complicated, and I don’t know exactly what happened this episode, but it just...wow it’s a lot funny poorly animated moments and I was here for it.

So first off, Dartz died! I didn’t even cap it because it happened so quickly. He was standing there, a portal opened up, and then the Great Leviathan kind of munched him up in 3 frames of animation, and then dissolved away back into the portal. It was card shenanigans anyway, and I don’t go over card games here--just trust me he played cards, he lost, he died.

Once Dartz died, this happened, in the one place Roland thought he was safe.

Roland has spent a good amount of this time debating whether or not to go inside and now he’s got a situation. Is it safer in Soul Hut than...whatever this is?

I wouldn’t know either.

So he just decides to uh...look directly at it while everyone else deals with orb hell.

The three knights of Atlantis decide to revive the respective owners of their cards.

So Pegasus just has to sit back, relax, and find some other unsuspecting orb person to share his fanfiction deep cuts with.

PS, that was not an exaggeration on the lazy PowerPoint spiral-in transition--this episode was a marvel of “Oh crap we ran out of time!” last-ditch effort animation and I approve.

(read more under the cut)

And if you thought they were done being orbs now that we’re on a physical mortal plane--nah.

This is the closest Pharoah and Yugi have ever gotten to a physical hug. Just throwing it out there that this is the only time they’ve touched in any way as two separate entities. Also--I like that this is the same way Yugi holds his necklace when he’s talking to Pharaoh. Cute little parallel there.

And as I mentioned, there were a lot of people just hugging it out as if it’s the last episode of the season. First off, one of the most huggy people on this show, which I’m still surprised is the Kaibas.

(he did legitimately pretend to be asleep by the way, because as he was spiraling out of hell he was like “whaoooahahhh”)

So I guess if Mokuba, Tristan, and Tea woke up without being orbs first, then that really does mean they never died 2 episodes ago.

Fine. This is fine. I’ll append my headcanon.

...so Dartz really was just so tired of them that he decided to make them take a nap, huh? That Mokuba was so annoying he was just like “I’m turning them off ok? Not like OFF off, not killing them or anything, that would be rude--I just don’t like small one.”

Meanwhile Tea has a Yugi appreciation moment where she’s reunited with her very confusing relationship. Which is how she likes it best. Undefined in nearly every sort of way. A relationship made entirely out of subtext.

(and honestly, relationships made entirely out of subtext is like 75% of the teen dating experience, which I may have mentioned before, but I do not remember if I have because 2020 has wiped my memory of just so many things.)

I vocally, out-loud, went “Ahhhh!” at the screen because I FORGOT how big his eyes are. They are so wild usually, but with the animation B-team at the helm, I was just not ready for the eyes to return. Yugi’s eyes are just...an abomination in every way and I forget when I see them consistently. I get used to them, I get over it...But when I go an entire season without these hell eyes staring directly at me every five seconds, then it’s like I’ve seen them for the first time.

I’m glad he’s back but man his eyes.

Those eyes.

Anyway, on for some more awkward hugs. First off, Yugi’s visceral reaction to his pretty-much-a-wife-at-this-point giving him a...hug?

(she’s kneeling, by the way. Bro mentioned that it looks like she picked him up and held him entirely by the neck--that would have been great, and I would never doubt Tea’s strength, but she had the decency not to do that.)

And then to Yugi’s just overall confusion to whatever Joey Wheeler defines as a hug.

I am 5 feet 0 inches tall, much like Yugi, and can confirm that yes, some people do hug me like this.

This type of hug should be illegal, it’s very disorienting.

Then, Yugi got to do what he does best.

The FIRST THING he does from coming back from death is immediately hold back information. Mm. Yugi at his finest.

At the point that you’d assume that someone in this room would indicate that maybe this hell vortex is like...a situation...Roland comes in the room screaming for Kaiba to come outside and tell him what the hell to do with his life.

So they go outside and the city of Atlantis is popping out of the sea and flying directly into the air--which...sure, it doesn’t really go in the air usually...but I’ll take it.

And in case you’re like...wait, I thought Atlantis was in California, not in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, don’t worry, it’ll get even more confusing later on.

Also, this happened.

Most of the human race freakin died so like...not sure what we should be concerned about here. Gotta get that one last guy in Florida to board up his house, I guess.

I like that Tea is contractually obligated to beg Yugi to stay behind so she doesn’t have to live without him when...it’s like...Tea, your relationship is already a big ass question mark, and Yugi actually dying did not even mean you were living without him. He’s been around this whole season as Pharaoh, my dude. You have the only boyfriend who will not only never officially date you but will also officially never go away.

So like...earlier in the season it was mentioned that Florida had the pieces of Atlantis shoved in a museum so like...is Atlantis off of Florida now? Because the Battle of Atlantis was in the Bay Area, and Dartz lives in San Francisco, and they went on a helicopter and flew out to the sea so...

We GOTTA be in the Pacific, right?

Anyway, it could be that they’re worried it’ll hit the East Coast of Japan--which, yes--it would. That would also be way more pertinent to our cast of people who live in Japan, it’s just that if you’re doing a show in English that takes place in the USA and you say the “East Coast” it only means New York.

I don’t think the translation team got the memo, it was a very weird line.

Tea wishes Yugi luck instead of Pharaoh for once, and Yugi was like “I don’t know why you want to talk to me instead of the version of me with the fine ass.” and his confusion was kind of cute, but they didn’t actually go into any more deets than this.

Valon and Mai were almost making out with each other’s dead body like ten episodes ago, so maybe the team felt like they had enough practice to maybe almost approach something happening with their flagship couple? Almost.

But also...Yugi just has no idea that a few days ago Tea was trying to get Pharaoh to talk to her on a Caltrain by talking about wearing little swimsuits on a Florida beach date, and then Pharaoh got so upset he went to the tiny area between trains and started sobbing while punching a wall. Yugi doesn’t know this. I don’t think anyone will ever tell him.

And like...will anyone tell Yugi that Pharaoh woke up in Tea’s bed? Like no one, right? Like no one even knows that happened? The irony of how cautious Yugi is with this relationship after Pharaoh was just slicing and dicing for this entire season is great. It’s also probably unintentional, but I can still laugh at it.

Anyway, inside soul hut, Yugi got a little lost, and then his puzzle started glowing and brought him to the Macguffins from last season. Would have been really inconvenient if these got doused in the sea, honestly, and I don’t think the Ishtars would have appreciated it.

Also, this puzzle sensor would have been really, really useful in S2.

Meanwhile, I think Seto and Joey just stared at this glowy gate of hell thing being all “Do you know what this is, Kaiba? I was dead” and Kaiba being all “Hell if I know, I was also dead, I don’t know what this thing is.” And Joey being like “Well Yugi doesn’t know what it is, he was also dead.” and Kaiba being like “The only one of us alive was the dead guy who lives in Yugi’s imagination?”

And then Joey being like “Also, where the hell are we?”

So, frustrated that this obvious trap was simply too confounding, Dartz decides to explain to our dumb as hell cast what a “door” is.

Where we can then admire the sights of Atlantis! Which is mostly brick buildings and giant gates with snakes on them.

Also it would just be COVERED in dead fish but we’re gonna skip that and save it for what would be an extremely ill-fated Netflix live-action series that they will probably eventually make of Season 4. Netflix can’t help itself, you know it can’t. This is a spicy series. It would be terrible in gritty live action. Make it happen, Netflix.

I feel like the artist was trying desperately to fix Joey’s bangs and I feel that on an emotional level. We all want to fix Joey’s bangs. Why did they stop at Joey?

They find Dartz in some weird Gazebo which...OK. It was a whole lot of weird concept art that I didn’t cap because it’s like...nothing is terrifying about a Gazebo...

I straight up don’t understand Atlantis culture.

So, Dartz decided that he could just...use himself to raise the Great Leviathan. He had only one more soul he needed, and he was just as powerful as Yami--so lets just do it, lets just raise the snake!

MAN I just realized what a euphemism this season is.

Good job, Dartz.

Course this is how he spun his story to us, but he seemed pretty surprised when the Great Leviathan gobbled him up in the first 10 minutes of the episode.

But this is the story Dartz is sticking to. He, himself, will raise the Leviathan, himself, and he is very happy with his decision that he made all by himself. I mean, Dartz has been alive for 10,000 years, and maybe he got bored of immortality.

Dartz could have done this from day 1.

What’s up, Sephiroth? Nice little uh final fantasy thing we’re doing with this lizard’s face. I really can’t unsee these uneven man boobs (like what is that angle?) but it’s fine. Dartz doesn’t need hands or...legs...he’s a dragon now, like he can just bite stuff and fly around and stuff. Can’t be that bad.

But for reals, what is the dragon’s angle here?

what is it gonna DO?

Like after everyone’s dead. Is it just gonna...float around? Fly around outer space? Enjoy the sunrise?

Like what do dragons...DO?

Anyway, I’m sure we’ll never get the answer on why the Leviathan wanted to leave the core of the Earth so stinkin bad, but maybe--just maybe--this season might actually end next episode? Maybe?

Will I actually finish this season in 2020! I might! Y’all I MIGHT!

And for anyone reading these for the first time, here’s a link to read these in chrono order

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shintorikhazumi · 3 years

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A Mom, A Grandchild, and A Wife For the New Year

A/N: So, have you seen HiBiKi StYle #448 with AiAi and Maho-nee doing the cooking relay? It’s one of the most chaotic things I’ve ever enjoyed xD. There’s a subbed version on YouTube haha. This gave me an idea for a fic, but I’ll probs be mostly basing it off the first half. Maho-nee is better at cooking than Aiai it seems, but character-wise, I feel like Claudine cooks better than Maya so…

I was supposed to release this on time for New Year’s, but ended up frustrated and reading other fics instead, so my sincerest apologies.

Fudge… this was not supposed to be this long. I told myself it would only be 1k-3k words, but hoho, no. 7-frikkin-thousand words. Stupid Khaz. Haaa…

Enjoy?

~Shintori Khazumi

“Umm…”

“So…”

“What exactly-“

“-Do we do with… that.”

“Junna-chan! Don’t call her “that”! She’s a child! A person!” Nana scolded her partner, also very perplexed with the situation right before their eyes.

“Well, she wasn’t a child five minutes ago?!” Junna replied with the same amount of exasperation in her voice.

“Then she’s a person! A human. Don’t call her… “that”.” Nana replied, gesturing towards the little girl seated on the living room carpet, looking to seven pairs of eyes staring back that held various emotions ranging from stressed, perplexed and confused, curious, excited, and just plain weirded out.

“Well, she’s certainly been a handful these past few minutes.” Junna sighed, looking around the living room area for some kind of toy to hand to the child to distract her, and keep her in place, behaved, while the rest of them searched for a way to fix this situation.

“Come on, Jun-Jun! She’s pretty cute, if you think about it.” Karen exclaimed, taking a step closer and reaching her hand out for the child to take. “See?”

“She’s quite pretty too. Though she always has been.” Mahiru murmured, taking her spot beside Karen and inwardly squealing as the little girl beamed at her after she petted her hair. “So adorable.”

“She seems kinda smart too.” Futaba pitched in after seeing how the person had acted- despite the various mishaps they indirectly caused- in this situation, trying to walk about and nearly smashing her face into the table, or trying to hand Nana a book she was reaching for when she held the girl in her lap, but almost dropping it on the larger girl’s foot.

“Well, sure. She’s all of those things.” Kaoruko rolled her eyes. “After all, she’s Also Tendou Maya.”

No one could refute the statement, seven heads bobbing in agreement.

“So?” Futaba looked to everyone in curiosity.

“So, what?” Junna replied.

“HAHHAHAHA, Mahiru-chan, she said so what, she just said ‘so what?’” Karen hollered, Junna’s statement making it seem like she didn’t care.

“Karen-chan… I don’t think you’re supposed to laugh at that in this situation…”

Ignoring the tiny deviance, Futaba continued. “How are we supposed to tell Kuroko about this?”

“…”

“Ah.”

Was the girls’ collective reaction. They hadn’t thought about that until now. Claudine was currently out of the dorm to do some shopping as she had volunteered to prepare dinner for tonight to celebrate the coming new year as no one from their little group had decided to go home for the holidays, now that they were in their third and final year. She claimed she had always cooked for her parents each time she went home so it was a habit she wanted to continue, even away from home.

Of course, everyone was more than willing to allow her to do so, curious as to the French’s cooking. Nana and Mahiru, along with Junna had offered helping hands to which Claudine accepted should she need them eventually. But for the shopping process, she’d rather do it on her own as she had yet to decide on what she’d like to make and did not want to inconvenience them with hopping from shop-to-shop undecided for hours on end.

They didn’t mind at all, but after some reassurance from the former child actress, they let her be, awaiting her patiently in the dorm with nothing better to do as school had been closed for the holidays.

Maya had begged- yes, begged- Claudine to allow her to come, but she was only met with a flick to the forehead and a firm, ‘No’. And even Maya knew never to push it when Claudine was that determined. Begrudgingly, she watched the love of her life walk away, taking the top star’s heart and soul with he-

“Don’t be so dramatic while I’m away, do you hear me?” Claudine had warned, familiar with how Maya’s thought process worked. She gave Maya a kiss on the forehead to temporarily satiate her clinginess. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

With that, Saijou Claudine had left for her little shopping trip. And now, three uneventful hours had gone by.

Or well, the girls hoped it had just been that.

As they were lounging in the dorm’s common room, Maya suddenly started feeling sick. She had crouched down, curling into a ball on the sofa. Worried, Nana approached her and put a hand on her forehead to check her temperature, wincing at the terrible heat that radiated off the poor girl as she pulled back immediately, feeling like she’d get burned.

Turning to the other inhabitants of the room, she gave separate instructions such as telling Hikari and Karen where to get the cooling pads and icepacks, respectively; she told Futaba and Kaoruko to grab Maya’s blanket and pillows, as well as some spare clothes should the girl feel cold later on due to the extreme and sudden fever. Junna had grabbed Mahiru to accompany her to the school clinic to find the nurse, and maybe get some medicine. If she wasn’t there- understandable as they had been told that the school would be closed for the holidays- then they would have to find the nearest pharmacy for some over-the-counter fever medicine.

“Tendou-san!” Karen was the first to accomplish her task, the icepack retrieved from the fridge just a few steps away. Her squeak made everyone returning to the room even more cautious now.

“What’s wrong?” Junna queried, now donning her coat and boots, coming from her room.

“She’s … shrinking…”

“You mean shaking, BaKaren?” Hikari muttered, brows furrowed in confusion.

“No…” Nana’s voice wavered, unsure at what she and Karen were seeing, and how to tell the rest just what it was that they were seeing. “She’s literally… shrinking.”

“…”

“Well damn, if I’ll be. So it’s possible for her to be cute, after all.”

“Kaoruko!”

//-//-//-//-//

“So ya think keeping her in our room is goin’ ta work? That’s some sloppy judgment coming from you, Junna-han.”

“You have the larger room between us, so if she doesn’t turn back soon, you have enough space for her to sleep.” The bespectacled girl pointed out. “Saijou-san possibly has the largest room, but that defeats the purpose of keeping this issue a secret from her, right?”

“Remind me why we’re keeping this a secret from her, though? Wouldn’t it be better to just tell her?” Futaba sighed.

“Who wants to do the honors and tell someone as fiery and protective as Saijou-san that her girlfriend is a small child, and possibly cause even more panic and distress?”

“…”

“But Karen and them have more space, don’t they?” Futaba brought their attention back to the first topic, backing Kaoruko up, really not wanting to babysit two children.

“The enormous amounts of trust I have in Mahiru is negated by equal amounts of doubt I have in her roommates when it comes to childcare and many other matters.” Junna stated, pushing her glasses up.

“Hey!”

“You got a point.” Futaba sighed, acquiescing.

“Futaba-han!”

“I can at least trust Hayanagi-san to behave when she wants to.”

“That’s bein’ a little mean, don’t ya think?”

“Now, now~” Nana, ever the peacemaker, calmed everyone down.

“Fine. But we’re takin’ turns watchin’ the little brat. I can’t have her ruining my routine.”

“Your routine is mostly just you fucking around, though.”

“Futaba-han!”

“Futaba-chan!!!” Mahiru cried, not having enough hands to cover both Hikari’s and Karen’s ears.

“Nana… were you trying to cover my ears too?”

“…”

“Na!”

The tiny voice stole everyone’s attention.

“What…”

“Na! Na!” The little brown bundle giggled, looking up at the blonde, opening up her arms, asking to be carried. The tallest of the bunch squealed in delight, scooping up the small child, spinning her about.

“I’m so happy, Maya-chan!”

“AWwwww, that’s so cute!! And dang it Banana, why are you her first word!! I wanted to be it!”

“I think ‘Karen’ is a little hard for a toddler to say as a first word, Karen-chan.” Mahiru responded, patting the dejected girl’s head.

However, Aijo Karen was not one to be discouraged. “I’ll be her second word then!”

“Karen-chan…”

“Come on, Tendou-san. Say it with me. Ka-ren. Ka-ren.”

“Kawuko!”

“Nooooon!!!” Karen cried in despair.

“Oho~” Futaba clapped, impressed. “You can’t tell me that that don’t make you happy, Kaoruko.” She teased the bluenette who simply turned away blushing.

“I thought my name was difficult… isn’t Kaoruko-chan’s name harder?”

“Just move on, Karen.” Hikari sighed, rubbing the said girl’s back in comfort. “After all, I’m gonna have her say my name before yours.”

“Hikari-chan!” Mahiru cried.

“How old is this kid anyway?” Futaba asked, shifting the conversation to a new topic.

“Beats me.” Junna shrugged. “Nana, can you ask her?”

“Sure~” Nana replied, still playing with Maya, tossing her up in the air slightly from time to time, the child very pleased, apparent with how she laughed unabashed. “Ne, Maya-chan.”

“Na?”

“Mhm, Nana-oneechan wants to ask you something. If you can understand me, I hope…” She chuckled nervously, wide eyes giving her their full attention. “How old are you?”

It seems the little brunette did, in fact, understand as she held up two fingers.

“Wow, that’s younger than I expected.” Junna muttered, stroking her chin in thought. “Maybe I should have Mahiru watch over her, after all. It’s a little too worrying if someone without enough experience handles a child as small as her.”

“Nn?! …b-but we already decided on the arrangements, didn’t we?” Kaoruko suddenly interjected, surprising everyone.

“Oh~? What do we have here~?, Kaoruko, did you actually get attached to the idea of taking care of the kid, just now?” Futaba’s teasing returned, poking at her roommate’s side.

“N-not at all? I just thought that for convenience sake, we shouldn’t complicate our original plans.”

“Whatever you say.”

While everyone else switched between watching the pair bicker, and Nana playing with a tiny Tendou Maya, they failed to remember just why they were planning on hiding the child- or better yet, from whom they were hiding her… until the person in question’s voice through them into another state of hushed panic.

“I’m back!” This voice belonged to none other than the 99th class’ second seat, Saijou Claudine. Tendou Maya’s better half, as she would put it. “Ara? Where is everyone? Nana? Junna?” She called.

“Ah crap. Saijou-san is back.” Junna face-palmed, feeling her stress build up.

“Eeehhh, wha-what do we do?!”

“HIDE THE KID.”

“Calm down, Karen-chan, Hikari-chan. You too Mahiru-chan. Your grip is gonna kill Hikari- chan’s hand.” Nana worried at that last bit, seeing the poor London girl’s hand color a deathly pale. “Really, Mahiru-chan, you should let go right now.”

Junna groaned. She had wanted to go over this plan better. Guess they had no choice.

“Here’s what’s going to happen.” She called for everyone’s attention. “Nana, Mahiru and I will distract Saijou-san by helping her with dinner preparations as we originally planned, earlier. We will try our best to not get her to look for Maya, or go to her room, and we’ll come up with an excuse.”

Heads nodded in understanding.

“The rest of you, watch the kid.” Junna gave the four a hard stare as the “mom friends” of the group filed out of the room one-by-one. “If you somehow meet with Saijou if you go out of this room, and she asks anything regarding Tendou-san, just say you don’t know or something.” And with that, the door was shut, the quartet to their own devices… oh and the baby, too.

…

“So… what now?”

//-//-//-//-//

True to her word, Junna and her companions were able to keep Claudine at bay, the girls in FutaKao’s room remaining undisturbed for the most part as they played with Maya for over an hour.

All had been going well, so far, but it seemed as though they had run out of games to play and the child and Karen alike were beginning to get bored.

This was dangerous.

Futaba preferred that no one venture out for the sake of ‘fun’.

“HUH?!” Her partner’s distressed cry grabbed her attention.

“Kaoruko?”

“These damn parents, at this particular time?” She muttered. “Futaba-han, I need you to come with me to the gate to pick up some stuff. My parents said I must retrieve it by myself since I chose to not go home, therefore no servant is going to be allowed to help me during my… independence, they claim.” Despite the clear reasons, Futaba remained seated.

“Why can’t you go by yourself? Someone needs to watch these kids.”

Kaoruko rolled her eyes. “Even I know how bad it could get to leave these two with a very small child, but if I could do this by myself, I wouldn’t even ask.” Futaba didn’t seem convinced. “It’ll take us five minutes. We grab the items, then we come back to find these three conked out and asleep, yeah? Now come on.”

There was clearly no room for the redhead to argue as she was dragged out the door by a rushing Kaoruko.

Hikari and Karen shared a look, shrugged, then returned to playing with Maya.

Or tried.

The child didn’t seem to like their current toys right now, throwing them about the room with a frown, and getting increasingly louder in her complaining cries.

“What do we do, Hikari-chan?” Karen turned to her best friend for help, but to no avail. “Ah!” She snapped. “I know! I think I have a toy in our room that would get her to quiet down! Let’s go get it!” Karen tugged at Hikari’s sleeve, pulling her onto her feet.

“Do we take her?” Hikari asked monotonously, pointing at the child- and… did she get… a little bigger? And had she been wearing that outfit earlier? Maybe Karen was just imagining things.

“No, we might get spotted walking with her.” She shook her head. “We’ll just run for our room then come back!”

Hikari didn’t question it, only suggesting that they lock the door as they left, Karen agreeing it was for the best.

With that, they left the child alone in the locked room with a wave as she just blinked back at them, staring at the closing door. The two bounded down the hallway, attempting to speedily retrieve the needed items before little Maya could get into any unsupervised trouble.

It barely took them three minutes to retrieve as many child-entertaining games and toys as they could find. As they walked up carefully to the door of Futaba and Kaoruko’s shared room, they met up with the said girls carrying semi-large boxes.

But that wasn’t important.

If she could do so without drawing attention to their little group, the young heiress would have screeched an ear-splitting scolding towards the two. Instead, she had to settle for a harsh series of whispers. “I thought we told you to watch her, not leave her alone!”

“B-but…” Karen whimpered. “She was starting to get really loud, and-and, we locked the door when we left, anyway.”

“you WHAT?! We don’t have keys on us!!!”

“…oh, dang.”

Futaba, equally frustrated, tried the doorknob anyway, brows raising high as it opened with little resistance. “Huh? I thought you said you locked it?”

“Eh?? But we did! Right, Hikari-chan?”

Hikari wordlessly nodded, brows now furrowed.

“No… no… please, don’t tell me…” Everyone burst into the room, eyes darting about so fast. Futaba and Karen had begun to look everywhere, beneath the bed, inside the locker. Kaoruko and Hikari decided to traverse the halls, hoping they’d catch sight of a little head of brown hair, to no luck.

What they did catch, however, was the confused gazes of Nana, Junna, and Mahiru as they were making their way back to the room, Claudine telling them that they had helped her enough and she could take it from there. They had reluctantly agreed to leave, but they supposed Claudine would now be too occupied to even think to look for Maya.

So what was going on, right now?

“Guys?”

“Oh no. It’s Junna.” Hikari drawled, panicking inside, but not letting it show.

“Hikari-chan? Weren’t you supposed to be watching…” Mahiru trailed off as a sniffling, teary Karen exited the room, running into her arms. “Karen-chan?!”

“…gonee!”

“Huh?”

“She’s gone! Tendou-san!”

“WHHAAATTTT-“

Before Junna could give everyone an earful, Nana dispatched all the girls around the dorm that wasn’t close to where Claudine was to avoid drawing her suspicion, seeing the girls move about in search of something. Rooms, other halls, bathrooms, spare practice rooms, the storage. They were to comb through every nook and cranny for Tendou Maya. There was no need to check the Kitchen as the trio who had assisted Claudine had just come from there and could confirm that the French was the only person present there and they had encountered no tiny top star on their way back to the room.

And so began the great ‘Tendou Maya’ hunt.

//-//-//-//-//

Claudine hummed a tune from their latest play, setting down the last of her prepared ingredients on the counter next to the stove. Mahiru, Junna and Nana had been of great help and they had finished preparing the desserts for later first to be able to set it aside in the fridge. All Claudine had left to do was to actually cook the meal.

“Where’s that large pan that I need…” Searching through the cupboards, she found exactly what she needed, placing the heavy pan on the stove and turning it on to start heating. Continuing her previous humming, Claudine suddenly jumped at the feel of something pulling on her pant leg.

What in the…

She was greeted by wide, curious violet eyes, blinking up at her innocently.

“Um…” There was something oddly familiar about this child currently standing beside Claudine. She just couldn’t put a finger to it. She didn’t look any older than the age of three or four, but she didn’t seem to have any guardian accompanying her either.

“Hi!” The lass greeted, beaming brightly at Claudine. The latter couldn’t help but smile back. She loved children, after all. And she secretly admitted to herself that this one, in particular, was absolutely adorable.

“Why, hello there.” Bending down to the little girl’s level, said girl staring up at her with large lilac eyes, while clinging to the hem of her apron, Claudine greeted back. “Bonjour~”.

The different language seemed to throw the child off, and Claudine could almost see the little cogs spinning in her head. “B-Bon… Bonzoo? Bonzhoo? Bonju?”

Claudine laughed airily, patting the brunette’s head tenderly. “Close enough. Bonjour.”

The child simply nodded this time, relenting on learning this strange word for now.

Claudine temporarily turned the stove off before turning back to her little companion, hands on her hips as she scrutinized the young girl’s features. “You really do look so terribly familiar.” With gorgeous violet eyes, lustrous chocolate hair pulled back in a ribbon-

Something clicked. “Ah! Are you, by chance, a relative of that insufferable Tendou Maya? You’re much cuter than she is, though.” Turning to the other girl, Claudine was surprised to see her pout despite the compliment.

“But I’m Maya! This. Is. Tendou Maya! I’m the cutest!”

Now, this confused Claudine. Was she a big fan of that infuriating woman? “Not only are you the spitting image of her, you even talk like her. I swear she is a bad influence.” Claudine sighed. “So, do I call you Maya?”

She was met with enthusiastic nodding, and she could only giggle at the sheer adorableness of it all.

“Alright, then. Maya.” Straightening up and looking about the room, hoping for some guardian to walk in, or perhaps her Maya, claiming the child as her secret relative, Claudine found no one, eyes trailing to the clock on the wall warning her that her time to prepare dinner was growing ever short.

She sighed again. Guessing that she should get a move on, she tried to point to the couch with a smile, nonverbally telling the kid to take a seat and wait there. About to return to her previous task of cooking, Claudine almost missed the way those large purple eyes stared at her in wait, as if asking a question. It made the blonde realize very quickly.

“Oh! Where are my manners.” She crouched down, eye-to-eye with the child, offering her hand out for a shake. “My name is Claudine”

She saw cute little brows furrow, wrinkles forming in the “Maya’s” forehead. Easing them away by massaging the area gently with her thumb, Claudine laughed as the child began to test her name out. “Ku-, Ko- Kro… hrnnghh” The child tried in vain.

Claudine laughed lightly.

“Kuu-chan!”

“Eh-“

“Kuu-chan!!!” It seemed as though the child had given up on trying to pronounce her name right, and the little moniker she had come up with made Claudine feel the tiniest bit shy.

“Now, now. Not that I don’t like that nickname you’ve come up with somehow… The real Tendou Maya would never give up, now would she?” She teased, feeling somewhat satisfied at the blush that flooded the little girl’s face. “But I guess, you could continue to call me that, if you so wish. Still, I do hope you will someday be able to pronounce my name properly.” Claudine hadn’t the slightest idea why she wanted such a thing, even if it was still later in the future, but she felt compelled to do so.

The child nodded, beaming at her brightly once more as she hugged Claudine’s leg.

“Okay, I really need to be getting back to my work. So, if you’d just allow me to…” Gently hoisting the girl up, causing a fit of the cutest giggles Claudine had ever heard in her life, she placed her on a stool in the kitchen where she could easily turn to check on the girl every once-in-a-while. “There we go.”

“Kuu-chan?”

“Please behave yourself now while waiting for your mommy, or daddy, or… someone. Onee-chan needs to get back to cooking so that everyone can have a nice, yummy dinner. Maybe you could even join us. So, would it be fine for you to sit and wait for me? If you want to play, we can do so once I’ve finished this.” Satisfied with the nod she was given as a reply, Claudine patted the girl’s head once more for good measure. She then turned on the stove and continued her work, pouring in her oil and mixing in her ingredients.

A moment later, she realized that she needed a spice from the cupboard. Quickly going to fetch it, she was surprised as little Maya clung to her waist, arms wrapped around her, nuzzling into her stomach.

“Kuu-chan! Play with me!”

“Maya, now didn’t we agree that you would behave while I finished my task?”

The girl pouted, but released Claudine nonetheless.

“Thank you.”

And she was back to cooking. Cooking with a heavy pan reminded the French woman of how proud she was of her strength, tossing the mixture of ingredients inside with ease. For just a moment, she looked back to check on Maya, screaming horrified in just a second as she spotted the girl reaching for a knife, tiptoeing by the edge of counter, head not even reaching the height of the countertop. If she left this to go on, the knife could fall wrongly and hit her if she reached it. Claudine rushed forward, moving the sharp knife away, far out of the child’s reach.

Panting as she settled the girl back in her stool, fixing her with a very stern look that commanded, ‘stay’, Claudine got back to her food, hoping it wasn’t burning or anything. “Is this what it feels like to be a mother? To have kids?” She groaned.

Hearing shuffling come from behind her, she whipped her head about, catching the guilty look flash across the child’s face as she attempted to climb off the stool again.

“Please stay, okay? I’ll play with you all you want after.” She sighed, once more, placing the girl on the stool. “I know you’re bored, but I really cannot leave you to wander about on your own without supervision. You might get lost or hurt, and being the one to have been with you last, I really will be responsible. I’d like to actually ‘be responsible’. Please?”

The little girl pouted but nodded her understanding. Claudine felt relieved. Until-

“Kiss?”

“Wha-“

“If Kuu-chan gives a kiss, Maya will stay!” Blushing, but considering her options, Claudine relented.

“Fine.”

“Wai~!”

Finally feeling as though her struggle with childcare was over, Claudine finally got back to work, not hearing any noises that indicated trouble, breathing in her relief.

“Thank God.”

Finally finishing her first dish, she set it aside, turning to grab the ingredients for the second… dish…

Where was the child?

And who was this elderly woman now seated in her place?!

“My, my, ma Claudine, you look wonderful, cooking for me, shining in all your youth.”

She would have asked who the hell this lady was, but by the way she was addressed, she could only assume that it was, “M-Maya?”.

“Ah~ Has time frozen your beauty in place? Even the universe can’t help but admire such a flower, unwilling to let you go.” The lady lamented. “And yet here, I shrivel away, though not without all my passion blooming still in my heart.”

“You’re… Maya… right?”

“Who else would I be?”

And yes, who else would she be, Claudine agreed. Those stunning purple eyes, the particular shade of brown in the colored streaks of hair still present amongst the white, Yes. This was Tendou Maya, indeed

Honestly, Claudine surprised herself with how well she was taking all this. She would have spent more time wracking her brains over this crazy phenomenon, but then the clock caught her attention and made her realize that she had been in crazier situations than this. This should not be all that unbelievable. She had been through worse with Maya. So long as the girl still existed…

Claudine could prioritize finishing her dinner preparations.

Maya would surely turn back to normal soon.

Right?

Therefore…

“Maya. I implore you.”

“Ask anything, my love, and I shall-“

“Please behave yourself so I can finish what I have to and find everyone so we can figure out how to turn you back.”

“Of course, deary~.”

“I mean it.”

“…o-of course… dear.”

“Maya?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Claudine got started on her next dish, somehow thankful that Maya actually seemed to be cooperating. Was it her current age that made her less energetic? Maya was quiet, behaved. At least from what Claudine was hearing, which was nothing but silence, she hoped the silence meant Maya was just sitting, resting and not… dead or anything like that. Right? …right?!

Whipping her head about, Claudine caught the elderly woman walking about in some random direction, looking a bit older than she did earlier and… a whole lot blinder it seemed, as she hit her face against the wall.

What did I just say about behaving…

“Oi, grandma. I told you to stay put.” Claudine groaned in exasperation, moving to retrieve Maya. “Now I feel like those children or grandchildren made to take care of their elderly family.”

“Who… are you?”

“HA?”

“I’m starting to feel starved…”

“Don’t just go jumping from one topic to another, Tendou Maya…”

“What did you say?” So this granny was deaf too.

“Snacks, snacks… something soft enough for her teeth… I don’t want them to break…” Considerate as ever, Claudine started searching about for something to hand to this annoying woman. Spotting something on the counter, she picked it up, examining it for a second. “I guess tofu will have to do.”

With a spoon, she scooped up a portion and brought it to the old woman’s mouth. Upon feeling the familiar metal, her mouth opened, taking in the food. “Ara, Tofu~”

“Wow… that was fast. You knew right away.”

“It’s delicious.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

“But it would be better with Soy Sauce.”

“You are insatiable…”

“Add soy sauce!”

“Grandma, you’re so noisy.”

And Claudine’s woes continued.

//-//-//-//-//

“So? Did you have any plans of revealing this to me? At any point in time?”

“Sorry… Kuro-chan. We thought you’d get angry…”

Seven people now sat in seiza in their living room, one of them being an adult Tendou Maya, it seemed, possibly in her late twenties. She had shifted through ages at least thrice since meeting up with Claudine. The rest of the girls had given up on searching after two hours or so, and upon hearing Maya’s familiar voice conversing with Claudine from the kitchen, they all bolted, panting as they stood before the pair, their demeanors giving everything away- that they had been aware of this from the start.

“I am angry.”

“Urgh…”

“And if I would’ve been angry anyway, then why didn’t you all just tell me from the start?” Claudine frowned even deeper, if that was possible. “I thought we were all comrades here, fighting together. Shouldn’t this be one of the things we try to figure out as a team?”

“We’re… sorry…” Guiltily, the rest of the stage girls hung their head in apology. It still wasn’t enough for Claudine, however. She wanted an explanation.

“Did no one think of telling me?” With everyone else avoiding her gaze, except Maya who looked strangely happy to be scolded, she turned to the only one standing, busy taking way too many photos of the girls. Why did Claudine feel stress build up y just looking at her? “Nana?”

“It seemed fun.”

“Nana/Nana-chan?!”

Of course, it was. Claudine sighed- before her stomach growled, leading her to blush a lovely shade of red. Eight heads turned to her, some amused, some sheepishly concerned.

“Ah, it’s already this late.” Junna exclaimed, the clock reading seven-pm-sharp.

“No wonder Kuro-chan got hungry~”

“W-W-Well, whatever. Let’s have dinner then sort this… thing out.” The French tried to cover up her embarrassment, walking over to the food she had prepared, getting ready to take it to the dorm’s veranda where tables had been set up earlier by Junna, Nana and Mahiru. They were planning to eat outside and see if they could enjoy some fireworks displays that were sure to come soon from neighboring areas, and could be seen from where they were. “We can’t solve Tendou Maya’s problem on empty stomachs.”

Laughing in relief, the girls soon got up one by one, helping out with the set-up, ready to at least enjoy the end of the year, regardless of how wacky it turned out to be.

//-//-//-//-//

After all the food had been consumed, and Maya had shifted through her age one more time, now taking the appearance of an eight-year-old child, with no leads, and darkness shrouding them, they decided to put off their investigation until tomorrow. It would be safer then too.

For now, they’d enjoy the end to their year as a group of comrades, friends, and family.

To everyone’s excitement, Kaoruko and Futaba had brought out two fairly large boxes, the ones they had fetched earlier from Kaoruko’s family. It seemed as though they were actually quite pleased to hear that their daughter had such wonderful friends who she actually wanted to spend a time as special as New Year’s with. In their happiness, they had bought her so many fireworks. Sparklers, little crackers, fountains, even the really beautiful ones that burst in the sky.

Nana, Junna, and Futaba took charge of setting those up safely in the yard, while Mahiru’s team fetched buckets of water for safety reasons.

As they played under the stars with their multi-colored lights flashing about, Claudine took the entire scene in before her. In spite of all the troubles, mishaps, fights, and trials they had gone through this past year, and even the years before in Seishou, Claudine would never trade the bonds of companionship she had built with her friends for anything in the world.

Running through their supply of fireworks, as well as energy, everyone proceeded to lay down on the blanketed lounge chairs that Nana had had the foresight of setting up, predicting that everyone would want to stay outside in each other’s presence for a little while longer while waiting for one grand fireworks show that had been advertised the past few days in the news.

They knew they’d be able to spot it from where they were in the yard, so they eagerly anticipated it, the television that had been turned on in the living room had some host of some show leading off a countdown.

“Kuu-chan?”

The little girl called for her attention, tugging at the hem of her sweater, those Violet eyes searching Claudine’s very soul. She hummed in response, petting the girl’s head lovingly.

“Still not going to give up on that nickname?”

“Will you stay with me forever?”

The sudden question and disregard of her playful comment had her surprised, but the contents of the question had her heart stop for just a second.

“W-will you leave me then?”

Her lack of response must have worried the girl. Had she been frozen for long?

“W-well, that is…” If she were talking to… her Maya- oh who was she kidding?! No matter the age or appearance or… whatever, this was for a fact her. Maya. Still. If this were the normal Maya, she would have responded differently. How should she tell this child the heartfelt truth while remaining in reality without crushing her hopes and dreams?

“Kuu-“

No, it was because it was her Maya regardless of the factors, that she could and would answer the way she believed was most fitting.

“Yes.”

“E-eh?” Maya looked like she would just cry right then and there. Claudine pinched her cheek lovingly before explaining.

“I cannot guarantee that I will always be by your side physically. There will be moments in life where we will have to be apart. And physical separation may be one way, but we aren’t perfect people, did you know that? Sometimes, our hearts may drift due to various circumstances.”

“I… I don’t like that…” Eight-year-old Maya sulked. Claudine laughed, before opening her hand palm up, asking the child to place hers in the larger hand.

“I know, I don’t either.” Claudine placed a chaste kiss on the back of Maya’s hand, successfully pulling a blush out of her. “And that’s exactly why I shall strive my hardest to stay. I will try my best to remain by your side for as long as I can.” She smiled that disarming, charming smile of hers. “After all, isn’t giving my all in everything I do my strongest point? And if there come times when I cannot be near you physically, then…”

“Claudine?” She’d be lying if hearing her name from Maya plain as that didn’t make her feel immense amounts of joy and satisfaction.

“I’ll just have to entrust you to keep my heart for me until I come to retrieve it. Oui?”

She watched the girl nod, no words coming out of her mouth. Could Claudine count this as a win against the insufferable woman? Maybe it wasn’t fair to battle it out against a child, though.

“How about we join the rest in the countdown?” Claudine asked, as she guided the girl to the many lawn chairs on the veranda, taking a seat on one and patting the space in front of her so that Maya could sit between her legs.

The little girl obliged, and they heard the TV slowly reaching the tens in the countdown.

[“Twelve, eleven… Ten…”]

“Nine.” Hikari murmured so soft with a smile, taking Mahiru and Karen’s hands as she stood between them.

“Eight~” Nana smiled, chancing a glance at a Junna sporting a rare child-like excitement.

“Seven.” Kaoruko whispered in a moment of seriousness, staring with great admiration at Futaba’s back that seemed so large, despite the girl in question being quite small.

“Six.” As if she felt that gaze, Futaba turned with back with a charming smile, something different, but so so warm in her eyes directed at Kaoruko.

“Five.” Mahiru murmured, looking to the two people she loved most in the world, surprised that they were already staring her way, telling her that they would always watch over her.

“Four!” Karen jumps excitedly, pulling Mahiru and Hikari into a tight hug, before kissing them both on the cheeks.

“Three…” Junna whispered, eyes sparkling, nothing else but the warmth of Nana’s hand keeping her rooted to the reality of the world as she felt herself hypnotized by the suddenly very silent and vast night sky, not a single firework present… yet.

“Two!” A small Maya in Claudine’s lap cheered, leaning back against the blonde woman’s front.

Claudine had hoped she could share this special moment with the one she cherished above all things. Well, she was, but… she didn’t think it would be… like this. Still. Maya was Maya, and Claudine would love her and stay with her for all time.

“One.”

The lights were splendid, brighter and more passionate than many of their stages. It ignited hope and starlight in the girls, and they watched on in awe, greetings of Happy New Year along with hugs and kisses being thrown around.

“Happy New Year, Ma Maya.” Claudine whispered, hugging the small bundle in front of her, wrapping her arms around the small Maya, heart just a little heavy. “I love you.”

In her silent pain, she had failed to take notice of the being in her arms taking on a glow, and slowly growing, transforming unnoticed by everyone entranced by the lights in the heavens.

“My, what a heartfelt confession. It certainly made my own heart flutter… Saijou-san.”

She could not lift her head up any faster, heart beating miles upon miles per hour, eyes wide as she drank in the familiar, but very missed sight of Maya. Tendou Maya. Her Maya… oh beautiful, lovely, sweet, incredibly infuriating Maya.

Standing up, turning around, and then getting down on one knee by Claudine’s side, Maya returned the gesture of placing her lips softly against Claudine’s fair hand, a confession slipping out so smoothly, so naturally from her lips.

“I love you with everything that I am, as well, Ma Claudine.”

…

Suddenly, Maya was looking very panicked, and Claudine would have asked why if the girl hadn’t reached forward, wiping every tear that slipped from her eyes.

“Did it move you that deeply, my darling Claudine?” She joked, though her anxiety was very clear in her voice. “I’m sorry, I did not mean to upset you. Please… please, if you feel hurt, tell me where and I’ll-“

Maya was very quickly squeezed into a breath-taking hug, Claudine staining Maya’s sweater in her relieved tears.

“You utter idiot! Do you know how worried I actually was if you wouldn’t turn back to normal?!”

“Well, you know how Cinderella’s little spell goes; as the clock strikes midnight, the magic wears off and-“

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, I understand.” Claudine rolled her eyes.

“Oh, but you don’t. Let me finish, my dear Claudine.” Maya grinned. “Once the magic wears off, all she is left with is a normal girl, in normal dress, with nothing but her bare and honest heart as the proof that she is the one the Prince fell in love with.”

Maya turned Claudine’s hand over, kissing her palm, then up to her wrist.

“Isn’t it the same for you, ma Claudine?”

“Y-you… I…”

“As Cinderella left her Prince for but a moment, they both strived to be together again, and to stay together forever. They made such a beautiful promise, as well. In the form of lifetime vows.” There was that familiar cheeky glint in Maya’s eyes, but Claudine couldn’t find it in her to be annoyed. “And you’ve given me your vow, so how about I give you mine?”

“What…”

“Saijou Claudine. I will forever devote my soul and my love to you. And I may not always be with you in body, and sometimes in mind… but my heart will always be yours.” She laughed, adding an afterthought. “And I might prefer it if you never returned it at all. I believe you are the safest person to keep it.”

“M-mechante va!”

“EEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!!” Karen’s screams cut through the air, and through their little moment. “It’s Tendou-san!!! She’s… She’s NORMAL!” She screamed, waving her hand, pointing a finger at Maya, directing everyone’s attention to the girl at the end of it.

“Tendo-san!!!”

“Heya, Maya-chan~! We were actually beginning to worry.”

“T-Tendou-san is… she’s okay now, right? She’s normal again, right?” Karen shifted her gaze around the circle of friends, seeking confirmation that her eyes were not playing tricks on her.

“I’m afraid I never have been, Aijo-san.”

“EH? O-oh no, is something still wrong?”

“On the contrary, everything is perfect! I am simply back to my usual amazing self.”

“…”

“And annoying self, it seems.” Claudine quipped with a faux disheartened sigh, shaking her head. “You really are the most infuriating woman in the world.”

“You love it.” Maya quickly replied.

“I do.” Claudine responded just as quick, so calmly, so naturally that it threw everyone, especially Maya off.

“I… I see.”

“What happened though? Why did that happen?” Junna, ever the curious mind, asked the important question.

Maya hummed, thinking for a moment, before smiling a mysterious smile.

“Let’s just say that’s the magic of a new year.”

With everyone sure that Maya was now okay and back to her usual self, they all began the clean up before splitting off into their respective rooms, saying their good nights and welcoming the much-needed respite.

Claudine had dragged Maya to her room, very deprived of Maya’s usual annoyingness and affection that she would never admit she wanted.

As they lay on her large bed, in their night gowns, warm under the covers and entangled in each other’s arms, Maya planting kisses on the crown of Claudine’s head, she heard the smallest whisper, almost missing it.

“…I missed you.”

The brunette smiled, pulling away for a moment, and reaching into the pocket of her nightgown, pulling out a small box.

“Claudine.”

“M-Maya?”

“We are but young souls who’ve had the pleasure of crossing one another’s paths, and a lifetime vow involving marriage, though I’d certainly want it now, is jumping the gun, even for someone like me, I suppose… but for now…” Opening the case, she revealed a heart, one side black, and the other white. Separating the pieces, she had both of them sit up on the bed, before she moved to sit behind Claudine, both of them conveniently facing the direction of the room’s large mirror.

Claudine watched as Maya’s hands moved to take the ivory piece, gently guiding the thin, golden chain of the necklace around Claudine’s neck and clicking it in place, before moving her hair to one side and kissing the bare part of the blonde’s shoulder.

She remained there for a moment, before trailing upwards, leaving small nips and kisses along Claudine’s shoulder and neck, nuzzling from time to time, taking in her lovely, flowery scent, thoroughly embarrassing the girl.

“Okay, okay! That’s enough!” Claudine screeched, moving away, grabbing at the case Maya had left on the bed and retrieving the ebony-colored half of the heart, transferring her seat behind Maya. “Your turn.”

“Of course.” Maya chuckled, behaving herself for once. She stared at Claudine through the reflection on the mirror, smiling as she saw the blonde’s hands fumble momentarily with the jewelry, before shakily bringing it about her neck. “Nervous?”

“Shut up.”

“I love you.” Maya grinned at the sight of Claudine’s blush deepening as she snapped the ends of the chain together, before leaving a secret kiss in the top star’s hair. “I will gladly take that as an ‘I love you too’.

“Do you not know what it means to be quiet?”

“But of course, I do.”

“Then-“

“I just choose to annoy you instead.”

“You-you!!”

“I will marry you.”

Claudine choked.

Maya turned around to face the girl, taking two warm hands in hers, caressing them gently, each knuckle, both palms, each finger, lingering slightly on Claudine’s left ring finger.

“One day, I will. I swear.”

“…”

“So when that day comes, I won’t let you complain that you’re dealing with a difficult child, or a troublesome old lady.” Claudine rolled her eyes at that, smiling fondly. “But I welcome any and all complaints about me being an infuriating wife.”

“Oh my gosh…” Claudine laughed, but tears were already escaping those gorgeous rose-red eyes Maya fell in love with so deeply. “You are just… ugh… Mechante va!”

And despite her words, Claudine couldn’t help but draw Maya in, pressing her lips against that ridiculous grin; tenderness and intensity, a embracing warmth and scorching passion altogether found in one kiss. Love and irritation, relief and hope... a promise and a confirmation.

“Happy new year, ma Claudine. I love you.”

“I love you too. And a very happy one, indeed… ma Maya.”

[“And more happy years with you to come.”]

A/N: I’M DONE. I’M JUST. DONE. YES. THIS TOOK ME FOUR DAYS INSTEAD OF ONE BUT IDK IT SEEMS WORTH IT, MAYBE? PLEASE TELL ME. I’M DYING TO KNOW. COMMENT, KUDOS, REBLOG AO3 OR TUMBLR JUST- haha. Okay. I’m calm. Ahhh~ MayaKuro. I just read that doujin by Takano Saku yesterday. As well as reread the mangas of starira.

Anyway… Thank you again, and a happy new year to you all!

~Shintori Khazumi

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things2mustdo · 3 years

Link

As you probably have heard in the news, earlier in August a Pennsylvania grand jury handed down a 1,356-page account of sexual abuse which involved around 1,000 kids and 300 priests during a period of approximately 70 years. It is another pedophilia scandal within the Catholic Church that adds up to their collection of countless other ones reported in recent years.

The commie pope—while on his two-day visit to Ireland—begged for forgiveness again, just the way he did in Chile back in January of this year.

You can notice how quick and scathing the mainstream media is to denounce these recurring events, after all we know who owns the MSM and the (real) Church has a long, well-known history of “anti-semitism” and resistance against the tentacles of globalism. I wish the media had the same commitment to inform the existence of other pedophile rings full of high-ranking people as well.

Is the problem of the church’s innumerous sexual abuse allegations really pedophilia? To me there is a deeper explanation for it, and that explanation is: homosexualism. 81% of the alleged victims are male and three-fourths of them are post-pubescent. As you guys are certainly aware of, the Church has a very big issue with homosexualism among its clergymen.

I have a theory for the high presence of gay men inside priesthood: until not long ago being gay was definitely not ok, homosexuals were not accepted as they are now, so they became priests.

The developed Western world of today encourages people to become gay, it applauds individuals for their gayness, but it wasn’t always like that. Now, try to imagine a closeted homosexual man living in the 50s, for example. What a better place to go than the Catholic seminary? People wouldn’t look you down, you wouldn’t have to get married, the place was filled with other young men (potential sexual partners) and that’s how the Church got corrupted by perverts.

Pedophilia x Homosexualism

One normie could argue “how homosexualism relates to pedophilia?” Any red-pilled person who has ever wondered what causes someone to become gay will notice that there is an undeniable link between pedophilia and homosexualism.

Let’s remember the occasion of Milo Yiannopolous’ resignation from Breitbart over comments which seemed to endorse sex between “younger men” and older men. Something that is—as he pointed out—extremely common among gay men. A 2009 report revealed that 74 percent of bisexuals had been sexually abused as children, I am pretty sure homosexuals follow the same numbers.

I won’t say homosexual behavior is exclusively caused by pedophilia because human (or animal) sexuality is a very complex topic which can certainly involve many variables. I just don’t buy that “born this way” hype, until this day not a single reliable proof of the existence of a gay gene or anything like it was discovered.

The Vatican once bought a £21 million apartment block above ‘Europe’s largest gay sauna’.

Pope Francis, a champion of the left-leaning agenda inside the Church, has been accused of covering up former Cardinal McCarrick’s abuse allegations (one of the many cases in Pennsylvania). The accusations were made by Carlo Vigano, a former Vatican ambassador to the US, and if it proves to be true–I am positive it is—that should result in pope Francis’ resignation. As a traditionalist Catholic myself I would be delighted with such an event.

Francis has already been complacent with other pedos before. One good example is the 2015 ‘Synod on the Family’ when the pope invited Godfried Danneels, a Belgium Cardinal convicted of covering up pedophiles in the 90s, to attend the meeting. Danneels is a hard-left priest that tries to push the Church ” liberal reformation” and admitted that he was part of a plot against (right-leaning) Pope Benedict and in favor of the election of leftie Francis.

To affirm that the Church’s gay/pedos are exclusively part of the left-wing priesthood would be too Manichean. I am sure there are tons of sick people who lean right also. But it can’t be denied that the liberals make up the vast majority of these issues involving sexual misconduct.

“Religious progressives”

For those who don’t know, the Catholic Church, just as any other political institution, is divided in factions that tend to be more liberal or orthodox. The liberation theology, for instance, is a movement created inside the Catholic Church (and some Protestant denominations) which aims to mix Christianity and Marxism.

Even if you are an agnostic don’t underestimate the influence they played in various regions such as Europe, Latin America and even New England. Brazilian Workers’ Party attributed their success to this movement and Unions.

Be wary of any religious leader that tries to push a liberalization of dogmas and traditions. Because all religions are intrinsically conservative according to their respective contexts, they establish doctrines that dictate sets of rules that must be followed properly in order to attain their objectives (whether is Salvation in Christianity or Nirvana in Buddhism). There are no (real) religions without their traditions.

Whenever you see liberal religious men doubt their characters. There is a good chance they don’t even bother with religion or spirituality, perhaps they are closeted atheist. What they do care about is the religious platform, which can offer various benefits such as large audiences, political influence, money and even sex.

Estimates of the number of gays in the priesthood are all over the lot, from 20 percent to 60 percent, although a Los Angeles Times poll in 2002 found only 15 percent of priests saying they were homosexual or “somewhere in between but more on the homosexual side.”

Every time pedo priests’ cases pop up in the MSM, secular people are very quick to point fingers and show their moral superiority, but they “forget” the existence of secular institutions that are way more sexually perverted than the “gayish” modern Church, such as Hollywood, the political and corporate world.

Real Church x Sissy Church

It is also important to notice that the Church was emasculated, an emasculation that took place during the process of secularization and establishment of liberal democracies across the Western world (e.g. French Revolution).

The Church had to be softened, becoming an institution that barely resembles the once powerful and great Church of the Crusades or the Inquisitions. This same phenom of emasculation can also happen in other secular institutions too, the Military, mainstream Music, Politics, Sports and even Boys Scouts. And it will only get worse as liberal-democratic globalism advances, so secular people: watch out!

St. Basil the Great, a 4th century bishop and Doctor of the Church, defended that gay/pedo priests should be publicly flogged. That was the (real) Church, not this sissy catholicism created after the Second Vatican Council (a modernist reform imposed in the Church from 1962 to 1965). A lot of things got bad in the 60s.

The (real) Church has a very important and vigorous story in the construction of the West. Always being a target to the globalists and that breed who rules the world, a clear obstacle to their goals.

Examples are many: Gabriel García Moreno, Catholic Equatorian president, who made a terrific job in a Confessional Equator and was killed by the Freemasons; Saint José Sanchez del Rio, who was killed by Mexican secular, freemason and leftist government with the support of the US, for refusing to abbandon his faith.

Inconvenient truths are ignored

The media only goes after what is convenient to their narrative, don’t expect them to expose Hollywood pedos nor the obvious link between pedo priests and homosexualism. The left has already pushed the normalization of pedophilia many times and I didn’t see the indignation of the MSM.

Late Vatican’s Chief Exorcist Gabriele Amorth once said, “The Devil resides in the Vatican and you can see the consequences”.

“The floor of hell is paved with the skulls of bishops”. – St. Athanasius

Read More: The Vatican Has Disgraced True Catholic Values

I have noticed that many people have been falsely conflating what comes out of the Vatican as Catholic. Thus it is my duty to present to the esteemed readers of this fine site the true teachings of the Church which stand, ever more so today, in stark opposition to the rot of cultural Marxism and the effeminacy of the Papal pretenders in Rome.

Vicar of Christ?

Church authorities are not legitimate

It is a dogma of the Catholic faith that the Church cannot substantially change. This means that the church cannot contradict nor change her teaching from what has always been universally taught or has been solemnly defined. Any one who claims to be Catholic and knowingly professes a faith which contradicts a teaching of the Church is considered to be a heretic and is considered to have a removed himself from the Church.

As St. Thomas states: “[one] who disbelieves [even] one article of faith does not have faith, either formed or unformed.” This is known as the unity of faith which means that all Catholics profess the same faith. Likewise it means that heretics cannot hold a clerical office in the Church. Thus if a heretic were to be elected even to the Papacy they could not be considered a legitimate Pontiff because a heretic has separated himself from the Church (source).

Would a real Pope bow to a religion declared false by the Church?

Simply put, you have to be Catholic to be Pope, and the absurdity of a heretic claiming the See of Peter is where we find ourselves today. For just as the institutions in the West have been infiltrated and seized by the enemy, likewise have the institutions of the Church been usurped by apostate forces. The hierarchy currently residing in the Vatican are not legitimate authorities and do not represent the perennial teaching of the Church. Therefore I have listed for your benefit the actual Church’s positions on some current areas of contention.

The only time Francis has ever smiled at a Crucifix

On Communism

The Catholic Church is vehemently opposed to communism. Without Pius XII valiant efforts, communism would have prevailed over postwar France and Italy. The Pope went so far as to issue the Decree against Communism in 1949 which excommunicated any Christian who professed communist doctrine.

Catholicism is the enemy of Marxism as it teaches that there can be no separation of Church and state, and an atheist government is immoral. Catholicism believes private property is a natural right going so far to say that depriving workers of their wages is a sin which cries to heaven for vengeance (compare that to our socialist tax code!).

On Migration and Culture

The current Muslim invasion of Europe would be met with the utmost resistance. It has always been the Church which has sought to safeguard Catholic Culture and in ages past has gone so far as to issue a call to arms against non-Catholics who have sought to destroy it.

Pope Urban II issued the Crusades and Pope Leo the great even went so far as to personally travel into the heart of the Hun army—to Attila himself—to deliver Rome from the sack that was to come. In 1571, St. Pope Pius V formed the Holy League that would go on to defeat the great Muslim Turkish Armada that was plaguing the Mediterranean.

“Then I pointed like so and told them where to take their cultural enrichment”

The tradition of the Church has been to unite the West against external non-christian threats in order to preserve Western Christian culture.

“The natural law enjoins us to love devotedly and to defend the country in which we were born, and in which we were brought up, so that every good citizen hesitates not to face death for his native land…. We are bound, then, to love dearly the country whence we have received the means of engagement this mortal life affords.” – Sapientia Christiana Encyclical Pope Leo XIII

On Abortion and Contraception

So what is the real teaching of the Church in regards to abortion and contraception? The teaching is any member who has an abortion or supports abortion is automatically excommunicated from the Church. That’s right: every single Democrat who claims to be Catholic is actually excommunicated, including Nancy Pelosi who likes to sanctimoniously drone how she is a good Catholic grandmother.

Contraception is also considered a mortal sin because it is an unnatural stoppage of life.

“Hence, after the sin of homicide whereby a human life already in existence is destroyed, this type of sin appears to take next place, for by it the generation of human nature is impeded.” -St. Thomas Aquinas.

I know this is unpopular with the readers, but the teaching is that those who engage in contraception have already committed murder in their heart. Contraception is what allows people to engage in recreational sex, because the natural end of sex has been set aside so too then has the institution of marriage, whose end is children.

Likewise, because we have committed murder in our hearts, we have become a petulant, immature, vain, and a sterile people similar to any other people who have taken the risk from reward or the consequences from pleasure. This is the most difficult pill to swallow.

On Feminism

The Church condemns feminism in the strongest terms. There cannot exist feminism without birth control.

“…any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.” -Pius XI Casti Cannubi

The Church asserts that Man is the head of the household and that a woman finds her vocation from being a good mother and housewife:

“This … does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband’s every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; … For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.” -Ibid

The Pope has even gone so far as to condemn women’s suffrage:

“Woman can never be man’s equal and cannot therefore enjoy equal rights. Few women would ever desire to legislate, and those who did would only be classed as eccentrics.” -St. Pius X

On Pacifism

The Catholic Church is not simply just a religion of love and mercy. Christianity is not a weak religion, for our God is a God of Battles. Catholic Tradition encourages us to live our lives in the manner of our Lord Jesus who spoke of the struggle that his Church would have to endure.

“Do not think that I am come to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.”-Mathew 10:34

Christians are not meant to sit idly as bystanders to the great struggle of good and evil in this world.

“For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood: but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness: against the spirits of wickedness in the high places.” -Ephesians 6:12

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flightfoot · 4 years

Text

Divergent Points: Onichan

AO3/FFN

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Nino walked to school.

It’d been a few weeks since he and his friends had been sucked into some salty sentient alternate dimension.

They’d all been extremely relieved to be out of there. Though his return to his body hadn’t been the most pleasant thing around.

Seriously, he hadn’t even THOUGHT of where some of those tubes comatose patients were hooked up to would go. Oh HELL did he learn though.

...Maybe time to get back on subject. He didn’t need to dwell on that train of thought any longer. Wouldn’t change what’d happened and hopefully he wouldn’t have to deal with it again any time soon.

Marinette’d been bringing lots of little gifts to their get-togethers and reassuring them how much they meant to her, how much she cared about them. It got to the point where they’d needed to take her aside and reassure her that they KNEW she cared, KNEW she wasn’t Saltinette.

They all knew, including Marinette, but… well that didn’t stop anxiety. And when Marinette got anxious she tended to try to reach out and do something to help with it, to try and assert some control over it - in this case gift-giving and verbal affirmation, since gift-giving was the main way she communicated her feelings to other people and how she most easily perceived them.

As for verbal affirmation?

It was something she found valuable, something that they all worked to do with each other more… but it was a love language she’d grown especially in-tune to because of how much Adrien needed it.

With seeing his insecurities during the Syren attack? With knowing what his father was like?

She was going to make sure all her friends knew how much they meant to her.

They’d check in with her whenever she seemed to be a little too frantic or harried, especially with stammering over her words when she became afraid she’d said something to hurt one of them. They just calmly reassured her over and over that they were ok, that she was fine, and gave her small smiles whenever they could to let her know they weren’t upset or hurt.

If she seemed overly focused on needing to DO something to help, on baking a ton of macarons, on needing to be there for every event any of them went to, of wanting to be supportive to the point that she hurt herself, they’d pull her into a hug and reassure her she was enough. That their bond and their conception of her as a person wasn’t so fragile that one wrong move could break it. And just squeezed her tight until her breathing slowed down and she could manage on her own.

She’d slowly been doing better. Her anxiety was still definitely there, but it wasn’t as all-consuming as it once had been.

Not that everyone else was completely unscathed. Adrien still flinched when he saw that statue of himself and Ladybug in the park. He’d stare at it for a moment as if reassuring himself that it was fully intact. That no bloodthirsty mob had taken to vandalizing his statue as a proxy for himself.

Marinette just avoided the statue entirely.

Alya’d been avoiding Lila as much as she could - difficult to do since she’d purposely set it up so she’d be sitting right behind her, but she managed. Not like Lila wanted to talk to her anyway. Those salty scenarios supposedly springing from her becoming one of Lila’s sycophants just freaked her out too much. She KNEW she could never be dragged down that path, that her very self had rebelled against it so hard even Saltinette couldn’t force her into it, but… well, like with Marinette, that didn’t stop the thoughts, stop the anxiety.

Adrien mostly took the whole thing in stride, aside from the statue thing. Considering how much trauma he’d been through already it was probably a drop in the bucket.

He was glad Adrien could function well even with what he’d been through during their adventure.

(He was more concerned that Adrien had to develop his trauma coping skills to this point.)

Which left himself mostly monitoring the Lila situation, as the one with the least trauma. Alya’d apologized to him a few times for not being able to help more.

He’d just smiled and reassured her, giving her a hug if she could use one.

The three of them could take as much time to heal as they needed.

He’d protect them until they were better.

After all, wasn’t that what a Guardian should do?

Lila hadn’t actually been doing much of anything. She told lies here and there, but nothing that’d make major waves.

She’d also tried to finagle it so she and Adrien would be in close quarters a few times and got a little too close to him.

He’d subtly intervened whenever he saw that happening, pushing his way between them or finding some excuse to call Adrien over and separate them.

Lila seemed suspicious at how often he ‘conveniently’ got in the way, but she hadn’t called him out on it.

Just as well. He’d like to maintain at least some plausible deniability of being a neutral party. Not much considering that his girlfriend was well known to dislike Lila, but it was something.

None of them were sure what to do about Lila. Originally they’d fantasized about exposing her, finding something to get her thrown out of school.

After seeing the vengeance-driven Saltinette? They’d all agreed that whatever they did about Lila should be based firmly on stopping her from hurting people, not on enacting retribution. They’d seen how far that could go.

Not that it helped much. Not when they still had no ideas-

Wait. Was that?

He peered closer, keeping behind her so she wouldn’t see.

Yep. Definitely Lila.

And if she was coming out of that apartment just before school -

It was probably where she lived!

She’d been very cagey about her address or her parent’s full names or most things that could be used to locate them. Not that he’d pressed too hard, but it did seem suspicious.

Probably because a bunch of her lies would collapse if they could talk to her parents.

Lila herself though?

He frowned, running to catch up with her.

He’d never seen her so miserable.

She’d put on acts before, but… this was different. More genuine.

She glanced up at him, looking surprised for a moment before shaking herself, plastering on that fake smile of hers.

But he knew what he saw.

Maybe there was more to her than he thought?

“Is something wrong, Lila?”

“Uh no, I’m doing great! It’s just that… my mom wants me to go with her to this fancy embassy function tonight, but I’ve got way too much homework and I’m so behind after being away for the first term. I’m just gonna have to tell her no. She’ll be so upset…”

He wasn’t sure whether any of that was a lie, but with the exaggerated expressions and her leading statements, she was pretty obviously trying to manipulate him into helping her somehow - probably not in a way he should be helping her.

Best not to take the bait. “Ah yeah. Bummer.”

“Adrien said he’d help me, but I don’t want to bother him with it. He’s probably forgotten anyway. He might think I’ve got a crush on him, just like all those other girls who are constantly hanging all over him.”

Like you? He wanted to add.

He was pretty sure she was jabbing at Chloe and maybe even Marinette - though if she was trying to implicate Marinette that was a pretty poor way of doing it. She didn’t hang off of him, at least not when it wasn’t wanted. They’d certainly been very touchy-feely lately, but it was VERY clear that Adrien was fine with that.

Even before the Reveal when Marinette and Adrien were still stuck in that Lovesquare (oh WOW had Alya ranted about that one), her clinging to him was decidedly NOT a problem - if anything she had trouble being in his vicinity. Though she’d gotten better with that over time.

As for the rest of it? No way his bro had agreed to help her. Not without telling him.

She was pushing pretty hard without outright asking him to ask for Adrien’s help on her behalf. Probably trying to set up a situation where Adrien couldn’t refuse without looking like the bad guy and hoping that social pressure would force him to do what she wanted.

After needing to fend her off from Adrien multiple times? He wasn’t going to allow that situation. He certainly wasn’t going to help set it up.

But while he could nip this one in the bud… what about the next one?

He needed to try to settle this. Soon.

Before his friends got hurt.

They were still trying to heal from the salt worlds.

Lila was the last thing they needed to worry about.

Best to brush her off for now and try to figure out what to do about her later. “Adrien’s been very busy lately,” he told her apologetically. “Even if he did remember he might just not want to bring it up because he feels so bad about not being able to help. I’d just let it go for now.”

“Oh…” she said looking down at the ground in an exaggerated display of sadness, clearly different from her more natural-looking melancholy from before.

Luckily school wasn’t far so Lila didn’t have time to come up with some other plan.

And he had time to come up with one of his own.

-----------------

Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door of Lila’s family’s apartment.

Lila always ate at school for lunch so he figured it was a safe time to try to talk to her parents. See whether gathering more information that way could help. He didn’t have much proof that Lila was making her claims - though he could get other classmates to corroborate that at least - and none for her making threats besides Alya and Marinette’s word which he was betting wouldn’t be enough to convince her parents unless they already thought poorly of Lila.

He knocked.

No answer.

And knocked again.

Waited a minute.

Knocked a third time.

Didn’t look like anyone was home.

Not that big a surprise. A lot of parents were gone during the day.

Inconvenient though.

He’d just have to wait until next time Lila was preoccupied and check back again.

----------------

...Okay, this was getting ridiculous.

It’d been two weeks. He’d checked every time he could find that Lila was preoccupied while he was free - which had been pretty often lately - and no one ever answered. He was beginning to suspect he was mistaken and no one actually lived in that apartment.

Marinette, Adrien, and Alya had started to notice his frequent absences and began asking questions. The three of them were talking and healing and just… really getting to enjoy themselves again. They’d been running around Paris while suited up almost every night getting to enjoy the freedom the Miraculous offered.

Which was especially important for Adrien; both worlds targeting him had emphasized stealing his Miraculous. Getting to be Chat was a good reminder that those worlds were false.

Alya just enjoyed having that level of freedom and control, especially with how the worlds targeting her had tried to bend her to their will, trying to brainwash and even physically force her to do what they wanted.

He just told them he was figuring out what to do about Lila and not to worry about it.

They’d seemed concerned but didn’t press the subject.

Not that Lila was the ONLY reason he’d had more absences lately. Fu’d been training him some more which took up some time.

At least he could read some of the Guardian literature while on stake out.

Some adult had to be home at some point.

Right?

Plus Lila was sleeping over at a friend’s place today; hence why he decided to do this stake out today and not some other day. It wouldn’t do as much good if he finally caught a parent or guardian entering but was unable to talk to them due to Lila being there.

So he waited.

And waited.

Luckily his parents thought he was sleeping over at Marinette’s. Not entirely a lie either. Her balcony had a decent view of Lila’s (suspected) apartment, albeit a distance away.

She frowned and asked him whether he was sure when he said he wanted to stake out and watch for Lila, but he just nodded and smiled at her. She stayed with him for a lot of it, even proposing taking shifts but… yeah he wasn’t gonna do that. She needed all the rest and relaxation she could get.

Wait, was that…

Aha!

Finally, an adult heading to the apartment.

So someone else DID live there!

He quickly checked his phone.

Yep. All the evidence he and Alya had assembled since Lila came back to school was right there. Most of it probably wouldn’t be relevant - this was geared more towards potentially exposing her to classmates and their teacher, not to her mom, so it was geared towards the lies she told THEM, not what she told her parents - but some of it might still be useful, depending on what Lila’d told her parents.

He headed out from the bakery and to Lila’s apartment, knocking on the door.

Finally, after probably a dozen different times trying, someone answered.

A woman opened the door.

Judging by how similar she looked to Lila? Most likely her mom.

She glanced up briefly from her phone. “Oh hi, are you one of Lila’s friends? I’m afraid she isn’t here right now.”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah. That’s why I came. I need to talk to you about your daughter.”

Taking in the seriousness in his voice and the intensity in his expression, she put down her phone, devoting her full attention to him, alarm slowly creeping into her voice. “What happened? Is something wrong? Is my daughter okay?!”

“As far as I know she’s fine - physically anyway.” His eyes hardened. “But there is some trouble WITH her.”

She frowned. “...Huh?”

He sighed. “I have some things to show you.”

------------------

Ms. Rossi sat on a stool in the kitchen, just leaning back and staring into the distance.

He couldn't blame her. She’d been skeptical at first that Lila was making all these claims, that he might have just misinterpreted stuff she said. Which he supposed was a reasonable thing to think. It was certainly a possible thing to happen and he couldn’t prove otherwise… with SOME things.

But others?

“Wait, Lila’s been akumatized?! That can’t be right, she would’ve told me!”

Nino just stared. Not everyone kept track of EVERY akuma but… seriously? It wasn’t like it was a major secret Lila had been Volpina and Chameleon. Volpina in particular just looked like Lila in a costume. It wasn’t THAT dramatic a transformation.

He just flipped through his phone bringing up old news reports and akumas.

Ms. Rossi watched, eyes wide, as her akumatized daughter ran around fighting Ladybug and Chat Noir.

The Volpina fight was especially interesting. “Wait, isn’t that Lila’s boyfriend? That Adrien boy who’s all over the billboards?”

Nino’s head shot up. “She is NOT his girlfriend. They’re not even friends.”

“Young man you must be mistaken! Lila’s told me several times about how much he adores her. She wouldn’t lie to me!”

HAH.

He kinda wished Adrien was here to disprove it now.

Ms. Rossi frowned. “I guess Lila was one of the few people Ladybug was able to save. The school had to close down for so long because of all the akumatizations going on.”

...What.

“The school never closed down. We’ve missed maybe half of a school day sometimes because of some akumatization, but… yeah that’s about it.”

Ms. Rossi blinked at him. “But Lila had to stay home all last semester because of that!”

“Did you google to see whether the school was closed at least?”

“I- I thought I did.”

“Maybe you should try it now?”

With a few quick types she looked up the school. Looked through their akuma procedures. And then frantically started googling everything she could about akumas and the Miraculous holders.

Nino sat back as her face slowly fell, reality crashing in as she saw more and more of what was really going on.

Eventually she sighed, looking like she’d aged about ten years in ten minutes. “...I’m going to have to talk to the principal. And this time Lila isn’t talking me out of it.”

Looking up she gave him a small, bitter smile. “We’ve always bounced around a lot for my job which meant Lila didn’t have much time to form firm friendships. Between that and the divorce a few years ago, plus work being busier than ever… well. Lila got left by the wayside a lot. I thought she was fine since she began talking about all these great friends she has, even having a boyfriend now. And when she told me the school was closed down but that the school had let her handle most things, I just… didn’t question it. She was one fewer thing, one fewer person I had to worry about.”

She sat back heavily and closed her eyes. “I should’ve tried to pay closer attention to what she was saying, looked at things for myself. I might not have been able to spend much more time with her than I have been - my job keeps me really busy - but for something as major as her school being closed, I should’ve looked it up myself.

I just… wanted to believe Lila was right. She told me what I wanted to hear; that she was fine and handling everything.”

She laughed wryly. “I guess in a way she WAS handling everything. Just not in a way I’d approve of.”

Ah.

Adrien may have been right when he thought Lila was lonely.

It just went deeper than that.

But he could give Ms. Rossi some small comfort at least.

“She DOES have friends, people she hangs out with. If she’s told you she’s at a friend’s house on a sleepover? That’s true. I’ve been sent a few selfies of her with our classmates. She’s pretty well-liked. I doubt they’ll be happy to find out that Lila’s been lying to them but… I don’t think she’ll be abandoned over some lies. Not unless they were malicious and hurtful.”

Most of the lies she’d told hadn’t been intended to cause harm except for when she told Adrien that Alya and Marinette were backstabbers and just using him - though that may have been less of a lie and more of an actual belief on her part.

Aside from that? They were usually pretty harmless. He wouldn’t put it past her to blatantly lie for malicious purposes, he didn’t think she was above that, but he hadn’t seen much sign of her doing so to date.

If Lila could get the help she needed, maybe she could be set on the right path before she did something it was hard to come back from.

Ms. Rossi gave a more genuine smile at that. “I’m glad. Maybe… maybe this is something that can be fixed. My boss has been suggesting I take a vacation soon anyway. I’d been planning on putting it off a bit longer but - well, this is important. I won’t make a final decision until I investigate more, but I think it might be time for my daughter and I to go visit my parents for a few weeks, far away from Paris and Hawkmoth and the risk of akumatization. I think we have some things to work out.”

---------------------

A few days later Lila disappeared, telling everyone that her mom was taking her on vacation with her - an actual truth for once.

There was definitely a method with her lies. They either allowed her to exert more control over her circumstances or were things she WISHED was true. He guessed she didn’t see the need to lie there since she liked the idea of going on vacation with her mom.

Come to think of it, while she’d lied about how much time she got to spend with her mom and the types of things they’d do together before, she didn’t lie about say, her mom’s profession - she really DID work at the embassy. That wasn’t something she really seemed to wish was different, though he suspected that she lied about some of her specific accomplishments, making up grander-sounding ones than were probably true.

Lila still kept in touch with the rest of the class and nothing much happened for a couple weeks.

Until one day he came into class and saw a group of his classmates muttering together.

He frowned. “What’s going on?”

Mylene looked up. “Lila just called and… well… she told us some stuff.”

She winced. “I guess you were right to warn us not to take everything she said at face value.”

“It’s okay; I get it. You didn’t want to believe that someone would lie to you.”

At least she’d fessed up.

“What’re you going to do?” he asked curiously.

Mylene chewed her lip. “I’m not happy she lied and manipulated us, but… well, not everything was a sham. The fun times we had together? They still matter. So… for me at least? I’m not gonna let this stop us from being friends, so long as she doesn’t do it again. Some of the others are more upset - Alix walked out when she heard, I think she’s cooling her head first - but that’s my take on it.”

Nino nodded.

Lila’s actions had consequences and each person she’d lied to would have to decide for themselves how they felt about it.

But at least she wouldn’t be completely alienated.

Lila returned a few weeks after that seeming more subdued. A few of the people who were in her posse formerly now avoided her, but they didn’t try to do anything against her. They just only engaged with her casually. He suspected that they’d warm back up after awhile once the sting had faded some more.

Speaking of avoiding people, Lila’d been avoiding Adrien, Marinette, and Alya. Though he didn’t get the sense she hated or disliked them anymore - she almost seemed ashamed. The few times he’d caught her glancing their way she’d looked sad more than anything.

With great relief he found that she’d stopped trying to invade Adrien’s personal space and harass him. He actually felt safe leaving them together for short periods of time, though he still had some reservations and wouldn’t want to purposely set them up in that kind of situation.

She also happened to be busy regularly on certain days twice a week, shortly after school. When some of his classmates asked her about it she said she’d been signed up for some violin lessons. He heavily suspected that that was one of the few lies she was still telling though. He’d seen some worksheets poking out of her bag lately that looked less like anything a music teacher would assign, and more like homework a therapist might assign.

That was fine. She might still be lying, but well… it genuinely wasn’t anyone else’s business whether she was seeing a therapist or not. He might not be fond of her, but she still deserved privacy. If she felt safer telling people she was going to violin lessons than that she was going to therapy, then so be it. Not like he and his friends had never told lies when they’d felt it was necessary.

He was just glad that Lila was finally getting the help she needed.

-----------

(A/N) I figure after everything that happened there'd be some lingering trauma, with Marinette having the most because of the way Divergent Points - ML Salt centered around her (plus seeing herself used for that would be VERY disturbing). Alya and Adrien would have a fair amount as well, but considering how Adrien's reacted to the trauma of losing his mom, Gabriel's abuse, Desperada, etc., I don't think it'd be all that visible with him.

I have no love for Lila. I'll still happily read fics that include bashing her and exposing her, at least when doing something else that I massively enjoy, when that's not the sole purpose of the fic.

But I've seen it done a million ways already, and have seen so many of those fics just turn into warping every other character into a horrible human being and exacting extreme vengeance and I'm just... I'm tired of it. At this point I just want Lila to not be a threat anymore.

#divergent points #ml fanfic #Miraculous ladybug #nino lahiffe #Lila rossi

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