#translations are my own and heavily paraphrased

[outism-odyssey]

Outis Base EGO Sin Analysis

Right, I made this blog specifically to analyze her sins... and promptly forgot to do that!

For the meanings of each sin, I’ll be largely referring to this post from @lu-is-not-ok​ (its a very good post, do check it out!)

I originally meant to do her base ID and EGO in the same post, but, the EGO alone goes on for a while. (I’ll probably write up the base ID tomorrow)

Sin Costs

To Páthos Máthos costs 2 pride and 2 sloth, and translates to "Suffering Becomes Experience". Pride generally represents ignoring consequences. Act now, deal with the problems later. And almost always, pride-related actions ate taken out of the belief the benefits will outweigh the consequences. Sloth, on the other hand, represents apathy and resignation. It has many uses, but a particular use I think resonates with this ego is to do things without ever complaining or acting out.

Together, these sins would suggest that Outis believes what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. That she should press on, stoic and ignoring the pain, believing in the end she'll come out better for it. But, I don't think she actually believes that. Rather, it's what she *wants* to believe.

Early in canto 4, Outis tells the other sinners that "experiencing a certain pain will make you learn to fear and avoid it." And she says this in a very different tone of voice to the rest of her speech. It certainly doesn't sound like the words or tone of someone who thinks pain makes them stronger.

Her EGO's line is "the odyssey has a purpose." And in the context of her speech in canto 4? It sounds to me like she's trying to convince herself. She's trying to tell herself that there's meaning to her suffering, and that she hasn't just gone through all this for no reason. Telling herself that her odyssey did have a purpose.

Sin Resistances

There’s a few theories around about what exactly sin resistances on a sinner’s EGO means (like this one from analytical-machine!), but for this analysis I’ll be sticking to my own interpretation of it.

In the abnormality EGOs, I don’t believe resistances mean much of anything.it’s just the abnormality’s resistances, and it’s always identical across all sinners with the same EGO. But, the base EGOs are more interesting.

For a sinner’s base EGO, I believe the sins they’re fatal to are in some way connected to the origins of their traumas, while the sin they endure is how they’re trying to escape it - either literally or metaphorically.

For instance, Gregor has fatal for gloom and envy damage - respectively representing his PTSD and feelings towards G corp, and Hermann using him as a test subject and poster boy. On the other hand, he endures sloth. Gregor escaped the room he was locked into when, out of resignation, he cut the apple and was allowed to leave - resignation being heavily associated with sloth.

The resistances for To Páthos Máthos are: Fatal: lust, envy Endured: gloom

The combination of lust and envy was odd. Lust is associated with self-indulgence, following your own whims and goals. But Envy is associated with taking action because of someone else. They seem like complete opposites. I kind of didn’t know what to do about them. But, @speedynamo​ had some great insight in some comments, and I’ll paraphrase those below.

For Outis’ envy weakness: In The Odyssey, Odysseus ended up in the trojan war because he was bound by a truce to support the Greeks if Helen were ever to be kidnapped. When Paris of Troy asked Aphrodite for the most beautiful woman on earth for marriage, Aphrodite gave him Helen - thus kicking off the war and dragging in Odysseus.

And for the lust: War's often promoted as something that will make you complete. And because of that, many people think the best way to achieve your desires is to go out, fight in war, and come back as a war hero.

Speedynamo mentioned that their analysis hinged on there being a very close equivalent to the Trojan war. And there certainly is: the smoke war! While the specifics probably aren’t identical, there is a good chance that Outis’ experience was similar. Something was stolen (likely Old L Corp’s singularity?), and a deal/truce involving it dragged Outis into the war, where she believed she could complete herself by becoming a war hero.

It probably didn’t work out that way, though. So, how does Outis deal with it? With her resisting gloom... it seems like she doesn’t handle it. Gloom as a sin is all about stewing in your negative emotions, buckling under pressure, letting those emotions control you. And while we never see her express this directly, there are a few rare moments where she seems to show this side of herself - like when she tells Dongrang the calf will remember him, or in her sunshower EGO’s corrosion line (which is a topic for another time)

But, with her mask(s) on constantly, it’s not often that you see this side to her.

#limbus company #outis #outis lcb #sin analysis #if anyone happens to have thoughts or things to add do absolutely add them! #I fucking love speculation inject it directly into my brain #it is once again very late. writeup might be a bit rambly and nonsensical. but I ball!

[resonancewitness]

imagining "Bystander" as a poetic dialogue

totally fanfiction and exposé of my own brain rot, thank you very much :) continuing a small series from here and here

here I also have an issue with the translation of the title, loiter staring at the characters and stay with the most fundamental combination of “the one who” + “beside/ from the side” + “look/watch”

the image that comes to my mind when I read this, is the kaleidoscope of photos of dd and gg on stage in 2019, and the question I have is “the one beside who looks at what?” or “at whom?”

but I’ll just leave it at that, and return to the lyrics and poetic dialogue. the lyrics are italicised, my fanfiction interpretation commentary is indented

the quietly flowing river, that seems to have never had any colour

I often touch my head with my hand and when I do it, I go to the river of memories (EiL)

…which memories, dear heart? do they fade with time? 

as in “walking through the coffee shop”, the beautiful past is a blur? 

the river waits for the sun to shine

when your sun is with you, you ever-looking-from-the-side-sunflower, do the memories regain colour and become alive again? 

the tires are rubbing heavily in the night, and the cars that drive past are those of strangers

two tired and lonely insomniacs and often night shift workers far away from each other, I feel ya

I often look and listen (intentionally) and want to reach out and touch a handful of sea water to see its dream colour

does your beautiful dream thousands of miles away feel like the sea, boundless, enormously powerful and full of life? 

is that the sea in the “Ideal Life” painting? 

I also look and listen and imagine myself in your role. What is it that drives you now to pursue it? 

this line I take absolutely literally. as a person who has known the experience of a long-term long-distance relationship, this is a very natural question, when you can’t just call and ask “what is on your mind now?” and you often don’t have enough time for a really good long talk that would allow to reach deep and find words for the most important existential questions and the emerging answers

I am passing through this world, the one beside who looks, embracing all the joys, sorrows and sparkles of life

(here, this is a firefly for you. It is a little happiness I collected along the way) (LtS)

but it is my life, and if you ever think I regret my choices (like the worry in “If I Were Young” song), see, I don’t, I embrace all of what comes with my choices

listening to the sound of the plucked feathers that is telling me that the sky is too big to be conquered by wings

oh what an image. somebody catches the migratory birds, happy swallows and lonely swan geese, or the not lonely committed couples of swan geese, and plucks out their feathers so loudly that it can be heard

what unfriendly powers would do it in such a way?.. 

my mind offers a paraphrase from Enya’s “Memory of Trees”: you can’t be free, you can’t fly

but I don’t let it make me sad

I don’t give up or succumb to despair

giving the big tree I received to the desert

what big tree? I am thinking here about the money tree and the giftedness; money to charity, giftedness to the public, in service to those who are in need of beauty and inspiration

leaving the umbrella and walking out into the heavy rain

this gives me the flashback of that scene in The Untamed, and that moment in one of the interviews: “when you lift your face up and just stop breathing” — sometime you just need this space to cry freely, unselfconsciously, releasing whatever has been pent up - 

what holds me up is feeling deep down inside that the earth and you are happy 

wherever you are, I hope you are happy (LtS)

Don’t ask me what I am looking for.

I don’t need to choose. 

I don’t need any specific outcome. 

I told you already, I accept all my choices and their consequences. Life doesn’t have to fit into any of my expectations. See, youth does not preclude wisdom. - 

Look, here is a withered leaf. 

Countless lonely nights drifting away like withered leaves. (LtS) 

and here is another one - 

I am waiting constantly for the four seasons to pass and for the leaves to return to the branch. 

-

As long as we can trust each other, then this winter will be over.

Even if spring makes us wait. It's okay. Don't cry. 

When the time to meet comes at last, all the good things will regrow on the branches and the winter will be over. (LtS)

Although now this leaf is withered, 

yes, we are often apart for long time - 

I can’t imagine another galaxy, 

I am also deeply in love with a lonely star, there is no other - 

but I believe in another me in time and space,

where eventually my future will meet my past. 

we do hope so, too! the beautiful past of togetherness will meet the beautiful future of togetherness - 

Come closer and feel the majesty of life. 

No need for any specific outcome. 

Don’t ask me what I am looking for. 

Don’t ask me what I am looking for. 

Let's live our life in silence.

when I was watching the performance in real time, I happened to come online exactly at the moment when he was singing these lines, first having closed his face with his hands, - no, he is not looking at anyone at the audience now, the intended audience is not there in that hall at that moment — then reaching out with shaking hands at “come closer and feel the majesty of life”. 

may you have the life you want to live in silence, and not in the noise 

which reminds me of 

Too much time wasted, too many things to face

Too much of what does not matter, 

too many instances of being unable to distinguish the truth

Too much noise and too many problems, 

who's the one who is always by your side? (from Eason Chan's "Let Me Stay By Your Side")

in my cpn mind, this song is about acknowledging the hardships of the existing situation and still persisting in love and hope

now, knowing that he couldn’t choose to let go of either set of lyrics and wanted to sing both, I can appreciate why even more

fake, fanfiction, cpn, brain rot, whatever, I am taking responsibility for not assuming this is in any way true. just my wild imagination

#yizhan #witnessing something precious #bjyxszd #bystander #poetic dialogue #everything is lovely #like the sunshine #art connects the private and the generally shared #songline #long distance relationship

[wildkitte]

Creusa’s disappearance: longe, pone, fefellit and Aeneas’ duty

Creusa’s disappearance is a curious part of Book II and has captivated me ever since I first read (and then reread and reread and reread) the book. Aeneas’ sorrow at losing his wife is so acute and palpable even after years on the run, but it’s still awfully… vague, isn’t it? What really happens to Creusa? And whose fault was her disappearance anyway? And how does this reflect on pius Aeneas, when he can’t follow his duty towards his wife?

I’ll be paraphrasing my thesis quite a lot here and I am leaning quite heavily on the Servius/Servius Auctus commentary, kind of as a jumping board to interpretations of this part of the book. (Also, in my first post I talked about the juicy bits starting from 2.768, and I must admit that I just glanced at my thesis summary and picked the wrong lines to start with. So, let’s actually start from 2.667 up to 2.760 and then finish with 2.768-795. These are the lines I spent 5 months staring at and hitting my head against a brick wall until the brick wall broke. Also, special un-thanks to Servius for being such a bitch to translate.)

So disaster unfolds and it all comes down to Aeneas’ plan

Let’s recap: Anchises will climb on Aeneas’ shoulders, and Aeneas clasps hands with little Iulus, and finally “let my wife follow our footsteps at a distance” – longe servet vestigia coniunx (2.711). Alright, solid plan there – but how far actually is this longe? This has been an issue of debate especially among modern feminist critiques (I once again raise Perkell (1981, 2021), Grillo (2010) and Hughes (1997) as ones whose articles I found the most useful for my thesis topic) but apparently this has been enough of an issue, a weird imperfection in Aeneas’ perfect image (I say image, because he is unwell and kind of not perfect at all), that it deserves its own comments in Servius’ commentary. So how long is “at a distance”? Or is it “a long way off” or “far away” (LSJ gives all these options)? How far away exactly did Aeneas order Creusa to follow behind?

Servius states that longe can’t be that long of a distance, since later (2.725) follows pone subit coniunx (“wife walks behind”). Pone, according to Servius, does not signify time – so it must express distance. Creusa does not follow some time behind, there is no significant delay between Aeneas & co. and Creusa, and with that logic she must have started out close by. Servius also defends Aeneas’ plan: it makes more sense to go individually like this, as a bigger group is easier to capture. I also do not think Aeneas meant for this distance to be so long – he clearly expected her to be right behind them, as she clearly should have been within sight (and also hey let’s talk about vidi crudelius soon, that’s a fun one). But why did she have to stay behind in the first place? This kind of leaves a bad taste in the reader’s mouth. Does pius Aeneas, the man embodying pietas, only extend his duty towards family to its male members? How could he be this neglectful of his wife? What is the reason for this?

Here I must bring up the curious case of fefellit in 2.774 (et comites natumque virumque fefellit). In Kline’s translation this line goes: “[she] had escaped the notice of friends, child and husband.” Sarah Ruden’s translation also uses this “escape notice” translation, but there is actually some disagreement on the meaning of this line. Fallo is quite rare in the Aeneid, and only appears a few times. Here Perkell points out, that in these other locations, fallo signifies “to betray, deceive” instead. Perkell argues, that we should interpret fefellit to mean deception instead. In a way this would fall into line with Aeneas’ desperate attempts to put the blame on someone, anyone else than himself.

Quem non incusavi amens hominumque deorumque, what man or god did I not blame in my madness? Himself, Perkell argues (and this is a compelling argument – though I always interpreted the genetivus partitivus also included Aeneas himself). He talks about some hostile power taking control of his wits, and even Servius says that this sounds like an excuse (and wow would you look at what happens in 12-948-949?). With the fefellit argument I don’t really have much to say myself – I think turning fallo into “Creusa was deceived OF her companions, child and husband” rather than she herself deceiving them is maybe more accurate.

There is no reason to believe that Aeneas is being dishonest about this progression of events – in general he is treated as a trustworthy narrator when it comes to Books II and III. But it does not escape my notice that while the description of Troy’s fall is so detailed and brutal and graphic throughout Book II, Creusa’s disappearance is almost… sanitized? And Servius actually points out the same: she disappears “pure and non-violent [like the wind]” (Serv. Aen. 2.794), she is the only one whose death gets a vague, sterilized description (if we compare to literally anyone else in this book). But for what reason?

My professor pointed out that one reason might simply be trauma. Losing Creusa is simply too painful to talk about. Perhaps he did come across Creusa’s corpse on the way (he actually reacts the same way to Polydorus’ corpse in Book III; obstipui, steteruntque comae et uox faucibus haesit, 3.48) but he does not wish to repeat this private tragedy, “the cruelest sight” in the entire fall of Troy: the loss of Creusa.

But hey let’s finally talk about that vidi crudelius. Servius makes a fascinating comment about this line:

VIDI CRUDELIUS bene se futurus commendat maritus, qui apud feminam sic ostendit priorem se amasse uxorem. (Serv. Aen. 2.746)

“future husband recommends himself well. thus, he demonstrates to [Dido] that he loved his previous wife.”

This comment changes the perspective, doesn’t it? Because suddenly Servius reminds us, that this is Aeneas’ performance to Dido, and it would kind of be bad optics to admit that you were so careless with your wife that she died due to your negligence and failure to perform your duty as pater familias. Austin suggests that Aeneas self-inflicted blame and sorrow moved Dido, making him a more desirable husband – it must be a relief for Dido to find someone who understands her pain of having lost her spouse. Could this be a calculated move from Aeneas? (Perkell does kind of think that Aeneas is being purposefully deceptive, but here is where I disagree with her)

But even with all this, it is probably safe to blame the gods and fate here (almost like that’s a theme that comes up over and over again).

In Creusa’s first words to Aeneas, it kind of seems that she already knows what’s to come: cui parvos Iulus, cui pater et coniunx quondam tua dicta relinquor (to whom do you abandon little Iulus, to whom father and the wife, who was once called yours? 2.677-678)? Servius directs attention to coniunx quondam, saying quod eventurum timet, quasi iam contigerit, deflet (she laments as if what she fears to happen had already happened; Serv. Aen 2.678). It’s like she can feel it coming, the fate about to steal her away.

She does in fact confirm this herself in 2.777: non haec sine numine divum eveniunt (this did not happen without the will of gods)! There is further proof in the scene where Aeneas dashes back to Troy. Previously in the book danger was everywhere, streets littered with corpses and the city on fire, Greeks and Trojans clashing in mad bloodletting all over the city – and yet now, as Aeneas tracks back his steps and calls out for Creusa over and over again (the “iterumque iterumque vocavi” is so phonetically delightful isn’t it), the enemy does not see him. Servius comments on two things in the passage 2.767-769: Aeneas shouting explicitly exposes him to danger – and this also proves that he had himself evaded this fate, while he lost his spouse to it (hic ostendit, et se fato evasisse, et fato coniugem perdidisse, Serv. Aen. 2.768). (Edit: holy shit how could I forget: Aeneas literally calls her fatone erepta, snatched away by fate. So there it is.)

As said, in my opinion there is no reason to believe Aeneas is lying or being dishonest, while it is kind of convenient that Creusa herself comforts Aeneas with this “oh well, that’s what the gods want, no can do” speech. Still I tend to agree with my professor: the trauma is simply too fresh and painful to share (“Infandum, regina, iubes renovare dolorem” applies here too). We’ll never know what truly happened to Creusa, and that is part of what makes her disappearance so compelling. What use is there to indulge in such mad grief, after all?

 Here's all I have to say about Creusa’s disappearance for now. In the next post, let’s talk about how cute Aeneas and Creusa are and why there should be more fanfiction of them on AO3.

#the aeneid #aeneid daily #creusa #wildkitte #if you have corrections on the translations no you don't #i translated my finnish translations to english you'll just have to trust me on this #I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT PERKELL but im too tired to read her article now and i just don't feel like doing it #maybe one day i'll beef it out with her properly

[supergenial]

(translation+lyrics) 導黒のミアルカ Act:Ⅱ by Ariabl'eyeS

Well here it is. Really solid record this time around, particularly with the track Shuumaku no MiaLuca. Would really be one of their better songs but I don’t quite agree with the scream of intense pain they left in, it’s quite dramatical for sure but still jarring on subsequent listens, much like Yuzuki Risa’s “ne?” on her song, for some reason it just doesn’t sit well with me.

Also gotta admire the naming sense on these tracks, aside from Dear they all have such badass names lmao. The cover art is golden, the back art of the album is diamonds, overall just really good stuff. Feel like they really captured the sheer hatred and resolve of the main character and also the love she holds for her cat. Still feels like there’s not enough story to really justify a two-parter, but given the fact the music is solid on it’s own it doesn’t really matter. I for one ended up listening to the previous album way more than I originally expected.

Anyway, my work pc imploded or something and I rarely if ever feel like tling on my phone so expect even less from me in the near future. Lyrics down below the cut and see you all next time.

——————

Composer for all tracks: リゼ

Prelude -Mialuca II- (HEAVILY PARAPHRASED)

Under the starry skies, tonight once more the curtain rises amidst squealing and screams of pure pain on the aristocrats torturing and making a mockery of their prisoners. And above all stands the king, grinning at me with his disgusting face, inviting me. Quite convenient for me. To avenge my parents, I’m willing to bet my life and play the part of a cruel woman if necessary. The time is finally upon us. This world will be mine.

狂乱のフィースト (Kyouran no Fiisuto, Feast of Fury) Vocals: Ruru

hibiku koe wa hatenaku tsutsuku yami wo kirisaite tsuranuku kyouki wo matou geemu yorumai kurikaesu utage wa

The echoing voice goes on endlessly cutting through the darkness A torture shrouded in madness, the ever recurring nightly banquet

Futari no shi ni omoi kasanete osae kirenu nikushimi wa mashite kyouki wo matou yoru ni saita itsuwari no bara yo

Feeling my parent's last thoughts my hatred continues to grow and so on this night a rose of deceit blooms covered in madness

namemawasu karamu shisen to emi de ai wo kataru mi no ke ga yodatsu you na furueru ikari no senritsu

As I speak of love while smiling at them My hair stands on end as I tremble in a symphony of ire

iki ga tomaru hodo ni fukai na koe ni mimi wo fusagi hitomi wo somukete kareyuku anata he sasagu aware na uta ni chikai wo tojikomete

A voice so unpleasant I hold my breath and cover my eyes and ears To you withering one I offer a song of sorrow concealing my will

hibiku koe wa hatenaku tsutsuku kisokutachi no warau sono saki kyouki wo matou geemu yogoto kurikaesu utage wa

The echoing voice goes on endlessly, towards the bourgeoise ahead A torture shrouded in madness, the ever recurring nightly banquet

namemawasu karamu shisen to emi wo emi de kaesu anata no hoho ni fure toriko ni shite shimae ba ii

and yet I smile back at them as they laugh I should hold your faces and make you my prisoners

marude anata konomi no ryoukiteki de zankoku na onna wo enjite butai no ue maiodoru aware na hitobito wo koukotsu no me de

I'll play the part of a cruel woman, just as you like it Dancing on the stage for the eyes of those captive

watashi ga dorehodo kegasare you to mo futari no omoi sakebi tsutsukeru tenohira de odoru kare wa aware na uta ni yoishire hohoemu

My parents screams won't fade no matter how much I'm defiled I'll hold the king in the palm of my hand, driving him drunk with my song of grief

饗鳴セレンディピティ (Kyoumei Serendipity, Serendipituous Banquet Tune) Vocals: Rena, Luna

fukisusabu oto wa sakebu you ni yureru tsutsumikonda atataka na heya de watashi ni hohoemu kanojo no hitomi ni garasu no namida ga kobore ochita

The whistling breeze sounds much like a scream it envolves me even in this warm room Mia's eyes smile at me Her tears are like glass dropping from her face

hora ne, niteiru hazu da wa sora wa omokage nokoshite ima mo kikioboe no aru koe wa yobiokosarete

Hey, it's just like traces of the sky Even now I remember hearing your voice calling out to me

iware no nai tsumi de sabakareta hana wa chiisana hakoniwa wo fumi tsukeru you ni zankoku na joukei ni furishikiru ame wa watashi no kokoro zutto shimetsuke tsutsukeru

A flower judged for a made up crime As if being trampled on it's garden A cruel scene under the rain The sight of it always has a grip on my heart

hora ne, oboeteiru ka na futari naranda shashin wa ima mo mune no oku ni aru mada ano koro no mama ne

Hey, remember the picture we took together Even now those days are still fondly in my heart

hatenaki yoru ni saita tsumitorarenu hana hibiki au te wo kasane tsumi torasenu hana tooi chi he unmei ga hikiyoseta Mia wo dakishimeta kono mama hanasanai kara ne

An unplucked flower blooming in the endless night Our hands were weaved and resonating, a flower that shall not be plucked That is the fate that drove Mia to a distant land even now she holds me, we'll never let go of each other

ano ko ni chikatta no mamorunuku kara to

I swear to protect them above all.

弑逆のShowtime (Shiigyaku no Showtime, Patricide Showtime) Vocals: Risa Yuzuki

koyoi mo mata akushumi de nigiyaka na utage no seki anata no mimi yubi wo hawase anata ni dake sotto sasayaku

Tonight again I'm seated at the lively banquet of evil Running my fingers through your ear and whispering only for you

ryoukiteki na misemono koya miwakuteki na Showtime anata no mimi yubi wo hawase 「anata ni dake misetai no yo」

It's time for the captivating and bizarre show I run my fingers through your ear "I want only you to see me"

omoi shiru ga ii wa

You should have already realized

zutto negatteta kono hi no tame ni ikite watashi wa akuma ni mo nareru hazu miteitene kitto afuredasu senjouteki na yoru wa reiri de toutoi anata no mune ni hibiku deshou… ne?

I've always prayed for this, I've lived only for this day I too shall become as a demon, just watch me In this lascivous night of excess Surely you'll feel this resonance in your noble and cunning heart… right?

kane ga naru koro ni wa mairimashou

The bell rings signaling the beginning

machinozomu anata ga shuyaku no yoru watashi wa tenshi ni mo nareru hazu miteite ne kitto afuredasu meguru sadame no you ni reiri de toutoi anata no mune ni sasaru deshou… ne?

On this night you'll be the star I too shall become as an angel, just watch Surely this night will overflow like the ever revolving fate Surely you'll feel how I skewer your noble and cunning heart… right?

終幕のミアルカ (Shuumaku no MiaLuca, MiaLuca’s Curtain Call)

Vocals: Ruru, Luna

yuuyami to arekuruu nami no oto itsuwari no hohoemi kawashita futari furueru ryoute wo Ruka ni kakushi gake mioroshite basha wa unmei wo tadoru

The raging waves crash throughout the night, as we both turn on our false smiles Hiding Luka within my trembling hands, I look down the precipice towards our fate

-senketsu ni somatta minamo wa utau itsuwari no hohoemi kawashita futari -furueru ryoute wo yoko me ni nagame 「koyoi no utage no shuyaku wa doko da?」

In a moment we’re dyed by the song of the sea, as we exchange false smiles with each other I lie gazing and wondering who shall be tonight’s protagonist

-daremo inai keshiki basha wo oriaruki nagara hitomi wo mitsumete toikakeru mabuta no ura de wa nandomo egaita butaijou kare no na wo sakenda

The carriage marches on through the empty scenery, as we do How many times have I pictured myself in this stage, screaming the king’s name

furikazasu yaiba wa anata to tomo ni mou kanawanu omoi nosete -fuitsukareta yaiba wa kaze wo kirinaita koe wa hibiki wataru dokomademo

I wield this blade that carries both of our unfulfilled wishes Her stealthy blade cuts through the wind as voices resonate all throughout the night

-niranda hitomi wa subete wo kataru itsuwari no hohoemi wo ukabeta mama tekubi wo tsukamare kutsuu no naka ugokanu karada wa zetsubou wo matou

Her baneful eyes say it all, even behind that fake smile After taking theirs wrists their unmoving bodies are left with nothing but despair

-misemono goya no naka douke no yaku wo enjite warai korae odotteta dake sa kumon ni yuganda watashi no kata no ue kara tobu kuroi kage wa sakenda

Within the room that witnessed this show I played the role of a fool, dancing and laughing And so the very same dark shadow flew ahead from my shoulder

tsukamareta sono no te ni kuraitsuku kiba wa anata to no kizuna no akashi -kao shikamete ude wo furiharatta setsuna sora wo mai naraku he ochite

What more proof is there to our friendship than a ferocious bite onto his hand However as the cat buried it’s face, the arm was swung sending it to his demise

tachitsukusu watashi ni kakeyori sakenda koe wa yasashiku senaka oshite -me wo samashite anata no aisuru sekai wa mou anata shika sukuenai 「sou watashi shika inai no datte Ruka to chikatta kara」

As I tried to stand a voice rushed me and lifted me up Wake up! You’re the only who can save the world you hold dear! “It has to be this way, I swore to you Luka!”

furikazasu yaiba wa anata to tomo ni aisuru watashi no subete de 「mou owari da」 yadoru chikara de kare wo nagu maichiru zankyou wa itsumademo

And so the blade I wielded along with my loved one brought about the end of it all With the power still dwelling in it, I finish the job as the echoes linger forevermore.

Postlude -MiaLuca II- (HEAVILY PARAPHRASED)

Having slain the king she held onto Luca. He was glad that after fighting so hard she was able to live through it all. He then dropped on her lap, unable to go on. After all, Luca really was just a normal cat. Not a demon or a deceiver. It was Mia’s own wish for revenge that really spun their story. He was simply her faithful companion.

Dear… Vocals: Luna

nee Luka anata ni wa hanashitai koto ga aru no kiite kureru kashira

Hey Luka, there’s something I want to talk with you about Will you listen to me?

kanashimi ni kureta kono chi de aisuru hito wo omoi ukabe watashi wa subete ni tsukusu joou to natta arukidasu tame

This land covered in grief used to hold my loved ones After they’ve vanished I remained standing as queen, for that purpose I kept walking

kirakira hikaru doresu wa kokoro ni shimai Yogoreta te de kinari no fuku wo matotte hitobito no tame ni mizukara

Those sparkly and brilliant dresses sure hid my heart away But for the people, I’ve had to taint both my clothes and hands

korekara wa Luka ya ryoushin ga tengoku de hokoreru watashi ni soshite itsuka mata egao de aeru you ni

I hope you and my parents are proud of me up there And that one day I get to see your smiles once more

hontou wa ano hi anata to tomo ni yuketara to nando yoru wo koeta darou hitori de ikiru no wa sabishikute tamaranai no demo ne, mada yaru koto ga aru kara

I often wish I passed away on that day just as you did How many nights have come and gone since I’ve had to endure through so many lonely nights Even so, there’s still so much to do

nee Luka itsuka sono toki ga kitara mata sono koe kikasete ne

Hey Luka, when the time finally arrives Let me hear your voice once more

#Ariabl'eyeS #translation #lyrics #導黒のミアルカ Act:Ⅱ #doukoku no miaruka act: II #Youtube #I for one like it when girls have blades #it's cool #imo

[count-lero]

The magnificent lipitian flies like an arrow, exploding the dusty ground with it’s hooves, while the rider almost merges with his stately horse.

Snow-white stallion, uniform’s cloth, powder on the rider’s wig; scarlet cuffs, and collar, and visage flushed from a fast race.

For one brief moment Klemens struggles to catch his own breath.

— Is that really you, Prince? - He raises his voice, fearlessly leaning out of the carriage to a strangled exclamation coming from prince Esterhazy. - By what fates?

— Duty calls, dear Count, - brisk reply is heard as Schwarzenberg squeezes the rump of his hot steed, ready to gallop...

However, the will of a skilled rider is immutable to it.

— You see, these days I have nothing to do in St. Petersburg.

— Yet, I hope you brought us good news…

— Without any doubt! I’d like to ask you a lot of questions as well in return. Besides, favourable opportunity will present itself very soon.

Klemens smiles simply with one corner of his lips, fanning himself with an unsurpassed grace.

— So many years have passed, and you’ve not changed a bit.

As a response Karl only raises an eyebrow, tightening his grip on the reins.

— Is that bad?

— Quite the opposite, Prince! Believe me, at such turbulent times only few people of your kind could be found in the whole empire.

The good-natured smile on the cavalryman’s lips becomes instantly wider.

***

Ehem!

So, what you’ve just read is an excerpt from a small text I wrote about an imaginary reunion of Metternich and Schwarzenberg on the verge of the battle of Wagram. It was heavily inspired by Metternich’s own descriptions of his return from the mission in Paris in June 1809 and I couldn’t resist the need to depict two main characters of the story as well. 🤲🇦🇹

That’s also my first attempt of translating a literary text which I composed meticulously in Russian with all the specific expressions which were common for our language in the beginning of 19th century and are still used nowadays as I needed to find some alternatives or simply paraphrase everything…

The main reason why I made this clumsy attempt is that I predict an appearance of much more history-related stories about people I adore and the Austrian court in general. I already have two long stories written featuring Metternich and his grown-up children in one of them as well as Metternich, Schwarzenberg and Radetzky in another, however I was too shy to try and translate them in English. Perhaps, one day I’ll even create a separate account on AO3 just to share them with all the English-speaking world… But for now I’ll just make a few small steps in that direction!

*And here is a small postscript for all the people who appreciate the ✨ aesthetic ✨: young, handsome and incredibly flamboyant Klemens as an ambassador without his dear mother’s fan but with a pearl earring… just because I can*

#count’s drawings #art #klemens von metternich #karl zu schwarzenberg #fürst zu schwarzenberg #napoleonic era #napoleonic wars #austrian empire #19th century

[titoist]

(almost) exactly a day ago, i received an... incredibly positive anon - urging me to write, to publish my writing, to create whatever... due to, as they put it, a "passionless world" needing me. to heavily paraphrase, that there is no other method to make something out of nothing, to look deeper into oneself and find something of value - transformation as the only road to identity. genuinely benevolent & profoundly kind in their intent, i am all but certain, as they seemed sincerely admiring of my 'work' & sent it as something of a plea. but i've been mulling over it for some time, and i still find myself broadly uncertain about how to feel about it. a little uneasy, perhaps uncomfortable in a way... which there is no describing, but which i can perhaps gesture towards. i hope that you will forgive me for providing direct quotations of your ask in the following, simply for rationalization purposes; take the intro, for instance- "please write a book. you really have it in you. neurotic harmful-to-self isolating automatic writing? but theres a truth lurking in there. there is light! do you know how much youre creating? but also waiting? how much this passionless world needs you?" a lot of interesting presuppositions to pick at. or, this near the end, which i paraphrased at the beginning of this post - "I don't think there's any other way to make something out of nothing, to search farther within and actually find something." at this point, i now find myself attempting to translate the diluted thoughts in my mind to something... actually concrete in meaning. i suppose there are two facets of this that strike me. 1. the aggrandizing of my own self with which this is seemingly written. it is sincerely flattering, though at points comes across as worrying in its fervor - not that i do not understand it, i oh so certainly do... but the absurdity is laid bare by the fact that... for all intents & purposes, i already do write, create, engage with that manner of material. this blog, if nothing else, serves as a monument to how many words i am willing to spit out for nothing but a fraction of a sense of personal contentment. & i do see worth in my writings, considering that i am working on a personal neocities archive. i can perhaps assume that this user is personally yearnful for a different treatment of my expression - and, so, the pertinent question is revealed which is already implicitly baked into the intro to this ask: "write a book for whom?" 2. the treatment of the creation of art & writing as an almost utmost personal imperative, rather than a merely supererogatory obligation. this is rather, rather silly, when one begins to think of all the other standards they could be setting themselves to with this same fervor, like perhaps applying themselves to materially aid others - in juxtaposition to the former, which is mainly nebulous. the creation of art & self-expression is incredibly important one's development, and even outside of the developmental period, stretching throughout their entire life and connecting it with others. that much is true. but treating the creation of a public work as the only way to actually find something within yourself? perhaps i am getting hung up on the word choice, but i think i tend to disagree far more than i agree.

#the stipulation to this being that i dont mind the anon and all; and this is not a personal attack by any means #i love you too! and i do appreciate you taking the time to even write to me in the first place. this post is an attempt at rationalizing #my thoughts in relation to the *ideas* expressed therein... the very reason i did not publish the ask is because #i felt it would be too ... *confrontational*; to pair the ask and this response; right. as if i was purposefully attempting to frame it as #a Rebuttal or somesuch. which i would not like for this to be. #readjusts tie and clears throat.

[smokedanced]

@starfalled​​ said: what is the first book you remember reading yourself? ; do you have a guilty fav? ; what non-fiction books do you like if any? ; what are things you look for in a book? ; recommend and review a book.

book asks    /    ACCEPTING ↷

what is the first book you remember reading yourself? :: oh man. ooooh, i think it was one of those children’s books that had a short part of a story for every day of the year, with one month making up a whole story? of course i would read like everything all at once instead. i learned to read around age 5? i couldn’t say what the actual first book i read myself was but several of these kind come to mind from earlier childhood. wait, wait, also, actually may have been earlier: little golden books books! these were translated to finnish. i remember especially the color kittens (painter cats in finnish) and little mommy (please shut up, i wish it had been something else but i had like autistic level special interest in this one as a kid and i named my own dolls after it and everything, my copy was so well read it fell apart).

do you have a guilty fav? :: i don’t tend to believe in guilty faves - if i like something, why hide it? i feel like this is more asking for cringe faves than “problematic faves” but let me answer for both. one of my favourite haruki murakami books is kafka on the shore and it heavily plays on incest, both sibling and parent/child, and i also believe the main character is like 16 or 17 making it underage as well? like i’m actually mildly squicked by incest but i love this book nevertheless, i like murakami in general and he tends to use incest, underage and noncon themes (which makes it hilarious to me when fandom antis reblog murakami quotes from books heavy on themes they wanna censorship) even if they’re not the main point of the story. for cringe fave? hard pressed to name a specific title but i do love a good over the top dramatic middle grade/ya “chickflick” novel in general. think like, mean girls but as a novel.

what non-fiction books do you like if any? :: plenty! i read more fiction, but i actually love nonfiction as well. specifically books on bdsm and natural sciences. i have more books on quantum physics than any other specific genre for nonfiction. at least i have range! “bdsm and natural sciences”, lol. but yeah, i’d like to be a particle physicist someday and i collect books on quantum physics specifically.

what are things you look for in a book? :: answered!

recommend and review a book :: girls of paper and fire by natasha ngan. paraphrased from an old review: the author did a good thing - and actually put a trigger warning for sexual abuse and graphic violence in front of the novel. let's normalise trigger warnings in books! oh gods. when i pick up a high fantasy, i don't expect to end up listing is as one of my favourite books. with girls of paper and fire, i had the experience of "i'm still awake at five in the morning but i cannot possibly stop reading now". i was excited for this book, despite high fantasy not being my usual fave - a wlw! lots of people of colour! a culturally rich setting! lore! lei is. a lot. i love wren with all of my heart and i wish there would be a companion written from her point of view. lei... i like her. actually, the two complement each other very well, imho - and lei is only seventeen, so her faults are realistic for a teenager. i see the faults, but the beautiful parts make up for them, imho. there're some astonishing quotes, interesting worldbuilding, and a beautifully flawed wlw romance. i hope we'll see more of aoki and blue in the next book, too. mostly just protect wren at all cost. i love her so much.

#starfalled #thank youuuu #; outofsmoke #kjasfdhsjdf i forgot my fave character's name on this book was WREN #it's hilarious the shit i have typed with my own hands in 2020 #protect wren at all cost? #this just in people named wren are to be protected #this book's wren has nothing to do with my shepard though XD #if memory serves though iirc i considered writing girls of paper and fire!wren before too #it may be why i like the name as much as i do

[starw1sh]

finished if we were v*llains and damn it, I really enjoyed the last 30 pages. Which is so unfortunate, because I hate read most of that book and only finished it because I bought a physical copy and there's no way I'm wasting money like that. More thoughts (with major spoilers) under the cut because jesus christ

Oh man, I am not immune to whatever the FUCK was happening between Oliver and James. There's a comparison to be made with their dynamic and Hannibal and Will in NBC's Hannibal that I can't quite put words to it yet. Like they made each other so much worse but would do anything for each other. Oliver finding out James literally MURDERED Richard and then deciding he would take the fall for the crime like 2 hours later was crazy. AND THEIR ONLY KISS BEING ON STAGE???? PERFORMING THE SAME SCENE WHERE IN REHEARSAL JAMES BROKE OLIVER'S NOSE???? Insane. Insane. How am I supposed to be normal about this. Yes he loved him. But the truth was, he still did. I need to run laps over this.

And God I LOVE an ambiguous ending. Like I do think James is dead at the end, but that one quote from earlier in the novel (and I'm paraphrasing) where it was like 'a tragedy always has you hoping everything will work out until the very end'. Like I do think ultimately Oliver's life IS a tragedy and it's that hope that will keep him going even if it's doomed. That’s why we don't get any confirmation that James is 100% dead or if he's 100% alive. There has to be hope. It's kind of like Richard not dying immediately in the water but being left to die, like he COULD have survived but he didn't. James COULD have survived but I don't think he did. That being said, Richard could have survived if he has been helped and Alexander ended up surviving his OD because he was helped. So maybe since it's implied that Oliver is going to go searching for James (and since he's already helped him by taking the fall for the crime), he will be able to "save" James and find him alive.

But what then? James is still overcome with guilt about Richard's death and Oliver is still Oliver. How do they move on from that?

Other than the ending, this book pissed me off. The way characters found out information felt contrived (ESPECIALLY Oliver having to do "work study" by cleaning his own house?? Which leads to him overhearing a bunch and finding a bunch of spooky clues. That was so stupid), the pacing felt unintentionally slow, and I think the whole book was bloated with characters that didn't really matter. Like I enjoyed Alexander and Wren, but besides occasionally pushing the plot along they didn't really do much. They just weren't fleshed out besides "queer guy who does a lot of drugs" and "weirdo rich blond girl who I imagine walks around with the scariest blue eye stare". And don't even get me started on the handful of side characters who get even less attention.

Also I UNDERSTAND the author has a masters in Shakespearen literature but god damn did a lot of that fly over my head. Honestly I didn't dislike the book more or less because of it but it was a little frustrating. The characters kept getting casting lists and I was like "wow :) idk what that means but congratulations or I'm so sorry"

Ughhhh I also feel like because of how HEAVILY this text relies on theatre and Shakespeare, it would be better in a different medium - like theatre or tv. I have not read a book in a while that I think could benefit so obviously from a good adaptation. Especially since Oliver is so oblivious, his internal narration could translate to just staring at people intensively without loosing much narrative weight.

Final rating is probably 2 and half stars out of 5. The ending did save it for me and there were some really compelling scenes but most of the time it was just. Annoying.

#into the void #reading live blog #if we were v*llains

[blackholemetric]

highlights of the Pangzi/Zhang Qilin relationship in Lost Tomb 2 so far

1. Pangzi’s “you asshole” expression whenever Qilin does anything

2. Qilin being an asshole

example A: P: “I think that arrow poisoned me, I’m itchy.”  Q: [monotone] “Yes, it’s said men have died from that itching.”

example B: [kicks Pangzi off a ledge to the next level of the tomb, opens up a trapdoor beneath him without warning, etc.]

3. Pangzi: [after Qilin has ignored his many, perfectly reasonable questions] “Oh, we’re back to being Silent Zhang then.”

[two episodes later, after Qilin has given a witty rejoinder] “Now we’re talking back?!”

4. Pangzi’s steadily-growing exasperation with Qilin’s abject refusal to answer a direct question

5. Pangzi’s steadily-growing exasperation with Qilin being absolutely punctured when Qilin has a minor breakdown about his amnesia, and never returning

6. Pangzi taking out his phone to record Qilin doing some of his Immortal Tomb-Raiding Magic, giggling all the while

6.5 Qilin either not noticing or not giving a shit

7. Qilin losing his chill and teleporting across the tomb every time Pangzi’s life is threatened

8. Pangzi: [talks for five minutes straight] Qilin: [says nothing]

9. Pangzi clarifying each and every time someone mentions Xiao-ge (Qilin): “我们的小哥？” (OUR Xiao-ge?)

10. Qilin: “I should be dead.”  Pangzi: [immediately] “Don’t say shit like that!” [beat] “If Wu Xie heard you, he would cry buckets and then you’ll be sorry.”

11. Pangzi: [mid long rambling story] “And you can ask Xiao-ge to confirm--”

Qilin, across the room: [small, heartfelt sigh]

12. Pangzi and Qilin fighting evil monkeys back to back in the middle of a tomb

13. Pangzi making Qilin stop in the middle of the tomb, eat some crackers, and talk through his problems

hopefully there will be more because The Two Bickering Friends Working Together is my favorite thing (see: spock and mccoy); I’m kind of worried Qilin is going to pull another vanishing act for the last 15 episodes, though.

#translations are my own and heavily paraphrased #so take with a grain of salt #zhang qilin refusing to answer straightforward and reasonable questions is eternally funny to me #is there a zombie in there is a reasonable question that demands a response qilin #daomubiji #the lost tomb 2 #zhang qilin #he whose name shall not be romanized consistently #wang pangzi #I used Qilin to name ZQL in this because that's what the novels call him #even though he's got so many names #and pangzi and wu xie would never just call him by his first name #instead they call him by a veritable host of nicknames #but mostly xiao-ge

[artemisrisen]

a spoiler discussion for doumeki and a reveal in chapter 47

Please be aware I’m discussing something “revealed” in chapter 47. 

Full disclaimer: I don’t care if Doumeki is dating a woman. It’s been four years, he’s a full-grown man that’s no longer impotent, he was rejected (not just rejected but “forgotten”) by Yashiro, etc etc. He has every right to pursue a physical relationship with someone else (I don’t say romantic, because let’s not be absurd; he’s not in love with anyone else except Yashiro). However, I was a bit surprised by the shockwave reaction from the fanbase (both western and Japanese), because it seemed to me like this was…kind of a ruse by sensei, although it took me some time to parse out why. So. I will elucidate. Spoilers under the cut. 

I believe Doumeki went to the bar matron after his encounter with Yashiro, but not to fulfill any sexual needs; he went to use her as a cover.

To delve into the why, I’ll give a rundown of all the times the “idea of a girlfriend for Doumeki” has been brought up in the manga, first without any of my own commentary (forgive me because I am paraphrasing from either memory or translated text; if I get something wrong, feel free to correct).

This is initially brought up by Tsunakawa when he and Doumeki are riding back to the house. Tsunakawa asks if he has a girlfriend, and Doumeki says no. Tsunakawa calls him a liar and presses him further, asking what type of woman he likes. Doumeki says he likes “older people”, but again says he is not dating anyone. Tsunakawa then asks what he does when he gets horny, and Doumeki says he jerks off when he feels that urge.

Later, Niki asks the same thing - and she probes more specifically, asking if he has either a girlfriend OR a mistress. He says no to both. Tsunakawa teases her that she’s too young for him. Niki is confused and says Doumeki is like her dog, not a boyfriend.

Still later, Kamiya is with (one of?) his girlfriend(s), watching Doumeki and commenting on him rudely. The girlfriend says Doumeki is “cool” and points out the bar matron’s attentions on him. Doumeki having no girlfriend comes up a third time – the speech bubbles of this discussion are imposed over Doumeki and the bar matron sitting near each other. Kamiya says Doumeki doesn’t care about anything except the group affairs. The girlfriend contends that he might be “that way” (gay), and Kamiya assents this to be the case.  

I think we can all agree the topic is heavily discussed by the Sakura household.

The fourth time it comes up is chapter 46, when Yashiro feels like Doumeki’s touch is different and has a sudden vision of him making love to a woman; he comes immediately as a result. In his “joking” (not) and “off-handed” (also no) way, he says Doumeki is just oozing sexual virility and that he MUST be with a woman!  Doumeki pauses, and then says yes, and commends Yashiro for being observant.

The fifth time is in the latest chapter, in a discussion between Nanahara and Sugimoto. Nanahara brings up the fact that Doumeki has a girlfriend, and we “see” Doumeki approach a door that’s opened by the smiling bar matron. Doumeki enters silently.

So these are the plain events as presented. Now I’ll add my opinion to it.

Looking at all the evidence, I think it’s fair to say Doumeki is lying in one of these scenarios. Either to Tsunakawa, to Niki, to Kamiya, or to Yashiro. (He did not speak with Nanahara about this; Nanatan only overheard the hot gossip.)

So. Who is he lying to? Let’s explore. 

With Tsunakawa, it benefits Doumeki to have a girlfriend; Tsunakawa is implicitly asking him this because he concerned about Niki’s affections. Doumeki lying about NOT having a girlfriend, or showing interest in any women, does not benefit him at all in this situation. You could argue that it would be better for him to mention a woman and put his kumichou’s mind to rest. But strangely – before Yashiro comes back into his life –Doumeki remains firm on his status as perpetually, unconcernedly single.  

With Niki, we could say that Doumeki is trying to save her feelings. But Niki asks her questions guilelessly and does not appear relieved when he says “no”. She’s even confused by her father crowing victory over Doumeki’s interest in older women/people.

Kamiya is the big one. His character has been presented to the reader as extremely shrewd and suspicious, and the main target for this suspicious and shrewd observation is…Doumeki. (It’s hard to tell what Kamiya feels towards his superior, but it seems to be a mixture of jealousy, curiosity, frustration, and weird attachment.) One of the most consistent things is that Kamiya notices when Doumeki changes his speech pattern towards him; mostly Doumeki is polite, but sometimes, like when he’s distracted, he’s casual. Kamiya notes this every. Single. Time. To the point it’s almost silly – who cares if Doumeki has a sudden lapse in casual speech towards his subordinate?

Kamiya cares. Because he cares about details, and he cares about understanding the enigma that is Doumeki. And KAMIYA, looking RIGHT AT Doumeki and the bar matron, says, “He doesn’t like women. He’s cold. He only cares about the group affairs.”

Interesting.

So now we have Yashiro. Yashiro, who abruptly came back into Doumeki’s life and has resolutely refused to leave, despite never looking Doumeki in the face if he can help it. Yashiro, who ran away from Doumeki after they were intimate; who shot him in the leg when they spoke of deeper feelings in the warehouse; finally, who “forgot” Doumeki at the hospital after Doumeki saved his life. Yashiro, who Nanahara said is addicted to sex like cigarettes, who has pushed Doumeki away every time the other’s affections have surfaced, with whom Doumeki is very much in love.

And Doumeki, who sees Yashiro still letting himself be hurt by awful, violent men, makes a snap decision in that regard. He’ll be the one who gives Yashiro the physical attention he is unable to live without.

Now he has Yashiro, with whom he is now once again in a very intimate situation, and must somehow remain detached.

And Yashiro asked him –tells him—he has a woman. So what do you do?

Do you say, “No, of course not”?

Do you say, “I’ve been alone this whole time”?

“You’re the only one I want to be with?”

OR, to keep up the façade, do you say, “Yes, of course I have a girlfriend. As always, you hit the mark.”

I guess it just depends.

 So Doumeki leaves. But if Yashiro is the one he is lying to, that means that now there is a woman out there that Doumeki is supposedly seeing. And Yashiro knows how to uncover information; he’s very good at it. He’s the smartest person Doumeki has ever known.

So suddenly, almost the very next day, Doumeki has a girlfriend, that no one else has mentioned, that no one else has known about, and Nanahara—the most canonically unobservant character in the whole manga—is aware of it. Not Tsunakawa, or Niki, or Kamiya, who all have known Doumeki for the past four years. 

I could be wrong; again, this isn’t about desperately proving Doumeki’s staunch, unwavering fidelity to Yashiro. People don’t need to be sexually chaste to keep the love in their heart on fire.

But I think there is too much evidence that points to the bar matron being a ploy to keep Yashiro from uncovering the real truth of the matter—that Doumeki isn’t doing this out of obligation or defending the Sakura group’s affairs, but rather because he longs for him and wants to be intimate once more in any way possible.

I guess we’ll just see how this all plays out.

#saezuru spoilers #saezuru chapter 47

[cutieodonoghue]

the edge of hope (3/9)

summary: canon divergent au; when Din left Sorgan to protect the Child, he left the woman he’d fallen in love with, not knowing he’d also left behind something else. Or, Omera and Winta join Mando and Grogu on their season 2 adventures. Mandomera!

Catch up here: 1, 2

Third chapter below the cut or on AO3!

The Passenger

It had been a long time since Omera had last ridden a speeder bike, but it almost felt as if it was just yesterday that she was entering races. She used to love the adrenaline rush; used to crave the feeling of living on the edge, tempting fate as she pushed her skills. With age and experience came wisdom that encouraged her otherwise.

On their way back to the Razor Crest at Mos Eisley, Omera kept her speeder alongside Din’s. It gave them the chance to exchange words every so often, something that helped keep her mind focused on the long journey.

“When did you race speeders?” Din asked. He kept his voice tempered, even over the engine noise.

Omera laughed from behind her scarf. “I was a few years older than Winta. Made me very popular.”

Din chuckled. “You don’t strike me as the kind of person who would race.”

“We’re all young once.”

On Din’s side, she saw the Child tucked into a pouch of a bag, his ears flapping in the wind as he excitedly felt the rush of the ride. It had been a smooth journey, but they still had a ways to go before they would reach the hangar.

“Get behind me.” Din gestured with his head to what laid ahead of them. “Looks like a tight squeeze up there.”

Omera saw the formation of rocks just ahead and slowed enough to put appropriate distance between their speeders. A valley this tight would likely slow Din down just a bit for sake of caution, so she made sure to stay a few lengths back.

Just as he reached the opening of the rock valley, she watched with alarm as his speeder went vertical. There was a trap.

A group of bandits emerged from behind the rocks nearby, guns drawn. 

Omera brought her speeder to an all out stop, careening sideways with dust gusting around her and Winta in a big cloud. They narrowly avoided the explosion of Din’s speeder as it crashed onto the ground. Everything that had been loose on board had been flung skyward, including the Child.

From where she was, she couldn’t see the baby, and she hesitated to put both she and Winta further into the situation. There were four bandits, all of them working together, and they seemed focused on getting Din distracted.

He fired his gun at one of the marauders, but the weapon was hit out of his hand. He was able to knock one of them unconscious, but the victory was short-lived when a pair of the enemy teamed up on him with fists. 

Meanwhile, she noticed the smaller of the bandits with a rifle, pointed straight at the otherwise distracted Mandalorian. Quick on his feet, Din shot out a grappling hook from his wrist and pulled the rifle straight into the pair trying to assault him. 

The bandit with the rifle changed his tactic, instead approaching the tiny boy, who she now saw toddling forward, stumbling slightly.

Acting on an automatic impulse, Omera brought her speeder toward the bandit and used her weight to lean the bike closer to the ground, enough that it spooked the bandit to scrambling away while she plucked the Child up into her arm.

“You okay?” Omera asked the boy.

The Child giggled, his smile wide. She couldn’t help but smile because of it as she brought her speeder around in time to catch Din knocking the thief onto his back with a blast from his gun.

He nodded in Omera’s direction, a signal that it was safe to approach.

“So much for my speeder,” he lamented. 

Omera shook her head as she brought them in close. “I wish I could’ve done more to help.”

He studied her for a second. “When we get back to the Crest, I’ll give you a gun.” Din bent down to grab the satchel that had been the Child’s seat for their journey. “Peli will need a payment. I’d hoped we could give her the meat from the dragon.”

Omera climbed off of the speeder. “That I can help with.” 

It took them a little while, but they were finally able to secure everything they needed onto the speeder bike. 

Winta held the Child, and Din sat in the drivers’ position, leaving Omera to squeeze in behind him. She wrapped her arms around his middle as she got comfortable. They were closer than they’d been since that night on Sorgan. It made her heart race just a bit to recall the memory.

The Mandalorian glanced over his shoulder at her. “Okay?”

Omera nodded. “Just don’t drive like a maniac, and I think we’ll all survive.”

Din chuckled, a real laugh that she couldn’t help but adore. “Hang on tight.”

She did as he requested and he started up the bike, sending them forward at a steady pace.

There were no other bandits along their path, something Omera was very grateful for, and when they returned to the Crest, the worker droids explained that Peli had retreated to the bar for the evening.

On a sigh, Din turned to them, “Why don’t you and Winta get ready to leave while I go settle things with Peli?”

Omera nodded. “Fair enough.” She turned to Winta and smiled. “You ready to get going, my love?”

“There’s so much sand here,” Winta complained, not for the first time. She wore a grimace on her face as she tried to get it out of her hair. 

“I know. We’ll get you a bath as soon as we land on our next planet.”

Omera shepherded Winta up onto the ramp that led into the Crest, and with the Child hanging from the pouch off of her side, she grabbed for what else of their belongings remained on the speeder bike.

After settling the rest of their things on the floor of the cargo hold, Omera lifted the Child into her arms and laughed when he reached out to touch her face.

“What?” she asked him playfully. “Can you try to say my name? Omera. O-mer-a.”

The Child merely tilted his head in curiosity, giggling as his fingers finally found her cheek. 

“Here. Why don’t you and Winta play?” She settled the boy down onto the floor of the Crest. “I have to go check the speeder one more time.”

As Omera stepped off of the ship, she could hear Din and Peli exchanging words, making their way from the bar back to the hangar bay. The speeder bike sat just beyond the bay doors, and she made sure to check each crevice of the sidecar one more time before she was ready to bid it farewell.

“What’s the cargo?” she heard Din ask.

Omera made her way towards the ship. Din stood just outside of it, facing Peli and a pink frog-like creature. A woman, by the look of her dress.

She croaked an answer out to Din and Peli nodded once. It was interesting: just that morning, Din had been the translator. Now, he needed one of his own.

“It’s her spawn,” Peli said. 

She gestured to the backpack that the Frog Lady carried. It was cylindrical, a tube of a sort, with blue liquid and what appeared to be eggs floating by the dozens. 

“She needs her eggs fertilized by the equinox or her line will end. If you jump into hyperspace, they’ll die. She said her husband has settled on the estuary moon of Trask in the system of the gas giant Kol Iben.”

“She said all that?” Din asked dryly.

Peli shrugged. “I paraphrased.”

She heard Din sigh softly as she came alongside him. Peli glanced her way with a tiny smirk on her lips, like she had a quip ready to go should the moment arise.

“Is she sure there are Mandalorians there?” Din asked.

Peli croaked in the Frog Lady’s language and received an answer. Turning to the Mandalorian, she said, “She said her husband has seen them.”

For a few seconds, Din hesitated. It seemed he didn’t want to help this woman, whose need was desperate. His need was desperate, too. The Mandalorian they’d found wasn’t truly a Mandalorian.

“We can help bring her to her husband,” Omera said, speaking on Din’s behalf. 

Peli’s face brightened. “See, I knew I liked you.”

The Mandalorian sighed heavily but said nothing.

Peli clicked her tongue against her cheek and gave Din a side-eyed glare. “Cranky Pants here was about ready to walk away from a good deal.”

Omera chuckled beneath her breath, looking at the Mandalorian. He had an annoyed stance, his hands on his hips and his head canted just slightly to the side.

“He’s had a long couple of days. He was almost eaten by a sand dragon.” She and Din stared at each other as she spoke. “Forgive him for being cranky.”

“I’m not cranky,” he said with a cranky edge to his voice. “I’m doing due diligence.”

She and the Mandalorian stared at each other for a few seconds. An argument brewed between them in silence. It was the right thing to do, but it wouldn’t be the safest thing to do. She understood that. Din probably did too, but he was too stubborn to admit it.

“I think this job will be rewarding for everyone involved.”

Din sighed again. He nodded his head and gestured outward with one hand toward the Frog Lady, resigned. “Fine.”

When Omera shifted her attention back in front of them, Peli wore a coy smirk on her lips and folded her arms against her chest. Her nose scrunched up when she spoke, “I don’t know where he found you, but I’m glad he did. He’s better for it.”

Her belly flipped on its own accord, but instead of responding to Peli, Omera smiled at the Frog Lady. 

“I’m Omera. Come with me. You should meet our children.”

Gently, she waved her hand toward the ship and the Frog Lady followed after her with a curious little noise. Together, they climbed the ramp, and Omera smiled over at their new companion.

From somewhere beyond, she could hear Peli say to Din, “You keep staring at your lady friend like that and you’ll burn a hole straight through her.”

She couldn’t help but smile to herself. He hadn’t changed his ways all that much since he came to Sorgan for the first time.

In the cargo hold, she found Winta giggling with the Child in her arms, both of them sitting on a crate along the wall.

“My daughter and I are traveling with the Mandalorian,” Omera explained, even though the Frog Lady had nothing to say in return. “Winta, we have a guest joining us for a little while.”

Winta perked up, her eyes bright, and she nodded. “Hello. I’m Winta.”

The Frog Lady chirped, a pleasant sound. She seemed pleased to meet Winta and a little curious about the Child. The Child’s eyes went to the cylindrical backpack she carried and extended one hand outwards as he babbled.

The sound of Din’s boots on the ramp followed, quickly joining them in the hold. He sighed heavily, like the weight of the world rested on his shoulders. 

“Omera, can I speak with you in the cockpit?”

She nodded. Looking at the Frog Lady, she smiled. “Make yourself comfortable.”

When they both stood inside the cockpit, Din waited for the door to close before speaking. “We don’t have a lot of space for more passengers.”

“I heard Peli say that she could bring us to more of your kind.”

Din gave a resigned sigh. “Traveling sublight is dicey at best. I don’t think we need pirates or warlords on our tail.”

The concerns were valid, but her desire to do good weighed heavier than any fear of what might happen to them did. He was Mandalorian, and she knew now just how good of a fighter that made him. She had faith that he could carry them through any struggle that might come of helping someone in need.

“How far is the journey?”

In the silence he took to consider his answer, she took notice of how close they stood together. There wasn’t much space to stand in the cockpit, so they stood nearly toe-to-toe. 

“Half a day. Likely longer.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Omera smiled at him. “Well, I know you’re a good pilot.” 

Din sighed softly. He seemed a little less frustrated. 

It was then that she realized: he was unable to deny her. He must have felt something for her far greater than simple companionship. The thought made hope bloom wildly within her chest. 

The Mandalorian kept his feelings to himself, and sometimes she wondered if the feelings she felt were at all reciprocated. It was good to know that there at least was a chance.

“I don’t speak her language.”

Omera couldn’t help but smirk. “Feeling a little taken down a notch after your heroics these past few days on Tatooine?”

He sighed again. “No.”

She bit on her lip, thoughtful, and put her palm on his chest over his heart. “Well, Winta and I can sit in the cargo hold with her if that will make it an easier trip.”

He brought his hand to hers on his chest and held it for a few seconds in silence before he replied, “Alright.”

Omera’s eyes closed on their own volition when he lowered his forehead to hers. In her mind, it was as close to a kiss as she would probably ever get from the man she loved. The intimacy of it always filled her chest with the most overwhelming peace she’d ever known.

When Din pulled away, he still held her hand and walked with her out of the cockpit, only releasing her in the instant before she began the climb back down the ladder.

When they gathered with the rest of their crew, the Frog Lady instantly looked away from whatever story Winta was telling her, instead focused on the Mandalorian. She croaked, her words falling on ears that could not understand.

“We are about to take off,” Din said. “I’m gonna ask you to stay strapped in as best you can whenever you’re seated. Especially you, Winta.”

Winta nodded. Omera had to smile at the care in his voice for her daughter. 

“I’ll take him.” Din gestured for his son. “It’s gonna take a while. I recommend all of you get some rest.” He looked at the sleeping nook that was built into the back wall and added, “If you want to lay down, feel free.” His attention went to Omera. “Any of you.”

Omera nodded to him. He was doing all of this for her, and she hoped he knew she appreciated it. “Thank you.”

-

From the cockpit of the Crest, having just set the navigation to automatic, Din settled into his chair feeling just a little bit guilty. He was exhausted, having spent a good part of the day fighting off a krayt dragon, then dealing with bandits during their journey back to Mos Eisley. 

The last thing he wanted was a journey like this one, but he did need to find his kind. This was his only lead.

Beside him, the Child cooed, reaching out for a button on the console.

“No touching,” Din chastised. “Nap time.”

The Child looked at him, tilting his head to the side with his ears perked. He reached for the button again and Din sighed heavily.

“What did I just say?” He pulled the Child’s hand away from the button and held it. “Aren’t you tired?”

Din lifted the boy from his spot on the console and into his arms instead, recalling with fondness how Omera had rocked him to sleep by the fire, her voice gentle and beautiful. The depths of her seemed to be never ending. 

“Try to sleep, kid.”

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep with the memory of Omera’s lullaby. 

The next thing he knew, the communicator beeped at him.

Suddenly, he noticed two X-wings on their tail, moving up on each side of the Crest. 

On a deep sigh, he straightened himself. So it wasn’t just pirates he had to be worried about. He also needed to contend with the New Republic.

“Come in, Razor Crest. Do you copy?”

Clearing his head, Din held the Child closer to himself. He answered, “This is Razor Crest. Is there a problem?

“We noticed your transponder is not emitting.”

And it was for good reason, too. If he turned it on, they’d be in far greater danger. Just moving as slow as they were had seemed risky enough as it was.

“Yes, I’m pre-Empire surplus. I’m not required to run a beacon.”

For a second, he thought they bought it. 

“That was before. This sector is under New Republic jurisdiction. All craft are required to run a beacon.”

With a slight grimace, Din considered his reply. “Thank you for letting me know. I’ll get right on it.”

“Not a problem. Safe travels.”

They were New Republic, and he didn’t want to raise any flags with them. If anything, he wanted to get on their good side, so he said, “May the Force be with you.”

“And also with you.” 

A pause. 

“Just one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“I’m gonna need you to send us a ping. We’re out here sweeping for Imperial holdouts.”

Kriff. There wasn’t any way out of this, was there? He was going to be figured out, and everyone on board would be at risk. The Child, Omera, Winta… their guest. The Crest had been in some tight spots before with the New Republic. A particular prison breakout came to mind.

“I’ll let you know if I see any.”

“I’m still gonna need you to send us that ping.”

He glanced down at the dash, at the unit that could perform the task as requested. “Well, I’m not sure I have that hardware online.”

“We can wait.”

Din paused, pretending to tinker with it, thinking maybe they’d buy it. “Yeah, I… Doesn’t seem to be working.”

“That’s too bad. If we can’t confirm you’re not Imperial, you’re gonna have to follow us to the outpost at Adelphi. They’ll run your tabs.”

It seemed he would be unable to escape the New Republic this time.

“Oh, wait. There it is.” Din flipped the switch. A ping was sent to the pair of officers. “Transmitting now.”

In his arm, the Child made a noise, a gurgle that lasted longer than his typical cooing.

“Shh.” Din shifted the boy in his grasp. “Be quiet.”

“What’s that?”

“Uh, nothing. The hypervac is drawing off the exhaust manifold.”

The pair of officers took the call onto a separate channel and that was when Din decided to tuck the Child back into his seat. He buckled him in, already knowing that he was about to run. 

The pair of X-wings both extended their wings as if they knew what was coming.

“Was your craft in the proximity of New Republic Correctional Transport, Bothan-Five?”

And there it was. They’d caught him.

Having absolutely no choice but to flee the scene, Din took control of the Crest, ignoring the New Republic officer’s voices as they chased him down. He supposed it was lucky that the patrol had come alongside him right on the edge of a planet he could try to use to lose them.

“That thing’s gonna break apart in this atmosphere,” one of the officers said over the comms.

With no other choice but to keep pressing forward, Din did as his gut led. From beside him, the Child let out a noise or two, but kept otherwise silent. He could only imagine how the rest of his traveling party were fairing.

The Crest dropped low, free falling through the clouds of the upper atmosphere of the planet. He hoped that the passengers down below were strapped in tight.

Once they were clear of the clouds, Din grabbed tight control again. The planet was icy on the surface, with canyons like a cracked foundation that were deep enough to fly into.

“He’s headin’ down into that canyon.”

The icy world was unfamiliar, and it was downright impossible to keep the Crest flying steady with two X-wings on him like a couple of pests. 

“I got ‘im. Target computer active.”

Nope. Nope. Nope.

It was then that he saw an opportunity. He hung a right and the duo followed, but lost him the instant he lowered the Crest into a tighter cavern. 

The ship collided into an ice wall and Din directed it into a tight space, enough that he could hear the hull scraping as they made the maneuver. They bounced off another wall before skidding along the floor until the ship finally stopped.

Each bump and jolt of the vessel made him grimace, but they were hidden. That was all that he needed. 

“I’ve lost visual.”

“He’s got to be around here somewhere.”

“You head north. We’ll cover more ground.”

Finally, the confirmation that he’d hidden them well enough came through the comms, just in time for the fragile ice beneath the ship to shatter and for the ship to fall straight down, the feeling of butterflies filling his belly as he braced himself for an impact that was sure to follow.

“Hang on!”

The Child whimpered and sobbed, terrified.

When the Crest hit the ground, it was at an angle, buried into the icy floor. The cavern they’d landed in was dark, and so was the ship. It had lost power in the crash.

Taking a moment to catch his breath, Din turned to the Child, his first priority to learn how everyone had fared in the crash landing.

“You okay, kid?”

The Child held his head up high and blinked at him when he stood. From all appearances, the boy was just fine. Maybe shaken, but so was he. 

Now, he had to check on the rest of his crew.

With the Child in one arm, he opened the door to the cockpit, not sure what to expect. When he dropped down into the cargo hold, the first thing he noticed was the sound of whistling wind and snowflakes fluttering inside.

There was a gaping hole in the side of the ship, and now everything inside was freezing over. His eyes grew wide with a start and he pivoted to scan the space for the passengers.

“Omera? Winta? Everyone okay?”

Omera and Winta were the first he could see, the mother protecting her child while cuddled together on the floor amongst the scattered cargo. He heard the Frog Lady’s croaking voice before he looked to his right to find her. She rubbed the top of her head, lying out on her side as she shivered.

“Gotta get you some blankets. Keep you warm.” 

Din charged into action, going to the nook he used as his bed. There wouldn’t be enough for all of them, but at the very least, he would give what he had.

When he returned with the pair of blankets, he offered one to the Frog Lady first. He helped her sit upright and wrapped it around her, giving her arms a gentle rub. 

Looking up, he met Omera’s gaze from across the hold. “You alright?”

She helped Winta sit upright against the wall behind them, studying her daughter briefly. 

“Shaken, but we’re fine otherwise. What happened?”

He handed Omera a blanket and she wrapped it around Winta, whose teeth had begun to chatter violently enough that she couldn’t help but make noise. 

“My past caught up with me.” Din took a steadying breath to contemplate their next move and scanned the mess that had become the lower deck of his ship. “I’ll cover up this hole. We need to try to keep the warmth inside as best we can.”

He set to work, pinning up a tarp over the hole in the hull, and with Omera’s help, they pushed aside the cargo that had shifted in the crash. After everything was in some semblance of order, he found Omera a blanket.

With the nurture and caring of a mother, she helped the Child sit on a crate with a small snack in hand, and Din approached her with the blanket in hand. 

“Here. Found it in storage.” 

Omera smiled slightly at his extended offering and reached out to take it, but he acted faster, unfolding it and draping it around her shoulders on her behalf. She held it tight against herself.

He wished he could do more for them. After everything that had happened so far, he felt worse about allowing Omera and Winta to have suffered even just a little in the crash. This wasn’t what they’d joined him for. 

“Thank you.” 

Looking to the rest of the group, Din said, “The main power drive is not responding, and the hull has lost its integrity. I suspect the temperature will drop significantly when night falls.”

“Are we stuck here?” Omera asked.

“No,” Din replied. “Even if we have to all cram ourselves into the cockpit, we’ll make it out of here, but… for now, we need to wait. I’ll have a better idea of what to do in a few hours. I think we should all try to get some sleep.”

Omera looked at the Frog Lady and he saw something sorrowful in her gaze. The Frog Lady made an equally sad noise. 

“We need to try to leave here as quickly as we can,” Omera said, as if just saying so would motivate him. “Peli said these eggs are the last of her kind. If they aren’t brought to Trask in time, it will be the end of her species.”

The Frog Lady seemed to understand Omera’s words. She perked up and nodded in agreement as another croak in her language spilled forth. 

Meanwhile, the Child toddled toward Din on the floor, wrapping his fingers around his leg.

“I know what the deal was,” Din finally told Omera. He reached down to lift the Child into his arm, hoping to provide him some comfort in the cold. “But things changed. We’re here. There’s nothing I can do about it right now.”

Omera offered the Frog Lady an apologetic smile. “We will do what we can. I promise your eggs will make it to Trask in time.”

“Omera.”

She shook her head to silence him. “We made her a promise when we brought her on board. We have to do right by her. I know you’re tired, but this is important.”

Din sighed. There were times he was glad he wore a helmet. Presently, he was glad because if Omera could read his face, she would see that he didn’t feel all that enthusiastic about their current predicament.

As much as Omera wanted to be a help to this Frog Lady, she knew nothing about what was going on. He wouldn’t argue with her about it, because she was right: he was exhausted from a couple of hard days. Crashing the Crest into a freezing cold temperament only seemed to intensify his need to shut his eyes.

Beneath his armor, he was only a tired, frustrated man. 

He sank down onto the floor, leaning back against the side of the ship. He released a breath, exhausted.

“Winta, let’s try and get some rest,” Omera said. She rubbed her hands along Winta’s arms. She ushered Winta towards the side of the ship near him. “We’ve had a long day.”

Winta settled onto the floor beside him and grabbed onto his arm, her eyes full of worry. “Will the ship be okay?”

Din nodded once. “The Crest has seen a lot. This is just a scratch.”

Winta offered him a smile. Omera joined her on the floor, her arm wrapped tightly around her. Opposite them, the Frog Lady sat on the ground, seemingly too worn to keep up the argument.

She cradled her eggs, a worried croak muttered under the yellow of the emergency lights.

As bad as he felt for all that had happened, Din fell asleep swiftly.

When he awoke, it was to a voice he’d thought he’d never hear again: the droid from the prison break, the one he’d dismantled and stuffed into storage with the intention of dumping. 

“Wake up, Mandalorian.”

His eyes opened, panicked, and he gripped the Child in his arm tighter, drawing his gun quickly from his side to aim it at the offending noise. 

The Frog Lady stood beside the droid, holding in her hand a communicator. The droid’s eyes glowed as if it were functional, but it didn’t move.

“Do not be alarmed. I bypassed the droid’s security protocols and accessed its vocabulator.”

He shook his head, angry. The memory of the droid with a weapon drawn on the Child was burned into his mind’s eye and would never leave. “What the hell are you doing? That droid is a killer.”

Din slid his gun back onto his belt.

The Frog Lady seemed just as angry as he felt. “These eggs are the last brood of my life cycle. My husband has risked his life to carve out an existence for us on the only planet that is hospitable to our species. We fought too hard and suffered too much to resign ourselves to the extinction of our family line. I must demand that you hold true to the deal that you agreed to.”

The words, spoken through the droid, echoed Omera’s earlier sentiment. He turned to check on her. She stared back at him with that same sorrowful look on her face from before. And, deeper still, that secret still burrowed in the shine of her eyes.

“Look, lady,” Din turned his attention to the Frog Lady, “the deal is off. We’re lucky if we get off this frozen tomb with our lives.”

“I thought honoring one’s word was a part of the Mandalorian code. I guess those are just stories for children.”

She was right. It was part of the code to honor one’s word, and it was insulting to think that he could change her mind about the honor of a Mandalorian based on his performance evading his own arrest.

Fixing his ship in these freezing conditions was going to be difficult, and it might not even work well enough for them to leave in time for the deal to have a happy ending. 

He sighed heavily when the Child cooed, his voice a warm reminder of the commitment he’d made to be a father to the boy. As his father, he needed to show him the Way, which included honoring his word.

“Fine.” Din nodded. He set the Child down and pushed himself up off of the floor. “Omera, how useful are you with electrical systems?”

Omera smiled up at him. “I can find my way.”

“Then you and I will try and get the power back online. Weld some of the hull back together.” He grabbed his tool kit from the top of a nearby crate. “In the meantime, everyone else should stay here. Try to stay warm.”

“Thank you, Mandalorian,” the droid said on the Frog Lady’s behalf. “I hope you listen to your wife more.”

He opened his mouth, surprised by the choice of word, but Omera was on her feet and at his side faster than he could speak. She gave him a playful look, a single eyebrow lifted.

“Yes, Mandalorian. You should listen to me more.”

Sighing, he shook his head and gestured to a crate. “There should be some clothes to keep you warm in the bin, there. I’ll go see what it looks like from the outside.”

The damage to the Crest was far worse than he’d thought it was. Thick, dark smoke billowed out of it, live wires sparked, there was a leak, and the hull would have almost been better removed and replaced than even attempting a fix.

He began with prying back a loose piece of the outer hull, already regretting the decision when he realized how bad it really was beneath the surface. Omera stepped outside as he started working on fusing some electrical wire.

“Oh. If this is just a scratch… I’d hate to know what else has happened.” Omera came closer to him. “Where are your tools? I’ll help mend this back together.”

“They’re…” 

He paused, turning to look at her. She wore one of his long-sleeved shirts over the top half of her body, and a hat that he must’ve taken off of a bounty at some point covered her ears. Her nose was still red from the cold, but she soldiered through, rubbing her bare hands together as she walked over the ice floor.

“They’re... what?” Omera laughed, her breath escaping past her mouth with a puff of white. 

He shut his eyes, embarrassed, and gestured toward the box. “There. Sorry. I didn’t expect you’d wear my…”

“Oh, this is yours?” Omera seemed surprised as she looked down at the top she wore. “It’s very warm.”

Din swallowed, continuing to stare at her as if he’d never seen her before in his life. “I… yeah.”

She laughed again. “I’ve never heard you so at an obvious loss for words.”

It was strange, the way she seemed to make him turn into a completely different person just because she smiled in his direction. A few months ago, they had been intimate, so feeling out of his head because she was wearing his shirt felt entirely flustering. 

He turned back to his task, determined to set himself to it again. “It’s just the cold getting to me.”

“Uh huh.” Omera plucked a tool from his repair kit and stepped around him toward another exposed strip of wiring. “How long do you think the repairs will take?”

Din shook his head. “Hard to say, but assuming it doesn’t get any worse than it is now… if we both fuse as much as we can back together, maybe we can get out of here within the next couple hours.” 

Omera hummed thoughtfully. She examined the scratched up metal in front of her. “Do you have-”

“Should be in the crate beside the… hole in the wall.” 

She took a few steps backward and took the Crest in from a small distance. “I see now why you were so sure the deal was over.”

Din nodded. “You were right, though. It’s important I follow through on this. The Child needs to learn what it’s like to make good on your word even when it seems impossible.”

Omera didn’t have a response. She stepped inside the ship to grab what she needed. Din returned his attention to the hull with a sudden deep longing welling up inside of him.

They worked in tandem to do what repairs they were able. 

The wind howled through the cavern of ice, a steady reminder of just how frozen this planet was, and he kept an eye on his companion to make sure she wasn’t frosting over as much as his armor was.

By the time they wrapped around to the right side of the ship, away from the hole in the hull, her fingers shook enough that the tools were hard for her to grip firmly enough to use. She had to stop what she was doing to breathe into them, rubbing her palms together for friction. 

Din paused his work to take her hands into his. “You’re trembling.”

Omera nodded. Her nose and cheeks were red, but she smiled through it. “I’m okay. We’re almost done.”

Din took his hands away from hers and tugged one of his gloves off, holding it out to her. “Here.”

With a cautious look in her eyes, she took the glove from him. He watched her slide it over one hand, her dominant one. 

Her gentle smile was a reminder that he got lucky when she agreed to join him. So easily, Omera could've stayed where she was and both of them would have been unchanged by it. She wanted to be at his side for this journey- even for the mistakes made along the way.

“Thank you.”

They continued to work as quickly as they could, fighting the cold with nothing but sheer determination. 

For a while, it was quiet, until Din heard the Child babble something, the noise drawing his attention to the boy. He stood on a nearby mound of ice, gesturing outward with one arm.

“How ‘bout you come over here, give us a hand?” Din asked. “Make yourself useful.”

When the Child seemed to ignore him, instead toddling away, Din sighed wearily. Omera stopped her work on the hull as well.

“Hey, kid,” Din called out after him. He didn’t stop moving, not even as Din walked around the Crest to find where he was going so fast. “I said hey! Where are you going?”

Moving swiftly, Din approached the Child, forcing him to look up at him. He babbled again, gesturing out as he faced a small opening in a nearby cave. He must have seen the Frog Lady venture off of the ship. Winta wouldn’t have gone off on her own; wouldn’t have been able to.

Din scanned the footprints in the snow with his visor. Definitely the Frog Lady.

He took the Child into his arm. “Guess we’ve got to go find her.”

Omera’s voice came from behind him, “I’ll come with you.”

Together, they walked up the path into the ice cave. Once inside, they quickly uncovered the reason the Frog Lady had sought it out: there was a warm body of water. She sat in it, her eggs floating around her.

“Oh, there you are,” Omera said with kindness. She knelt down beside the Frog Lady. 

“You can’t leave the ship,” Din scanned the cave for signs of danger. Seemed like just about anything could have lived there. He settled the Child on the ground and knelt beside the warm water. “It’s not safe out here.”

The Frog Lady croaked and whined, clearly far more comfortable in the hot spring than being out in the freezing temperatures. Must’ve been nice for the eggs, too. 

“Let’s gather these up.” Din pulled the container toward himself and began plucking the eggs out of the water. He listened to the Frog Lady speak again and felt compassion for her, truly. “I know it’s warm, but night’s coming fast, and I can’t protect you out here.”

At his side, the Child leaned in and plucked an egg into his hand. Luckily, Din caught it in time and forced it out of his grip.

“No. No!” He shook a finger at the Child, hoping he could understand. “These aren’t for you to eat.”

It was hard enough dealing with a woman he couldn’t understand while also trying to wrangle a toddler that seemed to have it in for him as of these past few hours.

The Child whimpered, but Din turned his focus instead on gathering as many eggs as he could while Omera did the same.

“We’re working on getting the ship fixed,” Omera said. “It should be done very soon. I promise we’ll get out of here. You’ll be reunited with your husband and you’ll be blessed with many children.”

The Frog Lady croaked in a way that seemed like she appreciated what Omera had to say. Din dropped a few more eggs into the container.

“Oh, no.” Omera suddenly stopped what she was doing. “Din, the Child.”

When he looked at her, he found her attention laser focused a short distance ahead. He whirled around to discover that the Child had encountered a different sort of egg, his head tilted with curiosity as he extended his hand toward it.

He stood, scrambling with the backpack of eggs. “No! Come down from there!”

But, as seemed to be the Child’s prerogative as of late, he didn’t listen. Instead, he stuck his hand straight into the egg, cracking it open and spreading the yolk over his hand.

For a moment, there was nothing. And then, it seemed, as it always was, there was everything. 

Rumbling echoed from somewhere in the great cavernous beyond and he turned to the Frog Lady to get her out of the water, but she was already at Omera’s side, fully clothed.

“Come here,” Din ordered the Child, but he didn’t need to. 

The boy was already anxiously toddling back to him as eggs perched in the ice all around them hatched and out emerged hundreds of small spider-like creatures. He met his kid halfway, scooping him up into his arm.

Then, he slid the Frog Lady’s egg backpack over his shoulder frantically. Just as he did so, a massive spider-like ice creature emerged from an upper alcove, screeching loudly in anger. 

It was the mother of the egg that the Child- his child- had just ruptured for a snack.

It growled, furious, and then, there were more of them. Hundreds and hundreds of smaller spider-like creatures emerged from what seemed like nowhere, all of them just as furious as the mother.

He grabbed his pistol from his hip and shouted, “Go, go, go! Back to the ship!”

They scrambled, rushing out of the hot springs with fervor. All he could think about was making sure nobody got hurt, and that inevitably led him to worrying about Winta, who was alone in the Crest.

“Winta’s alone,” he shouted toward Omera. “We need to hurry. We don’t know how many of these things there are.”

It seemed they were only able to outrun them for a little while before the creatures showed their advantage: they knew the caves better than they did. Several appeared ahead of them, earning blasts from his blaster pistol that sent them to the ground.

As they rounded a corner, the largest spider growled at them from where it was following them on the upper ice ceiling. It stuck one of its legs through the ice directly in front of Omera, who jumped backwards, right into his open arm.

They paused only briefly before they were at it again. This time, Din had an idea: he could create an explosion.

He threw three grav charges behind them as they continued to run, launching the last at the largest creature above them. The explosives succeeded in caving in the path for the smaller spiders, and brought the mother spider down to the floor, stopping her assaults on them.

But even as they continued, there seemed to be all the more of these creatures eager to be exploded by the fire of his blaster.

The sound of a blast from a gun surprised him to turn and see that Omera had a weapon in her grasp, her focus firm as she fired at the creatures that were in their path. She must have grabbed one from the Crest. 

He had no time to dwell, but couldn’t help feeling empowered. They were in this together.

The final corner led them straight out of the caves, back to the Crest, and as soon as he could even set his gaze on it, he knew all of their work on it wouldn’t be nearly enough. But, they needed to try.

Omera led the charge to the ship, helping by setting the Child inside before the Frog Lady joined him. Together, he and Omera continued to blast at the spiders.

“They’re just gonna keep coming,” Din told Omera. “We need to try getting out of here.”

She fired off one more blast before going inside herself, and he followed, his teeth gritted when the hold began to fill with the creatures like a wave coming into shore.

He climbed up the ladder to the cockpit behind Omera, and once they were inside, he stood facing the door, shooting at the creatures who wanted their way inside. A few got free, but Omera had his back, firing at them with her gun before they had the chance to do anything.

The door refused to close. Spiders pushed in and piled up by the dozens. He blasted them with his flamethrower, and luckily, the door was finally able to seal.

Little tapping claws on the glass of the cockpit windows indicated that the creatures had begun to crawl on top of the Crest.

“Mama...” Winta sat in one of the chairs, having come to the cockpit on her own accord. She clung to Omera, who sat down in the chair, tugging her daughter with her.

“Strap yourselves in.” 

Din flipped switches as he sat in the pilot’s chair, eager to see if he could get the ship to function. The Child made his way into Din’s lap as if drawn there automatically. 

“This better work. I’ve got limited visibility. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride.”

The engine whirred. The Crest began to lift, pulling itself out of the ice floor, and for a moment, he felt as if everything would be okay. They were going to make it out of this alive.

Before he could even consider his next thought, something jumped onto them, forcing the Crest straight back into the ground once more with all of its weight. 

The large spider-creature announced her arrival with a screech and jumped straight in front of the cockpit, pressing her claws inside, shattering glass, as if torturing them before she would make her final move.

It attached its ugly mouth to the top of the cockpit glass, sharp teeth extending as it prepared to do its worst.

The Crest shook with each lunge forward and Din heard the Child whimper in fear. Each heartbeat in his chest was a reminder that they’d come so far, but there was absolutely nothing he could do. 

They were stranded, alone, and at the mercy of the creature. He couldn’t save them. 

Omera had trusted him with her and Winta’s lives, and now, they would all be a tasty snack for an enraged monster on an ice planet. Nobody would even know what happened to them.

But then, as if by miracle, the friendly sounds of guns blasting rang out clearer than any other sound, zapping the spider-creature where it clung to the Crest in its outrage. 

Just a few seconds later, it fell to its demise in front of the ship and Din finally could breathe again. 

That was far too close for comfort. He could only imagine what his passengers were thinking.

Turning to the rest of the crew seated behind him, he nodded at Omera. “Well done back there.”

“Thanks,” she said, breathless with relief. “Who saved us?”

Din stood, settling the Child into Winta’s arms so he could handle the men waiting for him outside. “The New Republic.”

-

After very narrowly avoiding arrest by the New Republic patrol, Din and Omera set to fixing what they could on the exterior of the cockpit, having decided that they would all stuff in together there for the rest of the journey to Trask. 

“Why did you run from the New Republic?” Omera asked. 

She passed him one of the tools from the kit at his request and then continued welding. 

“I got roped into a mission to break someone out of a New Republic prison transport. We used the Crest. I didn’t want them to arrest me.”

Omera paused what she was doing, but said nothing.

Din sighed, turning to look at her directly. “Go ahead. Tell me you want to go back to Sorgan.”

She gave him a slightly offended look. Her shoulders fell as she shook her head. “Din… I don’t want to go back to Sorgan.”

He turned his focus on fusing the hull surrounding the cockpit once again. “They cleared me. It isn’t going to happen again.”

“I doubt it could, with your ship in such rough condition.” 

Din laughed to himself through his nose. “You’re right about that.” Pulling away from his work, he turned to her. “I’m sorry this happened. The kid just won’t listen to me. I don’t get it.”

Omera lowered her tool into the repair kit and thoughtfully looked at him. “Children are by nature curious. I think you just need to find a way to tame his curiosity.”

“How? He’s… Jedi.”

“Just because he’s Jedi doesn’t mean he isn’t a child.” She paused, smiling a little. “Maybe find something he likes and offer it to him as a reward for listening to you.”

Din nodded. “I wish I knew how long it took his species to speak. He can heal flesh wounds and create force fields, but he can’t tell me what he wants.”

Omera put a hand on his helmet, her smile spreading softly. “You are the best one for this job. You’re his father. He’s your son. You share a bond, even if you aren’t his kind.” 

His heart fluttered, not for the first time at the mention of the word father. Was he really a father? 

He hadn’t really thought of himself as one, even after being told that it was his duty by the armorer. The idea that he was responsible for the Child made sense in his mind. He could care for him and deliver him to where he belonged. But being a father meant something more. Didn’t it?

In his mind’s eye, he saw his own father, a man who had been so kind and giving. A man who had sacrificed himself so that Din could live. Was he capable of that kind of sacrifice? Could he ever display that kind of love for the Child?

Din nodded at Omera, appreciative of her support. “Thank you.”

She studied him for another second and then pulled her hand away from his helmet.

Setting his mind away from the fears deep within, he looked at the work he’d done. Time would only tell if what they’d done in repairs was enough.

“Well… you ready to see if she’ll fly?”

“I think we’ve done all we can with what we have.” 

The ship wobbled and creaked, but eventually, he did get them out of the ice canyon and back out into space. A feeling of relief filled the cockpit, even as the Crest continued to tremble from everything it had been through.

He set the nav computer to their destination and looked over his shoulder at the Frog Lady and Omera. 

“We’re on our way.”

The Frog Lady made a happy noise and Omera awarded him a warm smile, a reward for not giving up on the deal. 

Once they landed on Trask, the first thing he wanted to do was reward Omera and Winta with a warm place to sleep, bathe, and eat. 

In his lap, the Child cooed, peering up at him with a little smile on his face. Din cradled him with one arm and twisted the knob of the lever he seemed to like so much. He dropped it into the Child’s hands and was given a delighted giggle.

“Now, go to sleep,” Din instructed. “It’s going to be a long trip.”

The Child seemed to understand. He played with the shiny orb in his palm for only a moment before settling in, his eyes closing tight. Din’s heart squeezed at the sight.

Maybe their next stop would be a fresh start on this journey for all of them.

#mandomera #din x omera #the mandalorian #my writing #the edge of hope #there's some cuuuuuute in this chapter y'all

[onebizarrekai]

Hello, can you please tell us about what is going on with swapdream maker and what's the big deal and clear everything up because I think we should know wth is going on rather than listening to whining and use our brains to decide who is fault and how to solve the problem.

I don’t usually answer asks like this because I like to just kinda stay away from things now rather than try to specifically badmouth people—

but basically what happened is that for a while, the swapdream creator was making fanart of dreamswap, but it was never really accurate. they portrayed dream in a way that didn’t line up with how he really was (also, ds dream was the only ds character they drew). it bothered me, but I was like, okay fine, people do that sometimes.

when the no nsfw rule was still intact, they posted something explicit and very out of character with ds dream, and when someone came up and nicely reminded them that the rule existed, the creator just shrugged them off, saying that they didn’t care. I lost my temper and confronted them (being someone who was more or less sex repulsed at the time), and basically the encounter didn’t go well. I called them out for misinterpreting him repeatedly and told them to make their own character if they’re going to write him so incorrectly. I realized my mistake a few messages into the conversation, apologizing for my behavior. I took a step back and tried to ask them nicely to take it down, but maybe they still held it against me. I told them that the nsfw made me uncomfortable if I remember right and they asked me if I was “desperate” to have it taken down. they then replied with what I remember as (paraphrased) “you don’t have the right to make that kind of rule, because you don’t have any rights to your characters or the name of your au. If I want to use your designs and au name and make my own au with them, and make nsfw of them, since dreamswap is ridiculous and isn’t the kosher swap au that it should be anyway, I can, because your characters are stolen from other people’s characters anyway.”

I made a deal with them instead. I brought back the idea that they should make their own design and use a different au name if they want to make a different story, since the dreamswap designs are very heavily attached to their existing story. we eventually ended up agreeing to differentiate between dreamswap and swapdream. I told them they had every right to make their own au but that it wasn’t cool to use other people’s character designs for one’s own purposes without their permission. I thought that we left on good terms because they had started being nicer to me and I felt like I could talk more openly with them, but when I came back the next morning to ask them to take down the nsfw one last time, they told me not to ever talk to them again. I later found out that they had a personal vendetta towards me for my ‘specifically iconic disrespect towards dreamtale’s creator’, and that they wanted to use my designs only because they thought I had good designs but “someone like me” didn’t deserve to have them. I think, since then, they’ve gone out of their way to badmouth me and my story on other platforms, but it’s not like I’ve been keeping any sort of tabs on it since it happened like a year and a half ago, so I wouldn’t know.

I’m not saying swapdream isn’t allowed to exist, but I think it’s really important to distinguish between the two because they have such different storytelling motivations. a lot of people—mostly in non-tumblr situations—get them mixed up, and it’s disheartening because that creator agreed to use a different au name but doesn’t seem to be ensuring people know the difference.

maybe it doesn’t sound so farfetched if you read the whole thing, all emotional biases aside, and also considering that they had come into that thinking things about me based on what they had heard from others, but if I have attached stories that I dominantly came up with to a handful of characters, I think the designs still sit in my hands. like, no matter who someone is, taking someone’s specific character designs and claiming them as your own just isn’t cool.

all in all, the two of us sat on the same page in this situation, being people who made stories based on another story, but the swapdream creator wanted to take the ds dream’s design and smother dreamswap because they considered it a disrespect towards the original work. perhaps I’ve interpreted all of this wrong. maybe something got lost in translation, but I think I know what I’ve read in terms of what they’ve said to me and others. there is no way to “solve the problem”—the only resolution is to just properly distinguish between the stories and educate people in knowing there is a difference, so if someone wants to not be involved with one or the other, they can.

if anything, that experience taught me how incredibly important it is to respect where the lines sit when it comes to inspired works and paying attention to what was created by whom, and to respect the rights associated with character designs.

#sorry I had to post this #if someone came to me about it it must be really pressing

[auntarctica]

When it comes to your inspiration for Reboot and Original DMC, what calls to you to help build the world, scenarios and characterizations of Dante and Vergil? And do you intend to write more of both?

Interesting. Thank you so much for dropping me a note! Easy question first: yes, absolutely; I am writing more of both DmC Reboot and DMC classic. I’m primarily an original writer, but this is my one actual fandom, and my one true pairing. I’m definitely an institutionalized lifer in that respect; got in early and I’m never getting out. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here’s what I’m working on: Reboot-wise, I have the next chapter of Do Not Speak Against the Sun well underway, and there will be at least one more chapter after that, if not three(?). (Haven’t decided whether to save those ideas for a different fic or use them here – I know every writer in the world can relate.)

Classic-wise, I have underway:

- an interstitial, Dante-centric flashback-heavy fic that loosely spans the period post-4 up to V’s appearance in 5 in vignettes, with occasional forays into nostalgia and his past with Vergil, which is called Donec Gratis Eram Tibi (In the Days When I Was Dear to You).

- Confraternity, the post-5 fic that will follow that one.

Both of those are continuations of the Opera Omnia.

(Now I feel weird because whenever someone asks what I’m working on I always want to know what they’re working on but since you are a wild anon I cannot do the requisite social dance and it consternates me���) As for inspirations, like regrets, I have a few. I’m sure that a great deal of my Weltanschuuang is informed by my past as an opera singer (before I quit to write full time), and being a dual citizen of the US and the EU, straddling the Old and New worlds – which is part of why the backdrops of both Classic and Reboot are equally appealing to me.

History, philosophy, psychology, classical mythology, art and human nature are all sort of baked into DMC, no matter the iteration, and I think that those of us who are drawn to it tend to already have those interests; a pre-existing passion for those subjects. In seeking to augment those worlds, it’s only natural to draw on what’s already in the narrative and flower outward from there. The way my mind strains it, DMC Classic is ultimately a classical/gothic fantasy with nods to modernity, and DmC Reboot is ultimately a modern fantasy with nods to gothic classicalism, so that tends to really inform some of the choices, both maximal and subtle, that I make when I go to write in one or the other. For instance, if I had chosen to name a DMC Classic fic Do Not Speak Against the Sun, I would have named it in the original Latin. But Reboot is not as neoclassically or gothically weighted as Classic, (even if we can absolutely assume Vergil’s Ivy League classical education) which is why I feel the translated phrase works better. I really tend to like resonance – self-referentialism, themes that call back to themselves, or reappear like leitmotifs, gaining greater significance as they go, and foremost, this idea that everything in existence is interleaved and cantilevered and nothing is irrelevant. Although Reboot and Classic each have very different approaches, and thematic aspects the other lacks, there are also a lot of themes that they share – and it’s fun to play within both those congruencies and the discrepancies.

One thing I really like is the idea of toying with resonances between the universes - things that might surface in the narrative in both worlds, but in completely different contexts.

For instance, there were a few places in Do Not Speak Against the Sun where I saw a chance to incorporate a turn of phrase or piece of dialogue from my longstanding DMC classic fics - one example would be in Consanguinity where Vergil surveys the overgrown courtyard of the manor and remarks in the narrative that “the topiary [is] growing unchecked”. Reboot Vergil actually says this sentence out loud, but the context is (cough cough) rather different.

So I peppered in quite a few things like that.

I think of them as cryptic little love notes to repeat readers – the ones who maybe know your words even better than you do. It’s a really gratifying interaction when someone picks up on one of the little callbacks, or remarks on the architecture – writing is largely a solitary pursuit by nature, so those interludes of mutuality are all the more valuable.

I ended up doing it with some lines from the games, as well – subverting the infamous “how about a kiss from your little brother” - which also, intriguingly, necessarily changes the speaker of that line, purely because Reboot changed the canon.

Things like that, I think, add to the general idea that both sets of Dantes and Vergils can coexist in the greater Zeitgeist, in parallel, never even knowing when their universes graze up against each other in those odd little moments - and that’s a parity I like, these resonant and recognizable moments - the familiar subverted. It is both new and old, recognizable and surreal.

(Though that’s a fic I’d like to write too, some day - after all, the Yamato is already capable of opening interdimensional portals; canonically it’s not much of a stretch for any of them to wind up in the others’ world - and I’m sure that crossover has been done many, many, many times, but hey, the world can tolerate one more stab at the ol’ canon… ;) ) I think it’s rather to the credit of the developers of Reboot that while they changed the canon significantly, the characters are still recognizable – as they should be, in any good fanfic AU (which, let’s be fair, is basically what Reboot is). While different circumstances have emphasized different aspects of their personalities – and their resultant relationship dynamic and evolution - the core values and motivations of the characters remain intact. In DMC 5, Vergil posits a rhetorical question, addressed to Dante, as he sits beneath the Qliphoth awaiting him – I’m probably badly paraphrasing here, but essentially he says, “If things were reversed that day, would I have your life, and you mine?” It’s an interesting moment, because it seems like an almost wistful musing from him—and yet an uncharacteristically simplistic one. Vergil seems like a guy who believes in multifactorial influences, and not apt to think it could be as simple as “Dante got all the breaks”, so we can surmise that perhaps he summarily mentally answered his own question with a wry, chagrined, “no”. He cannot ultimately let himself believe he is a pawn of fate, and that he had no hand or control in his own destiny—that would be contrary to his entire worldview and self-concept.

And while it would be a convenient and face-saving philosophy to blame fate, or Dante, and he allows himself to entertain the thought, briefly, I believe he rejects it.

What I find interesting is that Reboot actually sort of also answers that question, by having Dante be the one who was disenfranchised and Vergil the one who had all the breaks, and we see that lives are shaped by more than mere circumstances, and that Vergil’s core personality, the parts that remain consistent across universes – curiosity, impulsivity, innovation, creativity, ambition, individualism, idealism – will always lead him through a more dramatic arc than Dante, and subsequently a more resplendent redemption.

There’s a famous Teddy Roosevelt quote that suits what I see as Vergil’s general philosophy, in either universe:

“The credit belongs to those who are actually in the arena, who strive valiantly; who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spend themselves in a worthy cause; who at best know the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if they fail, fail while daring greatly, so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” And I think that intuitive consistency across universes is what I rely on most heavily when I go to write either one - the rest is all set-dressing; superficial, and circumstantial. Even if Vergil’s personality is different, or expressed differently, his character is consistent; his theory of mind, his worldview. Same goes for Dante. All that said, I’m not sure I actually addressed what you asked, so if there are more specific questions or things you wanted to know that I completely elided, please feel free to shoot a follow-up. I am at your disposal!

#my asks #dmc reboot #dmc #devil may cry #dante #vergil #characterization #meta

[causticsunshine]

hello! 

so i haven’t posted much about this on here but on discord and twitter i have talked about it more thoroughly, and i just wanted to say this for the record here as well, especially with the certain stigmas that circulate feminized designs or fem!au of canonically male characters and similar scenarios, i want to go into my intentions and the like when i participate in making content for these kinds of AUs! 

this is just my take and experience/intentions on the matter, so please know i don’t speak for everyone who may also make or just like this kind of content, but under the cut i’m going to paraphrase what i said on my spicy twitter - i can’t really fully post the art here because of the site’s censoring, even if the nudity in the art isn’t inherently or purposefully sexual i don’t wanna risk it, but over there i’ve been doing some more artistic nude type designs of the whole harringrove/keg gang between things, to practice drawing their body types in my own style - as well as being able to add onto what i already posted without having to fight character limits!

this is a little lengthy as well, because i really tried to fully explain myself and my reasonings with things - i really am terrified of being misconstrued so at the risk of being repetitive i tend to write everything out when i probably don’t need to - but if you’re still interested in what i have to say and what my intentions are, there’s also a tldr; at the very bottom to summarize everything, although i do encourage you to look through the rest of what i have to say for any clarifications.

and lastly, please feel free to send asks or DMs about this, anonymous or not, or talk in the replies/tags if you have any questions or want to add anything on from your pov! i’m trying to keep this a healthy, proactive conversation like my last conversation starter post, also about art.

to start though, here are the tweets that birthed this whole thing if those are enough to get my point across, but if not, more in depth take under the cut! 

as many of you probably know, i really enjoy fem!au harringrove content, as well as canon aligned harringrove, and iterations wherein billy and steve are both cis, trans, or may be nonbinary and/or gender nonconforming in whichever way the creator sees fit -- and any combo therein where they may identify as the same or differently as individuals. 

basically, i just like several different iterations of these characters!

i enjoy fem!au too because i have fun translating character dynamics to different scenarios, backgrounds, settings, etc., but that being said, that does not mean i necessarily view these designs or iterations of them as being cis women! when i draw a fem au design, or even a more canon-aligned design of any characters, you can perceive my art of them however you want to, identity definitely included.

because i’ve been trying to draw more than just billy and steve in general - even if i am still mostly staying in the realm of ST with keg girls, keg boys, bucklway, tommy/carol, etcetera - in whatever iteration i happen to draw them in, i’ve also already done an artistic nude style design of fem!au tommy - who i know most other people call tammy, but i still call her tommy haha, sorry if that’s confusing - and am trying to tighten up how i do billie and steph/stevie as well. eventually i’ll do a canon-aligned tommy, as well as billy and steve (for the thousandth time, haha) just for practice sake as well, so expect to get some heavily censored practice designs at some point!

last night though, as a warm up, i wanted to start similar designs of robin, heather and carol just to get used to drawing them, so when i have more solid ideas for drawing any of them, i already have their designs mostly nailed down, and it got me thinking: when people see me do these designs, whether it’s billy or steve or tommy or a fem!au or anything like that, do they automatically assume that i’m drawing all these characters as cis because i, for some reason, tend to give them more gender conforming body types?

and like i said, in my art - unless i state otherwise - i don’t really have a clear intention of how those characters’ identities should be seen by everyone! when i write i definitely do make those things clearer, but whether the art of these characters that i’m doing is sfw or not, i still don’t mean to impose any specific identities onto these characters. and yes, i do draw art wherein i state otherwise very specifically - not that i’ve publicly really posted any of it though as none of it’s completely done, but i do have a good amount of trans guy billy art in my wip art folders, as well as trans girl billie, and i’ll be doing so for steve and steph at some point too! - but otherwise, when it’s not stated, the identity of the characters that i draw is totally up to you.

relating back to what i was drawing last night though, i do want to say that because i had this thought, and despite my usual intentions, with these designs in particular, i do want to do some ‘alternate’ designs of the characters as well, just in case it comes off as all the designs i’ve been doing so far makes the characters seem intentionally cis coded, and just because, well, i want to be more inclusive in drawing body types in general! they all deserve some love and validation!

it’s important to me as both as creator and a viewer too, especially one that’s nonbinary and deals with a lot of dysphoria, to healthily portray diversity in my art - and writing! - whether it be body shape/type, skin color, gender identity, etc., and i love seeing/viewing it as well!

honestly though i do think there are defining factors between healthy and fetishistic portrayals of trans and/or gnc characters, especially in visual mediums, and that fetishist interpretations of people and characters totally exists. i never want to intentionally come across that way just in trying to be more inclusive, or just by acknowledging that not everyone that may identity similarly is going to look the same.

so: i want to start doing these additional designs, at least of these current artsy-nudes for right now, for the sake of inclusivity. 

with how my sketches are rn for both fem!au keg boys and ‘canon aligned’ robin, heather and carol, i can totally see how the assumption would be ‘oh these are cis women’. and yeah, to a degree i will admit that’s on me, but tbh at the same time, my problem with that possible initial judgement is just that 1. like i said, unless stated specifically, look @ them however you want so if that’s your iteration that’s fine but that might not be everyone else’s and 2. it kind of eliminates the factor that not all trans as well as gnc bodies - whether these cross over or not for you personally - are the same!

some people medically transition, or alter their appearance in some way for comfort, some don’t. and for those that do make changes, more permanent or short-term, there are so many different combinations of what they may or not choose to do, including HRT and/or top and/or bottom surgeries or alterations. it’s all up to the individual and nothing is right or wrong!

my intention with creating these additional/alternative designs of these - sorry i keep repeating this phrase - artsy nude designs, is to showcase more body types, especially if i’m going to be doing fem (or masc!) AU designs, and within that, sfw or not, as most characters that have fem/masc au counterparts are still seen as only/strictly being cis-aligned, or just as an excuse to draw cis-swapping because you don’t want to draw trans or nb characters.

in my case, that’s not what my intentions are at all, and that’s not what i want to do either. i can totally get people not liking a fem or masc AU because of the whole cis-aligned history it popularly has - and i’m not going to be using the word ‘genderbending’ at all because i don’t like it, as it’s invalidating and there are a hundred other issues associated with it - or (and forgive me for sounding salty here haha) just not liking it for... whatever reason they don’t like certain other AU’s.

but, using a pre-existing sample of one of these designs, you can, if you want, totally see the fem!au tommy i already drew as her being a trans girl or you can totally just see her as me drawing her cis, or her even being feminine but nonconforming - honestly however you want! - because you’re not right or wrong -- i just kind of drew what came to mind first. and, yes, like i mentioned earlier, i also did decide to draw her that way first or without a counterpart when i posted her initially for whatever reason, so i think it’s only fair that i draw her a little differently too, in a way that may be more representative of her having a less cis-coded, or socially gnc, body type.

why? agai -- because not all trans and gnc bodies look the same! 

i just think if, in these cases, if i’m drawing a fem!au design of a canonically male character - cis or trans or otherwise, however you view them! - it’s only fair that if i draw this fem!design more ‘gender conforming’ or even ‘cis passing’, i should also draw them in way that’s maybe less ‘gender conforming’, and there are a lot of different ways to go about portraying that, so each additional design i do - or at least have the energy to do rn tbh, as the possibilities really are limitless - is probably going to vary!

tldr; in enjoying fem!au content as well as iterations of characters whose gender identities may differ from their canon content, or what’s at least alluded to being their canon identity, unless specifically stated otherwise, you are 100% free to view these fem!au designs - in this case! - as the characters being trans, gender nonconforming, just feminine, cis, etc., in these designs... really however you like and see fitting! 

that being said, i know not everyone will view them the same way, and due to that it’s also important to note that not all cis, trans, nonbinary, and/or gnc bodies look the same, so to be more inclusive in my designs and takes on the characters in these kinds of AUs, i also want to do additional designs outside of the initial ones i’ve done to add some diversity by way of body type, taking into account whatever gender identity you project onto the characters in and out of these AU’s, as regardless it’s important to reflect that all bodies deserve love, recognition, and validation!

(meaning, for example, let’s say i draw billy; in my art, unless i state explicitly that i’m drawing him in an intentional way, ie like ‘i wanted to draw him exploring his genderfluidity so him trying this out came to mind!’ or ‘sorry, i just needed some trans billy getting some physical affirmations’ in my case, you are 110% welcome to interpret that drawing of that character in any way you want, especially by way of gender identity!)

the designs i’m talking about in this specific post are fem!au harringrove (+ tommy) artistic nude-style designs i’m currently working on between things, as well as more i’m planning on doing of billy and steve, robin, heather, and tommy and carol, to help with the way i draw them, but my intentions with my art in general being subjective by way of subject matter, characters’ identities, etc., extends to all my work!

i really just wanted to address here that in my iterations of fem!au designs, unless state specifically, i don’t have clear-cut intentions of how i want/need these versions of the characters to identify, that’s up to you and what makes you comfortable or what makes sense to you, but because of that, i want to create additional designs, both in and out of these kinds of AU’s - although i may not always do it, i’m only one man with a half-functional drawing hand - to showcase different body types, taking into account different bodies that aren’t strictly or necessarily cis-aligned or even gender conforming!

if you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading and your patience! as well, feel free to send questions, opinions, etc.! and if you just read the summary and have questions as to what i specifically mean, i do still encourage you to read the above passage for extra clarification!

thank you again!

#harringrove #keg gang #fem!harringrove #genderbend #harringrove meta #hate the word gb and all it's contradictions and gross stuff ppl do under the guise of it but tagging it anyway bc i know people still #think it's an ok term and it doesn't mean all the bad people talk about involving it... also want this to show up in the tag bc of that #in hindsight i think i was direct/clear enough in my tweets but given the opportunity to get more indepth here... why not go nuts? #meta etc #alex talks

[lovelypieceofjade]

Long post about Sekiro lore and Isshin

Sorry im on mobile so i cant put a "read more", just scroll a lot if you want to skip it ig sorry

So I've been thinking about Sekiro religiously because I'm Obssessed rn (and i need to distract myself from the mag finale). I've been scrolling through the tag and there's something I was thinking about that hasn't been talked about very much or at all from what I've seen and that is: Wolf is at least partly responsible for the fall of Ashina, and Isshin almost gives you his explicit consent to do so.

throughout the first half of the game, we're forced to fight our way through Ashina's first lines of defense against the Interior Ministry, in 2 different entryways into what seems to be Ashina's last and most heavily defended stronghold, the Castle. The first real threat is General Naomori Kawarda, a strong man versed in the Ashina artstyle and in charge of the farthest reaches of the currently free territory, which you cut down. Next is the Chained Ogre, a beast placed there probably to deroute the Red Guard, which would let General Tenzen Yamauchi and his men have a chance to push them back. You effectively destroy that line of defense and let one of the main entryways into the castle (the destroyed bridge which is quickly replaced anyway) free for the Interior Ministry.

The other main entrance to the Ashina Castle, the main gate, is guarded by (MY NAAAAAAAAMMEE, IIIS) Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa, a fearless warrior completely devoted to Genichiro if not the land of Ashina. He's alone in this task, and the boss stage littered with Interior Ministry corpses serves as proof of his ferocity and efficiency. But he's no match for a Wolf desperately trying to reach his lord. With him gone, only the Blazing Bull guards the Castle entrance, a desperate effort to keep the Red Guard at bay should Gyoubu fail.

Once in the Castle, you not only take down General Matsumoto and his squad of gunmen, you also eliminate one of the Seven Spears of Ashina in the reservoir, and once in the Castle proper, Jinsuke Saze, a master of the Ashina arts (and, since we find him in the dojo, probably not only a high-ranking member of their dwindling military but also a teacher for the soldiers and Samuraï. Killing him may have an effect on the overall mood of Ashina). Finally, you force Genichiro to flee, consumed by his desire for Kuro's immortality which he thinks will give Ashina the much-needed edge to win this war, even if their walls hadn't been systematically torn asunder by the Wolf.

What interests me is that, through all of this, Isshin has obviously kept a close eye on you. Not only that, he seems to give you the all-clear to tear down Ashina by giving you the secrets to his own school of sword-fighting! The first time you meet him is in his Tengu of Ashina disguise, right after killing Gyoubu, so you're obviously no match for him at this point. If he didn't want you to go through his own defenses, he could have given us knowledge of other entryways or ways to get around them and to Kuro, or simply kill you right here (which he won't, since he believes his own grandson to be in the wrong about immortality). Why would this man, who invented his own school of fighting and bathed the lands in blood for his ambitions, let you destroy the efforts of a lifetime?

I think the answer comes from his dialogue once you give him Ashina sake. During this interaction, the Wolf asks about the rebellion that happened in his youth. Isshin then reminisces about the past, and the land of Ashina. Paraphrasing: "It was a place where the (probably rejuvinating) water flowed straight from the source. We loved our land dearly, but we were heretics, and weak, so we were overrun. Amidst the chaos of war, we took our land back." Here, in few sentences, we get a snapshot of Ashina's history and of their people, people who worshipped gods that weren't aknowledged in the rest of Japan (probably the Divine Dragon and the Serpent God). During a time of intense war in all of Japan, Isshin Ashina cut through everything and everyone to free the land of his ancestors and take his rightfull place as not only a Lord, but a Sword Saint, someone who mastered fighting to a point his name alone struck fear in all of his enemies for decades to follow.

But then, he follows with (direct quote from the english translation): "But now... it's a place of death... it's a bitter thing indeed." He might be referring to the Interior Ministry cutting through his people, at least that's what I first thought. But there may be another meaning, coming from "bitter thing". My guess is that he's talking about the obsession with immortality that has taken hold in every part of Ashina, rotting away what made them proud in the first place. He has a distaste for the curse of the undying, that's made very clear by his implicit help given to the Wolf in multiple occasions to end Kuro's divine heritage.

So, I think that while Isshin doesn't want Ashina to burn, in his eyes, maybe it is worth burning anyway. The Buddhist priests of Senpou Temple have long since forgotten their original teachings, replaced by the search for immortality. Mibu village is controlled by the nobles of Fountainhead Palace (who were once human, at least some of them, before they craved the vigor of the young) and are now undying, corrupted. His own adopted grandson and head of military drank the Rejuvinating sediments, slowly corroding his humanity away. The only people not consumed by this quest are the inhabitants and protectors of the Sunken Valley and even then, immortal beings live there (the Guardian Ape being an example). Isshin Ashina may not want to see his work turn to ash, but if it eradicates this thirst for ressurection, the price may be worth paying. He will fight to the very end but never sink so low as to shed his own humanity.

This probably also ties in to how Isshin himself never became Shura despite the atrocious amount of killing he did to create his techniques, but that post is already way too long lmao I'll maybe try to dig my brain abt this later.

#royal talks #sekiro #sekiro lore #sekiro meta #long post #isshin ashina #this man has been in the back of my mind for a while #why let you fuck up his own people and land? #bc hes ashamed of what theyve become #yk maybe this was very clear for everyone and im dumdumb but i really wanted to try my hand at understanding something about this game #fromsoft games are designed to let you speculate so i wanted my fun #also maybe ill write why i think he never became shura despite apparently ample occasions to #i think it ties in to his very real humanity #this is a man who enjoys battle yes but also drinking laughing exchanging stories etc #he enjoys LIFE and HUMANITY too much for the shadow of shura to take root

[rallamajoop]

On the history of the airline stewardess (and why she deserves so much more credit than you probably realise)

So, to recap: in the name of producing one short fanfic, I have now spent far too many months researching the history of the airline stewardess. It's safe to say I came to the subject primed to get sucked in hard (in brief: I hail from an RAF family on my dad's side, and there is a definite vein of aviation nerdery running throuth us all to this day). But as not more than a fraction of that material was ever going to make it into the fic, it seemed the least I could do to give a quick summary of some of the cool things I got to read while getting horribly sidetracked er, writing this thing, and why others might find them interesting too.

If it wasn't obvious from all those quotes in the opening paragraphs (most only-slightly-paraphrased from real news items), I have borrowed heavily from my sources in writing this fic. The bit about Heather's former roommate who kept her uniform pressed every day for months after her marriage, for example, comes direct from the life of stewardess Connie Bosza, whereas most of the rest of the anecdotes about Heather's housemates and homelife actually happened to Sherry Waterman. Usually I'd have worked harder to remix and reinvent, but here I found myself getting so attached to the subject that not sharing as much of these real women's stories as possible felt like the greater betrayal. But I'll skip citing every article I saved in the process (ask if you're really that curious) and skip to the meatier sources.

My own gateway to the subject came from Victoria Vantoch's book The Jet Sex: Airline Stewardesses and the Making of an American Icon, where, in an introductory spiel about the life of her own mother, she lays out the profession as a mass of contradictions. Not only does she cover the subject from the very first stewardess of the 1930's to the equal rights challenges of the 1970's which transformed the industry, the work serves as a fascinating insight (and sometimes horrifically so) into the realities of Cold War gender politics. Vantoch deliberately underlines the case that, just because this is a story about a lot of pretty women doesn't mean it doesn't deserve to be treated as serious history. Though there are places I wish she'd gone into more depth, it's an excellent introduction to the topic (and available as an ebook if you want a copy).

For real inspiration, however, I got far more out of From Another Island: Adventures and Misadventures of an Airline Stewardess—the personal account of Sherry Waterman, one of few real stewardesses ever to get around to publishing a memoir (Flying Mary O'Connor is another, but it's out of print, not available at my mainstay of BookDepository.com, and cost somewhat more than I felt justified in spending on ebay). Beginning around 1950, she worked for American Airlines for 6 years, and when she had exhausted the possibilities of domestic air travel, she transferred to Transocean Air Lines and spent another 3 years flying the Pacific. The result is remarkably readable and captures the scope, the joy and the absurdities of the profession with gusto. (Waterman really did, for example, recognise a surprised-but-flattered Dr. Edward Teller on one of her flights, and has stories to share about passengers getting stuck in aircraft toilets—though in reality, the size of the passenger was apparently the primary issue).

By contrast, though equally well-written, Sex objects in the sky: A personal account of the stewardess rebellion, by Paula Kane, was a much harder read. Like Waterman, Kane spent 5 years with American Airlines, beginning in the late 60's, but she describes an experience of growing disillusionment punctuated by incidents of sexual harassment so unpleasant that my rec for this book probably warrants a content warning. The rebellion Kane chronicles would not have been possible without the prior civil rights victories of the 60's, but the sexual revolution and changing nature of the industry had plainly produced an attitude of entitlement to women's bodies that would become infinitely worse before it got better (and this is one of few subjects I only wish The Jet Sex had covered in more detail). In the process, she captures a moment in her profession's battle not only for their own rights, but to make air travel safer for everyone on board.

I owe a particular debt to Kane's book for underlining something which had gone understated in my last two sources—namely the vital importance flight attendants may play in managing an evacuation from the plane in the event of a crash. And thus it is, of course, that my story obtained its set piece. (For the record, Sex objects in the sky is available to borrow from OpenLibraries online, and thus one of the most accessible sources on this list.)

For more on key role flight attendants can genuinely play in saving lives, I'd also recommend the Angels of the Sky series as the Confessions of a Trolley Dolly website, and the Air Crash Investigations episode Getting Out Alive. For one last great online source I discovered in the middle of writing the story, we have Winged Women: Stewardesses, Sexism, and American Society—a Master's thesis by Michele Martin, which is freely available online, and built around interviews with several retired stewardesses. Don't let the fact it's a thesis put you off this one—it's written in very accessible fashion, and works as a much-abbreviated version of The Jet Sex for a good overview of the history of the subject. It even includes an account of a plane crash where two quick-thinking stewardesses really were instrumental in getting every last person of the plane in the nick of time (most other real-life examples I'd managed to uncover to this point, the heroism of the stewardess was underlined by the fact that a great many people did not make it out).

I would love to say more on the subject, but I don't think I could better explain how this subject grabbed me the way it did than to quote from the sources themselves. So if, by some miracle, you still want to hear more, below you will find quotes from the introduction of each of those three key sources. I'd like to thienk they all, in their different ways, really speak for themselves.

Jet Sex: Airline Stewardesses and the Making of an American Icon Victoria Vantoch

In 1956, when my mother was in eighth grade, she dreamed of becoming the first female astronaut. She went on to become the salutatorian of her high-school class and won first prize in a model UN speech contest that awarded her a month-long, all-expense-paid trip to historical sites around the country. She subsequently earned a B.A. in Slavic languages from UCLA. The Library of Congress Aerospace Technology Division recruited her for her Russian language skills and she moved to Washington, D.C., where she translated Russian aerospace articles on everything from Alexey Leonov, the first person to walk in space, to metallurgy—all of which bored her to the core. She considered graduate school for international studies but did not have much savings and could not stomach the prospect of living on peanut-butter sandwiches for four years, so, in 1968, she brushed up on her Russian and interviewed for a stewardess position with Pan Am, which had just started flying to Moscow. She was devastated when the airline rejected her, but she managed to win a position with Eastern Airlines and her hometown newspaper chronicled her success. As a stewardess, she moved into a boarding house with Alice Paul, one of the twentieth century’s most famous women’s rights activists. While living with Paul, her life was a collage of contradictions. She lobbied on Capitol Hill for the Equal Rights Amendment at the same time that she went to work as a stewardess wearing pale blue hot pants. In 1969, she gave a speech to Congress in honor of the early women’s rights activist Lucretia Mott. The topic: gender equality in the workforce. That same year she also competed in two beauty pageants. She got married, had my sister and me, continued to fly, and spent much of her adult life feeling guilty about being an absent parent. Flying was never really about the money for my mother. It meant freedom from suburban life and office monotony, and participation in a public realm that was usually reserved for men. I rode on flights with her and felt proud—my mother was the stewardess. And since airlines allowed employees to bring their families on flights for free, by the time I was twelve I had traveled to twenty-five countries. Some of my mother’s early stewardess friends went on to get doctorates in chemistry, to work at the Department of Defense, to manage large households of their own, and to become successful attorneys. My mother, however, continued to fly until Eastern went out of business. Without a job at the age of forty-eight, she desperately campaigned for a stewardess position with other airlines. She created a colorful posterboard presentation that read, “I will die if I don’t fly” (along with—I’m serious—a song she wrote about her love of flying) and sent it to the American Airlines personnel department, which, after a series of interviews, hired her.

But this was the early 1990s and, by now, being a stewardess had lost its cachet. Around that time, in my early teens, I was interviewing for admission to exclusive New England boarding schools. During one interview that wasn’t going particularly well, the pompous interviewer in a tweed jacket suggested that I become a stewardess like my mother—“ because of my smile.” I knew then I would be rejected. My face burned. I stopped mentioning my mother’s profession. It was no longer something to be proud of. It had become an insult. My fascination with airline stewardesses began with my mother. It began with curiosity about how a talented public speaker who was nearly fluent in Russian and committed to women’s rights chose a career that ultimately allowed her to be written off as a vapid sex object and, ultimately, as a low-status service worker.

From Another Island Sherry Waterman

I was aware even then of so many little things commonplace to us, and yet so significant. These things were most evident in San Francisco, one of the crossroads of the airline world. A lei of wilted pikake blossoms tossed across a copy of the New York Times – both had been fresh that morning; two roommates had returned from Honolulu and New York. A pair of Alaskan mukluks and an aloha shirt crammed together in a suitcase; another roommate was leaving for Tokyo and returning via the Aleutians. Two stewardesses, chattering on the phone about their forthcoming vacations; each was going around the world in a different direction, and one was saying, impatiently, "Well, okay then. I’ll meet you in Egypt." Six roommates gathered around the table for a spaghetti dinner, pleased by the rarity of their all being at home together, and no one bothering to comment that at dinner the night before, all had been thousands of miles away, in different directions.

This was our way of life and it was natural to us. It was the way most of our friends lived and we often lost sight of the fact that it was not the way everybody lived. We were impatient with people who expected us to make dentist appointments three weeks in advance— who could know where she would be three weeks hence?—and we regarded a six months' lease on an apartment as signing up for eternity. We lived from city to city and felt at home in all of them, but we also lived from day to day, and never felt truly at home anywhere. During the first week in June, Dallas was our home and we loved it. Our roommates were among the best we'd ever had. Then the Texas summer hit with fierce intensity, and we raced to the airport with transfer requests clutched in our perspiring hands. Two weeks later we were settled by the sea in Los Angeles, and we spent the summer on the beaches. But the summer waned and the chilly fogs became more frequent, and it was time to move back to Dallas. So the transfer requests were filled out again. It was October, and one of us was playing Autumn in New York on the record player, and another one of us said, "Did you notice that tree on the corner has some leaves that are turning brown —just like the leaves back East?" So we changed the course of our lives with the eraser on a pencil.

We could follow the sun or the seasons with less planning than most girls give to a two-week vacation. We packed ice skates and swim suits in the same suitcase and used them both within 48 hours.

All of this was in the days before jets, but we still got around pretty fast, and we always measured distance in terms of time rather than miles. "How far is it to Dallas from here?" "Oh, four hours in a DC-7. Or were you speaking about a Six?" Short distances were figured that way too. A girl who lived in the beach area of Los Angeles would have her hair done and her shoes repaired in Washington, D.C., because it was "closer" —a ten-minute walk from her layover hotel. We were familiar with so many cities that sometimes we got them confused. I dropped a token in the fare box of a San Francisco bus and the driver stopped me as I started toward the back. "What's the matter," I inquired, "isn't that token for this bus line?' "Lady," he said, squinting at it, "that token isn't even for this country."

Sex Objects in the Sky Paula Kane

Almost lost in all the sexual innuendo of the Madison Avenue imagery is the primary reason why stewardesses are on board a plane, which is to enforce safety regulations and supervise the immediate evacuation of the plane in the event of a crash. And in crash after crash, the efficiency and courage of the stewardesses have meant the difference between passengers' lives and deaths.

Forty passengers and three crew members were killed in the December 8, 1972, crash of a United Airlines jet at Chicago's Midway Airport. But fifteen passengers survived, many of them because of the heroic efforts of the two stewardesses, Kathleen S. Duret and D. Jeanne Griffin.

The plane crashed into a block of houses one and a half miles southeast of the runway while attempting an instrument landing in scattered fog. Almost the entire front end of the plane was demolished on impact. The two stewardesses, who had been seated in jump seats at the back of the plane, rushed to open an emergency exit, but were driven back by raging flames. They worked their way along the right side of the burning cabin, clearing away the debris of galley equipment blocking the aisle. Then, one by one, they assisted nine surviving passengers to the exit and out of the plane, pausing each time to take gasps of fresh air before returning to the dark, burning, smoke-filled cabin. Six passengers found their own way out through breaks in the plane's fuselage.

The National Transportation Safety Board found in its investigation of the accident that most of the passengers in the cabin section died after impact as a result of inhaling carbon monoxide and other poisonous fumes from the fire. Those nine passengers lived because of the experience, the expertise, and the courage of Ms. Griffin, a stewardess for ten years prior to the accident, and Ms. Duret, a stewardess for seven years.

Yet their actions earned just one sentence in the sixty-one-page NTSB report: '"Nine passengers who exited through the rear service door were assisted by the two flight attendants; these attendants were the last to leave the aircraft."

Their exceptional bravery in carrying out their legal role on the plane, as stated in Federal Aviation Regulation 121391, "to provide the most effective egress of passengers in the event of an emergency evacuation," earned them no citations or awards from the airline.

Stewardesses who please customers, who receive complimentary letters, and provide exceptional "service," receive awards of merit from the airline. But apparently not stewardesses who save human lives. You have entered the weird, upside down, Alice-in-Wonderland world of the airlines. Presumably the companies are very concerned about safety, since the public's concern for safety on planes has been a major problem in attracting more customers. Yet in several areas the airlines display an incredible disregard for elemental safety. Hazardous materials are illegally shipped in cargo bins below the passengers' seats. Cabins are constructed with materials that in accidents emit a deadly, cyanide-filled smoke.

The stewardesses, in charge of safety in the cabin, are dolled up in miniskirts and coonskin caps, "hot pants," and other bizarre costumes. They are seated in unsafe jump seats, in unsafe corners of the plane, are always called "girls," and are treated like children by the company. And when they "grow up," they are encouraged to leave, even forced out after flying a few years, because they are no longer considered girlish enough. The tightly written script they are ordered to act out in the air, including the constant smiles, the constant engaging of each customer's eyes, the constant subserviance, makes it difficult and sometimes impossible for them to enforce even rudimentary discipline during the flight.

The sexual stewardess fantasy has a direct effect on the safety of flying. It also takes its toll on the psyches of the women who play the role. Stewardesses tend to have serious identity problems as a result of being treated like pieces of fluffy assembline line equipment by the airlines. We tend to move in regular stages from romantic idealism to disillusionment to frustration and anger and self-doubt.

[...] But in the past few years stewardesses have finally started to fight back. They have won a series of rulings by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that have stopped the airlines from forcing women to retire from flying at an early age and from banning married flight attendants.

#aviation #flight attendants #history #feminism #stewardesses #research