#which is to a certain extent true but not in the way that marble has taken to showing it

[tgrailwar-zero]

… We’re sorry. It was an impulse decision at first that we didn’t know would lead to anything but when virtual caster’s attack started hitting afterwards and we realised what was on things became. Tense, and we had to choose quick between pushing on which would’ve taken more resources than we had on hand and definitely hurt you and Kuku Hard and set us on negative mana to boot, and backing out- but a solid chunk of us thought that we needed the firepower, and so should summon Draco despite it and while some of us didn’t, we. Ended up summoning Draco, which. We should have put more thought into before and discussed had we more time, and I’m not sure if the others agree with me, but I’m sorry it came so quickly to this.

… This is Draco, our new team member. I understand that there’s going to be a lot of friction and for that I apologise, but I hope we’ll be able to work something out. I’m sorry that we had to spring all this on you guys so quickly.

Draco, thank you for being here. I understand that you might want to burn things down as we go about our quest and we respect that urge but. Please redirect that rage to our battles, please. We want to give this Solar Cell not so much a rage-filled end as a softer one, but we’ll definitely be meeting tough enemies along the way while we’re at it, so please help us and channel your fury towards them instead when needed as compromise, and thank you for being here. I hope that we’ll be able to see this through together. You’re our servant now too.

… Constantine, Kuku, if you have things to say, please feel free anytime, be it now or down the road when we have more private time, I know this was a major decision to make just like that.. We owe it to you guys to hear you two out.

CONSTANTINE: "So, you abandoned Lucius within the confines of her mind, and tampered with it. I can forgive you for not fully understanding the meaning of your actions there, perhaps. But summoning this... thing! This Beast! With this Servant, damned be 'negotiations', damned be Caster, damned be the Solar Cell! Every Servant now has ample reason to want to see us dead and buried- even more-so than before! Especially a man as pious as Saber!"

He sounded mad, and that's because he was.

KUKULKAN: "So… as a bit of a 'newbie Heroic Spirit', even I'm picking up the gist here. Servants are supposed to protect humanity from things like this, so summoning one and saying 'okay, now deal with it', is kind of tough?"

You could tell that KUKULKAN was taking things a bit calmer, though even she seemed on guard based on her stance. It seemed as if the moment DRACO made a wrong move, her fist would head straight for the Beast's skull. Calling her a 'neutral party' would be a stretch, but she did seem the 'least pressed' out of the two. Though if her presence was causing tensions among teammates, then it painted a poor picture of how she'd be received by enemies.

CONSTANTINE's teeth were gritted.

CONSTANTINE: "Outside of the fact that she's an Evil of Humanity, she's also the Whore of Babylon, prophesied by Saint John in the Book of Revelation!"

...Right.

CONSTANTINE was Catholic.

The Marble Emperor, said to have been saved by an angel in his final moments in order to be resurrected by God when his land was in dire need of protection.

It seemed like as a Servant, he was more open to dealing with certain things despite his faith- like teaming up with a divinity from another continent, but 'aiding one of the Beasts of the Apocalypse, set forth by the Enemy of God to drive the world into sin and destruction' didn't seem like a such a simple solution to him. There was open-minded, and then there was… this.

Though it seemed like being connected as 'Invaders' made their True Names apparent, at least to a certain extent. It was hard to tell just how much information was being shared, though in this case- the answer was 'enough'.

DRACO: "This is a rather natural reaction."

Her voice was dry- bored, even.

DRACO: "Any Servant that ascribes to the teachings of the New Testament knows to fear Sodom's Beast. Now, take an orthodox emperor from Constantinople, and this little tantrum was inevitable. In addition, every Heroic Spirit should have a natural inclination to go against a Beast. Such is fate, I suppose."

...Maybe AVENGER killing LANCER was a bit of a lucky break for you?

It didn't seem like DRACO's casual attitude was helping, as CONSTANTINE reeled his blade back, readying himself for a swing with the intent to fully remove her head from her shoulders.

CONSTANTINE: "Whatever tales of 'helping' that she's fed you are nothing but lies from a silver tongue. Taking the form of a child won't grant you the innocence of one!"

His voice reached a mighty roar, his own presence magnifying greatly. As reserved as he tended to be in most situations, in this moment you were looking at the proud, immovable will of an 'Emperor'.

CONSTANTINE: "Hear me, Mother Harlot! My True Name is Emperor Constantine XI Dragases Palaiologos! In the name of the Lord, your head shall be mine, dragon!"

DRACO: "What a feisty one. Very well, you'll make a fine offering for this cup, despite being a failure of an Emperor. Come, Masters. Aren't you leaders? Insubordination should be squashed, thoroughly. He'll only learn through ample humiliation."

They were moments away from actually trying to kill one another.

#thgw story #thgw: chapter 4 #main post #endless whispers #code cast: ask foreigner #code cast: ask rider #code cast: ask beast

[miserabull]

A very long meta-analysis on P2 Bad Grief

So, I've gone over every dialogue with this guy a few times, and there is some stuff I've never seen addressed before. This is a mix of analyzing and theory that have been in my head for a while, and I’d love to know if it all also makes sense to other people

The thing about Classic and P2 Grief, is that they are very different characters playing the same role. Who is Bad Grief? A thief, a kingpin of the town's criminal underbelly, and a smuggler working for Big Vlad. In P1, he's also a dangerous murderer who kills people for fun, but denies it, even claims that he kicks people out of his gang for daring to take up knives. Dude lies a lot. In fact, he maintains the lie up until the last route, the Changeling's, and then tries that on her too but ends up confessing. This is my very wordy way of saying that while I kinda agree with people who are like "he's not a violent murderer like P1 Grief", P1 Grief also claimed to not be one up to the last minute. I don't think they are making him a sadistic killer this time, yeah, but I'm pretty sure he's a liar, and that there's a darker secret. The game implies Grief keeps his cards close to his chest and there is more to him several times, like here, when you talk with Lara's reflection

Lara's Reflection: You see, she puts her stock in deeds and not in words. So Stakh was always close to her; for he would hear his heart, and act. A trait you share, Burakh.

Haruspex: And the most taciturn of us all, Bad Grief.

Lara's Reflection: He speaks so much yet does so much more.

or when Artemy confronts him at Aspity's Hospice:

Bad Grief: You heard about Rubin? Know why the Kin wants him dead? He's walkin' around all downcast, doesn't sleep. Says not to ask. Says it's safer like that. What's he done, I wonder? I wanted to ask Sahba, but maybe you know?

Haruspex: You're lying. That's not what you wanted to ask. I can tell.

Bad Grief: If I did lie, I wouldn't tell you the truth now anyway, would I? So back off. 

I'm not gonna go over the blowing-the-train tracks quest now, though I have some thoughts on it/what I think might be his plan there. For now it suffices to say that that whole thing is very odd, that his plan doesn't make sense(yeah, blowing up the tracks is a bad idea for his business. kinda meaningless though if the alternative is being hanged). That is to say, I'm pretty sure there's a hidden agenda there that we're probably only finding out in Changeling route.

So, what I mean is, if you think P2 Grief is harmless, or just a clown, or became a gang leader by accident, then, well. I think honey, you got a big storm comin'

A few more notes on Grief's character, and what I think of what we got so far:

-I believe the reflection(I have some thoughts about the nature of those too, actually lmao) is telling the truth, mostly. He is terrified, he doesn't want Artemy to think badly of him, he never wanted violence. P2 Grief is younger, more sympathetic, and very obviously more scared than his P1 counterpart. I don't think he's out there killing for fun. Still, I think he has a lot of blood on his hands anyway.

-I think his loyalty to his friends is sincere. He's kind of really big on companionship and loyalty, which fits, as a gang member. I really think that he wants to belong, to a gang, to a friend group, somewhere. Artemy mentions he's "always been weird" a couple of times, or stuff like "I knew you'd end up like this." and that thing with Lara's reflection... I think Grief was always a little bit on the margins, even in his own friend group, and that's why he made a place for himself as the leader of the misfits, of the people who don't fit what the town considers to be good society. I gotta get on with this because this is gonna be long enough without me rambling about every single thought and feeling I have about this bastard though

-He doesn't give away Stakh's hideout accidentally because he's goofy and dumb. He mentions more or less where it is like, three times. I think it's obvious that he's practically asking Artemy to go check on him, but he doesn't want to be a snitch, so he plays the fool like "Oooh no I gave you a hint, I sure hope you don't go looking for him now, don't ask me because I’d never tell!!". He's playing the clown, he's not that stupid

Okay, now we're getting to the heart of things. In P1, along with the reveal that he's actually a violent murderer who played another violent murderer(Barley) into taking the fall for his crimes, we get something else: he's working under the patronage and protection of Vlad Olgimsky. In P2, they put a lot more emphasis on that, Grief will tell you about it in the first AND second conversation you have. There is even a certain imagery associated with it... actually, allow me a quick digression here, I wanna go over some motifs around Grief. 

Grief is pretty into clockwork and gears, going by his choice of decoration for his Lair. The town itself is compared to a machine several times, by himself, by Big Vlad, and regarding how the Kains view it. I risk to say that the way Grief sees it is rather different from the Kains, at least at first.  For him it seems to be more of a blunt factory machine, while to the Kains...it means something else, more complex. Grief seems to have glimpsed what that is inside the Cathedral, near the end. That reminds me of something else, in the Diurnal End when Grief talks about how he used to be a clocksmith before, and now he's going to be "another kind of clocksmith", I don't think he's necessarily being literal in either case. Curiously, there's also a Clocksmith inside the Cathedral in Marble Nest...but I'm going off topic again

Bad Grief: Not a keeper of stores, but stories. This town, this great machine, the gears don't turn on their own, no, not till they're slick with secrets. 

But so, webs and puppets. We return to Vlad Olgimsky(old), who uses the metaphor of his “web”. There's also an important character in Grief's journey that is strongly associated with (spider)webs and strings, and that's Aglaya. The most notable time Grief himself refers to it though, I think, it's in the Theatre of Death, if you let him die:

“My path was not called 'The Spider'. No, think wider. It was 'The Silkworm'! The end of a railroad, I pulled strings firm; unaware someone more cunning pulled mine upstairs.”

So about that. He’s referring to the PTB right? Probably, but not only. A theme in Patho is like...these layers of manipulation. I’m gonna pass the mic to P1 Clara and Saburov for a second:

Alexander Saburov: Begin with the Olgimskys. That is the most important sin for me, and the least for him, for it is not his fault. So did Olgimsky protect his illicit trade? Did he benefit from it?

Changeling: He didn't just benefit; he presided over it. Grief was his stooge.

Alexander Saburov: Now then, we shall skip the issue of the barber gang, since it's clear now who their true mastermind was... thanks to your courage, my brave girl.

Changeling: Don't skip it just yet. Barley was as much of a puppet in Grief's hands as Grief himself was for Olgimsky. Everyone has their toys.”

Grief is a puppet in Vlad’s hands both in P1 and P2, as there he says he’s Vlads “eyes and ears” in the warehouses. In the Cathedral, he seems to more or less realize the extent of it, and how it goes against what he always wanted in the first place: to not be trapped by anything. 

Bad Grief: I used to be a thief, yet they made me a storekeeper. And what a perfect fit I made! I got my Warehouse kingdom, and with it, the insides of the Town's great machine. I kept Vlad's riches while havin' all I could dream of. Can't imagine a sweeter life.

Funnily enough, by that time he’s trapped in someone else’s web: Aglaya’s. That seems to be his thing, he thought he was in control and playing everyone, knowing all the secrets and pulling strings. In the end, he’s a Silkworm in the web of bigger fish. I mean, spiders.

Bad Grief: ...Yet they, too, are controlled by someone. Insane to think what kind of teeth you need for that.

But okay. Back to the start, I believe Grief has a lot of blood in his hands even before shit breaks loose. The things he seems to be most afraid of are also… interesting. This ties to his connection to Big Vlad, and the Kin.

Grief’s role in the payroll seems to be as a stool pigeon. He knows where everyone goes, what people are talking about, what they don’t want to become public. And he responds to Big Vlad. What I think is, hm, you know, even after Victoria passed it seems like the Kin and the Bull Enterprise never really defied Olgimsky, or had a leader in any way. Grief, too, seems to enjoy a pretty comfortable life for a gang leader. As an important piece to Vlad, he really doesn’t have that much to fear, since the guy “owns everything” and is very explicit to Artemy about how he can destroy anyone who doesn’t obey him. And probably has done that before. My guess is, Grief kept the machine working right by tattling, so no leadership or enemy to Vlad’s Enterprise could rise. I’d speculate that Vlad possibly paid the favor not only financially, but by maintaining Grief in that position. Basically, I think with Grief’s info, Vlad could eliminate any potential problem. That would mean that maybe without even having to shed blood himself there might be a lot of deaths Grief is responsible for, not to speak of the maintenance of that horrible system in the town. I think the route they are going for here is that Grief is a class traitor.

Why do I say that? Well, first let’s look at Grief’s relationship with the Kin: he’s remarkably close to them for a townie. Geographically, obviously, and also in the sense of living on the margins of society, but he also shares many of their superstitions, and seems to hold Aspity’s opinion in high regard(even calls her Sahba). I find it easy to believe that many of his men are part of the community as well, due to not being welcome in the town. At that time we see him in the Hospice though, and talking with the Kin people there, it’s pretty clear that they are planning some sort of uprising. That it’s imminent. Grief seems to know it. Seems to be absolutely terrified of that too, and to feel betrayed by Vlad.

Bad Grief: It's too late for me, Cub. I've only got one road ahead of me now. Perhaps the outbreak is for the best... Plagues are like fires, people forget old scores. And all hell will break loose here soon.

Haruspex: Any dark prophecies to share? You're the criminal mastermind here, after all.

Bad Grief: No need to prophesize. People fear hunger. Even honest workers will turn their hatchets and hammers to crime. Burglin' houses, lootin' corpses, guttin' each other. They will. Oh, they will.

Haruspex: Not all of them, Grief. Not all.

Bad Grief: The turf's so dry, you don't even need a match-a glare would start a fire. And when the Kin bares its teeth, that's when we'll all dance! They're slow on the start, but oh so fast on the draw! The Master likes them mute and obedient, but apathy makes them that way, not stupidity. They're only obedient till the time comes. And here it comes.

And the people who lose their jobs? They won't be too fond of staying home. They'll find new hobbies, like looking for food, or venting their anger. ...And Fat Vlad shut his facilities down the day before yesterday, didn't he? Crafty... Didn't whisper so much as a single word to me. Do you think he knew?

At the same time he seems to think that he deserves this, and it’s inevitable. “We reap what we sow”, paraphrasing him. He talks a few times about how there’s a vile beast inside each person in the town, about how they are all wretched and everything, including him, which I think might just be a way of coping like “yeah, I sold out, but anyone would do the same if they were in my place”. 

So, yeah. What I think is that Grief was a guy that had no power and money, with absolutely no perspective, who due to his very particular skills had an opportunity to climb up and took it(all while still getting to pretend he’s an outlaw, free from the chains of society!). And it’s...very bad. And he knows it’s very bad, and he’s not evil or sadistic, but he’s immature, cowardly, and desperately wants to be in control of his own destiny, and to not be alone, and all that. He’s still Artemy’s childhood buddy, a loyal friend, and someone who never really wanted to cause that much damage. He also knows that what he did is unjustifiable, and that no matter what he truly feels, the damage is done and he’s guilty of horrible shit.

#pathologic #pathologic 2 #bad grief #pathologic meta #I forgot to talk about the shotgun. but oh well #full of spoilers both P1 and P2

[roses-ruby]

BTS as types of Yandere

Warning: Yandere themes, Abusive relationships, Psychological manipulation, Selfharm, Submission, BDSM mention

The Gentleman.

Seokjin is the perfect man.

Sure, he acts goofy but he’s also handsome and polite. He jokes around with you, he cooks for you, he doesn’t even befriend other women and he’s even a big romantic at heart. Your friends want him and your parents adore him - you couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend! So, in return, when he kindly asks you not to talk to other men or not to go out too much, it’s only natural that you listen. You taunt him about his slightly conservative and traditionalist nature. But what kind of a man who was raised with high standards and morals wouldn’t have one? When he tells you not to wear something in public - you don’t fucking wear it. When he tells you you’re going to be a stay at home mom - then that’s the end of the fucking discussion. And if you disobey him, then you deserve to be verbally berated until you change your mind. People call it abuse, but he calls it love. Trust him, he only has your best interest at heart. It’s the only way you’ll learn to obey your man and gain value as a female.

It’s the only way you’ll become his perfect woman.

Lowkey.

You never expected a grown man to be so whiny, especially not one who seemed so intimidating initially. “You were gone too long.” - “Why do you have to leave so often?” - “Who were you with?” - Holy shit, the way he was bombarding you with questions made you feel like you just came back from committing a statewide murder spree, even though you were only gone grocery shopping for approximately thirty minutes. But it’s fine, your husband was harmless. It was definitely strange being married to a rapper. You heard most of their true feelings and inner thoughts only came out when they wrote or performed. So it did worry you when he wrote a song about binding you in a cage and keeping you chained like his little pet. But you passed it off as kinks or some shit. And it definitely worried you when he freestyled about torturing and killing your guy best friend in graphic detail on stage, which ultimately led to said friend cutting off all contact with you. But you passed it off as adrenaline-filled, in-the-moment jealousy. Sure, Yoongi was either testy or silent for the majority of your relationship - but that didn’t mean the “real him” was a temperamental and obsessive psychopath.

...did it?

My way or the highway.

Hoseok made his standards clear for you since day one. This relationship will go by his terms, and only his terms. Which meant he got to go out whenever he wanted, yet you never did. He got to touch you when he felt like it, yet you had to ask permission. He got to have female friends, yet you didn’t get to have any - of any gender. You’ll understand one day, he tells you, but you think years will pass before that time arrives, because the truth was you didn’t and might never truly understand him. It terrified you how Hoseok, the friendliest, most carefree man you’ve ever met, can turn into someone so menacing. Someone who threatens your well-being when even the slightest part of his rule is broken. A section of him was detached, while the other section was a pure freak. All of his punishments were sexual, from bondage to torture. Sometimes you think he punished you on purpose just so he could teach you your place. You’re not sure if he had an addiction to total domination or if he just craved mummification and impact play.

All you know is that he had certain habits, and they all happen to revolve around you.

Daddy.

You roll up the door to your room.

Namjoon knew everything. At least that’s what it seems like. He was the smartest guy in your city - actually no - the smartest guy in your whole country. No other man could ever compete with the intellect and raw talent he possessed. You greatly admired him - which he also knew, of course. The one thing he understood the most in the world was you. He memorized your habits, every inch of your curves, the moles in your skin and even the pattern of your breath. He told you when to eat, when to sleep, who to [not] meet, and what to do for the day. Your needs had never been fulfilled to such an extent until he appeared by your side. And you knew then that no one could understand you better than him - not even yourself, which is why you took his words for scripture. Since then, you’ve done everything he told you to do without question. Crawling into your room, you turn around and roll the cage door back down before settling into one of the cushions in the corner.

It was almost 7, which meant daddy would be home soon, and then you could eat.

Kerosene in my hand.

Today in psychology class you had learned about psychological manipulation. You didn’t want to think like this, but the definition of the word reminded you of your boyfriend. Like when the professor talked about using underhand tactics to change social perceptions, you thought about the time Jimin kept flirting with your best friend until she fell for him, even while knowing you liked him. It led you to completely ostracize her from your life. Or when the teacher mentioned using deceit and lies to influence the thoughts of others, it made you remember the time Jimin told you about the things people were saying behind your back until you lost trust in everyone but him. Somehow, the whole ordeal of being gaslit really resonated with you, and you’re not even sure why. Jimin only did these things to protect you from others, you reason. You shouldn’t think like that - not when Jimin is the only person in this world who cares for you. Regretting what you just did, you beat yourself in the head with your fists in dismay. What kind of horrible person thinks these lies about the person who loves them more than anything?

The pain from your head and heart surrounded you in an agonizing heat as you began to cry, sitting down on your bed to text Jimin. You wanted him to come over, you wanted to tell him what you did and you wanted him to forgive you, so you could forgive yourself. He’d be able to tell your bad thoughts to go away, he’d be able to make you feel safe again. Jimin was right all along - the only thing you ever needed was him.

Artist at heart.

“Say ah~”

“Fuck you.”

“Oh my! Doll, you’re too pretty to be cursing.” Taehyung replies with a gasp, feigning shock as he places the caviar back on his plate. You roll your eyes and scoff. It’s usually a good thing if your boyfriend treats you like a priceless artifact, right? Well, not for you. Not when your boyfriend can actually place a price on you. $10,000 to be exact - $10,000 to a random thug so he could break the arms of the man who asked you for your number in the coffee shop.

“I heard about the man you hired, Tae. How many times will I tell you I’m not an object?”

“Everyone’s an object, doll.” Taehyung smirks, casually wiping his mouth with a linen napkin, “Some are just more...costly than others.”

You stare at the unbothered man in annoyance. His whole room was filled with original paintings, marbled statues, golden gadgets and silver trinkets. And in between it all, you had also started to feel like one of his art displays with the way he dressed you silk and bathed you in luxury - refusing to let others sully you by their dirty looks or touches. But then again, it isn’t too bad, you think as he brings the caviar and cream up to your lips yet again. He never hurts you - he’s never even raised his voice at you. You’re too precious for that, he says. And well, at least you’d never get injured or feel lonely with all the love and care he gives his possessions. So, with a sigh, you bite into the dessert he was offering you and watch him break out into a boxy grin.

He wasn’t so bad - just a little artist at heart.

Baby Boy?

(Are we surprised? No)

Your boyfriend was an enigma. Baby-faced, but with the body of Apollo. But he wasn’t just physically confusing. You had a hard time understanding him mentally as well. For one, he’d sternly tell you to do something but then get all teary-eyed if you dared say no. Then there were times where he’d swear he wasn’t jealous but he’d become green, red and purple at the mere mention of a guy in your life. In bed, he always preferred to be on top but the slightest pressure you applied turned him into a crying and whining bottom. You just didn’t get him, but it was definitely fun to press his buttons. It never occurred to you just how much you might enjoy making a tall-ass, jacked man into a whimpering and pouting mess, but you definitely enjoyed it nonetheless. Other girls would kill to be in your place, you were just so lucky. Everyday you’d get braver with your tests, whether it was flirting with other men or wearing skimpy outfits. His jealousy was endearing and his possessiveness made you squeal with glee. The bolder you became with your crusades, the more you failed to realize that everyone had their limit. And once they’re pushed past it, the consequences can be jarring. Especially if they’re someone as mysterious as Jungkook.

Then again, there was no better way to find out then to try. So keep trying him...just so we can see how lucky you truly are.

_

A/N: I’m back I think? This is for the rock anon, I hope you like it doll ;). anyway i wrote it in an hour and i was telling myself not to make it basic and sht readers read like 100 times in this tag but whaddya know i failed. lmk what you think cause i need a compliment.❤

#yandere bts #yandere jin #yandere yoongi #yandere hoseok #yandere namjoon #yandere jimin #yandere taehyung #yandere jungkook

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums: Ministry’s 1983 debut, With Sympathy! It’s not a metal album, and it’s not even an industrial album--it’s just some damn good synth-pop, despite who made it! Whether you’re curious where Uncle Al got his start and why he hates his first LP, or you just want some excellent New Romantic music, you should check this one out. Full transcript of the video under the break, as always.

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be tackling the debut album of one of the best-loved industrial bands--though it actually isn’t all that “industrial.” This is With Sympathy by Ministry, first released in 1983. Ministry are one of those acts that have gone through many stylistic evolutions throughout their career, and if you’re familiar with some of their more acclaimed works, it may surprise you to learn where they started out. While With Sympathy was the first full LP released under the Ministry name, it’s not the very first thing in their discography--that honour goes to the 12” single “I’m Falling,” released in 1981.

Music: “I’m Falling”

With a springy post-punk bass line and a tinny mechanical rhythm, “I’m Falling” is a rough-edged piece of cold wave. It was released on the famous Wax Trax! Records, well-known as the home of many of the most illustrious industrial acts of the 80s and 90s, from Coil and Laibach to Meat Beat Manifesto. But for their follow-up LP, Ministry would work with a major label, Arista, and twist that bass-heavy sound into something with less hiss and more groove.

Music: “Effigy”

On the opening track, “Effigy,” a bright synth line artfully fences an electric guitar riff for dominance, showing the extent to which the sonic blueprint of British New Wave acts like A Flock of Seagulls prefigured With Sympathy. This is an album that could only have been conceived in 1983, in the full flush of synth-pop’s mainstream popularity, and it does feel like a cash-in on the success that imported European synth-pop achieved in the first few years of the 1980s--even in Ministry’s native America.

While I’ve covered some albums with somewhat controversial legacies before, With Sympathy probably sets the record for the work that’s most despised by its own creator: Ministry frontman Al Jourgensen has disowned this album even harder than Ralf Huetter did the Kraftwerk albums before Autobahn, even going so far as to claim its affable, fairly commercial sound was entirely the product of Arista’s executive meddling. As with all legends of how great art was made, I don’t particularly believe or disbelieve this legend, or think it’s possible to know if it’s “true”--I simply present it to you as a piece of context, a myth that informs the history of this work. It’s worth noting that the acerbic, aggressive track “Here We Go” is often held up as a form of evidence for this story.

Music: “Here We Go”

The lyrics of “Here We Go” seem to imply that the song is, itself, intended as some sort of offering to the pop charts, but the confrontational style of the vocals is hard to overlook. I suppose it’s somewhat catchy, but not exactly in the same way that a real hit song is--there’s a certain fetching incompetence behind it, that makes its energy that much more compelling. “Here We Go” was released as a single, but only as the fourth selection from the album to receive that honour. A similar quality of dissonance between words and music can be found on the closing track, “She’s Got a Cause.”

Music: “She’s Got a Cause”

Like so many pop-leaning albums by artists who belong more on the underground side of things, With Sympathy has this constant tension bubbling within, and that crass, subversive industrial mindset is straining within the soft prettiness of its synth textures. The darkly playful “She’s Got a Cause” presents us with a narrator who seems to enjoy an idealized abuse at the hands of their lover, in a manner that’s reminiscent of the common industrial preoccupation with sado-masochism. And yet, it sounds downright bubbly--surprisingly so for a closing track, too. The album’s third single, “Work For Love,” is another that plays with this dysfunctional relationship theme.

Music: “Work For Love”

With tight handclap percussion, a call-and-response hook, and even a rhythm break, “Work For Love” certainly delivers on a “work chant” feel. Like “She’s Got a Cause,” it’s a very fun track, on the surface, but the more you think about its gleeful commodification of love and intimacy, the more sour it seems. Given the expected hard R in “work,” this seems like as good a time as any to note frontman Al Jourgensen’s apparent decision to ape something of a working-class English accent, by far one of the most derided features of With Sympathy. Personally, though I’ve never found this all that offensive--there are many styles of music in which vocalists adopt something of a trade cant, and the conventional twang of country singers is as much of a stylistic convention of the music as country guitar. I tend to see a person’s art as a deliberately crafted creation, where the self might be re-imagined in creative ways, and I think the unrelenting demand for complete “authenticity” from artists is little more than rockist hogwash. But that’s just me.

The cover of With Sympathy is one that really puts the capital-R “Romantic” in “New Romantic.” An artfully splayed hand, with very vampish black nails, gestures ambiguously towards wilting, crumbling red roses, an iconic symbol of the impermanence of youth, love, and idealism. The out-of-focus backdrop for the image might be interpreted as veined marble, adding a classicizing touch, or perhaps a stormy sky filled with lightning, adding to the sense of melodrama. The title “With Sympathy” calls attention to the album’s gothic morbidity in a gleefully tongue-in-cheek fashion, and I wish it weren’t so easy to miss on the cover, placed as red-on-red text in the middle of the roses.

As I hinted at earlier, Ministry have never made anything else that sounds similar to With Sympathy. Their second LP, 1986’s Twitch, is a marked sonic departure, featuring harsh, mechanistic industrial assaults. An extremely different album, for sure, but one that I also like quite a lot, in its own way! By the 1990s, Ministry would adopt an increasingly guitar-driven sound, eventually blossoming from industrial into full-blown heavy metal--a transformation that makes With Sympathy look even more bizarre in the context of their catalogue.

Music: “Over the Shoulder”

While I’ve provided a lot of contextual information about With Sympathy, I do want to mention that when I first discovered this album as a teenager, I didn’t know much about industrial music at all, let alone Ministry. And I loved the album! At the end of the day, I think With Sympathy is a very enjoyable New Romantic album, in a vacuum, and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s interested in early 80s synth-pop. Don’t let those later metal albums scare you away from some damn good pop.

My favourite track on With Sympathy is “I Wanted To Tell Her,” the album’s second single. It gets off to a great start, playfully introducing us to an impressively groovy bass guitar, and features a duet between Jourgensen and one Shay Jones, who’s also credited as a co-writer on the song--the only writing credit on the album besides Jourgensen. While Jones would later release some house singles under her own name, she seems to have been a session musician at this point in her career, but does an astounding job for a hired gun. The instrumental of “I Wanted To Tell Her” is almost identical to a bonus track from the “I’m Falling” single called “Primental,” albeit with a bit more studio polish--but that extra bit of professionalism, and its superbly bitter and bitchy duet, push it over the top for me. That’s all for today--thanks for listening!

Music: “I Wanted To Tell Her”

#music #ministry #al jourgensen #album review #album reviews #great albums

[blogdemocratesjr]

Laocoön and his sons, also known as the Laocoön Group. Marble, copy after an Hellenistic original from ca. 200 BC. Found in the Baths of Trajan, 1506.

an artist once gave wonderful expression to something which generally receives only theoretical attention. The work he produced portrays human nature at the moment when the human Ego, the centre which holds the organism together as a unity, is lost, and the limbs, each going its own way, strain apart in different directions. The work I mean seizes precisely this moment, when a man loses the foundation of his character, of his being as a whole. But this work, a great and famous one, has been very often misunderstood. Do not suppose that I am about to level cheap criticism at men for whose work I have the highest respect. But the fact that even great minds can make mistakes in face of certain phenomena, just when they are most earnestly striving for truth, shows how difficult the path to truth really is.

One of the greatest German authorities on art, Winckelmann, [ 33 ] was impelled by his whole disposition to err in interpreting the work of art known as the Laocoon. [ 34 ] His interpretation has been widely admired. In many circles it has been thought that nothing better could be said about this portrayal of Laocoon, the Trojan priest who, with his two sons, was crushed to death by serpents. Winckelmann, filled with enthusiasm for this example of the sculptor's art, said that here we are shown how the priest, Laocoon, whose every limb bespeaks his nobility and greatness, is torn with anguish, above all the anguish of a father. He is placed between his two sons, with the serpents coiled round their bodies. Conscious of the pain inflicted on his sons, he himself, as a father, is so agonised by it that the lower part of his body is contracted, as though pressing out the full degree of pain. He forgets himself, consumed with immeasurable pity for his sons.

This is a beautiful explanation of a father's ordeal, but if — just because we honour Winckelmann as a great personality — we look repeatedly and conscientiously at the Laocoon, we are obliged finally to say that Winckelmann must be mistaken, for it is not possible for pity to be the dominating motif in the scene portrayed. The father's head is aligned at such an angle that he cannot see his sons. Winckelmann's view of the group is quite wrong. The immediate impression we get from looking at the figures is that here we are witnessing the quite definite moment when the encircling pressure of the snakes has driven the human Ego out of Laocoon's body, and the separate instincts, deprived of the Ego, make their way into the physical body. Thus we see the head, the lower body and the limbs each taking its own course, not brought into natural harmony with the figure as a whole because the Ego is absent. The Laocoon group shows us, in external bodily terms, how a man loses his unified character when bereft of the Ego, the strong central point which holds together the members of his bodily organism. And if we allow this spectacle to work on our souls, we can come to experience the unifying element which naturally expresses itself in the harmonising of the limbs, and imprints on a man what we call his character.

But now we must ask: If it is true that a man's character is to some extent inborn — if the characteristics given by birth cannot by any effort be altered beyond a certain limit, as every glance at human life will tell us — is it then possible for a man to change his character in a certain way?

Yes, in so far as character belongs to the life of the soul and is not subject to the bodily limitations we encounter every morning on waking from sleep, and so can help to harmonise and strengthen the Sentient Soul, Intellectual Soul and Consciousness Soul. To this extent there can be a development of character during a person's life between birth and death.

Some knowledge of all this is of special importance in education.

—Rudolf Steiner, Metamorphoses of the Soul: Paths of Experience Vol. 1: Lecture V: Human Character

There is no man when he looks back in the manner described at his physical body, as it lies embedded in his etheric body, who would not be filled through and through with an immeasurable sadness.

—Rudolf Steiner, The Effect of Occult Development Upon the Self and the Sheaths of Man

#laocoön #sculpture #Anthroposophy #spiritual science

[living-with-abhi]

Is Jamali Kamali Mosque still haunted?

Read There - https://www.livingwithabhi.com/post/must-visit-place-for-every-individual-jamali-kamali-mosque-tomb

My first genuine experience with Mehrauli Archeological Park was the latest year around October. That was the point at which I began to find out about lesser-known spots in Delhi. Even though I had visited some lesser-known landmarks prior in different pieces of the city too. As far as I might be concerned, the absolute first landmark that I visited was Qutub Minar.

The second landmark that I had the chance to catch wind of was Adham Khan's burial chamber which I visited double this year. I had no clue if there was a spot named Mehrauli Archeological Park. As far as I might be concerned, it was only the Qutub Complex and that is it.

In January, Jamali Kamali Tomb and mosque were the primary landmarks that I visited in MAP (Mehrauli Archeological Park) this year. The Indiana Jones in me took me to these ways.

At the point when I visited Jamali Kamali's burial place and mosque again in the principal seven-day stretch of December this year, I invested somewhat more energy, getting amazed by the engineering and plan that this landmark has conveyed every one of these hundreds of years.

I have been to Qutub Minar threefold in the day and once in the evening and each time I visited there, I passed before the Archeological Park which I had never known would hold such a fantastic legacy. The burial chamber and mosque of Jamali Kamali are the primary landmarks (however you will stroll along with the limit of Balban's burial place) which you will check whether you enter the recreation center from the Mehrauli Gurgaon street which is the fundamental access to the recreation center or regardless of whether you come from Qutub Minar metro station (Yellow Line).

It was awful for me to miss the burial place of Jamali Kamali for such a long time when I visited Qutub Minar. Even though the burial chamber of Azim Khan fascinated me, sitting on a rough plinth and being plainly noticeable from the street that to I had quite recently overlooked it during each one of those occasions. Landmarks like Jamali Kamali make me gaga for this city living with such legacies for quite a long time.

Being not very a long way from Delhi when I was in school, this capital city was about Red Fort and Qutub Minar. When I moved to Gurgaon in 2010, that radar extended somewhat more, and afterward, I moved to Delhi and presented myself to the unexposed parts of the city that I never read in secondary school history course books.

History of Jamali Kamali Tomb and Mosque – The Sufi Poet and His Disciple

When I say Delhi is home to hundreds of unknown monuments that lack proper documentation, Jamali Kamali's tomb, and mosque are no exception. Historians have different theories to establish the truth behind the history of Jamali Kamali's tomb and mosque. Yet, it is not certain if all those theories are true or not, and even if those theories are true, then to what extent? Moreover, you don’t want to believe more than one theory since you need a concrete source that can lay the foundation of the facts.

I went through an hour or so burrowing the data about the set of experiences behind the development of Jamali Kamali's burial chamber and the mosque however all I got was a sack loaded with realities with various speculations. Only one out of every odd hypothesis upholds the other. Subsequently, I gave up very much like others, since there are no verifiable records that can be accepted. Yet, there is no decision. As far as I might be concerned, large numbers of these realities seemed like fables.

I was perusing the blog entry composed by somebody. He has referenced plenty of hypotheses that history specialists have put for Jamali Kamali mosque and burial chamber. Indeed, before we talk about the authentic foundation of these landmarks, we should initially discuss Jamali Kamali.

It is said that Sheikh Hamid Fazlu’ullah was a Sufi saint and poet who was known by different names including Sheikh Jamal-ud-din Kamboh Dehlwai (Jamal Khan). Jamali was his pseudonym. He was born in a Sunni merchant family and came to India when Sikandar Lodhi was in power. He was known for his wonderful poetry. Sikandar Lodhi himself was a poet and it is said that he was so impressed by Jamal Khan’s poetry that he would get his work corrected by Jamal Khan.

Individuals called him Jamali since they were intrigued by the lovely words he would pen down. The Urdu word Jamal implies positive quality and excellence. Jamal Khan was a follower of Sheik Sama-ud-noise who was additionally a Sufi artist. At the point when Mughal crushed Lodhi and set up their force, Jamal Khan turned into the court artist during the standard of Babur and Humayun. He lived there till his demise.

The Urdu word Kamal implies wonder. Very little is thought about this other individual Kamali. He actually stays a secret. It isn't sure if he was Jamali's pupil or who he was actually. History specialists have put various speculations to build up the beginning of Kamali. However, a large portion of them are confounding and one thinks that it's difficult to trust in any of them. Since the two of them used to live respectively, it is said that he was named Kamali since it rhymed with Jamali. Also, that is the explanation the two of them are known as Jamali Kamali. Here are a few stories that I went over while finding out about Jamali Kamali burial place and mosque on the web:

– Kamali was a worker who served Jamali.

– Kamali was a writer and Jamali assumed praise for his verse.

– Kamali was Jamali's better half and later, she was depicted as a male.

– Kamali was Jamali's darling and the two of them were gay.

There is a great deal to be perused at this pointless to accept. Indeed, even Kamali's genuine name isn't referenced anyplace. Karen Chase has referenced their gay relationship in her book "Jamali Kamali – A Tale of Passion in Mughal India." I additionally read that Kamali kicked the bucket before Jamali.

Presently we should discuss the set of experiences behind the Jamali Kamali mosque and burial place. Since Jamali was a popular artist and Sufi holy person in the Mughal court, he had an incredible impact. If online realities are to be accepted, Humayun constructed Jamali Kamali's burial place after Jamali's passing. The landmark is supposed to be worked around 1528-29 and completed around 1536. Jamali was covered hereafter his passing.

Researchers likewise express that the verse that is referenced in Guru Granth Sahib had a place with Jamali. Baba Farid who composed the verse was a devotee of Qutubdin Bakhtiyar Kaki. Be that as it may, I don't know whether this depiction is valid or not. In this way, I am not getting it. If you know anything about it, do tell me.

Design of Mehrauli's Jamali Kamali Mosque and Mausoleum

The mosque of Jamali Kamali is set in an encased nursery. The mosque is worked of red sandstone alongside marble embellishment. The mosque has a chance lobby and a yard. The mosque has one vault and five curves just as a focal curve. As the curves move to the focal curve, their size increments. The focal curve is the biggest which has spandrels. These spandrels are enhanced with emblems. You will discover mihrab on the dividers just as engravings from the Quran. The edges of the mosque have octagonal pinnacles. The mosque has adorned arcades that actually hold the carvings and improvement however they have been endured at a few spots. The mosque is viewed as the heralds of the relative multitude of different mosques that worked during the Mughal time frame.

The burial place of Jamali Kamali is all around brightened. The level roof of the chamber is intensely brightened and put. The roof has been painted with blue and red ink just as it has engravings from the Quran. The dividers of the chamber have been improved with shaded tiles alongside sonnets composed by Jamali. The burial place has been enhanced wonderfully to such an extent that briefly, you will want to enter a gem box. There are two graves. One has a place with Jamali and one has a place with Kamali. These graves are fabricated near one another and on the off chance that you see them interestingly, you will imagine that the two of them were darlings.

The burial place of Jamali Kamali remains bolted and has been fixed to stay away from the pubic section. Since the landmark doesn't add anything to business the travel industry, in this way, the passage entryway of the burial chamber has been fixed. The dividers of the mosque have turned into love letters which you will see when you come here. Individuals have composed their names on the dividers which are pitiful. There is a demonstration in the constitution however not uphold.

Ticket and Timing of Jamali Kamali Tomb and Mosque

Jamali Kamali Tomb and mosque are among the landmarks to visit without a passage ticket in Delhi. The circumstance should be from 10 AM to 6 PM. You can without much of a stretch reach here from Qutub Minar metro station which is the closest metro station. Since it is situated in Mehrauli Archeological Park, there are a few different landmarks inside the recreation center which you should visit when you come here.

I visited the Jamali Kamali mosque and burial place in January 2020 interestingly. The second time I visited here was in the main seven-day stretch of December 2020. A considerable lot of the landmarks in the recreation center were shut while some were open which didn't sound good to me like Jamali Kamali mosque was open while Balban's Tomb which is simply inverse to the mosque was bolted. Rajao ki Baoli was open while an obscure burial place simply inverse was shut.

Myths About Jamali Kamali

There are a few fantasies about Jamali Kamali's burial place and mosque and these landmarks are known to be spooky. Individuals have encountered paranormal exercises here in obscurity. They have heard voices, creatures snarling, somebody's breath close to the ear, or they have had dreams of white lights and something frightful. It is likewise said that jinns live here. These are concocted stories as they were.

The burial place and mosque were revamped by ASI before the Commonwealth Games of 2010. The burial place and mosque of Jamali Kamali may not add to the standard of the travel industry of the city yet add a ton to the legacy. That is the explanation, for the most part, legacy darlings come here. You will not get any guide here. On the off chance that you need to investigate the recreation center and its landmark, possibly you should do it all alone or you need to contact the legacy walk coordinators in Delhi.

#adventureblogger #travel #tourism #Municipality #jamalikamali #haunted #place #myths #heritage #monument #mosque #tomb #historicalsite #travelgram #travelblog #jamali #kamali #tomb #mosque #heritage #mehrauli #archaeology #archaeologist #asi #delhincr #DelhiSultanate #delhitravel #delhitravelblogger #travelblogger #traveller

#tomb #historicalsite #travelgram #travelblog #jamali #kamali #mosque #heritage #mehrauli #archaeology #archaeologist #asi #delhincr

[phykios]

the marble king, part 7 [read on ao3]

A rare show of contrition, Annabeth conceded that she had been wrong. There were not, in fact, seven rapids to traverse; in total, there had been nine. Unfortunately, Percy could not enjoy this little victory nearly as much as he wished.

Annabeth had been clearly rattled by their encounter several days prior. Once more she retreated into muteness, passing the time by fingering the edges of her shorn hair, a permanent frown delicately carved into her face. He did not like to take pleasure at others’ pain, but he knew that, short of either producing a sign from her mother or tripping and falling into the river, there was not much he could do to make her smile. Hopefully, a real bed on which to sleep in a real inn with an actual roof over their heads would lift her spirits somewhat.

They sailed into a thriving river port city which Annabeth had called Kiova. He rolled the word over and over again in his mouth, wrapping his tongue around the odd sounds. It was a slippery sort of word, he thought, softly repeating it to himself under his breath as though it would fall from his lips entirely if he did not keep it close.

To his great dismay, it seemed as though the people of this city did not speak Italian. Nor did they appear to speak Greek, nor Latin, nor any other language with which Percy was familiar. Though she would not show it, it was plain to anyone who knew her to see that Annabeth was struggling as well. Her conversation with the innkeeper was slow and awkward, stilted, involving a great deal many strange gestures and repeated phrases in both Greek and another several languages he did not comprehend, which clearly made sense neither to Annabeth nor her conversation partner, and Percy was afraid the whole thing would collapse until a bystander, apparently moved to pity, was able to cobble together their shared knowledge of languages in order to rent Percy and Annabeth a room for the night.

She thanked the stranger profusely for his assistance, and he smiled at them, his blue eyes sparkling, something familiar in the curve of his lip.

“It was no trouble,” he said to her, the words colored by his thick, dark voice. “You and your husband--take care.”

He wanted to correct the man. But if he and Annabeth were to share a room, then it would be better for her reputation for her to be a married woman.

When they entered their room, a small, cramped thing with a single lit candle, fairly decent for the amount of money they still possessed, which was not much, she collapsed on their one bed, quite exhausted. “How mortifying,” she groaned, her voice muffled by the thin pillow. “It was like I had forgotten every bit of language I had ever learned. And when he called you my husband!” She huffed, turning over. “It appears as though you were correct; even without my hair, I will never pass for a man. Then what, I ask, was the point of its removal?”

Percy did not say much, distracted by the single bed. He stared at it, equal parts anxious and excited, which was rather silly of him--he had slept close to her several times before, had shared sleeping quarters with her plenty of times, and all of them strictly platonic. Why should this time be any different?

And yet, it was, for reasons he could not name. Perhaps the bed was smaller, and they were so much older. Perhaps it was those terrible, wonderful dreams which plagued him every night, dreams of soft fabrics and softer skin. Perhaps it was just his foolish heart, awakened once more by love.

At his silence, she continued. “Well, it is no matter. It is gone, and I am glad to be rid of it, truly.”

Still, he said nothing.

Perturbed, she looked at him, sitting up on the bed. “What is it? Is something wrong? Is there a monster nearby?”

“No,” he said, quickly, to dissuade her from any fears. “No, nothing of the sort.”

She gazed at him, a queer look in her eye. “What do you think?”

“Of what?” He asked, cautious.

“Of your handiwork.” With a shake of her head, she disturbed her golden crown, some curls falling down her forehead, framing her large, large eyes. “You are not usually one to hide your thoughts, therefore--please, share.”

“Oh.” He was quite certain she would not want to hear his thoughts, yet he sensed that continued silence would be the wrong choice. “You look… well, you look very… comely.” he offered, eyes tracing the line of her neck, and the curves of her ears, so sweet, that had previously been hidden from his gaze. Had he been a more poetic man, he would have the compulsion to dedicate several sonnets to those ears.

Whatever answer she was seeking, it was clear that Percy did not provide.

She scowled, her lips pursed.

“I--”

“Well, I happen to find it very freeing,” she said. She reached up and felt at the ends, for the hundredth time in the last few days, her lips tightening, as though she were unhappy with what she found. “Without all of my hair, I feel as though I could outrace even Atalanta herself.”

Then, she did something he did not expect; she shivered.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Of course,” she sniffed. “I just--I had forgotten--it has been so long since I cut my hair, that I did not realize.”

“Realize what?”

Her fingers once again reached up to play with her short curls--then, midway through her gesture, she caught herself, and brought her hand down again, faintly embarrassed. “Well,” she said, almost shyly, “it can be… quite cold, without so much hair.”

“Indeed?” That was never something he had considered before. Of course, he had spent the vast majority of his life in the warm embrace of the Aegean Sea, where the cold was largely something of a far off myth.

She nodded, drawing her thin shawl tighter around herself. “I will grow used to it with time, I had merely… I had forgotten.”

Though she had not asked him for anything, he made to take the blanket on the bed and hand it to her first, before he remembered. “One moment,” he said, crossing to the corner where he had placed their dwindling amount of supplies, crouching down to rummage through them.

He could not believe he had forgotten this.

Well, on the one hand, he could. It had to have been several months since that day in Athens, since they had ended their little feud. He had seen so much more of the world since then, had traversed farther than anyone he had ever known, save for her.

The color was still as lovely as he remembered, the cool, deep blue of a starless sky. He held the parcel out for her to see, felt the smooth threads between his fingers, spun in a tight, graceful weave. “Here,” he said, pulling out his prize. “This is for you.”

In his search, he had not noticed how she came to stand behind him, peeking over his shoulder, so he was quite surprised when he turned to see her looming over him.

She stared at him, wide-eyed, grey eyes turning silver. Her brows rose up to a point, almost joining together at the wrinkle of her forehead, lips parted in a prolonged, silent gasp. He might have thought she had been turned to stone, were it not for the gentle rise and fall of her chest. “This…” she faltered, licking her lips. “For me?”

He nodded.

“How…? When?” she asked, shocked beyond all language.

It appeared he had accomplished yet another feat worthy of the greatest epics; he had rendered Annabeth Fredriksdotter speechless.

Flushing further, he stood. “In Athens,” he admitted. “I--well, I was walking round the old agora, and I saw it, and I thought to myself, well, I imagined that this color would look rather fetching on you, and I had some money to myself, so I… purchased it. For you,” he finished, lamely.

He had nearly forgotten how enthralling it was to be so close to her, to see her stormcloud eyes as they reflected the candlelight, to see every strand of the soft gold of her hair as it ringed her face. He wondered if she should hear how quickly his heart was beating, as it strained to free itself from the confines of his chest and place itself in her hands.

It was like they existed in a glass bubble, a whole world unto themselves, so beautiful. So fragile.

“May I?” she asked, no louder than a puff of wind, and he nodded.

Taking it from his hands, she rubbed her fingers against the thread grain, her eyes taking on that familiar calculating expression. “It is very well-made,” she murmured, rolling it out to its fullest extent.

“I’m told it was for a noble lady,” said Percy, possessed of a sudden coyness he did not know he had. “I received it for a good price, but I had thought it should go to the kind of client for whom it was intended.”

The look she cast him nearly made him want to crawl into a hole and never come out.

Still, she drew it around herself, layering it round her neck and her head, and Percy barely had the time to imagine his hands in its place, before he was struck by the full, glorious image which presented itself to him.

He had been correct in his assumptions; the dark blue fabric looked lovely against her tan skin, but her short curls ringed her face in a halo, like the mosaics of the lords and ladies of St. Sophia, like the depictions of the holiest men and women on the walls of every church.

Percy had never considered himself to be a religious man. He performed the sacred rites and made his offerings to his father and his extended family, but not out of any true sense of theological devotion, and certainly not with the same passion as the Christians or the Ottomans whom he had seen. He did not throw himself to his knees at the thunder and lightning, nor the many miracles he had witnessed in his time, for he had come face to face with the king of the heavens, and had, sadly, found him wanting. He had met and known the gods and goddesses of earth, sea, and sky, and had discovered that they, too, were plagued by the million petty disagreements of mortal living. In some ways, it was a comfort, to know that even those who were all-powerful could be laid low by the simplest of deceptions, that they required great heroes as much as the heroes required them--and perhaps even more. Yet, of course, in other ways, it was quite the disappointment. After the war, after Lukas, after all that he had suffered, it had been difficult not to look at his fellow soldiers, at their prayer ropes and golden images and holy words, without mild distaste.

Looking at Annabeth, though, at the halo of her hair and the dark blue of her shawl, her large eyes, her lips so close, the heat of her body against him… well. Looking at her now, he thought he could teach them a thing or two about devotion.

She felt even closer than before, somehow. Perhaps he had moved towards her. Or perhaps she had. Between them, Thalia’s lightning.

She had kissed him once before, many many years ago, caught in the grip of a volcano, and he would be lying if he claimed he had not thought of it often since then.

Then, she leaned back.

“It seems my siblings were wrong about you,” she teased, her voice half-strained.

“How… how do you mean?” he asked. His head felt as though it were full of air, soft and hazy.

“They all swore up and down that you could never be so thoughtful.” Then she smiled at him, so sweetly, gazing up at him from beneath her honey-colored lashes. “Thank you, Percy.”

His mouth curved upwards in a smile, though he did not think to do so himself. “It was no trouble,” he said, wobbly and weak.

The glass had broken. The moment had passed.

Without further discussion, they prepared themselves for bed. Extinguishing the solitary candle, he laid himself down beside her. The bed was too small for them to be at a respectable distance, unfortunately, and he hoped she would forgive him.

Their room had one small window, shuttered close. Not even a hint of moonlight penetrated the slatted wood. Through the door, he could faintly hear the sounds of the tavern under them, a cascade of footsteps here, a sudden bark of laughter there, the whole of this strange, strange world beneath their feet. Eyes opened, eyes closed, it made no difference. Were it not for the noises of the people below, he would have thought they could be under the very earth itself, once again descending into the darkness of the underworld.

All of twelve years old and sent on a fool’s errand to retrieve Zeus’ weapon, contending with the notion that he might not return, that he might fail and bring war upon the world, that his mother would be lost to him forever, he had braved the halls of Hades with this woman at his side, just as afraid as he.

In the darkness now, as he drifted off to sleep, he nearly jumped back to wakefulness at the brush of her hand against his. He turned his head to her, but he could not make out her features, could not see her eyes to determine if it was conscious or not, if she had reached for him for comfort or if her hand had simply moved of its own accord.

On their first quest together, in the land of the dead, she had slipped her hand into his, desperate for a friendly touch, for assurance that there was someone else alive with her. Swallowing, closing his eyes against the blackness, he laced his fingers with hers, squeezing. I am here, he thought, sending it to her through the pulse of his hand. I am here.

After a moment, she squeezed back.

***

Percy was tired.

No, that did not entirely sum up precisely how tired he felt. Percy was exhausted. He was so exhausted, it was as if he had participated in a week’s worth of war games without any rest. His body ached as though Thalia or Iason had struck him with lightning, a constant, thrumming pulse of pain throughout his whole body. He felt as though he had been emptied of his vital insides, hollowed out and replaced with naught but a deep, deep fatigue.

It was, he knew, due to the endless days of sailing they had undertaken.

He did draw his power from the water, this was true. However, they must have been sailing for at least several months by now, day after day after day, Percy commanding the Empress through the tides, headed against the current, traveling ever North on the windiest road known to mankind. So far from the ocean, not even the Danapris could sustain him for as long as they had been traveling, and he could tell that his strength was wearing thin.

And it was not just him. The Empress wobbled beneath his feet, her hastily made bark splitting along the seams. If they did not stop for a rest, and soon, it was very likely that their canoe would capsize, taking both Percy and Annabeth with her.

Thankfully, Annabeth seemed to understand his exhaustion without him having to explain. “Just a little further,” she assured him. “Miliniska is close--not more than a mile or so.”

Percy could not even reply, so depleted he was.

It certainly did not help that a storm was about to roll in.

The clouds above were black, heavy with rain, the wind buffeting their poor little canoe, tossing it this way and that. The sail was nearly useless at this juncture, Annabeth’s stitches slowly unraveling, the fabric whipping in the growing gale.

Though the river flowed wide and steady, Percy felt as if they were sailing through a lake of mud, a thick, sticky marsh which impeded their progress to the point of death. His eyes burned, the harsh wind stinging; his spine could no longer hold his weight; he panted, open-mouthed, like a dog in the height of summer.

Perhaps he would break alongside his boat. He would not mind so much. Even a week spent unconscious at the bottom of this foreign body of water would most likely do him some good.

But he could not do that to Annabeth. She had trusted him with her safe return, and by all the gods he no longer knew, he would see her home.

“Che cazzo, how much further?” he asked through gritted teeth, letting slip a sailor's curse.

“Not long,” she assured him. “Just a little more.”

“Is it possible,” he gasped, “you could be a little more specific?”

The Empress rocked from side to side.

“Percy!” called Annabeth, grasping the sides of the boat.

“I know!” he shouted back. He squeezed his eyes, poured all of his thought into keeping them afloat.

The waves themselves seemed to fight him, the water striking the sides with such force as to send Annabeth careening from one edge to another.

He could not hold it for much longer.

“Percy!” Annabeth shouted over the roar of waves. “Port bank!”

The ship turned sharply. With a yell, he shot his hands out, splitting the water before them, steering the Empress towards the shore like a shot out of a cannon.

It wasn’t enough.

The canoe tore wildly beneath them, the seam of the tree coming apart with an almighty crack. As he had done in Constantinople, he summoned a great wave from the depths of the river, wrapping it around Annabeth, and hurling her the rest of the way to the river’s edge, onto the sandy shore.

Then the Empress split apart under his feet, dropping Percy into the water.

So drained he was, he could not even enjoy it.

He was in no danger of drowning, of course, but he was in danger of losing all consciousness, a terrible idea even when one was not in the middle of an unfamiliar territory. Who knew what sort of spirits lurked in this river, so far from the ancient sea? The water nymphs of the rapids had recognized him for what he was and had made no attempt to hide their distaste; he did not wish to try himself against further unknowns.

If he did not make it to shore, he would not die, no, but only the Fates knew where he might wash up, and he would be lost. He would be lost, and Annabeth would be alone.

Summoning the last of his strength, the blackness of exhaustion flickering at the corners of his vision like smoke, he reached deep within the core of himself, to that place that pulsed with the pull of the tides, that place which shook apart the very stones. With the last of his muster, the son of the sea god, the former Praetor of the Twelfth Legion, the lost little Hellenos issued but one command to the northern river: Take me to shore.

Then nothing.

***

When he woke, there was solid ground beneath his back.

The sky had cleared, the stormcloud grey giving way to a fiery sunset, a smooth, slow gradient of orange and purple and blue. No longer was the air thick with the scent of rain, but now cleaner, and bright.

And, he realized with a jolt, he was starving.

He groaned, a purposeless noise, yet it would prove to be a useful one all the same.

“Percy!” cried a voice to his right.

A form scuttled over to him, crowding his vision, and he had to blink through the fog of his eyes to realize that it was Annabeth. Her hands patted him up and down, from forehead to neck to chest, and she was babbling a mile a minute, far too quickly for Percy to comprehend. “Oh, thank goodness, you’re awake, I knew that you were not capable of drowning, but you have been asleep for so long, and I was so worried--”

“Ungh,” he said, most intelligently.  

Annabeth hauled him up from the ground, her strong hands clutching at his shoulders, crushing him to her chest. He felt her hitched sob against him, then, just as he was thinking to bring his arms around her, she pulled back, and did something very, very strange.

She kissed him. Chastely, just a press of her lips to his, but desperate, her fingers still digging into the meat of his shoulders.

Had he been more awake, he would have opened his mouth to her in turn. As he was now, he could not even pull forth the strength to deepen the kiss, or even to react to it in a positive manner.

Then, her eyes widening, she dropped him back onto the ground.

“Oh, forgive me!” she cried at his sudden grunt of pain.

“Guh,” was his eloquent response.

“I--I am sorry, I did not--I would never--”

“Urgh,” he said, his lips tingling, the phantom feeling of her mouth on his potent enough to draw him the rest of the way from his unwilling slumber.

There must have been water lodged in his ears. Or he was still sleeping. Or perhaps his brains really had turned to seaweed. Because there was no way, no possible way, that that had just happened. She did not just kiss him. No.

He tried to sit up, only for his head to spin in a sudden vertigo. Curling onto his side, he shut his eyes until the sky above him stopped swirling in such nauseating patterns. “Easy,” said Annabeth, calmly, with the air of someone who has done this many times before. “Do not strain yourself.”

Hissing in effort, for his muscles still felt stretched and thin, far too overworked and overused not to ache, he sat up, raising himself on unsteady arms. “Are you alright?” he asked, casting a quick look up and down her person for any injury.

A respectful distance away, she blinked at him. “You have been asleep for near on a day, and you are concerned for me?”

He--he must have imagined it, the kiss. She did not look on him any differently than she had before. She did not linger at his side, forlorn and desperate. She did not shed any tears for his safe return. So he had to come to the conclusion that he had almost certainly fashioned the whole incident in his memory from thin air.

Then, of course, Percy replied to her question without considering the ramifications of his words. “Yes.”

She was silent for a moment, then shook her head. “Ridiculous,” she said. “Truly ridiculous. Come, phykios. I’ve got a fire going.”

With all her considerable strength, she was able to half-carry, half-drag him closer to her campsite. “You say,” he grunted, doing his best not to wince with each step, “that I have been asleep for a day?”

“Nearly two.”

She deposited him near the small fire, and he shivered as the warmth washed over him, enveloping him in its comforting embrace. It was a meager display, her rumpled bag of supplies propped up against a rock, a few thin, little fish, blackened by smoke and ash resting on a flat stone by the fire. “I apologize,” he said, bringing his arms around himself, rubbing the feeling back into them. “I did not mean to tire myself out so.”

“You apologi--” Cutting herself off, she stalked to the other side of the fire, angrily stoking it with a stray branch. “You apologize, when I am the one who forced you to sail every day, nonstop for over two months, dragging you all over the world on a handful of hazy memories of a road long which has since fallen out of use--”

“Annabeth--”

“You have no reason to apologize, Percy. None at all.” She stood behind the flames, the blue shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders. “It is I who must seek forgiveness from you.”

“I do not require--”

“I know that you cannot drown,” she said, watching the smoke rise, “but I--I knew that the road would be long and hard, and still I pushed you, day after day, watching you wear yourself thin on the river, and when you would not awaken, I was afraid that… that I had forced you to give too much.” Taking a shuddering breath, she threw in a bit of fish to the fire. He thought he saw the flames leap a little higher--though his vision was still a little fuzzy, and he may very well have imagined it. “I apologize, Percy. My pride had taken precedence over your health, and in return, you nearly died for my sake. If you cannot find it in your heart to forgive me,” her eyes squeezed shut and she turned her face away, “of course I will understand.”

“Of course I forgive you,” said Percy, without hesitation. “There is naught to forgive, Annabeth.”

“You could have died.”

“A little exhaustion is not enough to rid you of me.”

“Percy--”

“Enough,” he said. “You have done nothing which requires any absolution. I promise.”

When she finally turned back, there were tear tracks, clear as day, streaking down the grime of her beautiful face, and he just barely held himself back from confessing that to die for her sake would be the easiest thing in the world for him to do.

“I swore that I would see you safely home, and I shall. Though perhaps I should be insulted,” he teased, “that you think so lowly of me. A mere river, overcome the son of Poseidon? Come now, skjaldmær. You of all people should know better.” This line of banter, how familiar it was to them. His head still spun from earlier, and he longed for the solid ground of their partnership to steady him.

But she would not rise to such taunts, not this time. “I would rather that you stay by my side and we never make it home,” she said, so serious, “than return to my father without you.”

Oh, how her curls moved in the evening breeze, the golden-copper shine of her hair stark against the encroaching night sky, her mouth set in a stern line, the delightful little divot on her forehead when she frowned a whorl of shadow against her skin. He loved all Annabeths equally, but this one, who so casually and easily spoke truth from her heart, he liked this one very much.

“Where are we?” he asked, rather than pursue that line of thought any further. “You said we were approaching Mil--Milani--”

“Miliniska,” she said. “And we are not far; a few hours’ walk at most, by my calculation.” Though she did not seem pleased at this assessment.

“What is it?”

Lips pursed, she sat down heavily upon the stone. He could not see through the smoke, but he imagined her playing with the edges of her blue shawl, the way she did when she was anxious. “I… I am unsure of our next steps.”

“We continue along the river, do we not?”

“I had thought so, yes.”

“Then once we have reached the city of--of--” he cursed as his tongue tripped over the strange sounds, his mouth not at all fit for this slippery, slick language of the North, “Holmgarðr , then we turn West to Svealand. Is this not the way?”

“Well, yes,” she said, “but I do not--I mean, I am uncertain--oh!” She raked her hands over her head, mussing up her wild hair even further. “I do not know where to go from here.”

He frowned. Her words made no sense to him. “But you know everything.” This was no mere romantic declaration; it was a truth that he had carried ever since he was twelve years old. No matter what questions he had about this strange, strange world, Annabeth would have the answer, or she would be able to seek out the answer, precisely because she was Annabeth, and because she did, indeed, know everything there was to be known.

She turned red beneath the dirt on her face. “Would that were true, then perhaps I would not have led us here.”

“How do you mean?” he asked, a cold, sinking pit in his stomach, despite the warmth of the fire.

Sighing, she slumped even further, the point of her chin nearly level with the flames. “There are many river-roads here,” she said, haltingly, though the flood of words could not be stopped, “and--and they get all jumbled up, in my head, you see. When I--when I ran away, my plan was to trace the Dúna to--to--” she screwed up her face, stamping her foot in frustration. “Oh, even now I cannot remember the name in Greek! There are so many names, Percy, in Greek and Norse and this strange, strange language that I cannot speak, and Lukas was the one who spoke them all when I was little, and I fear that I will have brought us to ruin, for I cannot make sense of it all.” She gazed at him, her large eyes glistening once more with tears. “I know not where I am, and all my faculties have deserted me, and I have dragged you here with me, into the unknown, and now our ship is gone, and--and--”

Then she performed the action which Percy had come to fear most: she began to weep again.

“Annabeth,” he said, as gently as he could, “you cannot blame yourself for what happened to the Empress. She would have given out eventually; it was merely our misfortune that it happened to be now.”

Still, her shoulders shook, her head dropped into her hands.

“We can find our way North again,” he promised. “We still have the stars, do we not? And surely we can craft another vessel.” Though it would take them much, much longer, as they no longer had any of the tools which they had left behind at Sigeion.

She did not respond.

“Annabeth, please.” He was not above begging or pleading, if only she would cease her weeping, if only she would smile again. “Please, it will be all right. Annabeth, my lo--”

Percy very nearly slapped a hand over his mouth, for he had almost let slip a sweet little endearment from his lips. However upset she was now, she would certainly not appreciate a declaration of romantic affection at this moment. She was in no position to accept it, and he would not wish to take advantage of her emotional upheaval.

“Oh, Annabeth,” he said, keeping a close watch on his words. “I do not blame you. I do not blame you one iota. Everything will be all right, I swear it.”

He could not reason with her to draw her out of her despair. All he could do now is wait for this to pass, and pass it would.

And pass it did.

Her sobs weakened, eventually, short, painful little things giving way to long stretches of quiet sniffles. Through the flames, he observed her shoulders still, the tension in her hands fading away, her whole form collapsing in on herself as all her sorrow deserted her. For some time, there was no sound but the crackle of flame, the gentle rush of the river, the whispering noises of nature which surrounded them, birds and insects and the breath of the land itself. What a boon, for Percy and Annabeth so exhausted, for there was nothing left but peace. Tranquility. Time for rest, healing, and safety, things the absence of which they had long since felt.

“I apologize,” she said, after a while. Her voice was rough, as though she had swallowed a mouthful of earth. “That was… I did not expect that.”

“Think nothing of it.” All warriors had limits, and all warriors had a point at which they could take no more. There was no shame to be felt in such a release.

Though as she continued to avoid his gaze, he wondered if perhaps she was not ashamed of the act of grief, but at the simple fact that he had been present to bear witness to it, that even though they had traveled together for so long, had endured so much together, there were still parts of her she did not feel comfortable baring to to him. The thought made him profoundly sad. He trusted her with his life--and he always had. At the close of the second Titanomachy, she had leapt in front of a poisoned blade which had been aiming straight for his unprotected flank; after such a debt owed to her, did she think he would still find any part of her shameful?

Then, she surprised him yet again. It was starting to become a pattern, it seemed.

“I know you must be angry with me,” she said, her eyes hidden from view.

It was only with the greatest strength of will that he kept himself from bursting out laughing at the sheer absurdity of such a statement. Percy, angry with her? For showing emotion? “What ever for?”

“For getting us lost.”

“We are not lost,” he chided. “This nearby town, Mal--Miliano--”

“Miliniska,” she said, a weak grin gracing her features.

He shook his head. “Yes, that one, surely someone there will be able to point us in the right direction.”

“And if there is not?”

“Then we put our teachings to use,” he said. “We have been trained for this, have we not?”

“For battle, yes. For wandering around the northern wilderness, less so.”

He waved a hand, carelessly. “I am certain some skills will overlap.”

But she would not stray from her course. “I had thought you would be displeased with me,” she said. “I know you were concerned about the agoge, about your mother, but I convinced you to accompany me instead. Would you not rather be searching for her, instead?”

Annabeth knew firsthand how he adored his mother. Though clearly it had been the right decision, sending her away from Constantinople had been one of the hardest things he had ever done in his life. Hardly a day went by when he did not think of his mortal family. To be parted from them in this manner, so precarious, was a kind of agony he had not known existed. And yet, he could not very well admit to Annabeth that he would rather be here, now could he? “Wherever she is, I know that my mother is safe.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I have faith.” His mother was a resourceful woman, always had been. She had survived for years under the thumb of her hateful first husband; to pack up, flee the city, and then begin anew with a man who truly loved her would be no large undertaking.

“I wish I could believe as you do,” said Annabeth, softly.

Percy would never quite describe himself as a man of faith, but he had his moments. “It is not so difficult if you choose the right people to believe in.” A simple truth, yet Percy had been blessed with such wonderful people in his life, such ample resources. People like his mother and Paul, Chiron and their friends. People like Iason and the Legion.

People like Annabeth.

“I suppose, then, I have a bad habit of choosing the wrong person.” Through the fire, her eyes turned dark, bitter, sad. “Everyone I have ever believed in--my father, Lukas, my mother--they have all of them left me behind.”

He wished he could refute her claim, but he found he could not. He had seen the temple of Athena, cannibalized for Christian men, and the court of Poseidon, a cold, dark ruin.

Still. “Surely not everyone?” he asked.

She lifted her gaze to him, locking eyes from across the blaze. “No,” she said, thoughtfully. “No, I suppose not. Not everyone.” Then she frowned, as though something had suddenly occurred to her. “You said… you named our ship the Empress?”

Oh. He had hoped she had not heard that part. Flushing lightly, he nodded. “I did.”

“I see.” And she blushed in return.

The moment felt big, somehow. Large, like a fork in the road, or the moment before sunrise, where the world held its breath and anything could happen. Endless possibility.

Perhaps now was the proper time. At such a declaration, had he the strength, he would have gone to her at once, taken her in his arms and demonstrated just how deeply his affections ran.

Alas, he did not.

He yawned, hugely.

She huffed a laugh. “You are still tired?” she asked.

Nodding, he rubbed at an eye. “Though I do not see how. I feel as though I could sleep for yet another day.”

“Perhaps you should rest a while longer,” she said.

Roughly scrubbing his hands over his face, he said, “No, no, we should not waste much more time, if we are now relegated to walking.”

“Tomorrow,” she insisted. “The hour is late.”

“I would like to sleep in a real bed for a change.”

“We do not have enough money to rent a room for the night.”

“Then I can pay in manual labor, or--”

So faint, he nearly missed it, the slight tickling in the corner of his mind.

Noting his pause, Annabeth stood up, her hand automatically going for her weapon. “What is it?”

Slowly, he turned towards the woods which bordered the river. “I am not sure,” he said, slowly. “It… it sounds like…”

It was not sound, not as men typically understood it. The voice did not travel through the air, into the ear. Rather, it seemed to emerge from within his mind, a thought that was not his own. The tone, the timbre, sincerity behind the words, it was all so familiar, so comforting. This voice belonged to a simple kind of creature, hardy and tough, and what was more, it belonged to a creature Percy knew.

“It can’t be,” he said.

And yet, it was.

From the forest emerged a horse, a beautiful, brown thing, who trotted over to them without hesitation. Bypassing Annabeth entirely, the horse came to a stop next to Percy, dipping her head--for she was a mare--and with a start, Percy realized that this was the very same horse which had carried them to the safety of Prosphorion Harbor, in the thick of smoke and battle.

“How are you here?” he breathed, one hand coming up to stroke her nose.

“What?” asked Annabeth. “What is she saying?”

In astonishment and wonder, he could not help but smile. “She says she heard your call.”

“What call?”

“And,” said Percy, turning to her, “she says she will take us wherever it is we need to go.”

Her eyes widened, mouth open in shock and delight. “Truly?”

As if to answer Annabeth’s question, the horse nodded in assent.

“Can she take us to the Dúna?”

He relayed the question to the horse, and then translated for Annabeth: “She does not know the name, but if you can direct her to the place, she would be more than happy to carry us there.”

“Oh, oh, magnificent!” Annabeth rushed over, throwing her arms around the horse’s neck. “Oh, you blessed animal!”

The horse--whose previous rider, several months and hundreds of miles past had named her Theophanu, as she had told him--gave a short huff, pressing her head against Annabeth’s.

“We haven’t a moment to lose,” said Annabeth, releasing Theophanu with a pat on her nose. “Let me grab the supplies; you can sleep on the way.”

He had thought to assist her in dismantling the camp, but, truth be told, he was simply too exhausted still, and the thought of sleep was a welcome one. Seated as he was, he felt himself swaying gently, a leaf caught in the wind, succumbing to large, painful yawns as often as his body could produce them.

Theophanu swiveled her gaze to him, large and piercing, and asked him a question.

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

She asked again.

His cheeks flushed. “Of course not.”

The horse looked at him, unconvinced.

“We are only traveling together for the time being,” he said, weakly. “She is not my w--”

“Did you say something?” asked Annabeth, turning towards him.

If possible, Percy flushed even further. “Ah, no! Nothing to report.”

She held his gaze for a moment longer, then shrugged.

Before he knew it, they were all packed up and ready to go, Theophanu loaded down with their meager supplies. “Here, Percy.” Annabeth came round to his side, taking his arm and slinging it over her shoulder, using his own body as leverage to lift him up from the rock where he had nearly made his bed again. “Allow me.”

Together, they clambered onto Theophanu’s back. Annabeth sat before him, clutching the makeshift reins she had cobbled together out of what remaining rope they had left. Overcome with fatigue, his head bent forward until it rested against her shoulder, his nose pressed into the joint of her neck, her short curls brushing against his skin.

So tired was he, he could do barely more than mumble an apology into her shirt.

“It is fine,” she assured him. “Here, put your hands round my waist so you do not fall off.”

Her skin was hot. Or perhaps he was merely cold. He could no longer tell.

Drawing himself closer to her, he draped himself against her back, following her instruction. “Sleep, Percy,” he felt her murmur to him. “I’ve got you.”

Rocked by Theophanu’s gentle movements, the scent and feel of Annabeth all around him, there he fell asleep, a stray lock of her hair inching its way towards his mouth.

When he awoke the next morning, he would swear it was the greatest night’s sleep he had had in quite some time.

***

The nearer to the city they were, the stronger Percy felt.

Certainly, they were much too far from the port, but still Percy swore up and down that he could smell the sea. “I promise you, I can smell it!” Cresting the little mound, he thrust his arms out to the sides, taking in a large, large sniff. “The smell of salt, of fish, wet wood and smoke--” he sighed, full of ardent passion. “Thálatta, thálatta !”

“We still have quite a ways to go, phykios,” Annabeth grumbled, though he could see her fighting down a smile. “Are you certain what you smell is not your own most tender perfume?”

But her taunts could not bring down his mood on this day. After months of travel by river, from one end of the world to another, at last, at long last, they had returned to the sea.

Annabeth had called this city Riga, another strange word, but at least one that he could say without much trouble. They had let Theophanu free a few miles back, choosing to make their way into the city on foot, as Annabeth did not think they could bring her with them to Svealand, and she did not wish to sell their friend to some heartless man who might treat her poorly, despite the fact that Theophanu could, most likely, fetch them quite a handsome price. For services rendered, two weeks of her time and who knew how many miles, she deserved to be set free once more, to roam in peace and contentment, and thus, Percy had sent her off with the blessing of the little Horselord, as she had so fondly called him.

But now, now--the sea was within his grasp once more. The city of Riga rose up in the distance, the castle towers dark against the late afternoon sky, like trees rising above the red slanted roofs.

Even to his untrained eye, the difference in architecture was stark. The towers, thin and spindly and sharp, seemed to be reaching towards the heavens. The tallest had a cross placed on the very top of the spire, and Percy wondered how a man could even reach such heights so as to take care of it. Clearly this tower rested on top of a church, though it was the oddest church Percy had ever seen before. He supposed he had grown too used to the domes of St. Sophia and its ilk, yet to him it was still stranger than the church in Athens which had once been the mighty Parthenon.

By the time they entered the city proper, the sun hung low in the sky, a slight chill in the air. Percy shivered beneath his cloak, marveling at everyone around him who seemed unaffected by the cold. “Nothing like an unseasonable bit of chill, no?” he asked, hoping to spark some conversation after such a long silence.

She raised a brow. “This is not cold.”

“Of course it is,” he scoffed. “It is barely mid-September. Surely the seasons have not yet changed.”

“Oh, Percy,” she said, almost pityingly. “We are in the North, now. To those that live here, the coldest nights of Sigeion would seem the height of the summer heat.”

His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. “It can be colder than this?”

With a sad, mockingly sorrowful shake of her head, she pressed on, leading them through the crowded docks.

“Annabeth,” he near-pleaded, jogging lightly to keep apace. “Please. Tell me it does not grow colder than this, I beg of you.”

She put her hand out, stopping him in his tracks. “A moment.”

They had come before a little cargo ship, her captain speaking at length with another man. Annabeth narrowed her eyes, her lips moving slightly as she whispered to herself in that expression Percy had come to recognize as the one she wore when she was concentrating very intensely on any given task, usually a war game strategy of some manner or other, before grabbing a hold of his hand, and dragging him with her as she stepped up to the captain, before engaging in a lively conversation with him.

A conversation that Percy could not follow, naturally. He could pick out a few words here and there, just by virtue of having known Annabeth for so long, things like “farbror” and “pengar” and “Grikkir,” but they flew by so quickly, he could not be sure if he had truly heard them.

A far, far cry from the stilted, unsure exchange she had shared with the gentleman in Kiova, Annabeth was well and truly in her element as she spoke with the captain. The words flew back and forth between them, faster than he thought would be possible with such a liquid, languid tongue. Occasionally, she would refer back towards Percy, and he would straighten his spine, lifting his chin in an attempt to look more dignified. There was not much he could do about the unfortunate length of his hair, nor the travel-worn state of his clothing, but he did his best to take on an air of importance, following Annabeth’s lead as she spoke, most haughtily.

Yet the conversation dragged on. It was several minutes of increasingly heated exchange before Annabeth turned away from the captain, bristling with anger. “Percy,” she said, imperious, “do you think you can sail this vessel?”

He flicked his eyes to the ship. It was small-ish, double-masted, well taken care of. “Most likely.”

“Very good.” She turned back to the captain, sneering, and said, “I trust you’ll help me steal it, then?”

Percy started. “Perhaps it would be best not to discuss this with him present?” It wasn’t that he was not agreeable to a little theft--quite the contrary, he would be happy to assist--but, well, the man was right in front of them.

But Annabeth just scoffed. “He does not speak our language; he cannot understand us.”

True to her word, the captain merely blinked at them, uncomprehending.

Very well. “Your orders?”

“On my mark,” she said. Then, she turned back to the poor man whose livelihood they were about to overturn, and, quite theatrically, burst into tears--great, heavy, cacophonous wails, which drew the attention of every man who surrounded them. So pitiful were her sobs, the good men of the port stepped up to comfort her, to see if there was some boon they could give or act they could perform to ease her sorrow, and so taken were they with her, a feeling with which Percy could certainly empathize, that none noticed as Percy quietly backed away, slipping onto the docked ship.

***

It was very early in the morning, but Percy had not felt so awake in months. Even in such a foreign place as this, the sea filled him full of power, sharpening his senses and lifting his spirits. They were making excellent time, the breath of Notus firmly at their backs, propelling them ever northward, and Percy felt so fine, he could not help but sing. Now, if only it had not been so damned cold. “Hýdōr thélō genésthai, ópōs se chrō̂ta loúsō,” he hummed, a song for a young girl he had heard once upon a time, “ópōs, ópōs, ópōs se chrō̂ta loúsō.”

“I do not know this one,” Annabeth commented, her hands curled around the lip of the wood as she kept a lookout--for what, she would not say--but her face was not turned out to the sea, rather, she looked at him so curiously, her head tilted. “From the Anacreontea?”

Percy shrugged. “I know it not, but heard it from the docks in Constantinople.” A lesser known talent of his, he seemed to have a nearly limitless memory for sea songs. If it were able to be sung on the water, then Percy would remember it perfectly. He could sometimes forget the shade of his mother’s hair, but he could remember these silly little sea songs. “If it is not to your liking, I am certain I could find another. Or, I could cease entirely.”

“No, no, it is very sweet,” she said. “You can sing to your heart’s content.” Then she sighed, wistful. “My father tried to teach me sea songs, once.”

“Oh?” he asked, delicately. The subject of her family was a sensitive one, he knew, but he confessed a deep curiosity for the man who helped make her into who she was. “Songs for when you went a-pillaging the coasts of Gallia and Anglia?”

Her pretty face twisted, the familiar frown she wore whenever she felt he was being particularly stupid. “You are aware that the age of the Vikings has long since passed, yes? Svealand is now as Christian as Constantinople. As it was,” she corrected.

Sensing that they were about to embark on a very sad road, he sought to change the subject before they did. “You mean to tell me,” he said, injecting as much of a teasing lilt as he dared, “you were not once the littlest of the shieldmaidens? You did not sleep on the longboats, with the dogs of war, ready and eager to fight?” He’d seen visions of Annabeth as a little girl, traveling the world with Thalia and Lukas, already such a fierce fighter, and though he knew what kind of pain she had borne, the picture in his head still made him smile, a pretty little girl with golden curls and a fierce gaze, brandishing a knife entirely too big for her. “

“How I wished I could,” she sighed again, near-dreamily, seeming as if she had been struck by Cupid’s arrow. “I used to dream of the great shieldmaidens of yore, of Freydís Eiríksdóttir and Brynhildr Buðladóttir, of fighting alongside them, but alas, it was not meant to be.” The smile slipped from her face, and she grew pensive once more. “My step-mother put a stop to those dreams once she deemed me to be too old to have them.”

“She did not appreciate the honor of shieldmaidens, then?”

Annabeth snorted, entirely unladylike. “Certainly not. She sought to bleed that part of me fully, as leeches to a festering wound, until I was sufficiently empty to be made full of the Christian god. When I was little,” she said, staring out to sea, “she brought me with my brothers on a business trip of sorts. She told my father that she was taking us on a pilgrimage to the great churches of the continent, but when we sailed into Riga, she…” Trailing off, she tightened her hands on the wood of the ship, her gaze hardening. Percy adjusted his grip on the rope, easing them more into the direction of the wind. “She attempted to leave me there,” Annabeth said, each word as heavy as a stone, dropped into the great, black deep. “She thought to consign me to a convent.”

A convent? “Rachel studied at a convent for a time,” Percy said. From what she had told him, it had not seemed so terrible. “I, however, cannot possibly imagine you in such a place.”

“Neither can I--I never actually set foot in it.” A small smile graced her features, then, barely visible in the dim light. If he had not been so attuned to her every move and muscle, he would not have seen it for himself. “As soon as I realized what she had tried to do, I ran. I took off, following the length of the Dúna for a fortnight, until I crashed right into Thalia and Lukas. And, well… you know the rest.” She looked at him, so fondly it made his heart skip a beat.

“You--” he swallowed, his tongue numb, his mind somewhat in pieces. “I remember, after our quest for the Master Bolt, you mentioned you were going to write to your father?”

She looked away. “I did.”

“And?” He prompted. “Did you ever receive a reply?”

“I did not.”

“Oh.”

“Not, I think, for a lack of trying,” she conceded. “You know as well as I how difficult it can be to send a letter. You were very fortunate to have your mother so close by.”

“I was,” he said, for there was no reason to deny it.

“But I suppose if you did not like your mother, that could have been a burden.”

Such a concept was unthinkable, truly. Percy paused for half a second, weighing his words, and then asked, “Would it have been a burden for you to be closer to your father?”

Pursing her lips, she blew out a hearty breath. “To tell you truthfully, I do not know. After… after our little adventure with Atlas, I should very much like to have gone home even for a short while, even just to tell him that I forgave him, and Mary, for all the perceived wrongs of my childhood. But, as you can see,” and she gestured South, “it would have taken far too long.”

She was not incorrect. War had been brewing, and they simply could not have spared their chief strategist for months on end. There had only been a handful of weeks in between that adventure and their journey into the depths of the Labyrinth; without Annabeth, he was certain that particular quest would have gone up in Greek fire.

“Tell me about him,” he said. “Your father. You know so much of mine, and yet I know so little of yours.”

Another small smile lifted her features. “You have forgotten already what I have told you of him?”

“I know he is a scholar of some renown,” said Percy, “and that he must be a singularly clever man in order to attract your mother’s eye.”

“He is,” she nodded. “He is… was… very dedicated to his studies, something which I always admired about him. Unfortunately, it left him little time to tend to his family.”

“Hence how you found yourself in your stepmother’s care.”

“Yes.” She faltered, tapping her fingers on the wood. “I… I do not know if he knew of her plan to send me to the convent. If he approved of her plan.” Her shoulders hunched. “If it was his idea in the first place.”

Percy shook his head, letting go of his ropes, commanding them to stay their current course. He stepped up to her, boldly knocking his shoulder against hers, pleased when she did not stumble or crumble before him. “Now, that cannot be,” he said, “for no man, no matter how wedded to his letters he may be, could consider you to be anything but the finest of warriors. If your father is as clever as you claim, surely he could not have authorized such a mistake.”

She stretched her lips in an attempt to smile, but that was all she could muster at this time, it seemed.

The dawn had yet to break, yet Percy could make out every line and angle of her face, indelibly marked, as they were, in his mind and heart, bathed in some otherworldly light that turned her more radiant than any goddess he had ever romanced.

He swallowed.

“I must confess,” he said, “something that has been weighing on me heavily.”

She turned to him, eyes wide and expectant. Her hair had grown out some since her unfortunate haircut, coming down to dust at the tops of her shoulders, nearly obscuring her gaze, and he had to grip the wood of the ship in order to keep himself from brushing it from her face.

“Why…” he trailed off, distracted by the flecks of silver in her eyes. By the gods, man, pull yourself together. “If you and your father did indeed have such a contentious relationship, why did you want to see him now?”

For a brief moment, he felt she looked… disappointed, almost. But it passed, more quickly than a thought, and he put it aside for the moment. “Despite it all, he is my father. My mother, the agoge, Constantinople--they are all gone, yet still he remains. He may be the only thing I have left in this world,” she said, glumly.

Something in his heart tugged at her words. “Not the only thing, surely,” he jested lamely. “Have I not been sufficient company on this odyssey of ours?”

“You have been,” she said, looking him square in the face, “the greatest companion I could ever have asked for. As long as I live, I shall never forget the thousand kindnesses you have paid me over these last few months.”

She was so close. He could feel her breath, hot against the freezing air, see the upturned tip of her nose. “It was my pleasure,” he mumbled.

There was no sound, save for the wind, the creak of the wood, the beating of his heart, so loudly he was certain she could hear it--or perhaps it was hers, throbbing in return. One, two, three heartbeats in succession, she twitched, he jolted, they moved imperceptibly closer, then--

Annabeth gasped. “Percy, look!” she cried, pulling back.

“Huh?” he blinked, lagging a few seconds behind.

Her outstretched finger pointed upwards towards the heavens, but all he could see was the open, naked wonder on her face, her dropped jaw, her eyes as large as the extravagant pendants of rich nobles, the way her curls seemed to bounce of their volition, charged up in awe and in wonder. Only after he had taken his fill of her visage, a seemingly impossible feat, yet one he accomplished nonetheless, did he follow her finger to the object of her fascination.

And he gasped in turn.

High in the sky, ribbons of light and color swam about, mixing and mingling with the clouds and stars, as if Eos and Iris had joined forces, the rosy-fingered dawn and the golden-winged messenger entwined in a magical dance. “Oh,” he breathed, “oh, how beautiful!”

“I can’t believe it!” she laughed, delighted. “The bridge! Percy, look! The--” Then she said a word which Percy must not have heard correctly.

“The what?”

And then she said that word again.

He frowned. “Bee-vroast?”

“No, the Bifröst.”

“Is that not what I am saying?”

“Most certainly not,” she said. “It is the road between Heaven and Earth, connecting Asgard to Midgard.”

“Asgard?” he asked. “Midgard? What do these things mean?"

She gestured around them. “This. This is Midgard, everything you see before you, the land in the middle. Asgard sits up above us, at the top of Yggdrasil, the World Tree. It is a long, long way, passing through Alfheim , and… well, regardless, it is quite the journey.

“I see,” said Percy. “Similar to how Olympus was perched on top of St. Sophia, yes?”

Annabeth tilted her head, considering. “A little. Though, rather than a staircase or a mountaintop, there is a bridge.”

He looked back at the display--unfortunately, all he could see were hazy, formless colors, stunning, but about as solid as the mist itself, nothing nearly so weighty as a bridge, yet so sublime and unfathomable still. “A bridge?”

She pointed again, leaning in close, so as he could better see the angle of her finger. “There, do you not see the three colors?”

He could, indeed, see three colors: hot reds, cool blues, otherworldly greens, like streams of pure light floating down from on high. “I do.”

“And there,” her face was nearly pressed to his, the heat of her body welcomed only in that it helped to ward off the cold somewhat, “see you not the point where it vanishes?”

He squinted. The lights seemed to disappear beyond the horizon line, trailing off above what surely must have been Ultima Thule. “I… I believe I do, yes.”

“There,” said Annabeth, her face all lit up, “there is the home of the gods of my father’s family: the Aesir.”

“Aesir,” he repeated. Aesir, Asgard, Midgard, so many strange sounds. “Well, then,” he said, taking a step back. “Shall I follow this Bifröst of yours?”

How strange to think that, merely a few months earlier, they had set out from Piraeus, nearly antipodal to where they were now, surely. It seemed near a lifetime ago. Even now, he found that the streets of Constantinople had faded from his memory, somewhat, the towering churches and ancient squares no longer quite so towering in his mind. How he longed to return to that place, that time, before his gods had abandoned him, before his family had vanished into the air, before he realized that he was in love with a woman who despised him, and before he realized that, sooner than he would have liked, he was about to lose her forever.

“Not quite so far,” said Annabeth, taking a step back in turn. “We go to seek my uncle, Randulf.”

“Not your father?” he asked, once more picking up the ropes which had not gone slack.

She shook her head. “My father is but a scholar; on the contrary, my uncle is… well…” Flushing lightly, she bit her lip, looking away. “He is something of a local lord.”

“Really.”

She flushed further. “He does possess certain titles and lands.”

“You really are a princess,” Percy concluded, a smile growing on his face. “And all this time, I thought that you simply detested to be compared to the fairest of the fairer sex.”

Harrumphing, she crossed her arms. “I am not a princess,” she pouted.

Holy Aphrodite, surely she must not have known the effect that she had on him. “Oh, of course,” said Percy, “I had forgotten. Your majesty.”

“Enough.” But, as the lights of the Bifröst gave way to the breaking dawn, he could see a smile on her face, as plain as day. “Be ready, captain, for there are many islands between here and Stadsholmen.”

“Of course, your majesty.”

“Percy!”

***

When she related to him the news, she seemed oddly calm regarding the situation. “It appears,” she had said, “that my uncle has since passed away.”

“My deepest sympathies.” Percy did not have much in the way of an extended mortal family--his mother had been a single child, and his step-father had not spoken much of his own family--but he could imagine the kind of loss she must have felt.

“It seems that his title and holdings were transferred to my cousin, Magnus.” She had had a sort of faraway look on her face, as though she were lost in some kind of waking dream. “He and my father have gone to Birka, to see to his properties.”

Goodness; they had docked the boat from the poor man whom they had thieved in Riga not just this morning, had barely been in Stadsholmen a day, and once again they were setting off. “How far?”

Blinking, she had seemed to physically pull herself together before his very eyes. “Not very,” she had said. “I can find us passage.”

Now they floated serenely on the waters of Lake Mälaren, as she had called it, inching ever closer as the nice captain brought them to the island in the middle of the water. It felt odd not to be in control of the vessel for once, and Percy could not stop himself from fidgeting, his leg bouncing up and down incessantly.

The captain shot him a dirty glare, and Percy looked away. “So,” he said to Annabeth, desperate for something to fill the weighty silence which had descended upon them. “Your cousin, Magnus--what is his character?”

“I wish I could say.” Staring straight ahead, Annabeth focused all her considerable attention on the island which was slowly coming into view, emerging from the mist. “I have not spoken with him since before I ran away.”

“I see.”

“I remember,” she said, softly, “that he loved nature. That when I told him of my plans, he did not go and report them to my father. In that way, I know that he was a stalwart friend, and I cannot imagine that much could have changed him.” Tossing him a glance, he thought he saw her lips turn imperceptibly downwards. “If he has not changed much, I daresay that you will quite enjoy his company.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” he asked, awaiting further explanation, yet she did not provide any.

Before very long, they had arrived at the shores of Birka, and Annabeth had given the kind boatman the very last of their coin. They stood at the bottom of a little hill, the dirt path before them winding its way through the tall grass, like a snake, yet Annabeth made no move to go forward.

“I cannot believe I am here,” she breathed. “It has been so long, I… I never thought I would see it again.” What ‘it’ could have been, she did not specify, though he could guess.

Though the house on the hill was now within their grasp, he found that his feet seemed to be as heavy as hers. “Perhaps we should wait until tomorrow,” he said, “and find somewhere to rest for the night.”

But then he observed as Annabeth summoned all her courage, drawing herself up to her full height, squaring her shoulders and narrowing her eyes, a little goddess of war here on Earth, and began the long march up the hill. Percy was powerless to do naught but follow her.

The house was built with dark wood, a deep, nutty brown, an inkblot against the soft blues and greens of the land which surrounded it. As they grew closer and closer, it seemed to multiply in size, as though stories and wings were added to the existing structure before his very eyes, an ever expanding sculpture of rough-hewn wood and grey, slanting roofs.

As Annabeth stepped up to the great, wooden door, and knocked, Percy stepped back a ways. It would not do, he thought, for him to hover over her, not during such a precious moment of reunion.

A handful of heartbeats, then the door opened, with a great, creaking groan. “Ja?” asked the man who popped his head out, a mop of drab, grey hair on his head. “Vem är det?”

“Jag heter Anja Elisabet Fredriksdotter,” Annabeth said, “och jag är här för att träffa min far, Fredrik Randulfsson.”

The man looked her up and down, before retreating into the darkness of the house.

There, on the grass outside of the door, they waited.

Not a minute later, the door opened again, nearly coming off its hinges as another man barreled forth, his wild, grey hair shooting off in all directions, glasses perched delicately on his nose. “Anja!” he gasped, as though he were in pain. “Anja, är det verkligen du?”

Annabeth gave a single sob, then threw herself at the man, who wrapped her up in his arms, squeezing tightly. “Jag är hemma nu, papa,” she wept, muffled by his shirt. “Jag är hemma.”

As one, they crashed to the earth, their knees striking the packed dirt, and despite the chill of the afternoon air, Percy could not help but feel warm at the sight of Annabeth--Anja--as she embraced her father for the first time in fifteen years.

#this one is a doozy #marble king #pjo #percabeth #the rivalry ends here #my fic

[todomitoukei]

Twice’s Fate: Reading Between the Lines

Chapter 266 - what a bitch. Before everyone starts to prepare Twice’s tombstone, how about we talk about his chances of still being alive. Don’t get me wrong, everything in the chapter indicates his death - minus one tiny detail: We didn’t actually see him die. So let’s talk about - realistically and objectively - what his chances are.

In general, when thinking about a character’s chances when their life is on the line, we have to take 3 factors into consideration:

1: Who is the author and how do they usually deal with their characters and possible character deaths?

2: What is the story that the character whose life is currently on the line like and how does the story usually deal with its characters and possible character deaths?

3: Who is the character whose life is currently on the line, what is their role in the story they are a part of and what would their death mean?

So let’s take a look at these three questions in regards to Twice:

1: The Author

Horikoshi has written a couple of one-shots, two of which are early beginnings for My Hero Academia, namely Tenko (2007) and My Hero (2008), as well as two series prior to My Hero Academia: Oumagadoki Zoo (2010-11) and Barrage (2012). Neither series include character deaths, which might not say much, aside from them both being on the light-hearted side. All we can draw from that is that so far, death hasn’t been a primal part of Horikoshi’s stories.

2: The Story

Let’s talk about My Hero Academia since an author can write varying stories.  Generally, the story is kept relatively upbeat. Multiple characters have suffered/continue to suffer through trauma, abuse, and discrimination, still the story is filled with vibrant colors and jokes. The aforementioned darker themes of the story are often more hinted at, rather than explored to a deeper extent, possibly due to Horikoshi wanting to keep the story for a wider audience.

How does the story handle character deaths?

While several characters have died thus far, the majority of those deaths happened prior to the story. These types of deaths are usually part of a character’s backstory (like Shigaraki’s) and only briefly shown in flashbacks. 

In this case, death can be used as a catalyst for a character’s motivation or role in the story. For example, had Shigaraki not killed his family, he most likely wouldn’t have met All For One, therefore never becoming a villain and thus the leader of the League of Villains. Although it’s impossible to say with certainty that he wouldn’t have become a villain, either way, he certainly wouldn’t have become the exact same person he is now.

Another example of this is Kota, whose hero parents were killed in the line of duty by Muscular, which led to Kota despising heroes (kind of like Shigaraki’s father hated heroes after Nana left him). 

While Kotaro Shigaraki’s hatred toward heroes led to Shigaraki becoming a villain by being taken in by All For One, Kota’s hatred toward heroes serves as a plot tool to have Deku understand that people have different views and also showing Kota why heroes do what they do.

There are also some minor character deaths that happened shortly after said character is being introduced, like Miyashita.

In this case, his death is served to quickly introduce another character - the killer. Miyashita gets killed by his boss, not knowing he’s the supreme commander of the Meta Liberation Army, after criticizing the book by said organization, stating that they are criminals that just mask their crimes by calling it liberation. 

Due to this, without knowing much about the Meta Liberation Army just yet, we can tell that those people clearly don’t accept other viewpoints and do not shy away from killing anyone that rebels against them.

Another character that dies shortly after being introduced is Motor Ed Snatch, who gets killed while trying to escort Overhaul to the villain hospital but is then stopped by the League.

What is the purpose of Snatch? Realistically, a hero needs to accompany Overhaul’s transport for safety reasons. Said hero would also need to be taken down in order for the League to get to Overhaul and snatch haha, get it? … anyway... the Quirk-destroying product from him.

But why does he really die; couldn’t the League just knock him unconscious?

This might be a far reach, so feel free to disagree, but generally, Snatch’s death is associated with Dabi, which is odd, considering that it’s more of a team effort between Dabi and Mr. Compress - the latter compresses Snatch along with Dabi’s fire and since Snatch is only able to turn his upper half into sand the fire would eventually kill him inside the marble.

There are a few reasons as to why Snatch’s death is associated with Dabi, though. First of all, Dabi doesn’t have a lot of action scenes. He is, relatably so, kind of a lazy character in the sense that he doesn’t involve himself in fights too much. Not only that, he sometimes can’t even be reached by anyone as shown by Giran asking Twice of Dabi’s whereabouts in chapter 115:

Don’t get me wrong, he does help out when necessary, but he sure likes to be other places. Anyway, prior to his death, Snatch asks Dabi whether he ever stops to think about how the families of the victims feel. This question doesn’t get an answer until after his confrontation with Endeavor in the Pro Hero Arc, where Endeavor recognizes Dabi as the one responsible for Snatch’s death. Dabi doesn’t remember Snatch at first, but later on remembers the question again, resulting in him giving the answer to himself, saying he thought about it so hard he went crazy (or “overthought things,” which implies the same). 

Did Horikoshi kill off Snatch to give us some more evidence for our Dabi is Touya theory? We can’t say for sure, but I’m sure the above panels come to mind for most of us when thinking about Snatch.

What about characters that were introduced to us and then killed off at a later point?

Well, there are - so far- only two characters this applies to, both of which, funnily enough, happen in the Shie Hassaikai arc (so do the deaths of Miyashita and Snatch!)

Let’s take a look at them:

The first bigger character to die in the story is Magne. So why did she die?

Magne dies right at the introduction of the Shie Hassaikai arc. 

Twice originally introduces Overhaul to the League because Overhaul told him he wants to join forces. Once inside, however, he explains how due to the Kamino Incident, neither the light nor the dark side is currently having the upper hand, wondering who will have the upper hand next.

Shigaraki feels provoked by this, declaring he will be the next ruler and questions Overhaul’s true motive for meeting up with them, which Twice is shocked by, immediately worried that he made a mistake.

Overhaul then questions Shigaraki, asking why he didn’t have a problem sacrificing powerful chess-pawns (Stain, Muscular, Moonfish) and whether he even has a plan. Right after, he reveals that he didn’t come to join them.

Once Overhaul states that he wants the League to work for him, Magne refuses, telling him they didn’t join the League to become someone’s subordinates. As she tries to attack Overhaul, he gets her with his quirk first, resulting in a brutal on-screen death.

This establishes the hatred the League feels toward Overhaul on a personal level.

While they were already disagreeing about their principles and goals, the reason why Magne dies adds fuel to the fire.

Firstly, it gives us a reason to sympathize with the League. Aside from the many other factors, the story gives us over and over again to sympathize with them, in the end, they hold a grudge against Overhaul because of the fact that he killed Magne (and destroyed Mr. Compress’ arm). So when at the end of the Shie Hassaikai arc, the League obliterates Overhaul’s hands, it’s an act of revenge for their killed friend. Despite the cruel act, it’s without a doubt easier to sympathize with them than with Overhaul.

In addition, while the entire League despises Overhaul for this, Twice blames himself, which shows us that he is the heart of the group, the friend-type, and someone that trusts too much because he is a kind person, something that is brought up again in the current manga arc.

The other death that occurs at the end of the Shie Hassaikai arc: Sir Nighteye. One might argue that his death was for the drama or the shock factor alone, but some characters are only introduced for a single purpose. 

Sir Nighteye is one of the few people who know about One For All, therefore part of All Might’s/Deku’s storyline. Once All Might’s sidekick, Sir Nighteye eventually ended that relationship, because All Might refused to retire despite Sir Nighteye’s warning about All Might’s death, which he predicted with his Quirk.

Even though his Foresight, later on, shows him that he and Deku would be killed by Overhaul, Deku refuses to believe this and ends up proving Sir Nighteye wrong, much to his surprise.

His death could mean various things, though one of them would be to underline Deku’s determination to save people, even when fate has other plans.

So what can we generally say about the meaning behind character deaths in the My Hero Academia story based on the aforementioned deaths?

Character deaths are used either for a character’s backstory (which explains the character’s current self), mainly when the deceased character died prior to the events of the story, or serve as motivation for a character/characters when the death happens during the story (which explains why they change/do certain things after the events of said death).

How does that apply to Twice? Let’s see!

3: The Character

Twice’s parents were killed when he was in middle school, which led to him being an orphan until he found a job that offered him shelter and food. After an accident when he was 16 in which he hit someone with his motorcycle, the police released him to give him another chance. 

Because the victim was a recurring customer of the shop Twice worked at, his boss fired him after a complaint by said customer, which put him back on the streets. 

This led to him creating multiple doubles of himself since he felt like he couldn’t trust anyone but himself. The doubles got out of control, eventually leading to them fighting each other over who was the original, which in turn led to Twice himself not being certain whether he even was the original or just another double.

While for a long time he felt like he was alone, Giran eventually showed him otherwise and introduced him to the League, where he finally felt accepted.

Generally, Twice’s goal has been to find and accept himself. He found like-minded people in the League of Villains and during the Meta Liberation Army arc gets the confirmation that he is, in fact, the original instead of just another double. He reached his goal there, so why didn’t he die right then and there, then? I’ve seen plenty of people use the argument that his story is over now etc. to justify believing his death, but that’s just an easy way to accept the obvious when the truth is he could’ve died a lot sooner if the reason for his death was him having reached his goal.

So let’s take a look at the current chapters.

First of all, this all started in chapter 263/264, when we first see Hawks cornering Twice. Hawks reveals his true intentions and offers Twice a fresh start once he pays for his crimes. 

This is a nice parallel to Twice’s origin, where the police made the same offer, only this time Twice refuses the offer, as he now knows there is no such thing as a fresh start in that society. 

All he cares about now is the League, aka his family.

In chapter 265, this conversation continues, and Twice is shown to fight Hawks despite having a breakdown over the broken trust.

At one point, Hawks says “Why do you think I prioritize speed when taking down villains? Because it’s the ones who don’t give up, who heroes need to fear the most.”

This means Hawks recognizes that Twice doesn’t give up. Twice believes in the League and his goal is to protect them. 

Generally, selfless acts are seen as something that makes people invincible, whereas acting just for oneself doesn’t give people that same perseverance.

He continues by saying: “Experienced villains with wills of steel refuse to get knocked out.”

Hawks acknowledges that Twice isn’t beaten easily, so while it may seem like Hawks has the upper hand right now by threatening Twice with his feathers, Twice isn’t going to back down immediately.

Hawks is convinced that “someone has to die” when “neither side gives up,” which is why he then changes his attitude of merely threatening to arrest Twice to threaten to kill him.

Twice then goes on about how people like Hawks aren’t people, whereas his friends have been kind to him through everything, while he just kept endangering them, yet he has to protect their happiness, nonetheless.

Moving on to this week’s chapter, 266, when Dabi joins the scene with a huge fire blast.

Hawks saves Twice, just as Dabi expected him to.

This is also when Twice completely turns against Hawks, telling Dabi to “burn him good!!”

Dabi does as he is told, to which Twice reacts with a “Hot! Cold!”

- the flames hit him, but not enough for complete damage as he still stumbles past Dabi and out the door.

Just as Hawks gets ready to strike at Twice, Dabi calls out his real name, which catches Hawks off guard enough for Twice to get past him.

Twice, now out on the corridor, thinks about how he has to protect his friends and sends doubles to do so.

This is when we get the panel of Hawks getting ready to backstab him. Literally.

Next, we see Twice’s double fall down onto the concrete.

Said double then saves Mr. Compress and Toga, before thanking them for having been his friends.

He then goes to tell them that he can’t make any more double because “I got dropped down onto the concrete from up there.”

After returning the handkerchief to Toga, the double once again thanks her for having saved him as he melts away in her embrace.

Now, don’t get me wrong, everything about this last chapter indicates that he died.

But weren’t we all taught to always read between the lines?

I’m ready to put on the clown mask, but let’s think about this for now with all the information gathered so far.

First of all, while my gut just kept telling me that Twice didn’t die there, it’s difficult to argue how Twice would survive falling down on the concrete. 

However, after the official translation came out yesterday, I decided to head over to Twitter and look at the trivia for this chapter written by Caleb Cook, who is the official translator for My Hero Academia. According to him, it was actually the double we see at the end of the chapter, who fell down. Granted, he does say “I fell down,” but at first I figured the doubles would even refer to the other doubles or the OG Twice as “I” - as it turns out, in this case, it was the double, though.

This means the last panel we get of OG Twice is the one where Hawks is ready to backstab him once and for all. The thing is, we don’t actually see him stab Twice.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I don’t just accept the thought of a character having actually died unless I see it or it’s otherwise concretely (I’m sorry) confirmed in the story, instead of simply being implied.

Let’s think about some of the other instances, in which a character has died: 

Magne? We saw that. It was one panel in the manga and a couple of seconds in the anime, where we are explicitly shown Magne’s body being destroyed. Can’t argue that. 

Snatch? We see Dabi blasting his fire to him and then Mr. Compress compressing him. When Mr. Compress tells Dabi that fire doesn’t burn sand, Dabi confirms that, if Snatch hasn’t died yet, since only the upper half that can transform into the sand, the lower half is still trapped inside the marble with the flames, leading to Snatch’s inevitable death sooner or later. 

Sir Nighteye? First, the doctors tell Deku there is nothing they can do to help him due to the severity of the wounds. After Sir Nighteye says his goodbyes to Deku, All Might and Mirio, we see the heart monitor go flat. I’m not an expert, but people usually don’t survive this (unless you’re getting reanimated, but, again, the wounds were too extreme for him to make it).

So what about Twice? Much like Sir Nighteye, Twice says his goodbyes to his friends. His last wish is to protect them, and he does, by saving them from the hero that corners them. What else could he want?

Well, the problem is simply this: We don’t see Twice actually die. His double disappears, yes. But if we focus back on the OG Twice, he supposedly gets stabbed by Hawks. What about Dabi, though? 

The last time we see Dabi in this chapter is right after he sends another wave of his flames to Hawks after calling out his name, leaving Hawks to wonder who Dabi is. 

Right after, we see Twice catching his breath outside the room after his successful exit.

While he thinks about how he has to protect his friends, we see neither Dabi nor Hawks.

We do see flames coming out of the room, so Dabi probably once again pushed Hawks outside.

While a lot of fans like to hang on to that whole “Dabi has a ‘C’ for his intelligence stat”, he is good at people. We see countless examples of this throughout the story, but to just focus on recent events: he knew that Hawks would protect Twice from the flames at the beginning of the chapter and he knew he could distract Hawks by saying his name. He also mentions that he never trusted Hawks to begin with. 

Right now, it’s still hard to say how Dabi knows this nor do we know why Dabi let him join the League despite never trusting him. The fact remains that he understands enough about Hawks.

Earlier on in the chapter, when he first launches Hawks out of the room using his flames, he’s surprised when Hawks spins around and flies back into the room so quickly.

So would Dabi make that same mistake twice? Honestly? I doubt it. Sure, we still don’t have enough information on Dabi to say anything for sure, but the fact that he uses the same attack twice in the same fight sounds like he wants to use what he learned the first time around, instead. And because after the panel of Hawks supposedly backstabbing Twice for good, there is a cut gotta stop with the puns to Twice’s double, we simply don’t know whether Dabi possibly rushed out to somehow save Twice or not.

Aside from the fact that we don’t actually see Twice die, regardless of everything being laid out for this being a final goodbye, let’s focus on what his death would mean for the future of the story and its characters.

As mentioned before, while it’s sometimes difficult to say for sure why a character dies, it’s usually to introduce us to the people responsible for the character’s death (like with Magne to introduce the Shie Hassaikai or Miyashita to introduce the Meta Liberation Army) or to serve as character’s motivation moving forward, in whatever way that would be.

So who would Twice’s death affect?

First of all, we got the League. These are the people who genuinely care about Twice, meaning his death would lead to them mourning and then most likely also being fueled with anger. Additionally, this would also put Hawks’ life on the line, meaning Twice’s death would also heavily affect Hawks.

Let’s think about Hawks and his character for a while and see how that is connected to the League.

Who is Hawks as a character?

Hawks is someone who got taken in by the Hero Public Safety Commission as a child due to him saving a family from a car accident. They recognized his strength and decided to turn him into a hero.

This leads to some nice parallels between him, Shigaraki and Dabi: 

While Hawks got taken in by the Commission and groomed into becoming a very cold-thinking hero, Shigaraki was taken in by All For One and groomed into becoming a villain. These two, therefore, form two sides of the same coin - two children who got taken in and turned into something without their choosing. Then, we have Dabi, who was (assuming he is Touya Todoroki) born specifically to become a hero. Granted, not much is known about Touya, but the fact that Endeavor knows that Touya’s flames were too strong for his own body tells us that he most likely trained him; we just can’t say for how long. At some point, Touya “died” and at some point, Dabi was born. This makes him similar to Hawks in terms of being pushed to heroism at a young age; the difference between them, though, is that Dabi broke free, while Hawks subjected himself to the hero side.

Many of us have already suspected that at some point Hawks would come to realize that the heroes are flawed and not as heroic as the world likes to believe - and who better to make him realize that then Dabi? What better way to shatter Hawks’ world than by telling him the truth about his childhood hero.

Again, this is just speculation, but what is Hawks’ role in the story, if not that of a hero whose views are being challenged to the point where he breaks free? What would the point of this be, if he continued playing hero? 

And here’s the thing: If we look back at Overhaul, the League won’t ever forgive him for killing Magne. So if Hawks actually kills Twice, they would never forgive him, either.

But he hasn’t learned the truth about Endeavor yet. Would Dabi really still care to tell him, if Hawks killed his friend? If Hawks killed Twice, the League would turn against him and he would most likely die as a result. But what’s the point in that? Couldn’t Dabi just have killed him right there? Remember how after chapters 264 and 265 we all feared for Hawks’ life? Hawks survived and clearly, Dabi has some kind of reason for letting a spy into their group.

At this point in the story, Twice’s and Hawks’ fates are too intertwined for Twice’s death to make sense moving forward in relation to Hawks’ story.

The fact that Dabi admits to knowing about Hawks seems like a good indicator that Twice doesn’t die - at least Dabi doesn’t appear overly worried over the situation. Since we are talking about the Number Two Pro Hero, it seems only fair to assume that Dabi doesn’t underestimate him to the point where he let’s Hawks go as far as to kill his friend.

Clearly, we won’t know for sure what happened until the next time Horikoshi focuses on these characters; next time, because knowing Horikoshi’s twisted mind, the next chapter(s) will focus on other characters again, leaving us to wait for more than just a week.

This is also by no means saying that Twice is definitely still alive, but from a story/writer point of view, his death would not make sense in this constellation, even if he has reached his goal of saving his friends one last time.

I am 100 % willing to accept that I am wrong about all of this, but, depending on how Horikoshi handles this, it wouldn’t strike me as very plausible/great story writing. Not because I don’t want Twice to die (obviously I don’t, though), but because it feels like an unnecessary character death that would be added to the story for the drama/shock value alone, which disrupts other character’s storylines more than it supports them.

#twice #bnha #meta #jin bubaigawara #hawks #takami keigo #dabi #todoroki touya #shigaraki tomura #lov #boku no hero academia #hc #mha #headcanon #my hero academia #manga #266 #bnha 266 #mine #bnha spoilers #analysis #bnha meta #bubaigawara #jin #horikoshi #kohei #character analysis

[voidvoyeur]

GIVE A MAN A MASK ...  

As always, a disclaimer that this is my personal lukewarm take, imbued in my portrayal. I do not regard the following analysis as an objective truth to all - but an important facet to the writing and characterisation on this blog.

The use of masks in the horror genre has consistently been a crux to unsettle its audience. By not showing a face we perceive as ‘true’ there is the instinctive notion that such a character who wears a mask has something to hide. A masked villain is intentionally separated from their cast of heroes, victims and extras, all of which are unveiled. In Michael’s case, his mask is meant to unnerve these characters before it terrifies, at first sight forcing the onlooker, Laurie, to question whether she has something to fear at all, if she is being too superstitious - especially on Halloween of all days.

 This is achieved with the mask’s design, an uncanny impression of a man’s face (originally William Shatner’s...). The facial structure alludes to an initial, unremarkable presence of a passing stranger, but the hollowed, black eyes and impossibly white pallor intrude - presenting a loss or absence of humanity. One of the most succinct explorations into this effect is by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas in Masks in Horror Cinema: Eyes Without Faces, most relevantly quoting J.P. Telotte, ‘[the mask] is neither grotesque or distorted nor natural, but more resembling the face of a dead man.’ With this analogy, it becomes clear that Michael’s face serves as a reflection of the fate of his victims, inhabiting both the fear he evokes and death he inflicts.           Doctor Loomis prophecises this in his monologue, detailing the ‘blank, pale, emotionless face’ and ‘the blackest eyes, the devil’s eyes’. What makes this a prophetic monologue is that this reading of Michael’s maskless face becomes a reality which we and Laurie have experienced, and will continue to do so with Michael’s ‘mask’. It is now an argument of whether the mask is a mask at all, but Michael’s true face. If Michael himself is aware of this encapsulation of both fear and death, then Loomis is a mouthpiece for Michael’s own self-fulfilling prophecy, embracing the belief of being ‘pure and simply evil’ - using the mask to enact his role, as Murray Leeder claims, ‘Like an actor in a Greek drama, [wearing] his villainy plainly on his face,’ but I would modify that it is not ‘on’ his face but ‘as his own face.’           In Dead by Daylight, his place as a killer among killers still may not deter from how eerie he is to see from a survivor’s perspective. Applicable is thegamingmuse’s analysis of Valtiel in Silent Hill 3, ‘He looks more human than almost all the other creatures we see, but that only makes him more upsetting. The similarities make the differences stand out all the more.’ Michael stands within the space between the familiar and unfamiliar, what we know and what we don’t know. In the film, he demands to be looked at, especially in Haddonfield where he agitates the suburban safety of the town. And when he is not in the scene at first glance, he still demands to be looked for because we know he doesn’t function within the same physical laws as a human, but we do not know the exact extent of what that power means.           When comparing his 1978 mask to the 2007 remake’s, the original mask’s ‘wholeness’ is much clearer. For the most part, Carpenter and Hill’s Michael is pristinely presented - his mask unblemished, suggesting a fully realised sense of self in both his role and belief of being a villain. In contrast, Zombie’s Michael is damaged and deteriorating. Befitting the director’s more psychological interpretation of his character ambling between the role of victim and villain - a cracked and marred mask portraying a more ‘damaged’ and unstable sense of self, a malformed identity hinged upon reuniting with his sister - and when he fails to do so that mask and identity becomes all the more ‘incomplete’ in the sequel. Whereas in 1978, Michael is (presumably) completely extricated from his family after murdering Judith, assured and arrogant in his character of stalker, perpetrator and killer. What is notable is its only point of damage would be a hole in the neck from Laurie stabbing him with a knitting needle - leaving a permanent mark in the same area of anatomy Michael exploits to overpower his victims through strangulation. Her action in the narrative showing her refusal to be disposable — consequentially having ‘living’, tangible proof.           She, along with Loomis, is one of the rare few to try and prove his mortality - only to result in him getting back up, asserting his enduring immortality. This immortality is even foretold in his face, ever watchful with an unblinking stare - bearing a likeness to ivory statues and figure sculptures throughout Western art history, depicting culturally significant fictional and historical figures. Just as sculptors like Michelangelo, Bernini and Rodin have brought such characters to solid life, Michael is immortalising himself just as these statues are commissioned to immortalise their subject, mythologising himself (which ... considering his fandom cult status). If he is likened to a marble statue then he assumes the infallibility of the same material, his silicone flesh does not decay. Simultaneously, we know he can move therefore we are prey to an ominous atmosphere, led to think when he is not immobile within our line of sight, he is still able to walk behind us without our knowing. It also raises the question of if his mask is what grants him infallibility to death...           In contrast to his impassive white mask, his smiling clown facade at the start of the movie seems to be a hyperbolic mockery of emotion. Compared to Zombie’s choice of Michael wearing his most recognisable mask when murdering Judith, Heller-Nicholas stating, ‘Here the mask has a distinctly adult look, and on Michael’s body it suggests he is a child capable of committing ‘adult’ crimes.’ Whereas in the original, the clown mask has a disarming playfulness and infantile innocence, further adding to the shock reveal that this was a child who killed his older sister. For five minutes (or a few seconds if you were unaware of his age) he fits within the uncanny child trope, defamiliarising what we expect a child to be capable of, the unmasking of a child doubles as the unmasking of a killer. More so is it unnerving to consider how much in the same way clowns exist between comedy and tragedy, evoking laughter from their audience with staged stunts going awry and choreographed misfortune, the young Michael derives joy from the tragic act of murdering his sister. It is also important to note that Judith immediately recognises her younger brother while he is masked, solidifying he will be the mask he wears. Fifteen years later, his victims are deprived of this same familiarity and knowledge.            The sinister truth of the clown costume is brought home all the more when Jamie Lloyd chooses similar garb as her trick or treat outfit in Halloween 4. Later fulfilling - or possessed by - the same prophecy of evil when killing her foster mother at the end. Throughout the movie, everything she feels is written on her face, she is unmasked and entirely honest in her terror, pain, brief happiness and sympathy until she has inherited Michael’s evil, the red pom-pom nose referencing Michael’s own crime when he was a child, while the eyemask also references his visibly void gaze now – adopting his mask’s dead-set impassivity with her own face.  Again, the child’s crime is shocking but there is no moment of unmasking, rather the opposite: an inherited mask.           Even beyond the Halloween franchise, the significance of Michael’s mask is brought back into the pop culture consciousness through the subversion of other killers in the same genre. In Scream, Wes Craven creates a direct relationship with Halloween while transgressing from it, parodying the slasher horror formula. This is even evident when comparing Michael and Ghostface’s masks; the two are similar in their pitch black eyes and white faces but where Michael’s is intended to evoke fear in the audience and narrative’s victims, embodying a disturbing synonymity between an everyman and dead man, Ghostface’s mirrors the screaming faces of the audience and characters - mocking their fear. Much like Jamie Lloyd, Ghostface credits a certain lineage to The Shape, but where Jamie unwittingly follows in her franchise father’s (or uncle’s) footsteps, Ghostface is the teenager trying to rebel against his forefather’s conventions.           Ultimately, Michael’s mask serves as a blank page or screen to project our fears, ideals and theories onto. As much as anyone, including his own psychiatrists, would want to know why he wears a mask, there will be a range of readings that can only be individual interpretation because the only certainty is the mask is designed, as a cinematic device, to be emotionally provocative of caution and fear. Nonetheless, my own interpretation is exactly that - he wears it to primarily provoke a reaction and to witness the expression of those who witness him, knowing full well he is personifying the horror his victims suffer -- and we as an audience experience.

#META / HEADCANON. #( and i didnt even get to h2018 lmao ..................... #I'VE BEEN Wanting to do this for a while and quarantine provides ample time #was just a question of attention span ! !

[fateextraorder]

Class: Berserker

True Name: Leviathan

Titles: Tortuous Serpent, Sin of Envy

Stats:

Strength: EX

Endurance: EX

Agility: EX

Mana: C

Luck: E

Noble Phantasm: EX

Class Skills:

Magic Resistance: A

Madness Enhancement: EX

In spite of the rank of Madness Enhancement, Leviathan is not actually insane and is quite capable of holding itself together in conversations. At that, the only reason they are summoned under the Berserker class is as a manifestation of nature’s cruelty and in order to have actual support to it’s own saint graph as it is unable to manifest under any of the regular Servant classes otherwise and would crumble under its own weight

Personal Skills:

Daemon Prince: A

Not a full step beyond, but a half-step above True Daemons. Leviathan is capable of causing magical effects to manifest simply by existing, twisting the world around themselves in whatever way they wish, though large changes will still be fought back by the World and Counter Force. The capacity to change the fate of the surrounding world and those within range

Unlike one might expect, there is no true inherent weakness. Holy symbols or powers will do any more damage than anything else and sheer power is needed to combat Belphegor, which the Angels or God one might invoke through holy artifacts may yet be capable of none the less

Manifest Phantasm: D

As a Daemon Prince, Leviathan normally should not have a true form, but one constructed out of desires and superstitions of humanity. However, Leviathan itself is known as a great sea serpent and as such, it has a True Form that has to be obeyed

And yet, the name of Leviathan had also been attached to sea monsters of certain sizes to the point it became a description rather than a singular name, allowing Leviathan to take varied forms from sea serpents to whales and even, for some reason, a penguin. In spite of this, Leviathan always seems to have very luminous eyes that can glow in any amount of darkness from the direct light of the sun to the depths of the sea

Strength of the Leviathan: A

A skill that allows Leviathan to draw on its original strength even further. Due to the already extreme stats it has however, instead of actual increases to its strength, Leviathan gains additional rulings such as automatically destroying Noble Phantasms or even Servants with an Endurance or Rank of C or lower, or becoming immune to all damage from Strength and Noble Phantasm rankings below A

The more this skill is used, the more the Noble Phantasm [Leviathan out of Water] is sealed, and if abused, Leviathan becomes unable to take human form again

Sin of Envy: EX

In spite of being labeled the Demon of Envy, Leviathan possesses actually possesses very little of the sin. They are, however, capable of punishing all those who have sinned towards it, to the point of possessing Authority over the same.

Leviathan is capable of sealing Noble Phantasms and Skills relating to things that were not a Servant’s during their life time as well as having their stats further reduced. Those with [Innocent Monster] skills are especially affected and the more a difference between the original stories or legends and the resulting Servant, the more Authority Leviathan has over them.

A king that declared themselves a god, or their sword a holy weapon would be especially affected, though the skill has issues with those who actually have the power to back up their statements. As such, servants like Iskandar the Great would be more affected by Leviathan than someone like Oda Nobunaga, even if both had made wild claims in their lives

Charisma: C

A demon and a prince of hell, their Charisma should be sufficient to twist the hearts of humanity and command the legions of hell itself. However, Leviathan never had the need to do as such, leading to the skill being reduced from the EX rating of their fellow rulers to a C, which is still sufficient enough to get the points across with little issue

Noble Phantasm:

Taken from Envy

Rank: EX

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: 1~???

A Noble Phantasm working in tandem with [Sin of Envy]. While Leviathan is capable of sealing and reducing to its heart’s content, this Noble Phantasm allows them to take it a step further and take anything from their target as long as they can be affected by the Skill

Their parameters, skills, Noble Phantasms, life, magical energy, memories, name and so on are all available for Leviathan to take away until it is satisfied. However, the Leviathan’s sin is not Greed and as such, they are not keyed to take away that much

Whatever is taken is kept by Leviathan until the end of the Holy Grail War, or until their defeat. There is no limit to how much, or from how many, things can be taken

Leviathan out of Water

Rank: A

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: Self

A supplementary Noble Phantasm. Leviathan is given a human form when not on or in water. This Noble Phantasm however is in defiance to it’s [Sin of Envy] and as such, they are capable of reducing and sealing even themselves to any extent as long as they are affected by this Noble Phantasm

[Strength of the Leviathan] acts in direct opposition to this skill however, granting Leviathan back various features of its original form even when out of water

Monster of the Sea

Rank: EX

Type: Anti-Unit

Range: Self

The true form of the Leviathan, raising them to the level of a true Divine Beast. While in this form, Leviathan is immune to nearly all attacks ranked A or below with the only exceptions being Divine Constructs which are capable of piercing through it, while its offense is capable of piercing any and all forms of defense of rank A or below, including Divine Constructs, making nearly all attacks on servants with an Endurance ranking less than A, a lethal attack

Leviathan is also capable of drawing on the powers of other notable sea monsters, such as the World Serpent of Norse mythology, though on its own it has the power to boil the depths of the sea and devour nearly any kind of sea vessel and as such, the need to draw on more power is rarely present

Dominion of Hell, Leviathan

Rank: A++

Type: Anti-World

Range: ???

The manifestation of Leviathan’s personal dominion. It is a Marble Phantasm that causes nearly all disasters at the same time, causing flood invoking rains, thunder, whirlpools, tsunamis, clouds that black out the sky and so much more, all with the simple description that what is within the dominion is hell on water to punish any and all who attempt to even be around it, let alone sail 

Leviathan is also capable of enforcing an instant effect and defying environmental conditions, allowing them to freeze over any sea around itself or simply make a single moment of rainfall with an impact that is measured in megatons

In theory, if allowed to use this Noble Phantasm for long enough, Leviathan is capable of recreating the Flood Myth on their own

#Berserkers #Leviathan #Biblical Servants #Daemons #Nobility

[mathiaskillmaster]

My GOT Ending: The Battle of King’s Landing (Episode 5 Season 8) Part 3

On the back of Drogon, Daenerys, Bran and Samwell finally arrive in sight of the capital, to see the full extent of the disaster. A naval battle is raging in the bay, while the streets of the city are submerged by the troops of the army of the dead, who are constantly advancing overwhelming towards the fortifications of the red dungeon. In addition, Viserion flies over the city with its terrible rider and continues its ravages. Daenerys makes Drogon lands in Dragonpit, where she leaves Samwell and Bran, well away from the city and the battle. Daenerys knows she has no choice but to face the undead dragon again, once her beloved child. Although she knows that the necromantic magic that animates Viserion offers a certain advantage to the latter against the attacks of Drogon, the young queen does not hesitate and flies, under the eyes of two young men. The Night King immediately notices the form of Drogon in the air and rushing straight at him. He also notices Daenerys. The look of the young queen against him makes it a challenge. Taking his sword of ice, the king of the walkers launch Viserion to the attack, and the two dragons, roaring loudly, clash violently against each other for a new dance of dragons. At first inflicting violent bites and claws while spinning in the sky, Drogon and Viserion come to try to spit flames on each other, but the breaths don't touch. Streets and entire squares of the city are swept by the fire breaths of the two flying reptiles. Viserion manages to make his way to Drogon's back and tries to snap Daenerys between his jaws, which she narrowly avoids. Drogon replies by biting deeply Viserion at the throat. While holding firm, Daenerys can see the Night King, harpooning her with his blue and icy gaze, and visibly trying to find stability to throw an ice javelin directly at her. ******** From a window in the throne room, Cersei attends the apocalypse that falls on her city. The naval battle, the streets devastated by the white walkers and the duel of dragons in the air .... But madness prevails over her reason. _ "Kill them, now!" she orders to the Mountain, pointing to Jaime and Bronn. The Mountain executes the order and assaults a violent lateral blow which would have cut Jaime in two if he had not dodged. Jaime and Bronn agree to attack the colossus on both sides, but Gregor manages to parry their attacks, or seems to feel no pain inflicted by their blades. Bronn uses his talents to pass Gregor's defense and inflicts several injuries on his ribs and right shoulder. Gregor reacts and pushes Bronn back with a powerful punch. Bronn falls to the ground, gasping. Jaime in turn dodges or blocks the massive attacks of the golem of flesh, undergoing several cuts on the shoulders. But ignoring the pain, Jaime uses his reflex knight and great swordsman to counter a blow that would have been fatal, and beyond the defense of his opponent, manages to place him a stab in the ribs, but surprisingly, Gregor remains insensitive to this important injury and in turn pierces Jaime at the ribs. Jaime lets out a groan of great pain, before receiving a violent setback that projects him several meters back. Having seen this, Bronn tries to save Jaime by attacking the Mountain again, but after several blows blocked, is again repelled and sounded by another reverse of the Golem. Remained behind, Cersei observes the fight with interest and satisfaction to see her invincible guard take over. Jaime is stunned, heavily wounded, and can not get back on his feet, seeing Gregor's tall figure coming towards him to finish him off. Sandor and Brienne, still pursued by some guards, burst into the throne room. While Brienne finishes the last remaining guards, Sandor lays eyes on his big brother. ********* Varys led Davos, Melisandre and Tyrion through the city's numerous subterranean networks to reach a very special place: the underground warehouse used to store the wildfire. The master spy absolutely wants to prevent the city and its population from disappearing in a titanic explosion of flames, thus showing once again his devotion to want to serve and protect the people first. Davos does not want to see the horror of the Battle of the Nera again, but on a much worse scale. Eventually, the small group finally reaches the wildfire cache, where are standing in line in dusty shelves the hundreds and hundreds of jars containing the terrible alchemical mixture. With astonishment, they discover that nothing has finally been prepared and that the pyromancers have deserted the place leaving behind their equipment. But for Melisandre, nothing seems to change in her mind and she turns to Varys. _ "It is time for you to fulfill your destiny .... Varys Blackfyre." The master spy remains marble at the mention of this name so special, guessing without a problem that the priestess knew from the beginning. Tyrion and Davos exchange a more than bewildered look at this. _ "What ... how did you call him?" Davos asks the priestess. _"I don't need to hide it any longer, because indeed, my name is Varys from house Blackfyre." Tyrion and Davos remain speechless, believing that the Blackfyres, that bastard branch of Targaryen House, had long since disappeared. _ "But ... what destiny are you talking about?" Tyrion continues in the interrogation. Varys and Melisandre exchange a look. _"No need to deny it more, Lord Varys ..." said Melisandre, coming in front of him and touching his cheek with her hand "... remember that night, this ritual where your cock and balls were thrown into the flames. ... and that voice that emerged, addressing you .... You know just like me who it was, is not it?" Varys is divided between fear and the belief that she says true. He had never been able to forget this ritual, the pain of castration and the supernatural voice that had come from the brazier .... He knew it from now on. R'hllor had addressed him, entrusting him with a very special mission that he would accomplish only years later. _ "The blood flowing in your veins, Varys Blackfyre, is a bearer of great power, such was the decision of the lord of the light when he addressed you that night .... and it is today that this power will be used for the benefit of all." For Melisandre, it is out of the question to prevent the explosion of the wildfire. On the contrary, only an explosion of this magnitude could be enough to completely eradicate the army of the dead and the white walkers in one fell swoop. Davos draws his sword and threatens the priestess. _ "Burning a little living girl was not enough for you? You want to see the capital disappear in the flames, you witch?" Varys, however, retains the hand of Ser Davos. _"Lady Melisandre is right. You and Lord Tyrion had to warn as many people as possible, and evacuate by sea. Take the ships by force if necessary, but leave the city as soon as possible!" Melisandre observes without saying anything but thanks Varys for the support. Tyrion and Davos then understand that a destiny beyond them is at work before their eyes. Although hesitant to abandon a valuable friend like Varys, Tyrion vigorously shakes his hand in a last goodbye. _ "For an eunuch, you have the biggest of all." said the dwarf in a failed attempt at humor, which nevertheless makes the spy master smile. _"I think I'll miss your jokes about eunuchs, sir ... good luck." he answers. After this farewell, almost tearing Tyrion away, he and Davos run off to save as many people as possible, while Melisandre and Varys stay by the wildfire. ************ In the bay, the naval battle continues fiercely, and Yara's army seems to take more and more advantage, many of Euron's ships having fallen into their hands after violent clashes. On the flagship littered with many corpses and the bridge impregnated with blood, Yara, whose face soiled by dirt and blood, is facing her uncle, also bearing the traces of the fight on his enraged face. _"Well, my dear niece, can I know where Little Theon is? Is he hiding like the little coward he is? Unless he is already buried six feet underground? as you will be soon too!" Remembering that she had learned with great sadness about Theon's death by Sansa's letter, and enraged by Euron's words, Yara is left dominated by anger and it is in a scream that she launches herself into attack, assaulting a first blow that Euron blocked easily. The duel between the two Greyjoys begins in the midst of the brutal battles between the crewmen. Dominated by a new rage, Yara leaves no respite to her uncle, making him back off while he dodges or blocks with more or less difficulty the many blows of ax she tries to give. But Yara does not pay enough attention to her defense and her leg is slightly slashed by a well-placed attack from Euron. Clenching her teeth against the pain, Yara pursues the duel without flinching. _"Not bad, you have at least more balls than your stupid brother!" continues Euron in deliberate and cruel provocation. _"SHUT UP!!" yells Yara while continuing her frontal attack. A well-placed blow slashes Euron's right shoulder, which lets out a growl of pain, a trickle of blood flowing over his fabric, redoubling his effort to defeat his tenacious niece. This time, Yara must retreat under the repeated assaults of her uncle, and a kick in the bump makes her fall to the ground, and lose her ax that slips further. A ironborn soldier who saw his captain in danger, rushed at Euron, but he killed him with a violent blow of an ax in the neck. Yara takes advantage of this moment of diversion to grab a piece of broken wood and plants it with all her strength in Euron's neck, through his throat. Uncle Greyjoy freezes, drowning in his own blood and falls to the ground, at Yara's feet, panting, wounded and victorious. It is without regret that Yara, with the tip of her foot, pushes the lifeless body of her uncle, letting him to fall into the water, and disappear into the opacity of the depths of the bay as a treat for fish and crabs. ********* In the throne room, Sandor rushes without hesitation on his brother Gregor in a roar like a wild beast. The swords of the two Clegane brothers collide in a screech of steel. Brienne having seen Jaime seriously wounded on the ground, must struggle to repel a new group of guards, but she is finally assisted by Bronn who managed to recover. The swords clash between the Clegane brothers is continuing with a force and brutality out of the ordinary, Sandor inflicts heavy injuries on his brother but still ineffective against the latter. Provided with his strength and his superhuman resistance, Gregor quickly takes the advantage and a stinging response, made knee to the ground to his little brother. But Sandor, galvanized by the thirst for revenge, throws all his weight against his brother, causing him to fall to the ground. A violent wrestling starts between the two Cleganes. Disarmed, they come to the hand ... punches, kicks fuse, but again, Gregor takes the advantage, succeeding in stunning Sandor by giving him several headbutts .... The Hound founds himself in four paws, dizzy and spitting a trickle of blood from his mouth. Gregor stands up, dominating his brother and picks up his sword to decapitate him. Seeing that, Bronn manages to bring down the last guards with his fighting skills, while Brienne decides to run to the aid of Sandor, and blocks at the last moment a side blow of the Mountain that would have been fatal for Sandor. Gregor then attacks Brienne, but after a few parries and with her knightly skills, she manages to slice the armed hand of Gregor. Despite his severed hand, Gregor grabs Brienne with the other and begins to strangle her with force. Sandor remembers the words that Melisandre had whispered to him. The famous gift of Beric. It's now or never. Concentrating to his fullest, Sandor mumbled the words in his beard, and to the amazement of all, the sword of the Hound suddenly shines with a glowing flame. At first scared by this fire appeared suddenly, Sandor manages, for the first time in his life and taking on him, to resist his fear of fire and keeps the sword burning in hand, like Beric Dondarrion before him. Sandor then took the opportunity to start and with a quick gesture, decapitates Gregor, whose imposing body staggers a few seconds before falling on the ground. _"We'll see each other again in hell, brother..." Sandor said, spitting on Gregor's corpse, as the flames on his sword disappeared. The Hound can not refrain from giving sincere thought to Beric, whose gift will have been very useful to him at last. Having witness the fall of her protective golem, Cersei sinks a little more into madness and still refuses to admit defeat. _ "If I die, everyone will gone with me!!" she spits unceremoniously before starting to walk a step closer to the back of the room. It is then that Jaime, having managed to use his last strength to get up, arrives behind her, turns her towards him by seizing her on the shoulder, and the eyes in tears, pierces her heart with his sword. Huddled against her brother, Cersei remains paralyzed by the intense pain, while Jaime and she look into each other's eyes one last time. _ "You didn't give me a choice ..... forgive me ...." Jaime told her in tears. Blood escaping from her mouth, Cersei pronounces nothing, coming to put on the lips of Jaime a last bloody kiss, before succumbing in the arms of her brother. Jaime, at the edge of his life, falls on his knees before the iron throne, hugging the lifeless body of her sister in his arms. But despite the tremendous sorrow that gnaws at him, Jaime also feels the effects of the terrible wound in his ribs and contemplates the blood flowing. Feeling life leaving him little by little, he tries to straighten up, but stumbling, he is caught in-extremis by Brienne. Knowing that he is doomed, the knight Lannister gives Brienne a sorry look, herself trying to comfort him in his last moments. _"I ... I would never have imagined things to end like this ..." he said in a weaker voice. _"You fought bravely, Ser Jaime... your honor is safe." Brienne reassures him. Jaime manages to smile and delicately, takes the hand of the knight lady in his. _ "Promise me not to forget me and to remain an example of chivalry for the kingdoms .... promise me ..." The voice of the man being weaker and weaker, Brienne is very touched and puts her hand on her chest, as an oath. _"I swear on my life and my honor, and I will make all of us in the seven kingdoms know you as a hero." Jaime smiled again, and after having heard the oath of Brienne, closed his eyes gently, and in a last breath, succumbed to his wounds in the arms of Brienne. The latter can no longer contain her sadness and shed tears while holding Jaime's lifeless body against her. _ "Rest in peace ..... Ser Jaime Lannister." ********* In the sky of King's Landing, the fight between the dragons also continues, but Drogon begins to feel the wounds inflicted by his brother. Viserion shows him no sign of fatigue. But after avoiding a powerful breath of his brother, Drogon loses altitude after a clumsy movement and violently hits a house. Daenerys is shaked after the shock and falls into the void. ********* Ser Davos and Tyrion have managed to reach the surface and now find themselves running through the streets of the city in the grip of hordes of wights. They manage to avoid a legion of dead who pour into a small commercial place and begin to massacre the soldiers there. _ "Follow us! Come on!" Intimate Tyrion to all the inhabitants that he and Davos meet, the latter in total panic. In the mess, a dead person jumps on Davos and blocks him on the ground, but Tyrion intervenes and slays the zombie with a dragonglass dagger in the back of the skull. It was then that Ser Jorah and Podrick, also bearing the many traces of combat on their faces and armors, joined them. Davos quickly explains the situation and what will happen if they do not emerge from there. However, Drogon's view in the sky indicates to Jorah the presence of Daenerys, but he does not see her on him. More than worried, Jorah asks Podrick to stay and help Tyrion and Davos to evacuate the inhabitants, while he rushes in search of the khaleesi. Tyrion, Davos and Podrick flee, taking with them more and more inhabitants, and avoiding as much as possible the most invaded streets. Everywhere, the screams of fear echo, as well as the monstrous grunts of the dead-living creatures. But suddenly, the small group finds itself facing a white walker alone, who finishes killing a Lannister soldier. The monster then focuses on them and advances with a confident step. He targets Tyrion closer, but Podrick throws himself with his weight at the creature, pushing him back. _ "PODRICK!!" exclaims Tyrion with horror, retained by Davos. _ "Save yourself, sir!!" the young squire exclaims as he is caught to the throat by the white walker and thrown violently against the wall of a house. Tyrion refuses to give him up, but Davos heavily insists and drives him away with him and the locals, time is running out more than anything. Tyrion then sees Podrick cast a last sure look at him, the squire not regretting in any way his gesture. Podrick breathes his last breath as the blade of the white walker pierces his body, nailing him to the wall of the house. Forcibly taken by Davos, Tyrion lets out a scream of despair, as the squire's lifeless body falls to the feet of the white walker.

#game of thrones #A Song of Ice and Fire #daenerys targaryen #jon snow #fanfiction #deviation #arya stark #Night's King #white walkers #dragons

[tatticstudio55]

ARYA STARK: OF WHALES, SHELLS AND DRAGONS

In a previous post (“The scrub”), I briefly mentioned that Arya’s story arc in ACOK (and ASOS, to some extent) had some Noah’s arch elements to it. I won’t dig too far into it since others discussed this before. However, I’d like to expand on another biblical myth perhaps found in Arya’s storyline – this time in Braavos (then I’ll get to the dragon stuff).

Arya’s POV in AFFC opens with her aboard the Titan’s Daughter, as they approach the Isles of Braavos and must pass beneath the giant statue of the Titan of Braavos:

"The Braavosi feed him on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn girls," Nan would end, and Sansa would give a stupid squeak. But Maester Luwin said the Titan was only a statue, and Old Nan's stories were only stories.

(…)

"I hope your Titan isn't hungry," Arya told him.

"Hungry?" Denyo said, confused.

"It takes no matter." Even if the Titan did eat juicy pink girl flesh, Arya would not fear him. She was a scrawny thing, no proper meal for a giant, and almost eleven, practically a woman grown

(…)

Wind and wave had the Titan's Daughter hard in hand now, driving her swiftly toward the channel. Her double bank of oars stroked smoothly, lashing the sea to white foam as the Titan's shadow fell upon them. For a moment it seemed as though they must surely smash up against the stones beneath his legs. Huddled by Denyo at the prow, Arya could taste salt where the spray had touched her face. She had to look straight up to see the Titan's head. "The Braavosi feed him on the juicy pink flesh of little highborn girls," she heard Old Nan say again, but she was not a little girl, and she would not be frightened of a stupid statue. - Arya, AFFC

Arya keeps remembering Old Nan’s tale about the Titan’s eating “habits”, and even after they’ve sailed behind it, the danger of being “devoured” still linger:

"The Arsenal of Braavos," Denyo named it, as proud as if he'd built it. "They can build a war galley there in a day." Arya could see dozens of galleys tied up at quays and perched on launching slips. The painted prows of others poked from innumerable wooden sheds along the stony shores, like hounds in a kennel, lean and mean and hungry, waiting for a hunter's horn to call them forth.

(…)

The mouths of lesser canals opened to either side, and others still smaller off of those. - Arya, AFFC

That’s because Arya really is being (symbolically) swallowed by something here. The parallels with “Jonah and the whale” become a bit more apparent with these:

The galleys passed to either side of them, so close that she could hear the muffled sound of drums from within their purple hulls, bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom, like the beat of living hearts.

(Where we get the impression that Arya’s inside some giant living creature)

&

A harbor was visible off to her right, a tangle of piers and quays crowded with big-bellied whales whalers out of Ibben - Arya, AFFC

It’s interesting, because Arya’s POV chapters in ACOK open with her wishing that King’s Landing would flood. During her travels in the Riverlands with Gendry, Lommy and Hot Pie, the rain pours nonstop, effectively causing a flood. In AFFC, she finds herself in the flooded city of Braavos –

Another harbor, more distant, was off to her left, beyond a sinking point of land where the tops of half-drowned buildings thrust themselves above the water. Arya had never seen so many big buildings all together in one place. King's Landing had the Red Keep and the Great Sept of Baelor and the Dragonpit - Arya, AFFC

– only this time, her life jacket isn’t a boat (Noah’s arch), it’s a whale’s belly.

The thing with being inside a “whale’s belly” is, it allows Arya to go unseen. The myth itself is generally considered a metaphor of rebirth (which I’ll get to in a moment), but the whale’s belly also provides safety and secrecy while traveling. When Cat of the canals start selling oysters, clams and cockles, she can go anywhere she wants:

"Oysters, clams, and cockles" were Cat's magic words, and like all good magic words they could take her almost anywhere. She had boarded ships from Lys and Oldtown and the Port of Ibben and sold her oysters right on deck. (…) One time, when Brea took to her bed with her moon blood, Cat had pushed her barrow to the Purple Harbor to sell crabs and prawns to oarsmen off the Sealord's pleasure barge, covered stem to stern with laughing faces. Other days she followed the sweetwater river to the Moon Pool. (…) But she always returned to the Ragman's Harbor. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

We see here that the “whale’s belly” can take other forms; i.e., a bivalve’s shell (hiding in a belly vs hiding in a shell). Indeed, there’s some textual clues here and there linking Cat to what’s inside said shell(s):

Farther down the docks she came on Tagganaro sitting with his back against a piling, next to Casso, King of Seals. He bought some mussels from her, and Casso barked and let her shake his flipper. "You come work with me, Cat," urged Tagganaro as he was sucking mussels from their shells. He had been looking for a new partner ever since the Drunken Daughter put her knife through Little Narbo's hand. "I give you more than Brusco, and you would not smell like fish."

(…)

"Which one was this, now? The Queen o' Cockles, was it?"

"The Black Pearl," she told them. Merry claimed the Black Pearl was the most famous courtesan of all. "She's descended from the dragons, that one," the woman had told Cat. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

In the first citation, we have Tagganaro trying to “slurp” Cat from her shell, same as he’s doing with his mussels, and in the second, the “Queen o’Cokles” (a courtesan, but it could also be applied to Cat, oddly, especially since moments before Cat was asked by another sailor how much she wanted for the “cockle between her legs”), named after what’s found inside cockles (pearls). The “Black Pearl”, actually, symbolizes Arya Cat very well here, because that’s essentially what she is (a black pearl hidden inside a shell/a princess hidden inside a whale’s belly).

Which brings me to my third tinfoil word cake: any other “black pearl” inside its shell in asoiaf? How about Drogon’s egg?

She chewed on her lip, hoping. If I had wings I could fly back to Winterfell and see for myself. And if it was true, I’d just fly away, fly up past the moon and the shining stars, and see all the things in Old Nan’s stories, dragons and sea monsters and the Titan of Braavos, and maybe I wouldn’t ever fly back unless I wanted to. – Arya, ACOK

I’ve mentioned before that the story of Jonas and the whale was generally accepted as a metaphor for rebirth. In “The scrub”, I talked about the parallels between the hatching of Dany’s dragons, Dany’s metaphorical rebirth, and Arya’s rebirth beneath the burning shed. I think Arya is a dragon-like figure: she’s dangerous, deadly and magical. And she hasn’t hatched yet.

Let’s admit right off the bat that there’s something witchy about Arya, even if we disregard the whole faceless man thing: in AGOT, she has this thing with a black cat. In Harrenhal, ACOK, she practices sword fighting with a broomstick. Eats worm. Think of herself as the “ghost of Harrenhal”. Mingles with brews and potions (starting with the conspicuous “weasel soup” in Harrenhal, then at the House of Black and White with the waif). Does most of her “mischiefs” at night. In ADWD, the waif gives her a face with a wart that sprouts black hairs.

And shaves her head, too, like a certain someone named “Egg”.

Then there’s some interesting references to dragons (or water dragons, as Arya is more a creature of water than fire):

Slender boats slid in and out among them, wrought in the shapes of water serpents with painted heads and upraised tails. Those were not rowed but poled, she saw, by men who stood at their sterns in cloaks of grey and brown and deep moss green. – Arya, ACOK

The men wear cloaks of “grey”, “brown and deep moss green” – Arya’s colors. Grey is a color of house Stark. Arya thinks of herself as an “oak tree” in ASOS after being garbed in brown socking and a green dress (and seems to associate with trees in general). Back in the Riverlands, she tries to find her way North by the “way” the moss grows on trees. Several times.

 The mists gave way before them, ragged grey curtains parted by their prow. The Titan's Daughter cleaved through the grey-green waters on billowing purple wings.

(…)

Two galleys had come out to meet them. They seemed to skim upon the water like dragonflies, their pale oars flashing. - Arya, AFFC

Arya’s “Needle”: in ACOK, Rhaegal’s teeth are compared to needles:

Beneath Dany's gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the stranger with eyes of molten gold. When his mouth opened, his teeth gleamed like black needles. – Daenerys, ACOK

But as we said, that part of Arya remains dormant for now. In AGOT, we get Doreah’s story about the origins of dragons: the moon was an egg, it came too close to the sun, cracked open, and dragons poured from it. Fast forward to Arya’s POV chapters in AFFC, where the moon is omnipresent:

That is the Temple of the Moonsingers."

It was one of those that Arya had spied from the lagoon, a mighty mass of snow-white marble topped by a huge silvered dome whose milk glass windows showed all the phases of the moon. A pair of marble maidens flanked its gates, tall as the Sealords, supporting a crescent-shaped lintel. - Arya, AFFC

(…)

"All men must serve." And so she did, three days of every thirty. When the moon was black she was no one, a servant of the Many-Faced God in a robe of black and white. She walked beside the kindly man through the fragrant darkness, carrying her iron lantern. She washed the dead, went through their clothes, and counted out their coins. Some days she still helped Umma cook, chopping big white mushrooms and boning fish. But only when the moon was black.

(…)

One time, when Brea took to her bed with her moon blood, Cat had pushed her barrow to the Purple Harbor to sell crabs and prawns to oarsmen off the Sealord's pleasure barge, covered stem to stern with laughing faces. Other days she followed the sweetwater river to the Moon Pool. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

And speaking of menstrual blood, it’s brought up again later in Cat’s chapter:

The other whores said that the Sailor's Wife visited the Isle of the Gods on the days when her flower was in bloom, and knew all the gods who lived there, even the ones that Braavos had forgotten. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

The moon is obviously linked with feminity and fertility here: as the kindly man tells Arya when she first sets foot in the House of Black and White, “Many have served Him of Many Faces through the centuries, but only a few of His servants have been women. Women bring life into the world. We bring the gift of death.” (Arya, AFFC) Hence, Arya only returns there when the moon is black (when her feminity “disappears”). Cat’s life at the canals revolves around the moon’s cycle: Brea’s moon blood brings Cat at Purple Harbor and to the Moon Pool. The black moon brings her to the House of Black and White. Notice that Cat doesn’t sell clams and oysters and cockles in Purple Harbor. She sells the bigger, fancier fish, the kind that doesn’t hide inside shells. Each time the moon “bleeds”, Cat gets a bit closer to hatching. Then, around the end of the chapter, we get this:

The swollen red sun hung in the sky behind the row of masts when Cat took her leave of the Happy Port, with a plump purse of coins and a barrow empty but for salt and seaweed. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

Maybe it’s just me overthinking it, but “swollen red sun” reminds me awfully of a pregnant woman’s belly, one that’s nearly full to burst, like the “plump purse of coins” Cat carries. We also had an “injured” (swollen/bruised), blood red sun in AGOT, the night Daenerys miscarried Rhaego:

Outside, the sun was low on the horizon, the sky a bruised red. – Daenerys, AGOT

And this would’ve been the moment where Daenerys and Arya slipped. Daenerys’s mistake was believing that she was sacrificing a horse in exchange for her husband’s life. Arya’s mistake was killing Dareon:

"Dareon is dead. The black singer who was sleeping at the Happy Port. He was really a deserter from the Night's Watch. Someone slit his throat and pushed him into a canal, but they kept his boots."

"Good boots are hard to find."

"Just so." She tried to keep her face still.

"Who could have done this thing, I wonder?"

"Arya of House Stark." She watched his eyes, his mouth, the muscles of his jaw. - Cat of the canals, AFFC

Daenerys and Arya are both given a bitter, milky beverage to drink:

She tasted sour milk, and something else, something thick and bitter. – Daenerys, AGOT

On her way across the city Arya had wondered what the kindly man would say when she told him about Dareon. Maybe he would be angry with her, or maybe he would be pleased that she had given the singer the gift of the Many-Faced God. She had played this talk out in her head half a hundred times, like a mummer in a show. But she had never thought warm milk.

When the milk came, Arya drank it down. It smelled a little burnt and had a bitter aftertaste. – Cat of the canals, AFFC

Basically, this is Arya’s first “failed” hatching. Milk is a liquid strongly linked to motherhood. Here, the milk is spoiled, which may or may not indicate a failed attempt at giving birth.

Overall, where Daenerys is a mother figure, Arya is the child, the dragon hatchling looking for her mother:

It was the other dream she hated, the one where she had two feet instead of four. In that one she was always looking for her mother, stumbling through a wasted land of mud and blood and fire. It was always raining in that dream, and she could hear her mother screaming, but a monster with a dog's head would not let her go save her. – Arya, AFFC

Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Dany and Drogon are separated from each other around roughly the same time where Arya dreams of her mother at the Red Wedding. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that Arya’s looking for her mother in a “wasted land of mud and blood and fire”, whereas Drogon was born in blood, fire, and right by the Red Waste. This is all very intriguing. But anyway, I’ll conclude for now with a quote from our favorite witches and wizards’ story:

"Never tickle a sleeping dragon"

#arya stark #daenerys targaryen #arya and daenerys parallels #ASoIaF

[indiepoptime]

STRAY KIDS SUPERHERO AU

i started this when i didn’t have wifi or a sketchbook and thus my phone’s notes app was the only thing i had to entertain myself. i didn’t get very far, but decided to finish because we got a fandom name recently (hello fellow stays!!!) and also our boys are coming back so soon and i’m E X C I T E D as hell

anyways i’ll keep one before the cut as a teaser and the rest under it so this post doesnt get too long. this isn’t in age order like i usually do it because....idk. it felt right to do chan first.

hope y’all enjoy this one as much as my day6 one from a bit back!! 

Bang Chan/Chan:

—the batman type of superhero who everyone thinks has some insane power/ability but really is just a normal dude armed with his smarts, charisma, and a small collection of taser guns

—is one of the only members without a secret identity (he barely has a costume. it’s literally a black onesie at best; he wears what he can change into fast) but the members still spy on him because they think he’s lying about not having powers

—works from home in graphic design so that he has the flexibility to do both daytime and nighttime shifts as a hero (we see his priorities here—he still doesn’t get enough sleep)

—doesn’t kill and actively tries to rehabilitate his opponents while he fights them

—villains hate him because they find him irritating, except the ones who he’s managed to actually reform (who, to be fair, still find him irritating but don’t hate him because he’s made their lives better) and who are now grudgingly his “allies” through a variety of physical and figurative debts

—the of-age members have a drinking game where they’ll take a shot after work every time chan ends a battle by calling to a villain by name and taking them out to ice cream/boba/fries (still in costume)

—won’t shut up about how much he loves his team to the point where he’s on probation for public appearances because he’ll inevitably give away a member’s identity. regardless, he’s the undisputed leader and every single member trusts him with their secret identity if they have one

Woojin:

—student with a part-time job as a barista and also as a superhero

—running joke is that he didn’t mean to be on a superhero team, but chan joined his chill study club and turned it into a vigilante club without him realizing what was happening until it was too late

—he just goes with the jokes, but secretly can’t remember how he was pulled into this whole superhero mess either. the thought concerns him a little (but not that much)

—speedster who complains about his “slowness” anyways, leading to his being called either the grandpa or the bear (perpetual hibernation; the members joke that one day he will actually sleep through his own life) of the team

—hard-carries the team in a silent, un-flashy way—a lot of his work in battle is done speeding from place to place, stealing weapons, changing the position of mines and traps

—complains about the members a lot, but genuinely views himself as their personal guardian and would gladly sacrifice his life for them even if he’s somewhat clumsy about it

—the members still give him shit about the one time he rammed into a glass door at the speed of sound and shattered it all over himself (thank god for armored suits) to save jeongin from what he thought was a villain but was actually just a large bird/tree/telephone pole (the story’s gotten muddled over the years)

Lee Know/Minho:

—a professional dancer who’s been in the industry for years, though he’s only recently come out of the shadows as a backing dancer and into the spotlight as a solo act; the development of his powers over fire and electricity have allowed him to put on some pretty impressive performances

—woojin meets him one day in his coffee shop and, after recognizing him from his dancing, asks him about his powers and advertises his club to him. after a few drops by the shop, minho decides to pay the club a visit and essentially adopts all the members as his unspoken proteges

—his fighting style is a mixture of dance and martial arts, which he learned when he was younger, plus a few neat tricks with fire that allow him to hover and propel/flip in the air

—“why are you afraid of heights—you literally fly!”

—“IT’S DIFFERENT OK”

—he’s by far the most popular member with the public, most of whom have not quite made the connection between the graceful fire dancer on stage and the aggressive but also elegant fighter that he becomes in battle. a few of his fans have obviously connected the dots, but are fiercely loyal to his brand and consider it their little secret

—nevertheless, he’s not at all afraid of losing his secret identity and simply keeps it because he can

—he tells the members that he’s already a celeb anyways, so it doesn’t really matter, and happily posts little hints to his identities on all of his social media (he’s got sites for Nightstriker (his superhero name—as pretentious as possible) and himself) while the other members stare on in shock

Changbin:

—rich as h e c k; the one facet of batman that chan lacks

—an amateur graphic novelist with a passion for collecting things: he’s got at least 200 stuffed animals, boxes upon boxes of antique marbles, and enough superhero suits (that he had custom-made depending on his mood and age) to last a small lifetime

—he’s wanted to be a superhero since he was very small, since he spent a lot of his youth reading books and comics, but didn’t develop powers until later in life so he turned to novel-writing as a way to become a hero in fantasy

—when he was 17, his power over shadow finally started to manifest, catching him off guard. at first he could only do small things like blind people or turn the lights off without moving, but eventually he learned that he could literally control people’s bodies by manipulating their shadows

—he went to woojin’s club out of fear, afraid that his powers were too dark to control, and that he couldn’t be the hero he wanted to be if he couldn’t control them

—the other members but especially minho took him under their wing and showed him that there were multiple sides to his power that he could harness in order to achieve balance: the darkness of shadow, but also the light around it

—once changbin gains control over his powers, he considers it his debt to shower the other members with ridiculously luxurious items from home. he’s never quite known what to do with all of his wealth, most of it inherited, so he just keeps buying stuff for the people who helped him

—minho’s not sure what to do with the fancy gold-lined bidet that suddenly appears in his backstage bathroom, but he goes with it

Han/Jisung:

—a childhood friend of changbin’s who re-entered his life when he needed an illustrator to help him with his graphic novels

—equipped with a raging imagination since he was very young, jisung’s powers actually manifest while he’s working on one of changbin’s comics: he accidentally imagines one of the monsters from its pages into being

—changbin and him end up having to fight it and, after changbin helps a stunned jisung defeat the monster with his darkness powers (which jisung previously didn’t know existed), he offers to take his friend to woojin’s club to help him control his newfound abilities

—like minho took changbin under his wing, chan takes it upon himself to help jisung reign in his wayward imagination and bend it to his will. as someone who has to remain calm at all times and evaluate the situation to take advantage of it because of his lack of powers, chan is in a unique position to help jisung concentrate

—once jisung is able to handle his abilities at least to a certain extent, he excitedly provides the club with their own building, furnished with plush furniture and a frighteningly large sunflower lamp in the living room. he refuses to compromise on both the lamp and the building’s fuchsia walls and insists that if they want something different they’ll have to buy it, which changbin immediately does

—his favorite weapon in battle is a giant yellow hammer that he created, which he’s happily named j.won to foreshadow his impending victories. his members are tired and have basically given up on him

Hyunjin:

—if minho’s fame as a celebrity dancer is discounted, then hyunjin would win as the most popular member simply because he’s STELLAR at hiding his identity and everyone is curious as hell

—literally has no clue how popular he is and doesn’t believe it when the other members tell him

—everyone thinks he’s significantly older than he actually is because he has a very dark costume that covers his entire body and a green jeweled mask that covers his face (the jewels came from changbin; the green was hyunjin’s idea)

—his power is poison, and he’s damn good at using it. not only can he erode/poison an enemy by touching them, forcing them to grow progressively weaker throughout a battle; he can also use words to poison: his power allows him to discover his enemy’s worst fear and use it to weaken them

—like changbin, he came to the club out of fear, but not because he was worried that his power would overcome him, but because he worried that controlling and using it made him a bad person

—under the guidance of chan and changbin, he learns to limit his powers and use them to curb evil/violence without crossing the line himself

—when he first came to the club, he was attached to changbin at the hip because he felt a kindred spirit in him, but eventually he would start to absorb the joy of some of the other members, especially jisung and felix (who were usually around changbin anyway)

Felix:

—having come from abroad and found himself both directionless and moneyless, felix turns to stealing in order to provide for himself. he breaks into changbin’s home thinking that he and his family aren’t there, only to find changbin wrestling himself into one of his many superhero suits (the family outing, while true for the rest of his family, was a distraction for changbin to change)

—after the shock of that first meeting, changbin “invites” (more like grudgingly accepts) his intruder into his home and offers him a full meal, as well as a free shower and some nice clothes before going out on his mission

—somewhere down the line changbin realizes that he’s adopted a younger brother somehow? and it’s actually kind of nice?? once felix is cleaned up and not stealing, he’s very smiley and cute and follows changbin around the house everywhere offering to help

—eventually, changbin isn’t able to keep felix from coming along with him to one of his club meetings, wherein felix gains a bucketload of new role models

—chan is SO COOL, especially because he doesn’t have powers, and because felix thinks that he also doesn’t have powers, he spends every meeting trying to get chan to teach him stuff

—eventually, the team takes felix aside to try to figure out if he DOES have any powers (since, changbin insists, if he’s gonna keep coming with me we gotta keep him NOT DEAD. I HAVE BROTHERLY DUTIES)

—it doesn’t take them long to discover that felix definitely does have powers, and that they were kind of obvious: he can turn himself intangible at will, and he does it unconsciously. it’s how he’s been getting into houses undetected

—woojin takes him as his apprentice, since his powers are fairly similar (SO COOL, says felix)

—jisung calls him Filly Pryde and insists that this should be his superhero name when he goes public—the rest of the team wants to die in that instant

Seungmin:

—the only member of the team who actually came to the club on his own free will and wasn’t brought in by another member

—was a HUGE fan of the superhero team before he joined; he followed all of their public appearances and kept newspaper cuts of their battles in his room, as well as identity graphs where he’s hunted down info about all of the members and tried to figure out who they actually were

—when he joins, woojin comes to the apartment that he shares with his mom and sister and seungmin is a frenzy of COVER UP EVERYTHING THEY CAN’T KNOW THAT I KNOW hi im seungmin

—while hyunjin trained himself because he HAD to, seungmin built up his seemingly useless power to make it into a superhero-worthy skill. he can control paper, but has trained himself to have limited control over different types of trees (those that are made to make paper, which he’s taught himself to recognize on sight)

—he’s also extremely skilled at using paper folding/origami as a weapon using speed and the angle of the edge of the paper. basically paper-cuts on steroids

—changbin makes the mistake of hazarding a joke about seungmin’s ability when they first meet, before seungmin almost saws his nose off (and also berates him with hundreds of embarrassing incidents from past fights that seungmin somehow still remembers)

—he and minho have a bomb combo move that involves minho lighting trains of paper knives on fire and it is, in felix’s words, the best thing on this good earth

I.N/Jeongin:

—seungmin’s protege

—jeongin’s power is the most obvious of the whole team’s: he’s got 4-foot angel wings that are probably still growing. when they first sprouted, he was almost beat nonsensical before seungmin paper-cut his bullies into near delirium and then told jeongin that his wings were the most awesome thing he’d ever seen

—seungmin then brought jeongin home, made him a variety of beautiful paper capes and shawls to hide his folded wings, and then went to the club to have jisung make him a bag whose straps could fit his wings through them, as well as fabric copies of the paper designs

—after a while, jisung began to question who he was making these extravagant gifts for, and had woojin & chan ask seungmin to bring his protege to the club

—afraid that his team would think jeongin was either too young or ill-prepared to be a superhero, seungmin spent an entire night preparing a 20-slide ppt presentation complete with images and research for his case, as well as a few days training jeongin in basic battle skills

—he needn’t have been worried though; chan falls in love with jeongin instantly and forces the rest of the team to accept him as well, which doesn’t take much forcing at all once the kid smiles

—“WHAT IS THAT PEST??!” demands a villain, gesturing at a flying jeongin

—“THAT’S OUR BABY!” chan yells back

#stray kids #skiz #stray kids au #bang chan #woojin #seungmin #hyunjin #felix #jeongin #jisung #han #in #minho #lee know #changbin #my writing

[gojins]

henlo pals, i go by dia and i’ll be playing jinwoo, a struggling artist who doesn’t really get along with his family. feel free to check out his profile and give this post a like if you wanna plot! ♡

go jinwoo looks just like jung hoseok, don’t you think? he is twenty-four years old, is a newcomer at itaewon, and has been staying here for three years. i hear they work as a sculptor and is known to be creative and reckless. i am yet to find out if it is true or not that they dropped out of college but really who knows? we’ll have to wait and see. ( dia, 18+, any pronouns, gmt+2 )

BACKGROUND:

being the family disappoinment isn’t easy, but someone’s gotta take one for the team and do it, right? that’s basically jinwoo’s second job, simply because he happens to be the so-called good-for-nothing middle child and the only artist in his family.

maybe it’s his fault, too, at least to a certain extent. maybe he shouldn’t have dropped out of college after one semester, but there’s more to life than a degree, or so he tells himself.

after years of constantly pitting him against his older brother, jinyoung, his parents have sort of given up on him — in their eyes, jinwoo’s a lost cause.

that’s why people always assume he’s jealous of jinyoung, even though that’s hardly true. sure, he might have a stable job and a pretty fiancée, but jinwoo would rather be seen as a failure for the rest of his life than be his parents’ puppet.

needless to say, they’ll probably never get along like most siblings do, but he can live with that. it might sound harsh, but it’s not like he really needs his brother’s validation in order to be happy.

somewhere along the way, he’s learned to love himself even when others don’t.

HEADCANONS:

if you think he’s got his shit together, you’re wrong. someone please save this boy because he has no idea what he’s doing with his life.

back when he was ninenteen, he ran away from home to “pursue his creative calling” in seoul, but ended up dropping out of college after one semester ‘cause mama did raise a quitter, then went back to gwangju without actually achieving anything, making his parents even more frustrated.

it’s been three years since he returned to seoul, but he’s still a mess. however, believe it or not, he’s an extremely talented and versatile artist.

everyone expects his art to be as quirky as him, yet his style is surprisingly realistic. his favorite artworks are michelangelo’s david and pieta and bernini’s apollo and daphne. his favorite material is marble.

jinwoo’s family is actually pretty well-off, yet they refuse to support him, so he’s still struggling to make ends meet. that’s fine, though, because he loves what he does.

PERSONALITY:

wow, is that the sun? no, it’s just jinwoo’s smile!

loud, exuberant, extremely passionate about art, gets excited easily, pretty much the epitome of warmth and optimism.

can’t stand being bored. life’s meaningless if he isn’t having fun.

very talkative, which kinda makes him come off as annoying, because oh, boy, does this guy ever shut up?

doesn’t really care if people don’t like him, since he’s already used to being looked down upon and treated like trash.

acts ten times dumber than he already is just to fuck with people.

“how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real?” — jinwoo, probably.

WANTED CONNECTIONS:

flatmate(s) — because a struggling artist like him can’t really afford to live alone.

bestie — whenever life becomes unbearable and you feel overwhelmed, jinwoo’s always there to lend you a shoulder to cry on, and vice versa.

cuddle buddy — sweater weather is approaching, and he’s got lots of love to give.

muse — jinwoo likes beautiful things and beautiful people, and, well, you happen to be stunning.

will they, won’t they? — are you really just friends, or does all this flirting actually mean something?

hater — you can’t stand his guts, and you aren’t exactly trying to hide it, yet he doesn’t seem to mind at all.

client — jinwoo often relies on commissions to survive, and you’re one of his most loyal clients.

good influence — that one friend who always tries to stop him from drinking his weight in alcohol at parties.

#itwnintro #✩ —（ ooc. ） #i'm too scared to proofread this

[howdytherepardner]

6 words of advice for the class of 2026: this subtitle seeks to warn any non-Tigers reading that this is almost exclusively about the princeton experience.

when walking through campus now, the paths people once relied on through center campus are not viable. in small ways as the slight adjustment from the direct freedom fountain to ustore pathway jutted a bit north over at murray-dodge, or stronger ways, as the complete closure of the west entrance to prospect gardens completely cutting off a diagonal direction from dorms to class. the grove under the art and archaelogy department, with the entrance to the index of medieval art, is also missed for its novelty of being an underway that is not aggressively an arch.

construction is the cause, of course, with the building of a new-and-improved art museum under way, that makes many experiential promises. i am sure they will be realized both in intention, and in the unintention, where people interact with the space in ways they could have never dreamed and form understandings unique to them. but the passing of the old art museum is difficult. i think about my first encounters with it as a student here. nassau street sampler, with long lines and warm air and cool marble and tiny foods and a little scavenger hunt powered via facebook messenger that i did with two people who would become very good friends who were already so friendly. a little moment of the present, that i think of in the future, in a place surrounded by the pasts of many, many of those many who did not even think of a university such as princeton in a land yet unknown to them, as far as art represented goes. but there was a section of the older american indigenous art - northeast corner of the basement, then - one piece that had been explained to me twice and never that i'll forget, was a large ceramic-esque cup used for the sipping and sharing of beverages like hot cacao, which us today trust to be true because it is exactly the act depict on the cup itself.

~

were i not preoccupied largely with large academic writings at the time, i would have been compelled to write a lengthy response retorting many of the statements made in this opinion article, "The social implications of a maskless Princeton." it would have critiqued things like the contradiction of students being compelled to break rules under the regime of semester but follow rules under the regime of another, the assertion that covid paranoia is largely subverted with the end of the mandate (as if the reduced testing regime and the spreads known to emerge within student groups does not create a sense of paranoia), and the ultimate conclusion of "an un-masked campus will solidify students’ sense of obligation to the University community, ultimately fostering a more compassionate student body with members who are invested in respecting one another’s personal choices."

on these points i do foster great disagreements, or at least feel they are severely under supported and require some greater nuance. but at present i do not find myself prompted to write a retort. in part knowing that editorial limitations of the prince section that would limit my own ability to provide nuance, that had likely affected this piece, and knowing that everyone continues to learn and explore and understand more each day, such that an stance against this broad set of arguments might not be really useful. but i think what stops me from pursuing a response article above all is the simple fact that it was written by a member of the class of 24. they speculate on 'maskless princeton' because they have never known it, and ultimately they must be optimistic, because if it does not help develop a stronger community, then fuck? what possibly could?

~

this year has been full of failures on my end. not only, not endlessly, but great failures to people that i have cared about at one point or another, often to great extents. i think the way in which i feel my failures to be strongest, though, are in the fostering of community in the spaces that i existed in. sure, i was present and prominent in certain student groups, and i did my best to guide their operations in a way that was safe but enjoyable. but it felt like it was all i could do just to have these experiences survive - where communities did exist, i may have been overseeing them, helping facilitate the the conditions in which they did occur. but the emotions, the friendship, the connection, the laughter, the joy, the sadness, the accomplishment, the aspirations found within them did not feel like mine - my attempts to participate have felt like appropriation, reaching in the well to pull out some vicarious emotion, but collecting water felt a project unto myself, and despite all the words and knowledge to the contrary, i could never quite be with everyone swimming inside.

and i could never know if the walls of the well were strong enough. people within spoke of discomfort in the stones and points where leaks did occur, and i feel paralyzed, trying to explain the materials i was working with and the limitations resulting from them. but their concerns were real, even as much as i could not address it - was it strong enough to keep the water in? or when i was done, failing to full share each crinkle in the process of maintaining that space a certain way, would the water slowly drain away? could that community last without me, and my detached self? anything to feel essential, in a way.

but certainly, that is not true. as i hand the reigns off to others, i can hear news of the well and the people within, and i can know there is much that i cannot know and issues that aren't shared with me, but things continue. people continue to love, laugh, warm, share, cry, fight, help, praise, and care for each other in these little eroded in the massive cavern of this institution. and i am left.

~

i think my greatest hope that i would have failed to eloquently communicate in that response is that one does not assume the end of a mask mandate does all the work to make communities happen. indeed, organizing and forming takes work and tend to coalesce most readily where shared concern or passion present themselves actively to other people. masks are not some arbitrary barrier to that process, and indeed people can make communities while wearing them (and the dedication to keeping them safer by mask wearing arguably affirms the reality of that commitment!). the barrier of the pandemic to community formation and continuity, that persists well beyond the pandemic, is the trauma.

god DAMN, the trauma. the trauma of seeing the world change around you, shattering expectations and illusions of control. the trauma of leaving friends and loved ones, seeing many pass on without the chance to say hello and goodbye one last time. the trauma of living in heightened concern and fear, of always being braced against a virus. the trauma of being abandoned by institutions, as they fail to uphold their greatest hopes and leave you to fend for yourself and your loved ones in a hellish state. the sense of loss that pervades every little thing you do.

it does not leave you.

even when you return, and unite with everyone and be merry in your togetherness. even as operations gradually approach something vaguely resembling what they used to be. even as you get to do the things you dreamt of as a freshman, many that the classes before you had denied and deferred. even as you are promised that things will keep getting better. even as you get the virus of concern, and are blessed by fortune and technology to tell the tale afterwards. even as friends do extend their offerings of help and presence. even as find new spaces, to find something different rather than try to return to old.

the pain remains.

~

i had a friend once tell me 'one foot was already out the door' when The End Times hit. i had a friend recently ask me if i was ready to graduate. neither feel the case for me. the promise of a life beyond the confines of the school itself materializes more and more for me, and yet i feel paralyzed. because i am in pain, and i do not want to deny it, even if i do not know how to articulate or even understand the way it affects me.

how can i express the sorrow of seeing people move on, knowing that i have failed to connect with them in the ways that i wanted to, given that i have failed to connect with them in the ways that i wanted to?

how can i express my regret for those i have hurt or failed to help, through action and inaction, when they are perfectly capable of moving on without that expression?

how can i express the gratitude i feel for the impact that people's kindness and presence has had on me internally, when i have done so much to push them away, reeling at the pain that lost connections have already caused?

how can i express the desire to build, maintain, or rebuild connections beyond the confines of this institution, while i am still within it? how can i express the fear that if i do not affirm this before i leave, that it cannot occur?

perhaps it is writings like these in which i try. one medium that i write in isolation, that allows me the selfish means of displaying myself that comes without a particular target, while still having particular targets in mind when writing. i don't know if that's true. and i know that it is hardly the most successful way. but i just want to believe that these words have some impact on another person. that this wall of text be not a wall, but a rope to ascend the barriers that conscious and subconscious erects. i don't know. i don't know. i only know that every time i think about the personal losses and dramatic shifts i have personally experienced, it hurts. and i don't know how true it is for other people. but i find myself needing to believe that it is true.

~

next year i will be in a new city, where almost all the friends i have made here will not be. i speculated that i might be able to get some form of continuity by heading to manhattan or brooklyn with all the other fools that we are, and perhaps someday i might be there again, but today the case that shall not be. this is to say that, even as i might maintain connections throughout the next year, i speculate that this will be a time in which i find myself largely alone. it is my hope that it might be a chance to breathe, and reconstruct myself, to an extent.

for example, when i got covid, my regular running pattern that i'd been developing was subverted, and a combination of both the lingering exhaustive effects and the building pressure of academic work has prevented me from getting back to that. i really do want to care for my body with regular exercise, i think, and i hope that in this time to focus, i might be able to run and workout more readily, as a means of building something that can make me a healthier and better person than i have been.

biking too. when sent home after the End Times, i managed to get an hour of biking and an hour of walking in almost every day, and it was marvelous. as exercise, sure, but just the recreation of zooming through a sleepier town and the countryside was incredible after not having the chance to do it as much in college. i want to do it again, because i like doing it a lot.

but to breathe! the job i'll be working promises a chance to engage with important matters, but unlike the myopic processes that often are expected here, it will not consume my every waking hour. i really hope that this reduced workload will allow me to be less exhausted, such that free time is not simply time spent processing or recovering, but a chance to develop and redevelop my curiosities and hobbies in ways i have not gotten to here. ah, i could do more theater, or i could explore other options for life after this year with a bit more time to fully consider with less (though not without) pressure to find some security.

this chance to develop myself. for myself. such an aspiration of the early 20's, and how reassuring that a hopeless romantic such as myself feels more open to the prospect. indeed, this process may have been able to advance further in the boundaries of my current institutional membership. perhaps it could have gone further if not for COVID, perhaps it could have gone further despite that, and i only have myself to blame. much like many question, one that can never be resolved with certainty in its past.

~

construction of an art museum would have been enough, but in these concluding moments walks are now disrupted by the Gebäude of reunions tents. a spring, where many blooms were struck down by sudden colds, now blocked by massive white tents and tan picket fences. the class of 2022, though not in its entirety, has paid witness to their purpose in the reunions of princeton alumni. under these tents, people across many class years will drink and reminisce and discuss and display themselves as they stand in their lives now.

it is long deferred, and delayed. there is much hope put into it by the institution, certainly by alumni, and among many current students now. the expectations are myriad as the stars in the sky, and much like the stars, i trust we will not quite reach them. it is my moderated hope that i will be able to rekindle connections with some good people and, in response to the question posed, that it is via this experience that i will be ready to graduate. i will move on from the physical institution, though it is now a fact of my life that i am tied to the privilege of the network, and it is possible that this informs directly how i am able to achieve.

my question, perhaps most uncertain about, is how thoroughly this experience will end up addressing the question of trauma and pain of the past few years. will people address it successfully? or will it be regarded in silence, seen but mostly ignored? a hole that will just be filled another day in the future?

~

that said, here they are:

only time spent unkind is wasted.

[mistyschallenge]

Don’t Move.

This is Haru Usasa.

She’s a level designer for Super Mario Maker. At the time I first found her, she’d been ranked the #1 designer on the network by star count, the #1 “maker” as they call it there.

That means a lot. I think for any of us it would be an honor to have as many as a hundred or even a thousand stars. I think for many of us it would be an honor to any stars at all. Usasa has a million stars, a million stars and counting, and just to hammer that bit home, just to drive in the scale of it, consider that at the time of posting, she has more stars, and more medals, than the next two highest-ranked designers combined, outstripping the greater of those two by a 700,000-star lead.

And that? That’s the low estimate. The real numbers are even higher.

Haru Usasa is, to put it bluntly, in a class all her own. She is, to put it plainly, a h*cking legend.

And also? These are the levels she makes:

Ta-da! It’s an automatic.

Some of you are probably cringing right now, but for those of you who don’t know, don’t mind, and would like to know more: Automatic levels (or automatic “courses,” to use the Super Mario series’ exact—and frankly, arbitrary—terminology,) are courses that play themselves, using objects and enemies to propel Mario forward with little to no input from the player. They first bubbled up out of the Super Mario World modding community (as did so many other aspects of the SMM scene that I am dead certain there’s an argument to be made that the original 1990 release is to SMW what Vanilla is to Doom,) starting with a series of musical courses set to megamixes from Nico Nico Douga.

An automatic, by the way, is also a type of gun, which I think is pertinent to what it feels like to look at one of these courses, or to play them.

And speaking of that, here’s an example:

Boom.

At this point, they’re practically a genre in their own right, but they’ve become a bit of a base breaker in the SMM community, due in large part to their growing ubiquity on the Course World servers. Some of us could take ‘em or leave ‘em, some of us love them, and many of us write them off derisively, as cheap star grabs peddled by lazy amateurs. (Which, I mean, aren’t we all amateurs here?)

But me, personally? I think Usasa here deserves every star she’s got.

This is the sort of claim you just have to put into context, so first let’s take a moment to talk about Sonic. Don’t bother mentioning the irony, I already know. But I promise, I am going somewhere with this.

People still have fond recollections of the Genesis-era Sonic games. The runaway success of a deliberate throwback like Sonic Mania is a testament not only to the strength of those recollections but also to the idea that, in many ways, the games still hold up today. But there is still a lot of contention about just what made them work, about what their essence was, beyond second-order issues like “multiple routes” or “gameplay-to-story ratio.” Some even argue that early Sonic wasn’t about speed so much as it was about platforming, pointing out, correctly, that these games weren’t nearly as fast as their successors would become.

But what isn’t talked about often enough when discussing what made those games special was their physics, and the way that Sonic was, in the end, all about its physics. Even Sonic’s speed only really mattered to the extent that it let the game express its physics.

Sound like a hard left? I mean, don’t get me wrong, Sonic was fast. But he wasn’t boosting Blue Falcon fast. He wasn’t even boosting blue hedgehog fast. No, Sonic speed had always been a darting speed, an agile kind of speed, a portal fling-swing kind of speed. There’s a post going into that difference in detail, and there’s a lot of detail to go into here, but this quote sums up the gist of it:

“Which of these moves faster, a commercial airliner or a roller coaster?

“Alright, now which one of these feels faster?

“[…] It’s pretty obvious that, although the airliner is going to (sic) faster for longer, the roller coaster is what feels the fastest. The reason for this phenomenon isn’t speed, however. It’s acceleration, which we can define as a change in speed, or a change in direction, or both (for short, a change in velocity.) The reason that the airliner feels almost motionless in mid-flight is that it builds up speed slowly, turns even more slowly, and gives your body plenty of time to adjust, whereas the roller coaster speeds up, slows down, lunges, dives, and whips around corners and corkscrews faster than your body can adjust.

“Which, coincidentally, sounds like something out of an ad for an old Sonic game.”

This is a big part of what made a paid fan project like Sonic Mania feel so much more authentic than Sega’s own in-house attempts at a Genesis homage, which faithfully recreated the musical style and visual motifs of those games but often treated their physics like an afterthought. The system of momentum that powered the games might’ve made platforming a chore, but they’re also what made loop-de-loops and corkscrews click: You could see the strings. You knew how this trick worked, and yet it amazed you regardless, despite this, because of it, because you could marvel at the intricacy of a system capable of stretching itself this far. You didn’t always gain much speed at any given time, but you didn’t have to; the thrill of the speed you did gain emerged from the yawning gap between your standard speed and the speed you could potentially achieve by manipulating this system to your advantage, by capturing that fire, by bottling that lightning.

Many will say that the reason reaching high speed felt so satisfying, in the end, is because “you had to work for it,” because it had to be “earned.” And while that is one way to frame it, I’d like to suggest, instead, that what made that dizzying acceleration worth watching was that it was always authentic: never scripted, never automatic, never anything more than an inevitable consequence of the game’s laws as they were written, carried out to the letter. Where later Sonic games would say with their on-rails sections: “Look at how fast Sonic is going,” the Genesis games said something fundamentally different:

“Look at the power, the raw kinetic potential, contained in these slopes and inclines. Look at what you can do, what you can create, and with nothing but a little weight, a little gravity, and a little push.”

It’s Phoenix Wright interpreting Newton. It’s you, as the marble in a Rube Goldberg Machine.

It’s the awful palpable potency of a loaded automatic.

I don’t...have to explain that last pun, do I? No? Okay, good. Then we can get back to Mario, because it’s the exact same thing for Mario.

The automatic courses in Super Mario Maker actually differ from the ones you see in Super Mario World on two key points:

1. None of them play music, and if there is one that does, I haven’t seen it. In fact, the automatic music course that these new courses sprung from appears to have split off into two separate genres, automatic and music. To wit, the top two course creators are an automatic maker and a music maker, in or out of that order from week to week. (The only other million-star maker is a musical course designer known only as Ochagama.) Though there are few courses, if any (again, I know of none,) that re-unify the best traits of both genres, the problem isn’t laziness or lack of imagination. Instead, it’s that Super Mario Maker’s course size limit is below that of any music mod I’ve ever seen. There’s a strict object limit, somewhere around 100 for enemies and obstacles like 1-Way doors and trampolines (though there is a separate and significantly higher limit for static blocks and coins.) This all leads to the second point:

2. Super Mario Maker’s automatic courses are DENSE. Where the old automatics chugged right on ahead to keep in time with the music, these courses bounce back and forth across the stage like a pinball. Rather than stretch 100 objects across ten screens, these courses pack as much as possible into a small space that folds over on itself to produce a spectacle of excess. It is a bursting, exploding thing, but it’s an explosion more like a blossom than a bomb. To cut it down to simple talk, it’s kineasthetic sakuga.

Super Mario Maker is, essentially, a sandbox game, like Minecraft. You switch back and forth between creative and goal-oriented play, and in either case your goal is to explore, engage with and appreciate the complex systems at play, the systems that allow the game to be what it is. Play is only valuable inasmuch as it helps you to do this.

It’s often complained that automatic courses aren’t “real” courses because you can’t play them, which echoes similar complaints in the last several years that games like Dear Esther aren’t “real” games because your agency is limited within them. Automatic courses seem like an extreme version of this issue: You’re not allowed do to anything, and even attempting to act, save for the few cases in which you are expressly asked to do so, is punished harshly. To a certain type of player, this approach to design is bound to come off as inconsiderate, even offensive.

The compliments that are usually given to these courses, on the other hand, typically come down to the amount of effort it must’ve taken to build them. And okay, yes, true, there’s a reason Usasa takes about a month between each upload, but I think that these courses can be appreciated on their own merits, on their merits as experiences. More than just cheap popcorn fodder, the automatic course is a surprisingly poignant example of a videogame, or a section of a videogame at least, without a player, as the “player” is traditionally understood, a non-player-centric space in which the only necessity is that the player be present to “perceive play,” as Mattie Brice puts it in “Death of the Player.” And even with that you could just, I dunno, watch YouTube or something.

Automatic courses do the same thing attract modes do for arcade games: They say: “Look at what this game can do.” Only this is different, because now you’re there and you can attest to the fact that the course is moving on its own. All you really need is to be there. Be there, and be very still, and you just might get to watch the game sing.

If you enjoyed reading this, here are some courses you may be interested in:

“全自動マリオカート　Automatic Mario Kart“ by ササエタマエ. A screenshot from this course was used in the essay. It’s the one with the red and black shells. ID: 635C-0000-0045-AF89.

“ ↑ﾎﾞﾀﾝを押し続ける鍵ドア半自動 Keep ↑” by  うささ. Crams all the activity of an automatic into the span of a single screen. ID:  1747-0000-0259-926D.

“ 36回楽しめる自動マリオ 36 Auto patterns“ by  さぼ. Allows you to take a different route through the course depending on which buttons are held down from the start. There are 36 routes total. It’s...kiiind of incredible. ID: 1883-0000-02C1-89AC. (Here is a video showing all possible routes.)

*ECK

#super mario maker #mario #game design #a study in smm #designer spotlight #course recommendations #haru usasa #automario