There's a bit at the end of Ward where a whole bunch of parahumans go into a strategic shared dream as part of a game of eldritch chicken with some details that really should have been shared with the audience up-front instead of being artificially concealed as a twist.
"And might I ask why you as a Hanazakari would have such a reaction against guns in the first place? Have you forgotten that you can summon deadly powers on command?"
Yes, but superpowers are different, for reasons that are rarely explained and even more rarely sensible!
"Ahem, and secondly, because when the Dandelionhearts came to Earth, they didn't hand out our powers to the military. They gave them to teens, preteens, girl, homosexuals, people who weren't 'true Japanese'. People not already in power," Koyomi kept going.
Yumemi, Koyomi's distaste for guns clearly extends beyond the immediate circumstances.
As it looked to be a long descent, Miyako asked Koyomi something in the meantime. "Hey, there's one thing I don't get. You control darkness while Hoshizora-san and Ogami-san control dreams and dogs, but they say they're Wands and you're a Sword, right?..."
"The Genera we've codified here at RUNE," Yumemi said, cutting off Koyomi again while not even being part of the conversation this time, "is the most efficient classification system possible, especially in the Dandelionhearts' absence. Believe me, all other alternatives would've just complicated the matter more."
"And people will have online debates about anything," Hachiro said and chuckled.
For instance, a lot of people think Ogami should be classified as a Striker.
Four heavy, twisting chains kept a man trapped in the centre of the ring, each bound to one of his limbs. Limbs that were unnaturally stretched out, more than seemed possible even with the chains.
Good idea in theory. Definitely watch out for the potential retaliation.
[X] If there's one Frostfarer still alive, then wait, is there at least one Dandelionheart still out there?
[X] She lost herself and started cackling madly.
Optimism for Miyako, what Edgedance said for Koyomi.
"The Genera we've codified here at RUNE," Yumemi said, cutting off Koyomi again while not even being part of the conversation this time, "is the most efficient classification system possible, especially in the Dandelionhearts' absence. Believe me, all other alternatives would've just complicated the matter more."
[X] What have they been doing to him down here? You don't call just any prisoner a 'Project'.
[X] Write-in
-[X] She smiled the widest smile Miyako had ever seen, her mouth stretching out until it was as thin as the edge of a knife.
I like this slasher-smile write-in much better than the cackling.
[X] What have they been doing to him down here? You don't call just any prisoner a 'Project'.
[X] Write-in
-[X] She smiled the widest smile Miyako had ever seen, her mouth stretching out until it was as thin as the edge of a knife.
To elaborate on that line Koyomi had about 'people who weren't true Japanese', it was a reference to the stringent stance you see in Japan about who does and doesn't count as Japanese. I'm told you can be born and raised in Japan and have mostly Japanese ancestry yet still not be considered 'really Japanese' if you have any non-Japanese heritage, which I think is largely seen with Zainichi Koreans though in Koyomi's case comes from her grandmother being Polish-Jewish.
Also, since I brought up The Owl House a while back, I should say I've now finished watching the show. My overall impressions are pretty positive, though I have to admit the show's far from flawless, even if it's hard to know what's the creators' own fault and what's the fault of Disney meddling.
I realised there's another parallel too between RUNE keeping an eye on Witches and Belos having Wild Witches hunted, even if RUNE isn't at Belos' level yet
"Ahem, and secondly, because when the Dandelionhearts came to Earth, they didn't hand out our powers to the military. They gave them to teens, preteens, girl, homosexuals, people who weren't 'true Japanese'. People not already in power," Koyomi kept going.
"Oh, is that not what I'm doing?" Yumemi asked, "Giving a means of self-defence to a minority LGBT+ girl not, as of now, in the military?"
For Homura's sake, can you stop. Trying. To make this. A pissing contest!!?
Leaving aside how Koyomi's point sailed over Yumemi's head here, the idea of handing a gun to someone with zero training or familiarity with them is just... fucking clownshoes shit.
I was kind of expecting a dandelionheart, maybe as a vector for Miyako to get powers maybe not, but this is more interesting. If he's the last survivor, killing him might cause the resurrection, and Japan can hold that over other nations for political concessions? If he's the one they resurrected, why? Hoping that things trigger when he's defeated this time? Hoping to attract new dandelionhearts?
Frostfarers are superhumans who don't age and don't feel guilt. I'm betting that the Bezoses and Thiels of the world would be very, very interested in that.
The tricky thing about writing a superpowered character making anti-gun arguments in Japan, or most places outside the US, is that I couldn't default to a 'You can't just walk into a store and buy superpowers' argument. But then I thought about how Japan's gun laws could've changed given the Frost Decade, like having Tokyo being frozen could definitely start arguments. Though even then I don't think they'd become like the US in that regard.
I'm also thankful that reader talk about guns has been pretty civil so far, since I could imagine it getting really heated even on other SV threads
[X] Write-in
-[X] what the hell are they doing to him?!
have they been torturing him for how long now?
[X] She lost herself and started cackling madly.
[X] What have they been doing to him down here? You don't call just any prisoner a 'Project'.
[X] She lost herself and started cackling madly.
"Oh, now I get it!" Koyomi said as a nigh Glaswegian grin started to cover her face. She then lost herself in a fit of uncontrollable cackling and looked Yumemi right in the eyes to ask, "So that's you wanted to show me? That every last thing I ever fought for, ever suffered for, was all for nothing? That the Dandelionhearts are gone, gone because of me even, but the Frost Fair, they get to live?"
"Koyomi, calm yourself!" Yumemi barked, a tinge of fear present behind her authoritative tone. "While we can't speak for the wider cosmos, on Earth RUNE knows for a fact that this is the last Frostfarer alive. I did not bring you here to ever make you think all our efforts were in vain-"
"How can I even trust you anymore?" Koyomi said, still grinning and cackling, "How do I have any way to know you're telling the truth, that there aren't a thousand more Frostfarers all underground somewhere? And those guns had to be some sick joke, you know full well bullets will just bounce off a Frostfarer."
"If you still won't be convinced, then past a certain point that's your problem," Yumemi said, then clamped her hand down on Koyomi's shoulder. "For starters, those guns were Cup- and Pentacle-enchanted. And thanks to Project Lazarus, what we've accomplished as Hanazakari can be more than just saving humanity. It can be making humanity better. If we can grow our own Heart Leeches, we can make trauma and other painful emotions a thing of the past, let alone if we can reverse engineer Frost Fair immortality."
"Oh, just twist the knife in further, like I even care anymore!" Koyomi said, before she slowly sank to her knees and had to bury her face. "The woman I fought alongside wants to turn all us humans into another Frost Fair, turn us into the same enemy the Dandelionhearts died protecting us from! Answer me Yumemi, what was the point of me even picking up a sword? Of saving Asahi, Tsukasa, hell even Kazuya from Heart Leeches?"
Miyako could see Kazuya tense up on hearing Koyomi say such a thing, even if he said nothing in return. All she wanted to say to Koyomi was something like 'You were, you are, a Hanazakari. Nothing you did was in vain' but she had no idea how Koyomi would even respond to that anymore.
Gazing at the cackling wreck in front of her, Miyako could only think, This- this isn't the Arisugawa-sama I know, it can't be!
"Is this what Namie died for?!" Koyomi couldn't help bursting out with.
With one line, Yumemi stopped bothering with damage control. "Don't. You. Dare…" she spat out, "use her name against me!"
"Arisugawa-san," Hachiro said on having to step in, "Project Lazarus was formulated by RUNE's High Command, Brigadier Hoshizora is not its ringmaster. If you wish to protest, you'll have to take it to the Netherlands, not out on her!"
"Well, aren't you precious?" Koyomi was reduced to giggling at him, "Whoever's the 'ringmaster', you're still just as complicit in this and whatever else RUNE has planned as she is, so quite the nice guy act!"
"If you're saying we should step down," Hachiro then said, "then think, please, what would we accomplish? If I go, if she goes even, all that will accomplish is RUNE replacing us with someone else, likely someone worse, and Project Lazarus won't be stopped."
"So do nothing? That's your solution?" Koyomi said, tears now streaking down her face. "Might as well I suppose, since RUNE's so determined to make all our efforts be for nought."
As she watched Koyomi be reduced to… this, Miyako felt the already cold air in the room drop even lower, right on the back of her neck.
<Young girl, can you hear me?> a voice like breath on a frozen morning echoed in her mind. <We- no, just I now I suppose, I not only hear you, I feel you. Shock, Fear, but above all Abandonment, I can sense the iron grip all these emotions now have on you. Please, come closer…>
Miyako did find herself moving forward, like something invisible was willing her, yet kept trembling all the while. "W-what you do want from me?" she whispered, quickly looking back to make sure the three Hanazakari hadn't heard her, "Have you been trapped here since the end of the Frost Decade? Have they… done anything to you?"
<More than you can imagine,> the Frostfarer answered. <To imagine this world, this universe, without us, that I am where everything we strove for ends. That I am King Frost by mere default. Is this what it takes to make me feel anything anymore?
Wait, young girl, I sense there are four men you feel quite strongly about. A boy in this room who could have been part of our army, a boy of your human theatre, a boy contemplating us beneath the moonlight, and…> he went on, with Miyako wondering who the fourth could even be, her barely knowing Ryoichi or Hachiro, <a character from your Earth fiction> he vaguely concluded.
Kazuya-kun, Reiji-kun, Hayato-kun, and… well the last one could be whoever, Miyako thought on instinct. "What do you want with them?"
<Just to feel what you feel about them, about anything,> the Frostfarer replied, <for they may torture me down here, but I can no longer feel anything from even that. I am the first, and of course last, of my kind you have seen for yourself, right? Had you the power, young girl, would you have sentenced me to this same fate?>
"I am sick and tired of your little Yoshitsune complex!" Yumemi snapped at Koyomi, their argument of course still going with Yumemi cutting through Hachiro's good cop attempt, "Acting like you're the one persecuted by the big, bad government for doing what you delude yourself into thinking is right! Why else would you take your penname for the mountain he was taught under?"
<You see her, reduced to Hate? When you are like us, Hate and Love are emotions all the same, the strength is all that matters. But you feel different don't you, young girl? If you can still Love when surrounded by Hate, then it must be stronger than any other emotion,> the Frostfarer mused.
Miyako now found she'd walked right up to the railing and was staring straight up at the Frostfarer. She heard Kazuya gasped from far behind and realised too late it was from being all too familiar.
One of the Frostfarer's Heart Leeches shot out of his skin, right from where his 'heart' would be. Miyako shrieked like in Hell as it latched on with its icicle fangs over her own heart, then began to burrow deeper. Everything she felt for Kazuya, Reiji, Hayato, Asahi, and Koyomi grew fainter and fainter, replaced with only the cold.
Her emotions draining back into him, the Frostfarer then broke his chains and landed in front of her. "It wasn't that I lacked the strength to shatter them, it was the willpower I need. I thank you, young girl," he said, and indeed said, evolving beyond speaking through thoughts.
With the light glimmering off his ice crystal self, he then wrapped himself in illusion to appear far more humanoid. His hair was now blue like Kazuya's if glossier, tied in a ponytail longer than Reiji's, and an expression as serene as Hayato's. Like on the ring however, he was still clad in mostly a pair of tight black trousers.
Koyomi was snapped out of her mania by seeing Miyako becoming a Frost Pawn right before her. Calling out "Henshin!", she rushed forward and hacked that Heart Leech in two.
Miyako collapsed, feeling more freezing than ever, her stolen emotions still not back but her desperately wanting them.
Trying not to have any possible reaction to… what had just happened, Yumemi in turn proclaimed "The world sleeps, the mind wakes. Blossom, White Egret!"
"Heed your master's call," Hachiro wasted no time in saying, even as his face showed less confidence, "Blossom, Cornus!" He now wore a uniform edged with a stark pink, epaulettes that looked like Cerberus heads, and bones on the outside of his clothes to match his Bone Wand.
"Ah, all your Hanazakari names? Hmhm, I think I shall do likewise; aliases are all we Frostfarers have. Red Spider Lily? No, that is taken. Oh, I know," the Frostfarer said as he concentrated the cold towards the wound Koyomi had left on Miyako when she tore out the Heart Leech. A flower made of ice was conjured there, Miyako reeling in worse pain than if it'd been simply salted.
"Call me Blue Lotus," the Frostfarer finished with a smile. He then spread his arms and said, "Well, go on. I sense you three strongly desire to prove you are heroes, so take your best shot. Be the ones who inspired this little girl, just like old times."
Article:
Koyomi responded by:
[ ] Charging right at him, anything to have the Frost Fair gone for good, assuming what RUNE said was true.
[ ] Hesitating for a moment, if staying in the fight, to see what this 'Blue Lotus' was planning.
[ ] Getting Miyako and Kazuya to safety. RUNE had gotten into this, RUNE could get themselves out.
[ ] Getting Miyako and Kazuya to safety, then coming right back to the fight.
[ ] Ask some questions of this 'Blue Lotus' herself:
- [ ] Write-in
[ ] Write-in
-[ ] Write-in: Overcome by dark emotions, Koyomi floods the chamber with an inky fog, debilitating all combatants and hampering any attempt to get Miyako or Kazuya to safety. (by Embler)
[X] Charging right at him, anything to have the Frost Fair gone for good, assuming what RUNE said was true.
I can't even be mad at this guy, honestly. But I don't think Koyomi is thinking straight at this point! I'd be happy to change my vote to a suitably unhinged write-in, if anyone can justify something fun!
I was thinking of this before I reread and realized she explicitly snapped out of her mania. Oh well! [] Write-in: Overcome by dark emotions, Koyomi floods the chamber with an inky fog, debilitating all combatants and hampering any attempt to get Miyako or Kazuya to safety.
I can't even be mad at this guy, honestly. But I don't think Koyomi is thinking straight at this point! I'd be happy to change my vote to a suitably unhinged write-in, if anyone can justify something fun!
I was thinking of this before I reread and realized she explicitly snapped out of her mania. Oh well! [] Write-in: Overcome by dark emotions, Koyomi floods the chamber with an inky fog, debilitating all combatants and hampering any attempt to get Miyako or Kazuya to safety.
Well, so long as I have your blessing, I vote for making things worse!
[X] Write-in: Overcome by dark emotions, Koyomi floods the chamber with an inky fog, debilitating all combatants and hampering any attempt to get Miyako or Kazuya to safety.
[X] Hesitating for a moment, if staying in the fight, to see what this 'Blue Lotus' was planning.
The guy has just absorbed Miyako's shoujo protagonist emotions.
This is going to be fun.
[X] Getting Miyako and Kazuya to safety, then coming right back to the fight.
Or we could take the sensible option.
, and…> he went on, with Miyako wondering who the fourth could even be, her barely knowing Ryoichi or Hachiro, <a character from your Earth fiction> he vaguely concluded.
"And thanks to Project Lazarus, what we've accomplished as Hanazakari can be more than just saving humanity. It can be making humanity better. If we can grow our own Heart Leeches, we can make trauma and other painful emotions a thing of the past, let alone if we can reverse engineer Frost Fair immortality."
Yumemi...normally I'd ask something along the lines of "Have you watched any anime," but you lived anime for like a decade. You have no excuse for this level of genre blindness. Even if exploiting monsters like this wasn't all but guaranteed to go wrong, eliminating negative emotions is practically Baby's First Well-Intentioned Extremist Plotline.
"Oh, just twist the knife in further, like I even care anymore!" Koyomi said, before she slowly sank to her knees and had to bury her face. "The woman I fought alongside wants to turn all us humans into another Frost Fair, turn us into the same enemy the Dandelionhearts died protecting us from!"
Also this. Series 1 was about fighting emotionless raiders who sought to drain people's emotions, then in the sequel series RUNE was like "Let's drain people's emotions for their own good!"
As she watched Koyomi be reduced to… this, Miyako felt the already cold air in the room drop even lower, right on the back of her neck.
<Young girl, can you hear me?> a voice like breath on a frozen morning echoed in her mind. <We- no, just I now I suppose, I not only hear you, I feel you. Shock, Fear, but above all Abandonment, I can sense the iron grip all these emotions now have on you. Please, come closer…>
I know this is probably bad, but honestly any distraction from the feuding exes is appreciated.
Wait, young girl, I sense there are four men you feel quite strongly about. A boy in this room who could have been part of our army, a boy of your human theatre, a boy contemplating us beneath the moonlight, and…> he went on, with Miyako wondering who the fourth could even be, her barely knowing Ryoichi or Hachiro, <a character from your Earth fiction> he vaguely concluded.
Only one? I guess Miyako is more interested in female-lead stories, but...
<You see her, reduced to Hate? When you are like us, Hate and Love are emotions all the same, the strength is all that matters. But you feel different don't you, young girl? If you can still Love when surrounded by Hate, then it must be stronger than any other emotion,> the Frostfarer mused.
Not what Blue Lotus said! B.L. identified Hachiro as someone Miyako has strong feelings about. Not necessarily romantic, definitely not necessarily reciprocated. Those almost certainly aren't part of the equation, since one of the dudes in question is fictional. Maybe romantic feelings for a fictional character is normal for you allos, but having those feelings reciprocated definitely isn't.
Really? This feels like an inciting incident to me. Blue Lotus's calm now that he's escaped makes him feel in control of the situation, by anime logic if nothing else.
[X] Getting Miyako and Kazuya to safety, then coming right back to the fight.
[X] Hesitating for a moment, if staying in the fight, to see what this 'Blue Lotus' was planning.
Let's not get Koyomi Vegeta'd by this dweeb. Or worse, Yamcha'd. Let Yumemi be the Vegeta in this relationship. (Or let Hachiro be the Yamcha, either way.)
EDIT: Okay, this write-in sounds cool.
[X] Write-in: Overcome by dark emotions, Koyomi floods the chamber with an inky fog, debilitating all combatants and hampering any attempt to get Miyako or Kazuya to safety.
[X] Write-in: Overcome by dark emotions, Koyomi floods the chamber with an inky fog, debilitating all combatants and hampering any attempt to get Miyako or Kazuya to safety.
<You see her, reduced to Hate? When you are like us, Hate and Love are emotions all the same, the strength is all that matters. But you feel different don't you, young girl? If you can still Love when surrounded by Hate, then it must be stronger than any other emotion,> the Frostfarer mused.
Miyako
[] You've read this fanfiction before, haven't you. Wonder whether he will romance Hoshizora or Arisugawa, not that it matters of course but that's what you would have done if you were to have emotions.
Really? This feels like an inciting incident to me. Blue Lotus's calm now that he's escaped makes him feel in control of the situation, by anime logic if nothing else.
Okay, let me amend my statement. I don't see him sticking around as a member of Miyako's harem. (Or just long term in general as anything but an antagonist.)
Okay, let me amend my statement. I don't see him sticking around as a member of Miyako's harem. (Or just long term in general as anything but an antagonist.)
] You've read this fanfiction before, haven't you. Wonder whether he will romance Hoshizora or Arisugawa, not that it matters of course but that's what you would have done if you were to have emotions.