SPEAKING of Lance/Will (Wataru/Itsuki, whatever), it appears that it's ACTUALLY A THING and not just something I spontaneously decided to ship and write about for no reason, so HORRAY?
There's no reason to ship this at all, but I don't care, canon be damned
This is SUPER old--like, written in the dorms during early college old--but the idea of it is still pretty cool to me. It's a darker interpretation of psychic-type Pokemon: training them can be incredibly dangerous, as they have the power to utterly mindfuck anyone who messes with them. There's also the fact that the Elite Four are essentially the law-wielders of the Pokemon universe and that Lance is, well, the king of everything.
So, this is a very quick thing about Will (mask-wearing Elite Four member from GSC/HGSS) and Lance (DRAGONMAN) with both of those things in mind. It's not glorious, and I'm tempted to rewrite it, but what the heck--it's oldfic time.
Slight Will/Lance (Masqueradeshipping), but it's not too crazy.
Fade
He hadn’t become a master--he hadn't even come close to earning the right to challenge me--but the boy had defeated enough of the Elites to stand among us, in the very least.
Such was the way of things.
I found it rather surprising—he was younger than I by just a few years, I could tell with a glance. He stood proudly before the Elites, Agatha and Bruno among them, both smiling. I remained a distance behind, as I always did, merely surveying and looking as proud as I could manage. My Dragonair curled itself into a coil on the floor at my feet and I rested a hand upon her smooth head.
The newcomer was small by comparison to all the others. Slim, well-dressed in a black suit and red tie, his violet mess of hair smoothed down as though he’d tried a bit too hard to keep it under control for the occasion. He beamed widely. I could sense his pride.
They all smiled like that, the newly-admitted to the League.
Leaning against the pearly white pillar of the League’s Kanto headquarters, I heard bits and pieces of the conversation, but nothing beyond the congratulations I’d heard so many times before. Welcome, you’ve done well, your strength is impressive.
Bruno called him William, but he protested immediately:
“No, do call me Will.”
He peered through the gathered Elites and his eyes caught mine, and then he smiled. A different smile, something shy. I nodded stiffly in acknowledgement and looked away from him.
I gazed, instead, at Dragonair. Her eyes, the deepest blue, forever calm. She stared back, then settled her head down against the coil of her body, eyes drifting shut.
The welcoming ceremony began to disperse. Lorelei told the boy to explore as he pleased, his initiation would begin near the day’s end. And then they left him, as they always did, all knowing that I’d only make my grand introduction after they’d all disappeared.
They knew this worked--my image, my name: Lance, the Dragon Master, required its own kind of ceremony. I appreciated their endless cooperation.
William gazed around, eyes wide, jaw slightly hung. For the first time, I saw his Pokémon—a Gardevoir drifted out from behind him as though she'd been his shadow, utterly silent, her gaze calm and empty and leveled straight at me. I felt a momentary pulse of unease course through my blood.
A psychic-type, in the company of this wide-eyed boy…?
William strode to the west end of the pavilion and knelt at the edge of the fountain there. His Gardevoir followed him slowly--her eyes left mine and she stared at the ground like a mourner at a funeral. No less uneasy, I strode away from the pillar, my face set in uncompromising seriousness—such is to be expected of the highest-ranked Champion of the League, of course.
William turned, wiped a strand of violet hair from his eyes and blinked at me. I smiled thinly, nodding to him.
“Welcome to the League, my friend,” I said proudly, and the honor seemed to swell in him again.
“I thank you, sir,” he said, and bowed his head. “I am honored to have come this far…”
I did not hear whatever else it was he said after that, his Gardevoir stared at me again, gaze calm as Dragonair’s--but then, for but a second, they flashed with utter malice and spite.
A warning?
My passive expression twitched and faded. William looked at me expectantly. For the first time in years, I suddenly fumbled with words in front of a new Elite.
“…you… are fond of… psychic types, then…?”
William’s smooth-featured face lit up, a glimmer in his eyes. He smiled widely. “Fond of? Ah—perhaps.” He peered at me a moment, then continued, “…you think they are as dangerous as they’re rumored to be?”
Again I almost struggled to answer. The Gardevoir's eyes, calm and vacant, did not leave me. “…perhaps not dangerous, though difficult to train and master. There are, of course, always the rumors. People have gone mad, they say.”
“Says the dragon master,” William continued to smile at me. He seemed to gain a hint of confidence and raised a finger, tilting his head and chiding, “People have been burned to a crisp, you know. And frozen!”
I attempted to smile good-naturedly. “…of course. It is all a matter of respecting them. I am certain you understand that, William.”
The violet-haired youth nodded. He turned his back to me, placing his hands on the small shoulders of his Gardevoir, who, as if on cue, turned away from me to meet its trainer’s gaze. “A matter of mutual respect. Right, Gardevoir…?”
And their gazes met. William smiled brightly, the Gardevoir did not blink, impassive, calm, her body unmoving. I felt the unease in me grow—they stared, and for a moment William seemed to forget my presence, the focus lost in his eyes, the corners of his lips twitching with the smile…
“Oh, and… please call me Will, sir.”
~*~
I don’t remember exactly when he began to wear the mask.
At first it was something of a wild joke. William put one black mask on the face of his Gardevoir and another on his own, parading around and startling the rest of the elites. His behavior had been odd before, and everyone tended to humor him. Even Agatha, despite her usual impatience with our younger trainers, uneasily dismissed him with a strained smile.
Then he came to meetings wearing the mask. He always smiled discreetly at me before taking his seat, and I was so hard-pressed to keep my composure.
When he comes to our meetings wearing the mask, now, he smiles at no one but the sky, says nothing, gaze far-off through the dark little eyeholes.
In the hallways of the pavilion at night, I hear him speaking aloud, alone in his room. I only pause briefly to listen. It’s nonsense, all of it, complete incoherence. Frowning, I pass, dismissing it as sleep-talk.
We all understand the pressure of remaining an Elite. Lorelei has her nightmares, too, and Bruno has destroyed more than one of our imposing stone monuments in a fit of anger.
William remains capable as a trainer, his psychic types inspiring superstitious fear in many of his challengers--and many of the Elites around him. He keeps to himself, now, for the most part, either in his private quarters or walking along near the fountain where I’d met him, humming, his Gardevoir behind him.
I approach him one day, but not without the Gardevoir halting mid-air behind William and turning to stare at me. I know it is a warning, now. I glare sharply back at the Pokémon and turn to William, who doesn’t seem to see me.
“William,” I say quietly, attempting to speak simply. Conversation between colleagues, nothing more. “Have you considered, at all, what was discussed at the last meeting? The reports concerning this… Team Aqua…?”
He shakes his head without looking at me, still pacing back and forth near the fountain, a tune upon his lips and the black mask tied back across his face.
It occurs to me that I hadn’t seen his real face in years.
“I would appreciate your input for the next meeting, William. We haven't faced something like this since Team Rocket's reign under Giovanni."
Again, nothing. I can feel the Gardevoir's threatening gaze, calm and deceptively passive as ever.
William pauses in his pacing, tilting his head back to smile up at the sky. “Very well, Lance,” he says. The mask’s shadow falls over his eyes.
I nod. This is the end of our conversation as colleagues, I know. This is the end of all I should have to say to him. But I stand for a moment, gazing at him. My chest tightens and I feel myself holding my breath.
Many moments pass, and finally, my voice a harsh whisper and quavering with the slightest hint of… of something, I snap, “William. William, look at me.”
He doesn’t. Instead, on cue again, he looks sidelong at his Gardevoir, and she looks back at him. William’s lips twitch, holding that steady smile.
“William," I say again, and then I'm all but pleading with him. "Will!”
And finally he turns to look at me, the gentle smile still there, the mask over his face and mess of violet hair hanging over his eyes.
I cannot help myself.
I reach out, I tug the mask from his face, my fingers rough against his cheek and he--nothing. He does nothing.
I feel cold. Will holds the same gaze as the creature hovering beside him like a haunting spectre. Passive. Empty.
Gone. Will is gone.
I back several steps away.
“Never mind it," I tell him. "I will--I will see you at the next discussion, then. Good luck with any challengers you should face, William. I'm sorry--”
Gardevoir's head tilts, and Will's mirrors the motion immediately, like a puppet--
"--I'm so sorry."
I turn before I see his response—I doubt he will make one, in any case. I stride down the hall, away from him and the gaze of Gardevoir, away from them both, but the tightness remains in my chest and I clench my fists.
A matter of mutual respect.
I go to my corridor, and down to my personal chamber. My Dragonair is coiled outside the door and peers up at me curiously. I resist looking at her for a moment, thrusting open my door, but I pause at the threshold to look down.
And the rage leaves me, draining away, replaced by something hollow, empty.
I sink to my knees and curl my arms gently around Dragonair's neck, shutting my eyes against her smooth, cold scales.
So with all the Koltira reblogs showing up on my dashboard, I went digging through my email and found this. I think this was from about a year ago? I had just done the Andorhal quest chain and felt kind of sad when it was all done with. We have a few DK characters in our RP and it led to a lot of...
Talon Theme - Final Fantasy Legend III (aka the fake FF series on original game boy)
Ladies and gentlemen, the GREATEST 8-bit tune EVER in the HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE. I will accept no arguments to this fact. This is the motherfucking Talon theme.
The game itself was really good, too. But the soundtrack--omfg.
This is basically the soundtrack to the most important moment of my childhood. I can't remember a moment in my video game history in which I felt like more of a SUPREME, INDOMITABLE BADASS than when I defeated that smug-as-all-hell, sonofabitch Rival Blue and became Champion of the Pokemon League. The ending theme, too, of course.
Remembering how much this affected me is a reminder of how powerful the experiences in games can be. :)
Actually… that’s not far from wrong. Women were very limited in the roles available to them in society. Sorry, y’all. You can’t view a historical time period with your post 1960’s “I can be a person and have a vagina! I know, right?” attitude. That’s kind of really inappropriate and judging another culture, which I know none of you would ever do on purpose.
Some of the comments posted below the main article are ignorant though. That’s not up for really up for debate. Kitchen joke… really?
I don’t know. They have a point about Assassin’s Creed being a historically-based game series. Just like Dante’s Inferno is a true-to-script retelling of the poem. They should have taken a risk and deviated from the truth a little in deference to the minorities that play their game.
I have faith that they would have done it just fine! She would have worn sensible, time-appropriate clothing, been decently proportioned, and there would have been no Tumblr wank about her being oversexualized to market to the 90% male fan base.
Assassin's Creed, as a series, portrayed Leonardo Da Vinci as homosexual, up to and including a DLC in which Ezio accompanies Salai, his lover, on a rescue mission to save the famed inventor,
AC3 has a main character who is, in part, Native American. We have no visibility into how this will play out or be handled thus far, but fan expectation was initially that the player character would be a (white, male) colonist. The actual direction/premise of the character is a strong step in its own right (delivering on this premise to be determined)!
There are many strong female characters in the franchise. Caterina and Claudia come to mind first. Claudia, in particular, is often the target of Ezio's doubts, but she proves him ignorant and coddling time and time again.
Minor notes, but my main point is, if you want to rage about discrimination of any kind in a video game franchise, Assassin's Creed isn't really the place to be doing it.
tangentwithtanner
areudirty
annaxmalina
