Ni no Kuni 2 is adorable and incredibly charming but the writing is stupid and because I heard from my friend how ridiculous this game was, my expectations have been adjusted accordingly
The fact that Evan is creating a kingdom run by people he just likes without screening them is hilarious, to say nothing of the fact that he just ditches his initial kingdom and just decides to build a new one instead of reclaiming Ding Dong Dell, like yes Evan, appoint the guy who lost his forest in a gambling match as your minister of finance, I’m sure it’ll go well
This game almost feels like a parody of itself at times and it’s fucking incredible, I’m having a blast lmao
oh no i just realized that bellamy was sitting and crying there alone in the same place he choked clarke during the eclipse and told her “i don’t need you anymore” but he does need her and he never got to say it to her i-
He knows he needs to burn it. All it takes is a snap; it hurts, pulling that Hellfire out of his fingertips, like the ignition of a Hand Of Glory, but it’s the one way to assure that even an angel’s words can’t be resurrected by a miracle.
He can’t. Not quite yet.
I dream of a time when we might ignore the summons of our superiors, the imperatives of our respective sides, the clamour of the world itself. When we might cease to play a game within another game, as it’s come to seem to me. Who would we be if those strings were cut? If we were nothing more than two gentlemen, taking the air in St. James’ Park, or sharing a box at the Royal Opera? We would walk arm in arm, or place our feet up on the fender on a damp night while we warmed ourselves with a good claret.
How many years has he slept? When he drifts toward waking, he’ll sense that weeks have passed, then months. He’s felt the hair brush his jawline as he shifts in the enormous bed; the next time the clouds of sleep part briefly, it’s reached his shoulders. But the letter’s still in his hand.
He should burn it, before Hell decides to pay a call.
He can’t.
I cannot say when my regard for you grew into a bond of true affection. Attachments arise from custom, yet no such communion has ever grown from associations with my own kind; common ends make comrades, yet all we have in common arises from our charge to thwart one another. I know only that there came to be a time when the sound of your voice was more cherished than any music; when I came to know the turn of your foot, the tilt of your head, out of a multitude of thousands.
When did you become dear, so dear, to me?
When did the letter arrive? Fifty years ago? Sixty? Not long after Paris. He told himself then that he’d wait a day, a week; later, that it was safe to hide it at the bottom of a chest, or tucked between the pages of a book. Kept it as things became more dangerous, the angel’s manner more brusque and fretful.
Needless to say, we shall not speak of this when we meet again. We dare not. I only need to know that I have spoken, the once, before courage fails me.
When did things change?
The sun’s coming in at an autumn angle. There’s the sound of early traffic in the street below: here a costermonger’s wagon, there one of the new Hansom “safety cabriolets.” He’d imagined sharing one with the angel – a brief space of privacy, two gentlemen going to adjacent destinations. In safety, with no one to see a quick handclasp.
Their hands had all but touched in the park. He’d burnt thatnote.
Words are poor things. I say this from within an edifice of words. I walk between aisles of words, like the aisles of trees in an old forest; I dwell in the house of words. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Her. Words are the currency of my existence. And yet they fail when I need them most.
Do you remember how Plato compared the knowledge of ourselves to the image reflected in another’s eye? I only feel I truly exist when I see myself in your perfect eyes, the pupilla reflected in that rarely-revealed darkness, that must exist to define the light.
It’s been a long time since he’s risked setting aside the smoked glasses, even for a moment. He tries to avoid seeing his own reflection without them. Your perfect eyes.
It is madness to write this, I know, and greater madness to send it, and you must destroy it once read, but I have spent the evening in writing sterile dispatches – a soul turned to charity here, Her grace accepted there. And all I can feel is the slow ebb of grace in my own soul, the dissolution of faith in a Plan, until I cross your path again and am reminded that is is your – I can hear you scoff, but – your grace which I crave.
He should burn it.
What if we had our own Plan? What if everything we did, we did on our own? Needing nothing and no one but each other? If we came to rest, would you rest beside me?
I know it for folly, but I dream of a garden – nothing so grand as Hers, with nothing like so high a wall – and a tree in it, and we should eat of the fruit together. It would be the tree, not of knowledge, but of forgetfulness, where we would set aside the old rules and make our own. We could lie side by side beneath it, and watch the sun through the branches.
I don’t know where, or how, that could happen. But before you reduce this letter to ash, dream of it with me.
He’s dreamed of nothing else, since he fell into sleep. He hears other words when he drifts towards wakefulness. You are Fallen. Fraternising.
The sun’s hot on his face now. He holds the sheet of foolscap to the bare skin of his chest, as if the words could enter into his heart by some alchemical diffusion. The page would be left blank, but the message would remain.
It’s all he has. If I lay here, would you lie with me?
As long as the letter exists, they’re together. The words aren’t spoken. They haven’t parted.
out of curiosity. when stede brings ed tea in ep 7 and ed’s like “oh that’s perfect, you got it just right.” do you think ed just likes the way stede normally makes tea or is he approving of the way stede has perfected making their tea the way ed normally likes it.
before stede, ed’s always drunk his tea black.
that’s just been the way of it. has been since he was a kid, since tea could be had and sugar couldn’t. even if they had it, no one would waste seven sugars on a boy like edward teach. then he’s on ships, drinking grog more than tea anyway, and everything’s rationed again. a bit of milk and a couple of sugars for a deck hands tea is about as likely as a handful of diamonds.
edward teach grows up, though.
blackbeard is the sort of captain who can have a fistful of diamonds, and a dollop of milk and seven sugars as well, if he likes. but one thing ed’s always been good at is becoming what the situation calls for – he can be a devil or a god both, depending on who’s asking; he can be a navigator or a negotiator or a dramatist, depending on which way the winds are blowing.
the situation never calls for softness. the indulgence of a pirate captain isn’t had in comforts.
but then there’s stede bonnet, and stede bonnet is a bastard in a silk dressing gown, an enigma with gold curls and a library full of books he doesn’t even realise are special. many times, he says he’s read them, and ed can’t even imagine the indulgence of it – the timeall that reading must have taken, pissed away in nothing but stories. he reads to his crew every night, lets them share in the stories. ed sits next to him and smokes his pipe, and if he sometimes rests a hand on stede’s thigh, or a shoulder, or even his head, well. he still wears his sword and his gun, and the crew says nothing.
stede says everything. it’s incredible how much stede says; it’s incredible how much he has to say. he chatters constantly about what he’s doing, where he’s going, what decisions need to be made, how he’s making them. after a week ed gets used to it. after two, he craves it. misses the noise when it’s gone.
tea?he says, and then when ed says yes, milk and sugar?
nah, ed replies, automatic, but then – why not? actually, do it like you do.
stede smiles, the kind of smile he smiles when he’s got a secret, or when he’s sharing one. ed isn’t sure which it is; maybe both. he stirs in a dollop of milk and two sugars, and when he hands the cup to ed, it’s almost good.
huh, ed says, looking down at the cup. i’ve never really had this with milk and sugar before.
what, never? stede takes a sip of his own. takes a bit of the edge off it, i think. is it good?
tea’s never been good, per se. ed has drunk it for the ritual of it, for the heat, for the boost to his brain, but it’s not good.
almost, ed says now. sure.
stede waves a careless hand at the tea service lucius had laid out for them on the table. go on, then. make it however you like.
ed almost says he doesn’t know how he’d like, but perhaps that’s still too big of something to say. he stands at the tea service and sneaks sugars into his tea, one by one, until he finally takes a sip and thinks, ah. now i get it.
when he sits back down on the settee, his aching knee propped up by a pillow, stede is watching him, his grin turned almost smug. what?ed asks.
seven sugars, stede says, with not a little cheek. still just the dollop of milk?
oh sod off, i just–
stede laughs. not at all, no, no. i just wanted to know, you know. in case i ever was making you a cuppa.
oh. well. that’s all right then, isn’t it? ed takes a sip of his tea, running his tongue over his teeth; there’s almost a slurry of sugar at the bottom, but he likes it, likes the bite of it. the sharp sweetness reminds him of stede himself – derangement in a silk dressing gown.
yeah,ed says, meeting stede’s gaze in the firelight. yeah, all right then. dollop of milk. seven sugars. and you take yours with two. just, you know. in case it’s ever me making the cuppa.
stede’s smile crinkles his eyes at the corners. ed feels the warmth of the tea all the way down into his chest, and the sweetness, too.
plot twist: the grand inquisitor really does die and in the next episode we meet the NEW grand inquisitor, his brother with a taller narrower head played by jason isaacs
Again you all are missing the point, and missing out on the true comedy of this novel which is: for as strangely cheerful as Jonathan is he IS genre savvy and he DOES think something horrible might happen to him. The last two entries ended with him hoping desperately he’ll get to see his family again. Not the words of someone unaware of the danger he’s in. The comedy of Dracula is how he looks at the warning signs, SEES them, and his reaction is just to be like “:/. I guess this what I signed up for when I became a real estate agent. Should I have seen this coming?” Like this man is willing to risk joining the legions of the undead if that’s where his line of work takes him. Furthermore his naturally buoyant spirit heightens the comedy bc his mind is like “Am I about to die? Man I love my fiance she’s the best! Am I about to die? These mountains are gorgeous! Am I about to die? These locals are so kindhearted! Am I about to die? This chicken is really good! Am I about to die? My boss likes me!!! Am I about to die?
