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inflamearc · 1 year

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i'd never rec anyone read the diary, for lots of reasons, BUT. talking to dana about how best to introduce laura as a character (media-wise, not rp-wise) has really kind of highlighted what the movie (which, make no mistake, i love) falls short of doing - which is to say, as i more or less have before, it's not a character overview. it's about the last week of laura's life, and only about that, and that's fine, BUT it leaves a person who might not be inclined to seek out Extra Material quite grievously lacking in context about laura's motivations, not just in dying but also in her general behavior.

most notably that she's often pretty cruel to the people close to her.

firstly, i'm not concerned with laura's 'likability' or lack thereof: there's a difference in a blatant lack of empathy/sympathy for what someone goes through and in, like, enjoying dealing with that person, and only one of those things is an actual problem. i don't think anyone should be held accountable for seeking out All The Canon Material before reacting to it (not least because a lot of it is frankly incredibly dull, not even mentioning the potential trigger-fest) but i do think a lot of people would feel a lot differently if they understood what's going on in her head.

“...and he swore his love to me again and again until he finally realized that I cannot love anything right now. Falling in love is like holding a white flag out to your enemies and saying, 'We give up, we're in love, love is surrender.' I can't do that until I know for certain that BOB is really dead. Until there is a corpse that I can kick as many times as I please. God, I hope that day comes soon." - April 7, 1987

mainly that her abuser is perceived as being actually omnipotent. he's not, of course, even if you're very into the Bob As Literal And Singular Entity of it all, but laura doesn't know that. why would she? she sees him all the time. she's seen him appear in places no regular person could just Show Up. she thinks on some level that she's crazy, yes, but it's the 1980s AND it's in the middle of nowhere. she has no support and she has no concept of what she's actually dealing with.

like many abuse victims, laura comes to realize that bob is threatened by other people's influence over her, and 'lack of impulse control' is pretty much his entire thing. unlike many abuse victims, laura isn't capable of being, like, "i care about x, so i simply will not talk about them in front of y, so we will all be safer": she thinks he is always able to see her (eventually, due to The Hallucinations, she suspects that he can even read her mind). this leads laura to take a kind of very "you always hurt the ones you love" approach to all of her relationships. she genuinely believes that the more callous she is, that the more cause she gives others to doubt her and even hate her, the safer they will be. she's entirely aware of this, too; like, it's a very conscious decision that she makes when she's fourteen, and that volatility increases in severity parallel to... well, everything else. she would rather die knowing that some of the people she cares about most in the world might never understand that than risk any of them --- or anyone at all, really --- being hurt due to her propensity for Caring A Lot. and it's something she has to train herself to do, very diligently, because it is laura's natural inclination to connect with people! take care of people!

(i fling these capped pages to you from the original entry About It --- august 3, 1985) and then i go take a nap, or have a cry, or both)

#the film also plays down laura's feelings for ronette but i think people expect THAT at least. anyway.#study.

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logray · 4 years

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Equating 'starting down the path to the Dark Side' with becoming pissed once, is as good as saying every person in the history of every galaxy is gonna be dominated by the dark side forever. And Leia would have gone over to it about 32746857836 times over Luke. And Rey too. Luke does not deserve to feel "Shame" or be saddled with a bad-guy plot contrivance because at one point in a throne room of 2 most evil ppl in the galaxy, he didn't just lay down and die. Fuck the sequels forever.

“BECOMING PISSED ONCE” AKSDJFGKHHJ????

yeah guys remember the original Star Wars trilogy where Luke famously... became pissed once? in all the films? king what in the genuine fuck are you talking about

do you think Luke’s arc (which revolves around the fact that he nearly becomes evil) shows that he’s just as likely as any other fucking random person to become corrupted by the Dark Side? like I’m begging you to look me in the eye and tell me that based on the events of the original trilogy and the sequel trilogy Luke is LESS LIKELY THAN LEIA to give in to the Dark Side

never mind that Luke was giving into his Dark impulses and having visions of himself as an evil villain midway through the second movie before he had even met Darth Vader and didn’t know they were related? you remember that scene on Dagobah right or am I having hallucinations and delusions

never mind that when he “became pissed once” (ajsdfkgjhkh) in the Emperor’s throne room he was doing EXACTLY what the Emperor was taunting him into doing -- allowing himself to be corrupted by the Dark Side. like he went into the throne room with the verbally expressed attitude of “I am not going to fight you because fighting you is a Dark Side behaviour” and then eventually he does exactly that because he is struggling with Dark Side impulses and acts upon them

and I’m not even talking about ~nearly~ giving in to the Dark Side, he doesn’t get Very Close to being Bad but actually decide to do a good thing instead. He does the bad thing!!! Fighting Vader and nearly killing him is ACTIVE Dark Side behaviour that is stated as villainous within the explicit text of the films. he gets dangerously close to going Full Vader-Level Villain Mode and then stops himself midway through because he identifies the actions he’s currently doing as Dark Side Bad Actions

and never mind that when he stops himself and throws away his lighsaber it’s very explicitly his rejection of the Dark Side, not just rejection of... the emperor’s job offer lol

like, do you think that when he doesn’t kill Vader he only stops himself because he doesn’t want to do what the Emperor wants? or because he thinks it’s mean and is embarrassed that he got so angry? or because he just doesn’t fancy being the emperor’s apprentice?

like do you really think the thematic climax of the entire trilogy is that shallow and petty aksdfjhgkg? his narrative and thematic arc over the movies explicitly relates to his impulse to give in to the Dark Side and his active decision not to even after he’s let it corrupt him. the entire POINT OF THE MOVIES is that he is pretty shit at rejecting the Dark Side and even ends up giving in to it but in the eleventh hour realises he’s better than that and decides to embrace the Light instead. this isn’t subtext by the way it’s just the explicit text of the movie. they even colour coded his outfit in the film to make it easier for you to understand as a viewer and made a little bit of white peek out from his all-back costume at the end to demonstrate visually that even though he had been manipulated into becoming a Boy Behaving Badly he was now Nice Again Yay

but even that is never established as him being like... free from the Dark Side, or incorruptible now, or wholly a heroic nice boy, obviously he’s still gonna fucking struggle, especially since he already dabbled in the Dark Side once before, and especially in times of intense fear or anger

like Yoda states outright that fear of loss is a path to the dark side, and says directly out loud to the audience that fear is a slippery slope to even more fucked up things like anger and hate and suffering

and Luke senses darkness within Ben Solo and knows with absolute certainty that he will LOSE (capitalised for emphasis) everything he cares about and has built, and because fear of loss is a path to the Dark Side and also he’s literally been struggling with the Dark Side for the past like 30 years and was 0.5 seconds away from becoming an evil villain at one point in time, he has the Dark Side impulse to kill Ben but realises straight away that that’s really fucked up actually and stops himself because as we established in the previous trilogy, he is better than that

and he feels ashamed of it because... of course he fucking did it was bad... but he’s presented sympathetically and we’re meant to understand based on what we know about him as a character and his personal history lmao. he’s never presented as a villain by the movie for that, just as someone who nearly made a bad choice, which by the way is BETTER than his behaviour in Return of the Jedi, where he actively MADE the bad choice and then midway through was like oof lol whoops

in fact Yoda even tells him directly in the same film that mistakes and failures are opportunities for reflection and growth and his failure with Ben and his impulse to kill his nephew are clear in-text examples of that exact theme (the main theme of the film) and you as an audience are meant to understand that Luke very nearly making a fucked up choice is less important than the lesson he learned from it

like... that’s not a bad-guy plot contrivance? it’s a central theme of the original trilogy being explored in more depth in The Last Jedi but you either half-watched Return of the Jedi or don’t know how to identify themes in films even when they’re spoken directly to the camera because you seem to think Luke Sometimes Behaves In Bad Ways And Makes Fucked Up Choices is like... new information in TLJ lmao WHAT????

“BECOMING PISSED ONCE” I’m gonna kill myself bye

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sylvanfreckles · 4 years

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Hallucinations (FebuWhump 11)

Fandom: Supernatural

Summary: When Cas chose to be human to stay with Dean they all knew he'd have a hard road ahead adjusting to his new life. Sam is only now discovering just how hard that road is.

(Look, I had a rough day, I needed some self-indulgent angsty destiel fluff. You know how it is.)

(Read on AO3)

* * *

The first time Sam realized something was wrong, he'd followed the sound of frying bacon into the bunker's kitchen, not at all surprised to find his brother at the stove. Dean glanced back over his shoulder. “Hey, Sammy. What time you guys get in?”

“After two,” Sam groaned. There was a full carafe of coffee next to a stack of clean mugs, and he eagerly poured a mug for himself and contemplated just sticking his face in. “We miss anything?”

“Eh, same old-same old,” Dean shrugged. He twisted to slide the bacon out of the pan onto a plate on the kitchen island behind and Sam nearly spat out a mouthful of coffee in shock.

“Dude, what the hell happened?” Sam blurted. At Dean's questioning glance he pointed to the side of his face—the same spot where Dean had a dark bruise spreading across his cheekbone.

“Oh,” shaking his head dismissively, Dean turned back around to peek at something in the oven. “Cas.”

This time Sam tried to swallow the coffee, but it was a little too hot and a little too much and he ended up coughing and pounding at his sternum to try to clear his throat. “Cas?”

There was just no way. Castiel, former angel-of-the-lord, who'd given up nearly limitless power to live a quiet, human life with Dean. Cas, who Sam had caught smuggling spiders out of the bunker instead of killing them. The one who'd come home without his coat more often than not because he always saw someone who needed it more. There was no way he was hurting Dean...was there?

“Don't go all Lifetime movie on me, Sammy,” Dean complained. “Dude had a nightmare and woke up swinging. I didn't duck in time, that's all.”

“Dean...”

“Don't make it a big deal,” the older Winchester snapped, pointing a spatula at his brother. “He's been through enough shit in his life, he doesn't need you piling more guilt on him.”

Sam held his free hand up and backed away to lean against the counter. “Does it...does that happen a lot?”

“Comes and goes,” Dean shrugged. “Not like he can help it.” He tugged a tray of cinnamon rolls out of the oven and dropped them on the stovetop. “Hey, let Cas and Eileen know breakfast's ready, all right?”

“We need to talk about this, Dean.”

“We always need to talk about everything,” he retorted. “It's fine, Sam. I'm fine, Cas's fine, you're fine. I'd say Eileen's fine but you'd get the wrong idea and beat my ass.”

Sam snorted. “Real mature, dude.”

“Yeah, but you love me for it,” Dean grinned and winked. “Now shoo, you know how Eileen gets when the bacon gets cold.”

* * *

The second time, Sam had found an opportunity to have a private talk with Cas about everything. Dean and Eileen were holed up in the training room sparring—she needed to test her skills against a stronger opponent, and he always welcomed the chance to try to match her speed. Cas was sitting sideways on one of the couches on the balcony overlooking the war room, an Audubon guide to birds open in his lap.

“Hey, man, can we talk for a second?”

Cas flinched and tried to cover it up with a smile, pulling his legs in so Sam had room to sit down. “Of course. I always enjoy...talking to you.”

Sam tried to smile when he sat down, though Cas's first reaction had him concerned. “I just wanted to know how you're handling things. Being human, being here with Dean, stuff like that.”

The dark-haired man's eyes lowered, focusing on the way his finger traced the edges of the pages of the book he was holding. “I'm satisfied with my choice, Sam. I will never regret choosing your brother.”

“That's not what I mean,” Sam shook his head and turned in his seat so he was facing Cas. “I mean life, emotions...frustration? Anger? You haven't always had a great track record with that kind of stuff.”

Cas wouldn't meet his eyes. He closed his birdwatching guide and hugged it close to his chest, drawing up his knees so he was curled on the end of the couch as far away from Sam as he could get. God, he looked like he was ready to make a run for it. “This is about Dean?”

Sam let out a sigh. “It's about both of you. Look, you've only been human for a few months, and Dean's never had a long-term partner before. I just want to make sure things are...okay?”

“It was a mistake,” Cas replied. He finally looked up at Sam, his expression twisted with grief. “I didn't know...I didn't know he was there, and I thought I was...”

Dammit, this wasn't how Sam wanted this talk to go. He'd just meant to have a lighthearted conversation, make sure Cas was coping with humanity (and Dean), maybe pass on some tips for battling the nightmares. Instead he was about to make his pseudo-brother-in-law cry (really, the handfasting ceremony had been lovely, but with both spouses legally dead there was no way Sam or Dean were actually married).

“Hey, hey, it's okay,” Sam leaned forward and rested one hand on the other man's knee. “I know it was an accident. I just wanted to know if there was any way I could help.”

Cas's shoulders relaxed, but he shook his head. “I'm fine, Sam.”

* * *

The third time, they'd been trying to have a movie night. Dean had apparently been teaching himself ASL while Sam and Eileen were gone, though he'd only learned obscene phrases and jokes at Sam's expense. They were watching some mindless action flick, the kind where the cars had stunt doubles, the men had muscles bursting out of their sleeves, and the women wore scandalously impractical clothing for all the fist-fighting they were doing on the backs of eighteen-wheelers.

The hero of the story had taken a two-by-four to the jaw, and miraculously walked away with nothing worse than a couple of cracked molars. But it seemed the villains had infiltrated the friendly neighborhood dentist, and as soon as the hero showed up to have his teeth repaired they had him tied down to the chair in the exam room.

Dean lunged for the remote and snapped the television off. “Shit. Hey, Sunshine, you okay?”

Cas was staring ahead blankly. His hands, resting on his knees, were coiled into fists, his jaw clenched so tightly a muscle was twitching. Dean frantically waved Sam and Eileen away and knelt on the floor in front of Cas, looking up at him but not touching.

“You're here with me,” Dean said calmly. “Come on, man. Come back to me. I'm right here in front of you.”

Sam could see that Cas was shaking. He moved to grab the blanket from the back of the couch but Dean shook his head. “Don't touch him. He doesn't know we're here right now.”

The younger Winchester hesitated. “Do you want some water?”

“Shh!” Dean hissed. “He knows me. He can follow me back.”

Wrapping his arms around his stomach, Sam settled on the arm of one of the big recliners. Eileen leaned against him and he moved one arm to wrap around her shoulders, resting his chin on top of her head.

“I'm still here, Sunshine. You know me. You found my soul in the pits of Hell, you can find your way back out of this.”

Minutes passed. Maybe hours. Then something in Cas's eyes changed, like he was actually focusing on the world in front of him. Dean broke into a broad smile. “There's my Sunshine.”

Cas stared at him, then down to where his hands were curled into fists. “I don't...”

“Hey,” Dean held his hands up, hovering just a few inches over Cas's knees. “Okay to touch?”

The former angel stared at Dean's hands blankly for a moment, then threw himself off the couch into Dean's arms, hands clutching at the back of Dean's shirt hard enough that Sam could see the fabric crease from where he was sitting.

“Whoa, that's a yes,” Dean teased. “I'm still here, Sunshine. Right here.”

* * *

Sam finally cornered Dean after, when Cas had retreated to deal with the aftermath of his...episode...in private. “You call that fine?”

Dean sighed, his face suddenly lined with exhaustion. “Can you blame him? Dude's been through more shit than we'll ever see in our lifetimes, he's gonna have some blips here and there.”

“'Blips'?” Sam raked a hand through his hair. “Dean, he was catatonic.”

“Ah,” Dean held a finger up. “We call it Cas-atonic.”

“This isn't funny, Dean!”

“You think I don't know that?” Dean flung his arm out, gesturing vaguely toward the dormitories. “You think I don't wonder if he might not make it out some time? Jesus, Sammy, I like the nights he wakes up swinging. Sure as hell beats the nights he screams me awake and I can't break him out of the hell inside his head.”

Sam flinched and looked down. “Is it really that bad?” he asked quietly.

Dean let out a sigh and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “We're working on it. I'm starting to catch on to triggers, sometimes we can head them off. He Skypes with Mia every couple weeks, that's helping.”

“Mia?” Sam raised his eyebrows. “Isn't she the...”

“Shapeshifter therapist, yeah. Figured she might be the only one who'd understand the angel stuff was the normal bit.”

Sam nodded and folded his arms, leaning back against the wall. “And 'Sunshine'?”

Dean's cheeks reddened and he turned away to fiddle with something on the library table. “We needed a name. Something no one else called him, something from now. He said I called him that once and he liked it...but it's not something the rest of the angels knew about. So if he hears me call him Sunshine he knows he's here now, not back in...not back then.”

He wanted to ask when 'then' was, but his brother's body language was closing down. So Sam rubbed his hands together and pushed himself up instead. “Well, hey, what kind of movies are safest for him? We can have a do-over for movie night.”

His brother groaned. “How do you feel about rom-coms without an alpha bitch?”

* * *

The fourth time took Sam completely by surprise. They'd made a trip out to a secondhand bookstore—Dean and Eileen had squabbled the entire way over whether this was a double date or not, with Cas innocently suggesting that a date required food and Dean had promised he could pick the restaurant, and Sam stoutly refusing to take any part in the discussion—and it had started out as a nice trip. The bookstore was massive, so while Sam was looking for some older reference books (they were still replacing some of the volumes that had been damaged when the Stines infiltrated the bunker), Eileen looked for more practical map books and travel guides.

Cas had dragged Dean off to look at the nature section. He was fascinated with the ways humans categorized their world, and he and Dean had rearranged the library so Cas had an entire shelf for his motley collection of well-thumbed nature books.

“Oh, here, Sammy, carry mine,” Dean called as they were leaving, thrusting his bag at Sam.

“Carry your own,” Sam retorted, shoving them back. His bags were heavy enough, between what he and Eileen had picked out.

“They're not even mine, they're Cas's,” Dean shot back. “Don't you love your brother-in-law?”

“Don't you love your husband?” Sam shoved the bag back at Dean. Eileen walked between them at the moment and snatched both Dean's bag and Sam's bags.

She made eye contact with Cas and rolled her eyes. “Boys,” she announced haughtily, stepping into the street to cross toward the parking lot where Dean had left the Impala.

“Whoa, hey,” Sam caught her shoulder and tugged her back just as a sports car screamed around the corner, tires squealing. The driver hit a patch of gravel and spun out for a minute, scattering pieces of rock before their tires had traction again and the swerved off down the narrow road.

Eileen signed something rude in the direction of the speeding car. Sam mentally agreed, but checked over his shoulder to make sure Dean hadn't seen that particular phrase.

Dean was on the ground, Cas curled on top of him. The dark-haired man was completely rigid, arms and legs wrapped around Dean's body to hold him still, Dean's head tucked under his chin.

“Dean?”

“I'm okay,” Dean's muffled voice called. “Stay back...keep everyone back.”

Sam glanced around. The patio in front of the bookstore was basically deserted, and there were only one or two customers milling around inside the store.

“I'm okay, Sunshine.” Sam couldn't see Dean's face from here, though from the muffled tone he imagined it was pressed into Cas's chest. “I'm safe and you're safe. We're all here with you, Sunshine.”

Cas shuddered. “I can't...”

“Hey, hey, it's okay,” Dean managed to snake an arm out and wrap his hand around Cas's upper arm. “I'm right here. I love you, Sunshine. Remember?”

Cas's face crumpled and he went limp, and Dean slowly sat up and shifted them both so that Cas was sitting with his forehead resting on Dean's shoulder. “We're going home now,” Dean told him, rubbing a hand up and down Cas's back. “Eileen said she's gonna cook dinner tonight,” he added, winking up at Eileen.

She sank to a crouch and waited for Cas to look up at her. “Vegetarian chili.”

Dean gave a loud, theatrical groan that actually brought a faint smile to Cas's face. “Vegetarian?” he whined.

“You love it,” she teased back with her own wink. “You can make extra bacon in the morning.”

“Deal,” Dean pushed himself to his feet and held a hand down to help Cas up. “Let's go home, Sunshine.”

* * *

I hesitated about the I love you part, but I figured Dean knew that was one of the "now" phrases that would help Cas remember where and when he is.

It's past my bedtime. I hope you enjoyed my self-indulgent fluff and maybe some day I'll write a story where Cas is the partner taking care of Dean...although that's not my style :D

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italkaboutbooks · 4 years

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An in depth review of Aurora Rising//Part 2

If you haven’t already, read part one here.

So welcome to the second part of my ramblings about this novel. Last time, I talked about how chapters 18-24 were some of the most confusing and infuriating chapters I have ever read, and how I hated that.

I’m actually going to complain about it a little bit more in...

Pacing!

Aurora Rising’s pacing is...questionable at best. Bad at worst.

So the novel is split into three parts. You know how some novels have specific parts like part 1 and part 2? That’s used in Aurora Rising. Immediately, the three act structure comes to mind. I understand that it may be used for movies more but hear me out.

The basics of structure and pacing is that, by the end of the second act, you’re nearing the climax. Basically, the story should be increasing in tension, because the antagonist is usually at its most powerful at this point.

Aurora Rising doesn’t do that. Or maybe it just failed me and not you for some reason. But if you remember the end of part 2 aka chapters 18-24, you would know that the characters succeed. And what that success does, is lower the tension. Because the heroes won the battle and they’re feeling pretty confident. That doesn’t raise the stakes in my opinion. I feel like if Auri actually was taken, then there would be stronger stakes, but the pacing failed in that regard. So it’s another big complaint from me.

There’s nothing really remarkable about plot of pacing for me to comment on. So let’s go to the next part.

Characters

For this section, I am simply going to rank the main cast aka the squad, and tell you my thoughts about them. 7 being my least favourite character and 1 being my favourite. I’ll talk about their relationships which each other in a separate section.

7. Zila

Zila doesn’t have a personality. She is the stereotypical “smart” person in the group that doesn’t express emotion. Or in this case, has none. She’s a robot. She has no interests, no motivations, and we’re not given a backstory. She has nothing. I personally believe that the authors didn’t even care about her. They just added her there to be smart. That is all. She shows a smidgen of an arc near the end, but it’s not even the bare minimum. I wished the authors actually put effort into Zila because it’s obvious that they didn’t.

6. Tyler Jones

Tyler Jones is the definition of the bland white boy. He is one of the worst protagonists I have ever seen in a book. Why does he suck so much in my eyes? Because he’s perfect. He’s handsome, he’s good at everything, everyone likes him, and even if they don’t like him, they at least respect him. He never makes any mistakes, doesn’t have any flaws, and has dimples. He is infuriating.

Personally, I like flawed characters. That’s what makes characters and stories interesting. If you give me a character who essentially wins every battle, I will think that they are the most bland and boring person in existence. Your characters need flaws, especially your protagonist! Remember chapters 18-24? Yeah, another complaint about that part is making them succeed just makes Tyler more of a Mary Sue.

Also there’s a scene in chapter 12 where Tyler says he doesn’t want to kill a Terran because he’s a Terran and acts like killing his own kind is unheard of. ....Aurora has a lot of explaining to do for you buddy.

Tyler gets the second worst ranking because at least he is allowed to experience emotions, and the authors tried to give him an arc. (But does Tyler really have an arc? Because I didn’t see it.)

5. Cat

I have mixed feelings about Cat. I talked before about the arc that I thought she was going to have. And the arc she gets...well it’s kind of disappointing.

Cat’s character seems to be that she’s in love with Tyler (for some reason) but he rejected her and now she’s just trying to cope with it but doesn’t do it well. She dies, but dies knowing that Tyler actually loved her all along and I don’t really like it. But at the same time, I do?

See, when I read the ending of the book, I was sad. Cat died and I was sad because of that. I’ll give the book merit for that, (especially since I’ve been slandering it.) It made me care about a character’s death. But at the same time, I don’t like that Cat’s arc was essentially her getting over a man. It feels cheap to me. My idea for her arc was her learning to listen to others opinions more and make her more loyal, which is not dependent on a man. So I don’t straight up hate Cat, but I would make a lot of changes to her character and arc.

And also she’s kind of annoying. She’s says bloody way too often and I thought the authors did that so she could be “unique.” Apparently Cat’s Aussie...somehow. I’m so sorry to Australians everywhere, I’m sure you all don’t talk like Cat.

4. Scarlet Jones

I don’t really like Scarlet all that much, but I like her more than Cat. Here’s the thing: she’s immediately better than Tyler because she actually has flaws. Which I like. She cares about her friends and the squad members. She’s a sweetheart, and I like that. Her motivations are understandable in a way, but I also relate to them which kind of makes me hate her.

Also she does some questionable things that don’t make me hate her, they just confuse me, and creep me out. For starters, she has a list of all her exes. I don’t wanna judge her because I really don’t hate her, but that’s creepy. Also there’s a scene where she drugs two guys for their uniforms, and she takes them to a hotel room, and leaves her bra there, along with some kiss marks, to give to illusion that she had sex with them. She said something along the lines of “Gotta leave some evidence.”

First of all, that’s not how you commit a crime. (For legal reasons, this is a joke.) When you commit a crime, you make sure that there’s no evidence so that you don’t get caught. Second, leaving signs that these guys had sex with you tells them that they had sex with you under the influence. They didn’t give their consent, meaning you’re making them think that you raped them. And when you think about how males usually are the ones to drug and rape females, it just becomes even more questionable.

I also need to point out the fact that her name is Scarlet, and she has red hair. Wow. Amazing. So original. Aside from that though, she’s okay.

3. Kallis 🥉

Kal is a good character. He got the number three spot and I think he deserves it. I liked reading his POV chapters the most. It shows how he’s trying to hold back from his instincts to kill because that’s how he was raised. He’s a tsundere in ways. Cold and harsh on the outside, but deep down, he does care about the greater good. We don’t really get a warm side to him in the first book, but it’s there, I promise.

2. Aurora 🥈

Auri is baby, okay? She’s had to deal with loosing her family and life in one day. Even less than that. She had to deal with visions and hallucinations and new powers of telekinesis in a very short time. Home girl was going through some crap. But through all of that, she still manages to be a sweet girl. She’s never mean to the others, except for irritation at Kal. She tries her best to stay optimistic, and I think she went through the best arc in the group. (Although it’s kind of on the nose.) I love Auri and I think she deserves all the love.

1. Finian 🥇

Finian De Steel? Did you mean, the best character is Aurora Rising?

I love Fin with my entire heart. He is literally the best. He is so funny and snarky and easily has the best lines. But he’s also the most sympathetic in my opinion, along with Auri. You learn about his past and how people tend to treat him differently because he’s disabled, and how he has a hard time connecting with others despite wanting a connection with others so badly.

He’s a great character. I also think they represented his disability pretty well. He has an exosuit which makes him move, but it’s not treated as a cure. The suit gets damaged which affects Fin’s mobility, and he experiences pain because of it. So I think they did a good job with that. And he’s just awesome in general.

I understand that the humour in this book is pretty juvenile. However, some of Fin’s lines actually made me laugh and smile, and I usually don’t laugh or smile much. Humour is subjective and I’m not going to stand here and act like mine is the best. My sense of humour is bad puns and inside jokes between my family so...it was fine for me. Granted, Fin was the only character who actually was good at humour, so there.

Character Relationships

Yes, I think that this needs a section of its own.

Let’s start simple. Tyler and Scarlet. They’re both twins, with Scarlet being the older by like a minute. I think they were written pretty well as siblings, except for the fact that Scarlet calls Tyler her “baby brother” in her internal dialogue/narration including spoken dialogue. Siblings don’t call each other that, I promise you. As someone who has a sibling, reading fictional characters call each other that makes me cringe so much.

Then there’s Kal and Auri, who are essentially “soulmates” in a way by the end of the book. They aren’t canon or anything, it’s just extremely obvious that they’re endgame. Kal told Auri that she was essentially her mate and that they were fated to be together. Some people saw it as some Wolf alpha shiz, I saw it more as soulmates personally. I don’t think that they’re a bad pairing, it’s kind of cute sometimes. But to me, they don’t feel like two people who have feelings for each other. It just feels like a pairing that is usually a popular ship in fandoms.

The best way for me to describe it to you is this. When I see Kal and Auri together, I don’t think, “Oh these two characters have great chemistry. They could be romantic partners.” No, I think, “I feel like fans of this book ship them really hard.”

So in a way, their relationship may be cute, but it doesn’t feel real, because I’ll always see it as something the fans created and not the actual authors, which doesn’t even make sense to me. I’m not even trying to hate on shippers, this pairing just confuses me.

By bigger pet peeve is that the authors seem to want to pair up every other character, because by the end of the book, Fin and Scarlet seem to crush on each other. It’s really annoying when people think that romance is the end game.

I’ve also read reviews where the readers were upset at how heteronormative the couple pairings were. And I agree with them. While reading the book, I always thought Fin was gay. To me, he was coded as gay or bi. Also, there’s a scene where Tyler kisses Kal because a guard was about to catch them. Seeing how the book was released in 2019, I can see how LGBTQ+ readers were disappointed that their identities were used as a really cheap way for the characters to get out of a situation, and not give them actual representation.

(Personally, I wouldn’t mind if Tyler got caught, maybe then he could actually have consequences for his actions.)

But you see, these relationships are okay to me. Not perfect. Definitely room for improvement, but they don’t upset me. But the found family, aka the whole squad, disappointed me. Not enough to make me not want to get the sequel, but enough to make me write about it.

You see, what I was expecting was enemies to friends. Nobody wants to be in this squad, so they constantly argue and mess up their mission because of it. After some near death experiences and real stakes, they start to become friends until they actually see each other as family in a way.

But we don’t get that. At least, I didn’t feel like we got that. Because this found family feels forced to me.

Despite them not liking each other, they don’t argue. They give each other insulting banter, but that doesn’t count as actual differences of opinions. We’re not even shown them disagreeing with each other. We’re told in one of Auri’s chapters, but that’s not enough for me. And it doesn’t correlate with the fact that they didn’t fail a mission. Technically yes, they failed the first one, but because the GIA came to stop it, it didn’t feel like a failure to me. And that was their only failure. They did everything else right, despite them being so different, and hating each other and etc.

The one time we actually got a real disagreement was in chapter 18, and we already know how I feel about chapter 18.

So yeah, their found family is cute and all, but I feel like it could’ve flowed more naturally, so that it would make sense. I remember Kristoff comparing this book to Guardians of the Galaxy on goodreads, which I feel like is insulting to GotG. Because in GotG the characters actually hate each other and go to jail because the first thing they did when they met was fight. So yeah, GotG did it better in my opinion.

And that’s enough for part 2. I can’t believe I have to make a third part, but hopefully it will be the last. If you read this far, thank you. You should consider following me because I might want to do more in-depth reviews like this.

Part 3

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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20 Scariest Horror Game Moments, Ranked

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There’s something special about “that moment” in the horror genre. Whether it’s the scene from that movie that’s been burned into your head since childhood or the passage of that book you’ll always wish you couldn’t recite from heart, there are just times when horror is so perfectly distilled into a single moment that we often come to associate those genre masterpieces with that one scene.

Well, few horror moments are more memorable than the scariest sequences in gaming history. Horror gaming has always been elevated by the fact that you’re the one who has to navigate these nightmare scenarios, and that already intimidating arrangement tends to backfire on you whenever you encounter these shocking scenes that force you to ask whether you’re really brave enough to press on.

From swamp folk to needles in the eye, these are the scariest moments in horror gaming history.

20. The Night Folk – Red Dead Redemption 2

Wander around Red Dead Redemption 2’s swamps around 2:00 am, and you may stumble upon a woman crying next to a fire. If you make the mistake of trying to help her, she’ll attack you and summon a group of zombie-like hillbillies known simply as the “Night Folk.”

What I love about this scare is the way that it completely justifies that general sense of terror you feel when you walk through RDR 2’s swamps while also being so shocking and intimidating that there’s no way you can properly brace yourself for it.

19. Dinner With the Cannibals – The Walking Dead: Season One

After an explosive opening episode, The Walking Dead: Season One seemingly slows things down a bit by taking you to a dairy farm where your wounded party finally gets to enjoy a few moments of rest as well as some much-needed hot meals. Of course, the sanctity of that last offering is undone the moment you find one of your companions hacked into bits and realize your hosts are cannibals.

The inherent horror of this moment is amplified by the emotional attachment you feel to your party and the fact that this episode emphasizes the scarcity of resources. It’s such a shocking betrayal of your emotions as well as a genuinely disturbing twist.

18. Running From Mr. X – Resident Evil 2 Remake

There have been many great “stalker” moments in gaming history, but few come close to matching the sheer terror you feel when you first encounter Mr. X in Capcom’s brilliant remake of Resident Evil 2.

The best slashers and stalkers leave you feeling like escape is impossible, and that’s exactly what Mr. X does so well. That “Oh shit!” moment you’ll experience when you first see him is only eclipsed by the realization that escaping him will be as difficult as you feared.

17. Deleting All Your Saves – Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem

Eternal Darkness’ brilliant use of a “sanity meter” that causes your character to experience hallucinations is one of the best mechanics in horror game history. However, that already brilliant concept is never better than when one of Eternal Darkness’ sanity freakouts leads you to believe that the game is deleting all of your save files.

Even once you understand that the game is going to mess with you in these kinds of ways, nothing can quite prepare you for the genuine “meta” scare of believing that all of your hard work has just vanished. It’s the perfect realization of a fear that every gamer from a certain era has dealt with.

16. Discovering Deathclaw Sanctuary – Fallout 3

Fallout 3 is filled with genuinely terrifying moments, but few compare to discovering the Deathclaw Sanctuary. An entire part of the map filled with Deathclaws has to be one of the biggest “nopes” in video game history.

Whether you’re unfortunate enough to stumble into this place organically or you see it taunting you on the map after walking a bit too close to it, few open-world locations in gaming history loom quite as large as this one. It’s a brilliant example of the many ways simply wandering around Fallout 3’s Capital Wasteland feels so intimidating.

15. Laura – The Evil Within

The Evil Within is a generally creepy game, but nothing in the title’s earlier moments quite prepares you for the horror of running into “Laura:” a spider-like creature with a human face who emerges from the floor like she was shot from a gore-filled cannon.

It’s that violent suddenness of Laura’s arrival that makes this moment so memorable. The game gives you no time to process what you’ve just seen before you have to start running from this thing that screams so loudly it can rock your room and rattle your soul.

14. The Matchmaker’s Lair – Condemned: Criminal Origins

Condemned: Criminal Origins is a generally underrated horror experience, but this brilliant little game reaches its apex when you’re tasked with hunting down a killer known as the matchmaker and discover that many of the mannequins that inhabit his lair are killers in disguise.

The various jumpscares are fantastic, but what really makes this sequence work is the way it constantly lures you in and out of a false sense of security as you grapple with the idea that these already creepy seemingly inanimate objects may also be out to kill you.

13. The Rat King – The Last of Us Part 2

The Last of Us doesn’t always get the love the franchise deserves for being a genuinely effective piece of horror, but the series’ scariest moment has to be this confrontation with an almost indescribable monstrosity in The Last of Us Part 2 known simply as The Rat King.

This mutated collection of terrors is so wildly different from everything else you’ve seen in this game up until this point that not even the hints that there could be something truly terrible lurking in this area’s depths are enough to properly prepare you for the reveal. It’s the moment this series goes full ‘80s gross-out horror, and it’s brilliant.

12. The Child’s Room – Layers of Fear

Around the time you’ve convinced yourself that you’ve seen it all in Layers of Fear, you’ll find yourself in the middle of a child’s room where a music box projects various innocent illustrations on the walls. The moment you interact with the music box is the moment you begin what could be described as a journey through Hell that leaves you dreading what the next rotation will reveal.

This scene is undeniably creepy, but the thing that really makes this moment special is the way this sequence brilliantly ties into the game’s lore and leaves you feeling exactly like the character feels in that moment: a helpless passenger through a guided tour of your worst fears.

11. The Ladder – F.E.A.R.

2005’s F.E.A.R. is an incredible blend of innovative FPS design and the kind of jump-scare horror that was especially popular in certain major movies at the time. Both of those concepts join forces in this wonderful moment when you begin a “climbing the ladder” animation only to see F.E.A.R.’s resident creepy child (Alma) standing right in front of you.

It’s the way that this scare so completely violates the sanctity of player perspective in video games that makes it truly great. The rare moment you’re forced to hand over control to the game is the moment it ambushes you with an unavoidable scare. You’ll never trust an FPS game again after this moment.

Games

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By Matthew Byrd

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Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and the Art of Making Scary Games

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10. The Bear Trap – Until Dawn

I personally love Until Dawn’s collection of truly effective jump scares, but I understand why some players look down on that particular horror technique. However, even they may struggle to deny the effectiveness of this incredible scene that sees you get your fingers stuck in a bear trap and choose to either amputate them or try to free yourself before some mysterious apparent threat attacks you from the shadows.

This scene is made all the more effective by the fact that Until Dawn constantly threatens to kill off your current character if you make one little mistake. This game puts you in a nightmare scenario then ups the ante by leaving you with little time to wonder what the right move is.

9. The NoonTech Diagnostic Machine – Dead Space 2

Given just how scary the first two Dead Space games are, it’s quite telling that the general consensus among franchise fans is that the NoonTech Diagnostic Machine is the series’ most intimidating, frightening, and memorable sequence. Then again, how else would you describe a scene in which you’re forced to carefully stick a giant needle into your character’s eye?

Eye trauma has been one of the most effective horror devices since the genre’s earliest “on-screen” days, and Dead Space 2 manages to escalate an already disturbing experience by forcing you to be the one who sticks the needle in. Even the Dead Space developers wondered if this sequence was too much.

8. The Mirror – Silent Hill 3

You walk into a dirty room and find yourself facing a mirror. The nearby basin starts to bleed, but the blood in the reflection and the blood in the room soon start to behave differently. As the blood covers your reflection and creeps along the walls and floors, you start to wonder what is happening and how you will get out of this suddenly locked room.

I love when a game turns these visible scares into an actual threat, and this is one of the absolute best examples of that technique. The scene is scary enough on its own, but it’s when you realize that the blood is an actual threat and that you have to try to escape this room that you really start to feel the pressure of this incredible moment.

7. The Dog Jumping Through the Window – Resident Evil

I almost thought about leaving this classic horror gaming moment off the list for the sake of variety, but, when you really get down to it, the moment that the camera changes in that famous Resident Evil hallway just in time for you to see a dog jump through the foreground window really is a masterful scare.

This moment terrified a generation of gamers still grappling with the fact that games could be this scary, but it’s honestly still terrifying to this day. The way that the game uses that sudden camera change to establish a new threat that is both behind your character and directly in front of the player is just brilliant.

6. Pyramid Head’s Introduction – Silent Hill 2

The old “what the fuck is that?” scene has long been one of the most effective scares in horror. Well, few WTF scares in video game history have come close to topping the moment in Silent Hill 2 when we walk into a room and see the monster known as Pyramid Head violently assaulting mannequin creatures.

While the pure visual of this moment is enough to make your skin crawl, it’s what this scene signals in the scope of Silent Hill 2’s twisted narrative that makes it truly memorable. Silent Hill 2 excels at showing you the most disturbing thing you’ve ever seen and then making it worse once you learn more about what it means. This has to be considered the apex of that series’ approach to horror.

5. The Falling Woman -Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly

This entire list could be filled with Fatal Frame moments if we wanted to go that route, but The Falling Woman from Fatal Frame 2 is one of the series’ absolute highlights. The Falling Woman is a mysterious figure who seemingly committed suicide and is forced to constantly relive her death. Even worse, the aftermath of her actions has left her with a twisted form that her spirit uses to chase you across the room.

Much like the Pyramid Head sequence, it’s that combination of visual shock and emotional horror that makes this scare stand out. Everything about it is just wrong, but the way this game leaves you feeling like you’d rather do anything but see what’s at the bottom of those stairs is simply masterful.

4. The Hiding Place Kill – Alien: Isolation

At some point in Alien: Isolation, you’re going to go back to your favorite hiding spot in order to avoid being detected by the Xenomorph. At that moment, the Xenomorph will tear that locker open and instantly kill your character as you do everything in your power to avoid screaming.

With this moment, Isolation subverted every expectation we had about the fairly recent (at that time) “hiding from the stalker” horror gaming trope in such a blunt and memorable way. There is no part of you that’s expecting the Xenomorph to be able to identify you so quickly, and the moment it does just that is the moment you question everything you thought you knew.

3. The Flooded Room – Amnesia: The Dark Descent

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Amnesia helped rewrite the horror game genre overnight, but this all-time classic’s best moment has to be this incredible sequence that sees you try to navigate a flooded hallway occupied by an invisible monster. Are you confident enough in your ability to spot its movements to make that bold leap into its potential path?

This moment is incredibly terrifying on a conceptual level alone, but what I really love about this sequence is that it also serves as an elaborate physics puzzle that makes an already daunting scenario feel that much more intimidating. Amnesia showed that the future of horror was going to revolve around making you feel like you’re truly a part of the fray, and this is the moment that proved how terrifying and impressive that approach could be.

2. The Groom – Outlast: Whistleblower

I’m honestly not sure how to describe this moment without potentially genuinely disturbing unsuspecting people. Let’s just say that “The Groom” is obsessed with trying to find a bride. The problem is that he’s surrounded by men. As such, he goes to…unspeakable lengths to try to turn the victims he can find into something that’s as close to his ideal bride as possible.

I’m honestly not a huge fan of the torture porn/violent exploitation style of horror simply because there’s a point where you feel like you’re shooting fish in a barrel by simply showing people the most objectively disturbing thing they could ever imagine. However, this game takes that concept further than any I’ve played. It straps you into the biggest nightmare scenario imaginable and leaves you helpless to wonder how far it’s going to go.

1. Seeing Lisa in the Hallway – P.T.

While it’s incredibly difficult to pick just one scary moment from P.T. to highlight as the absolute scariest, I’m fairly comfortable awarding that honor to a scene we recently named one of the scariest images ever: the first time you see Lisa in the hallway.

There’s a degree to which the image above itself really tells you all you need to know about why this moment is scary, but there’s something to be said for the context of the moment as well. It’s one of the game’s earliest scares, and it immediately informs you that this thing you chose to submit yourself to is going to be so much worse than you likely ever anticipated.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

To put it another way, P.T. is arguably the scariest game ever made, and this is the image that we most typically associate with this absolute nightmare of an experience.

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sending-the-message · 6 years

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For Better or For Worse by Ilunibi

When I was eleven, my parents divorced.

I didn’t understand why because they always seemed to get along, and my mom’s reasons always seemed very petty. Even if I can recognize that she probably thought she did the right thing for herself, I always held onto this tiny bit of resentment because she didn’t try harder to make it work. It put a distance between my dad and myself, and created this soul-eating jealousy as I watched my younger half-sister become his golden child. Though I tried to pretend it didn’t leave a mark on me, it did, and the trauma of “losing” my father made me swear that, if I ever got married, I would never, ever get divorced. I would do anything in my power to make it work.

Considering my husband, that’s not always been the easiest task. Tyson is, at his core, a good man who just happens to have very bad genes. He’s quiet and not very affectionate, but he’s supportive and hardworking and has a dry, dark sense of humor that never fails to make me laugh. Despite his size and resting bitch face, he’s a massive pushover who’s only ever been good at posturing himself to look intimidating. In fact, he tends to short-circuit when confrontation rears its ugly head.

That said, Tyson is also schizophrenic.

Being fresh-faced sweethearts who were exchanging vows within a year of graduation, we had exactly two years of marital bliss before he started hearing things, seeing things, and wondering just how many people were out to get him. It started with small, innocuous things--staring at the vents for a second too long, checking every closet when we’d come home from a night out--but by the age of twenty-three, he was talking to nonexistent visitors and barking threats at our bathroom mirror. I came home from work to find he’d duct taped all of the vents shut and, when asked exactly why he had to do that, he offered a nonchalant shrug and told me it was to keep “them” out of the house.

Who is “them?” That’s an excellent question that I tried to figure out for seven years. He’d never tell me. I’d push and push, and he’d roll his eyes like I should already have known.

In stark contrast to what I’d seen on TV and in movies about people with the illness, he was infuriatingly blasé about the whole thing aside from becoming mad at the occasional imaginary intruder. While I struggled to piece together whatever skewed narrative he was building in his head, he approached the subject of “them” and all of his quirks with a matter-of-factness that pissed me off.

Except I don’t know if I was angry or scared. I didn’t like the idea of the man I tied the knot with becoming a shadow of what he once was, especially so young, even if he seemed less terrified and more perturbed by the unusual direction his brain decided to go. Regardless of what the root of the matter was, his eccentricity and my own exhaustion trying ended with us trading barbs more than a couple of times, snarling and hissing and spitting at each other until he’d storm out angry or I’d lock myself in the bathroom. Most of the time it was the former since, as I said before, Tyson tended to panic when tensions ran high.

There were times when he’d leave and I’d have to go get him because he felt “safe” outside and didn’t want to come home. He’d accuse me of messing up his attempts to keep the mysterious “them” out. Sometimes, I would catch him watching people in public with a peculiar look on his face, or staring at reflections in car windows or grocery freezers, or gawking at blank spots in store aisles like something was blocking his passage. Any questions I had he’d answer with the same sigh and shrug.

Occasionally, he’d throw in something along the lines of, “Whatever. At least I know how to deal with them.”

I just kept chanting to myself that divorce wasn’t an option as I made sure he actually went to his appointments (that he claimed he didn’t need) and took the medicine (that he wondered whether or not was safe). When he finally wound up on disability, so caught up in his hallucinations that he couldn’t keep a job, I worked twice as hard to make up for the slack. Divorce wasn’t an option because he wasn’t a danger, he never threatened me, and I loved him. I didn’t like him sometimes, but I loved him.

It all came to a head last night, when I came home from a long, frustrating day at work and saw the vents sealed. Again. Or, rather, I caught him on the stepladder with a roll of duct tape, trying to tape shut the one above the entrance to our hallway. We’d had multiple talks about how it wasn’t necessary, and I’d even thought I had worked it out by reasoning with him using his own logic, but there he stood, silver-handed.

When I asked him why he was doing it, he quietly finished his work and stepped down from the ladder with the same composed tone and indifferent shrug he gave me every single other time I called him out on it.

“They’re in the vents again.”

I demanded to know what “they” were. Who was “them?” What did he think was in the goddamn vents this time?

“I love you, you know.”

I told him that wasn’t an answer. So he repeated it again, firmer this time, like there was an implication behind those three words that I should have magically picked up on. Instead of heeding that and spending the rest of my evening trying to decode what he meant, I spent it prying the tape off of the walls and floors. Tyson watched me, bemused and then dejected and then with mounting concern. When I caught him following behind me, trying to redo what I undid, I confiscated his tape and chucked it out the kitchen door into the cold.

He tried to tell me that I was making a huge mistake. Tired, angry, and bristling, I responded that I wanted a divorce.

Time stopped. Oddly enough, he didn’t respond by storming out and finding a place to hide. Tyson just stood there, with this look of confusion on his face, like a dog that heard a weird noise. Then, with a shake of his head, his expression melted into the same look of exasperation that one would give a toddler throwing a tantrum. When it sank in what I had said, however, I burst into tears.

Divorce wasn’t an option. I was just miserable and lashing out. I never meant to say that because I took a vow, for better or for worse, and I knew I could work harder to help him when he was the one who was truly suffering. He smiled as I spewed out apology after apology, begging him to forgive me. He just wrapped an arm around me and started escorting me to the bedroom.

“I know you don’t mean it. You think it, but you don’t mean it. I think things, too.”

He paused.

“Like whether you’ll let me redo the vents.”

I told him that if he did, I would walk out of the house right then and never come back. His face fell and his body stiffened. After we reached the end of the hall, he leaned past me to glimpse at himself in the bathroom mirror through the open door, pausing long enough to investigate his own reflection. He poked and prodded his face, inspected the corners of the glass, then sighed.

“We’ll be fine for one night. Probably.”

That made me feel a little better. I felt like I had won, as hollow of a victory as it was. If nothing else, once he got me in bed, he made sure that I knew that there was only one “hard feeling” he had towards me. Still, as much as I appreciated the attention and as much as I wanted to believe my win would break the cycle of his behavior, I mostly just wanted to go to sleep and forget the night ever happened.

We dozed off on opposite sides of the bed. I coiled up like a snake with all the sheets in a corner, and he was a full foot away from me on the mattress. Occasionally, my anxiety would wake me up and I’d feel for him, just to make sure he hadn’t gone and fetched the tape or ran away entirely. I’d brush an arm and feel comfortable enough that I wasn’t alone, then immediately drift off again.

Then, something other than anxiety jostled me awake.

It was a sound, like hushed and angry whispering, coming from behind me on the mattress. I could tell that it was male, but it didn’t sound like my husband; he was a large man with a large voice, but this was smaller and raspier, older and hissing. If smoke could speak, it’s like what I would imagined it sounded like. Too groggy to be scared and only dimly aware of my surroundings, I curled up tighter in my blankets and scowled.

“The fuck?” I wondered aloud, like the sage I was. The whispering continued and nobody answered me. As the seconds ticked on, I became more and more alert and I could feel this cold, sinking feeling in my gut. I tried telling myself that I was dreaming, but everything was too solid. I could feel the sheets against my skin and I was hyperaware of every overpriced thread.

“The fuck,” I repeated, less a question and more a statement of fear. I hoped I had said it loud enough for Tyson to hear, though I was beginning to wonder if it was him making the noise. After all, isn’t it a trope or something that schizophrenic people change their voices and talk to themselves? Different personalities and all that? His doctor had been frank that he doubted multiple personality disorders existed, but at the time, that was the only reasonable thing I could come up with.

So, I called his name. And I did it again. And again. And when he didn’t respond, I shifted my weight uneasily and decided that if I could just reach out and touch him, that maybe it would confirm my suspicion that nobody else was there and he was just very good at voice acting. Maybe it would even startle him enough to shut up. Holding my breath, I started to wriggle free of my cocoon when I heard something deep, familiar, and startling.

“Don’t.”

It was Tyson. The whispering was talking over him. Unless he’d learned the secrets of Tibetan monks last night, there was no way he could talk in two voices.

“What is that?” I demanded.

“Them.”

I was in no way shocked with his answer, but it did make me nearly puke in fear. A defiant part of me wanted to roll over in bed and see if I could see anything, but common sense and terror held me glued in place. The most I could do was look at the floor, trailing the moulding until I came across my bedroom vent, partially covered by the bed skirt. It fluttered as the heater blew, but I could see something moving and hear scratching, like rats trying to scamper up the ductwork.

Then, as clear as it would have been in daylight, I spotted a single eye. An eye belonging to something that shouldn’t have been able to fit in the vent, and unmistakably human. It was a stark white against the blackness of the room, lolling and rolling until it came to rest on me. The whispering fell silent when our gazes met.

“Don’t look at them,” Tyson warned, so I shut my eyes and pulled the blanket over my head. The whispering started again, louder. I whined over top of them, asking him what they were.

Again, he told me they were “them.”

Who is “them?” That’s an excellent question that he’s been trying to figure out for seven years. They wouldn’t tell him. He’d push and push, and they’d just laugh at him like he should already know. The only thing he’d managed to figure out was that they were invisible in the light, aside from reflections, like weird, reverse vampires. You could always see them in windows and mirrors and anything made of glass, no matter where or when you looked.

Were they dangerous? Probably. Thankfully, they seemed to go “someplace else” every so often, which would give him enough time to try to figure out how to keep them out. Did duct tape work? He had no clue, but at least he didn’t have to look at them or hear them.

When I asked if this meant he hadn’t been schizophrenic the whole time, he actually growled at me.

“Look, I probably am, but you can be crazy and competent at the same time, alright? Just go to sleep.”

I told him that he was insane. I didn’t want to go to sleep with those things haunting my house. I wanted to get up and get out, and maybe live at a goddamn Marriott for the rest of my life.

“You’ll just piss them off, babe. Just go to sleep.”

“How?” I demanded.

“Just do it. I manage it every fucking night you make me take the tape off the vents.”

I didn’t fall asleep. I never fell asleep. I spent all of last night staring at the wall beside my bed, wondering whether or not I’d make it through the night alive. It was only when the first light of day spilled through my window that I gathered up the courage to jump up, over my husband, and out of the room. In one fluid motion, I had scooped up my clothes from the floor, grabbed my purse, threw on some unseasonal sandals that had been next to the door, and was gone. There was a 24/7 Wal-Mart two blocks away with a hardware section that had my name on it.

Tyson was, as expected, fine when I got back, in his boxers, on a step-ladder, taping shut the vents with the tape he’d recovered from the driveway. When I came in with six rolls of Gorilla tape, he eyed me up and down and cocked his head. He asked if I was giving him permission to do what needed to be done, and I answered that I would start in my bedroom and meet him in the middle.

I called into work today and the house, while freezing, has been quiet as of ten o’clock tonight. No whispering, no eyes peering out of the darkness. I haven’t seen anything in the mirrors and, according to Tyson, neither has he. That said, I’ve just been glued to the living room couch, afraid there may be something underneath waiting to drag me under if I put my ankles where they could reach. I’ve been obsessively trying to figure out if there’s a vent I missed.

But at the end of the day, all I can be thankful for is the fact I married a man who, despite his flaws, has been taking care of me despite the fact I would never listen to him. Despite being so conflict-avoidant, he’s been trying to keep these things away from me for years. I’m glad I took that vow when I was younger that, no matter what, I would find a way to work through it. Not just because I love Tyson, but because now that they’ve seen me, I think he’s the only one who can keep me safe.

#reddit #nosleep #scary #story

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is-the-rose-on-your-coffin-door · 7 years

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JULIAN ALBERT IS DRACO MALFOY CONFIRMED: The conspiracy no one wanted but everyone is getting

Disclaimer: IRONY AND GENERAL SARCASTICNESS INTENDED

Introduction:

Draco Malfoy, one of the supporting characters in the Harry Potter series, has an intriguing backstory, arc, and character motivations- however, remained greatly unexplored in the novels themselves. Any reading into the actions of the character had to be done exclusively by the fans, as the accounts were given by a main character fixated on hatred toward him, which may have limited the depth the author could have given him. However, the real character development may have been there all along, in the form a completely justified and entirely irrefutable integration of Draco into the Arrowverse.

Anyone who has the third season of CW’s The Flash should have picked up on the clear similarities between the new addition, Julian Albert Desmond, and the character of Draco Malfoy. Not only are the two characters played by the same actor, Tom Felton, but they also bear identical personalities. Draco’s animosity towards Muggle borns is mirrored by Julian’s disdain for metahumans, with both characters believing a class of people to be lesser than they are due to circumstances outside of their control, due to differences intrinsic in their very biology and yet irrelevant to the quality of their character. As harmless initial “antagonists” that merely serve to annoy the main characters by flaunting their superiority complexes and generally being jerks, Draco and Julian represent the unjustified, workaday vitriol pitted against the main characters. Julian maintains the same characteristics that got Draco sorted into Slytherin, only acquiescing to Barry’s plea to lie to the police after Barry agrees to resign from his job- an act that betrays his prioritization of his own desires over the common good. He doesn’t hesitate in lying about his blackouts to avoid incriminating himself.

The list goes on and on.

However, this isn’t the point. Sure, Julian and Draco are similar, but why must they be the same person? The answer is simple. They are, guilelessly, too similar. No significant differences between them exist that cannot be explained. The timing even works out perfectly, with Tom Felton having aged between the final Harry Potter movie and the filming of The Flash, yet still not being as old as he was in the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II. This means that Draco had plenty of time for the events of The Flash to occur before starting a family in England. He is 17 when he graduates Hogwarts. If you do the math, the Deathly Hallows epilogue occurs when Draco is 37 years old. Julian reveals that he was 20 when he found the Philosopher's Stone and got his position at the CCPD 3 years later, making him 23 years old. Since Draco’s son, Scorpius, was 11 during the epilogue, that means that Scorpius was conceived when his father was 26. Despite the extensive Harry Potter canon, the year of Draco’s marriage to Astoria Greengrass is unknown, meaning it definitely could have happened in the three years between his appearance in the Arrowverse and his decision to have a child. We know that Draco and Astoria didn’t deliberate having children until they were already married, meaning there is no room for “accidental conception” headcannons, unlike with Harry Potter himself. The timeline here indisputably checks out, so here is the real story of Draco Malfoy, former terrorist operative and possessed meat puppet.

Timeline Synopsis and Defense:

We start with the first major discrepancy between the two accepted timelines, Julian’s sister, Emma Desmond. “But wait,” you say. “Draco didn’t have a sister! He was an only child, which was an important part of his backstory as it fostered his parental coddling. Whereas Julian’s sister was the main drive for his original character motivations, with his grief over her death being the starting point for his ties to Savitar-”

Let me stop you right there. First of all, what a pleasantly well articulated argument. However, you’re forgetting one thing. Flashpoint. The focus of the overarching Season 3 plot, Barry Allen creating an alternate, irreversible timeline? You probably think I’m going to say that Flashpoint created Emma. But no. That’s too easy. I’m using Flashpoint as an example of how Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy created Emma.

The literary abomination that is The Cursed Child, a script that was confirmed by J. K Rowling to be canon despite its innumerable and mind bogglingly abysmal errors, contained a convoluted plotline involving going back in time to prevent someone from preventing something in an attempt to fix the rippling mistake caused by the first prevention. This frustrating writing decision mirrors the kickoff point of the plot in S03E01 of The Flash. This structure is identical but for one thing- in The Flash, a third timeline is created, but in The Cursed Child, the original timeline is restored. However, both stories followed the exact same preventative processes. What gives? Different interpretations and portrayals of the meaning and function of time? Of course not. The true answer is that a third reality was created in The Cursed Child, and this is on top of the third reality created by Barry Allen in which they all lived. However, Flashpoint is the original timeline by the time The Cursed Child takes place, so it’s irrelevant. The point is, it is established that a time traveler cannot remember their new autobiographical history when arriving in a new reality, and must rely on empirical observation to discern discrepancies. That means that when Draco arrived back in the original timeline, he could not remember the changes to his life story, and assumed that it was the same. Scorpius wouldn’t remember either, seeing as he was also a traveler. This tells us that the Draco Malfoy of The Cursed Child has no memory of being a member of Team Flash, and therefore no memory of Emma.

During the events of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Draco found out what was being hidden in the roped off area of the school along with the rest of Hogwarts- information learned upon the fatal altercation between Harry Potter and Professor Quirrell. It was in his nature to be intrigued by the concept of the Elixir of Life, and he would have imagined what he could do with the Stone’s power, even at the age of 11. He had exposure to the idea from a very young age. So, Draco had the means and the inclination to follow up on that desire one day. When his sister died, he experienced alluring hallucinations incurred by Savitar, exactly as he revealed in The Flash. These hallucinations were similar to those caused by the magical Resurrection Stone, likely a property held in some form by the Philosopher’s Stone due to its connection with the defiance of life and death. With a series of complex tracking spells, he was able to find the location in India where Dumbledore had had it hidden all those years ago, financing the expedition easily with his family’s money and apparating to the location with a few witches and wizards.

“Oh, come on,” you groan. “That doesn’t make any sense. The Stone is probably Untrackable, and Dumbledore didn’t hide it, he destroyed it, you incredibly inept-”

SHUSH. I’m getting to that part.

Draco has a history of subverting magical limitations, he managed to fix the set of “unfixable” Vanishing Cabinets, a task thought to be impossible, especially for such a young boy with no external resources. He probably should have died in the process, or at least gotten stuck in limbo, like Montague- but he didn’t. In addition, Draco had the aid of Savitar himself, who yearned desperately for a rescuer. As for Dumbledore, he has lied to Harry before. Several times by omission and outright. When Dumbledore refused to tell Harry things, it was always about his concern for his wellbeing. He lied to Harry for years about his true purpose in the future war, not only to spare Harry the pain, but himself. It would be completely in character for Dumbledore to tell Harry that the Stone that had caused them both so much trouble and pain was gone for good. He would want Harry to have peace of mind about the jarring situation. In addition, it is made clear by Dumbledore’s initial reverence for the Resurrection Stone that he greatly values magical objects of such immense power, and sees their destruction as harmful. I’ve already gone over the thematic similarities between the Resurrection Stone and the Philosopher's Stone, and it stands to reason that he would react similarly to being in possession of both. Dumbledore merely hid the Stone instead, not wanting the sacrifice the potential good it had, unaware of its future ties.That said, he allowed Nicholas Flamel to accept his mortality at last and move on, swearing to the man that no one would use it again.

Upon Draco finding the Stone, Savitar was free at last. He had found his puppet. He murdered the other members of the party before Draco could blink, knocking the man out, taking the Stone, and escaping. Nicholas Flamel had chosen not to reveal certain attributes of the Philosopher's Stone back when he had researched it, there was no use making it more coveted than it already was. The offensive uses of the Stone were antithetical to everything that he stood for, and he realized that everyone was better off not understanding it’s true potential. Savitar, however, understood it. He used it to periodically control Draco to exact his own deeds, the same way Voldemort’s Horcrux controlled Ginny in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

The Muggle police in India were extremely suspicious of him, which terrified Malfoy as he had no knowledge of how the Muggle justice system worked. Not wanting to return to England and face his parents, he went to America instead, assuming the name Julian Albert Desmond. As a result of waking up injured and bloody from blackouts on occasion, he picked up Muggle medicinal practices as a way of treating such abrasions in public, as sometimes he was forced to do. He eventually became so intrigued by the concept of treating wounds without magic that he researched them much further. He told Team Flash that his rudimentary medical skills were from being an army field medic, but it was just a cover for the real reason. When relating elements of his past to others, he would make the due edits to fit to his fake identity. He wasn’t sure how long he would remain in America before he felt the desire to return, so he indulged in some of the delightfully juvenile teachings of Muggle higher education, learning of forensics himself and faking a degree with magic. The subject was one he chose randomly without knowing what it meant. Afterwards, though, he decided to actually pursue employment in the field, at least until he got sick of it and ran back home.

When the results of the particle accelerator explosion, the metahumans, began to show themselves, all he could think of was what would happen to the witches and wizards that were bestowed scientific magnifiers to their already explosive power. He was always on the lookout for such an abomination, yet never found one. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or terrified.

However, everything worked out in the end. With the death of Savitar, he was free of the Dr. Alchemy persona. Eventually he just gave up on reviving Caitlin and returned to England feeling like a more complete person, about one to three years after the events of S03E23. Unfortunately, this series of events remains unknown to Draco as of now, due to the memory issues incurred by the Time Turner and lack of clues hinting as to the divergent timeline. Upon returning, Draco still married Astoria and sired Scorpius, making the short term effects of this timeline upon discovery almost nonexistent.

As you can see, Julian Albert is merely Draco Malfoy in disguise and any other interpretation is eternally flawed. What insipid tale would that of Draco Malfoy be without The Flash to complete it? Perhaps this sordid story is not quite so mellifluous, but a pragmatic approach must be taken to far reaching conclusions such as this. The overlap between the characters should be tacit in its revealing implications. WAKE THE FUCK UP PEOPLE.

#seriously where else was i supposed to post this #also im sorry #the cursed child #the flash #fictional conspiracy #Draco Malfoy #Julian Albert #SERIOUSLY I JUST WANTED TO MOCK FICTIONAL TIME TRAVEL OKAY

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ginocchie · 7 years

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what do u like most about your life.. tell a story

EH! first of all my friends, what has mainly changed this year is that my best friend is no longer my partner whom i’m codependent on but someone else whom i have a healthy relationship with (more or less, i am 7 days clean but my best friend used in front of me every single day this week which makes me like, eligible to be sanctified imo but don’t judge on that, it’s a delicate dynamic, among junkies you never believe each other about staying clean, that’s why one usually must isolate to do be able to do it, can’t really explain myself better, i guess u can’t understand if u haven’t been there), and like in general i don’t spend my entire life with my partner anymore which was a huge issue for me since i was 12.i’m especially grateful to those of my friends who force me to make art with them because alone i’m too insecure and i’d never show anyone anything, if i published 1997.5 it’s thanks to Jrn, if i ever made music it’s thanks to Benedikt who after we met literally came every single day to my place for months to drag me to the studio when i was doing so bad i couldn’t even go to the supermarket and had hallucinations and shit, if i��m working on this project now it’s thanks to Julian, if i publish poems on here sometimes it’s thanks to Sean, if my movie is being made is thanks to Giorgia & Pia, etc.then i love my parents cause they’re cool, i love how my father is raising my siblings (he learnt from his mistakes and my siblings are the happiest kids) and i love my mother cause she understands and supports me completely and always and i’ve always understood and supported her completely even when she neglected me. maybe that’s a problem but i much prefer loving my mother than hating her.I LOVE MY SIBLINGS AND I’D DIE FOR EACH ONE OF THEM.then i like that i got where i am on my own legs and that in general i always brought myself home with my own legs, and that i created a home for myself, i like that i live alone in a beautiful apartment on a top floor with a cat in the center of the city which was my dream and my plan always and that i travel whenever i want to and that i make money with my art.i like that i’m generally able to help others when they’re in need, for example i’m happy to have spent the past winter with Harvey (my friend who had cancer), i didn’t know her, i heard from the sex work community that she needed a caretaker, i wanted to kill myself and nothing mattered so i decided to just stay alive in order for her to stay alive, i didn’t feel better or anything, i was still horribly depressed, but i’m happy that even my darkest time was helpful to someone.i like that people trust me.i don’t like that i’m still way too shy to do what i would like to do with music and i don’t like talking about it.

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tessatechaitea · 5 years

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Swamp Thing Annual #7: The Children’s Crusade

Tefé meets Jimmy Savile.

I don't know why this comic book isn't with all of the other Children's Crusade comic books. I guess I'm terrible at organizing my comic books (I say as if it's a debatable opinion while two stacks of random comic books sit on the book shelf next to a comic book short box empty of all but envelopes and bills to be shredded). So now this comic book won't make much sense and when I finally find the box with my other Children's Crusade comic books, I'll have forgotten this story and will become confused by the missing chapter. I'm a little bit upset about this. But I won't be upset for long because earlier I noticed I have some Kid Eternity comic books in this stack and guess who wrote Kid Eternity? Ann Nocenti! Holy shit, I can't wait to read that oubliette full of earnest confusion. This is the exact middle chapter of the story. But I don't think I'll be too confused because I remember how the Dead Boy Detectives were searching for the Free Country where all the endangered and abused children wind up. It was easy to remember that once I read "The Story So Far..." bit at the beginning. Tefé has found herself alone in the swamp because Swamp Thing and Lady Jane and Abby Arcane are all on adventures. Unless they're dead. I wasn't reading Swamp Thing back then. I don't think I ever read Swamp Thing. I know! I'm like the greatest comic book reviewer on the Internet and I've never read Alan Moore's "The Anatomy Lesson." It's possible that in another blog post somewhere in my thousands of blog posts I pretended that I read it. But that would probably have been early on when I was worried that people wouldn't take me seriously if I started announcing having not read a bunch of the landmark comic book series. I also never read that Green Arrow where Speedy was caught sucking dick for heroin. And I never read Miller's Daredevil or Batman: Year One. Also I never read any major Marvel moment prior to the late 90s. Unless Wolverine and Kitty Pryde was one of those titles. My friend Philip Newby had the limited series scattered all over his living room floor and I scrounged them all up and read them. It should go without saying that I don't remember them. I'm like that. Why should I remember the genius things I read when I can't even remember all of the genius things I write?! Puck arrives to take Tefé to the Free Country because he's a nice guy who only wants the best for all the children of the world. Roland and Paine, the Dead Boy Detectives, arrive moments too late to follow them. Looks like they'll have to try following Dorothy Spinner over in the Doom Patrol annual. Speaking of Dorothy Spinner, I can't wait until the second season of DC Universe's Doom Patrol! Bring on the Candlemaker!

Seems like a decent place, housing kids from the Holocaust, kids working out of coal mines, kids being sexually abused. Why then am I so suspicious of it?!

Like most annuals and stories about children, this tale has bored the ever-living joy out of me. Hopefully nobody is reading this and just thought, "Oh yeah? Cry me a river! I just got diagnosed with cancer!" Because then I'd have to admit that I care more about my level of boredom than somebody else's life and death situation. The washed-out kid with Mark Buckingham face explains how Free Country began during the Crusades which isn't surprising because the entire idea of the Crusades should have been enough to cancel Catholicism. I tend to get annoyed with people who infantilize homo sapiens from hundreds or thousands of years in the past, as if our ability to understand the world around us only kicked off some time around the Industrial Revolution. But then I think about some of the atrocious things people did in the name of religion and I think maybe those people should be seen as less formed than modern people. But then I also think about how beautiful works of Gothic architecture were created by these people and I reach this conclusion: homo sapiens have always had the potential to create great and beautiful works while simultaneously having the potential for great cruelty fueled by greed, selfishness, and paranoia. It is only the coming together of those two things that could have built Notre-Dame. At least the cruelty toward "lesser" men was focused to create something beautiful in the cases of cathedrals whereas sometimes the cruelty was as simply front facing as sending as many people as possible to die in a foreign land for nearly no other reason than to kill as many different people as they could who already lived there. And then I remember that modern homo sapiens aren't really any different but when is the last time we built a fucking magnificent cathedral?! Oh, sure, we sent people to the moon! But I can't visit the moon while simultaneously being scolded by a German or French priest to remove my Goddamned hat.

This spoon sent me down a YouTube rabbit hole beginning at the opening theme to Vegetable Soup (because it had a funky cartoon spoon as host) and ended at The Banana Splits credits where I learned in the comment section that in 2019 there was a Banana Splits horror movie. Now I'm mad at everybody I know for not telling me about this.

Tefé and Maxine go on some mini-Lord of the Rings journey to destroy some goblin and save Free Country. They use their powers over vegetables and animals to save the day and everybody cheers. I don't know why Free Country, a safe haven for children, also includes an evil land full of evil Gobble-You-Ups. I guess you need some sort of conflict to distract the child populace from whatever true evil is going on in this place. The leaders of Free Country probably drink children's blood to survive. It turns out it was all a game and then Tefé almost dies because she's been away from the Green too long. The kids reluctantly send her back home so that she doesn't die but Maxine decides to stay so she can have an adventure with Dorothy Spinner. Swamp Thing Annual #7: The Children's Crusade Rating: I don't rate annuals. If I have rated an annual in the past, it was a mistake and/or a hallucination. Also there's a second story after the first one that I haven't read yet because I forgot about it. And since I've already stopped this review with the ratings paragraph, I will not be discussing it even if it has street walking flowers in pumps and bell bottom jeans wearing flower Johns and ends with Flower Superbaby being sent into space. Also there is a third story that I didn't forget about because I just realized it exists. It's a retelling of The Beauty and the Beast. Speaking of The Beauty and the Beast, I was recently told that Gaston in the live action Beauty and the Beast was gay and my reaction was, "So he wanted Belle as a beard?" And the answer was, "Yes. That is the plot." And now I can't bare to watch it because if that isn't true, I will be devastated.

#Swamp Thing #DC Comics #DC #Vertigo #The Children's Crusade

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teamkaiforever · 7 years

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BACK TOGETHER

“No. It - it can’t be.” she muttered to herself squeezing her eyes , crossing the street without even looking one way let alone twice. Damon tried to say something to her but she elbowed him in the stomach not stopping for a second, getting closer to the other person in the alley with him. “M-Malachai?” Kai dropped the guy he was feeding on on the ground and turned towards her , wiping blood from his mouth. Y/N felt butterflies in her stomach , seeing purple black veins flashing under his eyes. Her boyfriend looked so beyond hot in that moment , her breath got caught in her throat and a single tear rolled down her face. “Oh my G-” Before she had had time to finish her sentence , Kai pinned her to the building wall near by , smashing his lips against hers like never before. His body pressed against hers and he deepened the kiss , kissing her hungrily not willing to even let her take a breath. He pulled out after almost an entire minute and gazed into her eyes , a smile spreading across his face a moment later. “Hi.” “You are real.” she whispered , her fingertips exploring his face trailing every inch. “You are real ! H-how are you here ?” Kai laughed and suddenly Y/N felt the hole in her heart disappear, like the past four years had never happened. “It’s a really long story sweetheart.” he smiled. “I’ll tell you later today , but first -” His lips pressed against hers again drowning her in a deep passionate kiss , as her hands wrapped around his neck pulling him even closer to her taking her breath away completely. “I love you.” he said suddenly. “Sorry. I’ve just been wanting to tell you this for four years. I should’ve listened to you , I -” Y/N pulled him towards her until their lips collided again , not even caring they are in the middle of the street and Damon is like a few steps away starring at them while she and Kai tried to swallow each other. None of that mattered to her. Kai was back. He was there , right there barely an inch away from her and even that felt like a huge distance to her. “I love you too.” she smiled. “I never stopped.” “Well , you two.” said Damon interrupting them , his hands folded on his chest as he looked at them. “Are you going to keep making out until there is a hole on the wall shaped like you or -?” Both of them glared at him and Kai took a small step away from her, purposefully messing up her hair and making her laugh. He had missed her laugh , seeing the spark in her eyes , feeling her lips on his. He had missed every single thing about her. Hell had been … well , hell but the true Hell had been being away from her. “What ? No thank you for reuniting you with your epic lover ?” said Damon with a smirk on his face. Y/N scoffed. “Lets just leave it at ‘I won’t try to stake you this time’.” she said , feeling Kai’s arms wrap around her waist tightly. “Is that good enough ?” Kai brushed his nose against her cheek , taking in her scent. It had been so long since he had been able to do that , to wrap his arms around her and feel her near him and feel her heart racing. No. He could hear her heart beat now. Kai smiled to himself ignoring completely whatever word exchange Y/N and Damon were having. None of it mattered to him. Nothing but her. Back in Hell he had never thought he’d see her again. Kai had been pretty sure she’d go the other way and having her back in his arm was everything. He nibbled on her earlobe placing a gentle kiss on her neck. “Come on creeper.” Damon grabbed his forearm. “I kept my promise - you are reunited with Y/N. Lets go. Work to do.” “Nah-uh. Stop forcing me to hang out with you. ” said Kai pulling away. “Don’t worry. I’ll bring back Elena. It’s not like she’ll know the difference.” Damon glared at him. “Sorry. That was insensitive was it ? I just want to spend a few hours with my girl. Sure you at least get that.” “Also I still have that wooden stake.” added Y/N patting her backpack. “It’s right here – and a mega powerful boyfriend. Try and stand in our way , you might end up -” “- in Hell.” finished Kai. “Trust me Damon, you don’t want to get the full 4D experience. Being on fire all the time and ghosts from your past coming to pull your skin off ?! Not to mention the occasional very bad days when you have to come face to face with Cade , who is basically torture in carnet - ” Damon scrunched his nose at Kai’s words. Y/N gulped. Hell ? Kai was in Hell ?! Sure he had had made mistakes but , Hell ? No. Probably she had misheard or something , at least thats what she thought until her eyes met his. Kai looked shaken. How hadnt she noticed that look in his eyes before? He was rarely scared of anything and seeing him like this was too much. “You want to make it up to me ?” asked Y/N. “Let me and my boyfriend spend the day together. You are not the only one who had spent the past few years – away from your other half. Plus - you owe me , big time.” “Fine.” the vampire raised his hands. “Spend time together and meet me at the cemetery in two hours. If any of you cross me , your boyfriend here will-” “I will kill you this time , Damon.” snapped Y/N. “Nothing’s going to stop me.” Damon growled clenching his jaw balling his hands into a fist. Y/N stared at him trying hard not to start laughing. The face Damon was making was meant to scare her but she couldn’t help but find it funny. Kai was glancing between the two of them with a grin on his face until Damon turned around , getting in his car. “Bye Damon.” waved Y/N. Kai wrapped his arms around her waist and twirling her around. He didn’t know how long he had there since he was still a little bit in Hell and Cade was out to get him and drag him back there, but there was one thing he was sure about - this was the happiest moment in his life ever since the day they had first met. He let he down gently , holding onto her the entire time and his lips found hers again. Kai held her so tightly for an moment he worried he might break her or suffocate her with his kiss , but Y/N didn’t mind at all. It appeared she wanted just what he did - to never ever ever let go of each other again. “Come on princess.” he said taking her hand. “Lets go.” “Where are we going?” wondered Y/N. “Somewhere special.” he winked at her and Kai pulled her down the street with him. “So , what has my girl been up to the past four years? Damon didn’t tell me much.” Y/N smiled widely hearing him call her his girl. Her heart fluttered and by the change in Kai’s face he appeared to know that. It hadn’t hit her until that moment - Kai was a vampire , a vampire witch heretic. They could really have forever together now. “That’s because he doesn’t know.” she said holding his hand. “I graduated college , burying myself in studies to dull the pain. Not that it worked and I still live in your apartment. I just - I couldn’t bring myself to – move back home. It’s the only place I felt close to you..” Kai looked at her smiling nervously. He knew that. The past three days since he had been back he had been to his place , almost ringing the bell to surprise her , but he hadn’t known what to do or say. What if he slipped back into Hell moments after she opened the door ? He had to find a way to come back first before coming for her. That’s why he went to her former friends hoping they might know a way , because everything he tried - did not work. And now there was another time crunch , but a plan had already started forming in his mind. Just as Kai was about to ask her the question that has been tormenting him for the past few days since he had been back he noticed something hanging around her neck “Is – Is that one of my rings ?” he wondered. “H-how ?” “Oh , that ? I um – I took it before burying your body.” she said swallowing hard , touching the ring hanging around her neck. “Yhat way I carry you with me every day. Everywhere I go.” “And - um , there h-hasnt been anyone else ?” “Anyone else what ?” she wondered looking at him. Kai sighed , tilting his head a little and thats how she knew his question. “No. Never.” “Not once ?” he wondered , turning down another street until they reached the park. Kai couldn’t believe no one had tried to win her heart. Or maybe someone had wanted to but she wouldn’t have let them. “I was dead , you coul - should’ve moved on.” “Can’t move on from what we had Malachai.” she said making him stop. “I still love you , just as much as I did before you -” “- got myself killed?” “Maybe I love you even more now.” she smiled at him. Kai couldn’t help but feel happy at her words. Four years. All this time spent in Hell wondering how she is , if she had forgotten him and moved on only to come back and find out not only she hadn’t forgotten him, but still loves him just like she had the day they had last seen each other. He wanted her to be happy more than anything even if that wasn’t with him. Thats how much he loved her. He could be selfish about everything else but not when it came to her. Kai brushed his palm against her cheek , smiling nervously at her. He didn’t know how long he had in this dimension , but intended on finding a way to make it permanent. For her , for the both of them. “Is it too selfish of me to be actually happy you didn’t move on with someone else ?” he wondered , Y/N shook her head smiling at him. “Because I really am more than happy that you didn’t. I know we can’t pick up where we left off but - do you think that – that there is still future for us ?” “I’ve always seen my future with you and only you.” she smiled. “Since the day we met.” “Good , good.” he muttered more to himself than to her , looking at her with glowing eyes. There had to be a way for him to stay and now he was willing to do anything to make it happen. “C'mon. We are almost there.” “Almost where?” Purple black veins flashed under his eyes and he grabbed her , whooshing them away in vampire speed near the lake in the park. Kai let her feet down on the ground , holding onto her. Y/N looked around recognising the place straight away. He took a small step away from her , smiling wider than ever. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten ?” he said looking longingly into her eyes. “Me ? Forget the first time you kissed me and told me you love me after almost turning the boat over into the lake ?!” she said taking a step towards him , cupping his face gazing longingly into his eyes. “I could never forget any moment we spent together. ” “So I take it you remember -” he said placing his hands on her waist , tackling her on the ground. “ - this exact same spot where , when you got out of the boat , you slipped and I caught you but we still both fell.” “And we gazed into each other’s eyes for a moment -” she said , her eyes drifting between his eyes and his lips. “- and then –” Kai smashed his lips against hers , pulling her closer to him his hands snaking up and down her back , then towards her ass rolling her on top of him not breaking the kiss for a second. “- you too took my breath away.” they both said in unison , smiling at each other. Y/N rolled onto the grass next to him , turning her head around towards him. He looked happier than ever , pulling her towards him. His fingers brushed against her cheek and he kissed her gently. “We will have forever together.” he said softly. “Just like we always wanted. I promise.” MASTERLIST - FLUFF MASTERLIST - SMUT

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geekmama · 7 years

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Everything Else

The next part of Aftermath, and the rest of Sherlock’s story, with profuse thanks to arianedevere for the transcript of The Final Problem that made this possible.

Sherlock gave a short laugh, and kissed her lightly. “Yes. Alright. I suppose I’d better get it over with, now that I’ve begun.” He rolled off and made himself comfortable by her side once more, his face close to hers on the pillow, close enough that he could easily kiss her -- and did. Then he said, with a glint in his eye, “Never knew it would be so hard to confess.”

“Sherlock Holmes!” she said with a pretense of indignation. “You told me once that lewd jests are common.”

“Not when I make them, obviously.”

She groaned, tempted to snog him senseless, but she managed to say instead, “Enough. We need to focus. You say that Eurus was responsible for the Moriarty broadcast?”

“We believe so. Still don’t know quite how it was done, and who was involved. Mycroft will have his work cut out for him, attempting to sever every tendril of her influence. It’s almost unfathomable… but the evidence is there. As I said, she’d been coming and going from Sherrinford for some time. And after my… er… stay of execution, she began showing up in all sorts of places. We know about a few of her disguises because John and I were her targets. She was John’s new therapist, as I told you -- and we found the real one in the airing cupboard, just as she told him.”

“The real therapist was dead?”

“Very. For quite some time.”

“When did you discover the body?”

“Day before yesterday, in the early afternoon. John had a nine a.m. appointment with her that day, during the course of which Eurus revealed her true identity and shot him with a tranquilizer dart. She was gone, of course, when he woke up a few hours later, and he called me immediately. After I’d checked things over, we spent the rest of the afternoon devising a trap for Mycroft. John said we’d have to… well, frighten him. Before he’d tell us the truth.”

“But wait, the poor therapist? What did you do with the body?”

“Oh, gave an anonymous tip to the police. But the Mycroft Trap! That was the most fun I’ve had in ages. John, too. He really got into the spirit of the thing.”

Molly narrowed her eyes. “You seem entirely too pleased, considering the serious nature of all this.”

“Well, one has to glean happiness where one finds it -- as you know quite well, Dr. Hooper.”

“Yes, alright. What did you do?”

“All sorts of things. My homeless network helped, too. We knew it would be Old Movie Night, and went from there. Spliced in some old family films. Brought in a clown -- he hates clowns. Fixed up some of the old portraits in his hall gallery so that they bled from the eyes. You should have seen him! I really did think he was going to pi--” He suddenly remembered himself and gave Molly a rueful -- and silent -- look.

“Piss himself?” she supplied, not laughing,

“Exactly!” he said, sounding relieved. “And it worked! He came to Baker Street yesterday morning to reveal all -- and he got through quite a lot of it before Eurus sent that drone to visit us and blew the place up.”

Molly reminded herself that, in allying herself to Sherlock, she would need to be resigned to lighthearted accounts of near disaster if she were to retain any semblance of sanity, so she did not berate his frivolous tone, but only asked, “How did you all survive?”

“Jumped out the windows. Well, John and I did. Mycroft took the stairs and got Mrs. Hudson out. We were all a bit singed around the edges, and John skinned a knee, but the awning over Speedy’s more or less broke our fall. Eurus didn’t want to kill us. Would’ve spoiled her fun.”

“Of course,” Molly murmured. “What about her other disguises? You said there were several, that you knew of.”

“Ye-es,” Sherlock said, somewhat diffidently. “She came to me as Culverton Smith’s daughter, Faith.”

“That was Eurus?” Molly exclaimed. “You weren’t hallucinating, then!”

“No! That was something of a relief. I mean, I was off my tits, as you saw, but my brain was unimpaired. Wiggins really is quite a good handler. I need to send him a gift of some sort.”

“Yes, you can think about that later. Any other disguises? I haven’t met her, have I?”

“I don’t know! You very well might have done. There’s only one other that we know of for certain, and that’s only because she revealed it to John along with her disguise as his therapist. But it went further back, before Mary was killed. John met her on the bus one day -- young, red-haired, Irish. And friendly. She gave him her number.”

Molly stared, aghast. “He… he called her? Saw her again?”

“Nooo. Well he saw her twice, actually, but only in public. Other than that, it was just texting.”

“Just texting.”

“Yes! I mean… it is understandable. New father, dead tired and playing second fiddle to an infant? And John being John -- Three Continents Watson and all that -- of course he was susceptible to a pretty, flirtatious woman!”

Molly’s heart froze within her.. “Sherlock, do you really believe that? That it was… nothing?”

He stared at her for a moment, then said, “No. But that’s what I told him. That’s one of the things that made the situation with Mary so much worse, Molly. It wasn’t just that she took a bullet meant for me. He… he never had a chance to confess. To tell her he was sorry. Because you’re correct: texting is never just texting. Which reminds me...”

“Reminds you of what?”

An odd look came over him. Wary, perhaps. He said, “Never mind. Just something I need to do later.”

Molly pressed her lips together.

Sherlock said, rather desperately, “Molly, don’t be angry with John. He’s a good man -- but he is just that: a man. And all too human.”

She knew he was right, but still... “Yes. We all are, aren’t we?” she said, finally. Sadly. “Alright, go on. What happened after the explosion?”

“We regrouped. The Met and Mycroft’s people showed up shortly after the fire brigade. Greg took Mrs. Hudson off to catch a train to Devon and her sister’s--”

“What? Wait!” Molly broke in. “Greg?”

Sherlock raised a brow, and looked annoyed. “That is Lestrade’s name.”

“I know that but… oh, well, forget it. Go on. Mrs. Hudson went off to Devon.”

“And Mycroft had his people secure 221B, locked out the press as best he could, though it was leaked that we’d all sustained injuries, with his the most serious. By that time we were well on our way out of London. A helicopter took us out to the coast, and then we went in dark. Mycroft even donned a fairly elaborate disguise, which he quite enjoyed. Mine was simpler, but I did get to commandeer a boat. Sherlock Holmes the Pirate.”

Molly managed to refrain from groaning again at his gleeful satisfaction at this title, and was ultimately glad of it for it faded rapidly, and he turned quite solemn.

“From then on it was more of a waking nightmare. Once we got in, we split up, which was, in retrospect, a mistake. But we had no way of knowing how far things had gone. I went in to see Eurus, while Mycroft and John stayed behind to question the governor of the facility.” He stopped speaking then, and his eyes were distant.

Alarmed, Molly said, “Sherlock… it’s alright. You don’t have to tell me every detail. Or...or anything more. If it’s too much.”

His eyes focused on her again, and he took a deep breath. “No. But perhaps… just the bare bones of it, for now. Which is bad enough in all truth.” His voice was hard, with a bitter edge, as he continued. “Eurus had control of the place, and the three of us ended up locked in a cell with the governor. It was a multimedia event. There was a screen, on which Moriarty would occasionally appear, egging us on in his inimitable fashion. And there was a voice feed, from a phone call. A little girl, trapped on a plane, all the other passengers and crew asleep. Eurus silenced the call after a short time, and said the plane would crash, unless I would participate in… in what turned out to be a series of tests. Experiments.”

He fell silent again, and she prompted quietly, “Experiments?”

“She wanted to observe me… well, all of us. Our reactions as we made moral choices in life and death situations.

“In the first, she presented us with a pistol and said that unless John or Mycroft shot and killed the governor, she would kill his wife. Euros and the wife were there behind a glass partition, the wife... restrained. I was to choose between John and Mycroft. Ultimately, neither were able to do it, the governor got hold of the pistol and killed himself, and Eurus… killed the wife. Since the conditions of her survival had not been met.”

“Oh my God,” Molly whispered.

“Yes.” He took her hand in his, but his eyes were distant again as he went on. “A door opened and we were instructed to navigate a passage that ended in another room, smaller this time, and the walls splattered with what looked like dried blood, but with a large window overlooking the sea. The phone call from the young girl was connected again, briefly. Then, to earn phone time with her, I was given the task of solving a murder committed by one of three brothers, surname Garrideb. The gun used in the crime was there, a rifle, and pictures of each of the men. John and Mycroft were encouraged to participate in the deduction. Mycroft was resistant, though ultimately assisted when context was presented -- a bit more conversation with the girl on the plane, and… and the three brothers, hanging outside the window, bound and gagged. I was to condemn the guilty party. Which I did. But Eurus dropped them all into the sea.”

Molly bit her lips against further exclamation, but did squeeze Sherlock’s hand, rather convulsively. He looked into her eyes then, and moved forward, and kissed her forehead.

“The third test was the call to you. We were sent into a small, dim room, with a screen and… a coffin. The one John mentioned.to you. We were given another minute on the phone with the girl, and then Eurus cut us off and said, Someone is about to die. As you might imagine, I had no reason to doubt it.”

“The coffin was… for me?”

“It… seemed likely that it was one you might have chosen. That much could be deduced from the size and style of the thing. But the brass plate on the lid clarified matters.”

“W-was my name on it?”

“No. Only the words I Love You.”

“And… you knew it was me?”

“Of course I knew. You might never have said those words aloud to me, but our every interaction… all these years… it’s always been true. Just as you told me.”

His voice had dropped to an agonized whisper, his eyes closing, and his expression was so full of suppressed pain that Molly’s breath hitched on a sob as she whispered, “Sherlock!”

His eyes glistened in the dim light when he opened them again. “I don’t think I’ve ever done anything harder in my life. Knowing how I was hurting you. Seeing you, there on the screen. Betraying you, the truest friend I had in the world. But I had to, of course, to try to save your life. And then, when you told me to say it first... “ His expression grew hard, though a tear slid down his cheek. “I’m not sure how -- or if -- I will ever forgive my sister for… for making a mockery of what should have been… a holy thing, just between the two of us. All these years I thought I was protecting you… so deeply important to me, and… and involved… and yet you had escaped everyone’s notice just as you’d escaped mine in the beginning. I thought you were safe because I would not surrender to sentiment. Stupid!”

And to Molly’s horror, he pulled her into his arms, buried his face against her neck and shoulder, and wept.

She waited for him, lying alone in the bed after he’d recovered himself somewhat and stumbled off to the en suite. Guilt still ate at her, though she knew it was nonsensical. She could not have imagined the insane circumstances behind that call, and with everything that had come before in her bad day, she could not have reacted in any other way -- except, perhaps, if she had disconnected, in spite of his panic-stricken plea. And who knew what might then have happened. He might well have been convinced that she had died. The whole outcome at Sherrinford might have changed, and not for the better.

She sat up, wearily. Worrying about him. She pulled some tissues from the box beside her bed and wiped her cheeks. Blew her nose. Wondered if this had all been too much for him. This confession.

But then he finally emerged again, and to her infinite relief, came to her, a very slight, almost boyish smile on his lips as he laid himself down beside her once more and drew her close, so that her head rested against his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head, once (and she snuggled into him, hugging him, trying not to weep again), but otherwise he just lay still for a couple of minutes, holding her.

And at last he began to speak again, calm, tired. “I destroyed the coffin afterwards. Deliberately and thoroughly. Lost it entirely while doing, so.that John and Mycroft were quite shocked. All those complicated little emotions. Those were Eurus’s words. They did not seem so little to me at the time.

“John helped me up, eventually. Soldiers, he said. That was the word of the day. We went on to the next room, an elimination round. I still had the pistol, and I was now to kill either my brother or my friend, whichever I felt was least useful.” He laughed a bit. “Mycroft tried to get me to choose him by telling me the many reasons why John would be the logical one to eliminate. It was a poor performance, as I told him. But ultimately I refused, and turned the gun on myself, counting back from ten. That development didn’t sit well with my sister. It was the only time in our hours at Sherrinford that I heard her speak with authentic emotion. So it was tranquilizer darts again, for John and me, this time. Mycroft was stashed in her cell, and she, John, and I were transported to Musgrave.

“I didn’t know it was Musgrave, of course, not at first. When I regained my senses I was lying on a table in what appeared to be another cell in Sherrinford. There was a lantern, and some photographs attached to the walls, and I had been fitted with a wireless earpiece through which I was able to communicate with the girl on the plane, with John, and with Eurus. The girl berated me for my hours-long absence, and from her description it was apparent that the plane was approaching its destination: London. John had come to at about the same time as I, and realized fairly quickly that he was trapped in a well, chained to the floor of it, and that there were bones under the water. When he told me that, I knew I was not at Sherrinford.

“Upon examination, the photographs displayed were of scenes and people from my childhood, and when I pushed at one of the walls of the ‘cell’, the whole thing collapsed outward around me. It was black night and I was on the grounds of Musgrave Hall -- and I thought that the bones John had found in that well were undoubtedly Redbeard’s.

“Euros took a turn in the voice feed as I snatched up the lantern and ran to the house, and as I went inside, there she was, projected on a screen again, in the entryway. She told me it was time to solve the Musgrave ritual or she would drown another of my pets. I heard John, again, seemingly from a room off the entry. I went in and there was another screen, displaying John in the well, water pouring down over him. Then the girl in the plane was back, too, increasingly panic stricken.

“I had mere minutes to save them both by solving a riddle that had completely baffled both Mycroft and I all those years ago.

“What was needed was emotional context. John slipped and fell and found more bones: a child’s skull. And when he told me that, it came back to me. Victor, my best friend was Redbeard. The two of us were so involved in our games that we barely noticed my sister, who had no friends at all, and felt as though she was losing me as well. She had no-one -- just as it said on one of the funny gravestones in the garden. They were a sort of folly in miniature, the names made up, the dates all wrong. And one said Nemo Holmes, 1617-1822, Aged 32 years. Nemo: from the Latin for on-one. Nobody.

“She had killed Victor, though. That fact was hard to bear. But I would not lose another friend that way, if I could help it.

“The wrong dates on the gravestones were the key to the cipher, and the cipher was the song -- it was never a set of directions as Mycroft and I had assumed. I was able to break the code. It led me to Eurus, in what had been her room in the house. And she was the girl on the plane, the one who was alone and unable to land. I told her I would help her, that I would bring her home, that it was not too late, she had just gone the wrong way last time. And she told me, finally, where to find John.”

Molly breathed, “Thank God!”

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed. “That’s nearly all of it. A neighbor, one of the leaseholders, had noticed all the lights and activity and had come to investigate. I met him as I ran out the door, and he let me use his phone to text Lestrade, then helped me get John out of the well. The local police showed up, and Lestrade wasn’t far behind, having come by helicopter -- but you knew that. He said you’d called him and told him about my strange phone call to you. He told me that you were so worried that you had wanted to come with him. It was that thought -- that you still cared and were waiting here for me -- that helped me through the next bits. Telling everything to the police. Seeing my sister so broken and lost to the world once more, and I unable to do more than send her back to her long imprisonment – for that time, at least.

“And then… I came home to you.”

She could not help smiling a little. “The end of the story.”

But he said, “No, not at all.” He moved, adjusting their positions,scooting down so that once more they lay face to face; tenderly brushed her hair back behind her ear, kissed her, and said, “It’s a new beginning.”

~.~

#Sherlock #sherlolly

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salytierra · 7 years

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@hetaliafandomhub EMBASSY : SPAIN

WRITING REFERENCE: REGIONS & CHARACTER TRAITS

Spain Works a little bit like a federation… except not really. The different Spanish regions are called “Autonomous Communities” and are semi-self-governing territories that were established following cultural and historical reasons, almost 40 years ago.

This has brought some problems, but also a lot of hilarity, because the rivalry between some of the regions created a ton of funny jokes and stereotypes.

There are 17 Autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities.

So there’s no such thing as one and only, defined, version of Spain and Spanish people, rather Spain is a sum of all its differences. Like a real person, our country is polyfacetic, complex, and often contradictory in its behavior, preferences and personality. But at the core, there’s just something that we all have in common and that sets us apart.

I prepared a little, humorous piece on each region, highlighting its traits and most common stereotypes. Of course, this is oriented towards writers that want to make their character representation richer and more extensive.

You can use any of the following for Antonio and combine them at your like:

THE AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES

Aragón: Legend has it, that not long ago the people from the aragonese Pyrenees still communicated with each other by yelling over the mountains. Whether that’s true or not, Aragón is considered the land of loud and headstrong people. And when I say headstrong I mean so stubborn that they will rather change the laws of physics than admit that they were wrong about something.

Their capital is Zaragoza and the cold is manufactured in its train&bus station. Seriously, its manufactured there and then exported to the rest of the world, I shit you not!

C. Valenciana: If orange trees disappeared from the face of the earth Valencia would cease to exist.

It’s the birth land of the paella and they won’t let you go until you’ve understood that. They are known for their corrupt politicians and have more metrosexuals for square meter than a gay gym. Speak catalan but call it “valenciano” and demand it to be treated like a completely different language. Collectively healthy and well-groomed. Valencian people are carefree, a little bit arrogant, and enjoy living the good life.

They also adore gunpowder; whether it’s a wedding or a funeral – there’s gonna be fireworks!

Asturias: “Spain is Asturias and the rest is reconquered land” and no Astur will ever let you forget that. They consider themselves the reason Spain exists in the first place and love reminding it to the rest of the country, whether it’s in the parliament or heavy metal songs. They really love their land, carry an Asturian flag everywhere they go, take pride in their history, landscapes, nature and… milk.

Anyway, their superiority complex is legendary and the worst part is that you can’t even pick on them for that because it’s all mostly true.

La Rioja: If you’ve got a wine mom, have ever been in the alcohol section of any supermarket, or studied the wine selection in a restaurant menu out of boredom, you probably know the word Rioja. It’s one of the most famous Designations of Origin in the world, which often leads to the assumption that Riojanos are drunk 90% of the time. Wrong. They are only drunk 70% of the time. They’ve also got a festival that is just like one giant water battle… but with wine instead.

Okay, jokes apart. Rioja has a lot more than just wine; its people will take you in with open arms no matter where you are from and make sure you never want to leave.

Andalucía: What the rest of the world thinks is Spain. Every stereotype you can think of? Surprise! Turns out it’s only applicable to Andalucía. Flamenco, frilly dresses and women called Carmen come from there. Sadly, they are often treated like a joke by the rest of the country, but to give them credit: take it really well.

Although in the rest of Spain we are convinced that the religious devotion is actually an excuse for huge parties and let’s be fair – you’d also siesta if the temperature outside got to 50ºC in summer afternoons. Andalusians are also everywhere; wherever you go you’ll find hordes of them and recognize them by their funny accent.

Galicia: Other countries have china-town. We have one giant Ireland-town and it takes up this entire region. Galicia is extremely beautiful, has a lot of forests and a very unique culture, not to mention a very sticky accent and their own language; which is so closely related to Portuguese it’s difficult to tell them apart.

Now, the Galicians are the human form of “to be or not to be”; or alternatively the object of Katy Perry’s “hot’n’cold” song. You won’t find more indecisive bunch on the face of the earth. They’ve also got collective “morriña” which nobody is really sure what it means but it’s sort of a good-melancholic feeling.

Cantabria: In Cantabria, one in every four habitants is a cow. Also, the last time something metal happened there, it was in the times of the Roman invasion.

They have the best anchovies and will not tolerate any offense against them. Apart from that, they are fine people that may be a little bit cold but talk in sing-song and work very hard and a lot. A little bit hard to crack maybe, or that might just have been my former housemate.

C. de Madrid: So… turns out there’s an entire Autonomous Community surrounding the capital. Although, to be fair, the city takes up most of it.

The Madrileños are always stressed out, always! They are always rushing everywhere like devil’s got their pants on fire and still get there too late. In an eternal competition with Barcelona about literally everything. They are also really prideful, but I’ve said that just about any region till now. Also, it’s the capital, they are supposed to believe themselves the shit xDDD

País Vasco/Euskadi: The special snowflake of Spain and the entire Europe now that we are at it. Actually rumored to be aliens. Their language doesn’t come from indo-european, their genetic code is different, there’s a hereditary disease similar to chronic insomnia that only affects Basques… What even are these creatures?

It doesn’t matter; we still love their pinchos, and making jokes about their brute strength. Because believe me when I tell you: there’re no humans on earth as BRUTE as the Basques. Yes, I also thought that was an exaggeration, until I started sharing an apartment with one.

Navarra: Are they actually Basques? Are Basques actually Navarros? We might never know. The truth is that the Kingdom of Navarra was one of the cool territories during medieval Iberia and now they are famous for their Asparagus.

Okay that was mean. Navarra is actually a beautiful place (with fiscal privileges) full of history and people that might never win a subtlety and delicacy contest, but party like no-one else on the face of the earth!

Murcia: When Spanish kids are little and learning the Autonomous Communities they always forget one while counting on their fingers. That one is always Murcia. Nobody knows why it’s even a region on its own. Maybe it’s because of the language? Although make no mistake, they don’t have another language, they speak Castilian… probably, but nobody understands them anyway.

I know I’m being quite rough, but my former step-dad, the man that raised me, was originally from Murcia. They are admirably good at making jokes on their own expense. Let’s give them credit for that, at least.

Islas Baleares: *currently under the occupation of German tourists*

There’s not much to say about the Balearic Islands. As any overly-touristic place, they’ve lost a bit their essence, but some charm still remains. They are also paradisaically beautiful. I remember Formentera looking like a real-life movie poster with see-through water and marine animals swimming between your feet.

But if you really want to learn about Spain, our culture and people – don’t choose Mallorca for your vacation. I’m sure at this point the locals will thank you for that too.

Castilla-León: The buffer between the green north and the barren south. Those scholars that are trying to discredit the “Duero Desert” theory obviously never had to drive through the area itself for hours. It is still pretty much a desert full of wheat and olive trees. And the occasional city from time to time.

Now, that region is old Spain, Valladolid used to be the capital before it got shifted to Madrid, as León was before that. If you want a lungful of history – just visit any town in that region, it’s bursting with it. Also they are supposed to have the most perfect, correct Spanish and its people love visitors.

Castilla-La Mancha: Even more wheat fields… wheat fields as far as the eye can see. Finally, after days of wheat fields you see a town on the top of a hill, it’s surrounded by a medieval wall and in its heart a castle stands tall and mighty. You climb the hill and enter the city. Everyone is carrying a sword.

You stand there thinking whether you are hallucinating from the heat or just time travelled. Until a fuckboy with a Vespa almost runs you over. Turns out that’s only their aesthetic™ and you haven’t left civilization at all. Enjoy your stay, it’s f*cking magical. (srsly tho: I really want to visit Toledo again)

Extremadura: I don’t know what’s in the water in Extremadura but its natives are always ready for battle. Seriously, almost all the famous (and universally despised) Spanish conquerors in history were from Extremadura. They are direct, opinionated and blame Portugal’s entire existence for not having a beach.

I mean it, never cross an extremeño, but having one as a friend is probably the best investment you can make. They also work the earth a lot, remain unusually religious and have a weird obsession with making dick jokes about their own region’s name. Oh, and they also make ham!!

Islas Canarias: Their days last 23 hours, shipping companies ignore them, the magazines are more expensive, and you never know how to find them on a map. No, I mean they are pretty visible on a map of Spain, there down in a small square shape reserved only for them. But try to find them on a world map, I dare you…

Anyway, they officially have the best climate on earth, receive loads of tourism, and grow the famous “plátanos” – Spanish-branded bananas, and I’m pretty sure also that weird bunch-y shape on the top of Toño’s bangs – along with many other things. The highest mountain in Spain is there and it’s a volcano.

Cataluña: Saving the best for last. And if that sentence is not the epitome of Catalan character then I don’t know what is. Seriously, my dearest home region needs to chill and a lesson in humility, but we are not that bad. The bit about us being hard workers is relatively true, as well as the stingy bit. We’ve got 99 problems but a lack of imagination is not one of them, for better or worse. Hipsters be here.

And finally; we like taking risks, as evidenced by our “castellers”: human towers as high as possible and on the top, 15m from the ground – a four year old kid with a bike helmet.

Take that one, Spiderman!

THE AUTONOMOUS CITIES

Ceuta and Melilla: Established like at VII B.C. by the Phoenicians, they passed through a lot of hands.

Melilla became Spanish in the latest stage of La Reconquista, in 1497. Since it used to be a Visigoth territory too, it was symbolically important for the Catholic Monarchs to take particularly that one city, and so they did.

But the custody of Ceuta was won in the divorce from Portugal. When in 1640 Portugal decided that the Iberian Union sucked, Ceuta, a formerly Portuguese territory, demanded to stay with Spain. Aww, such a cutie!

So this is it! I hope you enjoyed this wild ride. Aren’t we just a lovely bunch? xDD Anyway, as I already said – you can combine and extrapolate from any of these to form your preferred version of Spain. Just don’t forget that they are still only stereotypes! ;)

Please reblog to spread the word (and so I don’t feel sad because this was quite hard to make...)

Header and references: (x)(x)(x)(x)

And now a private word to the Spanish people around here:

¡Que nadie me venga ahora quejándose, que esto lo he hecho pa hacer guasa! Y si no os gusta, pues no haber dejado la imágen del país en manos de una catalana, cony xDDD

Será posible, que algunos países tienen como de 3 a 5 representantes y a mí me habéis dejado sola, panda de vagos. Venga, que presentarse a portavoz no cuesta nada… (porfii~ me siento solita 😢)

#aph ambassador #aph spain #btw: the mapping is from wiki #hetalia fanfiction #hetaliafandomhub #me he dejado alguna? creo que no #open to use #reference #si he puesto a murcia esque están todas xDD #spain #writing reference #embassy board

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theridiculousangharad-blog · 7 years

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How Post-Apocalyptic Parents React to the Loss of a Child, From Walking Dead to Pacific Rim

“Got all these widows and orphans,” we hear Beth Greene say to Michonne, “but what do you call someone who lost a child? You’d think someone would have given that a name.”

The Walking Dead: Warming Up or Getting Tough

If season three of The Walking Dead is any indication, we as a culture are obsessed with watching the world go up in flames. Do we get a vicarious thrill out of watching the world we live in implode into terror? Or maybe zombies are just a really perfect allegory for the problems we relate to in this this modern age.

Whatever the case, Apocalyptica is a trend that has been cropping up for the past several years. A common thread running through it is how the characters handle the death of a child. “We read fantasy to find the colors again…” says George R. R. Martin author of Game of Thrones, “to taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang.” While escapism is sometimes frowned upon by the court of public opinion, fiction as a whole can help viewers cope. The most terrible pain that can be felt is the loss of a child. What does the way post-apocalyptic fiction handles this situation tell us about ourselves?

The Walking Dead utilizes the zombie apocalypse not only to show juicey zombies, but to postulate that the true evil is humanity. One of the most heartbreaking stories is that of fan favorite Michonne.

First seen holding two “walkers” with chains and her trusty katana, Michonne was first considered a mystery. “Got all these widows and orphans,” we hear Beth Greene say to Michonne, “but what do you call someone who lost a child? You’d think someone would have given that a name.” Michonne trudges through the zombie apocalypse like she is one herself.

In a truly spectacular tragic fashion as only The Walking Dead can provide, it is revealed that Michonne’s infant son was killed in an attack on her former camp due to her boyfriend’s neglect. Our only entrees into her mind are the guilt ridden dreams of the life she lost. When Rick starts to hallucinate that his dead wife is back, Michonne says succinctly, “I used to talk to my dead boyfriend,” almost in solidarity. This is the most she has said, showing that she is healing and becoming a more open person.

The death of her infant boy took a piece of her that made her just as dead as the walkers. And even though that piece is gone forever, she can find redemption and love in the new group that has made just as many mistakes as she has. As Michonne warms, slowly but surely, to the group and in particular Rick's son Carl, she demonstrates a way to move on.

Carol also lost a child. A former abuse victim, Carol was forced to watch her twelve year old daughter transform into a monster into and killed in front of her. Carol then had a transformation of her own.

While fundamentally different from Michonne, the death of her daughter causes her to change. Michonne becomes more open while Carol, who used to be under the thumb of her brutish husband, becomes one of the most fierce and independent warriors of the camp. Where Michonne gained a heart, Carol gained a skin.

The 100: Finding Faith

Chancellor Thelonious Jaha of CW teen drama The 100 has not only the mantel of single parenthood on his shoulders, but is also responsible for protecting the human race from extinction. The 100 takes place 90 years after a nuclear war ravaged Earth. 100 juvenile delinquents are sent to Earth to see if it’s survivable for humans. Three episodes in and Wells Jaha, the son of the chancellor, is murdered.

Jaha carries around the death of his son on his shoulders. It makes him resigned, so apathetic that he is even prepared to sacrifice himself to get the rest of his people on the ground. He will be the only one left on the Ark - the space station - left to suffocate and starve. But strangely, the death of his son also did something else. It has gave him faith.

In one of the most terrifying and stressful scenes of the show, Jaha hears the cries of a baby. Realizing that he must save its life and not leave it to die, he insulates it in a space suit so he can vault himself on a missile that will take him to Earth. (Stay with me here, it gets good.)

After his space helmet cracks and he almost misses his trajectory, he lands in the airlock and unzips his suit to find that the child is gone. Though it was already not terribly difficult symbolism to follow, The 100 makes it easy. We realize the child only existed in his mind, as his dead son comes to him in a hallucination and tells him he must carry on and not give up yet. (Cue all of us crying.)

Jaha launches the missile and lands in the middle of Earth’s “dead zone” - a horrible and desolate desert, of course. But what Jaha still has after everything is his faith. His continuing mantra is “it’s not our time to die.” He has faith that he is supposed to live on. And before he vaults into unknown territory, he recites the common motto of his people to the visage of his dead son. “May we meet again.”

Battlestar Galactica: Distraction

Sci-Fi is written to examine problems of the day in a removed setting. While Battlestar Galactica is not a new show by any stretch of the imagination, from the first episode, it is clear that this is not, well, your mother’s Battlestar Galactica. Not only because of the truly the antagonistic Cylons, but, because of its relationships.

When the show starts, Commander Adama of the Battlestar Galactica - an ancient space battleship - is already struggling with the death of his son. Adama deals with this loss the way you would imagine a military commander would have to: distraction. Surrogate daughter Kara says “we only speak about it two or three times a year, but he struggles with it.” When you’re a high ranking military official, isn't repression just kind of part of the package? But when his surviving son Lee returns, Adama must face all of the mistakes that were made that led to Zak’s death.

This has less to do with moving on and more to do with mending bridges with the son that’s still alive. The Cylons completely destroy the home planet and only by chance is this ancient battlestar that was headed for retirement not destroyed and must be the ones to keep the Cylons at bay. And in this sort of scenario, does anyone really have time to deal with the death of their son and their ugly estrangement from their other child?

Snowpiercer: Blind Revenge

A child may not just be killed to be lost in Apocalyptica. In fact, it is almost more tragic or indecent when they are not killed at all. Some of the most nefarious things seem to happen in these worlds. The world has ended because things have become twisted and ugly.

In independent film Snowpiercer, the use or, more accurately, misuse of children is subtle and silent, but disturbing all the same. The action takes place after an attempt to combat global warming with a cooling agent. This cooling agent backfires and covers the world as we know it in ice, making the remaining population live on their remaining days on a never stopping train. The poor in the last car are forced to eat rations made out of cockroaches.

The human race lives on and procreates, as is evidenced by Timmy and his mother Tanya, played by the underutilized and wonderful Octavia Spencer. Only five years old, Timmy is taken by the front of the train at the beginning of the film and is never seen by his mother again. A strong female character, even all the male characters attempt to stop her from going to save her son. “I’m stronger than your skinny soldiers,” Tanya throws at hero Curtis defiantly.

This is a priority higher than any sort of overthrow of government. This is the fate of her five year old child. A strong character that could have brought a lot to the story, Tanya is of course killed in the battle for the train’s soul. She isn’t the only one, but her death is looked over and dismissed just as quickly, despite her blind devotion to her child. This represents another coping: blind, self-destructive devotion to revenge.

Pacific Rim: Pride

Nothing is more unbelievable than giant robots fighting alien monsters. But that is the joy of Pacific Rim. Despite the fact that it is effect-heavy, action, blockbuster bait, that’s not all it is. This is not just a gratuitous action movie.

Herc and Chuck are a father-son alien fighting team in their giant jaeger called Eureka Striker. Before the final battle, father Herc is injured so he cannot participate in the final climactic battle that is present in all action flicks. His son Chuck must sacrifice himself in the final battle. Herc understands this. He honors what his son has done, although his son has been taken from him. He continues his fight and stays in line, using his sons sacrifice to elevate him to something greater even than he was in life. He becomes the father of a martyr for the human race, the proudest distinction a parent can have.

Parents will do whatever they can for their children. A post-apocalyptic world just makes these decisions more important. The love a parent has for a child cannot be eclipsed by anything. Although Apocalyptica deals with unbelievable scenarios, these are feelings that are very real.

In a world where survival is paramount, it almost seems that mourning a child cannot be a priority. Yet these characters manage to represent the full range of practical grieving. They keep living, even in an impossible and horrific world. The mere memories of their children make them fight and live on, though in entirely different ways.

#film #television #post apocalyptic #essay

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scottadamsblog · 8 years

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Imaginary News

I think we can all agree that there has been plenty of fake news coming from both sides. Fake news is usually intentional, although in some cases it is the result of honest mistakes. But lately we are seeing an entirely new type of untrue news. I call it Imaginary News. Here’s a good example from the Huffington Post.

I watched President Trump’s press conference with the alleged “meltdown,” and all I saw was Trump talking the way he normally talks. The Huffington Post watched and apparently saw some other set of circumstances. That means we have three possibilities to consider:

1. Huffington Post saw the situation accurately while I was hallucinating.

2. My version of events is accurate and Huffington Post hallucinated.

3. Both the Huffington Post and I were hallucinating.

When I was younger, I would have automatically assumed that I was right and the Huffington Post was either intentionally lying or deluded. My more mature understanding of the world is that most people are hallucinating most of the time. We live in our own personal movies. This is a perfect example. Millions of Americans looked at the same press conference and half of us came away thinking we saw an entirely different movie than the other half. Many of us saw Trump talking the way he normally does, and saying the things he normally says. Other people saw a raving lunatic, melting down.

Those are not the same movies.

So how can we know who is hallucinating in this case? The best way to tell is by looking for the trigger for cognitive dissonance. In this case, the trigger is clear. Trump’s unexpected win forced the Huffington Post to rewrite their mental movies from one in which they were extra-clever writers to one in which they were the dumbest political observers in the entire solar system.

You might recall that the Huffington Post made a big deal of refusing to cover Trump on their political pages when he first announced his candidacy. They only carried him on their entertainment pages because they were so smart they knew he could not win.

Then he won.

When reality violates your ego that rudely, you either have to rewrite the movie in your head to recast yourself as an idiot, or you rewrite the movie to make yourself the hero who could see what others missed. Apparently the Huffington Post chose to rewrite their movie so Trump is a deranged monster, just like they warned us. That’s what they see. This isn’t an example of so-called “fake” news as we generally understand it. This is literally imaginary news. I believe the Huffington Post’s description of the press conference is literally what they saw. If you gave them lie detector tests, they would swear they saw a meltdown, and the lie detector would say they were telling the truth.

There are two clues that the Huffington Post is hallucinating and I’m not. The first clue is that they have a trigger and I don’t. Reality violated their egos, whereas I was predicting a Trump win all along. My world has been consistent with my ego. No trigger. All I have is a warm feeling of rightness.

The second clue is that the Huffington Post is seeing something that half the country doesn’t see. As a general rule, the person who sees the elephant in the room is the one hallucinating, not the one who can’t see the elephant. The Huffington Post is literally seeing something that is invisible to me and other observers. We see a President Trump talking the way he normally talks. They see a 77-minute meltdown.

I’m writing more on this topic in my upcoming book.

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You might want to read my existing book because the new one will be out in October and you’ll want to read that one second.

#Trump

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