#[and well it's no question that the bird is the primary muse here]

[drengar]

Currently at work but I am going to try and do more on here when I get home. I very much want to write but I feel I'm in a weird headspace so I may be picky about what I do. I'll buckle down this weekend to do things as I have Sunday and Monday off.

On another note, Dee and I are talking about changing my blog graphics. This will most likely happen on Sunday/whenever Dee finishes them. And surprising no one, it's all going to be Hawks/Keigo focused.

[carolinemillerbooks]

New Post has been published on Books by Caroline Miller

New Post has been published on https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/in-search-of-meaning/

In Search Of Meaning

The woman on Facebook said I didn’t understand her comment and accused me of being sarcastic.  I thought I was engaging in subtle teaching.  She needed to see what she’d written made no sense and that blaming others for misunderstanding her wasn’t kosher.  The person who sends the message is responsible for its clarity.  My nudge enflamed rather that pacified, however.  I might as well have written she was writing drivel and moved on.  Recent discoveries in the animal kingdom suggest mammals and birds have language skills. While not advanced, they can combine ideas. A bird can caw both a warning and advice to its neighbor. “A snake hides beneath your branch so come here.”  Humans can do more than cobble two thoughts together.  They can express complex ideas. Complexity invites errors, of course, because words carry emotion as well as information. Science abandoned communal language in favor of mathematics for this reason. The symbol for Pi, (π,) rarely enranges an individual.    Whether the brain is engaged in emotional or logical thinking, it is an inventive machine. It uses the senses to shape our world, giving us snippets of information that may differ from what dolphins and trees require, but which keeps us safe.  Prediction is its primary function.  “If I fall from this branch, the snake concealed in the autumn leaves below will eat me.”   Ironically, the organ on which we heavily depend is a mystery to us.  Why, for example, does the dying brain continue to function after the heart has stopped?  In its final moments, it floods its tissues with the same gamma rays that produce dreams or hallucinations, conjuring blissful scenes, if near-death survivors can be believed.  Are these visions intimations of heaven?  If so, why do dying rats share the same gamma experience?  Unsurprisingly, one question begets another. When a person falls into a prolonged catatonic state, where does consciousness go? Science has made some progress in this direction. They’ve learned these comas have to do with antibodies that alter receptors that bind glutamate…disrupting how neurons can send signals to one another.  As scientists learn more about our biology, they may discover how to restore somnambulists to full consciousness. But will we ever learn where these dreamers have been?  Sigmund Freud devoted himself to exploring the unconscious, that world to which the afflicted may have escaped. Mainly, that part of the brain regulates bodily functions.  Conscience is unnecessary to keep our hearts beating, for example. Even so, stress can pierce our hidden mind’s armor. We may suffer inexplicable breakdowns or possibly go mad. Sometimes artistic or spiritual revelations explode from the same murky depths like bursts of fireworks. Several years ago, I commented on Barbara Ehrenreich’s book, Living with a Wild God.   In it, she described a moment when the heavens opened and poured into her.  A non-believer, she didn’t rush to the nearest church to bend a knee before its altar. Nonetheless, the experience did give her pause. Having had a similar one, I, too, was forced to pause.  Had I stumbled upon an alternate form of consciousness?  Was the mind, like the elevator of an infinite department store, capable of opening its door on many levels? So much of what we think we know is ephemeral.  Yet in our hubris, we dare to pursue a multiverse of our making, one where we are both omniscient and omnipotent. I refer to Artificial Intelligence (AI). With it, we explore meta-worlds where no human thought has gone before.  Optimists see AI as a plane of good intentions. One day, they imagine,disease will be no more.  One day, even death shall die.  Not everyone is sanguine.  How will this tool fare in the hands of bad actors, they wonder.  Creating ethical standards is a necessary step, but then… few rogues will care about that. And who should create these standards? Russia? Saudi Arabia,? Perhaps North Korea could suggest a shining path. At a crossroads in a giant step for mankind, AI poses many questions. My choice would be to move slowly.  Paraphrasing a line Robert Frost’s famous poem, ”Before I built a Universe, I’d ask to know about the rules, who was being admitted or barred, and to whom it was likely to give offense. * Our species has wandered the planet for 200,000 years, yet we have no agreement on the meaning of good and evil. Linguistics is a weak vessel for this purpose as it can both clarify and disassemble. No wonder even the most sincere stumble.  Whether language informs our brain or the brain informs language, or the process is some endless loop between the two, I do not know.  What’s certain is that communication is difficult and words are incapable of judging the worth of their cargo.  Whether we convey truth, ignorance, or lies rests with our intentions and much of that lies in our unconscious.   Language does manage to communicate, though.  Mostly, it reveals information about ourselves.   *Adapted from Rober Frost”s “Mending Wall.”

[autumnslance]

Prompt #22: Veracity

((Revised on Ao3. Had this done last night but birthday shenanigans with the FC & a call from Mom delayed me. Idea inspired by a Babylon 5 ep...))

“We simply cannot verify these records,” Pentalamus argued. “And we especially know Count Edmont’s record to be biased.”

“Biased, perhaps,” Deadeali said. “Yet still invaluable as a primary source of the history.”

“I cannot deny that, I merely point out that the Count was writing from a very favorable viewpoint.”

“All history is biased,” Gray Swallow stated. “But you seem determined, my dear colleague”—no one missed the sarcasm in the large man’s tone, their academic rivalry well-known—“To deny that the Scions of the Seventh Dawn and the Warrior of Light especially were the heroes every record says. Particularly considering we have here today a living witness.”

The eyes in the chamber turned to the small, elderly Viera woman sitting quietly among them, her clear turquoise eyes flickering between each speaker, gray-tufted ears twitching at each sentence. She cleared her throat.

“I have already stricken the lies and exaggerations, or pointed out where the truth was stretched or hidden, often for specific reasons. I was not present for the end of the Dragonsong War, or many other adventures, but I knew all of those involved, and stood beside those heroes many times in battle.” Her eyes swept the room again, pinning on Pentalamus. “And they were heroes—certainly better people than I could be, especially in mine own youth.”

“Removed the lies, you say. And likely uncomfortable truths as well, no doubt, to prevent your fellows’ memories from tarnishing,” another scholar in the assembly said; Iyna forgot his name, but knew him to be a crony of this Pentalamus.

Iyna glowered. “I see no reason to hide the flaws and mistakes made by the Scions in those times. They were, after all, mortals. They had their limits, their doubts. But they always strove for better. You seem to have a difficult time believing that, young man.”

Pentalamus snorted; he was well over fifty, though to the Viera woman he yet seemed a swaddling babe. “I don’t believe in mere altruism. Man always wants something to motivate him.”

Iyna laughed. “Ah, I used to believe as you!” She said. “But I grew up a ward of Garlemald, at a time when it was a despotic empire under control of an ancient madman, not the fair republic it is now, centuries later. Still with its faults, of course—and yet its current course can be traced back to the Ilsabard Contingent’s humanitarian efforts to save the survivors of the Empire’s downfall. I was not among them; my pain and anger was still too great, back then.” She took a sip from a water glass.

“That the lady’s story hasn’t changed in any way, no matter how many times she tells it, should count for something,” quiet young Terrianette said.

“Only that she is well-practiced,” Deadeali said, before Pentalamus could.

“The question seems to be the veracity of not only the many records of the Warrior of Light and the Scions, but also my word as a witness,” Iyna mused. “In which case, t’would be best to have more witnesses.”

“Unfortunately, my lady, there are few so venerable as yourself who can claim to have known those people and the events in question,” Gray Swallow said gently.

Iyna snorted. “Because, my dear children, you forget man shares this world with others, and there are far more elder memories than mine.”

At that, she let out a loud, piercing whistle that made the various academics in the room wince.

The sound was answered; by the roar of a great cat, a large bird’s shriek, and a dragon’s roar.

A man entered the room; a tall young Raen by all appearances, though his impressive horns shone green, and his eyes were an unnatural burning red. Skittering at his feet was some sort of black beetle-like machina. Behind the Raen came a Kojin man and a strange woman with hair and dress of fire; they were flanked by a massive snake and a white tiger. Dragonets and a myriad of other animals bound into the room in their wake as the assembly of professors and students watched in alarm. The few sleepy reporters found themselves paying much more attention to the debate.

“That—isn’t that the Satrap of Radz-at-Han?”

“His mortal vessel, I think…”

“What are those creatures?

“Auspices from my homeland in the East…Kami preserve, they are—“

The not-Raen made it to Iyna, gesturing for her to remain seated. He took her hand, bowing low over it in greeting as she eye-rolled and shook her head. He grinned at her, then straightened and looked around the room, all mirth faded. His gaze carried more age and authority than even the Viera’s.

“You wish to hear the truth of the Warrior of Light and fellow Scions of the Seventh Dawn,” he said in a quiet voice that carried to every corner, and his power with it. “Then let us tell you what we saw, what we remember, of our friends—and sometimes enemies.“ He glanced down at the machina, as its devices seemed to scan the room. The Satrap looked up again.

“Let us tell you of the true history of the saviors of this star.”

[ornamental-coral]

Do you have houses combos you love besides Snake Bird ?

Hi sorry it’s take me so long to get to you ‘nonnie human you. I promise if anyone sends me questions, I will get to them eventually! It just takes a while for me thinking about them, researching about them (doing Birdy Bird things with even a one-sentence question...), forgetting I have a sort-hat-chats centered tumblr account (which is... can sort of a Bird thing but also a me thing), and then coming back so we are here (there. somewhere)

I myself am a Snake-Bird. I think I’m pretty neat. Birds are usually very good at entertaining themselves. I think. And I’m lucky I like myself enough because I spend a lot of time with me haha.

I’m a little in love with a remarkable amount of Lion primaries, Snake secondaries and Bird primaries (especially with a Snake secondary to make them extra hard to hold onto *rolls eyes) and apparently I love writing Badger Primaries? I guess I find the challenge of building an “ideal” society that is willing to address the current failings of our timeline a worthwhile challenge and my ink-children rise from the ether to meet me.

I’ve expanded below bar because this is actually a really interesting concept to me - how does a particular house combination react to the others. Below is just my meandering through how specifically My Snake Primary Bird secondary might react on a surface level to the other house types. This doesn’t mean I’m right. There are as many ways of acting within the house system as there are human beings and keep in mind, this is all in good fun.

____________________

Lions

The Idealism of the Lion Primary is something that I find admirable. I posted a more extended musing on the position of Snake Birds within media here. I think the Snake in me understands that when you pick up a person the way Snakes do, you pick up a lot of their wants and regrets too. Snakes pick up People, so that means the whole package. A Lion with a worthy cause can be a very attractive thing to a Snake, who will follow and support them in a very specific kind of way. 

With Double Lions, and Lion Snakes there’s that urge to run after them with a fire-extinguisher in one hand and a big stick in the other - one to put out the fires a Double Lion inevitably lights and the Lion Snake may try purposefully to stoke, and the other to beat off anyone who dares to tell your Lion that they cannot Be A Lion. That’s something only the Snake can do, and that’s only because no matter what the Snake says, the Lion is still Their Person warts and all and the Snake Bird knows damn well what they were getting into, or at least thought they did.

Lion Birds house-match secondaries with Snake Birds but can have explosively different moral codes, largely because they method match. I personally find some Lion Bird characters a little grating because as the audience, I feel I’m getting the same information as the Lion, but as a Snake I have a little too much self-preservation to imagine myself doing anything much about it - at least not the way a majority of Lion Bird characters act - or I come to different conclusion. I also hate conspiracy theories because they require leaps of logic the my Bird model typically just can’t tolerate but the felt-house Lion will participate in. However, Lion Birds can also be the hard-boiled PIs, the Best-at-their-Job secret agents (hi Agent Coulson), the one who has Seen the World and Still Believes It Can Be Saved. So that’s admirable and fun.

Lion Badgers are sweet but my Snake Bird goes “fires, fires everywhere”. And like, not the kind your Lion Snake might think is funny when the Snake Bird tries to put them out. Think Steve Rodgers. MCU Steve has a really strong Snake Performance though when it comes to Bucky which MY Snake finds really confusing because it is So Strong I’d be willing to be money he would have at least tried to find a better way to get rid of the Tesseract if Bucky hadn’t fallen from that train and been declared KIA. I think that particular type of Snake performance also confuses Tony, which is part of why Civil War was the way it was.

But yeah, a fire that a Lion Badger wants to light? it’s not going to go out. For a Snake, having that as Your Person means you either really ride or die for them - and might actually literally have to die, or you are keeping them from burning themselves out before they accomplish whatever they’re doing. For a Snake Bird? this is alarming as hell and it’s a fight between the Secondaries to make sure the Lion takes care of themselves as part of the Lion’s “hard work” Badger, if they’re your person.

Birds

Bird primaries will “build” the people they love into the way they see the world. As a Snake, I think this is just really appealing to me? Snakes are loyal, and older Snakes have the life experience to realize that - painful as it is - this loyalty will not always be reciprocated in the way you hope for (this is the stereotypical bone of contention between Lions, Badgers and Snakes. Lions are focused on their cause and if the Snake’s protective instincts get in the way of that, that causes problems It also hurts when a Lion’s mission supersedes their affection for their Snake people. Badgers’ concerns are for their communities and the split of attention can drive the individually focused Snake crazy). If you get built into the Bird’s world, that always felt like something special and something that took hard work, which made it all the more valuable.

My Snake Birds also likes to imagine it’s equipped to learn to the things that a Bird variety believes in and address those things. It’s the kind of relationship that has the potential to go very wrong, and I do realize that. I think Snake Birds have the tendency to want to be everything for Their Person (or people) and our powers of observation mean that we take it a little personally when we’ve missed something. I’m tempted to call Kaz Brekker of Six of Crows a Snake Bird and it drives him to distraction that he can’t be everything, everywhere, all at once to the handful of a people he truly and deeply cares about.

The Bird Snake in particular house matches in a way that can be particularly challenging and attractive to a Snake Bird? A Snake Bird’s tool is, well, the Bird, and the whole persona can feel ridiculously pleased by being able to “pin down” the Bird Snake, which does not necessarily lend itself to being pinned. There’s also this strong urge to understand the Bird Snake. 

So there’s the Snake secondary who delights in finding new ways to be, and a Bird Secondary delights in learning new things. The discovery element in that relationship can, as long as the Bird Secondary is not stifled by the Snake Primary’s concern, actually be really rewarding. Birds, and Bird Snakes in particular are also often really unique. They think differently, act differently, can be off putting to certain types of house combinations because their moral code can come off is so blue-orange, and is Built on top of that. Snakes take great pride in being very “this is my Person and their brand of weirdness is just another thing I love about them. And on top of that, I Know them.” with their people in any situation, and if a Snake can eventually prove to their Bird Primary that that feeling is unwavering, that’s a relationship that becomes central to both Snake and Bird.

That isn’t to say Birds can’t go dark, but usually they learn to be that way given Birds are evidence-gatherers. Unfortunately, this means I love them too because people of my generation and all generations before and hence have a thing for characters with trauma (see Loki, greasy prince extraordinaire).  It’s -- it’s never not been a thing. Take a look at freaking Gilgamesh, which is the oldest things that we know of, look at Enkidu, and tell me he wasn’t your favorite. Gilgamesh is kind an arschloch of highest proportions. As a more palatable example of this Bird-villain thing, I sort of suspect Bucky Barnes is a Bird of some flavor. If he killed one person as the Winter Soldier, he’d feel bad but probably admit it was the brain washing - but he did it dozens of times. He wonders what does this say about him? He is possibly a Badger, but even pre-winter-soldier he doesn’t seem to care on as wide a scale as a Badger typically does. Steve is Built into the fabric of his world, and he doesn’t react to Steve’s death the way I expect a Snake to either. Maybe a really Old Seasoned Snake and I mean technically he’s old? but the cryogenics thing sort of means he’s not old enough to just let it go. He also doesn’t follow the boy from Brooklyn for reasons I would expect from a fellow Snake but I guess the new show might give more insight on that once I actually watch it.

Badgers

Okay, I like writing Badgers. [Leans back on chaise lounge] this probably has something to do with my mother.

Really though. I model Badger because my mother, although I love her and I’m really lucky to have her, is a teeny tiny bit horrified by Snake tendencies and drilled into me the morality that it is okay and it is above all Good to care about other people (for other Snakes, read Yes Even Strangers). To be fair, the prioritizing that Snakes do (which can get as focused as ”My people first, even if someone else far away is in trouble and I am acutely aware of it”) can seem pretty horrific to a Badger. They don’t necessarily get how you could believe everyone is a person and just... not care. And it’s hard to convince a Badger (for whom not acting can = they are not worth it) that you know exactly what you’re doing but are also aware that if you try to help everyone your head will explode because you can’t keep that many People up there. It’s why Snakes have their rings of caring.

But the result is that for me, Badgers are usually the ones left standing at the end of the story. If they’re done dirty, I like to try and fix it.

I don’t like how media treats Badger primaries generally though? There’s often something “goofy” or the Badger is treated as soft in a really unpalatable way. I mean, and to be fair this directly comes from the way a Snake can sort of be flummoxed with the way Badgers just do things for strangers, yes Badgers irl may be considered gentle. On an individual level, they are often the hearts and hearths of groups and homes.  But there’s this weird place where The State is supposed to be a Badger-shaped institution, so that uneasy balance comes out in weird ways.

I don’t remember who said it, but the difference with Badgers and Snakes is that, with a Snake, you start out at Zero. You’re human, but you’re not the Snake’s human, so I will treat you like a human, but there are My People above you. And with a Badger, you sort of start out at like 85-100%? At least this is my perception. Badgers need-base and that off-balances Snakes.

A Snake with a Badger in my opinion needs to be “eyes open” in a different way than even a Snake with a Bird does, because the Snake needs to understand that the Badger is going to look and act similar - until they don’t, and then the Snake needs to be able to put aside the part of them that was attracted to the mirrored morality and actually work with the Badger to figure out what the Snake needs and how the Snake can in turn support the Badger.

Anyways though, I’m writing a thing where a Badger Bird-modeling-Badger is the last woman standing, committed to fixing a broken type of organization that her Snake, Bird, and Lion companions are Tired of. Lady Badger is nothing if not resilient. I’m writing another thing where a really really Burnt Badger man gets a safe place to learn to be part of a community that is meant to be mutually protective again (he dies because this is a fan work and that’s what happened in cannon, and this is arguably because he’s still unburning at that stage and doesn’t Have a proper community, but I hope to show him having at least Some happy times because in the sh**show show he didn’t have any at all). I’ve got a slightly less developed thing where a number of Badger performing princes learn to work together to fix their kingdom and unbury the history that created it. 

Aaand It’s nearing midnight, I have clearly lost the thread of the thread or whatever

Goodniiight to all my houses. Love you all even if I didn’t write about you here.

-Ornamental

[candied-peach]

ao3: “(lack of) self preservation” rating: M warnings: suicide attempt, remus typical stuff, sort of unsympathetic roman/patton/virgil, sympathetic remus, sympathetic deceit, dukeceit, implied intruloceit at the end genre: hurt/comfort description:  Remus is lucky to have Deceit. He doesn't care what the others think. He never has. (lyrics are from skillet “feel invincible)

You make me feel invincible Earthquake, powerful Just like a tidal wave You make me brave You're my titanium Fight song, raising up Like a roar of victory in a stadium Who can touch me 'cause I'm (I'm made of fire) Who can stop me tonight (I'm hard wired) You make me feel invincible

He knows he shouldn't eavesdrop. It's a bad habit he's picked up from Dee, and he doesn't even have the excuse of being Thomas's self-preservation. Deceit has to eavesdrop, has to stay on top of every little white lie and half-truth, has to stay on his toes for Thomas and his well-being. Remus doesn't have to do any of that.

Nevertheless, he's glad for it when he appears in the living room, ready to create a spot of friendly chaos, and hears the others in the kitchen.

"I wonder what Deceit wanted?" Logan muses, stirring what sounds like yet another cup of coffee. At this mention of his boyfriend, Remus creeps closer, for once, trying to be stealthy, like a piece of roadkill on the street outside. "It seemed important."

"He was sneaking around!" Patton shoots back, indignant. "I'm sorry, Logan, but he should know better than to sneak around like that."

"Him and his creepy snake-face," Roman puts in. Remus's face darkens at his brother's words and he's hard put not to slip in there and perform a little repeat performance on his brother's skull with his morning star. How dare he poke fun at Deceit's insecurities? Dee never used to hate himself for his snake attributes. It's only been since he revealed himself to Thomas and the stupid Light Sides that Remus has caught him frowning in the mirror or trying to pry off his scales. He's gorgeous, snake face and all, and Remus loves him for who he is.

"It's Deceit," Virgil stresses. Remus trembles with rage, hands clenched at his sides. Of all the people to treat Deceit like something poisonous, the former Dark Side has no room to talk. Once a Dark Side, always a Dark Side. It's not like he left his Tempest Tongue behind, is it? Or his other attributes. Oh no, those were fine to keep when he slunk into the Light Sides commons. Just his old friends were trash. "Is he ever up to any good?"

"He seemed upset," Logan comments and that finally pushes Remus over the edge. He sinks out before he can do or say something Dee will make him regret, dashing through the Dark Sides commons until he reaches Deceit's room.

"Dee Dee?" He calls through the closed door. "Dee Dee, are you all right?"

"Go 'way," comes Deceit's slurred words. Alarm spikes through Remus like a handful of poison-tipped porcupine quills. He rattles the doorknob. It's locked.

"Dee, what did you do?" Remus demands.

"Doesn't matter," Deceit demurs. "They'll all be happy... Just wanted some fucking food..." Remus hears a thump from inside, as if something's fallen over.

"Oh, Dee," Remus breathes. He gives up on the door and appears in Deceit's room, relieved that Dee didn't think of locking him out that way, too. Then all coherent thought flees when he sees his boyfriend.

He's lying slackly on his side, his sleeves rolled to his elbows. A dagger that Remus recognizes from Roman's side of the Imagination lies to one side, covered in what could almost pass for dark red syrup. Long, thin lines bleed sluggishly down both of Deceit's primary arms.

"You even remembered to go up the road, not across the street?" Remus whispers, panic lodging itself like he's swallowed a live bird. Dee nods weakly.

"Oh no, oh no, no, no," Remus babbles. The first aid kit is in the Light Side. He isn't sure what happened to theirs. And he can't conjure one, especially not when he's so worked up. He doesn't know what will show up, but it won't be anything he can use to help Dee.

Mind made up, he bounces to his feet (when did he fall to his knees, anyway, he can't even remember).

"I'll be right back," he promises. Then he re-appears in the Light Sides commons. The others are still in the kitchen, although he doubts they'll stay that way for long as he pelts up the stairs, shoving open the door to the bathroom. He paws through the cabinets, nearly sobbing in relief when he finally spots the first aid kit.

"What are you doing up he- Remus?" Roman asks uncertainly, seeing his brother in tears. Remus turns and glares at them, all of them.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," he snarls. "This is all your fault, anyway-" And before the others can react, he sinks back out, skidding to Deceit's side and flinging open the first aid kit.

"You don't have t' help, y'know," Deceit tells him dreamily. The human side of his face is very pale. "I prob'ly can't die, anyway."

"Yeah, well, I'm not taking the chance," Remus says, mentally blessing Logan's preparedness, as the kit comes with a sutures kit. He's never sewn someone up like this before, but he has plenty of experience in Frankenstein-esque abominations.

"This will hurt," he warns, serious as he takes up Deceit's arm. It's a little hard to see what he's doing, but he doesn't care, stopping only long enough to dab away the worst of the blood. Finally, he's done with that, and he wraps Deceit's arms in bandages, trying to remember what to do from the little bits and pieces he's picked up. He doesn't know if it's enough, but hopefully if it's not, Dee will help later. Dee will be better later. He prays that Dee feels better later. This isn't the first time he's thought of offing himself, but he thinks it's probably the most serious attempt.

"Dee?" Remus whispers. Dee looks at him, eyes glazed. "Please be okay. I love you. I'd rip out my heart and give it to you if I could and you wouldn't complain about getting blood on the carpet." He pauses and frowns, looking around. The floor resembles an abattoir. "Well, usually," he amends. "Who cares what the others think? They don't matter. You matter. You matter," he repeats. "Please- please talk to me when you feel like this, don't-" He sniffs and realizes he's crying. Well, who cares. It's not every day you realize your boyfriend tried to kill himself, even if as sides, they probably can't die.

"Don't cry," Deceit mumbles. He lifts one of his auxiliary arms, fingertips gently resting on Remus's tear-stained cheek. "'m sorry, Remus. I love you."

Remus leans forward, peppering Dee's face with soft, slightly bristly kisses.

"Fuck the others," he says. "Fuck them and their buttholes. We'll make Thomas see how important you are one day."

"And you," Dee murmurs, struggling to sit up. "Kindly do not forget about yourself." Remus grins crookedly, supporting Deceit and helping him to stand, so he can lie on the bed.

There's an almighty crashing sound and Logan, Roman, Patton, and Virgil burst through the door.

"Deceit, what-" Virgil begins before he stops, staring with wide eyes at the puddles of blood on the floor. Patton makes a little hurt sound and Remus feels his anger rise and rise because how dare they act shocked and appalled, it's all their fault-

"Out!" He roars, spit flying from his mouth. "Get out, you don't deserve to be here, you're the reason he's like this, get out!"

"...We are?" Roman asks, his mouth trembling. Remus hates that it makes his heart squirm like a dying maggot, seeing his brother upset.

"He's just sneaking around," Remus mimics, seeing the realization dawn in their eyes. "Him and his creepy snake-face. He looks amazing, snakey face and all, and all he wanted was some fucking food, you-"

"We're sorry," Virgil says in a tiny voice. "I- I didn't-"

"Get out," Remus repeats, defeated. "He's fine, okay, I found him in time. You don't have to care anymore."

"But I do care," Logan says. He looks like he doesn't know what he's feeling or how to handle it. Remus frowns.

"You can stay," he decides, darting across the room and seizing Logan's wrist. "The rest of you, get out."

"Lo-" Patton begins, but Remus shakes his head.

"Out!" He demands. The other three reluctantly file out, and Remus slams the door behind them, fixing it with an impatient wave and locking it securely.

"Why him?" Dee asks curiously from the bed. Remus shrugs.

"I heard him," he says. "He wanted to know what you wanted. He wasn't a jerk."

"I try not to be," Logan says, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Er- Do you mind if I clean up in here?"

"I think the blood adds to the decor," Remus says. "But Dee probably doesn't. So."

"Please," Deceit adds. Remus clambers up in bed, pulling Deceit gently into his lap and stroking his hair. Logan tidies the floor with quick precision, focusing on his work with the tip of his tongue just barely pushed past his teeth.

"You blep, too!" Remus can't help but crow. Logan flushes as he looks up.

"What do you mean?" He asks. Remus cranes his head to peer into Dee's face.

"Dee, show him," Remus says. Dee heaves a long-suffering sigh and lets the tip of his forked tongue poke out, flicking the air. "See?" Remus says. "A blep. You do it, too."

"Well, then," Logan says, but there's a tiny smile playing around his mouth when he does. He stands up, banishing the cleaning supplies into thin air. "If that is all-"

"No," Remus blurts out. "Wanna cuddle? Dee loves cuddling. It's a snake thing, I think. He has a heat lamp in the closet."

"Interesting," Logan says, his eyes alight with curiosity. "I suppose I could cuddle for a little while."

Remus grins as Logan climbs into bed on Deceit's other side.

"Are you all right?" Logan asks, peering into Dee's face. "I suppose that is an insensitive question-"

"I will be," Deceit says, closing his eyes. "Thank- thank you."

"Good," Remus says in satisfaction. "Because I'd have to hurt a bitch if you weren't."

"Remus," Dee chides gently. Remus presses a kiss into the cloud of Deceit's hair.

"It's true," he protests. "No one hurts my snake. No one."

"I know that we do not have the same relationship, but I, too, do not like to see you hurt," Logan contributes. "I don't like to see either of you hurt."

"Lo Lo, I didn't know you cared," Remus sing-songs. "Thank you," he adds, his voice turning serious. "For- for everything. Why did you all come down here, anyway?"

"I wanted to check on you and Deceit," Logan says. "I can see that that impulse was the right one."

"Not to interrupt, but I'm exhausted," Deceit says, his words punctuated by a long yawn. Remus presses another kiss to his forehead.

"Sleep then, my little snake," Remus says. "Sleep and dream of butts."

"Only if it's yours," Deceit says sleepily, and Remus quietly loses it.

[fandom-will-be-my-fall]

Spill your heart out about Walter.

Okay so I basically got this question in what, January?? but I’m answering it now since I just rewatched the movie and have inspiration, sorry for the late reply Anon

Okay so, to start off this post with some keyboard smashing because that my primary go-to for expressing my emotions

sgklhfsgjksdlgdghkjlgjhOHUFLUSKHDGSLIDRGKJGKFSDHGlhjglksdhkglshglllllfa. knjcthxiudhusmnvsoidhéytbvonjyxclkkvbr. haeylicfvshdkgikc

HANDSOME BOY. HANDSOME. ‘NUFF SAID.

I could legit stare all day at his beautiful face… look at him. Enchanting sky blue eyes… fluffy, wavy brown hair, cute round cheeks, lovely smile… those hidden freckles that you can hardly spot and only in certain screenshots but nevertheless they’re there to raise the cuteness factor… ALSO HIS LASHES. MAYBE IT’S NATURAL?? MAYBE IT’S MAYBELLINE?? WE SHALL NEVER KNOW

Here you may be able to spot the freckles if you squint hard enough. I have 77 screenshots but this is the best example I could find.

Secondly… well, he’s a sticc. A short sticc at that (though still slightly taller than me bc I’m smol), but a sticc regardless! And that seems to be the most attractive cartoon body type for me. Don’t judge me, I just have a thing for twinks, I’m… twinksexual or whatever.

Look at him! He would fit through my doorcrack.

(Maaaybe the reason for me liking sticcs so much is partially the fact that I like the idea of a boyfriend I can protect and support, physically and emotionally. I’m mad at the universe for not letting me scoop him up in my arms bridal style and smooch the HECK outta him.)

I’ve encountered a few posts that claimed he’s got cake but, come on. That concept has canonically been proven to be false, even by Lance. This man is flat and you can pry this opinion off my cold, dead hands.

Speaking of hands! I like his big ol hands. Nice shape. They look soft. I wanna hold them.

According to a DVD commentary, and the visual facts, he has no shoulders whatsoever. Back in Venice Killian was able to restrain him effortlessly with only one foot on his chest, even as he kept struggling ans squirming and generally put in as much effort as he possibly could. Before then, he claimed the database was the first thing he has ever caught in his life.

Conclusion, our boi’s very much NOT athletic. Which makes sense for a scientist, braining all day and stuff, and because he probably barely even eats, or sleeps which are by the way both pretty concerning implications but anyway.

STOP BEATING UP THIS POOR FRAGILE LAD FOR GOD’S SAKE. Makes me want to protect him even more. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but you get what I mean.

Now, on to the actual reason I’m so head over heels for him, a.k.a his personality.

He is one of the sweetest, kindest, purest boy characters I have ever seen in fiction, if not THE number one himself. (All my other cinnamon roll crushes are, or have been a villain at some point and WILL resort to violence if provoked.) Look at him, his pacifism… is unbreakable. He’s dead set on making the world a better place, by peaceful ways, and helping humanity. If that’s not a quality to be cherished then IDK what is.

And he’s just such a refreshing character. He likes pink, K-dramas, glitter, kittens, things that aren’t traditionally “masculine” (but is never made fun of those things in particular in the movie) and I love that. Nothing’s sexier than a man who’s, despite society’s shitty standards, openly and unashamedly himself!

His femininity is, if anything, just another turn-on. (This didn’t intend to sound sexual… but oh well.) I love his little hand gestures and mannerisms, dorky ramblings, the way he says “yep” popping the “p” at the end, all the small yet significant traits that were incorporated into his character. Bless you, SiD creators, bless you.

Have I said that he’s a genius?? Which is pretty obvious but c’mon, he graduated at 15!! He can modify human genes!! He successfully turned a man into a pigeon on the first try!! (The serum wasn’t the first prototype but we can assume he didn’t experiment on living humans with the previous ones.) And he’s still just 20!! Like what is that if not hella fucking impressive???!??

His inventions, to the untrained eye, may seem “stupid” or “childish” but alas! The observer couldn’t be more wrong! Because despite the odd designs and themes they’re all highly effective, as we have witnessed in the battle against Killian. And he is extremely creative for coming up with such ideas! Told you he’s brilliant!!

Which makes me all the sadder about how much they underappreciated him at the agency. In his words, nobody ever listened to him, or gave him a chance. They just left him and his “weird” ideas next to the men’s bathroom and called it a day. How could they be so blind? Didn’t they see the potential in his inventions? Oh well. Maybe I’m just being a smartass bc I have more knowledge, living outside that universe. But I’m totally right.

And I was honestly ready to throw hands with Lance for hurting the boi even further. (I’d stand no chance whatsoever, but still.)

Oh no baby please don’t cry.

He did cry in that scene though… you could see a tear rolling down his cheek and if it wasn’t for the machine beeping… He did have a pretty rough day afterall. But HEY, if we dwell on it too much the scene loses its comedic effect!! A guy gets sad over a stupid soap opera, har har har!! Now let’s move on, keep it fast and snappy for the kids, don’t let them overthink it!! Can’t have any emotional breakdowns onscreen. Keep it lighthearted y’know. Then let’s kill a random side character and have our dear protagonist almost die twice.

(Well jokes on you Blue Sky! I’m no kid, but a devoted fangirl who can and will overthink any material of my fictional faves at any given opportunity.)

You know what else I love about him though?? His love for animals!! And pigeons, especially Lovey!! He loves her so much, gives her gluten free breadcrumbs, nuzzles her, the first thing he does when he finds out Lance can talk to the pigeons is ask if she loves him too!! Like… That’s so pure and wholesome.

This here. THIS RIGHT HERE. BROTP forever.

(Not gonna lie, I used to be crazy for pigeons for like, an entire year or something. Not as in looking up all the facts there are about pigeons as I do nowadays with cartoons, but I’d feed them regularly and write my little observations on their behaviors. Did you know they sometimes scratch their neck with their leggies like dogs do?)

I think I’ve summed up mostly everything I love about this nerd. Oh wait, almost forgot the sass!! I love how sassy and smug he can be sometimes, in like, a really harmless way but it’s still a very nice characteristic.

Since I’ve ran out of coherent things to say, here’s an incomplete list of things I want to do to Walter Beckett. Put at the end of this post so those of you who were only here for the analysis part and not the selfshippy gushing don’t have to read further:

kiss he

like seriously

just kiss he a whole lot

cover his whole face in kisses

one kiss for each of his freckles. a finishing kiss onto the tip of his nose. then repeat the cycle

hug him. hug him like the world is ending. hug him so tight he can barely breathe

then ofc let go and apologize bc I would never hurt him on purpose

cuddle him

hold him close, let him lay his head on my chest

run my fingers through his hair

listen to his breathing

discover that he’s fallen asleep on me and smile fondly, then soon drift off to sleep myself so we can wake up entangled in eachother the next morning

fuck he

pin him to a wall and snog he

make him go cherry red

fluster he

compliment him. praise him. appreciate him. he’s a prince, a hero, an angel, a wonderful human being and he needs to know this

feed pigeons together

listen to his scientific ramblings and bird facts

write him love letters and give them to him. maybe read it aloud myself if I’m feeling brave so I can see his reaction in real time

serenade he

be the love of his life, and have him be mine

just… soft things, man

cook something for this malnourished sticc

make him small handmade gifts

they’re nothing like his gadgets but I tried

draw he

have him be my muse in general

not like he isn’t now but it would be lovely if he was real too

carry him bridal style

be the feral cryptid that lurks in his house when he isn’t around

sing along to cheesy pop-song together really badly

watch cheesy rom coms

flirt with eachother clumsily until we’re both laughing at our awkwardness

or, alternatively, shower him with compliments until he literally cannot handle it

have sleepovers together

give him hand kisses

be of emotional support

[fandensflytrap]

15 QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MUSE !

Erik

① ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE ?

‘‘Not that I’m aware of.’‘

② WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED ?

“Can’t say. I don’t keep track of my own tears, though I don’t prevent them from flowing, so I cannot reliably tell when the last time they fell was.’’

③ DO YOU HAVE KIDS ?  

“Yes. Quite a few, I’d believe.’’

④ DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT ?

“Not really. It happens sometimes for humorous effect, but the message I want to convey might get lost. It is better to be clear and intent with the words you choose.

⑤ WHAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE ?

“I might come off as shallow for the answer, but I’ve noted that I notice someone much quicker if they have black hair... It’s a lovely color. If that requirement isn’t filled, well, I suppose I will have to go with height, then body type.’’

⑥ WHAT’S YOUR EYE COLOR ?

“White or pink, I suppose. It depends. If I take on a human shape I tend to go with black.’’

⑦ SCARY MOVIE OR HAPPY ENDING ?

‘’Depends on the mood, but happy endings are usually nice.’’

⑧ ANY SPECIAL TALENTS ?

‘’They’re far from important to mention.’’

⑨ WHERE WERE YOU BORN ?

‘’The place no longer exists and no longer bears a name, for it was lost to time. But I’ve always belonged to the Scandinavian region.’’ 

⑩ WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES ?

‘’Hm. Reading about various topics and subjects...’’

⑪ DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS ?  

‘’In a sense… Mx. Fanden has currently 5 magpies they tend to, and as we live in the same sphere, they are in a sense mine as well. Though I don’t tend to them as that is Their job as the primary caretaker.’’

⑫ WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED ?

‘’I suppose I am forced to say dance, but don’t conflate the forced confession as me disliking it. Fanden needs Their dance partner and I am lovingly and willingly going to comply to Their request. ’’

⑬ HOW TALL ARE YOU?

‘’My size… depends on the day and the mood. But I enjoy being on the taller end. 8 foot, perhaps.’’

⑭ DREAM JOB ?  

 ‘’I rather enjoy the one I have. I am not interested in getting a mortal day job.’’

⑮ FAVORITE SUBJECT AT SCHOOL ?

“I am not a person who is interested in school, but the world is ever shifting and it is unfortunately important to keep up with the changing times. I prefer to study in my own time. But I suppose if I had to choose, art classes and art theory.’’

Fanden Tyken

① ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE ?

‘’I can’t say I am!’’

② WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED ?

“Oh my… now that is certainly a question… When was the last time I cried? Oh dear, I’ll have to give you my most sincere apologies but can’t seem to remember?’’

③ DO YOU HAVE KIDS ?  

“Gracious me. No, no. I don’t aim to get any either. I am more than content as I am without any.’’

④ DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT ?

“Quite rarely, I believe. No, no, it is much better to clearly communicate what one wants to put into words rather than exaggerating or turning to rude alternatives.’’

⑤ WHAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE ?

“My, that is a good question. I believe I might notice how they dress and act, or rather lack in an act. A good outfit is important if you want a good first impression after all. Far from a requirement in these modern days, but it is what it is. ’’

⑥ WHAT’S YOUR EYE COLOR ?

“They change between white or gold.’’

⑦ SCARY MOVIE OR HAPPY ENDING ?

‘’Happy ending, I suppose.’’

⑧ ANY SPECIAL TALENTS ?

‘’I am quite proficient in the arts of dance, and music. Oh, how I love it so... And I suppose I should add carpentry? Architecture? Both? I suppose they are different things, so let’s add both to the list as well.’’ 

⑨ WHERE WERE YOU BORN ?

‘’I was never born, I was created fully formed as I am. But I did make Scandinavia my home, what a charming little place to call my own.’’ 

⑩ WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES ?

‘’I have so many! Goodness me, how could I ever list them all in a passing? In a rush? Oh dear, oh dear… that would never do… I’ll be cursed to know I am going to forget something, somehow…

But, well, I do quite enjoy playing music, I dance- oh! And I decided to get a day job in the mortal world, for fun, you know. Just to have something of substance in daily life. Ah, right, where was I… right. I do a little carpentry, I travel, I read, I- oh I love going to shows and see the gorgeous productions they’ve put on… I need to see if there are any ballet productions going on somewhere, it’s been far too long since last time - my, I seem to have gotten lost here, let me continue on my ever-growing list; Well... I take classes on things to learn about them and stay up to date…

I shop and I collect things- Many things, actually. Vinyl plates, books, trinkets, sleeve cuffs, suits, paintings, things of gold, and so much more. Ah… are you aware of how difficult some of the things I collect are to get these days? They were common household items just a mere 200 years ago and then no more! Poof, gone! Now I need to retort to annoying bidding sessions on the internet if I absolutely want anything specific from back then or learn how to make it myself - Which I am more than gladly willing to do, but... - Or go on auctions and hope for the best. Gracious… it’s so unfortunately unreasonable.’’

⑪ DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS ?  

‘’Why, yes I do! I got the most charming little flock of magpies! 5 little trouble makers who liven up my world with their loud chattering. They are very lovable and attention-seeking little things. 

I tend to have a few around me at all times, the house is just so empty when they’re not around. Shame their lifespan is no more than 15 years, but it’s not too bad for a bird.’’ 

⑫ WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED ?

‘’I dance, of course! I don’t partake in a lot of other sports- well, perhaps I do a little bit of gymnastics on the side in relation to the dance, I suppose. I know a fair variety of dance styles as well and I am always interested in learning more.’’

⑬ HOW TALL ARE YOU?

‘’In this shape, I am about 6’5’’ tall?’’

⑭ DREAM JOB ?  

‘’I already have it.’’

⑮ FAVORITE SUBJECT AT SCHOOL ?

‘’Let me see… I suppose I did enjoy the classes I took to update my carpeting and home building skills? And music, of course. I prefer practical classes much more than I do theoretical ones, I must admit.’’

Tagged by: Vvolgarov 

Tagging: Steal it! 

[gryffindormischief]

requested by @inakindofdaydream

also available on FF and Ao3

____

There’s always been something comforting about the Granger home - they’ve lived here as long as Hermione can remember. Carefully waxed hardwood replaced linoleum the summer before she started primary school. When she came home after her first year at Hogwarts, Mum had finally gotten a dishwasher.

Fourth year, Dad and Mum sent a silly photo of their attempt at painting the living room which ended with the majority of the eggshell blue pigment on just about everything but the walls.

And this table - sunny yellow and just large enough for family breakfasts of toast and and non-sugary cereals. - this table has been host to more than a few late night and slightly teary conversations about a certain red-haired best friend who’s remarkably oblivious for his level of intelligence.

Smiling softly, Hermione sips at her tea, the ideal mix of lemon and honey soothing her throat and hopefully calming her racing heart. She sighs and murmurs to herself, “I really do hate being jealous. Natural an instinct as it is - ”

“Not as though it does much of anything,” Hermione muses, taking a small nibble from her dry toast, “Except keep me up at night. Lavender still snogs Won-Won.”

The fluorescent lights kick on overhead - Mum says those’ll be the next home reno victim - and Ron shuffles in and presses a kiss to the crown of Hermione’s head. “I thought we agreed never to mention Won-Won.”

She chuckles and he squeezes her shoulder. “You’re up early.”

“Hmm, couldn’t sleep.”

As he wanders over to the kettle, Ron nods, “I mean I slept with a ghoul clattering around in the attic for however many years but your mum - ”

Hermione laughs as Ron pours a mug of tea. “Sounds a bit like those things muggles use in the yard - ”

And really, she tries to frown in solidarity with her Mum - who should definitely see a doctor - but he’s too adorable trying and failing to remember the name for a weed whacker of all things.

Once he’s doctored his tea with the ideal tea to milk to sugar ratio, Ron slumps into the seat next to Hermione and and pulls her feet into his lap. Ah . Glorious foot massage. His thumb finds that spot, that ever present knob of tension in her arch and smiles softly. “I really do love how you smell, y’know?”

“Really?”

He nods, scratching his stubbly jaw. “Yeah - kinda like powdered donuts.”

“Wow. thanks?”

“Oi!” Ron yelps, lips ticked up in that obnoxiously tempting grin, “It’s a compliment. You’re welcome.”

Slowly, the sun begins peeking over the horizon, the steady glow warming the quiet street outside. It’s idyllic really, like her entire childhood. Save some despotic regimes and would-be tyrants. “Get your thumb in there?”

“Yes mistress.”

Hermione curses herself for the flush that rises on her cheeks as Ron wriggles his brows, “Guess I shouldn’t use that one when we’re at your parents.”

He does do as she asks, and really it feels so lovely Hermione could purr . Really, she should have known that Ron would take advantage of her weakened state to continue his questioning. “So what were you thinking about - and don’t avoid it again, we’re fifteen years in now and you make your ‘thinking face’ more often than not. I’m very familiar with it.”

She nibbles a bit of toast, “Just had a dream - about. About sixth year?”

That little worried wrinkle forms between Ron’s brows, “Dumbledore?”

God this is embarassing as hell. As he so rightly said, they’ve known each other for fifteen years and Ron’s like a dog with a bone when he gets an idea in his head. This is not going away without a confession. “About you and uh - well. I don’t like being jealous but it was a bit torturous.”

His answering groan and blush is a bit gratifying to be honest, at least they’re in this together. “Not particularly proud of my behavior on that note.”

“Makes two of us, Hermione murmurs, mind ever so helpfully conjuring a certain memory involving some angry birds and a quick temper. How many years and her heart still thuds painfully at the thought of that night.

The fireplace clock rings the new hour, and Ron sets his mug on the table and Hermione’s foot on the floor. “You know - ”

Hermione raises her brows. “What do I know?”

He puts one hand on the back of her chair and the other rests on the tabletop and then he leans in, pressing his lips to the tip of her nose, her cheekbone, the soft skin just in front of her ear. “That you should come back to bed, ‘Mione.”

The sigh that leaves her lips is both embarrassing and uncontrollable. “I guess it’ll be alright so long as this one doesn’t have a problem,” she gestures to her swollen middle.

Ron’s answering smile is toothy, genuine, and probably the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Almost reverently, he runs his palm over her belly. “Daddy’s little girl going to let mummy sleep?”

And there’s their little one, maybe a foot or a tiny fist. It’s happened like that since the newest Weasley could hear them, and still Ron looks utterly elated each time like it’s the first. Hermione finds it pretty adorable herself, but also knows there are unintended repercussions. “Ron, no. Cute as you are, she loves your voice - we’ll never get to sleep.”

Ron kisses her again, tugging her down the hall and toward her childhood bedroom turned guest room. “I’ll tell my girls a story.”

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Two Hundred Twenty-Six: On a Mission ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Hatake Kakashi, Uchiha Shisui, Uchiha Itachi ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: A Light Amongst Shadows ] [ AO3 Link ]

Once he formed the police force, Sasuke knew he would rarely - if ever - go back to shinobi work. The force was exactly what he wanted. A steady schedule, working in the village he was determined to better. He got to work with the people that had come to shun him, rebuilding his reputation on his own, with honest labor...forging connections and earning the villagers’ trust. Especially the civilians.

But...his power is undeniable. Naruto may also be on his tier...but as he trains to take on the Hokage mantle, he’s not always as available as he once was to take charge and be the village hero.

So...every so often, Sasuke finds himself receiving a notice from the administration building regarding a mission they need him for. In truth...they make him weary. He’d much rather say no and keep to his work, but...well, there’s little refusing these kinds of pleads for help.

In the middle of a case file writeup one afternoon, he looks over his shoulder at a pecking against his office window. A messenger hawk with the typical Hokage seal on the message.

Kakashi.

Sighing and bringing the bird in, Sasuke unravels the message, absentmindedly stroking the avian’s feathers. Another mission...and his brow furrows at the second half.

Hyūga Hinata is to accompany him.

...well that’s interesting.

While Hinata is, admittedly, becoming a powerhouse among her peers...comparing her to himself or Naruto isn’t exactly fair. What could she be needed for in a mission of Sasuke’s apparent caliber…?

As a knock sounds, he gives an acquiescing grunt, glancing up to see none other than the Hyūga in question with a notation of her own. “...so, they sent you one too?” he mutters, lifting his letter.

“I guess they wanted to be sure they caught us.”

“A bit late in the day for a mission, but...well, guess we’ll see what’s going on.”

“We might be being briefed early so we can have time to prepare before leaning in the morning.”

Sasuke blinks. In truth...he knows little of Konoha mission protocol. It wasn’t like he went on many before...leaving. “...makes sense.”

Clocking out and giving the rest of the on-duty staff a heads up, the pair head towards the Hokage’s tower. “Any guesses what this will be?”

“No idea, really,” Hinata admits. “It could be anything, given the combination they’re going with. I’m built for tracking and recon...and you’re a powerhouse.”

They don’t have long to muse before reaching Kakashi’s office. On one side of the room, as per usual, is Shisui on his guard post. Shikamaru stands beside the desk, the pair talking and looking up as the two officers make their way in. “Ah, good timing,” the Rokudaime chirps, steepling his hands atop his desk. “We just got some more information regarding the mission you two have been assigned.”

Arms folding, Sasuke just asks, “Which is?”

“Always straight to the point, hm? All right, here’s our intel so far…” Kakashi’s aura loses its light and airy mood, sobering as he leans forward. “With Orochimaru confined to one of the hideouts, the rest were cleared out not long after the war. However...one has begun to show signs of activity. Orochimaru has assured us they have nothing to do with it, but...well, we need to tread carefully. While Konoha did work with the sannin to ensure all data and projects were taken care of, we can’t be sure Orochimaru was totally honest with us. It might just be raiders looking for trouble, or...it might be something more serious. Either way, we’re coordinating with the ANBU to monitor the situation.”

There’s a perked brow. So...Itachi and his officers will be there. That should be interesting. “...so why are we being dragged into it?” Sasuke asks. Surely the ANBU could handle a few rogues on their own.

“Hinata has the best ranged Byakugan in her clan, according to most sources. We want her to get close enough to examine the entire underground facility from the surface, and see what exactly is going on before we send anyone in. Your primary purpose is to protect her while she investigates from a distance. Then, if there’s something average going on, the ANBU will move in to clear things out. If it’s something beyond them…”

“...I’ll get to do the heavy lifting.”

“Precisely,” Kakashi replies, eyes closing with a smile.

“...seems pretty straightforward.”

“Fantastic. You have the rest of today to prepare, and you’ll be expected out at first light tomorrow.”

“You know more about Orochimaru than just about anyone,” Shisui cuts in, finally speaking. “One theory is that there might be some of his old experiments involved. After you killed them, reports said many of the places went dark, and the people held in the hideouts got loose, including those the snake sannin worked on. There’s no telling who might be coming back to either steal research, or exact revenge for all Orochimaru did to them. If there’s someone there with unknown abilities, best you handle it.”

“True enough,” Sasuke replies dryly.

“This is the map we were given of the facility,” Kakashi offers, holding out a scroll that Hinata accepts. “But there may very well be rooms unmarked or hidden. Keep your eyes peeled.”

She just nods curtly.

“With that, I give you leave to prepare. Rendezvous with the ANBU captain on site, and confer from there. He’ll be keeping us updated here - consider him your commanding officer.”

That earns a short snort from Sasuke. Taking orders from Itachi...lovely.

With nothing left to say, the pair are given their leave, discussing preparations as they go. Unraveling the map, Hinata lets Sasuke hover over her shoulder. “Huh...the eastern hideout.”

“You know it well?”

“Enough. That’s where Suigetsu was kept. A lot of experiments were handled there. I can see why it might be a target. They all had their uses and potential for raiding, but a lot of genetic work was done there specifically.”

Hinata considers that quietly, looking over the map. “...this seems rather...intricate.”

“They all were. It was meant to keep anyone wandering in from finding anything useful.”

Once home, the pair pack their supplies, keeping packs by the door. Easier to get up and going come morning. Otherwise, they spend the evening studying the mission details, and resting up before the trek to the hideout.

As they prepare to leave the next morning, Sasuke can’t help but reminisce a bit about the old missions he and his team took. Nothing like this of course, given they were still genin when the team disbanded...but most of his assignments since returning to Konoha have been solo. Having a partner will be a nice change of pace. Especially one he knows, trusts, and works with as well as Hinata.

Heading through the gate, they quickly set a decent pace, taking to the trees and leaping toward the mark on the map. For some reason, something nags at the back of Sasuke’s mind...but he shoves the thought aside. It’s going to be fine. There’s nothing he can’t handle...especially if his brother will be there as a backup with his own officers.

Hinata, a few miles out, activates her Byakugan and scouts out the ANBU captain’s location, leading them right to him. Eyes on the hideout entrance about fifty meters away, Itachi gives a glance as they arrive. “You made good time.”

“We always aim to please,” is the younger brother’s reply. “Any activity?”

“Nothing yet, but a sensor has been able to identify at least two dozen signatures inside. Hinata-san...if you would.”

Nodding, she turns to the base, letting her kekkei genkai activate once more. Without moving, she scans over the entire underground structure, occasionally bringing her gaze back to check against the map.

...then her brow furrows.

“...something wrong?” Sasuke asks, catching the change immediately.

“...I think…” Hesitating a moment, she points to a place blank on the scroll. “...there’s a room here.”

“Are you sure?”

“There’s...something. It’s odd, it’s like it’s resisting my kekkei genkai, but...something isn't right. It’s like...a strange static.”

The brother’s glance to one another. “...sounds like reason enough to head in,” Sasuke offers. “If Orochimaru withheld that information...there might be something there.”

“Especially if it’s hidden to a kekkei genkai like the Byakugan,” Itachi agrees. “...you go in first, start clearing a path. My officers and I will follow.”

“And Hinata?”

“Is likely safest with you. Besides, you need her to guide you to that room. Beyond clearing the base of the invaders, this is our new secondary objective.”

“Got it. Ready Hinata?”

“Ready.”

“...then let’s go”

                                                          .oOo.

     I'm sorry this ended on a cliffhanger, BUT it's getting very late, and I didn't want to go way overboard word count-wise. Sorry guys! I'll try to have a sequel soon.      This is actually a canon-ish scene from the fic that I'll likely never write, lol - aka A Light Amongst Shadows, what I call this verse. I've only written it once back in the original RP that inspired the story, but it's changed a good bit...and will likely change again if I ever DO write the fic. What could be lurking in the hideout...? We'll have to seeeee! :3c      Anywho, on that evil note, I need to head to bed lol - thanks for reading!

[macchiatomingi]

dysnomia.exe (ATEEZ Cyberpunk!AU) Chapter 2

Chaos//Order

After the news report, the house was sent into a flurry of activity. Yunho and San were setting up the firewall to prevent trackers from getting to it, Jongho and Yeosang were hooking up the microphone and making sure the surrounding area would be silent. Mingi hadn’t left his room since the report, but everyone knew better than to try and speak to him. You, Seonghwa, and Wooyoung sat with Hongjoong, discussing the group's next move.

“We have to leave,” Seonghwa starts, his voice cutting through a thick veil of tension.

“Where can we go.” Hongjoong replies, voice so certain that you couldn’t register his statement as a question or just a general sentence, the tension in his shoulders suggested a question, but the certainty of his voice suggested statement. Humans were confusing.

“We can scout,” Wooyoung starts, using a scarred hand to push silver hair out of his face, “the normal team can go out and look for a new place to live. We need to go hunting anyways, so we can kill two birds with one stone.” He finishes, leaning forward and resting his hands on Hongjoong’s desk.

Confusion sets in; why would Wooyoung want to throw stones at birds? Now isn’t the time for that.

“Wooyoung,” you start, turning to face him, “what is the purpose of killing birds with stones? There are more pressing matters at hand,” you say.

“Well, y’see Calixte-”

“As well as now not being an appropriate time,” you cut in, green numbers and charts flashing in front of your vision, “it is statistically impossible for anyone outside of Mingi to hit a bird with a bullet, let alone a stone. Attempting to kill birds with stones at this point in time would result in an approximate four hours and thirty-seven minutes wasted, and an approximate two hours and twenty-three minutes wasted by Mingi.” you conclude, the green haze leaving your eyes as you focused once again on Wooyoung’s features.

The room was silent, aside from Seonghwa’s muffled laughter at your literal acceptance of Wooyoung’s words.

“Anyways…” Hongjoong begins, you notice some of the tension has left his body and were relieved until another jolt of electricity shocked your system. Human emotions are stupid and cause nothing but pain, that’s the conclusion you’ve come to due to San’s faulty codes, “I’ll send the normal squad out for scouting after the transmission is completed, deal?” he finishes, pushing himself up from his seat.

Your eyes glow blue in affirmation while Wooyoung nods. Seonghwa took this as a chance to exit the room, and he did, followed by Hongjoong. Wooyoung followed shortly after which left you alone.

Your systems were malfunctioning, especially your sight receptors. You should probably notify someone of that, but now isn’t the time. Stress levels were much higher than what they normally were at the time of transmissions, and you knew to request an update to your hardware would add on to the already stressful situation.

The house was silent upon your exit from the room, realizing that everyone was standing outside the recording room as Hongjoong made another address, you quietly made your way over. Not a single floorboard creaked under your weight, and nobody knew you even left the room as you took a place standing behind Yunho, too short to see over his shoulders but not needing to.

“In light of the recent news report,” Hongjoong begins, his voice as smooth as silk as he spoke, “We feel as if it is necessary to re-explain our goals. Dysnomia is, in short, the Greek goddess of lawlessness. Disorder. Rebellion. Anarchy. Whatever word you’d like to use. Our goal? Answers. We seek answers for the crimes committed against us and the 15,892 others that lost their lives in the forced Wiping of Sector 00913. We seek the truth, we seek closure, and we will stop at nothing to get it.” He drawls, voice sharpening as his words take on more emotion, “Whether that be murder, or starting riots, we will get what it is we ask for.” He says.

The air stills, and you can see everyone get tense once more. Hongjoong speaks again but this time his voice is...darker...harsher than what it was.

“The answers we seek come from IDAT, from the Integrated Defense of Automated Technology. The president finds it in himself to call us the criminals when he is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. We will bring his crimes to light, and we will bring peace and solace to those affected by him and his men’s regime.” He says, every word laced with a poison of which you’ve never heard.

The transmission ends shortly after; it was a success. 

There were no attempted breachings, and it was broadcasted on every major news network and website in Nuseoul. As quickly as everything was brought out, it was packed back up. Hongjoong exited the recording room and instructed everyone to go with him into the city to buy new clothes and hair dyes as well as materials for your new physical suit.

“Calixte,” Seonghwa says, stopping in front of you as he puts on his coat, “stay here and make sure Mingi doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Your eye flashed a shade of yellow, “Command received,” you say.

Seonghwa nods and follows everyone else out the house, leaving you alone with Mingi.

This wasn’t a problem, it’s not that you disliked the boy, you were incapable of disliking anyone after all. You took a seat on the couch once more and the TV automatically cut on in response. Every news network in Nuseoul was talking about the recent transmission, and after conducting a quick search of the Internet, you realized that every forum was talking about it as well. Eventually settling on a random TV station playing a mindless cartoon, you set your systems to Hibernate to try and alleviate some of the stress your sensors had been under for practically the entire day.

You were brought out of your hibernation when a body was sensed nearby, turning to face the direction of the body, you took note of the figure in front of the fridge.

Mused brown hair fell in front of sharp features, the boy stood unmoving until he noticed you staring at him.

“What,” he starts, gravely voice cutting through the air, “what do you want?”

“My sensors tell me that you are distressed,” you say as you run an emotional diagnostics exam, “the main emotion you seem to be feeling now is the one titled Stress. According to the WPA, one way to alleviate Stress would be to discuss your problems with someone around you.” you finish.

“I don’t need to-”

“My sensors also indicate that you are experiencing the emotion titled Anger.”

“Well yeah because when you-”

“My sensors indicate that you-”

“Can you shut up?” The door to the fridge slams shut, rattling the entire appliance and knocking down some of the boxes of cereal on top of it.

Your already scrambled sensors are scrambling even more at this point, a variety of emotions swirl in front of you ranging from Confusion to Rage to Distress and you don’t know what any of them are, you only have Excitement and Confusion. San hasn’t created any new emotions for you yet.

“I do not understand,” you say, head tilting to the side, “it is clear that you are experiencing a variety of negative emotions yet you refuse to acknowledge the solutions that have been provided to attempt to resolve them, Song Mingi.”

“I can’t believe I’m arguing with a robot,” he says, laughing at the pure stupidity of the situation, “I don’t need your advice, I don’t need advice from a talking piece of metal.”

“I am an android, an android made of a copper-titanium alloy.”

“Like that makes it any better.”

You stay silent, you couldn’t understand why he wasn’t taking the advice you gave. Your primary purpose was to serve ATZ and ensure that they are well and that their missions are a success, that is what you were reprogrammed for. That is what you were repurposed for. The fact that you were so blatantly ignored when the person obviously needed help was...as Jongho would say, baffling.

“I apologize if my lack of Empathy renders me a nuisance to you,” you hear a scoff, “I have requested that San program the emotion so that I can better understand complex human emotions. I hope that I will be more understanding once I receive that program.”

“You sound like a fucking IDAT robot.” He groans, your vision flashes an ERROR message once again.

Silence consumes the room as you turn back towards the TV, slowing down your systems once again to accommodate the influx of error messages you receive. You eventually fall into another Hibernation state, only waking out of it when Wooyoung restarts your systems to notify you that you, him, and Mingi will be leaving to both scout the surrounding area for a new home and hunt for dinner for at least the next week.

The three of you left in silence, you trailing behind Mingi, who followed behind Wooyoung. All of you dressed in black to blend in with the darkness around you. Wooyoung has a small pouch of throwing knives tied around his thigh, while Mingi has at least three guns on his person. You’re left with nothing, but that’s okay as you’re able to be repaired and are thus, as Mingi says, disposable.

“There is a heat signature about fifty-four feet in front of us, near a water source, most likely a stream.” You say.

“Got it,” Mingi replies as he passes in front of Wooyoung, taking the gun that was slung over his shoulder and flipping it around, he crouches down and brings his eye up to the scope, powering the weapon on. He adjusts his position a bit before he holds his breath, you take note of how his heart rate slows and his body relaxes. He pulls the trigger and is knocked back a bit due to the rebound from the weapon, but you still see that the animal was indeed hit by the bullet.

“The target has been knocked down.”

“No need to state the obvious.”

“Be nice.”

The three of you walk forward to the animal, you take note of it’s twitching form as it’s life slowly ebbs out of the bullet wound. Walking past Wooyoung and Mingi, you pick up the animal and sling it over your shoulder, turning back around to face them.

“We can continue searching for shelter now.” You say, walking back towards the path you all came down originally.

After about two hours of searching you all stumble across another house, further out than the one you were currently in. Wooyoung instructs you to notify the rest of the team via an encrypted message, and you do so. Receiving a reply roughly 30 seconds later instructing you three to set up home for the time being.

Wooyoung and Mingi enter the house as you go around the back to drop off the animal that was collected from the hunt, as you set it down you receive a file from San.

‘These are some emotions I made for you! Install them! All the programs save for Excitement are betas so let me know how they work!’ it reads.

The emotions are installed as you set up a fire to cook the animal, and by the time everything is finished you’ve acquired Empathy, Sadness, Joy, an updated Excitement, and Rage. Placing the animal over the fire you make your way into the house from the back entrance.

“Calixte!” Wooyoung shouts, a wide smile gracing his features sending a jolt of electricity through your systems, “how do you feel? San said before we left that he was gonna send you new emotions!”

“Yes,” you begin, “I have received the emotions and they have been installed. Upon you saying my name I believe I felt the emotion of Joy, but I am unsure.” You said monotonously, much to Wooyoung’s dismay.

“Well, there’s always time to teach you,” he sighs, grabbing you by the wrist and dragging you towards the home’s living room, “let’s wait for everyone in here. Mingi already claimed a room and slammed the door.”

You nod in acknowledgment of his words, and upon sitting down your systems once again get flooded with error messages.

~~~~~

Ooooh this kinda droned on too but !!! the next chapter should pick things up :’) fdaklj i’m so hype to get the next chapter up but its 12:30 AM as i finish and i still have to sort stuff out for school :’) ah education, i love it but i hate it.

[thetakenpokemon]

Final Simulation

[CREATOR OF SIMULATION - Osiris] [PRIMARY OBJECTIVE OF SIMULATION: N/A]

[FOCUS - Unknown Taken Entity] [SIMULATED LOCATION - Titan - Saturn’s Moon, New Pacific Arcology] [REALITY - Current reality] [TIMELINE - Present]

[PoV: Zen’Ro]

The first thing I feel are the soft vibrations underneath my feet and the rain that’s pelting my body.

I look around, my confusion increasing further.

The sky is dark, covered completely in ominous clouds. I’m standing on what looks like some sort of rig platform in the center of a violent ocean, or...a single rig platform that’s connected to a vast network other platforms. Yet the buildings themselves are in poor condition, as if left for many years in disrepair.

...Where am I?

...

Why...am I alive?

I remember it vividly, how I ended my life with my own blades as a last act of defiance towards the Echo of Oryx. Yet here I am, alive...

But at the same time, I don’t feel his presence in my mind anymore. The silence is almost deafening, yet...also comforting at the same time.

I turn my gaze out to the vast sea, noticing several ancient ships drifting on the waves. Yet all of them are in the same disrepair as the rig I’m standing on, some of them even partially submerged.

Over the constant waves and rain a sudden sound immediately catches my attention however, a distinct sound of a sudden hiss followed by a hum.

And it came from behind me.

I turn around and not far from me I see a white, triangular ‘rift’. The edges ripple and leak off energy, yet it only hangs there for a moment before something steps through it.

A human.

The human is garbed in long robes of dull grays and reds. Along with this are several what seem like gold ornaments on his body - a gold collar, gold bracers that pulse with white bands of energy, and a gold helmet that resembles that of a bird of prey. Wrapped around his face is a piece of cloth, covering all except his eyes and part of his nose.

In his hands however is what also draws my attention. Hovering over an open palm of one of his hands are three cube-like stones that possess a glowing blue carving on each side, and they’re all linked together to form some sort of shape. In his other hand is a...gun, a rifle-like gun made of bronze-like metal as well as possessing many white pulsing cables that run down its frame.

Another entity exits the triangular rift, this one being far...far smaller. The best way to describe it is a small metal sphere with several hovering spikes around its body, its overall size being no larger than one’s hand. In the center of this sphere lays a blue eye, radiating a glow that pierces through the dark atmosphere.

The three cubes hovering over the human’s hands unlink themselves, causing the triangular rift to vanish behind them.

I...have no idea who they are, but I am both suspicious and threatened by them. I have no idea where I am, what their motives are, or why I’m still even alive.

With dread forming in me I draw my blades, the two swords of energy flashing into existence. “Who are you?” I growl, my voice distorted and twisted. “Where am I?”

The small machine(?) floating next to the Human backs up somewhat. “Whoa there, big guy.” A feminine voice speaks from it. “We’re not here to hurt you.” She turns her gaze to the human. “Hey Osiris? You should probably put the gun away, I think it might be scaring him.”

The Human named Osiris glances at the small machine before nodding silently. To my surprise I watch as the weapon vanishes into a stream of white energy, said stream fading into nothingness.

He rests his now free hand behind his back, the other still keeping his gloved palm open as the three cube-like stones hover over it. “We will answer your questions, Taken.” He says calmly, his voice sounding aged. “However we also have questions of our own, so there is no need to have your weapons drawn.”

I stare at them long and hard, trying to find...something. But his posture is relaxed, making my fears slowly turn to only minor doubts. Against my judgement I lower my blades...and let them wink out of existence.

The tiny machine floating near the human lets out an excited squeal. “Osiris, we’re talking to a Taken~!” She says excitedly.

The Human glances at the machine, his eyes narrowing with a twinge of irritation. “Sagira, keep your comments to a minimum.” He mutters lowly before turning back to me, his gaze easing somewhat. “You desire to know who we are, so I shall answer. My name is Osiris, and this...” He gestures to the floating machine with his head. “...is Sagira.”

The machine bobs in the air in greeting. “Pleasure!”

Osiris looks back at me. “We will quell whatever confusions you are experiencing, however...I first will ask you our first question. What is your name?” His eyes narrow somewhat again. “If however you do not have a name, then what shall we address you as?”

This...is very...very confusing. I’ve never talked to a Human before, or at least...from what I can assume from what tatters of memories I possess. “My name...is Zen’Ro, the Defiant Blade.” I respond carefully. I don’t know why I put in my title, since it doesn’t hold any meaning. I quickly shake my head “Call me...Zen’Ro.”

“Zen’Ro? Quite an exotic name.” Sagira comments. “Yet I’m not familiar with it, it seems to follow the same naming similarities as the Cabal...yet not quite.”

“Cabal?” I repeat, feeling my confusion intensify.

“Ignore Sagira’s musings.” Osiris tells me, shaking his head irritably. Yet this only lasts for a brief moment before he continues. “Your next question you asked is where you are, which I will explain to you.” He turns and starts walking towards the edge of the rig platform, Sagira floating right by his head.

I watch him carefully, still unsure of what to make of him. He stops at the very edge, only one step is needed for him to fall off the metal platform and plunge into the depths of the ocean below. “We are currently in the New Pacific Arcology, a floating city located on Titan.” His gaze drifts upwards. “One of the many moons of Saturn.”

With that the clouds slowly begin to clear, revealing the sky that was at first hidden.

And I feel my breath taken away from the sight before me.

Taking up most of the sky is a giant yellow planet, possessing brilliant rings. The sheer spectacle leaves me standing in awe, for I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

Wait...

I feel myself pause again.

“I know what you will ask next.” Osiris continues. “You wish to know how you got here.”

I nod my head silently.

“Before I give you this answer, I must ask you a question in turn.” He looks at me, although his dark green eyes are relaxed...they possess an intensity that belongs to an individual who has seen much during their time. “Where are you from, Zen’Ro? How did you become what you are?” The fingers of his open palm twitch slightly, causing the floating cubes to move slightly. “And...what do you last remember?” He fully turns his body to face me. “These are many questions to ask at once, however...to answer them will help us both understand the situation you are in. By helping me, I can help you.”

The doubt reinforces itself again, being pressed with so many questions putting me on edge. Are they trying to deceive me? To trick me into telling them everything so that they may use it against me?

...

I...doubt that’s the case, seeing how they haven’t shown any sign of hostility. They’re both calm, or at least Osiris is. Sagira seems to be watching me with rapt attention, her small form slowly bobbing up and down.

...

Maybe...they are truly trying to help me?

“I...am from...” I start to respond only to stop, for...I don’t actually remember where I’m from. Whatever land or place I came from is nonexistent in my mind, torn away from when Oryx Took me.

“What planet are you from?” Sagira asks me, specifying in what may be hopes of making it easier to respond. “No need to stress over a specific place.”

Planet...?

In the back of my mind I found something, a name. I immediately snatch it.

“Earth.” I tell them. “I am from Earth.”

“Earth?!” Sagira exclaims with surprise. “So he’s really-”

“Not now, Sagira!” Osiris hisses, his steely eyes glaring at her. The machine ceases her talking, however the blue eye narrows in irritation - this act being made possible by the blue glow of her optic thinning itself.

Osiris looks back at me. “How did you become Taken, Zen’Ro?” He asks me.

...

“I...don’t...remem” I start slowly but stop. Everything before me killing those Pokemon in that town is either empty or in tattered pieces, so I can’t recall what the specifics are. However...at the same time, after the Echo showed me everything of Oryx’s deeds...it gave me the tools to at least fabricate an explanation.

“I...was Taken by...Oryx” I continue. Everything is flowing to me, the information that made me realize how insignificant I was and how useless my agenda to take down the Deep was.

However...at the same time, I no longer need to fight the urge to follow the Sword Logic. I no longer need to combat the Echo’s attempts to lead me, no longer need to fight the Darkness within me.

My mind is clear, tranquil. Now that the Human asked me what happened, I can think about it and remember it all. I can piece things together, figure out what exactly happened to me without the stress.

Soon...I managed to piece it together, with what I’ve been doing in the past along with the visions that the Echo showed me.

“Before Oryx was struck down, he reached out and Took me.” I continue with increasing vigor. “But...because he was slain, I can only assume that the process was incomplete.” I glance at my claws. “It...would explain why I still have part of my will, why I was able to fight him and my urges for so long.” I shake my head slowly. “He created an Echo, one last Echo. However...this Echo was weak, too weak to do anything. I was the sole individual providing him tribute, so...I stabbed myself with my own blades to prevent anymore tribute from flowing. I...believe this left the Echo stranded, with no hope of ever becoming stronger.”

“This...is unbelievable!” Sagira squeals, briefly snapping me from my thoughts. The Ghost quickly notices the glare that Osiris is giving her, in which she quickly backpedals. “Sorry.”

Wait...

...

That vision, the last...final vision. Oryx’s final act...

‘He created a wound and chose to Take one creature from a completely different realm, a different universe.’

Suddenly, I believe I know the reason why this place is so alien and different.

“I am in a different universe, aren’t I?” I ask them suddenly, strangely calm with this realization.

This astonishes Osiris and Sagira, seeing Sagira’s full-body recoil and Osiris’ raised eyebrows.

“I am surprised that you’ve come to this conclusion.” Osiris starts, his voice sounding...impressed? “But seeing what you’ve told us, my answer is...most likely.” He glances at Sagira for a brief moment. “You say you come from a planet called Earth, yet...that is the planet that I also hail from. However your species seem unfamiliar to me, so I shall ask another question.” He crosses his free arm over his chest. “What are you?”

This...I can recall clearly. “I am a Scizor, a Pokemon.” I respond honestly.

“Hmmm...” Sagira shakes her whole body from side to side. “I have absolutely nothing on either of those names, or at least from what I pulled from the Vanguard archives before we were bani-” She catches herself. -before we left.”

Osiris nods his head. “Then it is truly likely that you hail from a different universe, which means that you are indeed currently in a different reality.”

That’s...quite...a realization.

And yet...I’m okay with this, oddly enough.

But that still doesn’t answer one thing that I’m confused about.

“I...should be dead.” I start again. “I stabbed myself with my own blades, destroying my body.” I look at them pleadingly, although my expressionless face is incapable of displaying emotions. “Do....you possibly know why I’m still alive?”

Sagira looks at Osiris questioningly, said Human closing his eyes and shaking his head. He raises his open palm and begins moving the floating cubes with his fingers, turning their sides and connecting them into an odd shape. Upon finishing another triangular rift forms, this time in front of him.

I feel confusion form in me again. “What...are you doing?” I ask.

Neither of them respond however, for they step through the triangular rift...and it disappears after them.

Leaving me stranded...

...

[ENDING SIMULATION...]

...

[VOCALS ONLY]

Sagira: “Can you tell me again on why we didn’t answer him?”

Osiris: “There was no further need to dwell in the simulation, for he answered all of our primary concerns that pertains to his behavior and existence.”

Sagira: “Okay, but that doesn't answer my ques-”

Osiris: “He is a simulation, Sagira. He is merely a manifestation of the Infinite Forest, a copy. He is not the true Zen’Ro.”

Sagira: “But-”

Osiris: “How would he react if we were to bring this information to light?”

Sagira: “Oh...good point. There’s no telling on how he’d react.”

Osiris: “Exactly.”

...

Sagira: “So, seeing how these simulations tend to work... He won’t remember this encounter...?”

Osiris: “Every simulation of Zen’Ro is based off of an existing format of him, anything that transpires within a simulation will not transfer over.”

Sagira: “So essentially...every new simulation of the guy will always have him starting off completely blinding to how things work, not knowing where he is or how he got there.”

Osiris: “Correct.”

Sagira: “Sheesh, kinda feel bad for the guy...even though he’s just a simulation.”

...

Sagira: “So, what now?”

Osiris: “We’ve figured out that Zen’Ro is from an entirely different universe, and I believe that the Vex are interested in him because of this. I have my suspicions, however we must investigate further to fully figure out what the Vex’s plans are.”

Sagira: “Basically start messing with their simulations again and do some tampering that'll definitely anger them. just like what we always do?”

Osiris: “That is one way to put it, but yes.”

Sagira: “Sounds good to me, you just make sure we don’t have another Dendron inci-”

...

Sagira: “Okay, now that was a scary look.”

[leightaylorwrites]

Leigh Dissects YA fiction: Fallen Kingdoms (Chapter Seven- Chapter Ten)

Chapter Seven - Auranos

Sigh… I thought we’d at least get a break from Cleo by heading back to Magnus but I guess that was foolish of me to hope.

No one knew why, but Cleo guessed her sister had fallen in love with someone else.

The gender-neutral “someone” makes me hope for a single lesbian in this story. It’s another foolish hope.

Emilia had never so much as cast a flirtatious glance at any of the men in the palace [...]

LET EMILIA BE GAY 2K18

His parents didn’t approve of smoking inside the house. Aron might be arrogant and confident, but he was still seventeen and had to abide by his parents' rules until his next birthday-unless he wanted to move out ahead of schedule. And Cleo knew without a doubt that he didn’t want that sort of responsibility, financial or otherwise.

I’m sorry when did I leave this YA high fantasy and enter a teen drama on the CW? This entire part is a mess of modern-ness and should have been cut.

Aron: [I’m not sorry for killing him lol I kind of liked it too]

Cleo: How can you sound so calm about this?

Aron: Would you rather I lie and say I have nightmares too? Would that ease your own guilt?

Cleo: I want the truth.

Aron: And that’s what I’ve given you.

I get that Aron is a horrible creepy killer, but he has a point. He IS honest. When the villain makes more sense than your heroine, there’s an issue.

When he smiled, the look was equally menacing and enticing. “I will find you.”

YA authors stop writing scary love interests challenge.

Chapter Eight - Limeros

“Naughty girl.”

She ignored the flush that immediately heated her cheeks.She wasn’t being naughty; she was being inquisitive.

And I’m being disgusted. So not only does Magnus have the hots for his adoptive sister, Lucia blushes when he calls her “naughty.” Clace are BOTH unemployed.

“Cleiona’s also the name of the youngest Auranian princess,” Magnus mused. “Never really thought about it before. Same age as you are, right? Nearly to the day?”

I have… questions. First, how does he know Cleo’s exact birthday? Two, it’s likely going to come into play later that they are at most a few days apart but how does that work with Lucia? How does Magnus know her day of birth? We find out later Sabina (the lady from the prologue) brought Lucia to the palace as an infant but it wasn’t the day she was born so how would Sabina know her birthday? Even if she had a vision on the baby’s day of birth or something like that, how did Lucia survive without being breastfed? I need answers.

Magnus: One of grace and beauty, my sister, with a multitude of suitors at her beck and call. Forced to be siblings with a scarred monster like me.

Lucia: As if that scar makes you a monster. You can’t be blind to how girls look at you-I even see maids here in the castle wistfully watch you pass, even if you never notice them. They all think you’re devastatingly handsome. And your scar only makes you more… intriguing.

If you think plain hetero splooging is bad, just wait until you see plain hetero incest splooging!

“[Tomas] was cut down as a spoiled lord tried to show off in front of a princess - Princess Cleiona [...] The two watched Tomas Agallon’s young life bleed from him in front of his own family.They didn’t feel sorry for the pain they caused that family and all Paelsia.”

I mean… it’s true. Too bad the evil king is saying this and therefore the reader is supposed to disagree with him and know that Cleo the Super Special White Girl can���t do anything wrong ever but still. He’s right.

The words were acid on his tongue as jealousy flashed through him like a bolt of lightning. “But [Lucia] isn’t interested in walks around the palace grounds. Not with, well… not with you.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

Magnus forced a tense look on his face as if he’d said too much and now felt guilty. “It’s really none of my business.”

[...]

“It’s just that she’s mentioned you to me [...] And she made it clear that if you ever stopped by, you should not be encouraged any further. She means no offense, of course. But… her interests in a potential suitor lie elsewhere.”

In case incest splooging wasn’t enough to make me hate this character, he’s entered Rowboat’s, well, boat. Territorial pricks are not cute @ YA authors.

Magnus had no patience for anyone who would be manipulated so easily. If the boy was truly interested in Lucia, he should be able to stand up to any adversity, including an overprotective older brother.

But you literally just told this kid Lucia SAID she doesn’t want him. If he’s taking your word as truth, that’s not him being manipulated, it’s him believing you because why would a prince lie to him about this? He’s not doing anything wrong by respecting what he believes are Lucia’s wishes??? He has more respect for her than you do?? Why do people like Magnus??

“I wouldn’t hesitate to say you were lying.” He took her arm in his and squeezed it until she flinched. A flicker of fear went through her pale eyes. “Who do you think the king would believe? His son and heir? Or a kitchen maid?”

Amia swallowed hard. “I apologize, my prince. I would never say such a thing.”

“Smart girl.”

So… Magnus is literally physically abusing and threatening his casual hookup and people stan??

There was no Limerian law that stated that pure royal blood was necessary for the position. Even the son of a whore could become king.

Magnus is being all emo over the fact that Tobias could be king someday, a problem which is easily solved by Magnus killing Tobias. This doesn’t happen, but I think I’ve found the problem with all these series that try so hard to be the YA version of Game of Thrones/ASOIAF: nobody has the balls to write how these conflicts would actually play out in a real political setting. YA does have to be toned down in comparison to adult fiction but when you tone things down so much that they make no sense, it doesn’t work at all.

Blood sacrifice? How deeply savage.

Can’t tell if I’m tired of the word savage being used in this book (it’s used at least 20 times in reference to Paelsia) or if I’m tired of it in general (thanks stan twitter).

The king swiftly moved behind the boy, pulled his head back, and slashed the blade across his throat. Tobias’s eyes went wide and his hands came up automatically to his neck. Blood squirted out from between his fingers. He collapsed to the ground.

I’m DONE. We got half a page about Tobias being a threat to the throne for Magnus and instead of seeing them battle it out, or Tobias team up with an enemy later on, or anything that might give some payoff to the fact that Magnus has a secret half-brother, he’s sacrificed a few pages after his main introduction. Do you see what I mean now about YA fantasy writers holding back?

Chapter Nine - Auranos

I DON’T CARE, WHERE IS JONAS

“It’s unfortunate about Princess Emilia, though. So, so sad she isn’t well enough to attend.”

We get it. She’s dying. You’ve reminded us like four times already.

[...] Emilia’s most recently finished painting, a study of the night sky.

Subtle foreshadowing isn’t subtle enough for me.

That [her marriage] was solely a political choice sounded so cold, so analytical.

Does Cleo… not know what politics are? Does she not understand that royal arranged marriages happen all the time? Does she not realize she’s a princess? Why is she so dumb??

“You do know [Nic] is madly in love with you, right?”

Dammit. We came so close to having that platonic relationship but we can’t have a young man in this series not want to splooge over Cleo. It’s the first book and Cleo already has three love interests for this series. Alien Trashryver is worried.

Emilia: “I fell in love with someone else [...] I’ve never felt such love as I felt for him.”

DOUBLE DAMMIT.

Despite being named for the goddess, Cleo wasn’t invested in religion [.]

Isn’t being named after a religious deity frowned upon? I know in some religions you can be named after a minor figure - such as Christians with the archangels. But you can’t name your child God. Cleo being named after the primary person in the religion seems wrong.

But how else would we know she’s a Super Special Magical White Girl if she didn’t have a name far beyond what she deserves?

Her sister had been in love with a guard who’d died two months ago. “It was Theon’s father, wasn’t it?”

Isn’t he like… old??

Her sister had been in love with the king’s bodyguard who’d been thrown from his horse to his death. A tragedy.

That is verbatim from the book and I can’t stop laughing. This bitch said “a tragedy,” I’m CRYING.

Emilia was always the rock - comforting Cleo when she was upset over [some petty stuff] or the loss of her innocence to Aron.

“You’re the same as you were yesterday and the day before,” she’d soothed. “Nothing has changed. Not really. Forget what troubles you. Regret nothing, but learn from any mistakes you make. Tomorrow will be a brighter day, I promise.”

If you think things are cool because HEY we’ve got a YA heroine who isn’t a virgin, we later find out Cleo was drunk when this happened and therefore is an assault victim. The book never acknowledges the later, but instead has Emilia tell Cleo to learn from her mistakes and that nothing has changed. Feminist YA at its peak, y’all.

“You can’t. You’re to be the queen one day. If you die, that means it’ll be me. Trust me, Emilia, that would be a very bad thing. I would make a terrible queen.”

I mean, yeah I agree that Cleo would be a shitty queen but I’m more annoyed at how these five sentences are written.

Emilia: “There’s no one out there spying on us through the eyes of birds, hoping for clues of where to find the Kindred.”

Cleo: “I’ve never believed in such nonsense.”

Btw, Cleo said earlier she thought the birds were watching her. Consistency is hard, I guess.

[Theon] shook his head. “I knew my father cared about someone, but he wouldn’t say who it was. I figured he was involved with a married woman. Now I know.”

So Cleo’s boyfriend is her sister’s dead husband’s son… Cleo’s love interest is her nephew. He’s her step-nephew, but her nephew nonetheless.

Chapter Ten - Limeros (this time with the bird dude)

[...] to see his bird friend, Phaedra, perched on the branch next to him.

Now, I could give this book points if the whole point was that the western world was meant to be Greece, while Mystica is a mix of Italy and Spain. But the existence of Paelsia with its North African/Asian/Roman setting messes it all up.

All [Lucia] would see when she looked at him was a golden hawk. For some reason, this realization pained him.

So we can’t have lgbt+ romances or poc romances but Cleo the Super Special Magical White Girl can get three+ love interests and Lucia can get two love interests - her adoptive brother and a dude who can turn into a bird. White authors, man. White authors…

One thing I do like about this Ioannes dude is that his chapters are short, leaving little room for bullshit. However, they make me go back to Magnus and Cleo sooner than I want.

[ratherhavetheblues]

INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘SAWDUST AND TINSEL’ “We’re both stuck, Anne–stuck like hell”

© 2019 by James Clark

     Back in 2011, when (at Wonders in the Dark) I foolishly assumed that Ingmar Bergman was one of a small horde of filmmakers (including, Billy Wilder) after something very new, I was years away from comprehending what he had in store. Over the past year or so, I’ve wakened up a bit, to appreciate the momentousness of the range of his concerns, a range, despite good-will, leaving no impact where it really matters.

A constellation of conundrums of intent began to dawn upon me; and putting in place their dynamic has been quite a ride. But the elusiveness of the innovation has proven to be only slightly recognizable. Therefore, it’s time again to return to Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), which provides remarkable immediacy to those staying the course.

   Whereas oracular figures—in Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), Winter Light(1963) and The Magician (1958)—would afford the thrill of seeing fit to trip up facile enforcement, the balance of power in the narratives remains so weighted against extreme change that understanding would almost absolutely trickle away. Similarly, the mea culpa, in Fanny and Alexander (1982), being brought to bear in terms of “the little world” (and its nagging spoiler, “the big world”), tends to be submerged by the Niagara of sturdy foibles. Then there is the perhaps too vague volcano of acrobatics and juggling, stemming from, The Seventh Seal (1957), and flashing over many subsequent entanglements the dark potency of which being lost on most viewers. The recherche dialogue between Eva and her muse, in Autumn Sonata (1978)—though a crucial clearing—becomes a victim of that protagonist’s hysterical self-importance. The action of silence (most salient in Persona [1966] but also on the move in, The Silence[1963] and Cries and Whispers [1972]), tends to be upstaged by the strong suit of survival. A mystical consummation, like that seen in, Wild Strawberries (1957), tends to maintain the status quo even more rigorously. Therefore, our second attention to this visceral production must be intent upon illuminating, as never before, the sensual structures and energies of players who live or die upon a cosmic scale.

One major expository  response to that singular involvement is to spotlight two minor figures to lead the charge—the two stars of the show being brought to light as auxiliary weight for the previous marvels of poetic intensity. There is, of course, a saga, in this case pertaining to a slipping itinerant circus impresario and his slipping love life; but that’s not where the magic and the lift-off inheres. Careers and romantic complications are a dime a dozen; and they don’t tend to generate game-breakers.

Near the outset, a long-term carnie regales the rather recent owner, Albert, about an event of some rarity which happened 7 years before, involving a husband and wife team of clowns, still in the company. The troupe was set to entertain at a place along the seaboard, where an artillery regiment was engaged in training maneuvers. The flashback covering this crucial action has been given a medium of saturated sunlight in which to carry us on an even longer way from the mundane than killing fields and wandering sensationalism. “Tell the story if you want,” the boss allows (sitting on the driver’s bench of one of his caravans plodding along, early in the morning, drinking beer with the storyteller, and soon falling asleep, missing [as always] a remarkable revelation). “It was a hot summer day… The officers lay on the grass, hot and sweating, drinking out of boredom… Then along came Alma, an imposing woman… Carried herself like a queen, if a bit past her prime.” We see her, alone, on a ridge near the sea, bearing down upon the mere military, and carrying a basket for what might come along. Her dress of straight lines implies a mood not for curving away from her sterling desires. In fact, she is a vision of the goddess or medium, Aphrodite, she of coherent passion. As she approaches the fighting force, their cannonade becomes an imaginary orgy. Then, by way of an officer with cat whiskers in close-up yelling something where there is not a sound, except the cannon blasts, the recent workaday becomes even stranger. Cut to the brain-trust playing cards on the flat rocks. Advantage in the air. Cut to more of those silent mouthings, which disappear with a wave of sharp white space, soon displaying a division by way of the black uniforms. Alma merrily walks right over the improv poker table, spins around and produces an ironic smile and bow to her subjects. (The troopers on the ragged ground are not alert to their being overrun by a sworn enemy, as well as a congenial visitation to a lesser world. A soldier ridicules her, and she ridicules back.) Alma then begins to pull up her dress and challenge the power clique to live up to her powers. (In a cut, her advantageous mis-en-scene has been momentarily rescinded, to convey the human, often failing, interplay with the works of primary creativity.) The innuendo of coitus is taken up by the troopers and their shooting. Back on the topspin, Alma takes off her dress and tosses away her sun hat for the sake of a sunniness very seldom reached. (Such steps of hers like that will be repeated, somewhat, by that sleeping slug, unprepared for a crisis of cosmic proportions.)

Another stretch of fiery sky graces the beach; but disgrace looms, even during her ascendance to the ways of Aphrodite. Breaking the stalemate of mob ridicule and her wielding a secret weapon, an officer orders a cadet to go to her husband whereby more mundane resources would tip the scale and force a retreat. The apparition’s beloved clown and alcoholic, with infrequent rallies, lacks her ambition; and therewith we are to keep an eye on her miseries nearly buried by the ordinary two protagonists. And that Frost (where to start with that?—with Death, in the wings) rallies handsomely, though unevenly, that day. Never without his deathly white, cosmetic coloration (in glaring light he nearly disappears), his first appearance doesn’t seem much of anything. Brought out of the tent to meet the cadet, he mutters, “I once had the opportunity to perform for his Majesty…” [Frost being an exponent of trivial nostalgia in lieu of demanding traction]. (This is a gambit soon to re-emerge, in The Magician. As we work along here, we are impressed by how prepared this sojourn traces back to this film.) Only half-comprehending the dilemma, Frost misses the mark (as Albert will repeatedly miss the mark in the second part of that war-couplet which moves apace with great distinction): “The captain pays homage to me…” The cadet, who had conveyed that, “The captain sends his greetings,” sharpens up the message, to, “Your Alma is swimming naked with the regiment!” This causes his more realistic colleagues to laugh maliciously. A woman angrily confronts that drifter with, “Show you’re a real man! We’ll help you give her hell!” Someone else adds, “We’ll help you tar that saucy hide of hers!” With this, Frost pushes the sort of well-wishers away and rushes to the shore in a frenzy. Adding to his presence, are the pantaloons he always wears, trussed up in such a way that his physical proportions resemble an ostrich or a prehistoric bird. Frost being, in his eccentric and erratic way, also a primordial force, of questionable efficacy. With this crisis in the making, at a strategic point, we have our opportunity to regard this drama being very unlike others in its priorities. These presumed, by convention, also rans, are actually nearly the whole story. Their coming a cropper of the military devolves from the widespread war intrinsically bearing down upon creatures like our two clowns—too strange to readily stomach its stand in canniness; and too frail to mount a viable stand of uncanniness, going somewhere very few of humankind want to touch. Though cast as a problematic item of the preponderant in choices—a “circus and romantic saga”—in fact the action is devoted to a striking disclosure, beyond theatre and almost musical in its dynamic. The putative protagonists, Albert, and Anne, “lovers,” are the true also ran. They are trammeled with being not nearly crazy enough to be creatively balanced. And, therewith, the motif of  the “little world” and the “big world” (explicit in Fanny and Alexander) hits the bricks to make of this entire Bergman filmic campaign, not a setting in relief of domestic exigencies but how the hell one might carve out a rhythm of sanity on a grotesque planet. As such, the entire (independent) corpus of Bergman’s endeavor must be seen as wall-to-wall war movies.

   Frost, with the whole carnie nation delighting in his plight and racing close to his heels, encounters the mob of jeering heroes as he beholds Alma splashing offshore with an amphibian group. His shock, in close-up, is accompanied by a moment of all-out silence and stillness—as if the precinct of primal destruction clamps down for a moment. The white-out of the sun once again endows the chaos with pristine dignity. (Each of such stations emanating singular resources as to the massively ignored and dangerously beloved ways of life.) Then Frost calls out to her (no sound, no subtitles; but the cheesy, calliope circus theme). What was a regal bid to really live now begins to collapse. Jeering (now with the added non-strangers) recommences. Taking off his outer gear and struggling over jagged rocks provides another spew of black laughter. He does reach her, and those groping her drift away. In the capacity of a small but memorable rally, to consign to filmic archives, there is a close-up of him holding her and, as they behold the sea and the sky, they constitute an army of two. As that was transpiring, the cadet gathers up their clothes and hides them in a cravass.  A girl from the circus laughs about that. Frost brings Alma to shore by having her on his back. The visual atmosphere is a slate sea and dark grey sky; and Frost, losing the energy to savor this austere beauty, begins to succumb to unsteadiness in negotiating the rocks while carrying her. Another silence obtrudes, as the couple resemble dying beasts. (The protagonists will prove to be all too human—predictable and presumptuous, leaving us more alerted to the fringes than the center.) The underestimated “clowns” are seen at a distance. The crowd closes in. Alma becomes stiff in his arms, her body like a cardboard sign. A deep drum roll sounds. The captain orders the heroes back to training. Frosts feet, shown in  close-up, become very unsteady. That blazing outburst stages another fanfare to kindred spirits. A close-up finds them strangely glamorous at a watershed. Frost falls, and nearly faints. Another blinding brightness, another drum roll. They’re seen at a distance, on a ridge. (After such effort, this being a premonition of surrender, four years hence, in The Seventh Seal.) A feathery cloud formation becomes a confirmation that much had been well done. Then he falls, seen from afar. One more effort to proceed, and he’s flat on his face. He tries to crawl. (We’ll see Albert in a somewhat formally similar sequence, but with very little concern on the part of the cosmos.) Alma, no longer Aphrodite, fears for Frost’s life. Carnies and the cadet carry him home to the circus tent. Alma angrily (and silenced) reproves the wayward. She begins to cry out (silently covered).

Back to the seat at the caravan emanating this strange event, with Albert, as always, missing in action. He and the driver jounce, due to the bad roads; they look like rather identical puppets. The driver concludes, “Alma began to shriek that we’d done her old man in. We got angry and told her it was her own fault. But we picked him up and carried him back anyway…”

  The last sight of the two who rocked Sweden for a few hours, was Frost being carried by several men of the art of the body, as if he were a white caribou. His head is thrown back and the pan shot moves backwards, as if he’s the subject of a hunt already dead. Seven years beyond this oddity/ odyssey, the driver has rounded out his harangue with, “That’s a woman and love for you!” It is, of course, nothing of the sort, the eyewitness not having a clue of what had really taken place. Here’s the moment to introduce the virtually sterile protagonists, now running the show, very badly—by way of their phony business names: “Alberti” (as in, “Alberti Cirkus”); and, “a fiery Spanish rider astride an Andalusian thoroughbred,” being hopefully antidotes to mask their lack of lyricism, their lack of poetry, their lack of courage. The day we first see them together, they’re entering the town where Albert dragged his wife and two children (from a modest retail business) into showbiz as being, at last, his supposed reality. This venue, in contrast with the puppets and cold and fatigue on the first occasion, musters cinematography of beauty, in the form of a close-up of a wagon wheel moving over a bridge showing its reflection in the water, and an imposing windmill. A rooster crows. A dog barks a welcome. Forward motion in the air. But who’s up for what it takes?

   The mid-20th century “fairground,” a scene of desolation itself, becomes the scene of the staff, many having seen far better days from far better management, announcing to the boss their displeasure in not having been paid for quite a while, with an outbreak of fleas in all the caravans, and lacking viable costumes. (During the hubbub Alma is aghast in hearing that one of her colleagues wants to have her pet bear [and vignette for her work] killed and eaten.)  In response, we receive some idea of the details of Albert’s being unfit for bringing off viable imaginative work. He muses that in America there is a healthy market for circus activity. “In America, circus folk ride through town, while bands play and the elephants trumpet. Everyone puts on their biggest smile and people line the streets cheering. A booming voice announces the show for that evening…” The goofiness of that razzmatazz premise transplanting to rural Sweden, is part and parcel of the goofy business plan in Jacque Tati’s film, Jour de Fete (1949), where a French farm town mailman attempts to wow the citizenry with big-market, American systematics.

On the spot to at least seem to be a businessman, he proposes one of those effervescent, Jimmy Durante circus parades for the permafrost customers, only to be busted, the horses impounded on the grounds of failing to secure a permit. Albert’s other excellent idea—on stronger grounds, in view of the Swedish government lavishing tons of cash for the arts (the theatre building in this tank-town having been designed upon the model of the royal palace)—was to borrow some of the costumes of the rich store, in order to put on a memorable spectacle. But there is a significant more, bearing down upon this disarray, whereby Albert was to pay a visit to his former spouse and (formerly unhappy) former circus partner (now the successful lone tobacconist of the present scene). Sleepy Alberti’s career of running the show into near collapse has inadvertently alerted Anne, the non-Spaniard, at this window of opportunity, that he’ll be returning to retail and she’ll be needing to make very different plans than she had bargained for.

   Albert and Anne constitute, however, not mere perverse dullards and fools, but rather facile, effete revolutionaries lacking the nerve to prepare for what their excitement involves. Each releases a mission statement in face of discouraging mainstream forces. Albert’s ex declares, “I’m happy now. It was always a time of frenzy and fear.” He counters with, “It’s always the same, summer and winter. For me, it’s emptiness.” Encountering rather feminine and arrogant Frans (an actor she meets during negotiations for the costumes; and perhaps her best bet if Albert bolts), she maintains that an earthy matier like the circus is the place to be. “I’ll bet you apply cosmetics. You have beautiful hands… You’re a weakling… You can’t [as he did] treat me like that or speak of my husband that way…” Frans pushes back, “If we were alone, I’d crush you. I’d crush your resistance like a piece of dirty paper.” She quickly attacks, “What play does that come from? Save it for your pale, flat-chested actresses…” Stirring declarations; but hollow. Anne does go in for “dirty paper.” And Albert proposes returning to the good old days. His wife had prefaced the little  reunion with, “All I can offer is pancakes.”

The theatre personnel arrive late. And Frans, having been roundly insulted by Anne en route to a pancake tryst, feels entitled to trip up an inelegant entertainment. Although this very intense incident could be imagined to be (as with the battle on the shore could seem) a simple display of dispatching, by the powers that be, foolish, obsolete eccentricity—road kill—the membrane on tap copiously speaks otherwise, to the horror of so many who don’t care enough, and where that leaves those who do show audacity of sensibility reaching an astounding threshold. That the figures being tracked do not handle their audacity well, is beside the point of this reflection per se. Sawdust and Tinsel offers to us a conveyance inviting the viewer to behold emotion so raw that normal dimensions become shattered and thereby become an intimate challenge. By the time the caravan comes to the little town playing it safe, we notice Alma and Frost having abandoned the realm of Aphrodite in favor of variations of Aphrodite-Lite, the specialty of Albert and Anne. Frost and Albert clearly spend a lot of time getting drunk. Alma has her low-key bear; Anne has her Tarot cards. By the end of the saga, Albert is heard to lament, “We’re both stuck, Anne—stuck like hell…”

Whereas the insulting regiment, at the (double) beginning, never gets to be heard, Frans, showing off to a pretty actress in the troupe (where affluent, educated elites would have honed a range of useful skills), and with Anne astride her horse circling the sawdust stage, he calls out, “Feel alright after our adventure, Sweetheart?” This elicits from Albert, the ringmaster’s, whipping off of the show-offs straw hat. In one of those grand, dramatic ironies Bergman excels in, Albert’s shock and fury at that moment had landed him in depths of pain whereby he had put in his place the smooth cynic. Frans, not expecting lightning from such a source, experiences, almost uniquely, disarray. As he puts his hat on, the girl he brung laughs in his face. The supercilious small-town sensation had, remarkably, retreated. Were Albert truly conversant with squelching vain nobodies, his evening might have included modest rewards from which to invent circus theatre to surpass the sclerosis of the local artistes. But Albert, on a high and afraid of heights, repeats the fun—flashing his whip as if the smattering of Americana Conestoga covered wagons in the convoy endows automatic magic—and Frans, feeding on hate, smashes the pretender to a pulp.

Much about this bloody gore reminds us of Alma’s sunny day at the beach. Frans’ fighting skills (the Artistic Director of the big/ little theatre mired in lostness organizes the bad feelings in terms of a duel, which is to say, a stupid way to die and a stupid way to live) are a reprise of the artillery  display which punctuated the ridicule of Alma. Albert’s baby-peal crying in pain, from a dirty trick directed at his balls, is a reprise of the fake crying of a clown in the first scene of the show, where Frost is now merely ordinary, wielding a ladder (going nowhere—not even funny) and squabbling with the crybaby. The townsfolks (including the ex), recalling the civilian population witnessing Alma’s abortive ascent, present a variation of the universal amusement—most enjoying the massacre, while a few being sickened by it. On the other hand—as with the conscripts to the nation—the theatre employees show 100% satisfaction, in their prissy way. Distributed about this maelstrom, we have Anne thrown from her horse, due to a guy in the last row throwing a missile hitting the thoroughbred; Alma’s gig with her bear totally washed out by the late-comers from civilization wandering across the ring (and, to worsen her latter days lot, yelling to hapless Albert, “That’s it, Albert!”); and the ringmaster both humiliated and on a roll of visceral courage, hopelessly misplaced.

   At the end of the fight, Frost becomes a voice of the status quo: “Ladies and gentlemen, the show is over. Thank you for coming this evening…” Albert’s nightmare finds him in the role of an abused bear, in a bearpit. On gaining what he’d call consciousness, he grabs his pistol and shoots Alma’s bear. You could say, that was the last bit of integrity this company would see. But, for what it’s worth, the tug of creativity is hard to entirely kill.

The circus caravan is on the move later that night. Frost and Albert are walking along in crepuscular light and crepuscular mood. Albert maintains a depressive glare, never looking, nor, once again, listening to the outer limits of life itself. Frost, an artist to Albert’s merchandising, speaks up, with, “Yesterday afternoon I had a dream while I slept off the booze. I dreamt that Alma came to me and said, ‘Poor Frost, you look tired and sad. Wouldn’t you like to rest a while?’ Yes, I said. ‘I’ll make you small [smallness virulently in effect already] as a little unborn child. You can climb into my womb and sleep in peace.’ So I did as she said, and crept into her womb, and I slept there so soundly and peacefully, rocked to sleep as if in a cradle. Then I got smaller, until, at last, I was just a tiny seed, and then I was gone.” Frost had not gone much further than hysteria in that initial struggle. But his dream carried him to the frontiers of creativity, which is to say, a fresh start upon getting real, the precinct Alma inhabited when an instance of Aphrodite (which failed to find traction). Alma, from the cozy confines of their caravan bed, interrupts, “Stop trudging along out there! Come inside and sleep!” Frost, the alcoholic Everyman, explains to the bemusing navigator, “You see? She can’t sleep without me beside her!”

Here we come to an unexpected minefield. Do the fidelities, at this stage of the careers of the once-briefly brave, still reach the point of magic? Or do those gentle moves conceal a crime? The dream of starting again seems to tell us, “Yes.” Bergman, being one very, very tough dude, is not one to settle for sort of. Does his investigation (and that of a host of other investigators) leave room for leveraging the daily juggle where the daily acrobatics have startled? Sort of. But the film wants us to consider hostile armies that aren’t going away.

After Frost, the unfocused family man, goes to bed, Albert comes to a halt, and Anne (not needing to go to bed) has her moment of truth, which is something else from a moment of vision. (Along a trajectory of job-shopping with Frans in his dressing room and beyond, in the light of Albert bidding for a less American Dream, she doubles back, in memory, to catch Frans rehearsing a drama that could only avail as a purgative. “I am but a poor jester in this farce of dark shadows. Her deceitful heart, her frailty, even her taunting indifference, turn my world upside down every day and every hour…Art that Count Badrincourt of Chamballe, or the most miserable of wretches? Farewell, O world…May my tears water my poor grave…” The intruder that is Anne is positioned behind a damaged backdrop, and we see only part of her face breaking through the musty garbage in knowing to be something better. [Far from Aphrodite; but a physical key still in play].) There they are (Anne and Albert), in the dull light, now apprehensive. (While Albert was carried out of his sawdust bailiwick—a position repeating Frost’s unconsciousness after breaking down in aid of Alma—Anne was busy gauging Frans’ cheek. A few years later, in Hour of the Wolf  [1968], a woman at a party gauges the cheek of an effete rebel, whose confused bid to manage there being no heaven costs his life.) Each manages a wan smile. And they walk along that pregnant roadway and its links coming close to the dance of death, about to be fully unveiled in The Seventh Seal. Our guide’s dramatic genius presents a disaster without recourse, while, on a wider front, things could improve.

[nowyouseememe-archive-blog]

ᵀʰᵉ ᴺᵉʷˢʳᵒᵒᵐ ⁻ ᵂᵉ ᴶᵘˢᵗ ᴰᵉᶜᶦᵈᵉᵈ ᵀᵒ ˢ¹⁻ᴱ¹

Send me one for my muse’s response. Feel free to change the pronouns to fit our characters!

“I think we need a more precise definition of perverted.”

“I consider myself a New York Jets fan.”

“That sounds like a good answer, I’ll take it.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“I’m not letting you go back to the airport without answering the question.”

“You don’t look satisfied.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one.”

“What the fuck was that?”

“I’m sorry. I’m taking medicine for vertigo and I think it works because I’ve got it.”

“You’re in trouble, man.”

“You can’t talk to me like that.”

“Do you need a doctor?”

“I’m excited to meet them too, but not tonight.”

“It’s just too soon.”

“When did you decide that?”

“I have to get back into my meeting.”

“I was concerned that I’d been caught in the middle of something personal.”

“I can see now that I was worried for nothing.”

“Everybody here knows nobody cares.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Loyalty?”

“Where is everybody?”

“What’s goin’ on?”

“You couldn’t say the answer from over there?”

“Shit, how much does he know?”

“I don’t know what just happened.”

“No, I knew that was a trap but I knew you were seeing her.”

“That was the story about how sometimes things fall right into your lap.”

“The answer to that question has several parts.”

“This story won’t end.”

“I get that there are moments, small moments, infrequent moments where I’m not the easiest guy to work with but who the hell is?”

“Well it helps that you’re drunk most of the time.”

“Try not to make a scene.”

“Hey, Dickless!”

“Please, I’ll replace you in fifteen minutes.”

“I’m affable!”

“Was that something that really needed to be said four times?”

“You are a smart, talented guy, who isn’t very nice.”

“That’s enough.”

“I’m a marine _____ I will beat the shit out of you I don’t care how many protein bars you eat!”

“It’s easier to say than the truth.”

“I’m here for whatever you need.”

“Do you care?”

“I am a perfectly nice guy.”

“I’m never going on vacation again.”

“She’s mentally and physically exhausted.”

“She’s been to way too many funerals for a girl her age.”

���It’s not going to go your way.”

“Coincidentally that was the last time you were a nice guy!”

“I’m here to do your job.”

“Are you serious?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I gave too much information.”

“Let me try to guess something and you tell me how much I get right.”

“Alright, you’re gonna see some things.”

“This still looking good to you?”

“The first thing I did when I got back was buy women’s clothes.”

“I maxed out three credit cards.”

“It will just be the three of us for dinner tonight.”

“I just got an allergy.”

“I hate lying to my father.”

“Does he want you to do things in the bedroom you’re uncomfortable with?”

“Damn it. These are just routine questions.”

“You put that all together really fast.”

“It’s not an original story.”

“Your eyes are red.”

“Did you hurt anything?”

“Mmhmm. Everything.”

“That’s personal, do you see me asking personal questions?”

“When was the last time you were in love with a woman?”

“You know that the only reason I’m still standing here is that I have no where else to go, right?”

“You’ve always had a little crush on me, it’s been cute.”

“She’s me before I grew into myself and got hotter with age.”

“I don’t understand why you chose this moment to lose it!”

“Hey, Jughead, I ain’t afraid of nothin’ except jellyfish which is completely normal.”

“What’s in this for you?”

“Why does it have to be like that?”

“It doesn’t, but it is.”

“You’ve done enough. You’ve done everything I’ve ever asked you to do and a ton of stuff I’d never ask anyone to do.”

“Fly away little bird.”

“Do you know how to flirt?”

“Okay, just sit here.”

“Did you get all those emails?”

“I didn’t read them.”

“It’s not my business; you can go anywhere with anyone.”

“Sometimes when you’re in Afghanistan it turns out you’re really in Pakistan”

“She’s crazy you know.”

“I’m just taking your temperature - on a scale of 1-10 how much trouble am I in with you?”

“That can’t possibly be my problem.”

“Yeah, they fucked up, _______, they trusted you!”

“You’re being sarcastic.”

“Tell me who you are again…”

“I just want to make sure you know that you’re still on this side of the door.”

“You’re spinning out of control.”

“Yeah, that whole speech did nothing for me.”

“I don’t mind if you sit here and observe, but I do mind you doing anything else.”

“Thanks for calling back.”

“Well I can’t help you there.”

“Seriously, you’re being disruptive now.”

“I want you to not use that language in front of women and to forever not to suggest that image to me.”

“Is he old enough to drive at night?”

“I don’t think that’s his name.”

“I’m not the IT guy.”

“I made a volcano in primary school.”

“I didn’t know we were supposed to learn something from it.”

“It’s going to be the biggest environmental disaster in history.”

“I think you may be overreacting.”

“You are dramatically under-reacting.”

“I’m the only one who’s not dramatically doing anything.”

“I know, it’s just lucky.”

“How often do you get this lucky?”

“This is my first time.”

“Michael Phelps with an outboard motor on his ass couldn’t outswim that fire.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve been a little inaccessible or terse lately, or for several years.”

“I don’t know what that is but I like it”

“People should know what they’re screaming about.”

“I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Don’t talk to me unless you absolutely have to.”

“Between 8 and 9 o’clock you are completely mine.”

“I don’t see it working that way.”

“Well now you’re just a crazy guy shouting ‘Youtube!’”

“You warmed up or do you want to screw around some more?”

“Come with me.”

“This is beautiful.”

“I’m just sitting here, _______, I’m watching the news.”

“I can only use 140 characters.”

“Figure it out.”

“I’m breathing just fine.”

“Now you’re being unnecessarily flippant.”

“Oh my God, would somebody hit him with a stun gun?!”

“He’s going to be scared to death.”

“God you’re a pussy.”

“I’m too old to be governed by fear of dumb people.”

“You orchestrated the whole thing.”

“I know everything.”

“We just decided to.”

“I fucking loved what you said.”

“Are you kidding? You were like Batman.”

“Yeah, I shouldn’t say things.”

“We got off on the wrong foot. Can I buy you a drink?”

“I was wrong, you were right.”

“We should go.”

“I don’t know what you’re miming.”

“Can I talk to you a second?”

“You were perfect.”

“You two idiots were drunk when you met us for dinner?”

“I thought I saw you in the audience and that’s how I got flustered.”

[lacubanarps-blog]

i'm very confused about your halcyon muse. can you go into further detail about her so i can understand?

you want to understand… my crazy… born out of wedlock… daughter of a duchess.. sarcastic little fuck… halcyon???????? well, you asked for the details so i hope everything here is what you’re asking for. also i love this bitch so much and i probably went overboard. like there’s more information on here than in her bio tbh. but also shoutout to bryanna for helping me develop this bitch over the last few months with our hal x harley verses and brotps with hal x andi, even dimitri x harley. she’s the mvp for putting up with me and all of my hal/dani headcanons.

main verse (highly developed):

who is she?halcyon is technically two people in one. her full birth name is danielle andree-lucie giselle du quenoy-sault and she is considered as the duchess of auvergne and lady of magenta. now, since halcyon was born out of wedlock between two people who are of noble blood (her mother is the duchess and her father is a lord), they were forced to give her up by her mother’s husband. truthfully, i don’t have her mother’s husband very developed but his overall information is that he’s a very powerful duke with ties to government and even the royal family in england. now because of him, almost all the records of her birth were removed, leaving a very small amount of information about danielle or where her location was after that. danielle was placed in an orphanage and she was in the care of the nuns for two years. in most paperworks that did survive, her name is labeled as andree du sault. which is why in one of her verses, she named her daughter andree because it was believed to be her real birth name.

how did she get adopted?around the time that she turned two, a group of american army men decided to spend time volunteering while stationed in france and spent time at the orphanage that danielle was in. at this time, christopher, soon to be her adoptive father, saw danielle playing on her own in the playroom while the other kids were giving attention to the american strangers. he took an interest in her because danielle showed advance signs of creativity and independence so every day, chris would come back and play with dani and she got very close to him early on. now, this was the make or break. chris wanted to adopt danielle but his wife, ava, was very against it at the start. they couldn’t have their own kids so naturally, chris thought about going about it different ways to have their own family. ava decided to visit the orphanage with chris one day to visit the little girl, danielle, and she fell in love. so, they spoke with the nuns and started filling out the paperwork. 

what’s with the name change?ava didn’t think that danielle was a good fit for her the longer that they spent time together. so when it was time to officially adopt her, ava requested for a name change to her paperwork and she was named halcyon elizabeth charles.

after adoption?since hal was young when she got adopted, she doesn’t remember her time in the orphanage. the few memories she does have from that time of her life, she thinks that it was with her parents and she was playing with the neighborhood kids. now the charles family spent eight years in france so chris and ava could finish out their military duties and halcyon can grow up with her culture. halcyon was actually pretty advanced when it came to language and grammar compared to the kids in her school and it was because ava and chris learned french in order to communicate with her. while they learned, they also taught her which is why she’s still fluent in the language as an older adult. 

how did she get to america?a little bit after she turned eight, the charles family packed their bags and returned to america!! exciting right? wrong. since ava and chris had high ranking positions within the american army, they were constantly moving from city to city which made halcyon to become the literal definition of an army brat. she’s lived on the bases, played with the other brats and was always packing up her stuff within 6 - 9 months of their move. now, she realized that since they were always moving, she never had to keep friendships or relationships because communicate will die out when you’re always on the move. this, in return, is what started developing her promiscuous nature after she lost her virginity in the 10th grade. she started fucking and leaving them early on. in addition, halcyon did play soccer at every school she went to even if it was just for a little while.

how did she find out about her adoption?in the 11th grade, halcyon had a school project about her family tree. she started digging through old family documents for information and found her adoption paperwork. her parents didn’t want her to know until after high school because, honestly, they didn’t know how to go about it. once hal found out, it did break the relationship she had with them. halcyon still loves them but it doesn’t feel the same when they had lied to her. because of that, she wanted to know more about her birth family. however, since most of her documentation was destroyed, halcyon could only ever find paperwork that said andree du sault and didn’t know about her full name, and titles, until years later. did she ever find her birth parents?in due time, she does find out the literal truth of her birth parents and learns that she’s actually a duchess. her brother, gabriel, is the one who found her during their college years and told her the truth when he felt it was time for her to know. without her current verses, that part isn’t fully developed on its own. how does she behave?so, halcyon actually does behave and act a lot like her birth mother but she has a lot of characteristics of her birth father. the funny thing is that ava is very much like marie, hal’s birth mother, but the major difference between the two is that ava thinks more with logic and marie is a free spirit with a creative personality. they’re both witty and sarcastic, which is why hal behaves in that matter. it is also why hal turned to animation, illustration, photography and film directing, because it was already in her blood. but her father, antoine, is much more guarded and protective of what he cares about. hal behaves like him when she’s in love, causing her to get jealous sometimes and doesn’t allow people to come in easily. and she has his very pigment green eyes (which is a trait that only runs in his family and gabriel have them too). 

now, since you have a better understanding of who she is as halcyon, time to introduce the royal duchess, danielle andree-lucie giselle du quenoy-sault! 

so i won’t be using questions for this because i am still developing halcyon’s alt. life as a duchess so anything on here is subject to change!overall, it’s still the same story that her parents fell in love and had danielle out of wedlock during an affair. her mother’s husband found out about the affair that his wife had and she begged him not to take danielle away. in response, he agreed to let her stay and only if marie follows whatever he says. without thinking about it, she said yes and everything was pretty good for a couple of years. dani got her primary education of grammar, math, etiquette and so on. basically how to behave and act like a duchess 101. at the age of 5, danielle got placed into ballet and she kept doing it for years. most kids her age would pick on her because they’d say that the teachers only liked her or she only did the lead roles because she’s the duchess but really, danielle was a natural born ballerina and was talented. due to that bullying, it basically pushed her to keep up with training and become the best principle dancer that the paris opera house has had in years. in addition to her ballet training, danielle is very talented with it comes to art (mainly illustration) and modeling (like her mother).now, although dani has a good life as a duchess, with all the luxury and comfort that one could have in the world, she hated the lifestyle. growing up, danielle felt like she was a bird in a golden cage. most of her days were planned months in advance and she couldn’t do as she pleased without requesting it early on. at least, that’s how it was when she stayed with her mother and it was because of her husband, who was grooming danielle to be the perfect duchess to marry her off to somebody and use in a business deal. whenever she stayed with her dad, things were more laid. gabriel and her would play pranked on each other and their dad. they would go on vacation together and actually have fun. you know, she actually got to be a kid and not think about the royal engagements she had to do in a week.as for danielle’s personality, she is still very much like her mother, marie. although she doesn’t do it in public, dani is very sarcastic in private and often fights with her mother’s husband to give her more freedom. she’s pretty naive when it comes to life outside of her duchess bubble (like, normal life for common people), but she’s highly educated in several different subjects and languages. as for her sexual life, she has been active among other nobles around her age but she’s still kinda lost when it comes to pleasing somebody else (and herself). then even tho her parents aren’t together, she can see the love they have for one another whenever they have their secret family reunions and hopes she can find that one day.dani is still developing but she’s a spoiled duchess and i love her stupid royal ass. i also have pinterest boards for halcyon and danielle (and her verses) if you’re very curious, anon!

[italiancheff]

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