#(If nothing else we could chuck them at the source of our stress)

[gemsona-hq]

Monthly Gem Challenge: Sonora Sunrise

Just like last month, we’re giving you an unusual gem and challenging you to design a gemsona based on it! You can go as in-depth with your character designs as you’d like: come up with their personality and backstory, or just show what you think they’d look like. They can even be a fusion if you prefer; the choice is up to you!

This month’s gem is Sonora Sunrise (If you already have a Sonora Sunrise gemsona, you can still drop them in the MGC tag, this month is for all Sonora Sunrises, old or new!)

Gem Meaning: (Note: You can use the gem’s meaning to help you come up with ideas for your gemsona, but it’s not a requirement). The components of this gem are associated with serenity, peace, hope, and and unconditional love. Supposedly a good gem for anxiety and dealing with irrational fear.

Cool Facts: Sonora Sunrise is a fusion! This gem is a mix of Chrysocholla (the blue / green), Cuprite (the red), Chalcotricite (also red), and Iron (black). While it's popularly referred to as "Sonora Sunrise", this gem is also known as "Sonora Sunset" and "Crimson Cuprite". It’s a pretty new gem that was only recently discovered within the last 50-years or so!

Want to know more about Sonora Sunrise to help get you inspired? Check out our “Gem Meaning Resource” page for other sites where you can look up information about this month’s gem! Need help getting the gem’s color palette? Check out these resources!

Please tag your responses to the challenge as #MGC January or drop it in the  #GEMSONA JANUARY PROMPT tag so we can reblog them here!

[itsclydebitches]

Rewatching RWBY there's this chilling lack of empathy through the volumes that I used to just wave off. Yang has no empathy for Tai, Blake is just entirely about what Blake needs, Weiss almost kills a woman at a party and her takeaway is 'my dad is mean so I'm going to run away'. Qrow sinks hard into depression in vol. 6 and Ruby's reaction is to yell she's never needed him. No one has EVER helped a civilian. It's so prevelant. Knowing how 7&8 go really changes the earlier writing.

I think there was a great deal of well-written empathy in the early volumes — after all, this cast was designed as the kind, well-meaning heroes — but that care was expressed almost solely within the group itself. Ruby sits by Jaune in the hallway and says "Nope!" to his self doubt. Weiss offers Ruby a hand up after she fails to kill the death stalker. Yang seeks out Blake and gets her to open up about what's bothering her. Now, I want to emphasize that there's nothing inherently wrong with this. It actually makes perfect sense. These are our main characters and they're written as peers co-habiting the same space. Of course whatever emotional growth we get, which automatically includes moments of compassion, would be directed towards each other. Similarly, the dynamics originally introduced — that of teachers and parents — likewise (rightly) puts the burden on the adults to provide the comfort, not the other way around. Port snaps Weiss out of her arrogant mindset. Ozpin reassures Ruby about her leadership worries. Tai is there to support his daughter when she's recovering from a lost limb. That's the natural order of things, so to speak.

The problem, to my mind, begins to occur when the group exits those dynamics. They're no longer students, they're licensed huntsmen. They're no longer kids, but equals who never needed adults in the first place. They're no longer doing things for themselves and their friends on personal downtime, they're doing them for the community at large as a profession (to say nothing of the world-altering war they've insisted on shouldering responsibility for). That's what a huntsmen is meant to be, a defender of the people, not someone who uses that power for personal interests alone. All of this is a huge change from where we started out: cutesy kids going off on comparatively low-stakes adventures because one or more of their teammates are invested, only just beginning to realize that they're signing up for a job where their desires come second (that fireside conversation at Mountain Glenn).

This change invites — demands, really — that the audience read them differently too. Qrow's spiral in Volume 6 is a good example of this. If Ruby is demanding to be treated not just as an equal in terms of maturity and experience, but also as the primary leader of this group, then the viewer expects her to treat her uncle as an equal too, not dismiss his hardship. I've seen numerous fans defend that arc with some version of, "He's her uncle. He's supposed to take care of her. He's failing" but that, according to the show, is no longer the dynamic. Qrow is now just a member of Ruby's team, someone she's responsible for as their leader. It's easiest to see the problem if we switch out Qrow for any of the other members. If Blake developed a drinking problem, do we think Ruby would just shout at her until she magically got over it? If Jaune endangered the group, do we think they'd all be angry about it, rather than trying to figure out the source of what caused the mistake? We don't even need to think hypothetically for that one because we saw it on screen. Jaune attacked Oscar and drove him off, not just threatening him, but arguably endangering the whole team by requiring a search party. Fans have long insisted they had to steal that airship right then because being in Argus was too much of a risk, but if we buy that reading (which I personally don't, but), then that means Jaune made things exponentially worse by forcing them out into that super dangerous city, rather than allowing everyone to stay hidden inside. He made a massive mistake which, according to the logic of Qrow's arc, should be met with frustration, disdain, and eventual demands to get over his anger at Ozpin or ship out. But, of course, he received nothing but concern. Yang was worried about him, not Oscar. The search becomes about his grief for Pyrrha and his team's willingness (as well as Pyrrha's family member) to provide more comfort. Suddenly, the tendency to express care solely towards those within the group becomes a flaw the story won't acknowledge.

And then it spirals. The thing to remember is that no single act here is bad on its own, especially when we consider that yes, we want flawed characters. Rather, it's about the pattern. Ruby is allowed to get mad at Qrow for his behavior and chuck her scroll in frustration. She's human. I'd be crazy frustrated too. However, if Ruby is meant to be written as a caring, sympathetic character, she should not only respond to the situation with frustration, yelling, a refusal to listen, and demands that he follow her lead, no questions asked. We can, and should, acknowledge that Weiss was the victim during that party. Her father was hurting her, the woman was beyond insensitive, Weiss was triggered in regards to a horrific event, and her power acted on its own. However, if we want to write Weiss as a compassionate, mature huntress to-be, she should acknowledge that she nearly killed someone — even an asshole someone — and vow to work on her control because she's not willing to put someone in danger like that ever again. Both of these moments have a "They could have been handled better" response attached to them — the former more-so than the latter imo — but these moments are made far, far worse due to later events in the show, events where the characters are cruel without any justification attached. Weiss didn't mean to attack that woman, but she did mean to ignore Whitely and threaten him with her weapon. So once we see that, it informs our understanding of what came before it. "Oh. The fact that Weiss never reacted to nearly killing someone isn't just a bit of missed potential, it's an early indicator that she... doesn't seem to care. If she endangers people, threatens people... that's fine with her." The group has a right to be frustrated with Qrow. The group did not have the right to magically steal Ozpin's entire life story, assault him, and blame him for the world's problems until he felt his only course of action was to run from them. So when we see that it becomes, "Oh. The fact that the group treated Qrow so poorly isn't just a one-time mistake born of a stressful situation and young adults being out of their depth in regards to alcoholism. They really will just abandon anyone the moment they start making mistakes." Anyone outside of their group, that is.

To say nothing of how all of these moments interconnect. Yang's recovery isn't just about getting used to not having an arm, it's about getting used to having a new one. Weiss' party isn't just about nearly killing someone, it's about not committing manslaughter because someone else stepped in. The Volume 6 arc isn't just about trying to escape with the Relic, it's about trying to get it somewhere safe. Fans frustrated with Ironwood's treatment don't harp on these details out of some desperate attempt to make him look good post-murder spree, rather, they recognize that he's a character that's been around since nearly the beginning, originally written as a good guy, and thus has accumulated a number of key connections with the cast. So when none of those connections are acknowledged during an arc about trust... that makes the group look very uncaring. Yang doesn't care that he gave her the arm, Weiss doesn't care that he saved her from hurting/potentially killing someone, Qrow doesn't care that he's trusted Ironwood for years (in a rival-bros way) and that they've been heading towards him this whole time. And when Ironwood begins to spiral, they don't do anything to try and help him, let alone acknowledge that their own choices, that lack of trust and empathy, had a hand in getting them here. "But it's not their responsibility to fix him!" Isn't it? Even a little? Just as human beings seeing an ally struggling under horrific decisions and circumstances? Sure, they don't have to try... but that doesn't make them look very heroic to my mind. And we can't even shrug that off by simplifying things with, "Well, Ironwood is evil now so who cares about him." They simultaneously don't care about finding Qrow who is missing, then captured. They don't do anything to try and find their missing teammates, with the exception of sending May to do it instead. They don't help the army fight off the grimm. Don't try to make sure Pietro and Maria had portals to escape through. Barely hesitate when the newly resurrected characters goes, "Kill me. That's the easiest thing for everyone." And these are just a few of the big ticket moments. It doesn't even begin to cover all the details we get that paint a picture of, "Wow okay. They just really don't care about people outside the group, huh? I mean, they say they do, in a life-or-death way, but they're not putting forth effort to show it on a daily basis."

And if you pick up on all that, if you acknowledge how much the group has changed based on where they started out, you might wonder when in the world that started. Surely we didn't just flip a switch around Volume 6. So you re-watch early stuff and, sure enough, there are moments that feel like setup for what's to come later. Not intentional setup (quite obviously), but a lack of care towards details across the series that, once the dynamic changed, became far, far more pronounced. Characters should be at least somewhat recognizable from start to finish, especially characters who have only experienced about two years of in-world time, so if we now get to see Ruby blandly commenting on all the people who are dying, or Weiss using her weapon as a means of coercing her little brother into doing what she wants, or Yang and Jaune dismissing Ren until he gives in to their point of view... we're going to look for the beginnings of that behavior early on. As you say, we were able to wave all those little details off due to a number of important factors. Now though? Now they feel like they hold a lot more weight, simply by virtue of that early material proceeding what we have now.

[tmnt-brave-new-world]

Interaction guidelines- The Rules RPs are currently open, please read the rules before interacting

The Rules

- Please Read the rules before interacting

-This is an Ask and RP blog. Rps will be taken under consideration, on a case by case basis

- Absolutely No one under 18, preferably 21+. I’m not planning to censor anything on this blog. If you are not of age, do not follow or interact. You will be reported and blocked

- Patience is a virtue. The Mun works an incredibly difficult and stressful job, that, because it pays the bills, takes priority. This blog is a platform for fun and interaction but can’t take precedence over the real world. Sometimes I’m super busy and it could be awhile before I respond to a post, or an RP. If you aren’t capable of patience don’t interact.

- Please be respectful. The level of respect you show this blog and others is important to the Mun. if you aren’t capable of acting in a mature fashion, you will be blocked. BE NICE…

- Absolutely no popup RPs in ask, without having discussed or plotted a story with the Mun.

- If you would like to RP please dm me with a story idea.

- This is not a tcest site. I’m sorry I don’t know how to write tcest, and don’t have a desire to do so. I feel that I would not be a decent or supportive rp partner if I’m not able to give it my best, and thus do not wish to mistreat or neglect those in the community who enjoy this type of RP

- No randomly appearing in the lair without being invited. Donnie has gone above and beyond to give them safety in their sanctuary. If you weren’t invited, you are not welcome in their home, as is the case with any stranger.

On to the boys!

- The boys are 2014/2016 Bayverse turtles but are mature adult men. Human age wise they are around 50, but maturity and body wise, somewhere in their 30’s respectively. They do not age the same as humans due to the properties of mutagen and their turtle mutant base type

- This is an AU set several decades into the future- please read the prologue to help understand a little more about the world they live in

- They live in a skyrise, penthouse. With state of the art- Donnie certified level protections put into place. Nothing gets in or out, without his knowing. He does not take the safety of himself or his brothers lightly

- The Boys do not belong to anybody and will not belong to anybody. They are free to interact with whomever they would like, in any way that has been discussed and planned between the two muns.

- They don’t know your muse, nor have had any previous interactions with your muse, and thus are not in love with your muse, or have an established relationship with your muse.

- If you want their love and attention you will have to earn it, just like you would in any other type of interaction

- Absolutely no god-modding. Example: its your 3rd time to respond and you’re attempting to have Leo princess carry your character to bed. This is not a natural flow to the story, and not going to happen.

- The boys may like certain features, or admire certain characteristics, however they are open to all body types, shapes and beings, so long as they feel a connection.

A quick explanation as to what the boys do with their free time in a world that knows they exist.

Leo: “We each found our interests and talents opened up a several viable options that had lead us each to a “unique” position.” Leo led as he gathered his thoughts. “Keep in mind after we managed to stop Krang and those who worked closely with him, the world was vulnerable. As far as my brothers and I were concerned, we had fought too hard and for too long for someone to simply slip into the power vacuum we had created and to continue to harsh reality Krang had created for Earth’s inhabitants. Due to this we each chose to do what we knew how to do and could most easily adapt as challenges presented themselves.”

He paused for a moment as he thought about the hardships, they had each faced and managed to overcome as they slowly helped right the world and returned her to standing on her own. A shimmering blue jewel among the galaxy and other worlds that had become familiar with the planet and its amenities.

“During our years in the resistance we managed to acquire wealth and assets. We were able to accumulate quite the little nest egg using those. Along with our acquired influence it opened many a door which in the old world would have remained not only closed but permanently locked to us.”

“I became a strategic investor. Buying the remnants of properties, businesses and services and either helping them to return to what they once were or repurposing to better suit the needs of this new era and turn a profit. It proved to be very profitable and allowed for me to continue to churn out profits which allowed for me to seek other properties and businesses to invest in or connect the right individuals with each other in away that led to my ability to offer the initial capital for a small percentage of the quarterly earnings. It helped people to create jobs and led to a lot of normalcy for those who desperately needed.

One hand washes the other, and this in its essence has lead to my own sector of the Tartaruga brothers incorporated. I have a multi-billion dollar operation on Earth and several branches operating throughout the universe currently.”

Donnie: “As Leo has said,” Donnie commented calmy, “our time resisting and fighting lead us each to our own talents. I spent a lot of time wearing many hats, which included, chemists, doctor, surgeon, agronomist, engineer, electrician, etc. to put it simply I spent a lot of time learning how to save lives, human and otherwise, and the best way to stretch our available resources in a way which led to people surviving. I also had to learn how to create medications which were so commonplace that many died without having them available. Most antibiotics don’t have a very long shelf life and when those ran out initially, we were in constant jeopardy of losing lives to the simplest of bacterial infections. My knowledge, and subsequent research lead to significant improvements and branching into many other factors, and shall we say break throughs.

Needless to say, the value of others wants, lead to my ability to fund the needs of the many. In my sector, I have several leadings areas including pharmacy, medical research, agrarian development, as well as generalized research and development in multiple fields from domestic to military. For obvious reasons, more detailed information is strictly classified.”

Raph: Raph chuckled as Donnie glossed over his closely guarded research. He was willing to kill to protect his research and continue to control the aspects that allowed him to fund the bulk of his interests and common welfare of those he blanketed with his programs. “They ain’t lying. After the world came back from going to shit, it took awhile to get it back up and going. Additionally, there were a lot of people, generally those not from this world that were way too determined to make sure we failed. This led to a lot of infighting and groups struggling for control. That tends to lead to a lot of shady business if you know what I mean, and it wasn’t like we had any type of social services such as police, fire fighting, or anything else. I initially took charge in areas like these.

I took a lot of care to train groups so that they worked together and were prepared to handle whatever problems came. It took a lot of time to cultivate proper training programs and help prepare people on how to help a traumatized world get back to functioning in a healthy way. I still help do this on planets and areas that are in recovery.”

“That being said however, my primary interest and “job” if you want to call it that, is training mixed martial artist prize fighters for the world federation galaxy league. Simply put we aren’t the only species that likes to watch trained athletes test their skills against one another within their respective brackets, or on specially contracted prized fights. I used to fight for the league and earned a lot of titles and prestige. I won most fights and was often the favorite to win after a while. I’m semi-retired and only occasionally enter the ring now days. However, I take and train promising talents for the league and other groups. I have also trained personal bodyguards for a variety of individuals.  Different specialties come with different specifics and contracts as well as costs. It takes a specific might set for each, and a lot of time to drill into a thick skull.”

Mikey: Mikey laughed at the turtle in red, “Oh yeah, and you were the king of thick skulled back when we were young, and dumb.” He barely dodged the throw pillow that was chucked at his head.  “Let’s see for me personally,” Mikey flashed a big grin, “I happen to be a master of many trades. During our days in the resistance, I learned a lot of different tricks to help make the food rations we had on hand not only palatable but nutritionally sound while feeding a literal army of people! So when it was possible I spent a large amount of time learning how to take fancy old world recipes and revamped them with food sources that were still available or recreated them with off world goodies. I also still paint, and love to collaborate with others to create amazing new concepts!”

His face darkened for a moment as he thought back to the early days of the resistance. “There were so many people who in the blink of an eye had lost everything, and unfortunately it was insanely common to find kids who had either been separated from their families or were the only survivor. In a lot of instances they were traumatized and it took a lot of creative thinking to coax them out of their shells and help to reteach them on how to live. This happened fairly frequently with adults as well. Because of this and what seemed like a never ending shortage of textiles, I had to learn and create new ways to make things and often times help find things that brought the sparkle back to peoples eyes. Because of this however, I have a multimedia conglomerate that allows me to work in a wide area of creative outlets. The fashion world is a flippant mistress, but there are a lot of ways in which one can compete and stand out. It’s led to a lot of lucrative contracts with those who are “starving” for the next amazing piece of creatively, or at least that’s what they tell me. The great thing about taking high end contracts and commissions is that a lot like my brothers, the revenue lets me continue to reach out to others. I fund a program that includes shelters called “Uncle Mikey’s” for those who are missing, exploited, or just need help. I also teach cooking, and practical skills for those who need them, and they are streamed to community centers such as local libraries, after school programs, and the like, to try and continue to help those who never received a chance to learn to do things due to the world kind of going through an apocalypse level event.

[orionsangel86]

what are your thoughts on the deancas endgame.. how will they resolve the Empty.. any thoughts?

Ah that old question! How it pains us all! :P

What are my thoughts on DeanCas endgame now? Honestly it changes everyday!

When Cas first made his deal with the Empty, it seemed so damn obvious to me that it would be a lead up to overt canon Destiel. At the time I was pretty sure that there was nothing else that could bring Cas that level of happiness. Now I’m not so sure. Cas’s devotion to Jack has only grown, and the fracturing of the Winchester family at the end of Season 14 was a huge hit to him. I can now easily envisage something as simple as Cas being invited to carve his name on the bunker table being the trigger point, so long as Jack is alive and well. Being part of the Winchester family has definitely been the principle factor the writers have built on for Cas over the past season. I therefore think that if the Empty does come for Cas, it will be from something familial, something like Jack and the Winchesters all sitting around and them paying specific attention to Cas for doing something great, like actually stopping a monster, saving a ton of people, and doing it all the human way, leading to a very impressed Sam and a loved up Dean beaming at him and telling him to carve his initials, and making sure he adds the W.

As much as I would love it and ascend to fandom heaven if it happened, I don’t think the empty deal is gonna be triggered by Dean grabbing and kissing Cas up against his bedroom door, or even actually saying a very clearly romantic “I love you”. Not that I don’t think that will happen at all, but I feel the Empty deal will need to be addressed very soon, and I just can’t see any overt confirmation of Destiel in text before the very end (if at all) at this point.

Please let me explain my thought process on this before anyone get’s upset or jumps on me.

Season 15, imo, has done a lot for Destiel. Since the very first episode we have had a clear emotional storyline specific to Dean and Cas. Their relationship drama has basically fuelled the emotional heart of the season so far. It has lead to journalists, interviewers, and plenty of check marks on Twitter agreeing that whatever Dean and Cas have, it’s something very special, and important to Supernaturals beating core.

The fact is, Dean and Cas are already being written as a romantic couple. They are being written as two people who deeply love each other, to the point that they get ridiculously overly emotional around each other and when the other hurts them. Their relationship is constantly called out by other characters (Belphegor, Rowena) and mirrored to the more overt (however unfair that is) heterosexual relationship in the show (Sam and Eileen).

If we were still living within the era of the Hays Code, if this was The Celluloid Closet, then we would already be championing Destiel as an epic example of queer romance. It IS a queer romance after all. Destiel is real, it exists within the Supernatural story, and the SPN writing team including actual queer writers are 100% on our side and writing Destiel as best they can. This I am 100% certain of at this stage. As a meta writer, I am already validated that my reading of the show and of Destiel as a queer romance in the show is correct. Destiel isn’t something anyone can justifiably call us delusional for seeing anymore. We have come way far beyond that point here. If you see Destiel as a romantic love story, your reading is a correct reading because that IS the story the writers are writing. Season 15 has confirmed that with the Destiel break up story arc and Dean’s prayer. This I say with absolute certainty. Your reading of Destiel as valid and an actual queer love story is correct. It is the story they are telling. People can’t deny Destiel anymore because it is those deniers who at this stage look pretty damn delusional ya know?

I have bolded several lines above because they are important and I really want to stress that this is my stance on the matter. Do not let anyone try to convince you that I feel differently here. If you are a young queer person who sees yourself and your relationship in the DeanCas love story you are valid in seeing that. Exactly as it is, right now, without any need for further confirmation within the story. I am in no way trying to invalidate you by what I am about to say next.

I mentioned the Hays Code and the Celluloid Closet. If you haven’t seen the Celluloid Closet I urge you to watch it as it is a fascinating look into queer coding within the Hays code era. Also, quickly, if you aren’t aware of what I mean by the Hays Code it’s basically the code that Hollywood had to adhere to, setting out rules of what could and couldn’t be portrayed in cinema at the time. Here’s a link to the Wiki article on the history of queer cinema. The introduction of the Hay’s code also meant the introduction of queer coding and subtext rather than explicit dipictions of queer romance in cinema. When I refer to this in relation to Dean and Cas, basically what Supernatural is doing with Dean and Cas is exactly what was done to dipict queer romance in order to get around the Hays code during the era when it was enforced.

So when I say that Destiel is real and valid and being written as a love story, I mean that the writers are basically doing with Destiel what savvy filmmakers had to do to circumvent the Hay’s code during Hollywoods golden age.

Do you see the issue yet?

It is 2020. The Hay’s Code has been abolished for around 50 years.

I fully respect the SPN writing team for trying to tell the Destiel love story as best they can, but at this point in time, even with everything they have already given us, it is still subtext.

Subtext IS a part of the text. What is Canon? What isn’t Canon? Honestly? I’m done with the arguments about it. Believe what each of you want to believe. What I will say is that I don’t think we are going to get anything more overt from the show at this point. The reason I say this is because the writers have now had plenty of ideal opportunities to actually bring the Destiel love story into text. They could have had a single line in 15x07 that confirmed Dean and Lee had a romantic relationship when they were younger. It would have been so easy to do. But they didn’t. Dean’s prayer to Cas, in all it’s glory, could have given us one line more as well. We could have had a love confession. They could have taken it there. Again, it would have been so easy, and it was the ideal opportune moment for Dean to confess. But they didn’t.

I have gone back and forth on this particular question over and over again. The question being will Destiel be brought into explicit undeniable text by series end?

Again, I stress, this question is completely separate to the question of the validity of Destiel already within the text and I swear to God if I get a single argumentative person in my mentions coming at me because they’ve been brainwashed by *people* trying to twist and blur these lines I am going on an even bigger blocking spree to the one I’ve already been on.

In my opinion, the answer to this question resides not with the decisions of the writers (who I fully believe would make it overtly canon in a heartbeat if they could) but with the CW execs. I have my own theories about what goes on behind the scenes, and what I think Dabb has been fighting with since he first took over as showrunner in season 11, and I just really hope that at some point once this is all over we will get a big expose on the truth about Destiel which confirms my speculation and slams the CW execs for not wanting to go there with Supernatural in particular (something I have previously talked about here). I would love for the execs to have given the green light on Destiel being overt by season end, and I am still hoping they have been more lenient this season even if the okay is only for one small moment. Whatever we get or do not get, it will be at the hands of the CW execs and not the writers. That’s the one thing I ask everyone to please keep in mind whatever happens in the end.

As far as what I think may or may not happen...

I would love for the Empty to take Cas because Dean confesses his love and kisses him. Or even if the Empty takes Cas because of other things, having Dean then rescue Cas from the Empty in a poetic reverse of Cas rescuing Dean from Hell, with the big reunion being their overt textual getting together. I feel like the story could go in so many different directions right now as I don’t actually feel like the plot of season 15 is all that coherant so far. The main key notes were Dean and Cas’s relationship drama, Sam and Eileen’s reunion, Chuck messing with the boys and Jack’s return. I think that things will ramp up pretty quickly in this final run of episodes from mid March to the finale, and I think a lot of storylines will get addressed and resolved in a short space of time, at this point, if anything overt does happen for Dean and Cas, it will happen quickly, and the story will move on, or it will be left in the subtext until the very final episode, or it will remain in subtext completely.

Personally, I think that Dean and Cas’s love story will remain subtextual until the very end, with potentially an “I love you” from Dean that will be interpreted as platonic by all major media sources much to all of our frustrations (a repeat of the Season 12 Cas “I love you”) (As Dean needs to tell Cas he loves him as a plot point at this stage, regardless of whether it is romantic or platonic the story basically demands it be said). I am still quietly confident that Dean and Cas will end the season together in some way, either living or dead, I don’t think that their story or their individual story arcs work if they are separated, and I will be stunned and hurt the same way I was for Game Of Thrones if the show does take a different route.

Therefore, since I see the show ending with Dean and Cas together, I can potentially see them taking each others hands in one final shot that basically subtly confirms that they are an item without ever actually textually stating anything more or giving us a kiss or anything. I personally, would be very satisfied with this. If it doesn’t happen though, if I’m totally honest, I would also be satisfied so long as they are still together by the shows end, as I have continually stressed, Destiel is already a real and valid love story that totally validates me as a meta writer, even if it isn’t technically “canon” by all major definitions of the term. (Again I stg if anyone comes at me for saying this I am blocking without devoting a second of my time to arguing with you I am literally at zero tolerance on this ridiculous argument right now and refuse to be dragged back into the bullshit).

Whatever happens, I am loving what we are getting so far. I’ve really been enjoying this season especially the Dean and Cas storyline because it has been so intense and emotional and I LIVE FOR IT! :D I know I’ll be a puddle of tears whatever happens and I just hope that it keeps up this excellent trajectory because so far I’ve been really pleased with everything else we’ve got even if I was slightly disappointed by the show not pushing 15x07 and 15x09 just that tiny bit further into overt canon confirmation of Bi!Dean and Destiel. We’ll see. As I have already said several times, I am feeling pretty validated by my interpretation of Dean and Cas’s relationship over the past so many years I’ve been writing about them. I am confident that I will continue to feel validated as we reach the final run of episodes, and I will continue to be optimistic that Dean and Cas will get a satisfying ending together, whether that includes overt textual Destiel confirmation or not.

[captainjimothycarter]

can u do another peggy is tony’s birth mom but from a 1 night stand w/ Howard (maybe she’s wasted or up 2 u, resulting n a late n life pregnancy. Howard and Maria adopt him b/c of reasons (up 2 u)

Hopefully, this is what you imagined! Just a warning, abortion is mentioned several times

 --

 Things just happened. 

 Peggy isn’t sure how point A and point B ended up together to make this triangle sort of events, but here they are. Here she is, sitting on the bathroom floor of her new office in DC, staring at the positive pregnancy test.

 She was filled with some complex emotions that she didn’t know where to start with first. Frustration for herself? Angry at herself for letting her guard drop? For not thinking at the moment, no excuse of alcohol in her system despite it was a reason to celebrate. How could she be so stupid?

 A pregnancy was dangerous to her in general, the doctors had told her when she had the distant thought of wanting to start a family. Shrapnel from an explosive had cut through her lower stomach, tearing through several important organs. She told me she had almost died on the table twice during surgery and pregnancy was out of her future if she wanted to see the ripe age of at least fifty.

 That reality had hurt, the idea that she couldn’t get pregnant without risking her health, but Peggy had packed away the pain as she always did to visit on a rainy day. She made peace with this reality. She threw herself into her work. She focused on the tasks at hand with the SSR, Howard, Leviathan, Howard, Whitney Frost, Michael, Howard, Shield, and Howard.

It’s not that Peggy didn’t want kids, she loved kids. She just never found herself the mothering type, even as a child. She would rather roll around in the dirt, get her dress dirty, and play pirate than to learn how to take care of a baby doll or even sew [even if that skill would come in hand at a much later date in her life]. Her mother had frowned upon the idea, told her that she would never get a husband, that no man would want her, and even as a child, a teenager, she shrugged it off. 

 She lived for no man. 

 The problem wasn’t the pregnancy so much, she could deal with the pregnancy if she was to keep the child. Was it even too late? Too dangerous to abort? Surely her medics at SHIELD could think of something. The main problem lied in her job. A pregnancy meant things on hold because of the danger of the situation. A pregnancy meant no more field missions, a pregnancy meant she was exposing herself as a weakness to the world by carrying a child. Especially this late in life. 

 Then there was the fact of actually birthing this child. Of raising it. Could she even do it? Did she even want to?

 She felt guilty for even thinking no. Not that she wouldn’t love the child, she was sure she would, but looking in his face? Seeing who the father was made her sick. How could she do that to Maria?

 It wasn’t just that. It was exposing a child to the daily life of leading Shield would result in the child being in danger, expanses she wasn’t sure they could afford to be stretched to protect the child too.

 No, she couldn’t go through with this. For the better good of herself, of the world. The best she could do was get an abortion and move on, put it all behind her, and tuck this into the nice little box to visit on a rainy day.

 --

 “I’m afraid no,” the doctor with gray eyes and a mole on his cheek sighed at her, tapping the clipboard on his arm. “Going by your lab results and your history, it’s far too late to do as you ask. If there’s an emergency, then yes, we can risk it, but given your age and your medical history, there are ways around the main risks with constant monitoring.”

 That’s not what Peggy wanted to hear. She expected it was far too late. How long had she been sick and put it off as just stress? Nausea, vomiting, heartburn. She just chucked it up to the lack of self-care. Now, it was coming to bite her in the ass. 

 She could press if she wanted to, she knew that. There would be some doctor in some part of this city to say yes, but part of her was relieved. She didn’t want to. She wanted some excuse, to put reasoning behind this budding guilt in her that she had to do it for her health. 

 Now she had to carry to term for her health too. 

 And maybe there’s a chance she lied on the forms, on the questions, her subconscious told her. Her period had been far earlier, the date of conception had been different. In reality, she wanted to keep this child that was now growing inside of her and had been for some time. 

 So pregnancy was dangerous in both her late age and her war-torn body, but it was doable. She should be upset, raging, storming off to find another doctor. So why did she feel so relieved? 

 And where in the hell was Howard Stark?

 --

 The answer was her office. Helping himself to a tall whiskey, a sour look on his face that had nothing to do with the glass in hand. She rolled her eyes as she marched inside, snatching the bottle and glass from him to put it out of his reach. The smell made her stomach roll.

 “Tastes like shit anyway, all watered down,” Howard grumbled, scrubbing a hand over his salt and peppered hair. He set Peggy with a hard look, eyes dropping instantly down to her belly and back up to her. “So, when were you gonna tell me? Why did I have to find out through Shield gossip that you’re pregnant?”

 This is not how she wanted to do this. 

 Peggy sighed as she shut the door, instructing her secretary Rose to please push her meetings back by an hour. She sat behind the desk and slipped her heels off, feet already starting to swell in them. 

 “I only found out today.” At Howard’s look, the brunette sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I’m serious, Howard. It’s not like I would keep this from you! I only found out today and took that pregnancy test on a complete whim. I already went to medical and I’m too far along to consider...anything but carrying it to term.”

 Howard was still giving her a funny look, turning the information over in his head.

 “Whose the father?”

 The silence stretched between them as she stared at him, turning that night over in her head. Plenty of drinks. Celebration. He had kissed her. 

 “You are.”

 Howard’s face paled of all color, making the dark strands in his hair and mustache stand out. He’d aged as they all had, carrying SHIELD and Stark Industries on his back. More recently he’s been talking about diving into weapon trade, and designing weapons for more than just SHIELD to create a steady income and a good source to fall back on. She’d voiced her displeasure but until she saw the proof, there was nothing she could do. 

 “You’re serious,” he sighed, dropping his face into his hands. “I thought...I thought…”

 “We did.” It had been a wild night. She’d just made Director. Phillips had officially passed the mantle on to her and she’d just moved to the office in DC. It had been a private celebration between them, to honor the falling as well. Her thoughts had faded back to Steve when he kissed her. And maybe it was the loneliness that had crowded in on her at night, or the illusion that she was drunk, or the fact that Howard, despite all her reserve to admit it, he was a good kisser. Regardless, it had happened. 

 She’d woken up to Howard gone from her bed, the memory of that night filling her mind. He’d left shortly after looking smug as he used to in his young age when he’d bed someone. Not just smug, he looked...relieved, almost longing in those eyes. She had fooled herself to think so, too desperate for human contact she denied herself.

 “And,” Peggy continued. “We need to tell Maria.” Howard looked just as panicked as she felt but she shook her head, continuing firm. “I will not lie to my friend about this, Howard. She deserves to know how we both screwed up.”

 --

 Maria was a beautiful woman and quick to wit, never afraid to put Howard in his place. It was one of the many reasons Peggy had liked her from the start. She helped them out plenty of times, no matter if it was three in the morning, she stumbled in with a bleeding shoulder from a stray bullet or just to gossip about her day. She could pick up the signs that no one else noticed or well ignored. 

 Peggy liked her, loved how good she was for Howard, and hated this reality.

 “You’re pregnant,” Maria said the second the pair had sat down for their earlier-than-usual afternoon tea. She held the cup in hand, looking at Peggy over the steaming rim. “And it’s Howard’s.”

 Peggy blinked, feeling her body run cold. Feeling sick to her stomach from more than just the smell of coffee wafting from the kitchen. All she could do was nod, eyes dropping down to her steaming cup. Maria had purposely fixed her ginger tea.

 “How did you know?” She finally asked when she found her voice.

 The woman shrugged, a smile curling on her lips was the last thing Peggy had expected. She should be angry, she had every right to be. Not only did her husband cheat on her, but he cheated on her with her friend. 

 “You’ve been sick for a few weeks now, complaining of lack of sleep, but a lady knows.” Her hand moved to cover the back of Peggy’s, giving a gentle squeeze. “As for how I know it’s Howard’s… He told me. I know underneath it, he’s sorry. He’s sorry for putting your life at risk, our marriage. I’m not angry, I should be but… You were always the exception to him. He loves you, Peggy, to a degree that is not the same as he loves me. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s no competition between you and me for his love, but it’s there. And I’m not mad about it. I’m glad that you’re okay.”

 Peggy was not a crier. She’s never broken into tears, hysterically sobbed before. Yes, maybe in times of stress. Maybe during the war a time or two or when she forced herself to say goodbye to Steve far before she was ready, but never now. Yet she did cry, holding onto Maria who, bless this woman, was calming her down.

 --

 Nine months later, Anthony Micheal Stark was born. 

 The pregnancy had been an easy one to Peggy’s relief. She had managed to hide the pregnancy for as long as she could. She took maternity leave straight away, working from home when the pregnancy abled her. When it came time to give birth, she opted for a c-section to avoid the unnecessary process, even if that meant another scar on her body.

 He was beautiful. Brown eyes. Black hair. Screaming on top of his lungs. Her heart ached for him. Yet, as Peggy looked at this bundle of joy in her arms, the way he held onto her finger and smiled, her life was not meant for him.

 She could provide, yes but, she couldn’t trust herself to be there for him as a mother should. It’s why she made the difficult decision to give Anthony up for option - to entrust him to be cared for by Howard and Maria. 

 It might be a reminder of what happened, as will the scar that will always be on her body, but Peggy could keep a secret. She’d know they would love him in the same manner that she did.

 “Are you sure?” Maria asked one night, a hand over Peggy’s belly. “You don’t have to say yes, just because Howard-”

 “I’m sure, Maria. You and Howard will give Anthony a loving home. I couldn’t entrust him with anyone better,” Peggy sighed, feeling Anthony’s foot collide with the underside of her hand. 

 It seemed like Anthony agreed.

 This was the best choice she could make for all of them, the difficult choice, but the best one to ensure Anthony had the future he deserved. 

[goddessofeternity]

Inari’s Den

Chapter 2: Counterstrike 

I sighed deeply, inhaling all of the crisp fall air that I could as the season rolled in. Summer was ending and I was glad for it, it meant some of my favorite holidays would soon be approaching. I held my injured stomach in discomfort as I remembered my fight a few days ago. That bastard had put up a tough fight and I had to make sure to fatally wound him the next time. I know he probably survived that wound I gave him. I cursed at my mistake. My parents were just glad that I had made it back alive. My father was more than overprotective, but I never complained about it. The last few years have been difficult for our family. I wouldn’t complain about their smothering of me no matter what happened. I shook out of my thoughts and bowed my head in front of our large shrine. I prayed with all my heart that this war would be over soon. I wanted that family to burn in hell for the torment they had caused us. We had sacrificed too much because of them, I could not stand for it anymore. The ground beneath me grew hot in my anger. My parents told me to have better control of my emotions, especially during times of war. I couldn’t help that the thought of that family made me see red.

“Izumi…” My ears flicked back as I looked over my shoulder. My father smiled down at me and I stood to hug him. “Getting angry while praying will upset the gods Izumi.”

“Father...you should be resting.” I rubbed his arms as he chuckled down at me. The bags under his eyes told me quite the story. He was starting to get stressed out over the war and he had collapsed from exhaustion a week ago. My father was a stubborn workaholic through and through. My mother and I could never get him to relax no matter how hard we tried. I was sure that he didn’t expect to run into me, and was probably sneaking off to train.

“My daughter, you know that I can’t do that. We have too much to gain and lose from all of this.”

“Well Mother and I can’t lose you either. Our home is just as important as you are.” He chuckled and I hugged him close and settled under his chin. I didn’t like to think of myself as a daddy’s girl, but I couldn’t help it at times. I was very protective of both of my parents and this war made all of us a bit overbearing. I’m sure my mother was probably looking for us, my father especially. “Come on...let’s walk back home…”

I didn’t miss the reluctance on his face as I wrapped my arm around his and led him down the path back to our home. Being hurt did have its advantages, because I could relax and not feel the weight of war on my shoulders. It also meant I could eat my mother’s mochi cakes. My stomach flipped in anticipation just thinking about them and I walked faster to our home. We approached the village and many stopped their activities to bow and wave at us. I always did my best to greet everyone and let them know their hard work was appreciated. Without all of them, our family wouldn’t be the strong unit it was. As we approached our home, I could smell the mochi and I looked at my father excitedly. He chucked and patted my head as the maids opened the doors for us.

“Mother! We’re back!” My mother walked out of the kitchen cleaning off her hands before she gently grasped my face and kissed my forehead. She stopped for a second to glare at my father before they shared a quick kiss. “I think he was trying to sneak away again…”

“Yes I figured that’s what happened...you are going to get yourself into trouble if you don’t stop doing that.” My father looked away from her and I took the chance to head to the kitchen.

“Izumi….” Damn it.

“Yes Mother?”

“None until you take your medicine and you eat dinner.”

“Mother...I think I can get a pass right?” I fluttered my lashes at her and my father chuckled over her shoulder. She elbowed him in the rib and he cleared his throat quickly.

“Listen to your mother Izumi. Go ahead and take your medicine.” I pouted and they chuckled at me as I went ahead to down that awful substance. I took a peek into the kitchen as I walked by though. I would have snuck a piece but my mother always knew when I was up to something. I never really got away with anything in my youth because of her omniscience abilities, well...until I developed some of my own. I’d be a good daughter though and do as I was told. Besides, the faster I felt better, the quicker I could be back on the field.

The faster I would finally be able to kill him.

“Yamaguchi-sama...here is your medicine.” I tried not to frown as our family doctor handed me the disgusting liquid. The brown color didn’t make the situation easier and the scent made me gag. “It would be best to plug your nose my lady.”

“R-Right…” Holding my nose, I quickly swallowed the medicine and shivered as my hair stood on end. I sat still as our doctor looked my body over for the fourth time that day. “You don’t have to keep looking me over...you said that I’m already healing fantastically.”

“Yes but your parents want me to make sure of it...I think you know why too Yamaguchi`sama…”

“Yes…” My ears fell as I cursed at myself. I told myself I would not complain and I did it anyway. Awful memories flooded back into my mind, and I shook them away before they consumed me again. The clan did not need to see its future head crumble over the past, I had to think of only the future. Thinking about the future meant wiping the Igarashi clan off the face of the map. 

A task I was all too happy to plan for.

~~~

“Izumi...I need you to be more careful on these expeditions.”

“Yes Father….” My father sighed deeply as I stared him  down. It wasn’t unusual to find the two of us in a stare off when I did something reckless. My recent fight had almost given my mother a heart attack. Our garden was still recovering from the wildfire my father almost unleashed upon it. 

“We need you to carry on our legacy. I will step down soon enough and your mother and I need to be confident that you can handle it. That means you have to make better choices, not only for yourself but the clan.”

“I understand...but we need to erase them. This war has gone on for far too long. I want to end this. We deserve to live in peace after everything they have taken from us. I’m tired of not doing anything. We have to keep this advantage since we destroyed their rice fields.”

“......” My father sighed again as he stood up and paced around the meeting room. My mother patted my hand as the temperature rose. I hated these moments of doing nothing. Rest only makes people weak and then they lose their edge, an edge I needed to keep sharp for my family and people. “We need to finish this...I agree with you on that front, Izumi.”

“How are we going to do that my love? The Igarashi clan has moved closer to our territory. It won’t be long before they take a bolder approach.”

“How soon would they do that though? A massive source of their food was burned to a crisp. They are going to be too busy recovering to counterattack so soon.”

“Regardless...we have to-”

“HELP!!!” I jumped to my feet quickly and ran out of the room outside. One of the servants was convulsing on the floor. She was foaming at the mouth and her eyes started to roll back in her head. More of the servants ran to her aid, but I could smell the sudden shift in the air. She was dying and we could do nothing to stop it. Her body arched up terribly before she just stopped moving altogether.

“What happened to her?!” I knelt beside the dead woman and looked her over. My father and mother showed up not too soon after to examine her. “Answer me!”

“S-She only took a sip of water! She didn’t have anything else besides that all day…” She began to whimper and cry before my mother led her out of the room. My father stood and we both looked over the pitcher of water perched on the table. Taking a tentative sniff, I couldn’t smell anything different about it. It seemed like plain water, but I suppose that was the point.

“Poison…” My father grit his teeth in anger as he looked at my mother walk back into the room. “Did she tell you anything else mother?”

“I asked her how long ago did she drink it, and she said about 20 minutes ago. So we have an incredibly fast acting poison.”

“That damn Igarashi family!” I waved away the sudden burst of flames that surrounded my father as he stormed out the room down the hall, my mother and I close behind. “Our water comes from only one source, and they’ve poisoned it! Men! To my side!”

My father’s voice traveled quickly through the compound and it was seconds after the echo ended that his task force appeared around us. My father never told me much about them, but I would be informed more about them when I become the head. Their masked faces told me volumes though, they handled the more “dirtier” aspects of this war. 

“All the water that was recently collected remove it from the villagers' homes at once! No one drinks anything that hasn’t been in their home for the past few days. We have no idea when they could have done this. Inform the villagers that the lake will be drained.”

“Father! That water was blessed by the gods many years ago! That is sacred water...we can’t drain it!”

“Izumi! We have no choice! Would you rather we lose more people!? Think about the cons of the situation, daughter!”

“What happens now? The only other fresh water is up in the mountains, and it’s dangerous on those mountains because of the night creatures.”

“We will have to make due with what we have for now.” The men around us dispersed and I felt my own temper rise. Someone would have to have gotten in close to poison our water. One of them was in our territory, they could have launched an assault against us, but why didn’t they? Unless it was that bastard Takeshi...if it was him then he just added more fuel to my hatred for him. I should have known that family would try such tactics, and at least we attacked their fields head on.

My parents went back and forth with each other about what should be done, but I walked away. This had to be handled sooner rather than later. My injuries were the last thing on my mind as I walked into my room and got dressed. As I was tightening my bandages, a noise made me turn, and I stood quickly as my mother looked me over with an unimpressed glare.

“Mother I was just-”

“Going to confront the Igarashi family?”

“.....”

“Izumi...you have your fathers impatience and stubbornness. What exactly is your plan?” She walked over to me and helped dress me, and I looked at her surprised. “I can’t stop you now can I? I might as well make sure you are protected. Now what is your plan?”

“To kill Takeshi Igarashi.”

“That has always been the plan, daughter.” After tying back my hair, she faced me towards her with a fierce gaze. “I will not let you leave until you give me something more concrete.”

I opened my mouth ready to retort, but I found my words failing me. I...I didn’t really have a plan. I just wanted to get out there and end them. I was frustrated with the fact that they could have almost destroyed us easily. Others could be dead right now and we wouldn’t know about it until later. Either of my parents could have been the victim to that poison. It would have been the end of us just that fast. And I would not stand to fall that easily after over a hundred years of fighting. I guess I have my fathers pride for than I thought I did.

“I...I just want them to suffer…” I felt my spirit start to drain as I sighed deeply. My mother pulled me into her arms and gently rubbed my ears. That simple gesture always made me feel better. Whenever I was down, a simple stroke on my ears was all I needed.

“We have to be smart, Izumi...always, especially in times of war. We have lost...far...far too much…” I felt her tremble as she held me, and I blinked away the fresh tears that threatened to fall down my cheeks.

“We have to do something mother...we have too…” She held me at arms length and we silently stared at each other.

“Izumi….did you have a vision?” Her eyes slitted as she said it. I had been having visions since I was very young. It was not odd for a kitsune to have such abilities, but they had never been more than little mundane things. Ever since the war had begun, my visions had become more dangerous. We had only taken them more seriously when...well we should have from the start. Our naivete cost us more than we could have ever imagined. It was something that still kept my mother awake at night.

“I haven’t had any visions, mother...it’s been years since I’ve had one. I would tell you and father right away if I did have one.” She smiled a bit before brushing my hair from my face. She leaned her forehead against mine before gently kissing it.

“Think of a plan Izumi...we can talk about it later. Your father and I will deal with this poison issue. Go and train instead alright?”

“Yes mother…” As she walked away, I went over to my swords and ran my hands over their sheaths. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you feel his cold dead corpse at your other end. I promise that you will get your chance.”

I had to think of the best course of action to take. Our armies were strong and we’d done a good job over the years, but we had to change the tide somewhere. My mother wanted me to make a plan then so be it. I would do what I must to make sure that everyone survives this coming battle. I had to strike while the iron was hot. 

I already had an idea of what it was that I would be doing, and this time I would not fail. Takeshi Igarashi would lose his life to my blades when they cross again, and nothing would stop me from achieving my goal. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[the-desolated-quill]

BBC’s The War Of The Worlds blog - Episode 3

(SPOILER WARNING: The following is an in-depth critical analysis. If you haven’t seen this episode yet, you may want to before reading this review)

You know, people often ask me why I get so angry when I’m reviewing BBC shows. I mean yes I give Disney and Marvel a hard time too, but they don’t get nearly as much bile and venom as I give the BBC. Well that’s because, unlike Disney and Marvel, BBC shows are funded by the British taxpayer through our TV licence fees. I’m effectively paying for them to make this crap. That’s what pisses me off more than anything.

Yes we mercifully come to the end of this... this. Episode 1 was a slow, plodding and utterly tedious affair that was about as exciting as an Amish bachelor party. Episode 2 was even worse thanks to its poor narrative structure, terrible characterisation and less than subtle allegories. Now Harness has come to hammer the final nail in the coffin with Episode 3. Is it bad?

...

You’re right, that’s a stupid question. A more apt question would be how bad is it. Very, very bad is the answer. Very, very bad indeed.

Lets start with the obvious problem. The non-linear narrative introduced in the previous episode. The stupid early reveal that the Martians ultimately lose and that Amy survives completely destroyed any and all tension and suspense thanks to Peter Harness desperately trying to outwit the audience instead of just telling a story. Now, bizarrely, he tries to reintroduce tension by having the characters umming and arghing about what killed the Martians off and whether this could help stop the Earth from terraforming. One teeny, tiny problem with this though. The audience already know! Even those that never read the original book know how it ended! And even if you didn’t, the episode drops enough hints like great fucking boulders. The prevalence of typhoid throughout the episode and its correlation with the Martians stumbling around like a drunken prom date isn’t exactly hard to miss. Harness’ writing is still as unsubtle as ever. But worse still, he completely undermines and misses the point of the ending to War Of The Worlds.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people (mostly Americans) criticise the end of the original book for being a deus ex machina. I mean the Martians get killed off by the common cold. How stupid, right? Except it’s not because those people (mostly Americans) are looking at it the wrong way. Your main takeaway shouldn’t be that the Martians were easily killed off by bacteria. Rather that we failed to stop them. The reason humanity prevails in the end is more down to luck than anything else. The narrator even attributes this to being an act of God. But here’s the thing. We didn’t stand a chance against the Martians. We didn’t beat them. They lost because they just happened to catch a cold. Now it’s not hard to imagine a society as scientifically advanced as their’s to be able to find some kind of cure or vaccine for it. And if and when they do, what then? We’d be fucked, wouldn’t we? Should the Martians ever return to finish what they started, the human race would be well and truly doomed. It’s not a deus ex machina. It’s a dire warning of what’s to come. A brief respite before the inevitable. That’s what makes the ending so effective.

The BBC series however completely misunderstands this, changing the story so that Ogilvy (an astronomer, don’t forget) somehow manages to weaponize typhoid in order to kill the red weed, which is presented as some kind of victory, when in reality it’s quite an insulting deviation from the source material. If only the Commonwealth could shake off the remnants of British colonialism as easily as these guys dealt with the red weed. Not to mention it just makes the Martians look really stupid. So they come to Earth, drink our blood, keel over and then... what, they just give up? Are they just waiting for humanity to die by itself? What happens when Mars HQ realises the red weed hasn’t worked? What then? Are they just going to shrug it off? It doesn’t make any sense.

Which brings us to the Martians themselves. The picture above comes from the Jeff Wayne musical version and is without a doubt the most accurate depiction of the Martians from the book. Most of the other adaptations have wildly different interpretations, which isn’t a problem in and of itself provided it works within the context of that particular narrative. However the reason I bring up the original design is so I can talk about what H.G. Wells intended when he came up with them. See, while the Martians are highly intelligent, they’re also presented as being quite vestigial. They’re sluggish thanks to Earth’s heavier gravity, rendered practically deaf thanks to Earth’s dense atmosphere and apparently have no organs with which to digest their food, hence their need to inject human blood directly into themselves for sustenance. The Martians represent what humanity could become as we become more and more reliant on technology. The Industrial Revolution brought about a lot of societal fears and concerns at the time, and the Martians are those fears manifested. Heartless creatures reduced to being simple brains, unable to properly interact with the world around them.

The BBC series goes a very different route. Instead of the giant brains, we instead get giant brown crabs, which, again, isn’t necessarily a problem provided it works in context. And that’s the problem. It doesn’t. The original Wells design told us what we needed to know about their biology, their motivations and their society. What do we learn about the BBC Martians? They’re big, generic monsters that look like rejects from Stranger Things. They don’t even inject blood into themselves. They feed off of us directly, leechlike. They’re more like animals. Not the vast, cold, unsympathetic intellects they were described to be. At no point do you buy that these creatures would be capable of building the Tripods or colonising the Earth. They just exist for some cheap jump scares and horror movie cliches.

What’s worse is that by changing the Martians’ design so drastically, any subtextual allegory gets chucked in the bin. The Martians from the book are meant to represent the British Empire at the height of its power. Merciless tyrants stomping all over the lives and cultures of the so called ‘lesser races,’ changing the environment to suit them rather than adapting to the existing environment. It’s Darwinism crossed with arrogance. And yet, ironically, the oppressors (the Martians) are technically inferior to the natives (the humans) as they are incapable of surviving without the aid of technology. The BBC series is unable to make this allegory, so Harness has to resort to straight up telling the audience the allegory. In by far the clunkiest scene in the entire series, we see George argue with his brother about how the Martians are no different from the Brits in their colonial ways. Not only does this break the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule and stands as a perfect example of bad storytelling, Harness doesn’t even bother to do anything with this other than just making the comparison. It’s been previously established that Amy was born and raised in India. You’d think she’d have something to say about all this, but nope. At the end, she wistfully describes India to her son in the most patronising and insulting way possible. It’s really quite disgusting. I mean H.G. Wells was quite patronising towards the Tasmanians in the book, but in his defence, he was a privileged white man from the 1800s. What’s Peter Harness’ excuse?! Ostensibly he pays lip service to the idea that the Martians are no different from the Brits, but he doesn’t want to really explore it or get us to actually think about it. Probably because it’s all a bit too complicated to get into, but if he’s not confident about exploring such topics, why the fuck is he adapting War Of The Worlds in the first bloody place?! Write something else!

In fact I think this is the root of all the problems with this adaptation. Harness clearly isn’t capable of exploring the complex themes of the source material, so instead he either introduces irrelevant social issues that aren’t nearly as complicated (women’s rights, empires are bad and so on) as a token show of progressiveness, or he goes as far as to uncomplicate themes and ideas to an almost offensive degree. In the book, the narrator is trapped in a church with a priest who is going through a major existential crisis and risks giving away their hiding spot to the Martians, who are busy terraforming the planet. So he resorts to knocking the priest unconscious and watching as the Martians drag his body away. In the BBC series, we see the old woman and the kid get killed off for no reason other than shock value and the characters have nothing to do with their demise, so they’re morally in the clear. The priest meanwhile doesn’t even appear in the scene, instead being relegated to the shitty flash forwards where his faith remains very much intact and even protests against the idea that it’s humanity’s illness that stopped the Martians rather than an act of God (brief side note, would Ogilvy really be this open about not believing in God? At the time of the book’s publication, the scene with the priest losing faith was considered extremely controversial, so this just seems utterly wrong). Plus there’s no tension in wondering what the Martians are doing and whether they’re going to find the characters. In fact there’s no tension whatsoever because we know the Martians have fallen ill and the characters are just hanging around, waiting for the fuckers to die. I cannot stress enough how atrociously awful the writing is in this show. We know the Martians are dying and the episode is about the characters waiting for them to die.

Jesus fucking Christ!

The Artilleryman from the previous episode was the same. In the book he was a deluded crackpot who willingly bought into imperialist dogma, believing that humanity could rebuild underground and eventually rise up and defeat the Martians. In the BBC series, he was a scared, innocent little waif being forced to fight in a war he wants no part of. It’s an incredibly shallow and uninteresting reinterpretation of the source material.

But the worst, the absolute worst, is what Harness does with George.

To be clear, no I’m not upset he gets killed off. I’ve made my views on him quite clear. He cheated on his wife because she was infertile and ran off to make whoopie with some redhead. The bastard deserves everything he gets, frankly. Plus I’ve had enough of Rafe Spall’s gormless acting to last a lifetime, thank you. What I am upset by is the way he gets killed off.

One of the most interesting parts of the original book is the fact that there are no heroes in War Of The Worlds. The Artilleryman is a young, impressionable, nationalist fool, the Priest descends into a pit of nihilistic despair, and the narrator survives only by his cowardice. He even goes as far as to attempt suicide, throwing himself in front of the unbeknownst to him dead Tripod because he cannot bear the idea of living in a world like this. It’s extremely dark and very cynical. The BBC series goes a very different route. We see George slowly become delirious as a result of the typhoid infection he got by drinking the poisoned cup of water in the previous episode (so all that stuff about the Martian terraforming was a load of bollocks) before, realising that he is becoming a burden to Amy, deciding to make the supreme sacrifice and facing the lone Martian alone while she makes a run for it. Not only does this open up a major plot hole - who the fuck was Amy expecting to arrive from the North if George is dead? They try to dismiss this as memory suppression, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t apply to losing a loved one to a fucking alien - it also completely stands at odds with the themes of the book. When facing annihilation at the hands of a higher power, the arrogant Brits, who previously lived a life of privilege on the backs of millions of subjugated, reveal themselves for who they truly are at their core. The BBC series says yeah, we were a bunch of racist tosspots with delusions of grandeur, but we weren’t all bad. The main takeaway I got from this despicable, badly written series was a three hour pity party about how all those selfish POCs don’t consider the feelings of white people and asking why can’t we all just get along.

Peter Harness’ bastardisation of War Of The Worlds is without a doubt one of the worst adaptations I’ve ever seen. In fact it’s quite possibly one of the worst TV shows I’ve ever seen, period. It’s not just the sheer disregard for the source material that upsets me. It’s also the absolute amateurish nature of the whole fucking thing. This series fails in some of the most basic ways. His writing is truly terrible, somehow getting steadily worse and worse with each episode. It’s not just upsetting to see someone get the fundamental elements of storytelling so spectacularly wrong, it honestly makes me sick to my fucking stomach. Peter Harness, please, for your own sake and my sanity, stop fucking writing. You’re clearly not good at it and I don’t want to see my money go to someone who obviously hasn’t the faintest fucking idea what they’re doing. Enough is enough.

So it would seem that Jeff Wayne’s musical version remains the best adaptation of War Of The Worlds. In fact can we just have a movie adaptation of that please?

[osmw1]

Dimension Wave  Chapter 33 — A Battle under Moonlight

It was our fourth day out venturing on the Sea of No Return.

The waters were calm, making for easy experience and loot. That was of course a good thing, but a few problems had surfaced.

“We’ve finished all the food that we brought.” “… ‘Kay.” “Oh, and we’re also out of bait. Once we eat through the fish I’ve caught, then we’re out of luck.” “W-Whatever shall we do?!” “There’s nothing worse than an empty stomach~”

We never planned to be on a long voyage. I mean, when I said that we brought food, it’s really nothing more than just simple rations. Well, it’s not like I can’t fish without bait, but it’ll be a little tricky to feed all six of us. My cooking skill isn’t that refined either, so it’s more than likely it’ll result in a few failed attempts. That means we absolutely need to obtain and maintain our supply level.

“It ain’t all bad though.” “What do you mean?” “See, we’ve been without fresh water for a few days and we’re alright, aren’t we?” “… I see.” “Altorese is indeed correct.”

It’s true. Water should have been a problem long ago. I remember someone saying that if you go hungry in the game, it might become a problem once you’re finished playing. It probably has something to do with the program that brings us back to real life. As my real life friend once said, Dimension Wave is like a dream that you can vividly remember. There’s something sad about that, but hey, at least playing this probably won’t hurt your school grades too bad, unlike video games. … Let’s get back on track to the problem at hand.

“It’s a game after all. We might feel hungry, but that’s just a virtual thing and we won’t die from hunger. Worst case scenario might actually be overeating.” “I don’t think that far ahead… Well, anyway, let me see if I can’t do anything about getting us more food.”

In the end, I was thrown back into fishing, which was what I wanted to do from the beginning. No more high-quality bait means that I won’t be able to catch us anything big like tuna but I’ll still be able to get smaller fish. Here was where my shining lure came into play. Since it’s always lit up, I’ve been using it as my light source at night. I also found out that the lure can’t catch me anything during daytime, but it attracts squid at night. Or so says Alto anyway.

“Hello, shining squid lure.”

Makes sense that you need a squid lure for squid. I mean, it looks like a normal lure… except for the part where it lights up. In any case, I could solve our hunger problem with it. Let’s get that squid. Not that I can catch anything but squid at night. In mere days, I caught myself close to 500 of them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

“I bite my thumb at thee, Miss Kizuna!”

Such were the hurtful words hurled unto me. Even Sheryl needed to vent her frustration of too much squid. That was by shooting them out of her ballista.

    Day in, day out, it was me, my fishing rod, and squid. Never mind the fact that I had over 1,000 of them in my inventory. What a lure. I still stood by the words I said that day at that time at that location: it’s worth every penny.

But there’s something about the Sea of No Return. Not sure what it is, but monsters come out only during the day. Even back at the outskirts of the First City, monsters would come out at night. What, did the devs want to give us a break or something? Seems highly unlikely. In any ordinary RPG, you’d find old clichéd dungeons like The Labyrinth or The Endless Desert where every route takes you down a different path and you can’t get out unless you solve a puzzle. It kinda feels like that. It’s getting close to a week out here at sea and we’re all getting a little stressed. Of course, the fact that we only have squid definitely contributes to it. We’ve gotta do something about this.

“Are they biting?” “… Oh, it’s you, Shouko.”

I was a little surprised when someone spoke to me since I get lost in my thoughts while late night fishing. Shouko sat down beside me and gazed up at the moon. The moon’s out tonight… It sure looks bigger in this world than the real thing. Big as it is though, it doesn’t shine very bright.

“Nature sure is wonderful.” “Something bothering you?” “Oh, no… Though I realize this world was created by people, who would think that a single storm would change all of our lives?” “Yeah, you’re right.”

We were unlucky getting sucked in by the storm, but I didn’t think that would result in all six of us living together on this ship. Up until now, we all had our individual rooms at our accommodation. It almost feels like we’re on a field trip together, at the risk of sounding like I’m taking this a little too lightly. But especially because of that, we must find a way to get through this together. Games are designed to be figured out if you pay close enough attention to the details. If we can’t find the answer, it means we’re not looking hard enough.

“Kizuna, you have a bite.” “S’alright. Squid aren’t that hard to catch.”

The tip of my line was bobbing up and down.

… No, wait. That’s no squid.

I had tirelessly fished for the past few days, so I know what squid feels like. There’s nothing but squid around here at night and it’s not because of my light-up lure. But that’s the problem. I’ve caught a thousand of them but this ain’t one. This had to be a rare catch. Literally. Anyway, time to reel…

“Come!”

—Kathunk! I’ve had a bite like this before and it’s a day and night difference compared to my normal catches. This… this was it. This was the Giant Herring.

“No, can’t be. This is more powerful…!” “Kizuna, it’s pulling our ship.” “… Damn! Go get Sheryl for me! I need her Harpoon skills or maybe…” “On it!”

I didn’t have the mental capacity to track Shouko as she disappeared under deck. My full attention was on the tip of my fishing rod. The line was connected directly to my cranial nerves. And when I felt it, I pulled… and reeled.

The reel, a compatible pairing to deep sea fishing and lures, was a new addition to my rod. It wasn’t too easy to the hang of it, but it provides a lot more leverage. The complex part is casting with a lure. It seems like it’s not too dissimilar to how they work in real life. Anyway, trust me when I say I feel like I’m one with my rod.

“… Here, Kizuna.” “Sheryl, you think you can use your harpoon and hit where I tell you to?” “… Possibly.” “Please! I won’t be able to do this alone.”

I mean, harpoons were originally for spearfishing anyway. It makes for a perfect weapon against a huge sea creature. That’s why I don’t think anyone would be more suited for this job other than Sheryl.

“… Where?” “Hold on…”

While we attacked and defended, I also tried to locate where the aquatic animal was. My mind and my rod are one. I… should know where it is. It should be like searching through with my mind, probably. Oh, I see. The Crystal of Mediation must’ve pulled its aggro. Maybe that’s why I was able to catch a thousand of them squid. But this… thing… I feel its hatred searing my skin. And it’s…

“Right there!” “… Bomber Lancer.”

A mid-tier skill for Harpoon-type weapons. It was a mid-range combat skill where you throw the harpoon like a javelin. With one hand on the cord, Sheryl chucked her harpoon out with an explosive visual effect. The missile audibly sunk deep into the creature. Reeling it in was instantly easier, but it started moving again.

“How many more can you do?” “I’m fine.” “I’m counting on you.” “‘Kay.”

It wouldn’t sit well with my pride if I let Sheryl do all the heavy lifting. As difficult as it was, I kept on reeling. From time to time, her harpoon would whiz by… It was strong enough to nearly stunlock the bastard. It helped immensely as I tried to fish it up.

“Keep it up!” “Mm.”

The battle dragged on, wearing down on our spirits. At least our enemy’s stamina is also being exhausted. But of course. It’s a 2v1. No way we’d lose.

“Sheryl, our next bout will end it!” “… Aight.”

With her harpoon gripped firmly, I signaled her to attack with all her might. And our enemy…

    “… I mean, I get it, but.”

We fished up—or rather, hunted—a humongous squid. It’s apparent that it’s related to the Giant Herring. Thank you very much. We couldn’t exactly heft it up on board, so we had it towed along with a rope. I mean, I say hunted, but we’re not sure yet if it’s a monster or not. “Kraken” wouldn’t be an unfair name for it. … I mean, Sheryl took it down with her attacks, so I guess it is a monster? Anyway, the harpoon is perfectly suited for fighting sea creatures.

“… Kizuna.” “Hmm? What’s up?” “I think you should gut it soon.” “Why do you… Ah, whatever. Gotcha. I’ll do it.” “Hm.”

I didn’t get the feeling she would answer even if I were to finish asking her, though there was something like a gleam in her eye. I guess shooting squid out of the ballista would’ve been effective, but eating nothing but it is another story. Not to mention that Sheryl had eaten the most out of any of us. … Maybe she likes squid? I decided it would’ve been wiser to not ask her and just to gut the Humongous Squid in silence. What I got was:

Water Deity’s Tentacle, Water Deity’s Fin, Water Deity’s Head, Water Deity’s Arm, Water Deity’s Mantle, Water Deity’s Heart, Water Deity’s Eye, Water Deity’s Shell, Top Quality Squid Ink, Top Quality Trimmed Squid

Just like with the Giant Herring, I received a surprising number of items from gutting. Maybe all of them boss creatures are like this, eh? And I suppose it was originally a squid turned water deity? Hmm, I wonder… what kind of weapons I could make with these parts…

“Sheryl, we’ll discuss it with everyone else, but have these items.” “… You sure?” “Why do you question it?” “Hm.” “I don’t have any ulterior motives. I just feel like it would be better if you held on to them.” “Hm.” “Call it a gut feeling. Speaking of which… that was kinda uncharacteristic of what you said earlier.” “… Not really.”

Whatever. Not like it’d help if I hounded her over it anyway. In any event, I handed over all the items I received by gutting the Humongous Squid. We’re still undecided, but it’d be nice if she could make a good weapon out of its parts.

“Kizuna! Sheryl!”

While we were basking in the glory of defeating the Humongous Squid, Shouko called out to us in a less delighted tone. I’ve seen her flustered only a handful of times since we’ve first met.

“What’s wrong?” “The ship is moving by itself.” “I’m pretty sure that’s what ships do.” “No, I don’t mean it like th—” “Kizuna.”

Sheryl interrupted Shouko as she pointed upwards. Our sails were furled. I looked around. A calm night without so much wind or waves. There was no one using Helmsmanship. And yet, despite so.

… Our ship was traveling at an unnatural speed.

contents: /prologue/ /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /ch016/ /ch017/ /ch018/ /ch019/ /ch020/ /ch021/ /ch022/ /ch023/ /ch024/ /ch025/ /ch026/ /ch027/ /ch028/ /ch029/ /ch030/ /ch031/ /ch032/ /ch033/ /next/

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[the-elemental-sides]

The Elemental Sides: Chapter 8

Urban fantasy AU: The Sides are four spirits trapped in an amulet. When Thomas finds it and puts it on, he gains the powers of the four elements…or that’s what should have happened, but mistakes were made. Now the Sides have to coach him in their respective elements while Thomas deals with both his new powers and his ability to see into the magical realm. Not only is magic real, but there’s some pretty intimidating stuff out there, and only Thomas and the Sides have the power to stop it.

A/N: It is here! Chapter 8, my favorite number! It’s been about a year since the creation of this blog + the very first chapter of TES. Thanks so much for sticking with me. May this story be finished by 2020!

Taglist: @shinylyni, @hissesssss, @vexation-virgil, @madd-catter, @rptheturk, @nienna14, @ryuity, @asofterfan, @robanilla, @k9cat, @ab-artist, @absoluteamethyst, @a-box-o-jills, @captain-loki-xavier, @lynisnotamused, @literally-just-for-fanfics, @alix-the-skeleton, @generalfandomfabulousness, @lunareclipse-524

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7

*** Thomas and Roman, spirits, faced off in the middle of his living room.

“No hitting,” warned Patton. He paused. “Okay, that’s the only rule. Go wild, kids!”

They moved at the same time. Thomas’ hand burst into flame, but it was literally sucked out of his grasp by Roman and thrown back into his face. Since it was translucent, the fire passed through him harmlessly and splashed against the far wall.

“Point to Roman,” Logan said to the book in his hands. He marked a tally on Roman’s side of the chalkboard, but it ended up sideways because he wasn’t looking at what he was doing.

“Three weeks and I haven’t gotten a single point,” groaned Thomas. “Against any of you!”

“It’s about more than just who can fire the first shot, cowboy,” said Roman. “It’s about willpower! You have to really control your powers, not just summon them.”

“Okay.” Thomas swept his hair out of his face, vaguely wondering how Virgil could stand having bangs in his eyes all the time. “Can I try again?”

“More like you can try, again. Patton, count us off!”

“Three-two-one-fight!”

This time, Thomas was a little more prepared. He waited for Roman to pitch the first fireball before catching it from midair and chucking it back. The fire flew back and forth between them before Roman caught it and extinguished the flame.

“That’s cheating!” Thomas protested.

“I think not! I was just getting bored.”

“Boo, lame.”

“I agree, point to Thomas,” said Logan, marking the board.

Thomas fist-pumped while Roman protested. “I was just playing around. Look! More fire! I can keep going.”

“Actually, you should be done for the day,” Virgil interrupted. “I don’t want Thomas to run out of energy. He promised he’d practice water today, too.”

“Aw, but we’re on a roll!”

“No, he’s right,” Thomas agreed. “I’m kind of falling behind with water.”

“No such problems with earth, because I am the best teacher,” Logan muttered into his book.

Roman turned on him. “Are not!”

“Completely am.”

“I don’t mean to brag, but Thomas is pretty darn good with my air powers, considering he’s an Earthbender,” Patton remarked. (He’d finally caught up with Avatar and had completely bought into how they handled elemental powers in the series.) “So maybe he’s just natur-air-ly talented?”

“You’re impossible.”

In the weeks since he’d fought his first shadow monster, Thomas had had a lot of adjusting to do. While he was capable of destroying the smaller shadows when he came across them on busy streets, in buildings, and even in his own apartment, the Sides continued to coach him. They didn’t want another close call like they’d had with that big one in the grocery store.

It didn’t feel like he was making much of a difference, but the Sides applauded him every time he destroyed one of the little bad-vibe blobs. They were even thrilled every time he showed that he was improving with their powers. He couldn’t see any tangible difference in the world around him, but through their encouragement Thomas did start to feel a little like he was becoming a hero.

Meanwhile, besides the Sides, life continued as usual. Thomas was working just as hard on his videos. He was hard at work on his second episode of Cartoon Therapy–which was, of course, based off Avatar.

The first time he showed up to the space they’d rented, already in his Picani garb, Joan gave him a weird look when they met him at the door. “You’re still wearing that necklace?”

Thomas looked down at the crystal. Being huge and sparkly, it was difficult not to notice and impossible to hide under a shirt. “Oh, yeah, guess I am.”

“I mean, wear whatever, dude. But I don’t get what it has to do with Picani.”

“No, you’re right, I’ll take it off.” Thomas reached for the chain. Of course he had to take the crystal off sometimes, for showering and stuff, but the Sides always hated it when they were forced back in the crystal for a while. When he wasn’t in direct contact with it, they couldn’t keep up their mind palace and all the other cool amenities they’d built inside. They had to go back to the dreamless state that Logan explained they’d existed in for the last fifteen years.

He waited a beat just to make sure he had their permission. Roman, acting emissary, appeared. He simultaneously gave Thomas a thumbs down, shrugged, and stuck his tongue out: we don’t like it, but you do what you need. Thomas tugged the crystal off and felt a little lonely when their presences disappeared from the back of his head. After that, the filming session went fine.

Between managing his YouTube career, finding time for his friends, and practicing his steadily improving magic powers on unsuspecting shadow blobs, Thomas was busier than ever. So it surprised him when Patton started egging him to take a vacation.

“Now? Really?”

“Sure, kiddo! Don’t you deserve a mental health day?”

“I’m fine,” Thomas said with a frown. “I mean, I’m holding up okay…”

“He’s right, actually,” Logan said, popping into view in Thomas’ chair (Thomas and Patton were currently in the kitchen trying to cook up some Indian food, and it was going poorly). “We’ve been discussing this. While I agree it’s important to keep your mental state functioning properly, the purpose of this vacation would also be to allow your to exercise your powers in ways you might be less familiar wi–Patton, watch out!”

“Oops!” Patton had thrown a handful of curry leaves into a pan on the stove, which was filled with oil sizzling at max heat. It immediately burst into flames.

On instinct, Patton dodged in front of Thomas and shot a blast of air at the smoking pan. It did nothing but spatter oil droplets all over the table and Logan, who was unamused. Thomas put out the fire by scooping it up in his hands and extinguishing it.

“...Oops.”

“Patton, honestly. How did you ever feed yourself?”

“I get the feeling it involved a lot of ice cream for dinner!”

“Whew.” Thomas exhaled. Fire was actually a lot less scary when you could just kind of...erase it.

“As I was saying,” Logan said in a clipped voice, “by ‘vacation,’ we’re not telling you to hang around at home in your pajamas for three days. No, what we’re suggesting is that you go learn some history....about the origin of your powers.”

“Wow! I could do that?”

“Well, of course. Where do you think we got the crystal?”

“I have no idea! Where?”

Logan paused. “...We don’t know either. Our time in the crystal left our memories, ah, spotty. Some vital details such as this have been lost. However, Virgil, who tends to remember these things best, has an inkling of where exactly he obtained it.”

“That’s right,” Virgil said, appearing–and sitting on the table, but luckily his butt was a ghost at the moment anyway. He glared at Patton. “And jeez, Pat, were you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Oi’l be more careful next time!”

“Pretending I didn’t hear that. Thomas, here’s what I remember. When we, uh. When we decided to test the whole crystal thing, we knew we needed a good one, obviously. We got our powers and then we started searching around for something, some kind of gem, that matched the parameters Logan laid out.”

“Robust. Undamaged. Prismatic. Sensitive to magic—by that, we mean whether it reacted when placed in certain stress simulations involving the shadows.”

“Uh, yeah. So I found a good one in this one super goth back-alley jewelry store–”

Thomas gasped. “Borgin and Burkes?!”

“No? I don’t know what that is? Look, anyway, I found a good one,  s–uhh, I stole it–”

“WHAT”

“–and brought it back to everyone else.”

“You STOLE it?” Patton cried. “But that’s totally against why we wanted it in the first place! Fighting evil! Remember?”

“I know. But the alternative worried me more.”

“Well, I’m not really happy about that, sport, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. Maybe they won the lottery in the last fifteen years and got their money back…?”

“Virgil, do you recall the name and location of this place?” Logan asked.

“Can’t say I do. Well–I think it was near Florida. I remember driving for a while during the night. There was a lot of fog….I could sort of tune into it with my powers, so I could sense the surrounding area. Something was near me, like a big, dark cold spot. It might’ve been a shadow, but bigger than one I’ve ever seen.” He shuddered. “I had to get away from it, so I turned off the highway, drove for a while, stopped at a gas station, and...there it was.”

“Well, that’s vague,” Thomas mused.

“Do you think that we’d be able to recreate your path if Thomas were to search for it?”

“Uh….maybe? It’s possible?”

“That’s sufficient enough for me,” Logan declared. “All right, Thomas, the parameters of your vacation are this. You are to find the location and source of this crystal and interrogate the owners of the establishment for information.”

“Information like….”

“Well, whether there’s a way to expedite your learning process. Whether we can get out of this crystal. Perhaps we can find a way for all four of us to assume solid form without damaging you.”

“And this involves a lot of driving…” Thomas said to himself. “So, if this is really important to you guys, it sounds like we’re going on a–”

“ROAD TRIP!” Patton hollered, throwing up his arms and upturning the pan on the stove, which had been steadily burning their dinner to a crisp the entire time. Oil, curry, chicken, and the whole mess slopped onto the stove and promptly exploded in a shower of hot oil.

“...road trip.”

“PATTON!”

***

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #393

Top Ten Favourite Moments in Videogames

So apparently this week we had International Videogame Day, or somesuch. Anyway, it felt like a sufficiently tenuous reason for me to talk about videogames.

One tweet I saw asked its readers for their favourite videogame moments, and – as is my wont – I could not be contained by Twitter’s meagre parameters and decided instead to turn it into the subject of my latest “blog”.

So here, then, are my favouritest moments in the history of videogames. Most of these are a bit old, perhaps because in my advancing years it takes more thoroughly shock or awe me; also I feel like I just played games more when I was a kid or a student. Also, what with me being me, some of these perhaps feel more left-field than lists you’d see on conventional gaming websites; I’ve never played Final Fantasy VII for more than half an hour, so I couldn’t give a toss who dies at the end (is it even at the end? It might happen at minute 31 for all I know). Hope, here you’ll find a nice combination of Amiga games, decades-old PC games, and something that came free with Windows 95.

Also, just what is a “moment”? I’ve tried to define it as one precise action; a revelation, a line, a discovery. There may be one two bendings of that rule, but in general I’ve tried to keep it to short sudden snaps of gaming, rather than whole levels, weapons, or gameplay styles. So, for instance, one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in gaming is chucking cars about and jumping across rooftops in Crackdown, but that feels like the game itself that I love, rather than a moment.

Anyway, enough preliminary blather. Let’s see what I dredged from my subconscious this time around.

Oh, and spoiler alert, I guess.

“How to Get Ahead in Navigating” (The Secret of Monkey Island, 1990): it’s an old joke, really, but a classic. I got stuck on this moment, frantically trying everything in my inventory to get the cannibals to give me their navigators’ head, and when I final offered them this brochure, with that title, oh, the wheels clicked into place and I understood. I knew then what this game was, what I was, how good games could be. Joyous and transcendent.

The Super Gravity Gun (Half-Life 2, 2004): you spend a whole game picking up barrels and chucking around paint cans with your magic Physics Cannon, all the while wishing you could shunt people out the way, and all of a sudden – wham! – your prayers are answered. Wacky, hilarious, emergent gameplay ensues.

The Flood (Halo: Combat Evolved, 2001): Halo starts out as a James Cameron film and then suddenly, without warning, turns into a Dario Argento one. The Flood twist comes out of nowhere and utterly upends the gameplay. Although the Flood levels get repetitive, that initial surprise still delights.

“This Was a Triumph” (Portal, 2007): musical numbers in games remain a sad rarity, so this tuneful finale was not only a delight but a surprise. It’s in-canon, a great, great track, and manages to be both funny and supremely creepy. I’ve never completed Portal 2, but I’m expecting great things.

“Would You Kindly?” (BioShock, 2007): games that play with the notion of gameplay itself really float my battleship (SuperHot nearly made this list), and the twist that all your standard objective-following in BioShock was really a sinister Manchurian plot by the Big Bad was a rug-pulling mind-blower. The subsequent boss battle could not ever hope to compare.

Revan Revealed (Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, 2003): speaking of finding out you’re the bad guy… Darth Revan is built up as this supreme source of evil, only recently defeated. Finding out it’s you and the Jedi essentially mind-wiped you is a shock that – in my case, at least – really affected how I played the game (I didn’t go evil, though, I’m far too nice).

The Carnival of the Damned (Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, 1991): I played the Monkey Islands at a formative time, so the way MI2 messes with structure and canon absolutely blew my mind. The combination of familial revelation, time-bending setting, and intense Star Wars in-jokery, was another illustration to me of how multi-faceted and, well, hilarious games could be.

Selecting the Difficulty (Quake, 1996): it’s hard to stress just how revolutionary Quake seemed back then. I’d played 3D games before, but nothing that felt as fluid or solid. id knew this, and used every chance to reinforce just how big a deal Quake was. To whit: no simple menu. You’re plonked in a creepy 3D church, with three baths: a bridge for Easy Mode, a broken bridge to jump for Normal, and a broken bridge over lava for Hard. Finding the hidden path to Nightmare mode was also a fun challenge.

The Blast Chamber (Half-Life, 1998): another landmark in 90s PC gaming, Half-Life wowed not so much with technical prowess but with intricate artistry. Dynamic sound was a rarity twenty years ago, and having to muffle your footsteps as you avoided then fought against a huge sound-seeking monster was a tense and utterly unique experience. Half-Life’s gorgeous sound design – echoey metal, clipped tiles, electronic beeping – helped enormously.

The Cards Dance (Solitaire, 1990): is there a more joyous representation of victory? You finally get rid of your last card, and – boom! – every single card leaps from its pile and bounces across the screen, trailing echoes of itself, forming criss-crossing bridges of cloned cards, bunched-up borders giving way to wide-angle faces. A firework explosion of lo-res digital cards, supremely satisfying, even more so given the staid nature of a freebie Solitaire game.

So there we are. This was tough; many moments missed the list. One in particular was from Deus Ex, but I struggled to really find a hook to hang it on; rather, it was an almost random occurrence which illustrated the depth of that title’s emergent gameplay. On my first playthrough, I was caught in a firefight with my brother Paul Denton; we awoke in some government facility, and after I rescued him we made our escape and he became “the man in the van”, a voice in my ear for the remainder of the game. I obviously assumed that this was scripted; that both JC Denton and his brother were supposed to get caught in that scene. But then on a second playthrough, he died; my brother was killed and off the game. His role as exposition/quest-giver was filled by someone else. I just couldn’t get over how great that was; to potentially sideline what felt like a huge character. I was incredibly impressed. But still not sure how to categorise that moment, especially as other people may not have experienced it.

But on the whole – games, eh? Momentous.

[loserholland]

In love with my best friend

Peter Parker

Pairing ➺ Peter Parker x Reader

Warning ➺ Smut, drunk!Liz lol, swearing

Word Count ➺  3,521

Summary ➺ After a night-out with some old friends, the truth final comes out.

A/N ➺  They’re in college (: & italicized text is flash back 

☞  Masterlist  ☜

  Ten months, finally over. Freshman year of college at Columbia University has come to an end which meant, no more late nights of staying up to cram as much information for the exam she’ll be taking later that day, no more endless term papers, finally no more of seeing the teacher’s that didn’t care. One thing you should know about college, you miss one day of class the teacher won’t care, miss two weeks the teacher still wouldn’t care. Overall my point is, some teachers don’t give a shit if you show up or not because you’ll be wasting your parents money while they still get paid to teach a half dead class. Well Freshman year of college is over and now though you were beaten you were also wiser from what you have learned from your first year.

 Entering Sophomore year, you’ll know what to expect. Know when you could go to party’s your friends would try to drag you along to instead of staying to finish an essay, knew how what studying methods worked to help you score at least a B or a decent 90% on a test. After learning the ropes at Colombia University you were ready for Sophomore year and you tonight you were going to hangout with your friends someone you were excited to see was Peter Parker. Since exam week was so hectic the two best friends barely saw each other, if they did all they’d say was a simple ‘Hello’ ‘Sorry I’ve been so busy’ ‘Exams, it’s so hectic’. We both decided to go to Colombia while Liz  and Ned went to NYU which was about twenty minutes away from Colombia depending on the traffic, MJ went to Princeton University because and I quote “Michelle Obama went to Princeton”.

 Something (Y/N) and Peter did if they felt stress or wanted to rant about what had happened during their day they’d go to Central Park, since it was within walking distance of the University. It was a good twelve minute walk to get to Central Park, the two would lay on the green grass on The Great Lawn (Y/N) head would rest of Peter’s shoulder while his cheek would be pressed against the crown of her head. Laying under the cotton candy sky with Peter by her side it was as if everything she was pissed off about slipped off her shoulders, the friends and families at the park sharing laughter disappeared, it felt as if it was just the two of them.

 There was no denying that (Y/N) had feelings for Peter, she simply pushed it away ever since high school. When Peter had told (Y/N) he was crushing on Liz Allan her heart broke into a million pieces, her facial expression changed which Peter had noticed asking her “Hey, are you okay?” which she simply replied with a smile to mask the pain she was feeling whispering “Yeah I’m okay.”

 It felt so cliché falling for your best friend just like every other wattpad story, falling for your best friend since childhood, developing feelings for him entering high school and not confessing your feelings because he has a crush on someone else. 

 After a long hot steamy shower (Y/N) dug through her draws searching for her outfit for tonight pulling out a long-sleeved mesh bodysuit and a baby pink leather skirt along with a black Victoria’s Secret bra and black lace thong. She brought out her shoe organizer that was tucked away under her bed to grab her Pearl pumps by Steve Madden, the only pair of comfortable heels she owned. It was closed toe so no one at the club would accidentally step on her toes and had a thick block heel making it a lot more comfortable for her to walk in and dance in.

 She left her hair natural not wanting to curl or straighten it since it would get messed up in a couple of hours after being surrounded by a ton of body heat, she applied some Fenty Gloss bomb keeping her makeup all natural not wanting it to melt off her face and tons of oil and sweat would build up on her face.

 Peter stood outside (Y/N) dorm knocking a few times to let her know he was outside. He shoved his hands into his front pocket rocking back and forth on his heels looking around the dorm hall to see how empty it was, (Y/N) went to open her dorm door to see her best friend standing outside. Peter’s head snapped to meet (Y/N) his eyes racked her outfit taking in how beautiful she looked, his breath was caught in his throat his mouth was agape and his heart stopped beating for a second.

 “Peter? Are you okay?” (Y/N) questioned waving a hand in front of Peter’s dazed face causing him to swallow the lump that had built up in his throat “Huh- Oh! Y-yeah I’m okay, i-it’s just you look beautiful.” Peter stuttered while rubbing the back of his neck a small brush painted their cheeks.

 (Y/N) brushed the baby hair behind her ear taking in Peter’s outfit it was simple yet stylish a blue and green plaid flannel with a grey shirt underneath, blue denim jeans and white Chuck Taylor’s  “You don’t look too shabby yourself Parker. Let me go grab my purse and we could go, our uber should be here any minute.” (Y/N) moved around her room placing her phone into her black quilted fanny pack.

 Peter couldn’t help but stare at his best friend, she was so beautiful and that outfit.. the mesh top showing off her black bra she wore underneath and the baby pink skirt hugged her waist perfectly. “Peter are you okay? MJ was asking you a question, you’ve been off this evening.” (Y/N) told her best friend they were standing in line waiting to get into the club, MJ was asking him a question but got no response looking over at Peter’s dazed face.

 “Y-yeah I’m fine.” he gulped looking away from (Y/N) to see MJ glaring at him playfully "You like her huh?” she mouthed making Peter’s eyes widened shaking his head from side to side “No!” he mouthed back causing MJ to break out into laughter causing (Y/N), Ned, and Liz to stare at her confusingly “What’s so funny?” Ned questioned looking between Peter and MJ who shrugged off Ned’s question “Nothing.. just thought of something funny.”

 Music blared through the speakers, neon lights being the only light source in the club pushing through a sea of bodies attempting to reach the bar having to yell “Excuse me” or “Sorry pardon me” over the music was a pain in the ass. People glared at you and MJ when we’d accidentally bump into them, gosh all this body heat and the stench of alcohol reminded (Y/N) why she never liked going to parties or clubs. Once they reached the bar MJ order shots and a few drinks to be delivered to a table Liz had reserved, we began to walk back to the table staying close to one another.

 “So.. still have a crush on Parker?” MJ yelled over the music (Y/N) elbowed MJ’s ribs playfully “Yeah..” she answered slowly approaching the table “Well, you should tell him before the alcohol beats you to it.” MJ said in a singsong voice.

  After a few shots (Y/N) decided that was enough, wanting to be the designated friend to call an uber to get them back to their dorms safely, (Y/N) sat next to Peter leaning into his embrace resting her head on his shoulder as they laughed along with Liz who was currently reminiscing high school memories. 

 “Yunno.. Peter still looks at (Y/N) the same way he did in highschool.. with hearts eyes like like a puppy in love!” Liz slurred pointing her index finger at Peter “When we were at the homecoming dance I saw the look in your eyes Peter.” Liz pointed two V-sign fingers first at her eyes then Peter “When you saw (Y/N) dancing with Flash there was a sadness in your eyes.. like you asked me out but you weren’t fully there.. like you wanted to dance with (Y/N). Then you ditched me for some kind of important ‘thing’” Liz continued on chugging on the drink she hand in her hand “You have the chance now! Tell her Peter turn to her and say (Y/N) I feel the same way!” Liz cupped MJ face dramatically as Peter and (Y/N) stared at her in shock. 

 “Okay! No more drinks for you Liz drink water and water only.” MJ instructed causing Liz to pout “Wow that was uh that was something.” Ned mumbled lifting his glass of beer into the air then brought it back to his lips drinking the brown liquid. 

The rest of the night was a bit awkward after Liz’s little performance, after a few more drinks and a little bit of dancing by the time it was a quarter to one and everyone was about ready to head back to their dorms. (Y/N) and Peter walked MJ, Ned, and Liz to their uber, MJ was going to stay the night at Liz’s dorm.

MJ hugged both Peter and (Y/N), though when she hugged (Y/N) she whispered “Tell him okay? Liz basically admitted his feelings for him.” (Y/N) nodded pulling away so MJ could slip into the passenger seat of the Toyota civivc.

The club was in walkable distance of the university, they walked side by side in uncomfortable silence, unsure if they should speak or not they shared glances of one another but never held it for too long. He walked her to her dorm they stood about a few feet away from one another waiting for someone to speak first, (Y/N) glanced to see Peter was staring at his shoes “Tell him okay? Liz basically admitted his feelings for him.” MJ voice echoed through her mind (Y/N) eyes fluttered shut as she let out a shaky breath causing Peter looked up at her confusingly.

“Hey, you okay?” Peter questioned walking closer to his best friend noticing her breathing was rigid “(Y/N), hey what’s wrong?” Peter questioned again and still got no response from (Y/N).

 (Y/N) opened her dorm room walking in as Peter followed “Hey (Y/N) what’s wrong?” Peter’s voice was laced with worry his hand wrapped around her wrist to turn her around “(Y/N).” Peter whispered looking into (Y/E/C) eyes, his beautiful chocolate brown eyes were filled with worry.

They were both sober, so the words that were about to leave her mouth was nothing but the truth and not drunk slurs, “What Liz said.. is it true? Because if it is.. I feel the same way, I’ve had feelings for you from the beginning of freshman year of high school and when you told me you had feelings for Liz my-my heart broke and tonight when Liz said all the things she said I-I just want to hear it from you. Peter I-I’m gosh dammit  I-I I fucking love you as more than a friend.. well of course you know I love you more that a friend I just told you h-” Peter cupped (Y/N) face capturing her lips, she stood there shocked her hands pressed against his chest.

 Peter pulled aways slowly smiling at (Y/N) shocked expression “I love you too” Peter began “Everything Liz said was true.. I thought I liked her but when I saw you dancing with Flash my feelings were clearly for you I never thought Liz picked up on my sudden mood change but I guess she did.” (Y/N) giggled intwining her hand with his “You aren’t good at hiding things Spider-man.” (Y/N) joked remembering the time Peter first revealed he was Spider-man.

 It was a quarter past midnight and (Y/N) was ready to go to bed, after spending almost three hours on her english essay which was a lot more longer than she anticipated, taking AP english was so stressful especially if Ms.Hoover never responds to emails nor offer extra time. She laid on her side her eyes fluttering shut allowing sleep to consume her till she heard a knock on her window, she turned around to see the newest superhero of New York Spider-man. He was clutching his rib in pain a gasp left her lips as she rushed to open her window allowing the superhero in red and blue into her room.

 He let out soft grunts as (Y/N) set him on her floor “Let me go get the first aid kit.” she mumbled rushing into her bathroom that was connected to her room sliding open one of the draws under the sink to take the first aid kit out. (Y/N) settled the kit next to her sitting criss cross next to Spider-man, though he was a superhero she felt anxious, the person under the mask could be a murderer well he wouldn’t be saving peoples lives.. “Don’t freak out okay?” Spider-man spoke he had sensed what she was feelings he brought his hand up to the mask pulling it off to reveal who he was.

 (Y/N) let out a huge gasp “P-p-peter!” her hand covered her mouth, her eyes were widened “You’re Spider-man” she mumbled as Peter nodded weakly.

 (Y/N) locked her dorm door she turned around to see Peter had took his shoes off and was awkwardly standing around her room, he had been in her room when he’d pick her up and walk her to class or studying for chem but he never got to actual observe her room. She strolled over to him her hands brushed onto his shoulders pushing down onto her twin sized bed and straddled his lap, she ran her fingers through his hair capturing his lips with hers.

 Peter’s hands rested on her waist his thumb brushing against the black mesh of her bodysuit, (Y/N) tugged at his soft curls a small grunt slipped past Peter lips allowing access for their tongues to dance on one another. Her hands trailed to his shoulder tugging at his flannel so he’d take it off which caused Peter to pull away breathlessly looking into his best friends eyes “A-are you sure?” (Y/N) smiled cupping his face pulling him into another kiss her thumb brushed against his cheeks “I’ve never been so sure in my entire life.” (Y/N) stood up from Peter lap undoing her pumps stepping out of them moving to her skirt undoing the zipper on the back of her skirt tossing the baby pink item somewhere around the room. Moving to her shirt undoing the button lifting the shirt over her head tossing it to where her skirt was, leaving (Y/N) in her bra and black lace thong.

 Peter sat there gawking at your figure scrambling to his feet stripping off his flannel, lifting his grey t-shirt over his head moving to his belt hastily undoing it tossing it to the pile of clothes they had built up he then undid his button to his pants as it pooled around his ankles he was quick to kick it off leave them in their undergarments. (Y/N) smiled wrapping her arms around Peter’s neck pulling down slightly as their lips met, the kiss was slow and passionate which only lasted a few seconds quickly turning heated and sloppy his hands tapped the back of her thigh she jumped slightly wrapping her legs around his waist turning them around so she’d rest on her bed.

 (Y/N) arched her back reaching behind to unhook her bra sliding it off her arms and tossing it to the pile of clothes, Peter pulled away his gazed fixed on her chest his sat between her legs staring at her boobs “C-can I touch them?” he whispered as a small giggle left (Y/N) lips “Yes Peter.” she watched as the curious boy she loved moved his hands over her boobs giving them a small squeeze. (Y/N) brushed her thigh over his hard shaft Peter let out a shaky breath as his right hand trailed to her heated core applying slight pressure to her clit. 

 Peter began to lower his head down to her core but she grabbed his face with two hands giving him a quick kiss “No, we can do that next time but right now I need you inside of me.” Peter got off the bed slipping his boxer’s off as (Y/N) mimicked his actions taking off her underwear tossing it onto the ground.

“Uh Petey.. a condom?” (Y/N) questioned Peter turning to his pants grabbing his wallet and pulled out a condom. He got back onto the bed rolling the condom onto his hard shaft as (Y/N) gulped looking at the size of Peter “Don’t worry we can go slow.” Peter whispered causing you to nod slowly.

 He lined himself up at your entrance slowly pushing the tip in a small gasp left your mouth causing Peter to pull out “W-what’s wrong?” he asked worriedly “Nothing it’s just um.. this is going to be my first time.. you’re going to be taking my uh ‘v’ card.” Peter smiled kissing her again “I’m glad my first time is with you.” Peter slowly pushing his tip back in a small grunt left his lips “Y-you’re really tight.” he mumbled as (Y/N) rolled her eyes playfully “Yeah like I said early this is going to be my first time Parker.” he slowly pulled his tip in and out then pushed his entire length into her.

 (Y/N) blinked back the tears as Peter slowly moved his hips forward a small gasp left her lips as she reached up to hold onto his back “D-do you want me to stop?” Peter questioned (Y/N) shook her head no “You can move Peter.” she mumbled as Peter listened to what she had said slowly continued to insert himself stopping once he had himself inside you unsure if he should thrust into you “Peter move.” (Y/N) whispered as a faint blush painted his cheeks “U-uh right.” he began to thrust in and out of her as small moans left her lips the pain slowly turning into pleasure.

 “Peter you can uh pick up the pace.” (Y/N) moaned Peter lifted her left leg over his shoulder giving him a better angle to hit just the right stop “I read some where online..” Peter groaned mid-sentence letting out a shaky breath as (Y/N) threw her head back in pleasure “that if I do this.. I could hit just the right spot.” he thrusted into her again as (Y/N) let out a small gasp her mouth forming into an O “Bingo.” Peter whispered continuing to thrust his hips at a moderately faster speed. The pleasure was so hard to explain honestly no words could explain how good it felt, (Y/N) let out a loud moan as Peter leaned his head forwards towards your neck nipping and sucking on the skin creating several hickeys.

 He sucked and nipped at your sweet spot making you mewl in pleasure bringing your hands to his hair tugging slightly as Peter continued to thrust in and out slowing his pace slightly pulling out and thrusting into you hard as a she felt her lower stomach tighten at the pleasure she was feeling “Peter.. I-I think I’m gonna cum.” her chest moved up and down as she tried to pace her breathing. Peter moved down to your breast sucking on your left as the other was in his right hand, he pulled away to reveal his swollen red lips “I know baby me too.” Peter rested his forehead against his thrust began to get sloppy he groaned when he felt your walls clench around him. 

 “If you continue to do that I won’t last.” he grunted he removed your leg from his shoulder resting it onto the bed his hands gripped your waist picking up his pace “O-oh Peter.” she moaned feeling her stomach tighten and walls clench “Come on (Y/N) cum for me come on.” Peter cooed as she through her head back in pleasure a scream leaving her lips experiencing her first orgasm as Peter followed not too long after. 

 He slowly pulled out of her rolling the condom off and tying it walking into your bathroom to toss it into the trash and wet a towel to clean you up. He handed you your underwear and his grey shirt as he slipped on his boxer’s then got into bed with (Y/N). They laid there staring at each other with cheeky grins Peter kissed her forehead wrapping his arms around her waist “I’m taking you out on a date later today.” it was already 2:47 in the morning “Hmm, you didn’t ask if I was busy.” (Y/N) teased as Peter rolled his eyes playfully “You’ll be busy with me now get some sleep.” he mumbled closing his eyes while (Y/N) rested her head in the crook of his neck “I love you.” she mumbled closing her eyes allowing sleep to consume her. 

 “I love you too.” was the last thing she heard before she fell into a deep slumber.

[greetingsfromthebottomofthewell]

CANDLE COVE: DAY OF THE DEAD

[source] [triggers]

this does actually seem to be a fairly standard therapy session, and that is the real horror of this

“Most of the laugh tracks on television were recorded in the early 1950s. These days, the people you hear laughing are dead.” —Chuck Palahniuk, "Lullaby"

"We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, of course."

"I thought that's what your job was about: talking?"

"Actually Mrs. Chelsea, I would say that my job is about trust. I can't expect people who don't trust me to talk about sensitive things with me. So this session is entirely in your hands."

"I'll talk about it. Therapy was my idea, after all. They said that since there was just the one incident it wasn't really necessary but...I thought it was a good idea."

"All right then. Tell me what happened."

"It was just a drawing on the sidewalk. A stencil, you know? Artists leave them around the city, sometimes, and I was out shopping with my family when my son pointed it out. It was a skeleton wearing a top hat, and it had the word 'Saturday' underneath it. What do you think that means?"

"It sounds like Baron Samedi."

"Who?"

"He's a loa; a voodoo spirit. He watches over the dead and he's usually represented by a top hat and a skull. 'Samedi' means 'Saturday'. So this drawing frightened you?"

"I had a kind of fit when I saw it. They called it an anxiety attack. They even took me to the hospital."

"And what did they find out?"

"They said there's nothing wrong with me physically. They talked about stress and lack of sleep. And they said I should take it easy but not to worry unless it happened again. But I'm worried anyway."

"Has anything like this ever happened before?"

"Once. The same day...that my son died."

"You said your son was the one who noticed the stencil?"

"That's my youngest son, Dylan. I had an older son, Jonah. But he's not with us anymore. He was murdered five years ago."

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Chelsea. Can I ask if you received any psychological counseling afterwards?"

"No. I was busy with Dylan, you see. Isn't it strange? The day Jonah died was the same day I found out I was pregnant again. And I guess I just...poured everything into managing the pregnancy. So that I wouldn't think about anything else. And for years, I didn't. Not until this week. Should I talk about the murder?"

"As I said, you don't have to talk about anything you don't want to."

"I...I'll talk about it.

"Jonah was fifteen; I had him when I was still in high school. He was very gifted. He played the cello, and the piano, and they made him the organist at our church. That was what got him into trouble.

"The minister was friends with my husband, Jonah's stepfather, and he loved to hear Jonah play, so he put him at the organ. Everyone loved him. It wasn't just that Jonah was talented, he was...I guess you could say he had a performer's charisma. I...I'm sorry, it's hard to talk about..."

"It's all right, Mrs. Chelsea. Should we change the subject?"

"No, I've already said this much. Something people liked about Jonah, he would always play the hymns but he'd play some of his own music too, before and after the service. He composed his own material; it was very strange sounding, but everyone liked it. Well, almost everyone: One day a man came to us after church and told him to stop."

"Told him to stop playing?"

"Told him to stop playing his own music. He was very upset. He looked like he hadn't had much sleep; he might have been drunk. He told us that the song Jonah played that day was...wrong, somehow. That it was driving him crazy. He was screaming at us in the parking lot, telling us that we didn't realize what we were doing, that he'd spent his whole life trying to get away from that music. It didn't make any sense."

"Tell me about the song?"

"It was very odd, now that you mention it. It was...bouncy. It made me think of the circus, for some reason. It made sense if you knew Jonah, though; he was always playing for laughs. I heard him practicing it in his room. It made me feel...unsettled, the first time I heard it."

"Hmm. And what about this man?"

"Well, that day in the parking lot he just ran off, after scaring the daylights out of us. But the next week, he came back. ...with a gun."

"Mrs. Chelsea—"

"It was the Day of the Dead. November 1st. I remember that. Someone had left something on the organ for Jonah, as a joke. You know those Day of the Dead decorations, the little statuettes of skeletons doing everyday things? Skeleton housewives cooking or a skeleton barber with scissors and a razor or—"

"A therapist."

"Huh?"

"I have one that's a skeleton therapist, with a skeleton patient on his couch. A client gave it to me. It's actually quite funny."

"Oh. Well, this one was a skeleton playing the piano. Jonah thought it was hilarious. He showed it to everyone. Nobody would admit to leaving it. Then he started playing. Everyone was enjoying it. He was coming to the end of the song, and then that man from the week before stood up. And then..."

"...where is that man now, Mrs. Chelsea?"

"In a mental hospital. I've visited him a few times. He cries a lot and tells me he's sorry, but he says, 'You must understand why. You of all people must understand why I did it.' I don't know why he says that. ...but the thing I remember about that day now that I never remembered before is that little Day of the Dead statue. The skeleton was wearing a top hat, you see."

"Ah. So the stencil drawing reminded you of it."

"No, that wasn't it. I mean, I suppose it did, but...doctor, I've never told anyone this before, but the day that Jonah was murdered, everyone assumed I was hysterical because of what happened, and I was, but it started before that. It started when I saw that little statuette on the church organ.

"Something about that figure, the skeleton and the hat, it terrified me. It scared me so bad that I wanted to stand up and shout to Jonah to run away from it, but I was too frightened to even move. And by the time I could, the man with the gun had already...he'd..."

"It's all right, Mrs. Chelsea. ...but you're sure that your fear response started before the shooting? Not after?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure."

"Hmm. So the skeleton and the hat: That image upsets you. Do you know why?"

"I can't imagine."

"Can you think of the first time you ever saw it?"

"Well... when I was a child I used to have a nightmare. There was a little girl in a room—"

"Was it you?"

"It might have been, but it was hard to tell. Whoever she was, she was in a dark room, and she was crying, and all around her there were these...I guess puppets, or dolls? And they were screaming."

"The puppets were screaming?"

"Yes, all of them, screaming and screaming, and the little girl was crying."

"Did you have this nightmare a lot?"

"All the time, when I was five."

"What does this have to do with the skeleton in the top hat?"

"That was one of the puppets. That's the first time I can remember seeing that image. Well, not seeing exactly, but that's my earliest memory."

"I see. What did your parents do when you told them about this dream?"

"They took the TV away."

"Why?"

"They said that I had the dream because of something I saw on TV."

"Do you remember that?"

"No. And I didn't at the time either. But they insisted. It was...actually very strange, now that I think about it. It seemed to scare them, somehow. Of course, it's hard to remember. I was so young, you know?"

"Of course. Do you still have this dream?"

"No. That is...not until very recently."

"But you've had it again?"

"Yes, just after the stencil drawing, and the anxiety attack. That same night, actually. But only that once. And that was the first time in, oh, forty years, I guess. It's normal, right, to have that dream again, after seeing something that reminded me of it?"

"We don't really deal in words like normal or abnormal here, Mrs. Chelsea. I would say that it is noteworthy that you had the same dream after so long. But I don't think it's something you have to worry about. Can I ask, was anything different about the dream this time?"

"...Yes."

"And what was that?"

"One of the puppets. It looked like...it looked like Jonah..."

"It's all right to cry, Mrs. Chelsea. Here, dry your eyes. I can imagine it was very upsetting, but it's important to remember that dreams are your mind's way of trying to tell us something. Can you remember any other strange dreams about your oldest son?"

"For a while right after he died I would have one where I was standing on the shore, watching him sail away on a big ship."

"That's a very common image."

"No, not like this; there was something wrong with that ship. Something terrible. And the people on it with him...they weren't people. Not normal people. I had the feeling they were, you know, kidnapping him. Carrying him away, like they were—"

"Pirates?"

"Yes, that's it. And I heard music too: strange, jumbled circus music. It sounded a little like the song that Jonah played in church. And you know, come to think of it, he told me that the song came to him in a dream first. It might even have been a dream about a ship. I didn't pay much attention. I remember I even faked having to make a phone call so I could leave the room and stop listening to him talk about it. Isn't that terrible? But at the time, hearing about his dreams upset me very much."

"Let's move on: Have there been any other incidents lately that have upset you? Anything unusual that's disrupted your regular routine?"

"I'm not sure what's important."

"Anything might be important. We won't know for sure unless we talk about it."

"Well, a few weeks ago—this was before the panic attack—I was at a toy store, trying to find something for Dylan. He was turning five that week. And I found this...thing. It was a doll, you know, but not a normal one. It was like a little pirate, but its head was one from a porcelain baby doll, the old kind? It looked like something a serial killer would make in their basement."

"And that bothered you?"

"Well it was horribly ugly. I asked the owner and she said she'd found it when she was cleaning out the storeroom. She had no idea where it came from. She wasn't sure whether she should sell it or not. I told her to throw it away. It scared me. I guess it sounds silly now. Why would something like that get to me so much?"

"To grind your skin."

"...What?!"

"I said, things get under your skin."

"I thought you said...never mind.

"There was something else too: As I was cleaning my son's room the next day I thought I saw that same doll in there."

"Thought you did?"

"As I was cleaning under his bed something caught my eye: It was that red bandana. And I saw that doll's little face staring at me, with those cracked, painted eyes, and I swear I just about screamed. But when I looked under the bed again it wasn't there. And I told myself I just imagined it, but...are all these things really important?"

"Oh yes, Mrs. Chelsea. I'd say we're making great progress. With these sorts of things, you have. To go. Inside."

"...What did you say?"

"You have to go inside. Of your mindset, you know, inside of your issues."

"But why did you say it that way the first time?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Doctor, I—"

"Let's move on. It seems that your anxiety is being triggered by some very specific imagery. Tell me when else it's come up."

"I..."

"Tell me, Mrs. Chelsea. Please."

"...My neighbor, she had Halloween decorations up on her house for weeks. And there was one that was a kind of skeleton that hung in her window, the sort of thing you'd buy at a drugstore this time of year. It startled me when I looked out my window and saw it. It was like it was looking right into my house. It had big glass eyes that were too large for its skull...that bothered me.

"I had such a strange feeling when I saw it. The first time I thought to myself, 'He's found me.' It just popped into my head, and a second later I couldn't have told you what it means. But that's not what scared me."

"What did?"

"My neighbor took all the other decorations off her house after Halloween, but she kept that one. Every morning I'd see that thing staring into my window. And finally one day I mentioned to her, very casually, you know, that it was almost Thanksgiving and she really ought to take that last Halloween decoration down. And she said, 'I don't know what you're talking about? It's been gone for weeks.'"

"Was it there when you looked out the window again?"

"No."

"Do you think it was ever really there to begin with?"

"I...I don't know."

"What else has been on your mind?"

"Dylan. He's a very bright child, like his brother. And they look a like. But he's not a musician; instead he draws."

"Has he been making strange pictures?"

"How did you know?"

"A lucky guess. Do go on, Mrs. Chelsea."

"I feel sick. I feel like...the room is moving?"

"It's your imagination. Tell me about Dylan's pictures."

"They're of...a sailing ship. But not a normal one. It has a, you know, a figurehead at the front of it that's too big. And it talks."

"The figurehead talks?"

"Yes."

"How do you know that, if it's just a picture?"

"I just know. And he's been drawing it for weeks and weeks, over and over. And sometimes he draws other things too...strange things...terrible things..."

"But things you recognize."

"...Yes."

"Where have you seen these things before, Mrs. Chelsea?"

"In my dreams. And...on the television. When I was five years old. The show came on everyday. And I was scared of it, but I watched it anyway. And when I tried to get my parents to watch it with me they said...they said..."

"What did they say?"

"...that there was no show. And I didn't understand what they meant. And that's when the nightmare began. And I remember now, that's where I first heard that song, the strange one that Jonah played. That's why I was upset when I heard it, because it reminded me of that show. And I thought maybe that's why the man at the church was upset by it, too. I guess as I grew up I kind of forgot about the whole thing, but..."

"But you didn't forget, did you? You never forget the things that are really important in childhood."

"I guess you don't."

"And we didn't forget about you either."

"What?"

"I said, they didn't forget—"

"No you didn't. You said 'we'. 'We didn't forget about you?'"

"...Well, it's true. We didn't forget. We've been waiting for you, Janice. All this time."

"Dr. Horace, why are you laughing like that? Dr. Horace?"

"I'm not a doctor. And you see this isn't a doctor's office at all, is it? It's the cabin of a ship, that's why it's moving, that's why you started to feel seasick."

"What's going on?!"

"You're off on an adventure on the high seas, Janice, just like the ones on television when you were a little girl. The ones we made just for you."

"Stop talking like that. And stop calling me that too, my name isn't Janice."

"But it could be! You'd make as good of a Janice as anyone. And think how much better life would be if you were? Janice never had a murdered son. Janice never had to worry that she was losing her mind. Janice only had adventures all the time."

"But they were so awful, so frightening..."

"Well, being a child is always a little frightening, isn't it? But you won't be alone here; all of your old friends are onboard. And we have some news ones too. Even Jonah is here..."

"Jonah...?"

"Oh yes. He's been just the best little crewmember for us. And he's been waiting for you. Just think about how wonderful it will be to see him again, and to see everyone else too. All one big happy crew together."

"But what about Dylan?"

"Your other boy? Oh, don't worry about him. We'll get around to him, in due time. But do you hear that, Janice?"

"I...I hear a voice..."

"And what is it telling you?"

"I don't want to listen to it! I don't want to be here, I want to go home!"

"This is home, Janice. This is the home we made for you, the home that's been waiting for you, the home that you'll be in forever and ever. The voice that you hear, why, that's the voice of your new home. And what is it saying?"

"I..."

"What's it saying, Janice?"

"It's saying that...

"I have. To go. Inside."

[k-l-neidecker]

New Post has been published on K. L. Neidecker

New Post has been published on https://klneidecker.com/2018/10/09/blogging-and-slogging/

Blogging and Slogging

I’ve had this blog forever. I mean, maybe not forever forever, geologically speaking, but close enough in the internet world.

This started a fat bunch of years ago. I’m not even sure of the timeline anymore. 2014? 2013? Maybe. I know I still worked as the anti-theft guy for a large cable company at the time, and dabbled in riding the still-popular wave of blogging to great success. I know I had the blog before I found Michael R. Fletcher’s amazing novel, (it was once called 88 and has been since rereleased) Ghosts of Tomorrow, which was around 2014. (Addendum, 2013 for sure. And, oh boy, amateur hour blog at that time for sure…)

That, obviously, isn’t quite how it panned out. You see, the web is chock full of blogs, and maybe half of them (those not written for purely marketing reasons anyway) are by writers of other things besides blog posts. Fiction, non-fiction, talking away and posting away about this or that very important thing.

For a while there, I posted regularly enough. Some reviews, some interviews, some opinions. You know, generally screaming into the void. But that all fell away over time. What, exactly, could I add to the tsunami of writing blogs out there? I’m just some sarcastic git with some writing skill lost in an ocean of blogs, a single bobbing plastic bottle thrown this way and that in the sea of words that is/was the bloggosphere.

And, of course, blogging isn’t the great force it once was. The internet is nothing if not easily corrupted by the whims and will of those who want to make money advertising you their dumb crap. Clickbait articles, nonsense sites with ads above, below, to the left, to the right, in the middle, and all over the content you came to read. Websites that take 30 seconds to load on a 30 megabit connection due to autoplaying videos and fifteen CSS stylesheets layered one over another.

Really, look at the blogs or news sources you even bother reading now. I bet it has shrunk precipitously over the last few years. If you follow the writing world, maybe you read some of Chuck Wendig online, take a gander at John Scalzi, pop on over to Kristine Kathryn Rusch, the occasional updates from George R. R. Martin, and possibly watch Neil Gaiman do his amazing and eloquent thing on Tumblr. And I do read all those, and a few more (may I recommend File 770 for constant updates on the world of publishing, awards, authors, and fandom).

But the days when one followed dozens of blogs, interacting with the authors of those spaces via comments, getting updates on everything that interests you, is mostly a thing of the past. Hell, half the sites out there disabled comments a long, long time ago, and for good reason.

And in the last few years, I’ve published a few small things here and there, bits and bobs of fiction, as well as done grant writing, journalism, marketing copy, been involved in a brewery, a newspaper, an art gallery, moved a handful of times… Well, you get the idea.

Also, in that time, I’ve written my own work far less than I should have, let this blog languish in some cold purgatory, hardly touched my Patreon, and been sidetracked by numerous dead-end projects and things that have taken more of my attention than they should have.

Not to mention just how…wearing…three years at a tourist hot-spot like the brewery I worked in from its opening week until a few months before this post can be on your creativity. Sure, all work is like that to an extent, but honestly some jobs are more damaging than others.

When your job is to entertain, have full-on conversations, and pay 100% attention to dozens of people at once for ten hours a day, well, you ain’t coming home refreshed and ready to roll your face on the keyboard, that’s for sure. Hell, you can’t even escape to a back room, stock area, or kitchen for a breather. It’s you, three foot of bar depth, and people right there with nothing else to do but stare at you and ask what kind of wood the walls are made of, or if you have gluten free free-range fair trade sustainably farmed ethically sourced “ales, because I hate lagers.”

Obviously, that’s also a fat lardy can of excuses (and this is the curse of being human, one can believe they are in the right to be stymied and tired while at the same time realize they could do better if they got off their stupid ass and just did it at the same time).

Writers did their work during World War II. The Great Depression. Through imprisonment, through drug addiction, alcoholism, with kids, with sick family members, while battling figments of their imagination manifesting as sloppy squid-creatures slapping tentacles on the kitchen floor…

And here I am, boo-hooing like a small child who scraped their knee on gravel about some average, everyday life bullshit.

But again, even that isn’t true. Every one of us has our own little monsters nipping at our brains, tiny creatures sapping our will to do more. And it’s simply not good enough to compare our problems with another’s problems and declare ourselves weaker or stronger based on some relative metric of how well we think we (or someone else) is doing. Some things work for our makeup, our particular configuration in this world of infinite configurations, that don’t work for others. And their ways don’t work for us.

We are a combination of our parts, both more and less than the sum of those parts. Chemicals in our brains regulate mood, function, physical reactions, how we see and hear and interact with the world.

And those chemicals are encased in a skull riding a meat-machine with who-knows what strengths and weaknesses, things formed by physical maladies, stresses, what we eat, what we do.

So here we are, I suppose. All of us trying to do whatever it is we are trying to do. And here I am, back at this blog, a blog long since cleared of many of the old posts, written long enough ago as to be not what I want representing me anymore.

For any human-shaped meat-popsicles that remain watching this space, I’ll be posting on a regular basis to rant or rave or talk about what I’m doing. In part to talk to the world. In part to vent the thoughts rattling around in my head. In part because screaming into the void is, contrary to what they might tell you, an honorable and important thing to do. Hell, maybe even healthy.

And finally, I’ll be doing what I should have been doing all this time. Writing stories, getting them into people’s eyeballs. Fixing up and kicking the dust off the Patreon account, brushing the rust off the writing skillset, and seeing where this goofy damn thing takes me.

[townshade6]

There’s Nothing Wrong With Utilizing your Mobile Phone a Lot

Is very not uncommon for people to use another person's cell phone and to be our very first time. In doing so , we are trying to reproduce that first feeling of freedom a phone gives. A family member in another point out was in the hospital. It was a Sunday nighttime, and I have been invited into a party. Rather than being away having fun I had been sitting in my apartment, looking forward to the phone to call, restless for information. It was a pal who provide me his phone to be sure I will find out any information as quickly as possible, and in addition, be able to enroll in the get together. There was zero reason for me to be connected to my own landline. I look back at that illustration, and in addition in wondering at how gracious my friend was in financing me his phone for the night (who would offer their cellphone away today? ), My spouse and i couldn’t has stopped being amazed at the liberty this cellphone gave me. I was able to venture out and be interpersonal - whilst still being accessible as well. This is the kind of freedom cell phones make available. Currently our telephones are regarding far more than vocal communications, and they are no longer an optionally available possession. They can be integrated into existence in ways not really their makers thought. But screen period is the fresh sitting in a chair for hours at a time, which I happen to consent is a bad thing. I have a standing office and it’s been a life changer. In a time when we are digitally connected these days, yet feeling more unconnected than ever, we are being taught, even admonished, to lessen the dependence on cell phones. To limit our amount of time in front of screens, to put the telephone down and have a real dialogue with someone, in the flesh. Elimination of equipment and display time is currently becoming a luxury item; to be able to disconnect from our phones to get an extended period of time bestows a status that a lot of us can’t find the money for or achieve. Take action, we could told, for your sanity if perhaps not humankind, and also for your neck: constantly looking down at your cellphone strains your lower back, which leads to all type of physical pain. I’ve possibly experienced repeating stress symptoms with my fingers from a lot of scrolling, and i also could swear my forearm sometimes affects in a weird place if I’ve utilized my telephone for too much time. However is using the cell phones a lot really so bad? Does staying addicted to the phones genuinely disconnect all of us from other folks as much we believe? Aren’t there gains for the activities that consume us while were clutched to the smartphones? Whenever we use our phones, perhaps there is something we’re missing that we would be doing otherwise? I get a whole lot out of using my personal cell phone, and so no, Really dont want to set it straight down. The answer is never to be socially shamed in using my cell phone significantly less. The response is to ensure cell phone use is addictive and productive and entertaining, not only a distraction coming from boredom or perhaps isolating you from cultural or specialist settings. It is crucial to be intentional and aware about how youre using your phone, not whether you’re using it at all or too much. The minds will be constantly operating, processing our many thoughts, worries, concerns, plans. We really need a frenzymadness, desperation, hysteria, mania, insanity, delirium, derangement from all of it, but occasionally, life isn’t so obvious cut.

Take those movies. My spouse and i go, almost exclusively, to a movie theater having a strict simply no phones, simply no texting plan. They will chuck your ass out if you utilize a mobile phone in the theater. Yet once I was which has a friend, too theater, who had been being endlessly texted by his wife. We now know her mother was in critical health problem. He wound up leaving the movie to organize to go to the airport. As wonderful as a continuous movie encounter is, that doesn’t overcome emergencies whenever they arise. Handful of experiences with another person happen to be as close and binding as a distributed meal. (Hang on, I can get to sexual in a minute. ) In the event that there was ever before a moment when ever you could wish to connect with other people, straight, eye to eye, with no distraction, it could be over a food. However, just like almost everything, there may be exclusions. Suppose, throughout the dialog, you start discussing taking a vacation together, or about national parks, or about decreasing in numbers species? Looking up pics to show your companion can add towards the conversation. Quickly Googling a well known fact or reference point can help within your argument. Showing a social media post you found attention grabbing, interesting or perhaps important can be quite a launching stage of a chat. In individuals moments, anyone is not distancing yourself or adding something in the middle you and someone else, you will be sharing. And sharing can be a beautiful thing. What Im not quarrelling is that the both of you should be looking at Facebook, individually, without interesting together. The things i am saying is that your device can be a conduit, a lead, a resource intended for source material, to add and help the chat. If the focus remains to be on the both of you, the phone is a prop. If the focus is definitely centered on the product, the device is an essential seduction and you’ve misplaced interconnection. The former is very good, the latter is certainly not. Each of our cell phones are a instrument. The ideal way all of us choose to use this device is exactly what give them their very own worth. You are likely to think the very last place you’d want cellphone interference would be the bedroom. On the face of it, two people lying down in bed up coming to each other, every single with cellular phones in their hands, all but disregarding each other, sounds like one of the most depressing, spirit-killing scenes one can easily think of modern lifestyle. However would it be naturally awful? If I am reading the newspaper, what does that matter in the event that I’m browsing the actual daily news or the online version in the smartphone? In the event that I’m checking out e-mail, how much does it matter if I have a laptop or telephone? If Im having fun with online games or else distracted, what does it subject if Im browsing an e book of playing a few game? And in the end, don’t we at times glamorize examining in bed with each other? I love reading books, in order to find it sort of hot my partner truly does too. Performing that while having sex together, after that talking about what we’re browsing, is a great intellectual turn-on. So with all due esteem to several investigators, in this case, the carrier is definitely not the message. What is important here is certainly not the gadget by itself, yet the activity you’re involved in, either collectively or independently. There can easily still be togetherness when two people are on all their telephones, just like there is when ever reading literature. The most really important problem arises when use of a phone eliminates something, or perhaps triggers a separation if a point of attachment will otherwise take place. Might associated with your phones from pickup bed mean more sex? Might be. It could likewise lead to an individual getting out of bed quicker in the day time, or sleeping sooner at nighttime. Although we are while having sex, did you know that through your smartphone, you can watch videos? Or perhaps look at pictures of…. whatever it can be that excites you? Or make use of software intended to foster discussion or activity with a intimate spouse? The phone is a instrument. It is present without inherent judgment, qualities or value. What we make of it is approximately us. Do I really need to let you know this? Obviously there are times when you must absolutely hardly ever touch the mobile phone, beginning, naturally, with driving a car. (Guilty as billed: I generally use the Roadmaps programs in the phone to aid me receive where I’m going. It isn’t really so simple, is it? ) I think faith based services needs to be device-free specific zones, as should particular spaces, just like gym bathtub rooms, exactly where privacy should be respected. Excellent distaste for people who use their very own phone at the health club; I don’t want to hear your business calls whilst I’m lifting weights. At the same time, I see a lot of people using workout and work out apps on their mobile phones, proving the issue, that once more, these mini-pc systems inside our pockets will be what we make of them. Should you be one of those individuals that attend a live show and insist upon recording video and shooting pictures the whole time, My spouse and i ask how a lot of that is necessary. Experiencing the moment in time for yourself, not simply through a unit, is highly advised. But…. include I ever watched live show footage online taken by somebody else? Yes, I have. Just a few years in the past I was by a field hockey game with my Dad. I’ve been in the habit of checking Facebook during game titles to follow along with the community of enthusiasts and media to help improve my experience of the game, and know more about the thing that was going on. And that’s ideal for when watching at home. Yet I had been there. I didn’t require that community - I had been with 20, 000 persons, and my Dad. Consequently I set my phone in my pocket. I overlooked the comments. I missed the details of points I didn’t see since live, you miss much more than you think. Nevertheless I was in a position to drench in the surrounding. I was able to talk to my Dad as to what we thought would happen subsequent. And later, through the night, when we mentioned the game, we reflected upon so many different moments, details I might have overlooked had We looked at my own phone even more. So there is always a trade off. You will discover moments when your phone can distract you. That muddiness can be a bad thing (when you should be speaking with a cherished one) or a good thing (when you’re sad and only and need something to cheer you up). It can detach you (when you steer clear of another person by simply diving in to social media) or provide you with together (if you look up a joke to share or work with your telephone to turn on music to party to). Let’s not keep our equipment responsible for the human condition. A couple, lovers, let us say, resting in bed. In a single moment, they are on their cell phones, lost inside their own sides. In the next, their very own phones are off, for the bedside table. What happens next? Anything can occur. It’s to the two people involved. That is authentic whether you have your mobile phone in your hand or perhaps not. And if you do, you also choose how to use your telephone: in a disconnecting way or possibly a sharing method. If you are feeling bad or perhaps responsible regarding being on your mobile phone, do you know what you should carry out. You would need to put your trust in your gut. Is important to support the person having the cellphone liable, usually do not blame the tool.

[traversetheatre]

10 Questions: Douglas Maxwell

Grab a cup of tea and a biscuit, find yourself a comfortable chair and settle down for this bumper edition of 10 Questions with The Whip Hand playwright, Douglas Maxwell.

From reading recommendations to his writing playlist, from sharing the times he almost gave up on playwriting, to how theatre continues to surprise and delight him, you won’t regret a moment of reading Douglas’ heartfelt and hilarious responses...

[10 minute read]

1.    What was your inspiration for writing The Whip Hand?

I honestly can’t remember. Usually my plays have specific autobiographical beginnings. But this one had been brewing in the back of my mind for so long that where it came from is lost to me now. In fact I used to worry that if I sat on this thing for much longer someone else would come along with the same idea and steal my thunder.

I think I was reluctant to write it not because of the subject matter but because of the style. I knew it would have to play in ‘real time’ in one room, which isn’t the sexiest way to do a play nowadays. You rarely get new plays like that in Scotland. And it’s difficult. It takes a lot of old-school playwriting skill to keep that stuff flying. But actually, that’s where a lot of the play’s power comes from.

I started writing it in a hotel room in Montreal a few years ago. I was over there with The Traverse at La Licorne, who were doing a reading of one of my plays. I had just seen 20,000 Days on Earth, the Nick Cave film. I was so inspired that I knew I’d have to write something that night. But I hadn’t brought anything to work on. Because I’d been thinking about it for so long The Whip Hand was the only new thing I knew I could start without any notes.  

2.    What three words would you use to sum up the play?

As anyone who has seen my plays will know, I rarely use as few as three words to describe anything. But, as my hand is forced…

Dramatic.  Involving. Truthful.

(The Whip Hand. Image David Monteith-Hodge)

3.    How do you want audiences to feel having watched The Whip Hand?

Playwriting is about holding the audience’s attention and moving us from one state to another. They way in which we’re held, and the way in which we’re moved, are up for grabs and different with every play.  

With The Whip Hand I want to grip people with the characters and the premise, but to keep the ground beneath our feet ever-shifting with the story. Hopefully by shifting tones, assumptions, expectations and loyalties, it’ll mean that we’re always questioning our own attitudes to what the characters are talking about.

And although the style and the set-up of the play is quite straightforward, because of the backstory it soon unfolds into something complex and mercurial.

This is not a reasonable, balanced, even-handed “issue play”. That’s for someone else to do. 

There’s a rawness to the characters, and a rawness to what they’re on about that means this stuff is not handled with care: it’s smashed on the floor like a bottle - shards everywhere.  

Ideally though, at the end, hearts will be pounding…

4.    Do you have a favourite line or moment in the play?

There’s a big speech about a third of the way in that changes absolutely everything. And there’s a character who stays quite quiet for the first act, but when he gets going things really rev up.  And the last ten minutes are pretty explosive.  

(The Whip Hand. Image David Monteith-Hodge)

5.    Can you tell us about your writing environment?

I write at a desk in our bedroom. I have a laptop sitting on three big old hardback books. (For no other reason apart from size they happen to be: School Girls Holiday Book 1952, Tom Wolfe’s Back To Blood and a beautiful James Hogg collection, The Ettrick Shephard, Poems and Life.)  

I need the screen at eye-level cos I’ve got bad back and the beginnings of a stoop, so I plug in a keyboard and try to watch my posture. It doesn’t work. I’m still curled up like an Olympian cyclist most of the day. I’ve got some books on my desk (a Chambers Dictionary, Fowler’s Modern English Usage and my diary) and a lamp.  

I face the wall, but there’s a wee alcove with a CD player in it.  I usually have four or five CDs in a pile beside it. (Today they are the new OK Computer reissue, Kid A, Dan Auerbach’s last album and a Hug of Thunder by Broken Social Scene.)  I’ve got a wee New York Giants American football stress-reliever thing that I chuck about when I’m thinking/skiving. And there’s a little Lego pterodactyl that the drummer in Fever Dream: Southside made me as a souvenir.  

In the alcove, there’s a framed picture of my dad and another of my friend Bob, who was the source of Charlie Sonata.  

At my feet, under the desk, is a printer and a record player.  It’s not a good record player. It’s got crappy wee speakers built into the sides. Everything sounds like punk on this machine. It can make Simon and Garfunkel sound like the MC5. I like it for live albums. Before The Flood is in it right now.  

(In case you find it of interest, we made a playlist of these suggestions that you can listen to, here.)

I have two guitars within reach – one acoustic, one electric - again for that good old thinking/skiving reflex.  

(Charlie Sonata, Lyceum Theatre)

6.    If you could spend a day with a character from one of your plays, who would it be and what would you do together?

I know this will sound pretentious and awful, but I feel like I spend too much time with my characters as it is. They’re not enigmatic or unknown to me, as they are to many writers. They’re sometimes just versions of myself – or versions of aspects of myself.  Sometimes they’re straight from my day-to-day life.  Anyway, I feel like they all live in my world and I know them very, very well. So, that being said, I don’t really feel the need to go to Butlin’s with them or anything.

But, again at the high risk of sounding completely insufferable, I do love them. I don’t start writing a play until I get a big sore pang of empathy for all of the characters.

7.    Can you tell us about the first play you wrote?

It was an adaptation of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg. I ran a wee theatre company when I was at University (and co-founded the Stirling University Musical Society fact fans!). I did an English Literature degree and asked if I could write a play for my honours dissertation. I was the first person to ever do that, I think, so they had no idea how to mark it – which worked in my favour. It was an unreadable undergraduate piece of pretentious pseudo-intellectual nonsense. But I staged it in the Macrobert with a cast of thousands, it went down a storm and I was addicted for life. My second play was a farce about an assassination attempt on Oscar Wilde. Oof. Terrible. And listen, that was by no means my most ill-advised idea from that period. In fact that was just the beginning of five years of writing duff play after duff play and sending them off in brown envelopes to be rightfully rejected by every theatre in the land.  

Not including the stuff I wrote for youth theatres and business conferences, 

I wrote twenty-one full-length plays before I finally wrote a good one.

The Traverse was my only open door by the end of that period.  I really hope they don’t have any of those plays in their archive.

(The Whip Hand. Image David Monteith-Hodge)

8.    Going on from that, what advice would you give to your younger playwriting self?

I don’t really regret anything from that time.  Although it was disheartening and hard I did my 10,000 hours when I was young and stupid so it was fine.  And the way it happened meant that I developed such a strange, wide-ranging set of playwriting skills that when I could finally control it and write something good I was fully armed.  

It didn’t matter that I slept in my mate’s kitchen for 5 years; in a flat with no heating, no shower and no cooker.  It didn’t matter that I signed on or worked in crappy part-time jobs. I was totally dedicated to writing plays and I’m proud of my younger self for never giving up, for always pushing to get better and for making every day a school day.  

I remember one summer night when I only had enough money for either a chip-roll for tea or a bottle of beer. I chose the bottle of beer.  As I walked to the offy it occurred to me that I was just pretending; that if my plays weren’t actually going on (which they obviously weren’t) then my whole life was just some daft game.  I was a fake. I was pretending to be a writer. I went back to that Withnail flat and wrote all night – what I was writing God knows. But now I look back at that guy and think that I was never more of a real writer than that night.  

The guy who needs advice is the guy who finally had a couple of plays on – his dreams came true! That guy’s swanning about thinking he’s Tennessee Williams or something. To him I say, ‘Shut your face a minute, will you? Be true to your characters, not your ego. You know nothing yet so keep schtoom and learn quicker. You represent the plays, not the other way round. Don’t wait for humility to be thrust upon you.  Keep writing the plays you feel like writing, not the plays you think you should be writing.  And if the only reason you’re doing a job is for the money then don’t do the job.’

9.    What has been your most memorable theatre experience – either as a member of the audience, or as part of the creative team?

I have so many important memories of shows, and loads of personal experiences that are profound and vital to me, it would be a bum steer to mention any specifics.  

But I’m a good audience member. I hardly ever hate anything I see in a theatre. This will make me sound like an intellectual weakling no doubt, but the simple act of performance – any performance – always works its magic on me. Always. When a show starts, when someone comes out and begins to perform I always feel like I want to cry.

I’ve noticed that the type of person who works in theatre and hates everything they see and can’t bring themselves to say something positive about anything – let alone gush enthusiastically about someone else’s show – well, they tend to be not very good. Theatre needs enthusiasm. That’s the fuel. Real theatre people love theatre. Why else would you do it? There’s no bloody money. Nah, sneering disdain and world-weary sighs are for people that like reading reviews more than going to see a play. Talented people, people who are always pushing themselves forward and really grafting hard at their craft are always open to being blown away. They can see the flashes of greatness in even the most underpowered show. They’re fans.

10.  Are there any websites, books or other resources that you find particularly useful as a playwright?

All writers are readers, of course. That’s just a fact. So I always have a novel on the go. But I’m also always reading for work. I read scripts all the time, particularly from shows in London I’ll never see, or old plays that someone mentions that I’ve never read or a playwright I’m completely unaware of. In the last few weeks, I’ve read Anthony and Cleopatra, Enemy of the People and I have The Ferryman and An Octoroon lined up. I also read loads and loads of scripts from unproduced writers and students.  

Writers improve by reading as many plays as we can and writing as much as we can. The writing is more important.

Plus we have to go to the theatre all the time or our words turn academic, inward and heavy. Sometimes when I’m at a show, before the lights go down, I look around and wonder ‘will the play I was writing today work with this crowd?’ You’d be amazed how often the answer to that is no. So I think, ‘what would work then?’

Mind you, we probably make the biggest leaps forward by looking at our own work with a cold eye, rather than by reading someone else’s play. And when you start to work with actors and deal with audiences, then the learning curve really steepens.

But as far as a reading list goes, starting with Aristotle’s Poetics is always a good idea (but not the stuff about comedy – he’s way off on that). I’ve got a soft spot for stories about Broadway writers frantically re-writing shows based on bad audience reactions in Boston. There’s a lot to learn there I think. Act One by Moss Hart, On The Street Where I Live by Alan Jay Lerner and Rewrites by Neil Simon are all fantastic. I found Dario Fo’s Tricks of the Trade and John McGrath’s A Good Night Out particularly good for writing for a Scottish audience, even though that’s not what they’re actually about. In that respect, Ian Brown’s Scottish Theatre: Diversity, Language, Continuity is the best.  

Screenwriting books are a laugh for a busman’s holiday, but they’re best avoided for playwrights.  All that prescriptive stuff about the hero’s journey and page layout and story structure just doesn’t count on the modern stage.    

There are no rules, of course.  No right way or wrong way to make a play.  What works on this one won’t necessarily work for the next one. And the same play is different each night, which is the joy of it.  We’re making moments in time, not monuments.  Plays are designed to be seen only once. It’s more like planning a party than writing a novel.  

Sun 6 – Sun 27 Aug You can book tickets for The Whip Hand here.

[forceyourway]

Tree of Life Shadow Work Challenge

Day Three: “What aspect of my home life might I benefit from taking into consideration?”

(Using Loki’s tarot deck, “The Raven’s Prophecy Tarot”)

I’m loathe to take a picture of the entire tree again, because it’s a pain to assemble. I totally took one and then realized I set it up wrong and sigh. I might edit this with the tree picture later.

Six of Cups - I thought this was a weird card to be here, because it’s literally about considering your childhood. Like he’s just saying the question back at me, y’know? It might be that I need to acknowledge positive memories, because I’m so overwhelmed by negative ones. It might just be talking about evaluating my childhood self, and who I was then. There is a sort of implication of innocence? I think with this. Like, all of this stuff happened, and I was a child.

Home Life - Security, Belonging, Self-Worth

Reflect on what your home life was like growing up. Consider things like household income, inter-family relationship dynamics, overall lifestyle, etc. Was financial stability a source of stress? Was the relationship between your parents conflicted? Did you feel accepted by your family? Did you feel safe at home? Did you live a life in a suburban setting, in the boonies, in an orphanage?

Security My childhood was comfortable, financially-speaking. My dad has a very high-paying job. We moved out of our townhouse, and into a house-house when I was in 3rd-ish grade, and we rented out the townhouse. Every now and then, my dad would need to go there to fix something or what have you, as the owner, and my sister and I were always very excited to tag along. We wanted to go back and see where we grew up, and see if our old babysitter was available to play with, or go to the park. The park behind our house was pretty much always changing, so that was neat. One time, my sister and I were wandering around the Big Park. We heard they had a splash pad, but when we went there, the water was off, and we couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. Some other kids were there, older kids, probably 16+. About 5 of them, I think. We followed them through a path in the woods that led to a park we’d never been to before. Along the way, I picked up a big stick and was using it like a walking staff, as kids do. I kept trying to talk to the other kids, oblivious that they did not want to play with me, and they took offense to being followed around by an annoying white girl with a big stick. It came to a point where they were demanding I put the stick down, and I stood my ground, because wtf this is my stick, I found it, I’m keeping it. I didn’t understand the connotation. They beat the shit out of me. All of them. I remember hitting the ground hard, and pain. My sister ran. I was in middle school at the time, and she was even younger, but it stuck with me that she ran. When I told my dad what happened, he at first acted like he didn’t believe me, and then said he’d go investigate and tell the other kids off. That was a lie. I really thought he was gonna do it, and was really hurt when he didn’t. He ended up hardly acknowledging what happened to me at all. This is why I have abandonment issues. I grew up feeling like I couldn’t rely on my family to protect me when I needed it. Later, toward the end of middle school, I got into a fight with a girl at her sleepover party. She’d been pushing me around all night, and when she tried to pour body spray down my back, that was the last straw. I grabbed the closest thing and chucked it at her. I think I meant to grab my pillow - it was right there - but ended up grabbing a tiny (as in, could fit in your hand) wire earring-case or whatever. I remember being shocked when I saw what I did. It hit her in the head/face. She started screaming “You hurt me!” and started kicking me repeatedly in the stomach. Pain. Chaos. I couldn’t so much breathe. Her mother looked at me like I was dirt after that, because I must have deserved it. Her father wasn’t so sure, but I still needed to get out of their house immediately. My dad picked me up. He remembered what happened at the park, and said I must have deserved it. I didn’t tell him what happened. None of the girls stood up for me, either. They were kind of complicit, in that they let her - or joined in on - pushing me around the whole night, before the fight...

We grew up in a small town in a suburb-ish area. No crime to speak of. There were a couple of kids our age on the street, most notably two sisters who were me and my sister’s best friends. Their mother hated us and was very vocal about it with our parents, telling them we had “A Serious Problem.” All the damn time. She and her friend (another neighbor) kept calling me a Smartass. I...didn’t know what that meant. Ever oblivious and ever self-incriminating, I took it as a compliment and said thank you. That hardly helped matters. It took me a long time to realize that the girls pretty much didn’t give a shit about us; they played with us when it was convenient, but not when others were around. The younger one and my sister got physical a lot. They made fun of us all the time, and mostly it went over our heads. My mom was very irresponsible with money, eating out all the time, shopping all the time, etc. And frequently she was out of work; most of her jobs were as a temp, and there was a lot of in-between time. This was a huge point of tension with her and my dad, and eventually we ended up very deep in debt, though it hardly showed. My dad started gambling to compensate; sometimes he won big, but mostly it was just a huge money drain, and it became an addiction for him. When my mom finally left my dad for good, he got stuck with the debt, and essentially went bankrupt. He’s now living in my decrepit childhood home, eating ramen noodles, and god only knows how far behind he is on the bills. He’s still got that good job, but it’s not enough, and he's still gambling. My parents were always fighting, and my dad got so loud that I was always expecting something physical to go down. Always expecting I was gonna get hit. My mom got physical with me. My sister got physical with me. My dad got physical with me (after I provoked him). Home was not a safe place for me. I didn’t feel I could rely on my family. My mother was always late, very late, when picking me up from school, like I was an afterthought. They abandoned me when I needed them, and they sure as hell didn’t protect me. I used to pretend that maybe I wasn’t really their child, maybe I was secretly adopted. I’d convince myself that to help me get by. Unfortunately, I saw too much of them in me - and me in them - to keep acting as if they weren’t my “real” parents.

Belonging My parents really, really wanted me to be someone else. I hated shopping with my mom, because she was always trying to play dress up with me. Put stuff on me I didn’t like, because that’s how she wanted me to be. And she’d get aggressive if I refused to go with her, or told her I didn’t like the clothes. To this day, she thinks I’m still in some “goth” phase, despite constantly wearing varied and multicolored outfits around her for many years. A few years ago, when I was looking for a job, she told me she found an opening at whatever-store-or-other...which she immediately followed with “as if you could ever work there; you have no fashion sense!” I have excellent fashion sense, thank you. My dad actually forced me to go to a tanning booth when I was...14? 15? because I was pale and I had acne, and he was trying to “fix” it. I was super, super opposed to this, but he forced me into it, telling me I should be grateful and all that shit. I was supposed to get naked and lay in this freaky light machine. I remember being super uncomfortable, and I refused to strip all the way down. He was so, so angry with me. We didn’t go again.

To this day, my dad constantly remarks on what a weird kid I am. How it’s not “normal” that I don’t drink or smoke (or that I never have), and he started smoking when he was 12, or whatever, and used to steal beer all the time. It seemed like he wanted me to do all that stuff, because it was “part of growing up???” I am wondering now if this might be one of his weird as hell attempts at humor; the problem with that is, no one ever knows when he’s kidding...

Self-worth I suck at math. I have dyscalclia. I just don’t brain it right. My dad is obsessed with math. I went through workbook after workbook as a child, in some attempt to make me good at it. I hated them. I snuck calculators when calculators weren’t allowed. Never learned my times tables; to this day, he’ll throw a random multiplication question at me every now and then. I was forced to go to Math Camp, which I hated. I think I might have cried one day, on the way. Nothing helped. When I went to the second Catholic school, the one with the Hive Mentality, my math teacher did a thing where we had to do warm-up problems before we could do anything else. Everyone brought up their notebooks and she’d check them, and then they’d go on to the next thing. I spent the whole class going up. I had no idea what I was doing wrong, and she refused to help me. I was in tears by the end, just writing down random answers after going through every possible way I could have gotten it wrong.

I was really good at school, once I hit public school. Always on Honor Roll. In high school, I came close to having straight A’s a few times, but math always held me back. It was pretty solidly at a C. I had one geometry teacher who refused to help me - or anyone - when we were struggling. I think I got a D. First time ever. Of course, a huge deal was made about this. The next semester, I got a new geometry teacher, and instantly shot up to an A. He was very kind and helpful, and he used colored chalk so you could see the different elements of a problem. I had like a 103%, and was super, super proud that I shot from a D to an A, and I had straight A’s. My dad just said “We’ll see how long that lasts.” When my sister got straight A’s, he gave her $100, because she was the “dumb” one, and I was the “smart” one, and I should have had straight A’s all the time???