#A Lesson Before Dying quotes

[14thcenturyvictorianpeasant]

the male species has reached manhood

[mellowmistt]

The Sleepover-Chris Sturniolo (Part 1)

Summary: (corny, basic ahh title I know) You are good friends with the sturniolos and at their house, unabe to catch an uber late at night you are offered to stay the night on the couch, however you could not sleep and someone with the same problem comes to join you..

Warnings: smut;unprotected sex; handjobs; swearing; mentions of alcohol; NO use of y/n!

A/N: I don’t use any degrading kink language with characters (e.g slut) or overusing of words such as baby, bc idk bout you guys but it kinda cringes me out when i see that in other fanfics, okay back to the story :)

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

I took the last sip of my coca cola before saying goodbye to a couple other friends who were leaving.

"For fuck's suck." I say, a little too loud as I could see Chris and Nick abruptly glance in my direction in the corner of my eye.

"Whats up?" Nick asked

"There are no uber's available for another hour, like how is that even possible?" I exclaimed, adding a small smile at the end, I didn't want to bring down the good vibes that everyone had for the past six hours.

"Hey you know you're more than welcome to stay the night, I would have made Matt drive you but you know how much he had to drink tonight, plus he's probably out of it right now."

"No, you don't have to do that anyway, i'll check some other taxi websites theres gotta be one available righ-"

"Hey it's fine, just stay on the couch, its way too late now anyway i wouldn't want you out there alone." Nick explained.

"Okay, thank you so much you guys are the best!" I say, scanning the room to meet eyes with Chris, who was watching our conversation from the kitchen counter as he was clearing away the plastic cups and chip bags.

"Okay, now that's settled i'm going to bed, i'm wiped" Nick says as he grabs his phone from the other side of the couch. Chris followed with a quick "Me too, goodnight" before hurrying down the stairs.

"Theres more blankets in the basket down there if you need, goodnight!" Nick says before trailing up the stairs, turning off the main kitchen light.

About fifteen minutes had gone by, I somehow wasn't even sleepy even though it was nearing three in the morning. Maybe i had too much soda. I grabbed my phone from my bag and began scrolling through tiktok. I figured after a while of scrolling my eyes would get tired.

Suddenly the dim living room light turned on, I flinched as I saw Chris's silhouette approaching the couch. He sat down about a foot to the right of me.

"Can't sleep?" He asked, in a quiet,almost whisper.

"Nope." I reply, switching off my phone and placing it behind my pillow.

We both stared at eachother for a moment, Chris had a curious look on his face, as if he was dying to ask me a question.

"Hey i thought you said you were wiped, like twenty minutes ago." I say, narrowing my eyes teasingly. I knew the smartass reply he would say.

"I never said that actually." He replied, a small grin forming on his face, returning the teasing mannerisms.

"Well you said same when Nick said, and I quote,I'm going to bed, I'm wiped". I said, smiling knowing this would just egg him on for a lame excuse. Mine and Chris's friendship had always been like this, teasing and joking around, he never failed to make me laugh.

"Well, maybe thats just what i wanted him to hear." He replied, staring back at me with a grin, waiting to see my confused reaction.

"What are you doing?" I asked, half serious now.

"I figured you'd be lonely down here by yourself in the dark, so I came to stay with you."

"You're drunk" I state.

"You're sober." He replies, stating the obvious.

"Yeah well remember last week when you were holding my hair back as I was puking in the toilet? I learnt my lesson and thought i'd give myself a break tonight." I replied with a small chuckle.

"mhmmm" He mumbles. "Besides I didn't drink that much myself actually, definitly not as much as Matt." He states,clearly proud of him self and awaiting my approval.

"Wooowww" I tease, indulging into his ego.

He then moves closer to me, and squeezes up close, moving me over and laying next to me, pulling the grey fluffly blanket over us. We look deep into eachother's eyes for a moment again. His eyes were so beautiful, a crystal clear blue, which accomodated to his warm smile. That damn smile. It always triggered a comforting feeling, like i could never feel negative again when i saw it.

He was moving his head closer to mine, I watched his eyes as they were flickering from mine to my lips, which he was slowly approaching. Without warning I felt his soft lips touch mine, and i unexpectedly started to get lost in the moment, and i placed my hand around his head, gently running through his soft hair. I slowly pulled away from his lips.

"Wait what are we doing?" I whispered,coming back to my senses as i realised that maybe he had liked me all along when i have liked him.

"I thought you knew I had a mondo crush on you, I know you have one on me too, I can feel it in your energy whenever we're close." He said quietly, smiling that he had just outed my secret.

I didn't know what to say, I just gazed back into his eyes again, inspecting his playful look. He slowly put his hand on my stomach, which made me let out a gasp.

"See, I make you nervous" He said with a grin, before trailing up to my chest.

"Oh yeah, no i definitly knew" I replied sarastically, smiling at both my joke and the touch of his hands on me.

He let out a soft laugh before trailing his hand down to my waist, meeting the waistband of my shorts.

"Are you okay with this?" He asked, serious look on his face now awaiting my answer.

"Yes" I whispered, kissing his lips again to confirm. He pulled away and smiled, before trailing his hand down to my panties, moving inside of them and meeting my arousal.

"See, I knew you wanted me" He whispered jokingly into my ear as he starting moving his fingers in slow circles around my sweet spot.

I smiled at him, before moving my head back and closing my eyes in relfex to the pleasure he was inducing on me, as he was speeding up. I let out a few deep breaths.

"Ch-chris.." I whispered. "We can't, not...here what... if they hear us" I said, stuttering through deep breaths.

"Shhh, they won’t. They’re both out of it remember?" He whispered back. He stopped moving his fingers, which made me open my eyes.

He moved in to kiss me again, moving his body slightly closer again, alerting me of his hard-on against my thigh. I reached my hands down to the waistband of his shorts. Still kissing, my hands made contact with his shaft, I started moving my hand up and down, slowly speeding up the pace. He drifted away from mouth to let out a deep breath in reaction to the stimulation.

“Fuck” he whispered.

He moved my hand away, which at first confused me, until he started taking off my shorts, and then his own. He repositioned himself until he was hovering on top of me. He started burying himself into my neck, painting it with kisses. Again, I had tilted my head back to indulge in the moment.

“You ready?” He whispered, lifting his head up.

I nodded eagerly, at this point I was desperate, I had never imagined that this is how the night turned out, but this rush of everything was just what I craved for right now. I felt his tip brush against me, and the slow but intense entrance of himself inside of me. We exhaled loudly, though this made me feel conscious that one of his brothers could hear us again, I tried to put that feeling aside for now and just enjoy the moment, enjoy him.

As his thrusts increased in speed it was becoming more hard to stay so quiet. Chris noticed how I was trying so hard to suppress moans, and put one of his hands over my mouth gently. The other hand interlocked my left hand above my head. His deep breaths alone were just setting me off more. His eyes squinting as the climax was nearing. Small, muffled moans left my mouth, thankfully Chris’s hand was suppressing the evidence, I don’t think it was a noticeable enough sound for Matt to hear, even though he was just down the hall in his bedroom.

The thrusts were rapid, I began gently moving my hips along with the alignment of his to amplify the pleasure. This made his breaths become more louder, so I put my free hand over his mouth too. We were now gazing into each other’s eyes, taking in the moment, the euphoric feeling which was shared between us. Our eyes struggling to stay open as we were both so close to finishing. Our palms became sweaty from the exhales. Boom. There it was. That indescribable feeling which illuminated throughout my whole body. Throughout his whole body. As the thrusts slowed down into a halt. We looked deeply into each others eyes again, lay still for a few moments as we uncovered our mouths. Deep breaths still escaped our mouths, but we tried to keep them quiet.

There it was again. That smile.

“I think I might… I think I might love you” he whispered through exhales.

“Shut up” I quietly laughed, still breathless.

He kissed me once more, his soft lips were the cherry on the cake, I never wanted him to let them go off me. He exited me and lay on his back next to me again, his hand in mine.

*ding*…..*ding*

I opened my eyes, the warm sunlight melting through the blinds. I reached for my phone, with two texts from my mom, asking if I wanted to go to lunch with her. The time was 10:48. I looked to my right, and sure enough Chris was lay next to me. It was real. It actually happened? Holy shit.

“Chris?” I whispered.

No answer.

“Chris” I whispered, a little louder and slightly nudging him. This alerted him and he opened his eyes.

“Oh hey sexy” he said, his morning voice was raspy, but also kind of a turn on. Fuck.

“I gotta go, and you should probably go downstairs before Nick or Matt come out here and wonder why you were on the couch with me” I explained. He still had his eyes shut, but he slowly started to shift, so I knew he was listening.

“Mhmm, okay” he mumbled before sitting up.

We both put our shorts back on and he put the blanket back.

“Okay, my mom wants to meet me for lunch so I gotta run, I’ll see you soon”

“Sure thing, we should do that again soon” he said with a smirk, before trailing down the stairs to his bedroom.

[weaselandfriends]

The Making Of: When I Win the World Ends

(For my previous Making Of post, see The Making Of: Cleveland Quixotic.)

I. 1999

It was the year of the cubicle movie. It was the year of Fight Club, of Office Space, of Being John Malkovich, of Three Kings, of The Matrix, and of American Beauty. It was the year of suburban malaise, of eternal sunshine, of ceaseless normality. A year of United States hegemony; a year whose chief terror was that THIS WAS IT.

Before the millennium turned and the towers fell, there was an initial challenge to this order, a completely inconsequential one made consequential by a newly minted 24/7 news media machine running out of noise to fill dead air now that people were sick to bursting of the Clinton impeachment. This challenge came not through war, revolution, or violence, but through entertainment. Children's entertainment.

And I was a child. Unaware of any cultural context, I knew only one thing: I loved Pokémon. I really, really loved Pokémon.

I owned Red Version, Blue Version, Yellow Version, Pokémon Pinball, Pokémon Stadium, Pokémon Snap, Hey You Pikachu, a Pokémon Tetris sort of puzzle game, even the Pokémon TCG game for Gameboy. I had ten to fifteen strategy guides for the games, an encyclopedia of the 151 Pokémon, a choose your own adventure book, an I Spy-style book. I had Pokémon figurines, Pokémon plushies, toy Poké Balls, toy Pokédexes. I had Pokémon stamps and Pokémon stickers and a deck of Pokémon cards. Not trading cards, just a standard 52-card deck with Pokémon pictures on it. Of course I also had the trading cards. A complete set of the first three runs, plus a special Mew card you could get from I dunno Toys R Us or something as part of some promotion. I had a guide for the card game that explained which cards were good or bad even though I didn't even play the card game. I had a Pokémon Tamagotchi and Pokémon pencils and Pokémon erasers and Ash Ketchum's hat and I dressed up as Ash Ketchum for Halloween. Of course I watched every episode of the anime, and in notebooks I drew doodles of existing Pokémon and came up with names for new Pokémon. My father had died that year.

My father was a sports fanatic. Traditional sports. He, too, collected. Sports memorabilia, baseball cards, figures of famous stars. When I was an infant, he drove me on a cross country road trip to Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where I became a part owner of the Green Bay Packers. He had always wanted me to grow up and pursue professional sports. When I was born, the doctor apparently said to start looking for football colleges, a quote he saved in a scrapbook of baby photos. He had played sports himself, in college; he was a baseball catcher, until a hitter accidentally struck him in the head with a full force swing.

Almost everything I personally remember about him involves him dying. He was sick for a long time, and I remember hospitals and hospital beds and strange smells and gauze. And then one day my mother told me he died.

He was a charismatic man, very social and very popular. He had many friends and a lot of family, all of whom had constantly been around our house. Once he was gone, they stopped coming around. Then it was just me and my mother, who was not a fanatic for anything, except maybe her job as an elementary school teacher, which consumed her time as she assiduously prepared lesson plans and graded tests until late at night. When my father died, she got into some argument with his side of the family, the details of which I still don't fully understand, and afterward they no longer spoke. Her own family lived far away, out-of-state, seen only at Christmas. The house became quiet.

And I… played… Pokémon.

II. The Electric Tale of Pikachu

Toshihiro Ono was a mangaka primarily known for shotacon and futanari hentai. His credits such as Innyou Megami and Anal Justice made him a no-brainer pick for the officially licensed Pokémon manga, Electric Tale of Pikachu, as it too would feature a 10-year-old boy as the protagonist.

This manga would be the foundation for my conception of what Pokémon was, narratively. Though I also had the Pokémon Adventures manga that ran concurrently and which has by now long outlasted it, Electric Tale left a significantly deeper imprint on my memory.

In summary, Electric Tale is a retelling of the first two seasons of the anime. Ash Ketchum is the main character, he's accompanied by Misty and later Brock, his rival is Gary, and Team Rocket harangues him.

What sets Electric Tale apart is its tone, which is far more adult than Adventures and the anime. Obviously, part of this comes from the author's primary area of expertise being hentai. Even in the censored English version, there is a sense of sexual playfulness in how every single female character is an older woman who likes to tease Ash about his romantic interests.

But there are other elements that creep in unrelated to sex, due to the perspective of someone only used to speaking to adults who suddenly has to speak to children. Ono doesn't really get the childish fantasy of leaving at 10 being normal in society, so he introduces an element where Ash can only get a one year deferment from school and will have to return unless he hits it big. Team Rocket are former competitive hopefuls who flamed out and then, with no education or work experience to speak of, had no choice but to turn to crime. The Pokémon are depicted more realistically, often eschewing the toyetic mascot elements of their designs.

And the landscapes are often wistful, even apocalyptic in their presentation:

This more sedate, mature, realistic depiction of Pokémon became what I wanted Pokémon to be, what I projected onto an original Red and Blue version that left everything open to interpretation, and what would increasingly frustrate me with the series as it deviated more toward bombastic villain groups with goofy destroy-the-world plots. (Which was what put me off Pokémon Adventures.)

Amid all this, one panel stuck with me in particular. One panel I would think about ever since I first saw it as a child, that would turn around in my head and keep coming back. That panel would eventually—over two decades later—become the basis for When I Win the World Ends, the seed from which an entire story grew:

III. The Unkillable Demon King

But in the interim, the seed remained dormant. 1999 fell away. I grew up. I played later Pokémon games and increasingly lost interest by around Gen 4 and 5. Then I went to college.

That's when I started playing League of Legends.

I was something of a psychopath in college. I operated on a strict schedule and did not deviate. Wake up, read 50 pages of classic literature, write 2,000 words, go to classes, study, and then by about four in the afternoon all my obligations were done and it was League of Legends until midnight.

I wasn't actually interested in the League of Legends esports scene in its infancy. In 2012, I was actually invited to attend its World Championship in Los Angeles and refused. (When I received this invitation, I had just finished reading Homestuck for the first time, and was caught in a month-long haze in which I could do little but bask within what I considered the greatest artistic achievement I'd seen in my life. It was this month that inspired Modern Cannibals.) I only liked playing the game and watching Dunkey videos.

It wasn't until the next year, when a girl I was interested in recommended I watch, that I tuned in to my first professional League of Legends game, at the 2013 World Championship. It was there that I got to watch this new, hyped, upcoming Korean player who had apparently taken the pro scene by storm that season. That player was Faker.

It has seemingly become essential to the narrative of any sport that there is "the man who always wins." American football has Tom Brady, and the moment Brady retired, he was replaced by Patrick Mahomes. Basketball has LeBron James, picking up the mantle from Michael Jordan. It's as if someone being "the best" validates the skill-based promise of the sport, the fundamental top-down fairness of its premise, the idea that the person who wins is the best and deserved it. Faker would become the backbone of League of Legends esports and his ascendance correlated to that of the sport itself, from its humble roots at small-scale tournaments in places like Jönköping, Sweden, to max capacity arenas in the biggest cities in the world.

It's surprising, though, how the legend of Faker had already begun even before he won his first World Championship. League of Legends was designed as a clone of Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a popular mod for Warcraft III that emphasized competitive play. In its infancy, the competitive scene was mostly dominated by players who had migrated from DotA to League. They were older, winning thanks to a fundamental conceptual understanding of the game that was superior to everyone else, and frankly not very good in the aggregate. As League of Legends esports exploded in popularity from 2013 to 2015, these old pros would get filtered out swiftly, with even the biggest and most popular names retiring after only a couple of years in the scene.

Even once the new generation of League-grown talent ascended, though, careers were nasty, brutish, and short. The best players only remained on top for a season, as game patches dramatically changed viable strategies. Internationally the sport was dominated by Koreans, with the Korean regional league sometimes being seen as more difficult to win than the World Championship, where Koreans often breezed through uncompetitive Chinese, European, and North American squads.

This possibly affected the demographics of the professional scene. South Korea has mandatory military service, and leaving the pro scene to join the military was basically the end of a Korean player's career. This meant that it was rare to see a Korean player older than 25. Retiring in your early 20s was and remains common. Korean organizations, which had an infrastructural leg up on other regions due to the popularity of StarCraft 2 esports in the country, became adept at scouting promising players at 15 or 16, building them into top level competitive pros, wringing them dry for a few seasons with brutal training regimens, and spitting them out.

Faker was the exception. Though he had been discovered young by SK Telecom, a major Korean telecommunications company that did esports on the side, and gone through the training regimen, he refused to be spit out. He simply didn't stop. He won in 2013, then with a completely new four-man squad around him won again in 2015 and 2016 before narrowly losing the 2017 finals in a nail biter. Given League of Legends esports had only existed since 2011, he basically accounted for half of the championships up until that point. Nobody else, except for his teammates, had won more than once. And it was like it was known he would be this juggernaut the instant he manifested ex nihilo. Like it was known, even in 2013, that he would always win.

Then, Faker stopped winning.

By 2017, League of Legends esports was a titan. Venture capital firms, seeing the millions of eyeballs, thought that this was the next NBA in its infancy, and decided to get in on the ground floor. Multiple millions of dollars were pumped into the scene as even mediocre players in weak regions like North America pulled seven-digit salaries. In China, where League of Legends had become the national pastime, the nation's richest oligarchs ran teams for fun and vanity, outbidding Korean organizations for top Korean players in pursuit of a trophy that had gone to Korea every year since 2013. Riot, the studio developing the game, pumped tons of money into creating a professional sports product, with skilled announcers, dedicated arenas for regional leagues, live performances by musicians like Imagine Dragons and Lil Nas X, and all the other bells and whistles one might expect from a program watched on ESPN.

In this milieu, it seemed like Faker had finally reached his limit. He was still good, but not the best. Even as an individual, while everyone still considered him the "greatest of all time," he was considered outmatched by newer pros like Chovy and ShowMaker. 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 passed with no championships. In 2022, on a team of mostly rookies, he reached the world finals, but was ultimately beaten. Korea's stranglehold over the sport had been shaken by China, which had finally strung together some championships. People wondered if Faker would retire, although he had managed to avoid mandatory military service by representing Korea in the Olympics-esque Asian Games. He'd dealt with wrist injuries and his level of play dropped year over year. He just didn't seem to be that good anymore, potentially holding back his team of talented young players rather than leading them to victory.

Then, in 2023—

And in 2024—

In the end, never count out Touchdown Tom. 11 years of professional play, 5 world championships.

From this longwinded explanation, you might have realized that after watching that game in 2013, I became a League of Legends esports fanatic, fulfilling the prophecy set before me by my father though perhaps in not the way he would have expected.

And the things I become a fanatic about, I want to write a story about.

IV. Modern Cannibals

There's a deleted scene in Modern Cannibals, as Maximillion is driving Z. and her friends through the Utah desert. He starts to talk about Pokémon.

"I bring it up because my university thesis was about Pokemon in particular how Pokemon has basically trained an entire generation of children to think in a completely different way than preceding generations my generation for instance our fad was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles now I don't know how much you know about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but from an educational standpoint we're talking absolute bankrupt complete and utter goose egg but Pokemon now Pokemon you see it's more like there's some substance to it you know that refrain Gotta Catch Em All right?" "..." "Well to most parents it looks like a marketing gimmick you make one hundred fifty-one characters and structure a game around collecting them the merchandising potential is astronomical kids buy one hundred fifty-one trading cards stickers coloring books figurines uh collectable lunchable toys I'm sure you've got some yourself."

He continues:

"But really you look at the game itself before the big toy explosion the game itself the focus is placed less on the collection and more on the catalogue you're given a blank encyclopedia to fill and you fill it by capturing one hundred fifty-one Pokemon but the goal is to create a complete database of each and every one and this is what I argue is the educational core of the Pokemon series." His hands left the wheel to conceive of his idea in the cool air of the car, which remained steady on its ever-forward path. "Our modern era is no longer one of singular isolated knowledge it is one of the catalogue the database which is most clearly personified in the advent of the internet because now all knowledge can be at the fingertips of any one human being all that is needed is someone to go and put the catalogue together and presto whiz bang it's there think about it Z. when you catch a bunch of Pokemon where do you store them?" Z. didn't need to think long to remember the game's mechanics. "In the PC." "Exactly now isn't that odd consider it in real life terms you have real life creatures made assumedly of flesh and bone and yet you store them in a computer how does that make sense you'd expect a farm or a holding pen but no it's the computer and that too prepares the budding portion of the millennial generation to become cognizant of the linkage between the computer the encyclopedia and the database structure of knowledge in a new era." "So," said Z. "So you're saying Pokemon taught kids how to think in the digital age?"

There's also a deleted character in Modern Cannibals. Well, mostly deleted—he still shows up, unnamed, in a couple of pages. He is Cole Coulter, Z.'s older brother, a popular League of Legends streamer. Before I deleted him, his role was to accompany Mrs. Roddlevan and Frederick in an attempt to bring Z. back home. He had POV scenes that gave insight into the weirdness of his cotravelers, but ultimately, I decided he didn't add anything to the story and removed him almost entirely.

Even then, though, I was already considering the future of Cole Coulter as the protagonist of a story about League of Legends esports. Playing under the ID MadKing, he would be a North American professional top laner, once known for his aggressive duelist style but recently forced into playing boring tanks as the esports metagame became more sophisticated and tactics-based.

The story would be simple, something I envisioned as a "sports story" only about esports instead of regular sports. It would start with Cole's team being relegated from the league, only for Cole to get a last chance signing to a new team with two promising Korean imports. One import, the mid laner, would be a charismatic and eccentric player in the mold of Doinb/Ganked By Mom/Huhi, while the other, an AD carry, would be introverted and pissy and elitist, in the mold of Piglet. The team would initially struggle, cultures would clash, then a mid-season replacement to sign a psychopathic Tyler1/Tarzaned style streamer as jungler would revitalize the team, put them on a major run, and get them to the World Championship. Though they would eventually fall after a miracle run, Cole would get a moment to truly shine on the biggest stage when he won a pivotal game by aggressive split pushing rather than tank play.

Thematically, the story would be about two things. First, a counterpoint to the idea of American exceptionalism, featuring a league where Americans are particularly bad compared to Korean or Chinese players. Second, an exploration of what it means to be exceptional at all. Cole would be an all-around mediocre person. Middling at school, at (real) sports, at the various popularity contests of being a teenager. League of Legends, this niche sub-sport, is the one thing he truly excelled at, the one place where he was good, better than 99.9 percent of all players, and yet even within that statistical greatness he wound up, ultimately, in a professional scene where he was once again mediocre, relegated to "tank duty," to facilitating other players to carry.

What does it mean to be the best? How can someone be so, so good, only to reach a level where they were still nothing special? Is there any way to win if you're not "the man who always wins"?

I remembered that panel from Electric Tale of Pikachu. The last people filtered before the final champion. It's certainly no walk in the zoo!

This idea was pretty detailed for a story I never wound up writing, something I mostly blame on the years 2018 and 2019, when a lot of bad things happened to me and in retrospect I consider it a minor miracle I managed to finish Chicago at all. As a human being, I would be decimated for the next three years, and so a lot of stories I might have written in that time never came to fruition.

Meanwhile, League of Legends esports reached a peak, then the venture capital bubble burst as investors realized there was no monetization scheme in place for any interested party except Riot Games. Money hemorrhaged out, Riot shifted resources to Valorant, and a sport that had been overinflated based on projected exponential growth in perpetuity fell back down to earth.

Also, Players came out.

Players was a 2022 mockumentary about a fictional League of Legends team competing in the North American league. Conceptually, it was doing a lot of what I had planned for my story: following a single team on a rags-to-riches run, focusing on the interpersonal drama of the team members, asking questions about greatness and its pursuit. It's a pretty good show if you're familiar with League of Legends esports at all, with a lot of on-the-ground fidelity that gives it an authentic feel, which is exactly what I had been hoping to use my esports fanaticism to accomplish. It completely took the wind out of my sails; it was like my idea had already been done.

So by 2022, the idea of a League of Legends esports story was dead. But there was still a drive to create something with that spirit, that would delve into those themes.

What remained after all these years of sifting the sieve, letting sand slip through, was that one panel from the manga. The number of people pursuing greatness slowly filtering until only one remained. And if I wasn't going to pursue that idea through League of Legends, maybe I could pursue it through another vehicle. Maybe the vehicle through which the idea had originally been exposed to me. Pokémon. It all came back to Pokémon.

V. Everything Evolving Into Crabs

I knew immediately that if I were to write a Pokémon fic, it would be a tournament arc. This was the natural evolution of my esports story idea. Also, if I were to write Pokémon, I wanted it to be a story about utopia, immersed within Pokémon's near-future ideal world, where everything is clean and healthy, where society is neat and ordered.

This idea caused me to remember the novel Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley, which I had read a few years back. A mostly autobiographical bildungsroman written on the precipice of World War II, the novel ends with the young protagonist on a journey to Central America, where he meets an idealistic doctor who believes sport to be a proper substitution for war. He tells the story of two tribes locked in internecine conflict through generations, able to replace that violence with soccer matches.

And wasn't that what the world of Pokémon was, a utopia revolving around neutralizing weapons of war by using them for competitive sport?

This tournament, I envisioned, would not simply be about deciding who was best, but an ideological battle for the future of the Pokémon world. To that end, I imagined a war between an entrenched trainer class, who competed as philosopher-warriors, intense individuals with deep connections to their Pokémon, and an upstart commercialization that sought to replace the ideological underpinnings that made their society so safe and prosperous with economic accumulation. It was from this kernel that the character who would become Aracely Sosa arose: charismatic, appealing, human-empathic, and propped up by a support staff who did all the hard work of teambuilding for her.

I imagined the story having an ensemble cast, focusing on nearly every competitor equally, with the Aracely character not having any especial focus until her improbable rise to the top. I imagined a final round where she faced off against "the man who always wins," and though she would lose to him, she would seem to have won the ideological battle, altering the course of society as major corporations scrambled to employ her formula for success at a much grander scale. The story would end with this realization of the earth-shattering importance behind her run, only for Aracely to sink in disappointment. Because in the end, all she really wanted was to win.

The more I thought about it, though, the less I liked the idea of an ensemble cast. The ensemble cast element of Chicago hadn't gone over very well (though I like it), and I figured it would wind up inflating the length of the story considerably. I was coming to the end of Cleveland Quixotic, after all, and once more wanted to write something smaller, tighter, and denser.

So I oriented my thinking to instead have the story revolve around Aracely and one major rival, to give an interpersonal mirror to the ideological war being waged. Thus, Toril came about as an antithesis to everything I had imagined Aracely to be: gruff, antisocial, independent. Their rivalry would culminate in a semifinals battle, before Aracely went on to fight "the man who always wins" in the finals.

I forget exactly when the gender theme came into the equation, but it evolved as an outgrowth of (once again) my competitive League of Legends expertise, where women are essentially nonexistent despite there seemingly being no biological blocks against them. This dovetailed nicely with Pokémon, a world where women seemingly could be powerful competitors, but where—in the anime at least—none ever are. For instance, look at this chart of every major tournament in the anime:

Every known winner is male. Every known finalist and semifinalist is male. Only a handful of female characters have reached the quarterfinals. What possible in-universe justification could there be for that?

This question was actually far more prominent in early planning and drafting than it wound up being in the final work. Initially, I had Aracely's personal motivation revolve around a drive to be the first female trainer to win; this would increase the ideological conflict between her and Toril, who attempted to ignore that she was female altogether. Over time, this theme would see diminished importance in face of the last piece of the thematic puzzle: cults.

It came from reading Underground by Haruki Murakami, a nonfiction journalistic account of the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks carried out by the cult Aum Shinrikyo under the direction of its leader Shoko Asahara. Japan in the 90s was experiencing its own End of History, one taken literally by those disaffected with modern society's grand narrative. The prophecies of Nostradamus became fashionable among the young, who believed that 1999 would be the final year before the world was destroyed. Murakami interviewed both survivors of the gas attack and members of Aum Shinrikyo, collecting worldviews of people who simply thought they were "different" and who were willing to give everything in their lives to the one place that seemed to accept that difference.

The 1995 attacks were a watershed moment in Japanese culture. In their wake would come pivotal works of Japanese pop media, like the titan of otaku culture, Neon Genesis Evangelion:

(What's scary about Nostradamus' prophecy is that it might not come true. A year whose chief terror was that THIS WAS IT.)

Pokémon, whose first games released in Japan in 1996, also emerged within this post-Aum world where fixation on the minutiae of pop media was becoming a primary pillar of meaning for the youth, and it's hard not to see echoes of cultism in the evil teams that dot the series' landscape. Even Team Rocket, originally more modeled on organized crime than occultism, veers that direction in Gold and Silver, and afterward the organizations and their world-ending plots become increasingly absurd, to the point where it starts to become unclear why anyone would ever follow, say, Lysandre.

As I mentioned earlier, my personal interest in Pokémon was at odds with these clownish, Saturday morning cartoon villain organizations, but Murakami's account of the Aum attacks recontextualized them for me, made them make sense even within the framework of a "realistic" utopian world. The last elements snapped into place, and I knew my main character would be the member of one of these cults. A cult dedicated to, what else? Evolution. A core element of the Pokémon series, a perfect metaphor for the frustrating lack of movement of the End of History 90s. I imagined a cult leader as a surrogate mother figure for Aracely, who would have a strained relationship with both of her own parents, and deciding on that, the idea of making Pokémon's canon evil mother Lusamine the villain was a no-brainer. I imagined a post-SuMo Lusamine, unable to move on from her experience merged with Nihilego, languishing in Kanto after being sent there to consult with Bill, who had his own experience being merged with a Pokémon... It didn't take long to figure out how all these pieces connected.

The full form of the story had taken shape.

VI. Showdown

I knew immediately I would be following Showdown rules for the battles. No alternative even crossed my mind. I had dabbled in Showdown a few times over the years, first in Gen 3 OUs, then later in Gen 7 OUs, and I knew from experience that Pokémon is a monumentally more interesting competitive game when operating at a high level compared to either its depiction in the anime (shounen logic, mid-fight evolutions) or the general playing experience (spam your best move on your overleveled starter). I knew I would use competitive rulesets before I even considered the thematic or worldbuilding aspect I would eventually take in the story itself (i.e., that the specific rulesets prevent battles from becoming bloodsport and enforce order on the world). I simply thought doing battles this way would be far more entertaining.

To prepare, I started playing Gen 9 OUs under the guidance of a few friends who were into the competitive scene. I grinded the ladder for months, eventually getting a good enough grasp on the metagame to reach 1500 Elo on the Showdown ladder, which is not very good but generally higher than someone can reach with dumb luck.

Crafting the tournament format and rulesets used in the story wasn't difficult. I modeled the tournament format on the League of Legends World Championship, with region-based seeds (having been selected due to performance in regional tournaments) competing in four groups before the highest performers advanced to a single elimination bracket. Initially, I envisioned a 32-competitor bracket instead of the 16-competitor bracket that would appear in the final draft, but otherwise the format came quickly and easily.

In terms of the rulesets and available Pokémon, my considerations were made primarily in terms of what would be most entertaining to read. I decided to include Mega Evolutions and not include Z Moves, Dynamax, or Terastallization, because Mega Evolutions are cool and those other gimmicks are not. The bring-9-pick-6 format, while unusual in Showdown rulesets, is similar to the rules in Pokémon Stadium and VGC tournaments, and also adds a level of intrigue to which Pokémon each competitor uses. (It also enabled Red's Zapdos at the climax of the story, which was something I knew I would bring out from very early on.)

With the help of one of my friends who knew competitive Pokémon, I scripted out each battle assiduously before I wrote them. Every battle was tested using Showdown itself, with only a few turns mocked up to account for luck. For instance, in Aracely versus Jinjiao, Slowking is meant to stay asleep for three turns. Rather than rely on luck to ensure Slowking actually slept that long during the test, I could give Slowking a useless move and have him use that instead to simulate being asleep.

The only thing that couldn't be tested in Showdown was the 7 PP Kingambit trick Red uses at the end of the story, because it's impossible to set a Pokémon to have fewer than max PP in Showdown. This led to one of the bigger mistakes of the story, as it turns out that Encore would simply wear off if Kingambit ran out of PP, rather than forcing him to use Struggle like I assumed. Luckily, even if this were the case, it wouldn't change the outcome of the battle, so it's not an error I lose too much sleep over.

Character teams were chosen to thread the needle between a few considerations. The team needed to be competitively viable, reflect the character's personality in some way, and be distinct from other teams for the sake of variety. (Variety is somewhat unrealistic in real top-level competitive Pokémon, where you'll often see many almost identical teams in the top ranks. But that would be boring.) Some lack of optimization was allowed under the conceit that actually training these Pokémon to peak form would take a lot of time in the real world, compared to Showdown were optimization can be determined quickly due to the ability to immediately adjust stats and builds.

I also tried to give some preference for Pokémon that would be more familiar to layman fans, though this was difficult because Gen 8 and 9 have outrageous power creep and many popular early generation Pokémon have been completely phased out. (Using Megas helped with this issue.) It was this consideration that led to Azumarill being Aracely's ace. There was also an innate challenge to imagining what the competitive scene would look like without legendary Pokémon. Zapdos and Landorus-Therian have been inexorable staples of the competitive scene for generations. What happens in a world where they aren't used at all?

In the original 32-person bracket, I imagined Aracely competing against Jinjiao in the first round, then minor characters Adrian da Cunha and Jacq Ray Johnson in the next two rounds, before facing Toril in semifinals. I imagined Adrian da Cunha as a "hometown hero" whose team wasn't great but he was plucky with a lot of grit, and Jacq Ray Johnson as a self-aware heel who liked to use cheesy strategies and gimmicky Pokémon like Smeargle and Ditto. Condensing from 32 to 16 occurred around the same time I had settled on Lusamine as my villain/cult leader, which led to replacing those two with Gladion. I developed full brackets for both the 32-man and 16-man iterations, with character names and regions, just in case I ever needed to mention them.

All that was left to do was write the story.

VII. Unbroken Line of History

I began writing in September 2023 under the tentative title Unbroken Line of History, which I would later change to simply Lines. In the original drafts, I opened the story with a modified version of the panel from Electric Tale of Pikachu detailing how people are filtered over time in their pursuit of being the best, this time starting with all 8 billion people in the world until only one remains. The story then cut to Aracely's perspective in the restroom as she mentally prepared for her final group stage match.

At this point I was more set on Aracely being the clear protagonist of the story, so she had a few facets of her personality designed around that. First, as I mentioned before, there was a feminist angle where she was motivated specifically to be the first female trainer to win the championship. Secondly, I threw in some more generic nervousness/fear of failure. The other major difference is that I did not lead with the cult prophecy of the world ending. I originally envisioned the cult reveal to be a mid-story twist, and only obliquely hinted at it.

The scene still played out with Toril appearing and the two getting off to a bad start. Then, Cely's father tried to talk strategy with her while she ignored him, before the battle transpired in much the same form as it does in the final draft.

I showed this early draft to my friends and most disliked it. My girlfriend at the time told me Cely sounded like an edgy 13-year-old boy, while my neuroscientist friend whose aspirational idol is Bondrewd from Made in Abyss wanted to know more about the oblique hints of a cult, finding everything else boring. Another friend said it was stupid that there were 30 seconds between turns during the battle and that the Pokémon should just go at each other; nobody would actually want to watch a battle that was paced so slowly. (I vehemently disagreed with that take. Basically every popular sport balances between slow-paced moments of strategy and fast-paced moments of action and execution.) Some people I showed it to did enjoy it, though. Gazemaize, the author of Chili and the Chocolate Factory, was especially enamored by the Brittany/Gardevoir reveal and the Bud Light Analyst Desk, and implored me to keep both of those elements at all costs. 7th, one of my friends who helped me with the Showdown stuff, was so into it she drew fan art of all the characters (which I've posted before) and also wrote eight pornographic short stories about them.

I rewrote the same opening scene several times across October and November, though these were minor iterations without significant adjustments. Frustrated with the lack of progress, I decided to take a break from writing to simply think about the story for a few months.

During this time, to fix Aracely's edgy 13-year-old voice, I decided to lean into her being from Pokémon Los Angeles (with her native region, Visia, being a play on "visual" as a reference to Hollywood) and gave her a Valley Girl accent. To prepare for this, I listened to hours and hours of ASMR videos of people speaking like Valley Girls and took notes on their inflection and syntax. It was here where I decided on Aracely's underlining quirk, as a way of capturing the unique style of emphasis Valley Girls used.

This also made me realize I needed to adjust Aracely's personality. Despite the tone of her voice, she was still acting antisocially. She didn't want to talk to her father, she didn't want to talk to Lachlan Nguyen, she didn't even really want to talk to Toril. Toril herself was a lump of coal. My own misanthropy kept leaking into the characters, even when I conceptually didn't want them to have it. I thought back to Cleveland Quixotic, and how what made the Jay and Viviendre romance work was that they actually both liked each other, and figured—even though I didn't have explicitly romantic plans for Aracely and Toril—that I needed to do something similar to make their rivalry truly pop. Rather than avoid people, Aracely would lean into talking to them, even if they were annoying. Although Toril remained frigid, there would be a part of her yearning for emotional contact, a way to coax her out of her shell.

I also thought deeply about the structure of my stories in general, and my inability to come up with good hooks. It was around this time that someone I knew was reading Chicago. They pointed out that the plot of Chicago doesn't really start until Chapter 26; that I was "burying the lede." I considered this. My logic, when writing Chicago, was that the Empire moving to take over Washington would be a twist, something that would shock and excite people and change their perception of the entire story.

But did that make sense, when really the story was "about" that twist? Didn't that just make everything before the twist harder to get into for a reader? Chicago might look radically different if I revealed the Empire's goals immediately, but it would also probably be a more immediately engaging work. I'm a big fan of delayed gratification in storytelling, but had I taken it too far?

This was a major revelation for me, and immediately I understood what I needed to do for my Pokémon story: move up the cult plotline. Place it front and center. Name the whole story after it even. I decided on framing the opening scene from Toril's perspective, depicting Aracely initially more as an alien other, emphasizing the fact that she was in a cult rather than hide it behind foreshadowing. This could also lead to Aracely and Toril having more of a dual protagonist setup, which would make my planned two-half finale (one half where Aracely battled "the man who always wins," one half where Toril got involved in stopping the cult's doomsday plot) work even better.

Confidence resurged. At the end of January 2024, my girlfriend of seven years  and I broke up. A few days later, I started writing the sixth—and ultimately final—draft of When I Win the World Ends.

VIII. When I Win the World Ends

Now it's the part of the Making Of where I actually make the thing I'm supposed to be making, but there's a lot less to say about it. Once I have a plan, the actual writing of the story is the easy part, and most of what I wrote—with a few exceptions—looks similar to the story as it exists now.

There were some oddities. I wrote the first seven chapters (everything up to the end of the Jinjiao battle) and then had to take a two week break to write a short piece for a writing contest I had entered in December as part of an effort to stop overthinking WIW. After this interruption, I returned to WIW writing perhaps a bit more perfunctorily than I usually would, leading to an original version of Chapter 8 (the chapter where MOTHER makes her first real appearance) that was short and abbreviated. Later, in editing, I would rewrite most of this chapter.

A few ideas emerged while writing, like the motif of serendipity/Logos, which I felt tied nicely to the ideas of evolution and history. It was also in this draft that I introduced Cely's friends Haydn and Charlie, as a nod to an earlier work of mine also featuring a fashion-obsessed girl from Los Angeles. (Speaking of nods to earlier works, in the original 32-man bracket, Cole Coulter featured as one of the competitors, but he didn't make the 16-man cut.)

The process went smoothly. I finished the draft at the end of May, a little under four months after I started it. I had envisioned the full story as being about 70,000 words, but the draft ended up closer to 115,000. Underestimating story length is just an essential element of the trade, though.

A few days after finishing the draft I went on a four-day Oklahoma Darkness Retreat where I had access to zero electronics. The goal was to think about my story deeply and how it could be improved in the editing process.

In this time chamber, where I did nothing except complete crossword puzzles and read The Recognitions by William Gaddis, I came to a realization. There was one element the story needed that wasn't already there.

That element was Sabrina. In the original draft, Sabrina was not present during the scene where Aracely meets the Old Man. She was mentioned obliquely a couple of times in conjunction with Aracely's "psychic powers," but it never really built to anything. There was still a scene where Aracely was interrogated due to her relationship with MOTHER, but only by nameless goons, and the scene lacked tension as it was clear Aracely could talk circles around them.

When I returned from Oklahoma, I prepared for my conception of Sabrina as a character by writing an 8,000 word short story from her perspective, which hashed out an entire backstory for her. Then, I started editing the draft.

For me, a lot of editing is just polish. Usually, cutting out needless sentences and fixing clunky ones, as well as emphasizing a few of the more understated themes and motifs. For instance, during editing, I made slight additions to emphasize the thematic connection between Aracely's suicide attempt and the global war that almost destroyed the world, as well as the connection between the moon and cyclical insanity (lunacy, etymologically, being related to the moon). I made the Old Man more of a Walt Disney-esque figure (from my notes: "a dying Disney"), rewriting much of his dialogue to either be direct quotes or to evoke his ideals. I also expanded on several of the scenes where Toril and Aracely interact to make their relationship more complex and nuanced. I gave MOTHER some new dialogue, including her speech in Chapter 18 about loving a child for the potential it promises, while also paradoxically wanting it to remain a child forever.

The largest changes were in the three chapters I almost fully rewrote. The first was Chapter 8, which as I mentioned earlier was overly terse. In the original draft, it depicted MOTHER as more pathetic, more dependent on Aracely. I decided to make her a more threatening figure, and incorporated a few references to the Moloch sacrifice scene from Valle Verde to make her seem more like a false idol. Similarly, I rewrote Chapter 12, which was originally a very short chapter that focused solely on a conversation between MOTHER and Nilufer that ended with the order to kidnap Aracely. In rewriting the chapter to include Fiorella, I gave myself more opportunity to flesh out the respective philosophies of her and MOTHER (including some of the story's most salient discussions about why cults exist), as well as give more of an insight into the inner workings of RISE as an organization. And lastly, I fully rewrote Chapter 19 to include Sabrina.

The last changes I made in editing were to the final chapter. When I finished the final draft of the story, I sent it to several readers, many of whom had looked at the original drafts of the first chapter, as well as julirites, the author of a Fargo fan fiction called London. There was an immediate and minor backlash to the final chapter, which was originally much more pessimistic, from most people who read it. In the original version, Aracely and Toril were not still in communication. (Fiorella was also dying of cancer instead of jockeying to replace the Old Man.) The finale had a much more somber, sedate, tragic note. Juli and 7th disliked this sad ending, while Gazemaize wanted me to cut the final chapter altogether. I felt confident that the final chapter was necessary, though, and revised it to its current version, which was much better liked.

And then... the story was finished, near the end of July. I crunched the numbers and realized that if I posted two chapters to start and then did a twice-weekly posting schedule, I could end the story serendipitously on October 12. So I did.

IX. Names and Special Thanks

In my Making Of post for Cleveland Quixotic, I had a fairly extensive list of where I got all the character and place names from. The list is a lot less extensive here; most names I constructed for the purpose of sounding evocative, rather than taking them from someplace specific. For instance, I chose the name Aracely Sosa because it sounds like whistling with its repeated S sounds, compared to Toril Lund which is a lot harsher with its consonants. You can see a similar rationale behind names like Fiorella Fiorina, Yui Matsui, and even some of the background characters, like Jacq Ray Johnson, Jr., where there is a lot of emphasis on alliteration and rhyme.

There are a couple of exceptions. Jinjiao is the in-game ID of a longtime Chinese League of Legends pro of middling notability. He picked the name (which means "Golden Horn") as a reference to the Golden Horned King, a villain from Journey to the West.

Lutz, Fiorella's cameraman, was named after an extremely minor character from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, who is not playable and only appears in a singular cutscene before being killed. They are so irrelevant that despite naming a character after them, I actually forgot their name, which is Lotz, not Lutz.

Haydn is named after the famous classical composer.

Special thanks to 7th and Elick320 for helping me with the teams and battles. Thanks to Gazemaize and julirites, among others unnamed, for reading and providing feedback. And thank you all for enjoying the story.

[bsd-bibliophile]

Happy Birthday Miyazawa Kenji-sensei!

To celebrate Miyazawa Kenji’s birthday here are his top three quotes from my blog:

Quote #3:

"That night, when the moon was near to sinking behind the western mountain range, it peeked its face out just enough from the bank of black clouds to fill the field with a last bit of dull, ashen light. The bare winter trees, the railroad ties, and the utility poles were all fast asleep. Only the sound of what could have been either the far-off blowing of the wind or the gurgling of a brook remained."

- Miyazawa Kenji, “Signal and Signal-less” from Night on the Galactic Railroad and Other Stories from Ihatov

Quote #2:

Be not defeated by the rain, Nor let the wind prove your better. Succumb not to the snows of winter. Nor be bested by the heat of summer.

Be strong in body. Unfettered by desire. Not enticed to anger. Cultivate a quiet joy. Count yourself last in everything. Put others before you. Watch well and listen closely. Hold the learned lessons dear.

A thatch-roof house, in a meadow, nestled in a pine grove’s shade.

A handful of rice, some miso, and a few vegetables to suffice for the day.

If, to the East, a child lies sick: Go forth and nurse him to health. If, to the West, an old lady stands exhausted: Go forth, and relieve her of burden. If, to the South, a man lies dying: Go forth with words of courage to dispel his fear. If, to the North, an argument or fight ensues: Go forth and beg them stop such a waste of effort and of spirit.

In times of drought, shed tears of sympathy. In summers cold, walk in concern and empathy.

Stand aloof of the unknowing masses: Better dismissed as useless than flattered as a “Great Man”.

This is my goal, the person I strive to become.

- Miyazawa Kenji, ”Be not Defeated by the Rain”

Quote #1:

You who go through rice paddies in the rain, you who hurry toward leviathan woods, you who walk into the gloom of clouds and mountains, fasten up your raincoat, damn it.

- Miyazawa Kenji, “Traveler” from Miyazawa Kenji: Selections

[sarafinamk]

Fallen Angel (Reader Insert) Incorrect Quotes Part 3

The Smiling Critters Space Riders Au and the character "Z" belongs to @onyxonline

If you haven't checked out the Fallen Angel (Reader Insert) series, you can check it out here. The reader will be referred to as both (Y/n) and Archangel. Enjoy!

Warning: Cursing

----------

Bobby: Don't break someone's heart, they only have one.

Archangel: Break one of their bones instead, they have 206 of them.

----------

Crafty: Do you guys ever have a civilized conversation that doesn't require insulting each other every time you get a chance?

Z: No.

Archangel: No.

Crafty: Didn't think so.

----------

Archangel: I've invited you here because I crave the deadliest game...

Hoppy, nodding: Knife Monopoly.

Archangel: I was actually going to play Russian Roulette, but now I'm really interested in whatever knife Monopoly is.

----------

Archangel: I found a note in one of my old logs that said Note to self: Get revenge on Captain Dogday.

Archangel: Except I couldn't remember what I was supposed to get revenge for.

Archangel: But I trusted my own judgment, so I went with it.

Dogday: Hmm... I don't know what you were supposed to get revenge for, either.

Archangel: I can only assume you got what was coming to you. Not 100 percent sure, though.

Dogday: Well, whatever I did, I guess I deserved it.

Archangel: Let that possibly be a lesson to you.

----------

Archangel: The only thing keeping me from running away and hiding from society for the rest of my life is spite. I could disappear forever, but there are some bitches whose downfalls I have yet to witness, and I wanna be around when that happens.

----------

Poppy: Your archangel was in a fight.

Dogday: Oh no, that's terrible!

Catnap: Did they win?

----------

Dogday: Did Z just tell me he loved me for the first time?

Archangel: Yeah, he did.

Dogday: And did I just do finger guns back?

Archangel: Yeah, you did.

----------

Archangel, watching Hoppy do something stupid: Kickin, you're officially only the second highest risk here...

Kickin: Hell yeah! I'm gonna-

Archangel: Don't finish that sentence, you'll move back up.

----------

Archangel: How do ethical philosophers feel about murder?

Bubba: Well, it's frowned upon.

Archangel: Okay, but what if the reason you want to murder someone is to make your life easier?

Archangel: That's okay, right?

----------

Bobby: And now for a gay update with Captain Dogday and Z.

Dogday: Getting gayer.

Bobby: Thank you, Captain.

----------

Bubba to Archangel: We call that a traumatic experience.

Bubba, turning to Catnap: Not a "bruh moment."

Bubba, turning to Kickin: Not "sadge."

Bubba, turning to Hoppy: And DEFINITELY not an "oof LMAO."

----------

Archangel: Why do you look like that, Captain?

Dogday, laying face-first on the floor: Like what?

Archangel: Like you're dead.

Dogday: It's because I'm dying. Leave me here to perish.

Catnap: Dogday accidentally called Z "babe" in front of everyone today.

Dogday: *sobs into the floor*

----------

Archangel: What's this?

Bobby, hugging Archangel: Affection!

Archangel: Disgusting.

Archangel:... Do it again.

----------

Kickin: You know, (Y/n), when you generalize, you tell general... lies.

Archangel: ...

Archangel: Are you trying to teach me moral lessons through puns?

----------

*One of the many, MANY fights before the events of Fallen Angel*

Dogday: You tricked me!

Archangel: I deceived you. 'Trick' makes it sound like we have a friendly relationship.

----------

Archangel: Here's a fun Christmas idea. We hang mistletoe, but instead of kissing, you have to FIGHT whoever else is under it.

Dogday: (Y/n), no.

Hoppy and Catnap: Mistlefoe.

Dogday: Please stop encouraging them.

----------

Archangel: I have a plan.

Dogday: No murder!

Archangel: ...

Dogday: ...

Archangel: I no longer have a plan.

----------

Archangel: If I die, you can have what little I own.

Bobby: Wait. What do you mean "if" you die?

Archangel: My unending existence is fueled by pure spite, that of which the painful experiences of life have rendered me full.

Bobby:

Bubba, sighing: Let me call your therapist again.

----------

Archangel: I'm bored, any suggestions?

Catnap: Sleeping is nice.

Archangel: I acknowledge your suggestion, and I'm deciding to ignore it.

----------

Hoppy: You think you're smarter than everyone else.

Bubba: I don't think I'm smarter than everyone else. I know I am.

----------

Kickin: So, I MEANT to say: "Oh crap, I left my phone my car," but what I ALMOST said was "Oh no, I left my cone in my phar," and damn, wouldn't that have been embarrassing, but I caught myself, and what I ACTUALLY said was:

Kickin: "Ah, my fart cone."

Kickin: So, anyway...

----------

Archangel: I know you don't have to listen to me...

Z: Glad we agree on something.

----------

Dogday: Do you have any skeletons in your closet?

Archangel: You mean literally or figuratively?

Dogday: Honestly, the fact that I have to specify...

----------

Dogday: (Y/n), I am questioning your sanity...

Hoppy: I never questioned it. I knew their sanity was missing from the start.

----------

Catnap: Why is Hoppy rolling on the floor laughing? And what happened to Kickin's head?

Archangel, sighing: Kickin was about to hit his head on the door frame, so I told him to duck and he quacked at me.

Archangel: And then he hit his head.

Catnap: *wheezes*

[tixdixl]

I need my 日本語を話せられない TWST friends (non-Japanese speaking) to know that my buddy who is an L2 Japanese language teacher (with an MA in East Asian Studies) and I (who is an L2 Japanese learner with an MA in Sociolinguistics) have been dying over this colloquial grammatical construction that we keep seeing in the voice lines of History/Flight and Alchemy lessons: 朝から (asa kara)

Neither of us can figure out how to properly translate this construction, and every time TWST adds a new line with it, or we come across a line we hadn't see before, we immediately message one another in our confusion and have a conniption over it. We had questioned whether or not it was an example of "anime dialect", but after finding plenty of examples of it being used on Japanese twitter, we realized that it is definitely a colloquialism that's used in everyday speech.

For discussion purposes, keep in mind 朝 (asa) means "morning" and から (kara) is the particle causing the translation issues.

The thing you have to understand is that in Japanese classrooms and in Japanese grammar books - including Japanese grammar books FOR native speakers the particle construction ____から (kara)____まで(made) functions like "from ___ until ____" in English.

Except that's not how its being used in TWST. The まで portion of the particle construction never shows up in any of the examples that I've pulled from TWST.

Examples include (but are not limited to):

Cater (History): 朝からいい感じ (asa kara ii kanji)

いい = "good"

感じ = "feeling" (like a vibe or emotion)

Official Localization: "Off to a good start today!"

Cater (History): 朝から頑張らね (asa kara ganbara ne)

頑張らね ≈ "let's do well"

Official Localization: "Early bird gets the worm, I guess."*

*Footnote: While the translation here isn't literal, this line makes me openly question if 朝から is actually a set up for an idiomatic phrase in Japanese but I will discuss more later...

Jade (History): 朝から元気でそね (asa kara genki desu ne)

元気 = "in good health" or "well"

です= formal, present tense of the closest equivalent of "to be"

ね = equivalent tag is "right?" or "yeah?"

Official Localization: "You have a lot of energy in the morning."**

**Footnote: This localization is just painfully off from the intended meaning? But we're keeping it here to prove a point.

Malleus (History): 朝から退屈だ

退屈 = Tedium or boredom

だ = informal past tense of です

Official Localization: "It's early, and I'm already bored."

(A fun side note: This exact quote was found verbatim on Japanese twitter when we were searching for language samples.)

Sebek (Alchemy): 朝から再ないこだな

再ない ≈ not again

再ないこだな ≈ its the same again /its repeating (with a declarative verb conjugation, implying that the audience already understands and agrees)***

***Footnote: I kind of get the sense that he's basically saying "It's another morning and it's the same shit again", but not literally. Because he is clearly using a negative declaration here and the implication of the repetition "from the morning, its the same again" kind of gives me the reading similar to "Not this shit again".

Official Localization: "Someone awoke in a foul mood."

Additional translator's note: Because the subject is repeatedly dropped from each example here, and the only ones that indicate any inclusion of an outside party are Cater's second example and Jade's example because of the inclusion of the pragmatic tag, I am operating under the assumption that each student is likely speaking about themselves. This creates a bit of conflict in my understanding when compared to the localizations, because the localizers keep making a referential to an outside party ("someone").

You can tell from the official localizations that they are localized in such a way that its seamless for English speakers, but the translations often aren't or can't be literal. The localizers also repeatedly use idiomatic phrases in their translations where contrastingly, the predicate of the sentence (after the time placement) don't necessarily use phrases that I recognize as being used in idiomatic contexts. This creates an issue since we can't use them as a reference for being able to figure out what から does/how it functions in the sentence as a grammatical element that also changes the meaning of the sentence. The closest thing we've been able to guess about the use of から in these lines is that it might mean "From" or "Because of", which we pulled from one of the Grammar Books that she uses to help teach. The chart can be seen here:

But if that's the case, Cater's second line doesn't exactly make sense? Nor does Sebek's line? And for that reason, I have to wonder whether or not 朝から is used as a formulaic set up and if that set up is idiomatic in nature.

Both of us for literal months have been scrounging the internet in hopes that we can find any sort of clue as to how to understand this construction and/or to identify whether or not its specifically a colloquial usage to signify an idiomatic phrase is being used. One of the big flaws though is we haven't exactly been able to find any evidence on sites like Word Reference forums of the use of から in any potentially idiomatic way, and the localizations suggest that it could either be idiomatic or literal. We also haven't found any other site that uses or references から without まで.

At this point, it's entirely possible I'm overthinking it? But I'm genuinely confused and want to better understand it so I can improve my overall Japanese comprehension.

I honestly just wanted to share this because it's been both a fun and also frustrating learning journey, and also because I'm hoping maybe there's another person out here who 日本語と英語を話せまそ that might also recognize or know this construction and helps us understand it better. ^^;

[queensilber]

Supernatural: Witch‘s Canyon

Posting everything in this book that i think you need to know, lets go!

Summary:

Okay, so, the boys head to the Grand Canyon to solve a case of a fourty-year murder cycle. The spirits of variouse humans and animals alike attack the locals and they need to find out why and how to stop it.

It is set somewhere in Season two.

My opinion:

This was so much fun. Like, it was really like watching an episode, just a lot longer and with the magic ability to see into Sam and Deans (and a bunch of other characters) heads.

It also gave a little bit of a fanfiction vibe, just with the addidtion that everything is cannon and that all the random little facts and quotes are a real thing (i‘ll list those in a second)

And also there were flashbacks of their childhood??? That made me cry??? I hated john winchester before, but now even more so. (More about the flashbacks below too)

So yea, it was definetly worth it and i cant wait to read the others!!

Songs:

This is the music Sam and Dean listened to during the course of the book (some locals listened to music too, but i did not list those)

- „paranoid“ by Black Sabbath

- „turn the page“ by Bob Seger

- unspecified tape by Bad Company

Flashbacks:

There are two flashbacks to Sam and Dean‘s Childhood:

- the first one is Dean Remembering a time when John made him and Sam run through an obstacle course at age twelve and eight. Dean had to shoot a gun during it, Sam just had to point and yell „Bang!“.

In the process of that Sam got injured and cried and John yelled at him to keep going and that he was doing poorly. Dean comforted his brother and encouraged him, leading to sam actually making it. Sam did it and Dean cheered, but john kept yelling at them to keep going to the next obstacle.

- the second one was from when Dean was fourteen and Sam was ten. Their Dad gave them backbags and said what was in them could last them fir four days and they all went on a hike together.

In the middle of nowhere john then saud that they should not trust anyone on what they are told and left them alone, telling them that they should find their way (at very least two days of walk) back themsleves and they shouldnt have relied on him so much and he just… left.

When they checked their backbags they found that most in it was useless and they were also filled with rocks to make it seem like it was more than it was.

Thats so fucked up, like

Those are children. And the worst part, when Dean rememvers this he thinks of it almost positively because it taught him a valuable lesson. I cant even begin to describe how my heart hurt for them.

Random facts:

Here are some facts from the book, i do t know anymor if those are mentioned in the show too, but it hardly matters, i think:

- Sam outgrew Dean at the age of 16

- Dean felt gutity over Jessicas death and thought that it was a „more solid basis“ of guilt than Sam had on the matter

- Sam can differentiate between uniforms of different wars in history just by a look

- Dean hates Rats. A lot.

Quotes:

Some quotes from the book:

John Winchester hunted monsters, ghosts, demons — the creatures most people only believed in deep down in their 3:00 am hearts, abd that they laughted off when the sun was bright and their spirits high.

It was a habit Dean had picked up from Dad — reffering to what they did as a „job“. To Sam it was nore of a Mission, even a calling.

„Sammy really likes cops,“ Dean said. „If he didnt have any talents he might have become one“

Sometimes he thought Dean wouldnt mind dying if he could go out in a blaze of glory, as the saying went. In moments of fairness, Sam knew that wasnt true. Dean didnt care about the glory; he cared about making a difference.

„I‘m coming around to the point, Sam.“ „He‘s Dean,“ Sam corrected. „I‘m Sam“. „Sorry, For some reason, you just look more like a Dean to me“

Gilmore Girls reference?

„You tried to shoot my brother“ Dean said.

Sam belived in a highter power, Dean didnt. Sam didnt have any special knowledge that Dean lacked, handt seen or heard or met God.

Lol, not yet.

Dean had been a kid, hadnt ever had a chance to become anything other than what Dad had made of him. That, finally, was the gulf between them — the canyon that could never be bridged.

Dean was an amazing guy, Sam knew, with skills and abilities most people would never imagine, and smarts Dean himself wouldnt credit, even though he relied on them all the time. And yet, at times like this, he was so humble, so unassuming, that he seemed almost unaware of the importance if his iwn contributions. At other times, of course, that humility vanished. Knowing and accepting both Deans, he guessed, was what being brothers was all about. Maybe I wouldnt want to be Dean, he thought, but i‘m sure glad I have him araound.

STOP MAKING MY CRY WTH

So anyways, that book sure was an experiance and i cant wait for the next one! I‘ll post a review of that as well and will update that post with a link to it one i‘m done!

Xoxo! <3

Next>

[cellarspider]

3/30: Meet David

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

We return to the movie I want to bite down on with all of my teeth, Prometheus.

This time, we meet a man so bored he has invented new solo sports and started doing his hair like his blorbo, T.E. Lawrence. 

Meet David (Michael Fassbender). He’s implied to be a little over two years old, and he’s been completely alone for the vast majority of his life.

Actually, I lied. The movie first wants to throw another small strain on our suspension of disbelief: David has a VR visor he can use to view the dreams of the human crew in suspended animation. This is technically a plot point, and thus it is delivered with all the grace of this deer.

I cannot emphasize enough how clunky the movie becomes when plot or deliberate character arcs are being communicated through dialog scenes. 

We find out from dream-peeping that Elizabeth Shaw’s father (horror actor Patrick Wilson) was a devout christian of some variety, possibly a missionary, and her mom  died when she was young. She was given a cross necklace, which we see in blurry montage-o-vision before David wanders off.

We see David’s routine: Pick up tiny specks of dust, send out first contact messages and receive no response, perfect the lonely sport of solo bicycle-riding shootout, eat android breakfast and take a Proto-Indo-European language lesson, watch Lawrence of Arabia (1962) while dying his roots, quote the most Definitely Not Suffering line to himself over and over again as he does his hair like Peter O’Toole and wanders the halls, waiting for something to happen. “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”

David is going to later profess to have no emotions, but I think that given the chance, he would at least admit his enclosure needs enrichment.

This is one of the strongest scenes in the movie. David is a novel creation of humanity, and he has been left alone, with only the memories and dreams of humans to extrapolate off of. He has been abandoned without thought for his needs, stuffed down into Plato's Cave. We don’t know yet whether the people on the ship see him as a person, but we know they’re thoughtless in how they’ve treated him. He’s bright, he’s inventive, he’s chosen a way he wants to be seen, but he’s seen by no one. 

I’m sure this is going to turn out great for everybody.

And as a side note, while I didn’t know it at the time, David’s language tutor is the actual historical linguist that they employed for the movie, Anil Biltoo. His and Fassbender’s pronunciations were strong enough that even a hobbyist in linguistics could tell that they were really, really trying to get it right. They even reference Schleicher’s fable, the first piece of text anyone ever created from reconstructed Proto-Indo-European. This level of nerdy detail made me excited.

Side note to the side note, Biltoo also has an introductory textbook on Sanskrit you can buy, if you’re a maniac like I am.

This scene kept part of me hopeful for the rest of the movie, because it’s so strong. The “not minding that it hurts” line is a little on the nose, but overall it has the feel of something that could be expanded into an extremely melancholy short film. Or, hell, a Tarkovsky-esque feature film. Moon (2009) could be another point of comparison. In any case, this scene gives you a little space to feel all the quiet suffering of David’s existence. 

But unfortunately for the movie as a whole, this sets David up as the most sympathetic character. I personally had already been drawn in by the promotional “advert” for the David-8 model android (see part 1). Now I was invested in this particular David’s story. The rest of the film didn’t manage to yank back much sympathy for anybody else. 

Because the general vibe I soon picked up from the rest of the crew was that they were absolute hooting jackasses.

⛬

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

⛬

Sources alt-text facts:

1. https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/how-ron-perlman-nearly-ruined-the-alien-resurrection-basketball-shot/  2. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0766970/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t50

[bre1995]

Fellow Travelers Quotes

Now some of these are my favorite quotes/interactions, but also these are some that just get me no matter how many times I watch the show.

(And yes I did watch all 8 episodes again just for this 🤭🩷)

Hawk: May I ask you a personal question? is this uh.. is this milk drinking a habit of yours?

Hawk: Down, boy, I'm no Red.

Hawk: I'll spend the afternoon picturing you kneeling in prayer.

Tim: Hawkins Z. Fuller. I'd love to know what the "Z' stands for.

H: Zebadiah.

Tim: Zedbadiah?

Hawk: Don't start

Tim: I'm your boy, right? Hmm?

Hawk: Well, well.

Tim: And your boy wants to go to the party.

Hawk: How much does he want to go?

Hawk: Now, show me what my boy really wants.

Tim: I committed mortal sins for you.

Hawk: Oh, here we go.

Tim: I could go to hell.

Hawk: Hell's a fantasy, Skippy. So is heaven, the Trinity, democracy, and the holy war against communism.

H: Here comes the sermon. You let me know when I should genuflect.

Tim: You're the coward, not me!

Tim: Unfortunately, the lock is broken.

Hawk: That's top secret, by the way.

Tim: I'll take it to my grave.

Hawk: I'm sorry, that you're dying. That not a single fucking soul gives a shit. And that you didn't knock first.

Tim: What are you - -

Hawk: Your lock's still broken downstairs.

Tim: Where have you been?

Hawk: Doesn't matter. I'm home now.

Hawk: I fell for you the first moment I laid eyes on you. Right away, I was taken by your beauty, but I was won over by your mind. To touch you, to feel your body against mine brought me more happiness than you could ever know. I know you love me. And my feelings for you are deep. But I've always known that we have no real future together...... I don't mean to hurt you. But I think it's better for both of us to part ways.

(Yes I know this is technically the letter, but you can not convince me that these were words towards Tim 100%)

Tim: And that is the last dirty thing I'm ever going to do for you.

Tim: Well, we both know my eyesight is terrible. And maybe the dementia is setting in, but I think Hawkins Fuller is standing in my apartment.

Hawk: Hi, Skippy

Tim: Yeah, it's you.

Tim: Twenty-four hours. That's a long way to travel for Chinese takeout.

Hawk: I've decided to forgive you.

Tim: Forgive me?

Hawk: You haven't called in three weeks.

Tim: Four

Hawk: How do I love thee? Let me count the weeks.

Hawk: Liste, Skippy. I wanna spend the weekend with you. Go back to the office, tell Dragon Lady you don't feel well.

Tim: Is this my birthday present?

Hawk: It's more like an education.

Tim; Educate me.

Hawk: Tim, what do you want?

Tim: I wanna be with you.

Hawk: Ok. Let's go inside.

Tim: No! No. I wanna be with you. Sleep in the same bed with you all night. Not get kicked out at midnight so the neighbors won't see me leaving in the morning! I wanna eat a meal with you like other couples. We've never eaten in a restaurant! Men do eat in restaurants! I could be your cousin.

Hawk: Nephew.

Tim: From the poor side of the family.

Hawk: Obviously.

Hawk: I needed to see you, Skippy. That's all I know.

Tim: Maybe you should give me some lessons.

Hawk: Senator Smith is a good man, Skippy.

Like you.

Hawk: Skippy, everybody lies about somethin'. You and me, we lie about who we sleep with.

Tim: Not "who we sleep with."

Hawk: What?

Tim: It'n not.... who we sleep with. It's who we love.

Hawk: Skippy, just.... Will you give me a chance?

Tim: A chance to do what?

Hawk: To.... To fuck it up again.

Tim: Are you sure?

Hawk: No. I'm not sure of anything anymore.

Tim: If he makes the appointment, we can.

Hawk: What appointment am I making?

Tim: We're going to talk about it later.

Hawk: You're right, Miss Addison. I am wonderful. So why don't you just suffer?

Hawk: Peanut butter.

Tim: They didn't have crunchy?

Hawk: No, I looked.

Tim: What, he's straight? The way that you're straight?

Tim: I can't bear being this happy.

Tim: You know, you've been rather sweet lately.

Hawk: Your Honor, I stand before you accused of being sweet.

Hawk: You trust me?

Don't answer that.

Hawk: Skippy. I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier.

Tim: Hawk. Promise you won't write.

Hawk: I won't.

Hawk: I've never gotten used to this.

Tim: My prison tattoo.

Did you forget that I'm a convicted felon?

Hawk: Nice to see you, Skippy.

Or is it Father Skippy now?

Hawk: So no vow of celibacy then?

Tim: Not yet, but I practice it.

Or try to.

I slip now and then.

Not with somebody.

Hawk: Man's second- best friend.

Tim: I'm in love with someone I can't have.

I can't stop thinking about him.

Father Lawrence: Am I to understand that you have feelings for another man?

Tim: Yes

Father Lawrence: Are you aware that the Church views this as a mortal sin?

Tim: I am. But I don't know how love can be a sin.

Tim: He'll be fine by morning.

Hawk: And you know this how?

Tim: I've experimented.

Tim: Beyond measure.

Frankie: The tragedy is you holding on to him.

Hawk: Pay no attention to these hyenas.

They don't bite.

Berry: Yes, we do.

Hawk: Hi, Skippy

Tim: Hi.

Hawk: A few years.

Tim: Eleven.

Tim: Maybe.... Maybe we should go.

Hawk: No, no, no. Look, no talking. Just like church.

Hawk: Completely?

Tim: Out of the closet. Even to my family.

Hawk: Did they call in an exorcist?

Hawk: They don't need this place.

Tim: Oh, my God.

Oh, my God, you want to hide this house from them.

Because it's on gay Fire Island.

Oh, my God.

Hawk: You are nothing but judgement. You always were. Saint Tim, the fucking holy.

Hawk: Skippy.

Tim: What?

Hawk: Skippy.

Stay with me.

Will you stay with me?

Stay with me.

Tim: Okay.

Okay, you lied.

But you didn't lie about everything.

Did you love him?

Hawk: So much,

Tim: And that love was real.

Tim: You family needs you.

Hawk: Don't you need me, Skippy?

Tim: I have you.

Tim: Maybe I shouldn't care so much.

Rafael: My darling.

There will be people that will say, "You must get over him if you want to be happy," and they will be right.

But it will also be the stupidest thing anyone ever says to you.

Hawk: Tim.

Tim: I woke up last night, and I didn't know where I was.

I knew I was in a hospital, but I couldn't remember.

I didn't know who I was.

Hawk: Timothy David Laughlin.

That adorable Catholic boy from Staten Island.

Tim: Mr. Fuller.

Hawk: Corporal Laughlin.

Tim. You broke your promise.

"Promise you won't write." You wrote.

Hawk: You sent a telegram. Very succinct.

"Hawk. The Hungarian refugees. Do something."

If the Soviets hadn't invaded Hungary, I might never have heard from you.

Tim: The epitome of marital fidelity.

Hawk: I try.

Tim: You bring men here?

Hawk: You'd be the first.

Tim: Don't believe you.

Hawk: Shut up and drink your milk.

The Army made a man out of my Skippy.

Tim: Yeah, it did.

Hawk: Yeah.

He's all grown up now.

Tim: I am.

Hawk: I want you to fuck me.

Tim: Is that a bribe?

To get me to come back?

Hawk: Do I have to bribe you to come back?

Tim: No.

I knew this was going to happen the minute I opened your letter.

Tim: I feel like im fading away.

I'm disappearing a little every day.

Hawk: No, I'm here.

I've got you.

I've got you.

Hawk: Skippy.

I don't suppose you happen to own a tuxedo.

Hawk: What?

Tim: It feels like we're on a date.

Hawk: I should warn you, I may make a pass.

Tim: A girl can hope, can't she?

Hawk: Just to be clear....

Tim isn't Lucy's friend. He's my friend. He just got out of the hospital. I was there with him the whole time. I climbed into his bed and held him.

Hawk: Skippy.

A long time ago, I did something to hurt you. And I think, even being in your life hurt you in some way.

Tim: Hawk.

You don't have....

I spent my whole life, waiting for God to love me. And then I realized the only thing that matters is I love God. It's the same with you. I have loved you my whole life. I've never loved anyone, but you. You were my great, consuming love. And most people don't get one of those.

I did.

I have no regrets.

Tim: Mm. Would you look at that?

Hmm?

In public, and the world didn't come to an end.

Hawk: I want to stay.

Tim: I have to fight this fight.

That means letting go of everything else.

And if you're around, I will not be able to let go.

Hawk: But I wanna show up for you.

Tim: Make it easy for me.

Hawk: Hey, Skippy.

Promise you won't write.

Tim: I won't.

Hawk: Sweetheart.

Kimberly: Hmm?

Hawk: He wasn't my friend.

He was the man I loved.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Gotta say your au mixed with the art style and such and amazing work in what we seen so far with the horror and some laughs it's just become a treat every time I saw new details (whenever you supplies them up, thanks for that)

I know you already disclosure that it's gonna be bad BAD TIMES for the puppets gang but does it have it's soft ad fluff times??

The shot were Frank ask Wally if they're dying will looking up for the ceiling hasn't leave my brain, such a raw emotional clear on them, I wonder when they were just the two of them for a while they cuddle or hold hands for comfort??

I just.i just want them to have small victories of comfort

of course it has fluff and comfort! a lot of it! having a nice blend of both makes the fluff feel sweeter & the hurt hit all the harder <3 i will now supply some (written (for now)) examples and tidbits. putting it under the cut cause it got kinda Long

Frank & Wally do become very affectionate with each other! ofc as soon as Frank woke Wally was like "ok im holding your hand everywhere we go, this is Non Negotiable". because its dark! he doesn't want Frank to stray too far or get lost! and it's easier to yank Frank outta harm's way if they're already holding hands. comfort factors into it later, when Frank starts initiating & Wally does it purely to make sure Frank is still there. but yeah they get Very comfortable with each other, to the point where when Eddie wakes up he asks Frank - misinterpreting the situation entirely - "if you'd rather have Wally than me, i understand." ofc Frank laughs his ass off bc uhhh no that is Not what their relationship is, Ed

~ similarly, (almost) everyone acclimates to Wally's need to be as close as possible at all feasible times. he's Very physically affectionate and has little to no regard for personal space or boundaries anymore. like, he'll listen when someone asks him to back off or somethn, but until then he does not give a fuck. and this rubs off on the others as they get used to it

and then there's OH WAIT IDK IF I'VE MENTIONED THIS YET but! Wally - during his main exploration phase - found the Welcome Home episode recordings! and he eventually figured out how to work a tv he found, so he added "watch an episode of me and my friends" into his Routine. when the others wake up, he includes them in this. is it horrifying for them at first? yeah. but they get used to it and find similar if not the same comfort and enjoyment in it that Wally does. like in This Scribble, Frank & Wally & Poppy & Howdy are all watching an episode, and are quoting the lines they've memorized. they all cuddle up on a couch together and watch their favorite show <3

& Wally also teaches them (as they wake up) how to repair and care for themselves / each other, sleeping or otherwise. picture a little sewing circle of Frank, Wally, and Poppy, with Poppy giving tips and guidance on how to improve. these sessions provide them with genuine smiles and sometimes even some laughs.

before Wally & Home's divorce, they'd pass much of the time with games! go-fish, charades, i spy, etc. one of their favorites was when Wally would toss a ball at Home's door, and Home would hit it back. additionally, whenever Wally discovered something new, he'd rush back to Home with it - either the information or the actual thing, if he could carry it. ex: when he'd find books or files, he'd bring them to Home and (quietly) read them aloud while resting against them

and just in general know that the Post Office is a place of safety. Wally has made sure it's secure. i like to imagine like... little craft sessions and impromptu dancing lessons and story sharing going on in there among the awake neighbors. they try to have fun despite it all

that's all i can recall for Act One's fluff tidbits rn, but trust me there is More. and also abundant angsty comfort. the downright painful stuff has to earn its existence yk yk this au is Not grimdark

[jamiesfootball]

☔️

Now that I've actually read The Beautiful and Damned (essay still incoming), I've been thinking of an AU fic that explores what if Jamie did read the book in season 1. It....intrigues me for a number of reasons.

The fact that Jamie was the only one of the group to receive what is essentially a cautionary tale (no we didn't see most of the picks, but it feels safe to say that Jamie was the one Ted thought needed 'correcting')

The protagonist ends up a bitter, angry, abusive alcoholic. Granted Ted could not have known about Jamie’s dad at the time, but ough. Ted.

Giving this book to anyone and going 'here, this reminds me of who you are' is frankly insulting. I think if Jamie were to confront Ted about that, Ted would consider that half the job done. He clearly just wants Jamie to think about his actions and how he treats people. Unfortunately I could see this backfiring on Ted. He may not mean it personally, but I think Jamie would take it personally, especially because--

Aside from the fact that the protag is rich and full of himself and found to be charming, that guy is nothing like Jamie. In fairness to Ted, those are basically 3 of the 4 things he knows about Jamie. In unfairness to Ted, the other 1 thing he knows is that Jamie is a professional athlete who by definition had to work hard to get to where he is. Meanwhile the protag for TB&D has never worked for anything in his life -- the opposite of Jamie, our battler. In fact one of the defining traits and the reason the protag falls into being a penniless drunk is because throughout his life he was given many chances, and he ignored them all.

I think Jamie would likely get bogged down in the details. On the idea that the book was meant as a critique of him, rather than a lesson he could learn by. Another example of how Ted bringing up topics in a roundabout way tends to get misconstrued by Jamie as mind games.

Bonus round: the protag is very classist. The book occasionally alludes to the unfairness of this, but it is very much an ongoing topic for the protag on why he deserves all his money.

Bonus round: the protag is exceedingly misogynistic. The book almost never disagrees with this. Even season one Jamie 'women can do anything' Tartt would never.

So I think that a fic that explored Jamie's journey while reading this book would be fascinating. From the beginning where it's clear from the start that this protagonist is a spoiled, snobby twit to the end where the protag ends up a functioning alcoholic who yells at his wife and reminisces that by preventing himself from treating her in a physically violent manner, it makes him hate her even more. By the end of the book I can see Jamie being actively triggered by what's on the page--

--which would serve in a number of ways to kickstart Jamie's troubled history a good three episodes before the curse fire.

So yeah, this fic idea is less than a week old and I am still working on it but. Intrigued, I am.

Also I keep envisioning a running gag like that episode of The Office where Michael is watching The Devil Wears Prada and Pam is keeping track of where he is in the movie by what he's quoting at her. Except in this fic, Ted (Pam) would not know what the hell Jamie was talking about for a good long while, because he hasn't actually read the book since early in high school.

Why do I think Ted hasn't read it since early high school? Because if he'd read it later, he'd probably remember that there's a guy in the book who kills himself by shooting himself. It's literally one of the last parts of the book, and it's meant to serve as a punctuation on the consequences of the protag's actions.

Just a thought, but I think if Ted had read it after his dad dying, he might not suggest it to someone. Even if the meaning of the book fit.

For fic related reasons though, this means that Ted's trauma could ALSO be introduced way sooner. In season one even! This fic could have so much bonding through book-relevant trauma it's crazy to think about.

So. Yeah. New wip thoughts in progress. Whoops.

[seraphiism]

𓆩 ღ 𓆪 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭 𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞

( i wish i could be everything for you. family, home, watchtower, lighthouse. i am sorry for every way i've ever hurt you, including this. )

chara : clive rosfield fandom : final fantasy 16 quote cr : mabel podcast a/n : ngl someone may have forgotten some of the plot in ff16. not me though

── IT WAS ONCE SAID THAT THERE ARE THREE UNIVERSAL TRUTHS IN THIS WORLD :

ONE : GRIEF IS A DEAD MAN WALKING. it will overcome you, destroy you, devour you, drown you beneath the waves of sorrow. IT WILL HURT. it always will. but it is ultimately you who deems your survival. do not forget that.

TWO : YOU WILL KNOW LONELINESS LIKE IT IS YOUR DEEPEST COMPANION. you will find familiarity with the emptiness, and it will turn into nostalgia turned to mourning twisted into an anguish. in the end, you won't know the difference between friend or foe in the coexistence of your own solitude.

THREE : THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD IS A TERRIBLY HEAVY THING, DEAREST. make sure you do not carry it alone.

it is almost amusing, you think, gaze boring into the dying embers before you, how convenient it is to forget said truths. how it slips from the mind in the most foolish of times when the truth is spoken to you ; how obnoxiously it echoes into memory when you speak of it to someone as means of lessons learned.

the truth is a very miserable thing sometimes, this sobering reminder of humanity, but it is also something so excruciatingly tender.

you shiver. the air is cold and unwelcoming. the embers burn bright, then nearly fade into nothingness : a distant flux and flow, the reignition of something that wants to survive.

what a profound sight it is, clive thinks, almost breathless at your beauty beneath the moonlight, it is a mere glimpse to the serenity that settles in the depths of your heart, almost forgotten, and in the weariness of your features, it serves as something hopeful. you must be searching for a shooting star ; you always are, and maybe he's searching for one tonight, too. how lucky you would both be if granted a wish fulfilled. perhaps it would spare you from the pain to come on this endless journey, this path to redemption and salvation.

he looks to the sky, too, hopes to remember this moment for a long while, this time in which you find repose beneath the stars.

it is not long before you feel him shift beside you, his hands gentle as he drapes his cloak over your shoulders. you do not say anything, but you smile in silent thanks, and he wonders how he can do this. how he can say this. the destruction of oneself is much easier than the destruction of another. he returns the smile, but it does not reach his eyes, and you know that something is wrong.

he averts his gaze, focuses on the fire. dying, dying, dead. fire is such a horrific being, he has learned, and what a tragic way he has discovered it so. how it burns and burns, consuming everything in its path. it is ruthless in nature-- a terror that seizes anything it can, burning it into damnation and ruin until there is nothing but ashes meant to be forgotten.

such fire runs in his blood, and with it, a quiet violence. he does not know why, doesn't know how, and he begs the question to the divine a thousand times over. there is no answer. there never is, never will be. the only thing he knows is that there is blood on his hands, and he cannot afford to shed yours. he will not.

even if it means going your separate ways, even if he means breaking your heart, even if it means carrying out an act of betrayal to the trust that has bound you to each other.

"i..." he cannot even bring himself to speak. what a coward he is. "there is something i wish to discuss with you."

you still look to the sky. the subtle curve of your lips does not falter, even with the words he does not expect to hear.

"you plan to leave, don't you?" you wonder if there is a shooting star somewhere out there, wonder if it will be kind enough to visit in times of despair. "you think this is all your fault, that you were the one who killed what you thought to be most precious."

the smile has faded. your gaze shifts to the ashes, then to him, seeing that heartache in those blue eyes. something feels like it's tightening around your throat. you suspect it is grief. you speak again, anyway.

"you think... that your existence should be void, that you should be punished for what you believe you did. that if you stay-- if you stay here, if you stay with me, then it'll happen all over again."

he does not speak for a long while. what can you even say to that? how can he tell you that you're right, that he's afraid he could hurt you to the point of no return and not know it? that he's going to leave you because he loves you?

you turn towards him, your hands reaching for his. your hold is tender, careful, but he feels the way you tremble ever so slightly. it is his fault.

"the things i've done back then--" he pauses, uncertainty in his eyes, a grief of some sort, "i didn't know it was me. i thought i had been chasing after the one responsible for my pain, but i've been chasing a ghost all along." his hands squeeze yours, and maybe they're shaking, too. "i failed my duty. there's only one path that lies ahead of me, and that is one where you are safe."

he doesn't know what to expect-- your anger, your fury. that's what he almost wants, because it is much easier to end things that way. but he doesn't expect your expression to soften, doesn't expect to feel the way your hand cups his cheek, thumb tracing over his scar. he is already on the verge of break, but this may be the one thing that pushes him over the edge, and a sorrowful smile finds its way to your lips at the tears that threaten to trail down his face.

"you don't want to go, clive." your voice is barely above a whisper, quiet, almost forgotten in the wind.

no, he doesn't. he doesn't want to leave, doesn't want to leave you, doesn't want to lose you. he wants to stay. he wants to think that there's hope somewhere, but the truth of it all is that there's just not.

"no, i don't." he places his hand over yours, instinctively leans into your touch. "i don't."

"so stay. stay with me. i know you are in despair. i know. but the truth runs deeper than any of us suspect. you can't give up, not yet." this time, your voice almost breaks. you lean forward, your forehead pressed against his. you are afraid to speak. "we are not meant for solitude, you know. the path you take is the only one i know. i will not leave you, clive. not now, not ever."

he doesn't--

he feels his heart waver, feels like his thoughts are a mess, mind a haze in the midst of mourning. he cannot help but close his eyes at your words, at your warmth. he doesn't know if he can believe you, not yet. to grant himself forgiveness is an act of selfishness, and it is not one that is deserved. not now, maybe not ever.

"you've always bested me, haven't you?" even now, he's unsure of what to say, what to do. you've always been right, always known the best course of action. even in the darkest nights of ruin, you've always managed to find the light. for that, he is grateful. "...you have my heart, always. thank you."

you smile, but this time, it is a quiet sadness, yet almost hopeful. your lips meet his-- brief, but more than enough.

the journey ahead is a long one. it will be difficult. it will be harsh, cruel, and it will push both of you to the point of break. but so long as you have each other, you will make it.

"of course." you answer, and you kiss him once more. "you have my heart, too. our paths will always be intertwined, clive."

he laces his fingers with yours, lips ghosting against the back of your hand in an act of reverence.

"yes," he murmurs, and maybe there is something holy in the way he speaks to you, looks at you, "always."

[tossawary]

Some quotes and thoughts on the potentially fatal injuries of background characters due to Sha Hualing's invasion of Qiong Ding Peak. The text does not explicitly mention anyone dying except (I think) Elder Sky Hammer, every other character is just "injured" or "captured", but I think Shen Yuan just didn't get to see the full damage while he was focused on the plot and keeping relative control of the dangerous situation.

"Before the elegant, magnificent Qiong Ding Hall stood more than a hundred unknown individuals, roiling with demonic qi. The leader of this invasion was in fact a young girl who appeared to be more more than fifteen or sixteen.

Shen Qingqiu's heart thumped with excitement. She's appeared! She's finally appeared!"

Volume 1, Chapter 2, page 101.

Sha Hualing really showed up to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect with 100+ lackeys in tow! When Shen Qingqiu immediately counters "Disciple A" and "Disciple B" after leaving the Ling Xi caves, one of them says that the demons have "injured many of our sect siblings", but they don't mention anyone being killed. This bit a little later in this sequence on also seems to imply that somehow no one on Cang Qiong Mountain Sect has died yet:

"Parting her red lips, Sha Hualing elegantly suggested a method that seemed fair and just: "Why don't we each choose three representatives ad hold three matches?"

This suggestion was solid. For many years, the Human and Demon Realms had maintained an uneasy balance and had yet to drop the pretense of peace. Eliminating Sha Hualing and her mob wouldn't be impossible, but it would likely light a fuse. The demons definitely wouldn't let her death go unanswered, and it wouldn't be worth it if they stirred up an even greater conflict. On the other hand, simply letting them go would also generate trouble. They couldn't allow outsiders to come and go as they pleased from Qiong Ding Peak. By setting conditions and holding some matches, each teaching the other party a lesson or two, both parties could back down and save face. It would be the best way to handle this."

Volume 1, Chapter 2, pages 104-105.

There's a "no one has died yet, so maybe we can laugh this off still" vibe. This seems a little incredible to me! Perhaps the protocol in the face of an overwhelming force is to turn away and sound the alarm, because the bells are ringing loudly when Shen Qingqiu exits the cave. (Though a strange barrier set up is apparently preventing Qiong Ding from receiving support from other peaks.)

After the three matches, after Shen Qingqiu has been poisoned and Liu Qingge has shown up, the demons' retreat is described like this:

"Sha Hualing led her troops and fled while summoning a bolt of red gauze over her head, which she threw upward. Unfortunately, it simply couldn't block the fierce rain of sword glares. The red gauze was quickly pierced full of holes. On top of that, Cang Qiong Mountain Sect's disciples were hemming the demons in, so mot of the horde suffered great injuries or were captured. Only the small heart of the group that had kept near Sha Hualing managed to escape down the mountain, thoroughly battered and humiliated."

Volume 1, Chapter 2, page 131.

So, it sounds like a lot of the demons were killed as they fled. Some of those "great injuries" might have been fatal and I doubt that Cang Qiong intends to return "captured" demons to the Demon Realm. Sha Hualing is the only one they can't really kill, because she's important enough that her elimination could spark greater conflict.

My instinct is to think: "Oh, some Cang Qiong disciples definitely died here." If Elder Sky Hammer (with his poisoned weapon and poisoned armor) alone is any indication, these demons are here to kill people, and some cultivators may have been more than "injured" when demons showed up at the gates. There's a hundred of them! Here to cause chaos! Trying to be stealthy! (Just look at what happened at the Immortal Alliance Conference!) They probably got the drop on someone. Although I do hope that Qiong Ding has some security precautions that would allow most disciples in the demons' path to take shelter rather than engage.

Also, unless they can run from the Demon Realm to the Human Realm in a single day, or without stopping across several days (which is very possible in this world), these demons may have stopped somewhere to raid a human settlement for supplies or for fun. And I bet Sha Hualing and the remainder of her little army also caused damage on the way back to the Demon Realm, unless Cang Qiong cultivators chased them the whole way, and I hope that they did for the sake of any random people in Sha Hualing's path.

This incursion was likely far uglier than this fragment of the incident that Shen Yuan gets to see before he passes out due to the Without a Cure poison. Though I don't believe that anyone in the following chapter mentions any deaths on Cang Qiong's side, I feel like... a hundred demons invading (one of whom is wielding all of that poison) would have gotten someone on the way in.

[vitaminseetarot]

Aquarius Full Moon PAC - General Messages 🖤💗❤️

The full moon in Aquarius is finally here! I hope you're getting the chance to enjoy some sunshine in between these bright moonlit evenings. I sure have had my fill from this last weekend; I got the royal sunburn to prove it! Owo#

(Life lesson: apply sunscreen, then do it AGAIN.)

Aren't you glad we can't get moonburns? One could get burned sitting on the moon, sure, but it's kinder than to send that kind of energy back down to Earth. The moon allows us to see the sun's light without dying, which I can appreciate. But I'm going off on a tangent! Below are three images based on color palette cards I've picked for your reading. I've also added some emoji hearts for additional guidance. Please time all the time you need to select your pile when you're ready.

(1, 2, 3 - images from pixabay, divider from @saradika)

Pile 1. Tahoe Blue + Black Heart

X Wheel of Fortune, 7 of Pentacles, XXI World; Sun - Source, Space (Black), New Moon Gemini - Communication is Key

"I'm curious about my true nature; I seek to understand myself."

I feel such stillness and calm with this pile. You have so much blue present in your pile asides from the palette card! And watery energy too; your moon quote card has a lake on it too! Still yet deep. I'm hearing that this pile is getting a big upgrade to your throat energy. It's for both ways, listening and speaking, but I think speaking is being highlighted here more. This is in order to help you move through a bigger phase of your life that's yet to come. You may be feeling like you're ready to come out of your shell, even if just for a short while. There's a sense of grand change occurring in your external world, something that has been in the background or in the works for a long time has finally begun to culminate during this potent full moon time.

You have have recently closed a big chapter in your life and cleared out the muck. Now it's like you're standing before a canvas and you're ready to paint something new. The lunar force moving now allows a turn of luck to flow towards you like a water wheel. It's also purifying your intentions. When you have the place to be still and concentrate on where you want to go next, things can really quickly line up in your favor. With this extra space, whatever that has been building in the background may finally come out and be seen and heard. There's no resistance to this buildup, or there was resistance but it's been removed through this clearing out. You're being asked to savor this brief time. Not just make use of it, because in a way it's growing on its own, but to actually enjoy where you are right now. To get into the mindset of the person on the 7 pentacles card harvesting their abundance, that all is working out at a good pace.

You're being recommended to journal or write during this phase, perhaps like paragraphs of where you're going next (like a vaunt). I'm also getting vision boards for you would help if you need inspiration, or lyrical songs. I'm getting that communications will help you move into the next stage. This whole reading reminds me of someone who's finally finished the manuscript of their book and is sitting in that serenity of having completed something important. But, dear, that's not the end of it! You still need to bring it out into the world for it to be as evident as you see it in your mind. You still would need to get an agent and submit the manuscript to publishers for review.

Communication is being highlighted here as being that which you need in order to move along. Furthermore, you're being asked to tune into yourself for answers on where you'd like to go next, as no one else can tell you. People don't just go out on the lake for peace and quiet, they go to find a piece of themselves and to tune into that for spiritual guidance. May the boat be your lucky charm this full moon, pile 1. Not just to find yourself on the open water, but to connect you with other shores as well.

Pile 2. Sunflower Seed + Pink Heart

Queen of Cups, Queen of Swords, 4 of Cups; Vesta - Hearth, Love (Pink); Full Moon Virgo - You Are Good Enough

"Beauty raises my vibration; I seek it for joy."

For the rest of this month, you are focusing solely on your own needs. Like it or not! [blows coach whistle] But no, seriously, I'm not getting busybee vibes from this pile, I'm getting "poor dehydrated bee that's fainted on a flower" kind of feel. Maybe you're actually dehydrated and tired! This could also be true for your garden if you have one. You may need extra TLC around this full moon. You've been stretching yourself too thin but you'll be in much-deserved receiving mode in order to heal. I like that two Queens showed up and one of them is of Swords. She knows better than to spend her precious time worrying over the trifling things. She knows when to disconnect and tune into what's important. And Queen of Cups says that important thing is your own emotional wellbeing and comfort.

Your quote card features a person standing at the peak of a mountain with arms stretched out towards the moon in accomplishment. You either are or have been working intensely on something for the last few months. It either has or will soon come to a full head and with that comes a surge of expended energy. Similar to midterms or the week before a holiday when the workflow doubles. It's a crunch time! Since it's summer and you may not be in midterms or busy on vacation, this could be a reference for later this year or fiscal quarter. Take care that this busy time coming up isn't going to drain you.

You could have opportunities come up near the middle of autumn that's gonna want your attention. You'll want to be fully hydrated and refreshed for when it finally shows up. The 4 of cups can sometimes be about blind spots, or the blessings we don't see readily available because we're too tired and burnt out to really see what's there. It's highlighting this opportunity and wants you to make the most of it.

You could be feeling a strong pull to stay at home and focus on your craft, project, or hobby. Perhaps you're busy squeezing out the most free time you can while you have it. Again, avoid the sense of pushing like "oh man, I only have a week of summer vacation left oh geez what do I do?!" It's not a matter of sitting around and doing nothing all vacation only to hurt ourselves trying to be On 24/7 for a semester. That's not sustainable. Make the most out of your time, but make sure you have time carved out in between the high energy weeks of being productive. A sunflower without water can't stand and a bee without rest can't fly!

Pile 3. Clover Patch + Red Heart

XVII Star, XVI Tower, XV Devil; Progressions - Journey, Anger (Red), Waxing Crescent - Have Faith in Your Dream

"I gather more wisdom each day."

This pile … hoo boy. This would be my pile if I had to choose one, so I'm with y'all on this. Okay, I got the instant message that you are trying to manifest something very VERY big right now. I mean big like new car, apartment, longterm relationship, just something that's gonna upgrade and transform your life in a big way. It could even be education as one of the cards has a book in center. The thing is, Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither is your manifestation gonna instantly appear when you're desperately trying for it to cause desperation doesn't usually bring positive outcomes, it usually winds up with Fun With Dick and Jane type scenarios to play out. Also stress.

You have three major arcana cards in a row, with the tower card smacked right in the middle like a spicy sandwich cookie (would I even try one?) So I get it. This is likely a very significant full moon for you, supercharged as it's an Aquarian supermoon, and you got Aquarian Star as your first card, so emotions will be running a bit hot. Unpredictable swings. Sudden "bursts". But don't suppress your feelings of frustration, you'll just need to redirect these emotions differently.

You gotta be patient and watch it unfold organically. Even if you're manifesting the demolition of something, there is strategy to it. Demolition workers don't just go in and do what they please, they have to be mindful of their surroundings and what impact they'll make when they make it. When gardeners prune, they're mindful of the angle of the cut, knowing that the right cut can grow just as the wrong cut can infect. Let things go as they may. Things can start moving smoothly or quite abruptly, so focus from a place of expecting that it's already coming and strategize from there. You got the Star card, so something fortunate is indeed coming for you. There is a little Leprechaun luck on your side. It'll be easier to see that once you're able to move past old blockages that are delaying your manifestation. Listen to the leprechaun and not the little voice on the other shoulder telling you that you need to panic over the small things.

See the current time you have as a manifestation in itself, as a product of you believing that you need extra time to cook up the right end goal. See this time you have as a blessing, not just an in-between state. Make good use of this time. There is no reason why the process can't be as fun as the destination. Your inner child is being subtly asked to come out to play for a spell. This pile may be into doing witchcraft spells; if so, grab a little glitter and sprinkle some magic into your day, especially a time-based spell like a growing plant or burning a candle. If anything, it will boost morale which is often more important for manifestation than simply applying routine and logic to everything. I'm also getting that journaling may be of interest to you, whether it's writing down meditation notes or affirmations or just venting. Get creative even and write a poem about your wishes. Try to incorporate more writing in general into your moon magic. (Thoth would be pleased.)

This reading has not been evaluated by the FDA to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease or infection. Please ask your physician before going online.

2023, @VitaminseeTarot ™

[gayandfairycore]

Nothing is as clear as the clarity of death.

Warning: major character death! Not proofread, Voldemort, blood, slight gore? Violence? All that jazz? Pretty angsty? Readers a selfless girlie, mentions of Lucius cause he’s a warning 🤮

A/n (this is also my first time writing for James so! Aaaaaaa that’s exciting! Also peep the twilight quote in the summary lol)

Characters: James potter x reader, mentions of the marauders, wolf star,

Summary: you never spent much thought as to how you’d die. But dying in place of someone you loved seemed like a pretty good way to go.

Dying was not at all what you had expected, not like this anyway. You didn’t think you’d greet death like an old friend, but then again it was a war. And Wars were never kind, any idiot knew this. Tho it didn’t lesson the sentence of war- of death- it was a tension that hung itself in the air like a branch of a tree, or a sword hanging over your head. Death was the stench that wadded through the air, it was always a matter of who, or why Did it really matter who died in this war against Voldemort? Someone would still give news to grieving families, they’d still say the same thing every time.

“They were very brave in their last moments” or “their sacrifices were not invane”

It was infuriating who gave Voldemort the right to dictate who got to live and die, he was not god.

But It was lucky that you didn’t believe in a god. Because gods relied on beliefs to make them real, you didn’t believe in a god, you were your own in a way.

It safe to say James potter believed in a god, and that was you, he worshipped the ground you walked on, ever since your time at hogwarts together

James potter wasn’t used to anyone caring about him, aside from the marauders but he still felt a yearning for someone to care for him as much as he cared for them, the way the marauders loved was strange but gratifying. But his friends couldn’t fur fill him fully.

There was always a lingering loneliness that etched at the back of his mind, when the laughter and the excitement of the moment died down.

When the day ended and the moon begun to rise and the world began to sleep, did that loneliness sink in, he wanted to have someone love him as much as he loved.

He had given his everything everyday for the past two years asking lily evans out, everytime she said no. He brushed off the hurt but soon it started to fester, the loneliness, the feeling of rejection?

So when he had met you, a transfer student sorted into gryfindor and a fast friend of lily did he finally start to realising there were more people in the world then lily evans.

From your frirst interaction with James feelings began to rise, and sooner rather then later did you get together. James thought the world of you!

He thought you to be the most bewitching person he had ever met, not only were you kind and funny, and could take a joke but you were a fucking badass!

James swore he’d never forget the time you punched lucius in the face for making a younger student cry. He’d never forget the wolf look in your eyes when you witnessed what Lucius was doing.

You weee on your way to potions James by your side, as you indulged in conversations about everything and nothing simultaneously, did you notice a particular group of snakes sneering at someone in the middle of a circle and the sounds of soft sobbing.

Did you break from James’ side, “so, both Remus and I had decided-“ James had cut himself off turning to the spot you previously inhabited before calling a confused “y/n?”

Looking around the halls he watched the back of a h/c girl walk with such furosity towards a large group and silence them all with one look.

Anger roared in your eyes as you walked towards the group your nose flaring with each step your heartbeat loud in your ears.

Before a sharp ringing in your ears had drawn you back into your senses, it had felt like no time had passed but apparently it had. You were standing above a beaten up looking Lucius.

Blood caked his blonde hair, his nose sitting crooked in its place, ever drying blood littered his face as his eyes began to purple. Looking around you at the horrified stares from slytherins who had just witness you pulverise lucius Malloy it had felt oddly gratifying?

Your knuckles busted, skin split, you didn’t come down from the high until halfway through potions. James hadn’t been able to stop gawking at you the whole time you fought Lucius.

He thought it was the hottest thing he’d ever witnessed. He decided then and there that he was going to put a ring on it, and eventually he did.

The potters were a happy bunch of people, despite the war that raged outside, both you and James had both ensured that despite your circumstances you’d always enjoy your time together because you never knew when it would be your last.

You had watched films, and read books, and baked cakes with your small family, you had stayed up late sleeping in the living room in a pillow fort you had built, the first had lush pillows and fairy lights strung up! It had brought a nice warmth to the cool space.

Baby Harry crawling around clumsily had brought such a soft smile to your face, you had always known you’d do anything for your family, that included dying for them.

so when that fateful day came in goddricks hollow, you were prepared to die when your husband had cried out to you “it’s him! He’s here! Voldemort is here! Take Harry and go!”

You couldn’t bring yourself to do it, reconvening with James at the top of the stairwell, the fairy lights strung in the living room had felt like a punch to the gut, the light they exhumed suddenly didn’t feel so warm. It dawned on you You’d never be able to make a fort with your boys again.

And it stung but you knew, you knew you could die happily knowing your boys were safe. Tears welling in your eyes as you glanced at James, placing a hurried kiss on his lips.

As resting your forehead on his, you let out a teary smile, as realisation dawned on James. You were not going to let him sacrifice himself and leave Harry without a father.

It was then and there did he realise that it was always going to be you, no matter what he’d try, you’d always outsmart him you always did. You knew you were going to die for him, the minute he walked into your life.

Whirling you both around you pushed his body into Harry’s nursery, casting a teary eyed glance towards him a sad smile on your face

‘I love you’ you mouthed, as you turned to look down the stairs gaze hardening as you let out a battle cry, surging head first down to face the dark lord.

your expression hard as you stood across from the him, eyeing him with a murderous gaze, you both circled eachother. A cold smirk on his face, you both knew you weren’t winning this fight. Hell, you didn’t even have your wand.

The sound of James appirating was the final straw, you knew they were safe, that that sword that hung over your head had finally snapped. you had protected them and now you could die. but you were not going to die without a fight. You knew it was hopeless but you didn’t care.

The green light that cut through the air like a knife embedded itself in you it’s force spinning you around, as your body hit the floor with bruising force your eyes began to glaze over. The warm fairy lights reflecting in your iris’ as you exhaled a ghost of a smile on your face they were safe.

James had only realised after he had apperated, to Sirius and Remus’ shared apartment did he realise you faced Voldemort alone, and wandless.

He didn’t even realise but cruel sobs broke from James tear streaks drenched his cheeks as he stared up at his friends through his eyelashes, Harry girpped tightly in his arms.

The couple had been taken aback having had their friend just apirate in the middle of their living room Sirius’ paper had dropped clean out of his hands when James appeared. The couple rushing forward to meet James slumped over figure sobs spilling from their cocky friend, They shared a concerned look before beginning their questioning

“What is it mate?”sirius asked-

“What’s happened?” Remus exclaimed-

“where y/n?” They continued-

“She’s-“ James called his voice breaking as he spoke they halted their words, James couldn’t bring himself to say it saying it made it even more real.

“She’s…dead.” He declared bitter resentment for himself clear in his voice. Both Sirius and Remus had felt like they were just stabbed through the heart.

There was silence in the room, the quiet radio that played classical music had even seemingly stopped with the tense mood of the apartment

Before Sirius chuckled

“She can’t be!”he scoffed “I mean cmon? She’s y/n! S-she can’t be…” the black haired boy didn’t want to accept the woman he saw as a sister was dead.

Looking at the faces of his lover and practical brother in hopes it was all a wind up. That she’s just pop up from the cupboard and exclaim

April fools! I’m not dead! This is just a whined up like the good old times!

When there was no response Sirius’ smile dropped his pale hands began to shake.

“She’s? dead.”Sirius spoke,

James barely looked up.

“Shes dead.” He reiterated.

[bisheepart]

Various Incorrect Quotes

Because I'm having too much fun with these

Gregory: I'm the kind of person who likes to think things through.

Cassie: Since when? I once saw you eat a marshmallow that was still on fire.

-------

Michael: Why do you two look so mad?

Simon (Freddy Mask Bully): Sit down and we'll tell you.

Michael: *sits down*

James (Chica Mask Bully): This bench is freshly painted.

-------

*Cassidy, Evan, Gregory and Cassie being friends*

Evan: I should probably get home.

Cassidy: Nope, we've already got plans to get Canadians to kidnap you so we can adopt you as our brother.

Evan:... Canadians?

Gregory: It worked with Cassie!

Cassie, deadpan: Run, it's how I got stuck with these two.

*Context: Inside Joke between me, my boyfriend, and his family about Canadian Kidnappers*

-------

Gregory: Freddy took the wheels out of my heelies because they were "unsafe." Now I have to walk down the halls like a common wench, and I am livid!

-------

Charlie/Puppet, to Cassidy and Evan/Golden Duo.: You know what true strength is? Forgiving a person who isn't even sorry.

Golden Duo: We'd rather be springlocked.

-------

Evan: Just once, I'd like to get out of bed without going through the seven stages of grief.

Sammy: What are the extra two?

Evan: Denial 2 and astral projection.

-------

Cassidy, to the MC: Alright, listen up you idiots.

Cassidy, to Evan: Not you Evan. You're an angel and we're glad you're here.

-------

Cassie: So, you're my first real friend?

Gregory: It would seem so.

Cassie: Wow....

Cassie:... I've never been so afraid of a friend before.

-------

Gregory:... What are you doing?

Cassie, putting blue glitter eyeshadow from a children's Cinderella makeup kit on Vanessa's eyelids while she sleeps:... Makeup practice.

Gregory:... Can I help?

Cassie: Yes

-------

Jeremy: Good responses for getting stabbed with a knife?

Gabriel: Rude

Fritz: That's fair

Susie; Not again

Cassidy: Are you going to want this back or can I have it?

-------

*Alive AU*

Teen Elizabeth, to Evan: Do you think dad is going to notice I dyed my hair?

Teen Evan, looking at the bathroom completely covered in hair dye:... Probably.

-------

Evan: People ask me how I got Cassidy to be friends with me. I didn't, they just picked me up like a kitten and I've been stuck with them ever since. Not that I mind.

-------

*Alive AU*

Charlie: What's an understudy?

Jessica: It's like a backup actor. So if you get sick or something, they take your place in the play.

Elizabeth: Yeah, or if you go missing, or get hit by a bus!

-------

Mark (Bonnie Mask): Did you know that you could use a crayon as a candle? In an emergency, one will burn for thirty minutes.

Simon (Freddy mask): How long does it burn if it isn't an emergency?

Michael: What does a crayon even consider an emergency?

James (Chica Mask): I think being on fire is what a crayon would consider an emergency.

Michael: Everyone considers that an emergency!

-------

Susie: The floor is lava!

Cassidy:*helps Evan onto the counter*

Fritz:*kicks Jeremy off the sofa*

Charlie:*laying face down on the floor*

Gabriel:... Are you okay?

Charlie: No.

-------

Fritz: So, did everyone learn their lesson?

Susie: No

Jeremy: I did not.

Cassidy: I may have forgotten one.

Gabriel: Also no.

Fritz: Oh good, neither did I!

Charlie: *long suffering sigh*

-------

Cassie: Bye Roxy! Bye Gregory! Bye Freddy! Bye Vanessa! Bye Roxy!

Gregory: You said "Bye Roxy" twice.

Cassie: I like Roxy.

-------

Gregory: Arson? Oh, you mean Crime Brulee.

Cassie: no, no we mean arson.

Michael, possessing Glam Freddy: Crime Brulee.

-------

Elizabeth: We have fun! Right Evan?

Evan: I've never been more stressed out in my entire life.

-------

William: One day, we're going to look back on this and laugh!

Henry: I promise, every time I think of this moment, I'm going to come to your house and punch you in the face.