#Also there's been a lot of talk about dead weight in this campaign and I am feeling really chill and normal about it

[one-little-nerd-stayed-home]

Ok I said this was coming weeks ago so here it is: FURTHER THOUGHTS ON WEIGHT AND NADDPOD

Weight: A common point of comparison in Animal Agriculture. There are number of important types of weight when dealing with livestock:

1 - Live Weight - The actual weight of a live animal. This weight may feel lighter than it is because live animals instinctively balance themselves when lifted.

1.a) Calder - Its strange being the biggest. But Calder knows what that means. He has to look after Callie and Sol because they’re smaller than him. He has to carry them even when they flail and attack things behind him and twist in his arms. He can’t drop them when they cuff his ears accidentally because you have to be gentle when things are smaller than you. But he can’t get to them every time. He can’t save them every time and he’s always been the littlest but he isn't anymore. He needs to save them. So he takes the helm. He makes the deal because it saves Callie and Sol and they’re alive and if he has to wait on the frozen plain for them to come for him well it’s easier to wait knowing they're still alive.

1.b) Live weight is easier to carry because it is Alive

2 - Adjusted Weight - The calculated weight of an animal at a particular age. Commonly used for comparison between slightly older or younger animals of the same herd.

2.a) Sol - 'If I’m dead weight just drop me.' Sol is always a little surprised when he comes back staring into Calder or Callie’s face He’s surprised when Swag says looking at him isn't like a broken mirror at all. Calder and Callie talk about siblings and families and how you have to stick together. They grew up bickering and fighting for their places but Sol grew up alone. He stares into his own eyes and sees a glimpse of a life slightly to the left of the one he's lived. Defined by absence the same way his was. It doesn't feel... good. But it is good right? To have a blood relation - a family… that's what family is isn’t it? It’s hard to account for something he’s never had before. 2.b) Adjusted weight is used for comparison but as a calculation it may not reflect the real world

3 - Rail Weight - The weight of a carcass once it’s been prepared for butchering. Usually about 60% of the live weight.

3.a) Callie - It feels… different, nice maybe, to watch Glen fumble and scramble and beg and to feel nothing but a mild disinterest. He’s a hollow man and anything left in her heart for him pales in comparison to the cold fury at the fact that they lost Calder to his stupid scheme. Calder saved them and Callie… doesn’t like being saved it turns out. So she reaches for her mother's cool logic. Oberon speaks to her and Callie feels the anticipation of the hunt in her veins but she remembers the gutted eladrin hung from the branches of the enormous tree. 3.b) a gutted, prepared animal, though lighter is still a load to carry.

4 - Dead Weight - The weight of a dead animal. this weight can feel heavier than live weight as there is no instinctive balance when lifting a dead animal.

4.a) Hardwon -No matter how much he’s done or how far he’s gone Hardwon has always been the human kid in a dwarphenage who never fit anywhere quite right. He fits with Moonshine and Beverly, as long as he can pull his own weight and take the hits then they can be Beverly and Moonshine and he can be a titan too, at least for a while. Except that when he can’t take the hits. When he isn’t fast enough, strong enough, hero enough... then people get hurt. And Hardwon has never been good at keeping the people he loved alive. 4.b) Dead Weight is harder to carry because it is dead.

[nancydrewwouldnever]

I agree, having watched TLoU. I think all their noms were well deserved. And, here's the thing: HBO knows how to campaign for noms. If Chris were serious about wanting noms (I honestly don't think he has been since DJ), then he would look with a critical eye towards taking projects with studios who know how to work the system for noms. This goes for both series and movies. ///

You are so right about this. He should actually learn from Ana's campaign for Blonde. That movie was panned, and audiences weren't really big fans of her performance either. But Netflix put their weight behind her and she promoted the hell out of it, on SM, talk shows, interviews, whatnot. I personally don't think she deserved a nomination for that role but her campaign team and the PR machine behind her did a really job at promoting/marketing her. I also feel actors who play real people have higher chances of getting nominated for big awards. So if Chris seriously wants that Oscar/Emmy-nomimated actor moniker in front of his name (which I doubt) he should consider looking for biopic type roles. The Gene Kelly film seems dead in the water atm.

My only question for this: was that necessarily Netflix, or more Plan B? I know Brad Pitt seemed very interested in getting her a nom, because at the time there were talks that he was privately shopping Plan B around for sale, and it would get more if they had another crop of awards noms for one of their produced movies. I felt like Netflix might have taken over once she was actually nommed, but I felt like Plan B had a lot to do with the "for your consideration" campaign, too.

But, either way, the point of the story is still the same. Plan B has led several successful awards campaigns. Working with production companies that know the game help actors meet goals.

[essayofthoughts]

you've presented me with the opportunity to talk about how much I love both Ghost Cass AND the Delia AU (even though I am Not caught up on ghost cass ;w;) so! you've obviously touched on a lot of pre-campaign stuff for the ghost cass fic - do you have any specific lore bits that you took and ran with in a way that you really enjoyed/are proud of? and in the Delia AU, I don't know how much you've thought about this, but considering that Percy's aware Cass is out there, what thoughts on her reaction to Delia do you have that goes deeper than just anger and fear on Percy's behalf, if any?

Distract me from feeling like shit with Q's about my WIPs

Aw, I'm glad you like those so much! And fwiw, I am nowhere near done on the next arc of Ghost Cass, you have months in which to catch up.

Re: Ghost Cass

I'm assuming you mean lore from canon here, but developing out Loran the Bear was a lot of fun! All we know about him from the stream is that he ran into VM a few times on a few pre-stream jobs; we get a bit more in the comics but the comics' accuracy to actual events... I would say is speculative. Much as with Ghost Cass, you have to tweak things, add things and remove things, move things around, in order to make a coherent story, so while the comics are fun, I take them with a large pinch of salt.

And that let me build Loran out a bit. Figure out the kind of person he might have been, who he could have travelled with for jobs, how he and VM knew each other - that kind of thing.

That's also tied to the other thing I had a lot of fun with pre-stream which is just... the kids? Because the missing kids are a slow but persistent part of the general pre-stream events; they're the main questline even if it fades in and out of focus. Writing those kids, writing about them, writing their friends who miss them and worry - I really wanted to show the impact these missing children have on their families, their community. It's not just missing children, it's this whole weight of grief and loss that hits many - and that's before we get to the missing, traumatised children themselves!

And that in turn opened up a lot of opportunities to show characterisation. Percy likely grew up with a large extended family, he's probably capable enough with children - but he's also recovering from trauma and dissociation, so his first reaction to having to deal with kids after all that is "AAAAHH". Meanwhile Keyleth and Vax who care so much, wearing their hearts utterly on their sleeves, are immediately invested and caring. And Vex too cares more than she might initially seem to - because she too was captured and taken and had to fight her way home. She prioritises the money they need to live, but she too understands and feels the need to get those children safe if they can. And in turn, all of these things allow the characters to bond and open up to each other, and to set up groundwork for later events. So much of the pre-stream Arc is set up for later, and I can't wait for the payoff.

Re: Delia AU

Oh I know exactly what Cass' reaction to finding about Delia are - because Percy knows that Cass is alive, or at least was when Ripley wrote that entry, but Cass has no idea that Percy is still alive - she's assuming he's dead. That will hold true up until she hears from Yennen that Percy is alive (she in no way believes the Briarwoods, liars as they are), and Yennen by that point has been working with Percy to keep the people of Whitestone safe - Percy does everything in his power to prevent uprisings because he's aware that every dead body is a new one for the ziggurat and a new one for Delilah's undead army. He fights to keep the peace and he does that in coalition with Yennen, Gertie and a few others in town - and these people all come to realise, one way or another, that the only thing keeping him sane and focussed, the one thing that he will truly kill for... is Delia.

So Yennen does not tell Cass of Delia's existence, because keeping Delia safe is one of Percy's primary driving forces.

So uh. Cass' initial response is pure shock, that Percy has a child, that this child seems to resemble Ripley, that (from what Percy says) this child is Ripley's, and yes this means their family isn't eradicated but it also means that Ripley is a part of their family, the family that she killed and uh...

Cass is extremely traumatised. She's scared and she's angry, and she hates Ripley especially much, for betraying them after working for them for so long, for betraying and lying to Percy, for (she thinks for a long time) killing Percy, and then when she learns of Delia's existence, what she assumes has to have happened for Delia to exist and Percy to be perfectly on board with Operation Get Rid of Ripley and The Briarwoods nonetheless.

And... she can't hate Percy for surviving. She thought he was dead, what she feels most of all is relief-

But what the fuck does she feel about Delia? Her brother's daughter, yes. Her niece. A continuation of the family she thought dead and gone.

But also Ripley's child. And a child still young enough that... who knows how they'll turn out? How much like Ripley might she be? And with how much Percy cares about this child, his daughter - how much hurt might that cause Percy, if Delia turns out to be awful, like her mother?

And Percy, she learns, was trapped by Ripley. Lied to and used by Ripley. Delia was a part of Ripley's plan to do that - and look at how Percy dotes on Delia! Look at how Percy refuses to kill Ripley to try to save Delia the grief of losing her mother! The plan worked!

So uh... yeah, Cass displaces a lot of anger and betrayal and grief onto Delia for a while. This is both understandable and fucked up at once, and Percy and she have some very terse, angry conversations about it before the twins step in to have a conversation with Cass.

After all, the twins know what it's like to be a bastard child born in unfortunate circumstances to a noble and someone of a lower class. The fact that Percy loves his daughter so openly and without reserve is a huge help to them dealing with Syldor's bullshit. Cass acting like that about Delia... kind of reminds them uncomfortably of Syldor's bullshit.

(Cass hates being compared to Syldor - she knows the twins well, better than she does anyone else in the group, she met them first. Being compared to their father stings. They're not wrong, though.)

So. Cass does eventually process some of her upset and ends up becoming a good aunt to Delia - as Delia gets older too, she starts seeing what some around them mention, just how much Delia resembles her father not just in looks but in behaviour (after all, he Percy is the primary parental influence in Delia's life) - but it is not an easy start. It is, in fact, extremely rough for everyone.

(Delia at least gets very simple, direct comfort from Percy. "Your aunt is being an idiot," he says. "She's not thinking clearly, she's just feeling. You can ignore her until she sees sense."

(She also gets hugs on a regular basis - Percy's family when he was growing up may not have touched often, but Percy clings to what family he has left and he never, ever wants Delia to feel unloved.)

[agapi-kalyptei]

youtuber's guide to scandals

I have to admit, ashamed and covered in ash and wearing nothing but sack cloth and four weighted blankets, I've been spending more than a small amount of time in r/youtubedrama and. (deep sigh) (long stare) (another deep sigh)

I'll avoid going into the specifics of J*mes S*ephen D*naldson related drama ("I've n*ver w*tched a M* B*ast v*deo!") to save my time and your sanity, but the lack of media literacy and reading comprehension and even severe lack of understanding of anything even remotely related to epistemology just flabbergasted me.

The premise

To cut to the chase: Let's say you are a business, even if you seemingly have a human form. Certainly a human looking skin, even if your eyes are hollow and dead. Let's say you bring home humble $10M a month. You're not starving, your business prospers, your employees are paid (give or take the overtime pay), and you spend generous 0.05% of it on charity. (This post might employ rhetorical device known as sarcasm.)

Then let's say someone makes a video about how you SUCK and that video gets 15 million views. You also get accused of toxic workplace culture, some harassment accusations, your best friend gets revealed to have a thing for children with very little clothing, and the new york times write about your latest project going really poorly and literally injuring a lot of people.

You still make $10M a month, but with your growth you should now be making $11M a month. That means you're going to lose $12 million a year. That means if you spend less than $12M to make the problem go away, you'll profit within a year.

Let's try to talk about misinformation, marketing and PR tactics.

Dodge everything

First of all, never fess up, never admit any serious wrongdoing, while vaguely acknowledging that you can do better. Hire a company to clean up after you.

This company (or several companies) will have a 4-fold job: 1. legally harass everyone who talks poorly about you. 2. Tell you what to say and what not to say 3. Make it look like you're actually trying to become better, and 4. Run a disinformation campaign

Never publish a video seriously addressing the issues on your main communication channel, never post any confessions on your main socials. Don't talk to the press, don't talk to any hard hitting reporters.

Trust gullible people

Your best friends are idiots with high ego and no journalistic experience. Flatter them by offering to do an interview to "clean up your name" or "tell your side of the story". If they have 500x fewer subscribers than you, their ego will make them think they're actually very good at what they're doing that they got your attention.

Give them very little time to prepare. Never waver in confidence. Dodge difficult questions. Smile like a psychopath. You got this. You already said "I'm very good at lying" and you're still here, you're unstoppable now.

Start DMing other gulling people telling them to cover the video that is published. Don't give anyone time to fact check it, indirectly remind them that if they cover this, even if it's 4th hand regurgitating of baseless facts, will get them a million views. Low effort, low quality, high advertising revenue. It's their dream job. The economics of the platform work in your favor.

Accuse everyone not covering the video of bias.

Accuse r/youtubedrama of bias for deleting the post suggesting you're a cannibal.

Hypernormalization. It's always hypernormalization

By now, your company is already paying for views and spam bots to upvote/downvote whatever stirs up drama. But remember, this is not about finding the truth, because truth doesn't work in your favor, and solid lies are going to be easy to expose sooner or later.

You must. Flood. The. Information. Space.

What's better than a megaphone? Seven hundred megaphones. Get as many idiots as you can (spam bot or human) to post as much drivel as you can. Calling you a cannibal? That's ridiculous, it's perfect! Whatever or not your handlers made that post, it doesn't matter, because it successfully lowers the quality of the discussion.

Smear your opposers from all sides. Make sure the spam bots echo random complaints over and over until they seem like common sense.

Keep accusing people of not getting it or not covering the important things. Make more vapid interviews. Talk for HOURS. It will take the morons WEEKS to fact-check every vague statement, and if they'll want to rip it apart, they'll need to make a ten hour video carefully documenting and debunking it, and nobody will watch that, because by then, everyone will be incredibly tired of the news cycle and move on to whatever is next.

Remember, your profit depends on this. If you can spend less than ten million dollars on spam bots, on empty lawsuit threats, on paid interviews, on guerilla marketing, on shill accounts arguing to wear everybody out to kill the healthy discussion, you've already won.

The lower the quality of the discussion, the less will actual mainstream media with actual journalists want to touch this steaming (and streaming!) pile of doodoo. You don't want anyone serious investigating this. Remind everyone about the lawsuit thing. You're not afraid to spend a few million on Harvey Weinstein's lawyers.

The truth doesn't exist as long as you have money. Your pedo friends make you a lot of money so you'll spend money to keep making money. Who cares. You'll donate $10k to charity in the end, that will buy you good conscience.

[owlixx]

CoD Notes: Ghosts Beat

Yep, another whole game start to finish since my last notes.

Going in, I wanted to like this game. I was hoping it would be a real hidden gem. I knew this game had a bad reputation but a few staunch defenders and I was ready to keep my mind open. I ended up tolerating the game and agreeing that it is underrated, but I’m not head over heels for it.

Positives: I like the graphics, the feel of the guns, the UI. I like the idea of a story about a future war where the US is an underdog. I liked the space stuff and more sci fi elements. I liked playing as one character from start to finish and being told an actual story.

Negatives: first thing I noticed was no hot markers in the campaign. I prefer having them. Actually even before that was the bizarre opening cutscene where the Ghosts are first explained to be a military team who one time hid under some dead bodies and killed all but one guy who said they must be “ghosts”. No relation to Simon Riley Ghost aside from the name of the dog which seems bizarre. The next thing I noticed was how boring and samey a lot of the guns are. Half the guns that drop are the SCA and SA or something like that and I can’t tell them apart.

More negatives: The main thing wrong with this game for me personally is the nothing-plot combined with the goofy tryhard writing. Making the villain faction “all of South America banding together” seems odd but I’d have rather focused on that rather than focus so heavily on a guy who used to be a Ghost being the main villain. Rorke sucks as a character because the writers clearly want him to emulate villains they’ve seen in other, better fiction before but have no idea what makes him tick or what his motivations are. He seems to be upset that Elias dropped him, but any stereotypical military leader (as Rorke seemed to be in that flashback mission) would’ve told their squad to do the same thing. But that’s not the real issue. The issue is that he ALSO got supposedly tortured and brainwashed by the South American military offscreen and with zero proof of work of exploration of this concept. Which one is it? Is he brainwashed or betrayed? It would’ve been an amazing twist to have him reveal that they never did torture him, he just went along with all this of his own volition. But that would’ve ruined the other twist of our player character being teased at getting brainwashed right at the end, which is hilarious now knowing this game will never get a sequel.

More bad writing: it’s so funny that IW wanted to tell a more personal story this time but still didn’t want to make the player character speak or visible or do anything interesting, so they gave us a brother so that somebody here would actually be able to be seen interacting with our dad. It’s not a terrible way to accomplish what they were going for but it has the side effect of putting up a mirror and showing that there’s nothing in our reflection, so to speak. It’s one thing to have a silent player avatar in isolation but with our brother there, it makes our character feel weirdly mute by contrast.

The worst writing: the worst of it though is everything relating to the Ghosts. Maybe this is just because I had a mission crash and had to rewatch this one cutscene like four times, but the perfect example of this is the cutscene where Hesh (I think) talks about how “I’ve seen soldiers bury their dead before, but not like this”. BROOOOOO calm DOOWWWN. We are told that everything the Ghosts do is cool and good and awesome but then they just die and get captured like any other character. There’s literally nothing special about them. Rorke is obsessed with killing all the Ghosts but that’s just because they used to be his coworkers. That’s the only thing special about them. And the twist that our dad is the leader is painfully obvious because he won’t shut up about how cool and totally real they are. There is zero significance or weight to the player and our brother becoming Ghosts. They didn’t even have a little ceremony or anything.

Anyways, the last big negatives are the glitches and the signposting. I had a mission hard crash and make me start from the start of the whole level which isn’t a dealbreaker but isn’t great and hasn’t happened before. Then also I had to restart a checkpoint once because the helicopter I had to kill wouldn’t spawn in even though I could hear it and wandered the whole map trying to get it to trigger. And by “signposting”, I just mean that I got lost in this game more than any other CoD because of the lack of objective markers. They still have those tacky golden glowing objects to interact with though.

I did a tiny amount of multiplayer. Got the castle map, which I remember from being a kid but it was far too big to have any fun on. The whole “squad” concept is fascinating but ultimately feels a little flat. Why do I need 10 soldiers if the customization isn’t that deep? I am kind of happy to see currency return from BO1 but with contextual camo challenges that DONT require a million headshots before you can even start working on the rest, which I think even the later BO3 suffers from. “Field orders” are a fascinating weird addition that I think only make sense against bots, but also I love that bot matches can grant XP since it’s hard to find a regular match now. I just wish they had a separate set of challenges for facing bots.

Also played a little of extinction, including the DLC1 map that I had to get as part of the “gold edition”. Its…fine. I do appreciate them trying something new, and introducing meta progression. I would’ve played plenty as a kid but now it just lacks the nostalgia factor of other classic Treyarch zombies stuff, and it seems like an uphill battle for solo players. The DLC1 initial boss fight destroyed me and my one online companion which seemed unfair. I do also like the idea of the random challenges on each hive but they seem a little unbalanced.

[seerofmike]

yo. not sure if ure the right person to ask but idk where else to go. i recently came back to apex and am trying to catch up w the lore except im a bit confused. i knew octane hated his dad and was working under him to fuck him over later but now he fell for his dads BS? or am i missing something? and i heard his dad isnt even his dad but his grandpa and im just confused.

also, before i took a break from apex i used to read ur cryptane fics a lot. i found u still into apex and still writing for it as well which is why im asking u. rly like ur fics, tyvm for them :) ty in advance if tumblr doesnt eat this ask.

im glad u like my fics thank you!!!

okay so, not entirely sure when you left or how much you know of the current storyline but quick recap, octane's abusive POS father does some terrorist shit and continuously ridicules him and disowns him in that one season 9 comic, then starts running for Syndicate Head Honcho in season 12 after some fuckery framing maggie for the destruction of olympus.

obviously concerned about his father who is uhhh an evil terrorist (not like maggie, the cool terrorist <3) octane tells lifeline he'll break into his father's safe to gather some info. duardo catches him, but basically like. bribes octane into 'working' for him and octane agrees because he's like teehee!!! i'm gonna screw him over!! che will be sooooooo impressed

then over the course of the quest duardo continuously praises octane and convinces him that he's doing good things by donating to the Frontier Corps. the climax of the quest is lifeline managing to break into duardo's safe while octane finds a video on his computer from a press conference where duardo seems to confess that he loves his family more than anything and that his son is very important to him.

the secret in duardo's safe is his own death certificate. lifeline wants to expose him. octane wants to wait it out and see what happens and might be a little emotionally vulnerable from the whole shebang (as is lifeline tbh cuz she likes to take the whole weight of the outlands on her shoulders), so some petty arguing ensues but it escalates until octane grabs the certificate from her and burns it. they break up as friends officially and both remark that their friendship has been dead for a long long time.

fast forward, octane apparently helps 'duardo' campaign but doesn't question him until the night of the election where he wins, and duardo announces he's taking over lifeline's organization and installing her mother as the new head. octane confronts him after the election, devastated and angry at the idea that duardo had played him. his 'father' insists he hasn't, so when octane demands to know his true identity he tells him: torres silva, his grandfather, and continues to gaslight octane into thinking he's doing it For The Family. in the epilogue, lifeline teams up with maggie to do some terrorist girl shit herself.

so the quest ends with lifeline and octane on opposite sides, and also the reveal that the video that made octane think his father actually cared about him was in fact his grandfather talking about his father LMAAAAAO

how eager / thrilled / willing he is to work with torres seems to fluctuate a little and hasn't really been explored since. on the one hand, he shows moments of anxiety about the whole situation like in this image in the newcastle teasers where the description explicitly says he's nervous about the whole thing;

and in the final chapter he seems genuinely upset and freaked out about the fact that lifeline's mom has taken over the frontier corps, who he thinks is 'not cool' (so true bestie)

he also seems to occasionally be suspicious of torres, right now when you drop in certain areas of the new map (Broken Moon), if he's alone (and notably, *only* if he's alone) he will ask himself what torres wants with the place.

on the other hand, he seems...Fine with engaging with torres still? and maybe even helps him do shitty things? it's implied in this interview between seer and lisa stone that torres paid her to pin the blame of boreas's turbulance on seer, and the way octane reacts after the interview seems to imply that either a.) he knew what torres was planning and is amused or b.) he didn't know, but regardless, was very amused by what torres did to him.

in a loading screen torres also says this (context: they are filming a PR video apologizing for the giant sea monster attacking the legends)

it's not outright confirmed octane still helps him do his political shit after campaigning with him, but it's likely. he also helped pitch boreas as a new apex map to torres with seer and still seems very engaged with him despite the bombs dropped at the end of s12. given that he helped seer pitch boreas, and questions (alone) on cleo about what torres wants with the moon, he seems to suspect something is up, but he isn't as open about it as others and seems kind of hesitant to say anything.

so. the verdict;

i get what apex was trying to do in the season 12 quest. torres DOES start love-bombing octane all of a sudden, which makes octane give literal pause like Twice because "what?? he called me son???? he's never done that before ??????" (<- transgender btw) and i think they were hoping to give the impression that octane is gaslit and manipulated into siding with torres. the narrative also acknowledges that octane's actions are Extremely selfish here and driven entirely by emotion and wanting to feel loved than any sort of logical reasoning or 'greater good' like he insists.

that being said, it really needed more time in the oven. he goes REALLY quickly from "i'm gonna trick him!! teehee!" to burning one of the very few bridges he has and possibly throwing the entire outlands into turmoil because daddy said he loved him once. then it goes very quickly again from "octane unconditionally supports his (grand)father because he is desperate for his approval" to now "octane may in fact regret this and be very suspicious of him" but the latter thing is kind of up in the air given that octane still actively works for him and seems to do a little bit of villainous shit himself.

right now, i think they are intentionally going with a rather messy narrative because like...abuse is messy. family is messy. being manipulated and gaslit and you yourself manipulating and gaslighting your friends and repeating this cycle of abuse because your abuser suddenly pretends he cares about you because he wants to USE you for political gain is a very messy story and it always would have been.

i don't think octane 100% is onboard with torres or fell entirely for his BS, but i don't think he hates him either or what he's doing. it seems like there *IS* a part of him that cares for people Other than himself, but octane's focus is kind of on Me Me Me and right now what matters to Me Me Me is the fact that HE feels loved and gets what HE wants, outlands be damned, and admitting he was wrong means that torres does not love him, and that che was right. and since he also happens to be very petty he doesn't want to admit she was right since they're fighting rn LMAO

i think the story suffers from the main problem with All of apex's storytelling which is just that there wasn't enough time to sit with what it presents but overall i think this is like. fine. almost good, even. one of the better characters arcs apex has going for it right now.

(sorry for how long this is btw i think i went off topic <////3)

(btw cryptane enjoyer. they have voicelines now. they're shite but by god do they have them)

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E129 (March 16, 2021)

Tonight’s guests are Matt Mercer and Taliesin Jaffe!

Matt, on DMing Luc’s Revivify: “That was weird. It’s one thing when it happens because of player action and circumstances and the choices they make. When it’s entirely on me, unintentional, and just realizing different chess pieces you’ve set up, that’s rough.” It was especially rough since this was a child NPC related to a PC. “I was hoping somebody had a spell slot left.” He kept in mind that there are two clerics in the room and that they could resurrect the next day even if the Revivify went poorly. “A good chance, since it’s his first time. Okay, okay, okay, okay, I think we’ll be okay, we’ll see how this goes. It was really stressful in the moment! I did not set out to have that happen, but when I realized what was going to happen, I tried to see it through.” He wouldn’t have prevented a chance to bring him back. “There may have been an offshoot short-run series of games to find a way to bring him back. I would have found some way to correct the circumstance so the players could feel good about moving forward with the story and there was no undue punishment beyond their control.”

Taliesin on Cad’s response: “This is a big thing if you’re a cleric. It was very much coming in like an EMT. Everything should be fine... hopefully. Just focused in and got it done. The minute things started to go south it was like, okay, that’s the next problem.”

On Yeza’s feelings: “It is a very complicated situation. I think he, much like how Veth is trying to figure out what it is that she wants, I think he’s trying to help her find that while also figuring it out for himself. I think Yeza’s also noticing that because Veth’s the more active of the two of them she also takes the weight of the responsibility and the blame for things when they go wrong, unnecessarily. Especially when he himself acknowledges that he’s partially at fault for even dragging everyone in with the Conclave. As much as he’s appreciative for them coming back for him, there’s a lot of back and forth. He’s filled with a lot of regret, too, but he’s very much trying to convince Veth that it’s a burden that she doesn’t have to keep to herself, that they can share it and work through it together.” Matt mentions that, as an actor, he really loves exploring interactions between characters first and foremost. “Especially when you don’t know where it’s going to go.” He also praises Sam as a scene partner - “I really cherish that.”

How does Caduceus feel about Revivify and Speak with Dead? “Speak with Dead is an interesting middle ground, because he knows that it’s not actually speaking with the dead. It’s really just-- it’s almost medical, really. This is just reactivating a brain at a certain point. It’s practically just a muscle twitch at this point. That doesn’t really prod him in that direction. Revivify is interesting, because it had never really come up. At first I thought of it as bending the rules, but it’s not bending the rules. You knock over a plant, you replant it, you don’t stare at it and go ‘Well, that’s over.’ This is just doing the work. No, we can bring this thing back to health. This is all part of the circle of life, that sometimes we can save something. Especially given the stress that he’s put himself through over the past year of being with these people. He’s started to think of himself a bit as a battlefield medic, and triage is just part of the deal, and it’s completely acceptable.”

Did Trent really just want to talk? “Yeah, that circumstance, as it came together, Trent would never have arrived if there wasn’t an indication that there was some kind of infiltration or attack. Even beyond that, it was Jester breaking the concentration on her charm on that one guard when she created her duplicate.” The guards’ job is to inform a member of the Cerberus Assembly, and Trent lived the closest. “He didn’t know who it was, didn’t have any expectation necessarily. The minute he saw the illusion, he knew a powerful magic user was involved.” Seeing Caleb was an unexpected surprise. “I don’t think he wanted to throw down necessarily. He was more interested in figuring out exactly what the nature of this was.” Matt had multiple battlemaps that didn’t get used. “They managed to cleverly out-maneuver him in his surprise of seeing them.” The Nein rocketed up his priority list after that very quickly. Taliesin: “We’re so fucked.”

On Cad being “Uncle Caduceus” to Luc: “It’s the thing he misses most about home, is being a juvenile shit. It’s nice to be able to express that part of him again, as opposed to the serious, life-threatening, constant intensity. I’m very at home just being a little difficult.”

Cosplay of the Week: an amazing Beau! (_rumor_king, photography by kourtyardproductions on Instagram)

On Marion: “Like a lot of people in this whole narrative from the beginning, getting swept up in things larger than her and trying to adapt. This is a circumstance she’s avoided for a long time. She’s having a rough time in some ways, but simultaneously, she’s enduring. Like a mother would. She’s adapting, she’s making it work. Without much of a choice, you just kind of do the best you can and lean on the people around you to help you where they can. Luckily she has a daughter there. She’s probably surprising herself at how well she’s doing given the circumstances.” Matt talks about how weird it is to feel proud of character he’s created. “Of the many things Marion is incredible at, she’s a studier of the human condition. She’s seen and heard the stories of so many. That gives her a very special perspective. She can see elements of that fractured individual within Caleb, and knowing the good that he’s brought to his friends, and knowing he’s possibly saved her life from bad circumstances, she couldn’t not speak up. She very easily falls into that role of maternal comforter, because it’s one of the many things she’s really good at, she enjoys it, and she can see well when people need it.” He’s been enjoying having Marion along for this (despite the difficult circumstances) because he was always a little sad that they only got to see her for short periods of time.

On the Blooming Grove’s safety: “He’s afraid that it’s a premonition. He’s not pinned it down, but he’s happy to let his imagination wander. He at the very least feels like there’s a reason he’s having these thoughts, and that there’s a reason to go there. He’s a big believer that these things don’t just happen. He’s more likely to think that there’s a good reason to go versus a danger to go. He’s had a couple of ominous warnings lately, and he’s not used to them and not a fan. He’s more likely to read something like that as, there is something there waiting for you that you have to discover. There is something that is going to be helpful to you, even if it hurts.”

On Astrid: “While maybe not as readable in overall personality as Trent is, I still want to be careful to not discuss things that are still being discussed within the game and tossed around as possibilities. Astrid is another complicated character, as anyone would be who’s been through the life she has. I can’t say too much. I can say she’s definitely legitimately happy to see Bren/Caleb after all this time.” His reemergence definitely caught her off guard. “We’ll have to see where it goes from there.”

On Cad’s successful Divine Intervention: “He’s definitely hit the ‘on a mission from god’ stage. He’s been that way for the entire campaign of, this, this is what I’ve been waiting for. Even when it sucks a lot, it’s been nice that those things have popped up to remind him, no, no, you’re doing it right, everything’s good. Probably not going to survive the next week, but you’re doing good! Not quite 1 in a 100 chance, but I forget so often to make that roll, and it’s such a great roleplaying roll. I don’t know how at level 20 you could deal with the fact that you can do that every day.” 

On Zeenoth getting his comeuppance: the kidnapping was a concept Marisha brought up for Beau’s backstory, and Matt went with it even though it was opposed to the Cobalt Soul’s philosophy because he knew rooting it out would make for an interesting story. “I felt it was an important beat to bring to her, because it was something that she was wronged by. And to show that there are still some good people out there who are trying to make things right.” After the tentative peace, dealing with this became Dairon’s next focus. “I was glad we finally got to it. So many people don’t have the opportunity in their lives to get that sort of justice and vindication, so if I can bring elements of that justice into our world, even for our own hope, I’m going to do that. Especially for my wife’s character, especially for a character that deserves that.” Taliesin points out that if it had come too early, Beau wouldn’t have believed it.

Cad’s thoughts on the Tomb Taker betrayal? “He knew it was gonna come at some point. There was no way that was gonna last. He was hoping it was gonna last a little longer. He was really hoping they had a vested interest in getting them all the way to the end. Nope, this is apparently as far as we go, and he was not prepared for that.” He was expecting the potential for de-escalation. “Caduceus is the only character in there that doesn’t have a history with Lucien. I think he sees him a little more clearly than everybody else does. They’re all looking for this person that Clay, at least, is of the opinion that he’s just not there. This is a very manipulative, very dangerous infernal human. Just smarter than all of them. Really aware that there is no calculating what the hell is going to happen. Conversation is the only way you can deal with someone like that.”

Fan Art of the Week: An amazing Caleb closeup! (rynn_birb on Twitter)

Taliesin on Lucien: “I’m excited he’s the one that’s going to kill us all. Poetic that this is how the game ends.” Matt was delighted when Taliesin handed him carte blanche to do what he wanted with Molly’s past. “I was like ‘shit... oh, wait!’ The character of Lucien was always intended to be an antagonist so that it would have been Molly being chased by the person who wanted their body back. But then it happened that he got his body back.” Taliesin: “He’s so much worse than I ever hoped.”

Matt, on the Holy Avenger: “I hadn’t thought to initially even give that sword.” The good roll was the only reason Kima handed that over. “Well, sure, you get the sword. It was very reactionary, it wasn’t my intent originally. I was like, well, I mean, there’s two avenues she can take with this.” Multiclass into Paladin, or lean into the fact that her subclass is essentially a barbarian paladin. “This really works out in a uniquely beautiful way. Let me see if I can lay out a path for her to earn it.”

On Cad’s attempt at lying blowing up in his face: “He was like that kid that had a really bad day in high school and was like, you know what? I’m going to let loose. This is it. I’m gonna dye a streak in my hair. And then tries to give himself a haircut and ends up with half bangs. Well, okay, obviously I’m not that person. I was feeling a little distraught and I didn’t handle it well. Maybe I’m going dark... no, I’m not going dark. Nope.” Matt mentions how much he relates to Caduceus.

Matt, on the Eyes: “What can I tell you? I’m enjoying the hell out of it. The moment they began to really push to read that book, I was like, okay, this is on you. I’m excited for the point in the narrative where the march continues back to Eiselcross. I am almost impatient - not really - because we’re on the cusp of getting to more of the meat. There’s so much to learn, so much to see, so much to explore. I love instilling my players with absolute terror.”

Thoughts on Jester’s Tarot reading? Taliesin cackles. “Molly made the cards, so. Did it to himself, he did, he did.” Matt: “Once again, another example of things working out unexpectedly and too perfectly for an improvised moment. Fuck.” Taliesin: “Bless the wisdom of chaos.” Matt: “I love that even at this point in the campaign, Molly continues to fuck with people. I’m just so proud. That deeply shook Lucien, for reasons.” Taliesin: “It’s the everlasting gobstopper smoke bomb.”

[badgirlcovenrep]

atlas

Alex Chen × Steph Gingrich fluffy comfort one-shot

(I was talking to a friend about the game and we were discussing how Alex is probably still carrying a lot of trauma. And even after everything that happened at the mines we still don't see her really grieve for the whole situation and herself. So- I had to write it, you know?)

Enjoy!

TW: mentions of suicide, death and mental health issues.

It's two months into their relationship now, and they are somewhere in a Californian town, living in a tiny apartment close to the beach. They play together in small venues and underground clubs. Alex bartends and Steph referees for DND campaigns at a nerd bar they found by chance on their first week there.

They're happy. As happy as Alex remembers being since she was- well, maybe nine.

Every day, it's a little like waking up into a dream. Living in an apartment with her first girlfriend, listening to music as they cooked dinner together. Getting to kiss her just because Alex felt like it. Because her heart went a little loopy inside her chest when she smiled. Because she knew Steph would hold on to her waist and make her feel like she was full of electricity.

The 'falling in love' business felt overrated before Steph.

But Being in the middle of it now, Alex doesn't think there's anything better.

Although a part of her still felt quite numb - she guesses it's not something that will go away that easily - and day by day, Alex felt a little bit more like she could breathe... like she was finally letting herself go, at least a little bit.

****

Now that she could comprehend and use her powers, it also seemed as if she'd started to become even more of a magnet for all sorts of emotion around her. And apparently Alex could do it in her sleep too.

The nightmares came in clusters most of the time, a badly cut-together mess of voices and feelings. The lady that lived under them, who lost her son when he was little. The couple from down the street, who were going through a hard time in their relationship. Even the little girl from upstairs, who had terrible night terrors of sharp-teethed monsters reaching from under her bed.

They all mixed inside her head until she woke up gasping for air and sizzling with emotion.

It was rare that she'd have a full dream, one that made sense and completed itself, but when she did they were always about Gabe. About sitting together at the rooftop of the Lantern and sharing a beer. Or climbing trees, like they used to do when they were little.

It was a relief from the usual doom.

And that dream was supposed to be nothing different. Or at least she thought it wasn't.

****

In it, they were at the ravine. A world of twinkling stars shining above their heads. The Colorado mountains all around them creating a landscape that was just as beautiful as it was bittersweet. Alex could see the log she'd crossed, still standing between her and the tiny outcrop of stone Ethan had been stranded on.

She hadn't dreamed of the ravine since leaving Haven Springs, but while she was there, Alex dreamt of it every night. She would see it when her eyes were closed. She could hear it, - the sirens, the terrible, deafening rumble of the ground splitting beneath them. The panic, pounding into her ears.

But this is different. Because when she looks around, Alex realizes she's standing over the elevated plateau, tied to the waist and leaning all her weight against a sturdy piece of rock.

Looking at her from below is Gabe. Lying on the cold ground. A cheesy smile spread across his face.

"Why are we switched?" Alex asks because that's all she can think of asking, as she stares at the rope that anchored her to the ground... to Gabe.

"Beats me. This is all your brain, not mine." He says, and Alex huffs in annoyance, "you know what's going to happen, but you keep coming here."

"I don't have a choice."

"Hmmm..." Gabe hums, but there's some humor in his expression as he stares intently back at her, "and that's exactly why... I'm here because I should say goodbye."

A coldness spreads over Alex's limbs. Around her, the very fabric of the dream dims into darkness as a strong breeze blows past them. She suddenly feels like throwing up.

"What- what does that mean?" It's a stupid question. This is her dream. Alex knows what it means.

Deep down, she knew she'd been conjuring him up for her own sake. Trying to bring back any morsel of relief into the giant hole he'd left inside her heart. However, Alex also knew at some point he'd be gone- she just didn't expect-

"You don't need me anymore, Alex." He says. As if it's that simple. As if she'd ever-

"I'll always need you, Gabe. Of course I need you." The words stumble out of her mouth, and she can feel the hot, angry tears falling down her face.

It feels like a hot iron pressed to the very top of her chest.

Like lava, boiling up into her bloodstream until Alex wants to punch something. The steam that prickles from under her skin, fighting to break free.

Anger always comes first when people feel cornered. It's something she noticed a while back. Out of all the emotions Alex had dealt with the past few months, that, at least, hadn't changed.

"Shit, Gabe. When you died I needed you more than ever."

"But we can't fix that, can we?" He asks, and another wave of anger rips through her. She looks anywhere but him, because Alex feels that if she does, she'll tackle and kill him all over again. But when he says nothing and they're left in the same pocket of silence - the one right before the whole world collapsed - her eyes eventually fall back to her brother. Tied to her and laid on the ground beneath. Looking at her like just as much the goofy asshole she missed so much.

Anger always felt urgent and fast, like a flash going through her body and leaving everything inside it in disarray. It demanded to be completely felt, but only for the moment it took for Alex to decide it wasn't worth launching the nearest object at a window.

Or trying to kill her dead brother.

"You might have needed Gabe. But you don't need this Gabe anymore, Alex. You can do it on your own now."

The fear and sadness that came after? They were usually much, much worse.

"But this is the only Gabe I have."

Those emotions, when mixed, turned into a horrible harmony that paralyzed her lungs and darkened the sides of her vision. They felt just as urgent as anger, but complacent. A beast staring at her from the very bottom of a pit. Tied to her by the waist and trying to lure her down into the abyss.

And, for Alex, the abyss was as deep as a ventilation shaft for a Colorado mining site.

"No, it's not. You'll always have me, Alex. And you know that." Not in the way that matters. Alex wants to say, but it's so redundant. He's the ghost. He should already know that. "And you have Ryan now, and Eleanor, Riley, Charlotte, Ethan... Steph..." he gives her a cheesy smile in the last name, wiggling his eyebrows back at her teasingly.

"Oh, God, way to ruin the moment." Alex can't help but chuckle a little through her tears. Is she blushing? You can't blame her for blushing, right? God, she feels like Diane.

"Hey. Let me have it. One of my only regrets is that I never got to tease the hell out of Steph for dating my little sister... and for being whipped as hell."

"That would have been so funny."

"I knew she'd get along with you but I guess I didn't expect... that. Shame on me. Should've had more artistic vision."

Alex chuckles as more tears run down her face. It's so bittersweet it hurts from the very inside of herself.

"All jokes aside. I'm glad you have her, and that she has you. She's good. Just make sure you tell her I'll haunt her from the grave if her dumb ass breaks your heart, okay?" Alex nods, and her body starts shaking with strangled sobs. So much emotion she just can't let go of. Because if she does, Alex is afraid there'll be nothing left.

"Hey. Don't cry. You can do this, Alex. You know how to live life now."

"I don't want to lose you again, Gabe."

"You'll never lose me. You'll just have to look a little harder." He smiles up at her, pulling jokingly on the rope, "now play your part - or is it my part? You get it."

And then- too soon. (Same as it was that night.) The sirens blast through the mountains, and somewhere above them, a giant explosion blows her eardrums, and boulders the size of cars come tumbling down the mountain.

She barely has time to blink. Barely has time to breathe one last time. Seen as she's Gabe, when she looks up all she sees is the giant rock, flying towards her, hitting her across the torso so hard, before she knows, she's flying way above the ravine, and one last glimpse of the stars catches hold over the veil of her memory before everything turns black.

****

She wakes up in bed, desperately clawing at the top of her chest as she gasps for air. Her lungs feel like they're made of lead, and all around her, she can feel the weight of the rocks, the explosion, the debris, weighing down her body.

Alex pats across the mattress for Steph, who is not there. Another wave of panic washes over her. So strong her mouth turns dry and her head aches as she tries to breathe in, but her lungs can only handle tiny, torturous gasps of half-breath.

Alex dispels a world of curses towards herself inside. Willing her own body to just calm down. In the bathroom, she can hear Steph singing softly to herself- she must have come home late from the DND tournament. Alex told her she'd swing by, but she'd had a long shift and ended up just passing out as soon as her head hit the pillow.

Alex hadn't had an incident like this in very long. She could control it now. Most times. It wasn't easy, with being on the road and constantly surrounded by people. Sometimes, she still got more than she could bargain. When she walked across a depressed person on the sidewalk, or heard one of their multiple neighbors yelling at each other through the walls, and suddenly she felt as if the world blended out of focus into a tsunami of feeling.

Feeling that wasn't hers but still felt so much like it was.

Steph helped whenever it happened. For a sarcastic punk rock mess, she was surprisingly stable and so very reassuring.

Just the fact that she can hear her voice. That Steph is there in the apartment with her, is enough to calm some of her nerves, and while Alex still can't keep herself from pulling in gasps of air as she tries to hold in any kind of oxygen, she at least has a plan.

Water. Water will make her feel better, right?

Almost as soon as the idea crosses her mind, Alex's half-delirious brain commands her to get up, but her body feels so very heavy. Like she's really been trampled over by a wave of giant boulders. And as soon as her feet touch the ground, her legs give up under the weight, and she falls onto the hard floor with a loud, heavy thud.

The girl's hands fly up to hold her weight against the bed, and thankfully that means she doesn't face plant the ground, but it sends her heart into a neck-breaking pace, and all air Alex'd been able to gather so far escapes her in a single huff until she's hyperventilating again, hot, angry tears running down her face.

You're so weak. You're such a fucking idiot. Of course, you had to go and lose Gabe twice, who the fuck would want to stay with such a mess-

"Alex, are you okay?" Steph's voice comes, as she opens the door to find her girlfriend sitting on the ground, looking like she might pass out from just trying to get her lungs to work, "Alex!"

In a second she's crossed their room and kneeled by her, both hands going up to her cheeks on instinct, smearing away her tears.

"Breathe with me, okay? We've done this before, you can do it." She always gets just a tiny bit of a scared aura around her when Alex gets like this, never for long enough that she can read it, but it's still there, the tiny flutter of fear, "come on, breathe."

Her eyes go up to find Steph's, her strong, glittering green gaze. Alex might be the one with superpowers, but it was Steph who could so easily reach in and soften her edges like it was nothing. It was Steph who could just lean in and hold Alex's hand against her chest, letting her feel the determined rise of her lungs. Strong. Stable. Even Alex couldn't possibly understand how she did that.

How she always made Alex's breathing slowly come to shaky, deep breaths, crawling painfully out of her dry throat, but still better than gasping like a fish. Inside her, Alex feels the furious hurricane of emotion, twisting itself into the bottom of her lungs, taking hold of every bit of her until she felt like she could throw up.

"Wait here, I'll get you water," Steph says, and Alex wants to complain, she doesn't want to be alone, even for a second.

But before she can, Steph has left their bedroom for the kitchen, and Alex feels as if she's stable enough to crawl into bed, so she does so at a glacial pace. She grabs Shu-Shu, holding her close to her chest as she sits and waits for Steph.

She eventually comes back in with a glass full and Alex gulps it down in silence, unsure if whatever dam of emotion that has taken place inside of her will break if she tries to speak. So she sets the glass back and lies her head down on the pillow, facing away from Steph and the rest of the room as she tries to reel herself back in.

She can hear Steph taking off her boots and climbing into bed, one arm winding around her waist as she pulls Alex in closer.

"Was it the lady from upstairs?" Steph asks, eventually, after they sit in a few long minutes of silence.

"No." She replies, and it comes out so strangled, so broken, a few more tears run down her face. Steph pulls her even closer, a tight, steady pressure.

"The couple again? I swear to God I'll call the police on that asshole this time."

"No." Alex says, and she detaches herself from Steph just enough so she can turn around and look at her, "I had a dream about Gabe." Simply saying his name makes her whole body shake. Steph is looking at her so intensely, Alex has to close her eyes, holding on to the fabric of her shirt with all she had not to explode in whatever terrifying, dizzying bomb of emotion she could feel brewing inside herself.

Alex felt so much from other people it overwhelmed her multiple times a day, and even then, it was nothing compared to this. Nothing compared to how much sheer strength it took from her not to let it blow.

It scared her. More than anything.

"He wanted to say goodbye." She says eventually, "it was- I don't know. This- I- this isn't coming from anyone- How do I get rid of it? It's like it's all inside of me and it's taking up so much space and I don't know how to fix it" The words come tumbling out before she can stop them, and she's rambling through tears.

Steph sighs. And Alex can feel the love and sadness mixed together, blowing from her in waves as she holds Alex's chin, bringing her up so they can look at each other.

"Baby..." there are tears in her eyes now, as she pulls her closer until their foreheads are touching, and they are so close Alex can smell her lemongrass shampoo, "This is all yours."

And such simple words shouldn't hit her this fucking hard.

But it all suddenly makes so much sense-

Alex was numb after her dad left. She felt nothing for months. It was one of the most terrifying feelings in the world, a deep and powerful depression that threatened to overtake her at any given point.

Like her whole body was nothing but dead weight and her brain was way too tired to even try and keep up.

Young as she was, Alex guesses she never realized the first time she felt anything at all after that was when she discovered her powers. The day a boy came to the orphanage and he was so angry it blew her across the hallway. Ever since then, everything around her was a cacophony of feeling. Coming from every direction. Every street corner, every store, every park.

Every moment of her life since she was eleven, Alex could only feel for others.

"I- I forgot." She realizes, half surprise and half so much sadness another sob breaks through her throat.

Now it made sense, the anger, the sadness, the fear, a hurricane of emotion so very powerful it made her ears ring.

"I'm scared." She admits. Because for someone who had been so focused on learning how to exist among other people's feelings, Alex had no clue how to handle herself, "what do I do with all of this? How do I fix it?"

"Alex. Look at me." Steph brings her face upwards until they are so close, Alex can see the speckles of blue in her eyes, "Gabe died just four months ago, and you were there to see everything- then you got shot and thrown down God knows how many stories into a dark abyss that you somehow walked out of, but not before also finding out about your dad's tragic death - and I haven't seen you cry, actually cry, for yourself, even once."

"I- I can't, it's too much. I don't know how, Steph." Alex had learned her lesson. She'd seen her life as it was and survived it. Deep down she knew it wasn't her responsibility anymore - that it never was her responsibility, to begin with - to hold herself together for others. She knows.

But old habits die hard, and Alex guesses it'll take a while before she starts feeling it too.

Because right now, it still felt like the world might collapse if she wasn't there to hold it together.

"Just- give it to me. Everything you have, I can carry it for you." Steph says, with such determination, Alex actually believes her, but she takes her eyes away, trying to avoid the bubbling of tears threatening to jump out through her throat "Let it go, please, Alex. I can't watch you carry it alone anymore."

At that moment, Alex glances at her again, and there's so much pain, so much love in her eyes, that inside Alex, the dam finally breaks and she's choking on sobs. Tears start running down her cheeks as Steph leans in and pulls her closer, one arm around her shoulder and one on her hip, squeezing tight in reassurance.

If she didn't know better, Alex would've guessed Steph was the one with the superpowers, with the way she coaxes wave after wave of emotion out of her with nothing but her steady presence and quick, light kisses she leaves on Alex's head and hair as she holds on to her shirt for dear life.

It overwhelmed her more than anything she'd experienced so far, and for what feels like hours, she just sobs as Steph holds her.

She cries for her mom. Dead before her time, trying to hold them together to the very end. She cries for her dad, dying a slow death deep underground, a picture of the two children he'd never see again dangling around his neck. She cries for Gabe, for the time they'd never have, for the time they did have.

Above all, for the first time, Alex cried for herself. For being the last out of all of them. For the little girl that had to love and lose every single one of them in succession.

And in the middle of all of it, like a speckle of golden light hidden under all the darkness, for the first time, she feels that it could all start to feel alright.

[primrose-path-of-dalliance]

on bren and feeblemind.

(cw: lots of caleb backstory. self-explanatory, i think?)

.

.

this isn’t something i’ve talked about on my blog yet, but since the campaign has begun drawing to a close, i want to make sure i say my piece on the popular theory that bren/caleb was institutionalized because trent ikithon feebleminded him to disable him.

my piece being that it’s exceptionally unlikely he did—at least as a premeditated plan. this kind of theory also falls prey to the exact beliefs ikithon has tried to exploit in caleb.

for our mutual reference, i’ll quote the spell description of feeblemind.

FEEBLEMIND (PHB) 8th level enchantment

Casting time: 1 action Range: 150 feet Components: VSM (a handful of clay, crystal, glass, or mineral spheres) Duration: Instantaneous

You blast the mind of a creature that you can see within range, attempting to shatter its intellect and personality. The target takes 4d6 psychic damage and must make an Intelligence saving throw.

On a failed save, the creature’s Intelligence and Charisma scores become 1. The creature can’t cast spells, activate magic items, understand language, or communicate in any intelligible way. The creature can, however, identify its friends, follow them, and even protect them.

At the end of every 30 days, the creature can repeat its saving throw against this spell. If it succeeds on its saving throw, the spell ends. The spell can also be ended by Greater Restoration, Heal, or Wish.

considering the characteristics described and implied by actors other than ikithon—caleb and astrid prominently—who are not motivated to deceive on ikithon’s behalf, feeblemind is not consistent with caleb’s mental break.

fact the first: when bren broke, he became violent and spellcasted.

when astrid describes the circumstances in which he was taken to the vergessen sanatorium (e89, 1:49:30), she refers to his lashing out as “creat[ing] a lot of sparks everywhere else” and rubs at burn scars across her neck. she says that they had to subdue him because he was too dangerous. all of these statements add up to a bren who was viciously spellcasting at his friends and mentor when he broke down.

this wouldn’t have been possible if he’d been feebleminded. feeblemind explicitly prevents the affected creature from casting spells or activating magic items. in that scenario, the only thing bren would’ve been capable of is throwing hands. from him? not very dangerous at all.

how do we know astrid wasn’t lying or intentionally deceptive? because she (and eadwulf) still cares so much for caleb that she risked her life multiple times to aid him. no one who would give caleb a map to a secret volstrucker vault with her own handwriting on it (e127, 29:29; and 30:57)—or intentionally fail to counterspell him when ikithon could’ve seen her do so—would lie to caleb about ikithon attempting to permanently feeblemind him if she knew.

to preempt the idea that astrid had set the m9 up: it’s very obvious she didn’t, since trent ikithon had clearly had no forewarning of a break-in. he would’ve at least been waiting in the vault, already prepared to subdue them quickly, if he’d known.

so it’s fair to determine that astrid would either be honest to the extent of her knowledge to caleb or make it clear that she couldn’t answer him. since she didn’t imply the latter, we can assume she was being honest. and because of astrid’s competence, it’s highly probable she would’ve noticed if his behavior was symptomatic of feeblemind over the years.

fact the second: bren’s mental condition repeatedly improved and regressed while he was institutionalized.

astrid states this in the same conversation about their subduing him after his breakdown (e89, 1:50:50). considering this with the context of their romantic relationship prior to his breakdown, her genuine care for him, and her rise to power that included accompanying ikithon frequently to the sanatorium (e127, 31:07)—astrid would’ve had the motivation and the opportunities to visit bren in person. she could’ve also kept well-abreast of his condition.

actual times of improvement and decline in the mental state that astrid first observed during his breakdown wouldn’t be consistent with feeblemind. although it reduces the victim’s intelligence score to 1, they still retain thought and their sense of identity without problems.

this is a maintenance of consistency and (relative) reason. feeblemind does not actually damage a person’s basic perception of reality. but the health of bren’s behavior throughout the years was instead very unstable.

fact the third: caleb doesn’t remember anything from the burning of his home up to his healing by the unknown cleric.

in the conversation with astrid in e89, he asks her what happened when he broke and explicitly says, “the last thing i remember is my home” (1:46:58). when he first tells beau and nott about his past, he explains that he doesn’t remember much of what happened to him there (e18, 2:51:54).

beyond the reduction to their intelligence, feeblemind doesn’t affect the victim’s ability to form memories. caleb’s keen mind feat and established narrative element of his eidetic memory would’ve still been present as well. therefore, feeblemind alone can’t explain such a significant, near-empty gap in his memory. he would still remember something.

even the possibility of trent ikithon altering them directly is precluded by the fact that the cleric’s healing removed the alterations to caleb’s memory. if all those years had been magically blocked away, they’d have returned when he was healed of everything else.

fact the fourth: sometimes, people really do just break.

nothing about caleb’s backstory is inconsistent with just... being a person living their life, even a terrible one. he was a young man that believed so zealously in his country and his purpose, abused by a powerful older man, that he did many horrible things and believed they were right. until finally he did something that he couldn’t process and broke down.

there’s two reoccurring, underlying assumptions i’ve noticed behind why this theory seems to be so compelling and popular:

caleb just seems so remorseful and traumatized by his double patricide. there’s no way he would’ve willingly murdered his parents. ikithon must have known and decided to preempt his inevitable betrayal.

everything we know about bren, especially from the horse’s own mouth, suggests that he had been willing (at least up until his mental break) to murder his parents. he was literally an extreme nationalist—a fascist, if you will. he was lawful evil (twitter source). he gratefully executed many “criminals” put in front of him, more than likely by burning them to death based on his ptsd. victims whom we now understand may not have been guilty of anything at all.

he was glad to do what he thought was best for the dwendalian empire, and he truly thought being volstrucker was the correct path. trent ikithon, his abuser, treated him as his favorite (e110, 3:30:58). because he believed.

that fervent faith, in fact, is the key to something like his breakdown in the first place. hearing the dying screams of his parents, bren was forced to confront a violent dissonance between his radical beliefs that condemned traitors (as he believed until the cleric’s healing) and the intuitive horror of murdering his parents that he couldn’t reconcile. this fathomless sense of betrayal is why caleb so deeply despised ikithon and himself.

a young evocation wizard who didn’t want his parents dead would’ve run into that burning house, feebleminded or not. someone magically compelled to set that fire would’ve understood what happened as soon as the charm left him and would definitely remember every detail once the cleric healed him.

caleb is remorseful and traumatized because he willingly murdered his parents. as well as many others.

it can’t be that simple. caleb was institutionalized for eleven years just because his abuser pushed him too far? there must be a more nefarious reason. ikithon even said he basically stored him for later.

putting aside the fact that bren having a breakdown in the way he did makes complete sense for his situation, ikithon’s “claim” that he orchestrated all of caleb’s subsequent years is not only something he never actually says (e110, 3:16:34)—it is a claim that’s patently absurd.

i’ve written meta that discusses this in the past (link here). essentially though, the number of moving pieces and assumptions that would be needed for such a series of events is ridiculously improbable. even assuming that ikithon feebleminded him—so that caleb’s mind would be intact when he ‘woke up’—even assuming that ikithon somehow procured the service of a cleric of the archeart—a banned deity in the empire that would oppose ikithon...

why in the world would he ever reasonably believe that caleb widogast, the man he viciously betrayed and lied to and abused, would do anything to benefit ikithon?

trent ikithon is a mortal man. he has power, yes; enchantment magic, authority, and a history of abuse and manipulation over caleb’s head, yes. but ikithon is a mortal man. not a puppeteer in the sky piloting people’s bodies.

he certainly wouldn’t have led caleb to a whole new family that would change everything about his life for the better. a family that would love him, truly—a family that would help him heal, bear the weight of his guilt, and find a real future waiting for him again instead of a self-destructive end. a family that would fight tooth and nail for caleb’s sake against ikithon.

abusers lie. their biggest lie, the one they always circle back to in the end, is that their victim is unique: that there is something which makes them deserving of abuse, and that their abuser is both right and inescapable.

ikithon is read as honest because he chooses his words carefully and has the self-confidence to believe it. everything he’s claimed about caleb and his past have either been implications that he encouraged others to reach for him or platitudes empty of everything except gaslighting intent.

caleb has escaped. and everything ikithon wants is to convince caleb and his friends that he continues to control caleb’s life, that caleb is special, so he can regain some influence over a man who’s come to command so much power.

the idea that caleb must’ve been feebleminded—that he couldn’t have just had a mental breakdown like so many other prospective volstrucker before miraculously, then strenuously, recovering to create a hopeful future for himself—falls into the trap of validating ikithon’s lies.

trent ikithon didn’t see and believe in caleb’s ‘full potential’ before anyone else did. he didn’t foresee a single ounce of the man’s struggle to put himself back together after what he suffered. caleb was not institutionalized to serve as a toy to one day pull back out of the closet. there was no feeblemind or other secretive plan that could only serve to obfuscate the brutal truth:

ikithon abused a boy until he shattered, and tried to hide the evidence. a crime that he’s committed against countless other children. plain and simple.

so that’s my piece.

caleb widogast—bren ermendrud—was not the victim of a premeditated feeblemind from ikithon, based on the mechanics of the spell. even more importantly, the narrative of his and ikithon’s stories would suffer if he was.

now,

A LOGICAL POSSIBILITY I WON’T DENY.

what if ikithon feebleminded him as a method to subdue him after the breakdown?

this is more or less an alternate theory that’s irrelevant to the points i actually wanted to make. but i want to talk about it anyway because it’s kind of fun.

fact the bonus: bren spent eleven years in the sanatorium.

eleven years is a long time. he would’ve been able to save every 30 days after the initial failed save. the exandrian calendar has about eleven 30-day periods every year. assuming a feeblemind spell cast on him just prior to his institutionalization, that’s somewhere around 121 possible save attempts, give or take a few.

what’s the likelihood of him actually saving? to go through the mechanics:

normally, feeblemind reduces a person’s intelligence score to 1, modifier -5. caleb, as a variant human, possessed the feat keen mind from the beginning both mechanically and story-wise. this would make his intelligence score 2, modifier -4, even after feeblemind.

as a level 1-2 wizard, he would’ve had proficiency in intelligence saves. this would be +2 to his save.

in total, the modifier to bren’s intelligence saves would be -2.

in order to cast feeblemind, trent ikithon would have to have been a minimum level 15 wizard. this leaves two possible proficiency bonuses to determine his spell save dc: +5 or +6.

it’s probably safe to assume that his intelligence score is at least 18–20, likely 20. this would be a modifier of +4 or +5. (his intelligence could be 22+ if matt wanted to be a real dick, but let’s assume otherwise.)

spell save dc = 8 + spellcasting score mod (for wizards, this is intelligence) + proficiency bonus.

this means trent ikithon’s possible spell save dc is somewhere from 17–19.

therefore:

at minimum—17 being ikithon as a level 15–16 wizard with an intelligence score of 18–19 at the time of casting—bren would have to roll a 19 or nat 20 to make the save with his -2 save modifier.

at a dc of 18—ikithon either being level 17–20 or having an intelligence score of 20, but not both—bren would have to roll a nat 20.

at a dc of 19(+), it would be impossible for bren to save without additional bonuses such as bless.

i don’t have the brainpower to calculate some real statistical probabilities, but depending on your opinion of trent ikithon’s probable capabilities at the time of bren’s mental break, he may have been able to save against feeblemind sometime during the eleven years he spent at the sanatorium.

naturally, this has the earlier-mentioned conundrum of remembering that return of clarity once he was healed by the cleric, should ikithon have been retrieved to recast the feeblemind and altered his memories. nevertheless, it may or may not be a fun thought to play around with.

[deadpresidents]

Unfinished: April 12, 1945

As March 1945 drew to a close, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was exhausted. At the beginning of February, Roosevelt had attended the Yalta Conference with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin -- a meeting which required the American President to undertake a physically punishing and extraordinarily dangerous trip halfway around the world to the Crimean Peninsula in the middle of a raging world war. At Yalta, Roosevelt’s appearance had shocked the foreign leaders and their aides. In his last face-to-face meeting with Churchill, on February 18, 1945, FDR was seen as a dead man walking. Churchill’s personal doctor, Lord Moran, told a friend that Roosevelt had “only a few months to live”.

Being President of the United States for just one term is taxing enough on a young man or a healthy man. Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been President for twelve years. He had campaigned for the Presidency and been victorious in four national elections. His Administration faced one of the greatest domestic crises in American History -- the Great Depression -- and the greatest crisis and bloodiest conflict in world history -- World War II. FDR had attacked these problems (and other issues that arose during his terms) with energy, creativity, and a relentless pursuit of victory.

A healthy and athletic man who stood nearly 6′2″ and weighed about 200 lbs. as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt had been stricken by polio in 1921. The disease robbed him of his ability to walk and, at the time, looked as if it had robbed him of a political future. He rebounded politically but physically he was never the same. Confined to a wheelchair, the muscles in his legs withered like the branches of a tree in winter. Although he could not walk under his own power, FDR taught himself to stand while wearing heavy steel braces around his shins. He needed the assistance of a muscular partner -- sometimes one of his sons, sometimes a military aide -- in order to feign the appearance of walking. Through sheer will, however, Roosevelt learned to take a few steps without anyone’s help -- a handy skill that he would show off at important campaign rallies. But as he began his unprecedented fourth term in the White House in the early months of 1945, FDR no longer had the energy to show off.

Roosevelt was as gravely ill as Lord Moran suggested. The successful 1944 Presidential campaign had severely drained his already tapped-out reservoirs of energy and stamina. His fourth inauguration was low-key, partly because it took place in the midst of war and partly due to the President’s failing health. Instead of the traditional inaugural ceremonies at the U.S. Capitol, Roosevelt took the Oath of Office at the White House and gave his brief fourth Inaugural Address from a balcony at the Executive Mansion. The famously verbose Roosevelt gave the second-shortest Inaugural Address in American History. By the time the crowd realized that he was talking he had already finished. Only George Washington’s four-sentence-long second Inaugural Address in 1793 was shorter than the address given by FDR on January 20, 1945.

FDR now looked entirely different than the man who had told the nation that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself” in 1933. Dark circles surrounded his eyes, which seemed sunken into his skull. Since his first Inauguration, Roosevelt had lost 40-50 pounds. His hands shook so violently at times that some observers wondered how he was able to eat. He smoked constantly, but rarely finished his cigarettes. Most shocking of all, FDR no longer went to great lengths to conceal his disability. Frail and tired, he found it almost impossible to wear the heavy braces that he long wore on his crippled legs. On March 1, 1945, Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress on the results of his Yalta Conference with Churchill and Stalin. In an unprecedented move, the President sat in a chair on the floor of the House of Representatives and apologized to Congress, beginning his speech by saying, “I hope that you will pardon me for this unusual posture of sitting down during the presentation of what I want to say, but I know that you will realize it makes it a lot easier for me not to have to carry about ten pounds of steel around on the bottom of my legs.” It was the first time that President Roosevelt had ever publicly acknowledged his physical disability.

Twelve years of the Presidency, economic depression and war had strained Roosevelt’s health, but the 14,000-mile trip to the Yalta Conference on the Black Sea had pushed FDR to the limit. On March 30, 1945, Roosevelt arrived in Warm Springs, Georgia for a few weeks of relaxation and, hopefully, recuperation. Roosevelt loved Warm Springs. He had started visiting the small town in western Georgia in the 1920s, hoping that the warm waters from the natural mineral springs nearby would help him regain the use of his legs. When he was Governor of New York, FDR purchased a small house that he used when he visited Warm Springs. As President, the home was called the “Little White House” and although FDR only visited it sixteen times during his Presidency, many of those trips were for 2-3 weeks each. When his train pulled into Warm Springs at about 1:30 PM on March 30, 1945, many longtime residents said that things seemed different. Roosevelt looked terrible and while he waved to onlookers, it was with noticeable weakness.

The first few days in Georgia were tough. FDR was obviously ill and seemed to struggle making it through a church service on Easter Sunday. Roosevelt also avoided his beloved Warm Springs pools. Instead, the President rested, caught up on sleep, and visited with guests. The goal was for FDR to regain enough of his health to make a trip to San Francisco for the charter meeting of what would become the United Nations. At the Little White House with Roosevelt were some personal aides, military attaches, and cousins Daisy Suckley and Polly Delano. During his first week at Warm Springs, Roosevelt did very little work, dictating a few letters and reading briefings, stronger and more animated in the mornings and evenings but completely drained in the afternoon. Another goal for Roosevelt was to gain weight -- by the time he left Warm Springs, he hoped to be up to 170 lbs.

Still, there was no noticeable improvement in FDR’s health or spirits. Then, on April 9th, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd arrived. As President Wilson’s Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt had become involved in a passionate love affair with his wife’s social secretary, Lucy Mercer. It was 1918 when Eleanor Roosevelt discovered the affair between Franklin and Lucy and threatened to divorce him unless he promised never to see or speak to Lucy again. FDR agreed to the ultimatum -- an ultimatum that was strengthened by his mother’s threat to cut off his inheritance if he and Eleanor were divorced, as well as the fact that Franklin’s budding political career would be crushed if the affair was revealed. The relationship between FDR and Eleanor was never again passionate or loving after the discovery of the affair, but Eleanor kept her word and remained married to Franklin. Franklin, however, didn’t keep his word to Eleanor.

The Franklin-Lucy affair probably resumed shortly after Roosevelt’s first Inauguration in 1933.  By that time, FDR and Eleanor had more of a professional relationship than a personal one. He respected the First Lady’s political viewpoints, supported her activism, used her as a sounding board, and tried to act on many of her suggestions. Personally, however, there was no passion or tenderness or intimacy between the First Couple. It was FDR and Eleanor’s daughter, Anna, who helped rekindle Franklin’s relationship with Lucy. She arranged for Lucy to visit the President in the White House when Eleanor was out of town. And on April 9, 1945, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd was in Warm Springs, Georgia visiting President Roosevelt due to Anna Roosevelt’s invitation.

FDR was so excited to see Lucy that he didn’t wait for Lucy to make the drive all the way from Aiken, South Carolina to Warm Springs. The President and his cousin Daisy decided to meet Lucy’s car en route. At Manchester, Georgia, 85 miles away from Warm Springs, the highway rendezvous took place. FDR looked happier than he had in months as Lucy got into FDR’s car along with her friend, painter Elizabeth Shoumatoff. Lucy had brought Shoumatoff along to paint a portrait of the President -- a portrait that she hoped would be an improvement on the recent photographs that had made Roosevelt look “ghastly”.

For the next two days, Roosevelt and Lucy enjoyed their time together, going on small drives, eating happy meals, and sitting together while Shoumatoff prepared to paint the President’s portrait, studying photographs and making preliminary drawings. Daisy Suckley had the opportunity to observe the unique relationship between FDR and Lucy Mercer and also had some private conversations with the President’s longtime mistress. In her diary, Daisy recorded her thoughts about the two after she accompanied them on an automobile drive that they took: “Lucy is so sweet with F(ranklin) -- No wonder he loves to have her around -- Toward the end of the drive, it began to be chilly and she put her sweater over his knees -- I can imagine just how she took care of her husband -- She would think of little things which make so much difference to a semi-invalid, or even a person who is just tired, like F(ranklin).”

On April 12th, President Roosevelt woke up and ate a light breakfast. He had a slight chill despite the warm, humid weather that day and wore his cape draped over his shoulders throughout the early afternoon. Roosevelt did a little bit of work, reading the Atlanta newspapers and dictating some correspondence. Elizabeth Shoumatoff had set up her easel in the living room where the President worked behind a card table that served as his makeshift desk. As Shoumatoff painted, FDR continued reading, and at about 1:00 PM, Roosevelt said, “We have got just about fifteen minutes more to work.”

In the quiet of the room, Daisy Suckley thought that the President had dropped his cigarette and was searching for it because his head slumped forward suddenly. Roosevelt could barely lift his head when Daisy asked what was wrong. He placed his left hand gently against the back of his head and, in a barely audible voice, told Daisy, “I have a terrific pain in the back of my head!”

Roosevelt quickly slipped into unconsciousness as the women in the room summoned help. They called for a doctor who was staying in a cottage close to the Little White House and they helped two of FDR’s valets carry the President into the bedroom. Roosevelt’s hands and feet were ice cold, but he was still breathing. Smelling salts were administered but FDR was unresponsive. As the doctor and aides tried to help the President, Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd and Elizabeth Shoumatoff recognized the hopelessness of the situation. They also recognized the potential scandal that was possible if it was learned that the President collapsed in the presence of his longtime mistress.

Shoumatoff packed up all of her paints and the unfinished portrait she had been working on. Lucy Mercer grabbed her belongings and took one last look at her beloved Franklin. He was still alive when they left, but he was breathing laboriously and his eyes no longer recognized Lucy. Lucy and Elizabeth Shoumatoff had been on the highway back to Aiken, South Carolina for an hour when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in Warm Springs at 3:35 PM. The official cause of death was a cerebral hemorrhage. FDR was 63 years old.

Eleanor Roosevelt was notified of her husband’s death a few minutes after 4:00 PM. She summoned Vice President Harry Truman to the White House while he was having a drink at the U.S. Capitol with House Speaker Sam Rayburn. Truman wasn’t told why he needed to hastily come to the White House, but he knew it sounded urgent. As Truman left the Capitol, he ran into a young Congressman who questioned the Vice President about his speedy exit -- a young Congressman named Lyndon Johnson.

At the White House at 5:30 PM, Eleanor Roosevelt broke the news to the Vice President simply a directly: “Harry, the President is dead.” Truman was stunned and asked what he could do for the widowed First Lady. Eleanor smiled sadly and asked, “Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now.” At 7:00 PM, Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone administered the Oath of Office to Truman as the 33rd President of the United States.

By that time, Eleanor was on her way to Warm Springs to claim her husband’s body. At about midnight, she arrived at the Little White House in Georgia where she asked about her husband’s last hours. It was then that she learned news almost as shocking as the President’s death. Eleanor found out that FDR had been with his former mistress Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd when he was stricken. She spent 45 minutes alone with his body, picked out the clothing for his burial, but never lost her composure despite the shocks that she experienced that day.

A funeral train returned FDR’s body to Washington, D.C. the next day. Roosevelt was embalmed by morticians who found that the President’s arteries were so hardened that they could barely inject the embalming fluid into his body. FDR’s body laid in state in the East Room of the White House almost 80 years to the day that Abraham Lincoln’s body rested in the very same place following his assassination. On the 80th anniversary of Lincoln’s death -- April 15, 1945 -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt was buried in the garden of his beloved estate Hyde Park on the Hudson River in New York. Upon his death, the New York Times wrote of the deceased President:

“Men will thank God on their knees a hundred years from now that Franklin D. Roosevelt was in the White House. It was his hand, more than that of any other single man, that built the great coalition of the United Nations. It was his leadership which inspired free men in every part of the world to fight with greater hope and courage. Gone is the fresh and spontaneous interest which this man took, as naturally as he breathed air, in the troubled and the hardships and the disappointments and the hopes of little men and humble people.” 

Elizabeth Shoumatoff’s Unfinished Portrait of President Roosevelt -- which she was working on when he died -- now hangs in the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia.

[cadaceus]

C2E140

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my liveblogs/emotional breakdown over Campaign 2, Episode 140 of Critical Role. This was genuinely an emotional rollercoaster, and I feel so much and yet so empty at the same time? These are genuinely my longest liveblogs ever (I had a lot of emotional reactions and things to say!) so feel free to grab some snacks or water before diving into this one. Spoilers ahead, of course, so pretty please proceed with caution!

- I’m emotional thinking about this very possibly being the Mighty Nein’s last Initiative ever...

- THAT NEW LUCIEN MINI DFVGDHJKLD WHAT THE 

- Essek tied for first in Initiative let’s go babeyyyyy I’m so proud

- THE VISION OF ZUALA  😭 😭 I DON’T WANT TO DO THIS I’M SAD

- The Eyes get their turn??? Oh my god

- Ashley’s aggressive “don’t you fcking dare” when the eyes point at Beau me too, me too

- Whoaaa Caleb’s Glaive method was so interesting, I can’t believe that worked!

- STOP ATTACKING ESSEK SDFGHSJK IF HE GETS NINE EYES AND TURNS AGAINST THEM OR SOMETHING I WILL THROW A FIT

- “Veth keep your clothes on... I will cast Marine Layer” FJORD LMAOOO

- I will turn into the “leave Brittany alone” person but make it “leave Essek alone” WHY ARE YOU BEING MEAN TO HIM

- six attacks versus Veth... ruh roh raggy

- Yasha attacking Zuala makes me so saddd 

- NOOO Cad... idk why that is the one that made me tear up, but just the image of his family beckoning for him in this city of terror is making me emotional 😭

- “That’s my child’s mother...” LMAO TRAVIS

- I genuinely just copied their “shaking weights” motion in real life adhjkdlf let’s goooo Essek!! 

- VETH IS DOWN.... GOD THIS IS MAKING ME SO SAD DO NOT KILL VETH PLEASE

- “He’s gone... let him go...” oof okay that one hurt me

- Jester was so close to getting that Divine Intervention... that was almost so clutch aahhh

- why is fjord’s method of persuasion to molly just flirting with them LMAO okay king...

- “’Remember the fruit salad?’” Fjord/Travis looks so embarrassed, WHAT IS FRUIT SALAD SIR PLEASE SHARE WITH THE CLASS

- Essek actually succeeding on a Strength check to get Caleb free despite being a weak ass wizard, and then Caleb pressing his forehead against Essek’s in thanks... yes I’m soft I can’t do this, my emotions are kaput

- TWO NATURAL 20S AGAINST JESTER.....

- Jester being insta dead. I am not doing okay. Like literally about to start crying, I was not expecting it to happen that quickly or at all, she’s just so full of life and if Cad doesn’t save her.... I’m just so upset by this 😭

- One of the “Happy Thoughts” on Sam’s flask being “Luc all grown up” is so precious to me personally

- CAD BELOW 20 HP --> CAD GOING DOWN ---> CAD UP AGAIN WAS SUHC A EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER OH MY GOD

- Did Molly just scratch Lucien’s face??? Oh my god...  😭

- MATT YOU NEARLY MADE ME PANIC WITH THAT SENTENCE SFGDJKLD THAT WAS CRUEL I WAS ON THE VERGE OF TEARS ALREADY AND THAT ALMOST DID ME OVER

- Both clerics at 1 hit point.... everything is fine :) (scared version)

- CALEB WENT DOWN I AM NOT DOING WELL EVERYONE..... THIS IS SO FREAKING ROUGH 

- Jester clutch healer, not even joking, I’m so grateful for her

- I can’t believe that it’s been three hours with no break, I need to make a mug brownie to calm myself down, free us Matt Mercer (mostly /j)

- BEAU ROLLING TWO NATURAL 20S ON HER ATTACK WITH MOLLY’S BELT AROUND HER FISTS OH MY GOD POETIC CINEMA.... THE DICE GODS ARE REAL!!!!

- Essek using his eighth level spell on Lucien after he sees Caleb go down...... MY LOVE (also I wonder what he had been saving his eighth level for, since Matt said he was saving it?)

- WAIT IS CALEB DOWN OR IS HE LIKE DEAD

- okay. just got my answer. i am not doing fine.

- HOW DO YOU WANT TO DO THIS DSBJKDASL;KDSJKFDK JESTER YES JESTER YES..... OH MY GOD SHE DID IT I LOVE HER SO MUCH I’M SO EMO I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS

- Break? What do you mean BREAK? time to make that emotional support mug brownie though.....

- Caleb’s alive! He’s safe! Thank all of the gods!

- Yasha kissing each spot on Beau’s body where the eyes were... I love them so much.

- Uh oh, Caleb is going to try to revivify Lucien/Molly isn’t he? I know it... I know he is... but sometimes you have to let people go :(

- “Once you’re a member of the Mighty Nein, you’re in” oh no I’m going to cry then.... aahh

- Jester rolling a Natural 20 because she has such a good imagination is so fitting! I love her so dearly

- Beau’s appeal is going to get to me... I know it already.

- THAT NATURAL ONE HURT ME... I didn’t want Molly to come back (because sometimes it is time and they died saving the people they loved) but it still hurts, you know? To not get Molly back.

- ASHLEY;S VOICE BROKE ME... damn I was holding in my tears, but her voice when she said “there’s nothing else to do?” really got to me

- Molly being laid to rest at the Blooming Grove is so poetic, I love that

- Essek’s voice is going to get to me.... also Fjord’s “use your anger and let it fuel you” makes me think that he is speaking to his own younger self... GOD Fjord is going to make me cry

- When he said “Caleb Widogast, have you ever accepted defeat?” I was unironically waiting for a love confession

- WAIT NO WAY..... HOLY SHIT???

- DID CADUCEUS JUST ROLL A 2 PERCENT.... WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING 

- Marisha talking about the “emotional whiplash” no LITERALLY Ms Ray I understand you

- MOLLY IS BACK?????

- Matt turning to Taliesin and saying “Your eyes open for the first time in a long time” oh my god.......

- Empty. Love.

- Molly turning to Yasha and saying “Love” is so precious, I love and missed their friendship so so much

- I know I wasn’t sold on Molly coming back, but honestly this is very fitting and I love it a lot. It makes me so emotional, dear god... all of the Mighty Nein together for the first time literally ever. 😭

- “Long May He Reign” is trending on Twitter right now. I think you all know why.

- Wow, I genuinely didn’t cry this entire episode but the second is ended something in me just broke. I feel a bit speechless right now and my emotions are all over the place, but if you read all of these liveblogs please know that you are loved and valued more than you could possibly know. I love you, I love you, I love you; and is it Thursday yet? 

<3

[ofendlesswonder]

Congratulations on the impending release! That's so exciting. Also so excited to see you're taking prompts - 27, if you're so inspired!

27. “I don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

Cat thinks she’s dreaming, when she sees a cape flutter outside her balcony. 

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time she’d dreamt of red and blue and a sunny smile. Probably wouldn’t even be the hundredth, if she counts her daydreams, the one allowance she’d made, for when the itch under her skin, the desire to reach out and touch had almost become too much to bear. 

Had become too much to bear, in the end. Had sent her fleeing across the country to another coast entirely, separating herself from any temptations, from blue, blue eyes and the traitorous voice in the back of her head wondering would it really be so bad, if you told her? 

Yes, she’d always answered. Yes, because I can’t ruin her, too. 

Not like she had every other relationship she’s ever had. Couldn’t bear to see the light in her eyes dim, for her to become bitter and jaded, and look at Cat like she despised her. 

That’s something she knew she’d never be able to handle, no matter how many times Kara had pressed close beside her on the couch, staying long after her work hours had ended. No matter how often she’d looked at Cat like she held the world in her hands, her gaze had lingering when Cat had dared to undo an extra button, knowing she was playing a dangerous game. 

The cape flutters again, propelling Cat out of bed, feet sinking into the plush carpet of her bedroom. Her new home isn’t quite as nice as the penthouse she’d left behind in National City, but it’s a decent replacement, she thinks. Carter had taken some convincing, but she knows D.C. has grown on him. 

“Aren’t you a little far from home?” She asks the superhero slouched over her balcony railing, pushing open the doors with the palm of her hand. 

Kara doesn’t move, and Cat thinks something must be deeply wrong. Why else would she be here, after so long? Why else, after years of silence stretched thin, would she have come to her? 

“What’s wrong?” She asks, a silence of a different kind pressing into her ears. This high, the city traffic is quiet, the low hum of the people milling on the sidewalks below snatched away by the wind. 

Cat grabs her robe off the back of the chair by the door, steps into stupidly fuzzy slippers Carter had bought her last Christmas. The ones she will never, ever publicly admit to owning, but that she adores slipping on at the end of a long day, and joins Kara on the balcony. 

She doesn’t move, remains still and silent, and Cat wonders if she’s finally gone mad. If something in her has cracked, and she’s conjured an image of Kara, a ghostly mirage that will disappear as soon as she’s within arms’ reach. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” she says, when Cat steps close, in a voice suggesting the opposite is true. “Not really.”

“And yet here you are, on my balcony in the middle of the night, for...what? An interview? A catch up? How long has it been, Kara? Four years?”

She doesn’t react to her name, and Cat thinks that might be the most worrying thing of all. A secret she’d guarded so closely, so fiercely, terrified of Cat finding out the truth, and now she doesn’t care? Doesn’t acknowledge it, even? 

No, this isn’t the Kara she knows. 

But then, it’s been years since Cat last touched her life. 

Years, for her to grow and change. 

Years, where Cat didn’t know her at all, aside from brief glimpses of news footage, from the articles she’d read, written by Kara’s hand. 

The woman standing before her may as well be a stranger. 

One she has no idea how to help. 

“You were always...like a port in a storm. A safe space to land, a voice of reason when I needed it. You were never afraid of telling me the truth, even if it was painful to hear, and you always knew exactly the right thing to say. And I think I need that, now, because I...I don’t want to feel this way anymore.” 

She doesn’t look at Cat when she talks, her jaw clenched tight, her fingers wrapped around the bar of Cat’s balcony railing, leaving indents in the metal. 

It’s then Cat notices the blood. It’s caked under her nails, smeared across her knuckles, and Cat’s gaze darts over her body, searching for other signs of damage. 

Maybe it’s not hers. 

Maybe that’s why, when she turns to face Cat, her eyes are dark and haunted, so lost within herself Cat struggles to find a trace of the woman she once knew so well staring back at her. 

“Feel what way?” Cat asks, and her voice is hoarse, because, different though she may be, it’s still Kara looking at her for the first time in years, and Cat had known it was naive, moving away to run from her ever-growing feelings, known it was unlikely to work, but it’s only now, four years down the line and feeling like not a single day has passed, that she realises just how naive. 

Can Kara hear the uptick in her heartbeat, as their eyes meet? Has she heard it before? Does she have any idea, how a single glance from her can knock Cat breathless? 

“Like the weight of the world is on my shoulders.” Her eyes close, and Cat lets her gaze settle on her face, how though she is physically unchanged—something about those Kryptonian genes, she suspects—she looks so much older. 

Weary. 

Defeated. 

“I can’t...I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to. The world needs a hero, but that isn’t me.” She shakes her head so violently she lurches to the side, and Cat steadies her—futile though the gesture may be—with a hand on her elbow, her suit rough beneath her fingertips. “I’m not a leader. I’m not...I’m not cut out for this.” 

Cat casts her mind back, tries to remember any mention of Supergirl in the news, recently, that might make her feel this way. Smear campaigns against superheroes are nothing new—Cat could almost understand it, because who was going to stop them if they decided this whole being good thing just wasn’t for them?

But not Kara. Never Kara—red Kryptonite aside. 

“They deserve better than me.” She sags when she says it, falling into Cat so suddenly she barely manages to catch her, face pressed into the side of Cat’s neck, and her tears hot on her skin. 

“You are the strongest person I know,” Cat says, cheek pressing against Kara’s head, a hand settling at the small of her back, nothing but certainty in her voice, in her gentle grip. “The strongest person I’ve ever met, in fact—and let me tell you, Kara, I have met a lot of people. None of them could hold a candle to you.” 

She sobs harder, and Cat breaks, because what is it that’s brought this beautiful, selfless woman to her knees? 

“There is no one better than you,” she continues, because she thinks these are words Kara desperately needs to hear. “But you’re right about one thing—they don’t deserve you. And no one is entitled to you. What you do, Kara, putting yourself on the line, day after day, forfeiting your rights to a normal life, risking losing it all every time you charge into battle—that’s incredible. But it’s not sustainable. You keep doing it, and sooner or later, something’s going to break.”

If she’s being honest with herself, Cat is surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. Just goes to show, then, how strong she really is. 

“You’ve endured so much. So much pain, so much loss.” The likes of which Cat can’t possibly comprehend, the likes of which she will never even fully know. “It’s okay to have days where you can barely even drag yourself out of the bed in the morning. Hell, I feel like that at least once a month, and I don’t have to cope with anything like you do.” Cat doesn’t know what she’d do, if their situations were reversed. Doesn’t know if she’d be able to cope. “Kara, what...what happened?”

Something triggered this. Something to send Kara flying a thousand miles across the country, to seek out the embrace of a woman she hasn’t spoken to in years. The why, Cat thinks she understands, now. Certainly, there have been a dozen other conversations on a balcony just like this one, though the view had been a little different. And Kara had been different, too, buoyed with the feeling of something new and exciting, invincibility in its most naive form, drawing strength from Cat’s imparted wisdom, which she’d never been truly qualified to give. 

She definitely doesn’t feel qualified to deal with this, with Kara breaking in her arms. Doesn’t know what to say to make her feel better, not without all of the pieces of the story. 

“There was a fight,” she says, and she doesn’t lift her head, the words muffled against the silk of Cat’s robe. “Nothing special. No really. But he...he was strong, and he tossed a car at me, and I...I pushed it off. Didn’t look where, until...until I heard a scream.” 

Kara shifts, leans away, like she thinks Cat is about to be repulsed by her, swipes at damp cheeks with a bloodied sleeve. 

“I didn’t notice her.” Kara’s bottom lip wobbles, and Cat has never seen someone look so broken. “I didn’t know she was there, but she...it crushed her.” She clenches her jaw, clenches her fists, like she can change the story by sheer force of will alone. “She’s six years old, and she’ll never walk away.”

“Kara…”

“Don’t,” she says, so viciously Cat flinches. “If you’re about to tell me it’s not my fault, don’t. Because it is. I did that to her, not him.”

“You can’t save them all.”

“She wasn’t even in any danger though, was she?” Kara’s laugh is bitter, and not one Cat has ever heard come from her lips before. “That’s the irony of it. If I’d never been there, she’d have been fine.”

“But someone else might not have been.” 

Kara scoffs, takes a step back, and for one horrifying moment, Cat thinks she’s going to launch over the balcony and flee, leave her standing out here with an ache in her heart. 

“No one ever talks about the collateral damage,” she says, eyes focused on the horizon. “How many people’s lives have been ruined, because of me? How many buildings destroyed, how many people in hospital?”

“And how many people would be dead, if you’d never started using your powers, hm?” Cat has her counterattack ready, can’t let Kara keep going down this rabbit hole. “Thousands, I’d wager. Or the whole world, perhaps. You stopped Myriad, you stopped an alien invasion. And they’re just the ones I know about.” She steps closer, wraps her fingers around Kara’s wrist, squeezes hard so she feels it. “You will carry this in your heart for a long time, Kara, there’s no way around that. It will hurt, and it will ache, and it will make you not want to carry on, but it doesn’t erase all of the good you’ve done. All the lives you’ve touched, the people you’ve saved.”

“How can you look at me like that, knowing I’m a monster?”

“You are so many things, Kara, but monster isn’t one of them. You’ve made a mistake—a grave one—but it was an accident, and you give up because of it. What you do, is you put on the suit, and you grit your teeth, and you vow to do better next time. You carry on. You persevere.” 

“How?” She asks, and her voice breaks over the word, over the plea, and Cat clenches her jaw so she doesn’t cry, because she knows that is the opposite of what Kara needs right now. 

She came here because she needs someone to be strong for her, because she needs someone to tell her it’s going to be okay—and mean it. 

“Only you can come up with the answer to that,” Cat says, and she wraps her fingers a little tighter around Kara’s wrist. “But I think a good start is, perhaps, a shower. Wash away the bad.” Wash away the blood, staining Kara’s skin. “Come inside.”

Kara digs in her heels. “I-I don’t...you don’t have to do that. I should go.”

“I don’t want you going anywhere like this.” Not on her own, not where there’s no one to keep an eye on her. “Please, Kara. Let me help you. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? Why you came here?”

She nods, jerky and quick, and lets Cat pull her into her bedroom, all the fight seeping out of her. 

“Wait here.” She leaves her hovering by the end of Cat’s bed, arms wrapped around her torso, and steps into her en-suite. 

She turns on the shower, sets it to scalding, and waits until the room is full of steam, until the ends of her hair begins to curl. 

When she returns to her bedroom and finds Kara stripped from her suit, she nearly has a heart attack. 

“I didn’t want to wear it anymore,” she says, and she’s shivering but Cat doesn’t think it’s from the cold. 

“I’ll find you something clean to wear.” Something not stained with dirt and regret. She digs out an old, worn Harvard T-shirt and some shorts, passes them over to Kara and politely averts her gaze as she does so before prodding her toward the bathroom. “Take as much time as you need.”

She folds the suit while she waits, puts it carefully on the chair by the balcony door along with her boots. When it starts buzzing, she jumps, worried she’s inadvertently pressed a button she shouldn’t have. Has she activated a GPS tracker? Self-destruct? Were a team of shady government agents on their way to her apartment to cart her off to a black site? 

Thank God Carter is spending the night at his friends house. She has no idea how she’d explain any of this to him. 

The buzzing doesn’t stop, so she ventures closer, finds a pocket and a phone with nearly thirty missed calls, and a dozen more texts. 

Alex is a name she recognises, but Nia and Brainy are not. Another reminder things have changed, she thinks, setting the phone down on her vanity for when Kara re-emerges. Clearly, she hasn’t told anyone where she is. 

“Thank you,” Kara says, when she opens the bathroom door, a cloud of steam enveloping her. On Cat, the shirt is baggy, but it clings to Kara, highlighting the muscle and strength hidden beneath her lithe frame, and Cat chastises herself for staring. 

Not what she needs right now. 

If Cat had ever had her doubts about Supergirl’s identity, if Kara had tried to argue when Cat had named her earlier, it would have soon come crashing down. Because now, standing in borrowed clothes, damp hair curling around her shoulders, hunched in on herself, the woman staring back at her was entirely Kara Danvers. 

Cat can’t believe she’d ever doubted it. 

“Kara, does anyone know you’re here?” She asks, makes sure her voice is gentle, and not condescending. The last thing she needs is her feeling attacked. 

“Like they’d understand,” she says, voice soft, and that’s true, Cat thinks, because she finds it hard to understand herself. “I don’t want them to.”

“At least let someone know you’re safe? Your sister, perhaps? It’s either that, or toss your phone out of the window.” As if on cue, it begins to vibrate again. “She’s calling for the hundredth time.”

Kara sighs, but takes the call, resignation on her face as she lifts it to her ear. “Alex. I’m fine.” 

A lie, Cat knows from one look at her face. She wonders if her sister can tell, too. 

“I just needed some space,” Kara says then, and Cat wonders where her sister might think she is. “I’m somewhere safe.” She casts a glance toward Cat, whose heart thuds at the thought that Kara thinks of her as a safe space. Somewhere to land, when she feels like her whole world is falling apart. 

Cat wonders when she’d earned the honor. 

“I don’t know. Tomorrow, probably. I don’t want to fucking debrief, Alex.” It explodes out of her, so sudden it takes Cat by surprise, her back ramrod straight and her fingers holding the phone so tight it’s a wonder the plastic doesn’t crack. “You saw what happened. Don’t make me relive it.” 

Cat crosses the room without thinking, pressing a hand to the small of Kara’s back. The effect is instantaneous, body relaxing beneath Cat’s fingertips, tension leaching out of her with every breath. 

This close, Cat can hear Alex’s voice on the other end of the line, tight with worry. “Come home, Kara.”

“Not yet,” she says, her voice shaky. “I...I can’t yet.” She hangs up before Alex can argue, and Cat pretends not to notice her turn the phone off before tossing it onto the chair with her suit. She’d done what Cat asked—and she doesn’t think she wants the sister knowing her apartment is the place Kara chose to land. 

Somehow, she doesn’t think that’ll go over well. 

“You can stay here tonight, if you want.” Even if she felt about Kara the way she was supposed to—appropriately, for a woman double her age, and a former boss to boot—she wouldn’t have been able to turf her out when she looks so dejected. “You can stay as long as you want, even. If you want a place to hide away from the rest of the world, consider this your sanctuary.” 

“Beside the Queen of all Media.”

“There’s a moniker I haven’t heard in a long time.” 

“Do you have a new one? Or is it just Press Secretary, now?” 

“Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?” If this is what Kara needs, idle small talk in the middle of Cat’s bedroom at a stupid hour in the morning, well. 

Cat has never been able to deny her. 

“It suits you, though.”

“And reporter suits you, Pulitzer Prize winner.” The flush that stains Kara’s cheeks is expected, but it makes Cat chuckle all the same. “You’ve been doing good work. I knew you had it in you.” 

“You always saw the best in me.”

“You say that like it’s difficult to.” Seeing the best in Kara is one of the easiest things Cat has ever done. She’d seen something special in her that first fateful meeting—she’d just no idea how special. How this meek, bespectacled woman with the hideous fashion sense would tip her life on its head. “You should get some rest,” she says, when Kara yawns. “You’ve had a...difficult day.” Something of an understatement. “You can stay in here.” 

Kara shakes her head. “I’m not kicking you out of bed, Cat.”

“You’re not—I’m offering it to you.”

“I can take the guest room.”

“There is no guest room.” Cat’s smile is wry when Kara frowns. “Not like I get a lot of visitors. It was three bedrooms, but I turned the third into an office.” 

“The couch, then.”

Cat stops her with a hand on her arm when she makes for the door. “Stay here, Kara. It’s fine.” 

“Will you...will you stay with me, then?” She asks, in a voice so small Cat feels like her heart is being squeezed in a vice. 

“I…” Is there a polite way to say no? To say I can’t think of a more terrible, masochistic idea than that without breaking the poor girl’s spirit? 

“Please? I...I don’t want to be alone.” It’s the sheen of tears in her eyes that does it, the wobble of her lip, the desperation in her voice, and Cat tells herself that it’s not specifically her that Kara wants. It’s the comfort, it’s the presence of another warm body, to ward off the chill of loneliness. 

And yet, it was her that Kara had sought out. 

And that has to mean something, even if it’s not what she so desperately wants to be. 

“Okay, I’ll stay,” she says, knowing the memory of Kara wrapped up in her sheets will linger long after they’ve been washed, but knowing, also, that it’s worth it, for the way her face lights up when Cat pulls back the covers and climbs inside. 

She has to be up in four hours, she thinks, wincing when she glances at the clock. 

Worth it, she thinks, as Kara slips in beside her. Worth it, when she turns to Cat in the dark, and presses into her side, face in the crook of her neck, and tears once again damp on her skin. 

Cat holds her, and she doesn’t sleep a wink, even when Kara’s breathing deepens, hot against her skin, fingers twitching where they’re gripping at Cat’s robe, still wrapped around her shoulders. 

Cat holds her, and thinks they might not talk about it tomorrow—Kara might, perhaps, wake up mortified in her former boss’ bed, the light of morning bringing with it a sense of clarity that maybe the decision to come here was wrong. Kara might, perhaps, flee without saying goodbye, and Cat may never see her again.

And Cat would accept that decision without question, because for her, this is enough.Stitching the broken parts of Kara back together, being here for her, offering her the comfort she so desperately needed, means more to her than anything else ever could.

[azurevi]

3 halloween tales (cater, jade & vil)

This is really random, but the ssr cards for the halloween show have given me many au ideas, so here are my self-indulgent stories inspired by them. The Cater one is especially long because I got a lot of ideas about it. For the Vil one.. it's pretty disappointing how it turned out, but I hope it's not too bad. PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS!

WARNINGS : death (all), mild mention of gore (cater), war + mild possessiveness + violence (jade) [let me know if there're more!]

the heart and its eternal weight

Cater is a cemetery caretaker. It isn't that he really loves it, but his father was one. He feels like it is only right to take after his steps.

He isn't into superstitions. Some people find distaste in his job, but it's something crucial for Cater. People, even after they're dead, should still be honored, and so deserve a hospitable place to rest. 

Everyday is a routine for him. Sometimes, though, the families of the passed talk to him about their stories and their emptiness once their loved ones are gone. Cater finds the beauty and softness in humans by hearing these stories, and it makes him even more dedicated to his job. 

It's natural to him, dying. His father was killed in an unintended accident, and sometimes it seems like his death could have been avoidable just as much as it was inevitable. He just wishes that he had had more time with him.

One of the lessons his father taught him about graveyard caretaking is to beware of ghosts. Those who recently died are more visible and intimate with the world of the living, and so they might appear before humans. Some are inhostile, of course, but there are malevolent ones.

Lore has it that some ghosts prey on hearts. It is said that the heart is the most important part of a human, as it is accountable for life, death and emotions. People believe that ghosts can be revived with a fresh, still-beating heart, and as a result the human giving up their heart will die in place of the ghost. Basically, the heart can also create ripples in the fabric of space-time.

Because of his job, he isn't all that popular among others, and he only has a few life-long close friends, his mother and sisters by him. So even if he has a crush on the most admirable person he's ever seen, he still won't make it known in fear of rejection. He figures that he still has time to figure it out.

And he's wrong. News about your tragic death spread around quickly like wildfire, and he's devastated. It feels wrong to even feel so, because he has never been acquainted with you in the first place.

Your body is buried in his cemetery, and a lot of people come to your funeral that day. Some of your family members are so heartbroken and pitiable, and so Cater offered to be their listener.

All he can hear is about the great work you've done, the care you put into everyone you met, the warmth that radiated off you while you were still alive. It breaks Cater how he's never had the privilege to know you, to experience all your graces with his own perspective.

One night, the moon is lit and hung up high in the sky, so close that it seems to be prying on Earth and the people roaming on it. Cater is patrolling with his lawnmower when he hears quiet and uncertain sobs.

He is creeped out, yes, but he's also curious. He's never seen a ghost before, and it could be a human for all he knows.

He's proved wrong once again, as he discovers your opaque body behind a giant tree. You are hugging their legs close to your chest, and a rotting hole's visible where your heart should be.

There's no way you can be hostile, and you certainly won't kill him for his heart, so Cater decides to approach you gently, tentatively, like you're smoke that will disperse the moment he intrudes.

To his surprise, you can hear him clearly, and even invite him to sit down with him. It's so bizarre -- a ghost asking for a conversation! But Cater doesn't mind as he pops down beside you. He notices how although you were no longer solid, it still feels like tense when his hand passes through you. Certainly it's because you've been dead not for long.

And so the two of you indulge in heartful conversations, and Cater finds himself regretting even more about how he never gathered the courage to go up to you. Mid-conversation you tell him about all the things that you wish you could've done and all the ideas you wished to spread.

Cater probably shouldn't have, but he is so absorbed in your ambitions and kindness that he offers to carry out all these great things for you. After numerous confirmations, you agree too to let him carry out your thoughts.

And so Cater works in his neighbourhood, sharing campaigns and donating, taking care of lost pets and cats and partaking in environment improvement. He's never felt so fulfilled before, and it's the first time he feels like he's genuinely making a difference in the world.

In times he's not representing you, he brings you up on the little hill behind the cemetery where the moon and stars are so close and vibrant, where they all dance in the dark ballroom and pulse in excitement of being seen. He wishes he could show you more hidden gems, but your spectral spirit cannot be too far away from your body. 

But it's enough.

A month passes and Cater notices subtle change in your behaviour as well as appearance, like how you're responding with less enthusiasm and how the hole in your chest is growing bigger. When he finally asks about it, he's told that ghosts generally only stay in the world of the living for 49 days, and their heart will rot away in this period. After that, they will have to go to the underworld, never be back again.

Cater is certainly shocked that the lore is more than a children's makeup story. He is well aware of the significance of the heart in relation to the soul and life. 

He asks if you'd like to have his heart instead, so bluntly and casually. You seem to return to their original intimate self when you refuse. 

"I'm already gone. It's you, the living, who should be making changes,"

So he pretends that you're not getting more and more unresponsive and less and less generous. He turns a blind eye against your wavering figure and how you can't be seen at all in the sun. He plays dumb when in reality, you're slipping away before his very own eyes, heart rotting away like nothing more than a fruit.

It hurts finally knowing and understanding someone and having to lose them. 

On the 48th day, you are already but a still, soulless shadow, leaning beside your gravestone and fresh, white flowers. Cater can still see you. Sometimes he thinks that you chose to be seen.

And he can't bear to see you go. To see your dreams go into flames, to watch such a pretty soul just - vanish.

So he gives you his heart. Alive and beating and sentimental. It doesn't even hurt a bit. 

You wake up immediately, your eyes glowing and body solidifying. 

"What have you done?" 

"What I can do to make a change,"

Time is starting to rewrite itself. Cater is going to die in your place. The space around you was warping and folding into itself, softly and rightly like a lullaby.

Just before you slip into darkness, you gather up a whole bunch of rose petals and desperately stuff them into the hole in Cater's chest, as if they can give him life in lieu of a heart, and you are sobbing and clinging onto his still warm arm, never wanting to let go.

It's all Cater wants, to save a wasted soul and to make a difference. 

And so he cradles your face, and leans in the moment everything goes black. When he wakes up again, he's weightless in the cemetery, where a bunch of well arranged roses lie on his buried body.

a melancholy specimen

To Jade, beauty needs to be preserved to be constant. It's just like flowers. They die away without proper care.

Just when he thinks he's seen all the beauties of the world and is getting bored of it, he meets you. A blooming flower sparkling in the bland, old boring world around it. He's immediately captivated - how a person can still manage to flourish in such a rotten world where everything is depressing and all man is for themselves!

You're the most elegant piece of art he's seen, and that's something considering that he owns a museum. Innocence lies in your eyes and bravery sings itself between your lips.

You find him just equally amusing -- gentlemanly, insightful and just a touch of flirtation. The two of you fall in love like Alice down the rabbit hole - amused and unstoppable, fascinated by the wonders evolving about.

But the world doesn't give a damn about love, nor do they understand your dreams of a bright future where everything is close to hearts. They call you both madness and nonsense.

"Their souls are tainted with war and sorrow. They are beyond the point of rescue. Victory and glory are all that can feed their ego,"

Jade is disappointed. War has gouged people's eyes out and filled them with wails and ash.

The two of you are the only stars in the night sky, still fighting for salvation, yearning for a better future where trees grow and flowers yearn for the sun. You promote and do your best to lift the veil of darkness off the world. 

But the sun doesn't understand either. War keeps going on and on, and people never have the time for aesthetic relaxations. It refuses to shed light on its pitiable humans.

"We should evacuate, Jade. They say a bomb is dropping tomorrow,"

Jade doesn't care and can't care. The most paramount thing is to open his eyes to the beauty of this world. He doesn't want to become one of those barbarous men, tasting dirt and blood on their tongue while they glorify violence and brutalness.

He stays behind while his neighbourhood dies away. You are the only ones yet to leave. 

"Please don't leave me, Y/N. You're the only light in my life,"

You can't bear to leave him, and so you stay. The bomb is dropped, and it's too close. Too hot. Too cruel, too inhumane. It ravages everything in its way, burning all the darkened things to the ash and bringing the only beauty left in this world with it.

Jade wails. Broken cries are engulfed by nearby explosions and the cackling of flames. Your soulless body lies amidst the destruction, just another wilted flower in the slit of a rock, deprived of water and sunlight.

He finally understands. Nothing can save the world anymore. It's gone way too far, and it will never recover from malevolence. All he can feel is pity for his world as his heart ache with spite.

Bandages around his hands, he wraps your corpse up completely, preserved underneath the layers. You will be his reminder that there was once a flower in this drought, an anchor keeping him from becoming one of those barbarians.

lifeless silhouette in the dark night

You can never recognize directions. You find yourself stumbling upon a seemingly inhabited mansion in the middle of the woods. Cold and bruised, you knock on its door.

Welcoming you is a tall man with blonde and lilac hair called Vil. His skin is unnaturally white, and his eyes seem to glow like orbs that eat your souls. But you are too tired to make notice of all these details, and he's kind enough to let you stay for the night.

He treats you with ravishing cuisine and a grand bedroom that was as grotesque as the rest of the house. Afterwards, he leaves you to rest, but not before warning you not to get out of the room post midnight.

You oblige- for the first half hour. Then you start to hear wails and footsteps that amplify and disappear. It's impossible to sleep.

The next morning, you confront Vil about it. He refuses to face the questions as he ushers you to get going, and so off you go.

You spend another day lost in the woods, then somehow come face to face with the mansion again. Vil is beyond shocked to see you, but then he breaks into a deep smile.

"It's almost as if you belong here,"

Weirdly enough, you could agree, There seemed to be an invisible force pulling you towards Vil. After dinner, he orders you not to leave the room again before making his leave.

Broken wails. Recurring footsteps. You can't bear it any longer, and you also wonder if Vil is aware of this. He properly is, and thus tells you to stay safe inside the room.

But dumb curiosity gets the best of you, and you open the door and step into the endless corridors.

The wails come from the host's room, where Vil is supposed to be. You're closing in when its door is suddenly flung open, and out runs a panting Vil.

"Vil? What are-"

His eyes are bloodshot and there's red stain in the corner of his mouth. Sweat dots his forehead. He looks disheveled and the complete opposite of how he was during dinner.

"You shouldn't be here. Get back - get back in!"

His voice booms in your skull, and you're running back to your room before you notice. 

It's another sleepless night.

To your luck, Vil doesn't wait for you to bring the incident up.

"Don't be creeped ou by it, please."

He seems very uneasy about it, but he's obstinate to give you an explanation.

Turns out that he is a vampire. One that has lived for 500 years and is waiting for his eventual death. He's seen everything in this world and lived through the best and worst of humanity. He understands people's fear about vampires, and so he resides in the remote part of the wood. He only ever drinks the blood of small animals that he hunt, and never has he once killed a man.

He knew nothing about what'd happen to him when he became a vampire. If he'd known about the repercussions, he'd never have become one in exchange of eternal beauty. Now he has to turn someone else into a vampire to end his immortality. It is only a cycle.

 Every night the moon rises and spills into his room, and he has to fight his urge to go out and taste the sweet blood of humans. 

There are times when he slips and loses control, but he always manages to get back to his senses. But it seems that your presence here in the mansion is awaking his desire to suck you dry.

You're bewildered to say the least, and frankly horrified. But at the same time you feel pity for him, for he is just a man who can't ever do anything as atrocious as hurting people.

And so you offer to end his suffering. Of course Vil disagrees. He just talked about how he never wanted to take a life, and now you're offering yourself to him? He'd never allow it.

But you're even more persistent. You keep staying in his mansion, and his sanity slips a little more every night. And you know that he's contemplating too, for he never tries to kick you out of his mansion.

"You deserve a rest, Vil. For your love and selflessness. For all the unspoken kindness you bestow on others. It is only fair that you get to rest,"

Vil has lived a life. He's but a mere walking corpse now, and a rest -- a sleep -- sounds just like what he needs.

And so he rests. Vil falls into a deep, serene sleep while you endure each and every dark night.

[bloodyshadow1]

just out of curiosity (this isn’t meant to be a rude or sarcastic question), what was it that bothered you most about the kingsley thing?

for context, I haven’t actually seen the ending yet, i’ve only heard vague spoilers about what happened, but I am curious to hear your thoughts on it (i don’t mind hearing more spoilers abt the ending!)

sorry it's taken me so long to answer, I've been trying to word things right because I've been told I sound abrasive over text and I want to be clear that it isn't directed at you anon, it's just how I am as a person. Discourse under the cut

There are many things I dislike about the Kingsley thing, I'm not going to rant here (even though I did looking back and I apologize), but I'll give you some that I think are what bugs me the most. The first being that nothing that happened with Kingsley couldn't happen with Molly, after the initial waking up scene. We only had 26 episodes with Molly, we didn't know him that well and he's been dead for almost a year, anything except the not remembering anything, from walking away from a fight that he is clearly underleveled for, to going to be on a boat as a pirate could have all been Molly. It would have achieved the same thing, except he would have had the bonds with the Nein that started to grow as Molly, seeing them as they were at level 5 to now saving Exandria, but that didn't happen. I never really understood the Yasha Molly bond, since Yasha was gone for most episodes that Molly was around for and she was very quiet during those episodes, they never got a chance to really talk about anything deeper so it feels like an informed relationship, but Yasha the character cared for Molly yet because he's Kingsley, they barely have any interaction again and it feels empty and hollow. He barely interacted with any of the Nein, and certainly not on any deep level. He didn't even bother to ask their names, and only seemed like a kid dashing to do the next thing he could think of, only being able to do so because he is around a bunch of rich and powerful strangers that are treating him well without any actual care or curiosity about them. We got a shallow shadow of Molly and Lucien in Kingsley who doesn't add anything to the story.

There's also the fact that spells that bring back the dead don't work like that. There needs to be a target and a willing soul, that's what Matt's revival rituals are for, to coax the soul back to the body. I'm all for bending the rules of dnd for cool stuff, but it is part of extra rules in critical role that needs bending and it makes Lucien's argument of Molly never existing as anything but a shadow fragment of himself have a lot more weight if he didn't get brought back through magic and a literal goddess stepping in. Also greater restoration shouldn't have done anything but bring something back, it restores, it's in the name, it shouldn't have created a new personality and it definitely shouldn't have destroyed molly's old one if that's what happened.

Additionally, if this happened in an episode that wasn't the finale of the campaign, then I would feel differently. But it was, there isn't any more story, he's there for a bit part of the finale and nothing more. It's like if Liam came in with a half-elf rogue at the end of campaign 1 I would be pissed off at that character too. The story of the Mighty Nein is over, yeah there will probably be oneshots, or specials maybe, but it's over over, no more episodes every, the fellowship is broken, and they are living their own lives not as their adventuring party. I nothing Kingsley because there is nothing to care about, if he wasn't wearing the Molly/Lucien body he would be a random NPC, but because he is, he is just there with nothing really to get attached too. I know some people like him, I honestly can't understand why people do. He's Molly without any of the time or bonds that made Molly interesting, he's just a boring version of Molly and there's no time to get attached or understand anything more than. There's a reason why in almost every form of media, they refrain from introducing a new character in the last episode or chapter, because they come off flatter than the other characters the audience has followed, and for the most part they're right. Maybe they'll do a oneshot that focus' on him but I don't know why I should care.

The biggest thing though, is that it feels like defeat was snatched out of the jaws of victory. The whole final arc, the Nein has gotten nothing, no real treasure or magic items, not even renown and respect like Vox Machina did in defeating Vecna and saving Vasselheim, it seemed like actually getting Molly back was the one thing they wanted..., and then they didn't. He's a stranger wearing their fallen friend's body, who doesn't even seem to care about what they struggled for, that gods had to beat luck to bring him back and they're nothing to him. They got more from curbstomping Trent and bringing him to justice than the whole rest of the final arc and Kingsley is just another reminder.

Sorry for this rant, you did ask, but I just needed to get this out. I wasn't actually that attached to Molly, he was a fine character but I think the fandom got way too attached to him and instead of actually caring about his canon self, they pushed their head canons on him and that has it's own problems for me. But Kingsley just coming in literally right before the series ended just felt like a kick to the groin. Other people feel differently, I'm definitely not someone who says the cast is playing wrong, it's just something I hated about the finale of the story I loved and followed for so long.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Ontario's drug-dealer premier is shockingly bad at distributing vaccines

Ontario politics are a wild ride, but they rarely escape the province, or, at most, the nation. Which is weird, because Ontario has been a leading indicator of neoliberalism's cruelty, paranoia, and surrealism since (at least) the mid-nineties.

Start with the 1995 election of Conservative Premier Mike Harris, a bland, dead-eyed sociopath whose "Common Sense Revolution" slashed Ontario's excellent public services and implemented a forced-labor program for poor people, AKA "workfare."

Harris was a Romneyish sort of fellow: a personality-free, interchangeable suit who didn't raise anyone's pulse but excelled at administration. His major achievement was the amalgamation of Toronto: a forced merger of the City of Toronto with its heretofore separate suburbs.

This was an incredible power-move. The old City of Toronto is the province's economic engine and the seat of its parliament. It is far, far to the left of the suburbs, and has entirely different priorities from them.

Dissolving the City of Toronto let Harris depose the popular left-leaning Mayor Barbara Hall. The election that followed saw the clownish crook Mel Lastman - who long ruled over my birth-suburb of North York - promoted to the big league, as the megacity's first mayor.

Lastman was a shitshow. He was known for his discount appliance store TV ads and for a string of scandals, from fathering and abandoning a secret child with one of his employees to covering up his wife's shoplifting arrest by threatening to murder a reporter.

He also pioneered a lot of the performative, own-the-libs culture-war bullshit that dominates our politics today, with idiotic stunts like ordering the free weekly Now Magazine removed from City Hall over its personal ads.

When the residents of old Toronto had Lastman forced on them by their suburban neighbours, it set the tone for Toronto/Ontario politics for decades, as Harris's masterstroke of disenfranchisement ensured Torontonians would never again get a say in their governance.

In electoral map after electoral map, you can see mayors and premiers coming to office despite the overwhelming disapproval of City of Toronto voters. This 2010 map by Torontoist's Marc Lostracco is pretty typical.

https://torontoist.com/2010/10/which_wards_voted_for_who_for_mayor/

Amazingly, Mel Lastman was the *least* clownish champion of Toronto's suburban voters. These voters quickly converged on the uh, colourful Ford brothers, Doug and Rob.

You remember Rob, right? The crack-smoking mayor who brought sex workers to City Hall, engaged in routine public racism and homophobia, and made demeaning cunnilingus jokes when asked about his marital infidelity?

He and his (marginally smarter) brother Doug ended up in city government thanks to their father - Doug Sr, a Tory MPP who made a fortune with his label-printing business - and their Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio show.

This was the show that featured their paid stooges, who'd call up pretending to be outraged Ontarians who'd rail at socialism or whatever and praise the Fords for their excellence.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/rob-ford-s-friend-dave-made-calls-to-mayor-s-radio-show-1.1405251

But that revelation did nothing to cool suburban Toronto's ardour for the failsons of a label-making kingpin. For these low-information voters, a steady output of xenophobia, cruelty, and racism trumped any scandal. And I do mean ANY scandal.

In 2013, the Globe and Mail's Shannon Kari and Greg McArthur broke a *huge* Ford story, detailing Doug's career as a major hashish dealer and his brother Randy's involvement in a drug-related kidnapping.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/globe-investigation-the-ford-familys-history-with-drug-dealing/article12153014/

And then there was his sister Kathy and her circle of violent racist cronies. Kathy was once shot in the face by a hash dealer, who remained in the Fords' good books, appearing with his family in videos and pictures, hanging out with Doug at an election-night party.

But nothing stuck. After Rob Ford died of cancer, Doug Ford - incredibly - became leader of the Ontario Conservative Party and won an election through the most laughable, corrupt politics imaginable.

For example, he refused most press interviews, and instead hired a "journalist" to ask him softball questions for his own Youtube channel (ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 'personal responsibility' movement!).

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2018/05/06/doug-ford-evades-real-scrutiny-by-hiring-his-own-reporter.html

The Fords were Canada's Trumps, and Doug's 2018 election campaign shamelessly stole from the Trump playbook, right down to the paid actors going nuts at his rallies:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/05/08/doug-ford-campaign-confirms-actors-were-hired-to-play-the-part-of-pc-supporters-at-mondays-debate-rally.html

Despite all this, the suburban voters continued to support him, even after Rob Ford's widow accused Doug of stealing her children's inheritance, misappropriating millions of dollars from Rob's estate:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-faces-multimillion-dollar-lawsuit-1.4691378

Doug Ford really proved that millions of selfish assholes will vote for rotting roadkill if it promises them $0.25 off their tax bill, blended with gratuitous cruelty. Doug's GOOD at cruelty, vicious stuff like eliminating sedation for colonoscopies:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/05/08/doug-ford-campaign-confirms-actors-were-hired-to-play-the-part-of-pc-supporters-at-mondays-debate-rally.html

But Doug is a Trump, not a Romney. He is good at performative culture-war bullshit, but he sucks at making deep structural changes. When the national government levied a carbon tax on gas, Ford ordered stickers on every pump decrying the tax.

But in you-can't-make-this-up failson fashion, these labels - ordered by the son of Ontario's most successful label-making kingpin - all fell off the pumps thanks to their defective adhesive.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anit-carbon-tax-stickers-falling-off-1.5287869

Of course, none of this matters to the roadkill-and-tax-cuts Ford base who continued to support him through a series of blunders...until the pandemic. Turns out you can't defeat a public health scourge with racist jokes and paeans to personal responsibility.

Toronto is heading back into lockdown (again). From nursing homes to First Nations reservations, the province has been scoured by covid on Ford's watch. And Ontario's vaccinations are an utter shitshow.

https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2021/03/30/tight-lockdown-coming-for-toronto-predicts-member-of-ontarios-science-advisory-table.html

As ever, this crisis has awakened the best in political satirists, notably The Beaverton's Luke Gordon Field, whose "Drug dealer shockingly bad at getting people drugs" deserves a place in the gallows humour hall of fame.

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2021/03/drug-dealer-shockingly-bad-at-getting-people-drugs/

> “Electing a guy whose only work experience was ‘drug dealing’, ‘running the family business into ground’ and ‘doing a weight loss challenge with his more popular brother’ was always going to be a risk,” said Political analyst Keith Burns. “But we thought the one thing he is well-suited for would be distributing powerful drugs in an efficient and organized manner.”

> Ford denied that he was failing his “customers. I mean taxpayers. I mean citizens.” He made it clear that if anyone has any issues, the fault lay entirely with his supplier JT.

For a more serious - and ongoing - take on Doug Ford, tune into Canadaland's excellent "Wag the Doug" podcast, wherein Jonathan Goldsbie and Allison Smith document the rampant bumblefuckery of the Ford regime.

https://www.canadaland.com/shows/wag-the-doug/

[teatimewhispers]

Voices from the Past

On july 9th of 2019 I wrote, on a now-dead tumblr only made for writing stuff, just like this one, the following bit:

I’ve been writing a lot

It’s been seven years since I tried to kill myself and failed

It’s been about six since I went into therapy and was told I should write my feelings as a resource to not let them grow and explode.

I’ve written countless pages since that day, I’ve erased most of them as I grew up, as they all were dark and I remembered them anyway

Reality is different now.

Well, it’s now been 10 years since I last tried to kill myself, and things have worked on a curious way.

I’ve never stopped writing, not in my head at least. Recently, I’ve been thinking about many things that have happened the last 2-3 years, about the time period I last wrote something on this website.

I found love, I lost love, I found friends, I lost friends. My dog, Luna, my partner in growing up since I was 11 died and left a hole inside my chest that has never been filled ever since.

The month that it happened got pretty quiet after that, or at least I wasn’t able to properly live the rest of it. It made me think about so many things, about friendships, about loss, about suffering, and even if it got me to one of my darkest places in a while, I still had the resources from 10 years ago to avoid stupidity.

This thing that I’m writing is not me coming back to these thoughts with a clear intent of trying again, it’s just me talking to the void and the eventual eyes of people who are even interested in lurking this much. 

I could talk all day about it all and I’ll probably never end.

This last year has been the darkest for me in years. Even darker than the one where I lost my dog.

A friend died. Another disappeared never to go online again. Health issues that I’m still dealing with kicked me in the face. I decided to drop out of my career out of self-care. One of my longest friendships (10+ years) ended for good. My brother, the one who would always smile and tell me it was all gonna be fine had his first panic attack and had to be hospitalized for a while. I fought many times with the dipshit that calls himself my father and fell unconscious on a friend’s house from a panic attack after all the stress accumulated. On December I suffered an almost-heart attack from dehydration due to the illness i’m still figuring out and thought on that moment I would die alone on the house I was occupying while my other brother was on vacation. 

Ever since then, I’ve been dealing with the weight of everything. It’s always been curious to me how when you’re close to dying every single person that has ever known you appears from nowhere. That would have made me either happy or angry, but, unfortunately, to this day I’m still fighting the same bullshit I’ve been fighting against for about 3 years now. Apathy.

Most things bore me easily. I can’t find joy with stuff that made me extremely happy in the past. The sole thought of doing some things discourages me from actually doing anything and I get angry at myself at the end of the day for not having done anything.

I’ve gotten a little bit better. Still working on a community that I really enjoy and occupies my mind with other things. Still DMing a campaign and I’m about to start another one soon which makes me excited. Also, I started studying voice acting and it’s been going great, paid most of my course already with money that I got from a summer job so that’s nice, however the thought of maybe running out of money to finish it haunts me. I know I will do it, somehow, I always find the way.

Oops. What was that? Me believing in myself? Fuck yeah.

Even in all this darkness, I was born again. My old name got buried with a bunch of things and Eli was born. And this time, I don’t have time to be that harsh on myself. I now drink tea and await quietly until the water boils. I now take a moment to breath when everything’s being too much. I now enjoy being alone rather than saying that I enjoy being alone. I also am fully aware of how much I miss being on a romantic relationship and romanticism in general, because it’s one of the only things that actually make me feel like a child over and over again. 

I’ve decided to decide a long time ago. And I will decide when everything ends just as I will decide when the next happy thing stomps me in the face.

Choices are better than not choosing; not choosing means you're at the whims of circumstance. - Taliesin Jaffe

I’ve missed ranting online. It’ll not be like that a lot I don’t think. I’m not a writer, I just write. Let’s see if that actually keeps happening or if this is the first and last attempt on a couple of years.

Also, The Pillows started playing on my playlist. Talk about timing.