#Can I join the good writer committee now

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

Tell me how my gf said the short story I submitted for the pride contest made her tear up 😭 And then my two het friends also lathered me with compliments over it. My gf makes sense, but het people aren't even my target audience and yet 😭

It's insane because I was rushing to get it done and it's 100% not my best work so I'm kind of surprised it got such a reaction. Like. I barely had time to read it over before submitting. I actually completely thought I wasn't gonna place in any of the winning spots so I'm shook all around. This is definitely a confidence boost in terms of my writing lmao.

[himiko-yumehellno]

Kodaka very obviously wants to make Danganronpa 4, but as many people have pointed out already, this would conflict with the ending of V3. I thought I would make things easier on our resident murder mystery writer who appears to really like making mascots that remind me of Whisper from Yo-Kai Watch, and come up with some solutions to this problem! Organized in approximate order of increasing silliness and grasping at straws, with some additional director's notes from ✨me✨!!

So, how can Kodaka make a new Danganronpa game that works with the ending of Danganronpa V3?:

Danganronpa isn't actually a killing game franchise loved around the world; Tsumugi either lied or was lied to herself (probably with the use of a Flashback Light to make her believe she was a willing ringleader). Allows for some interesting angst if it's the second option.

Despair made a sudden comeback and took over a good portion of the world. Tsumugi fudged some details, but it's true that a lot of the world now enjoys killing games, because normal life is just boring to them (a life without despair and death?! Ugh! Who'd want that, am I right?). We find out in a later installment that the survivors joined with other forces fighting against despair. Danganronpa 4 explores a separate killing game also put on in the name of this new global wave of despair.

Danganronpa 4 turns out to be a prequel (possibly featuring a killing game that the in-game franchise was inspired by, possibly just being one of the numerous previous installments Tsumugi threw out there in her exposition monologue, possibly some secret third option), and ends up with some ridiculous name so fans don't get confused on the sequence of events. Personally, I hope the name is Danganronpa Negative Four.

As so many postgame fics have taken to declaring, the entire game was a simulation. Except to make this work, it probably wouldn't be a simulation designed by Team Danganronpa – no, no, no! Perhaps this killing game was put on by Remnants of Despair or – *exaggerated gasp* – the Future Foundation themselves, hm?

Danganronpa V3 was a really fucked up social experiment and none of the "reality TV" backstory was real. No one knows how it got past the ethics committee, so don't ask.

It was all an alternate dimension/timeline. ... Look, if all it takes to brainwash someone into mass murder is forcing them to come to anime night, they can throw in a little time or dimension travel!

To piggyback on that last idea, the "reality TV" backstory was true; Danganronpa V3 and all the previous installments in this series were fiction... in the Rain Code universe. Or some other video game setting made by Kodaka. Nothing of the sort happened in the actual Danganronpa continuity, however.

Danganronpa V3 was Junko Enoshima's idea of heaven. Of course, it wouldn't have been complete without the despair of her ideal world being destroyed, hence the survivor trio shutting down her killing game show. Danganronpa 4, therefore, takes place in the living world, continuing off vaguely where the Danganronpa 3 anime left off. Notably, all questions about how Junko's heaven works and why she even got to go to heaven in the first place are not solved until a separate anime series, where we find out it was originally supposed to be her hell until she made the demon in charge of looking after her quit and give her full range of the place. It's never answered whether the participants of the killing game were other dead souls or just beings she created.

The entire thing was just the Monokuma Children playing with dolls. ... Or, knowing them, dead bodies.

Before V3 came out my brother had this whole theory that all of the characters were in a pseudo time loop where every time a killing game concluded, they'd just roll out a set of clones of everyone and start all over again, presumably killing off the survivors of the last game. I have no idea how this would solve Kodaka's issue but I want to see if they could find a way to make it work.

I'm excited to see what becomes of Kodaka's newest works, but apparently by his own admission he's interested in returning to Danganronpa at some point, so I thought I'd do the hard part for him. Feel free to take any of these ideas and run with them, Kodaka!

(feel free to add your own suggestions on how to make the ending of V3 work with a new Danganronpa game!)

[johnnyrobish]

RFK Jr. Floats Notion COVID Was Designed to Spare Jews and Chinese People

According to a video published by the New York Post, vaccine conspiracy theorist, and Democratic 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. advanced a dangerous conspiracy theory this week that the coronavirus could have been a bioweapon “deliberately targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people while disproportionately attacking White and Black people.

Now, I don’t know exactly what RFK Jr’s been smoking, but my best guess is whatever it is, Sidney Powell was his dealer.  Either that, or he’s been hitting Uncle Teddy’s old liquor cabinet again.  I mean, this guy is really out there.  Not to be overly critical, but it kind of sounds like Rosemary wasn’t the only Kennedy who underwent a lobotomy.  I mean, let’s get real.  If this dude weren’t a Kennedy, he'd be standing outside some Walmart with a cardboard sign begging for cash.

That said, and in response to the outage over his statements, RFK Jr. immediately tweeted he “never, ever” suggested the coronavirus was targeted to spare Jews, then adding that the dinner where the conversation took place was supposed to be “off the record.”  Oh, now we get it.  He’s basically saying, “I never said it, but even if I did - you weren't supposed to report it.”  Put another way, it’s apparently “just fine to be antisemitic or anti-Asian - just as long as its off the record.”

Good grief, this is almost as painful as it was watching George Santos or Herschel Walker campaigning.  Holy shit!  Can you imagine if they won their primaries, what a debate between RFK Jr. and Donald Trump might sound like?  Hell, that’d be the greatest pay-per-view of all time - watching two of America's greatest bullshitting nut cases duking it out on live TV.  Of course, you’d either probably have to be on magic mushrooms or LSD to begin to understand what the hell they were even talking about.

Now, I don’t know if Kennedy will ever have a chance to be elected President, but I do know if he keeps spinning these complete wack-a-doodle theories, he’d at least be the perfect candidate to join the honorable Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz in the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee.  After all, they’ve never met a conspiracy theory they didn’t like. 

Of course, many old-time Democrats are deeply saddened by the unraveling of someone from such a “distinguished and iconic political family” as the Kennedys.  Perhaps, but the way I see it, all is not lost for good old RFK Jr. - because even if his wife (actress Cheryl Hines) finally gets sick and tired of his nonsense and divorces him, Marjorie Taylor Greene is now single and available.  And that, my friends - is a match made in Dystopia.

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve just read, please consider joining me at:

[redtalksaboutstuffandthings]

I simultaneously do and do not understand this decision on the part of the NaNo team. NaNoWriMo has always been pretty quality-agnostic; the goal of the challenge is to get 50k worth of anything out onto the page. The team doesn't really verify that what you wrote is good, or coherent, or even yours. The point is that you make something, and wrangling an AI model to produce 50k words of rambling, repetitive prose that can't reference earlier information effectively is, I suppose, of a minimum threshold of effort to qualify.

But at the same time, why would you do that? You could get an AI to crack out all fifty-thousand words in the time it takes for a traditional writer to meet their first day's quota, and all you would have done was mash a button or throw some vague encouragement at the model. What are you going to do with the other 29 days? What are you going to do with the giant block of text that your computer wrote for you? Why did you even join a challenge like this if you did not want to... you know, experience a challenge?

I mean, if all you wanted was to speedrun NaNoWriMo, it would legitimately be faster to Google the "Lorem Ipsum" text block, copy that, and spam-paste it into a word processor. I can guarantee that the resulting text will be as complete and worthy of sitting on a bookshelf. It'd be faster to just submit a text file containing the whole of the Canterbury Tales. You'd only be plagiarizing from one person, that way, and it's a long dead author in the public domain.

I think... what the NaNo committee is thinking about (if you'll allow me to steel-man their position) is using AI models as a support element. You've got a point in your WIP or whatever where you're like "Idk what the characters should do, now, and I've got all this word count I need to fill." So you put in a synopsis of what you've got, so far, and see if ChatGPT or w/e can throw an idea at you. And like, yeah, that's kind of a good use for it. But, if I could drill down the point of my long ramble, it'd be this:

This isn't the point of the exercise.

The point of NaNo is not "make 50k words appear," it's to "write 50k words." You don't know how to make your story ideas go for 50k words? You don't have enough ideas? Make some more. Do it like everyone else before you did, when they ran out of ideas. Steal from stuff you like. Dig in to your characters and setting. Describe everything. Throw in some ninjas! Maybe the story didn't have ninjas in it before, but it sure as hell does now. Super crazy! How did this happen?

Writing, as a craft, is long and tedious. A visual artist like a painter can crack out a high quality image in a time-frame measured in hours. A musician can make a song happen over the course of minutes. A writer often needs days and days to get out prose. A novel could take weeks, months, or even years of writing and revision, before it ever reaches a point where it can go out on store shelves. The biggest difficulty, in this craft, is just having the discipline to do the same thing, day in and day out. Pressing the letter buttons to combine squiggles into strings of squiggles, and those strings of squiggles into strings of strings of squiggles, arranged in just the right order as to trick people's brains into receiving information. I won't delude myself into thinking it requires more discipline to master than other artistic mediums, but it does require discipline.

To those of you who write, who are trying to actually learn your craft, AI is a shortcut. You could use it, if you lack confidence in your own ability to make things. If you ask me, however, the world has far more room for poorly made stuff made with intent, than it does mediocre stuff hallucinated by a machine.

So it looks like NaNoWriMo are happy to have AI as part of their community. Miss me with that bullshit. Generative artificial intelligence is an active threat to creativity and the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people in creative fields.

Please signal boost this so writers can make an informed choice about whether to continue to take part in such a community.

[ohthehypocrisy]

What if Pokemon Unite was an Anime? Part 5: The Episodes (Finale)

<< Previous

As we discussed in the very first post, the best chance we've got at greenlighting a Pokemon Unite anime is to pitch it as a short, action filled miniseries meant to promote the game and bring in players with too much money in their pockets. That is the ultimate goal of all animation based on profitable IPs, but it'd be nice if the show was fun to watch as well.

The question is, how long should each episode be, and how many episodes should there be in total? To answer that question, we have to look at how much money it costs to fund a normal 30 minute episode from your average anime. According to Google, the average budget of animation, voicework, editing, and materials for production are between $140k to $180k, in US dollars, though the broader spectrum of funding is between $100k to $300k. Since the whole point of a Pokemon Unite anime would be to promote the game and for players to download it and spend money on it, less is more here, which is why a shorter runtime is profitable for us here.

As such, bite-sized episodic releases work favorably for a Pokemon Unite anime. And while I can't comment on whether or not 2D is cheaper than 3D, I think it would look much nicer if it were produced traditionally, especially when the studio is very experienced in making 2D animated shorts.

With all of that out of the way, let's get down to the episode listings. Each episode will be listed in order of episode title, estimated runtime, a short synopsis for the episode, and my own additional comments on the story itself. As a fanfic writer, you'd think this'd be the normal process for developing any story, but I find it much more fun to just go with the flow. It keeps my readers guessing if even I don't know what's gonna happen next, eh heh...

Ahem, onto the episode listing.

-

Welcome to Aeos Island! (3:35) Join Aurma and Pikachu as they touch down on Aeos Island and join the Unite Committee as Unite Trainers and partake in Unite Battles! Could this be the start of Aurma's big breakout? (The first episode shows the trainer's point of view of joining and signing up for Unite Battles on Aeos Island. Aurma, the 'main character' from the previous post is introduced to all the Unite Committee Staff like Professor Phorus and Erbie, as well as the shopkeepers Zirco and Jasper. Aurma is also taught how life on Aeos Island works.) -

Beginner Class 3 (3:24) Before her very first Unite Battle, Aurma must synchronize with her partner Pikachu in a series of test runs. Can she and Pikachu fully trust each other enough to clinch a victory? (Normally in the game, trainers run through bot games after bot games before their first match with real people. I figured we'd cut out the excessive tutorial battles and show how a human and pokemon would synchronize for Unite Battles. It also gives us a chance to show of Aurma's character and motivation, as her backstory unfolds here and shows the audience how she couldn't cut it in the competitive circuit of her home region so she sought a different avenue here. I feel like that's something we could all relate to, good enough at pokemon to beat the main story, not being good enough for VGC or Worlds.) -

Beginner Class 2 (2:12) Aurma's tests continue as she and Pikachu deepen their bond in battle. But there is more to Unite Battles than just combat. Can Aurma and Pikachu score high and pass the test? (A short episode meant to highlight the importance of scoring points in addition to winning fights. Aurma knows what it takes to win, but Pikachu likes to fight and these differing mindsets will cause the two some friction when they have to score a lot of points in order to pass.) -

Beginner Class 1 (2:35) Aurma and Pikachu have overcome every challenge thrown their way, but now they must face their biggest obstacle yet. Can the two overcome the lord of the thunderous skies by themselves? (Another short episode featuring Zapdos as an Objective. We can take the opportunity to add some extra flair to what is essentially an animated boss battle, with Zapdos flying around slinging thunderbolts and little Pikachu running around to avoid them.) -

Great Class 5 (2:44) Having passed her trial battles, Aurma and Pikachu enter their first Unite Battle with other players, but a lack of direction leads them astray. Can Aurma and Pikachu pick up the slack? (If you remember your first Unite Battle, you know that this episode would contain all the casual and feckless horseplay you and your teammates engaged in when playing for the first time. It'll show Aurma struggling to keep her team on point but also to remind the viewers that Unite Battles are supposed to be fun.) -

Great Class 4 (3:10) Pokemon Unite has many items for you to buy to improve your performance in battle. Learn what each one does and if it's right for you and your partner pokemon. (A sort of 'filler episode' where Aurma and Pikachu go shopping for Battle Items and Held Items. The episode will take the opportunity to go over what the items do and how to use them. Also we'll take a quick jab at trainers who mismatch their items with their pokemon, you know, the Choice Specs Greninja players...) -

Great Class 3 (2:40) The first rule of Pokemon Unite is to never give up! Anything can happen up to the last minute of a game! (This episode has Aurma and Pikachu struggle in a losing battle until the last hit of Zapdos is taken from the enemy team. The rest of the episode is a mad dash to score points by the ally team, resulting in victory.) -

Great Class 2 (3:25) Sometimes the best play in a match is one made in service to the team. It's selfless versus selfish in the heart of battle. (Aurma and Pikachu go up against Caurpa and Machamp in this episode where Aurma and Pikachu struggle to make any headway against the enemy team due to Caurpa's overwhelming offensive pressure. Aurma and Pikachu make a ploy to distract the enemy team in order to allow their teammate to score points, securing their victory. This episode teaches the viewers that not all game-winning maneuvers are explosive 5 KO streaks or skillful steal snipes of Objectives. Sometimes, it's about being a team player.) -

Great Class 1 (4:33) An opponent of overwhelming skill is encountered during a Unite Battle! Can Aurma and Pikachu overcome the experience difference? (This episode debuts Lithus, the quiet but ferocious Garchomp trainer. Aurma and Pikachu have to contend with him during a rank promotion battle, but Lithus is far more experienced in Unite Battles than expected, and the match quickly becomes one-sided. Aurma and Pikachu have to unite their teammates against this overpowered opponent in order to have any chance of breaking into Expert rank.) -

I think that'll do it for now. There would be more episodes than this, obviously, but I don't want to lay out the entire series in one post. Since each episode is titled after a Unite rank, you can expect the series to end at 'Masters 1200' or something similar, with a total of 25, maybe 26, episodes.

I also feel like these shorts would best be consumed on a weekly basis, with maybe 2 episodes released once a week, but that'd be ambitious. I mean, the short 8 second animation from Worlds is the most we'll get at the moment, unless Pokemon Unite wants to shell out a bit of extra money for a promotional animated series.

As for me? The best I can do is write a fanfic about it. That's another reason I'm listing only a fraction of the episode synopsis here, I might just go ahead and write it all out myself. Been a while since I've published anything, but if the chapters are gonna be short like the miniseries proposed here, it shouldn't be too much work. A nice, fun little exercise in transcribing my own Pokemon Unite experience for everyone to read, sounds exciting.

But this'll be it for now. Thank you all for reading up to this point. I got something more planned for release next week, so stay tuned.

[josephblogsupa]

Beyond the Application: Crafting an Authentic College Essay

82 games in the season and 82 days you will see me and my dad watching the New York Knicks play basketball. The Knicks most notable player is, Jalen Brunson. I got his jersey when I went to my first Knicks playoff game on April 23, 2023. My dad was a Knicks fan his whole life even when he didn’t live in America, so it was only right for me to carry on this fanhood. I’ve always been a fan of all the players on the team, I have been supporting them for all my life so that would make sense, but what Brunson has done for the organization is amazing. He recently joined the team and has made an immediate impact, winning games, and facilitating the offense. As a basketball junkie and someone who plays for fun, it’s a whimsical experience watching him play and look forward to it every other night.

     Turning on the TV to watch them play isn’t just something to cure boredom, it's also a bonding time with my family. Spending evenings sitting side by side are moments that I will never forget. Whenever I am having a bad day I look forward to the night because it seems as if all my problems go away. (Unless the knicks lose)

     This jersey in specific is very memorable because of the playoff game I got it at. The Knicks won that day and advanced further into the playoffs. Ever since that day I considered this jersey a “good luck” symbol. 

The dreaded college essay, every applicant is struck with fear by the thought of trying to make their essay the most appealing to an admissions officer. The high stakes and fear of getting rejected adds to the chaotic college application experience. “This essay will dictate the next 4 years of my life” is a thought that close to all applicants have. As a senior currently applying for colleges these are some tips that have resonated with me and will help you along the way.

     Be authentic: The most important thing in your college essay is to choose a topic that is consistent with who you truly are. The admissions committee can sense when writers are authentic. Colleges want you to use your own voice, sense of humor, and way of speaking. Select a topic that holds genuine significance to you, rather than opting for something merely to make an impression. Whether it's a personal experience, hobby, or unique trait that showcases your strengths, don't hesitate to explore your weaknesses as well. Your weaknesses are a testament to your capacity for growth. The admission committee is looking for real people with genuine stories, not perfect individuals without challenges. In June Jordan’s Nobody Mean More to Me Than You she speaks on the importance of speaking in one’s own voice.  Jordan says “...either we hide our original word habits, or we completely surrender our own voice, hoping to please those who will never respect anyone different from themselves.” (Jordan 363) Your own language is your own identity. Colleges want to see this side of you. Embracing your own language is not a recommendation, it is a necessity.

     Ask for Help: In my personal experience with the college admissions process, I have had a lot of success speaking to my guidance counselors and teachers. My guidance counselors provide me amazing feedback and advice on how to maximize my application. This isn’t always the case though. Data shows that needier families have access to guidance offices that tend to provide more advice to a large group of students rather than one on one sessions. This is a flawed method because now they have to focus on college options that are most common. It creates a paradox where students that want to apply to top colleges are now at a disadvantage. In Fain’s article, Social class influences where even valedictorians go to college, research finds, he provides data that supports this claim, “Among those surveyed, only 32 percent of valedictorians from lower socioeconomic backgrounds enrolled in private colleges described as being the most selective, compared to 51 percent of their wealthier peers. And 11 percent of the lower-income students enrolled in the most selective public institutions, compared to 21 percent of the wealthier group.” (Fain 2)  This leaves college guidance to applicants' families instead of the school providing it for them. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds, despite their academic achievements, now have to face barriers that prevent them from accessing the same opportunities as their wealthier peers. 

     Focus on deeper themes: Some applicants think they will impress the admissions committee by loading their essay with facts, and a random assortment of activities and volunteer work. Sure, admissions officers may be impressed, but that's not the point. The issue with overly descriptive essays is that the topic of the essay tends to shift towards the person who is influencing the writer rather than the actual student applying. Peter, a member of a control group who was applying to college, wrote about his mother. The admissions counselor enjoyed the essay but, “The admissions counselor remarked that Peter’s mother “sounds like an amazing woman, but the writer doesn’t say enough about himself.” (Warren 50)  Despite the inspiring qualities of Peter’s mother that were shown, Peter’s essay failed to provide enough insight into his own personality, passions, and qualities. The admissions officer reading this essay would immediately deny this person because they are accepting him, not his mother.

As I currently navigate through the college application journey, these tips have illuminated the path for me. I first viewed the college application experience as a daunting maze, but now I find it manageable with enough planning. I hope these tips help you out on your journey too!

[westeroswisdom]

The studios want to starve the striking WGA writers into submission by not returning to the bargaining table until after summer.

Regardless of whether SAG-AFTRA goes on strike this week, the studios have no intention of sitting down with the Writers Guild for several more months. “I think we’re in for a long strike, and they’re going to let it bleed out,” said one industry veteran intimate with the POV of studio CEOs. With the scribes’ strike now finishing its 71st day and the actors’ union just 30 hours from a possible labor action of its own, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers are planning to dig in hard this fall before even entertaining the idea of more talks with the WGA, I’ve learned. “Not Halloween precisely, but late October, for sure, is the intention,” says a top-tier producer close to the Carol Lombardini-run AMPTP. While some dismiss this as just “cynical strike talk,” studio and streamer sources around town confirm the strategy. They also confirm that the plan to grind down the guild has long been in the works for a labor cycle that all sides agree is a game-changer one way or another for Hollywood. “It’s been agreed to for months, even before the WGA went out,” one executive said. “Nobody wanted a strike, but everybody knew this was make or break.”

The studios are using a Putin-style strategy to break the union. But the writers know that caving to the studios would mean they would have to compete with AI for work. So the WGA is remaining steadfast like Ukraine just to keep their profession intact.

We can help the writers by letting the studios know that we'll cancel streaming services if they don't start negotiating in good faith.

The writers may soon be joined by actors on the picket line.

SAG-AFTRA Agrees To Federal Mediation With Studios But Won’t Extend Strike Deadline

SAG-AFTRA has agreed to federal mediation in order to break the bargaining deadlock with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, but said that “we are not confident that the employers have any intention of bargaining toward an agreement.”  The deadline for reaching an agreement remains Wednesday at midnight PT.   In a statement, the union said that its negotiating committee “has agreed to the AMPTP’s last-minute request for federal mediation and has reaffirmed the negotiating committee’s dedication to securing a fair deal by the expiration of the extended contract at 11:59 p.m. PT on Wednesday, July 12.

So one good sign is that federal mediators have been brought in. But SAG-AFTRA will not postpone its strike which is set to begin 12 July 2023 at 11:59 PM PDT (13 July 2023 at 0659 GMT/UTC).

I'm not sure how a SAG-AFTRA strike would affect production for Season 2 of House of the Dragon. But they apparently completed location shooting in Wales a few days ago and did the same in Spain a few weeks ago. There's no word on how much more studio work or additional location shooting needs to be done.

A short strike would not be a major setback. For Season 1 production they had to cope with postponements as a result of sick days due to COVID-19; they did not fall drastically behind schedule.

A longer strike could delay the start of Season 2 until late in 2024 (instead of predicted midyear) and a way long strike might even make it a winter event in early 2025.

Greed is driving the studios and the only serious pressure that works on them is to deprive them of revenue. So perhaps a "viewers strike" would be helpful.

Right now we need to support the writers who have been striking since early May.

STAND WITH WRITERS How to Support the WGA

[hyenahunt]

Hiyori Tomoe - Idol Story 2

Writer: Kino Seitaro

Season: Summer

Characters: Hiyori, Ibara

Proofreading: 310mc (JP) & Skyress (ENG)

Translation: hyenahunt

Ibara: It is simply a discussion about work. In fact, it's a promising one for you, Your Highness ♪

[Location: Café Cinnamon]

Hiyori: ♪~♪~

Yes, the ES Building is truly an elegant escape from the chaos that is society ♪

Fufufu. After all, I'd inevitably stand out when out and about, no? Having nowhere to relax would be such a dilemma... ☆

Not to mention, featured on the limited menu of this cafe — Cafe Cinnamon— is a summer citrus tart!

Yes, yes, they're making the most of the season's fruits! How splendid!

I'd expect no less from Ensemble Square. Something like this could only come about thanks to the Tenshouin family and all those various organisations pouring out their coffers into it, no?

Hiyori: But as a result of that, my family's — or rather, the Tomoe Foundation's influence is rather thin. That's a bit of a shame, isn't it?

Well, it matters not! After all, as the second son, I don't bear the slightest responsibility for whatever my family holds!

As the idol Hiyori Tomoe, what I do is deliver radiance to my fans. That's my raison d'être ♪

Whoops. I was in such a good mood that before I knew it, I'd started talking to myself a little too much. The tea shall go all cold!

(takes a sip)... ♪ Fufu. The sweetness of this tart goes splendidly with flavoured tea ♪

Ibara: Greetings, Your Highness! A most splendid day to you! Salute~ ☆

Hiyori: Hmm? Is something the matter, Ibara?

Whenever you appear before me, I get the feeling it's never about anything good. What terrible weather.

Ibara: Well, do kindly allay your concerns, Your Highness.

It is simply a discussion about work. In fact, it's a promising one for you, Your Highness ♪

Hiyori: What's promising to you doesn't mean it's promising to me, though... For now, I suppose I'll just hear you out.

Well? What's this discussion about?

Ibara: Why, I'm absolutely delighted that you would take interest in it! Now then, I, the unworthy Ibara Saegusa, shall begin... ☆

Hiyori: Aren't you as chatty as ever... Your preamble's starting to drag on, you know?

Ibara: Fufu. This too is one of my bad habits ♪ Very well, I shall cut right to the chase.

Since this matter concerns you, Your Highness, perhaps you've already caught wind of it, but...

Due to the plans of ES, the general student body of Reimei Academy has been increasingly active in their activities.

Hiyori: By the general student body, you mean those who aren't Special Students, correct?

Ibara: Indeed. The idols whom Reimei Academy has no hopes for...

To be precise, it'd be more correct to say they're those who haven't been recognised as having the talent and academic prowess to be idols.

Among them, however, there are a handful of students who've been inspired by the idols of Yumenosaki, and have begun to view idol life as a way out of their hardships.

Hiyori: Hmm~. I'll have you know that what other idols are doing is of little interest to me.

By bringing this topic up out of the blue with me, surely you mean to make use of my authority in some way, correct?

Ibara: Precisely! I would like you, Your Highness, to be the messiah who saves all those students.

As the one who brought up Jun as your partner, then a Non-Special Student himself, you in particular would have experience in doing so, no?

By leveraging on that aspect of your past, we can cherry-pick the best of that smattering of students to become assets for increasing CosPro's fighting strength.

In essence, Your Highness, I would like for you to join the selection committee of my proposed Talent-Scouting Auditions!

Now, how does that sound? It'll both boost your reputation as well as increase the might of our very own CosPro. A plan to kill two birds with one stone, if I do say so myself... ♪

Hiyori: How very like you to come up with something like this, Ibara. Sorry, but you can count me out.

Firstly, I have no intention of being an idol who does charity work. You're disrespecting me with the very suggestion of your proposal, you understand?

Ibara: Goodness. I do beg your pardon for causing you such displeasure! You see, I've never been the best at considering how others might feel!

All the same, as the Vice President of CosPro, increasing our fighting strength is precisely what I would want...

I'll rework my plan, then, for it would be most fortunate if we could make the most of this opportunity ☆

Please excuse me for interrupting your meal, Your Highness. I shall ask again later!

Hiyori: Seems he's finally gone. Honestly, he's such a crafty fellow, isn't he?

Thanks to him, my tea's gone completely cold.

However, something like this would never throw me off my groove! If it's gone cold, then I shall just have to order more hot tea ♪

Fufu. Just like how newer idols will replace the old once they go, no? Trends are an ever-shifting creature ♪

Thanks to the plans of ES, the idol industry has been plunged ever deeper into a new era.

One revolution comes after another... Honestly, how distasteful, and yet how unyielding. That's just Eichi-kun's way of doing things... ♪

As for me, however, I'm content to just continue shining on ♪

Those who can't keep up with the times will simply fall away from them. Even without holding an audition, you'll have people naturally come clambering up the precipice ♪

That, once again, is the fate of idols who continue to compete with one another... Nevermind me, but Jun-kun will need to work all the harder in order to keep up ♪

And in doing that, Eden will become an increasingly solid unit... We'll still be able to continue our work as wonderful idols, even if we disregard the orders from above.

Hiyori: Yes, yes. Now that, too, would be such fine weather... ♪

✦✦✦✦✦

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[notnctu]

under the mistletoe | l.ty

lee taeyong x fem!reader genre - fluff, barely humor idk, very little bit of angst details - enemies to lovers!au, childhood friends that have been apart, high school!au warnings - explicit language, one mention of death, there’s a kiss scene lol word count - 2.7k  synopsis - the holiday season brings a change of heart this year. you see your old friend, now enemy, Lee Taeyong at Mark’s Christmas gathering and through snowman shaped cookies, you two re-kindle your old friendship. 

a/n - this is for @neoculturechristmas​ ‘s secret santa collab! this piece is dedicated to @soliverse​ :) hello lovie!! i’m your secret santa!! i hope you like it and im sorry that it’s not funny LOL thank you for letting me participate in such a fun holiday collab! im so happy to be able to write a fic for another writer:)

Through the heavily crowded Christmas party, through the people that dare walk in your way, you still see him in the midst of the chaos. Lee Taeyong stands only a few feet from you, in a ridiculous Christmas sweater and messy frosty hair. The universe is absolutely obsessed with placing you two in uncomfortable situations, as if the fuming feud between you two is not enough.

His absentminded actions cause him to foolishly knock over someone’s drink, what a fucking clutz. Rolling your eyes, you wander off in search of your good friend to announce your departure for the night.

“Already? Y/N, you got here like, five minutes ago.” Mark mixes the glass bowl that is filled to the brim with red sugary punch. Any forceful spin will have it spilling from the rim, and that won’t be the only mishap of the night that you witness. “What’s the rush? It’s Christmas Eve!” 

And before you can utter the blacklisted name to explain your sudden change of heart, the culprit walks in with his stunned puppy eyes that grow sharp and a frown at your appearance. There is a small spark in the shared eye contact until it completely drops and he returns to ignoring your presence. 

“Mark, where are your napkins? I spilled something in your living room.” It had to be a whole year since you’ve last heard his voice and you still remember his low cadence whenever he was trying to be cool. Cool and mysterious Taeyong, and how he lives up so perfectly to his title. However, there was a moment in time that you knew him for more than that. He was warm and comforting Taeyong. 

While he tried so hard to be winter on the outside, spring bloomed blossoms on the inside and a bright sunshine radiated enough for you to witness its glow. You wished to stay with his spring for as long as you possibly could, but like the changing seasons, Taeyong eventually changed with it.

“It’s in the upper cabinet.” Mark does not realize the initial situation in the room, merrily going back to his large bowl of delicious liquid. It takes one big sigh from you for your friend to finally realize the elephant in the room and the unknowingly stiff tension in the kitchen. Mark’s eyes grow a bit bigger and as subtle as he tried to be, he clears his throat, “I think Christmas is all about joining together and being in each other’s company. Stay, Y/N.”

Mark did not choose his words wisely as Taeyong peeks over his shoulder, catching the last words of his sentence. “You’re leaving already, Y/N?” That is the first time he’s acknowledged you in the past few years.

There is an internal battle of whether or not you should acknowledge him back. Crossing your arms, you grumble something underneath your breath. “Why do you care?” 

“I don’t.” Taeyong says sternly, making sure he asserts his nonchalant attitude. “Just sucks that Mark threw such a happy Christmas party for his good friend to leave.” He slings an arm around Mark’s shoulders, snuggling his face into the side of Mark’s chocolate colored hair.

And Mark dares to show a small smile of affection back. “Sorry that Y/N is always walking out on things. She does that quite often.” Before you can give him a piece of your mind, Mark shoves a snowman shaped biscuit in your mouth. 

Taeyong gets away laughing, feeling an overwhelming sense of pride as he walks to clean up his other mess. You groan, biting the head of the snowman off and glaring at Mark. “Why did you let him get away with saying that to me? And when did you become friends with him again? And why are your cookies so hard?” 

“Taeyong lost a friend, like a month ago. Just be a bit empathetic, please.” Mark wipes his hands on his apron and continues kneading at a random ball of dough. If it’s one thing that Mark always does too well is overachieving at his holiday gatherings. There is a reason why he’s head of the Prom Committee and student officer for event planning at your high school.

Washing your hands, the cold water bites at your skin. It’s been a really cold winter this year. When you dry your hands off, you scoot Mark over to make room for yourself to help with his endless amount of holiday treats.

“We’ve all lost friends, Mark. Sometimes people don’t work out with others and that’s just how it goes.” There is an underlying bitterness that does not seem to fade when you speak. 

“Speaking from experience, maybe?” Mark chuckles, but dismisses the brief second of giggles to a more serious and low tone. “Not that kind of lost, Y/N. He lost a friend forever, like this person is in a forever sleep.” 

The moment the words hit the air, a chilly draft sweeps at your ankles and you freeze in your place. And as you stand with dry flour on your hands and a person you thought you’d never become warm to again stands in the next room over, your heart softens at the information and immediate guilt preoccupies your system. 

“Oh… well you should have started with that, then.” You slightly graze a finger across your nose at the faint tickle. Your mind is running at high speed, merely wondering about all the pain that Taeyong possibly felt this past month and remembering how it’s difficult for him to process his feelings. 

“He actually wasn’t going to come tonight, until I mentioned you were coming.” Mark unloads a batch of fresh cookies from the oven and replaces it with another tray. The aromatics take you back to Christmas many years ago and the memory of Taeyong getting frosting everywhere you could remember. It took weeks to get the red and green stains out of the carpet, but the laughter made up for every clumsy mistake. 

Not completely sure where the melancholic spirit erupted from, you rinse your hands and grab two cookies off the still hot tray without another response. Hurrying off, Mark yells out, “Wait-- those aren’t decorated yet!” but you choose to ignore his pleas.

Why is it harder to find him in a crowd when you are actually looking for him? Perhaps the saying, the best things in life come when you’re not looking for them, holds some truth to it. But your feet take you directly to him; he sits at the leather couch with the burning embers from the fireplace reflecting in his eyes. 

Your abrupt appearance startles him a bit, but his face falls sullen when he sees that it’s you. Shoulders touching, you’ve missed the intimacy you two use to share. The blank snowman shaped cookie feels warm in your hand as you thrust it into Taeyong’s face. “For you.” 

Taeyong scoffs, pushing your hand away lightly and looking away from the pitiful undecorated treat. “This feels like a trap.”

“No trap. Just a truce. Remember the time when I got upset at you for forgetting me in the parking lot and I told you the only way to fix it was to buy me food?” Your hand begins to drop, but Taeyong catches your wrist and takes the cookie from your possession. He gently places your hand back onto your lap.

“I know no other love language.” You explain the reasoning behind the old memory. 

“Pretty sure food isn’t a love language.” Taeyong chuckles, like Christmas carols to your ears, he sounds like home. 

“It’s not, but they all require me to be too emotionally vulnerable and you know how that makes me feel…” Your voice unintentionally trails off the end of your sentence. Does he still know how you feel? 

Taeyong’s eyebrow raises subtly, catching your implication. “You’re still the same person you were three years ago?”

Three years, has it really been that long? You nod without needing to ponder the thought. There is a stark difference between change and growth. You are who you’ve always been, that is never going to change, but you’ve grown to be stronger and a little more independent.

“That’s not surprising.” Taeyong bites at his cookie, turning the figure in his hands as he stares off to reminisce about the past. He thinks about his pain. He thinks about his own self growth. “I’ve been thinking about you recently.” 

The bold comment causes your chest to burn and your throat to grow a bit dry. Taeyong finally looks up at you, eyes dropping between your own and your lips. He doesn’t shy away from staring, taking in how much you’ve changed appearance wise since you two used to be friends. His eyelashes dance against his skin every time he blinked and the white strands of his hair fall around his crown like snowflakes. 

“Why?” 

“I learned how important it is to have friends around you. You never know when you’ll never see them again. The falling out we had should not have ruined the friendship we built for so long.” It’s difficult for Taeyong to continue with his feelings. It’s not a secret that he’s liked you since you two were close, probably half of the room is well aware of it. But there has never been a moment where he was out right too vulnerable to you, he was and is afraid of showing his feelings. 

It’s an immediate body reaction when Taeyong leans in to you and you defensively back away. The confusion shows on your face very blatantly and his dreamy laugh rattles your bones. Taeyong’s hand softly caresses your cheek as his thumb brushes the tip of your nose. “You have some flour on your face.” This skin to skin leaves you speechless as his hot hand holds your cheek so delicately, making your heart race rapidly.

“Your Christmas sweater is ugly.” That’s all you can utter, out of pure panic too. Your eyes dip away and he retracts away from you, elbows on his knees as he leans forward and ducking momentarily to examine his choice of festive clothing. 

He laughs, “it’s called an ugly Christmas sweater for a reason. It’s better than wearing a lame red sweater and calling it festive.” It’s surreal how quick things settle back into being the way that it used to be. As if the last three years of silence and constantly pretending the other didn’t exist disappeared. Taeyong is back, he’s yours again. And you hope that he’ll be by your side for longer than you had let him go.

“Red is not my color, I agree, but green is definitely not yours.” You joke back and Taeyong ruffles your hair, just like old times. The holiday spirit practically wraps its arms around you two. The holidays are really about being in each other’s warmth. In this very cold winter, you’re happy to have found an old flame that kept you from frostbite for many years. 

“Y/N, we’re putting up the mistletoe.” An acquaintance interrupts you and Taeyong, quickly grabbing your arm to follow her. Your eyes dart between her and Taeyong. One thing you know no doubt about is that you aren’t leaving Taeyong alone again, so you take his hand without another second thought and drag him along with you.

You’re all ushered into the foyer and Mark is on a step ladder under the frame of his door. He notes Taeyong by your side and discreetly smiles to himself. He securely pins it to the wall and claps his hands together to gather everyone’s attention. “We’re going to blindfold two people and they’re going to have to kiss underneath the mistletoe.” 

Your hands grow sweaty at the thought of such a risky game and immediately, you two let go of each other’s hands without realizing the clutching feeling of each other’s anxiousness. “I don’t think I’ll be chosen.” Taeyong mumbles to you as Mark and a few other people unravel the blindfolds. Nevertheless, he doesn’t sound very confident and you notice Taeyong’s shifty eyes. 

“Right. Me either.” You shrug off, trying to hide slightly behind Taeyong’s stature. However, Taeyong instantly catches the uncertainty in your voice as well. 

“Aren’t there four couples in the room?” Taeyong whispers over his shoulder at you.

Crossing your arms, you roll your eyes at his obvious thinking. “Yeah, but Mark isn’t going to choose a couple to kiss. How boring.” 

Taeyong chuckles out of disbelief at your comment. “I’ll volunteer you if you want to really spice things up.” 

And your eyes grow wide at his mischievous suggestion, pinching at his arm lightly. Underneath the fleece, Taeyong feels sturdy and strong. It’s only another reminder that you two aren’t kids anymore. “Lee Taeyong, do not. I don’t want to kiss anyone in this room.” That might’ve been a lie, even if you didn’t want to admit it to yourself that you are just a little curious how Taeyong might have matured. 

“Everyone close your eyes.” Mark excitedly smiles and everyone obliges. You gulp the pooled saliva in your mouth, trying to manifest every possible hope that you aren’t chosen in this room of twenty people. Mark wouldn’t screw you over like that, would he? The more you pondered that thought, the more you believe that he totally would.

Then, you feel a hand on your arm and you’re being guided somewhere. A cloth covers your eyes and you’re quick to snarl, “Mark Lee, this is your only Christmas present. You get no more favors from me.” your cadence is only loud enough for him to hear and though you’re robbed of your sight, Mark’s boyish laughter says enough about his enlightened facial expression.

“This is what you get for trying to leave five minutes into my extravagant party I tried so hard to put on.” Mark sarcastically comments and pats your shoulders for a last indication of reassurance.

You hear footsteps in front of you and an uncanny presence of another in your close proximity. “Okay, everyone can open their eyes.” Mark cheers and it’s not like you can see much through the dark cloth that covers your eyes, but yours open anyways.

Gasps fill the room, slight hollering and cheering. The reactions cause an unsettling stir in your lower stomach. “Kiss!” and before you know it, the unknown person searches for your face and cups it gingerly. The feeling being very familiar to a scene before.

The both of you lean in and it’s difficult with the lack of sight, but people kiss with their eyes closed right? It’s not your first kiss, but also the sense deprivation is something different. When you tilt your head and go in for it, your noses bump together clumsily. You’re slightly embarrassed, your heart is leaping out of your chest from the sudden display of affection and you’re strangling Mark in your imagination.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper, but there isn’t a response back. Instead, your partner dives in without any trace of struggle. Their lips glide perfectly with yours and it’s almost like you’re kissing snow. Any form of awkwardness melts away; their hand on your cheek feels natural and comforting. Your heart yearns for this sense of security as the same warmth from the fireplace embodies your chest. 

When you two pull away, the room bursts into a loud chaos of cheers. Before you can take off your blindfold, you can feel everyone running toward the both of you to give you excited pats on your head and arm. 

“I can’t believe that just happened!” Your friend’s voice can be heard in your ear. As you lift off the cloth, you see him in the midst of the chaos. Through the heavy dog pile of overly joyous people, Lee Taeyong stands a few feet from you in his ugly Christmas sweater, messy frosty hair and a pink hue across his pale cheeks. 

He looks over at you and shyly smiles. “Hopefully that spiced things enough for you. Happy Holidays, Y/N.” He can barely process everyone else's excitement, but he feels joyous for once. After a long cold bitter winter, he feels warm. 

“Happy Holidays, you big goof. Good to have you back.” You push at his arm, laughing happily at the ridiculously wide smile he has on his face. You’re glad to see Taeyong smile again. 

[awed-frog]

“The big flaw with this is that it completely misunderstands who JK Rowling is and why she wrote the books. Simply put, this novel is a Christian tale. You miss that, you miss the entire point of everything it has to say.” Elaborate? Sounds interesting and I haven’t heard that before.

Well - I love this to bits and sort of wrote my thesis about it, so here we go.

Basically, you’ve got several kinds of heroes, but ‘left-wing hero’ is almost a contradiction in terms (more on this later). There’s your average Greek hero, whose status as a hero is more of a social class than it is a job and who generally doesn’t have any morally redeeming qualities (have you met Theseus?). Then there’s the medieval Christian hero - he comes in different flavours, but what’s relevant here is the Perceval model: basically the village idiot, whose only power is his good heart and who has no desire to challenge the status quo (because kings are divinely ordained and also poets tend to work for them, so ‘That vassal guy of yours has rescued yet another damsel’ story is going to be better received than ‘Your tax system is corrupt and this knight will now implement direct democracy’). Next you have the modern superhero, who was born in a very different historical context (the vigilantism of 19th century US) and as such has very different priorities. Namely: in his world, there is no higher authority and it’s up to him to use his superior skills to be judge and executioner so he can protect the most vulnerable. This understandable but toxic narrative will later get mixed up with WW2 and then the rampant capitalism of the last 30 years, resulting in the current blockbustery mess.

Anyway - if you’re a Western writer, it’s basically impossible to escape these three shaping forces we’ve all grown up with (classical Antiquity, Christianity, and US-led imperialism/capitalism), so most books and movies of the last forever decades can be analyzed through this lens. In the case of JK Rowling, what you have is a Christian author who openly used her YA series to chart out her own relationship with God. This is not a secret, or a meta writer’s delusion, or anything: she’s discussed it in several interviews. Her main problem, which is most believers’ main problem, is how to reconcile her faith in a benevolent God with the suffering in her daily life; and something she’s mentioned more than once is how her mom died when she was 25, and how this was very much on her mind especially when she was writing Deathly Hallows.

Now, I don’t want to write a novel here, so I won’t analyze the entire series, but what it is is basically a social critique of British society, mixed up with Greek and Roman elements in a cosmetic way only, and - crucially - led by an extremely Christian hero. 

In every way that matters, Harry Potter is a direct descendant of Perceval: he’s someone who’s grown up in isolation as the village idiot (remember how he was shunned by other children because he was ‘dangerous’ and ‘different’), randomly found a more exciting world of which he previously knew nothing (he’s basically the only kid who gets to Hogwarts without knowing anything about the magical world, just like Perceval joined Arthur’s court after living in the woods for 15 years), and proceeded to make his mark not because of his innate powers or special abilities (he’s average at magic, except for Defence against the Dark Arts), but because he’s kind and good and humble. And in the end, he willingly sacrifices himself so everyone else can be saved: a Christ-like figure who even gets his very own Deposition (in the arms of Hagrid, the closest thing to a parent his actually has). 

(This, by the way, was the only reason why Hagrid was kept alive. JK Rowling had planned to kill him, but she absolutely wanted this scene - one of the most recognizable and beloved image in Christian art - in the books.)

And even if he ultimately survives his ‘death’ (like Jesus did), Harry refuses the riches and rank he was surely offered and chooses to spend his days in middle-class obscurity as a husband and father (if I remember correctly, Harry and Ginny’s house isn’t even big enough for their three kids). And no, of course he doesn’t stand for anything or challenges the status quo: that’s not his job. His job, like Jesus’, was to defeat evil by offering himself up in sacrifice; and the entire story - especially the last book - is a profound, intimate, and very moving reflection on faith.

(“Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's”, remember? It’s not your job to change anything in the temporal, material world; your job is to nurture your immortal soul and prepare it for the true life that comes after death.)

Like - I don’t know how it was for younger readers, but for me, reading Deathy Hallows as an adult, it wrecked me. Even as an agnostic, I read it over and over again, and I kep finding new meaning in it. The whole thing is basically a retelling of the Book of Job, one of the most puzzling and beautiful parts of the Old Testament. That’s when Harry’s faith in God Dumbledore is tested, when his mentor, the cornerstone of his world, disappears; when Harry has to decide whether he’ll continue to believe in this absent, flawed figure despite all the bad things he keeps uncovering or give up his faith - and thus his soul - completely. The clearest, most startling moment exemplifying this religious dilemma is when Harry decides not to go after the wand. Getting it is the logical thing to do, the only way he can win, but Harry - while mourning Dobby - decides not to do it. That’s when he recovers his faith, and starts trusting his own kindness and piety (whatever happens, he will not defile a tomb) over everything else.

Another key moment is King’s Cross - here, and once more, Harry forgives his enemy, thus obeying Jesus’ commands. He sees Voldemort, the being who took everything from him - and he pities the pathetic, unloved thing he’s become. This is what sets him apart from everyone else and what makes him special: not his birth, not his magic, not some extraordinary artefact - but simply, like Dumbledore puts it, that he can love. After everything that’s bene done to him, he can still love; not only his friends, but his enemies. He forgives Voldemort, he forgives Snape, he forgives Malfoy, he forgives Dudley; and I see so many people angry about this, ranting about abuse victims and how hate is a right, but I think they’re missing the point. This is a Christian story; from a Christian perspective, your enemies need love more than your friends do. 

(“It is not those who are healthy who need a physician” and all that.)

And in any case, a hero is inherently not left-wing. The whole trope relies on three rock-solid facts: the hero is special, and he can do something you can’t, and that gives him the right or the duty to save others who can’t save themselves. Whether it is declined in its Christian form (the hero as self-sacrificing nobody) or in its fascist form (the hero as judge and king of the inferior masses), that is is the exact opposite of any kind of left-wing narrative, where meaningful change is brought about not by individual martyrdom or a benevolent super-human, but by collective action.

So, yeah - Harry changes nothing and is not the leader of the revolution, but it’s unfair to link this to JK Rowling’s politics. It’s just how the trope works. And, in fairness to her, many kind and compassionate authors who write books concerned with social justice tend to lean towards this kind of hero because the only workable alternative - the fascist super-hero - is way worse. Had Harry been that, for instance, he would have ended up ruling the wizarding world. Would that have been better for its democracy? A 19-year-old PM who knows nothing about the law or justice or diplomacy? A venerated war hero drunk on power? Instead, JK Rowling chooses the milder way out: Harry and his friends do change the system - little by little, and within the limits of the genre. Hermione becomes the equivalent of a human rights lawyer, while Harry and Ron join the Aurors (and I know there’s a lot of justified suspicion towards law enforcement, but frankly having good people in their ranks is still the only way to move things forward. It’s been years and I still haven’t heard a practical suggestion as to how a police-less nation would work). As for the government, it is restored to a fairer status quo - again, not the revolution many readers wanted, but also not the totalitarian monarchies or oligarchies or the super-hero’s world.

And as to how one can write a story that’s actually revolutionary - I don’t exactly know. Some writers rely on multiple narrating voices to try and escape the heroic trope; others work on bleak stories which point out the flaws in the system and stop short of solving them. I guess that, in the end, is one of the problem with left-wing politics: they’re simply less eye-catching, less cinematic. On the whole, it’s dull, boring work, the victories achieved by committees and celebrated with a piece of paper. From a literary point of view, it just doesn’t work.

[grandhotelabyss]

Now that the “dunk” cycle has passed, I do have something to say about this viral Tweet. First, like all sublimely stupid remarks, it passes into brilliance. “Allegory of what” is a reasonable and even eloquent characterization—it would be a good title for an essay—putting in the vernacular Walter Benjamin’s famous description of Kafka’s works as Haggadah without Halachah—i.e., Talmudic illustrations of the law sans the law itself. What kind of sensibility does this offend? Well, let’s not defang the modernists—it honestly might irritate anyone. I myself have a somewhat checkered relationship with Kafka; I like him short, in aphorisms and prose-poems, and I think his masterpiece might be “A Hunger Artist,” an absolutely perfect story, which I don’t quite understand, except that it’s about me and my experiences, which I don’t understand either. The longer pieces, especially the novels, don’t have the same power, because the oneiric style feels forced and willful when extended. (I should say I’ve read a lot of Kafka but not all and never systematically, just in fits and starts between my teen years and today; my major omission is The Castle.)

Still, Dawkins’s remark also illuminates a larger phenomenon. I saw the other day a social-media inquiry, with what agenda I don’t know, about whether there was some continuity between Dawkins’s New Atheist movement and today’s wokeness. The answer is the opposite: official anti-wokeness, the Intellectual Dark Web, descends from New Atheism. But they share a sensibility, since both New Atheism and wokeness can be described, maybe unfairly but not simply in jest, as puritan sects. And what does the puritan want from a text? Governor Winthrop explains:

At Watertown there was (in the view of divers witnesses) a great combat between a mouse and a snake; and after a long fight, the mouse prevailed and killed the snake. The pastor of Boston, Mr. Wilson, a very sincere, holy man, hearing of it, gave this interpretation: That the snake was the devil; the mouse was a poor contemptible people, which God had brought hither, which should overcome Satan here, and dispossess him of his Kingdom.

The interpretation is so insistent and indisputable that the allegorical surface, here nature itself, is wholly dispensable. The New Atheist and the woke want a text the opposite of Kafka’s, one whose narrative, drama, style, and imagery are so morally legible that no “wrong” interpretation is even imaginable. Hence to the New Atheist, anything that calls for interpretation is irrational, while to the woke it’s elitist or crypto-fascist. American literature is the struggle of the puritan interpretive impulse toward complex artistic expression. This often results in amputated allegories, which is why Hawthorne and Melville often sound like Kafka.

Yet I’m sure I go too far. “Franz Kafka or Thomas Mann?” Georg Lukács rhetorically wondered—for the communist critic, the right answer was Mann, since he was (supposedly) a realist. David Mikics, reviewing a re-release of Mann’s Reflections of a Nonpolitical Man (which I’ve never read), reminds us of how Mann caught the character of the totalizing puritan by semi-caricaturing Lukács himself as Naphta in The Magic Mountain. Mann showed Naphta as a Jewish-turned-Jesuit Hegelian nihilist, which is to say that all traditions harbor their own oversimplifications. They always beckon us into the purity spiral. For nonpolitical Mann, that stolid German burgher and paterfamilias always about to melt into the Mediterranean, purity’s opposite is art:

Mann knew in Reflections that individual freedom, which he identified with the writer’s talent for playing with ideas, must stand against all political demands. It is on behalf of that life-giving freedom that Mann celebrates “art’s lively ambiguity, its deep lack of commitment, its intellectual freedom ... someone who is used to creating art, never takes spiritual and intellectual things completely seriously, for his job has always been rather to treat them as material and as playthings, to represent points of view, to deal in dialectics, always letting the one who is speaking at the time be right.”

The higher playfulness that Mann espouses in these sentences from Reflections perfectly suits his dazzling, many-faceted Magic Mountain, so different from today’s prizewinning novels, which present uplifting lessons endorsed by the socially conscious author and his or her tenure committee. In Mann, each character is right when he or she speaks, and the whole revolves in crystal.

A serious way of not taking things seriously—all those italics!—but still heartening. Mikics argues for a continuity between the early Mann and the later, though the author’s career is more customarily seen as a consistent drift from right to left. Considering Mann’s middle-period novella, Mario and the Magician, which exposes fascism in a wholly fascist way, and his almost unbearably excellent late masterpiece Doctor Faustus, a novel that criticizes the daemonic work of a genius while also being the daemonic work of a genius, he may be right. 

I am more interested in the irony that everything I’ve written above would have been considered looney-left academic gibberish at the peak of neoconservative hegemony and New Atheist ascendancy about 15 years ago, whereas now it is considered reactionary obscurantism. It’s no sign of virtue alone to be attacked by both the left and the right—three people can be wrong at once—but to be scorned by the puritans of all creeds for not writing stories with obvious morals probably means an author is onto something. To quote Lukács from before he joined the Party, “Art always says ‘And yet!’ to life.”

[classicmollywood]

It's Time for a History Lesson on the Hollywood Blacklist

You might have heard reference to the Hollywood blacklist recently. Or you haven’t and now your curiosity has peaked. Either way, a history lesson is about to happen!

My main objective is to explain what being blacklisted is and isn’t. I also want to help you understand how some people might confuse those two concepts and use the word “blacklist” without truly understanding its full meaning.

What is the Hollywood Blacklist?

The Hollywood blacklist was at its peak during the late 1940’s and the 1950’s. This was where anyone who worked in some sort of entertainment field (actors, directors, writers, musicians, etc) was barred from working in the industry. Why were they barred? Communism, of course!

If you were accused of being a part of the US Communist Party, or possibly being a member, or even being sympathetic to communism, then you could be barred from working in the industry - possibly forever. This means no one would hire you to do a job because you could be a communist.

The Hollywood Ten

In October 1947, ten witnesses refused to cooperate with the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). These ten were either former or current members of the party and did this as a form of protest. HUAC didn’t like them being uncooperative and fined all ten $1,000 and each of them were sentenced to a year in prison.

Oh and to add insult to injury, their studios fired all of them. Thus, the blacklist had begun.

House of Un-American Activities Committee

HUAC was the one doing the subpoenaing during the blacklist era. If you were called to testify, you would be grilled in front of an audience to tell them all about your Communist past (and your buddies’ past too).

For a time, Richard Nixon (yup that Richard Nixon) was a member of HUAC. The infamous name Joseph McCarthy will be tied with this committee forever due to the term “McCarthyism”. “McCarthyism” is when you defame a person’s character, are demagogic, and reckless.

The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals

If you were a part of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals (MPA), you were a conservative in Hollywood who had a distaste for communism. Some of those who joined the MPA were actors John Wayne, Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, and director Sam Wood.

The Committee for the First Amendment

The antithesis to the MPA was the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA). This committee included liberals in Hollywood who supported the Hollywood Ten and their first amendment right to not speak during their hearing. Quite a few big names were involved with this group and it is impossible to name all of them, but here are a few - Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis, and Frank Sinatra.

How Could It Be Proved You Were a Communist?

This becomes a bit tricky because there was no real legal way to for sure know someone was a communist. During the HUAC hearings, those on the committee would try to get you to tell them you were or were not a communist.

A lot of times HUAC would go into the archives to find something to pin on you. Say you went to a communist meeting to appease your grandfather in the 1930s (such as the case for Lucille Ball), HUAC could call you in to testify and hold up a card with your name on it and yell “COMMUNIST!”

But what if you only went to that one meeting and have nothing to do with the Communist Party? You could save your reputation by “being a friendly witness” or “naming names”.

Friendly Witnesses

If you were a friendly witness, you answered the question - “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?” If you answered yes, then you would be expected to “name names”, which means “rat out” other supposed communists and in effect, save your own career.

For example, Elia Kazan WAS a card carrying Communist when he was younger but to save his own hide, he decided to “name names”. Because Kazan did that, he got to keep making films and made some of his best work after testifying in front of HUAC.

Kazan wasn’t the only “friendly witness”. Some of the friendliest witnesses HUAC had were Walt Disney, Ronald Reagan, and Robert Taylor. Unlike Kazan, these men were known for their conservatism.

What Happened If You Were Blacklisted?

You didn’t get to work in the entertainment industry. You would never be hired for positions because you were supposedly a Communist. A lot of those blacklisted had to find different career paths because they couldn’t get employment in Hollywood.

There was a way around the blacklist. For instance, Dalton Trumbo used to write screenplays under pseudonyms (aka false names) so they would actually get bought. Two of Trumbo’s pseudonyms won Oscars - one for Roman Holiday and one for The Brave One.

Is the Blacklist Over?

Good question! Dalton Trumbo was recruited by Kirk Douglas for Spartacus and Otto Preminger for Exodus. Both knowingly hired Trumbo and both credited him for his work - effectively starting the demise of the blacklist.

Lately, there has been discussion that the blacklist is back! If you were blacklisted in the ‘40s and ‘50s, you lost your job and couldn’t get another one in Hollywood. You had to completely change your career and a lot of people who were blacklisted had their lives ruined due to this (or in the case of the medically weak-hearted John Garfield, literally died due to the stress of being blacklisted).

Let’s clear the air - being fired from a movie or television show for saying something offensive repeatedly is not the same as being blacklisted. When you work for a business, you technically represent them - even on social media. If your bosses don’t like what you are saying and have given you plenty of chances to stop saying offensive things, they can fire you.

Why don’t I believe people are being blacklisted today? Because a great deal of those in the industry who have been fired from one entertainment position have found other jobs within the industry.

Also, people have been getting fired for what they have said and not their political beliefs. Freedom of Speech is the first amendment but it doesn’t give you the right to be ignorant and/or offensive anywhere you want and not have any consequences.

[papermoonloveslucy]

LIZ HAS THE FLIMJABS

December 30, 1950

“Liz Has the Flimjabs” (aka “A Severe Case of Flimjabs”) is episode #112 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on December 30, 1950.

This was the 14th episode of the third season of MY FAVORITE HUSBAND. There were 31 new episodes, with the season ending on March 31, 1951.  

Synopsis ~  Liz wants a mink coat from George, so she pretends to be sick in order to get his sympathy - and the coat!  George is on to her tactics, and decides to give her the scare of her life - literally! 

Note: This program served as the basis for the “I Love Lucy” episode “Lucy Fakes Illness” (ILL S1;E16) filmed on December 18, 1951 and first aired on January 28, 1952.  The role of the Doctor was taken by Hal March, who was actually playing an actor friend of Ricky’s named Hal March pretending to be a doctor.  On television, Lucy also adopts a psychological illness in addition to her physical ailments. There was no mention of Christmas or New Years on the television show. 

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benaderet was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

MAIN CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.” From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) was considered the front-runner to be cast as Ethel Mertz but when “I Love Lucy” was ready to start production she was already playing a similar role on TV’s “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” so Vivian Vance was cast instead. On “I Love Lucy” she was cast as Lucy Ricardo’s spinster neighbor, Miss Lewis, in “Lucy Plays Cupid” (ILL S1;E15) in early 1952. Later, she was a success in her own show, “Petticoat Junction” as Shady Rest Hotel proprietress Kate Bradley. She starred in the series until her death in 1968.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz, a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury) does not appear in this episode.

GUEST CAST

Frank Nelson (Dr. Stevenson) was born on May 6, 1911 (three months before Lucille Ball) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He started working as a radio announcer at the age of 15. He later appeared on such popular radio shows as “The Great Gildersleeve,” “Burns and Allen,” and “Fibber McGee & Molly”.  Aside from Lucille Ball, Nelson is perhaps most associated with Jack Benny and was a fifteen-year regular on his radio and television programs. His trademark was playing clerks and other working stiffs, suddenly turning to Benny with a drawn out “Yeeeeeeeeees?” Nelson appeared in 11 episodes of “I Love Lucy”, including three as quiz master Freddy Fillmore, and two as Ralph Ramsey, plus appearance on “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour” - making him the only actor to play two different recurring roles on “I Love Lucy.” Nelson returned to the role of the frazzled Train Conductor for an episode of “The Lucy Show” in 1963. This marks his final appearance on a Lucille Ball sitcom.

The doctor’s surname may be a reference to noted costume designer Edward Stevenson, who designed gowns for Lucille Ball in more than a dozen RKO films and would eventually become costume designer of “I Love Lucy” after the departure of Elois Jenssen in 1955.

EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “And now, let’s look in on the Coopers. It’s evening, and Liz and George are sitting in the living room admiring their Christmas tree."

George wonders if it is time to take the Christmas tree down but Liz doesn’t want to. They agree to put away their presents instead and start to talk about the gifts they didn’t give or get.  

Liz nearly bought George a set of matching golf clubs. George says he nearly bought her a mink jacket. He says he saw it in the window at Millers, but realized he couldn’t afford it. Liz sadly reminds him that she has never had a fur coat and wonders if they could afford it if they all their Christmas gifts to the store. George says it still wouldn’t be enough, but Liz wants to wear something special to the Atterbury’s New Year’s Eve party. 

Next morning, in the kitchen, Katie the Maid asks Liz why she is so sad. Liz tells her about her mink jacket dreams. Liz solicits Katie’s opinion on how she can’t best get George to get her a mink jacket in time for the party.  Liz decides to play sick since George always gets her what she wants when she’s ill. 

After dinner, Liz and George contemplate what to do. Liz suggests going to the movies to see Harvey starring Jimmy Stewart, which is playing at the Strand. 

Harvey is a comedy about a man whose best friend is a six-foot tall imaginary rabbit. It premiered just ten days earlier before this broadcast and starred James Stewart. The film won an Oscar for Josephine Hull. The screenplay was based on the 1944 Broadway play of the same name by Mary Chase which won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 

Before Liz can tell George the second feature, she starts to writhe in pain!  Amid moans and groans, Liz details the pain for George. She says she used to have these attacks as a child. When she says the only thing that sometimes helps is little gifts to make her happy, George gets suspicious.  He quickly leaves the room to make a phone call, which Liz thinks is to buy her a mink jacket, but he has actually called the doctor! 

End of Part One

Bob LeMond presents a live Jell-O commercial, giving a basic recipe for preparation of all delicious six flavors!

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on the Coopers once again, Liz is pretending to be sick and George, who is worried about her, has called the doctor.”

The doorbell rings and George admits Dr. Stevenson (Frank Nelson). Before seeing Liz, George tips him off that Liz may have a rare disease and that the only cure is a mink coat! George asks him to give her a good scare and the Doctor agrees to play along.  

Entering the bedroom, Liz immediately tells the Doctor she feels much better.  But after a quick exam, the Doctor diagnoses Liz with a rare tropical disease from the West Indies called the ‘Flimjabs’. The only cure is to operate and remove her ‘torkle’ but warns her that she will never be able to ‘yammle’ again. The Doctor explains that ‘yammling’ is an involuntary peristalsis of the transverse clavis. 

GEORGE: “Doctor, do you have to remove the whole torkle?” DOCTOR: “Maybe we’ll be lucky and can save half of it. After all, half a torkle is better than none.” LIZ: “Well, I should say so!  I’d hate to think of never yammeling again!”

The Doctor says that they must now wait 24 hours and see if she turns green. 

DOCTOR: “If you turn green, three hours later (snaps his fingers) gone.” LIZ:  (snaps) “Gone?”  DOCTOR: (snaps) “Gone.”

For the television script, the ‘Flimjabs’ was renamed the 'Gobloots’ - a rare tropical disease that carried into America on the hind legs of the 'boo-shoo bird.’ It can necessitate a person having to undergo a 'zorchectomy’ – total or partial removal of the 'zorch’. Even if doctors are able to save half a person’s 'zorch,’ the patient will never be able to 'trummle’ again. 'Trummling’ is a mysterious involuntary internal process. Finally, if you turn green while suffering from the 'gobloots’ you will be dead in 30 minutes!  

Iris Atterbury drops by to see Liz on her way to the Bridge Club meeting. Liz tells her that she has been diagnosed with the Flimjabs. 

IRIS: “Oh, how exciting! This will make Betty Ricky’s gallstones look sick! She’ll be absolutely green.” LIZ: “She's not the only one. That’s one of the danger signs. I may turn green.”  IRIS: “With a green face and red hair, you’ll be out of this world.” LIZ: “Yes, that’s what I’m afraid of.”

Iris is overcome with emotion at the thought of losing Liz. She doesn’t want to leave, but the ice cream for the Bridge Club meeting is in the car and it’s melting! 

That night, Doctor Stevenson returns to check on Liz. Answering the door, George confesses that he’s put a green light bulb in Liz’s bedroom light. As soon as George turns on the lights, Liz shrieks seeing her green hands! Her face and hair have turned green, too!  Liz thinks the men have Flimjabs too, because they are also green, but then the truth sets in. 

LIZ: “Oh, no!  This is the end!  I’m looking at the world through green colored eyeballs!” 

Liz dramatically declares that she’s dying. George accuses her of being over-dramatic. 

LIZ: “I’m sorry, George. But I don’t die every day and it’s new to me.”

Before her imminent demise, Liz confesses to all the car accidents she’s had and hidden by having the car fixed without telling him.  

LIZ: “In fact, the only thing left of the original car you bought is the ashtray in the back seat!”

Then Liz bravely confesses to pretending to be sick to get him to buy her a mink coat. George also needs to make a confession: it was all a trick. There is no such thing as ‘Flimjabs’ and the light is from a green light bulb!  

The phone rings and it is Iris, tearfully calling from the Bridge Club meeting. The girls have just had a memorial ceremony for Liz by turning her chair to the wall and smashing her teacup in the fireplace. Before Liz can tell Iris that it was a joke, she learns that they all chipped in and bought her a goodbye present: a mink coat!  Liz hangs up in tears. George is confused.

GEORGE: “Isn’t that what you wanted?” LIZ: “Yeah, but I have to die to get it!”

END OF EPISODE

In the live Jell-O commercial, Lucille Ball and Bob LeMond play a couple of nomads lost in the desert. Lucy uses her ‘Isabella Clump’ voice as ‘Smith’. Bob is looking for his camp, near a big dune. 

LUCY / ‘SMITH’: “A dune? What’s a dune?” BOB: “What’s a dune????” LUCY / ‘SMITH’: “I dunno. What’s a-dune with you?” 

Smith sees a mirage - a big bowl of Jell-O! After describing the six delicious flavors, Bob suggests they go home. 

BOB: “Go home? We’re lost in the desert!”  LUCY / ‘SMITH’: “Why don’t we each take one of those cars.” BOB: “What cars?” LUCY / ‘SMITH’: “The ones over there. That’s a two-car mirage!” 

The same date this episode was broadcast, columnist Sid Shalit in the New York Daily News reported that a television situation comedy was being prepared starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in the mold of “My Favorite Husband”.  Clearly, the radio series was winding down. This was the final episode of 1950 with only 16 episodes left. 

Meanwhile, in addition to radio and television, Ball was on the nation’s movie screens in two 1950 films: The Fuller Brush Girl and Fancy Pants. 

[bewaretheidesofmarchyall]

Soulmate Shenanigans Five: The Order Of The Shenanigans

Hey! Guess who has returned? 

Me!

Just the March doing her prompt writing thing, as seen on previous episodes :)

Parts one, two, three, and four here!

Prompt #5

Any intense emotions your soulmate feels you will also experience

Warnings for kidnapping mention and gifted kid “potential” mention

Okay. Not going to lie, I kind of tweaked the concept, but I like how it turned out. The idea of the sides having sides in human AUs has been in my brain, and now it’s in yours!

World Building

At first, the symptoms of having a soulmate was seen as symptoms of witchcraft

It was a reasonable assumption to make, as seeing into someone’s head and emotions wasn’t really a thing that humans did. 

However, as the population grew and communication across the globe became a thing, the instances of people finding their soulmates grew as well, and not everyone could be a witch (or, if they were, being a witch was simply being human).

It took a while for the culture around soulmates to shift, but shift it did, and people eventually figured out “Oh, that person is my soulmate, not my eternal enemy that I need to destroy via my demonic powers, which I totally have”

But people’s minds are kind of a lot, and it’s hard to process it all.

So, in modern day, people have learned to separate the pieces of their soulmate’s personality that they get bombarded with into different pieces, or sides

The sides are Logic, Morality/Emotions, Creativity (with there sometimes being a divide between dark and light), Self-Preservation, and Anxiety.

Characters

Roman: Roman is looking forward to meeting his soulmate so much!

Just...later.

When he’s a famous writer and people know about him and he’s evened out his insecurities and he deserves them!

Being perfect for them is going to take work, but most people meet their soulmates over 30, so he’s got at least fifteen years to prepare.

Until then, he was working on his fantasy story and dreaming of the day he’d get published or get the lead in a school play.

The writing club had been his idea, so you could say that everything that happens in the story was his fault. He’d just wanted to be around people who liked the same things he liked!

Roman’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have:

Note: Names are hard. Aaaagh.

Magnus, his creativity, romance, passion, etcetera. Magnus is really the one who calls the shots around here. He’s just as goofy of a fifteen year old (if not more) as Roman, but he has the unenviable position of running a mind palace and being the ego of someone who hates himself.

This guy just wants to listen to Hamilton, but noooo, he had to have an evil reflection of himself and self-worth issues.

The Count, his self-preservation and pretty much Roman’s inner Roxie Hart/Velma Kelly. Randomly suggests poisoning their mortal enemies a lot (note: they don’t have mortal enemies). 

The most like canon Janus out of any of the self preservations, except instead of “we live in a society” it’s more “fuck it, we’re going to be *famous*!”

The other sides will pay him to stop saying, “that’s showbiz”

The Medic, his morality and emotions. Sort of has a medieval healer thing going on (which means herbs in a satchel, not plague doctor mask).

A lovely person on his own, but when he and The Guard team up, it’s ✨Guilt time!✨

He has the question of “Am I a terrible person?” on his hands, so...good luck to him. He’s trying to hold the five of them into a cohesive unit, but it’s hard!

The Guard, his fears and anxious thoughts. He has a shield and a spear, and is kind of dressed like a (dark and stormy) knight.

No one particularly likes him, but it’s his job to recognize The Shadow, so they all need him.

He hangs around on the outskirts of the mindscape, ever vigilant.

The Alchemist, his logic. No one listens to the voice of reason in this house. Al isn’t really a fan of this, and being Roman’s logic, he thinks that if he can find a way to prove himself it’ll turn out okay.

The Shadow, everything Magnus discarded. You could call him dark creativity, but he’s a lot more. 

They used to call him Rex, when they were kids.

Patton: Patton isn’t thrilled with having to move to a new school, but he’s keeping a positive attitude

The new town is creepy and making friends is harder than he thought, and he just wants to right a sappy love story about ghosts without feeling sad.

But if he keeps his chin up, he knows it’ll all be fine!

And hey, maybe he’ll find people who like him in this writing club thing!

Patton’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have: 

Patrick, his morality and emotions. Patrick feels all of the loneliness and desperation that Patton feels daily, but pretends he doesn’t feel it, since he has to be there for them!

Them meaning his family, meaning the rest of Patton’s mind, as well as Patton, since he’s kind of an older brother/role model to the guy.

Covering the full scope of human emotions isn’t great when the other half of your job is enforcing the sense of right and wrong (and the general consensus in Patton’s head is showing negative emotions = burden = wrong).

None of them can cook, but that won’t stop him from trying!

The Canary, his fears and anxious thoughts. Constantly popping up to remind everyone that they’re failing. It’s kind of his job.

Stress plays the piano when things get to be too much.

The Gardener, his creativity, romance, and passion. Conjures flowers a lot. Projects wishes for a soulmate into the sappy ghost love story, which he’s mostly in charge of writing.

Hasn’t split yet, but that’s mostly because nearly all of Patton’s negative impulses that would be considered “dark creativity” already come from The Miser.

Dr. Picani, his logical side. Knows everything about cartoons, and tries to be professional, but a complete sweetheart.

Secretly knows his name is Emile, but is waiting for the best moment to tell everyone.

The Miser, his self-preservation and deceitful side. No one’s a fan of him. Patrick is kind of his mortal nemesis (in the sense that Patrick claimed the title and he just kind of went along with it?)

Everyone else in the Pattonsphere refuses to curse, but he says many a “fuck” with ease

Trying to protect The Gardener from splitting by taking responsibility for most of the things a dark creativity would do.

Virgil: Virgil just didn’t want to join the yearbook committee. 

It was irrational, maybe, to have a deep rooted hatred of the yearbook committee. 

They were just trying to categorize things, design pages-it wasn’t malicious! 

And yet, being in that classroom and seeing Amelia’s dead eyes and smile near rang every alarm bell in his system, so he needed a way out this year.

His parents weren’t going to let him not choose an activity, so he flipped a coin and ended up in some writing club.

He came into the club determined to fake some pretentious poetry about death. Just because they say the club’s about expression or whatever doesn’t mean that they can know anything about his comics.

Virgil’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have: 

Dante, his fears and anxious thoughts. Dante has too many eyes. Dante is lowkey a cryptid, but he’s sadly a cryptid in charge of life decisions.

There’s no way to dance around it. Dante’s a spider-human hybrid.

Dante would prefer they never be perceived by anyone for anything. He does not want to be seen, he does not want to be heard, he does not want to be perceived. Period. 

But he’s a very conspicuous spider-human hybrid. 

The Competent One, The One Who Can Actually Do Math, Steve, whatever you want to call him, he’s Virgil’s logical side.

His theories are just....

See that image? That kind of sums up his characterization.

Parker, his creativity, romance, and heroic side. He’s the one who got them obsessed with comic books, and is trying to write his own. If people don’t like the comics, he’ll probably just start screaming and never stop

He gets the purple eyeshadow!

Remy, his self-preservation. He mainly just wants Virgil to just...rest

Nap. Sleep. Take a self-care day. This is Remy’s goal.

Also to continue to have the most style out of anyone in the Virgilsphere

Remy has a talent for never being anywhere at the right time, and then popping up at the worst moments, caffeine in hand.

Tam, his morality and emotions. The most into the emo phase out of any of them, since he feels all angst!

Sometimes just hovers and screams. Everyone’s pretty used to this.

Logan: Logan was trying to ignore the things he’d seen

Logan was a scientific guy. He knew that magic wasn’t real, that the fae were just stories.

So, clearly, the nightmarish things he’d seen that night were just that: nightmares. Just nightmares caused by stress over his academic struggles.

That was the immediate problem at hand: academic struggles. Logan was always the top of his class his whole life, and words like “gifted” were thrown around. Lately, however, things have been harder to keep up with and pay attention to, and it’s a bit of a mess.

Logan joined the writing club because he thought it might help him with English class, and he did like speculative fiction.

But, more importantly, he joined it because he thought it would be a simple task he could easily ace, so he wouldn’t have to keep being told that he wasn’t trying.

Logan’s Sides, ranked in order of how much control they have:

Mimir, his logical side. Mimir is pushing himself to take care of all academic matters and keep Logan afloat.

Mimir is over his head, but doesn’t really have anyone to talk to (or so he thinks), so he’s just putting Warby Parkers over his panic and faking cold distance to make everyone think he’s doing okay.

Alastor, his moral side. Half of his job is repressing Logan’s emotions, which isn’t a great thing to be doing, but he think he’s doing it for a good reason.

Kinda strict and blaming Mimir for everything going wrong. He does care about the others, he’s just bad at showing it.

Cassandros, his fears and anxious thoughts. 

This dude-

He’s basically just [puts feet on coffee table] “Hey, did you know everyone hates us?? I made a PowerPoint that proves it!”

He’ll get character development, though.

The Chessmaster, his overdramatic self-preservation.

Tries to be clever, walks into walls.

The Detective, his creative and fanciful side. He wants to swashbuckle, but instead he’s restrained to geometry. 

But now he has a project in the writing club! He has something to do!

And The Mad Scientist is trying to ruin it!

The Mad Scientist, Logan’s dark creativity.

They never used to care about the creative side one way or another. There was no need to make a dark side when it was already looked down upon.

Now, however, there are things in Logan’s mind that he’s trying not to think about, and so the Mad Scientist has joined the fray.

The Actual Plot

This is going to be an actual fic that I write. So, I’m not going to fill out the entire plot here.

I can, however say a few of the plot lines

Plot One: Everyone’s sides are in a state of constant screaming and must learn to communicate.

They also need to let their main guys figure out they have soulmates, because they’re all repressing that information for their own reasons.

Plot Two: LAMP in a writing club, falling in love and being disturbed by first drafts!

Plot Three: The fae are kidnapping people.

And everyone needs to get them to Stop.

I guess you could call this a trailer??

I JUST REALLY LIKE THIS IDEA

[therovingstar]

The Interpretation (and Potential Assassination) of Dreams

@ffxiv-writers

Summary: Dreams are fickle, fragile things, unless you have another with which to share them. So does the Warrior of Light face a most difficult trial: convincing the Lord’s Shadow that she belongs in the lord’s bed, while also inadvertently revealing that she is, in fact, already in it. Hien x WoL, Yugiri Mistwalker, ~6,000 words; fluff, politics, and a touch of spice for flavor.

Also available on AO3; link through my blog.

She’s easing out from under plush quilts and silken coverlets when she feels a heavy arm lock tight around her waist in a piteous attempt to stop her. “Don’ go,” she hears murmured, and looks behind her.

Hien lies in a sprawl on the futon, his hair like a hundred shattered black inkwells pouring forth from his head, strands loose and long and wildly tumbled across the pillows. Moonlight gilds his face and naked chest, making silver out of the gold of his skin and, beneath the bangs strewn along his forehead, his barely-opened eyes.

Odzaya smiles. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Where are you going?” he asks, ignoring her comment, his lips forming lazily around the words. His eyes close only to open once more, a touch wider. Odzaya’s lips curl higher in amusement.

“To the washroom, if you must know.”

Hien hums absently, his eyes fluttering closed under the weight of a deep breath. She thinks he has succumbed to slumber until they slit open again, intent and even more awake. “You will return?”

She sighs. Stubborn dzo of a man, even in the dead of night. “Go to sleep,” she gently commands.

“Return,” he commands back, and tugs at her by way of his hold on her waist, surprisingly strong despite his dazed state. Odzaya huffs laughingly and resists the pull.

“Why? My guest room is just down the hall.” And she should be in it. Should already have been in it, truth be told. And besides… “You,” she says, teasing as she reaches out a hand to pat his chest, “you seem quite done.”

The prince scoffs. “Hardly,” he replies, and Odzaya cocks an eyebrow as he shifts and stretches across the futon in an unexpected show of energy, the coverlets falling away from his torso entirely as his hand finds and fingers at the scales patterning her nude hip. “Simply waiting for my second wind,” he declares, and shoots her a languid, toothy grin.

She laughs. Cannot help but to, with the self-satisfied way he looks at her, still half-held in his dreams. Unabashed and beautiful in the moonlight, his chest and arms and now one sculpted leg exposed to and for her gaze. “Is that so?” she asks, smirking down at him.

“Return,” he entreats again, and beneath the rasp of exhaustion this time lurks a rumble of promise. “I will be here.”

Ready, she swears she hears, though he does not say it.

Odzaya leans over, purple locs falling over one shoulder and down her back to the floor as she stretches and bypasses the spectacle of naked skin before her eyes and reaches instead for the furthest part of him. Her hands find his face, smooth the bangs from his forehead, still tacky with sweat, and cup his bearded cheeks, recent memory recalling the tender abrasion of them on the insides of her thighs. The Kienkan’s master chambers are slightly muggy from the summer’s night and their own play, and her bare skin would feel a chill where her sweat still cools if not for the blankets and Hien’s near heat, concentrated in the broadness of his palm. When he presses himself into her hand, his smile widening, thick brows rising, his arm tightening around her middle with another gentle pull, she smiles back and leans in, brushing her mouth slowly over his.

“We will see,” she whispers in challenge, right into the parted seam of his lips, before letting him go to nab a nearby yukata, tossed earlier to the floor in impassioned abandon. Before Hien can react, she is up and enrobed and opening the shoji of his chambers, tossing her tail and a smirk over her shoulder as she slides it shut to the sight of him still splayed on his bedding, hilariously blinking.

She’s still silently chortling to herself at the spectacle he made as she proceeds down the hall on silent feet, mindful of her presence so close to his rooms. The Kienkan’s available suites are largely empty for the purpose of potentially visiting dignitaries and other important figures such as, apparently, herself, which means that, on most days, the pavilion is, by Hien’s accounts, dreadfully quiet. Yugiri has a room nearby, as is appropriate given her status as her lord’s right-hand shadow, but even she is often off on reconnaissance, as she is now. Hakuro has one as well, as one of his advisor, though he rarely uses it in favor of the nearby barracks, where he can more properly manage the Enclave’s defense forces. And Gosetsu would have had one, had he not chosen the path of pilgrimage. Add the small handful of staff living on the premises, such as Jifuya, and that still leaves near a dozen rooms unoccupied.

Too much lost, she thinks. Doma Castle, Hien once told her, was always lively with the comings and goings of visitors of all various makes; there was rarely a dull day, even with the pall of Garlean occupation hanging over the kingdom’s skies. Even as a young boy with too much energy and enough curiosity for a dozen coeurls, he never had trouble finding ways to occupy and exhaust himself, be it by sitting in on his father’s meetings or his mother’s social calls or Gosetsu’s training sessions.

There is much to occupy him now, too, in the form of the restoration efforts, or contacts with the Alliances, or touching bases with the nearby villages. “And yet,” he said, laughing gaily at himself, “at the end of day, when the night falls and the noise settles and I retire behind these walls, I often find myself restless midst the quiet.” He laughed again. “I suppose I am not all that different from the boy I used to be, after all.”

“Little Master Shun is lonely?” she lightly japed at him, only for her humor to falter when he gave her a fond, bittersweet smile.

“Aye, in my weaker moments, I suppose.”

To say she melted or her heart broke would be overstatement. But perhaps, in her regular visits to Yanxia, she began lingering a touch longer in Doma and at the Enclave, assisting in menial duties. And perhaps she lingered long enough and late enough for it to become rather inconvenient for her to teleport back to Eorzea or even to the Bokairo in Kugane. Faced with the Domans’ insistence on proper hospitality, she accepted a room in the Kienkan instead, and pretended not to be pleased when, instead of a servant, Doma’s prince himself showed up at her door with tea and tray and innocent invitation in hand.

Not quite so innocent an invitation now, more than a year later, but at least he still makes her tea. When and if they actually find the time to drink it, is another tale.

Soon enough, she is relieved and refreshed, and beginning the small trek back to Hien’s chambers, idly wondering if she should expect to be pounced on upon her return. The soft pad of her steps is all her horns can register in the stillness, joined only by the chirp of cicadas, the soft creak of the floorboards-

“Odzaya?”

And a voice that bounces off the walls and freezes her in her tracks, as through that sound quiet, someone distinctly not Hien calls her name.

Odzaya fights the instinct to spin on her heel, and purposely turns herself in the direction of the Kienkan’s sudden new guest, only to blink in surprise. No guest, but rather Yugiri, newly returned from her reconnaissance, it would seem, if her pitch-black shinobi’s uniform is any indicator. Too diligent to wait even for the daylight to return, she muses, and gives the other Raen woman a greeting as she approaches at a steady pace. “And the Lord’s Shadow shows her face. Where all have you been?”

“Everywhere,” she answers, coming to a stop a few fulms away. Hyperbole, it would seem at first glance, until Odzaya notes the rare show of exhaustion in and around her friend’s pale green eyes. “I returned later than planned. Thankfully no one seems to have found trouble in my absence.”

Odzaya smirks. “You mean Hien specifically, I gather.” She tilts her head. “He’s not the type to go looking for trouble, I would think.”

“You are correct. But he also has no habit of discouraging it when it comes looking for him.” Yugiri sighs, exasperated and fond in equal measure, and grants her a small smile of her own. “It does comfort me knowing you are here, however. Few troubles would get by on your watch.”

Especially when I am in the man’s room, Odzaya quips to herself. Outwardly, she shrugs. “I haven’t been here too long, actually. Since late this morning.”

“Ah. Then I gather the Committee has kept you well occupied?”

“The work is never done,” she answers in confirmation. “Fortunately, I do not mind it.” The sense of community is nice, in truth; it reminds her of her childhood on the Steppe. It doesn’t hurt that so much of the Enclave’s restoration is showing subtle Xaelic touches as a result of the tribes’ efforts. The particular way a tarp is stitched or a board is cut or a kettle is made. It is familiar in a way she has deeply missed.

Yugiri’s smile deepens. “Nor do your tribes. We would be in far worse shape without their generous aid over the past year.”

Odzaya shrugs again. “When they’re not busy warring and bickering, they do good work. That I can say with certainty.”

“I know Lord Hien deeply appreciates their efforts, as well as their lively presence. As do I.” Ever the ceremonious, Yugiri takes the opportunity to give her a grateful bow, though she at least keeps it shallow. Odzaya chuckles.

“I’ll believe you about the former, at least.” To her amusement, the other woman only clears her throat in response. “All the same, you’re here now, and your lord is in good health. You should wash up and eat something, at least before you start lying and prostrating yourself before people.”

“Sound advice, if a touch rude,” Yugiri’s eyes narrow over an amused smile that grows by the second. Finally, she shakes her head with a small, low giggle. “I assume you returned from doing something similar?”

“Ah. Yes.” Odzaya nods, and toys with the long eggshell sleeves of the yukata enshrouding her shoulders. “Woke up a bit clammy and thought I would freshen up.” She folds the collar of the robe tighter on her torso, unaware of the rather scandalous gap it made. Strange, it didn’t hang off of her when she first put in on, nor when Hien eagerly unwrapped her from it-

For the second time that night, the Warrior of Light freezes, her eyes falling to her person. She closely examines the sleeves of the yukata, falling well past her hands. And the hem, practically dragging on her heels. And the collar, already poised to gape back open and make a spectacle of her umber chest.

“Shite,” she hisses, and in the ever-so-present silence of the Kienkan, it is a shriek.

Yugiri watches her silently, her arms crossing casually, her expression innocuously blank. Her eyes, however, are keen as ever as they make contact with her own.

Slowly, her lips tug downward.

Shite squared.

Then the shinobi speaks. “You may come out now, my lord.”

Shite cubed.

Maybe her technically-failed studies at the arcanists’ guild paid off, after all.

There is a quiet shuffling at the other end of the hall as the aforementioned lord appears, looking not nearly as sheepish as Odzaya thought he might or as she currently feels. For some inane reason, she half expects him to be wearing her own robe stretched tight over his broad torso. He is not, blessedly; rather, he has donned another, of more intricate make, dyed deep crimson with golden embroidery gathered along the hem and sleeves. The comedic exhaustion that had him in its throes earlier is nowhere to be found; rather, he exudes perfect awareness and composure, his hair tied low and loose with his favored ribbon, the resulting tail falling over his shoulder and down his chest, bordering a generously opened collar. ‘Tis a night for exposing ourselves, Odzaya thinks sardonically, and absently tugs again at her own. Hien catches the motion, his eyes zeroing in on his yukata – on her person – with a delighted sparkle that she almost rolls her eyes at, before he schools his mien into something more befitting their current, mildly panic-worthy situation.

“You have returned to us, Yugiri,” he calls out, his characteristic grin broad as he comes to a standstill at Odzaya’s side. “I trust your mission was a success?”

“It was,” Yugiri answers easily. She bows again, this time far lower. “I will have the necessary documents detailing it all on your desk come the morn.”

“Bah,” he exclaims, waving a hand. “Only after you have properly rested, and no sooner.”

“Of course,” she accepts with her usual grace. “In the meantime, our members of the Eastern Alliance send their regards.”

Hien enthusiastically nods. “We will have to schedule an assemblage soon.”

“By your leave, my lord.” And that is that. It is an utterly normal exchange, and one Odzaya has witnessed at least a half dozen times before. If not for the late bell, the circumstances, and the frown still lingering at the very corners of Yugiri’s mouth, she’d think the encounter hardly worth mentioning.

And yet the gazes of master and retainer remain locked, as if at an impasse, for a handful of heartbeats, until, to Odzaya’s surprise, Hien decisively reaches for and grasps her hand, lacing their fingers together. “T’was by my initiative,” he declares suddenly and simply, and again, the words seem deafening in the silence. His mouth is a soft but unyielding line, his eyes unblinking. “Pray direct any criticisms at me.”

The shinobi remains impassive. “Lord Hien-”

“I love her, Yugiri,” he firmly interrupts, though the ease never leaves his face, and Odzaya’s breath catches quietly in her throat with the beat of her heart. She has heard the words before, generous as he is with them, but to hear them spoken so clearly, without preamble, before an audience, even if only of one…

Yugiri’s eyes minimally widen, though it does not seem to be in surprise so much as acknowledgment. And then they are on her, sudden and inquisitive. “And you?” she asks her, and the question to her horns is almost challenging.

And then she is taken back. To an early morning in late spring, during which the two of them had snuck from the Enclave for a flight over the One River to greet the dawn on yol-back. The excuse had been a lesson; Hien was, after all, still not the best rider, and she was. In the midst of teaching him a maneuver, he had fairly tossed himself into the depths and disappeared, only to reappear an age later as she hovered over the surface, looking for his silhouette, and pull her, yelping in mock indignation, from Sarnai’s back and into the frigid waters with him. A tussle and an impromptu swim eventually found them washing up on the shore, and as he had wiped the excess moisture from her face with a wrung-out handerkerchief, unconvincingly apologetic, she had watched the sun rise across his, illuminating his smile and setting his jade eyes aglow. Mayhap he had witnessed the same on her, because he had paused, his hands two warm, wide pressures on her cheeks, absently stroking the chill from her scales, and murmured something too quiet for her horns to catch before leaning in. The slightest brush of his cool lips against the crest on her forehead, over each eye, down her nose, and by the time he had reached her damp mouth she was already on her toes, aiming for his.

The memory is almost sensory in nature. Almost like the Echo, barring that it is her own mind and she feels no pain at the recollection. But then there has never been any pain in loving him. Not during that morning when she first chose to, and certainly not since.

Odzaya squeezes their laced fingers. “Yes,” she says definitively, “I do,” and feels Hien’s smiling gaze as easily as the tightening of his own grip.

Yugiri’s eyes widen once more. “Oh?”

“Come the lunar new year, I will be participating in the Naadam once more,” she abruptly announces, straightening her spine as she looks the shinobi in the eye. “I will win, and as khagun, I will have my pick of any unspoken-for individual on the Steppe.” She frees herself from Hien’s grip, lifts her hand, and taps the scaled back of it to the center of the prince’s chest, giving the other woman a small, simpering smile. “Hien, being an honorary warrior of the Mol, is included. I will choose him, and by law of the Sun, he will be mine. My lover. My partner. My mate.”

In the ensuing silence of her proclamation, Hien is clearly taken aback. He holds her hand to his chest and steps into her line of sight, locking round eyes with her own. “Odzaya,” he breathes, in a way that makes her face heat and her stomach jump, and opens his mouth to say more –

“Lord Hien.” Until Yugiri interrupts. Her own green gaze is focused on her, far more sharply. “Might I have a private word with your guest?” Odzaya lifts her eyebrows at her phrasing. Hien turns to her.

“Yugiri-”

“Please,” she says, with an authoritativeness she rarely uses, least of all toward her master, though she does still respectfully incline her head. The protest most likely on his lips dies as Hien notes it, and he sighs resignedly.

“Of course,” he allows, though his reluctance is obvious. He shares one last, long look with Odzaya – and accompanies it with one last squeeze of her hand – before turning on his heel, heading, she assumes, back to his chambers to await her once more. The two Raen women do not acknowledge one another until they can no longer hear the pad of his footsteps, and then Odzaya speaks.

“Yugiri-”

“He will ask you for your hand,” the other woman interjects again. “He will ask you to be his queen.” Odzaya sighs.

“I know.”

“Will you accept?”

“Is that not expected if I wish to be with him?”

Yugiri’s eyes narrow. “Is that the only reason? You will rule this country with your desire for him as your only motivation?” The shinobi shakes her head, her gaze severe. “That may be enough on the Azim Steppe, or in Eorzea, but it will not be enough here. Not for Lord Hien, however deeply his own desires run. And not enough for the people to whom his life is committed.” Her crossed arms marginally tense. “You are the Warrior of Light, Odzaya; you have risked your life and given your energies to thousands of other people, dozens of other places. But to pledge yourself to Lord Hien is to pledge yourself to Doma. Do you? Are you prepared to put her and her people first, above the many others?”

“A fair point,” Odzaya concedes. “Yes, I have devoted myself to others; other nations, other causes. It comes with the job.” She folds her own arms across her middle. “But is that wrong? So wrong that I should withdraw from Hien altogether, and take everything marking my devotion here with me?”

Yugiri’s eyes narrow again, this time in question. Odzaya clarifies. “Ishgard is currently in the midst of trade agreements between its knights and Tsuranuki’s smithy, yes?” The crotchety old man is still fighting them at every turn, loath as he still is to see Doma becoming “less self-sufficient,” but he’s coming around. “The agreements are being headed by the Fortemps family, who trusted me when I told them of the benefits such an exchange would bring.”

“I have heard of this,” Yugiri confirms.

“Then you have heard that the Stalls will soon begin receiving regular shipments of Ala Mhigan rock salt, courtesy of dealings I oversaw with Lyse and Raubahn. You have heard that the Botanists’ Guild in Gridania will be purchasing persimmon seeds from Inari, in attempt to create an Eorzean strain.” Odzaya straightens, her red-eyed gaze intent upon the woman opposite her. “And you know that, by my decree as khagun, the Steppe tribes came here, offering resources and labor to assist in Doma’s revitalization. We have traded with you; exchanged hands, currency, and ideas. Should we leave, and take it all back with us? The lumber we cut for your homes, the cloths we sewed for your clothes, the dzo that we gifted to plow your fields? Should I inform Magnai, Sadu, and Cirina, the Qestir and the Kha and the Bolir and the Dazkar, that joining the Eastern Alliance is not, in fact, a sound investment, because the Lord’s Shadow has deemed me unfit to warm his bed?”

“You would do no such thing,” Yugiri boldly surmises. Her eyes, though, hone in further, scrutinizing. Odzaya smirks.

“Of course not.” She uncrosses her arms. “I’m no monster, after all.” She shrugs lightly, and the curve of her mouth softens. “Just a girl in love, I suppose.”

Yugiri doesn’t react; her eyes remain like sheets of Araragi’s best paper: clean, crisp, near razor-sharp, and utterly blank but for the calculation with which she watches her.

And then, all at once, words and feeling form across the parchment, and her friend sighs with a slump of her shoulders and an acknowledging lowering of her gaze.

“Well done,” she concedes, and gifts her a small smile. Odzaya immediately returns it.

“You forget how I was raised, Yugiri. War runs through my veins. I am always prepared to fight for what I consider mine.”

Yugiri hums. “So, you are,” she agrees, before giving her a pointed look. “And exactly how long has my lord belonged to you?”

Odzaya emits surprise. “You mean you truly did not know until now?” The shinobi shrugs.

“I...suspected,” she admits. “Lord Hien has harbored affections for you for some time, and while I witnessed the two of you growing closer in friendship, I could not determine whether or not you felt similarly.”

“Well,” Odzaya replies, and plucks at the collar of Hien’s much larger robe on her person, “I suppose the answer is obvious now.”

“Indeed.” To Odzaya’s amusement, Yugiri’s cheeks blush just the slightest bit pink, though her smile returns, in full force this time. “I apologize for the interrogation, my friend. I am happy for the both of you, as much as I am appreciative of all you have done in providing for Doma.” She rubs at her black-clad arms, just this side of sheepish. “But as I am sure you’re well aware, I am also rather protective of my lord and adopted home. I did not wish to see long-held dreams come true, only for them to be lost to oversight.”

“You worried we were allowing passion to guide our decisions. I understand. But tell me.” Odzaya takes a handful of steps forward. “Near a decade ago, you took the Doman people as your own and made this country your home. Why?”

Yugiri blinks in surprise. “Pardon?”

“Was it by logic? Proximity? A matter of convenience? Did you toss a shuriken at a map? How did you decide that Doma, of all the places throughout Yanxia, would be your home after you left the sea all those years ago?”

Yugiri’s eyes widen in understanding. Odzaya continues. “It was a feeling, was it not? Love for a people that grew in your heart, passion for a cause that ignited your soul.” She lifts her brows. “We are not so different, are we?”

The other Raen woman sighs. “Perhaps not,” she quietly agrees.

Odzaya takes another step forward, until she and other Raen woman stand only a fulm apart. She lifts and turns her hands in invitation, palms facing her own person. The scales on their backs gleam in the moonlight flooding the hall, and she smiles. “Through duty, you fell for these people and became one with them, and you’ve been one with them ever since. Sharing sorrows and joys, hopes and dreams.” She pauses, her mind filling with fond recollections of conversations under the stars. “We have a habit of sharing the same, Hien and I,” she says. She lifts her eyebrows at Yugiri, gently beseeching. “Might I, in proper time, learn to share the same with Doma, as you did?”

To her relief, her friend seems already to have her answer. Yugiri takes the last step forward, and presses the backs of her own hands against hers. “Of course,” she says, with a solemn smile. “There is little, I believe, that would make my lord and the people of Doma – myself included – happier.”

“Are you sure?” Odzaya asks, half-jesting. “I can walk to the washroom without fear that a half-dozen shinobi will be waiting to assassinate me mid-journey?”

“While I would not recommend you traverse these halls with total abandon, I doubt you would have too terribly much to fear if you did,” Yugiri replies, pursing her lips in thought. “If these years have proven anything, it is that you are almost disturbingly difficult to kill.”

Another fair point. “Then what will you do if I do prove unfit to be at Hien’s side?” Odzaya eyes her, legitimately curious. This time, it is Yugiri’s turn to smirk.

“I suppose I will simply have to trust that my future lady will not disappoint.” She flips her hands around to gently clasp Odzaya’s own. “Fortunately, I do not believe that trust will go unrewarded.”

“Mmm.” Another relief, then. Though…Odzaya wrinkles her nose, squeezing the shinobi’s hands. “You won’t really start titling me the way you do Hien, will you?” To her chagrin, Yugiri chuckles.

“It tickles me to know that you detest proper denomination as much as he does,” she says, “if not more. You truly are fit for one another.” With another fond laugh, she steps back, apparently satisfied with their duel and subsequent truce, and turns on her heel to finally head for her chambers.

“Once you have deemed me fit, we will discuss this,” Odzaya calls after her. “I have enough ridiculous honorifics attached to my name; I will not have you adding another!”

“We will see,” the other Raen woman calls back, her voice suggesting a wide grin.

“Shite to the fourth,” Odzaya mutters, shaking her head with a smile that only brightens as she ponders their exchange.

The remainder of her journey back to Kienkan’s master chambers is blessedly uneventful, though she is surprised to see little sign of its occupant; the bedding still lies in a haphazard heap, though her robe has been lovingly folded and put to rest near the small mountain of pillows. The air is also different – a touch cooler, as if a window has been opened to let in the summer night’s breeze.

And then she sees that, in essence, one has, as her gaze finds the open screens leading onto the veranda. A shadow casts itself on the paper panels, familiar in size and shape, and she purses her lips in question and follows the now near-deafening cacophony of cicadas, her interest piqued.

As soon as her foot touches upon the polished wood, Hien is looking up at her expectantly. He grins. “Ah. I was beginning to wonder if I would need to rouse the guard.”

“Worried my encounter with your shadow would bring the Kienkan down around your ears?” she asks, quirking an eyebrow. He lounges casually, his legs crossed at the ankle as he leans back on his hands, the tail of his hair dancing on the breeze’s current. She makes her way to his side and goes to ease herself down next to him, only to let out a startled, gasping laugh when he immediately nabs her around the waist and hoists her into his silk-lined lap, his legs folding agura to create the perfect seat. So settled, he encases her in his arms and rests his chin on the top of her head, humming once.

“T’would be a shame to lose two homes I‘d wished to share with my ‘mate’, yes.”

Odzaya‘s heart gives a resounding, telltale beat, her cheeks warming. She contentedly lays her back against his chest, her hands coming to rest on his forearms, her tail draping itself over a knee. “That appealed to you, did it?” she asks. Hien’s chin migrates from her head to her shoulder, his hair tickling her neck. She angles herself to meet his gaze, and finds his as warm and dark as the summer night.

“Beyond words,” he says quietly, intensely. In contrast to his eyes, his smile is bright as the moon. “Did you mean it?”

This time her heart skips right over the beat. She simpers. “Silly Fire Walker,” she whispers, teasing. “You should know by now that we of the Steppe say nothing we do not mean.”

Hien kisses her almost before she can finish, the curve of his smile an imprint on her lips as he tilts her chin and his own to angle them closer together. “We have never spoken,” he murmurs, “of a future so definitively before.” He catches her lips and hums again, his gaze half-lidded and captivating. “How proud I would be,” he breathes in the scarce margin between them, “to belong to the Steppe’s greatest khagun.”

Perhaps the idea appeals to her, too, more than she anticipated, because she brings their mouths back together with a force that takes even her aback, her hand finding the tail of his hair and using it to tug him even closer, her mouth falling open to catch the surprised huff of his laughter, to meet the lap of his tongue as he seeks out her own. His comforting hold on her waist becomes an iron grip on her hips, and she feels the flex of his arms as he effortlessly lifts and twists her in his lap, her knees landing on either side of his thighs.

She sits, and makes a breathless discovery.

“Oh,” Odzaya utters, and rests her forehead against Hien’s with a smile. “Someone found his second wind, after all.”

Hien’s grin is lascivious. “T’was a promise, yes?” A promise he intends to keeps, if the sneak of his fingers into her – his – robe, is any indication, calluses and blunt nails catching at the border where her skin meets scale. “I hope you will keep yours come the new year.”

“Careful Yugiri doesn’t overhear you sounding so eager,” Odzaya warns with a chortle, cupping his face in her hands. “Our discussion went well, but I suspect she worries that I might just steal you away one of these days.” Scraping her nails idly along the curve of his bearded jaw, she watches Hien’s eyes slide shut as he leans back with a quiet groan, and the sight and sound ignites her blood and tumbles like liquid down her spine.

“I have thought about it,” he admits, “in my weaker moments. Alone after an Alliance meeting concluded, or at my desk, my only company a veritable mountain of paperwork. Daydreams, instances when my mind wandered and inevitably found you.”

“Daydreams, hm?” Odzaya smirks. Hien must somehow hear it in her voice, because he grins.

“Aye. Of holding your hand, of traveling with you and your Scions as an adventurer. Of living on the Steppe, and kissing you beneath that boundless sky every day.” He tugs her closer, and his questing fingers tighten on her scales until her breath catches. “Of touching you under the stars,” he murmurs. “Of making you mine on the moonlit grass, and then becoming yours by dawn’s light.”

Her heart pounding like a Xaelic drum, Odzaya hums. “Your daydreams are not far off, I would say,” she muses. “In essence, you are a part of the Steppe, adopted as you were by the Mol. And the Mol and Malaguld have merged into the Enclave so well, I almost forget its inhabitants are not of them.”

An irresistibly soft look comes to Hien’s eye as he opens them. “Are you saying you see those of the Enclave as your tribe?”

Odzaya’s smirk curls higher. “There are a number of tribes I call my own these days, all connected, from one tip of Eorzea to the far end of Othard.” She caresses his cheek, softening herself when he nuzzles into her palm. “T’would be nice, I think,” she suggests, bold and yet bashful, “if I could call the Doman people mine, too.”

“Mm. Kami know that I already am,” he returns, pressing a heated kiss to her palm. Odzaya snickers.

“Not ‘til the Naadam, you’re not, if we are still seeking to be ‘definitive’.”

“Bah! Away with officialisms!” Odzaya laughs harder as Hien hauls her into him, her near-exposed chest pressing so intimately to his own that she swears she can feel the confident beat of his heart, his warmth seeping into her skin. He wraps his arms firmly about her waist, his expression almost deathly serious, though his eyes sparkle with jest. “I declare it now, before the moon and stars, and the sun come morn. I am yours, and you are mine. Agreed?”

“What about a ceremony?” she asks, ignoring the flutter of her heart as she notes how closely his words come to those spoken between lovers on the Steppe. Hien’s answering grin makes her wonder if he knows it, too.

“Come winter’s end, I will approach my advisors,” he begins. He gives another kiss to her palm where it still cradles his cheek. “I will inform them of my choice for Doma’s next queen. They will rejoice, as they should, there will be a ceremony, and we and our many connected tribes will live happily ever after.”

Odzaya freezes. Is this how he felt, hearing her plans as she spoke them to Yugiri? His breath leaving him in a rush, his heart pounding so loudly he swore it could be heard across the entirety of Yanxia’s countryside? Joy, rising through him with so much heat and power it seemed at any moment it would leak out of his skin as sunlight, pour from his mouth as song?

What actually comes out of her is a whisper. In the silence, it is a scream.

“Agreed,” she breathes.

Hien presses his forehead to hers, closing his eyes and humming so deeply in satisfaction she feels the vibration through every bone in her body. “Agreed,” he repeats, tugging her impossibly closer.

“You will remove this from me, now?” she suggests, brow lifting as she tugs at the yukata still stubbornly hanging from her shoulders. Hien beams.

“Of course, my intended,” he says, his fingers already going to work. “You did return, after all.”

[hungnitan]

School Festival Mixed Event Summary

Writer Note : Tbh I didn’t planned on writing the first one, BUT since the second really interesting so why not make some comparison (lol)

This summary based on someone who STILL NOT READ ANY WXS & MORE MORE JUMP STORY ! so yeah I planned to do that after game implement reread event story soon (only wxs)

“走れ！体育祭！～実行委員は大忙し” Featuring Miyamasuzaka High School Girls

- This event featuring Miyamasuzaka High School Girls, except chara got feature in card, there’s Ichiko keep appear beside Saki (what a worrywort), Honami, Shiho, Minori and Kohane a bit, Airi and Shizuku only get mentions by Haruka

- Short story : Haruka joined Committee after asked by Saki for arranged sport festival and Emu suddenly pour all of her ideas in meeting (of course with her sparkle eyes lol)

- Basically there’s nothing to note about, it’s just normal festive story except EmuMafuyu materials pretty strong here. As we see in Mafuyu *3 event card below, Emu sense something wrong on Mafuyu smile and at the end of story too Mafuyu opened up a bit to her...so yeah good progression on Mafuyu (it even show in conversation after story and Mafuyu home line)

- Virtual Singer compact version ! so yeah, virtual singer can get their precious screentime even in real life (lol) and umm... EmuMiku wxs convo really makes me questioning my brain cell ! It’s like saw KokoroHagumi bandori in higher tension

She’s just cheering Emu though and you see the background kinda off ? of course, this card location it’s above tree (lol)

KAMIKOU FESTIVAL ! Featuring Kamiyama High School members

- This event featuring Kamiyama High School, except chara got feature in card, there’s Rui, Akito, An and Kohane. For Ena, Akito said she won’t participate cause still sleeping (lol)

- Short story : An reminded (or invite) Mizuki about school festival and asked Mizuki to join her look around. At there Mizuki meet new friends For why MizukiAn looks close, it’s from Mizuki initial card story (forgot which one)

- SO MANY THINGS TO NOTE  : 1. MizukiAkito materials, Mizuki know Ena had brother and just meet him from this event story (and after that Mizuki keep calling Akito “Otouto-kun”; younger brother lol) 2. AkitoTouyaTsukasa materials, we all know AkitoTouya material best (lol) with adding Tsukasa makes story become spicier. Tsukasa *4 card below kinda explain most of event story.  Cut story short, Touya admiring Tsukasa since he saved him when he’s in the lowest depression with classic music (story before Touya meets Akito).

Mizuki : HAHAHAHAHAHA ! Touya : Tsukasa-senpai...so cool Akito : What the hell is this...

“Romeo the Battle Royale !”, Story about nine Romeos fighting each others and the last Romeo gone into moon HAHAHAHAHAHA talked about unique title and storyline TSUKASA-KUN !

3. MizukiRui materials, they turn out to be friend from junior high school. Until this event story we only know Mizuki and Rui moreless know each others (yeah I read most Mizuki card story, but then again I forgot which one)

in preview they blur AkitoTsukasaNene parts to avoid spoiler (lol)

4. After event story chibi convo at Kamiyama school are cute, don’t dare to skip those ! ex : Mizuki appear at school more often, Touya really straight-minded etc etc

- Virtual singer compact version #2

This scene is just Tsukasa renacted Kaito for his theater scene with Rui

PS : Rui with his sadistic personality lol

- This event story AKA TSUKASA trigger me to read WXS stories from now on, tbh I declare this event story is the best story so far 

COMPARISON :  I like Kamikou than Miyamasuzaka at everything !!! AND THANKYOU FOR MORE AKITOTOUYA MATERIAL (even it made Touya less cooler)