#Except for the part that my parents sent me to the psychiatrist for talk so much about them

[matiasthecamilion]

For a long time I didn't understand why I was so obsessed with lotr, especially the relationship between Sam n Frodo, as the years have gone by I can only come to the conclusion that as a 14 year old queer kiddo who just It had been discovered a few months ago and that continued to scared a lot even feeling uncomfortable for what them little self was, I came to feel safe, secure and understood on levels that I had never felt before.

It wasn't just that they acted gay or said sweet things to each other, it was that I saw myself in them, I could finally see that people like me have always existed, that they have always loved each other. Seeing how they cared for each other and expressed their love made me think I was not alone.

I wasn't the only one to feel this way because they loved each other too. Bc I grew up in a conservative family I thought I wasn't worthy of love, but seeing them made me realize that that kind of "love" I felt has always been there.

Sam n Frodo are not just a ship for me, they are an important part of my path to self-acceptance. Thanks to them I learned that I was not wrong.

(a cute drawing made my dearest friend Fergii that is part of a reencarnation au we have on wattpad)

[realcube]

LEAVING MIDORIYA

part one (nsfw) | part two 

tw// mentions of toxic relationships, drinking & mention of a bombing

honestly, if you were given enough time you probably could’ve figured it out on your own — without the assistance of a psychiatrist — but exactly one appointment later, you were left with the disheartening realisation that you weren’t having ‘bad dreams’ and the marks on your body weren’t inflicted by yourself during slumber. eventually, the fact set in that it was your sweet, gentle fiancée who was the cause of all these things. 

this whole time, you were under the impression that you were the problem, that there was a malicious part of you that wanted to paint deku out to be some sort of villain; and now you were finally made aware that a villain is exactly what he is. 

it was a hard conclusion to come to but the initial wave of relief you felt was enough to make you act on it quickly, as the more you waited around and let the fact sink in, the more you doubted whether or not to take action. but reasoning isn’t what you need right now, you just need to get away from him. 

where will you go? you had no idea, but any where away from him is good enough. 

midoriya didn’t even get enough time to try fill your head with even more lies. you came marching into the apartment with the intention of ignoring everything he says and simply pack your stuff so you can leave. no matter how much he screamed, begged or yelled, it was like trying to hold a conversation with a brick wall hence he eventually gave in, leaving you to collect your things in peace as there was clearly no way he was going to get through to you. 

you left without another word — not even a goodbye — and you were sure to sneak your engagement ring out with you. although it made you sick to look at, realistically you might need the cash since as soon as you stepped outside your shared apartment with your shit in bags, you were officially homeless. 

no need to worry though, you had arranged to stay the night at a friend’s house until tomorrow morning, then you could catch the train to your parent’s. from there, you’d stay with them until you manage to find a new apartment within your price range. 

one problem; your friend just texted you saying that they have to retract their offer because their landlord doesn’t allow over two people to sleep in the same dorm, and they already have a roommate. very unfortunate but hey, what can you do? plus, they apologised and offered to pay for your hotel but you reassured them that their money wouldn’t be necessary. 

now sitting outside your old apartment complex, scrolling through your phone looking for the nearest hotel. since both you and deku were well-paid pro-heroes and bought a penthouse in a rather affluent area, it was no surprise that most of the hotels that were reasonably close were from 4-5 stars.

although a 5-star hotel room for one night really wasn’t necessary, the post-breakup adrenaline was telling you otherwise. it also told you that treating yourself to a shopping spree, getting wine drunk at a bar and then shuffling back to the hotel with mcdonald’s take-out was a great idea! 

those emotional discussions you had with complete strangers must’ve really gotten to you because when you opened your front camera to take some pictures, you immediately grimaced at the sight of your mascara staining your cheeks. you were lazing around in the hotel lobby surrounded by name brand gift bags — waiting for your room key — looking like that? how embarrassing. 

quickly wiping away your tears, you put on a pair of designer sunglasses you brought earlier to shield your smudged eye-makeup from the world. not that you cared what anyone in this damn lobby thought of you anyway, you were only going to be here for one night, after that you would never see most of these people again. or at least, that is what you thought.

out of the corner of your eye, you saw flashing lights which prompted you to take out your earbuds but once you did, you instantly regretted it as all you heard was screaming and yelling from the entrance. looking up, you noticed an average-looking guy wearing a skull tank top resembling the fashion sense of a middle schooler, being followed by a mob of screaming fans, paparazzi and gossip channel reporters. 

“dynamight! thank you for everything!”

“you deserve to be number one!” 

“we are here at scene, pro-hero dynamight has just been seen entering what appears to be his five star accommodation, wearing his signature blac--”

the loud noises were suddenly muffled as the doorman shut the entrance behind him, leaving things just as they were, except now there was a muscular blond man encircled by bodyguards staring daggers at you.

in any other situation, you would’ve just tried your best to ignore him but some of that liquid courage was beginning to get to you, so your reaction was to snarl right back at him, yelling across the hall, “take a picture, why don’t ya? it’ll last longer.”

only upon processing your reply did the man finally snap out of his trance and storm up to, being hastily followed by his guards who looked as though they were ready to throw down at any given moment, so of course you cowered back in your seat, apologies waiting on the tip of your tongue, ready to spill until his face was hovering centimetres away from yours. 

your throat ran dry at his unexpected action, your eyes scanning over his chiselled features through the tint of your glasses. in a turn of events, you were now the one speechlessly staring at him. then, a deep chuckle erupted from his throat, causing the shock to show on your expression. 

“i knew i recognised you! you’re stupid deku’s girlfriend- fiancée or whatever; i saw the invite for your wedding in my mail and i just got a look at your face before i threw it away. small world.” the blond continued to laugh, talking to you as if you were an old friend of his despite the fact you’ve never seen him before in your life, “anyway, you like a hot fuckin’ mess. where’s deku?” 

why was he talking to you so casually? and how dare he say that!

“first of all,” you started, peering over your glasses to gaze at his face without the rose tint but to no avail, you still had no idea who this man is. using the soles of your palm, you pushed him away by the shoulders as he was a bit too close for comfort, but that resulted in all his guard looking at you with murderous glints in their eyes. “deku and i broke up--”

“when?” he cut you off

“let me finish.” you glared at him, fixing your sunglasses, “we broke up this morning. secondly, who the fuck are you?”

the man looked like he was ready to burst out laughing once again until he had a visible realisation, “eh, well, we’ve never met before but i’m sure deku has told you about me. if not, you’ve probably seen me in the news; i saved around a thousa--”

“no, i’ve not watched the news for, like, the past six months.” this time, you cut him off with a mischievous smirk which you tried your best to conceal.

“bitch! let me fuckin’ finish!” he barked, then had a sudden change in demeanour as he let out a sigh, momentarily silent as he scanned the surrounding area, “i’m bakugo. kastuki.”

your reply of a blank stare spoke a thousand words.

“y’know, dynamight.”

who?

“the number two hero!”

nothing.

“the one who saved that whole airline from blowing up just a week ago! c’mon, it was all over the fuckin’ news!”

“you look like a hotter version of my old maths teacher. oh, and i’m (y/n) (l/n).” was the only verbal response he was able to get out of you, even after all his explaining.

“why do you i feel like you are sayin’ that just to piss me off?” he muttered to himself through gritted teeth, followed by a sharp inhale which you assumed was an attempt to calm himself down. his carnelian eyes darted around the room, halting once he raised his arm to view his watch. his brows knitted together as he read the time, forming a concentrated look which was short-lived as his face was quick to relax, emphasised by a slight shrug as if to say ‘i’ve got time’, before slumping down on the couch next to you. 

“so why did you and shitty deku break up?”

“i may be a bit tipsy but i’m not just gonna tell that sorta stuff to a complete stranger.” each syllable felt like it had to be forced out one at a time, but you’d rather that than slur you speech as bakugo seemed like the type to poke fun at you for it. 

“i just wanna know how badly he fucked up this time.” bakugo smirked, propping his elbow up on the back of the couch to turn and look at you, “eh, i don’t think we’ll be strangers for long.” 

there was a certain purr in this voice which sent blood rushing to your cheeks as you never expect someone like him to come on so strong. not that you were complaining, i mean, being in his presence during a time like this felt like a gift from god but you weren’t going to let him know that. it’d only add to his already massive ego so you decided to ignore his suggestive behaviour, opting to show disinterest instead, “hm, you think?”

it was almost comical how fast bakugo’s cocky smirk fell into a frown. honestly, he wasn’t used to people that he flirts with rejecting him, considering that he rarely ever makes moves on anyone. so, now what did he do? due to the foreign nature of this situation, bakugo felt as though he was left with no choice but to bargain, since he’s far from a quitter, “oi, what that supposed to mean?”

you shrug.

bakugo clicked his tongue along with a roll of his eyes before he said, “how ‘bout this; i pay for your room tonight and in exchange we can get to know each other tomorrow.”

“i can pay for my own room though.” 

bakugo deadpanned, he honestly thought he had won but apparently not. perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to hit on someone who had just gotten out of a relationship but whatever. “you’re impossible.” he spat, getting up from the couch and marching away, presumably to his room.

he tried to brush off the encounter like it never happened, reassuring himself that he didn’t have to think much of it as he could get with anyone else. plus, you’d probably come crawling back to him, begging to fuck once you get over deku anyway. 

and he was half right.

eventually, you came to the realisation that both you and bakugo have one thing in common — a hatred for deku. and as it turns out, hatred provides a good groundwork for friendship. 

[peachlolitasevillacourtstuff]

Cedrick's birthday, part 3

Attention the characters that appear and will be mentioned are not mine, they are ocs of @autumn2art , @xeo-kunsatan , @ghostbunnyarts , @mq5197 for your attention <3.

_____

In the Underworld, Betrayus patiently waited for Dr. Buttocks to finish the gift for his nephew Cedrick, until he was visited by the ghosts Yin and Yang, they began to surround him and slightly annoy him.

Yin: Hey Lord betrayus! Why so quiet!?

Betrayus: I'm waiting for stupid dr buttocks to finish his invention for my nephew's birthday!

Yang: oh it's cedrick?...

Betrayus: yup.. wait..How do they know his name, do they know him too!?

Yin: Yes... we always tease him at school, and I also like his friend molly ewe...

Yang: And because we both go to the same school -_-

Betrayus: I heard myself a couple of self-conscious fish! Pacman himself is at that party! and they are going to do something to him, my stupid older brother is screwing me up! >:C *scolding the two black and white ghosts*

Yin and Yang: yes 😰😥

Mitzy: Daddy!... :D

Betrayus: Yes My princess?

Mitzy: I already sent all the gifts for my cousin, I just need that Dr. Buttocks finish with his <3

Betrayus: oh Nice! ^^

_____

In the round house where the guests were, they had already finished eating the food that sir.c had prepared for everyone, they had all started a game of guessing who it was without seeing, the game consisted that one had to blindfold, and grab someone and guess who the person was.

Jack: *Blindfolded* oh who is?... *touching Aurora *

Aurora: heheje... you have to guess Jack! <3

Jack: Oh.. it's Ryan! :D

Aurora: eh nope...

Ryan: AAAAAWWWW xD

Ellie: Come Jack come here :)... * calling him with his voice *

Jack: Yes...

Cedrick: Aunt, is it okay if my cousin Ellie is with Ryan, and is more than friends? :P

Arimette/molasses: UH.. Yea... I have no problem in the least, besides your uncle would have approved too, he was very close to Zac and sunny :)...

Pac: hey Mrs. Arimette / Molasses, do you still remember something about my parents?

Arimette/molasses: oh yes, I still remember well when your mother came with her husband, accompanying Tohru/Shirou home, we had long talks about our daily lives and thus, even she passed me some pretty good recipes. 😋

Cedrick: I wish I could also meet my uncle Tohru / Shirou and your parents Pacman :(

Molly: Cedrick...

Cedrick: Yes Molly?

Molly: Do you want to play to put the tail on the donkey? :)

Cedrick: Yeah.. <D

Cedrick went where they played to put the donkey's tail, the first player was lexy Soto blindfolded, and with the tail in his hand, the first attempt failed and put the donkey's tail on the donkey's nose.

Lexy: hay no perdí... (there I did not lose)

Victor: tranquilo hombre! (calm man!), I will do better than you! *removes his special vision glasses, and shows his gray, pupilless eyes*

everyone except Victor: 👀👀👀😳😳😲

Victor: *grabs the donkey's tail and puts it on the donkey's butt as it should be by winning the game * lo ven cabrones! No estaba difícil! (you bastards see it! It was not difficult!)

Bradley: You say that because you are blind from birth! 7_7

Stratos: eh... Okay, For winning the game of putting the tail on the donkey, as a reward for having won here you have about $ 100 to spend on whatever you want ^^;...

Victor: Jajajajaja al chile Soy rico! (Hahahahah Nice i'm rich)

Rotunda: You know well that you gave that stinky Latino a lot of money! >:(

Stratos: yes mom.. but you have to admit that you win without cheating.

Rotunda: Bradley should bring people from our class instead of these walkers!..

Stratos: eh yes... -_-;

_____

Dr.buttocks: I have finished with the gift for your nephew Lord Betrayus! :D

Betrayus: Oh Nice! >:D

Mitzy: I too am prepared with gifts from my cousin cedrick! :3

Dr.buttocks: Remember Princess Mitzy this gift is a bit fragile and is very unnoticed with her uncles and her grandmother. Uwu

Mitzy: it is well I will take it into account.

_____

The time to distribute the cake arrived, the cake with a soft texture, light blue, and yellow details, there were also some candles that decorated it around, Cedrick blew on the candle, while they took a picture.

sir.c: good time to share our favorite boy's cake! ^^

Spheria: yes.. Yummy...

stratos: hey spheria is not due to recklessness but it is true that Arena is worse in the psychiatrist

Spheria: eh.. yes.. Why the question?

Stratos: The teacher at the school my son attends is Dr. Daniels.

Spheria: Oh really!? for how long?

Stratos: For several months, at first he made me quite suspicious, until I remembered that it was not surprising, he has been recognized as a doctorate and teaching for a long time.

Spheria: oh Of course I also remember him, he was also with us the day we buried all the soldiers who died in the war.

Stratos: that doesn't matter anymore, he must be excellent at his job anyway, I can't complain, now let's eat cake I feel like having dessert right now.

Spheria: oh right.

_____

Molly: mmmhhh.. Yummy.. *eating his slice of cake *

cedrick: you love it, it is prepared by the best pastry chef in town! :)

Molly: yes it's delicious. 😋

while they were eating bradley's dog, Quartzy approached cedrick with a small gift from bradley.

Cedrick: For me?... :)

Bradley: Yes... Open it I know you will love it, it was a bit expensive but I got it.

Cedrick begins to open it and realizes that it was a mobile music player, at the same time with his own headphones and songs already downloaded.

Cedrick: AAAAAWWWW... Thanks You bradley *hugs him*

Bradley: your welcome uwu

Rotunda: *looking very disapprovingly at bradley's gift, especially Quartzy's presence *

Quartzy: Ggggrrrrrrrr... *growling him to rotunda *

Continué...

[dadsbongos]

I beg of thee to give us more antag reader x Hajime stuff, maybe one where he finds out the reader’s reasons behind being such an ass. What that reason is up to you but I want mor depth to this character <3

sooo hajime doesn’t really have a clear pic to her motives :( but we get one :))

Request for: Hajime Hinata Warnings: gore, brief descriptions of face swapping, spoilers, mental disorder (god complex), sort of a mental breakdown(?) she loses her self of identity for a bit, also make no mistake just because this is the postgame time DOES NOT mean i’m done with antag reader - she is the light of my life rn ~~~

Her eyes trained on the way Junko Enoshima’s photographed face curled up and charred in the fire. Countless magazines already turned to ash with even more sitting beside her in a box waiting to be disposed of in the flames.

Despite the shoddy campfire built in front of her, the beachy night air still caused a series of shivers to ring up her body. She should’ve been somewhat used to it by now - and if not, then she might as well hurry to get used to it. She and the other survivors had to wait for everyone else to wake up before leaving anyway.

She wanted Mikan to wake up first, against every part of her knowing it wouldn’t happen, she wanted it so bad.

(Y/n) didn’t like looking into her reflection, spotting the scars over small patches of skin where she’d tried a makeshift skin graph of Junko’s face onto her own. Bringing up a hand, (Y/n) traced her middle and ring fingers over the small, abstract shapes she’d carved off and replaced with Junko’s fair skin.

Hopefully, Mikan would see the tiny light of good inside (Y/n) and help her get her face to 100% hers. But it was unlikely. She’d been incredibly rude to all her island mates, Mikan was no exception.

Sadly, not even the Ultimate Copycat could perform a skin graph as perfectly as she needed...

Besides, who was the Ultimate Nurse - not a psychiatrist - trying to fool acting like a psychoanalyst all of the sudden? Creeping inside (Y/n)’s head and trying to diagnose her with something so ridiculous as a God complex. 

Absurd.

It wasn’t complex. She was just better than the others. 

Mikan didn’t know what she was talking about. Neither did Sonia. Or Makoto or Kyoko or her parents. They were all morons to doubt her. She was great. She was better than them and she’d prove it. She’d already proven it.

She was the Ultimate Copycat - nothing complex about her ability to be all things at once.

Goes to show what Mikan knows. That little murderer.

She was fine. She was healthy. It’s like mother always said, “a perfect lady has perfect health” and mental health was included, right? Of course, it was, and (Y/n) was perfect. She was fine. She was healthy. She wasn’t mentally fucking ill.

She was fine.

Her hand dashed into the box at her side, gripping three fashion magazines in her hand and tossing them into the fire.

The sound of crunching sand rang out behind her, followed by a voice, “It’s late. Sonia’s worried about you.”

“Tell Sonia I’m fine,” she grumbled, not bothering to look back at Hajime as he approached her. When his footsteps only progressed closer, she huffed, “Didn’t you hear me, Kamufuck?”

“I heard you, I just don’t care,” Hajime sighed, taking a seat beside the girl and grabbing from her box of magazines to toss one in and watch Junko Enoshima burn up, “Tell her yourself when you go inside. And stop calling me that.”

“As if I’d listen to you.”

“Imposter’s woken up, he’s getting some food and water, that’s why the others sent me out here,” he looked up at the sky, “But it is also getting dark out,” he leaned back on his hands, “Not sure why they thought you’d listen.”

Izuru Kamukura - Hajime Hinata - whatever his name was, made her nervous. He had all the talents one could ever dream of. She could copy almost anything, but… he just had them readily available. 

It was disgusting. She earned her right into Ultimate-status, he got it jammed into his brain by bullshit “scientists”. If anything, he was the one with a problem.

Not (Y/n). She was fine.

“I’ll greet him later.”

She stood, grabbing the box and beginning to walk away, leaving Hajime to put out the fire she started.

Ultimate Servant suited him more than her anyway.

[embalala02]

He sat on the large sofa comfortably. She looked at the ceiling and then took a cigarette out of her pocket.

"Where did you find this?"

"We have a close relationship with the guard." She showed her thumb ostentatiously. "Fire" she cried.

He took the lighter out of his drawer and handed it to her. She smiled and sucked the first dose of nicotine.

"What kind of psychiatrist are you?"

"What kind or bipolarity do you carry in your head?"

"Are you definitely a psychiatrist?"

"Are you sure what this file says?"

She tossed a large paper envelope in front of her. She left the cigarette in the metal ashtray next to her. She opened it calmly and looked at the papers.

"I have no parents. Here they say I have."

"They haven't disown you ... yet."

"After what I have done logically they still have hope." She laughed out loud and brought her hands to her knees. "Do you know what I did?"

"Let me start ... you stole your father's car, set fire to your neighbor's warehouse, tried to commit suicide twice and ..." he stopped and looked at her "You beat your classmate until you broke her arm."

She remained motionless in her place. Everything seemed normal to her. She took the cigarette in her right hand again and inhaled again. She let a large narcotic cloud hover over her head like a halo.

"Why did you do it?"

"And if I tell you, you will just sign a paper, give me my pills and then I will go back to that asylum. Am I wrong?"

He leaned into his comfy place in the armchair and relaxed his muscles.

"Your parents want answers. You don't speak. They think they had a killer in their house. They are good people. You love them."

She didn't speak. She began to tremble slightly.

"He didn't want me to go to that party."

He pressed the record button and crossed his arms. Wait patiently.

"Dad wouldn't let me go to a party. He was scared. I begged him until the last minute but he remained negative." She laughed again "Do you believe it? I was 16 and he put me to bed at 22.00 o'clock as a detention!"

"You stole the car and went to the party."

"Wouldn't you do that in my place?"

"I've done it." She took the papers from in front of her. "You are very resistant to alcohol."

"That night I crashed. They took me to the ward where my parents picked me up. The doctor said it was a miracle I was alive after so much whiskey." She laughed and shrugged. "I was a normal teenager ... except for whiskey part."

"You liked playing with fire,didn't you?"

"Are you talking about the warehouse?"

"Your neighbor is a quiet retiree. He reported you for misconduct and signs of insanity."

"That guy was the crazy one, not me. He knew he was bothering me and he kept doing it. "

"What exactly?"

"He cut wood in his warehouse every afternoon while I was reading. I told him many times that he was bothering me. He didn't like me very much. He had heard from the other children that I was a 'bad guy' and he ignored me."

"He said you were staring at him from your window. He was scared."

"I was not looking at him. I was looking at the warehouse. I wanted to know how I would burn it."

"With gasoline."

"Can't you find it smart? Since then he hasn't bothered me again. Not a single neighbor." He sucked again her cigarette.

"Did you know you have bipolar disorder? Did you feel something like that?"

"I knew very well. The others said I was sick. I was different but not mentally. No one helped me. They did not give me anything to stop this Golgotha!" Her pulse had increased. Her hands began to tremble again.

"At school they hated me, beat me, insulted me, spat on me, tore my books. At first, I was crying non stop. Then I was hitting the walls in my room because I felt weak. My mom had talked to the teachers. Of course they said that the students in class were friendly with me. "

"Your parents..."

"They didn't find out in time. I had already sent her to the hospital."

"I wouldn't have asked that."

"You get rid of pointless questions. See? I'm useful!"

He looked at her in the eyes. She was worried. The memories caused spasms all over her body.

"My mom was watching me. She was counting the amount I ate, the amount I slept. We talked often but she saw a normal child that time. Not a monster that everyone presented." She looked at her feet. "I love mom and dad even though they blamed me. I wouldn't have done so many weird things if they had known. If they had understood in time."

"Why didn't you speak?"

"I was fighting with my own demons. I didn't have the courage to explain. I was tired and ..." she ran her fingers through her messy hair and looked at him sullenly "I was feeling so heavy. My father was ashamed. He was afraid of me. "She was thinking silenty. "My mom was praying for me to get well." She sucked anxiously her last dose of nicotine.

"They wanted to take me to a doctor. I was crazy about that idea. So I found suicide as a solution. Many things would have been solved in that way. At least my grandmother wouldn't have kept saying that a demon was walking among them." She laughed and wiped her tears with the back of her hand.

"Where did you find the pills?"

"My mom used to take sedatives to sleep. It wasn't difficult to have access over them."

"The second time?"

"I paid a guy to bring them to me. He said he was a classmate of mine and as soon as I got out of the hospital I tried it again. I didn't want to live anymore. " She left the cigarette in the ashtray and looked at him. Her gaze had darkened.

"What will you do now?"

"I will go back to the room for psychics. My white breaks my insanity a bit but at least they have nice food." She got up and made her way out of the office.

"Your parents will listen to what you say. But I do not guarantee you much that they will understand you."

"You understand me?"

"I'm Trying."

"I respect your mini effort." She opened the door. The guard was waiting for her outside. She turned her head and looked at him.

"I wasn't born a bad person. I was born different but no one tried to teach me how to work on my good side. I had a good side. Every child has it. I was a nightmare for them. I just wanted help." She closed the door behind her.

It was the last time he saw her face. He was staring the closed door for a couple of minutes.

"She can't understand how lonely she is."

(Inspired by the song "NIGHTMARE" of Halsey)

[doumekiss]

atonement (neon genesis evangelion fanfic)

Asuka and Shinji // T // 600 words //  Set in The End of Evangelion universe -  Shinji and Asuka see each other again fifteen years after the third impact

Read here or on AO3

2030

Shinji arrived at the coffee shop about forty minutes before the hour they agreed to meet. He offered to pick her up at the airport in the morning but Asuka said it wasn't necessary and that she would prefer to stop by the hotel first and take a shower. He hadn't seen her since about ten days after the end of the world and that had happened fifteen years ago, some people started coming back a few hours after the two of them, a week later there were almost a billion scattered around the world, an emergency committee formed by the UN came to collect their testimonies, due to their age and the exceptional conditions of the months that led to the third impact, their names were omitted from the official records and no guilt was attributed to them, and before that day was over she had already been sent to the Germany and placed in the care of her adoptive parents and he was sent to his uncle's house.

She arrived at the coffee shop at exactly the appointed time. He had seen pictures of her online over the years but it was still a bit strange to see the adult woman and not the fourteen year old girl who would always be in his thoughts and realize that they were the same person. A part of him wanted to hug her, it seemed like a normal thing to do when you see a person who was once very important in your life and that you haven't seen in a long time, but their circumstances weren't normal, and much less themselves. So he just extended his hand in greeting and she took it.

"Hi" he said.

"Hi" she said.

As soon as she arrived the waitress came to the table to pick up their orders, they ordered and she left them with a very uncomfortable silence at the table.

"So how's Germany ?" Shinji asked.

Asuka looked at him for a long time before saying:

"Shinji did you really ask me to come from Germany to see you to ask me how is Germany?"

"No"

"So talk about what you really want to talk about"

"You are not going to make this easy for me, right?"

"Did I ever do that?"

"Just... hum, my psychiatrist thinks it would be a good idea for me to interact with people from that time who are still alive, you in particular"

"My psychiatrist on the other hand is not sure if this is a good idea"

"And yet here you are"

"Your email made me curious, I always believed that if we ever got in touch again, I would have to start"

"Yes... I think the main thing I would like to say is that I am sorry"

"For what ?"

"All of it"

"Choose a specific item"

For trying to strangle you. For what happened at the hospital. For always staying and leaving when I should have done the opposite.

"I'm sorry because back then I knew you were suffering but I was too involved with my own pain to do anything to help you with yours"

"Well, I'm sorry for doing the same"

They looked at each other in silence for a while, saying out loud hadn't magically made everything better, but neither of them expected that to be the case, but something inside the two of them seemed to have eased a little and that was a start.

The waitress arrived with their orders, they thanked her and she left. Before taking the first sip of his coffee Asuka said:

"It's good to see you again Shinji"

"It's good to see you again Asuka" he said feeling the beginning of a smile forming on the corner of his lips and took the first sip of his coffee.

[letterboxd]

Sundance 2020.

“Dude, I hope this gets over 3.5!” Letterboxd rates this year’s Sundance.

Our West Coast editor Dominic Corry returns to Sundance to engage in such essential festival experiences as: judging other people’s cellphone etiquette, pretending not to notice A-listers, coming to rely upon coffee to a dangerous extent, and hastily downing a hot sandwich while standing over the garbage can outside the Park City Fresh Market.

He also watched a whole load of cool films, and spoke with the writing and directing talent behind some of the 2020 festival’s most talked-about premieres: Janicza Bravo (Zola), Eugene Kotlyarenko (Spree), Miranda July (Kajillionaire), Brandon Cronenberg (Possessor) and Jim Cummings (actor and executive producer of Danny Madden's debut Beast Beast).

Zola

“There are more ways to access great storytelling than the ones we’ve been used to.”

Generating much of the buzz ahead of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival was Janicza Bravo’s Zola, a film based on the Twitter thread by A'Ziah King that went famously viral in 2015. It concerns two exotic dancers: King herself—who goes by Zola—(played by Taylour Paige) and her new friend Stefani (Riley Keough), who head down to Tampa one weekend accompanied by Stefani’s boyfriend Derrek (played by Cousin Greg himself, Nicholas Braun) and Stefani’s “roommate” (read: pimp, played by Colman Domingo). To say shit gets cray doesn’t quite cover it.

It’s been simplistically, if understandably, described ahead of time as “Pulp Fiction meets Spring Breakers”, but Bravo herself cited a much more eclectic selection of cinematic inspirations when we spoke to her ahead of the film’s world premiere.

“My inspirations were The Wiz, Coffy, Paris Is Burning, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Special Victims Unit. And Natural Born Killers!”

Bravo (pictured above) took to King’s Twitter thread immediately when it went viral. “I think I found it within a day, or days, of it coming out,” says Bravo. “It was sent to me by a group of girlfriends and before finishing it I knew that I wanted it, and I worked at getting [the rights] for about two years.”

Bravo wasn’t the only one who wanted to tell this story on the big screen—James Franco was initially linked to an adaptation.

“It’s not that it was difficult to get the rights, it’s that there were many other people who wanted it and the people who got it before me were just fancier. But here we are.”

Bravo is credited with Zola's script alongside playwright Jeremy O. Harris, who recently blew up Broadway with his incendiary show Slave Play. She concedes there were unique challenges in translating something so specific to the big screen.

“The thing that everyone was attracted to about this story was the voice, and I would say the hardest thing was to make sure the voice was still present in the film. What you’re reading, that it would translate into the visual.”

Bravo says she’s not sure if this is going to lead to a rash of social network-based films (Letterboxd: The Movie excepted of course), “but I would say that what the story tells you is that there are more ways to access great storytelling than the ones we’ve been used to.”

Spree

“Put it on lists and do those Letterboxd battles!”

It can be all too easy to over-perceive mini-trends at film festivals, but it was hard to overlook the large role that social media played in multiple films at Sundance this year.

In Eugene Kotlyarenko’s Spree, floppy-haired Stranger Things star Joe Keery (pictured above) plays wannabe influencer Kurt Kunkle, a driver for a Los Angeles-based ride-sharing service (called… Spree) who plots to up his subscriber numbers by murdering his more obnoxious passengers on a live stream. Or he might just be staging it all for the LOLs. The entire film plays out as a series of live-streaming videos, mostly from the dashboard cameras in Kurt’s car.

Kotlyarenko’s film questions the overly prominent role of social media in modern life. “We've all kind of signed on to this thing, to use the literal expression,” he told us. “It’s part of the way we understand ourselves and our relationship with the rest of the world. It’s basically: a like or repost or a good rating on something, gives us part of our validation or sense of self and that is a kind of twisted place to be. [Spree] is a provocation, it’s a challenge, it’s a way of saying: look, we have a problem.”

Kotlyarenko had a number of inspirations in mind while he was writing and directing Spree. “A lot! A lot of movies! I actually put ten movies in a Dropbox for the cast and crew. One movie that I thought was really inspiring was Jafar Panafi’s Taxi, also known as Taxi Tehran. You want Man Bites Dog in there, because the whole thing is that the movie’s a live stream, right? So how do you do that pseudo-doc thing but now? So you’re following a psychotic character and you’re getting very close to them. Uncomfortably close. What else? Network and To Die For, just hardcore media satires. There’s a bunch of other films, like Coming Apart, do you know this film? It’s a late ’60s movie starring Rip Torn, where he’s a psychiatrist and he sets up these hidden cameras and exploits all his patients and stuff but they don’t know that they’re on camera.”

It turns out Kotlyarenko is a keen Letterboxd member, and he’s looking forward to other members generating an average rating for his film. “Dude, I hope this gets over 3.5!”

We can safely assume Kotlyarenko won’t employ measures as drastic as those adopted by the main character in his movie in order to get his desired rating.

“I want people on Letterboxd to watch the film and rate it whatever the fuck you think it is [worth]. And, you know, put it on lists and do those Letterboxd battles. Put it up against, you know, some Gasper Noé movie. And let it win!”

Kajillionaire

“Instead of sort of half-arseing two jobs, you’re doing one job really well.”

Filmmaker, actor and performance artist Miranda July is a central figure in the American independent cinema scene, even though she’s only directed two films: Me and You and Everyone We Know and The Future. Her third full-length feature Kajillionaire had its world premiere at Sundance this year, just as her previous works did, but the big difference this time around is that she stuck to writing and directing, having also played the lead role in her two previous films.

“It’s just better,” she told Letterboxd of staying behind the camera for Kajillionaire. “Instead of sort of half-arseing two jobs, you’re doing one job really well, you know? You get a lot of energy when you’re performing—that’s nice. Especially initially to kind of set the tone, that was super helpful, starting out. But now it’s like: these people all knew my work. So I didn’t have to actually be in it for them to like, get it. Which is, you know, what a dream right?”

Kajillionaire is a typically (for July) offbeat tale of a Los Angeles family who attempt low-level scams to raise money to pay the rent on the disused office space with oozing walls in which they live. The family (comprised of mom Debra Winger, dad Richard Jenkins and daughter Evan Rachel Wood) find their equilibrium challenged when an optimistic young woman (Gina Rodriguez) eagerly joins them for their latest “heist”.

Miranda July. / Photo courtesy of the Sundance Institute

Letterboxd asked July if she thinks there’s a common narrative thread running through all three of her films.

“I mean, I see the thread, but it’s really just me living my life. Not that it’s autobiographical at all. But now I was ready to face issues and tell a story that only could be told by someone who had been a child, grown into an adult, and then been a parent of a child and had this 360-degree perspective. And also I think there’s a joyfulness that only comes in once you’re like: I know a little bit how to do this, you know? Like, maybe there’s some fun that I had, as well as breaking my heart 100 times.”

Although Kajillionaire would seem to speak to general economic anxiety, July said that wasn’t necessarily the point of the film.

“All I’ll say about that right now is: I wrote it in this time and the whole thing comes from my unconscious. But I am the child of boomers and, you know, living in the same world you’re living in. The sense that something criminal might have happened is in the air, but I wasn’t consciously [thinking]: ‘I’m going to hit them hard with this political satire’. It’s not that movie. But I don’t think anyone would be wrong to find that in it.”

Beast Beast

“It allows you to circumvent all of the bullshit that is Hollywood.”

We met up with one of our favorite filmmakers (and Letterboxd member), Jim Cummings, who wrote, directed and starred in the 2018 low-key masterpiece Thunder Road, an expansion of a 13-minute short that won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2016.

Cummings was at the 2020 festival as both an executive producer and supporting cast member in a film in the NEXT program (which highlights emerging filmmakers) called Beast Beast. It’s the first feature from writer/director Danny Madden.

“Danny was my co-producer and creative director on many of my short films, the Thunder Road feature, and my new upcoming werewolf movie. So it’s great to be here for his first Sundance feature.”

Cummings, who also runs The Short to Feature Lab in Malibu, understands more than most how shorts can be a pathway to feature filmmaking.

“It’s just so much more fulfilling to make something as a proven concept. You kind of become your own studio in a way that’s incredibly fulfilling. I think it’s the future. You can afford to make something over a weekend with your friends in the backyard that’s a short film and then you can use that and use Kickstarter or a crowd-equity plan campaign to raise the rest of the money for a feature. It’s absolutely the future and it allows you to circumvent all of the bullshit that is Hollywood.”

Jim Cummings and Danny Madden. / Photo by Jovelle Tamayo, courtesy of the Sundance Institute

Hang on, did you say new upcoming werewolf film? Thunder Road fans can look forward to beholding Cumming’ follow-up feature soon.

“I shot a werewolf movie in Coalville, Utah last March. I spent four months out here. I wrote it, I directed in and I star in it, and it’s a proper monster movie. It’s like a proper werewolf comedy. It’s like Thunder Road with a werewolf. Or Zodiac as a comedy. That’s coming out in theaters in September.”

And because this is Jim Cummings we’re talking to, there’s more: “I ran a crowd-equity campaign for a movie that we made about talent agents that I can’t really talk too much about, but it’s very good and it’s a horror movie that we shot in November. That should be coming out around the same time.”

Possessor

“It has a lot to do with character psychology, without giving too much away.”

Following the world premiere of his new film Possessor, Letterboxd sat down with second-generation filmmaker Brandon Cronenberg, the son of legendary director David. The younger Cronenberg’s second feature (following 2012’s Antiviral) had Sundance audiences audibly wincing at the extreme body horror on display in the sci-fi thriller, which stars Andrea Riseborough as an assassin who forcibly inhabits the minds of others to perform her incredibly violent executions.

We asked Cronenberg how he feels about the term “body horror” (a sub-genre often associated with his father’s work) being applied to his film.

“I guess it depends how you define body horror,” says Cronenberg. “There are violent scenes in the film and I guess that fits into a certain aspect of body horror, but it isn’t really what I would necessarily describe as body horror. There’s a small amount of story stuff that I feel is legitimately a part of that genre, but it’s not [the] prime aspect of the story.”

Cronenberg confirmed that on-screen viscerality appeals to him in general as a filmmaker: “I think especially in genre, although it can be incredibly conceptual. It’s partly defined by deep visceral emotions, not always because of graphic violence or gore. Sometimes it can be a film primarily about dread or anxiety that I would still consider to be a horror film, and a lot of classic ghost films for instance are not graphic but are visceral and in that emotional sense.”

Actors Christopher Abbott and Andrea Riseborough with director Brandon Cronenberg. / Photo courtesy of the Sundance Institute

The violence in Possessor may have had audience members covering their eyes in Park City, but Cronenberg told us there was a point to all the grue.

“It wasn’t just there to be intense or to provoke people. It has a lot to do with character psychology, without giving too much away. The way it’s depicted and the various approaches that are taken in different scenes, very much relate to the main character, her relationship with violence, her own internal space and also where the audience is situated from a kind of more objective or more subjective position.”

[petri808]

The Wishing Well

Whew, I made it lol.  This is my story for the awesome @nalufever for the Nalu server’s secret Valentine’s Exchange.  LoL we had each other!  Omg, I hope you like it, I was trying to come up with a story around the idea we once talked about.  It ended up being a fluffy short story lol.  Okie here we go.

“Miss Lucy!” the little girl waves her hand excitedly from across the room.  “Miss, Miss, Miss!”

“Yes, Wendy?” the teacher’s aide walks up to the table and kneels, “are you finished with your drawing?” Nodding her head with a small blush upon her cheeks, the child holds her drawing up for Lucy to see.  “That’s wonderful Wendy!  Is that your cat?  But why is it blue?”

Wendy smiles wide, “name’s Happy!  Don’ know why he blue tho but it’s cute!”

“Yes,” Lucy chuckles, eyes brimming with delight, “he’s very cute!”  

Content with the response, Wendy goes back to doodling a new cartoon while the teachers aid floats around the room checking on other students.  Lucy loved this part time job even though it wasn’t quite in the field she was studying for, the credit still counted, the pay was decent, and not to mention the students were adorable most of the time.  Of course, there were a few that could be a handful, but nothing the bubbly 22 yr old blonde couldn’t handle and besides, the teacher Mirajane was also a blessing to work with.

Storytime was probably Lucy’s favorite part of the day.  Books had always been her sanctum even from a young age and to impart that same love into these children was like paying it forward for the new generation.  They would gather round her with their snacks, the eager little faces and once a week she even delighted them with original little stories she would create just for them.  Filled with characters like Princesses and Dragons, of mythical elves and other magical creatures, even using their names mixed in to make it come alive for the awestruck youngsters.

Lucy smiles from her desk, this school year was shaping up to be a great one.

Across town at Magnolia University, a young man hurries out of class.  Checking his phone, he’s got 30 minutes to get to the primary school and pick up his sister, but traffic is often a pain at this hour.  His sister-in-law Mavis usually picked Wendy up but today she had an appointment leaving Natsu to rush.  It’s been a struggle for the 24-year-old, being thrust into the role of guardian at the age of 20, to drop out of college and take time off to raise a 2-year-old.  Not that it mattered, there was no way he was going to allow Wendy to be sent to a foster home after their parents died.  It wasn’t her fault tragedy struck and left her an orphan, so he was going to lavish that little girl with all the love and affection their parents would have given her.

He thrums his fingers on the steering wheel, as the car slowly crawled its way towards the front of the school.  The line of parents patiently waiting to pick up kids was pretty typical, however annoying it may be, but a requirement for the students in kindergarten and first grades for release at the end of the day.  Teachers and security waited with the children, handing them off as each car pulled up.  Natsu smiles when he finally sees the tell-tale blue hair of Wendy bouncing as she waves to him.

“How was your day at school Wendy?” popping the question as the first grader buckled herself in to her booster.  

With a click and a bubbly response, “lots’a fun!  We drew and Ms. Lucy read us a story!  Ms. Lucy always has awesomest stories to tell!  Yuck, then Mrs. Dreyar gave us reading to do.”  

Natsu chuckles, side-eying through the rearview, “What’s with the pouty face?  I thought you like reading?”

“Not for homework.  I wanna read for fun!”

That only makes him laugh harder, “tell ya what, how about we get some ice cream at the mall, then I’ll read with you, sound better?”

Wendy’s face lights up, “Yay!  Ice Cream!”

“Kozmic Cones it is!”

On the opposite side of the mall nestled near the food court, Faeries Café was a popular little hangout.  Good food that even a college kid could afford drew them in at all hours of the day. Lucy was no exception and today was her weekly meet up with her best friend Levy McGarden for coffee.  It had become a routine ever since they’d finished their undergraduate programs and moved on to graduate work, she in the field of English Lit while Levy focused on Ancient Linguistics.  Between classes and working jobs they rarely had much time anymore to hang out.  

“How are things going with Gajeel,” the blonde stirred at the slowly warming coffee, “did you guys pick a date for the wedding yet?”

“He said not until after I graduate, which is only one more semester, so I agreed.”

Lucy leans onto her propped hand with a light smile, “You’re so lucky you found someone already Lev, I’m really happy for you two.”

“Aww, Lu you’ll find someone,” the bluenette reaches over the table and grabs her friend’s free hand, squeezing it before retracting back into her seat, “and I bet it’ll happen when you least expect it to.”

But the blonde just sighs, “Doubt it, I’m so busy I don’t have time to meet anyone unless they are under the age of 7,” chuckling lightly, “and no one in my college classes are very interesting to me.”

“You haven’t dated anyone since him that I can recall.”  Levy taps her chin, “maybe it’s not that you can’t but won’t look at anyone else.”

“What are you my psychiatrist now?!”  teasing at her friend.  “I’m fine, really, not like I don’t have enough on my plate to deal with, right? And as for my ex,” Lucy shrugs her shoulders, “we lost touch in college…”

The girls spend about an hour chatting and catching up, planning that upcoming weekend when another friend will be dropping by town.  Cana Alberona was never one to stay still for very long but luckily her job in fashion fit her personality well, jet setting around to photograph models and actors for Sorcerer’s Magazine.  She was so different in personality from the other two girls and yet the trio were inseparable in high school.  It wasn’t really their thing, but for Cana, hitting a bar or club was definitely going to be on the agenda.

Which was fine, she guessed, nothing wrong with hanging out with a couple of girlfriends at a bar.  Hopefully no one bothers us….  Ugh, but some guy always does!  As she walked away from the café, Lucy hangs her head wondering if her love life would always be a struggle.  She was sick and tired of even trying to meet guys when it usually turned out they only wanted her, sighing, for my assets….  It wasn’t her fault she was born with these curves, even thought about getting a reduction one day just so she didn’t have to deal with them anymore.  

There had only been one serious relationship in her life and while the guy definitely loved her body, Lucy knew it wasn’t the reason he’d asked her out in the first place.  Back then surrounded by so many friends, she’d never cared much about having boyfriends or being in relationships but funny how things change and now 5 years later, it was kind of lonely.  

She sees the wishing well a few feet away, absent mindedly pulling out a coin as she walked towards it. It was such a silly thing to make a wish and throw away a perfectly good quarter but well, flicking the shiny metal into the water, what could it hurt, right?  To have someone like him back in her life again, maybe the false smiles she wore would finally be real.

“Ms. LUCY!!!”

“Wendy?”  The young blonde turns around to the voice of her student, semi-surprised though this was a mall and all, just in time to have the little girl hugging to her legs.  “Wendy, what a nice surprise to see you here!” Lucy hugs the girl back, “but who are you with sweetie?”

The little girl, with eyes practically shining, bounces on her feet pointing behind her, “my brother gots me ice cream.”

“Your broth…” As she follows Wendy finger, Lucy cannot believe what she’s seeing.  “N-Natsu!” a light gasp as her hands fly up to her mouth and moisture clouds her vision.  “Oh my god! I-Is it really you?”  

Sporting the trade mark goofy grin that she knew better than most plastered on his face, “Yeah it’s me, heya Lucy,” scratching his head, “Didn’t realize you were the teacher she always talks about.  How ya been?”

Tears trickle down her cheeks and before she can stop them, her feet carry her towards him, hands flying into fists.  In that moment Lucy’s surroundings fade away and all she can see is Natsu, standing there in the flesh.  No Wendy, no shoppers, just him.  “Why!?” She beats at his chest, “no calls, no texts, no goodbye!  Four years! Y-you just left me hanging how could you Natsu!”  

“Luce…” he had no idea what he could say to the sobbing woman in his arms to slow her tears, grabbing her hands to stop their fury but keeping them held tightly to his chest. She was right, everything she said was the truth.  Natsu was an asshole for not making the effort to contact her as soon as he could, and he knew that.  So, he did the only thing he could and held her quietly, whispering soft apologizes and hoping it would be enough to soothe the pain he never knew she had held onto.        

Eventually Lucy slumps against him, liquid still flowing but her sobs withering into lighter exhalations. “I’m sorry,” her voice strained and muffled, “I didn’t mean to break down like that.”

“No,” Natsu pulls her head against his shoulder, cradling the back of her head, “don’t be sorry, I should have reached out to you too it’s just that…”

“I know about your parents….  I ran into Gray a couple years ago and he told me that’s what happened.”  Lucy pushes away just enough to look up at the taller man. “Natsu I would have been there for you if you’d have let me, you didn’t have to do it all alone.”

“I know Luce…. We…”

A meek voice breaks through the din, “I-Is Ms. Lucy okay?”

“Oh my!” Lucy pushes away and drops to her knees beside the little girl, followed quickly by the elder brother.  Still wiping away the streaks of salty liquid, Lucy takes the child’s hand, “I’m so sorry you had to see that Wendy.  I’m okay really, I am I promise.  We,” glancing to Natsu who nods, “we went to high school together and haven’t seen each other in a long time.”

The poor child’s face is still sullen and full of worry.  “Are you, are you mad at my brother Ms. Lucy?  Did my brother hurt you?”

“He…”

Natsu put his hand on Lucy’s shoulder, cutting off her response.  Turning to his little sister, “I did, a long time ago when you were still very young, I made Lucy very, very sad.”

“But he didn’t mean to sweetie,” Lucy chimes in trying to comfort the child, “your brother was going through a lot of things and it just happened.”

“So, you really aren’t mad at my brother?”

“No, I’m not,” the woman smiles.  “I rather like your brother a lot.”  Lucy feels the warmth tingling in her cheeks but does her best not to show it.  “He’s, you know like how we learned about the bad guys and the good guys in class?”  The child nods.  “Your brother is one of the good guys.”

That brings a delighted smile back to Wendy’s face.  “I think so too!  He takes really good care of me after mommy and daddy died.”  

“I’m sure he does,” Lucy smiles back.

“Wendy, honey,” Natsu steps in handing out some change to the girl, “would you like to go make some wishes while I finish talking to Ms. Lucy?”  The child looks to her teacher, then back to her brother nodding, taking the change and skipping off to the wishing well.  “What’s the odds that she’d end up in your class?” turning to the girl still crouched, Natsu helps Lucy to her feet, “or running into each other at the mall’s wishing well?”

Lucy shakes her head rather than respond.  Magnolia wasn’t a large city, it was bound to happen sooner or later so there was no point in making it out to be anything more than mere coincidence.  “I-I sh-should probably go so you can get back to Wendy.” Lucy turns away.  “I must look like a mess right now…”  

“You are still just as beautiful as the last time I saw you.”

The blonde stiffens. His words…. His tone… sends an electric shock through her frame.  Tingling along her skin when his hand comes to rest on her shoulder and the heat radiating from his body infringing upon her space.  

“I’m such an idiot for letting you go once.  You must be settled down by now with someone….”

She shakes her head, refusing to turn around, and answering in a soft tone, “there hasn’t really been anyone since you.  No one’s ever treated me…. the way you used to treated me…”

One hand on her shoulder turns into two around her waist.  “I don’t expect you to forgive me Luce, but if it’s any consolation, I still love you, maybe even more now, knowing how much Wendy adores you too.”  Lucy squeezes her eyes shut, willing back the tears again. “Would you give me a second chance?”

“Please say Yes!”  The young man and woman’s heads whip around to see a beaming Wendy practically bouncing.  “Please say yes Ms. Lucy!”

Natsu let go of Lucy’s waist, turning her to face him.  “Well, Ms. Lucy?”  A large grin growing on his face with the thought of buying his sister that new dress she’s been fawning over.  “You wouldn’t want to make your student sad, would you?”

“Gah, you really haven’t changed,” she punches his arm, playfully with a smirk.  “Lucky you,” grabbing his shirt, “I still love that goofier side,” and pulling him down for a kiss….  

[actuallyadhd]

In my country we’re expected to live with our parents until we get married or work/study far away. My parents think you should never see a psychiatrist except in extreme cases and never believed me when I said that I can’t do things others could, saying I’m just spoiled. Now that I work I’m seeing one in secret, and recently got diagnosed with ADD and depression. I have to lie and say I’m taking a course. I want them to know! But they might take it as an insult or just not believe me. It hurts.

Sent January 23, 2019

I can imagine how  much that hurts. Any time we have to hide a part of ourselves from people we love, things can get awkward and difficult.

I don’t know what your relationship is like with your parents otherwise, but if it’s generally a good one, you could try bringing it up again. You could talk to both of them together or start with the one you have the better relationship with. Choose a time when everyone is relaxed, and just tell them how things are inside your head and how desperate you felt when you started seeing a psychiatrist finally. Explain to them that you didn’t do this because you don’t respect them, but because you really needed to find out what was going on so you could get the right help. Then you can tell them that you’ve been diagnosed and you’re getting treatment, and talk about how much better your life is now.

The important part of that discussion is that you avoid blaming them for not helping you sooner. They may feel guilty for not doing so, and that may cause them to lash out at you. I want you to know that it is not your fault if they feel guilty about this; it is a common response of parents whose children aren’t diagnosed until adolescence or adulthood.

-J

[thesaltoforion]

As the Story Goes...

[Part 1]

The name of my home country and town have blurred from my memory. I don't remember where I came from, only how I got here. My parents, who were wealthy estate owners, decided to send me to boarding school. I learned many things. Arithmetic, philosophy, how to love, how to hate and how to get what I wanted. I saw the way the headmaster prowled the campus halls, a sharp eye on the lookout. I noticed the way he shriveled under the shadow of our superintendent.

I wanted to be the man to put all men in the shadows.

I worked harder, spent less time getting in trouble and more time kissing up to professors. In my tenth year, I caught the eye of my chemistry professor. In my eleventh year, he set me up for an apprenticeship with a colleague of his (who's name escapes me). It would be my last summer before university. I was the youngest ever to graduate from my school.

It was my last day as an apprentice. Before leaving, I cleared and sealed the lab for the last time. I would receive my wages next week, in a pristine white envelope. Just like every week. I walked home, thinking about my early exceptance to the univeristy. I was to begin my studies in the following three days.

I glanced over my shoulder several times, thinking somehting followed me. Just my shadow, cast long under the setting sun.

My first year passed easily and I landed another research opportunity over the summer. It seemed I had a shot at graduating top of my class. But that wouldn't be for three years.

I was writing to the university one evening, to confirm my attendance in September. I paused, wondering if I should put in a request for a dormitory. I took a bite out of my cold stew and stared into my spoon. My warped face blinked back at me.

"You should send that request." Said my reflection. I dropped the spoon, startled. Droplets of stew landed on the table. I looked around and found nobody.

"Starshine, don't be like that." The same voice again, deep and slightly raspy, but right by my ear. I cupped my hands around the sides of my head.

"Just administering advice. No need for fear." It sat in my head. Slowly I lowered my hands.

"Who are you?" I demanded quietly.

"Only a messenger for the Gods. They sent me to help you."

"A bit invasive, aren't you? Coming into my house uninvited, sneaking around in my head. I don't need your help."

"I heard you wanted to be somehting, maybe rule the world. A boy like you, who has everything by anyone's standards. But for you, it's the wrong kind of everything. I know that feeling. You want the world on a platter, the will of others in your palms. I can get you there."

"What? No, I don't want to control people. I just want to change a few things." I moved past my silly ambitions. I wanted to be prominent in the academic world. Things got done when people saw your intelligence, or so I thought at the time. The voice, the messenger, he promised he could help me.

"I don't need your help."

He chuckled, "Oh Starshine, you'll see soon enough."

I quit two weeks into my opportunity and wrote again to the univeristy. I requested a dorm and a program change into economics and math. The future was in stock exchange, I realized too late. They got back to me two weeks later with a room key and list of prerequisites I needed to take. It bumped me to a five year period rather than four years.

It erased the year I gained on my peers when I graduated early.

"Take extra classes." The messenger said. He did that from time to time, said things when he thought I was in trouble. I ignored him usually. But he had a point this time. I thought, why not? I could handle extra classes.

Two months into the semester, I sat at my desk, third coffee near by, regretting my decision.

"Somehting the matter Starshine?"

"I have two midterms tomorrow, one of which I'm completely unprepared for. I don't even want to talk about the multitude of other things I haven't done yet."

"Relax, Starshine. Just let me in, let me help. Let all your problems melt in my hands."

"Who are you, really?"

"A messenger from-"

"The Gods. Ok, sure. But last I checked Gods didn't bother themselves with mortal lives."

"Maybe not. But their messengers do. You're destined for great things."

"Why me? Lots of other people are destined for great things. Why not, say, the man to be the next president?"

"Because their path is already written."

"And mine isn't?"

"Not in the way you would like. Ultimately, you end up taking after your father and falling into debt. Do you think you deserve such a thing?"

"Of course not!"

"Neither do I. And that isn't going to happen to you. Why did you decide to change your program?"

"I read a few articles from the library and went from there."

"Articles I helped you find."

"I found those on my own..."

"Really Starshine? Why on earth would you decide to go down to the library specifically for articles on future economies?"

"It's completely within my character!"

"I sent you there."

"But you didn't say anything."

"I don't have to."

For the first time I could remember, I felt terrified.

"You're controlling me, then? Is that it? All this stuff I accomplished, I didn't do that? That was all you?"

"Starshine, no." He sighed, "I just put the idea in your head. Your unconscious picked it up and passed it up to your higher level thinking. You still had to process the idea and decide to act upon it."

"Today it's library articles, tomorrow it's arson." I took another sip of coffee. Contemplating a visit to a psychiatrist.

"I'd never make you do anything you didn't want to do. I don't have that power. And if you went to a psychiatrist, I'm telling you now, they'd lock you up in a ward and not even I could get you out."

I sighed.

"Starshine, please. I can help you. You'll finish in four years on your own but not the way you'd like. With me, you could finish in three with the best grades anyone's seen."

"Fine. How do I fix this?" I was tired, panicked and desperate. What else could I say?

"Go to sleep."

"But I need to study!"

"No you need to sleep. Otherwise your test papers might become your new pillow. If you're going to ask for my help, you're going to have to trust me."

I got up and switched the lamp off. "I better ace that midterm." I grumbled as I fell into bed.

"You will, don't worry."

[placesthatchangedpeople]

A former resident about Eating Recovery Center

Hi! I'm new here. I've procrastinated for ages wrt joining reddit because I generally don't like it very much, but some communities speak to me. This is one of them.

The place I was sent to wasn't as bad as some of what I see here, I think because it was (purportedly) single-issue, rather than "treating" all kinds of teen trouble. They were hand in hand with wilderness camps and boarding schools, though. Their marketing directors - the people who gussy up the website and advertise their 97% parent satisfaction rate - were trained by, and have past experience at, CRC Health. They run Aspen education programs, and a whole bunch of other ones. They regularly sent kids off to wilderness camps or schools after they finished with ERC. It was like the "next step".

The place that I was was called Eating Recovery Center (ERC) and it's located in Denver, CO, although they have off-shoot locations in Texas, California, and more. They do have an adult treatment center as well, but I believe it is less abusive.

The child and adolescent inpatient and residential facility is awful, but incredibly popular. They've spread to something like ten states, luring families in with their garbage website. The whole thing is written like "Parents, you're so stressed, and it's because your child is a Gigantic Problem. We know how hard it is to have horrible kids. Please, send them to us, and we'll rehabilitate them while you get to relax and connect with the fun parts of life, which you haven't been able to do with your lil problem child over here." It's marketing genius. Whenever a kid says "hey, this is abusive", not only do they say that the kid is a dirty liar who just wants to leave, they actually say that this is proof that it's working. Like, "Your child has been taken prisoner by their Evil Disorder. As we cure your child from the Disorder, the Disorder gets scared and lashes out. Your true child is waiting underneath, and they're very excited to be healing. The more that your child fights our program, the closer to recovery they are. Claiming that we are abusive is, in fact, a sign of recovery." That's a summary, but you get the gist. It's like a god damned exorcism.

I was a patient there in 2013, in September. I wasn't there for long, because I made a fuss about their abuse, and I was 18 and they knew they couldn't fully shut me up, so they transferred me to a lower level of care. They did, however, convince my parents (who, to their credit, were just desperate and didn't want me to die; they've since acknowledged that they fucked up) that if I signed myself out of treatment, I should not be allowed home, and should be left to live on the street. The idea, I think, was that this would "shock" me into getting better. Yet they (the RTC staff) also told me that they didn't care if I was any better when I left so long as I followed their rules in the meantime. But, details. So.

They were emotionally and psychologically abusive, as well as neglectful and I'd say perhaps physically. Psychiatrically, too. The shittiest thing they did, in my opinion, was lock my twelve year old friend in isolation for 14 hours as punishment for exercising (I do not know how much she'd been exercising, but since this place considers standing up from a seated position to be 'excessive movement', it was probably nothing - standing up without permission was considered an infraction). She wasn't allowed so much as access to a bathroom, and wound up defecating on herself. Staff didn't see this as a problem. They told her it was her fault, and that she needed to make better choices.

The threat of isolation as a punishment for ignoring behavior warnings (three "redirections" and you're punished) was always there, and this room was called the "quiet room", if I remember correctly. During my stay there, there was one patient who was eleven years old and had some sort of developmental disability, and they kept him in isolation for what I think was days. I remember that he regularly wound up in there and that we could often hear him crying and screaming. How therapeutic /s

Patients were given NG (nasal gastric) tubes if they refused a meal. I had an NG tube put in, which didn't bother me very much, but it made my nose run like no other and made it really hard to swallow solid food. It wouldn't stop dripping during nighttime snack, but we weren't allowed Kleenex or napkins. I asked a staff member for a napkin due to literally not being able to stop the deluge of snot from my nostrils, right, and she kept refusing and said she wouldn't help me until I finished my snack. I kept asking and eventually, she gave me a really bitchy look and threw the napkins at my face. This isn't particularly abusive, I think, because napkins don't hurt, but that's just not the kind of behavior that should be shown by somebody working in a treatment facility. The staff would regularly scream at kids who didn't finish snacks or meals.

I, along with several of the kids, regularly didn't finish meals. And by regularly, I mean over the course of my first day or two, so not much of a precident, imo. This issue was brought up after dinner, when the group gathered for a post-meal check-in. Patients were encouraged to name the patients who were not finishing meals, explain how said patient was bothersome to them, and then the staff would shame the patients who were named, and ask the other patients to help come up with an appropriate "response" (punishment). The staff decided that we should be made to sit at a separate table, in a separate room, during meal times, and not be permitted to speak to each other, nor communicate in any other way. If we made prolonged eye contact or started giggling, we were reprimanded. Talking at meal times was one of the ways that patients coped with having to eat large meals, and it kept morale up, and they took it away as a punishment. It certainly doesn't make anyone eat better. When we had downtime, we were closely monitored so that we never discussed our grievances re: the program, with each other. We managed to anyway, by whispering and speaking as quickly as possible, by writing notes which we then had to dispose of (since they went through all of our belongings and journals, and withheld these things whenever they arbitrarily deemed them inappropriate - my journal was confiscated because I wasn't displaying the proper mindset). But staff were always looming, and it was stressful.

I don't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure that I wasn't allowed contact with my parents for the first three days of my stay. I could be conflating it with some other hospital or center, but I don't think so. All parents of patients were encouraged to stay in the Denver area for as long as possible, and my parents rented a condo (while also forking out some $30,000 per month) and came in for family therapy a couple of times a week. Family therapy consisted of my "therapist" (she was licensed, but I've no clue how) encouraging my parents to complain about me, and when I said that I didn't like something my parents had done, she just said, "well, I don't think they're doing that. That's not what I see at all. Maybe you should change your behavior/perception/etc." She gave me these ridiculous assignments a few times each week, and I never completed them, because they were stupid and I was on Mission: Get Myself Kicked Out of Here, but I found the way she handled this to be a red flag. She was /so/ disappointed that I hadn't done the assignments, and looked at me all sad, and said "[name], that hurts me. It hurts me when you ignore these things that I've worked so hard on for you. I want to help you. This is hurtful, can you see that?" The fact that she was so manipulative without a single qualm really worries me, because the majority of the patients were younger and less defiant than I was, and bought into all of the brainwashing and manipulation that these people touted.

The majority of them came from abusive homes, but the RTC's whole philosophy is that mental illness treatment has been centered on parental flaws for too long, that parents are perfect, and that kids are bitchy little problems for no good reason. This is a tempting philosophy both for parents like mine who aren't abusive and don't want to be told that they are, and for abusive parents who want to be validated and excused.

Everyone there was deprived of sleep (I used to fall asleep on the concrete floors), water (only one cup with meals), and the right to use the bathroom when we needed to. Staff actually bragged about having had patients pee on the floor before, like this was some kind of accomplishment, not letting children pee.

The psychiatrists would keep children on medications that the children complained about, things that didn't help, and I was personally fine with my meds but I had friends who were being kept on awful medications. They eventually just started doing that thing where they move the pills to that little pocket between their teeth and cheek, swallow the water, pass the "swallowed pills" check, and then spit them out.

Somehow, at one point, the staff got it into their heads that I wasn't changing my underwear every day. I have no clue how this happened, but they implemented a policy where I had to show them my clothes each day so that they could "make sure" I was changing all of them. Like, what? That doesn't even make sense to me, because wtf, but it was just really degrading. This might be slightly TMI, but when I was on my period (and I have endometriosis, so it's really heavy and makes me nearly pass out/vomit when I'm not on 'round the clock birth control), they still wouldn't let me use the bathroom except on Their Schedule. I had to beg to be allowed to use it, and they got so mad at me. Like, sorry? I can't actually do anything about this?? That was really degrading too. As if I wanted to tell a whole bunch of hostile, abusive near-strangers that I'd bled through my clothes again, damn.

I don't remember ever having a phone call. I saw my parents on weekends for an hour, but there wasn't much communication. When they kicked me out of residential and put me in partial hospitalization (a ten-hour-a-day every day outpatient program in a nearby building, also run by them - it was a "step down" thing), they told my parents to never let me have my cell phone for longer than thirty minutes, and to watch me (and its screen) the entire time I had it. To go through all of my electronics and journals to make sure I was Doing It Right. They told my parents that withholding everything I enjoy until I recovered was completely reasonable, and that it was okay (even good) to kick me out on to the street if I was noncompliant. Hilariously, I'd nearly been sold into sex trafficking not two months before I went to ERC, when I was 17, and I'm like, y'all, if you'd kicked me out I'm absolutely sure I would have been trafficked for real. Like, damn, talk about a bad idea. The whole reason I developed the eating disorder, self harm, suicidal behavior etc was because I was sexually abused as a kid, but we weren't ever allowed to discuss anything of any real import in therapy groups, and anyway, I was just A Problem Child, not traumatized /s

To this day, I still can't handle the word "manipulative". I use it very occasionally myself, but for the most part, seeing it used to describe anyone just makes me bristle. Even genuinely manipulative people. I just can't handle it. I was branded as manipulative so many times just for hurting and wanting real help.

I know that most other patients there went through worse things than I did, but I don't know the extent at all. It seemed like the younger the kid, the worse the abuse. Some of the young kids were able to quickly adapt and become The Perfect Patient, but those who didn't, got it bad.

I'm glad that I was relatively lucky (a three month stay, a somewhat less abusive center, being older). But all of these places just piss me off so much. The general public knows nothing about it. I've lurked on this subreddit before and finally decided to bite the bullet and post on it. I know my RTC experience wasn't anywhere close to as bad as it gets, but it still screwed me up for a long time. Luckily, I'm 100% mentally healthy and happy these days, but it took a lot of work and was only ever made worse by ERC and abusive therapists like them.

[andthenhewentonliving]

Only read if you want to experience the wild ride I have been through today (or a portion of it) regarding my mother 

I found some emails from my mom this morning (well yesterday morning cause it’s after midnight but anyways) and there were several emails to my dad about this plan she contrived to trick me into hospitalizing myself. My ex fiance and brother and psychiatrist were all involved (although the psych ended up doing her job??????? she didn’t threaten to 10-13 me like my mom had asked her to in hopes that it would get me to go voluntarily and when my parents called her after the appointment she called me and asked if she could talk to them and I said no and that was the end of that). But my mom had planned it out for my ex fiance to literally steal my car so I couldn’t drive away and “escape” as my mom put it and my dad had turned off my phone (I remember my phone not working that day and it being weird but thought nothing of it) so I couldn’t call anyone else and my parents literally lied about the reason they were coming up to Statesboro literally so they could try to commit me because they think I’m delusional and crazy for coming out as a lesbian. Especially after, it turns out, my ex fiance lied his ass off about a bunch of shit that I supposedly did (but didn’t actually do) and so my mom now thinks I have a horrible substance abuse issue and then she turned around and fucking lied to like my entire family, family friends, SIBLINGS, and my godmother about what’s really going on which is that she’s upset that I’m gay and doesn’t want to have a gay child. And she wrote some really awful stuff about my girlfriend, too, and I just cannot get over how fucking angry this whole thing makes me. 

I was at my parents��� when I found them (obvs) and took pictures of a bunch of them, sent my mom an email from her own email (which she hasn’t seen yet clearly and the tense feeling I have before she sees it and everything explodes is going to make me scream) about how I had found them and was very upset and leaving and to not expect me for Christmas. Everyone else was at school cause both of my parents are educators and the three siblings still at home of course have school and what not. I had planned on staying until that night but I never want to set foot there again. Mostly, I never want to see my mom again. I never want to speak to her again; I never want to touch her or be near her again. Like I knew that me coming out was really hard for her and was willing to give her some time to let her just adjust and come to terms with it, but this was too far. My mom has not always been a great mom (especially once my teen years hit) and things just keep going downhill and now here we are. 

How do you admit that you don’t love your mom? 

I know I’m just angry and very, very hurt and need to give myself time for this to cool down. I’m honestly absolutely terrified that she’s going to do something like call the cops on me or call my job or something I just have no idea. I never thought she would do something crazy like that until I literally found the emails about her planning this very in depth “kidnapping” of sorts, as she put it and now there’s no telling what she might do. My dad must not have been totally on board with it because she told him in one of these emails (they must have talked about it in person and then solidified some of the details over email) that “It’s like planning a kidnapping...except it isn’t a kidnapping. We’re trying to save her life. Just tell yourself that.” okay what the fuck??? I’m literally just gay. And also it makes me super mad that the implication here is that my dad wasn’t on board with this and still went along with it because he does literally whatever my mom says. 

I’ve been thinking about this whole situation all day and I’m so angry and so terrified. I know that me revealing to my mom that I was snooping is going to start a whole cascade of issues. I know I’m not going to be able to see or talk to my siblings for a long time. It’s not that I don’t care. I do. I just could not continue to be a part of my mom’s life knowing that she not only thinks of me this way and literally schemed to try to get me put in the hospital for all the wrong reasons (I was not a danger to myself or anyone else and my meds did not need readjusting so dire that a hospital visit was necessary) but also my mom fucking said an incredible amount of awful shit about my girlfriend and that shit makes me seethe. My girlfriend has literally done nothing to anyone, they don’t know her and have never met her, and are literally basing all of these ludicrous assumptions about her based on lies and assumptions my ex fiance said and made about her. It all makes me want to just change my legal name and disappear from my family forever and become untraceable by them so that me and my girlfriend never have to worry about them again. Like some of the stuff my mom said was so absurd and just blatantly inaccurate that it was funny (like my mom in one of her emails mentioned something about her wearing a pink pantsuit that made her look like she was from the 70s but my girlfriend doesn’t even own a pink pantsuit??? although if she didn’t want one before, she definitely wants one now lmao we think that the pantsuit in question was my girlfriend’s red one but red and pink are not at all the same color and this particular pant suit is bright fucking red like there’s no way you could mistake it for pink in a million years). And then other stuff my mom said was literal garbage and just really shitty human being content. 

Ugh I’m so tired I’m going to bed 

[qqueenofhades]

the tangled web of fate we weave: vi

shh, this is very therapeutic.

part v/AO3.

Lucy gets through the next several weeks mostly on autopilot. There’s spring break in there somewhere, but she doesn’t really notice, since she spends it working anyway. Her dissertation is inching toward the final finish line, though she still has to write a conclusion, put together her bibliography (which will be an absolutely torturous process of going through the whole thing and copy-pasting every footnote – why hasn’t someone invented a better way to do this yet?) and add her acknowledgments: places she went for trips, foundations who gave her scholarship money, people she’s collaborated with, that kind of thing. Most of it is straightforward, but when Lucy gets to the personal section, where people thank their parents, significant others, grade school teachers, supervisors, etc., she stares at the screen until it goes out of focus. Ordinarily she’d write, Thanks for everything, Mom and Dad, no problem at all, but how can she do that now? Thanks for everything, Mom and Henry Wallace, except for never telling me who my biological father was? Thanks for everything, Mom, but Benjamin Cahill, why?

Lucy leaves that part undone, just adds Amy for now, and finally pushes back her chair and lets out a hoarse war cry of victory, punching the air with both fists and startling the nearby students. She emails it to her supervisor, Dr. Kate Underwood, with the triumphant subject line FIRST COMPLETE DRAFT!!!!, then cleans out her carrel with something probably akin to what a new mother feels, when they finally hand her the baby after the sweat and strife of labor. Not that Lucy’s interested in kids, at least for a while, but still.

She sleeps like the dead for the entire weekend (her neighbors are actually still being quiet, and she certainly isn’t going to tell them that she’s probably never going to see Flynn again) then gets up and goes off to her final review meeting with Dr. Underwood on Monday. Most of the changes she suggests are small, though there’s one part of the last chapter that she pushes Lucy to do a little more with. Nothing outside her usual corrections, but since that was the chapter Lucy was dramatically interrupted from writing with the Weekend of Total Insanity, it triggers something in her. In one of the more embarrassing moments of her life, she bursts into tears in Dr. Underwood’s sunny office, as her supervisor looks bewildered, gingerly hands her Kleenex, and finally asks if everything is all right.

Lucy figures that last-minute nervous breakdowns are far from uncommon for PhD students just about to submit, and there’s a ready-made way to play this off as just that, which she more or less does. There are student counseling services that she could probably make an appointment with, though they’re busy enough at crunch time that it would be another few weeks until anyone saw her. And she just can’t picture sitting across from some graduate-student psychiatrist-in-training and actually making sense of this. Has the usual feeling that she doesn’t need to burden people with her first-world problems – “starving kids in Africa syndrome,” one of her friends called it. This is a little more than ordinary, perhaps, but still.

Having promised that she will have the changes in by next Monday, Lucy confirms the date for her oral examination, six weeks from now, and realizes that she has no idea what she will be doing for that time, aside from sleeping and bingeing on TV shows. Her work is done, she has class to finish teaching but only two days a week, and her schedule gapes perilously wide open. She isn’t good at sitting around and doing nothing; can manage maybe a week or two, then she starts feeling that she needs to be productive. Another gift from her mother. She never let Lucy just veg out during the summer as a kid. She had to be doing an extracurricular, or preparing for a AP exam, or off at Young Achievers Camp, which is exactly as nerdy as it sounds. She’s not sure she even knows how to rest.

Once Dr. Underwood has sent her off with advice to get some sleep and feel proud of her accomplishment, Lucy staggers out into the world beyond Stanford like Rip Van Winkle. It’s a nice day, warm and summery and almost difficult to remember that that whole ridiculous seventy-two hours ever happened, and she pauses. Then on a sudden impulse, she digs out her phone and scrolls through her contacts. Hits call, and waits.

Wyatt Logan picks up on the last ring, sounding slightly breathless. “Hello? Lucy?”

“Hi. I’m sorry, is it a bad time?”

“No, it’s fine. What’s up? Are you all right?”

“I. . . yeah, I am. I just. . . finished my dissertation, actually. And I thought if you were in San Francisco, maybe we could meet up and grab a coffee, or. . . or something?” Her heart flutters in her throat. “Just, you know, to catch up?”

There’s a slightly awkward pause. Then Wyatt says, “I’m, uh, I’m back in San Diego, I’m based out of Pendleton. And I promised my wife we’d go to the beach today, or whatever.”

“Your w – ” Lucy can feel her cheeks turning the color of a fire engine. “Oh my God, I didn’t – I really wasn’t – of course. No, no, of course. I’m sure you’ll have a great time.”

“Yeah.” Wyatt coughs. “Congratulations on finishing your dissertation, that’s an amazing accomplishment. Nothing else weird has happened recently?”

“Not that I’ve noticed. Maybe they’ve given it up.” Lucy knows this is too easy, but she wants to think so. Likewise, she both does and doesn’t want to ask. “Have you heard from Flynn?”

Wyatt hesitates. “No. I called back to the hospital a week later, they said they let him out, but I have no idea where he went. Probably off the grid. I would, if I was him. There’s an APB out, anyone who sees him is supposed to call it in. Whoever Rittenhouse is, they’re still very, very pissed.”

Lucy struggles to take this in. On the one hand, it’s good news, of a sort, that Flynn somewhat recovered and was released from the hospital, but was this because he was ready to roll again, or because he didn’t want to take the risk of lying there waiting for his enemies to show up? There are a nearly unlimited number of ways that they can kill him in a hospital and make it look like an accident, after all. If he is officially persona non grata for a lot of powerful and high-ranking people, and he’s hurt, that doesn’t sound like a good combination. Maybe he’s fled the country, gone up and crossed into British Columbia and hidden out somewhere in the Canadian Rockies. Lucy reminds herself that either way, she shouldn’t care. Whatever the hell his actual feelings on her might be, he made himself clear.

“Thanks,” she says, after a too-long pause. “Let me know if. . . well, whatever happens, all right?”

“Do my best. Congrats again on the dissertation.” Wyatt clears his throat. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Lucy echoes, cheeks still hot, and hangs up rather quickly. Well, that was a disaster. She should have known that the only guy she’s even attempted to ask out recently was unavailable, though there’s a cute-ish geek with glasses who smiles at her whenever he sees her in the coffee line. Lucy thinks his name is Alan. But not even for the principle of the thing can she really work up any desire for a closer approach. After a final moment, she fishes her keys out of her purse, heads to her car, and tries to decide if 280 or 101 will be more congested at this time of day. She ends up taking the latter, despite the unpleasant associations of recent escapades on it, up to Amy’s apartment in South San Francisco.

Lucy turns into the complex, parks, and heads up the steps to Amy’s place. She rents it with two of her friends, one of whom is named Sage Tranquility and the other of whom is usually getting arrested at protests. There’s plenty of room at the Preston house in Mountain View, it’s not like Amy had to move out, but she’s always butted heads with their mother far more than Lucy has. Said that she would rather live in a shitty apartment, away from Carol’s domineering and constant questioning about why she’s doing this sociology degree and wasting her potential, and build something that was hers. Lucy doesn’t know how much she should tell Amy, but she is the only person she feels like confiding to.

Amy opens the door a few moments after Lucy’s knock, her headphones around her neck still emitting the echoes of her music, but she pauses it at the sight of her sister. “Hey, you. What are you doing here? Aren’t you still working on your dissertation?”

“No, I just finished it. Just. Hey, are you doing anything right now?”

“No. Come in.” Amy frowns. “You don’t seem super jubilant, Luce.”

“I. . . have a lot on my mind.” Lucy blows out a breath. “I’d kind of like to talk.”

Amy agrees, gestures her in, and goes to fetch some cookies from the kitchen, before they got to the secondhand futon, Amy sits down, and beckons Lucy to put her head in her lap. “Okay,” she says. “So talk.”

As Amy gives her a head rub, which feels heavenly, Lucy closes her eyes, tries to find somewhere to start, and can’t think of any way to do this delicately. She teeters and stumbles at the edge, then finally comes clean about Flynn, about Rittenhouse, about Benjamin Cahill, about Wyatt, about everything. That it turns out they’re only half-sisters, that Carol has lied to them – to her – her entire life. That her real father is Corporate Darth Vader, and all of this. . . all of this. . . she’s slowly losing her mind, and has just squashed it down and put it away to concentrate on finishing. Now that’s done, and she’s. . . here.

Amy stays quiet as Lucy talks, until she finally chokes up and can’t finish. Then she grips Lucy’s shoulder hard and says fiercely, “We’re sisters, all right? We’re sisters. I don’t care what Mom did or did not tell you, it doesn’t change anything. We’re just the same as we’ve always been, and nothing is ever going to take that away from us.”

“Thanks.” Lucy’s voice remains stuck in her throat. “I just. . . this has been a lot.”

“Shyeah.” Amy reaches over her for a cookie, breaks off a bite, and dangles it above Lucy’s mouth like a zookeeper feeding the seals. Lucy manages a weak laugh and snaps it up, as a sigh shudders through her from head to heel. They remain in silence for several more moments, until Amy says, “So, this Flynn guy. You have feelings of some kind for him, but he’s a complete emotional disaster, not to mention possibly on the run from the feds for God knows what or where or why. Accurate?”

“I don’t – ” Lucy opens and shuts her mouth. “I wouldn’t say I have feelings feelings for him, he’s – I don’t really – ”

Amy raises one eyebrow. “Now who’s being the emotional disaster?”

Lucy feels as if this is rather unfair – she’s here sharing her problems and trying to work through them like a grownup, even if, yes, she did repress them for several weeks beforehand and hope they would go away. “I’m not the one who set my phone passcode as the day he saved my life, then told me not to fool myself that he wanted to see me again and basically vanished off the face of the earth!”

“Fair.” Amy considers this. “But you do feel something.”

“He saved my life. Twice. He did endanger it the second time, but. . .” Lucy stops. “Maybe there was something between us, or I believed a little too hard in fate or design or whatever. I could have been imagining it, but. . .”

“But you don’t think you were,” Amy completes. “He just blew it. Super hard. Complete buffoonery.”

Lucy snorts. “Remind me why I bother with men again?”

“You could always date another lady,” Amy points out. “I liked Carine.”

Strictly speaking, this is true, and does have a certain appeal after the recent overabundance of testosterone in Lucy’s life. But she dated Carine Leclerc, a journalism student from Montreal, for eight months in her senior year, and while Carine was making noises about looking for jobs in California after she graduated, it stalled over the fact that Lucy never got around to introducing her to Carol. It wasn’t exactly a secret – Amy knew, her friends knew, they went to a pride parade, there were pictures – but Lucy never talked about it directly with her mom. It wasn’t the queer thing, exactly. Just that whenever Carol discussed Lucy’s future, it always seemed to involve a husband and kids. Not because of any awe or reverence for the patriarchy – Carol gave both her daughters her own surname, rather than, apparently, either of their fathers’, and was a women’s studies professor for many years – but, well. It just did. And while you can obviously have a family by non-traditional methods – adoption, fostering, surrogacy, whatever – Lucy somehow didn’t get the impression that was what her mom had in mind. The kids just seem to be part of it. It’s why, although she’s not really had any enthusiasm for the idea now, she’s subconsciously penciled it in for five or eight years in the future, once she’s presumably met Mr. Right. Lucy has all kinds of arguments with herself over whether that makes her a bad feminist. But because it’s what her mom wants –

“Oh, God,” Lucy says hoarsely. She raises both hands to her face, then drops them. “You’re right. I really have let Mom dictate my life, haven’t I?”

The expression on Amy’s face clearly says, no duh, although she charitably refrains from uttering it aloud. Instead she says, “I still think you should have followed through on that band thing. At least it would have shown her that you can stand up to her.”

“I – no, that was definitely a bad idea, I’m glad I didn’t.” Lucy is still Lucy, and thus cannot believe that she ever treated the prospect of her education so frivolously. “But maybe if I went over there now and confronted her about Cahill – ”

“You’re sure that’s a good idea?”

“What? You’re always the one telling me to push back against her more!”

“Yeah, I know.” Amy chews on a thumbnail. “But this is more than about just that, isn’t it? From what you said about Cahill, it sounds like he’s mixed up in some pretty skeevy shit. I give Mom a hard time a lot, but maybe she did have a good reason for separating us from all that. Are you sure you want to know?”

“If they come back, I should at least know the truth.” Lucy rubs at her tired eyes with her fingertips. “I’d like to think they just gave up, but I’m not sure. Maybe if I tell her that I know, it might help clear the air.”

Amy gives her a probing look. “And are you going to tell her about Flynn?”

That catches Lucy short. She wants to say that she will, that if she’s demanding or even requesting honesty from her mother, she should be prepared to return the favor. But something – she doesn’t even know what, not quite what it was with Carine – gives her pause. “Why would I?” she says feebly. “It’s not like anything actually happened.”

“Aside from him turning up and you two going on a three-day joyride that ended with him getting shot and telling you to go piss up a rope.” Amy’s tone is more or less lighthearted, but her expression is serious. “That’s definitely something that happened.”

Lucy opens her mouth, then shuts it. She reaches for the last cookie and eats it, partly to give herself an excuse not to talk, then brushes off the crumbs and gets to her feet. “Well, if I am heading over there today, I should get going before the traffic gets too bad. I should at least tell her that I finished.”

“Because you’re hoping she’ll finally tell you that she’s proud of you?” Amy glances up at her. “You know you did a good job even if she can’t choke it out, right?”

“Of course I know.” Lucy manages a smile, picking up her purse. “See you later, Ames.”

Her baby sister hugs her, not without a final look, and Lucy lets herself out, heading to the parking lot and getting into her car. She drives down to the Preston family home in Mountain View, the attractive four-bedroom ranch house on an affluent, leafy street where Lucy grew up. Worth a tidy chunk of change if Carol decided to downsize, since it’s currently just her living there, but she has held onto it. Not good at letting go of things, Carol Preston. It is only in the last few days that Lucy has realized just how much, and it saddens her.

A light is on in the kitchen as Lucy parks by the curb and gets out. She heads up the front steps, noting that the plants could use some watering; it’s not like her mother to let things droop, or look anything less than perfect, daughters or azaleas alike. This is her house as much as anyone’s, and yet Lucy stands there for a long moment, feeling as unwelcome as a door-to-door salesman or friendly local Jehovah’s Witness. It feels as if she finally got here the way she was intending to do seven years ago – before the accident, before nearly dying, before Flynn, before Flynn’s reappearance, before Benjamin Cahill and Rittenhouse, before everything that’s brought her back. She tries to rehearse words in her head, questions, justifications. Nothing really occurs to her.

Lucy swallows hard, and rings the bell.

It takes a bit before she hears footsteps, and then Carol Preston opens the door. She looks down at her eldest daughter in surprise, or perhaps confusion. Something about her seems as off, less than pristine, as the drying flowers, and her makeup is slightly smeared, though Lucy can’t imagine her mother actually crying. “Lucy,” Carol says. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’ve been finishing my dissertation.” Lucy twists her fingers together anxiously. “I – I did finish, by the way. Just today. Dr. Underwood gave me her final changes, Dr. Gardener in anthropology still has to look it over as well, but he’s at a conference until Friday, so that will take a little longer. But – yeah, it’s done, I did it.”

“I see.” Carol considers, then steps back. “I think we should talk. Come in.”

Lucy follows her mother inside, wondering if Carol’s guessed somehow, if Cahill came by to creep on her as well or ask why she never told Lucy the truth, and feels absurdly guilty for causing more trouble. She almost starts to apologize, though with no idea what for, and a tiny, ridiculous part of her half-hopes that Flynn will be sitting in the kitchen, somewhat recovered if doubtless no more tactful, come by to ask Carol what she knows about Rittenhouse. Which seems like a bold move, given that he’s a wanted fugitive from the government, but reality doesn’t have much to do with Lucy’s thought process just now.

Nonetheless, it comes crashing back in in a cold, sobering wave when they step ins. There’s a piece of paper lying on the counter, and Lucy can’t see the wording, but it looks clinical. Hospital. Carol turns it over as Lucy tries to get a better look, then says, “Tea?”

“No, it’s all right, I was just over at – ” Lucy stops. “Mom, is… is everything…?”

“I went to get that cough checked out, like you wanted,” Carol says, after a slight pause. “And, well, the scan turned something up in one of my lungs. They’re going to run more tests, they can’t be sure, but there’s a possibility it’s malignant.”

She says this like the professor she’s been for thirty years, explaining a difficult fact with her usual classroom voice, and so it takes Lucy a moment to understand. Then she does, and it feels as if the world has gone out from under her feet. “M… malignant? As in cancer?”

“Yes.” Carol takes a deep breath. “I suppose it’s not entirely unexpected – your father was a heavy smoker, after all, and I never picked up the habit until I met him. I stopped when he died, of course, but if this does come back positive…”

Part of Lucy wants to inform Carol point-blank that she knows Henry Wallace isn’t her father and never was. The rest of her wonders how awful you have to be, to confront your mother about that when she’s just told you that she might have cancer. “I – I, I’m so sorry,” she stammers, once more as if this is her fault, has not gotten the right score on a test or has whined about never having summers off. “Mom, I’m sure it’s fine, but if – ”

“But if it’s not?” Carol looks at her levelly. “I know we’ve had a bit of distance recently, Lucy, but this is the sort of news to put things in perspective. Of course, there’s medicine, there’s chemotherapy, there’s options. We don’t know anything yet. But if the worst-case scenario does come to pass, I really want to make the most of whatever time I have with you. There’s still so much I need to teach you, to talk with you about.”

Yes, Lucy thinks, there is. But any urgent desire to force answers to all her questions has vanished in her flood of guilt and fear and concern. “Of course, Mom, of course. If there’s anything I can do – and I’m sure Amy too, we’d both be happy to – ”

“I’m not sure about Amy.” Carol sighs. “But if you have finished your dissertation, like you said, and therefore don’t need to be at campus every day… I’ve seen that apartment of yours, Lucy. It’s terrible. Is there any way you might consider moving back in? We would be closer here, we’d be together. It would be easier, and if I did get sick…”

“No, of course. Of course I’ll move back in. Absolutely, you don’t have to worry about that at all. My lease on campus runs through the end of the school year, but – ”

“I’ll pay your early termination fees.” Carol takes Lucy’s hand. “I really want us to be together again. Believe me.”

“Me too,” Lucy says in a rush. “But – if the test did come back clean – if you’re not really… well.” She can’t bring herself to utter the name aloud, speak of the devil and he will appear. “If you’re not… sick, do you… will you still want me back?”

“Why on earth wouldn’t I?” Carol looks hurt. “Do you think I only love you when you’re useful? You are my daughter, my eldest daughter. So much like me, my historian. You’re so bright and you’ve worked so hard. Of course I want you back.”

Lucy opens and shuts her mouth, then reaches out, and Carol wraps her arms around her, pulling her close, as Lucy rests her chin on her mother’s shoulder and has to struggle to blink back tears. And so, within ten minutes of going home with the intention of some final confrontation, some ultimatum or insistence on separating herself from Carol’s trunk, Lucy instead cleaves back in, root and branch, and promises that she will never bring it up again.

There really isn’t time to arrange a move – even a short-range one – between the last-minute rush of dissertation edits, job applications, and graduation plans, and Lucy’s apartment has a few pitiful half-full boxes sitting around, which she will toss things into when she remembers. She feels like a terrible daughter, which is not helped when Amy calls her up at the end of the week and wants to know what happened to telling Mom off. “You know how she is, Lucy! Even if – God forbid – she was actually sick, doesn’t this seem a little…?”

“A little what?” Lucy challenges. “Are you really going to accuse our mother of faking possible lung cancer just because she wants – I don’t know what, something?”

“I didn’t say she was faking,” Amy says reluctantly. “I’ve been worried about her health too. But Mom has a couple nest eggs, you know she does. If it got to the point that she needed a live-in helper, she could hire someone who actually knew what they were doing and would get properly paid for it. That’s not your job. You’re not that kind of doctor.”

“I know.” Lucy shifts the phone to her other shoulder. “But – look, I know what we talked about, I know what we said. I just don’t think this is the right time to bring it up.”

Amy doesn’t argue with her again, but Lucy can sense that she still isn’t pleased. And yet, all of that goes out the window when Carol calls them both and says they should come by, there’s something she needs to tell them. That doesn’t sound like the kind of invitation that ends with “and nothing’s wrong, the doctor said I’m fine,” and indeed, it doesn’t. The biopsy results came back. It’s cancer. Carol’s prognosis isn’t terrible – they caught it before it was already irreversible – but it’s not particularly great either. The words fifty-fifty chance are used. A lot will depend on how she responds to treatment.

Amy starts to cry – she and Mom have fought a lot, but they do still love each other – and Lucy puts an arm around her, feeling numb. It feels crass to ask for any graduation celebration, even if she’d like one. Suddenly, even applying for jobs is up in the air. Lucy doesn’t want to complain about being inconvenienced by her mother’s serious illness, but she was so ready to start her own life, do something else, stretch her wings, and now she’s back in the birdcage, throwing away the key. It just doesn’t seem (and she winces at the thought) fair.

Lucy finishes the rest of the revisions recommended by her second supervisor in a blur. At the last meeting before this three-hundred-page monster is sent off to the committee for reading and to the printing service for binding, Dr. Underwood mentions that she’s been in contact with the history department at Kenyon College in Ohio. Kenyon is a small liberal arts college, upper-tier and avant-garde, and while it would unfortunately mean living in Ohio, there is currently an opening in the faculty for a junior lecturer with almost exactly Lucy’s research specialty. Dr. Underwood has passed her name on, and the people at Kenyon would like to speak to her next week, if that works.

Lucy’s first reaction is delight and disbelief. Tailor-made opportunities for academic jobs at places where you would like to work, and that are looking for your research interests, are as rare as the proverbial rain on the Sahara. She’s thought for a while that she’d like to teach at a small liberal arts school, one of the places that doesn’t think SAT scores are a good measure of academic performance and give a lot of focus to student development – somewhere in the Northeast, maybe. Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, Middlebury, Wellesley, something in that vein, the usual schools described as “diehard liberal” by U.S News and World Report in their college rankings. Stanford is obviously Stanford, but it takes a lot of work not to get lost in the machine, and plenty of students who come through Lucy’s classes now are clearly just checking elective boxes and playing on their laptops during lecture. At a place like Kenyon, she could actually talk to them more, have smaller and more immersive seminars, supervise senior projects and have more of a say in shaping the department. Have that exact chance to make it her own, rather than following in predestined footsteps.

At that, however, something catches Lucy short. She remembers Benjamin Cahill essentially promising her that he could get her any dream job she wanted, anywhere in the country. Is this Rittenhouse’s clever new strategy? Realize that the face-to-face approach backfired bombastically, and take a more subtle approach, pull some strings and call in some favors so this fat juicy worm just happened to land on the right hook? Would she move there and find herself surrounded by their people, or expected to pay something substantial back?

Asking Dr. Underwood about this, however, just makes Lucy sound crazy. She doesn’t mention anyone by name, but she delicately probes whether anyone just happened to call up and offer this, and if so, why. Dr. Underwood is puzzled, says that no, this has been in the works for a while and it just happened to time well with Lucy’s completion. Due to someone who knows Dr. Underwood, who supervised so-and-so’s thesis, etc. – not the creepy Rittenhouse networks of patronage, but just the usual byzantine channels of academia – Lucy currently holds right of first refusal on the job. If she turns it down, they’ll shop it more broadly, but assuming she doesn’t completely bomb the interview, buys some winter clothes, and is all right exchanging Palo Alto for Gambier, it’s hers if she wants it.

“I…” Lucy hesitates. “My… my mom was just… she was actually just diagnosed. With cancer. She wants me to move back in and spend more time with her. I don’t know if I could justify going to Ohio instead. That’s the exact opposite of what she wants.”

Dr. Underwood hastens to offer her sympathy, and appreciates that this is a difficult decision for Lucy to make. However, while she knows family commitments are important, ultimately Lucy needs to think about what she wants from her career and getting established and so on. If Lucy does decide to stay in California, there will probably be several teaching opportunities at Stanford for her, and she’ll submit papers to journals and attend conferences and the rest of the rigmarole that it takes to be a Professional Academic ™. It’s not necessarily the wrong thing to do. But Dr. Underwood thinks Lucy should consider the Kenyon job carefully. She knew Carol when they were both faculty in the department, knows what kind of personality she had, and maybe it’s not the worst thing for Lucy to go.

Lucy nods and smiles, even as she wants to go somewhere private, put her face in a pillow, and scream. At least the damn dissertation is done, exam date is firmly set, no more of that, no more, praise Jesus, NO MORE. She picks up her bag, swings it to her shoulder, and heads out of Dr. Underwood’s office, riding down the elevator and stepping out into the foyer. As she does, she collides with someone coming the other way, and starts into the usual apology. But as she does, she catches a glimpse of the face under the hat, and freezes. Reaches out to grab at his jacket sleeve, her voice a hiss.

“Flynn?”

Garcia Flynn has not been having the greatest week. Or two. Or three.

He stayed for six days in the hospital, being cared for by a doctor named Noah who was entirely professional to all outward manners and appearances, but who kept shooting him looks out of the corner of his eye that made Flynn suspect the worst. Either he’s a Rittenhouse agent, or he used to be some sort of gentleman acquaintance to Lucy, and Flynn would almost prefer the former. At least that way he could kill him without anyone being too upset about it.

Of course, and regretfully, killing is off the table, at least for the moment. At least for Flynn himself, as he’s fairly sure that Rittenhouse has authorized everything short of public beheading to apprehend him, and which was why he decided that he was no longer going to trust to the dubious safety of Santa Rosa Memorial and the judgment of Noah. . . whatever his damn last name is, Flynn hasn’t been arsed either to find out or remember it. So he checked himself out against medical advice, gave a fake name and address for the bill (the American health system is a racket anyway, and technically he’s supposed to have insurance – yes, the NSA does offer dental) and left the rental car in the garage. It’s too conspicuous, and he has bigger fish to fry than whether he is blacklisted by Enterprise in the future. They can take it up with John Thompkins, later.

After which, Flynn rode a Greyhound (yes, it’s as miserable as you’d think, especially when you’re six-foot-four) to some shithole Inland Empire city, somewhere in California close to the Nevada border where nobody goes if they can possibly avoid it, probably still riddled with decades-old radiation from the Las Vegas test site. Rented a room in some motel that definitely has one filled with haunted clown dolls, laid low, gingerly tended his raw wounds with over-the-counter antibiotics and sutures, and was forced to admit it was a good thing he did not die of septicemia. He hasn’t succeeded in coming up with a new plan just yet, as it’s clear that he’s been cut off from the usual channels with extreme prejudice. He has kept his old phone with the NSA numbers, but keeps it switched off and hasn’t used it. He can’t risk calling Karl to see what he did, or did not, know about the Wyatt Logan fiasco.

And so, Flynn grimly considers his options. He can try to throw together another fake identity and go to Canada, or travel on his real name back to Europe and hope they haven’t gotten Interpol on this, or just lie here in a motel room that might literally be the manifestation of hell on earth, with air conditioner that barely works in 25-plus Celsius heat and a stain that looks like a murder victim on the carpet. If Rittenhouse is after him, no holds barred, he may just be able to avoid their notice if he stays, especially for a man whose professional tradecraft is disappearing. And yet.

The more Flynn thinks it over, the more he can’t account for everything going sideways as fast and as comprehensively as it did, unless Rittenhouse was plugged into the whole thing almost from the beginning. They must have multiple high-level operatives across several branches of government, focusing on the ones you’d expect – CIA, NSA, FBI, Homeland Security, whoever’s stealing your personal information these days – but by no means limited to them. They could be salted through every level of middle bureaucracy (he wonders if all DMV and IRS workers get an automatic membership) and beyond. It sounds ridiculously, relentlessly paranoid, like that prizewinning intellectual who insists that the Royal Family and other leading British celebrities are all secretly lizard people. But given what Flynn saw at the gala, Cahill and his powerful, well-connected, wealthy friends, this also might not be entirely off the ranch, and that means he has to do more digging. Where?

It takes him a bit, but he recalls what Lucy said to him at their first (well, first real) meeting. Something about David Rittenhouse, who Flynn discovered to be a famous eighteenth-century astronomer and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and asking if he founded it. Flynn doesn’t know the answer to that question, but it seems to strain credulity that the man it’s literally named after has nothing to do with it. It also is not a given that Rittenhouse’s secret archives are housed somewhere at UPenn, but there are several things named after the man in Philadelphia. It’s not entirely implausible.

That, therefore, is where Flynn is faced with the final part of the plan. It’s going to be hard enough for him to get in as it is, what with the Take Dead or Alive order they probably have out on his head. But if he didn’t appear to be attached to it – if it was just an innocent research visit from an up-and-coming academic who would have plenty of legit business with UPenn’s history collections on colonial America, and he just so happened to appear –

Flynn is well aware that this is quite a reach. That it’s dangerous, that it’s unfair, that he doesn’t really have any right to ask it, given how their last parting went, and what he said then. That she has any number of things to do right now, and none of them necessarily involve dropping all her work and heading cross-country to pick up, again, the world’s most demented and dangerous scavenger hunt with him. No sir.

He checks out of the motel and hops a ride with a trucker the next morning.

As they stare at each other for a very long and very excruciating moment, all Lucy can think is that he shouldn’t be here. Rittenhouse could have been watching her from afar, guessing (correctly, apparently) that she will prove too tempting a target for Flynn to resist contacting again. Maybe this is the moment they jump out and dogpile them both, or – or –

Lucy hesitates only a split second before tightening her grip on Flynn and dragging him around the corner into an unused classroom. She bangs shut the door behind them and leans against it, legs trembling. “You need to get out of here.”

“You just shut me in.” Trust Flynn to have a smart-aleck response readily at hand, as he watches her from under hooded eyes. “We would need to try reversing that first.”

“Just be quiet.” Lucy clenches her fists, fighting a brief urge to slap him. “Did anyone see you?”

He shrugs. “It’s a public university, I imagine they did. Nobody who seemed to recognize me, though.”

Lucy blows out a breath, getting the table between them just so there will be something to prevent her – or him – from anything intemperate. “You’re such a bastard.”

A hard, sardonic smile glimmers in the edges of his mouth. He seems unruffled by the accusation, almost even pleased. He does not bother with small talk, explaining where he’s been, or why he said everything he did in the hospital. (Don’t fool yourself that I want to see you again. . . this is my war, I don’t need you and yet, lo and behold, here he is. He’s a disaster.) Instead he says, “Did you finish your dissertation?”

“Yes,” Lucy says, curt and unwilling. “I have a lot going on, a lot, so why don’t you just – ”

“Is there anything else you can pretend to be working on?”

“What?” Screw the table, she might want to do something intemperate after all. “Why?”

His eyes remain on hers, cool and unswerving. “I need your help.”

[miguel-manbemel]

Aspects & Fanfics Ep. 43: Beware the Paladin Part 3: Out of Touch

Here comes part three of this 5-part story. Like the last time, I said enough already in the first part, so there’s not much I would like to add, except one thing. This story mentions bipolar disorder. Most of the things I featured in the story, especially in parts 1 and 2, are actually inspired, with the appropriate dramatic adaptations to the story, in real events I was witness of with a family member that had the disorder, so I’m writing out of my own experience. But some things, I had to research them too. For instance, the list of famous people Logan talks about, I got it from this link: https://olympiahouserehab.com/celebrities-with-bipolar/ There are other famous people rumored to have the disorder, but as long as they didn’t confirm it themselves, I preferred not to feature them on Logan’s list, for obvious reasons. That’s all I wanted to add, I’m leaving you with the next part of the story, which I hope you are enjoying so far. Until next time, with part 4.

SYNOPSIS: Two weeks have passed. Thomas has regained his sanity after getting treatment in hospital and is now ready to get back home. But there’s a secondary effect that takes Thomas by surprise: He can no longer make contact with his Sides, so Joan will need to, once again, step in to help the Sides and Thomas regain that contact, if possible at all.

WARNINGS: Mentions to mental illness. Romantic logicality and dukeceit.

EPISODE INDEX

[Joan is sitting on a waiting room in a hospital, wearing a mask. They suddenly seem to notice the camera and speaks to it, breaking the fourth wall]

JOAN: Oh, hi. You must be Thomas’ viewers, hi everyone, I never had the chance to introduce myself, but I suspect by now you know me very well, so I’ll skip that. What am I doing here, you ask? Well. Today, Thomas is getting discharged from hospital. His psychiatrist said the treatment has gone extremely well and Thomas is totally stable and ready to get out. It’s been two weeks and it has been hard sometimes to see him in that state of depression, so down, but seeing him getting better everyday and knowing he’s totally okay now compensates everything. How did he end up like this? Well, I see you didn’t follow the story on the last few episodes, so let me bring you up to date. Two weeks ago, Roman, who was going through a horrible illness, suffered a transformation that turned him into a crazy entity who called himself the Paladin. As the Paladin, he wreaked havoc around the Mind Palace, beat up Logan and then in a fight he had with Remus he hit Janus on the head and rendered him unconscious. Luckily, before the Paladin could slay Remus, he suddenly reverted back to his normal Roman self and back to his illness. This had the effect in the outer world of Thomas going insane while the Paladin was on the loose, then falling into depression when Roman went back to his illness. Logan explained this was all because Thomas had an undiagnosed bipolar disorder and he needed treatment and hospitalization to get his mind back on track. And that’s what we did, I took him to a psychiatrist. She was a very good specialist that took care of everything and sent Thomas to this hospital. I haven’t seen the Sides since then, because I never want to enter his Mind Palace without a good reason, so I don’t know how they’re doing now, but I hope with Thomas’ treatment everything has gone back to normal for them too… [noticing something off-screen] Oh, there is Thomas at last. Excuse me, please, you can see the title screen while I greet him, okay? Nice to meet you all again, I hope we can speak again soon. Bye! [to Thomas off-screen, standing up then walking off-screen] Thomas, I’m here! I’m so happy to see you!

[intro sequence]

[Thomas and Joan are getting out of the hospital, they’re both wearing their masks]

JOAN: Well, Thomas, how does it feel to be out of hospital after two weeks?

THOMAS: Joan… it feels great. For the first time in a long time, I feel so full of hope and confidence… I feel like I’m ready to carry on with my life at last. I still haven’t told you enough times how grateful I am that you took care of me and helped me when I needed you most.

JOAN: That’s what friends are for, Thomas. I’m just happy to help you.

[Thomas hugs Joan]

THOMAS: And you’ve really helped me, Joan. And I love you so much.

JOAN: Careful, Thomas, your Patton is showing. [giggles and hugs him back] Just kidding. I love ya back, bud. Now, let’s go. It’s a pity that your parents couldn’t be here the day you were discharged from hospital. I bet they would have loved to be here supporting you.

THOMAS: And I would have loved them to be here too, but we’re still in quarantine. I don’t want them near any kind of hospital unless it’s strictly necessary. They’re elder and more vulnerable to the virus. I’ll phone them when we’re back home. And thank you once again for visiting me so often and acting as a link between my parents and me to keep us both informed of each other. You’re the best.

JOAN: Aw, stahp, you’re gonna make me blush. Okay, one last check before we go. Do you have all your medicines in your bag?

THOMAS: Yes, I checked.

JOAN: And the planning for when to take each of them?

THOMAS: Yes, I checked that too.

JOAN: Did you write down when your next appointment with your psychiatrist is?

THOMAS: Yes, mommy, I did. Now, let’s go, okay? I can’t wait to be back home.

[Thomas and Joan get on Joan’s car, then they drive the car back to Thomas’ apartment. When they get off the car, Thomas looks at the tree next to his home, where, delirious, he had threatened to jump two weeks earlier]

THOMAS: Gosh… I remember what I did on that tree very loosely, but I remember. I feel ashamed of all the commotion I caused. What will the neighbors think of me? I also remember loosely how nasty I was to you, Joan, later in the apartment. I don’t know how you had the patience to stand me. I’m so sorr…

JOAN: No, Thomas, I won’t let you apologize or feel guilty over things that weren’t your fault and which are already forgotten and in the past. And Thomas, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You had an illness and you took the proper steps to keep that illness under control. And if the neighbors don’t understand that, then to the f… [bleep] with the neighbors. You and your health are more important than their stupid prejudices, should they have any.

[Thomas smiles gratefully at Joan and they both enter the apartment]

THOMAS: Home, sweet home… It feels like a century since I left, even though it’s only been two weeks.

JOAN: Indeed… Now, Thomas, sit down on the couch and relax. I’ll put your things in your bedroom.

THOMAS: Joan, I can do that, I’m not incapable.

JOAN: I know, but right now I want you to relax for a while. You’ll have plenty of time to take care of yourself when I’m gone next week. This week, as we discussed, I’m staying over with you. I want you to enjoy yourself. You really need it. These months of loneliness during the confinement are what have triggered all of this, and at least for the next seven days, I’ll make sure you don’t feel alone at all.

THOMAS: You’re too good to me, Joan. You go beyond what a best friend is supposed to do.

JOAN: Perhaps because at this point and after all we’ve been through together for so many years, we’re almost like siblings, right? Or maybe without the almost, even if it sounds cringey and sappy.

THOMAS: [heartwarming smile] Yeah, perhaps. [serious again] But please, tell me again that Talyn is okay with you staying over here for a whole week. I don’t want to be a burden for you two.

JOAN: Yes, Thomas, one more time, Talyn is okay with me staying with you this week to help you getting back on track. And, for the last time, you are not a burden, okay? I’m doing this because I want to and I wouldn’t want it any other way, got it, you stubborn Taurus? Now I’ll get these bags to your bedroom.

[Joan goes upstairs carrying Thomas’ bags]

THOMAS: Gosh… I really love this pal… I’m so lucky to have them in my life… Not only they lent me a hand when I needed it, they also helped my Sides when they were in trouble… Speaking about my Sides, I wonder how they are doing right now. When I became lucid enough, Joan told me about that… Paladin. I’m worried about Roman. Perhaps I should call him to check he’s okay… Yes, I’ll call him. I need to see my Sides and him above everyone else. Roman! Roman, could you come here, please?

[nothing happens]

THOMAS: That’s odd… Perhaps Roman is still sick, so he can’t come out? That must be it… Okay, I’ll call Virgil, then, so he can bring me up to date about Roman. Virgil! Are you there, and could you come here please?

[still nothing happens]

THOMAS: [concerned] Uh oh… this isn’t right… Logan? Patton? [starts panicking] Janus? Remus, even! Ian, Chris, anyone!

[no one answers the call]

THOMAS: [now completely panicking] Joan! Joan, come here, quick!

[Joan goes down the stairs running]

JOAN: What!? What’s the matter, Thomas!? I almost tripped down the stairs! What’s wrong!?

THOMAS: Sorry, Joan… My Sides! I can’t make contact with my Sides! I’m calling them and no one’s answering!

JOAN: What? That’s odd… Maybe they’re in autopilot. 

THOMAS: All of them?

JOAN: You’re right, that’s too weird. Okay, can you sink down into your Mind Palace?

THOMAS: I’ll try.

[Thomas concentrates, trying to sink down, but nothing happens]

THOMAS: I can’t! It’s like I lost the power to summon my Sides and enter my Mind Palace!

JOAN: Let me try and see if I can make contact with them. I never tried to summon your Sides and make them come from inside your Mind Palace, but if I can enter it without your assistance, by logic I should also be able to summon your Sides without your help. So, let’s try… I’m calling Virgil! Virgil, can you hear me!?

[Virgil rises up]

VIRGIL: I’m here Joan. Oh, hi, Thomas, good to see you again. How are you doing?

JOAN: There he is, Thomas.

THOMAS: Who? Where? I can’t see anyone, Joan. Are you messing with me?

VIRGIL: What? Thomas? I’m here! Can’t you hear me!?

[Thomas looks at Joan, totally ignoring Virgil]

JOAN: Thomas, Virgil is talking to you, he’s right next to you.

THOMAS: [scared] Joan, what is wrong with me? I can’t see or hear Virgil, at all!

VIRGIL: What?

[Virgil tries to touch Thomas. His hand goes through Thomas’ shoulder as if he was a ghost]

VIRGIL: [panicking] What the f…!? Logan! Logan, come quick!

[Logan rises up]

LOGAN: What’s wrong, guys?

VIRGIL: Thomas can’t see or hear us and when I tried to touch him, look what happened!

[Virgil tries to touch Thomas again with the same result]

LOGAN: [concerned] Oh, Jeez! Something is altering Thomas’ brainwaves and causing an intermission of his abilities to make contact with us.

JOAN: Could it be Thomas’ medication for his bipolar disorder, Logan?

THOMAS: What? Logan is here too? And I can’t see him? Gosh…

LOGAN: It could be. If that was the case, it will be better if we get used to part ways for good. It’s imperative that Thomas keeps on taking his medication as prescribed to keep his disorder under control. The rest is secondary, even us.

JOAN: [to Thomas] Logan says that it could be the medication, but you must keep on taking it as it has been prescribed to you to keep your bipolar disorder under control. He’s said that you’ll have to learn to live without your Sides and part ways with them, because your mental health is more important.

THOMAS: But… But my Sides have been with me all of my life, literally. I don’t… I don’t know if I’ll be able to live without them.

LOGAN: Of course you are, Thomas. We’ll always be with you from inside yourself. You must never be afraid to face life on your own, because we’ll always be rooting for you, cause we are literally you.

JOAN: He’s said that… wait… Why can I see you and he can’t?

LOGAN: Well, you were synchronized with Thomas’ brainwaves when they were functional to make contact with us. As you’re not taking any medication, they’ll remain completely functional. Talyn and you are for the time being our only links with the outer world.

JOAN: I’ve got an idea… but I don’t know if it will work. To synchronize my brainwaves with Thomas’, you… well, Talyn, hypnotized us. Couldn’t we do the same with Thomas now, to resynchronize his brainwaves with mine so that he regains the ability to make contact with you?

LOGAN: That… could actually work. If we resynchronize your brainwaves, which are Thomas’ original brainwaves, with medicated Thomas’ brainwaves, we could make medicated Thomas able to make contact with us again safely. It would be like fine-tuning an analog radio or TV whose signal got slightly off, which is what is happening to Thomas, after all.

VIRGIL: It’s worth a shot.

LOGAN: The only problem is…

JOAN: What?

LOGAN: Janus. He’s still unconscious from the Paladin’s attack two weeks ago.

JOAN: Still unconscious after two weeks? Is Janus in a comma or something?

LOGAN: The Paladin hit him very hard on the head with his sword. He didn’t use the sharp edge, but it was a thick, hard piece of metal, and very heavy too. He totally crushed his bowler hat, so imagine what he did with what was immediately underneath. Janus is going through a severe trauma brain injury of which he hasn’t recovered yet. Ian and Remus have been taking care of him ever since.

JOAN: I see. I’m really sorry to hear that… but what does that have to do with…

LOGAN: As you remember, we must all be in autopilot when the synchronization is being made, to avoid the secondary effects of the hypnosis I don’t need to remind you, or worse secondary effects we may not be aware of yet. As Janus is unconscious, he can’t enter autopilot, and the process would be risky. I don’t know how it could affect him. Besides, unless we can reproduce the same conditions in which we performed the process the first… the second time, I don’t want to mess with Thomas’ brainwaves and risk making him get worse of his disorder.

JOAN: I see… Maybe I should go see Janus. Perhaps I could help. I don’t know how, but there must be something I can do.

LOGAN: I don’t think it would do any harm, Joan.

THOMAS: What are you saying about Janus? You mentioned him on a comma and you got me worried as heck, Joan.

JOAN: Oh, sorry, Thomas, I forgot you can’t hear Logan… It’s too long to explain now. I’m going to your Mind Palace. You stay here for the time being and wait till I’m back, okay? Look into your handbag, I bought a new controller to replace the one that… got broken two weeks ago. Relax and play Kingdom Hearts while I’m gone. I’ll be back to bring you up to date as soon as possible.

THOMAS: Okay… be careful, Joan, I guess.

[Joan concentrates. After some time, he sinks down. Logan also sinks down, but Virgil stays there. Thomas looks at the empty spot]

THOMAS: Now I understand how my friends felt when I sank down and left them here to wait… I hope Joan can fix this. I don’t want to lose the company of my Sides… I love them too much to give them up.

[Virgil looks at Thomas]

VIRGIL: And I don’t want to lose your company either, Thomas… [sighs, then with a sad face] Much less now, that I need you so much…

[Meanwhile, Joan rises up in Janus’ bedroom in his room. Janus is lying there unconscious, with his head covered with bandages and he’s sporting a full human face as the snake makeup he usually wears had to be removed from his face when tidying him the previous days. He’s also wearing a yellow pajama decorated with little snakes. His crushed bowler hat still lies on his bedside table. Remus and Ian are next to him]

IAN: Hi, Joan. Nice to see you again. How is Thomas doing?

JOAN: Not bad… but not good either. It’s a long story. I’ve just been told that Janus hasn’t woken up yet. How is he doing?

REMUS: Well, you can see it for yourself, Joan. I fear for his life.

JOAN: Well, him fighting for his life is already a good symptom, I think… Don’t despair.

REMUS: We try, Joan, thanks for your words of encouragement.

IAN: What did you mean that Thomas isn’t doing good either? Is anything wrong with Thomas?

JOAN: To be honest, yes, there’s something wrong. He’s lost contact with you. He can’t neither get into the Mind Palace nor hear, see or touch you at all. Logan thinks it’s a secondary effect of his medication against his disorder.

IAN: That’s too bad. Isn’t there any way to fix it?

JOAN: As a matter of fact, we had the idea of hypnotizing Thomas and me so that he can synchronize his brainwaves with mine to restore the connection without him having to leave the medication, which is something he mustn’t do at all as his life, both in the social and in the survival sense, depends on it.

IAN: Then what are you waiting for?

JOAN: Well… we can’t do it until Janus wakes up. All of Thomas’ Sides must enter autopilot before the synchronization. Remember what happened the first time we tried.

IAN: I don’t remember anything. Remember that I was already in autopilot when everything went wrong and the chaos didn’t affect me.

REMUS: Roman told me later on. Back then I was still isolated in my island, and I was so far away that it didn’t affect me at all. I only fell asleep then woke up, twice in the same day, and that’s all.

JOAN: Well, let me remind you that all of the Sides that weren’t in autopilot got body-switched between each other, with their functions all mixed up, and everything turned into a mess. Fortunately we could change it back by repeating the process with everyone in autopilot, but who knows what could happen if we did the synchronization with Janus in this state. He can’t enter autopilot.

IAN: Don’t you think that this state of unconsciousness could be equivalent to autopilot, though? He doesn’t have any kind of contact with Thomas… or anyone, for the matter.

LOGAN: [rising up] That’s not entirely true, though.

IAN: [startled] Oh! Oh, hi, Logan, you startled me.

LOGAN: Apologies, I heard your last sentence as I was arriving. As I was saying, Thomas’ capacity to lie is intact, which means that Janus’ functions are still intact and working, even if he’s unconscious. My theory is that they’re in the same state as before he was knocked out, that is, fully activated with no autopilot, and he’s frozen in that state, like a figurative hibernation, so to speak. In computer terminology, he’s hung up and needs a reboot before he can be functional again.

JOAN: A theory, though… Perhaps…

LOGAN: Joan, it would be too big of a risk to do it just like that. We don’t know how it could affect Janus.

JOAN: But we must do something. Thomas suddenly losing you could be a strong component of huge distress, and that’s not good for his recovery, as it could send him into another fit of mania or depression, especially when it’s been so little time since he got out of the last one. There has to be a way to help Janus wake up.

LOGAN: I can only think of one way.

REMUS: What is it? And most importantly, why didn’t you tell us earlier so we could try to wake him up sooner?

LOGAN: Because it’s also a risk… for Patton.

IAN: For Patton?

JOAN: Why Patton?

LOGAN: As you remember, Patton is, or was, one of the three original Master Sides, together with the Light Master and the Dark Master. As such, even if it’s been so long since the last time, he has experience communicating with the Mind Palace Core, he knows how it works and he could try to ask it for advice.

JOAN: You mean the Mind Palace Core is a sentient entity of its own? From what Thomas told me, I thought it was just some kind of black… or white hole that created and destroyed Sides at will…

LOGAN: It’s not exactly a sentient entity… and it is at the same time.

JOAN: I’m confused.

LOGAN: I know. It’s too complicated to understand, I can barely understand it myself. It’s not like it has a proper consciousness like us, Sides or human beings. But the Core is a source of feelings. It can communicate through feelings, understanding our feelings and projecting its own feelings into us so that, by feeling them, we can understand the Core. And also, you know that the field of feelings is exactly Patton’s area of expertise, so no one better prepared than him. The problem is…

JOAN: The problem is… what?

LOGAN: Now that Patton is an ordinary Side, it could be dangerous if he approached the Mind Palace Core on his own. I’m afraid it might try to absorb him, which would destroy him, or at the very least trap him inside the Core with no easy escape, like the Light Master and the Dark Master.

JOAN: I understand the concern…

LOGAN: Ideally, Patton could have communicated with Thomas to reach the original Light Master as he’s done other times, but none of us have physical touch with Thomas so I doubt it would work anymore.

JOAN: Well, then it’s a matter of choice. Trying to do the sync without waking Janus up or trying to make Patton make contact with the Mind Palace core… or doing nothing and making Thomas say goodbye to you for all eternity and also keeping Janus unconscious, who knows for how long. What do you choose?

REMUS: I think it’s not us who you should make that question to.

JOAN: Then whom?

REMUS: You need to ask Patton. He’s the one who has to choose if he’s willing to take the risk of contacting the Mind Palace Core or not. None of us could make that choice in his place. If I know Janus, he would be willing to take the chance of doing the sync with him in this state, but he can’t speak for himself and I wouldn’t dare to make that choice in his place that could risk his life. But you have the privilege of being able to ask Patton, so ask him what he would do and we will all abide by his choice.

LOGAN: [sighs] You’re right. I have no right to decide in his place…

PATTON: [rising up] I’ll do it.

LOGAN: What? You were listening?

PATTON: I was coming to see how Janus was doing and I heard it all. You should have told me sooner, Logan. I want to help in any way I can.

LOGAN: But it’s dangerous. Are you sure you wanna take that risk, Patton?

PATTON: If it serves to bring our friend Janus back to the living, I’ll take that risk. You guys would do the same for me, right?

REMUS: You got it, I would. And I’d be very thankful if you brought Janus back, Patton, but only if you want to.

PATTON: Then, it’s settled.

LOGAN: But you said that you needed Thomas to take us to the Mind Palace Center. We can’t make contact with Thomas right now.

PATTON: That was then. Now I memorized the way to go to the Mind Palace Center and as long as I do it alone, I can come and go as I please, as if it was any other room. Unfortunately, I currently can’t take any other Sides with me. That would require Thomas’ presence, so I’ll have to go all alone on my own.

LOGAN: Patton, I don’t want you to do this all alone. I wanna go with you.

PATTON: And I want you to go with me because, I’m not gonna lie, I’m scared. But I can’t take you, and I have to do this.

LOGAN: You don’t have to, you…

PATTON: I want to do this, Logan.

[Logan looks at Patton with a face of fear. Then he sighs and nods. Patton pets Logan’s cheek, then kisses him]

PATTON: Don’t worry, Logan. I’ll do my best to be back [to Remus] and I’ll bring Janus back too, Remus, you’ll see.

REMUS: Thank you, Patton. You really are awesome.

JOAN: Please, be careful. I’ll go back to the outer world to bring Thomas up to date and also to bring Talyn to Thomas’ apartment, so that they’re ready if everything goes fine. [sinks down] Good luck, guys.

LOGAN: Bye, Joan, see ya.

PATTON: Okay… I’m going back to the Mind Palace Center and face the Core. Wish me luck, guys.

REMUS: Good luck, Patton. Bring Janus back to life, please.

IAN: We’re rooting for you.

PATTON: Thanks, guys.

LOGAN: Luck has no logical meaning…

PATTON: But wish me luck anyway, Logan, okay? I’ll feel better if you do.

LOGAN: Feelings… always feelings… Okay, Patton. Good luck. And don’t you dare not coming back.

PATTON: I promise… Logan?

LOGAN: Yes?

[Patton looks at Logan with trembling lips and a glance of love]

PATTON: [emotional] I love you.

[Logan looks at Patton with a face of emotional love]

LOGAN: I love you too… You can do this, Patton.

[Patton sighs one last time, then he looks up and rises up, disappearing on the room’s ceiling]

LOGAN: He’s scared to death of doing this… I wish I could be there with him by his side… But he can do this, I’m positive. [looking one last time at the ceiling where Patton disappeared, with a face of concern] Please, Patton, be careful…

[a sign reads “To be continued, guys, gals and non binary pals”]

[ending card]

[Joan rises up in Thomas’ apartment, Virgil is already gone]

THOMAS: There you are, Joan. Any news?

JOAN: Yes, Thomas. There may be a chance to fix things up…

THOMAS: …but?

JOAN: …but… Patton is gonna take a great risk to fix it. We could literally lose him.

THOMAS: What? But I don’t want my Sides endangered. If I have to lose contact with them, so be it, as long as they’re safe.

JOAN: That’s noble of you to say, but he has to do it anyway, to find a way to help Janus wake up from his traumatic brain injury. You see, the Paladin attacked him two weeks ago and he hasn’t recovered yet. Maybe Patton is his only chance to survive.

THOMAS: Oh… I see… Well, I hope everything goes fine.

JOAN: Patton is more resourceful and braver than we all think. I’m sure he’ll be successful. In the meantime, I’m gonna go home and get Talyn.

THOMAS: What for?

JOAN: Well, if everything goes, fine, which I hope it will, we’ll need them to perform the hypnosis. I can’t hypnotize myself and you at the same time. It was difficult enough for me to hypnotize Talyn, even under Logan’s guidance. How could I hypnotize myself?

THOMAS: You’re right… Okay, you go there, and I’ll keep on playing Kingdom Hearts.

JOAN: Very good. I’ll go as fast as I can.

THOMAS: Don’t drive too fast. We don’t want another traumatic brain injury with the car, do we, Joan?

JOAN: Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. Be back soon.

[Joan goes through the door. Thomas grabs the game controller]

THOMAS: Please, Patton, be careful, I beg of you. I know you can’t hear me, but I hope my sentiment reaches you somehow.

[Thomas sits down and resumes his game of Kingdom Hearts]

[entergamingxp]

The Origami King Review — The Legion of Stationary

July 24, 2020 1:00 PM EST

As a longtime fan of the series, Paper Mario: The Origami King has its trademark humor and charm, but misses its appealing RPG gameplay.

Paper Mario: The Origami King tries its darndest to straddle the line between what fans of the original games love and a desire to move the franchise in a new direction. In many ways, it succeeds. However, there are countless misfolds along the way that makes it a tough game to give a full recommendation.

In The Origami King, a tiny origami man named Olly has turned the Mushroom Kingdom into an origami world. Princess Peach is a soulless zombie doing Olly’s bidding, and Mario must save her and the world from his evil creases. Joining you is Olivia, Olly’s sister, and a powerful origami folder in her own right. Your journey takes you all over the Kingdom, letting you explore exotic locales and meeting interesting people.

The biggest talking point of Paper Mario: The Origami King is the new battle system. It’s a tough thing to describe with just words, but essentially, each fight takes place on a battleground you can twist and move. This allows to you set up fights in a way that lets you easily manipulate the positioning of Olly’s minions as you see fit.

Once you set the folded fighters up, you have two basic attacks; Mario can stomp and he can swing a hammer. There are a few other special items and attacks, but these two are the plumber’s bread and butter. Or wrench and plunger, if you want to get technical. There’s also a bit of active time button pressing that lets you deal extra damage, but it never seems that important. For the most part, every single battle against minor minions works exactly the same. There are a few enemies that spice things up, just not in a meaningful way.

“Paper Mario: The Origami King tries its darndest to straddle the line between what fans of the original games love and a desire to move the franchise in a new direction.”

And that’s one of Paper Mario: The Origami King’s biggest problems: there’s no leveling up. You can get somewhat better shoes and hammers to make your attacks stronger, it just never feels like a big deal. Thus, the battles feel like at worst a way for the developers to steal your good items and at best a waste of time. After the first hour or so, I was doing everything I could to skip them. Fortunately, most minions are easier to dodge than a 90-year-old grandma.

All that being said, there is a very important caveat to all of this; while the normal enemy encounters are dreadful, the boss battles are inspired. Instead of Mario being at the center of the board and you rotating the enemies into place, these flip the script. Mario is on the outside and while using different symbols on the board, you need to trace his path to the different members of the Legion of Stationary. That’s an all-time great pro wrestling stable name if I’ve ever seen one.

“Paper Mario: The Origami King doesn’t respect your time with combat. There seems to be little to no point in engaging with minion battles.”

They really go all out with these. Every boss has their own mechanic to tease out, with some of the early ones being spectacular. The boss fights do lose a little steam as you move toward the end, particularly with a boss that can kill you in one hit and force you to replay their entire section before trying again. I pray it doesn’t happen to you because it was so frustrating to make one wrong decision and be sent back 20 minutes of progress. That said, the final boss fight ramps it back up in a way I can appreciate. I won’t spoil it, but seeing a former nemesis join the fight in a “big” way was great. Make sure you bookmark that last sentence so you can come back and appreciate my awesome pun.

Even still, Paper Mario: The Origami King doesn’t respect your time with combat. There seems to be little to no point in engaging with minion battles. Along with that, the time between bosses stretches out to hours. Unless you’re a kid on a summer break, it’s a hard game to recommend based on the combat alone.

Fortunately, that’s not all The Origami King brings to the table. The series is well-known for its humor and exploration; both of those are here in spades. Personally, I gave up on exploring much after the first few hours because it just felt like collecting things for the sake of collecting. And the game constantly asks you to backtrack anyway. It all just got old quick. However, if you can actually take your time and not play under the constraints of needing to get a review out, I can see this being an excellent podcast game. You can just veg out and find some Toads. And truly, isn’t that all you can ask for.

“I genuinely laughed out loud more times than I can count in my 30 or so hours with the game.”

The Origami King also mostly nails the funnies. I mean sure, when you’re launching one-liners with every other line of dialogue, a few are bound to hit. That said, I genuinely laughed out loud more times than I can count in my 30 or so hours with the game. Kamek, in particular, does an exceptional turn as Bowser’s underlooked right-hand wizard. There’s also a secret coffee shop where you can meet up with some of Bowser’s other henchman, which might be the best part of the game. If you pick up Paper Mario’s latest journey, seek it out.

Here’s the thing though: The Origami King also takes a few surprisingly dark turns. I don’t want to spoil anything, but there are quite a few story beats that made me wonder if this really is a kid’s game. If you’re a parent picking this up, be ready for some potential waterworks and tough conversations coming your way.

“The puzzle-based nature of the combat seems like a fun direction to take the gameplay in, but divorcing it from progression kills any desire to engage with it.”

At the end of my time with Paper Mario: The Origami King, I’m wondering who exactly this game is for. Classic Paper Mario fans will be left wanting due to the game’s combat and lack of RPG progression. People looking for a fun romp with a silly story might bristle at the game’s length and padded out content.

And kids? In so many ways, this seems like a great game for younger gamers; however, I can’t help remember several moments that would have left me in tears as a little dude. If you’re a parent who thinks your kid can handle it, this is an excellent pick-up. You’ll certainly get your money’s worth from a time perspective. Just don’t come to me if you also have to pay some psychiatrist bills in a few years.

I’m mostly joking (pour one out for Bobby). However, it really does feel like a game that doesn’t completely know what it wants to be. The puzzle-based nature of the combat seems like a fun direction to take the gameplay in, but divorcing it from progression kills any desire to engage with it.

“At the end of my time with Paper Mario: The Origami King, I’m wondering who exactly this game is for.”

Paper Mario: The Origami King is far from a bad game; it’s just not one that meets its potential. This feels like a solid first step from Intelligent Systems to finally find a new groove for the franchise. Hopefully the team continues to iterate on the design and deliver a follow-up that finally mixes that classic Paper Mario tone and feel with quality gameplay that fans love. It can, and arguably should, be different from the original games, but it needs to be more than this.

July 24, 2020 1:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/the-origami-king-review-the-legion-of-stationary/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-origami-king-review-the-legion-of-stationary

[oddferalair]

characterization quotes

Robin Support   See, now you're just not thinking logically. We've killed countless people in this war— what's a few more souls on the ledger? Seems like an arbitrary line to me... But all right. You're the tactician! No more unholy summoning sigils. Heck, I always obey orders! Well, except for stupid ones like "don't fight the enemy." If someone tried to tell me that, I'd cut 'em in half and feed them to the crows! Lissa Support If you don't rest up before a battle, you might find yourself resting up in a grave.   That does seem like a problem. War is killing and death, ya know? Keeping people you care about alive means making the other guy dead. Nya ha ha! Just a little touch of Henry's Super Sleepy-Time Magic! ...The nonlethal version. First you don't want any allies or enemies to die, and now BIRDIES are off the table? ...You're a strange one, Lissa. Nya ha ha! Me? Sweet? That's a new one. Besides, you're the one who's always concerned about people dying and stuff. I don't know how you do it, honestly. I couldn't go a week! I'm not much of a mood guy, I'm afraid, unless we're talking gruesome bloodshed... Well, how about this: I did get you a ring! Will that work? 

Frederick Support

I want my dying thought to be about blood! ...Or maybe ichor. H-hey, Frederick! Easy with the bear hugs! These little bones might snap like...Oh, whoa! Are you CRYING?! You really think people notice what I do around here? 'Cause I doubt it. I mean, what kind of things do they say about me now? Nya ha ha! If you lay it on any thicker, I'll be smothered to death! But I'm not training to make myself look good in front of my comrades, you know?   Well, because the more I practice, the more stuff I'm able to do. I like being good at lots of things. Sully Support Absolutely! I'll need a pound of flesh, seven fingernails, and your left kidney. Nya ha ha! I jest. A single hair will do just fine. Yep yep! That's it, all right. I can curse till I'm blue in the face, but if their will's stronger than mine? Pbbt. Aw, you're going to make me blush. I'm nothing special. Miriel Support You have? That's great! I cast hexes all the time, and I've never come up with ONE theory about them. Nya ha ha! Oh, stop it, Miriel! You'll make me blush. Although it's pretty much true. When it comes to hexing folks, I'm the master. Why, this one time at mage camp, I killed 100 people with one curse! Er, I don't remember when. ...Or where exactly. But it totally could have happened. Henry: Well, you know that town we passed through a few days ago? I saw a pregnant lady on the main street with a load of cheese and fruit in her arms. She looked pretty tired and worn out, so I stopped to help her carry her wares.     Right?! Anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I realized pregnancy is dumb. So I'm planning to help the mothers of the world by inventing a special curse. I'm gonna create a hex that conjures new kids right out of thin air! Sumia Support I'm a mage! I just wave my wand and mutter a little incantation... Humina humina humina... Presto! The busted bowls are busted no more! Yeah, it's just a temporary hex, unfortunately. Tomorrow they'll be in pieces again. But at least folks won't have to eat out of their hats tonight. Oh, that spell can certainly be used for evil. All it does is reverse time. See, so if something bad happens to someone and you cast it on them... They have to experience that same tragedy over and over again! Nya ha! Isn't it obvious? You're me, and I'm you! Clever curse, eh? Well, you're about as magic as an old sock, so this was the only way. And while you cast some hexes, I'm going to ride your pegasus all over camp! Woo-hoo! I'm gonna swoop down on people and drop stuff on their heads! Ricken Support Oh? I thought word had gotten around. Yeah, Gangrel was toppled before I got the chance to fight any real battles. A shame, too. It would've been fun to face off against the Shepherds! Then there was Mustafa. He always gave me a bag of peaches whenever I visited. He said I reminded him of his son and that I should consider myself part of his family. Yep. Dead as driftwood, they are. And it was you Shepherds who killed 'em! Their friends and families are probably still crying their eyes out. No! I'd be very sad and angry. And I'd find out who did it, hunt them down, and exact bloody revenge! ...Oh yes. There would be blood. When I was with Plegia, I didn't think much about this kind of thing. Maybe because in that army, I didn't have real friends like I do here. I guess, sure. Honestly, I'm not much good with touchy-feely stuff. You know what I'd rather talk about? The next battle! Maribelle Support Talking to the flower. She says she's very grateful that you spoke to her. Also, she says she'll stay strong as long as you do, too. I'm not feigning anything. I'm just really in touch with the natural world. I can talk to any living thing you want. Trees. Flowers. Maggots. Ooooooh... Maaaggots... Meh, not to me. Everyone kicks the bucket at some point, so why fret? See, now that I can understand. But get this—I've got a special curse ready, see? Been working on it for a while now. If you're mortally wounded, it kills you off before you suffer any pain! Just...poof. Off ya go! It's 'cause I'm not scared, Maribelle. Fighting is actually pretty simple. I just have to kill the other guy before he has a chance to kill me. Panne Support That's not very neighborly, now is it? What difference does one's religion make? I just want to be friends! Ylisse is weak enough as it is. If the exalt were assassinated, I worried they'd lose the war in a week! That would have been a terrible waste of a perfectly fun war. Er, the beast half, I guess. I love animals! I wish I could be one. Even a half one would be okay with me. My parents abandoned me in the woods when I was little. So it was mostly the nice animals there who raised me. I still love their smell. It relaxes me in a totally nostalgic sort of way. So if I went out and killed them all, could we be friends? I'm not that young, and I don't think I'm stupid. But hey, who knows, right? Cordelia Support Oooh, lucky guy. I wish someone would make ME a nice cozy scarf! Ooooooooooooooooooooooooh. Say, what if the wife was dead? Could you give it to him then? That's kind of like making yourself sad on purpose, isn't it? You want help? 'Cause I've got a curse that'll REALLY make you miserab— I asked Lissa for advice, and she told me to take you on a big shopping trip. She said a few hours trying on dresses and armor would fix that broken heart, pronto! I don't really get all this "feelings" stuff, but if you say so. Er, but if you're REALLY grateful, you could join me for a fruit pie... Nya ha! No, it's a scheme to make you fall in love with me. Nowi Support Yep! They're probably quivering in fear under their beds and crying like babies. But no worries! There'll be more victim—er, that is, village kids—at our next camp. Right. You can't actually touch her. My magic is good, but not THAT good! Hey! I spent a lot of time and effort on this, you know! Tharja Support Hee hee! Smiling? This is how I always look. Sorry! Nothing sinister over here. I'm just a hale and hearty mage. Nope! Not me! Although I do own a cloak and a couple daggers. Aw, I don't get into politics. I just want to toss fireballs at bad guys. Hey! Tharja! You forgot to remove the curse! Oh, well. I suppose it'll fizzle out eventually. La la la... Do you need a death curse? Please say you need a death curse. Yeah, dispelling curses is kind of my specialty. Right now, whoever cast that curse must be in one confused pickle! Too bad we can't be there to see it. That would be swell! Oh yeah. I guess so, huh? Although you didn't really need to put a truth curse on me, you know? I don't have anything to hide, and I've never told a lie in my life. Olivia Support You're a crazy lady. Why would I do that? I love doggies! I want to save his life! Right, boy? Who's a good boy? Aren't you glad the crazy lady wants to help us? Yes you are! Hey, that's a medical condition! Show some respect! Oh, will you look at that? It's blood! ...Wonder where it came from? *Lick* ...Oh, hey! It's MY blood! Nya ha! I must have been wounded in battle! Oh man, good times. Oh, I've got a high pain threshold. It's a genetic thing. Nerve damage. I've had a lot worse than this! When I was a kid, my parents put me in this exclusive wizard school. Well, as you can imagine, some of the experiments got a biiit out of hand. Once, I almost set my face on fire! Nya ha! Those were the days... Meh, my parents didn't care what I did as long as I wasn't expelled. Heck, the whole reason they sent me to wizard school was to get rid of me. But hey, no worries! I turned out fine! That's what all my psychiatrists said. But nope! Not true. I'm just a happy guy. Look, crazy lady. I like you. I really do. But you have GOT to let this go. I smile because I'm happy, all right? There's nothing more to it. Olivia? H-hey, Olivia. ...You being crazy again, Olivia? Olivia?! Aw, come on, Olivia! You can't die now! NOOOOO! OLIVIAAAAAA! Come back to me, Olivia! Stay out of the light! STAY OUT OF THE LIIIIIIGHT! Cherche Support Sure have! She's as cute as a button, that one. ...Well, if buttons were cute. We had wyverns in Plegia, you know, and also the occasional fell beast. But we didn't have a single wyvern that was as pretty as Minerva. Yep! I make four-legged friends wherever I go! And even some two-legged ones. I'm also pals with a three-legged bear, but that's a story for another time. Well, when I was young, my best friend in the entire world was a giant wolf. My parents ignored me most of the time, so that wolf became my whole family. Then one day she came to visit me, and some hunters in the village... They shot her full of arrows. Killed her on the spot. But they paid... Oh, how they paid... They paid in BLOOD. Er, but yes. None of my magic could bring my beautiful wolf friend back. So I guess that's why I hang out with you and Minerva. 'Cause it reminds me. I know I'm here a lot, but I always feel safe and happy when I'm with Minerva. Kellam Support I think I get it now. Seems to me you're barking up the wrong tree, tin man. Visibility isn't the problem—you're just lonely! So all we gotta do is find a way to make you stop feeling lonely! It's true. When I was a kid, my only friends were wolves, so they ended up raising me. Thing is...that made it tough for me to learn about basic human warmth and affection... Like just now. I tried to be nice to you and show you that I care and stuff, right? But I got it all wrong and instead made you freak out. Sorry about that... Gaius Support Not many, no. Back in Plegia, we hardly have any cakes or sweets at all. We don't get the plentiful harvests that Ylisseans and Feroxi enjoy. So the dishes we make are kind of basic, you know? Nothing like those, anyhow. Yup. It's hard to make cakes out of turnips, though that doesn't stop people trying! Anyway, the point is, I've never seen so many tasty-looking treats all in one place! Well, thanks for showing me your treasures, Gaius. It's been lots of fun! ...Oh, I almost forgot! I brought something to show you too! Yeah...something like that! They're baked in special ceremonies as offerings to Grima. Never eaten one myself, but as you're the expert, I figured you'd like to try it! Libra Support Like, I dunno...you're a priest, but you wield a weapon and smash people with it, right? I bet it causes you all kinds of anguish to have to splatter the life out of others! Aren't you overthinking things a little? A weapon's just a tool for killing! Wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to just accept that and move on? Who knows—you might wind up like me and start to really savor the joys of slaying! I mean, when you get down to it, aren't you and I both doing the exact same thing? I mean, I guess it's hard for an altruist like yourself to respect an egoist like me, but... They do, huh? Well, I don't believe in the gods, so it doesn't really matter what they think! (in response to Libra calling him out for saving other people) ...