#I am writing about conspiracies for work so that might just be me being in that mind set

[adaines-furious-feast]

In just over a week, I wrote more words by hand about Jace frigging Stardiamond than my entire completed Masters' dissertation.

I'm beginning to think this guy is some D20 psyop thing because this shouldn't be possible.

[fuiru]

A 44 year old man goes to a K-Pop Concert

I promised you a report on the K-pop concert that I, a 44-year-old accountant, went to a couple of weeks ago with my wife and daughter in Toronto. So here it is.

The band we saw were Ateez. They're my daughter's favourite band and my wife's second favourite. I know most of my mutuals are similarly aged like me and may not be familiar with them so let me give you a brief primer on Ateez.

Imagine the most attractive eight men you can think of, just unfathomably beautiful specimens of aesthetic perfection, and make them sing songs that somehow combine the subjects of 'dancing like nobody is watching' with 'we live in a dystopian hellscape that we must all work together to overthrow'. Give them an ongoing music video story lore that literally nobody - not even the band themselves - understand, so that online discussion of their visual motifs looks more like the fevered rantings of a conspiracy theorist, complete with speculation about alternate realities and time being a Moebius strip. There is also a giant sand timer, for some reason.

That's Ateez. That's what you need to know.

Now, K-pop concerts are very different to the gigs I've been going to for the last 28 (!) years. There's no support act, for a start. Also the band perform for like, three hours, with breaks for costume changes and interpretive dance. Furthermore, hanging above everything is the constant looming threat of mandatory military service.

So this being my first such concert, I wasn't sure what to expect. What happened was difficult to explain, but I will try as I am already six paragraphs into this write-up and I'm too invested to stop now. Here goes:

In his Wicked + Divine comics series, Kieron Gillen places modern pop icons as deities, feeding upon and gaining strength from the worship of their fans at the altar of musical performance. I thought I understood that metaphor. I thought I understood it AS a metaphor. I was wrong, because that night Ateez WERE Gods with a capital G and we were their worshippers, a crowd emanating adoration (in the religious and non-religious senses), bestowing strength upon them and gaining their strength in return.

If that sounds weird, it probably is. But as pointed out above, I have lived over four decades and never yet experienced anything like the overwhelming passion of that crowd, the utter abandon with which they conveyed their love for the band.

"But Fuiru, what of the actual music?" you ask. Thinking back, there was a moment in one of their songs - I can't remember which - where I watched the stage, and the people around me, taking it in, and I thought, "Man, I just love Music". But that doesn't answer your question, sorry.

Ateez's music is bloody great. As a tiresome indie/rock/metal kid I'm resisting the urge to add the usual tiresome indie/rock/metal caveat of "...for pop music" because honestly that does it a disservice. They have some genuinely amazing songs. Halazia is an absolute fucking masterpiece that descends into furious hardcore breakbeat. Bouncy is a big, brash racket that somehow is also a perfect pop song. Utopia, Wonderland, and Guerrilla are similarly superb. The obligatory boy band slow number is represented by Dancing Like Butterfly Wings which will make you cry because you will forever associate it with your twelve year old daughter being pointed to and waved at by her favourite Ateez member (Seonghwa) because of her Seonghwa-branded lightstick.

That might just be me, though.

So in summary: being a 44 year old dad at his first K-pop concert rules and you should endeavour to partake in the experience if the opportunity arises.

Finally, for any Atiny reading this: my bias would be San or Seonghwa but my wife and daughter said they were taken so it’s Mingi. My concert outfit (designed and created by my offspring) reflects this.

[comicaurora]

I've started making my way through the playlist hbomberguy made of actually good video essays by queer creators and spotted a comment of yours on the one about the relationship between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, which was fun xD red in the wild!

Anyways, just wanted to appreciate how both you and Blue and you are very good at showing your sources! It's always nice to know that the people you've watched for years have good habits after an event like this, and I hope you guys are among the people that get some new fans after this whole debacle, because your channel definitely qualifies for "good educational videos made by queer people"

I'm glad! Blue's much better about listing his sources and follow-up reading than I am.

To be honest, I loved the video, but my imposter syndrome always flares like crazy when I watch an essay like that. It might be the ADHD or it might just be who I am as a person, but I feel like I've lived my whole life striving to make everything I do the best it can be, and still managing to fuck up and get criticised for things I could've done better if only I never missed anything. It's an actual gut-drop when it turns out a source I used wasn't trustworthy, or when in older videos I only went wiki-deep for some claims and didn't check every source to be 100% sure I wasn't being goat-fish'd. And this being the internet, I can get criticized at any time for things I've gotten wrong years ago, since it's evergreen online and to the new-viewing critic it's as fresh as yesterday. It makes it hard for me to stay proud of my work past the first moment of "oh I would've done that different now". There's a cocktail of complicated, scary feelings around this space, no matter how little I actually have in common with the bad guys of this scenario - it's less about the reality and more about who my imposter syndrome tells me I am. I saw several people saying that the video actually made them feel much better about their own work because it made it clear that accidental plagiarism on that scale is impossible, but if my anxieties listened to reason I would've successfully machete'd them out of my skull years ago. I just hope I never fuck up badly enough to deserve an hbombing of my own.

But my own stress aside, the hbomb essay exposed a level of laxness, laziness and entitlement on the part of these plagiarists that I think is almost incomprehensible to people who actually create for a living or even just the joy of it. How hollow do you have to be to take in someone else's writing and not consider it, digest it, let it reshape your views and then formulate your own interpretation on it, but instead to file off the serial numbers and pretend it's yours, trusting that the person whose thoughts and words you valued enough to steal will never be powerful enough to call you out on it? I go down research rabbit holes because I love the frustration and thrill of putting something together! How joyless it must be to skim the surface and borrow someone else's conclusions!

I've sometimes had people email asking for sources on parts of my interpretation of various myths, possibly in the interest of source-citing for school papers (a nightmare concept in and of itself) and with very few exceptions I usually have to tell them "the only sources were the english translations I used of the primary source where the myth was originally written, like I said in the video, and the part where I said I was conspiracy-boarding has no source other than my own analysis of the given source, which is why I called it conspiracy-boarding" and I was always a little baffled by those emails - half the videos are introduced like "this is The Prose Edda" or "this is in Ovid's Metamorphoses" or "this bit is Hesiod" so what else could they want - but seeing the hbomb of the week made me realize that truly original analysis might not be what most people are expecting from a "thing summarized." They might be expecting a compilation of other people's summaries instead.

[alpaca-clouds]

So, You Wanna Write A Solarpunk Thriller

Based on the blog I wrote yesterday about conflict in Solarpunk stories and how people either don't understand how stories work, have never read a book, or plainly act more dumb than they are. Because, yes, you can in fact tell almost any sort of story in a Solarpunk work - without resorting (like, sadly, way too many writers do) to "Actually the utopia is a lie and Solent Green is people!"

Meaning: If you need a "dark secret in society" to have a conflict in your story, you have a skill issue.

But let's talk about the genre that usually comes with those kinda dark secrets. While not necessary for the genre per se, it is a common trope here. Thrillers.

Ironically we all have some picture in our heads what a thriller might be - even though it might be one of the most loosely defined literary genre. Though probably we will think first of some movies.

The top 10 thriller movies according to this list on IMDB, the top ten thrillers are:

Seven (Police/Crime)

Silence of the Lambs (Police/Crime)

Shutter Island (Psychological)

The Sixth Sense (Supernatural)

Zodiac (Police/Crime)

Inception (Crime)

North by Northwest (Spy)

Identity (Psychological/Crime)

The Game (Financial)

The Prestige (Psychological/Crime)

Something you will note to your surprise: None of those actually feature a central conflict based on the society having a dark secret. In fact half of them are basically just Mystery movies with higher stakes (which is what turns them from mystery/crime drama to thrillers).

In fact I would argue that at least half of those movie plots could be rewritten fairly easily to take place in a Solarpunk world without any problem. Like, sure, The Game would not work, because this story very much is build around capitalism existing. And one could argue how those stories, where the main character is a cop need to be changed (because I know that my vision of a solarpunk does not involve cops).

In fact, going through the list of those 50 movies in total, I count a total of 6 movies in which a government conspiracy is part of the central conflict. Out of those 6 movies 4 are Cyberpunk.

Generally speaking, there is a variety of concepts for thrillers. There is the police/crime thrillers, but others as well. Wikipedia lists those kinds of thrillers:

The legal thriller, spy thriller, action-adventure thriller, medical thriller, police thriller, romantic thriller, historical thriller, political thriller, religious thriller, high-tech thriller, military thriller.

And I might add, I am very much missing the psychological thriller in there.

So, what am I saying here?

Basically: All you need to write a thriller is high enough stakes. In the end, a good thriller works by the stakes being high (though what means "high" might also vary from subgenre to subgenre), and by the readers or watchers understanding the stakes well.

So, that said, let me go through the kinds of thriller we have named above and name one example each for how the story could be made solarpunk.

Legal Thriller: The easy example here would be the fight for a Solarpunk world. Either pre-Solarpunk and a group of environmentalists is taking a big company to court for what they did against the environment. Or in a Solarpunk future I could also see some former rich folks trying to bring down the Solarpunk society by trying to find loopholes in the legal system - and a group of lawyers fighting against it.

Spy Thriller: This one will depend a lot on how you construct a Solarpunk future. The easy answer here is a world in which not all of the world is solarpunk - and we basically have a cold war happening between the solarpunk state and the old world state. Works out fine.

Action-Adventure Thriller: A good chunk of the movies in these genre feature natural catastrophes. So... Uhm... An earthquake will still happen in a Solarpunk world - and people try to survive. Easy. Next?

Medical Thriller: Another easy one. There is a break out of a new pandemic. People work hard to prevent further spread. Bonus points: Here we can actually use the setting to show the advantages and the shortcomings of a Solarpunk society, that is an anarchic and socialist/communist society.

Crime Thriller: (I will say, no police, because I do not believe in Cops in Solarpunk.) Again, even though it is to be assumed that crime will go back a lot if we create an equal society, there will still be some people who will kill. And there might still be a serial killer. And there will be those, who will try to capture that serial killer. Again. Easy.

Romantic Thriller: Okay, let's face it. The romantic thriller is so watered down by now that it is "a thriller that also has a strong romantic subplot" for most of the part - rather than the romance being the source of the trilling elements. But for the sense of saying the actual "romance turning into a thriller"... Let's be honest. Even if we had a Solarpunk world in which polyamory was the norm, there would be still crimes of passion - and just plainly abusive partners. So, here my prompt: One partner in a polycule goes to a mental crisis. In the attempt to protect them, the polycule gets drawn more and more to violence.

Historical Thriller: Uhm, okay, I will leave this one out because historical and scifi setting do not quite gel xD

Political Thriller: We have a more anarchic world, but there are still some people who hold more influence, because old habits die hard. Some of them try to use political tools to get the world to revert into the old ways, just to gain more power for themselves.

Religious Thriller: Let's face it. This genre is often very close to horror. But to go with the non-supernatural way... No, I do not believe in forbidding religion in a Solarpunk future. However, there is the issue that religion will always make it easier for cults to form. So, this is the story of a young man who gets into the claws of a religious cult - but only realizes too late what he got into.

High-Tech Thriller: (Translate: SciFi Thriller) Alien, but Solarpunk. The only difference: There are in fact people trying to help. They just fail to do so.

Military Thriller: Like the spy thriller - but instead of cold war it is open war.

Psychological Thriller: I am going here with a parent who gaslights their adult child, while the adult child tries to differentiate reality from the fiction presented by said parent.

So, why did I do this?

Basically just to show you: If you really think the only story you can tell as a Solarpunk author is how the Solarpunk utopia is in fact an illusion made to paint over a corrupt system, then it is very much a skill issue. You just are not very good at telling stories.

Thankfully there is a cure for that: Consume more stories. Watch movies. Read books (or listen to audiobooks). Read comics. Watch shows. Just consume more media.

[feminist-furby-freak]

Well can you explain Gender Ideology with who uses it and where? Can you show where I can find it? Can you describe it without conspiracy theory or recycled homophobia? You are welcome to try.

So I think some of the confusion might come from the language. I know you’re being facetious with this comment but anyway. I am literally a gender studies major so this will probably be more in depth than what you’re asking but maybe someone can benefit.

Gender Ideology™️ isn’t some sort of official concept and doesn’t have an agreed upon definition or foundational text like other social theories. It’s a way of conceptualizing sex and gender. Other analogous frameworks would be biblical gender roles, the Christian fundamentalist ideas of men and women, or postmodernist queer theory, something like Butler’s Gender Performativity.

You’re right that gender ideology is vague and non-specific and I think this is because of the interaction between academia, politics, medicine, and popular culture. Sure, academics and theorists influence society, but rarely in such a direct way (please feel free to correct me). For example, the American civil rights movement and women’s liberation movement had academic elements, but were not governed by how academics theorized race and sex, they were based on people’s lived experiences. Transgenderism, I think, is the opposite and somewhat of an escaped lab experiment. Towards the end of the 20th century, academics began to write about gender in more provocative and philosophical ways. Obviously, this was not the first time anyone had done this, but there was a huge shift in the way academic spaces thought about gender in the US after women achieved full legal rights (which didn’t happen until the 1970s btw). I’m sure the fact that women and gays/lesbians could finally be scholars and professors was important as well. Anyway, I might disagree with Butler, but her theory work is at least intellectually robust. And if you read Butler, it’s very obvious that she is first and foremost a philosopher, not a sociologist or an anthropologist, and this is clear when you hear her speak (which I’ve done btw). Contemporary transgenderism, as a social category, is a direct result of these theorists. There is a lot of misrepresenting or even rewriting history but “transgender” as we understand it today did not exist 20 years ago. We like to call people like Marsha P Johnson transgender, but he didn’t identify that way. He called himself a gay man, a cross dresser, a drag queen, a transvestite etc etc. TRAs often say “trans people have always existed” and homosexual behavior and gender nonconformity (and maybe even sex dysphoria) have always existed but trans as a concept undeniably has not. I could talk a lot more about historical falsehoods and Transgenderism but for the sake of getting to the point I’ll move on for now.

Gender ideology, is how groups like radfems refer to the Frankenstein monstrosity that is the framework Western left/progressives use today to think about gender and sex in order to be inclusive to transgender identifying people. The main ideas are that biological sex is not real and neither is sex-based oppression. It maintains that social and medical transition is necessary for transgender people to live, and that medicine is able to change someone’s biological sex (it can’t). Being transgender is not just dysphoria but some innate sense that someone’s soul is differently gendered than their biological sex (except biological sex is also somehow not real, one of many paradoxes). A woman is “someone who identifies a woman,” even though this phrase is completely meaningless. Because gender is not tied to biology sex, it relies on social ideas. As a result, gender ideology reinforces regressive gender roles and stereotypes, without which it cannot exist. 20 years ago we said boys can play with dolls and it doesn’t mean they’re gay because gender stereotypes aren’t innate and are very harmful, today “we” say that boys who play with dolls are actually girls and need to be given a pink makeover and put on medication. While society was beginning to move away from gender, gender ideology has brought it back to the center and gender is once again considered to be central to one’s identity (and personality) and maybe even the most important fact about them. For this reason “misgendering” and similar actions are considered violent attacks on personhood. Crucially, gender ideology converges with conservative gender ideals through its obsession with gender and performing femininity and masculinity.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #16 – The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

I grabbed this on a recommendation I now forget the specifics of, but which I am incredibly glad I listened to. Not a perfect book, but a beautiful one. It really does immerse you in a capital-w Weird setting in a way I haven’t gotten to enjoy in a while, and might the best in years at really weaving it in with a sense of the mundane and the bathetic. Pacing and character development and plot are a little all over the place, but still a great read.

The story follows Fetter, the only child of the Perfect and Kind, anointed messiah of the Path Above. His mother tears his shadow off of him at birth, and forever after he must choose to remain tethered to the earth and not float away into infinity. He is raised from birth as a tool to take vengeance on his father by committing each of his five unforgivable sins – culminating, of course, in holy patricide. His childhood is spent in indoctrination and murders – and oh, he’s also the only one he knows who can see the monstrous devils who share the world with humanity.

So anyway, all that gives him a lot to talk about in therapy.

The actual book follows Fetters’ life as an aimless young adult in the city of Luriat, with its layers of impenetrable government and byzantine system of castes and races inherited from successive colonizers, its regular pogroms and plagues, and its tendency for any doors left closed and unwatched for too long to instantaneously become permanently shut portals to Somewhere. Over the course of the book, he is dragged into a revolutionary conspiracy, learns his father is coming to the city, learns deep metaphysical secrets, is a pretty terrible boyfriend, becomes a suicide bomber, and learns to fly.

To start with the negative, the pacing of the plot is...okay, maybe not bad, but it’s really not trying for the things I’d expect it to. A whole act of the narrative is spent meandering through an absurd purgatory of refugee/prison/quarantine camps Fetter has been consigned to. Lovely writing, thematically important, does eat up a lot of page count which then leads to rest of the book being things happening very quickly one after the other with very little in the way of buildup or reflection. Time is enjoyably spent just detailing the experience of Fetter’s day to day life, but much of the supporting cast feel more like plot (or thematic) devices than characters. The book ends with the protagonist loudly reciting the big lesson he’s learned from the events of the book. So yeah, less than perfect book. Still, I found all the sins very easy to forgive.

As mentioned, this was the first fantasy book I’ve read in a while that felt properly fantastical, like it was created from first principles rather than being the latest in a hoary old lineage stretching back generations. Which might be complete bullshit, I don’t know – not like I’ve read a great deal of other South Asian fantasy to compare it to – but it worked for me. A big part of which is how very modern it is. This is a secondary world with prophets and plague-bearing anti-gods, forgotten timelines whose ghosts leak into the world, and a whole plethora of almost- and not-quite- messiahs. And also one with cellphones and UN-administered refugee camps, labyrinthine bureaucratic politics and scandals over inappropriate allocation of imported medical devices. It all feels like a reflection of the present and its own concerns rather than the thousandth-generation pastiche much of the genre does, I suppose – which is something I really did appreciate.

The world of the book – or, at least, the little slice of it the story is concerned with. There’s clearly grander and stranger things happening off in the distance – is one intensely concerned with caste and class, race and religion and breeding. Luriat is weighed down with the architecture and high culture of successive waves of colonialism, and its elites organize and govern the population according to a syncretic mix of all of their ideological castoffs. Politics – and in particular the use of plague and quarantine on one hand and sectarian pogroms on the other to control the populace – is pretty key to the whole book. It’s also just about entirely beyond Fetter. Not that he’s dumb, just that he’s apolitical, in the sense of treating government like an inexorable and inevitable fact of life to be worked with/around or avoided, not something you can understand or change. Which makes for fun reading as there’s clearly a whole Les Mis thing happening like 0.5 degrees to the left of the book’s plot.

Anyway, I’m still sad Pipra didn’t get more screentime, and the whole ending feels almost comically rushed, but absolutely a worthwhile read.

[dd-is-my-guiltypleasure]

A LIFE IN THE DAY

David Duchovny: ‘Love can happen at any age, right?

The actor, 63, on The X Files, songwriting and snacking

EKATERINA GERBY

Interview by Helen Cullen

Wednesday January 17 2024, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Time

Duchovny was born in New York City. He studied English at Princeton University and Yale, before breaking into acting in the late 1980s, starting in TV adverts and working his way up. In 1993 he began playing the role of the FBI agent Fox Mulder in The X Files, which ran for nine years. He later played Hank Moody in Californication. He has also released three folk-rock albums and published five novels — last year he directed a film adaptation of one of these, Bucky F***ing Dent. Duchovny has two grown-up children from his former marriage to the actress Téa Leoni. He lives in California, with his girlfriend, Monique Pendleberry, and his two dogs, Brick and Rookie.

I like to get up at dawn because those are my best thinking and writing hours. I love the sunrise but it also means I can get some work done before the sun gets too much. That’s the best time of day for me. I have a coffee that makes me think I’m brilliant for ten minutes and that’s all I need to get going.

Food to me is just fuel and I don’t have very advanced taste buds. I think everything kind of tastes OK, which people react to with suspicion. For breakfast I like oatmeal — what my Scottish mother called porridge.

If I’m filming I still like an early start, but I shot my recent film What Happens Later, with Meg Ryan, all through the night because we filmed in a regional airport after it closed at 9pm. That’s a bit of a nightmare for me as a morning person, but we developed a great camaraderie from working while the world was asleep. My daughter, West, thought it was great to see a romantic comedy film with people my age, but I don’t think of myself as any age, so I hadn’t thought about that. Love can happen at any age, right?

Everybody wants me to have a hobby, but I’m blessed because I love my work. I’ve been able to branch out into music, writing and directing. With songwriting I can pick up the guitar at any time. If you wait for inspiration to hit, you’ll be sitting on your ass for ever.

I knock off for lunch about 12pm. That’s when I have the one big meal of the day that would be recognisable to other humans as a proper meal — vegetables and a protein such as fish. The rest of the time I snack.

In the afternoon I work out. I love the games I played when I was younger — boxing, tennis and basketball — but as I get older I tend to get hurt doing those, so I’ve found Pilates is best for me. It’s still super hard but the least dangerous.

I live in Malibu and the height of my fame has passed, so it’s not difficult for me to move around any more. It’s a different era now because everybody has a phone, so paparazzi are more a thing of the past. I tend to go to the same places where people are bored of seeing me.

There are always different reasons why fans might stop me — it could be still because of The X Files or Californication. I am very proud of The X Files. I can’t think of another show like it in terms of cultural impact and longevity. I just thought we were making good, goofy TV but Chris Carter, the creator and director, saw what was coming in terms of the culture of conspiracy theories. Gillian Anderson [his co-star] and I went from being unknown to globally recognised in a couple of years. We don’t get to see each other that much as she lives in London, but there’s no one else I can share that with.

West is an actor now too. It wasn’t something that I would have charted out for her because I know how difficult it is, even more so for a woman, but I want her to do something she’s passionate about. There are still dark corners in Hollywood but the pitfalls and dangers are much more upfront.

I do enjoy a party, but I’d rather spend time with friends in the evening. Because I like to get up so early, I go to bed early also. I feel electric light has really f***ed with our sense of mind and body, and that we were made to hide in the cave at night from predators and wake up with the sun, so I try to do that. Constitutionally, I feel like that works for me.

Words of wisdom

Best advice I was given

It doesn’t matter if people laugh; it matters if it feels funny to you

Advice I’d give

There’s no such thing as good advice — you have to come to it on your own

What I wish I’d known

Take a moment to appreciate what you’ve done before worrying about the next thing

What Happens Later is in cinemas now and available to stream in spring. The Reservoir by David Duchovny is out now (Akashic Books £19.95)

×

[wannab-urs]

The Spreadsheet Digest | Vol 29

Howdy folks!

This is the final Spreadsheet Digest of 2023! I started the spreadsheet back in May as a way for me to keep up with everything I read. Basically, I was having trouble finding fics I had read so I could reread them or I was getting two chapters into a new series before realizing I'd already read it. So I did what I do and I made a spreadsheet about it. Then I felt like other people might benefit from a searchable list of fics. Then, and I don't know why, I thought people might want to know what I thought about the stuff I was reading. And here we are - 29 volumes and 34 weeks later.

Sorry for long intro! This week I have 16 fics for you (Frankie, Joel, Max Phillips, Javi P, Ezra, Dieter, Dave York, and Jack/Whiskey). Summaries and Tags provided by the author where applicable - sometimes I filled in some stuff.

You can find my masterlist here and all my fic recs here

Recs under the Pedro!

My Way - Frankie one shot by @goodwithcheese

Summary: Frankie's working on his truck... you interrupt him Tags: PIV Sex, Frankie uses his words, aka "you know he talks you through it," frankie is bossy Thoughts: if he uhhh "uses his words" this much in the series this is technically set in, I do believe I'll be reading that. This was HOT. Like absurdly hot. Lemme be you car girl, Frankie

Cocoon - Joel series by @secretelephanttattoo

Summary: A short ode to Joel's coat. / a bath with Joel Tags: Angst and intimacy. 1 reference to blood and allusion to canon typical violence (nothing is described) Thoughts: God i love little intimate moments like this... wrapping yourself up in Joel's coat, washing the bad day out of his curls... I am SICK! Someone let me hold this man, please.

I'll Leave a Light On For You - Max Phillips one shot by @oonajaeadira

Summary: Max has reservations when it comes to love, and for very good reasons. Tags: Angst. Character death. Allusions to the atrocities of war and its lasting effects. Max is a vampire. Traumatic soul memory. Me assuming I know anything about French culture of the 1930s. Thoughts: This is beautiful. Just absolutely stunning. I have a fascination with the concept of past lives, and I adore the way it's written about it here. There are some really interesting takes on it here with Max being a vampire. Also, side note, this fic made me cry. It's that soft angst that you don't expect to make you sob, but holy shit. When it hit (you'll know it when you read it) it hit. I was devastated. And then because it's adira and "we do soft here" it ends sweet.

Once in a Blue Moon - Dieter one shot by @whatsnewalycat

Summary: You're the only person working when a Christmas blizzard rolls into town and snows you in with a notoriously difficult guest, Dieter Bravo. Tags: one shot, slight dub con elements (power imbalance, isolation, alcohol) although both parties are enthusiastically consenting, hotel guest x hotel staff, blizzard, Minnesota because that’s my best friend, dieter generally being an ‘if you give a mouse a cookie’ ass bitch, kinda enemies to lovers???, Christmas, loneliness, palm reading, food and eating, cannabis, conspiracy theory mention, fluuuuuufffff, smut, dirty talk, a dash of conflict, painting stuff, power outage, poverty mention Thoughts: Aly has this way of writing Dieter that is like she knows him in real life. He feels so personal and real to me in her stories. I think I say this every time I talk about her fics, but my Dieter would not exist without hers. Anyway -- this fic is wonderful. Dieter has all that silly druggie boy charm he always has, there's a really interesting inclusion of him having PTSD from working on the movie from The Bubble and a really interesting way that he's dealing with it. It's got perfect vibes for us christmas haters too. I loved this so much.

Jingle Balls / Dashing through the ho - Frankie series by @idolatrybarbie

Summary: Santa Frankie porn... that's it. That's the fic Tags: santa kink???, cockwarming, cum, like so much cum, unprotected vaginal sex, unethical use of a mall Santa Village, semi-public sex, dirty talk and pet names, mentions of free use. / santa kink again, free use, spreader bar, creampie, come eating, facefucking, throatpie, anal sex, degradation, cum, pet names (honey, little girl, sweet girl, baby), praise, CUM AGAIN GUYS LIKE IDK WHAT HAPPENED HERE. Thoughts: This is mostly my fault and I refuse to apologize for it

Galletita - Javi P one shot by @gasolinerainbowpuddles

Summary: Your sister and brother-in-law have enlisted your help with their small business while they await the birth of their first baby. You help with the cafe and find yourself face to face with a new customer whose appetite might have met its match in you. Tags: big boi Javi P is hungry and a little cranky, you like to bake and Javi likes to eat, belly kink, feeding kink, probably bad Spanish, we’re playing fast and loose with timelines, canon, and everything in general, so just forget about timey wimey boo boo wah wah and enjoy the story lmao Thoughts: I do, in fact, need a big boy

Devour - Ezra one shot by @frannyzooey

Summary: Falling for Ezra on the Green Tags: harvesting violence, mentions of gore and blood, mentions of cannibalism, love as consumption and all the visuals that come with it, so much fucking and filth and ass play and cum eating it isn’t funny Thoughts: It was a gift for me, so I really probably should not be so amazed by how much I love this fic. But oh my god, dude. Love as consumption, freak nasty smut, Ezra being Ezra, bi!Ez, the Din/Ez hints (I'd like to know more about that), it's all perfect. I will never stop being obsessed with this

Tear You Apart - Dieter one shot by @psychedelic-ink

Summary: it's the 70s and your friend invites you to an underground club where one of your favorite musicians is playing: dieter bravo. Tags: innocence kink, mild corruption kink, backstage sex, piv, dirty talk, weed, oral + handjob (male receiving)obsessed with rockstar Dieter. Thoughts: I'm surprised I haven't seen more rockstar Dieter. This was hot, filthy, and just... in the words of the man himself perfect.

One Man Show - Dieter one shot by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin

Summary: Dieter gets himself off! Tags: male masturbation, use of sex toys, anal fingering, butt plug, sex tape??? i guess Thoughts: I'm loving this solo session concept so much. Dieter filming himself!!! for no reason!!! is so hot. Everything about this is so fucking hot. I want him to send me that video...

I am a nightmare, you are a miracle - Joel series by @party-hearses

Summary: After your two year relationship with Tommy Miller ends, Joel takes you in — and it’s home like you’ve never quite known before. Tags: slow burn, explicit (eventual) smut, language, infidelity, alcohol, age difference, soft!joel, no cordyceps outbreak, sarah doesn’t exist (sorry), tommy stans don’t come for me. Thoughts: I have been very intentionally not reading WIPs and waiting for them to be finished, but I fucked up. I was scrolling the dash and frannyzooey recc'd this and it caught my eye and I just didn't even check if it was finished. But I regret nothing. Ch 4 is coming soon, I'm manifesting it. I fucking love Joel in this and I'm super intrigued by reader's uhhhh mommy issues and the way that those manifest.

MASTERLIST BINGE INCOMING | @brandyllyn

To sell your love for peace - Javi P series by @brandyllyn

Summary: You are Javier’s newest informant. You’re not his usual type but he’s willing to make an exception. More than one. Tags: smut, sex work, canon typical violence, javi being a moron Thoughts: I adore a lovers to idiots to lovers story... and man is Javi an idiot. The characterization of Javi here is perfect. Protective!Javi is very canon and I love seeing it in fic. Also, I don't normally go for miscommunication tropes (they tend to annoy me) but this was perfect. I loved every second of this story.

The Serpent Under It - Dave York one shot by brandyllyn

Summary: Dave is very good at his job Tags: Canon typical violence. kinda dark yo, soulmate AU Thoughts: I don't typically read soulmate AUs, but I actually read several of brandyllyn's this week. They're very different from the normal trope. This one broke my heart and it's less than 800 words.

To perish twice - Javi P series by brandyllyn

Summary: You can feel when your soulmate comes. Tags: smut, soulmate AU, Javi being an idiot, male masturbation, piv sex Thoughts: This is what I mean... you can feel when your soulmate has a fuckin orgasm??? What a concept. This was really hot, kind of funny, and had just the right amount of angst.

Cross My Heart - Ezra one shot by brandyllyn

Summary: While waiting at a clinic for the hope of a prosthetic arm, Ezra meets a woman who will change his life Tags: Talk of self harm / suicide but no one does it, discussion of medical procedures and prostheses, some use of ability based slurs by Ezra and others, canon typical violence Thoughts: We love a man who will threaten to murder someone's entire family for you... no seriously. I absolutely love Ezra's characterization here and I love the FMC's story AHHH. It's just a very sweet story... with a little Ezra flair.

Into the Shade - Ezra series by brandyllyn

Summary: Why would anyone fake having a soulmate? Tags: Ezra being Ezra, con man!ezra, soulmate AU, smut, Ezra x OFC smut, Ezra x reader is in there though. Thoughts: Yet again, the typical soulmate concept has been turned on its head here, and I love it. I also adore the flores animae - the particular soulmate mechanic in this fic. It's really interesting!

Dreams are Sweet Until They're Not - Jack Daniels series by brandyllyn

Summary: A crimson rose could only mean one thing. Tags: soulmates au, Jack being a slut, angst, smut, happy ending Thoughts: Okay last soulmates AU on the list, sorry. I went a little nuts. They're just so good. The ending of this one was so sweet, dude.

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My fics this week:

Something Sweet - Javi p x reader - You’re new to the team in Colombia and all alone on your birthday. Your partner, Javier Peña, decides to do something sweet for you. (fluff, smut)

Under Your Skin - jack daniels x javi p x reader - You’ve worked on Chucho’s ranch since you were 15 years old, grew up with Javi, loved Javi… He comes back after nearly 20 years to find you hooking up with a certain former secret agent. He’s jealous, for sure, but of who? (smut)

in the a.m. - javi p x reader - Between sleeping with informants and getting in bed with Los Pepes in the fight to bring down Escobar, Javier Peña also finds time to be with you. Wrestling with crippling self hatred, Javi tries and fails to keep his blood stained hands off of you. Based on some of my favorite Arctic Monkeys songs (smut, angst)

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Happy Reading!

[nonwal]

each half blind without a mirror

(AKA, the time travel shadowgast fic that I'm not going to finish writing. So here's the beginning and the plot outline. Be warned, it’s not technically an unhappy ending but it’s certainly bittersweet, with a lot of alternate timeline MCD.)

Bren Aldric Ermendrud does not like Vergesson Sanatorium because deep down, he knows that he belongs there. He's been a little mad for a long time, but he's never told anyone about it. It has yet to interfere with work, and that is what matters. If his dreams are filled with smoke and blood and vague prophecies in his own voice, that is his own business. If he is occasionally convinced that he is being watched--well, who is to say that he isn't? Trent has eyes everywhere. But it does mean that he answers the summons to the sanatorium with more trepidation than strictly necessary.

"Sorry," Astrid says when he arrives just outside the gate. "I didn't know how to explain the situation over Sending." "It's fine," he says mildly. "You can apologize by explaining now." She hesitates. "I don't know how to explain now. We captured Thelyss. He tried to kill Master Ikithon. And as far as we can tell, he's gone mad." That is…a lot to take in. Bren quashes something that might be hope or might be simmering fury. "You need me to verify that it's him," he guesses after a moment. "He was your contact, and our master is very interested in learning why he is here and not in a grave in Ghor Dranas," she says dryly. "Ah." Bren connects the dots now, recognizes what she isn't saying. Essek Thelyss had been Bren's charge, at least until he’d been executed after his plans to steal the beacons were revealed by an unknown party. It was an inconvenience that Bren has…already paid dearly for. But if he’s faked his death, if he has made an attempt on Ikithon’s life--that reeks of a conspiracy. Bren is in danger. But isn't he always? "You said that he's mad?" he asks as Astrid guides him inside. "We thought he was faking it at first. But even under a Zone of Truth, he speaks contradictory nonsense." "Such as?" "He is convinced that Vess died due to a disagreement with a cultist over a city made out of meat, that I am the Archmage of Civil Influence, that he is friends with a cleric whose powers come from a talking weasel, that he successfully stole the beacons but they were given back, that he was born in 715 PD and he is one hundred thirty-seven years old--" "He doesn't know what year it is?" "He's aware that it's 832. He insists his math is right anyhow. We've already tried removing any curses he may be under, healing, a Greater Restoration--anything we can think of. He isn't a shapeshifter, he isn't under any magical effects. He claims that it was him who got executed, and the execution did kill him, but also that he's never died before." She lets out a frustrated breath. "He also insists that he is perfectly sane, but what madman doesn't?" "Interesting," says the madman walking next to her. "Do you have any theories?" She sighs. "I was hoping that you would," Astrid admits. “He’s your responsibility.” "I watched him die. I verified that it was him. This could be a clone? Or some other attempt at transferring his consciousness." "Did he mention dabbling in necromancy?" "That really isn't the sort of thing he would have admitted to me." Their conversations were always more…complicated.

(and then the outline below)

Bren gets summoned because the Assembly has caught Essek Thelyss during an assassination attempt on Trent. The same Essek who definitely got caught and executed by the Dynasty before he could steal the beacons. The same Essek that Bren had been working very closely with

Bren talks to the captured drow. It is Essek. It is not the Essek that he knew

he eventually determines that this Essek is a time traveler who has been stuck in the past and has subsequently altered this timeline, and that this Essek knew him in the future timeline

he asks Essek if the future Bren came with him to the past. Essek admits that yes, the original spell was supposed to bring them both back to the past for a short period of time and then back to the present, but for some reason Essek got left behind and the timeline didn’t loop smoothly the way they had intended

he asks Essek if the future Bren came with him to save his parents. Essek asks how he knew that

Bren knew that because for the past seventeen years, he has been working under the assumption that he was delusional. When he killed his parents, he wandered behind the house for a minute and “hallucinated” seeing them escape through an unblocked window and disappear with a stranger, and thus he never broke

Essek is relieved to know why timeline didn’t loop correctly. I think I know why you got left behind, too, but you won’t like it, Bren adds

Essek demands to know anyway. Bren refuses to tell him until he explains what happened to his Essek. Essek explains that in the timeline he’s from, the theft of the beacons led to a war. He tried to convince his current self not to steal them, and failed—so he planted the right evidence to prevent the plot a different way, leading to his own death

“I’m not surprised that you couldn’t convince him. You are very different.” “In a good way.” “No, not in a good way. I think I loved him. I do not think I would love you.” “…I’m sorry.” “No, don’t be. I assume you loved that other version of me, ja? I killed him, too. So we’re even. Fair play.”

it turns out this Essek was not left behind. The spell failed because after Essek teleported his parents to safety, Bren saw Caleb inside the house, panicked, and killed him. The spell failed because one of the people who cast it died

Essek is. A little despondent over this, understandably. He isn’t stuck in a shitty AU past where everything is going wrong, futilely hoping that Caleb will come back again and rescue him—he’s stuck in the only remaining timeline, and Caleb no longer exists at all

Essek proposes a pact: in his timeline, he helped defeat Trent Ikithon. If Bren frees him, he can help do the same in this one

Bren agrees. They flee together, and go into hiding, begin plotting for the years ahead. They are both mourning a version of the other that no longer exists. They have both murdered each other’s lover. They are both wearing the face of each other’s lover. It is not easy company

Essek knows how to track down most of the Nein, still a year before they all meet. He doesn’t know exactly how Bren could play the part of Caleb—but Caleb did leave behind letters

Bren goes to visit his parents. It’s weird. He’s missed them, and an insane part of him has never really believed that they were gone—but they have the letters from a version of him that never came to be. Much like Essek, they were hoping he would be someone else. (They try to be happy for him regardless. But he can tell they thought he would be a better man.)

the Mighty Nein still meet in roughly the same fashion, except Veth and “Caleb” just…have a strange tension between them. Things start to deviate at Alfield. The ruse gets harder to maintain. Beau is paranoid that someone is following them, watching at a distance. In Zadash, Bren manages to keep his mouth shut during the Zone of Truth but has a panic attack prior to the Victory Pit and has to tap out because he knows that Trent would be watching

the beacons were never stolen, though. So there is no broken tower, no declaration of war, no push to get out of town as quickly as possible. Bren convinces the group to head north, but—they get as far as Bowlgate, and things properly escape his control. Essek has to intervene. They explain the ruse, the time travel

people are, to put it lightly, kind of fucking pissed

they do still go to Hupperdook, now with Essek. It’s a little bit tenser than the original timeline, between the Nein being extra wary of Bren and Essek, and Bren and Essek still being wary of each other

no one gets kidnapped. Molly doesn’t die. They take out the Iron Shepherds and recruit Caduceus. And then it’s…boat time? Caleb didn’t leave great notes about that and Essek doesn’t exactly know what went down, but they do end up becoming pirates

they get the Happy Fun Ball and the Mighty Nein have to restrain Essek from immediately returning to explore it. He tries to explain that the key to taking out Ikithon was found there, but Bren would rather bide his time than risk the Archmage’s Bane with a less-seasoned adventuring group, and takes the Nein’s side. They finally begin to bond with him after the incident. Essek tries (fails) not to be jealous

they discuss next steps as they sail back to Nicodranas. There is no war, no stolen beacons, no burned Felderwin and kidnapped husband to bring them over to Xhorhas. They decide to still tackle the Angel of Irons cult, this time keeping Yasha safe

they arrive at Nicodranas. To news of a war and a burned Felderwin.

Essek holds it together for long enough to verify that Veth’s entire family made it out okay (having never begun working for the Assembly) and then he fucking falls apart. The Nein have never really bonded with the weird time traveler who keeps trying to manipulate them into following a specific path, simultaneously following his own agenda and wishing they were future versions of themselves—but they try to comfort him as best they can

Later, when everyone else has gone to bed, he says to Bren, “It was all for nothing. I didn’t stop it.” “The way I see it, this means the war—the one you remember—wasn’t your fault. It would have happened without you. Silver lining?” Essek is quiet, a very unconvinced sort of quiet. Finally, he says, “I got myself killed. For this. And it wasn’t enough. He died for nothing—I was him, once upon a time, I was almost exactly him except that I never knew you—“ This is the first time that Essek has ever expressed proper regret for killing the Essek that Bren has always privately thought of as his. Softly, he says, “You didn’t know. It’s okay.” “I killed him for nothing. It is not okay.” “Ja, well, sometimes you kill your mirror self and you entire life goes to shit. I wish I hadn’t killed your Caleb, either, but it’s a little too late for that.”

they reach a new understanding of each other after that. Not exactly romantically—they have sex, a few weeks later, and both agree that it doesn’t feel the same—but at least they become tentative friends with occasional and probably inadvisable benefits

the war did not happen over stolen beacons, and there is no beacon to return in order to end it. They stay far away from the Dynasty, struggle their way through the Happy Fun Ball with Yasha’s help, manage to kill the heart first and take down Obann when the ritual to free the Laughing Hand fails as a result

there is no peace treaty. There is no way to end the war. They go out of order and tackle the hag next, turn Nott back to Veth. They get the residuum for the Blooming Grove, Fjord becomes a paladin, Travelercon is still a clusterfuck

the war gets worse. They discuss the possibility of stealing the Pride’s Call beacon as leverage, and head back to Zadash to begin investigating—and then Yasha disappears

the first thought is more Angel of Irons shit, but when they scry on her they see her traveling with Cree. Turns out Lucien didn’t need Molly to be dead to come back

there’s a race to the north, trying to stop them, trying to unpossess Yasha. They don’t read the book, don’t get any eyes—but this is so far off the original timeline that Essek doesn’t know what to expect. They go through Aeor, they take down the Tombtakers, they reach Cognouza, they fight Lucien-as-Yasha…

but unlike Molly’s body, Yasha doesn’t die

things go bad. Very bad. Molly goes down first, and then Caduceus when he tries to reach the body. Then Veth, then Fjord. When Jester goes down, with Bren on his last legs, Essek manages to get within range for a plane shift—but Beau refuses to leave Yasha behind

Essek Thelyss and Bren Aldric Ermendrud return to the Material Plane and prepare for the end. But nothing happens, no hungry flesh city arrives to wreak havoc. The war is getting worse, far bloodier than the one Essek remembered—but nothing beyond that

eventually, they return to Aeor, find their way back to Cognouza and the remains of their friends. Turns out, after Lucien killed Beau, there was nothing left to keep Yasha standing. Very tidy, how that one played out

They return to Aeor. The ice is preferable to flesh. Bren asks, “Did any of it go like this, in yours?” He already knows the answer, but he wants to hear it again, just in case Essek has a different one this time. “No.” Essek sits on the ground, not bothering to float. “If we could raise one of the clerics, maybe—“ “Caleb was a transmuter.” Ah. And Bren is not. “We could find a powerful cleric—“ “With the war the way it is?” Essek’s voice is brittle. On the verge of tears or on the verge of an angry outburst, he can’t tell. “And the chances of getting everyone back—“ His voice breaks. Tears, then. “My apologies. It seems the plan to kill Ikithon has fallen through.” This is such a stupid apology that Bren has to laugh at it. “Do you really think this is still about killing him, for me?” A quiet sigh. “I’m sorry, Bren.” “Ja. Well. It could be worse?” Essek glares up at him. “How, exactly?” Bren doesn’t actually know. “We’re both still alive? And Veth’s family is safe, and Jester’s. And mine.” Even if he is a stranger to them, and a bit of a disappointment compared to who he could have been— Bren wonders if it was worth the trade. The war, the Mighty Nein, the miserable elf curled up on the ground. He sighs. “No. You’re right. This is—yours was better.” And, “The chamber that we stumbled across. That was how you two…?” “Yes. But your—“ “Maybe we should go back one last time. Tell our better selves to leave things as they were. Untie the knot you made trying to form a clean loop.”

they do go back, just a few moments before Caleb and Essek arrive. Essek immediately launches himself into a hug around Caleb, explains that he got left in the past because Caleb died—and already, the other Essek is convinced

Caleb asks Bren if he was happy. If his parents were still alive. Yes to the latter, not really to the former. They read your letters, you know. They were so proud of you. But—a little less proud of me. I didn’t—it’s a long story. I never broke. My name is Bren.

Caleb asks if they’re here to stop him. If he should let it be. They say yes, and also Essek had to kill his past self to stop the beacons from being stolen but eventually there was a war for other reasons and because the Nein didn’t have any beacon there was no political leverage to stop it and it’s still getting worse and now every member of the Nein is dead—

look I just think there should be a lot of wizards hugging their traumatized alternate universe selves here

eventually Bren—seventeen years old, about to make the worst decision of his entire life—arrives in the distance. The older Bren asks if they should stay close or not. He’s only seen it as an illusion. Caleb tells him that he doesn’t need to watch the real thing. The pain won’t fix anything

they move into the woods, so far away that they can’t hear anything. Eventually there is a faint light at the distant horizon from the blaze, but nothing more. Bren and Essek—the Essek who got left behind—begin to fade into a pair of dark voids. Echoes. Just alternate timelines, shadows of something that never happened

Caleb and Essek return, a little haunted by the versions of themselves that they could have been. They go destroy the T-dock. It takes them years to tell the Mighty Nein what happened

for the rest of their lives, whenever they cast Resonant Echo, the echoes are always the same ones

[inkblackorchid]

What the hell happened with Crow: an autopsy (Part 2)

Hope you didn't think I'd forgotten about this post yet. Lads, ladies, and other lovely people, here we go. I have more yelling about bird boy to do.

But first, a few disclaimers. For people who may have missed part one, yes, as the title implies, this post is part two of an attempt to analyse Crow's character throughout 5Ds' whole run. You can find part one here. Now, both for people who may not have the time/energy to read my first, huge post about this right now, let me explain what I'm about here before we start again: My analysis is not meant to deter people who like Crow from liking him. It's also not meant to convince Crow haters otherwise, even if I admittedly personally like Crow. All of this stuff is just my personal attempt at dissecting how his character was handled in the show and why that might have been. And because this is part two, and I covered the Fortune Cup and Dark Signers arc in the first post, I'll start with the pre-WRGP arc, then dig into the backstory Crow was given directly before the WRGP begins properly. Also, mind the length of this post. I'm physically incapable of writing short things.

I also feel the need to reiterate another thing before I really get into the meat of things again: If you were hoping to see any old rumours about 5Ds confirmed, this is the wrong post. In fact, thanks to the very thorough work of someone over on Reddit (another shoutout to @mbg159 here, who's the author of those posts), I know for a fact that literally all the big rumours surrounding Crow are one big pile of logistically impossible horseshit, and I think after so, so many years of people citing this nonsense, the fandom as a whole finally deserves to let these go:

No, Crow was not meant to be a dark signer, least of all the final boss of season one, and Blackwings were not the reason he got more screentime later.

No, Aki being sidelined was not the result of her irl voice actress' pregnancy.

Yes, I know these two posts are both a long read each, but I cannot begin to tell you how tired I am of these rumours. So even if you don't have time to read the stuff above, please take away this: The big 5Ds production conspiracy theories are. all. bullshit. Because, to put it in as simple terms as possible, none of them work out logistically. The events people have pretended affected the show's production in a major way all don't line up with the actual production timeline. So just can the rumours already. Please let them die. And no pitting Aki and Crow against each other on his post or because of this post, yes? I beg you, I am so tired. Ok? Ok.

All right, now we can get to the good part. In my previous post, I left off at the end of the DS arc. So, in what position is Crow at the end of the DS arc? He helped save the world by defeating Goodwin and got his very own signer mark after Rudger/Roman Goodwin's death.

And now, where is Crow at the start of the pre-WRGP arc?

(Bam. Delivery bird boy be upon ye.)

This time, Crow wastes absolutely no time coming back on screen. We see him again within the first episode of the second half of the show, and wouldn't you know it! He moved in with Yusei and Jack and the three of them have a funny, brotherly, bickering dynamic between them. Also, as a fun little add-on that is very much in line with his deeply Satellite, down to earth characterisation from the first half, Crow now works as a delivery driver to earn money for the household. That's all very nice and good.

But what is his role in the plot from here on out? Well.

First, a small note about the pre-WRGP arc. Though this arc is fun to watch because it gives us a lot of silly character interactions the show no longer found the time for once the WRGP started, the pre-WRGP arc really can't be said to bother with actual plot much. It's the known filler arc of 5Ds, and as such, Crow is not the only character who gets pretty much nothing plot-related to do during this arc. Thus, I'll only give a quick run-down of what he does get up to, just in case any of these tidbits end up showcasing a relevant aspect of Crow's character I might come back to later.

Furthermore, another thing that's pretty much obvious to everyone who's ever watched the show in its entirety but still bears mentioning: Crow gets a lot more screentime from this point on out. Technically. Why do I say "technically"? I'll get back to that further below. For now, just keep it in mind.

So, how does Bird Boy spend his time during the arc where the plot's on the back burner? To be honest, on the sidelines, mostly. Don't get me wrong, Crow's there. Most of the time. But he gets pretty much only two episodes where he's the focus, and both of those aren't exactly known for being 5Ds' most memorable episodes (even though I still like them both tbh, but I digress): For one, in episode 68, he gets to convince Bashford to move in with Martha so the depressed old man isn't spending his entire retirement living in a scrapyard.

(This episode's comedic moments are actually fairly solid. But those are just my two cents.)

And for two, in episode 85, Crow gets to bond with the boys' somewhat cranky landlady, Zora, by duelling some sense into her son, Lyndon. (Which also introduces us to a duelling tactic only Crow uses that we will later see again: Losing on purpose.)

(And here we can see Crow showing off his skills at dealing with petulant children.)

Now, do these two episodes where he gets to be relevant actually do anything for Crow? As a character? Debatable. If nothing else, they strongly reaffirm the values Crow represents which we were introduced to in the first half of the show, though. They reintroduce us to his stubbornness, to his (in comparison to Jack and Yusei) more playful nature, to his very Yusei-ish dedication to doing the right thing, to his penchant for spite, and to his strong sense of family and community and his belief that these two things shouldn't be abandoned unless you have a damned good reason for it.

You may notice that there's a sizeable gap between these two episodes. That's because those episodes are where we get the only smidgens of plot in this arc. Among them, highlights like Sherry's introduction, the first reveal of accel synchro, Aki's turbo duelling license exam, three separate story beats hinting at the machinations of the emperors of Iliaster (Luciano's little stunt with Rua and Ruka, Placido getting started on building a killer robot army, and the Jack double being unleashed onto NDC), and Bruno's introduction. So, here's the thing: Crow is technically present during most of those episodes, too, but he doesn't actually get to meaningfully interact with the plot-relevant elements. (Which is not to say he doesn't have nice moments here and there. He does get to bounce off the other characters, and, just as one example, helps Yusei and Jack upgrade Aki's duel runner, as well as help Yusei build Rua's duel board. Crucially, he doesn't get to do anything that later becomes plot-relevant, though.) Moreover, not one, but two characters who end up becoming major players in the series' finale are introduced here, which is relevant insofar as that Bruno and Sherry both end up needing a good amount of development before they can impactfully take their later roles. Now, I say this with nothing but genuine appreciation for both these characters, because I do like them, but I feel the need to point out what this means not just for Crow, but for pretty much everyone who isn't Jack or Yusei: Every minute of screentime that was dedicated to Bruno and/or Sherry was one minute less the writers could spend on the rest of the cast. This is not to say that time shouldn't have been spent on them, they needed it, especially because they were introduced so late, but it's something I do want people to keep in mind when talking about who got how much screentime and whether or not that time was well spent. (I also have a larger gripe with the definition of "screentime" in general, but more on that later.)

So when does Crow get to be relevant to the plot again, now that he's even a signer and all? Well, not until episode 94, when the WRGP arc has already started. (Note that I'm using the 5Ds episode list on wikipedia as a general guide for which arc and which season starts where. You can find it here.)

*Deep breath*

So. Episode 94.

(Pictured: One very scruffy dragon. Bird? Dragon-bird. Bird-dragon. You figure this shit out.)

That episode. The episode where Crow, who was awarded with the status of a signer during the finale of the DS arc, finally gets a dragon to match his mark. And the episode where we finally, finally, get some actual backstory for Crow that goes beyond his involvement with the Enforcers and childhood with Jack and Yusei. A backstory that's only Crow's own. Except. How do I put this politely...

This shit doesn't make a lick of sense. Neither the events in the duel between Crow and Bolger in the present resulting in Black-Winged Dragon's appearance, nor the Pearson backstory.

Now, I'm not saying this to step on anyone's toes. From a writing standpoint, I can even make a fairly reasonable guess as to why this episode/mini-arc is here, I think: As I mentioned in part one of this analysis, Crow was not only introduced very late, but also got very little backstory of his own, which set him apart from the other signers. Don't get me wrong, he did get some backstory—we know of his strong connection to Duel Monsters because he learned to read from cards, and we know of his involvement with the Enforcers/Team Satisfaction. Crucially, though, Crow doesn't really get a backstory segment that feels as unique to him as the others. Aki gets her tragic past with her parents and her powers, Jack gets his betrayal of Yusei, which also doubles as part of Yusei's backstory, who as the protagonist understandably gets the most backstory, and even the twins, though they are as always treated as one unit, get their very own segment about the time when Ruka was essentially in a coma. Meanwhile, Crow only has that one-off tear-jerker moment about learning to read from his cards and his being a part of the boys' duel gang, which, and I cannot stress this enough, is treated as more of a Yusei and Kalin/Kiryu backstory by canon than a Crow backstory. Thus, it makes perfect sense from a writing standpoint that the Pearson/Black-Winged Dragon mini-arc would be here. Crow, up until this point, has neither a backstory segment dedicated solely to him, nor a signer dragon to call his own. So, how do we solve this? Give him both in a strategic double-whammy! The math checks out. Unfortunately, the writing of said mini-arc... doesn't.

Now, look. The juicy question of whether Crow would have worked better as a non-signer or not, which I already discussed in part one aside, I personally don't hate what this backstory is trying to do. It's just that the whole Pearson-drama has some very notable, logical holes which I'll get into below. Furthermore, this is not the first time something related to Crow has some unfortunate, logical and/or chronological issues. I already brought up the infamous fridge and Rex Goodwin's rather confusing backstory in part one, both of which raise some serious questions. However, Pearson and everything surrounding him arguably blow that clean out of the water. Let's examine this more closely, shall we.

The long-overdue backstory we get for Crow begins with a mystery: Mikage and Trudge, for a reason that is never given to us, are investigating the death of Robert Pearson (whose death would have been several years ago at this point), whom Crow knew very well, and they're doing it because they found a hint that the person who killed Pearson used an illegal card, Crimson Mefist, to do it.

(Post redemption-arc Trudge actually doing his job instead of bullying random Satellite citizens. Who would have thunk.)

Thing is, here, we already encounter our first, minor problem: Pearson has never been mentioned up until this point, not even as an aside. And this issue is compounded by the fact that not only Crow seems to know him, but Trudge claims to as well, because "Satellite used to be his jurisdiction". So, a named character who's familiar to both one of our protagonists and a notable side character, and we've never seen hide nor hair of him. If we pull our heads out of the story for a second, the irl reason for how this came to be is probably pretty obvious: Pearson was never mentioned before because the writers had nowhere near as solid of a plan for Crow as they did for the other characters, which leads to him being introduced out of nowhere here because we need a backstory and a dragon for Crow and we need those now. Moving on.

The mention of Pearson having been not simply killed in a fire, like Crow previously assumed, but having been murdered through a special, illegal card immediately makes him suspicious. So, he goes to consult Bolger/Bolton, another never-before-seen character who gets introduced in service of this backstory, and who knew Pearson well. And while this guy certainly acts amiable towards Crow at first, implying that the two have a good rapport, at least, he quickly starts acting suspicious when Pearson's murder comes up. Moreover, we as the audience at this point already know Bolger's looking for Black-Winged Dragon so he can use the card essentially as collateral to save his company. And the name "Black-Winged Dragon" already leaves very little to the imagination as to whose deck this monster is supposed to fit into. But, in a small twist, we learn from Crow that this was apparently Pearson's card, and supposedly lost in the fire where said man died, to boot. Then Bolger challenges Crow to a duel, too, offering to tell the truth about Pearson's death if he loses, but demanding Black-Winged Dragon, which he believes Crow to be in possession of, if he wins. So far, so good. We've got a mystery here, and canon is not contradicting itself just yet. Until we get to the actual backstory, which shows us the time Crow spent with Pearson, that is. Before we get into that, I'd like to highlight one theme this mini-arc introduces that actually feels like it fits Crow: Legacy. Over the course of meeting Bolger again and being reminded of his time with Pearson, Crow starts thinking about whether he's taking over his former mentor's/father figure's legacy well enough.

(Crow having some Deep Thoughts TM, featuring one of Yusei's most relaxed, easygoing smiles in the entire show, probably.)

This theme, I would argue, is one of the major things this backstory introduces that really meshes well with the Crow we already had until this point. He's a community-focussed guy and absolutely a family person, if him taking care of Satellite orphans is anything to go by, so leaving behind a good legacy for the people after him (read: the kids he took care of) would absolutely be something he cares about. We see this element of legacy again in his cards during this episode, too, which canon implies he inherited from Pearson. (I'll get to THAT can of worms below.) And on paper, with the themes he's already got going, Crow being the only one to inherit his deck rather than build it all by himself would actually make sense!

However. This is where we have to get into the meat of the backstory. I'll start by listing the barebones information Crow's backstory with Pearson gives us, then going into why several aspects of it are either logistical or chronological nonsense.

So, as canon tells us, Crow met Pearson after Kiryu/Kalin was arrested, when the Enforcers/Team Satisfaction all went their separate ways. During this period, Crow had already set up shop near the original Daedalus Bridge and started out taking care of orphans, but it wasn't all smooth sailing. He was, by his own admission, "living aimlessly". Then, during a pinch, Pearson and Bolger show up, take care of some bad guys for Crow and the kids, and Crow sees a new role model in Pearson. Pearson, who rides the Blackbird, plays a Blackwing deck and owns Black-Winged Dragon. So, he joins up with Pearson, presumably learns how to work on duel runners from him, and also befriends Bolger. Then, one day, a fire breaks out at Pearson's workshop and the man in question dies, but leaves Crow his runner and his duel disk before he does so. End flashback. Because I want to tie this together nicely, we also learn later that Pearson technically left him Black-Winged Dragon, too, by sealing it in his runner. And, of course, that dragon later becomes Crow's very own signer dragon.

Several points to be dissected here. And funnily enough, Bolger's duel with Crow isn't relevant for any of them. Let's start with the big one: The timeline. I want you to remember that as far as canon is concerned, Crow is 17 during the DS arc. Moreover, it's canonically stated that Jack stole Yusei's first duel runner two years before the show's start, at which time Crow would have been 15. And their time together as the Enforcers must have been even before that, because Kiryu/Kalin was already in prison for a while at that point and Crow and Yusei don't reunite until the DS arc is basically in full swing. So, I'll make a vague estimate here and say that during the time of the Enforcers, Crow would have probably been 13-14. (Which is hilarious when you think about the fact that this gang of angry teenagers essentially took over the entire duelling underground of Satellite, but I digress.) Now we add the idea that Crow met Pearson after the Enforcers, but that he died before canon starts into the mix. That means Crow first ran into Pearson sometime around age 15, and that he then died presumably before Crow turned 17. So far, so good, that still slots into canon, even if it makes Crow pretty damn young for some things. He's even missing the personalised Blackbird duel disk he later wears during the Enforcer days, I went back to check. What he is not missing, however, are his Blackwings. And this is where canon may or may not have made an implication that, if intentional, breaks this timeline. See, during the scene where Pearson's workshop is burning down and he's already trapped under debris and has embraced death, he tosses Crow his duel disk and leaves him his runner.

(Two important screenshots, in sequence. One, Pearson with his duel disk still strapped to his arm. His deck is very obviously still in there. Two, Crow with that same duel disk, as made obvious by its distinct shape.)

What this implies is that Pearson also left Crow his deck. Which, yeah, fair enough, if I were dying in a fire I'd probably also think "fuck it, not like I'll need my cards in the afterlife". What this (and Crow's look the first time he sees Pearson's monsters) implies, though, is that Crow didn't start playing Blackwings until Pearson left him his deck. Which is factually untrue, because there is literal evidence in the show that Crow already had Blackwings during his time as part of the duel gang, before ever meeting Pearson. (The exact episode, if you want to check for yourself, is 33, where Crow summons both Bora the Spear and Blackwing Armor Master during a flashback.) However, I will concede that the show never actually states this is the case, it's just implied by what we see on screen, so perhaps the idea here was that Crow already played Blackwings before Pearson, but grew to love them even more through his mentor/father figure, and so later happily integrated the deck he inherited into his own. Crucially, canon never states this outright, either, though, so the option remains on the table. But, to give the benefit of the doubt here, the possibility that this could still slot in with canon and that it was just handled poorly is there. The same cannot be said for the Blackbird, however.

(Uh oh. So much for canon continuity.)

The above two screenshots directly contradict each other. First we have Yusei, upon reuniting with Crow in Satellite during the DS arc, casually remarking that Crow finished his duel runner. Which means that canon at this point suggests to the audience that one, Crow built this duel runner by himself, for himself, and two, that Yusei knew about it for a while already. Then there's the second screenshot, from the Pearson backstory episode, where Crow outright claims the Blackbird was left to him when Pearson died. I don't think I need to tell anyone that these two things can't be true at the same time. And again, I think this is where Crow fell victim to the writers not having a clear outline for him. At first, he was supposed to be this scrappy guy who also built a duel runner for himself, just like Yusei. But now, he's a signer, needs a backstory and a dragon, and because a theme of legacy is introduced alongside Pearson, the runner suddenly needs to be inherited, as well as (possibly) Crow's cards. Now, a crafty fanfic writer could probably reconcile the above contradiction somehow, and I know some stories that accomplished that. But the point isn't that we, as the audience/fandom could make this work, the point is that canon didn't make it work. What canon, sadly, also didn't get to work was Black-Winged Dragon.

(We meet again, bird-dragon.)

Here comes the next elephant in the room: Everyone and their mother who has watched 5Ds knows that Black-Winged Dragon was never implied to be a signer dragon up until the duel where Crow acquires it. In fact, an entirely different dragon is teased so heavily long before BWD ever shows up that it to this day is one of many people's major gripes with the show's writing.

(Why, hello, Life Stream Dragon! Fancy seeing you here.)

And yet, Black-Winged Dragon is turned into a signer dragon before Life Stream Dragon, who was teased more than sixty (!!!) episodes before BWD was ever even mentioned. Why? Simple: Because Crow became a signer and Rua/Leo didn't, because the signers all need dragons (or else the "5Ds" part kind of doesn't work), and because Life Stream Dragon thematically doesn't fit Crow.

Now, I've seen people post theories to reconcile this weird hitch in canon, hell, I've even posted an idea for how it could be reconciled myself. But, again, that isn't the point here. The point is that as far as good old, barebones canon is concerned, it isn't reconciled. Canon at first states there are five signers, suggesting that there are also five dragons. But then, the fifth dragon never shows up, and one of the signers dies, to boot. Only for canon to then teach us, oh, no, look, the signer marks can wander from one person to the next. And to add insult to injury (at least where the show's writing and internal consistency is concerned), the signer mark that was "freed up" by Roman/Rudger's death doesn't wander to Rua/Leo, who any attentive watcher would have expected to become a signer because it was heavily teased during the DS arc, but to Crow. Frankly, I'm not surprised many people were angry about this, but in case my disclaimer didn't make it clear, I don't think it's productive to pin this on Crow by claiming his cards became super popular irl. There was definitely an out-of-left-field writing choice made here, but the only answers as to "why" were left in the 5Ds' writer's room, I believe. At a guess, if you want me to throw out a non-sugarcoated theory as to why, though? They probably thought Crow would be a more interesting character for their target audience. He's a scrappy guy who sticks it to authority, he's brave, he's funny, he plays a cool deck, and most of all, unlike Rua, he never embarrasses himself in a duel on screen. Why am I highlighting that last part? Because I feel like people sometimes forget that the target audience for this show, at the time of its creation, were about twelve year-old boys. And you can feel free to contradict me on this, but most twelve year-old boys I've known and know don't want to project themselves onto a chracter who loses and gets his butt kicked a lot, and who's a bit awkward and steps in it sometimes, which is much closer to how actual twelve year-olds are—but that's exactly why they prefer the cooler characters. And Crow is the cooler character, by average twelve year-old boy logic, regardless of what the grownups of this fandom think.

So Crow gets a dragon and the writing doesn't bother explaining the how or why of it, let alone tackles any of the implications made by Black-Winged Dragon's existence as a signer dragon. (Like what does this mean for the larger worldbuilding? Does the Crimson Dragon actually have more than five servants, but chooses to only ever bestow five marks at a time? Can any "dragon" the Crimson Dragon chooses be a signer dragon, and it just so happens that the constellation of signer dragons is nearly the same as the original one in present-time 5Ds canon? Did the Crimson Dragon specifically elevate BWD to a signer dragon because it felt like it? Was BWD always supposed to be a signer dragon? Was Pearson supposed to be a signer, but died too early before the dark signer prophecy was set into motion? Am I overthinking this? (Yes.)) He also obtains his dragon in what feels like the weirdest way possible to me, because it suddenly??? Just decides to appear in his runner????? Out of nowhere??????

(Why is that here. How did it get there. Why did Pearson even put it in there. And HOW. Is it just wedged between the machinery or what???? And how on earth did Yusei, Bruno, and/or Crow never find it before this point considering how often someone tinkered on the Blackbird on screen???)

(This scenario, of course, also raises the question how the other signers even got their dragons. But like many other, interesting questions, this episode chooses not to interact with that one whatsoever.)

In short, this backstory is a bit of a mess, to say the least. For as much good as it tries to do by contextualising Crow's character and giving him something that sets him apart from the rest of the protag group, it feels like a rough draft of an episode was given the green light to be produced without any editing, judging by the contradictions and weird implications. As such, it harms Crow's character as much as it builds it, as evidenced by how much fandom backlash he still receives years later for the things that were bungled in this backstory and also in different aspects of his character writing.

Now, you may notice this post has gotten stupidly long due to just how convoluted the specific hangups of Crow's backstory are. I originally meant to cover the WRGP and even the Ark Cradle arc for Crow in this post, too, but due to how much there was to say about canon's attempt to finally make Crow a "proper" signer, I've decided that trying to force another two whole arcs in here would be a disservice to the analysis and the character, and also make this agonisingly long, so I'll close this part out here and write a part three, perhaps even a part four depending on how much material the WRGP gives me to work with.

There's one more thing I need to get back to before I finish up this part, though: The "screentime" discussion. I mentioned far above that I take issue with how some people seem to be using the word screentime, and now I can explain why. First, I want you to take a look back at the episodes I covered here, those being 65-95, essentially. Now, as anyone who usually dislikes Crow will tell you, Crow is present in most, if not all of these episodes. He's on screen. He's getting screentime, and, according to many people, hogging it, even. Okay. Now, I want you to look back up at the analysis. How many episodes did I cover where Crow actually gets something to do? As in, where he's either the focus of the plot or gets to contribute to it in a significant way? There's the old man Bashford episode. There's the Poppo Time clock episode. There's his two backstory episodes. That's four. Four episodes. If you're generous, you might add in the episode where he gets to narrate Yusei's backstory alongside Jack and the two fake Jack episodes where he gets to have an emotional moment or two with his foster-brother. If you're less generous, you'll note that none of these episodes have Crow actually interacting with the main antagonists in a meaningful way or set up anything important that pays off later. (Hell, he doesn't even get any, and I really mean, any meaningful setup interactions with Sherry, who ends up being his final-boss-level opponent during the final episodes! Aki gets more meaningful interactions with Sherry than him, not that this ever gets a payoff.) And this is why I take an issue with people claiming Crow gets so much "screentime" post DS arc. Because to me, "screentime" should be time spent letting a character act meaningfully within the story, which most of the pre-WRGP episodes aren't for Crow. He's on screen, yes, but in many episodes, it wouldn't matter one whit whether you replaced him with a nameless side character, which isn't exactly a great look for a supposed third of a protagonist trifecta. Perhaps I'm being too strict with my definition of "screentime" here, fair enough! But the claim that Crow hogs screentime already rubs the wrong way during this comparably unimportant arc, so I can't leave it alone. It feels very decidedly malicious to claim a character who during some episodes seems to only be there to provide exposition or make whatever jokes Yusei and Jack's personalities aren't suited to is stealing screentime from other characters. As for the WRGP duels and whether he's "hogging" anyone's screentime there, I'll dig into that nonsense in the next part, please be patient with me.

...Phew. Okay.

Now, before I leave you to wonder whether I'm every finishing my Crow analysis in full again, I want to attempt to do the same thing I did in part one—propose some changes that could have been made to the writing for Crow's character in order to make things slot in better with the rest of canon. With a small disclaimer, of course: These are just my suggestions as to how Crow's character could have fit into canon more smoothly and been done less of a disservice by his own backstory.

So. First, a quick-fire thing about the pre-WRGP, to get that out of the way: Crow, alongside Aki, is the only signer who didn't get his own confrontation with either Iliaster or their minions. (Yusei had Ghost, Jack had fake Jack, Rua and Ruka had Luciano.) Instead of having him confront a cranky old man in a scrapyard or Zora's son, they could have easily given him a very short side-story where he gets to experience the threat of Iliaster up close and personal, too. Hell, they could have very nicely cut the recap episode where Crow and Jack lie in the mess of Jack's terribly built coffee table and philosophise about Yusei's backstory for this, too. (As funny as their interaction about the coffee table and Jack lying on the floor with a perfectly intact coffee cup are.)

(Pictured: Two idiots (affectionate) contemplating life among the scraps of a shitty, broken coffee table.)

Then, there's the Pearson backstory, of course. So, here's the thing, I think two very different kinds of "fixes" could have worked here. Crucially, they both depend on Crow's status as a signer. I argued in part one that Crow might have worked better as a character if he hadn't actually become a signer, so I'll give both versions here. Let's go.

Option A: We try not to touch canon too much and Crow stays a signer.

How to do this? Frankly, I think what Crow's mark and Black-Winged Dragon were majorly missing was setup. The mark is the smaller offence here, since, fair enough, the idea that signer marks can wander from person to person isn't too out there for 5Ds canon. However, the lack of a dragon despite the alleged 5Ds stands out, and Life Stream Dragon's wasted setup only makes it worse. Thus, making Black-Winged Dragon make sense would have required giving him the same amount of foreshadowing as Life Stream Dragon, at the very least. And you know who could have been great for that? Sweet, ever-forgotten-by-canon Ruka. She was already shown having flashback dreams to the signer dragons' first battle against the dark signers, so who's to say she couldn't have gotten dreams about a shadowy, new dragon she's never seen before? Perhaps even dreams where she's not sure if the dragon is good or bad at first! It could have provided intrigue, it could have made the audience curious. To strengthen that, canon could have also bothered taking the question "hey why are there only four dragons now" seriously. No character in canon ever questions why there are five marks, but only four dragons. Even Rua, who was previously hopeful that he might secretly be a signer, never brings it up. If canon had bothered to actually point this mystery out, they could have used it not only to foreshadow Black-Winged Dragon, but to aid Life Stream Dragon's setup, too. What the fuck am I talking about, I hear you ask. Hear me out: Life Stream Dragon is shown way, way later down the line, long after the audience probably already accepted that it was simply never going to show up, literally bursting out of Power Tool Dragon's armour. We are not provided with an explanation as to why. Imagine if they had sprinkled in another dream Ruka could have had about the ancient past here. Imagine if they had used the opportunity to show something like, oh, during the battle, Life Stream Dragon got injured so badly they had to protect its wounded body with a suit of armour, in the hopes that it would heal. And with one original signer dragon out of commission, the Crimson Dragon sadly had to choose a replacement in between, because the Earthbound Immortals were sure to return. Bam. Black-Winged Dragon. Two signer dragons, set up simultaneously, without forcing the canon lore to do somersaults. Furthermore, to actually explain why Pearson had the dragon but wasn't a signer, they could have easily sprinkled in a flashback between him and Crow. Maybe Pearson could have mentioned how the dragon always feels like it's never really his, as a joking aside. It would have been enough for me to suspend my disbelief, you know? And then the rest of canon could have played out exactly as we know it. Crow could have confronted Bolger, could have obtained Black-Winged Dragon because maybe the dragon finally decided he was worth throwing its weight behind. The mystery behind the missing fifth dragon could have been solved, and it would have made for satisfying payoff without kneecapping Life Stream Dragon's setup or conjuring an extra dragon out of thin air. And really, stuff like the runner thing could have so easily been solved by simply picking one version (did he build it himself or inherit it?) and sticking with it. All it took was a little more care.

Option B: We assume Crow didn't actually become a signer, but try to keep his backstory intact.

Okay, this version works under the assumption that Crow, despite partaking in the final battle against Goodwin during the DS arc, didn't receive a signer mark. To make this work, I would, bluntly put, simply make it so that Black-Winged Dragon doesn't exist. Pearson can still play a powerful Blackwing monster during his flashback that Bolger wants to find and sell later, but it simply isn't that dragon. Really, Blackwings have enough to choose from there. If the backstory episodes had been placed a little later, say, during the pause in the middle of the WRGP, he could have even received something like Blackwing Full Armor Master here. (Yes, I know that card didn't exist at the time, but my point is that he could have simply received a powerup like Yusei and Jack did, instead of a completely new monster.) With this setup, they could have still added the intrigue of taking the question why there are only four signers now seriously. They could have still set up a mystery about why no one ever saw the fifth dragon outside of dreams. And it could have made Rua becoming a signer later, and in this version getting the tail mark instead of a completely new one, that much more satisfying. And Crow could have kept his "fuck destiny, I'm trying to save the world here"-attitude from the DS arc, providing a nice, amusing counterweight to our heroes chosen by an ancient Incan dragon deity. All it would have taken would have been not giving him a mark and switching out Black-Winged Dragon for something else.

So, take your pick, I guess. In the meantime, I'll try my best to work on part three faster than I did part two, lmao.

See you next time!

[ghostoffuturespast]

Works In Progress 2023: A Cyberpunk 2077 Year In Review

I thought for a hot minute about doing one of those snazzy templates that’s been going around, but editing photos just ain’t my MO and rather than going by month I picked 12 favs that I’ve posted in 2023. Some of them were popular, some of them weren't. Overall, I think I did pretty good for just doing vanilla photomode on console.

You might be wondering why there's a picture of a sticky note. I don't remember when I started doing this, and I'm horribly inconsistent as you can see by the dates, but I'll jot down my word count for my wip chapter and then jot it down again when I remember to later.

I write slow. A lot of times I sit down to write and it feels like the wheels are spinning in place. My minutes and hours don't stretch very far, typically don't add up to much. But days, weeks, months. That's when I can at least measure the progress.

Fic: So It Goes 40/44 - 438,946 words

My V x River Ward and tinfoil hat conspiracy theory long fic. I've spent way more hours on this then I have on any of my VP.

I got tagged by @just-a-cybercroissant @therealnightcity and @wanderingaldecaldo to do some WIP Whenevers. I post my VP pretty regularly, so it’s always seemed silly to do work in progress posts for them, and I don’t know when I’ll have any new writing to share since in between work and the holidays, I haven’t had much time to sit down with anything since my last chapter update. And I've been feeling very... stingy, lately. Especially when it comes to mine and other people's writing. So take this WIP/Year In Review as my offering. Both these series, as am I, are all very much still works in progress. 

I confined my reflections for this year below the cut. If you don’t want to read my long-ass essays, you can admire the pictures, maybe check out my fic, or just move along and have yourself a lovely day.

We’ll start with the easy one.

VP

After at least a year of multiple playthroughs (I’ve played all the lifepaths, done all the endings), it only occurred to me at the beginning of this year to start taking VP. Part of the reason I never did before was because I didn’t realize it was a thing and then by the time I did, I figured I didn’t have much to offer. I play on PS5 and only have access to vanilla photomode, so seeing everyone else’s high-fidelity, ultra ray-tracing, modded, posed, full on virtual photo shoot photos, I was like there’s no way. (Not that I’m hating on PC modders, it’s just not everyone has access to mods or a PC capable of running the game, and I’m all for making art and creative endeavors accessible.) On top of that, all I’d ever heard from most other folks was how much vanilla photomode sucked. In the glamorous world of VP, I didn’t think there was any room for me.

But I started snapping pics anyway. And sure, there are a lot of limitations with vanilla photomode. But what that really translates to is opportunities to get creative. I am also a hoe for subverting people’s expectations, and very much believe when there’s a will, there’s a way.

Environmental and landscape shots were my first subjects before I started branching out into portraits and then capturing story moments. Through VP I found an entirely new way to enjoy a game that I’d already played a ridiculous number of times along with also finally being brave enough to share my V with other people too. I’d always worried about that before, if people would like her. Granted, I know Grandpa’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but whether you like her or not, I certainly think she’s made a name for herself over the past few months. Even if most people haven’t really gotten to know her the way I’d hoped. 

I’ve taken hundreds of photos this past year. Most of which I’ll never share. There’s a lot of flops, a lot of weird experiments, ones that didn’t quite turn out the way I’d hoped, but I’ve learned something from every single one of them. I know how to spot good lighting, frame shots to create optical illusions, get a very limited toolkit to work in my favor, parkoured on all of the things, and heck, I even figured out how to make Grandpa smooch other NPCs. I’ve done atmospheric, mundane, down right goofy, as well as things that most people probably thought weren’t fucking possible.

I can’t say how long I’ll keep doing this, I’m sure I’ll move on at some point, but for now I’m still enjoying myself. There's a lot to explore in this game and I just can’t stop digging Night City.

Now, for the more complicated thing.

Writing

So It Goes… My peace, my war, my greedy and most ravenous of ghosts.

I’m operating under the assumption that most people following me here probably haven't read my fic or aren’t all that interested in reading it to begin with. It’s fine. But you need to understand this fic, my writing, is the main thing that brought me here. This is also Grandpa V’s story. Most of you have met her, but unless you've been reading, most of you do not know her.

I wrote around 185,000 words and posted 10 chapters this year. 2022 was about 253,000 words and 30 chapters, along with several unrelated one shots. However, I don’t think I’ve done a single chapter this year that was less then 10k, and my longest managed to hit 27k. As of the last update I posted, the fic is currently sitting at around 439k words, 40 chapters, and still isn’t done.

I have four more chapters to write. I have written a metric shit ton of words. This is, by far, the longest and most intense creative project I’ve ever endeavored to complete.

When I started writing, I was expecting this fic to be around 100-150k. That seemed to be the average for most long fics. I did not plan on being an outlier. I'm not sure you can ever really plan for that, but I guess I enjoy subverting my own expectations too.

For those of you who are reading my fic, it is my sincerest hope that it shatters every expectation of where you think it’s going. It’s not a joke that I tagged my fic “#an ode to my tinfoil hat”. An ode it has turned out to be. I’ve been sitting on this theory for two years. I have told no one about it. I hope it sticks the landing and hits the way I want it to. I don't know if it will. But fuck, I just want to be done with it so I can move on with my life, take a break, and give myself the opportunity to make and focus on other things before I have to get back on the damn horse.

I wrote less this past year then I did in 2022. I had a lot of life changes, most of which were good, but with times of change come times of adjustment. Along with some realizations that maybe you don’t understand as much as you thought you did. Looking back, I’ve been in a state of unsettled, kuzushi, for a really long time. Which is not a good place to be. It’s how your ass ends up on the ground with a knee knocking out all your teeth. I thought I knew better. Thought I had enough practice to get away from it. But bad habits have good memories.

I think given the circumstances, I accomplished a lot with my writing this year. I don’t know if my writing is exactly where I want it to be. I doubt it every will be, but it’s evolved, grown, and I wrote a pretty hefty stack of words considering I started working full-time again, bought a house with my partner, moved, and have been dealing with the millions of other beans that life tends to throw one’s way. That being said, and for full disclosure, I’ve also been dealing with some of the worst cases of jealousy and envy I’ve had since I was a teenager. 

Frankly, it sucks. They walk with me every fucking where I go, hold my hands to whisper back all my doubts. Try to persuade me to my baser instincts, to be cruel and lash out. But that's not aikido. Luckily, I’m not 16 anymore so it’s at least been easier for me to identify the problem. Though I’m still coming up short in terms of actually being able to do anything about it, and will be for at least a few months more. 

Yeah, I keep talking about it because I don’t know how many people know that I've been feeling this way. And I’m tired of not talking about it in a room full of creatives, because yeah, I know I’m not the only one that feels this way. And not talking about it just makes all that pent up resentment worse for everyone.

Don’t get me wrong, I love writing. But with the way I work and think, it’s a slow, tedious, and incredibly time-consuming art. With how much my fic has snowballed over the course of writing, it’s left very little room for the other hobbies in my life. And as my fellow writers probably already know, writing is an incredibly insular craft. And unlike a picture or an image, which only requires a glance, reading a bunch of words requires time and commitment.

So, when you put yourself out there and share what you wrote, it’s a lonely feeling not knowing whether or not anyone connected with what you put on the page. Especially, when the people who do read aren’t compelled to voice anything and when the people you’d hope would read don’t. And then you're stuck in the dark, not knowing, because neither of us says a goddamn thing.

I started writing this fic prior to actually joining the CP2077 fandom. And I joined the fandom because I felt alone. I’ve been here a while now, albeit in a few different places, and that feeling still hasn’t gone away. I’m still trying to find camaraderie with my fellow writers and carve out something that kinda sort of resembles a home or a sense of community. I watch my peers around me as they seem to build that with each other, except me.

I’m envious of the things that people make and jealous of the relationships those have created and fostered between said people, because for the life of me, it’s been a struggle to cultivate that since I got here. I know it’s selfish, but I also don’t know what about me makes people so hesitant. There have been a handful of strangers that have shown up for me regularly, but as far as people I call friends in this fandom that have shown up and actually stuck around, I can only name one right now. (I know we're all busy. And I acknowledge my writing's not for everyone. I know maybe some of you are quiet, or shy, or probably a thousand other things. I get it. But that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt any less. People will never know unless you say. Never know unless you take the time to interact or engage. Be brave. And that's true for a lot of things.)

The propensity is for the negative to outweigh the positive. I've got a lot of numbers on my fic, so you would think things would be fine, but at this point they just feel empty. They don't bring me any comfort or real satisfaction. And I hate feeling like the people I know don’t care and that most of you are just talking around me. That I’m some kind of annoyance not fit to interact with. Which may or may not be the case. I don’t know. Again, most of you have never said anything. And maybe I need to accept the fact that most of you never will.

But this is me trying to start conversation.

It’s really shitty, knowing that the thing I want the most is also the thing holding me back. I know how to work on it too, not that it’s any guarantee. The problem is I’m still writing and in a needy state of greed. And because I’m slow, I don’t have the time or the energy to be generous. I can only take right now. I can’t give. 

Relationships require both.

I can’t bring myself to read other people’s writing. I can’t comment, or like, or share if I haven’t read anything. I'm desperate for conversation, but I also don't have the time or assurance to facilitate it with other people right now. And for some reason people never seem to want to talk to me, especially when it comes to writing. I want to be part of conversations, talk deeply with other people. But I can’t speak right now, I'm not in a place to offer generosity without someone first giving it to me.

And generosity and grace is what we all need.

Four more chapters and I hope my ghosts will finally let me read in peace.

[deathsbestgirl]

scully's memento mori voiceovers. her love letter to mulder. leaving him something because she can't be there.

"i feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me, knowing that you will read them and share my burden, as i have come to trust no other. that you should know my heart, look into it, finding there the memory and experience that belong to you, that are you, is a comfort to me now..."

trying to unburden herself, to leave him with the love in her heart and free him of the guilt of her death too.

"a faith shaken and strengthened by your convictions, if not for which i may have never have been so strong now."

telling him how he's changed her world, made her stronger and is the only reason she can face this.

"hoping that you will forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you"

she wants to finish the journey with him but she can't. asking forgiveness for something that isn't her fault. leaving him is the worst thing she can imagine.

"that it starts as an invader, but soon becomes one with the invaded, forcing you to destroy it, but only at the risk of destroying yourself."

this is the whole show. scully sent to spy on mulder, to debunk his work. the pilot is about them developing trust and becoming a team. becoming so intertwined that they are one, two sides of the same coin. it's the whole conspiracy and why they'll never win. to do so would mean to destroy themselves and lose their innate goodness. to be like the men in the shadow government they're desperately trying to expose and to stop.

"it's science's demon possession. my treatment, science has attempted exorcism"

connecting science & her faith. her beliefs & her skepticism. somehow one and the same when seemingly at odds.

"and if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this, you must never think there was a possibility of some secret intervention, something you might have done. and though we've traveled far together , this last distance must necessarily be traveled alone."

she doesn't want to be his next crusade. the next one he uses to nail himself to the cross. she doesn't want him to walk into every room with his eyes closed, hoping that when he opens them she'll be there. she knows him. she knows his pain and his guilt it, and she tries desperately to absolve him. love as absolution in the only thing she can give him now. these words before her death.

"mulder, it's difficult to describe to you the fear of facing an enemy which i can neither conquer nor escape."

the vulnerability she is consciously handing to him.

she writes of penny northern, a woman she loves and fears, envies and respects. because she faced what she knew to be true and tried to pass the strength and wisdom onto her.

"mulder, i feel you close, though i know you are now pursuing your own path. for that i am grateful, more than i could ever express. i need to know you're out there if i am ever to see through this."

she speaks as if he isn't out there searching for answers to help her, to save her. as if it's just his quest for the truth he's continuing. as if scully isn't the most important thing to him right now. as if his life doesn't depend on hers. but she knows. and she needs him to know everything he does is worthwhile. that she can't go into the darkness if he isn't there to light it up, even from afar. that he is light & love and making a difference in the world. in her world.

--

every time scully says "mulder" addressing him directly as she pours her heart out on page after page. leaving him with no answers, leaving him alone, dying before they reach the truth. it's a living nightmare. lying on her deathbed unable to help him, unable to give him what he needs. what he deserves. the prospect of leaving him with no one to trust, no one on his side, no one to love him and follow him. terrified he will follow her to the grave. that's what she believes her role is supposed to be, the end of their never ending line and she needs his to keep going.

[polyhexian]

Collected thoughts on the Grimwalker Ghost Zone:

Poor Caleb's experience as a dead person is just. Not normal.

Most dead people are gonna keep an eye on their friends, their kids, their grandkids, and MAYBE their great-grandkids. And then there's no direct ties left to worry so much about the living anymore and you can get on with your afterlife.

And then we have Caleb.

So it's like. The average dead person keeps an eye on the living for 100 years after their death, at most. Caleb Wittebane, who's been cloned 200 times in the last four centuries and feels personally responsible for his still-living brother trying to enact a genocide--

In undefined characters-watching-from-the-afterlife scenarios I usually default the watching happening via TV unless stated otherwise. But it's TOH so I'm imagining Caleb slouched on the couch in front of a big crystal ball. He's not alone of course, Evelyn is there, she checks on him often like, uh. hey sweetie. you doing okay?

Caleb: Evie, meet Virtue! HE ONLY LASTED 11 MONTHS

Evelyn: …you know you COULD stop paying attention to--

Caleb: NO I CAN'T

Evelyn: *sigh* No, you can't.

And of course all the Grimwalkers are there, cuz, like. Where else are they gonna go? They barely had lives, wtf are they gonna do with their afterlives? Might as well wait for Belos to croak, they'll figure out what to do next AFTER they've gotten some closure.

So they're all just in this house together. It's the afterlife, stuff just gets provided, and the afterlife saw fit to provide them with a big stupid house. There's plenty of space and the crystal ball somehow gets repaired every time it suffers an anger-induced shattering and the liquor cabinet is always well-stocked.

Caleb's watching the living with the same energy as someone who's been watching a show since its premiere, but then the writing started going downhill and the plot jumped the shark and now they can't STOP watching because they intend to see this through to the bitter and disappointing end. When he first died he was so upset he refused to even THINK about Philip for a decade and just paid attention to his wife and kid. At some point he checked on Philip out of morbid curiosity, which led to morbid realization, which led to him thinking he should check on Philip more. And then there's clones and this Collector kid and Philip is obviously planning SOMETHING and then Evelyn dies of old age but Philip apparently has no intentions of dying anytime soon and then Caleb's KID is dead and Philip is still alive and Caleb's GRANDKIDS are dead but Philip isn't and there's been 20 Grimwalkers so far and Philip shows no signs of stopping either living OR making and killing Grimwalkers and OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING??

When Evelyn dies she's so ready for her reunion with Caleb. "I'm so glad I can finally rest in peace with my beloved--Caleb what are you doing?"

He's standing in front of a conspiracy board like "Philip's spent the last few decades cloning me and killing the clones and I don't like where it's going."

Evelyn: What. WHAT? Philip's ALIVE? I haven't seen him since he killed you, how the fuck has nothing eaten him??

Caleb: Btw meet Caleb 2, Hunter, Hunter 2, Hunter 3, and Nameless Vivisection Experiment (he's working on a name).

Assorted Grimwalkers: *awkward wave?*

Evelyn: CALEB WHAT?

Caleb's just like, Evie, you have no idea how glad I am you fell off Philip's radar, we're lucky all he did was steal my corpse. I'm being completely serious, unfortunately.

And then the Grimwalkers start coming and they don't stop coming, and they're just stuck in this together because what ELSE are they gonna do? Caleb staring at the crystal ball like "This is Hell. The Puritans were right. Hell exists, and this is it." Evelyn's like "Hell isn't a place, dear. It's just a situation. Our neighbors are resting in so much peace, they'd probably think they're in your Heaven if they knew what that was!"

Everyone isn't watching at all times, cuz that'd be ridiculous. It's kinda like when you're having a party for a sports game, not everyone's paying attention to the TV. You'll have people hanging out chatting and eating and chilling and then there are the people who are intensely paying attention to the game.

Caleb's the one intensely paying attention. Everyone else kinda pops up like "so is he dead yet? is he close to being dead yet? no? bummer. who's this? nice to meet you Virtue. 11 months? yikes"

And it's not like it's just them! It's the afterlife, everyone else who's ever died is perfectly capable of dropping by for a visit. Not that many people do, because the Grimwalker Ghost Zone has a bit of a…reputation. Like. Those people are NOT having a normal afterlife. Let's just. Leave them be.

Sometimes the Witteclaw kid comes to visit. Hi Mom! Hi various tragic brother/uncles (brouncles?) who are literally and figuratively younger than me! Oh, hey new guy, welcome! 11 months? Yikes. Hope you're settling in alright! Mom, what state should I expect Dad to be in when I go say hi? Last time he was manically planning which part of his brother he was going to punch first upon arrival. Ah, depressive episode? Got it, I'll be gentle.

Evelyn's family come to visit like yeesh you and Caleb are still paying attention to the living? It's been like. 400 years. No one stays this invested this long.

Caleb, gesturing at the CB: MY BROTHER IS STILL ALIVE AND IS LITERALLY BEATING A CLONE OF ME AT THIS VERY MOMENT

Relatives: Okay but have you considered, like. getting over it.

They're not even wrong. Continuing to watch the living for this long is, like, the same energy as keeping tabs on your high school friends that you haven't spoken to in 30 years. This isn't healthy. You need better hobbies. Okay it's KIND OF understandable since Caleb's brother and clones are involved, but like. You realize this is entirely optional, right?

Evelyn: Caleb, honey, please, you PROMISED we could have dinner with my parents tonight.

Caleb: ENOCH JUST KILLED A BIRD WITH HER BARE HANDS

Evelyn: We've all killed birds with our bare hands, darling. Come put your shoes on.

When Tell pops up he turns out to be just as invested as Caleb is, on account of the wife and kid situation. So Caleb actually has consistent company for 15 years while they both basically live through the same hell.

Tell walks into the kitchen for a beer and finds Caleb face-down on the floor and Tell's like "what's up man" and Caleb's like "Virtue died" and Tell is like "isn't he like eleven months" and Caleb just nods and Tell's like "cool I'm gonna go meet him" and just leaves Caleb on the floor. Caleb's like "wait didn't you hate him" and Tell's like "yeah but I mean. he doesn't know that."

At some point someone tells Virtue "Y'know Tell literally hated you" (Miles? my money's on Miles) and it starts a whole sibling fight that Evelyn has to break up.

"MILES SAID TELL HATED ME!"

"I didn't hate you I just hated the idea of you! It wasn't personal!"

"Yeah he was always really smug when another Grimwalker would rot in the ground."

"MILES DON'T TELL HIM THAT!"

Caitlyn and Dust die and Dust is like "what is WRONG with your daughter?" and Tell is like "ouch, but fair" and Virtue's like "she probably gets her penchant for not caring about Grimwalkers FROM HER DAD" and Tell is like "HEY." At this rate Caleb's gonna be the first dead person to have an aneurysm.

Evelyn's just glad to have Caitlyn around. Sure, she's dealing with the shock of her death after over a decade of dissociating, but Evelyn's just like FINALLY, someone who isn't a Grimwalker, and she's family to boot!

Caitlyn: Wait, family? I guess you look like a Clawthorne but I've never heard of you. How are we related?

Evelyn: Haha well I'm your many-great-grandma who Belos had very personal beef with 400 years ago and I may or may not be the reason why he decided to enact his sick game of house with you. I would say I'm sorry but literally none of this is my fault.

Caitlyn: Oh my god.

Evelyn: Haha yeah watching you and Enoch over the last 12 years has been extremely horrifying on a deeply personal level. What's your favorite alcohol? I promise we have it.

When Enoch dies Tell's like "well it was nice hanging out Caleb, thanks for all the screaming sessions, I'm gonna go get some quality time with my dead family now, peace" and Caleb's just like haha cool. fine. GLAD YOU CAN FINALLY REST IN PEACE, TELL. how many of my bones are left? there's no way this can continue after they're all used up, right? They're down to a ribcage and he's counting down the ribs.

Jasper dies and gets greeted by Tell who's like "howdy, normally our ortet would greet you but he's a little busy dealing with emotions right now"--*muffled screaming down the hall*--"so it was decided I'd be the best one to explain things since we've got some things in common." Jasper's kinda dazed like "uh…I didn't really think anyone was gonna greet me" and Tell's like "HAHA YEAH none of us ever do."

Jasper becomes just as invested as Caleb is and Tell used to be, because Hunter. So Caleb has a new bingewatching buddy! Yay?

Belos: *about to punish Hunter*

Caleb: *dragging Jasper away* Y'know what, you don't need to see this, let's go outside and get some air or something--

Evelyn: WHAT'S THAT, CALEB? YOU THINK IT'S GOOD TO TAKE A BREAK FROM WATCHING THINGS THAT UNNECESSARILY TRAUMATIZE YOU??

At some point Manny Noceda shows up, all cheerful and polite on the doorstep like "Hi! I heard there might be some people here who're watching someone who's involved in my daughter's life? She kinda stumbled into your world, see, and I was thinking--"

Evelyn's just blocking the doorway staring at him like "Listen. Before I let you in here. I NEED to make sure you understand the centuries of bullshit you're about to step into."

"Haha yeah I get it, family drama sure is--"

"SIR NO YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND THIS."

Manny thinks he understands what he's getting into. Manny does NOT understand what he's getting into. Manny takes it in stride and enjoys these people's company anyway. Evelyn is happy to have another person around who she can count on to not be a constant mess. Manny/Evelyn BFFs 4afterlyfe.

Of course Manny also now has a VERY in-depth understanding of the 4-century clusterfuck Luz has gotten tangled up in and that is. Kinda anxiety-inducing. But like, he's pretty sure she's got this! That's his daughter! She's genre savvy, she'll be alright! Even if this situation is…way more horrifying than he realized at first.

His own dead relatives call him up like "Hey Manny! How's the watch party going? Luz still in that weird fantasy world she discovered? She having fun living out her own personal adventure story?"

Manny thinks about that time last week when Caleb and several Grimwalkers got drunk and tried to make a definitive list of the Top 5 Worst Things Belos Has Done and half of the entries were 3-way ties and there were WAY too many Honorary Mentions, and he just forces a grin and goes "Yep! Luz is doing great! She's having a blast! My new friends are super cool!"

"Oh, that's great! Could we meet th--"

"NO."

Manny tries to find things to do with his weird new friends but like. He's a 21st century sci-fi nerd. He has no idea how to relate to 400-year-old witches. But he thinks, well, I lived in New England, and Caleb lived in New England. So he's like "hey do you guys wanna do Thanksgiving together?"

Thanksgiving wasn't an official holiday until the 1800s, but Caleb knows what a feast of thanksgiving is, it's even a Puritan-approved party (ie the Pilgrims) that they'd do when they wanted to show God their gratitude! So he's just like, Manny. WTF. This is NOT the time.

Manny: Well, I mean, we're halfway through October so now's the time to start planning--

Caleb, gesturing to Belos gooping on various woodland critters: YOU THINK THIS IS WORTHY OF GIVING THANKS FOR???

By the time Luz becomes relevant, EVERYONE has started watching religiously. This is like. The final minutes of the big sports game. The series finale of their lives. But after Belos is dead (and summarily punched by everyone) most of the Grimwalkers stop paying any attention to the CB at all. Like. There's nothing else tying them to the living now. Whew. Cool. Vengeance is had! No need to pay attention to the living world ever again!

Except Jasper, of course, who figures he's just gonna watch Hunter by himself.

And then Caleb collapses next to him on the couch with snacks like "sup" and Jasper's like "oh, you uh, you wanna keep watching with me?" and Caleb's like "I suffered through four centuries of this, what's one more? and after watching every season of my brother's bullshit Grimwalker Trauma And Murder Show, I deserve to watch one of you live a decent life in the infinitely happier sequel series"

Manny's like "Yeah I'll stick around too, it looks like Luz is gonna be spending a LOT of time in your world and I'm really gonna need people to explain things to me. Anyway, I know this is a little late, but things have calmed down now and we have time since it's still just the START of November, so…Thanksgiving?"

And Caleb looks at Hunter, alive and free on the CB, and then glances out the window where Enoch is kicking the shit out of Belos in the backyard, and says, "Alright, yes, a celebration is in order. This is indeed worthy of thanksgiving."

"Oh, awesome! Uh…important question, what kind of cranberry sauce do you like?"

"What the fuck is cranberry sauce?"

JFJEJAJJFJRJWIFF ABSOLUTELY LOSING IT OVER ALL OF THIS

I feel like miles is back there too if only because he and Enoch are nasty little rude children and friends because of it.

Also don't forget flapjack AND hawk hunter are there. Flapjack sitting on Caleb's head and pulling his hair until he passes him a piece of popcorn or a peanut. All of them going completely apeshit for hunters first kiss. Camila appreciation club. Jasper and Manny both delighted by the fact Camila being mother to their child makes them like. Fathers in law? Mutuals? Proxy???? Something. there's a kinship there and it's funny. Hunter carves waffles and flapjack gets so excited he flies into the TV and knocks himself out

[ariaste]

Hello hello! If it’s all right with you, I would like to vent for a moment: Back in the day, I used to be really into BBC Sherlock. I know it was bad, but it was “Be Gay (solve) Crimes” and I couldn’t resit. One of my favorite parts of the fandom was reading fan metas. I enjoyed reading your ridiculously long meta! I am not very clever and I enjoy reading people noticing things that I can’t. It’s fun watching people passionately pick up clues and put them together.

I don’t think I’m the only one getting superwholock flashbacks lately. Sherlock also tried an unreliable narrator in S4 and it was an absolute shit show. People thought thought the finale was fake, it was so bad. TBH, the entire show was a dumpster fire that thought it was more clever than it was. Moffat was a good writer for single episodes for DW, but a garbage show runner. And they called us crazy for picking up what they were putting down.

But Good Omens gives me a spark of hope. It is unashamedly queer, fun, drinks its respecting women juice, and, unlike moffatiss, I think Neil and the crew may actually be clever enough to pull something big off. I adore the Discworld series and Sir Terry, and I have faith Neil will to do right by him.

Good Omens is restoring my faith in nerdy queer fiction and reminding me why I love fandom so much. Please keep up the crackhead theories. I love them 💕

Thank you, that's very kind!

(Ended up writing a very long reply about the response to my essay and also about queerness in media. Idk why i am writing such long posts these days SORRY LOL. Anyway I'm putting it all beneath the cut so I can tag it without clogging people's dash or the tag pages)

It does make me sigh a little when I see people scornfully comparing my long essay to The Johnlock Conspiracy or saying that they're having Sherlock flashbacks, because the both the contexts of the shows and the methodology of the theorizing are VERY different. To my mind, a more direct comparison of methodology would be the Gravity Falls fandom's "Stan Has A Secret Twin" theory. Writers and showrunners DO like being sneaky and clever from time to time, and many of them are much better at it than Moffat is.

But whether or not my theory is right or not is... kind of irrelevant to me? I wasn't out to force anyone to agree with me, AND writing it was a really fun way to spend a weekend, AND I'm proud of the work I did and the story I told, AND it felt good to have a satisfying workout at the Brain Gym. So even if I'm proven utterly and completely wrong, I won't feel like I wasted my time. :)

Good Omens is a great show, and I am SO HAPPY to see it (and other shows!) embracing queerness, sharing the fans' enthusiasm for the story, and honoring and respecting the fans' love rather than punishing them for it. As more and more time goes on, I think we're going to see more and more shows like that, because some of the people who grew up reading tumblr discourse are going to be showrunners themselves one day, and they'll have learned serious lessons about what it feels like when the audience is met with love rather than disgust and disdain. In fact, we're ALREADY seeing more shows like that than we had 10 years ago! There is so much canonical queerness on-screen these days that the me of 10-15 years ago is ASTONISHED and feels wealthy beyond counting. Of course, there is so much further to go, but man... when i was a kid, we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways just to see two dudes making sustained emotional eye contact, and we were grateful for it. (Jokes but also.... kind of real tho)

We've seen the exact same thing happen in scifi/fantasy publishing in the last seven or eight years, too! (Went off on a long tangent about Queerness In Media from an insider perspective, continuing below a cut so I don't clutter everyone's dash)

Even as recently as 2013--ten years ago--you might not have even been able to get your book published if it was openly gay. Hell, you might not have been able to get an agent to represent it, even. It would have been labeled "unmarketable" and passed over; if it DID get published, the queerness would have been camouflaged and downplayed and hidden in the marketing as much as possible--you wouldn't have known by looking at the cover that it was queer, you wouldn't have been able to tell by reading the back cover that it was queer. In literally 2016, seven years ago, a few months before I got my first book deal, I remember having a conversation with a friend and being very very worried that if I wrote books as queer as I wanted them to be, I would be "pigeonholed" as "ONLY writing Gay Books", that I would be passed over for any of the publisher's marketing budget and publicity efforts, that I would be sidelined and ignored... In 2016, I thought I was facing a choice of writing stories with more "mainstream appeal" OR writing the books I wanted to write and potentially undermining the rest of my career.

That didn't happen, thankfully, because in the next couple years there was this incredible explosion of queer scifi/fantasy. You see, ten to fifteen years ago, a truly stunning percentage of my colleagues -- writers, editors, publicists -- were writing and reading fanfic, and they carried their tastes and story-hungers with them as they grew up and got Real Adult Jobs at publishing companies. And suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a lot of us came of age all at once and there was this absolutely enormous wave of queer SFF that in my opinion has brought us into a new golden age of the genre: The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, The Chorus of Dragons series by Jenn Lyons, She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, The Tensorate series by Neon Yang, Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders, the Birdverse books by RB Lemberg, The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickenson, The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, Reforged by Seth Haddon, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson, Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell, The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin -- and these only the ones I could remember off the top of my head in 30 seconds, and I have a flavor of ADHD that makes my brain go blank when people ask me to think of specific examples of things! It is harder for me to think of a SFF book published in the last 7 years that ISN'T queer.

And then almost exactly a year ago, my book A Taste of Gold and Iron came out with THIS COVER:

Which. Is not so much a step forward in openly queer SFF as it is a fucking gauntlet thrown down in challenge. I cannot impress upon you strongly enough how much I would not have gotten this cover 10 years ago, and that's if the book was even accepted for publication in the first place. This cover SCREAMS gay fantasy romance. There is no attempt to hide it or camouflage it. It is advertising exactly what it is, right up front.

I got the absolute privilege and honor of having this cover--and I do consider it an incredible honor--because of the work that all my colleagues put in with their own work. Each queer book that got published wedged the door a little wider for the next one, and then a little wider still for the next one, until finally someone could get their foot in the door and squeeze across the threshold, which opened it a little wider again. So when I look at this image, I don't just see a beautiful cover that I am delighted to have on my books--I see an entire history of slow, steady progress by so many incredible writers who risked damaging their careers just to drag us to a point where a book as gay as this one could get a cover as gay as that one and STILL get the full and enthusiastic support of both the publisher and the audience. And the most incredible honor and the most humbling privilege out of all of this is the fact that the success of this book meant that the door was wedged open another little bit, that I got to contribute in this small way to the efforts of everyone who came before me, so that ones who come after us will find the door flung wide -- or that there's no door left at all to block the way, because we've collectively torn it down.

So yes, @eyona, I think that having your faith restored little by little is a very good thing, and I am delighted that Good Omens is doing that for all of us. And what's even better is that even if Good Omens doesn't play out exactly how we want it to, that's... kind of okay? Because there is always the next one, and at the very very least, Good Omens is wedging the door open further so that the next one can have an easier time of it. We don't have to walk uphill in the snow both ways just to get a moment of emotionally charged eye contact anymore. We don't have to starve anymore, not like we used to back in the bad old days. And that alone is a wonderful thing. :D

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 6 Tsumihoroboshi pt. 22

I am very undecided if I should call what’s about to unfold here a retcon. Apologies for another massive screenshot dump.

See, the reason I’m hesitant about calling this a retcon is because it’s portraying these events from the view of this timeline’s Keiichi being able to think about things rationally. This Keiichi is able to remember these events from Onikakushi and think about them from the rational angle of Mion and Rena were probably on the up and up, but that doesn’t really hold water with the way it was portrayed in Onikakushi. After all Keiichi did find a needle in the ohagi, Mion did have a syringe (probably H173) that she was going to inject Keiichi with. Hell even with the part where Mion is crying because of Keiichi accusing her of murder she did very swiftly start to rant about how she should have killed Ooishi long before he started Keiichi on his path of paranoia.

Clearly this span of screenshots and exposition is meant to try to mesh Onikakushi more cleanly with the larger plot that has come about as of Tsumihoroboshi. So it has to try to explain away Keiichi’s paranoia with his onset of Hinamizawa Syndrome, but really I think you could just as easily explain it as Keiichi remembering events from other timelines that did happen the way they did. I don’t doubt that Keiichi had Hinamizawa Syndrome back when everything went to hell in Onikakushi, but this sudden turn of trying to explain that Keiichi doubting his friends and becoming excessively paranoid just rubs me the wrong way.

Except he didn’t! Up until this very moment he had no recollection of any of this happening! Even at the time when he did homerun derby his way through Rena and Mion’s skulls he very definitely didn’t act like they deserved it! He never outright expressed regret at the deed of murdering them, but he never explicitly blamed them for their deaths either. Keiichi acted like they were used by the grander conspiracy to get at him.

Keiichi’s freakout worsens as he is overcome with guilt over having killed Rena and Mion five chapters ago. This makes Satoko and Mion thoroughly confused because as far as they’re aware Keiichi might as well be having this meltdown over a bad dream. Rika however approaches Keiichi to confirm that Keiichi is aware of his sin of having killed Mion and Rena five chapters and four years ago. Keiichi confirms that he is acutely aware, and that he didn’t even realize it when he clawed out his own throat at the end of Onikakushi and only just realized it now during the later half of Tsumihoroboshi. It never really goes into detail about her rebirth process, only that Rika prefers to have some time to come to grips with what happened “recently” but I can’t help but wonder if this is similar to how it works for her. But really I suppose that’s more a question for Minagoroshi than anything.

This… is a very ironic screenshot given what happens later on in Minagoroshi.

Rika then goes on to make Keiichi remember what it was like when he gave in to paranoia and eventually killing Rena and Mion. She rationalizes that because he went through this he could save Rena. Probably.

Now, I don’t know about Ryukish07’s writing process, and I don’t know if Wikipedia should be believed about the release dates between chapters. But given the short amount of time between Tsumihoroboshi and Minagoroshi I can’t help but assume that the pair of these were probably written together for the most part. Four months doesn’t seem like nearly enough time to have completely forgotten the characterization for who is probably your most important character in the franchise. But it is just wild to me how Rika seems to do a complete 180 in terms of characterization from Tsumihoroboshi to Minagoroshi. I guess maybe you could handwave it away as she doesn’t remember this particular conversation due to dying shortly after this chapter ends? Even though that doesn’t make a bit of sense considering she mentions things that happened right at the end of the chapter in the next one.

Anyway, thus now burdened with the memory of killing Mion and Rena in a past life Keiichi apologizes to Mion for it, and vows to be there to protect her in the future if she needs protection. A flustered Mion accepts this.

[1moreff-creator]

(03) David Chiem - First Trial (DRDT - Milgram AU)

IMPORTANT: This had to be reposted due to technical issues (it wasn't showing up on tags). There were two votes on the original before I privated it to avoid confusion. Please check you've voted if this disclaimer wasn't there when you first saw the post.

Another entry in this crossover AU! This time David, with his VD Nebula, and his MV Star in the Night! Wait. David… MV? David MV? Oh God no not again I don’t wanna go back no-! (/joke) 

Thumbnail:

So for the content warnings, you know what, I’ll just make an universal list of all the content warnings I think the AU will need, hopefully I don’t miss anything. So, here are the universal CWs! Not all of them apply to David, but I do this to prevent sorta spoiling things in the CWs. In no particular order:

Universal CWs: Violent murder, suicide, self-harm, stabbing, strangling, poisoning, gun violence, fire, child abuse, animal death, bullying, road accidents, betrayals, transphobia, mass death, conspiracy to harm.

By the way, important note: when I originally made the Undercover post, I fucked up with his kill-shot. The victim was supposed to have one shoe off, and I forgot to mention it, oops. I’ve edited it, but  just in case you hadn’t seen the edit, keep that in mind. 

Voice Drama: Nebula

(Why is David so hard to write send help. Hope he's not too ooc)

*Footsteps*

Es: Hi!

David: Hello there! My name is David Chiem. A pleasure!

E: And I’m Es! Nice to meet you, David!

D: I hope you don’t mind me asking, but you are the Warden of Milgram, right?

E: That’s right! Why do you ask?

D: Well, I wanted to know if I could bring certain… issues, to your attention. After all, you are an authority figure here, from what I understand.

E: Oh! Of course! Is there something wrong? Are any of the other prisoners causing you trouble?

D: Oh, no! Nothing like that. It’s just, well. See, you’ve claimed every person here is a murderer, right? 

E: That’s right, yeah.

D: Well, it seems there’s been a mistake. But don’t worry! I won’t hold it against you!

E: A mistake? What do you mean?

D: Well, how do I put this? I… have been wrongly imprisoned, you see. I’ve never… killed anyone.

E: Huh, really? You know, it’s funny. You’re not the first to say that.

D: Oh? Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were other innocent people here. But it’s fine! Mistakes can be corrected. It’s not difficult to change, if you’re willing to!

E: … Is that so? You know… you seem pretty calm about all this.

D: Hm, I guess you could say that. But it’s just who I am. See, I try to be as positive as I can, since I know there's a lot of people that don't get the privilege. 

E: Really now? And you don’t think a situation like this merits being at least a little bit worried?

D: Ah, I guess so. I…am worried, deep down. But being negative can only make things worse, right? When it feels like everything else is against you, the least you can do is help yourself. 

E: Hm…

D: A lot of the people here are extremely distressed, understandably so. And I have to think, well, these people might have bigger issues than me, yes? I live a pretty good life, I can look forward to returning to it whenever this all blows over. So it’s my responsibility to keep morale high! 

E: Alright…  And what does your life look like that you are seemingly so content with it?

D: Want to count my blessings, huh? Well, let’s see. Although I’m an only child, I have a good relationship with the rest of my family, and I have good connections with people outside of it as well. I consider myself talented, there are some things I’m quite good at! I am quite wealthy thanks to my work as a professional inspirational speaker, so I don’t have any financial concerns. In fact, one of the other murderers even recognized me!

E: Oh! What a coincidence!

D: Yeah, right? I was surprised too-

E: So why did you call them a murderer? 

D: *Sputter* I’m sorry?

E: You said they were “one of the other murderers.” I thought you said you believed some of the others could have been wrongfully imprisoned? I would imagine someone as positive as you would only want to assume the very best, right? 

D: *Sharp breath*

E: *Slightly smug* Not to mention, “other murderers?” I thought you hadn’t killed anyone, David.

D: Yes, that’s right! I’m- I’m sorry, it was a slip of the tongue. 

E: Is that really it? You seem nervous about something. 

D: *Nervous chuckle* Didn’t you tell me I should feel worried about my situation? But now you’re suddenly concerned with a bit of stress over false accusations. *Fake-sounding chuckle* You’re giving me contradictory information, Warden!

E: *Cheery* Well, at that point you hadn’t revealed you knew you were a murderer! 

D: Huh? What do you mean, know I’m a murderer?

E: Well, sorry! But you are a murderer.

D: … Are you- Are you serious? I make one little mistake, just misspeak once, and you immediately assume the worst?

E: …

D: You know, things like this have happened before. People like to pretend I’ve said things I haven’t said, misinterpret actions and statements… That can hurt people, you know? 

E: …

D: Just jumping to conclusions… all of you are the same. You hear only what you want to hear, and then decide I’m a murderer just because I misspoke-

E: No, that’s wrong.

D: …What?

E: I don’t think you’re a murderer just because of what you said. I just never believed you from the start. Again, sorry!

D: … Excuse me?

E: You are a prisoner in Milgram. That is all the proof I need to know your actions have led to someone’s death. Because of that, when you told me you weren’t a murderer, I knew there were only three options.

D: … Do enlighten me, please.

E: One option is that you are mistaken. Maybe you don’t consider what you did murder, when in the eyes of Milgram, it could be judged as such. The second is that you were lying to yourself, in an attempt to protect yourself from your actions.

D: …

E: The third is that you were lying to me.

D: …

E: That Freudian slip of yours was enough to tell me you do consider yourself a murderer. So you’re not mistaken, and you’re not lying to yourself. Therefore, you must have been lying to me!

D: … I see. 

E: So you admit to it?

D: … Admit to it? Admit to what? Your reasoning only works if you assume this accursed prison can’t get things wrong, which is just delusional. 

E: Perhaps you feel that way. Except, I know you don’t, since you consider the others murderers as well. 

D: Will you just-?! *Deep breath*

E: Listen, David. I’m not mad at you. I understand your murder must have been traumatic-

D: I didn’t- 

E: But lying and hiding it all isn’t going to help you here. I will find out the truth anyways, so being honest is probably your best bet!

D: Being- *Mix between a chuckle and a short wheeze* Do you even know what you’re asking me to do?

E: I don’t think I’m asking too much! Just tell me what you did and-

D: You really don’t understand anything, huh? 

E: … Your eyes…

D: Oh? Are the stars gone? Yeah, they do that.

E: N-Nevermind that. What do you mean I don’t understand anything?

D: … Well. How do I put this? I can’t have you- You shouldn’t be allowed to know everything about my life, right? What gives you the right to invade my privacy? Nothing! 

E: That’s unfortunate for you, then! I will find the truth, whether you like it or not.

D: … *sigh, his voice is filled with poison* You really are arrogant, huh? 

E: … And you aren’t really as positive as you say, right? 

D: …

E: David?

D: Ah! Apologies. It seems I was losing track of myself there. I apologize if I said something hurtful.

E: *Sputter* The stars-

D: In any case, if I may, I’ll once again state. Nothing I've ever done could be considered murder, and I wholeheartedly believe that.

E: But that's a lie.

D: Perhaps. But, you see... If you do find the truth…

E: …

D: Then you might as well just kill me on the spot!

*Machinery whirs*

E: Huh? Wait, what do you mean?

D: Oh, it seems the extraction process starts now, right? That’s unfortunate.

E: Wait, I still have questions! I just need more time!

D: Ha… well, we all want what we can’t have, I guess. 

E: Huh? 

D: Ah! Sorry, maybe that came off a bit depressing. In any case, I want to leave you with one last message, a quote from Shakespeare’s Othello. 

E: What are you-

D: “To mourn a mischief that is past and gone is the next way to draw new mischief on.”

E: Huh?

D: "Holding grudges and focusing on the past will only lead to misfortune." It is better to focus on the future and-!

E: Are you serious?! Stop trying to convince me into not doing my job! It’s not going to work.

MonoTV: Well, it sorta is! Why are you taking so long? We’re on a schedule here. 

D: *Chuckle*

E: Urgh…

E: Prisoner 03, David Chiem, sing your sins!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trial 1 Cover: Magical Girl and Chocolate by PinnochioP

(Listen I saw the chance to play into the magical girl joke and had to do it)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Music Video: Star in the Night

(By the way, I reference Chinese tally marks quite a bit, so here they are for reference. Also to clarify they are used in other countries but I'm calling them that because their origin is Chinese (from what I understand I hope I'm not getting this too wrong), I don't know if there's a better term for them, sorry)

(I also call out real books by name, which I hope isn’t too immersion breaking, but I felt it was fitting considering who we’re dealing with lol. Now the song)

[The music sounds like a pretty standard “inspirational” pop song. Think Firework by Katy Perry]

[David speaks the first few lines]

Welcome ladies, gentlemen, and everyone else! It’s the start of another wonderful day! Let us make the most of it! I hope you can trust me when I say, It will all be alright

The video starts on a shot of an empty stage, the front row seats barely visible around it. In the center stands David, who looks small in comparison to the stage. Several spotlights shine on him, his arms out beside him. He’s wearing his canon outfit (pre-CH2 EP11), as well as a white domino mask with golden highlights (the one from the thumbnail) over his eyes. He also wears a pin on his right, which looks like a pink camellia. A red dot is visible on the top left of the screen, alongside the word REC.

The camera slowly zooms in, and David puts his left hand over his chest as he continues talking. He smiles wide and bright as the opener ends, and the camera glitches.

[Now he starts singing. I’m still basing this off Firework tbh]

Waking up again, Watching the sun rise, (I) Another brand new start, Another breath of air! (II)

(I) We get a shot of David sitting up on a bed with a deep blue blanket decorated with stars. The walls are grey, but there’s a window with purple curtains in the background, which lets in sunlight. His head is off frame, but he’s reaching up towards it with his left hand. There’s a nightstand off to the left. On it we see a simple lamp, a photograph frame (the photograph is obscured), and a phone with a blue case. There’s a grey circle visible in the top left of the screen. 

(II) We zoom in on the phone, the grey circle at the top right still visible. The phone screen lights up with a message. 

Edward W. 

Good morning. Remember we signed an agreement for an advertisement with…

After that message arrives, David’s hand appears on screen and grabs the phone.

Burning ever bright, the passion for your life. (I) Don’t ever put it down, And hope will never drown! (II)

(I) We’re back at the stage, the same scene as before, but now we’re looking at David’s back. The seats for the audience are visible, and on them sit a bunch of grey figures with no discernible features. The circle at the top left is red again, and once more the REC word appears next to it. 

(II) Grey circle again, as we switch to a scene with a pure white background. A hand with the following bracelet appears from the top right, holding the white domino mask.

(Please pretend that's not the shittiest image ever made)

Another, smaller hand appears from the bottom left, grabbing the mask and taking it off screen. 

[Pre-chorus, the instrumental builds]

See a quasar that now spins Emitting hope, emitting dreams! (I) The center, truly irrelevant When the light is all we see! So- (II)

(I) Grey circle. Back to a front-facing shot of David, who is holding the mask with his right hand. The shot starts with the mask covering the screen, but David swiftly brings the mask closer to him. His eyes lack stars. His expression is neutral-to-dead inside, and he looks down at the mask for a few seconds. 

(II) He takes a breath. Then, he brings his head down at the same time he brings the mask up, covering his face with his hand. He holds that position for a moment, and as the song says “light”, spotlights begin shining on him. At the same time, the circle turns red with REC again. When the “so” plays, David brings his hand up and we zoom in as he points to the sky.

[Chorus!]

Tally up the good things like dots in the sky! (I) You’ll find there’s always hope if you’re willing to try! (II) And even when you feel that you’re lost in the dark, (III) Then I offer my advice, allow me in your heart And then let me be your star in the night! (IV)

(I) Thumbnail image, except the tally symbols start off as yellow dots that look like stars before turning into the tally symbols we see in said image. 

(II) David continues singing, but we get different angles to make the shots a bit more interesting. 

(III) Front-facing shot of David again. His right hand is over his chest as he sings with a slightly less enthusiastic smile. The stars in his eyes fade out. When the song says “dark”, there’s a quick flash to another scene. The background is now black instead of blue, and while David is standing in the same position, his appearance is a bit different. Hair clips off, messy hair, tie undone, black circles around his pupils. He’s wearing a black and blue domino mask, similar to the other one he was wearing before. The pink camellia pin has disappeared, but now he’s wearing a black rose pin on his left. He looks vaguely frustrated. The circle is grey.

(IV) After only a moment, we’re back to the previous scene, and David continues singing as the camera slowly zooms out. Just as the chorus ends, the camera glitches a bit. We see this for a moment:

(Okay so there was an image here, but it gets the post shadowbanned for unknowable reasons. I'll just put the image description here:

"David stands neutrally, with his white mask outfit. He's in front of a green screen on a grey wall. It looks as if he's being recorded by a camera which shows things such as the time of recording, the camera battery, the pixel size, etcetera. Red REC circle on the top left.")

Then, the camera suddenly goes dark with a bright flash at the center, as if it had been turned off.

[More spoken words]

There will be times in your life, when you feel that (I) you don’t have anything worth living for. (II) This will always be false. (III) Let me tell you some, uh, paraphrased quotes from books I like, which help me maintain a positive attitude! (IV)

(I) We see David from a POV to his right. He’s sitting on a comfortable looking blue and yellow chair as he talks with a calm smile, wearing the white mask and pin with the red REC circle visible. He’s in a small room, with star decorations hanging from the ceiling. On the blue walls, there’s a poster of David (white mask and all) holding a book with a big smile on his face, alongside some unreadable text. The book has David's face on the cover.

(II) The screen glitches, and we’re now looking at David from the left. He’s still sitting on a similar chair, except it’s black and purple. He’s back to his bed-hair, black mask, dark circles around pupils, black rose pin costume. He’s smirking as he talks. The background is completely black, but the circle is still red with REC. 

(III) Screen glitches again, and we’re back at the same scene from (I).

(IV) We’re now in a different room, with a wooden floor and blue walls decorated with stars. Red circle with REC. The back of David’s head covers most of the screen, a hand with the same bracelet as before on his shoulder. In the background, there are four blurry, white silhouettes of people.

[Back to singing]

One: (I) Being harmed by cotton wool, Happiness scares the weak (II)

(I) We see a grey background with a horizontal line glowing bright yellow in the middle. There is a small table in the foreground, which shows a book with a pink cover and a black silhouette on front. The side reads “No Longer Human.”

(II) Red REC circle. We see one of the white silhouettes, with long hair, holding up a daisy flower as David (white mask) gives a thumbs up with a wide smile. The background is completely blue.

Two: (I) Our doubts, traitorous Make us lose what we may win (II)

(I) Same grey background as before, but now the glowing symbol in the background is the Chinese tally mark for 2. “No Longer Human” is still there, but now there’s a book standing next to it. It’s orange and has a scale on the front, alongside the words “Measure for Measure.”

(II) Grey circle. The screen is split in two. On the left, David without his hairpins (post-reveal hair), but also without a mask, is staring blankly at his phone. The background has the grey walls and purple curtains from his bedroom. On the right, we see someone in a suit with a pin which looks exactly like David’s hairpins accepting money being handed to them by a white silhouette. The white silhouette has similar pins on their other hand. The background there is blue.

Three: (I) Time and the hour, Run through even rough things (II)

(I) Same scene with the books, but now the symbol is the Chinese tally mark for 3 and there’s a new addition. A book with a red cover with a skull and a crown, labeled “Macbeth.”

(II) We see a white silhouette with short hair slouched over on a desk, in a dark room. They’re looking at a computer screen showing David’s white-masked, smiling face. The circle isn’t visible in its usual spot, but it’s on the computer screen, red with REC. The desk the computer is on has discarded candy wrappings all around the keyboard, as well as a white mug with a yellow star drawn on it.

Four: (I) Time soothes sorrows,  Be content you have known me. (II)

(I) Book shot. The symbol is now the Chinese tally mark for 4. Apart from the books which were already there, there’s now a white book off to the side, with a small, stylized drawing of a person with blond hair and green clothes standing on a grey sphere. We can barely see the words “The Little Prince.”

(II) Another white silhouette in a blue background, a book with David's face on the cover beside them. Red REC circle. The silhouette is on the floor, their hand outstretched towards (white-mask) David, who is leaning down over them and offering them a hand with a placid smile. It looks as if David is trying to help them stand up.

Five: (I) There’s relief when you know, You won’t carry burdens, see…

(I) The same scene as before, except all the books are gone. The symbol in the background is the Chinese tally mark for 5. On the table stands a book with a dark cover showing a big house, with the title “And Then There Were None.”

(II) We see David’s face (white mask, but hair undone), with a smile that doesn’t reach his (starless) eyes, as he accepts his usual hairpins being handed to him by a hand with the previously shown bracelet. 

[Pre-chorus]

And there is so much, so much more (I) So many reasons to carry on (II) Even when the world’s against you You just have to find your hope! (III) So (IV)

(I) Back to the scene with the comfortable looking chair for a moment. Red REC circle again.

(II) Grey circle. We see David’s back (post-EP11 hair) as he looks out the window of his bedroom, which shows a pitch black sky, the purple curtains framing the shot. 

(III) David walks off frame, but his reflection remains still on the window. It’s David with the black mask outfit, smirking. 

(IV) Screen glitches, and the window disappears, but David (black mask) is still there, on a black background. The circle turns red with REC, and spotlights begin shining on him. 

Tally up the good things like dots in the sky! (I) You’ll find there’s always hope if you’re willing to try! (II) And even when you feel that you’re lost in the dark, (III) Then I offer my advice, allow me in your heart (IV) And then let me be your star in the night! (V)

(I) David (still black mask, black rose pin, black circles around pupils, no hairpins and post-CH11 hair) points up, the camera zooms in on his hand. It quickly goes back to showing his full upper body, he’s still smirking. The background remains completely black, but the circle is still red with REC.

(II) We zoom in a bit. David tilts his head and rolls his eyes behind his mask.

(III) We change to the back of David’s head. We see the four white silhouettes on the black background, looking as taken aback as silhouettes can look. 

(IV) Screen glitches, we see a side shot of white mask David holding his hand out with a bright smile. Screen glitches again, now black mask David is standing in the same position.

(V) We see this:

[There’s a small guitar solo, as the music suddenly switches to a very fast-paced rock style instrumental. David can be heard laughing]

Still with his black mask outfit, David sits down on the same comfortable looking purple and black chair from before. He’s laughing.

[The next lines are sung very quickly]

One: (I)  I wonder, does it make me a villain… (II) Two: (III) If I choose to discard the ideal? (IV) Three: (V) Should I regret what is true now? (VI) Four: (VII) Is it my fault? Does it make me inhuman? (VIII) Ah… hahaha! … (IX) “Correct” (X)

(I) Back to the grey background with a table in the foreground. We again see a horizontal line glowing bright yellow in the background, but now there’s a withered daisy laying on top of the table.

(II) Screen is split, the circle is gone. To the left, David (black mask) has his mouth open in a smirk as he points to his head in a finger gun gesture. There is blood on his hand. To the right, we see the long haired white silhouette’s head laying on the ground with their head turned to the side, a splatter of a pink liquid under it. 

(III) Grey background with Chinese tally mark for 2 glowing. The withered daisy is still there, but now there’s also a broken pin beside it which looks very similar to David’s.

(IV) Screen is split again. To the right, a side shot of David holding his now bloodied neck with both hands, again with a big smirk. To the left, another white silhouette laying on the ground, face down with their hands to their sides, and without any pink liquid visible.

(V) Chinese tally mark for three on the grey background. Alongside the withered daisy and the pin, we see the broken pieces of a white mug with a star drawn on it.

(VI) In the bottom left, a shot from David’s left, where he’s giving a thumbs down with a bloody hand, the blood still on his hands and neck. On the top right, another white silhouette laying on a pool of pink liquid on the ground, their limbs bent in unnatural positions. 

(VII) Chinese tally mark for 4 in the grey background. Alongside the other objects, we see the book with David's face. It’s completely drenched in water, several pages ripped out and strewn around the table.

(VIII) To the right, a side shot of David pinching his nose, still smirking. On the left, another of the white silhouettes lays on the ground with their head tilted to the side, again without pink liquid.

(IX) We see David’s upper body as he stands up and cackles, throwing his arms out to the sides. As the laugh trails off, the screen glitches. David changes a bit. His hairstyle turns into his pre-Ch11 hairstyle, but he doesn’t have the hairpins. His eyes have neither stars nor dark circles around the pupils, though he does have eyebags. He’s not wearing a mask or a pin, and his tie is undone. He’s looking at the camera with a horrified expression. The grey circle returns. The screen fades to black as the laugh fully disappears and there’s silence for a moment.

(X) An image fades in from the black. It’s the same table from before, but lit more dimly. The grey background shows the Chinese tally symbol for five written in blood. The only thing in the table is the bracelet, stained with blood.

[Bridge, the instrumental slows down again]

Count up my mistakes, like stars in daylight.  You will find “me” again, if you’re willing to try. And even when it feels it’s all lost to the dark (I) Then I beg you, I beg you… (II)

(I) Screen fades in again, and we see David standing in the stage from chorus one. Grey circle, no spotlights. The shot is zoomed out, so David’s face is impossible to see, but his arms are to his side neutrally, and his head is tilted down. His hairpins and chest pins are missing, and his tie is undone. There is a stool next to him, the white mask laying on it. 

As he stands still, words appear behind him, slowly rising from the ground and scrolling to the top of the screen. 

CREDITS

Main cast:

Chiem D. 正 Williams E.

Producers:

Chiem D. Williams E. MILGRAM

Script-writing:

Williams E. Chiem D.

Camera Operator:

Chiem D.

Original Idea:

Chiem D.

Special Thanks:

Background Characters:

As the credits scroll, David brings his hands to his chest and fumbles around a bit. When he moves them away, his tie is now done correctly and his pink camellia pin is back up. He then takes something out of his pocket, and brings his hands to his hair. After removing the hands, his hair pins are back up. 

(II) Right as “Background Characters” appears on screen, we cut. Zoom in on the white mask on the stool, and David grabs it. Shot switches to David’s face, his eyes closed and mouth pressed in a thin line. He slaps the mask on his face, and quickly swipes his hand up. As he does, his mouth twists into a big smile, the circle turns red with REC, and the spotlights begin shining on him again.

Tally up the good things like dots in the sky!  You’ll find there’s always hope if you’re willing to try!  And even when you feel that you’re lost in the dark, (I) Then I offer my advice, (II) allow me in your heart (III) And then let me be your star in the night! (IV)

(I) The camera zooms out slightly to show David’s upper body, as he points up. The credits behind him now start scrolling backwards (top to bottom). He’s singing cheerily, but there are no stars in his eyes. Right as he says “lost in the dark”, the credits fully disappear from the screen.

(II) Cut to the ‘正’ symbol, written in blood, on a grey wall. Grey circle. 

(III) David’s hands appear on frame, holding a mirror with a golden frame. He puts it over the ‘正’ symbol, covering it completely. In the reflection, we see white mask David frowning at the mirror with starless eyes. 

(IV) Screen glitches, and we’re back to the same screen as before (white mask - no stars - spotlights - red REC circle - stage). David finishes singing, but he’s still breathing quickly.

[Instrumental begins to wind down]

The camera zooms out as David continues breathing heavily.

Let me be your star in the night!

The camera fades to static before suddenly cutting off.

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MonoTV: On the topic of inspirational speaking, do you need any encouragement?

Es: Uhm, I guess it couldn’t hurt?

M: Too bad! I’m not gonna be nice to you! 

E: Who are you talking to again? 

M: The only encouragement I’ll ever give you is when it comes time to cast your verdict. And speaking of that, it’s… g

VOTING TIME!!!