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mulders-too-large-shirt · 1 month ago

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my favorite scully moments from s4

in episode 1, she cracks encrypted messages, commenting that “you say ‘a twenty letter code’ to any scientist and they immediately think ‘protein amino acid sequence code’, which is what this turned out to be” <- and that is genius at work right there!!

skinner pulling her aside to ask “do you realize what you are promoting?” when she puts together there's a whole international smallpox conspiracy, and she cuts him off with a clear “i am a SCIENTIST, sir” <- that is right!! you tell him!!!

trying and failing to come up with a theory for how the photos in episode 4 became terrifying: “plus, the film is two years out of date” “oh” “the-the photographic chemistry could have changed” “uh-huh” “the-the dyes fade… they… alright, that’s your theory?” (had me absolutely giggling)

we also learn in episode 4 that she took german in college <3

in episode 6, she spends a great deal of time explaining the science behind sleeping pills and their controversial effects

(and i also loved her fury that such an advanced facility was being used for plastic surgery rather than life-saving care)

tearing into the culture of lawlessness while testifying in episode 9; talking about how she left the medical field to protect the innocent and punish the guilty- such an excellent moment, more of that good old fashioned scully righteous rage combined with inherent optimism- and her continuing to read her statement despite the council repeatedly cutting her off (as she should!)

choosing to be jailed rather than reveal where mulder was located, because she will do the right thing no matter the consequences (and is also just a really great friend)

((and bonus points for skinner checking up on her: “you holding up alright?” “i’ve got plenty to read”, she says, as she flips through medical texts))

“it is my natural inclination to believe they are acting in the best interest of the truth… but i am not inclined to follow my own judgment in this case” (casting aside her own optimism in the face of such corruption, understanding her personal bias and objectively putting it to the side… i admire her ability to do so)

((but still. after all she has been through, it is natural for her to believe that the government means well. it's incredible))

this exchange from episode 12: “where could he hide an adult body where it wouldn’t be found?” “i’ll show you” (cut to them sorting through the medical waste, mulder looking horrified as she casually says she needs his longer arms to sift through the body parts)

((but isn't it just great that she knew the answer to that question instantly?))

in episode 12, when she realizes that leonard betts trying to kill her means she has cancer, she responds to mulder saying she should be proud of stopping him with a quiet “i just want to go home”

(we get another "i'm going home" moment in episode 22, after their confrontation in the hallway about her fears, and the exhaustion contained in those few words could make me weep)

in episode 14, she writes letters saying goodbye to mulder, trying to convince him her inevitable death was not his fault: “and if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this, you must never think there was the possibility of some secret intervention, something you might have done”, she wrote, knowing how he would blame himself, trying to spare his feelings of guilt even as she knew she had so little time left

later on, her nose starts bleeding while they're making an arrest; “quit staring at me, i’m fine!”, she says in the voice of someone who is deeply not fine, her helplessness inspiring a fury that thrashes about and digs its claws into everything inch of her

how she told mulder she was going to die, but insisted to her mother that she was fine- her mother is furious she didn’t tell her she was sick, shaking in fear, giving her a kiss and a hug, and saying that she is her only daughter now as they hold each other. while she can tell mulder the truth, she can't find the words to tell her mom how bad things really are

writing in her journal that she needs to draw strength from mulder, needs someone to lean on, even though she works so hard to be entirely self-sufficient; “i need to know you’re out there if i’m ever to see through this”

(contrast this with her earlier attempts to do absolutely every single thing by herself and bask in the character growth)

((but then she REJECTS what she wrote in the journal, saying that she isn’t giving up, and she has so much to prove to herself and her family- they have the conversation in the hallway that made me cry and cheer and yell and experience every emotion in between as she realizes that she is something worth fighting for))

in episode 18, she tries her best to save pendrell, telling him that “we still haven’t celebrated my birthday, pendrell; i’m not gonna let you off the hook like this” - it's the way she spent his last moments on earth trying to make him smile that gets me so emotional

later, she's having this very tense face off with skinner until he notices she was trying to hide her nosebleed; he grabs her hand and says “i have a responsibility for the safety of the agents under my supervision, agent scully. i’m not going to put another agent’s life in jeopardy just to keep her out in the field”, and she assures him she’s okay with tears in her eyes (the way he pierced through her best attempts at a stony exterior… i'm emotional)

they visit max fenig’s trailer again and she still HATED it lmao, she says “i remember being amazed at what some people will call a home”

(and then she disses the very bare hotel room they visit in the next episode, saying “i’m not sure if ‘living’ is the word i would use to describe this space” - give her all of the blankets and throw pillows, she wants a cozy house)

((this, combined with her saying "i want to go home" when she is experiencing moments of earth-shattering grief, made me realize how important to her it is that she have a nice, comfortable, safe space for herself))

smirking at her own stupid joke in episode 19; “what was he wearing, a long black robe and carrying a scythe?”

she knows the lowest temperature a human body has ever reached and survived (70 degrees) and also uses the phrase “nuclear magnetic resident spectra”, both of which made my heart skip a few beats

“okay, so this photo that was never taken, when was it never taken?” <- SEVERELY underappreciated line!!!!

in the opening of episode 20, she starts reciting facts about babies born with extra appendages in incredible detail, and i want to know so badly why she is educated on the subject. scully, please give us the story time video

she also mentions her plans to write an article on “diminished acetylcholine production in recidivist offenders” when she goes home from work. because that is how she spends her evenings, very casual. no big deal (said with great sarcasm)

her realization in episode 22 that the killer had been switching around the rings on each victim’s fingers, based on some blurry photos (it was a very good catch!)

talking to her therapist, admitting she struggles to talk about her fears, and that mulder’s passion has been a source of strength during her sickness

(we then, very briefly, see her praying in her nightgown in her apartment, before mulder knocks on the door to ask for her medical opinion. i find that shot so compelling, especially when you contrast it with her saying in the finale that she is not ready to return to the church- it must be too personal to talk about, god must be something she wants to experience on her own at this point in her life)

((and she grapples with the revelation that everyone else who had seen the spirits had been dying, knowing what it means for herself))

the way she shoots the evil nurse in the shoulder not to kill her, but to incapacitate her… scully, your aim is legendary

fun facts with scully, episode 23 edition: dostoyevsky had waxman-geschwind syndrome!

VERY FIRMLY telling mulder that he NEEDS to get to the hospital, and when he continually refuses, instead asking to go on a road trip, she agrees... ONLY on the condition that she drives!!!!

and when his terrible trauma ketamine trip culminates in him almost shooting her and himself, she manages to talk sense into him, before she rests her entire body on him, shielding him, not letting him move, weighing him down like an anchor back to reality

(her being the one taking charge in this episode even while she feels she is losing so much of her agency in her life makes me so emotional)

when mulder interrupts her family dinner in episode 24 to go on a quest for alien answers, she reminds him that this is his goal, and not hers. when he tries to convince her, she refuses to budge- it was frustrating to watch him put her in that situation, but amazing to watch her stand her ground

(and the fact that she wasn’t able to tell him her cancer was getting much worse is also so fascinating to me- why couldn't she bear to break it to him? would saying it aloud make it real?)

and of course, her tracking down the dude that shoved her down the stairs and nearly hitting him with her car (it was deeply satisfying)

#so many good moments. she is my girl!!!#the x files #txf #dana scully

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feminist-furby-freak · 8 months ago

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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.

#rad fem #rad fem safe #radical feminism #radical feminst #radical feminist safe #terfsafe #radblr #terfblr #radical feminists please interact #radical feminists do touch

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jazzically · 9 days ago

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ok even tho im in the middle of magp 9 i stopped my epic rave on the internet to also post this tangential digression that i barfed out by accident so that my mind appears to express itself at least somewhat chronologically and so that my posts are oriented vaguely in the order of a normal thought process:

An Argumentative Essay (that i literally wrote to myself mid-episode. why. what even) about something i noticed myself doing unconsciously

As i listen to magp 7 my newly conspiracy-theorist brain is actively and incessantly trying to find parallels between tma and tmagp (is the mysterious security guy like breekon and hope? is the oxford's people's trust akin to the people's church of the divine host, and that is why it burned down? does the press of a sea of laughing volunteers have to do with the buried, and/or their end with the slaughter?) and it took me like five full minutes to realize that i was being silly and should stop trying to identify exact similarities for a number of reasons: they wouldn't do that because it might be rather cheap and boring; people coming from Magnus would have an upper hand and be able to infer things from prior knowledge; this is an entirely new premise and story simply set in the same universe; and the simple fact that fear — broad a category as it is, as exemplified in the first two hundred episodes of the magnusverse — is the centerpoint of horror. of course there will be parallels!! if only coincidentally!!! lmao what am i thinking

anyway i started writing this because i wanted to appreciate/highlight the writers' efforts in making the stories so conceptually new in content, despite the constant temptation (at least, i feel it, secondhandedly) to adhere to the rules (categories of fear) already in existence, meticulously built up to craft horror tales specifically set in this universe already... it would be easy. but protocol is, in essence, a different series, and deserves the same amount of love and freshness and work put into it. i should stop guessing at what to expect, because i shouldn't pretend i know any more than i did when starting magnus lol

ALSO I LOOOVE THE MYSTERY!!! why would i spoil it for myself!!!!

p.s. im not sure whether the sam/celia romance feels forced to me but it's too early to tell

ANYWAY let me just reiterate how it was an absolutely wonderful surprise to discover alex and jonny still had character roles in protocol i have no idea why i didn't see it coming

eeeeeeee im so excited i get to listen in real time with the fandom nowww eeeeeeeeeee

i do regret (in such a minor way that it may be considered inconsequential) that the episodes aren't named CASE 7 or whatever bc that would be cool but maybe they aren't all gonna be cases ?? perhaps the structure is different.... hMMmmMM

8 seasons is crazy like wow props to you guys im so DAMN EXCITED

#tma #the magnus archives #tma spoilers #tmagp #tmagp spoilers #the magnus protocol #jazz freaks out about tmagp #stupid post el oh el :^#tma.txt

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literary-illuminati · 8 months ago

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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.

#book review #the saint of bright doors #vajra chandrasekera #sff

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dd-is-my-guiltypleasure · 11 months ago

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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)

#david duchovny #2024 #what happens later #txf #meg ryan #mo #malibu #his life now #west duchovny

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wannab-urs · 11 months ago

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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!

#fic recs #the spreadsheet digest #fanfiction recommendations #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro fics #pedro pascal character fanfiction

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nonwal · 1 year ago

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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

#shadowgast #Essek Thelyss #Bren Aldric Ermendrud #critical role #critical role fanfiction #(kind of)#I had a couple attempts at a scourger AU before a body in absentia but none of them went anywhere #wrote the beginning of this one a year ago and realized I didn't have a plot #but one came to me recently so I figured I'd share it even though I'm not going to do anything more with this concept

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inkblackorchid · 10 months ago

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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!

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polyhexian · 6 months ago

Note

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

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ghostoffuturespast · 11 months ago

Text

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.

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.

#cyberpunk 2077 #2023 year in review #year in review #virtual photography #writing #from the top #fic: so it goes #long post #i can't guarantee a safe space but i can guarantee a brave space #if anyone's been feeling similarly and wants to talk about it my dms are open #the door's always open

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