#I haven’t seen the town thing itself obviously but I just know what it’s referring to

[fordobsessed]

tried not to talk about this but anyway I was ford for Halloween and part of me was really worried someone would make a stupid b/frd related comment and lo and behold. Someone made a dumbass saving the town joke. The way my heart dropped is unreal. Whole new kind of instant stress response related to this. I can’t block people irl what is this shit. I hate 90% of this fandom sm . there was a lot of people who loved my cosplay though and made perfectly normal comments so I just need to focus on that :) just had one bad moment but it’s nagging on me

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Breaking Bonds || Morgan & Bea

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @beatrice-blaze & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Bea invites Morgan over to share a new discovery. The world will not consent to be fixed, but somebody has to try.

CONTAINS: references to Bea’s, Morgan’s, and Adam’s deaths

There were not many people in this world who understood life and death in the same manner Bea did. They may never have been close before either of their deaths, but after, Morgan and Bea were implicitly connected. This connection made Morgan the clearest person to go to about what Bea had found through her research. The kettle let out a shrill cry for attention as the witch finished lining up the tomes she had flagged for this discussion. It was good timing that Bea’s bracelet informed her that Morgan had crossed into the Vural’s property as she began steeping the tea. She went to the porch with a smile, Dia weaving between her legs as she waited for Morgan. “The tea should be ready soon! I hope you don’t mind that I tried to find something you’d like to eat, though I wasn’t completely sure what would be palatable,” She told the zombie, thinking of the container of meat that she had waiting for Morgan, if she wanted it.

It was no small relief to visit Bea at her place. Morgan didn't know her as well as she did Luce and Nell, but she had an ease with Bea that she couldn’t have with the others either. They had died and come back around the same time, and they were both determined to have a whole life as their altered selves. As she came up to the porch to meet her friend, she sighed and let that ease pull away some of the tension her body carried.

“I don’t mind,” she said, smiling with gratitude. “I will try any and everything you have prepared. I literally can’t get food poisoning, so there’s not much to lose. And thanks for having me over. I want to hear all about New York and Felix and whatever else people who haven’t seen each other in a while swap. But uh, you said there was something you wanted to talk about, right?”

Small talk, Bea had almost forgotten that she should be engaging in small talk because she was so excited by what she had found. “Oh yes! I need to hear all about what you’ve been doing too, I’m sure things have been very exciting over here.” And she did, just like she wanted to see how Morgan was, especially since Morgan was taking care of so many people at the moment. Still, that could wait until after.

Bea invited Morgan in, before walking over to the table and lightly touching a book. “But, first, you should see what I found in here,” She couldn’t help the excited tilt her voice took. Flipping open to the first tab in the book she pointed to a line and read,“‘I have found that some of the new undead can be controlled, tamed if the right-hand guides them.’ The wording is awful, but doesn’t that read like I could help people who are struggling with this? You were the first person who seemed right to call about this.”

“Oh, you know,” Morgan said dismissively. “Been better, been worse. Still kind of a mess. But as long as we have each other, or as much of each other as we can, and if we can keep trying to make hope…” She smiled, weighed down by every terrible thing that had happened over the past month, though no less genuine for it. “We have to get to ‘okay’ eventually, right?”

She followed Bea in eagerly. Distractions were good, learning and projects were better. If she was moving toward something, she might still be able to make something better, or at least be better. She came over to the book and looked at the words. Controlled and tamed were two different things, but maybe this meant that there was an under-utilized conditioning process. Use magic at first to mitigate the damage and get them used to things, Let them choose the right thing for themselves later. “With--by ‘this’ you mean undead hunger cravings, right? Like, if I lost myself in front of a dead body, or a vampire was trying to stay off people. Do you think…” Her hand went to her lips as she thought of Ashley the zombie last year and Nico Jemisin in the thrift store. She shouldn’t get too excited, she shouldn’t brew hope over just a stray phrase and an untested experiment. She shouldn’t, she shouldn’t. And yet. “How far have you gotten on this? This could be…it could save so many people.”

A small, sad smile took Bea’s lips as Morgan spoke. She knew that hope as well as she knew her shadows. Before all of this, the necromancer had never had to worry about being okay, she had simply trusted in the universe to balance itself again. Being hit with hardship after hardship had created that doubt in the world’s ability to allow her to have a break. “We’ll be okay eventually, Morgan,” She said softly, “We’ll be able to create our own okay, you’re strong enough for that.” Anyone who had survived what Morgan had already was more than capable of bending the world to her whims.

She nodded eagerly, “That’s what I would intend to find out at the very least. I’d like to think that the word ‘tamed’ would imply that, though I do hate the implication that the undead needs to be tamed.” She had found herself drawn to the power of necromancy at the beginning, the ability to twist death itself to what she wanted. Now, though, after experiencing that power, she had found something softer, something that could change lives, save them. That part of herself she felt had left in death was returning, the part that could help and care for others without asking what they could do for her. She could grant people some form of comfort again, she could help facilitate something beautiful from a hardship. “I’ve marked every mention I’ve found of it, but there’s not much I’ve seen. I think we can write something together on this, we can find a way to get this information out there to help others.”

A piece of Morgan’s heart unclenched at Bea’s reassuring words. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding something in, but she was swallowing tears and so loose in her bones she felt like she might fall over. It had been a while since someone had tried to comfort her, and even longer when she was able to accept their gift without any guilt. Morgan smiled, lips quivering, and whispered, “thank you,” before putting her attention back on the main subject.

“What would you need? In terms of resources or experiments?” Morgan asked. She was self-conscious enough about her now-constant discoloring at all times, but as she considered the possibilities, she felt the hollowness of her stomach too. Morgan shouldn’t be this excited for Bea’s idea. Fuck Odell, and fuck her hold on this cursed town. “Would it...I mean, you’re the expert, so you would know whether it’s safe or too dangerous if you...tested it on me?” She met Bea’s eyes with trepidation. “I’m not high risk or anything, obviously, and a year does a lot for a girl’s impulse control around viscera, but...I wouldn’t say no to some extra help.”

There were many forms of strength that Bea has seen over the years, many of them represented by the women she surrounded herself with. Morgan, she found, had one of the softest forms she had seen yet, but that did not mean she didn’t respect it. If anything, it proved to Bea that she could be strong without violence and anger. Her sisters, for as strong as they were, often hurt themselves from it. Luce with her anger, an all too powerful storm that untethered her, but kept others aware of who they were dealing with. Nell with her fierce strikes, hunting beasts and controlling demons that left her all too vulnerable to the world’s evil. Bea couldn’t always be like them, but she could be softer, she could adopt some of Morgan and create her own brand of strength that did not always mean striking first.

“Well, we’d need an area far from anyone else just in case something went wrong.” Bea wouldn’t risk doing it at her home when her sisters were so close by. She looked at Morgan for a long moment, she trusted the zombie, but it put Morgan in a hard situation if something were to happen. “We can try it on you, but I would want other people there, just in case. Who would you feel comfortable with helping?” Bea had her own list of who they could call, but Morgan was the one being controlled. She was certainly in a much more vulnerable spot. “I think we should start with small portions and then work our way up.” This would be a long process, but it would be worth it to explore the possibility.

“Well, there’s plenty of spots in the woods,” Morgan sighed. “If screaming moose can hide, so can we. Especially on the outskirts, near the border, I don’t think there’ll be anyone for miles.” She wasn’t that worried. White Crest liked to keep its secrets to itself as much as possible. But Bea’s second question was another beast. Deirdre came to her mind briefly, but her love had promised to never physically harm her on purpose and refused to be released. And then, Bea wouldn’t want to endanger her sisters after all they’d been through. Who did that leave? Mina, who barely spoke to her anymore?

At last, Morgan had to admit defeat. “I...don’t know. If you know someone or have ideas, I trust your judgement. You know about discretion as much as anyone, so. But, little bits at a time! That sounds good. Reasonable. It’ll, you know, probably come in handy some time. Even with someone like me.” Or especially, with how things stood at the moment. “You’re the one channeling big magic, so you should probably set the pace. I’ve got that infinite stamina going for me. So I...I can take it. Whatever might happen, I can take it. I want to, if it means having more control over myself.”

With everything, Bea had good and bad days. With the woods, she had bad far more often. She controlled her face as well as she could, only hesitating for a moment. “Let me pick the spot in the forest? I’ll find something in the outskirts for us.” She would pick somewhere far from the place it happened, where even on her bad day she could hold herself together. Her first thought would be to ask Leah to help, but that could be very dangerous for the phoenix. Her sisters weren’t an option. Maybe this wasn’t as easy as she had originally thought it would be. “I could see if Kaden was willing to help.” She trusted him to behave with Morgan, but she had no idea if they were on good terms anymore. “If you are feeling comfortable with that.” That was a good point, Bea had no idea how much energy this was going to take. If it was anything like the other necromancy magic she had done, she was going to need to work her way up. “We’ll go slow, there’s no need to rush what’s going to happen. Especially as we need to get more people on board to help.”

“Of course,” Morgan said. To her shame, she only remembered how much the woods had taken from Bea when she saw the look on the woman’s face. Morgan, for her part, never lingered on the part of main street where she’d felt the sun on her back for the last time, and ice cream trucks made her feel sick and bitter. But these were small things, specific. As much as the spot where Bea died was cursed ground, for all Morgan knew, every dark cluster of trees held the shadow of her trauma. Too late now.

Morgan considered Kaden. She didn’t want him to know she was struggling. She didn’t know how much of his fear and disappointment she could bear. And would he feel guilty for helping? Would he doubt himself? Or feel as though he were betraying himself? But a hunter was a clear and obvious choice, for Bea’s safety as well as Morgan’s own. And the only other hunter Morgan trusted was dead. “It makes sense. If you think he would, and that he wouldn’t...feel wrong or bad about it, yeah. That sounds like a good idea. And you’re right about needing others, strong muscle-y others probably, but don’t know who else is left.” She met Bea’s eyes slowly, knowingly, and ached as Adam’s loss stung once again. She cleared her throat and let the spectre of his memory pass. “Later, when we’ve got the basics down, I’ll be of more help. I’ve got lots of fresh experience with my muscle strength, and fighting off people, living and undead. But, slow and steady first.” With difficulty, she summoned a smile. “Who’d have figured it would take two people like us to make a new magic discovery?”

Oh, Bea thought, Of course Morgan knows. A fragile, brittle smile made its way onto her face. As the days went on, as his loss compounded, the closer she felt to slipping away. She was teetering on a precipice, close to falling over the edge of understanding grief as other people had. Her understanding before had been abstracted at best, a twisted and strange version of an emotion that everyone around her seemed to understand better than she did. A necromancer who had faced death, danced with her, but did not comprehend her affects seemed like an oxymoron. The room was spinning, twisting around her as she tried to focus on Morgan’s words. “Oh, I don’t know it makes sense, doesn’t it?” She replied weakly, “We like pushing and figuring stuff out. We’re fixers.” Fixers in a world that could not be fixed, would not consent to be fixed. Adam had been a fixer too, it was why he was gone.

“Fixers, huh,” Morgan repeated, her own smile turning sad as well. She didn’t think of that word often except in terms of her own shame and desperation. She broke something, therefore she had to fix it. But to hear Bea say it, they were doing something better than hastily atoning; they were solving the world. Not all of it, because no one could do that. But little hurts, difficulties, problems. They knew how to seal cracks in people’s hearts and put in new supports where old ones had snapped. And it didn’t have to mean that any of it was their fault or their responsibility. Just that they happened to know how. They happened to have the strength to try. And when everything broke all over again, they would fix it again. On and on.

The future stretched out in her mind’s eye, a line of patch jobs into centuries. Nothing holding or staying for long. She wondered if Adam had ever seen the future that way, and if he ever let himself dream of a green field and a quiet existence where the only things that needed fixing were fence posts and kitchen appliances, as she often did. She didn’t know which answer was sadder.

“I guess we are,” she said quietly. “I guess somebody has to be.”

[casualotptrash]

Fixes to the Persona Series

Oh boy I hope you all are ready to talk about this for the hundredth time!

My recent tirade about the FES vs Portable discussion started to make me think about what I think could be done in the next coming installments of the series to make it either feel a bit more fresh or just as an overall improvement. Now, I know many of the things I’m about to say have been said time and time again, but...this is my post so I’m going to give my opinion on this :)

Enjoy and feel free to vent with me about your biggest gripes with the series, because I’m always ready for a salt-fest.

(This post will pretty much have any spoilers about Persona 3, 4, and 5 (including Royal) so beware if you haven’t finished those)

To clarify right off the bat, anything I don’t mention in here as something I would fix I either don’t think it is a problem or I just happened to forget it.

1. Player Gender Options

(Royal Spoilers)

Starting off with a great one, I think that an improvement to the series would be to allow an option between a male and a female MC. I don’t think this choice would affect the story in Persona 3 or 4 very much (and we’ve seen that with Persona 3), but I have imagined and seen so many fanfics about how it would actually be a really interesting twist for Persona 5. For most of the story it probably wouldn’t matter too much, but it could impact the first palace so much. The first palace/story arc is already one of the best arcs in the game, so imagine if the player could relate to Ann and Shiho on an even deeper level? To be clear, I’m not saying the player has to be sexually assaulted or something, but I imagine Kamoshida would at least treat the player more like Ann rather than just a delinquent nuisance.

Also, and this just came to mind, but picture this: in the third semester Maruki actualizes things that he thinks will make others happy. Obviously, Joker and Akechi are against this. In the game itself there are a lot of clues to point that Joker does care about Akechi, and does want to see him again, but in the end they both agree that they need to fight for the real world that they worked for, not for a fake reality. If Joker was a female, they could still go the route of doing this (especially if romancing Akechi was an option? Or they just hint at them having feelings but Akechi doesn’t want to commit because he’s a self-loathing boi who needs to work on himself first).

Alternatively...what about a badass narrative of a girl, in a powerful position as the leader of the Phantom Thieves, fighting against a man who believes he knows what’s best for her and tries to appease her by just bringing back Akechi? Kinda like a “Yeah fuck what you did, you just need Akechi/a man and he’ll make you happy” type of thing. Obviously this would all be subtle, because I do think Maruki has good intentions, but he also blames himself for all of the hard things Rumi has gone through and may internalize that as women needing a “strong man” to protect them. Of course this might seem too preachy for people, but I thought it was an interesting idea to run with and that some people could relate to the whole “Woman trying to think and do things for themselves? Nah just sit in your little fake world and be happy, thanks.”

(Sidenote, Sae would be such a good role model...after her change of heart of course. You crush it girl.)

However, I do understand that this could be a lot of extra work, especially when the game is so long and tedious. That’s why I would also be fine with the strategy of “switching off” per say. By that I mean if Persona 5 has a male MC, then Persona 6 would have a female MC, and if a 7th game was made (in 2040 or whatever) then it could go back to a male. This would eliminate the issue of having to record all the voice lines twice or any other extra work that would come with having to make both genders an option. Honestly I know this option doesn’t matter too much to people, they just want an MC who is either a self-insert or actually a character (more on that later), but I do think it would be a very nice inclusion especially for the female fans of the game. It kind of sucks that three of the most popular games in the series all have male protags, and the female protag who was introduced often gets shafted for very dumb reasons. (Oh no, you have the option to romance a kid that most people don’t even choose or like, that means she’s a p*do! :I I know this comment is normally a joke but seriously it’s not funny).

2. Setting of the game (not transfer but also maybe involve the other games?)

(Spoilers for the Arena games and Persona 5/Royal)

So there are two main points to this suggestion: where the game takes place and how it relates to the other games.

As we all know, the three latest entries in the mainline Persona series have all followed a certain trend. They are all high schoolers, who transfer to a town, and know basically no one there. This formula has been repeated for the last three games, and while they are still great games, I think this trend needs to change. Any amount of switching this up would be better than nothing in my opinion. For example, the MC could be a new college student who goes to a new place for college (if they wanted the MC to move somewhere), and there meets the party members who are a mix of people who also don’t know the area (new to the college) and those who do know the area/some people there. This would appease people who have been really wanting an MC to not be a high schooler, while also giving the feel of meeting new people and seeing a new place.

On the other hand, the next game could take place in the MC’s home town, where plot stuff happens and they connect more to the people they already knew (aka party members) to solve the plot stuff. They could be in high school or college, either I think would work, but it would appease people who don’t just want to be a transfer student each time and also have some connection to the characters prior to the game. However, this would be difficult to do given the current “flow” that the games have, that is that the MC doesn’t know anything and has to ask a million questions. It would be very strange to go up to someone you have known most of your life and ask them a basic question, which is why that style of storytelling(?) would not fit well with this and other methods would need to be used.

Now, for the second point, I understand that they don’t make strong connections to the other games because they want each game to be able to be played as a stand-alone, and not to hold people back by forcing them to play the other games to understand this. Makes sense, but usually what happens is that people play one game in the series and then try another game, if they really like the one they started with. After playing through the ones they want to, and if they like them, then there is an appreciation for the series as a whole. Of course Atlus sneaks in little references here and there, like having the P4 gang go to Iwatodai or some TV news announcements on P5 that allude to Adachi and other characters, but those cant always cut it. One of the biggest letdowns I would come to know is the fact that the Shadow Operatives are not mentioned at all, outside of those small references, in P5.

Persona 5 literally has the PT’s broadcasting all of their heists, and includes major government officials like Shido. There are also the mental shutdowns/psychotic breakdowns, which also have people confused, along with how the PT’s steal hearts in the first place. I don’t know about you all, but this seems like the perfect opportunity to get the Shadow Operatives involved. This is like...literally what they were made for? Investigating persona/shadow activity and such, and we already know that the PT’s deeds reached at least Hawaii so it would be strange for the SO’s to have not heard anything. There are headcanons that they were blocked by Shido or something, which is pretty interesting to think about/develop, but it was only thought up to make an excuse for why they aren’t there. Persona 5 introduced a lot of people to the story, so yeah some people would probably be very confused about who the SO’s are and stuff, but it could payoff in the long run for long-time fans and those who play the other games after.

Depending on the story of P6, I don’t think it would be a bad idea to start including casts from the other games into newer ones...especially when each game introduces 8-9 new characters per game, and those games usually get made into spin-offs that include the characters made in the previous games! Counting only the characters introduced in the previous games (3-5), Persona Q2 has 33 characters (11 P3, 10 P5, 10 P4, and 2 P3P, this includes the velvet room assistants for each respective game). That’s a ton! Sure, having new characters each time is part of the fun, but I believe there is definitely a way to split them up. I don’t think it would be too much of an issue to have a smaller party member group (you can only have 4 fight at a time anyway), that way there is still the enjoyment of seeing new characters, while also filling up some of those spots with preexisting ones.

3. Characterization

This kind of piggybacks off of the second point, but personally I think they need to stop with the self-insert protags. First, like I mentioned earlier, it kind of messes up the “flow” of the game since they have to pretend that the character doesn’t know anything because the player doesn’t know anything (yet). For example, how many times did the option to say “Probation?” or “Expelled?” or something like that come up as a dialogue choice in P5? Too often, in my opinion. I assume anyone over the age of 15 would probably know what those things mean, but in case anyone doesn’t they have to make it an option to say.

Adding onto this, it also seems like people start to like the characters a whole lot more when spinoffs or movies/animations come out that really expand on the character, because in those games/mediums the player is taken out of the self-insert role. I would say out of the three games, the Persona 3 protags have the most characterization in game through their dialogue. I haven’t watched the movies, but I heard it fleshes the MC out a lot more. In Persona 4...well, I see what they’re going for but I also feel like Yu has the personality of a cardboard box. The animations definitely helped out this one, as did Arena, and I’ve seen other people agree that they liked Yu a lot more after playing/watching those things.

As for Persona 5, I think they tried to give Joker some characterization (and oddly enough “Joker” has a lot more to him than Akira/Ren, but he still fell more on the side of self-insert. P5 the animation is...of questionable quality, but I think Xander did a good job in the Dub (which is the one I watched) in trying to make him feel more like a human being. I haven’t played Strikers, but I assume it goes more on the route of P5 because you’re still controlling Joker. Oddly enough, I feel like the dancing game gave him the most characterization? Call me crazy, but his dance moves and voice lines just ooze of his suave, friendly, and supportive attitude. I wish that they took whatever those voice lines embodied and just put them into the game, because I would like Joker a lot more than I already do (which, to be clear, I do still like him a lot).

Although this doesn’t have much to do with the characterization, it would also be nice if Atlus could just put the “canon name” in the game while also still having the option to choose your own name. Again, this might add a little more work but maybe if someone chose the “canon” option then their name could be spoken in voice lines, but if they don’t then the names would be left out (except for text) like usual. Honestly this is mostly up to personal preference because I like some of the “not canon” names more so I would want to use those if I could, but I also don’t like having the characters just randomly cut off in the end of sentences when they’re saying your name. Just kind of breaks immersion, which is probably why I really like Joker because at least they say “Joker” quite a bit.

(Little rant, but why do the PT’s get like two group names? At first Morgana defaults to “The Phantom Thieves of Hearts” but then when you get to choose the name of your team, that name is what shows up instead. However, everyone still calls you the “Phantom Thieves” and the gang refers to themselves as that too! I get naming the group is kind of cool, but I would have preferred if they were just called The Phantom Thieves (of Hearts) and that way their name could be spoken in dialogue too.)

4. Choices matter...please? (romance and regular dialogue)

This might be easy or difficult to implement, I’m not so sure because I’m not a game developer, but I really wish choices mattered more in this game. I feel like most of these suggestions (especially later on down the list) are just little things that could be added to the game that would really amp it up, and this is one of them.

When I talk about choices mattering, I do not mean that dialogue should be so open that there are branching paths and that your choices affect the story. What I mean is that you could choose two different options and not get the same exact answer. I get that this isn’t always the case, but when it is it feels very strange. In this same vein of things, please stop with the illusion of choice because everyone sees right through it. I didn’t really see this as much in P3, and I still need to finish P4, but it was definitely apparent with P5. I felt that so many times in the game there were two options that were just “Option A” or “Synonym for Option A” as the choices.

Along the same lines, I think it would be great if romance choices were actually acknowledged. Again, there is a little of this in P3 and P4 where some party members comment on your relation to the other party members (Ex. Junpei saying to take care of Fuuka if you date, Yukari stating that Akihiko probably wouldn’t want FeMC going on a group date if they’re dating, and Yosuke coming to assumptions about who Yu spends the summer festival with), but they are very few and far between. I also saw no evidence of this at all in P5, which was pretty disappointing. In fact, in Persona 5 Royal if you are dating Ann and go on the Christmas Date with her, she makes some comment about not wanting the others to find out about them. Like...girl, considering someone can finish Ann’s social link as early as June or so on NG+ I’m pretty sure your friend group would notice if you’ve been dating for 6 months?? I know that romance is definitely not the focus of the game, but if you’re going to include it why is it shoved into the farthest corner and never touched?

Don’t get me wrong, it is cute to see the romances in the game play out and such, but on the same hand I can see how much better it could be. In reality it kind of sucks to romance someone in the Persona games because no one acknowledges it, and you only get like 3-4 small scenes in each game to spend with them (beach in P5, festival in all, Christmas in all, valentines except for 3, White Day in P5R). Just imagine if you could take a walk in Kyoto with whoever you romanced, or were able to take your partner to the Jazz Jin in P5R and they would get like special date dialogue or something? Very very small additions, but it would go a long way in making the romances feel a bit more connected.

5. LGBT Romances

I went into this in some detail in Part 3 of my FES vs Portable debate post, so I to save your eyes from reading more I’ll just quickly say that Atlus definitely needs to add in more LGBT romance options because it’s ridiculous at this point. The fact that you can’t romance any guy (because all of the MC’s are male, this is not including the FeMC stuff because that’s not typical in the Persona series) but can have a whole harem (despite what they may do to you) is just ridiculous. They’d rather let you date a fully-fledged adult than someone of the same gender.

Also they’re cowards for scrapping the Yosuke romance and that’s that :)

6. Fixing Social Links

Link to the stand-alone post about this section.

I literally was going to include this in this post, but this section alone (which I knew was going to be the biggest) was almost as large (a few hundred words off) than everything prior to this point put together. I’ll make a separate post with just this section soon, but this criticism of mine can basically be boiled down into the fact that the main growth of a character should happen outside of their social link in order to avoid tonal whiplash in the story, and that this will fix the problem of some characters feeling “one-note” if you do not do their social links/confidants. Essentially, go back to the P3 method.

However, something that needs to be fixed for all of the games is that you shouldn’t only get social link points for saying what the person wants to hear. I get the train of thought that if you say what they want to hear they will like you more, but that’s not how real friendships work? Obviously you shouldn’t be saying something that offends them and think it will raise your points, but sometimes people just need to hear things?

I can think of three standout examples: Nozomi in P3 (Gourmet King), Mishima in P5, and Shinya in P5. Nozomi’s link is a hot mess in of itself, but it was very frustrating to at one point just be like “Hey can you chill?” when he’s trying to induct you into a scam/cult or whatever, and it reverses the social link. Like ok buddy fuck you too, I was just trying to say no and that you need to stop scamming people?? For Mishima in P5 (I’ll go more in depth on him in a later post), it’s just kind of strange that you can clearly see him starting to obsess about the PT’s but you can’t really tell him he needs to stop until the social link demands it. Even then, the only way to get points is pretty much to go “Wow Mishima, you’re the best! You’re the reason we exist! We love you!!!” and it just feels kind of wrong. Shinya’s is very much along the same line as that, except you basically have to do something even worse and encourage him to keep being a bully? Thankfully P5 doesn’t reverse confidants, but I probably would have done so with Shinya because I kept telling him he shouldn’t bully others until I realized how to get points with him. It just feels wrong to encourage such behavior until the character suddenly realizes they’ve been acting wrong. No shit, I’ve been trying to say that.

I think social links need quite the fix to them, but this is definitely one of them. Strong, real relationships are not just built upon telling the other person what they want to hear.

7. Have Characters Hang Out

This is mostly a suggestion based off of P5′s downfall in this aspect. I think that P3 and P4 did a good job at showing the characters hang out in other aspects, or hang out separately outside of the MC. P4 had a lot of good group hangouts, but not many scenes without the MC. P3 had the opposite where members kind of hung out together a bit, but also showed or mentioned them hanging out without the MC. However, P5 didn’t have much for the group hangouts and also I can’t really recall a single scene of the party members hanging out outside of the MC.

Along with all of the problems I mentioned earlier with the cardboard cut-out personalities, I feel that this contributed to P5′s group feeling a bit less cohesive. Obviously when they all hung out they acted like a real group of friends, but it’s hard to see it as legitimate when 95% of their hangouts are just meetings for the Phantom Thief stuff. The only times they hang out outside of the PT stuff is the TV station, the fireworks festival, helping Futaba + the beach trip, and the culture festival. Like I said, I can’t recall them hanging out together outside of being with the MC/PT business, although I could have missed some stray text message if one was mentioned.

In this aspect, P5 feels like a small step down from P3 and a huge step down from P4. I think some of the events in P4 are a bit unnecessarily long, but at least they go through the effort of showing that the group is also a real friend group, not just people trying to solve the murder. Strikers may be a step up from P5, but I haven’t played it yet so I can’t judge that.

Also bring back school trips to prior locations of Persona games. Imagine P5 group going to Inaba and it turns out this is the small country town that Joker came from? And they sprinkle in references to P4? *chefs kiss*.

8. Remove/Change Certain Tropes

(Spoilers for the babe hunts, stupid ass hot springs scenes, and Ryuji abuse after certain palace)

By that spoiler tag, you can probably tell that this is the category I’m most passionate about. I can deal with social links feeling a bit disconnected. I can deal with the MC being a self-insert. What I cant deal with anymore? These. Dumb. Ass. Scenes.

Let me explain (insert Sojiro voice here)

Every game has three main tropes. One, the babe hunt scenes. Two, the hot springs scenes. Three, one character being dunked on by everyone else. I’ll go through each, scream about my feelings about them, and why they need to change.

First, the babe hunt scenes. I don’t have much of a problem with this trope to be honest, I just think it could be done better in some games. I actually think the one in P3 was quite funny, because the group treated it like an “operation” which added a bit to humor. Truth be told, I was just a bit disappointed in P3P FeMC route when you didn’t have your own version of the “babe hunt” thing. I know Yukari and Mitsuru aren’t the types to go hunt for boys, but perhaps the MC could have suggested it as a fun idea. In P4, this scene happens in Okina and largely remains the same as the P3 formula, but I think it lacks just a bit of the humor that the P3 one had. Lastly, in P5 this scene happens during the beach trip but compared to the others it’s pretty...lackluster?

It shows a montage of Joker, Ryuji, and Yusuke talking to girls but no actual dialogue goes on. After talking to three or so, Yusuke disappears and this is when Joker and Ryuji meet the two “flamboyant” men again. This time, the men either chase them down or call after them (?) depending on if you’re playing Vanilla or Royal. I don’t like how they use these men in the first place, but on top of that it kind of takes the “babe hunt” out of “babe hunt” if you don’t actually...hunt for babes? Like no actual dialogue is spoken when trying to convince the girls, which was most of the fun in the other scenes. You don’t even have free reign to walk around at the beach, and the scene is formatted in a more cutscene type of way.  It just makes P5′s babe hunt fall flat in many ways, and overall I finished the scene with a strong “meh.” The only good things about this was watching Makoto and Ann defend themselves and Yusuke with the lobsters.

Now for the hot springs scenes....hoo boy.

Simply put, in my opinion, these scenes suck ass in almost all of the games. P3 is the least egregious in my opinion, for a couple reasons. First is that it shows that Junpei and Ryoji were kind of trying to peep on the girls, and Akihiko and MC were just dragged into it. They have some funny dialogue, and in FES and Portable they even included the option to try and evade the girls. I found the little evade minigame to be really fun, even though every time I can’t help but fail because I want to say “It was a cat!” I find it interesting that there is the option for the men to get off scott-free, and that their dialogue after the trip is over changes slightly because of this.

On the FeMC side, I also find it fun that you have the reverse of the minigame and actually seek out the boys. My only letdown with this entire scene is if the boys are caught. I get it, it’s supposed to be funny with Mitsuru executing them and such, but as a reasonable person with a brain it seems really dumb to me that Mitsuru would just punish all of them when it’s just Ryoji and Junpei’s fault? This is nothing against Mitsuru, but her actions just seem so...exaggerated for some reason? Like Mitsuru is usually smart, and even if she is embarrassed I don’t get why she would punish innocent party members. A huge disappointment for me was that the FeMC isn’t able to stop Mitsuru from doing this either. Not even a choice to try and encourage Mitsuru or discourage her (so both options would be available). You just kinda sit there and watch, even after Akihiko say “It was a misunderstanding!” or something. For me it was especially strange because MC was dating Akihiko at that point, so why wouldn’t I try to hear him out? Just struck me as kind of dumb.

If I thought that was dumb, P4 and P5 were out to really make me roll my eyes and sigh in disappointment. Unlike P3, which has most of the scene being pretty good besides the very end where Mitsuru punishes the boys, the P4 and P5 scenes are all bad. This is not the first time anyone has said it, and won’t be the last, but they aren’t funny scenes in the slightest.

In P4, it’s actually the girl’s fault that they’re in the hot springs when the boys walk in. They stayed over their allotted time and into the time when boys are supposed to be in there. So what do they do? Get flustered, yell at them, and throw buckets at the group. Oh, and they don’t listen to the boy’s protests at all. Really.

Who thought this was a good idea?? The girls even realize after that they were in the wrong, say they should apologize, but I don’t think they ever show a scene of them apologizing after. This whole scene, like the hot springs ones in general, are just exaggerated (ie. throwing masses of buckets) to be funny, but they really fail in my opinion. It just serves to make the player kinda angry (since they’re usually on the receiving end) and make the girls look wildly unrealistic and dumb. I have never really thought that needless physical abuse is funny, so these scenes are just the bane of my existence apparently.

There actually isn’t a hot springs scene in P5, but they did add one in Strikers.

If they wanted to still do these scenes, maybe they could switch from making it “just beat up the boys” into something else. For example, the girls could try to peep, or walk in on the boys. Equality y’all, sometimes girls can do those things too (but still don’t beat them up. Just don’t beat anyone up). If none of that happens, or maybe that’s how the scene ends, the rest of the scene could just be a chill, relaxing scene between those involved. Essentially, how the scenes go before the whole “lets beat up the boys” thing comes in.

Lastly, on basically the same vein as why I don’t like the hot springs scenes, I’m starting to get real sick of the “let’s shit on this one character” trope. In Persona 3, I don’t think it’s that bad because they kind of do it with Junpei but they also give him a lot of character development, and eventually the sort of hostile shitting on him turns into just gentle teasing.

For P4 I still don’t think it is too bad, because Yosuke is kind of the one being shit on but he also does the same to the other people in the group? I suppose the only thing that really sticks out to me is how Teddie abuses Yosuke’s wallet (making him buy/pay for a lot of stuff with his hard earned cash), but I also don’t like Teddie at all in the first place so I may be biased about him. Oh well, he still shouldn’t do those things and I don’t really find it funny but to each their own.

However...this problem walks and rocks the fucking runway in Persona 5. Namely, this happens with Ryuji. The most obvious aggressor in this is Morgana, because him and Ryuji butt heads so often, but the other thieves kind of do it as well. Obviously they don’t do this all the time, but it’s extremely frustrating when they do. Morgana getting into arguments with Ryuji at the drop of a hat get old very quick, and the other thieves poking a bit of fun about how dumb Ryuji can be is also not that riveting. Despite all of that, the scene that highlights all of this is the scene after Shido’s palace collapse.

You all knew this was coming, but I couldn’t resist talking about it. The scene is so tone deaf in so many ways that it takes away all of the emotional impact that they were trying to build. Even the first time I watched this scene, in which I didn’t think they would kill off Ryuji, I could still sympathize with the group being concerned about him. Then when he shows up they...just beat him up and leave him unconscious next to a pole while they walk away? Wow.

On all subsequent playthroughs I just skip this scene, but I truly cannot understand why that was the angle they went for. Were they trying to insert some humor right after an emotional scene? That can be done in certain cases, but....why??? It’s so unbelievable it’s almost laughable. It’s not even like the bath scene where the the girls think the guys are trying to peep on them. It’s simply because he survived which I assume is what they wanted!

“Oh no you made us thought you were dead (even though he didn’t because he couldn’t control any of this), we’re going to beat you up!” Now you just make the characters look like irrational idiots.

Seriously Atlus, stop doing this. In most cases it just serves to make the player kind of frustrated, and in this case it it literally takes all of the emotional weight out of the scene and makes me think worse of the entire female cast. Please. Stop.

Well that’s the end of that. I don’t think I said anything too revolutionary, although my opinions about the social links and characterization might get me some flak. I just want the characters to be more than one personality trait... This was a really long post again, so kudos to whoever made it to this point!

Next time, on Dragon Ball Z Casual’s pointless posts: something Persona related :)

[im-the-punk-who]

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@rnmmarchformeta​ Day 1: Tonight’s theme is: Themes

Malex and Music: Tracing a relationship through music used in the show - Part 1

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Given that both Michael and Alex have a personal connection to music, I wanted to go over some of the intricacies of what the music choices and lyrics/stories behind the songs used might tell us about Malex. The music choices in Roswell New Mexico are deliberate and often incredibly pointed. Particularly in the case of Michael and Alex there are elements of their relationship that are not so much underlined as written about only in the lyrical choices that play under their scenes. This choice for me made rewatching the series a lot of fun because as I discovered the lyrics to some of the more obscure song choices I kept discovering new intricacies and motivations for each of their decisions. Below the cut for length.

(Author’s note circa 2007:  (rawr xD) I’m focusing specifically on the parts of these songs that play over or in direct correlation to scenes where Michael and Alex are both present. I would love to explore this theme in the wider context of the whole show and how their interactions with other characters might change some of these but...this is already like 6k and that’s just how the peas and carrots cooked. That said I will be referencing other characters and relationships as relevant, particularly, I will be talking at some length about Milexa and the airstream scenes in 2x06. I personally have a favorable reading of the scenes and what they mean for Michael and Alex. I also talk briefly about Milexa in a few other spots - they’ve been marked as ‘Milexa’ or ‘Miluca’ if you wish to skip them, although I don’t know if this will make sense as a whole without them. But, should you wish. Proceed accordingly. <3)

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Posted on AO3 here.

Sedona - Houndstooth (1x01)

The first song we hear in relation to Malex is ‘Sedona’ by Houndstooth. The song plays during the reunion as we see Alex confront Michael about the chemicals found around his airstream. The verse that plays underneath the scene references how, due to its scenic beauty, the town of Sedona was once a highly sought after filming location but had fallen into obscurity when cowboy movies went out of style in the late 70′s.

Similarly, Alex tells Michael that he is ‘wasting his life.’

“Does the macho cowboy swagger thing ever get old for you?”

“Did it get old for you?”

For me, this scene is as much an introduction to the past between these two as their present. Gone but not forgotten, their interactions are a ‘script’ that the two of them play off of. In other words, Michael and Alex don’t so much interact as play off of what the other expects from the other. This becomes especially clear when in 2x05 we learn that Alex has at least once before warned Michael about ‘wasting his life.’

When The Truth Hunts You Down - Sam Tinnesz (1x01)

The next scene is this one, in which we see Alex contemplating an old picture of himself. We then see Michael watching him.

Later, the last line is overlaid with Jesse telling Kyle about the existence of aliens.

The truth about Michael’s alienness is quiet literally hunting them, but so is something about Alex’s past. As we get to know him, we learn just how much his father is interconnected with all of the worst moments in his life and everrything he has buried and tried to run from in order to avoid it. Michael, Roswell itself - Alex ran halfway across the world to try to run away from the trauma of his youth, and yet here he is.

“Nostalgia’s a bitch, huh?”

“You know I thought when I got back from Iraq you would be long gone.”

“Is that what you want?”

“We’re not kids anymore. What I want doesn't matter.” 

We also find out something of the nature of his and Michael’s relationship and that there are clearly still feelings between them - no matter how much Alex is trying to deny it.

Give Me The Night - Des Rocs (1x02)

This is one of my personal faves from the Malex soundtracks. It just *slaps* okay?

Aside from the obvious nod to Michael’s alienness, this song underscores the divide still between Michael and Alex despite the passionate kiss they shared at the reunion. Michael is initially flirtatious and full of swagger - until Alex shuts him down.

The fallacy of Alex’s rebuke and his dismissal of the feelings behind the kiss are underscored by his refusal to even look Michael in the eye as they talk. Even if he tries to deny them, the truth of his feelings hunts and haunts him because he feels he can never act on his own desires. And in turn when presented with the about face, Michael turns bitter as the push-pull is reinitiated. Michael falls back to the script they’ve been rehashing to save his feelings - ‘puts on a show’ as it were, and Alex falls for it hook, line, and sinker. He is still unwilling or unable to see the truth that lies beneath the surface.

“Isn’t there some law about building on a historical site?”

“A historical - oh you mean because the UFO crashed here? Yeah, we’re not supposed to build on Santa’s workshop either.”

For Michael, who at least to me was obviously hoping things would change this time around, this must feel like a bucket of cold water, especially in the face of Liz Ortecho’s knowledge and seeming easy acceptance of the aliens’ existence. While Max might get his happy ending, Michael is left to keep hiding from the person he loves, never being seen and wondering if Alex’s feelings are even real. 

Two Princes - Spin Doctors (1x02) (Miluca)

In rapid fire we have the next three songs as Michael and Alex spend some time at the Wild Pony. This verse plays under the interaction when Alex comes in the bar and spots Michael.

“Though he got kinda hot. In a ‘sex in a truck, smells like a river, never introduce him to your mama’ kind of way.”

“I hadn’t noticed.”

My boy. My child. My bluntest instrument in the tool kit. Has no one ever told Alex Manes that saying you hadn’t noticed an objectively hot guy is hot is basically code for ‘I haven’t stopped staring at him since I walked in and my brain is not functioning at a high enough level to mask that fact’? Son, please, this is a drunk Wendy’s.

(Also this is huge foreshadowing for Miluca - Michael and Maria don’t have sex *in* a truck but it’s pretty close, we find out later that Michael/the aliens smell like rain, and she tells him he’s not meeting her mother at one point. The angle of this shot is also, for me at least, a hint that Michael is going to become the object of these two ‘princes’ affections, at some point.)

Anyway this is basically poking fun at Alex Manes, repressed disaster, for having no clue what love is and trying to express his affection through like, everything except anything anyone would understand as romantic love. (And we will see this in the flashbacks as well as present day - that Alex mostly uses his station or advantages as a way to show the people he loves he loves them, rather than using words. When he offers Michael the shed, brings him the guitar, uses his military connections to find out about Michel’s mom, hacks into Maria’s computer...listen I got more.) But that isn’t enough, as we’re learning. If only there were some way Alex could also learn that lesson.

And seriously, “This one said he wants to buy you rockets?”

How’s It Going To Be? - Stephen Edwards (1x02)

“Is there really nobody in this world that you wouldn’t risk everything to save? Sad.”

Oh Isobel, if only you knew.

So, aside from returning the kiss Michael initiated at the reunion, Alex has soundly rejected every advance Michael has made for a relationship. Despite that Michael seems to have been harboring some hope that things might be different not that Alex is back more permanently. But now with Isobel bringing into question what he’s willing to sacrifice, I think he might be realizing that toll has been extremely steep already.

(Also truly obsessed with how both Alex and Michael have positioned themselves so that they can casually glance over at each other without arousing suspicion. *Boys*. It’s not that complicated what is this middle school?)

We know that Michael doesn’t like having to keep secrets, and again I have to wonder if he’s regretting not telling Alex he’s an alien, or wondering how that conversation would have gone.

From the previous scenes we can tell something in their relationship is coming to a head - maybe Michael is hoping it’s that he can finally stop keeping secrets from Alex and show Alex who he really is - that Alex will stop misreading him. That Alex will change.

But there is also the expectation that if that happens, Alex will likely leave again. Not just because that’s what Alex’s trauma makes him do, but also because that is how Michael frames all of his relationships. As ‘until you leaves’. He is shown to have a habit of catastrophizing because he doesn’t believe himself to ‘belong’ anywhere(HA) and this is one of those times we’re shown that.

Come With Me - Gold Star (1x02)

“Home can be a person.”

And here we have Alex “thinking about who he was” as Maria closes up the bar. Given where this scene leads with him and Michael, I think the rest of the lyrics to the song are incredibly poignant.

Tell me what were you dreaming? Tell me who were you trying to reach? Gimme something real to believe in Or gimme a reason to leave So i left her standing under shining stars in the Silver moonlight by old Borough Hall - whoever you are

We know that after this evening Alex attempts to rekindle his relationship with Michael, still thinking about who he was, and maybe for the first time trying not to run from what he wants. He’ll be unsuccessful this time, but it’s the first clue that Alex is attempting to break a pattern that has held him in place for ten years.

While he may have been misreading Michael’s stunted growth, we’re starting to see Alex contemplate change in himself. This is the start of Alex’s two season long journey to break out of the fortress he’s built around himself. To ‘put his weapons down’ in an effort to be with Michael.

(She lets her guard down on her way back//to close her eyes and fall asleep - “It was late....I was tired.”)

God of Wine - Third Eye Blind

So clearly the writers were like ‘how can we hurt Milo specifically’ because these lyrics are *so good* as we hear malex talk about the way they view their relationship for the first time in the show.

The music starts just as Michael picks up the old photographs, first of the pod squad, then of himself and Alex playing guitars in the desert. As he packs up the airstream to move it off Foster’s Ranch, Michael is also thinking about the past.

Throughout the series, we’re given a bunch of musical lines about how Michael and Alex can’t go back to what they were, that they have to move forward. And it’s true - as we’ll see over and over again the dynamic they’ve had has been incredibly unhealthy for both of them. But they also cannot avoid the other’s orbit. And when Alex comes to talk to Michael it’s the first time we see him actually decide to initiate - to try and take what he himself wants, rather than waiting or hiding from it. But it is also very much Alex falling back into the ‘madness that holds a truth he can’t erase’ of Michael’s really, very, super, incredibly obvious feelings for him. Our boy is not subtle.

But Alex is still hunted by the past - before we know his history we assume that when Alex references ‘who he was before he went to war’ he means Iraq. But Alex’s war is his father. As much as combat can absolutely be a traumatizing experience, for Alex I never really read that as his main source. As he’ll tell Forrest later - “My PTSD triggers are a little more complicated”.

And so when he tells Michael he’s been thinking about who he was “before he went to war” for me that’s more a callback to who he was before Jesse found the two of them in the toolshed. “When this started.”

As Michael tells him “From where I stand nothing’s changed”  the words “I know, I know, I know” repeat in the background because WE KNOW. We all know, except Alex.

“And that’s a problem for me, Guerin.”

And the siren’s song that is your madness

“Because every time you look at me, I’m seventeen all over again.”

holds a truth I can’t erase

“- and I forget that the last ten years even happened. And then you look away and I remember all over again. And it almost kills me every time.”

All alone on your face

“I never look away. Not really.”

For Michael this is basically confirmation of what he’s been realizing over the last few days - that Alex has been totally misreading him and that yes, Michael, you’re going to have to use your words on this one. 

To which we see Alex’s brain 404-blue-screen for a minute as he realizes what Michael means. Which I personally really appreciate.

And especially since we’ve just learned that a lyric of this song was written on Rosa’s hand the night she died, I can’t believe it’s a coincidence in this being the song that plays underneath this scene - where Alex says he was thinking about who he was before. Everything changed that day for everyone - including Michael and Alex. Michael had gained a terrible secret he couldn’t share, that meant he changed his whole life and started needing to hide and lie and act out, and Alex - not knowing the truth - assumed that it was Michael’s way of trying to push him away and end the relationship. Which leads to the decades long miscommunication of Alex seeing Michael do that over and over again.

For the last ten years, Alex has been seeing Michael as the boy who looks away, then looks back. A Michael whose focus shifts to and away from him and who he sees as wasting his life; directionless and aimless. But as he realizes what Michael is saying he has to recalibrate everything he’s thought their relationship is.

This is possibly the first time Alex has realized that his view of Michael has been wrong. That he really doesn’t know Michael at all.

And we know this interaction has a profound impact on Alex in terms of how he views their relationship. I feel like this is one of those things that becomes a mantra for Alex, later down the line. He repeats it to Michael at Caulfield, and in his song as well, “You never looked away, now I won’t look away” to express his commitment to breaking down the walls he has built up for himself. 

Even though we know the relationship is doomed at this point, it’s the first time a stone falls from the walls Alex has built around himself in a decade.

Here - Chance Peña - 1x03 (Alternate title: “Home”)

Okay I would like to petition to make it illegal to have unreleased songs in episodes, Chance Peña help a bitch out. I had to watch a *fish show* to hear the full lyrics because they’re edited in the show! ( I will also note the next lyric is ‘goodbye, my dear’ which. rude.)

Anyway, we’re given these lyrics as Michael wakes up to seeing Alex has stayed the night. I took the editing, with the previous song choices, to be a reaffirmation of this being something new to Alex, but not necessarily to Michael. Michael knows what he wants from a relationship with Alex - even if he’s put the hope aside from time to time the want is always clear.

For Alex though, a relationship with Michael is something that scares him because of his fear that it can be taken away. (”I just thought that I could be happy, and not be afraid that if I loved anything my dad would destroy it.”) He is trying to make it work - “drawing near” to Michael - but he knows that in order to do that he is going to need to be uncomfortable. To face the fears that have held him back and kept him in comfortable limbo for so long.

I’m also going to flail about how, while RNM has the song listed as ‘Here’, the producer of the other show(Battlefish) identified the song as ‘Home’. I hope I don’t have to yell at y’all, other Roswell New Mexico fans, about how often that word has snuck up on me and knifed me in the back regarding malex. Especially since Alex *is* currently - well, here. With his home. Kill me please it would be kinder.

But then of course we see the old insecurities pop up again as Isobel arrives. Even if he is trying - Alex is nowhere near ready to jump out of the closet yet.

Fast Aint Good Enough - Inkwell Echo (1x06)

I debated adding this one because it’s a little bit reachy, but I thought it was significant in that even when they were seventeen, the thing Alex is ‘afraid of’ is his feelings for Michael - not necessarily of being gay but of what people like Kyle and his father do with information like that.

Wish I’d found the words when we were seventeen-

Kyle asks

“What are you so afraid of?”

-just as Alex catches sight of Michael.

(“I wanted to be the kind of person who won battles. It felt good.”)

Aside from Alex’s general need to protect Michael in any and all situations, I feel like the lyrics of this song - about the singer’s attempt to leave an abusive relationship - underscore that even before the toolshed, Alex was fighting. Even before the toolshed, he has been fighting to this cycle he is trapped in.

While he and Michael build their relationship he starts thinking seriously about leaving and not just surviving but he will ultimately choose to trap himself for years in order to hide his love for Michael.

Like so many gay kids, Alex is fighting a system that deems him guilty of sin - and takes his fighting back as a sign of his guilt. And in order to actually be able to love Michael, he is going to have to figure out how to put down the weapons and the hurt and break the cycle.

First Day Of My Life - Bright Eyes (1x06)

Are they serious right now I swear to god.

So obviously, we’ve got the origins for everything we’re told about Michael and Alex’s lives changing based on their feelings for each other in like two and a half verses of song. Forget the entire second season we have everything we need right here.

“It was the first time I liked our hometown, though.”

-

“Alex made me believe there was a place for me here.”

We know that for both of them this is really a moment of self discovery as much as it is a discovery about each other. 

For Michael in particular, who doesn’t know why he’s here or who he really is, and who previously had no plans besides leaving the planet, this is the moment that he realizes what he wants - to be with Alex.

And for Alex, to me, this moment is a brief glimpse into what his life could be like. We don’t have any confirmation if Michael is his first kiss with a boy or not, but we do know that this moment is significant in that it’s the first that makes Roswell feel like a place he enjoys being.

And as he is realizing that, the lyrics echo it -

But I realized that I need you // And I wondered if I could come home

(Screeching from the background: WOULD YOU COME HOME)

But of course, as the song says, these things take forever because...well....

(It’s because Alex is dumb. My poor dumb emotionally stunted child. Please go to therapy.)

In essence, this is the moment that sets Michael and Alex on their entwined path. The path that Alex will have to fight to get back to - the path Michael will lose faith in before he later starts to regain the hope that it exists. I also like to think about the link between the last lines:

Remember the time you drove all night // Just to meet me in the morning?

and the line from ‘Would You Come Home’

Would you meet me in the middle // Could we both stop keeping score?

I like to think about the parallel here, about meeting people where they’re at, and the love and care and effort it takes to be willing to drive all night to meet someone. Listen a bitch is soft and gay don’t look at me.

You Can’t Love Me - Novi & Tyler Blackburn (1x12)

(*Whispers and rocks back and forth* this is fine it’s all fine)

Once again we have a song whose lyrics give us a tailor made road map to Malex, and will pop up later in ‘Would You Come Home’. We’ve already seen the implosion of the way Michael and Alex have been orbiting each other for a decade, but now that Alex knows the truth, he actually has the ability to understand Michael in ways he hasn’t been able to before. (Something we’ll see later in Season 2 when he talks with Maria.)

And because of that, we see the true beginning of the journey of Michael and Alex back to one another in a healthier way.

But part of that journey is going to be realizing that what they’ve been doing and the way they have loved each other in the past isn’t sustainable - and maybe isn’t even the way they want to love each other.

“They’re my family, Alex!”

“Alright, maybe! But you are mine. I don’t look away, Guerin.”

“No. We’ve been holding onto this thing. And it’s gotten us nowhere. Just let it go.”

Even though the words are said in anger, there is some truth to what Michael says. Their relationship so far hasn’t been a good one. Where Alex is trying to repeat the words that Michael said to him that made such an impact on him, Michael is (well, a, trying to save his dumb boyfriend from getting flambayed) using the opportunity to reveal how little faith he has in their relationship. To say that no, this doesn’t feel like love.

But as much as the song lyrics are about loving someone who isn’t good for you, they’re also about changing and growing, and about a commitment to be better.

(Sound familiar? Brb, I’m gonna go jump off a cliff.)

Love is messy, and especially for Michael and Alex, love has always been something that hurts. “Home is where the hurt is” - and a really important part of their journey is realizing that, and realizing there is a different way of loving each other.

Additionally for Alex, this is when he starts to realize the full extent of his family’s involvement in hunting and hurting Michael’s family. It isn’t just his dad - his entire family line has been involved in this since before Alex was born. And still is. This is really where he starts realizing the roots of the guilt and shame he’s going to have to deal with in order to be anything to Michael - not even a partner but a friend.

This is the first step in that journey. Not just the commitment that yes - I want to build a home for you - but that first, I don’t know, maybe I need to put down these weapons and pick up a different set of tools?

ON TO SEASON TWO

[papermariosuggestion]

What are you hoping for from a new Paper Mario? What's your "golden ideal", I guess?

I could spend, like, years thinking of things I’d like to see in a Paper Mario game, but I’ll try to narrow it down. Here are some of the main things I’d really like to see:

☆ New partners (plural)

• Based on previously established Mario species, preferably “enemy” species, as “The circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant; it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.”

• Unusual, but believable, and perhaps even poignant, backstories and fully realized character arcs. I want to care about these characters because I’m invested in this world, its inhabitants, and those inhabitants’ personal successes and failures, not just because their design is so kawaii and/or their dialogue is so funny, though those things are a plus.

• Distinct personalities and opportunities to show those personalities off (through design, body language, dialogue, etc).

☆ RPG mechanics

• Built on the solid foundation established in Paper Mario (N64)

• Turn-based combat

• A leveling system where you get to choose which stat to increase

• Badges (Including superficial badges like the L Emblem and Attack FX badges)

• Something new, like being able to use two partners to perform a Bros.-Attack-like move, or maybe even stats specifically pertaining to your partners.

☆ New locations

• It’s a delicate balance. Locations should both feel like they could realistically exist in Mario’s world and feel like something we’ve never seen before. TTYD has some great examples of this (Rogueport, Boggly Woods, Twilight Town, etc). Super Paper Mario has some creative locations as well, but because it takes place in another dimension, not in the typical world that Mario inhabits, none of them really feel particularly “Mario-esque” in nature. They’re all a bit off-brand, so to speak.

• On a technical level, graphics are improving all of the time, but that doesn’t automatically lead to more intriguing and/or more visually satisfying designs. At it’s core, Mario is a fantasy franchise, an escape from reality, and the Paper Mario series is one of the few series in the franchise that really builds out- or at least used to really build out- its world, and that world was interesting because it was new and mysterious, it practically begged to be explored. Paper Mario games should show me something I can’t see in reality; I know what paper and cardboard and lemons and steaks look like, show me underground cities and palaces, show me sprawling gardens with talking flowers, show me a floating tourist trap in the sky. The biggest limit is your imagination, so let it run wild, and show me that, show me that Alice in Wonderland-like controlled chaos.

☆ An interconnected world and motivated backtracking

• No stage-selection maps. Even if the game is fairly linear, I don’t need to have that shoved in my face. I don’t want to feel like I’m working my way down a to-do list, glued to a track, I want to journey through the world and explore somewhat freely.

• No fast travel by default (maybe you unlock fast travel after beating an optional challenge like the Pit of 100 Trials)

• No pipes that take you right from the hub world to the chapter area; I wanna walk…

…and I want it to be through a believable, expansive, intricate world that changes as I progress through the game, a world I could see hundreds of times and never get sick of because its details are constantly in flux, and because those details are the kind that make it feel realistic and lived-in. I don’t want to be teleported from A to B, or confined on a path from A to B to C, I want to explore, I want to discover, I want to experience this world and to form an attachment to it. This alone would make backtracking more worthwhile, but…

• …another way to make backtracking even more enjoyable would be to add events that make walking into a game in and of itself, like having to follow a creature up in the trees, or having to get through a cursed area in Mirror Mode, or having to dodge and weave through falling rocks because there’s a huge earthquake destroying- and altering the actual geometry of- the area. Walking doesn’t have to be a chore for you to complete in order to get on with the game, and it shouldn’t be, it should be part of the game, just as engaging as anything else you’re involved in.

☆ Non-linear elements

• The game should still be fairly linear overall, because Paper Mario games are chapter-based stories with beginnings, middles, and ends, but having some say  in which chapter comes next, or which partner you meet, or even just which puzzle you solve next would give the player a stronger sense of agency. Story-driven games are at high-risk of making the player feel like they’re just along for the ride, and this would help to counteract that.

☆ Spin dashing

• Gotta go fast! Getting rid of spin dashing always felt like an odd choice to me. Characters like the Yoshi kid, Carrie, and Dashell kind of replaced it, in the sense that they allow you to move quickly, but being able to speed up without switching partners, as well as being able to spin attack and just to witness the utter chaos of Mario flinging himself across the screen again, would make backtracking and walking around in general less of a slog. It would also give you more agency in the overworld and serve as a nice callback to the original game.

☆ Free-moving NPCs & situational dialogue

• In past games, NPCs have been confined to certain paths and locations. They might move from chapter to chapter, but they would always stay in the same general area until you triggered an event that placed them somewhere new. I’d like to see characters wandering around, going in and out of buildings, visiting other locations, having private conversations with one another, getting into fights, buying and selling items at the shop, putting on different clothes, and doing just about anything else they would typically do in-universe. Obviously this would be huge challenge to program, but we’re talking about an ideal here, and anything in this general direction would be an improvement in my eyes. We already see a bit of this in the series, but I’d like to see even more.

• When NPCs say things like “Where are your manners, Mario? You shouldn’t climb on the table” and “Don’t be so careless. There are too many enjoyable things in the world to gamble with your life!” it makes it feel like they actually see what you’re doing and care about what you’re doing. Having NPCs respond to you differently because of where you’re standing, or what partner you have out, or what badges you’re wearing, and so on, makes them into more than just set decoration or a sign to read, it makes them people, or at least more person-like. Nintendo’s been pretty good about this in recent years, probably because technical improvements have made it easier than ever before, and I think it would be fitting for a series known for its world-building.

☆ Dynamic lighting design & a day/night system

• This is all about aesthetics because, as it turns out, visuals are pretty important in a video game. Paper Mario (N64) had some really interesting lighting design, notably in darker areas like the secret passage in Peach’s castle, and we haven’t really seen a lot of that since, despite having more advanced technology that would allow for advanced lighting.

• I’d like to see things like swinging chandeliers that cast beams of light, and cracks in the ceiling that light pours through, and mirrors/reflections that Mario uses to solve puzzles, and shadows that hint at secrets. Lighting is a huge part of shaping a world, and using it in a variety of different and meaningful ways just makes your world seem that much more complex and grounded.

• As for the day/night system, I am picturing a game that visually changes based on the actual time of day, kind of like Animal Crossing games do, but not a game that requires it to be a certain time of day for any gameplay purposes, not for the main quest, not for side-quests, and not even for easter eggs. All I want is for it to be bright when I play in the morning, orange when I play at sunset, and starry when I play at night. This also would add to the game’s replayability, as different chapters would look and feel different depending on what time of day it was when you played through them.

☆ Easter eggs that reference other games in the franchise

• I want it to be clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Mario we see in Paper Mario games is the same Mario we see in other Mario games, not another person, and talking about the time he visited Isle Delfino or when Bowser fused with a sentient tennis racket would really drive that home.

• Make me really look for some, though. It’s cool to spot easter eggs in plain sight, but what’s really rewarding is having to dig for them. I don’t just wanna see Luigi standing in the background, I want to spot little inconsistencies and cracks in the walls and cryptograms spread throughout the world. Sure, the five-year-olds playing might not find them on their first playthrough, but when they’re fifteen and they remember that awesome Paper Mario game they played a decade ago, they won’t just be revisiting a world they’ve fully explored, they’ll be playing on a whole new level, figuratively speaking.

☆ amiibo Compatibility/functionality

• I’m not a big fan of DLC in general, as it’s often overpriced, but I do think amiibos are neat; using a real object to unlock something in a virtual world makes the virtual world feel just that much more alive to me, that much more like it’s a little world I can actually affect.

• The Paper Mario series never really got official merch, and while you do see a bit of your partners’ lives in the epilogue, it’s only a glimpse into their future, so getting little figurines of past partners that make them appear in the game, tell you about a recent adventure they had, and give you a unique badge based on their abilities/personalities/experiences, would be like a dream come true.

☆ Just be creative (I know it’s not that simple, but like, figure it out)

• Surprise me; throw in something inventive and revolutionary, like Wall Merging from A Link Between Worlds or The Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device from Portal.  There’s a whole universe of possibilities out there; please dream a little bigger than items disguised as a gameplay element and a hammer that fills in glaringly obvious gaps in paint. Nintendo’s always pushing the video game industry forward with their creative consoles. Use that, take whatever whacky control method they come up with next and integrate it like Super Paper Mario did- but hopefully even better than Super Paper Mario did- with the Wii remote.

• I see fans writing stories, and drawing characters, and making sprites, and working with all kinds of mediums to make art that knocks everything from recent “Paper Mario” games out of the park. Obviously Intelligent Systems can’t just steal those ideas, but I’d love to see them get on that wavelength and match that passion.

• Make a game that you’d never want to put down because you just can’t get enough of it, and don’t even bother with that “You’ve been playing for a while. You wanna take a break, grab a snack, chill out for a sec?” message; if I die playing your game because it’s truly that good, I see that as an absolute win. That’s legendary game design, my friend; aim to make a Paper Mario game so good it’s worth dying for, and if you fall short of that, hopefully you’ll still land on something pretty awesome.

[romancandlemagazine]

An Interview with Alexander Wolfe, the man behind Pedestrian Magazine

Pedestrian is a magazine about the humble art of walking. In this interview, I talked with the man with the plan, Alexander Wolfe, about his love for this much maligned form of transport, his recent expedition from New York to Philadelphia, and the art of conversation.

First off, you recently walked from New York City to Philadelphia over nine days. What made you want to do that?

The initial desire to walk to Philadelphia came out living in New York City during the pandemic. I was bound to my apartment for a few months with little to do but walk around my neighborhood. I've always had a habit of walking around the city, but the pandemic only made these walks longer and longer, which eventually led to a 23 mile journey from my apartment in Brooklyn, to the Bronx, and back.

Around that time I was reading The Roads to Sata by Alan Booth and started contemplating longer, multi-day walks. I needed a change of scenery and found the idea of traveling by foot and living out of a bag very appealing. I felt like I'd developed a process here in the city (go on a walk, take photos, write a newsletter about the walk, repeat) and needed to give myself a challenge.  I wanted to lean further into this practice that I've been developing for the last three years.

I'd never considered my walks to be hikes, so it made sense that I'd keep it in an urban setting. Walking to Philadelphia seemed like a no-brainer. What most people don't initially realize is that most of my time was spent walking through New Jersey. I liked the idea of walking in a place that is commonly misrepresented as the "armpit of America" and typically deemed unwalkable. New Jersey is actually a very underrated state. It might be the densest state population-wise, but it's called the Garden State for a reason. Oh yeah, I'd never been to Philadelphia and just really wanted to visit.

How did the walk go? Quite often trips or excursions can be a fair bit different to how you first imagine them… how did the reality of the walk differ from how you thought it was going to be?

I was presented with a new challenge every day. Don't get me wrong, the walk turned out better than I could have ever imagined, but you can never anticipate everything in advance. This was the first time I'd ever walked with a 25 pound bag on my back, let alone the first time I'd walked 9 days in a row. Originally I set out to average 17.75 miles per day, but thanks to my own curiosity, ended up waking 20 miles a day on average. I mapped the entire route a month or two before leaving, but would always deviate from the path in favor of exploring some neighborhood, road, or park that looked appealing. The first day alone ballooned into 27 miles because I got cocky and thought I didn't need to use my map while walking in Manhattan. I learned my lesson and kept my eyes on the map for the rest of the trip.

Another thing I didn't expect was the sensitivity one develops after walking 6-8 hours for days in a row. The smell of exhaust and gasoline becomes more potent. You realize how violently we've shaped the land to build huge highways and abysmal business parks. So much of our infrastructure is built in favor of the car, which makes being a pedestrian incredibly difficult at times. If the built environment didn't present a challenge, it was always the weather, the gnarly blisters on my feet, or my gear malfunctioning. I quickly learned to accept these challenges. It was just another component of the walk.

A lot of times people go for ‘a walk’, they’re seeking out beauty spots or nice scenery—maybe in nature reserves or the countryside, but your walk was cutting through some fairly overlooked places… industrial estates and small towns. Do people miss out by not seeing the whole picture of somewhere? Is just driving through these places to get to the destination sort of cheating?

I wouldn't consider driving to be cheating – it's just another way we alienate ourselves from the world around us. When we drive, we experience the world at a speed that makes it nearly impossible to pay attention to the fine details. Our relationship to place is abstracted, especially thanks to the rise of GPS. We no longer have to have a physical relationship to these towns. We don't even have to remember how to get to them. Driving around in a car reduces these places to nothing more than a label on a map or a convenient place to stop for gas.

It's important to have relationships with the places surrounding you. The walk has given me an intimate experience with the space between New York City and Philadelphia. I know what it looks like, I know how it feels to be there. I can tell you where residents stop hanging New York Yankees flags in favor of Philadelphia Phillies flags. If I'm watching the Soprano's and Tony references Metuchen, NJ then I know exactly what he's talking about. I think to understand a place, such as New York City, it's just as important to understand the places around it. There are generations of people who once called the Big Apple home, but decided to plant their roots in Jersey for one reason or another.

I suppose you could have read about some of these places on Wikipedia, but being there is a completely different thing. Is experiencing stuff first hand important?

It's very important if you actually want to understand a place. It's too easy to create our own narratives without ever visiting a place. I still tried to do my share of research before heading out. I have friends from North Jersey or the Philadelphia Metro and tried to take their opinions with a grain of salt. I spent some time reading about certain towns along the way on Wikipedia or scanned Reddit to get a vibe. I even previewed chunks of the walk on Google Street View to mentally prepare and know if it was actually safe to walk near some of these roads. I could have spent months preparing, but it never would actually replace walking in these small towns and cities. It's so much different when you're on the ground.

I suppose the main reason we’re talking is that you make a magazine based around the idea of walking. How long have you been making Pedestrian? What started it off?

I released the first issue of Pedestrian back in March of 2018. I was living in Ridgewood, Queens at the time and made friends with a guy named Curtis Merkel (I actually met him while out on a walk). He ran a moving business for a few decades and retired. At 84 years old he opened up a tiny little bookshop to keep himself busy. I'd visit him every weekend to check out his books and eventually we'd just get to talking. He'd lived in Ridgewood his entire life and loved to talk about the neighborhood's history. Moving to NYC also introduced me to a thriving community of zine makers. I wanted to share these conversations I'd had with Curtis in print form, so I decided to start a magazine. I invited a few friends to contribute and the rest was history.

Since then, the identity of Pedestrian has become quite fluid. While it started as a magazine, I would now describe Pedestrian as my own practice. It's a platform that allows me to collaborate with others, produce magazines, write newsletters, go on these long multi-day walks, and produce t-shirts. I have found this configuration gives me the most creative freedom.

A lot of your magazine is about meeting people and striking up conversations. Is this a lost art these days?

I don't know if it's a lost art per se, but there's less incentive to reach out and talk with strangers these days. Thanks to the rise of social media it's just getting easier and easier to stay within our own "bubbles." Starting Pedestrian, in a way, was an excuse for me to speak with those I typically wouldn't reach. It's amazing how having a publication kind of takes the fear out of speaking with strangers. You can do anything when you have intention.

Although walking is something most people do, is it overlooked as an activity? It seems it’s mostly seen as an inconvenience, rather than a hobby in itself.

It depends where you live. In New York City, for example, walking is a part of the culture. The city is built in such a way that makes walking a viable means of transportation. And if you can't walk to your destination, you're likely walking to a subway or a bus. Where I'm from in Iowa, walking is very inconvenient. Everything is spaced out, which makes walking anywhere very difficult. It’s not that people don’t want to walk, it’s just the way we’ve built certain communities has made it very hard to enjoy. It makes people think walking is very inconvenient.

I’m here in Iowa until August and it’s been interesting to walk a place that is so reliant on cars. The other day I did a 13.5 walk around the city. There’s nothing here stopping you from walking (unless the heat gets you. Technically we’re in the middle of a drought. It’s been incredibly hot as of late), and there’s plenty of sidewalk. I think it’s mostly just a mindset people have to develop. It doesn’t matter how many miles you walk, it’s just about getting out there. Your mental health will thank you and you might even learn something new about your surroundings along the way.

Walking is maybe the antithesis to the internet, but Pedestrian also has a decent presence on the World Wide Web, and you regularly send newsletters and... er... partake in the digital world. How do you balance the real world with the matrix?

It’s a relationship I’m constantly reevaluating. I’m not a master of balancing the two yet, but I’m slowly building habits that will protect my time. I often daydream of abandoning social media altogether and picking up a flip phone. I obviously haven’t done that yet, so in the meantime, I’m investing a lot of time in my newsletter. Sending out a newsletter is a much more thoughtful, intimate, and slow experience...kind of like the way I approach my walks out in the world. I understand that the web is a tool and I’m not sure the Philly walk would have gotten the same amount of attention had I not had an Instagram account. It’s cliche, but everything in moderation, right? I try not to take it so seriously.

What next for Pedestrian?

The Philly walk was such a great success and I’d like to keep that momentum going. Later in September I have another big, big walk planned, but I have yet to announce the route. Look for an announcement sometime next month. This one will be a bit longer and involve 3 different cities. I can’t wait.

Once winter hits I’m going to buckle down and produce a proper book for the Philly walk that will include all my writing and photos I took along the journey. I’m already excited to share the finished product with the world. Stay tuned.

Final question, what are your walking shoes of choice? And what's your soundtrack? Are earphones advised for long walks, or do you prefer the ambient sounds of the streets?

I’m a big fan of Hoka Clifton’s. I wore them throughout the entire Philly walk and have two pairs in my closet. At this point, Hoka should probably pay me for how much business I send their way. I’m always recommending them.

I prefer not to wear headphones and just listen to the ambient sounds of the street. More often than not, I find wearing headphones to be a bit distracting and it takes me out of the present moment. Although, I’ll admit I have been trying to introduce music into my walking once again, but few tracks make the cut. Lately Andrew Wasylyk’s Last Sunbeams of Childhood has been on repeat. There’s something about that track...

Find out more about Pedestrian here. Pedestrian is available in the UK courtesy of Central Library.

[houseofsannae]

A Fistful of Munny - Extended End Notes

Notes for A Fistful of Munny that don’t fit within the character limit under the cut!

Please, read the fic before reading this post

           All right! Welcome to the extended notes, in which I go into excruciating detail over a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter, because I like the sound of my own voice!

           Let’s start with some more broad stuff that didn’t make the exclusive end notes space. To do the Fistful of Dollars homage, I needed a place where I could have two villainous factions intersecting for Strelitzia to play against one another. After some brainstorming and asking for help from other people working on the Entwined in Trine Sorikai zine (and ultimately ignoring all their very good suggestions (Sorry, guys!)), I eventually realized that the Wasteland from Epic Mickey was a perfect place for this story, both in the sense of having mooks to destroy without Strels committing actual murder, and in the thematic sense of forgotten characters. There was just one issue.

           I hadn’t played Epic Mickey.

           And that is how I spent my summer, playing both Epic Mickey games. Both, because I was looking for a good location to set the story in in-world. Since the Wasteland is based on the Disney theme parks, I was hoping to find one based on Frontierland, their Western section. Such a location did exist – Disney Gulch – but only in the second game. Which meant I had to play Epic Mickey 2, as well. (The first one is a better game, but that’s not really the fault of the developers; they were not given the time they needed to make it as good as the first one. Here’s a video with trivia about the series that goes a little into the development.) I also needed to learn the Mad Doctor’s ultimate fate, since I wanted his Beetleworx/Blotworx to be one of the two villainous factions. In the game, depending on whether you chose the Paint (Paragon) or Thinner (Renegade) path, the Doc is either redeemed… or dead. Neither of which was helpful, so I had to invent.

           But let’s talk about characters and why I picked them in order. The short version for why these choices, at least on the Final Fantasy side, is set-up for later. Obviously I can’t go into detail why. Before that, let’s talk about the Beanie Baby.

           Chi is, as I hope you were able to guess, Strelitzia’s Chirithy. I’ve brought it up several times, but I personally do not like mascot characters. There are a few exceptions, but Chirithies are not one of them. Like I said, KHUx isn’t what happened in this AU, so you’ll have to wait for in-universe answers on why it’s a cat now. Out-of-universe reason is this was the only way I could make it palatable for myself. I arbitrarily decided on a gender for it because as a real cat, it would have a sex. Canonically Chirithies appear to be genderless, and in Japanese refer to themselves with the gender-neutral (but masculine-leaning) boku. I would’ve left Chi that way, save for the fact that he’s a completely normal cat now. (And before you ask, no, not every real cat that appears in KHΨ from this point on is a Chirithy.)

           As for Strelitzia herself, it’s hard for me to pick up a character’s voice when they’re… not voiced. Intonation and cadence do a lot for me mimicking the way a character talks, so it’s a bit more difficult when they don’t technically speak. I tried for a mix between Sora and Kairi, while still keeping her defining character traits of being shy, but also impulsive.

           You may notice that while she’s started remembering faces, if not names, the Player’s name and face still eludes her, despite her (canonical. Deal with it.) crush on them. There is a story reason for this, and will become clear once Luxu takes centre stage.

           The name “Jane” was chosen with more consideration than just “Jane Doe” being the standard name in (at least my corner of) the English-speaking world for a woman of unknown identity. See, the Man With No Name actually has three names. In A Fistful of Dollars, he is referred to (by one character in one scene, once) as “Joe”. “Joan” might have been a more clear homage, but I figure Jane makes sense. And as you might guess, in the next fic, Strels will be going by a different name, still not her own. She’ll remember her name… eventually.

           One might think I could’ve picked any old Cid, and one would be wrong for reasons I can’t explain yet. In fact, I can’t explain much of anything surrounding him yet. What I can say is no, Cidney Aurum is not dead, she’s just not related to Cid Sophiar in this fic verse. An unfortunate consequence of where I wanted to put each of them in the narrative; making them not be related was the only way it made any sense, geographically speaking.

           Hyperion on the other hand, I can talk about. He’s one of the Gremlins in Epic Mickey, and… wait, first things first. Gremlins are from an abandoned Disney film based on a Roald Dahl book, itself based on the cryptids that supposedly haunted airplanes and caused them to malfunction, the earliest known written-down mention of the concept being from the 1920s. The film never got made, but the designs Disney would have used were adapted into a second printing of Dahl’s book, and they were later used in Epic Mickey. Hyperion is, like the publishing imprint that Disney owns, named after a street that Walt Disney used to live on. In-game, Hyperion is in Bog Easy (based on the Haunted Mansion), not Disney Gulch, but his name stuck out to me as being particularly fun, so I picked him instead of trying to figure out what Gremlins actually are in the Gulch (they have names in the files of Epic Mickey 2, but not in the actual game, so it would have been a hunt).

           Regardless of where the setting ended up, for the second villainous faction, I was always going to plop down the good old Don. More things I can’t talk about. For everything FF7, know that I’m always going to be pulling from a mix of the original game, Remake, and Machinabridged. Hence, Corneo’s outfit is a mix of his original and Remake designs (which basically just means he’s wearing blue jeans instead of brown). I didn’t think bringing in his three lieutenants from Remake was necessary, especially since this was supposed to be a kind-of small operation.

           Leslie is picked up and dropped from Remake pretty much unchanged. I needed someone to do the murders Strels couldn’t, and even if he’s not a complete asshole, he’s still mostly an asshole. Have we ever seen small, Materia-like balls used to cast magic before…?

           Onto the fun bits, which is the Disney characters. We’ll start with Percy, who is from a Goofy short called “How to Ride a Horse”, from 1950. And that’s about it. The conceit in Wasteland is that all of the Toons there were basically actors, and they wound up in Wasteland if they were forgotten (that’s not exactly correct, but I’m generalizing). This is interesting, since two of the Toons in Epic Mickey are Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow, both of whom… are residents of Disney Town in Kingdom Hearts, having shown up in Birth by Sleep. So that’s an interesting continuity snarl that I’m going to just ignore.

           Persephone and Pluto, on the other hand, are from an earlier short called “The Goddess of Spring”, from 1934. It was one of the projects Disney tried as practice for Snow White. If you’re about to protest that his name should be Hades, not Pluto, then you’re going to need a time machine so you can tell them back in the 30s. The Goddess of Spring is a musical, in the sense that every single line is sung. Watch it for yourself. There’s a video with better quality floating around YouTube, but for some reason it’s the French dub. And that’s why both of them sing most of their lines. I tried matching the meter of their actual parts, but Persephone’s doesn’t actually follow a syllabic pattern that I could make out. I eventually gave up and just gave her the meter from the start of the short. Pluto’s was easier to manage (and more consistent).

           The skeletons are Disney veterans, presumably the same ones from “The Skeleton Dance” (1929), but more specifically they’re mimicking what they did in “The Mad Doctor” (1933), the first appearance of our other villain. They’re fun.

           The original Mad Doctor was supposedly named “Dr. XXX”, according to the name on his door. This was before the modern film rating system was put in place; it was a different time. In the original short, the Mad Doctor kidnaps Pluto (the dog) with the intent of cutting him in half and putting his front half on a chicken For Science!, and Mickey follows him to his castle to rescue the purloined pooch. The short wasn’t a musical in the same vein as “The Goddess of Spring”, but… the Mad Doctor’s only spoken lines were a song (aside from evil cackling). While I had already decided to do the “Toons that sang in their short can only communicate through song” with Persephone and Pluto before starting on Epic Mickey 2, I hilariously discovered that the game developers had done the exact same gag with the Mad Doctor, most of his lines in the game being sung. (In Epic Mickey there were no fully voiced lines, so he speaks as normally as anyone else does). Which made it easier to write his songs here, since I could just rewrite his songs from the game. I used to write alternate lyrics for songs back in high school, so this was an interesting trip back in time for me. They were stuck in my head for weeks afterwards, but it was worth it.

           I believe that’s everything for the characters. Let’s talk about Keyblades.

           It irks me that three people in KHUx have the same Keyblade. Ephemer, Skuld, and Strelitzia all have variations of Starlight. Now, in KHΨ, there is only one Starlight, and it belongs to Luxu, so I’m going to have to decide on different Keyblades for each of them. (Ephemer’s has already been decided, and I haven’t started brainstorming for Skuld yet. No I do not need suggestions, thank you). Pixie Petal bears a noted (by KHWiki) resemblance to one of Marluxia’s alternate scythes, so that tangential connection was enough for me. Both siblings have flower-themed Keyblades – it makes sense to me.

           You might notice a few disparities in the magic. These are on purpose, and will eventually make sense. And that’s all I can say on that at the moment. ;)

           Oh, yes, one important thing I probably should have said on the main notes: I’m not going for a realistic depiction of amnesia here. Anything I got right was entirely accidental, and I’m fairly certain there’s not much. There might be a story reason for why it works the way it does… and it might be the same reason why other people from KHUx have or had amnesia in the present day…

           You know what’s funny? Although Orcuses look more impressive than Invisibles, their stats in Days are actually worse. I’m fairly sure that this is because the only time we see an Orcus, it’s actually an illusion cast over Xion so that Roxas will fight her to the death. There are no other stats for them (according to KHWiki), since they’ve never been used elsewhere.

           A friendly reminder that Apprentice Xehanort invented the term “Heartless”, which was why Aqua didn’t know what to call them until Mickey told her. Thus, nobody from the era of the Keyblade War should know the term “Heartless” without being told by someone in present day. “Darkling” was the term they used instead. I’m fairly certain KHUx ignores the continuity on this (so why should we trust its continuity for anything else, hmm?)

           I think that covers everything! Or at least everything I’m willing to share at this point. If you’ve read this far, thank you! I appreciate your dedication! ^_^

[heartofnopal]

First of all, kudos for representing your culture ♥ I wanted to ask you though: As someone who shares a similar background with you, I was genuinely conflicted when I first saw your MC, I think I was worried about misrepresentation? Since finding out you're channeling your own culture though, I do feel a bit better, yet still conflicted... Maybe I'm still afraid of doing the same, y'know? How do you feel, genuinely, about sharing yourself like this? [1 of 2]

Going to add your part two: “And, I'm really sorry about the heavy topic of this ask. It's just been weighing on my mind for a good while now and I've only finally mustered up the courage to visit your blog and send it. I'm not sure what I'm feeling and I was hoping you might understand, haha. Please feel free to ignore. [2 of 2]”

Hey there, definitely not gonna ignore. And don't be sorry about the heavy topic. I'm genuinely glad you asked this question and it's something that had been weighing heavily on my mind before I decided to finally make content for the character I've had in mind for so long.

Gonna start by introducing Quetzalli and what it means for someone like this in the Arcana world. Because it's a fictional universe, there's no such thing as Mexica. Same goes for all other canon characters, we know the cultures they were influenced by, but the people don't actually exist in this world. But I absolutely love that characters do have influence from our real world cultures and I wanted to share that of my ancestors because all of our cultures have a right to influence fiction just as much as any other. And when I realized Nopal is influenced by modern day Northern Mexico/Southwest US, I felt so happy to think people inspired by ours could exist in this world because they're ignored in every other fantasy.

One other good example I can think of is Avatar the Last Airbender which has nations and people inspired by real-world cultures. Inuit, Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan cultures are among them yet even then there are other elements and no one nation is strictly influenced by one culture alone nor do they completely mirror them. I was also happy to notice that the Sun Warriors were primarily influenced by Mesoamerican civilizations including Mexica, Incan, and Mayan with some Southeast Asian influences as well. On the other hand there are movies like the Road to El Dorado that has established itself in a real-world setting and so I’d be very strict on how the culture is represented. 

As you probably figured, Quetzalli is influenced by the Mexica (Aztec) culture as it used to be before La Conquista. And the Mexica as the people they were haven't existed since then, but instead have changed with time. Yet I've grown up surrounded by their legacy and that of the Chichimeca people in my town in Mexico, particularly the Zacatecos, Caxcan, and Guachichil (Quetzalli's mother is influenced by Chichimeca peoples who would likely be placed in the Catclaw desert in the Arcana world). But honestly, what has pissed me off so much is the way our people are seen and treated. Even many people in Mexico are racist and still look down upon those of indigenous descent. But we should be proud and I wanted to create a character who is proud, brave and powerful because that's what I feel like when I embrace that part of me. Thus Quetzalli was born!

But integrating the character into the Arcana universe is tricky. There are many elements that I could keep and some that I couldn't because not everyone will understand some concepts. Death is a tricky subject and even in the Arcana universe, it's heavily influenced by western concepts of death in which death is like some ultimate scary thing and that's that. While of course I don't take death lightly, even as a child it wasn't ever truly scary. I was raised to believe it's a cycle and death is not feared but honored and respected. So when I was taught about Mexica sacrifice as a kid (most people only know about sacrifices like some bs to justify la Conquista while there’s SO MUCH good shit like public education and genius engineering)  although I don’t agree obviously, it makes sense to me because I could understand how a people would view it as a cycle that must continue. The sun rises and falls, seasons change, people die, people are born. Even enemy war captives who have a sliver of divinity that allowed the capture. It's all a cycle where life and divinity must be returned in order for it to be given back. There was never enough blood to give to everyone that is and will ever be and so much be returned.

This is one of the things I'm leaving out in Quetzalli because it's a delicate subject that I know people won't understand. And because she's a fictional character only influenced by the Mexica in a fantasy world, I feel okay leaving the bloodshed out (also people might vilify her and the Mexica people for it like they already do). If I was to make her a character in a real world scenario, then nope, I'll need to be strict and include everything whether everyone likes it or not. Other things about her that I've stretched is the fact that she's an Eagle Warrior. Although women had more independence over their work and finances (compared to many European women at the time) and that it was believed women could be powerful leaders (depicted in stories and history) they weren't allowed in combat, at least in the last 200 years of the empire. I'm not counting the time women joined the struggle under Huey Tlatoani Cuauhtemoc because that was a desperate last stand.

But if you read my short story "the game begins" it's known that Quetzalli cannot become a warrior and thus will listen to Huehuecoatl in hopes he'll help her get there. Another thing I stretched is her coliseum outfit. I wanted to incorporate some essential parts of the Eagle Warrior's uniform: the greaves, the chimalli, and especially the cuacalalatli and feathers lining the leather so she may embrace the eagle's fighting prowess. Those parts are there but I also wanted to keep in with the theme of the Arcana coliseum outfits in that they are very revealing and made for show over function as we've seen with Julian and Asra. I also wanted to share the cuacalalatli and I think the idea of embracing an animal's prowess is beautiful in that one looks up to nature to feel strength.

I try to add Mexica elements where I can because I love to share more and so few people know about Mesoamerican cultures. But I also try to keep it on the same level as the other Arcana characters who show their real-world cultural elements while not making that everything there is to know about them. I want her to still feel apart of this world and story, she’s a character like all the others. So sometimes I’m limited to clothing, tools and weapons, language, flowers and plants, motifs, her hummingbird familiar, even the appearance of the “Ascending Eagle” but I think references to our world’s Tonatiuh is as far as I can go while maintaining Arcana universe. 

But to summarize what I feel about it. Indigenous american cultures are widely ignored among Arcana apprentices and I honestly feel that we should not feel ashamed to include them, especially if they're our own. And I do understand the feeling of not wanting to misrepresent cultures, it IS important to avoid stereotypes even if it's a fantasy setting. Also one thing some forget is that indigenous people are PEOPLE like everyone else and have every right to exist in media. We don't have to adhere to every aspect of our culture nor should we be ashamed and hide it away. Quetzalli is influenced by Mexica but she's a normal person in this world with every right to be there like any other character, wear her clothes, speak her language, get upset, be sensual, kick some ass, hate and love... None of this says any less of her or her culture. 

The things I've included in her has been a monument to the power she feels and that of the people she's influenced by, the same pride and power I feel when I embrace my roots. It took me a while to finally get around to sharing her, but I'm glad I am. Thank you so much for this ask. 

Si quieres hablar mas, o si todavia tienes miedo de crear un personaje como este, dame un mensaje? Nuestra gente y nuestros ancestros tienen derecho a existir aqui. :D 

[popculturebuffet]

Simpsons Review: Simpsons Comics #102 “Uncle Burn$” or Homercore Nudity!

Whelp out of all the commissions Kev has thrown me this one’s kind of a curveball. I mean it makes sense why cover it: It’s a pastiche of Donald Duck Comics done in the pages of the Simpsons long running comics. I cover duck stuff on here, and not only do I love the Simpsons but I tend to reference it for jokes a LOT. I just genuinely never thought of reviewing it till now, likely because earlier on in my new career of reviewing animated shows, I wasn’t really convinced I could do pure comedies. With my regular reviews of Darkwing Duck and as it comes out coverage of the Loud House (I still need to get around to Band Together), that’s no longer a real issue and I should consider doing the show in the future, especially since I have an unabashed love for the first 10 seasons and a few episodes beyond that. 

As you can tell, I love the Simpsons. While I do genuinely wish it would end and have no real intrest in the current seasons, though if you’d like me to take a look i’d be willing to. The show in it’s prime was funny, witty and each episode was crammed with jokes. And refreshingly for an adult cartoon show of it’s time,  the show genuinely wasn’t afraid to mix things up: Milhouse’s parents divorced and stayed that way for so long that them apparently getting back together decades later is itself a huge status quo shake up.  Lisa went Vegetarian which stuck thanks to sir paul mcartney, and then went Buddhist, both of which have never wavered since and both fit her well. Skinner and Krabbable started dating. Barney went sober for a few seasons. Apu got married. These are minor changes but the show does have things happen occasionally and doesn’t just snap everything back and it adds genuine tension to plots knowing they might stay the status quo They usually don’t but the occasional change gives things stakes. I could go on for days, but I couldn’t go on for 8 weeks, point is the Simpsons are awesome, and deserve the praise they get early on I just wish they’d stop as by this point people really have stopped carring and it’s time to pass the torch and Let Bob’s burgers be the wholesome family comedy that runs forever.. and even then that one should stop at 10 seasons. Or if not at least let the kids age dammit.  But that aside, while many of you simpsons fans looking at this probably have at least seen the comics, or a collection of them over the decades, many of you like me are wondering what the hell Bongo Comics is and how they managed to last so long. Bongo was founded by Simpsons Creator Matt Groening in 1993. Matt Groening had noticed that at the time there just weren’t any funny books on the shelves, funny books being comedy based comics primarily targeted for kids, with Archie and Disney being really the only ones left at the time. So he founded Bongo to rectify that, and given Fox naturally liked the sound of more merchandising dollars, the publisher was primarily used to produce simpsons comics, though looking at wikipedia there were one or two that weren’t including, of all things, a Coldplay comic tying into their album. Why did Coldplay publish a comic book at a primarily simpsons comic book company?

Though most series seem to be either short lived or one shots, there were a few exceptions: Naturally the company put out an annual Treehouse of Horror issue, there was a Bart Simpson ongoing focusing on him and the other kids of Springfield, I had a trade for that one once, and once Futurama premiered it too got a comic book that held through both cancelations. But standing above them all was Simpsons Comics, a 245 issue long runner that ran all the way up to the company’s closing, likely due to a combination of a lack of profits and the then upcoming Disney-Fox merger depriving them of the very heart and soul of the company. 

Naturally being a Simpsons fan I have a connection to these comics having gotten the trades out of the library multiple times as well as the collection of Bartman’s solo series, which was my favorite and I might cover some day. In addition to the Free Comic Book Day issues i also picked up scattered issues over my life since, much like Archie, Simpsons comics were a mainstay of bookstores and super markets and the decline of both comic markets is likely why the Simpsons comics started to peter out in the first place. The quality and memorability of the stories varied but they were a fun thing to have around and it’s sad to see them go, as well as see Disney not even make a remote attempt to bring them back or at the very least republish the vast library they now have access to. Also finally if your wondering yes, there indeed was a Simpsons/Futurama crossover. And no I have not read it.  So with that history, most of which I just learned some of which I already knew, in mind, it is very fitting the comic’s did a tribute to the Uncle Scrooge comics. Though it does feel very weird that I have yet to cover any Donald Duck or Scrooge comics.. yet i’ve already covered one of the Ducktales tie in comics and a Simpsons homage to it. I’m going to have to correct that but until then, join me under the cut as I dive into adventure with the Simpsons. 

This issue was written by Ian Boothby and drawn by John Delaney, I feel mentiong the writers and artists should be important in comic reviews and I kick myself for not having done that or gone into them as much before. Boothby was apparently the Ian Flynn of these comics, writing more simpsons comics than any other writer according to wikipedia and winning an Eisner for his work on the comic if sadly not this issue. He was nominated for an outstanding Canadian Writer award for it though so that’s good. Point is the guy is a decorated vetran of this series and it shows in how good this issue is and I felt he deserved some recognition as most Comic Book Readers, myself included up till now, likely weren’t aware he even existed nor took over the comic in the 2000′s. 

We open with Burns getting attacked by a mummy! Gotta say wasn’t expecting this as where we started out but the simpsons have started with wonkier premises to end up somewhere. I mean there was the time a bag boy strike ended up with them in Africa. Also i’d say Burns should call the police, being the kind of privileged white guy they actually care about protecting and all, but frankly the Springfield Cops don’t have the best track records with Mummies:

But no it’s just Smithers, who dove in heroically to save the company 15 dollars after Homer took a bet to see how many fire crackers he could jam in his computer’s disk drive. Lenny said 20 but he proved him wrong. And yes those are all actual jokes from the comic, this issue is very funny and feels very much like a Golden Age Simpsons episode. They also all gather to sign Smither’s cast.. which naturally is a legally binding contract.  Burns takes his loyal minion to get some quality medical care only to find an arcade because he traded the Medical Bay in for one during an outbreak of Pac Man Fever... again I really can’t top that and there may be a good reason why I haven’t covered the Simpsons till now. But yeah as Buns gives Smithers a roll of Pennies, he wonders who to have replace Smither’s on their annual summer treasure hunt.. which would come out of nowhere but we genuinely don’t know what they do most summers. I assumed Burns just road Smithers like a horse to play cricket while Smithers enjoyed it way too much. But a stray comment from Homer getting a Krusty Doll from a crane machine about being king of the treasure hunters leads to this. 

I mean it’s an easy joke but damn if it didn’t get a laugh out of me. So later at the old Simpsons place, because this comic is fantastic, Marge and Homer talk things over, but Homer insists Burns said he’d split the treasure, and Lisa wishes she could come along. And Marge says he should, especially for his own saftey.. and when Bart complains, says all the kids should go, she already packed their bags, she’s heading to Rancho Relaxo byyyyeeeeeee. Once again, this comic is amazing, and I would say this is out of character for Marge, but frankly that’s the whole point. Plus it really isn’t when she has to deal with 4 children on a regular basis, and her sisters, and a town gone mad.. yeah can’t blame her here. 

The next day at Burns Office, Homer is wearing his navy outfit.. or rather Donald’s Navy outfit. But given I did a quick google and found him having at least 4 different outfits during his time in the Naval Reserves, it’s not a stretch to assume the Simpsons Version of the Navy gave these out too. Seriously Ian Boothby has put more thought into continuity than most writers on the show proper. Also Simpsons Tide, season 9 episode, still very memorable and hilarious and not due to childhood nostalgia. Just looking up this bit had me laughing hard. 

I now  want to watch that episode sometime soon so thanks Kev. Anyway Homer seems to have misplaced his plants. Now I could spare you the image since I don’t do things panel by panel anymore and only use panels from a comic when relevant. Buttttt

This traumatizing of my audience brings me to a point about this issue and why it works. While there are tons of nods to the Donald Duck comics and what their homaging is very clear, the issue doesn’t REQUIRE you know them to enjoy it.  Knowing them I obviously enjoy it more, but most of the jokes aren’t reliant on you knowing anything about the barks comics and even someone with a passing knowledge of  the Original Ducktales can still get the reference if not why Donald is here. It helps this is less of a parody, with the exception of some jokes, and more of an homage, using stylistic elements of those comics while telling i’ts own story as a loving tribute to it’s predecessors. Speaking of one of those jokes poking fun at the source material, Burns is delighted Homer brought child labor, which kept me laughing for a good minute, and when the kids introduce themselves we get this bit. 

Not only am I 100% sure every version of Donald or Della did this to make sure they could tell them apart, very much including the reboot with Donald, but it’s a genuine hilarious bit. Donald’s response as they head off is “there’s somehting hooey Dewey and screwy about this. “ Also I will criticize the fact Bart isn’t the one wearing a blue outfit. For those wondering why, after all Maggie wears blue shouldn’t she get it, who haven’t seen this a LOT of merchandise early on had Bart in a blue shirt, due to early Merch being rushed out pre-show and since he wore one in some earlier concept art, he got to wear blue. He also wore it late into the 90′s. 

Sidebar: I just found this and while it isn’t a bad joke given his character it is  questionable to have a fourth grade boy tell you to buy him. Just saying. But the reason I bring it up is partly because the show itself referenced it at one point. 

As well as it’s sister show Futurama

And you remeber that Bart Simpson solo I mentioned? That one frequently, both in and out of story, had Blue Shirt bart show up for some variety. 

Also why yes each issue does have it’s own fun “Superman’s Pal Jimmy Oleson” Esque subtitle. And I love it so. Point is Blue Bart is part of the series legacy and this very comic company, so it’s VERY weird to not have that here. That being said there were  a few Green Shirt barts apparently as a printing error, so he could just as easily be 80 steps ahead of me. I just don’t know. 

Back at the plot Burns and the Simpsons show up at Frink’s lab, Frink rather obviously filling in for Gyro, with his own version of little bulb named F.L.O. who gladly shakes Lisa’s hand.. and releases a Pterodactyl but hey you can’t win em all. It’s a nice nod, though one only fans of the source matieral will really get, but the pterodactyl bit right after helps distract from it. Frink slotts into the roll well, as Frink has no reall affiliation with anyone and is basically, much like Gyro, there for various characters to go too when the story or joke needs him. Frink has two gadgets for them: Some Scuba suits that can go to any depth and a grappling claw that accidently gets him gripped to the pterodactyl. Also homer accidently switches suits with maggie, so we get an adorable shot of her serenely sleeping in a diving helmet while her daddy chokes to death. 

So the next day it’s out to the open seas where The Simpsons are doing all the work while Burns lounges.. which yeah this is a typical uncle scrooge adventure all right. While the man unlike Burns does work hard and do things for himself, he spent most voyages talking about the destination while putting all the hard work on Donald, in case you thought there was at least one universe where Donald isn’t miserable most of the time. Lisa wonders what he’s doing and we get this lovely bit. 

I just.. can’t stop finding that hilarious or a nice way to get the Uncle Scrooge bit in there while still fitting the Simpsons, and it at least explains what happened to Herb, whose been mentioned all of once in the 30 seasons since he last showed up. I checked. And yes for those unaware, which is fair, or who just now remembered Homer does indeed have a brother, one his dad had out of an affair who showed up twice, once with Homer unintentionally, and largely due to Herb’s own foolishness, ruining his life, the other time with Maggie helping him get back on top and him and Homer reconciling. He’s also voiced by comedic legend and your friend and mine, Danny Devito, whose still making us all laugh to this day and is a wonderful person from all accounts. Rock on Danny, here’s the only way I can think to honor you. 

But yeah it’s a good gag. Burns claims to be watching for a Giant Squid.. and turns out to be right. So it’s up to the simpsons to fight the giant squid, a sentence I genuinely didn’t expect.. I thought like the Griffins they’d just ignore it. 

I miss that show.. oh i’m aware Family Guy is still running but much like the Simpsons the show it USED to be is long gone. Anyways Bart tells a worried homer octopus suck out the innards and drink it first quipping “It’s not like you haven’t been drunk in the morning before homer. Homer chokes bart only for the squid to choke him which is easily the second best “Homer getting choked after Choking bart” gag i’ve seen.. the best being this one I found on youtube. 

Though personally my faviorite part of that whole bit is Bart’s proud “THAT’S BECAUSE I SOAKED HIM IN SLIME!” Anyways Lisa figures out a way to beat the squid, painting the likeness of each of them on it’s tentacles and letting the thing devour itself. Lisa lampshades it making no sense PHysics wise but with that she reluctantly accepts calling Mr. Burns, Uncle Burns and we’re off to our next location.  Next up is Mt. Donrosa, a very clear nod to Uncle Scrooge maestro Keno “Don” Rosa, an avid fan of Barks work who expanded on it and turned it into a solid continuity, most famously, and what got me into the ducks in the first place, with the epic “Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck” which I proudly own and.. well I did say watch this space didn’t I?  Enough hinting at the future as the Simpsons scale the mountain with Homer carrying burns up on a rickshaw. Burns however looses his lucky #1 penny, SUBTLE, and cuts Bart down to get it. We then get the best line of the issue:

Bart thankfully survives and we find out the Penny, much like Scrooge’s Dime is how Burns started his fortune.. for this issue and nowhere else but that’s standard for the Simpsons. Specifically loading it into a gun and threatning to kill Jasper’s grandfather with it during the gold rush, a nice twist. At the top of the mountain they find the fabled key of Strobl, which comes from the Taliaferro tribe.. more refrenes this time though I didn’t know them and had to google. Tony Strobl was an artist on the Duck Comics at one ponit  and Al Taliforino id forgotten about. He did the Donald Duck comic strip which I had heard of and weirdly hasn’t been collected yet despite Fantagraphics covering mickey, as well as reprinting barks and rosa’s respective works. 

The key is suspended in the air by what Lisa suspects to be magnetics, and while Burns plan is naturally “Have Bart swim in it and see if he surivives”, Bart, still pissed from the penny and not wanting to die today, grabs the Penny and uses his slingshot to fire it at the Key. The bad luck from the penny casues an erruption, but Bart once again saves the day and has them surf down, with naturally tons more great jokes.  The family enjoys some steamed Seafood, except Lisa whose eating Seaweed, while Homer enjoys a sting ray “It tastes as good as it stings, Ow, Ow.” ON to Goddfrodson Trench, an odd choice given Floyd Goddfrodson was barks equivalent for the Mickey Mouse Comics and not really a duck writer, but he still deserves the honor regardless.  Under the Sea, no accusations just friendly crustaceans here.. our heroes are close to the treasure but loose the map to the Jailbird Boys, aka Snake and his cousins, who found out due to Lisa’s blog. She didn’t want to loose any more readers to Sheri and Teri’s Olson Twin’s Fan Page.. which.. it’s 2004.. weren’t they dead by this point? Nope still alive? Still are today in fact? Alrighty then. Also this bit, and some of the other references are a bit heavy handed, I will admit that, but the jokes are high quality enough otherwise that it just comes off as a bit of an adorable wink more than laziness. 

Snake and co cut their air with Starfish used as throwing stars. 

The gang tie their air suplies to avoid dying, and Maggie, in a clever bit, talks with the starfish, since they communicate via sucking, to attack the Jailbird Boys. Again.. 

I genuinely don’t know, but our heroes find the fabled vault of Barks Billion.. named after Bark Barks, that polar bear from the sonic games.. no of course it’s named after Disney Duck God Carl Barks, who created the Duck’s share of Donald and Scrooge’s supporting cast: Uncle Scrooge himself, Daisy Duck, a fact I just learned but given he created her first short “Mr Duck Steps Out, shouldn’t of surprised me, The Beagle Boys, Magica DeSpell, Goldie O Gilt, Flintheart Glomgold, Gyro Gearloose, Gladstone Gander, The Junior Woodchucks as a whole, Neighbor Jones, John D. Rockerduck, The Number One Dime, Gus Goose, April, May, June and Whitewater Duck. Just the sheer impact he’s had on the comics on all continents cannot be overstated. He is also the one who refined Huey Dewey and Louie from hellraising little shits to the good little boys they are today.. well okay they were, thankfully the reboot has created much better versions. Point is what a man, what a man what a mighty good man, he is truly missed.  We get two great homer gags in the same page, one where somehow he’s put the giant key on a key ring and still can’t find it.. with Bart helpfully taking it from him, and then we get this, which I missed on my first read through. 

Naturally Burns betrays them, using a Gold Magnet, kay, to suck up all the gold and naturally planning to leave the Simpsons for dead to no one’s surprise. But thanks to Bart teaching Maggie how to use the spittoons, Homer gets one stuck on his head.. and starts getting sucked up with the Simpsons using them to escape. Naturally Lisa’s first instinct is obvious. 

But Burns weasels his way out by promising them free gold after their free lunch. Naturally the next day this turns out ot be a trick as their lunch came from frinks and thus, for now, their weightless.. but Karma gets Burns when he tries swimming in his new gold vault... only for the natural result of what happens when am an who never exercises and who doctors once described as having so many diseases packed into his body at once they tripped each other off and that a strong wind could kill him, trying to do with a similarly aged but still physically fit and well trained at swimming in money man does on a daily basis. 

We then close on a quick gag of weightless homer getting caught on fire and we’re out. 

Final Thoughts:  This was a really excellent comic. It captured the tone of the Simpsons at their best and while stiff in a place here or there, it’s mostly just really funny, entertaining and a nice and warm tribute to Donald and Scrooge’s long comics history, not really mocking it but instead just homaging it, while still throughly feeling like the Simpsons. It honestly feels like the Treehouse of Horor Segement on the shining, a bit that parodies something, but for the most part the jokes still feel firmly rooted in the simpsons and their cast. This was a treat to review and i’m glad Kev comissoned it and I may take a look at more Simpsons in the future. If you guys like this review, you can follow me on patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet, or if  there’s a specific simpsons or ducktales episode or a specific comic you want me to review, you can comission your own review for just five bucks. Just send me a direct message on here through Tumblr, or take a look at my ask box or submit. However you want to do it. I take payments through paypal and until next time: Happy Days are Here Again. 

[athingthatwantsvirginia]

An Orwellian Nightmare

PART THIRTY-SIX OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: discussions of parent death, teenage drinking, anxiety, and depression, please read with caution, plentiful pop culture references

Word Count: 6K

Summary: Ella and Jess go to Rory's graduation party, then return to the bridge.

A/N: The descriptions of depression in this chapter and in this fic are based on research and my own experiences. Everyone is different. If you need to talk, I am always here.

“The door itself is worth more than everything we own.” Jess gawked at the large mahogany door of the famed Gilmore house.

“Welcome to the realm of the one percent,” Ella replied, smirking as they stood hand-in-hand facing the entryway. Beyond it, she could hear the faint sound of classical music and polite chatter. “I don’t hate it, though. It’s got kind of a Great Gatsby thing going on, don’t you think?”

“Maybe. But I think it’s more like Dracula.”

“Hm,” she nodded, lifting her eyes to see the pillars on either side of the door. “Wuthering Heights?”

“Oh yeah,” Jess agreed. “That sounds right.”

“Get ready, then, Heathcliff,” Ella quipped, ringing the doorbell.

Jess scoffed. “Ready as I can be, Catherine.”

Not more than a moment later, the door swung aside to reveal a woman in a maid’s outfit in the sprawling foyer. Behind the maid, there were groups of well-dressed people, mostly older, milling about with martini glasses in their hands, sugar on the rims. Though she couldn’t quite be sure, Ella thought it was Mozart playing from somewhere farther inside, live on a piano. It sounded fine, but she had always preferred Beethoven. The lesser of two evils, she had taken to calling him. Before even stepping beyond the threshold, she could see at least two chandeliers gleaming in the yellowish lights. She tugged Jess along by the hand, stepping up and into the house.

“Good evening,” the maid said.

“Hi,” Ella said, smiling at the small woman with black hair and dazzling brown eyes. “This is Rory Gilmore’s graduation party, right?”

Jess chuckled behind her. They’d gotten a bit lost on the way up to Hartford. The plan had originally been to follow Luke’s truck, but he had decided against going at the last minute. He wasn’t sure if Lorelai would really want him there. Instead, they had followed the less than legible directions Luke scribbled on one of the diner napkins. Luke rarely remembered street names, using mostly landmarks. The drive would have been easier if it wasn’t already near dark by the time the party started.

“Yes, ma’am,” the maid answered formally, holding a hand out to Ella. “May I take your bag?”

Furrowing her brows, Ella looked down at her large black purse, the only one she owned, and then back up at the woman. She hadn’t been expecting such a question, instead thinking she’d either carry it with her or stumble upon a coat rack somewhere. “Oh, sure. Thank you. That’d be great...sorry. I didn’t catch your name?”

The maid looked equally confused as she took Ella’s bag from her. “Helen.”

“Okay, Helen. I’m Ella,” she said, sticking out her hand for Helen to shake, tilting her head in Jess’s direction. “That’s Jess. We’re Rory’s friends.”

Jess nodded in greeting at Helen, biting back a laugh as the maid shook Ella’s hand with a disconcerted expression.

“Enjoy the party,” Helen muttered, then turned on her heel and disappeared into the crowd behind her.

“I don’t think you were supposed to introduce us to the maid,” Jess chuckled as Ella led him through the sea of people to the left, revealing a large sitting room with an open bar.

“Who cares what we’re supposed to do?” Ella shrugged, stopping in her tracks as she began to search the room for anyone she knew. “Rory used to tell me her mother fired a maid a week. Figured she might need at least one friendly face tonight.”

His smile turned warm and his face lost its amusement as he regarded her for a moment. Her hair was back in a low bun, shorter pieces framing her face. She wore a dress bought special from Goodwill for the occasion, a black bodice and a skirt of lavender tulle. On her feet, the same black leather ballet flats she had owned since high school. Somehow, they hadn’t begun to fall apart yet. Beauty in her usual, hasty variety. She didn’t look exactly comfortable, but she looked like herself, fitting in so well simply because she wasn’t putting anything on. He disentangled their fingers and brought his hand to her freckled cheek instead, catching her lips in a kiss.

For a moment, Ella relished in the feeling of the butterflies in her stomach. But then, she remembered the buzz of the socialites around them and the mission at hand: to find Rory and congratulate her. She pulled away from him with a smack! and blushed immediately.

“Jesus, James Dean. Wait until we’ve got a smaller audience,” she snapped, though there was a smirk playing on her mouth. She was glad to only be wearing chapstick. Most of the makeup she was the dark smudge of smoke around her eyes.

Jess only shrugged, nonchalant and smug. “We’re the other half, Daria. They don’t expect too much from us.”

She rolled her eyes. Before she should retort, though, a woman with heavily styled brown hair and a glittery pantsuit approached them. Thankfully, it didn’t take more than a few seconds for Ella to recognize her as Rory’s grandmother, Emily Gilmore, who she’d met only once before. Back when Ella was still working at the diner, Rory had brought her grandmother for a tour of the town. Ella remembered how odd the chunky white sneakers looked on Emily’s feet, as she had also been wearing a stuffy, expensive skirt set and some Chanel No. 5.

“Ella! How nice to see you!” Emily received them, her voice raspy and pleasant.

Regaining her composure, hoping the flustered roses on her cheeks had cooled, Ella plastered on her best smile. “Good to see you, Mrs. Gilmore. Thanks for inviting us. Your house is incredible.”

“Ah, thank you,” Emily said gratefully, then looked quizzically at Jess. “And I should hope this is a boyfriend, from that little display I just witnessed.”

Ella’s face fell at the tight, irritated tone in Emily’s voice. Her skin flushed once again in embarrassment. She cleared her throat and grabbed Jess’s hand once more. “Yes, this is Jess Mariano.”

“Hi,” Jess said shortly, extending his free hand to Emily.

“Hello, Jess. I’m Mrs. Gilmore, Rory’s grandmother,” Emily replied cordially, reciprocating, though the distaste was still very evident in her voice and her face. She turned back to Ella as she broke her handshake with Jess. “How are you? It’s been so long. Are you still doing those little doodles?”

Her smile came to look even more forced, but Ella maintained the facade. It was Rory’s party. The least she could do was avoid a scuff with the hostess. “Yes. I’ve only got a year of grad school left. Studio art.”

Widening her eyes and nodding along, Emily made a small noise of acknowledgement. “Wonderful! And what comes after grad school for an artist?”

Biting the inside of her cheek, Ella began to search her mind for a careful way to answer the question. The easy thing was to say she had no idea. But then, Ella had heard enough stories about Rory’s grandparents not to be entirely honest. “Well, I-”

“Oh, for goodness sake!” Emily exclaimed suddenly, brown doe eyes fixed on something over Ella’s shoulder. “I told him a million times to wait to serve the cheese cubes!”

Ella furrowed her brow, glancing behind her.

“I’ve got to go take care of this,” Emily said gravely. “Enjoy yourselves, you two. Make sure to try a Rory.”

“Um, pardon-” Ella began, but Emily had already begun her purposeful march back to the head waiter, who was apparently serving the hors devours out of order.

“Try a Rory!” a voice chirped cheerfully in front of them, and Ella jumped a little, turning her head forward once more.

Jess had a scowl on his face, so far unamused by the extravagant fanfare.

A waiter stood with a tray in front of them, a wide grin on his face. He stared at them expectantly for a moment, beaming, before they took the hint and each grabbed a drink from the tray. As they gave begrudging grunts of thanks, the waiter was already off to assault another group of partygoers with his enthusiastic exclamations. The drinks were those Ella had seen in the hands of other guests in the foyer, crusted rim martini glasses filled with pink, perfumy liquid.

“What the hell is this?” she thought aloud, inspecting the drink, swirling it around in the glass. She smelled it, and could only make out something fruity and the strong stench of alcohol.

Jess shrugged, staring down at his own glass inquisitively. “It’s a Rory.”

She scoffed. “Well, of course. I mean you haven’t lived until you’ve had a drink named after you.”

Snorting a laugh, Jess nodded. “I knew they were rich. But I didn’t know they lived in an Orwellian nightmare.”

“Me neither,” Ella said.

“Shall we?” Jess asked, raising his glass.

Heaving a large sigh, Ella clinked her cup against his. “We shall. Please don’t let Chris have any input in my eulogy.”

“No promises,” Jess quipped, before downing a big sip of his drink.

“Jackass.”

Taking a sip, Ella almost instantly regretted it. She never thought she would have the opportunity to taste the color pink, but she certainly wasn’t enjoying it now that it had come. As a child, her mother had sometimes stuck a bar of soap in her mouth when she let a swear word slip. Obviously, the technique hadn’t worked in the long run, but the taste was usually enough to elicit a weeks-long change in vocabulary. The drink instantly brought back the soapy memories. It was not quite Irish Spring, and not quite the orange bars of Dial her mother had eventually become partial to for punishments, but somewhere in-between. Her face twisted into a grimace and she swallowed with great labor.

Jess was already uttering a harsh cough as she finally managed to get the stuff down. “Are we sure they didn’t bring us all here to poison us?”

“Anything’s possible,” she replied, shaking her head at the taste. “Can we find a plant to dump these in?”

“I think it’d be wise,” Jess said, eyes immediately scanning the room.

He tossed a glance in her direction, then pointed subtly to a ficus in the corner by the sliding glass door. Meandering through the crowd of people, Ella did her best to look inconspicuous. She stood guard, blocking the view of Jess, as he drained his own drink into the plant and then took hers from where she held it out to him behind her back. After a few moments more of indecision, they placed their empty glasses on the mantelpiece and fled the scene of the crime into the dining room, where other groups were milling about.

“We might’ve just murdered that plant, Stevens,” Jess said as they finally came to a stop, lingering in the doorway between the foyer and the dining room.

“Well, death is a part of life,” Ella said dryly, still frowning at the taste in her mouth. “But if it does die, I’ll probably be the prime suspect. Maybe second to Lorelai. Mrs. Gilmore didn’t like me when she met me the first time, and it doesn’t seem like much has changed.”

“Why would she invite you, then?”

“Because Lane’s on tour and I’m pretty sure I’m the only other Stars Hollow friend she knows about,” Ella explained. It wasn’t hard to gather why her presence had been requested, with a formal invitation in the mail weeks earlier.

“Huh.”

“Can’t betray Emily Post, can she?” Ella said flippantly.

Jess smirked. “No, I think that’d get her twenty to life.”

Ella laughed, just as she finally spotted Rory approaching them from the opposite side of the dining room, with Logan in tow and Lorelai following behind. Rory looked radiant, hair curled perfectly and blue dress free of a single wrinkle. It reminded Ella of a dress Rory had worn to a school dance with Dean years earlier, the one she and Lane had squealed so loudly and girlishly over when Rory told them. The dress had been made by Lorelai, though. Ella didn’t doubt the dress Rory now wore cost more than the mansion door. She felt her stomach flip over when she caught herself in her thoughts. Ella knew she didn’t need to resent anyone’s wealth. She knew it truly didn’t make anyone any happier. But sometimes, she stopped the train too late and she’d already turned a bit green with envy.

“Guys! You made it! I’m so glad to see you!” Rory exclaimed happily. She hugged them both, then linked her arm with Logan’s.

“Yeah, we wouldn’t miss it,” Ella said. “We couldn’t find a scuba suit to buy you, though. Sorry.”

Smiling amiably, Rory gave a dismissive shake of her head, playing along. “That’s okay. I’m sure I’ll still be able to snag my Mrs. Robinson without one. Listen, Logan and I were on our way to find my grandpa, but I’ll try and catch up with you guys later. Is that okay?”

Ella nodded. “Of course. Go have fun, Thelma.”

The grin on Rory’s face grew, her teeth straight and white. “Thanks, Louise.”

Then, both of them were gone, Logan biding both Jess and Ella thin, compulsory goodbyes. Lorelai hung back a moment though, greeting the two of them. Her blue eyes were distracted and her voice was slightly frantic, but her usual warmth was ever-present.

“My dad’s been hiding from the party all night,” Lorelai explained. “My mother’s appointed us to seek.”

“Ah. I’ve had to do that more than once,” Ella said, giving Jess a playful nudge.

He rolled his eyes and flushed at her teasing. “I’m not a big party guy. Sue me.”

“As if you have any fortune worth chasing,” Ella shot back, then turned her full attention to Lorelai. “So, how does it feel to be the mother of a soon-to-be Yale graduate?”

“Honestly, sweetie?” Lorelai said, her eyes shining with pride. “Pretty damn good.”

“I’m glad,” Ella said.

“Hey, how did Adam’s go today?” Lorelai asked, taking another sip of her gin. “Did Father of the Year show up?”

Ella’s face fell and Jess cast her a glance. The two hours between the high school graduation and Rory’s party had been spent alternating between getting ready and hyperventilating. Maybe she hadn’t previously realized how unlikely she’d thought Jake’s showing up would be. His presence caught her off guard, trudging up old feelings which left the bitter taste of bourbon in her mouth. She didn’t know why she’d said what she had, when normally she could keep her mind and her mouth pretty well separated. Usually, her quips were calculated and deliberate. But Jake bringing up her mother right away after not speaking with Ella for so long? Saying she’d be disappointed in Ella’s choices? A burning rage Ella hadn’t known in years had flared up inside of her, and all her powers of restraint had short circuited. She’d said the first, most searing, most jarring, most hurtful thing she could think of.

“That he did,” Ella said shortly, looking down at her flats and wishing she still had a drink in her hand. Well, any drink but the pink monstrosity they were serving on the silver platters.

Lorelai scrunched up her nose knowingly. “Didn’t go so well, huh?”

“You remember that part in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly when Clint Eastwood blows up the bridge?” Ella asked.

“Yeah?” Lorelai replied.

“Well, it was pretty much like that,” Ella said. “Except, neither of us were trying to build a bridge.”

Lorelai hummed in sympathy, then pulled Ella in for another short hug. “I’m sorry, sweetie.”

“It’s alright,” Ella shrugged. “There’s about a hundred miles of distance between us on a regular day, so at least I don’t need to worry about any repeat occurrences in the near future.”

“Lorelai! Hi!” A reedy voice piped up from behind them, and Lorelai turned to see a small blonde woman and an even smaller brunette man nearing.

Lorelai’s eyes widened slightly. “Hi, Paris. Good to see you. Have you met Ella and Jess yet? They’re Rory’s friends from Stars Hollow.”

Paris. The name rang a bell in Ella’s head immediately. She finally got to put a face to the person Rory had complained and gushed about for years. The ultimate frenemy. In a way, Ella already admired Paris, though their paths had never managed to cross. Ella looked up at Jess, mouthing the name to him again. He raised his eyebrows, but then a thick shadow of recognition crossed his face, and a smirk tugged at his lips.

“I’ve gotta go find my dad, but I’ll be sure to catch up with you later,” Lorelai said, taking her leave sheepishly but gratefully.

“I’ll find you,” Paris said, nodding curtly at Lorelai as she walked away. Then, she turned back to Ella and Jess, immediately sizing them up. She stuck out her hand. “Paris Geller. I believe Rory’s mentioned you once or twice.”

Ella accepted the handshake first, smiling. “Ella Stevens. Pleasure to finally meet you.”

“Firm handshake,” Paris commented, with just a hint of admiration.

“Thank you for noticing.” Ella matched Paris’s strong gaze until their palms broke apart.

“Hi. I’m Jess,” Jess said as he himself shook Paris’s hand.

For a moment, Ella had to fight a smirk at Jess’s stand-offish shyness. Sometimes, he was so adorable she almost couldn’t handle it.

“And, this is Doyle,” Paris said, motioning to the man in the suit next to her. “My other half.”

After having finally finished exchanging their greetings, Paris glanced down at the photo on the t-shirt Jess wore. Ella saw immediately after he got dressed that he was wearing almost the exact the same outfit she’d found him in at Truncheon’s open house one year earlier. The blazer, the black and white t-shirt. Even the low-rise converse knock-offs. Only, now, he’d ditched the jeans for actual slacks, and a slightly better quality belt. She wondered at how much had changed in twelve months’ time.

“Interesting shirt. Joseph Szabo, huh?” Paris asked.

Jess hummed in confirmation.

“I always liked ‘Priscilla,’” Ella said, eyes flicking between Jess’s shirt and Paris.

“Personally, I think it’s a little derivative,” Paris said, arching a brow. “You guys are into photography, then?”

“Sort of. I’m an artist. Jess is a writer,” Ella explained.

“Ah,” Paris said, giving Jess a pointed look. “You looked like an author. Let me guess...Kerouac fanatic?”

Ella couldn’t hold back her laughter.

Jess didn’t let Paris’s accuracy shake his cool facade, though. “You could say that. He’s at the top of the list.”

“Along with?” Paris asked.

“Bukowski, Hemingway, Salinger,” Jess replied easily.

Paris scoffed, shaking her head. “What a surprise. God forbid one of you beatnik guys reads Jane Austen.”

“Hey! I’ve read Jane Austen,” Jess retorted, more insistent.

A wide smirk blossomed on Ella’s face as Paris and Jess continued squabbling over their preferences. Jess got even more heated, and Ella more amused, as Paris insulted the beats and eventually brought up poetry. It was already the highlight of the party.

“It seems she’s met a worthy opponent,” Doyle told Ella, watching his girlfriend argue.

Ella nodded proudly, humming in agreement.

.   .   .

Cicadas were buzzing loudly in Ella’s ears as she landed hard on the wood floor of Luke’s apartment. She let out a whoosh of air when her back hit the floor, groaning and muttering confused curses under her breath as she rubbed at her eyes. Getting her bearings, she propped herself up on her elbows and looked around. She could barely make out Luke’s disheveled silhouette, snoring loudly on the old brown couch, in the darkness of the room. He’d already been asleep by the time they got back from Rory’s party, with a note on the kitchen table insisting they take the double bed. Taking in a deep, frustrated breath, Ella got up from the floor and was surprised when she saw the mattress entirely empty, save for the rumpled sheets and comforter. She had been in the midst of a dreamless sleep when she’d rolled off the bed. It was the first time she had done something of the like since she was a little kid. But it made more sense without Jess’s frame there to block her from turning over too far. He may have been the lighter sleeper, but he didn’t move around nearly as much as Ella did when he finally shut his eyes for the night.

With furrowed brows, Ella padded silently over to see the tiny bathroom empty and dark, the door ajar. She didn’t see him at the kitchen table either, and his shoes were sitting by the door where he’d left them earlier. His watch and his wallet sat on the nightstand. Though she did her best to swallow it down, an awful, familiar panic began to rise in her throat. Her rational mind knew there was no way Jess had been snatched out of bed in the middle of the night without she or Luke noticing, and there was no way he could’ve been kidnapped in a place like Stars Hollow, no matter how zany the residents sometimes were. But, still, anything was possible.

Her thoughts wandered dangerously as she descended the rickety stairs into the diner. It, too, was empty. She even checked the kitchen, the stockroom, and the bathroom. Jess was nowhere to be found. Could he have left? In the middle of the night? It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility, especially if one took his past into consideration. But as she made her way through the unlocked front door, she found her station wagon parked outside, the chipped, dark blue paint visible in the soft light of the half moon. The bus station? But why would he have gone without his shoes, without his wallet, without his watch? Without her.

She swallowed harshly, grimacing at the fear swirling in her stomach. Eyes roaming over the town, she racked her brain. But then she cast her gaze over to a beaten dirt path, to the right of the high school, and she felt just a touch less frantic. She crossed her arms over her t-shirt and hurried down toward it. The night air was welcome against her legs, mostly bare in her soft pajama shorts. As she rounded the corner below one of the town’s few streetlights, she let out a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding in. His form was hunched over, sitting on the bridge above the lake. Always the bridge, she thought to herself, and would have smirked if she wasn’t feeling so shaken. She neared him, her steps sounding dully on the bridge. She could see Jess’s bare feet, below the cuffs of his plaid pajama bottoms, dangling just over the water. The lake rippled, the bluish-white moonlight reflecting against the water and shining on Jess’s face. His jaw was set tensely. She could see the silver chain around his neck glinting where it peeked out from beneath his worn t-shirt.

Shaking her head, Ella took the seat beside him without waiting for an acknowledgement. She knew he would’ve heard her coming. He didn’t startle when her arm brushed against his. She looked down, her toes, painted purple, swinging underneath her as she hung her legs off the bridge.

“You’ll get an infection walking around without shoes,” she said, finally breaking the silence.

Jess uttered a low, half-hearted chuckle. “Not in Stars Hollow.”

She let a nostalgic smirk cross her face for only a moment before she turned her head to him. “Jesus, Jess. Leave a note next time.”

He ran a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d wake you.”

“You didn’t,” she said. “I fell off the bed.”

“She’s beauty and she’s grace,” Jess teased, though his heart wasn’t hardly in it.

“It’s true.”

“Are you okay?” he asked, voice laced with concern as he finally met her eyes. He looked tired, eyes red-rimmed. She wondered vaguely if he’d been crying.

Ella nodded. “Yeah, cutie. Just a bruise or two. I’m fine. Are you?”

Jess shrugged and looked away from her again. He couldn’t make out the trees across the water in the darkness. It must have been the middle of the night, two or three in the morning; the darkest hours before the dawn would break. “Couldn’t sleep.”

She nodded again, and was almost certain he’d had a nightmare. But it must have been exceptionally bad to have him retreating to the lake in the middle of the night, so she didn’t ask. She only pressed a kiss to his shoulder, and watched the water again, waiting.

There was a long pause before he spoke. “Elle?”

“Hm?”

“How do you…” he stopped to sigh, running a hand over his mouth once more.

“How do I what?” she asked gently.

“How do you do it?” he blurted out, unable to find a way to phrase the question better. His fatigue seemed to be clouding his verbal skills, which were never the best to begin with. “I mean...you just seem so okay with everything. You have it all together. You don’t believe in fate, or God, or anything. But you just...keep going.”

“I don’t have it all together, Jess,” she said.

“No, but you do,” Jess continued quietly, staring down at the small movements of the water. “I mean, maybe you don’t have your entire life figured out. But you know who you are. You don’t care what anyone thinks. You don’t believe in anything but you. And nothing shakes you, y’know?”

Tilting her head at him, she searched for an answer. He’d caught her off guard again. Smacking her lips together, she furrowed her brows and began undoing the french braid in her hair as she spoke. Partially because it felt too tight all of a sudden, and partially to have an outlet for the nervous energy in her hands.

“Things shake me. But...I don't know, Mariano. I think at some point I just sort of...accepted them. I can’t change what happened to my mom, I can’t change my dad, I can’t change much. I can only solve the problems I can solve, and there’s not many.”

He nodded, biting down hard on his bottom lip. “I guess you’re right.”

Heaving a sigh, she finished shaking the braid out of her long hair, and laid back against the bridge. Above, the sky was so blue it was almost pitch black. Stars shone brightly against the backdrop, numerous without the light pollution of a city like Philadelphia. She felt a sudden pang of homesickness, unlike anything she had experienced since moving away. There weren’t many things she missed about the small town in which she grew up, but the view of the night sky was one of them.

“But doesn’t it ever...bother you?” Jess asked, still unsure himself of exactly what he was trying to say.

“Sort of. Sometimes,” Ella said, gaze focusing on the little dipper. She felt her muscles relax, and the ache in her back quieted down a bit. She knew she would be a bit sore in the morning. “When I was a kid, I used to go out with my big brother in the summer and catch fireflies. And then we would try to find constellations, though I’m pretty sure all we knew was Orion’s belt.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” she echoed wistfully. “I loved the stars...In third grade, I knew this girl whose uncle worked at NASA. And for her birthday, her parents bought her a star and named it after her. I had no idea you could do that. And I begged my parents for like...fucking months to get a star. I didn’t even want to name it after me. I wanted to make up a name for it, but still...have it be mine. But...we barely had money for groceries...let alone a star. And I was pissed about it for a while. But, then, eventually, we learned about how the light of the stars we see is hundreds of years old.”

“Pretty good for a public school,” Jess interjected.

Ella giggled. “I agree. But, after I learned it, I didn’t give a fuck about naming a star anymore. Because any star I would’ve named was dead already.”

“So, you were a nihilist even as an eight-year-old?” he asked, glancing back at her. Her blonde hair was swept over her shoulder, eyes glittering greenish, skin dewy and pale.

“Pretty much,” she said. “But it’s like that, I guess. I can’t bring a star back to life, so why worry about it dying? Even after my mom...I tried for a while to get over it. I tried to...solve it. I thought if I just got over it, it would be done, and I wouldn’t have to think about it ever again. My dad wasn’t helping, and Adam was a wreck. He stayed with Julie for a few weeks after she died, actually. He said he couldn’t stand being around my dad and I.”

“Because you were fighting?” Jess asked.

Ella shook her head softly, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. “No, actually. We were drinking.”

“What?” Jess turned his body to face her, sitting cross-legged at her side.

“Yeah, we were sitting around the kitchen table drinking. Pretty much all the time. Noah was off with his friends, doing whatever he was doing to get by. So, I didn’t want to leave my dad alone. We would just drink all night, whenever I wasn’t at school...Sometimes, I would cry afterwards, when I was alone or when the hangover hit. But never in front of him. And I thought it would get better, but it wasn’t helping,” she explained, stopping briefly to take a deep breath of the fresh summer air. “Eventually, I...I would sleep through entire weekends, night and day, just to pass the time. I didn’t eat much, but I wasn’t really hungry. I just slept and slept. I remember...being so tired. I didn’t see anyone...not even Lane and Rory those first few weeks. I started smoking, too. I kept up with schoolwork and everything...I don’t really know why. Maybe it was just a force of habit...the one constant thing. Nothing seemed important, though. Without her there, I mean.”

Eyebrows raised, Jess listened. He had never heard her talk so much about the immediate period of time after her mother’s death. Not even he knew the details. And it shocked him the way she spoke. She wasn’t crying. She was barely pausing or stuttering at all. She told him matter-of-factly, detached.

She shrugged. “But that only lasted a few weeks. I managed to go to school, but my dad pretty much just stopped going to work. Even after the leave they gave him. He lost his job, but he wouldn’t even try looking for another one. He was just too...he couldn’t do anything. So, I stopped drinking. I didn’t pick up any alcohol again until that night I stole his tequila. And I got a job at Luke’s, to get us some extra money. And Luke threw in leftovers whenever he could. I didn’t think about her really...not for a long time. There were other problems to worry about, I guess. So, I just...got up and kept going. That’s the way it’s always been for me, I guess. She was dead, and we needed money.”

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“Things shake me, Jess. But I’ve always been good at just sort of...getting on with it...not thinking about it,” she said, voice slightly strained but clear. “I still don’t think about her most of the time. Not in a real way. Maybe that’s why I got so fucking angry when my dad brought her up today. He’s just so...I don’t know. Maybe he wishes I kept drinking with him...that I never got a job or got up from the kitchen table. Maybe he would have an easier time looking at himself now.”

Jess hummed in acknowledgment, giving a small nod of his head. He cast a careful glance her way. “Are you mad at your mom?”

She averted her eyes from him and found Polaris, the brightest amongst all the other dots of light. “I don’t know.”

“It’s okay to be mad at her,” he said.

“I know,” she replied softly. “I’ve had enough school counselors tell me that to know it. But...honestly...sometimes I feel like...if I think about it too hard...I’ll go back. I’ll feel like I did then. I’ll be like I was then. And I don’t see the point of going back there.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, then finally came to lay beside her. He shivered slightly as his back touched the bridge, though the air was warm.

Then, after a moment, she asked: “Are you worried about Doula?”

He didn’t answer. He only took one of her hands in his own, as they both gazed up at the sea of stars above, and squeezed it once. Hard, though nowhere near hard enough to hurt. She nodded knowingly, and didn’t ask anything more. A breeze blew past them, and she rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. She felt her eyes threatening to flutter shut once or twice, but she willed them to stay open. Not only for the view they were enjoying.

“That was some party, huh?” Jess asked, breaking the silence. His tone was lighter than it had been since they had arrived in Stars Hollow. They’d talked about the party a little bit in the car on the way home, Jess driving. But Ella had already begun to doze during the ride, exhausted from the long day.

She snorted a laugh. “Fuck, I don’t know which I liked less: Emily Gilmore seeing us make out or drinking that battery acid.”

“I don’t know. I think her calling your art ‘doodles’ is also in the running,” Jess added.

She smirked. “No, she can call them whatever she wants. I’d never trust the taste of someone who thinks it’s appropriate to put a chandelier in a bathroom, anyway.”

Jess laughed heartily. “Agreed.”

“I’m glad you made a new friend, though,” Ella said.

Furrowing his brows, Jess tore his eyes away from the stars to look at her. “Who?”

“Paris,” Ella replied, as though it were obvious.

“Ah,” Jess said, nodding. “I don’t know if I’d call her a friend, but it was fun to listen to her accuse me of sacrilege when I said Bukowski was better than Elizabeth Bishop.”

“Well, she was right,” Ella said, bumping his shoulder playfully with her own. “She was cute, too.”

“You think so?” he asked.

“I think if you and Doyle didn’t exist, she and I would make for the most powerful couple on the East Coast,” she teased.

Jess snorted a laugh. “You could handle that level of intensity?”

“Please,” she mocked, rolling her eyes. “I live with you.”

Jess gasped, feigning astonishment as he brought his free hand over his heart. “Cruel woman.”

“I think you’ll survive,” she replied, smiling.

“I’m not so sure,” Jess said, continuing his bit.

Rolling her eyes, Ella disentangled their fingers, got up on an elbow, and looked down at him. She could see the shadow of stubble on his cheeks and the faint crinkles at the corners of his eyes as he smirked at her. Leaning in, she pressed a sweet kiss to his lips, lingering as he ran a hand through her hair. When she came up for air, she noticed again how sleepy he looked.

“You feel any better?” she asked.

He licked his lips. “I’m getting there.”

Only after one more long kiss did Jess agree to return to bed, walking hand-in-hand with her in the dead of night, back to Luke’s.

[balancingdiet]

Civilian

Characters: Kaito/Shinichi, Aoko Words: 11.2k LMAO!!! (recommended to open new browser tab before clicking “Keep Reading”) Note: 9 months ago I made this prompt, and I finally did it. Sort of, or at least closely related enough hahhaha Other reading link: AO3

Investigating a supposedly abandoned building shouldn’t be too much of an effort for Kaito, that is if he didn’t have to try hiding his identity from a certain detective as well.

//"It looks so difficult and complex," Kaito lied and heaved a sad sigh. "But I think I can try to unlock it, even though I'm obviously just a normal civilian."

"Aren't you a magician?" Shinichi drawled. "Don't you know how to unlock things?"

"Oh— Yes. A civilian who happens to be a magician." Kaito gave a thumbs up. "That's why I THINK I can do it."//

---

Kaito's life had been flipped upside down more than a hundred times, but if he had to choose the one that remained constant, it would be Aoko's inquisitive senses.

She was easily fascinated in nature. Feisty too, much to Kaito's chagrin. But to be fair, he did leverage on her curiosity plenty of times for his heists' sake, and because of that, he hadn't figured how he would explain all his wrongdoings to her after his life as Kid ended.

So taking one step at a time towards that possible path of forgiveness, he tried by agreeing to most of the things she asked him to do, like trespassing into their high school in the middle of the night, joining that stupid Kid Capture Brigade club she created…

And now this: accompanying her to investigate an abandoned building for their university's student newspaper.

If Kaito had to complain, it would be how far the building decided to abandon itself away from town; the travelling already took them a bulk of their afternoon. But comparing this to the other requests Aoko made in the past, this was no biggie for Kaito. He could already imagine how the day would play out; probably a couple of self-paranoia scares, some trips and bumps over the old floorings, and maybe having someone joining in their investigation—

Wait.

What?

Kaito's life had been flipped upside down more than a hundred times, and one of the reasons was his uncanny luck to meet the people he didn't wish to see right now.

Aoko gasped, just two seconds slower than Kaito's realisation to their new visitor.

Standing by the broken door in his iconic unbuttoned blazer and pants was Kudo freaking Shinichi.

If newspaper articles and television didn't count, it would be three years since Kaito last saw the detective (in his other smaller form). And frankly, Japan wasn't that big, so Kaito should consider that quite a miracle. But compared to those 2D prints, seeing Shinichi in real life struck a heavier chord in Kaito's memories, and there was an equal balance between the fond and not so desirable ones…

Bullets. Blood. Debt

"This isn't an illusion, right?"

Kaito snapped out of his thoughts and glanced at Aoko over his shoulder. He hadn't wished for something so bad since he checked the gem for Pandora last week, but there was no point in trying to delude himself, or Aoko, when standing right there in the flesh was definitely that detective.

But before Kaito could confirm it, Aoko was already standing in front, her lips pursed to bite back her giggly excitement (and maybe to stop herself from exposing her scrapbook filled with Shinichi's articles and whatnots).

"You're Kudo Shinichi!" Aoko clicked onto her pen rapidly. "Like the Kudo Shinichi? Right? Detective of the East!"

"Just Kudo Shinichi." The said man afforded a small smile. "I'm quite over with that alias."

Alias… hah, Kaito thought wryly. And what about the others? Like the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes, Silver Bullet, once-upon-a-time Edogawa Conan and also the Kid Killer—

"Nice to meet you!" Aoko placed a hand over her chest. "I'm Nakamori Aoko."

Kaito inwardly groaned.

"Nakamori?" Shinichi clarified.

"Yes."

"…Is your father a Police Inspector?"

"You're right!" Aoko's face brightened as she nodded. "He's the Inspector of Kaitou Kid Task Force."

"What a coincidence."

"How did you figure it out? Nobody ever says I look like my dad." Aoko tilted her head. "Is it by my name?"

"That's half of the reason." Shinichi pointing to her belongings. "I noticed you have an interesting Anti-Kid charm, and also the pen you're using was a gift to commemorate the founding anniversary of the Metropolitan Police Department. Only people affiliated to the police will have that."

"As expected of the detective," Aoko said in awe. "I really can't help but admit I'm a big fan of your work!"

Kaito couldn't roll his eyes any further behind his head. "Oi, Ahouko…"

"Sorry." Aoko hastily gestured over at Kaito, as if remembering his existence. "Anyway this is Kuroba Ka—"

"Kuroba is fine."

Aoko snapped a disapproving look and nudged Kaito in the ribs. "Can you sound any less rude?"

"Maybe it's a symptom whenever I'm close to any detective."

Obviously hearing their conversation, Shinichi raised an eyebrow. "Symptom?"

Kaito shrugged. "Like allergies."

"I guess it's better to say he's allergic than repulsive," Aoko muttered.

Shinichi shook his head. "That's fine; it's normal for some people to be repulsive against this line of job."

"Yeah, and maybe because Kaito is also a magician—"

"OKAYYYY that's too much information given. And you also just revealed my name, Ahouko." Kaito tugged Aoko's sleeve, pulling her a step away from the door Shinichi was still standing by. "We're here to do your work, not to chit-chat. Much less with strangers."

"What work?" Shinichi asked, and at the moment Kaito felt like he had fallen into the hole he dug.

"I'm currently helping to write a column for our university paper and I asked Kaito to accompany me," Aoko replied. "There seems to be some rumours going around about this abandoned building so I thought it'd be an interesting topic."

"And those rumours might be?"

Aoko parted her lips, ready to say everything because she was so easily pulled into any conversation like that, but Kaito cleared his throat, stopping her.

"What about you?" Kaito gestured a hand to Shinichi. "What are you doing here?"

Aoko looked excited to know Shinichi's answer too.

The detective, however, shook his head, but at least he had some kind of heart to explain after witnessing Aoko's shoulders fell. "It's police matters and not something I can share with the civilians."

Kaito cheered at the thought of Shinichi regarding him as a civilian, but the first part of his sentence sent a feeling of uncertainty to his gut. Police matters?

"If it's police matters, I'm not sure if the rumours we heard are going to be helpful." Aoko laughed sheepishly. "People said they heard some kind of activities happening at night here, and they think there's… ghosts."

Shinichi finally entered the room, one arm crossed while the other hand touched his chin. "Ghost, huh..."

Aoko tilted her head. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

Mulling for a while, Shinichi spoke, "There are many things one would wish to have a choice to not believe."

Kaito blinked.

Right. Having been shrunk by ten years from ingesting a pill, even Pandora's myth would have a hard time competing for the first place of bullshits that Kaito wished he had a choice to not believe in…

The room had grown too quiet for Kaito's taste. He glanced at Aoko knowingly; she looked lost in her own thoughts too.

He wondered what she was thinking, yet at the same time, he was a little afraid to know.

Kaito cleared his throat, snapping the other two attention back to earth. "Since we have nothing to do with each other and we're about done, shall we go home?" he said to Shinichi and then to Aoko.

Aoko glanced at her pink notebook and clicked her pen absently. "But we haven't been to the remaining floors. And there's also the roof too."

"We've seen nothing new for the past three levels." Kaito waved a hand around. "I bet it's gonna be the same — old and dusty."

"I would also advise you to leave as soon as possible," Shinichi said, stopping Aoko's attempt at a retort. "And if you don't mind, I have a couple pictures of those floors and the roof for you reference. I can send them to you via email."

"Really?" Aoko beamed. "That'll be nice!"

"Why do you need Aoko's email? Can't you just send via Bluetooth now?" Kaito drawled, though Ask was already scribbling down the details on a paper from her notepad.

"My battery is dead." Shinichi fished out his phone, because it was in every detectives' blood to show the evidence no matter what.

Whatever. But at least Shinichi did something right by advising Aoko to leave as soon as possible, and Kaito couldn't help but be thankful for it.

While the two were fussing about the email exchange, Kaito slipped half of his body out of the room and stared at the growingly dark corridor that led to the stairs up the next floor.

Kaito didn't feel it earlier, but after all the things Shinichi said, he wondered if he had been missing some signs.

"Thank you!" Aoko snapped her notebook shut and kept her materials back into her bag, her handmade Anti-Kid charm dangling loudly. "Are you also leaving too, Kudo-kun?"

"Not yet. I still want to explore this room."

"Alright! Take care." After Shinichi acknowledged her words with a nod, Aoko skipped towards Kaito.

"Thought you'd never leave," Kaito said with an eye-roll.

Aoko stuck out her tongue. "Let's go. And don't call me heartless because I remember the promised ice-cream treat after this."

It was never for the ice cream, but he grinned anyway. "Good."

As Aoko walked out of the room, Kaito gave Shinichi a last glance.

To his well-kept surprise, Kaito found Shinichi to be watching his conversation with Aoko, but when their eyes met, he turned away, showing only his broad (and albeit a little lonely) back for Kaito to see.

What a reunion, Kaito thought, before he finally turned on his heels, leaving the man tied to his many forgotten memories behind.

.

.

In the next three days after that chanced meeting, Kaito poured more time researching about Kudo Shinichi than he ever did for his project assignments in his entire university life.

The detective did appear on the media sometimes when he solved murder cases that shook the nation, but other than those, he was often in the back shots or nowhere to be found in the pictures; and easily counting these numbers, he had appeared much less periodically compared to the time before the Organization he dealt with fell apart.

But there was nothing Kaito could find — not from the recent news or about Shinichi — that would make the detective turn up at that abandoned building.

Was he there for his private investigation? What if it was related to the not-so-fallen Organization? A supposedly undetected rat that then grew an army under the sewers?

An email pinged on Kaito's computer, showing a notification about the student newspaper Aoko was a part of being published. It could serve as a small distraction for now (but he knew those thoughts would always be on the back of his mind).

Kaito clicked on the link and kept scrolling till he reached Aoko's column.

"Building lies abandoned, or not?"

As expected, Aoko had mostly written about the things she shared on their train ride back home. The building was abandoned, yes. And it looked too run down to be inhibited by anyone, yes. But what Kaito didn't expect was the way she concluded the mystery with a quote:

"There are many things one would wish to have a choice to not believe."

- A renowned detective who preferred to not be named.

Kaito rolled his eyes.

He guessed the pictures wasn't the only thing Aoko asked from Shinichi, and he wondered if they talked about anything else. Like the weather? How Hakuba sucks? Or…Kaitou Kid?

Kaito sighed and resumed browsing through his 'research', scrolling through pictures of different angled Shinichi looking back at him…

"What am I even doing?" Kaito said aloud to himself and shook his head. "Why should I even care about this, him, and that stupid building? I have my own problems to worry about."

Willing himself, Kaito shut his computer and headed to bed (not while spending the next intervening hours thinking about everything more than once every ten minutes).

.

.

As a reward for completing three assignments and his heist (though it wasn't Pandora) in a night, Kaito decided to give himself a break and take a solo trip to the abandoned building.

(There was no denying he needed to find better ways to spend his free time.)

Kaito parked his bike under a tree, a short distance away from the building's front yard. He usually planned six steps ahead, but given this unfamiliarised environment, he might have to improvise his decisions and timings along the way, which meant trusting the periodical public transport wouldn't be a wise choice.

Twirling his bike keys, Kaito kept them inside his pocket. He skipped past the cracks and rocks and arrived at the front of the building. It looked exactly like how it was, but without Aoko's blabbering and presence, there was nothing to distract him from the sudden unsettling feeling in his gut, like Kid's instinct; a phantom's sense…

Or maybe it was just Kudo Shinichi's fault.

Slipping past the cracks of the door, Kaito entered.

The building had five stories, but due to its extremely high ceiling and long stairs, its true height was way taller than such. Maybe ten? Perhaps. Even at his pace, Kaito was heaving a little when he reached the fourth floor, where Aoko and him didn't explore. He decided to start from there.

Kaito didn't ask Aoko to send him what Shinichi gave her, not that he didn't want to see what it was. He was afraid of her follow-up questions to his curiosity, and if she happened to figure out his intention of revisiting, it would do no good for him or her; he couldn't afford to risk her safety for anything.

But anyway, everything seemed perfectly normal for now. Normal in a sense that Kaito hadn't whipped out his card gun and smoke bombs and started running down the corridors for his life. This was also the fifth room he had explored so far on the fourth floor. Nothing much different from the others he had investigated... except for its size.

Kaito frowned at the new discovery, wondering if he was imagining it before he checked the windowpanes. Yes, definitely smaller. The other rooms had nine windows, but this only had seven. His attention grew high on alert as he looked at every inch of the room more carefully—

Kaito squinted his eyes at the top of the wall. "Is that a switch?" he wondered aloud. The old, cracked paints and cobwebs had covered it well.

Even with the biggest jump, it was still an impossible height for Kaito to reach the switch. He glanced around the room, trying to improvise, but there were only a couple of broken chairs, glasses and debris, which Kaito couldn't make out what they were.

Nothing useful.

If Aoko was here, he could imagine her pulling out her selfie-stick and calling it her secret weapon. But Kaito came just as prepared too; he just wasn't sure if his secret weapon liked to be called in the middle of its napping time.

Adjusted his arm to a right angle, a dove popped its head out of Kaito's sleeve.

"Hello Mochi." Kaito grinned.

It cooed, and if Kaito didn't know better, he would have missed the dangerous intent in its voice. He quickly took out the secret weapon for his secret weapon — some sunflower seeds. Thankful, it worked as Mochi finally came out of its den and flew to his wrist to get its little treats.

"So easy to please..."

After it was done, Kaito pointed at the wall. "Ok, go and flip that switch for me."

It would be a joke if it only switched on the lights or something lame like that, but everything was worth a try.

Mochi fluttered its wings... before flying past Kaito's head and towards the door behind him.

"Oi!" Kaito yelled and ran after it.

Secret weapon or not, his doves could be erratic at times, especially Mochi, which was why he decided out of all his doves, he would bring it with him so they could have a better bonding time—

Kaito froze by the door.

Standing in the middle of the corridor was Kudo Shinichi, his body tensed as Mochi settled on his shoulder. He glanced up, his stunned face turned into a scowl when he noticed Kaito.

"You—" Shinichi snapped, "Is this your dove?"

What on earth... "Fancy seeing you again," Kaito managed to say without giving away the feeling of wanting to jump off the building.

"Get it off me."

Biting back a smile, Kaito pulled out another fistful of sunflower seeds. "Come back Mochi, I'm the real owner with treats here."

Knowing its bargain, Mochi flew away from Shinichi and onto Kaito's wrist, pecking its beads on the seeds.

"You greedy little pig," Kaito muttered.

Shinichi closed their distance, his face still plastered with the disapproving scowl. "What are you doing here," he asked.

"And what are you doing here too?" Kaito shot back.

At least Shinichi was mature enough to not play the I-asked-you-first game. "I'm reinvestigating the scene."

"You've been coming down since?"

"No, I was busy. I'm only free to come down today."

Oh right, Kaito suddenly remembered the news (coincidentally, and not because he was searching up Kudo Shinichi again) about a series of murders that happened all around Tokyo, though those cases were solved within a day or two. At that rate, it got to be Shinichi doing the work.

Definitely very busy for Shinichi.

And definitely very unfortunate, for Kaito, that of all the days to come, he just had to choose the one when Kudo Shinichi was free.

"Your turn."

Kaito blinked. "My turn to?"

"Answer the question."

"Oh." Kaito scratched the side of his nose. "I lost something and came back to find it."

Shinichi eyed Kaito, in a way that brought him back memories of the earlier days when there was nothing but doubt and uncertainty during the beginning of their temporary truce and partnership.

(Kaito wondered how those memories came to him when he thought he had forgotten them all.)

"And you realised it only after two weeks?" Shinichi deadpanned.

"Yes," Kaito said, totally free of the irony.

"What did you lose?"

"Something." Kaito stroked Mochi's feathers when it showed signs of agitations after finishing the seeds. "But please don't mind me. I'm sure your investigation is more important than my lost item."

Shinichi obviously didn't seem satisfied with his answer, but he said nothing else as he walked past Kaito and into the room (while glancing warily at Mochi). Or maybe the detective wasn't even feeling anything in the first place, and those furrowed brows were becoming a default expression of his.

Kaito stood by the door, hesitating. Should he just leave? Then what about his so-called lost item? And more importantly... Kaito stared at the wall where the almost-hidden switch was. He still hadn't figured what its purpose was.

Heck it.

"Anyway, what is there to investigate here?" Kaito entered the room and inconspicuously followed Shinichi around. "I thought you've been to the upper floors already."

"I haven't."

"You haven't?" Kaito raised an eyebrow. "Wait, does that mean you lied to Aoko and I that day?"

Kicking over a debris, Shinichi didn't hesitate to admit. "It was late and dangerous for two civilians to continue loitering around."

Still regarded as a civilian, huh? Kaito grinned to himself at his appointed identity. "Then those pictures you sent—"

"Were duplicates from the lower floors."

"What a liar," Kaito said, though he couldn't help but inwardly wince a little at his own hypocrisy. "I'm gonna tell Aoko and smash your reputation."

"But you didn't hesitate to ride on the lie either." Shinichi raised an eyebrow back in a form of challenge. "You wanted to leave too, no? I helped you."

I wanted to leave because you were there, Kaito thought drily.

But Mochi cooed, as if agreeing out loud for Kaito.

"Oi." He scowled at his dove. "Are you—"

Kaito's little chiding had stopped him from noticing Shinichi halting in his tracks, causing him to knock into the detective's back. Kaito jumped away quickly, hoping their accidental contact didn't change Shinichi's mind in any way about his identity... (He might be getting a little paranoid.)

But Kaito's worry was unnecessary as Shinichi looked too preoccupied with his new finding to care about the bump — he, too, had noticed the switch.

"Oh! What an interesting switch you found, detective!"

With narrowed eyes, Shinichi glanced at Kaito before staring at Mochi on his wrist. "Were you going to ask your dove to help you with the switch earlier?"

"What? Of course not. How would I, a civilian, even notice the switch in the first place? Mochi is here only as my companion."

The side-eye continued. "Then I suppose you wouldn’t know if your dove is capable of flipping the switch on command?"

"Are you asking me, a civilian and his very normal dove, to help you with your investigation?”

"My question only requires a yes or a no."

"I'll take a maybe. Because we'll never know unless we try." Kaito chuckled, turning away from Shinichi and whispered to his dove, "Please don't embarrass me."

That said, Kaito raised his hand and Mochi flew up on cue and towards the wall. It hovered over the switch for a second, head tilting curiously before giving a peck.

A hiss, like a rush of escaped air, came from behind a large cracked mirror hanging on the wall. It turned unhinged on the side and swung open, revealing a secret compartment behind.

"Damn," Kaito breathed out, and this time his surprise was real.

Done with its task, Mochi landed and settled on a debris on the floor, watching.

Shinichi took out his phone and turned on his flashlight. There were stairs leading all the way further up, but it was too dark to see where it led to. Shinichi took a step in.

Kaito followed.

The detective turned, shining his light onto Kaito's face and nearly blinding him. "Aren't you busy with finding whatever you've lost?" Shinichi asked, with a hint of contempt that Kaito couldn't blame him for, given his previous dismissal to Shinichi's concern for his missing item.

"I figured this might be a little bit more interesting." Kaito grinned in reply. "And who knows, maybe you'll need my help again?"

"If I remember correctly, it's your dove that did most of the job."

"I raised it with my blood, sweat and tears so that has to be something."

Shinichi gave a mild roll of his eyes and finally shone his phone away and towards Mochi's direction. "Is your dove not following?"

"Mochi hates confine spaces."

"Hm." Shinichi made a noise that sounded neither happy or upset and continued his way up the dark stairs.

At the last second, Kaito ducked out from the compartment and scattered more sunflower seeds on the ground. "Stay here okay, Mochi. Don't go around finding any poisonous worms."

Mochi was already busy eating to even acknowledge whatever Kaito said.

He just prayed it understood and hurried to follow the light; to where Shinichi was.

.

.

The long stairs eventually led to a room, which was pitch black at one second but lit up the moment Shinichi first stepped inside; the ceiling lights switching on one by one.

Kaito squinted his eyes, trying to get use to the sudden brightness. "Judging by the sensors, does it mean we're the only one here?" 

Shinichi didn't answer, but he stood there, as if waiting for something to happen.

Kaito was almost tempted to hum just for the sake of it.

"I can't guarantee that," the detective finally admitted when nothing seemed to be able to confirm his speculations. "But keep close to me, in case anything happens."

Kaito considered feigning scared, but he didn't want Shinichi to legitimately think he was and send him out of the secret hideout. "Ok, detective."

"And don't touch anything."

"Yes yes."

Shinichi kept his phone and surveyed the room while Kaito quietly did his own.

The room looked way more decent than any of the ones outside; there were signs of people staying here, or been here, keeping the dust and cobwebs away. In the middle were three chairs surrounding a large table, and on it were two ashtrays full of burnt out cigarettes, a couple of files and some empty water bottles.

Shinichi pulled out a pair of gloves from his pocket and put them on before picking up a file. His frown deepened every time he flipped to the next page.

Kaito strained his neck, trying to peek at the file's content. "What's that?"

"Records on some trades they made, though it's in codes so I have no idea what the trade is about, for now," Shinichi muttered. "The most recent trade happened last week. It also states another one is happening in three days."

"Maybe it's drugs?"

Shinichi stiffened.

"Or weapons." Kaito quickly added.

"Either is likely." Shinichi shut the file and placed it back where he found it. He left the table and began scrutinizing the shelves against the walls, though there was nothing but rubbish on them, as far as Kaito could tell.

Kaito looked back at the file, contemplating. Giving his civilian status, he couldn't possibly ask whether everything here was related to the Black Organization...

"Is this the police matter that you've talked about?"

Shinichi hummed. "Not what I expected."

Huh? "What do you mean?"

"...Besides the ghost rumour that Nakamori mentioned, there were others that were circulating and keeping people away."

Is he changing the topic? "Like what?"

"Witchcrafts, curses, or... experiments." Shinichi paused. "Witnesses claimed they saw the lakes that goes downstream from this building turned black or green a couple of times."

Kaito was almost tempted to believe in those rumours if he didn't know Akako was currently in England with Hakuba right now... Unless she knew some spells that could teleport herself back and do her weird things here. But given the evidences of these illegal trades and whatnots, Kaito trusted Akako enough to know she wouldn't be a part of it, despite how creepy she could be sometimes (he was still dumbfounded to this day to why Hakuba was willing to accept her like that).

"So... What were you expecting in the first place?"

Shinichi stared at Kaito over his shoulder.

Seconds passed so long it felt like minutes. Kaito cleared his throat. "Uh... Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Nothing." Shinichi glanced away.

"You didn't answer my question."

"I don't see why I have to tell you either.

Kaito inwardly sighed. "Fine. Whatever it is, maybe there's something more we can find in there." Kaito pointed at the rounded corner of the room that led to another door.

Shinichi abandoned the crushed soda can on the shelves and followed the direction to where Kaito pointed. There was a door like Kaito mentioned, but it was passcode lock; not as easily accessible as it was to the room they were in.

"It's locked," Shinichi grumbled out the obvious and leaned an ear towards the door. "I can't hear anything from here either."

"Let me try." Kaito bent down to the glowing keypad. Ha. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. He recognised this system like the few museums he had broken into before. He just needed to disable it and it should do the trick.

The only problem was Shinichi's intense gaze on him.

"It looks so difficult and complex," Kaito lied and heaved a sad sigh. "But I think I can try to unlock it, even though I'm obviously just a normal civilian."

"Aren't you a magician?" Shinichi drawled. "Don't you know how to unlock things?"

"Oh— Yes. A civilian who happens to be a magician." Kaito gave a thumbs up. "That's why I THINK I can do it."

"Ok," was all Shinichi said (and Kaito thanked heaven for that). He pulled out another pair of gloves from his pocket. "Use this."

"Thanks." Kaito accepted it, though he had his Kid's gloves on him as well.

He made a show of trying to put the rubbery and sticky gloves on that Shinichi grew bored and went back to the shelves to inspect those soda cans again. Taking the opportunity, Kaito whipped out his tools from his sleeves and began his habitual tinkering.

Ten seconds. Three dying beeps. The glow disappeared.

"Done."

"That's fast," Shinichi commented when he returned to Kaito's side.

"Beeeeeecause luck is on our side." Kaito laughed. And not waiting for Shinichi to say anything more that could risk his identity, Kaito pushed open the door.

The sensors acted again, lighting up the next pitch-black room and revealing rows and rows of guns, grenades and boxes of bullets. And on the other side of the large room were piles and piles of blank paper, which were going to be used for creating counterfeit money with the big printing machine behind. Next to the machine were big bottles of black and green ink.

"I think this should explain everything," Kaito said.

They headed to different direction; Shinichi checking the weapons and Kaito looking at the papers. Kaito had to admit these were of good quality and the criminals would definitely reap what they harvested from their investments. But too bad their dreams were gone and they would be spending at least twice of their lifetime in jail for all these smuggling and counterfeiting crimes—

Make that thrice if Kaito count in the fake paintings and jewels too.

At the blind spot of the room, Kaito found a high stack of famous paintings, and next to them on the floor were at least three dozen of Big Jewels encased in a large transparent glass box. Being more familiar in this line, he could tell with one look they were all fakes.

"Jewels?"

Kaito jolted from his squatting position, his heart nearly leaping out of his mouth. He half turned, scowling. "You scared the hell out of me."

"Why? Are you planning to steal something?"

Kaito tried to look offended. "Of course not."

"Are they real?" Shinichi gestured his head at the gems.

"The answer is obvious, isn't it?" Kaito muttered (whilst trying not to choke on his nervousness). "If they are into the business of printing counterfeits, these stuffs got to be too."

Shinichi looked amused. "A nice deduction."

Kaito scowled at Shinichi's head after he turned away. Is he being sarcastic or what?

Whatever. Kaito whipped out his phone and took a couple of pictures. Regardless if Shinichi were to bring down these bad guys or not, he should at least keep a note on these forgeries; if a similar jewel came up on the news, he would double check its authenticity rather than holding a heist for nothing—

A sudden slam from the door.

A series of gasps.

Kaito turned.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

Remaining in his squatting position, Kaito crawled across the room and peeked his head from behind the money printer.

Aw crap.

Two men. Two guns. Both pointing at Shinichi.

"I SAID WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!" and "RAISE YOUR HANDS!" were both screamed at the same time.

Shinichi obeyed the second command while keeping his lips sealed.

No Soccer ball this time to save your life. Kaito thought mockingly as he ditched his rubbery gloves.

One of the men turned to his partner. "You know what, let's just shoot him before the others find out that someone came—"

A flick of his wrist and with his card gun in hand, Kaito shot at the ceiling lights.

The room turned to an abyss.

"What the?!" A cocking sound from a gun.

"Oi! Don't shoot! Unless you want to accidentally set the grenades off, idiot!"

Memorising every position, Kaito rushed out from his hiding spot and grabbed what he knew was Shinichi's wrist, pulling him along as he made a dash towards the door.

Before the lights in the first room flickered back on, Kaito shot them out again; they weren't needed anyway. He continued running past the table and out of the room, the only comfort he could find amidst this havoc was the warmth of Shinichi's wrist and his mint-scented breath—

"Shit." Kaito clicked his tongue, staring at the darkness on the other end of the stairs. "The mirror door is closed."

"Look." Shinichi flashed his phone's light to their right. "There's another stairs here."

"I guess it's a risk we have to—"

Multiple gun shots rung in the air, and Kaito thought he felt a bullet flew past the top of his head.

No words were needed as they rushed up to wherever the stairs led them too. But like the other stairs in the abandoned building, it was long and seemingly endless. Kaito was two seconds away of giving up when he felt a faint wind brushing his cheeks before the pale light from the dark sky touched their skin.

They reached the roof.

Slipping his card gun up his sleeves before Shinichi noticed, Kaito panted, "Now what?"

Another gunshot rung in the quiet night and the echoes of the thunderous footsteps continued, only that they were getting louder.

It was Shinichi's turn as he pulled Kaito's wrist, dragging them to the roof's ledge; five level of floors but with the height of ten. Kaito gulped, his surprise turned wary as the tip of their feet inches away from nothing. There was no way they would go without at least a broken spine if they jump down.

Unless...

Shinichi grabbed the front of Kaito's shirt.

"Use your damn glider."

"Uh— Huh?" Kaito blinked rapidly. "My what?"

"Kaitou Kid's glider! I'm sure you have it on you now!"

Shinichi was right on the mark, but what Kaito didn't understand was how he figured about his identity? Did he notice the card gun?

But there was no more time to think or waste.

Two sounds of gunshots.

It was do or die.

Kaito knocked his left shoulder, sending his hidden cape flying out from the back of his shirt before solidifying into wings. Aoko's weight worked before, but Kaito wasn't sure if Shinichi's would. He kept the hesitation to himself and showed a smirk.

"Bridal style?"

Shinichi scowled. "Are there other options?"

"Nope."

Scooping Shinichi up, Kaito jumped off the roof and glided his way towards the forest that stretched infinitely beyond the dark horizon.

But Kaito's worry wasn't unwarranted — the glider indeed couldn't manage both of their weights. And Mother Nature hadn't been kind too. The wind's direction was going against their favour, and before they knew it, they flew down instead of straight after a distance and went crashing into the forest below.

.

.

"Thanks. I owe you one."

"My only request is don't meddle with my future heists anymore, little detective."

"...Ok." .

.

Kaito had no idea how long he passed out, or maybe he didn't and felt like he did, but no matter the case, the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Shinichi, his face dark and earnestly serious as he stared at whatever that was in front of the bushes they were currently hiding in.

It was one of the men earlier.

"So did you find anything?" the man said into the walkie talkie.

A static. "I found a bike. Maybe it belongs to Kid and his accomplice."

"Get rid of it."

"Of course. And what about you? Found anything?"

"No. The ground's all messed up and I can't tell what any of the marks are."

"...Why do you think Kid is here anyway?"

The man shrugged, as if his partner could see it. "Maybe he wants to find a new hideout? But we got it first."

A static laugh. "Anyway, should we tell this to the others?"

"No. What if they pretend to make a big fuss and use this opportunity to cut our shares in the profit?" The man lowered his voice. "It's not like that thief can report us when he's a criminal himself."

"You're right."

"Let's forget about it." The man gave his surrounding one last look. "I'm going back to the hideout right now."

"Ok. I'm coming back too."

Until the sound of the man's footsteps was completely gone, Kaito heaved out a sigh of relief.

Shinichi did too, but more discreetly. "The coast is clear." He glanced at Kaito. "And you're awake."

"So I did pass out."

Shinichi nodded. "You landed headfirst."

Kaito groaned, the thumping headaches coming as if cued. "No wonder."

Shinichi brushed the leaves away from his face and stepped out of the bush, not without checking the direction where the man left once more. He put out a hand for Kaito.

"Thanks for the offer but I can't move," Kaito admitted much to his reluctance. His entire body was aching so much that he had trouble lifting his arm.

Surprisingly, Shinichi didn't complain. He bent forward and pulled Kaito up by the arm, but now all of Kaito's aches turned to jolts of pain.

"Ow, ow." Kaito made a dying whale noise as he struggled to keep his balance. The last thing he wanted was to fall on Shinichi.

"Your leg is bleeding." Shinichi widened his eyes. "I didn't notice it when I drag you behind the bushes."

"Bleeding? It must be just a scratch— Oh damn I am bleeding." Kaito sighed. He couldn't tell from the darkness, but he could feel the dampness of his blood soaking the bottom of his pants. "This sucks.”

"Clearly."

"For your information, my landing is always perfect. This is the only exception."

"I didn't ask."

"Just thought you should know."

Ignoring him, Shinichi helped Kaito out of the bushes and set him down on the forest floor. Kaito didn't notice before, but when the sky cleared and some light miraculously managed to cast through the forest overhead, he spotted a bruise on Shinichi's right cheek.

He didn't go unscathed either.

"Are you okay though?"

"Nothing as bad as yours." Shinichi unclipped Kaito's cape.

"What are you doing? That's our only mode of transport."

"Based on the current circumstances, there is no point for the glider now." Shinichi put out a hand. "Give me a pen knife. Or whatever tool you have to cut your cape."

"Why?"

"A bandage for your injury."

Jii would be so mad, but was there really a choice? Kaito sighed and flicked his wrist, producing a penknife like what Shinichi wanted.

There was no warning or whatsoever when Shinichi began wrapping the cape around the opening of Kaito's wound. He dug his fingers into the ground and suppressed a groan. He needed a distraction from the pain, but Shinichi wasn't giving him any either so Kaito had to find it himself.

"He— Hey, how did you know that I'm Kid?"

"Why don't you guess?"

"Don't you love to show off their deductions?" Kaito mumbled. "Just enlighten me."

"I don't mind seeing your confused face."

"What you're seeing now is my super-in-pain face, not confused."

"Sorry," Shinichi suddenly said, which ironically made Kaito confused.

"For what?" Kaito asked warily.

"For this."

Shinichi finished the bandage with a tight knot and it almost sent Kaito's soul out of his body. He grabbed the remaining cloth of his cape and pressed it into his face, muffling his groan.

"Okay, I'm done."

"You— You're going to kill me first before I even bleed to death," Kaito snapped. When Shinichi ignored him and returned the penknife, Kaito continued, "Was it my card gun that gave it away?"

Wiping whatever off his forehead, Shinichi slumped onto the floor next to Kaito and heaved a sigh. "It's before that."

"So that jewel question was a taunt?"

"Yes."

Kaito gave Shinichi a withering look. "Then was it the lock? When I managed to disable it so fast that even the Detective of The East couldn't believe it."

Shinichi rolled his eyes. "Before that too."

"What?" Kaito sighed irritably. "Just tell me already."

"I can consider, if you tell me why you came back to the building in the first place."

Kaito blinked. That was an unexpected trade. "Didn't I say I lost—"

"You and I clearly know that I don't believe in the lie at all."

Kaito scoffed. "Why do you want to know anyway? I'm there for my own business."

"Did that man hit the jackpot?" Shinichi raised an eyebrow. "Are you really looking for a new hideout?"

"No."

A tug played at the corner of Shinichi's lips. "But that's the only reason I can think of for you to be there."

The question suddenly got Kaito remembering about the unspoken reason to why Shinichi was there, too. He said it was police matters, but it all didn't turn out to be what he expected...? Since Shinichi already knew his identity, Kaito supposed it was alright to be frank:

"Are those people related to the Black Organization?"

Shinichi's face turned into a blank. "What?"

"The Black Organization, or whatever that you used to call them."

Shinichi lowered his gaze. "No. But maybe they are inspired by them. Who knows?"

That didn't sound comforting. Kaito frowned. "So were you investigating if these jackasses are part of the Black Organization?"

Shinichi nodded, much to Kaito surprise — Not by his answer, but his willingness to admit it so quickly.

"I've never stopped finding any possible traces of them even after their downfall," Shinichi explained. "So when I heard the rumours, I thought it might be plausible... with the experiments and all. But seeing their operations — the sloppy hideout and the way they handle their trades — I figured it wasn't them, though that doesn't mean they aren't my concern too."

Hah. That was why. Kaito nodded. Shinichi's reason totally made sense, and now Kaito only feared for his embarrassment if he explained his. So why was he here? Because his gut senses told him there was more to the abandoned building. But why did he care? Because Kudo Shinichi was also investigating this. And how did that matter?

Kaito honestly didn't know.

But it was more important to make sure Shinichi didn't know.

"Speaking of which..." Kaito jabbed a thumb towards the direction of the building. "What are we going to do about them? Do you have your police mates to call for backup?"

"I lost my phone."

"It's okay, I have—" Kaito's grin faded as he stared at his cracked and black screen after fishing his phone out of his pocket.

Shinichi didn't bother waiting for Kaito to finish his sentence. "We might have to stay over the night and figure it out tomorrow."

"Isn't it too late?"

"Their next trade is three days later; there's still some time before anything goes out of their hideout."

"So are we gonna stare at each other until the sun rises?"

"You should sleep," Shinichi suggested after glancing at Kaito's bandaged leg, his face, and then his leg again.

"I don't need sleep," Kaito said, and shook his head. "Or more like I can't sleep with you around me."

"I'm not interested in you."

"Touché. But what I meant was because you know I'm Kid."

"I'm not going to do anything about your other identity." Shinichi crossed his arms. "I promised you, didn't I?"

"Thanks. I owe you one."

"My only request is don't meddle with my future heists anymore, little Detective."

"...Ok."

Ah. The realisation came a little late, but now Kaito remembered it and not as a dream. The blurriness of the memory and the throbbing pain in his head definitely didn't help, and maybe sleep was really what Kaito needed.

"Are you not going to tell me how you figured my identity out?" Kaito tried for the last time.

"No."

"Fine. The conversation is now boring and I'm really going to sleep." Kaito scooted his butt and laid on his back, not before gathering his cape and crumbling them into a ball to use it as a make-shift pillow.

After getting comfortable in his position, Kaito glanced at Shinichi, who was still sitting cross-legged by his side. "Anyway, it might be tempting, but don't watch me sleep."

"That's the last thing I'll ever do."

"Before you die. So it means you'll rather watch me sleep than die."

Kaito turned on his side, back facing Shinichi as he began pretentiously snoring.

It was nice to have the last word in.

.

.

"Kid."

Kaito — Kaitou Kid — glanced away from the night view, his cape flapping wildly as he made a suave turn to his new companion on the roof.

"Hello, little detective."

"It's all done," Edogawa Conan said.

With all that scuffle earlier, it was amazing to see Conan only with a bandage on his cheek. Even Kaito suffered worse when he wasn't the main star of the show; he managed to temporarily fix the large gash on his right arm after stealing some supplies from a nearby hospital, though Kid's costume covered his imperfections perfectly.

"Is that Shuichi guy alright?" Kaito asked, while keeping his tone nonchalant for the better part. "He received quite a nasty shot in the stomach."

"He's fine."

"That's good."

That Shuichi guy was one of many people Kaito disguised as per Conan's request during the final showdown with the Black Organization. But even though Kaito didn't interact or personally know him, it would still disturb him if something bad had happened to the person he copied his face from.

"So... it's really done, that Organization of yours."

Conan nodded, his face remained solemn. Even after three hours had passed since everything, he still seemed stuck in that war.

"Are you going back to your original self soon?" Kaito smirked, trying to dispel their current mood to a better one. "I'll miss staring down at you like this. And also, a pity that I can't disguise you so freely anymore."

"Funny," Conan sneered.

"Shouldn't you be thanking me instead?"

That put things back into perspective for Conan. He gave a resigned smile. "Thanks. I owe you one."

"My only request is don't meddle with my future heists anymore, little detective."

"...Ok."

"I guess this is the last time we will ever talk like this." Kaito tipped his hat up. "Don't miss me."

"On a serious note," Conan said, looking very seriously so. "If you ever need my help, I'm willing to give it to you, just as much as you did when I asked."

"Thanks, but as a Kaitou, I prefer to do things alone."

"My offer still stands."

Kaito raised two fingers to his eyebrow as a salute. "Take care, little detective."

He leaned back, falling off the roof with grace before his cape turned to wings.

It was an amazing exit.

But most important of all, his landing was perfectly done.

.

.

"...roba. Oi Kuroba. Wake up."

"Ugh, give me five more minute…"

A sigh. "The two men seem to be on the move."

Kaito flung open his eyes.

Everywhere was still dark—

Like on that roof.

"De— Detective?" Kaito blinked, staring at Shinichi's face above his. "You've grown... bigger."

Shinichi frowned, moving his face away from Kaito and stood up from his squatting position. "What are you talking about?"

"Uh, nothing." Kaito sniffed and sat up. "What happened?"

"I said the two men seem to be on the move." Shinichi gestured his head over to the building's direction. "I thought to ask you to come and... see." He suddenly looked hesitant as he glanced at Kaito's bandaged leg. "I hope your sleep rejuvenated you a little."

"Yeah, I'm feeling better now," Kaito said, which was the truth. "But I need a hand."

Shinichi stuck his arm out for Kaito to lift himself off the ground. He dusted his legs and attempted a stretch. The bleeding had stopped for now, but it still ached when he tried to move, though it was nothing that Kaito or Kaitou Kid couldn't endure.

Shinichi took the lead as they manoeuvred their way down the forest path and towards the building. The sun hadn't risen, but there were signs of activities from the birds and bugs in the forest. It made Kaito wonder how long he had slept.

"Have you been keeping a lookout the entire time?" Kaito asked.

"Yes."

"You didn't sleep?"

"No." Shinichi gave Kaito a glance. "Your snoring was too loud for me."

A second ago Kaito was feeling bad, but he wasn't anymore. "I can sue you for defamation."

"By all means—" Shinichi stopped and raised his hand (and this time Kaito was quick to realize before he knocked into Shinichi again).

They were a few steps away from the end of the forest.

Exchanging a silent signal, they crouched together before making a dash out of the forest, past a small field, and towards the row of thick bushes that surrounded the side of the building. Ignoring the pain from his leg, Kaito kneeled on one knee to elevate himself better and observed from behind their hiding spot.

True to what Shinichi said, the two men were standing in the front yard outside the building, one looking at his watch while the other was on his phone.

"Are they waiting for something?" Kaito whispered. "Do you think they changed their trading time?"

Shinichi shook his head next to Kaito. "They don't have any goods with them, but I can't say for sure."

The sun was slowly rising, taking shadows and darkness away with its light. Kaito used the opportunity and peeped at Shinichi. He looked tired but focused, but what Kaito couldn't believe was how his hair remained the same throughout the entire day and night.

Life's fair like that.

"There's a van."

"Huh— Oh, yeah. A van." Kaito regained his composure, acting as if he totally wasn't distracted and thinking about Shinichi's hair three seconds ago. He looked over just in time to watch the said van driving into the front yard of the building. After parking, three men got off; the driver twirling with the key like how Kaito did for his bike.

Aw, Kaito missed his bike.

"I think they are changing shifts," Shinichi said.

"If only there is a way we can get onto that van." Kaito pulled out his card gun from his sleeve and checked his cartridge. "Hm, I only have two shots left. Should I try?"

"No," Shinichi snapped. "You're injured. They are armed. Or at least two of them are. It's a risk we can't take."

"Is that concern I hear, detective?"

"It's dread." Shinichi sent Kaito a disdainful look. "I don't want to carry your dead body back."

Kaito kept his card gun grudgingly. "Then now what?"

Shinichi touched his chin, thinking. "We can—"

"What the hell!"

In sync, they looked at each other before raising their heads like two rabbits looking out of their burrow, trying to detect the cause for the yell.

Kaito gasped.

Mochi?!

Failing for who-knows-how-many-times, the driver's comrades tried to swat Mochi away as it flew up, out of their reach, before swooping down to peck the driver's face again and again until he finally dropped his key onto the ground. Before they could react, Mochi snatched the keys with its beak and angled its flight towards Kaito and Shinichi's direction.

It dropped the key onto Kaito's hand and flew away again.

"Wh—Who is there!" one of the men exclaimed, noticing Kaito and Shinichi's heads above the bushes.

"Shit, is it Kid?"

"Kid? Like Kaitou Kid?!"

But their conversation didn't continue, and neither did they manage to pull out their guns to start a war, because at the very next second, they were all swarmed by a flock of birds; their hands too busy trying to protect their face and eyes from being pecked on.

"Mochi!" Kaito exclaimed to the sky. "Our life saviour—"

Shinichi grabbed Kaito's wrist, pulling him up. "Let's run already!" he yelled.

Registering the chance, they jumped over the bushes, sprinting across the front yard and towards the van.

One of the men was a little smarter than the rest — he suddenly laid flat on the ground, his face briefly away from the attacking birds as he whipped out a gun from the back of his pants.

But Kaito noticed it too. Before he pulled his card gun out, he tossed the key to Shinichi and then shot, hitting the man's gun away and out of reach.

As if realizing what they missed, more birds swooped down and attacked that man.

"Get on!" Shinichi already started the van.

Kaito did.

As Shinichi reversed the vehicle to get back on the road, Kaito unrolled the window and whistled a special tune only his trained doves would recognise. A flutter of white, and in a second Mochi flew into the van and settled its wings on Kaito's headrest.

Shinichi sped off.

Kaito let the silence fully sink in before ruining it with a heartfelt sigh.

"What a fantastic morning exercise." Kaito waved his card gun in the air. Maybe he should save his last card shot as a memento.

"…How many doves do you own?" Shinichi asked.

Kaito watched the wing mirror. The birds were still attacking, but after Mochi left the group, some started to disperse, as if the fun was over for them.

"12."

"That looks nowhere close to 12," Shinichi retorted. "The number's got to be at least three times of that."

"None of them were my remaining 11 doves." Kaito laughed and patted Mochi's head. "Mochi probably made some friends in the forest and gathered them for help."

Shinichi looked like he wanted to comment on something but didn't in the end.

"Oh." Kaito snapped his fingers. "I know the answer now."

Shinichi's eyes remained on the road. "Know what?"

"It's Mochi, isn't it?" Kaito grinned. "Because clearly, only the amazing Kaitou Kid can raise a dove so smart and well. That’s how you figured my identity out."

"I won't deny that your dove is smart, but no. It has nothing to do with it."

"Can't you just tell me already?" Kaito grumbled.

Shinichi shook his head, but a small smile danced across his lips until they disappear. "Why don't you be useful and find me a phone. I need to call for backup before they take everything and escape."

"Oh, right." Kaito straightened, deciding to focus what was more crucial on hand. He leaned forward and patted around the bottom of his seat, trying to feel for a secret phone. But remembering Shinichi's opinion about these men in comparison to the BO, he opened the glove compartment, revealing a dozen of phones, probably stolen.

"Nice," Shinichi said, which was a little funny because it sounded like what Kaito would say instead.

"Lady Luck is really shining on us." Kaito picked one out and switched it on. "The day can't get any better."

Shinichi gave Kaito a side-long glance. "Your leg is bleeding on the seat."

"...Damn. I almost forgot about that."

.

.

"Abandoned building discovered to be a criminal hideout." (Click More to Read)

It had been two days since that crazy night and three hours since an official statement was released to public. And given that time gap in announcement, there were more rumours than legitimate news online, but Kaito read them all, even though the details were either repetitive and the same.

And that was good, of course. Because what he feared more was finding something new, like the possibility that one of the criminals mentioned Kid was at the scene or something.

But so far there was none; either these men had completely forgotten about his existence and blamed the birds for their downfall or Shinichi had kept everything perfectly under wraps—

"Kaito!"

"Aoko?" Kaito scooted himself to the side of the campus bench so his childhood friend could sit beside him. "What are you doing here? Don't you have lessons now?"

"It's cancelled and I'm on my way back to the dorm." Aoko tilted her head. "And what are you doing here?"

"I finished my assignments so I'm just chilling outside." (He had been in bed all day yesterday because of his leg and he needed a breather.)

"Oh— Did you change your phone?"

"Yeah." Kaito twirled his new phone around for show. "I accidentally broke my old one." Though luckily, he had everything on cloud, including the photos he took yesterday.

"I see that you're also reading the recent news too; I was actually going to text you about it." Aoko stared at Kaito's phone screen, snorting. "Finally something that isn't about Kaitou Kid."

Kaito grimaced and tilted his screen away. "I have the freedom to read whatever I want."

Aoko stuck out her tongue, but her cheeky expression didn't last when she returned her attention to the news again. "Anyway, who knew the abandoned building we explored just two weeks ago would house such dangerous people! Gosh."

"Well—"

"Luckily we heeded Kudo-kun's advice and left." Aoko rubbed the side of her arms nervously. "Although it would be a great scoop, the risk is too much."

"In case you forgot, it was I who suggested to leave first."

"Fine, fine, Bakaito. Don't be jealous." She gestured her head to his phone. "I'll leave you to your reading and we can text later. I'm going back to finish up my projects first."

Kaito still had a lot of things to say, and one of the things was that he was not jealous. But he arranged the priorities in his head and pulled Aoko's bag, stumbling her back again.

"Wait, I have a question."

"What?"

"You and that Kudo detective exchanged emails, right? Did you tell him any weird info about me?"

Aoko raised an eyebrow. "What is there for me to say?"

"I don't know. Just— Anything. Did you tell him anything?"

"I didn't. In fact, we didn't talk much. He only sent me the photos and I asked for his permission to use his quote."

"Really?" Kaito frowned. "That's it?"

The glint in Aoko's eyes made Kaito a little uncomfortable. "Is there something you want me to tell him for you?"

"No."

"Or you can tell him yourself if you want. I have his email address—"

"Bye Aoko." Kaito waved her off and pretentiously stared his phone, as if it contained the answer to the existence of the universe.

Aoko chuckled. "Bye Kaito." She waved and skipped her way towards the direction of her dorm.

Kaito glanced up, watching Aoko's back disappear behind the school building.

Besides worrying if Kid's presence at the abandoned building would be exposed, Shinichi's early discovery about his identity was also bugging him as well. He had been betting all on the chance that Aoko had mentioned something crucial to Shinichi, but if she didn't, then how on earth did he figure it out?

A chime came from Kaito's phone and he almost didn't recognise it as his ringtone since he just changed it. He looked at the caller ID.

Unknown number? Kaito frowned, alert on the rise.

He picked up the call. "Hello?"

"Is this Kuroba Kaito?"

Kaito blinked, his heart lurched. "...Detective?"

"We found your bike."

"Holy shit." Kaito flung up from his seat, earning curious stares from other students. That was two surprises in a row, the first being receiving a call from Kudo freaking Shinichi. "You serious?"

"Do I sound like I'm kidding?"

"I thought it's a goner," Kaito said. "Or even if it's not, it'll be kept as an evidence to prosecute Kid."

"I've settled the Kid problem. Don't worry."

"Oh." Kaito managed to hide his third surprise well. "Thanks for that."

"When are you free?"

The question got Kaito a little more flustered than he should be. "Why?"

"You need to come to the headquarters to fill in some forms before you can take your bike back."

"Right, of course." Kaito was tempted to slap a hand over his forehead. "I can come over now." He paused. "But are you free? Is your murder magnet not activated today?"

Kaito could perfectly imagine Shinichi's eye roll. "I'm free now."

"Okay. See you later."

Cutting the call, Kaito made his way towards the metro station (and till this day he wasn't sure if he was actually excited to reunite with his bike or at the thought of meeting Kudo Shinichi in a while.)

.

.

Even if all the other officers around them were busy shouting around and finding clues to solve their cases, there was no telling who would be watching, listening or both. So during the entire documentation process, Kaito burrowed his face deep into the papers while Shinichi silently watched across the table.

And it didn't help when their faces looked alike—

That thought gave Kaito a new guess.

So the moment when they were alone and standing at the parking lot outside the headquarters (and also after Kaito had spent three minutes cradling his bike and looking for scratches), Kaito spoke:

"I know the answer now, and this must be it."

Shinichi stuck a hand into his work pants, eyebrows raised. "You're still guessing?"

"Duh."

"Didn't you mention there are some things that are best to remain a mystery?"

It was such a long time ago since they had that conversation during one of his heists, and Kaito briefly wondered how Shinichi remembered his words so well. Kaito cleared his throat. "That doesn't count when the mystery involves my identity and my ability of hiding it."

"Fair point," Shinichi said. "So what's your guess?"

Kaito pointed at Shinichi before tapping a finger on his own cheek. "It's because we have the same face."

Shinichi blinked.

Did I get it right?

Shinichi took a step back and scrutinised Kaito from head to toe. "To be honest, I don't see how we are that similar..."

Kaito wrinkled his nose. "What are you talking about? I don't need to put on a mask to disguise you and fool everyone."

"Yes, but no. This so-called similarity of our faces wasn't what that made me figure out your identity," Shinichi said, before he muttered almost incoherently under his breath, "besides, it's not only you that have the same face as me. That Okita..."

"What?"

Shinichi sighed and run a hand through his hair. "It's not the answer," was his final verdict.

"I officially give up." Kaito stuck his hands into his pockets. "Please. Just tell me already." (He barely refrained himself from admitting how he had been thinking about this the entire time.)

Shinichi bit his lip.

A pause.

An intake of breath.

"It was the way you stood when I saw you and Nakamori that day," Shinichi said. "It screamed to me that you're Kaitou Kid."

Kaito was too dumbfounded to even speak.

"Even the way you stand now." Shinichi gestured a hand over at Kaito, continuing, "You look just like the first time I met you as Conan and the last time I met you as Conan, too. You've been Kaitou Kid for years, Kuroba. You're not just Kaitou Kid; you've become Kaitou Kid — his essence and everything."

Kaito straightened, feeling extremely conscious with all the movements he was making now. "Just.. from this?"

Shinichi nodded. "It was the first thing that ignited my suspicions. The following things that happened only continued to confirm my theory... Especially the lock. Your acting is ridiculous."

Kaito scowled, whatever tension in the air he felt vanished. "Wow, thanks."

"Are you satisfied with my answer?"

"Of course not," Kaito muttered. Raising a hand, he copied one of Kid's signature wave movements. "But I always made sure there's a difference in whatever I do as Kid." An ace of heart between his fingers and gone the next. "Kid is still him. And I'm still... me."

"So Kaito is Kaito after all!"

He recalled Aoko said that to him after that stupid Sun Halo incident a long time ago. Kaito clenched his fist and stuck it back into his pocket.

Could it be that she also...?

"You may not notice, but those differences you created have turned into a part of you now." Suddenly, Shinichi looked tired as his eyes drooped at whatever memories that flashed across his mind. "It took me a long time before I got rid of Conan's manners and routines; I understand what it feels like."

Kaito crossed his arms. "But what if I don't mind it?"

"Given that you're good friends with Nakamori, I don't see why you'll be. Unless you're planning to admit your identity to her anytime soon." Shinichi lowered his voice. "She's honestly smarter than you think."

There was nothing Kaito could say to argue back.

"To stop the change, you have to stop being Kid." Shinichi face turned solemn, almost a replica of the Edogawa Conan that Kaito met on their last encounter:

"If you ever need my help, I'm willing to give it to you, just as much as you did when I asked."

"My offer still stands, you know." Shinichi finally said.

The arms around Kaito's chest tightened, and his thoughts stretched as long as the growing silence. Even after so many years, Kaito never failed to wake up every day and wonder if he could ever bring Snake down, avenge his father or even find Pandora; he still had some trouble putting trust in himself that he didn't see a point to put it in others.

But there was something about the way Shinichi stood before him, looking so determined as if he was born to be, and it made Kaito think, crazily, that if he really had to choose one person to put his trust in, that person would be...

"Regardless, I've said what I wanted to say." The determination in Shinichi's eyes faltered and he looked... deflated? Kaito couldn't tell, or understand, why the detective would be feeling that too—

"How is your injury?" Shinichi said instead, already changing the subject.

In return, Kaito observed the fading bruise on Shinichi's cheek; he supposed he didn’t have to ask back the question.

"This is definitely concern I’m hearing, right detective?" Kaito smirked, though Shinichi remained unamused. He wiggled his leg for show. "As you can see, I'm better now."

"Good."

Kaito leaned against his bike, hoping for both physical and mental support. Every second that passed was making it harder for Kaito to return back to that moment...

He bit his lip.

A pause.

An intake of breath.

"Thanks, detective."

"...For what?"

"For that offer of yours again." Kaito nodded. "I'll think about it."

Shinichi blinked, surprised.

But just when Kaito thought it was the end, Shinichi smiled, and it was completely unexpected that Kaito almost thought he imagined it.

"You know where to find me."

Kaito needed a while to regain his composure. "…But how will I know if you're free for me to find, murder-magnet?"

"Given your lovely intel, you should know better."

This time, Kaito allowed Shinichi to have the last word in, and he only grinned back in return.

.

.

Even though Aoko knew Kaito since childhood, it was still hard for her to understand him completely at times, especially given his erratic behaviours and attitude. But at least out of everything, Aoko did know one thing consistent about him, and it would be his love for his dad, magic, and doves...

And a specific bench on their campus too?

As usual after Aoko was released from her afternoon class, she spotted Kaito sitting alone on that same campus bench again, helmet by his side and phone in his hand. It wasn't as if he didn't have a dorm to rest in or friends to find, but then again, this was just another behaviour of his that Aoko didn't understand.

(But maybe it was partially her fault, because she never found the need or courage to ask Kaito for answers too.)

Aoko slowed her pace, trying to tiptoe her way towards the bench and give Kaito a scare. But when a white figure swooped down from the sky and landed on his lap, she was the one that got a shock instead.

A dove!

"Kaito!"

Kaito glanced up, his eyes widened and mouth parting about to speak.

"Wait!" Aoko raised a hand, stopping him before pointing at his dove. "Let me guess. Is it Pocky?"

Kaito grinned. "Nope."

"Mochi?"

Mochi cooed.

"Impressive. Not bad for your second try."

Aoko showed a peace sign and sat next to Kaito after he shifted in his position. "What is Mochi doing here?"

Kaito indirectly answered her as he pulled a string and unrolled the note that was tied to Mochi's foot.

Aoko leaned over, trying to see what was written on the note. But besides catching a glimpse of the neat handwriting, she couldn't derive anything else as Kaito turned half of his back towards her and covered the note in his hand.

"Please respect my privacy, Ahouko."

"But I want to know what that is!"

"No."

"Why?"

"Not going to tell you."

Aoko snickered. "Is it a love letter?" 

Kaito rolled his eyes. "Whatever you want to think." He stood up, taking his helmet and releasing Mochi back into the sky. "Anyway I have to go. Say hi to your dad for me when you visit him over the weekends."

Given the recent announcement of Kid's upcoming heist, Aoko wasn't sure about the plan anymore when she knew her dad wouldn't be at home much, but she didn't bother telling Kaito either. "Where are you going?" she asked instead, watching him from her seat.

"Finding the sender of the love letter."

Aoko crossed her arms with a huff. "Really?"

"Really."

"Fine, if that's the case. Please help me to tell that person I said hi too."

Kaito grinned. "Sure."

With that, he sped off. /end

[diabolikmosquito]

Just-Watched Thoughts on S3

Alright time to write this while I’m still here recovering so I can go to bed already. I might add more/clean this up once I get some proper sleep. Tagging it but putting Castlevania Season 3 spoilers under a cut just in case people haven’t got tags hidden and such. Here goes-

Overall I’m honestly just kinda shocked? I think it’s because a lot of things were easy to predict (that the cult might be trying to bring back Dracula, something was up with the Judge, Hector was obviously gonna fall for Lenore’s bs, etc.) so when things happened I didn’t see from a mile away.. 

When I was only like an episode or two in, things actually felt a little stunted to me? Something about it felt like “This is what people liked from before, right??” particularly with certain action or such, but I feel like it picked up pretty quickly from that. I’m still kinda in winding-down-emotions mode so I can’t really definitively say what storylines I liked and which ones I disliked for the most part. I liked Isaac’s, and the design of the... Hivemind Magician? Was all pretty sick. It felt like the first thing that was actually a massive challenge for him, and nearly overtook him, but he overcame it and even came out of it thinking through what he wanted for the future. It’s a nice change from seeing him steamroll anything that came his way. 

I like that Trevor and Sypha’s storyline ends up with them not getting their heroic grand time like they did last time. Yes, there were sacrifices made, but before it still felt grandiose: they’d worked together to kill Dracula, something the world didn’t even think possible for the most part. This time, they sacrificed a lot more and ultimately didn’t win a thing other than their own lives, and were helping a hidden monster in their process of killing other monsters. What a crushing thing for them to have to go through, and I think Trevor’s conversation with himself before (and later with said monster, ironically enough) about missing parts of his old non-heroic non-adventuring life was pretty somber and interesting. 

The whole Lenore/Hector route was exactly what’s expected from the beginning, but it was done well for what it was, and I don’t think they were trying to fool anyone with the direction it was headed. Carmilla’s plot was.. eh, more or less not much seemed to actually happen, but it did introduce us to the awesome vampire sisters so I’m more than down with it. I wish we got a little more about Saint Germain’s whole deal with that portal and such, who he was looking for and how he knows they’re still alive in there, but I assume that’s a next-season kind of thing. I’m gonna ramble if I write anymore so here’s a more concise/clear list:

Things I liked -  Trevor and Sypha’s chemistry! I thought it was good the first couple seasons (which apparently puts me in the minority?) but they felt much more compatible as a couple this time around. The little exchange about the “taste for rougher things in life” is wonderful, and I definitely snorted when she sleep-bapped him in the face. - The tidbits of funny dialogue! Seems to still be a show specialty. Some of them were understandably a bit funny (using “Nope! speedwalks away” in place of “shut it” is pretty good), and others weren’t funny but I just found it hilarious (e.g. Morana’s repeated fancily-stated things that boiled down to “... Lenore, seriously, TMI”) - The soundtrack! Not really any surprise, despite it not being the famous Symphony of the Night tracks people clamored for trust me I totally get that and despite it still not being released even from season 2 much less 3,  it was very nice to listen to.  - The vampire sisters! While it was obvious from the beginning Lenore was the “cutest/nonthreateningest-looking of the scary bunch but actually the scariest” one I liked the energy they all had, especially Striga and Morana and their relationship. I liked that we got to see Carmilla’s attitude bouncing off of other vampires who (while respecting her skill) also called her out for it from time to time. - The references! I’m sure there’s more and I’m a dumbass who only spots the obvious ones, but... the fact there’s demons that’re exactly ones out of the ol’ Symphony of the Night game again, like the Malachi and Fire Demon. It’s so dumb but I love shit like that, especially since they obviously stray far from the game canon and don’t have to do that but do it anyway. - Some of the action scenes. I cannot mention what I like without mentioning the parts that made me go “... Okay, yeah, that was badass.” You know the ones! When Cho busted that sword with her hands, when Sypha chopped that angel-like demon into pieces. ... A lot of the stuff Sypha did, actually, I’m glad she got some more epic moments to kick ass this season. I thought the earlier action scenes of the season were just alright, but by the last fight it was definitely starting to feel like that awesome dynamic fight style we saw in season 2. - The fact Dracula saw an opportunity to return and didn’t want to. Not much to say here other than the obvious - I feel like that’s extremely fitting, and I’m glad they made it clear without bringing him back and having him be angry/regret it or something like that. Without any dialogue, even. - The ending.. somewhat. It destroyed me a little on the inside, but I actually like that nobody really had a happy ending. Particularly if there could be another season, it feels really fitting. I’ve seen some people complaining “They ended up where they started! Trevor and Sypha are back on the road, Isaac’s traveling with his army, Alucard’s alone in the castle and Hector is a slave” but I couldn’t disagree more. Of course if you boil it down to the words themselves, it’s “the same,” but did ya see the sheer trauma literally everyone was put through? Obviously some had it worse than others (and we’ll fucking get to that) but nobody came out unscathed. Everyone’s now had some belief challenged or retreated further into a fear/mistrust that already existed - previous events planted the seed for it and the hell the cast went through gave it growth. 

Trevor and Sypha are going to have to challenge their goal they’d been following since working together/getting together: they can’t just go headlong adventuring and fixing people’s problems, because things like this can happen. Their new allies and the entire town were slaughtered or trapped somewhere, and the man they’d trusted and been helping this entire time was a serial killer, particularly of children. Alucard is drifting into a state of consciousness not unlike his father before he met Lisa, but potentially in a worse place since he’s witnessed and felt true kindness, but has retreated away from it even so due to the betrayal he’s suffered at an already-fragile time for him. Isaac has to reconsider what he’s going to do once he has his proper army, and even if it’s worth it to get his revenge or to carry out Dracula’s original plans. Saint Germain.. I mean, he’s in psychodelic hell searching for that person and presumably a way out, I assume it’s tragic. Hector’s learned a hard lesson in trusting and is going to have to figure out if his freedom is worth risking pain or death. Likewise I think the characters grow this way. Even if it was a happy ending, or an ending where everyone “wins” some small victory somehow, I think it’d ultimately have been worthless if nobody was fundamentally changed by the end of the season.

Things I didn’t like - The sex scenes. I’ve seen a lot of people like “If you’re gonna put in gratuitous sex then actually include Trevor and Sypha??” and I’m gonna have to disagree with that. While I love the ship and all, I’d like to give the benefit of the doubt and say sex scenes weren’t thrown around randomly or just to flex the rating - they were only tied to actual story, hence why I’m down with the bedroom stuff of the show’s main ship only being alluded to. However, I gotta say that the long broken-up sex scenes mixed with battle/action was not the way to do that. I think I know what they were going for (it definitely drove my anxiety up having those scenes back to back with intense action/violence, I can tell ya that!), but it just wasn’t a good idea. Yes, they were obviously made to be uncomfortable (particularly since I’m pretty sure one of them was dubious consent at best?) but that was reflected well just in a few key frames/actions - it didn’t need to be drawn out and mixed with the action. It made me want to skip through (I didn’t out of fear I’d miss battles, which isn’t really good design) and I’d like to bet parts of the finale are unwatchable for some. For the record, yes you could say “well they got into an adult-rated show, deal with it,” but the fact of the matter is up until now sexual violence/discomfort wasn’t heavy-handed and in-your-face like this. Non-sexual violence was definitely all over the whole series, but it’s still a bit like whiplash considering. Also, the fact people think the scene with Alucard was at all chill. I see it from a story standpoint (though I honestly think their motivations were weak and there’s other ways to betray someone/get their guard down), but I think the people going on about “power bottom” and this and that are forgetting that the absence of a no is not a yes, particularly with someone severely emotionally damaged after spending months alone not only without a support group but without any contact, immediately following the death of his father by his own hands. I’m no expert but I don’t think that’s someone in the proper state of mind to consent to anything sexual, even if there were a couple weeks or whatever of spending time with these new friends. He very well might’ve been on the way to a stress disorder before they turned his world upside-down and frankly I’m wondering how he’s going to be faring come the next season (assuming there is one.) That’s more of a fandom gripe than the show itself I suppose but it’s worth a mention. - The pacing. It’s hard to pinpoint it, but something about it felt off, especially in the first half. The best way I can describe it is when you pump the gas and brakes because your brakes aren’t working great and you’re loosening them up - maybe it was necessary to get things going, but it’s a bit destabilizing/odd for anyone in the car. I think it’s what contributed to that stunted sense I got until things picked up a little more. You can see it more in just how packed with stuff the latter half is, some things which could’ve been planned a bit better through the whole season. - Sumi and Taka. I honestly felt that they wanted to get in a way to have a punch-in-the-gut arc with Alucard (not a bad idea, I am one for tragedy), wanted to kill off some characters who were actually important, and decided to do these both with one stone. I don’t think they were successful on the second part, because these two absolutely contributed to the stunted feeling I had about some of the season. They had a good start in terms of backstory, and the idea of two people working together to fight vampires without having some big legend tied to their name to drive it (e.g. Speaker magicians, Belmont legacy, Alucard’s heritage), as well as a connection to/fleshing out of one of the nameless generals, sounded like a great concept. A great concept, but it was rushed I felt, to the point that their motivations for turning on him were so packed and squished in they just weren’t believable if we’re supposed to believe these two were sane. They had some sort of mental/trust issues due to their backstory - that’s fine, and could contribute some emotional problems. However if their distrust in Alucard had been given more time to fester and grow, more little comments of Alucard’s brushing off their attempts to learn about specific things, and more cues from him that could be misinterpreted by them as him causing trouble and lying (not just them not believing him by itself), it would be more believable that the past and misinterpretations of the present get into their head and poison their thoughts of him. You can plant a seed of doubt but just like any other character bonds, it has to be given time to grow. Alucard’s rapid bonding with them could be attributed to his loneliness, trauma, and need for a support system, but you can’t make that excuse for Sumi and Taka’s motivations going from “Hm.. I wonder what he isn’t telling us” to “We need to emotionally gut him and then kill him” basically overnight. Edit:

I forgot to add a conclusion last night, so I guess the TL;DR is season 3’s a good 7.5/10 for me, -1 for the overall pacing, -1 for missing a bit of the punch from before, and -0.5 because the last few episodes jumped me with a bat and I let it happen.

[thelittlesttimelord]

The Littlest Timelord: Cracks in Time Chapter 29

TITLE: The Littlest Timelord: Cracks in Time Chapter 29 PAIRING: No Pairing RATING: T CHAPTER: 29/? SUMMARY: A little girl escapes the Time War when the Timelord’s return in “End of Time Part 2″. The newly regenerated Doctor must now raise the little girl while trying to find out why cracks in time keep following them around.

[A/N - Prepare yourselves for fluff my friends, ‘cause these next few chapters are full of it.]

The Doctor and Elise exited the TARDIS.

“No, Amy, it's definitely not the fifth moon of Cindie Colesta. I think I can see a Ryman's,” the Doctor said.

An explosion came from inside the TARDIS and threw the two of them to the ground as the TARDIS started to take off by itself.

“Amy! Amy!” the Doctor yelled.

As the Doctor stared at the spot where the TARDIS once stood, Elise looked around them.

They were on earth obviously, but where?

The Doctor stood up and brushed himself off.

What were they supposed to do now? Where would they stay? How would they get the TARDIS back? What if they never got it back?

“Hey”, the Doctor said, kneeling in front of her, “Elise, look at me”.

Elise snapped out of her thoughts and looked at his calming green eyes.

“I will get Amy and the TARDIS back. I promise. It’ll be okay”, he told her, “This will just be a daddy/daughter trip, okay?”

Elise nodded.

“Now come here”, he said.

Elise wrapped her arms around his neck and the Doctor rubbed her back to try and keep her calm.

They just needed to find somewhere to stay while he figured out what they were going to do. The first thing the Doctor did was sonic an ATM to get some money.

He smiled remembering doing the same thing after he met Donna. The Doctor looked down at Elise as he remembered the other ginger that had magically appeared in his TARDIS.

He got them something to eat and checked them into a hotel for the night. If the TARDIS didn’t appear soon, he was going to have to go shopping for some new clothes for Elise.

Elise slept curled up into the Doctor’s side that night. She missed Amy and the little blue box she called home.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The next day, they wandered around the town for a while until the Doctor spotted a card sitting in the window of a shop. He picked it up and smiled, recognizing his companion’s hand writing.

They followed the directions to the house and rang the doorbell.

A man threw open the door and said, “I love you.”

The Doctor smiled. “Well, that's good, because I'm your new lodger. Do you know, this is going to be easier than I expected.” He took the fluffy pink keys from the man.

“But I only put the advert up today. I didn't put my address,” the man said.

“Well, aren't you lucky I came along? More lucky than you know. Less of a young professional, more of an ancient amateur, but frankly I'm an absolute dream.”

“Hang on a minute, mate. I don't know if I want you staying.” The man looked down at Elise. “Umm, the ad didn’t say anything about having kids”.

“Oh, well Elise is very well behaved”.

“She doesn’t cry or anything? Throw temper tantrums?”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that”.

Elise gave the man a small wave.

The man took the keys from the Doctor. “Give me back those keys. You can't have those.”

“Yes, quite right. Have some rent.” The Doctor handed the man a bag with money in it. He had of course keep some for himself and Elise, just in case they needed anything. “That's probably quite a lot, isn't it?” the Doctor asked, “Looks like a lot. Is it a lot? I can never tell.” The Doctor invited himself in and Elise followed behind him.

The lights upstairs flickered, giving Elise a bad feeling. There was something wrong about the upstairs.

“Don't spend it all on sweets, unless you like sweets,” the Doctor told him, “I like sweets. Oh!” The Doctor put his hands on the man’s shoulders and air kissed him on both cheeks. “That's how we greet each other nowadays, isn't it? I'm the Doctor. Well, they call me the Doctor. I don't know why. I call me the Doctor, too. Still don't know why. And this is Elise.”

“Craig Owens. The Doctor?”

“Yep. Who lives upstairs?”

“Just some bloke.”

“What's he look like?”

“Normal. He's very quiet.”

There was a loud crash.

“Usually.”

The Doctor entered Craig’s flat.

“Sorry, who are you again? Hello? Excuse me?”

The Doctor looked up and saw the stain on the ceiling. “Ah. I suppose that's dry rot?” he asked.

“Or damp. Or mildew.”

“Or none of the above.”

“I'll get someone to fix it.”

“No, I'll fix it. I'm good at fixing rot. Call me the Rotmeister. No, I'm the Doctor, don't call me the Rotmeister. This is the most beautiful parlor I have ever seen. You're obviously a man of impeccable taste.” The Doctor hopped up on the counter. “We can stay, Craig, can't we? Say we can.”

“You haven't even seen the room.”

“The room?”

“Your room.”

“My room? Oh, yes. My room.”

Elise tugged on his pant leg.

“Our room. Take us to our room.”

Craig led them to the room they would be staying in. “Yeah, this is Mark's old room. He owns the place. Moved out about a month ago. This uncle he'd never even heard of died and left a load of money in the will,” Craig said.

“How very convenient. This'll do just right. In fact…”

There was another loud crash from the flat above.

The Doctor touched his tongue with his index finger and tested the air. “No time to lose. I'll take it. Ah you'll want to see my credentials. There.” The Doctor pulled out his psychic paper and shower it to Craig. “National Insurance number. NHS number. References.”

“Is that a reference from the Archbishop of Canterbury?”

“I'm his special favorite. Are you hungry? I'm hungry.”

“I haven't got anything in.”

They went into the kitchen and the Doctor started raiding the fridge and cabinets. He and Craig talked as he cooked. “You've got everything I need for an omelette fines herbes, pour deux. So, who's the girl on the fridge?” the Doctor asked.

A photo of Craig and a woman sat next to a postcard with Vincent’s self-portrait.

Elise smiled sadly. She missed Vincent.

“My friend. Sophie,” Craig told him.

“Girlfriend?”

“A friend who is a girl. There's nothing going on.”

“Oh, that's completely normal. Works for me.”

“We met at work about a year ago, at the call center.”

“Oh really, a communications exchange? That could be handy.”

“Firm's going down though. The bosses are using a totally rubbish business model. I know what they should do. I got a plan all worked out. But I'm just a phone drone, I can't go running in saying I know best. Why am I telling you this? I don't even know you.”

“Well, I've got one of those faces. People never stop blurting out their plans while I'm around.”

“Right. Where's your stuff?”

“Oh, don't worry, it'll materialize. If all goes to plan.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Less than twenty minutes later, the omelets were gone and Elise was curled up in the Doctor’s lap.

“Oh, that was incredible. That was absolutely brilliant. Where did you learn to cook?” Craig asked.

“Paris, in the eighteenth century. No, hang on, that's not recent, is it? Seventeenth? No, no, no. Twentieth. Sorry, I'm not used to doing them in the right order.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you're a bit weird?”

“They never really stop. Ever been to Paris, Craig?”

“Nah. I can't see the point of Paris. I'm not much of a traveler.”

“I can tell from your sofa.”

“My sofa?”

“You're starting to look like it.”

“Thanks, mate, that's lovely. No, I like it here. I'd miss it, I'd miss…”

“Those keys.”

“What?”

“You're sort of fondling them.”

“I'm holding them.” Craig dropped them and got up.

“Right.”

“Anyway. These, these are your keys.” He picked up a key ring and held them out.

The Doctor got up with Elise in his arms. “We can stay?”

“Yeah, you're weird and you can cook and your daughter doesn’t scream her head off. It's good enough for me. Right.” Craig went through the keys. “Outdoor, front door, your door.”

“My door. My place. My gaff. Ha ha! Yes. Me with a key.”

“And listen, Mark and I, we had an arrangement where if you ever need me out of your hair, just give me a shout, okay?” Craig winked and the Doctor winked back, not understand the cue.

“Why would I want that?” the Doctor asked.

“In case you want to bring someone round. A girlfriend or, a boyfriend? Elise’s mother maybe?”

“Oh, Elise’s mother and I aren’t together, but I will. I'll shout if that happens. Yes. Something like, I was not expecting this! By the way, that. The rot. I've got the strangest feeling we shouldn't touch it.” He patted Craig on the shoulder and left the living room to put Elise to bed. He laid her down on the bed and covered her with the blanket.

Elise was out the moment her head hit the pillow. She slept more than the average Timelord, but maybe it was because she was so young.

He hoped she wouldn’t wake up while he was gone. He had some shopping to do.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The next morning, Elise woke up and sat up in the bed. She panicked for a moment before she remembered where she was.

At the foot of the bed was a small backpack (covered in a galaxy pattern of course) with a note on it.

“To: Ellie. From: Dad.”

She looked in it and found new clothes. There was also a sketchbook and some colored pencils. Elise got dressed, emptied the backpack except for the art supplies, and made her way into the living room to wait for the Doctor. She walked past the bathroom where Craig was waiting outside the door.

The Doctor was singing very loudly.

Craig knocked on the door. “Doctor.”

“Hello?”

“How long are you going to be in there?”

“Oh, sorry. I like a good soak.”

A loud banging noise came from upstairs.

“What the hell was that?” Craig asked.

“What did you say?” the Doctor asked him.

“I'm just going to go upstairs. See if he's okay.”

“Sorry?” Craig left the flat.

“What did you say?” the Doctor asked, “Craig?”

Elise heard a loud thumping sound come from the bathroom and she rolled her eyes.

The Doctor came running out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist and Elise followed after him.

The two of them met Craig near the stairs.

Elise rolled her eyes again when she saw the Doctor holding an electric toothbrush instead of his sonic screwdriver.

“What happened, what's going on?” the Doctor asked.

“Is that my toothbrush?” Craig asked him.

“Correct. You spoke to the man upstairs?”

“Yeah.”

“What did he look like?”

“More normal than you do at the moment, mate. What are you doing?”

“I thought you might be in trouble.”

Craig laughed. “Thanks. Well, if I ever am, you can come and save me with my toothbrush.”

A phone started ringing inside the flat.

Craig pushed past the Doctor to go and answer it.

The Doctor started to go upstairs as a blonde woman came in the front door.

“Oh! Hello,” she said, looking at the half-naked man and small child before her.

The Doctor came back down the stairs. “Ah! Hello. The Doctor.”

“Right.”

“You must be Sophie.”

The Doctor air kissed her cheeks like he had done with Craig.

Sophie looked at Elise. “And who might you be?” she asked.

“This is Elise. My daughter”. The Doctor softly smiled at her as he lovingly ran a hand over her hair.

“Daughter? Oh”.

The three of them went into the flat where Craig was talking to someone on the phone.

“No, Dom's in Malta. There's nobody around. Hang on a sec.” Craig walked up to the Doctor. “We've got a match today, pub league. We're one down if you fancy it?”

“Pub league. A drinking competition?”

“No, football. Play football.”

“Football. Football. Yes, blokes play football. I'm good at football, I think.”

“You've saved my life. I've got somebody. Yeah, all right, I'll see you down there. Hey, Soph.”

“Hey, I thought I'd come early and meet your new flat mate.”

The Doctor walked over to the fridge and grabbed a carton of milk. He looked down at Elise. “Are you hungry?” he asked her.

Elise shook her head.

“Do you play, Sophie?” the Doctor asked.

“No, Soph just stands on the sidelines. She's my mascot,” Craig said as the Doctor took a drink of the milk straight from the container.

If Amy were here, or if Elise were older, she would have smacked him for being so rude.

“I'm your mascot? Mascot?” Sophie asked, offended.

“Well, yeah, not my mascot. It's a football match. I can't take a date.”

“I didn't say I was your date.”

“Neither did I.”

There was an awkward pause, before the Doctor broke the silence. “Better get dressed.” He handed Craig his toothbrush back.

“The spare kit's just in the bottom drawer,” Craig told him.

The Doctor nodded. “Bit of a mess,” he said before slamming the door in Craig’s face.

The two adults looked down at the small child.

Elise went over to a chair and sat down while Sophie and Craig talked quietly. Elise wasn’t listening to their conversation anyway.

Humans were so odd sometimes.

[saintjosaphime]

Stab In The Dark|| Deirdre and Josephine

Cemetery. Wine. And Venus in retrograde. A perfect end to Valentine’s Day.

Josephine had a special talent. One not entirely connected to her powers of justice, but not completely separate. It was a talent that she’d grown, because she’d learned that her hunches were almost always right. And her hunch about Deirdre, was that she wasn’t quite normal. Though White Crest was made up mostly humans, there were signs, when talking to a person, that could easily point someone towards “not quite human”. And Josephine had honed those skills over time, because it paid off for someone like her to know these things. Knowledge was power, after all, and Josephine was something even more powerful. 

So it was with this mindset, that Josephine found her way into Hambry Cemetery, picnic basket, blanket, and pie in hand. It was definitely one good way to end a night, and perhaps one of the best ways to end a Valentine’s Day night, because Josephine would win out either way. Learning what Deirdre was was the main goal of the night, but having side goals was always good. Shoot for the stars, she’s always told her kids. Reach for more than one and you’ll always catch something.

She spotted Deirdre up on a little hill, near one of the benches the park provided for morose and mourning visitors to rest on. Hambry was one of the nicer ones in the main town, and though Harris Island was probably nicer, Josephine was glad she hadn’t had to take the twenty minute ferry ride over. The closer she got, the more she felt it. Deirdre’s hidden resent, bottled up side of her as if she were a Matryoshka doll. But Josephine knew it was there. And Josephine knew, with certainty, Deirdre wasn’t human. “You know, I made a bet with my bank teller you would be here. He said you wouldn’t show or that you’d try to murder me, but looks like he was wrong,” she said as a greeting, giving a toothy grin. “Well...so far. The night is still young.”

Any day Deirdre could convince someone to come to a cemetery with her was a good one. Were she a less arrogant woman, she might have been shocked that so many people agreed to the proposal. Of course, she wasn’t. So she chalked it up to her charm which spilled flawlessly even over the internet. She titled the telescope a little, catching sight of the star she wanted, glowing brightly against an inky sky. It wasn’t how she wanted to be spending her Valentine’s night, but this was better than thinking about someone she really shouldn’t be. She heard Josephine first, trying to conceal her frown as she turned around. So not a fae or an undead, a shame. She’d have to work her way around feigning interest in a human; hopefully Josephine wouldn’t make that too hard. “Looks like you won some money with the bank teller then,” she turned, offering a smile in return and gesturing for the woman to come closer. “You can’t tell me I look more beautiful than the stars standing all the way over there!” The banshee stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jacket, laughing. “Oh, I don’t murder the pretty ones. Though I might still; depends on what you’ve got in that basket there. Wine?”

Deirdre had a nice lilt to her voice. Not American. Josephine smiled again as she stepped closer, holding out the basket. “Well I’m glad to know I’m pretty enough for you to not murder me,” she said. “Wine, among other things.” She moved as if to hand Deirdre the baset, then set it promptly next to them, dropping her blanket on top before moving past Deirdre to the telescope. Didn’t move to look through it yet, pausing when she was between Deirdre and the lens. “Well, how can I honestly say that if I haven’t seen the stars yet? Find any good ones? Any shooting stars we can wish on tonight?” she asked with an innocent grin and tilt of her head. Deirdre was a nice looking woman, too. Long brown hair, dark enough that it soaked up the moonlight and gave off a nice sheen. Pale face, dark eyes staring out from her white skin. Josephine figured some sort of English-- perhaps Irish-- decent. And the most common species over there was fae. Sure, it was still a shot in the dark, but Josephine was nothing if not smart in her deductive reasonings. And by the end of the night, she would get the answer from Deirdre, one way or another.

There was a way about Josephine that annoyed Deirdre, though she lacked the words to explain it. Perhaps it was the way she could so casually flip something back, or the ease at which she could tease and feign innocence. These were moves Deirdre excelled in, but her usual mischievous nature found itself bristling against Josephine’s. But this was fine, two could play this game, she just needed to find the angle to work Josephine at. And by the fates, she wouldn’t fall for Josephine’s tricks...even if her body did tense with anticipation as the woman fluttered past. And even if she did, against her wishes, fluster. “I--that---you---that’s not---” there was a huff, followed by a pout and the petulant crossing of her arms. After a moment, shaking her head, she leaned into the telescope. “In what turned out to be appropriate for the day, you can see Venus. Science tells me that one’s not a star but now I’m worried you came only to compliment them and not me and I can’t have that---” Josephine was attractive, as Deirdre was finding everyone in this damn town was. Deirdre adjusted the telescope, sure to stand as close as she could, her cold skin brushing against Josephine’s. “There. Can you see it?”

Josephine got a smile of delight out of Deirdre’s huff and puff. Her little stutter. She was flustered and it just made Josephine all the more happy. It was clear Deirdre was used to being on the other side of things and it gave Josephine joy to know she was able to turn the tables on her so easily. “Oh, how cute,” she said, tilting her head. “Venus showed up for Valentine’s day. Very on theme. Especially with how Venus is actually filled with deathly gasses and lava, and Saint Valentine was a massacre.” Josephine with kids and Josephine with adults and potential...suitors, was a completely different person. She’d learned very early on how to separate the sweet, compassionate Josephine from the true, complex being that she really was. And she’d had so much time to practice. Deirdre was leaning into her now, and Josephine could feel the coolness of her skin. Oh, definitely Fae, then. Especially with that adorable Irish accent. Josephine didn’t respond to Deirdre’s pouting, but instead just leaned over, making sure to press against Deirdre as she did, and looked through the telescope at Venus. It was bright in the sky, a pale orange dot floating between all the other stars. “Hmmmm,” Josephine hummed, as if something were wrong. She stood up, pressed her lips together, staring at Deirdre with a hand on her chin. “No, you’re definitely nicer to look at.” Leaned forward, slowly, before skirting right by her again. “How about some wine!” She offered, flipping open her basket and holding up the bottle of Rose she’d brought for the occasion. “I brought it just to share with you.”

Cute. Deirdre’s lips twitched, her body having to fight the urge to scream--in the dreadfully normal sense. She did not get called cute, she called other people cute. Josephine might have been referring to the planet, but Deirdre knew better than to deny a coded message where it lay. This was torture. Josephine was sent here to terrorize her. “Well, you know what they say about love….it’s uh---something.” The banshee relaxed a moment later, she’d take a distraction where she could find one. And here was a very tempting one. It was her fault she couldn’t focus on it. “Huh?” She snapped up as Josephine spoke again, blinking before her thoughts scrambled to center on the moment. “Right---yes---I’m---” she gulped. Josephine turned at the last minute. Definietly torture, and Deirdre was playing right into it. “The---the wine?” she suppressed a groan. “And it’d be such a shame if we didn’t enjoy that wine right this second. There’s a flaming planet in the sky and you want to drink wine. That’s fine! I love wine.” The grumble in her voice was impossible to suppress though, and she sulked her way over to Josephine. “Did you also bring glasses or am I just supposed to look and not touch?” She reached for the bottle, fingers cautious as she considered that Josephine would just snap it away. 

Deirdre was in mourning. Over what, well, that was anyone’s guess. And while Josephine took immediate notice of this, she stored that information for later. Sometimes, it was better to play the long game. She couldn’t sideline her main quest for this new development. She held the wine bottle out to Deirdre, watching her hesitate, offering her a bit of reprieve-- a show of faith, if you will-- and pushing the bottle into her hand before pulling two glasses out of the basket as well. “Love is something,” she repeated, “wise words to live by.” She moved closer over towards Deirdre, then, stopping in front of her and reaching into her front pocket to pull out the wine opener, holding it between them, close to herself. “Oh, no-- not flaming. Venus is molten. Magma. A much more painful death,” she said, before flicking the wine opener away from herself as an offer for Deirdre to take, wondering if she would move on her own this time. “You can touch,” she said again, “I don’t mind cold hands.”

Deirdre took the wine bottle, holding it to her chest with the desire that it might warm a cold heart. It didn’t, obviously, but she’d tried at least. That was more than she could say about some things. Forcing herself to focus on Josephine and only Josephine was tricky, but a dastardly beautiful face and a teasing game made it easier. Though she couldn’t say it, maybe there was something to be grateful for in the torture Josephine was giving her. “Hm, I do like painful death,” she mused, taking the wine opener with care to let her fingers brush over Josephine’s---not as much as she could have, and certainly not as much as she should have but she was working her way up to getting in the right mindset. If Josephine spared her like she was. “You’d be one of two people not to,” she sighed, uncorking the bottle and making sure to pop it away from any pretty faces. “But I’ll remember that for when we get to the part of the night where we hold hands and sacrifice rabbits to appease Venus’ magma.” She tossed the wine opener on to the blanket, eager to free up her hands. Then held the bottle out, ready to pour. “The glasses?”

Deirdre was pouting. Which meant her mind was elsewhere and Josephine wasn’t going to have that. She was of the mind that if you were doing something with someone, all your attention should be there. If you were distracted, then you either needed to refocus your attention or stop what you were doing. And Josephine didn’t want Deirdre to stop. She’d invited her out here, and Josephine was going to hold her to that. The cold fingers brushing hers helped. It was hard to tell a fae species just by cold touch, seeing as they were all cold to the touch-- at least the more humanoid ones were. She gave a smile, one hazel eye and one brown eye shining in the moonlight as she took a step back to let Deirdre open the wine bottle. “Then that makes two of us,” she said, giving a slight nod. She separated the glasses-- one in each hand-- and held them up once the bottle was open. “Only one of two? I almost feel special. Oh, so we are doing the sacrifice tonight? I thought you’d never ask,” she said, another innocent smile. “This will be a nude sacrifice, won’t it? I don’t think I know any other way to do it.” A shrug, as she held out one glass, tapping it against the wine bottle. “Hurry, I wanna show you what else I brought.”

The idea of nudity was always alluring to a fae. Deirdre wasn’t sure if the desire to be nude was one learned or innate, but she hardly thought it mattered. She poured rosé with a steady hand, an even amount into both glasses, and smirked as Josephine went on. “And I thought you’d never ask, these clothes were starting to get suffocating and is there such a thing as a clothed sacrifice?” Josephine was nice, an easy air about her. Clearly conversation and its nuances came to her with ease, she might have categorized the woman as the sort someone could just fall into if she wasn’t half sure Josephine was working some angle here. Of course, she assumed the angle was just sex but even under her bravado she did wonder why a local would ever agree to go to a cemetery. “Alright, alright,” she tucked the bottle under her arm, taking one of the two now filled wine glasses from Josephine, “getting a little impatient, are we? Don’t you want to take your time, watch the stars, get to know each other...” The banshee smirked, it had taken a while but she could feel herself working back into her usual groove---albeit undercut with excitement for this something else. “What is it?” She asked, eagerly peering over. 

Josephine took the glass that Deirdre handed to her. “Oh, well, if you want to take it slow, then, who am I to say no to that?” She tapped her glass against Deirdre’s before taking a sip and going back over to the telescope, making sure to stay close to Deirdre as she did, leaning back in and using her free hand to adjust its gaze. She pointed it directly at the moon, the waning full moon still sitting gently in the sky like a lightbulb that was simply running out of power. Josephine stood back up, took another sip. “Don’t you ever just feel so energized by the moon?” She looked back over at Deirdre, shifting. “So, you’re from Ireland, then? Since we’re doing the whole…” gestured with the wine glass in her hand as if thinking, “getting to know you, thing. Not a lot of Irish people in Maine, usually.”  Deirdre was more focused on her now, and Josephine loosened her gaze a bit. “Got a big family back there?”

Deirdre took a slow, delicate sip of the translucent pink liquid. The sweetness coated her mouth, and her tongue darted out to catch the stray drops against her lips. She’d never admit to a sweet-tooth, but it’d be hard to deny to the person she hounded about pie flavors. “Okay…” she rolled her eyes. “No, I can’t say the moon energizes me. If you start peddling off crystals to me I’m taking this rosé and leaving.” Crystals, don’t think about those. Deirdre shook her head. This was her fault, she shouldn’t have made that damn comment about going slow. Josephine said there was something else, and now they were talking about moon energies as Deirdre found herself right back to the start in childish huffing. She set the bottle of wine down, best she could without getting it to tip over. “Aye, not a lot of Irish people here,” she blinked, the question ringing in her ears. That was the sort of thing she asked when trying to work out fae heritage. “Are you going to ask me about an iron allergy too?” She turned her body completely towards the other woman, taking another slow sip of her drink. If Josephine was a warden, this would make a lot more sense. Thankfully, Deirdre always carried a knife and thankfully this wouldn’t be her first close brush with a fae hunter. “That sort of thing,” she leaned closer, a devilish smirk on her lips and a dare sitting behind brown eyes, “puts a girl on edge.” 

Now things were getting exciting. Josephine didn’t move, just grinned back at Deirdre as she leaned in. “Crystals aren’t really my style,” she shrugged, “I don’t need something to help me feel powerful.” A matching grin to Deirdre’s, as she took another sip of her own wine. Watching Deirdre’s eyes as she talked. “You know…” she said, chewing on her bottom lip, “it was on my list. I was going to wait a little longer to drop that shoe, though. You know, you’re giving me mixed signals, Deirdre.” Definitely fae. If only she had the ability to just tell what kind. The power she could have to lord over her right now was so enticing if she could just come out and say it. But female, Irish, affinity for cemeteries. She could take a leap. It was likely Deirdre was thinking Josephine was some sort of hunter, but the thought didn’t bother her. Josephine had no opinions on people based on their species. She blinked. “Why? Does the question make you wanna...scream?” she murmured, her voice low, a smile still on her lips.

Wardens were terrible, despicable and useless creatures, but they could be so fun to taunt. Deirdre smiled, set in her deduction of Josephine, a little disappointed she’d have to kill someone so beautiful but the world was full of tragedies. “You want me to scream so soon? I thought we were taking our time,” she breathed out, not a hint of anger or fear in her voice. Wardens had a nasty yet convenient habit of underestimating banshees, this was bound to be the same. “You know,” she pulled one of several knives she kept on her person at all times with a slow and practiced motion, the one on her back being the biggest, and pressed the titanium blade gently into Josephine’s shirt. Not enough to hurt, and in a position she knew to be easily disarmable, but just enough to send the message she wanted. “Why? Do you want me to scream? Because I’d rather hear you do it.”

So she’d been right. Deirdre was a banshee and she thought Josephine was a warden. To some, this might have been a dangerous game to play, but with a knife that small and scream that could only burst ear drums, Josephine wasn’t in any danger. Therefore, the game wasn’t dangerous. Just fun. Her eyes didn’t even acknowledge the knife being drawn. Didn’t even move when the knife was pressed against her shirt, on her chest. Instead, she lifted her wine glass and took another sip. A simple gesture that spoke a thousand words-- she wasn’t afraid, and she wasn’t going to try and stop her. Because imagine the look on Deirdre’s face when blood met skin and nothing happened. Josephine swallowed, slowly, licked her lips. “Do it,” she finally said, holding up her free arm. “I promise I won’t move.”

Typical warden, underestimating her and her kind. A banshee scream could be deadly, and Deirdre knew just how. But Deirdre had to be smart. She couldn’t kill a woman she made very public plans with, and at any rate, she liked to play a little with the hunters first and this one seemed so willing to play. The promise was an interesting one, binding herself in a cocky display that even despite the woman’s hunter-background, Deirdre found herself impressed with. She lifted the knife up, pressing the cold blade into the woman’s cheek, harder and harder until a drop of blood spilled across the grey metal. “I don’t like doing what I’m told,” the banshee responded, she couldn’t kill Josephine, so there was no point in laying all her cards out. “What’s got you so cheeky, hm? Not a warden then, are we?” She drew the blade back, holding Josephine’s blood on the tip, tilting it just to watch moonlight catch on the droplet. In one motion she wiped the blood against the woman’s shirt. Deirdre was good with a blade, knew how much pressure to apply to get the results she wanted, moving her blade around the fabric of Josephine’s shirt was a ploy to show off a portion of her skill as much as it was an attempt to clean her blade---a shirt undamaged other than the blood that stained it. “Weren’t we supposed to get to know each other?”

Josephine just waited. The blade was cool against her skin, but it felt less like a cut, and more like a pinch. Cynthia had informed Josephine of this effect-- that pain would be duller, easier to handle. And that healing would be a snap. Though not instantaneous, a small cut like this would heal within the minute. She frowned slightly. “You know, I just bought this shirt,” she said, shaking her head. “Hmm? Oh, yes! We were.” She reached up and wiped the remaining blood off her cheek, moving as if to wipe it on her shirt as well, but snatching Deirdre’s bare hand instead, smearing a quick line across her skin. “I don’t know, why don’t you tell me? Since I already sussed out what you are.” She sipped her glass of wine again. The cut was completely gone now, just a smearing of blood on her shirt to show proof that anything weird had happened at all. “I like you, Deirdre,” she said finally, leaning back against the grave stone they’d set up next to. “You’re bold. And attractive. Two of my favorite things in a person.” Another sip. “And you like pie. What more could a girl ask for.”

Deirdre switched her glass into the hand that held the knife, wanting to free up her hand as she simply watched Josephine. She allowed the woman to snatch her hand, not making a move to draw it back even as she knew the outcome. The iron in her blood burned against Deirdre’s pale flesh. The initial sting garnered a soft hiss and a clenched jaw, though she made no move to wipe it off---stubborn in her desire to prove something. The moonlight served as a perfect backdrop to watching the tiny cut fade off Josephine’s face like magic. She reached out, running her thumb along the spot the cut once laid. Not a warden. Though hunter wasn’t completely off the table. In honesty, she was lost. Josephine’s skin ran hot, and Deirdre was truly only familiar with recognizing the signs of the species she cared about---none of which Josephine seemed to be. “I like you, Josephine” she said, laying her palm flat against Josephine’s face, the blood on her hand dulling into a throbbing pain. “You’re clever and daring.” She pulled her hand back, finally wiping the blood off on her jeans, though the pain still lingered. “Whatever you are, I like it. But I can’t be expected to keep up with all the species that are out there. Was the crap about you being energized by the moon anything?”

Josephine let Deirdre take her time. Watching her eyes as they landed on the side of her face where the cut had been. Watching her hand as she placed it gently on her cheek. Deirdre’s hands were like ice, and Josephine’s skin puckered slightly at the touch, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. She smiled again, leaning her cheek into Deirdre’s touch as she laid her palm flat on her cheek. “Glad we’re on the same page,” she said once Deirdre pulled her hand away. “Here,” she said, moving past Deirdre again, taking a large swig to empty her glass, and setting it next to the wine bottle. She dug around in her purse before pulling out a little sterile pad, standing back up and taking Deirdre’s burned hand with hers. “I don’t know, you tell me. Do I seem like someone who changes with the rising moon?” She wiped the cool pad along Deirdre’s hand where the blood had been, slowly, lingering, letting fingers brush along her knuckles. “Am I feral and raw? Or refined and collected?” She looked up into Deirdre’s eyes. “How fast can normal people heal a wound? Even a tiny cut. Don’t they usually linger or scar, etched onto fragile bodies?” She finished wiping her hand and let go, depositing the used pad into a baggy and back into her purse. “So...who needs more wine?” she asked, grinning.

Oh, definitely not a warden. They’d sooner die than help a fae. Deirdre held her hand out, palm up, head tilted as she observed the enigma. She liked games, she likes mysteries. Of course, she liked being on the other side of this tango a lot better but this wasn’t the worst position to be in. “Hm,” she hummed, the coolness of the pad centering her thoughts solely on Josephine. Even as much as she liked puzzles to work out, she knew her faults better. She suspected Josephine knew too, the impossibility of puzzling out her identity with the clues at hand. Did she revel in pain? Did she delight in making someone squirm? Deridre flexed her fingers, tipping back her glass and downing the rest of her wine in one fluid motion. “You burn my hand and then you tend to it. Kind and cruel in one breath. You’re not a werewolf. You’re not a siren in anything more than metaphor,” the banshee smiled, warm and with the end quirked up in a half-smirk. “You’re not human. Not anymore, I don’t think. You’re not undead. You’re not fae. My expertise ends there.” As much as it pained her to admit. Deirdre moved closer, her head tilted up to look at Josephine from over the tip of her nose. She wasn’t much taller than the woman, but fae pride had its way of carrying itself. “Whatever you are. It’s rare,” she rasped, leaning in before snapping back and holding her glass between them. “I’d love more wine, personally. Pour me some?”

The mention of siren made Josephine’s face twitch in involuntary irritability. It was a sore spot, still, but she’d been trying her best to move on. “Not cruel, no,” she said, picking up the bottle of wine and going back over to Deirdre. She tipped it, pouring more into her glass, before pouring some more for herself. She kept hold of the bottle once she was done, however, and stared at Deirdre evenly. That fae pride really was something, wasn’t it? It seemed to be a common trait among most fae. That pride that they were, truly, the top species on earth. Josephine took another sip of wine. She didn’t care much for the feud between human and fae, because she wasn’t a part of it. She assumed, though, that it was of importance to Deirdre. “Just trying to prove a point.” She sipped her new glass of wine, the sparkly bubbles coating her throat. Her heart was pounding a bit, and she couldn’t deny her attraction to Deirdre. It was hard getting attached to people when you were going to live forever, but banshee had at least a longer lifespan than a human. She, finally, relaxed herself and smiled sweetly. “Well, then, I suppose you’ll just have to keep guessing, for now,” she said, swirling her glass. “So is this how you usually treat a woman on the first date? Stargazing and wine, a plus. Threatening them with knives? I’d like to know how that usually goes over.”

Perception was its own curse. Deirdre wouldn’t comment on Josephine’s snap of an expression change, but she noted it all the same. A question about sirens to be logged away for a possible future where she cared enough to ask. “So burning my hand isn’t an act of cruelty?” No, it was a point to be proved and Deirdre smiled. “I like the way you think.” There was a car and a zombie she pushed that could testify for her taste in dramatic idea rearing. “Oh, only the good ones, Josephine.” She grinned, the glass switching between her hands again so she could flip her knife with a flourish and catch it by the tip of its blade as it fell back down. She knocked the hilt against Josephine’s shoulder; did hollow bones make a different sound? Probably not. “So this is a date now? On Valentine’s? Do you like your clichés?” She hummed again, coating her mouth with another sip of sweet wine. “But don’t women enjoy a little danger?” Deirdre flipped the knife again, switching to tapping the blade against the woman’s shoulder. “Do you normally burn people on first dates? I bet playing nurse to injuries you caused has its own charm.” Curiosity flared up in her again; emotions, as much as she hated them, were something she hadn’t exactly mastered how to quell. The more seconds that ticked between them, the more she was starting to like Josephine. Something about her was very, very different. “We’ve also spent very little time actually stargazing. I’d say we should fix that but you’re a much better sight.” 

Josephine’s eyes didn’t much feel like looking at anything else now except Deirdre. Not even the flipping knife-- as impressive as it was that she managed to catch it without cutting herself-- was enough to draw her eyes away. The tap on her shoulder made her smile. Her head tilting to the side in that way that could make a face such as hers seem soft and innocent. “Oh, I love clichés. I work with teenagers, I wade through clichés all day long. I can’t help but love them. Do you just always invite people out to the cemetery to stargaze, then? If this isn’t a date and you don’t like your clichés?” she replied, giving a small pout. “I can’t help that I have such a caring nature. Maybe playing nurse is what really gets me going-- even if I have to make the opportunity myself.” Josephine enjoyed feeling the emotions flitting through Deirdre. It seemed she had a hard time controlling them, which told Josephine she wasn’t used to letting them come up. So whatever anger, whatever resent was settling deep in her heart, Josephine was going to have to work to bring out. But, she was okay with that. She didn’t mind taking her time with things, and Deirdre seemed worth the effort. All she wanted to do was help, after all. The world didn’t need more cruelty, but that didn’t mean it didn’t need playful deviance. “You know,” she finally said, taking a sip of her wine, letting  some of it wet her lips, so that she could draw her tongue across it slowly, “I think I’m okay with that. I’ve got my eye on something much prettier than the stars.”

“I find myself inviting people out to cemeteries with increasing frequency,” Deirdre hummed softly, her gaze darting between Josephine’s lips and her eyes. What was she saying? Something about clichés? Should Deirdre have been paying attention to that? She wouldn’t have been ashamed to admit her mind wondered elsewhere. What Josephine was saying felt important, somehow, maybe that was just the way she spoke. Like everything mattered, or that it could. “Making opportunities for yourself…” was that another clue? Deirdre tilted her head as she puzzled through it. It was, however, extremely hard to think about anything but a growing desire clawing its way through her. The banshee tucked the knife away, using the newly freed hand to tug on the end of Josephine’s shirt, rolling the fabric under her fingers. Her eyes watched every movement of Josephine’s tongue. Riddle be damned, she was right about one thing. Whatever Josephine was, it was rare. Very rare. Not a phoenix. Not a siren. Not a mara. Not human. Not fae. Not undead. What did that leave? “Something prettier than the stars?” She smirked, “oh? Like Venus? Venus is so pretty, isn’t it?” Deirdre tipped back the rest of her wine too. “How long do you live?” She blurted the moment after.  

Josephine quite enjoyed watching Deirdre try to parse out exactly what she was. It would be too easy just to tell her, after all. She smiled when a hand tugged idly on her shirt, taking the gesture and stepping forward slightly. She was enthralled with Deirdre’s eyes stuck on her lips, her face. A girl had needs, after all, and immortality or not, Josephine was one of them. Josephine gave another gentle smile, lifting the wine bottle once Deirdre had emptied her glass for the second time, and pouring more in. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s rude to ask a girl about her mortality?” she said, watching the glass fill rather than giving Deirdre the pleasure of looking at her. Once it was filled, she emptied the rest into her own glass (a pity that wine bottles only offered four glasses) and tossed the empty bottle over onto the blanket before taking a hearty sip. “Or lack thereof.” She used her free hand to trace up Deirdre’s arm that was tugging on her shirt, till it reached her shoulder, where she rest her arm. “Venus’ got nothing on what I’m looking at right now,” she finally said, eyes burning as they looked into Deirdre’s.

Josephine was good with her words, Deirdre figured she’d make an excellent fae...if only they were made, not born. The banshee smiled; there was something she didn’t say about clichés and one she felt herself drawn into--Josephine’s eyes were the sort to get lost in, a voice that dripped like chocolate and the sharpness of a mind that hung like a dagger over it. She didn’t think Josephine would hurt her, but knowing she was oh so capable of it was part of the fun. Her hand burned as it trailed up Deirdre’s skin, a reaction due to Deirdre’s cold flesh and its usual distance from physicality than the temperature of Josephine’s. “Sorry, I’ll be more careful next time,” the banshee leaned in, wine all but forgotten in her hand as hot breath spilled across flesh. “If you grant wishes, there’s one I’m thinking of right now.” A stab in the dark, but then again, that was what her literal stab had been too. Her eyes, caught in the fire of Josephine’s, flickered down to her lips again just as her fingers tightened around the fabric of Josephine’s shirt.

In reality, 64 years wasn’t a long time to be alive. In fact, on the grand scale of things-- like living for eternity-- 64 years was little to nothing. A blip on the radar of life. But in all her years, Josephine had never met someone quite like Deirdre. She liked it, this little game they were playing. The guessing game, the threat of a knife, barely more than a child’s toy between them, the flirtation. Deirdre was definitely someone Josephine wanted to get to know more. In both a physical and metaphorical sense. Fae were rarely so open about themselves, and while Deirdre wasn’t screaming (yet), she seemed a little more pliable than most of the fae Josephine had rallied with back in Portland. Josephine didn’t care much for the wine in her hand anymore, but it seemed a waste to dump it out. She close into Deirdre now, their bodies all but pressed against each other, took the glass of wine from Deirdre’s hand, and set the two glasses on top of the headstone behind them. Telescope, wine, and stars forgotten, Josephine leaned in and finally pressed her lips against Deirdre’s. Pulled away after only a small moment and said, “Your wish is my command.”

[scribblestatic]

Midoriya Haruto is the name engraved on the tombstone. The name of his wife, Midoriya Suzume, is engraved on it and painted in red, an indication of the still-living. And yet, Izuku hasn’t really seen much of her either, honestly. But he stands there on a bright Sunday afternoon, after his maternal grandmother and most of his aunts, uncles, and cousins have already visited. He can tell by the way the gravestone has already been washed, how there’s already a fresh set of flowers and peaches in front of the tombstone. Incense is already burning softly. And so, his mom puts down the pail of water and begins to pray, not using the water and ruining what has already been done.

Izuku stands beside his mom in prayer, wearing one of his school button-downs and jeans. Upon the end of the prayer, he watches his mom add the flowers she’s brought to the ones already there, carefully arranging them like she’s a florist. She sighs and straightens up when she’s done.

“Hello Dad,” his mom begins, and Izuku stays silent as she tells him about the past year. His eyes flit around to the other tombstones. Names flash past his vision as he stares at flowers and bees. Some tombstones are made from marble, others from lesser stones. A cat is eating fruit given to one person’s ancestors, and the cat’s kittens are gathered behind their mother. An elderly man is sharing a rice cake between himself and an old tombstone, and he laughs with it like it’s his old friend.

“Izuku is doing well, too. His grades are always improving! It’s only his first year of middle school, but I know he’s going to excel.”

There’s a butterfly fluttering around before it lands on a stone and rests, occasionally flapping it little blue wings in the wind. A little toddler is hugging a tombstone further down as a man stands behind her, his face a bit wet. A bird is building a nest near a smaller stone one, gathering little branches and moss to make its home.

“I really wish you could’ve met him, Dad. I mean...you did. Once. But I wish you...I wish you spent more time with us.”

Other names are painted in red on the tombstones. Spouses who have yet to pass away and join their loved ones. One of them is abandoned altogether. Had it not been for the funeral home, he’s certain spider webs would’ve already been set up around them. It’s off in a quiet corner, away from the sunlight. Abandoned by the living. Alone. All alone. All alone and by itself without anyone to wish their soul well…

“Izuku?”

He blinks, then turns his head towards his mom, who gazes at him with wet eyes, expectant. He glances quickly at his mom’s dad’s stone, then at her. She does it as well, nodding her head towards it.

He looks back at the stone. Well loved. Well cared for. The red name of a living spouse without any chipped paint. Perfectly done. Perfectly scented. The perfume of flowers and incense becomes suddenly cloying to him.

Izuku knows good and well his grave will never be like this.

“Hi. Uhm… Hope things are good over there.” He nods a bit and fiddles with his fingers. “I wish…” 

Breathe. 

Why did you abandon your daughter because of me? Why didn’t you want to see me? Why didn’t you love your daughter despite me? Why did you let me make Mom’s life worse? Why did you abandon us? Why?

Why am I here with you instead of with Tadao?

Swallow.

“...wish you well in the afterlife.”

Izuku wants to go back home.

— —

Izuku has a quirk. He knows he does. He has a quirk, and it makes him unlucky.

Because of all the things to do, while walking through Northern Higashiyama, he finds himself knocking into his mother’s sisters. Three of the four of them, anyway.

“Oh my gawsh~! Look at you, baby boy! I haven’t seen you since you were thiiiiiiis little!” one of his aunts cheer, her green-tinted hair straight down her back unlike the style his mom puts hers in. She smiles, but it’s false. There’s a superior tilt to it, obviously in reference to her own son, his cousin, who is being greeted by his mom at that moment with kind smiles and genuine appreciation. “How old are you now? Ten? Nine?”

“I’m 12.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry! You must’ve inherited your mom’s short genes, hahahaha!”

Her lips are painted red, the brightest of the sisters as they toddle around and coo at the little chicks they’ve all brought up. One of his aunts isn’t there, staying at his old grandmother’s side. So if his grandmother never meets him, by extension, anyone watching over her won’t see him. He finds himself wishing that all of his aunts were taking care of her.

“So, little mister, you just started junior high school, huh? How is that going? With a cute face like yours, I’m sure you have all the girls gaga over you!”

Izuku stares off to the side, wanting so badly to back up and just...walk back to Musutafu to see Tadao. He’d rather tell the baby boy about all the interesting things he’s seen at the graveyard than be here now.

“Mmmh.”

“Oh come on, speak up clearly, won’t you? Your mother did say you had a mumbling habit. You need to speak clearly so people will understand what you’re saying!”

“Yes ma’am.”

She smiles brightly, red lipstick stark against her pale face. “That’s better, that’s better. Now then, how about you, Yuji, Junpei, Kamiko, Souma, and Kawaru all play together for a while? I’m sure you guys will have a lot in common. My boy, Yuji, he’s a second year in junior high now! He’s in the basketball club, you know? Do you play any sports?”

He shakes his head, and his aunt frowns a little. “No ma’am.” The smile returns.

“Gosh, that’s such a shame. I bet you’d be good at sports...something like ping pong? Tennis, maybe? But, well, you’d have to beef up a bit, wouldn’t you? Maybe you could ask my boy Yuji for some tips, hmm? I’m sure he’d love to tell you how to...hmm...how do they say it now? ‘Get swole’? Yeah, that’s it! Hahahaha!”

Izuku smiles so tightly his lips curve in a bit. When his gaze leaves her to look past her, the boy who his mom has been talking to is nodding down at her. He’s taller, like Kacchan. His hair’s more green and much straighter than Izuku’s is, and he doesn’t have any freckles or pimples. His eyes are smaller than his own, so with that and his muscle, he looks older by a good three or four years instead of the one year difference between them. He’s an ikimen for sure. The name ‘Midoriya’ is a blessing wherever he goes.

And Izuku’s a loser who can’t become a hero. His one good feature is that he can somehow get Tadao to stop crying by being there with him.

He wants so badly to go back to the hospital.

“Are you in any clubs? You should join a club, even if it’s not for sports! Like painting or homemaking. Those aren’t very manly things, but you’d have some skill for it, I’m sure! Oh, but Inko says you’re a smart boy...you should be in the reading club! Or the science club! What do you think about those? You should join one of them!”

Izuku smiles. “I’ll think about it.”

I won’t.

Suddenly, his aunt gasps. “Oh goodness, here I am just talking your little ears off. Precious boy!” She grabs one of them and tugs a little like one would tug his cheeks, and he winces, resisting the urge to smack it off. Her touch feels...not that great. “Here, you know what? You should spend some time around people your own age. Let me get out of your hair, alright?” She turns around then. “Yuji! Why don’t you and your cousins spend some time around town while us ladies keep clucking on?”

Yuji turns away from his mom and nods. “Okay.”

He sounds more mature, too. His voice is deeper. How is it that a one-year difference has done such a thing?

A few moments and some cash exchanges, and the four sister Midoriyas are walking off, chatting amongst each other. He watches as his mother lags behind a step or two, not quite in the group though certainly among them. Sighing a little, he turns back towards the group of kids he’s been unfortunately grouped with. 

Yuji isn’t actually the oldest, though he looks it. The oldest is Junpei, who’s already 14. He has straight hair like the others, short cut and more mature-looking. He wears glasses, too. Kamiko is 13, too, and she’s really pretty. She looks kind of like his mom when she was younger, before she began stress-eating from his quirklessness, and she wears a headband in her long hair, the tips touching the small of her back. Souma and Kawaru are younger than him—Souma’s born in August, and Kawaru’s 10. The two are siblings, Souma being the older brother with sharper eyes and a scar over his nose, and Kawaru somehow gaining a little curl to her short hair, some of it pulled into a ponytail on the side of her head.

The group of cousins chat amongst each other like they know each other well. They probably do. But Izuku, like his mom, stands a little further away and observes what’s around him. Watches them like he’s watching a TV show, trying to gage what they’re all feeling. But he does get a little distracted. Distracted enough that he doesn’t really realize when Souma’s walking up to him.

“Hey, my mom says you’re disabled. But you don’t look like it.” Souma crosses his arms, a frown on his face.

Izuku blinks for a moment at the slightly taller boy before what he said registers.

“Uhm…”

Souma opens his mouth to say something again, but suddenly, a slightly blue highlight of a hand appears and smacks him on the back of his head. Behind him, Kawaru’s face has flushed up, but it’s Kamiko’s hand that glows blue.

“Hey, don’t just say things like that! Are you stupid?” she hisses.

But Izuku’s not really paying attention to the insult anymore. He’s more focused on the quirk.

“Is that...is that your quirk?” Izuku asks, watching as the girl blinks at him. “It looks like a kind of telekinesis, but it’s more like projection.”

“Oh, yeah.” Kamiko smiles cutely and puts her hands into peace signs. They glow a little, and two hands show up at her sides, larger and glowing, making the same peace signs she is. “I can make a projection of my hands to move out at a distance from my body~ It’s really useful for picking up far away things, like the TV remote!”

The conversation seems to pick up from there, and Izuku moves in closer as his cousins start talking about their quirks.

— —

Junpei’s quirk is more memory-based than physical. He can read a book and remember every word in it for up to 48 hours on one single read. After two reads, up to 96 hours, so on and so forth. Eventually, he just remembers the book entirely. It’s even more efficient for signs and maps, which are much shorter than books. He’s been top in his class since 1st grade and not a single person has been able to beat him since.

Yuji’s quirk is an attraction to objects, similar to his mom, but rather than just small things, after training his quirk, he can attract larger things. Nothing bigger than a mini-fridge though, or his head starts to hurt. He can also push things instead of only pulling them. Pulling and pushing a basketball during a casual game rather than one for his team is very fun to do, according to the guy. He also likes pulling on his girlfriend’s sweater from a distance to get her to come closer, which makes Izuku blush red while Souma calls him gross, a similar flush over his own cheeks.

Kamiko, of course, can project her hands and hit and grab things as need be. There’s a range where she can’t reach, but the closer she is, the faster the hands are. She showed off her particular skill by swiping a little kendama from an old woman’s little market store so quickly that no one but a camera would notice it. Even then, it would be blurry. After playing around with the toy, which made Kawaru rather silently distressed, she eventually put it back much to her own displeasure.

Souma’s quirk allows him to pull himself to objects or pull the objects to himself. Rather than being affected with a headache or a nosebleed by the weight of the object, the weight relative to himself and the object is what affects what happens. If he weighs less than the object, he’ll be pulled towards it. If he weighs more than the object, it’ll be pulled towards him. However, he hasn’t quite gotten the hang of it. In fact, the scar on his nose is from when he pulled on a lighter object a bit too quickly and broke his nose when it collided with his face.

Kawaru’s quirk almost seems to come out of nowhere. Rather than pulling or pushing or anything of that sort, her quirk is memory-based like Junpei’s...sort of. She can touch inanimate objects and see a brief history of the object or things that have happened near the object. However, for the moment, she can only look at an object’s history once. Once before, she used her quirk to figure out who stole some fundraising money by looking at the history of the desk the money had been placed in. She was able to identify the culprit by the feeling of the hand that reached in and took the money. Her school life, as it turns out, is a little turbulent because of that.

Izuku can relate, only, for a different reason. Which ends up rearing its ugly head when they ask what his quirk is.

“Oh...uhm...I’m actually...uh...quirkless.

There’s a sudden silence among the kids. A realization...no. A remembrance, like they had forgotten something and his statement suddenly flipped a switch. 

Izuku feels himself start to sweat. “I-I mean, I just really like quirks, you know? I think they’re really interesting, so I’m always...well...studying them. I guess.”

The warm atmosphere becomes colder. Eyes begin to avert from his body. He sees a slight smirk on Yuji’s face before it quickly clears off, and Junpei’s glasses seem almost to cloud over. Kamiko’s smile becomes pointedly pitying in a way that he really, really hates.

“Oooooh...that’s what Mom meant by you being disabled,” Souma says, eyes wide.

He gets another smack to the head, but it’s less harsh.

As they keep walking on down the stairs at one of the more populated areas, lanterns on and people shopping, the group begins to separate from him. Their steps become a little faster, they ask them fewer questions, and their group seems to close in. Though Kawaru sends him occasional, sympathetic glances, peer pressure wins out and she abandons him like the rest of them do.

Eventually, two people could fit between the distance they’ve built away from each other, like they’re a happy group and he’s their freckled, curly-haired stalker.

Well...Izuku went into this expecting something like this to happen, but it hurts no less. In fact, knowing that they’re family, that they are likable, that they could’ve been friends...it makes it hurt even more than being abandoned by everyone at school and in their neighborhood.

It’s not fair. But nothing is.

So Izuku decides that, if he’s going to be dragged around like the ball at the end of a chain for the rest of the day, he’s going to do it doing things he enjoys. So he takes out his phone and turns on the camera setting, and he starts taking pictures.

A lantern glows before evening at a storefront, hanging from the roof of an old Heian-styled building made of wood. A window of one of the shops has a lot of little glass figurines that glimmer from the white Christmas light display they have around it and little golden lucky cats that wave their paws to invite luck. An older woman fans herself as she wears a kimono, sitting on a bench as she calmly eats her mochi. Crows land on a fence and caw at each other, having gathered in a solid murder, eyeing a nearby tempura place where enough customers have given them treats that they wait to eat.

“Hey.”

He nearly takes a picture of Kamiko’s face, but stops before his finger hits the button.

“Uhm...what is it?” he asks. A quick glance up shows the others waiting, antsy and curious.

“We’re going to this shrine we like to visit. Keep up, okay?”

Izuku nods. “Yeah, okay.”

She smiles, satisfied, and turns around as she rejoins the group. Surprisingly, he’s grown even further apart from them, so he speeds up a little to make sure he’s closer.

He catches the word “weirdo”, and decides a solid two-people distance from the group is good enough.

With his phone still out, he sends a quick text to his mom.

[I’m tired. Can we go back to the hotel yet?]

She responds faster than he would’ve expected had she been talking with her sisters.

[Not yet, sweetie. Just have a little fun with your cousins, okay?]

…

[K.]

[alcalavicci]

Discussing Mr. Paracelsus, Who Are You?

daisymum: “Okay, now that I'm sitting down with the time to write something substantial, my mind draws a complete blank. (Doesn't it always work like that?)

“Anyway, I'm a big Michael Rennie fan & came across this VHS tape of mystery. The guy that found it originally picked it up at a used book sale because it was labelled as a Sherlock Holmes spoof. It's a pristine example of classic late 60s camp and a complete tour de force for Dean Stockwell. He plays a milquetoast undergrad in turn of the century Boston who gets possessed by an immortal 16th century alchemist. Horrors! Stockwell goes from being completely virginal to an out of control seducer (and sorcerer nonetheless) while vamping his way all around the town, in a blink of an eyelash. ‘He's either drunk or been smoking hashish’ is how one character describes him. (How's that for a subtle drug reference?) He kidnaps orphans & sells them into slavery! He marries his fiancee & makes a less than honest woman out of his secretary! He snows his parents & then trys to take over the board of directors at his father's life insurance company! He casts spells using various potions & other nefarious means to further him along his path of complete & total local domination! ‘It's a bit beyond the long arm of coincidence, wouldn't you say?’, is how Michael Rennie's character describes it.

“Michael Rennie himself is terrific & gets to do things you normally wouldn't associate with him, but he's very very good at it nonetheless. He plays a Sherlock Holmes-type professor with tongue firmly planted in cheek, and then later he gets to don several different disguises while spying on Our Villian. The comedic timing is dead on perfect & they obviously had a lot of fun filming it. I strongly believe it was filmed sometime between 1966-68. It's very high camp, in a good way, and Screen Gems spent some money on filming it; there are relatively elaborate sets and costumes, exploding glue factories, dangerous battles to the death, etc. A lot of work went into the production & I wonder why it was shelved. The pacing of the plot is a trifle uneven (when they try to cram in a little too much of the plot into one scene instead of spreading it out over several scenes. That's not a very good description, but if you've ever watched Lost In Space you know exactly what I'm talking about), but it's nothing out of line for what was being broadcast at the time, and could have easily been remedied. In fact, it holds up remarkably well...it's an incredible lot of fun, lo, these almost 40 years later. And like I said, the comedic timing & the overall acting both are perfect as perfect can be. I really do wonder why nothing ever came of it.

“Anyway, most of the credits are missing so not a lot is known about the production. The names on what remains of the credits are all from Screen Gems, which was in high cotton back in 1966/7, with Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Flying Nun, and especially The Monkees all currently in production & making them a ton of money (and a good deal of money was spent on this as well). Like I said earlier, the dialogue is straight out of Batman, and liberally peppered with drug references galore. I've been searching Variety beginning at the end of 1966 for any kind of information, but no luck yet. Harry Ackerman, the producer, was mentioned several times as one whose fortunes were on the rise, and the pilot viewing season for the network executives had ended in March of 1967, and there's no mention of it there either. So maybe it's from the Summer of '67, perhaps? Does anyone know what Dean S. was up to in the Summer of Love? His hair on the tape is a little long (think Victorian mod), so maybe it does date from somewhere around then? What do you guys think?”

daisymum: “Anyway, if you like Dean Stockwell, you're going to LOVE this. He's prominently featured in the entire thing & spends his time possessed for the most part. He sashays his way around the sets, kind of like a vampish Ellis Dee from The Producers, I kid you not. He pulls it off, though, & the whole thing is really fun to watch.”

Jill: “Well, I have just had the privilege of watching Dean in the tape of 'Professor Queed' and what a treat it was! (thanks, daisymum!). Dean hams it up outrageously in Top Hat and a Cape -- I swear, I haven't seen him act up like this in anything else other than Quantum Leap – and I've seen a lot of Dean in a lot of stuff. In fact, it's a bit disconcerting -- there is all of the comedy schtick from his turn on QL, but in a very young and agile man's body, as he leaps and twirls all over the place. This is not the cool demeanor of Wilbur Whately of Dunwich Horror (which is another over-the-top performance, but not purposefully comedic), nor even the weirdness of the Werewolf of Washington. This is more like "Dave" in Psych-Out. If that director had told Dean Stockwell and Jack Nicholson to REALLY play their parts in Psych-Out for maximum goofiness -- well, then, 'Professor Queed' might have been the result -- provided, of course, that we change Haight-Ashbury into Edwardian times.

“And the dating of this film, which looks very much like an unaired TV pilot, as daisymum said previously, is truly a mystery. Because – Dean supposedly wasn't acting for 3 years (in some interviews, he even says 5.....). And yet, 1966-67 really seems to be the date of this show. Daisymum is thinking late 1966, and I think she's more right than she is wrong.

“1965 is too early, because this isn't the Dean Stockwell of Rapture. Besides, his hair is a bit too long in the back in 'Professor Queed.' Not a lot, but the waves are there at the nape of the neck. His face is very much like 'Dave' in Psych-Out (1968), though not much like the 1968 photo we have of Dean from a UK television show of '68 (where he has a mustache and sideburns). I COULD say it's 1968, like I originally thought........but the film quality itself says earlier than that. It just doesn't look like a 1968 TV pilot to me.........it looks a tad bit older than that.

“Okay, here are my clues, Daisymum (and the rest of you can play along, too). One BIG thing I noticed..........the sound effect when Dean performed 'magic' was the same as when Samantha twitched her nose on 'Bewitched.' And this was produced by the same person, I believe? (Harry Ackerman). So we're at Screen Gems, on ABC. Bewitched first broadcast in color during the 1966-67 season.

“A young Juliet Mills is in the cast. I didn't know if she made TV appearances before 'Nanny & The Professor' of 1970, but upon looking her up at IMDb.com, I noticed she started doing American TV appearances in 1965.

“When I was watching this film, I felt that it was influenced by 'The Great Race' (1965) and 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines' (also 1965). I definitely see the villain of The Great Race (Jack Lemmon) in Dean Stockwell's performance. Since it always takes TV a year or two to get on the bandwagon of a popular trend, that would put this Edwardian pilot in 1966 or 1967 (with a nod to other popular Edwardian films of that decade - 'My Fair Lady' -1964, and 'Mary Poppins').

“What this means to my 'timeline' of Dean's life...........well, it could mean that Dean had not completely 'dropped out' of acting for 3 years, as is often claimed. And this performance was much more than just 'making money to put groceries on the table.' This pilot required a lot of effort on Dean's part.

“By the way, as much as I like it, I can also see why this pilot didn't sell. The campiness isn't crazy enough to be laugh-out-loud funny, but if you take it seriously it will make you shake your head and go "huh?" In fact, I need to watch this film several times before I truly understand the story -- and even then, I'm not sure I'll completely get it. Also, Dean was the 'guest star,' so I assume the series was meant to showcase Michael Rennie, not Dean. But Dean is in the film so much, that it ends up being about his over-the-top insanely portrayed character, and you can't sell a series on that much weirdness from a guest star. I don't think.” 

[Me: For what it’s worth, I’ve narrowed down the timing for the filming of this to the first half of 1966.]