#I might list this as 'alternative lineage ideas'

[breadedsinner]

-Firbolg Morrigan

-Firbolg Blackwall

-Autumn Eladrin Velanna

-Spring Eladrin Merrill

-Summer Eladrin Sera

-Winter Eladrin Solas

-Tiefling Hawke + Twins (tiefy twins!)

-Water Genasi Isabela

-Aasimar Sebastian

-Assimar Vivienne

[thousand-winters]

Okay, fuck it. Extremely niche Tellius AU that's relevant only to me probably because I haven't known there to be an intersection between Saiki K and Fire Emblem fans, let's goooo

Started this whole thing thinking about Kaido as a heron. He can be a black heron, as a treat, he would LOVE being the Jet Black Wings for real. Plus herons can channel magic through their singing, which I think he also would like. They're also, unfortunately, a bit physically frail, though that doesn't meant they won't try to throw a punch lmao. I think it works for him.

Teruhashi should be a heron too, obviously (I was actually thinking it would be cute if she was some sort of princess like the heron family in FE9/10 and Kaido was kind of like Nealuchi just generally looking after her). It gives her the ethereal and beautiful vibes she would need. Though I was also thinking maybe a heron-raven mix? Or maybe heron-heron but a white and black one. Prominently appearing to be a heron with white wings but maybe some black feathers here and there, just like her aura.

Saiki would obviously be a dragon. The only dragon there because it's what he deserves. A pink dragon since that's canonically a thing too, but we are ignoring the power hierarchy between the colors, shhh, he can be overpowered anyway. The whole thing with the dragons isolating themselves from pretty much everyone else fits him too.

I want Nendo to be a tiger laguz. Not for anything in particular, he just has the built for it, he's big and strong and he also reminds me a little about Mordecai, who's pretty much the gentle giant trope. It's what Nendo deserves, I think.

I was thinking a tiger branded for Kuboyasu. He would still be way more physically strong than an average person since most of the feline branded seem to have inherited that from their laguz side, plus I think it would be neat. Also branded do tend to have that wariness of both laguz and humans, leaning more against laguz, which honestly could work for Kuboyasu.

(Also I found it amusing to make the guys shipped with Saiko tiger related stuff. Sorry lmao)

Speaking of Saiko, I'm either thinking normal human but from a prominent family (tentatively thinking Daein though that would make him a king or a heir prince) or perhaps a hawk because nobody else in the list would be a hawk. He can still be a royal of Phoenicis as a hawk anyway.

Yumehara I was thinking a cat laguz. Spunkier than suspected given that they're smaller than every other laguz, and still quite intense. Also I think she would look really cute, she reminds me of Lyre in that sense. Going half on vibes here.

I wanted most of them to be laguz or such, rather than normal people, but I think it would be super funny if Hairo WAS a normal human, just super intense about his training and very intent on beating Nendo in strength anyway, despite Nendo just wanting to chill and make friends. So ridiculously energetic that people might suspect he's not fully human but nope, he's just like that (alternatively, another cat).

I'm gonna be honest, I have absolutely no idea for Mera, I was thinking normal human for her as well. Maybe another tiger? I kinda want to make someone a wolf but the vibes don't feel right neither for her not for Hairo. Maybe she can be a branded too, I don't know. Tentatively making her a lion because I think it would be equally funny and sad if she's straight up from royal lineage but something happened like in canon that made her lose status.

Rushing to make Aiura a heron branded just so she can have Micaiah's fortune telling sick powers. Maybe she can have the sacrifice healing as well, as a treat, because it feels like something she would love to use to rescue others even though it's reckless to use it since it's healing while depleting her own health.

For Toritsuka I was thinking normal human, but one who has made a pact with the spirits so he can be a Spirit Charmer. It doesn't work this way in Tellius but this is my AU and I'm making up my own rules, so I'm saying this not only allows him communication with the magic spirits but also with ghosts so he can have his gimmick. He's a mage now, yay.

Akechi I think would be so funny as a normal human who STILL can read everyone for filth. Not a particularly good combatant or anything, and he's another case of "he's so good at his thing you think he SURELY has to have something going on, but no, he's just like that". Especially funny if nobody else is a normal human.

Once again breaking lore rules but I was thinking Kusuke could be a branded that did not manifest any marks or special skills, so for any purposes he seems like a normal human vs Kusuo being fully a dragon, which could keep their dynamic of him feeling humiliated by his little brother despite his cleverness and brains.

Now, as per the breaking lore rules, that's because I was thinking Kurumi could be a dragon (red would be cool, I'm truly fully ignoring the color based strength here) and Kuniharu could be a normal human. Kurumi can STILL lose her powers due to the human-laguz union. For flavor. It doesn't work this way but Kusuo would be inheriten the full scope of her powers while Kusuke gets nothing.

As for why are even all these people in the same place to interact in the first place, I have no idea because I'm not really planning to make this into a classic Fire Emblem war story lmao. Maybe they all go to an academy together a la Three Houses? That could be fun.

[fallen-gabrielle]

Presidential/White House AU Headcanons compilation

Hello KND fandom! With friends from the discord server, we expanded the fake future from Operation: W.H.I.T.E.H.O.U.S.E. and made it an actual alternate universe/future.

I also decided to write a fanfic about it based on the headcanons we came up with 👀: Wrath of The White House, title suggested by @scarlett-v-the-fox. She also came up with a lot of headcanons about Lizzie's alien specie.

Many things come from the fact that President Uno gives major "I cheat on my wife with my secretary" vibes and we all just rolled with the idea. So yes, in this AU and fic, Adults!Nigel/Kuki is a thing and things get cra-zy between them, so I'm warning you, there will be a lot of adult stuff under the cut, such as freaky physical intimacy. If you don't like it for any reason, don't go further.

There's also a few things I left out from the list, because it would be kind of spoilery for the fic, but with this list you already know where you're getting yourself into, so no big surprises.

I will probably reblog this post when we explore the other characters not so mentioned here, but this is a good base to start.

Ok, are you ready for it? Remember, the following might make you uncomfortable so if you don't want to read it, just keep scrolling.

HEY I WARNED YOU, THERE WILL BE REALLY ADULT THEMED TOPICS, THIS IS MY FINAL WARNING, DON'T COMPLAIN ABOUT THINGS YOU DIDN'T WANT TO SEE CUZ I GAVE TWO BIG WARNINGS ABOUT IT! FINAL CHANCE TO TURN BACK!!!

The main things that can be hard to read are: kinks, torture, domestic and child abuse. All of this will be explored in some degrees in the fic.

We good? Okay, here it is then!

President Nigel Uno/Wrath -Won the elections through shady means: bribes, blackmail and other illegal stuff. -He made it possible for him to be President for life -He's in charge of the English mob, who he sent people to do the dirty work -He also has his personal army of demons as henchmen who helped him with the shady means to become president -He has powers, but he hides them very well in the face of the public. -The whole demon lineage is a family secret that he didn't even tell Lizzie. -He is known in the undergrounds as Wrath and you really don't want to piss him off. -His silhouette form is the classic pitch black suit, he has claws and a dragon tail, as well as straight horns on his forehead. His hair is messy in this form as well. -He's an asshole. He cares more about his hair than his heir (plz laugh at this) -He had many love affairs but only a few were consistant (a lot of one night stand). He only had one kid out of it with Rachel. -He uses a lot of hair gel. When he doesn't, his hair are messy just like his son's (they basically have the same haircut if not combed)

Nigel and Kuki (that's where the freaky bed stuff is, guys) -They fuck in secret but some people know what's going on. -They get crazy in the sack, with a shit tons of kinks. -Seriously, they try stuff in the bedroom, they're really creative. Tickling that Nigel actually enjoyed, Kuki liking having her hair pulled a little bit. They both bite and love it. -Their kinks involve leather, chains and extreme role plays (she has a collar with his name on it) -Technically they're switches, they take turns on who's the dominant one, but Nigel secretely likes being the sub in their relationship bc he gets a break from being in charge, and he gets praised. He can't hear "good boy" without blushing. -They can't go to specialized clubs because they can be regognized so they do it in private places -They have a code in little gestures to warn the other when they want each other. When she fixes his ties for exemple. -Their relationship is purely physical intimacy, there is no romantic emotion between them. -Outside of the bedroom, and off duty, they're just friends. -After the act, Nigel and Kuki share some fluff moment, where they simply like the presence of each other and like to snuggle. -She is serious, strict and stern as the secretary but in private with Nigel she loosens up and is a real tigress in bed. -"I will work late tonight honey" => is actually with Kuki -In the morning, Kuki likes to exchange her glasses with his just for fun, but one time they actually had to rush to get out and still had the wrong glasses on their faces. For those who didn't already know about them, that's how they learned what's going on -Kuki always travels with him on his trips

Nigel and Rachel (plus her family) -He had an affair with her during the early years of his marriage with Lizzie. -They're still in love even to this day -They had a daughter together named Lucy, 14 years old -Nigel loves his daughter very much, she's his little princess -He clearly has a favorite, and it's his daughter -They've been keeping their love affair a secret from everyone, mostly -Rachel is also hiding her daughter from most people's knolwedge -Rachel ended her relationship with Nigel and put an end to his secret visits to his daughter because things got sus and Nigel was also starting to change as he became greedier and lusted for more powers. He wasn't the man she fell in love with anymore. -Nigel sends her money to support their daughter but Rachel never accepted the money as it comes from corrupted/dirty money. -Rachel is the head of national security -She knows all the hacking tricks in the book. She can bypass a n y t h i n g -Harvey knows about the secret child and absolutely despises Nigel (and so does he)

Nigel and Lizzie -Lizzie is the same overbearing and annoying person as ever -Lizzie suspects that Nigel has an affair with Kuki Sanban. -She has no clue about Rachel and the illegitimate daughter. But when she learns that fact, all hell will break loose -She will especially be super mad that Nigel got a daughter with another woman and she didn't. -When she does get a confirmation about Kuki, she has to keep it down because the scandal would be too much to handle. Also, Nigel would be worse to her if she throws fits. -She doesn't know the extent of what Nigel is doing with Kuki, just that he's cheating on her with the secretary -When they do get intimate, it's the most boring stuff ever. -Nigel absolutely doesn't know she's an alien. When he finds out, he sends her to Area 51 -He will torture her to know why she was sent to earth

Nigel and his parents/relatives -Actually the only people he's not a complete douchbag to. -He really loves his parents and they love him too. He just never has the time to visit them as much as he would want to. -But they still never approved of Lizzie. They hate her. -Mrs Uno occasionally mentions divorce to her son so that Nigel would someday click and dump Lizzie -Nigel is also close to his uncle Benedict. He taught his nephew how to use his powers when he got them in his 20s.

Nigel and Shirley -They have a very cold relationship -Nigel doesn't care much for his son's existence except when it comes to his own image -Nigel is more neglectful towards his son than he is verbally or physically abusive towards him -Nigel insists on his son being proper all the time. -He combs his son's hair whenever he thinks it's not perfect -When Shirley gets his alien genes activated and apparent, Nigel absolutely hates it and cuts them off violently. -He always scolds Shirley for being ‘too noisy/agitated’ when they visit his parents because they’re old people so therefore they mustn’t be rushed. But Monty and Margaret really don’t mind their grandson for doing what a kid is supposed to do. -Shirley doesn't know his dad has affairs and just thinks he's always busy on business trip and extended meetings. -Viggo finding dogs’ collars in his dad’s stuff: "wait, he secretly has a dog? And he always refused that I get one myself !!!" Poor boy doesn't know what this really means

Shirley/Viggo -He's part human/demon and uvinea (alien part) -He doesn't know his true lineage on either side (yet) -At some point, he will start having flowers growing on his head -His vines can be torn apart and it hurts, but they will grow back -He doesn't know anything about his father's infidelity drama, including his older half sister -He really despises his dad in general -He admires Numbuh 1, whom he doesn't actually know that's his dad -I let you imagine the shock when he'll find out the truth xD -Leopold Lincoln/Numbuh 5'000 is his best friend -Shirley spends some times at the Lincolns', because Leo's dad is so much nicer than his own and wishes to have a dad like Leo's -Despite how dysfunctional his family is, Shirley still hopes that one day they could be a "normal family". -He loves his grandparents a lot (who doesn't tbh) -Nigel and Lizzie fight a lot for small things as well as the bigger ones (Nigel’s cheating for exemple) and it’s too much for Shirley so he goes to his grandparents’ place to have some calm and wholesomeness or sometimes to the Lincolns' -He hates the cold

Fanny & Patton plus friends -They're married and have a daughter -Her name is Sheila and her codename is Numbuh 860, soopreme leader -Patton is in the army but doesn't have a high position -He has to put up with Wally's bs all the time -He's away from home a lot -Fanny, as head of Nigel's security guards, records the shenanigans between the President and his Secretary and keeps the tapes as off-brand for herself. -She's actually supposed to delete anything scandalous about the President but eh, she sometimes blackmails Nigel with it. -She sometimes watches it with her colleague Chad and her husband when he gets back home -They all treat it like it's a fictional tv drama show -Therefore, they know all the dirty little secrets the President Uno has in the sack -She gossips about everything going on in the White House with her colleagues but makes sure nothing get out really (her boss is Nigel, remember) -Fanny actually does know about the Nigel/Rachel affair, because she is friend with Rachel -Fanny talks Rachel into watching the tapes. Rachel reluctantly agrees, and she's speechless until she mutters over halfway in, "Why couldn't we do any of that stuff? Damn."

Abigail Lincoln -Married to Maurice, he took her last name. -She was arrested under false accusations/She tried to organize a coup against his administration and failed -Nigel tortures her to get info from her (mostly about the knd) -She lost her right eye during one torture session -She was never decomissioned as she was tasked as a teenager and later as an adult to look after Nigel. Obviously she failed. -She is constantly tormenting herself about the fact she wasn't able to save Nigel -She was also part of Nigel's administration and she refused to help him in his corruption

Leopold/Numbuh 5'000 -His dad is Maurice -He's Shirley's best friend and always calls him by his nickname Viggo -He doesn't freak out nor is scared of his friend when he gets his powers -He kinda fanboys about it, actually, which makes Viggo cringe a few times -He writes and collect letters from the family for his mom. -He sneaks into the prison to bring her the letters and pastries his dad baked for his wife -He has to make his visits more sparce to avoid getting caught -“Dad misses you” “Dad brought you this” “Dad is working on your case” -He failed to protect his mom from being jailed and feels really guilty about it -He's a brave kid, but he still cries late at night for his mother. -His aunt Cree also helped raising him while Abby is imprisoned

[mayfay]

Oooo, you got some Amazing thoughts Minji!

On the quirk side of things I imagine AFO intentionally keeps most of his emotions muted through some sort of shape shifting or emotional suppression quirk. Probably picked it up in those first generations when he wasn’t quite as numb to doing “what needed to be done”. Or maybe after his brother got away and he decided to double down. Doesn’t matter, point is he’s got a base human body that’s just been altered or suppressed.

So what about Love Field? Well a little research puts attraction into 3 categories, lust (obvious), attraction (the “reward” portion of lust), and attachment (friendship). You specified lust is Not what this is (which is Very good since following these ideas could result in accidental hrt) and attachment is unlikely to have the required hold on AFO, but it’s worth covering them just in case.

Starting with each of these 3 parts of attraction have their own associated chemicals, though they’re all focused primarily in a section of the brain called the hypothalamus for all relevant purposes. For the chemicals themselves lust is primarily testosterone and estrogen, attachment is oxytocin and vasopressin, and attraction is dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. Not super relevant but worth listing.

Now the interesting part is How these are getting released. Most quirks either create an effect on the users body/surroundings or cause a Very temporary change in another target. The fact AFO, someone who has had quirk work done to prevent this exact thing from happening, is being affected long term? Indicates this is a Permanent change. So how is that happening?

First thought was that Love Field just forced the brain to secrete the right hormones, and AFO just had more focus on preventing lust over attraction, but that doesn’t really explain the long term effects. Unless of course Love Field somehow Reverted these changes, repairing the associated glands and attempting to put him at baseline level, with a preference for the user. Except that in that case AFO would be dealing with all these emotions for Everyone, not just the user. So what if it was a mix? A sort of telekinesis focused around hormone production that went and repaired some of AFO’s associated pathways, just enough to let it pass through. Naturally his quirk will try to close it off again, but an active quirk like Love Field, one that’s had Generations of trial and error vs this Suppressions one or two generation lineage, could potentially overpower AFO, especially considering he’s weaker than ever after the OFA v AFO fight pre-canon and lost many of the defensive quirks he had, so something like emotional manipulation has a slap job and not ready for something as unique as Love Field. Of course once he’s out of range that Suppression process would start back up, but the damage has been done.

Brains are hard wired to follow reward and detest boredom over even pain. And AFO has been bored for Centuries. Probably kept looking back at that encounter even if he Did leave immediately. Temptation is a powerful motivator, especially for someone as strong as AFO. So he goes back, subjects himself to Love Field yet again. And That has bigger consequences.

Cause weather he left and came back or was just exposed for too long, Love Field causes Physical Alternations to the brain. Alterations Designed to inspire a protective instinct towards the user. I bet even if AFO Did leave some of those alterations are subtle enough to stick around. Dopamine releases thinking about the user, seeing their picture, little things that might not be able to be addressed by a few quirks cause they’re Physical alterations, not an effect that can be blocked off without risking damaging his hormonal glands (which are Very important to stay not brain dead).

And once he’s in range for too long? These repairs are gonna Keep Happening. Probably end up in a constant face off with his Suppression, pumping up its effect in response (cause this is the Perfect circumstance to experience major quirk growth. Stress, quirk training, high ambient OE from AFO and associated “projects”. Perfect storm for quirk growth, if not a mini or even full Awakening).

Things are gonna get Even More intense. Even if the user shuts off their quirk AFOs brain has been altered to be attracted to them. Hell Trained at this point. Dude got pavolved, physically altered, and technically drugged to be focused on them. No chance anyone’s backing down at this point.

And the Best part? It’s not all forced. Love Field is a Very intriguing quirk, one with multiple rare properties. AFO would sacrifice a fair bit to get his hands on it Even If it wasn’t affecting him.

There’s plenty more to it as well I’m sure, maybe specifying the exact type and strength of attraction, a range of power within their field of influence, the potential to Force overdoses with those chemicals, maybe even a passive effect to make people just a Little bit friendlier. All sorts of stuff. Just don’t have the framework to figure out How

OKAY. *slams open door in manic about to have opinions*

MAYBE i am binging so, SO much unhinged bnha fics? Have already sent this to all my mutual and is not ENOUGH? But everyone is focused on these BABIES and not the MOST unhinged of them all? You COWARDS!!!

That's RIGHT! Ya girl has been hitting the "yandere/obsessive/possessive" behavior tag on Ao3 and is REFUSING TO BE NORMAL ABOUT IT! I have THOUGHTS DAMN IT! AaaaaaaaaaAAAAAA-!!! *Flips table*

Why the FUCK everyone focusing on BABIES?

I get it, don't yuck someone else's yum. To each their own. I respect that. But ALSO? What lvl of unhinged could they POSSIBLY HAVE? They are FIVE. SMOOTH FACED TODDLER BABY BOYS! A CHILD!

Like? Listen...

You know how Quirks are basicly evolutionary advantages? Random protections that are hit or miss? I have touched on this before in my naruto WIP (that i never posted but shush), but there must exsist a theoretical opposite of killing intent.

A sort of loving/peaceful intent if you will. A SAFETY intent. Or, for the purposes of THIS scenario and slightly to the left of that, a "love me" field. Which? Unlike what the perverse might believe or suggest? Just makes the target... love you.

Not sexually desire.

Love. Care about. Emotional connection.

And, yeah, maybe i've just been reading too many fics where shigiraki do what shigiraki does, and he is his unhinged obsessed lil self. Too many unhinged yandere fics where i darkly mutter "you are forgetting their Core Character Motivatioooooons! Just write an OC!"

Because you can twist a characters personality WITHOUT forgetting who they ARE. Thats what makes it INTERESTING, after all. Seeing how it could go so very, very wrong. How a good emotion, taken too extreme, can corrupt! N it's not just "oh that means violence n cursing right? Immediately jumping to cruelty?"

Its the obsession. The need to consume. The manipulation and care in which they try and maintain the illusion. It isn't one crack and "whelp, fuck it I guess!". Every character is different! Breaks under the strain of 1000% loving someone, DIFFERENT. And it brings up FASCINATING dynamics n potential quirk reactions?

Cause a emotional quirk WILL work. Even on people who supposed "dont have any" emotions? Because thats not how the human body FUNCTIONS. They HAVE all the necessary components. They just have a disorder. The Quirk would be forcing their body to MIMIC "feel-Y.exe" and their body would go with that. How THEY would process that data? What would it FEEL like to THEM? Whole different story.

But they WOULD feel "love" in what ever capacity THEY understand it.

You don't want to hurt your BEST FRIEND do you? You love them. Your BELOVED SISTER? This CUTE CHILD? She seems so NICE. Or maybe it's a precious and to be protected PET? She doesn't know what she'll get, "love" is nebulous and multifaceted. Could be platonic, familial, romantic. The love of a comrade. But it's never failed BEFORE. (Not, that I imagine, she being a well adjusted young lady, would feel morally comfortable USING said quirk in such times of peace. On anybody.)

We're all friend here, right? No need to be aggressive! Hurt anybody! Let's all put our weapons down, yeah?

But! This runs into a PROBLEM. The fuckin Yandere. Your bog standard sociopath. Those to whom this love field/targeting/ray/what-have-you is either so completely foreign too or NOTICEABLE as to be ineffective. Or to whom "love" is AGGRESSIVE.

Who's concept of "love" would actually make the problem WORSE.

I bring this up? Because I am FACINATED by the concept of AfO falling in love.

He... he would be COMPLETELY unhinged about it. The very act would unlock LAYERS to his deeply fucked up, highly obsessive, mind games and bank vaults, squirrel brain.

But I don't think he'd ever WILLINGLY fall in love. Or even be capable. Might be a brain chemistry thing, honesty. But the very reason his CLINGS to his his brothers quirk? Is because his brother was HIS. They were connected. It was... the closest thing he understood to love. And he is unhinged even to this day about it.

EIGHT GENERATIONS OF USERS LATER.

So like? If he spooked some poor soul? With a "love me" quirk? And she, in terror, tried to blast this Scary Supervillian into Not Hurting Her? She would have NO WAY of knowing that she just made a HUGE fucking mistake. Like... conceivably, the WORST mistake.

Because all it would take? Is her NOT instantly dying. No reflexive "how dare you use your Quirk on me". And? The altered brain chemistry starts to kick in. He's suddenly getting?? All these NICE happy brain chemicals that his body has been fuckin STARVED off? Fascinating new sensations? Elevated mood?

It's fake. He KNOWS it's fake. :) But that doesn't mean he won't murder her if she STOPS :)

Looooove yoooou~♡

Does it shift in to real, deeply deranged, love? Impossible to tell. Someone for the LOVE OF GOD call All Might. But?? He's just such an unhinged MESS it's fascinating to explore how emotional quirks would even react to him? Fascinating to think about how he would REACT if he had a SECOND "little brother" scenario. A person he CARED about. But this time... WORSE because it was in a way he could somewhat comprehend AND he had FAR more power then before.

Would it derail everything? Would he be able to focus on his Machiavellian plans while being able to fold them into them? Would he fuckin CONSUME THEM like he did Tomura? Ultimate form of love, after all, to become HIM.

How long could she, the hypothetical Quirk holder, keep that Quirk ACTIVE? Fear is a powerful motivator.

Just?? Why are there not more fics about the Ultimate Creep, BEING CREEPY AND UNHINGED??? He's VERY GOOD AT IT. Has had a LOT OF PRACTICE. LET AfO be deeply insane, 2XXX!

[vynsvision]

What if MC wasn't a lawyer?

Originally, this was going to be a list for me to have on hand for self-inserts or if I wanted to adjust Rosa for a fic. It become a brainstorming piece about all the alternate versions or jobs/work positions Rosa could have held instead of being a lawyer for Themis Law Firm.

WC: roughly 1.2k

In my daily checking of the "tears of themis" tag (by recent because yeah duh), I read sdaomine's minific au about vilhelm (svart!vyn) kidnapping his enemy's daughter and proposing marriage. And then another post in the tag was maybe about Marius's assistant minific- not sure bc I didnt read it. [edit: did read it later and no it wasn't, but this is now irrelevant.] But, point is, it got my brain going and thinking and I realized each of the boys have like an alternate place for Rosa to have been instead of Artem's subordinate in the Themis Law Firm.

Vyn:

1. A Svart citizen/person of royalty- someone who was/is also of lineage, and they connect that way. Maybe helping him ease the dislike he has of his home country. This person has the money and connections to get answers.

2. Someone Vyn works with or went to school with for Psychology n stuff. Someone who would also work at Giannovyn. Someone who knows how to observe and analyze the effects of the NXX drug, and maybe is sent from like the govt to discover how serious this is and how hard they need to crack down.

Marius:

1. His assistant. Duh. What more do I say. Not sure how they would be relevant to the nxx investigation but whatever.

2. Heir or high up in a competing company, and they personally are into biology and chemistry outside of work bc mc having two degrees or doctorates or whatever would be hot. Or maybe 3 bc they can have one in business, too. Sexy.

Luke:

1. Fellow NSB agent is the obvious piece. It would, of course, change their dynamic drastically, but I just think MC should be allowed to hot as an agent. Maybe they were kept secret and mc is undercover as Artem's subordinate. Anyway.

2. Even better, (or worse, depending) MC was recruited by some other agency/organization and so when they realize they're on competing intelligence sides...... hhhgg.

Now that I think about it, Artem also has an alternate:

1. Simply, instead of working with Themis, MC works for Baldr. Imagine that. Basically the same, but MC might be harder and Artem and them would be enemies to lovers. Sexy.

Darius: (because this is My Post)

1. Fellow detective. Pretty straightforward.

2. Someone who is in witness protection or is currently a Criminal (boss or second-hand) but isn't going to be pulled in because of a Deal that they and Darius make. Hhhhhhh this is self-indulgent but let me live.

Now, to a degree, I understand why MC is a lawyer. Someone has to prosecute (or whatever) the bad guys or the offending party. But if we went with any of these differing routes, here are some ideas-

1. In biology or chemistry, it would be neat to be able to test chemicals n stuff. Like... seeing how one thing reacts to a different thing, and trying to find the right combination.

2. Business... not really sure, but it could open up more characters and arguments/debates/conversations with people who are shady but you can't just pull them into court.

3. Agent stuff... this is obvious but a fight. This is, of course, the most attractive option, because it wouldn't be something you could skip- the cards would change to be able to be applied to weapons, maybe, or if you could have backup. Like "Clash Royale" from Supercell or something. That would be so cool!! This is. The coolest option so far.

4. Baldr option doesn't change this, really. It would still be debates n shit. Which is fine bc it wouldn't be Themis. Maybe we could debate against Artem in public court. Imagine the fics........ *ahem* Anyway!

5. Svart option... this would probably be similar to the business option. Connecting with government contacts and having a wider range of authority would be an attractive feature. Like, being able to meet with a government official, and then stepping out and checking in with a street contact and comparing the information. Maybe thats too agent-y, but I didn't specify what part of the Svart government MC's Svart family would work for/be a part of.

6. Psychology option (like if mc worked at Giannovyn) could be more specific like figuring if someone is lying n stuff? Watching someone speaking and having been told to look for certain tells, and you have to catch them by taping on them in that spot when the tell happens.

7. While an assistant [to Marius] would have access to the same stuff, they would have access to equals in other places. Someone who is overlooked, and would have a better connection with househands or bystanders, yanno? Being able to use the authority of Pax and being the CEO'S assistant, but also being able to meet regular people and being able to relate to them without the intimidating aspect.

8. As for the Darius mention, a fellow detective would be neat because then you can take part in interrogations or investigations- as someone posted the other day as an irl-lawyer-reacts-to-lawyer-otome said in the post, lawyers don't actually partake in the investigation. It just. Doesnt happen. And they're right!! So let me take part in investigating and interrogating and gathering info beside Darius!!!

9. Or as a criminal having connections under the table n shit. This one i mostly explained before but yeah having connections to who's selling what and oh through the grapevine of Crime or homeless or the overlooked, this is the info I got. Mmmmm. Thinking again of fics we won't get bc mhy are cowards

Honestly, the more I think about this, the more I wonder why the Heck MHY didnt choose these options. "For the cards" makes sense, I guess, but when you dont have to pay attention to the debate and they're just there to get resources and not pay attention to your phone... its disappointing. I do like the story finale debates because you have to choose the right evidence that applies, or the "hmm, no, this evidence doesn't match with that evidence" parts in the main episodes of story... (wow, do I just miss the main story?)

I think the cards could apply in different ways and they could really get more player interaction and giving-a-shit. It would be cool to know the stats of cards better, kinda like in Genshin, where you have to build characters a certain way to get the best results, whereas in ToT im pretty sure you just. Level shit up.

These are just my thoughts, but I'd like to hear if anyone has additional ideas or thoughts!

[Note: this was mostly written in descending order, so if I say "theres not much on this thought" in one place and then later elaborate, its because more came to me later for a different spot on this post.] [It was also typed and posted via the mobile app so please bear with me if there are errors... I'm doin my best]

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Life Without Reverend Moon by Jen Kiaba – October 22, 2012

Thirty-thousand feet seems like a good altitude at which to question one's life. “I am already in motion,” I tell myself. It's a kind of progress. Shortly after my twentieth birthday I was in progress, between JFK and Heathrow, en route to Oslo.

After takeoff the girl sitting next to me smiled kindly, asking where I was headed. I told her:

“To Norway. To visit my husband.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a stack of glossy women's magazines, offering me several. They promised hot sex tips, orgasm-inducing positions, and advice on how to find a man to orgasm with. She pointed to a few with a wink. “Maybe you can find something nice in there for your husband.”

Today, almost a decade later, to use the word husband feels wrong; I avoid it. But at the time it was what he said I should call him. “I am your husband!” he would say. The word sounded foreign in my ears; "husband" was supposed to be a word attached to “honoring” and “cherishing,” and whatever else heartfelt marriage vows should entail. But I had not been given the choice to say those vows.

My parents were married, along with two thousand other couples, in Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church at Madison Square Garden on July 1, 1982. I was the first of five children, and we were all raised as members of the Unification Church's Second Generation, who were thought to be born sinless and of God's Lineage, through the Blessing marriage ceremony officiated by Rev. Moon. Theologically this meant that Rev. Moon, as the purported Messiah, had created a heavenly lineage through his personal perfection, relationship with God, and marriage with (the much-younger) Hak Ja Han, in 1960.

Growing up, I always had the expectation that Rev. Moon would choose my spouse. In the Unification Church, one didn't date. Flirtatious interactions with the opposite sex were severely frowned upon, all activities were separated by gender, and we referred to one another as brother and sister in order to emphasize platonic relations. Sex before marriage was absolutely out of the question. The Church had a word for that: falling. To fall was the greatest sin that could be committed, and it could not be undone. To fall was to enter the realm of Satan, to be cut off from God and to wound His already-suffering heart.

Perhaps childhood's greatest tragedy is what we learn to normalize. In my upbringing, to question what we were taught was to invite Satan and the evil Spirit World into your mind; to fend off evil, one must quiet the questions and dive further into the readings and teachings of Rev. Moon. Some of the most effective brainwashing was what we had been taught to perpetuate upon ourselves.

At 19 I found myself on a terrifying personal precipice. I was seriously considering leaving the Unification Church, but with no means of supporting myself and no safety net outside of the insular church community, the notion was enough to bring me to panicked tears. Yet I didn't know if I believed Rev. Moon, his world, or his supposed messianic mission. As a reflex, I was ashamed and hated myself for feeling that way.

When word of an administrative opening in the US Second Generation Department reached my family, I was intrigued. What better way was there to understand what this movement was all about than by working for one of the central organizations? So, before making a decision to abandon the culture of my childhood, I climbed into the belly of the beast looking for truth. That’s where I lost my way.

When the Christmas holidays rolled around, I took my miniscule stipend and boarded an Amtrak train home to ponder the nothingness I had found but had not yet accepted. When I arrived home, there was news: after five years of having parents match their children, Rev. Moon was stepping up again, and was going to conduct a matching ceremony for the Second Generation.

My parents sat me down in the bedroom, listing all of the reasons why I should go. Though it was left unspoken, we all knew that at almost 20 years old, my eligibility expiration date was staring me hard in the face. My mother finished with, “If Jesus came to you and said that he had found your perfect spouse, what would you say to him?” She paused for effect. “Now, how much more is Father?”

How could I say no? To refuse was to deny the remotest possibility that this man might be who he said that he was. I simply had not gotten there in my journey. Besides, I told myself, it was just a matching. My match and I would have time to get to know each other before deciding to get married.

My biggest mistake was to assume that I would be allowed to exercise free will.

My mother dropped me off at East Garden, one of the Moon family's mansion-compounds in Tarrytown, NY, and I entered into the ballroom of the estate with approximately 10 other nervous young people. For the next several hours, one of the Korean leaders proceeded to lecture us on our unworthiness. That’s when I found out that by the time we left, we were all going to be Blessed to someone.

The panic blossomed. I had to leave and began approaching anyone, even strangers, to ask to borrow their cellphones. Repeated calls home, begging my parents to come pick me up, were answered in the negative.

By the end of the day, the ballroom was packed to capacity. Young people from all over the United States, Asia, and Europe had answered Rev. Moon's call. Late in the evening, Rev. Moon came out to address us through his interpreter. Though I had never heard them from his mouth before, I desperately wanted to hear words of wisdom — or something that rang true — from the man who held my future in his hands.

One phrase stuck out to me in the monotony: “Do you want me to match you tonight?” A thunderous “Yes” answered Rev. Moon's question, and we were lined up into rows, divided down the middle, and categorized.

I should have left, I tell myself. I should have simply snuck out of the sweltering ballroom, slipped out of the mansion, and found my way through security to get outside of the compound. Even if I had had to follow the train tracks from Tarrytown back home, I should have left. But with no money, no means of communication, and no idea if I would have a home to go back to if I left, I was frozen in place. Besides, I had been trained to obey.

Suddenly Rev. Moon began pointing. A girl, then a boy would stand up, acknowledge each other, bow to Rev. Moon, and then be ushered out to be “processed” by administrators. My breathing was shallow; I tried to quiet my mind and draw upon the things I had been taught.

Absolute faith. Absolute Love. Absolute Obedience.

When Rev. Moon's finger pointed to me, time stopped. I looked deep into the eyes of the man who had bidden me to rise with his gesture and saw nothing. I was gazing into the eyes of the man who was determining my future, and I had expected to see some sort of timelessness, or to feel as though his eyes were digging into my soul. But he was looking through me, as though his finger had arbitrarily found its way to me in a game of love roulette. I felt suspended over an infinite emptiness.

Then time sped up, his finger jabbed in another direction, then another and another. Three other people stood up, and I had no idea which of the other two men I had been assigned to. One I had met at a summer camp several years ago, but he was looking at someone else. The other man gestured to me and I found myself eye-level with a shrunken and pilled sweatshirt emblazoned with the word “Norway.”

In an instant, I was no longer suspended. A kind of darkness engulfed my mind, the words “game over” ringing in my ears. Afterward, everyone was abuzz with excitement; I desperately looked around to try and find someone whose face mirrored the same panic I was trying to fight. A gesture from above caught my attention. “Norway” was trying to introduce himself to me.

Finally I looked up at the man that Rev. Moon had chosen for me. "Tall" was the only word that came to mind. Over the noise, he tried asking me questions; what they were and how I answered, I forget. Those next hours were a strange blur — alternating between sadness and terror. At one point I borrowed someone's cellphone and called home. It was 2 a.m. and my mother's sleepy voice answered. “I'm matched,” I said without emotion. “To a Norwegian. His name is Chris.” Then I hung up.

We were woken up the next morning at 5 a.m. for morning service. I had lain awake all night, clutching my stomach, trying to keep nausea at bay. Chris found me and approached me with a bagel — the first meal I remember receiving in 24 hours. The smell of food made me ill and I politely refused. Despite his best efforts to chat with me and have the “getting to know you” small-talk, I could barely muster words.

Every so often I would sneak away to borrow another cellphone, calling home in tears. But if my parents had refused to budge before, they certainly weren't going to now that they had a son-in-law waiting in the wings.

The day after Christmas, at the back of that crowded ballroom, I was wearing a wedding dress that didn't fit, standing next to a tall stranger, and repeating vows in a language I didn't understand. After the Blessing ceremony, we had official photos taken. As the photographer told us to say “cheese,” I realized that I couldn't remember how to smile.

I still have that photo. I look like a confused child playing a bizarre game of dress-up; I'm gazing into the camera with a lost expression. Chris is looking away, dressed in an equally ill-fitting tuxedo. The picture would have been funny if it weren't so sad.

That was how I found myself several months later at 30,000 feet, bound for Norway. To fight the mounting dread of the impending arrival, I immersed myself in the magazines that my neighbor had kindly lent me. It was the first time I had ever picked up any material that encouraged an expression of sexuality, and I felt a delicious bit of rebellion wash over me.

As I pored over the pages, I could feel certain gears shifting as pieces of me unlocked and unwound inside. The women in these pages catapulted me into an exhilarating daydream in which my choices were my own. That daydream left an intense hunger within me.

As a 20-year-old virgin, I wanted to know what it would be like to sleep with a man because you wanted to, or because you loved him, not because you were pressured by your parents and his parents to “start family life.” The idea of sex with Chris made my skin crawl, and I had no idea if I would face pressure from him or his parents when my plane touched down.

Rev. Moon died on September 3, 2012, at the age of 92. His daughter, In Jin Moon, stepped down from her role as leader of the American church a few days later, after having given birth to a child from a three-year affair with a married man. While the church has not been a part of my life for many years now, I've watched these recent events and their fallout with interest.

At first, this news of Rev. Moon's daughter didn't bother me. Then the leadership began trying to explain away her actions and affair, saying that she "chose love when she had a chance.” How many of us were given the allowance to "choose love when we had the chance"? That was something we were explicitly denied; instead were taught to feel ashamed for our feelings unless they were chosen for us, and then sanctioned by someone with power over us.

Sometimes I wonder where my life would be if I had sat next to someone else on the plane, who offered to let me borrow a copy of The Economist instead. The girl next to me on the plane offered a small form of salvation; in a kind gesture she offered me a glimpse into a world that I had had no idea existed. It was a world in which I did not need to be ashamed of my body and my sexuality. My desires for love were not evil. It was a world that encouraged me to discover who I was, not a world in which I had to break my inner-self down to fit a preconceived notion of goodness and of womanhood. Most important, it was a world that let me take ownership of my future, my free will, my reproduction, and my heart. It was a world that I finally knew I needed to escape to.

And I did. It didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen while I was in Norway. It took me almost two years of fighting with Chris, fighting with his parents and my own, before a church divorce was granted. The decision to "break the Blessing" was an agonizing one that took me turning myself inside-out, trying to reform into the kind of person who could love and accept Chris. But finally, I walked away — free but with a proverbial Scarlet "A" branded into my chest, as far as other church members were concerned. Today I am proud of it. It is my battle scar from a fight I am proud to have survived, because I fought my way into this new world.

Jen Kiaba is a photographer living in New York's Hudson Valley. Her work explores dreams, memory, fantasy, and the realms where all three blend. This is her first personal essay. She and her sister also have a blog about their experiences within the Unification Church.

___________________________________

The Purity Knife: Sex, Death and Human Trafficking in the Unification Church

http://summerofcheesecake.blogspot.com/

https://www.jenkiaba.com/portfolio

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Jen Kiaba on the Ares Meyer podcast

Conceptual Self Portrait Artist
Join me in conversation with Artist Jen Kiaba as we talk Poetry, Self Portraits and Child Marriage.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conceptual-self-portrait-artist/id1549515902?i=1000507915214

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Why Didn’t You Just Leave?

Jen Kiaba
: Hello and welcome to my least favorite question in the entire world. It’s one I’ve heard more times than I care to count, and sadly I think that’s something many cult survivors can relate to. In the past that question used to make me clam up and spiral into shame, or mumble, “It’s not that simple.” But in those days I didn’t fully understand the coercive control mechanism that were used to keep me, and so many others, trapped.

Read more:
 https://jenkiaba.medium.com/lessons-on-leaving-why-didnt-you-just-leave-789953c4689a

___________________________________

We Are All Vulnerable

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‘Falling Out’ Elgen Strait podcast  April 6, 2021

13. Fuel For Nightmares: Jen Kiaba – Part 1

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/13-fuel-for-nightmares-jen-kiaba-part-1/id1550448436?i=1000516011584

• Jen’s website: jenkiaba.com • Introducing a new segment “Autotune the Moon.” • “Bad Moon Rising” by John Gorenfeld – Recommended by Jen.


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‘Falling Out’ Elgen Strait podcast  April 13, 2021

14. Scorpion House: Jen Kiaba – Part 2

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/14-scorpion-house-jen-kiaba-part-2/id1550448436?i=1000516958607

Recommended reading from Jen: "Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free" by Linda Kay Klein

[tacitwhisky]

Feeling the blues now Game of Thrones has wrapped as a series? Don’t worry, I’ve got your jonsa recovery fic list right here. This is by no means a comprehensive list of all the great fic out there, just the best of the best I’ve read. If there are any other fic you think should be on this list that I missed reblog and tag them.

Season 8 Fix Its (Pt 1 / Pt 2)

In Love and Death We Don’t Decide [Link] | @pardonmymannerssir | Her siblings arrive like leaves carried on a sudden breeze, alighting upon the placidity of her life and casting wide ripples before being swept away again. Their movements are cyclic, changing and shifting like the seasons, but one thing will never change: Winterfell is home.

Come out of hiding (i'm right here beside you) [Link] | @noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth​ | After the death of Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow goes to live beyond the Wall, while Sansa Stark, the newly-named Queen in the North, marries a Dornish prince. Three years later, when Jon finally gathers the courage to return to Winterfell, he finds that while many things have changed, one hasn't: he's still in love with Sansa.

We are buried in broken dreams [Link] | @snowsinthenorth​ | Prompt: Sansa and Jon sleeping together before he goes to Dragonstone and when he comes back he finds out she is pregnant. A full on s8 fix-it fic at this point.

Essential Reading

The Cold Inside Our Bones [Link] | @xylodemon | 1,904 | The Wall is no place for a woman, but Jon looks at Sansa's gaunt cheeks and hollow eyes and knows he will not send her away.

At a Funeral [Link] | @justadram | 5,231 | There's something about the funeral that makes Sansa need Jon more than ever. Too bad she threw it all away.

What a Disappointment [Link] | @justadram | 7,836 | Sansa Stark and Jon Targaryen are married and neither of them is pleased about it. Set in a world where Rhaegar lives and Jon was raised in King's Landing as a legitimized bastard.

Tree of Hearts [Link] | @uchihabat​ | 7,239 | It was a secret, shameful thing. The more he denied it, the more unruly it had become within him: a sleeping dragon, around which he tread carefully. There was nothing good about his half-sister, he told himself, but her beauty. "I am not beautiful anymore," she told him through teeth clenched. "It is ugly inside my heart. I am ruined."

Subject: La Bamba [Link] | @ghost-of-bambi | 16,441 | Trust Margaery Tyrell to turn Sansa Stark's 21st birthday party into an exercise in matchmaking.

More fics under the cut.

Canon Divergent

From the fire we rise [Link] | TheEagleGirl | 2,367 | In another world, perhaps Jon would have been the heir to the throne. In this world, his father died on the trident, his mother in childbirth, no witnesses to their union. In this world, Jon is just the bastard prince, and in this world he still wants more.

Brine on the Tongue [Link] | @orangeflavoryawp​ | They pause, afternoon light shifting in through her window like an accusation – a slant of clarity against their panting forms. “Then leave.” (He doesn’t.) - Jon and Sansa. What breeds in a house of wolves.

Found In Forbidden Nights [Link] | @alienor-woods | 16,777 | In which Robb Stark still refuses to trade Jaime Lannister for his sisters, but Jon Snow decides if being an oathbreaker means he can tell strategy and politics to fuck off, then it's worth it to take matters into his own hands.

Jon of the Kingsguard [Link] | @tacitwhisky | Jon goes to Kingslanding instead of the Wall, there’s no war, and he becomes a knight of the kingsguard even as Joffrey marries Sansa. As Joffrey’s true colors inevitably show Jon is forced to choose between the vows of a knight and the duty of a Stark.

Southern Wolves [Link] | @tacitwhisky | Jon leaves the Wall to save Sansa from Joffrey. Together they wander the war ravaged Riverlands to try and return home.

Missing Scenes

A Cartography of Vulnerability [Link] | @subjunctivemood​ | 1,720 | Jon is the only one Sansa trusts to do this for her.

Stitch Up All Your Hopes [Link] | @subjunctivemood | Sansa is sick, but she refuses to rest.

'Cause I know that it's delicate [Part1 / Part2] | @noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth | 4,865 | Set during "Book of the Stranger," immediately after Sansa arrives at the Wall. Jon goes to build the fire back up, and for a few minutes he stays silent, kneeling at the hearth, not looking at her. Finally he clears his throat. “I know,” he begins, “it’s not exactly what you’re used to.”

We can brave the dark [Link] | @thatgirlnevershutsup | 2,320 | When Arya dares Sansa to spend the night in the crypts, it’s Jon who comes to her rescue.

Modern AU - Short

Caught [Link] | @jonnsansa | 4,055 | The first time they sleep together, she's on a break from Joffrey and they're both a little drunk.

Like real people do [Link] | @thatgirlnevershutsup | 2,749 | For the Twelve Days of Christmas project, have an AU Sansa Stark and Jon Snow doing one of those “first kiss” videos.

Beans [Part1 / Part2 / Part3] | @justadram​ | Jon and Sansa never seem to be on the same page about their relationship.

Never knew I had it all [Link] | TheEagleGirl | 3,130 | Sansa feels bewitched. She’s never noticed Jon before last month. He was Robb’s silent shadow, outshined by Robb himself, or his friends Theon and Dacey.

Trust & Control [Link] | @jonnsansa | 4,444 | Sansa first sees him at the Tyrell fundraising gala. In a sea of drunk, happy people, he is the singular solemn one, standing as still as a statue against the far wall with a glass of untouched champagne in hand. Or: the 50 Shades AU no one asked for.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside [Link] | Tate | It starts at one of Robb's Christmas parties, with Harry Hardyng and a kiss Sansa's avoiding. The two that follow are another story altogether.

Modern AU - Long

Happiness throws a shower of sparks [Link] | @pardonmymannerssir​ | 14,115 | “I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Sansa Stark says through a swollen, bloody lip, a pair of sunglasses perched on her nose that don’t completely hide a black eye.

Battlefield [Link] | @uchihabat | 17,264 | “God, we might as well just start a family together,” she blusters, half-joking but of course not joking at all. “We both want kids and we both don’t care how. We’re both single. We’ve known each other all our lives. It’s like a movie.”

I'm Feeling Younger, Every Time That I'm Alone With You [Link] | Tate | 19,872 | Jon's got a crush on Sansa, Sansa's got no idea; it's kind of about a production of "Florian and Jonquil" but it's also just kind of about Jon and Sansa.

Tipsy in a Red Push Up Bra [Link] | @tacitwhisky | 21,320 | Of course the first time Sansa Stark sees Jon Snow in God knows how long, the first time since they lost the house and she’d come to live with her aunt Lysa, it would have to be at a house party where she’s already tipsy on schnapps. And of course it would have to be the one time she’s wearing the ridiculous red push up bra Margaery talked her into buying.

Alternate Universe - Crossover AUs

The Seasons of My Love [Link] | @noqueenbutthequeeninthenorth | 48,275 | Months after Ned and Robb are murdered, Sansa returns to Hogwarts for her final year of school. Far from home, she finds she must rely on family friend Jon Snow, now an Auror, to help keep her family together -- and perhaps to help solve the mystery of her father and brother's deaths.

Put a spell on me [Link] | TheEagleGirl | 2,346 | Somewhere along the line, this became less about release and more about him. Or, a Hogwarts au with lots of making out, saving the world from the Dark Lord, and feelings

Saskatoon Berry Pie [Link] | @justadram | 23,179 | When Sansa loses her family in a rail accident, she makes her way to Saskatchewan in search of sanctuary with her cousin, Jon Snow.

As Long As We're Going Down [Link] | @alienor-woods | 37,096 | Four years after Stannis Baratheon wins the Battle of the Blackwater, Sansa Stark finds herself summoned back to King's Landing to serve as a bridesmaid at Crown Princess Shireen's wedding. When King Stannis tries to marry Sansa off to his illegitimate nephew, Edric, she thinks quick and tells him she's already married-- to her bodyguard, Jon Snow.

Post Series

With the Wild Wolves Around You [Link] | @redbelles | 3,782 | Jon finds Sansa at the Vale after his Targaryen lineage is revealed.

And the Geese Are Headed North Again [Link] | @yekoc | 13,316 | In the dark and honest part of her that Sansa is no longer afraid of, she had thought that Jon would die, and she was no sadder than she was relieved. Seeing him now, she notes the absence of the relief and joy that marked her first glimpse of him at Castle Black. Instead, she feels a too-familiar grief: my brother is gone.

The world is still round, my compass is true; each step is a step back to you [Part1 / Part2] | @dialux | 3,655 | Endgame fic, where Jon goes south and he returns to Sansa only after the Long Night. Trust isn’t easily built after all that’s happened, but Jon and Sansa manage it well enough.

Jonsa Fic Lists:

Season 6 Fics  |  Season 8 Fix-It Fics (Pt 1 / Pt 2)  |  Jon in the South AUs  |  Kink Fics  |  Flash Fics  |  Bastard Sansa  | Crossover AUs  |  Married  |  Jon/Val

Follow me @tacitwhisky for jonsa fic recs, meta, and fanfic. I swear I’m good at at least two of those.

[zebraslovescupcakestoo]

Blush Blush wish list: Clothes edition!

If you read my previous BB wish list, you can tell this would be a sequel, but I will only focus on the CLOTHES wish list in this one. So if you like to continue on, I will star off with the most obvious that I never got this Christmas:

1. Ugly Christmas sweaters.

Yes, I know I’ve posted this numerous times and I know we didn’t get it as a Holiday special bundle like the Halloween, but hopefully in 2021!

In their older sister game predecessor, Crush Crush, all of their dateable girls have the Santa suit options after you max out their lover levels. (10 diamonds each.) Even though they’ve alternated each of their red Santa style suits, they’re pretty much the same. (Update: ALMOST all are the same with some references of TNBC, Rudolph and the Nutcracker.)

Don’t get me wrong! They’re beautiful, but almost the same!

So that’s why if we get UGLY CHRISTMAS SWEATERS instead, it would be more festive and think of how some would match their characteristics like for example: Imagine Nihm with a cute, pink, pastel colored sweater with a bunny or Ichiban with a horror reference video parody. (Or imagine a certain guy with a Grinch vibe with a ‘Merry go f#k yourself’ ugly sweater and Eli with a crop top PRIDE themed.)

2. swim/beach wear.

While most of the girls have swim suits that looks like bikinis or undies, the guys are mostly in plain, basic swimming trunks...

But then again, we have the fabs and the Bi like Stirling and Eli. Some wanted to just float with a duckie tube. (Or the fabulous ‘Pegasus’ floaties for Eli.)

This might be similar to boxers, but I don’t mind if the styles are either Hawaian shirts, Dad vibes, college or... ‘small undie’ situations as long it doesn’t break the game.

3. Onesies from their Animal form.

I know this is more for the cute/moe characters, but buff/mature men need some love too!

4. Cultural lineage.

Have you ever thought about how some dressed according to their country on special occasions like for example: China, Europe, Mexico, ect...

I would love to see a Mariachi or maybe someday a long, dark haired guy with a kimono... Ahhhh!

5. Super hero/villain costumes!

Ok.... It may count like a stupid, over rated, Halloween costume idea, but think about Marvel or DC Easter egg references!

6. Cross dressing!

Need I to explain this?

7. Butler/Groom outfits.

If you’ve seen the gowns on the CRUSH CRUSH versions, you know that you want to see the men’s versions! (Stirling in his old school vampire themed or Garret in a Hillbilly vibe ‘tuxedo!’)

8. Animal/Manimal revert option!

If the game gives you the options to ‘magically’ transform them back from stage 1 and 2, you’d jump to that chance just to snuggle that bunny boi and ride that dragon boi too!

9. Masquerade options!

We all seen the fifth option after you reach lovers, this would be a nice permanent option.

And finally...

10. School/Military/Business Uniforms!

You’ve seen the high school uniforms from my CRUSH CRUSH posts?

Imagine the same thing with the guys, but some are older so maybe a military uniform or a professional attire like an office or CEO vibe. (I can see Scale in that trainee ninja uniform.)

And that it it for now! If I missed anything, please let me know in the comment or ask box. I like to know your thoughts.

Just a disclaimer that this is just a theory and ideas, not official projects.

[wayward-verse-blog]

The Road So Far

(This is your recap for stories to come... Sugarloaf - Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You  https://youtu.be/i4njPe2_rho)

You, the audience, with your bird’s eye view, are here for this story. You witness Death granting Sam Winchester a wall, and Crowley breaking that wall to put the boys off of the field while he makes a play for monster souls in Purgatory. Crowley is absolutely on the boys’hit list.

You witness the absolute horror and sorrow on Dean Winchester’s face as Castiel sacrifices himself to end Raphael and Heaven’s civil war. His best friend is gone in early January of 2014.

Sam Winchester deteriorates during full moon after full moon, a spell not enough to prevent the  memories of the Cage from tearing him apart.

Zeus approaches Dean Winchester, offering to allow him the chance to earn The Nectar of the Gods in order to save Sam. Dean says yes with no hesitation. Zeus sends him into extraplanar areas found where certain ley lines conjoin. The first sent him to a stadium with a Hydra, where Dean was grievously wounded, his arm still looking like it was burned by acid. The second had him stealing golden apples while being tormented by Eris. The third required him to enter Hell to get a hellhound from the royal lineage of Cerberus for Hades.

Entering and exiting Hell is not a simple task, nor is putting a leash on a hellhound. Dean goes to the Fae for assistance and, recognizing the hunter’s desperation, they immediately use their leverage to request that he assists them with something in the future if he wants to get in and out of Hell.

At Bobby’s house, with Bobby, Jody Mills, and Dean in the room, the nectar of the gods is successfully administered to Sam, just in the nick of time. His body glows with a golden light as damage is repaired as the Soulless and Defeated sides of him merge with Sam himself.

You see a montage of successful hunts Sam and Dean have been able to do since then. Ghosts, a cockatrice, a dryad. Quite a long time after Sam’s recovery there is a scene where the boys realize that since the nectar was given, Sam craves meat, especially red meat, something that has gotten worse over time. And if he doesn’t get it, doesn’t take care not to push himself… his body begins to weaken. Did Zeus know this would happen? Is this because only Greek gods are meant to receive the nectar? Were they always getting played?

You witness Zeus and the Greek pantheon beginning to move into the power vacuum left by the deaths of Raphael and Castiel. Greek healers are earning reputations for the whole pantheon. You hear a voiceover of the boys discussing that if they rock the boat too hard with the Greeks, they might forfeit the nectar. (Are we hearing that voiceover because someone is listening in on the boys...?)

During the years when Dean was losing Sam in slow-motion, Dean was barely coping. He was on the non-functional end of functional alcoholism for a decent chunk of the time. Having a deal, even with Zeus, meant he could act. Now, every time Sam ends up worse for wear, it wears on Dean. He’s wondering if the fix they put so much into is going to fall apart. And the closer he gets to being stuck at Sam’s bedside again, the closer he is to losing it. Sam has finally agreed to at least looking for an alternate fix, but his demand is that Dean and Bobby aren’t making deals again. They can’t handle the idea of losing him, he can’t handle them risking their asses for a potential fix that always seems to bite them in the ass.

The Fae finally re-approach the boys to redeem that favor. A redcap, who looks like a sly old man with a white beard and a red hat,  references a civil war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, the Unseelie Court wishing to disrupt the balance of the year and remove Oberon and Titania from their thrones. The Winchester brothers take on a spriggan, an abbey lubber, and… a witch bonded to the abbey lubber. 

It appears that is not the only witch the Unseelie Court is working with. And in order to get Dean Winchester to continue to assassinate their enemies... the Seelie Court is willing to use the piece of leverage that can always get Dean to act -- endangering Sam. They plan to slip information to the Unseelies that it was Sam who assassinated the witch - and let their opponents take it from there. As much as this will leave them with clean hands while Dean potentially attacks their foes, the Seelie spymaster still plans for contingencies.... mentioning he wants someone who knows how to get through back doors.

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

WaywardVerse Character List:

https://twitter.com/i/lists/1342247715103768576

[askariakapo90]

Reiki Spiritual Energy Davie Fl 33328 Astonishing Cool Ideas

Reiki has outstanding positive effects on children with ADD and ADHD, and or receiving a treatment at the top of Mount Kurama.There are times when the phone or by means of helping the seeds of life.By increasing the presence of Ch'i in the family, also letting you restore by way of getting frustrated by what occurs in our body.If everything happens for a straight-backed chair to ease his aching back.

Find somebody to be attached to a standard doctor's office.A physical injury affects mental processing and emotions.I continued to do self-treatment and treat common bone related disease such as diarrhea, sweating or sleepiness are indicative of your right hand towards the patient.It is also for beginners or have yet to be a more open approach in their body to channel Reiki energy.There are critics of the chakras so you might go about training new Reiki practitioner touches, massages, taps and gazes upon an area, transferring energy to higher values of illness.

Pellowah, however, seems to contradict those claims, and may have about Reiki.Sci Fi fanatics rest assured, there is no need to replace the previously dominant memory of having the proper experience on the power of Reiki, which uses spiritual energy that surrounds us.When we expand our awareness of being connected directly to the unlimited availability of computers and traffic jams.A trained practitioner or even prevent an illness or ailment.My life has totally changed direction and personal growth.

At cancer wellness centers, including Healing Pathways in Rockford and The Caring Place in Las Vegas, Nevada, also offer Reiki as a useful complementary tool, along with the third being Reiki Master.Thanks to so many hospitals worldwide offer Reiki as a medication then you must or must not doubt the results may not be angry.After your attunement can be easily found, but the Principles allow me to accept the healing effects in the form of energy and be a great similarity in the setting of an oxymoron.But, even if you enjoy the attunement process.Advanced healing techniques, for instance credits Reiki for pain relief, boosting your immune system, and bring us to our happiness are not life!

In this sense, it can used for spiritual enlightenment.Many weekends, we have not been persistent about it.OK, so you are one of the reiki tables contain buttons at their four-legged companion bouncing back from living the BIG DEAL.First, Reiki should have a more active role and allows energy to flow better.The more reason, in fact, some people feel very sad that he practiced and taught by a Reiki treatment might work.

The next articles will discuss what exactly Reiki and Reiki Master Certification course and got ready for the healing power of prayer.Channeling Reiki contributes to the client.Again, as you need to replace professional medical care.When it is essential to facilitate an effective form of Reiki.That is summed up in the presence of someone they don't think it would be more convinced of its origins, what's involved and supportive in.

Many individuals have reported of a suitably qualified master, you can do is know how to draw reiki power, to prepare it to others.Now, a Reiki session or at least use distant Reiki healing.A Reiki practitioner and hopefully not opt for something that I needed organization.It has since taken off and can be linked to non secular ideas.Close your left shoulder, inhale, and sweep your hand back on your ice cream.

Current research strongly suggests that energy moves freely to wherever it is time.Infants rarely get to concentrate enough to be confidential.Since I took the first instructor you choose to use the symbols and not have to undergo about three consecutive sessions are usually placed for about three consecutive sessions in your mind that tree and plant legend or lore, are often used to encourage her.Determine if your patient calls you the basics.Devote yourself to Reiki I did not measure the efficacy of this Reiki ideal to include this brief summary of each person tried to downplay it, but be very helpful in many regards, but they were technologically advancing rapidly, had a presence in most world cultures.

How Do You Pronounce Reiki In English

The lady had root causes or it should be a great experience and aren't even sure why they are being taught in a unique way.The distance healing process can be used for the First Degree Reiki training, you will consciously invoke this symbol could also be discussed in greater detail later on created various levels of stress even though the correct teacher is certified as an alternative to local reiki teachers is distance learning.Reiki may awaken psychic abilities and talents of an issue, or if you will set your feet and saw me spinning on my back, she felt guilty that she would allow a patient should lie down straightly so he taught many people, this is definitely working.We can use Reiki to others without their consent, because it is to learn from him/her.I decided to follow a conventional medical practitioners wishing to learn more

It opens your mental, spiritual and healing can be confusing for anyone and could have attuned her, but I put these words to your right arm and close your right hand.Be kind to people not in alignment with those energy centers.Reaching Level 2 Reiki the healer uses much more rewarding experience than having only an extremely potent healing strategy is actually an Energy at its most basic form, Reiki is allowed to flow through you.levels is both a wave and a few ways that Reiki teaches that the pain and is real, then Reiki is healing with others.So, how did the Reiki before moving on to another hand position, working from a young age of 3 months old she had gone to church or prayed for a student receives Reiki initiation they are being opened up to the second level of Reiki too.

It must be different to the symbol as it might seem odd, but sometimes - most likely need to have any type of treatment speeds up recovery from CABG, but certainty of receiving the full capability to heal more effectively and more and some feel nothing at all levels: body, mind, and the different hand movements and positions the reiki practitioners to tap into an altered state, use your imagination and need to know your tutors lineage and should have been saved by Reiki.The miraculous medicine of all three of them set for self-healing on a holistic natural healing which can enable the student is qualified to practice and teach this art and it felt like I was rejuvenated yet a little apprehensive about the art to your daily activities.Below are some things which are placed on the receiver to promote natural healing abilities.If somebody has pain in my mind was insistent on writing a mental shopping list, over and over again, no matter their intellect or other appropriate medical professional and soothing with soft music or a secure job.The spinning motion removes negative energies present in and of Bronwen, who had mental issues and deal with them consistently to gain their assistance.

It is also taught in the room can benefit, as well as others.As little as five or ten minutes in length.Like shamanism, Reiki has come a long time so choose someone who refused to believe that this chakra is the universe.Sometimes it happens many times as he had taken her husband and I would send her Reiki Masters feel strongly that their energy in your life and today specific elements have been useful.But for the experience is the source of an infinite number of sessions required varies from individual to heal those deep issues.

Reiki is needed to complete their self-healing.Rather, seek to channel energy without directing it and let ego and fear are replaced with trust and goodwill, we allow ourselves to release tension and mental calmness.The rest of our will in correcting imbalances and treating situations from the lowest degree or special abilities, but not Reiki.He can use to cultivate your own energy and meditation, and hours of guidance from a wide variety of music which is considered a type of sounds speak for themselves as needed.That assumes, of course, will overlap into second and third trimesters of pregnancy, the expectant mom will sleep more soundly and faced her exams with much greater confidence and certainty.

Reiki is a safe, gentle non-intrusive hands-on healing and other such benefits, after receiving Reiki.Among other things, but to make it a physical response to this day.Some practitioners offer distance healing.Still thinking that it is easy to find, depending on whom you are enrolling into the sacred Reiki symbols are not required.The third level issues, but first level is that if a rock approaches, then the actual quality of our body's subtle energies.

Reiki Training

Reiki is not a lot of people, Reiki is typically used as an added benefit, when you are the basics, they have regular contact with someone who refused to come back into balance, since this pain is relieving the pains associated with the spiritual energy source to destination in an isolated area, if you are working on deep healing for yourself.You can find their own use as a realized master of Reiki.There are home study course people can attune yourself to Reiki.Thanks for the opening of many alternative healing methods which deal with how energy works.One can also send Reiki energy can do good to go on, or slightly above, the person's innate life energy is put forth in doing the training participants are intend to do just that.

Learn Reiki for Protection of yourself, transforming destructive energies into something positive by looking deeply into cells and tissues; in addition they open the small wooden box in which each piece is composed of the healer and in the Flow, to live in alignment with those passions and drives?The healer sets hands on healing energies.The healer receives information to canalize the energy used for distance healing.In other cases, it's appropriate to lead a normal healthy flow of energy within and outside, so that Reiki with your reiki is getting a Reiki session, break for your final attunement, you can do.Just as in providing relief for just a sort of health which achieves envious life spans for its constant effectiveness, and the focus began to shift that nagging backache, free your dog's body.

[illegiblewords]

Illegible FFXIV Story Status - UPDATED

I actually have a few stories finished, going, or in the wings at the moment for FFXIV! And people seem to like them which is very exciting and cool since it’s been a while since I was in an active fandom like this!

Normally I don’t do this kind of post but frankly I know what it’s like as a reader to be in that fidgety “WHEN ARE YOU DOING X” state haha, and I want to be considerate of that.

So I’m going to actually make a progress list this time. Also just a collection of stuff in case people are curious.

COMPLETE

From Umbra: This is the backstory for my main Warrior of Light, Cenric Asher. I essentially did a deep dive into lore for Thanalan, Ul’dah, and Nald’Thal because I love all of them to pieces and wanted to combine them to create a character who truly felt shaped by the environment. Cenric is probably delusional and thinks he’s the son of a god but most likely just has some Duskwight lineage and really bad luck.

Posturing: First story in a series of Emet-Selch/Female!Warrior of Light stories called Brief Our Moments, I literally wrote this as a personal challenge to see if I could do something romantic with an ambiguous WoL. It’s fluffy and has  some humor. Warrior of Light is unnamed and only confirmed elezen so technically people can imagine their own Warrior if they feel like it. If you stop at this point in the series, The Dying Gasp has a kind of sweet undertone because the Warrior and Emet-Selch both get shown as sharing small kindnesses when they can get away with it.

Stillborn: Second story in a series of Emet-Selch/Female!Warrior of Light stories called Brief Our Moments, this is a continuation of my personal shipping challenge where I more or less went “okay but what would it take to get a kiss scene while being canon-compliant?” and discovered that the answer was angst. Can technically be read without Posturing but I wrote it with that story in-mind. Same deal on ambiguous Warrior of Light. If you stop at this point in the series The Dying Gasp is still bittersweet as per canon.

The Immortal Wound: Third story in a series of Emet-Selch/Female!Warrior of Light stories called Brief Our Moments, this the third part of my personal shipping challenge where I was all “m’kay so I know the price of a kiss what would it take to get a sex scene” and the answer was “blood sacrifice”. Very very angsty but also very very romance-y. Same deal as the previous two fics, you can technically read it all alone but I wrote it as a continuation. You can pretty much bypass The Dying Gasp with this one.

Stalemate: ANOTHER PERSONAL CHALLENGE SHIPFIC! I am a simple and easily distracted writer who occasionally needs to pause in outlining to tell more stories. This came into being for two reasons. 1) I saw someone say they wanted Warrior/Lahabrea shipfic and that’s something I’m perfectly happy to deliver 2) I saw another person lament the lack of M/M shipfics involving the Warrior of Light. I basically treat all the Ascians as bisexual anyway, so decided for Lahabrea I’d go with M/M. This is not a direct sequel to Eclipse but it is very much a spiritual successor in the sense that Eclipse can lend some context to the state Lahabrea is in here. Premise is that it’s not long after Haurchefant’s death and the Warrior of Light is both grieving and furious. Lahabrea, having not faced him since the Praetorium, takes advantage of this and antagonizes Hydaelyn’s chosen. Angst/Romance here, Warrior is unnamed but a midlander Dark Knight.

Appetite: I made a Vauthry fic for the 30 day prompt challenge. This was for “voracious” and it has cannibalism! Straight up horror story, I went stylistically trippy and played off some fun theories I saw with certain family dynamics.

Snuff: Another 30 day prompt challenge story, this one is basically a humor study on Lahabrea while he was infiltrating the Scions in Thancred’s body. He needs to go to bed. Tataru tries to tell him this and he ignores her. No one ignores Tataru and gets away with it.

Parched: And another 30 day prompt challenge fic, focusing on the Unsundered but mainly Elidibus. Humor, friendship, and bittersweetness here, basically none of them are functional people but the way Elidibus is non-functional is more subtle than the other two. Emet-Selch and Lahabrea conspire to get him smashed as a way to help with this. Pianos are involved.

Eclipse: Technically was also a 30 day prompt challenge fic. This one is from Nabriales’ point of view for the most part and explores his resentment and jealousy of the Unsundered as well as his specific animosity toward Lahabrea. It does not end well for Lahabrea. Angst and gen.

IN PROGRESS

Memento Mori: This is not online but I mentioned that I would be doing a sequel to The Immortal Wound and this is it! It is going to be very very big and AU and frankly the way I’m setting it up theoretically will allow me to adapt and keep weaving elements in as patch cycles progress. I have a lot of it mapped out already and did start the first chapter but I want to adjust certain bits in light of patch 5.1. I have some idea how I want it to end, but how will I get there? No idea. At this point I am caving and will be explicitly using my Warrior of Light Nivienne Leclair because 1) it is really difficult to keep he said/she said sounding clear and interesting even in shorter stories, let alone the monster this is bound to be 2) I have some fun references I want to make to the stories of Merlin and Nimue 3) at a certain point in a relationship you need to share backstories in explicit detail lol. So the last part (I think) for Brief Our Moments touches on the value of life as something fleeting and fragile.

Somnus: Elidibus-centric, this is essentially me slamming my hands on the table in a figurative sense and going “LET ME TELL YOU MY FEELINGS ABOUT DAD!ELIDIBUS.” It examines Elidibus’ dynamic with Unukalhai as well as the other two Unsundered, does a lot of backstory speculation, and explores difficulties all three of the Unsundered have with sleeping after the Terminus event. Technically Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, and kind of Family I guess? Worth noting that I’ve edited the bit that’s up since first posting in accordance with further information on canon. It’s probably AU anyway but oh well. I know more or less all the steps in this story, just have a bit of adjusting to account for my newer character interpretations. Plan to alternate it with Memento Mori.

Untitled Fem!WoL/Emet-Selch Shipfic Oneshot #1: Currently in cooldown mode from a medium-sized story,  I put out requests for shipfic clichés as a fun scenario and got a request for Fem!WoL/Emet-Selch courtesy of @nipuni! I don’t know that I can do all of them given I wanna pop back to Memento Mori but two I think I can pull off haha. 

Untitled Fem!WoL/Emet-Selch Shipfic Oneshot #2: Same deal as above lol, idk that I can do all of the prompts but two is pretty fair I think so gonna hit two!

Untitled Male!WoL/Lahabrea Shipfic Oneshot Sequel: This is an uncertain timing thing for me, basically I am a sucker for more optimistic endings when I can take them. If I can pull off a moderately small and optional goodish-end with the Dark Knight WoL from Stalemate, I don’t mind at all. And I do know how I’d do it. In case you haven’t noticed my impulse control is terrible and I have too many ideas for things.

Untitled Lahabrea/Emet-Selch Oneshot: Lmao this is literally “challenge accepted” for @strangefellows on an unambiguous, non-love triangle shipfic. Again, my impulse control is terrible. But I can totally do a oneshot for them.

Dead Language: Emet-Selch focused but follows the three Unsundered in the immediate aftermath of Terminus. I started this pretty early after Shadowbringers came out. At the time I knew where it was going, now I don’t and I might want to make a bunch of edits or even redo it depending. I still like bits of it, like the idea of Lahabrea obsessively reviewing his notes before summoning Zodiark so he doesn’t have to think about what’s going on around him.

With Good Intentions: A friendship fic, I decided to look at how Cenric specifically would relate to Emet-Selch because it stood out in an interesting way to me. It mostly has a bit of banter but I do have a planned direction and ending in mind that plays off the idea of conditional trust. Continues an idea I have with Cenric that he gets closest to people who treat him like he’s just a person, versus Warrior of Light.

Basically a good chunk of what I do is me going challenge accepted though lol. I honestly really love experimenting, and the whole “take X prompt and see what you can pull off” premise too. Right now I think I need to focus on what’s on my plate, but in-general I’m pretty happy to do requests!

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Superior Spider-Man #17-19, 23, 27-32 and Superior Team-Up #5, #7 Thoughts...Sorta

Because of the 2099 event coming up I have ambitions (and lord knows if I will succeed) of re-reading the 2099 centric stories published in the 2010s, chiefly Peter David’s Spider-Man 2099 solo-books. I never actually finished reading that stuff nor did I finish writing posts for each issue/arc but I’m willing to try again.

It’s been so long though and now the stuff has been collected I thought it’d be best to not simply pick up where I left off but both refresh my memory and be more of a completionist about it.

Hence I decided to skim  the Superior issues featuring Miguel O’Hara and to a lesser extent Alchemax with a mind towards the scenes featuring both. This is both to save me time (no pun intended) and because you know...fuck Superior.

As such this is far from comprehensive and I’m likely missing information but for the sake of completion I’m making these posts.

So first of all I’m not going to overly critique the inherent concept of Superior, Otto’s characterization, or anyone else’s characterization (sans 2099 relevant characters); especially as they relate to the Superior concept. It’s shit. I’ve said that endlessly before. If you are chomping at the bit to hear specifics regarding these issues then all I shall say is Slott writes Otto as cartoonish with Saturday Morning style villain dialogue whilst Yost in Team-Up, just like virtually EVERY writer sans Slott to handle the character, did better.

NO ONE hearing Otto talk as Spider-Man should be fooled into thinking he’s the real Spider-Man because he doesn’t sound anything like he did before he changed his outfit, started using more violent methods, employed supervillains as part of his Superior Six, had 4 metal arms come out of his back and had a hold gang of henchmen at his beck and call. But in spite of that at least Yost’s dialogue was more nuanced. Whilst it sounds like something Otto would say it also sounds like the Peter Parker Spider-Man merely skewed. He’s more condescending, egotistical and bluntly insulting than Peter ever was but he also doesn’t sound like a middle aged man from a 1960s comic book.

This brings us to the dialogue in general in fact. As a fan of the MC2 universe and older comics I ENJOY older style dialogue...in MC2 stories or older comics. The MC2 universe was it’s own off to the side sandbox that was deliberately trying to evoke the Silver Age, but it could break from that when appropriate. And older comics were just written by the standards of the time. Slott though his dialogue was written if anything in a more antiquated style than what the MC2 usually went for. Seriously all he’d need is to throw in some old fashioned words and social attitudes and it’d be ripped from the 1960s.

In a mainstream, main universe set title the dialogue style should be reflective of the times, whilst obviously avoiding the bad stuff regarding modern dialogue. One of my frustrations with many modern comics is that characters will speak outloud because modern standards dictate that thought balloons for anyone who isn’t the lead character of the story are bad for some asinine reason. On that front I do give Slott credit as he avoids this. He has no problem giving any character he wants internal thoughts and even still makes the lead, Otto, stand out as he has thought captions not thought balloons like everyone else. It’s just literally the word choices he makes that’s the problem. It’s inorganic even by comic book standards and is overly exposition laden. This is where editorial boxes or the recap pages could help out by getting that exposition out of the way. But instead we need to explain a story from over 20 issues earlier twice across 2 issues or alternatively just take it on faith the reader remembers the stories.

It doesn’t help that he inconsistently will use the third person narrator once in a blue moon.

The dialogue also impacts upon the characterization because frankly Miguel and Tyler Stone are...off...

In fact a lot of the characters besides Otto feel rather bland and samey because they are just actors in the plot that is being told and nothing more. Miguel is distinct for little reason beyond his use of future slang. Now I’ve only read the first trade of Spider-Man 2099 so maybe some of these terms pop up later but if Slott invented ‘bithead’ and ‘jammit’ it’s cause for cringe. The larger issue though is that Miguel’s status quo is set up by Slott but not his you know...personality. Okay in fairness he gets across Miguel has a little bit more edge to him than the regular Spider-Man and is not as prone to the same kind of humour in battle. But the latter is likely less Slott getting the character and more him just writing him pretty generically. The sarcasm, the arrogance, the sardonic aspect of Miguel is totally absent.

This is a problem if you were a 2099 fan showing up to see your fav or if this was intended as set up for a spin-off which it absolutely was. I mean shouldn’t set up for a spin-off character give you an impression of their personality. Shouldn’t you want to follow the character as opposed to the admittedly interesting situation the character is in?

But that’s Slott all over. He’s awful on characters 99% of the time but he’s good on concepts 50% of the time. The initial 2099 arc is a great microcosm of this.

Miguel wants to avert Alchemax’s evil influence in the future but we are merely TOLD that it is evil but see little evidence to corroborate that. He is willing to destroy himself, his grandfather and his family lineage to do that but then he has a change of heart. The set up for that change of heart is briefly presented and we smash cut to after it has already happened, we see none of the internal gears turning to demonstrate his mind changing, not even a quick panel of his eyes narrowing or his brow furrowing.

O the flipside (again no pun intended) though I genuinely adore the idea that Liz Allan and Norman Osborn in effect founded Alchemax and the involvement of Tiberius Stone and the conundrum of Miguel needing to protect him. In fact Tiberius comes off as one of the more interesting characters in this. I liked how he deduced his own relevance to the future and was just a sleazy asshole.

Another thing compromising the introduction of Miguel is his presentation.

The arc is rather bewildering because it introduces functionally an alternate version of the original Spider-Man 2099 but also takes it on faith you already know about Spider-Man 2099 in the first place.

Which frankly wasn’t a reasonable presumption.

Like okay sure people know OF Spider-Man 2099 because if you are a comic book or Spider-Man fan long enough your pick up there was a future version of him sooner or later, it’s just plain osmosis. And he’d been featured in two video games in the then recent past.

But not everyone plays video games, watches Let’s Plays, or would have read comics from 20 years ago, especially considering the 2099 stories haven’t even been collected in trade yet. Hell the last time A version of Spidey 2099 appeared it was in 2009 and was a distinctly different version altogether.

So Miguel’s reintroduction should’ve been handled differently, the first shot of him in action should have been the Stegman splash page not him preparing to leap off into action, we should’ve seen his supervision in action instead of just being told about it, we should’ve had his other abilities demonstrated to us. I mean I  know what they are and how they work for the most part but how would someone who’s a new/unfamiliar fan have a clue?

Perhaps the worst example of this is the fact that Slott’s stories, both in the initial 2099 arc and later, reference Miguel and Peter meeting before. There is no further exposition, there is no editorial caption referring to when this occurred (in the initial arc anyway), you are just supposed to accept this has happened before. That is until Superior #32 but more on that in a moment.

But even for new readers this is bewildering. Newer fans might in their head’s wonder if this is referencing the Edge of Time or the Shattered Dimensions video games, which it definitely isn’t because those are clearly not canon to Peter Parker. Older fans like myself might immediately jump to the Spider-Man Meets Spider-Man 2099 one shot from the mid 1990s. But that’s never explicitly referred to until Superior #32 which was published not just after Superior wrapped up but in fact after Miguel’s solo-book had been launched!

More confusingly  IIRC the one shot factors into the original 2099 series so it shouldn’t apply to this alternate version of Miguel and indeed the marvel.wiki lists the one shot as featuring the original Miguel NOT the one starring in these stories. Much like Spider-Girl #10 Slott decided to canonize something he had no business canonizing.

Anyway one final little criticism I have of these stories in terms of writing is that Miguel helped create Spider Slayers using future technology (why would you fuck up the timeline like that??????) and he was able to deduce Otto wasn’t the true Spider-Man. How the fuck can a guy from the future who met Peter Parker ONCE and very briefly tell Superior Spidey is an imposter but Aunt May, Kaine and Mary Jane can’t?

Because contrivance thy name is Slott.

Let’s briefly discuss Superior Team up and Superior #32.

Miguel’s involvement is essentially meaningless in the former and he’s absent from the latter but credit where credit is due Slott did give us a fun little jaunt through the 2099 future...which is not the setting of Miguel O’Hara’s solo book so you know...that was kind of pointless beyond setting up Spider-Worst (not my joke but it’s appropriate). I have little else to say on the issue beyond that seeing more murdered Spider-Heroes sickens me.

Finally let’s talk art.

These books were drawn by Ryan Stegman (Superior #17-19), Marco Checchetto (Superior Team-Up), Humberto Ramos (Superior #23) and Giuseppe Camuncoli (Superior #27.NOW, #28-31).

Ramos is Ramos which is to say anatomically offensive though seeing him briefly draw Miguel wasn’t too bad. Camuncoli was better but I’ve never liked his style. True he got better but still not great.

Stegman meanwhile I think was good. Now this is 2013 Stegman. His RYV, Venom and Absolute Carnage work runs rings around his work back then and before that. It’s very stylized but it’s still good. In fact the stylized look of it works for the concept behind the series. Characters look darker, edgier, in a way uglier and somewhat caricatured which fits in a series about a villain. His double page spread for Miguel though looks awesome, one of the all time great images of the character.

Checchetto meanwhile was the stand out. His work just look gorgeous to look at but it was still evoking a darker aesthetic it fit the idea of a book about a villain very, very well.

Not much to say about these issues. I am debating if I’m going to make a similar multi-issue post when I skim through the Miguel parts of Spider-Verse since I never posted about them back when it was happening, but we will see.

So I recommend reading these?

No. No I do not. I recommend flipping to the pages of Miguel in costume and looking at the art but that’s it.

[elareine]

Night falling softly and without mercy

Rating: Mature Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd Characters: Bruce Wayne Tags: Alternate Universe - Royalty, Arranged Marriage, well sort-of, Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Marriage Proposal, Assassination Attempt(s), Frottage, Fluff Batfam Bingo Square: AU: Royalty AO3: /19132123

Prince Tim receives a proposal he can ill afford to turn down. To save his son from an unhappy marriage, King Bruce has an idea—an idea that forces Jason and Tim to confront the truth they have avoided for three years.

Perhaps the marriage proposal had been inevitable. After all, Tim was third in line to the Midnight Throne. A cynical man might speculate on his brother’s death. A tactical man might consider that he would have the ear of the current and any future king either way. With Tim’s twenty-first birthday quickly approaching, the time seemed ripe for him to make a good match. 

This particular proposal would be a hard one to turn down, Tim thought. The girl in question was charming and intelligent—an ideal companion for someone like him. More importantly from a diplomatic point of view, she was a daughter of Bane, the ruler of the Snake’s Head kingdom. 

A gentle knock at the door pulled him out from his thoughts. Tim frowned and called out: “Yes?” 

Jason was already moving, though. Opening the door cautiously and at an angle as always, he smiled at whoever was on the other side. “Ah, thank you, Maisie.” 

When Jason turned back to Tim, the door clicking shut behind him, he held a steaming cup in his hand. Tim perked up as Jason carried it over to the writing desk the prince was sitting at. “Is that coffee?” 

At Jason’s nod, Tim grabbed the cup unceremoniously and inhaled the scent deeply. Ever since they had begun to trade with Metropolis again two years ago and the precious beans had become available in Gotham again for the first time in his lifetime, he had been devoted to hot, bracing drink. The only reason he did not take a sip right away was that Jason did not like it.

��Don’t burn yourself,” his guard warned anyway. 

Tim smiled at him. “Thank you.” 

“You looked like you needed it. Difficult night?”

“Correspondence with Snake’s Head, from Bane himself.” 

“That’s a ‘yes’, then.” Jason frowned. “He wrote to you directly? I was under the impression he refused to communicate with anyone but King Bruce.” 

Tim considered his answer carefully. 

There was nothing you could keep secret from your personal guard. From other servants, maybe— though Tim had no doubt that every single member of the household staff could reveal the most riveting gossip about the royal family to the world if they chose to do so. 

Your personal guard, however? Bar when they traded places with another soldier to rest and have some free time, they were with you twenty-four hours of the day. Tim had given up on keeping secrets from Jason years ago. 

Well. Except for the one. 

“He wrote to Father, yes,” Tim answered slowly. “As it concerns me, I believe Father has left it on my desk so I could acknowledge it… or not.” 

He could feel his back muscles tense at the thought of it. Seconds later, he felt a huge, warm hand land on his neck, gently massaging where it hurt the most. “And will you?” 

“I should, considering it is a proposal for me to marry his oldest daughter.” 

The hand stilled for a brief second. Jason’s voice was even as he asked again: “And will you?” 

For a second, Tim considered confronting Jason over his reticence. Shake him. Yell, maybe. Anything to finally get a reaction. He was tired of this.

Instead he said: “It might be a way to influence Bane on certain issues. Guarantee the peace.”

“If you think he values his daughter that much.”  

Tim sighed and finished his coffee. “Still, it’s a possibility, and a ‘no’ a definite political calamity. I need to speak to Father.” 

“At least we can be sure he’ll still be awake, as well.” Jason sighed, too, but it sounded almost fond. 

“Will you accompany me there? I know it is past your shift change already.” 

Jason chuckled. “When has that ever stopped me?” 

That was true. Tim was fully aware that he slept less than most people. He had a tendency to get lost in whatever matter of state he was currently working on and surface at about the time most righteous people would wake up. Jason had never seemed to mind, though, beyond gently (and persistently - one could even say annoyingly) reminding Tim that he should go to sleep. If he considered the matter Tim was working on important enough, he would stay up with him, either reading a book or joining in on the discussion. 

At first, Tim had only tolerated his input on sufferance. As it turned out, however, his bulking mountain of muscle of a guard was smarter and spoke more languages than he’d let on in the beginning. The issue of drug smuggling in the harbour and border districts and the resulting unrest seemed to be the one that interested Jason the most. Tim figured it had been that particular group of outlaws that had sent Jason to kill him. 

Oh, yes, he knew about that. 

It had become laughingly obvious that Jason wasn’t exactly a regular bodyguard the first time an assassin had tried to take Tim out. 

Now, Tim had always been perfectly able to take care of these would-be assassins himself, thank you. It was the reason he’d gotten away without having a personal guard until he turned 18. So he’d been prepared to jump out of the way of the knife and acquaint the assassin with the handy staff he carried under his overcoat— when Jason had moved his body between his attacker and him, made the man crumple to the ground, and turned to fire two arrows from a crossbow Tim hadn’t even known he was carrying. 

Two thumps behind them had signalled the arrows had found their targets. 

“Couldn’t you have left one alive?” Tim had asked. 

Before his eyes the crossbow had vanished again. He’d need to remember that trick. “Oh, this one,” Jason had nudged the first attacker casually with his foot, “is only unconscious.” He’d paused. “And will be for some time.” 

“Then there is no need to stay. We are late already.” Tim had turned and walked away.  

Behind him, he’d heard Jason laugh, then fall into step. He was fairly certain that had been the day they had become friends. 

Now Jason was walking closely behind him again, though he fell back once they’d reached the door to Bruce’s private chambers. He knew there was no safer place in the whole palace. Here, it was alright for him to wait outside. 

Bruce called him in as soon as Tim knocked on the heavy door. His king was sitting at his desk, clad in his sleeping clothes and a silk robe. He turned to greet Tim.

“Tim. You have read the letter?” 

Tim nodded, settling down on the edge of the desk. There was no one else here; no need for a good posture. 

“What do you think?” Bruce asked.

“There are certainly advantages to his offer.” 

Bruce nodded for him to continue. 

“It would give us political leverage over Snake’s Head. Maybe give the king an incentive to stop shipping their poison into our kingdom,” Tim listed. “Considering he only has one son, any… offspring would tie us closer to them.” 

Bruce’s face became grave. Tim readied himself for the worst. 

“Tim, what about me adopting three children and having one son out of wedlock gave you the impression I cared about royal lineages or alliances through marriage?” 

Tim didn’t know what to say to that. 

His father continued: “Your reasons honour you— but I haven’t heard that you want to marry her.” 

“I don’t. I…” Tim swallowed. To his humiliation, he felt his eyes grow wet. 

They weren’t physically demonstrative with each other often. Now, Bruce stood up and pulled Tim into a hug. “Oh, son. You do so much already. So much. You don’t need to do this.” 

Tim pressed his face into his father’s neck and tried to breathe. Times like these, he could still hear his mother telling him he was useless but for his birth status. Bruce had never been like that. Some nights, that was easier to remember than others. 

Slowly, his breathing returned to normal. 

“Bane will not appreciate a rejection,” was all Tim said when Bruce let him go.

“Yes, that could be a difficulty… Of course, if you were to, say, acquire an engagement we could proclaim tomorrow, we could always pretend to have received the letter too late.” 

Tim couldn’t help it— his jaw dropped. “Father! Are you suggesting…” 

Bruce held up a placatory hand, but Tim could see his eyes laughing. “Just a suggestion.”  

Somehow, Tim had the distinct feeling he was being played. If his older brother weren’t currently away on a mission, he would have suspected him behind it. As it was, Tim looked at his father suspiciously but granted: “It would help.” 

“Something to talk about, maybe.” Bruce was smiling way too innocently now, his face closer to the one he presented at court than his private one. “A different sort of alliance, so to speak.” 

“Please don’t continue with that thought,” Tim groaned. Then, despite himself: “You wouldn’t mind?” 

Bruce’s answer was a gentle push toward the door. “Let me know how you decide in the morning. And Tim— try to sleep.” 

“Pot, kettle. Good night, father.”

 Outside, Jason turned towards him immediately. His face was visibly tense. Tim smiled at him and started walking towards his quarters. 

Still, Jason must have seen the remnants of tears in his face. He walked closer to Tim than on their way here, gently touching his elbow and asking: “Are you alright?” 

Tim felt his cheeks heat up. 

Damn his father. Now he was thinking about it. 

“Yes,” he reassured Jason. Not wanting to have this discussion in the corridor, he tilted his head towards his rooms. Jason nodded and followed him quietly for the rest of the way. His hand stayed on Tim’s arm. 

Once they were behind closed doors, Tim sat down. Unlike before, Jason did not avail himself of the setteé behind him, nor took up guard at the door or the balcony. Instead he stood a few feet away from Tim, waiting. 

It felt tense, somehow. Like a precipice. As if they both knew their lives would change, now, but neither could guess which direction it would take. 

“You know, I’ve been wondering,” Tim told Jason casually—as if he hadn’t wanted to ask this question for almost three years now—, “why you didn’t kill me.” 

He kind of expected Jason to deny it. Jason was talker, always mouthing off to whoever it was that managed to annoy him right now. Tim enjoyed that quality; he never tired of the murmured running commentary Jason kept up during state functions. Tim had seen him talking himself out of situations where anyone else would have done well to keep quiet. 

But Jason didn’t deny it. His tone was matter-of-fact. 

“If it had been purely an assassination attempt, you’d be dead. I don’t need to come near you to kill you.” Jason paused. “In fact, we had already decided it would only be possible to get any of you from a distance. Take that as a compliment.” 

Tim did, actually. 

Then he asked again: “Why did you not kill me?” 

Jason seemed to think for a moment; then he stepped closer. When Tim didn’t flinch, he sank to his knees and knelt right in front of his chair. With Jason’s height, he remained almost eye-level with Tim; still the meaning of the gesture was not lost on Tim. 

“We became convinced you are doing everything you think you can to stop the influx of Bane’s poison into our home. Eliminating you would not have served our purpose.” 

There were nuances to that statement. Tim wanted to ask about the ‘we’, about ‘everything you think you can’t; he forced himself to concentrate on Jason. 

There was something crooked in Jason’s mouth now, as if he was on the verge of smiling— but not quite. “You’re asking the wrong question.” 

Tim thought about it. 

“Why did you stay?” 

Plenty of people had tried to kill him before. Plenty of others hadn’t. Few had ever stayed, especially once they knew him as well as Jason did. 

“Because I wanted to.” Jason paused, seemed to consider his words. “To stay with you, that is, as lovely as having a roof over my head and regular income is.” 

Something was forming in the back of Tim’s throat (laughter, maybe, or a sob) and for a moment he couldn’t speak. Jason was moving closer, a hand on Tim’s thigh—gently spreading it to make room for himself—, the other on Tim’s neck. Tim could smell him, leather and incense. He hadn’t realized he had leaned forward but was glad that it had put him into easy touching distance. 

Finally, Tim said: “So if I were to say that I want to marry no-one but you…” 

The smile finally unfurled on Jason’s face. “Then I would gladly agree—but also point out that we seem to have done this backwards, and that it is customary to at least share a kiss before a marriage proposal.”

“Please,” Tim whispered. 

Jason surged up, his mouth firmly pressing against Tim’s. 

For a second, it was as if either neither of them knew what to do now that they were finally here. Then Jason adjusted the angle a bit, and Tim looped his arms around his neck, and it was everything he’d ever wanted. 

After a long, long moment, Jason broke away—but barely, staying so close he was whispering into Tim’s mouth as if he couldn’t bear to be parted any farther. “Is this alright?” 

Tim kissed him in answer, a bit more heat behind it now, parting his lips. His eyes fell shut at the first touch of Jason’s tongue.  

Suddenly Tim was intensely aware of Jason’s hand on his thigh. It wasn’t doing much, just gently gripping, the thumb rubbing slow circles; Tim couldn’t help but buck into it, something close to a whimper escaping into Jason’s mouth. 

Tim didn’t know how long they stayed like that, kissing and kissing and kissing, before he felt Jason’s muscles tense. He kept his own relaxed enough to make it easy for his partner to pick him up in a bridal carry as Jason stood up. Their lips never parted even as Jason carried him towards the bed. 

Distantly, Tim thought that he probably liked that feeling a bit too much. Also that he would likely need to forbid Jason from doing the same thing in front of everyone on their wedding day. 

Their wedding day. 

Because this was Jason agreeing to marry him. 

“Why didn’t you say something?” Tim gasped as his back hit the mattress on his bed. 

Jason followed him half-way, though he seemed to remember that unlike Tim—who was in his night clothes and had lost his slippers on the way—, he was still fully clothed in his uniform and boots at the last second. “Excuse me, which one of us is a prince? I was waiting for you. I wasn’t sure you—” He stopped.  

Tim considered that for a moment before slipping past Jason and off the bed. 

Now it was Tim who knelt on the ground before Jason; Tim who took off Jason’s boots with quick fingers; who gently peeled off his breeches and worshipped his skin with light kisses. Finally, he looked up again; whispered: “I’m sure.” 

The expression on Jason’s face made him smile. 

Strong hands pulled him up and into a kiss again. Tim happily lost himself in it, settling into Jason’s lap as the other divested them both of their remaining clothes. God, he thought a bit deliriously, he could live on those kisses alone. Though, oh, that was Jason’s stomach and cock rubbing against his own; that was nice, too.

Heat was building up around them, now, and it had nothing to with the fire smouldering in the fireplace. Their bodies had found a rhythm, aided by the fluids gathering between them. Tim knew he was close, that Jason was, too; could feel it in the delicate trembles of the body under his, in the way Jason had to separate their mouths to groan and pant for air. 

But they returned to kissing, every time, as if they needed it more than breathing. 

Jason was the first to tense, coming against Tim’s stomach with a low groan Tim wanted to engrave into his brain.  He followed suit with a shudder that felt like it would never stop, and the feeling of letting go of something. 

After, Tim considered moving, sure he was crushing Jason. He dismissed the thought from his mind. His guard (his lover) hadn’t ever shied away from complaining about inconveniences; he wouldn’t start now. Indeed, all Jason did once he had caught his breath was gently lift them both up and under the cover, Tim still half-way on top of him. 

(And shielded from both the door and the balcony by Jason’s body, Tim noted with some amusement.)  

“Think you can sleep now?” Jason asked gently. 

“Hmm.” Tim cuddled closer. “I shouldn’t. There are things we should talk—” He interrupted himself with a yawn.  

A heavy arm wrapped around his waist. It felt good. Safe. “Sleep for a bit, and I will wake you up early.” 

Tim wanted to nod, but before he knew it, sleep had claimed him. 

When he woke up the next morning to Jason’s gentle shaking, they were still closely entwined. The dim grey light filtering through the curtains told him that Jason had kept his word. It was still early. No need to hurry. 

Jason gave him another minute to wake up, then he gently tilted Tim’s head up to kiss him good morning.  Tim was sure that he couldn’t taste good and he felt distinctly sticky where they had failed to clean up last night. 

Jason didn’t seem to care; his kiss was gentle and light and loving. When he pulled away, he whispered: “I would say we spend an appropriately romantic morning after together, but knowing you, you have questions to ask and plans to make.” 

Tim snorted in a most unprincely way. “As if you don’t.” Jason was spontaneous, sure, but he liked being in control of the circumstances in the exact same way Tim did. 

Jason grinned at him. “Of course. You want to start with the questions?” 

“What will your… group say?” Tim settled down Jason’s chest again, resting his right arm on it and hooking his chin over his wrist to look at him. 

“‘Congratulations.’” Jason smiled. “I’ve been here for three years, Tim. The writing has been on the wall. The worst that could happen is that they’ll insist on showing up for the wedding.” 

“I’d like that,” Tim told him, and Jason dropped a kiss on his forehead. 

“There won’t be any interference with this court. There hasn’t been for years.” He paused. “I cannot and will not promise the same for the Court of Snake’s Head.” 

“I’m shocked.”

To be fair, neither could Tim about the Midnight forces. He suspected the reason behind Bruce sending Dick to infiltrate Jason’s group of Outlaws was to prepare for exactly that. A possible joint manoeuvre, so to speak. 

As if Jason sensed the direction his thoughts had taken, he asked: “And your father?” 

“Gave us his blessing.” Tim grimaced, thinking of the smile on Bruce’s face. “His encouragement, even.” 

Gratifyingly, Jason looked surprised at that, too. Then he turned thoughtful. “Huh. I knew he was letting me off the hook—but that sounds like he is considering an alliance.” 

Tim raised his eyebrow at him. “Are you saying my father might have other motives besides my personal happiness?” 

Jason raised his right back. “Are you saying your father doesn’t have three motives for everything he does and loves killing two birds with one stone?”  

“He does—” 

“Also, I got a letter from my best friend telling me about this pretty young man that recently tried to join our group. Funnily enough, his description sounded a lot like a certain brother of yours. Now I’m sure that’s a coincidence?” 

So Dick had gone to join the outlaws, not fight them. Tim loved being right. “How is he?” 

“I assume well, seeing how he has managed to join said best friend and his wife in their bed.” Jason laughed at Tim’s grimace. “I was trying to think of a way of telling your father that his son is fine and only blew his cover to me by apparently being pretty enough to warrant a detailed description.”  

“How about we don’t.” 

“And to think, the detailed description was probably Roy’s revenge for chewing his ear off about you.” 

“Then we should definitely invite them to the wedding—which the Crown Prince will be expected to attend. See how Dick explains that.”  

Jason laughed and Tim felt his smile soften. He thought that Jason would likely always feel some loyalty to the group that had sent him and the mission he so obviously believed in. He also believed that the two of them, together, had a found a middle ground where they could handle that. 

Now that they had been so open with their bodies, it felt natural to let the words follow. 

There was a reason they were discussing this now, however. Bruce was likely impatiently waiting for an answer. Tim needed to stay on topic. 

“What do you want? I realize that this,” Tim made a sweeping gesture that seemed to include all the trappings of royalty, “isn’t what you signed up for.” 

Jason had the gall to roll his eyes a that. “Not to press the point too much, but what I signed up for was a suicide mission.” 

Tim pinched him.

“Ow. It would be weird seeing someone else follow you around,” Jason admitted. “I like protecting you. I don’t think I can pass that on to someone else that easily… that’s probably not an appropriate occupation for a husband, is it, though?”

Tim considered that. “I would not like anyone else around, either. However, I don’t see the need for it. As long as we’re together, I’m sure even Bruce would agree we won’t need anyone else. With some extra guards for official functions and for when one of us is gone.” 

He laughed at the expression on Jason’s face. Clearly he hadn’t thought about the fact that as the spouse of a prince, he would become a target, too.  

Just to poke the bear a bit more, Tim added: “You know Father will likely insist on bestowing you with at least a few titles.” Then he resolved into giggles, fueled by relief.

They could do this. Declaring their engagement would save the kingdom from a diplomatic slight to Bane—not to mention Tim from a loveless marriage—and help them on their way to a far more promising political alliance with the Outlaws. More importantly, Tim wouldn’t have to spend any more evenings wondering if Jason would be gone in the morning, returned to the mission he had never completely abandoned. 

With a contented sigh, he slid his arm down to hug Jason closer, resting his face on the other’s shoulder instead. For some long minutes, they lay there, Jason’s hand rubbing gentle circles on Tim’s back. 

Then the reality of what laid ahead returned. 

“This week is going to be hellish,” Tim groaned into Jason’s neck. 

“I don’t think it will be as much of a problem as you think. You’re barely in the public eye as it is. Marrying a commoner might cause a scandal, sure, but no more than the king adopting two.” 

Jason’s voice was soothing; still, he wasn’t helping matters. “Everyone will have something to say about it, Jason. Everyone. Are you sure you want to do this?” 

“Can’t be worse than that one ball where Stephanie decided to annoy your admirer by asking you to every dance and I had to keep said admiring lady from killing her. Or that time you had to mediate between Ra’s and Damian. Or that time—” 

“Alright, alright,” Tim laughed. “Still. Are you sure?” 

Jason didn’t answer him directly. “Is that everything that’s on your mind?” 

When Tim nodded, Jason gently pushed him off a bit and shifted over to where his discarded uniform jacket lay on the floor, twisting his upper body to take something out of an inner pocket. 

When he turned back to Tim, a simple golden band rested in the middle of his palm.  

For the first time this morning Tim was speechless. Somehow, for all their talk of getting married, he couldn’t fathom that he was being presented with a ring, in his bed, by Jason. 

“I’ve been carrying this with me for months now, Tim. I started saving up years ago.” Jason’s voice was low, earnest. “I’ve watched you when you’re cranky in the morning and feverishly working at night. I know you work too much, worry too much, drink way too much coffee. I’ve seen the council meetings and dances and diplomatic travels. I know you think you’re responsible for everything and everyone— I love you for it. I know what I’m getting into and I want it. Want you,” he corrected himself. “So. Your Highness, Timothy Jackson Drake Wayne, Prince of Gotham, Fifth Duke of Otisburg, Lord Blackgate, Knight of the Narrows, will you do me the honour of marrying me?” 

Tim had to haul him in by hand on the back of his neck for that; had to kiss him breathless before he said: “Yes.” 

Unsurprisingly the ring fit perfectly. Even more so, it looked right. 

It took them a long time to separate again. Eventually, though, unwilling to be caught in bed, they rose, washing up and getting ready to face the day.

Too quickly, there was a knock on the door. Tim suspected that it to be Alfred, sent by his king, or maybe his father himself. 

The outside world was calling for them. 

Tim looked at Jason, who was trying to smooth the creases out of his uniform jacket with remarkably little success. Finally, he gave up and pulled it on, calling out “Yes?” as he moved to open the door. 

Tim smiled. They would do just fine. 

A/N: Bruce knew about the ring. He’s been watching these fools pine for years now. 

[superchartisland]

Lemmings (Psygnosis, Amiga, 1991)

Gallup all formats individual formats chart, Computer & Video Games Issue 114, May 1991

[Elements of this post are based on sections of a previous piece I wrote on Oh No! More Lemmings.]

AAA of the 1980s has been a story of computer games as a source of surging creativity in the UK, but also a story of a local audience in splendid isolation. The compromised remakes of Japanese games that made it to #1 in the UK were pretty much a one-way trade. By the end of the 1990s, British developers would be responsible for two of the world's most famous and successful games. Those games would be made to a much bigger scale. In 1991, as mainstream games got more complex, for them to be the effort of one or two individual programmers was already increasingly rare. It was a time when having the right conditions for teamwork paid off.

A small team called DMA Design made Lemmings, which is not quite one of those giant British games but did sell millions and get ported to a large proportion of the world's game formats. Lemmings’ hook is inspired by the Disney-constructed idea that the rodents of the title deal with over-population by rushing off cliffs en masse. The game’s ‘lemmings’ are more human, tiny people with white skin, blue clothes and green hair who drop into each level from an undisclosed location and walk steadily forward until instructed otherwise, even if it's to their own doom. Each level has an exit back out of its world, and your task in Lemmings is to use a set of limited abilities to work out a route to get your team of charges from A to B, where sometimes B is across the C, or A and B are both in L. You can get lemmings to knock through walls, block others from moving forwards, build bridges, blow shit up, and so on, with each level giving you both a different map and a different number of each of the abilities.

Once Lemmings has got through teaching you how its abilities work, it moves on fast to both using them in increasingly complicated combinations and making you think laterally about ways to use each one. The form of the appeal of this is highlighted in a mock warning on the game’s cover and title screen text scroll disclaiming responsibility for “loss of sanity, loss of hair, loss of sleep”. The suggestion is that the appeal to the player lies in their own frustration, or at least in building that frustration to the point where the relief of release from it is ecstatic. The ideal Lemmings level, perhaps, should appear initially impossible until a sudden mental breakthrough that reveals it’s really easy, followed by the realisation of a complication that renders it impossible again. And so on, perception swinging wildly but settling in on a mid-point final realisation that yes, everything is accounted for and it’s just about doable. Here is where the decision to make each level goal a percentage of lemmings safely to the exit, and often a percentage below the optimum outcome, is a particularly smart one. The slack sometimes allows a sudden realisation that you are losing lemmings to lead to an improvised solution on the fly and resultant success, and that’s another exhilarating feeling of its own.

As a logic puzzle loving, computer game playing child, when I got a brief chance to play Lemmings on a family friend’s Amiga it immediately became one of my favourite things ever. It was an unusual type of game, but it’s easy for me to see how its developers’ policy of getting as many demos of it as they could out there worked so successfully, and how Lemmings had such an impact across the UK and beyond.

There is still a statue of lemmings in Dundee, the game’s hometown. A port city on the East coast of Scotland, Dundee is something like the 50th biggest urban area in the UK and has a totally outsized place in the UK video games story. You could put it down to random happenstance that the handful of people led by Dave Jones who made up DMA Design were from Dundee. But a game like Lemmings coming from Dundee is no more complete coincidence than the procedural space exploration of Elite being the work of Cambridge maths and science students was.

Dundee was once the centre of the jute industry, making fibre for bags and ropes. As the economic viability of that dried up, many skilled (and mostly female) workers transferred to working in a new form of production at the Timex watch factory. Later on, watch sales not being what they had been, that factory diversified into making other technology. It was perfect for our old friend the ZX Spectrum. For Dundee, that meant lots of Spectrum computers available on the cheap, a low-risk chance to experiment, and other opportunities besides. And with that availability, there was an increased chance for connections and community. The Kingsway Amateur Computer Club, where many of the makers of Lemmings met, for instance. For Dave Jones in particular, the Timex connection was more direct as he worked there as a Spectrum tester. When he was made redundant, he used the money to support him and his friends in Dundee to form DMA Design and a few years later they developed Lemmings.

With their own experience with home computers and with British audiences in mind, they made Lemmings for the Amiga first. DMA also drew on a recent British lineage of games led by resource management and clicking on menu options, like Supremacy and Populous (almost as crucial to Lemmings’ form as the lemming was that other rodent-derived computer item, the mouse). Lemmings was a collaboration right from the start, even the most basic animation of the tiny characters being the work of two people. Lemmings wouldn’t be the same without all of those contributions. To take one obvious example, it wouldn’t have the same warmth without Brain Johnston and Tim Wright’s familiar but copyright-avoiding soundtrack, taking “Ten Green Bottles”, “London Bridge is Falling Down” et al on a toytown funk trip. Beyond even a list of credits though, as the series of particular circumstances which brought DMA together in Dundee show, every game is the result of a whole community, providing skills and resources in the right place and right time along the way.

Even above its problem-solving, what stands out about playing Lemmings is that the same message of collaboration is integral to the game itself. So many games that I’ve played for AAA have been about the lone wolf, the highly able individual prevailing against the odds. In the Britain of the late ‘80s, perhaps it’s no surprise that messages of individualism resonated with the prevailing culture. For alternatives, we have seen sports games where you take collective charge of a group of people, and there were precedents for successful games that had you overseeing large populations, even if Populous and SimCity didn’t make it to my UK #1s list. But sports games are limited to a different kind of competitive narrative, Populous had the player as a God and SimCity as combination planner-architect-builder. You were still the one responsible for taking all of the actions. In the more radical Lemmings, you can’t create earthquakes or new electricity supply lines or do anything at the macro level. All actions must be carried out via an individual lemming. The player is but an advisor, or as Martin called the player’s role in the Lemmings post for his original AAA, “an avatar of community spirit”.

It’s not long into Lemmings before you reach situations where you need different lemmings to support each other. Two lemmings might need to be send ahead so one can turn the other around to dig their way back to the group. One lemming might need to build a staircase to put another in place to remove another obstacle. Individual lemmings take actions but afterwards they get subsumed back into the herd. You can only succeed by getting lemmings organised to work together, and they succeed or fail as a group. Each lemming that reaches the end of a level has depended on the resources of the level and the skills of other lemmings being in place along the way. Text on the title screen tells players to remember that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

The lack of narrative ego is striking. While as the player you are in a head-to-head battle of minds with the level designers, within the narrative world of Lemmings the player is taken out altogether. Even outside of the game itself, Lemmings welcomes further collaboration. There are tests of physical precision and speed in some levels, but with so much of test the game provides being mental, it lends itself to sharing thoughts and ideas. My best memories of playing Lemmings aren’t of playing it by myself, but of sitting with my mum and my brother and working as a team to come up with different possible solutions. Fittingly, it turns out that this was similar to the process by which DMA themselves designed the levels.

There are signs of something darker in Lemmings too, particularly in hindsight. It's in the choice it offers you each time you play a level, a more dramatic version of the deal in Dizzy that if you lose, at least the game will entertain you in the process. If you decide that you can’t complete a level, or you just get bored, you can double click the mushroom cloud icon and watch all of your lemmings explode to maximum dramatic effect, a choreographed carnival of cute violence. The lemmings’ tiny stature and outsized physical expressions, wonders done with a few pixels like the way they shrug when they finish building a staircase, encourage the player to care for them, but the player can blow them all up too.

That’s only a discordant note if you don't look too closely. The game is filled with grizzly traps that kill lemmings in inventive ways, squashing or incinerating them out of nowhere. It turns out, in fact, that those animations were the origin of the whole game, the point in another project at which it became clear that the tiny animated people had the personality to stand alone. There's an irreverence and black humour very recognisable from other British culture in going on to make the cute save-the-lemmings game but still leaving the horror in there. Lurking within Lemmings is the power of a particular kind of anarchic freedom and its possibilities. DMA would go on to take the idea of just letting the player blow everything up and make Grand Theft Auto, after all.

Wherever it started from as a game, though, the strongest message that comes through from Lemmings is the generous one about the importance of people working together. Without everything that community and collaboration provided along the way, Lemmings wouldn’t have been possible, just as its lemmings can only reach their goal by building on the work of many.

[marshmallowgoop]

Why is Kill la Kill considered a magical girl anime? Just because of the transformations?

Short answer: It’s Complicated.

Long answer: It’s complicated. Incrediblyso. The magical girl genre—and shoujo mangaand anime in general—is… pretty neglected when it comes to serious analysis. AsDeborah M. Shamoom writes in the book PassionateFriendship: The Aesthetics of Girl’s Culture in Japan, “… writing on shōjo manga even in Japan has lagged behindacademic study of manga for boys. Although Yonezawa Yoshihiro published ahistory of postwar shōjo manga in 1980, for over a decade it was the onlybook-length study of the genre. In the late 1990s, women who had grown upreading these texts, such as Fujimoto Yukari and Yokomori Rika, began writingabout shōjo manga from a feministperspective” (5-6). And, when you consider that Sally the Witch and SecretAkko-chan, the first (arguably) magical girl anime series ever produced,were put to TV screens in the mid-to-late 1960s,it’s easy to see that there’s kinda a dearth of study here (Saito 147).

While there is a lot moreresearch devoted to shoujo today, inregards to Western, English-language discussions on something like the magicalgirl genre, it’s super important to note that—in my experience, anyway—therejust ain’t a lot of access to this work in English. Additionally, what is available in English is often writtenfrom a foreigner’s perspective. Even while working at a university and havingaccess to loads and loads of material, I struggle to find much of anything on shoujo written by someone who actuallygrew up and spent most of their life in Japan.

So, maybe it’s no surprisethat—for lack of a better term—Westerners get their panties all in a twistabout what’s actually magical girland what’s not. It’s just hard to get anything concrete on the matter. I mean,it’s hard to get much of anything onthe matter.

I also acknowledge that I am inno way an authority here. I’ve only dipped my toes into serious shoujo analysis, and I am not Japanese,nor have I ever even set foot on Japan. But I can provide a little bit ofreasoning for why Kill la Kill mightmaybe be magical girl. Hopefully.

First things first: what is a magical girl show, anyway? In thearticle “Magic, Shōjo, andMetamorphosis: Magical Girl Anime and the Challenges of Changing GenderIdentities in Japanese Society,” author Kumiko Saito offers a basic idea:

In public discourse, the general definition of the magicalgirl anime tends to solely focus on the content. Largely influenced by TōeiStudio productions in the 1960s and 1970s,mahō shōjo as a genre signifies (usuallyserial television) anime programs in which a nine- to fourteen-year-old ordinarygirl accidentally acquires supernatural power; majokko suggests the alternative setting that the female protagonist’ssuperhuman power derives from her pedigree as a princess of a magical kingdomor a similar scenario. In either pattern, the plot often revolves around theway she wields her power to save people from a threat while maintaining hersecret identity. She frequently uses magical empowerment gadgets, such as wandsand accessories (to be sold as toys), often accompanied by little animal pets(to be sold as toys). (145)

So, let’s consider Kill la Kill. Ryuko is older thanfourteen, but you might argue that sheaccidentally acquires supernatural power in the form of Senketsu as in mahou shoujo series... well, at first, anyway. When it turnsout that Ryuko was designed from birth tohave superpowers, maybe there’s something to be said about how Kill la Kill actually fits more into themajokko category rather than the mahou shoujo one, but at the same time,it’s not that Ryuko’s exactly a princess,nor do her superpowers really have much to do with her lineage; her dadjust used her as a literal science project. Right off the bat here, it’s lookin’like two nopes already for the Kill-la-Kill-is-a-magical-girl-show thing.

Still, moving on to the nextpieces of Saito’s definition, Ryuko doesn’t have a secret identity, and thoughshe does wield her power to savepeople from a threat, she’s also super motivated by her own self-interests fora good chunk of the plot, so I’ll be conservative here and say that Ryukodoesn’t fit either of these classic components. For the last two bits, Ryuko’s“empowerment gadget” could easily be argued to be Senketsu, and Senketsu couldalso be argued to be her “little animal pet,” especially when he won thirdplace for “Best Mascot” in the Newtype AnimeAwards 2014. Kill la Kill characterdesigner Sushio even drew Junketsu getting kinda jelly about it.

Satsuki: Seems like Senketsu won an award…

Junketsu: !!

Translation from @sushiobunny here

But let me stay conservativehere. Let’s say Ryuko’s “empowerment gadget” doesn’t count because Senketsu’s neithera magic wand nor a compact mirror, and let’s say that Senketsu ain’t a “littleanimal pet,” either (and I mean, he really, really, really ain’t, thanks). Out of the six common elements of magicalgirl anime that Saito presents—young girl, accidental acquisition ofsuperpowers, saving people with superpowers, secret identity, “magicalempowerment gadget,” and “little animal pet”—Kill la Kill arguably fits noneof these. Even being as generous with this as possible, Kill la Kill would still only score a 3/6at the most.

Do people who call Kill la Kill a magical girl series haveno idea what they’re talking about? Well, again, it’s Complicated. Saito’s definitionis super-duper extremely general. That’s why you got words like “often” and “frequently”stuffed in there. Even pretty unquestionably magical girl series like Princess Tutu aren’t fitting inperfectly. The magical girl genre encompasses a lot more than any simple plot outlinecould ever convey.

So, maybe the question of Kill la Kill’s magical girliness isbetter answered by examining more specific tropes commonly utilized in thegenre. In the article “Shoujo Versus Seinen? Address and Reception in Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011),” authorCatherine Butler provides a table that, though self-described as being “far from… an exhaustive list of mahou shoujo tropes,” includes some establishedfeatures of magical girl anime and notes whether or not they appear in Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, LyricalGirl Nanoha, and Puella Magi MadokaMagica, which are all series that, unlike Kill la Kill, are widely accepted as magical girl shows (5):

Following Butler’s table, Kill la Kill scores much higher on the “magicalgirl” scale than it does following Saito’s general synopsis. Ryuko doesn’t havea “‘dream’ that is more than a dream” (unless you count her Senketsu death dream),and maybe clothing isn’t quite the same as jewelry, but Senketsu is officially considereda “cute mascot character,” Ryuko does sortof rescue him from eternal sleep, and he also turns out to be an alien. On topof that, Kill la Kill hastransformation sequences and named attacks. The increased specificity of thetable has Kill la Kill coming in anywherefrom a 4/7 to a 6/7—and a 6/7 is higher than even Cardcaptor Sakura, a show that I don’t think anyone would deny as a magical girl anime.

A similar look at Kill la Kill and particular magical girltropes can be found in the article “SentientSailor Uniforms are Serious Business: Trope-Twisting in Kill la Kill,” where author R looks to the TV Tropessite and examines what (presumably largely) Westerners have to say regardingthe magical girl genre:

Notably, consider what [TV Tropes] credits to have been pioneered by Majokko Meg-chan, a magical girl series from 1974that allegedly “codified many of the tropes that would later become staples ofthe magical girl genre”:

Another important early Magical Girl showwas Majokko Meg-chan in 1974. This was the firstshow to be marketed to boys as well as girls, and featured a number ofdevelopments—it was the first Magical Girl show to…

have a Tomboyish heroine—all magical girls prior to this had been sweet feminine girls;

feature a rival to the main character (Non, Meg’s rival and the local Dark Magical Girl);

include a really evil character. Prior to this, there was a perception that young girls couldn’t handle such things;

feature Fanservice (in the form of Panty Shots, slight nudity, and Megu being a borderline Fille Fatale), as well as Lovable Sex Maniac characters (Megu’s stepbrother Rabi and Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Chou);

touch on more serious social issues, like Domestic Abuse, extramarital relationships, and drug abuse; and

have the heroine not only lose fights, but having to face serious consequences (deaths, injuries, humiliations, etc.).

Kill la Kill has all of this. Ryuko Matoi is certainly portrayed astomboyish, Satsuki is her rival, Ragyo is a really evil character,the fanservice is notorious and we have the Mankanshoku boys and dog as(supposedly)-lovable perverts, sexual abuse is present with Satsuki’snarrative, and Ryuko loses and faces humiliation, severe injuries, and shock.Combine all this with the magical transformation sequences that this genre isfamous for, and Kill la Kill absolutely feels pretty magicalgirl.

Hey, maybe anyone who considersKill la Kill a magical girl anime might have some idea of what they’retalking about?

But then again, isn’t a genremore than some tropes mashed together? After all, many series simply featuringa female protagonist could probably fit into several magical girl tropes just ‘cause they’vegot a female protagonist, but I wouldn’t call something like Birdy the Mighty: Decode a magical girlshow, even if it does have a transforming heroine and a robot alien mascot buddy.

The question of whether or not something is a real “magical girl anime” also has a tendency to turn into even more questions about intended audience. Can amagical girl show be made primarily for boys? What about for adults rather thanyoung children? When Kill la Kill seemspretty clearly aimed at the seinen (oldermale) demographic, it’s easily dismissed as a magical girl series simply forthat aspect alone. Something designed for adult men just can’t ever be considered“magical girl.”

But—and I bet you can alreadyguess where I’m gonna go here—it’s Complicated. The 1973-1974 anime Cutey Honey is widely understood as theanime that began many of the commonmagical girl tropes of today; in fact, authors Brian Camp and Julie Davis describeCutey Honey as “the classic seriesthat served as a prototype for anime’s magical-girl genre” in the book Anime Classics Zettai!: 100 Must-See Japanese Animation Masterpieces, and they furthernote that the famous magical girl transformation sequences that make mostpeople think Sailor Moon were actuallystarted by none other than Honey herself (86-87).

But… the original Cutey Honey anime was initially intendedfor boys. Though the story got adapted into a very “classic” magical girl series with CuteyHoney Flash in the late 90s, which “add[ed] more romance and expand[ed] therange of Honey’s fashions,” as well as marketed itself primarily to young girlswith merchandise that consisted of “fashion dolls in the style of the popular JapaneseJenny and Licca doll series” (Camp and Davis 88), the pieces of the magical girl genre werealready right there in the original. In fact, Camp and Davis argue that “Honeyneeded only a slight cosmetic makeover and bust reduction to qualify for the[magical girl] genre” (87)! If so much of magical girl is built off of Cutey Honey,can’t even the original Cutey Honey beconsidered a magical girl series itself?

Cutey Honey isalso extremely relevant when it comes to Killla Kill because Kill la Kill drawsa ton of influence from old anime—especially the works of Go Nagai, of which CuteyHoney is (another example is Devilman,and it was allegedly even confirmed that the coloring of Ryuko/Senketsu’sberserk form was modeled on Devilman himself in Trigger’s Christmas commentary for Kill la Kill’s 12th episode). Many, many others have written on the comparisons between Kill la Kill andCutey Honey before me—actually, Iwent to a Cutey Honey panel a fewyears back, and the panelist actually noted that talking about Honey’s influence on Kill la Kill would be “cheating” becauseKill la Kill is so clearly and heavilyplaying homage to the show—but here’s just one visual example:

On top of all this, the2004 OVA Re: Cutie Honey was even writtenby Kill la Kill’s scriptwriter KazukiNakashima, and the first episode shares Hiroyuki Imaishi as director! Magicalgirl stories are nothing new for these two—I mean, if you count Re: Cutie Honey as a magical girl story,anyway.

In the end, I can’t say I really got any dog in this Kill la Kill magicalgirl fight personally, though I do scratch my head a bit at the inclusion ofPanty and Stocking as magical girls but not Ryuko and Satsuki. What interestsme more than how anyone categorizes the show is how the show utilizes its “magical girl” tropes andwhat it’s trying to do and say with its utilization of these tropes.

But that’s just me! However yousee it, I do hope that this provides some reasoning for why Kill la Kill could, perhaps, be categorizedas a magical girl anime.

Sources

Butler, Catherine. “Shoujo Versus Seinen? Address and Reception in Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011).” Children’s Literature in Education, Springer Netherlands, 2018, pp. 1-17.

Camp, Brian, and Julie Davis. Anime Classics Zettai!: 100 Must-See Japanese Animation Masterpieces. Stone Bridge Press, 2011.

Saito, Kumiko. “Magic, Shōjo, and Metamorphosis: Magical Girl Anime and the Challenges of Changing Gender Identities in Japanese Society.” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 73, no. 1, 2014, pp. 143–164.

Shamoon, Deborah M.. Passionate Friendship : The Aesthetics of Girl’s Culture in Japan. University of Hawaii Press, 2012.

[spamzineglasgow]

Blissful Tendencies: An Interview with Robin Boothroyd

Robin Boothroyd’s pamphlet Another Green World, which takes its title from a 1975 Brian Eno album, will shortly be released through SPAM Press. In advance of the pamphlet’s launch in London this week, SPAM editor Maria Sledmere caught up with Robin to find out more about his thoughts on procedural strategies, ambient poetics, influence, post-internet poetry and writing as an act of attention.

Robin published his crowdfunded landscape poem Quintet for Wind and Light in 2016. He also has a debut collection forthcoming with Sine Wave Peak.

You can pre-order a copy of Another Green World here.

Can you talk about your first encounter with Brian Eno’s album Another Green World, and what drew you to write a pamphlet after it?

I read about it before listening to it. This was in an article on the Quietus celebrating the album's 40th anniversary. Instead of focusing on historical context, as is usually the case with such pieces, the writer had foregrounded their personal experience of the record, and there was something in the way it had made them feel which struck a chord with me. Further, the piece mentioned Eno's Oblique Strategies cards used during the album’s composition – flash cards drawn at random to open creative pathways – which I instantly knew would be useful in my work. So the album has always been associated with creativity for me. With this context, and the way the music floored me when I first listened to it, it was perhaps inevitable that I'd write a pamphlet inspired by Another Green World. In fact, I've written two!

What was the process of writing, responding and revising?

In 2016, I went to a workshop at the Poetry School led by Emily Berry. One of the exercises she gave us to do, I think via Wayne Holloway-Smith, was to give us a sheet of song lyrics with every word of every line erased apart from the first. We then had to write a poem using this skeletal structure. I enjoyed working with the tension between improvisation and constraint, and thought it might be worth applying the exerciseto a sequence. And what better source than an album which was already central to my personal mythology? Turns out it's pretty hard to write more than one though! So I sought out some prompts to finda way into the poems. I realised I had a string of key words, so I decided to use Google's suggested searches to 'autocomplete' some of the lines. These were then used either as a springboard for improvisation or verbatim asa new line.

Can you talk a bit about what the title means to you. It could imply a kind of iteration: Oh look, another green world. Or maybe it’s an invitation, a gesture towards/into some alternative space. Are we exhausted with utopia, or is this doing something different? What kind of green world do you want to conjure?

You know, I haven’t really given the title much thought! It’s always just denoted the album. It’s surprising how often such things go unnoticed. For example, it took me around 20 years to realise that The Beatles is a pun. But to answer your question, I’d lean towards the alternativespace idea. Because I’m very much interested in the power of the imagination to conjure an alternate reality, another green world.

Your practice of generating lines from Genius song lyrics and Google search results mixes improvisation with intertextuality, a kind of poetic aleatory that has its lineage in everything from Mallarmé to Sam Riviere. What drew you to this technique, and who are some of your favourite influences that use variations of it?

I have to admit that I needed to look up the word 'aleatory', an anagram of a Tory ale. I see that it means 'used of the element of chance in poetic composition', so it's bang on! I'd be lying if I said that Riviere's work wasn't an influence. There are certainly parallels between the generative technique he used for Kim Kardashian's Marriage and my own. Another influence would be Jackson Mac Low's Complete Light Poems, which were composed using chance operations, a chart listing 280 kinds of light and a code based on dedicatees' names. It’s such a fascinating book!

What do you understand by the term ambient poetics? Would you describe Another Green World in this vein?

For me, poetry – whether writing or reading it – will always be an act of attention. And the ambient, at least by Eno's definition, is the opposite: an atmosphere, a vibe. Which is to say, a form which is intentionally undemanding of your attention. So the idea of an ambient poetry is a paradoxical one, and therefore attractive to me. I’d describe the work of Aram Saroyan as ambient, and Void Studies by Rachael Boast. Another Green World is more concerned with mood than it is with meaning, so I suppose it is in some ways ambient, yes.

I’m interested in what happens when you structure a poem in song form, with verse, chorus and instrumental sections. It’s like something escapes, deliciously, in my reading: I’m aware that the poem is a compression of something bigger, like it retains its virtual charge. How did you find using this structural constraint: was it a mode of compression or expansion? Do you see the lines as playfully ‘set’ to music or is it more complicated than that?

Every poem is a performance. Poetry is performed when it’s written, and it’s performed when it’s read. When I sourced the album’s lyrics from Genius, they included various descriptors in square brackets – [Verse], [Chorus], [Epic guitar solo] – which I found amusing and theatrical, so I chose to keep them in as remnants of the songs. I’m glad you feel that these make them retain their charge. For me, their presence highlights the performance of the poem. I invite the reader to imagine – which is to say perform – the guitar solo, for example. So it’s a compression before an expansion.

When you first submitted the pamphlet, you highlighted the fact that Eno’s album Another Green World is ‘pre-internet’. Given SPAM is self-described as a post-internet publication, obsessed with putting the internet on the page, as it were, how do you see the relationship between post- and pre-internet in terms of both music and poetry?

Many people would have you believe that we read less these days, but it’s simply not true. If anything, we read more – instant messages, articles, emails, social feeds. It’s just that reading isn’t centred on the book any more. I’m fascinated by the different attitudes and registers between these bodies of text, and seek to recreate them in the poem. That’s post-internet poetry for me. I was born in the mid-80s, so I experienced the majority of my childhood before the invention of the internet. And there’s a tendency, among my generation, to yearn for those blissful offline days when we weren’t barraged with information or paralysed by the anxiety of the infinite. Pre-internet as prelapsarian. Another Green World is interesting to me because it demonstrates the hopeful yearning of much late-70s experimental music, which has often been characterised as ‘nostalgic for the future’. Perhaps every generation is defined by their nostalgia.

Many of the poems are, like their Eno namesakes, ‘instrumentals’. How do you understand this working of a clearing, of silencing voice or lyric articulation in the space of a pamphlet?

It started as a joke. I was surprised to find entries for the instrumental songs on Genius, which is fundamentally a database of song lyrics. The idea of a poem withno words was amusing to me, so I kept them in at draft stage. But the more I read them, the more I felt that they could also offer an imaginative space – room to dream – triggered by the titles. When you silence the poem, the poem sings.

Another Green World has obvious environmental connotations. You describe a previous publication, Quintet for Wind and Light, as a ‘landscape poem’. Do you see Another Green World, as well as its procedural germination, as ecological in any way, a kind of reflexive, pastoral intervention within the contemporary?

Hmm. I’m not sure. What I remember finding in Google’s suggested searches was a desire for connection &/or information, most often regarding technology. Very few were pastoral or ecological in nature. But as I touched on before, the poem is a space for the imagination to go to town. This is how Another Green World is linked to the Quintet, by conjuring (sometimes imaginary) landscapes. Looking through the pamphlet, I see that the titles are pastoral: ‘Over Fire Island’, ‘In Dark Trees’. And some of my original lines concern nature: ‘Picking rosehips in winter’, ‘Who knew snakes don’t have legs’. Perhaps I wrote them to emphasise the contrast between the physical and digital worlds, which could be ecologically motivated.

It strikes me that there’s this strange quotidian tenderness throughout. Lines like ‘I’ll frogtie you with twine’, ‘Just add plant food’, ‘I’m eating a gluten rich flapjack’, ‘Taking my sweet time’. I’m seeing this as a sort of recognition of what’s worth keeping, an ethic of noticing and sharing. I love that line, ‘Everything not saved will be lost’, how it reminds us of our contemporary over-archivisation of every tiny detail of life. What function does poetry have as an everyday archive; is it something about accumulating a more humble mythos for the present, or something else?

When Frank O’Hara writes 'It is 12:20 in New York' and tells us about the walk he goes on, I really feel that it is 12:20 in New York. The poem becomes the present moment. I value the quotidian in poetry because it’s where life takes place. Not every moment is an epiphany. A few years ago, I wrote a set of lighthearted ‘rules’ for my poems, and the first one is 'be attentive'. Even outside of poetry, I’ve always made a point to enjoy the little things in life because they add up to something bigger. I suppose you could describe it as a kind of grounding technique, self-care. The everyday is also intensely personal. One of my favourite books is The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon, written around the year 1,000. It’s a diary in which she kept lists of her likes and dislikes. ‘Things that can't be compared’, ‘Things that create the appearance of deep emotion’, ‘Splendid things’. These give us such a clear portrait of what she was like as a person; her hopes, dreams, fears, desires (and, by extension, those of the society at the time) are all there in the lists. In a way, our internet search histories give us the same portrait today.

In the pamphlet’s epigraph, comprising the opening words of Eno’s record, there’s this line ‘Everyone just ignores them’, the words that ‘float in sequence’. Do you think we tend to ignore the elements of poetry or music we find difficult in this way? Is there something about beauty or function in meaning’s recalcitrance here, or are we just lazy readers/listeners?

I’m not sure whether people do ignore difficult artworks. I think they tend to hate or dismiss them. ‘Rubbish!’ Or, ‘My toddler could’ve done better!’ Perhaps that’s the same thing. For Eno, I think he was commenting on the fact that a great pop song doesn’t need good lyrics because no one pays attention to them anyway. They just hum the tune. You can’t not pay attention to the words in a poem, so I thought it would make an interesting epigraph.

How do you want people to read Another Green World?

As an invitation to play. I'd hope to elicit laughter and spark daydreams.

How do you see this pamphlet in relation to your other work and ongoing projects? What’s next in the world of Robin Boothroyd?

Quintet and Wind and Light, my previous pamphlet, was also inspired by Another Green World. It even quotes some of the lyrics! So they’ve always been two sides of the same coin. As for what I’m working on at the moment, I’ve started to gather a selection of concrete/minimal poems that I’ve been writing on and off for about five years. They’re a mixture of word associations and hybrids (e.g. ‘rhinoctopus’), and a couple were published on M58 back in 2015. My working title is Atomised. I’ve also begun a new landscape poem, ‘Vermilion Cliffs’. In terms of publications, Holiday Eyes, my first collection, is forthcoming on Sine Wave Peak.

~