#I should probably also apologise for killing an alternate version of you.

[fourfuckinghorsemen]

❝ oh , five.! sorry , but i wanted to check in on how you're doing. i hope you're doing alright! ❞

Mom? Hey. Things are good, for once, which is honestly great and for the most part life has been pretty peaceful recently. How have you been?

[foxghost]

This/last week’s read: Po Yun, Breaking Through the Clouds 1 & 2

All 1.6 million words. Po Yun (Breaking Through the Clouds) and Po Yun 2 (Swallowing the sea), by Huai Shang (817k) On jjwxc. I started reading them because I missed SCI, but Po Yun is a much more serious book with serious plot twists and no hypnosis/split personalities/genetic modification magic. Oh, and more whump. I mean these characters are basically hurt all the time. Constantly. A bonus: all your main characters are in their 30’s.

There’s a summary on novelupdates, but I’m going to give you an alternative summary:

International drug-trafficker King of Spades and the Gongzhou Police Organised Crime/drug trafficking division chief Jiang Ting were once childhood friends and are now caught in a game of cops and robbers cat and mouse and their love story ends in inevitable BE …

Okay, it’s not that, go get the actual summary from NU that ends in a nobody (bad) dies HE ending between Jiang Ting and Yan Xie.

(Rambling that is as spoiler-free as possible after cut, but to summarise, I’d give Po Yun 1 a 7/10 and Po Yun 2 a 10/10 recommended with some caveats for plot holes and warning for graphic descriptions of violence and gore)

Po Yun1: If this book was actually about the first story, 10/10, a very well-told tragedy that ends in a near perfect circle. As is, I’m not sure how to feel because it just felt so much like it should end in 雙愛雙殺 / “mutual love, mutual killing”, that even though it has told me it’s HE since the beginning it doesn’t feel right. Despite Jiang Ting’s insistence that he never loved SpadesK, he did … in the before times, and considering how much he hated him afterwards, he loved him a lot. I think most what made this book less enjoyable for me though is Yan Xie, who is basically your definition of male chauvinist (his nickname in the book is literally “straight man cancer”), and he touched the one squick I have … terrible personal hygiene.

Point form entirely unorganised thoughts (吐槽) :V below, mostly of my very twisted opinion, you’ve been warned

Every time I heard about Yan Xie’s “male hormones” smell I gagged a little because I’m pretty sure he stinks

No, wait, I don’t have to be pretty sure. The first time he lent his jacket to Jiang Ting he had to cover his nose and ask “when was the last time you did the laundry”

also, “wash your feet first thing when you get home or I really will avoid you” omg

Yan Xie: do I look like i have time to change my clothes <- in 3 days

why do you even like him the only thing good about him is that he loves you a lot

most of the words that come out of his mouth (especially towards women) are toxic and just THE WORST

Literally no woman in the novel is surprised that he’s tall, handsome, rich, and is single in his 30’s

his mother: now that he’s this age all I ask is that he chooses someone younger than me

anyway that’s enough about Yan Xie I just had to tell someone after Jiang Ting (whom I love) chose to end up with makes face and points THAT

Meanwhile, the King of Spades is basically a more twisted Asami Ryuichi and how can I not love that fictionally

the king of spades gets a theme song (Young and Beautiful) and childhood episode with MC

Excuse me I have feels about the villain and the MC/villain ship way more than the canon ship orz

Half the plot is about antag trying to turn back time emotionally to see if things between Jiang Ting and himself could have turned out in any way differently

“all i wanted in his life was for you to kill me and then we die together” trope

He is well-dressed, cultured, polite, and utterly off his rocker, kills without blinking, but you know something

He leaves the torturing to Jiang Ting because he’s … probably better at it

Jiang Ting will pull off your fingernails and give you the death of 3000 cuts without batting an eyelash

I love Jiang Ting a regular amount

as mentions of Yan Xie’s lack of hygiene grew less frequent I admit he grew on me (and I guess I want a happy ending for Jiang Ting since he’s suffered enough) but only right up until Yan Xie SPEAKS AGAIN

on the mystery/drama/cases front, it’s good …

too much of the plotting of how convoluted the crimes are hinged on “antag is crazy you can’t explain the motivation of the crazy”

There are plenty of surprises, lots of side characters to get attached to, and come to think of it it’s the kind of happy ending that’s really 地道, nobody (on the good guy side) dies.

Onto Po Yun 2:

MC (Wu Yu) is a contradiction of a killer cinnamon bun (do we still say that? why don’t we still say that?) anyway he can go from polite and sweet and courteous and shy about speaking in public to killer hawk jumping out of the 8th floor window using obstacles to slow his descent to stab target in the throat in 5 seconds flat

Code name “The Painter”, as in “Painted Skin”, cross-border master undercover cop, but he’s pretty to the point of standing out (this is used as a plot point later)

ML (Bu Chonghua, everytime I see his name 蔥花 “chopped green onions” floats across my brain) seems pretty normal at first glance, but he’s “living for vengeance”

MC and ML have childhood background story while MC and villain does not (thank you)

the cases are all related, and they make sense for the most part

MC’s backstory and the final reveal is a bit of a stretch and the writer knows it (and apologises)

But overall, very well plotted cases that takes its time unwinding and doesn’t get explained all at once.

however, some tropes recycled wholesale from book 1 meant that they did not fool me for a single second.

WHUMP and lots of hurt, not so much comfort. These people are wounded so often they really shouldn’t be walking around

I literally can’t tell you anything without giving half the story away, so I won’t — I’m just going to say “read it you won’t regret it”

2 is a better book than 1. Both use the same kind of ship dynamic — MC is evasive and hiding something, ML is full of love but know not to trust entirely because MC is evasive, eventually MC come to realise that “even if I’m evil this man will love me anyway” and then happily ever after. Whether the resulting relationship is healthy is … up for debate, but I’m here for all the car chases / explosions / jumping off buildings / dealing with life and death situations / nearly dying every chapter or two. Come for excitement, nobody dies, and happy wedding endings … ignore the plot holes and inconsistencies.

If Huai Shnag writes a third installment — likely, some ppl are left alive for reasons — I will drop all the points on them. This was totally worth my time. If you buy the jjwxc version, go hunt down the uncensored chapters, there is one smut scene each that got cut.

[hello-there]

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[tibbinswrites]

How about Dean/Cas #33. Canon or AU. All is good to me. 🙂

Hiii!!!! Thank you so much for your request! So this one has taken me so long and it’s not super on topic with the prompt. I had a plan but got very distracted and this happened instead. Hope you like it ^_^

I’ve now done prompts for: #1, #2, #4 and #16, #9, #10, #33, #77, #78, #170 and #502

I also have 2 prompts waiting for: #20 and an addition to #170 and after I’ve done these I will be closing prompts for a little while. Sorry! I’ve joined up for a Big Bang which I’m super excited about and I’ve never done before so I really need to turn my focus to that at the moment.

ANYWAY! On with the fic!

Prompt #33. Tomorrow

In this life there was never a guarantee that you would get anything more than what you had right now. There was also never a guarantee that you wouldn’t lose what little you had. This was a lesson that Dean had learned too many times to count. Could it be counted as loss if your hold on it was tenuous at best? What about a dream? A wish? A distant maybe? Those were never certain, he’d never had them, so why, when they were on the brink of vanishing forever, did it feel like grief?

Watching Cas leave had felt like that. The anger gloated in his gut while the rest of him mourned. He hated that the one constant in his life now was his rage. It hadn’t always been this way; back when hunting had been enough for him, before John had died. That was then the anger had really come into its own, he thought; solidified from all the disappointment and potential for closure that would now never come. He might have been able to say a final goodbye to his father the previous year, but there had been so much still left unsaid between them and Dean hadn’t decided if the John that had appeared had even been the John he knew, or just something conjured as part of the wish. Questioning the reality of things in Dean’s life was ‘in’ at the moment.

He was working on it, he was. In between Purgatory and worrying about Jack and looking for ways to kill God and meeting his alternate self he was working on self-improvement. He’d apologised to Cas and that had worked out. He was trying to joke with the guy more, make him laugh, or at least ease the worried crease between his eyes a little. It hadn’t worked so far.

But now, Jack was sobbing at the kitchen table, apologising over and over for every slight he’d ever made. He had his soul back. And Cas and Sam were gathered around him, forgiving him each time he mumbled a ‘sorry’. Dean went to fill a glass of water and placed it in front of the kid before stepping back. Sam rubbed Jack’s back soothingly while Cas kept up a stream of affirmations and comfort but Dean could only watch. He’d been working on his anger, but the wound of what had happened to Mary Winchester was still raw, tangled up in a bunch of other feelings like the mess that was their phone charger station. Dean wasn’t sure he’d forgiven Jack yet, but seeing how sorry he was… well… that helped.

Jack had looked up at him a few times, blue eyes wet and shiny with remorse as though he wanted Dean to say something. Dean knew that he should, he knew that he should swallow his pride, kneel down to eye-level and tell Jack that he still cared about him, that he was still family. But he knew that wasn’t what Jack wanted to hear and it would eat him up to mutter a forgiveness he didn’t feel, even if it might be the only thing that Jack really wanted to hear.

Cas sent him a couple of pointed glares, but he retreated instead, leaving Cas and Sam to calm the kid down. Sure, the first few hours of having his soul back would be messy, but once he adjusted to having feelings again he’d be okay, or at least as okay as the rest of them were. Besides, Sam was the one with first-hand experience of losing and re-gaining your soul, he was the best person to be in there right now. Dean just awkwardly standing around wouldn’t make any of them feel better.

Xxx

It was a few hours later that Cas came to find him.

“He’s still very upset,” he said by way of a greeting when he walked into the garage. His voice was hard, almost accusatory. Dean didn’t turn around. “We could have used you there.”

“I’m not exactly good at that whole… area of things, Cas. I’m sure you and Sam did a better job than I could have.”

“It’s you that Jack needs forgiveness from,” Cas fired back. “And more than forgiveness he needs reassurance that you don’t hate him. You disappearing doesn’t exactly alleviate that fear.”

“I don’t hate him.” Dean said, uncomfortable. He was working on Baby, nothing major, just inspecting every inch of her to make sure his and Sam’s alternate selves hadn’t done any damage. They hadn’t, but the work got his hands greasy and kept his mind calm and that was all he needed right now. Meeting himself from that other world had thrown him, probably more than it should. Thinking about it now, maybe sending them off to Brazil hadn’t been the best plan. They weren’t exactly done defying God, having a couple of decoys could come in handy, and if they were loaded enough to afford a private jet, two sets of pilots, top-shelf scotch and whatever the hell they’d been wearing they couldn’t be completely useless as hunters. The other John Winchester might have spoiled them (and if that thought didn’t just sit in his stomach like sour milk), but if he’d started HunterCorp and it had gone international, they had to have done a decent job of proving themselves, because he was pretty sure that any John Winchester in any world still had to be a ball-busting hard-ass when it came to hunting. Plus, they were still alive.

Then again, they couldn’t exactly stay here. If Chuck did come to check up on them then their usefulness as stand-ins was blown. Plus… it would just be weird. There had been a strange mix of relief and jealousy when they had talked about their life back on other-Earth, a bit of longing for that kind of ease and lightness that he knew he’d lost years ago, but then again, they had come through the rift alone, no Cas, no Jack, no family, and despite their toasts to their father, the grief there had been perfunctory at best. Their whole world was gone and they had barely seemed to care. So their lives might have been shinier and easier, but at least his life was full.

“Maybe you should tell him that.” Cas grumbled with all the heaviness of a parent who had been trying to comfort their child for the past several hours. Then, in a tone much sharper, “and I’m not an idiot.”

Dean turned. Cas was glaring at him, which Dean wasn’t exactly surprised at, but the glare contained something else too, a spark of real fury, not the watered-down version Cas more often than not used.

Dean folded his arms. “On this particular day, you were.” He insisted, folding his oil-streaked arms across his chest. “Going to the Empty, Cas? Really?”

“Oh, like going to Hell was a better plan.”

“Me and Sam didn’t have to die to get there!” Dean heard his voice get louder with each syllable.

“I didn’t—” Cas began.

“Almost is too damn close,” Dean interrupted. Dropping his arms where his hands balled into fists.

“Well my plan is the one that worked.” Cas said. Dean watched as his shoulders pulled back, Cas was gearing up for a big fight. Well fine, if this was the hill Cas wanted to die on, that was just fine with him, ’cause this time he was right, dammit. “You and Sam walked right into Jo’s trap while I got the location of the occultum.”

“You think this is about results?” Dean asked, his voice deadly quiet now. “You think I give a crap that it worked?”

Cas frowned. “I don’t understand.”

Dean let out a breath and dragged a hand through his hair. “You really are an idiot.”

“Stop calling me that!” Cas advanced on him, blue fire in his eyes. “I was the leader of a garrison of angels. That means I was the best. And I got there because I am an expert strategist. I understand how wars are fought and won. I saw the flaws in Jo’s story when you didn’t and I took steps to make sure that your mistake didn’t cost us the occultum and ultimately gave us a fighting chance in this war. I procured the thing that returned our son’s soul and still you call me stupid, you belittle me, you refuse to respect my choices. Why do you insist on trying to make me smaller than I am?”

“Why do you insist on trying to leave me every damn chance you get?!” Dean shouted back, though Cas’ words had hurt. Not least because they were true, or at least, they would certainly seem to be true, if you didn’t have access to the inner workings of Dean’s head. “Did your great intelligence factor in what would have happened to us if you hadn’t made it back, what would have happened to me? You keep doing this. You keep throwing yourself away as though you’re some kind of red-shirt. So yeah, you’re an idiot. Because you might be smart and you might be an expert in strategy and you might be the size of the goddamn Chrysler Building but one thing you’re not is disposable. And I don’t care that you were right. I don’t care that your plan worked. I don’t care that we got the occultum because of your hunch. All I care about is that you died today, and you seem to think that that’s an acceptable risk.”

“It is,” came Cas’ immediate response, though his tone and his eyes had softened a little during Dean’s tirade. “Dean, the world is at stake here. Of course I will give my life for it.”

“You don’t have to be so freaking eager.”

“I don’t have a part in Death’s plan,” Cas said, as argumentative and stubborn as ever, despite the bitterness in his words. “Just as I didn’t have a part in God’s plan. You, Sam and Jack are the ones who will get this done. But I will not just stand back and let you fight it for me. This is my fight too!”

“So fight,” Dean said, stepping forward so he and Cas were almost chest-to-chest. “Don’t give up. Don’t go diving headfirst into the Empty without a proper plan that we all agree on. It’s because Billie hasn’t factored you in that I am terrified, Cas. I can’t lose you again, I can’t do it. I barely made it through last time. Hell, technically it’s only because of Billie and her plan that I lived to see you again. But if she says that you don’t have a part, screw her. You’re with us. You’re with me. To the end of this thing and not a moment before.”

He was so close. Cas’ eyes mere inches from his own, his tongue darted out to wet his lips and Cas looked down to track the movement. And it was then that Dean knew, knew what he had been so scared to know all along: that feeling in his chest when he looked at Cas, the glow that drew him in, he knew in that moment that Cas felt it too. And it suddenly didn’t matter that they were fighting, it didn’t matter that Dean had all kinds of issues about his being into guys thing. It didn’t matter because Cas didn’t care, and Cas cared about the important stuff. So he leaned closer, his eyes slipping closed as he did so. Because tomorrow would bring with it more problems, more plans, more arguments; because Cas was brilliant, he was smart, he was resourceful, he would do what he thought was right whether Dean approved or not. He was fierce and so, so soft and he was right there.

He felt a hand on his chest and he blinked. Cas’ face was right next to his, something painful but determined in his expression.

“Not a moment before.” He whispered against Dean’s lips before he took a step back.

And if those words held an extra significance, Dean couldn’t fathom it, but they were an apology and a promise rolled into one, and they were more than Dean deserved at the best of times. He nodded an apology of his own and reached up to trace the line of Cas’ cheekbone. Cas leaned slightly into the touch.

“We’ll talk?” Dean asked. Because Cas was a sneaky bastard and he was hiding something, something that he wasn’t quite ready to say just now.”

Cas sighed heavily and nodded.

“Tomorrow.”

[pi-cat000]

MSA: Take Two (part 8)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

Part 9: here

.

“Hey!”

Predictably, Vivi is the one to speak first, enthusiasm winning out over hesitation and confusion.

“What are you doing down there?”

Arthur shifts awkwardly, folding his arms across his chest to subtlety cover up the heart. It’s not that he thinks that Vivi means him any harm, but he kind of doesn’t want her to see it. He isn’t sure if the hesitation originates from new ghostly instincts or if it’s his usual subconsciousness.

“Hey,” He greets stiffly, wondering what, exactly, Mystery wants him to say, “I’m resting and…just…looking out this window.” The sentence is stilted, but so far, he hasn’t electrocuted her, so that’s a plus.

A quick movement and Mystery drops back behind the seat and out of view, giving Vivi more space. Arthur throws him one last reproachful glare, before focusing his full attention onto his friend. She seems fine, slightly fatigued maybe, but he assumes she’s been dealing with the cave’s aftermath and her own Arthur’s hospitalisation, so a little fatigue is understandable. Compared to his own Vivi at around the same point in the timeline, she is practically glowing.

“Okay…” Vivi briefly considers his lame excuse for hiding, giving him a speculative expression, frowning like she’s working through one of her mysteries, “Well, when you’re finished, looking out the window that is, I’d love to ask you a few questions. I’ve never met a ghost before you see. Didn’t really know they existed until like three days ago, actually.”

She grows more animated as she speaks, adding, “Thanks for that by the way.”

“Don’t mention it,” He mutters quickly.  It was the least he could do to.

Vivi nods, accepting the response, gesturing back over her shoulder, “So, I’ll just wait back here then.”

She ducks away, and he hears her whisper to Lewis, “I think we’re making him nervous.”

“Makes a bit of sense. If ghosts weren’t skittish, then everyone would know about them.”

It never ceases to amaze him how Vivi can just take things in stride, accepting a situation quickly and without fuss. ‘Oh, there is a strange ghost if my friend’s van and I just found out my dog is a mystical fox? No problem, would you mind if I asked a question?’ Arthur scowls out at the darkened hospital windows, hesitating to sit up. It’s not really Vivi he has a problem with. Vivi is not the one he’d inadvertently killed, forgotten was dead, and then been murdered by after two years of fruitless searching. But, apparently, Mystery is not letting him out this interaction anytime soon. Forward is the only direction available. Arthur would just have to trust the dog to intervene should he become dangerous and short-circuit or something because that’s what he feels like doing right now.

One last scowl directed at the hospital and Arthur sits up, glancing over the seat divider and across the mostly empty van. Vivi has settled herself in the doorway, allowing her feet to rest on the pavement outside. Arthur’s eyes slide right past her to land on Lewis. The other man is leaning on the open door, arms loosely folded, attention split between his hushed conversation with Vivi and keeping an eye on the front seat.

Arthur makes immediate eye contact. A pause. 

“Hey…Lewis,” He greets, because damn if he hasn’t waited two long years to say those words. Situations that involved falling to his death didn’t count.

“Hi?” Lewis responds cautiously, glancing to Vivi and Mystery for reassurance. The intense eye contact is probably making him uncomfortable. That makes two of them.  

“It’s good to see you’re okay…” Arthur ploughs on, ignoring his own unease, instead trying to convey how relieved he is. Nothing can ever beat the absolute satisfaction that comes from seeing them both, together and alive.  It is almost enough to drown out the that cold, numb sensation and lingering irrational fear.

Vivi watches quietly for a second, glancing between them. Her attention lands on his mechanical arm, apparently noticing it for the first time. Arthur can practically see her mind whirring.

She clears her throat, “So… Mr Ghost… I see you know Lewis. I think you know me as well?”

Arthur glances quickly over, before returning his attention to Lewis, “Ah…Yeah.”

An uncomfortable cough.

“Can you tell me why, maybe? Are you, like, Arthur’s long-lost twin?”

Arthur snorts, shifting his full attention onto Vivi, “No…”

“Clone?”

He can’t tell if she’s serious or fishing for answers. Cautiously, he moves into a more comfortable position but remains in the front seat, so there is a buffer between them.

“How would that work?” He asks, almost amused. Almost.

“I dunno…but you seem very similar to Arthur, and you did just save him and Lewis, soooo…” The sentence is left open, inviting him to finish. What follows is a weighty silence broken only by the occasional angry crack of static.  Honestly, if he had somewhere to run too and weren’t so sure that Mystery would stop him, he’d probably be booking it right out of this conversation. 

“What’s your opinion on time travel?” He questions, averting his gaze down.

Lewis responds this time. “That it’s impossible?”

“Yeah. You might want to rethink that opinion.”

Arthur doesn’t look up. He doesn’t want to see their expressions when they put two and two together.

“Wait…hold on,” Vivi breaks, voice sharp, “So you’re…that would mean…but you’re…you’re a...”

Lewis finishes, his words careful, “a ghost. You’re a ghost?”

“Really. I hadn’t noticed.” Arthur quickly defaults to his tried and true question dogging tactic: sarcasm.  He doesn’t have to see to know that the unstated admission is making them both upset. Understandable, no one wants to hear that their best friend is dead, even alternate further versions of that friend. Arthur would know, he had first hand experience.

“I’m sorry.”

Of course, Lewis immediately apologises. That’s just the sort of guy human Lewis had been.  

“Yeah. Me too…” Arthur mutters, no longer focused on the two. There is that regret again, creeping up on him, a constant shadow over all his thoughts. Arthur is never going to get a chance to apologise to his Lewis or explain how everything was a huge misunderstanding. One last crack of static and that unnatural heaviness returns to his limbs. Finally, all the electricity fizzles out like a petrol tank hitting empty.  The seat, the van, and Vivi and Lewis fade into a  haze.

“Hey, are you okay!”

“What’s happening?”

/Our friend is returning to his anchor. He has burnt through most of his energy reserves so this is to be expected. All will be well, once rested./

Vivi’s next question is angry, muted, echoing from a distance, “Did you know he was Arthur?”

Whatever Mystery response with, he doesn’t hear, but he does register Vivi snapping, “You couldn’t have told us this information earlier!”

He falls into blissful silence.

.

Note: Yeah, that went about as well as one could expect. 

Also, RIP Tumblr line break function. Just realised that they got rid of it. Unless that’s only a thing on my computer. 

Part 9: here

[redeadepression]

Tw: Child Abuse, Self-Harm, Domestic Abuse

As you can probably tell by the tws I have A LOT of thoughts about this. This probably isn’t going to go in the direction you were hoping because most of them are really sad and angsty tbh. I have some pretty dark HCs about John’s penchant for punishment as a form of self-harm vs Abigail’s love of being a dom and humiliation.

I’m assuming you mean strap as in like a crop for spanking. But if you meant it as a strap-on for pegging I have A LOT of headcanons about that scenario too that are pure smut so feel free to come back and ask me to elaborate.

I want to preface this by saying I strongly believe a lot of the issues in John/Abigail’s relationship are born from no/miscommunication. Abigail does what she damn well pleases because John lets her and never actually confronts the fact he is miserable with her choices. 

TLDR: This isn’t sexy. It’s John is a mentally-ill cuck that needs to talk about his feelings. Post under the cut because it’s long and potentially triggering.

John Marston/Abigail Marston | Punishing John with the strap | Angst | Nsft

Alternatively Titled: Abigail Marston Punishing John | John Marston Punishing Himself | Angst | Nsft

How their relationship got better as a whole. Worse for John and downright sexy for Abigail.

So John personally is not really in to BDSM

He gets hurt quite a bit in his day to day life so he likes sex to be pretty much pure pleasure

Also he was beaten as a child so being spanked sometimes brings back those memories

Gives way to flashbacks and panic attacks

Something he never shares with Abigail

Because he doesn’t want to be seen as weak

In the early days of their relationship Abigail is relatively physically abusive towards him

I’m not saying John’s perfect but he never raised a hand to her

The first time she hit him he honestly wasn’t expecting it

It took him totally by surprise

It stung

It bought back ugly memories

But it ended the argument right then and there

Abigail was even apologetic afterwards

Wanting to make it up to him

Which she NEVER was after a verbal argument

John learnt to just take the hit to end the argument

Let her get her aggression out for the sake of stopping the fight

He doesn’t think it affects him

She doesn’t hit too hard and he’s been through worse

But psychologically it’s doing damage he doesn’t realise

Her literally slapping some sense in to him justified his stupid actions

Instead of just not being an idiot

He does the idiotic thing and gets punished for it

It justifies his behaviour

He starts to crave the punishment in an unhealthy way

He feels he deserves it

Instead of punishing himself for something small and stupid

He starts punishing himself for who he is

Or things that were out of his control

Not able to stop a fellow gang member getting shot?

He needs to be punished

It gets to the point where he’s starting fights with random strangers 

Just to feel the sting of a fist connecting with his face

It’s his own brand of self-harm that no one ever questions

Not even himself

Because John is an angry, violent man

He comes home with a black eye and no one even blinks

Abigail has never hidden her love of humiliation as a sexual kink

But she doesn’t indulge in it in healthy ways

Or ask for consent before she starts her games

She likes to tease him all day

Making sure he’s ridiculously worked up before she touches him

She has him cumming in under a minute

Because she knows it embarrasses him

It gets her off something fierce 

She often berates him publicly and once he’s thoroughly mortified she’ll drag him away to fuck his brains out

He knows he usually deserves the berating

But can’t actually distinguish between when he does or doesn’t

Doesn’t question it honestly

He’s usually done something wrong

When Abigail brings out the strap for the first time he’s hesitant

He isn’t in to pain

At all

But he knows she likes dealing it out

He does it to please her

Because he knows it will calm her down

Finds he doesn’t mind it as much as he thought he would

He doesn’t mind because it’s better than being humiliated in front of his friends

Better than being mocked for how fast he came

He still doesn’t really like being spanked

But he never says no because it makes her happy

Abigail is not by any means a gentle Dom

She is ruthless and when she’s mad, downright mean

She likes to push until she breaks him

Spanking him until he’s stuttering

Telling him what a honest to God POS he is for whatever he has done wrong

Calling him stupid

Making him repeat her words

She doesn’t feel satisfied until his eyes are shining with tears of shame

He never mentions sometimes the tears aren’t from shame

That he’s not so worked up he’s panting

He’s struggling to breath through memories of being beaten as a child

She does give him proper after-care

Which is honestly his favourite part

He can suffer through because once she’s gotten off

He gets the best version of her to help him through his sorrow

Lots of gentle kisses

Hands running through his hair

Snuggling

Telling him she didn’t mean the things she said

It was all a game for her

Making him understand she is sorry

She was just angry

He can take the strap for the sake of a good nights sleep on her chest

He goes through this for YEARS

Their relationship is better because of it

They get along so damn well 

He never questions it

Or thinks maybe he shouldn’t be doing something he isn’t in to for her sake

He just does

Because it makes her happy

It makes them happy in the long run

It isn’t until they reach Beecher’s Hope and actually have some proper privacy that Abigail starts to understand John isn’t in to it

He’s built her a house

Works his ass off living an honest life

He’s given her everything she could want

He doesn’t spend so much time feeling as though he deserves the punishment anymore

So when she brings it up he makes excuses

Avoids sex all together because he knows it will bring him back down to where he was before they made it here

Remind him of all the reasons he should be punished

The people he’s killed

The friends he couldn’t save

Eventually he relents 

After losing a particularly large sum of money in a poker game

After he pisses her off to the point of her screaming

He decides he needs to let her punish him for the sake of their marriage

As expected it brings him down low

He starts to get angry again

Snapping at her and getting in to fights in town

Abigail notices the pattern and starts to realise something is up

She sits him down to talk about it and he shrugs her off

Lies

Of course he loves it

Whatever makes you happy Darlin’

She presses him for what makes him happy

After lots of coaxing he admits that he hates it

She says that’s kind of the point

If he loved it, it wouldn’t be a punishment

He explains properly he really hates it

Not in a playful way

Hates when she hits him

Hates when she pushes him to tears

Hates that he’s always so eager to please her

Hates that now he’s said something it will end

Even though that’s what he’s wanted for so long

He’s not sure he can go back to arguments that last for days

He wishes he’d never opened his mouth

Abigail is shocked

Genuinely floored by the fact he would do something he didn’t like to make her happy

She asks if he endured it because she always got him off after

He says he did it to make her happy

She doesn’t know where to go from there

Their sex life takes a hit

Takes a while to get back on track

But they have several long talks

They decide on set of rules that they can both be happy with

So Abigail’s punishments aren’t so detrimental to John’s mental health

She is still allowed to punish him but only after she’s calmed down

If she wants to continue on what they had she needs to walk away

Take a breather and come back to him

To prevent her going too far with her punishment

She stops using the strap 

She can spank him but with her hand only

She stops all the verbal abuse

As she finally understands he’s never really hearing her when she’s apologising

He only ever heard the bad

If she see’s tears she’s to stop what she’s doing and make sure he’s alright

They have a safe word and John is encouraged to use it

Abigail explores new ways to get off on her humiliation kink

She makes him the neckerchief he’s always wearing

Stitches her name on to the inside so he remembers who he belongs to

Pulls him around by it sometimes when they go to town

Just to see his cheeks burn

She gets off on touching him in public

Whispering dirty things in his ears to see him blush

They sometimes fuck in public

But John’s a bit too abashed to let it get too far in very public settings

She makes him masturbate in front of her

Controlling his speed, pressure and when he can and can’t cum

Sometimes she lets him be in charge

She realises she doesn’t just get off on humiliating him

She loves it when he degrades her as well

Abigail spends a lot of time building him back up

After she realises how low she has pushed him

John will/would never love himself

But he learns to at least like the parts of himself that deserve it

Their relationship grows stronger with every session

Ultimately their relationship & sex life is the best it’s ever been until the day John dies

[mushroom-cartel]

I’ve come up with a list of disjointed headcanons because I’m having an existential crisis over Roxas and Ventus being different people/the same person and KH3′s looming presence is scaring me.

The headcanons are written for an AU based on the initial premise of the “Cranky Old We’ve-seen-some-serious-shit-you-would-never-understand People” trio, but blown way out of proportion.

This post can be considered Part 2 to the one linked above.

Expect some wild dumb thoughts also being thrown in…

KHX, KHUX and Pre-BbS:

The era of small, angsty children going through mid-life crises and not appreciating Disney because Lux collecting is insane.

Strelitzia. Dead.

The Keyblade War.

Mass memory wipe commences.

Amnesia galore and Union X is formed.

Problem with that though is that the new leader all have to bear the burden of retaining everyone’s memories of life before and what happened during the War.

They’re just kids.

Bless them.

Aren’t Ephemer, Skuld, Ventus, Brain and Lauriam Keyblade Masters by default because of this?

I mean, there’s no one around to tell them if they’re still ordinary Keyblade wielders or not, but now that they’re Union leaders, it would make sense for the five of them to perform a mock Mark of Mastery exams in the Keyblade Graveyard.

Just to feel like its all official and the end of the worlds wasn’t upon them or something.

Ventus should be allowed to laugh at Terra and Aqua in BbS.

AKA, the reason why Ventus doesn’t have Starlight in BbS but probably does like every other NPC in KHUX.

Because the Mark of Mastery back in the old days granted you a new Keyblade.

You remember the Masters of Masters having the Gazing Eye in each of his apprentices’ Keyblades?

Apparently, he also forged their Keyblades from their hearts.

Well there you go. 

While five kids doing the same to each other is a chaotic mess, it’s still in the realm of possibility.

Just stick your hand in a heart and viola!

An entirely new Keyblade.

For reference, go look up Gatchaman Crowds’s NOTE.

The Keyblade version of Graceful Dahlia is formed via this method?

All those weird plot points Nomura makes.

Out of the five new leaders, Ventus is undoubtedly the youngest and has the least experience when it comes to leadership. He doesn’t understand why he was chosen in the first place anyways when he can’t even stand for himself.

He has issues.

But he wants to be helpful.

Shift Pride is introduced to Union X and Lauriam starts to go looking for his sister, asking for Elrena’s aid in his endeavours. Every possible lead they follow winds up a dead end and they have to start their searches all over again. In this AU, Lauriam doesn’t confide in the others about his sister’s disappearance because he believes too much in the power of friendship. It’s during this time that Lauriam starts neglecting his duties as a Union leader, and Ventus, being the nice kid he is and all, covers for him and does the workload of two grown-ups. 

This arrangement goes on for quite a while, so much so that Ventus loses it.

He goes ham on Lauriam’s ass because it’s not fair; they all lost important people and things before and during the War, what matters now is what they can do to preserve the memories.

“Why are you so intent on chasing a ghost of the past?”

“She’s my sister, you wouldn’t understand!”

Laurium and Ventus get into a fight, which ended up with Laurium losing his heart and Elrena following him shortly after because she stepped in the way of his Keyblade to stop him from doing the same to Ventus.

Guys, Elrena just wants everybody to be happy.

She used to be sunshine and rainbows.

AKA, the story of how child soldiers became Nobodies.

AKA, a method of leaving the Realm of Sleep, or in this case, the dream within a dream, the alternate reality which Union X formed.

In his guilt, Ventus exiled himself from Daybreak Town.

Like, he just up and left the second layer and went back to the dream world where the Keyblade War took place.

And then he destroyed his Chirithy, basically an intimate part of his soul since he started sleeping. Soon he jumped off a cliff and BAM.

AKA, a method of leaving this particular part of the Realm of Sleep, which was fabricated by the Masters of Masters.

Ventus enters Reality, where times are different and years have passed.

Surprise, surprise, though, the first layer of dreams was very real (despite everything they’ve been told) and lots of children died.

The people of Daybreak Town were the SURVIVORS of the War, the Foretellers were more senior Keyblade wielders, and MoM being the guy to put them all to sleep.

So the War in KHX was technically the second of its kind.

The War (the player has flashbacks of) in KHUX is the first.

Memory alteration magic for the win here.

HE’S IN THE FUTURE.

PANIC.

Confusion.

He’s alone for a period of time, in which he starts to adopt a backhanded grip in the hopes of utilising Wayward Wind’s blunt edge because he’s scared of doing the same to anyone else like he did to Lauriam.

Stabbing and hitting becomes guarding and slashing.

And then Xehanort showed up

To screw things up.

Heart-splitting action occurred some time later.

As did Vanitas. 

Sora’s healing time also happens and Ventus forgets about Daybreak Town for like a second.

Actually, more than a decade.

Daybreak what now?

“TERRA! AQUA!”

Post-KH(ish) and Early-358/2:

Roxas doesn’t remember his first six days because he was having flashbacks of the War through his connection with Sora and Ventus.

Xemnas is scared that he’s remembering Sora.

Marluxia nearly cried foul when the boy was inducted.

Larxene wanted nothing to do with him.

Why?

Since the two lost their hearts in a fake realm of sleep, their memories are a bit scrambled. So what they remember of their Sombodies is in correlation to strong emotions.

You know.

Like that time they died.

OR THE KEYBLADE WAR.

Still, Marluxia needs power and Roxas seems familiar.

And Larxene?

She just wants to have a good time.

See what makes him tick, what makes him different, what makes him Roxas and not Ventus.

She’s bitter and jaded. A few years of being nothing can do that to some people.

Don’t expect her to pat Roxas on the head mockingly.

Okay, she does but that was only a one time thing.

It’s accidental, but she ends up forming some sort of amicable acquaintanceship with the boy.

She hasn’t had proper friends since…

.… Since what?

Ah, it doesn’t matter.

On the other hand, Roxas is weirded out by the fact that Marluxia and Larxene seem so familiar despite not having any memories of his Somebody’s life.

When he looks at them, he feels nothing but regret and the urge to profusely apologise for something he doesn’t know about.

He’s paranoid, guys.

Wait, what?

Day 11.

“You’re going on a reconnaissance mission with Number XII.”

“But, Saïx, she’s going to kill me!”

“Not a concern of mine unless it hinders your ability to collect hearts.”

AKA, the beginnings of a proper adventure with “Accidental Murder” and “Friends Should Not Fight (Even If I Die)”.

Note to self: Marluxia’s crack code name is “Death by Sister Complex”.

It’s a grand adventure.

One that includes flying saucers, a grand amount of explosions and lighting raining down from the sky and roasted acorns.

Just like old times, in Larxene’s mind.

Seriously, what were the Foretellers thinking when they sent children to go collect Lux?

Oh, just casually go defeat huge Heartless, no biggie.

What was that about a war?

Roxas learns survival skills like a madman.

A friendship is formed?

Day 22 and sea-salt ice cream like normal before RTC.

Pre-CoM(ish) and During:

Roxas is still being paranoid, even with less people occupying the Castle That Never Was.

At least Larxene and Marluxia isn’t around to give him the heebie-jeebies.

He thinks.

Paranoid to the point that he doesn’t even interact with Xion as much as he did in canon and Xion doesn’t get a face (from him or Axel) because he’s scared that someone might try to use him as scapegoat.

Plans go awry because initiating social interaction isn’t in her programming. Xemnas almost throws himself off his throne.

Meanwhile, Marluxia’s just doing his own things in Castle Oblivion and unintentionally makes Naminé give Sora memories of Strelitzia.

Also, thanks to his tenure as Union leader, he does in fact have power over memories to a certain degree, how else would the War be wiped out from the Dandelions’ minds?

He teaches Naminé things.

But memories of Strelitzia only means one thing. Lauriam.

And Lauriam’s… nice. Very different to Marluxia in some ways.

“Who the hell is this?”

“Lauriam.”

“YOU.”

“Who?”

“Strelitzia?”

“WHERE DID YOU HEAR THAT?”

Confrontations within Castle Oblivion are disorderly.

In this AU, the goal is not to cause a coup, but rather, it’s to make others (coughxemnascough) think twice about forming Kingdom Hearts. 

Stop trying.

It’s not gonna work, old man.

Not knowing that he’s in the process of leading a group to stop another war from breaking out is Marluxia’s mood.

Larxene low-key just wants to burn Castle Oblivion to the ground because she can feel Ventus’s ghostly presence withing in the walls, even after how many years its been since she lost her heart and forgot some things. A few millenniums? She knows it’s familiar but she can’t put her finger on the feeling. Maybe it’s just her excitement acting up, high voltage running through her body making her think there’s something not quite there here.

If they did actually succeed in finding the Chamber of Waking, Larxene’s reaction to Ventus’s body living without a heart would be, “Oh, great! I was right, there’s a damn ghost in this place!!” 

A lighting show inside a half-dead world is great.

Larxene finds it ironic that she’s dying to a Keyblade for the second time and just laughs, instead having a “I’m fading” moment like all the other Nobodies.

Sora is confused.

Larxene. Gone.

“It was great while it lasted.”

Yes, Ventus is asleep here still, but he’s currently wrangling with Roxas’s acute trauma in sleep land.

Roxas’s coma is key.

Because he remembers being Sora AND Ventus and he’s so confused because he:

a). Saved a whole bunch of kids like himself from serve trauma.

b). Saved a whole bunch of worlds from being taken over by the darkness.

c). He’s lost himself at least twice in wherever he is.

He’s walking through a version of Daybreak Town before everything in KHX and KHUX. 

“When the worlds were bathed in light” sort of Daybreak Town.

Half-awake and half-asleep.

The real incarnation, present day where the legacies of Ephemer, Skuld and Brain are lived and breathed by Daybreak Town.

Also, Ephemer, Skuld and Brain is another friendship trio that forms in this AU. 

This is important.

They lost Lauriam and Ventus in one fell swoop and what do you do when you lose your friends?

You became stronger by strengthening the bond that remain and forge new ones.

In Union X’s case, they soon abolished the old Union system and formed a meager with what was left.

Competing amongst themselves to collect the most Lux becomes a thing of the past.

The people who didn’t agree with this change were free to leave Daybreak Town (the dream within the dream) and establish connections with the outside and Reality, moving from the Realm of Sleep and into the Realm of Light or Darknes, but they still regarded Daybreak Town as home, so now and then they’d send themselves to sleep.

AKA, how Luxu got to the outside world by blending in. 

AKA, the ability to put something in the universe to sleep forever is exclusive to the old people for once.

Those that remained slowly regained their memories, and despite all the aftereffects of the War(s) on the population of Keyblade wielders, these people and the ones who left still interacted with one another.

Which basically means, if the leavers found any potential across the worlds, they’d send those who could possibly wield a Keyblade into a deep sleep to be trained in Daybreak Town; while they might age mentally, they’ll stay physically the same.

AKA, a better option for immortality. 

Luxu’s around for a bit.

He passes on No Name at some point after this.

Their comatose bodies are sent to Scala Ad Caelum for safekeeping, where they are to remain for all eternity unless they chose to leave Daybreak Town themselves.

And because of this, Scala Ad Caelum is abundant with darkness and light, ensuring that it stays between the two Realms.

I guess Scala Ad Caelum is a world formed from the hearts of the participants of the Keyblade War.

Their hearts didn’t become part of Kingdom Hearts?

Scala Ad Caelum is the original base of most, if not all, Keyblade-related activities.

Scala Ad Caelum is home to many; light and darkness guide those whose dwell on this world.

Daybreak Town 2.0?

Somewhere in the realms between it exists.

Many years later, Xehanort and Eraqus became the apprentices of a Keyblade Master descended from a person who left Daybreak Town all those years, who acted as one of the guardians to all the sleeping hearts.

Yen Sid is trained by a wandering Dandelion descendant.

Back in the old days, being a Keyblade wielder meant you went to sleep, guarded Scala Ad Caelum or you got found by a stranger who took a particular shine to you.

After Lauriam “died” and Ventus left, Ephemer, Skuld and Brain realise for once that they’re just children.

Two of their friends are gone for eternity.

Back to Roxas, he’s just… tripping out. Majorly. 

What’s with all these grey cats surrounding him and bawling their eyes out right next to his ear?

They’re going off the rails, saying things about calling the Grand Masters over to the plaza he awoke in, calling him a name unfamiliar to his memory.

Then there’s a corridor of darkness and light opening right before the poor boy and the trio that steps out are who he assumes to be the Grand Masters.

They look barely older than him, maybe by a year or two but no more than that.

“Ventus?” the girl whispers, taking a knee to meet him at eye level. “It’s been years, how…?”

“Please, Skuld. We could’ve never known if he left in the first place. He might’ve actually run off to another dream and accidentally opened up a corridor here. Don’t overwhelm him with questions,” says one of the boys, tilting back his head slightly to stare at Roxas from under the brim of his hat.

“I wasn’t about to, Brain! Eh, Ephemer, back me up here… Ephemer? Something wrong?”

“It’s Ventus for sure, but… His heart… I can’t sense it.”

During Days 23 to 50, Sora goes through Castle Oblivion and Axel does the dirty.

When Larxene and Marluxia cease to exist, it begins the process of reforming as their Somebodies.

They’re how old by now?

Their Heartless are long gone.

Which means that while their bodies end up in Scala Ad Caelum, their hearts awaken in Daybreak Town, just as Sora is put to sleep by Naminé—meaning they just missed Roxas returning to Reality.

Did I forget to mention Xion is still a puppet?

Late-358/2: 

“All my friends are dead to me.”

After awakening, Roxas immediately begins to distrust the Organization. He’s beyond paranoid by this point.

He’s suspicious of Axel especially, considering that the members who perished at Castle Oblivion weren’t exactly pushovers.

He thinks he’s done this before; maybe Ventus did too?

The Grand Masters weren’t exactly transparent on what Ventus did, but Roxas knew better than to question it when he saw the way they acted guarded around him.

He has a “contemplating on running away from home to find answers” phase. Like all good Nobodies do at some point in their meaningless existences.

Seeing as Xion doesn’t have any problems following the orders of anybody, he enlists her help to investigate. 

She gets a face.

Finally.

Jokes on Roxas because Sora’s memory is questionable.

IT’S STRELITZIA’S FACE.

[ I just realised Marluxia and Larxene aren’t around by this point. ]

[ That’s a shame. ]

The change affects everyone’s sight. Yes, even Saïx and Xigbar aren’t safe.

She retains the colour of her hair, but it is noticeably longer than what it appeared to be initially.

No one knows whose face Xion has and no amount of programming can change it.

Xemnas is tired of kids not following the plan.

A wild Riku Ansem appears.

And he’s just as confused by Xion as the rest of the Organization.

“DiZ, it looks like no one Sora’s ever met.”

“Perhaps it took its face from another source.”

“What—those other drawing of Naminé’s? How can that be?”

“Not everything needs a sound explaination. No matter, regardless of the puppet’s state, you need to capture it as it will be necessary for our plans to move ahead.”

Despite Riku’s Ansem’s skepticism, Xion having Strelitzia’s face is on Naminé’s part.

Because Marluxia was half the asshole he was in canon and memory magic is very potent in the hands of a capable student.

Going through Marluxia’s head and finding a girl of unknown origins was very good blackmail material.

She drew creepy renditions of his old life.

And then she shoved a copy of Lauriam’s memories into Sora’s heart when she put him to sleep to reconnect his chain of memories.

Why?

Because she could.

And she wanted to flip the bird on Marluxia in the case that he didn’t die and would have to fight Sora again.

[ Oh, jeez, this AU’s version of Sora will be so weird in KH3′s setting because of that one trailer showing us Marluxia’s return. ]

Naminé the Witch of Memories for the win.

The wonder duo of Roxas and Xion eventually allow Axel into their circle of conspiracies. However, there are cutthroat rules about how and what he can do to help.

The days go.

Kill Heartless, collect hearts, lie to Xemnas, eat sea-salt ice cream.

Just the usual shebang.

Traitor!Xion is a thing now: desperate to discover her origins, instead of being forcefully taken and convinced, Xion willingly walks right up to DiZ and Ansem’s doorstep.

Yes, even though she and Roxas are friends, it should also serve as a remainder that their relationship isn’t as close in canon, here they both halfly trust one another because they know the Organization has more sinister plans for them. 

They need another pair of eyes to look out for their backs.

Their partnership is just them using each other for personal gains.

Axel is completely on a different loop.

He has no idea what’s going on in his friends’ heads.

They were planning on offing Axel but resisted the urge.

Xion learns exactly who and what she is.

DiZ finding the opportunity to do so, puts her to sleep and forces Naminé to rewire her memories; making it seem like to Xion that the Organization stole her (Sora’s) memories and DiZ is trying to help her get them back from Roxas.

“Destroy the boy.”

“Okay, DiZ.”

Naminé takes the time to stick a copy of Lauriam’s memories of Strelitzia in Xion too. For good measure, she reasons to herself. 

Roxas’s final battle is technically against “Mystery Girl”.

An unholy amalgamation between Xion’s last form and Marluxia’s own.

Her memory went out of wack.

There’s flower petals everywhere when she lands a blow on Roxas while they fight above Twilight Town.

Prologue-KH2:

Making munny is exhausting.

The normal stuff happens, except:

a). Naminé to anybody she can get her hands on, “You get a copy of someone’s memories and you get a copy of someone’s memories! Everyone gets a copy of someone’s memories!!”

b). Axel buys a crate of sea-salt and throws it down from atop the clock tower, wanting to test the limitations of digital data and human injury on Day 2.

“Accidental Murder” evolves into “Natural Disaster of a Murderer”.

When Roxas thinks Axel died, he shrugged it off.

People come back from the dead all the time.

Stop starting fires, DiZ.

Ansem Riku questions his morals.

Everything should be back to normal when Sora wakes up, right?

Unknown Point(s):

“Lauriam?”

“Ah, my old friends. How long has it been since we last talked like civilised people?”

The three Grand Masters laugh. “Far too long.”

“Hey, Marluxia, where—”

“Who’s this?”

“Why, might I introduce to you my dear friend Elrena?”

“You may.”   

In other news, Ventus is a time traveller, Lauriam served his time, Elrena didn’t ask for this and Kingdom Hearts is bad news.

I might add some more headcanons after KH3 blasts a hole somewhere in my ship and becomes safe to talk about.

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13x13 watching notes

*goes to sit at the unpopular table*

Went to bed at 10, up at 7 for the ole watching Supernatural grind... *offers you all a chocolate biscuit*

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*waves hi at Michael* *and Kevin*

All the PoC are shoved in an AU... Thankfully now Rowena is back I can't say with the SOLE major female character but

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Oh gosh they're using Yockey's dialogue to explain everything, I don't know if I should laugh or cry

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IS CAS OKAY?

Why are you spitting blood... You weren't stabbed THAT badly were you?

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*remembers stabbing Lucifer*

You know in AtlA where Zuko made a good decision and prompty collapsed in an angst coma at the inner turmoil of doing the right thing?

-

I have no clue why that all happened except to allow Lucifer to leg it.

Which, I mean, at least something happened to explain why Lucifer legged it.

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WHIMSICAL MUSIC.

OTT HETERO NONSENSE

I guess Dabb era means they're allowed to destroy expensive wedding cakes again now no one can tell him off for it

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Is that an Observer?

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Oh, creepy cupid

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It can not be good for Lucifer to eat cupid grace even more than normal grace because it's probably a Voldemort thing about love hurting him blah blah blah

Marghe was talking about this episode being a potential 9x03 parallel and I agree - and Lucifer's already messing up by voluntarily stealing grace just to keep himself alive for his own wanting to be alive purposes at the first opportunity. And we have cupids instead of reapers

and also I guess Cas wants to go back to the Bunker and no one's gonna boot him out if we're lucky :P

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Poor cupid. You only looked creepy as a circumstantial thing to watching these people fall in love with a besotted smile, no one understands your work :<

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Omg we didn't even see if Cas stole a car to get back... I must KNOW

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Anyway here's the sneak preview scene

Oh it gets worse; Cas is like "I met with Lucifer" instead of "Lucifer showed up and I had to hustle him off to a bar to stop the angels coming back and killing us, and then when I tried to contact you he stole my phone, and btw thanks for coming to my rescue in time."

Aka Cas can only be on the backfoot in this argument by his own social ineptitude at describing it/because the writers want him there

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"She's alive. That's all I know, sorry." Yes, good. Because Jack's with her so he'll make it all good and honestly the fact we haven't seen what's going on there since 13x09 is kinda weird because this is all time passing that Jack is with Mary and they only have one clip to show us of that - this is stretching the dramatic irony writing of the season to breaking point by not revisiting them sooner, as it's a loose end that would have IMMEDIATE pay off aka they aren't just sitting there staring at each other for months, and we know off-screen since BEFORE CHRISTMAS that Jack would help Mary and whatever delays are keeping him and idk his new BFF Kev from busting back to our world are manufactured to fill these weeks. I mean not like they can't have delays and problems, especially as Jack is out untested learning what's up with himself away from all his parental influences, as his big test, but the storytelling in the main part of the show is relying on what's happening in the AU for tension and Lucifer telling Cas she was being tortured is like, the last time HE saw her, and WE know Jack is with her so things are probably different, and now Cas is lying to the Winchesters about Mary so as not to upset them while unintentionally perhaps backing up whatever is going on with Jack. Or not! Who knows! It's been long enough the one glimpse of them staring at each other is starting to wear thin to give us any meaningful dramatic irony in these moments and they really ought to have had at least a teaser in the AU in 13x11

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Yep here's the parallel to the street scene in 9x03, except that Mark P is such a ham that he's doing a pantomime version of "I'm cold" complete with the directing showing us some warmer winter coats in case we didn't get the message, and then he starts staring at food... He can't be human so idk why without headcanoning hard about why it's affecting him so much when Cas immediately stopped caring about food when he stole grace.

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Maybe, I headcanon, being stabbed was bad enough that all the grace he had and stole went to repairing himself but it's a finite supply and he's already to the stage Cas was in in 10x01

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Oh now he's miming being hungry. "Hungry? Ew!"

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The fact he was looking at burgers as a Cas parallel and not a fried chicken joint for immediate emotional pay off is honestly the biggest failing of this episode so far

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Asmodeus is like "shit they got away as soon as my back was turned" Ketch is like "lol (but posh)"

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They have a weird staring each other down moment which Ketch either wins or Buckleming think that Asmodeus won but Ketch still won because Asmodeus admits to being monumentally stupid before giving Ketch his orders.

Like

I literally can not tell what the intent was here which is the most meta commentary on their dialogue I have ever witnessed and if it was not 7:30am and still mostly dark I would be howling with laughter. As it is, I feel a tear appearing in my eye as I take another chocolate biscuit.

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Now HERE is a surpringly good use of dramatic irony from Buckleming which unfortunately is not actually betrayed anywhere in their dialogue (e.g. "I stabbed him but he seems to be fine") when Asmodeus tells Ketch an angel blade to the heart will down Lucifer at this point. Basically relying on that this happened at the end of last episode (and the directing reminds us in flashbacks & recap) to confirm the dramatic irony and with these writers I'm only like 63% sure they meant to do this because I have a strong nagging doubt that they don't even read anyone else's scripts.

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If Asmodeus/Ketch becomes this fandom's Kylux I'm outta here

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*Lucifer fails to learn basic human decency from the homeless man* I'm really hoping this is a metaphor which they actually stick to - that he's self-serving and mean and refuses to even adapt his behaviour as a guise to benefit from human decency by pretending to be nice to get what he wants then...

They could just be showing him to be hopeless now and then use a stronger inciting incident later - Jack is a motivator for him like basically nothing else, but none of this *so far* indicates we should actually care about him as a person regardless of what he might do for Cas's son later in the season

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I also thought he might offer to heal the guy for food that didn't come from a dumpster but instead he's getting a tip off about Sister Jo

(Honestly, I've never dumpster dived but the stats about throwing perfectly good food away are so horrific that this seems like really misrepresenting dumpster diving, mostly because it implies the restaurant would keep food around long enough for it to go slimy and smelly, rather than throw it out while it's still completely good but no longer something they can sell, e.g. unclaimed pizzas, mishapen stuff, slightly burnt things, etc.

The fact that Buckleming seem unaware that "Next day pizza" is literally a thing and not gross and that fast food doesn't immediately expire but that you can eat left over pizza the next day without incurring any wrath of god speaks a lot to their privilege and Hollywood's impression of poverty, and this utopia where there's no waste and you can just throw out last night's pizza which is now skanky and rotten, and eat something better >.>)

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Huh, Dean and Cas appear to be alone and Dean is apologising for not knowing he'd been kidnapped which is literally the sort of scene which I'd hope would mean no one is in my inbox saying he doesn't care this time around.

"I-I-I-We should have known it wasn't you."

Sooooooooooooooooooooo close. SO CLOSE. SOOOOOO CLOOOOOOOOOSE.

Awww they're making excuses at each other. "He's a shapeshifter. I got myself captured." "but if Sam and I knew..."

"I'm fine Dean." "You sure about that?"

in 100 years when I get here THAT's going in the "Dean n Cas are in love" meta series.

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"I told Kelly I would protect HER son. I intend to keep that promise."

Interestingly, we're halfway through the season and Cas appears to have no idea Jack thinks Cas is his father, or any inclination to do more than protect him out of the goodness of his heart and another promise to look after someone in need of protection, making no positive affirmations to suggest he thinks of Jack in a fatherly way. Noted last episode, feeling the urge to comment this episode :P

I am not implying this is an entirely bad or ominous thing or whatever, but 1: Cas barely knows him so this is perhaps more healthy, 2: I am still dubious about how Jack originally nabbed himself a guardian angel and Cas has made NO comment on this scenario or, 3: discussed what it felt like on his end of what Dean has been accusing Jack of "sockpuppeting" Cas... I think it was much more grey area than that and Dean's mostly stopped accusing Jack of it, but it leaves massive questions. And 4: it means Cas is still doing this as a duty to Kelly rather than personal investment/parent feelings as his outwardly stated motivations, and it plays into the grey area of 5: we still thematically have Cas with a guardian angel burden just like I thought after 12x19 that this is what Jack wanted from Cas and after the presentation of how it was so bad for Cas to be the Winchesters' guardian that season, coming to a head in 12x19, I still think that his relationship with Jack is offering an alternative to directly critiquing that relationship anymore without damage between himself and the Winchesters, but still allowing some exploration of duty and the guardian angel burden, and perhaps the show is in no rush to have Cas leap into fatherhood when this parallel serves his arc so much better. Which also means 6: that nothing is over despite the progress he's made towards personal growth recently and all his old trauma and burdens are still hanging from him, he's just in a better place than he was with various new hopes and directions.

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Dean says nothing, and Moose Interruption Occurs.

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I have been wondering since the first promo clips revealing Donatello returning if they'd try and have a prophet-off with the AU and use his powers to either connect with Kevin or the AU... I wonder how right I'm about to accidentally be now we know a bit more about all this

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"... Now, it's gonna be harder than it sounds"

you think.

So this is Dean completely ignoring Billie's warnings and going full steam ahead huh

-

*pulls out the demon tablet as well*

Oh boy you guys are really getting into the bad decisions

-

Not mentioning what happened to the angel tablet is a pretty good swerve around reminding us Cas destroyed it "all for one man" because he's "in love with humanity" but you can't get past me that easily *taps nose*

-

... this is a good time to remind everyone that Gadreel left all of Kevin's notes on the table when he walked out with the angel tablet.

You know

the notes where Kevin translated the entire angel tablet including the footnotes into ancient Sumerian

you know

a language

that maybe

someone who's been around

since ancient sumerian times

might be able to read

you know

like

Cas

*points at him for emphasis*

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https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/170677457313/i-i-hit-a-wall-translating-the-tablet-into

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Also seriously why would the same spell be on both tablets. I'd be extremely Buckleming disappointed if it was, and much much happier if 13x12 was an ominous warning about going around reading strange tomes and tablets and just doing whatever freaking spells you half understand that you find on them.

Remember, Kevin is a super-genius Princeton applicant who even in the AU was nurtured by Michael to be super smart like his freaking COURT WIZARD, and did a lot of maths and theory to make it work that apparently even Michael couldn't. (Obligatory throwback to the intro of the tablets and the reminder that human creativity and genius can do what super-smart monsters can't, via Charlie, Kevin's narrative pair.)

-

Chicken wings, huh

(37 buckets tracks with how many bad hotdogs Kevin ate and gave himself a stroke over while translating the demon tablet the first time, I suppose.)

-

I mean we knew it was coming, because set spoilers, but you KNOW how much happier I would have been if it had been the Lucifer thing. You know.

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Meanwhile: the extent to which I don't trust Buckleming is that I am wondering if the director cut an anvil line when they're like "who's killing angels!?" and it just cuts to the next Lucifer scene wordlessly

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I also would have no clue how intentional the "who's killing angels" connection is to 4x16 where that was the line of interrogation on Alastair and it turned out the first angels to be killed on the show were by Uriel for Lucifer, meaning that question still at the end of the day is answered by "lucifer"

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Hi Danneel

Query: if she is an angel, what does SHE need the cash for? :P

I assume that "for the fallen" sign is high irony about her being a fallen angel and she's pretending it's a charity donation in exchange for healing

I suppose she can buy nice outfits with it

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*exposition crime scene*

tiny redeeming factor about Dean talking about how boned they are and Cas turning to look at him and agreeing "epically"

Also for the first time they're all in long coats together praise the lord

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Okay I think her name is Eliel? I am not sure how to spell that at all, I'm just guessing because it sounded like "L I L" and then I angel-fied it, so tl;dr I'm gonna keep calling her Sister Jo and/or Danneel :P

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Oh good some exposition. Well at least she has literally explained the money is for the nice outfits XD

I like her. She's not scared of Lucifer, and she's one of the angels who slipped notice after the fall and started living her life as she wanted.

"So... Ca-ching!" I really like her now :P

This puts her in direct opposition to Cas not just at the start of season 10 when he was rounding up fallen angels and sending them back to Heaven with Hannah - when his heart wasn't really in it anyway - but more directly and importantly with 9x22 where he had sent a large amount of his army out to local hospitals to perform miracles on the DL for no reward except,  you know, angels should help people. Their hearts are in completely different places, with completely different understandings of what angels can and should do on earth if they are to be here.

-

She bargains for her life with the same thing the wraith was going to do with Patience in 13x03, and how we've seen some monsters feeding in the past - notably the grigori angel that was eating soul energy in the place of grace but was essentially the same set up.

-

Lucifer's also found someone smart enough to help him who he might actually listen to (since the homeless man would have helped had he listened but he wouldn't respect what a human says vs another angel maybe giving him some pointers for surviving down here).

-

Sam, being the good wingman, leaves Dean n Cas to interview someone together while heading off alone

-

Sam's hair is ENORMOUSLY fluffy

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Which reminds me, it's pouring with rain outside so I'm not going to get away with leaving my hair a day after getting it dyed, I sort of need to wash it BEFORE the sky does it for me and turns everything I own purple :P Idk if I'll be able to finish the episode before I have to go to yoga... hm. It's finally daylight-ish

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Oh of course they have creepy sexy grace eating going on because this whole grace vampire concept wasn't sexy enough when it was bald little cupids.

-

*Dean casually in the foreground pulling out an angel blade*

That is your WIFE, sir

-

And you should hear what she and Lucifer were doing

-

Cas goes first :D

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LOL Ketch

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"Oh it's only you"

How DARE

the original flavour TFW line up has just busted into the room with you, you are in the presence of GODS

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"Isn't it possible that I'm simply trying to strike a blow for the good of humanity?"

"No, that's not possible"

Listen Cas's snark is weaponised now. How did Ketch not crumble into ASH

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no one says Huzzah

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Thanks Cas

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Listen however many gifs there are of that move (omg Cas looking at Dean, Dean nodding to him, Cas Doing The Thing) there are not enough so I'm gonna just... make one...

-

Lol, just throw him in the trunk.

"I like that plan."

Oh the wall dividers from the fake 5x04 set are on the stage too. It's DEFINITELY being used for performances of Supernatural The Musical in between healing sessions

-

Aniel? Eniel?

Danniel

-

Stop putting Cas in the backseat to moodily stare into the middle distance between the Winchesters! He's earned shotgun a million times over! He was in PRISON and you DIDN'T KNOW

-

A neon sign where all the letters are out except "AU" in "Restaurant"

-

At this point I'm assuming Danniel is seducing Lucifer for her own purposes and honestly whatever go for it I guess, if you win, and this isn't any creepier than it already is

-

The fact he ate a cupid and all that is probably relevant

-

Tbh them flopping onto the bed after is still somehow the least weird of all the weird crap Buckleming have made the characters do and I don't know if I'm numb to it or because it's Lucifer I have negative investment in his character anyways but you know, whatever floats their boat :P

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"It's always so strange, that final moment, when I've lost just enough grace that I'm almost - " "Human." "I feel... emotions. Sensations. Things they must feel."

Honestly she's sounding more like Cas or Hannah than Lucifer going through his experience, almost like being a more generic angel, as soon as she loses grace she gets more affected than he does in the ways he's been affected where he cares only about being cold and hungry. And lonely. Bleh :P A concession to emotional weakness - he does love to be adored and surrounded by people who'll tell him how great he is.

He says he can't see how they go on but she says she sees how there can be pain, "but also hope. Love even. Angels can only imagine."

She's reeeeeally getting back to that Cas in 10x01 dialogue where Hannah was confused about human things, and Cas described to her what they were and that they were good things to feel on earth.

Ow.

-

She envies humans, because they can "Be anything."

it's like we've come full swerve back to the stuff from the start of season 10 that was so exciting for Cas exploring the intricacies of humanity... Yikes.

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Wow her job sucked :P I can see why she went and asked for change when facing an eternity of that... More suggestions that Heaven is not really something that can or should be restored, never mind how volatile it was and how the angels engineered the original apocalypse. The entire system is pointless and just makes dangerous bored angels... The kind of angels who hop on the Lucifer bandwagon as soon as it comes into town because being righteous on behalf of Heaven is pointless to them. Why take a stance against Lucifer in the first place if your moral alignment was always to Heaven first and Heaven sucked that much.

"Goodness" is not an inherent alignment for angels... Looking to a leadership they trust to be good is what they were built to do, and assuming their causes are good because they're on them is another pitfall of that. The other is just all the angels who turn against Heaven entirely >.>

-

Lucifer says he's "going to be a father" which, uh, seems like this episode was written last year and then re-written for THIS year because he really ought to be talking about how he IS a father and he's looking for his son...

-

He starts maybe feeling feelings, and hastily gets up to start posturing, at which point he does actually say he's going to find his son.

-

Lol, HERE'S Casmodeus in a scene that doesn't have anything to do with anything.

Donatello casually tells Casmodeus that he has the demon tablet. Honestly, they probably ought to have, you know... explained everything that happened to Kevin to him... Like oh hey btw this is one of the most desired objects in the universe being the word of god n all and wowweee we've had some problems with people stealing it and our prophets in the past. Maybe sit tight and don't answer the door?

-

Or go out and get huge buckets of chicken and chat to any of us who isn't where you think we should be

-

Please don't start talking about the ingredients for the spell in public

-

dear god the worst bit is they made a character plausibly dumb enough to drop the idiot ball for them to the point where Asmodeus is probably best served to just leave Donatello where he is and walk him back and forth from the chicken place every day

-

They become unexpected friends and at the end of the day he can't bring himself to kill his goofy prophet buddy

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"I'm the only person on the planet who can read the thing"

Budddyyyy.

-

Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude. Now he's just telling Casmodeus that Jack's in the AU and

*takes his chicken away* You're grounded. Just. Go to your room.

-

Asmodeus's voice coming out of Cas is wrong and bad.

-

Asmodeus is unimpressed with your offbrand chicken

-

aw crap I have to go

Last 10 minutes drama when I get home... They'll open 100 portals and it will be a Mess.

-

it never bodes well in a Buckleming episode when there's 10 minutes to go and TFW get out the car to go confront Lucifer.

-

Danniel is like "Castiel, what are you doing here?" like it wouldn't be blatantly obvious :P

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I am pretty sure she's tricking them into thinking she's more of a hostage than she is but it's hard to tell tbh, given these writers and their history of writing sexy encounters between characters which should not have sexy encounters, and that sort of tension in the writing is not particularly where you want the ambiguity to be resting in character dynamics :P

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I think maybe she is after telling Lucifer that she told them how weak he was, assuming that he's actually strong enough to take them out and has been snacking on her grace non-stop  somehow

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Okay yeah she is betraying them for love, and I add a confused "phew" onto the end of that thought. I have no idea how I feel about them tbh and I never worked it out on the bus ride around town >.>

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Ketch really wants them to stab him, huh? He hasn't said anything this conversation to de-escalate the situation, used a demon bomb on a room full of angels, including Cas so if it had worked it would have hurt him but it didn't even work so he just wasted something expensive, and then he's like, fine, let's all work together and Sam's like dude no and Ketch is like, fine, will you trust me if I tell you I'm working for Asmodeus?

Dean's like "... they don't let me say fuck on this network but how the fuck does that help??"

Ketch offers to pass information BACK to them from Asmodeus, which absolutely does not patch up the leak of their prophet wandering off to get fried chicken and coming back with KFC

-

"I'm the lesser of at least three evils" that isn't really very reassuring either mate

-

Also with the terrible sales pitch: Lucifer trying to convince the angels to let him run Heaven with Danniel as his queen

I can't even work out if he's pretending he can make new angels or not, but I sort of feel like he totally can't and it would go about as well as the Plum sisters trying to resurrect their mom, who in this weird instance stands in for God

-

"How would you like your wings back" baaaaad idea

-

Cut to Donatello munching a million chicken wings

-

How is he not dead

-

*Cas side-eyes the enormous pile of chicken wings too*

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"We need him" Yeah, being needed still sucks and even if you need someone you can still want to shoot them as soon as they're not useful >.>

-

Oh dear, Lucifer got what he wanted. And Danniel is his queen, exactly as SHE wanted.

-

And Ketch and Asmodeus are back to sharing a drink like THEY wanted since they were on a holiday cruise together when Cas escaped and are apparently just an item now

-

Oh no apparently he was going shopping getting some artefact

An archangel blade which doesn't look anything like any sword we've ever seen any archangel ever hold before and also no one has ever stabbed an archangel with

-

uuuuuuuuuuuugh

-

I don't like this at all and it's entirely because Gabriel had such a good story in the first place and I really really LIKE him. And whatever they explain is going to have to be stupid by neccessity, they're not gonna bring Raphael back which is only somewhat mitigated by bringing Michael back in a black vessel but whatever, if you have all 3 of the others running around and never give Raphael another go, it just looks bad because now we have a forgotten archangel just chilling down in season 5/6 being completely ignored for another go around when all the others do >.>

ALSO HE DIED GOOD and 9x18 was great and all but uggghh it was good because he was safely still DEAD

I mean I guess since Lucifer got free again his sacrifice was pretty much in vain anyway so maybe he should get another crack at killing him but uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugghhhhhhh

I'm going to guess I'm the biggest killjoy at the party right now, which is weird because I actually like 99% of this episode as not being terrible and for Buckleming one of their best non-rapey non-racist, only a few random dropped idiot balls episodes... And I'm assuming the Gabriel decision comes at a higher level, or at least needed a lot of approval and working into other plots.

But uuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhh. That just means I disapprove all over this place and this isn't a criticism of a Buckleming thing, it's the fact that I've had lukewarm to tepid interest in Gabriel coming back the entire time and now he's back and I'm gonna have to live with this >.>

[gaudeixcc]

Peloton News – ‘Suitable applicants only’

Here’s a thought. Theoretically speaking, which one of the peloton would be best suited to doing the job I do?

Now I know as the current jobholder, you may well think that I’d be in with a pretty good shout, but just because I happening to be holding the ball, doesn’t mean that other riders may actually be temperamentally better suited to the role of chief administration monkey.

JT for example, with his brutal efficiency, lack of human compassion, swift and confident decision-making might indeed argue that he could do what I do, not only better and quicker, but likely with one hand tied behind his back, blindfold and probably whilst still doing his own job of firing subservient German media underlings without missing a single heartbeat (assuming a heart exists of course).

And he probably could.

In a similar vein I’ve often thought that flying a plane (non-carpenter version) is not all it’s cracked up to be.

We all had a go at landing a jumbo in a simulator and managed to pull that off with only limited constant coaching and interfering from Macca. Clemo and I even had a go at landing the space shuttle whilst holidaying in Florida one year. Again, shelling peas.

And as for chief health and safety guru on the nation’s railways, a job which on the surface Dripping seems least-well suited to with his near constant calamitous brushes with death, his very keen eye for leaves and ability to carry a clipboard and wield a pencil may ironically mean suitability is in the ‘duck to water’ realm of comparison.

I was left pondering much of this on the ride last Sunday. And I had time to ponder. Being flung off the back of the excitable peloton freight-train gives one space to consider one’s navel, as well as time to dwell on the questionable moral fabric of one’s fellow riders.

Still, I did manage to hold a couple of wheels on the 55-mile jaunt into the Surrey hills.

For the first group ride of the season, there was much to prove by many.

My own goal was not to be left too far behind too often. Macca on the other hand was clear in his intent. Even though he was on his gravel bike with balloon tyres, a bike made of metal, his clearly stated goal was not to let anyone overtake him unchallenged…..anywhere….at anytime.

My youngest has a new kitten. He teases the kitten with a toy foxtail. The kitten goes absolutely scatty for this thing. Even when sitting placidly on the bottom step of the stairs, a quickly waggle of the foxtail in her line of sight and she jerks into a barely controlled ‘hunt-it-down’ frenzy.

Similarly, whilst chatting at the back of the pack with Macca (who had felt a level of pity for those at the rear of the bus), I was revealing my inner-soul about my childhood trauma. A moment which I was bravely recounting for the first time without crying (my voice was wobbling like a schoolgirl mind) when Dripping overtook us both, a little too closely for a health and safety expert if you ask me.

All empathy disappeared from Macca’s face and the ancient part of the brain responsible for chasing, hunting and killing foxes, shut down all rational thought and he was off leaving me in a wash of angry competitive spittle, balloon tyre disappearing up the road in front of me.

Dripping knew what he was doing. He may as well have gone past and yelling ‘fuck you Macca’, the result would have been the same.

He didn’t yell that. But I also was equally certain that ‘Fuck you Macca’ is exactly what Macca heard.

Anyway, I pulled my emotional self back together and pedalled on.

The Surrey hills were fabulous on Sunday morning. It was cold but bright and there were Pelotons everywhere. Most of which significantly better dressed than ours.

What had prompted my thoughts on job-suitability was the Arrival of Mark on the scene with his yellow safety bib. I expect he was trying to un-nerve Dripping who was on his new S-Works by subconsciously suggesting that he had the moral high-ground when it came to health and safety. It was an interesting look made all the more appealing by his wearing of double-trousers. Clear thought had been given to the temperature and appropriate clothing selected. Impressive caution.

The overarching theme of the day however remained competitive aggression.

The normal course of a professional peloton is to build speed slowly with all team-mates attached. What you rarely see with Team Ineos is the rear-rider overtaking the rest of his own team and gaining a 50-yard lead. What you also rarely see in a coordinated peloton is one of the more senior members then breaking from his own team so as not to let the rear rider (now at the front) take all the glory.

If the rear-rider (now at the front) pulls onto a roundabout with only just enough space to miss the oncoming Nissan Nivaro, then the chasing competitor should do the sensible thing. He should weigh up the options. He should think ‘should I risk near-certain death and follow his wheel so not to concede the lead’ or alternatively he might think ‘should I just let the car go as we will be stopping at traffic lights in exactly 50 yards time’.

After long consideration, Macca flew onto the roundabout chasing Dripping’s foxtail whilst a man in a car literally sat on the horn, his frightened children praying that Daddy didn’t lose his temper with that ‘you-fucking-wanker!!!’ cyclist their father was waving his middle finger at.

RTA had already peeled off gracefully to Reigate so didn’t have to witness any of this buffoonery and so back to chez Hoppo we returned for bacon and sausage butties.

I had finally reached a conclusion. 

So which of our cyclists did I think was best qualified to fly passengers across the Atlantic safely?

Dripping was out of the question as he would choose the wrong plane… he’d likely insist on a Blackbird SR71 as the logical steed for the job assuming the same bike-buying logic of the ‘S-works for the hill works’.

Macca would also be completely out of the question. Seeing one of the other planes take off first would see him have him pulling the throttles back whilst still connected to the passenger onboarding jetty, spilling people and trolleys asunder as he dragged the stairs down the runway so as not let the EasyJet Malaga shuttle be the first one with its wheels up.

Mark, whilst on the surface may be qualified to fly planes, would need to up his game to be more qualified on the visually superficial level. As a passenger if you saw the man with the safety vest welcoming you aboard you would think that the guy who guides the planes in with the old ‘stick-with-a-light-on’ had got ideas above his station.

I was out of the question on account of emotional fragility. The stinging sense of abandonment on Blanks lane implied that if I so much as got a funny look from a passenger I may well get the hump and sit in the cockpit refusing to come out unless the passenger in 7A apologised in person and promised to be nice to me.

This just leave RTA. He rode the perfect ride. The most capable rider who didn’t get involved in any of the competitive nonsense. He rode at the front and back with equal pleasure and humility. A man who in his spare time is coaxing the Mole back out of his nest and into the hills without leaving him wheezing for dead in the gutter.

So there we have it. Macca shouldn’t fly planes and I should man the fuck up. A reasonable conclusion to the first ride of the year.

Go steadily into the Spring my little fuckerinos.

Hoppo

[cyclonecasey]

Why did I do this?!

WHO KILLED MARKIPLIER, an analysis (+theory).

My theory is actually that the Colonel wasn’t completely wrong. I believe that it did in fact start off as bit of a prank, I think it saddened Mark that he wasn’t as close to his friends as he use to be and was afraid that they didn’t really care about him anymore. I think he lured his friends to his manor with the intentions of faking his own death to see if and how his friends would mourn him.

Warning, this is a long analysis.

Our relations It is implied that we know Mark to some extent, we wouldn’t have been invited otherwise, however we don’t seem to be as much a part of the gang as everyone else, as implied by the Colonel, the Seer, and the Detective not seeming to know us very well or at all. Damien refers to us knowing each other from at least our university years, and we assume that is how we know Mark as well.

Chapter 1 We arrive at Markiplier Manor where we meet the Colonel for the first time. We enter the manor to be greeted by the Butler (who doesn’t seem to know us), then move on to Damien the Mayor (who greets us as an old friend) and Abe the Detective (who goes silent as we approach and backs out of frame). After that we meet the Chef (some people have theorised that he knows us but I think that theory was made under the assumption that this takes place after A Date with Markiplier), then the Butler returns with our drink and Mark finally graces us with his presence. Ominous foreshadowing monologue ensues, followed by a toast, a rowdy drinking montage, and blacking out.

During the night Mark finds Damien and (somehow) takes possession of his body, trapping him in an alternate dimension, and leaving his own body (empty of life) to be found in the morning.

Morning comes and after the Butler gives us our cocaine seltzer (what?) we are greeted by Damien (who is actually Mark) who proceeds to say sinister things like “there’s our little monster” “you really knocked ‘em dead last night” “good to let the beast out every once in a while” followed by briefly wondering why now, what were we celebrating, planting questions in our mind that we’d want answered later. We head downstairs and as we enter the room with a fireplace Mark’s body falls at our feet. The Detective enters first, followed by the Butler, followed by the Chef, each one more panicked than the last but certainly no real hysterics or mourning. Thunder rumbles every time someone utters the word murder. Abe goes straight into Detective mode and questions us until the Butler points out that the body is already cold, he then decides to make us his partner. After the area has been sectioned off and the body covered, Damien (Mark) enters, feigning confusion and is told Mark is dead. Abe insists the authorities not be called and that he should be the one to handle this, the Butler wanders off to tend to the other guests, the Chef gets back to cooking, and Damien/Mark (probably shocked and a bit angry that everyone seems just go about their lives so fast) says he need to speak to the Colonel and rushes off. After determining where we where at the approximate time of the murder, the Detective sends us off to question the other guests. As we approach the Colonels room we can see and hear Damien/Mark yelling at the Colonel accusing him of hating Mark, saying he wants him to care (pretty sad in and of itself but so much sadder thinking that it’s actually Mark), as he brushes past us on the way out you can practically feel the disappointment and anger. When we approach the Colonel he’s obviously on edge, assumes we’re Damien back to have another go. He then treats the situation with a bit too much levity and mockery, telling a story of a caricature version of Mark making a fool of himself and then falling down the stairs, showing how little he thought of the man in the process. He insists we move along with our investigations and shoos us away. The Butler then hijacks us, telling us how privy he is and how well he knows all of the guests, he takes us down to the cellar where we find a broken bottle of wine that he flips out over, crying that Master would be displeased if he was still alive (I still can’t make sense of this scene, maybe it was just meant to be funny). Anyway, we back away not-so-slowly, and move on to the next person, the Chef. After some clever lines that both incriminate and absolve him, he tells us to ask his “little buddy” (security cameras) what happened. This is where we see that Mark had met with the Detective (who seemed oddly sober considering the last time we saw him he had a makeshift turban on his head and was drunkenly punching us out) 13 minutes before Marks supposed death, to discuss Marks staff (still unsure of the significance of this). We head outside and find Damien, clearly stressed and worried. He apologises for before and justifies that the Colonel must just be in shock. He monologues a bit about how long he and Mark had been friends and how lost he feels, he says he need time alone to process and we leave him alone to think. The Detective calls us back to tell us the body has disappeared.

My assumption here is that Mark, angered by his friend’s reaction to his death and the way the body was just left in a room covered in a sheet, decided to cause more suspicion and panic by making his body disappear.

Chapter 2 The Detective rants awhile about the body being moved and how it couldn’t have been him despite being the last person alone with it. The Butler comes in and asks if the body moved on its own, as does the Chef, the Detective now suspects a zombie. The Colonel appears, commenting on the lightning, when told of the ‘zombie problem’ he acts like he’s dealt with this sort of thing before and offers to put the old lad down again, claiming plenty of experience, as does the Chef, this just seems to raise more questions about them for the Detective, and the Colonel (undeterred) runs of to the ground to see if he can track him down. Once he’s gone the Detective goes on about not trusting him, or anyone, then demands the place is put on lock-down. Then he goes on a  tangent about why, why they were invited here, why now (implying that the whole setup was a ruse), confessing that he knew something was wrong with Mark, lamenting that he’d never find out what. More ranting. Noir style internal monologue. More analytical discussion. Obligatory Cluedo joke. And then it’s time to rummage through Mark’s room looking for clues. The room is trashed, but in more of a drunken party way. We make our way over to a table where there are pictures of Mark and his friends, one picture is upside down and shattered, it features the Colonel only. The Colonel suddenly appears in the room, asking to borrow us, his visage is threatening and frightening, he says he want’s us to get to know each other “far away from the prying eyes of anyone else”. He takes us outside and tells us how he and the Mayor have been friends for years, and that he use to say the same for Mark. He spontaneously jumps in the pool at the same moment Damien/Mark comes to look for him. When he’s gone the Colonel pops back up and out of the pool and continues the conversation as though there were no interruptions, he says that Mark has many enemies lately, suggesting that the employees could be responsible. He spontaneously runs down to the golf course as Damien/Mark comes to look for him again. This time he asks us to accompany him (which I think we were all very glad to do at that point) saying he wants to discuss something with us. He talks of the investigations and says that he would stake his life on the innocence or the Colonel or us but is unable to say the same for the Detective (I assume this is the same thing he wanted to say to the Colonel. I also assume that at some point he spoke to Abe saying the same basic thing about the Colonel, to create suspicion). Suddenly there’s a commotion inside, we both run in to find the Colonel and Detective aiming guns at each other. The Colonel claims the Detective assaulted him, the Detective claims the Colonel was aiming a gun at him, the Colonel claims he was just getting in some target practice, Yelling match ensues among all characters (here it’s implied that the Chef use to work for the Colonel). I also feel it’s worth mentioning that the Colonel says “I will not be called a murderer in my own home” (can’t make sense of that). Then the Seer appears through the front door yelling stop, swathed in ethereal light.

Chapter 3 (I’m practically weeping at the idea of analysing Chapter 3, but here we go…)

Celine the Seer enters, disrupting the fight. Abe has no idea who she is, the Colonel calls here by name, they tell her that Mark is dead and possibly a zombie (Celine seems shocked at Marks death but unsurprised at the idea of zombies). The Colonel says that why he’s waving a gun around, the Detective takes offence to this. When Celine asks how Mark died Damien/Mark enters and says simply that it was murdered and that the body is missing (almost as though it was nothing more than shock value). Celine insists that everyone refrain from using the word murder for reasons too long to summarise here. She says she needs to talk to the dead soul of Mark, Abe objects and Celine ignores him, she then singles us out for being quiet and the Chef, Butler, and Detective judge us with suspicion (the Colonel passes), even so, she feels like she can trust us, sensing a greater part to play, she asks us for help and we agree. Abe objects again, and the Colonel rushes to Celine’s defence, saying that he trusts her with all his heart. The Butler also has doubts about this, and even the Chef agrees for once. Celine offers to let them stand watch at the door but insists they not interrupt and heads upstairs. Damien/Mark follows, wanting to know if she’s alright, he’s shocked and surprised by Celine’s involvement in the occult and seems to be trying to stop her, but Celine keeps walking and he tells her to just be careful, and tells us the same as we pass him. We follow Celine into a room where she sets up a tarot table with a crystal ball and candles and asks us to take a seat. She tells us that with our help she’s going to get to the bottom of this, and that Mark’s death feels like just the start of something much bigger. She also says that she’s never really felt comfortable in this house. We go into a trance where we see the fight between the Colonel and the Detective, we see the Colonel taking us for a walk, the Detective telling us the body is missing (but this time the camera pans away to see the Colonel up on the balcony), Damien/Mark greeting us the morning Mark’s body was found, we see the Detective pointing a gun at a man in a hat with a shovel, the Chef standing on the other side… the trance breaks. Celine tells us to draw what we saw and we sketch a man digging with a shovel and hand it to her. Celine gets angry, saying this answers nothing, demanding we go back. Abe barges in with Damien/Mark right behind him, Celine tells them to get out, Damien/Mark says this is  quite enough, Celine is getting angrier by the second, saying it’s enough when she says so. Abe gets us out of there, he takes the drawing from us and calls for the Butler, asking him if it means anything to him, after obviously withholding the truth he says it could be George the groundskeeper,  but he only works weekday. The Chef is acting suss and the Detective picks up on it, he pleads the 5th at first but then confesses that George has been living on the grounds for years, as a hermit. Damien/Mark suggests they go down to the ground and just question him instead of standing around arguing, when asking if he was coming he said he needed to stay with Celine, but Celine says she doesn’t need help “especially from you”, this seems to hit a nerve and he yells “our friend is dead”. He apologises instantly, claiming to need answers and not wanting to loose another friend. He and Celine head back to the room while the Chef, Detective and Butler discuss the Colonel going back to his room tired before the Chef leads the Detective and us out to the grounds where we find George digging a hole with a shovel. The Detective aims his gun at him while the Chef stand opposite just like in the vision, Abe questions him and George talks only of how the grounds are his business and nothing else, that lightning is the sky’s business, and he’s digging the hole for a burst water pipe. Abe insists that we all come inside and have a nice lovely chat, George doesn’t like that, he says he hasn’t been in that house in 15 years and that he doesn’t care how many murders (no lightning this time) there have been, there’s only one thing that he’ll go inside for and we all better pray it never happens. Thunder and lightning strikes. Light pours out of the house as though the lightning is coming from inside. George runs towards the house, this was the reason he was talking about. We all run inside, up the stairs, passed the Colonel as he’s coming out of his room to see what’s going on, and back to where we the Seer and Damien/Mark had gone. The door swings open and Celine is standing in the doorway bathed in light but not looking at all angelic. George calls for help in closing the door on her. My theory is that Damien/Mark stayed with Celine to take possession of her body and send her to the same alternate dimension he’s already sent Damien and his body, thus trapping the only person powerful enough to stop what he was doing. I have not figured out what happened to Celine’s body, since it’s implied that he goes back to Damien’s body, leaving Celine’s empty but it’s also implied that neither one of them can return to their own body.

Finale George locks the door and the Colonel comes over asking where Celine is. George tells him that she and everyone else is gone, then he takes his leave, proclaiming that the place is cursed and advising that everyone else leave as well. The Colonel becomes agitated, asking where Celine and Damien are. The Chef quits and leaves. The Butler is sympathetic but ultimately leaves as well, imploring that we do the same. The Colonel refuses, saying he won’t let his friends die here and that if everyone else is too mush of a coward they should leave before he kills them himself. The Detective objects and trying to stop him from walking away, but he shakes him off yelling at him and stalks away, the Detective follows. The Butler turns to us, still sympathising, suggesting we leave. “There’s only death here now” he says, and walks away. Everything slows down and distorts. We here Celine’s voice whisper “hey” and “help” from behind the door and we look briefly before turning back around and heading downstairs. We here distorted audio, starting with unfamiliar dialogue before backtracking right back to the start when Mark greeted his guests, the sounds become more and more distorted until they can’t be understood as we walk through the house in slow motion with a filter effect that almost makes it seem like we’re on an astral plane. We come to an office room and the world shifts back to normal. We enter and look around. The room is cluttered with news papers and files, all indicating that the Detective had been keeping tabs on everyone, especially the Colonel and the Seer, on a typewriter are the words “the colonel did it” over and over and over again.

Now I’m going to take a moment to say that I find it very unlikely that the Detective was able to gather so many articles, so many pictures, so much work in the day that had passed since Marks death, and considering he didn’t even know who the seer was when she turned up, he certainly hadn’t been keeping tabs on her as is implied. I think the Mark set up this room to look like the Detective had been watching him for a long time, to push him into a paranoia fuelled rage.

The Colonel barges in angrily saying that he’d been wanting to ask us some questions, he takes in to room and assumes pretty much everything that I’ve already said he was being prompted to. He becomes agitated, ranting that the Detective was the one who orchestrated all of this, that he did this. He starts yelling for the Detective walking away to find him and we follow. He continues ranting, saying he took his friends away from him, that he took Celine, and Damien. He grows angrier and angrier, accusing us of hiding him from him, pushing us out of his way. We find the Detective coming out of a room and they instantly start pointing their guns at each other. Abe accuses the Colonel of being the murderer, the Colonel claims he didn’t kill anyone, this is madness! The next bit of dialogue is interesting. The Detective strongly implies that the Colonel stole his best friend’s wife and then squeezed him for money to fund sexual exploits with the same woman. So... who was the Colonels best friend? Mark? Damien? Was the woman Celine? There does seem to be a fair bit of history there, she is in one of the pictures with Mark, Damien, and the Colonel, and the Colonel did say not that he’d trust her with his life but that he’d trust her with all his heart. Did the Colonel love Celine? Was she Mark or Damien’s wife?  The Detectives words seem to hit a nerve with the Colonel and he yells at him to shut up. Abe accused him of plotting the death of his childhood friend because he can’t handle the truth. A gunshot rings out and the Detective slowly collapses. We try to take the gun off the Colonel and it goes off again. As we fall back over the railing the Colonel tried to catch us. “It was an accident, I swear” he says, and everything goes black. Marks empty body appears in the darkness… “It’s not fair, is it?” Damien and Celine appear, Damien flickers with a blue aura while Celine flickers red. Damien rants about how he (Mark) took everything from us, trapped us with “this broken shell” and no way out. Celine says she never though he would fall this far and Damien laments they we played right into his hands, that he’d been planning this for years and now his out there walking around in his body. Celine tries to sooth Damien’s anger and turns to us, saying our questions can’t be answered right now, but Mark took everything from us in his “twisted quest for vengeance” They explain that dying doesn’t have to be the end, that our body, though broken, is still out there (implying that Celine’s is not). Celine explains that she has the power to send us back. Damien says we can’t survive on our own, and I wonder if he means that literally, and they seem to bare no ill will against the Colonel despite the fact he killed the Detective and us, stating only that he’s a good man but dangerous now. Damien explains that he doesn’t really know what’s going on, only that he trusts Celine, and that if we trust them we can fix this together, we just have to let him in. We’re given a choice and we agree to let them in. Damien promises this will work and Celine sends us back. We wake up (I’m not sure if we’ve been moved, the sound effect sound like getting off a couch or bed but we don’t seem to have moved from where we fell), and we find the Colonel sitting beside us, He’s taken off his hat, jacket and cravat and now we can see the yellow shirt and red suspenders that had been hiding beneath. When we spot him we back away but he calmly soothes us, telling us it’s OK. He’s obviously relieved that we’re alive, he thought we were dead. He goes on a tangent about how of course we weren’t dead, how could we be? He wouldn’t have killed us, he didn’t kill us, he didn’t kill anyone, it was all a joke, Damien put us up to it, of course he did. He places Damien’s cane on the mantel and wanders off calling out to Damien to come out now, that it was a good joke and that he almost got him. We approach the mantel and pick up the cane, our image flickers and our hand changes from (in my opinion) feminine, to masculine and the camera pans up to the mirror to reveal Darkiplier has taken control of our body. He cracks his (our) neck and the mirror cracks with static. His face contorts with anger and he storms off.

After I replayed A Date with Markiplier afterwards and I refuse to believe they’re not connected and that we’re not the same person. At the start Mark says that we seem familiar and that he feels like he’s known us for a long time. When Darkiplier appears he says that he missed us very much, and that he’s been waiting for a very long time to see us again. He says he’s tired of giving people a choice (as Damien he gave us a choice at the end of Who Killed Markiplier), this implies that up ‘til that point he would only take someone over if they let him, and maybe he needs people to let him in, he’s words echo what he said as Damien “you just need to let me in…” (Either Who Killed Markiplier was inspired by A Date with Markiplier or Who Killed Markiplier has been in the works for far longer than any of us could have imagined...) So my theory is that Darkiplier stays with us long enough for our body to heal so we can survive on our own and then goes off to seek his revenge against Mark, constantly trying to take control of his body, channel, and life in an eye for an eye type justice. Years pass, Mark somehow forgets everything that happened? The thing that I can’t wrap my head around is that if even half of this theory is right then that kinda makes Mark the bad guy. Mark took over Damien’s body, made everyone believe he was dead, turned his friends against each other. It just doesn’t make sense.

[edit: I’ve been reading up and it seems some people think that this was all about Mark getting revenge on the Colonel for stealing his wife and Celine for leaving him. While this does make a hefty amount of sense it still raises a few too many questions. Why punish Damien? What did he do to deserve getting so caught up in this revenge plot? Like I said before, there does seems to be a bit of history with Celine for for the Colonel and Damien. Was she involved with all 3 at one point or another? I guess we’ll all just have to wait for the 24th to find out]

[the-cryptographer]

Not having reliable internet, I’ve had to resort to other methods for continued procrastination. …Like writing these tumblr posts in word. And looking through the pkmn freeware games and other things floating around my desktop. Some scattered thoughts about this and other things under the cut.

While I had a whole host of freeware (and a few other) games on my laptop – the number of which I managed to play was actually much smaller. I know I’m further limited by the fact that I’m playing without a mouse – so nothing complicated or actiony – mostly menu based imput and all that. But I was reminded once again that there are many games that are beautiful and creative and full of amazing concepts and informative discussion that are /utterly/ unplayable because the controls SUCK ASS. Honestly, playability is number one in terms of what makes a good game – don’t forget~

In terms of what was actually decent…

I played the Night in the Woods supplement – Lost Constellation. Which was a decent and thoughtful little point-&-click adventure – very pretty, engaging, nice dialogue. You build snowmen as part of the story and are encouraged to take pictures of them.

It’s actually convinced me I should look into purchasing the game proper. So you can tell I liked it.

...

I also played Pinkamena – which is what you should play if you’re the kind of person that likes to mix depressing murder mysteries and serial killings with My Little Pony. I know it’s based on games of a similar type – but the gist of it is – it’s a text based game where you’re running an investigation trying to piece together which among a list of townsfolk are regular folk with regular jobs and which are the murderers… before the murderers kill everybody… It took me a couple of runs to get the hang of it, but after that the regular mode becomes kind of boring. So I initiated a challenge mode where I’m not set apart from the other players in the drama, but at risk of being killed myself. Once I’d gotten the hang of this, I initiated all the challenge modes at once, at which point the game becomes less about investigating who the killers are, and more waiting for them to kill everybody else and then making 50-50 guesses trying to kill off the killers instead of the townsfolk so that, next round, there will be people left for the remaining killers to kill off that aren’t you. Either that, or it’s about being assigned to be the jailor. If you’re the jailor, you can jail yourself every night as a method of shielding yourself from attack, and thus stay alive long enough to see everyone else dead and win the game by default. …I did finally manage to win all-the-challenges-mode without being picked for jailor, but winning a guessing game isn’t as exhilarating as winning something based on skill, so at that point I kinda chucked the game out.

...

And – this isn’t really freeware – but the only way to play the second Ace Attorney Investigations game in English is to use the ROM and an unofficial patch. I had started it a long while back, and finally managed to finish it.

I think… the issues that people have with the Ace Attorney games are pretty well documented. It’s really easy to end up ahead or behind the path of the story, depending on how logical or illogical some connection in the game’s evidence folder is, or how heavy-handed and obvious the story telling is being. Also, there is so much dialogue and so much of it is spent rehashing what we already know /god/, but you also never know when the games are going to sprinkle in jokes and good character moments imbetween the dialogue, so you feel obligated to drag the game out and postpone every advancement in search of the interesting bits.

On the bright side, the characters are as amusing and captivating as always. I can complain about how the best character and the most interesting relationships (that’d be Franziska and her relationships with her father and adopted brother) are constantly shafted. But more to the point I want to say-

I love him. He’s such an insufferable idiot. And he’s just such a sweetheart, and it’s so heartbreaking, and I love him.

...

Okay, but- Pokémon fan games.

Going back in time, Pokémon Reborn is the first pkmn fan game I’ve played. It seems different fangames have different things going for them. Pkmn Reborn will probably only appeal to you if you enjoy (a) grimdark that’s highly aesthetic, hilarious, and over-the-top rather than truly horrifying, and (b) getting your ass kicked. I never knew that a pkmn game could actually be difficult, but it turns out that a pkmn game can be very, very difficult, and also there’s a whole world out there of competitive tactics. And you’re only getting a taste of them in a singleplayer campaign, but it’s crazy and also crazy fun. Without any prior knowledge, I ended up using the F.E.A.R. method trying to beat some of the bosses. When a game challenges me to independently invent last ditch tactics to proceed and the answers I come up with are well known game breakers… it’s a feeling. At some point though, I ended up with a team full of pkmn with extremely slow levelling rates, and ran out of trainers to battle against for experience, and fell out of playing in the process of waiting for trainers to respawn at the hub. I intended to pick it back up now, but I realised I’d misplaced my save files. I’m waiting to get home to see if I can track them down or something. But, you see, I was so impressed with Pkmn Reborn, it inspired me to downloaded a bunch of other pkmn fan games to try out sometime. And that time was now.

A couple of other things though – Pkmn Reborn all takes place in one city and its outskirts, and I really kind of admire that decision. Worldbuilding is one of my favourite aspects of RPGs, so it’s nice to see a city that actually /feels/ like a city with its different industrial, commercial, and residential districts – warehouses, slums, and wastelands. Also I took screenshots of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirtles:

The immediate problem with downloading a dozen pkmn fan games is then you actually have to decide which ones to play. Admittedly, I used very shallow and superficial reasons to decide which ones not to play. Nothing I had to patch to a ROM, because that would mean me having to download a ROM and emulator and patch it. Also one of the readmes for the patch included a disclaimer that if you were too stupid to get the patch working then you were too stupid to play the game, which made me doubly not want to play it because apparently the developer is a know-it-all douche who feels the need to get personally insulting instead of just saying something neutral like, ‘sorry, I don’t know how to explain better than this. so if you can’t get the patch working I won’t be able to help you.’ I ruled out something with an installer too, because I was feeling extra suspicious about my freeware and what I was giving it permission to do to the insides of my computer. And there was something that wouldn’t start properly, and I wasn’t going to futz around trying to coax it.

And I also ruled something out for having a disclaimer that ‘you can’t choose to play as a female character because this game is very PLOT CENTRIC’. And, lol, Pkmn Reborn was very plot heavy, and they let me play as male, female, or nonbinary, and one of my costaring NPCs is a flamboyant bisexual man that hits on me no matter which option I choose. Unless your game’s plot is heavily involved in societal deconstruction and gender politics, I can think of no reason your plot wouldn’t allow for MC being a girl. Which, frankly, would be a pretty significant tone shift from original pkmn games, which your game doesn’t actually seem to be. …It’s weird, because I don’t actually mind games flat-out not giving me a choice in who I play as. Especially for a freeware game, I don’t mind the developers going, ‘I don’t wanna take the time to program in an alternate set of player sprites and dialogue variables. You are playing as this one person who is not you, and that’s just how it is.’ But the game apologising for this choice and then trying to feed me this bullshit excuse about plot feels somehow like either (a) an insult to my intelligence, or (b) you actually think your plot is so special and unique to a male perspective that you may not realise women are human. So it’s kind of lose-lose situation I’ve been put into, wouldn’t you say? idk, I guess it’s possible the game turned into the Revolutionary Girl Utena of pkmn fangames, or a realistic investigation of isolated all-male cultural groups, like a men’s prison, in which case I’d agree the genders of the characters can be significant af to maintaining the plot. But given some of the other signals the game was telepathing to me, it seemed far more likely I’d be heading in a direction where at some point some bitch was going to hit on me so I can’t play as a girl bc that’d make things too gay or something. I apologise for being so bitter and jaded.

...

Anyhow, after throwing a good number of things into my computer’s recycling bin, I ended up with Super Pokémon Eevee Edition, and Pokémon Sage.

In Super Pokémon Eevee Edition, you’re playing as the gen2 protagonist – albeit one that talks and is full of good natured snark – in a kind of alternate version of the Johto region. Notably, all the gym leaders are the same, and Silver is your rival, although the environments and layout of the region are different. You’re immediately cued in on the fact that things are very WRONG though. Before you’ve even chosen your name, you’re getting images of old style gen1 glitches in place of the professor your screen. Anyhow, you start the game venturing into the woods into the lair of an old (and allegedly insane) hermit – that’s Professor Oak – who ends up gifting you with a glitched ‘super’ Eevee that is able to switch between the different eevolutions at will. You set off to start your Pokemon journey, but it’s all overlayed on top of a meta plot. Gen3 is set to start in the span of about a month, and the ‘hypervisors’ controlling the game and its code are all set to erase the current Gen2 and all the people in it to make Gen3 happen. It’s not functioning on the level of Undertale having its story interwoven with your save file but, even given all its superficiality, it’s a fun little way to play with the idea of a meta game world. And it’s suspenseful. It catches your attention quickly and, even having played through all six available chapters, I’m not sure who to trust regarding what’s happening in the story.

In terms of the gameplay… It honestly fixed a lot of the worst things about pkmn gameplay imo. You’re given an axe, pickaxe, and surfboard to replace Cut, Rock Smash, and Surf – so you don’t have to fill up your moveset with HMs. But the limited moveset is also gone altogether. You’re playing a type of hybrid Final Fantasy X-2 active battle system, using teams of four pkmn max. The whole thing makes battles a lot faster, especially without the tedium of switching pkmn in and out of battle. Later battles do get kind of easy as a result tho, as you build up a star team and spam high level attacks one after the other, but I think the rest of the game carries the lack of challenge well. It goes quick, like I said.

There’s a good amount of content for the game as of now – 6 gym leader battles, and a host of other stuff. Although I wish there was more as of now, I recommend the game in the shape that it’s in~ Although you may find some strange and inexplicable loose ends. Like quests in your log book that you can’t fulfill, or some rather empty environments near the end, or-

I don’t even know.

...

For Pokémon Sage… the big draw for me was the pkmn SOUTH AMERICA thing. I gotta love me some silly cultural diversity in my pkmns~ It seems like all the pkmn are fake, compared to the above games where all the pkmn (except one) are ripped directly from the source material. But they’re so adorable!! My pkmns~ Let me show them to you~

Anyhow, it really plays exactly like a pkmn game, so there aren’t any fastballs thrown at you. I think the closest thing to a subversion you get is your rival’s pkmn being stolen shortly after he (or she) has gotten it, and the Professor handing off the final pkmn so your rival won’t be without one. You see the thief run past you at one point later, but the game is really only a short demo right now – it stops after the first gym battle – so there isn’t really a significant encounter with this thief. I feel like it’s kind of a flaw in the demo actually, to leave that so significantly hanging…

I think it’s a neat composition though. It’s a colourful setting and really detailed environments, so if you want to play a couple hours of Pkmn in the Andes, it’s not as if you’ve got anything to lose~

...

Other things I’ve been doing…

I watched Over the Garden Wall. And I can also really recommend it.

I like these kinds of shows that are a short set of fifteen minute episodes. With a concrete plot. That ends.

But, beyond that, I was glad to watch something that somebody obviously put a lot of passion into. Obviously the creators were neck deep in love with 1800s American Folklore, and the show is just oozing that love. It’s not even an area of particular interest for me, but the show sold it with such love and cleverness and with such colourfully human characters and a singing frog – I just adored it.

...

And I’ve been reading some shoujo manga… Or no, not really.

I was thinking again of Fruits Basket, which was all the rage back when I was in secondary school. Tbh, I still can’t quite put my finger on the series. On one hand, I think it’s terribly melodramatic, and Touru does strike me as being inhumanly perfect – almost repulsively so at times. But despite all of this, I like Touru, and I find the series really touching~ It’s really so alike and so unlike everything else I’ve ever seen.

Right before I left on vacation, I was also reading Akuma to Love Song. It’s really… terrible, lol. The protagonist is super pretty, but challenged in the realm of social schmoozing. She’s straightforward, and intimidating, and seems to see right through to people’s insecurities and drag them up without realising it’s their insecurities she’s unearthing. She immediately catches the attention of the class darling/hottest guy, and also this other guy’s attention. And all the girls hate her, and also her teacher, and it’s only through her earnestness and the help of hot guys that she’s able to pull her way through her struggles~ And also there’s a strange religious bend to it where she’s ‘the devil’ but also she went to catholic school before this and is always wearing a cross and singing Amazing Grace. It’s weird.

My beef with the series is that every secondary female character is some kind of conniving bitch that’s out to get the protag. After the protag kind of… outwits(?) them, there is this kind of thing where they admit they were only insecure and you’re allowed to start to sympathising with them. It’s a defeat means friendship kind of thing. The series seems to play around with the idea of how much the protagonist is incapable and tactless and has a bad attitude. But I do kind of get the idea that it’s pushing the message that the protag is more ‘honest’ and more morally correct, and it’s really everybody else’s problem for being jealous and angry and insecure. And the whole thing in general strikes me as kind of simplistic and misogynistic. And the fact that the men in this series are willing to put themselves on the line for her as much as they do – even if they are attracted to her… even if they feel some kind of deep intrigue and connection… it’s sometimes a little hard to buy them doing all this for someone they’ve just met. Men sometimes seem less afraid of making social enemies than women… but I think it seems like that because men are allowed to cross more, or rather different, boundaries than women are before they’re ostracised. But, if anything, men are even more desperate to fit in and not lose their privileges than women.

…And, if anything has been communicated to me through manga, it’s that bullying is a crazy terrible problem in Japan. This specific manga is obviously a symptom rather than a realistic portrayal of bullying. It seems to convey a kind of emotional state brought about by the fear of ostracisation, and the desire to not only fit in but to feel superior instead of inferior. The reason it probably seems simplistic is it’s attempting to reach the kind of mental state of a middle or high schooler caught in the middle of the whirlwind and provide wish fulfilment, rather than a holistic view of the topic from outside. The facts are screwy, but the emotional impact is real.

Ugh, for what it’s worth, I want to read more. I’ve read a lot of terrible shoujo before, and this manga is a kind of paint-by-numbers guide to some of the terribleness, but I can’t help but be intrigued by the protagonist. She’s deeply flawed in a rather unusual way for shoujo manga, whether the narrative recognises it or not. I would be reading more if the internet wasn’t what it was.

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And, lastly, I’ve been reading Komura Ayumi’s newest manga, Kamisama no Ekohiiki. And, goddamn, I love Komura. The last time I made a post about her manga, I got a reblog from somebody asking if Komura would ever write a series with a likeable, sympathetic protagonist. And, different strokes for different folks, I guess, but I felt deeply confused and a little worried about what this person didn’t find likeable and sympathetic about Komura’s protags because they are honestly THE BEST. They just so unabashedly like what they like. They can be selfish and shallow, but they’re just so earnest and guileless about it – it’s so cute <3  And, in spite of themselves, they become sentimental and get touched by the smallest gestures – it’s just so cute <3  And this is all aside from the fact that she’s apparently given up on writing straight people. (I remember reading Mixed Vegetables in print and feeling the attachment to how down to earth the characters were.) Anyhow, the newest manga is about a guy who makes a prayer at a shrine for every day for a hundred days to find the courage to confess to his male best friend. His friend rejects him, softly, but rejects him, and he promptly walks out into traffic by mistake. The god of the shrine allows him to come back to life in whatever form he likes, and he rashly says he wants to be a girl, so his friend will be able to return his feelings. This turns out to be a very stupid wish, since he IDs pretty strongly as a guy. And then he meets his friend’s ex-girlfriend, is attracted to her, befriends her, and then the ex-girlfriend falls for him – who’s living as a girl. And now the male best friend is all distraught bc his best friend just died. I’m not sure where in this mess of BL and GL there’s anything even remotely shoujo-like. But it’s so, so shoujo in the best way. I just… can’t not love a silly manga that’s so sympathetic with all its characters. The more I feel like I should pick on Komura’s work - the more I just can’t. It’s just so lighthearted and dumb and sympathetic towards all of the characters, even and especially when they’re bi and stupid. I feel a strong kinship~

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Anyhow, that’s it for now. I’m also trying to read fanfic i have preloaded in my browser. And write. Between work. I’m sorry I’m so scattered. I have the fifth season of GoTs on my computer too, so maybe I’ll watch that too 3_3