#I’m open to other design suggestions if folks are cool

[magpiesky]

Cloudtail and his mama!

Working on a few designs for an AU comic

[h-worksrambles]

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is somehow simultaneously both the game I’m most excited for next year and yet I also can’t remember the last time I was so anxious for a new release.

For context. I love Final Fantasy VII. It’s my second favourite game in the series. I played it in 2019 with no nostalgia and was stunned at how well it holds up. Its story is a compelling ride that’s still painfully relevant to this day. The characters are loveable and multi fascinated. The combat is simple while having enough nuance to sink your teeth into and the world is a joy to explore. It’s an iconic game but one that earns every bit of its reputation.

You know what I also loved? Final Fantasy VII Remake. It brought the world and characters I adored to life in a new way that captivated me all over again. It has some of my favourite combat in the series, and it visually captured the original better than I could have hoped. Even the controversial ending pivot was something I could respect for what it was saying on a meta level about the need for VII to evolve in order to keep discussion of it alive. But that new direction demands that what comes after has to be a worthy complement to what VII originally did. And now that Rebirth’s getting closer, we’re soon gonna get our answer about that.

And that’s the thing. On many counts, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth looks amazing. The pivot to an open world looks promising (I know that the devs citing Horizon as a source has got some folks worried it’s gonna go full Ubisoft in terms of open design but I’n cautiously optimistic that the exploration will be good). Every change to the combat in terms of new abilities, mechanics and party members feel smartly chosen to make for a smoother experience. Every scene they’ve shown in trailers promises to lovingly re imagine and expand so many phenomenal parts of the original. Red XIII’s self reflection at Cosmo Canyon, Barret’s symbolically facing his darkest impulses through Dyne at Corel. The entire Nibelheim incident with a PLAYABLE Sephiroth, letting us experience the terrifying gap in power between him and Cloud through the gameplay? I really couldn’t ask for more.

But that’s not all there is to this is there? Following on from Remake’s ending we now have an alternate timeline with Zack Fair, having survived the events of his tragic death, looking for Aerith. And on some levels, this could actually be really cool. The trailers imply that Biggs apparent survival also only happened in this other timeline. Our Biggs, Wedge and Jessie (that Remake did such a good job expanding and making us cry over) are still gone. And this other Biggs has been hardened by those experiences. That’s interesting and allows him to develop without undoing that fantastic death scene that Remake gave him. There is promising stuff here. It promises to be a legitimately NEW vision to complement the original without undermining its themes (and I want you to keep that in mind for what I say next).

And yet there is a troubling vision looming in the back of my head. And that vision is The Compilation of Final Fantasy VII.

I do not like the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. I think it’s drab, baffling, incoherent mess that fundamentally does not understand the source material. And that’s odd because it’s made by many of the same people who made VII so legendary. There’s a tendency for uninformed, uncharitable takes to paint Tetsuya Nomura as a hack who went from character designer to creative lead and promptly butchered VII according to his whims the second Hironobu Sakaguchi stepped back. But all it takes is a cursory glance at the dev history to see that’s not the case. Many of the most applauded aspects of VII are things Nomura either suggested or helped with. Say what you will about Kingdom Hearts or the shudders …The Third Birthday. But Nomura does have a strong eye for game direction and ludonarrative. Many of the creatives on the Compilation have done sterling work elsewhere…

Which makes it all the more baffling that it’s so terrible.

Advent Children is an aimless collection of admittedly cool action scenes that also entirely misunderstands what VII did so well thematically. An attempt is made to continue its themes of grief and the cycle of life by effectively giving Cloud PTSD. But the execution is so one note and heavy handed that it only comes off as forced, and fails to do a character as nuanced as Cloud any justice. It doesn’t feel like a meaningful expansion of his character. It feels like it’s regressing him so he can learn the same lesson again. Which would be easier to stomach if it was done in the service of a realistic portrayal of depression, but it’s really not. When your depiction of these issues is so flat and cartoonishly one dimensional, maybe you just don’t have as much to say about grief and trauma as you think you do. Sure, the old 2000s critique that AC is bad because it’s ‘emo’ is surface level and bad faith. But that doesn’t make the movie any less shallow or badly written.

Crisis Core does admittedly do a wonderful job expanding on the character of Zack Fair to make for one of the series most loveable protagonists. But it’s also a 101 in bad prequel writing. A story dedicated to over explaining and cheapening the world and characters of the original. All in a bid to make room for a string of uninteresting, shallow new characters that are placed on an absurdly high level of importance in the lore at the cost of everyone else (please tell me whose idea it was to rob Sephiroth of all agency in his own downfall by having him be manipulated by Gackt’s OC?). All capped off with a faux intellectual, badly translated script that, for all its words, has so little to say compared to the original.

And the less said about Dirge of Cerberus or On the Way to a Smile, the better.

I’m worried that this is making me sound like some bitter purist. I don’t think Nomura or Nojima ‘ruined FFVII’ much as people love to parrot that. But I do think when these continuations chiefly exist because executives are breathing down their necks to milk the giant cow, even good creatives are going to make lesser art. And even then there are signs of ambition in the spin offs. But they’re tainted by a lack of restraint, and often compromise what worked about the original. Sometimes I could see what they were going for, but that didn’t make VII’s world and characters feel any less bastardised. Which is why I want to stress how much I loved Remake. It did have that tight execution and understanding of the original and its characters that the spin offs lacked. Hell I was even excited for the new potential of its ending.

But now a few years on, I have to wonder. How much of it is actually going to be ‘new’? And how much is just going to be dredging up the series’ old mistakes? The DLC for VII rounded off by reintroducing Nero, an antagonist from the much maligned Dirge of Cerberus, making him a canonical part of Yuffie’s story. 2022 saw the release of a remaster of Crisis Core shortly before marketing for Rebirth showed off Zack’s parallel story throughout the game. It is thus heavily implied that you should play Crisis Core Reunion, because this stuff is going to matter to Rebirth. And it was recently announced that Advent Children Complete is returning to Japanese theatres for the first time in years. The movie that so fundamentally damaged the perception of what FFVII is, is not so subtly being presented as being very important to whatever comes next. And that’s to say nothing of how Sephiroth’s portrayal in the Remake so far matches up scarily well with the novels’ revelations that he and Aerith are actually still alive in the Lifestream and can technically come back whenever they want (a retcon that actively makes my blood boil for how little it understands ANYTHING about VII for the sake of fanservice).

I mean…is this it? Is this all the ‘new story’ we have to look forward to? The same mystery box sequel baiting that dogs the later Kingdom Hearts games, and a bunch of heavy handed fanservice for all the worst excesses of the Compilation? Honestly, Remake was actually really good about how it used the Compilation. Carefully and selectively and threading in minor characters, worldbuilding details and homages so they fit more organically into VII’s world. It really felt like Square Enix had done through a wildly experimental phase, learned what worked and what didn’t, and were now exercising an ambitious but controlled hand. But maybe we’re sliding right back into that excess and schlock.

Back when Remake came out, I remember seeing many comparisons to the Rebuild of Evangelion movies. But now I’m wondering. What if this isn’t a deeply personal meta-textual commentary on how the creators’ relationship with their art has changed? What if it’s just a multiverse punch up filled with fanservice for a bunch of mediocre spin offs from the 2000s that people are apparently nostalgic for? Is Zack actually back because the writers think he would meaningfully enhance the story? Or is he back because they know how popular Zack is and know fans would eat up a potential reunion between him, Cloud and Aerith, no matter how little sense it makes?

But that’s also where I can breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief. Because a lot of my worries are still just ‘what ifs’. At the end of the day, what we have so far is a great remake of a classic, which has a highly promising sequel on the way. And I’m excited as hell to play it. And yet I can’t deny the uncertainty makes me uneasy. This trilogy of reimaginings has so much promise and potential. And I hope it doesn’t opt for shock value and fan service to appeal to the lowest common denominator. It’s from many of the same minds who made VII so special, but many of those same minds have proven they can also miss the mark of what they previously got so right. VII is a powerful story of identity, environmentalism, the nature of death and self reflection. It’s a scathing critique of capitalistic greed and our lack of respect for the planet. While also being a hopeful story of love and self betterment, that tells us the people we lose are in some small way still with us, as long as we remain in harmony with the natural world around us. If the Remake isn’t going to fully recreate that story for a new audience, then I hope at least that it’s got something equally worthwhile to say that can stand alongside it. But only time will tell.

[davids-cartoon-corkboard]

Here’s the final part of the “Raph is a system” theory compilation post! It’s the last of what I can scrape up from canon; while I still have ideas on how it might loop back into character interactions and plot and so on, they’re much more speculative in nature. (Part 1 is here) (Part 2 is here) (You’re reading Part 3)

---

"Red” is the alter with the least screen time, so it took a while for me to connect the dots on when and why he formed.

His shadowed face, the dramatic background music when he speaks, and his seriousness are reminiscent of the “brooding on rooftops in the rain while gloomily staring off into the distance” thing that Raphs throughout the franchise will do sometimes. That’s easy to poke fun at on a superficial level because most of us look back on our edgy phases with self-deprecation, but it’s a lot less funny in the context of the life he lives. Being a normal human teenager in normal human society is a fucking nightmare; being a mutant teenager who has no idea what to expect in terms of development or lifespan, only five people he can safely interact with ever, and a very limited future hiding from everyone else for as long as he lives has got to be just awful.

RR’s few lines in “Pizza Puffs” tell us a lot. “It’s the only way they’ll learn” and “this is for their own good” suggest that he formed when the turtles started exploring more of the sewers and going aboveground, and Being The Leader became more of a responsibility. A thousand new ways for them to get in trouble meant a thousand new ways Raph would have to bail them out, and that got old fast- especially since they didn’t have April’s knowledge to help them in the beginning. I doubt they met her the very first time they left the sewers. The wiki says April knew the boys for five years as of “Mystic Mayhem”, so they would have been nearly eight at the time, perhaps the mental equivalent of a ten- or eleven-year-old human.

A while back I sifted through all the eps with Raph in them in the vague hopes that “Pizza Puffs” wasn’t the only episode featuring RR... and lo and behold, I found something! The shadowed face and dramatic background music are also present in “Minotaur Maze”!

“I can’t do it. I got no mystic mojo. I’m useless.”

“Hey, that’s not true, brother. You just gotta believe in yourself, and know this: If I die in this maze, I will haunt you for the rest of your life.”

(I know that’s only two data points, but y’all canonically cannot scoff at me.) RR shows up when HR is no longer able to tolerate the bullshit at hand. “I’m not going to baby you Leo, get your shit together before your ego kills us all” was a reasonable response to nearly being shish-kebab’d.

“Pizza Puffs”, on the other hand... LDM pulled through in the end, but that RR got HR to stay behind added an unnecessary level of risk. Getting his brothers to learn a lesson should have waited until after the giant mutant cannibal had been dealt with and they were no longer poisoned.

This hands-off “figure it out on your own” approach probably came from Splinter. I swear to Pizza Supreme In The Sky I’m not trying to shit-talk him, but his lack of involvement with his sons was a major flaw. Before all that character development he was terrible at things like “emotional support” and “life lessons”, leaving Raph without the blueprints to deal with a lot of problems. HR would respond by rushing in and figuring things out as he went, but sometimes RR would have to say “No, we’re maxed out and can’t deal with this, we’ve gotta step back”. As we’ve seen in other iterations, when Raph is maxed out and doesn’t step back...

...he goes too far. Plenty of folks have commented on how rarely the Rise turtles smack each other around compared to other versions; it’s telling that RR spoke up just a moment after HR smacked Mikey in “Pizza Puffs”.

Raph is much bigger and stronger than his brothers this time around, meaning such an outburst would have a much higher risk of Genuine Grievous Injury. And while his size and strength also mean a measure of gentleness has been baked into him since day one, there would still be times HR would feel himself boiling over and RR would head off somewhere quiet for fear of the above situation; which was potentially alluded to in “Hot Soup: The Game”.

“You went out on your own when you were his age.”

The context of “Man vs. Sewer” suggests Raph isn’t going to go off on his own without very good reason- such as cooling down before he does something he regrets. That this detail shows up in Casey’s debut episode suggests it is how they will properly meet and bond, since befriending Casey and doing vigilante shit with him is what usually gives Raph a way to blow off steam while having someone nearby to keep him in check. But that probably won’t happen until partway through season 3, since I doubt we can cram the rest of Casey’s redemption arc into the movie alongside the invasion and time travel trauma shenanigans and leader drama. So in the meantime RR will continue to brood on rooftops in bad weather and listen to Ephemerality songs and monologue to himself because he knows nobody’s going to hear him over the incessant background noise that makes up the cities above and below.

I was a bit stumped about how that meeting would take place- the events of the finale (and possibly also the movie) would no doubt have both the human and yokai populations on high alert, making it dangerous for RR to slip away for some peace and quiet. But the events of the finale also gave us some insight on Raph’s powers; he has a way to leave without actually leaving!

Hardlight Clone Jutsu, baby!

So whenever HR finds himself in a particularly sour mood, a wisp of power winds its way up through the open-air portion of the lair and forms into a clone aboveground. HR doesn’t have to leave for a while to cool down before coming back and dealing with the situation calmly, because RR is already on a rooftop somewhere dissipating those bad feelings by listening to the rain and/or yeeting trash cans.

But mutants can’t freely walk the streets of New York, and the Hidden City Police probably still have it out for Raph. And someone, hero or villain, will eventually realize that Raph has a gloomy stray clone running around and ask questions that can’t be answered without cracking open the can of worms that is This Whole Situation. RR needs to get creative. That we’ve seen clones have both full color and the basic red/white palette suggests their color could be altered in other ways; and that the holo-form grew extra arms in the lair fight vs. the Shredder suggests their shape could also be changed further.

So what will he choose to look like, if not his body?

Obviously he’ll use a red and black color palette because it slaps, leaning more towards black since I compared him to Batman back in Part 1. A low-detail design makes it hard to identify him, giving onlookers the impression that they just couldn't see him well in the dark. Mentally filing down his spikes and decreasing the curve of his shell are easy enough, but it takes him a while to figure out five fingers instead of three, and there’s not much he can do about his voice other than lowering the pitch so he just opts to not talk much within earshot of others. A cape further disguises his silhouette and again, it slaps. The impression of a mask means he doesn’t need a face and it lets peoples’ assumptions work for him. Humans are more likely to think he’s human than a Very Human-Shaped Mutant, and yokai come in so many shapes as is that he could be anything from a witch to a dehydrated googlyschmootz.

(You know how it is with franchises. Old patterns repeating in new ways.)

New York City never sleeps, and I doubt the Hidden City does either. He’ll run into Casey eventually, but in the interim he stumbles across and intervenes in some attempted purse-snatchings and kidnappings and the like. Most of the would-be victims use his arrival as their chance to escape, but one of them is too frozen with fear to move until their attackers are chased off into the dark. He escorts them home, and it’s only once they’re at their doorstep that they work up the courage to ask him who he is.

It’s... a difficult question, in more ways than one. “Raph” is out of the question. “Red” isn’t quite right, and neither is “Angel”- they’re a tad too identifying still, and the R.A.P.H. thing was HR’s idea anyway. So he shrugs, and melts away into the shadows.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m Nobody.”

[leverage-commentary]

Leverage Season 2, Episode 13, The Future Job, Audio Commentary Transcript

Marc: Hello, Marc Roskin, producer and director of this episode.

Amy: Hi, Amy Berg, supervising producer and co-writer of this episode.

John: John Rogers, executive producer.

Chris: Chris Downy, executive producer, and co-writer of the Future Job.

John: Uh, this, did this start out of the haunting episode? Is this how the psychic came about?

Amy: The origin of this? No, the um, no I don't think so. Psychic Job was—

John: Was that Dean's?

Amy: No, it was literally a card that was on my board at the beginning of the season, along with Three Days of the Hunter, and Two Live Crew Job, so this was essentially plucked from the well.

John: This was one of the ones that sat there, that sat there for a long time, she was great, what, uh...

Marc: Jen Taylor, local Seattle actress. She was wonderful.

John: But it was Dean who really dug in on this one, because he really liked the bad guy. He really said, you know, ‘I really wanna hammer the fake psychics.’

Amy: Yeah, and he was the one who, sort of, had the vision of, sort of, making this a Parker episode and, sort of, getting to delve deeper into her backstory a little bit.

Chris: And there's Luke Perry.

John: Luke Perry was fantastic.

Amy: He was great.

John: How did we wind up casting Luke Perry?

Chris: I think it was suggested by our casting folks, and I think it was the first one on his list, and he said, Luke Perry would be fantastic for this role. And we all, we were kind of like wow. You know, you didn't really think of him as- as an evil psychic.

Marc: I would leave my wife for Luke Perry. 

[All Laugh]

John: Luke Perry—uh, as a director, why don't you talk about working with Luke Perry, Marc?

Marc: He was wonderful. I mean, you can just really, when someone has that much experience working in television, I mean, it's amazing. He was on time, he never left set, he was always talking about character and would take any suggestions, you know, from me as a director, if you wanted to go another way, just let me know; he was just a dream to work with.

John: Now, what was the idea on this particular setting for the psychic, instead of like a formal office, or like, what was the set dec idea on this?

Marc: Well we wanted to have him working out of, like, a home type office, and actually we had to find something that we could build on the stage to work on.

John: Oh so that wasn't a location, that was-

Marc: No, that was just our basic, uh, hospital and Gina apartment set.

John: [Laughs] The Frankenset.

Marc: Shot on the same day as this day, on the stage, in our bar.

John: Okay, cool. Nice shot through the glass, by the way. I didn't know those taps worked. If I'd known those taps worked I would have been up north a lot more often.

Marc: They work. As soon as you request it, Eric Bates we'll start pumping a keg through them.

John: And this actor playing the brother—

Marc: Uh, Eric Riedman, he was great, too. I mean, he really, really clicked with Tim in this scene. They really worked well together.

John: And it was interesting. We were trying to figure out—we had a great victim, but ordinarily our victim has already had the thing done to them, but in the design of this, you needed the victim to sort of be in suspension.

Amy: Yeah, we needed a proxy. And uh, the brother was sort of a great emotional investment tool for us.

John: Yeah. And Portland actor, just a really, really great job. That was a good, 'I hate that guy moment', when we made her pregnant. And uh—

Chris: And taking her house.

John: Take her house, don't leave money on the table.

Amy: I guess we should point out that, uh, I named a lot of these characters - with the exception of Dalton Rand, Luke Perry's character - after the assistants on our show.

John: Oh, this one is the one where we used all the—

Amy: Yeah, it's Wilson, it's Nicholas, and Ryan, and—

Chris: I love that logo there, by the way, that went by.

John: Oh yeah, who designed that? The great Dalton Rand logo?

Chris: Oh they did a great job.

John: It was actually designed by Derek, right? Our computer graphics guy?

Marc: Yeah, Derek Frederickson in Chicago.

John: He banged it up for us. And it is amazing, this is another one where you could assume we are doing one or the other of any of the very sundry famous psychics, but really they all use the same cons.

Amy: Yeah, they really do.

John: And I’ll also say, Derren Brown was a big influence on this episode.

Amy: Yeah, I think you and I are maybe a little too obsessed with Derren Brown, and uh—

John: He is dreamy.

Amy: He's dreamy and he's sort of an—

John: And a powerful, commanding presence.

Amy: And he's an expert in NLP, which a lot of the stuff we talk about in this episode is, and he debunks a lot of psychics and mediums and things of that sort.

John: That's a really interesting way, too, by doing shows that make it look like he has those abilities.

Amy: And Apollo Robbins, our consultant, was helpful in, sort of, submitting some great terminology for us to use throughout.

John: Oh yeah, that's right, the cold reading terminology, yeah. Um, now this, where was this set?

Marc: This was an actual cable access station that they, again, just opened the doors for us. We didn't have to change any of the logos or the numbers, the people working the camera are the actual camera crew—

Chris: Wow, that's great.

Marc: —of this station, they were wonderful.

Amy: They absorbed us into their own productions.

Chris: Just like Three Days of the Hunter, this is another example of Portland opening its doors to us.

Marc: So all those monitors, they had up and running and feeding through our system as well, it was great.

John: Now did you take a look at any of the extant shows, in order to, sort of, see how this works?

Marc: Uh, I did, and a lot of it at first was just to see the set. And everybody—once you start looking at their sets—were like 'oh, maybe ours is a little too pretty.' [All Laugh] Some of them were just like two chairs and an easel, with something leaning against it.

John: 'I'm gonna sketch what your dead mother is saying.'

Marc: And then our construction crew, you know, built the risers, so we can have some depth with the audience. This was a fun scene. It wasn't supposed to be a physical scene, but Eliot and Lathrop turned it into one, so it was kinda fun.

Chris: I love when he gets mad here.

Amy: This was supposed to be a con, and then it turned into something altogether different.

John: He's just really annoyed at that dude up in his face. And you know what's interesting is we- it was a little weird developing this, because all the tricks that a lot of fake psychics use—not the real psychics, of course, with giant lawyers behind them, but the fake psychics use—are actually techniques we use in the cons, and so it was kind of this weirdly recursive thing. It's like, we're kind of exposing to the audience how they do this, but we do it every week.

Amy: Yeah, we're exposing ourselves as much as we're exposing Dalton Rand here.

John: And this is where he goes into cold reading. What was the—and it's interesting, cold reading is a fascinating subject, there's actually a couple great books that Apollo Robbins hunted up, and the idea that just by playing the numbers, just by playing the odds, any one of these guys can hit at about 80 to 85 percent success rate.

Amy: Yeah, it's act- it's basically asking a series of questions, and, sort of, gauging reactions to people without knowing anything about them in advance. Whereas hot reads or warm reads, as they’re sometimes called, are basically doing your homework beforehand, and getting research on the people you're about to meet with and, sort of, using that knowledge to, sort of, manipulate them.

Chris: The hot read is really more what our guy's doing, which is kinda how this thing broke down in the episode, was when we hijack and sort of take it over and hot read.

Amy: Yeah. Well we, the team basically underestimates Dalton here, and he surprises them.

John: They think that once they throw him, they'll get him, and he's able to cold read Parker. Which is also a big thing, not just in anchoring Parker's story into the episode, but the show always works when the nemesis is a bit more formidable.

Amy: Absolutely.

John: And it was kind of important, especially since Luke's kind of a really nice, he's got a nice guy vibe, it was kinda really important to start to hammer in on the fact that this guy is as good as they are. If he knew they were coming, this would be a very different game.

Amy: And I think Tim is great in this scene, because he's playing the audience, he's like, ‘Wait a minute, like, we were supposed to come in and sort of take over this guy, and he's sort of manipulating Parker, and surprising me in turn.’

John: Wow, look at Beth there. She is working.

Chris: Now, how'd you work with her on this when you went into this scene?

Marc: Um, it was interesting, because the scenes we shot first are the scenes later where it was really emotional in the Leverage apartment, where she really broke down, so she was already at that place once, and she just brought it right back, and I think Luke worked really well with her.

John: I also like that beat in the van where Jeri sort of chose, it was a very nice choice, where Aldis has got Hardison really pissed off, and Jeri's just admiring the craft. She's not as emotionally invested in the team, so she can kind of step back and admire this guy's chops.

Marc: And this scene was just such a great scene where all of our actors work so well together in, not only just rehearsing it, but getting Beth to a certain place, you know, where she should be, they were all really emotionally involved in this, and took a lot of time to rehearse—

John: Probably took twice as long as we usually do to shoot this stuff.

Amy: Well yeah, it was the characters being really protective of Parker, and the actors being really protective of Beth, it was really great.

Chris: Well I think it was actually, when it was written, more angry. You know what I mean? And I think seeing the dailies, it was, like, she took it to this incredibly vulnerable place that I don't think it really was on the page.

John: Also big credit to Dean Devlin, because he also had pushed that.

Marc: He did, he did. And this was a great scene, we have all the emotional arc with Beth, but as you guys were just explaining, in the script we explain the hot read and the cold read and we break it all down.

John: Yeah, and this is—again, we are always agonizing over how to explain this stuff, and having someone with a specific emotional response or attitude in the scenes makes a giant difference. And having it be Parker, who the audience is very very fond of, really helps, you know. We're now dumping an enormous amount of exposition on your plate, and you don't care.

Chris: Right, because it's—you know, we're seeing her in this really, just devastated place.

Marc: And we just found out a lot about her past that we didn't know about.

John: And he—I love that look up, just like, ‘Help me out here, I got nothing.’

Chris: Well the thing about it, and we'll talk about it when we get there, but the way she plays the scene at the end, with the brother, really was informed by all this, which was not at all on the page at all.

Marc: Right.

Chris: Like, when she hugs the victim's brother, and we'll get there, it's as if she's hugging her own brother.

John: And also it's interesting, because—oddly, it certainly wasn't intended, but it's just the way TV shows evolve—it helps, sort of, explain her relationship with Eliot and Hardison, you know. That's sort of how she fell into that rhythm, and that sort of proxy family—

Chris: It was not intended.

John: I would like to say, I'd like to say it was a sort of subconscious Alan Moore idea space.

Amy: Speak for yourself Chris, I totally did that on purpose.

John: Like two years ahead, like two years in advance?

Chris: Oh sure. That's what you're supposed to do on these commentaries—

Amy: Yes, many many years.

Chris: —you're supposed to go 'well, you see, I laid these—'

John: 'So this moment, two years earlier—'

Amy: Reason we're awesome, number 427.

John: But here's what's amazing is, we really, we're always like, in the show, could we possibly fool people with this? And then when you do this, this explanation scene, could you possibly fool anyone? They do! This is how they do it! We're not making any of this up.

Amy: No.

John: If anything, we're giving them better tech.

Amy: We're giving them ideas on how to be better at it.

Chris: And by the way, from a technical standpoint, these scenes were very difficult to shoot because we're going from monitors to action—

Amy: To flashbacks.

Chris: —to flashbacks, very hard.

Marc: And they're all green screens on the day we're shooting them.

John: Oh that's right, we didn't have the footage.

Amy: Nothing was on these monitors.

Marc: Nothing is on the monitors.

Amy: All we had was a nice bulletin board.

Marc: Yeah, we had a little bulletin board to show that they had the seating chart. And here, one of my favorite lines is coming up, it's just a great release valve, with all this tension, and, and her emotions—crying.

John: Yeah, you can see her turning, too. There's the sort of old Parker coming back, and the anger kind of building up in her face.

Amy: Yeah it's like, wait a minute...

Marc: And then this line from Eliot. 'Can we kill him?' 

[All Laugh]

Chris: I think that was you.

John: Yeah that was, I think that was me. Quite sure. ‘Yeah, alright [Laughs] absolutely.’ I like, and Chris played it just right too, like...

Chris: Just a shrug.

John: And it's interesting, 'cause, that actually was intentional in the back half of the season this year. We really want to remind people, Eliot Spencer used to kill people. I mean, because it's really easy, because Chris is very charming, and he's very funny... yeah he was not a pleasant human being by any stretch of the imagination. And every now and then, you lose it a little, you know what I mean? You lose track of it, because he's such a nice guy. And who's that?

Marc: That is Lana Veenker, our casting associate there in good old Portland.

Amy: How did that come about? [Laughs]

Marc: You know what? We were just reading people and all of a sudden I'm like, ‘Why don't you read?’ 'No no no, I won't. Okay, gimme thirty seconds.' All of a sudden she read and we were like, 'Done.'

John: Done. We're out.

Chris: Didn't we write some pages where they have a long passionate kiss here? 

[All Laugh]

John: Yes, we did. We did—actually we didn't write them, you know, they were faxed in, and I don't know where they came from.

Chris: Handwritten.

Amy: Yeah I think it was a Portland IP address, somehow.

John: Yeah, it was a little creepy, to tell you the truth. [Amy Laughs] Ah, no. And this, uh—you know, we need a new name for the assistant who's not a Busey.

Chris: Uh... Well, I mean...

John: Because we've had a couple.

Chris: Lackey? It’s kind of a lackey.

Amy: Do people know—have we explained—

John: We've explained the Busey's on both seasons.

Amy: Okay good.

John: Uh, yeah, he's not quite a lackey, he's more of a henchman.

Chris: Henchman, yeah.

John: For those of you building the characters in Savage Worlds, he would have one wild die. [Laughs]

Amy: Lackies don't have lines, henchmen do.

John: Ah, there you go, good point.

Marc: And this scene as well, the opening scene in this office was shot at like, one in the morning, twelve o'clock at night, Luke's first day—

John: [Laughs] Welcome to Leverage, Luke.

Marc: Yeah, exactly. And he just rocked it out.

Amy: Yeah, he's great.

John: He landed unctuous. It was a pity because it was one of those performances where in the middle you're like, ‘Oh man, I love when we find an actor and we want to bring them back— oh wait, he's a villain.’ This almost never happens with villains.

Marc: Yeah.

John: Drew was the exception, but he was a good guy villain.

Chris: I think he mentioned that he was a—he is a con man here, and that he could always have a twin brother.

[All Laugh]

Amy: Without the beard and mustache.

John: This is, uh, I actually showed up on set, I think this day, or the—I flew in...

Amy: This was my first day too.

John: Yeah, and we arrived and Marc was in the middle of planning the most insane thing ever.

Amy: Well, the thing is, I put this camera move in the script thinking and hoping maybe just to freak Marc out—with no expectation that he could possibly pull it off—as a joke!

John: Oh like the giant blue whale structure.

Amy: Yeah, yeah, as a friggin joke, and then like, he shows me this move, and, like, I nearly died.

Marc: I thought about it, and I was like, ‘Well, can we do it?’ And our First AD David Wechsler and New York AD goes, 'Do you want it?' I'm like, 'Yeah.' He goes, 'Then we could do it.'

John: Yeah, Wex stops traffic in New York; stopping traffic in Portland wasn't—'cause that's what happened, I showed up and I'm like, 'I'm going to the set' and they're like, 'I'm sorry sir, you can't go. They stopped traffic.' 'Well I know, but I'm a writer' 'No no, they're doing some sort of s—' I'm four blocks away! What the hell?’

Chris: By the way, Jeri Ryan here, fantastic look from Nadine—

Amy: Yeah.

John: And she's also got a great character going here—

Marc: She looks fantastic.

Chris: Got a great character.

John: This is a softer character than Jeri usually gets to play, even in the cons.

Marc: A little hippie-ish, yeah.

Chris: The hair was great. I mean really, they nailed this.

Amy: Well Luke even comments on it, “It’s a little on the nose, but [laughs] it works for you.”

John: But that’s the idea, to just kind of you know, not try to overthink it.

Amy: Yeah, it’s great.

John: And it was interesting, again, the—Jeri was great for us and she was really fantastic all year, but you know one thing she mentioned is, she got to play roles that nobody usually lets her play, even within the cons.

Amy: Yup.

John: And there’s another clue for you, where she spent the last—the time before her con career.

Marc: And here comes the shot.

Amy: I’m excited just thinking about it.

John: I’m a little giddy. Yeah, there you go.

Chris: Oh, around the corner!

John: Now that’s all done in camera, so what happens is you have to have everyone within view of that camera freeze. And then the camera man basically runs, we put a steadicam through and then we digitally speed it up.

Marc: Poor Gary Camp.

Amy: Gary Camp!

John: Poor Gary Camp.

Chris: Now that I thought about it, I bet you in the finale that’s what prompted Dean to do that shot with Sterling. 

John: Right.

Chris: I bet Dean was like, he saw this and he was like ‘Oh you wanna try and top me with that? Well come and watch this!’

[All Laugh]

John: ‘I start and stop it four times!’

Chris: ‘I gave you your chance!’

Marc: But I don’t know, if you play it back you can see we also put some digital birds that are stopped—

John: Seriously? Like, if you slow-mo it you can see?

Marc: Yes. If you slow-mo it you’ll see two pigeons in the middle and we pass right past them.

Amy: That’s awesome.

John: I like the fact that, again, they’ve electrified the table, and that Nate is on board with Parker. ‘Cause again, that’s one of those little hints that Nate’s… sadism, for lack of a better word? is really starting to overtake his good judgment.

Amy: Yes. He’s—yeah it’s, little by little he’s starting to sort of fall to pieces here and sort of turn to the dark side.

John: Well, what’s nice is we started with the arc with the hospital one with- with the sadism, and then, you know, we had to sort of lean back on it for Gina’s arc. And then when we came back it was nice, that was basically the thrust of the back episodes. This was a lot of fun coming up with what the possible fucking visions could be. Oh that’s… I’m sorry, I’m drinking. [Amy Laughs] They’re used to me swearing on these by now! This really is like making, building a puzzle backwards.

Marc: This was really clever writing, and then to have the ability to shoot it was so much fun.

Amy: Aw. Thank you Rosky.

John: Yeah. We try to keep you entertained up there, after all your—this was only your fourth?

Marc: Yes.

Amy: Fourth episode?

John: Fourth episode, with no notice.

Marc: Yeah.

Amy: How was this episode different from the other three you’ve done?

Marc: It was fun to be in different places, you know, just to new places in Portland. It was fun to have a guest star like Luke to work with. And I loved having the emotional hook with Parker, ‘cause my first episode I did in the first season was a Parker episode, it was the Stork Job.

Amy: Oh! This is like your Parker bookend basically. That’s great.

John: Also it was interesting, watching with the sound off, I didn’t realize that’s one of the longest villain character scenes we’ve ever had. Like just when he’s parked there at the chair and she runs the con on him. Luke was really, really great.

Amy: He’s not bad to look at. [John Laughs] That’s kinda my job since you’re all dudes. [Laugh]

John: Well you know, I can appreciate a nice piece of man flesh as much as the next person. What is in this?

[All Laugh]

Marc: And the coffee finally spills.

John: And did we do the driving stunt there? No the driving—yes, the driving stunt’s after this.

Chris: It’s after this, yeah.

Amy: Yeah, yeah it was, the first part of it yeah.

John: But we shot it that day.

Amy: With the amazing, highly maneuverable Hyundai Genesis.

John: Hyundai Genesis was great. If you’re gonna murder someone with a car, the Hyundai Genesis is the way to go.

Marc: This was another local actor, I mean he just has… what a great face for television.

John: You know what, he looks a little like the British actor Peter Mullan actually, the guy who was on The Fixer?

Amy: He does! Yeah he does.

John: It’s really, I’ll tell you what Portland gave us - good cops.

Marc: Yes.

Amy: Oh yeah.

John: Our cops up there, ‘cause we just look at the Bottle show, and the three guys who played the Boston cops in the background, they’re just grounded.

Amy: This guy smells cop. [Laughs]

Chris: If you’re a cop-looking guy living in LA and you wanna get some work...

Everyone: Move to Portland.

Amy: We’ll employ you!

Chris: Just go! You listen to this right now? Load up the car, get up there! There’s work for you, my friend.

John: After these commentaries come out, people are gonna be on buses. There’s gonna be, like, bus tours for actors. And this was a lot of fun, was coming up—this was actually, I think we’d had the fortune cookie con in something. What was the story? Remember? We’d had it on the board for a while. The fortune cookies, the substituting.

Amy: Oh dude, so long ago; I wish I had the answer to that.

John: A lot of the, I mean that’s the thing is, there’s actually in the writer’s room a board of stuff.

Amy: Yeah.

John: And some of the stuff has been around long enough that it’s like, I know there was a provenance.

Amy: I think there was a fortune cookie con card.

Chris: Mm, I don’t know if a whole… might have been a story beat; it wasn’t a whole con.

John: Not a whole con, it was a story beat, yeah. But the idea of substituting—

Chris: This is a great- Here we go; here it is. [Laughs]

Amy: Look at it shining in the sun, beautiful.

John: And that’s a great—what was the choice on the, like in the moment, in the script it just says, ‘He realizes.’ How did you decide to go to the slow-mo and..?

Marc: I wanted to do a slow-mo in the 360; the world’s kinda spinning on him and just the— 

Amy: The camera’s a great touch, too. I like it.

Marc: Yeah, well I wanted the can to just show the proximity of how close he was, how much he’s tempted fate.

John: This was also one of the sequences that—who cut this?

Marc: This was Sonny.

John: This was one of the sequences where Sonny Baskin really, really, really slammed it together because this is always tricky, figuring out how the flashbacks work. In what order, in what pace, at what exact moment in the scene. And I think in the script we played around with showing some of it upfront, and then—

Chris: How much of the dialogue to replay was kind of the trick.

John: Exactly, how much we make sure the audience is following.

Marc: And I don’t think some people were understanding, like, why I took so long to shoot that car sequence when he stepped out. That it does play later, and it does have to have different feels and looks to it.

Amy: There’s two parts to it, yeah.

John: And again, this is another one where you have to anticipate, this guy checks credit reports, we know he checked the victim’s credit report earlier, you know.

Chris: And another thing is, one of the hallmarks of our show is that when we create a character, we don’t always create powerful con characters. We create characters that have vulnerabilities that our bad guys can exploit. So here, we created a fake story of her having bad credit and being in debt for hospital bills.

John: Yeah it’s like Chris in the MMA one, Kane, he plays in a very power-negative position in that. Pretty much every variant of a con character you can possibly find.

Amy: José! The name on the cup.

John: And Chris is ridiculously delighted to be doing this at this point actually. [All Laugh]

Amy: How can you tell?!

John: I think he’s just enjoying stealing—driving a truck to tell the truth. And I love the idea that Hardison would do this and this is just what he does. He spends his weekends filling fortune cookies with fake messages. He does all the grunt work.

Marc: That’s a good shot.

John: That is a great shot. And we’re locked in. And this was also tricky, too, because again, because the victim had not been burned yet, essentially, and it was a preventative con. It’s not something we usually do, and trying to figure out how to accelerate this con, and what exactly Con A was, was really—it kicked our asses to tell you the truth.

Chris: The danger was really the tricky part, when to introduce the danger.

John: And now we knew we wanted to do the maestro Hardison beat in this script. Marc, you had a very specific reference for this whole bit, which was the radio announcer in Warriors right?

Marc: Yes. 

John: Though Hardison is basically being a geek hacker—what year was that, 1980… Walter Hill, The Warriors…

Marc: Late 70s.

Amy: ‘79, or something. Around there.

John: Basically Marc reached back, like 35 years, and found himself a really great filmic reference for her side.

Chris: Well the key here is, the writing of it was making sure to go quickly from one, to the next, to the next.

John: Boom, boom, boom.

Chris: Each piece of information feeds to her, and she synthesizes it and comes to a conclusion.

John: It also helps explain how good Tara is.

Chris: Yeah.

John: She’s gonna run this con character as she’s getting all this crap dumped into her ear.

Amy: She’s playing vulnerable to him, but sort of expert to us.

John: I also love that he’s just given up at this point. We had not told the set people to put the orange soda in the fridge, but they just filled it and it just stayed that way for the year. I love that Nate’s just given up.

Chris: Yeah, this is Hardison’s war zone. He’s gonna need to be armed.

Amy: Gummy frogs, always important.

John: Gummy frogs, a call back from the magician episode. And Aldis really dug in there, really great job. Oh that’s Ire!

Amy: That’s Ire!

John: Was our…

Chris: Camera intern?

John: Camera intern, yeah. And she does some acting, and she was fantastic. 

Amy: Her audition was fantastic, yeah.

John: Yeah, that was one of the ones where it was like, ‘Okay we’ll audition you.’ At the end of the audition, ‘Wow…you have a career in this.’ [Laughs] But she’s going into camera work. She’s gonna, believe back this year as one of our camera people...

Chris: Oh she’s gonna come back? Oh that’s great.

John: And why the choices on the lights in the- the blue? Just liked it? Just like the set of one color tone?

Marc: Yeah, just liked it. Dave had an idea about it, and it just worked real well.

John: And it stayed consistent through this setting. It’s a very nice contrast with the sort of warm orange and wood tones of like, Nate’s apartment. It helps track locations a lot easier.

Marc: And Beth freaked out a lot of people when she walked on set with that wig.

Amy: Many many people did not recognize her.

John: I know, that’s really odd, right?

Amy: It was fun.

John: It’s a great wig.

Amy: Yeah it is.

John: Hair and makeup did a great job with that, ‘cause you guys sent me the photos and I was like, ‘I have to shoot the season finale. Did they cut her freaking hair?’ No, great wig. And this is hot read, this is our crew doing hot reads on the fly, and it’s a lot like the Bottle show, where it’s like, you can’t do the wire in two hours. In theory, you can’t hot read someone simultaneously as you’re conning them. Well, you know.

Amy: Maybe you can if you’re Leverage!

John: You’ve got the little camera movements here, is that, you tried to track those or do you just assume that Camp and—?

Chris: Yeah, you’re making sure as you move in one direction on one, you move in the other direction on the other?

Marc: Uh, a little bit. We always wanna keep the sliders going, just pushing in at the appropriate moments especially when Ire- I mean she just did such a great performance, and did it in one take.

Amy: One take; it was one take.

Chris: And didn’t you say to her, ‘Save a little bit ‘cause you may need to do this again’?

Marc: Yeah. I said, I said, ‘Don’t let it all out so fast.’ And Luke was so great with her. Knowing that... He’s seen her pulling cable, and all of a sudden she’s in front and having to break down.

John: He was great with her. Now here’s the thing, most people don’t know what sliders are, why don’t you explain what sliders are? Most people know cameras move left and right but they, you know-

Marc: Sliders are what we have on our dollies and tripods that allow the camera head to move, I guess laterally, left and right, in a fluid movement. Just drifting, so always- the background’s moving just ever so slightly, so it never looks too stale or stagnant. There’s my Warrior shot!

John: And I notice you punched in, like closer, closer, til you land on it. It’s very nice. Also, I like the fact that the name of the National Transportation Safety Board—is that, that’s the name of Parker’s friend from… Peggy Milbank, is like the name that’s coming up, that’s Parker’s friend from the first season.

Amy: Yeah, it’s sort of like a little inside joke.

John: And Hardison, ‘Get the hell out of my way.’ It’s interesting, this is a big, kind of, Nate as guardian episode, and he’s not driving it. It’s one of the great episode examples of where Tim Hutton and Nate kind of just ground it, is kind of the center of it. There’s Wade.

Amy: Wade Williams, awesome actor. Perfect for this role.

John: I was wondering how he would play this reaction, because she’s, you know, he’s giving her a line of bullshit, and he’s gotta, he’s in front of everyone.

Amy: Yeah, he knows he’s on camera.

John: That reminds me of that guy who proposed to his girlfriend at the basketball game and she turned him down.

Everyone: Oh yeah!

Marc: Then the mascot walks him off.

John: Just put a- just end it. No, Wade was fantastic, he’d just come off Prison Break? Wasn’t he a guard on that?

Chris: And we had a long search for that part, too.

John: Yeah, we read a lot of guys. Well, because the original dialogue was somewhat baroque. [Laugh]

Amy: It was! It wasn’t exactly an easy thing to pull off, which is why we ended up casting it out of LA. It was just a really meaty part.

John: Nice fight coming up here, by the way. They actually banged the hell out of that van. You had to hammer a dent out, didn’t you?

Marc: Oh yeah. Yes we did. 

John: Just every now and then you bounce a stuntie off a van. Jeri mixing it up. Jeri was in there, yeah. Good hit! 

Marc: Our local stunt actors and Kevin Jackson choreographed this. 

Amy: The moment where he, sort of, notes the tattoo on the guy’s hand.

John: It’s a nice beat. It’s interesting, the Portland stunt guys really dug in. Because we did a lot more stunts and a lot more fights than four or five movies that have shot up there combined, and they really rallied. They were fantastic. And this was the—

Chris: But here’s where he has to synthesize everything. I mean, now, you know, is where he really steps forward.

John: Well this is really where he digs in on the mastermind thing. This is a good, ‘Let me get this straight’ scene. This is a nice- the ‘let me get this straight’ scene is where you just reset for the audience, you know, just reset the stakes, reset the plot.

Amy: Also known as ‘So you’re telling me.’

Chris: It’s a general rule of writing to show, not tell, and the exception to that rule is when the situation is either so absurd or entertaining that you get a second laugh on the retelling of it.

Amy: Just commenting on it.

John: ‘I wanna get this straight,’ yeah. And you can also hide it in planning, or when the characters don’t have enough information. But no, because the episode at this point—

Chris: There it is, I think she just said ‘so let me get this straight.’ 

[All Laugh]

John: ‘Cause this is the point where the episode becomes an entirely different episode, because the first con worked. Again, because that’s always the trick on these, like, in theory you don’t want something to just fall out of the sky and be wrong.

Amy: Well they basically had Dalton Rand in the bag, and then, a totally unexpected-

Everyone: It worked too well.

John: This was a lovely shot. Marc?

Chris: Oh, I love this.

Marc: This was, I wanted to try and get this in one steadicam shot and just show the energy and movement throughout. I mean we spent so much time in this apartment that it’s fun to try and mix it up again.

Chris: Oh here we go, and up the stairs!

John: Nice, how many takes was that?

Marc: I think we did it in about three or four takes.

Amy: That’s crazy.

Chris: That was it? Now that was planned as a one- or, or was that just the end of the day, we gotta get this shot?

Marc: No, that was planned. That was one shot I wanted to try and do that had a little more energy and fun to it. 

John: Marc’s lived at that set for a lot of shots, he wants to vary it up a little.

Amy: Time to mix it up. 

Marc: And this, this was an idea that Connell had. When he saw the location and the time we’re shooting at, he said, ‘Let’s establish their faces,’ and then just, she’s walking into darkness.

John: Just bump into silhouette.

Chris: And she’s in boots, so let’s pan out from them, so, let’s be honest.

Amy: That’s what boots are for.

Marc: This happened to be in the paper factory.

John: Is this the The Bottle Job paper factory?

Marc: Yes, it’s just the area that didn’t have paper. 

[All Laugh]

John: Now, yes, now we’re basically—yeah, there you go. He’s really digging in on this. ‘Come, come join me!’

Marc: And that was his idea, he said, ‘Get the lady a chair!’

John: This entire speech, I think I did drunk. 

Amy: This was me taking notes on a notepad when you were drunk in the writer’s room, reeling off this speech. 

Chris: It was a big debate about the- about what we- this guy, what was called in the writer’s room the evil scary guy.

John: Evil scary guy.

Chris: The appearance of evil scary guy. We typically don’t have dangerous villains appear late in episodes. Usually we’ve established them and so this was the idea that we were gonna have evil scary guy come at this point in the episode and you know, put everyone in mortal danger. And you went off in a very oddly baroque manner.

John: Yeah. I really—‘cause what I was doing was actually making fun of the idea. Because I was like, ‘Seriously guys, we’re gonna do this? Some guy’s gonna show up and go ‘Gentlemen, I have a problem!’’ And I basically did this speech with, like, a fistful of scotch, and Berg and Chris sat on the same side of the table and they both looked at me and went, ‘Yeah.’

Chris: ‘Yeah, yeah if you like that. That’s great.’

John: ‘Pretty much. Exactly like that. Thanks gentlemen. Debate’s over.’

Chris: ‘Debate’s done.’

John: ‘Debate’s done. That was entertaining, we all enjoyed it, therefore it is in the episode.’

Marc: This was fun to shoot; we had a circle track with, you know, two cameras and two separate dollies.

John: Wait, at the same time?

Marc: Yes.

Chris: Wow.

John: Oh, Jesus Murphy. So where is the circle track laid down, it’s on the outside of this beam?

Marc: On the outside of the beam, and yeah, just around everybody. 

John: Two sizes.

Marc: Yeah, two sizes. And then at one point towards the end we, you know, change direction, just to mix it up a bit. But it was fun to have this type of villain. In the beginning we’re dealing with someone who’s smart, looking at bank statements, and now we’re dealing with a guy with a gun and thugs, who spent time in upstate New York.

John: Yeah, and he really sold it. And also it- the rule is: the villain has to suffer. And interestingly enough, we started Darlton Rand’s suffering really early in this episode. His loss of power here is really, he has just a bad back two acts. And Luke played it very nicely. Like right here, where he’s trying to keep control.

Marc: Yeah, when he’s trying to keep control, and he’s still trying to sell the idea that he’s the psychic. 

John: Wade is terrifying. That was nice, picking up around here as she was dropping into it; that was very nicely done.

Marc: Yes, Gary Camp and Dave Connell.

Chris: Now how long did this take? Do you remember how many takes you did with this, with the circle track?

Marc: I think this scene, we… I believe we did it in just over an hour. Yeah, but it’s a lot of dialogue, and Wade did such a great job because, you know, he had to do it so many different times.

John: And there’s a lot of looks in this. There’s a lot of angles in this.

Amy: He just cracks me up.

John: Yeah, he does. He’s so happy. Yeah, you gotta bang them up from both sides, you’ve gotta pick him up talking to them. There’s no good way except a circle track to shoot that.

Marc: Yeah. I think that Jeri sells this really well in this scene.

John: She does. A little distressed, a little—

Marc: Yeah he’s walking in one direction, no, it’s not, this way. And it’s nice seeing, shooting over, oops, too early.

John: It’s always a little too early. A little too early.  Timing is a big part of the show. And yeah, fainting damsel never, never fails. 

Amy: Best stall ever.

John: Where was this? Was this, like, the storage unit place? Or this was on the road outside?

Marc: Uh, this wasn’t far from our sound stage.

John: Really? Really, we shot near the sound stage?

Chris: We got a lot of mileage within a couple hundred yards of our sound stage.

Amy: Clackamas.

John: Beautiful scenic Clackamas. And this actually, the fake registration idea came from Darwyn Cooke’s comic book adaptation of Parker. The Donald Westlake novel. In the opening of it, remember, he has the thing with Parker and—it’s one of my favorite starts to a novel, Parker’s walking into New York on the Brooklyn Bridge, like, but on the street? And people are—So what happens is, in the 1960s, he goes and gets his replacement driver’s license, and then he ages it. Because… and we spent a little time in the room like, what doesn’t have your picture on it? What can we age believably that, and, yeah that was where the idea came from. And then constructing this backwards to get the series of clues was- was a long afternoon.

Amy: Yeah, that was a tough—but then we broke this episode in one day, so it wasn’t that tough.

Marc: But I wasn’t allowed to break the window.

Amy: Oh that’s right, I remember that. Yeah, we had to, she had to jimmy it open.

Chris: ‘Cause that glass is expensive.

John: Breakaway glass is not cheap. Uh, there’s something creepily sexual about this exchange.

Chris: ‘Can I have your overalls?’

Amy: Yeah, and the look on Tim’s face, too.

John: Yeah, well I think that might not be the matching dialogue with that take, ‘cause I think it got a little dirty in that shot. Now this is a great location. I think we actually broke into a couple of storage units for this. People don’t mind, it’s Portland, they’re totally cool with us doing that. Good stall, and then we finally get Nate into a costume for the stall. Storage units, the anonymity of modern life is the key to Leverage. Storage units, cell phones, instant messaging, email, you know, I don’t think you could do this show in the 50s. And there you go, yeah.

Chris: Here he is.

Marc: Uh-oh. Gun, danger.

John: And, is that Dashiel Hammett or Raymond Chandler’s rule?

Amy: Yeah, Dashiel Hammett’s.

John: Dashiel Hammett. When in doubt, have a guy enter with a gun. And we actually have on the board in the writers room, ‘Man entering with gun > man exiting with gun.’ You have to understand, dude coming in… And Tim has an enormous amount of fun.

Chris: And this is his fumfering bureaucrat.

Marc: This was a fun shot to do. Craning up just to see, and then that’s the CG building that we added in the background.

Chris: That’s right, to set up the ending.

John: Yeah, in the original ending it was all done through remote camera, and then Dean suggested that we actually put it, attached it to it, and since cable access shows are shot in the middle of fricking nowhere, it actually worked out fine. And whenever- Oh, there you go.

Amy: Well I think Dean’s idea of that was just, sort of, to give our villain a bigger comeuppance, if he had to, sort of, face his victims...

John: Face-to-face. And that’s interesting ‘cause we always go like, you need the gloat, but you also need the suffering. And in the non-him-showing-up version, we had—

Amy: It was basically just the gloat, yeah. I mean he still ends in jail, but.

John: We have the people upset, but you know, you don’t get him looking them right in the eye.

Marc: Small spaces to work in. 

[All Laugh]

Chris: How was it like, shooting the storage locker?

Marc: It was a little tough.

Amy: I remember this day.

Marc: You know, it was a double, but we just made it look like one, so we had room to always just have the camera on one side.

Amy: Yeah, there was actually another storage locker that opened up right next to this, to the left, so we could have somewhere to switch the cameras.

John: So did you throw up like a half-wall over on that side, or is it just, stack some boxes to feel like-

Marc: We just stack some boxes and just move the camera, but you’ll notice the camera’s usually on that side, looking that direction.

Chris: And here’s where he’s really starting to lose it, ‘cause he does have an arc, from inexplicably baroque, to just completely losing it.

John: No, he totally sold this. There’s no doubt about it whatsoever. And you guys took what was a joke pitch and turned it into a real character. That was just me on a long drunken rant. I’m inexplicably baroque, in the room, often! 

Amy: This is, by the way, true. 

John: Yeah. And Luke, losing it. Really the whole confession, the whole begging; he really sold it.

Marc: And of course, you know, time constraints. His stuff was shot all at night, hers was all in the daytime.

Amy: Of course. That’s how it works.

John: Really? So looking at Luke, you were looking, you had night behind you looking out?

Marc: It was night.

Chris: Here we go.

John and Chris: Det cord. 

[All Laugh]

Amy: Det cord is great. 

Marc: Our friend for the back half of season uh—

Amy: Thank you MythBusters for det cord.

John: Thank you MythBusters for showing us how det cord worked and how effectively—

Amy: I think I pulled that from a YouTube video.

John: Yeah, well we started with Thermite, remember? ‘Cause I remember how it melted through the car and you were like, ‘No, that’s too huge’, and you found us some det cord.

Marc: Here I just wanted to have a shot of Eliot’s arms.

John: So here’s a little something for the ladies, as my wife says. And now, this is very flashback heavy, but it’s all in continuity. You did a nice job of making sure we’ve seen just enough of these that we never floated. ‘Cause sometimes it’s like, ‘Oh god, do we know exactly where we are in this flashback?’

Chris: I think we compressed a little of it in editing too. I think there was a little bit more and we kind of just moved it all.

Amy: Yeah, there’s a lot more here than…

John: Ah, the network is unhappy; they’re gonna go get one of these real psychics now, not a fake psychic like this.

Chris: And then we get to see our victim again, and our other victim.

John: The proxy victim. 

Amy: And the camera lady’s like, ‘I don’t wanna be part of this,’ backing out of the scene.

John: And the begging and the pleading. There you go. And there’s all the people who’ve been hurt. 

Chris: The man from Michigan. 

John: Did he stay in a hotel? Why is he still there? He got his reading yesterday. I don’t remember why he…

Chris: He wanted to come back; he had more to find out.

John: I guess so, I guess so.

Marc: This is always fun when you shoot things on two different days, that end, and that end.

Chris: Is Tim looking at a tennis ball, what do you do?

John: Is that like Jurassic Park? Or it’s like this tennis ball on a hockey stick is Chris’ hair. ‘Just track this.’

Chris: You just make sure your script supervisor takes good notes of uh...

John: Look at that, you’re shooting past the car! He’s in the car. 

Chris: Nice, I never would have known that.

John: Nicely done. And this is actually, you know what? The president of the network the other day mentioned how much he loves the scenes where they’re all there. Where the guy actually, like, sees the whole- the whole con.

Amy: The family gloat, as opposed to just the singular gloat.

Marc: That’s the way we pull off this show in seven days - cheating.

Amy: Cheating very cinematically.

John: I prefer to call it cable awareness.

Amy: Cable awareness? Nice.

Marc: Now I think this next scene in the bar is, I think, one of my favorite wrap-up scenes that I’ve got to direct.

Amy: It’s one of my favorite, too.

Marc: It was one of these days where it was- there were so many tears on set.

John: We were coming to the end, too; we were getting there. Everyone was kind of rung up and spun up.

Marc: But everyone just, you know, Tim and Jeri and Beth and everybody, our guest actors, everybody just came in so strong and it was great.

John: This speech, by the way, you can really tell Tim’s a dad. That’s really how he lands this speech, it’s like, yeah.

Chris: Well the story, it’s an interesting story because the little peanut butter bit, a very good friend, a writer friend, Steve O’Donnell, who is a long time Letterman writer, and he has a twin brother Mark O’Donnell—also a writer, wrote the book to Hairspray. And I remember talking to him one time about the closeness of the two of them, and he said that they’re so close, that if you laid out peanut butter, that somebody spread on different pieces of bread, he could pick out his brother’s peanut butter. And it always stuck with me that that is something that, when I was writing this scene, that there’s just things that you see in your child that you just recognize from yourself or your father, and it has nothing to do with what you did, it’s all biological. And that was really, it did a beautiful job with it.

John: Nice landing on that. And Jeri there, by the way, she’s got a little glisten going there; she got a little moist.

Chris: And here’s this moment that was not scripted at all. Well, not intended in the script, but just through the acting.

John: But that was nice. Jeri landed the arc. She kind of completed Tara’s arc through there. 

Chris: Yeah, she got it.

John: She had gone through all six episodes and she, you know, a lot of actors would come in and take up the space and say thanks for the job, but she really put in the work from [unintelligible].

Chris: There it is. I mean, that’s like...

John: I mean, she’s breaking your heart there.

Chris: She’s hugging her brother.

Marc: And I just gotta make sure that she makes that eye contact with Nate.

Chris: And it was all because that part about her brother was added after that scene was written, but she brought it together in this moment.

John: It’s a lovely beat. We have very, very good actors.

Marc: Then we release the valve and let you chuckle here.

Chris: Yes. We call it, in the comedy business, a treacle cutter.

John: A treacle cutter, yeah. And also Kane really lands these beats. He really- it goes from a smile, all the way to annoyed. He hits both of the crucial Eliot beats here. It’s the grin, and then, ‘I’m gonna kick your ass.’ He really hits all the bases on that one.

Chris: And we kind of end on her surrogate brother here.

John: Yeah. Who she may sleep with. Still haven’t decided that.

Amy: It’s a little incestual.

John: Yeah, you know, all television’s a little incestual. 

Chris: Oh they’re all...

John: What, they’re all sleeping together, is that what you meant? What’s going on up there?

Chris: No, that’s—Come on. It’s like Star Wars.

John: Oh there you go, that’s perfectly legit. Anything you want to say to the nice folks?

Amy: Thanks everybody.

Marc: Thank you. It was a great episode to work on. 

Chris: Thank you guys.

John: And actually thanks for David Wechsler, ‘cause he came in late and really helped us out on that. Really good job. And hopefully Luke Perry will be back. Less evil.

Chris: As his twin brother.

John: There you go.

Chris: Why not?

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #32 - Nobody’s Ever Actually Dead in Comic Books

Our band of merry guys-who-weren’t-on-the-Lost-Light-in-issue-#1 approach the shattered husk of the Lost Light, in a gruesome scene that is only slightly marred by the graphic design.

Font doesn’t really suggest danger, does it? Here, for comparison, is something I slapped together in fifteen minutes (including recreation of background) using a font I got off a free font site.

Now, one could say that my version is rather derivative, flat, and arguably cliche, but you know what else it is? Appropriate for the fucking mood of having found a destroyed, hemorrhaging ship after everyone you knew disappeared.

I’m available, IDW! Hit me up.

Theorizing that this is the ship that the Coffin Rodimus came from- remember that? It was a few issues ago- the gang flies in for a closer look. The ship blood is actually something called quantum foam, which allows for quantum space travel to happen. It’s not supposed to be outside of the quantum quills, but the ship’s pretty junked up, so it is.

Because the ship is so very full of holes, the gang can set down for repairs pretty easy. They land in Swerve’s, finding it in less-than-pristine condition. They also find evidence of Crosscut having gotten creative, as a poster for the play he was working on is hung up in the room. Considering he was still writing it when he disappeared, this might seem a bit odd. But then you remember that this is a ship from the future, and it stops being so odd.

Because this is a future ship, with evidence that Crosscut did some stuff, it stands to reason that, at some point, everyone is going to come back from being disappeared.

Just to die.

Which is a bummer, but one crisis at a time.

Megatron disembarks the Rod Pod, with Ravage following, and everyone is just a touch put off by the duo. Everyone but Nautica, who proceeds to commit a microaggression.

Nautica, that’s Soundwave’s father you’re petting like a common animal.

Ravage, angered by this over-familiarity, swats at her. Skids questions letting an active Decepticon roam around, but Megatron brushes off these concerns, saying that finding any still-living crew members is more important. With that, the search begins.

The gang splits up to look for clues, despite Riptide thinking this is a horrible idea. They’re on the clock for this one- the quantum foam is liable to explode if it touches anything, and there’s an awful lot of the stuff floating around right now.

Nightbeat and Nautica leave the rest of the group to their own work, seeing as Nautica has the most appropriate alt-mode for traversing the gaps in the ship.

Man, that’s pretty cool. Wish Nautica hadn’t been regulated to being “girl best friend” for her character arcs, I would have loved to see her do some neat stuff for her own development. Guess that’s what happens when you get introduced as main cast late, and have to compete with all the faves who had dozens of issues to be established and who also don’t have to deal with the whole “token girl character” thing.

The rest of the gang- Megatron, Ravage, Riptide, Skids, and Getaway- start looking in the area they’re already in. Seems a little lopsided, but whatever.

Ravage finds someone almost immediately, identifying Ultra Magnus through smell alone. Only, it isn’t just Ultra Magnus.

The Magnus armor lays not terribly far away, having had its hands cut off to prevent the recall signal from being activated before being gut-murdered.

Gut-murdered wiTH A FUSION CANNON, MEGATRON

Of course, Megatron was forced to destroy his fusion canon after it was decided he would be joining the Lost Light, but you can buy these things off the black market like it’s nothing. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Brainstorm had a few stashed in his lab.

As it currently stands, nobody can trust the guy who has a storied past of killing Autobots, on a future ship where the only folks who could stop him are dead. Megatron, at least, has the good sense to not argue this fact, and suggests that the boys lock both Ravage and himself up until they suss out exactly what happened.

Meanwhile, over with Nautica and Nightbeat, we run through all the weird shit that’s happened in the last day or so.

Nautica, you’ve been on this ship for months now. How did you miss the fact that the only couple within 800 miles got annihilated by way of Phase Sixer? I feel like that attack might have come up at some point.

Since they’re on the subject of spouses, Nightbeat asks Nautica if she’s married, or if she has friends. Though noting that such a direct line of questioning might get him slapped with someone else, Nautica reveals that she is single, though she does have a best friend. Nightbeat is also single, probably because he pulls shit like this.

While this conversation is going on, Nautica uses her Sonic Screwdriver wrench to open a door with the literal push of a button. Brainstorm tricked out her wrench so hard it turned into a magic wand, which is good, because they’re going to need all the help they can get now that space is literally warping around them thanks to the quantum foam.

Nautica kicks something on the elevator, and that something turns out to be Brainstorm’s mysterious briefcase. Too bad Swerve is gone, he was so invested in what it contained. Luckily, Nightbeat is just as interested.

Back over on the other side of the ship, it seems as though Megatron kept his word about not resisting, as both he and Ravage have been locked in a cabinet. Wonder how that’s going for them.

Oh, better than I expected.

Ravage is fucking pissed that Megatron joined the Autobots, thereby turning his back on everyone who supported his cause during the last four million years. Despite this grievous betrayal though, the Decepticons haven’t stopped moving. Turns out, Galvatron’s in charge now.

But only if Autobot Megatron isn’t some sort of ploy.

It’s at this point that we learn just why Ravage is here to begin with- to see if Megatron’s truly given up the Decepticons, and if he has, to murder him. But first he’d like to know why this is happening.

Megatron views himself as a monster, having perpetuated a war that ended the lives of billions, destroyed the Cybertronian way of life, ostracized his race from the rest of the universe, and killing just to have something to do. He doesn’t like feeling this way about himself, so he decided to walk away from that life by joining the other team.

Don’t think it’s quite that easy to do, but okay.

Ravage isn’t so sure that this change of heart is going to stick, still convinced that Megatron will snap back to his old self with just a bit more time. Problem is, Megatron may not have a ton of that resource left.

Didn’t they build that body in like an hour so you wouldn’t die? Yeah, no wonder it feels as ill-fitting as a twenty-dollar suit. Thing’s probably made out of pig iron and duct tape.

The lights come on before further self-reflection can be done, and the duo realize that they’ve had guests this whole time.

Someone put the kettle on.

Obviously some fucked up shit happened on this ship. Megatron isn’t so sure that it’s him who did these dirty deeds, however, as he reaches into Ratchet’s mouth and pulls out his brain. Which feels like something that doesn’t really absolve one of guilt, but okay.

Also, ew.

Back with Nautica and Nightbeat, things are getting weird.

Now, this sequence might seem confusing at first blush, but this is because the laws of reality are collapsing around them. Going by clues in the background, we can find the proper, linear progression of time, and thus is conversation. This is what is actually happening:

With the mystery of Brainstorm’s briefcase eluding us once again, we move on to see more graphic aftermaths of violence. Poor Tailgate has been nailed to the wall with a chunk of a metal beam that’s almost as big as he is. The mood lighting for this scene is gorgeous, but I’ve hit my limit for exposing y’all to gore for this issue, so you’ll just have to trust me on this one. Then they find something even more interesting.

Who’s ready for Under Cold Blue Stars… 2!

Back over on the opposite side of the ship, Riptide’s found something nasty. It’s a bunch of dead bodies!

Including, uh, Pipes.

Who already died a while ago.

Hm.

All the bodies in this room are in their alts, and it looks like they’ve all been shot and drilled into, for some reason. Skids brings up that he had a friend who could identify the placement of any robot’s brain module just by knowing what they turned into. Then he reaches into a corpse to see what the drill-hole’s all about. It makes him sick, though maybe not for the reason you might think. He gets on the phone with Nightbeat, who’s called to tell them that they’ve found Overlord.

Still locked in his weird body harness.

And decapitated.

Megatron is on the other line, calling because he’s figured out the same thing Skids has. Someone paid a visit to this ship. Someone nasty.

The gang regroups, and Nautica gets the basics on the DJD, because I guess nobody’s mentioned them even in passing in the last six months, either.

God, what do they even talk about on this ship? Certainly not their feelings.

The reason that one room was filled with alt-modes was because of Tarn’s addiction to transforming; t-cogs are easier to remove when they’ve been used recently.

We get a quick 4/5ths-page gore-fest, then it’s back to making it all about Megatron.

Maybe you should have thought about that before you FUCKING DEFECTED, YOU POOL NOODLE.

Nightbeat’s beginning to put two and two together. There’s an Overlord in the basement. That shouldn’t be, because Overlord got exploded by Chromedome when he mercy-killed Rewind. Something is off about the past of this ship.

Before he can establish his MTMTE everybody-lives-but-then-dies AU though, the quantum foam fucks with the ship. These sons of guns need to get the hell out of here, pronto.

Oh god, what now?

Ravage smells someone inside the Magnus armor, someone who isn’t a part of the usual nesting doll lineup. Megatron reaches into the Crackerjack box and pulls out one hell of a prize.

HE LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES

Chromedome would be so thrilled, if he still existed.

[wallwriterstuff]

Am I allowed to place in a request for Mr svelte tracker boi Demetri? I need my greek boi fix. 😅😂 My stimming (due to my slight autism and anxiety) has been kinda bad lately and I was wondering if you could do some headcanons on how he would be with a reader who has that going on? (For example, some of my stimming signs are restless, uncontrollable finger twitches sometimes, and sudden limb movements and facial twitches I can't control 😅) Thanks! Also, sorry if this is too touchy a subject!🙈

You most certainly are allowed and I cannot express how hard I fangirled when I realised it was you in my ask box. I played it very cool but just know I was dying inside from the moment I saw your username come up XD 

TW: Mentions of anxiety and sensory overload. If that’s a little personal to you please be cautious about reading this one!

I’m incapable of writing short things it seems so it’s another long one.

Self-stimulating behaviour, known more commonly as stimming, usually involves repetitive movements and/or sounds. Though it is most often associated with autism (I know when I first saw the word stimming that was where my mind immediately went to) everybody stims in some way, shape or form to relieve stress, tension, anxiety, boredom etc. Some ways are less noticeable than others such as nail biting or finger tapping, while others can be more obvious and disruptive to your social/daily life like licking certain objects or scratching at skin.

I learned all this from doing a bit of reading before taking on this request and if you want to know more then the link to the article I read is right -----> HERE <------ ! It’s informed my ideas for this headcanon request and though I’m open to discussions about the topic to help educate myself and anyone else who wishes to learn more, what I will not tolerate is any sort of hate or discrimination based on the links to developmental disorders and mental illness that stimming has. This blog has and always will be a safe space for anyone and everyone and a little respect for one another will help keep it that way. Be kind folks!

So without further ado, how would Demetri react to you stimming I wonder?

Part 1: Headcanons below the Keep Reading Line Part 2: Teeth (fic) Part 3: Control (fic) 

·         He honestly wouldn’t really notice for a while because, well, humans aren’t exactly designed to be as flawless as vampires

·         Impromptu nosebleeds, migraines, sneezes…they’re just glitches in a faulty system so why is the way your leg just bounced up off of the floor while your sitting any different to those other equally as involuntary things

·         He’s struggling right now to, after all he just met his very human mate and it’s quite overwhelming for him to have to adapt to all these new feelings and situations he finds himself in, but he deals because he can

·         Some days, you just…can’t

·         Getting attacked by a man with some bizarre fascination with your neck is bad enough but being whisked away by strangers is somehow even worse. At least in the first scenario once it’s over it’s over, now you’re just living an anxious person’s nightmare in a new place full of new people

·         Volterra was beautiful, but it wasn’t home. No cosy apartment, no neighbours cat to feed, no monotonous shifts at work…

·         Actually, most of the time you’re left utterly alone to navigate an unfamiliar castle, and the times you aren’t alone is when there’s a man claiming to be your eternal lover in front of you

·         Try to convince me this man doesn’t rip the band aid off and profess his love for you with dramatic flair just TRY

·         Your days are filled with endless boredom where you’re doing nothing at all until someone checks on you, and then fight or flight kicks in because oh HELLO Mr Vampire guard are you here to give me lunch or kill me?

 ·         Demetri had thought that perhaps you were okay with that, since you hadn’t really outwardly reacted beyond the way your cheek twitched up into a smirk once or twice as he spoke. Hell, you’d even winked at him…right?

·         You did that a lot so he really genuinely thought that maybe you were just trying to flirt with him, build a relationship with him. Your constant little winks and the way your fingers twitched when he was nearby, like you so desperately wanted to reach out to him…

·         It took a few weeks before he realised how wrong he was

·         You’d reached for a sip of water and your arm had just whipped outward from your body

          + You’d absolutely drenched him with your entire glass of water and could only stare in abject horror wondering what the supposed vampire would do next, since you’d interrupted him rather smugly detailing his plans for your first date

·         Silence

·         There was just silence

·         It only made your anxiety worse and the muscles in your face just spasmed without your permission and - god did you just smirk at him again, oh no        

         + “I’m glad one of us finds this amusing. If you did not like the idea there were other ways to tell me so.”

 ·         You almost want to cry from sheer embarrassment at this point because the date really had sounded like it could be fun and now you’d just straight up thrown water in his face like he’d insulted you in the worst way imaginable

·         So you come clean and tell him about your stimming

·         He’s really worried at first because autism? Anxiety he’s heard of but autism sounds very dangerous, are you dying? You’re probably dying. He’s going to lose his mate –

·         Another involuntary finger twitch from you forces him to calm down because your anxious enough without his worrying on top, so he kind of brushes it off and makes no big deal out of it

·         Squeezes your hand and kisses your forehead to try and reassure you all is forgiven, even if he does have to go change a very expensive looking designer shirt and god you’re so sorry

·         Of course, that kind of makes it worse for you because anxiety brain is activated and your 99.9999% sure he’s actually furious with you still and has only pretended to forget it while he’s plotting his revenge

·         You see him late at night when you struggle to fall and stay asleep, reading in the low lamplight at his desk across the room, his laptop propped open and a notebook before him but you’re too scared still to ask what it is he’s reading so intently (probably good suggestions on places to bury your body welp)

·         It’s a complete surprise to you therefore when he does take you out on that date he promised you not two weeks later

 ·         He’s chosen a nice overcast day so he’s in the least conspicuous clothing he owns

            + Demetri’s least conspicuous clothes still consist of the most chic and expensive brands you know of and he sticks out like a sore thumb amongst the quaint little market stalls he’s brought you to see

·         Despite the gloomy weather the people of Volterra are out in full force though, swarming the market stalls and chattering and laughing as flashes of gold and silver from jewelry hit your eyes, bright coloured fabrics following

·         It’s all just too much

·         There’s people everywhere and so much noise, so many colours and lights and people brushing past you…

·         Your fingers clench tight around his, his hand immersed in a glove to keep his freezing skin from chilling you too much

·         He squeezes back lightly, eyes shifting to glance down at you with the kindest smile on his lips

         + “Keep squeezing my hand whilst we find somewhere quieter to stand.”

·         Your fingers seemed to take turns pressing into his rock solid skin, an odd sort of comfort coming from the fact you know you can press down hard and he won’t so much as register the sensation, and Demetri squeezes back, just firm enough he knows you can feel the pressure of his palm on yours

·         He takes you to a quiet little side road where the noise is much more faded and there is so much free space around you you feel like you can finally breathe again

·         He still hasn’t stopped squeezing your hand, taking turns with you as you take some steady breaths and try to focus your senses a bit, one thing you can feel, two things you can see, three you can smell...

 ·         “I hope you can forgive me, I did not expect the market to be so busy today with the weather like this.”

·         His apology takes you completely by surprise because how would he even know you struggled with crowds? You barely know each other?

·         Seeing your surprise Demetri rather sheepishly admits as to what exactly he’s been reading all those nights you’ve seen him at his desk, and you’re a little overwhelmed to realise he’s been reading about you

·         Medical journals, mummyblogs, charity websites and more, if it had any information about autism and stimming he’s browsed through it and taken copious amounts of notes, observing you religiously to see what might be relevant to you and how he can help ·         +  “I read somewhere you self-stimulate to calm yourself when you are anxious or your senses feel overwhelmed, is that what happened?”                                    “Well, yes, actually, I…I…”

            “And did it help? Taking you away from the source of stress and letting you squeeze my hand like that?”

·         It had actually, you felt much calmer and Demetri’s obvious acceptance and willingness to help you manage your stimming and anxiety today were one of the first little moments you fell in love with him, looking back on it 

·         He didn’t stop there either. Together you sat down and made a list of all the things that you found most often triggered your stimming, and all of the things that brought you joy so he could figure out things to avoid and things you might like for your future dates

·         Within hours of arriving home you’d gotten a whole new daily routine set up so you weren’t left to languish and wonder what was going to happen next

·         Three days later an express shipment of your favourite smelling scented candles arrived alongside a Bluetooth speaker, supplies Demetri insisted were necessary for nice calming baths on the days your anxiety was playing up

·         He started doing mindfulness practices with you in the evenings

·         He never touched the volume controls for his laptop, speaker or TV, leaving it to you to control the volume so you could set it to a level you were comfortable with, and he religiously policed the noise on his floor to           + “Where are you going? The movie just started…”                                                    “To tell Felix to turn his music down.”               “You’re vampiring again Metri, I can’t even hear that.”

·         When he signed you up for Yoga and meditation classes at a centre in town you drew the line and told him he was going overboard, but bless him he had tried

·         Overall he’s a solid 15/10 for effort, even if some ideas are still experimental - you’re enjoying the deep pressure massages a lot though – and he sometimes goes a bit mother-hen trying to get you out of situations he thinks you’ll struggle with, when actually you’re coping just fine today

·         You love him dearly for it

[warsofasoiaf]

Character Analysis: Jon Irenicus

Irenicus is a fun villain, and I think nailed one interesting element of writing down, that of bringing down the villain’s threat in an interesting and believable way. The hero typically grows in power in any story, not just in a game where your progression is literally your XP, but what the villain does, how they grow, is also interesting. If the villain is more powerful than the hero, and also does things to grow and learn, theoretically the villain should still be wrecking house. BG2 wove this into the story itself, where the more you learned about Irenicus, the less menacing he became, culminating into where he was arguably your lesser at the end: he was powerful but only aping what you were. 

Obviously, spoilers for BG2 abound.

Baldur’s Gate II introduces us to our villain almost as a cold open. Fresh off the high of defeating Sarevok, you leave Baldur’s Gate after being pressured to leave by “dark forces” and by those who suspected that you shared similar heritage to Sarevok. Seems a bit odd, honestly, to oust the Bhaalspawn with suspicion given that during the course of Baldur’s Gate I, you saved two of the Grand Dukes. It’s certainly understandable that folks would fear your heritage and you’d want to move on to greener pastures, but something more than a 3-minute cut scene would have probably set the scene better.

However, this opening, and the ‘cutscene’ that follows gives Irenicus a grand initial reveal to the player. This guy is an ultra-powerful wizard, and he speaks with a clinical detachment as he states: “It’s time for more experiments.” It’s a wonderful opening to illustrate exactly what you’re dealing with. He’s clearly interested in your godly soul, and exploiting it to some unknown purpose. What is unknown, as he gets called away by some unspecified intruders by a golem. In the next scene, magical traps are set off as an unspecified Shadow Thief gets disintegrated. Story-wise, this serves no purpose, it’s purely meant to be a way to show off the new spell effects and other cosmetic changes to the engine from Baldur’s Gate II, with the disintegration dust and the screen shaking. But it does help illustrate the power level that Irenicus is throwing around. Save-or-die spells were relatively rare in the lower level of Baldur’s Gate I, even Semaj, Sarevok’s mage companion, wasn’t firing off disintegration willy-nilly. Throwing around disintegration spells clearly shows that Irenicus is a new high-level baddy. Later we see that he killed characters from Baldur’s Gate I off-screen, Khalid and Dynahier, two of the three sets of paired companions from BG1. This gives their partners reason to join in with the player character, but it also serves to show his power; Irenicus is such a bad dude that he can wipe your party before the game starts, like he was getting coffee. It might be a cruel cut, but that’s its intent, to make the player character mad at the villain, to want to punch his smarmy face in.

Commensurate in the danger of Irenicus is the need to find out what’s going on. Irenicus clearly knows something about your godly soul and so you want to find out what he knows. Even for an upstanding lawful good character, growing in power means finding a way to effect good on a larger scale, and perhaps to overcome the evil in your tainted blood. After all, no matter how good you were in Baldur’s Gate I, you still were an incredibly powerful killer. Sure, most if not all of them were bad dudes, Mulahey the iron ore poisoner, the bandits of Cloakwood, the Iron Throne and their plans to take over the Sword Coast. But chaos and destruction follow in your wake, and that chaos undoubtedly would hurt innocent civilians; Saradush in Throne of Bhaal is clear of that enough. Even just knowing more about what is going on could better prepare you for the next Irenicus or the next Sarevok.

When you go through the starter dungeon (another piece of game design, you are being tutorialized but the pastoral instruction of Candlekeep makes no sense for someone who already had an adventure), pieces of the man start to fall into place. He holds a bunch of captive dryads as concubines to remind him of someone he lost. He keeps an immaculate bedroom for a companion that is never there, with an alarm ready to dispatch the golems to kill any who cross the threshold. There’s a woman that was in his life that is no longer there, and the loss pains him, or at least, it seems that it should. Chatter with Imoen and the dryads show that this mystery man is trying to elicit feelings that he had lost, and that’s an entirely different case of worms than pining over a lost love. There’s some element of almost-unwilling psychopathy to these actions. Other hints in this dungeon illustrate this as well. His servants, discarded in vats and forgotten about entirely, would at first evoke classical evil overlords casually disregarding their own subjects. He’s almost all of the way there, but there’s enough there that the player is suggested that there has to be something more to it than that. He does seem to have some sort of sociopathy to him, where people are objects that he can find fascinating but he has no empathy. We see this later with Wanev, who Irenicus spares solely because he was hit by a spell that left him a lunatic, which Irenicus found funny, the administrator of a jail for the insane now rendered an insane patient himself.

He is powerful though, that much is clear when you break out of the starter dungeon. His display of magic collapsed part of Waukeen’s Promenade, and when the regulatory magical body of the Cowled Wizards comes to shut it down, Irenicus is capable of swatting mages like they were mosquitos. Just like the Shadow Thieves that he had been fighting, Irenicus seems more annoyed at the interruptions than any physical threat posed by his myriad foes. He’s definitely a powerful wizard, and when he finally submits to the Cowled Wizards, he does so clearly as their superior, dragging Imoen along with him. It’s fairly plain from a game design perspective what Irenicus is doing; he’s going to Spellhold so you have to get there. Good characters want to rescue Imoen, evil characters want to interrogate him to unlock the power in your blood. Either way, the player character is given a goal, and Irenicus disappears physically from the story for the moment.

He isn’t absent though. In your dreams, Jon Irenicus waxes philosophical at the player character, evoking thought-provoking questions. He explains the paradox of your existence of being born of murder, given life from the act of taking life. He speaks about accepting the gifts that will be given to you, regardless of whether or not you want them. These dream sequences are clear upgrades in quality and presentation from the spoken-dialogue text boxes from the first game after you beat major milestones. David Warner does a great job here in delivering Irenicus’s lines, he feels like a evil mentor speaking about philosophical topics with the same detachment that he tortured the player character with in the opening. While we find out later that these dreams aren’t sendings from Irenicus but rather parts of your character’s godly subconscious, they suggest to the player going through Chapter 3 that Irenicus does indeed know a hell of a lot more about you and your godly blood, keeping the player interesting in finding out exactly what it is you need to find out. The other quests in Chapter Three don’t have much to do with Irenicus, aside from some random events with the guild war in Athkatla at night, where the player will find out pretty quick that one side is powered by vampires, the level drain and click-dialogue of “your blood is rather inviting” isn’t exactly hiding that there be vampires engaged in a secret war with the Shadow Thieves. Even then, it’s tangential. You knew the Shadow Thieves were attacking Irenicus, which suggests at least some level of camaraderie with the vampires, but as we saw with the deep dwarves in Irenicus’s lair, he doesn’t care about followers, and they might simply be disposable assets if anything at all. If you want to know about Irenicus, you’re going to have to get it from the man himself. 

Of course, as befits a high-level mage, Irenicus breaks out of the prison in a cutscene, kills the Cowled Wizards and goes back to whatever unsavory plans he thought up for Imoen, teleporting into the lobby and chewing the scenery with his “I CANNOT BE CAGED!” speech, reinforcing his position as the central big bad and confirming the Cowled Wizards as mere obstacles. This part of his plan has been made clear. Far from the meddling Shadow Thieves and Cowled Wizards, Irenicus can continue his experiments on Imoen in Spellhold, and it falls on the player character to go there and end it. Irenicus, of course, knows this too, and he makes sure he has contingency plans to deliver you to him. I’m of three minds on this. On one, he’s so powerful it seems that he is so powerful, and Amn so large, that plenty of these isolated areas within the continent would service just as well for Irenicus’s lair. Why waste time with all of this blah-blah-blah and just take what he wants? It’s not like teleport spells are beyond his ken. On the other hand, it’s a good way to break up into the freeform quest design that Chapter Three gives, offers the chance for your characters to level up and get cool gear, lets you rock the stronghold quests which definitely let you feel your class and increase replay value, and the idea of the forbidding wizard in the island lair is an excellent backdrop. On the third, it’s in-character for an immortal mage to have plans within plans, even to the point of complexity addiction, although his conduct afterward sort of torpedoes this idea. 

That is, after he recaptures you, he immediately goes back to work to his experiments, and after another trippy dream sequence with Imoen, you find his plan. His goal is to absorb your divine soul, taking it for his own. He doesn’t explain anything more, but now that he has you, he discards you just as he has so many others. Telling his sister Bodhi to dispose of you is what keeps him from being someone like the Riddler, since he’s actually going for a proper smart villain play and killing the soulless husk he leaves behind just in case he pulls a protagonist move and comes clawing back for his stolen soul. It’s Bodhi’s instability, her desire to hunt you brought on by her vampirism, that keeps you alive. After the player character becomes the Slayer, Bodhi tells Irenicus, but true to his condescending nature, he simply...ignores the PC, writing them off as someone who is going to keel over any second due to their lack of soul, completely oblivious to the fact that Bhaal’s avatar was the Slayer, and it’s clear that something is replacing the void that he left within you. The PC must effectively turn that dismissiveness against him, by releasing the imprisoned mages within Spellhold, from the powerful but mostly harmless Dili to the megalomaniacal Tiax. Yet this hard-fought battle does not end with Irenicus’s death and your victory, instead Irenicus goes to pursue his other, as-yet unknown goals while he sends another band of cutthroats to die at your hand. 

Yoshimo is sort of my feelings on this Irenicus’s Spellhold plot writ small. As powerful as Irenicus is, he really doesn’t need Yoshimo, not if he has Sarmon Havarian and so many others. Yoshimo shows up in the starter dungeon, and is useful if a bit obsequious in a “who me?” sort of fashion. He doesn’t have a really good reason to stay with the party from a story reason that he gives you. He could have said: “Hey, thanks for getting me out. Deuces!” Yoshimo’s geas gets him to want to stay with the party, otherwise he’s dead. In that sense, it makes sense for him to want to be with the group. And as the only thief who gains levels aside from the absolutely annoying Jan Jansen, he’s useful for dealing with annoying traps, because reloading a game because your main PC tripped a trap and got petrified is certainly frustrating. Game mechanics though, interfere with this. You as the player character have control over the six-person party and if you want Yoshimo to be there, he’ll be there, and if you don’t, he’ll sit in the Copper Coronet, geas be damned. He’ll stand right there until you go back in after the Underdark chapter, in which case he flops over dead and hardly anyone cares. That’s a system engine limitation certainly, but it’s remarkably clumsy. What is good though, is Yoshimo’s regret during this. He knows he has to betray you and is forced to do so, and he genuinely likes you. The writing that happens is crisp, Yoshimo truly does apologize and Irenicus backs up his dismissive assholery by telling him to shut up. When Yoshimo confronts you in Spellhold, his writing is crisp. “No redemption, and no second chances. My heart to Ilmater.” He fights you and goes down swinging (which was annoying the first time I played because he had the Celestial Fury +3). And you can actually take that heart to Ilmater, occupying a valuable inventory space through the next chapters until you can reach Waukeen’s Promenade again, where you can choose to forgive him or not, but give the heart to Ilmater either way. It would have been saccharine to restore Yoshimo, but this way, I feel, is more powerful in a world with such powerful enchantments to see the effects on the people whose lives it ruins. So the game can be clunky at parts, and Irenicus can be as well, but there’s true craft and joy in it.

Back to Irenicus though, we get the sense of more to him when we see the intro splash screen for the next Chapter. Making a dark bargain with the drow, we see that they have captured surface elves, one of whom immediately refers to Irenicus as Joneleth, suggesting a backstory far deeper as Irenicus immediately resorts to killing the prisoner after being the one to suggest interrogation instead of immediate execution, a lashing out that seems out of character for the clinically-detached evil villain we’ve been coming to know. The backstory is clear in the Forgotten Realms, the dark elves and surface elves are mortal foes and anyone who is known to the surface elves to ally with the dark elves is a great betrayal. As the PC goes through the Underdark and comes out, they are captured by the surface elves. Through a conversation with Eldoth, it can become evident that the surface elves know more than they are letting on, such as when they are the ones who suggest holy water and stakes to fight Bodhi, despite not knowing anything about either one of them. After you slay Bodhi and restore Imoen’s soul to its rightful place, you can call Eldoth out on it. Irenicus is “the Shattered One,” an exile of the elves, and it’s here that Irenicus’s story becomes apparent.

Irenicus was a powerful wizard and lover of Queen Ellesime named Joneleth. Yet in his heart, Joneleth yearned for more power and sought to take the essence of the Tree of Life, the lifeblood of the city of Suldanesselar, for himself and Bodhi. This dark ritual nearly killed many that existed within Suldanesselar, and so Joneleth and Bodhi were punished, stripping their elven nature and immortality away from them, leaving them with a mortal lifespan, thus Joneleth became Jon Irenicus, the Shattered One. Bodhi sought to become a vampire to transgress the mortal years she had, but Jon had felt that it degraded her to that of a high-functioning beast. Irenicus’s scheme was far more grandiose if also possessing an elegant simplicity: he lost an immortal soul and so he needed to take one for himself. The Bhaalspawn was the perfect choice, powerful enough to defeat Sarevok and awaken the power within, weak enough to be captured and have the divine soul snatched away. With his stolen soul freshly acquired, Irenicus now looked to the second part of himself, to revenge himself on the elves. The dark elf invasion ultimately failed, helped out by the PC butchering the leadership of Ust Natha, but Irenicus is still going with golems and summoned demons to destroy the city, usurp the power of the Tree of Life, and complete his long ago schemes. 

I... I do not remember your love, Ellesime. I have tried. I have tried to recreate it, to spark it anew in my memory, but it is gone... a hollow, dead thing. For years, I clung to the memory of it. Then the memory of the memory. And then nothing. The Seldarine took that from me, too. I look upon you and feel nothing. I remember nothing but you turning your back on me, along with all the others. Once my thirst for power was everything. And now I hunger only for revenge. And I... WILL... HAVE IT!!

When confronted by Queen Ellesime, she even asks if there was any part of him that remembered the love he had for her, and the PC sees that it’s her that was in his mind for the beautiful bedroom way back in chapter one. It was almost certainly her that Irenicus thought of when he was with his dryad concubines. And when she poses that question, he answers with the above quote, that he feels nothing. While it seems like this is a loss of depth, that he’s just a flat character, I don’t think this is the case. Irenicus had the chance to change, for self-reflection. Instead, he remembers it as all the others turning their back on him, without any recognition that his schemes nearly killed them. It’s the classic abuser mentality, how dare you make me do these things to you. When his victims tried to defend themselves, he lashed out and remembers only their ‘cruelty’ to him. It’s this that makes Irenicus, for all his great arcane might, so small. Where before he was this intimidating figure, now he’s a petty man, and fittingly, it’s here that you can kill him. Temporarily, at least, because there’s still one more dungeon. Irenicus and you are still battling for your divine soul, and after a few self-reflective quests of your own, you duel Irenicus, who dies pitiably, torn to shreds by demons as his power fails him. It fits the heroic and thematic heft of the arc. As you grow in power, Irenicus diminishes in threat. He was your torturer, an inhuman menace, then he became just a man, torn apart by tiny demons that you probably could take down by the truckload. 

There’s good things to learn here. Irenicus isn’t a super-unique villain, although some of the villain tropes are personalized for the sake of the Baldur’s Gate story specifics. But he does his job admirably. David Warner’s voice work, and the special effects (pretty good for when the game came out in 2000) really was able to sell Irenicus as an enjoyable villain. 

Thanks for the suggestions, Anons who were looking forward to this.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[nyxshadowhawk]

An Analysis of The Ninth Gate

I finally got around to watching The Ninth Gate after it was recommended on Occultism with a Side of Salt. Seriously, why did it take me so long to watch this film? This is pretty much everything I like! It’s a film from 1999 (incidentally, the same year as Eyes Wide Shut) starring Johnny Depp as an expert on rare books called Dean Corso. It’s based loosely on a novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte called The Club Dumas, and was directed by Roman Polanski (who’s the man behind Tanz der Vampire, but who is extremely problematic and we do not stan). Corso is employed by a rich book collector named Boris Balkan to authenticate his copy of a grimoire called The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, which may be the coolest title for a grimoire ever. The book is supposedly designed to summon the Devil himself, and was copied from another mysterious book that the Devil was said to have written. Corso compares the grimoire with the two other existing copies to find out which one is the real one, but there are mysterious deaths and other unsettling events around the book, and he has a mysterious girl helping him.

The film is very spooky and has a wonderful Dark Academia aesthetic. What’s most interesting to me about it is, although it isn’t authentically occult, it feels very authentic. The grimoire is clearly modeled after real ones. The engravings in the book also could easily be mistaken for real ones if I didn’t know better. I think that the pentagram on the cover is a little too on-the-nose, especially since pentagrams weren’t associated with Satanism until relatively recently — I think the Sigil of Lucifer would be a better fit, since it’s reasonably well-known (for example, the Mother Superior of the Satanic Nuns in Good Omens wears one instead of a cross) and it comes from a real grimoire. That’s me being very nitpicky, though. Although this film follows some tropes of Hollywood Satanism, its portrayal of that is still more realistic than normal. Real-life occult ritual groups are more like book clubs or potlucks, but the actual ritual part can in fact look something like the one in the film. (Sure, it wouldn’t be in a mansion with cool-ass gargoyles, but this is certainly more realistic than Eyes Wide Shut.)

This film feels authentically occult becuase a lot of real occultism is pouring over old books and analyzing symbolic images. I do a lot of that! Right now, I’m reading a dictionary of alchemical symbolism. I hope to eventually be able to look at all the weird images in alchemical manuscripts and make some sense of them. This film is basically about doing exactly that. I noticed the tarot symbolism in the engravings immediately, and I felt a little like I was trying to decipher them right alongside Corso. It reminded me of solving Nox Arcana puzzles, and that just makes me incredibly happy. The approach this film takes is also realistic — (slight spoilers) it could have gone the classic Hollywood route of summoning Satan to destroy the world and all that, but it doesn’t. Instead, the end goal is more abstract and spiritual, much more in-line with occultists’ actual goals in real life. Just as in alchemy, the goal is not to make gold or live forever, but to experience spiritual transcendence, and this is encoded in alchemists’ notes and artwork.

So, I want to try my hand at deciphering the engravings’ secrets, and test my own knowledge of occult symbolism in the process. Everything that follows involves major spoilers, so I will dispense with the exposition and assume that you have already seen the film.

I’ve seen it argued on YouTube that the engravings represent actual events in the film, and some of them seem to. Bernie is murdered and hung upside down, the collapsing scaffolding is the “danger from above” arrow, Corso is hit in the back of the head in one of the film’s most chilling scenes, and the Girl (who is implied to be Lucifer) ends up… well… “riding” him in front of the burning castle. But come on, that is way too easy. For one thing, the related events don’t seem to occur in any specific sequence, either the engravings’ numbered sequence or Balkan’s rearranged sequence. It would make sense if Corso would have to experience every engraving and “pass through each gate” — that happens a lot in films like this one, where an eerily coincidental series of events plays out just as in the book/prophecy/whatnot. But that doesn’t really happen, or if it does, it’s not obvious enough for the only interpretation of the engravings to be literal. What impresses me the most about The Ninth Gate is that it goes for that more figurative, spiritual dimension. That is really what makes it feel realistically occult.

The real solution to the engravings seems to be spiritual growth or enlightenment, which is the goal of most occultists. Balkan sort of understands this, which is why he disdains Telfer and her coven being edgy and playing dress up instead of really making an effort to understand Lucifer’s secrets. And yet, Balkan also fails, because he is after power, not enlightenment. It seems as though both of them misunderstand Lucifer, believing him to be the kind of Lucifer that you usually see in these movies. (That would fit in well with his name and his role in the Eden story, if you interpret it that way.) If we assume that the Girl is Lucifer, then she is more benevolent an influence than anything else. Hell, Corso doesn’t even suffer any “temptation” consequences from having sex with her. Corso wins in the end because he actually puts in the effort, and the Girl helps guide him toward enlightenment. Maybe Lucifer is a good force in this film’s world. Lucifer’s own versions of the engravings seem to emphasize that s/he is genuinely invested in helping his/her followers towards enlightenment.

When Balkan assembles the engravings in the proper order, this is his interpretation of the riddle:

To travel in silence, by a long and circuitous route, to brave the arrows of misfortune, and fear neither noose nor fire, to play the greatest of all games and win, foregoing no expense, is to mock the vicissitudes of fate and gain at last the key that will unlock the Ninth Gate.

First, I want to say that this riddle reminds me a lot of the Emerald Tablet. It’s similarly cryptic, and I only sort of have it figured out. I love that something like that is real and authentically ancient. Anyway, moving on. I’ll go through the engravings in the order that Balkan puts them in (as opposed to their numbered order), and see if I can make sense of them.

The first engraving shows a knight traveling towards a castle. In the AT version of the engraving, the castle has four towers, while in LCF’s version, it has three. Balkan’s interpretation is “To travel in silence,” while the caption is “Silence is golden.” That immediately reminds me of the common occult maxim, “To Know, to Will, to Dare, to Keep Silent.” I’ve never been much of a fan of keeping silent, which is why I post things like this on the internet, but in general occultists tend to be secretive folk. According to this article, another translation of the caption is “Only one who has battled according to the rules will prevail.” I’m not sure whose rules are being referred to here. Lucifer’s, maybe?

This is one of the only engravings in which there is no obvious tarot symbolism. There are four Knights in tarot, one for each suit — wands, swords, cups, and pentacles — but this knight doesn’t have a symbol of any of the suits or anything that could suggest that. The difference is in the castle towers — three in LCF’s, four in AT’s. In traditional numerology, three is a number symbolizing perfection and creation, as in the Holy Trinity, while four is the number of the solid and material and unlucky. (Source: Richard Cavendish, The Black Arts). Sets of three are especially common in fairy tales and mythology — three siblings, three tasks, three encounters, three magical objects, three questions, three trials or tests, repeating an action three times with the third time being different or conclusive, etc. Lucifer’s castle at the end also has three sets of towers. The most obvious interpretation of this is that your destination will be either material gain (AT) or spiritual advancement (LCF).

In the tarot, the threes represent the completion of the first stage of a venture — the Three of Wands represents a successful enterprise, the Three of Cups represents celebration and fulfillment, and the Three of Pentacles represents recognition for your achievements. All of them have something to do with attainment except for the Three of Swords, which represents loss, heartbreak, betrayal, etc. The fours aren’t bad, representing stability and structure — the Four of Wands is joyful and peaceful, the Four of Swords takes time to rest and recoup, the Four of Cups is bored and listless, and the Four of Pentacles receives material abundance. All of them are a bit more grounded and material, so I think it makes the most sense to interpret the difference in this engraving as being the spiritual three vs. the material four, and leave it at that.

The fourth engraving, which is second in Balkan’s sequence, is of a jester standing at the entrance to a labyrinth. In LCF’s version the labyrinth’s exit is open, while in AT’s it is bricked up. Balkan interprets this as meaning “by long and circuitous route,” while the caption reads “Fate is not the same for all.” that seems fairly straightforward — Balkan and Corso have different fates. Corso is able to find his way out of the Labyrinth, but Balkan’s exit is bricked up. This is because he never properly experienced the journey the way Corso did, he just wanted the payoff and tried to take shortcuts.

The Labyrinth is a very old symbol, and it carries the dual symbolism of a death trap in which there is a Minotaur, and a path to spiritual enlightenment. It can represent the Underworld or the darkness of the subconscious mind, with the Minotaur being your Shadow. Either you are trapped in the Labyrinth and eaten by the monster, or you find your way back out into the light having gained some self-awareness. The jester is probably meant to represent 0 The Fool, who, in the Tarot, is the naive adventurer who sets out on a spiritual journey over the threshold and into the realm of the subconscious and symbolic — i.e. the Labyrinth. As for the dice in the foreground, this seems to reinforce the caption’s point about fate. But dice, like tarot cards, can be used as both a game and a divination tool — it is the assumption of the diviner that random chance is always meaningful. And indeed, the visible faces on each die add up to 6 — 666.

The third engraving depicts a traveler walking towards a bridge. In the clouds above him, there’s a Cupid-like figure with an arrow pointing down at him. Balkan’s interpretation is “to brave the arrows of misfortune,” and the caption is “The lost word keeps the secret.” AT’s version is pictured here; in LCF’s version, there are two arrows, the other one pointing upwards in the quiver.

This traveller looks much more like the traditional Tarot depiction of 0 The Fool than the jester. The Fool is happy-go-lucky and doesn’t notice the danger he might be walking into. TV Tropes describes The Fool trope as referring to a person who, despite having no idea what they’re doing, doesn’t come to any harm because of their luck and innocence. So, the traveler will probably not be hit by the arrow, the same way Corso avoids the collapsing scaffolding. The two arrows in the LCF version seem to reinforce the idea of there being two possible outcomes. The arrow pointing up and the other one pointing down could also reference the famous occult maxim, “As above, so below,” adding another spiritual dimension to it. Balkan’s interpretation of the engraving reminded me a lot of a certain famous soliloquy: “To be or not to be, that is the question: / Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, / Or to take arms against a sea of troubles / And by opposing end them.” In this scene, Hamlet is considering whether or not to take his own life. But when applied to this engraving, these lines seem to once again suggest the two possible outcomes — you can suffer and die, or move on towards your goal.

And then there’s the caption. “The lost word keeps the secret.” Well, it’s pretty obvious what that refers to — the ninth engraving, replaced with a forgery that changes the meaning of the entire thing. The missing engraving contains the secret. But that caption seems completely irrelevant to this engraving, except that the face of the archer doesn’t look remotely like a baby’s, as putti usually do — it looks like an old man’s, specifically, the Ceniza brothers’, who removed and replaced the missing engraving.

The sixth engraving, fourth in Balkan’s sequence, depicts a man hanging upside-down by his ankle, and an arm with a flaming sword reaching out of a castle tower. Balkan’s interpretation of this is “and fear neither noose nor fire,” which proves he knows fuck all about tarot. No wonder he got the riddle wrong. This one is so blindingly obvious. The man isn’t hanging by his neck, he’s hanging by his foot. He’s the Hanged Man.

XII The Hanged Man is a strange and disturbing card at first glance, but it has become one of my favorites. The Hanged Man is almost never depicted hanging by his neck; he hangs by his foot, and has a serene expression, indicating that he wants to be there. He represents going through a period of tribulation, suffering, surrender, or introspection in order to obtain wisdom, enlightenment, self-awareness, and insight. He goes through a metamorphosis, just like the caterpillar that hangs upside-down in its chrysalis to become a butterfly. He’s a Christlike figure, evidenced by the halo around his head in the Rider-Waite deck, and the fact that he willingly suffers for a higher purpose. He even wears the same colors as Jesus in Da Vinci’s The Last Supper in the Rider-Waite deck, although I’m not sure if that’s on purpose or not.

The caption to the engraving is “I am enriched by death,” which is a million times more meaningful than Balkan’s interpretation. If you’re an occultist, that line is probably self-explanatory. Pretty much everything mystical involves that theme of (symbolically) dying and being resurrected. The alchemical process has three stages — nigredo, which is death, albedo, which is the ascension of the soul, and rubedo, which is returning to life in a “purified” body as a more spiritual being. The Hero’s Journey follows this same pattern — the hero entering the Underworld or the Labyrinth and facing trials that allow them to spiritually ascend and achieve apotheosis (or something close to it). It’s everywhere in books, movies, and video games. It is the initiation ritual. Most occultists figuratively go through it in one way or another. And in tarot, XII The Hanged Man is at the rough midpoint of the Fool’s journey through the Major Arcana, and immediately followed by XIII Death. “I am enriched by death.” You cannot be reborn as a new and better version of yourself without first having died.

The difference between AT’s and LCF’s engravings is that AT’s has the Hanged Man hanging by his right foot, while LCF’s has him hanging by his left foot. I don’t think this changes the meaning of the engraving too much. In Rider-Waite, the Hanged Man hangs by his right foot, but in the Tarot de Marseille, which is older, he hangs by the left foot. The only significance to this that I can see is that the Latin word for “left” is sinistram, and the word “sinister” has its current meaning because left was considered Satanic. Left-handed people were discriminated against for this reason, until as late as the mid-20th century. In occultism, the “Left-Hand Path” is an approach to magic that involves rejecting tradition and dogma and generally being edgy. I think that the right-hand and left-hand paths are a false dichotomy (you use both your hands, don’t you?), but anything Satanic is considered part of the Left-Hand Path. Jung associated left with the unconscious, so we’re back to the Labyrinth.

I don’t have much to say about the flaming sword. It could be foreshadowing Balkan’s death (more on that later), or it could represent the flaming sword of the angel of Eden (i.e. guarding spiritual knowledge).

The seventh engraving, fifth in Balkan’s sequence, is of a king and a peasant playing a chess game. Two dogs are fighting in the background, and the moon can be seen through the window. In AT’s version, the board is black, and in LCF’s, the board is white. Balkan interprets it as “to play the greatest of all games,” and the caption is “The disciple surpasses the master.”

The tarot symbolism that I see here is that of XVIII The Moon, which has dogs baying at it in the Rider-Waite deck. The Moon represents the subconscious, imagination, and dreams, but also nightmares, madness, and illusion. The illusion here is probably still the missing engraving being replaced by the forgery. The themes of the subconscious get reinforced. Underneath the Moon, a black dog and a white dog fight each other, almost seeming to create a yin/yang shape. This brings the dark and the light into balance, the same way the Moon spends equal times dark and bright as it goes through its phases. The game is chess, which is played with black and white pieces, and the board is either black or white. The game seems to be a draw, making the peasant and the king equals, just as the dogs are unable to defeat each other. So, this engraving is all about reconciling dualities.

There’s another layer to this. God is the “King of Kings,” so this could demonstrate a human becoming God’s equal. This is basically the goal of occultism — to become like God, in some form. Left-Hand Path’ers in particular seem to like the idea of becoming gods themselves, or even “surpassing” God. Since the book was created by Lucifer, this could tie in to Lucifer’s desire to become God’s equal that got him cast out of Heaven (but I’m not the biggest fan of that story, so I won’t go any further with that). To the occultist, man is God, just as God can become a man — as above, so below. That’s also a form of reconciling the duality of human and divine.

The caption, “The disciple surpasses the master,” probably refers to this, but it could also refer to Corso surpassing Balkan and succeeding where Balkan failed. Any good teacher wants their students to have learned so well that they surpass them. God (or Lucifer) intends for his disciples to surpass him, but Balkan tries (and fails) to prevent Corso from surpassing him.

The fifth engraving, which is sixth in Balkan’s sequence, depicts a man counting coins while Death stands behind him with a pitchfork and hourglass. Balkan’s interpretation is “and win, foregoing no expense,” while the caption reads “In vain.” Balkan is an idiot. Exactly like the man in the engraving, he is focused entirely on the money and completely misses the literal shadow of Death standing behind him. How does one overlook the significance of that? There’s a big difference between “I won the game so now I get money” and “in vain”! Of course, this means that Balkan is too focused on material pursuits and misses that he is about to die. In AT’s version, the sand is at the top of the hourglass, while in LCF’s version, it is at the bottom — the man has run out of time. The expression “you can’t take it with you” comes to mind. Money and material goods don’t ultimately matter compared to spiritual growth. “In vain.”

In tarot, XIII Death almost never represents physical death. Instead, it represents change, usually a change for the better. Death is about letting go of old things so that new things can come, stepping through a threshold into another life or state of being. This can be difficult or emotionally painful, but it is necessary and ultimately beneficial. If The Hanged Man is the chrysalis, then Death is the emerging butterfly (the Greek word psyche means both “soul” and “butterfly,” because butterflies represent the souls of the dead). Once again, Death is a required step towards spiritual advancement. And if you refuse to acknowledge this, it isn’t going to go well for you.

The checkerboard floor probably continues to reinforce the theme of duality. As for the pitchfork, maybe the reason Death has a peasant’s pitchfork instead of a scythe is because pitchforks are associated with Satan, or it could be a representation of peasants taking revenge on rich people. Or it could be a reference to American Gothic. I think it’s the first one.

The eighth engraving, which is seventh in Balkan’s sequence, depicts a praying man about to be bludgeoned by a knight with a mace, with the Wheel of Fortune in the background. Balkan’s interpretation is “to mock the vicissitudes of fate” and the caption says “Virtue is defeated.”

The Wheel of Fortune is a medieval motif that shows how fortune is apparently random. Some get to be kings, others are serfs, and your fortunes can turn at any moment. Just when you think everything is great, someone hits you on the back of the head. In tarot, X The Wheel of Fortune means exactly what you would expect it to — a twist of fate, a change of fortune. Whether it’s for better or for worse depends on the context and the cards around it. Life is full of ups and downs, so enjoy what you’ve got while you have it, etc. Sometimes when it shows up, it can mean that you should trust in fate.

But that’s the background. What to make of the foreground? Honestly, this is the most disturbing engraving to me, especially with the accompanying scene where Corso gets hit in the head. By whom? It’s probably Telfer’s lackey, because the knight in the engraving kind of looks like him. And if the caption is “Virtue is defeated,” the praying man hasn’t been defeated yet. The knight is about to hit him, not already standing over his body. It could be an example of “bad things happen to good people” — being virtuous won’t stop you from suffering. Since Corso is the one who gets hit in the back of the head, maybe that indicates that he’s the most virtuous character (which is saying a lot, since he’s not exactly an upstanding person). In LCF’s version of the engraving, the knight has a halo — does that mean that defeating Virtue is a good thing? I guess that would make sense if the artist is Satan? Or does it mean the knight is protecting the praying man? I don’t know. I genuinely am not sure how to interpret this one. What I do know is that Balkan is still an idiot. Nothing about this suggests mocking fate. If anything, this is an example of succumbing to it.

The second engraving, eighth in Balkan’s sequence, shows an old man with a dog, holding two keys in his hand. In AT’s version, the keys are in his right hand, and in LCF’s, they are in his left hand. Balkan’s interpretation is “gain at last the key,” and the caption is “Open that which is closed.”

This is another obvious tarot image. This is clearly The Hermit with his lantern. IX The Hermit represents withdrawing into solitude for contemplation and meditation, to gain spiritual wisdom and awareness. Like the Hanged Man, he indicates a need to be passive in the service of introspection. He’s the archetypical guru on a mountain, and he holds the keys to enlightenment. Keys represent access to information, and the ability to pass between worlds. “Open that which is closed” is pretty obvious — unlock the gates, receive spiritual insight. LCF’s version having the keys be in the left hand just reinforces everything I said about left earlier.

Also, that Hebrew symbol next to him is the one for the number nine. That suggests that the Hermit is right in front of the Ninth Gate. In numerology, nine is a magical number, being three times three. It represents completeness, spiritual achievement, and initiation. So, that’s self-explanatory. In tarot, tens are the ultimate state of completion, so the nines are the penultimate step — the Nine of Wands gives you the strength and willpower to overcome obstacles, the Nine of Cups represents success and contentment, and the Nine of Pentacles represents celebrating an accomplishment. (Once again, the Swords are the outlier, representing fear and despair.) Nines in general are good, the perfection of three multiplied by itself. (The Hermit is also the ninth card of the Major Arcana, if you noticed.)

And finally, we come to the ninth and final engraving (that Roman numeral should read “IX”). This depicts a woman who looks suspiciously like the Girl reading a book, ostensibly The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, and riding a dragon with seven goatlike heads. There is a castle in the background, and the castle is a real place. There are three versions of the engraving — this one, which is signed by AT and has the castle as-is, a forged LCF engraving that shows the castle in flames, and the real one. Balkan’s interpretation is “that will unlock the Ninth Gate,” and the caption is “Now I know that from Darkness comes Light.”

The woman is apparently an image of the “Whore of Babylon” from Revelations, who rides a seven-headed dragon. I’m not really sure what she’s supposed to represent, beyond being generally Satanic. Of course, Crowley recasted her as a sex goddess. The seven heads of her dragon are significant — seven is the number of secrets, mysteries, magic, introspection, and searching for inner truth, which have been running themes this whole time. It also signifies creation, completeness, and rest, since God created the world in seven days. In tarot, the sevens present a new challenge after the perfection of the sixes — the Seven of Wands brings new obstacles that require determination to overcome; the Seven of Cups represents imagination, dreams, and illusions, so back to The Moon again (and the illusion of the forgery); the Seven of Swords also represents deception or a con artist (like the Ceniza twins, or maybe Balkan); and the Seven of Pentacles represents a threshold or a new opportunity, and reflecting on one’s achievements. That all aligns scarily well with the situation here.

The critical illusion is that the “LCF” engraving with the burning castle is a forgery. So, Balkan sets himself on fire for no reason other than egomania. This image is similar to XVI The Tower in Tarot. The Tower is one of the scariest cards to get. If Death is a difficult but beneficial change, The Tower is a dramatic turn for the worse, complete destruction and devastation. It is struck by lightning and destroyed, going up in flames. I drew this card shortly before the pandemic hit. That was The Tower — destruction, upheaval, devastation, but with the promise of rebuilding. I also had to deal with a lot of emotional turmoil because of an unrelated thing that happened around the same time, and it shook me to my core. So, obviously the forged engraving leads to Balkan’s destruction.

The true ninth LCF engraving shows the sun shining from behind one of the castle’s towers:

Replacing The Tower with The Sun is a drastic difference. If The Tower is one of the worst cards to get, XIX The Sun is one of the best. The Sun is a good omen in every capacity. It represents everything that these engravings have been working towards — spiritual growth, fulfillment, success, enlightenment, revelation of secrets, good fortune, etc. It fits right in with Lucifer’s status as the Light Bringer, and it is the solution. (The true engraving is also very reminiscent of The Star, which directly follows The Tower, and represents hope and the light at the end of the tunnel. I drew it recently, signifying the end of my emotional turmoil.) The jagged rocks at the bottom of the castle in the other two versions are missing here, and the castle is more accessible, with a visible path. The woman gestures directly to it.

The rest of the scene is much more shadowed in the true version, which fits right in with the caption: “Now I know that from Darkness comes Light.” I, in my obsession with Shadow work, interpret this as confronting the dark parts of oneself and bringing them out into the light to become a whole person, and to grow spiritually. This goes back to the Labyrinth, needing to enter the dark Underworld or the realm of the subconscious in order to gain spiritual wisdom and finally achieve enlightenment. Everything in the engravings seems to point back to that — needing a period of introspection, reconciling of duality, obtaining safe passage through the various trials until you see The Sun, which is followed by Judgement (resurrection) and The World (fulfillment). The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows are like the seven gates of the Underworld that Inanna must pass through (and that eight-pointed star is a symbol of Inanna). Corso passes through the Ninth Gate, out of the Kingdom of Shadows and into the light.

Balkan’s interpretation is clearly off. So, let’s rearrange the engravings back into their intended order:

Silence is golden. Open that which is closed. The lost word keeps the secret. Fate is not the same for all. In vain. I am enriched by death. The disciple surpasses the master. Virtue lies defeated. Now I know that from darkness comes Light.

If you, who seek after secrets, wish to unlock the gates to wisdom and enlightenment, be wary of potential dangers and missing pieces. You can either suffer and die, or move towards your goal. You will either find a way out of the Labyrinth or find that your path is blocked. Do not pursue material gains, and miss the shadow of Death hanging over you. Face Death, and you will be enriched by it, gaining spiritual insight that will allow you to surpass your superiors and become God’s equal. After a final challenge, test of virtue or twist of fortune, you will emerge from the darkness and into the light.

Am I reading way too deep into a spooky movie? Maybe, but come on! How could I resist? Do any of you have interpretations of your own?

Sources:

https://slapphappe.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/symbolism-in-the-ninth-gate/#%3A~%3Atext%3DThe%20fire%20at%20the%20Ninth%2Cof%20the%20Kingdom%20of%20Shadows.

https://davidjrodger.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/the-ninth-gate-occult-and-tarot-like-symbolism-in-the-engravings-by-aristide-torchia-and-lucifer-plus-wider-meanings-of-the-movie/

[cuttlefishkitch]

hello! i haven't talked to you before, but ron said that i could ask you for some advice on writing eds? (i'd like to know things to avoid/common things that could come up in everyday life that would be good to mention/the sort of aids and stuff they'd have maybe?/anything else you think is relevant)

Hi! Sorry this took so long, a combination of ADHD and chronic pain slowed me way the fuck down. Thank you for being patient! 

EDIT: WEIRD HEEL THINGS I FORGOT!!

So, before I get into this I should probably say I technically haven’t been diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS for anyone reading) because it’s one of those syndromes that takes forever to get diagnosed with (it took a friend of mine’s mother over 30 years to get dxed). Many doctors, and everyone I know who does have EDS agree with me that it’s probably what causes my chronic joint pain and some of my other chronic issues. But just because three separate doctors have said “Yeah Probably” doesn’t mean I’m diagnosed!! Only a geneticist can do that!! And they had two-three year waitlists BEFORE the apocalypse happened.

I am diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), Small Fiber Neuropathy, and potentially misdiagnosed with Fibromyalgia (once I get properly tested for EDS I might get undiagnosed with this because I don’t have most of the main symptoms of Fibro, but I got diagnosed with it anyway because it’s what doctors misDX you with when they don’t know what’s wrong with you and don’t want to do more tests).

All that said, I’ve done a lot of research about EDS (mainly because it’s the only thing that explains all my symptoms since doctors seem incapable of doing so), and know a few people who have either confirmed or suspected EDS, so I’ll link to some stuff, talk about the symptoms that often come with EDS, explain how the symptoms I have affect me, because just because someone’s not diagnosed doesn’t mean they aren’t having symptoms, and probs elaborate a bit about writing physical disabilities and chronic pain in general because it’s super important to me! 

So RESOURCES aka how to make sure your post never sees the light of day because you’re linking things and tumblr hates it when people give other people information!!

Youtubers! If you want to know about the day to day of living with EDS or any disability or chronic illness I super suggest finding a youtuber that makes videos about their life. My EDS favorites are

Jessica Kellgren-Fozard

Annie Elainey

Amy Lee Fisher

Websites! If you’re asking random folks on tumblr I’m assuming (and hoping) you’ve already done the basic WebMD google searches and looked over the seemingly ridiculous lists of symptoms and related conditions, so here are a few websites that are made more for people than for doctors.

The Ehlers Danlos Society

OhTWIST (That’s Why I’m So Tired)

ChronicPainPartners (the fact that they have an entire section of articles called “Dealing with Doctors” should really tell you something)

Books! If you feel like doing actual reading! I suggest reading books written by people with Ehlers Danlos, to get a feel for how they portray themselves. I’m not saying steal, but it’s probably a good point of comparison to see how your portrayal feels. (haven’t actually read these b/c my ADHD doesn’t let me read)

Ria Ruse by Morgan S. Ray (a superhero book with a disabled super MC!!)

Mysteries of Maybelle by Imani Benfell (Imani is still in high school and has already written and self-published a book cause she didn’t have enough representation for herself how cool is she!!)

Bodies in Motion by Liana Brooks (tw for pregnancy problems and miscarriages in the link, because it’s a blog post talking about integrating EDS symptoms into the story without explicitly naming them as such)

OKAY, now for some rambling about EDS SYMPTOMS!!!

Ehlers Danlos is one monster of a genetic condition in complexity and variety. There are THIRTEEN different identified types of EDS, it often comes with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) and/or POTS, and can lead to various other conditions like gastroparesis, chiari malformation, craniocervical instability, and/or bad teeth. So if you’re going to be writing a character with EDS consider what other comorbid conditions they might also have. I’m mainly going to be talking about Hypermobile EDS (hEDS) because it’s what I probably have and what I’m most familiar with. That said there is a lot of overlap in symptoms with the other varieties.

I started typing this section and realized I was going to have to break it down even more so we’re going to talk about Chronic Pain, Unstable Joints (Dislocations and Subluxations), Skin Things, Mobility Issues, and Other Weird Shit and how those things get addressed separately.

Gonna get the Other Weird Shit out of the way first. Because EDS is a malfunction of connective tissue it can fuck up all sorts of random things. For instance, I and many other people w/ hEDS have trouble swallowing. Shit gets stuck in my throat, I sometimes choke on and have to cough up food, and pills can be hard to swallow, which sucks cause I take A Lot Of Pills. If it doesn’t cause full-on gastroparesis it can cause IBS or other digestive problems b/c the digestive tract is mostly made of connective tissue. It can potentially cause heart problems even if they aren’t as big of a risk as in some other forms of EDS. Premature osteoarthritis is common because what you need is more joint pain. And Fatigue OH BOY THE FATIGUE. And of course the headaches, can’t forget those pesky migraines can we!

AND piezogenic papules!! I completely forgot!! Piezogenic papules are little white bumps that appear when you put weight on your heel. In some people they hurt, but in others they don’t. They’re technically tiny little herniations of fat peaking through the fascia in the heel. They were added as part of the diagnostic criteria for hEDS in 2017!

Now for Skin Things cause it’s not as big a thing in hEDS as it is in other forms. Basically, in a lot of forms of EDS, the skin is extra stretchy and extra delicate. It bruises and tears easily, people with the extreme versions of this can accidentally scratch something into an open wound if they aren’t careful. My skin is pretty soft and sensitive, I def have the typical velvety skin, and as is pretty par for the course of someone with hEDS my skin is a little stretchy, and sorta delicate. I’m not as tissue-papery as some people get, but I almost always have at least one mystery bruise or scrape b/c existing is hazardous. Most of scars are also pretty normal, unlike the extremely papery and atrophic scars (though I have a few tiny acne scars that are atrophic) that are common with other kinds of hEDS. Something that I DO have is Lots of Stretch Marks, all over my thighs, and even down to my calves. Which wouldn’t be abnormal, except for the fact that I’ve never been over 145 lbs and I’ve never been pregnant. Having a lot of stretch marks or striations in the skin without due cause happens because the structure of the skin isn’t as strong as it is in people with a normal amount of connective tissue.

I don’t have to worry as much about my skin but people that do are usually very careful with adhesives because they can irritate or tear the skin, which sucks when you need a lot of bandaids cause your darn skin won’t do its job.

Now on to the meatier stuff and since I’m mostly working backward let’s do Mobility Issues!! These can happen in loads of ways, but a lot of what causes these in people with EDS are the other two things I wanna talk about. Unstable joints lead to increased risk of injury when doing stuff people with fully functioning joints can do.

For context, I’m an ambulatory wheelchair user, meaning I can walk, but a lot of the time it’s better if use a chair. Mine is mostly for my POTS symptoms, but the fact that my legs aren’t also in absolute agony is a big plus. I use a custom manual wheelchair with a SmartDrive (b/c I’m very fucking fortunate and have good insurance) whenever I leave the house and have to be “walking” for more than a few minutes at a time. I can’t fully self-propel in a manual chair because it would be damaging to the joints in my arms and hands, but the smaller chair is easier to maneuver in less than accessible spaces (like almost everywhere). There was about a month-long span where I used a very cheap and very bulky electric chair while I was waiting on the ideal set up I have now. Before that, I also briefly used, and sometimes still use, an up-right posture cane.

People with EDS have widely varying mobility issues because of how uniquely it can manifest. My cane only gave me a little help with balance because if I used it in any prolonged capacity any pain it took away from my legs was relocated to my arms, and as an artist, my arms are more important to me!

If you’re going to write a character with EDS having mobility issues as a result of their EDS the best thing to do is to narrow down their specific needs. Are their knees complete and utter garbage but their shoulders and wrists strong? Maybe they can get away with using a cane. Can they not stand for longer than 5 minutes because of the vertigo from their POTS? Maybe they need a manual wheelchair. Would propelling themself damage their back and arm joints? An electric chair might be necessary! Plenty of people with EDS use all sorts of combinations of these aides to get around their life, consider how your character’s good and bad days would be. Do they have back up plans if they overestimate themselves? There can be a lot to manage, but don’t let it scare you off! Sometimes I try and make it into a resource management game (because I’m a game designer and that’s what I do), to make evaluating my energy and mobility needs more fun!

But now let's tackle some of the reasons those mobility aides might be needed. Unstable Joints.

Ever stepped wrong and rolled your ankle? It hurts for a few steps and then kinda fixes itself, or maybe it bothers you for the rest of the day and you put it up and ice it when you get home? When I was walking around outside my house that would happen AT LEAST once a month, usually more. Some times I’m sitting wrong and when I get up my knee isn’t a knee anymore and decides to just give out from under me. My knuckles are made of unruly popcorn and they Don’t Want To Stay Home!! Oh! And my shoulder is more often out a little out of its socket than it is fully in.

Unstable joints lead to Dislocations and Subluxations of varying intensity, and some people get them more frequently than others. Some can be severe enough to necessitate hospital visits and even surgery, some subluxations are so banal (like my fUCKING SHOULDER) that you just learn to live with the pain.

If a character is going to be in high action, combat-heavy scenarios, chances are they’re going to be popping out joints left and right. Hell, depending on the severity of their joint laxity they could be doing the same sitting at a desk. Again, it’s incredibly varied. I’d suggest setting some sort of baseline for yourself, of what a character’s joints can and can’t stand up to, and maybe do some research on which joints are most likely to pop out in general (hips and shoulders are big culprits being the wacky ball and socket motherfuckers they are). Then maybe have something pop out or hold up every so often when it shouldn’t cause hey! EDS is kinda just like that! Unpredictable!

Some ways people manage joint laxity is with braces, KT tape, and physical therapy. Braces come in many different forms, since I’m currently getting pretty much no treatment for my shitty joints I use mostly compression braces made for sporty people. It really is amazing how much a bit of tight fabric can do to keep my wrist in place.

More specialized braces often have solid parts to prevent the joints from hyper-extending (bending the wrong way) and causing further damage. If you ever see someone with what looks like diamond shaped rings around a bunch of their finger joints, chances are those are Ring Splints, and are there to keep the finger shaped like a finger. I want to get my hands on some and get some on my hands Very Badly, because my fingers hyper-extend SO MUCH when I type, and it makes my hand pain way way worse.

KT tape is another thing people often use. It’s stretchy tape you put on your skin and it basically functions kinda like a second ligament as well as reinforcing the joint and keeping the bones mostly where they’re supposed to be. The problem with this is a lot of people with EDS have very sensitive and fragile skin like I mentioned before, so KT tape can cause allergic reactions, chronic skin irritation, or just straight up take the skin with it when someone goes to remove it. Hence a lot of folks are really careful with it.

Physical Therapy is kinda the best (and only) treatment for joint laxity aside from Very Invasive and sometimes Highly Experimental surgery. It focuses on strengthening the muscles around the joints so they can do the work all those bone ropes made of body glue can’t. The problem is finding a physical therapist that 1) knows what EDS even is, 2) knows you have it, and 3) knows how to treat it without doing stuff that’ll Phucking Hurt You Worse!! Because exercising wrong with EDS can do Permanent Damage!!!

Again most folks use a combination of all of these things, or have next to no access to them b/c healthcare sucks.

Anyway, on to one of my favorite topics, Chronic Pain!! One of the reasons this post took me so long!!!

Chances are if your character has chronic pain as a result of their EDS there are gonna be some things they hate, including stairs, rain, thunderstorms, stairs, hills, uneven terrain, oh and did I mention stairs??? It’s going to vary person to person, but almost everyone I’ve met with pain from EDS has complained about their knees. For me the most debilitating pain is in my fingers and wrists. They’re by far my least stable joints but I use them constantly for stuff like drawing, typing, and sewing.

Because my joint pain is so wide spread, like most people’s with hEDS, it effects every single part of my day to day life. I can’t carry a heavy ceramic plate, open a bottle, or even use my computer without pain. It’s practically impossible for me to get comfortable in any position be it sitting or laying down, and as you can imagine that makes it hard to sleep a lot of the time. Moving too much hurts, but so does sitting still. I’m constantly taking braces on and off or cracking/stretching my joints so they pop back into place and hurt less.

Also being in pain makes everything else That Much Worse. I get tired way faster than I did before my pain was this bad (I had chronic pain for a while before actually realizing it wasn’t normal to not be able to walk down the block without feeling like your foot bones are trying to escape). My sensory issues and anxiety disorder are more easily aggravated because my base level of comfort is way worse. It fucks with my depression. And OH BOY does it make my ADHD worse because being in pain is fucking distracting as hell and makes it harder to make decisions and switch tasks. Also my ADHD often makes my other symptoms worse cause I forget to take my meds, don’t drink enough water, or can’t find my fucking braces because the item eating black-hole that comes with ADHD stole them. The intersection of mental and physical disabilities is probably a rant for another time though, so back to chronic pain.

Does it suck? Yes, undoubtedly. Is this incredibly debilitating? Of course it is, I spent the last several months unable to feed myself without assistance because there was a staircase between my room and the kitchen and I could only manage to climb it once a day. Is it overwhelming? Definitely, I’ve frequently broken down crying from a combination of pain and frustration because I’m having a bad day and there’s no relief to be found. Am I able to predict when it’s going to rain with uncanny accuracy because any change in barometric pressure makes me feel like every bone in my body is trying to kill it’s neighbors? You bet your fucking ass I am!! Does it sometimes make me irritable, angry, and occasionally dismissive of when abled people get cold or a temporary injury because the stuff they’re complaining about is my life every single day and all avenues of treatment and recovery I have could take years and still not entirely solve my issues? Yeah, and while I deserve a little extra patience I also have to be sure to check myself because I don’t want to turn into someone who’s nasty to be around. Do I sometimes need to sleep for 17 hours straight because it’s raining, I have migraine, and I’m in too much pain to be conscious? Yup, sometimes a few days in a row. Does living in constant pain mean I’m unable to do all the things I want to and does that sometimes make me wanna curl up in bed and never leave? Yeah, it happens.

But! And here’s the big important but, that’s not everything! I still write, draw, and talk to my friends!! It might take me a little longer but I get there. I’m still happy and excitable and make the time to write out five page long posts about EDS because it’s something I’m passionate about! My chronic pain doesn’t stop me. I refuse to let it. I never really wanted to go mountain climbing anyway, so I’m perfectly happy being able to make it up and down the six steps in my house, even if sometimes I have to sit and bump down them on my ass, or crawl up them like a cat. Chronic pain isn’t all I am. It isn’t a fate worse than death. It isn’t the only thing your character should talk about (though I do talk about my pain a lot cause I’m a complainer about almost everything). You can have your character be hindered by their pain, realistically they would be. You can have them seek comfort, support, and relief. Other characters can commiserate and be sympathetic, but it doesn’t mean their whole life is going to be one big pity party, that would be incredibly fucking boring. I know I’d be bored out of my mind.

All that said dealing with chronic pain, especially from EDS, is Complicated. Physical Therapy is the gold standard, but like I said before it can be a long and difficult process, and isn’t always accessible. Stabilization methods like I talked about before can help prevent pain, or reduce it by keeping bones mostly where they belong. Heat and cold help joints, relax muscles, and reduce inflammation but keeping them applied is rough and the relief doesn’t always last. Doctors prescribe anti-depressants, anti-anxiety, and sometimes even anti-epileptic medication to help manage pain, but everyone’s mileage with those varies. And I’m not at all qualified to talk in-depth about narcotics or other heavy duty pain-meds, but suffice to say the war on drugs fucked shit up for people that legit need that kind of help BIG TIME.

Now for my closer/bonus rant about EDS and Disability Writing in General!

Everyone always says write what you know, so if you really want to do disabled people justice, get to know disabled people! Make friends with disabled people, get involved with advocacy groups, consume content made by disabled creators both about disability and not! Disabilities are so fucking diverse, even EDS is such a complex disorder, and comes with so many potential co-morbidities, that practically everyone with it has a unique experience. There’s no way I can fully explain everything in a tumblr post. Hell, even if I could talk to you for hours probably couldn’t give you enough info to answer all your questions (especially since I’m still in diagnosis hell :,) ), so talk to a wide range of people with EDS and other disabilities!! I know it sounds like a lot of work but trust me, disabled people are some of the strongest, raddest, coolest, people you will ever meet that it won’t feel like it.

And don’t be afraid either, the fact that EDS and other disabilities are so wildly varied means that you have a little bit of wiggle room with your character’s experience. There’s so little disability rep out their I think people are WAY to scared to try their hand at writing it. So long as your character is a fully developed person in addition to being disabled, you give some logical thought as to how it would affect their life, and you don’t make their disability the butt of any joke it isn’t difficult to avoid ableist writing. PLEASE WRITE MORE DISABLED PEOPLE AND PEOPLE WITH CHRONIC PAIN/CHRONIC ILLNESS!!

Okay that’s it, again sorry it took so long for me to get back to you! My fingers were being little pests about it, and my ADHD (which is honestly more disabling than everything else a lot of the time lmao) was being an asshole! Hope this helps, and feel free to ask me more questions if you need clarification! It might take me a bit but I do love talking about this stuff.

[agentfreckles]

Operation Holidate | Part 4

Part One, Part Two, Part Three

Rating: General

Word Count: 1,315

Pairing: Felix x Female!Detective (Eris Evergreen)

Prompt: Cozy fireplace, cocoa, and blankets

Summary: With Eris off planning Christmas parties at the station, baking enough peppermint cookies to give to every citizen in Wayhaven, and organizing toy drives for the less fortunate, Felix fears she may be too busy making the town’s Christmas dreams come true to take time to relax and enjoy the season’s splendors herself. With the help of his fellow Unit Bravo members, Felix is determined to surprise his girlfriend with the best holidate  ever by bringing Christmas to the Warehouse in four easy steps.

Notes: Here it is folks! Part four of a four part miniseries serving as a surprise holiday gift for the immensely talented @iristhemessenger. It has been both a challenge and a joy working on my first miniseries and I am so blessed to have been able to center it around such a wonderful couple like Felix and Eris. Please read the other parts in the series if you haven’t already, as this one contains a couple of direct references to previous chapters. Enjoy!

“Easy, easy....Just follow the sultry sound of my voice.”

“And just where is this sultry voice of yours taking me, hm?” Eris laughs, the melodic sound echoing throughout the empty hallway as she blindly follows his lead.

“Nuh-uh, none of that cutesy charm,” Felix tuts, giving the tip of her nose an affectionate poke. “I’m afraid you’re just going to have to wait and find out.”

His body hums with barely contained excitement as his hands find hers and gently guide her down the remaining length of the hall, the anticipation building to a nearly unbearable level as at last they reach the open double doors that lead into the living room and step inside.

“May I open my eyes now?”

“One last thing.” He steps around her to close the large doors with a soft click, the newfound privacy adding an extra layer of intimacy to the already romantic space. With that settled, he moves to join Eris at her side and leans close to her ear. “Now.”

During the time in which Felix had spent putting all of this together, he hadn’t given much thought to what Eris’ reaction might be. Truth be told, all that mattered to him was that she liked the place. But now, watching the way her blue eyes sparkle with wonder as she takes in the abundance of holiday decor shining in the dim glow of the roaring fire, his heart feels impossibly light in a way only she can stir up.

Felix offers an arm, chuckling as he takes Eris’ hand and places it the crook of his elbow after it becomes clear she’s too gobsmacked to do so herself. “Shall we?”

He gives her the grand circle tour, grin growing ever larger whenever Eris points out a particular item or display she enjoys. They spend a lengthy amount of time in front of the tree, the behemoth fir the pinnacle of beauty with its colorful baubles, glittering garlands, and eight-point star that sits just as perfectly up top as he’d originally placed it (thankfully, as he doubts Mason would agree to give him another boost to adjust it after his little piggyback ride from hell), and he swells with pride as she marvels at its majesty.

Finally he leads her over to the leather sofa and gestures for her to sit. There's a large silver dome resting on top of the coffee table (courtesy of Nate and his flair for extravagant displays) and he removes it with a flourish, revealing a tray of sumptuous treats underneath.

“What do you say we liven things up a little with some hot cocoa and cookies?"

Eris's eyes pour over the spread with delight. She spies a group of four gingerbread men sitting amongst the abundance of sweets and she picks one up with a laugh. "Vampire gingerbread men?"

"House specialty. Of my design, of course," Felix says with a grin, flopping onto the couch beside her. He points to the four-fanged one in her grasp. "Ooh good choice, babe. That one's me!"

"Ah, that explains why it was the handsomest one in the bunch."

"Busting out the flirtatious comments before I've even poured the cocoa. Someone must be in quite the good mood," Felix jests, leaning over to give Eris a quick peck on the cheek. "But really though, can I interest you in a cup?"

“I'd love one.” Eris nods, reaching out for the mug beside the tray.

"Ah, ah, ah."

She raises a brow as Felix lightly swats her hands away from the spread. He picks up the mug along with the large silver thermos of cocoa on the opposite end of the tray and throws her his most dashing smile.

"Allow me."

"Such a gentleman." Eris chuckles, leaning back against the cool leather couch as Felix begins to pour her drink. Steam rises from the mug, the pleasant scent of chocolate wafting in the air between them. After returning the thermos to the tray and resting the full mug onto the table, he reaches to his left and grabs a small organza pouch, swiftly undoing the drawstring.

Eris’ eyes instantly light up with excitement. “Are those multi-colored marshmallows?”

Felix winks. "Only the best for you, babe." He tilts the pouch opening over the mug, adding a generous pile to the surface of the drink before carefully placing it in Eris’ waiting hands.

He watches with rapt attention as Eris brings the mug to her lips and takes a sip. The look of pure bliss on her face as she swallows is nothing short of mesmerizing. Eyes closed with long, dark lashes kissing her cheeks. Mouth set in a closed-lipped smile as she savors the flavor of the drink with a satisfied, “Mmmm…”

“You’re making me wish I was that cocoa,” Felix laughs, amber eyes half-lidded and sparkling with desire. He angles closer, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “You know if you’re cold, I bet I could find a way to warm you up even faster.”

“Oh? And how do you intend to do that?”

“Well, there’s always one of these,” He retrieves the dark green quilted blanket from the back of the couch and drapes it over Eris’ shoulders, barely concealing a grin at the slight disappointment on her face as he does.

The smile she gives him is genuine regardless. “Thank you, love.”

”You’re welcome. And of course, if that still doesn’t do the trick, then there’s always my personal favorite method.” With a smile he hooks his thumb and forefinger under her chin, gently guiding her mouth forward to meet his.

The kiss is tender yet passionate, with a heat that crackles and builds like coals stoking the flames of a burning fire, and he loses himself in the exquisite taste of her lips, the remnants of chocolate that linger on the supple flesh. They part all too soon for his liking, but he keeps her close, gently tugging her forward to rest against him as he leans back against the arm of the couch.

"So how did I do?"

"I’m certainly feeling toasty,” Eris laughs, settling against his chest.

They remain that way for some time after, cuddling and trading pleasant conversation as she enjoys her drink. Eris tells him about how the station’s toy drive is progressing, blue eyes sparkling with pride as she speaks of all the donations they’ve amassed thanks to her efforts. Felix in turn regales her with tales of his exploits over the past two days, making sure not to skimp on any hilarious details.  

"Something on your mind?" Felix asks after a quiet settles between them, tucking a loose lock of hair behind Eris' ear.

"Just thinking about how wonderful this night has been," Eris replies. "I couldn’t have asked for a better surprise."

"Aw, babe,” Felix shrugs off the praise, rubbing the back of his neck. "It was nothing, really."

“I’d hardly call all this nothing,” she chuckles, eyes dancing about the room before landing on him with a smile that’s bright and radiant.

"Well, as your boyfriend, I do have an obligation to make sure Wayhaven's resident detective is taken care of. After all, you mean so much to this town. So much to me." His hand finds her cheek, the pad of his thumb caressing the soft skin as she nuzzles into the touch. "I guess I just wanted to make sure you never forget that."

"How could I forget when every day I'm reminded of how lucky I am to have you?"

Blue eyes meet his warm amber and Felix's heart catches in his throat at the depth of emotion displayed within them. The joy. The love. It's in that moment he knows that this woman truly is the light of his life. And as their lips meet once more, he resolves to make it his mission to ensure that light lasts a lifetime.  

[littleeyesofpallas]

Bleach  -Name Games

I did Rose’s sword because it’s super cool and elaborate, but I figure I can’t leave the other Visored out to dry, even if most of them don’t have a lot going on with their zanpakutou.

In general I tried to go over the Visored’s personal names already a while back.  (I actually feel like I did a disservice by trying to cram them all into one, and looking back on it it was a sloppy assessment, but oh well...) And I’ve covered Shinji’s Sakanade in that old post and Hiyori’s KubikiriOrochi recently...  Mashiro and Hacchi never even released their swords... So, that really only leaves Love, Kensei, and Risa...

In Kensei’s case it couldn’t be more straight forward Tachikaze(断地風) is written as  断:”Sever” 地:”Ground” 風:”Wind,” and Viz rightly translates it as “Earth-Severing wind.’   The release call, Futtobase(吹っ飛ばせ) means to “Blow off” as in “to Blow on + to Scatter,” Viz called this “Blast away” which is a little off base, but has a certain double play that I’m actually super surprised they caught,  because Futtobase(ふっとばせ) and Buttobase(ぶっとばせ) are super close and Buttobase(打っ飛ばせ) is “to send flying” or “to knock down/off (their) feet” which is in line with Kensei’s brawler delinquent demeanor.  But this way “Blast off” sounds both like wind scattering something like dust, as well as a blast knocking someone off their feet.

So, the name can be taken pretty literally, but as far as references that Kubo might have been making; Tachikaze was a class of naval Destroyer in operation during the 1970s (Vietnam War), as well as the name of a specific Minekaze class Destroyer operating the 1930s(Sino-Japanese war).  In general Destroyers are typically fast moving and used as escort ships for larger, slower ships as part of a convoy.  In the case of these ships, and in the case of other media that have used the name, typically Tachikaze(太刀風) is actually written  太: “thick” 刀:”Sword” 風:”Wind,” where Tachi(太刀) is also a specific type of Japanese sword.  The name evokes a great cutting wind like a gale or a hurricane.

I think, if anything, the name might be a nod the 1970s Destroyer class ship, because of Kensei’s initial outfit having a vaguely modern miltiary style about it: Combat boots, tactical cargo pants, short cropped hair, and his sword even having a rubber grip and finger loop like a combat knife rather than any kind of traditional Japanese weapon --even though he later swerved more toward a bosozoku gimmick.  He also has a move identified in the UNMASKED databook as Bakudan(爆弾突き),  爆弾:”Bomb” 突き:”Thrust” which has a bit of a military weaponry vibe.

I also tie it to the Vietnam war in particular because in general the Visored all had specific outdated styles of dress when first introduced, which seemed super deliberate on Kubo’s part but never really got elaborated on.

Shinji’s Brit mod look, Kensei’s Vietnam War fatigues, Mashiro’s Himitsu Goranger tights, and Rose’s shoujo bishonen look all tie them to the 1970s. I’m not super sure about Hacchi’s look... He almost looks like a host?  A tacky lounge singer?? a bad prom tux???  And Risa’s sailor-fuku is kind of broadly attributable to anywhere from the 1920s to modern day. (although sailor-fuku as school uniforms have seen substantial decline as school uniforms since the open sexual fetishization of them in the 1980s.)  Also both Love and Hiyori just have a kind of slacker/mountain hick sweatsuit/tracksuit aesthetics, which aren’t exactly era specific...  Although if we assume Love’s afro is actually a punch perm that was very much a 70s-80s trend.

Anyway... that was a big tangent, but the point was that maybe Kensei’s sword is a reference to a Vietnam War destroyer ship because of the 1970s.  Kensei’s bankai adds Tekken(鐡拳) to the name, and just like the videogame series it means “Iron Fist.”  There’s really not a lot to that one.

Love’s sword is a simple yet weird one.  The name Tengumaru(天狗丸) is just Tengu(天狗) and the suffix -maru(丸) which really just serves the function of making it a name.  I would imagine the Tengu is a pretty well recognized bit of Japanese mythology, even outside of Japan by now.  There’s a neat history to them and how they got their name, and the way they look in art, and their shifting role in folk lore and mythology from antagonistic bringers of war to benevolent, if still dangerous, protectors of the mountains and nature, as well as their association with the Japanese religion of Shugendo in particular...  But none of that seems to be referenced here.  In fact there doesn’t appear to be any actual reference to the Tengu at work at all....

Love’s mask is a pretty stock and standard Oni or devil mask, and the giant iron bludgeon weapon is a stylized kanabou(金棒) which is also associated with oni imagery, but not Tengu.  If anything, the general shape and size of his giant club might be a play on the shape of a humanoid Tengu’s iconic long nose, while the long nosed Tengu’s red face might be the influence for the fire powers, but the Tengu itself doesn’t have any particularly strong direct associations with fire...  and moreover neither the tengu nor the oni seem to have anything to do with Love’s whole “love” theme in his name.

His release call is uchikudake(打ち砕け) which is just a pretty straight forward action for an iron club, “Crush.”  He uses a technique called Hifuki no Kozuchi(火吹の小槌): “Little-Mallet/Gavel of Fire-Breathing” but I feel like the “Little Mallet” bit is a reference to the Uchide-no-Kozuchi(打ち出の小槌).  In the Issun-boshi myth, where the little hero retrieves it from an oni he defeats; the magic hammer allows him to grow to regular human size.  Similarly in the myth of Momotaro, the hero obtains the mallet from the oni-island.  I only get this impression because if it’s not a reference, then it feels really weird to call a massive club “little-hammer“ as if that were a literal description.

On second thought, I forgot that tengu nose is pretty commonly used as phallic image, so it’s entirely possible that that’s the link to the “Love” theme.

Lisa’s is a real weird one though...  Her shikai is called Hagurotonbo(鉄漿蜻蛉), which is the name of the Calopteryx atrata damselfly.  And I guess the generally bodyshape of a dragonfly could be seen as reflected in the shikai being a polearm, but that feels kind of weak...  The specific kanji used here for Haguro(鉄漿) means “Iron Drink” and refers to Haguro(歯黒) “Tooth-Blackening” which was a kind of fashion trend in Japan prior the the Meiji restoration, primarily among married women of some courtly status, although it did eventually spread into general public style as well.  The "Tooth”+”Black” writing is fairly obvious, but the “Iron”+”Drink” form refers to the fact that the tooth dying concoction included dissolved iron powder.

So in Lisa’s case it’s kind of weird...  Is it just a reference to the species of black-winged damselfly?  Is it some kind of evocation of the old fashion of a married noble woman?  Her shikai is a strange blade shape that could be either an exaggeratedly broad yari spear, or some variation the Chinese Monk’s spade.  And her mask is a diamond with a cross slit that doesn’t appear to be related to the shikai form or name at all...(if anything it just kind of randomly looks like the head piece of the Zeon mobile suit, Gyan)  her release call is tsubuse(潰せ):”to crush/flatten,” which also doesn’t seem related to anything other than paddling something with the broad end of her spear.

In fact if there’s anything that actually seems to suggest a real theme it’s the random technique she has named Nijuuichijou Tonbokudari (二十一条蜻蛉下り): “21 Clauses Dargonfly Descent,” which she technically used fighting Gerard Valkyrie, but we barely really saw.  It looks like a super specific direct reference to Taika Nijuuikkajou Youkyuu(対華21ヶ条要求): generally known in English as “The 21 Demands” referring to the terms of surrender Japan made of China in their conquest of Manchuria during World War 1.  The demands were ultimately negotiated down to more favorable terms for China, minimizing Japanese expansionist gains, but the signing resulted in massive distrust between Japan and America, Japan and Britain, and of course Japan and China.

But all together these elements don’t seem to have any kind of cohesive theme behind them all...

Anyway, that’s the Visored swords, it’s really weird to think that Kubo basically had to come up with all of these names and designs at basically the same time yet the level of thought and investment in them seems to be all over the place.

[himbowelsh]

18 with winnix for the kiss prompts please!

sha-la-la-la my oh my, looks like the boy’s too shy  💋 (accepting!) 18.   kisses where one person is sitting in the other’s lap

this definitely...  escalated far past where you wanted/needed it to go, and turned into more of an exploration of their post-war relationship, when winters joins nix in new jersey...   i had fun with it, but oof, did it ever kinda spiral.  there’s definitely kissing towards the end, though, so i hope you enjoy!!

To be fair, Nix never promised him an enjoyable night.

His first pitch was “a party”. Dick, who’s had enough experience with the sort of parties that go on in Nixon, New Jersey, replied that he had paperwork to catch up on. It was a good excuse because it wasn’t a lie. Nix brooded for a solid thirty seconds before popping back up, smile bright, to declare, “an evening affair, then, and you’re my date. You have to be, since I need one, and I haven’t got anyone else.”

Dick raised an eyebrow. “What about that girl, the one with the — the red hair —?”

“Hah,” replied Nix, in a flat tone that suggested his redheaded girlfriend was ancient history.

“One of the lobby girls, then.”

“Hah.”

“Blanche?”

“Hah!”

“I’m sure your mother would be honored to go with you.”

Nix had to grip the edge of the table to keep from falling down, laughing.

By the time he regained his composure, Dick was pretty much resigned to accompanying him for the evening. He’s never been able to say no to Nix anyways, even during the war. Being home — Nix’s home — and seeing him in his element — for better or worse — just makes it harder. Something about Nix in the bustling atmosphere of the New Jersey social scene is beguiling, electric, and a bit haunted. Like watching a film noir, Dick can never look away.

He doesn’t expect to have a good time. Nix’s parties are not designed to be good times for people who don’t smoke, drink, or gamble. Nix was kind enough not to remark on the novel tucked into the inside pocket of Dick’s suit jacket as they strode up the walkway towards the roaring party. Loud music blared from open windows; lights and laughter twinkled from beyond the spacious French doorways. It was only nine o’clock, but Dick could feel exhaustion creeping up on him already.

“Come on,” Nix encouraged, guiding him into the townhouse with a proud hand on his elbow. “Let’s set you up on a nice sofa and find a Shirley Temple. Extra cherries, just for you.”

The one thing Dick will credit Lewis Nixon’s parties for — they’re never stingy with the cherries.

Now, three hours into the affair, he sets aside his most recent soda and scans the crowd. As the hours wind away, the raucous group has started to thin out. Either the partiers are headed somewhere else, or all have appointments to keep in the morning, because they show no signs of lingering into the early hours. Dick can be grateful for that much, at least. Those types of parties typically end with him dozing on a stranger’s sofa until he has to steer a very drunk Nix into the back of the waiting car at 3am. Dick has suffered through enough late evenings to never want to see another one again — though, time after time, he ends up coming out for Nix.

It seems like a quiet one tonight, though, thank goodness. The music has faded to a lull, someone thrumming out a thoughtful tune on the piano. The rowdiest partiers have taken leave, and all that’s left are Nix’s regular companions— the home’s owner, another Ivy League man Nix knows well, along with several of his mistresses; a few other Nixon Nitration folks Dick vaguely recognizes, and their dates; Nix’s sister Blanche, leaning languidly over the piano in a shimmering silver dress; and Nix, sprawled in a chair, top buttons of his shirt undone and hair disheveled.

He looks utterly debauched, and something about it thrills Dick. It’s nothing he hasn’t seen before, of course, but Nix in his sanguine element is magnetic. He’s like a panther — sleek and relaxed, dangerous under a veneer of nobility. No matter how much he’s had to drink, Nix’s dark gaze is always piercing; he always seems to know something the rest of the room doesn’t, and sometimes it plays on his lips like a hidden treasure.

He’s smirking like that now, and the smirk’s trained directly on Dick… and he can’t look away. It’s impossible. Even if he wanted to, Nix reels him in with that penetrating gaze. It’s all Dick can do to sit up straighter, pretending he is comfortable in this rakish crowd, the only one sober and the only one out of place.

“Speaking of saints,” Nix says at once — loud enough to cut in on whatever theological ramble his Yale buddy was in the middle of, “here’s one now. Sitting in front of us. Dick, come here. Show these fellows what a true Saint Augustine looks like.”

Dick would rather do anything else… but he’d cross a mountain for Lewis Nixon. Crossing the length of a trashed ballroom is only a bit more challenging. He comes to stand at Nix’s side, clearly uncomfortable, while Nix’s friends take him in as though seeing him for the first time this evening.

“You know I’m not Catholic, Lew,” he tries to quip, to break the tense mood. Nix’s hand catches his, squeezing lightly, and Dick’s own unease only grows.

“Neither am I, but we’re pretending for tonight. Gives all the sinning a bit more zest, you know?”

“Sure.” Dick’s hand comes to rest on the back of Nix’s chair, unconsciously craving something to do. One of the host’s mistresses, with bright red lips and sharp eyes, doesn’t miss it.

“Ohh,” she hums, like the word is a wave she must ride to the shore. “Don't say it, Lewis. This is your handsome date?”

Something about the way she says it has Dick’s shoulders tensing in instinctual alarm. Maybe Nix has had far too much to drink, or can read this crowd too well; he doesn’t even flinch at the implication.

“Afraid so,” he replies, a hand creeping up Dick’s sleeve. “Nice enough to hang around all night, even though he’d rather be back home pouring over...  productivity reports. Employee reviews? Staff... surveys?”

“Something like that,” Dick says.

“Something like that.” Nix’s hand runs up and down Dick’s arm, blatantly fond. It takes everything in Dick’s power not to tense up.

None of the assembled crowd seems bothered by such a display, however. Nix’s friends exchange knowing looks, smirking around lit cigarettes or crystal glasses. One woman languidly kicks her heels onto her date’s laugh, shaking her head. From the piano, Blanche runs a hand over her glossy hair, gaze sharp on her brother and his companion. “He’s out of your league, Lewis,” she chimes. Her smirk is catlike, voice like molasses dripping onto spring grass. At times, she looks dangerously like her brother, and Dick isn’t sure how to handle either of them.

Nix’s grip settles around Dick’s upper arm. “Isn’t that the truth?”

When Dick looks down, Nix is looking up. Something about his whiskey-bright gaze knocks the breath from his lungs. It’s too… soft, too tender. Too intimate for this party, to exist among strangers. Nix’s grip on his bicep is firm, and Dick has no desire to pull away. He doesn’t get the chance to question — not even a flicker of uncertainty, a breathless what's he doing — before Nix gives a tug, and Dick all but tumbles into his lap.

He regains his balance like a newborn colt, to the bubbling laughter of Nix’s audience. His cheeks flare, bright red; Nix’s touches, usually so welcome, now linger on his skin like a hot iron. He’s straddling his best friend’s knees, Nix’s arm wrapped around his to steady him, and it’s all Dick can do not to leap back to his feet to salvage whatever slim slice of dignity remains.

“Nix,” he says, voice low in warning.

“Relax, Dick,” he answers, equally softspoken. “It’s all a game. Don’t you see? None of it really matters.”

It matters to me, he wants to say...  because Nix has never held him without it mattering, has never caressed him without every sensation engraving itself permanently into Dick’s memory. Nix has never… not mattered to him. Some part of Dick, an small yet insidious murmur, wonders when he became insignificant to him.

The way Nix caresses his face is anything but meaningless, though… as is the way his dark gaze lingers on his lips, simmering for so long that Dick can feel its heat. Nix’s thumb grazes the corner of his mouth, and instinctively Dick draws back.

Something hurt flashes in Nix’s eyes. Dick cannot feel guilty. He doesn’t want this — can’t Nix understand that? Not here, not now, not putting on a show for an audience. Not when Nix is whiskey-soaked and careless, so far gone that Dick could get drunk off the taste of him. If this is a game, Dick doesn’t want to play.

“Father isn’t around for you to give a coronary, Lewis.” Blanche’s voice echoes as though from the other side of a tunnel, practically bored. “Save it for the next family dinner, at least.”

Gradually, Nix’s grip on Dick’s waist loosens. His touch pulls away from his face, finding Dick’s hand instead. He raises it to his mouth and lets it linger there — a sweet mockery of a kiss — before releasing Dick entirely. 

Dick pulls away, regaining his posture and his dignity. The eyes of the room are all on him now, as surely as they were on the jazz singer earlier in the night. He can’t take their weight, or their curiosity. Keeping his eyes fixed firmly ahead, he brushes himself down and murmurs an excuse to Nix. “Just going to get some air.”

Nix doesn’t try to stop him.

Stepping out into the cool night is like being released from prison. Dick braces himself against the stone railing of the townhouse’s balcony, gazing at the gravel drive only a few feet below. He could jump it, if he really wanted to — easier that than going back inside and leaving out the front door, wrangling Nix away from his clan. They’re not so far from home — he could walk it, in an hour or so. The fresh air would do his head good. At least in the dark, no one would be able to see him, to wonder and scrutinize…

His mind has gone to a strange place now, and is twisting itself in tangles. Recognizing his own impossible daydream, Dick sighs, slumping forward. A hand finds his hair, rumbling it. For a long moment, he only breathes, focusing on the autumn air filling his lungs and the crickets chirping in the night, to drown out the storm raging inside.

His nerves are too taut not to notice when someone comes up behind him… but the scent of perfume is familiar, so he doesn’t jump. She sidles up alongside him, inhaling softly in the night air; she blows out the same way Nix does, from deep within her chest. When Dick raises his head, Blanche is not focused on him at all, but looking ahead down the driveway.

“Planning your escape?” she asks lightly. Her mulberry lips curl upwards, without the chore of looking at him. “I don’t blame you. That was painful, in there.”

Dick arches an eyebrow. “You felt it too?”

She has a drink in her hand, but the glass is empty. As Blanche’s attention drifts to it, she seized upon the olive, still speared and languishing inside the glass. With delicate, manicured fingers, she plucks it out and scrutinizes the tiny fruit.

“You can’t let him bully you, Dick,” she says after a moment. The scent of wine may be heavy on her breath, but her words are perfectly sober. “He doesn’t mean to, but it’s instinct around these people. They all like to show off, and he’s proud of you.”

Dick’s brows furrow. He’s not some brand new car, or a gold-plated watch. “Why?”

“Because you’re nothing like them.” Blanche’s dark gaze flickers up to him; for the first time tonight, Dick feels entirely seen. Her lips purse, like she’s fighting back a smile, but something in her eyes reminds him of loneliness. “You don’t belong in this set… and that’s nothing against you, darling, only what you know as well as us. My brother prizes you so highly; he’s proud that you’re here, that you’re with him, that you give him your time and agree to accompany him to these parties, even though you’d much rather be doing anything else.”

Dick’s lips purse. Blanche waits a moment, as though expecting him to protest… but he has nothing to say.

“Rich little boys love their toys. You need to remind him that you aren’t one.” Her fingers drum against the rim of her glass; each clink-clink-clink pierces Dick’s nerves like shrapnel wounds.

“He doesn’t mean anything wrong by it,” he protests, because he knows Nix well enough to understand that. 

“Of course not. If he didn’t care about you…” Blanche’s words trail off, along with her gaze. She drifts back out to the driveway, painted lips pursing like she’s considering something far away. After another silent moment, she glances at Dick once more. “Last chance to run.”

Dick smirks. “I’m considering it.”

Blanche sighs into the night, pushing her folded arms off the railing and stepping back. Dick no longer feels inclined to stand out in the darkness, alone. As she steps back into the well-lit hallway, he follows her.

When they reenter the lounge, Nix is holding court, in the middle of an animated story Dick’s heard before. “— of course, I couldn’t have known there was a cat involved, otherwise I’d never have set foot in the apartment. So I sit down on the couch and the damned thing launches at me, yowling like a bat out of hell —“ He cuts off, mid-flail, gaze landing on his sister and companion. “Ah. Was wondering where you too made off to.”

“Nothing untoward,” Blanche drawls, slinking back towards the bar. “I offered, but Dick’s too upstanding.”

Nix locks onto Dick, and again, his gaze is painfully warm. Dick feels the same way, like a furnace is burning under his collar. Uneasily, he lowers himself onto a settee at the far edge of the room, back to the door so he won’t be tempted. So long as he’s in Nix’s sightline, his presence counts… but he doesn’t have to make himself the object of a crowd’s fascination again.

Nix understands, in that easy way of his. His lips curl up in the slightest smile, before he turns back to his audience. “As I was saying…”

His story winds on for a little while longer, before he grows bored with it. By then, the crowd has grown equally bored with its malingering, but still too languid to get up and do something about it. One of the women slips behind the piano and tries to start up a dancing tune, but no one bites. Her song devolves into something slower, more thoughtful. The host pours himself another drink from the bar, and doesn’t offer to serve anyone else; his mistresses chatter in an undertone, lipstick stained crystal glasses sitting beside them. Nix reclines back in his chair, perfectly debauched. His hair is a ruffled mess, bow-tie undone and hanging loosely around his neck. The top of his shirt is still open, carelessly displaying his collarbones and a flash of dark hair across his chest. 

You’ll catch a chill, a voice in Dick’s head that sounds too much like his mother chides. He’s seized briefly with the inexplicable, intense urge to cross the room and lean over Nix to close the shirt himself. It passes, of course, and he politely averts his gaze.

Perhaps he’s doing too good of a job not looking at him. “Dick,” Nix finally says, from right behind him. “Ready to go?”

A wave of relief washes over him. He hasn’t wanted anything so badly since his discharge papers. “Let’s go,” he replies, rising to his feet.

They pay polite goodbyes to their host; Blanche waves them off with an eyeroll for Nix and a blown kiss for Dick. Then, finally, they leave through the front door, and slip into the night.

While they drove here themselves, Nix is in no state to command the car. Dick is already prepared to take the wheel, when the valet steps up with keys in hand. “Do you require a ride home, Mr. Nixon?”

Dick’s surprised gaze swivels towards Nix, as if to ask do we? (He’s still so unused to the world of chauffeurs and butlers, and every encounter leaves a foreign, coppery taste in his mouth.) Nix dwells on the offer for a moment with lazy-eyed disinterest, before shrugging and gesturing the valet towards his car. “Why not? Roy likes to be generous. Let him do us a favor for once, huh?”

Dick, who has never personally done Nix’s friend Roy a single favor, just nods.

Nix’s car is sleek and expensive, a top of the line Plymouth Deluxe in glossy black paint and felt seating. Dick has sat in the passenger’s seat enough times that sliding into the back feels like a mistake, something to double back and correct before he manages to embarrass himself. Nix slides in right behind him, not giving him the chance. The scent of car freshener can’t disguise the stuffy air in the back of the car; there’s not much separating the back from the front, but the forward row of seats stretch up, practically creating a barrier to separate both ends of the car in half. Dick hears the driver slide in up front, but in the darkness, it’s hard to see.

“Turn on the radio, will you?” Nix requests as the car stirs to life. Obligingly, the driver turns a few knobs; what threatens to become an awkward silence immediately finds itself drowned out by a staticky love ballad.

“And when I kissed you, darling It was more than just a thrill for me It was the promise, darling Of the things that fate had willed for me…”

The timing is astonishingly poor. Dick slumps back against the seat, all but defeated. At his side, Nix chuckles.

When Dick looks over, it's impossible to catch his eye. The night is too dark, and these roads aren’t well-lit; shrouded by shadows, Nix’s eyes are two black holes, drawing all trace of light into them and holding it hostage. Dick catches a flash of something pearly, which must be the jagged cut of Nix’s smile; the silhouetted shoulders rise up and down, in what isn’t quite laughter.

After a moment, Nix goes still. Dick can’t see, but he knows he’s being watched.

“Well?” Nix finally says. “When are you going to tell me what an idiot I am?”

Dick turns his head, looking out the window nearest to him. “Never occurred to me, Nix.”

“Maybe not to say it, but you were thinking it. Come on, Dick.” A smooth-palmed hand finds his in the darkness. Dick allows it. “I knew I screwed up the moment you pulled away. Knew it as soon as I saw your face, really, but damn me if I know how to stop… come on, that’s what I bring you to these things for. To keep a leash on me.”

Dick thinks Nix’s social circle picked up on that, at least.

He doesn’t realize how tense he’s gone until Nix’s thumb strokes along the back of his knuckles; his hand, Dick realizes, has gone stiff as a corpse’s, gnarled with tension. When he looks down, he’s suddenly ashamed. He tries to pull away, but Nix holds fast.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sudden and sincere.

“You didn’t do anything,” Dick replies. “If I didn’t want to be there —“

“You don’t want to be there. You come to these awful things for me, even though you can’t stand it, and you’re a fish out of water the whole time. I’m being cruel to you. Downright uncharitable! And you know the reason why.”

Dick’s gaze is drawn back to him again. This time, as a flash of light passes through the car, he glimpses Nix’s face — eyes bright with drink, devastatingly earnest, his lips curled downwards and jaw tense. He’s handsome without trying… and cruel, too. More careless than he realizes.

Blanche’s words echo in his ears: rich little boys love their toys.

“It might be a game to you, Nix,” Dick says softly, “but it isn’t to me. Whatever show you were putting on in there… I don’t want to be part of it anymore.”

Nix is silent for a long moment. The air between them is thick as curdled cream. “I understand,” he finally says. “I… I get it, Dick, christ. I’m sorry.”

“I know.” Of course he knows. Doesn’t Nix realize he doesn’t have to put on a show for anyone, just do Dick will stand by his side? Doesn’t he realize the whole reason Dick goes to these parties, time and time again, is for him? Because he’d shatter the entire world and piece it back together, fragment by microscopic fragment, just to make Lewis Nixon happy?

“It’s never been a game to me, Nix,” he says softly.

In the darkness, Nix’s hand finds his again. This time, Dick squeezes tight.

He doesn’t know exactly how they come together, what magnetism pulls them or the way their bodies fit together. His shoulder presses up against Nix’s; his fingers find the threads of Nix’s hair; Nix’s thigh is a solid weight as it drapes over his own, his skin is warm, and suddenly Nix is practically in his lap.

It felt better this way. Dick likes the cover of darkness, is painfully grateful for it, just as he is of the way his hand fits over Nix’s hip. He likes holding him so much more than he likes being held… and something in the sigh Nix breathes against his lips suggests he likes it this way too.

“It’s not a game to me either, Dick,” he murmurs. “You matter too damn much”

The distance between them closes on its own will. Nix tastes like whiskey and coffee and August twilight; his lips are smooth, gliding over Dick’s own as though he’s wet them a dozen times since their conversation began. Their embrace is tender, but the hand gripping Dick’s shoulder is desperate. When Dick sighs against Nix’s lips, he utters a soft noise, almost like a whine. Dick’s fingers run along his scalp, soothing the dissatisfaction away.

“I much prefer this,” Dick mutters. “It suits us both better… privacy.”

“If it suits you,” Nix replies, “that’s all I need to know.”

It’s not perfect, and it’s not quite laid to rest… but they make it home at a reasonable hour, and Dick holds Nix in the privacy of their own home. He couldn’t ask for anything more.

[monstersandmaw]

Embers - Chapter Three

It's Friday again how did that come around so quickly?! That means a new chapter! This week we get to know a little more about our somewhat prickly-seeming dragon friend...

Hope you enjoy it! Looking forward to your feedback as always.

One, Two

While Mikaeïl held the door open for you behind him, he didn’t meet your eye and turned away the moment you’d passed the threshold, striding elegantly down the corridor with his long red hair swinging gently from side to side. You tried not to let your canvas shoulder-satchel bash on the immaculate paintwork of the architrave as you passed through it to hurry after him. Part of you didn’t dare break the silence of his stern wake, but another part of you - the feistier and cheekier part - decided it couldn’t hurt.

“Has your family lived here for very long?” you ventured.

Mikaeïl’s shoulders stiffened slightly, and you thought for a horrible moment that you really ought not to have spoken up at all. Then, without breaking stride, he turned just far enough to shoot you golden-eyed look over his shoulder that revealed a microscopic smile at the corner of his inordinately pretty mouth. “We have,” he said. “My grandfather built the current house.”

“Your grandfather?” you murmured, still a couple of paces behind him, because trying to walk next to him in the narrow confines of the corridor would have been a bit odd. “I thought the place was older than that…”

“You aren’t particularly observant, are you?”

“Excuse me?” you blurted, eyebrows rising.

He only chuckled darkly and shook his head, and you started to feel like he perhaps wasn’t as nice as Frankie had indicated he could be.

Just when you had thought about letting this new-found dislike of him settle more permanently in your estimation of him, his quiet, regular footsteps stalled and he halted. “I… That was unfair of me. I apologise,” he said without looking at you.

“Don’t socialise much outside of work, do you?” you quipped back rather sharply, and to your surprise he turned slowly to look at you with a dolorous, heartfelt expression on his beautiful face. His porcelain mask had vanished completely. He didn’t speak, but his faltering smile said plenty, and it was your turn to apologise.

Mikaeïl laughed softly and said, “I think I deserved that one,” and stretched out his elegant hand to you. “Call it even and draw a line under it?”

You couldn’t help the way your lips twisted into a wry smile as you shook his hand and nodded. His hand was cool, which surprised you for some reason - you’d assumed he’d be warm, though perhaps it was just the fiery hair - and he had the soft skin of a scholar.

“And you’re absolutely right,” he said as he released your hand. “I don’t socialise much. Besides, humans… confuse me at best.”

Casting him an amusedly puzzled look, you grinned, “Anything I can help clear up? I mean, while you’ve got one captive…”

His eyes flashed suddenly, flaring a bright yellow before returning to their usual burnished gold, and you frowned, but he laughed gently enough. “Nothing I can think of right now, but I’ll be sure to ask. I do have your number after all…”

“That was for Frankie…” you grinned playfully.

“I don’t know that he’s interested in humans, though I’m not sure.”

“And you are?”

“Again,” he said with a slight tilt of his head, “I’m not sure.” Mikaeïl smiled and twitched his head towards the other end of the corridor. “Come, let’s get you that drink.”

“You make it sound like there’s a champagne fountain waiting for me behind that door,” you muttered. “I mean with this place, who knows…?”

Taking a deep breath, Mikaeïl said, “Well, there has been a champagne fountain here in the past… at my brother’s birthday, but personally I’m more of a fan of the conventional ones. Outside.”

“You like gardens then?”

He nodded. “I have…” and then he laughed quietly, interrupting himself with his own private amusement. “Sorry. I have what you might call a small ‘hoard’ of plants.”

You narrowed your eyes and let your gaze slide upwards to the curved horns in his fiery red hair. “You know…” you began apprehensively, “The first time I met you in the cafe, I thought you might have some tiefling in you… I’m wrong, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” he said, though he didn’t elaborate or clarify your speculations. His hand found the door knob and he ushered you into a bright and surprisingly modern, homely kitchen. Modern it might have been, but it was not modest. Contemporary fittings, top of the range appliances, and stunning marble counter tops all gleamed in the spotlights from above, and every surface gleamed, spotless.

“Wow,” you breathed.

“I like to cook,” he offered almost shyly. “Tea? Coffee? Or… wine or something?”

“Maybe it’s a little early in the day for that,” you said with a smile. “And I need to be able to drive Celia home.”

He answered with only an understanding smile.

Mikaeïl was a creature of contradictions. Prickly and cold on the outside, he walked with a stiff back and kept his jaw permanently clenched when he wasn’t speaking in clipped but articulate sentences, and yet there was a softness to the way he smiled and a shyness to the corners of his mouth and eyes that spoke of a sense of humour and maybe even a kind heart. You also found that you absolutely adored his gold-framed, completely round glasses.

“Maybe just a cup of tea,” you suggested.

“What kind?”

“Uh… the tea kind?”

His harsh exterior cracked visibly as he snorted delicately with obvious and unexpected amusement, and he drew you over to a cupboard on the other side of the kitchen. Before you got there, however, you glimpsed a modern conservatory attached to the south side of the house and gasped. The space was absolutely full to the ceiling with plants: some dangled down from macrame hangers, while others spilled and tumbled their leaves and tendrils over shelves and still more reached proudly upwards for the glass roof above.

Mikaeïl’s gaze followed yours, and he shrugged. “Part of my hoard…” he said with a smile.

They almost seemed to glow and sparkle in the clear light, glimmering like coloured glass, and as much as you wanted to go and examine them, you tore your eyes away and looked back at him. “They almost don’t look real,” you murmured. “They’re beautiful. Sorry,” you added, returning your attention to him. “Tea?”

“Yes, tea,” he said and cleared his throat. As he opened up the cupboard, it was your turn to laugh. Every spare bit of space was stuffed with Kilner jars full of exotic blends of tea. A spicy, fragrant, and enticing cloud of scent wafted out to greet you.

“Oh my god,” you laughed. “I didn’t need this to turn in to a lesson in herbalism… I just wanted a cup of tea. I thought it’d be easier than coffee… Are you sure this isn’t your real hoard?”

He seemed highly amused by that, and said, “Well, tea is a plant, is it not?”

You had to agree with that, and let him choose you a blend to try.

With your tea brewing, he offered you a seat in the conservatory, and you adjusted the strap of your shoulder bag before deciding to set it on the ground. “I love the light in here,” you commented as you gazed around.

“You sound like an artist,” he said, still standing, statue-straight, in the squared-off archway into the space.

“Graphic designer,” you said. “But I love to draw.”

Interest flared in his expression. “Do you take commissions?”

You nodded. “Yeah?”

“Then I might have a job for you, if you’d be interested…”

���To be continued next week!

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[littlemisssquiggles]

There are several theories for the WIP clip, from it being a flashback to Oscar's semblance being either mental time travel or time freezing. While I'm keeping my mind open since it is clearly WORK IN PROGRESS, that whatever the reason is for the tone only matters if it is done well, that RWBY is primarily hopepunk and isn't a stranger to mood whiplash and sprinkling light moments, I sincerely hope the context behind it is well done. What do you think the context is behind the clip?

Hiya Miki-chan. Well as I once told Key before, I’m not very big on the whole concept of Oscar’s semblance being related to time or time travel. In regards to semblances for the precious little prince, this squiggle meister is still more in favour of it being nullification or Oscar not having a semblance at all---with his true power being magic. Heck, I’m even for the concept of Oscar being an incubator for magic---in the sense that Oscar is able to take whatever percentage of Ozma’s magic is left coursing through him and amplify it to a point where Oscar unpredictably ends becoming more powerful than the likes of his predecessors.

I’m still clinging to my Oscar is the True Ozma, Oscar the Golden Cap and Oscar’s Creatures of Luxx Pinehead headcanons since I still believe it would’ve been interesting if Oscar became RWBY’s equivalent to the Golden Cap from the Wizard of Oz series.

I still believe that Oscar being able to relinquish control of Salem’s army of Winged Beringel Grimm---using his magic to transform these former nightmarish creations of destruction and darkness into spirts of light to aid their creator in combating the chaos brought forward by the Wicked Witch---is a super cool concept. Even now, in spite of everything we’ve gathered thus far on V8, this squiggle meister still believes Oscar turning Grimm into Luxx would’ve been an interesting ability for him to have as a budding wizard of light. But then again; y’know that’s just me here.

In respect to the WIP clip, despite others trying to convince me otherwise, I’m still in the court of the fans who believe that the clip is a flashback. I know folks have come to me implying that it can’t be a flashback using the setting of a frozen Mantle as their rationale---however, I’m sorry but that still doesn’t convince me. Given the fact that the clip was a work-in-progress, I have reason to wish to believe in the likelihood of the flashback possibility since, who’s to say that the Mantle backdrop used in the clip wouldn’t be tweaked or completely altered in the final revised version of this clip?

From my cookie-crumb experience working in animation, sometimes when working out shots, the animators may use previous rough drafts or versions of backgrounds as a means of aiding them in establishing the shot. Although we see a frozen Mantle used in the preview clip, for all we know, this background could possibly be a placeholder for when the real updated environments are done.

Basically, what I’m saying here in a nutshell is to not toss the flashback theory out just yet. Besides I don’t blame folks for wanting to believe in this theory since, in my opinion, it’s the one that makes the most sense to me. Given how V7 concluded with the arrival of Salem, Oscar being separated from the others, our heroes being deemed enemies of Atlas---the last thing I expected was for us to see some of our heroes’ joyriding through the streets of Mantle without a care in the world?

It would be a bit weird if things are looking grim and we have this weird carefree moment with Yang out with the JNPR boys…when Salem is lurking up in the dark clouds on the back of another Kaiju-sized Grimm followed up by an army of Grimm big enough to crush an entire kingdom.

It would be a bit awkward to have this type of scene when we basically have the potential battle and fall of Atlas and Mantle lurking above our heroes’ heads.

This is why I favoured the flashback theory. It would make more sense for this light-hearted moment to come from the past since the present is looking tense. I definitely like the concept of Yang reminiscing of a lighter time when she went out on a mission with Ren and Jaune and Oscar happened to tag along with them as the Xiao Long girl’s way of recalling a cherished memory she shared with Oscar after learning of his alleged death.

I liked that idea since it would’ve been a good way to finally see what the heroes’ genuine opinion of Oscar was. I would love for that to be the case. However, that being said, there is the flip side to this where the context of the clip could also suggest a scenario in which our heroes are forced to lie low and while the others wished to stay and remain in hiding, it’s Yang who chose to boldly go out into Mantle to possibly see if she could scavenge for supplies---such as dust and other equipment that could aid them in some way. I could even see this being one of the first moments of conflict within the group. Like let’s say…Ruby believes the group should stay in hiding and Yang disagrees with her and goes off on her own. And as a means of keeping the peace and avoiding any tussle between the sisters, Jaune and Ren agree to accompany Yang outside while the others remain back at the base.

It could even be a case where Pietro offers the trio a place of designation to investigate. In the clip, the place where the Yang and the JNPR boys were reminded me an awful lot of Pietro’s workshop in Mantle. So who’s to say that Pietro didn’t task Yang, Jaune and Ren with going to his workshop to salvage whatever equipment they could find and in doing this small mission, that’s where YJR ran into Oscar who returned to Pietro’s shop since it’s the one part of Mantle he’s familiar with. Therefore YJR discover that Oscar was alright and that’s where we go into the preview clip.

That could be the case too and while it could technically work; the one thing I don’t like about it is the odd tonal shift. It would be pretty strange if we went from things looking serious to this scene of some of our heroes riding around idly in empty Mantle out in the open like that. It would make Yang, Ren and Jaune look very reckless and again, it would mess with the TONE.

I dunno. As a far as I can say, anything can go at this point Miki-chan. I’m not discounting any possibility at this point. If I had to favour one over the other---it’s the flashback theory that I like best. If it turns out that it isn’t the flashback theory and is the other one then, just like you, I hope that whatever the CRWBY Writers do to kick us off into the new season, it’s done well and make senses within their own CONTINUITY.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[warsofasoiaf]

Have you played Fallout 4? What did you think of it?

Joseph Anderson had a phenomenal video on Fallout 4. Although it is enormous, so be careful. Overall, there were things to like and things not to like about Fallout 4. I’ll start with what I liked first. Throwing a cut in here because it’s long.

Combat in the first-person Fallout games has always been clunky, and enemy AI relatively largely consisted of straight charging or shooting from as maximum range as possible. Difficulty came primarily from enemy quantity, high damage output, or incredibly enemy hitpoints. The last of these has been a particular Bethesda problem in their games, with enemies being incredible damage sponges, making late-game fights a boring slog as you slowly whittle down their health while being impossible to damage in any meaningful capacity. While enemy variations aren’t nearly as high as the game’s fans would have you believe if you conceive of them as AI patterns, the AI activity did have some nice variations. Human enemies used cover, ghouls bobbed and weaved as you shot them, mole rats tried to ambush you. It’s got nothing on games with fully realized combat system, but it does make the combat that you do engage in much more enjoyable. 

All of the random crap you can pick up in a Bethesda game having a purpose is another positive. It is a true nuisance to find out when playing a game that I hit my encumbrance limit only to find out it’s because I’ve picked up a bunch of brooms, bowls, and other garbage accidentally while grabbing coin and other worthwhile treasures. Actually having these things mean an object is worthy mechanically, aside from level design; typewriters are useful as items as opposed to something that shows you that the ruined building you’re in was formerly a newspaper. As crafting is a big portion of the game, having these things provide component parts that you use for crafting on their own creates more utility in these elements of clutter which still require modeling, rendering, placement, etc. Now if you need aluminum, you’ll try to raid something like a cannery because it will have aluminum cans, which is an excellent way to create player-generated initiative. It also reinforces one of the primary themes of the game which is crafting and design, where even the trailers of the game suggest building as a key idea of the game. Certainly sensible for a post-apocalyptic game to focus on building a new society upon the ruins of the older one, and given what the game was trying to do with their four factions mechanic, it’s clear that this was their intent, and good job for trying to ensure that things factor back into their principal intent. 

Deathclaws look properly scary, the animations with Vault Boy were funny, there’s some pretty window dressing. The voice work wasn’t bad, the notable standout being Nick Valentine. The Brotherhood airship was an impressive visual. I had a little fun creating some basic settlements, particularly in Hangman’s Alley where I tried to create a network of suspended buildings and Spectacle Island where I had room to grant every prospective settler a shack. Bethesda clearly looked to create a game with mass market appeal, and I believe the metrics bears out that they succeeded in that regard. The robots in the USS Constitution quest were very funny, the writers were able to make the absolute ridiculousness of the situation work (curse you Weatherby Savings and Loan!) and framed it well as a comedic sidequest, with a final impressive visual if you side with the bots and the ship takes flight.

Now that this is out of the way, I think that a lot of what Fallout 4 did was not the right move. 

The quest design was particularly atrocious in this regard. Most of the radiant quests boiled them down to a simple formula - go to the dungeon, get to the final room where you need to either kill the boss or get an item from the boss chest, return. In this game though, the main story quests often were boiled down to just this simple formula. You need to find a doodad from a Courser to complete your teleporter? Go to the dungeon, kill the boss, recover the item. The Railroad needs you to help an escaped synth! Do it by going to the dungeon and getting to the final room. This really hampers the enjoyment of games because the expressiveness of the setting and elements of an RPG is often explored through quests. Quests are meant to get you out into the world and give you an objective, but they are also meant to connect you to the people that you’re dealing with. If every quest is boiled down to the same procedure, that hurts the immersion, but the bigger sin is that when you return you have another quest waiting for you. That robs the player of the sense of accomplishment because there is no permanent solution to problems, even for a minute. There is no different end-state for the player to see the transition from one to the other and feel accomplished that they were the ones who did it. Other RPG’s always understood this - a D&D game might have a party save a town investigate an illness dealing with a town, take out an evil druid who has charmed the wildlife into attacking supply and trade shipments, slay goblins who are raiding cattle, there are a lot of possibilities that might even feel samey: if you’re killing charmed dire wolves or goblin cattle thieves, you’re still going to the dungeon and fighting the boss, the usual flair and variation came from encounter design. After you’d do that though, the NPC’s might say “Hey, Mom is feeling better after you cured that disease, she’s starting to walk again,” “Hey, we were able to send a shipment of wine from the vineyards out to the capital, here’s some coin for the shipment as reward for your service,” or even just a simple “Hey, thanks for taking out those cattle thieves.” There’s a sense of accomplishment even if it’s a fleeting “we did a cool thing.” Computer RPG’s are tougher in this regard, part of the sense of accomplishment in tabletop gaming is also with your friends, it’s a shared activity, but usually in that the reward was some experience and character growth and going to new content. There isn’t new content here in Fallout 4 though, because of the samey quest design and lack of progression.

The conversational depth was also ruined, with so much of the voice choices mangled by the system of conversation they designed. By demanding a four-choice system, they limited themselves to always requiring four options which completely mangled interactivity. The previous menu design allowed for as many lines as you wanted, even if the choices were usually beads on a string. The depth and variation, however, are even lower than what could be found in games like Mass Effect 3, and the small word descriptions were often so inaccurate that it created a massive disconnect between myself the player and the Sole Survivor, because they weren’t saying what I thought they would be saying. That prevented me from feeling immersed, because a “Sarcastic” option could be a witty joke or a threat that sounds like it should come out of a bouncer. The character options were already limited, with Nate being a veteran and Nora being a lawyer, but this lack of depth prevents me from feeling the character even moreso than a scripted backstory. You get those in games, but being unable to predict how I’m reacting is something that kills character. 

Bethesda needs to end the “find (x) loved one” as a means to get people motivated to do a quest, or if they don’t want to rid themselves of that tool in their toolbox, they need to do a better job getting me to like them. More linear games can get away with this, but open world games encourage the sort of idle dicking around that doesn’t make any sense for a person who is attempting to find a family member. Morrowind did this much better, where your main task was to be an Imperial agent, and you were encouraged to join other factions and do quests as a means to establish a cover identity and get more acquainted with combat. Folks who didn’t usually ended up going to Hasphat Antabolius and getting their face kicked in by Snowy Granius. Here though, what sort of parent am I if instead of pursuing a lead to find my infant son I’m wandering over east because I saw what looked like a cool ruin, and I need XP to get my next perk (another gripe, perks that are simple percentage increases because they slow down advancement and make combat a slog if you don’t take them, depressing what should be a sense of accomplishment). By making us try to feel close with a character but by refusing to give us the players time with them, there is no sense of bonding. I felt more connection to James in Fallout 3 than I did for Sean, but even then, I felt more connection to him because he was voiced by Liam Neeson than because of any sense of fatherly affection. The same goes for the spouse and baby Sean, I feel little for them because I see them only a little. I know that I should care more, but I also know that I the player don’t because all that I was given is “you should care about them.” You need time to get to know characters in game, along with good writing and voicework. I like Nick because he quoted “The Raven” when seeing the Brotherhood airship and I thought that was excellent writing, I didn’t have any experiences with Sean to give me that same sense of bonding. 

They’ve also ruined the worldbuilding. The first-person Fallout games have always had a problem with this, with Fallout 3 recycling Super Mutants, the Brotherhood of Steel, and other iconic Fallout things into Washington D.C. Part of this is almost certainly the same reason that The Force Awakens was such a dull rehash of the plot of A New Hope, they wanted to establish some sort of continuity with a new director to not frighten off old fans who they relied on to provide a significant majority of the sales. The problem of course, is that this runs into significant continuity problems, now needing Vault 87 to have a strain of FEV and having a joint Vault-Tec/US Government experiment program there on the East Coast, so we can have Super Mutants. Jackson’s chameleon isn’t native to Washington D.C., but we need to have Deathclaws because they’re the iconic scary Fallout enemy, as opposed to creating something new with the local fauna, which is only made worse because they did do that with the yao guai formed from the American black bear (the black bear doesn’t typically range in the Chesapeake Basin near DC these days, but it’s close enough and given the loss of humans to force them back they could easily return to their old pre-human rangings). Some creatures are functions of the overall setting and can be global, ghouls are the big one here since radiation would be a global thing and fitting considering Fallout is a post-apocalypse specifically destroyed by nuclear war. Others though, are clearly mutated creatures and so they would be more localized. Centaurs and floaters were designed by FEV experiments and collared by Super Mutants, they should really only be around Super Mutants. Radscorpions shouldn’t be around, there would probably be instead be mutated spiders. Making things worse are that the monster designers do develop some excellent enemies when they think about it. Far Harbor has a mutant hermit crab that uses a truck as a shell (a lobster restaurant truck, which is passable enough for a visual joke even if it falls apart when you think about other trucks that they might use) and a monster that uses an angler lure that resembles a crafting component - these are good ideas but the developers needed to awkwardly shoehorn in iconic Fallout things that have no place there. This isn’t to say that I’m in love with a lot of Fallout’s worldbuilding, a lot of the stuff in Fallout 2 I found to be kind of dumb particularly the talking deathclaws, but as the series went on it took objects without meaning. The G.E.C.K in Fallout 3 was pretty much a magic recombinator which makes no sense as a technology in a world devastated by resource collapse, something similar can be said about the Sierra Madre vending machines. 

Fallout 4 though, had a lot of worldbuilding inconsistencies that really took an axe to the setting. The boy in the fridge outlasts the entire Great War, but apparently never needed to eat or drink water. This is, of course, stupid, because ghouls have always been shown to need to eat and drink - Fallout 1′s Necropolis section has a Water Chip but if you take it without finding an alternate source of clean water, the ghouls will die. Ghoul settler NPC’s that flock to your player-crafted towns require food and water. The entire thing was ruined from a complete lack of care, to build a quest where you reunite a lost boy with his still-alive ghoulified parents. I think this one bothers me not simply because of the egregious worldbuilding which isn’t even consistent in the very game it’s written it, but it’s done so frivolously for a boring escort quest. It feels scattershot, and that’s the problem I think with a lot of Fallout 4′s quests. They feel disconnected, like every writer worked in a cubicle without talking to any of the other writers. Same with things like the Lady in the Fog.

Are we done with that? Good, because now we’re going into the parts that I really dislike - the main quest and the factions. These are just awful. The developers took what folks really liked when it came to Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas (Fallout 1 did have interesting factions but they were largely self-contained, more towns than anything else) and completely botched it. New Vegas was the clear inspiration for these factions, with the four faction model of NCR, Legion, House, and Indepenedent meaning that there were four different ways to go forward into the future, so we get three factions that fight each other and a fourth more player friendly faction that roughly resembles the Independent Vegas where you can pick and choose which factions you bring in with you and which you get rid of. Thematically, this fits in with the core of the game, crafting is a big portion of what you do and so crafting what sort of world the Commonwealth would be is simply a logical extension of it. The factions aren’t presented well though. The Railroad are impossibly naive and don’t demonstrate any rougher edges like denying supplies to humans in order to fuel their synth effort, even though such a thing should be evident if the post-apocalypse of the Commonwealth is to be believed. The Institute are sinister murderers and replacers without bringing any of the advanced technology that could provide some benefit such as the gigantic orange gourd that can grow. So much of their kill-and-replace mentality seems to be done for no great overarching purpose. The Minutemen are basically blank, pretty much just a catch-all for the player-built settlements, though the player as the leader of the Minutemen ends up getting bossed around by Preston to the point of the faction rejecting your commands to proceed with the main quest, a significant problem with Bethesda factions where you are the leader but never get any actual sense of leadership. There doesn’t appear to be any addressing of the failures of the previous Minutemen whether that be the previous summit, or new problems such as settlements feuding with each other requiring the general to intervene and mediate. The Brotherhood come the closest to a real faction with advantages and drawbacks if you squint, they are feudal overlords with the firepower to fight Super Mutants and other mutated nasties, but also violently reject ghouls and synths as part of their violent dogma except for seemingly not caring when you bring a companion around or killing ghoul settlers in settlements they control. But even then, we don’t really see the Brotherhood providing protection to the settlements that they demand for food, the typical radiant quest to destroy a pack of feral ghouls or super mutants is directed from a Brotherhood quest giver to a randomly determined location, hardly a good way to illustrate whether or not the Brotherhood is actually protecting settlements that they administer. We see little change in the way of the Commonwealth save that certain factions are alive or not because the game needs to stay active in order to perform radiant quests, so not even the signature ending slideshows can give us the illusion of effects building off of our actions. This is contrary to the theme of building a better world in the Commonwealth because there is no building. 

Special notice must be given to the Nuka-World raiders because they show the big problems with the factions. You can be a Raider in Nuka-World but only after becoming the Overboss, which is fair enough. But you’re already a Minuteman, but the Minutemen don’t activate any kill-on-sight order and Preston still helps you out. The game is so terrified of people losing out on content that they make permanent consequences rare, and when you do something like order an attack, it can be rescinded automatically if one of your companions is there. As an Overboss, you do grunt work in the Commonwealth, and the factions get mad and pissy if you don’t give them things despite even if you only give one section of the park to one of the factions, that’s more than they got from Colter. It’s like they don’t exist until the player shows up, which is exactly how a lot of modern Bethesda character and faction building seems to be. While in most computer games a sort of uneasy status quo is the desired beginning state because it gives the protagonist the chance to make ripples while justifying the existence of a status that allows the player to change it, it has to be applied consistently. 

The main quest itself is silly. There’s a decent twist with Sean becoming Father that sort of works, which would have worked much better if we had actually gotten a chance to bond with him, although the continuity of everything gets wiggy quick. When he said that he looked over the world and saw nothing but despair, I was wondering if they were going to actually bring a big question up and a debate between Father and the Player, the idea of what worth the people on the surface have, but it goes nowhere, it’s a missed opportunity. The main quest is just a means to meet all four factions and it’s a barebones skeleton at best. There are some interesting concepts they try, but what they do often falls flat. They try to establish some sort of empathy for Kellogg in the memory den, but it’s lazy and cheap because he kidnaps a baby and wastes your spouse, a wasted effort of empathy only made worse when you get criticized for not showing any sympathy. Kellogg then shows up in Nick’s memory for one second and then that little story nugget is ignored. The half-baked nature of the story keeps being brought back up, which is a pity because we actually saw them do a competent job in Far Harbor. The Followers of Atom are crazy and they really aren’t sympathetic in any way, but some of the folks inside the sub aren’t so bad that it might prevent you from wanting to detonate the sub, or at least you might think enough that you look for another solution. DiMA did some monstrous things, and if you bring him to justice, the game actually takes the time to evaluate whether or not you helped out Far Harbor, with meaningful consequences being taken if you took the time to do the sidequests which imparts far more meaning to them. 

While there’s a lot of problems that show up in terms of binary completion, the question of whether to replace Tektus and turn the Children of Atom to a more moderate path is a good question, it actually gives a lot more merit to the Institute if they were ever to have been shown to enact the same level of care. That only makes the Fallout problems stand out more, because it shows that they were capable of it but didn’t. This isn’t the only missed opportunity, synths themselves become a big problem. The goal was to create a very paranoid feeling but it was so sorely under-utilized that I never grew suspicious of folks because the game never gave me enough incentive to be suspicious of them. I didn’t think that Bethesda made synths that would give you false information or ambush you because that would have been potentially missed content. The idea of whether you are a synth or not is clearly an attempt to give the game more depth than it is presenting. You’re not a synth, Father’s actions make no sense if you are one, and DiMA attempting to make you think you are is silly because you know you aren’t one.

I think the game would have been much better if they had dropped the notion of Fallout entirely. If they had instead looked to create an open-world post-apocalyptic game focusing on crafting and building towns, perhaps with an eventual goal state of building many towns, establishing transportation networks, and rebuilding a junkyard society as a decent place (or going full Mad Max Bartertown complete with a Thunderdome for players looking for an evil and over-the-top option). That might have been an interesting game for Bethesda to potentially develop a new IP, even contracting with smaller studios for those who wish to tell story-heavy games in the setting. Instead, they applied Fallout like a bad paint job, cobbling together weak RP elements and story that made the game feel like a hydra that couldn’t recognize it was one being with multiple heads, constantly tearing the other parts of itself to ribbons. 

If I wanted to further improve it, I think I would have instead made the spouse a synth. It would require some serious reworking, but I would have made it so that Sean did believe that synths were people, or that they were real enough that the difference was negligible, they had free will. During the initial grab, the Institute took the entire cryopod where Sean was, baby and parent both. They used Sean to create the next generation of synths, but something happened with the parent, and they died during defrost. Sean hates the Institute for what they did, but what happened was truly a medical complication, not malicious in any way. When he learns that the player character is active, he creates a synth programmed to believe they are the spouse. He believes that exposing who he really is to the surviving parent would be traumatic, and as he hears that the player character is thriving, he wants to give them a chance at a normal life, and to alleviate the loss that he had in his life with the loss of his own parents. So the spouse is sent to you, and for a long time, you and the spouse have no idea. You adventure together, you build settlements together, the game encourages you to have a good relationship. It doesn’t have to be hunky dory, and I’d argue it’s actually better if it’s not. Have the spouse be programmed with some rough experiences in the Wasteland, so they’re nervous, skittish, maybe even a little resentful that the player character snoozed their way through everything, but slowly rebuild the relationship. That way, when the quest eventually comes where you find the truth, the player character has to confront that reality. Then when you confront Sean, Sean explains himself and the player is given the choice to forgive him, be understanding but still angry, or be hugely pissed at the manipulation. That’s drama that uses the core theme of what synths are about with the whole kill-and-replace motif the Institute does. There’s a plot twist that batters the player, there’s one that’s just messy and gross and tough to reconcile. There’s one where the conclusion the player comes to is valid because it’s the player themselves deciding what the meaning of it is.

So overall, I see Fallout 4 as a bunch of missed opportunities and clumsy writing wrapped up in the popular shallow open-worlds that triple-A games end up having. 

Thanks for the question, Jackie.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[thiswasinevitableid]

75 for Indruck!! and either nsfw or sfw is chill

I went with SFW! 75 “I’m an insomniac who calls my best friend at 3am except I misdial on my landline and I tell you all about my nightmare before letting you talk and now I’m mortified but you don’t hang up

CW: mentions of pot and of death

Indrid awakens in a panic, flailing and falling onto the floor. This is why he doesn’t have a bedframe; the routine falling hurts less from a half foot of drop.

“Ouch.” He says to the empty room, the white noise machine doing nothing to soothe his nerves. Maybe if he stays very still, the nightmares can’t find him.

No. That’s not how this works. Maybe he should see if anyone is awake. He just needs another voice, to know someone can hear him if he screams for help.

He grabs the nearest phone, which happens to be the landline that came with his little studio, and dials Barclay’s number.

“H’lo?” 

“Hello, it’s, ah, it’s Indrid, I, I know it’s late, but I need to talk and you said I could call anytime so I am. I, it, it was the dream again. I’ve been staying up as late as can, not sleeping unless my body just sort of forces me too and I dropped off while drawing and it happened again, the one with the bridge this time, not the one with the car, and I, I fell, like I always do, but this time I, I didn’t, didn’t wake up when, when, when it happened. I’m sorry, just, please, can you talk with me awhile so I can remember I’m here?”

“Uhhhh, sure? But, uh, got a feelin’ you mighta mixed somethin up.”

Indrid’s fairly certain Barclay does not have a southern accent. 

“Oh, oh god, I’m sorry, I dialed wrong didn’t I?”

“Guess so? Don’t know any fella named Indrid, and I’m guessin’ you don’t know anyone named Duck, it’s a nickname.”

“No, I don’t” he curls his legs to his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“S’okay. I was still up, been tryin to beat this level.”

“Why didn’t you hang up?”

“‘Cause you sounded real fuckin scared.”

He was. He still is, his heart a deer still running from long-outrun wolves. 

“Are, uh, are you okay now?”

“I will be fine.”

“I mean, I ain’t a therapist or anythin’ like that but, uh, I can try to help somehow.”

“I’m afraid the only thing that may work is continuing to talk with me which, were I in your shoes, I would not want to do. Christ” he shivers, fumbles in the dark for his sweater, “I need a hug.”

“I can do that.”

“We’re on the phone.”

A small laugh, “no kiddin, here I thought we were at a Taco Bell. I was offerin’ to come over or, uh, wait, no, you better come here, think I might still be a little high so I shouldn’t drive.”

“Are you messing with me?”

“Nope. I live at 5547 Williamson, apartment 2B. Ring the buzzer and I’ll let you in.”

This is ridiculous, how does either of them know the other isn’t planning on wearing their skin as pajamas?

“I’ll see you there.” 

The walk gives him time to second guess himself, then second guess that second guess, and so on until he reaches the three story building that clearly used to be one, family home. He rings the bell for 2B. No one will come down, Duck is probably asleep, or has realized how dangerous his suggestion is.

“Who is it?” The same drawl from the phone, now through the door.

“Indrid. From the phone.”

“Howdy, Indrid from the phone.” Duck opens the door, looking better than Indrid dared imagine. They’re about the same age, dark hair with fading streaks of blue falls about a round face, a stocky frame looks singularly nice to lay against.

“C’mon up. Tried callin’ you a little while ago to see if you wanted me to order food or somethin, but since you didn’t answer think we’re gonna have to settle for leftover pizza for now.”

“That’s, ah, that’s fine. And that was a landline I called from, hence the lack of response.”

“Jesus” Duck giggles, “you still got one of those?”

“The previous renter left a lot of things behind, and whoever is paying that telephone bill hasn’t stopped so far. Oh, thanks.” He steps through the door Duck holds open, finds a room much like his own; a messy studio full of the elements a single man needs to get by. A tiny T.V is linked up to an XBOX in the corner, and two hanging planters flourish by the windows. 

“Still want that hug?” Duck opens his arms.

Indrid nods, stepping into them, his own arms locked by his sides in case Duck doesn’t want to be touched. The shorter man is warm, his arms solid and strong, one holding Indrid’s shoulder blades so the other can run up and down his back. 

“You can hug back, I don’t mind.”

Indrid hugs his waist, “This isn’t weird to you?”

“Kinda? I dunno, I give damn good hugs and I don’t like seein’ people scared or hurtin, and you seem to need someone to be a little gentle with you. So, what the fuck, may as well hug you; knew I wasn’t gonna feel right if I hung up without offerin’. Besides, that dream sounded fuckin’ awful.”

“It is, its’ that way every time. So is the other one, and the one after that.” Indrid curls inward, as if he could somehow squeeze his nearly six foot frame to fit snugly under Duck’s chin, “I, they aren’t just dreams, either. I have what you call very bad luck with death. My mother died in a car accident when I was seven, with me in the backseat. My father died in a freak bridge collapse, again with me only barely surviving. Then my best friend drowned when we were swimming.” He shudders, images flooding back, “the dreams make me see it over and over in strange, altered versions, versions where I die, and they say you’re supposed to wake up before you die in a dream but tonight I didn’t, I felt my dream self die and I, I, I woke up so frightened.” he gasps, cringes to find tears slipping from under his glasses. 

“Hey, hey it’s okay man, here” Duck sits them down on the bed, Indrid now clinging to him, “don’t worry, ain’t lettin go, you can keep talkin if you need.”

“I get so scared sometimes, like I’m an omen of doom and anyone who comes near me will die. And I know that’s ridiculous because the majority of people who’ve been close to me are still alive, but nights like this I wake up and watch the door and the windows because it feels like death is following me, waiting to grab me, and I’ll die frightened and alone and not be found for days until someone, one of the few who still cares for me, wonders why they haven’t heard from me and, andandand-” it’s sobs now, awkward and painful each time they push out of his chest. 

“Shhhhh” Duck pats his hair and Indrid wiggles closer, hoping his whine communicates the desperate hope he’ll do that again, touch him like he matters. What it does is knock them over, bed squishy under them.

“Hush, hush now, ain’t nothin like that gonna happen. No more talk of shadows, partly because I only sobered up like ten minutes ago and talkin about seein the grim reaper in the corner don’t play nice with that.”

‘“I, I’m s-sorry-”

“Hey, hey I was teasin’, tryin’ to see if I could make you laugh at me a little” Duck strokes his cheek with his thumb, voice warm as a summer morning and soothing as moonlight, “besides, even if somethin’ scary did show, you got the ‘hero of Kepler’ to protect you.”

“The, the what of what now?”

“Kepler’s the tiny town I grew up in. Both my folks were real respected and shit, dad was former marines, everyone assumed I was gonna grow up and fight the good fight. Instead I disappointed ‘em all by wantin’ to look after trees all day.” He mutters, looks sad, and Indrid can’t bear the sight and so he mimics him, places a hand on his cheek and pets it gently.

“Trees do far more good, and need far more help nowadays.”

“Thanks, ‘Drid. Oop, sorry, just kinda slipped out.”

“Nono, I like it, I’ve never had a nickname before. Or, ah, never had a good one, that is.”

“Well, you do now, because I like you and I say so.” Duck pets his side, making his sweater ride up and exposing a tattoo.

“Oh shit, that’s so fuckin’ cool.”

“Thank you, I did the design myself. That’s, ahd, that’s what I’m doing in town. I’m apprenticing to be a tattoo artist.”

“So. fuckin. Cool.” Duck draws a finger along the moth design, Indrid squirming a little when he does. It feels nice; unfamiliar, but nice. 

“You gotta tell me all about it.”

“Alright” Indrid sniffs and Duck, after flopping to the side of the bed and reaching beneath it, produces a tissue, “as long as you promise to tell me about those” he points to the row of succulents on the far wall.”

“Think I can handle that. Fuck, got cold in here.” He drags a blanket up over them and Indrid purrs at the warmth, snuggling up in his arms as Duck nuzzles his neck, “now, where were we…”

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

Indrid wakes up with his glasses smushed to his face, a thick blanket wrapped around him, and the smell of coffee tickling his nose. He yawns, sits up and gets his bearings well enough to not be startled when Duck speaks.

“Mornin, sleepyhead.”

“Good morning.”

“Didn’t seem like you had more nightmares last night.” Duck pours two mugs of coffee.

“I didn’t. Your, ah, your presence helped immensely.”

“Maybe my true callin’ is a teddy bear, good for snugglin and keepin monsters away.”

“Perhaps.” He pads over to the little kitchen to join him. Takes the sugar when offered and dumps a large amount into his cup. 

“Hey, uh, this may be way off base, but, uh, I, uh, I feel like we really kinda clicked. Even accountin for the weird circumstances and the heightened emotions and shit. I coulda talked with you for days, and honestly the reason I kept holding you after that firs hug was because I felt so fuckin comfortable with you. Like you fit.”

“I felt the same.” Indrid stirs his coffee, unsure of how to ask for what he wants. 

“If, uh, if you ain’t busy tonight, do you wanna go out? With me?”

“On a date?” 

Duck suppresses a smile as he nods. 

“I’d like that so much.”

“Hell yeah.’ Duck hugs him and this time he hugs back instantly, giggling when the shorter man kisses his cheek and whispers, “and if you feel like it, happy to be your teddy bear tomorrow night, too.”