#Since we were talking about this sort of thing

[heroesneedalancer]

Post by u/DJConvex to r/AskReddit on Nov 6, 2024:

People who work in DC for the government, what is the vibe?

Comment by u/Meduselde:

Resigned. We are generally very good about not discussing politics in the workplace but the vibe was obviously off. My more conservative colleagues who were happy Trump won were extremely respectful. There wasn't smug gloating and they were very obviously being cognizant of others' feelings even more than normal. It was extremely appreciated. Ultimately, we survived the first administration and will survive again. It's not necessarily Trump who was the problem last time, but his inexperienced senior appointees. The world isn't going to end nor do I feel democracy will crumble at his feet. It's just gonna be chaotic, and that's the worst part as a worker bee. At least with Biden we had consistent leadership and clear guidance, even if you didn't agree with it. Under Trump, your "yes man" says "no" and that's how you rotate through four SECDEFs. But as a sign of hope, it also means that even the most loyal DO say "no" sometimes, especially when businessmen are finally confronted with the realities of governance.

They chill out REAL quick on their dismantlement plans when they see the work these agencies do and what's at stake if they don't stand up for their people. It's easy to say you will dissolve or cut funding for something when you do not truly understand it. And as much as people say we can ALL be magically replaced with "yes men," even the most stone-hearted appointees recognize that the last thing you ever want is to lose the entirety of your skilled workforce. They learn it's best to get the skilled people to work towards their vision and not hire enthusiastic but stupid people to attempt the same. If they do, they risk looking inept themselves. You don't get skilled federal workers in a blue portion of the country to work for you by being a fucking Nazi. We're cranky and will make your life hell if you behave like that. I'm not talking about some sort of organized resistance movement because we feel like it. That's wrong. But just imagine hundreds of thousands pissed off at you. If that's the Deep State at work, then we aspire to be the quality of swampy Deep State your racist uncle thinks we are. If implementing dictatorship was that easy, Trump would have taken out every agency his last term and fired us all. I am actually extremely proud of the resiliency and checks and balances that the American federal government has in place to prevent most of the shit he says he can achieve by waving a magic executive wand. (He's done this once. He knows he can't. He just lets the majority of the population believe he can.) Us feds will make it, as we always have.

And we will live up to our oath to serve the Constitution, not a president. We serve every official of every party faithfully within the bounds of legalities and our oath. Working for administrations you may not like it's just a part of the job that we all recognize. Public servants at the federal level generally hold that extremely close to their heart. The ones that don't (I'm talking to YOU, WaPo "informants!") put us to shame. We're just tired, man. I can't believe it has already been four years since the last round. There's going to be some waves, no doubt, and some people definitely are going to be hurt at upper levels. But grab a Twisted Tea and buckle up. We'll at least pretend it's meant to be a roller coaster and ride it. TL;Dr Democracy is not going to die. But a drink and "thanks" would go a long way.

EDIT: Woah! I woke up this morning and am surprised by how much traction this got. I'm sad that this was the most positive thing some people had read. I'm sorry it's been that bad. I am not predicting outcomes. I have no idea how it's going to go. It's going to be bloody. But the hope I am trying to get across is that we are a resilient people and a group of (generally) good people. It will be okay, okay? The people that really make or break your daily life are those around you and your local government. Hold those around you close to your heart and always be kind. Everybody go outside, take a deep breath, eat something you love, and hug your grandma (even if she voted differently). The world is still turning and the sky is still blue. Being surrounded by spiraling anger on the internet only makes us the losers, not those we disagree with. The only thing we can do right now is wait. We have a few months to cool off! Enjoy your holidays!

EDIT 2: I think everybody has forgotten about this, but go check out the memorandum signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the end of Trump's first term after January 6. The feds basically said "fuck that" when people were scared that the government was going to turn the military on them to help Trump in some way. While it was specifically addressed to our armed forces members, it was spread throughout the DOD and beyond. Partially as a result of federal workers' fear (not actually ordered, to be crystal clear) that they would be asked to turn on citizens. This sentiment was echoed across the entire government via internal emails (from Trump appointees!) as well to the civilian workforce. That's one of my proudest moments as an American and why I know we will get through it.

Emphasis mine. Link to original Reddit Post. Link to an article about the aforementioned memorandum signed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Don't give up. We will get through this.

[eroticcannibal]

It's still a minority view (plenty of varied viewpoints do get conflated with those things though, by people who have also grown up with the criticism of men = man hate line and internalised it in the other direction). It's still heavily exagruated by bad actors. Have you not actually talked to these people? Have you not looked at what they feel is man hate? Have you seen the examples the radicalised will list? Evil radfems saying all men are scum on twitter is a *tiny* fraction of what they feel attacked by and is almost never what they feel *most* attacked by.

I saw an intelligent, reasonable, compassionate, previously explicitly feminist man become *violently* (and I do mean violently, I was the target) antifeminist overnight because I expressed on Facebook I was having a trauma response (wariness of men) after an assault. And you know what else? Not a single man in that room defended me from *actual violence* because to them, fear looked like hate. Anything that made them uncomfortable looked like hate. This was during a time where publically discussing online your experiences with sexual assault was first becoming a Big Thing, the original #MeToo (interesting that it had to happen twice), and there really wasn't anyone going all men evil, just all men can be scary because we don't know who will hurt us. There was SO MUCH EFFORT to add nuance to the discussion, to let men know hey! We aren't saying *youre* bad! And they would not listen. Why? Because they'd rather listen to other men saying we are man hating feminists who are calling them all rapists even when we explicitly say the opposite! And that got me assaulted by a friend. The same shit fucking led to elevatorgate ffs. How dare a woman say she is uncomfortable, that's man hate, ignore all evidence to the contrary.

And yknow I did see an uptick in *performative* man hate at the time, but it was purely reactionary and it was a *test* (and a lot of current supposed "man hate" is still a relic of this era). Since you can make clear you don't hate men all you want and they will still say you do, "yes all men" became a sort of password. If you could here that without being a little bitch about it, if you knew the context because you actually bothered to listen, then you were cool. You knew no one actually meant that because you bothered to listen to them instead of people lying for political gain.

This is a tactic that has been going on since *before feminism even existed* and it is effective! It relies more upon the constructed belief that feminism is anti man which has become very well established over the years than it does the actual behaviour of feminists. I would strongly encourage you to look at anti-feminist sentiment throughout and predating the history of feminism (starting with the votes for women movement, that's the earliest I am personally aware of, there may be earlier examples) and see how we got to this point. Convincing every feminist to never again say "men are evil" will not create any change. (Which is not to say people *should* do it, but just that it's not the true root of this kind of radicalisation). Actual examples of it are *convenient* but not necessary for this tactic.

I would never *entirely* discredit the viewpoints of someone who has escaped cults and cult tactic using groups (I've been through that, I get it), but I would encourage caution with how much you trust the narrative of the *whys* from someone who has escaped. Leaving is quicker than undoing the thinking, and I really do believe that user isn't quite there yet. Best case scenario, that user is right about *them*, but it is not correct of radicalised men in general.

Because you can be as gentle as you like to these people getting radicalised, you can have all the nuance in the world, you could make it so that no one, not even as a joke, says anything about hating men, and you know what will happen? Just like has always happened, they will listen to who they want to listen to. They will listen to the people promising them superiority, they will listen to the people giving them a reason for their economic suffering (we must remember how much economics plays into radicalisation), that reason being evil feminists. They will see the man hate regardless of if it is there or not. Because they have been told to. Because it is convenient for them. And even if you convince them that we don't hate *men*, now you've got to convince them we don't hate them for being *white*. The point is not the hate they perceive but the superiority they seek and the power they desperately want.

Radicalisation and cult tactics do not rely on facts.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[theallyandhisbeast]

About bucktommy and 911 in general

You know, in the end, this just feels extremely cheap and cruel.

Showing bucktommy be incandescently happy in all the episodes but 8.6? Even in this ep you can feel how much they care and genuinely love each other. Audience was largely optimistic and excited about them, in a way we have never seen for other buck's LI.

Only to what? Throw it all away because you can't be bothered to write a satisfactory arc for them? Because Buck is the epitome of the guy who dates a lot but always gets broken up with? That to be able to decide if you want to be in a committed relationship if you are bi you have to explore first or else your decision is null and void?

What a way to waste potential and your characters arc.

The special thing about Tommy was that he was beloved by not only bucktommy fans, but GA, and most importantly he was a sort of representation we don't see all that much in media. People loved him because they saw themselves in him, they could connect to his journey and they were genuinely rooting for him to find love and family with Buck. To waste it all away, and to do so by basically throw at us all that we loved about them is unnecessarily cruel.

What hurts the most is that even buck and tommy themselves didn't want to break up. but instead they "must" because bowing down to harmful stereotypes about bi people who are "confused and so they must experiment before settling" is more important than telling a compelling story.

Even without bt break up, I feel like this season took a sharp dive for the worst about well thought storylines in a way that baffles him. Gerrard was reduced to a joke, as was Ortiz, both pgs that could have been used to create compelling arcs that intertwined the 118 even more but instead we got this cheap throwaway joke of a Gerrard, Ortiz was basically throw out of office in a single ep. Hotshot sl could have been fun but instead it's just.... there. And coming back too just for funsies, cause apparently that sl was more important to develop instead of a interesting queer relationship.

Athena once again doing copaganda. Bobby coming back to the 118 without any particular struggle or even guilt about dropping the bag. Things said in interviews that we expect to happen and never even made it to the screen (Eddie's loneliness? Chim and Hen having conflict over Mara? Buck feeling guilty about injuring Gerrard?).

The way Maddie cannot have any sl that is not either tied to a man or about motherhood. Madney having another surprise baby instead of them choosing on purpose to expand their family. Hen & Karen gaining trauma after trauma about their children and not having any other sl that is not tied to that. Josh just existing in the periphery and only becoming important as the "insightful token gay" but not having any type of meaningful screen time since Carson.

The other side characters like Sue, Ravi, Linda, Carla completely disappearing without anyone mentioning them. Ravi has not been given any important sl ever since he talked about having cancer and ever since reduced as a comic relief without anything to add to his character but he's a "landlord".

Chris is out of the picture for who knows how long, and is basically kept around to be traumatized over and over again. Eddie hasn't gotten any character development until first s5 and seemingly now, but i'd argue that the whole thing just felt rushed because what do you mean it takes one chat with a priest for him to do a 180° while he still isn't talking to Chris? And Eddie was the one who got the best treatment of all of them this season.

It's the way this show is slowly chipping itself away. It's the way they start a queer story line promising it would be impactful and handled with care and then half-assing it a best. It's the way the other queer characters are never explored and able to breath and revel in their queerness in the first place. Because, really, when was the last time Hen and Karen kissed on screen? When was the last time they went on a date? When was the last time their arcs were not about children or getting hurt, but just about them as individuals? And on this thread what about Maddie? Or Josh? Or Chim? Or Eddie?

Everything feels reused again and again and again without no real development than then starting the circle all over in half a season.

What a waste.

[loulovingho]

Seeing the Maddie gif just reminded of all the wasted potential and storylines they could have had with Tommy and the bucktommy relationship. Because let's face it, for all of the mains it's the same storyline over and over again - we're not learning anything new about them. But then here we have a character who we sort of already know, who they've teased us with a bit of his history and it was like finally! A chance for something new! We could have learned more about his family, maybe see how Buck reacts meeting his father and then having to deal with his homophobic reaction to him, the man he loves and their relationship. He clearly sounded like he didn't have a lot of close friends/family/support outside of Buck - we could have explored that, have Buck be there for his man and show him how, you have me and the 118. We never got to see the whole "dating a fellow first responder and the challenges that come with that" - we've seen Buck in the hospital so many times, it would have been interesting to see Tommy in that hospital bed and Buck having to deal with the one being by the bedside for once, worrying about someone he loves, maybe making him fully appreciate everything his family had gone through in the past when HE was the one injured (like all the effort Maddie went into to look after him). We could have had Tommy and Eddie bonding over war stories - was Tommy discharged due to DADT? If so, we could have had conversations with Karen, who also was affected by that. Hell, if they were gonna do the stupid "he was engaged to Abby for two years" story, have Chim and Hen be like, dude, you were working with us all that time, how did we not KNOW (that story still makes no sense - he never mentioned her name to them? Because if he did, surely it would have clicked when they met her in S1 "oh, you're Tommy's Abby". But Tim acknowledged he retconned their relationship from an ex-boyfriend to ex-fiances so he clearly doesn't care.)

But most of all, despite being together for SIX MONTHS, we never saw Tommy and Maddie interact. Maddie was clearly excited for Buck ("tell me about the hot pilot"), she's married to Tommy's old friend, there was the perfect opportunity to see them start to bond over family dinner or something. We've never seen Maddie really click with any of Buck's LI's before, so it would have been nice to see Buck's whole world start to come together. And it could have led to family orientated stories for Buck for once - we always assume he wants kids because he says he loves kids and we see that with Chris, Jee etc. There could have been discussions for the first time about Buck's future - does he see himself getting married, having kids (and ugh, so annoyed that the first time Buck mentions the possibility of getting married is 30 seconds before his heart is crushed).

And that's not even going into the small things I wanted to see on-screen. I knew we were never gonna get anything too intimate - 911 is a bit prudish, they don't really do sex scenes, especially not since the first season, and hell, all their other main couples barely kiss as it is. But things like holding hands as they're walking down the street, talking about their day while making dinner together, waking up in bed together - small little domestic things that show how their relationship is developing. SHOW it developing. (Because while the snippets they showed of their relationship showed that they were growing more comfortable as a couple, a lot of that development happened off screen.)

This was the first time in a long time, maybe ever, that we saw Buck truly happy (that man was GLOWING, even covered in boils). For the first time, we could have seen his story GROW, instead of doing the same lather, rinse, repeat that has happened in all his relationships (Buck falls for someone, goes too hard too fast, they abandon him, he doesn't bother fighting for the relationship). We could have finally had a sprinkling of new storylines (Tommy wasn't a main, we obviously weren't going to get a hell of a lot, but if Karen can have her own stories/backstories, so could he). All that down the drain for what, Buck 1.0 again? Him jumping back on that hamster wheel of "find new love interest, it goes nowhere, he's single again". It's boring, and this show is on its 8th season - not only has this been played out for too long, who knows how much longer the show is gonna last. If it only goes until say season 10, that would have been two and a half seasons worth of seeing Buck be able to grow, get the love he always wanted (hell, maybe even get engaged, finish the series with a wedding implying he gets his happily ever after). Buck is only one member of an ensemble cast - they can't focus on him every episode, so two years is plenty of time to draw out only a handful of fresh stories. After 8 season, keeping him perpetually single for this long only works if he's always been played as like Joey off Friends - someone who is happy playing the dating game, not looking to go anywhere. Except Buck has been shown to be looking for love all this time - he doesn't want that single life (he doesnt want to "explore" Tim - screwing random men and women isnt going to help him find that love he's always wanted, especially when he already had it). But instead, they take it away from him AGAIN, and now they're back to square one. Sigh.

There’s so much i agree with here! They’ve tried to cram soooo many storylines into each episode that there’s no room to breathe. Everything feels stunted and half-assed. Tim said they didn’t want to ignore everything that happened at the end of 7, wanted to pick it back up, but they spent these first few episodes either destroying the storylines they built on, or ending them so abruptly it doesn’t feel satisfying. Nothing feels connected anymore. In early seasons you’d have them all working together on certain major storylines, but I’d doesn’t really feel like that happens now outside of calls. And the calls are so quick (besides the damn plane) that you don’t really connect with that either.

It would have been nice to see tommy and buck develop more, nice to see him involved with the group instead of just Eddie, nice to see them keep their word and try to make this love interest different from the rest. They did none of that.

[utilitycaster]

this may seem needlessly finicky but I do actually believe it's important: calling Verin a himbo is just one of many examples where like, one of the cast says something off the cuff and it's not exactly the right word or it is highly contextual, and that is fine because no one is perfect especially in improv, but then it gets repeated ad infinitum within the fandom when it never really fit in the first place. We have Verin's stats and he's decently more intelligent than average with a 13 (smarter than most of Bells Hells for one; as smart as Pike); it's just he's the guy with a bachelor's degree with good grades followed by military service in a family where everyone has two PhDs - Matt said "himbo of the family" the way in a family where most people are exceptionally tall you'd call the 5'11" child the short one. In Call of the Netherdeep he appears as thoughtful and competent and promoted to a difficult position at a very young age, and in the campaign his appearance is simultaneously as a leader of troops in a dangerous mission, and someone who cares enough about poetry from a completely foreign and distant culture to have tried to learn more about it. I'm sorry, but if you're using the word "himbo" I don't think you're processing a thing about the character yourself; you're just the latest repetition in a game of telephone that's been going on since mid-2021.

And that's not deeply bad on the surface, and I'm using Verin not because he is the character most wronged by this sort of thing but because he's recent and it's really clear where the word came from and that it's not a good assessment, but something I happen to have a decent knack for is pattern recognition in language. I usually find it really easy to pick up on when someone's plagiarized because of the language and pattern shifts. I tend to remember urls and out of place words well. So I do tend to notice when everyone suddenly starts using a single turn of phrase and I tend to flag it. Sometimes that's not bad; sometimes it means everyone came to a similar conclusion and that's the best way to express that conclusion. But like, when Taliesin called the Yios episode a gas-leak episode and the entire fandom started parroting it? The line "bone-dry takes"? The fact that a lot of ship defenses I see were phrased precisely as "I have eyes"? without actually talking about the ship itself? the fact that I've seen a spike in the use of the term "ontologically evil" including in myself and not all uses are actually correct? And extending this beyond strictly language but consider any headcanon with minimal textual support that catches like wildfire (sidebar: remember how we make, or made fun of the SPREAD THIS LIKE WILDFIRE tendency on Tumblr a decade ago? same concept of repetition of a specific turn of phrase without internalizing) all sort of ping this.

And it's fine, truly, to come to fandom and turn off your brain. I know this will sound sarcastic from me, and that's because I don't personally agree, but I do strongly agree that you can do what you want in fandom and you don't have to listen to my opinions so in the end, yeah, it's fine because I am not the arbiter of "fine". But I think critical thought is a vital exercise and I think precision with language is part of it and so if you find yourself using the same exact words and thoughts as everyone else, that should, ideally, trigger a process of "but are these the right words? what do I see when I see this character and how would I describe them? do I agree with this assessment?" Fandom is an interesting and easier microcosm than reality in which to start doing that.

[in1-nutshell]

Fearless is still crying about Alabaster and Megs finds out. cut to the scavengers freaking the fuck out because holy shit Megatron is about to bust down their door and all because their newest member catfished his kid.

Finally!

Definitely going to be doing a long version of this in the future

Hope you enjoy!

Fearless and Alabaster

SFW, Platonic, Angst, Hinted romance, Human reader

MTMTE

There had been a noticeable change on the Lost Light.

It was the behavior of the ship’s resident human, Fearless.

Ever since their no show to trivia night, and the sudden sick day they took after, they had been… quiet.

Their demeanor reminded the original crew members how they acted the first few days on the ship.

More composed, stiffer, more neutrality in their tone, more… robotic.

Magnus: “I do believe that concludes today’s meeting.” Fearless wordlessly starts packing up their things. Rodimus: “Hey Fearless, there’s karaoke night over at Swerve’s. You wanna team up for tonight’s duo performance?” Fearless: “I’m afraid I cannot tonight, Captain. There are too many reports to fill in after Whirl’s last escape from the brig. Have a good night.” Fearless tries to leave the room before Megatron stands in their way. Fearless: “Megatron, is there something you need?” Megatron: “I need assistance in getting the classes grades in the system.” Fearless: “Just send the work to my mail and I will get to it. Good night.” Fearless wordlessly goes around the mech and makes their way to their habsuite. Rodimus: “Nothing?” Magnus: “Anything? Megatron sighs: “Nothing.”

The human barely interacted with the bots and always headed back to their room as soon as they finished their tasks for the day.

The only other bot on board who had the slightest idea what was going on was Whirl.

But even he refused to say much.

Mainly because all he knew was that he needed to pummel someone who made Fearless sob up a storm and he didn’t even have a name!

Whenever he wasn’t in the brig, Whirl became a bodyguard of sorts.

Always watching Fearless surroundings for any sign that the bot who did this was on board.

Megatron had tried to talk to them, but even that left fruitless.

Megatron is sitting next to Fearless in the empty classroom. Megatron: “There is something you are not telling me.” Fearless stays silent. Megatron: “… I will not force you to talk, you can come to me when you are ready… but remember the crew, that I am here to listen when you wish to speak.” Fearless’s eyes gloss a bit, but they bite their tongue and leave the grey mech alone. Megatron looks at his child sadly but decides to trust what Rung had advised him to do. Don’t force it, let them come to you.

Megatron didn’t like seeing his kid like this.

Even Rung tried coaxing Fearless into having a private session to figure out what was going on.

And to many surprises, Fearless denied it.

The human was always advocating for the bots to go see Rung and went to him too.

But to suddenly not want to go?

This was bad.

It would be a month into this state when the Lost Light would get an unexpected visit from the WAP.

Maybe the visit of the Scavenger’s would cheer them up.

There were two things that the crew noticed immediately.

1. The scavengers had a new crewmate

2. They looked tense, especially the new crewmate.

Fearless arrives with Megatron and Magnus. Rodimus was already talking with the Scavengers. Rodimus looks over at the three. Rodimus: “Magnus, Megatron, Fearless, you remember the Scavengers, right? Well, they have a new member!” The bot steps forward stiffly and greets the bots. Alabaster: “My designation is Alabaster Lapis.” Fearless just looked at him with a surprised look. Fearless: “…Nice to meet you.” The bots detected a bit of hostility in the human. Rodimus: “How about we head to Swerve’s for some drinks? I think he has a new variety of mixes.” Megatron glances questionably at Fearless who looks ahead, not making contact with anyone.

Everyone dispersed once they got to the bar.

Many of the crew were surprised to see Fearless out and about for the first time in a month.

That comment caught Alabaster’s attention feeling the guilt rack up.

Alabaster saw a shooing motion from Misfire and Spinister before he reached the bar where Fearless was sitting.

He ordered a drink and sat beside them in silence.

They both knew they were delaying the inevitable… but maybe this could work in their favor

It was very awkward between the pair.

Fearless asked if his crew new about it.

Alabaster blinked before stating that they heard the conversation… and thoroughly beat him over the helm with his stupid mistakes.

Fearless chuckled a bit after hearing that Grimlock had swung his tail and had him dented on the side of the ship.

His spark fluttered a bit.

It had been a while since he heard their laughter.

This was a win.

Fearless looked around and asked him to grab them, they knew a place on the ship that would give them privacy.

They made their way to the oil reservoir.

That’s where Fearless mask dropped.

They looked at him with a mixture or sadness, frustration, anger, and something else. Fearless: “I thought we agreed in 3 more days. Or is there something else your not telling me about?” Alabaster: “We recently had repairs on an organic planet. They boosted our thruster systems.” Fearless: “And you didn’t think on telling me because…” Alabaster sighed and sat on the edge of the platform, his pedes dangling above the oil below. Alabaster: “I… I didn’t think it was important. We were already meeting each other; it was only 3 days. Those pass by in a blink of an optic.” Fearless huffs standing beside him but with an ample amount of space in between them. Fearless: “In case you forgot, time means something different to ‘organics’. If you need a reality check, we die much earlier than Cybertronians.” Alabaster: “…I know…” Fearless winces a bit at his defeated tone. Maybe they crossed a line. Fearless sits down on the edge, mimicking his stance. Fearless: “…Well… here we are…” Alabaster: “Here we are…” Silence… Fearless: “Why did you keep it on for so long?” Alabaster: “… I didn’t want to lose you.” Fearless: "would it matter if you did?” Alabaster looks at them with a serious expression. Alabaster: “Most defiantly.” He sighs softening his gaze. Alabaster: “I care about you, a lot. More than I want to admit it really. If there was a chance that you hated Cybertronian’s…” Fearless places a hand on one of his digits. Alabaster looks at them a bit surprised. Fearless smiles a bit. Fearless: “I’d be a pretty crummy friend if I did.” Alabaster: “So…” Fearless: “Well, the whole lying and the technical ‘catfishing’ is going to leave a mark.” Alabaster winces a bit at the sharpness in their voice. Fearless: “…But I don’t mind trying this friendship thing all over again.” Alabaster smiles a bit. Fearless stands up and offers him their hand. Fearless: “I’m Fearless.” Alabaster gently shakes their hand. Alabaster: “My name is Alabaster Lapis. You can call me Alabaster or Aster for short.” Fearless and Alabaster smile at each other.

The pair eventually made it back to Swerve’s where everyone else was.

The Scavengers were relieved to see the two in much better spirits and it was safe to assume that the two had talked it out.

The lost light crew looked over that the new mech who had Fearless perched on his shoulder.

It had been a month since Fearless had smiled that widely.

They looked almost like their usual self, a bit tired and drained but much better looking than last time.

Fearless made sure to give the Scavenger’s all goodbyes when they had to leave.

Fearless waves at the WAP as it leaves. Fearless sighs and looks behind them. Everyone is looking at them. Fearless: “Uhhh…” Whirl: “What did that bot do to you?” Fearless: “What?” Whirl: “I just got out of the brig to see you and that other guy smiling. You haven’t done that in weeks.” Megatron: “What whirl means to say is that we are all happy to see that you have moved from your depressive state… but we are curious to what happened.” Fearless looked at the direction of the WAP. They were safe enough. Fearless: “Okay… but you all have to SWEAR not to do ANYTHING drastic or harmful.” The bots look around confused. Fearless: “All right, here goes…” Hopefully things did not go off the rails… Oh, who were they kidding, this was the Lost Light, going off the rails happened every other day. On the WAP... Alabaster suddenly shudders. Alabaster: “I feel like I’m in danger…”

alabaster feeling the rage of the Lost Light thousand miles away

[lairofsentinel]

Since this user's posts seem to have been deleted in previous opportunities I copy-paste their words here because they express exactly what I feel about this game. Dragon Age has died, unfortunately.

I'm a big time Dragon Age lover and have enjoyed every game in the series. Personally, I think Inquisition is the best in the series. And I was excited for Veilguard right up until I actually began playing it. Now, I want to clear things up at the start as to what I look for and believe makes a good Dragon Age game. To start, I DON'T CARE ABOUT COMBAT. I. Do. Not. Care.

You can make it Origins tactical. DA2 fast tactical. DAI hybrid. God of War action, I don't care. Dragon Age has always had combat that was...fine. A nice distraction and breakup in between the bits I actually care about: narrative ROLEPLAYING, story, characters, and exploration. I don't give a crap how great the combat is if the narrative roleplaying and writing are poor, I'm not playing BioWare titles for amazing gameplay. I am here for the story, the characters, and the roleplaying. Truth is, for a time I considered DATV's combat to be the best in the series.

And this is why I feel the game is a terrible Dragon Age, because it lacks or fails to respect those elements concerned with narrative roleplaying, story, characters, and exploration. Now, in many reviews and online videos you'll hear some reference often to the drop in writing quality. And a lot of time people will incorrectly say that the writing with the characters is to "modern" or "Marvel quippy" or not "dark" enough. I think these people are wrong, they recognize there is a drop in writing quality from previous games but aren't able to articulate why that is.

Dragon Age has never adopted any sort of faux medieval speech and vocabulary (though we'll get into this more later). This is a series that used "epic fail" as a thing someone uttered in the very first game. It's always had anachronistic dialogue and banter. So why is it such a drop then? Why is it considered poor? Simple. This is a game that does not believe in the world it has setup for over a decade. It does not believe in or engage properly with its own world and lore. I mean, look no further than the title "The Veilguard" a phrase that is never uttered by anyone in our group, and further proof it was a last minute marketing change. Compare to Inquisition where the title is apparent from the start in the game and has actual meaning.

You see, characters in DATV do not feel or react to events the way they should based on the lore. Why is no one constantly asking what the hell the Inquisitor is doing? The Inquisitor is kind of a BIG DEAL when it comes to Solas and Elven Gods, my Inquisitor drank from the WELL OF SORROWS! So why are we sitting around thinking at the start, "hmm lemme think who I can contact who might know more." The Herald of Andraste! They know more Rook, the guy that is technically your boss. The Inquisitor! Who else have you been working for this entire time? Who do you think told Varric to recruit you?!

But even removing the Inquisitor, the Elven Gods being real and also near synonymous with the old Tevinter Gods is kind of a BIG DEAL. It was only a theory fans crafted long ago that slowly revealed itself to be true. And it completely upends known religious dogma on all sides. Yet, why aren't people we meet going through a massive existential crisis? For instance, the Veil Jumpers we initially meet were presumably told off-screen about Fen'Harel, and are seemingly cool with this massive knowledge alone. But then we talk about those two other Gods being released and they're like, "well, shit those two aren't good." As if they have any clue if the fables about those Gods are real when we previously just upended everything they thought about the Dreadwolf! Why are you acting like this is another Tuesday?! Your entire religion is wrong. In that same conversation, Strife notes "Solas might be a bastard, but compared to the Evunaris? Let's just say they weren't know for being kind rulers."

My brother in Anduril, what are you talking about! Elven religion teaches that Elgar'nan was so beloved by the Earth that it "the land brought forth great birds and beasts of sky and forest, and all manner of wonderful green things." And that he fought the jealous Sun that tried to burn the land and all beasts away. Custom says that he and Mythal, "created the world as we know it" after defeating the Sun. He is literally described as one of the "good" Gods. WHY ARE YOU ASSUMING HE IS EVIL! It's like finding out Satan is real, but not as evil as have come to believe and then being told Jesus Christ is back and a devout Christian going, "well shit, that can't be good." WHAT?!

The same goes for Andraste and the Chant of Light, it took me 30 hours of playing before ONE character mentioned Andraste and the implications with the Chant and it was never brought up again. Our entire party is seemingly made up of unphased atheists. Now compare to something like Inquisition which explored this aspect HARD and was amazing for it. You'd get into great debates with religious figures and party members about the implications of Corypheus actually being a Tevinter Magister of old. And you'd talk about what it means towards the religious dogma preached and how much is true. And these intense political and religious discussions are present in every previous game, and not confined to a single conversation with one party member where it is seemingly resolved.

These conversations do not happen in DATV because there is no depth to the writing or engagement with the world. The Elven Gods are evil and need to be stopped. That's it. We don't need to think about the implications this has on Dalish customs and religion. Fuck it, all the Dalish are going to still wear their Vallaslin slave brand tattoos. Let's forget about Trespasser implying Solas was removing them from followers coming to join him. Let's even forget they were likely all told at this point that they are slave brands, nope still going to wear them yet speak blasphemy with every sentence against our Gods. No one cares about Andraste or The Maker or the Chant. Big deal if these Elven Gods contradict the overwhelming majority religion in Thedas. Not a single party member has religious or cultural objections to killing the Elven Gods; not a problem. Not one single elf wants to join Solas in tearing down The Veil and getting immortality again?

Again, let's forget about Trespasser setting up Solas gathering MANY Elven followers from Dalish clans who would be super inclined to join him after experiencing CENTURIES of discrimination and slavery by humans. The better question is what Elves wouldn't join Solas at the start? And what Elves wouldn't look at the other two Gods and go, "meh, maybe we should give them a try. They can't be worse than humans, right?" In DA2 you had elves joining The Qun to escape the discrimination of humans, but not ONE ELF wants to join Solas or Elgar'nan? Those Ancient Elves in the Temple of Mythal? I guess they all died, right?

This extends to EVERY single element of Dragon Age that previously had depth to it, it now has been completely removed. Those murdering Antivan Crows? Oh, they're just good Italian Mob Family that protect their city. Tevinter? Yes, it has poor people, but we're trying to do better. Oh, slavery? No, no we don't show that here. The Qun? The what now? No, they are all Antaam now, and so that means they are all generic evil warlords. No, they don't even attempt to follow their own hardcore view of The Qun like when Templars split from the Chantry, they're just warlords now that like plunder. Dwarves and their rigid Caste society? We don't do that here. Elves and racism across Thedas? Elves used to experience racism? News to me, what's a Shemlen? Never heard of that term, we like all humans. Pirates? That is insensitive, we are Lords of Fortune and we are sure to return any cultural artifacts found to their rightful owners; it belongs in a museum after all. The fucking Fade and spirits? Wait, you mean its different than generic fantasy spirit world? I'm sorry, that's too complicated here.

This either intentional disregard of the lore or plain ignorance also extends to environmental design. The asset reuse from Inquisition is particularly hilarious and must speak to the developers not having time after the switch from MP. Why are the same statues found in Val Royeaux in DAI also in Tevinter and Antiva? Why are those stupid Fen'Harel Wolf statues EVERYWHERE? Even in the catacombs of other Elven Gods! There are no statues of Elgar'nan or Ghilan'nain. Nothing for June or Anduril. Dirthamen. Falon'Din. Nothing. No, the only Gods that seem to get statues are coincidentally the ones who already had assets created for DAI or past titles that could be reused. Hmmm.

This continues into character designs too, why do the Veiljumpers and Shadow Dragons all dress richly? They are supposed to be poor as fuck. There's a codex entry about Veiljumpers finding a lost cache of old ancient elven armor and weapons and so boom they all get to dress like High Elven Lords and not the dirty, poor, wandering Dalish clans they are supposed to come from. Why do this? There isn't even an attempt to explaining why the Shadow Dragons, an organization supposed to be secretive, has branded clothing in bright rich colors and fabrics for all members. Naturally, it must be incredibly difficult for Tevinter authorities to not identify them.

This lack of depth and verisimilitude, naturally, affects all the characters. Because in this game you cannot roleplay and you cannot ask questions. In Dragon Age Inquisition, once you started the game, you could immediately interrogate Varric about what happened to every DA2 character despite the Inquisitor never meeting them, you know because it respects its players. You could speak to shop keepers, blacksmiths, your horse master. You could interrogate every single person to learn more about them and the world. The same goes for your player character in DA2 and Origins. You show in Denermin and find yourself knee deep in a quest to help Wade the Blacksmith craft the perfect armor. Here you can't actually speak to a single shopkeeper to ask questions and get some lore bits. You can't ask party members questions about their background, religious beliefs, upbringing, their factions, etc. You can't ask any returning characters any questions either about what they've been doing. Enter a brand new area? Great, you're not asking anyone questions about this never before seen place.

How does a lost Dwarven thaig survive every single blight? How are their immortal lichs in Neverra? How long has that been a thing? Why haven't they told anyone about the Elven gods or any other knowledge they've accumulated in an immortal lifespan? If immortality is so "easy" why can't Solas just do that to restore the Elves? Why are the Venatori, Tevinter Supremacists, following Elven Gods? Wouldn't that be a major identity crisis? Why would Antaam, who still preach the Qun, follow an Elven God that speaks blasphemy with ever breadth? Sshhhh, no questions. You get what is directly told to you and that's it, no follow-up questions.

Party members do not conflict with each other or interrogate each other's beliefs which is why their banter feels inconsequential and meaningless. Lucanis is a assassin, he kills people for money. The same organization that marked Zevran for death for failing a contract. The same one that took him as a kid and trained him to murder, often brutally, for coin. And yet no one really seems to care. He's just a nice Italian assassin from a nice assassin organization. Who cares. Let's instead talk about cooking, at length. Harding, a devout follower of Andraste, has no qualms with Elven Gods wreaking havoc on known religion. We get one conversation you can tell her to believe what she wants, and that's the end of that debate. Bellara also gets about two whole conversations about the conflict concerning her Gods wreaking havoc, both easily resolved. We don't need to think about any larger implications or doubt her loyalty when the Elven pantheon are seeking to restore her people that have been discriminated against since forever. Emmerich, a necromancer of Neverra, apparently has no religious belief. A codex entry even states that those of the Mourn Watch don't know where the soul goes after death. They don't like to think about it. Buddy, Mortalitasi belief is literally that our souls return to the Void alongside The Maker, but to keep balance a exchange must be wrought with The Fade to allow a spirit to house the now empty vessel. How do you not know the religion and customs of your own faction and land? This man has a whole quest line about funerary rights, yet not ONCE mentions religion and what he believes happens after death?! Sshhhh, no questions. No thinking.

Hey, remember The Fade? Remember how mages go to dream there every night. Remember how The Black City is always visible there? No? Well, we don't either. You won't see The Black City in The Fade. You might see it in The Crossroads in a closed off section, even though it is NOT The Fade. Oh, we're going to have you physically enter The Fade in multiple quest lines and no one will think it's a big deal. No, you still can't see The Black City. Now, The Fade is reduced to nothing more than your generic fantasy spirit world. It has none of the previous rules and lore that bound it before. Demons can bind to non-mages and we won't attempt to explain it. Solas fucks with The Veil and not a single mage notices a change in their dreams when they sleep at night. No biggie.

Lastly, let's return at last to the actual minutiae of writing. I stated at the start the writing isn't bad because of Marvel quippiness, which the series has always had. I was partly lying. Yes, the series has always had anachronistic dialogue. It has had meme language in its own previous titles. But, it was just that, a small joke here and there. For the most part the series actually tried to use it's own sort of "older" speech patterns. I think a perfect example has to do with Taash, she eventually finds her own identity and declares she is proudly "non-binary." Literally stating, "so, I'm non-binary." I have no issue with this sort of inclusivity in Dragon Age, it's what the series is known for. Yet, why does that sound wrong? Simple, it's far too anachronistic. It doesn't belong in Dragon Age. In Inquisition, Dorian let's us know he's gay. But he doesn't say, "I'm gay!" or "I'm a homosexual" those terms would not exist in his world. Instead he says, "I prefer the company of men."

And it's these little subtle changes in writing that makes it feel all the more different. We went from "I once ventured in to The Fade to serve the Old Gods of Tevinter in person. I found there only chaos and corruption. Dead whispers. Now I shall return under no name but my own, to champion withered Tevinter and correct this blighted world gone wrong. Pray that I succeed, for I have seen the throne of the Gods. And it was empty."

To: "Well, shit. That can't be good."

So, what do we have when all is said and done? Well, we have a decent generic fantasy action game. An intentional attempt by the developers to remove every edge from the world of Dragon Age in place of a very simple, easy to understand world with not much depth beyond what you see. You don't need to think, just play and have fun. This is beyond turning a MP game into a SP game, which so blatantly obvious in this game. DA2 was developed in 16 months, but is carried strong by its writing. You see, nothing prevented them from just acknowledging their own world they created. It costs very little to write around what already exists. Even if you can't make no assets or redesign the world. Writing is cheap and having characters voice these elements is not as costly as a redesign. No, they chose to remove the edge in every element because this was design intentionally for the masses with easy to understand world and zero depth.

But I wanted to play Dragon Age. I wanted to get into intense religious debates with party members as known lore is completely upended. I wanted to debate Elvish clans deciding to join Solas or the other Gods due to their treatment by human society. I wanted to debate the ethics of necromancy with the Mortalitasi of Neverra's Crypts. I wanted to engage in intense debating with Solas on the ethics of his goal. I wanted to see Tevinter react to a real push for anti-slavery and actually see the slavery in the slave capital of the world. I wanted to butt heads with the Antivan Crows and call them out for the murderers they are. I wanted to see the Black Divine and debate the Chant of Light with them. I wanted to speak to the Archon of Tevinter and see how he felt about the Venatori's past efforts in Inquisition. Hey, what happened to Meredith Reborn in Kirkwall and her idol and Red Templar worshipers? Forget about it.

We got none of this. I got a game that is pretty much disrespectful of its own world. I waited 10 years for this? Why even bother if this is the result? They may as well have just killed every previous character we ever knew, including Solas, offscreen and started anew with this game. Because as a Dragon Age game and sequel, it's terrible and no returning character is how they should be.

And when we get to the ending, that's pretty much what they did. Everything you did in all the past games? Well, that was pointless. Everyone is probably dead. King Alistair. Gaspard. Celene. King Bhelen. The Arl of Redcliffe. The Divine. The Circle of Magi. The Templars. The Seekers. Everything, everyone, and every organization that existed in the South is likely dead and destroyed. And now Dragon Age can become what they wanted, a generic fantasy IP.

But I just wanted to play Dragon Age.

[tomorrowxtogether]

SOOBIN: “I thought I should just try to shine as I am.”

TOMORROW X TOGETHER The Star Chapter: SANCTUARY comeback interview

2024.11.11

He once strived to become a lush, towering forest. But he realized that people will love him for exactly what he is—a deep, rolling ocean. And so, he decided to remain as whom he always has been: an ocean named SOOBIN.

You took a trip to Vietnam earlier this year with BEOMGYU. I heard you planned the whole thing. SOOBIN: I’m usually the kind of person who just goes around without a real plan, but since we don’t get much vacation time, I figured we’d better go all out and do everything we could in one go, so I tried planning it all out. (laughs) BEOMGYU just wanted to go with the flow, but there was a ton of stuff I wanted to do.

I’m sure it’s not easy taking a trip or spending your off time with the same people you spend all your time with. SOOBIN: I hang out a lot with the rest of the group on my own time too, though. Three of us were all hanging out together just yesterday. To be perfectly honest, it doesn’t feel like anything special since we’re always together 365 days a year, but I’m also most comfortable around them for the same reason.

Sometimes people start bickering with each other when they get too comfortable with one another, but you’re always so kind—like how you gifted BEOMGYU with a nap in that “The Perfect Way to Rest” video when you remembered he was feeling tired. SOOBIN: I think I’m good at picking up on things. I don’t know if I can do it with everyone, but at least with the other members of the group, I’m pretty good at telling how they’re feeling or if they’re not feeling well. As soon as I see one of them, I can tell, Oh, he looks a little rough today, or, He’s sure in a good mood today. (laughs) If they seem down, I go over to them to find out what’s wrong and talk it over.

Your kindness also comes across when you’re with animals, like in the “OUR TOMORROW” video, where you took care of one dog who was so nervous that it didn’t get a chance to eat any treats. Have you always been drawn to people and creatures that are small and left out? SOOBIN: So, so much. In fact, I was really shy and struggled to fit in when I was a trainee. I was really lonely at first. So when time passed and I finally got accustomed to things, if I saw another trainee who was shy and couldn’t adjust, I felt like looking out for them. Kai was among them. (laughs) That’s how I ended up becoming really close with him.

You talked about the cat your sister adopted recently, explaining how it used to be shy because it had a hard life in the past but that it finally opened up this year. SOOBIN: I went to see the cat when my sister first got it, but I couldn’t even see it that first time—it just hid under the couch. It was so shy that I thought I’d never get to pet it, but the last time I saw it, it came right up to me and started purring, wanting to be petted. It was able to overcome its painful past and open up to my family thanks to all the love they show looking after it. Love really does have the power to change anything. (laughs)

You also said on weverse LIVE recently that you made a new friend who you can talk about dramas, movies, and books with. SOOBIN: For me, dramas and movies don’t end with watching them—after you’re done watching, that’s when things are just getting started. I always look up reviews and analyses online. People can watch the same thing and they’ll all have their own thoughts on it, so I’m curious about all those different views, and now I have someone to talk about that with. They know a lot more about books and movies than I do, so I end up learning a lot when we’re sharing our thoughts together. Just having a friend to share my interests with is really fun.

You mentioned talking about Inside Out 2, and you looked at how it features a place to store things you’ve heard that you want to keep for a long time, which got you thinking about what sort of things you would want to hold onto. SOOBIN: I kept recalling things my friends say after we hang out—things like, “SOOBIN, I’m so happy we’re friends,” and, “I feel great whenever I’m with you.” Hearing things like that really touches my heart. Seriously, how often do you get to hear things like that in life? I used to find expressing things like that awkward and weird, but thanks to my friends, I’m getting used to saying I love and appreciate people. You empathized with how Anxiety works harder and feels more anxious than others because they want to be good at things. Are there things you feel you should work harder at than other people? SOOBIN: I’m actually slower at learning choreography compared to the other members. I assumed I’d get a lot better after debuting and regularly performing onstage, but progress was slower than I expected. I didn’t say anything about this before, and I even kept it a secret from the other members, but I actually got separate choreo lessons on the side when we were doing “Chasing That Feeling” and “Deja Vu.” We’d take lessons as a group, and then once I was alone I’d always spend about an hour dancing and working on the little details. I tried so hard with those two most recent songs that I even practiced on my own like that. Seeing as I’m slow, I have to work harder to keep up with the other members. If I have more time, I want to practice more for this comeback, too.

With all the touring you’ve done and the encore performances you have coming up, it must’ve been really hectic getting ready for your Star Chapter: SANCTUARY comeback. SOOBIN: The schedule was really tight this time around—we even had to record vocals in Japan in the middle of the tour since we were in and out of the country—but now that we’re in our sixth year, the five of us were all really fast about things. I could sense that we had grown compared to before since we were faster at recording than we could’ve expected to be in the past and it took us less time to work out the details of the choreography.

The album’s subtitle, SANCTUARY, is a word that’s appeared in TOMORROW X TOGETHER albums before. What’s been your sanctuary these days? SOOBIN: I never used to have a sanctuary, which made getting through tough times hard, but I do now: simple things like working out or reading. It feels like the things that break me away from overthinking and let me immerse myself in something else are my sanctuary.

You were complimented on your previous promotions for your improved vocals and high notes. What about on this album? SOOBIN: Actually, every other album we’ve done had a song in a genre I wasn’t confident in, but not this time. The single “Over The Moon” is really laid-back, and I felt like it was perfect timing for us to try out a song like that. What’s unfortunate is that I caught this horrendous cold during recording. We started practicing for live performances recently, and the director said, “SOOBIN’s singing better than he did when recording. He makes it sound effortless.” So I couldn’t help but think about how much better I could’ve done if only my throat had been in better shape.

You always focus a lot on lyrics. Were there any on this album that have stuck with you in particular? SOOBIN: This album isn’t so much about telling some big, sweeping story as it is about everything we’ve been through together. Now that we’ve been through all that chaos, it’s about the universal emotion of love, which everyone can relate to, and I liked that about it. There’s a line in “Higher Than Heaven” that sticks with me that goes, “I think I kinda get what forever means now.” I even once said, “I never used to believe in the word ‘forever,’ but I think I can now, thanks to our fans.” I didn’t write that part, but it’s like it was written to perfectly capture my feelings.

The other members have probably had an impact on your belief in the word “forever,” too. SOOBIN: I’m pretty sure we’re going to grow old together and that we’ll be together till the day I die. We do the same thing and basically live the same life day in and day out, so we know what makes each other cry the most during concerts, too. Whether it’s my tears of happiness or BEOMGYU’s tears of disappointment from a leg injury, having friends to understand and share those feelings with is nice. They’re all just really kind people—calm and clear, like a stream. None of us is domineering or splashing around, disturbing the peace, and nobody’s dirtying the water, so I think we’ll be able to stick together for a long, long time.

You said before that you had found being onstage tough while touring. Now that you’ve already wrapped up your third world tour, do you still find that to be the case? SOOBIN: I think I’m getting better over time. I still can’t say that I completely enjoy myself, but the worries I used to have before going onstage have gone away entirely. There used to be times where I found it hard to watch myself onstage because I didn’t like how I looked, but now I see myself up there and I think I look cool. (laughs)

The way you have a different outfit on for every sound check when you’re on tour is definitely cool. SOOBIN: For fans who come even though they’re busy, showing up hours before the concert just to wait, doing it purely out of love, I wanted to be more stylish, so I bought a lot of clothes just for sound checks. The glasses-plus-cardigan combo was something I bought in advance for summer, and the reaction from the audience was amazing! They showed me on the big screen and MOA was screaming their lungs out—like, not the usual “wow,” but, “aah!” Like shock and awe. (laughs) I was worried I went overboard with the look, but they showed they liked it, so I was happy.

There’s no way not to bring up your cover of the Choi Yu Ree song “Forest” when talking about you. You said that the people around you are like tall trees in a forest and that you thought you’re one of them, but that you figured out you’re actually more like the ocean. SOOBIN: It’s easy to find people around me who are better looking and sing and dance better than I do. I actually started thinking about that at Lollapalooza. The other members looked so happy and like they were having so much fun onstage, but I couldn’t. I felt eaten up inside seeing myself not being able to fully enjoy it because of all the pressure. Then I heard Choi Yu Ree explaining that “Forest” is about feeling like you’re not good enough and I thought, “Ah, so that’s what I’ve been going through.” I started to understand my emotions a little bit better. Everyone ends up comparing themselves to others at some point in their lives—it’s unavoidable. And they have times where all they can see are the things they hate about themselves, but it’s ridiculous. I was overflowing with negative feelings when I was working on my “Forest” cover, and I wanted to sort of deal with those feelings and express them.

The music video echoes your thoughts that someday you’ll come to shore and become one with the forest. What does the forest mean to you? SOOBIN: Just being a singer who’s good at singing and dancing, interacting with my fans, enjoying performing, and being able to do it all with complete sincerity. I think I was showing how the forest to me means being happy with the other members when they’re happy. Nothing big—just simple things I’m not always that good at.

Do you feel more like a forest now that some time has gone by? SOOBIN: Umm … I saw a ton of comments from fans after I covered “Forest.” My mindset when I was doing it was, Right now I’m like the ocean, but I’ll become a part of the forest just like you guys—so wait for me until then. But once I saw what fans were writing, I changed my mind and thought, Do I really need to become a part of the forest? I could be similar to the forest, but I don’t have to change myself to be one. My fans kept saying, “The whole reason we liked you in the first place is because you’re like the ocean, not because we hoped you’d become like a forest. If that were the case, we’d like somebody else. Why do you think it was you?” The ocean comes with its own perks, you know. You need to have some ocean near a forest to add to the scenery and have more things to do. Now I think maybe I tried too hard to fit in by trying to be like the forest. Now I feel like I can shine bright just by being myself.

That lines up with what you recently said in an interview you did in Japan when you said that your 20s, the best and most energetic time of life, are dazzling and fun thanks to knowing MOA. What do you think you’ll see when you look back on this youthful period of your 20s? SOOBIN: Joy. Every moment of our lives is packed with good times and bad times, joy and sorrow, but in the end, I think, I’m on a path towards joy. Even things that are so agonizing that you want to die—so bad you feel like the whole world is against you, and so bad you’re certain they’re weighing on you forever, eventually pass.

Doesn’t it almost feel funny sometimes, looking back after all that? (laughs) SOOBIN: Yes. It ends up feeling so trivial somehow. Things that felt massive at the time are like a speck in the distance once you get even a little space between them and yourself. Even after all the hardship I went through being a trainee, I can look back now and see there were a lot of good times. Maybe we tend to romanticize the past a bit? (laughs) Even some of the stuff I’m going through now can be tough, to be honest, but I’m never going to give up. There’s still so much I want to give. The amount of joy I derive from doing this is way higher than the amount of difficulty. I think my life’s amazing, even right now.

So amazing. (laughs) SOOBIN: I think so too! (laughs) As time goes on and I get older, when I look back on my youth, my time with TOMORROW X TOGETHER, I wonder if it’ll look that much more shiny and amazing. Maybe I’ll feel I was even cooler at this time than I feel I am now.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Notes from my Deathly Hallows reread: Slughorn returns with the Slytherins

So, most of you probably saw or heard of that interview JKR gave back in the day about how Slughorn came back to the battle of Hogwarts with the Slytherin students:

JN: And how much is it that being sorted into Slytherin is, you know, sorted into good guys and bad guys here? JKR: Well, they’re not all bad, that would- I know I’ve said this before, (JN: Yeah, I remember.) and I think I said it to Emerson, they are not all bad, and, well, far from it. As we know, at the end, they may have (laughs) a slightly more highly developed sense of self-preservation then other people because… SU: Yeah, right. JN: Yeah. JKR: A part of the final battle that made me smile was Slughorn galloping back with Slytherins, (SU: Yes!) (JN laughs) but they’d gone off to get reinforcements first, you know what I’m saying? But yes, they came back, they came back to fight, so I mean- but I’m sure that many people would say “Well, that’s common sense, isn’t it? Isn’t that smart, to get out, get more people and come back with them?” JN: Yeah.

(From this interview)

And like most fans, I always kinda assumed it was her retconning things in the books again, because I just didn't remember it happening and she added a lot of little tidbits (some more contradictory than others) in the years after the books, so I don't tend to take them too seriously. But I was reading Deathly Hallows last night and she might've actually written that in:

And now there were more, even more people storming up the front steps, and Harry saw Charlie Weasley overtaking Horace Slughorn, who was still wearing his emerald pajamas. They seemed to have returned at the head of what looked like the families and friends of every Hogwarts student who had remained to fight, along with the shopkeepers and homeowners of Hogsmeade. The centaurs Ban, Ronan, and Magorian burst into the hall with a great clatter of hooves, as behind Harry the door that led to the kitchens was blasted off its hinges. The house-elves of Hogwarts swarmed into the entrance hall

(DH, 734) 619

Harry later mentions a horde of wizards, and we know Harry doesn't actually recognize all the students in his year, let alone all the students in Slytherin he doesn't interact with regularly. So, I wonder if she really meant by "they seemed to have returned" other Slytherins when she wrote it initially and how much of a retcon that interview really is.

Considering it was the middle of the night, the Slytherins likely were wearing pajamas, like Slughon, and maybe cloaks over them and not school robes, so it's possible Harry would have no way of knowing who's a student if he doesn't know them personally.

The only real issue I have with the canonicity of it is this statement from Voldemort:

"If your son is dead, Lucius, it is not my fault. He did not come and join me, like the rest of the Slytherins. Perhaps he has decided to befriend Harry Potter?" "No—never," whispered Malfoy.

(DH, 641)

But perhaps he's talking in hyperbole (or just being a shit to Lucius, as he does), since we know Crabbe and Goyle hadn't come back to join him either and he doesn't mention them.

Additionally, when the Golden Trio goes up to the headmaster's office Phineas Black says this:

and Phineas Nigellus called, in his high, reedy voice, “And let it be noted that Slytherin House played its part! Let our contribution not be forgotten!”

(DH, 747)

It doesn't sound like he's just talking about himself, Snape, and Slughorn, it sounds like he's talking about actual combatants, so...

JKR's statement about Slytherins fighting in the Battle of Hogwarts on Harry's side (besides Slughorn) is surprisingly, probably, canon.

The interview I mentioned was only 7 months after the book came out, so I wonder if she wrote a different version of that paragraph before editing and was thinking about that... It seems the intention might've been there even if she didn't write it all that clearly...

[bambi-kinos]

What do you think of Paul and John 's relationship in 1980? Personally, I think they had at least some sort of consensus of the relationship (I mean, a formal romantic relationship) in 1980, and I don't think Paul started thinking about the nature of the relationship after John's death, i think they both took it seriously in the'70s and decided that what they wanted from each other. It wasn't the Beatles anymore, it was John and Paul, but John's death stopped it.

I don't know what to make of John and Paul in 1980 to be perfectly honest. There's a lot of rumors and conjecture swirling around it like the Crazy Days and Nights post. A lot of the interpretations around 1980 are based in wishful thinking because no one wants to believe that John died without some sort of plan in mind with regards to Paul. The fact of the matter is that there's too much we don't know.

What we do know from the 1970s is that John and Paul's relationship really split down the middle and they didn't want anything to do with each other. They did still care about each other but they had pissed each other off too much. Paul did start reaching out in the mid-70s trying to talk to John but John, and especially Yoko, didn't want this contact. That's why John turned him away from the door when Paul tried to show up (alone!) with his guitar. John regretted that later but I don't think it's wrong to see their relationship as very dead in the water.

And the truth is that Paul didn't actually pursue John that much contrary to some bitching that took place last year in the fandom. Paul's heaviest overtures to John were when he was out of Yoko's immediate presence during the Lost Weekend and then when John went back, Paul kept him at a distance again. The communication eventually became infrequent phone calls (since many were blocked by Yoko on purpose) and that often turned into them shouting at each other. Paul eventually stopped calling John frequently and when he did he was careful to keep their conversations very light and stilted. Otherwise John would just get angry at him. Paul had other things going on in his life, he had to raise his children, be a husband, keep making music, and arrange tours.

I can imagine that John and Paul hooked up occasionally through out the 1970s but the truth is that when John said "leave me alone" Paul did.

I don't think John's last interviews wouldn't be so laden with regret towards Paul if they had something planned in the background.

Paul never forgave John for leaving The Beatles or for giving his life up to Yoko. He did want John back in his life and away from her once Paul realized what she was doing to him, but I don't believe that he was willing to stick his neck out again for John's sake. He didn't know what he was going to get in response. I would think that's why they booked the studio in January 1981, to see if they could operate with one another on neutral ground. But that was a test balloon.

It's possible they did have something happening in the background but John seems too torn up about Paul in 1980 for me to really believe that. He was actively trying to leave Yoko but I think he would have been in the wind a bit if he had, Paul wasn't riding to his rescue this time. And he was right not to.

We just don't know enough to make any firm pronouncements about 1980. Whatever John wanted from Paul it was vague and undefined because they were rebuilding their relationship from rubble. Paul was wary around John and trying to figure out if he could really trust him this time.

Idk I just don't get the "we are together again" vibes from everything that was happening in the Dakota at the time.

[fizziepopangel]

A Fizziepop Take: Let’s talk about the beginning of the end and what the last few episodes might mean for the next chapter of Stolitz

Well hello, my lovely peoples! I feel like I haven’t written a Fizziepop Take in a good minute, and I know I'm putting my two cents in a lil late, but I am back and so ready to talk about everything that we’ve seen in the last few episodes because it has been wild…. So, you know the drill, let’s get into it.

So, if we wanna talk about the beginning of the end, we need to be honest with ourselves; the real beginning of the end of one of the fandom’s most beloved ships started back with the incident at Ozzie’s. If you've followed my takes for a while, you know I talk about this night a lot, but that is because this was a real turning point for the couple; the relationship has been strained ever since Blitz felt what he felt that night when Stolas pulled away from him in public when all eyes were on them. Ever since that exact moment, Blitz felt like he was being used and taken advantage of, and despite things going back to a kind of normal for them, those feelings just ended up festering and since our loveable little horse-loving imp doesn’t have a lot of healthy ways to process things and has already had it imbedded in his brain that he ain’t shit, I don’t think he ever fully processed what that night meant from any other angle than “he’s embarrassed to be seen with me”. What does this have to do with how things ended? I’m so glad you’ve asked! Since Blitz never fully processed the events of that night and therefore was only ever able to see it as a royal being embarrassed to be seen on a date with a lowly imp, Blitz didn’t get to see the sweeter side of being gifted an Asmodean Crystal by Stolas in “The Full Moon”. To Blitz, the crystal was more of a “you’re being let go” type of thing because Stolas essentially terminated their contract and since they had never talked about their relationship being anything but contractual, Blitz had no reason to believe that this was really anything but Stolas telling him that he was no longer needed by him.

Now, we as the audience know what the real intention behind the crystal was, and I think Stolas put it beautifully when he tried to explain it to Blitz when he gifted him the crystal….. but I don’t think that words really do much for Blitz in most instances, let alone in the long term. Blitz is more of an “actions speak louder than words” type of imp, but here’s the thing about that: for this saying to be true, actions must be consistent. Because, yes, actions do speak louder than words, but if that action is only done here and there, it doesn’t always show what it should. In terms of the end of Stolitz as we know it, Stolas isn’t the only one who’s actions matter, and unfortunately, I’m not talking about just Blitz’s actions. Being that Blitz has been abused (probably way more than we’ve even seen), those actions matter. Abuse of any sort does a lot more damage to the victim than we sometimes realize, and because of that, it can do a lot of damage in how a person looks at things like relationships and love…. And given the transactional nature of their relationship, and the fact that Stolas hadn’t consistently been a genuine partner to Blitz outside of the bedroom, his reaction to the crystal honestly makes a lot of sense. First, he treats it like an elaborate role play, because sex is the only love language he’s consistently known in their relationship, then when he realizes that it’s a serious conversation, he’s pissed rather than grateful…. Is his anger perhaps a little misplaced? Probably, but the feelings are all real. Blitz does feel used and discarded by Stolas, something he’s obviously felt before since we see in his bad trip in "Truth Seekers" that he feels very much chained to the prince by the design of their relationship, and the fact that Stolas doesn't give him much time to really sit with what’s just happened between them after handing him an out of their relationship doesn’t help…. And then we see the panic when Blitz realizes that unlike what he’s used to, Stolas isn’t going to match his anger, he’s just going to remove himself from the situation and let that be the end of it….

This brings us to the events of “Apology Tour”. I actually really loved this episode despite the fact that my favorite couple literally just called it quits the episode before. We see the aftermath of what happened the night of the full moon, and we see the way both men start to grieve the relationship they had in their own ways, which I would argue is the true end of the relationship since this is where we see both men really accepting that they are no longer a thing the way they were before. We see Stolas taking all his eggs out of the Blitz basket and actually letting himself be happy with someone else, even if that happy is only gonna be for the night… And we see Blitz realizing that he not only truly loved Stolas more than he had wanted to admit, but we see him start trying to let go of what he had with the man despite the point of the episode being that he hadn’t really been ready to in the beginning…. Unfortunately, Blitz letting go leads to his spiral which we see in “Ghostfuckers”, and we see him get himself into a rough spot with his little found family; working Loona into exhaustion burning owl figurines as a form of therapy, not paying M&M while also fucking away all of I.M.P’s money, and using the job they get in this episode as a chance to just roleplay as someone who wasn’t him and therefore wasn’t going through what he was…Really, Blitz did go into a deep, rather dark place, and I suspect that he might be there for a while when it comes to love, which leads us to the big question….

What does this all mean for the fan favorite ship? Will Stolitz really be endgame if we just watched them break up the way they did? 

If you ask me, a humble Tumbr blogger who probably cares way too much about fictional demons, I honestly don’t think this hiatus will really affect the ship too negatively. The time apart may be just what Stolas and Blitz need. Both of these men have trauma they need to start working through individually, and while having a support system can be a helluva help when you’re reopening old wounds to try to get them to heal properly (hehe, see what i did there?), I don’t think either of them is really in a place emotionally to be the best support they can be for the other while they both individually try to do that. Stolas also needs time to learn who he is as a person considering he went from being a baby prince to being engaged, then straight from being engaged to being married, then married with a kid, and directly after that, he jumped into bed with Blitz and just proceeded to place everything he had in that "relationship"… He never really considered anything outside of loveless marriage with an abusive cunt or amazing sex and *hopefully* love with an old childhood “friend”. I think he needs some time to be alone and live just for himself as much as he can as a Goetia, and I don’t think he could have done that with Blitz right now, at least not fully. Vivzie is a smart woman, and she does a lot of things in her shows very intentionally, so I do think that she is setting the pair up for a happier, healthier relationship down the line and I think once they come together again and have more experiences apart from each other, we’re probably gonna get a sort of happy ending for the pair, or at least the start of a new beginning for them.

I’d love to hear what everyone else thinks, because as you all know, this is just a simple Fizziepop Take and anything can happen in the Helluverse, but my take definitely makes me excited for the next episode because I for one cannot wait to see what Vivzie has in store for us next.

[wisteria-lodge]

Hi! I would like to ask this Narcissa seems to love Lucius and Draco, cares for them and appears to be a family oriented person but how come it is stated in her wiki that she despises the Blacks, wouldn't this imply she considers herself more of a Malfoy and I mean why would she despise the Blacks when it comes to blood purity/superiority, I don't know the correct term but don't they practice/talk about it more/the Blacks prioritize it so shouldn't she be proud of being a Black?

So I just want to say real quick that the fanwiki is not always... accurate. It includes a lot of data from the games, interviews, interviews with the actors that I would never count as canon, and it's also written by y'know, fans. it's actually pretty funny to read through the entry on say, Lucius, and be told that he was a "high achieving model student" and "his talent in potion-making even earned him a place among Slughorn's elite Slug Club." (right. it was definitely just the potions.) I'm learning that he "favours a more elegant, refined technique when he engaged an adversary and generally demonstrates great form in his duelling style." [citation: Jason Isaacs is pretty]. And while we're on that topic "it is likely that his looks might have improved upon the fall of his former Master." Very important that we know Lucius gets hot again after the books.

My guess is that this is the bit you read:

[text id: Narcissa had a close relationship with her oldest sister Bellatrix despite their differing temperaments and personality traits. Narcissa always despised the Blacks, but had great respect for those who did. The ones who dared defy their family's beliefs, such as her older sister Andromeda and cousin Sirius Black, leading her to ignore and disown them.]

I don't know about this. Maybe Narcissa and Bellatrix were close at some point, they do use nicknames to refer to each other, but in the timeline of the books there's a LOT of friction.

Narcissa is actively trying to get Bellatrix to "leave [her] alone" during the Spinner's End chapter (which is what the snippet up there is citing.) Bellatrix is... unhelpful about the Draco situation, saying things like, “If I had sons, I would be glad to give them up to the service of the Dark Lord!" She's also blaming Lucius for the Department of Mysteries fiasco, which Narcissa is pissed about:

“Don’t you dare — don’t you dare blame my husband!” said Narcissa, in a low and deadly voice

We also see some sort of power struggle between them later on, in Malfoy Manor:

“This is my house, Bella, you don’t give orders in my —”

In the books, I don't think we get any details about how Narcissa specifically feels about Sirius, or Andromeda. There's this:

“I expect Potter will be reunited with dear Sirius before I am reunited with Lucius.”

Which is just a very Narcissa way of saying "you're on thin ice." I guess the "dear" feels slightly mocking. But she's also actively threatening Harry, so not the most representative moment. We do get this from Bellatrix:

“We — Narcissa and I — have never set eyes on our sister [Andromeda] since she married the Mudblood.”

But... she is also speaking for Narcissa, and panicking in front of Voldemort. This might not even be true.

As for the wiki saying "Narcissa always despised the Blacks, but had great respect for those who did" - that's such an odd sentence I kinda feel like there must be a typo in there. I'm not sure there's any evidence in the books that Narcissa despises the Blacks.

(I mean I do think, in a fun headcanon way, that you can make a case that she went subtly low-contact with her family after she married Lucius. The Blacks seemed to have a pretty toxic family dynamic going on circa the first war, and one thing you can say about the Malfoys is that there's a lot of love there, and as a family unit they seem solid. Maybe Narcissa did start to think of herself as more of a Malfoy than a Black. (Maybe her Malfoy-blonde hair isn't natural...)

I also think there's something going on with the house elves. The Blacks clearly have a culture of house elves, and the Malfoys... don't? Like there don't seem to be any house-elves there once Voldemort takes over (and I mean, Dobby was such a *stunningly* bad security breach, I'd be shocked if there were.) But the house seems to run just fine, while hosting a bunch of Death Eaters, Snatchers, and prisoners. Makes me think Dobby was the *only* house elf, and that he was originally a Black family house elf who came over with Narcissa when she got married. In that case, I suppose the decision not to get more might mean something. But all that's just me having fun with the worldbuilding. )

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching reading. Today's choice: 死亡万花筒 / Kaleidoscope of Death.

Kaleidoscope of Death is a 2018 Chinese webnovel about two young men who fall in love while basically playing a whole bunch of horror-themed escape rooms that can for-real kill you.

This novel was gripping. I could not put it down. It started out fun and ended up ripping out my heart several times. It does a good job getting the ball rolling with a series of adventures in weird worlds, then turns into a meditation about grief and loss and what it means to have something to lose in the first place.

This is the first time I've ever done a book rec! I'm doing it in conjunction with a rec post for the Spirealm, and originally I was just going to do this as a bonus section for that post. However, I felt they both deserve whole different posts, because they both have very different things to recommend them. I also think Kaleidoscope of Death a 100% necessary read if you've seen the show, because it provides some context that the show simply cannot include -- but it's not a necessary read before you see the show.

Therefore, I'm going to give you five reasons I think you should sit down with this one, and not a single one of these reasons is going to assume you've watched the Spirealm! The book is great and deserves to be read on its own merits, and then if you then start watching the drama afterwards, so much the better.

1. All the Cross-Dressing

(Yeah, I'm going to punctuate this one with screencaps from the Spirealm, because otherwise it's just a wall of text.)

I'm not going to tell you why the male characters frequently dress and pass as women, since the book explains the practicality of it better than I could. You just need to know that they often do, and it's never not kinda hot when it happens.

When you first meet Ruan Nanzhu, it is as Ruan Baijie, a stunningly beautiful and noticeably tall woman. Lin Qiushi, our POV character who is extremely confused for a number of reasons, spends the first whole arc talking and thinking about Baijie like she's a girl. In fact, one of the cutest things about sweet, earnest Qiushi is that he clocks Baijie several times, and every time he's just like, oh, she's so flat-chested, how unusual for a girl, anyway...

And this isn't even just dressing up! Stepping into the door worlds changes you physically based on your clothing and cosmetics. Nobody inside looks the same as they do outside, and nobody looks the same inside as they did last time they were inside. The rules that govern these transformations aren't even clear to the characters themselves! So, you know, have fun with that.

I'm going to say it's not an out-and-out trans thing, in that we're not dealing with an AMAB egg who will crack someday. Ruan Nanzhu is a very male-identified, penis-having man! He's just also pretty entertainingly comfortable with performing whatever gender makes him the most fuckable person in any given room. Lin Qiushi is not so inherently genderfluid, however, which means that when his gremlin sort-of-boyfriend makes him pretend to be a girl, it's a completely different kink.

Therefore: If you like it in any way when boys dress up like girls, you owe it to yourself to pick up this one. And if you like a fandom that likes it when boys dress up like girls, baby, welcome to the world inside the doors.

2. Those boys GAY

This is a textual romance. Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu are in love. This is a danmei novel about how they fall in love. There is kissing and there are fade-to-black scenes that explicitly acknowledge that the two of them have sex with one another. We even know that Ruan Nanzhu (usually) tops. This s not just me pointing at them and saying gaaaaaaaaaay. This is actual gay.

And it is gay that takes its fucking time. They do not actually hook up until well over halfway through the book, but they are physically affectionate from almost the get-go. Ruan Nanzhu is such a trickster and a liar that Lin Quishi finds it hard to believe that anything he does is sincere, which leads to nearly lesbian levels of wondering if it means anything when a guy demands you kiss him on the mouth when he's pretending to be your girlfriend. Meanwhile, Ruan Nanzhu is over here being the Kate Beaton comic about sitting here consumed with lust all evening.

Even once they both acknowledge what they're feeling for one another, they don't get together right away. After all, they're playing a game of life and death where they lose friends left and right. Every time someone goes inside the door, there's a real chance they won't come out again. Is giving your heart to someone worth how much it will destroy your entire life when you lose them?

(Yes, says the book. Yes, it is worth it.)

The slow burn of their relationship is delicious, in part because the physical (though not sexual) aspects of it predate the romantic ones. It also has the fun hot-and-cold aspect where Ruan Nanzhu is incredibly affectionate inside the doors, then icy outside of them. Poor completely inexperienced, never-been-kissed Lin Qiushi does not know what to make of any of this. He can barely manage parenting a cat. He does not know how to handle a boyfriend who is also a girlfriend who is also (spiritually) a cat.

I also find it charming how much the gay part of it both is and isn't an issue. It's not that Lin Qiushi has a problem being in love with a man; however, the fact that Ruan Nanzhu is a man does mean the heteronormally indoctrinated and relationship-inexperienced Lin Qiushi takes much longer to realize what exactly those feelings he's having are. The book's world is one where heterosexuality is the assumed default, while queerness is unexpected but everybody's still pretty cool with it. Besides, no one's going to judge Lin Qiushi's gay yearnings, because who doesn't want to fuck Ruan Nanzhu?

3. HAKO ONNA HAKO ONNA HAKO ONNA

So as I was reading through @zintranslations' earlier chapters, I kept seeing translators' notes down at the bottom about being so excited to finally get to the Hako Onna arc. Okay, I thought, this is a lot of hype; I hope it doesn't disappoint.

Friends, it does not. This is the arc I was reading while screaming into a pillow. It's thirteen chapters long, tied for the longest arc in the book with the first door. It is a fucking nail-biter. It does the clever thing of taking all the things you've learned about what can happen inside the doors and combining them for a worst-case scenario.

The setup is pretty simple: There's a bunch of boxes. One has the exit. Most are empty. Some have things that help you. Some have things that hurt you. The more things you find that hurt you, the more things there are to hurt you. And you have to open the boxes.

All the door arcs are pretty well-written, so that you can more or less play along with their various adventures. Hako Onna, however, is exceptional. It's so complicated, but you can actually follow it. And you need to be able to follow it, because the multiple emotional gut-punches that happen in this arc all depend on understanding how the rules of the game have just been leveraged to fuck someone over.

Now I really want to play the board game -- which I was pleased to discover is a real board game! And speaking of board games...

sidebar: Betrayal at House on the Hill

I know this isn't technically related to the novel at all, but if you like board games, horror, and being incredibly dramatic, you owe it to yourself to try out Betrayal at House on the Hill.

It goes like this: You and several other horror-movie archetypes wander through a mansion, "building" it as you explore it, so the game layout is different every time. At some point (and it's based on so many random factors that you never know when it'll be) someone triggers a condition, and the haunting begins. All the players then get the rules of haunting explained to them -- except for one player, the one picked to do the titular betrayal, who gets a different set of instructions and becomes the antagonist. From that point on, the game is about either surviving or completing the haunting, depending on which side you're on.

I have played this game before with normal board game people, and they were like, eh, this is fine. I have also played this game before with theatre kids who RP and LARP, and we all had a fucking blast. So I'm going to warn you that you have to choose your crowd carefully. This is a game for people who do improv and voices.

4. The art of losing isn't hard to master

The book has a high body count -- higher than the show's, in fact, though that's related to how the book also has more characters than the show does. When you meet someone who can go into the doors, be careful how much money you'd lay on their survival.

Death after the doors comes so quickly, too. There's barely any time to say goodbye, if there's even any time at all. Often there's just a phone call telling our main characters that one of their friends or allies or enemies is gone.

Everyone who gets the chance to go through the door worlds is only able to do so because they're dying already. The more doors they pass, the more they get to kick that death further down the road -- but the more doors they enter, the more chances they take that they might die inside one. So really, none of the players can be that resentful of being forced to play a game that can kill them, since they're already playing it on borrowed time.

I will say, somewhat cryptically, that the book has a positive ending that leaves open the possibility for other positive things. The path to that positive ending, though, leads through some pretty wrenching takes on living through grief. It's not even all rah-rah and it-gets-better, either -- the text acknowledges many times over what it means to have someone that life isn't worth living without.

And that's maybe not what you expected from a BL horror adventure webnovel, but it's what you're gonna get! Ha ha!

5. What He Is

Which is the title of the first extra chapter, which is not extra at all, but is in fact a necessary explanatory piece that whacks you upside the head like a two-by-four and recontextualizes the entire story.

...Yeah, that's all you're going to get from me about that. You'll understand when you get there.

Have you put it on your reading list yet?

The way you have to read it is a little convoluted: @zintranslations has chapters 1-17 and 63-end + extras. Taida Translations has chapters 1-62. So no matter where you start reading, you're going to have to switch sites at least once.

There are also apparently Portuguese, Indonesian, Russian, and Spanish translations too? And the original Chinese webnovel, of course. And some audio dramas and subs linked to from this Carrd, which helpfully has other information, like content warnings for specific chapters, in case the horror aspect of the story gives you pause.

Anyway, once you're done reading it -- or even before you're done! -- you should absolutely go watch the Spirealm. I think it's clear from both rec posts that I definitely like the book better, but I appreciate having the drama to bring so many scenes to life, and I think the casting is great. Also, I don't think reading the book makes you like the drama less! Rather, I think reading the book gives you insight into the awkward and sometimes terrible choices the drama had to make to survive -- which in turn gives you the ability to see through those choices, on to what the show always wanted in its heart to be.

I do find it funny how "Kaleidoscope of Death" and "Death's Kaleidoscope" technically mean the same thing, but they sure read different, don't they?

[maccreadysbaby]

Project: Killcode

batfamily + oc insert

tw: anxiety attacks, angst

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

bentley is SO NOT OKAY SNSRNDJFJSJKSK HE IS SO UNGOOD HE IS SO UNWELL HE IS SO

part thirty-one

❝ IN THE JOB DESCRIPTION ❞

SUNDAY — JULY 29 — 11:24AM

BENTLEY FOUND HIMSELF SITTING ON ONE OF THE BENCHES AROUND THE FOUNTAIN HE’D MET CHLOE AT, ALONE.

The sun was shining, and the sky was a beautiful, cloudless blue, the afternoon air not too hot and not too cold. The campus was quiet apart from a few students here and there, maybe the occasional bird. Even despite the niceness of the day, everything felt sort of… wrong. 

Bentley and Asten had never actually fought like that before. Sure, they bickered like best friends and brothers did, but they’d never fought. They’d seen mostly eye to eye on everything since Bentley’s met him — at least enough to make arguments practically nonexistent in their relationship.

It was weird. Knowing Asten was in the dorm mad at him. It sort of made Bentley’s whole world tilt a little… just knowing that he was mad and Asten was mad back. The real kind of mad, too.

Bentley was the one in the right. And he knew he was the one in the right. 

But that didn’t make it much easier.

“Care for some company?”

He flinched when a familiar voice came from his left. Glancing up, his brown eyes locked onto Valor’s grey ones, bright and shiny in the sun. He looked sort of like he’d freshly woken up, and was wearing a big black hoodie and sweats, his arms folded over his chest.

Bentley cringed to himself, looking back out at the willow trees ahead. “Did you hear all of it?”

Valor shrugged, taking that as a yes to his previous question and and sitting down on the bench next to him. “I couldn’t tell what you were saying, but the tone of your voices was enough for me to deduce that it wasn’t a happy conversation.”

Bentley looked down at his shoes, scraping the toes against the pavement. “Yeah…”

Valor stretched arbitrarily, his wings flitting and making a series of loud poufnoises. “Well, if you wanna talk, I have ears. And if you don’t want talk, I… still have ears.”

Bentley smiled an empty, amused smile, but it only lasted for a few seconds before fading away in the morning breeze. Then he looked down at his feet and shrugged. “He’s started lying to me, and hiding stuff. He never did that before we came here. It…” Bentley trailed off, tapping his foot on the concrete with a few soft taps. “Makes me feel like he doesn’t trust me anymore…”

Valor hummed in acknowledgment as he listened, stretching his wings out, the right one lazily looping around Bentley’s shoulders like he’d done to Bellamy the night before. It was heavier than an arm and Bentley had to admit, it felt nice.

“Keeping secrets and lying doesn’t always mean he doesn’t trust you,” Valor suggested, glancing at Bentley, then across the campus grounds. “It’s more likely that he’s insecure — worried what he’s doing will change your opinion of him, so he tries to hide it.”

Bentley guessed that… made sense. 

He exhaled lightly, tapping his hands on his pants. “Why won’t he just say that?”

Valor hummed again. “From what I’ve seen and heard, you’re very emotionally aware and open.  Which is good. But it’s harder for other people to be that way.”

Bentley wasn’t sure how emotionally aware and open he really was, but he’d take it. He looked down at his shoes again with a soft sigh. “It still hurts...”

Valor’s wing tightened a little around him. “I know.”

As the adrenaline and blinding anger from the fight started to wear down, and Valor’s words started bringing things to light, he started getting that suffocating feeling he got when Asten was mad at him the day before. So Asten really was just… afraid, and he’d yelled at him for it? 

Everything at Redwood was just wrong. Everyone was mad and Bentley could never seem to be happy about anything — there was always something following him around and making him irritated or sad or upset or angry. It had only taken one school-week for him to get all weird and screw everything up. Like he always did.

Bentley rubbed a hand over his face with a heavy sigh, propping his elbows on his knees and dropping his head into his hands. “I hate this. School is stressing me out, and Asten’s stressing me out, and being homesick is stressing me out, and pretending I’m not stressed out is stressing me out. I’m…” He paused and searched for a word, his eyes staying locked on the concrete below them. “…overwhelmed.”

A moment of quiet passed, and as he thought through all the things that was making everything so bad, his eyes started to burn, so he looked away. “And I’m not going to cry about it.”

He heard Valor sigh lightly. Then his wing left Bentley’s shoulders, and he stood up, turning to face him. “Stand up.”

Bentley glanced up at him in confusion. 

“Come on, stand up,”

After a moment of quiet, Bentley relented and pushed himself onto his feet. 

“Now do this,” Valor continued, holding his arms out sort of diagonally to either side. Bentley, with a confused look on his face, copied it. 

Then Valor, with a soft smile, grabbed his shoulders and pulled him into a hug.

Bentley was kind of shocked at first, because that wasn’t what he’d expected, but he gave in with a soft sigh and hugged him back anyways. Everything inside of him seemed to spin up even worse than it had been at the contact, like a tornado kicking up dust, and he tried hard to blink away the burn in his eyes that came back with a vengeance.

He tried to pull away because he so didn’t want to cry right then, but he also kind of didn’t want to pull away, and his conflicting, hesitant motions seemed to confuse Valor because he muttered: “What’s wrong?”

Bentley said nothing for a moment, blinking rapidly even though it didn’t help. Why was he crying so much lately? He wasn’t crying that much before he came to school… and he was thirteen. Not a baby. He shouldn’t have been crying at all. “I…’m sorry. I’m… not gonna cry, I swear.”

Valor moved, but it wasn’t to release him like he thought. Actually, Bentley was pretty sure his wings came forward and around him, too. “There. Now no one else can see you.”

Bentley didn’t say anything to that, but he did stop trying to pull away and held on to the back of Valor’s hoodie instead, pressing his forehead against his shoulder in a attempt to not have a spectacular breakdown. 

“Hey…” Valor tried, rubbing Bentley’s back lightly. “You’re trembling. Y’know you have full permission to, like, lose your shit, right? You don’t have to try and be okay. Sometimes that’s worse.”

Bentley didn’t say anything to that, but as soon as Valor spoke, his eyes started to burn tremendously worse. 

“I’m sorry…” He continued, and he hated how thick and cracky his voice was. He let go of Valor’s hoodie and brought his hands to his face, hiccuping lightly even though he was trying so hard not to.

“Don’t apologize. Just cry. It’s okay,”

And so Bentley did.

—

He and Valor stayed outside for a long while. And when they finally ventured back into the dorm, it was almost two in the evening. Bentley didn’t go into his room.

Instead, he found himself knocking lightly on Bellamy’s door.

It only took him a few seconds to open it. He only cracked it at first, like he was checking who it was, and when his brown eyes landed on Bentley, he opened it wider. 

“Are you okay?” Was the first thing Bellamy asked softly, stepping out of the way so Bentley could come in. As soon as he crossed the threshold, the door was closed behind him. “You look like you were crying.”

Bentley sighed lightly, sitting down on the bottom bunk of Bellamy’s bed. “I’m okay.”

Bellamy didn’t seem too convinced, and Bentley didn’t blame him. He’d literally cried what had to be every last bit of liquid out of his body and was now just sort of… floating. Almost tired, in a way. Numb. Foggy.

“I had a… moment. But it’s over now,” He continued. Bellamy didn’t say anything, he just sort of shuffled over and sat next to Bentley on the bed, watching him closely with a concerned look on his face.

“I’m sorry…” Was the next thing Bellamy said, glancing down at his hands, fiddling with his fingers. “You look… sleepy.”

Bentley shrugged. “More… empty feeling, I guess. I dunno. I’m…”

His sentence trailed off. He was going to say cold, but he realized that wouldn’t work if he wasn’t with Bruce — so he didn’t say it. He just sort of brought his arms up and around himself like he usually did and exhaled lightly. “I’m… sorry.” Is what he settled on saying.

“It’s… okay,” Bellamy replied. After a few moments of quiet, Bentley felt a small hand come to rest gently on his back. 

That’s when Bentley’s phone started vibrating in his pocket.

With a long sigh, he dug it out, glancing at the caller ID that was shining across the screen. It was an unnamed number. 

He declined it and put his phone next to him.

About five seconds later, it started vibrating again. 

With a huff of frustration, he picked it up and declined the call, then watched the screen, waiting. 

Ten seconds later, it called a third time.

He answered it and brought the small device to his ear with a curt, irritated: “What?”

“Bentley. Don’t hang up,”

Something Iike existential dread shot from his head down to his toes,  and he suddenly felt kind of nauseous. His mouth dropped open but he didn’t know what to say. Lots of things he didn’t want to think about started getting dredged up and made it hard to focus, to breathe.

“I know it’s been three years, and that you have a… a new father now, but… listen, I don’t have much time…”

Bentley barely managed to stammer out the words: “How… how did you get my phone number?” 

Wasn’t his father in prison? And wasn’t he, like, not allowed to have contact with Bentley anymore? 

“Look, I know you don’t trust me, and I don’t blame you — but you have to listen to me,” His father’s voice started. It sounded urgent, serious, like he really needed to say something important. “I heard you’re at Redwood Academy, in New York?”

“How-“

“You have to get out of that school, Bentley. You have to go back to Gotham. Or… find another one, it doesn’t matter, just… you have to get out of there,”

Bentley opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t make himself, so all that came out was a squeak. His chest was suddenly constricting and tightening in a way that was reminiscent of the day he saw his father at the store, and he desperately wanted Tim.

He couldn’t breathe.

How had his father gotten ahold of him? And what did he mean he had to leave the school? He sounded serious enough, but when could someone like him ever be trusted again? Someone who was so determined to ruin Bentley’s life in every conceivable way?

Bentley ended the call without saying anything. His hands were shaking — so much that he could barely hold the phone. He tried to come back to himself, but he could hardly focus on reality through the gut-wrenching flashback reel of every other time he’d heard that voice. He couldn’t breathe.

He reached out to the side, toward Bellamy.

“Bentley?”

He thought about asking for Asten.

Instead, the name he forced out between gasps for air was: “Koa.”

Bellamy left the room not a second later.

Bentley grasped at his own shirt, unable to create coherent thoughts about anything. His chest hurt really bad and he wasn’t sure he was actually breathing in any air, which kind of made him feel like he was going to pass out, which only made him more anxious and his heart rate spike way too high. He ended up dropping his phone from how much he was shaking and he had to close his eyes because he was really starting to feel like he might throw up on Bellamy’s floor.

His father knew where he was. He knew where he was, and that probably meant he knew what he was doing, and where he was going, and who he was with, and that he wasn’t at the Manor, and he was going to kill them all. He was going to kill them all-

He flinched hard when someone’s really cold hand landed on the back of his neck.

“Hey, Bentley. It’s Koa. Can you hear me?”

Bentley might’ve nodded, if he had the willpower. Which he didn’t.

“Okay, Bentley, I want you to do something for me. Can you open your eyes?” 

He tried, but it didn’t work. He couldn’t breathe. 

Koa’s hand moved on the back of his neck up into his hairline, just like Bruce did — which meant he must’ve been paying close attention to Asten last time Bentley had an attack. “I’ve got you. I’m right in front of you — can you look at me?”

Bentley summoned whatever willpower he could into peeling his eyes open. Koa was sitting in front of him in sweats, looking calm as ever, even smilingslightly. Maybe a little tired, too? Or a still a little hungover? Did Bellamy wake him up? 

“Hey. Will you hold this?” He questioned casually.

Bentley looked down when Koa grabbed his right hand and placed something in his shaking palm — something cold and wet. Was he holding ice?

“Thanks,” Koa continued, as though they were just having a typical conversation. Bentley looked at the little translucent crescent in his palm with a slowly growing puddle around it. “Try moving it from hand to hand, so your one doesn’t get too cold.”

Bentley wasn’t exactly sure what he was getting at, but he obeyed the best he could — he was still trembling, but he managed to tilt his right hand enough for the piece of ice to slide into his left, leaving a trail of cold water in its wake.

“Good. You’re doing great. Now try moving it back,”

Bentley did as he was told, letting the ice slide back into his other hand. The cold on the back of his neck felt eerily similar to the cold on his hands, but he was so focused on not dropping the ice that he didn’t really pay it much mind. 

Koa nodded encouragingly. “Okay, now try tilting your hand to move it in circles on your palm, without dropping it.”

Somehow, he managed.

“Good! Now your other hand,” Koa added, continually and gently moving his hand on the back of Bentley’s head.

Bentley followed Koa’s directions for a while. He moved the ice in circles on his left hand, then his right again, then switched it back and forth a few more times before he realized… that he was breathing much easier.

When the ice was gone and he was left with nothing but wet hands, Koa, who was still crouched in front of him, patted his knee. “How are you feeling?”

Bentley took a deep breath. Besides still feeling a little bit nauseous like he always did after an attack, he felt… y’know. Better. He could breathe, and think, and his heart wasn’t pounding anymore, and he wasn’t so shaky.

“…Better,” He replied softly, glancing up at Koa, whose seafoam eyes were bouncing along his face, calculating, watching. “How did you… know that would work?”

“Tricks of the trade, I guess. Artimi and I have been trying out different ways to deal with attacks for a long time. Most don’t work, but ice usually does for him,” Koa shrugged with a faint smile. “It was a gamble trying it with you, but it looks like it paid off.”

Bentley took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m sorry.”

Koa smiled sadly, patting the back of his neck once. “No apologies, dude. What happened?”

Bentley glanced down at his green phone that was laying in the floor, then over at Bellamy, who was sitting quietly next to him just like he had been. Maybe… a little more freaked out looking. “I just… got into an argument with Asten earlier. That on top of school and everything else had me really stressed out and overwhelmed…”

His roommates didn’t need to know about his father. Not yet.

“I’m sorry, I know it sucks,” Koa squeezed his knee supportively with his other hand. “You’re feeling okay?”

Bentley shrugged. “Kind of like I haven’t slept in a year. But yeah.”

“Stress’ll do that to you. I’ll leave you to rest now, but if you need me I’ll be in the living room,” Koa replied, rising from where he was, his hands vanishing and leaving Bentley sort of… he didn’t know. Cold? “There’s a whole ice maker’s worth of attack help in the fridge, so don’t hesitate to come get me, alright?”

“Okay…” Bentley trailed off, taking another deep breath. “Thank you, Koa,” 

Koa smiled at him. “Of course. It’s in my job description.” 

Then he left the room, closing the door softly behind him.

Bentley glanced over at Bellamy, who’d been eerily still and quiet by his side the entire time. The eleven year old didn’t say anything, he just glanced down at his fingers like he’d been caught watching something he was supposed to. “‘M sorry, Bell. I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s okay,” Bellamy was quick to respond. “It’s not your fault.”

Bentley didn’t say anything to that.

Bellamy pushed himself further up on his bed, so he was sort of against the wall, emptying the left side of the mattress. “You can lay in here. I’ll stay.”

Bentley glanced back at him, smiling a quick, empty smile. “Thanks, but you don’t have to.”

“You stayed with me,” Bellamy continued. “You said you like sleeping with people around.” 

Fortunately for Bellamy, Bentley didn’t take much convincing. He quickly relented with a soft sigh and a quiet: “Okay.”

He crawled up to the top of Bellamy’s bed and got under the covers, settling in on the left side while Bellamy sat to his right. He didn’t realize exactly how exhausted he was until then — because, as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. “Thanks, Bell.”

He didn’t say anything — but Bentley felt his hand land on his back and rub it gently through the covers.

He fell asleep within minutes.

--

tag list that never works lmao

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun

@xiaonothere

@skylathescholarly @flyrobinflyy

[badxsshottiexllie]

@spoocys-glade-of-dreams

Meredith would giggle as she accepted the hug from the toad. "It certainly is a surprise! If we had known that you had been in contact with our daughter, we would have arranged things differently."

The mother continued to listen to what Globox had to say about Rayman. He sounded like an amazing person, just misguided and manipulated by Eden. "I'm not sure if my husband told this story or not, since I just got here, but Cliff came across Ellie and Rayman one day while out patrolling in Eden for one of his resistance missions. I believe it was around her apartment area? He had taken a picture of them coming out of the apartment complex."

"Ellie...you looked so happy that day and we knew that you were safe. But...we weren't fully aware of what situation you were in and we didn't want to get you in trouble with your boyfriend. Since, you know, he was The Voice of Eden at the time." Her husband chimed in.

"I never once stalked you two, be it as The Voice of Eden or Ramon. I just happen to be in the same area as you at times and that's when I tried to get any photos or videos so I could update your mother that you were alive and well."

"Ramon? Oh you mean the trenchcoat guy? Who would have thought that Rayman and Ramon would be the same person!" The older woman replied.

"I was in my own resistance group and not only hid it from him while we were dating, but also my real name as well. I went by Rosemary Scott, or Rose for short after the person who saved my life while on one of our missions. As you know dad, there are rumors amongst the resistance groups about Rayman. I was afraid something horrible was going to happen once I revealed my true identity."

"Despite that fear, I wanted to get to know him and overtime I grew to love him. Yes, there was drama that happened once I told Rayman the truth, but nothing horrible happened like I thought. I was afraid I was either going to jail or get the death penalty."

"Oh honey, come here." Meredith hugged her daughter and urged Cliff to come in so they could have a family hug. "I'm sure you've been through a lot dear, but know this. We will definitely be more of an active part of your life now that we've finally reunited. Your father is a resistance member and I'm a doctor. You will be taken care of very well on top of your wonderful found family of friends."

"Well now that that's out of the way, what's this about my daughter being in some sort of danger? Do I have to put someone six feet under or what?"

"Uh...no? Murfy gave the guy a stern talking to, so now he should leave me alone. I'm not worried though because I know everything will be okay. I'm not invincible by any means dad, but I know there are people out there that will risk their lives for me and have my back."

"Rayman was really cool and dreamy that day. He's come such a long way since we first dated back when he was the voice and I couldn't be more proud of him with how far he's come."

"Dreamy huh?" The blonde man chuckled. "Your my daughter, so I'd do anything for you. Yes that even means eliminating bad people from your life. I...I've...had my share of kills here and there. But I only do so to protect innocent people and save them."

"Eden sucks, and I don't trust your mother to come by herself. So when she does ever come, she's with me. Yes, even if it's running a mundane errand like getting necessities from the store. I never, ever, let her out of my sight."

Ramon would take a moment to readjust his hair back into the tuft style and would stare off towards the floor for a moment when Cliff asked about his reason for the murder.

"I just... snapped. Had it not been for Bullfrog or Ellie I might've never accepted just how bad Eden really was. Mona was right. I really was so stubborn. So oblivious to what was really going on. I'm still trying to come to terms with everything. I know it's been months by now but I'm still trying to wrap my head around everything.

There's still things I'm learning about. I'm only now learning just how bad The Emperor really was. I thought The Emperor was my friend. He was my mentor, my inspiration. All of that was a lie and I'm still recovering from that harsh truth. Being in the company of so many people that cared so much for me really did help soften the blow.

I know what a resistance member is, sir. As a matter of fact I became one as well after I was fired. I'm a member of Murfy's group. I don't do any hacking, I'm more of the bodyguard. I help keep Mona and Ellie safe while they're on the job. I don't have a fancy code name and neither does Bullfrog, but I know Murfy goes by J.M. Murphy and Mona uses her stage name of "Mona Lisa" sometimes.

Wait... You knew Globox?"

His question would be cut off by the arrival of Meredith. He would smile and would run over to help clean up the groceries that she dropped. He set them in a neat pile as the parents would focus on their daughter. Rayman would give a sweet chuckle when he was asked if he agreed.

"I do see the resemblance! It's nice to meet you ma'am. I'm--"

He would be cut off once more as Globox would start to walk into the house with some of the luggage. He would go over to greet Meredith with the same hug that lifted her off her feet before setting her down once more.

"SURPRISE! I had no idea you and Cliff were coming down this way! I was telling your husband that had I known we were headed to the same place, I would have spilled the beans on this little visit much sooner.

I know Cliff had a chance to talk to him, but allow me to introduce him. This is Rayman. He's... Well he's that long lost brother of mine I keep telling you about. Swell guy, cares greatly about others, and wait until you see him when he's trying to impress the kids. The stuff those stupid cameras don't show. I know Eden projected him in a bad light, but deep down he was just a misguided and manipulated soul. I saw a lot of things when I was in video calls with Murfy. He really does care so much about Ellie, and that's the truth.

They saved each other's lives countless times, both literally and figuratively. Did you know he shot up an entire warehouse full of slave traders to rescue her from a traitor in her own group!?"

"Ix-nay on the aitor-tray, Globox."

[icewindandboringhorror]

"We can get through this by working together, reach out to your friends, community is all we have, a social network will be your security in the world, now is the time to lean on others!"

I do agree, and it's scientifically sound (pretty sure there is data about how people with better social networks live longer and etc) but also....augh..... what about the severe social issues, difficulty to leave the house, physical issues which lead to like zero socialization energy a majority of the time, etc. etc. Social support can be a replacement for structural support, but.. I guess I just wish it didn't have to be. Community is extremely difficult to build, even moreso if you're someone who has issues with social cues or group conversations or even just being around others in the first place. And blah, nuance, of course I'm just complaining or maybe being too negative or maybe misunderstanding, but, I hardly have the energy to brush my hair once every 2 months.. how am I supposed to maintain a wide social network and be active in a Community and Join Groups lol... sometimes it kind of feels like "er.. well if thats my only option then...... ruh roh". It's overwhelming