#The face was pixilated first then went over in black

[frog-plague]

Emofied our hair because we're totally normal

[amistyshadow]

Let me tell you about a dream I had a few nights ago.

Warning ⚠️ this has mentioned abuse and hinted kidnapping family deaths betrayal and murder along with some homophobia

I didn’t sleep well for almost the whole night I woke up at 2 in the morning, and just tossed and turned for the rest of the night until around 7am I could finally sleep. But when I did, I had this really weird dream.

The dream was about two families. The first family was a family just like you and me; there was a husband named Lucas, a wife named Care, they had three children. A son named Edward, a daughter named Lysa (with a y), and then there was the youngest, sweet little Andrew. The second family however… looked like a normal and esteemed family from the outside… but on the inside they were monsters. There was a husband named Marlin, but something didn’t feel right about him from the start, he was always smiling no matter what happened, like he was looking at you like you were a piece of meat. A wife named Stephanie, she was beautiful and an ex model, but she was very vain, cruel, and thrived off of other people’s misery, even if it was her own family. A daughter, Eve, and finally the youngest, a son called Matt.

The Dream starts off in an old cartoon style like; He-Man, Shera, and Scooby Doo. Cartoons that aired in the 1990s or in the early 2000s. The two families are very clearly shown to be enemies and not like each other at all. The cartoon starts out as normal, with a running gag of Marlin and Cheetos, but something doesn’t feel right… no matter how much Marlin expresses his distaste for the Howards, he never stops smiling. I’m always uneasy when Marlin is on screen.

The episodes start out normal with some silly gags here and there. But then after the first or second episode… things start to take a dark turn as the screen goes black. When the screen comes back; it’s not in the old cartoon version like it was before, it’s now in some pixilated video game with the main character being a middle school girl with pigtails. And the weird thing is, this girl isn’t a part of the Howards family or a part of Marlin’s family. Actually… she didn’t appear in any of the episodes… not even as a background character.

I guess I should have mentioned this sooner, but… I’m not me in my dream. I’m in this dark room, just looking at this old TV I remember seeing in the window of an antique shop once. When I look behind me, there’s this locked door with a dim light shining through the cracks. I look back to the TV that’s trapped in the lonely room with me. With hands that clearly aren’t mine, I reach out and pick up a video game controller, and start playing the game.

(Yes, I know these drawings suck, but keep in mind that this is the first ever time that I have ever attempted to make pixilated characters. So please be nice in the comments I know they’re crappy! 😂)

It’s not clear what the point or objective is until I walk the girl over to this sheet of paper on the ground. It says at the top of my screen; “4/16 notes”. This seems out of the blue but I continue to collect the girl’s notes. In each panel of the background; there’s a black truck of some kind with some guy inside. The man had a stubble beard, a red cap with the word “UPS” on, and a smile on his face. He was just sitting there staring at the girl in every panel. Wherever the player went the black truck was present in the background somewhere. Some people would be confused by this, but for some reason… I knew who it was; it was Marlin… Marlin was stalking this girl.

After I collect all of the notes, the top of the screen reads; “Time to go home; 0/1” When you go to the street that the girl lives on, that’s when it happens. Marlin’s truck pulls up and the girl stops, the screen cuts to black and all you hear is a blood curdling scream. What happened to her? I have no clue. I don’t know if he killed her, or if he kidnapped her.

When the screen pulls up again, we’re back to the old cartoon style episodes that we started with, but Marlin is less and less present in the scenes and Stephanie seems more and more aggressive when she harasses the Howards. After each episode, another mini game pulls up, and each time you play as a different victim of Marlin. One is an elementary school boy who gets lost on his way home from school. Another is a young, new, stressed out high school teacher. The third one is a high school delinquent. And the final one is another middle schooler, who is in 6th grade and was running away from bullies. All games end in the same way; with Marlin’s truck pulling up next to them and the screen turns to black.

After each mini game and before the next episode comes on; there are black text-boxes, and what they say vary. “My lord, thank you for sending another one of your meek little lambs. I will continue with your work my Lord. Thy will be done.” and; “Why? Why does she always get everything that I can’t have? Why does she get to have the life that I deserve?” along with, “What did she do to deserve the life that I was supposed to have? It was supposed to be me. She doesn’t deserve that life.” And; “I’ve seen your sign my Lord, I understand; you will receive another lamb soon. Thy will be done.”

After the fourth victim, things take a dark turn for the Howards. Sweet little Andrew Howards… has been found dead with his skull bashed in. His death devastated the family. Care became a shut-in, she locked herself away and barely left the house after the death of her baby boy. Every time Edward and Lysa leave the house, even if it’s just when they go to school, Care freaks out and begs them not to leave the house. Lucas is bitter, angry, and vengeful to bring his son’s murderer to justice. But at the same time he neglects what is left of his family.

I automatically thought it was Marlin… but it’s not him… it can’t be him, is what my head kept telling me. Stephanie is shown having a toxic and unhealthy relationship with her children and having insane expectations of them. The episodes get more weird when it shows Stephanie taunting Care multiple times. She is clearly very happy about Care’s depression. Eve and Matt have stopped harassing the Howards ever since Andrew’s death.

A year and a few months pass and Lysa’s sanity begins to wear more and more thin as her family falls apart by the day. Lysa has tried to stay the same, but everyone around her has changed. With her brother sneaking out of the house under their parent’s radars. Her mom growing more and more depressed and clingy with her son and daughter, along with developing schizophrenia. And as for her dad… he grows barely attached to his family because he’s too busy with his mind only set on revenge. Lysa is growing tired of no one acknowledging her existence and people not caring, she’s growing tired of her once perfect and happy family becoming more broken by the day.

Meanwhile Edward has been sneaking out of the house to hang out with some bad friends, with him growing into a rebellious teen towards his helicopter parents. I don’t remember how, but I do remember seeing Edward being bloody and bandaged. But it wasn’t his dad, or his sister patching him up, it wasn’t his mom or his “friends” either… It was Matt. But those were just flashes.

And I don’t remember exactly how it played out… but Edward and Matt had been seeing each other. As in “SeEiNg” each other. Yes… I was slightly surprised as well. Especially when my dirty mind went so far as to… uh… well… I didn’t see anything but I did see them in a bed… under the sheets with each other… so basically they-

Yeah… that 🤭👆

But while having a healthy relationship with Matt helps Edward improve his mental state enough to where he starts to feel like his old self again, he had completely forgotten about his little sister, who was suffering just like him. After Lucas finds out about Edward and Matt’s relationship, (and I don’t know if this is actually what happened) he apologizes for being absent and the only time when he’s present in the kid’s lives, he’s strict and is always hard on them. But… it’s too late.

After Lysa and Edward had a fight… the screen fades to black… when it comes back on; Lysa is in the 8-bit pixilated mini game, just like all of Marlin’s victims were before. Now we play as her, but this time; there’s no black truck in the background, there’s no Marlin. Which is interesting because this is the first time we play as an 8-bit character, but there is no objects to collect, no task no objective, no truck… No Marlin.

The 8-bit character that is Lysa is shown crying and sad, the player wanders aimlessly around, until they go to a spot on the map that wasn’t accessible to the player when they played as all the other characters before. In the area, is a bridge, it starts to rain and as she walks along the bridge; a text-box appears for Lysa’s speech. “Why did you have to die Andy?” *walks across bridge* “I miss you as well… but your death has broken our home…” *walks across bridge more* “…and mama…” *walks more* “… and dad…” *walks a few more steps once more* “I can’t even recognize Eddie anymore…” Lysa stops and faces the bridge railings, all of the sudden the screen glitches as another text box appears, as Lysa goes closer and closer to the edge of the bridge until she is stood on the railing of the bridge. “I don’t think I can take this anymore… I’ve always been too weak for this world…” *the screen flickers* “Home doesn’t even feel like home anymore…” The screen flickers more, and as it does, Marlin’s black truck pulls up to where Lysa is… then it cuts off.

When the screen turns on again; it cuts to a missing poster of Lysa Howards. This is all really confusing to me, because out of all of Marlin’s victims, Lysa is the only one to get a missing person poster.

It was chaos in the Howards house. If not for Matt; Edward would have become a shut-in like his mother. Care was sent to a mental hospital, after multiple attempts of taking her own life, and Lucas was convinced that his little girl’s disappearance was Marlin’s doing.

Speaking of Marlin; at his home he is shown to be an extremely religious man and it is also revealed that he and Stephanie only see each other as business partners instead of husband and wife. Stephanie is revealed to be unhappy with her life and her deranged husband, always envious of Care who had everything she could only dream of having. Marlin also sheds some light onto the way he sees his victims to his daughter, Eve. He views all of his victims as necessary sacrificial lambs as offerings to his lord. He doesn’t believe he is doing anything wrong and is acting as a holy man.

Marlin and Stephanie both find out about Matt and his relationship with Eddward. They beat him while yelling homophobic slurs at him. Eve stands up to her parents and tries her best to protect her little brother. Now this part… I don’t really remember, but one thing lead to another and by the end of it… Marlin ends up accidentally killing his own daughter. Now Marlin sees this as a major sin, especially when she was not an offering, and whatever threads of sanity he had left is gone.

Matt had ran away to his partner. Talking about how desperately he wants to end this cycle of abuse. Matt and Edward weren’t present anywhere else in my dream after that. But I do remember that Lucas and Marlin had some kind of epic showdown in the 8-bit mini game style again. With the player having a boss fight.

By the end of it, Lucas announces that he will murder Marlin like he had murdered his son. Marlin then gives Lucas a confused look as he laughs and breathes out, “I was never the one responsible for your children Howards… not even little Lysa.”

Flash into the future; Lucas Howards is arrested for the murder of Marlin Devon, who’s body was not present at the scene. According to the news; he was also charged with kidnapping and murder of Andrew and Lysa Howards, along with Domestic Violence against Care Howards who is still in mental treatment to this day. Even though there wasn’t nearly enough evidence to back up the claims… Lucas was found guilty, (the aud- diditly dang- dacity!) as the screen fades to black.

When the screen cuts back on, you’re back in the 8-bit style world playing as a little girl who has Matt’s eyes and Edward’s hair. Text boxes appear, showing that Matt and Edward are calling for the little girl named, Abby. Abby goes with her Dads as the player makes them walk to the same spot on the bridge where Lysa had disappeared all those years ago. Where her body has still never been found. Abby drops the flowers at the bridge as the music stops… and a black truck pulls up. The screen turns to static with a text box reading… “Thy will be done…”

[sillypandalover91]

I adore Baxter and even though this guy is fan dubbing him, I absolutely LOVE this voice and am therefore HC him sounding like this.

https://youtu.be/eN0o2n7xDKc

And now for an extra HC that no one asked for but it goes with the one where Alastor likes buying Angel'a merch like the good boyfriend he is:

He is a HUGE fan of Angel's. It all started when he was looking around in a book shop, searching for something to inspire him when he stumbled upon a video tape set of something called The Lady Science Collection. The synopsis on the box claimed that it was some of Angel's best work and that it would be sure to leave any scientist more than satisfied with the contents within.

Curious, Baxter bought it and has been hooked and crushing on Angel ever since. He goes so far as to buy as many videos as possible, or at least he tries to.

Some asshole that goes by the username DeerGentleman34 keeps winning most of the items Baxter is after. What's worse is that it seems like he is being targeted personally.. that or this DeerGentleman is really some horny bastard who has perverted intent with his beautiful Angel.

With misplaced chivalrous feelings fueling him, Baxter creates a device that messes with the binary code on the website. This is outside of Vox's and Velvet's interest so they don't enforce his rule on that part of the web, leaving Bax to do what he wanted so long it didn't blow out the rest of the web.

The next time he bids on an item, he sees that DeerGentleman34 is there also trying to win a body pillow and poster set of Angel possed like a pinup girl and dressed in black lace lingerie and a doctor's coat coquettishly falling off his shoulder's.

What makes this something an absolute must have for any self respecting collector of Angel Dust memorabilia is the fact that this was the first and last time he posed without shoes. His bare feet and legs were only covered by sheer black thigh highs and you can see the heart shaped pads of one of his paws as the other had a red soled high heel clinging to his toes.

As for Angel himself, why, he looked like his best friend had told him the funniest joke he had ever heard because his high spirits could be seen clearly in his lucid eyes.

"I need this," breathed both Baxter and his rival from opposite ends of Pentigram City as they poised themselves for the bidding war.

It's a long one.

Emotions were high.

Bidders slowly backed off as soon as the price fell too far out of what their wallets allowed until it was only him and DeerGentleman34. They paused and allowed the timer to tick down until there were only seconds left.

"Yes, that's right, you imbecile," murmured Baxter as he saw DeerGentleman34 submit a seemingly final blow of 300k and 1 dollar that would have bested his own. "Angel's smile is mine!"

Baxter slammed his gloved claw down on the execute button to activate the program that created a lag for the Deer who thought he deserved this bounty more than him and submitted his own final bid of 300k and 2 dollars then promptly covered his eyes when the screen went black and a pixilized loading image of an imp couting money popped on.

He peaked between his claws and gasped when his username DrAngler44 was shown to be the winner of the lot.

Giggles escaped him as he stared at his spoils being carefully packaged for instant delivery. The chat exploded with both praise and disgruntled curses but Baxter paid it little to no mind. He was far too light with elation that his plan had worked. He found a way to beat DeerGentleman34.

The package was delivered via imp magic and in a puff of purple smoke, his carefully wrapped treasures were delivered right on his courier basket.

Almost reverently, Baxter unwrapped the package starting with the poster. He heard the chat in the background ping with demons begging him to see his treasure as he carefully placed the poster inside a glass frame.

It was even more beautiful in person. The print was obviously of the highest quality and Baxter drank every inch of the masterpiece once he hung it on the wall. He studied it carefully until his eyes landed on the signature at the bottom corner.

"Oh my Satan!" Baxter pushed up his glasses and stared at the neat script.

Anthony Ragno

His face burned. Angel's real name was a sign of authenticity. There were only three if these prints left in existance here he thought he was getting a collector's edition of a reprint! But then did that mean...

Baxter ran back to the box and pulled out the body pillow and stared at Angel's- Anthony's cheek.

There, preserved by magic, was the imprint of Angel's kiss in red lipstick.

He swallowed and hovered his finger tips over it. Angel had actually kissed this pillow. This was his lipstick. That was his handwriting.

He needed to sit down.

Burying his face in his pillow, he couldn't help but giggle again. The giggles turned to laughter. Laughter turned to cackles as he quickly took pictures of both items to show what they really were and uploaded it to the chat.

Baxter hugged his pillow and watched with all the self satisfaction of a demon who screwed someone into handing over their soul as the chat exploded once again. He saw DeerGentleman34's username show that they were typing something out but after a few minutes of the ellipses showing and disappearing, Baxter turned his attention to stare fondly at his pillow.

"I am going to treat you like the treasure you are," he told it. Shame long lost, Baxter leaned into Angel's face and rubbed their noses together.

Sighing happily, he turned to the chat one last time to turn it off when his blood suddenly went cold.

DeerGentleman34 had finally typed out his message.

It didn't bode well for Baxter at all.

DeerGentleman34: You are invited to the Radio Tower, my good fellow. Everyone, stay tuned.

[emilyplaysotome]

Chapter 1 - Down the Rabbit Hole (fix)

Lately it seems that everything I write ends up never seeing the light of day so I wanted to write something fun, that might actually get read. If you guys like it I’ll continue the story.

Let me know what you think!

I woke up, eyes bleary, head pounding in a hospital bed I’d never been in, but could have sworn I’d seen before. As I rubbed my eyes, I racked my brain to try and remember how I’d gotten here, but could only come up with fragmented moments on the subway platform. It was a fair assumption to say that I’d passed out. Something like that had happened to me once before, and upon coming to had left me feeling very similar.

“It’s good to see you’re up.”

I turned to see a man standing over me, wearing a white doctor’s coat, with a pink collared shirt, and simple plaid necktie. He gently pushed his glasses up as he examined my chart, finally offering me a concerned smile.

“You were brought here yesterday after you collapsed, but we couldn’t find any identification on you.”

My eyes began to focus, and I squinted as they adjusted to the sunlight streaming in through the large windows that lined the far wall. The room was a simple hospital room, with multiple beds, all empty at the moment. Separating each bed was a seafoam curtain, and across from me were some yellow flowers that must have been left behind from another patient.

I looked at the doctor again, who leaned a bit closer.

“Can you...understand me?” he said slowly.

My eyes caught the name on his nametag. Irie.

“Yes, I understand. Sorry, I’m always a bit off when I first get up,” I joked.

His face relaxed, and he smiled at me.

“Take your time. You were out for a good 18 hours.”

Irie...Irie. Why was that name so familiar to me? I studied his face as he scribbled some notes down in my chart. He didn’t have any defining characteristic of note - dark hair and eyes, Japanese, a calm demeanor.

“Soichiro?” I muttered to myself, barely audible.

He paused and looked at me, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Do we know each other?”

I looked again at the room once more, and then back at the man standing before me. There was no way. It was impossible. I was...me and he was just a character in a game. However as crazy as it was, before I could stop myself I found myself asking, “I’m at Ebisu General, right?”

Doctor Irie nodded. I could feel my face getting hot, panic setting in. This had to be a dream. There was no other explanation but it didn’t feel like any dream I’d ever had.

“Have we met before?”

“No. Your reputation precedes you,” I lied.

In actuality, I’d spent hours with Soichiro Irie. I’d been in the man’s apartment. I watched him fall in love. I knew more about him than he probably knew about himself.

Yet here I was, unable to tell him the truth (that he was merely a character in a game) without sounding certifiably insane. Even if this was a dream, the last thing I wanted to do was be shipped off to the psychiatric ward of Ebisu General, so...I lied.

He blushed faintly at the compliment, and crossed his arms just like his sprite did, except in real life he felt closer to the published age of 40 than he ever did in the game. There were slight crow’s feet around his eyes and as he shook his head with a placid smile, I could see the wrinkles hiding behind his hair that fell across his forehead.

“Oh no. I’m sure that’s not true” he said softly.

The Japanese modestly I’d experienced in these games came through loud and clear in that one moment. It was sweet - quite different from the confident and often unwarranted conceit most American men doled out.

“Doctor Irie, I...have a bit of a strange question. I feel ok but...what language am I speaking?”

Doctor Irie cocked his head to the side, “Japanese. You’re in Tokyo after all.”

“I see. You wouldn’t happen to have a mirror...would you?”

As he left to find a hand mirror, I racked my brain at how implausible it was that I’d be speaking Japanese. It had to be a crazy dream, perhaps I was even in a coma, and my mind suddenly placed me in the universe of these games.

In fact, it was entirely possible that I’d been playing one when I blacked out in my world. But...I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything going was far too real to be something entirely contrived by my own brain and its memories of various games I’d played months ago.

Doctor Irie returned with a mirror that revealed that I still looked as I’d remembered. He also brought the items I’d had on me when I’d collapsed - a phone, a coat, and the stupid knit hat I’d stitched in 9th grade and kept for whatever reason. The phone booted up but all my apps were replaced by knockoffs like Skaipe, Tweeter, and Chatsnap. I shook my head, dejected upon seeing this.

I was hoping my phone would be something that would link me to the real world from which I came, but outside of that dumb knit hat, everything else was a gamified version. I sighed loudly and Doctor Irie studied my face with concern.

“So...am I able to leave now?” I asked.

“We’d prefer if you stayed until you’re better. Plus we’ll need your insurance card and -”

“I’m afraid I don’t have my wallet on me,” I quickly cut him off.

“Well, we can look your information up. What’s your name?”

I paused. There’d be no record of me in this world. I thought carefully before replying.

“Naruko...Sasaki,” I said. Or was it Sasaki Naruko? I could never get it straight but it didn’t really matter. Doctor Irie nodded and scribbled her name on my chart before writing something else on his notepad.

“Here,” he said, handing me a paper with a number on it. “If you get into trouble, or need a place to stay, or feel sick again just give me a call.”

For a moment, it crossed my mind that if I called this number, I would be entering Doctor Irie’s route in this world. I wasn’t prepared for that, not because I didn’t like him, but because I had more important things to think about than romancing a fictional doctor. I needed to get home.

I did my best to bow graciously, self-conscious the entire time, and slightly worried that someone would call me out for cultural appropriation.

“Thank you Doctor Irie.”

The first thing I did once I left Ebisu General was pray to the Wishes Gods. When none of them showed up, or even gave me an inclination that they'd heard my wish to be sent home, I formulated a new plan. I found an empty park bench that was shaded by a Revance billboard, and wrote down every single potential guy I’d ever played with the knowledge that I was in the voltage universe in order to figure out what my next best bet would be.

You’d think that being the MC in a real-life-game would be fairly exciting but I promise you, it isn’t. Instead, I found myself fairly stressed out once the realization set in that in order to survive long enough to formulate a plan to get sent home I was going to need to approach the more dangerous characters in this universe. When you’re playing from the comfort of your home it doesn’t matter that your love interest is borderline abusive, or in the mafia, or a criminal mastermind. However, when you’re in the actual game, it’s a lot more stressful than you’d think to approach one of these guys.

I knew what I had to do if I was to survive here. I jogged up to the next nondescript Person 1 and asked, “Excuse me, can you point me in the direction of the Tray Spades?”

“You mean the Tres Spades?”

“Whatever.”

The pixilated version of the hotel had looked pretty good on my iPhone as I played at home, but being there in person was something else.

I’d been lucky enough to travel and stay in some luxurious hotels in my world, but the Tres Spades was like nothing I’d ever seen in my life. It was fair to say that depending on who you asked, it was either a garish eyesore or the most opulent hotel you’d ever laid eyes on. I was still trying to decide for myself as waited in the lobby for my target.

If everything went according to plan my time at the Tres Spades would end in false papers, a temporary job (with housing if I remembered correctly), and no involvement in the auctions. But that was only if things went according to plan and I reminded myself that they rarely do.

I was still mulling it all over when I saw him, or I suppose more accurately, he saw me.

“Excuse me Miss.”

His maroon jacket was even tackier in person but I found him to be more handsome than his sprite gave him credit for. Sure his real voice was actually a bit smarmy, and his mannerisms reeked of a guy who spent far too long reading Neil Strauss’ The Game, but that was to be expected.

“Yes?”

“Are you waiting for someone? Me...perhaps?”

It was impossible for me to hold back my disgusted sigh. Baba in person was so much lamer than he ever read.

“Ahahahaha,” a young man cackled, practically doubled over. “Look at how disgusted she looks!”

“Oh no I didn’t mean...”

I desperately tried backtracking but it was no use. I’d never been good at hiding my emotions and it would seem today was no different. Unfortunately for me, if I was going to have any chance in this world, I’d need to significantly improve my acting skills.

“Don’t apologize!” He exclaimed, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks, “That was the funniest thing I’ve seen all day.”

“You don’t need to rub it in Ota,” Baba pouted.

It surprised me that I liked Ota more in person. He struck me as boyish and mischievous in a way that was far more charming than Baba’s insincere pick up artist act.

As I panicked internally, racking my brain how to get these interactions back on track, the two bantered with each other. Ota teased Baba mercilessly, who in turn desperately tried to recover from the embarrassment of Ota having witnessed him crash and burn in front of a girl.

“Please,” I grabbed the sleeve of Baba’s gaudy maroon jacket all the while putting on my best damsel in distress expression. “I’m actually looking for someone who stays at this hotel. Do you work here?”

The two stopped arguing and Baba looked at me, genuinely surprised. There was silence for a moment and then Ota burst out laughing again

“Ahahahaha! She thinks you work here!”

Collectively Baba and I shared a sigh, and then a smile. He took his hat off and gave me a little bow, then a wink, and said, “At your service.”

“This might sound...a little crazy but I’m looking for a guy, his name is…”

I pretended to rack my brain and my act seemed to be working as Baba appeared to hang on my every word.

“...Lupin?” I whispered.

Baba’s eyes widened slightly, and his cheeks flushed. Ota, still chuckling to himself gave Baba a slap on the back.

“The old man finally catches a break.”

With that, Ota strolled out through the double doors of the hotel lobby, and I found myself being offered Baba’s arm.

“Follow me.”

There was no turning back now. But if I was going to have any chance of getting myself home, taking his arm was my only option.

So I took it.

Continue reading - Part 2

[clive-owen-and-the-knick]

https://www.popmatters.com/123302-second-sight-the-complete-collection-2496189035.html

Clive Owen is, as they say, a tall glass of water. Ruggedly handsome, with sleepy, sad eyes, a deep rich voice, and cool and charisma to burn, he seems cut from a classic, if anachronistic, Hollywood mold. Combining a sort of arched-eyebrow knowingness with a heavy-browed brooding vulnerability, he is one part dashing leading man, two parts smoldering noir hunk.

I’m not sure the current film world quite knows what to do with him – though he is generally great in everything he’s been in, he always seems slightly out of place or time, like he just time warped from a late'40s noir that would star Robert Mitchum or William Holden. Perhaps the proper vehicles for Owen's talents and persona just don’t exist anymore, though some films have come close – Sin City and the vastly underrated Duplicity come to mind.

So it’s no surprise that his best work, and the role that catapulted him to fame in the UK, came in a millennial British mystery series, in which he plays a brilliant but brooding, sharp but tortured detective. Second Sight belongs to the same rich tradition of British mystery series as Prime Suspect, or Cracker, or any of the superior police procedurals that wash up on US shores on PBS. Conceived and written by veteran TV writer Paula Milne, Second Sight offers few actual genre surprises, but boasts a central character so richly developed (in such a short space) that he almost deserves equal footing with Helen Mirren’s iconic Jane Tennison.

Like Tennison, Ross Tanner is a brilliant DCI with London homicide. In the titular first “series” (oh the confusion trying to get around what to call each installment of these things, which are called series in the UK, but are more like TV movies by US sensibilities), Tanner is called in to investigate the mysterious death of a young college student visiting home for the weekend. He quickly begins to uncover a story more complex and sordid than it first appears (shocking, that!). Further difficulties arise as Tanner begins to experience various ocular disturbances – blurred vision, seeing things that aren’t there, a weird sort of starlight pixilation of the world around him.

A car crash lands him in front of an eye doctor, who diagnoses him with a rare, degenerative disease (AZOOR, an acronym for a lot of medical gobbledygook, but a real condition) of mysterious origins. Though not resulting in total blindness, the main characteristics, as portrayed from Tanner’s point of view with chintzy camera tricks here, are a certain fuzzed out quality to seeing the world, like it’s been made both super-bright and wrapped in gauze. Occasionally, certain things – faces, key objects – will come in to sharp focus. Or Tanner will see things that should be in a certain place but aren’t, his brain completing the image that is expected.

Tanner’s condition is the crux of the entire series, informing the show’s every aspect – and of course giving it its title. On a practical level, his waning eyesight is a seemingly insurmountable hindrance to his investigatory skills… or is it? There are hints, as the series progresses, especially in its later installments, of AZOOR granting Tanner some sort of mystical insight, allowing entry in to the minds of killers, or making connections in the chain of events that other detectives can’t see.

However, Second Sight never really commits to this angle, on how much importance to give to the quasi-supernatural aspects of his vision problem. It always just pulls back (rightly) from fully turning Tanner into some sort of mystic. It wants to have its cake and eat it too, presenting Tanner as both a dogged, rigorously intelligent investigator on the one hand, and as sort of a more dour, haunted Special Agent Cooper (minus the cherry pie and coffee obsession) on the other – solving cases more on luck, intuition and out and out hallucination, than because of any obvious sleuthing prowess. It’s an odd disconnect, the series at war with itself at what it wants its central character to be, and what do with its central gimmick.

The real surprise, though, is that this disconnect almost don’t matter. In fact, it dovetails nicely with what is really the key strength of Second Sight - the noirish mood of the series, and the richly realized psychological conflicts simmering within Tanner himself. Ultimately, the series is about a man at war with himself as the world he is accustomed to dealing with – a stark world of fact and certainty – crumbles away from his grasp.

His struggle to cope pulls him in every direction, and his pride and self-reliance take the biggest hit as he comes to have to depend on his comely new assistant, Catherine Tully (Claire Skinner), to literally be his eyes and support (and confidant, as she is the only one on the force in the know, at first). Throw on top of this custody squabbles with his ex-wife over his young son, and Tanner is slowly cooking to some sort of breakdown. Only focusing on the cases keeps him on track and from flying apart.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the mysteries themselves are incidental – there are four total, including the title series. They are more than mildly intriguing, if ultimately slight. They work best when they complement Tanner’s inner conflicts and personal problems. In this way, the later installments are actually better than the first one, which, though the longest and most complex of the lot, is the weakest.

“Second Sight” (the first, titular “episode”, as opposed to the series as a whole) suffers from too many red herrings, too much padding, and an overly chatty villain. The eventual solution is pretty well telescoped from early on, and only the constant degeneration of Tanner’s vision and his attempts to keep his condition secret keeps the ship afloat.

Much better is “Parasomnia”, the episode which best captures the noirish vibe the show is aiming for and highlights Tanner’s new unconventional investigatory skills. A gory murder, an amnesiac somnambulist femme fatale, and 90 minutes of Tanner slowly losing his mind to insomnia, paranoia and mounting frustration, this is the high point of the series, a riveting mini-film that would actually do well as a theatrical release.

The other two installments are engaging if not quite as enthralling. In “Hide and Seek”, Tanner is promoted to the head of a new crack unit of homicide, tackling stubborn and/or sensational cases. The first is a cold case of a murdered violinist, the unsolved status of which is a black eye on the face of the London PD. Meanwhile, Tanner and Tully’s relationship starts to buckle under the weight of his condition (how no one else notices on the staff that their chief is blind is beyond me – a great running gag if deliberate, a brutal oversight if not)

“Kingdom of the Blind” strains for political and personal poignancy with the case of a murdered black community leader, a decrepit old white supremacist, and Tanner’s finally coming to terms with his professional and personal life. The series ends here (for now), on an ambiguous note, Tanner striding forth into a blurry, hazy future (there are talks of reviving the show as a feature film, though details are… blurry for now).

Second Sight is finally collected in one DVD set a good decade after it went off the air. Previous releases of the individual installments had no special feature, and this has not been rectified with this collection, which is as bare bones as it gets. Spread out over five discs, the programs are slightly grainy, which actually enhances the look and feel of the show. I would have wanted something, anything, with Clive Owen talking about his first big starring role, before Hollywood came a calling.

[tommyplum]

- i am but dust and ashes (the world was created for me) | tommy/alfie, taboo au   for @boundinshallows’ sholomons prompt fest 2019

The two of them are finding each other again, capricious, dishonest, possessive and desperate to affect the other. 

notes: the prompt was for a taboo au, with tommy shelby in place of zilpha as the half-sibling. my changes are that alfie’s mother is jewish and not first nations, and he went to the west indies instead of africa. content warning for half-sibling incest. - maggie

Looking at it from the outside, anybody would say that it's Alfie who took advantage of close quarters and easy access. Alfie who was the corruptor, who was the viper in the branches, who was the forbidden fruit of knowledge. Looking at it from the inside, Alfie just might say the same things himself.

Tommy knows better.

"That brother of yours--"

"Half brother."

Grace's mouth pinches for just a moment and then she sweeps on with her statement, determined to have her say before Tommy switches his focus to something else. The opium makes him tangential at the best of times and Grace knows, by now, to take advantage of anything in his eyes that approaches lucidity. "Half brother," she spits, and Tommy's lips twitch as he considers tutting at her, pointing out how unladylike her vitriol is. He doesn't do it. He raises his eyebrows and slowly tilts his head from one side to the other with exaggerated interest in what she's saying and Grace looks furious but she continues.

"Your half brother may intend to keep you from what you should have rightfully inherited but we are not without means through which to strike at him, Thomas, we are not as helpless as he would have you believe, with his solicitor and his evil looks and the way that he uses those rumors about what he did in the godless West Indies as his cloak and shield." Grace crosses herself and Tommy follows the motions of it in the air with the tip of his nose, kittenlike. It amuses him to give his more pixilated impulses their head when Grace is being avaricious, or pious, which tend to go hand in hand more often than not. Religion and money share a sacrament in her soul.

"You, Grace, would have made an extremely effective Popess." 

She makes a frustrated sound, one slender hand clenching along with it. "You want him to rob us, then?" Grace demands, nostrils flaring. "Is that what you want from him, Tommy? Or is it something else."

Calling him tommy is a signifier of how angry she is; Grace stopped calling him Tommy two days before their wedding, switching without reason, explanation, or discussion to only calling him Thomas. He'd almost not known who she was fucking on their wedding night when she kept telling this Thomas person to bloody well choke her properly. 

His skin's suddenly crawling and Tommy stands abruptly, chair scraping across the flagstone floor as he's dropping the last inch of his still-lit cigarette into his cold tea. "I'll pay him a visit, then, shall I?" he says as though it's just that easy to bring all of this to a satisfying resolution, as though all you need is to be Tommy Shelby and to ask, and Grace feels the dismissal. She doesn't show it, though; she reminds Tommy of who she is by answering with a small, marble-hard smile and says,

"--kiss your half brother hello for me, Thomas. Once you've done greeting him for you."

---

Polly's the one who greets Tommy at the door, all folded arms and raised eyebrows, and Tommy holds back a sigh as he sweeps off his hat and attempts -- vainly -- to peer past her into the house where he'd grown up.

"He's not in," Polly says, making absolutely no attempt to sell the boldfaced lie. Tommy can take it or shove it, but he chooses a third option:

"I've got nowhere else to be at today, Pol, ay, come on, Polly. At least give us a cup of tea to get the chill out, before you send me packing. I'll catch my fucking death out here." 

--Tommy pushes it. 

Because if there was anything that he and Alfie had learned, growing up with Aunt Polly, it was that she had a soft spot for the audacious, the bold, for those who took chances and even if they got caught or fell flat on their faces, still put on a brave front and tossed their heads, holding them high. Tommy holds his chin up as he steps forward and Polly swings open like a door to let him inside.

Back into the house of Alfie Solomons Senior: who is now buried in a grave as shallow as a butter dish, and Tommy feels the past engulf him whole.

===

it used to be

The attic was where they'd played as children for hours and hours, making every nook and cranny of the space their own. Tommy liked to wriggle beneath the window bench and with a thick lead pencil would draw star people (the five-pointed kind, head and limbs) to represent himself and Alfie and Aunt Pol and Father on the underside of the wooden seat, with one different star (the six-pointed kind, like Alfie wears on a chain around his neck) stuck into corners to represent Alfie's mother, The Mad Jewess. That was how she was referred to and Tommy never questioned it. He never used any star, ordinary or otherwise, to stand in for his own mother; she'd died as he arrived in the world and that was the last business he'd had with her in this life.

Alfie didn't bother to find out what his brother was doing those times, content to let Tommy be strange all on his own while Alfie pondered over new schemes and plans and games to entertain them both. His games were byzantine, daring, ritualistic, and even when they'd bothered to try and include other children, none of them had ever caught on. Only Tommy could be relied upon to fully commit to Alfie's wild cult of unfettered and hedonistic play.

And (to perhaps be expected), the games had evolved as they'd grown and their attic space became even more sacrosanct, Polly banished from it entirely with promises that they wouldn't let mildew fester and rats congregate. Because when they were teenagers and Alfie lay on his back on the floor, gazing up at the underside of the window seat and the dark strokes of Tommy's constellation of family while Tommy's dark hair drew strokes in the air as he bobbed his wet mouth onto Alfie's cock, the world belonged to the two of them and nobody else. 

"There's five of you, Tommy," Alfie said, his voice dragging and drowsy even as he kicked one heel along the floor to raise a hip, angling his prick against the inside of Tommy's cheek until his younger brother firmly shoved him back down again.  "I've counted, yeah, five of you of these star-people, and there's only three of me. Why is that, love?" He reached down with one hand -- the other still tracing along the galaxy that Tommy'd illustrated -- and wrapped his thumb into strands of straight black hair until Tommy tugged off, smacking his lips, annoyed to be stopped.

"What?" he demanded loudly, but then answered anyhow since he'd heard the question. "Five of me because I was the one drawing it, wasn't I? And as the autobiographer and artist, I got to represent myself as many times as I wanted." Tommy pinched one of Alfie's thighs, drawing a laughing rumble from his remorseless victim. "Three of you because even one is too much. One is more than enough."

"Three because neither maths nor diplomacy is your strong suit." Alfie shoved out from under the windowseat, sitting up, his thick rosy cock curving damply into the crease of his thigh as Tommy kneeled back to rest against his heels. "Come here, sweetheart. Let me teach you your numbers." 

Alfie's eyes, a sharper yet more shadowy blue than Tommy's, were stream-clear in the sunshine coming in through the big round window, his smile spreading the thick dark red of his lips across his face like raspberry jam. Tommy licked his own lips and moved forward on his knees, one hand wrapping around the length of Alfie's cock as he leaned in, wanting kisses; but Alfie grabbed Tommy's face in both hands and ... spat on him.

"Ah--" Tommy gasped, but then another hot gobbet of spit hit his face. And one more, against his open, suddenly ravenous mouth, before Alfie pressed his tongue against the frothing wetness and kissed Tommy, deep and hard, sucking and biting at him before pulling panting back. Still holding Tommy's face, Alfie groaned, 

"--three times, to keep you safe from the evil eye, remember that, Tommy.The magical properties of spittle and doing something three times over, which you already know somewhere in that flashing minnow brain of yours, because you drew me three times over, eh? Now --" Alfie let go and sprawled back onto the bare wooden floor, propped on his elbows as he parted his thighs, "--be a good boy, go on, and fuck me."

Alfie was in a mood to push that day, because he growled and groaned and shouted as Tommy climbed onto him and drove his cock into his half brother's arse over and over, whipcord muscles shaking with exertion and youthful arousal, desperate to come and at the same time wanting to hold out, draw it out for Alfie's sake. 

(And, oh, and his own; because Alfie was a sight to stir the senses when he was being fucked and filled, his succulent fat lips dark and swollen as he moaned, eyelashes spiked damp with sweat and salt, the column of his throat thick and strained, and no lover who Tommy Shelby was ever destined to have in his grown life would compare quite favourably to that.)

At the dinner table that night Polly's dark gaze travelled between them while she held her cup of tea in both hands, and said with waxen-heavy portentousness to Alfie, "--We've all noticed, Alfie, just how well you take care of your little brother. If you're not careful, others will start to remark on it. Hmmm?"

She didn't look at Tommy, only at Solomons Junior, and Alfie's throat worked soundlessly for a moment before he said, "Let them remark on whatever it is they think they know. I guarantee, Pol," Alfie cut with renewed vigor into his chop, smearing it lavishly with enough horseradish to make Tommy cough at the thought, "that the truth is somewhere far beyond their comprehension."

The braggadocio of this comment made Polly smile along the edge of her cup. But her expression went fixed, static, when Tommy tossed the last crust of his bread down on his plate and stood, saying with a casual coldness, "I'm the one takes care of him, only I never get any credit because I'm a second son. And it's thankless work. Let them mention that, when they talk." 

Alfie's silverware clinked down against his plate in Tommy's wake, and Polly's cup provided counter-harmony tinking down against her saucer, and Tommy smiled, flatly, as he mounted the stairs to his room and left them behind. He couldn't say why it felt so good to leave Alfie stranded on the shoals of ignominy alone, or why he kept right on screwing Alfie, opening his own legs for Alfie, only to then repudiate him afterwards and refuse to acknowledge their fevered sampling of each others' bodies. But Tommy did. He crashed into Alfie to begin with and then once it was over and their blood was cooling he retreated further every time, until one day -- it was Alfie who retreated.

All the way across the fathomless oceans to the other side of the world.

===

"There's your tea," Polly says, pouring the cup full to the brim where it sits in its saucer on the kitchen table. If she thinks that's going to wrongfoot Tommy Shelby, then she's assumed too much; he's not that far different from the strange child he'd been, especially when he has some of the poppy in his blood to ease the way and null social convention that might keep his instincts in check. 

He leans forward with his hat still in his hands and, stare fixed on Pol as hers is stuck on him, noisily slurps scalding-hot tea from the cup until it's not lapping at the rim anymore. And then Tommy points at the cone of sugar on the counter behind Pol and says, "Sugar, please, Aunt Pol, and milk if you've got it."

She goes still and her mouth purses, eyes flashing in indignation. "If we've got it! Yes, even here at the other end of the city and all society from their Highnesses Tommy and Grace Shelby, we do have milk in, now and again." 

"Only not at the moment."

Both of them turn their heads towards the stairs as Alfie comes down them, his head leaned back so Tommy can see the grey of his eyes, almost rolling beneath the broad brim of Alfie's black hat. He looks … Tommy can't say he looks good. He looks ploughed through and harrowed, thick bottom lip carrying the entire freight of all of Alfie's display of emotion, a long scar drawn over his left eye like a permanent tearstain. The thought is laughable. This man descending the stairs in a rolling heavy gait is a stranger to weeping, Tommy can tell that much.

"We've not got milk in, at the moment," Alfie repeats, walking over to stand at Tommy's shoulder -- or against Tommy's shoulder, is more it, and the knuckles of one hand drag a shiver down Tommy's spine. If Tommy just turned his head the right way, he'd be able to slant his mouth over the crest of Alfie's hip, through his camphor-smelling shirt. "Not for you, Tommy. Nor sugar, neither. You get enough of those things at home, don't you?"

"After your visits to the sugar cane fields of Barbados and Trinidad," Tommy says, turning his face up so he doesn't need to think about his tongue against the ridge of Alfie's hip, "I'd think that you'd be absolutely running with the stuff, Alfie. Hasn't it made you any sweeter?"

Polly gets up with her cigarette trembling between her fingers and leaves the room without another word, although Tommy can hear doors opening and shutting, retreating further and further into the house. Alfie hasn't moved, hasn't barely breathed, hasn't taken his seawater stare from Tommy.

"If you came here for … cream," Alfie says, rolling the word around his mouth before lacquering it further, "...and for sugar," he pauses to let weight and innuendo settle, toffeelike, "then I can offer them to you only if you ask, Tommy. Nicely." 

Tommy hrrrms in his throat and then opens his mouth, and Alfie puts his thumb against Tommy's lips to stop him. "On your knees, pet," Alfie says, "just like you used to."

"I'm a married man, Alfie," Tommy tries, just so he can say that he did. And perhaps so he can see the look of contempt snarl across Alfie's face briefly as he takes his hand back, there and gone, coiling into the hinge of one jaw where Tommy stares at that tension in fascination as he continues, "I've come to talk about this proper. Civilized."

"I lost all my civility somewhere in the kala pani," Alfie says, and if Tommy doesn't understand the unfamiliar words he does understand the deep ocean depths of Alfie's eyes, the haunting that floats to the surface to bob there, circling his irises. "Along with a great deal more. You don't want to know, Tommy. How dark and black it is down there. Enough to make all the stars you've ever seen disappear, forever."

"Alfie," Tommy says, and reaches up before he can help himself, to put one fingertip at the very corner of Alfie's lower lip and press, pull, disfigure. "What happened to you out there on the ocean? In those foreign lands? Why've you come back like this?"

Alfie's eyes map Tommy's face as Tommy says, very very quietly: "...why did you come back at all?"

Everything goes dead still between, around them, and Alfie says, "That, dear brother, is a very strange way indeed to entreat me for the inheritance you believe you are owed." He steps back. "It was Grace, yeah, who bade you come? Who spun you tales of terrible Alfie, wicked Alfie, sailing back from the gold-washed shores of tropical islands with riches lining his pockets and an eye to cheat you of what our father left to support you in this life, which is nothing, Tommy. He left you nothing. And my riches are not of the sort your Grace would welcome."

Alfie shoves his hands into his pockets and plucks at them like he's tearing feathers from a dead fowl, turning them inside out one after the other, and Tommy watches with his lip curling in a shudder as salt pours out of every one. Alfie used to carefully heap little piles of salt into the corners of rooms, warning Tommy not to disturb them, so that they could ward off demons and evil spirits. When Alfie had left on the tall ship that took him to his damned equatorial destination, Tommy had discovered some of those piles still remaining in secret corners where Polly hadn't found and swept them gone. He'd sprinkled bits of that salt into his food for three and a half months before it had run out. Some of the salt falling out of Alfie's waistcoat pocket showers along the table and into Tommy's tea and his mouth waters, instantly.

He stands up and gathers the folds of his long black coat around him, swallowing his saliva and the taste of acrid dust, nostrils pink-rimmed and flaring rabbitlike. "We're not without means through which to strike at you," he says, the parroting of Grace's words lending his voice a sing-song quality that causes Alfie's lips to curl in derision. He knows those aren't Tommy's words. He knows the inside of Tommy's mouth like nobody else ever has.

"Then strike, Thomas," Alfie murmurs, the taunt sensual and subterranean, and his fingers move much faster to unbutton the only two that are holding his waistcoat closed, to spread open the shirt below to expose his chest, where Tommy can almost see the thumping of his heart. Before he knows what he's doing Tommy reaches forward and gathers the cambric in his hands, bunching it, ripping it, leaving it hanging like old lace from Alfie's heavy shoulders.

"The next time I see you," Tommy says as he quicksteps away, circumnavigating Alfie's unmoving figure, "I'll be collecting my inheritance. All of what's owed me. You know what that is."

The shirt slips further down Alfie's shoulders and Tommy catches a glimpse of a strange scarred mark on his muscled back: a hand, fingers together, the thumb and pinkie curled stylistically. Blue ink casting it ghostly, frozen.

"I will see you before that," Alfie says. Ghostly. Frozen. Tommy tastes salt riming the sides of his tongue as he shuts the door.

---

The attic room is where Alfie's lived since his return, and Pol ventures up when she damn well feels like, now. It scarcely matters. If Alfie wants sex he gets it by his own hand, and Polly has a seventh sense for that sort of depravity (her sixth having been entirely used up and burned down by what her two charges had gotten up to in all their growing years, Alfie knows).

Alfie curls his freezing-cold toes as he leans closer to the fire, baring his charcoal-stained teeth at the flames as they leap blue-white, eating the treats of camphor that he flings into them. Half naked, he feels the tightness of cobalt jab molassie paint dried on his skin and lets a mouthful of thick sweet wine flood his mouth before spitting it out in a spray. 

His mother's face looms at the back of the fire, her posy lips reddened with the syrupy wine, her eyebrows dark wings over searching grey eyes. The blue in Alfie's eyes, the short wedged nose, the muscled set of his shoulders and hips, those come from the long lost Solomons Senior; far more than Alfie ever wanted to inherit from his father, and worth far less than what he'd rightfully expected. 

The fire spits back at him and Alfie leans into the sparks, letting them kiss searing against his skin. "I think I have your heart as well, Mother," he tells the flames and her face, her searching eyes that take him in and weigh him and find him wanting. "I have your heart but no soul to speak of, for He had none to give me, not before Bedlam and not after it."

Cackling, the fire dances against the back of the hearth and Alfie picks up his bowl and cradles it in both hands, turning it as his lips murmur aloud the Aramaic script that circles its wide mouth. The names of angels that he can only believe in if he thinks of them as magic rather than faith, the taste of clay and shockwaves of horror, an old old craft that his mother interred to his flesh before she died. "Be you bound, sealed," Alfie mumbles, "countersealed, yes, exorcised, hobbled, silenced…." 

His voice is an ugly croak like this, and Alfie can swear he feels hundreds of shedim climbing into his mouth past teeth and tongue to rasp at the insides of his throat to claw their way down through his entrails to make their homes there, searing little demons all seething and scrambling over each other, yes, scrambling and rattling their chains, crying out in foreign tongues, waiting in his belly to be vomited onto unfamiliar shores.

"I left you," Alfie says, doubling over so far that his forehead hovers only a few inches above the floor, heat of the fire making rings at the top of his scalp. "In Port-of-Spain, I left you, and I drank your chenopodium and I swallowed your semen and I wore your jumbie beads and your red thread around my throat and around my wrists, and that is where you belong, all you monsters and mazikim, that is where I left you. Buried below the tamarind trees with blue glass to keep you from rising again. You don't belong here."

His voice has ascended to a roar on the last sentence, reverberating through the attic rafters and back down and then the sound all sucks into the fireplace, rippling through the flames and turning them white-blue as the breath catches in Alfie's chest; the moment stretches, pulling out like ropes and ropes of intestine never-ending and gory and miasmic, and then oxygen hits him in the lungs and he wheezes, lips pale.

The fire is only a fire.

It is England.

He is himself. Motherless, fatherless, beset in every cell of his body by the gibbering of demons, but himself.

Alfie rubs his hand over his mouth and chin a few times, letting his beard and moustache prickle his palm. He makes sure his bowl is set aside safely, and then he begins a different ritual, separate from the one to quieten shedim. This one is even more personal than that.

---

The strokes of Tommy's pen are firm and sure as he writes his letter, at his desk, the cold sunlight filtering through the air against his paper. Their whole house is cold and everything that enters it turns chilled. Grace has decorated it in grey and blue-grey and lavender-grey and Tommy, bird bones to begin with, feels the grey in each one of them. The coals heaped in the indigo-grey tiled fireplace must still be giving off heat, though, because Tommy feels it against his hip. And slowly creeping up his side, and down along his leg, and then, he clenches his fingers on his pen because that heat is circling around his cock like a mouth.

"Alfie," Tommy groans. 

"Tommy," Alfie mutters.

He curls both hands into loose fists, stacked on each other, and rotates them like he's pulling on a rope or something else, something better, dipping his head to waggle his tongue into the tight circle of his fist. Licking and lapping, pushing and widening, tasting the heated skin, fucking his hand with his tongue. 

Tommy falls forward against his desk half-risen out of his chair, hands splayed out on the wood with his fingers in stiff claws, eyes wide and darting as if Alfie's form will materialize if he can only focus his vision properly. And he moans, sluttish protest, as his hips push closer to the edge of the desk and he spreads himself out, face pressed against the varnish as his legs spread wider. Tommy would pray, but he doesn't believe in Grace's God and has none of his own to petition. 

Finished with his work, Alfie squeezes his fists tight and then opens his arms, twisting them as he holds them out to his sides, muscles swelling and strained as he leans back, and back, hips canting forward--

--Tommy gives a hoarse yowling cry, bucking against the desk as he feels himself filled, pinned down, unable to do anything but take it. Hard and precise strikes that hit deep inside him, his own cock thick and needy; the whole desk rattles from the phantom force of it and the inkwell topples over, streaming down, the peacock blue that Tommy favours (so frivolous! So strange, for a man, Grace had bemoaned) streaking into the crow-black of his hair and painting along the side of his face, and

and Alfie grunts as the small of his back screams from the pressure of his posture on his knees on the floor, bent so far back that all he can see is the starlings in the rafters of his attic, heat corseting his hips as his prick slaps against his belly and he bites his lip, tasting blood as he baptizes himself in come and feels the 

heat and wetness as Tommy clenches down and shouts, open mouth dragging over blotting paper as it soaks up the damp, as his cock gives up its milk as well and Tommy can see that the coals in the fireplace are dead cold and dark, and he laughs once, sharply, before screwing his lips shut tight and doing the same with his eyes as he shudders out his completion. The heat retreats. The sunlight keeps touching him. It's still cold.

---

The next morning a letter arrives at the Shelby house from Alfie, borne to the breakfast table on a silver platter by the servant that Grace insists they maintain. Grace had declined to come down to breakfast.

"I can't look at you," she'd said to Tommy the night before. "All I see is damnation. And you courting it with open arms."

Tommy puts down his egg-spoon and the morning newspaper and opens the letter. It reads in its entirety:

 cream and sugar.

He throws it uncrumpled into the cold fireplace and carries on with his egg, dripping molten-soft yolk down the ball of his thumb as he eats. The side of Tommy's face is traced with the curled blue inkstain; stylized, frozen, ghostly.  He sprinkles salt like stars into the ocean black of his tea.

/end

[quicksilversquared]

Keeping Up With the Ladyblog Pt. 2

A reporter has to adapt and improvise. It’s an important skill to learn, especially when one is a reporter who is still in school and can’t skip out to film all of the akuma battles without getting grounded. So Alya gets creative and starts using old security camera footage of akuma attacks. It keeps the Ladyblog active and maybe, just maybe, she’ll finally get her scoop of a lifetime.

links in the reblog

It was much harder to get Ladybug and Chat Noir alone than Alya would have thought. Now that she had important information- super important information, crazy important information- she never seemed to be able to catch them on their own at the end of a fight. They were always surrounded by adoring fans, reporters, and too many cameras for Alya to be comfortable with when they had a little bit of time left at the end of a fight, and when they didn't, well...

They just took off far too quickly for Alya to catch them.

Alya was just starting to get frustrated when Nino suggested that she just tell Ladybug or Chat Noir that she needed to talk to them privately and soon. That way, she didn't need to get them all on their own or risk other people overhearing and breaking the story before she could.

That was a much better idea. Nino got a kiss for that.

After that, it was a piece of cake for Alya to get to Ladybug before she and Chat Noir could run off at the end of a fight. Ladybug seemed a bit distracted, trying to smile for the cameras and answer the questions being thrown at her like usual, but Alya persisted.

"Ladybug!" Alya called, weaving closer to the superhero. She ducked under Madam Chamack's cameraman's arm to get past them. There was a "Hey!" as she disrupted the video, but Alya didn't care. She rushed up to Ladybug, tugging lightly on the superhero's arm.

Maybe she wasn't going to tell Ladybug exactly what her scoop was right now, but she still didn't need any other reporters sticking their noses in and messing everything up.

"I need to talk to you and Chat Noir privately," she told Ladybug in a hushed whisper, glancing around to make sure that no one was listening in. "I have a scoop- it's about Hawkmoth."

She saw Chat Noir glance back at them, his cat ears flicking backwards briefly. He and Ladybug exchanged a look, wordlessly communicating something that Alya couldn't decipher.

"We can swing by tonight," Ladybug told Alya, one eye still on Chat Noir. "It'll probably be late, though."

"Understandable." Alya flashed Ladybug a quick smile. "And I'll try to be fast about it. Thanks!"

Ladybug nodded, and seconds later she and Chat Noir bounded out of the crowd, back to the rooftops to go back home. Alya watched them go for a second, then beat it before Madam Chamack could catch up to her and start scolding her for messing up her shot or something.

Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up at ten thirty on the dot, landing just outside of Alya's window. She let them in right away, pointing them towards her computer. Onscreen, she had the edited Heroes Day footage up, paused right near the end.

"So you might have noticed that I've been going through security camera footage to edit it into a cohesive video of the fight for the Ladyblog," Alya started, settling into her chair in front of the computer. She was feeling a little nervous now, probably because Adrien was going to end up losing his father because of this. And while it wasn't her fault- it was his asshat supervillain of a father's- she couldn't help but feel a little bad. "And this is Heroes Day. I was going through the footage from the Eiffel Tower, and I saw- well, this."

She hit Play. Onscreen, the superheroes were blown away by the giant moth's wing blasts. Hawkmoth made a hasty exit, swinging off the side of the tower and out of sight. Seamlessly (thank you, Nino- he was definitely getting a lot of video editing practice in while helping her), the view switched to the iced-over camera from the lower level. The purple blur that was Hawkmoth appeared and landed, heading unsteadily away across the platform. Another angle switch showed him heading past a camera, then slumping against the wall, fully within the camera's view. There was a flash, and the distortion effect made the view even worse.

"That's what happens when you guys transform and detransform," Alya explained to the superheroes. "It's to help keep your identity safe, I guess."

Ladybug and Chat Noir nodded. Neither looked surprised. Alya had to wonder if maybe their kwamis had already told them that, so that they wouldn't have to scramble to make sure that there were no cameras nearby when they transformed or detransformed. She wouldn't be surprised.

The ice was cleared away in a flash of red, and the three of them watched as the pixilated, staticky Hawkmoth sat on the ground for a bit before getting up. The screen split in two as he walked away, showing the clear feed of the stairs.

"I'm positive that this is Hawkmoth," Alya told them, briefly pausing the video before Hawkmoth could exit the first feed. "Look at what he's wearing there, and then in the next screen. And there shouldn't have been that many people on the Eiffel Tower in the first place. It got evacuated pretty quickly."

"There were a couple employees that got trapped up top, that Volpina girl, and then Hawkmoth," Ladybug agreed. "And those red pants and white top are pretty distinctive. Let's see it, then."

Alya nodded, starting up the feed again. She could feel the tension mount in the room as Hawkmoth headed down the stairs unsteadily, more and more of him coming into view. They hadn't even gotten to his shoulders when Ladybug gasped, a couple words that Alya had never expected to hear from Ladybug slipping out. Less than a second later, when they had gotten as far as Hawkmoth's neck, Chat Noir hissed.

Okay, so apparently the two of them were familiar with Mr. Agreste, then?

"I knew it!" Ladybug half-snarled when Mr. Agreste's face came into view. "He threw me off when he got akumatized- when he akumatized himself- but we have him now."

Chat Noir nodded, strangely pale under his black mask.

"I wanted to show you first, since I'm sure that the police would bungle the whole thing somehow," Alya said, moving over so that Ladybug and Chat Noir could see the screen better. The video had been paused again, with Mr. Agreste in frame. "I don't think that they're entirely able to deal with magic powers."

"Right, right." Ladybug's glare was practically burning through Alya's computer as she stared down the image of Mr. Agreste. She gave herself a good shake and refocused on Alya, all business again. "That's great that you found this, Alya. We probably won't act on it right away-"

Alya nodded eagerly. "You have to plan the final boss battle, right?"

"Well, we have to do a bit of planning, yeah. We want to be safe as possible." Ladybug smiled at Alya, then pulled her yo-yo off of her hip. After tapping away on her screen, a USB stick popped out of the side of her yo-yo. "Do you think you could give me a copy of that video? We might need it in the future, if we do end up using the police to help us."

"Of course!" Alya accepted the Ladybug-patterned USB and plugged it in. She paused as her computer worked to recognize it. "Uh, you'll tell people that I was the one to do this, right?"

"Of course! I wouldn't deny you your credit, Alya," Ladybug assured her. "Actually, have you added the Ladyblog watermark to it yet? We can wait if you want to do that first."

Alya startled because oh, yeah, that was definitely something she should have done and then preened. "You noticed that?" It was something that most people didn't even register when they were watching, but it had taken Alya several tries to get the watermark to work on uploaded videos and several weeks of testing to get it to automatically show up on livestreams. Max had helped her a bit with that, but it had mostly been Alya's trial and error that finally had them figuring it out.

"Yeah. It's smart, since there's a ton of knock-off blogs now." Ladybug watched as Alya quickly clicked through her settings, inserting her new and improved (thank you, Marinette) Ladyblog logo into the corner of the whole video. She saved it, then made a copy for Ladybug. It took a minute to transfer. "How much of the fight does that include?"

"The last five minutes, maybe? And then a couple minutes of Hawkmoth at the end." The file finished loading and Alya ejected Ladybug's USB, handing it back to her. "My boyfriend and I are still working on getting the rest of the footage from the fight put together. When I post it, I'll post the version without Hawkmoth detransforming and his real identity, at least until he's been defeated."

"I think it warrants its own post, honestly." Ladybug tucked the USB back into her yo-yo. "Thank you so much, Alya. I'm sure we'll be in touch."

Alya looked up sharply at that. Ladybug winked, and for a second Alya was confused. Then it dawned on her.

Oh my GOD I'm gonna get the Fox back! I'm gonna be part of the boss battle!

Oh gosh. She wasn't sure if she was ready for that. She had only been out for a handful of battles and saying that it had gone well was probably an overstatement. She was still very much in the middle of a very steep learning curve. But if Ladybug had faith in her, then she wasn't going to let Ladybug down.

Chat Noir nodded in agreement, looking far more serious than Alya had ever seen him before. With a start, she realized that he hadn't said anything after seeing the video. That was pretty strange, but maybe seeing Hawkmoth's secret identity onscreen had really made the possibility of a final battle possible, and Alya knew how final battles went in the comics. Not everyone always made it out in one piece, and as Ladybug's self-appointed shield, Chat Noir was more likely to end up hurt.

...yeah, okay, there were definitely some scary parts to this whole superhero business. Maybe Alya could ask that they do some training sessions before jumping right into the final battle bit.

Ladybug and Chat Noir said their good-byes after that, waving to Alya as they headed out. Just as Ladybug had one leg out the window, something she had said earlier finally caught up with Alya and she reached out, the reporter in her practically begging for answers. "Wait! Ladybug, you said something earlier-"

Ladybug paused, glancing back. "Yeah?"

"You- you said that 'that Volpina girl' was on the Eiffel Tower," Alya started, frowning. "Don't you know her name?"

That got a frown on Ladybug's face. "No, why should I remember her name?"

"Lila said- Lila said that you were best friends!" Alya said, reaching for her computer again. "I have a whole interview on the Ladyblog-"

"I remember seeing part of that," Ladybug said once the page loaded on the Ladyblog. "I had never even met her before that. I did go and tell her to stop trying to use me as a way to get popular after that, but I'm going to guess that she didn't do that. Even though she definitely hates me now for calling her out like that."

Alya spluttered. "But- but she said-"

Ladybug shrugged. "Some people lie to try to get what they want. I'm going to guess that she's lied about a lot of things. She seems the type."

Alya nodded slowly. She- she was starting to get that impression, too. After all, there was the whole issue of Lila being in Paris when she was meant to be traveling. Ladybug's comments shouldn't have surprised her, really, but somehow they still had. It also meant that maybe Alya should do a bit of investigation about that, now that she had let Ladybug and Chat Noir know about Mr. Agreste.

"I certainly wouldn't trust anything that she says," Ladybug added. "But that's just me, of course."

Alya nodded as the superheroes swung off into the night. She watched them go, then turned back to her computer.

If she focused, maybe she could make some progress on what promised to be her second scoop of the summer.

  Alya couldn't deny that she was a bit disappointed when two more weeks went by like normal, akuma attacks happening nearly every day and running just like usual. But it did give her more content for her blog, and that was good, so…

Maybe planning was taking longer than she had thought. Maybe they had a mentor who was on vacation at the moment. Maybe they were staking out the Agreste house to try to figure out where Mr. Agreste transformed.

Alya would have volunteered to go in and do a little poking around to try to find whatever secret entrance Mr. Agreste no doubt had to enter his lair, but she was sort of banned from the house after she had been caught doing a bit of unapproved exploring. At the moment, she was pretty sure that Marinette was the only one of Adrien's close friends who was allowed to actually hang out with him in his house. And there was no way that Alya was going to put Marinette in danger by asking her to poke around, so that was a dead end, at least for now.

So Alya decided to turn to her other scoop: figuring out what, exactly, was going on with Lila's stories.

She knew that Lila was lying about some things, at least: being on a trip abroad for several months, and about being friends with Ladybug. Those were pretty big things, so it was pretty logical to assume that a lot of the other things that she had told them were probably also lies. Still, Alya wanted to do a little digging.

And that little bit of digging turned up a lot.

"Disproving the Jagged Stone's kitten thing was easy," Alya told Nino the next time they met up. "When he was at the Dupain-Cheng bakery, they asked him about pets and he's only ever had Fang. And there aren't any of his songs that could possibly be about her, it's obvious now that I'm looking. But I don't have Prince Ali's number, Rose does, and it's not like I could just call up a bunch of movie directors and ask them- well, I could, but why would they bother replying?"

"Do you really need to find and disprove every last one of her lies?" Nino asked, waving at Adrien and Marinette as they approached from across the park. "I mean, we know. Once we tell everyone else, they'll know, too. But isn't the obvious solution right there?"

Alya gave him a puzzled look. The obvious solution? What did he mean by that? It was obvious that this was another test of her reporting skills, seeing how much information she could seek out. What else was there to it?

"The teachers?" Nino prompted after a few seconds. "If she was just telling a few lies to try to fit in and make kids fast because of new student syndrome, that would be one thing. The teachers wouldn't really care about that. But Lila was trying to get out of things and get favors because of her connections and for her 'illnesses', and she was skipping school. I think that's the kind of thing that would be important for them to know."

Groaning, Alya slouched down on the bench. "Great. Another scoop, and I have to just turn it over to an authority and wait. I hate waiting."

"It's probably an important part of reporting, knowing when to let go and let someone else take over." Nino nudged her shoulder. "Hey, cheer up. It's not like you have to stop digging once you tell Ms. Bustier or Mr. Damocles. Or you could always take the time that you've been using to research Lila's stories and go back to getting the security footage all ready to go up on the Ladyblog. Don't you still have a ton of that to do? And it'll probably get more interest before the final battle is over and Hawkmoth is defeated."

Alya had to give him that. Besides, she was getting more footage every day, and if she waited for too long then school would start again and she would never catch up.

"And if that gets old, we can always hang out with Adrien and Marinette more," Nino added quietly. "We haven't gotten to spend that much time with them this summer- especially you- because we've been busy and they've been busy. And we need to enjoy this while it lasts."

She could only nod in agreement.

As always, it was hard to hang out with Adrien and Marinette without updating them on the biggest scoop of her life. She would have updated them about her Lila research instead, but, well, Marinette clearly had suspected all of the lies already (and Alya had scoffed at her suspicions at the time, whoops) and somehow Alya got the feeling that Adrien had, too. It was all old news to them, and she felt a bit ridiculous that it had taken her so much longer to catch on. On top of that, Alya rather belatedly remembered once telling Marinette that a good reporter always checked her sources when they were discussing Lila. She hadn't done any research or fact-checking of her own then, and now Alya was feeling rather sheepish about how easy it was to disprove the lies that she had once fallen for.

So instead she said nothing. The four of them just hung out and Marinette showed off some of her designs and Nino played a couple of his mixes as they ate their picnic and wandered around the city, enjoying a relatively mild day.

It was normal, and Alya…Alya knew that it was going to end soon. Adrien's father would be arrested and what would happen after that, she didn't knew. Hopefully Adrien would be able to stay in Paris with all of them at the very least.

"It's so hard acting natural with him," Alya told Nino as they headed back to her apartment after their gathering broke up. "Like, I know that his life is going to change a ton soon- well, whenever Ladybug and Chat Noir act- and he's just oblivious. And it's awful."

"He'll be safer once his father is in jail," Nino told her. "Just focus on that. Him and all of Paris."

  Tracking down a teacher in the summer wasn't anywhere near as hard as snagging Ladybug after a fight. As it turned out, Ms. Bustier was teaching summer school and all Alya had to do was get up a little earlier than usual and go in before the summer school students arrived.

And as it turned out, Alya got to see a bit of the fallout. Ms. Bustier was so taken aback by the video footage of Lila clearly in Paris on Heroes Day that she had immediately gone to the computer, looked up the phone number for Lila's mom, and called her up right then and there. It went through, and Alya listened in, trying not to look too interested. She wouldn't be able to stand it if she had to leave the room and miss hearing everything.

"Yes, I was Lila's teacher this past year," Ms. Bustier was saying. "And just this morning, we had some concerns arise about the trip that Lila was on during the school year- no, not before she arrived. She was here for a day and then said that she went on a trip around Europe for several months- you say she didn't leave Paris at all? And-" Ms. Bustier listened and then frowned. "No, we didn't close the school for akuma attacks, at least not for any extended period of time. We occasionally have had to evacuate and closed the school for the remainder of the afternoon or the morning, but we never even closed for an entire day, let alone any longer period of time. The akumas don't disrupt us that much."

Alya's eyebrows shot up. Another scoop! Lila must have told her mom that they were doing online learning in place of going in to the classroom, and somehow her mom had never checked on that. Kind of like how the school had clearly never verified Lila's claim of being out of the country.

….that seemed like a fairly large breakdown in communication, honestly.

"Lila must have lied to both of us, then," Ms. Buster was saying. "She will face consequences for that when school resumes in the fall. And- yes, consequences at home would be a good idea, too. Ah- if you have time, I wanted to ask about some of Lila's other claims?"

Alya listened raptly as Ms. Bustier listed off as many of Lila's stories as she could remember, with occasional help from Alya chiming in. On the other end of the line, Lila's mom was clearly denying that any of those things had ever happened. When she heard Lila's claims about tinnitus and arthritis, she exploded on the other end of the line, loud enough for Alya to hear halfway across the room.

Clearly someone was going to be getting in a lot of trouble tonight. Alya wasn't going to be surprised if Volpina made another appearance.

"Well, that was….something," Ms. Bustier said with a sigh once she had hung up several minutes later. "Some of Lila's stories had seemed far-fetched when she was telling them, but there were so many that I thought that there would be no way that she would lie that much. I didn't see any reason for her to. But clearly I was wrong."

Alya nodded. She had kind of taken the same approach, honestly. One out-of-place story would have been suspicious. Dozens of them? There had to be some truth there.

Apparently not.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Alya," Ms. Bustier told her. She looked tired. "I'm sure Lila's mom and I will be in contact to keep a situation like this from happening again. And… while I would normally ask you to not share this with other people, since you overheard a phone call I had about another student and normally we don't do that, this time it's fine. Normally everyone would know all of that already. And I might send out an email tonight to the families, since Lila was trying to manipulate people with her 'connections' and we need to cut that off." She sighed, massaging her temples. "I'll add it to my list of things to do. And- oh, my students are coming in now. Was there anything else, Alya?"

Alya shook her head. "No. That's it. Well-" she hesitated, thinking up one last question, something that had been bugging her ever since she shared her video with Ladybug and Chat Noir. She hadn't wanted to ask her parents (and they weren't likely to know anyway), but Ms. Bustier might be able to put her mind at rest. "I had a hypothetical question."

A hint of a smile showed up on Ms. Bustier's face. "Ah, yes, the famous hypothetical question. What were you wondering, Alya?"

"If- hypothetically- if someone were to only have one parent and that parent got arrested, what would happen to them?" Alya asked, hoping that Ms. Bustier would know. "Hypothetically!"

Ms. Bustier frowned. "Does this have something to do with Lila? She still has both parents, Alya, even if they aren't together."

"No, nothing to do with that whole mess," Alya said quickly. "And it's hypothetical."

That got a smile on Ms. Bustier's face. "Alya, in my experience, the more hypotheticals someone adds to a question, the less hypothetical it is." The smile vanished as she grew serious again. "As for your question…. well, if they have relatives around who are able and willing to take them, then they would likely go there. Otherwise, a trusted family friend might take custody….though if one parent was arrested, the family friends would be very closely examined to make sure they were innocent."

Alya nodded. She still didn't know where that would leave Adrien. Were Nathalie and the Gorilla innocent in all of this?

"Is there…" Ms. Bustier glanced at the door, then back at Alya. She lowered her voice. "Alya, can I ask who you're asking for? So I can be on the lookout to help?"

"It…" Alya hesitated. She didn't want to go and spoil Ladybug and Chat Noir's work, but it wouldn't hurt to have an adult looking after them, too. "I don't know how much I can say, because it's an ongoing investigation…"

Ms. Bustier frowned. "Alya, what have you gotten involved with?"

"It's a Ladybug and Chat Noir thing! I'm not getting tangled up with normal criminals," Alya assured her teacher. Ms. Bustier didn't look any more happy with that.

"Magical criminals aren't any better. That might be worse, actually. Alya…"

"I just did some research for them," Alya assured her. "There was no legwork involved."

Ms. Bustier didn't look convinced.

"And I promise I'll let you know more as soon as I can." Alya shifted from foot to foot, glancing towards the door as the noise level outside got a little louder. "And I'll try to stay safe."

"Coming from the girl that goes charging towards akuma fights, I'm not sure how reassuring that is," Ms. Bustier said with a sigh. "But- Alya, let me give you my phone number and my email. Contact me when you're allowed to. Promise me."

"I will," Alya vowed.

  Finally, finally, Ladybug and Chat Noir showed up at Alya's window again, only an hour after she got back from the school. Much to her excitement, they were carrying her Miraculous.

"There's no boss battle today, but we think that we'll need the Fox's powers," Ladybug told her. "So we thought of you, of course."

Alya grinned as she accepted the box and opened it up, beaming as her kwami popped into view. "Hi, Trixx!"

"Hiya, Alya!"

"So what are we going to be doing?" Alya asked eagerly as she hooked her Miraculous around her neck. "Training?"

Ladybug laughed. "Not quite. Your comment about the police gave us an idea, that we might be able to use them to set a trap. So we told them about Mr. Agreste and showed them your evidence, on the condition that they'll follow our lead and not try to take him on on their own. They're going to get him to come in to the station, where he'll have a harder time transforming."

"We didn't want to try to attack him in his lair," Chat Noir chimed in. "We scoped it out a little- well, my kwami did- and what we found was…. well, disturbing. And we have our suspicious about Mayura, and we don't want them nearby, either. One at a time is easier."

Alya frowned. "So… what are we doing today?"

"Well, the police are going to call Mr. Agreste today to claim that they have a lead about where Mrs. Agreste is," Chat Noir said, glancing at Ladybug. "And that he has to come in- in person, not via Skype- to look over some things. We want to see his reaction to the call."

Alya was still officially lost as to why they needed her.

"But we want to hear it, too," Ladybug continued, seamlessly picking up where Chat Noir picked off. "And- we asked Trixx about this- if you do a small illusion, maybe something not very big or noticeable- then you can use it as basically a- what do you call it, Chat Noir? Those spy things?"

"Why do you assume that I would know what they're called?" Chat Noir pouted at Ladybug, and honestly, Alya regretted ever thinking that the two of them were cool. "They're like the Extendable Ears things in Harry Potter, I guess?"

"It's essentially like setting a bug," Alya corrected them dryly. Then she perked up. "Oh! I'll be doing the listening! That's cool!"

"Do you have the time?" Ladybug asked her. "Like, you don't have to babysit today, do you?"

Alya laughed as she shook her head. "Nah, Nora's taking Ella and Etta for the week. It's about time, too, since I did most of the babysitting during the school year."

"Good." Ladybug headed towards the window. "Ready? Or do you need to let someone know that you're going out?"

"I'll tell my mom that I'm going out with my boyfriend," Alya decided after a moment's thought. "And then I'll transform in the alleyway. Meet me down there?" she added.

"Of course," Ladybug agreed easily. Chat Noir nodded.

Alya made to move towards her door again, then paused and glanced back at the superheroes. "Do you two have to tell your parents when you're going out, too? What excuse do you use?"

"Oh, I told them I was going out with my boyfriend," Ladybug said breezily, grinning at Alya cheekily. "They were fine with it, of course."

"It's not like she was lying ," Chat Noir added in, his grin twice as cheeky. "After all, she's hanging out with me."

Ten minutes into their stakeout, Rena Rouge still hadn't managed to get a straight answer out of Ladybug and Chat Noir about whether they were kidding about the dating thing or not. She wanted to think so, of course- three big scoops in one summer would be amazing, and confirming Ladynoir would actually be a positive scoop- but they weren't giving her anything.

"Okay, they're going to call in the next couple minutes," Ladybug said, checking her yo-yo. "Rena, send in the mini-illusion. And then we're going to have to focus."

"This won't set off my timer?" Rena Rouge checked one more time. "Because that would stink to miss anything."

"No, it only uses a fraction of your power. Trixx said you would have half an hour at the least before the timer might start counting down." Ladybug glanced at her yo-yo again, then hunkered down on the rooftop. "And we have to make sure that we're not seen. If we are…"

Rena Rouge nodded. Mr. Agreste might just start acting instead of actually reacting realistically, and they didn't want that. That would completely defeat the purpose of coming out at all. It was a basic rule of stake-outs, really.

Bringing her flute to her lips, Rena played a short tune, envisioning a small white butterfly as she flicked the light off of the end. It formed and fluttered away, headed right for the house. Rena Rouge bit her lip as she watched it go, hoping that she had done it right. They wouldn't know right away, but hopefully they had a couple minutes for her to check the butterfly's hearing abilities first.

"A little lower- to the side- yes, hover it right there," Chat Noir urged, peeping over the side of the rampart. "Or maybe have it land against the house."

"Done and done." Rena held down her ears and peeped over for a moment as well before flattening herself to the rooftop. "Okay, and now I listen, I guess…?"

On top of her head, her fox ears twitched back and forth as she tried to focus on her connection with the butterfly illusion. Slowly, she started picking up voices. As Rena strained to listen, they got louder.

"-this zipper isn't the right shade to go with this fabric, what was the sewing room thinking? It's too bright, it'll catch the light if even a hint of the zipper isn't covered. Must I really specify every single bit of the design? What's next, telling the sewing room that the right side of the fabric is meant to face out?"

Great. Fashion talk. Nothing interesting yet.

Nathalie's voice joined Gabriel's. "I'll look into it at once and see who was responsible. I'll let them know that this will be a dark mark on their record and further mistakes will put their job in jeopardy."

"See that you do. I won't stand for employees that can't use their brain when sewing."

"Anything?" Ladybug whispered, making Rena Rouge startle. "Does it work?"

"It works. They're just talking fashion. Something about the wrong finish on a zipper."

Oddly enough, Ladybug looked interested. "Wait, what-"

"Not the time, Bug," Chat Noir murmured, and Ladybug settled down with a bit of a pout.

The banal fashion talk continued for another minute, and Rena tried not to groan as it turned to the business side of the fashion house. She was saved, though, by the ringing of a phone.

"It's happening!" Rena Rouge told Ladybug and Chat Noir, pulling their attention back from whatever whispered conversation they were having. "The police are calling, and Nathalie is headed over to get it!"

The other superheroes froze, then scrambled into position. Rena Rouge returned her attention to the conversation, though there wasn't really much to it. Nathalie was listening more than talking, and her tone gave nothing away.

"She's impossible to read," she faintly heard Ladybug complain. "C'mon, give something away."

"She's thanking them now," Rena Rouge relayed. "And hanging up- now shush so I can listen!"

The other superheroes shushed.

Rena Rouge held still as a statue, listening closely as Nathalie relayed the police's message to Mr. Agreste. Next to her, Ladybug and Chat Noir huddled around her yo-yo, watching Mr. Agreste's expression on the zoomed-in feed.

"He looks super annoyed," Ladybug whispered. "There's- there's something not right there. Why would he look annoyed?"

"If he knows that they can't have a lead, maybe," Chat Noir suggested after a second. "Or can't have a correct lead, at least." He was pale. "He's a supervillain. Do you think-"

"Shh! I'm trying to listen!" Rena hissed at them. "I don't want to miss anything!"

Ladybug and Chat Noir promptly shut up.

"They would come here if they suspected anything about us," Gabriel was telling Nathalie. Down below, Rena could see him pacing, going back and forth in front of the window. "If they suspected that we know what happened, or that we know where Emilie is, they would come here and take us into custody. No, they've found some false lead. But I'm still going to have to go in, just to keep up appearances."

Rena Rouge gasped. Adrien's father knew where his wife was? That was awful. Had he done something to her?

"What did they say?" Chat Noir wanted to know. "What-"

"Shh, I'm listening!"

"I said that I would call them back once I had talked with you about when we could go in. Unless you just want me to go?"

"No, they would consider that strange. I'm going to need to go in myself." Gabriel scowled. "And they're going to expect me to be rushing in right away. It's what anyone else would do. When…?"

"They said that the detective would be in all day tomorrow, just choose a time. You have meetings throughout the morning, then a break from eleven fifteen to two forty-five, then again after five."

Rena Rouge reached blindly for the notepad that she had brought along, scribbling that down. Just in case.

"I'll meet with them at twelve-thirty. That gives me some time if anything runs over." Gabriel sounded irritated. "I hope it doesn't run for long. I need to get some designing done."

"Of course, sir."

"And I'm going to go check on Emilie now. I want you to keep an eye on her tomorrow, while I'm at the meeting. Just in case."

Nathalie was frowning, and it was clear in her voice. "You think they might be up to something?"

"Something doesn't feel right. Why would they even think that they might have any leads on Emilie? It's impossible." Gabriel headed over to the portrait of his wife. "I don't like it."

"Wishful thinking, perhaps. Or they've actually got a lead on some other missing person, but they just misidentified them."

"He said he was going to check on Emilie," Rena Rouge hissed. "Keep an eye on him. Watch what he does."

The dual curse that she got from Ladybug and Chat Noir wasn't unexpected this time.

"I'm switching this to video mode," Ladybug announced. "Chat Noir-"

Chat Noir already had his baton out. "I'll take a backup video, so we don't miss anything."

"One would hope that Paris's esteemed police department would be more careful than that." Mr. Agreste didn't sound impressed as he addressed Nathalie. "But I agree, that's the most likely explanation. You can take care of calling the police back?"

"Of course."

They fell quiet, and Rena Rouge glanced over at Ladybug and Chat Noir. They both had intense looks of concentration on their faces as they manipulated their screens. Within a minute, both let out an exclamation and sat back.

"He's got some sort of elevator built into the floor," Ladybug explained to Rena Rouge. "And the buttons are built into the painting. We're going to have to look at the recording more closely to figure out exactly what they are. Hopefully that goes straight to- to wherever Mrs. Agreste is."

"Are you going to try to find her?" Rena Rouge asked excitedly, visions of a stealth mission already dancing through her head. "Are you going to break in in the middle of the night and push the buttons and-"

"We're going to go in once both Hawkmoth and Mayura have had their Miraculous removed and are in police custody," Ladybug said firmly. "We don't want to make Mr. Agreste any more suspicious than he already is."

…Rena supposed that that made sense.

They didn't stick around for long after that. Nathalie called the police back and when Mr. Agreste hadn't reappeared by the time the call ended, they decided that that was about as much information as they were going to get today.

"Are you going to need me tomorrow?" Alya asked once they were back in her room. She didn't want to give up her Miraculous, not yet. "For the confrontation?"

Ladybug and Chat Noir exchanged a glance, then Ladybug rolled up on her tiptoes to whisper something into his ear. After a quick discussion, they seemed to reach a consensus.

"There's not going to be much of a battle, hopefully," Ladybug said slowly. "I mean, I'm going to restrain him as soon as he gets into the room- or as soon as I get into the room, I don't think we've decided which way we're doing it yet."

"I'd say have the detective give him a made-up story first," Chat Noir suggested. "Then he'll be more relaxed."

"Right. But Mayura is still a wild card. So maybe keep the Miraculous and Trixx will let you know if we need help. If things go smoothly, we'll let you know when you can make your post about Hawkmoth's identity," Ladybug told her. "You might want to have that ready to go as soon as we contact you. I'd be surprised if the police don't make the announcement as soon as they can, so you'll want to beat them."

Alya nodded. "Already written and formatted. I just have it in my drafts and set on private posting right now, just to be safe."

"Good." Ladybug smiled. "We'll be in touch, Alya! Have a good rest of your evening."

"I'll try," Alya said wryly, trying not to think about how Adrien's life was soon going to be uprooted. "I'll try."

  "I can't believe we're hanging out this morning. This morning, of all times!"

"Well, it's our last chance to do it normally." Nino squeezed her hand. "D'you think you can manage to act normal for a bit?"

Alya winced. Honestly, after hearing what she had the previous day about Adrien's mom? She might have to refrain from talking to Adrien too much until after everything came out.

"And speaking of normal- or not so much," Nino murmured all of a sudden, shaking Alya's arm. "I know Adrien and Marinette were getting closer- well, you've missed most of that, actually, since you've been so busy- but look at them!"

Alya's head shot up. Her two other friends were headed down the street together, Marinette's arm wrapped around Adrien's. Their heads were close together as they talked, and Alya couldn't deny it- they looked a lot closer than they had been even only a couple weeks before. She wanted to squeal with glee- if they weren't dating now, they were definitely close- but at the same time, she couldn't deny the tendril of dread that curled around her heart.

She wanted Adrien and Marinette to be together, of course. Marinette had had a crush on him for so long, and they would be adorable together. But now?

Adrien would be going through the hardest part of his life soon, and there was no way that he'd actually be in a state of mind to be a good boyfriend during that time. They might be able to weather it if they were in an established relationship, but with a barely-started one?

Alya didn't want their relationship to crash and burn before it had even gotten a proper chance.

"Okay, but at least Marinette will be amazing at supporting him," Nino pointed out, almost as though he were reading Alya's mind. "And if they aren't dating this morning, what are the chances that they'll be able to start before everything? I mean, there's two hours before he goes in to the station. There'll only be, what? Thirty minutes max before he gets arrested?"

"I wish we could warn him somehow before the news breaks, but there's no way." Alya frowned. "D'you suppose I should try to contact Ladybug and Chat Noir and ask...?"

"They're pretty compassionate, Alya. I'd be super surprised if they haven't already come up with a plan." Nino squeezed her arm reassuringly. "I bet that the police are planning to send someone to talk to Adrien before they let you know that you can post the video."

"I hope so."

"Someone sure looks serious today," Marinette called, and Nino and Alya hastily broke apart."Did someone rain on your parade?"

It certainly felt like a dark stormcloud was overhead, just waiting to burst, but Alya couldn't say that. Instead, she forced a smile. "We were just discussing having to babysit the twins and Chris later this week. They don't exactly get along well."

Marinette made a face at that. "Ugh. Yeah, I can see where they might clash a little. But- oh! Do you know who Chris would probably love? Max! He's big on all of the 'big kid stuff', as Chris calls it."

Nino grinned. "Oh, you are absolutely right. I'll text Max about that and see if he's even interested in spending a bit of time with Chris."

Alya had thought that the anticipation would make the morning absolutely creep by. She wasn't wrong- but anticipation wasn't the only thing making it go so slowly.

It was worry, it was concern, it was the nagging feeling that maybe she should say something to Marinette and suggest that she and Adrien hold off on dating, if they hadn't already started.

Surely they would have said something if they had decided to start dating in the world's absolute worse sense of timing? Alya thought they would, but then again Adrien and Marinette were clearly super close now, far more than they had been even a week earlier. Right now, Adrien was sitting with his head pillowed in Marinette's lap, looking thoroughly content as Marinette ran her fingers through his hair. Earlier, they had seemed practically glued together at the hip. It was clear couple behavior, and it was making Alya nervous.

And then at the end of their little friend get-together, the two of them left together. Alya peered after them and spotted their interlaced hands.

That was not good.

"Don't worry too much about it, babe," Nino told her. "Marinette's smart, she'll understand that Adrien won't be feeling his normal self for a bit and she won't judge him for it. And maybe they'll even be together when the police find him. It'll be good for him to have someone actually supportive around when he gets the news."

Alya couldn't help but worry about it. She worried about it while she ate lunch (read: played with her food). She worried about it while she washed up their dishes (read: ran the dishes absently under water and waved the sponge vaguely in their direction). And she especially worried about it as she got everything set up in her room, ready for Ladybug's message.

The clock ticked forward. Alya watched as it reached twelve-thirty, then twelve thirty-five, twelve forty, twelve forty-five...

Surely the superheroes had taken Hawkmoth's Miraculous by now. Alya pulled up a news feed from Paris, nervous that something had gone wrong.

Ugh. She would have much preferred being there herself.

Twelve forty-seven. Twelve forty-eight.

"They likely have to find and inform Adrien first," Trixx reminded her. "I'm not feeling any signs of distress from Plagg or Tikki."

Twelve forty-nine. Twelve fifty-

Alya's phone dinged with a message. She grabbed for it.

Ladybug: Hawkmoth and Mayura in custody. Go ahead and post, then come down to the police station ASAP. They'll be making an official announcement at 1:15.

Alya grinned, reaching for her computer. After one last check- the post time would be correct, the post would be public, not private, and it would sent out an alert to all of her subscribers just like the live akuma streams always did- Alya hit post. The page refreshed and there it was, right at the top of the page.

Hawkmoth's Identity Revealed!

  Ladyblog Live Stream: Paris police announce the capture of Hawkmoth and Mayura; Ladybug and Chat Noir victorious!

"Today, at twelve thirty, Paris police called Gabriel Agreste in for questioning. At twelve forty-one, we made an arrest, and his Miraculous was confiscated. At twelve forty-five, we determined Mayura's identity to be Nathalie Sancoeur and arrested her several minutes later. At this moment, Ladybug and Chat Noir are searching the mansion, trying to locate the Peacock Miraculous."

"How did you discover his identity?"

"We were presented with a video put together by the Ladyblog that showed Hawkmoth detransforming on Heroes Day. Without the Ladyblogger's efforts to go through all of the footage from the akuma attacks, we would have been unable to make this breakthrough. She presented the video to the superheroes a couple weeks ago and then they brought it to us so that we could collaborate on our strategy to take him down. We wanted to avoid a battle as to avoid unnecessarily endangering our superheroes and the citizens of Paris, so we called him in using a cover story that we had found a lead on his wife, Emilie Agreste's, disappearance. It was an effective strategy, and there was very little struggle."

"And Mayura? How did you find out who she was?"

"Gabriel Agreste told us, though not intentionally. He called out her names while caught off guard when Ladybug restrained him. Police waiting close to the house had no trouble getting in and arresting her as well."

"Are there more suspected collaborators?"

"Not at the moment, though we are keeping the possibility in mind."

"How did Mr. Agreste get his hands on the Miraculous?"

"We don't know that. It will certainly be part of our investigation. That is all the information that we have at this time."

  Three Months Later

Alya couldn't help but grin as she looked around her room. Clipped articles hung from her walls, chronicling the crazy, crazy journey that she had been on ever since she discovered Hawkmoth's identity. Her classmates had helped her collect every article that had been written about the arrests and all of the subsequent investigations, and now they papered her walls.

Ladyblog Breaks the Case! read one, featured predominantly. Below was a still from her famous video, with Gabriel Agreste headed down the stairs of the Eiffel Tower. The article was one that she had memorized, and in particular the section with the interview that Ladybug and Chat Noir had given the city's reporters. They had given her full credit for figuring out who Hawkmoth was, and even for giving them the idea to collaborate with the police.

Her blog had gotten a huge spike in attention when she posted the video unveiling Hawkmoth. It had gotten an even bigger spike after that, with everyone who heard the interview curious about what other work Alya had done. She had had to resist the urge to go back and edit all of her early articles, the ones that had included a whole lot of inaccurate speculation and fangirling. Those hadn't been great reporting at all, but in the end Alya let them be, as an example of how much her work had improved over the past months.

She had, however, gone back and switched the page with Lila's "interview" to private, keeping the footage as a just-in-case but not wanting to keep that train wreck of lies up.

(That particular investigation of hers had ended up having a newspaper article of its own, since the news that a collège student had skipped several months of school by lying to both school and her mom about her whereabouts was pretty insane. Mylène was the one who had spotted the article, which didn't mention the student by name but did say that the student would be attending a school for troubled youth in the fall rather than going back to their previous school. That was probably for the better, because, well, none of Lila's former classmates had been particularly thrilled about being duped for so long.)

Alya moved her attention on to the next section of wall. There had been a whole slew of discoveries right after the arrests- a book about the Miraculous, a cursed Miraculous pin, scrolls in some strange code, Hawkmoth's lair (armed with a crazy amount of weapons), and notes about combining the Ladybug and Chat Noir Miraculous. And then, right after that-

EMILIE AGRESTE FOUND- ALIVE, CURSED, ASLEEP

-Adrien's mother had been found under the mansion, sealed away in a glass coffin. Ladybug and Chat Noir had taken her, the cursed Miraculous (and Hawkmoth's Miraculous), the book, and all of the scrolls to an undisclosed location. Two weeks later, Emilie Agreste had showed up in the hospital, tired and weak but awake and alive. Adrien had been thrilled, and doubly so when the superheroes and the police announced that Mrs. Agreste wasn't guilty of any wrongdoing and was free to resume her life. Mrs. Agreste had largely kept to herself after her return, preferring to stay in the mansion rather than going out, but Adrien had said that that was because she was still recovering from being in a coma for so long- she got tired very easily- and she didn't want to be harassed by reporters searching for an interview.

Alya had only met her once, and briefly. Marinette, who spent a ton of time in the Agreste manor (even though she claimed that she and Adrien weren't dating yet), said that Mrs. Agreste was a perfectly lovely if perhaps very nervous woman.

(Once, Alya had asked if she was good mother-in-law material. Marinette had turned bright red and said nothing, which- well, Alya could tease, but she wasn't going to push. Not yet, anyway.)

Smiling at the memory, Alya continued running her finger down the wall. Under the batch of articles about Mrs. Agreste's discovery, recovery, and innocence from the Hawkmoth mess was another headline, this one smaller.

No Further Suspects in Hawkmoth Case

According to Adrien, absolutely everyone in the household had been questioned, including him. He had been pretty quiet for several days after that, and Alya suspected that he had been shaken by whatever interrogation that the police put him through. He had been taken out of the mansion by child services during the questioning and subsequent searches, which hadn't helped at all. Thankfully Ms. Bustier had stepped in at once, taking Adrien in until his mom was released from the hospital.

All the questioning ended up producing was false leads that petered out, and a few small charges against the people who had created the system to get up to the lair and down to Mrs. Agreste's cavern but hadn't mentioned it as anything out of the ordinary and worth looking into at any point, but no one else who had worked directly with Hawkmoth or known about his secret identity. Adrien's bodyguard came up clean, which both Adrien and his mom seemed relieved about.

Thankfully Adrien didn't seem to hold any hard feelings towards Alya for being the one to find out about his father. She had worried about that after he was questioned, since she had seen him talking to Marinette but not her, but Nino had assured her that Adrien wasn't really talking to anyone else, either. After a few days, though, he was mostly back to normal.

Trial for Gabriel Agreste Starting Today: What to Expect

The trial went on for several weeks, and as the person who had found the video evidence, Alya had to go in. Much to Alya's delight, Rena Rouge had been called in as well for one last hurrah, testifying in front of the jury about what she had overheard when the police called the manor. Saying good-bye to Trixx after that had been hard, because she really, really doubted that she would get the Miraculous back again. There wasn't a need for it to be out and, as they had just seen, it was dangerous for too many Miraculous to be out and about in case someone was trying to find them.

She would be fine, though. Being a superhero had been cool, but she was being taken seriously as a reporter now, and that was super-cool, too.

GUILTY! Gabriel Agreste and Nathalie Sancoeur Both Sentenced

Hawkmoth and Mayura Behind Bars For Good

The End of Terror in Paris: Hawkmoth Trial Ends with Guilty on All Counts

There had been celebrations in the streets that night, and the balloons for all of the city's superheroes had flown again. Alya rather suspected that the mayor had something to do with that, since only Ladybug, Chat Noir, and Rena Rouge had been directly involved with Hawkmoth's defeat, but she wasn't going to complain. After all, her boyfriend's balloon got to be part of the parade, too. Alya and Nino had been in the thick of the celebrations, and so many people had gone up to her to thank her for her role in discovering Hawkmoth's identity and get a photo with her.

Alya was pretty certain that she had blushed for the entire evening. It had been a bit overwhelming for sure, but hardly in a bad way. The superheroes had dropped in partway through to pose for pictures with her, and the photos had ended up on the front page of the newspaper the next day.

And now...

"Alya, are you coming? We need to leave soon!"

"I'm almost ready!" Alya called back, smoothing down her dress for the awards ceremony. She checked her reflection in the mirror- the dress fit her to perfection, thanks to Marinette's tailoring skills- before returning her attention to the final clipping, one that she had only just put up that morning.

Paris's Ladyblogger to Receive Young Journalist of the Year Award

"Alya!"

"Coming!" Alya called back. With one last look at her wall, she headed out the door, smiling to herself. The past few months had been pretty crazy, but honestly?

She wouldn't change it for anything.

[undertale-rho]

Underearth: Book 1 - Chapter 39

Long ago, two races ruled over the Earth: Humans and Monsters. One day, they ALL DISAPPEARED WITHOUT A TRACE.

Frisk opened his eyes, awakening from sleep, though he couldn't remember how he fell asleep. The last thing he remembered was Flowey appearing, destroying Asgore's SOUL, then absorbing the six Human SOULs.

Standing up, Frisk looked around. There was only infinite blackness, though he could see himself just fine, but, for some reason, there wasn't a single shadow anywhere on his body. Suddenly, in his pocket, Frisk could feel a strange vibration. It was the pocketwatch he'd found back in the Citadel just after he'd awoken from his fall.

While Frisk was looking at the pocketwatch, he heard the sparking of a tube television, seeing it flash on in front of him. Once the static dispersed, a very pixilated version of Flowey's head appeared on it.

"Howdy!" Flowey said. "It's me, Flowey. Flowey the Flower! I owe you a HUGE thanks. You really did a number on that old fool. Without you, I NEVER could have gotten past him. But now, with YOUR help... He's DEAD. And I'VE got the Human SOULs! Boy! I've been empty for so long... It feels great to have a SOUL inside me again. Mmmm, I can feel them wriggling... Awww, you're feeling left out, aren't you?"

Frisk shook his head, though Flowey appeared to ignore it.

"Well, that's just perfect. After all, I only have six SOULs. I still need one more... Before I become GOD. And then, with my newfound powers... Monsters. Humans. Everyone. I'll show them all the REAL meaning of this world."

Flowey's eyes then drifted to the pocketwatch Frisk was holding.

"Oh, and you can forget about escaping to the past using that old thing. We're not in that world anymore, so it's plain and simple impossible."

Frisk lowered the pocketwatch. This thing can send me to the past!? Is that what it was doing when I died!? he thought.

"Oh, but don't worry. Your old friend Flowey has worked out a replacement for you!" His face then went very toothy and sadistic. "I'll SAVE over your own death. So you can watch me tear you to bloody pieces... Over, and over, and OVER."

Frisk stashed the pocketwatch back into his pocket and drew the dagger.

"...what?" Flowey said in slight surprise. "Do you really think you can stop ME? Hee hee hee... You really ARE an idiot."

The screen then switched off. The television suddenly began moving slowly upward as flesh emerged from below, attached to the TV. Frisk heard the snapping of bones as more flesh rose from the TV, followed by a large hole with teeth surrounding it. The stench that came from the hole was beyond revolting. As the flesh grew more into form, more teeth emerged, and the mouth elongated into a sort of snout. Just above the mouth, nostrils formed from the unorganized flesh. Out to the two sides of the TV, eyelids formed, then filled, which then opened to reveal two heavily dilated eyes pointing in different directions. As the eyes opened, the mouth snapped shut, and the cracking of bone stopped for the most part. The mouth opened again, as though it had gone limp. Two tubes of a sort emerged from behind the mass of flesh, one on either side, passing the eyes as they fully came into focus and gazed at Frisk, and attached themselves into each side of the mouth, closing it again.

Frisk stepped back a bit, securing his knife.

The mass of flesh deposited some parts of itself into the ground, cracking it greatly, then re-emerged with two gigantic, thorny arms of plant matter, ending in three giant stubby red thorn-like fingers. The arms then came down, smashing into the ground on either side of Frisk, then pushing up, elevating the TV and mass of flesh. The mass then got close to Frisk, causing him to fall backward, with its giant mouth ajar, bathing Frisk in its putrid breath. Enormous cables then emerged from the sides of the TV, massing behind the mass already in front of Frisk, the falling to the ground with a loud boom, growing further. After a bit, the first mass with the TV elevated even further, supported by the larger mass behind. As it rose, more cables emerged from the fleshy and planty parts of the first mass and attached themselves to the second. Another pair of tubes emerged from the fleshy mass just above the first, encircling another pair of growths and attaching to itself again, the growths then opening into another set of eyes. As the first mass rose higher, another pair of cables emerged, these ones made of very thick thorned plant matter, which went to attach themselves to the larger second mass. Another pair of tubes emerged from the sides of the television, attaching themselves to the top.

The television then turned back on, showing a pure white screen to begin with, then showing three lines making up a smiling face. The mouth line opened into a big grin, followed by the two vertical lines opening to the sides, showing extremely red eyes with green irises. The enormous creature then laughed just like Flowey, but lower and more demented.

Frisk looked on at the mass. Just as he began moving one of his arms, Flowey moved one of his great vine arms and caused all the thorns to extend into vines and stab Frisk in the chest. Coughing up blood, Frisk was pulled up to Flowey's screen.

"Oh, don't worry kiddo." Flowey said. "This'll only hurt THE FIRST MILLION TIMES!" the vines then pulled themselves in all different directions, ripping Frisk asunder. As what was left of Frisk fell to the ground, he heard a voice.

"This is all just a bad dream... and you're NEVER waking up!" followed by the sounds of a thousand laughing Floweys.

Frisk once again opened his eyes to pure darkness.

"Hee hee hee." Flowey laughed, his voice coming from a television set sitting nearby. "Did you really think I was gonna be satisfied killing you only ONE time?"

Flowey then began rebuilding his body from the television set as Frisk watched again. This time, as soon as Flowey's body was finished, Frisk began running away. This didn't do much, though, as he was then fully enveloped by a bright blue beam Flowey had fired from his mouth.

Frisk opened his eyes again.

"Pathetic..." Flowey spat. "Now you're REALLY gonna die!"

Flowey began assembling his body again, but Frisk wasn't wasting any time, and began running before it finished. Again, though, it made no difference, as Flowey always seemed to be the same distance away.

"Oh yes, run, please, make this more entertaining." Flowey said before killing Frisk again.

Time after time, Flowey would bring Frisk back before killing them again. After a few more times, Flowey just had himself be fully assembled when he brought Frisk back. Killing him a few more times, Frisk just stopped trying to run, each time the world reloaded, he'd just fall to his knees and wait for Flowey to kill him again.

"Ha ha ha. Getting tired, little Human?" Flowey taunted.

Frisk didn't answer. He just remained sitting there, motionless.

"Ha ha ha ha. While it is fun killing you like this, you'll grow boring far too quickly." Flowey said. "How about we add some spice to all this. You can even play with each SOUL, before they kill you, that is. Ha ha."

Frisk's eyes lit up at the sound of that. Interact with the SOULs? It's unlikely, but maybe I could get them on my side, somehow... I could maybe take Flowey down. he thought.

"Of course, before I do that..." Flowey said.

Frisk raised his head just in time to see a large vine slam down on him, smear him around the floor a bit, then toss what was left away.

"Alright, kid." Flowey said after reloading again. "But first, how about we play a bit."

Flowey brought his massive arm over to where Frisk was and launched some vines at him. Frisk, however, dodged most of the barrage, getting nicked by a few. Frisk looked back at Flowey, who had deployed two barrels underneath him. After a second, they both shot flames directly at Frisk, who'd rolled to the side. After some time getting ripped apart by numerous attacks, Frisk fell to the ground, dripping blood from multiple wounds. Just then, Flowey's screen flashed to a light-blue SOUL in front of a flashing red background. Next thing Frisk knew, Flowey had disappeared and was replaced with the light-blue outline of a Human female with minimal facial features. The figure was around the same size as Frisk and wore a ribbon in her hair. She was also holding a knife.

"Ah..." Frisk panted. "Finally, one of the SOULs."

The outline didn't respond. She simply approached Frisk, tightening her grip on the knife.

"W-wait, hang on." Frisk backed up a bit. "There's no need to fight. Flowey's the enemy here, not me!"

The outline simply continued approaching. As she got close, she raised the knife to attack Frisk, who blocked their arm with his.

"I'm not the enemy." Frisk pleaded, though with no results, as the outline continued attacking.

After a bit of dagger-to-knife combat between Frisk and the outline, Frisk finally managed to grab the outline's knife-arm and suspend it, preventing her from using the knife.

"Please listen, I need your help to defeat Flowey. I can't do it alone, not with how powerful he is. If you're still in there, stop attacking and help me!"

The outline stopped struggling and just stared at Frisk.

"If I let go, will you stop attacking?" Frisk asked.

"Yes." the outline said.

Frisk let go of her. She backed up and brushed herself off.

"Will you help me defeat Flowey?" he asked.

"Not alone. Help the five that came after me, and then I will." she responded.

Frisk nodded.

The outline brought up their knife and it turned a ribbon. The ribbon then drifted toward Frisk, absorbing into him and healing his wounds.

Next thing he knew, Frisk was once again facing Flowey.

"Hahahahah. Playtime is over for that one. Wait, where's all the blood you were losing!?" Flowey demanded to know.

Frisk remained silent.

"Fine then, keep your secrets. Only allows me to extend my time KILLING YOU!!!"

Flowey once again went back to attacking Frisk, shredding his flesh until he was covered in blood once again.

"Hahahahah, better look for you anyway. Time for you to play with another SOUL now." Flowey said.

Frisk blinked and was then facing the orange outline of a Human male with minimal facial features, again around the same size as Frisk. The figure also wore the same leather gauntlets as Frisk, the ones he found in the Dimensional Box back in Snowdin Town.

The outline ran at Frisk, fists clenched, and took a swing as he got close. Frisk ducked and punched the outline in the side, causing them to go off balance and fall to the ground. Frisk climbed on top of the outline and pinned their arms to the ground.

"Listen to me, I am not your enemy. Our common enemy is Flowey. Please, if you're still in there, help me defeat him. I've already gotten help from one of you, so please help me as well." Frisk pleaded.

The outline stopped struggling.

"Well, if you're not my enemy, why are you on top of me, pinning me down, huh?" the outline said.

"Um, that was to be sure you wouldn't punch me while I talked." Frisk responded.

"Well I'm not gonna punch you unless you don't get off."

Frisk got off of him.

"Thank you. Yeah, I'll help, so long as all of us are helping, that is. Can't face Flowey alone, you know, even though I definitely would."

"Don't worry, my plan involves getting all of you on my side."

"Well then, you've made yourself an ally." the outline then gave a thumbs-up and tapped his fist against Frisk's forehead. When he did this, Frisk could feel his wounds closing and the blood that coated him leave his body. He was then once again facing Flowey.

"Healed again, have you!! Good, allows me to rip you apart some more without having to LOAD!" Flowey said.

"Only for you, Flowey." responded Frisk.

Another barrage of attacks ripped Frisk apart, once again coating him in blood.

"Playtime again. Play nice you two!" Flowey said before Frisk found himself facing another outlined Human female around his size, this one a deep blue color. She wore a sort of skirt and danced around on the tips of her toes. Frisk approached her.

"Hello." he said just before the outline kicked him in the gut.

In response, Frisk swiftly grabbed the leg she kicked him with and pulled up, throwing her off balance and taking her to the floor on her back. She then tried to kick him with her other leg, though he grabbed it two and stuffed them both under one arm as he took his other arm and used the lower half of it to slightly crush her neck.

"Listen, I don't want to hurt you, but I will if I must." he said. "I'm trying to rally each of the SOULs against Flowey. Please, I currently have two on my side. We can't do it alone, however, and need everyone. Will you help?"

When Frisk finished, he reduced pressure on her neck to allow her to respond.

"You know, you have an interesting way of telling people you mean no harm." she said.

"Yeah, sorry about that." Frisk responded, letting go of her and standing back up.

"Yes, I'll help. Convince the other three Flowey has absorbed, and I will gladly assist you."

The outline then began singing, causing Frisk's present wounds to heal. When she finished, Frisk found himself once again at Flowey's feet.

"Here we go again!" Flowey shouted as he began cutting up Frisk within an inch of his life before summoning the next SOUL.

The next SOUL was quite similar to the others, a purple outline of a Human male around the same size as Frisk. This one wore glasses and had a notebook open in his hand.

Just as Frisk began speaking, numerous projectiles appeared around the outline and shot themselves at Frisk. Frisk in-turn ran toward the outline, pain coursing through him as he ran, dodging the projectiles. Within seconds, Frisk reached the outline and tackled him. The projectiles then stopped.

"Sorry for tackling you, but it was the first thing I thought of doing." Frisk said. "I'm organizing the SOULs to help me defeat Flowey, and I need your help. Will you please help?"

The outline just laid there, motionless. Eventually, he spoke. "... Y-yeah..."

The outline nervously then healed Frisk by summoning more projectiles, though these ones soothed his wounds instead of creating more, and got once again shredded by the cocky Flowey before being sent to 'play' with the next SOUL.

The next SOUL was a green outline of a Human female around the same size as Frisk wearing an apron and working on a frying pan. As Frisk approached, fire suddenly rose from the pan and flew at Frisk. Frisk tried to dodge the flames, though was repeatedly hit with the pellets of fire. In great pain, Frisk screamed. Soon after, the fire stopped.

"I'm so sorry..." the outline said. "Here, I can fix it."

Frisk approached the outline to see what she was offering. It was a fried egg in the middle of the pan. Not wanting to come across as rude before asking for a favor, Frisk took a bite. In an instant, his wounds closed, and he felt better.

"I'll be there to help. Just free John and we can make our attack." she said.

Frisk was then returned to being back in front of Flowey, who tore him apart some more before sending him off to 'play' with the final SOUL.

Standing far in front of Frisk was the yellow outline of a Human male around the same size as Frisk wearing a hat typically stylized on cowboys. The outline walked towards Frisk. As they walked, a revolver appeared on their hip. They drew it and began firing multiple rounds at him. Frisk easily dodged the bullets, however, and dashed at the outline, grabbing their firing hand and pulling it behind their back.

"I don't want to hurt you." Frisk said. "We're on the same side. It's Flowey who is the enemy. Please, I've already freed the other SOULs, please help me defeat Flowey."

"Heh, I would if you weren't pulling my arm out of my socket." the outline responded.

Frisk let go of the outline.

"You say you've rallied everyone else already?"

"Yeah, that's about right."

"Good. Be prepared for anything."

Frisk was then pulled back into in front of Flowey.

"Did you enjoy your fun?" Flowey questioned. "Because it's now time to die!"

Flowey brought up one of his great vine arms and fired the thorned vines at Frisk. As they neared Frisk tightened himself, but then he found himself elsewhere, surrounded by the six outlines.

"We did it." the orange outline said.

"Of c-course we d-did." the purple responded.

"What did you do?" Frisk asked.

"We stunned Flowey for a moment." the light-blue said.

"We're unbound. Which means it's time for Flowey to pay for what he's done." the yellow said.

They all agreed.

"Well, new Human-"

"Frisk. My name is Frisk."

"Frisk. Pleasure to meet you. I'm Eumelia. Eumelia Ypomoné." the light-blue finished.

The orange outline then approached Frisk, offering a hand. "Nice to meet you, Frisk. I'm Heron Gennaiotāta."

"The pleasure's all mine." Frisk responded. He then looked to the other outlines. "And what do the rest of you go by?" he asked.

"My name is Lysandra Akeraiotāta." the blue answered.

"A-Albert Ackermann" the purple too answered.

"I'm Kallisto Hearth. It's so very nice to meet you." answered the green outline.

"And I'm John. John Acker." responded the yellow.

"And what of your ancestral name, Frisk?" Eumelia then asked Frisk.

"Ancestral name?"

"Yes. The name of your ancestors, the one you inherited from them. We all gave ours, now what of yours?"

Frisk remained silent for a minute, deep in thought, trying to remember his full name. After a bit, he finally gave his answer.

"Anendotos. My entire name is Frisk Anecros Anendotos."

All the outlines stepped back in shock when he said that.

"I-is something the matter?" Frisk asked.

"N-no. It's just that... Anendotos? How long has the name been in your family, do you know?" Eumelia begged to know.

"No. Why, is there something special about it?"

All the outlines remained silent, passing looks at each-other. After a few seconds of silence, Eumelia bowed down to Frisk, slowly followed by all the other outlines.

"Forgive me, but it is time to take the fight to Flowey himself." Eumelia said, face still to the ground. "We leave you in full command of us, your majesty."

A Whole New World : Your Best Nightmare

Previous First Next

[missjena-may]

Seven’s Reset AU - Chapter 1

She stood out of the street, a thick wooly scarf wrapped around her neck, giving her a little protection from the cold wind that whirled around the town.

She wasn’t the only one standing there.

There were perhaps hundreds of people gathered, all trying to be somewhat nosy and discover what had caused such a terrible accident to occur.

Her blue eyes gazed up at the tall building before her, well, it wasn't tall anymore.

The top of it had been blown off, glass scattered from every window as a ripple effect at ran down to the foundations of the building.

The building was once as high rise filled with over twenty floors and over hundred different apartments people would have called home.

The building now stood with less than thirteen floors.

The police, firemen and the crew from the ambulance had arrived on scene within the first ten minutes of the explosion.

The police had split up into two, the first half pushing the crowd back and collecting witness statements, while the second assisted the firemen and doctors - searching for any survivors or even charred remains.

For the last half an hour,  they seemed to have had no such look.

The blue eyes female pulled down her hood from over her head as the wind calmed. She moved away from the crowd, having not have seen the explosion she was of no use to the police as a witness.

She pulled out her phone and opened up a game she had been playing.

Unfortunately, it became corrupt and showed her a black background with green numbers and letters dancing up and down the screen, almost as if she was watching the matrix. She groaned remembering she wasn't far from completing the game and now she wouldn't know how it would end as the game was no longer available anywhere.

She put her phone away and grumbled to herself as she finally exited the crowd.

She took one final look back, only for her eyes not to see the building, but a heartbroken person standing in the crowd.

His appearance was not out of the ordinary but he had an aura of familiarity when she focused her blue eyes upon him.

He had flaming red hair and bee styled striped glasses, he wore an oversized black jacket with yellow rings on the shoulders and around the hem of the hood. Around his neck sat a pair of orange headphones.

His golden gaze seemed broken as he looked up at the torn building. He was panting.

Did he know someone who lived there?

Why did he look so familiar to her?

He turned his head to look away, his eyes only to met hers.

She quickly turned away and started walking down the street.

“Hey wait!” Even his voice seemed to have a familiar ring to it.

“I said wait!”

She stopped and spun herself around, only to find him a few steps in front of her.

“Do I… You… Do I know you?” He asked.

She shook her head, “No. I don't know who you are, Seven.”

She froze.

Seven. Seven? Who was Seven?

He was a character in a game.

Seven, the red headed hacker from her game. The one with the route that broke her heart, the one where was was so close to giving him a happy end before her game decided to crash and burn.

He tilted his head, “You called me Seven, you do know who I am… But how? Are you with the agency? Do you know the RFA?” He stared at her as if she was a puzzle he couldn't figure out.

“No… To both your questions. Seven isn't real… You just look like a character from a game I play.”

He nodded his head slowly and blinked a few times, trying to figure out if he believed her or not.

“I see… And this game… Does Seven get a happy ending?” He asked, there was a need in his voice, almost begging her to tell him that everything he had endured was worth the pain and worth the wait.

“I don't know, I hope he does after all the pain he went through. But unfortunately, I never got that far… My game capped out at the last minute and now I'll never know what actually happens.”

“Search for the spoilers online?” He suggested.

“I would, but I can't. It was a rare game and I came across it by chance… It isn't sold anywhere, not even in another language.” She frowned.

He sighed, “I see… But what do you think happens?”

She tilted her head and smiled, “I'd like to imagine, he got Saeran back and he got the girl.”

The red headed man stared at her, almost as if she had dug straight into his heart and revealed his most precious and hidden secret.

Of course, she didn't realise that she had.

“Saeran?” He repeated. “How do you…?”

She stared at him, slightly confused by his reaction, “They are characters in a game… They aren't real.”

His face dropped from sadness to almost anger in a matter of seconds, “Are you calling me a character? Are you saying I'm not real? That my feelings are invalid because of that very reason! That my brother should suffer pain because he's not real either!”

“N-NO! That's not what I'm saying! You're not a character! You're real but this story… These people in here aren't real…” She stepped back, watching his anger explode out of him, as she held up her phone to him. “It's just a game.”

“Life isn't a game to be toyed with! Especially his life, especially their lives.” He grabbed hold of her collar, as he hand dropped her phone.

She wrapped her hands around his wrists, as she held back her tears from the fear he had sent through her.

That's when everything changed.

He didn't let go of her, his hands held on as tight as they could to her violet coat. His eyes wide as he watched his skin change, followed by his clothes.

He seemed to pixilate. His eyes landing on hers, “What's happening?” His tone no longer anger but fear.

She shook her head, “I don't know… You're pixelating… But you're real… I don't understand.”

That's when something else changed.

Because his pixelated hand's still had hold of her, her fingers started to change.

She felt a soft tingle under her skin, almost like the feeling of pins and needles. It started to spread from her fingertips to her hands and then down her arms and into her body.

“S-Seven… What… Happening?”

Before she knew it he had vanished and the world around her had too. She was in a large white space, confused and disorientated.

She looked around, hoping for find something that could help her, a door even a window.

She could see someone in the distance, a young woman with long brown hair. She wore a brown jumper with a black skirt and boots.  She had pulled her hand away from the button she was pressing, its colour changed from green to red. A set of large oak double doors then not only appeared behind her, but opened for her with a soft creak.

The other female strolled over and entered, allowing the doors to close behind her.

The blue eyes female swam through the air, making her way to the bottom the other female had pressed.

‘Reset’

The blue eyed girl turned her head to see the doors, “Reset… Doors… What's going on here?” She didn't speak but lipped the words as she spoke to herself.

She suddenly felt a cold draft up her coat and along her legs. The doors had not opened, so the new air was not from there.

Instead, a grey hole appeared below her, it looked to be another world of nothingness, but his time it was filled with nothing but darkness instead of light.

She was sucked in. Her body falling down, whilst her hands reached out in an attempt to grab the door or anything that could stop her fall.

She screamed out for help, only for her voice to have been silenced by the white void.

**

She fell and hit and the ground with a sudden thud. The lady had landed on a soft carpeted floor, her fingers digging into the fibres of the floor and her face rested against it, she cried silently and happily, thanking the ground for not killing her.

“You.”  A male's voice rang out.

She sat up on the floor, looking about and then in the direction of the voice.

There stood the red headed man from earlier, dressed in the same clothes as before but in his hands he held a gun, pointing it at her, “What's going on?! Who are you?” He asked frantically.

The female raised her arms and remained still, “I'm Marie, I don't know what's going on, I know as much as you do, please put the gun away unless you like the idea of cleaning blood up off of your carpet and hiding a body.”

He sighed, putting the gun down to his side.

“The building is back… It's standing… And… There has been no signs of any explosion or death or anything… I'm so confused.” He muttered to her. He placed the gun down on the coffee table she didn't realise was behind her before helping her up onto her feet.

“It's almost as if someone has reset the world back… But if that's the case… Where is she? Why isn't she in the building still?” He continued.

“Reset…” She mumbled, remembering the white plain.

He left her side and headed into a room just ahead of her. It had glass for walls and a light on inside with a set of six monitors propped up on the wall with a desk beneath them with two keyboards and a mouse. Under the desk she could see a set of lights and scattered paperwork.

“What the..” She heard his voice from inside the room. She made her way over, careful not to tread in chips into the carpet.

He had sat himself down at his desk, playing on his phone.

“Now she's there… She's acting like she doesn't know us… And they are too… What's going on?”

“She pressed reset… She started again… This is a game for her…” The female muttered.

“What?” He looked up from his phone, “I don't understand.”

“That game I played was like this… After you get an ending you start again. That's what she's done… Only… You're 707. The reset doesn't affect you like everyone else… She's… 606, the reset itself. Seven… You… This is a game to her… And we… Are part of it now.”

Seven sat back in his chair, his phone tossed onto his desk as he ran his fingers through his red locks, “Then… What am I to do?”

“You have to continue like you did before… Contact V and tell him someone has joined the chat… Pretend you don't know her yet… That's all I can think of.”

“How long with this last?” He asked, his eyes closed as he faced the ground, his elbows on his knees as he frowned.

“Honestly… I don't know… She could stop at any given point or she could do it multiple times.”

“So what? I'm meant to fall in love with her every time only to see her happy with someone else… Or get the bad end?” He stood from his chair, glaring at the female at the other end of the room.

“Unfortunately, that is what will happen… It broke my heart to play the game like that... But… That's what happened… For me anyway.”

“You've played this… You said your were about to get the happy end right? You were nearly finished when the game stopped working!” Seven ran over to her, his hands on her shoulders and he shook her, “So I have an ending? I can be happy? I can get him back… Wait no… I don't need her to get him back, you know the game as well… You can help me find him!”

She stared at him, “I guess, yes… But she's your 606.”

“No… She can be with Jumin or Zen for all I care… She can reset as many times as she likes… But as long as I have you… I don't want her.”

And that's when she knew, she had fucked up the game.

Tell me your thoughts?

[iblameashley]

12 Hours In: A Mass Effect Andromeda Review

Note: I’ve never written a review before – not for a game, movie, etc. I don’t generally like doing them because I’m always unsure what to say; but Mass Effect Andromeda has broken this barrier with me, and I feel the need to put my thoughts down regarding this game.

Now, most of you are likely sitting there thinking “Oh fuck, another complaint about the M/M romance BS.” While I will touch on that issue later, I really do want to review the game so far, 12 hours in.

Character Creator:

The bane of this games existence, and also one of the major issues that has been brought up with the Dev’s and company. I tried to make my own custom Ryder to play, but it was nearly impossible to get a face I liked. I felt the creator was fighting me every step of the way, and after a good thirty minutes of effort, I simply went back to the main menu and selected Default Scott Ryder to play.

The Dev’s have already acknowledged this issue and say they are working on it, so for now I will stick with my cutie-pie Scott. I would have to give the creator a 3/10 right now though.

Tell me I’m pretty. (Image from Pintrest)

Pros: Default Scott and Sarah are well made, so starting with them isn’t a problem.

Cons: The creator sucks and you have fight with it. If you managed to make a good character: good for you.

Visuals: 

Mass Effect Andromeda is eye-candy. There is no doubt about it; the dev’s went above and beyond to make the Arks, Nexus, Tempest and worlds breath-taking. They’ve done a great job setting the tone for each location, and I get excited to explore new areas as they open up to Scott. 

If I had to name my favorite place right now, it would be Voeld (The Ice world, I believe). Riding around in the Nomad in the snow and Ice really brings me back to Noveria in the original trilogy, and I think that’s really important for this new game – there needs to be some connection to the old games, while making its own way. 

The galaxy map is also very attractive and, due to there being no Mass Relays in this game, designed with FTL travel in mind. The transition from system to system is fluid and appealing, though sometimes I found the transition from planet-to-planet tiresome and unnecessary. 

Genuinely one of my favorite scenes so far.

Pros: Well-designed maps, transitions and vessels. Feels like a brand-new experience, like it should be.

Cons: Transition from planet-to-planet takes longer than necessary.

Controls: 

The characters are easy enough to move around, and I really enjoy the addition of the jet-pack to boost yourself in this game. I cannot tell you how often I use the jet-pack, its just fun. I find it extremely useful during combat to dodge attacks and sometimes gain an advantage over the Kett. I usually play as a biotic, so the adept profile has been working very well for me in conjunction with the jet-pack. 

The one thing that does bother me is running and stopping. I found that Scott doesn’t come to a complete stop and kinda flows forward for a second for two after you release the control. It was bad the first time it happened when I had used a jetpack to jump on a rock, moved forward and then fell to my death because he didn’t stop in time. At least it was funny to watch. 

That should probably read “Trophy earned! Dipshit!”

Aiming and firing guns with the control is familiar, it took no time to adapt to, and aside from minor changes to the look of the targeting system, it felt very Mass Effect-y. 

The Nomad on the other hand… Bioware, you lied to us! You said it would handle better than the Mako! It so doesn’t. But that aside, I still enjoy my adventures in the thing, and the banter between squad mates that you get to enjoy as you move from place to place. The benefit to the Nomad is the ability to switch between a high and low gear, with an added boost from a rear-mounted thruster. It can also make small jumps, but I found it lacking compared to the Mako. 

I don’t really like the system they set up where you have to press and hold the triangle to open doors or crates. I know it only adds a second or two to the game, but its wasted time, damnit! Let me click and open shit, I wanna loot and get back to killing things.

Pros: Now that I’m more use to the control, it seems more fluid. I get the Mass Effect feeling from it. The Nomad reminds me of the Mako in some ways.

Cons: I fell off a cliff. Ma—I mean, the nomad reminds me of the Mako in some ways. Fuck you press-and-hold triangle setup! 

Animations (general): 

There has been a lot of fuss about the animations not being polished in the game, so I won’t linger on this topic very long. My install already had 3 patches attached to it, and while I haven’t looked closely at the details, there wasn’t much in the way of animation (so far) that has really jarred me, though there has been some. 

I find the movements of the mouth to be a little too exaggerated which seems to pull me out of what’s being said. It’s a minor annoyance that I’ll get over, but I would hope in the future they’ll look more closely at that. 

Aside from that, when I was recruiting Jaal there seemed to be some pixilation when he was speaking with another character that only happened when they moved in close to each other. There are also the eyes… people have mentioned it before, but they have the crazy-ex-girlfriend look to them. These bitches be out for blood! This could (I hope) be fixed with a patch. 

Not nearly blood-thirsty enough.

Pros: Eh… its Mass Effect, there’s always something off about animations, and that’s just a part of the experience. 

Cons: Its an experience I would live without going forward.

The Story: 

While I am enjoying the story of the Initiative, let’s be honest here. Bioware may not have intended to, but they wrote themselves into a corner with the original trilogy and couldn’t go any further in the Milky Way Galaxy without defining an ending to the trilogy. That being said, I still feel like it Bioware had simply said that the initiative was done as a back-up plan to the Reaper invasion, people would have just ran with it. 

I don’t know where the story will go yet, I am only 12 hours into the game, but the idea that they just wanted to explore a new galaxy doesn’t really seem like it’s worth the financial effort required. Most of the Milky Way was still unexplored thanks to many Mass Relays being inactive. 

I can’t really say much on the story, but I am eagerly awaiting more of it opening up as I play. There was only a need for minor tweaks to the story to make it fit in with the original trilogy nicely; it’s a shame they chose not to go that direction. 

Pros: It gives us a whole new galaxy to explore, especially if they decide to open up the rest of Andromeda in future installments. 

Cons: The reasons for going were not well thought out.

Romance, Or: Wheres my tentacle porn, damnit?! 

Finally, I want to address the romance stuff. I already know how this will play out as a gay-male, playing a gay-male in the game. Bioware fully let me down with this game, to a point where I seriously considered canceling my pre-order of the game. 

To have only one real romance option (Gil from engineering) who is an NPC only, and then to only get a fling with another guy (Reyes) who is also an NPC was a slap in the face. To add salt to the wound, you get approximately 1/3 of the time to build these “romances” than you do with other romance options such as Cora.They then took it a step further and used the Mass Effect go-to of fade-to-black for sex, but they will gladly do full frontal for the heterosexual romances. 

It’s clear that gay-men were an afterthought in this game. Others online have mentioned that Jaal, an alien squad mate was intended to be bisexual, and available for Scott (they pulled audio files from the game, or something), but chose to change that last minute. 

This has caused an uproar online that I really hope Bioware seriously addresses, and doesn’t just try and placate us with “no no! we’re looking into it!” for months, only to be let down again. If they don’t fix it in this game, I will be genuinely pissed with them. If they don’t fix the underlying problem in the future games, I will drop Mass Effect completely. If you can manage well thought-out lesbian relationships, you can to the same for gay men. 

If it’s an issue of straight dev’s not wanting to, or not knowing how to write and shoot gay scenes, hire better, more mature devs.

Sometimes pictures help... so I give you this:

Image via: megarevolution.tumblr.com

Overall, for the 12 or so hours I have played Mass Effect Andromeda, I would give it a 6/10. While there are still issues to be addressed, the game is pretty solid and enjoyable. 

Updated: 03/25/2017 @ 5:58am 

[jittlovist]

Cinemasneak: “The Wizard Of Speed And Time” (1985)

Originally published in Fantastic Films #44 (June 1985).

Independent Filmmaker Mike Jittlov Readies His New Feature-Length Film Article by MICHAEL STEIN

The Anaheim Room is one of the largest auditoriums in the Anaheim Hilton Convention Center, site of LA CON2, the 36th Annual World Science Fiction Convention. On September 1, 1984, at 3 pm it was filled to capacity with excited film fans. Most had come early to claim the best seats. Some still filtered in from other program activities.

Instinctively, the audience shifted its attention toward the back of the room where a thin young man in a green cotton jacket, white T-shirt and jeans made his way briskly toward the stage. Recognizing their hero, the crowd roared its approval, coming to its feet in unison.

Leaping the steps and moving to center stage, the man in the green jacket discarded a defective microphone, then politely addressed the still-applauding audience from where he stood. The room quieted as quickly as it had erupted.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Mike Jittlov. I make movies."

And the room roared once again with appreciation.

Mike Jittlov is an independent filmmaker and renegade Hollywood animator. An eccentric to some, a dedicated, uncompromising artist to others, he is best known among his friends and fans simply as The Wizard of Speed and Time.

Followers of Jittlov's films have seen most of his works before, either at convention presentations, on TI; at film festivals or wherever they might catch him on tour. But that day in Anaheim was a special occa-sion. With him he had brought a reel of exclusive footage from his new-est project, a feature length version of his classic short, The Wizard Of Speed And Time.

After fielding some questions from the audience, Mike showed a few of his earlier works, then instructed the projectionist to run the five minute sneak from his new film. Soon the screen at the front of the auditorium was filled with the grinning face of The Wizard. Only this time, somehow, it seemed larger and more real than ever before. Speed and Time became magical expan-sions of another reality as The Wizard zoomed across countryside landscapes, picking up a stranded hitchhike, then performing amazing feats of transportation while defying every known law of physics and gravity as he approached the city limits of Los Angeles.

The audience laughed and applauded spontaneously as The Wizard sprinkled magical sparkle-dust over a group of deserving feminine fans. Then they watched with open-mouthed surprise as Jit-tlov, playing himself, rode his amazing, motorized suitcase, at super-speeds through the streets of Hollywood, evading a gang of pursuing thugs, and swooping un-der a parking lot barrier in his race against time. But, all too soon the sample trailer ended and was left flipping on the projector. Needless to say, the encore applause contin-ued thunderously until the mild-mannered filmmaker promised to show the reel att least one more time.

Just another day in the life of Mike Jittlov ...

It all started back in 1971. Jittlov, then a math major at UCLA, needed to fulfill an art requirement, so he signed up for an animation course. From that point on the young filmmaker's life took a sharp left turn into the world of cinematic imagination.

Throughout that semester Jittlov spent every extra hour before and after class working on his first animated assignment. What resulted was Good Grief, a four minute comedy short dramatizing, in dream-like fashion, a child's fear of the dark. The student project received rave reviews and subsequently became an Academy Award Nomination finalist.

Two years after Good Grief, Jittlov created his second Academy finalist, The Interview, in which a pixilated black-caped figure called "The Fantum" (played by Jittlov himself) terrorized a hapless television journalist. Then came Swing Shift, a light-hearted but surrealistic commercial created for Broadway of Hollywood, in which clothes and shoes danced a magical mid-night hoedown through the store.

Animato, Jittlov's third Academy qualifying short began as a show reel for fashion houses. Using the technique of kinestasis, the film-maker created the appearance of movement by manipulating photo-graphs and cutouts in front of an animation camera. But Jittlov grew frustrated with the project and in the second half of the film, his mounting imagination took over. Amid images of stylish clothes, a jet plane flies by flapping its wings and a green-jacketed genie en-counters an armada of fantasy over a night-lit Los Angeles.

When Regis Philbin reviewed Animato on the ABC evening news, a Disney producer just happened to be watching. As a result Jittlov was invited to create a part of Mickey Mouse's 50th Anniversary TV Special. His three "Mouse Mania" sequences, featuring a stop-motion parade of 1,000 Disney toys marching through a psychiatrist's office, became the hit of the show. "Animation is filmmaking that one person can do, who doesn't yet have access to studio budgets or crews," remarked Jittlov, referring to his earlier works.  "The short films have gotten people to notice what I can do just on my own.  With a feature budget and other personnel, I have created a live action adventure with truly incredible effects, and more importantly, with a powerful, positive story that will send audience's spirits soaring."

He adds, "To do special effects you have to be a perfectionist, and perfectionism inevitably leads to idealism. I feel that I have a moral obligation to make the world better through what I do. And I have found out how to do this through the magic of motion pictures."

For Jittlov The Wizard Of Speed And Time is his first big step in that direction. It is also the perfect vehicle for exercising his multiple talents as an animator, write, actor and director. However, being "over-qualified" is not always an asset in the hard-nosed world of Hollywood--as the young filmmaker was soon to find out.

"It was hard at first, raising the financing," admitted Wizard producer Richard Kaye. "It was difficult for many people in the film community to believe that Mike could perform so many different functions."

Even though Jittlov first committed the idea for The Wizard Of Hollywood (its original working title) to paper as far back as 1981, it was not until the Cannes Film Festival of '83 that Kaye met executive producer Don Rochambeau and was able to find investors for the film on a pre-sale and limited partnership basis. But from then on things began to move as fast as The Wizard himself.

Jittlov and Kaye opened production offices in June, then after eight weeks of preproduction, went straight into principal photography on September 22 with Mike either directing and acting or manning the camera. After 18 weeks of location shooting with full cast and crew in and around the Los Angeles area, second unit photography immediately continued its own production schedule. Traveling across large stretches of the western United States, they lensed lakes, deserts, mountains, and forests as part of the cross-country "speed" sequences which feature the pixilated Jittlov as The Wizard. Mike then returned home to add the special effects animation for those sequences.

Last December, Jittlov was putting his final touches on The Wizard, remixing the sound, the original orchestration by John Massari and polishing up the editing. He and producer Kaye expect to release the 35mm widescreen film nationwide later this summer.

For Mike Jittlov this feature-length production has been the culmination of many years of experience in every area of independent filmmaking. In some ways it breaks all the rules. In other ways it is the common demoninator between the artist and the industry. Although admittedly autobiographical, Jittlov feels the film speaks for all creative individuals who find themselves frustrated by "Catch 22" business systems. And hopefully The Wizard Of Speed And Time will afford Jittlov with the overall recognition he deserves, and restore the image of the Renaissance man, even in this day of mindless specialization, to a place of respect in our society.

[caitlindawart]

Animation - Model Making - Animatable Armature/Marquette

Character Design - In order for an animation to be effective, a character has to be memorable; using strong shapes and silhouettes to create personality, one with a background and issues to overcome. Strong shapes make the most recognisable characters that can be distinguishable purely from silhouettes, whilst backstories makes them more relatable and places them in the audience’s world. Every film has a character that has had to overcome or adapt to an obstacle.

To produce a character, we first had to draw a turnaround; a drawing of the character done to scale and designed and drawn from all angles to get a full understanding of the character before making the armature.

Building the Armature - To build the armature of the model, we produce a skeleton with twisted wire to give the model stability and also allow its’ limbs to move freely.

We connect key parts of the skeleton, such as the spine to the pelvis; using milliput, which is a blu-tack consistency that solidifies overnight. A ball and socket rig is connected to the spine of the skeleton using milliput which will allow the model to stand up. Below is a diagram that shows where I intend to place the milliput on the skeleton.

For the head, balsa wood - a very thin and malleable wood - can be sanded down to produce a 3D head shape; or polystyrene can be used in the same way. To keep the head secure, we glue a few small squares of balsa wood together and cut into it to insert a ball baring. This ball baring is then attached to the body with extra strong all purpose glue to keep it secure, and the opposite end the wood is then glued into the polystyrene ball. 

To produce the actual body itself, upholstery foam is used around each limb, glued again with the extra strong all purpose glue. When this is dry, it is then coated in fabric (to stop the latex sinking into the foam) and then in latex in the skin tone I wish. Instead of fabric, as I felt it would be too bulky and wouldn’t allow the model to look like real flesh, I tried testing vinyl, which I would wrap around the limbs before latex as oppose to the fabric; seen below. 

After testing them I decided that the vinyl worked best so wrapped it around the legs.

Clingfilm didn’t work anywhere near as well due to the amount of wrinkles it produced, seen below. 

After coating the first leg in latex, I felt that due to the restricted sizes of vinyl, there were too many open areas which the vinyl couldn’t cover, so covered the remains of the model in fabric as oppose to vinyl or clingfilm, and went on to dip this into the latex.

For the facial features, eye sockets can be made in the head prior to adding the latex, and then beads are used for eyes. For the mouths, lots of sound variations can be made using card and stuck to the model each time with double sided tape, or can just be made from plasticine which can be remoulded for every separate mouth shape and sound made.

For the hair, I used plastic string and spray painted it orange before wrapping it into twirls and producing hair which I then hot glued onto the head as hair. It was surprisingly effective and added an organic, handmade aura to the model which I liked and felt added character.

Next, I mixed orange acrylic paint into the latex and used the back end of a paintbrush to add freckles onto the nose and face, again adding more character to the model, as well as rosy cheeks. 

Once the base of the model is complete, we then produce the clothing that we drew on the character turnaround using whatever material we wish.

I followed the basis of my character design when making my model’s clothing, producing a bra top and high waisted underwear. I made the join of the bra using the ruching technique which I learnt in the textiles workshops, and embellished the top with straps and a bead. Below is the finished clothed model, without facial features. 

For the facial features, I have decided to use black eye screws and plasticine for eyelids and eyebrows and plasticine for the mouth, which may melt over time, but will be good for the short length of time we will be using our models to animate with.

Below is the finished armature which I will use to animate with. I am quite pleased with the outcome, as due to the malleable wire skeleton all the limbs can be moved and altered when the model walks/moves, making it more realistic. 

From here, I then went on to produce the animation, attaching it to the rig and stage, then linking the video camera to the iStopMotion app on the Macs. Then, all that was left to do was to take images frame by frame; moving the model’s limbs accordingly in between, then when complete I exported the video which then put all of the individual frames together to produce the animation; seen below.

.

I was quite happy with the outcome but if I were to do this again I would definitely:

Use masking tape beneath the latex oppose to fabric, as in watching my peers I have found that this is more effective and gives a smoother finish beneath.

Use a lighter colour of latex as although I thought it was light, when it dried it oxidised to be a lot more orange and darker than expected.

Choose a different outfit and story behind the character, as the uneven base beneath the latex made the whole model a bit ineffective, which looked worse because there weren’t any clothes covering the skin. I also felt that she wasn’t very relatable, mainly because she didn’t end up as large as I anticipated her to be, and her outfit didn’t look like a trapeze artists’ attire, due to lack of materials.

At least I now know this and although I doubt I would use this type of animation again, I have the knowledge of techniques for the future incase I ever revisit it.

Other Animating Methods

There are many other methods of animating characters:

Flash Animation

Flash - An Adobe Flash animation is produced using the Adobe Flash platform, which can be seen used in TV series, commercials and online shorts. It was originally used for projects intended for web distribution as it allowed both audio and high quality animation over a small bandwidth.

To get the hang of Flash Animation, we first began by creating an animation of a ball bouncing onto the floor. We learnt the basics, such as to make an object moving speed up you make a bigger gap between each frame, and to slow an object down you make a smaller gap between. When the ball is falling down, it is fast, and then when it bounces on the floor we squish and squeeze the shape, showing the bounce of the rubber. To see the original shape of the ball for the next frame we use a technique called onion skinning, seen below.

The outcome of this can be seen below in gif, which I am very pleased with and feel is very effective and realistic, particularly due to the squishing of the ball when it hits the surface, as this shows a lot of elasticity which adds to its effectiveness. 

From here, we were then able to produce a Flash animation with our own character, drawn on the graphics tablet. I decided to animate a dog chasing its’ tail, and did so by drawing each frame using the graphics tablet and Flash. When complete, I then exported it as a GIF, seen below. Unfortunately I wasn’t as pleased with this outcome, and don’t think I would use this technique (with the graphics tablet) again as for the amount of time it took but the lack of effectiveness it gave I don’t think it was worth it. I would, however, possibly test the first Flash technique again, as the bouncing ball was quite effective, but I think this was because we had insider knowledge and tips on how to actually make it look realistic; which the drawn one below didn’t.

Whiteboard Animation

Whiteboard (2D) - Particularly popular amongst marketing companies, whiteboard animation is the process of a story being drawn on a whiteboard, using a time-lapse or stop motion technique. Originally this was done with the animator literally filming themselves drawing onto the whiteboard, but with it becoming so popular in producing educational videos and product demos, the process now doesn’t actually require drawing and can be done simply using a whiteboard animation software. William Kentridge is a known for his chalkboard animations, done traditionally, which leaves marks and lines and also means each drawing for each frame isn’t necessarily in the exact same place, giving a nice effect.

Pixilation - This is a stop motion technique in which live actors (real people) are used in each frame, repeatedly doing small incremental poses; creating a jittery, surreal puppet effect. A strange yet enthralling use of the pixilation technique can be seen in The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb, a claymation, stop motion and pixilation animation using the camera work of Dave Borthwick at the Bolex Brothers studios.

For our own whiteboard animation, we worked collaboratively, starting by drawing our part of the story and taking an image, frame by frame; then moving onto the paper cutout animation station and someone else finishing the next stage of the whiteboard animation’s story. The first video below is my cut section of the collaborative whiteboard animation; and the one below is the whole animation. 

My Cut.

The Collaboration .

I was very pleased with my section of the whiteboard animation as it had a definite style, and especially thought the element of pixilation (my hand as an eraser) was effective. 

We were then also set the task of creating a short animation to replicate the ‘Bunnies in 30 Seconds’ animations, where a film is replicated in 30 seconds using animated bunnies, animated by Angry Alien Productions. I decided to follow the film UP, drawing the characters as oppose to using bunnies. The outcome of this can be seen below. It wasn’t as effective as I had hoped, but this was because some of the frames weren’t long enough, which was due to me forgetting there are 12 frames in a second of animation, not one frame. 

UP.

Paper Cutout Animation

Paper Cutout - Paper cutout is a very simple animation technique, where 2D characters, props and scenes are produced from paper/card or fabric, with the characters divided into tiny segments and piece together the cutout shapes and move them in tiny steps, using the same stop motion technique as above. A disadvantage would be that it doesn’t work that well for facial closeups so there is very rarely any dialogue in these types of animation. The Bear and the Hare and Southpark are both examples of paper cutout animation, but in 3D style.

Plasticine - Films such as Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run and Creature Comforts are animated using plasticine, also known as Claymation. This uses the stop motion technique, taking images of single frames then moving the plasticine and taking another frame. There are a lot of downsides to claymation, however, such as the lighting needed to produce a well lit set actually melts the plasticine. Another downside is that plasticine has a tendency to fall over, flattening the features of the models, and even just manipulating the model slowly disintegrates it, as well as leaving finger prints which need to be removed using lighter fluid. Aardman Animation are the company who created the well known Creature Comforts, and have also gone on to use this animation technique in games and apps as technology has progressed.

We then moved onto the paper cutout station, carrying on another section of someone else’s animation by taking an image, frame by frame; then moving onto the paper cutout animation station to add some more frames to carry on someone else’s story. The first video below is my cut section of the collaborative paper cutout animation; and the one below is the whole animation. 

My Cut.

Whole Collaboration .

Stop Motion using Objects - Stop Motion animation can be used to bring (non drawn) inanimate objects to life, such as toys, stationary and food. These objects aren’t fully malleable like plasticine, but also aren’t meant to be recognisable. Object animation is also often combined with other forms of animation to produce a more realistic effect and more depth to the characters. PEZ are an animation company who use the stop motion using objects technique, creating scenes and items from well known everyday objects; such as a bolognese dish using wool, rubber bands and glitter; which has become increasingly popular on Youtube and has therefore eventually allowed them to produce adverts with this technique for well known companies and brands.

Computer Animation - Computer Animation is a mixture of computer graphics and animation, producing 3D computer generated imagery. It is used in films such as Transformers, Avatar and Lord of the Rings, where other technologies can be incorporated, such as using motion capture to track a real life actor/object to produce much smoother, more realistic movements.

Traditional 2D Animation - This is done by hand drawing each frame to produce a sequence of shots as consecutive sketches. These sketches also show transitions, frames and camera angles, allowing the animator to plan the shot.

Overall, I definitely enjoyed the paper cutout and whiteboard animations the most. I also surprisingly enjoyed the collaborative aspect as it was interesting to carry on someone else’s animation and story to produce something completely new. I don’t think I would return to stop motion with the armature, as it took a long time to make the entire thing and I wasn’t as pleased with the outcome as . I hoped I would be. 

[montamileikemc-blog]

Symmetry and  Breaking The Frame

SYMMETRY:

Something that has ‘mirrored’ shapes or forms

A compositional photographic technique

A way to approach framing a photograph

How can I play with artificial symmetry in post-production? E.g. making horizon lines dead-centre of a picture. Why people are drawn to symmetry? Is it innate or learned?

I researched on google about symmetry in photography. e.g. portraiture, landscapes, nature, plants and flowers. If portraits were symmetrical, the face looks really weird as both sides of your face look slightly different to each other. People are not perfect, nobody is symmetrical.

Image credit: julianwolkenstein.com

Symmetry gestalt psychology (the way we see things, our perspective)

Symmetry facial attractiveness

After researching I looked into how symmetry is or is not in nature, we were tasked to play around with nature and make things more symmetrical therefore more pleasing to the eye!

The Photoshop process:

Symmetry in nature

I went into UNSPLASH.com – downloaded the free stock photography)

(Credit: Alex Blajan ‘Flower’ RBG/8)

 Photo-Manipulation Exercise

Process:

Click ‘View’ and select ‘New Guide Layout’ (to quickly make guides)

Enter ‘2’ columns, ‘2’ rows, no gutter then click OK

To create symmetry in rows (‘shape’ enabled):

Choose row, select marking tool ‘M’, highlights chosen box (‘ants’)

Short-cuts: CTRL + J

Duplicate a layer or selection (Layer 1)

CRTL+B

‘Move’ tool – we need to flip it

Click ‘Edit’, select ‘Transform’ then click ‘Flip Horizontal’

For quicker duplication: hold ‘Alt’ key and click & drag then release ‘Alt’ key then ‘flip’ vertically

To try a different sector: Layer 1, Layer 1 copy, Layer 1 copy 2 – select all

Shift & click on layers to select all, then Ctrl + G to group them

Name it ‘Symmetry 1’

Click Temporarily hide visibility of group)

Choose a different sector of the picture, then repeat short-cuts (as above)

Once your symmetrical flower is made, turn guides off - Ctrl +/ -  for toggle guides on & off

Put in new folder and name it ‘Symmetry 2’

Go to File to click Export and select Quick Export as PNG. 

We can ‘push’ the look of the photo, using curves – Curves Adjustment Layer (red, green & blue).

I selected a shot from Annie Spratt, which I found on UNSPLASH.

Same process:

How would a manipulation like this have been created in the dark-room? How does Photoshop make it easier to achieve?

Dark-room comparison - to create this manipulation would take a full day in the dark-room. You would have to create a quarter-mask on the negative and expose it a quarter at a time, repeating the process for all 4 quarters. This takes a long time to process and is a lot quicker in Photoshop by just a few buttons to press. You can always scan your analogue negatives into a flatbed scanner and then print at a high resolution and edit it in Photoshop, this is a quicker way of doing this whole process and takes a fraction of the time if you experimented in the dark room.

Experiment:

1. How to break the tyranny of the photographic frame.

2. Why is it always a ‘tiresome’ square or rectangle?

3.  More unusual ways?

Basic Technique:

Click View and select New Guide Layout

Experiment with more columns and rows

10 of each and add a gutter (the mini-margin between columns and rows

0.5cm - quite narrow as this depends on the size of this picture

Click OK

Use guide to create mask, to break the picture up into a tessellated pattern. 

Process

Hold Shift and use the marquee tool to create boxes across the image (ants); some horizontal, some vertical, some squares, some rectangles. These can be symmetrical but the gutters should be left blank.

Click on the Japanese Flag, bottom right…

Crop/split the image to your satisfaction.

Ctrl +/ - turns the guides off to see final image.

This process fragments a frame (i.e. ‘Breaking The Frame’)

Save as PNG

Can we use more sophisticated shapes than squares and rectangles?

Circles? Not possible. Triangles? Well…we will see by (Opening ‘Adobe Illustrator’ – this is to graphics what Photoshop is to photos; we can create patterns to frame photos). The Toolbar looks familiar: Paint, Brush, Magic Wand, Pencil, Gradients tools - there is some over-lap with Illustrator and Photoshop! Illustrator is designed for graphics, as it is more creative; it is also easier than Photoshop.

Adobe illustrator (Ai) is used because it uses Vector and Photoshop doesn’t duplicate using Vectors. The benefit of using Vector art is that it is resolution independent – meaning it can be scaled to any size, from a large billboard to or double decker bus to a business card. Vector has no pixels, therefore there is no pixilation when enlarged). so the size can be resized in Vector and therefore you don’t lose quality. I believe if you resized your shots to such a large scale as a double decker bus, you would see pixels in Photoshop.

Process:

Open Adobe Illustrator

Select New Document

Select Print A4 (Size in Illustrator doesn’t actually matter)

Select Rectangle Tool on left-hand toolbar; Shift, drag & drop white shape onto document.

Fill – the colour inside the shape

Stroke – line outside of pattern; to remove stroke, choose Stroke Options (white box top-left)

Change the fill so that it is not white.

You should have a colour square with stroke around

Select Pen Tool, then Delete Anchor Point – delete one and you should have a triangle (Ctrl+ to zoom in)

Pick first Black Arrow Tool (top left)

To duplicate your triangle – press Alt and drag across so that the two triangles are perfectly aligned.

Illustrator has a repeat duplicator! Ctrl + D – as many as you wish

Next, select the whole row using the Black Arrow Tool.

Press Alt and drag the row down so it is perfectly aligned.

Ctrl + D creates as many duplicated rows as you wish (should have a triangular grid pattern across the whole document.

Bring this to my photo portrait; select all or Ctrl + A), right-click Copy and go to your portrait in Photoshop.

Ctrl + P or Paste in.

A Paste as box will appear – untick Add to Library, then OK)

Enlarge your grid to cover the whole of your photo.

Hit Enter.

Duplicate Layer; disable squares and rectangles from previous photo – click Unmask.

Should have the original image with the triangular grid covered across it. You can see two versions, one with squares & rectangles and one with the triangular grid)

Press Control and Vector Smart Object (bottom right)

Copy Layer.

Select Japanese Flag and triangle visibility off (eye icon)

Back to Portrait Layer (top layer visibility off)

The image with a white triangular grid across it.

Use Colour picker to add background colour layer.

Save it

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: Dismantling Colonial Fantasies About Puerto Rico

Still from one of Shey Rivera Ríos, “Puerto Rico $$$ El Carnero 111,” GIF for Fantasy Island (all images courtesy the artist)

An orchestra soars over the soft-focus aerial view of waves rolling along the shore of a tropical island. At the first sight of a small aircraft streaming beyond the palm fronds, Hervé Villechaize, playing Tattoo, Fantasy Island’s indigenous sidekick, rings a bell in a white tower. “The plane! The plane!” he calls to Ricardo Montalbán. Wearing a white suit and black tie, Montalbán holds court as Mr. Roarke, the island’s overseer, who taps his wristwatch in the doorway of an ornate white lodge and says to Tattoo, “Our guests are arriving on time, to the second.” Tattoo responds, “They always do, and you always act like it’s a miracle.” “My dear Tattoo,” says Roarke, “when each guest is paying $50,000 for a three-day stay on Fantasy Island, he or she deserves miracles.” Tattoo nods and says, “Aye, boss.” And so the television show’s opening theme repeated each Friday night from 1977 to 1984.

Fantasy Island went off the air a few years before I discovered the advertising portfolio in the back pages of the New York Times Magazine, where real estate promised a separate peace: grids of sky blue windows; expanses of white carpet studded with glass tables, no tumblers or mugs to spill; stone patios marked with mirrored pools, all for sale. The dwellings in the advertisements were impossibly expensive — they cost numbers higher than I’d ever counted — but, in my child’s mind, they seemed attainable. My favorite advertisement featured an aerial view of a luxury hotel’s nodal network of swimming environments: triangular and rhomboid pools connected by waterways and fed by waterfalls — a circuitous and continuously flowing system. Paradise uncorrupted. The nodal network — its flat landscape, its grid under a soft-focus lens, its sublime elimination of flaw and filigree — was a metaphor for both ownership and containment.

My mother, with whom I watched Fantasy Island every Friday night during the first few years of my childhood, sliced the ad’s page from the magazine and hung its tidiness, its evenly distributed sunlight, on our refrigerator door with a magnet. Its luxury was a life of lawful symmetry. Our own faded linoleum and pilled brown carpet, and later, certain poems and paintings, taught me that sunlight, while cast evenly, doesn’t touch everything in the same way. Only in advertisements, in gold paintings of saints, and on Minimalism’s flat canvases does illumination touch all surfaces equitably, with a contrived but glorious beneficence.

Shey Rivera Ríos in the Fantasy Island real estate office as AS220 (photo by Sussy Santana)

In Shey Rivera Ríos’s Fantasy Island, an immersive installation currently on view at AS220’s Project Space in Providence, Rhode Island, the island “miracle” that’s marketed to mainland American consumers is simulated and détourned using sculpture, video and GIF, sound, a series of talks, and a zine. (Rivera is also the artistic director of AS220.) From the gridded walls of her “office” to the glass desk where she “works,” Rivera re-creates a late ’80s luxury advertisement interior and uses it as a gathering place where she and her audience can discuss colonialism’s abuses with sincerity. On screens displayed throughout the installation, GIF collages juxtapose Puerto Rico’s pixilated landscape with flashing and scrolling financial and religious iconography.

Rivera challenges the calcification of colonial narratives by interrogating mainstream takes on the island’s culture. Her work brings to light how gentrification is not only an occupation of a physical place but also a takeover of the territory of the imagination, how it alters landscapes while working to reshape our hopes, desires, and visions of possible futures. Fantasy Island asks us to question the obsolete utopias sold to us in luxury real estate advertisements — in particular, the ones that call on Modernism’s tropes of order, harmony, and structural integrity to sell a miraculous experience, while denying the disorder they wreak in co-opted cultural, economic, and environmental landscapes.

*   *   *

Jasmine Dreame Wagner: Tell us about the landscape and the debt crisis in Puerto Rico and how Fantasy Island explores themes of inflation, development, and displacement in San Juan and the surrounding mountains, beaches, and rainforest.

Shey Rivera Ríos: Puerto Rico has been on a slow decline toward a deep economic crisis for the past decade, caused by our colonial status and the way the island is used as a hub to grow and incentivize corporations without creating systems to support the island’s own economic advancement. The island’s debt is currently $120 billion. We’ve seen the largest migration in our history within the past five years: up to one million Boricuas have left the island and moved, primarily to south Florida and New England.

Fantasy Island is an attempt to create space for dialogue on this topic and on three big -isms: imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism. As a physical and virtual space, Fantasy Island re-creates the interior of a 1990s luxury real estate office in Puerto Rico. The piece speaks to colonial perspectives on Puerto Rico as a tropical paradise, a vacationer’s dream, a vision of exotic luxury (the island’s name means “Rich Port” in Spanish), in the face of a profound economic crisis that affects the lives of millions of local residents. It speaks to how Caribbean islands are used to create fantasy experiences for American and European tourists, visitors who remain detached from the sociopolitical and historical realities of the island and the imprint of colonization.

Shey Rivera Ríos, “Prayers to Nana Buruku altar” (photo by Lesean Thomas)

This piece is about disconnection. The viewer enters a space defined by black-and-white grid lines, a simulation of some sort of digital space without a true location. The installation aims to create the feeling of being displaced. Where am I? In a large monitor, a blue sky with white clouds plays on a loop. Two monitors display animated GIFs featuring manipulated images of mansions and luxury condos, spackled with religious iconography and American dollar signs. Majestic palm trees, an office desk, a Greek bust fill a landscape reminiscent of vaporwave album covers and Tumblr blogs. The room features an altar crafted with both digital and analogue tools, an altar to Nana Buruku, grandmother of the Orishas in the Yoruba mythology and spirituality. The altar is a modified version of Fra Filipo Lippi’s “Madonna with Child and Scenes from the Life of St. Anne” (1452). This is a tribute to Caribbean syncretism: Saint Anne is correlated with Nana Buruku in Yoruba spiritual practice. West African slaves were able to continue their spiritual and religious practices by aligning their own deities with Catholic Saints. There’s so much to Puerto Rico that people in the mainland United States don’t know. 

JDW: Entering an installation requires a certain sincerity of presence. The GIF — a primitive image format designed in the early days of the internet — is detached and humorous. So many GIFs are jokes. Can a GIF be sincere? Could you talk about your use of humor?

Shey Rivera Ríos, “Promesa777”

SRR: I have a tendency to be too serious in most of my work. That’s changed quite a bit since I started creating work with Jason Curzake in our performance project ISLANDS. Certain topics require gravity and depth, but humor can make them accessible and relatable, if used effectively.

One of my favorite movies is Satoshi Kon’s Paprika. In one of the scenes, the character Paprika meets the detective in a restaurant in his dream. She tells him, “Don’t you think dreams and the internet are similar? They are both areas where the repressed conscious mind vents.” Memes and GIFs exemplify how the virtual collective mind self-reflects, self-punishes, and self-criticizes. Meme and GIF humor bring to light many screwed-up aspects of humanity and how we exist and interact in the physical realm. I believe that in their humor, memes and GIFs are genuine. They call out, but they also speak volumes of the person or collective who created them, even more so if they become viral — they are evidence of a general collective understanding, perspective, or feeling. 

JDW: In the current political climate, the need for organized resistance and for both political and emotional solidarity echoes through our communities, our artworks, our social media feeds, and our economy. Could you talk a bit about bridging the physical, the imaginary, the virtual, and the economic?

SRR: I feel like we are just learning the ropes on how to balance it all and make it work in a healthy, holistic way. We are in a new chapter of our evolution toward engaging with multiple mediums and creating as we consume in multiple dimensions. Nowadays, we, as individuals, are everywhere! Fragments of our selves exist throughout the web on multiple channels. We curate these fragments. But physical space and experiences will always be necessary, because we feel and experience things in the flesh. Even virtual reality technologies are an attempt to re-create the sensation of physical presence.

Installation view, Shey Rivera Ríos, Fantasy Island at AS220

Physical space and community are necessary for healing. We all desire to feel like we belong to something greater and are contributing toward a greater cause. That’s inherent to our nature as social creatures who make things. I truly think that democratizing access and facilitating freedom of expression can impact the world in positive ways. This not only applies in terms of voice, but it must inform how we create alternative systems of being, of monetizing our work, of trade and barter, and how we build community. We can’t just operate under a western European capitalist model that only watches for the interests of a few elite groups of a similar cultural and racial background. Plurality is the future, if we wish to create equitable systems.

Latinx communities, communities of color, inherently have art and culture embedded into our day-to-day way of being. Dance, food, art, design, apparel, craft, convening, all of it is part of cultural expression. Our cultures have rich histories, our own technologies, our own ways of passing down knowledge and creating community and exchange. Puerto Rico certainly does. The colonized perspective is something deep, and we need to wake from it. Artistic practice is part of daily life, the conceptual and physical space where we practice our individuality or collaborative spirit, our humanity. In art we can claim ownership of our own narrative, instead of letting others define that for us. Art is the place where we can dismantle oppression.

Art is voice, and where you create space for your voice, you find community. Where you find community, you invest emotionally and financially. This, in turn, becomes economic development and investment in physical spaces, as well as community assets, education, health care, and public services.

Performance by Huáscar Robles in Shey Rivera Ríos’s Fantasy Island (photo by LeSean Thomas)

JDW: I’m interested in your perspective on vaporwave as an emergent genre that uses both collage and erasure to reclaim privatized, corporatized, and anonymized space. I’m thinking of how vaporwave music artists sample soundtracks of generic Muzak or incorporate training videos from the ’80s and ’90s, clipping and stitching together sounds that are essentially “unauthored,” or authored by non-human entities. Artists like Macintosh Plus and Saint Pepsi have adopted corporate monikers in lieu of their given names, a form of self-erasure, signaling perhaps a reluctance to become visible figureheads and a shrugging off rock and roll’s cult of the star. Also, their punk disregard of trademark laws. Could you talk about the ways that Fantasy Island participates in vaporwave or challenges it?

SRR: Vaporwave and A.E.S.T.H.E.T.I.C. are part of an offbeat art and music movement that speaks to a vision of a future that is now obsolete. Its aesthetic is comprised of nostalgia, irony, dark humor, and hopelessness. Trashy corporate culture gone glitch. Growing up connected to internet pop culture and digital media, I loved it because it appropriates consumer culture in a way where the culture is taken over, remixed, and reconfigured by its users. Branding is always about exerting control. This movement takes control and redefines it. It’s culture jamming, not a new term. Many of us who grew up in the ’90s are familiar with it.

I’m fascinated with culture’s cyclic nature, how the aesthetics of past decades come back to subvert our present and challenge our future. I’m a gamer and an internet addict. I owned my first computer when I was 13, Windows 95. It was the beginning of a new life. The Windows 95 aesthetic influenced my perspective and creative practice — I’ve been an active gamer since 1989 with the Nintendo 8-bit. I still play ROMs of classic games on a hacked Nintendo Wii, and I own a PS4. I’m infatuated with open world games like FallOut4. I love simulation games with complex storylines inspired by science and history, with postapocalyptic settings, or super cute 2D side-scrolling games like Maple Story, LaTale, and other MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games). I’m also a huge anime fan, and much of my academic background was spent studying postwar Japanese visual culture, how Japan used animation to exorcise its cultural trauma after WWII, as well as the power and complexity of fandom as a vehicle of creative power.

Shey Rivera Ríos, “DoradoBeach888”

My love for the internet informs my practice and certainly informs the creation of Fantasy Island. I didn’t go to art school. My art making is informed by my social and professional practice, as well as self-led research and artistic collaboration. I like concept, intimacy, and immersion — that’s why I love performance and installation, especially full-room, immersive experiences. Installation and internet art allow us to practice our agency through remix culture; we can challenge systems of oppression. Vaporwave and A.E.S.T.H.E.T.I.C. are subversive, visually and aurally. They shine light on the idea of failed white progress and obsolete modernism. To me, they are an acceptance of failure, a swan cry in the face of hypercapitalism. This was our perfect future? We laugh out loud through silent GIFs.

Shey Rivera Ríos’s Fantasy Island continues at AS220 Project Space (93 Mathewson Street, Providence, RI) through June 28.

The post Dismantling Colonial Fantasies About Puerto Rico appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[emilyplaysotome]

Part 1 - Down the Voltage Rabbit Hole

Lately it seems that everything I write ends up never seeing the light of day so I wanted to write something fun, that might actually get read. If you guys like it I’ll continue the story. 

Let me know what you think!

I woke up, eyes bleary, head pounding in a hospital bed I’d never been in, but could have sworn I’d seen before. As I rubbed my eyes, I racked my brain to try and remember how I’d gotten here, but could only come up with fragmented moments on the subway platform. It was a fair assumption to say that I’d passed out. Something like that had happened to me once before, and upon coming to had left me feeling very similar.

“It’s good to see you’re up.”

I turned to see a man standing over me, wearing a white doctor’s coat, with a pink collared shirt, and simple plaid necktie. He gently pushed his glasses up as he examined my chart, finally offering me a concerned smile.

“You were brought here yesterday after you collapsed, but we couldn’t find any identification on you.”

My eyes began to focus, and I squinted as they adjusted to the sunlight streaming in through the large windows that lined the far wall. The room was a simple hospital room, with multiple beds, all empty at the moment. Separating each bed was a seafoam curtain, and across from me were some yellow flowers that must have been left behind from another patient.

I looked at the doctor again, who leaned a bit closer.

“Can you...understand me?” he said slowly.

My eyes caught the name on his nametag. Irie.

“Yes, I understand. Sorry, I’m always a bit off when I first get up,” I joked.

His face relaxed, and he smiled at me.

“Take your time. You were out for a good 18 hours.”

Irie...Irie. Why was that name so familiar to me? I studied his face as he scribbled some notes down in my chart. He didn’t have any defining characteristic of note - dark hair and eyes, Japanese, a calm demeanor.

“Soichiro?” I muttered to myself, barely audible.

He paused and looked at me, a puzzled expression on his face.

“Do we know each other?”

I looked again at the room once more, and then back at the man standing before me. There was no way. It was impossible. I was...me and he was just a character in a game. However as crazy as it was, before I could stop myself I found myself asking, “I’m at Ebisu General, right?”

Doctor Irie nodded. I could feel my face getting hot, panic setting in. This had to be a dream. There was no other explanation but it didn’t feel like any dream I’d ever had.

“Have we met before?”

“No. Your reputation precedes you,” I lied.

In actuality, I’d spent hours with Soichiro Irie. I’d been in the man’s apartment. I watched him fall in love. I knew more about him than he probably knew about himself.

Yet here I was, unable to tell him the truth (that he was merely a character in a game) without sounding certifiably insane. Even if this was a dream, the last thing I wanted to do was be shipped off to the psychiatric ward of Ebisu General, so...I lied.

He blushed faintly at the compliment, and crossed his arms just like his sprite did, except in real life he felt closer to the published age of 40 than he ever did in the game. There were slight crow’s feet around his eyes and as he shook his head with a placid smile, I could see the wrinkles hiding behind his hair that fell across his forehead.

“Oh no. I’m sure that’s not true” he said softly.

The Japanese modestly I’d experienced in these games came through loud and clear in that one moment. It was sweet - quite different from the confident and often unwarranted conceit most American men doled out.

“Doctor Irie, I...have a bit of a strange question. I feel ok but...what language am I speaking?”

Doctor Irie cocked his head to the side, “Japanese. You’re in Tokyo after all.”

“I see. You wouldn’t happen to have a mirror...would you?”

As he left to find a hand mirror, I racked my brain at how implausible it was that I’d be speaking Japanese. It had to be a crazy dream, perhaps I was even in a coma, and my mind suddenly placed me in the universe of these games.

In fact, it was entirely possible that I’d been playing one when I blacked out in my world. But...I couldn’t shake the feeling that everything going was far too real to be something entirely contrived by my own brain and its memories of various games I’d played months ago.

Doctor Irie returned with a mirror that revealed that I still looked as I’d remembered. He also brought the items I’d had on me when I’d collapsed - a phone, a coat, and the stupid knit hat I’d stitched in 9th grade and kept for whatever reason. The phone booted up but all my apps were replaced by knockoffs like Skaipe, Tweeter, and Chatsnap. I shook my head, dejected upon seeing this.

I was hoping my phone would be something that would link me to the real world from which I came, but outside of that dumb knit hat, everything else was a gamified version. I sighed loudly and Doctor Irie studied my face with concern.

“So...am I able to leave now?” I asked.

“We’d prefer if you stayed until you’re better. Plus we’ll need your insurance card and -”

“I’m afraid I don’t have my wallet on me,” I quickly cut him off.

“Well, we can look your information up. What’s your name?”

I paused. There’d be no record of me in this world. I thought carefully before replying.

“Naruko...Sasaki,” I said. Or was it Sasaki Naruko? I could never get it straight but it didn’t really matter. Doctor Irie nodded and scribbled her name on my chart before writing something else on his notepad.

“Here,” he said, handing me a paper with a number on it. “If you get into trouble, or need a place to stay, or feel sick again just give me a call.”

For a moment, it crossed my mind that if I called this number, I would be entering Doctor Irie’s route in this world. I wasn’t prepared for that, not because I didn’t like him, but because I had more important things to think about than romancing a fictional doctor. I needed to get home.

I did my best to bow graciously, self-conscious the entire time, and slightly worried that someone would call me out for cultural appropriation.

“Thank you Doctor Irie.”

The first thing I did once I left Ebisu General was pray to the Wishes Gods. When none of them showed up, or even gave me an inclination that they'd heard my wish to be sent home, I formulated a new plan. I found an empty park bench that was shaded by a Revance billboard, and wrote down every single potential guy I’d ever played with the knowledge that I was in the voltage universe in order to figure out what my next best bet would be.

You’d think that being the MC in a real-life-game would be fairly exciting but I promise you, it isn’t. Instead, I found myself fairly stressed out once the realization set in that in order to survive long enough to formulate a plan to get sent home I was going to need to approach the more dangerous characters in this universe. When you’re playing from the comfort of your home it doesn’t matter that your love interest is borderline abusive, or in the mafia, or a criminal mastermind. However, when you’re in the actual game, it’s a lot more stressful than you’d think to approach one of these guys.

I knew what I had to do if I was to survive here. I jogged up to the next nondescript Person 1 and asked, “Excuse me, can you point me in the direction of the Tray Spades?”

“You mean the Tres Spades?”

“Whatever.”

The pixilated version of the hotel had looked pretty good on my iPhone as I played at home, but being there in person was something else. 

I’d been lucky enough to travel and stay in some luxurious hotels in my world, but the Tres Spades was like nothing I’d ever seen in my life. It was fair to say that depending on who you asked, it was either a garish eyesore or the most opulent hotel you’d ever laid eyes on. I was still trying to decide for myself as waited in the lobby for my target.

If everything went according to plan my time at the Tres Spades would end in false papers, a temporary job (with housing if I remembered correctly), and no involvement in the auctions. But that was only if things went according to plan and I reminded myself that they rarely do. 

I was still mulling it all over when I saw him, or I suppose more accurately, he saw me.

“Excuse me Miss.”

His maroon jacket was even tackier in person but I found him to be more handsome than his sprite gave him credit for. Sure his real voice was actually a bit smarmy, and his mannerisms reeked of a guy who spent far too long reading Neil Strauss’ The Game, but that was to be expected.

“Yes?”

“Are you waiting for someone? Me...perhaps?”

It was impossible for me to hold back my disgusted sigh. Baba in person was so much lamer than he ever read.

“Ahahahaha,” a young man cackled, practically doubled over. “Look at how disgusted she looks!”

“Oh no I didn’t mean...” 

I desperately tried backtracking but it was no use. I’d never been good at hiding my emotions and it would seem today was no different. Unfortunately for me, if I was going to have any chance in this world, I’d need to significantly improve my acting skills.

“Don’t apologize!” He exclaimed, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks, “That was the funniest thing I’ve seen all day.”

“You don’t need to rub it in Ota,” Baba pouted.

It surprised me that I liked Ota more in person. He struck me as boyish and mischievous in a way that was far more charming than Baba’s insincere pick up artist act. 

As I panicked internally, racking my brain how to get these interactions back on track, the two bantered with each other. Ota teased Baba mercilessly, who in turn desperately tried to recover from the embarrassment of Ota having witnessed him crash and burn in front of a girl.

“Please,” I grabbed the sleeve of Baba’s gaudy maroon jacket all the while putting on my best damsel in distress expression. “I’m actually looking for someone who stays at this hotel. Do you work here?”

The two stopped arguing and Baba looked at me, genuinely surprised. There was silence for a moment and then Ota burst out laughing again

“Ahahahaha! She thinks you work here!”

Collectively Baba and I shared a sigh, and then a smile. He took his hat off and gave me a little bow, then a wink, and said, “At your service.”

“This might sound...a little crazy but I’m looking for a guy, his name is…”

I pretended to rack my brain and my act seemed to be working as Baba appeared to hang on my every word.

“...Lupin?” I whispered.

Baba’s eyes widened slightly, and his cheeks flushed. Ota, still chuckling to himself gave Baba a slap on the back.

“The old man finally catches a break.”

With that, Ota strolled out through the double doors of the hotel lobby, and I found myself being offered Baba’s arm.

“Follow me.”

There was no turning back now. But if I was going to have any chance of getting myself home, taking his arm was my only option.

So I took it.

Continue reading - Part 2