#This is basically me taking longer to repeat the point OP already made with a tiny addition tbh

[matan4il]

Most of the time, I don't bother talking about the hate and harassment I get, because I don't think haters deserve the attention. The person I'm gonna write about definitely doesn't deserve any, but they've started harassing others that I know of, not just me.

So this is basically a warning post for Jewish bloggers and bloggers who are allies to Jews, and a request for anyone who can, to report and block this person (if you want to warn other bloggers, then please consider a reblog, too). @staff, This is also for you, proof of a pattern of harassment and abuse. Please do something and protect your Jewish users and their allies.

They first commented here, denying the antisemitism of Hamas, with the url @grizzlyismyspiritanimal and they seem to change their url quite frequently. For now it's @fancowboy but expect that to change again. Since IDK if Tumblr will let the mention (@'ing their url) hyperlink to their blog, here's how you can check out what their current url is, so you can report and block them. Go to this post where they're tagged as @grizzlyismyspiritanimal and hover your mouse over their url, you'll see their blog pop up no matter what new url they changed to. Here's a screenshot of what that looks like:

Here's their first comment on my post, along with my reply. Tumblr arranges these comments with the oldest at the bottom, click to see the image better:

Of course they never provided a link sourcing their claim, instead they provided a link to an op ed, which was not written by anyone affiliated with Hamas. This link did not support their claim that "Hamas specifically stated," but that didn't stop them from ignoring the fact that they couldn't prove their claim. Next, they repeated an already refuted antisemitic conspiracy theory (and I linked them to a refuting source, which they just ignored), while using strawmen arguments (attacking statements I didn't make). Obviously, none of this addresses the point actually made in the post they were commenting on.

When I called them out on the antisemitism of their whole narrative, they pulled the "I can't be antisemitic, because I'm Jewish" line of defense, while also bragging in the same comment about not going the easy route by doing that:

I no longer believe people who say antisemitic things, and then use this defense, after several have been proven to have lied about being Jewish, but more importantly, and this is the point I made to @fancowboy, Jews are not immune to internalizing antisemitism, and repeating antisemitic narratives. But I was curious whether there was any sign of this person having any sense of a significant Jewish identity on their blog. When I went on there, one of the first posts I came acorss was an antisemitic one, claiming that Jews have stolen the Star of David from the Muslims... I know there are a lot of anti-Zionist Jews out there, and that many of them are very capable of saying antisemitic things, but I don't think even they would endorse this false claim.

What's ironic is that the post shares a screenshot from Wikipedia, which explicitly mentions that this Muslim kingdom that existed in the 13th century AD (roughly 700 years ago), adopted the six-pointed star, due to the Muslim belief that it was a symbol on the ring ("seal") of King Solomon, a Jewish king who lived about 3,000 years ago. In other words, this post literally points out that Muslims borrowed this symbol from Jews, not the other way around. And just for historical interest, the first archeological find of Jews using the Star of David is dated to the 6th century BC (around 2,600 years ago).

I pointed out to @grizzlyismyspiritanimal / @fancowboy that I no longer believe they're Jewish, because I don't believe any Jew would reblog this antisemitic lie. In response, not long after, this "I'm not a coward" and "you would've blocked me (aka fanatic)" person blocked me. Instead of addressing what I said, or taking responsibility for their wrongdoing, and deleting this antisemitic post. Our exchange started on Jan 5 IIRC, this post was reblogged by them on Jan 4, and as of Jan 25 it is still on their blog, as you can see here (post and current date highlighted in this screenshot):

A minute after they blocked me from the above blog, they commented on my pinned post with links to my fandom content from another blog, @verygardenerland and this comment made it clear that it was the same person. I made a mistake, I wanted my fandom space free from antisemitic harassment, so I deleted that comment, which means I don't have that piece of evidence that it's the same person, but I do have another bit of proof. Remember how this person claimed to be Jewish? This is how they presented it:

(again, using a strawmen, I never said all Muslims are terrorists, and never would, because it's simply not true, and if anyone made that claim to me, I would be correcting them)

Well, this is the VERY similar way @verygardenerland talked about their supposed Jewish identity, in a post they made solely to harass and DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) me:

Jews were almost completely ethnically cleansed from Muslim majority countries, so the likelihood of a random online stranger being a Jew from a Muslim country is generally incredibly low to almost non-existent, and two who just so happen to both harass me on my blog one minute apart is probably less statistically likely than winning the lottery.

It's poetic irony that the one comment the above post got from another blogger, is someone else also calling this person out on the antisemitism of what they're saying:

Gotta love the bonus misogyny with "bitch."

I'm also going to offer you this following antisemitic comment (which distorts the Holocaust, and refers to Jews insultingly as "the chosen ones"), which I also don't believe any person with an actual Jewish identity would make:

And here's also one of the last comments this person made from @fancowboy before blocking me on that blog and continuing from @verygardenerland. Just notice how we have the same antisemitic abuse themes from both of these blogs:

Once more, extra touch of misogyny with "that much of a pussy."

(I have to address the white phosphorus claim. There are 2 ways of using it in battle, one legal, the other's not. Israel stated that when using it, that's only in the legal way. There is no record to show the contrary. People just exploit the fact it's used, to pretend it's automatically illegal. But I accept this is an antisemitic libel against the Jewish state, that sadly some Jews might repeat. The rest is what makes me think this person isn't Jewish)

@verygardenerland noticed I write fandom meta, and harassed me on these posts. Here's one example:

Then they searched related tag/s, and proceeded to harass me by calling me names in comments they left on random posts from other fandom members. These are posts that had nothing to do with me. One of the people on whose post they were calling me a Nazi is someone I have never even spoken to. The OP deleted the harassing comment, but this time I did get a screenshot before that, so here it is, as an example:

Now, on top of all of the above, @verygardenerland also started stalking my main blog at the same time they made their first comment from this url, as well as my two back up blogs. One's last post was on Mar 2022, the other's on Apr 2021, so it's completely pointless to follow them, other than as an intimidation tactic:

And they sent me anon hate. The thing is, they made it explicitly clear through what they said and the language they used, that it's them. They sent more than one message, but the one I'll attach here was obviously meant to freak me out the most, because it falsely starts out as a fandom ask, and then transitions into abusive language, as well as telling me there's more blogs they're stalking me from, basically making it clear that even if I block this url, I'll still not be safe from their stalking and abuse:

From a certain point on, I told them that whenever they make a comment to me, all I'll do is just remind them repeatedly that they're an antisemite, which is exactly what I've kept to. That's when I even bothered to respond. I postponed blocking their second blog, 'coz I wanted to put this post together first. Now I'm done with them.

To wrap this up, here are some final screenshots of their antisemitic abuse, how they obsessively comment on my posts, or posts that in their mind are related to me, and how they have started directly addressing random people who are commenting on my posts, telling them not to talk to "it," meaning they're also using de-humanizing language when referring to me, and of course once more employing the DARVO tactic by accusing me of that which they're guilty of:

My activity feed yesterday:

And not just yesterday. Love the bonus hateful language towards those who are disabled...

And this is just one of their comments on a post simply mourning the death of Israeli soldiers, and putting it in the context of multi-generational Jewish trauma:

To summarize again, please:

report and block this person

reblog this post if you feel comfortable to, in order to warn others

@staff please do something to stop the abuse. Thank you in advance!

[batfamfucker]

Felt that.

Note, I would never judge anyone for stuff they can't help, in the same way I hope no one judges me for my traits. I will say however, that contrasting traits is very much a thing people just don't realise. Someone else's traits has been overwhemling for me, and I know sometimes I can be overwhemling for other ND people with my own.

Example: Back in September when I was meeting new people and tryna make friends (I transferred to a different uni but I'm in second year so they all knew each other, but I was new), I had this happen with a guy I was almost-friends-with.

Side note: I ended up not being friends with him because he was literally a walking red flag. He apparently told someone who I've actually become very close friends with now that he 'wanted to date me so he could fix me'. Aka didn't see me as a friend, just something to feed his hero complex. He had a lot of drama with a lot of people for this type of stuff, and I didn't want that (Drama is exhausting to me. I've always had a chaotic life and I've worked hard to get away from those enviroments, so at this point when I see someone causing issues just for the sake of it, I just stop speaking to them) or to be involved with someone like that, or put myself in danger which seemed would have become the case if what he was saying was anything to go by, and the fact that he stalked the girl he had a crush on in first year. So. Yeah. And that was just one example of the sort of person he is.

Anyway- He has Autism and one of his stims is rocking back and forth. Very quickly. Vigorously. Constantly. I mean it. I would sit next to him in lectures (I do Drama and Theatre, so my lectures/lessons for that module were in a rehersal/performace space, aka the seating we had were seats that an audience would sit in, thus all the chairs are in rows that are connected) and throughout the entire time, he would rock back and forth very intensely. He never paused for more than about 60 seconds. I, who has ADHD (And am looking into also being tested for Autism), found it very overstimulating. Both physically because it would make my seat move, and because it was in the corner of my eye when I was trying to concentrate. Not helpful. He was also a bit much when performing and when doing group work, he always tried to take over.

Also, a lot of the drama he was involved in, he would use his Autism as an excuse for. But a lot of these people were also ND so it didn't help him at all.

I never judged him for his actual stimming and tics, just for being a dick in general. But his traits did contradict my own needs based on the traits that I had.

I wish NTs got that.

Also let this serve as a friendly reminder that that's also why some of us NDs hate other NDs. They blame their toxic behaviour on their ND traits.

Almost-friend-guy claimed he 'Wanted to help people due to his people pleasing nature that stemmed from his RSD and needing to feel liked', which was absolute bullshit. He literally would post everything about his 'friends' (Coincidentally, the guy who warned me out him) cutting ties with him and the drama he was involved in (That he started) by pretending he was tryna give everyone advice if they were going through similar situations. A 'If you're going through something similar, here's what I've learned from this experience...' (And it would be things people in uni would 100% know by now, or should, and that he was fully aware he was doing wrong, just lying about. Like being able to admit when you're wrong, for instance, instead of lashing out) after telling everyone on his Snapchat story (It was 'private' but had everyone from his main on it so it only looked private unless you knew. He had 100s of people. He would add people when he met them even if he never spoke to them again. Everyone on the course was on that story, as well as from other courses) the drama and painting everyone else as the bad guy via victimising himself. He knew what he was doing to others and would actually emotionally manipulate and guilt trip people.

Most of us NDs realise that explanation doesn't equal excuse when it comes to our disorders, and using them to get away with shit is vile. Others are just shit people in general and don't care so don't take accountability and responsability for their actions, even if it creates negative stigma and stereotypes for all of us, or feeds into the already plethora of exitsing ones.

So yeah. Me and your one other ND friend aren't gonna be mates. Our brains are different from each others just in the same way that yours is different to ours, and in the way that yours is different to another NTs. If no NT person's mind is same as another person's, why do you expect it to be that way for two completely different people just because they're both ND?

You know when someone goes "Oh, you're autistic? You should meet my buddy Ronathon he's autistic you'll love him he's great" and you meet him and he's the fucking worst

[fedzkun]

Villain Hunt Arc Meta: All For One’s Horrific Guide to Methodically Breaking Down Your Local OFA Holder

Ft. Turning the ‘Overpoweredness’ of OFA into a Setback, and AFO’s Successful Manipulations Of Midoriya Izuku

In which I also give AFO too much credit for all the pain he’s probably caused, and theorize that his plans to break Izuku actually started getting enacted even before he’d escaped Tartarus.

(A.k.a. me loving the angst because this is really good angst writing, but also hating it because the manga doesn’t come with a Angst with A Happy Ending tag unless you count Izuku’s ‘this is the story of how I became the greatest hero’ which isn’t really a guarantee of happiness )

So. What an arc! In the span of ten chapters (starting from the end of the War arc) Hori delivered a full-on Villain-looking, Vigilante Midoriya Izuku. Congratulations, Horikoshi, for finally introducing Akatani Mikumo!

The fast pacing and lack of breather panels are so fitting for this arc truly. AFO never gave them a moment’s rest. Yes, from henceforth as he’d promised... It’s always going to be his turn.

Izuku is making amazing progress with unlocking the full power of One For All. In his words, his abilities might as well already be on par with what a healthier All Might could do, and with no recoil to boot. Plus, there’s only one last quirk to unlock. For villain fights, I don’t think we need to worry about him losing, or him breaking anymore bones at this time.

Which, some might argue, makes Izuku too ‘OP.’

To start with, I want to talk first about the ‘overpoweredness’ of the One For All quirk. It’s a wonderful quirk truly, having inspired and amazed so many because of its sheer power. Used well, it could grant instant victories and restore the people’s wavering faith to the heroes. Because with a quirk like that on your side, everything’s going to be alright, right? There’s always gonna be that bit of hope that something is still strong enough to stand against the looming evil...right?

Yeah. That’s what the people who’d lived under All Might’s Era of Peace thought so too. History repeats.

OFA’s ‘OP-ness’ is both a great blessing and a great burden.

Here are some points on how the narrative has made OFA's 'overpoweredness' a setback:

1. All For One—that bastard—exploits the urge that comes with OFA. Just as ‘AFO the quirk’s’ goal is to steal OFA, OFA’s job is to defeat AFO, and Izuku is sacrificing himself to its cause.

Here’s another thing I want to point out: The conclusion that the heroes drew about AFO planning to capture Midoriya Izuku alive? In rereading, I’m starting to believe it’s nothing but a mere assumption of his plans. Aside from the deal made with Lady Nagant—of which I think AFO didn’t take seriously anyway and set her up for failure— (and while we as readers are already aware of his true intentions to wear Izuku down) it’s weird that nowhere had AFO directly mentioned to Izuku that he’s going to kidnap him and take his quirk from him.

2. OFA made Izuku so brilliant (e.g. Pros and former Pros alike going “This kid...”) that they really can't help but place all their hopes on him. Sighs. In an ideal world, this would be a dream come true of Izuku getting his due credit for all his heroic achievements Pro heroes have started to do to Izuku what they’ve done all their lives to All Might--which is to put him on the pedestal, while they fall back to cover him like guards/safety net. Hence, falling back to the One Pillar Model mindset.

3. OFA makes Izuku untouchable, not only to the villains, but also to his allies. Prime material to reinforce isolation. And if Izuku doesn't want to be caught, he won't make it easy for either side.

4. OFA IS SUS AF, OKAY? What are the Holders doing?! While gaining access to them makes it easier and convenient to have personal trainers in handling OFA, the vestiges prove to add a lot to Izuku’s mental load. If they’d allowed Izuku to come to the point of being caked with blood and filth, they’re not doing very well at guiding him. Realize that most of their arc interactions with Izuku is Quirk Talk. They, of all people, should know how AFO’s machinations work! Hey First, for the love of god, warn Izuku! He’s showing so many signs of being manipulated that you should be picking up on. please /sobs ;;

Tbf, like, I’m pretty sure that the Holders haven’t been as mentally okay either, which would feed into Izuku’s current mindset.

Now that the setbacks have been listed, let’s dive in to AFO’s plans to toy with Midoriya Izuku.

PHASE 1: Pre-Tartarus Breakout

Speaking of OFA being sus, there’s something that has been niggling at the back of my mind.

All For One basically tells Izuku: “You were my main interest that entire time I was in prison”. So, to pass the time in Tartarus (since he can’t use any(?) of his quirks), AFO has been doing nothing but apparently daydreaming and designing a personal hell for the Ninth Holder during that entire period. HOWEVER, it also made me wonder…

…Even before he’d broken out, had AFO made any moves at all in enacting his plans to break Izuku?

Yeah?

And here’s the kicker: he says that before Blackwhip bursted out.

AFO is a master manipulator. Assuming that Izuku doesn’t have any latent AFO quirk (for whatever reason *coughs* maybe dfo if you're a believer) or that Quirk Singularity has anything to do with it, what is the trigger to Izuku suddenly having access to Blackwhip?

I’d argue that it is All For One himself.

Why? What’s his goal? If you notice during the Joint Training arc, Izuku is feeling pretty confident about his progress. He’s rather happy and feeling blessed, and he is making leaps and bounds with base power OFA.

AFO can’t have that. He can’t allow the Ninth Holder to become too emotionally stable, or else he’d have a stronger will. So by somehow activating Blackwhip, AFO makes Izuku feel like he hasn’t made any progress with his quirk at all. During the evaluations, Izuku mentions that he still needs a lot to work on, and while not all of it is visible, with the way he behaves, it’s pretty evident that his self-confidence has taken a rather large hit.

But, wait! If AFO had tampered with OFA during the JT arc, paving the way to unlocking the rest (like he’d also done during the War arc when he tried to ‘steal’ it then), then wouldn’t AFO be sabotaging himself since he’d be making Izuku a more formidable opponent?

Sure. Except that the quirks inside OFA are mostly useless when it comes to the mental part of the fighting. The only thing they’re useful for is for the current Holder to be able to play keep-away in the physical realm. And AFO could easily just find counters for those through his work on Tomura.

You know how else the situation becomes advantageous for AFO? With every quirk unlocked, Izuku’s goalposts keep on getting away from him, and Izuku will always feel like he isn’t ready or prepared enough. Izuku will push and push himself to master OFA to its fullest, to become more powerful, at the cost of his mental/emotional stability and physical wellbeing as he wears himself down.

And every time Izuku grew more powerful, and became more ‘OP,’ he is burdened with all the aforementioned setbacks that came with it. He could be the most powerful person in the world, but it’s all for naught if he doesn’t take care of himself. This plan is both a high risk and high reward on AFO’s part, and as of the moment, with a bloody Izuku staggering all over, AFO is visibly reaping these high rewards.

PHASE 2: Post-Tartarus Breakout

He’s going to toy with Izuku until Izuku fucking breaks. What follows is his series of actions that instills the desired responses from Midoriya Izuku. Let’s see how the master manipulator plays this game of chess, shall we?

Izuku’s plan: Reach out to villains and try to save them.

AFO’s counter: Kill off those who turn their back against villainy and/or acknowledge Izuku as a true hero.

Izuku’s resulting response: Stop reaching out to villains. Gain an instant victory and move on.

After all, what do you get when you block a hero from showing sympathy? You get an unfeeling living weapon.

---

Izuku’s plan: Work with the top pro heroes to bring down AFO.

AFO’s counter: Make plans that will serve to highlight how the top pros are just slowing Izuku down. (e.g. Making moves while it’s raining, so as to divide them, but also to bring out No. 1 Hero Endeavor’s "slowness" in the rain. Nope, I don’t think that’s a throwaway line at all.)

Izuku’s resulting response: Grows more reckless, often leading the charge.

---

Izuku’s plan: Track AFO down.

AFO’s counter: Lead them to dead-ends. Or when they do supposedly reach something, endanger them.

Izuku’s resulting response: His tunnel vision worsens, as he grows more desperate.

---

Izuku’s plan: All Might following him around is okay since it would help All Might from worrying so much, and Izuku could simultaneously keep an eye on and protect All Might.

AFO’s counters: There are a lot to really fuck with this bond, damn you AFO.

Taint that passing the torch memory of ‘You’re Next.’

Declare that All Might no longer interests him. Liar. He outright stated before that he’s one for keeping a grudge

Send another assassin to Izuku [Underlying Message: You yourself are a walking danger zone to those whom you dearly care for.]

Izuku’s resulting response:

Interpret that memory of ‘You’re Next’ as taking up the position of being AFO’s shiny new plaything, and therefore supposedly sparing All Might from the torment (Unfortunately, making Izuku push AM away is just part of the torment ;A;)

Think that AM is no longer in the direct line of fire as long as AFO focuses on Izuku

Finally, push his last line of morale support away, and completely isolate himself.

Btw, I wonder how All Might feels about Izuku using Nana's quirk to get away from him.

---

The suffering doesn’t end.

Izuku’s plan: Save people.

AFO’s counters: (possibly offscreen) Send more villains and assassins to torment Izuku some more with the knowledge that he can’t save them. Sending villains out also puts innocents in danger.

Izuku’s resulting response: He won’t stop for anything. He won’t sleep, won’t eat, won’t slow down. He will always do his best to save as long as someone is in danger.

His body will keep on moving and moving and MOVING on its own.

--- All For One is very effective as a supervillain. He has managed to make the heroes think that his only goal is to capture Izuku alive for his quirk. He has Izuku right where he wants him: dancing to his tune at the palm of his hand, utterly toyed with, left with no escape in sight.

Psychologically vaulted.

.

.

.

PHASE 3

And so, if Izuku is being manipulated to drive himself further and further into self-destruction, what then is there left for All For One to do?

So much more. Because, my god, I think AFO has mastered the art of traumatizing the OFA Holders.

All For One once told All Might, “I will destroy all that you’ve protected.” And boy, is he delivering. He's definitely not done with AM btw.

First, he destroys All Might's image. And he is manipulating Izuku to drive himself to that point. To looking into his absolute worst.

And when that point arrives, AFO will hammer the final nail home.

Something like...

BEHOLD

JAPAN’S SYMBOL OF PEACE.

And oh, how it'll hurt. To see All Might's pride and joy be flaunted about as looking nothing like a hero to the masses, for him to be so utterly humiliated.

"See what I did to All Might's successor."

AFO will be banking upon the possibility that the angry masses will not want to be saved by whom they're tricked into viewing as someone that's the cause of all the pain. Izuku might have the willpower to stay true to his resolve, but with him on the verge of total breakdown, what would happen when he is shunned by the very people he is trying to help?

I once wrote a post about how the current events seem to be a bastardization of Izuku's wildest fantasies: he's working with the top pros, he has the most powerful quirk, and he's working with All Might (whom technically acts as a sidekick to him rn).

AFO has warped all that into a never-ending nightmare. And Izuku...

Izuku is really in need of saving.

Last thoughts:

Let me just say that it shouldn't be a competition about who gets to get through to Izuku. Right now, he’s gonna need all the help he can get, and it can’t be delivered by only one or two people. Saving Izuku is going to be a team effort, a solid support system that sees Izuku as their classmate/friend/student/actual person that they care about. And there’s sufficient space for that.

More hands reaching out means more chances to catch him if he falls.

[brandyllyn]

War makes thieves, and peace hangs them (pt5)

Told from POV of Triple Frontier characters and while it’s an OFC she is never described. Her “name” is a radio handle (Wildcat). 

Summary: Getting ready for the op, Wildcat and Santiago find themselves on a private channel. (Santiago Garcia x Reader)

Other chapters... My Masterlist

Word count: 2100. Read it on AO3.

Rating: R? NC-17? (Explicit) language. dirty talk.

"Here," Wildcat presses a small piece of silicon into Santi’s hand and he held it up. "They work off bone conduction, can just about pick up your thoughts." She hands him a cell phone. "I’ve got everything wired right now through this handheld. It should automatically temper the sound so it won’t matter what volume we’re talking at - it’ll modulate it into a narrow range." She grins, "Don’t want to blow out your ear drum."

Santi turns the earbud over in his fingers before pressing it into his right ear. "Comms check?"

She glances up at him, "Loud and clear."

It’s an odd sensation, he hears her voice like normal, but also simultaneously like she’s right inside his head with him. "What’s the range on these?"

"About a hundred yards." She taps a button on the phone in his hand and he no longer hears her echoing. Then she pulls a black beanie out of her bag, settling it on her head and making sure all her hair is tucked away. "Please remember that I won’t be on main comms. If there’s anything I need to know you’re going to have to repeat it to me."

"Yeah, about that-" he starts but she cuts him off.

"One of your giant radios is going to be too obvious. No way. I need to at least be capable of blending in."

Santi looks her up and down. She’s got on a pair of dirty jeans and a grey t-shirt. The jeans are loose, falling straight down her legs and hiding the curves of her body. The t-shirt… "What did you do to your-" he gestures at her chest.

She squats at her bag, slipping a knife into one boot and another behind her belt. "Left them back at the hotel." At his raised eyebrow she grins. "Didn’t you know all boobs are detachable?"

"We talking about boobs in here?" Will’s voice precedes him into the room.

Wildcat turns to him with a smile. "We should always be talking about boobs. They’re amazing."

"I don’t like it," Santi grunts.

"Boobs?" Benny asks with an incredulous look following behind Will, Frankie a few feet behind him.

"This," Santi gestures at Wildcat. "I don’t like you not being on primary comms. The delay could cost you." He looks at her once more, "I also wish you’d wear some armor."

She sighs, heavy and strained. "If someone sees me from the corner of their eye I need to look like I belong. One of your radios and a flak jacket will ruin the mirage."

"Ain’t no one mistaking you for a narco Wildcat," Frankie points out and Santi gives him an approving look before looking back at her.

"Yes. Exactly," Santi agrees vehemently.

She kicks her bag under the nearby table and then stands up to her full height, hands on her hips. "Look. You hired me to do this because I’m really fucking good at my job. So back off and accept I know more than you about how to do this." She holds up the keyset she lifted just fifteen minutes ago, "Unless one of you wants to gather the intel from an active safe house? No? Then I’ll say it again. Let me do my fucking job."

A quick dip of his chin is all he gives her and she doesn’t say anything in return. Instead she checks her watch, leaning to look out a crack in the papers covering the window. "How long we got?"

"Hour, give or take." Ben replies, sitting and leaning a chair back against the wall.

Santi pulls his 9mm out of its holster. Checks the magazine, checks there isn’t one chambered, and then hands it and the holster to Wildcat. "You’re going in there with more than a knife on you. And you can’t tell me a gun will be out of place. It will look odd if you don’t have one."

She wrinkles her nose but nods, repeating his motions and checking the safety before hooking the holster onto the back of her pants. 

"Might as well have kept the bullets Pope," Ben says with a smirk.

"You can fuck off," Wildcat mutters, looking out the window.

Pope raises an eyebrow. "What’s this?"

"Wildcat can’t shoot for shit," Ben laughs.

"Really?" This from Frankie who had finally stopped blushing every time he looked at her.

Wildcat grunts, turning away from the window and back to them. "I have a different skillset."

"How bad?" Will asks.

She shuts her eyes for a moment before shrugging. "Bad."

"Hey didn’t you wash out of SEAL training 'cause of it?" Ben asks.

She spins on him, "Why are you asking questions you already know the answer to?"

"How did you even make it out of basic?" Ben continues to needle.

A thunk echoes in the room and Ben turns his head slowly, his cheek grazing the knife that had appeared in the wall next to him. Frankie gives a low whistle and even Will gives her a more appraising look. Santi hadn’t even seen her move.

"I said I have a different skillset," she grits out before walking over and pulling the knife out. Santi is watching but as soon as it comes out of the wall it just… disappears. Somewhere.

"Enough," Santi snaps and everyone stands up a little straighter. "It’s time to get into place." No one needs a reminder, the moment the words are out everyone starts moving. Wildcat takes the phone out of his hand, turning the screen on and showing him the earbud controls before turning everything on and tucking the phone into his vest.

"Be careful," he tells her and sees her brows draw down but she nods and slips out the back door.

Santi grabs their gear and heads up to the empty apartment. The narcos knew his face which meant he was stuck running ops. From the apartment above he had a good view of the street out the window and Will and Frankie would be placing cameras. Ben would be on the corner, doing a much better job of pretending to read the paper than Frankie had. Will would be with Wildcat, ready to boost her up and then move to the extraction point. Frankie was on getaway car.

-Pope Pope, Ironhead.-

Santi reaches down to his radio. -Ironhead go.-

-Wildcat is up, moving to secondary.-

-Copy that Ironhead.-

"I see my babysitter has already contacted you." The voice purrs inside his head and Santi shifts his weight on his feet, looking down at the building across the street. He can’t see her, knows he can’t. Until Will got his camera setup he wouldn’t be able to see her.

"Shouldn’t you be keeping quiet right now?" he asks, scanning the street for signs of her anyway.

A low laugh, "I’m twenty feet off the ground. And I’m whispering. I can barely hear me."

"Well, you shouldn’t be distracting me," he says.

"From what? We’ve got at least fifteen minutes to kill." A pause and he can almost hear her brain working. "I can think of some fun ways to spend fifteen minutes."

He groans, "No. Absolutely not."

"Aw, Pope, why so serious? Don’t you ever have fun on these jobs?"

"No," he says again, even more firmly.

"That’s too bad," he hears a low hum and can feel it travel through his body, curling his toes. "I guess I’ll just have to entertain myself."

"Do not," he warns but she just laughs, low and dark. "I’ll turn your channel off," the note of caution in his voice should be enough to scare anybody.

"No you won’t. You won’t risk something happening to me while you’ve got me muted." Fuck she was right. Had called his bluff. "Which means that you, sexy man, are at my mercy."

Santi leans his head against the windowpane for a second, careful not to disturb the curtain he was peering around. "Didn’t you get enough of me last night?"

"Oh no," she is definitely purring now. Her voice low and sensual. "I don’t think I did. In fact, I think tonight you should let me tie you up."

"Not a chance," he says, shifting to look at the three camera feeds, of which only two are up. As he watches, the feed from Will’s camera comes through and now he can see her. Tiny on his screen and squeezed into a corner where two buildings meet, near a window. He tilts his head, trying to figure out the logistics of what she’s doing. She got one foot wedged into a crack, the other on maybe a half inch of exposed brick, her hands pressed out to each side. Her legs at an angle he’s never seen from a human before. Just looking at her makes his knees hurt.

"I didn’t know you were that flexible," he comments and sees her lift her head, eyes scanning until she spots the camera Will set up across from her. The camera is too far away to see her expression but he can somehow tell that she grins at him.

"Oh honey, this isn’t even half of it."

He groans and then tries to stifle it when he hears her low chuckle. Damn these earbuds are sensitive. He’s not used to them. Not used to having instant communication with the team like this. It’s nice, or at least would be if she weren’t using them for evil.

"You know I still have marks on my wrists from last night."

He did in fact know that. He had forgotten to untie her for far too long, until his belt had chafed her skin and she’d actually had to ask. He also knew better. He’d played these games before and generally wasn’t so careless. There was just something about her that made him want to push. Push things just a little further than was safe.

"I’ve also got a scratch on the inside of my thigh. I think it’s from your zipper."

He bites back the groan this time, clenching his fist so hard his knuckles hurt.

"I’m sad I didn’t get to see you. You have a beautiful cock, don’t get me wrong, but I’d’ve liked to have seen the rest of you."

The cock in question was already half hard. Santi grits his teeth.

"I mean, I barely even got to touch you. That’s really a shame. It is. I like touching. And tasting. Running my fingers and tongue over someone’s skin."

Why was she doing this? He’s watching the cameras, he really is, but he keeps coming back to her. The way her body is twisted against the building. She can’t move. Not really. But she doesn’t seem like she needs to. As uncomfortable as it looks to him, her voice in his head doesn’t seem at all fazed.

"I really enjoyed sucking your cock you know. I would do that again for you, anytime you’d like."

"Fuck," he breathes and he hears a low hum from her.

"Maybe you’ll be nicer next time. Let me take my time. Go slow. Draw it out for you. Suck on you til my lips go numb."

"Cat," his voice has an edge to it.

"Are you touching yourself Pope?"

He grunts, shifting in his chair. "No."

"Do you want to be?"

He doesn’t reply. Lets the silence stretch between them before he hears her sigh. "I wish I could touch myself right now. I’ve gotten myself all wet thinking about you." Another sigh, as heartfelt as the last. "Or even better, I wish you were here touching me."

He can imagine it easily. The way her legs are spread and the angle of the camera mean that he’s looking right into the V of her thighs. Hell, if she weren’t wearing pants he could probably see inside of her in this position. But she is, and he can’t, just sees the tight stretch of denim. His brain is more than happy to fill in the rest.

-Pope Pope, Catfish.-

Santi groans, shifting his attention to his radio. -Catfish go.-

-I’ve got eyes on the delivery truck.-

-Copy that.- The next bit is as much for Wildcat’s benefit as his own. -Eyes on the delivery truck. Allcom sound off.-

-Catfish go.-

-Ironhead go.-

-Benny go.-

"Wildcat go," a whisper in his ear.

"What do you hear Wildcat?" An old litany. One he’d said a thousand times before.

This time he doesn’t imagine her twist towards the camera, the grin she gives him. "Nothing but the rain Pope." Then she’s twisting against the building, a small jump and her hands catch the lip of a window just above her.

"Drop zone is clear," he tells her, watching the cameras. He can see her body sway, she’s holding herself by eight fingers and a single toe-hold. The delivery truck pulls up and he waits just a second longer before speaking one word.

-Go.-

Pt6

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep13

The true mystery of this show is trying to figure out how to even talk about each episode without just repeating myself or talking about other parts of the franchise, lmao.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut. Plus probably spoilers for both Umineko and Ciconia.

I’m not even sure where to begin talking about the fundamental issues this show has at this point, lol. It’s easy to just say that Sotsu on it’s own is bad, but I feel like it’s highlighting the fact that right from day one there were problems with the show’s structure and it’s intentions that have just become more and more of an issue as time’s gone on.

At the very least, I think that it was a huge mistake for them to have the gun cliffhanger happen midway through Gou, and to then spend so much time on backstory stuff and answer arcs. That just cast a negative shadow over all of those arcs because everyone was just impatient to get back to the cliffhanger. At this point I think they shouldn’t have even had Nekodamashi be in Gou to begin with. If they transitioned straight from Tataridamashi to Satokowashi then you could keep the general cliffhanger of revealing that Satoko’s the culprit without making people so impatient to go back to it and see what happens afterward.

But there’s also the issues like how Satokowashi revealed everything we needed to know about the howdunnit of the mystery, or how the whole gimmick of reusing the same scenarios as the VN in order to play both sides and make it technically accessible to new fans really wrote them into a corner and forced them to spend more time on the answer arcs than they needed to.

If we at least assume that the whole story ends in this arc, I think you easily could have condensed it all into one 2-cour season if they’d just committed to aiming this at old fans.

I guess there’s still a chance we’ll get some sort of continuation, but at this point I feel like the only way to get that much more content is if it ends up mostly retreading Satokowashi from a different perspective, which might actually drive me insane, lol.

In general it just feels like we’re already at the climax of the story one way or another, and there’s not many ways to keep it going for much longer without it seeming super forced. Like, Eua and Hanyuu are having their big confrontation with each other, and now Rika and Satoko are both on the same page, so they’re going to basically be stuck in a stalemate until one of them gives up. There isn’t really any mystery left to answer aside from giving more info about what’s going on between Eua and Hanyuu, so I’d rather they just cut to the chase and not drag this out.

We also know from TV listings that a different show is going to taking over Sotsu’s time slot next season, so unless it changes time slot for some reason, we’d probably have to wait until at least January to get a continuation, and I just dunno if that’d even be worth it.

I’ve already gone over my general ideas for how I think this will end, but I still think it’s entirely possible to wrap things up in just two more episodes. At the very least, if we get another full cour out of this then that’d probably just end up only having a few more episodes of actually new content, so my point still stands, lol.

I don’t think this episode did much to change my mind about where this is going, but it did at least clarify a couple of things. Like how Eua explicitly calls Hanyuu a ‘part of her’, which means that I’m probably right about my interpretation of them being two halves of the same being. There’s still a lot of different ways they could explain it, but at this point it’d basically still just boil down to the same idea of them being two parts of the same person.

It’s also more clear now that Rika more or less didn’t really know about Satoko being the culprit until the last minute, and was starting to get flashbacks to the end of Tataridamashi. I’m not entirely sure how to feel about that. It’s kinda hard to believe that Rika wasn’t at least suspecting Satoko by that point, but I do like the implication that Rika wasn’t fully dead when Satoko arrived, since that at least feels like pay-off for Satoko being so cocky and openly monologuing about how evil she is when she thinks Rika’s dead and can’t hear her.

I guess this episode also shows that there wasn’t anything particularly special going on with how Takano decided to confess to Rika in this one specific loop, which is also kinda underwhelming. Basically it seems like it just boils down to her feeling guilty about all of the stuff she remembers doing, but it’s still kinda weird that she didn’t confess to her in any previous loops. One of the weird issues with Gou/Sotsu’s storytelling is that Rika seemingly put no real effort into trying to investigate Takano even though she remembered her being the culprit, and I think that could have been really easily resolved if there was a scene like this in Onidamashi where Takano confesses her sins to Rika and leaves the village, since that would at least give a reason for her to not try and investigate them, and to assume that somebody else is behind these new loops. They could have even just had that happen off-screen and only be shown in Oniakashi if they didn’t want to spoil new fans. It just seems like a really easy change to make that would have made Rika’s passivity and hopelessness in this series way more understandable.

I think we’re also meant to assume that Satoko reacting to the box in this episode was just her faking it, since there’s no real indication that her conscience has returned or anything. But I’m not really sure why Satoko would go out of her way to fake that, when the trap box hadn’t even come up in that timeline. Maybe it would have made more sense if we saw her inner thoughts in that scene, but it kinda feels like they had to come up with some sort of scenario where Satoko would accidentally display knowledge that only a looper would know. Compared to how she’s been almost overpowered and hyper-competent in this series compared to Rika, it has a weird vibe of her being stupid because the plot demands it, lol. Either way it just seems kinda weird and contrived.

We also ended this episode on the gun cliffhanger again, which I saw coming, but it still kinda stings, lol. Hopefully the payoff is worth it. Realistically I think Satoko will just immediately shoot Rika, and we’ll cut to them having a proper confrontation in the meta world. With how they compared it to the ‘miracle’ scene with Takano in Matsuribayashi, it’s possible that they’ll somehow stop Satoko from shooting her, but I dunno. The stuff Hanyuu said about how this ‘isn’t the world that Rika fought for’ makes me think we’re probably not gonna stick with this loop for very long anyway, so I’d rather they just cut to the chase and get to the part where the two of them fight it out in the fragment world once and for all. Which at least seems to be what that one part of the OP is teasing at.

On that note, the only other mysterious part of the OP [and the key visual] left is the older club members in new outfits, which still feels like a bit of a loose thread, but it’s entirely possible that it doesn’t really mean much. For one thing, it could be as simple as it being related to an epilogue scene back in the Matsuribayashi timeline where they’re in different outfits to the ones we saw them wear last time we saw them. Either way I don’t really think the other club members are going to be super relevant to how this all ends, so one way or another whatever that stuff is related to could still just come up in the next two episodes.

Basically the question is just how exactly the big conflicts are gonna get resolved, and what note we’ll end things on. Which also ties into the larger question of whether or not this is genuinely meant to tie into Umineko [and maybe Ciconia] like they’re indicating, or if that’s some kind of elaborate troll.

I know i’m biased, but I think all the Umineko and Ciconia stuff is totally sincere, and Ryukishi really is using this as a way to start tying the wider WTC-verse together in a more concrete way, so that’s what I’m basing my theories off of.

With that in mind, I still think this will end with Rika and Satoko officially abandoning their humanity and becoming witches together, with the sword maybe being an in-universe plot device to depict that process. And with the reveal that Eua and Hanyuu are for all intents and purposes two parts of the same person, I feel like their side of things will probably end with them merging together in a way that creates Featherine, which would at least explain why Featherine’s personality is more mild than Eua’s, and also why Bernkastel is her miko, and why Featherine’s whole name is a giant pun about Hanyuu. It’d also fit with the whole religious motif that Hanyuu has going on if she basically ‘sacrifices’ herself to neutralize Eua. It’s at least the closest I think we’ll get to seeing Eua be ‘defeated’.

And on that note, I don’t really think this will end with anyone like Eua or Satoko being used as a villain who everyone else defeats so they can go back to their happy ending, since that’s the exact sort of thing that Ryuukishi regrets doing originally, and is why we’ve gotten so many redemption arcs for people in Gou/Sotsu. So I think at most we’ll see Eua get turned into Featherine so she’s less actively hostile towards everyone else, but I think this will ultimately end with Rika and Satoko reconciling and mending their relationship.

Over on the Matsuribayashi timeline side of things, I feel like this is gonna end up paralleling Nekodamashi a bit, and we’ll find out that Satoko ended up planning to kill herself in the Saiguden, but Rika and the club will show up at the last minute and she’ll choose not to. Then we’ll probably see her and Rika talk things out properly, and maybe Satoko will find out that Satoshi woke up from his coma or whatever, and that way they’ll all still get their happy ending, while also simultaneously we can still have Rika and Satoko split off their witch selves into separate entities that become the Bern and Lambda we know in Umineko.

It’s possible they’ll do something with the idea of Satoko losing her game and being sent to a world without Rika, but that also might just not happen at all. So who knows.

If they really lean into the idea of this directly setting up for Umineko, then it’d be neat if we also see Satoko and Rika meet Ikuko in the future of the Matsuribayashi timeline.

There’s also the Ciconia teases to think about, but they seem to be going in the direction of Ciconia taking place before all this even happened, so I think that’ll be kept kinda nebulous and unexplored until Ciconia itself finishes. Ryukishi might announce a release date for phase 2 after Sotsu ends, but I think it’s way too early for anything like an anime adaptation of it. I’d rather they wait until at least after it’s finished before they do something like that.

On the other hand, Umineko’s been over for like ten years, so it’d be much easier to do something like a remake for it after this. I have a lot of thoughts about how that might go if they do that, but I’m gonna wait until Sotsu ends and then make a separate post about it.

Anyway I guess now I just have to wait and see what happens next week, lol.

[forever--darling]

the frat boy’s boxers - s.m.

 college frat au: part five

warnings: 12.9k words of cursing, flirting hockey players, and being a stealth ninja

College was no joke. It was impending, heavy, and made you question everything about your worth. Stressed and unsure of every decision, balancing your time seemed impossible. You had figured that out quickly as your four other classes started and within two weeks the homework started to pile up. The lectures were long and your notes were messy and barely legible. You had no extra time to redo them and it drove you mad. It was all starting to get to your head and you hadn’t even been accepted as a sister yet or moved forward on the black op. mission. If you were already falling apart now, how were you supposed to survive midterms or finals? It might kill you, you were convinced. 

From studying to talking strategies with Maggie about Becca’s next planned moves and being an ear for Emily to talk for hours about Geoff, you were easily fried. Maggie wouldn’t tolerate any of Emily’s boyfriend talk, which meant you had to, as your roommate seems too consumed in other things. All having to do with Becca Bradley. You hadn’t heard from her in two weeks. Those fourteen days gave Maggie time to prepare as much as she could, listing any possibilities or conjuring ideas of what to do to Becca once you all got in. She was so sure of the fact that she got used to ditching her usual leather ensemble for sweaters and ripped jeans, but she swore as soon as this was all over she was dying her hair again and putting her lip piercing back in. 

On another note, Emily seemed consumed in her newfound fling with the hockey player. After their first date to a drive-in movie, your friend had easily become smitten. Though you all had been warned about the wandering ways of a Washington hockey player, Deja and Kiara agreed that if she were to be involved with any of them, Geoff was the best option. This was deemed true as he seemed to fall just as fast as she did and they had quickly become the news across campus. “Hockey player Geoff Warburton has a thing for freshman sorority pledge” was the gossip. He hadn’t officially asked her out but it was safe to say he would be soon with how much time they had spent together in the last few weeks. In other words, Geoff Warburton was basically a taken man. 

The others continued with their fuck boyish ways waving off any idea of a monogamous relationship. As the season was a mere week and a half away, their focus was shifting slightly away from their typical bullshit. They were focused more on early workouts and captain practices. You hadn’t even thought about Shawn or seen him in weeks. Only slight glimpses across campus and the looming meeting of the two of you was still up and coming. As for the other jock, you hadn’t spoken since the scavenger hunt. 

Henry seemed uninterested in you at this point and it was like the two of you were stuck in a silent fight, though there was nothing neither of you should be mad about. So he was a part of the hockey team. It wasn’t like he was entitled to tell you or needed to mention that he also was in the douchiest fraternity on campus. You weren’t even that mad about it. It was more about how he seemed to be angry at you for wanting to rush to become a member of ADPi. Was the idea of you being in a sorority that bad? You weren’t sure but you couldn’t waste time thinking about that or his lingering stares during the one class you shared. 

As for Becca herself, after the scavenger hunt, initiation had become stone silent. Becca had not sprung on any of you about the next step of rushing and it left you unsettled and waiting for it every second of every day. Until now…. That impending call had come. Finally, the next stage of rushing was going to commence and you were just as nervous as the first. Make any sudden movements and you might be kicked out, killing all of your chances of becoming a sister of ADPi which meant kissing those pretty plans of yours goodbye. 

This morning, you had woken up to find a pretty pink envelope slipped under your door inviting you, Emily, Maggie, and the rest of the pledges to a brunch styled meeting. Set in between two of your classes, your mind was a jumbled mess from the moment you left your dorm all the way to the end of your Psychology class that was well forgotten as you couldn’t pay attention. 

It was set in the middle of campus at the courtyard near the cherry blossom trees and you had never felt so out of place, more so than the pledges dinner and the scavenger hunt. As always the few sorority sisters present were pressed and perfect without a single hair out of place and like a set of copy cats most of the pledges appeared the same. Which as you scanned the few tables was only six, including you. Your teammates from the scavenger hunt all sat among the few chairs, with combed hair and neat makeup, plates filled with food. Deja and Kiara huddled close together and waved once they saw you appear. Hana was basically in her own little world as she stared at her freshly turquoise painted nails. 

Maggie and Emily sat at another table nearby, whispering with their heads bowed low, still oblivious that you finally were there. The sisters themselves stood off to the side of the two tables in a small huddle, all surrounding Becca, the ruler of all evil, herself. You couldn’t help but glance down at your leggings and a three-quarter zip-up hoodie as you saw the Chanel purse in her hand and her blush ruffled skirt. Even Maggie was dressed in a pair of nice jeans and a silk tank top. You sighed, running your fingers through your hair and adjusting any loose pieces before you sneaked over and slipped into the third chair by your friends. 

Quickly their conversation died as they noticed you and offered smiles but both disappeared as they noticed what you were wearing. “What’s going on?” 

“Dude, what are you wearing?” Maggie gasped, completely ignoring your question, “You couldn’t have changed?” 

“I didn’t have time.” 

Emily patted your arm softly as over your shoulder she found the huddle of sorority gremlins starting to disperse, “I’m sure it’s fine just act natural. You’ll blend right in.” 

“Em, there are six of us, they are bound to notice,” Maggie mumbled just as Becca stepped forward, her eyes trained on the six of you, the final pledges. 

“Wait,” you spoke softly, “What do you mean there are only six of us? Where are the rest of the pledges?”

“No idea, but my guess is we are about to find out,” Maggie replied through gritted teeth ending all further comments to form around the table. 

You were chewing on your lip at this point, fear making itself comfortable in your stomach. Even as you tucked yourself under the table as far as you could, it didn’t hide you away from their stares. The hawk-like eyes of the power-hungry and malicious girls that you never had to deal with in high school but instead had the pleasure of meeting now. Who knew after high school, girls couldn’t get a pair and grow up. Turns out college was a lot more like high school than you could ever expect, just a much bigger playing field. 

Becca clapped her hands together gaining not only the attention of the six of you, the pledges, but anyone close enough to eavesdrop. You nervously gulped too as her gaze scanned over the remaining survivors and did a double-take when they found you. She smirked slightly before clearing her throat which only made the tension so much thicker and unbearable. 

“Ladies,” she spoke, putting on that overly fake tone, she only used when she wanted to impress, “It’s so nice to see all of you again. It was longer than I expected our time apart to be but there are reasons for it.” 

Pausing, briefly, she snapped her fingers and like a path formed, out from the back of the group, Amanda appeared. Her hair was just as red and bright as it had been weeks ago. She handed a bottle of water over to Becca and silence washed over the courtyard as she unscrewed the cap and went to take a sip. No one else spoke and she didn’t continue until the lid was put back on the bottle and she had handed it back to Amanda. 

“I wanted to congratulate you all on being the final six pledges and making it to the last step of rushing. There was one more thing we had for you to do after the scavenger hunt but since the other six pledges were disqualified we didn’t think it would be necessary for you to have to do it.”

Deja suddenly raised her hand, like a student to a teacher, and it was a surprise that anyone would dare interrupt Becca, “If you don’t mind me asking why were the other girls disqualified?” 

You noticed at the simple question, Becca’s jaw lock as she took in a deep breath and answered, “They cheated their way through the scavenger hunt. Someone from outside of rushing was following you all around and repeating your answers through a walkie-talkie to the other team. I do not tolerate people who take shortcuts to win.” 

The answer alone made your fear and worry disappear for a second. And within that second it gave you a chance to bask in all the glory that was Lindsey getting exactly what was coming to her. You weren’t even in the sorority yet but already Emily’s side of the plan was almost complete. She beat out her roommate and now she was only one step away from locking the deal and making Lindsey go clinically insane. There was a chance. A very slim chance that this all could work out in the end. You had doubts, many doubts but it was already headed in the right direction. 

“As for the rest of you, your final challenge is here. Individually over the course of this week, randomly and at any point or time each of you will be given one task. They will all be different and something you must complete on your own. If you decide to pussy out and refuse to do it, then clearly you just aren’t Alpha Delta Pi material. But if you do do it, then you will have successfully made it through initiation.” 

Chloe, Becca’s most trusted sidekick who stood proudly attached to her hip, leaned forward a playful look on her face, “From there we will move you into the house and you can start getting comfortable with how things work and the tasks we as a sorority are in charge of.” 

The other girls stood silently behind Becca and Chloe, probably too having gone through such a lengthy and crazy process. You wondered if rushing was like this every year for the pledges or if they came up with new ways to torture the initiates so it was always different. Suddenly though the question seemed irrelevant as your questioning was replaced with hoping above all things that you wouldn’t be the first pledge to be given a task. You didn’t know if you could handle that especially when you had no ideas of what they could ask. They could make you do anything and it would be less nerve-wracking to have another girl or two go before you. 

“Okay, so I think that’s everything,” Becca announced, pulling her purse higher up on her shoulder, “I will be seeing all of you at one point this week.” 

“Good luck,” Chloe added. 

“Yeah, they’ll need it,” you heard another sorority sister whisper towards Chloe or tried as it came out far louder than a whisper.

You sighed loudly, hand wiping at the sudden sweat across your forehead as one by one in a line behind Becca they began to leave, not even daring to sit down and eat some of the food. They were all laughing as they left too and you were beginning to think that this was all a scam. That maybe they weren’t trying to find new members at all but a group of freshman girls to force into doing stupid stuff to only make fun of them. It was an idea but it wouldn’t be proven true until you did such a stupid thing and find out if you were accepted into the sorority or not. 

Your thoughts and silent worrying quickly came to an abrupt stop as a buzz from a phone on the table filled your ears. Eyes locked onto it, you watched as Emily picked it up with a soft smile on her face not the slightest bit affected by the sisters or Becca. But as fast as the smile appeared it was gone. Her brows furrowed and her lip found a place in between her teeth as she thought deeply. Both you and Maggie had picked up on this and shared a look before your attention solely was put on Emily. 

“Em, what is it?” you asked.

“It’s me,” she responded, it coming out like a mumble but enough to get the three other girls at the next table to lean closer in anticipation, “I have the first task.” 

“Woah, they work fast,” Maggie commented as she leaned over to read the text message over the blonde’s shoulder.

“What do you have to do?” 

She took in a deep breath before releasing it slowly, “I have to set up a car wash on the edge of campus by myself in only a bikini.” 

Maggie chuckled but covered it quickly with a cough, “Well, I can already tell that Geoff is not going to be very happy about that.”

*

“How’s she doing?” 

“Oh, Emily, she’s fine. Geoff on the other hand not doing so well,” your roommate said as she took the extra cup of coffee you handed to her. 

It was two o’clock in the afternoon and Emily had started the car wash at eleven. She couldn’t be done until four. For five hours, she was supposed to be giving out free car washes while dressed in a hot pink triangle bikini. You remembered earlier this morning the look on the girl’s face after the brunch as she was given the ensemble. She had been on the brink of having a small panic attack, but now as you looked at her across the street it seemed she didn’t even acknowledge it anymore. After three hours of wearing it, she didn’t even notice it or the creepy stares she got from the random old dad’s that stopped as they saw the sign. 

As soon as it was eleven, Maggie had claimed a picnic table at the edge of campus, close enough that you could see the show from across the street. For the past couple of hours, people have been filtering in and out, between their classes, checking in to see how she was doing. In the morning it had been Maggie and Kiara. Then Deja and Hana stopped while you were stuck in your back to back classes. Now you finally had been able to stop, only to find Geoff and Marcus there as well. Maggie had mentioned that among all the chaos, Becca had stopped earlier. 

She was with a few of the other girls and at the sight alone she couldn’t stop laughing. It took her minutes to calm down before she subtly raised a single eyebrow and gave a nod of approval. The action alone led Maggie to believe that Emily was in and had passed her individual test. Which meant one down, two to go. You weren’t going to lie, you gave Emily credit. You didn’t know if you would have been able to do that which only worried you. If you were scared about the first task, there was a chance they were only going to get worse from here and your’s, the one Becca decides to bestow on you, could be ten times worse than doing a car wash by yourself half-naked. There was that greater chance and it left you completely terrified. 

Geoff sat on top of the picnic table, hands folded over his face like he couldn’t even watch. Though he and Em weren’t official official, you had noticed in the last few weeks how he felt just by looking at her. He seemed so much different than most of the other hockey players, even his best friend who stood on the other side of him. 

“Geoff, will you take a fucking breath she is fine,” Maggie snorted as she took a long sip from her iced drink. 

He shook his head as he sent the smallest glare, like a child who was being scolded, over at Maggie, “I can’t, knowing that some of those guys have already gone through the line twice.” 

You laughed underneath your breath, it mixing within the sound of Marcus’s. You were only talking to the pair of frat guys because of one sole purpose, Emily. Since she and Geoff got together, the friend groups were mixing more since they hated to be apart for too long. Which was another thing Maggie was not used to… sharing Emily. She had become slightly overprotective of both her and you. After hearing everything from both Deja and Kiara, she wasn’t ready to trust all of Geoff’s intentions which only led to them bickering like siblings.

“Well, do you blame them? Look at her,” Marcus slapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder, ready to push his buttons further, “She do be lookin’ fine.” 

Geoff’s glare shifted away from Maggie towards Marcus, except this time it deepened. Then all at once, he raised his fist and punched the other boy hard into the shoulder. Marcus flinched grabbing at the sore arm as a loud groan escaped from his lips, “Oww. What the fuck?” 

“Don’t talk about her like that… EVER. You got it?” 

Marcus backed down, his smile wiped clean from his face, “Okay, okay. I was just kidding anyway. Blame Becca man, not me, and if you’re going to act like this why don’t you just ask her out already?” 

“Yeah, Geoff,” you perked up, sending your own smile over at the guy your friend was crushing on, “Why don’t you ask her out already?” 

He shrugged, suddenly becoming a fumbling blushing teenager, “We’re taking things slow. We’re just trying to get to know each other first.” 

“Taking things slow, mhmm okay. I didn’t know we were back in middle school! What, are you going to ask her dad’s permission first too before you take her out on another date?” Marcus mumbled underneath his breath, causing a giggle to slip from your mouth

Across the street, Emily was spraying down a soapy Honda civic with a hose, while soaked from head to toe. Her hair was slicked back into a ponytail and though she was no doubt uncomfortable, she smiled at the customer, who was a man, definitely in his early fifties, like she was having a good time. 

“I think it’s fine that you guys want to take it slow,” Maggie announced getting a surprised look from Geoff, “But let’s make one thing clear. If you do anything to hurt her, I will fucking kill you.” 

“I would never hurt her. Why would you think that?” 

“Oh, no reason at all,” she mumbled, not bothering to meet his eye. 

“No, what? Because that’s another thing, why do you always make comments like that? Like I’m bad news or something?” 

At his question alone, both you and Maggie shared a look, long enough that the two other boys saw it and understood that you two had a mutual understanding. Clearing your throat, you leaned against the picnic table in between your roommate and Geoff, your gaze moving back to the car wash. Marcus and Geoff shared a look of their own before zoning in on you and you alone. 

“What was that look about?” 

“None of your business, Marcus,” Maggie barked.

Geoff leaned closer towards you, “Y/N?” 

You sighed, giving in, “Well... you’re in a fraternity and an athlete. You are pretty popular on campus, and we’ve heard some stuff.” 

“Stuff what kind of stuff? From who?” his eyes narrowed and his mouth dropped as his tone was nothing short of offended.

Maggie raised her head high, stopping you from slipping anything else to the pair of hockey players, “We’re not allowed to reveal our resources.” 

Marcus rolled his eyes, “That’s code word for my sister and her friends.” 

“Pfft, is not.”

“Y/N, you are a shitty liar,” he grinned, leaning over Geoff to get closer to you.

“I am not.” 

“You are though,” Geoff said, agreeing.

“I am not a shitty liar,” you replied, jaw tensing.

Marcus smirked, “Okay, whatever you say, but answer me this. Has anything that they’ve said about me ruined all chances of us going out?” 

“Oh, yeah,” you replied, laughter laced into your response. It seemed with Marcus the more you talked, the more flirty he got, and you weren’t the only girl he was talking to. It was flattering but you would never go down that road especially with Marcus who you loved turning down daily. 

“Point proven,” Maggie pointed over at Marcus as he was shoved off of Geoff back to the other side of the picnic table and away from you. 

“What do you mean by point proven?” 

“Marcus, you flirt with every girl you meet like you’ll get a prize for each one you can charm into your bed.” 

“Okay true,” he admitted, his smirk stretching at his own words, “But we didn’t have to acknowledge it.” 

Before Maggie could say anything else to argue because it turned out she liked to argue with both of them and not just Geoff, she bit her tongue as both of your eyes fell back to the boy with long hair. His hands were once again folded in his lap and his icy orbs were focused back on the girl across the street. There was a crinkle in between his eyebrows and his lips were curled up into a pouty look. He was such a puppy dog, you had realized. 

“Are you sure she is okay? Maybe, I should go over there and make sure everything is fine,” he announced, moving to stand from the table.

Instantly, as fast as he tried to stand, your arm stretched out across his chest halting all sudden movements. Your eyes were wide as you stared at him, practically begging as Maggie turned with another threatening look forming on her sharp features. “Don’t you dare move!”

“What?” his voice shook and his eyebrows rose to his forehead.

“Becca has eyes everywhere,” Maggie hissed.

“Geoff, if you go over there someone will report back to Becca and they’ll think you tried to help her. Which will kill Emily’s chances of getting in,” you explained, softly and calmly. 

Slowly, he relaxed back into his previous position and you retracted your arm that was acting as a seat belt. His shoulders dropped and he went straight back to pouting. You watched his every move carefully, in case he decided to get up and make a run for it. You were prepared to go after him and tackle him to the ground if it meant Emily got a spot in the sorority. Nothing was going to get in the way, especially a love-struck hockey player. 

“Look on the bright-side there, Warburton,” Marcus said as he patted his friend on the shoulder, “She’s the first one to go out of the other pledges.” 

Geoff sent a cold glare over to his friend, “How is that supposed to make me feel better?” 

“It’s only going to get worse from here. You know how Becca is which means that these two are going to get it far worse than Emily did.” 

At his words alone, Geoff’s glare softened and was replaced by the largest grin. He laughed and covered it poorly with a fake cough. You and Maggie’s head’s slowly turned away from your friend to Marcus, the guy who had been testing your patience all day. Your mouth fell open slightly and your brows furrowed, wanting nothing more than to punch him in that moment. 

His chocolate orbs looked past everyone else once again to you and he smirked proudly, “I’m not making my chances with you any better am I?” 

“No, not in the slightest,” you replied, scrunching your nose at him as your glare only deepened. 

“Shit! Well, I guess there is always tomorrow. Right, sweetheart?” he winked. 

You were not amused in the slightest, though some days you didn’t mind the flirting and on occasion found it funny but right now it was nothing short of annoying. He was entitled and had the biggest ego just because of his athleticism and six pack. Because god forbid, girls actually wanted better for themselves than a fuckboy fraternity brother. You were starting to think finding a boy with an actual personality and a decent bone in his body wasn’t possible. Henry was the single exception but now, you were starting to think that the exception didn’t exist. 

Maggie shook her head as she huffed loudly underneath her breath, “Marcus, you are such a fucking dick.” 

“Thanks,” he smacked his lips as if he were chewing gum, “Right back at ya, Mags.” 

“Okay, I should not be associated with him,” Geoff announced raising both of his hands for it to be noted among everyone else, “I am not like my friends when it comes to girls.” 

“Alright, you keep telling yourself that man,” Marcus, cackled only for it to fall silent at the buzzing coming from his phone in his pocket. Pulling it out, he let out a noise of approval at what he saw, “Well, look at that. Okay, we gotta go.” 

Geoff’s brows furrowed and annoyance dripped from his words, “What? Why?” 

“Shawn’s at the rink and he wants us to come work on some drills with him.” 

“Again why?” his tone deepened with both irritation and sass, “He has been on our ass nonstop lately. Coach isn’t starting official practices until next week and the home opener is still two weeks out.” 

Marcus took in a deep breath before letting it out, “Dude, chill, you know how he is. He just wants us to do well this season especially since everyone is convinced we are going to win the conference and the Frozen Four tournament again.” 

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Geoff grumbled as he peeled himself from the picnic table. He looked over at you and Maggie expectantly, a single brow raised high in the air, “You’ll keep any eye on her until she’s done?” 

You nodded, “Yeah, we got her.”

“In case, you forgot, we’ve been taking care of her longer than you have, Warburton,” Maggie waved, fake sweetness sounding almost too sarcastic coming from her tongue. 

He just rolled his eyes at her comment as he was used to her attitude towards him at this point, “Yeah, okay, we'll see you guys later.” 

“Bye Geoff.” 

Expectantly, Marcus turns towards you, his arms raised as if waiting. Sighing, you send him a soft smile, “Bye Marcus.” 

“See you, sweetheart, don’t miss me too much while I’m gone.” 

“Oh, I won’t,” you reassured one last time, knowing it wasn’t going to make your feelings any clearer to him. He was a verified flirt and to confirm every thought you have about him, he sent one more wink before he went jogging after his friend and teammate. 

Once the two of them were finally gone leaving you and your roommate in peace, you visibly relaxed back into the picnic table, elbows leaning against the table top and a sigh left from your parted lips. Maggie’s actions mirrored yours. She shook her head, drawing your attention as she frustratingly ran her fingers through her dark black hair. 

“What did Emily get herself into?” she whispered, eyes once again back on the blonde across the street who herself looked to be getting tired, “You know we were warned about the hockey players and what does she do? Decides to date one. Then she drags us into having to hang around them.” 

You chuckled, now knowing Maggie better than almost anyone else as you had spent the last how many weeks together straight. You knew when she was genuinely pissed off or actually bothered. Though her words were nothing short of being annoyed and angry at Emily, her tone gave away that it was not as serious as it seemed. “To be fair, I was the one who pushed her on that date with Geoff and let’s be reminded that all of this is only happening because you wanted us to rush.” 

“You’re right,” she groaned, “This whole thing is on us and we are the sole cause of having to deal with Geoff Warburton and Marcus Jackson.” 

“It’s not all that bad. Geoff’s kind of nice and I mean Deja and Kiara said he is the best choice if she were to be with someone from the team.” 

“Yeah, except I don’t trust him. Look, we can’t deal with Em getting hurt right now. We have to stay focused on the plan,” Maggie explained. 

“Yeah, I know,” you mumbled out, looking over at Emily to find her waving off the last car in the line. As soon as it was gone, her welcoming over cheery smile was gone and her exhaustion came out for anyone close enough to see. 

“Fuck!” 

Your head snapped back over to Maggie as you heard her cuss loudly. She stared down at her phone clutched tightly into her palms. You peered curiously over her shoulder, “What? What is it?” 

“Becca texted me, I’m next,” she said as she turned her phone for you to read the text. 

“Tonight at 1, teepee the Gamma Gamma Sigma sorority house.” 

*

It was Thursday, the weekend was looming and things were closing in on you. Every single pledge had gotten their task and went through with it. Every single one of the six pledges had gotten a text, gotten through what they were being forced to do and were accepted into the sorority with open arms, except for you. You were the last one standing, the one left waiting for her task. Waiting and worrying about the humiliation that would come with that text and whatever it would say. They only did get worse just like Marcus had said and by Wednesday when you were officially deemed the last pledge he laughed in your face. 

On the first day, Emily set up a car wash in nothing but a bikini. That night, Maggie tee-peed another less popular sorority house. The next night Deja egged the least liked professor’s car. Then on Wednesday, Hana had to set up a kissing booth. Hours later that night while at a football game, Kiara had to run out on the field and moon the quarterback. 

It only got worse, which meant what were you going to be made to do. It was Thursday and you were the last one. The week played in your head over and over, all of your friend’s humiliation or almost getting into trouble flying around your mind. How they felt and how they all got in and now were a part of the sorority. It was all bringing anxiety into your life, in a way you hadn’t felt in years. You were terrified and beyond scared about a one sentence text you were waiting to get from a college girl. 

All of this happened to be on your mind as you sat in your Cellular and Molecular Biology class that morning. You needed above all to pay attention if you had any hope of passing the next lab but all you could think about was hockey players, roommates, and horrifying sorority sisters. You were thinking about how stressful it was which only made you more stressed the more you thought about it. It didn’t help that you got a text from Kiara in the group chat saying that there were videos and pictures of her pulling her pants down at the game floating around online. Your class no longer was of as importance as your worry trumped it easily. 

Finally, as the time seemed to pass the professor dismissed the class. Jumping from your seat, you desperately weaved your way through the crowd towards the door. You were running on three hours of sleep and one cup of coffee and were sure that whatever Becca had planned you wouldn’t be ready. A jumbled mess, more texts began to flood in. Emily. Maggie. Kiara. Deja. Hana. You needed to get to your dorm room, as it had become your safe haven from the campus and the world. You would calm down as soon as you were in that room and you could unplug from this college massacre. 

As another text came in from Hana complaining about how her bottom lip had gotten cut from kissing the president of the chess club, you began to pick up your pace into a fast walk. The sun was lingering through the clouds and the wind was hitting you in the face which eased the slight panic attack building in your chest. You were glancing up and down from the sidewalk to your phone as you tried to respond to the texts with your notebooks slipped between your side and elbow. 

You were not paying attention as your mind was locked onto the phone screen in your hand and each terrifying sentence sent in from your friends. Each getting worse by the second. Suddenly, walking with your phone out seemed just as damaging as out of nowhere you collided straight into someone else like an intersection crash.

Notebooks went flying in the air, loose pieces of paper flew out. They floated slowly down, raining over you as your notebooks slapped against the sidewalk at your feet. Sighing, sadly, you shoved your phone into your pocket and dropped to your knees. Hands dancing for all of your stuff, you were trying desperately to catch your breath. 

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” you sputtered out as you reached for your scattered notes. 

The vibrating from your phone had quickly became ignored and every text disappeared from your head-space as the sound of a bag dropping to the ground let out a loud thud, startling you. Glancing over at the black duffel bag, you felt a sudden intake of breath as the person crouched to help pick up your mess. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all good.” 

Just like that, other things were thrusted in your line of sight, making your head spin and shake with all new thoughts. You were no longer worried and on the verge of having an all out panic attack. Your breath was cut short for a whole different ray of reasons and as he spoke, it felt like you would never be able to release the breath you were holding. 

You were frozen, unable to move, or think as he continued to pick up your jumbled and barely legible written notes. His head was tilted down, focused on the task at hand but would spare you a glance here and there which only made your stomach lurch up into your chest. You were already a mess way before and he was not making things better in the slightest. Your head was a mess itself so trying to talk or have a conversation at this point was borderline impossible. 

The hockey player was dressed in the same white hoodie that he wore weeks ago, his name and number printed on the back. That familiar red flush to his skin was nowhere to be seen like you had seen it at the rink and up close you had to agree with Kiara that he was completely gorgeous. She wasn’t wrong and after so long not wanting to admit it, you knew she was right. It was the way, his hair even when it didn’t look brushed seemed styled and didn’t have a stray of hair out of place. Or how he had a small scar on his cheek that seemed less like a flaw and more like a perfection. Or how the gold chain he wore around his neck and tucked into his shirts was now revealed to be a St. Christopher pendant. 

There were so many more things you could name in your dizzy state but you were having an issue focusing on saying them as his eyes, his warm almost golden eyes flicker up at you. His long eyelashes brushed his cheeks with each time he looked back down to his hands where he continued to pick up your shit, that you had dropped upon you running into him because you weren’t paying attention where you were going… again. That single ‘S’ shaped curl fell across his forehead. Except this time, it appeared a little shorter making you wonder if he got a haircut.

You were staring and it was evident as he had picked up the last of your notebooks and met your gaze. He wasn’t even surprised to find you already looking at him and as his warm brown orbs found yours, that aching knee-weakening smile appeared on his face. The kind that will make your body tingle every single time and your brain to malfunction and turn to mush. As you saw that smile, up close, in person, and directed at you, it snapped you back into reality. This was Shawn Mendes. 

He wasn’t just some cute guy on campus you stumbled across. He wasn’t a nobody. He was the guy. A somebody. His face was littered across campus on every poster and sign you saw. He was the star who scored the winning goal at the Frozen Four last year. His figure alone demanded attention. He was the frat boy at the party who had all the girls’ attention and usually took one home at the end of the night. He was known as Becca Bradley’s main hookup and forever dream man. He wasn’t just a normal guy as much as you wished he was. And above all things, he was the only man on campus you wished and dreaded to eventually meet because you knew like everyone else you would fall for him and that damn smile. 

Blinking, you snapped yourself out of the impending staring contest and lingering silence. You stood up from the ground, clearing your throat and wiping the dirt from your leggings. At the sight, you internally groaned because on this certain day you wore a pair of leggings and an oversized hoodie. Your hair was tangled and falling out of the makeshift bun you made quickly this morning at the back of your head. You couldn’t bother with makeup or a mint after your coffee and knowing that the guy was in front of you, you felt very self-conscious. 

Shawn grabbed a pen that had fallen out from your notebook and handed you the materials as he stood up. You visibly gulped as you noticed him now looming over you. He was tall, so much taller than you expected, now that he was in front of you. 

“Thanks,” you mumbled, glancing around the two of you to see so many people staring at the interaction. 

All of a sudden you became very aware of how many eyes were on you. As Shawn Mendes, captain of the hockey team, was seen talking to some girl who wasn’t either Becca or anyone remotely known around here. A freshman instead. It seemed whatever these people were doing, whether it was walking, or sitting and studying or just minding their own business became a thing of the past. They were focused on you, now. Waiting and watching to see if anything happens because god forbid they miss Shawn have a conversation with any girl on campus. 

“Yeah, you okay?” 

He looked you over carefully from your scattered appearance to your wandering gaze at everyone around you. The anxiety in your eyes had heightened to a whole other level and he could see it. Taking a step forward, he bent forward enough until your gaze snapped back into his direction. Once his golden orbs became what you focused on, you relaxed slightly but not enough to ignore the scratching stares on your back. 

You cleared your throat, your next sentence coming out small and quiet, “Uh, yeah. I’m okay.” 

He was still smiling as he bent over and picked up the duffel bag from the ground. He swung it over his shoulder, eyes never leaving you. Hugging the books to your chest, you were squeezing them so tight, your knuckles were turning white. Your head was pulsing and it suddenly felt like two worlds colliding that shouldn’t be. 

“I’m Shawn, by the way,” he grinned as he scratched at the back of his neck, that pink tint returning to his cheeks suddenly, taking you by surprise, “I didn’t know if you knew that or not but uh yeah.” 

For once, since the week had started a giggle had slipped from your lips and from all of the people it was because of him. It still couldn’t process in your mind that after weeks you were finally talking to him and that you were officially meeting him. It just seemed so weird because he had always been in arms length but you could never reach each other. The timing was never right and now by chance you had just ran into him. The world worked mysteriously and quietly and you weren’t entirely sure with how you felt about this action they pulled. 

“I knew,” you nodded, that smile seeming to be permanently imprinted on your lips in front of him, “I’m Y/N.” 

“You’re a pledge right? For ADPi? I’ve seen you around,” as soon as he began he became a stuttering mess and you were confused if this was actually the legendary hockey golden boy of campus or someone else, “Not that I’ve been actively looking for you or anything. That would just be creepy.”

You laughed again, “Right, uh yeah I am a pledge.” 

“How’s that going? I mean it’s Becca so…” he trailed off, shrugging and careful of his words because if you knew who he was, he knew you were probably aware of his involvement with the president of your hopefully soon to be sorority.

“Yeah, it’s uhhh…” just as you went to answer with whatever came to your mind first, your words stopped altogether at the vibrating from your phone in your pocket. It had gone quiet for a while but now it was picking up again as the girls never knew to shut up. You sent him an apologetic smile as you reached into your pocket and took it out. 

How the universe liked to pick their moments, you thought. As you stared at that screen, you realized that your bad luck and not been all dished out yet and that God was still saving some to give to you at random. It was convenient that was the only thing you could think as you stared at that text message. Your demeanor had gone back to worried and anxious and a physical mess. That smile, that soft smile you had been unable to get rid of and suddenly seemed reserved for the frat boy in front of you was gone. Your reality had been kicked straight back into your face and you wished that you could go back to sleep in a place where Shawn Mendes was nervous around you and Becca Bradley did not exist. 

“Y/N?” 

You couldn’t look away from the message and your throat had suddenly become very dry. Your mouth parted slightly and you were convinced the world was ending and that there was no way you could pull this off. “I uh, I’m sorry but I have to go.” 

Even as you were on the verge from running away from him, he still smiled that damn large beautiful smile and it made your stomach clench all at once with one look. Suddenly, that shy college guy had turned back into, with the flick of a magic wand, what you expected him to be. He smirked that signature arrogant look and he casually slipped his hands into his pockets. “No, you go. I get it. Becca calls and you run. It’s the drill.” 

Silently, you sent him a look of gratitude though you didn’t appreciate his cocky response whatsoever but you couldn’t worry about it at that moment. Just as you slipped past him though, your name once again echoed into your ears, and it was coming from his lips. “Y/N!” 

You looked shyly over your shoulder, still consumed with worry and doubt to face that smirk and those gorgeous eyes. He nodded softly and in a single look that smirk dropped into the softest smile you had ever seen, “I’ll see you around.”

The only thing you could muster was your own smile as your heart had been pushed from your chest into your throat making you unable to speak. You shared one more look before you turned and continued to make your way to your destination; your dorm. Even though you could barely fathom that you had finally met Shawn Mendes it did not compare to what you were feeling now as that one sentence alone was now going through your head on repeat. 

STEAL sophomore hockey captain Shawn Mendes’ boxers without getting caught…

*

“Y/N, just take a few deep breaths for me, okay. Everything is going to be fine. Right Mags?” 

Emily looked desperately to Maggie for help as they stood in the doorway of the closet to find you sat underneath the clothing rack, your head put in between your legs. Your breathing was scattered and uneven and they weren’t sure how long you had been in there as they had found you when they walked in.

“Y/N, you’re going to be fine. This is nothing we can’t handle,” Maggie said, staring down at you intently.

You sniffled and lifted your head to face your two friends. Emily’s eyes screamed worry as Maggie waited patiently. Tears filled your waterline as finally after weeks from being away from home, everything was finally setting in and you were beyond overwhelmed. You shook your head wiping the water from your eyes before they could fall down your face. 

“Nothing, we can’t handle, you’re joking right?” you laughed sadly, “How am I supposed to steal his boxers? Anyone have any ideas because I am the clumsiest and loudest person. Nothing about me screams stealth ninja. Which means, I’ll get caught and he is going to think I am some weirdo and tell all of his friends. I will then become the laughing stock of the whole school.” 

“At least, we’ll all be getting laughed at together,” Maggie shrugged. 

You stared at her silently, a small glare evident in your eyes. Emily glanced between the two of you before she dropped to her knees and rubbed your arm softly and comfortingly, “What she is trying to say is that none of what any of us had to do was easy. We were all forced to do these things we didn’t want to do and we all are getting made fun of because of it.” 

“Yeah, in case, you forgot Emily was basically naked and cleaning strangers cars. And Kiara showed her butt to the quarterback in front of most of the school and Hana kissed all the guys from the chess team twice. We’re all embarrassed and we’re all getting laughed at,” Maggie tried again, sinking down to sit on your other side, her back leaning against the closet door, “And this is all because of Becca which means we haven’t gone this far for you to back out and ruin everything. I almost got in serious trouble for this so let’s stand up and pull ourselves together and do this because I know that you can.” 

Taking in a deep breath, you closed your eyes and sniffled one more time, letting for the first time all day your anxiety slip away. When your eyes fluttered back open, you nodded with a soft smile which brought one on each of your friends’ faces. Maggie’s quickly grew into a huge grin, one where her eyes squinted and her dimples showed. You had yet to have seen one so big. 

Sending you a wink, she clapped her hands together, “Okay, so now that we have that settled we need to get you ready. If you are going to be going on a black op. mission, that means you also need to dress the part.” 

“Oh god, what do you have in mind?”

She didn’t respond but only wiggled her eyebrows up and down. 

Hours later, at dark, the three of you found yourself making your way back over to the sorority house as Becca demanded to see you beforehand which was different from what she had done with the other five pledges. After all, you were the last one though. You were feeling better since earlier that day when you previously had gotten the text. Once Maggie and Emily had given you a pep talk, you realized that you couldn’t go into this thinking you couldn’t do it or that you weren’t going to be able to do it. You had to go into this being positive and doing everything you can to make it possible to steal those boxers. 

Your confidence had come on quickly and as promised Maggie wanted you to look the part. Putting on a pair of black leggings and black long sleeve shirt, you suddenly felt like you looked the part. Your hair was pulled tightly into a sleek high ponytail and there were two smeared lines of eye black under your eyes, reminding you of the softball days. At first you protested, knowing that Becca was going to make fun of you but as you left you decided to not give a shit because all that mattered was that you proved her wrong and got through this final task of initiation. 

Entering into the house, you found the girls littered out into the living room, no doubt waiting for you. Stepping in, you stiffened up. You crossed your arms over your chest and stood with your head held high. Maggie and Emily stood off to the side from you grinning like two proud parents. As for the other three pledges, they were busy getting their stuff ready to move into the house and once you told Maggie that Becca had texted you, it was getting sent out into the group chat ASAP. They were sending wishes of luck and love your way from across campus. 

The sorority girls’ attention finally fell to you and their phones and boring conversations had quickly been forgotten. Some of them laughed, unable to control themselves while others whispered. Becca appeared from down the hallway, dressed in her typical attire. Short skirt and cropped shirt. Heels on her feet, clicking against the tiled floor, though there was no one there besides her sisters to judge on what shoes were on her feet. 

As soon as her eyes fell on you though, a loud laugh bursted from her mouth, “Oh wow, this is too good. I knew I had given you the right task. Love the outfit.” 

Taking in a deep breath, you let it out as your arms fall slowly to your sides, “Okay, so what else is there?” 

Her head tilted to the side innocently as her manicured fingers folded together over her stomach, “What do you mean?” 

“Well, you called me here so I have to believe there is more to this than just having to steal Shawn Mendes’ boxers. So what is it?” 

“Oh, honey, no,” she waved you off as another icy giggle made its way from her lips into the air, “I just wanted to come with and watch. Each pledge gave me some sort of show and secretly this has been the one I have been waiting for. I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss it.” 

*

It was late, dark, and the sun was no longer looming over campus. Your pulse quickened and your palms were dripping in sweat as you stared up at the three story house. The window was left cracked open and you watched as the breeze swayed the white curtains from side to side. This was insane and beyond anything you had ever done but you knew it was unavoidable. If you wanted to get into Alpha Delta Pi, it had to be done. 

You could feel the lingering eyes of the sorority girls as they crouched behind a line of bushes and you internally cursed. Emily had to set up a car wash by herself, Maggie had to teepee another sorority house, and those both sounded better than this; standing in front of frat boy central, forced to steal sophomore and hockey player Shawn Mendes’ boxers

You almost couldn’t breathe properly and everything was hitting you at once as you finally had a minute to process the whole thing. Even then as you stared up at the brick house and the lights that illuminated from inside, you knew you could do this. You weren’t sure but you were pretty sure. After all, what was this? Really? How much of this was going to decide your future or even matter in the next five years. The answer was nothing. It would mean nothing. Instead, it all just felt like a game, a shrivel in time that seemed completely irrelevant against the bigger and more important moments in life. 

There was no way you weren’t going to do it. You knew it as you stared up at the slightly cracked window and were aware of your two friends behind you. It was maybe not going to matter in a year or maybe even now but that wasn’t going to stop you. Not even the exhaustion or the emotional wreckage would keep you from getting inside that house. Almost a month into the semester and you were drowning yourself. 

Shaking your head to rid all of your thundering thoughts, you squeezed your fists together and decided to say fuck it! Taking a deep breath, you darted forward without so much as looking behind you at the girls hidden in the bushes. Tiptoeing forward along the side of the house, you hopped up and over the short fencing that led to the backyard. You landed softly in the grass on the other side and suddenly, you were on high alert. Hugging the wall as you walked, your eyes were darting everywhere from the backyard to behind you as you now felt like you were on the verge of being caught. 

The large backyard was empty besides the trash cans full of beer cans, the white fold out table used for ping pong, and the bonfire pit. No, Pi Kappa Alpha boy was in sight and it eased your worries somewhat. Sliding around the corner, the back of the house came in view exactly with one sliding door and three possibly unlocked windows. You took a risk and headed for the glass sliding door and peered in. The basement was carpeted with leather couches, a bar, and a pool table. As for the large room, there wasn’t a person in sight. Grabbing at the outside handle, you sighed with relief as it gave away when you pulled and it opened slowly. Once the opening was large enough, you slid in and pulled it shut behind you as quietly as you could. 

You looked left and right before you began to make your way slowly across the lit room to the staircase and walked up them. The door at the top of the steps was left open and ajared. Leaning forward, you stuck your head out to again be met with a silent hallway, lights all on and not a voice or other person heard. 

Your nerves had returned and the hair was sticking up straight on the back of your neck as you stepped into the hallway. It was short as on one side led to a kitchen where there were uncleaned counters and the sink was full with dirty plates. On the other side there was a bathroom and a bedroom or two. Checking once more that those rooms were clear and didn’t appear to be the hockey captain’s, you walked forward and the hallway brought you straight out into the front living room which was the first thing seen when you entered through the front door. 

Just like the basement it was littered with a few nice but slightly torn up couches and a big screen TV. Empty cans and cups were left scattered across the coffee table and there were random articles of clothing tossed around the room. Your nose scrunched up in the air as you finally took notice of the musty and suffocating smell that appeared when a bunch of boys decided to live together in a barely cleaned house. Another staircase caught your eye right next to the front door that led upwards to not doubt the third and final floor of the house and where the remainder of the bedrooms were. You cracked out a smile as you made your move for them. 

Before you could even make it to the first step though, the front door opened. Panic appeared on your face and your eyes widened like saucers as two voices filled the otherwise quiet room. Just as it swung open, you dropped to the floor behind a large L-shaped black couch. 

“Dude, why did Mendes have to schedule another evening practice? We already had three this week,” the first guy said, the voice unrecognizable to you.

The other one responded quickly as the sound of two bags being dropped onto the hardwood floor echoed in the room, “I don’t know because whatever captain says it goes. At least it’s over and we’re the first one’s home because I want a shower.” 

“I want a pizza, should I order one?” the first one asked. 

“Fuck yeah.” 

Crawling to the right end of the couch, you peeked from behind it to see the two hockey players' backs as they headed for the back hallway you had come from initially. They were sweaty and practically limping showing just how exhausted they were from being pushed day in and day out by their team captain a week before official practices were set to start. Once they disappeared from sight, you glanced back at the front door to see no other hockey players appear and knew this was your chance. Standing, you darted for the stairs and climbed them quickly and as you hit the top step you heard the door fly open again and a chorus of more voices filled the house. 

A loud gasp ripped through your throat as you heard a few pairs of footsteps following you up the stairs. Your head began to snap back and forth at each doorway you saw on either side struggling to pick one to go through. You stumbled down the hallway until you grabbed at the knob of the last door on the left. With one push on the door, you were falling into the dark room so out of breath as the voices only seemed to get closer from the staircase. You couldn’t recognize who the players were and weren’t worried about it as you were solely focused on running and not getting caught. 

Peering through the dark, you were able to piece together the room from the large queen sized unmade bed to the desk pushed against the opposite wall and an additional door to the room’s very own bathroom. Stepping forward your foot suddenly caught on something sending you tumbling to the ground. You mentally cursed as a loud thud sounded in the room meaning whoever stood on the other side of the door and in the hallway would have heard. Face smooshed into the carpet, your fingers touched lazily at the object you tripped over which happened to be a small pile of laundry. Through the dark, your fingers traced over what appeared to be a t-shirt and as you squinted, you were able to see the familiar number eight and Mendes written across the back of it. 

By chance you had stumbled into the right room and then of course tripped and fell, but at least you were in the right room. Then with the amount of clothes scattered along the floor that meant there had to have been a pair of boxers somewhere. You freeze though as fast as you had fallen, the fabric of the t-shirt threaded in between your fingers as the sound of the door handle being turned set off an alarm in your head. Then when the light clicked on, you crawled and crawled for dear life until you were under the bed. 

The shirt was still clutched tightly in your fist and you were holding your breath as the voice you had heard hours ago for the first time once again filled your ears. “I think that was a good practice. Do you think that was a good practice?” 

The second voice turned out to be just as familiar as the first and you couldn’t help but smile knowing exactly who it was. Geoff. “Yeah, except for the fact half of the guys almost passed out on the ice.” 

“Okay, my bad,” Shawn sighed as that duffel bag he had been carrying earlier was dropped onto the ground right next to the bed. Your eyes followed it before they went back to the two pairs of feet in the room. “Man, I just want to have a good season. I don’t mean to be THAT captain but I just-” 

“No, no I get it. You don’t have to explain. I want to have a good season too.” 

“Thanks, Geoff. So...” Shawn clapped his hands together before changing the subject all together, “How’s things going with Emily?” 

You swear you could hear the smile in Geoff’s voice when he talked which gave away truly how crazy he was over your friend, “Great, amazing, I don’t know. Dude, she’s just... I don’t know. I really like her.” 

“I’m happy for you, man! You deserve it.” 

“Thanks, except I might have to have a word with Becca though. I mean what she made Em do was crazy and humiliating,” Geoff snapped his voice rising slightly at the end.

The hockey captain chuckled slightly, “Well what did you expect? It was the same way last year for the pledges and she will do it again to the ones next year. That’s just how she is.” 

“Yeah, but still Emily just isn't like Becca or the other girls. Neither is Y/N or Maggie. I just don’t get why any of them wanted to rush.” 

“Speaking of, I met Y/N today.” 

At the mere mention of your name, your eyes widened and your hand clasped even tighter around the shirt. Your mouth parted slightly, waiting and completely on edge wanting to know what this drop dead gorgeous guy was about to say about you. 

“Shawn!” Geoff warned. 

“What?” 

“I know that look on your face and don’t!” 

“Don’t what,” Shawn said, laughter heard in the simple two words he said. 

“Do what you always do. Okay, she’s not like every other girl you get involved with,” Geoff explained and in that moment there was nothing you wished more than to see the look on either of their faces as they spoke, “Y/N is nice and one of Emily’s best friends, so stay out of her pants.” 

Was Geoff seriously being protective of you? It sounded like it and suddenly everything you had thought about him; being a hockey player and frat boy meant he couldn’t be boyfriend material. Or that he was just using Emily. Or that he was built like all of his friends. All of that disappeared because in that sole moment you knew that he was a good one. Geoff Warburton was a good guy and deep down more than anything you hoped that Shawn Mendes was too. 

“Yeah, Geoff I know Y/N is different and you’re so right. Even with just meeting her I realized she isn’t anything like Becca or any of those other girls. I don’t know there is just something about her-” 

Your breath was stolen and you knew this was a position you never expected to find yourself in; hiding under the hockey star’s bed as he gushed about you to his best friend and teammate. 

“Which is why you should stay away from her. I have enough to deal with keeping Marcus away from her and I can’t be in charge of you either.” 

“Okay, but honestly, we both know I would be a better option for her over Marcus any day,” he joked. 

“Shawn!” 

“Okay, fine, alright. I’ll stay away from her since you asked me too.” 

Geoff’s feet stepped for the door and a moment of silence passed between them and you were starting to worry that maybe they saw you or they finally remembered the thud they had heard earlier. You were toast. That’s what you thought, but when you thought you were going to be pulled from under the bed with all chances of becoming a sorority member of ADPi being ripped from existence, it never did happen. “Okay, now that we are on the same page. I am going to shower because I need to meet Emily and she won’t like it if I’m late.” 

“Have fun!” Shawn called out as Geoff stepped out of the room and into the hallway, “Do you need any condoms? It’s better to be safe than sorry.” 

“Goodnight Mendes.” 

Shawn laughed, one of those belly laughs that instantly could make anyone else in the room smile and happy. You were trying to hide your own smile from under the bed as his previous words about you were being repeated over and over in your mind. Suddenly, though the task at hand became your focus once again as you heard the door shut and then lock. He walked forward towards the bathroom and the sound of the shower being turned on made you tense up all over again. This was it, you decided as you found no pairs of boxers slipped under the bed or on the floor. Music filled the bathroom, Drake’s voice filing out into the next room. The hockey player spit the words of the song underneath his breath as he kicked off the shoes on his feet. Each one being placed at the bottom of the bed and then one by one his socks. 

The process was painfully slow and you were close to sneezing from the amount of dust bunnies tickling at your nose. You also knew deep down that if you weren’t hidden underneath his bed and you were there able to watch the show, it would be less painful. Instead, you had to imagine what each sight was when a new article of clothing was stripped off. When the sight of his sweaty practice t-shirt hit the ground, you had to fight a groan from slipping out because of how much you wanted to peek your head out and look. 

It became even harder as that shirt was joined by his sweatpants. You were starting to count the seconds of how long it took him just to slip off those boxers and by the time you got to five they were at his ankles. He kicked them off his feet and the black Calvin Klein boxers were left near the rest of his discarded clothes. 

A small smile lifted at the corners of your mouth because of how close you were to pulling this off. That smile dropped quickly though and your jaw hit the floor as he moved away from the bed to the bathroom where you were able to see his full backside. His curls were fluffed up and at each step, you could see the way his back muscles rippled and tightened. Not to mention his ass, oh god, you swear you were close to drooling. Athletes and guys who worked out really did have the best butts. 

As he pulled back the shower curtain and stepped in, you turned your eyes back to the prize sat right before you. Shawn Mendes’ boxers. This was it, you decided. Sliding out from beneath the bed, you hopped to your feet and snatched up the black thin fabric. Bunching it into your hands, you made a beeline for the partially cracked window in his room, knowing you wouldn’t be able to face trying to go back downstairs to the sliding door. Plus, you remembered seeing a ladder leaned up against the side of the house up to the roof. Your escape plan was now put into motion. Glancing back over your shoulder one more time to make sure he was still safely in the shower, you slowly pulled up the window enough for you to climb out. 

You stepped out onto the roof and moved slowly towards the side where you remember where the ladder was sat. Except when you peered over to where it was initially standing you found it nowhere to be seen. You looked over to where the girls had been standing before behind the line of bushes to see they were no longer there. Not even Maggie or Emily was there. You knew that Becca must have taken the ladder because there was no way it had just disappeared. She wanted to make this as hard as possible for you and was set on you failing which only made you determined in the end. 

Taking in a breath to resettle yourself, you began to move around the top of the roof to try and find a second escape route. You didn’t know how long you had been up there for but as you tried to sneak past Shawn’s window again, you jumped as you found him standing in his room, towel hung low around his hips and staring at his phone. You suddenly couldn’t move, unable to run as you stared at him, water dripping down his chest and curls pushed back out of his face. He was a daydream and a drop of heaven and you had his boxers in your hands.

You were snapped back into reality as he moved towards the window and he lifted his head. Without thinking you dropped to your stomach but as soon as you landed on the roof you began to roll. Unable to grab onto any of the shingles, you rolled right off the roof and in mere seconds of falling off the three story house into the yard, your hands caught the very edge. 

You hissed as the material scratched at your fingers and your feet swung back and forth. Looking forward, you found yourself hanging right in front of a window on the second level of the kitchen. You peered down to see that ground still seemed so far away, but it became your best bet quickly as one of the boys moved past the window. It was Marcus, and just as he went to look out of it, you let go and dropped. It felt endless and like you were going to die for sure before out of nowhere your feet meet the ground. Your knees bent slightly and from the harsh pressure, your left ankle rolled from under you. 

Collapsing to the ground, pain shot up from the area and you cursed loudly. Your hands reached at the skin feeling it pulsing and already starting to swell. Of course. Bad luck. This was stupid. Stupid. Why did you sign up for this and why would you go through with it?

Rolling your eyes, you took a minute or so before you picked up the pair of boxers on the ground next to you and slowly pulled yourself up. Walking was brutal and you had acquired a limp as pain shot up from your ankle with each step you took. You had risked something so much worse for a pair of boxers and what could only resemble a DARE. If you didn’t get in, you were going to kill Becca for sure. 

The whole walk back to the house felt horrifying and like your foot was being ripped from it’s socket. As you limped up the front sidewalk, you found your two most trusted companions sat on the outside step completely silent. They waited for you, worry shown on their faces. Maggie tapped her foot against the concrete ground while Emily chewed relentlessly on her nails. Both of their heads lifted from their gaze on the ground at the sound of your dragging steps. 

They jumped from their spots on the step as they quickly noticed you struggling to move. Rushing over, Maggie grabbed you by your arm while Emily stared down at your wrecked ankle. “Oh my god, what happened?” 

“Em, I’m okay. I’m fine, I just took a small fall.” 

“A small fall,” Maggie scoffed, “You can barely walk.” 

“Okay,” you half smiled, “It was kind of a big fall.” 

“Look,” Emily started her brows furrowed in that way they did when she was scared, “We wanted to stay until you came out but Becca forced us all to come back and when we tried to stay she said she would automatically just end your rushing process.” 

“No, no, it’s all good, but I’m guessing she was the one who moved the ladder that was on the side of the house.” 

“Uh, yeah,” Emily cringed, “We’re sorry.” 

“No, seriously, Em it’s okay I understand.” 

Maggie rolled her eyes and butted in once she knew you were alright, “Well?” 

“Well,” you repeated her word, putting on your best poker face. 

“Did you get them?” 

A large smile tugged at your lips revealing your teeth as a small giggle slipped out, “Damn straight, I got them.” 

Revealing the pair of boxers you were hiding from behind your back the other two girls squealed and pulled into a bone crushing hug. You had done it. All three of you had successfully faced and passed the god-awful tests that came with Becca Bradley and you were oozing with pride for yourself. High school you would have never been able to do something like that. You would have blushed, denied such an offer, and gone back to reading your books. Here you were though, even with a swollen ankle you were smiling and genuinely happy. 

After a few minutes, Maggie and Emily pulled away from the hug and helped you up the front steps and into the house. Laughter echoed from the living room and as you slowly made your way into the full room, it all became silent. Becca was sitting in a white chair facing the doorway and when her eyes met yours, she quirked an eyebrow curiously. Her slow gaze scanned you from head to toe. From the grass sticking to your knees to the way your leg buckled from simply standing. 

“Oh, you’re back,” she smiled, it was fake. 

“Yeah, thanks for waiting by the way,” you replied, unable to hide your annoyance or glare. 

“Well, we weren’t going to wait all night for you. Which reminds me so?” 

Unfolding the black boxers in your hand, you held them up to her and sent a proud smirk her way, “I’ve got your boxers.”

Glancing to Maggie and then Emily on either side of you, you found them looking at you the same way. Excitement gnawing on them on the inside as they tried to hide it with their smiles aimed towards you. Your attention though was brought back to the sorority president though as she tutted softly. 

“Mhmm, there’s just one thing though.” 

“One thing?” you asked, a frown lacing over your lips. 

“Where’s your proof?” she raised a hand and a few of the other sorority girls nodded in agreement as they found amusement in the current situation, “I mean, how do I know these aren’t from one of the other player’s? How do I know you didn’t just pick up a random pair once you walked in. Where’s your proof that these are actually Shawn Mendes’ boxers.” 

You clicked your tongue along the roof of your mouth, trying to hide the feeling of wanting to run her over with a bus. Instead, you pulled a sickening grin on your face and aimed the back seam on the boxers towards her. You had her right where you wanted her and this time you were destined to win. It made it so much sweeter that her face screamed success. 

Like she had outsmarted you as she had done to so many others but under all that confidence you knew she was scared. There was a crack seen behind her smirk and her entitlement. She was actually worried that you had come out on top of her. Letting a second pass as the tension prickled at your skin, you hummed and thrusted the piece of clothing in her direction. And at your next sentence, her facade crumpled to pieces. 

“How about the fact that there is a number eight written on the back tag in sharpie.” 

a/n: let me know if you wanted to be added or removed from the taglist. 

taglist: @particularnarry​ @magicalmugshepherdpony​ @probablyshouldbesleeping​ @gamma-xi-delta​ @imbjapan​ @itrocksmysocks​ @thatkidwhodreams​ @fandomlolzor​ @wwyitm-mendes​ @brook1232​ @fanstories​ @burkylover​ @badreputationlove​ ​ @imsuperawkward @bubbashawn @shawnsreputation​ @littlebabymendes​ @avsensio​ @bluebellwoods​

[radramblog]

Halo Through its Guns: Reach

The year is 2010. Bungie has one final game left on their contract with Microsoft before they can make something that isn’t Halo. They were going to make it count.

Reach is the last Halo game that Bungie developed, and the latest non-numbered entry in the series that’s still a First-Person Shooter (unless Infinite dropped the 6?). It came at a time where FPS games were at the height of their popularity, when they dominated living rooms and the fledgling days of e-sports, before the rise of MOBAs and mobile games and the like.

The game is a reflection of all of this. It’s a mirror to both the franchise past and those others that sprung up in its wake. It’s a deliberately different game in story, aesthetic, and play to the others around it. And it’s proof that Bungie’s developers as a whole really loved working on this series, seeing as they put so much into their final entry.

As per usual, I think you can use the weapons as a lens into the game. As such, this is Halo: Reach through its gun- the Grenade Launcher.

In order to talk about Halo: Reach, we have to talk about Call of Duty. I know, I don’t like it either.

2009 and 2010 were the height of what could be referred to as the Halo/Call of Duty rivalry. Halo 3 was still huge, ODST had just released, with the franchise arguably at its peak of popularity- but Call of Duty was faring similarly, with the incredibly popular Modern Warfare releasing the same year as Halo 3 and the series sill riding the high of Modern Warfare 2 in 2009. Moreover, Halo: Reach and Call of Duty: Black Ops were set for release within the same few months of 2010. In effect, if you were, like me, a preteen middle class dude who had touched an Xbox controller before, you had to have an opinion about which one is better. Lines were drawn in the sand over which you preferred (with the other clearly being dirt), though CoD had the advantage of not being a console exclusive.

To those unfamiliar with shooty mans games, the two franchises look incredibly similar, but this isn’t especially true. Call of Duty is what many refer to as a “twitch shooter”, with an increased emphasis on reflexes and map awareness. Engagements between players are typically much shorter owing to their increased fragility, with much more weapons being able to kill in one or two hits. A melee is always a kill in CoD, whereas in Halo that’s only true if you catch someone from behind.

In place of the weapon sandbox from more classic shooters (like Halo), the CoD games of the era featured a huge range of customization options in the form of Loadouts. This kind of completely changes how weapons are treated in the series- since you can spawn in with any weapon in the game, the idea of a “power weapon” cannot exist for game balance, and so traditionally powerful weapons like sniper rifles and grenade launchers are significantly weaker than they’d be in other games. This, combined with the restriction that the guns have to be, you know, real actual guns that exist, makes the guns all kind of blend together. Most of the time, the differences are statistical rather than functional, and minor at that. I’m not saying this is an inherently worse way to go about things, but it’s very different, and something that will likely determine how much you enjoy either franchise.

This brings us to Reach. Bungie was very obviously aware of Call of Duty’s design at this point- they’d already been outsold by Activision twice- but I’m not sure anyone was expecting them to so deliberately change the way their own series works as a result. While obviously the game is still Halo, the way the gameplay has been facelifted in Reach is a clear reflection of the influence of the franchise’s primary competitors.

The biggest, most clear divide is in the massive complexity increases with weapons both old and new. Especially seeing as Reach heralded the final, permanent removal of dual wielding from the franchise, individual weapons were enabled to be more differentiated as a result. Looking at the new weapons from the game, only one of them could be argued as “basic”, and that’s the DMR- yet that’s also a major change, as it replaces the series’s now iconic Battle Rifle, having a longer range and scope to allow the Magnum to reclaim some of its former glory at medium/close range now that it’s been buffed and scoped once again.

I shit you not, every single one of these weapons is fucking odd. The Plasma Repeater’s fire rate slows as heats up, making it worse in an extended firefight, but you can press the reload button to vent it out it a pinch. The Needle Rifle features the Supercombine effect from the Needler on a longer range weapon, with the 3-bodyshot explosion making it much stronger in the hands of less experienced players. The Plasma Launcher echoes the Spartan Laser, but fires homing Plasma Grenades and allows versatility in how much you charge it up. The Beam Rifle has been replaced by the Focus Rifle, a long-range…Sentinel Beam? I dunno I’m not a huge fan of the Focus Rifle actually.

And then there’s the Grenade Launcher. The most obvious comparison to Call of Duty the game has. Modern Warfare 2 had an underbarrel Grenade Launcher available as an option for many primary weapons, with its quick switch option and instant-kill potential earning it the nickname of the “N00b Tube”. Bungie, on the other hand, nicknamed their Grenade Launcher the “Pro Pipe” and it shows in the gameplay. It has effectively two firing modes, requires very precise aim and timing to use most effectively, can shut down vehicles, and most importantly won’t be one-shotting anything anytime soon. It can be used to flush out enemies behind corners, as a trip-mine in objective-based gamemodes, and if you’re good, can even work very well against airborne opponents.

Speaking of airborne opponents, the Grenade Launcher interacts very interesting with most of the game’s new addition of Armor Abilities. Just about every gamemode has multiple available to spawn with, and they all work great in different situations. Unfortunately, just about all of them paled in usage compared to the Sprint ability and Jetpack- Halo not having an increased speed option was a deliberate choice, which Sprint really messes with, making it typically the best option. And Jetpack is so utterly insane for mobility, especially when you’re playing a game with powerful weapons in far-off spots. The Armor Abilities replaced the Equipment from 3, and I’m ultimately not sure how I feel about it. They did, however, contribute to something else, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Before that, I want to talk about factions. Much of Halo 2’s weaponry was dedicated to parallelising the UNSC and Covenant loadouts, to make going between Chief and the Arbiter easier, and 3 continued this with the Brute weapons. By contrast, Reach goes out of its way to deparallelise the two factions, deliberately making the two play slightly differently. You can still pair them up (though some of those are kinda a stretch), but there’s enough difference between each pairing that each weapon feels different, which especially makes playing as a Spartan or an Elite a subtly changed experience.

This is all (arguably) in service of what I’d call Reach’s crowing achievement- Invasion mode. It is the culmination of everything the game has to offer- an asymmetrical, objective-based gamemode with massive maps and incredibly complexity. The default loadouts are fairly basic, but as the game progresses, the power of each player’s equipment ramps up. The round-three loadouts are extremely cool, often letting you spawn with what would be considered a power weapon (albeit a more niche one like the Shotgun), each with a different Armor ability that suits its weaponry, and each forming a different role in an effective team. The Grenade Launcher gets to seriously shine as a part of the Grenadier loadout, particularly on Defense, as a tool to keep vehicles at bay, and the loadout’s Hologram ability lets you get an idea of enemy placement or movement so you can more effectively fire on out-of-sight targets.

Invasion is just such an incredible game mode. It perfectly suits the story and gameplay changes of Reach, and it is just really bloody fun. It has a scale that no other Halo Gamemode has managed to achieve, dwarfing even Big Team Battle. It lets you fully take advantage of everything the game has to offer, from weapons to abilities to vehicles to maps. As well, with Reach’s massively expanded gamemode customization and Forge map editor (with Forge World being a much greater canvas to work with than Sandbox ever was), it can and has been expanded and played with for years, being arguably the game-mode with the most potential for variety of all of them.

This complexity is what made Reach great. It’s what set it apart from its competitors, and what sets it apart from the other games within its own franchise. Sure, it doesn’t have dual wielding, but it really doesn’t need it. Bungie set out to make their last Halo game a memorable one, and its inarguable that with Reach, they succeeded.

Unfortunately, it’s also a level of complexity we’d never see again. While Reach was deliberately different from its contemporaries, the next games in the series would instead fall further in line with them. Join me next week, as we enter the 343 era of Halo.

…I’m going to need to find a way to play Halo 5 real quick, aren’t I?

[ghosttotheparty]

say my name and say it twice (cotton candy skies)

20. also on AO3 chapter nineteen

Lucas’s face falls as he rereads the words on his screen. 

Call ended.

He lets himself deflate, his shoulders dropping as he sighs, closing his eyes. He puts his elbows on his desk in front of him, holding his face in his hands as he squeezes his eyes shut, tensing his face and shoulders before collapsing, dropping so his head rests on his forearms, crossing on the cold surface of his desk. He feels it against his skin, the sleeves of his worn sweater rolled up past his elbows, and he embraces it, focuses on it, lets it consume him, until he lifts his head, pulling his sleeves down over his hands, tugging them past his fingers and gripping them in his fists, the material twisted around his fingers. He lifts his hands and rubs the material on his face, letting it scratch gently, his eyes still closed.

He lets himself be alone.

The flat is empty, Zoë and Senne off somewhere, Milan on a lunch date, and it’s silent, except for the hum of his heater and the quiet sounds of the flat settling, creaks in the wood floor and doors. His hands drift from his face, crossing over his chest to cradle his shoulders, which are slightly shrugged up, uncomfortable and stiff. 

He doesn’t notice his feet tapping the ground anxiously, hitting against the wood of the floor and of the leg of his char, doesn’t notice his teeth tugging at his bottom lip, biting the skin, doesn’t notice how it hurts. He doesn’t hear anything. 

So he jumps when he hears his computer chime loudly, after who knows how long, and he looks up when it continues, the screen glowing, letting him know that Ralph is calling him. 

He lets go of himself, pushing his shoulders down and rubbing his face quickly, taking a deep breath before he answers, forcing a smile. 

“Hey.”

“Hello, my love!” Ralph is grinning, his arms crossed on the table in front of him, a table Lucas doesn’t recognise. He doesn’t recognise the room behind Ralph either, the wall that sunlight is streaming across, or the fixture hanging from the ceiling. “Are you okay?” 

Lucas looks from the fixture to Ralph and sees that his smile has dropped slightly, his brows furrowed. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” he lies. “Uhm, where are you?” 

“I’m in Norway, visiting a friend.” Ralph looks over his computer screen and waves a hand. 

Another man joins him, tossing an arm around Ralph’s shoulders. He has short strawberry blonde hair. He looks kind of like a fairy. 

“Hi, I’m Eskild,” he says in English, and Lucas smiles, waving. 

“Hey,” Lucas says, pointing at him, suddenly recognising him. “You were at that party in Utrecht, right?” 

Eskild nods, grinning. 

“I’m Lucas.”

“Ralph has told me all about you, he loves you.” 

“Aw.” Lucas grins as Ralph shoves at Eskild. (There’s a “Shut up!” that Lucas almost misses.) 

“You said you had to tell me something?” Ralph asks when Eskild lets go of him, stepping to the side. 

“Yeah, so—”

“Is it okay that I’m here?” Eskild interrupts, holding his hands up. “I can leave if you want.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine. Actually you’ll probably be happy too, you guys seem to be kindred spirits.” 

Eskild coos excitedly, pulling a chair up next to Ralph’s and Ralph moves over. Lucas waits as they get situated. 

“Okay, tell us,” Ralph says, and they both look up at him. 

“So…” Lucas takes a deep breath. He pauses, hearing a creak in the floor, and waits for a few seconds, listening, and continues when he doesn’t hear anything else. “I have a boyfriend.” 

“You have a what?” Ralph practically yells and Eskild exclaims and claps. Lucas giggles, covering his face. “Wait, say that again, I wanna hear it again.”

“I have a boyfriend.” 

“Oh my god.” Ralph takes a heavy breath and looks away before looking back. “Do you remember when you told me—” “Ralph, sto-o-op.” 

“—that you didn’t think you’d ever find someone?” 

Eskild watches them, his jaw dropped, his hands still clasped in front of him. 

Lucas sighs, smiling, and looks away, exasperated. 

“I think I was…” 

“What?” Eskild prompts when he trails off, and Lucas pauses before finishing his thought. 

“I think I was waiting for him.” 

They both squeal loudly, grabbing at each other, and Lucas laughs. 

“That’s so fucking cute, oh my god,” Ralph says, shoving Eskild’s shoulder.

“I know.”

“What’s his name?” Ralph asks, leaning over, his elbows in the table.

“Jens.” Lucas can feel his face burning, can feel his cheeks flushing bright, and it only makes his smile more. 

“Jens,” Ralph sighs. “Tell us about him, is he pretty?” 

“Yes.” 

They both snicker. 

“How did you meet?” Eskild asks. 

“Uhm… So I just kind of wander the city a lot, and one day I happened to be outside his dance studio when he was finishing practise.” 

“Wait, his what studio?” Ralph asks, his jaw dropped and his eyes wide. 

“Dance? He’s a ballerina.” 

They both start yelling, grabbing at each other again, a mess of  “Oh my go-o-o-od!” and “Ballerina!”, and Lucas laughs again, pressing his sweater-covered hands over his mouth. 

“Lucas, you are… living my dream,” Eskild says when they manage to calm down, and Lucas laughs harder, not knowing what to say. 

“How long have you guys been together?” Ralph asks. 

“Uhm, a few weeks? I don’t really know what actually like, was the start of the relationship, if that makes sense.”

“Explain, please.” 

“Like…” Lucas sighs. “When we first started hanging out, we were already kind of… flirty?” They both are smiling at him, and he keeps talking, trying to ignore it. “Like teasing and stuff, and then holding hands and playing with each other’s hair. And we went on a few dates.” “Where to?” Ralph asks. 

“A cafe, skateparks. Honestly, just us hanging out outside his studio felt like dates.” 

“That’s precious,” Eskild says. 

“Who made the first move?” Ralph asks, setting his chin on his palm. 

“Uhm,” Lucas pauses, thinking. “I asked to hang out first. And then I kissed him, but we didn’t talk about it at all. And then I told him to kiss me because he was taking too long.”

“Ooo, Lucas is bold.” 

He shrugs, smiling bashfully. 

“Wait, have you guys…” Ralph doesn’t finish the question, lowering his chin and raising his eyebrows as Eskild punches his shoulder.

“Ralph…” Lucas looks away, feeling like he just shoved his face into a pool of lava, suppressing a smile. 

“I can’t tell if that’s a yes or a no.” 

“No, we haven’t.” 

“Okay,” Ralph says, holding his hands up like he’s surrendering. “Not a problem.” 

“Do you want to?” Eskild asks, curiosity clearly getting the best of him.

“I mean…” Lucas sighs. “I guess, yeah. But if he doesn’t want to, like if it doesn’t happen, I won’t be upset, you know?” 

“You’re an angel, Lucas van der Heijden,” Ralph says, and Lucas’s smile grows again. 

He doesn’t feel as sad anymore.

Ralph seems to remember at the same time as him. 

“Hey, did something happen before I called? You seemed… off.”

“I, uhm…” He pauses, contemplating whether or not to tell them. “I’d been talking to Jayden.”

“Jayden, skater Jayden?” 

Lucas chuckles at this, the way Ralph has managed to remember his friends that he doesn’t know well. Skater Jayden, Skater Kes, Liv’s Noah, Liv’s Isa, etc.

“That’s the one.”

“Who’s Jayden?” Eskild asks, looking confused. 

“One of Luc’s friends in Utrecht.” 

Eskild nods, looking back to Lucas. 

“Tell us,” Ralph says, and Lucas almost laughs at the seriousness of it all, at how they’re both looking at him like they’re his dads.

“I don’t know, I haven’t really been keeping up with him or Kes. Or anyone, really, except you and Noah. And we just happened to be online at the same time so he asked if I wanted to call and I said yeah, so…” He pauses, rubbing his face, feeling them both looking at him. “It was awkward at first, just because we haven’t been talking, and then it was fine, and then—” He cuts himself off, huffing and tossing his hands, suddenly frustrated. Pissed. 

“What happened?” Eskild presses softy. 

“I don’t know, he just… He started acting weird and then he kind of made a comment that like… that I’ve changed. And I tried to just shrug it off and I made a joke about moving countries, and he acted like… Like it was weird.” 

“What the hell?” Ralph drops his hand and makes a face. “Did he say anything?” 

“He said ‘You’ve changed,’ and then ‘Why are you acting like this?’ but when I asked what he meant he just changed the subject. And when we hung up it was just really uncomfortable and weird, and I just…” 

“What the hell?” Ralph repeats.  

“He seemed upset,” Lucas adds, his voice small, and for a second he thinks they couldn’t hear him. 

“He can’t be upset about that,” Eskild says suddenly, looking at Ralph and then Lucas on the screen. “That’s what people do.” 

“Yeah, exactly,” Ralph says, pointing at him. “That’s basically the meaning of life. The whole point of existence is change and growth.” Lucas listens intently. “And he may not know it but the way that you’ve changed has been growth. Every time we’ve talked since you moved to Antwerp, you seem more and more at ease with yourself, and you seem happier and happier.” 

Lucas smiles. 

“He can’t be mad that you’re changing,” Ralph continues, looking angry. “If you walk into a forest and find a sprig, you can’t be mad when you go back five years later and find a tree. That’s not—” He huffs and Eskild places a hand on his forearm. 

“He has no reason to be upset,” Eskild continues for him. “It’s not like he hasn’t changed at all, right?” 

“His hair is longer,” Lucas contributes. “And he has a new earring.”

“There you go, are you mad about it?” 

Lucas laughs. 

“No.” 

“Exactly. Jayden’s a dummy.” 

Lucas and Ralph laugh again, shaking their heads at Eskild. 

“And why haven’t you been talking to them, was it just, like…” Ralph asks. 

“I don’t know, when I first moved we talked a lot and kept up, but eventually it felt like I was the only one actually trying. Like, all their texts felt dry, and I just felt like they didn’t want to talk to me.” They nod. “Which could just be anxiety, but I stopped texting first as much and it just dwindled.” 

“So none of them really talk to you?” Ralph says, looking surprised, and Lucas shakes his head. 

“Not really.” 

“You can’t give a hundred percent in a relationship with someone who won’t even give fifty,” Eskild says, and Ralph nods, pointing at him. 

“Yeah,” Lucas sighs. “I’m kind of  over it, I’m not that mad.”

They both look at him, looking sympathetic, their eyes soft. 

“I mean, it hurt at first. But I’ve got Jens. And you guys, and Noah. And some friends here. It’ll be fine.”

Ralph smiles sadly. 

“That’s true. You’ll always have people.” 

“I’ll always have people.” 

There’s a moment of silence and then Lucas snickers quietly. 

“You guys are good… what’s the word I’m looking for, mentors? Confidants?”

“Gurus,” they say simultaneously, and then exclaim and point at each other excitedly as Lucas says, “That’s  it!” 

Ralph and Eskild laugh hysterically, and Lucas can’t help but laugh with them. 

He gets Eskild’s phone number and Instagram before they hang up. 

[bustedassgames]

Chaos Legion

Man.

Fucking Chaos Legion.

It's an hack and slash made by Capcom, it's not Devil may cry, but it's kinda close.

The plot is... I don't know how to describe it, it feels good enough, but it isn't delivered very well; it's about two edgy anime dudes, Sieg Wahrheit , which, by the way, is named after a fucking painting, and Victor DeLaCroix. Sieg ( the dude you control ) killed Siela, a girl who was very important to Victor, we don't know how or when, but now Victor has gone mad and wants to bring about the end of the world and bla bla bla bla

And, you know, this isn't THAT BAD, i mean, there's a little bit of mistery going on since we don't know why Sieg killed Siela or what's Victor’s plan etc, but it feels soooo clichè and it kinda makes it hard to take it too seriously, since fucking EVERYONE can't stop from making cringe anime poses in every single cutscene.

But enough of that shit, now for the gameplay. In this game you kill stuff, a lot of demon stuff and man does it feel great to kill stuff in this game. It controls like a standard third person hack and slash, you've got your standard 4 hits combo, a dodge roll, you can sidestep etc, but the interesting part comes with the legion system, your legion is basically your stand, you can choose up to 2 legions per level, there's about 7 of them and they all feel cool to use. You can use your legion by eiether performing an assist (your legion comes out for a single attack) or by just summoning them, which makes Sieg weaker and slower but the price to pay is well worth it. Sieg in general controls pretty well, the dodge roll is kinda trash and jumping away is always the better solution for dodging attacks. Also it feels sooooo cool to just walk around with your legion following you, makes for great screenshots too!

The levels are super linear, you go in a room, enemies spawn, you kill them, go to the next room, repeat. BUT, surprisingly, it doesn't get boring! Killing shit just feels good and there's enough room for you to experiment and play around with your legion to see what works and what doesn't, and it's something that you'll have to do cause this game doesn't fuck around, even on the standard difficulty some levels will kick your ass for a while, but the game isn't very long so it doesn't get too frustrating. Bosses are also pretty good for the most part, even if a bit gimmicky.

*im too cool to look into the camera* This leads me to talking about something else; the lenght of Chaos Legion. It's pretty short, about 5 hours to finish up the campaign, but you can also get back on the already completed levels to get more exp and high scores etc etc. The thing is, those 5 hours will feel much, much longer than what they really are. I would normally be able to finish a game that lasts 5 hours in one sitting, but Chaos Legion fucking EXHAUSTED me, after every couple levels i just had to close the damn thing cause i was phisically getting tired, but in a good way! Im not sure how to describe it, you should try this for yourself. One of the things that can make the whole experience feel frustrating is the lack of a decent tutorial for most of your moves, or any kind of explanation on how to level up your damn legion really. For example, at one point i kept on bumping into items that i just couldn’t reach with my normal jump, i went into the menus and found out that i was supposed to be able to jump higher thanks to one of my legions but it didn’t really tell me how, turns out you have to level up the ‘’enchant’’ attribute to get passive bonuses for Sieg, which kind of fucking sucks. Speaking of level up, there are two ways to get stronger, exp ( which is used for your legions only ) and items, items straight up increase your attributes permamently, and there’s no end to them, so in theory you could just repeat a level over and over again to farm stat-boosting items to get stupidly op, but there wasn’t really a need to do that. You can see that as a kind of last resort, if the game is getting too intense, you’re taking too much damage or not dealing enough, just retreat and farm a bit, it can only get easier. To wrap this up, there are two last things i want to mention At one point in the game you get to play as another character, Arcia, who duel wields guns, and honestly, despite her having a single level, she’s just so much more fun to play as than Sieg! The whole time i was playing her level i kept on thinking ‘’man i wish there was a whole game where you play as her’’ which i found pretty interesting, given how usually games throw at you ‘’alternative’’ levels (such as the ones with vehicles in crash bandicoot) and they can be total trash or just boring, when here it’s just better than the base game!

And now, for the audio. The audio is really fucked up. The voice acting is... decent, about what you would expect from a sunday morning anime, the sound effects are way too fucking loud, i really suggest turning them down first thing after you boot up the game, but the music is FANTASTIC, honestly, the boss themes are absolute banger and they immediatly ended up in my playlist, if you’re not sure about playing this try to look up the boss theme, you’ll want to play this after hearing that!

Oh, an by the way, this is painting after which the protagonist is named, it’s called  Allegory or The Triumph of Justice, 1598, by Hans von Aachen

[justjessame]

Babysitting Butcher Chapter 32

Life as a human guinea pig is a strange thing. First of all, there's the questions. The same questions over and over, to the point where the machines and medical doodads and the noise that became almost normal for me, but the questions became the irritant of the day.

"How are you feeling today, Dr. Taylor?" As I'd squint into the bright light being forced into my marrow it seemed. A muttered reply from me, and honestly the same answer in varying degrees of annoyance or acceptance depending upon the day and how many times I'd been asked it so far. "Uh huh, and are you feeling warm? Is there tenderness in your abdomen?" While they poked and prodded, testing skin, muscle, bone and eventually blood.

Did you know the average human adult has around 1.2-1.5 gallons of blood which equals roughly 10 units? I know this because I wanted to be certain that I'd have enough after all the blood testing. Research would either be the way I kept sane or what finally pushed me over the ledge into complete madness, mark my words.

Billy visited, as often as he could, and every single time he'd greet the head poker in residence with his own version of the repeated question game. "How is she? What's the bloody progress?" At which I would inevitably check the arm that seemed to be their favorite vessel for bloodletting. "How much longer?" And then he'd meet my gaze and focus his attention on ME, rather than on my medical condition.

Yes, I was calling it a condition. If I let the reality of my situation fully grip me, then I'd scream. And I had moments of it, trust me.

How would you feel if every single time the man you loved walked in and spoke about your person as though you were a petri dish experiment before reminding himself, through sheer force of finally SEEING you, that you were in fact the woman he loved?

Now take that feeling you just got from that scenario and add the annoyingly taunting voice of the caped asshole who caused this whole fucking irritating bullshit situation reminding you that you fell in love with a man for whom hatred of supes is as natural as inhaling. Feeling just a hint of discomfort? Just add the sound of beeping, buzzing, and dripping to remind yourself of the fact that this was all happening while I was being held hostage as a "let's see what happens if we try this mixture to counteract the demon juice flowing through her veins" was tried over and over.

Strained. My nerves, body, and brain felt strained. Even after the feeding tube was gone and Billy could kiss me. Even after I was given the go ahead to work from my hospital bed. Frayed would be a kind way to say how absolutely on edge I felt.

And the worse part? I felt like I was missing something. Something important. Something paramount. Just out of reach and as though, even surrounded by my laptop and notes, something that was keeping me out of an important loop.

The longer that I stayed in the 'undisclosed medical' location, the more that I wanted to be anywhere else in the world. Literally anywhere. I started to yearn for Bolivia and the Black Ops team that had gotten caught up in the web of a rogue agent and 'died' implicated in a massive fuck up of epic proportions.

When a rational woman who knows how the inner workings of other people's brains and behavior follow reliable patterns starts thinking fondly of the heat of a tropical place where she had to wade through more red tape than most people would assume humanly possible to unravel the truth, all while hearing the type of rumors about the men she was trying to clear and resurrect from faked death, then shit has hit epic levels of horrible. It did remind me to contact that team to see how their return to their former lives had worked out, and wonder if their leader had gotten over his own tragic ability to attract murderous women.

I wanted to go further than the small courtyard deemed safe enough for me to explore, and near enough to make them taking me off the dialysis machine after another fun round of 'clean her blood again' reasonable. I wanted to sleep in my own bed and watch television at my discretion without interruptions for another round of the questions and poking I wanted, in short, to be back to normal already.

I might have been empathizing with Billy's urge for the Vought wankers (his word, I swear) to find the magic solution so life could go back to the routine we both wanted a return to. Or I might have been trying to only see the positive outcome, since there was a creeping feeling that maybe, just maybe there wasn't an easy fix or a fix at all.

A month passed, with my cabin fever slowly increasing by the day, and with it my internal and external temperatures. Oh yeah, that's right, I might have forgotten to mention that while the steaming was at bay, now it was just my actual body temperature that would fluctuate and freak every single fucking person all the way out. When Billy said I nearly went "nuclear" he hadn't been joking, apparently I could have fucking exploded like a goddamn human time bomb and I didn't want to consider just how fucking messy that would have been for the janitorial staff.

Finally, maybe because I wanted some type of control about the questioning, I started asking some probing ones of my own. And what I found, when they would meet my eyes and answer me as fully as I wanted, was that that creeping feeling was growing more likely.

The issue wasn't simply that they didn't know which variation of Compound V that Homelander had me infected with, it was that as they broke down the components and addressed each one, my body didn't simply fight their attempts, it attacked itself. The asshole, it would appear, had basically chosen the self destruct version, and it was trickier than any puzzle these 'real doctors' had ever come across. I was truly feeling the confidence of having a toddler performing my brain surgery with this knowledge.

Oh and that wasn't all, even IF they figured out how to 'neutralize' the formula inside of my bloodstrain, then there was a probability that I could pass it on to any future children. Isn't that some kind of amazingly poetic bullshit to hear after you chose to evict a foreign invader from your uterus? That the one stabilizing agent I'd had scraped and dumped was the ONLY one that I would ever get to actually be allowed to experience. Remind me to send Homelander a HUGE fucking thank you card, would you?

Early into my first true consciousness, before I found out just how fucked the pompous dick had made my entire existence, Billy had told me that my parents had visited while I was knocked out. Apparently near death experiences make even the weirdest of families reunite. And mine was no different.

Mom became a regular visitor and I was shocked by how much I started looking forward to her visits. She was strangely comforting, and tried to keep my spirits up, she even made peace with Billy. Dad was less frequent in his contact, but Mom told me it was difficult for him to see me look like a shell of myself.

And I did. I looked like a ghost that's haunting what was left of my body. The feeding tube had kept me nourished, but my muscle mass had suffered from the amount of time I was forced to spend in bed. I was constantly tired, my work hours going from nine to six to an hour here, a few minutes there, and the amount of napping I did would make most house cats jealous. The gowns that I wore hung from my frame, my appetite was scarce and I felt like this was the LONGEST goodbye letter ever to be written.

As the days passed, one merging into the next without me taking stock of how much I missed, how much that puzzle of what I was missing had bothered me early on, the negative ideas started creeping in. Homelander's voice grew louder. His smug question about Billy and me and what my condition would mean for the two of us in the end kept pushing through my attempts to distract myself.

I was sitting in the soft chair they'd brought in for me by the window, staring out and thinking of my options when Billy came in for his visit. I heard him, in the background noise of beeps and whirls, ask his questions. I felt him when he was nearer to me, but my eyes stayed on the 'view'.

He started to greet me, but my mouth opened and the question came out without me thinking about it. "How will you do it?" I watched a leaf, one missed by the obsessive groundskeepers, dance in a breeze I wish I could feel. He was confused, his reflection showed that much. "When you kill me, how will you do it?"

"Veronica," I could hear the pain in his voice, the fear hiding behind it. "I wouldn't-"

"Frenchie then?" I tilted my head considering. "MM? Hughie barely managed to make the choice with-" I stopped and took a breath. "Kimiko?" I sighed and pulled my legs up onto the chair, hugging my knees. "I hear she makes quite a mess of her prey." My voice wasn't loud and it didn't sound anything more than resigned, and I was a little curious. "If you can get Starlight to do it, you could make it seem like self defense? Or," I sighed, and bit my lip, "it would finally give you a reason to take her out too."

"Ronnie, love, that's not gonna-" I turned and he flinched when he saw that I was serious and not the least bit upset. "Ronnie?"

"Billy Butcher, I wrote the book on you." My smile felt wrong to me, but right at the same time. "I know you inside and out, or at least I think I do." I had the research on the flash drive that was hooked into my laptop on the bed. "You are single minded in your focus and your focus has been on eliminating supes from the world for a very long time." I turned back to the window, staring past the view and at the reflection of the room behind me. "It was one of the things I found the most attractive about you, I think. That you could see a goal and pound away until you master it." He sat in the chair close to me, but at a distance far enough that he'd have to work to touch me. "So, how will I die, Billy?"

"You'll die safe and sound, of old age in our bed, Veronica." I smiled sadly at this pipe dream of a fairy tale he wanted so badly to believe. "When you're sick of me, remember?" I could hear how badly he wanted it to be true, how much he wanted to hold me and it to all be a terrible dream.

"Never took you for a nursery rhyme and fairy stories fan," my eyes were still on the window. "This isn't going away, Billy, what he put in me isn't going away. And you will start to look at me like you look at him." My eyes found his, and face to face I wanted to force him to see it. "You will. And then, just like you, Frenchie, and Hughie brainstormed about Translucent and the best way to end him, you'll start to consider my pressure points." I gave a harsh, humorless chuckle. "And the funniest part is that Homelander built mine in for you, all you have to do is take me off the blood cleanse for a day and my own body will do it for you." His eyes tightened at the reminder of how many close calls I'd had. "Oops, I guess I just planned it for you."

"Please don't." He was begging me to let him pretend it wasn't the truth, that he wouldn't lose me too, and because of the same supe as Becca's cause of death. "Don't do this."

I smiled sadly, knowing he knew, even without me telling him, what was going to happen next.

[reading-writing-revolution]

Just not #DonaldTrump...

December 26, 2019 (Thursday) - Heather Cox Richardson

Today began and ended with Trump melting down. This morning, after a silence during the holidays, he came out swinging at the Democrats generally, and at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi specifically. Then this evening, apparently against the advice of his lawyer, he retweeted a story that named someone claimed to be the whistleblower, a person who currently has a security detail for protection, not in a foreign war zone, but in our own nation’s capital.

It seems clear that Trump cannot bear that Pelosi—whom he is calling “Crazy Nancy”-- is not rushing to send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate for a trial… a trial that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already promised will exonerate Trump. It is worth noting that it has been only a week since the House passed the articles of impeachment, and we have had major religious holidays in that time, and yet Trump is obviously angry and desperate for movement on impeachment. But he’s got to wait even longer. The House will not be in session again until January 7—twelve days from now—and the Senate calendar for January is still in flux.

In other impeachment news, you will recall that Noah Feldman, the Harvard Law Professor who testified before the House Judiciary Committee in favor of impeachment, wrote an op-ed last week saying that Trump was not officially impeached until the House sent the articles of impeachment over to the Senate. Trump jumped on this idea, and has been saying that he is not really impeached. Today one of the other law professors who testified, George Washington University’s Jonathan Turley, who was called by the Republicans and was opposed to impeachment, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post entitled “I testified against Trump’s impeachment. But let’s not pretend it didn’t happen.” The title pretty much sums it up. As Turley concluded: “The House speaks in its own voice and in its own time. It did so on Dec. 18, 2019.”

For all the drama of these two stories, I have been more interested in what feels to me like a changing trend: it appears that media is finally recognizing that it cannot simply report “both sides” of the news as if they are equally valid when one side is lying. On the evening of December 24, Rolling Stone magazine published a short interview with Chuck Todd, an NBC journalist who moderates Meet the Press and who is the Political Director for NBC NEWS. On December 29, Meet the Press is doing a show on disinformation and how it is weaponized, and this interview was a teaser.

It's really important to understand that “misinformation” and “disinformation” are different things. “Misinformation” is bad information caused by errors-- someone makes a mistake. “Disinformation,” though, is deliberately false information intended to manipulate public opinion. Another word for disinformation is propaganda.

In the interview, Todd laments that he has been “absurdly naïve.” Right up until he had Senator Cruz on his show recently and Cruz echoed Russian propaganda, Todd apparently believed that the Republicans were acting in good faith when they talked to the media. Todd says he was “stunned” by Cruz’s embrace of Russian disinformation, especially since he was the third senator to do exactly that on the show. Cruz had asked to come on, and Todd thought that since Cruz had always been a Russia hawk, he wanted to set the record straight. When, instead, he followed the party line, Todd finally got it: Trump Republicans are using the media to spread propaganda.

Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, responded to this revelation by pointing out that it was on Todd’s own show in January 2017 that Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway launched the concept of the administrations lies simply being based on “alternative facts.” But, Rosen writes, media leaders nonetheless treated officials’ lies as hyperbole, just Trump and his spokespeople being ridiculous.

The upshot is that, three years later, Trump’s base is divorced from reality, while other Americans are so tired from incessant gas lighting we have lost faith that we can still perceive reality. This is why gaslighting is effective propaganda: having lost confidence in their own perceptions, people are so eager for peace they are willing to accept a strong leader who will promise to create stability.

I’m with Rosen on this. There is no excuse for such “naivete” on Todd’s part. He’s the Political Director for NBC News, after all, and should have had a better handle on the well-known methods at play here.

Even more, it has been very clear that today’s Republican Party has risen to power by rejecting facts and creating its own reality. After World War Two, Republicans and Democrats both shared a belief that the government had a role to play in regulating the economy, providing a basic social safety net, and promoting infrastructure. Indeed, that belief about government was so widely embraced it became known as the “liberal consensus.”

In 1951, William F. Buckley, Jr., fresh out of college, wrote a book attacking that consensus by attacking fact-based argument. In God and Man at Yale: The Superstitions of “Academic Freedom,” Buckley said that trying to reach the truth by constructing arguments out of facts—the premise of the Enlightenment-- was a worse superstition than the Dark Age traditions the Enlightenment tried to root out. When presented with fact-based arguments, voters kept choosing the liberal consensus. So far as Buckley was concerned, that consensus flew in the face of God’s laws. So, Buckley concluded, it was imperative to stop arguing based on facts, and simply promote a “Conservative” view of the world by whatever means necessary.

The construction of a narrative undercutting the popular liberal consensus took the modern Republican Party further and further away from a fact-based reality, until by 2002, journalist Ron Suskind had this extraordinary exchange with one of President George W. Bush’s aides.

"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles…. He cut me off. 'That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. '…When we act, we create our own reality…. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'”

Ten years later, in 2012, Thomas E. Mann from the left-leaning Brookings Institution and Norm Ornstein from the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute warned that it was imperative to stop saying “both sides do it,” because the parties were not equally polarized. “The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics,” they wrote. “It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”

We now have a president who has made more than 15,000 false or misleading claims in fewer than three years in office, and it has become increasingly clear recently that those lies echo Russian propaganda. Senior officials repeat his claims to the media, creating their own reality.

It is my sense that Todd’s revelation is a sign that media figures are starting to see how they are being used to advance disinformation. There has been discussion emerging of how to report the news without providing a platform for lies. If it takes hold, there will be an important shift in media coverage of the administration and congressional supporters in the new year."

[zenosanalytic]

Breaking The Wheel

A Summarized Analysis of the first three books of HoxPoX: House of X #1&2, and Powers of X #1

Ok so, I’ve been working on/thinking about this for awhile now, mostly because life just keeps interrupting and so I haven’t had the time to just sit down and finish it, but also partially cuz I’ve been struggling with the form I want to put it in. Honestly you could write multipage analyses of EACH of these books, as well as the Stuff they share and conflict over, but I’m going for something more condensed than that so that I can FINALLY move on to just reading the rest of the series! In later posts I’ll be getting into specific themes and instances of symbolism, but first I just want to get my basic observations&guesses abt the series(which everyone else has already read X|) down. So here we go:

Resurrection/Rebirth:

HoX#1 opens with the XMen emerging from some sort of plant-eggs. My guess(which is p much confirmed for me since I’ve read Excalibur #1) was that this is a resurrection. There’s a heavy cthonic tone to the whole Deal, and Xavier is visually placed in an ambiguously parental/godly role to the XMen as they emerge. Of course, in our culture resurrection and rebirth are heavily conflated and so the symbols INVOKING resurrection here --egg shapes, trees, chrysalises, golden light-- are all ALSO symbolic of fertility and rebirth and, as I love puns&multiple meanings, I absolutely think that’s important too. Beyond informing the action of the page, on a meta level this is obvsl also a powerful thesis & statement of intent for X Men, a long-running and hugely popular comic book property: a declaration of both reviving a moribund past, and the intention to do something new with it. The decision to bring back old costumes and classic art styles, and to center it on long-forgotten locations, plot points(like Krakoa itself), and typically overlooked or underwritten characters(like Moira McTaggart and Mystique’s supporting cast), absolutely suggests a dedication to this task, and the intention to accomplish it moving forward.

Cycles:

Related to this is the importance of repeating, “inescapable” Cycles to the work. HoX 1 moves from this scene of resurrection to scenes of planting and plant growth which cycle through both seasonal phases and phases of the day. HoX 1 then carries this forward by taking place over the COURSE of a single day.

PoX 1 repeats this with cycles of Time and information gathering: Mystique delivering the usb from Damage Control in (Year 10); Rasputin and Cardinal retrieving & delivering information from The Nexus in Year 100; The Librarian trying to recover information from Cylobel(a mutant bred, rebelled, then captured by the sentinels), now part of the Mutant Library, in Year 1000. This is supported subtly in the art of all three books(but made explicit in the opening scenes of PoX 1 where Moira meets Xavier) through cycles of color: Green/Teal, Gold, and Purple. The symbolic meaning of the colors are various and contextual, I’ll get more into it later, but the basic foundation seems to be Green=Naivety/Beginnings/Ambiguity, Gold=Power/Knowledge, Purple=Death/Endings/Rebirths. PoX 1 ends with Beginnings: The Librarian fondly regards an Eden-like Zoo for what remains of “pure-strain” homo sapiens, and Rasputin(a mutant freedom fighter in Year 100) delivers her information just as Mystique did in the first section after the introduction of the book.

Hox 2 continues and solidifies the pattern of cycles. It ends were PoX 1 began: with Moira and Xavier’s meeting at the fair(a mobius double helix reach around, perhaps :p). It begins with Moira’s birth and a recounting of her first, entirely human, life. It continues through the cycles of her lives and deaths as she grapples with her Groundhog Day existence(a personal struggle which parallels and microcosms the larger struggle within humanity over mutation), which in a tenuous way seems to be narratively structured around the stages of grief. First she isn’t aware&trying to understand what’s happening(denial), then out of resentment of what she has lost from her first life, she rejects mutation and tries to “cure” it(anger), then seeks coexistence, and increasingly tenuous proposition over lifetimes(bargaining), before giving up in despair and wallowing in mutually destructive conflict(depression). The color symbolism is retained: The sickbed where her resurrection powers manifest is bathed in gold light, her first human childhood surrounded by naive greens, with the death/rebirth of her 2nd life gestated in wombly fuschias, and continued with a pink-purple dress in her 2nd toddlerhood. The sentinels, the mechanical agents of death throughout her lives, are purple, as ever.

However, HoX 2 ultimately struggles against, and seeks to subvert, the cycles even as it repeats them, suggesting to me that Escape is the ultimate endpoint of the series. While HoX&PoX 1 are told from within the cycles, HoX 2 is an outside recounting of them. At least one of Moira’s lives seems to be missing, likely hidden, and the end of another is obscured in eternal war. Moira breaks the 4th wall to discuss her mutation, and it’s impact directly with the audience; literally displaying her ability and desire to break out of the cycles. Her actions within each cycle are either to carry information between them, or motivated by what she’s learned from previous ones, thereby breaking the boundaries btw them and flattening out the cycles into a single linear narrative. In fact by the time of the series, by her 10th life, ending the violent cycles of her lives and deaths(and thus, the cycles of intrahuman conflict over mutation) is Moira’s declared and explicit goal(and HoX2 presents the series as the story of Moira). Her 10th life is canonically either her last or second to last life. In the “stages of grief” model, the last stage is “acceptance”; synthesizing and integrate one’s grief and loss into a new, healthy life. Both narratively and thematically, HoX 2 positions HoXPoX as a Dune-scaled epic narrative; not as the story of a particular conflict, but as a Historical narrative; as the story of structural patterns of behavior reinforced by instinctive dispositions, repeated throughout time, and one attempt to escape them for something better.

Ambiguity:

The narrative takes the point of view, and thus also the side, of the mutants, but that isnt to say it presents the mutants as unquestionably the “good guys”, or the human-AI alliance as necessarily the “bad guys”. While the forces of ~Human Purity~ and supremacy, those rejecting the shared humanity of mutants(Orchis: a mega organization of Marvel’s secret societies&black-ops orgs), are clearly presented as fascist, both visually and narratively, supremacist talk ALSO abounds on the mutant side which, when combined with trophically sinister visual cues suggests the mutant-nationalist sepratist project contains its own dangerous contradictions(further lampshaded by setting one of the major plots of HoX 1 in Israel, thus drawing parallels btw the two). Meanwhile the AIs, who carry out the Purists’  genocidal campaign, are presented as a sort of blameless technological inevitability; aware of the wrongness of what they do, and yet unable to stop doing it due to their programming. In this way, I suspect, they are meant to act as a commentary on the mutant-non-mutant conflict itself; on the way in which humans(both mutant and non) are primed to reject each other as fully human by both instinctive impulse and cultural structures emphasizing competition-based interpretations of evolution. I suspect this is even further and more directly lampshaded in the series at two points: In HoX#1 with discussion of  “the cro-magnon problem”, and in HoX#2 through Moira’s off-hand reference to this idea in her 4th life(when she first decides to give Xavier and coexistence a shot). The idea both times that other homo species were “wiped out” by competition with Homo sapiens because they SEEM to no longer exist, but this is a false conclusion. In rreality genetic studies show significant admixture of the other homo branches within the sapiens line. The reality of pre-historical hominid interaction wasn’t genocide, but synthesis. The inability to conceive of this(in other words, the inability to conceive of all homo sapiens as equally human, and mutants as a new evolutionary stage; the drive to cling to “ethnic purity”) is, I believe, the core problem the series will posit drives human&mutant conflict, which needs to be gotten past in someway. Obvsl this guess could be wrong.

Alright that’s the first post on my read through of the first 3 books. Like I said I’ll be posting more detailed analysis later.

[deltaengineering]

Winter Anime 2019 Part 3: High on Concept

If you wait long enough, you’ll find something good to say.

Doukyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki, Atama no Ue / My Roommate is a Cat

What: Misanthropic mystery author picks up tough stray cat, both get healed.

✅ The cat acts like a cat, the misanthrope acts like a misanthrope.

✅ The approach of telling the same simple story from the perspective of two characters that can’t really communicate effectively is interesting.

✅ This is very basic, but it works. I like both characters, and it's generally inoffensive. Pretty much Barakamon with less of a focus on telling you exactly what to feel. Might watch more of this.

❌ I see we’re now at the point where shows get localized titles that sound like lazy translations of bland Japanese names even when the Japanese title is not that bland to begin with. Lovely.

Dimension High School

What: A bunch of kids press XXX and YYY and are sucked. Wooow.

✅✅ The wraparound segments look extremely realistic. If there was more lensflares and shots of feet I’d almost say someone has finally beaten KyoAni in making anime look like a cheap, egregiously overacted J-Drama.

❌❌ Sadly, the puzzle dimension they end up in just looks like homemade MMD animation, because it is. I mean, at least it’s mocapped, but apparently with a Kinect.

❌❌ E.g., they make jokes about clipping and they kinda have to because everything clips into everything else all the time.

❌❌ Did I mention that all they actually do is solve lame puzzles and fail to be funny about it? It’s really getting to the levels of the dreaded “barely animated voice actor improv podcast” at these points.

♎ Suwabe’s in it, and that’s never an outright bad thing. He’s voicing the quizmaster, in the process proving he’d do anything for a paycheck. I wonder if he has a fiverr acocunt.

Domestic na Kanojo

What: Highschooler loses virginity to one night stand, finds out that it was the sister of the teacher he has a crush on. Incidentally, the mother of both also just married his father. Zany!

✅ This is presented like a low-key, slow drama, and it’s not even bad at that. Some good directing going on here, at least in the beginning.

❌❌ Really just too bad that it’s impossible to take seriously with a setup as contrived as this, not to mention taking it as seriously as it apparently wants to be taken. It’s also not exactly original.

❌ I’m not gonna say that sketchy relationships can’t work (it worked fine for KoiAme, for example), but embedding your suddenly also incestuous pupil-teacher affair in the setting of a harem comedy, complete with other sister walking in on attempted drunk blackout kiss, is not giving me confidence that this has the chops to pull it off.

❌❌ The show this reminds me the most of is Love and Lies, and that’s a real bad calling card to have.

Girly Air Force

What: Girl-shaped fighter jets fall in love with a dude.

❌❌ It’s just another military-hardware-is-cute-girls-actually show in the vein of Strike Witches, the kind where they think that having a few plane CG models is already thrilling content.

❌❌ But then it doesn’t even turn out to be that in practice, because most of the episode is taken up by lame “worldbuilding” (i.e., coming up with excuses for why your fanservice show has to be the way it is) and trying to make your bland harem lead interesting, which is a futile endeavour.

❌ The most interesting part is still the CG dogfighting, such as it is. It’s not great either. Also, girly planes are pink.

♎ Honestly got a laugh out of them randomly picking a Gripen as heroine unit  in addition to actual JSADF hardware, because that’s a sleek-looking plane. The biggest prank the JSADF ever pulled on the otaku industry is buying the chubby F-35, which is nowhere to be seen here.

Go-toubun no Hanayome / The Quintessential Quintuplets

What: Empoverished highschooler is hired as a tutor for some rich quintuplets with large breasts.

❌ This is a blatant harem setup that would make a 2003 bishoujo VN blush.

✅ However, in practice it’s much better than it sounds. It knows it’s a wacky romcom with a dumb premise and it does not pretend otherwise.

✅ So it’s lighthearted, but it’s also surprisingly classy. In fact, it’s classier than Domestic no Kanojo, which is a show that’s actually trying to look respectable and failing.

✅ The relationships are also very feisty, with an energy that a comedy needs. There’s a lot of sass to go around here. Probably the best of these I’ve seen in a while, so I’ll give it three eps.

Kemurikusa

What: After getting pulled off the sequel, the Kemono Friends crew made their own version. Presumably there are blackjack and hookers in this show’s future.

❌ If you are a fan of KF’s “charms”, fear not, you would not be able to tell these people made another anime before. It's still total amateur hour.

❌❌ It’s not even the “looks”, though those certainly are not a highlight. The design is okay and the animation is bad, but I’m not incapable of enjoying shows with bad animation. What really kills it is the editing. I usually don’t comment on editing because that’s almost always competent and only very rarely great, but Kemurikusa has uniquely lazy and badly timed editing. Every shot being seconds longer than it needs to be is already an annoyance in low-key dialog scenes, but the alleged action is laughable and allows you a long, unblinking stare at every frame of bad animation. I really do wonder why they even bother with it when it’s so terrible.

✅ The setting seems alright, even though it’s just a reskinned Kemono Friends. At least it’s not gijinka nonsense this time (which makes one wonder where the gimmick characters are supposed to come from, but I digress), and it’s more upfront about what it actually is too. I’d call it mildly intriguing.

❌ I don’t mind mystery and certainly prefer it to exposition bombs, but instead of that this episode quickly establishes the most basic facts... and then repeats them over and over and over some more. Combined with non-editing, this makes for horrible pacing. 

♎ I had no opinion on KF’s longer-term qualities, because the first episode was so boring I never got any further. I won’t have an opinion on this show’s long-term qualities for the same reason.

Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka

What: Magical girls are tragic, shoot gun’s.

❌❌ Yo bro, what if magical girls but dark? Surely such a thing has never been attempted.

❌ The particular source of grim here is that these girls are war vets and fight with semi-realistic weaponry, so there’s a fair bit of the ol’ milwank in this one as well.

❌ The best part of the entire show is that the enemies they originally fought looked like cute teddy bears. Of course, this is dropped in favor of just slicing and dicing some random terrorists in the main narrative. I guess “dark magical girl” is still too outlandish a concept, gotta go with ripping off The Punisher again.

❌ The characters so far are nothing special, you got your PTSD Rambo and the generically cute tomodachis she swears to protect. Such contrast!

❌❌ If you must make these 80s action movies with some otaku gimmick pasted on top, would you mind making the action look good at least? Because I don’t care how many gallons of blood you paint in your dramatic but conspicuously non-moving pans.

Meiji Tokyo Renka

What: Spiritually sensitive lonelygirl gets kitsuned to the Meiji era, which is full of delicious beef and some handsome men too I guess.

✅ This isn’t an outright comedy, but it goes all in on everyone’s fabulosity level to a degree that it’s really already three quarters to Dame x Prince.

✅ Similarly, the lead is not quite as unimpressed with these hams as Ani was, but she certainly has a lot more interest in roast beef than in these guys always trying to pull her into sparkly chin-holding poses &c.

✅ Meiji Tokyo Renka doesn’t seem to be anything special, but it gets the tone right and is expressive enough to not become boring.

♎ While certainly watchable right now, with these there’s always the chance that it decides to launch into real drama in the long run, which in turn almost always goes wrong.

Yakusoku no Neverland / The Promised Neverland

What: An orphanage’s happy daily life gets upended by the realisation that they’re just pizza rolls for some demonic entities.

✅ I watched this right after Kemurikusa and let me tell you, it sure helps if you’ve got professionals on the team. This is a highly competent show as far as cinematography and editing is concerned. While there isn’t any reason to go all out on the action sakuga, this show looks real good.

❌ I’m not feeling the character design, to be specific I think everyone’s chin is too big. This sounds like a real assholy nitpick, but be aware that this will impact around 90% of the time you watch this. 

✅ The premise is workable for a shounen manga, even if hardly original (remember Owari no Seraph?) At least it’s not kids with superpowers spamming beams at each other while discussing the nature of heroism, and seems to be going for a more mindgames-based approach in the vein of Death Note. The characters are just barely good enough so far. In the end it’s not so much the premise, but how well the production values are able to sell it. And that’s what Neverland is good at.

❌ It’s specifically a Weekly Shounen Jump manga, and that is huge red flag. Sure enough, while the visuals and mood deliver, the dialog writing justifiably assumes the reader is a moron. Almost every line in this is either straight universe exposition or someone reading someone else’s character sheet back to them. It’s insane and not even necessary because their actions establish all of this just fine, but hey, WSJ readers amirite?

❌ Also, since it’s a successful WSJ property, don’t expect an ending or be prepared to watch this show for years. Most likely both.

♎ This seems like it could be entertaining once the exposition is out of the way and the real meat of the narrative starts. Then again, at that point pacing would come into play, which is yet another achilles heel of WSJ-style shounen manga. Against my better judgement, I’ll probably have a look how this develops, but I don’t expect much.

[thegoldenlily3]

ONLY READ AFTER PART 1 and 2.

(Scroll down until you find part 1)

Trigger warning/ graphic photos

I don’t really know how to explain how I feel without my ileostomy bag. I hated it...but I loved it in a way too. I mean it saved my life. Some people have said they’d rather die than get an ostomy bag. I never thought about an ostomy bag beforehand and I certainly didn’t think that when the doctor told me what I was in for. I’d rather live and an ostomy bag was what I needed so I didn’t think twice. I know love may sound like a strong word but I didn’t love a lot about it lol. I loved not having to go to the bathroom so often. I loved not having to worry about gas and being loud in public bathrooms. The hate list is much longer though. I hated the skin issues. I hated having to change my wardrobe just to feel normal around other people. I hated the embarrassment of the smell in public bathrooms. I hated having to get up in the middle of the night to empty the bag. I hated not being comfortable enough to swim. I hated not being able to sleep on my belly. I hated that I dreaded taking a shower. I hated not getting bear hugs from my husband.

I haven’t been able to really enjoy being bag-less yet since I still have a wound that’s healing where my stoma was. It’s packed and covered along with my incision so it’s not really free feeling. I still reach for the bag even though it’s gone which is weird. It’s been a habit for over 2 and half years that I’m going to have to break. I love that I can go a size down in shirts. I’ve already bought a few new shirts that I’m excited to wear. I don’t have to worry about hiding the bag anymore because the outline was easily visible.

The first two weeks post op were really hard. I mean I did some research about this and Issaac read a lot about it too but I didn’t expect it to be like that. I basically had to relearn how to poop. I mean I’ve been pooping in a bag for over 2 years! ~ I only stayed in the hospital for three days. My support group was a lot of help when I asked what to bring with me. So if you plan to have an ostomy or a jpouch, look up some groups on Facebook. They’re full of awesome people. This is what I brought with me:

Calmoseptine cream (or any diaper rash ointment)

Water wipes (these are better to use rather than toilet paper because to put it frankly, your butt will be raw! TP will make that worse.)

Travel bidet

iPad (gotta keep up with the voice 😉)

I also had a shower chair for at home. This helped a lot.

I didn’t have any issues having a bowel movement so I was glad to be released quickly. Trying to get comfortable in that hospital bed was hard. I was getting fluids and had to take them with me every time I went to the bathroom. Pro tip: learn how to silence the alarm of the IV machine so you don’t have to call in the nurse every time it beeps. I learned that many hospitals trips ago.

So I remember these two weeks being hard but I’m finding it difficult to recall a lot since I was on pain meds. I know I cried a lot, multiple times a day to be honest. I had so many different feelings every day. I think I didn’t really come to terms with my bag being gone until days after surgery. I had been using the restroom so much and I was using a ton of cream and wipes and toilet paper. It was burning and hurting and I could feel when my waste was going into the pouch which was a weird and painful sensation. I really didn’t expect it to be so hard and I kind of freaked out, hence all of the crying. I even had a panic attack on the toilet where Issaac had to calm me down. My head was shaking and I kept repeating “I’m freaking out”. I don’t know what prompted the attack but I think it was a mixture of coming to terms with this being my new life and not having a bag anymore. I was probably using the restroom around 20-30 times which also made it hard to get any sleep. I would and still do sometimes put an ice pack under my bottom just to fall asleep. I usually had to do that if I’ve had a rough go in the restroom and I’m sore. I wore adult diapers for an entire week and I had 2 accidents where I couldn’t make it to the restroom in time and I couldn’t control it. I didn’t go anywhere for two weeks which has sucked because it’s October and my favorite time of the year. But I did take short walks down the sidewalks in front of my house to try to gain some strength back. I didn’t dare go far yet though. I was regretting the surgery and hating life and wanted to give up but Issaac was there every day to remind me that it wasn’t always going to be this way. My support group reminded too. They reassured me that it would get better and that everything I was going through was normal. I found it really hard to believe but what could I do but keep pushing forward. I just had to keep reminding myself that this was all normal and all part of the plan for bigger and better things.

My suture was starting to be very visible so I went in to see a nurse. She said it needed to be removed and I freaked out. I really hate being in pain! Although it shouldn’t have hurt, her first tug on it hurt really badly. I started crying and pushed her hand away out of reflex. It took a minute for me to calm down and I really didn’t know how I was going to get through the rest because I didn’t think I could control my reflexes. We finally decided that I would try to remove the suture myself. The part that she tugged out was the knot and she thinks it hurt because it was maybe on a nerve so that was the worst of it. I was able to remove the rest without any pain. Thank God. That was so stressful and I didn’t expect it to happen. My first stoma wound had the white dissolvable sutures. This suture was black and required removal. I didn’t know that I would need that removed. After it was removed though, I started healing more quickly and my pain went away. I was only having a little bit of pain when I turned in bed.

It’s now been almost a month since surgery and I don’t regret it anymore. I don’t hate life. In fact, I’m looking forward to the future. I’ve gone to the zoo and a football game and I’ve taken my niece to an event held outside. I’ve gone out to eat a few times and I’m looking forward to doing more Fall events. I’m looking forward to adding more foods in everyday and I’m hoping pizza doesn’t bother me too bad. 😉 I’ve been taking Imodium and it helps tremendously. I still use the restroom quite a bit but not nearly as much as the beginning. I’m only a month out though. My surgeon reassured me that my bowels are still going to change and hopefully get better. It’ll take a lot of time but I’m finally to a point where I’m okay with that.

I feel like as soon as this wound heals, it’s going to be the first day of my new life. I can make plans and travel and start a family. I can finally stop feeling like I’m in limbo and stuck in a circle with a dark cloud following me everywhere. I’m looking forward to just living and feeling free.

I cannot say enough how incredibly thankful I am to have my husband throughout all of this. A support system is extremely important for situations like this. If Issaac hadn’t been here with me cheering me on and helping me heal, I really don’t know where I’d be.

Thanks for reading and share away if you feel my story could help someone.

This song called Hurts 2B Human is dedicated to my husband.

[orthographewrites]

🎅 (trash sons gift wrapping a present for sofia or pia, surprise me idkkdk)

🎅  HELP MY MUSE WRAP A PRESENT: 

“C’mon, it will take basically no time at all and it will be lots of fun styling the paper – they’re going to love it!” An innocent sentence shared between boyfriends, one far above the other with his pleading tone that stated his need for help. Marius’ “sure” came with suspicion, knowing nothing was plain and forward with Robin, but as he found it hard to ignore the multitude of outcomes that could follow leaving Robin alone with scissors and paper, he found himself with a little to no choice. Robin, on the other hand, was nothing but ecstatic as he pulled Marius into his half-naked living room (although somewhat livelier with a Christmas tree decorating the corner near the TV) and pointed at a crafting station he had prepared in the middle.

“So, I kind of haven’t wrapped a present since I was like… fifteen or something, because you know I mostly stuff it into an envelope and send it on its way – thus I kind of didn’t really know what to get but… I think we can figure it out.” And that was a statement that held true, as there was no shortage of wrapping paper with anything from shimmering hues to classic Christmas motives of snowflakes, Santa and Rudolph. On top of that, there also happened to be a massive stack of bows and ribbon in a similar fashion, cards in all sizes, glitter and stamps that all laid bundled together next to the paper. If one had glanced over at Marius in that exact moment in time, a shift among his facial features would have said it all and rang of a much familiar “oh hell no” that filled the room with a sense of dread. However, it was short-lived as Robin spoke up again. “I thought we could maybe do one each? I’ll do Sofia’s and you’ll do Pia’s because that’ll be a hundred times faster than doing them one by one. Just grab for whatever you think she’ll like!” ( @alicemorganwrites )

Robin placed a loving pat on Marius’ shoulder, nudging him forward before he went to shuffle the two presents into the middle and the smile on his face was no late to match his excitement to finally be wrapping gifts again. He had quite often felt cheap and boring in comparison to his family during Christmas and birthdays, all having their share neatly boxed in with love and care – whilst Robin barely had time to get home and settle himself in before the holiday took over. This was a change of pace, much like the rest of his usual routines and he wasn’t about to half-ass it. To him, the coming steps came easy. Sofia was a classic and clean person, she preferred when things seemed in order and therefore Robin went for the classic wrapping paper – the first step. The second step threw him at a halt, instantly turning to Marius who was already busy cutting his, having gone for a gold shimmer. “Um… how much are you supposed to cut? Like do you just fit it around the box or do you need to cut the corners in a specific way?”

“Are you seriously telling me you don’t even know how to actually cut the paper?” Marius arched a brow, staring over in confusion. “How would you have done this if you’d been on your own? Holy – never mind, you make sure it can wrap one and a half times around the package, start with that and then I’ll show you the second step.” This turned to be a process and a half, which Marius constantly needing to stop Robin from placing an excessive amount of tape around the edges, as Robin came concerned they’ll be able to peak through the wrapping if he didn’t secure it enough. There was nothing magic with the ability to steal a first viewing, he argued, and Marius quickly gave up and let him have his way.

The next step was the ribbon to be placed around the package, something that made it pop and stand out – quite important. Finding the right color to match became the hard part. Did he want a purple? A red? A mix? Maybe some silver? “Ugh! Why is this so hard! Should I just try them all and see which look the best?” Robin knitted his eyebrows as he unrolled a chunk of the ribbon and placed the package on top, quick to second guess and reach out for another one – repeating the process without rolling the ribbon back again, something that soon came to unfold on Marius’ side of the floor. Upon hearing a quick “keep it on your side” Robin looked up, soon to gasp in chock and shuffle himself upwards as he realized what Marius’ was doing with the wrapping for Pia. “No! You can’t just slap a bow on top like that, it looks super boring! This is Pia we are talking about, and considering you’ve known her longer than I have you should know she likes it with pizazz!”

“And?” Marius lowered the package for a minute but kept it secure within his hands to avoid Robin taking over his work. “She’s just going to rip it off and throw it onto the trash anyway, why bother.”

“Because it will look good and make it seem like you really care about them, maybe?” Robin’s voice was filled with disbelief, yet somewhat used to Marius’ typical dismissal of cute gestures – hardly the type to put in an obvious effort that made him seem like he cared. Today, however, was not a day for short-cuts and he darn made sure to make a statement of it as he suddenly reached forward to grab for one of the glitter boxes and held it forward. “At least use some of this to make it pop or something, don’t go bland.”

Marius, on the other hand, gave it one glance before he shook his head. “No, I’m fine with this.”

“Pia deserves better!”

“And?”

“You’re so boring, I can’t believe it – I’ll do it for you then. Hold on, I’ll just op – “, Robin’s sentence never reached the finish as his nails cut through the tape of the glitter box and tried (at first) open it gently, something that proved impossible and thus force him to pry at the edge until it gave in. And out. As Robin had mentioned, he wanted the gift to “pop” and as a massive cloud of holographic glitter got tossed out and into the air (landing everywhere from the floor to the package and not least all over Marius face and shirt) it was safe to say the bow was no longer the main attraction. His eyes stared wide at the scene in front of him, shifting between Marius and the floor. “Um… well…”, he paused and exhaled, building himself up for the next part. “At least you look pretty adorable in glitter, I’ll give you that much.”

Marius sat silent, his fingers yet gripping the gift as his eyes glared in front of himself, barely capable of staring anywhere else around him. All he could feel was the light tingle from the glitter around his nose, almost as if someone was holding a dust boa to his face, making him wrinkle the area around to keep himself from sneezing right out. “And what else would you suggest I ad?” There was a hint of a sigh hidden between his words, biting his tongue in an attempt to stay civil.

“Else? Oh boy… how about a card? We should definitely be making rhymes and stuff, you can’t have a classic present without making people guess what’s in it.” And just like that, Robin had already moved on from his glitter disaster, instead pointing at the stack of cards he had picked up.

“What? No! I was thinking more in terms of decorations not – “

“It’s a decoration, you string it to the ribbon!” It was a closing statement, not opening any room for further arguments about what should and shouldn’t go on a present. This was Christmas they were talking about, a holiday filled with wonders and delight – Marius was not allowed to downplay it or skip over it for once. Robin merely gained a muffled answer, words mangled and not for his ears to hear as the two continued on their separate accords. The room eventually filled up with the sound of a scribbling pen, as well as Robin’s voice humming along to a Christmas song he recalled from memory – .lost in his work that slowly started to wrap up to completion. 

Once he was done with his own rhyme, he decided to break the silence to declare victory. “It doesn’t look half bad!” Sofia’s present had, sort of, stuck to the tidy section of ideas – having gone with a silver and green ribbon combo, alongside some of the stamps to hold it all in place. The small card dangled from the side, inviting and with Sofia’s name on the front. Marius’ was… as good as it could get, having forced himself to place a few odds and bits around the already glowing paper to avoid getting stuck again. The spilled glitter was the highlight of it all, glimmering and falling off the paper whenever Marius tried to shift the box around. 

“Good enough?” Marius placed it closer to Sofia’s present, his fingers grabbing for the fabric of his short to remind himself of the disaster about to take place the second he removed himself from the floor. 

“Definitely on the better side, I’ll give it a pass.” Robin nodded to show his agreement, right before he hunched closer to Marius, quickly dipping his hand in the glitter spread around them and ruffling it into Marius’ dark locks. “You can borrow one of my shirts for now, because I’m kind of getting into this so we might as well do my dads’ presents as well.” 

Marius’ didn’t gain an opportunity to protest as Robin was quicker up on his feet, placing a loving peck on his cheek that made him swallow his words. “Ugh, fine…”, he sighed in defeat. “Do you have something to drink though? I have a feeling we are going to need it.” 

[arkus-rhapsode]

Rhapsode Rambles (I talk my continuing coverage of Eden’s Zero, my place in the FT fandom, and potential future for this blog)

So anyone whose read this review, I ask you to read this.

So guys Eden’s Zero has blasted onto the scene and there’s definitely been an explosion of response to it. I swear I don’t think we’ll ever see a first chapter blow up as fast as this one did. There’s already side blogs being devoted to it, fan art, and panel coloring, it just goes to show how powerful an existing fanbase can boost a series versus someone without one. Hell, I can say the same for my review this is not only I think my highest rated review, but I think its the quickest I’ve seen a review blow up on my blog.

That said we also have a problem with this in a sense. In a sense this is just the highly prone to discourse FT fandom reborn in a different shell. This is not a brand new fandom being built from the ground up, its a continuation a postponed fandom. This means that people already coming into this “new fandom” already have an unshakable simulus of the man behind the work, be it positive or negative. So in short, getting into Eden’s Zero (in the case of fandom) is going back to Fairy Tail.

Look this post is probably not going to be what you thought because I’m going to have to now talk about something I’m sure none of you want to hear, me. Well specifically this blog. Look this blog and my reviews are basically exaggerations of my true feelings like I have no intention of ever not expressing my honest thoughts, but this is just me played up more for the intent of this blog. This post however, no Rhapsode persona, this is my unvarnished true feelings. (I’m putting this under the cut cause this might get a little long and maybe a little hard to read)

So back in the day 4 or so years ago, I started my tumblr out of the sole intent to follow and send asks to a comedy list blog and even intended to do my own. That failed. Or at the least I couldn’t keep producing results because my brand of comedy just wasn’t something all that viable to build a blog on. I was around that time I started FT and it was the first series I ever feel like I chose myself. Most series I got into at the time were the ones people said I should check out, or I had a vague knowledge of before going into it. But this was the first series I picked because I randomly found it and was like, “I can get this.” I eventually met someone through that list blog that ended up being a fan of FT and we quickly bonded over it. It became kinda a crux for the first real friend I made over the internet. And I was happy. I got into the fandom and eventually met more people and that’s basically how I made friends which was through the fandom. It eventually influenced me so much, I ended up at a place that made me have to confront the “true quality of the series.”

This group had kinda been a more negative FT crowd who kinda pointed out how it was kinda dumb (and let me express this was an anime in general group we had, FT was a topic cause it was a weekly series, but just don’t this was a solely salty FT crowd) but at the time I felt I couldn’t articulate my thoughts so I write my first review. It got minimum views with my big break eventually being my review of chapter 515. And I was so happy. I people who validated my opinions, I grew in followers, and I could finally come to the table with a personality to blog for my friends (They were already distinct bloggers so I was always kinda the least successful cause I didn’t do much) But doing this review thing forced me to dive into parts of the fandom I never noticed. The discourse. I was so green to it that I became a stunch defender.

So I put all my efforts in my reviews while also popping up in many different places and FT related blogs. As I continued to do reviews  though and the shift of my own friends feelings and me associating with people who were in the negative feeling of FT, my opinions shifted. The series I chose so long ago finally revealed that it wasn’t as good as I thought it be. Every horrible thing I heard trolls yell about FT actually felt like it became true in that. So I was now in the thick of it and I would fight for my opinions. I would take on anybody who felt differently. Defend my opinions with the utmost passion and doing this while trying to build a reputation for myself. For the first time ever I actually had something that was passionate about and felt like I could make a name for myself through a medium that was hard for me to find people in the outside world to talk to with.

I’m sure your asking, “Rhapsode, what does any of this have to do with a revival of the FT fandom?” Well it basically means a revival of the FT fandom would mean I’d have to take this series the same way I took FT and would mean I’d likely have to resort to what I was like back when the FT fandom was active. Now let me give you little insight to writing reviews for an anime series. The key to it is timing. Unlike a movie that was made like 10 years ago and you can make a review of it and still have it attract readers, isn’t the same as Manga reviews which the key is to get it out while this chapter is relevant. In one week everything can change and you gotta keep up with that. Which is why back when I was doing Ft and I wanted to be in that window of releasing it, I would look up spoilers because those would help me formulate opinions and ideas quicker. The problem with that is I basically have those forming opinions bouncing in my head for days, eating up my time and focus till it actually came out. And then it would just repeat.

And then it all ended. The series was over and I had basically went on my own suspension, eventually reviewing other series since I still felt I had obligations to the people who followed me. And the series I choose, One Piece, Black Clover, MHA, I never did the same for them. I released them on the day they came out sure, but I always just ran with them instead premeditating a review like I did for FT. But with Edens Zero that mean’s I’ll have to go back and frankly I can’t do that.

I can’t go back.

When I started writing reviews I was in my last year of high school. I wasn’t fully aware what it be like in a world where I had no planned schedule and I at the time I was working a lax desk job which gave me access to the internet so I always had a way of keeping up with Tumblr. It all just consumed me at the time. FOr a while this discourse was my life, not my hobby. But now things are different. I have a different job that means I can’t use the internet as much as I used to and my new classes this year are all in the morning. There’s no way I’d be able to hit that window sufficiently. The other thing is I’d have to go back to how I acted in the FT fandom.

Now its been years and looking back on it what I did back i the day, I’m kinda ashamed. I’d show up everywhere like an unwanted degree of kevin bacon, I would either have to defend my opinion against backlash that turned into a screaming fit or an insightful conversation with people I would’ve never talked to otherwise, and then that would get shared around and then I’d have to defend myself from that image of those rallying against me. Maybe its just that I’m older now and had time to run this blog as a normal, non discourse inflicted blog, but I discovered it was a lot more easier, a lot more fun and, while I stand by what I said t the time in my reviews, the way I acted just makes me seem like a child.

And yet with EZ first review, in 24 hours I got basically a same taste of that lifestyle after so long and I honestly can’t take it. I fell so much different having to write responses and receive mail, and then venture through stuff and blogs I don’t care about just for other opinions. Fun fact, on the day I wrote my review of EZ, I ended up staying up later than I ever would on a week day to answer peoples questions and then having to defend my opinions and image as not a salt blog. Then went to bed, went to work, then I came home and I passed out. And waking up I found I had to do more of that and for the first time I felt like this had become a chore. And if that’s just me on one day, what’s it going to be like 500 from now?

What makes this worse is I’ve basically made this my personal blog and my professional blog. Because when I started out, I never had the forsight to make a blog solely for reviews and others just for fun. I’m a simple guy and I thought, “ehh easier to have one blog.” So there’s no mincing personality here. You see thegreatrhapsode it all falls under one umbrella.

Another thing to keep in mind is that there is no incentive for me to write reviews. I don’t get any revenue like on youtube which multiple views would get me. I did this solely on the fact I wanted to and I enjoyed spreading my opinion. But nowadays that isn’t enough. Not to sound ungrateful, but I’m not in a position where “sheer fun of it”, is enough to warrant all this time and effort. Because when I do these, I want to put my best into it. I don’t want to let readers down, but I can’t do that if I’m no longer able to enjoy writing and feel like I’m not doing anything.

Because this shit ain’t MHA or OP where we all agree on its quailty, this is FT. If you have an already existing opinion you’re going to stick by it. There’s nothing I can do that would ever convince people who openly call themselves “thrash” in how they eat up Mashima’s content. Like what can I do?

So that’s where we are. Potentially a continuation of FT that will likely swallow up my life the same way it did the first time if I don’t do anything. With a guy who doesn’t to act the way he did years ago, I found way to spend my time not reviewing series and meeting people beyond just a series, no incentive to keep going beyond a feling of duty. But here I know first hand my experience with this fandom and if I complain about this hardship and yet continue, its on me. I know how this’ll end. I can see it. This is the first time I ever felt like there was nothing to gain from what I did.

Followers, mutuals, casuals, I love you guys, but I let you down. No matter what option I pick I let you all down. If I keep going with EZ I potentially burn myself out and have potentially wasted all of your time or I stop and as a content producer I’ve failed to deliver which is the basic purpose of a blog like this. I still promised I’d review up to chapter 3 and I’m a man of my word, but as t stands I think I’m finally going to do what so many people who don’t agree with my opinions have told me, “don’t like it, don’t read it.” Well lets be clear I’m stopping not cause I don’t like it, I’m not going to read it because my life is better off without it. There’s noting I can do to shift your already existent opinions and there’s nothing Hiro Mashima can write that can hurt me more than I hurt myself running a blog in this manner.

So sorry guys. I’m sorry.