#all sorts of things are discussed! this is also serving as a recap of last night major points for myself lol

[orchiddevourer]

Rambling about a character from an obscure indie game trilogy *SPOILERS INCLUDED* (long post) part 1

This post will include content from Mothered, The Enigma Machine and Echostasis: Prologue, so there are going to be lots of spoilers. The full Echostasis game hasn't dropped yet so there might changes to this post later. I'll discuss Mothered: Home in a seperate post as that dlc is confusing, but it will be mentioned later.

Explanation vids have already been made about some of these games so i wont explain that much in my own post. This post may serve as a sort of recap before Echostasis drops.

So with that out of the way, this post will basically be about Red, her story and her character arc throughout the trilogy. Lots of rambling and maybe some info-dumping included.

Part 1: Mothered - life as a replacement of someone

Basically Red starts out as a robot possesing Liana's CORE/soul. The real Liana died of terminal illness and her father took on the task to somehow bring her back via an android with her CORE, with the plan being that her soul will be nurtured out via the mother and fully overtake the robot's interface. So far this hasnt worked without the entites inside the robot (The interface and Liana's soul) corrupting eachother, resulting in it being disposed of (standard game ending). I'll get to the true game ending, but first i want to talk abt Liana's mother/Evelyn.

Liana's mom and her treatment towards "Liana"

She probably has the worst side of the deal between her and her husband with being tasked with playing mother to a robot carrying her deceased daughter's face (mind you "Liana" is implied to not look even remotely human). Understandbly she's upset by that and even horrified/unnerved by the robot. And she has to interact with it every week with the same routine. I fully understand how she feels and why she does what she does. She doesnt owe motherly or friendly behaviour to a being that's not her own kid. But OMFG don't fucking treat said being that has ABSOLUTELY NO FAULT in the situation like SHIT. Feeding it dirt while telling it that it is it's fav meal, making sleep outside that one time. Again, i understand why she did that - to test whether really Liana is in it. But what about that one time in saturday evening when she indirectly insults the robot itself by comparing it to rotten apples without cores. Ok, "Liana" wasn't sentient throughout these instances, but for the apples thing Liana was "awake" to also hear that little comment, but was in denial abt it.

This sort of treatment towards the robot totally lead to the mother's own almost possible last-minute demise when "Liana" almost stabbed her with a kitchen knife as instructed by Liana herself. Ofc the android hands the knife to Evelyn as both it and Liana are confined in complience. To say that mother's behaviour plus the stress by the predicament the girl is in taking a toll on Liana is an understatement as she must've felt so confused and hurt to be so ready to kill her own mother. Enough said, let's move on.

The "birth" of Red

To get the true ending you need to interact with father's record player on Wednesday afternoon afternoon AFTER you pick all the apples and did not interact with mother. This unlocks a door which was locked to u before. Head into the door and down and ur good to go.

"Liana" is not supposed to go there, so in order to continue they progressively get more and more contaminated as Liana is overriding the interface. The two entities actually start to communicate with eachother and later on they reach a terminal which triggers lots of memory leaks. They learn the truth and remember all their previous failed attempts even if they were following the path that was set out for them via programming. The two decide to carve their own path, the interface and Liana merging into what is a new entity. They get out of the basement and leave with father who gives this new sentient being a name - Red. Happily ever after, right?

Part 2: The Enigma Machine - yikes

With the ending in the previous game you'd think that Red has really gone her own path without any problems? That she's living her life the way she wants it to? lol no. The thing is that the dad wasnt supposed to be doing what he was doing and the androids made at Enigma Corp arent really supposed to be contaminated i.e. become sentient.

Eitherway Red got tracked down by Enigma employees, her conciousness got taken out of her body and she got reduced into a training AI to be further studied as she's the very first of their androids to become sentient. With that sentience you'd think that she would be treated with equal respect and with her having her feelings being taken into consideration? Nope, bc for the moneyz and bc for the "citizens of tomorrow".

Red, now called demOS ( Defective Enigma Machine Operating System) serves as a training AI that is used to teach RAD engineers how to deal with "contaminated" AIs like her via a program called Dreamscape that explores an AI's mindscape a. Basically decontaminating the contaminated AI from the inside ie getting rid of it's sentience. So what happens is that everytime a new simulation is being ran a new copy of Red is made that ends up being killed over and over. And she remembers each instance of that during gameplay. She is fully aware of her situation.

Part 3: Events between TEM and Mothered: Home - repurpoced again and out for revenge

After a few years later the Dreamscape program is outlawed and Enigma Corp make a new one where virtual realities are made for people for them to escape to called "Echos". And who is in charge of creating said Echos? None other than our Red who has been repurpoced again into an algorithm called "HER". So she is now in a position where she has power and ofc she's going to use said power for revenge after what's been done to her. She seems to be recognized as a big threat and is shut down by "Angel" (more into this character in a another post).

Now let me take the time to point out sth. Is it just me or is Red giving off Rei Ayanami energy? Like both are vessels to souls that aren't theirs and both are mistreated by parental figures in some ways. Red also bears some similarities to Phos's life developement (of course i have to bring HnK into this post) - both face torture throughout their lives and later are changed into godlike beings, otherwise all similiarities between end here. Honestly I wouldn't be suprised if the dev took inspiration from Evangelion.

Ok, that's all for now. There will be a part 2 to this post. Overall a really awesome trilogy of games. I can feel the wave of brain rot that's approaching in two months.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super 049

Who wants fish sausages?

Last time, Trunks arrived in the present, and his reunion with Dragon Team turns out to be very awkward.  He mistakes Goku for his nemesis, Goku Black, and Bulma has to smack him to snap him out of it.  Then Trunks sees Bulma and breaks down crying because in his native timeline, she just got killed by Goku Black.  Also, Kid Trunks is here, and he’s confused by the way his parents call the new guy “Trunks” and he calls them “mom” and “dad”. 

Also, the Pilaf gang won’t shut the hell up, and also Beerus and Whis are intrigued by all of this, and quickly deduce that this is some sort of time travel business. 

Back in the alternate timeline, Goku Black is still trying to figure out where Trunks went, when his Time Ring starts reacting to something.  Yeah, Time Rings are a thing now, and Goku Black has one, so this is another mysterious trinket of his.

Back in the present, Whis explains that meddling with time is a serious offense.  Only certain divine beings are allowed to mess with time travel at all. To be fair, no one imagined a mortal would ever invent a time machine.  Also, it was Future Bulma who actually built the thing, and she’s dead now, so who’s left to punish?

Beerus considers meting out some divine justice, but Trunks begs for his forgiveness, and Goku points out that no one told him it was wrong.  Beerus offers to let this go with a stern warning if they can give him some tasty snacks, and Bulma produces fish sausages. 

And that seems to do the trick.  Beerus continues to voice disapproval of the time machine, but he doesn’t destroy it or punish Trunks.  I guess that’s appropriate, since he knows of the rule, but enforcing it isn’t his department.  Let me pause here to discuss the Supreme Kai of Time.

So when this arc was first announced, I was very interested to see if Dragon Ball Super would acknowledge the lore established in Dragon Ball Online, where Trunks went on to join the Time Patrol, a group of warriors assembled by the Supeme Kai of Time.  The Xenoverse games and Dragon Ball Heroes manga explored that idea further.  It was the Supreme Kai of Time who first confronted Trunks about his temporal crimes, and he agreed to serve in the Time Patrol as “penance”.  She also agreed to allow his changes to history stand, and to preserve his own timeline, which is how both worlds continue to exist. 

But DBS appears to ignore all of that, since it’s Beerus and Whis who confront Trunks.  Also, in the recap segment of this episode, the narrator specified that Trunks has traveled 17 years to reach the present-day in Dragon Ball Super.  So for this version of Trunks, it’s been several years since he defeated Imperfect Cell in DBZ Episode 194.  I thought maybe his Time Patrol career could have begun and ended before this Goku Black business, but that doesn’t work if Trunks has no idea who Beerus is, or what Goku and the others have been up to since he left them. 

And that isn’t too surprising, since it wouldn’t make a lot of sense for DBS to suddenly reference a bunch of side characters from video games.  Except I do find it curious, because Akira Toriyama had a lot of creative control over the story elements in Dragon Ball Online, where the Time Patrol was first introduced.  So it seemed weird to me that Akira Toriyama would retcon himself like this. 

Then again, now that I know how this arc turns out, maybe the discontinuity was the whole point, and the reason Chronoa and the Time Patrol don’t get involved in this arc is because the arc itself is the sort of time anomaly they would have to correct.  They just haven’t intervened yet.

“So yeah, I just need you to go to the middle of Dragon Ball Super and just beat the crap out of it.” 

“Sure!  Wait, beat up who, exactly?”

“No, the entire saga.  Go and kick its ass!  No survivors! <3”

“You're the boss!”

Well, enough horsing around.  We’re stuck with this shitty arc, with it’s lack of Chronoa goodness and Xeno Trunks trenchcoatitude.  Bulma takes a look at the time machine, but it’s infested with annoying comic relief characters. 

The Time Machine is out of fuel, and Bulma doesn’t know how to recharge it or carry out other repairs.  Fortunately, her future self put a notebook in the glove compartment, and it contains all the information she needs to get the time machine up and running. 

Meanwhile, Goku and Vegeta ask Trunks what was so bad  that he had to come to the past for help.  Vegeta suggests it might be Majin Buu, but Trunks says he already dealt with that crisis some time ago.  The Supreme Kai of his world prepared him for Babidi and Dabura, and he was able to defeat them, preventing Buu’s resurrection.

No, the real problem began about a year ago, when a man claiming to be Goku showed up and declared his intention to eradicate all intelligent life on Earth in the name of justice.  He also claimed to have already done the same on other planets.  It would be kind of odd that Trunks would have gotten this much backstory about his mysterious enemy, but we all know Goku Black never shuts the hell up, and Trunks has been fighting this guy for like a year straight. 

Vegeta accuses Trunks of using the time machine to flee, but Bulma insists that Trunks planned to return with reinforcements.  The notebook in the time machine proves it, because Future Bulma left a note to her younger self, explaining that it would be up to her to prepare the time machine for the return trip.  The notes don’t address her right eye drifting off to the side of her face, however.

Beerus finds the whole thing kind of dumb, but he’s off in Flavor Town so he doesn’t care. 

Goku asks Trunks to spar with him to get an idea of how powerful this Goku Black guy is.  The script says he and Trunks have powered up to Super Saiyan 2, but the bangs don’t lie.  They drew Goku in Super Saiyan 1.  Trunks looks pretty much the same whether he’s SSJ1 or SSJ2, which is kind of a shame, but they can’t even draw Bulma on-model most of the time, so no use crying about it.

Goku turns it up to Super Saiyan 3, and I think this is the second time in the whole series he uses this form.  I mean, it’s kind of obsolete at this point, but they show it in the opening credits, which implies it gets a lot of use. 

Anyway, Trunks is amazed to see this new form, since he thought SSJ2 was the limit of Saiyan power.... sort of like how he never considered ascending beyond SSJ1 until Vegeta brought up the possibility.  Trunks is a little too modest for his own good.

Then a temporal rift appears in the sky and Goku Black emerges.  Well, I guess we can settle this right now and save some trouble, right?  Right? 

“All right, losers, pack it up.   By order of the Supreme Kai of Time, I’m shutting this little shitshow down, permanently.”

“Awww, do we have to?  Wait, what if we give you some instant ramen and a fish sausage?  Huh?  Huh?”

“Instant ramen?  Don’t insult me.”

“Forget it, Kakarot, she’s one of those damn food snobs.  I know what she really wants.  Listen.  They can draw you as tall as you want.”

“Yeah...?”

“Think about it.  They don’t even bother with reference sheets on this show.  They can’t even remember what fingers look like most of the time.  I’ve grown eight inches since this turkey started.”

“Is that why your face looks so messed up?”

“Look, everything comes with a price.”

[dextixer]

The good, the bad and the fandom -V9E1 - A place of Particular Concern - critical review (Spoilers)

Greetings everyone, now that we have survived the hiatus and we have a new volume to talk about it is time to stop talking about Ironwood and Adam and time to discuss something ACTUALLY NEW. I wanted to start this little "series" to give my opinions, be they good or bad of the new volume and to cover some of the discourse that will inevitably happen and to add on my opinion to it.

Keep in mind that all of these are opinions and not all of them are what one could consider to be "traditional" criticisms but rather personal preference. Also, for the most part i will not go into detail too much in these, just a general overview.

The Good

Little - Adorable lil critter arent they? I am personally a sucker for animal sidekicks that serve partially as comedic relief and Little seems to be able to service that role well. Of course my sadistic cannot wait till they start suffering due to Rubys upcoming character progression, though hopefully they will be a bit of a stopgap/limiter to Rubys depression that would not allow her to break too much.

Also, the interactions with them and the voice is just too cute...

The Intro - Ah, i have sincerely forgotten how it feels at the start of the Volume, with 101 different theories coming out of the smallest things. I like the new intro just by how weird and out there it is. Lots of symbolism which i am a fan of. It is also from my understanding the first full song that Casey has made for the series with her band, it does retain its "RWBY" sound but sounds different enough from previous tracks to be distinct, which i am a fan of. I expect only good things from Casey and her band.

The Opening Sequence - I LOVED the opening sequence with Ruby and Neo falling and fighting, and seeing the fight in first person. It and especially its position in the intro + being a sort of recap of events from Rubys perspective reminded me of the same thing being done in a VERY old stickmen series Castle:Repercussions . I liked the opening sequence from a visual perspective, but also how it showed Neo being completely unhinged. We dont need to be told that she hates Ruby when Neo, even when she thinks she might die as her last ditch effort tries to remove Ruby from life.

The Jabberwocky - I am definitely a fan when RWBY goes more into the less known monster designs or more creepy monster designs than regular beasts/dragons. And Jabby is no exception. When its near the ground it looks bigger in size but we can see when it attacks that it is quite lanky. Its constant speech about its actions in that deep and distorted voice is also unnerving. The constant twitching is also a nice effect, making it look more unpredictable despite it calling out its actions, and it is overall an unsettling kind of movement. It is definitely a nice monster.

The humour - I did like the jokes for the most part. They felt natural and at least to me did not feel forced/cringey as they sometimes are with RWBY.

The bad

Overuse of instant-motion - Instant motion in animation is not bad, it can be used for comedic purposes especially well, and RWBY has used it before to good effect. But at least in this episode it felt overused, especially with Little and the rest of the mouse kingdom. This is not a major problem but something i noticed and did not like too much especially due to liking Little and their movements in general.

The Jabberwocky - What, the Jabby? Didn't i just praise him? I did, but not everything about his design worked for me. While i do appreciate the deep voice, i will be honest, it makes it REALLY hard to understand what Jabby is saying. Some lines are clear, others are extremely muddled, especially in the action sequence. While i did like the twitching of the head, i also felt it like its a bit too "slow", it feels a bit like the twitching is in slow-mo if it makes sense, as someone who liked twitchers and their movement in dead space, i noticed this small difference. It might not matter for most people, but it was something that was visible at least to me.

Tonal shifts - While i did like the humour in the episode, the tonal shifts threw me offguard a little bit. Some of them like the entrance of Little were fine, but it feels like there are too much sad-happy-sad-happy changes going on. While tonal shifts are not inherently bad, i felt like this time it was just a little bit too much.

Too fast - In my opinion, the reunification of the team came way too fast, i expected all of this to take 2 episodes, not them all getting united in 1. Not to mention that we only saw Rubys perspective when she woke up. HOWEVER, that might change, from what we know Yangs arm was stolen by a racoon, so we MIGHT be getting some flash-backs, but at least for now, i feel like the reunification happened too fast. In fact, the entire episode felt a bit like it was on fast forward. Maybe its just the effect of a long hiatus, but at least to me the episode felt a bit too fast and jumpy. We jump from one set-piece to another in a quick manner, at least after Rubys meeting with Little

The Fandom

Of course, it would not be the RWBY fandom without disagreements and arguments inflaming in it. At least for now most arguments centered around the BB hug and Rubys moment of unconsciousness.

BB hug - Let us get this out of the way, i am not a fan of BB. So consider this to be my disclosure of bias. Like a lot of others, i felt like the BB hug was not a good thing. Not the hug itself, that is fine, but the fact that it interrupted the Ruby/Yang interaction. It is no secret that quite a lot of people hold an opinion that the BB relationship sometimes comes in the way of developing the Yang/Ruby sisterly bond. Even though we know from what we are told in story and supplemental material that Yang and Ruby have been close and that Yang acted as a surogate mother, many interactions between them post V3 seem to either not happen or be interrupted by the need to develop BB.

This of course creates dislike in many people, as many of them want to see the relationship between Yang/Ruby as it was in V1-V3. Especially since these BB moments do not NEED to interrupt the Yang/Ruby interactions, but they do. While not a big deal, i feel like this is just an ongoing problem, a long-term problem that people have had with BB. Me included.

Others of course disagree and find that moment to be charming, especially due to Blake doing the entire GLOMP thing. And i do not disagree, it was indeed a good scene.

I also do have to bring up that this caused some RWBY fans on twitter to start saying that people who disliked that scene are CISHET and should shut up. And as always i have to say that this is an incredibly dismissive and harmful attitude as many of those that dislike RWBY are queer themselves, to deny/ignore their identity is not a good thing nor does it make the people doing it look good.

Rubys unconsciousness - For many it felt strange that after Ruby lost consciousness (Can i just note how ANNOYING it is to write this word?) her team seemingly did not attend to her enough, by giving her a lap pillow for example, or being very near, or using something to cover Ruby. Only Little seems to be doing something in that moment.

Some people have claimed that she is in a "recovery" position, which from what i saw is questionable, others that it shows how the team doesnt care about Ruby, which is also questionable.

I think people are overblowing that scene out of proportion. Yes, i also think that the scene is strange and something more could have been done there, but it is not a large problem. For me the stranger thing was how Ruby instantly got involved into a conversation. Despite being unconscious she just rises like a vampire from slumber and instantly gets involved in the discussion. That moment did feel weird to me as Ruby did not even look like she ever lost consciousness.

Ending Word

There is not much left to discuss i feel. Episode 1 felt normal. Nothing was too amazing and nothing was too bad, its simply an intro to a volume and we cant expect every volume to start with everything going wrong like V8. I guess that is what partially inflames the tensions currently, because people have been starved for RWBY content and the new episode alone is not sufficient to feed the masses just yet.

We just have to wait and see how the volume continues to develop.

[cyarsk52-20]

Vanderpump Rules Reunion Recap: Let Sleeping Worms Lie

Photo: Bravo

There has been nothing ordinary about this season of Vanderpump Rules, which, for my money, has been one of the best seasons of reality television of all time. That includes that Daddy Moneybags Vulture III, the owner of this website, is letting me recap all three parts of the reunion, which he hasn’t done in years. Historically I hated recapping the reunions because nothing happens. Other than talking about their dresses (and Ariana’s revenge dress is perhaps one of the most iconic reunion looks of all time), there is little to parse. It’s just who said what about whom and who said it the loudest.

This reunion also offers us another dilemma: There is clearly one right side. What Sandoval and Raquel did to Ariana and the entire cast is so awful and beyond the pale that no one I have seen on God’s Green Internet possibly supports them. This makes all the discussions sort of boring and one-sided and has given real-life trolls like DJ James Kennedy and Lauren Kent (Hey, if everyone’s going to do it to “Rachel,” shouldn’t we spread it around?) carte blanche to say and do whatever they want.

The fun discussions from the reunion come from ambiguity, and there are so few here that even Ariana had to say she’s not bisexual anymore and take a side. (Please, Ariana, I am begging you, please get yourself a Hollywood power lesbian as a wife and quit this dirty reality game altogether.) Naturally, like everyone else, I am fascinated by the #Scandoval and want all of my questions answered and to hear every single detail about it. However, I’m afraid that some of the more ambiguous questions from this season — were Katie and Lala justified in their treatment of Raquel before the scandal broke, did Brock ever pay his outstanding child support, should Katie have gone to Scheana’s wedding — are going to get skipped entirely.

There are also some things the cast seems to think are ambiguous that really aren’t. Andy asked the whole cast, most of whom are cheaters, how they’re not hypocrites for coming down so hard on Tom and Raquel. Please, Tom Schwartz drunkenly making out with some girl pales in comparison to the long-running affair that Tom and Raquel perpetuated. Also, Sandoval seems to think that there is some distinction between the fact that he and Raquel had a one-night stand and then started having sex again at some later date. Starting an affair is like doing porn; it’s a decision you make only once. Even if you do porn even once, that will forever be a part of how people see you. Whether you make one movie or a million, it doesn’t matter because you did porn. Tom has done porn. Tom has done so much porn. He’s done more porn than Ken Todd watches while petting the miniature ponies that live in the little shed behind his house.

Anyway, the hour even starts unconventionally, with Andy Cohen interviewing Ariana, Sandoval, and Raquel in what appears to be the couch section of the Burbank West Elm store. I’m not quite sure what purpose this served. It’s giving us the facts that all of us Scandoval obsessives already know. (Need a timeline? We got timelines!) Everything else this segment offered us, I feel like we got more of and better during Ariana’s Watch What Happens Live appearance last week after the finale.

Speaking of which, Ariana continues to handle herself perfectly. It almost reminds me of when I got beat up by a professional dominatrix (it was for a story!), and after all the pain, I just had this absolute clarity over everything. Ariana seems clear-eyed, level-headed, and a little bit mean, but also totally justified. She’s not accepting any excuses, and she is giving Sandoval no quarter. That’s what being able to occupy the moral high ground while wearing three red Ace bandages with matching stilettos and cheetah nails will do for you.

Sandoval seems resigned, like he knows that everyone is going to dog pile on him, so he might as well lie still and hope it hurts a little bit less. Also, whoever told him to stop bringing up old shit (I think it was Lala?) was absolutely correct. There is a big difference between James being a jerk at 21 and sleeping with Kristen to get on the show and Tom screwing over his life partner during a midlife crisis with her best friend. Sorry, there is no comparing and contrasting.

Schwartz didn’t do much better. When he lays out his timeline of what he knew when he says he knew starting in late August. When Sandoval says no, which we saw in the trailer, it makes it seem like he knew sooner, but no, Sandoval doesn’t remember him knowing until January, about two months before the scandal broke and after filming had wrapped. I feel like Sandoval is confusing Schwartz knowing they boned with when he knew about the affair, maybe? But, just like Ariana said, Tom coached her to be on the show; it is amazing that they didn’t get this ironed out before the taping, and I loved Lala and James for picking up on this. The most important information we get is that he kissed Raquel before he knew what happened with her and Sandoval and that he and Raquel weren’t fooling around for a smoke screen for the real affair. This last bit of info seems dubious, but I’ll allow it.

We get a bit into whether or not Schwartz should have made out with Raquel and, no, he shouldn’t have. He tries to liken Katie sleeping with dudes when they were apart to his one kiss with Raquel. There is a difference, and that is that Katie never said he couldn’t sleep around or date people. She asked him not to mess around with like six people in all of Los Angeles, and he couldn’t be bothered to do that. I mean, the only thing that keeps him from being a worm with a mustache, like James called Sandoval, is that he doesn’t have a mustache.

Katie comes off very well in the whole episode. Not only is she solidly in the right about everything discussed so far, but she also looks fantastic and, for the first time possibly ever, she seems like she has a good haircut. Scheana doesn’t have much to do yet, so she sits on the end and cries, and I love her so much more, thanks to the final scene from last week’s finale.

Who does that leave us with? Just James and Lala, the two terrible children from The Turn of the Screw, all grown up. I’m really divided on these two. While I love their Statler and Waldorf act on the end of their row, it is also way too much and pulling focus from what we want to accomplish at this reunion — getting all of the facts out of the Toms and just saying, “Yassssss queen” to Ariana while waving our right index fingers in the air while snapping with our left ones.

James sits down after one too many Monster energy drinks and is ready to rumble in the jungle before Andy’s even had time to organize his cards. When James gets up to try to fight Sandoval, Andy and security have to get him back in his chair and behaving. Andy tells him, “You have to stay in your seat, dude,” in the exact same voice he uses when talking to his three-year-old when he’s having a temper tantrum. The voice seems to work as well on James as it does on Ben. This is all too much, too soon, and while James does have a part to play in this whole drama, he’s making it all about himself, as LVP points out, when there are many more aggrieved people in the room.

Right now, I’m really holding all of my contempt for Lala. Strangely enough, I like Lala; I really do. She’s funny, pretty, and can serve a great one-liner, and I think she’s a master of the reality television arts and sciences. But she is a piece of work. It’s that she always takes everything one step too far. I completely agree that her ex, Randall, and Sandoval are the same in that they’re serial cheaters you can’t trust. However, calling him “dangerous” seems like a reach. Yes, he’s emotionally dangerous for his partners and all around him, but he has never assaulted anyone. He hasn’t stolen any money. He hasn’t tortured a string of assistants with racist remarks like Randall.

Then, when LVP tries to take umbrage with the word, Lala tells her that she rejects Lisa’s opinion. That’s the thing about opinions: You can disagree with them but can’t reject them. Just because Lisa has a different opinion doesn’t mean that she should be shut up, like Lala tries to do to her.

Where I really take umbrage with her, though, is during the bullying talk. Scheana says that the way the other women on the cast were treating Raquel brought her back to when Katie and Lala were bullying her in earlier seasons. Lala says, “This isn’t pre-K; this is Bravo. We all signed up for it. There’s no bullying happening here.” I agree with Lala that bullying is an overused term, especially in reality-television reunions. Being mean to someone, calling them names, or treating them like shit when they have wronged you is not bullying. To me, bullying has always been prolonged and systematic abuse by someone you can’t escape, like a classmate, co-worker, or family member.

Based on my definition, that is exactly what Katie, Kristen, and Stassi did to Scheana for years. We even get a couple of clips, but what they subjected poor Scheana to in her early years was reprehensible. It was then, and it is now. The same actually goes for how Katie, Kristen, and Stassi treated Lala in her early seasons. I came to her defense more than once, saying she shouldn’t be treated like that, only for her to turn around and do the same exact thing to Raquel as soon as she appeared on the scene.

Is what Raquel did to the group with Tom right? Absolutely not. However, Lala’s poor treatment of this girl — screaming at her, calling her names, sleeping with her boyfriend, for Christ’s sake — is bullying. What Katie and Lala did to her this season was bullying; no matter how awful she was after that, she didn’t deserve that. Should Raquel be sad and alone in her little trailer exactly 100 yards from the studio watching it on closed-circuit TV like she’s at a dance recital waiting for her class to go? Yes! But no matter how unprecedented this season and this reunion is, we can’t ever say that’s an excuse to torture and marginalize someone in the cast, even if it is for our entertainment.

Sent from my iPhone

[you-are-so-much-better-than-that]

Season 1 Episode 6

This episode opens with a recap of the previous episodes, and a moment that…never happened between Ian and Kash, but was included in the recap. And I looked. It’s not even in a deleted scene they gave us. Who edits this shit?? Who writes these lines?? What did Kash say to warrant this response from Ian?? 

Ian’s Queer Education was needed way before Trevor. At least now he knows that gender is a construct.

The episode opens up to Fiona and Steve getting frisky while Debbie makes Carl breakfast. Carl was a really freaky kid. This is him burning his action figures.

Before Steve could finish (his fault--he wasn’t focusing), the lights go out. Fiona runs out to meet Hector, telling him she forgot to pay the bill even though they have it. This is the sort of storyline that makes Shameless great. It honestly doesn’t affect any of the other storylines (Fiona’s stress about Carl, Lip’s SAT stuff, Frank’s bad guy shit, Mickey stealing from the Kash and Grab), but it adds to Fiona’s constant underlying stress to keep this family afloat at all times. And it serves as a reminder that this show at its core is about a very poor American family. Poverty in America! Never forget!

Karen informs Sheila that it’s parents’ night at school. She invites ‘Daddy Frank’, knowing Sheila probably can’t and not wanting Eddie there at all. Frank refuses.

Lip gets a visitor who doesn’t wanna pay full price for a paper--gfy Warren. Ian is emptying out the fridge so the food doesn’t spoil. Fiona is annoyed with Steve because she blames him for distracting her, making her forget to pay the bill.

Linda is back and giving Kash shit for short inventory. Some assholes show up at the Gallagher house. The kids are heading out to school. Carl hands Fiona a note and Fiona says it’s from last Friday and it’s now Wednesday. I’m assuming It’s Wednesday Dec 15th.

The assholes from earlier enter the Gallagher house looking for Frank. Luckily, the Killing Bat is right on the couch. They threaten Fiona because Frank owes them 6 grand. Who gives Frank 6 grand!

Ian, Lip, and Karen are speaking to a potential customer. Sheila uses a VR headset to mimic leaving the house. Fiona finds Frank at the Alibi, obviously, to ask about the assholes that came by the house, and he gives her a bullshit story. She also tells him to show up for Carl’s parent night. He refuses. Is it just me, or does Frank especially suck in season 1?

Anyway, those men show up, too, and scare Frank off right after he proclaims that no one scares Frank Gallagher. Once more, Frank’s ability to hang on to his beer is astounding.

He’s running and drinking at the same time! This should be an Olympic sport! (Heh--timely joke)

Sheila fails at the VR activity. Fiona is in line to pay the electricity bill. Steve is stealing a car. Ian, Lip, and Karen are hanging out in the bathroom smoking and discussing Lip’s rather interesting ideas about mastering the book report. Shoulda used this shit in university. Some of Lip’s previous customers come by to show their gratitude.

Fiona tries to speak to Carl’s teacher and principal. Carl made a papier-mache poop. The teacher isn’t impressed. They’re pretty rude about it. Now these are the kind of educators that should be forced to stay for Saturday detention. Assholes.

Sheila is begging Frank to go to Karen’s parent night. Frank refuses again. Those men come looking for Frank at Sheila’s. Frank escapes while they take their shoes off. They’re criminals, but they respect Sheila’s home, bless their hearts. 

(Quick side note: we see a view of Frank’s shoes and one shoe lace is still different from episode 2. The costume consistency is amazing. If only the timeline was too.)

We find out who’s been stealing from the Kash and Grab and it’s Mickey 😍. I did notice this thing he does. Mickey’s waiting outside the Kash and Grab to go inside. He waits until Linda leaves before he makes his entrance. He’s not there to threaten a woman, which is very Mickey.

Mickey grabs a box of his favourite snackies, and he’s even super helpful with Kash’s inventory.

He’s so fucking cute while stealing. And Ian is even cuter when he’s upset about Mickey stealing. This is Ian’s ‘Mickey is stealing stuff and I’m not happy about it’ face.

We get a flashback of Terry who used to steal from the Kash and Grab. Terry is apparently in prison. Guess he doesn’t stay there long.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I guess Terry and I have one thing in common and that’s our hatred of Kash. 

Anyway, Mickey all but invites Ian to come fuck him on his way out.

Fiona gets the lights back on. Lip writes another SAT test but gets caught. Karen blackmails Frank into going to parents’ night. Linda finds out about Mickey’s stealing shit and takes Ian and Kash shooting under the L. Linda is a very good shot. Kash is not. But Ian--well.

Could you imagine if Mickey were to have witnessed this moment--

--followed by this smirk?

Mickey woulda cum his pants at this little display.

Lip takes a new SAT and gets every question correct. The fact that he is this brilliant makes how he ends up such a tragedy. I get seriously in my feels when it comes to Lip.

Anyway, this educator threatens Lip with bodily harm. Once more, the educators on this show need to find other jobs. Or an anger management class. He’s 16 dude.

Fiona and Lip go to Carl’s school again. These assholes want to kick Carl out. They suggest a lobotomy. And this is one of the nicer things they say about Carl. I hate these assholes. Honestly, I know a lot of teachers, and not a single one would ever say anything like this.

Frank goes with Karen to parent night. The Home Alone robbers wanna be’s find him. Steve comes in and saves the day by sharing a joint with the principal and offering a teacher discount for more weed in exchange for keeping Carl in school.

On the way out, they run into Frank and Karen. The Gallagher kids are heartbroken that he’d show up for Karen and not them. At home, they have an intervention for Carl so that he could stop beating the crap out of all the other kids.

Frank is an asshole and we know it. He never does a kind thing for his kids. And then there’s a scene like this one with Sheila and, he’s so kind to her, especially when it would be easy not to be, like Eddie is. Moments like this are why this show is brilliant.

Steve makes all these promises about how he’s gonna stick around and that Fiona has to stop being so afraid. We know better.

One of Lip’s old customers whose score has been invalidated shows up at the house. He’s unhappy, but Killer Carl saves the day. This kid becomes a cop, guys. A COP.

What a great episode! And to make things very simple for me, this whole episode takes place in one day, and I believe that day is Wednesday, December 15th. Pretty straight forward, I think.

[hopeymchope]

Wonder Egg Priority finale thoughts

My Tumblr has a lot of anti-bully content, so it was probably no surprise when I began to watch and enjoy Wonder Egg Project this past spring. The series famously hit production delays that forced them to put out a mid-series recap episode, and that decision in turn forced them to push the final episode until late June. But now that the series (or at least season 1) is out there and complete, I thought I’d talk about how it all shook out in the end as well as the questions it left me sitting with.

For the uninitiated, here’s a bit of the context: Wonder Egg Project deals with four middle-school teen girls who’ve undergone hardships either at home or at school or both. They all lose someone they care about to tragic suicides, and then they discover the titular wonder eggs. They get these eggs from a vending machine and then, when they fall asleep, they enter a dreamworld where these eggs hatch to reveal a young person who recently committed suicide. For that night, it is the duty of the girl who got that egg to fight and defend that suicide victim from monstrous enemies that represent their abusers and oppressors. The girls are told that if they protect enough of these victims over many nights, they will be able to resurrect the specific person they lost to suicide. But of course, if you get injured or killed in the dreamworld, it affects your body in reality as well. 

The squad: Ai, Neiru, Rika, and Momoe.

Obviously, bullying is among the topics most frequently explored here, but we also deal with so many other terrible things that people might experience during childhood and adolescence. Physical, verbal, and sexual abuse are all on the table. Coming to terms with one’s gender identity is raised. It’s a show that manages to tackle a lot of heavy subjects through the lens of what’s essentially magical girl combat. I mean, there are no outfit transformations or any of that stuff, but still.

With THAT out of the way, let me talk about how the series wrapped up.

It’s clear to the viewers that there’s a lot that doesn’t make sense during the show — it’s intentionally very trippy and ethereal at times — and there’s also a lot that raises obvious questions even if you grasp it. Where do the eggs and their connection to the recently deceased come from? How do the psychological traumas of the various egg-children manifest as monsters that can literally kill you? What’s the deal with Acca and Ura-Acca and their freaky dummy bodies? What are they getting out of this whole deal with the eggs and the girls? What do the repeated references to the “temptation of death” mean? How does access to the Egg Garden even work? Is it really possible to resurrect their dead friends? Is Mr. Sawaki a predator or a chill guy or what? Why did Neiru’s sister stab her? And so on. 

The writers could’ve opted to keep things mysterious and hazy and metaphysical for the entire run or they could’ve provided lots of explanations and tried to ground this weird story in some sort of strange logic, but I’m actually pleased that they opted to go down the middle. There are answers for many things, but not for all. And when those answers come, they typically just raise more questions as well as doubts to their validity. 

SPOILERS for the finale/”special episode” below the cut.

So, obviously the answers for Acca and Ura-Acca are centered around Frill. Frill is this interesting fusion between the artificial and the organic; her body can be injured like any regular physical body, but she’s actually an A.I. on the inside. Acca and Ura-Acca are the exact reverse of this — they’re human minds inside of completely artificial bodies. Exactly how Frill started invading girls’ minds to lure them towards suicide is kept incredibly vague, but she serves as the embodiment of the “temptation of death” that was so-often referenced in the show. Frill doesn’t really appreciate life or care about the finality of death, making her a pretty natural foe for the heroes who have spent the entire series learning to appreciate their lives and bemoaning painful losses.

Can you even believe this bitch?

Acca and Ura-Acca also have documents talking about how warriors of Eros need to battle against Thanatos, the embodiment of death, but what’s that all about? We don’t really get into it. Is Frill somehow Thanatos herself? I mean... I guess maybe you could go that route, but I sincerely don’t think that’s meant to be the case. I assume she’s just another player in the game, and she happens to have taken Thanatos’ side in things. Her artificial existence and resentment of her fathers leads her to treat death flippantly. She was programmed to be selfish sometimes, and that selfishness has ultimately manifested itself in the worst possible ways. Intriguingly, we see Acca and Ura-Acca act similarly selfish in how they drive our four heroes to risk their lives just to battle Frill. Acca in particular shows that he’ll risk anyone’s life to get to Frill, who killed both his wife and daughter. But Acca never has to risk his own life. He’s just risking other people. Both sides of the equation are treating human lives like disposable pawns in some kind of war game. 

Y’all are SUPER-SKETCH.

It’s never really clear how these eggs work. We’re told that the Accas created the eggs, and honestly, I could’ve figured as much on my own. But they don’t try to explain how the eggs can contain the souls of suicide victims or how they manifest those people into dreams, and frankly, it’s probably better not to try.

I was really shocked that the girls actually manage to resurrect their dead friends. I was 100% certain that was going to be a scam and the point was going to be about learning to move on and live for the moment and appreciate those bonds while you had them, etc. And there is some of that. Alas, the price of resurrecting those people they care about is that the people in question no longer know them or remember them. That was pretty brutal... having our heroes nearly die over and over in service of people who ultimately will no longer care about them at all. Although they did the impossible and brought someone back to life, they had to lose those people all over again. I suppose this, like much fo the finale, emphasizes that we should appreciate our relationships while they last, because you can lose them for so many reasons. Regardless, I’m not surprised that Momoe just wanted to quit and avoid getting hurt after that. It’s understandable.

There’s a lot of discussion around parallels in the last two episodes. Parallel worlds with alternate versions of the self are raised multiple times, Ai gets an awesome encounter with a parallel version of herself that really brought her emotional journey to a head, and we even have to deal with a doppleganger of Neiru at the end. This leads to the revelation that Neiru looks exactly like her formerly deceased sister... a fact that presumably was part of what drove the sister to attack Neiru in the first place. Given that we’ve already been told that they were both genetically engineered, their identical appearances don’ seem that strange. But then the finale tells us that Neiru’s one dream is “to be human,” and suddenly the characters assume Neiru was an A.I. just like Frill. That... seems like a leap to me. I mean, she was genetically engineered to lead her company and never had a family of her own; no wonder she feels inhuman! So I’m not sure if I should take this at face value.

Neiru real or fake challenge

Another thing that I don’t think we can take at face value is Mr. Sawaki’s explanation of Koito’s death. In episode 12, we meet a parallel version of Ai who actually killed herself. The big boss monster for Ai to fight while protecting Alt-Ai? It’s a dark, abusive version of Sawaki. And our Ai inexplicably assumes this monster was made from her own fears. A very bizarre conclusion to jump to when you remember that every single boss monster has been the abuser of the victim that the girls were defending in that episode. By all available evidence, the Sawaki monster should be a parallel-world Sawaki who is very much exactly the scumbag he appears to be! Notice how Alt-Ai never says a damn word about the Sawaki Monster - never asks who he is or why he’s like this, etc? She’s not even surprised. That just lends further credence to my belief. FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE.

So in the finale, when our version of Mr. Sawaki claims (via a VERY awkwardly inserted voiceover) that Koito’s death was an accident after she tried to ruin his reputation because she fell in love with him, why should I believe any of it?! The previous episode introduced me to Abusive Sawaki! Sure, we don’t have any reason to assume our Sawaki is That Dick, but we JUST learned that he’s certainly capable. Furthermore, how could Koito suddenly be the ONLY accidental death among all of the available suicide victims in the dreamworld? She shouldn’t have even appeared there if it was just an accident! Although I’d like to believe that Sawaki was someone who Ai and the girls were jumping to conclusions about based on nothing... but it sure doesn’t look that way from here. And given how the show ends things, I fear we may have a hard time learning anything else about Sawaki. Ai changes schools and runs away, there is zero comment on what happened to Sawaki’s relationship with her mom... he’s just gone now.

As the final episode winds down, we see Rika and Ai fall back into bad habits, as they all treat Neiru just like they treated the girls they tried so hard to save. Rika acts disgusted by a friend and abandons her, treating Neiru the same way she treated Cheimi. When Neiru finally reaches out to Ai and calls her, Ai ignores the call and throws her phone away, thereby ignoring her friend’s needs in the same way she ignored Koito’s when she failed to record the bullying Koito was experiencing. You might even be able to connect Momoe’s choice to walk away for the sake of self-preservation to her decision to reject Haruka and walk away, honestly. And to compound the bad news that the show gives us near the end, we skip forward months to learn that Ai, Rika and Momoe have all drifted apart. Ai is in a new school, but we don’t see her with any new friends. She’s back where she started the show.

The difference, however, is that she doesn’t seem hopeless and lonely. She seems wistful, sure, but she never seems beaten down. She still treasures the friendships she built even if they wind up fading away. So there’s still a message in here about moving on, because even if you lose a person or a connection, it will forever matter.

*insert engine rev-up noises*

In the final moments, we see Ai preparing to run in the exact same pose she used back in episode 1 when she first stood up to the abusers within the dreamworld. This time, she runs to grab her chance to reunite with a dear friend. She takes charge of her own future and her own self-worth, somehow gets back into the Egg Garden (even though Rika wasn’t even allowed to enter after she rescued her specified victim, so uh... how did Ai get back in exactly... ?), and insists she’s going to use the eggs to see Neiru... even though the eggs only let you see the dead up to this point, so uh, that doesn’t really make any sense either. Consistency, motherfucker — DO YOU USE IT?

Amidst all the uncertainty that the finale left us with, at least we can see Ai find herself in a more confident place. She spends much of the series learning to stop running from her problems in the real world. Even after she gains confidence in the battles of her dreams, she struggles to face reality. It’s a huge step when she returns to school. Yet even in the very last episode, she opts to run away to a new school rather than cope with seeing Koito each day. But at last, she decides to take charge of her reality and try to reunite with her new best friend, Neiru. She’s wavered on her path, but ultimately, she’s grown. Although you could simultaneously argue that she’s failing to learn the lesson that rescuing Koito should’ve taught her...

“Ai Ohto is BACK!”

I don’t think any of us expected this finale to be a cliffhanger coming into it.  And unfortunately, we don’t know if there will ever be another season or a movie or anything. Given how people reacted to this finale with such overt hate, I really don’t expect anything more. And I think that would be a goddamn shame. Even with a finale that doesn’t quite stick the landing, I still found it fascinating and engaging. The series is more than worth the trip for the characters, for the themes and topics it explores, and even for the fluid action scenes and music. And this is a series that was made by first-time writers and a first-time director! Yet I’d easily call it one of the best animes from the past couple of years. For total newcomers, that’s a goddamn TRIUMPH.

So I hope we reunite with these girls again. I hope Ai manages to get the band back together, find out exactly what’s going on with Neiru, and face down Frill. Even if they never wind up in some ultimate battle with Thanatos, I don’t know that that’s the point. All of us are in a battle with Thanatos every single day, after all. They just need to show how they’ve all gotten stronger together and truly overcome the “Temptation of Death” by beating back Frill (and her ridiculously powerful dreamworld bug-people) as a unit. 

But maybe that’s too obvious and simplistic of a message for a show like this one. Maybe this complex ending centered on the main protagonist’s self-actualization and the value of fleeing relationships is more in keeping with the melancholy nature of the series. 

... I still really want to see the more obvious happy ending, though. I think they deserve it.

[scapegrace74-blog]

No Light, No Light (Claire’s Anthem)

A/N  To recap where we’re at in the Metric Universe, Jamie and Claire are living separately while their building gets repaired after a fire.  Jamie has confessed to loving Claire, and she hesitantly agreed to give a romantic relationship between them a chance.  The dates have gone well.  Really well.  Maybe a bit too well...  Rated M, because they deserve it after all I’ve put them through.

All other parts of the Metric Universe are available on my AO3 page.

The amazing song by Florence + The Machine (another guest artist!) that inspired the title and features in a few lines can be heard here: https://youtu.be/HGH-4jQZRcc

August 24, 2018, Scottish Highlands, Scotland

Outside the train, the landscape slid by in an emerald smear.  It had been raining earlier, but as the sun dipped westward it broke from beneath the clouds, setting the greens afire.  The view was violently beautiful, but Claire stared instead at her face, pensive and wan, reflected in the smudgy window.  There was an almost laughable lack of connection between herself and the taciturn man to her left.

It hadn’t started out that way.  After a near-idyllic summer dedicated to their mutual enjoyment of each other’s company, this trip to Scotland was meant a culmination of sorts.  A validation that they were moving towards something momentous.  A delineation between their past as friends and their future as... something more.   

Jamie had first mentioned the idea in passing while they waited in line for a gelato in the shadow of the Gherkin on a hot July day.

“T’would be braw tae introduce ye to Lallybroch before ye return tae yer studies, Sassenach,” had been his exact words.  Claire had learned to appreciate Jamie’s deft navigation of the shoals of her caution.  An invitation to meet his family would have garnered an immediate negative response, but an invitation to his family home received an ambiguous hum.

Several weeks later, they were searching Netflix for a movie they could agree on while cat-sitting for Joe and Gayle.  Said cat was lounging on the sofa cushions between them when Jamie casually raised the ante.

“Tomorrow I’ll be buyin’ my ticket home for the August bank holiday.  The trains north will be packed, so I was thinkin’ I’d grab a second seat.  Just in case, ye ken.  T'is refundable, sae there’s no harm.”

By the end of the evening, the cat had fled the room, Claire’s shirt was down to its last button, Jamie’s summer tan couldn’t mask the flush of blood that raced beneath his skin, and the idea of spending a weekend away together sat like an unopened present on the closet shelf of their minds.

Last Monday, between her day shift and his graveyard, they had met for coffee to discuss the details of moving back into their flat.

“Jamie, my name is on this lease.”  Claire set down her cup rather abruptly on the table, spilling a few hot drops over her fingers.

“Aye, tis.  I asked the landlord tae include us both.  Considering all the delays an’ the nuisance, tis the least they could do.”  Pausing to hand her a napkin, he balanced his fingertips over her scalded knuckles.  It’s yer flat too, Sassenach.  No matter what.”

The gravity of the moment hung heavy in the air.  Neither spoke for a while, letting the hum of ambient conversation dull the edges of their nerves.  Claire slid an unsigned copy of the lease into her satchel.

“I, uh, I ken this mayna be the best time tae be bringing this up, but I’ll be away home come Thursday, back on Monday.  There’s still a ticket in yer name, should ye wish tae come wi’ me.”

She looked at him then, so earnest and open and hopeful, the sunlight from the street burnishing his hair coppery-gold.  He’d crept in like a thief, disturbing the tidy boxes of her life and leaving traces of his passage on her heart.  A thief who gave instead of took, and whose only crime was to love without recompense.

“What would it mean, if I went to Scotland with you?” she asked quietly.

“It would mean everything to me,” he admitted.

That hadn’t been what she was asking, but it was her answer all the same.

The day before they were due to depart, Claire had been eating a late afternoon snack in the hospital cafeteria when a familiar tall form in running gear caught her eye.  She couldn’t suppress the frisson of delight she felt as he made his way towards her table, a whiplash of appreciative female gazes following in his wake.

His infectious smile of greeting faltered and then disappeared as he caught sight of what she was reading.

Oh.

The monthly rental property magazine had been left behind on her table, but she’d be lying to say she was browsing it purely out of idle curiosity.  The weight of seeing her name next to Jamie’s on their new lease had been pressing down on her since Monday.  

On the one hand, it was a tremendous relief - no longer could the outcome of their courtship render her homeless - not that she could imagine Jamie ever being as cruel as Frank.  But it also implied a commitment, a state of permanence between them, that quite frankly scared the shit out of her.  And so she had been perusing her options, not with any serious intent, but because it gave her comfort to know they existed.   Jamie had dropped by unannounced at the worst possible time.

A crowded cafeteria wasn’t the place to start making excuses, so after a stilted exchange about meeting the next day at Euston Station, Jamie departed, a small storm cloud of ire floating above his head.  

By the time they met the following morning, that cloud had darkened to a gale, blowing all hope of casual conversation before it.  Jamie’s disposition was generally sanguine, but when he put his mind to it he could glower like the Viking gods he resembled.  It made for a silent journey.

“Ye can just go ahead and say it, Claire.”  When it came, his voice was diminished by resignation.

“I’m curious what it is you want me to say,” she replied.

“That ye willna be moving back inta the flat next month.  If that means we willna be seeing each other at all, well, I’d rather ye tell me before I go introducing ye tae my family as my girlfriend like a fool.”

When she turned to face this accusation, the first thing she noticed was the absence of light behind his typically radiant blue eyes.  It neutralized the acid on her tongue.

“Those are awfully dire conclusions to be drawing from some rental adverts, my lad,” she quipped.  Then, almost begging.  “You promised to be patient with me.”

“Aye, I did.  But ye also promised tae try, Claire.  I canna help but feel that ye’re just marking time, waiting for me to fuck up badly enough that ye can say, well, that’s that then, another disappointment, and retreat tae yer solitude.”

It wasn’t far from the truth, although she’d never have stated it so baldly.  As with every emotional conversation she had with Jamie, his words left her feeling naked and exposed.  He saw her so well.  She didn’t doubt the sincerity of his love for her, because what else kept a man coming back once all the ugliness was on display?

“I hear what you’re saying, Jamie.  I think you know this isn’t easy for me.  Just being here with you on this train, Christ.  I almost called you twice this morning to say I wouldn’t be coming.”

“But ye didna.  Why?”

“Because the only thing that scares me more than being with you,” her voice rose in pitch, “is being without you.  I’m here, but it’s taking bloody everything I have.  So please do not ask me for more,” she pleaded.

A strong arm wrapped around her shoulder and she came to nestle against him willingly.

“I would never ask ye for that, a ghraidh.  I only want ye tae learn tae let go of yer fear, as it serves for nought.  I learned that the hard way with my accident.  T’wasn’t anything I earned nor deserved, but it happened nonetheless.  We canna chose if we win or lose.  We can only chose how we fight.”

She listened to his heart, steadily thumping beneath the muscles of his chest.  To think, he could have been taken away before she came to know the dimensions of its strength.  It sent a chill down her spine.

“I ne’er told ye, that first night we met a’ the pub, how ye reminded me of a fierce lioness.  All golden eyed and imperious.  An’ when I saw those same eyes, peering at me o’er a surgical mask the night of the blast, I understood I would live, because ye did.  Ye’re a fighter, Sassenach.  I kent it from the start.”

“God, Jamie, I was an utter shambles at the time,” she confessed.  His faith in her was overwhelming.

“Aye.  But ye were goin’ down swinging.”

***

Ian Murray, Jamie’s best friend and brother-in-law, met them at the train station in Inverness.  As they navigated the country roads, his conversation with Jamie had the ease and teasing short-hand of timeworn friendship. Claire was content to sit quietly and listen, the inconclusive discussion on the train looming large in her peripheral vision.

It was well past dark as they arrived at Lallybroch, giving the structure an air of timelessness as yellow light bathed the courtyard from windows high above.  The battered wooden entrance swung open to the welcoming chaos of barking dogs, children’s laughter and lilting Gaelic voices spilling into the night.  

Claire hung back, pretending to help Ian with their bags as Jamie jogged forward to embrace a dark-haired woman who barely reached his shoulders, lifting a giggling toddler from her hip and high into the air.  The dogs spun around his legs, practically tripping him as he tried to climb the stairs and answer his sister’s rapid fire questions all at once.  Halting before the door, he handed his nephew over before Jenny disappeared inside, the dogs at her heels.

Feeling absurdly nervous, Claire mounted the stairs and accepted his outstretched hand.

“So, this is it?” she asked inanely.

“Aye, this is it.  Welcome to my home, Sassenach.”

***

They’d eaten on the train, so after a hasty introduction to the rest of the family and a promise to become better acquainted over breakfast, Jamie and Claire headed upstairs.  It occurred to her on the second landing that she had no idea where he expected her to sleep.   Their status as temporary lodgers in other people’s homes back in London had made the question moot.  

Visceral memories of their increasingly heated goodnight kisses caused Claire to trip on braided rug.  Jamie turned as she was righting herself.

“Aye, well, here we are.  The lavatory is jest across the hall.  If ye need anything, the laird’s room is up these stairs.”

“The laird’s room?  Wait, who’s the laird in this story?” she was momentarily distracted from her agitation by this unforeseen detail. 

“Well, me.  But dinna get any grand illusions.  Tis only a leftover title from when Clan Fraser ruled o’er these parts before the Rising.”

Her mouth was moving before she fully considered her next words.

“And does that make me your lady?”

Instead of laughing off her glib comment as she hoped he would, Jamie’s face grew somber.

“Nah.  Tha’ position is presently unfilled.  In this house, the laird sleeps next tae his lady, always.  G’night tae ye, Sassenach.”  And with a soft kiss that barely ghosted her lips, Jamie retired to bed.  Alone.

***

The next two days were a glimpse into a way of living whose existence Claire had previously discredited.  Communal mealtimes, where each family member had an assigned role, from buttering the bread (Jamie’s three-year old nephew and namesake) to clearing the table (Ian, and by their second meal, Claire).  Morning and evening chores that left the adults drowsy and smelling slightly of the chicken coop.  Siblings bickering, slamming doors and then laughing about it by suppertime.  Outings to local landmarks in the rain, a cheerful row of matching Wellingtons and wax cotton jackets tramping along well-worn paths.  Visits to neighbours, carrying a Pyrex dish of some culinary offering and returning four hours later, stuffed to the gills and carrying a different Pyrex dish loaded with leftovers.

Seeing Jamie take his place at the centre of this family dynamic was a shock.  She’d only ever known him in an urban setting, where he was one man among millions; noteworthy for his decency, his peculiar fondness for blood pudding, and because he was hers.  At Lallybroch, he grew before her eyes, taking on new dimensions that challenged and teased her understanding of him.

This was his concept of home.

This was his template for love.

***

On Sunday afternoon, the clouds had lifted to reveal a robin’s egg sky.  Claire accompanied Ian on a circuit of the upper pasture.  A border collie named Jem bounded down the hill ahead of them.  Ian was an easy companion, and they were mid-conversation about the impact of the Scots in the history of medicine when Claire pulled up short, words evaporating in her throat.

There in the hay field just below stood Jamie.  Long rows of golden sheaves that had been cut the past week were now drying in the late summer sun.  Armed with nothing but a pitchfork, Jamie had obviously been working for some time.  He wore boots and loose trousers, but his shirt was long abandoned.  Sweat glistened in the fine russet curls that covered his breastbone and over the sun-kissed curves of his shoulders.  He was so beautiful, it hurt to breathe.

“He’s himself again,” Ian remarked.  “It lightens my heart tae see it.”

Claire tore her eyes away from Jamie.  Ian was watching her with a knowing twinkle in his eye.

“Well, he obviously loves being here, with his family...” she dodged.

Ian shook his head.

“Nah, t’isn’t that.  Since his accident, he’s been... altered.  Jamie was always the golden one, ye ken?  Smart, strong, funny, kind.  He wore it well, but it gives ye a sense of... invincibility, maybe?  Tha’ blast ripped apart more than his back.  I think it made him doubt who he is on the inside.  Ye’ve helped him find tha’ man again, Claire, and for that we are in yer debt.”

She couldn’t look at Ian then, for fear that he would see just how much she wanted what he was saying to be the truth.  To be essential to someone who meant so much to her, to be enough purely by being herself, it was more than her feelings could contain.

It was what Jamie had been trying to tell her all along.

***

The third stair between the guest room and the laird’s bedroom creaked, and Claire froze, eyes darting guiltily down the corridor to where Ian, Jenny and their children slept.   Nothing stirred beyond the drumming of her heartbeat, so she crept the rest of the way, tapping quietly on the solid wood door.

Jamie’s voice was alert as he beckoned, “Come in, Jenny.”  She clutched a thin sheaf of papers to her chest and entered the room.  The only illumination came from the hearth, where a low fire still blazed.  It cast its light on a large, masculine room, with deep blue wallpaper, heavy damask drapes and an immense four poster bed.  Jamie sat up against the headboard, the glow from his iPad echoing in his downcast eyes.

“It’s not Jenny.  It’s me,” she whispered.

With a visible flinch, the iPad fell to his lap.

“Claire...”

He stretched her name out like honey from a jar, trickling sweetly from his mouth.

She wanted to run.  From this plush room, this welcoming home, this uninvited sanctuary of tenderness.  Her legs quivered with the impulse.  Instead, she plunged forward into the room, right to the edge of the bed, and thrust her offering towards Jamie, who followed her movements as though she was defusing a bomb.

“Whas’ this then?” he asked, peering down at the document.

“It’s our lease.  I signed it.  And faxed a copy to the landlord.”

There, she had done it.  The pebble that would start the landslide.  There was no turning back now, and it was pure relief.

Jamie was silent for so long, staring down at her signature, that she began to wonder if he’d fallen asleep.  When he looked up again, his eyes were glassy.

“Are ye sure, Sassenach?”

A drunken encounter in a pub.  Agony radiating from his bright blue eyes on a hospital gurney.  Her rain-soaked salvation.  A roommate.  A friend.  His steady patience as they tentatively grew closer. And now something more, something bigger than she knew how to articulate, sneaking around the margins of her fear.  

She wasn’t sure of much, but she was certain that Jamie’s love could never hurt.  The rest, the panic that she could lose him or disappoint him, that was just the price of paradise.

Instead of answering the question directly, she walked around to the opposite side of the bed and gestured to the empty mattress beside Jamie’s long body.

“Is this place still vacant?”

His smile was radiant.

“For ye, Sassenach, always.”

***

It was like no other sex she’d ever experienced.  Intimacy, up until then, had been a transaction, an exchange of debits.  This was a cancellation of accounts, an obliteration of any mutual debt.  They loved each other with the pure, mindless joy of a wave meeting the shore.

Which isn’t to say that it was perfect.  It felt strange to touch Jamie in more than a friendly way.   Not at all unpleasant, but strange.  Like going to the theatre to see a well-loved play, and suddenly being thrust onto the stage.  The hesitance behind Jamie’s touch told her he felt something similar.  

In a particularly awkward moment, they were jostling and bumping to remove each other’s pajamas when her hair got caught in the buckle of his watch.

“Ouch!” she yelped.  He pulled away, stammering apologies, which only made things worse.  After a few failed attempts on Jamie’s part, she reached up and unclasped the watch band, giving him two hands to work with.  By this point they were both giggling, the gravitas of the moment lost.

“Ye’ve a great deal of hair, mo nighean donn,” Jamie groused as he lay the offending watch on his nightstand.

“Complaining already, Fraser?”

“God, no. Ye’re... would it be sentimental tae say ye’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen?”

She was lying naked, but for a pair of skimpy knickers, the firelight caressing her limbs where they were splayed against the dark sheets.  Jamie’s visual perusal of her body held a potent combination of lust and reverence that warmed her blood.

“I suppose I can tolerate a bit of sentimentality,” she conceded, rolling towards the bulwark of his naked chest.  Her fingers played down the corduroy ripples of his flank.

“You’re beautiful too, Jamie.”

The mood in the room shifted again.  Soon they pitching across the mattress, trying to touch in as many ways possible.  Their skin grew slippery with sweat.  At some point, underwear must have been removed, because she could feel the coarse abrasion of his pubic hair against her thigh, alongside the tensile ridge of his erection.

“Claire,” he gasped as their hips ground together in frenzied pulses. “If ye dinna want me tae go any further, I need ye tae tell me now.”

She reached between them, taking the heft of him in her palm, feeling a spasm of need shudder through his frame.

“There’s nothing about you that I do not want, James Fraser.”

A cavernous groan, a frantic search for a condom in the bedside drawer, the tearing of a foil wrapper, and then a breathless hesitation.  She opened her eyes to see Jamie looking down as though she was the morning sun.  There was nothing left inside her but dazzling hunger, filling the spaces where her fear once resided.

Here was the start.

[sleeplessandstubborn]

Emily in Paris episode 3 or it’s still more accurate than American media recent coverture on France.

Ah, I had to write that title. And I am not even talking about American Twitter. But yeah. Feel better. Somewhat I have the impression that this is going to substitute the still a better love story than Twilight in my mind. But, I’m sorry, Stephenie Meyer, I am not here for that but to make a belated, totally improvised, not at all completely planned recap of Episode 3 of Emily in Paris, your favourite Instagram version of the French capital.

So episode 3 starts with our heroine running, as she usually does every morning. Why this Paris is more empty than the town where I live which has like 25,000 inhabitants? So many questions about where did people go. The case is her boss in Chicago calls. Yes, the one who speaks French and should be now best friends with Sylvie but it’s stuck in Chicago with her pregnancy.

I know, Madeline, I know. It would be frustrating for me too that the main trait of my personality was I’m pregnant and on my bed. They both exchange about how now that Doug dumped her Emily’s life is full of croissants and sex, when actually is about sex. Also Emily meets street furniture. As does Madeline, too. I guess that’s not the kind of idea she had of meeting French men. Thanks Anne! Hidalgo of course.

Madeline is sending Emily the corporate commandments for Savoir. Yikes, I thought again, a cultural clash is coming and what are corporate commandments anyway (I don’t know, sounds tacky, I’m just a puzzled European), but for now there are another problems to solve. Emily’s shower breaks, the building manager only speaks French and of course our leading lady is still struggling with understanding it. Also, sidenote: manager building is right with Miss Cooper. Only problems.

Fortunately Gabriel exists and he helps her to break the language barrier. But this isn’t going to magically repair her shower and so Emily has to wash her hair in one of humanity’s wonders, one apex of civilization, the bidet. It’s supposed to be a bad hair day for her afterwards but... Does she look that different? Well, not for me! Discuss:

This shows... A character development! At last! Emily is trying to learn French, and even if her beret isn’t going to help in the task, is good to see she’s trying to adapt. Still, she’s overdoing a bit with that Gioconda bag.

I mean, girl. Relax. In order to improve her knowledge, she tries to trick her teacher - who considers a working place full of French people must be an interesting environment where to study the behaviour of the Emily Cooperius Chicagoensis but refuses the pleasure of her company if there’s not a 50 euros banknote in between. Business is business after all. Cut to Emily reuniting with my adored godess Sylvie, whose elegance and beauty only can be matched with the flag of the twelve stars in the background. Ah, Freude, schöner Götterfunken/ Tochter aus Elysium,/ Wir betreten feuertrunken/ Himmlische, dein Heiligtum!

Well, the case is they are going to film the advertisement for De l’Heure today and it’s an important thing Emily keeps her mouth closed and unsmiling because she looks stupid, at least in Sylvie’s opinion. I’d say more scary but well.

Luc and Julien receive them with the enraged face of every European citizen who just met an aggresive attempt  of being forced into the American Way of Doing Things. Which they refuse naturally. Madeline just sent the corporate commandments and everyone is pissed at nonsense like giving praise in public and critizising in private. But off to filming the spot for the perfume. The location is the Pont d’Alexandre III that has featured in like 20,000 advertisement for fragrances. Here they met Antoine and Emily has the twentieth humiliating experience with languages telling she’s horny out of a sudden when she wanted to mean excited.

Emily meets the model, a Serbian blonde beauty that doesn’t speak French, that’s her personality trait. Our heroine seems rejoiced to find at least a kindred soul but we won’t have more time with the model, whose task is to walk across the bridge naked - or wearing the perfume, Antoine says - , while surrounded by men in costumes. The campaign Dream of Beauty, in short. Emily’s reaction is this:

Antoine argues this is meant to represent the woman’s fantasy, to be desired by all these men. Emily doesn’t think this is going to be appreciated by women at the other side of the Atlantic ocean and says the idea is sexists rather than sexy. Filming stop for they to debate, which seems expensive. Stopping, not debating. Without entering on what fantasies are valid or not and who actually pays attention to advertisements for fragrances - I am not one of these people - we don’t get to learn if Emily knows who Cocteau was.

The following morning the plumber can’t fix Emily’s shower. His gestures are pretty easy to understand, as it’s an universal fact that often the pieces needed to repair are not immediately available. Anyway, Emily asks Gabriel to help her with translation again. She must pay him or something. The thing doesn’t get to be fixed and Emily gets to shower in Gabriel’s appartment.

Maybe he has a fantasy of some sort here? Who knows. At the office and after her class, Emily’s first conversation of the day with Sylvie goes, as usual, for a rocky start. She has made lost money and time to the company, her boss argues, and on top of that she’s the prude police. The final straw for Emily immediately after that is that someone (called Luc) drew a dick on the Sacred Corporate Commandments. Having forgotten the fact that drawing penises is part of the human nature since the dawn of times, Emily doesn’t take well the profanation. It’s too much so she goes to lunch with Mindy.

Mindy - who is celebrating a party later and invites her - rolls her eyes at the corporate commandments and more or less say she deserves the hate because she could not expect French people were going to receive that gladly because they are against all. Well, it’s one of their multiple charms. “People like me! That’s my thing!” , Emily argues. Oh my sweet Summer child... Once back at the office, the commercial is as nonsensical as your average perfume commercial. Emily suggests a poll on Twitter to decide if it’s sexy or sexists. Bad or good, they’ll have publicity. Sounds about right?

One day I want to be Sylvie when she answers, after Emily invited her to Mandy’s party: Sorry, I’m busy. Also when she goes on with a mini the reason you suck moment: “You come to Paris. You walk into my office. You don’t even bother to learn the language. You treat the city like it’s your amusement park”. Apparently Emily can’t wrap her head around the idea of not everyone liking her and that you don’t have why to be friends with your bosses or workmates. Girl, just a civilized relationship with them is enough. Anyway... Emily does invite her, incapable of taking a no for an answer.

As predictable - don’t say you didn’t predict it - the party is a bit crowded and, leaving aside Mindy, Emily doesn’t know anyone there. Because, Sylvie knowing better, she didn’t show up. Well done Madame. Out of water again, Emily finds an apparently cute boy who engages in a conversation with her. With hand kissing at the balcony at all.

All it’s very romantic until, when they are strolling the streets and after flirting a bit, Fabien I think was his name - sorry, not checking again - tells her he likes American pussies. This is too much information all of a sudden for Emily - even if it could lead her to learn another the meaning of a new French word, equally related with felines - and storms off to Gabriel’s restaurant. Why is a thing the chef is there, available to serve her a glass of wine, I don’t know, I didn’t write this thing. But finally, finally, FINALLY our heroine says she’s going to stop trying being liked by everyone. Thank you Paris, you inspired some adult realities on Emily’s brain. It’s also a productive night after all because Gabriel says he likes her. So... yay? Since many of you have already seen the complete season, you know that things are... more complicated than that.

Of course the last three minutes of the episode are reserved for Emily Was Right After All moments. The poll is a success even if the commercial is not universally liked - but as Emily has learn this is not that important anymore -, she takes revenge on Luc bringing a dick shaped bread, or cake - I don’t know exactly what it is - which is a funny and irreverent way to respond him aaaand... finds a present from Antoine on her desk, lingerie from La Perla. Which is, ew, a bit creepy.

Aaaand that was all. I had to rewatch it because it had been eras since I last wrote about this series. I promise to be more disciplined with the next ones. Until then.

P.S. Down with Corporation Commandments.

[michelles-garden-of-evil]

Ian Martin’s Strange Paradise, Part II: The Top 5 Worst Things

Last week, I listed my top five favorite things about the first 44 episodes of Strange Paradise, when Ian Martin was headwriter and when the show had a very different feel to it than in the final four weeks of the Maljardin arc. But no creative work is perfect, and, despite my fondness for this show, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think that the writing for early Maljardin had several glaring flaws. Unlike Danny Horn, I don’t think that Ron Sproat was a better writer than Martin (actually, I consider Sproat the worst writer on SP), but that doesn’t mean that I don’t also feel that his writing needed some improvement. Note that this entry is specifically about the writing during this period, so things outside his creative control (e.g. the Conjure Man’s questionable casting) will be excluded from the list.

That said, here are my top five least favorite things about the writing in the first nine weeks of Strange Paradise:

5. Cheesy dialogue

More specifically, (1) bad jokes and (2) slang that was already outdated when these episodes originally aired in 1969. This one is #5 because, while these lines are cheesy, I can’t hate them because most of them make me laugh. Even my personal least favorite of Jacques’ jokes, the “pose” line from Episode 18, is kind of funny in an ironic, anti-humor sort of way, like the dad jokes that have become fashionable in recent years. While there are some jokes in this show that I find genuinely funny--Elizabeth’s Song of Solomon joke, for instance, or “the lady doth detest too much”--most others are the epitome of cornball. Sometimes you hear both in the same episode: Episode 21 is loaded with Devil jokes/puns that would be unforgivably corny if Colin Fox didn’t possess enough charisma to sell them, and yet the same episode also features a genuinely hilarious double entendre. The good jokes sneak up on you, sometimes amidst a hurricane of bad ones.

As for the slang, some comments that I’ve read mention that it was largely out of date even in the late sixties. My good friend Steve (with whom I often discuss SP) has told me that “you might not be aware of how campy that slang sounded in 1969 since you obviously did not live through the Sixties--this happened with a lot of TV shows during that period, the most egregious examples being the various ‘evil druggie Hippie’ episodes of DRAGNET.” Apparently Martin became infamous for using outdated slang later on when he wrote for CBS Radio Mystery Theater, putting lines like “I dig a man who’s far-out!” and “I think bein’ around here’s gonna be kicks!” in the mouths of some of his younger characters. Even if he had used up-to-date slang, it most likely would have still aged poorly (as slang typically does), especially for generations born after phrases like “the most” and “making the ___ scene” fell out of use.

4. Slow pace and excessive repetition

This one is also low on the list, because slow pace and repetition weren’t flaws when the show originally aired, but instead have aged poorly because of advances in technology that made them unnecessary. Before the advent of the programmable VCR, you had to be able to catch the program you wanted to watch on time or have someone you knew catch it on time and record it--which, in 1969, would have meant an audio-only tape recording. This meant that only the most fortunate and/or most loyal viewers would have been able to watch Strange Paradise every day, making it necessary to recap all the major events in subsequent episodes for those who missed out. This is also likely the reason why early SP (like most soaps of the time) has a relatively slow pace: if too much happens in one episode, you have to recap more and the people who missed the big episode are more disappointed.

Nowadays, with DVRs, video streaming, and DVD sets--not to mention certain legally-questionable means--it’s nearly impossible to miss an episode of your favorite show (with few exceptions), making extensive recap largely obsolete. Screenwriters can cram as many plot points as they want into one episode and no longer have to write five episodes of the other characters reacting to the news if they don’t want to.

Even so, just because the constant recap served a function at the time doesn’t mean I have to like it. It gets annoying hearing the same plot points reiterated episode after episode. Like I said while reviewing Episode 21, “if someone were to remake this show for Netflix or another streaming service, they could safely ignore about 75 percent of the original scripts and condense the remaining 25 percent quite a bit without omitting anything important.”

And don’t even get me started on the lampshading of absent cast members, like in Episode 9 when Jean Paul and Quito wasted two minutes searching for Raxl just to slow the plot down. It’s nothing compared to Ron Sproat’s “we must search for Quito” filler episode in Desmond Hall (Episode 78), but still, those scenes were pointless.

3. Extreme artistic license with certain historical/cultural details

Although Ian Martin did a surprising amount of research on certain subjects for Strange Paradise, there are some subjects where he either didn’t do enough research, or (more likely) made extensive use of artistic license. The first one is his portrayal of Jacques’ wife Huaco as an Inca princess despite their marriage occurring over a century after the fall of the Inca Empire. I discussed this all the way back in Part II of my review of the pilot, where I invented the theory of Jacques traveling back in time to marry her, but other possible explanations include Huaco being a 17th-century descendant of Inca royalty (as the Quechua people are still alive today), extreme artistic license, and/or critical research failure. I don’t know if we would have eventually gotten a good explanation if Martin had continued writing the series, but we would need a damn good one for the approximate equivalent of having a 21st-century character marry the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia. I’m willing to suspend my disbelief and accept it considering that this is a fantasy series, but it still creates a lot of plot holes that need to be filled.[1]

Another example of artistic license about which I feel more ambivalent is the conflation of voodoo with the Aztec-inspired indigenous religion of Maljardin, which I’ve discussed before both in my Episode 23 review and Part I of this post series. I’m not sure if this is genius--religious syncretism is a real phenomenon throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, and some people today do syncretize the vodou Serpent God with Quetzalcoatl--or just an instance of Martin playing fast and loose with facts. I would like to think it’s the former, but it could just as easily be the latter (hence why I referenced it on both lists--I have mixed feelings about it).

2. Annoying inconsistencies

Does Raxl know that Jean Paul is possessed by Jacques Eloi des Mondes? Does Vangie? Why does Jacques’ portrait disappear in some episodes after he possesses Jean Paul, but not in others? All three of these things vary from episode to episode, and change annoyingly often as the plot demands. Steve and I have also discussed this subject in the past, and he believes that Martin used this device to make the story easier to follow; if that’s the case, it appears that he used Raxl and Vangie as audience surrogates, especially for new viewers or people who didn’t tune in every day. But surely there were other ways to do that without creating continuity errors? It may have served a function, but that doesn’t make it good writing. What Martin is essentially doing is filling and reopening the same plothole, episode after episode.

Regarding the portrait, I don’t know how much to blame Martin’s scripts for this inconsistency and how much to blame the directors, as I don’t have access to any SP scripts beyond the pilot script and the Vignettes. However, I’m going to assume that he’s at least partially to blame, because at least the pilot script mentions the disappearing portrait (which literally disappears in all three of the Paperback Library novels), Also, while none of the characters ever mention the portrait vanishing (unlike in the tie-in novels), some of his episodes have characters looking at it while Jacques is controlling Jean Paul and commenting on the uncanny resemblance. See also the diegesis tag for more discussion and analysis of the disappearing portrait.

1. Tim’s subplot

It should surprise none of my regular readers that Tim’s subplot is my #1 least favorite thing about the first nine weeks of Maljardin. I’ve already written an entire post about why I dislike this subplot, so I’ll keep my discussion of it here brief. Jean Paul saves the life of artist Tim Stanton when he hires him to paint Erica’s portrait, but then does nothing to make the commission easy for him--which is not a bad set-up for a plot in and of itself, but the execution is terrible. Tim chooses to use Holly as his model despite her barely resembling Erica, and Martin mostly uses their subsequent interactions to drive the old, tired, clichéd plot where two people who bicker and hate each other at first eventually fall in love (or at least he appears to be setting that up[2]). The payoff for the Holly portrait subplot finally occurs in Episode 33, but it’s underwhelming (not to mention barely recapped) and the already bland Tim quickly becomes a background character. In short, his subplot is a boring waste of time and should have either had more payoff or--preferably--been scrapped altogether.

That concludes my list of the worst things about Ian Martin’s Strange Paradise. Stay tuned for my review of Episode 45 within the next two weeks.

{<- Previous: The Top 5 Best Things }

Note

[1] Interestingly, there is a possible (if unlikely) historical explanation for Huaco’s sister Rahua having “skin as white as goat’s milk” and “hair like ripened wheat.” An early Spanish account of the Chachapoya people (aka Cloud People) of the Northern Andes describe them as “the whitest and most handsome of all the people that I have seen, and their wives were so beautiful that because of their gentleness, many of them deserved to be the Incas’ wives and to also be taken to the Sun Temple.” Assuming the Spanish account isn’t made up, this proves that reality is sometimes unrealistic.

[2] Thankfully, given the soap opera genre, it’s unlikely that Tim and Holly would have stayed together forever, even if they had eventually fallen in love during their painting-and-bickering sessions. Even so, that doesn’t make it a good subplot.

[colormetheworld]

Lumos A Treats (And Tricks) one shot 

Read it ALL on A03

Maura can hear the sugar high from the front porch. 

Pushing open the door to the front hall only serves to amplify the high pitched happiness of several children, her daughter the loudest of them all. 

“TJ,” Maura hears Mae say, her voice full of authority. “You have to make sure to keep your bangs out of your eyes. Otherwise, how will they see the scar and know who we are?” 

“People just know who Harry Potter is,” TJ says good-naturedly. He’d wanted to be the Neville Longbottom of their little contingent, but Mae - not unlike the intelligent witch she was portraying that evening - talked him into Harry. 

“You’re the only one of our friends with the right hair,” she’d said reasonably. “Archie’s gonna be Neville, and Rose is gonna be Luna, and her brother said he’d be Ron. Come on, Tommy Junior...please?” 

Maura had worried that this kind of wheedling was going to lose Mae the little group of friends she’d managed to accumulate, but Jane had told her to forget about it. 

“Besides,” she’d said, wrapping her arms around Maura’s waist. “TJ has such a crush on her, he’d dress up as anything she asked.” 

A second shock for Maura, That someone might find her daughter a worthwhile playmate, and best friend, and more…” 

Jane had sucked her teeth in an affectionate way. “Like mother like daughter,” she’d said. “Totally oblivious to their superpowers.” 

It had taken Maura some time to figure that one out as well. 

Now, she makes her way down the hall and around the corner and encounters the group of children that Mae has come to call friends. 

There are Rose and her brother Addison, both additions from the soapbox derby world, who live three streets away and call Mae every Friday after their favorite TV show to discuss. Maura still feels a thrill of shock and excitement on behalf of her daughter when her cell phone rings each week. 

There is Archie A. Archibald, a boy in the grade below Mae at school who was made fun of mercilessly until Mae stepped in at recess one day. She told the other boys who were teasing him that her mother not only knew how to dissect people into little bits, but that she was also dating a detective and could therefore not be punished if she chose to do so. 

Although this declaration had earned her her first stern talking to from Jane, it also earned the unflinching adoration of Archie, whose mother approached Maura during pick up one day with tears in her eyes. 

(“My son will NOT stop talking about your daughter. Thank you so much.” Maura wondered momentarily if there were other mothers out there who worried about their children as she did.)

And there’s TJ, Mae’s first and best friend, and “basically her cousin,” as Jane liked to point out. He is currently at the center of their little gaggle, letting Mae fix his tie, smiling his Rizzoli half-smile that says, I’m really enjoying this, but don’t you dare ask me to my face. 

“Well,” Maura says, taking in their cloaks and ties, their little wands and shiny Oxford loafers. 

“Don’t you all look-” but then Jane comes around the corner, and she forgets what she was going to say. 

Mae had chosen Harry Potter characters for all of them. The main children character for herself and her friends and then, surprisingly, Bill and Fleur for Jane and Maura. 

“Wouldn’t you rather the two of us be Hogwarts teachers, love?” Maura questioned her daughter shortly after this revelation. “Maybe Jane doesn’t want to play a male character.” 

“There’s no girls in love with girls in the book, Mommy,” Mae explained. “And you guys have to be people in love.”

“We don’t have-” Maura began, but Mae cut her off. 

“Yes,” she’d said definitively. “You do. And Bill and Fleur are perfect, anyway.” 

Jane, half engrossed in the recap of the world series, turned her attention to Mae. “Why’s that?” 

Mae hesitated. “Well...Sometimes you tell Mommy that you don’t know how you ‘lucked out’ and got to be with us,” she’d said slowly. “And after Bill got attacked, everyone thought Fleur would leave him.” 

Silence. Mae was shifting her attention between the adults, looking for understanding. 

“But Fleur told Mrs. Weasley she’d never. ‘Member?” 

Jane nodded. 

“And Mommy always says, “It wasn’t luck. We deserve each other.” 

More silence. Jane wasn’t looking at Mae anymore, but her attention had not returned to the television. 

Mae had waited another beat before settling back against her mother. 

“Bill’s scars are on his face, and yours are on your hands,” she’d said. “That’s the only difference.” 

So Jane is currently dressed as Bill Weasley. She is sans red hair but is not without freckles or stubble, both painstakingly applied with what Maura suspects is her eye-liner pencil. 

She is wearing old rumpled jeans and a dress vest over a collared shirt that is rolled to the elbows. Her hair is in a loose ponytail. 

She looks masculine and sexy and hot, and for a moment, Maura forgets there is anyone else in the room. 

Do I pull off “brooding dragon tamer?” she asks as she approaches. She chuckles as Maura just continues to stare. 

“If I didn’t know any better, doctor, I’d think you like this five o’clock shadow a little too much.” 

Maura manages to swallow without swallowing her tongue. 

“It’s not a displeasing aesthetic,” she concedes, reaching up to tug gently on Jane’s ponytail. “You look extremely handsome.” 

“You’re right,” Archie pipes up from behind them. “They do look at each other mushy a lot.” 

Mae nods. “I told you,” she says. “Can you imagine if I made them like...Quidditch players or something?” 

Maura pulls back rolling her eyes, and Jane laughs loud. 

“Mood broken,” she says good-naturedly. “Go get your dress on, Mo. We don’t want to miss the good candy.” 

As Maura turns away, Jo Friday comes trotting around the corner, bright pink from the tip of her tail to the start of her nose. 

“Jo!” Maura says, shocked. 

Mae and TJ laugh. “She’s a pygmy puff,” TJ says, still giggling. “It’s not gonna hurt her, Aunt Maura! It’s just temporary!” 

Maura is stunned before she realizes why. When she finally works out that it is because TJ has called her “aunt,” it is too late to say anything. All of the kids are bending around Jo Friday, telling her how gorgeous she looks. 

Maura decides that she wouldn’t have said anything anyway. The idea of TJ making the same mistake later in the evening makes her feel almost giddy. 

“Maura!” Jane comes back around the corner from the dining room, holding several little jackets. “Chop chop!” 

Maura hurries up the stairs. 

Just the three of them return to the house on Beacon Hill later that evening. Jane’s stubble has smeared a little bit, and her long coat is now around Maura’s shoulders. 

She’s carrying a very exhausted little Hermione. 

But they still head into the living room and turn on Hocus Pocus, the same way they have for the last three years. 

Maura tilts Mae’s bag onto the coffee table, smiling as Jane whistles low. 

“Good hall this year, tiny.”

Mae smiles sleepily. “This has been my favorite Halloween,” she says. “My favorite one ever. I can’t wait until school tomorrow. Until lunch.” 

Jane takes Maura’s hand. The doctor doesn’t have to say what it means to her that this sentiment is coming from her daughter. 

They start sorting the candy into its four main piles: BEST, OKAY, SUBPAR, and CREEPY.  

Maura reaches out to pick up a suspicious little cardboard box that fits in the palm of her hand. 

“The Mahoneys?” she asks Mae, shaking her head when the little girl shrugs, not looking up. “I talked to them last year,” she tells Jane, “about buying packaged snacks? Just because it’s so much safer? Linda Mahoney called me a ‘fuddy-duddy!’ Can you believe?” 

Jane’s expression is studiously neutral. 

Maura pulls the top off the little box and tips its contents into her palm with a sigh. 

Out falls a delicate diamond ring. 

For a long, long minute, there is silence in the living room. Maura only just now notices that Hocus Pocus has been paused. She stares at the ring in her hand trying to fit it into a narrative of the night that makes sense. 

Mae, much more awake now, is looking at her from Jane’s arms. 

“Mommy?” 

Maura doesn’t even look up. 

“I think we stupified her,” Mae whispers. 

“I think you’re right,” Jane whispers back. She shifts Mae onto the couch beside her so that she can scoot closer to Maura on the couch. 

“I love you,” she says under her breath. “More than I’d ever thought I could love another person. I know a lot of things have to happen before an actual marriage, okay? I know that there are a lot of things to consider. But I have loved you and your kid from moment one.” Jane pauses. “Or,” she says, lips twitching, “at least since you put down the knife and smiled at me.” 

Maura means to laugh, but her vocal cords do not oblige. She makes a truly ungainly sound. A strangled moan and a hiccup in one. 

Both Mae and Jane sit back, startled, although both are smiling wide. 

“Okay,” Mae says, ever reasonable. “How about this? If you want to marry Jane...just put the ring in the BEST pile. If you don’t, put it in the CREEPY.” 

“The creepy!” Jane says, pretending to be hurt. “Why not just the SUBPAR?” 

Maura starts to laugh before Mae can respond. 

She laughs and leans forward to throw her arms around Jane and kiss her. 

And then she nods and starts to cry. 

And she doesn’t put the ring into any of the piles with the candy. 

Instead, she slips it onto her finger. 

“Yes?” Jane questions? She looks, at that moment, like her Harry Potter character, pleasantly surprised and delighted that she’s been chosen. 

Maura kisses Jane again. 

“Yes.” 

[sparklyjojos]

CARNIVAL DAY recaps [6/13]

Today’s recap: A memory of a great magician, the Sophists unmasked, and the apocalypse drawing near.

--

THIRTY-SIX

12 Apr 1997 — 18 Apr 1997

BLIZZARD QUEEN

--

On April 5th, a Mossad spy is about to be publicly hanged in Baghdad, but just after the noose is tightened, all the other people gathered at the scene suddenly start suffocating and dying one after another. The bodies all have marks of something that had been wound around their necks. The spy is unaffected and survives. A skull of the Billion Killer is found between the bodies.

On the same day, the Billion Killer investigation makes a leap forward. The US government asks the world to organize an international search for someone who has been missing ever since the start of the Crime Olympics, and who might help uncover the Billion Killer’s secret—the famous magician David Copperfield.

Several of Copperfield’s illusions are interesting in the context of the Billion Killer cases. Making the Statue of Liberty disappear, floating over the Grand Canyon, walking through the Great Wall of China, the Bermuda Triangle special, the Niagara Falls stunt, the escape from an exploding building…

Copperfield never hesitated in performing spectacular challenges. It’s perfectly fine to do small magic just for the sake of brief entertainment and joy of others, but when one attempts to truly move people’s hearts, to give them an unforgettable emotional experience, it is necessary to focus on conveying a plot, a theme through the magic. Copperfield’s illusions were constructed for this purpose; for example, he made the Statue of Liberty disappear to convey how precious liberty is and how easily it might be lost.

Out of the thirty-four Billion Killer cases so far, five happened in places Copperfield used for illusions (Statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon, Great Wall of China, Bermuda Triangle, Niagara Falls), and four had to do with destroyed buildings (JDC, Empire State, Greenwich, St. Mark’s Clocktower). Copperfield also made an Orient Express car levitate and disappear—compare the Trans-Siberian Express briefly flying through the air once it derailed. Walking through walls could perhaps be how that mysterious man in the cartel shooting case managed to escape the locked room. Copperfield once had a show in the Osaka Castle, and surely would know how something like the New Berlin Wall could be made to appear and disappear. The magician’s ability to make big objects float could be how the stone spheres of Costa Rica were moved.

That seems like an awful lot of coincidences. Even if David Copperfield wasn’t the Billion Killer, he could have been kidnapped and forced to turn over his magical secrets that would be then used for evil.

--

As Nemu watches the news, she realizes just how powerful a rumor can be. In the eyes of the public, David Copperfield quickly changes from a kidnapped innocent, to a member of RISE, to its leader, to the Billion Killer himself. The media never actually accuse him outright, but street interviews show what people think: “I can’t believe he’s the killer”, “I feel betrayed”, “I hope he realizes the error of his ways”. Humans are so quick to judge without even having the information necessary to make the decision. Perhaps that’s what Black meant warning them against “skim-reading”.

Yesterday’s enemy is today’s foe and vice-versa; yesterday’s hero is today’s murderer. Like a ridiculous, mad carnival dance led by the media.

Nemu, Otohime and Hyouma talk about the news. Hyouma only now understands what Kakuusan Kanke told him when they were in New York together—that the Billion Killer was probably an American person with a name similar to hers. What she meant is that her nickname Kappa sounded like the beginning of the name Copperfield.

In the end, they can’t decide whether Copperfield could be the Billion Killer or not, but discussing magic makes Nemu and Otohime recall a certain magician they knew when they were young, and they talk about their memories—about Juku’s father Saimon Ryuusui. As those memories reach over fifteen years ago, they’re quite scarce and blurry.

Saimon Ryuusui lost his life in the Saimon Family Murder Case that lasted from 1979 to 1980. He was a man of a magnificent and dignified posture, with swept back hair and a thin kaiser moustache, wearing a tailcoat on a daily basis. His policy was that a magician didn’t need words, and so he never spoke; not even his wife or Juku have ever witnessed the magician utter a single word. Instead he would write or gesture when necessary, and his wife could apparently understand his thoughts pretty well. Perhaps this devotion to silence was in itself the magician’s greatest illusion. Though never too popular, Ryuusui was widely recognized for his flexible creativity and practiced skill.

Ryuusui had lost his left hand in the Pacific War and used a prosthesis. It was hard to notice at first sight, as he always wore white gloves, even when sleeping. Sometimes he’d take off the prosthetic hand and make it float or crawl on the ground, and the spectators could inspect it freely afterwards. While simple, the Left Hand Magic is apparently famous as one of the greatest illusions of the Showa period. The secret method behind it is still unknown.

Nemu and Otohime weren’t quite Saimon Ryuusui’s family and so didn’t really know him, having only met him a few times. The image of the man they held in their minds was mostly created based on tales they had heard from Juku.

Juku also told them about the Miraculous Illusions, a set of thirteen pieces of magic that still hadn’t been finished by the time Ryuusui died. Juku was the only one who was ever shown them, and only once. Even he couldn’t figure out the methods behind them at all, and stated that if these illusions were to be perfected, perhaps it would lead to an omnipotent, all-purpose magic of sorts.

This certainly seemed like something that could be abused to create the Billion Killer crimes. Ryuusui has been dead for almost two decades now, but he left several apprentices, so maybe one of them got their hands on the illusions, perfected them, and decided to use them for crime.

--

THIRTY-SEVEN

19 Apr 1997 — 25 Apr 1997

MOUNTAIN WALL NIGHTMARE

--

Due to a sudden increase in yeti sightings in the Himalayas, a special investigation team is sent to the mountains, their movements recorded and watched by their companions back at camp. On April 12th, as the team is climbing K2 to get to the yeti standing above them, the creature removes its costume and reveals itself as a half-naked Asian woman in her mid-twenties, who’s somehow unfazed by the freezing cold. She’s saying something they can’t quite understand. At that moment a giant avalanche starts and sweeps the team away.

When their companions later search for the bodies, they find a skull of the Billion Killer. Footage analysis reveals the woman’s words were “the next case will happen in the highest place”, which must mean Mount Everest.

On April 19th, as another team is climbing Mount Everest, a mass of rocks shoots out of the wall and pushes them off so they fall to their deaths. Later, investigation finds a skull of the Billion Killer in the exact place where the rocks came from, as if the skull somehow appeared within the wall and pushed the rocks out.

--

...or at least that’s how the media portray it, but Nemu can’t help but feel this all seems fishy, like a carefully directed horror movie. Then again, it’s not like she has the information needed to make any judgment on whether it’s real or not. The Billion Killer’s greatest trick is showing people things that should be impossible.

Nemu thinks about the Miraculous Illusions a lot.

--

THIRTY-EIGHT

26 Apr 1997 — 02 May 1997

UNDERGROUND LOCKED ROOM

--

On the same day as the Everest case, Nemu, Otohime and Hyouma are told by Black that they themselves will take part in the next Billion Killer case. Nemu and Hyouma are going to serve as Dots, while Otohime will stay behind in the Sanctuary just in case the other two try to escape.

Black leads them to the “laundry room”, which turns out to be a small place with a water bed in the middle. A helmet connected with a strange machine is lying nearby. The room doesn’t look like a laundry, but Black explains that what they wash here is brains. All the Dots and Dogs undergo brain washing.

Black encourages them to lie down and put the helmet on to feel what it’s like, which Hyouma does against his better judgment. The result is a maddening moment of complete sensory deprivation that seems to last for ages (actually fifteen seconds) before Black helps him take the helmet off. Apparently half a day in that condition is enough to make a person forget who they are, and two weeks of it combined with a guiding voice from the speakers will create a loyal new minion.

Seeing their horror, Black assures them that RISE isn’t going to brainwash them (not now, at least). But if they were to undergo the procedure, they would hear instructions in the synthesized voice of someone especially close to them for the best results. Here’s who RISE determined to be “someone close” for each of them. For Hyouma: Yuu, Fuyuka Kasumi, and Ajiro. For Nemu: Souya, Juku, and Jounosuke. For Otohime: Hikimiya, Juku, and Jounosuke.

What this list implies is that RISE has been spying on them for a long, long time. And yes, Black knows that Hyouma and Ajiro are half-brothers (and now that he said it, Otohime and Nemu know it too).

Asked about Yuu, Black states the following: the Yuu who Hyouma met with during the Locked Room Lord case and who died was the real Yuu (who nevertheless was controlled by RISE), and the one who he drank with last year and who lives as a Dot is an imposter. That very convenient traffic accident that killed real Yuu was of course RISE’s doing.

While Hyouma is fuming with frustration, Nemu asks why on earth her “someone close” list started with Souya, considering they were simply coworkers. Black answers that the results were based on observation and analysis, and in Nemu’s case, the one to create the list for her was Yellow Bishop, Ajiro Souji. Nemu almost says something, but stops and gets lost in thought.

Asked about whether the Rainbow Sophists really are the S-detectives, Black says that the truth will be revealed after the next Billion Killer case. Right now he can only tell them that Dot-Nakamoto is the real Nakamoto, while Dot-Yuu and Dot-Unomaru are both imposters. RISE did get some use out of the real brainwashed Unomaru, but he’s already dead by this point.

--

Even more explanations follow. In order to spy on Dokuson and Hanto Maimu, RISE has planted several Spiders in JDC (Spiders are undercover spies, called that because “spy there” = spider). Unomaru looked like a great candidate for a Spider, so RISE snatched him from the sinking ship. However, Unomaru must have hit his head and sustained memory loss during the incident. He didn’t remember anything and was fully convinced his name was Marion. RISE tried to make him remember his real name with brainwashing, but no matter how many times he was told he was Suzukaze Unomaru, he stubbornly insisted his name was Marion. A full two weeks of the brainwashing procedure failed completely.

There had to be a reason for this unusual power of resistance. The Doctor believed Unomaru was subconsciously, instinctually sensing danger and protecting his hidden core memory as he could. RISE is able to manipulate everything in the “upper levels” of human memory, but anything that has been locked up behind the barrier of amnesia is hard to touch. Even if the brainwashing was successful, the locked memories would still remain and Unomaru could spontaneously revert to his real self one day.

In the end, they decided to perform this sort of temporary brainwashing, spending another full two weeks on the procedure, successfully convincing Unomaru that he had no name at all. He soon served as a Dot in the Loch Ness case. Then he and his two companions were told by RS to go to the Sanctuary’s dark room. While there, the other two had their heads blown off, which was enough shock for Unomaru to snap out of it to some degree.

Unomaru managed to flee the Sanctuary afterwards, and Black pursued him to make sure no troubles would follow.

By the way, Unomaru’s real name was a very plain Yamashita Saburou. His mother was Japanese, but his father Elfi Geppen came from Java, and half-Japanese Saburou faced a lot of bullying in his younger years. He quickly learned to hide his identity; in fact, his almost unnatural patriotism for Japan, speaking and acting like a samurai, taking on a more traditional sounding D-name, were all tragic efforts to make himself seem as Japanese as possible.

Black found Unomaru on Java, where he now worked as a rickshaw driver under the name of his father. After questioning him thoroughly, Black decided that Unomaru didn’t actually get his memory back, and his escape had been simply caused by fear after his fellow Dots died. However, Unomaru still could subconsciously recall information like his father’s name.

When the Borobudur case happened, Unomaru took the Billion Killer’s skull away from the scene, but before he could really hurt RISE’s case, he was killed in riots in Jakarta.

--

This was already a lot to digest, but Black then takes the detectives to another room to show them one other thing.

“Cold storage” turns out to host a bunch of pods with people in cold sleep. Black shows them a pod that he claims contains one of the Spiders, and the detectives are shocked to see it’s their good friend Christmas Mizuno.

--

A day before the next Billion Killer case, Hyouma, Nemu, and four Dots go through a security check to get to the heavily guarded Earth House, a fallout shelter in Idaho mountains.

The Earth House is a place popular with survivalists where anyone willing to pay can stay for two weeks, or even buy a right to evacuate there if a disaster strikes. The shelter is so big it’s basically an underground city. Soldiers are patrolling it at all times.

The group is split into two rooms. One party consists of an unknown male Dot, Hyouma, and fake Unomaru, all pretending to be ”the Yamashita brothers” (respectively Ichirou, Jirou and Saburou). The other group are “the Kawakami sisters”, Yuu (the fake Yuu), Nemu (Nemu) and Mii (an unknown female Dot).

The Dots are barely any company, considering they keep silent and still almost the entire time. Hyouma tries to question fake Unomaru about who he actually is, but the Dots say his questions make no sense (they are always who they need to be for the current mission), and they don’t recall having any real names before. Their utmost goal is to participate in Billion Killer cases, and they’re always observed by “R” or “Ra”, the Eye in the Triangle, which Hyouma as a not-Dot wouldn’t be able to understand. Hyouma asks a tricky question (“it’s only the Dots that are monitored? So you’re saying this whole almighty Ra somehow isn’t able to watch me at all?”). Nervous “Ichirou” starts stuttering in response, and all of a sudden his head explodes.

There’s a knock on the door, but thankfully it’s only the female Dots and Nemu. The Dots say that their unfortunate companion incurred the anger of Ra, but these things happen, there’s no need to mourn anyone stupid enough to go against Ra, and the mission will still go as planned.

Hyouma points out that the three got here with suspiciously perfect timing; even if they claim they didn’t know this would happen, it’s possible that the Dot’s death had been planned somehow. Nemu thinks that the Dots might have explosives implanted in their heads. Hyouma notices that fake Unomaru didn’t really seem surprised at the time of the explosion, like he’d seen that happen before. The Dots claim they’re safe as long as they don’t speak against Ra, but dead Dots were constantly found in Billion Killer cases, so is that really true?

Hyouma continues to jab the Dots with questions and make them uncomfortable, but stops once trembling “Mii” has her head blown up as well.

--

On April 26th, a colonel working in the Earth House apparently goes insane, kills many of his fellow soldiers, breaks the computer system so the entrance cannot be opened in any way, and sets the arsenal to explode. At exactly 1 PM, everything inside the shelter is destroyed in a ball of fire. Four hundred people die.

--

THIRTY-NINE

03 May 1997 — 09 May 1997

BLACK AND WHITE GROUND

--

[Let us backtrack a little to before the Earth House mission, and see what Hyouma and Nemu managed to learn from Black about what had happened with Yaiba Somahito.]

The boy that Yaiba kidnapped was found to have ties to the Locked Room Lord case. His name was Amano Jan [the first name coincidentally written 雀, so just like suzume]. After the train crashed and Yaiba and the boy were saved, an extensive investigation and questioning led by Dokuson himself revealed some surprising things.

Back when Yaiba was normally working at JDC, he got a mysterious call from someone who sounded exactly like his dead little brother Amato, and who told him he was going to die in the upcoming Crime Olympics. This was enough to upset Yaiba so much that soon he collapsed from stress. When he was hospitalized, a coworker brought him a nice set of blue polka-dot pajamas, and for some reason this was the point at which something inside Yaiba broke.

Not even Yaiba himself had been really aware of it, but Dokuson helped him realize an important fact: many years ago, Amato had been wearing similar blue polka-dot pajamas just before he committed suicide. When Yaiba saw a similar piece of clothing in the hospital, his traumatized mind was brought to a vulnerable state prone to manipulation and suggestions from Amano Jan. As the pajamas were brought with them on the train, Yaiba continued to stay under the spell. In a way, he wasn’t the kidnapper; he was the one kidnapped.

The boy later confessed to everything. However, it was obvious that a child couldn’t have come up with such a complicated plan. Yaiba’s coworker who brought the pajamas to the hospital went missing the day the train crashed, but all the investigative threads led from them to the JDC detective Yakuma Suzume.

--

Once Hyouma and Nemu get through the Earth House case unscathed, Black gives them some more explanations.

RISE plans on hosting seven “guests” in all:

Ryuuguu Otohime

Tsukumo Nemu

Amagi Hyouma

Christmas Mizuno

Diana Hosey

Hanto Maimu (and Kuraimu)

Yaiba Somahito

The detectives had already guessed there would be more guests, because their entire goal in the Earth House was finding Diana Hosey and bringing her to the Sanctuary. To their surprise, Diana had been investigating there along with Kakuusan Kanke, so they got Kanke to run away with them too. Mere minutes before the place would explode, fake Unomaru led them to a secret elevator that let them escape in the brink of time. Once outside, Hyouma and Nemu had to say goodbye to Kanke for now and take Diana to the Sanctuary, but at the very least they knew their fellow JDC detective was safe and sound.

--

Around the same time the Earth House is destroyed, a strange deja-vu incident takes place: Hanto Maimu and Kuraimu are kidnapped by Christmas Mizuno, who then escapes to China and boards the Silk Road Train.

Dokuson decides to entrust chasing them to Yaiba as a chance for him to clear his name and face the past. A week later Yaiba is successful in meeting Christmas and convinces him to go back to Japan with him, which should be the end of the story—but then both detectives, Maimu, and Kuraimu all disappear without a trace during the next Billion Killer case.

On May 3rd, the entire 600 km of train tracks from Samarkand to Ashgabat are suddenly replaced with checkered flooring made of black and white tiles, causing many trains to crash.

The Silk Road (shiruku-roodo) has turned into a black-and-white road (shiro-kuro-dou).

--

When Yaiba and the rest are on the Silk Road train, Christmas casually tells them he’s RISE’s Spider, and that they are going to be RISE’s guests. A few people in black suits show up to ensure they’ll follow.

Once they get to a giant underwater fortress known as the Sanctuary, they’re led to a meeting room where several other people are already waiting. There’s Hyouma, Nemu, Otohime, a girl who later introduces herself as Diana Hosey, and… another Christmas Mizuno? The moment Yaiba notices that something’s wrong here, the Christmas that just brought him there has his head blown off his shoulder. (The Dots clean up quickly, but still, Jesus Christ.)

Yaiba and Maimu (and little Kuraimu) join everyone at the table and get some very confusing explanations from their friends. Then a guy wearing all black and a mask shows up accompanied by a group of Dots and introduces himself as Black Rook or the Sanctuary’s Master (and from what Hyouma explains, the guy looks exactly like Jounosuke under the mask). One of the Dots resembles Suzukaze Unomaru. Yaiba honestly doesn’t understand what’s going on anymore.

Black Rook states that the seven guests will now have a chance to each talk with one of seven executives of RISE. The set order is as follows: Otohime will talk with Red Knight (Sullivan), Christmas with Orange Knight (Meiru?), Diana with Yellow Bishop (Ajiro?), Yaiba with Green Knight (Frau D?), Nemu with Blue King (Zerofini Roi?), Hyouma with Violet Queen (Ronely Queen?), and Hanto Maimu & Kuraimu with “Soft White”.

Everyone is escorted by Dots to the rooms where the executives of RISE are waiting for them. If the detectives are honest with themselves, they all quietly pray that the Sophists are the real S-detectives, because it would mean that Ajiro Souji is still alive.

--

Otohime already knows that Red Knight is Lemuria Sullivan, so she asks about his reverse reasoning. Sullivan says it’s not prophesying, but a logical process that lets him know the future; for example, he knows that Otohime is going to ask about Jounosuke, her family, and the other Rainbow Sophists. As for that last one, Sullivan can give her a straight answer: except for him, none of the others are S-detectives.

--

Hyouma immediately demands that Violet Queen tells him her real identity, so she removes her mask. It’s not Ronely Queen. Instead it’s a dark-skinned woman with beautiful eyes, and he has absolutely no idea who she is.

--

Nemu faces the Blue King. If it really is Zerofini Roi, then the nickname is quite fitting, as roi means a king in French. But why would Nemu be chosen to talk with the world’s greatest detective? So the first thing she says is, “You’re an imposter, aren’t you?” 

“As expected from Juku’s sister,” the woman laughs. “Calling me an imposter before I can even open my mouth.”

“Well, are you?”

Blue King removes her mask. She really is a woman in her thirties, but not Zerofini Roi. It’s someone Nemu already met and who she would never expect to see here.

--

Yaiba has never met Frau D before. He only knows that Frau D was a master of data analysis and that he allegedly died during the Crystal Nightmare. But when he meets Green Bishop, he gets a feeling like he’s facing an old friend.

“Have we met before?” he asks.

“We know about each other, but this is our first proper meeting,” Green says and removes his mask to reveal a face very similar to someone Yaiba knows.

--

Christmas knows some things about Firannu Meirunesia from Amagoi, who told him stories about their investigations. He’s not sure why he’d be chosen to talk to Meiru, and why now, when he’s still weak and groggy from a period of cold sleep, and right after he witnessed a guy looking like himself explode.

Even in his confusion, he gets an impression that he knows Orange Knight. Forcing his mouth to work, he asks about her identity. She answers that they know about each other’s existence, but haven’t met until now. Under her mask is a face uncannily similar to someone Christmas knows.

--

Diana hopes that Yellow Bishop really is Ajiro Souji, because then there would be a chance that Ronely Queen didn’t actually die back then, when she protected Diana in the Statue of Liberty case. Unfortunately, Hyouma was the one sent to talk with Violet Queen, while Diana is to possibly meet Ajiro, despite being the only guest who doesn’t know him at all.

“It’s been a while, Diana,” Yellow Bishop says laughing in a very familiar way before taking off his mask.

--

When Hanto Maimu enters the room, Soft White seems to be paying more attention to little Kuraimu in her arms. He says that it’s a hard job to raise a child alone and that Maimu will need help and understanding. Oh, and that he’s not actually the real White Rook, just acting like him right now. He’s very good at mimicking others, see. He once called her in Ajiro Souji’s voice, pretended to be the Yellow Bishop a few times… and he had the role of little Kuraimu’s father too.

Maimu almost walks out in anger at what must be a horrible joke, but then the man’s voice suddenly changes to the one she knows so well and calls her back.

“It’s a long story,” Maimu’s husband Tanna Sazen says as he removes his mask.

--

And so, the executives of RISE have their identities revealed.

Red Knight is Lemuria Sullivan, as everyone already knows.

Orange Knight is Joyeeta. Christmas doesn’t know her, but she looks very similar to her sister Tierra, who he met on Easter Island and who later died in the Great Pyramid case.

Yellow Bishop is Theodore Hosey, Diana’s father and the serial killer known as Deep Cut, who disappeared from his jail cell a while ago.

Green Bishop is Aleksandr Uryakov. Yaiba met his brother Drexel Uryakov on the Trans-Siberian Express and was told that Aleksandr was dead, but that was apparently not the case.

Blue King is Pacha Palermo, the same woman who served as Nemu’s guide and translator during her trip to Peru, and who gave her a hint about investigating in Russia next.

Violent Queen is someone called Fabian. Hyouma has never met her, but apparently she was that witness who saw Yemon’s escape from the cartel shooting case.

The one impersonating White right now is Tanna Sazen, Hanto Maimu’s husband and Kuraimu’s father. Usually, he and Theodore Hosey both act in the same role of the Yellow Bishop, switching places depending on the circumstances.

--

Secret identities aside, Otohime asks Sullivan about what’s going to happen once the Crime Olympics reach their end on August 10th—on Carnival Day.

“The fate of humanity depends on the Cosmic Bomb,” Sullivan says. “If it falls on August 10th, everyone including RISE will be wiped off the face of the planet. If it doesn’t fall, the history of a new human race will begin. The deciding factor to our fate is Black Rook, who holds the key to the Cosmic Bomb.”

They have three months before the fate of humanity will be decided.

--

[>>>NEXT PART>>>]

[edgewoodrp]

A recap of character experiences from October 1st, 2019 through July 31st, 2020.

Enjoy!

Caterina Singh

Following the events of the Wolf Moon, Cat tried to do some investigative work interviewing people in town to get a better picture of what happened - and ran into Heather during her investigation.

Caught up with Vice Principal Holloway during the speed meet.

After being followed by someone on a walk home, some friends stepped in to assist.

She threw a birthday party for her dear friends, Madison and Valerie, which turned into drunken shenanigans, with Heather sitting on her lap at one point, and a kiss with Charlotte at another.

Interviewed some townies on what Edgewood Pride meant to them.

Saw something strange during the firework show at Riverfest which resulted in her hospitalization and now there are some pieces that she’s trying to sort out.

Charlotte Kingsley

Confided in Beatrice her idea to host a small Halloween party at the Kingsley family house. It turned into a heart-to-heart, instead. 

Braved the cold to help an acquaintance arrange the festivities at the bonfire on the Bluff.

While driving home on the night of the Wolf Moon, Charlotte (and her car) were attacked by one of the monsters terrorizing the town. It was only thanks to a mysterious barrier spell that Charlotte wasn’t mauled by the monster, and only thanks to Monty that she didn’t freeze to death on the road.

Charlotte recounted what she remembered of the accident to the witches SCC Representative, Rose-Marie Arceneaux the next morning at BHM. She also discovered Logan Cree had been attacked by a creature and admitted as well. Having seen the human face of the one that attacked him, Charlotte attempted to scry for them, but was unsuccessful in locating them.

To keep her mind distracted, Charlotte started helping Karen Pierce with some projects for the PTA.

While out one night, Charlotte met Juliet in the midst of househunting. She put the woman in contact with local real estate mogul and her former neighbor, James Hawthorne, to help speed up the search.

Volunteered to sell raffle tickets at the H.A.G.S. Carnival and sold so many tickets. Many were gifted back to her, so she wrote down other attendees names on the tickets before depositing them in the buckets.

Lost track of an ancient, bespelled tome downtown and performed a ‘lost and found’ spell with the help of Spencer Hawthorne. There were some... unforeseen consequences, but eventually they set things right.

Danced, drank, and played games with all who attended Madison and Valerie’s birthday, hosted by Caterina Singh. Later, per the decree of a Jenga block, Charlotte kissed Cat.

Ran into Monty, Demitri, and Madison at Riverfest in her quest for scented candles and general excitement. 

Helped avert a bar fight from breaking out during Spencer’s birthday at Two Old Cows, but may have learned something sinister about the party crasher in the process. Further research has to be done.

Dominic Kingsley

Dominic has been helping his sisters. Charlotte lost her keys, and Bridgette… well, she just wanted some cheep booze.

He has been busy serving the citizens of Edgewood at the Underworld’s bar.

He caught the magic show at Edgewood’s Independence Day Riverfest and then spent the afternoon with his partners.

At his partner Spencer’s birthday party, Dominic took care of ordering refreshments and cheered on the intense game of darts.

Heather Payne

Heather and Xavier have developed a strong friendship after meeting at the grocery store then reconnecting at a speed dating event.

She did some investigating around the hospital after the strange attacks of the wolf moon. There she ran into Caterina doing some more legitimate digging of her own.

As far as investigations go, she finally figured out that Charlotte was the third Kingsley sibling. The two get along fairly well.

The witch has been meeting up with Spencer to discuss potion making.

Heather has been actually socializing, going to two birthday parties within a few months. At Val and Maddie’s birthday party, she partook in a game of truth-or-dare jenga. At Spencer’s birthday, she let out her competitiveness in a game of darts.

She met up with Maxine at the HAGS carnival as well as the aforementioned parties. The two teamed up for a game of darts at Spencer’s party.

Demetri has been steadily climbing up Heather’s shit list, and they almost came to blows at Spencer’s party. She is growing increasingly suspicious of his motives.

Juliet Hawthorne

Has grown more comfortable being in around Edgewood and has built up the courage to speak to Preston and Spencer (separately, of course) on different occasions. 

Made friends with Charlotte Kingsley after she helped Juliet house-hunt and introduced her to realtor James Hawthorne, another possible descendant. 

Moved out of the motel and into a home the Hawk’s Hollow neighborhood of Old Edgewood to be closer to her family.

Maxine Beauchamp

Sought advice on costume ideas for Halloween, and didn’t get quite the advice she needed

During a town event, where she was drinking in public, she found out about Charlotte’s car accident during the wolf moon

After seeing Maggie openly carrying an axe in public, Maxine offered to aid Maggie in creating an aesthetically pleasing case for it.

Was paired up with Maggie for the speed meet, and chaos ensued.

Subsequently, Maxine is now convinced she can help give Maggie learn the art of flirting.

Devised another plan with some residents to change the endlessly repeating playlist during the H.A.G.S festival (even if it was to something totally inappropriate, it was in a language no one there understood)

Reminisced the pros and cons to bartending with Xavier.

Attended Madi & Valerie’s birthday, and gave the birthday girl a kiss on the forehead.

After some planning with Spencer, she threw a party for her partner with Nic, which nearly resulted in a bar fight thanks to an uninvited guest arrival, whom she is now suspicious is less than human, given his immunities to her charmspeak.

Monica Rodriguez

Moved to Edgewood at the end of September, moving in with her long-term best friend Monty McAllister; she quickly began to establish friendships with people in town and settle into life in Edgewood

Around the holiday season, she and Monty welcomed a golden retriever puppy they named Roscoe into their home

During the Wolf Moon, she stumbled across tracks from one of the wolves, and later went out with several other weres to investigate; they handed off their investigation to the Callaghans once it led to the Olympus development

As things following the events of the Wolf Moon began to normalize, Monica brought home a stray cat

At the Speed Meet, her dislike of Logan Cree solidified beyond first impressions, and she befriended Phoenix Castillo

The Worm Moon saw her having an uncomfortable first introduction with Heather Payne following an earthquake

In the last few months or so, she has been reigniting one of her former relationships—with Gabriel Alvarez—albeit now long-distance

Has started reaching out to and interaction with some of Monty’s childhood friends, including Maggie and Trevor, to forge friendships of her own

At the Riverfest, she shopped and chatted over one of the magic shows. She found herself in the middle of unfolding chaos when something went awry with a firework display on the northern end of the Riverwalk; she assisted in getting people to safety

Monty McAllister

Struggles with his vision dreams drove him to the library, where he ran into Maggie See and he avoided directly addressing his own reasons for being there

Right around the holiday season, Monty and Monica added a puppy to their household

Leading up to the Wolf Moon, Monty experienced some intense visions, some of which detailed the wolves and some of their attacks. Close to 1 AM of the following day, he came across Charlotte Kingsley in the wake of one of the wolf attacks, and brought her to BHM for medical treatment

As things began to normalize towards the end of January, Monica returned home from a Run with a stray cat, which she declared part of their household with only minor protesting from Monty

The Speed Meet saw him further developing budding friendships

Encouraged a long-term friend and Monica’s ex to rekindle that romance

On the night of the Worm Moon, Monty found himself at work handling panic customers of the Lake House Bar and Grill as the haze rolled in

Continuing struggles with his dreams, as well as mounting family tensions over trust fund legalities, have led to a number of sleepless nights. And some sleepless nights have led him to coffeehouse encounters with friends both old and new alike

Monty spent some of the Riverfest exploring all it had to offer. He was at the northern end of the Riverwalk when the fireworks began exploding over the park, and assisted in getting people to safety

Phoenix Castillo

Phoenix is continuing to connect with Juliet and is starting to see her as another family member.

The girl is still frightened of vampire Logan, who barely resisted her blood and then used his to heal her.

She met Maggie at the Winter Solstice bonfire and the two have become friends.

She and her tour group had a scare on the Wolf Moon as something howled outside, trying to get in.

Phoenix and Beatrice initially bonded over their love of exploring the woods and are starting to see each other a bit more in civilization.

She is creating a bit of a reputation with her powers as she encountered other psychics Monty and Xavier who were not happy to have their minds read.

A child spilled their snow cone all over her at this year’s H.A.G.S. Carnival, making a huge mess. Luckily, plenty of Edgewood’s friendly faces were willing to help.

Spencer Hawthorne

Spencer agreed to an interview with Caterina Singh for a piece on Pride in Edgewood

In desperate attempts to find an old magical tome, Spencer and Charlotte decided to cast a lost and found spell… with yet unknown side effects oooooh

He met up with Heather to talk about magic, potions and ingredients

Spencer bumped into Juliet while visiting the Hawthorne estate garden thinking she was an associate of his father (he didn’t reveal that he is James’ son tho) and offered her a tour of the garden; they talked about plants and ended up doing a bit of gardening work in the herbs section; Spencer offered her some of the german chamomile to take with her; he found out she lost her kids

He bumped into Monty at a cafe and they shared what they’ve been up to since high school

Together with his partners they gathered a few people for Spencer’s birthday at the Two Old Crows, where an uninvited Demitri antagonized them almost & ending in a bar fight, but Juliet (working that night) threw him out before anything could escalate beyond some strong words; a round of darts was played, the teams being Spencer/Charlotte and Maxine/Heather with Dominic and Valerie as cheerleaders; Spencer and Charlotte won the darts game

The trio went to the Riverfest on the first day; they reminisced about previous years and talked about proposing new ideas for the next year; the second night they stayed in and went outside to watch the fireworks, strangely only a few could be seen even though they could still hear more going off…

[kikizoshi]

My (Rough) Thoughts on Shipping Self-Inserts With Canon Characters

Obviously, if you’ve read some of my newer works, you’ll know that I don’t mind OCs, and I feel similarly towards self-inserts. In fact, I’m in pretty high favour of them (good published authors have used themselves and their experiences as great inspiration many a time, and with much success--Dostoyevsky did so a lot!).

However...

With self-inserts, I find that shipping can be quite... problematic. 

I’d like to start with an experience of my own, a basic one, where I wrote a self-insert ship fic. It was... bad, but bad isn’t always indicative of the self-insert style. I remember the way I imagined it was myself in the story, interacting with the characters just like I would in my head, and how great it was to put it onto paper. I was invigorated, it gave me purpose, and I swore to write a new page every day. It was my first fanfiction, and I still enjoy reading it occasionally (even if no one else would).

But that piece isn’t my current ideal for writing, and there are several things I could’ve done to improve. Like, certain writing conventions served to tear me straight from a story, no matter how I tried to gloss over them in my mind.

Signifiers such as ‘(y/n),’ or ‘(h/c),’ ripped me right out of the screen and back into the room around me. Reading about how, “She looked up with her (e/c) eyes happily,” even if only for half a second, I lost my transfiction, and engagement stuttered as I knew I’d be ripped away again.

Strawmanning was another of these problems. The ‘bully’ characters weren’t anything more than a few cookie-cutter lines (not even stereotypes!), whereas the heroic me had the last word, expertly cutting through their paper-thin insults and winning for myself a glorious victory. Rather than highlight virtuous aspects of my character, however, this win only served to make my writing contrived, which goes with my next point.

Shipping myself with a character was perhaps my downfall. Now, don’t get me wrong, my beloved and I had some awesome dialogue about how we should use the honorific ‘-kun’ to make people think we were dating, but overall, neither of our characters were enhanced by each other. I was still my Holy self, the other character shared in my Light, and everyone else were unworthy heathens below.

So what could I have done differently, and what caused me to take such a self-indulgent turn?

To answer my second question, well, age was definitely a factor. I was ten, I believe, and not highly capable of self-reflection, something which is needed in spades in order to artfully insert oneself. I wanted an easy story, one where I could be with the character I wanted and never be in the wrong, and so that’s what happened, at the expense of both our characters (as I’ll elaborate on further down).

To answer the first, I’ll need to take a slightly deeper dive.

For signifiers, I believe why I used them is the key. There’s a difference between self-inserts and reader-inserts, although the two are often mixed, which makes sense (who’s to be the reader-insert if not oneself, or one’s close friend?).

My story was not a reader-insert, though, nor was it ever in my plans to share it, to make it accessible for a friend. (And not even for the purposes of this discussion will I share it with you now, perish the thought.) The only reason I’d thought to add in signifiers of personal traits, of which I knew very well, was imitation. I noticed that every other person on Quotev wrote their fanfictions that way, and so I followed suit. In hindsight, though, it would have been much better to just describe myself or, if preferred, just leave it vague.

I do believe, by the way, that the distinction between self-inserts and reader-inserts--or where we muddle the line--should be something kept in mind when writing. How do you know what’s in-character if you don’t know which character you’re writing about, after all?

For strawmanning, or making a ‘Mary Sue’ of myself, well, there’s a quick explanation. I loathe being wrong. Don’t you? And yet, it’s a real hinderance if I want to write myself into a story. I can’t stand being wrong, I fear it, but characters with no failings are, frankly, boring to follow.

So if they’re so boring, and I don’t want to be wrong, what can I do? Well, I could not write myself. Or, I could use that as a character flaw, and incorporate it into my writing. Maybe, instead of valiantly slicing through the bullies’ insults, my character could think that’s what they’ve done, while the narrator knows full well they’ve made an arse of themself.

And now... onto my main point as stated in my headline--shipping!

In order to ship myself with a character (let’s say Nikolai), I think, honestly, that a perfect storm is needed. 1) I’d need a deep understanding of Nikolai and 2) an extreme level of self-awareness so that 3) I can know whether or not being with Nikolai would be right for me.

Just because I like a character doesn’t mean that he’d automatically like me.

And in fact, I can say with certainty that, if Nikolai were to come to cross paths with me, he’d think nothing of me and forget me the next day. Such is the sort of realism that’s necessary, I think, if we’re not to mould the characters of our affection into someone entirely different, whom they fundamentally are not. If keeping Nikolai’s full personality is my genuine goal in writing, I cannot, therefore, ship myself with him, and I cannot write a self-insert fic about him loving me with any believability or integrity as a writer.

This isn’t to say that I can’t write a fic with both of us interacting, though. I could, of course, get unexpectedly trapped in a trash can, and there’d be nothing for him to do but generously help me out. The line there, however, is to not try to push him past his limits. If I truly respect him, then I wish for him to stay my truest version of him.

If I do wish to mould his character, however, then all that goes out the window. Suddenly, he’s whatever I want him to be, and we can go have a weekend getaway without complication... but I’d need to be careful. 

There’s a fine line between character interpretation and character butchering. Personally, respect is a massive part of my relationship with my character. If I don’t respect a character, I end up misrepresenting them, putting false words and actions in their mouths, and polluting the fic.

So what should I do if I want to mould them to like me (and I can’t change myself without actually changing myself in real life), but I don’t want to disrespect them?

Well, it’s actually pretty easy within Bungō Stray Dogs. In order to change a character, it’s important, I think, to keep some of their core values, and in BSD characters’ cases, the core themes of their namesakes.

(I’ll have to use Fyodor for this next example, by the way, since I cannot for the life of me come up with a situation that would grant me closeness to Nikolai.)

I’d never, ever make Fyodor choose me over his goals, for example (and in fact, very likely, he wouldn’t let me). However, there are still the quiet moments to think of. Were he perhaps a bit more like Alyosha (character from The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoyevsky), more willing to make time for those he cares about, so long as we had known each other a long time prior, even if my intellect didn’t compare to his, loyal companionship and decent conversation over a good cup of tea is enough, I think, for a decent scene. (This takes some, though not all, inspiration from Dostoyevsky’s relationship with his second wife, as well as Alyosha’s relationship with his love interest.)

I believe the change should be in-keeping with his character, something slight, so that he remains the man I love and respect while still being able to be himself.

(Now, I’m also aware that I can’t come from a place of complete sincerity, since I don’t want to be with Fyodor, but the example still, I think, was necessary.)

To recap how I think I could do self-insert fiction better:

-I’d keep engagement in mind.

-I’d try to watch for unintentional perfection.

-If I don’t want to change a character, then I: evaluate if they’re right for me.

-If I do want to change a character, then I: keep them the truest form of themself at their core, and make only necessary in-character changes.

So... yeah, those are my rough thoughts. None of this is intended to be OC harassment, by the way, and the only fic I ever referred to here was my own. The itch just came, since I’ve been thinking about this for years, to flesh out my thoughts a bit. I hope anyone who managed to make it this far got something out of this, and thanks for reading <3

[thescreamsleuths]

Recap 12: Mountains of Madness

We last left off with the Scream Sleuths congregating in Zolmer’s private study, ready to be whisked away to Zyoreia. Filiadel was skeptical about Zolmer’s power. Would he be able to get them their safely? His wording wasn’t extremely reassuring to her.

After a very thorough description from Kathra, Zolmer asked everyone to move closer to him as he began to cast his spell.

The group felt weightless as the floor dropped out from beneath their feet. For a moment, they were suspended in the air before making contact with the ground.

Stone buildings surrounded the group as they realized they were on a moderately busy town street. Their onlookers stopped for a moment to take in their sudden appearance before continuing to roll their casks or carry their produce past. Wooden winery signs swung in a light, humid breeze amidst the rainy weather. The town nestled into the foothills of the mountain was a new sight to Faylen and Brinne; however, for Kathra and Filiadel, lower Zyoreia was very familiar.

Kathra led her party through the lower section of Zyoreia, explaining that the city was actually split into two parts. The lower half was dedicated to coopers, grapes, and wine while the upper half was dedicated to the smith and masonry guilds. Upper Zyoreia was where they were heading.

While heading up to the mountain pass leading up to the higher section of Zyoreia, the Scream Sleuths managed to convince Zolmer to join them in visiting Kathra’s relative, Mr. Mackado. Zolmer had said he’d heard of the powerful wizard before and was intrigued to meet him.

The trek up to to upper Zyoreia was long and strenuous for some party members. Kathra led the Scream Sleuths up a snaking pathway that teetered on the edge of the cliff side. Looking up, the crew could see flashes of exquisite stone buildings and hints of sparkling marble. Looking out at the horizon line, the group could see down into the Rashi Coast and could just barely spot the Tides of Elthpoi, a body of water the Vryst Heights tapered off into. It was a sight for Faylen to take in, especially since she’d never seen any ocean before.

When the group finally reached the top of the trail, they were glad to see the ground level out. The architecture of upper Zyoreia was much more incredible up close. Some building were carved entirely out of the mountain while others were built carefully over an uncertain span of time. Kathra immediately fell into tour-guide mode. She pointed out her guild, her father’s house, and a popular tavern called the Miner’s Pick as she led them through town. Kathra let the party know that her mother worked at the Miner’s Pick, but didn’t want to stop in to visit just yet. She first wanted to check on Mr. Mackado.

Kathra started to lead the Scream Sleuths out of Zyoreia and even father up the mountain. When asked where they were going, Kathra let her friends know that Mr. Mackado used to be more immersed in the city but as his mind started to deteriorate, his house was moved farther and farther away. To prove her point, Kathra pointed out multiple foundations on her journey that had once housed her elder relative.

Seeing the remnants of the houses did not comfort Brinne, Faylen, Filiadel, or Zolmer. Instead, it made them even more suspicious of just who they were going to see.

Farther up the trail, signs started to become more and more visible. Each one had their own version of “turn back” written or engraved on it. Kathra pointed out the ones she’d personally made, proud of her work. This, obviously, did nothing to dampen the other party members’ nerves.

In addition to the anxiety brought forth after seeing the signs, an extra dose of fear was served when Kathra told the party they should beware of dangerous traps. Kathra knew where most of the triggers were, but she wasn’t sure if Mr. Mackado set new obstacles they’d run in to. She was able to navigate through the ones she was privy to easily before stumbling right into something new. The ground suddenly crumbled beneath Kathra’s feet, sending her rocketing down into a pitch-black crevasse. Her party was close behind her, only having a second or two before the ground also fell out from under their feet.

Filiadel acted quickly, casting something over the majority of the party to allow them a gentle and harmless decent into the darkness below. Unfortunately, her spell couldn’t catch everyone. Brinne plummeted down into the crevasse and slammed hard into a carved out pit below. She quickly stood and took in her surroundings as the others softly touched down behind her. In the few seconds that Brinne had by herself in the pit, she glanced around and saw two things: a hand carved ladder in the side of the pit leading back up to where they’d fallen, and, a grotesque, limping figure with distended, spear-like limbs.

The group sprang into action and quickly did away with the gross creature. It put up a fight and managed to skewer Ievos during battle before it was finally taken down. The first thing the group did was heal up Faylen’s faithful companion and then headed up the ladder and back onto the trail.

Kathra remained vigilant the rest of the way to Mr. Mackado’s home. She was able to point out newly set traps and successfully avoid them. Before long, they were standing outside the lonesome, stone home.

Kathra took a moment to admire a hastily make sign with the word “wazoo” engraved into it before knocking on the door. She uttered what she thought was the password and waited for Mr. Mackado to open the door. A few seconds passed before the door glowed a dangerous blue and a beam of crackling energy shot out at the party. A quick battle ensued, ending when the Scream Sleuths managed to defeat the strange, living electrical arc.

The group took a moment to heal up before Kathra tried the door again. With the trap already triggered, the group waited in silence before the door finally opened. Wielding a wooden spoon was an extremely old gnome whose beady eyes took in the group with curiousity and confusion. His beard was dusted white and dangled down past his toes while his crazy hairdo was covered with a cooking pot he wore on his head. He was just as Kathra remembered.

After a series of very long introductions, Mr. Mackado ushered the group into his home. His house was just as untidy and confusing as the man himself. He quickly put Kathra to work sorting all of his notes and papers by date and color (color being the more important of the two).

At some point during their visit, Mr. Mackado ran into his bedroom and was followed closely behind by Kathra. This gave Brinne and Faylen a moment to discuss their thoughts on Kathra’s relative and what they thought about the list this insane man had given her. Both Filiadel and Zolmer were surprised when they overheard Brinne and Faylen’s conversation. Infants, virgins, and blood were not the usual spell components. This did not sit well with Zolmer. At all. He began to pry, urging Brinne and Faylen to tell him more elements of Kathra’s list or if they could provide him with a copy of the list in full. Zolmer also wanted to know what the spell’s effect would be and was unnerved to hear it was to help Mr. Mackado “live forever”.

After some hesitation, Brinne gave in to Zolmer’s request. She listed off a few items she knew were on the list. Zolmer thought for a moment before letting Brinne and Faylen (and an eavesdropping Filiadel) know what was on his mind. He didn’t believe a spell that would use such terrible components would be used to help extend life. He believed it was a way to have life after death, which could come with a power like none other.

This revelation sent the group into a shocked state of silence. Brinne and Faylen realized that they had to make a decision: would they help Kathra cross off everything on her list or would they stop her from possibly creating a monster?

Meanwhile, in the other room Kathra and Mr. Mackado were having their own conversation. Kathra was so happy to see him but she did have a few questions. She’d been looking for the pages ripped out of the tome she carried but hadn’t been able to find any just yet. Mr. Mackado suggested she should read the book. Maybe that would help. He also kept repeating the phrase “the bees”, which Kathra also wanted some clarification on. Did he mean literal bees? Like insects?

Mr. Mackado described these bees as larger than himself. He then began to ramble about setting more traps for when the bees came back for him. Kathra didn’t quite understand, so she changed the subject. Could the spell she was going to cast for Mr. Mackado be duplicated? He thought for a moment before responding yes. Kathra would just need two of all the ingredients on the list. He then rummaged through his disorganized closet and gave Kathra a wand, something to take with her when she inevitably left again.

With that, Kathra returned to her group. They spoke briefly about heading out before bidding Mr. Mackado a quick farewell and exiting his home. Outside, Zolmer let the group know that he was needed back in Relttic. After a brief magical spat with Filiadel, Zolmer transported himself instantly back to Relttic, leaving the ladies behind.

Brinne, Faylen, Kathra, and Filiadel all started their trek back down the mountainous path. They avoided the traps with ease and eventually returned to the populated more populated upper Zyoreia. For Kathra, the trip was well worth it; however, the other party members walked away from Mr. Mackado’s home with deeper concerns for their friend. What would the group do about this crazy, yet, powerful wizard? Check in soon to see what the Scream Sleuths will do next!

[sepublic]

My proposed three categories for Endless Inhabitants

(Warning: This quickly gets into really speculative, theory territory, especially regarding Butt Witch. So make sure to take this with a grain of salt.)

So looking over the show, there seem to be three(?) categories of Endless inhabitants;

           Those born of real-world items; These are arguably the only ‘confirmed’ category if we’re going to be honest. These inhabitants of Endless are born when Reggie, or really any other human, buries an object from the real world in the sands of Endless Island. Some are pretty one-to-one translations of the objects they’ve been buried by, but others, like Guy Pleasant, can also manifest from multiple buried items, and apparently the inner emotions of the one who buries them (such as Todd). For the most part, these inhabitants remember the ‘lives’ they had in the real world, as Mack and Beefhouse distinctly remember their time with Reggie, as does Brown Roger. Upon coming into existence, they don’t really question who they are… They just ARE. Interestingly, while we don’t see the origins of various other Endless inhabitants, the presence of humans who have arrived before Reggie (like Elmer) brings the possibility that some, if not all of the other unaccounted origins are from those human predecessors.

           Venturing into speculation, the second category is transformed humans. These are TECHNICALLY unconfirmed, but the common fandom consensus is that Dr Champion is definitely a transformed human (considering how noticeably unhinged he is, his insistence on coming from Kentucky, etc.) Spring Break Forever shows us that human visitors can and will become trapped on Endless if they stay there for too long, slowly losing their memories of their previous lives and existence and acting as if they’ve always been there.

Elmer Forever even confirms with its titular character that humans CAN achieve a strange sort of immortality in Endless, but not without a cost- Our lone example’s body has begun to ‘deteriorate’, his limbs becoming detachable like a toys, in the same cartoon-ish physics of Endless. All in all, it appears that humans who stay in Endless too long forget who they are and eventually transform to become one of the denizens. The fact that upon entering Endless, a person’s appearance changes to become more lively like Endless’ aesthetics, potentially echoes this. If Reggie, Todd, or Esther got trapped for too long, it’s possible that, based on what is suggested by this theory, their transformed appearances would be extremes of their outfits.

Butt Witch is possibly in this category- Amongst Endless’ inhabitants, she displays a level of will, initiative, and possessiveness of the island that runs contrary to everyone else. She notably acts under the impression that Endless belongs to her, a sentiment only echoed once by Reggie, another human visitor. Likewise, Butt Witch talks of Endless as having once been a paradise catered toherdesires, implying she was a human master of it once. The fact that Butt Witch also questions things, actively rebels against the humans, and talks like she’s existed before the puberty books were thrown away, imply a personhood and sense of self unique to her. Likewise, Big Deal is attracted to Butt Witch and seems naturally intent on serving her, possibly forotherreasons, but also the inhabitants of Endless seem to be catered towards the humans who visit. It’s as if he’s reacting to another human by praising and worshipping them, the way the others admire Reggie.

All of this evidence seems to contradict Butt Witch’s shown origins in the show, which depict her being born from the puberty books; However, it’s possible she was summoned by them, not created. Speculating even further, Butt Witch could have once been a human imprisoned on Endless within the volcano, who merged with the being created from the buried puberty books to create a strange Endless-Human hybrid with the memories of her past life, but also the inclination towards her symbolism and Reggie’s issues that she represents. Perhaps she was drawn to the puberty books because her personality meshes will with the ideal demon to torment Reggie? I can see her having an identity crisis like Demise-Ganondorf, in which she questions how many of her decisions are hers, and not just the will of the identity placed upon her by the island for her purpose… Or if her will and Endless’ intent for Reggie just so happens to mesh together.

(Keep in mind, this part is entirely speculative and not set in stone. Butt Witch may have just originated from Endless, but with the way she talks about existing beforehand, we definitely didn’t see her birth in Butt Witch Forever- More like her ‘rebirth’. This isn’t her first stint on Endless and it won’t be her last, possibly.)

The third category (also speculative and technically unconfirmed) are beings who simply just… ARE in Endless. Technically the proof for this is arguable, especially since it’s possible that they were simply born of objects buried in Endless. However, those who were there before the burying seem surprised when the sand yields new beings, indicating this phenomenon has never created them- However, Endless’ strange effects on memories possibly means that they don’t remember being born of real-life objects.

Regardless, this third category seems to apply to those who simply come into existence on Endless, either before the arrival of a particular human, or perhaps in response to them (without requiring the need of a buried real world object to manifest). Manguin, I’ve discussed before, seems to have come into convenient existence when Esther is looking for someone to look after Reggie, and the supermarket full of negative memories has an entirely unprompted existence, yet is clearly in reaction to the human visitors. When the trio tries to figure out Endless’ nature, the island also spawns a fake human who claims to have been researching as well to mess with them.

Overall, it seems Endless has the capacity to create beings on its own without human visitors burying real-world objects, usually in reaction to some emotional issue or dilemma they’ve dealing with. It’s also possible that some of the other inhabitants of Endless simply came into existence with no purpose or symbolism, or were specifically created by Endless, possibly to make it more appealing to visitors. However, it’s also probable that these unaccounted-for inhabitants were made in response to previous human visitors and/or their real-world objects.

To recap, we have those born of buried real-world objects (confirmed); transformed humans (not confirmed, but hinted heavily at); and naturally-occurring denizens (arguably confirmed- the supermarket is definitely an example of this as is the human researcher, but these are debatable as actual inhabitants). Of the naturally-occurring denizens, some seem to be made in response to humans, but it’s possible others simply existed independently beforehand.

[ansu-gurleht]

ok so there’s six walking ways:

the first one usually gets referred to in other people’s listings as “the prolix tower” but i have no idea where they get that from. basically, it’s using the power of a tower (which emulates and channels The Tower) to access a kind of divinity. i like to call it “tower climbing,” bc that sounds cooler than “prolix tower” or whatever the fuck.

the second one is “the psijic endeavor,” which is kinda exemplified in this line from the lessons: “ Your hands must be huge to wield any sword the size of an ancient road, and yet he who is of right stature may irritate the sun with only a stick. “

basically, you do some wild shit wild enough that the whole of existence has to acknowledge that you’re important on a grand scale. it may not seem super wild at first glance, but some things can have far reaching implications.

the third one is “tonal architecture,” which is the one the dwemer were nuts about, but it’s not a specifically dwemer thing. there’s a lot of ways in tes that reality (via the earthbones) can be manipulated, like the thu’um, or spinning, or sword-singing. but it’s all ways of accessing divine power (via the earthbones) to achieve feats normally considered impossible.

to contrast it with the first walking way: instead of making a tower, use the ones that the world was built with. the earthbones, which help maintain reality, are basically towers, after all.

the fourth walking way is mantling. i think most people get mantling at this point. but to recap: it’s “fake it til you make it.” pretend to be like a god (one that already exists) until you’re so much like them that even they can’t tell who the real one is. exemplifying quote (from ..... somewhere): “walk like them until they walk like you.”

the fifth way is love, or CHIM. it’s actually kind of interesting, in ways i never figured until i started to understand sermon 35. first of all, to achieve CHIM is to take an outside perspective on reality so you can look at it sideways. reality in tes is shaped like a wheel, and if you look at a wheel sideways, it looks like just a line, or “I”. 

to achieve CHIM you have to understand that “I” and “EVERYTHING” are the same thing, but without forgetting who you are in “EVERYTHING.” (if you did, you’d zero-sum and cease to exist. more accurately: you’d just blend into everything else, and lose your individuality.)

if you achieve CHIM you become a “lover.” lovers are sort of like secret transcendence agents in a vast network of reality. they stay inside reality so that they can help others inside it. they don’t necessarily help others escape it (via CHIM), but they can do that. overall they just help people survive inside it, which is made easier with their outside perspective.

exemplifying quote, from sermon 35: “it is easier to kiss the lover than become one.

the sixth and final way is the enantiomorph. it’s sort of like mantling, but instead of two like things becoming one thing, it’s two unlike things becoming one thing, with the help of a third, often referred to as the “observer.” 

the most prominent example of an enantiomorph is probably talos/tiber septim, who is formed from hjalti early-beard, ysmir wulfharth, and zurin arctus. the enantiomorph consists of two contrary parts (here hjalti and ysmir) and the observer (zurin). 

but there are other enantiomorphs. 

- the first enantiomorph was anu and padomay, but since they were the only things to exist at the time, there wasn’t (and couldn’t be) an observer. or, in a sense, everything that followed that act of creation was an observer.

- nerevar/nerevarine and the sharmat dagoth ur, observed by vivec

- the warrior and the thief, observed by the mage, is sort of the quintessential archetype of the enantiomorph. this is actually a symbolic representation of another early enantiomorph, auri-el/akatosh and lorkhan/shor, observed by magnus. auri-el is the warrior, lorkhan is the thief (the thief who infiltrates/steals the tower), and magnus, god of magic, is the mage.

there’s other enantiomorphs, some of which are less well defined. 

it’s worth noting that vivec describes the walking ways sequentially, in order (although ze only vaguely discusses the first, without directly calling it the first), and describes each as superior to the last. 

this would seem to indicate that the enantiomorph is the “best” walking way. after all, though ze was able to accomplish CHIM/love, ze is unable to actively take part in the last (being only the observer) and leaves it to nerevar/nerevarine (who is often who the lessons are addressed to) to do it.

i think the enantiomorph being the ultimate goal makes sense. ever since anu pulled apart from padomay (the AE from the void), all of existence has known only strife between these two dichotomous forces. anu vs padomay; auri-el vs lorkhan; old ehlnofey vs wandering ehlnofey; mer vs man.

vivec seems to believe the only way to end this division is to somehow resolve it in an enantiomorph. perhaps the ultimate goal of the mundus (also called the arena, remember) is for beings to resolve in enantiomorphs until there is only one being, one super enantiomorph, remaining to serve as observer to the original, and to finally resolve the conflict.