#also like. mechanical figures cant really impress the way they used to

[krawdad]

Oh right Michael eisner wasn't a thing yet Walt Disney has to be the bad guy of this story

[narwhalandchill]

oh omg this is such a great addition like disjointed what??? nooo ur golden i loved reading this sm thank uuu for adding to the discussion!!! i love talking abt this dude

bc like. honestly. i havent really even Thought abt the mechanics behind how the specific lie came to be and like. as u say. it really is just such a stupid fucking choice for a cover story its kinda insane . i have already been obsessed over how Bad this entire teucer debacle is and reading this made me realize its even Worse ajax & co what is your problem 😭😭 seriously

i rly love how u thought thru the logistics of the toyseller thing man like childe coming up with this whole thing when hes younger and more rash and Not thinking things through and very much like. making this clumsy out-of-touch attempt at Figuring Out whats cool with the Kids (TM) these days in a more or less genuine attempt to connect w teucer and impress him somehow except its really not that. Great. makes So much sense omg. him coming up w the whole thing on the spot... its so cringe hes such an embarrassment. what is he Doing

and then instead of interfering to correct the story or like. talk with ajax abt this whole deal his family kinda just. doesnt step in at all. like is the subject of childes employment and life in the fatui THAT much of a fucking taboo in this dysfunctional household ???? that they cant even hold a single proper conversation about how to handle the harbinger in the room?? theyre so horrible 💀

ALSO I KNOWWW abt just saying hes in the fatui like DUDE thats basically just the snezhnayan government + military + foreign policy dept + etc amalgamation??? theres probably Multiple families in morepesok who have kids employed in the fatui as a perfectly normal thing not even necessarily serving as combatants but in like. logistics and homeland security and such. like stuff that is Very easy to explain as a temporary white lie to a kid like teucer and then slowly graduate into getting closer to the truth of it

and YES childe has a very good reputation for a harbinger!!!! like now that u brought it up its just. holds head in hands. his stupid fucking lie got like 12 times worse after i read ur points what the hell KJWDJKWJKDDWJK

Like. to bring up a few.

he has popularized a Whole fucking fishing gadget. CANONICALLY. in snezhnaya. just bc he uses it a lot and the people saw him using it and went fucking wild for it like omgggg a lord harbinger endorses this product We MUST have it!!!!

theres one of those mini jokey comics Literally showing how Jarringly chill and nice childe is to those who work w him and how the agent whose pov its from just highkey puppy crushes on how unexpectedly charming and not-unreasonably-demanding-or-threatening he is like 😭😭 its still one of my favorites

HE CANONICALLY ATTENDS AND SOMETIMES EVEN DOES PUBLIC PERFORMANCES???? like. yes its hard to say how much these people know abt his actual job description (make life hell for snezhnayas enemies by being a walking chaos disaster problem magnet who has Great fun thriving in the eye of the storm he brings) but. hes definitely not getting rotten tomatoes thrown at him

so like. yes. they couldve just So Easily leaned in to telling teucer hes in the fatui and working overseas and slowly ease into the truth. like i get that maybe leaving the harbinger thing out entirely might still be better but. compared to his colleagues. childes street cred should be WAY sufficient enough to outright acknowledge. but like do his parents even know any of this shit or do they just refuse to even look up who their son is now???????? so many fucking questions

and like. yes. yes. SO much of this is on his parents too and like. for me i try to emphatize w them in the sense that like. realistically. both his parents and likely his older siblings (+ other ppl from morepesok who were closely involved with Ajax 14 Disaster Era) might well be just. actually traumatized to varying degrees from what happened bc as ive said. its just a horror movie from their pov. so like i do think there is a very human and understandable component to how dysfunctional and non-communicative this family ended up in the aftermath of everything but it doesnt rly take away from how Bad it still is (esp since the one suffering from it now is teucer whos completely innocent). but thats why im so obsessed w the entire thing too like man. chef kiss. its such a messy tragedy

ik that hoyo most likely wont want to go This deep into the horror of this particular family so like canons contributions to this subject will prolly be limited at best but . at least for Now i am free to speculate and imagine All i want and it really just is so scrumptious. i rly do hope we get at least some information on the whole situation in the future tho

spicy take incoming but i kinda wish ppl werent so desperately attached to and protective of this moniker of Great Big Brother 100% Perfect So True And Real when it comes to childe bc honestly. he really isnt (perfect or even that good at times) and to me acknowledging the ways both he and his family (for enabling him) are in some ways kinda just. doing teucer incredibly dirty in the long term but only with the best of intentions in the short term is so much more interesting than just pretending hes a flawless brother?? like it only adds to the drama and irony of it all man like theyre rly so dysfunctional as a family unit its great. even if hoyos likely never exploring that shit in its true depth it still lives rent free in my head for sure lol

like. you rly dont have to turn ajax into some sort of unfeeling uncaring monster of a shit brother to acknowledge that he does, in fact, repeatedly make incredibly reckless and selfish choices during his SQ with teucer and in general by choosing to obstruct the truth of who he is from lil bro so completely?

like this stuff can be nuanced and coexist with his absolutely 100% genuine commitment to protecting teucers bubble of a worldview (and w the theme of childlike dreams and wishes being so prevalent in general who knows what could be cooking w that one in particular) and his loyalty and love for his family without just having to whitewash the dumb shit he does lmao

like just bc hes capable of and willing to face the potentially grave repercussions of absolute bangers (🙄🙄) like teaching an actual fucking child to consider ruin machines fun besties and 100% insta ready to fuck himself up by protecting teucer at the cost of aggravating his still-unhealed injuries from the liyue AQ when dottores abandoned lab turns out to be more lively than expected doesnt. make that choice not a very irresponsible one yall im begging 💀

like. hes the adult here . the entire situation unfolding as dangerously as it does in the factory is Absolutely all on HIM for not being able and/or willing to disappoint teucer by just . Doing the mature thing and sending him away to safety because HES gotten too attached to this idea of being his lil siblings' loyal knight and perfect brother that Always finds a way to surpass the expectations no matter the cost its a role HE wants to keep playing despite the risk

like its So obviously a pride thing for him too and thats so fucking interesting because Of how flawed and questionable the logic is!! like yes he truly cares about teucer and ensuring he has a great unforgettable time during this impromptu escapade in liyue like thats not up to debate but the point im trying to make is that the choices he makes are Still very much intertwined with his ego and overconfidence and not really based all that much on Whats Actually The Best Approach Here. he improvises a way to give teucer the best mr cyclops outing he has ever seen bc HE wants to be the one offering him that experience and ends up biting off a bit more than he can chew and he can only blame himself for that one and This Isnt Fucking Sustainable

like i dont think that makes him evil but i do think it showcases his arrogance and flaws in a very concrete way and is a part of why calling him a perfect brother or at least one without an asterix just. rubs me off wrong lmao

like idk feel free to keep calling him that if its important to u and all if u want idc (and i do to some extent get why this defensive narrative of insisting hes great no issues at all emerged bc i remember 1.1 some ppl acting like hes childcare satan for how he treats teucer lol) but. at least like . Be willing to chip in to fund the therapy teucers going to need for those lifelong trust issues in the future man 💀

Bc Thats The Other Thing. now tonia and anthon i dont consider a part of this bc at least they Know hes in the fatui and hiding the gory details of ur harbinger job from ur baby sibs is like. fair enough and reasonable. but. crafting an Entire different AU version of yourself and feeding it to your baby brother as what constitutes actual reality surely is a choice of all times like ajax ily but genuinely . What the fuck if you were real id throttle you

AND HIS FAMILY ENABLING IT THE ENTIRE TIME ITS CRAZY LIKE. As a person with multiple siblings both older n younger with some similar age gap cohorts involved. God id snitch so fucking fast i dont think ppl rly stop and think much abt how objectively horrifying this shit is from teucers long term pov 😭 in the best way obviously given its fiction like its so scrumptiously awful and dysfunctional .

(& just in general man im just so obsessed with the way ajax 14 basically broke the eggshell of his past life and emerged to rise towards his destiny drowned in the guts and gore of the place and people and community he once called home unconditionally. Bro he fucked that town UP and now his family relations will never ever be the same its so fucking Delicious. those 3 days missing and what followed are just Actually a literal fucking horror movie when you stop blindly stanning our ginger menace, forget ajax' side and take the pov of his family and morepesok in general Why Are People Not Talking About This)

like. its not that i dont understand Why this is sth childe ended up doing as i said Thats The Point. its human. teucer is the only one in the family who wasnt there during that fateful 3 days/months . Like yea anthon and tonia were prolly sheltered from most of the carnage back then too but they still Know where he was sent when he became literally uncontrollable and almost killed the neighbors (everybody & their mom loves demonizing his parents as if his demon spawn ass left them a fucking choice JFEJSJSJSKDKS) . like its at least Known.

but then theres teucer.

And like. teucers the Only one with whom ajax can even pretend to have that delusion (ha) of normalcy and a family that hasnt seen him gaze into the abyss and stare back bloodied and grinning ear to ear . like. hes the only shot childe can have at even playacting some crude imitation of normalcy before Everything and even That comes with an expiration date hes fully aware of. so theres just lies after lies after lies and the fact that even his family just. if not actively partaking in the charade then at least silently allows the entirety of it to happen to teucer whos the Only fucking one out of the loop is just..... dude its not fair on him At All

Misleading teucer THIS much is just. its fucking horrible man but i GET it. thats why its so delicious man i GET it but god its just . imagine being teucer in this situation.... thats his entire fucking World shattered once the truth comes out. Everyone close to him has been lying to him his entire time. They all knew and they let him be misled. Like sure he might be happier Now with ajax dutifully protecting that childhood dream of his but after that. Just. sit on this for a bit. after everything do we Really think teucers just going to understand why it came to be and see it as worth it???? Will he really????

yet at the same time as awfully cruel it all is its just So human!!!!! Its so human of both ajax and his family to use the innocence of the only child that was spared the aftermath of worlds best/worst 3 month abyss training camp to indulge in this flawed false reality where their third son didnt walk into the void and come back hungry for More until only the fatui could take him and even then it only spurred him on further on that path. Like its all an act and a lie and its just. Not fucking fair on teucer but hes still doing it and theyre letting him even tho they Know it wont last theyre all looking teucer in the eye every day and letting him believe like man....

like in both the entire ruin factory sequence And in general hiding the truth from teucer as extensively as childe does hes being incredibly selfish but at the same time its selfishness only rly in the way all people are when it comes to Wanting to be seen a certain way by the ones they love and care about. and thats what makes it so interesting. bc as much as the choices he makes are dubious (or like. this decision makes sense to him. a morally bisexual total omnivore ethics-wise narwhalpilled since 14 who sees exclusively in abyss shrimp colors and acts accordingly) both they and the motivations behind them are also just. So very human ones . as terrible as the implications and eventual inevitable downfall of those choices can (will) be.

like. is it not that much more fascinating to consider all the ways that childe is neither a particularly exemplary nor an egregiously bad brother just one that. Happens to be wired weird in the head and proud and flawed and with a track record of heavily suspect decision-making but that also very much genuinely loves his family man. Like i can love that about him without dismissing the fact that theres parts to how hes treating teucer that 100% can and imo rly should backfire horrifically bc. It really just is that fucked up

hes not a good brother hes Worse AMD better than that and also not alone in this like. his family is an active fucking part of this . But like still . Is he trying his best with his abyss shrimp colored vision ? Yes. Is his love genuine? Absolutely. What are the marks? 3/10 meet me in the office after class mister youre just actually horrible (affectionate) 😭

A perfect brother? Not My Ajax man 🗣🗣 and like theres SO MUCH to explore in that it makes me so sad you just. Never see any of it p much in fanworks bc we all just call him best bro and whatever and thats that like its so sad. this family is terrible horrible awful and no good and they deserve it but also didnt deserve it it was misfortune it was fate it was inevitable . justice for teucer man i need to get him in therapy asap

[thefanficmonster]

Infatuation

Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)

Warnings: Swearing

Genre: FLUFF, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: It’s not a secret that Corpse prefers taking care of his hair himself rather than going to a hair salon to get it trimmed and/or tampered. However, he only has so much knowledge of how to properly do it without having to obliterate his budget. Luckily, his girlfriend comes to his rescue.

Requested by Anon. Hi lovely! Thank you so much for the incredibly fluffy request! I’ve been very pumped to write it and now here it finally is - so sorry it’s taken me so long to complete and post it but I still hope you come across it and give it a read! Love, Vy ❤

“Um, what are you doing?“

I just walked into Corpse’s apartment to find him barricaded in the bathroom, giving himself a hair appointment. We were supposed to have a chill night in watching movies, but it seems to me like those plans will either have to be delayed or canceled, given the chaotic state both Corpse and his bathroom are in. I mean, how dumb was I to expect he was actually doing his hair justice when he told me he styled it himself? Why didn’t that immediately raise an army of red flags in my head and lead me to question his methods?

I’m honestly quite jealous of Corpse’s hair. It’s always so soft and silky and no matter how much or how little effort he’s put in it, it always looks good: either evidently carefully styled or boyishly messy, it leaves me with heart-eyes regardless. But to see him massacre it like this, it makes me wish I could report it as a crime.

“Ain’t obvious?“ He sounds rather frustrated and I feel at least slightly better due to this fact. He deserves to be as frustrated as I am by the sight of the crap he’s doing. “Sorry, you’re gonna have to wait for me for...a little while. I just need to get this under control and, um, clean the mess. Sorry for ruining your night like this, babe. I-I really wasn’t planning on it to take this long but I forgot to buy one of the products and I thought I could wing it without it but...I very clearly can’t so...“

“Please, stop talking. I don’t need to know what sins you’ve committed - if I do I’ll probably have to give you the silent treatment for like a week or so.“ I call out to him as I quickly skip over to the kitchen to leave the food I bought on my way over before returning to the bathroom and carefully taking a step inside, mindful of where there are hair strands on the tiles. Even severed, his hair is beautiful and I have a ton of respect for it - ok fine, I adore it. Corpse definitely doesn’t appreciate it properly. I walk over to the shower, reaching out to the two shelves inside which are lined with different types of hair products. “Oh fuck...“ I let out the whisper without even realizing it because I’m so stunned by the brands I see on those shelves. “Corpse, um, what the actual fuck?”

He turns to me, eyes wide and terrified because of my menacing tone. “What? What is it?” His gaze searches the spot where mine was just pointed at, looking for anything that could’ve provoked such a reaction from me. Seeing nothing but the hair products, he meets my deadly glare yet again, “What’s wrong?”

Alright, this man-child needs some serious help

“I’ll tell you what’s wrong.“ I say, stomping towards the exit of the bathroom, “You’re gonna stay here and wait for me to come back and don’t you DARE, even touch your hair, let alone bring a pair of scissors or any chemical near it. Copy?“

“Copied and pasted, ma’am.“ He salutes me, knowing better than to ask questions when I enter my commander role. There are quite a few things that set me off into this bossy-ass persona, and hair mistreatment is most definitely one of them. Thing is, Corpse doesn’t know that. Well, he didn’t know that, pretty sure he’s guessed it by now.

Feeling myself soften at his obedience and trust, I give him a smile and a wink over my shoulder as I go to grab my bag and leave the apartment to complete my mission, “Good boy.”

                                                              *  *  *

“Isn’t that a lot better?“ I ask, gently running my fingers through Corpse’s freshly cut, washed and dried hair. I’ve spent a good five minutes just smoothing through it with my fingers. I bet he’s expecting me to say ‘my precious‘ at any moment now, and trust me it’s tempting, but I still don’t, I won’t give him the pleasure of predicting my actions. Wow, we’ve really reached that level of being familiar with one another that I predict that he’s predicting what I’m gonna do next. While I’m a guessing game for him, I tend to think of myself as more of an open book. You just gotta be fluent in the language it’s written in to understand it.

I’ve gone off-topic, my bad.

“Yeah, you’re a lot less scary now.“ He tells me, his hand finding mine in his hair and taking it to his lips to place a kiss on my knuckles.

We’re positioned so that we’re in front of the bathroom mirror with Corpse seated in a chair in front of me and I’m for once in my life towering over him from behind. Our height difference was threatening to be a hinderance in my work on his hair, but we easily figured it out.

I can’t help but laugh, “You know what I meant.“ I curl one of his already curly strands around the pointer finger of the hand that’s still wandering around the soft dark curls while the other remains in his gentle hold, resting on his shoulder.

“And you know what I meant.“ He shifts in his seat to look at me directly, not via the mirror, “Since when do you have a hair infatuation?“

I roll my eyes and retract my hands, defensively folding my arms over my chest, “It’s not an infatuation with hair, dummy. It’s an infatuation with your hair.” I correct him, doing quick work of styling the stray strands that fall over his forehead and eyes. “I really like your hair, you already know that. I can’t handle the thought you’re doing such a shitty job taking care of it.”

He shrugs, furrowing his brows, “Hey, I was buying top-shelf products, cost me a fortune every month, my hair was being treated like royalty.”

I roll my eyes once again, “High price doesn’t always equal high quality, Corpse. Did you ever stop to read what was in those products?” I don’t let him answer, I don’t need him to confirm what I already know. “Even if you did - which you didn’t - you wouldn’t know what each of those ingredients do to your hair. You see, taking care of hair, especially hair like yours, takes patience and knowledge. It’s practically an art form. It’s not like you can just buy any product that has ‘suitable for curly hair’ on it. There’s a lot more to that.”

It’s only after I finish my monologue that I realize he’s looking at me with amazed amusement in his gaze, almost like a parent listening to their kid talk about their wish of becoming an astronaut. “Since when do you know so much about hair? You’ve been using the same shampoo and conditioner since I know you and now you wanna lecture me on hair care?”

I raise an eyebrow at him, exasperated by his stubbornness on the matter, “Who said being consistent with your hair products is a bad thing? You know, frequent changing of brands has the potential of being damaging as much as aiding.” I explain with the most amount of patience I can muster, now taking over the parent role myself, “And as for your previous question, I know so much because my mother is a hairdresser.”

His eyes widen in surprise. I can practically see the gears in his brain turning as he tries to recall if I’ve ever told him this before.

“How come I don’t know that?“ He asks finally after a long moment of silence. “Why haven’t you told me?”

“You ask that as though I just tell you things like that on the regular. Did you also want me to drop the info that my dad’s a mechanic in passing conversation about video games? Cause that’s a little hard to shoehorn in....“ He cuts off my sarcastic rambling with a brief peck to the lips. He’s the only person allowed to shut me up, and only like that. Anything else will earn him either an earful or a silent treatment. 

Just kidding....unless...

“So, does that mean you’re continuing the family business?“ he asks when he pulls away, “I mean, you’re technically my personal hairdresser now.“

I furrow my brows playfully, “Wait, what? Since when?”

“Since I hired you approximately an hour ago.“ He beams up at me, satisfied that I’ve fallen in his trap.

“And what about my payment?“ I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.

He looks to be contemplating for a second before he stands up from the chair, taking my hand in his leading me out of the bathroom, “Well, each appointment you’ll give me a different price, Miss Y/L/N. But, considering today was your first day, I choose to pay you with dinner.“ He sends a wink my way, laughing when he’s met with an unamused expression on my part as I stop in my tracks, causing him to halt his movements as well.

“You really plan on paying me with the dinner I bought?“ I raise an eyebrow at him, freeing my hand from his so I can put both my hands on my hips for the complete 'I’m far from impressed’ look.

“Yeah...? Problem?“ He asks, faking nervousness and guilt as he closes the distance between us, once again returning to the default of towering over me instead of it being the other way around.

“Several actually. First of all...“ I raise my finger in the air accusingly, ready to go off but the arm that wraps around my waist and lifts me off the ground causes my words to die down, evaporating in a frightened squeal, “Corpse no!! Put me down!“

Of course, he ignores me, carrying me into the living room while I don’t know whether to thrash or stay as still as possible. 

Tsk, so much for gratitude

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[craftmanatee]

Dread X Collection: The Hunt Review

Me and my friend binged another Dread X Collection, this time is a 7 game "The Hunt" spin off!

I will be quickly reviewing each game from worst to best. The "review" is mostly kind of like an impression and hopefully will not spoil much even if you choose to play it, but I hope this will be a fun read.

Game X: The Hub (Alright)

Before starting the list... lets chat about the Hub.

An isolated snowy base is kind of underutilized as a setting for horror and being lonely. In DreadX hunt, this new "The Thing" inspired Hub area is kind of good, kind of meh and pretty new. In previous Dread X hubs, it is either a puzzler (Second collection) or a Point and click with too much story (Third collection). This one is an inbetween the two, which is nice and has some proper gameplay.

We recommend after each game that you put in the codes rather than all at the same time. Play a game, put the code in. There is a nicer pacing to it that way.

Anyways, this Hub is both good and ok. Lots of negative space to explore, but the actual gameplay that it insists is pretty cool for a Hub World.

Seraphixial By Vidas Games (Come on...)

What a pain.

I was not the player for this one.

Seraphixial is a pretty bad shooter, it was pretty nonsensical and there was a lot of unnecessary crap. The irritating noises, the re-used gimmick scares from their previous game. The shooting. It had some neat design ideas, but not really... At least it is not just a jumpscare fest, but it is definitely awfully annoying and looked pretty easy.

Not much else to say that this sucked, im sorry...

Black Relic By TorpleDook (Boring)

Im sorry, but it was boring, maybe not entirely.

I was the player for this one.

The black relic is a bit campy, gothic cult slaying action. But it does not really make anything threatening for there to be "action". It does have some world building and the campy nature does come off as funny. The enemies who are never a threat, made themselves to be entertaining by being so bad. Aesthetically is also nice from their game in the second collection, since now, they opted for a pixelated filter which hides the cheap polygonal look. I think this one is... barely passable.

Rose of Meat By Mr. Pink (Neat)

Nothing great, but it was a neat experience.

I was the player for this one.

Rose of meat is this surreal game about... I dont really know. Theres stuff here you can interpret but I didnt make the attempt to go so far. I did really like the behaviour of everything, and the dynamic of multi-use weapons. I feel as if Mr. Pink tapped into a bit of gameplay that a lot of shooters is missing.

Anyway, the game looks like a trip and is pretty hard to understand. It is also a bit funny and I think it was pretty alright.

Axis Mundi By Philip Hesselbäck (Alright!)

I was the player for this one.

Cool fatal-frame like "shooter". That even teaches you something. The game generally is not scary, but you can get caught by surprise here or there. I also especially liked the picture book puzzles, kind of reminded me of pokemon snap in a way.

There is not much to the game other than running around and defeating ghosts, each with their own level. But it was not bad and was diversive. I am certain that there is a final puzzle to the book that we could unlock, but it required going out of the museum hub to capture the picture. We never figured out how we would do that so we left it at that.

The House of Unrest By Dan McGrath (Nice!)

I was not the player for this one

A funny, point and click-ish action game about a priest taking down a demon that haunts a house. I loved the style, its quips were funny, the puzzles were a bit hard to figure out. Not so much FIGURING OUT, but rather Finding stuff. Not really scary, but pretty entertaining.

Quality wise, I wouldnt put this above Axis Mundi, but the fun in House of Unrest and its themes is what put this as third best game in the collection.

Uktena 64 By KIRA (Poggers!)

I was the player for this one

This is the most complete feeling game in the list.

I love the attitude for this game, it has some scary moments, ngl. The silence kinda makes it. But it is mostly a very arcady like hunting game. The style, the attitude and even the buildup in levels is great. The gameplay is fine. It has a bunch of secrets and references, and I cant believe they put that all together so fast.

There is a lot of secrets too, I wish I could revisit this game to see if there is more.

It was quite the journey (On heroic difficulty) and is rivaling the Top Spot with the next game.

The Fruit By Christopher Yabsley (GREAT!!!)

I was not the player for this one.

The only reason why I put this game over Uktena 64 is because it has unique horror themes and does them well, has great ideas for a Survival Horror game and ends great.

The rifle mechanic, exploration and spell book is all great, they also combined it with some good immersion with light and physics (Even if its not that particularly amazing). Simply seeing a patrol lit up in the dark approach your building has this tenseness to it (be it ready for action, or an oh shit moment). The story is also nice and has a good journey building up to the ending. It is not as "perfect" as Uktena 64, but it is absolutely refreshing and new.

You see, the best Dread X Collection games to me are the ones that try something new. In style, in mechanics, or in horror. This is why I put the Fruit up there as it did them together mostly well and felt like a proper game should take notes from it.

In conclusion

Dread X Collection: The hunt was... not as diverse as the others. It had a general FPS theme to it and only 7 games with more time to make them. I kinda like the Quantity over quality as some of the developers just nail it with something unique.

What was odd is that, many of these games had a Plant-based theme to them. I dont know exactly what it is but, thats what it had. It was definitely the weirdest running theme amongst the games because The second one had a "Fear of God" or "Lovecraftian" theme, while the third one had a theme surrounding Death despite being cutesy in aesthetic.

This one has themes surrounding roses, and plants and stuff. I cant quite wrap my head around why that is. Nature? Is the theme Nature?!

Oh well. This Dread X Collection imo is not as strong as the Third collection, so far the Second Collection is holding itself up as the best one despite having extreme bads and extreme goods.

[grandpasnailgroovy]

okay so im gonna take that literally heres a couple paragraphs of my thoughts on the film. (spoilers)

like i said this was the second time ive watched it. i watched it once when i was younger but all i remembered was when kida floated upwards, i remembered nothing about the plot just about how milo looked!

I got Atlantis in a 2nd hand dvd bundle of films almost a year ago but i thought i might as well watch it since i had nothing else to do.

The first thing i noticed was the animation. it was so fluid and satisfying to watch. the 3d and the 2d went really well with each other. i love the way the mechanics and large objects were 3d, it shows the animators put in so much effort to make it perfect. The animation was so good i didnt want to look down at my food to miss it. Every frame was like a star, you can see how much thought they put into small scenes, and the fight scenes and impressive scenes were so well done i can't even put it into words

The next thing i noticed was the character design. They were all so different and familiar. and drawable! I loved their hair, I like milos hair because it looks like french fries. and i like kidas hair because the layers are pretty. The way they animated her hair in the water and when she was floating was so pretty. Not one character looked dull, they all had something special about them. You can tell that people poured their heart into designing them and animating them. this movie has so many hearts and souls in it.

Next, the dialogue was funny. i didnt have captions on, because when i use dvds i either dont know how to turn captions on, or by the time the film starts i cant figure out how to go back to the main menu, so i missed quite a bit of dialogue lol but some of the lines caught me by surprise, and It's nice to be surprised! The script has been really carefully made and it seems like they made part of a language for it!

Then the character personalities. Milo milo milo i love milo hes so nerdy and cute. hes so passionate about atlantis and so excitable. Kida was such a good match for him, shes passionate too and they both rely on each other. she needs him to read the secrets, and he needs her because shes outgoing and confident and tbh he prob doesnt have any friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i loved how they gave every character a little story :) I also like how towards the end the characters turned against the bad guy (i called it for him to be evil the second i saw him!) but thats just because im a sucker for that kind of thing! I quite like how they killed the bad guys off since its just fiction :) but i literally cannot remember anyones name apart from milo and kida, but i plan on rewatching soon!! im gonna watch the bonus features as well! I loved the rock protectors because they reminded me of the iron giant (which i need to rewatch as well) while i was watching the scene where they put up the forcefield, every frame was just so impressive and well thought out. the lava flow, and the rocks cracking through the light was just so great. I cant wait to watch the sequel, i hope it isnt awful!

but yeah it was perfect

12/1- i also need to acknowledge that it wasnt perfect at all becuase of certain elements like milo being a white saviour and kida being needed to be saved. someone put it really well here

Atlantis the lost empire is a really great film and I just watched it for the second time after like ten years and I will not shut up about it

[kkintle]

The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch ; Quotes

One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can me inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better.

There will be time and motive enough to prose on about my life when I shall have generated as it were a sufficient cloud of reflection. I am still almost shy of my emotions, shy of the terrible strength of certain memories.

I always felt that we were in the same boat, adventuring along together (…) We enjoyed and craved for each other’s company. What a test that is: more than devotion, admiration, passion. If you long and long for someone’s company you love them.

Is it true however? Well, it is not totally misleading, but it is far too short and ‘smart’. How can one describe real people?

Did I face it well? I think I did. Forgiveness and money were so ready as soon as I knew that she was doomed. That sounds cynical. I always loved her; and we were rewarded. At the very end we were both perfect. Poor Clement. That is a dreadful land, old age. I shall soon be entering it myself.

The image of Hartley changed in my mind from fiery pain to sadness, but never became blank. And in a way, I did keep searching for her, only it was a different and quite involuntary kind of search, a sort of dream-search.

Oh Hartley, Hartley, how timeless, how absolute love is. My love for you is unaware that I am old and you perhaps are dead.

‘I could have told you that country is the least peaceful and private place to live. The most peaceful and secluded place in the world is a flat in Kensington.’

I confess that I went to Peregrine not only for a drinking bout and a chat with and cold friend, but for male company, sheer complicit male company: the complicity of males which is like, indeed is, a kind of complicity in crime, in chauvinism, in getting away with things, in just gluttonously enjoying the present even if hell is all around.

‘We are such inward creatures, that inwardness is the most amazing thing about us, even more amazing than our reason. But we cannot just walk into the cavern and look around. Most of what we think we know are pseudo-knowledge. We are all such shocking poseurs, so good at inflating the importance of what we think we value. (…) People lie so, even we old men do. Though in aa way, if there is art enough it doesn’t matter, since there is another kind of truth in the art’.

‘And if there is art enough a lie can enlighten us as well as the truth. What is the truth anyway, that truth? As we know ourselves we are fake objects, fakes, bundles of illusions. Can you determine exactly what you felt or thought or did? We have to pretend in law courts that such things can be done, but that is just a matter of convenience. Well, well, it doesn’t signify. (…)’

‘(…) Do you know what marriage is like? You say she’s unhappy, most people are. A long marriage is very unifying, even if it’s not ideal, and those old structures must be respected. You may not think much of her husband, but he may suit her, however impressed she is by meeting you again. Has she said she wants to be rescued?

How very convenient these cliché phrases are, how soothing to the pained mind, and how misleading, how concealing.

It is an interesting fact about jealousy (…) that although it is in so many respects a totally irrational as well as totally irresistible emotion, it does show a certain limited reasonableness where temporal priority is concerned.

I love her, I thought, just as if I have been married to her all those years and have seen her gradually grow old and lose her beauty.

You’ve lived in a hedonistic dream all your life, and you’ve got away with behaving like a cad because you always picked on women who could look after themselves. And my God you told us the score, you never committed yourself, you never said you loved us even when you did! A cold fish with clear hands! But it was just luck really if the girls survived.

She summoned up my whole being, and I wanted to hold her and to overwhelm her an to lie with her forever, jusqu’a la fin du monde, and yes, to amaze her humility with the forces of my love, but also to be humble myself and to let her, in the end, console me and give me back my own best self.

After looking at the bright candles I could at first see nothing, and it struck me in an odd way that while I was talking to Hartley I had forgotten about the sea, forgotten it was there and now felt confounded and at a loss to find myself half blind among those terrible rocks.

The formation of my love for Clement, had been one of the main tasks and achievements of my life: that love which so often almost failed but never quite failed.

Being in love, that’s another slavery, stupid when you come to think of it, mad really. You make another person into God. That can’t be right (…) Real love, is free and sane. (…) Real love is like in a marriage when the glamour is gone. (…) Love. God, how often we uttered that word in the theatre and how little we even thought about it.

‘Yes, it’s strange, but in a way I do know you, and there isn’t anyone else who’s near me like that. I support it’s just because we were young, and later you cant know people, or I couldn’t.’

‘It’s happened fast because it’s right, it’s easy because it’s right.’

‘I wish I was dead, I think I’m going to die soon, I feel it. Sometimes I felt I would die by wishing it when I went to sleep but I always woke up again and found I was still there. Every morning finding I’m still me, that’s hell.’ ‘Well, get out of hell then! The gate’s open and I’m holding it!’ ‘I cant. I’m hell, myself.’

‘You just want someone to remember things with.’

It ceased at last, as everything dreadful has to cease, even if it ceases only by death. My presence, my cries, had no effect on her, I doubt if, in a sense, she knew I was there, although also, in a sense, the performance was for me, its violence directed at me.

I remembered, as I now did whenever I awoke, with a pang of anguish and love and fear, that Hartley was in the house.

(…) and although, with her disordered grey hair she looked old and mad, she seemed in that arrested moment like a queen.

‘And you are using this thing from the far past as a guide to important and irrevocable moves which you propose to make in the future. You are making a dangerous induction, and induction is shaky at the best of times, consider Russell’s chicken –‘ ‘Russell’s chicken?’ ‘The farmer’s wife comes out every day and feeds the chicken, but one day she comes out and wrings its neck.’

‘Not to worry. Sic biscuits disintegrat.’ ‘What?’ ‘That’s the way the cookie crumbles.’

We did not dare to say much to each other. By now I wanted the whole thing to be over. I could scarcely endure the idea that she might even now say ‘I don’t think I want to go after all.’; and the impulse to cry out ‘Stop!’ was a pain which I urgently wanted to be without. Perhaps she felt much the same.

James said, ‘I hope you don’t feel that I’ve influenced you in any way against your better judgement?’ ‘No.’ I was not going to argue that point. Of course he had influenced me. But what was my judgement, let alone better judgement?

‘Time can divorce us from the reality of people, it can separate us from people and turn them into ghosts. Or rather it is us who turn them into ghosts or demons. Some kinds of fruitless preoccupations with the past can create such simulacra, and they exercise power, like those heroes at Troy fighting for a phantom Helen.’

‘I’m not calling her a ghost. She is real, as human creatures are, but what reality she has is elsewhere. She does not coincide with your dream figure. You were not able to transform her. You must admit you tried and failed.’

‘(…) It is a mental charade, a necessary one perhaps, it has its own necessity, but not like what you think. Of course you can’t get over it at once. But in a few weeks or a few months you’ll have run through it all, looked at it all again and felt it all again and got rid of it. It’s not an eternal thing, nothing human is eternal. For us, eternity is an illusion. It’s like in a fairy tale. When the clock strikes twelve it will all crumble to pieces and vanish. And you’ll find you are free of her, free of her forever and you can let the poor ghost go. What will remain will be ordinary obligations and ordinary interests. And you’ll feel relief, you’ll feel free. At present, you’re just obsessed, hynotised.’

‘(…) When you’ve known someone from childhood, when you can’t remember when they weren’t there, that’s not an illusion. She’s woven into me. Don’t you understand how one can be so absolutely connected with somebody like that?’

‘(…) I gave her the meaning of my life long ago, I gave it to her and she still has it. Even if she doesn’t know she has it, she has it.’

‘Just like even if she’s ugly she’s beautiful and even if she doesn’t love you she loves you – ‘ ��But she does –‘ ‘Charles, either this is very fine, very noble, or else you’re mad.’

‘(…) You mustn’t interfere in other people’s lives, especially married people. That’s in a way why marriage is so awful, I can’t think how anyone dares to do it. You’ve got to leave them alone. They’ve got their own way of hating each other and hurting each other, they enjoy it.’

‘”For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.”(…)’

Some kinds of obsession, of which being in love is one, paralyses the ordinary free-wheeling of the mind, its natural open interested curious mode of being, which is sometimes persuasively defined as rationality. I was sane enough to know that I was in a state of total obsession and that I could onlythink, over and over again, certain agonising thoughts, could only run continually along the same rat-paths of fantasy and intent. But I was not sane enough to interrupt this mechanical movement or even to desire to do so.

‘(…) And perhaps I was pleased to see you. We sometimes like to see people whom we hate and despise so that we can stir them up to further demonstrations of how odious they are.’

‘Jealousy is born with love, but does not always die with love.’

‘(…) Ordinary mediocre people think that if they confess one tenth of the truth they’re in the clear. You’ve made all your words into lies, you’ve devalued your speech and – in a moment you’ve spoiled the past – and there’s nothing to rely on any more.’

There were a few clouds, big lazy chryselephantine clouds that loafed around over the water exuding light. I gazed at them and wondered at myself for being too obsessed to be able to admire the marvels that surrounded me. But knowing how blind I was did not make me see.

(…) people can be light sources, without ever knowing, for years in the lives of others, while their own lives take different and hidden courses. Equally, one can be, and I recalled Peregrine’s words, a monster, a cancer, in the mind of someone whom one has half forgotten or even never met.

As James said, ‘If even a dog’s tooth is truly worshipped it glows with light.’

‘Can you hear the sea?’

‘I think you’re nearly through out of it. You’ve built a cage of needs and installed here in an empty space in the middle. The strong feelings are all around her – vanity, jealousy, revenge, your love for your youth – they aren’t focused on her, they don’t touch her. She seems to be their prisoner, but really you don’t harm her at all. You are using her image, a doll, a simulacrum, it’s an exorcism. Soon you will start seeing her as a wicked enchantress. Then you will have nothing to do except forgive here and that will be within your capacity.’

‘The sea is clean. The mountains are high. I think I am becoming drunk.’ ‘The sea is not all that clean,’ said James. ‘Did you know that dolphins sometimes commit suicide by leaping onto the land because they are so tormented by parasites?’ ‘I wish you hadn’t told me that. Dolphins are such good beasts. So even they have their attendant demons.’

‘What after all is superstition?’ said James, pouring some more wine into both glasses. ‘What is religion? Where does the one end and the other begin? How could one answer that question about Christianity?’

‘(…) But this power is dreadful stuff. Our lusts and attachments compose our god. And when one attachment is cast off another arrived by way of consolation. We never give up pleasure absolutely, we only barter it for another.’ (…)

What was my role in this play? I felt myself being relaxed and smiling like a man in a dream who cannot remember his lines but knows he can manage impromptu.

If there’s any fruitless mental torment which is greater than that of jealousy it is perhaps remorse. Even the pains of loss may be less searching; and often of course these agonies combine, as now they did for me. I say remorse not repentance. I doubt if I have ever experienced repentance in a pure form; perhaps it does not exist in a pure form. Remorse contains guilt, but helpless hopeless guilt which knows of no cure for the painful bite.

However life, unlike art, has an irritating way of bumping and limping on, undoing conversions, casting doubt on solutions, and generally illustrating the impossibility of living happily or virtuously even after (…)

Time, like the sea, unties all knots. Judgements on people are never final, they emerge from summing up which at once suggest the need of a reconsideration. Human arrangements are nothing but loose ends and hazy reckoning, whatever art may otherwise pretend in order to console us.

But am I so exceptional? We must live by the light of our self-satisfaction, through that secret vital busy inwardness which is even more remarkable than our reason. Thus we must live unless we are saints, and are there any? There are spiritual beings, perhaps James was one, but there are no saints.

There may be no saints, but there is at least one proof that the light of self-satisfaction can illuminate the whole world.

Of course this chattering diary is a façade, the literary equivalent of the everyday smiling face which hides the inward savages of jealousy, remorse, fear and the consciousness of irretrievable moral failure. Yet such pretences are not only consolations but may even be productive of a little ersatz courage.

That time of attentive mourning for her death was quite unlike the black blank horror of the thing itself. We had mourned together, trying to soothe each other’s pain. But that shared pain was so much less than the torment of her vanishing, the terrible lived time of her eternal absence. How different each death is, and yet it leads us into the self-same country, that country which we inhabit so rarely, where we see that worthlessness of what we have long pursued and will so soon return to pursuing.

There were no trains going where she was.

I cannot now remember the exact sequence of events in those prehistoric years. That we cannot remember such things, that our memory, which is ourself, is tiny, limited and fallible, is also one of the important things about us, like our inwardness and our reason. Indeed it is the very essence of both.

The only fault which I can at all measure is my own.

Anything can be tarnished by association, and if you have enough associations you can blacken the world. (…) In hell or in purgatory there would be no need of other or more elaborate tortures.

My love for you is quiet at last. I don’t want it to become a roaring furnace. If I could have suffered more I would have suffered more. Receive us now as if we were your children. Tenderness and absolute trust and communication and truth matter more and more as one grows older. Somehow let us not waste love, it is rare. Can we not love each other at last in freedom, without awful possessiveness and violence and fear? Love matters, not ‘in love’. Let there be no more partings now. Let there be peace between us now forever, we are no longer young. Love me, Charles, love me enough.

I suppose that is right, though there is a kind of impiety involved in letting any of James’s stuff go away. Do I then suppose he is likely to come back at any moment?

It is strange to think that when I went to the sea I imagined that I was giving up the world. But one surrenders power in one form, and grasps it in another.

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, SE02, Ep22

I was pleasantly surprised that this was one of the best balanced eps concerning tohru as of yet!! They touched upon her being mom-figure in the first half but proceeded to humanize her afterward, depicting her as normal girl!, frustrated, vulnerable & somewhat silently struggling. I was right in my prediction that the moment yuki lets go of mom-tohru image, the show will too!! I’m happy!! finally, No more angels in the sky. But only real tohru with flaws, ugliness & humanity.

-Yuki’s acceptance of past feelings & change towards new ones:

The show is aware that they’ve been using the fake love-triangle initially but it actually has an explanation within the story. Yuki is attracted to tohru, so much, but it isn’t romantic at all. his attempts in “correcting” how he perceived her didn’t set right with him & he felt weirded out more! The show brilliantly depicted these “flirty scenes” with a hint of uneasiness. Yuki’s lines/ moves felt cringey & artificial “do you like my act, princess”,”I’ll kidnap you”, being encouraged by Aya to compliment tohru as a boy should. The signs are all there except not in your face, & the writer deserves praise!! Yuki, being perceptive, was able to reach such conclusion, not only by looking into himself, but by also at looking how kyo interacted with her, differently from him. Kyo sees tohru as a woman & is attracted to her romantically & altho kyo’s words & interactions with tohru lacks princely smoothness & have a hint of awkwardness, it was natural, genuine & spontaneous. Kyo didn’t put on an act or forced himself to flirt or deliberately chose words to impress tohru. Yuki was able to notice tohru only looked romantically towards kyo. Yuki used all his observations to reach another conclusion abt himself too!!! What he wants in a relationship is sth similar to kyo/tohru!! Mutual & equal relationship. He won’t be satisfied by one-sidedly giving or taking.

-The Author’s brilliance in writing traumatic-based behavior ( Kyo/yuki’s best interaction!! ) :

-an anon cryptically warned me that I’ll be disappointed in kyo this ep cuz of a certain scene with yuki. After watching it, I can tell you without a doubt I’m not disappointed at all!! Rather I’m beyond satisfied that I’ve decided to trust the author. Ms. Takya is genius in depicting traumatic-based behavior! Any other writer, would write the scene less raw, yuki would still shine defeating his inner demos, but kyo would only grunt, or say sth mild. cuz the writer might fear that it might risk showing kyo as the stupid guy behind in his growth compared to the successful yuki ,or annoy the readers/viewers who are so eager for these boys to reach mutual ground. Only a great writer will be brave enough to write kyo as his trauma/ faulty copying mechanism logically dictates!

-We spent an entire season with yuki, saw him yell at kakeru’s insensitive hurtful remarks, cry knowing he was saved cuz a friend risked freeing him, it took a locked dark room, paint fumes, PTSD, tons of monologues before yuki finally let it all out! & you want such brilliant writer to make kyo turn around & be nice to yuki all of a sudden after episodes of fights & no perspective insight? You bet such amazing writer will give kyo’s perspective its time & his development the logical progress he needs. This writer is all abt logical & realistic progression! whether positive or even negative, the characters will come across human, raw, realistic & real during & after their journey.

- Going through kyo/yuki’s dialogue, it will tell you that furuba is NOT abt friendship saving the day, or abt successful growth. It is abt the journey these traumatized children are undergoing now that they are nearly becoming young adults. Yuki’s journey was amazing not cuz he succeeded (as amazingly as this is) but cuz it made sense from his perspective, was realistic, logical, matched his coping mechanism & character traits & it took the needed time. Now for kyo, all his reactions should match his perspective, & make sense giving his coping mechanism. He wasn’t given time yet. so, he won’t grow much yet. “Making a fool of me?” kyo didn’t see yuki’s perspective abt the hat. he thinks yuki did it on purpose to taunt him.That HE saved tohru while kyo fails as always. “Praised by others, needed by them” Kyo like everybody in school, always thought yuki is a prince, loved, & admired. Kyo is not the audience, he didn’t see yuki’s struggle.”surpass me easily while I struggle” kyo may train for years with tears & blood, but the rat will beat him always cuz he is superiors. “an idiot that never gets anything, wants an idiotic impossible thing” “if only I gave birth to the rat, I’d ve been happier” kyo’s mom wished or the impossible. So did kyo. He wished that he’d prove to her that he can be the rat’s equal. She shouldn't have died becuz of him. An impossible wish.

-I personally think that kyo’s journey will take a different path from yuki’s. Unlike yuki, kyo’s been accused & proved to harm others somehow, intentionally or unintentionally. Some not even in this world anymore. So there are things in kyo’s journey that can’t be fixed. Nothing will bring his mom or kyoko back to life. He can’t apologize to them. There is NO forgiveness here as kyoko said!. Hence, the writer will brilliantly make kyo fall so hard & reach rock bottom so bad before he stands up again!! It matches his personality too!! He’s a person who struggles in expressing himself verbally, gets overwhelmed with emotions, stubborn, hard on himself & fiery in nature. Moreover, due to his trauma, he harbors very low self-esteem & due to his guilt, he is drenched in self-loath.

-The addiction of destructive coping mechanism ( Writing Brilliancy):

Kyo has one of the most destructive coping mechanism in the show. Similarly to what his father did by illogically dumping all the blame of the mom’s suicide on 4 year old child, which resulted in hurting kyo, kyo adopted his dad’s ways & dumped it all on yuki. Illogical. wrong. but it works!! it numbs this tingling sense of guilt, it puts the voice that goes “ you’re unforgivable” temporarily to sleep. All the hate is on someone else. not me. I’m not a monster. does it work all the time? NO. cuz NO drug does! All drugs has this temporary effect, that unless you break away from, will end up destroying you. “don’t you want it that way? you wouldn’t want to have anyone to hate?“  I’m still confused if this is kyoko or his mom. It has kyoko’s hair, the words are very harsh. Kyoko from kyo’s perspective shifts between extremely kind & cruelly harsh! but regardless, the truth has been spoken. Kyo’s eyes are opened. He can’t force blind himself anymore. he does NOT hate yuki. he “ acts like hating yuki is sth you needs to do”, as shigure said! hating yuki is his way to escape from his destructive self-loath. He hasn’t been hating or fighting yuki for a long while, he tries now, one more fight, one more dose of the drug, let the pain go away! Nope. Yuki is not participating, yuki is in the light now. You are drenched in the darkness, as unforgivable as you are. Monster eyes & all. Kyo breaks the window to break away from the memory. from this point on, it escalates to rock bottom as the drug is no longer working & hating himself with no escape is all he’s left with.

-Protecting leading to hurting:

yuki brings kyo attention that while he’s been hard on himself & resisting change, he is hurting tohru. Sth kyo chose confinement in oder to NOT do. Kyo being distant from class activities “life” is his choice. Tohru suffering is a consequence to that choice. Kyo, once again, overwhelmed by tohru’s desire to include him in their activities “ life”. Helplessly & painfully looking at her & acknowledging yuki’s words. Kyo in one of his most vulnerable moments, matched only by true form hug scene, is desperate for a hug. Not only cuz he loves her, but cuz he needs her, cuz he’s so tried of himself, cuz she’s so endearingly stupid waiting for him all by herself when she could’ve easily caught him home!! Ugh! tohru! T_T. Except this time, kyo is aware of his surroundings, it’s school, no place for transformation. As kyo decides to change his position from hug to head rest, he stares so intently in her eyes. Embracing her with his presence. For a moment there I felt weird. Like I was intruding on a personal moment between two ppl. XD. This moment was this excellently weird mix of tenderly romantic, bittersweet cuz they cant be together hug, & sexually tensed! one of the most successful kyoru moment that truly depicted emotions visually without needing much dialogue!

Side Notes:

kyo/yuki interaction was their most honest, filter-free & raw moment! each said what he really felt. yuki’s directly telling kyo to complain to him, which kyo did. yuki urging kyo to see that punishing himself hurts tohru.

I appreciate that Yuki won’t tell tohru now, cuz it will ruin their progress towards a better balanced relationship. Tohru’s lid hasn’t even been touched, so she would be cautious interacting with him. But once she opens her lid, her self-worth increase & her desire to focus on herself more is ignited!, she’ll listen to him without taking his burden as hers. just like kakeru did. Equal friends.

I wanted to talk deeper abt machi & yuki, but didn’t want it to be overshadowed by kyo’s analysis. Next time for sure!

I love how the writer included the most spontaneous flirting moment between kyo & tohru right after yuki explained that he saw her non-romantically. The writer wants the comparison to be clear cutting ties to any love-triangle misunderstanding that might linger from previous scenes. Moreover, it showed yuki fully & genuinely accepting kyoru!!

I’ll never be over tohru acting like normal teenager & chasing kyo, trying to catch the script!!!! These small moments while having not much effect on the grand plot, help depict tohru with her own feisty style of stubbornness beyond the one-sided kind image we always see.

This ep has well-written & visually appealing scenes. Visual imagery were well-implemented in kyo/yuki scene & kyo/tohru last scene.

Thank you anime for drawing tohru older, pretty & more mature in the final scene. She looked like a woman in love & silently in pain. My baby is growing!

Why is kyoko holding the hat in KYO’s flashback!!!! she’s wearing the same white dress from yuki’s memory?? What the heck is the hat’s story?!!!

[javierpenaspinkshirt]

Lawful Good

Chapter two

Warnings: nothing explicit, slow burn, little bit of angst, age gap(?), really bad formating (sorry I'm on mobile). The odd swear word and more adult(?) themes beginning.

Words: 2.6K

A/N: thanks for the kind words and messsages after chapter one! I’m afraid this fic is gonna be a slow burner but we’re heading in the right direction in this chapter! Really sorry about the shite formatting, but that’s mobile for you! Enjoy 🖤

Previous chapters: Chapter one

*

Chapter two

There were a million words you could use to describe Javi… but domestic wasn’t one of them. He’d slipped into your apartment behind you just a few moments ago, a little closer to you than he would have been had someone else been with you. And now he was standing in your kitchen looking bewildered at the gadgets and cookery items that covered your kitchen surfaces.

‘What the hell is this’? Javi smirked pointing at one.

‘It’s a spiraliser… for when vegetables need to be… well spiralised…’ you actually had no idea why you had that but it had been an impulse purchase you defended fiercely against all who took the piss.

Javi cocked his eyebrow and smirked.

‘So you and Steve really spend evenings here spirlalising vegetables and gossiping?’

'Yes, and I’ll have you know, he’s a great spiraliser’

Javier chuckled and you noticed some genuine amusement in his face. He was a difficult man to read. You figured that was deliberate, or at least a subconscious choice due to the nature of his work. Hiding his emotions was a safety mechanism that more than likely kept him alive. The number of times he must have been shot at, the close calls, the near misses, they would be enough to make a civi like you want to retire on the spot. But not him. He’d found a way to cope and the side effect of this was appearing closed off and reclusive. But occasionally he’d let his guard down. And in this moment he had done just that – standing in your kitchen, hands on his waste, laughing at the idea of his partner trying to work out how to make courgette ribbons.

You tilted your head slightly, looking at him, and you smiled.

He caught your gaze and his laugh trailed off and he cleared his throat.

You snapped out of it, realising you had been all but swooning like some Victorian maiden. Vaguely horrified at yourself you clapped your hands gently and asked ‘so, what would you like for dinner?’ tailed by a slightly awkward laugh.

He raised his eyebrow again ‘how about we just order in?’

You did just that. There was a pizza place down the street you (and probably all the DEA agents living in the building) knew well that claimed to make an “All American Pizza”, that in reality was a cheese pizza with a mystery meat topping that claiming to be pepperoni. If you didn’t think too hard about what was actually on it, it was delicious.

It arrived and you both sat on your couch, not bothering with plates to save washing up, just grabbing slices from the box, conversation free flowing. You laughed about the time you’d dropped coffee all down yourself one Monday morning and sulked the whole day, and the time he had an informant turn up at the office to return his signature sunglasses that he had left in her apartment after spending the night to “question her”.

‘I take my work very seriously’ he insisted through laughter ‘I get results don’t I?’

You cackled, a proper belly laugh, pizza slice half eaten in your hand and tears forming in your eyes ‘you do, but she exposed your modus operandi to the whole office’ you wiped a tear that was threatening to roll down your cheek and take your mascara with it, ‘she exposed you after you exposed her!’ you gave him a look and erupted in to laughter again.

The grin stayed plastered across his face but he wasn’t laughing at your poor jokes, he was watching you as you sat next to him, half eaten pizza slice in your hand and tears in your eyes, completely uninhibited and cackling like a witch. He’d always appreciated your openness. You were his opposite in so many ways. You were younger and more optimistic in your outlook. He didn’t particularly know your personal circumstances but he knew you’d come to this country alone as a teenager to study and that you’d accidentally wound up at the DEA. He knew you were good at your job and he appreciated every sticky situation you’d gotten him and Steve out of. And he also noticed that though you and Steve were very close, you didn’t look at Steve the way you looked at him. What he didn’t know, however, was whether you knew you were looking at him that way or whether your beautiful, dark eyes were betraying you.

Javier was no stranger to the female gaze. It would be a very rare evening that he didn’t catch some woman in a bar giving him the eye. Even at his most dishevelled after a long shift or a raid gone bad he still attracted them. He was like a magnet and they were the scrap metal that permanently orbited him. He didn’t mind, he liked the attention but only on his own terms. It was easy for him to separate lust and genuine feeling, that was partly due to his job. You had to be able to separate your feelings from the job at hand. Hell! He would often have days where he retuned home to his quiet apartment having shot several people and been shot at himself. If he couldn’t separate his personal emotions with his actions then he’d have gone over the edge years ago. So he translated this skill into his personal life too.

Sex and love were not often things that went together for him. But occasionally he’d let his guard slip and he’d let someone in. He did that once a long time ago, but that had ended terribly. His fault, he’d been the one to run. Some how she’d had the courage to forgive him and that helped, but he still felt the occasional twinge of guilt. Since her, there had been a few women he’d genuinely connected with. Often they were prostitutes, but that didn’t make them any lesser than him. It always began the same, them offering information in exchange for visas. Sometime he could help, sometimes he couldn’t, and sometimes he’d let them into his life a bit. But it never lasted. He’d scold himself for thinking he was capable of sustaining anything greater than a sexual relationship.

He reminded himself of that while he looked at you. He’d thought about you in that way, who wouldn’t? You were smart, funny, kind, beautiful, and seemingly fearless. Who comes to a city like this with purely good intentions? And who maintains that integrity despite the ugliness of the job? You impressed him no end. Your mind was a thing of wonder to him. How could you think so thoroughly so quickly? You always had the answer. You took the scathing remarks about your age and the sexist comments and ripped them apart with your brilliance. You proved instantly that you deserved your desk in that office. He was in quiet awe of you. But that was as far as he dared take it. His mind would wonder sometimes but he was good at dragging it back. He knew you would never risk your career for him and he was selfish for even considering it a possibility.

But here he was, sat on your couch with you, eating and laughing like you’d been friends your whole lives. If this was as far as your relationship could go then so be it. This was unchartered territory for him anyway. He had a pal relationship with Steve, they’d go out and drink together, grab some food and talk quite often, but he was the only one Javi had that kind of relationship with. He’d chat to his various conquests of a night but they were only there for his help, they weren’t really interested in him. But you? You came across so genuine, like you really did care about him and it sent a small shiver up his spine.

‘Thanks for tonight, Javi’ you smiled ‘This has been the best Monday night I’ve had in ages’.

‘Yeah well now I see how you and Steve spend your evenings maybe I’ll join you occasionally?’ He seemed almost tentative in his question.

‘Of course!’ You blurted ‘the more the merrier! Plus it’ll be nice not to be the only third wheel in Steve and Connie’s marriage’ you chuckled.

He left your apartment not long after that. It was late and you both had to be awake and alert for your drive to work tomorrow. You’d hugged him as he opened the door to leave. It lasted just that half a second too long and you found yourself relishing the feel of his hands against your back. Dangerous territory. But you’d smiled sweetly at him as the embrace ended and you said your good byes.

*

The rest of the week progressed pretty much as every week did, just without Steve. Javi was in and out of the office, out on raids, off meeting informants, in writing reports, off meeting the ambassador. You were in mostly, at your desk figuring our loopholes to get agents out of trouble with the local authority or trying to bribe your way out of sticky situations slyly.

Thursday afternoon rolled around and you found yourself turning your desk upside down and inside out. Gently huffing and getting frustrated at having lost the one thing you needed right now. You looked up to notice Javi coming back from the ambassador’s office. He was in a suit and he looked good. He had his top button undone and his tie loosened in classic Javi fashion. His little way of sticking it to the man. Respectful enough to wear a suit, but renegade enough to wear it in his own fashion.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ He sat at his desk and unbuttoned his suit jacket. The site of you on your knees searching through your desk drawers making him a little uneasy.

‘I’ve lost a book I need, I swear I had it here but I cant find it anywhere. You haven’t borrowed anything have you?’ You looked up at him, hair a mess from your frantic searching and your heels kicked off in exasperation.

He swallowed at the site of you but kept his cool, ‘I can promise you that the last thing I am going to borrow from your desk is a hefty law book’

You smiled back at him ‘fair point’ you pulled yourself to your feet and slumped back down on your desk chair. ‘Fuck, I need that book. I don’t know what I could have done with it’ you put your head in your hands.

‘Well if it’s a law book then I’m sure there’s a copy in the archives here? They have a law library in the storage archives down the hall’ he responded, sensing the genuine worry in your body.

You shot up in your chair ‘do they?’ Hope returning to your face ‘where?’

He stood up and shrugged off his suit jacket, his shirt was a little damp from the heat and it clung to his torso ever so slightly. You pulled your eyes back to his but he’d caught you looking. He shuffled slightly, had you made him uncomfortable?

‘Come on’ he said, walking towards you ‘I’ll show you the archives’

You smiled gratefully and leapt up to follow him. You had forgone your heels and caught up to him bare foot, a whole lot more comfortable. He noticed and smiled at you, ‘fuck dress codes, ey?’.

You grinned back.

You followed him through winding corridors and down a stairwell towards where they kept some of the evidence from raids and attacks on sicario strong holds. A little further down a dimly lit corridor and he stopped to open a door for you.

‘Here you go, the library’ he held the door open for you and you squeezed passed him. 'Library' was a generous term. It was a small cramped room with a few rows of shelves stacked with books. Some were older than your abuela and about as dusty the streets of the city.

‘Okay, help me look!’ You gave him the title and you set about searching.

He obliged and shut the door behind him, scanning through the books with you. Some of the shelves were too high for you to reach so he stretched up to grab at the abandoned collections on the top shelves. As he stretched his shirt untucked and revealed flashes of skin. Why on earth were you swooning over a strip of belly skin? What was with you? Was it the stifling heat of the windowless room? Was it the Adrenalin of hunting out this bloody book?

Javi set down a box of books on the floor and turned to face you.

‘Not in there’ he frowned.

He was standing just a little too close to you again, like when he had followed you into your apartment on Monday. He was so much taller than you without your heels on, and in the dim light of the small room the shadows angled his face beautifully.

Suddenly he reached out, as if he were going to brush a wayward strand of hair from your face and tuck it behind your ear. You lurched forward and kissed him. You lips connecting to his, warm and slightly salty from the sweat of the heavy lifting. As quickly as you leant forward you pulled away, realising what you had just done. What the fuck had you just done?!

He stood dead still, almost unblinking. His hand was still out stretched right near your face. You stared at him, panic filling your entire body. You went cold, felt sick, what had you done that for?!

Finally he moved, reaching further behind you to the shelf you were leaning against. He pulled a book from the shelf and showed it to you. It was your missing title.

Oh god. Oh Christ. Oh no! He’d been reaching for the book, not for you at all! Dread pooled in your tummy. You had completely and utterly misread that situation. You cursed yourself, every stupid word you could think of running through your mind, all the while staring at him like a rabbit in the head lights. He was still so close to you.

He reached behind him and put the found book down on the box he had retrieved from the top shelf for you. He turned back to face you, putting his hand up again but this time brushing it against your cheek. And then again, the welcome softness of his lips on yours, the taste of salt and the rush of blood to all the wrong places. He kissed you gently, testing the waters. You leant into him, his reciprocation as much a surprise to you as it was to him. His tongue parted your lips and your hands ran up his back, clinging to his shirt. His hands cupped your face, holding you firm as his body pressed yours against the book shelf behind you.

His hands moved to your waist, his finger tips sinking into your soft skin beneath your thin blouse.

He pressed against you, pulling away from the kiss for breath. You panted heavily, the air suddenly feeling a whole lot hotter. His forehead pressed against yours, you would have been happy to stay in that moment forever. That way neither of you would have to face the consequences of your recklessness.

Chapter three

Tag list: @ah-callie

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 22

oooh man, its time to feel some EMOTIONS!

I'm BACK after a hiatus, which was due in part to me getting my 1st dose of the covid vaccine! woohoo!

anyways, starting here w/issue 22....we have a great cover w/thunderclash, the legend himself

oof. the covers made me forget how much I don't like the art this issue...I hate to be mean to the artists but this art style just isn't doin it for me chief

god I love this issue though. the framing device of rewind’s movie is so so fantastic

tailgate listing off all his fake awards/accomplishments....ily 

rodimus my boy, you're a prime in my heart

the ‘not a decepticon’ label for cyclonus is so much hvbhkjfbskjf

I literally wanna comment on every single panel bc I love all the characters so much but then id be here forever...that being said whirl ily sm 

hvbjdfbhsfjhdfshja BRAINSTORM ‘according to perceptor - ships genius’ hvhdkjhbfhjs ily dumb gay idiot

and then the cut to perceptor after brainstorm like, blew up his lab vjbkdsfnbksjf dude

GODDDDDD drift ‘your name...defines you. it’s your soul expressed in syllables. hm? oh, yes, sorry. it’s drift.’ GOD he’s so fucking funny. I love early story hippy drift

god I cant stop thinking about how good this whole issue would be as an animated show...like, specifically rewinds film, it would be SO FUCKING GOOOOOOD mtmte show WHEN

rewiiiiind ;_; I fuckgin love rewind god. fellow video editing enthusiast....

ohhhh rodimus being embarrassed about his big speech at the beginning of mtmte....my boy I love u so much

gjhnbgehjsrkfbjksf magnus being suspicious of rewind oh my god. magnus ily but please, look at the lil guy, he’s a good boy, most of the time

the fuckgin footage that magnus removed hbvhakjbfhskf god. wasn't that intended to be footage of magnus dancing? I love him

minibot squad.....

and here it begins, the mystery stick rung question...

poor rung oh my god he’s just trying to polish his lil spaceship and people r throwing shit at him. taking Ls as per usual it seems

hand grenade tag hvbfjksdnfbkjdf love that callback

noooo rungs ship :( 

magnus’s censorship vhbhadkjfhdbhjsakjhfn

oh man I forgot about how they met that race of Transformers But More 

the one-upsmanship hbvkajsbehfjks

whirrrrrl lmao I love whirl sm

goddddd whirl just killing that other alien and ending the 16 million yr long civil war bvkjsdbfhjjkafs so fucking much

oh god oh god the ‘are you happy’ page, I'm not emotionally equipped to handle this like, ever

but I will say I feel like it would be EVEN MORE oof if it were milne or someone drawing it bc I feel like this art style takes away from some of the impact bc the expressions aren't really that...expressive? idk how to put it

anyways. every single answer destroys me!!! like even the happy ones, like chromedome and rewind and tailgate - well, in present time, none of those three are doing so hot, so that makes this just hurt 

and rung....that is so fucking depressing. jesus. this guy is so fuckng sad, somebody get him a friend stat

and swerve...ouch. this readthru I've really noticed how much early-mtmte swerve is not-so-subtly like, crying out for help bc he’s so alone and shit. jesus 

also brainstorms response is just plain ole sad w/context, but at this point in the story without context, it just seems very foreboding lmao. I'm realizing this readthru that brainstorm is very sketchy and ominous in a particular ‘is he evil?’ mad scientist sorta way in early mtmte

and then everyone else is also just so OOF in their own unique sad ways, but I think the worst out of everyone is drift....GODDDDDD. especially considering that at this point in the story, drift is this kinda goofy hippy guy, so seeing him just sit there with his face in his hand, not even answering the question...AND knowing that shortly after this he’ll end up banished...IT FUCKING HURTS M8!

meanwhile, the more upbeat ‘quest to see rungs alt mode’ continues...with an ‘alt mode party’ vhbadkjsdfnabskjf it looks so silly with a bunch of cars just sitting around a table lmao

I cant even tell who everyone is bc they so rarely turn into cars n shit lmaoooooo 

rodimus with the bucket on his head hbvhakjbfskjf I CANT

everyone’s reactions to thunderclash...i fucking love it

the fact that TAILGATE doesn't hate him, even though we’ve seen that tailgate tends to dislike people who are universally liked/who have achieved a lot of impressive things

rodimus you petty thot vbdkjbfdjhsakjdf ily

RODIMUS IS SO FUNNYYYYYY ‘I'm not making all these sacrifices and leading these guys into battle and being inspirational - I'm not doing that because it makes me look good’ RODIMUS VBHSKJDFNBKSJF

thunderclash talking about magnus’s article on typefaces....hdbksjfsdbkjgfb bro

AND THEN MAGNUS HUGS HIM....HGBSKJFDSHFKD I CANT

POOR DRIFT bvhajkdfbhjkjsfd rodimus saying he ‘rehabilitated him’ oh my god

the whole spectralism thing...im sorry I cant get over how funny all this is vbakdjfbksjf thunderclash rlly b out here charming rodimus’s entire crew

and then ratchet comes in, calling tc ‘thunders,’ and tc immediately notices ratchets new hands (somehow) hvbkjfhbskjf truly amazing

it cracks me up that rodimus is all 😒😒 at thunderclash, even though as we come to find out, tc really IS That Perfect, and him complimenting rodimus isn't sarcasm at all lmao

AND THEYRE LOOKING FOR THE KNIGHTS OF CYBERTRON TOO HVSDHFJBSHKHDFJS OF COURSE

the vis vitalis being a life support machine spaceship is a really cool concept tho

‘rescuing some orphans from an exploding sun’ I fucking cant

evil guy: [holds a gun to thunderclash’s head] 

rodimus: :D finally something doesn't go his way!

he’s so petty I’m..........dkdjhfdabhduifadijgl

and its the aliens from earlier! oooh

GODDD I forgot that swerve used rung in mystery stick mode to SCHWACK the guy

rung casually dropping the fact that the functionists like, experimented on him...there's a lot of implications there, and that'll certainly be explored more later...

the fact that his ID card says ‘rong’ hvbhjakhdsbfakhsjfn 

oughufadkfujbsfk the circle of light throwing wrenches n shit at skids...guys cmon vbhsdjkfnslfd

the circle of light is like ‘wtf you all have trauma and a bunch of weird unhealthy coping mechanisms this is wack byeeeee’ lmao

skids calling the lost light his home is rlly sweet tho

cant believe the religious space hippy cult is being so rude about a film made by a guy who died like a week ago. unreal 

cd finally figured out how to make the pffft sound, good for him

AUGHHHHH the fact that rewind used ‘little victories’ as the title of the film and that's something that chromedome said in the video ;_; I'm fucking inconsolable 

rodimus, despite his obvious posturing for the camera during the whole issue, comes off as surprisingly genuine when he says that he hasn't thought about his own future much, but wants the crew to have a happy ending....im gonna cry

‘who knows what's around the corner?’ tailgate, PLEASE don't say that, oh my god, 

OUGHHHH GROUP SHOT 

OHHH mannnnNNNNN i love this issue SO MUCH. what a good fun emotional rollercoaster wrap-up to mtmte s1. god. 

like, this issue has it all - humor, drama, crippling sadness, intrigue, worldbuilding...it’s so excellent 

and getting to see rewind again hurts so bad but also I love him

ok quick mtmte s1 retrospective...god s1 is so fucking good. I'm gonna have to read more to say which chunk of mtmte I liked best but s1 is so fucking excellent that it might be my favorite. though its hard to pick bc there's so much good stuff later on too...whatever, the point is s1 is so so good

the plotlines and characters are fucking stellar. like I cant even believe how well Everything works, its very impressive. I cant really think of anything major that made me go ‘yeah could've done without that plotline/character’

I love how dedicated jro is to connecting everything. I've mentioned it before but basically every single moment in the series has payoff - what you initially think is just a funny moment, or a fluffy character establishment bit, ends up ALSO being an important plot point later, in some way

an example would be here w/rung and his alt mode - it just seems like a fun little B-plot for this issue, and seems to pretty neatly conclude with the reveal that rung was eventually classified as an ‘ornament’ (lmao)...but we later on get to see a lot more about this, both here and in the functionist universe 

and like, stuff like tailgate’s autobot lessons w/magnus - at first that can be seen as purely character establishment stuff, showing that magnus is a strict rule-lover and tg is a loveable try-hard good boy - but that becomes plot relevant in remain in light, with tailgate saving the day due to his knowledge of the autobot code (and its also character relevant, with magnus’s arc in remain in light). 

and I know this is like. a normal regular thing in writing, but I'm just very impressed about how cleanly jro pulls it off, and how many things he’s juggling at once, especially in early mtmte - it’s very ambitious!

and we gotta remember, this is a comic book. I've read a lot of comic books, and the quality is all over the place. a lot of writers bite off more than they can chew, and the story ends up kinda scattered as a result. 

another thing I see a lot in franchise writing like this is a lack of strong early character establishing due to the author assuming the readers are at least somewhat familiar with the characters already - which can be totally fair depending on where it is in the continuity, but other times it can come off as lazy

in mtmte, the cast is extremely well fleshed out, and not only that, the cast itself is unique in that there are a lot of relative unknowns (franchise-wise) - which I think was an absolutely brilliant move, because then jro was able to essentially create The Definitive Version of these characters - characters like swerve, brainstorm, chromedome, rewind, tailgate...mtmte is their baseline characterization, because they haven't really appeared in much else

this also allows for deviation from the franchise norms - again, a comic book classic is good writing being stifled by a need to stick to a certain status quo regard the characters, the world, the powers, relationships, etc

(I've mostly read DC comics, and some marvel, so I'm thinking superheroes w/all these comic comparisons)

so mtmte had a good recipe for genuine creativity in that the characters were relative unknowns, the plot was basically ‘space road trip,’ the status quo of ‘autobot vs decepticon war’ had been demolished throughout the entire franchise...so jro was able to take all that and run, and it turned out so fantastic

and luckily it isn't over yet! so many comics suffer from premature cancellation...and sadly mtmte/ll isn't exempt from this, as we’ll see later, but I've seen some awful ones, where comics are forced to wrap up in like 2 issues while in the middle of an arc. yikes. 

but another comic staple...one of my least favorite things about comics books in general...something that was basically responsible for driving me away from comics after reading a bunch...the dreaded crossover event

yep, even mtmte isn't immune to this unfortunate plague on the comic industry. crossover events are the absolute worst, and I'm saying this as somebody who adores crossovers (in concept more than execution usually). they SHOULD be my favorite, but unfortunately they p much always completely suck

they're essentially a ploy to get you to read the other ongoing titles, but they usually only serve to bog down whatever story you're reading to the point where you don't even wanna read that one anymore, let alone read all the other ongoings. at least, that’s been my experience 

it doesn't help that reading orders tend to be hard to find/keep track of, and that you need to go read the other series to know what's going on. I just hate it, like, I came here to read THIS series, I don't want a bunch of other series showing up too - even if I was reading two series, I wouldn't want them crossed over, because they're separate stories! augh!

I'm totally losing my focus here but my point is...crossover events suck, and mtmte unfortunately is involved in one. I have not read dark cybertron, and I'm not about to. I've heard nothing but bad things so I have no desire to inflict that upon myself 

soooo ill be reading through the tfwiki articles for those issues to give myself a better understanding of what went on - which is more than I've ever done in the past - and maybe ill even make a single post summarizing my thoughts on what I read in the wiki, lmao

but yea ill be skipping to the mtmte s2 stuff next 

phew ok I'm super tired, my vision keeps blurring out and stuff lmao. its time for bed, I probably have more thoughts but ill save them for later. for now...peace out!

[floorbed]

7 19 23 35 40 52 69 for The Jester and The Crimegirl

thank you so much bee omg i loved the questions u made sm!!! time for Them. this is super super long im sorry njdkkfkrenkjr

7. which party member do they understand the least?

for pen it is probably alba if he had to pick anyone? just because he can do Crazy Shit Sometimes. but pen still feels like he understands him v well!!

for agni its probably elvira! she is from a place she knows next to nothing about besides what elvira’s explained or what she’s learned from school, she is 100+ years old, yeah! while agni doesnt like fully Understand her she still thinks she’s really cool!! it was rlly nice of her to try and comfort her when she initially found out abt Rei Time. and also knitted her a pretty holster that was so nice of her!!

19. what haunts them? what doesn’t?

pen’s is home. so mf much he genuinely loves his party a lot and has gotten really attached but also like he misses home so bad it hurts. he felt like he was an intrinsic part of something that he fit perfectly and was never gonna have to give up, and he got to be w everyone he cared about all day. he’s haunted by mikolai’s wedding lol. he’s also haunted by The Shit That Went Down Pertaining To His Exile, His Subsequent Exile, Making the Pact,  Dying, Making The Pact Pt 2, The Thing He Had To Do After He Made The Pact, And Then Also Dying Again. he’s haunted by holding ori dead in his arms and bringing her back using power he now understands was from a Not That Great Place. he barely knew her then but he still thought about it all the time, and now he thinks abt it even more lol! he just is not used to life being. Like This. at all. he was a vvvvvv spoiled kid. (some nobility complex part of him is haunted by lydia! stupid jester!) 

he’s not haunted by everyone he’s been a bitch to lol, unless he vocally apologized for it later nfjnf. he’s not haunted by vargas. uh

agni is not haunted by most things and That’s On her super healthy coping mechanism! she tries to not think about her personal life with that much weight, she tries to keep it abstract in her head? but also there are some things she can’t help but get Unnamed Bad Feeling from instinctively. rei. w how last session fucking turned out lol, watching seras collapse in the doorway Will Def Become One. Moms Time, both for individual reasons. sometimes, not being accomplished, but that also filters into Moms Time. everything else tho she kind of just vibes through. 

23. how do they feel about nicknames, titles, or labels that have been given to them? how do they feel about their name?

pens Official Title is penance the jester, court jester of tarbyen (and he makes sure no one forgets it lol.) everyone he grew up around had official titles so it made him feel realllyyy good abt himself that he had one too! (he likes that the party’s nicknamed him pen tho, he thinks its sweet >:) ) his Name name is camil, but only his mom n mikolai called him that, so he thinks its very like..... informal, and he likes being a Formal Title Boy, but also it makes him go all soft bc the two ppl he loved most called him that!! conflicting feelings. 

agni’s had her nickname since she was really young i think, one of those like, you’re in fantasy kindergarten and learning how to spell and your first name is rlly long, so u employ a nickname very early Kind Of Moments. her full name is agnodice and she likes it well enough! it feels very kind of like. stiff and formal to her tho. she thinks agni suits her better!

35. which party member do they worry for?

pen worries for All Of Them. he tries to follow juni when he’s having one of his (as pen puts it) “freak out moments” bc he’s scared someday it’s going to be something that really hurts him, and he wants to be there to help if it does. pen has fully accidentally triggered ori before, and he feels really bad about it, especially since her triggers literally Set Her On Fire. so you know. he tries to be really careful with his words around her, especially since the incident a couple sessions ago. also, he is Very Concerned abt all of her past stuff with the mahne that he’s recently learned abt, especially putting together all the past knowledge she’s given him abt the river and what to do in a pact and Where Exactly She Got That Info From. he’s grateful she’s not in any of that anymore, though, whatever the mahne is exactly. alba’s impulsivity worries pen n he wants to make sure alba doesnt accidentally Put Himself In A Situation accidentally w that someday. 

agni worries for theodosia, just because she seems to know a lot about the fucked up illness time thats going on and it seems to rlly effect her and she knows it cld be coming from prior past experience? she also worries for cyrus because of the whole you know. his family’s shop and home being burned to the ground Situation, even though theyve since recovered it couldnt have been good for him. worries for kai, also, because he is Small Baby Boy. but worries as in like. does so in her agni way and it may not come across as such?

40. do they enjoy poetry?

pen loves poetry he heard a lot of epics at home!! the stories were Less fun when it was about like, war and bloodshed and stuff, but he loved them when they were all pretty n flowery or like romantic 🥺

agni likes hearing poetry recited, especially when it has a specific repetitive syllable pattern she can get lost in!

52. from whom do they seek validation?

pen simply be like [wants validation from nobility noises]. its his Complexes. thats why being @ ravenloft rn is so... bad for him lol bc hes getting like all the positive attention from important people hes wanted for his entire life, oops. hes literally living out a dream being asked to dance with someone so important!! he also seeks validation a lot from like powerpful women bc of growing up with his mom and how much he looked up to her and cared about her, which manifests itself a lot w wanting attention from ori and jenny (and previously w lady wachter lol) and also the lady of delights. 

growing up agni sought validation from her mothers n instructors, now (while she still wants momsvalidation) she looks for validation mostly from herself, which is kind of bad bc she never feels fully satiated w her work n accomplishments! 

69. how would they describe their party members?

for pen: ori feels like an older sister to him, hes too scared to express as much, but yeah! she is warm (he means figuratively but also lol) and Kind and Competent and Smart and above all, Safe. he defintely feels like, the safest with her than anyone else he’s encountered in his life, both i mean in the physical protection sense but moreso the emotional sense! yeah. juni is.,, complicated. at first pen was uhhh scared of him bc of the whole Sorcerer Thing, but after all of them talked abt it at jenny’s, that feeling passed and he was more just concerned for him than anything. he is Powerful and Pretty and even though he’s been thru a lot of things pen himself cant even comprehend juni’s still Soft and Understanding and pen really admires that about him! alba is Also Complicated, for different reasons. pen thinks he is Reckless and Impulsive but also Smart in his own little scheme way, and pen really appreciates him as like a constant in his life? like yeah, he is scary and concerning sometimes but he’s always Predictably as such and while pen doesn’t see alba as all that loyal in general pen is kind of blind to that stuff when it comes to ppl in relation to him, so he’s just glad he’s met someone that wants to stick with him.

for agni: cyrus is so nice to her!! he feels like a capital f Friend in her head and so far like. she’s only had one of those before so thats really cool!! he helps her out a lot and she tries to do what she can to be there for him too! it was nice of him to teach her abt Beach Swimming. theo is really cool and agni loves seeing her in her element doing Medicine Stuff she thinks she is really smart w that kind of thing and rlly respects her practice, agni’s also very interested in her magic!! she thinks dendy is small little lizard guy who sings silly songs. greatly appreciates him. she wld follow kai blindly into terrible plans because she wants to make sure this cool teen is alright , is thankful to know he can turn into a bear at will and she didnt do that on accident that one time! amadeus is confusing and hard to keep track of in her head, but at the end of the day she thinks he’s very caring and just looking out for people. adaeze is really fun to hang out with and she is both concerned and greatly impressed w her just straight up downing one of fer’s Fucked Up And Evil Potions no questions asked, bc thats something even Agni’s too scared to do. thinks her sword is very interesting in terms of the arcane, wants to see what happens w all that! elvira is super different from anyone agni’s been around but she thinks she’s an amazing artist and would love to see her home bc she talks about it so vividly!! 

[afreesworn]

Prompt #22 | Extra Credit

“Wait, hold on. This is extra credit?”

The incredulity in Shaelen’s tone was also mirrored on Nabi’s face. She stared bewildered at the layout on the table; a large-gridded board sat at its center and a screen of some sort was set up in front of the head chair. Wide eyes went to the various items that were arranged before her, although one in particular caught her eye. It was a small crystalline figure on the board, and the sunlight from the window catching it just so, it scattered shards of color around it.

“Are you complaining? The assignment sounds easy.” Ghoa hummed, leaning over the table and plucking up an exotic coin from the assortment. She pursed her lips, silvery eyes taking in all the details of the foreign engravings on the golden currency. “I don’t recognize this, teacher. I’m going to guess… is it from Radz-at-Han?” 

“Not bad,” rumbled the older Xaela who took the head seat, an amused expression tugging at his lips as he set his glasses down. “It was recovered in Uznair.”

With a coy smile, Ghoa placed a hand upon her cheek as she peered up at their geography teacher. “Oh, I would love to hear about your adventures there!” She then caught herself, glancing to the others. “None of us have been there,” she added quickly as if to justify her gushing. She leaned an elbow on the desk, canting her head coquettishly. 

Batuhan answered with a patient nod. “You may learn more about it, the setting for this quest is set in Thavnair.” He gestured to the rest of the ornaments on the board. “Ghoa, that will be your figurine. Everyone pick one to represent yourself. This task will require strategy and teamwork, as well as tactical maneuvering on the board.” 

Nabi glanced from the Xaela to the rest gathered around the table. It was a motley collection of students, there were faces she recognized although many of them she didn’t know well. She had agreed to attend the after school activity for extra credit, and also because Shaelen had to make up some classes she had missed. But she hadn’t expected to see Ghoa here, the most popular girl in school, and the wealthiest one to boot. The Mankhad traveled with a different crowd, where as Shaelen and Nabi had a more humble background. Shaelen had snickered something about how Ghoa was only here because of the teacher running the activity, but Nabi paid it no mind. Mister Batuhan was popular amongst many of the students, for he had the most unconventional way of engaging his class. These actual relics from foreign lands were just one example. Imperial studies usually only taught about the Empire and its policies.

The squeak of leather drew her attention across the table, to the viera who was picking up a wooden carving of a lion. Nabi couldn’t help but stare at the tall female, she was always a fierce but strange sight to behold. Pjel was usually dressed in some racing gear or another when not in school uniform, even sporting padded armor over her chest and elbows to casual gatherings, with thick leather boots that were laced all the way up to her knees. One might think that she just came off the racing tracks, but really it was just her bicycle that was chained outside. Nabi wasn’t sure how and when the viera managed to change out of her uniform into the layers of leather on her now, but the teacher said nothing of it. Pjel maintained her aloof self as she turned over the carved miniature in her hand, coppery eyes inquisitive about what was being proposed. Nabi wondered if she had failed a class or something that she needed to be here.

“Huh! This is a bullet!” Shaelen announced with an impressed huff, holding up a small oblong metallic cylinder in her fingers. She always did show interest in anything mechanical, Nabi recalled. If all the classes taught about magitek or arms, she wouldn’t have missed so many to be held back a year. But as it was, Shaelen only showed up at school when she wanted to. Fortunately, something about this geography class piqued her interest too, since she was here. 

Shael arched one brow at their teacher. “Are you even allowed to bring this to school, Mister Batu?”

“It was made over a hundred years ago.” The older Xaela seemed unconcerned, his hands starting to arrange various items hidden behind the shield set in front of him. “If you could read the engravings chiseled on it, you might discern what civilization it comes from.”

Nabi blinked, then looked back to the board, where only two more items were left. Aside from the glass sculpture, there was a curious rock next to it. It was dark red, but with thin rivulets of gold running through it. It was rough and unpolished, but it still drew her eyes. She began to reach for it, when another hand snatched it away. She blinked and turned, to find Jude standing there. He gave the stone a quick look over before setting it in front of him. Nabi must have been staring at the item a bit too long, for his eyes eventually turned to her. He reached in front of her and took up the last ornament left, handing it to her.

“No way this thing be mine,” he scoffed, extending the object in her direction. “‘Sides, it suits ya better.” The last bit was grumbled under his breath. His gaze didn’t stay on her, an impatient twist pulling at his lip as he looked off to the side.

Nabi blinked and looked at the offering, now that she had the opportunity to study it closer. And it was beautiful. It was a delicate thing, a butterfly carved from crystal, its wings holding a myriad of colors as it sat upon a single glass flower. Her eyes began to reflect the refracted light from the figurine, and she smiled horn to horn in delight. She nodded and took it carefully from his hand, cupping it between her fingers as if to provide a nest for the precious ornament.

Jude turned away from her as soon as he was relieved of the item, but Nabi still lingered, watching him take up his stone. He was like Shaelen in that he was an upperclassman that was also held back a year due to absences. No one knew why he never came to school, but then again, none others seemed to care. Jude was always off alone by himself, or at the back of the school where some students went to obtain smokes. Shaelen warned Nabi away from that area, even though she herself had once belonged to that crowd. 

Despite the ever present frown that never seemed to leave his face, Nabi was never intimidated by Jude. They had once been in line together at the cafeteria, and when they reached for the same fruit, he quickly withdrew, letting her have it. Even after she insisted that he should, for he was ahead of her in line, he just grumbled and turned away, insisting he didn’t want it in the first place. From that day, Nabi thought of Jude as a distant person, but not unkind.

“Good,” Batuhan regarded the students with a look of satisfaction, considering their individual choice of their avatars. “Now, these are the skills and abilities you will be working with and the scenario for the group.” He began to hand out each one of them a piece of parchment with numbers and details written on them. “Review them carefully before we start. You will need to work as a team to complete this task, but it is up to you how you use what you have at your disposal.”

“Hmph.” Jude let out an audible grunt as he sat down, slumping over his chair and crossing his legs on the table. Shaelen flipped her chair around, straddling it as she began to read what was given to her. 

“Ey… a sharpshooter. I can dig this.” Shael chortled as she leaned over to look at Nabi’s statistics. “Huh! An academician. That’s fitting for ya.” Although after a brief scan, she threw a skeptical side eye in Ghoa’s direction. “At least we’re given our preset skills. Else I dunno what Miss Fancy Horns there would be doing. Throwing money at people?”

Ghoa let out a haughty snort, one hand rising to subtly rearrange the baubles that decorated her horns. “You just might be surprised at what I can do.”

A slow grin was starting to bloom on Nabi’s face. She looked from Ghoa to Pjel then Jude. This was going to be exciting. She had never had a chance to talk to them or work with them on anything really, and now they were going on an ‘adventure’ together! Even if it was just an imagined scenario! She sat down eagerly on her chair, carefully setting the butterfly on the board then holding up her sheet with both hands. She squinted to read through each line carefully. Her mind was starting to spin wildly, imagining the dungeon they were going to traverse and the traps and monsters they would be fighting. When she peeked up from behind her sheet, there was already a blueprint of a room that was being drawn on the grid in front of them, Batuhan placing their individual miniatures at its entrance.

“Last thing,” the Xaela teacher opened his hands and out rolled multiple small objects from his palm. Nabi thought they were rocks at first, until she saw numbers carved on them. Did some of them have twenty sides to it?

“We will be using dice to determine the likelihood of your success.” A slow smile split Batuhan’s lips as he took his seat behind his screen. “Now, let’s start by rolling initiative.”

(( Forgive me for just snatching up your characters in this! @anchor-management @jaliqai-and-company @shaelstormchild @wood-warder @sentryandco ))

[wolfgabe]

Luigis Mansion 3 review

Now I will make one thing clear right now. I did not grow up with the original Luigis Mansion on Nintendo Gamecube, My introduction to the series came in the form of Dark Moon which then led me to the original LM remake on 3DS. And now I have just finished Luigis Mansion 3 the latest in the trilogy as well as the series return to a full fledged home console. How does it hold up  against its predecessors and is this a Hotel worth checking out? Well let’s find out shall we

NOTE This review will primarily be focusing on the main campaign of the game. I won’t be discussing any of the multiplayer modes since I have yet to get into those.

The story begins with Luigi and the rest of the Mario Gang having received an invitation to a 5 star luxury hotel known as the Last Resort and at first everything seems all fine and peaches but in no time at all in a somewhat sickening sense of Deja Vu it turns out the entire thing unsurprisingly was all a ruse perpetrated by Hotel Owner Hellen Gravely as part of a plot by King Boo to capture Luigi and friends. What I can’t help but enjoy in the games opening moments that classic sense of how its plainly obvious to the player something isn’t quite right. Yeah nothing suspicious about the hotel staff wearing creepy masks no sir. Fortunately Luigi manages to escape and inevitably ends up running into Professor E Gadd who ended up meeting a similar fate. From there it becomes a trek upward through the Last Resort to find your missing companions and stop whatever King Boo has planned. Fairly standard stuff for a Mario Story but its serviceable and gets the narrative out nice and clear.

Now onto the gameplay. If you are familiar with Dark Moon much of the combat will be highly familiar to you. You use your strobulb to flash ghosts which stuns them allowing you to vacuum them up. The Dark Light returns as well which pretty much serves the same functions as before One difference to the combat though comes in the form of the slam attack which more or less replaces the Power Surge from Dark Moon. In some ways I actually like this new change as it has applications both as a form of crowd control as well as a puzzle solving tool to an extent more on that in a bit. Another new ability is the burst which is triggered by pressing both shoulder buttons. This is primarily used as another form of crowd management during fights as well as a means to activate certain mechanisms as well as being used in some boss battles to either to dodge attacks or to help expose a bosses weak point. The third new ability is the suction shot which allows you to attach a plunger with a rope to an object which can then be pulled on. Next to the Dark Light the suction shot is probably your biggest puzzle solving tool period. Not only can it be used to destroy objects and furniture when combined with the slam but many of the games bosses practically require it. Don’t be surprised either if you find yourself compulsively firing plungers everywhere just to see what you can grab onto which is often rewarded with you finding more gold or collectibles. The final new skill and probably the most important one at that comes in the form of Gooigi a flubber esque doppleganger of Luigi that can be summoned at any time by pressing in on the right stick. You unlock him not far into the story but once you do this is where the game really starts to open up puzzle wise. Gooigi has a few distinct advantages over Luigi mainly being not effected by spikes and other hazards as well as being able to slip through pipes and metal grates to access new areas. But don’t think you can just use Gooigi all the time as his advantages are offset by a number of key weaknesses chief of which being he doesn’t handle water very well and he has less overall health than Luigi. These are pretty much all the skills you will be using through the whole game although there is one other ability you unlock relatively late in the game but its incredibly situational being only required once with other cases just being to retrieve a few optional collectibles.

Now how bout that Last Resort. The hotel itself is divided up between 17 floors total consisting of 15 main floors and two basement levels Unlike Dark Moon, Luigis Mansion 3 goes back to the single building setup of the first game but its amazing really how Next Level has managed to pack so much variety into a hotel. Initially you will be exploring typical hotel trappings such as state rooms, gift shops, and a dining area. However its not long before the floors start becoming more increasingly outlandish. One floor might have you exploring a medieval castle while in another floor you will be exploring a full fledged film studio to help a ghost director find his prized megaphone before ending up being cast in his own monster movie. Then you have a floor that somehow contains an entire Egyptian Pyramid riddled with booby traps. I could go on and on but I will keep the rest of the floors a secret so I don’t give everything away. Progression itself is relatively straight forward basically involving you traveling to a new floor solving some puzzles and fighting some ghosts before taking down the boss ghost of the area which generally rewards you with the elevator button to the next floor. If there is one niggle I have its that some floors seem somewhat more underutilized than others. Generally floors tend to alternate between being miniature dungeons and dedicated boss arenas. But I will say the more expansive floors really is where the level design really shines in the puzzle department The film studio floor being a major highlight with how you need to figure out the connections and interplay between various film sets. There were quite a few puzzles that actually did end up stumping me for a bit. Luigi’s focus on greater thinking and using your head is a perfect contrast to Mario’s general focus on platforming and action. The amount of interactivity packed into every area is impressive itself with each floor almost feeling like a miniature physics sandbox begging you to suck and smash everything. And your curiosity and rampant destruction is often rewarded with with piles of treasure or one of the floors 6 gems. The physics model is impressive in itself as smaller objects are easily brushed aside while larger items require your Poltergust to budge. It’s quite a treat especially during heated fight scenes with ghosts as you are slamming an enemy around and inadvertently smashing apart the room even more.

And I can’t help but discuss Luigi’s Mansion 3 without talking about the bosses. These are basically the successors to the portrait ghosts from the first Luigi’s Mansion and I will say without a doubt they are probably Luigi’s Mansion 3′s biggest highlight. These aren’t just glorified mini bosses that you have to take down for a key to another room, no these are full fledged bosses with their own fleshed out personalities and strategies. Each one serves as a perfect bookend to cap off their respective floor. A bumbling security guard with a squirt gun, a concert pianist with serious anger issues, a prehistoric caveman. an Egyptian ghost queen, and a trio of magician sisters are just a handful of the spooks you will encounter during your stay. I must admit I was surprised myself how many of the bosses can pose a decent challenge especially if you don’t know what your doing. These aren’t the typical Mario fare of 3 bops on the head and you’re done. Many of the later bosses especially will really test your knowledge and understanding of all your abilities in many cases forcing you to get creative with the tools you have. With one or two exceptions including a somewhat underwhelming final boss, these are probably some of the most memorable bosses I have seen in a Mario series game to date.

And the graphics, hot damn the graphics. The advancements made in graphics technology over the past 20 years has done wonders for video games in terms of presentation and Luigi’s Mansion 3 is a clear testament to that fact. In an age where developers seem to be trying to push more and more for the most realistic graphics possible, here you have companies like Nintendo to remind people that show that cartoon artstyles can really shine on modern hardware. Dark Moon was a wonderful showcase piece for the 3DS both graphically and technically although at times it felt like the game was a bit too much for the system it was made for. Now being free from the shackles of the weaker 3DS hardware has really allowed Next Level Games to go all out on the presentation and it definitely shows. The amount of care and detail packed into every corner of The Last Resort is second to none helping give every floor its own distinct identity. The games opening moments are a real treat with some pretty gorgeous lighting serving to highlight the initial grand opulence of the The Last Resort before the darkness takes over and the hotel reveals its true form. Its at this time the lighting really starts to shine with plenty of instances of dynamic lighting, shadows and reflections. Luigi’s Mansion 3 may lack the buttery smooth framerate of Super Mario Odyssey but I feel the sacrifice in performance has been justified and balanced out perfectly. Some of the performance warts from Dark Moon have also been lanced with the game maintaining a rock solid 30 frames per second throughout. And I can’t talk about graphics without discussing the animation quality. With Dark Moon Next Level was able to demonstrate how one can really highlight Luigi’s bumbling and cowardly personality and here that expressiveness has been cranked up to 11. I cant help but crack a smile  seeing Luigi shaking in terror at the presence of ghosts or reacting with surprise every time an elevator button magically flies out of his hand and screws itself into place . The bosses themselves are also a highlight with each one being wonderfully animated which helps highlight their personalities and quirks especially in the numerous cut scenes showing their interactions with Luigi which there are plenty of. I admit at times I couldn’t help but feel it was almost like I was looking at a borderline interactive Pixar movie. Each floor also has a ton of its own exclusive items and assets further cementing each floors sense of depth and identity.

There are also plenty of other little details and easter eggs to enjoy as well such as how you communicate with E Gadd using a modified Virtual Boy complete with a joke about the system’s absolute failure or the amount of pizza boxes that litter Mario’s hotel room. Or how about the fact that the boo and gem locator items you can purchase from E Gadd resemble actual Virtual Boy cartridges. And yes, you can in fact pet Polterpup in this game.

In terms of additional content each floor has 6 gems for you to find plus a Boo that appears once the floor has been cleared. The gems themselves  are the source of some of the games strongest puzzles often testing your abilities as well as your awareness of your surroundings. Hunting Boos is relatively similar to how it was in Dark Moon in that you examine the correct object based on the intensity of your controllers vibration then stun the Boo with your Dark Light before slamming it into submission. Both Gems and Boos provide a good incentive to revisit previous floors although the rewards you get for finding them all are relatively underwhelming mainly just being some minor cosmetic items.

To wrap things up there are a few minor gripes I have with the game. For one thing you are unable to remap controller bindings. Now this isn’t a major dealbreaker at all and the controls work fine for the most part but it can make certain actions such as using the dark light awkward since the dark light is mapped to the X button which makes it pretty much impossible to use the light and aim with the right analog stick at the same time. You do have the ability to aim via gyro controls but its mainly limited to just up and down. You can however make things a bit more comfortable by enabling move while poltergusting in the options menu. Some people may also be disappointed by the lack of interconnectedness between floors. Each floor is more or less its own self contained level which means you won’t be encountering any puzzles on one floor that effect the other. There are a few instances during the story when you will be required to revisit a previous floor but they are relatively far and few between. While there are the aforementioned items to purchase from E Gadd they basically amount to gold bones which act as extra lives and Boo and Gem locators which are somewhat pointless since no doubt many people will likely just resort to a guide to find the more obscure Boos and Gems. You will likely feel inclined to avoid spending as much as possible especially since like the first Luigi’s Mansion you are ranked at the end based on how much treasure you found.

On an additional note, I didn’t encounter any major glitches during the game except for a minor bug I ran into where the music suddenly cut out during a boss battle but that was pretty much it.

Ultimately, I find I highly enjoyed my stay in Luigi’s Mansion 3. This is no doubt one of my top picks for Nintendo Game of the Year. It may have taken over a decade but I think Luigi has finally cemented himself firmly and proven he can indeed stand  apart from his brother on his own two feet. If you decide to book a stay at The Last Resort you won’t be disappointed. I think its safe to say Next Level Games has cemented itself firmly as one of Nintendo’s top partner studios and I can only imagine what the future holds next for our favorite green underdog.

In the end I would rate Luigis Mansion 3 an 8/9 out of 10

EDIT Just a quick correction but I found the aiming issue can be in fact easily mitigated as the suction shot, strobulb, and dark light can all be activated with the L and R buttons.

[heroesmusings]

FULL NAME: Thor Odinson

MEANING: Thunder

NICKNAME: Pointbreak

MEANING: It’s what Tony calls him

AGE APPEARANCE: Appears 36, actually over 1000

BIRTHDAY: Unknown

ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Unknown

SPECIES: Asgardian God

GENDER: Cis male

ALLERGIES: None

SEXUAL PREFERENCE: Pansexual 

THEME SONG(S): Thunder by Imagine Dragons, Sunlight by Hozier, Lover of the Light by Mumford and Sons, Young Volcanoes by Fall Out Boy

APPEARANCE

HAIR COLOR:  Dark Blonde

HAIR STYLE AND LENGTH: At times it can be long to shoulder length but also can be buzzed on the side with a little more on top 

EYES COLOR: Blue

EYESIGHT: 20/20 he’s a gOD

HEIGHT: 6″6′

WEIGHT: 235 lbs

OUTFIT/CLOTHING STYLE: Usually he wears his Asgardian get up but when he dresses down he wears jeans and a hoodie

ABNORMALITIES: Missing an eye

DISTINGUISHING MARKS(SCARS,MOLES): Many battle scars cover his body

SELF CARE(MAKE UP): Sometimes sports a beard

FIRST IMPRESSION ON PEOPLE: He looks big and intimidating but he’s actually super friendly once spoken to  

SKIN COLOR: White to tan

BODY TYPE/BUILD: He’s built like a goddamn GOD, there is no way to explain it.. He’s big and made of pure muscle 

DEFAULT EXPRESSION: He tends to look serious just because he was raised a prince 

POSTURE: Thor has perfect posture he was PRINCE OKAY 

PIERCINGS: None 

DESCRIBE THEIR VOICE: Thor’s voice is deep, with a bit of a forgien accent and when angry his voice carries like thunder 

RELATIONS:

MOM: Frigga

HOW WELL DO THEY GET ALONG: Thor was so close to his mother, he adored her with all his heart and misses her every day

DAD: Odin

HOW WELL DO THEY GET ALONG: Thor has mixed feelings when it comes to his father. He used to think of him as a good man but as things came to light and realized some things Thor has slowly come to realize that Odin was never a good father 

SIBLINGS: Hela, Loki

HOW WELL DO THEY GET ALONG: Thor loves his brother, sees the good in him but Loki doesn’t like him and neither did Hela…. So not well. 

CHILDREN: N/A

HOW WELL DO THEY GET ALONG: N/A

OTHER FAMILY MEMBERS: N/A

PAST LOVER(S): Many one night stands, Jane Foster (ex-girlfriend)

CURRENT LOVER: Bruce Banner

REACTION TO MEETING SOMEONE NEW: He likes making friends he’s really a sweet guy

ABILITY TO WORK WITH OTHERS: Thor is very easy to work with and loves to work with people 

HOW SOCIABLE(LONER,ETC): Thor is vERY sociable he loves going out and being around people 

FRIENDS: Hemidall, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Carol Danvers, Bucky Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Clint Barton and literally anyone else

PETS: None

LEAST FAVORITE TYPE OF PERSON: Anyone who thinks they can take advantage of meeker people 

PARENTAL TYPE(PROTECTIVE,ETC): Playful and Protective 

FAVORITE PEOPLE: Bruce, Steve, Bucky and Hemidall 

LEAST FAVORITE PEOPLE: The Dark Elves, Thaons, 

PERSONALITY:

..WHEN YOU FIRST MEET THEM: He looks regal from a distance but he’s very warm and friendly 

..AS YOU KNOW THEM BETTER(AND THEY LIKE YOU): Teasing, Excitable, Gentle

..AS YOU KNOW THEM BETTER(AND THEY DISLIKE YOU): Gruff, Cold, Confrontational 

FAVORITE COLOR: Silver 

FAVORITE FOOD: a stew his mother would make

FAVORITE ANIMAL: ALL ANIMALS, but he’s partial to snakes

FAVORITE INSTRUMENT: ALL OF THEM?

FAVORITE ELEMENT: Fire

LEAST FAVORITE COLOR: White

LEAST FAVORITE FOOD: Weird midgard foods

LEAST FAVORITE ANIMAL: NONE HE LOVES THEM ALL 

LEAST FAVORITE INSTRUMENT: None?

LEAST FAVORITE ELEMENT: Water

HOBBIES: training, video games, learning anything he can about earth

USUAL MOOD: Usually in a good mood

DRINK/SMOKE/DRUGS: Drinks socially

DARK VERSION OF SELF: Thor would be the perfect weapon, powerful and unforgiving, the realms would tremble at his feet

LIGHT VERSION OF SELF: close to what he is now, happy and unworried 

HOW SERIOUS ARE THEY: IF the situation is a tense one he’s very serious but other than that he’s rather joyful

BELIEVE IN GHOSTS: Yes and no?? He can connect to the allfather but that’s it

(IN)DEPENDANT: Thor thinks himself rather independent but he’s not. He’s very connected to everyone he loves

SOFT SPOT/VULNERABILITY: Talking about any of his family, when people try to threaten the avengers, people hating Hulk

OPINION ON SWEARING: He’s rather clean spoken just because he's a prince

DAREDEVIL VS CAUTIOUS: oooh daredevil

MUSIC TYPE: he leans towards what Steve tends to play, he also loves classical music and typical asgardian music 

MOVIE TYPE: Anything ANYTHING 

BOOK TYPE: Again Thor loves to learn so anything 

GAME TYPE: If it’s Asgardian games, it’s anything that has to do with brute strength or drinking -- human ones he doesn’t really care about

COMFORTABLE TEMPERATURE: Thor likes it a little on the cooler side

SLEEPING PATTERN: When Thor is out HE’S FUCKING OUT, he’s a rock its impossible to move him. 

CLEANLINESS/NEATNESS: Thor is used to being cleaned up after but he is polite so he keeps it as clean as he can

DESIRED PET: ALL PETS EVER

HOW DO THEY PASS TIME: Helping rebuild Asgard

BIGGEST SECRET: I don’t know if Thor really has any secrets? He’s an open book anyone can ask him anything

HERO/WHO THEY LOOK UP TO: His mother, Frigga

WHAT ANIMAL WOULD THEY BE: the biggest puppy dog on eaRTH

FEARS: Bruce getting hurt, anything happening to the avengers, and losing Asgard again

COMFORTS: Being around the avengers, spending alone time with Bruce and training

HOW DO THEY ACT WHEN THEY ARE:

SAD: Thor is a prince, he has always been told to hide negative emotions, so Thor bottles it up, he puts on a brave face because he is a warrior and royal. So for a long time no one knows he’s sad until he starts pulling away and secluding himself 

HAPPY: Thor is like a ray of sunshine, he talks fast, and tends to just want to touch and laugh

ANGRY: ……………………...AN ANGRY GOD IS NOT SOMETHING YOU WANT. It’s pure rage, the sky turns black -- a storm swirls above him and he’s lit up with lightning. He’s brutal and will not show mercy 

AFRAID: Thor doesn’t really fear? He’s never been allowed to fear. He’s a god and he knows his powers but when he is he tries to face it head on, take it by the horns and conquer it. 

LOVE SOMEONE: Gentle, and understanding -- he cares deeply about them and checks up on them often. He’s always around and is expressing his admiration for them 

HATE SOMEONE: He’s cold, which is a VERY rare thing for thor. He doesn’t hate many but its an angry hate, so if he hates you, then you’ve done something so wrong

WANT SOMETHING: He asks permission.. That is what he was taught to do, so he’s polite as he requests whatever it is.

CONFUSED: He wants it explained to him he loves learning okay 

HOW DO THEY REACT TO:

DANGER: THOR LOVES DANGER, but he’s protective if it involves people he loves

SOMEONE THEY HATE WHO HAS A CRUSH ON THEM: I’m sorry if but Thor hate you you are dead no way around it so YOU CANT HAVE A CRUSH 

PROPOSAL TO MARRY: Thor would be ????? so confused. He would have not expected such a thing but he’d of course say yes and would want a human and an asgardian wedding 

DEATH OF LOVED ONE: He interlizes it, he hasn’t ever had a proper way to express his mourning.. He’s still recovering from the death of his family. 

DIFFICULT GAME/MATH/ETC: He’d try the best he can, and usually he figures it out

INJURY: ...he’s a god so he’d just take it as a badge of honor

SOMETHING IRRESISTABLY CUTE: He would want to squish thank you

LOSS OF HOURS OF WORK: Thor doesn’t LOSE hours of work okay he’s always wanted on missions 

KNOWLEDGE:

LANGUAGES: Thor has allspeak so literally everything

SCHOOLING LEVEL: Graduated from formal Asgardian education and warrior school 

FAVORITE SUBJECT (S): Ya know… fighting 

INTERESTED CAREERS: Valkyrie until he realized it was for women only 

EXPERTISE: asgardian physiology, weather manipulation, flight, electric manipulation, combat

PUZZLES: Thor would rather hand them off to someone else so he can do other things

CHEMISTRY: for human, not so great at that because he’s not from earth but asgardian chemistry he excelled in it

MATH: Again, human math? Not so great but Asgard? Expert 

ENGLISH: HE didn’t HAVE ENGLISH 

GEOGRAPHY: he knows how to get to realm to realm 

POLITICS/LAW: Given he’s a prince he had to be very involved in all of it

ECONOMY/ACCOUNTING: Again a prince so its his job

COOKING: Nope not at all, he’s always had things cooked for him

SEWING: Medical sewing he’s okay at

MECHANICS: This is just way over Thor’s head all of it

BOTANY (FLOWERS): Not really interested in all of that 

MYTHOLOGY: HE IS THE MYTH

DRAMATICS(ACTING,SINGING): Not for him, for Loki maybe

READING LEVEL: Proficient in all languages 

HOW GOOD ARE THEY AT PLANNING AHEAD: somewhat? He did have to do battle strategies 

ROMANCE:

DO THEY TAKE INITIATIVE: Yes ALL THE TIME, he’s so touch

HOW DO THEY ACT(SHY,ETC): He’s fairly forward honestly 

GENTLEMAN/LADYLIKE VS KLUTZY: A GENTLEMAN HE’S PRINCE

GO SLOW VS JUMP INTO: With people before Bruce? He usually just jumped right in but he likes taking it slow with Bruce 

PROTECTIVE: uh hell yeah

ACT LIKE FRIENDS OR LOVERS: Both 

WHAT KIND OF PRESENTS DO THEY BUY: Thor likes bringing Bruce all sorts of things from Asgard honestly, anything that he thinks Bruce will like he brings

TYPE OF KISSER: Surprisingly, Thor is a very soft and gentle lover. So his kisses are the same, gentle but VERY through

DO THEY WANT KIDS: i don’t…. Know. i actually don’t think it’s crossed his mind?

DO THEY WANT TO MARRY: YES YES 

MAKE GOOD OR BAD DECISIONS: Uh both, but he likes to think he’s got good intentions 

ARE THEY ROMANTIC: yes OF COURSE

HOW ARE THEY IN BED: Thor’s a god.. And he’s very well versed so sleeping with Thor is truly otherworldly

GET JEALOUS EASY: Actually no, not really

WIFE/HUBBY BEATER: NEVER

MARRY FOR MONEY: LMAO NO NOT AT ALL

FAVORITE POSITION: oh my god.. he for sure likes to top.. Really any position he just likes intimacy 

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN ON THEIR DREAM DATE: DATE ON ASGARD, he wants to treat Bruce to a perfect evening on asgard filled with food and magic and science and watch the sunset over the water

OPINION ON SEX: Sex is almost a ritual to him? It’s a very important and meaningful thing..  He never takes having sex lightly. Its meant to be a celebration of intimacy.

[hermannsthumb]

Okay, but if Newt's the sexy mechanic, then Hermann's the sexy tech guy. Newt will come up to Hermann like "Dr. Gottlieb, my laptop is having some issues. Could you maybe take a look at it, please?" "Newton, I know full well this is a problem you can fix easily." "PLEASE, Dr. Gottlieb? I'd just feel SO much better if someone like ~*you*~ would look at it."

see i saw this ask and automatically decided you meant “tech guy hermann au that’s not even sexy” and ran with it so thank you for enabling me :)

Hermann is not officially campus technology support, nor, technically, is it something he’d even supposed to be consulting in without the proper university-sanctioned credentials, but the technology support they used to have was so bloody awful that half the time computers came back in worse shape than they were going in, so around six months ago Hermann simply...decided to take matters into his own hands. A coup d’état, so to speak. When he’s not lecturing on astrophysics, or lecturing on advanced mathematics, or holding office hours, Hermann’s consulting in technology services and training the undergraduates there via workstudy how to properly do their jobs. 

They’ve had a marked rise in consultations since Hermann took over, which Hermann supposes is to be expected as a side effect of competence.

They’ve had a marked rise in consultations with one man in particular.

Dr. Geiszler is the head of the biology department, lectures in both biochemistry and engineering, and--if rumors are to be believed--completed grad school in his teen years and has at least six PhDs to show for it. By all accounts, he’s a veritable genius. It’s why, for the life of him, Hermann cannot figure out why Dr. Geiszler has come to technology services more times than Hermann can count in the past three weeks.

The first time was understandable: Dr. Geiszler burst into the office shouting, frantically, about how his computer crashed and he lost nearly twenty-five student assignments, so Hermann--pitying him, one educator to another--sat him down and took care of it himself. After that, it was less understandable. Dr. Geiszler’s computer was making a weird noise and he didn’t know why. Dr. Geiszler somehow managed to uninstall his trackpad. Dr. Geiszler accidentally deleted all of his shortcut icons for applications. Dr. Geiszler was sure his wifi was broken, until Hermann pointed out he’d merely turned his laptop’s internet connection off. Dr. Geiszler forgot how to change his desktop background.

Today, when Hermann sees that familiar, scruffy, bespectacled head poking over the counter of the front desk, he does not even bother logging Dr. Geiszler into their appointment system, just sighs and motions him back.

“Hiya, Hermann,” Geiszler says, dropping into the swivel chair next to Hermann but refusing to sit in it properly, simply straddling it backwards. “How’s it going?” Hermann does not, truthfully, mind Dr. Geiszler’s complete lack of professionalism, nor the fact that he bypasses titles and simply calls Hermann by his first name, but Hermann feels as if he ought to put up a front and makes a face every time anyway.

“What have you done today?” Hermann says, and Geiszler laughs weakly before pulling his laptop out of a tote bag that’s more enamel pins than fabric.

“Would you believe it?” Geiszler says. “I managed to delete my email account.”

Geiszler did not, actually, delete his email account--he’d merely logged out of it--and once Hermann shows him this in five minutes Geiszler shakes his head in amazement (like Hermann cured cancer on the spot and not, in fact, merely entered “gmail” into the search bar). “Wow, Hermann,” he says. “You’re so good with computers. I wish I could be that good.”

“You have a doctorate in engineering,” Hermann says.

“And you’re still better than me at this shit,” Geiszler says, and then pats Hermann’s arm like he’s congratulating him. “Congratulations. That’s pretty impressive, dude.” He does not remove his hand. Geiszler has tattoos, Hermann notices. Geiszler also has very strong hands.

Hermann clears his throat. “Dr. Geiszler,” he begins, and Geiszler shakes his head and smiles.

“Just call me Newt,” he says, and squeezes Hermann’s arm lightly, companionably.

“Newton,” Hermann corrects (because he refuses to use that nickname), face heating up for unknown reasons, “I have another appointment, so if you would--”

Newton drops his hand. “Right,” he says. “Sorry.”

Hermann finishes up for the afternoon at one so as to be on time for the lecture he’s got to give at one-thirty, but he’s stopped by the sophomore Physics major who works the front desk on his way out the door. “Just so you know, Dr. Gottlieb,” she says, and Hermann swivels on his cane, “Dr. Geiszler’s almost exceeded his maximum allotted amount of appointments for the month.”

Hermann pulls his glasses up to peer over her shoulder at her computer screen, where she’s pulled up Newton’s data profile; sure enough, Newton has stopped by tech services ten times since January. Eleven times, if Hermann would’ve logged him in today. The maximum they allow per month is twelve, but Hermann can’t remember the last time they had someone make more than four. Newton is a special case. “Should I send him a warning email?” the sophomore says.

“No,” Hermann says. “Don’t bother with the limit for Dr. Geiszler.” He doesn’t imagine Newton’ll pay much attention to the warning, anyway, just plead with Hermann for an appointment until Hermann finally caves in. “You can simply automatically assign him with me.”

A new email pops up in the corner of the front desk’s PC; it’s from Dr. Geiszler. After Hermann nods at her, the girl opens it. “Dr. Geiszler’s requested another appointment with you tomorrow,” she says. “He says...his speakers aren’t working.”

Hermann narrows his eyes. “He requested me?”

“He usually does,” the girl says, and scrolls through the tech services email inbox until she finds a folder marked ‘Dr. Geiszler’ (made at Hermann’s behest). At least eight emails, all after that very first appointment with Hermann, all requesting an appointment with--at first--the full honorary title Dr. Gottlieb, and then devolving into Hermann. “I made him an appointment with someone else one time and he cancelled it.”

“I see,” Hermann says, frowning and--to his surprise--mildly embarrassed. “Yes. Ah. Thank you.”

He hurries out.

When Newton shows up for his appointment the next morning--“I don’t know what I did, Hermann, but the sound just stopped working!”--and it turns out to be yet another easy fix (he had his computer on mute), Hermann decides he’s had enough. “Newton,” he says. “I know full well this was a problem you could’ve fixed easily. All of your problems have been problems you could’ve fixed easily.”

“Yeah,” Newton says quickly, “but, uh, I just feel better having someone like you look at--”

Hermann holds up his hand and cuts him off. “Why are you really here?”

He expects Newton will make some elaborate excuse, but to his surprise, Newton quickly drops his clueless act, shrugs, and grins. “You wanna get dinner?” he says.

“Dinner?”

“With me,” Newton adds. “And on me. If that wasn’t clear.”

“That is,” Hermann splutters, because his first instinct was to give an enthusiastic yes (Newton is messy and scruffy and infuriatingly attractive) but he thinks, reasonably, he should play at least somewhat hard to get, “I don’t. This whole time--?”

“Yep,” Newton says.

“That’s a horrendous abuse of campus resources,” Hermann says, though the past month suddenly makes a great deal more sense, and then, to Newton’s obvious glee, “Oh, yes. Alright. Dinner.”

Newton continues making appointments, but he and Hermann usually spend them in far more conductive ways after that: Hermann’s office is private, after all.

[foxrun-fluffery]

The Greatest Distance

Summary: Thorin’s company is displaced in time by Gandalf, due to an emergency. They land in front of country girl Piper and her son. After recognizing them, mostly, she realizes that in no way can they be left on their own in this modern world, and now she has to cope with some of the strangest house guests ever!

Tag List: @sdavid09, @fallnangelcreations @sherala007 (I tried)

CHAPTER FOUR

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Dinner and a deconstruction

By the time the meat was cooked, and the potatoes mashed, Piper realized she had lost track of the dwarves milling about her property. Riordan and the three youngest were still out in the yard, having fun. Riordan had gotten Fili, Kili, and Ori into a game of tag. Through some careful chit chat with Bombur and Bilbo, she had discovered that the company had not yet encountered the trolls, but had dealt with the rain she recalled Dori referring to as a ‘deluge’ and the wizard telling Bilbo about the other four wizards. She realized the poor hobbit had little time to endear himself to the dwarves yet, aside from filling their stomachs on that first meeting. They hadn’t yet met the brown wizard, nor the elves. As she could recall, Thorin’s attitude did shift after Rivendell or Imladris, she did like the elvish name for it, but imagined the dwarves would not. Not that she would mention it, thinking it only as a passing thought.

Seeing a figure pass by the doorway, she leaned out, “Oh, Gloin! Could you please let everyone know dinner is about ready?” That certainly seemed to get him perked up and trotting quickly out the door. “Bofur, could you give me a hand with the table?” “Aye, settin’ it then?” He asked, getting up from where he had sprawled on her overly plush sofa. It was comfortable, and he was regretting that Thorin had already staked it out as his bed for their stay. While Piper had guest rooms, she said they would have to wait until she emptied the stuff she had stored in them out. For tonight the floor would do. He hurried to her side, smiling brightly up at her. Some part of his brain had always regretted the height of human females, but this time he found he didn’t mind it at all. No, even her strangely short and brightly colored hair wasn’t at all disconcerting. It fascinated him, like a cut gemstone.

“Nope, gotta put the leaf in, otherwise we’ll never fit everyone in here.” Piper quickly guided him through adding the extra sections to the table, and was rather amused by his curiosity about the extended table. She grinned as he crawled under it to inspect the mechanism, and how he watched as all of the pieces fit together. In all likelihood she had just changed the way tables were made in Middle Earth from now on. Then she went to get the dishes out, humming a little tune as she did.

“Ah, do ye sing, lass?” Bofur asked curiously, having finished his examination of her dining table, he had appeared at her side.

Piper jumped slightly, realizing she was quickly adapting to the loud steps of the dwarves she hadn’t really taken notice of him coming up on her. “Me? Ehh… not a whole lot. Mostly just lullabies for Rio, though he’s starting to outgrow them. Anymore he only wants me to sing for him when he’s sick.” Her smile was a touch sad, for she felt, as most parents did, that her little boy was growing too quickly. “He’s so independant already.” She sighed, bittersweet.

Bofur reached out to take a stack of plates from her, and he lightly set his hand on her forearm. “He’s a good lad, that boy. Ye have every right t’ be proud o’ him.”

“Growing up with just me to raise him, he’s had to learn a lot, and fast.” Piper’s expression softened under his touch, and she nodded gently. “He’s bright, he likes working with his hands, there’s a whole bunch of old tools in the shop that are his, he’s always tinkering with bits and pieces of things. My grandpa sort of hoarded everything, so Rio’s had a lot to experiment with.”

This made Bofur laugh, grinning brightly. “Aye, he’d make a great dwarf then!”

Smirking, Piper eyed him, “That’s a helluva compliment.” There was a moment, she and he held each other’s gaze. He was admiring her, and she was studying him, wondering what he thought, how she and her boy seemed to the dwarves. “With luck, anything he learns from you guys will be positive.”

“Aye!” Bofur mocked indignance, “How could it no’ be?!”

By then others were drifting in, attracted by the smell of the roasts cooking. Each member of the company was happy to lend a hand in setting the table. Though Piper wasn’t certain she appreciated their method, she wasn’t surprised by it. Claiming herself a spot out of the way, she watched her plates being tossed and flung through the air, along with the silverware. Someone, she thought it was Nori, starting humming a light tune, and soon the others were humming or wordlessly singing along. She realized they were using the beat of the song to keep track of each other’s movements. How ingenious!

Riordan had come in near the end of the table being set, Balin keeping a hand on the boy’s shoulder so he didn’t dash right into the middle of it. Still the boy clapped along and cheered when they were done. “Momma, can we set the table like that all the time?!”

Piper barked a laugh and shook her head, “No way, half-pint, I can’t afford the dishes you’d break!” With a grin, she jumped forward, sweeping the four year old up and onto her hip, tickling his ribs and making him shriek with laughter. “Okay, young man,” she set him back on the ground, hiding a wince from him. He was getting far too big to be carrying about like that. “Go wash up.”

The boy gave his typical groan, but he ran off to the bathroom to do what he was told, a few of the dwarves, and the hobbit, following suit. Some of the older or more stubbornly set in their ways ones stayed and took their seats at the table.

Piper, Bombur, and Bofur all brought trays of food over, while upon his return from washing, Bilbo managed the numerous bottles and containers, in a quick dash back and forth, of things Piper told him were condiments. He’d never seen bottles like that, nor had he heard of a few of the things she set out. Whatever “sour cream” was, though it sounded wholly unappetizing even to a hobbit, she insisted it was set on the table, along with the bacon crumbles she had cooked off, and the diced chives. He also was directed to a big bag of shredded cheese, and a bottle of “ranch dressing” as the woman told him that was the only way Riordan would eat his potatoes. That was a shocker to the little hobbit. Someone who didn’t like potatoes!?

Once they had everything set, with glasses of water, much to the disheartenment of the dwarves, everyone sat down. Thorin sat at Piper’s side, as everyone insisted she had the head of the table. Riordan naturally was at her other side, and the others filed in. Bombur was more than happy to cut the food, after giving her serving utensils a good looking over and an approving nod. Though the dwarves seemed to take their food in a rather raucous fashion, Piper insisted that Riordan use his best manners still.

Bofur, who was sitting on the other side of Riordan, reigned in his jovial eating habits to set a good example for the boy, though he did so in a playful way. Sometimes he would be so polite it was very clearly over the top, and other times he’d challenge the boy to cut his meat in certain sizes and shapes, keeping him from cramming huge mouthfuls in after he saw the look of disapproval from his mother at one particularly giant bite. At the boy’s insistence, he gave the ranch dressing a try on his potatoes and had to agree that it did make them a great deal better. However, he had bargained with the boy that he would try the ranch, if Riordan would eat chives on his potatoes.

Piper smiled, watching the dwarf and her boy, wondering for the hundredth time throughout the last four years, how life would have been different if they’d have a more normal family. But then again, normal wasn’t really their thing. She turned to Thorin, smiling pleasantly. “So, have you got everything figured out for wood cutting? I can always run in and get things we’d need.”

“We?” He mused, arching a brow at her as he chewed his roast.

“Of course! I grew up cutting wood, you don’t think I’d make you do it all yourselves!” Piper scoffed, shaking her head at him with an amused twinkle in her eyes. “I told you, I’d do what I can to help all of you here.”

Canting his head slightly, in a grateful nod, Thorin smiled. “I appreciate that. We will need your guidance to make sure we’re doing the job acceptable to the standards of this world.” He looked to his plate then and then back up, “This is a fine meal, we’re very grateful.”

Piper blushed, “Well, Bombur and Bilbo were both wonderful help getting it prepared.” She turned and found her fellow cooks at the table and smiled at them. “Bilbo is quite good with his seasonings, even I’m impressed, and I usually everyone says I’ve got a good sense for flavors.”

Bilbo’s cheeks, too, pinkened, “It’s nothing really, just some things my mother used to use when I was growing up.” He cast a warm quick look at Riordan. “I’m just happy to pass them on.”

The woman chuckled, “Oh yes, I’ve written down everything you used, I’ll be doing my best to copy it in the future.” She lifted her head a little, hearing amongst the soft and less than soft chatter at the table, someone bemoaning the lack of mead or ale. She noticed that Thorin had heard it too, and she grinned, “You know, if anyone here drank so much at every meal, they’d be written of as an alcoholic. You dwarves must have one hell of a constitution.”

The king cracked a smile, venturing even to laugh. “That we do. It’s probably best your kind do not try to keep up,” He told her with no malice, it was simply fact to him. Men could not drink like a dwarf. “We have a greater appreciation for well crafted ale, is all.”

Piper let the conversation fall for a while, as everyone filled their stomachs. She spoke up after a while, addressing the king once more. “Without risk of offending anyone, can I ask a question about dwarves? There are few details known and a number that are suspected, but we’re not certain.”

“Very well,” Thorin wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat back in his seat, his meal eaten and his stomach filled comfortably. True, all of them could eat a good deal more, but this was enough to satisfy for now. “What do you wish to know?”

“Do dwarvish braids have meaning?”

The king’s brows rose, and he was surprised that details such as that had filtered to this world. “Yes, they do. The braids and the ornamentation on them.” He motioned his own, “Mine display that I am warrior, this,” He indicated a decorated clasp behind his ear, “bears the crest of my house.” He motioned for Fili and Kili and both turned to show their own clasps that looked very much the same. “Had their father been alive, he would have made those for them. In his absence I crafted them myself.”

“And mine,” Gloin piped up then, taking cue from their leader that it was acceptable to speak about it, “Show my standing in the banker’s guild.” He motioned to the evenly spaced braids in his beard.

Dwalin puffed, his shoulders square as he held his head up with pride. “I mark my braid with victories in battle.”

“So you choose what you wear then, or is there a sort of baseline?” Piper had leaned forward, looking at each of them as they spoke, noticing their pride.

“Everyone chooses what they want to represent, what they take pride in, or what means the most to them.” Thorin explained.

Dori grinned, pointing to his youngest brother. “Ori has started his set of braids in the scholars guild.”

The young dwarf in question smiled sheepishly, and tilted his head to show the braids in his own hair and beard. “I’d like to earn a warriors braid too.”

“Oh hush you’re doing quite fine!” Dori admonished, not liking the thought of his brother in danger such as battle.

“I’m sure you’ll do great things, Ori.” Piper smiled reassuringly to him, glad to see his smile grew more confident.

“And this one,” Gloin spoke up again, “Me wife an’ I braided on our wedding day! This she crafted for me!” He showed her a slim braid that was nearly hidden in his bushy hair, and an intricately detailed bead that bound the end. “She has one I made of course.”

“That’s beautiful, Gloin. I can see she really loves you, so much detail!” Piper exclaimed, rising a little to lean across the table and see his bead clearly. She didn’t miss the way his eyes misted. “I’m sure she misses you just as much as you miss her.”

“Aye.” He said, quietly, and he ran his finger over the bead before he tucked it away into his wild hair again. Although he was misty eyed, he had a warm smile on his face, and his brother was watching him fondly, as were a few others. They all appreciated families and the like, even if most dwarves never married.

Nori caught Piper looking towards him next and he pursed his lips, clearly not sharing, yet he gave her a wink.He grinned at her smirk, seeing the determination growing in her eyes.

“I want braids!” Riordan piped up suddenly, looking around at everyone, and smiling when it started an uproarious laugh around the table.

“Maybe, if you had enough hair,” Dwalin chuckled, amused at the boy’s declaration.

The child had a very short cut, that wasn’t even uncommon among dwarven children. As much as they did like their hair, until a child was old enough to help wash, and to keep their hair from getting sticky and messy things tangled into it, short hair was not unseen. It wasn’t until a child was around eight or nine that their parents allowed their hair to grow, by then the little dwarfling was mature enough to take care of it to a degree. Their mothers still tended to the most of the care, in particular the brushing and braiding, but the children could help wash it then.

Riordan pouted, looking around at the dwarves at their table. “How long does it take to grow?” Piper chuckled, “If you wanna grow your hair out, it’ll be a while.” Knowing her boy he’d change his mind four times before it was ever long enough to do anything with. “But remember the last time your hair got long?” Riordan looked down at his plate, nodding quietly. He remembered. Oh did he remember. It had only been a couple of months ago. Thinking about it, he reached up and rubbed the side of his head. “Yeah…”

Piper caught a few curious glances and explained, “He got a sticky candy stuck in his hair when he fell asleep on it. And that’s why we had to cut his hair all off.” She chuckled, seeing her boy still pouting about it. “I think that was a lesson well learned.” Seeing everyone had just about finished up, she rose, startled when a number of them started to rise too. Ah, old fashioned manners. “Settle down boys. I’m just gonna go get us some tea.”

“Momma, can we have a soda?” Riordan asked, sounding as sweet and hopeful as he could.

“What’s soda?” Kili asked, looking from the boy to his mother.

Hearing his question, and the way the others gradually fell silent, Piper knew the dwarves behind her were all waiting for her answer. Quickly she debated a few factors, how much soda she had, and the risks of giving the dwarves caffeine.. .eh, you only live once! “Yeah, kiddo, sure.”

“Root beer floats?”

“Now you’re pushing it.” Piper laughed, shaking her head at her son and going to get the case of soda she had in the walk-in pantry. She distributed cans to the dwarves, setting one the table before each, quietly got their attention with a hand held up, then demonstrated how to pop the top on the cans. The dwarves, to her amusement, followed suit in a split second, and then there was a mixed reaction after that.

Nori, Balin, Gloin, Dwalin, Bifur, Dori, and Oin all stopped to sniff their drink first. Thorin and Bofur were both looking at Piper, though with very different expressions. Bofur seemed almost to forget he had a drink, and Thorin waited to say a polite thank you, before he raised his can to sip. The rest of the dwarves however, instantly went to chug their drinks. Most of them got the wonderful sensation of bubbles up the nose, and they stopped to clap hands over their noses, objecting in either language. And Nori gave a fine belch, but Kili outshadowed him. Riordan, feeling it was, this time, acceptable, followed suit and got a cheer from some of the dwarves for his attempt. But it was, as had happened before, Ori who won the prize. All the while, the quiet hobbit was grimacing at the belches and sipping as politely as he could, though he kept having to stop to rub his nose, looking mildly amused at the tickle.

“Mighty unusual drink, this!” Balin said, sniffling and rubbing his nose. “It’s got bubbles in it like nothing else!” He did seem to be enjoying it though. In fact, not a one of the dwarves had stopped drinking their soda for long.

“There are tons of flavors, but we just have this one right now. It’s very sugary, so we don’t drink it very often.” Piper explained. “Glad you all like it.” Then she rose to start clearing the emptied plates, but found a hand on her wrist. She looked up, surprised, at Thorin.

“Allow us. It’s very kind of you to prepare the meal, and offer your home. The least we can do is help clean up.” Thorin gave the others a pointed look, and soon Piper was privy to a clean up scene not too dissimilar to the one from a certain movie. Though, as when the table had been set, they only hummed a tune, rather than setting to a full song. Bombur, having learned how the sink worked, no longer got to polish off leftovers, but was in charge, with Bifur, of washing plates.

Riordan was sent off to wash up, as he had ranch dressing all over his face. He didn’t return, instead going to his room to play for a while, before his mother stuffed him into pajamas and sent him to bed.

Once dinner was cleaned up, for it was simply a matter of doing the dishes, as there were no leftovers at all, the dwarves settled in, sitting around the den. A few started to pull out pipes and flint, and their tobacco pouches. Only Bofur saw Piper grimace at the sight, though she didn’t actually forbid them. He looked down at his pipe in his hands that he was filling just then. Did the people here not smoke at all? “Uhm… is it… is it alright, lass, if we smoke?”

“Mmm yeah, just not on my white couch, okay? Even the best cleaners don’t get the smell out all the way.” Piper also didn’t want any pipe ash ground into the fabric. “Alright, if you guys are good for now, I should go get some more work done on this project I’ve got going. Should be a nice big payout if I can get it working, but the deadline is coming up.”

Bofur smiled kindly, nodding his head, “Best o’ luck t’ ye, lass.” He watched her as she walked out, his gaze lingering, his pipe forgotten. Until he heard a snickering from the young princes. Then he turned and saw most of the others were looking at him. “Oi! Mind yer own!” He waved them off, trying to hide the way his face heated up. “Pesky nosy lot o’ ya…”

“Oi, Nori! I didn’t get you those fancy sleeves to get them all greased up! How did you even manage that?!” Dori griped, looking at the smudges on Nori’s intricately stitched sleeves. “What did you get into to make that mess?” Nori ducked his head, looking down at his sleeves. Sure enough there was a smear or five of dark grease on them, that could almost be mistaken for orc blood, if it wasn’t for the smell. “Uh, we just looked around… kind of well… come see.” Grabbing his brother’s wrist, he pulled Dori up and out of the room to the front door. Ori, Balin, Fili, Kili, Bifur, Bombur, Oin and Gloin all followed along, either part of the guilty party, or very curious. Nori lead them to the garage beside the house, thinking it was some sort of workshop. There he pointed to some sort of deconstructed contraption. “See? We uh… well we got a little carried away.” He scratched the back of his neck nervously, shuffling his feet from side to side.

“Lad… ye have to put it back t’gether.” Oin grumbled, “It wasn’t yers to take apart!”

Gloin coughed, knowing he had been a part of the trouble. “We didn’t mean to, it just looked… useful.”

Balin sighed, shaking his head, “Of course it was useful, for whatever purpose it had before!” He rolled his eyes, not to unlike what his brother might have done. “Do any of you remember how it all went together?” “I think we lost a couple of parts…” Nori admitted. “Fix this!” Balin insisted sharply. “Before the lass finds out.” He turned and headed back to the house, stroking his beard irritably. “Curious bunch of half-wits,” he mumbled as he walked back in the front door. What were they thinking!? His thoughts must have been obvious, both his brother and their king approached him.

“What have they done?” Thorin asked, his voice low as the three stood, huddled, Dwalin at his shoulder looking stern.

The elder dwarf sighed heavily, “Seems they found some machine in the workshop and have taken it apart, and lost a piece, and it seems they don’t quite know how to put it back together.”

Thorin grimaced, rubbing a hand over his face. “Balin, Dwalin, go supervise them. I’ll… talk to Piper about it.” Huffing, he turned, knowing the two brothers would be just the motivation the rest needed to fix their mess. He descended the basement stairs and followed the short hallway to the room he saw a light in and knocked, then he heard her call to him, so he opened the door. He wasn’t sure what she was doing, she was curled up in a chair, in front of a flat slab that stood upright on a stand, tapping away at a panel of little buttons. “Piper?”

“Mmm just one second okay? Kinda… middle of… numbers….” She typed away furiously, trying to remember the sequence as she entered it. Not realizing she had just asked the heir to the crown of Erebor, the wandering king of the dwarves, to wait for her.

The heir in question didn’t mind at all, he was looking around the room, studying everything. There were a ton of electronics, which he didn’t recognize of course, and schematics on the walls to great vessels, but by the design he couldn’t comprehend how they could float on water. What even was a turbolift or a power nacelle? This Enterprise vessel was a strange one. Then there were pictures in frames. They were so clear he almost expected them to come alive. But there was Piper, Riordan, and a number of people who looked similar to them by their features, so he guessed they were her family. He found himself looking closely at them, smiling when he could see they were clearly enjoying themselves in each picture. Nowhere were there any formal portraits, but daily life images, smiles and fun and memories. It made his heart happy to see such things, but at the same time he ached for the dwarves lost when Erebor fell, and the hardships that fell upon them after. There were few smiles and happy memories made then. He quietly prayed to Mahal, not certain his prayers would be heard, that this kind woman and her precious son would never face such hardships.

“Oh! Thorin! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you wait!” Piper turned her chair to look at him, blinking owlishly. “Is something wrong? You okay? Do you guys need anything?” She rose and crossed the distance to his side, eyes wide and searching his face.

Holding his hands up, Thorin shook his head, missing the way Piper’s eyes traveled to watch his hair sway. “No, nothing is wrong… well, that is not entirely true. It seems that some of my company have gotten a little out of hand, and I have come to apologize.” He sighed when she only seemed confused, “They found a machine in your workshop… and have taken it apart. I have ordered them to reassemble it, but they seem yet uncertain as to whether or not they can.”

“Workshop…? Oh my garage! Uh… there’s just a snowblower and a lawnmower in there… huh.” She frowned, thinking about if she could afford to replace either right now. Probably not. But they had very little lawn, as most of the ground around them was pine needles and natural growth. She only maintained enough lawn for Riordan to play on. Her mother had done more, but she seemed to like the natural approach better. Hopefully they hadn’t taken the snowblower apart. That she needed. “Well, if they can’t I’m sure I can find a repairman who can.” With a shrug she smiled. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty easy going. Things happen, life goes on. Getting all twisted about it doesn’t help anyone.”

Thorin stood, staring at her for a moment, before one of his handsome smiles spread on his face. “If only more people had your heart, Lady Piper.” He grunted when she thumped him on the shoulder. “My apologies, Piper. Just, Piper.”

Shaking her head, she rolled her eyes. “Damn majestic dwarf.”

“Majestic?” He queried, sounding far too amused. “You think I’m majestic?”

Piper laughed, grinning at him. “Well, it’s probably the most used term to describe you that I’ve noticed.” She looked over at her photo wall that he’d been admiring. “Tell me about yourself.”

“I thought you knew of us already,” He countered, raising a brow as he watched her face.

She shrugged in that lopsided way she had. “I do, sort of. I mean, I know the major facts, but not the little details. Tell me about you, Thorin. Not Thorin Oakenshield, the great warrior, the crowned prince, but tell me about Thorin, the m--dwarf. Do you have anything you enjoy doing? Hobbies, interests, dirty little secrets?”

Thorin laughed then, “It would only be fair if you shared with me the same.” His blue eyes were lit with a mischief that he rarely let show. But she had a way of drawing that out in people, it seemed. He found a low-set overstuffed chair and sat in it, while she returned to her desk. They chatted for roughly two hours before she finished her work and had to go up to put Riordan to bed. There was a big smile on her face, that none of the other dwarves missed.

“Had a good time?” Fili asked in a teasing tone of his uncle as the older dwarf joined them, taking his spot on the sofa.

“Mind your tongue. We simply spoke.” Thorin reprimanded him lightly. “Our hostess is quite interesting.” He didn’t see behind him, that Bofur was studying his boots, making certain to meet no one’s gaze. It was a sickening feeling twisting in his gut, he wanted to jump up and scream at their king, but he couldn’t. He wanted to run and find Piper and find out all of these interesting things for himself, but he couldn’t. Instead he grabbed his blanket, pulled his hat down over his eyes and curled up on his spot to sleep, even if it was early. He didn’t feel like being a part of the world right at the moment.

Bifur and Bombur shared a glance, knowing that was unlike their Bofur to act that way, but they understood it. Bombur sighed, and sat back, puffing on his pipe, while he watched Bifur measuring a block of wood he had hewn from the oak outside. He wondered what sort of toy his cousin would craft, as Bifur wasn’t telling anyone just yet.

Eventually the group came in from outside, claiming they had the machine mostly put back together, or so they thought. And they would finish in the morning, as a couple of them were starting to nod off while working. After another hour, Piper had come to bid those who were still awake sweet dreams, and she went off to bed herself, promising the dwarves and hobbit they could have baths tomorrow. Bilbo seemed the most pleased by this.

[dreadgamereviews-blog]

REVIEW: Resident Evil 2 (Remake) DEMO (PS4)

TL,DR: The demo for the Resident Evil 2 remake gave us an absolutely stellar look at the newest entrant into the RE series and breathes much needed life into the classic game with all new graphics and mechanics whilst still maintaining the much loved puzzles, ambience, and story of the original. From this sneak peek alone, I’d definitely have to recommend this title.

Hello everyone!

Time for my first review. This time around, we’ll be taking a look at the demo for “Resident Evil 2 (Remake).” I figured that since the game drops today, if anyone is interested in purchasing it, now would be the best time to release a review of the experience I had as a starting point for any other consumer.

LET IT BE KNOWN: THIS REVIEW IS FOR THE PS4 VERSION OF THE DEMO!

Let me say that, initially, I was really puzzled by the idea of remaking a title as old as Resident Evil 2 in today’s day and age. Especially after Resident Evil 7′s complete reboot of the series back into true survival horror, it seemed odd that Capcom had interest in going back to the old days and revisiting, let alone completely redoing, a classic. However, once I saw the trailer for the game, I was absolutely floored. I was super impressed by the vast upgrades to graphics, for one, as they’re truly stunning in-game, and once the gore and gameplay were shown off a bit, I was really excited to get my hands on a playable copy, demo or not. Let me say, I was not let down.

I’m not going to factor this into the score of this review, but I do want to take a second to talk about how this demo differed from those released for other titles. While Resident Evil 2 (hereon referred to as “RE2″) has a standard demo in the sense that it allows you to play through a section of the story to a final point, it also has one additional caveat: a time limit. RE2′s demo is built as a once off per platform demo where the player is given 30 min. to experience as much of the introductory level as possible, regardless of whether or not they complete it. This added a really interesting motivation to play through and see as much of the demo as possible, leading me to really bust my ass to see as much as I could. It was a really unique experience compared to literally EVERY other demo I’ve played in my life, and I would certainly say it was a good addition. It adds both urgency to the experience and preserves the longevity of this level for the final game’s release. Nice work, Capcom.

The Good (or “Points of My Experience Worth Giving a Thumbs Up To”):

-The Story: I see little reason to relate this version of RE2 back to its original, as it’s a remake that will indefinitely revise certain parts of the experience to be more fitting of a new audience and I have a very, VERY limited recollection of the story of the original Resident Evil 2 from the last time I played. Therefore, I will only discuss the story presented in the demo. Let me say, the snippit that we get in the demo is a really fantastic entrance to the story the game intends to present. We’re dropped into the Raccoon City Police Department as Leon Kennedy, just after escaping a horde of zombies alongside Clare Redfield, and have to navigate the halls to escape the hordes and solve the mystery of the outbreak. It’s a great intro to the content the game intends to present and I loved it.

-The Graphics: Holy s**t, does this game look good. Remember how “Resident Evil 6″ looked amazing for the generation of consoles it was released on and we were all like “Whoa?” Yeah, it’s like that again. Texture quality is absolutely stellar and the post-processing effects they’ve created to show depth, enhance shadows, and distinguish item from item are beautiful. On top of that, the model work is absolutely impeccable. I’m playing the US version of the demo, which means I’m getting the full brunt of force when it comes to gore. The models on several dead guards and one cutscene in particular, where a RCPD officer is ripped in half, are seriously admirable, feeling almost real in the way they’re framed. I don’t tend to harp on graphics when I talk about games, but this title certainly deserves it. 

-The Gameplay (Most of it, anyway): Imagine that you’re playing a fan passion project that combines aspects of the gameplay from the original Resident Evil 2, the combat of Resident Evil 4, and the neat and tidy UI of Resident Evil 7. That’s what it feels like to play RE2, and it’s amazing. Everything feels really well polished and tidied up, which is super impressive to me, as a large portion of triple A titles today feel like they lack the specific details that the worlds they occupy deserve. The game handles well, and navigating the RCPD offices as young Leon feels great and is truly a scary experience.

The Meh:

-The Time Limit: So this isn’t something I’m going to factor into my final score, but I do want to talk about it a bit. While I personally enjoyed the forced rush that the RE2 demo presented, it certainly isn’t for everyone and I can definitely see why. Some people are definitely going to miss a lot of the content present in this demo because of the time limit and from feeling too rushed, which could certainly rub some the wrong way. Nothing too bad, but indubitably noteworthy.

-The Gameplay (Specifically Related to the Combat Knife): So this is the only really bad thing about the way combat and gameplay fleshes out that I have a minor problem with. In games like Resident Evil 4, the combat knife acted as a permanent sub-weapon, and gave you a consistent backup to rely on when you were low on ammo or felt like strategically dispatching enemies. In RE2, the combat knife instead acts as an item that fills the sub-weapon slot, and has limited durability that depletes as it’s used, both in the standard slash attack and escaping grapples from enemies. Not a fan of the swap, but it’s certainly still workable, which means I can’t count it as a solid negative factor.

The Bad:

-UI controls: The controls present throughout the UI, in particular the inventory screen, feel very clunky and outdated, at least in my opinion. They’re very reminiscent of the controls in older Resident Evil titles, and I don’t think that’s a good thing, especially since the game is being remade for a new market that expects more fluid design. This was the only thing that I really disliked about my experience, and it wasn’t super obstructive to the experience, but bothered me enough to mention here.

So In Summary:

The Demo for RE2 is incredible and definitely worth a play despite its (generally) ignorable faults here and there.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!