#and also just an extra addendum even though I love her

[lukazade2electricboogaloo]

Adjacent, but I always felt SO icky about the fact everyone was angry + couldn't understand why Tim was leaving the team after it.

Tim, who whenever any teammate had expressed a desire to do something they felt was absolutely right and necessary, was downright outcasted for wanting to leave after what happened. Never mind anything else, but he's literally a human being, with no powers, with leadership over a team that went against him and almost got them all killed. Like, even if I (as a hypothetical member of his team) didn't understand his thought process, I would at least understand that stuff as a reason to be absolutely scarred by the events of Apokalips. I would try and graciously let him leave, even if I felt upset or betrayed or like pretending it didn't happen.

I haven't read it in a while, but I recall everyone was so rude to him for wanting to leave, and giving him the kind of "greater good" speeches that every bat-person literally already lives by. The only person who didn't hound him was Bart, who also wanted to leave. It made it easier on Tim, since at least one person understood that what happened wasn't just a "it's fine! time will mend it!" moment. I think he possibly may not have come back if he had felt completely shunned.

I actually found it so hard to read the Apokalips bit, because everyone just seemed to fall apart for plot reasons, rather than like.. anything that made sense to me. They were even aware that quitting the team doesn't mean they won't come back (ie. Cissie's storyline was a perfect setup for them to completely understand him wanting to leave for crying out loud, it would have been really cool foreshadowing too!), and everyone had, at this point, really meshed as a team (iirc..) (other than the occasional "Kon mentions having a coup" which never felt natural to me lmao), so it felt so out of place for Kon to derail everything, and out of place for the others to be angry at him for being traumatised and leaving.

And yeah, I was so mad Kon never apologised. Like a "real brothers never have to say sorry" thing, which btw is bs. Me and my siblings don't talk now bc I eventually realised I was worth apologising to. And Tim's smart. He should eventually realise that, too. But he's also Tim. He's never gonna do that.

Whew. Okay I was finally able to see someone who also felt mad about this part of yj98, I can now retire.

No but let’s talk about the whole Apokalips thing in Our Worlds At War. Young Justice 1:35–37, Superboy 1:91, Impulse 1:89.

Kon really, really screwed up. His impulsive and insubordinate actions, expressly against Robin’s orders and in full opposition to the rescue mission they were engaged on, led directly to:

the permanent death of one team member (Slobo is not Lil Lobo even if he does have his memories, and neither are any of the other regenerated Lobos, most of whom also die; original Lobo remains dead)

the partial death of another (Bart is in a coma for over a week after experiencing the death of his speedforce duplicate)

the start of Greta’s corruption arc via Darkseid

and the torture and thorough traumatisation of the rest of team (they are held in VR worlds where they are forced to live through the deaths of their loved ones and their own deaths, repeatedly).

Tim leaves Young Justice over this. Bart stops being a hero altogether for a while.

And we never see Kon apologise.

Okay so yes he acknowledges to himself he is entirely at fault for this. He spends a whole issue agonising over what he’s done and yes, he resolves to apologise to Robin.

But he never does. He gets distracted by some fallout from the war and by Joker’s Last Laugh. Tim gets involved again in World Without Young Justice, when reality has been altered and none of them are who they should be.

And then after that, Tim, who is relieved that his identity has been revealed (something he wanted to do long ago) in a way that he couldn’t control or be blamed for, asks to rejoin the team.

And.

Kon and Cassie do this:

(I’m not blaming Snapper, Ray, or Slobo, none of whom were there when this went down even if Slobo does have the memories of it. They are just following Kon and Cassie’s cues.)

And Tim reacts like this:

Which is not the reaction of someone who has already received a heartfelt apology.

And yes, then they hug and welcome Tim back into the team. But I think Tim ends up fully internalising that his leadership (and his refusal to share his identity, like they have any right to it) is to blame for the whole debacle. And Kon lets him go on thinking that.

[beetleclan]

GREEN WITH ENVY — ASTERSTAR

———

pre-rabies beetleclan (ravenclan) stuff !! nothing detailed at all, just some stuff in my usual brush preferences.

left to right -> asterstem, shadedstar(spots) and ravenfreckle!

i was just brainstorming some drama for fun and remembered that ravenfreckle mentored flowerfeather!! it was already in my head that asterstem didn’t like ravenfreckle so i delve into more and whipped up some thoughts!!

~~

back when beetleclan was ravenclan, asterstem grew up with shadedspots, warmspeckle, condorbite and ravenfreckle (warmspeckle & ravenfreckle being siblings!). asterstem of course has a crush on shadedspots since apprenticeship but he never really sees her beyond just being friends.. the way he feels about ravenfreckle though..

ravenfreckle is the perfect cat.. she’s TOO perfect. she’s a better storyteller than yellowstorm, cunning, spiritual. asterstem just doesn’t compare. what’s worse is that ravenfreckle likes him back—any patrol turns into a third-wheeling session for every other cat involved. when shadedspots becomes deputy and then leader, the entire camp is just one big wheel.

it’s even worse when ravenfreckle gets pregnant and has flowerkit. gets even worse when flowerkit becomes flowerpaw and becomes the biggest nuisance in the world.. and then shadedstar comes to camp frothing at the mouth.

~~

im not a writer or storyteller but i do love my concepts !! little addendum: in-game, ravenfreckle is also a dreamwalker! so i made her extra wispy in contrast to her first appearance in moon 2.

[unofficial-book-of-quotes-tm]

The series 4 round-up is here, but firstly I want to welcome anyone new to this blog, because there have been a fair few new folks around, so, hi! Thanks for supporting this little venture of mine and for fuelling my descent into Taskmaster Madness. I hope you'll stick around!

Overall, I enjoyed series 4 and if I were to do a list of all series I've done on this blog, it'd be somewhere in the middle; That's the short of it. Thank you, bye! See you in series 5.

Alright, now for the rambling. Series 4 is one of the rare occasions where I knew most of the cast as I was familiar with Joe Lycett, Lolly Adefope, Noel Fielding and Hugh Dennis to some extent, and over the course I've come to cherish them all (and Mel of course too). That being said, this is probably the only series where I take genuine umbrige with Greg's scoring. Most series I don't care who wins. I'm just here to be entertained and as I usually like all competitors, I don't care who wins. This time around, however, I think Noel didn't deserve the win. Who should have won in his stead? I don't know. If the scoring would have felt less favourable towards Noel, I wouldn't have minded him winning, but as it is, I do mind. I also think that Greg came down a bit harsh on Lolly a fair few times and Hugh. This series was just so strangely scored and I don't know why. But aside from the points - as I said, I don't usually care much for them anyway - I like this series. Everyone's a blast to watch. Hugh with his knives, Lolly with her naïvité, Mel with her uncorruptible positivity, Joe who becomes more and more irritated but otherwise is just adorable, and Noel's weird creativity. It's fun. I'm here for it! This time around I didn't have a competitor I liked less than the rest, and I'm glad they paired Mel and Hugh for the team tasks.

And I like to emphasise that I don't hate Noel. Usually I find him quite entertaining, and this is the only reason series 4 isn't my favourite (not counting from series 5 onwards 'cos we're not there yet, although I've watched them all). Individually, I liked all competitors, they're simply fun. Greg and Alex are great, and the tasks are a treat - although rather on the artsy side. Only because I consider Greg's scoring unfair do I not love this series as much as series 1, for example.

Addendum: When I started drafting this post in my notes, there was a long rant about the scoring - believe it or not - and I cut it down considerably, but I just wanted to give you guys an example of what I mean when I say, I find it unfair: A lot of tasks in this series are art-based and Noel is a very talented artist, not denying that, but often these tasks weren't about 'who can paint the best painting', but 'who fulfils the set parameters'. In episode 1, they're meant to draw a caricature of the person sat behind the curtain. Noel's drawing looks great, though it's not really a caricature, is it? Even Hugh's disaster meets the required parameters better (and he used colours too) than Noel's in my opinion. And every episode has one of these moments. Just to name another one: The prize task in episode 8 where they had to bring in the most cash. Greg decides to award points based on value in pound sterling. Mel's Monopoly money doesn't count extra, but Noel's made-up currency gets third place? How's that justified? And I know that a huge part of what makes Taskmaster Taskmaster is the arbitrary scoring - that Greg basically has the last word - but in other series he manages to make it seem fair nevertheless. Anyway, enough of that. I'm stoked to return to series 5!

[acaplaya-musings]

Voiceplay Visuals - addendums and interesting BTS stuff (part 2/3)

I explained everything in the first part, go find it here. Let's keep going!

(Part 2 below the cut)

We Don't Talk About Bruno: "Also I'm pretty sure I heard from someone that Geoff's "ruana" is in fact just a regular blanket/piece of fabric draped (possibly secured/pinned) over his shoulders" - Yeah pretty much, except specifically it was tied behind his back/over his shoulders - You wanna know how Cesar just seemingly pulled that umbrella out of nowhere? Well it was hidden behind him! Or more perhaps more precisely, his behind hid it! 😂 (His glutes definitely got a workout that day!)

"(Oh and this section really was slowed down in post-production in order to make the petals (and hair flips!) look nice, and so both Ashley and Geoff were having to sing/lip-sync to sped up versions of their vocal lines!)" - Tis true! That whole section was done in basically double speed during filming, and slowed-down in post (the reverse of what Geoff did for his Monster Mash video actually), which makes the resulting footage extra impressive tbh - Also I didn't specify in my original post, but Geoff isn't just wearing the floral blouse - he's wearing the same pink shorts as Ashley as well! 😂 - Bonus fun fact: the little rat on Geoff's shoulder was remote-controlled!

Dream On: "(Also this was filmed in some old school I believe? I think maybe Cesar's old school or something?)" - Right on the first count, wrong on the second - this was Eli's former high school! (Very much no longer in use as a school though, obviously) - It was filmed in Leesburg, which is an hour away from Orlando apparently, and since there was obviously no decent part of the building to be used as a breakroom or dressing room or whatever, they brought a production coach, the same one that got used for the same purpose for the Panic Medley filming in fact! - The shirt/top that Geoff wore in the video was quite tight-fitting apparently, and he needed additional assistance from Kathy to get it fully pulled down (she helped while still filming) - Still not entirely sure what Layne is wearing on top of his shirt, but it seems to be just draped over his shoulders, idk

Running Up That Hill: - They put a lot of effort into recreating That Scene from Stranger Things, like they had pieces of paper with shots from the TV series and annotations written on it and everything! - The jacket that Geoff had tied around his waist in the video is like some black bomber jacket/letterman-style thing, and he was wearing it sometimes in between takes and ngl he looks good in it, like I almost kinda wish he had been properly wearing it in the video.

"Based on the very-fixed and very-specific shots we get of Ashley while she's "levitating", I'm guessing this was more done via clever editing and post-production work rather than anything like harnesses to actually lift her in the air" - Well, while it is true that editing trickery was favoured over harnesses, there was actually a bit more practicality involved than what I guessed/imagined. Idk how much I should reveal, but let's just say that Ashley had to use some muscles for it!

Hide And Seek (Ding Dong!): "I love the ghostly visual effects on Lauren, with the glowy ethereal outline of her silhouette, and the slight translucence on her dress!" - The effect also helps conceal the fact that she wasn't in the studio with them at all! Magic of greenscreen, just like with VoicePlay's Enemy video! In fact, Layne took a very quick flight to Nashville, Tennessee to help Lauren record her parts, before quickly flying back to Orlando, Florida (in time to beat an oncoming hurricane!)

"I have a feeling that the lighting on [Layne] is such that it makes him look like an actual Haunted Mansion/Disney Parks ride animatronic (especially when combined with deliberate movement/acting choices in the video)" - I mean yeah, maybe, but also tbh it's also just the whole makeup/costume itself - even in the BTS footage he didn't look fully "human"/"real" when in the full costume. - Fun fact: Layne also had black food colouring in his mouth to further add to the whole look! Wild!

"Absolutely loving Cesar's makeup in this one ngl (I wonder whether he coloured his face and/or hair blue for filming this or if that was just all done via editing?)" - That was all thanks to Rick Underwood! His hair and face really were that blue! (Not all his hair though, just the front section of it). - I still have questions about Geoff's makeup though - didn't get to see much of the process in the BTS video, rip. - The floating crystal ball was a practical effect, done with fishing wire and a pulley system controlled by Tony!

Golden Hour: - So the greenscreening of the heads was done a little differently to how I imagined, and Geoff's hair did in fact look just like that during the filming - it's not just the editing - This is actually the second version of the video that was created - Patrons were initially presented with a different video (which I haven't actually watched but heard about in the BTS) with a slightly different setting and alterations to the story (Layne came up with a few different ideas in fact). - Also I may be slightly colourblind, because I thought that vest was maroon, but it's actually just brown, lol rip.

Valhalla Calling: "check out the set! I like the shields in the background." - Everything other than the benches and props in the foreground was completely digital! They filmed in front of huge digital screens (and I mean HUGE) that had the pre-designed backgrounds displayed on them! - Y'know how all the guys were wearing furs and heavy layers of clothing and all that? Yeah well apparently on the day of filming, the air conditioning at Vu Studios was busted, RIP (Rick Underwood had to help blot away some of their sweat between takes!)

Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3

[chthonicgodling]

oh it’s a part three!!! Elysium!Loki The Past…. The followup! re: actual Elysium-canon events, but of years prior in the very early e!Loki days :-))

this post here is intended as a followup to the bullet point lists I just made that went through some (horrible, horrible) fun facts about the past BEFORE his entrance into Elysium , like the far past before even,,,…. Ahem. a certain two canonical films. Here is part one aaaand part two is linked over there - you gotta read those first before reading this or it wont make sense probably!!

as promised I wanted to include a little addendum about the happy endings that did come about after some of that once Loki entered our universe over here so here’s that in its own post :) beneath the cut bc it’s… Lawng again

so now pretend it is 2012 and you’re in the palace with Tory and Maci and Epi and company and you’ve just adopted this spitting mad supervillain to live with you on the condition that he redemption-arc himself but he’s barely cooperative and so hostile when you try to make friends with him and show him compassion, he will NOT let any of you in -

and THEN you Memory Theater your way through his entire past up to this point and find out some horrifically tragic things that he was trying to Never Talk About Again ™, so now a part of him has broken instead all over again and he’s so weepy and shattered but also SO standoffish and won’t!!! Let any of you HELP him!!!! he won’t trust any of you!!!! and one of the last things you’ve all seen from his Memories was the gruesome murder of his two young sons, it’s hitting the whole palace so hard cause by that point everyone’s got BABY kids , Neo and Ty/Bel are infants, and as new ish parents you’re all EXTRA broken up like, FOR this guy’s pain and. Just desperate to do anything at all to make it better and show him that everyone is just here to help him—

Aaaaand then you remember that this is a functioning Underworld and. Ghosts can live here— what if— WHAT IF—

giggles I hope some of you reading those last two posts were like heeeyyy Vali and Nari!! but we know them!!! they’re Meli’s friends in Elysium!! well they end ed up IN Elysium because, right after (above) and because of (above) Tory was able to arrange a transfer of Vali and Nari’s shades from the Norse underworld niflheim, to the Greek underworld in Elysium!!

it helped that Hela, Loki’s eldest daughter of course, was now running that whole kingdom >:))) she had repaired her baby brothers ghosts when they had fallen to her and kept them specially safe this whole time, so when Tory had arranged for this she (though sad to see them go </3) sent them to her father with all of her love

(Hela though given the offer would not leave niflheim herself - fearful of odin’s wrath, but also because . Her kingdom was her home now and she had a duty to this place.)

and so as a surprise Loki in Elysium was. presented with Vali and Nari themselves, at his door :))) marked that as The first real breakthrough with Loki (as he just fuckin, ihhh my god it was so, just collapsed to his knees and sobbed and so did thEY AND IT WAS A WHOLE THING REUNITED AAHHHHHHH)

And so ah!!! A moment of sincerity at last!! anyway blah blah blah redemption arc continues Loki opens up makes some friends starts fucking Jesse and Laphi gets pregnant with Fjöer that’s not what this whole post is about lmao

this post IS about how then, another two years later, now Fjöer’s been born, Loki’s second Elysium baby Rane has been born as well, Tory is currently pregnant with Loki’s third and fourth Elysium babies Eisa and Einmyria and. Tory’s pregnancy with the twins had been super rough and heD been trying to medically induce labor with one of the pregnancy gods and,, Loki like??? Was super weird and cagey and hostile about it???

Turns out loki was trying to keep the kids out of the way and inside Tory’s womb of safety because fuckin the end of the world ragnarok was prophesized to be coming NOW?! in which Loki’s two sons Fen and Jör were supposed to break free and end the world with him and. well he didn’t want his infant daughters in the middle of that. Ok he wasn’t thinking rationally.

the loophole solution (cause Tory was like. FIGURE IT THE FUCK OUT IM GETTING THESE KIDS OUT OF ME YOU LUNATIC) ended up being… fen and Jör DID break free! they were supposed to fight to nonexistence. and so the loop closed once they no longer existed………

……..in their true forms. For they alllowed Loki to transform them into human shapes, and then, now thaat they had “escaped” and “ended their existence” , freely went to live in Elysium with their dad!! and all their old and NEW siblings!!! YAY!!

Fen and Jör don’t live in the palace actually they come and go as they please and travel th whole underworld basically :)) they don’t do a whole lot but they are there and so Loki’s got almost all his kids back plus a multitude more of them!! yay!!

And so this is. More than enough Loki-posting for one day but. I hope this has been a fun little read <333 I don’t really know how to end this post so uhh jazz hands that’s iT LMAO…

[ursbearhug]

Addendum to my previous statement:

I've got to meet boyfriend of my friend yesterday. Second time. Though, this time they're actually together rather than playing some 6D chess.

And that's why I'm kind of getting "love can blind us" bit. Because yeah! You have to be dumb, blind and deaf to look at that guy and be like "yeah, he's fuckable and dateable, yup".

It's like "here, have this unkind, unsavour jackass, dumb as a brick, skull thick as a wall and dryest sense of humour" and you're eating this shit up. Girl if I wanted to date a haystack, I would just do that without all the unnecessary extra steps. I did 3 hours of mental gymnastic to figure out what's likeable about him before realising it's not my business and spare the remaining braincells.

Like sorry gurl but your partner is unlikable and unfuckable, sorry you got here but yeah.

I especially like the way he feels threatened by me as if I'd fuck my friend and his girlfriend. And it's like. Just because every time you talk to a woman is because you want to sleep with her, doesn't mean everybody else does so as well. Respect a girl without having access to her body challange level 100. "Oh no! Another male specimen is talking about sex and joking about dicks with my propet- girlfriend! He must be faking his asexualness and is trying to get into her pants!".

Sweety, if I really wanted to, I would have done so ages ago. But again, I have more purpose in life than segz with females. I at least have jokes that are funny and can make her laugh for 3 hours straight. Your jokes have no punchline, can only work on a 6th grader, are here to belittle someone. You want to be me so bad.

Also I do not appreciate you look down on me so hard. You're gonna break your neck trying to look down on me. I don't even know why are you looking on the ground, I'm right here jackass. I swear people will grow to be 1,9m and think they're superior species.

Also also, I like how his ex partners are being considered "unreasonable" or "crazy" because they don't want their partner to live in open or polyamorous relationship. While, all that really is to it is; they're not comfortable with it. And even then! I wouldn't be comfortable being someone's fleshlight, while he's racking up side hoes, with understanding of safe sex of a illiterate, 16th century, French disease ridden peasant, either. I really really hate to be that guy, but relationships are not beginning and ending with sex. If you just want somebody to screw while you're off duty and have 0 intentions of dealing with any and all emotional and psychological needs of your partner, I recommend previously mentioned fleshlight or looking for fuck buddies (whom you'll most likely dismiss and treat with disdain, as per common for any sexually free and active girl) instead of masquerading yourself as big and woke polyamorist. I wish my feminism also hanged and dangled on a horsehair, you absolute trashbag.

Like, I get the need to paint him in good colours and show off in best light but so far his only redeeming quality is his 'strive' to get his doctorate. I've seen dead grass with more personality.

[indathreneblue]

3am Kara - Ch. 4/4

Inspired to write this by a line found in a wiki article by @kryptamazon about biphasic/polyphasic sleep: “This was also a favourite time for scholars and poets to write uninterrupted, whereas still others visited neighbours, engaged in sexual activity, or committed petty crime.”

--------

Ch 4: Petty Theft

It’s not a crime, she told herself. Not really. She was leaving plenty of money on the counter — enough to cover the cost of what she was taking, plus extra for the trouble — and she didn’t even break into the shop. A window had been left open on the second story and she just sort of let herself in. She’d tip-toed around bags of cocoa beans, sugar, and cocoa butter, then quietly walked down the stairs where she found the display case and…well...yeah. So maybe it was a crime. But even if it was, she had good reason. Tonight was special.

She and Lena officially became a couple one year ago today, and Kara was determined they celebrate their anniversary properly. She’d started researching restaurants months ago, made reservations at a place both of them would love, and even left work early today so she could get dressed up without rushing. And, of course, everything went off the rails halfway through dinner. Not even halfway. The appetizers had only just been placed on the table when Alex’s call came through, and Lena knew from Kara’s expression that she had to leave.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lena assured her. “I’ll get these and our entrees wrapped up, and you can meet me at my place after.”

Kara kissed Lena on the cheek and quickly slipped out a side door, but as she took to the skies, she let out a soft sigh. She’d really wanted tonight to be special. To make matters worse, the emergency cascaded into a series of crises, and now Kara was exceptionally late for meeting back up with Lena. She didn’t want to show up past midnight empty-handed, so here she was, at a small chocolatier’s in Metropolis, because Lena had once mentioned she had a weakness for their matcha truffles.

Kara wrote a note to go along with the cash — she didn’t want the proprietors worrying this would become a repeat offense. She didn’t use those exact words, though, because that would make her sound like a real criminal. This was petty theft at best (no need to bring up the trespassing part of it) and not really theft at all because she was leaving money.

Just as she was about to make her escape — nope, not an escape, she wasn’t a criminal — she noticed a small display of hot chocolate. She debated it for a second, then grabbed a tin. The truffles were for Lena, but the cocoa was calling Kara’s name, and at this point ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’. She added a quick addendum to her note, placed some more money on the counter, then snuck back out the way she came.

It didn’t take long for Kara to fly to Lena’s apartment, but as she approached the penthouse balcony, she realized Lena might not still be awake. It had been a long week for the both of them, and she wouldn’t fault Lena if she’d succumbed to slumber. But as Kara softly touched down, she spied Lena reading a book on the couch, sipping at what Kara guessed was tea (it was what Lena drank at night when she wanted to be alert but not wired).

Kara slid open the glass door and offered a quiet ‘hi’ as she made her way over. “I’m sorry it took so long.”

“No need to be sorry, Kara. You know I understand.”

“I know,” Kara sighed. “But it’s our anniversary. And I wanted tonight to just be about you and me.”

Lena set down her book and mug and came to stand in front of Kara. “The night’s not over yet,” she said, then slipped the small gift bag out of Kara’s hands to put on the coffee table.

“That’s for you,” Kara protested softly.

“And I’m sure I’ll love it,” Lena answered, bringing her hands up to softly cup Kara’s face, “but right now, you’re what’s most important and what I want most.” And then Lena brought her lips to Kara’s, and the love she conveyed made Kara realize she needn’t have gone through all her earlier troubles.

Kara kissed Lena back with as much love and affection as she could, and all Kara could think was, Rao, she loved this woman so much. They eventually both pulled back and gazed at each other silently for a while — Lena tucking a curl of hair behind Kara’s ear, Kara brushing her thumb along Lena’s jaw — until matching smiles bloomed on both their faces.

“Happy anniversary, Kara.”

It didn’t seem possible, but Kara’s smile got wider.

“Happy anniversary, Lena.”

—

Late the next morning — and it barely qualified as morning because ten more minutes and it would have been afternoon — Kara lumbered into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of fresh coffee. The bag she’d brought Lena last night was on the island, the contents laid out neatly.

“Oh! You found my gift!”

Lena looked up from her tablet, a slow smirk appearing. “I did. But Kara -” and Lena slowly turned the tablet towards Kara, “do you know anything about this?”

It was an article from The Metropolitan Times. Kara stepped closer, hoping somehow her eyes were deceiving her. But the image and text didn’t change, and a blush bloomed on her face.

“I can explain.”

“Oh, you already did. I read the note.” Lena pointed at the image onscreen. “Who would have thought, between a Luthor and a Super, the Super would be the one engaging in late-night thievery.”

“It wasn’t thievery,” Kara groaned. “I left money.” But then Lena’s words registered, and Kara’s eyes widened. “Wait, do they know it was me?”

Lena laughed. “Relax, Kara. Did you even read the headline?”

Kara quickly glanced down at the screen, then sighed in relief when she read the headline: “Leaving on a Sweet Note: Chocolate Bandit Creates Delicious Mystery.” Thank Rao, no one else had figured it out. She could — and would — endure a fair amount of teasing from Lena, but if Alex or any of her friends had found out, she’d never hear the end of it.

Unfortunately, her relief was short-lived. When her phone buzzed on the counter — once at first, followed by many more in quick succession — a feeling of dread washed over her. Lena quickly held her hands up in defense. “I didn’t say a thing.”

Kara stared at her phone for several long seconds. This is what she got for having a team of superfriends. Maybe Batman was onto something with his whole loner superhero gig.

She took a moment to gather some courage, then swiped open her phone to reveal a flurry of texts from a group chat. At the top was a screenshot and a link to the article, followed by Alex’s “I recognize your handwriting, Kara….care to explain?!” and everyone else’s eager comments below. Kara buried her face in her hands. She was never going to live this down. The screenshot was a picture of her note — a large heart outline with her words of apology within:

I’m so so sorry. Normally, I’d never do something like this, but there’s a very special person out there who deserves better than a girlfriend messing up anniversary plans. She’s kind and wonderful and I love her more than I can even express, so please trust me when I say she deserves everything. And she’s usually a super healthy eater, but she told me how much she likes your chocolates and I thought I’d surprise her with some, but by the time I got here you guys were closed and I didn’t know what else to do for her, and again I’m really sorry. I left more than enough money, so I hope that makes up for any trouble, and it won’t happen again, I promise.

PS. I took two boxes of matcha truffles.

PPS. Also, a tin of your hot chocolate.

--------

Also on AO3 here: 3am Kara

[troquantary]

Cutting Hair as Punishment in the Twilight Saga

Okay, I’ve been trying to organize my thoughts around this into a sort-of-essay format for a while, because I find it disturbingly mean-spirited: Meyer has a pattern of using hair-cutting as a form of punishment for characters, especially female characters, who fail to embrace Bella and the Cullens with open arms. I’m talking particularly about Leah and Lauren, both of whom, while not outright antagonists like Victoria or James, are situated along with Rosalie as “against” Bella throughout the series. The Quileute pack, meanwhile, is situated largely “against” the Cullens, meaning Jacob and the rest of the pack get the Haircut of Shame, too.

(Also, I’ve been creeping through @panlight ‘s blog because I thought she had a recent post relating to this -- I was probably thinking of this submission and her addendum, which does discuss Meyer’s “punishment” of certain characters, but that post was about characters suffering for not waiting for True Love, or daring to do the Devil’s Tango before marriage. Still, it’s on-theme and very much worth reading, like all her stuff!)

So here’s the general outline: first I’m gonna talk about the shapeshifters and how their overall lack of choice frames cutting their hair as something forced on them and therefore punitive. Then I’m going to discuss Meyer’s FAQ response where she reveals that Lauren was tricked into cutting off most of her hair over the summer before New Moon, and how this adds an extra fun misogynistic element to the hair-cutting theme with respect to Lauren and Leah. I also use way too many words to do it, sorry.

Punishment | The Shapeshifters Are Given No Other Option

I don’t have the background or knowledge to discuss the significance of long hair to indigenous culture and identity in detail, and my understanding is that different tribes ascribe different meanings to it. What I’ve read it about it suggests that, generally, long hair represents strength of one’s individual spirit and of the community. It’s a source of pride, and is only cut off voluntarily in extraordinary circumstances, often as an expression of grief, or to mark a significant life change.

This sort of works in the context of the shapeshifters all cutting their hair -- phasing into a giant wolf, discovering the existence of the supernatural, and assuming the role of protectors is a major life event for these characters. But the negative associations make it a troubling choice on Meyer’s part, and that’s without even getting into the problem of her imposing her own worldbuilding onto the legends and culture of a real tribe. Because of the lack of choice involved in becoming a shapeshifter, the whole situation feels like a scenario in which the Quileute characters have their hair forcibly cut -- a degrading and traumatic act that (depending on their particular tribal belief) might symbolically sever them from their sense of cultural identity and connection with the rest of their tribe.

It all kind of begs the question: why does Meyer even have shapeshifting work this way? What narrative utility is there in having the length of their hair in human form determine the length of their fur as wolves, thereby compelling the shapeshifters to cut it so it isn’t a physical impediment? It’s another sign of the changes in Jacob, sure, but he’s already being uncharacteristically cold and distant, plus suddenly has the physique of a fit twenty-five-year-old; Bella already knows something’s very wrong. His short hair is just another jarring thing for Bella to notice and mourn, like the loss of Jacob’s “baby face” and general sunniness.

It does work as a symbolic thing, representing another sacrifice Jacob has to make and the change in how he now has to perceive himself -- but he’s already got a literal giant wolf form to represent that change in identity/self-perception. Forcing him to cut his hair too just feels like piling on. My argument here, which I hope will be supported when I discuss Lauren and Leah further in, is that it’s not just piling on, but actively punitive -- because much like Leah and Lauren are “against” Bella, the pack at large is “against” the Cullens pretty much through the end of the series.

The Quileute pack is definitely not a Cullen fanclub. The entire purpose of their existence is to destroy vampires, and the truce they have with the Cullens isn’t friendly. They still don’t particularly like or trust the Cullens even after allying with them in Eclipse, and in Breaking Dawn Sam is fully prepared to go to war against them to enforce the treaty. Bella expresses frustration with Jacob and the pack for not appreciating the Cullens more, yet is curiously less willing to scold Alice, Edward, or Rosalie when they call the Quileutes dogs and complain about their smell. (I think she might reprimand Edward for it at some point, but I don’t remember the exact passage.) Bella even starts throwing around “dog” and “mutt” as an insult herself -- I think we know whose side ol’ “Switzerland” is on, here, and whose side Meyer is on as well. The Quileutes aren’t exactly enemies, and in fact are crucial to the Cullens’ survival in both the newborn and Volutri conflicts, but they’re punished nonetheless because they aren’t wholeheartedly Team Cullen from the get-go.

So to explain why I’m so convinced that there’s a link between hair-cutting and punishment in particular, let��s talk about Lauren. There’s a definite gendered element to it this time, too -- by being tricked into cutting her hair, Lauren isn’t just diminished/shamed, but rendered (*thunderclap*) unfeminine.

Lauren Was Rude To Bella Like Twice, Let’s Humiliate Her

I think Meyer’s answer to the question “What happened to Lauren’s hair?” on her FAQ page speaks for itself:

Ha ha. I had fun imagining this one—I only wished that it had fit into the book somewhere. Lauren fell victim to the “model discovered in the mall” scam. An alleged modeling agent approached Lauren in a mall in Victoria, B.C., and told her she was a natural model. Lauren ate it up. The agent told her that if she did something edgy with her hair, and took some high quality head shots, her future was assured. Lauren followed the instructions—dropping fifteen grand on the pictures taken by the agent’s partner—and waited for her career to begin. She’s still waiting. Snort.

It’s pretty obvious that this was done spitefully. Here’s the list of Lauren’s crimes against humanity Bella at this point in the series: 1) she was jealous of the attention Bella was getting as the new girl; 2) she talked behind Bella’s back once, saying Bella might as well just sit with the Cullens now (and she isn’t wrong); 3) she eyed Bella “scornfully” the day of the La Push beach trip; and perhaps most damningly, 4) she’s blonde.

Post-haircut, she has the gall not to be thrilled that Bella’s deigning to speak to the lowly non-Cullens again, then sides with Jessica after Bella uses Jessica to make a point to her dad, is shitty company, and then risks getting them both raped and murdered in Port Angeles so she could get off on her hallucination of Edward’s voice.

I think it’s pretty common knowledge that long hair is tied to patriarchal notions of femininity and attractiveness. Women with short hair are still derided for being ugly, or assumed to be lesbians in a derogatory sense, or simply considered less feminine and therefore less desirable/worthy (because a woman’s worth depends on her desirability, after all). For many women and girls, losing their long hair -- whether because of illness, or gum getting stuck in it, or whatever -- is very upsetting and a hard blow to their self-esteem. Just look at Alice as an example of Traumatic Short Hair; her hair was shorn like that because she received electroshock “treatments” in an asylum. (Although in Alice’s case, I don’t think her having short hair is punishment, but a facet of the traumatic backstory all female characters in Twilight have to have for some reason. Plus, she started the series with short hair, which distinguishes her from the pack and Lauren, who were tricked or compelled into cutting their long hair during the series.)

But Lauren’s so bitchy, so she deserves it, right? Ha ha, she was mean to Bella and cared about her appearance too much, so now she’s ~ugly!

Leah Has It the Worst and It Makes Me Want To Burn Everything

The misogynistic aspect of hair-cutting as punishment is taken up to like, twelve with Leah. Not only does she suffer for being “against” the Cullens along with the rest of the pack (and Bella, too, so extra sinning), but she suffers uniquely for being the only female shapeshifter. A bunch of teenage boys regularly see her naked body against her will. Her previously devoted boyfriend imprints on her cousin/best friend, Sam dumps her and can’t even explain why, and the whole pack -- including her own brother -- resents her for being upset about it, even though she can’t help the lack of mental privacy. Because of that same lack of mental privacy, she has to hear every gripe the boys have about her, plus every enthralled thought Sam has about Emily while she’s still deeply wounded by their breakup.

She blames herself for her dad’s death, because she phased at the wrong time. We don’t get any indication that her fellow shapeshifters or the elders are trying to reassure her otherwise.

And of course, because she’s a shapeshifter, she has to cut her hair. In addition, because Leah’s a woman, this has the same misogynistic connotations as it did with Lauren. In Leah’s case, though, the de-feminization is compounded by her sudden infertility. It’s clear that Leah attaches her sense of womanhood to her fertility, rightly or wrongly -- she bitterly calls herself a “genetic dead end” in Breaking Dawn and thinks of herself as a freak. She feels like there must be something wrong with her, some un-womanly flaw, that made her one of the shapeshifters at all.

Then, just when Jacob starts to see her as a human being worthy of compassion, he imprints on Renesmee and doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything else anymore. No more bonding with Leah, no blooming friendship to help her heal and come to terms with the new realities of her life. (This is one of those dropped threads that aggravate me to no end -- what was the point of having Leah opening up to Jacob, or starting Jacob on the path of realizing he was being a dick to her this whole time and that she’s a person with  value, if he was just going to spend the rest of the book as Renesmee’s love-zombie and never think about it again? Disgusting.)

Leah was a lot more forgiving of Jacob than he deserved at that point in the story, for all the good it did her -- I think she’s mentioned maybe once in Book 3 of Breaking Dawn. At least she got her god-tier moment of yelling at a deranged, pregnant Bella Swan.

Speaking of Bella...

I’m just going to note, for no particular reason, that in Breaking Dawn we get to hear explicitly that Bella’s got hair that falls “almost to her waist” and that she looks like “a freaking supermodel” because she’s so “beautiful and pale.” It just strikes me as a telling contrast at this point.

[lilhawkeye3]

This Ohio discourse has got me dying to create discourse about every other state now hehe so I officially present:

Hawk’s review of 36/50 US states!

In alphabetical order because that fuckin song “50 nifty United States” has been stuck in my head since fourth grade.

Arizona: Phoenix is hot. Can’t believe y’all choose to live in a place that gets haboobs. Saw Sen. John McCain in the airport. I feel that sums up the state well. 4/10

California: as a resident of the state of Oregon, I’m legally required to say fuck California😌 unless anyone else talking shit about Cali and then we got your back😤 SoCal vs San Fran vs Northern Cal are totally different worlds though. 7/10

Colorado: damn idk how y’all breathe there, them air is thin. But really pretty out there! 7/10

Connecticut: oh my god fuck New Haven. And Stamford, and Hartford, and— Yknow what? Let’s just toss the whole state into the Sound. For real, traffic is the WORST here and I’m so sorry that y’all gotta live like that. 3/10

Delaware: I cannot believe this is considered a state. There’s no difference between Delaware and Maryland/Pennsylvania. 1/10 should not be a state

Florida: “the only hills in Florida are the highway ramps and the Matterhorn!” —the shuttle driver at Disney World. He was right. Shit is flat as fuck here. And hot. And humid. The Gulf Coast is nice? But tbh it’s just all very touristy which is kind of a bummer. 5/10

Georgia: ...I can’t with the humidity or thinly veiled racism. But y’all got nice peaches! Also Black Panther filmed there so thank you for blessing us with that. 6/10 for fruits

Hawaii: okay pineapple farms are cool. Tbh I just feel really bad for how much mainlander/tourist bs all the islanders put up with. Ik price of living is v high and keeps going up. That said I did love Hawaii... although I was stung by a jellyfish. Hate those little bastards. 8/10 for wonderful people and nature

Idaho: as an Oregonian I’m required to also say fuck Idaho 😝 you da hoes. Okay for real tho southern Idaho has become v white white and kinda scary tbh. The northern part of the state is pretty chill tho. Also Oreida kettle chips are partly made in Idaho so I gotta give you half credit for that. 4/10

Illinois: at least you’re not Indiana. 4/10.

Indiana: I never want to step foot in Gary, Indiana again in my life. (Passed a Mack truck hauling a race car to Indy 500 though so that was cool.) 2/10

Iowa: I almost moved here. I’m so glad I didn’t. Why are the Quad Cities actually a group of five towns? I hate that. Also the roads were all cement, felt like driving on a sidewalk. Was also interesting because the second we got out of the city proper, it was just... corn fields everywhere. 2/10 y’all raising children of the corn.

Kentucky: I really don’t have anything to say about Kentucky. I thought the trees were pretty? 5/10 yeah idk

Maine: my relative has totaled two cars by hitting moose in Maine. Maine scares me. Or rather, the moose do. Also the lobster roll hype is real. And the coast truly is beautiful. 8/10 but an extra point for the moose bc I hate that relative so 9/10

Maryland: oh god Baltimore. Also I’m blaming you for the DC traffic because it’s on the land you gifted them. 3/10

Massachusetts: Patriots fans are the worst NFL fans (the racism is real, especially after fans burned the jerseys of Black players who knelt for the anthem). Liking Dunkin’ Donuts is not a personality trait. The North End in Boston is truly the best place to get pizza in the entire country. Western Mass is not the same state. And the Cape Cod bridges give me nightmares. 5/10 but cause I had to pay taxes two years and it really is Taxachusetts, knocking it down to 4/10

Michigan: it’s a lot bigger than I initially thought. 5/10

Minnesota: it’s Canada but in the US. Pretty driving through the southern part. Cops suck tho. 5/10

Montana: okay Montana is downright gorgeous. (Except Billings. Sorry, Billings.) I must include a photo. I wanna get a cabin here and just exist. 8/10

New Hampshire: can’t decide if it hates Massachusetts or wants to be Massachusetts. All it knows is that it’s better than Vermont. Which... y’know, valid. (If you wanna see NH culture watch North Woods Law tbh). 4/10

New Jersey: why are there so many goddamn highways in this state? Also there are more places to weekend trip than the Shore or the Poconos. Although you do have people pump gas for you just like Oregon, so... that’s valid. Things my friends have added: Newark airport is cursed (valid), the jughandles are nightmares (true), pork roll/Taylor Ham is good and so are bagels and New Jersey pizza (allergic so idk), and everyone is split on whether the shore is actually decent or not 😂 I give it a 3.5/10 out of spite

New York: NYC is fun, Upstate is MASSIVE but really beautiful. Long Island is... yeah I don’t have anything nice to say about Long Island. 8/10 For NYC, 6/10 for Upstate, -2/10 for Long Island, gives us an average of 6/10

North Carolina: very good peaches. Isn’t South Carolina. Keep it up👍🏽 6/10

Ohio: I already told y’all how I feel about this flat ass boring state. I feel no need to slander it any more lmao. 3/10

Oregon: she flies with her own wings, mi amor🥰 to list all the reasons I like Oregon (and the issues too bc it ain’t perfect), I would need a whole other post. I’ll just leave you with this picture I took of Mt. Hood, the queen of our Cascades. 11/10

Pennsylvania: so apparently PN is three states hiding in a trench coat like NY. There’s upstate, philly and Pittsburg. Personally I think they’re just trying too hard and wanna get the same recognition as NY. Meh. 5/10

Rhode Island: THIS FUCKIN SHAM OF A STATE Just merge it with Connecticut and be done with it!! It’s tiny. Providence sucks. There’s nothing unique about this state that you can’t find in Southern Mass (except MA has cheaper taxes so y’all come to work and shop in MA anyways smh). Also the fingers are really annoying to drive down to get to some beach areas haha. 2/10 you’re barely better than Delaware.

South Carolina: my Black father was invited to a party celebrating General Robert E Lee’s birthday. So... 0/10

South Dakota: very gorgeous, didn’t realize the Missouri River went this far west, but VERY LARGE. I mean it looks big on a map but then you get there and... yeah. No speed limit on highways is a great time though. And the Badlands have mountain goats! 6/10 bc while pretty, living there seems really hard. (Picture is me in the Badlands).

Texas: gave us Juneteenth and Beyoncé and JJ Watts. Thank you Texas. But is very big, got independence from Mexico to keep slavery (yikes), is like 97% private land (yikes) and is like the second or third largest state. Very big. That said, everyone I’ve ever met from Texas is lovely. 6/10.

Utah: Other than Idaho, this is the whitest state I’ve been to. Or it feels that way. Like a, the people crossed to the other side of the street and held their bags because I’m brown, state. And I don’t ski so I can’t even say that’s a good thing (I fell off the ski lift the one time I went, long story). Yeah 0/10.

Vermont: wants to be New Hampshire or Canada and can’t decide which. So it’s just kinda there. Pretty hills though. 3/10

Virginia: let’s be real we all forget that Virginia exists west of Richmond. Nova is a beauracratic and traffic nightmare and half our neighbors had to pass security clearance checks. Hampton Roads and beach area is a tourist and mosquito nightmare. But there were dolphins and I made snowmen on the beach. Good times. 6.7/10

Washington: again, legally required as an Oregon resident to say fuck Washington because it’s all your fault we now are getting a toll on the I-5 border. But you’re better than California. And the Sound is really cool for fishing, love Wicked Tuna. And the fish market. Best salmon I’ve had. Eastern Washington... y’all got Spokane but the rest is kinda sparse. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 8/10

Wisconsin: cheese is actually good. Again, pretty state, much larger than I initially thought. 7/10

Wyoming: this was the ONLY STATE I lost cell service in when diriving cross country. Kinda surprised it wasn’t Montana, but no, it was Wyoming. Views are gorgeous though so I was distracted either way. 4/10

Thank you for joining me on this cross-country edition of Tea Time with Hawk. Please respond with any reactions, corrections, addendums about any and all of the states mentioned. And thank you for taking part in this wholesome Clone Wars fandom discourse with me 🥰💕

DISCLAIMER: THESE RATINGS ARE ALL A JOKE PLEASE DO NOT ACTUALLY GET MAD ABOUT IT

[aggresivelyfriendly]

-Tis the Damn Season- Year Three

Jingle Bell Rock Me

Hi anybody reading! She’s a tiny bit short, but so am I, and I think that’s cute! Lol! Thanks to @dirtystyles for the beta!

"Excuse me, Emma." His voice, the one that's been echoing in the hollows of her body for a year and that she hasn't heard except for on the occasional call in the same amount of time, nearly buckles her knees. It steals her breath and speeds her heart. She imagines her cheeks and chest have gone that red color.

It's not the same over the phone.

Emma thought she had prepared herself, at least a little. No amount of busyness could make her forget that she was going to see him. Emma had done her best to distract herself with trips to the market for her mum and to the pub to see anyone in town. She knew seeing him in those places was less likely. She really wanted to see him, to look at him full on, but Gemma was already looking at her a little funny, with her fluttering lashes and subtle panting. She hopes it's subtle.  She's just about to get a hold of herself, she is sure of it, when his fingers brush over the keyhole in the back of her sweater. She'd worn it for this very purpose. Hoping they'd find themselves in the vicinity of the mistletoe or alone in the kitchen, or her bent over a chair in the snowy garden, wherever, and he could get his hands on her a little, despite the chill of the December weather.

It was everything she had hoped for, but that he went for it so immediately, another victory, is what makes her sure she's miscalculated her strategy.  His opening volley has her ready to fall down dumbly and suck him off, and she hasn't even looked at him.

Emma can feel the goosebumps pop up and she hears his suppressed chuckle at her excitement at his presence, his touch. And that does it. If she was looking at him, could look at him, she would be rolling her eyes, maybe giving him a two finger salute. She suppresses the eye roll. Luckily, Gemma is doing it for her.

"Harry, are you just going to be a pest all evening? Surely some friend you still trust is here, don't lurk when I've found one of mine." Gemma put her arm around Emma's shoulder and turned her. It's lucky, because now they both can look at him, and Emma can do so unobserved. Gem is still talking to him in her dressing down tone, she'd loved to use that one on an assortment of dickheads in sixth form, and Emma almost laughs realizing where she perfected it. On Harry, who is looking at his sister with amusement, her barbed tongue having no impact on him. His backbone is stiffer than Emma's, though other body parts have more in common. His eyes are as wandering as hers. He slid his gaze to her, he stays near the acceptable places, though her lips tingled when he stared at those momentarily. When his gaze dropped lower, she could tell where it was roving though he feinted and parried so fast Gemma may very well not notice.

Emma is not so disciplined, and her gape is not the dance of a fencer, but is the blunt of a broadsword. He looks better than last year, she thinks. He's thicker, she can already feel his wider presence between her thighs. His hair must be longer, but he's got it wrapped up and she can't wait to pull it free and clutch at it later.

She's only seen him twice, in a year. Seen him through a call on her tiny iPhone screen.

The first had been early, just after she got back to Amsterdam and he texted to get her address. Later that day, when the giant bouquet of flowers arrived she had to call him.

"Do you send all the girls you fuck enough flowers to give their roommates sneezing fits?" She'd immediately taken the piss. Defensewas the best offense.

"Only the ones I'm hoping to fuck again." He'd been quick to respond and she was glad she hadn't yet answered the FaceTime call he must have immediately initiated. Emma got her blush under control, maybe just enough color in her cheeks to make the video call slightly more flattering, though the white and yellow blooms gave her a good backdrop to work with.

"Well aren't you a charmer!"

"Right out of your knickers!" He flashed his eyebrows and she realized he appeared to be in a hotel room in his boxers. Oh, OH, that's why he's flirting so hard.

Does she wanna do this, on their first phone call, have video chat sex? Is that a thing? He's laying back on the bed and she's about to throw her penny and pound into the ring when she hears Lula come into the entryway. "Behave! My roommate just got home!"

"Oh, should I say hello?" He asks and his hand slides to his stomach, right over the butterfly tattoo she had kissed until it fluttered a week before.

"No, I don't want to hear the screams!" Emma stage whispered.

"Oh, she's a fan?" He asked like only one answer was possible.

"Yea, of me. And she's been trying to get me laid for months." Emma giggled. "She says I study too much, I object, she doesn't study enough."

"Well, we took care of that." He made a curious face then. "You're not gonna tell her?"

Did he expect her to blab to anybody that would listen that she'd banged a pop star? Maybe phone a tabloid? "No, I don't think I'll tell anyone. I like the idea of you as my secret."

"Our little secret!" His dimpled smirk really did her in.

"Our dirty little secret." She filled in the missing word, it fit snugly in his growing dimples. The possibilities too. She'd hugged her flat mate and excised herself to make good on the promise the phrase made.

And then they didn't do more than text for ages, he was on some massive tour and the time zones had her not seeing his texts for hours because they needed to sleep and she needed to lock herself in libraries and labs. The second time they spoke he'd been on a break, in California, and he'd called to see if she could fly out. She was at the airport, oddly, but she was going to Reykiyavik, not Riverside.

She'd told herself the whole flight that it was silly to feel sad. They knew with their schedules that seeing each other might only happen over the holidays. It was such a given they hadn't even discussed it.

So, as much as she wanted to, and was overwhelmed that he'd even thought to ask her, she'd just told him, "H, I can't. I'm on my way to my summer studies."

And he'd just said, "Ah well, I'll just have to keep dreaming about seeing you then."  Those words had colored her night visions for months.

He'd also left her a detailed message about what he wanted for Christmas three weeks ago.

His morning voice on her phone for three delicious, descriptive minutes was the closest she'd gotten to what he sounded like in person.

Her dreams were really bright then, almost technicolor, better than reality. At least reality with someone who wasn't Harry, as she found out in October.

It still hit differently, his voice, in this moment because she could see what he looked like too. In his jazzy button up and tight jeans. The guy she'd dated for a bit, Marko, had reminded her a little of Harry. But looking at the real thing now, in the flesh, not painted on hues, but living and breathing, she couldn't quite recall why.

Maybe just the hair. Though, Harry's was longer now, curlier, wilder.

It made her wild. When they made eye contact, she felt it in her toes. There was a pause in conversation, everyone waiting, Gemma waiting, for them to greet each other. Emma knew she should say hello, but she was busy trying to regulate her breathing. Panting wouldn't do, but that's what the collision of her daydreams and her wet dreams was inspiring.

Harry saved her, of course. "Hey Emma! It's so good to see you." The way he said good, the tone was almost like when he'd called her a "good girl" when she woken him up with a blow job last year. . Or, she thought it sounded like that.

God, what was he doing to her. She was nodding.

"It's really lovely to see you too, Styles, you've had a big year!" She'd started paying attention, when she had the time.

He blushed. Oh god!

"God, don't get him started, his head will only get bigger!" Gemma said affectionately, jostling Harry a little. "And you," she'd pointed at Emma then, "don't forget that time we had to help him hide coming home off his tits and he pissed himself. He's still my idiot little brother! No matter how famous!"

Or handsome, was Emma's addendum. She said it in her head. But they were all laughing and Gemma had given him more reasons for the attractive flush on his cheeks and deep press of his chagrined dimple. "We wouldn't want him to get a big head!" Emma giggled.

"I'm big enough everywhere else!" Harry tried to boast before Gemma started a story about how they'd had to special order a hat once, because of his massive cranium, and Emma could only sneak glances until he decided to loudly leave.

"I don't have to take this abuse!" He narrowed his green eyes at his sister. "Emma, if you want to have a conversation where my sister doesn't make it her job to insult me, I'll be in the kitchen." Near the mistletoe her mind added.

"She'll pass, I'm sure!" Gemma laughed.

Emma just smiled, as placidly as her galloping heart allowed. "I'm sure I'll need a refill at some point. Maybe then!" Her eyes promised she'd find him.

Which was how she'd wound up on the countertop of the back bathroomn with her palm between her teeth, her tights around her ankles and Harry's head between her thighs.

"Shh, shh!" He laughed up at her and god, he looked so in his element on his knees during his mother's party with a naughty glint in his eyes. Emma wrapped her hand around his chin and pulled him up to her.

"Come here!" She breathed against his mouth. The kiss tasted of her and who knew how much she liked that? Harry apparently, based on the knowing look he gave her when he pulled back to get his dick out of his tight jeans. "Convenient skirt this!"

"Inconvenient jeans those are. Are they some form of birth control?"

"Huh?" That stopped him as he was rolling the condom onto himself.

"There's evidence that wearing things too tight on your bollocks might reduce sperm count. That an extra measure to stop groupie babies?" She shouldn't ask about or imply she didn't want him sleeping with anyone else. They only saw each other once a year. She pretended even to herself that she didn't care who he slept with the rest of the year. If she wanted to know, she supposed she could ask, but she didn't. She also pretended not to compare her other rare dates to him.

There is no comparison.

"I'm gonna have to buy a whole new wardrobe!" He laid his nose against her collarbone and she pressed hers into his hair. She'd pulled off the head scarf as soon as they'd gotten into the bathroom and she was taking full advantage of the access. He was right, it was a little awkward, but Emma could see the potential and it was perfect for pulling.

He was perfect.

Her eyes had closed and she needed to get him back into gear, she should know better than to question a man's manhood when she was trying to use it. "Do you think you could afford it?" Her sarcasm was evident. She got her hand around the funny texture of his skinned cock. "Seems to be working just fine, still, and with possible positive side effects. Should we test it out?"

He lifted his head and his heavy breaths and blown out pupils suggested her stroke had brought him back to their present activity. He caught her mouth and her hips and brought her to the edge of the sill before sinking into her. He'd done his job well, the resistance was minimal and exactly what she remembered. He stopped for just a moment and she wondered if he enjoyed the fullness as much as she did. They exhaled together, made eye contact.

"I've dreamed about this for a year!" He started to move and stole the breath she would have said 'me too' with.

She knew she was making too much noise, she had every time she was with him. He was shushing her again and grinning proudly. "You have to be quiet." He laughed against her mouth.

"Make me?" Was what she said.

"Well, that would involve stopping, and I've no intention of that." So instead he caught her face and licked into her mouth while redoubling his stroke. He covered her mouth with his palm a moment later when her neck went soft and her head hit the mirror.

It was coming, the wave she'd been searching for that had receded too quickly when she'd insisted he kiss her after getting off moments ago. She bit down on his hand to muffle the groan growing in her lower belly.

"Ow!" He looked up from where he was jawing the tits he'd popped out of her bra. Emma squeezed down on him, hard, Iiterally. "Fuck!" He kept eye contact and sped up his thrusts, hitting up just as he had been when she bit him. Her eyes closed as she started to crest, popping open again when the door rattled.

Harry thought quickly and put his hip against it. His strong hold on her doubly useful. They both looked to the lock.

"You nearly done?" An unremarkable voice called.

Harry smirked at her. Covered her mouth and yelled through the door, "Yes, nearly!"

Emma didn't think she could come like that, but she was wrong. Her orgasm was all the stronger for the palm secured over her mouth  and the person through the door who might hear. And for Harry's cocky cheek while he pushed into her, until his face dissolved and he groaned. She should have put her hand over his mouth.

Instead her fingers went there and he sucked dutifully.

That set her mind running. Should she ask about meeting later? Tonight, or their traditional, she hoped, Boar's Headon Boxing Day get-together?

They'd already gotten into each other; last year they'd wound up together any free moment, but she didn't want to presume. A week full of stolen moments, some texts messages, a couple phone calls, and a back bathroom fuck did not entitle her to anything.

This wasn't enough for her, but she was too afraid to ask for more. Even what she'd had last time.

"God!" He breathed as he pulled himself free and her off the sink, fixing her skirt before washing his hands and dick, not in that order, in the basin, "How am I gonna wait until tomorrow night?" He turned a drowsy sated smile on her. "What time can you get away to the Boar's Head?"

"You still want to meet up?" She hoped she didn't sound as astounded to his ears as her own told her she did.

He's folding his beautiful dick into his jeans and he's about to do the little jump he does to position it when he just stops. He looks at her quizzically. "Why wouldn't I want to see you?"

She needs to pee and use the sink for the inelegant water in hand wash out, but she'd rather do that in front of him than reveal her insecurity. "It's just...we just..." She pointed between the two of them.

"Yeah, and we can do more," He motioned between them. Then his face lost the cheek and was replaced by a look of focused earnestness that made her heart beat harder than seeing him in person an hour ago. "And if I only get to see you once a year, because you're terribly ambitious and I'm terribly busy—"

"Yeah, you're just busy, not ambitious." She'd try to diffuse the intensity of whatever she's hoping he's about to say.

"So busy, I only get to see my dear Emma once a year, I want to sleep with you."

"You just did!" She reminds him.

"No, really sleep with you, not just sex." He pulls her in. Inside the hug, he kisses her. "Plus, we need time to talk. I want to hear all about this year's research and whatever power plant you geeked out over all summer."

"Yeah?" She's starry eyed and weak kneed, again, still.

"Yes, you muppet. I don't miss you all year just because you taste so good." He kissed her then. "Though you do taste better than anyone else."

She takes the compliment, and only thinks about it on a loop all of Christmas Day, and night. She completely forgets about it after she and Harry have tasted each other by noon on Boxing Day. Then he reveals their real first kiss, and Emma is too busy feeling their current kisses and trying to recall details of that Christmas delight while they sneak around and carouse anywhere they can.

He had to leave earlier than last year. And it's not until he's pulled off, from their private goodbye, before his pub send off where they flirt just enough to annoy Gemma, that she thinks about it.

She's not innocent, she saw other people 11 months out of the year, well three, but she couldn't help but wonder, who else was he tasting?

He implied that he had something to compare her to. Even if it was favorable, she found it bothered her. A lot.

She could ask him; instead she decides to just remember his taste and his interest, it'll have to carry her through until next yule.

It's not her business, it's too far down a road not taken anyway.

[homestuckexamination]

Soft Determinism

I remember that ask about whether people in Paradox Space/HOMESTUCK are truly free or if they’re tied to destiny. From what I observed, it’s both. Why would freedom and destiny not coexist together when you have Choices, Timeloops, and ghosts that persist on living at the same instance? On one hand, as Terezi proclaims, thoughts already have impact by themselves just by thinking about them. They are ideas that can be enacted upon to make it real and make your own Luck.

GC: B3C4US3 TH3Y TH1NK R34L1TY 1S SOM3TH1NG H4PP3N1NG TO TH3M

GC: GC: R4TH3R TH4N SOM3TH1NG TH3Y 4R3 M4K1NG 3V3RY MOM3NT W1TH 3V3RY THOUGHT

However, it’s a contest of differing wills and actions between the characters. One would act for betterment, the other would seek to dampen that progress- even through mind control. Environmental factors such as circumstance, paradoxes, the Alpha Timeline, the Doomed Timelines, and whatever SBURB throws at the player can impede or even destroy your attempts at overcoming ‘destiny’. It might even be a self-fulfilling prophecy that you and the game instilled upon yourself.

 In real life philosophy & sciences like physics and psychology, this is called ’soft compatibility’ or ’soft determinism’. It isn’t like hard compatibility/determinism in that it isn’t totally one-sided. The HS characters are free to act and think as they choose. Even if you deviate from the Alpha Timeline, you can still live on in the afterlife- whether like the ghosts that haunted Vriska or you accomplished certain tasks to achieve status as a SBURB ghost when you die like (Vriska). They can change “destiny”. They can act against what’s expected of them. *However* aside from the freedom-impeding factors I listed, their autonomy can be ultimately limited. From a meta/doylist perspective, they’re still controlled by an author/a group of authors. They have the ultimate say on how they feel, think, and act. Whether you’re Andrew Hussie, creator of Homestuck who willed the story to kill his avatar with “Death of the Author” in mind yet live again, or a fanfic writer who wants to make your theories and ships come true (at least in your stories), the characters are dictated- even after the Credits passed. As long as the visuals are drawn or the words are written, they are breathed life, albeit by the behest of a creator.

P.S. to Soft Determimation

I think that was missing from Terezi’s conclusion of reality. Making it all about exclusively the person’s thoughts & decisions ignores outside interference. It lead to pre-retcon Terezi blaming herself for the fates of her friends as well as feeling that Gamzee is the only one responsible for her sticking in their toxic relationship despite on her insistance that she stays.

Oh I really like this analysis! Though I’d like to add onto it from two angles: One the Authorial Spectrum, there are two Meta Layers of control. It’s not even from a philosophical standpoint, as the characters literally break the like, what is it, Fifth wall at that point? And interact with Authorial Forces, often times Becoming them in the process or challenging their views. In the same way, the Real World Authors also have self-inserts, leading to a split of Authorial Authority in two levels- The characters are aware there’s some sort of control, and the Authors are characters in the comic, but simultaneously, it’s real people who write them, leaving the structure of Authorial Control layered.

To make this even more complicated, the second addition, a reminder that the Alpha Timeline is this very same exerted will. There’s no predeterminism for the sake of it in Homestuck, things are predetermined into an Alpha, because they have already happened, and the Alpha Loop necessary to follow in HS is entirely determined by Lord English’ Existence. Outside of His influence, loops are bound to be smaller, even potentially nonexistent most of the time. It’s worth noting, too, that English himself is an Author Figure, opposing Calliope, the Good Fandom, and who has killed Hussie, the Original Author, to take over and cause as much mayhem and destruction as possible.

An extra addendum is the Ghosts themselves- Sure they influence the story, but they’re not intended to. It would make sense for Dead People and the Afterlife to be Doom, and yet it’s Void. This reflects the Meta Nature of the setting once more- Those who are alive are Light. They are Narratively Relevant and able to influence things, while those left behind, dead, are in the Void, left stranded, unable to grow, or develop, footnotes to the big picture.

And yet we have examples like Aranea or Meenah, or Vriska, fighting back against the clutches of Irrelevance, to face the Author Lord English himself- Characters Killed and Removed from the narrative, coming back with a vengeance against the Authorial Figure. Breaking narrative convention, coming back by themselves, facing the Biggest Threat on the setting while the supposed Protagonists seem almost separate from this side of the story...

SO yeah. God I love the Meta of Homestuck. All of these things aren’t even like, stretches or reaches, this is all textual.

[albatris]

ok ok alriiiight ok so the plot of ATDAO

this post is not, like........... well, it’s not gonna be a blurb or a summary or a nice neat synopsis, this is not Professional Writeblr Business, this is, this is, uhhhh

this is like drunk house party logan rambles

works best if you imagine ur just like “hey man how’s it going” super casual and I grasp you firmly by the shoulders and look you dead in the eye and just ramble all of this without taking a single breath

could I have explained in a nice neat concise "elevator pitch" sort of way? probably. mind ur business. that’s not how we do things here at albatris.org

anyway the purpose of this post is “hey people seem to know a lot about the characters and the worldbuilding and the premise but have no clue what happens in the actual story” so I’m not going to be talking about said characters and worldbuilding and premise in depth

in terms of rambles, that stuff’s been covered! this post assumes you know what Ports are, n what the nature of the ATDAO apocalypse is, vaguely what the MCs are like as people......... though I can fetch this info for you if you like

but yeah if you are coming into this post with zero prior ATDAO knowledge........... deeply deeply from the bottom of my heart: sorry

also if this is your first time experiencing One Of These Rambles

also @safe-in-the-steep-cliffs​ and @siarven​ I am tagging you because you said you would like to be tagged and also hi and also I hope y’all knew what you were in for

anyway without further ado

(visual representation of my approach to this rant, not of how complicated my plot actually is)

(my plot is not that complicated)

ALRIGHT

there are two viewpoint characters! and two plotlines which converge near the end of the story, but honestly there’s a very real possibility I will decide these are two separate books meant as companion stories to each other because I love making things difficult for myself yeehaw

ATDAO’s co-protags are Tris and Noa, best buds four years and counting. their friendship is one of the single most important aspects of the story, n the ongoing love and trust they have for each other despite the way unfolding events force their relationship to change is integral to the themes and making the heart of the story what it is. I will now proceed to not mention this friendship for the entire remainder of this post. they’re bros. that’s all u need to know. listen. listen. I have a lot to cover

so yeah, ur first key player is Tris Greer, whose parents are dicks but whose siblings are chill. most notably of said siblings there is Jacob, older brother by thirteen years, whom Tris believes is just about the coolest person on the entire planet. this plotline kicks off when Jacob gets caught in the midst of a freak car accident that kills a dude and wrecks a street corner and also somehow causes Jacob to just kind of................. blip out of existence entirely and without a trace?

n Tris is understandably horrified and distressed by Very Much All Of This, but hey, at least there are responsible adults who can look into this obviously Port-related weird disappearance and figure this mess out, right?

INCORRECT

the relevant interdimensional authorities are brought in to suss out the situation and these authorities are kind of like “hmmmm idk about this” but are all set to take Tris at least somewhat seriously until they learn the following:

that Jacob had already been reported missing to police in his home state three days earlier

that Jacob was in the midst of several ongoing personal crises and at least one nervous breakdown

that Jacob was allegedly tangled up in some real weird shit that would more than account for a disappearance under suspicious circumstances

that Tris is schizophrenic, prone to hallucinations, confusion, memory issues and quote unquote “letting his imagination and anxiety get the better of him”, and precisely zero people can actually corroborate his story that Jacob was even there are the time of the accident to begin with

and after some back-and-forth and Looking Into The Evidence pretty much everyone in any position of authority comes to the conclusion that this is just Ordinary Regular People Crimes and whatever happened to Jacob had nothing to do with weird apocalyptic energies, and that Tris is (at best) stressed out and delusional or (at worst) lying through his teeth because he knows more than he’s letting on

so Tris is forced to hop pretty quick from “I’m sure someone will handle this” to “no one believes me but I’m sure if I can find some concrete proof they’ll listen and someone will handle it” to Well Fuck I Guess That Someone Is Me

cue bizarre reality-hopping fantasy quest, which is ten times easier said than done when most of the time Tris is terrified enough just, like, going to the supermarket

he enlists the help of his new classmate Shara, amateur paranormal investigator and professional weird-bullshit enthusiast, who agrees to help him puzzle out what the fuck happened to Jacob in exchange for his assistance in mapping out Adelaide’s interdimensional “fault lines” as part of her ongoing quest to track down the source of the apocalypse

she’s got big fuckin dreams, ok, go hard or go home

slso worth noting at this point that there HAS been an uptick in Ports and their related reality-bending strangeness in Adelaide recently which is why this is of particular interest to her currently. gotta find out What Makes The Weirdness Tick, gotta find out Why The Sudden Extra Weirdness

..........and also Kai is there

Kai has no nice neat reason to get involved with the plot, Kai just likes drama and being all up in people’s personal business. Tris brings them on board for one single afternoon like “hey I will pay you some money to come to my house and fix my fucked up phone so I can listen to an interdimensional voicemail” but forgot the apparently key addendum “and then leave”

their first three chapters of knowing each other is basically Tris being like “stop inviting yourself into my house we are not friends” and Kai being like “that’s a rude thing to say to your friend. also your sister gave me the netflix password and I used your kitchen to bake pastries feel free to help yourself”

but yeah so Tris’s story mostly focuses on his quest to figure out where Jacob got yeeted to and how to get him safely home (y’all probably know a bit about The Unreality already maybe?), whilst also dealing with rising family tensions, whatever shifty stuff Jacob was involved with prior to his disappearance, and his own creeping doubts about his perceptions of reality

n I’m also saying flat out it’s not a plot that’s going the “oh the whole thing was just a delusion all along” route because ew

his psychosis is a fairly involved part of his character but the explorations around it are more to do with, like......... the difficulties he has in trusting himself and whether he has the luxury of letting himself get swept into some Big Weird Implausible Adventure when this has extremely different implications for him than it would someone else. n eventually to how his success and survival is not ~in spite of~ but specifically because of the different way he understands and interprets the world and the skills he’s developed

THAT TANGENT WAS A PERSONAL RANT IT WAS NOT RELEVANT I just have words to say on the subject of how psychosis is treated in fiction and didn’t want people jumping to the “none of it is real” conclusion anyway ok moving on

ur SECOND key player is Noa Yun, who has rather a lot on her plate right now. she’s broke as fuck and her mum is sick and her car is making Noises and she’s not getting enough hours at her job at Not-IKEA and everyone is on her back about her failing studies as if that’s a thing she has the energy to care about. feeling rather backed into a corner by life’s bullshit and her financial situation, she blatantly lies her way into a field job at the Department of Interdimensional Instabilities, because A) surely it can’t be THAT bad, and B) what does she have to lose?

so more or less what she’s doing is the equivalent of emergency services for Port-related weirdness, it’s going out and dealing with highly unstable otherworldly energies head on, navigating Weird Phenomena and bendy patches in reality......... it is, among other things, a job that’s relatively easy to get into because no one wants to touch it with a ten foot pole unless they absolutely have to

n the DII is a whole other post, this shit has lots of different functions and levels and branches and corruption and secrets and a tendency to view workers who have to go out and deal with the brunt of the apocalypse head-on as vaguely expendable and I’ve talked about it a bit before and in more Serious Words

things kinda kick off for her when in true Noa fashion she hurls herself into a dangerous situation to help out a coworker, n enters a pretty standard issue “overlap” where the barriers between universes are a little fucky, but hey, she seems to come out of it with nary a scratch, so it’s reasonable to assume everything is fine, right?

INCORRECT AGAIN

she basically gets some whacked-out otherworldly energies latched onto her that are now following her through her everyday life, and it turns out she’s starting to bend the reality around her the way certain types of Ports do, which is! obviously not ideal! she’s not exactly a Port herself, because she’s pretty sure that’s impossible, but it’s clear capital s Something happened to her in that overlap, and she doubts it’s good news. and to make matters even more disconcerting, she’s now being dogged at every step by strange visions of a child who speaks in an unfamiliar language and who seems Real Fuckin Pissed at her

so her thing is basically “I acquired fucked up reality-bending powers against my will and they might be lowkey killing me ‘cause Ports are notoriously unstable like that and also I’m haunted for some godforsaken reason” which all somehow ended up being, like, the least interesting part of her plotline for me lmao

oh and Noa also enlists the help of Shara, Because Ghosts

anyway yeah so her search to find out what’s happening to her re: Weird Children, being a Port-adjacent something-or-other, and whether there’s a way to stop her own unravelling leads her to (rogue computer programmer? mad scientist? general shifty bastard?) Laurence Marrick Thiele, who claims to have suffered a similar affliction in the past and now does some real interesting research on the subject. n this guy. well. he’s got some fuckin stuff going on

he definitely knows more about the nature of Ports than he should. also is he actually researching what he says he’s researching? also what’s with all the weird tech? also did he just straight up murder that guy Avery? all will be revealed later, maybe, if I feel like it

but yeah at about the same time as Noa goes “actually fuck this you’re shady as hell I’m out” she stumbles into, like, The Actual Reality of what Marrick is up to re: manipulating Ports and interdimensional doorways for his own gain, and the various ways this spells bad news not only for her but potentially for the entire city and anyone unfortunate enough to get caught in the crossfire, and she shifts gear to “actually you know what I’m gonna kick your ass”

there are various reasons for this, but first and foremosterly you have to understand that Noa’s got a fuckload of pent-up rage and she will bring it in full force the moment you say some stupid shit like “some people are expendable” or “it’s inevitable for the greater good”

(there’s also a fun ongoing subplot with her work at the DII where she and her team are investigating a string of strange illnesses with bizarre symptoms that appear to be spreading via obscure radio stations so that’s. happening. I guess?)

but yeah the main story here mostly follows Noa’s attempts to undermine Marrick, bastard supreme, and find a way to fuck him up before he goes, like, Full Cartoon Supervillain, n also like........... her attempts to keep up her work at the DII despite her rising paranoia that the teammates she’s growing to care about will notice her increasingly unstable state and the fact that she’s all tangled up with the very forces they’re meant to be thwarting. n along the way discovering the reality of what happened to her in The Aforementioned Overlap Incident and about her visions and such

so that’s all that. did that make sense

n she’s got a whole arc going on about trust and learning to lean on others, like, she comes into this story as a very standoffish person with lots of paranoia, she’s spent much of her life feeling like she can only rely on herself, n she’s. well. yeah, like I said, she’s got a lot of anger at the world and at the various systems that have failed her and her loved ones, n the story puts her in a position to become even more isolated

and her plotline isn’t so much “you have no reason to be angry or afraid” or her learning to Not Be, It’s more, like........... yeah you have every fucking right to be furious and of course you’re afraid! but there are people around you who love you and who will jump at the chance to defend you and who will help you carry the weight of your anger and grief and none of this needs to be yours to bear alone which is extremely cheesy

which applies to both her Weird Supernatural Goings-On as well as her regular ordinary life goings-on

I feel like Alice and Jet deserve a mention for Noa’s plotline but also this went on and on too long already so. well. Alice and Jet exist! yep. they work with Noa at the DII. I have things to say about them. I will not be saying them today

and uhhhhhh

in general, for Tris, his plotline, you wanna think, like, fantasy/adventure vibes which veer pretty sharply into horror, and for Noa you wanna think...... kinda, sci-fi mystery conspiracy vibes with a dash of some superhero bullshit maybe except not really

and that

pretty much is it I think

also the fact that Kai just invites themself into the plot for funsies and then is dragged kicking and screaming into caring about themself and making positive changes in their life means there was no convenient place in this post to be like

"oh there's also a whole major subplot about a time loop"

but there's also a whole major subplot about a time loop

goodnight! thanks for coming to....................... whatever this was! have a nice saturday everyone

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary Addendums: Oddly-Specifically-Themed Edition

I mentioned back when I finished the commentary that I might occasionally make new posts with little addendums to things I said in my posts. I re-read this commentary a lot just for my own sake, and sometimes I find myself wanting to clarify existing points, elaborate on things, or just make a whole new point that I hadn’t thought of during the original commentary post.

So here’s a post kind of like that… but this one features bonus thoughts on a rather specific theme. People familiar with my content on my main blog may be quite aware of the reason I found myself having these extra thoughts on this particular theme, but for the sake of not alienating anyone not familiar with that reason, I won’t directly mention anything about that here.

Content warning for the entirety of this post: discussion of torture. And I guess a little bit for psychological abuse in a non-torturey way as well.

The escape tunnel

Consider the escape tunnel in chapter 1. After being the first person to flat-out refuse to keep attempting it, Kokichi makes a rather interesting comment.

Kokichi:  “You’re free to keep trying on your own, but forcing us to join you is basically torture.”

Kaede:  “T-Torture?”

Now, not to sound like I’m agreeing with Kokichi or anything (because I’m not, not quite), but here’s my new hot take on the escape tunnel: it really is a literal torture device.

Kaede:  (When I finally woke up, searing pain coursed throughout my entire body.)

Since it’s swallowed up by a minigame, it’s kind of vague exactly what really happens to them in the tunnel each time. But based on lines like this, and everyone’s general reactions after failing over and over, it seems it’s gruellingly physically exhausting and painful. They don’t just fail to escape; they suffer for trying to do so.

Which, when you consider that there were probably plenty of ways to make the tunnel nigh-impossible to get through without making it so gruelling like this, has to have been deliberate on the part of the gamemakers. This is more than just giving them a glimmer of apparent hope and then snatching it away; this is torturing them for even trying to act on that hope.

This tunnel is a torture device, designed to ensnare people like Kaede who are stubbornly determined to escape, and then to psychologically beat them into losing that determination by coming to associate it with nothing but gruelling suffering and failure.

Rantaro:  “They want us to be desperate to go home. Corner us mentally.”

Rantaro says this, but it’s actually kind of the opposite. This is to make them give up on ever getting out of here through their own power, so that they feel like the only remaining option is to do as Monokuma says and play the killing game after all.

It’s easy to see that this works on Kaede. It’s because of the disheartening experience with the tunnel that she can no longer believe things would ever be as easy as the mastermind letting everyone go once Shuichi captures them on camera, which is why she becomes convinced that the only way to be sure of stopping the mastermind is something much more permanent.

But what might not be so obvious is that the tunnel’s psychological torture also works on everyone else. Not only does nobody ever even think about trying the tunnel again until it’s chapter 5 and Kaito’s getting especially desperate to be a hero (and they have a way to disable the traps anyway), but also, nobody ever seriously tries to escape in any other way before then, either. They talk about it, but everyone’s too hesitant to actually act.

Only a few of the weaker people there would have been consciously thinking “escaping is impossible and trying will only cause us to suffer more”, mind you. That’s the same kind of blatantly-unhelpful attitude as Kokichi’s insistence in chapter 2 of “we shouldn’t co-operate because Monokuma will make us suffer if we do”. Most people should be able to realise that this is defeatist, and that of course they should be doing the things Monokuma doesn’t want them to do, whether they might suffer for it or not, because the possibility of escaping in the end would be worth that suffering.

If some of the more determined ones caught themselves having a thought like that, or realised that the tunnel existed to make them think that way, they’d certainly be having none of it. Kaito would fervently tell you that there’s no way that stupid tunnel taught him to just give up on ever escaping this place; why the hell do you think some bullshit like that would sway him!?

And yet, it did. It got to everyone in a psychologically subtle enough way that they don’t even consciously realise it did so, so they’re not able to push themselves to fight against it. It’s rather like how Maki gradually developed a heartbreaking coping mechanism of simply accepting her awful situation without trying to change it, just condensed into one afternoon of what really does deserve to be called literal torture for the sake of making them give up.

…But as for Kokichi being the one to make the point about this being torture, well, that’s more by luck than judgement. As usual, he’s really spouting self-preserving bullshit that completely misses the actual point.

Kokichi:  “You won’t let us give up and no matter what we say, you have the moral high ground… That… doesn’t sound like torture to you? When you say we can’t give up, you’re not inspiring us, you’re strong-arming us!”

Because, geez, way to blame the person who was manipulated by the torture device exactly like it’s designed to do, rather than blaming the people who actually built the device and who are therefore really the ones responsible for torturing everyone here.

  Maki’s assassin training

Another thing I’ve had a lot more thoughts about is Maki’s third FTE, aka the one where she talks about being tortured during her training.

Maki:  “They tried to break me during training, but *I* was still there.”

See, the thing is, while Maki thinks they were trying to break her by torturing her… she’s wrong. Of course they weren’t. They wanted a functional assassin. If she broke entirely, then that’d waste all the time and effort they’d put into training her this far. Sure, they had her friend as a backup option, but it’d still be a waste to have to do all the training over from scratch. They probably very carefully design the torture to not outright break their child-slaves such that they’ll become non-functional, while also making sure to pick kids they know are resilient enough to not completely fall apart through something like that. The possibility of Maki breaking under it was very, very unlikely from the beginning.

Maki:  “They tried to drag my dignity and tear it… To make me feel empty… But even then, *I* found myself. And then, they would do it all over again.”

This is a more accurate assessment of what they were trying to do. They were trying to break her sense of personhood so that she’d just be an empty, obedient tool who would do what she was told without question and never think for herself.

(And they failed, because Maki is incredible. I really love her way of framing it as “I was still there”, “I found myself”. It’s so impressive that she managed to hold on to her sense of self throughout all that, to the point of even being consciously aware that that was what she was doing. She had no-one to help her through this, yet she managed to somehow support herself through it all anyway, out of her sheer determination to do what she needed to for the other kids at the orphanage. Maki is so good.)

Maki:  “It… wouldn’t have been strange if I broke during all the torture. But even so, I tried my best. I wouldn’t have accepted the job in the first place if I knew I couldn’t do it… But most importantly, if I broke, then *that girl* would have replaced me…”

Maki still seems to believe that she was in genuine danger of breaking to the point that they’d have needed to outright replace her, though. If she actually thought about it from a logistical standpoint – which she’s usually very good at doing – she should be able to realise that this would be a very inefficient way to train child-slave assassins. So it’s interesting that she can’t see that.

I can only assume that that’s because the torture was so awful while it was happening that she felt like they must have been trying to break her entirely, and that she was in real danger of becoming non-functional. Which… of course she would have felt that way, regardless of what they were actually trying to achieve with it. Torture is horrible, and those cultists are the biggest assholes in the world for casually doing this to children. (Or at least, they would be if they existed, but I finally thought about this so much in the first place thanks to certain AUs in which they really do.) Maki is so, so strong.

  Something else I’ve been thinking about regarding Maki lately is the notion that, well, she didn’t need to have “willingly” chosen to become an assassin for the sake of protecting the orphanage and her friend. None of the kids they recruit ever needed to be given a choice in the matter. They’re orphans, and the cult runs their orphanages; it would be perfectly easy to force a kid into assassin training even if said kid didn’t care about protecting their orphanage to the point that they’d be willing to sacrifice everything like Maki did.

Maki’s not the only high-school-aged assassin, since there are others from her cult. She apparently doesn’t even have the most inherent talent for it, given that the cult was scouting her friend first. So I wonder if the reason Maki was deemed the Ultimate Assassin anyway is because the fact that she went willingly made her better at this than any of the other child assassins the cult produced. If she didn’t resist the training (beyond the natural human instinct to resist pain and suffering, at least), it’d be easier for her to hold on to herself. She chose to submit to them and shut the regular-person part of herself tightly away in order to be able to do what she needed to do, which meant she never needed to have that part of her be broken.

Maybe kids selfless enough that they’re willing to choose this are a rare exception. (Aside from the fact that it’s still not at all a choice, because emotionally blackmailing a ten-year-old that their effective family will starve if they don’t become a mass murderer is not okay on any level, but you know what I mean.) Perhaps all of the cult’s other child-slaves weren’t quite brave and selfless enough to have willingly walked into hell, even with the threat of what’d happen if they didn’t, and they needed to be dragged there kicking and screaming instead. In that case, if they weren’t choosing to submit already, the training would have had to beat them into submission, probably resulting in those poor kids genuinely losing most of their sense of self rather than just locking it away. They might have actually had to become empty, near-mindless puppets before they could kill people.

If Maki retained more sense of self than the other child-slave assassins, that’d leave her with more initiative in carrying out her kills than the unfortunate kids who could barely do anything except follow orders any more. Although Maki had no real choice over whether or not to kill people, she wouldn’t have lost the capacity to make at least some choices by herself within that, in terms of how to do so most effectively.

(Maki mentions at one point that she specialises in quick deaths – which seems to imply that not all assassins in her cult are necessarily trained to do that as standard. That was something she chose to do on her own terms, because she wanted to be as kind as possible while still doing what she needed to do. She still hadn’t lost the capacity to be that kind.)

So maybe, paradoxically, it’s because Maki had the most kindness and selflessness out of all the cult’s child-slave assassins that she ended up being deemed the “best” out of them at killing people.

  With all that said, while the torture didn’t break Maki’s sense of self, one thing it does seem like it managed to break is her belief in herself, her sense of worth as a person. Maki thoroughly hates herself – but it’s not just in the sense that she hates herself for having killed countless people. She also just doesn’t think she’s any good at anything else, such as taking care of people, persuading people, helping out in cases, even though she is good at all of those things. While she hates the fact that she’s a killer, her skills in killing people are the only part of herself that she has any kind of confidence in.

Maki:  “Something only I can do… I can think of just one thing. …I know what you’re about to say. But… that’s the reality.”

Maki:  “I was confident in my talent as an assassin. I knew I would be able to do it.”

And… that’s almost certainly deliberate on the part of her trainers. They tortured her, physically and psychologically, to beat her down into feeling like she had no worth at all. Then, based on her genuine confidence in her talent of killing people, I can only imagine that they filled up that void of worthlessness by giving her praise and validation – but only when she showed promise in the assassin skills she was learning, and for nothing else. That way, she’d be actively motivated to get even better at it and turn herself into nothing but a killing machine, so that she could get more of that validation and feel like she was worth at least something after all. Those assholes in the cult would have become something like her twisted abusive Stockholm-Syndrome-y parent figures that she was desperate to please despite everything, because she was just a kid and she had nobody else.

Guh. Maki deserves all of the hugs and all of the genuinely supportive and healthy relationships and I’m so glad she has Kaito and Shuichi for that.

  Chapter 5 stuff

There was a thing I alluded to indirectly a few times during chapter 5, not wanting to make it explicit when the game didn’t either because torture can be an uncomfortable subject. But since I’m here openly talking about all of this now with a content warning on this post, I might as well make my point from then clear.

Maki believed it was very possible that Kokichi could be torturing Kaito while holding him prisoner. That’s part of why she was so desperate to get him out of there as soon as she could.

(Obviously Kokichi wouldn’t actually have done that, but Maki completely believed his evil sadist lie. That coupled with her own experiences that paint torture as just normal gave her every reason to assume it might be happening.)

  Meanwhile in chapter 5, there’s the Strike-9 poison.

Although it requires time to circulate, even a small amount in the body will result in certain death.

This is… very unscientifically vague. How small of an amount? Every chemical that’s capable of killing someone is always going to have a minimum threshold beneath which there’s simply not enough of it to do so. The label on this poison bottle really, really ought to actually state that amount. Obviously it would vary from person to person, but the label should at least state the average.

Instead, by not stating an amount, the implication the narrative wants to give here is that any amount of Strike-9 in the body, no matter how tiny, will absolutely definitely be lethal. Which is not how pharmacology works.

I can forgive this, though, because it’s just a writing contrivance for the sake of the case. The writers wanted it to be an unquestionable fact that anybody who was shot with an arrow coated in Strike-9 would definitely die unless they drank the antidote of which there was only one dose. They didn’t want to bog that down with ambiguity based on the threshold of lethality of the poison and the question of just how much the arrows were coated with. Nobody was meant to get any kind of hope from thinking “okay, so Kaito was shot with a poisoned arrow and Kokichi drank the only antidote, but what if there just wasn’t quite enough poison on the arrow to kill Kaito?” Technicalities like that were not the point of the case.

It is also, for that matter, quite a narrative contrivance that apparently the entire bottle of antidote is necessary to properly neutralise the poison, such that there wasn’t the possibility of them splitting it half-and-half or something. Really the exact amount of antidote needed would probably depend on the original dose of the poison, and there’d be all kinds of ambiguity to that, too.

But shush. These contrivances are necessary building blocks to create a case where one of Kaito or Kokichi has to be dead and the only ambiguity is in which one it is. Just like the whole deal with the Exisal’s ridiculously convenient voice changer, I do not actually care what background details needed to be kind of awkward and forced in order to get this story to work, because the story itself is so damn good.

[scarjarbinks]

(1) The Fool’s Journey: A Star Wars Story

Episode One A Clown, And That's All

Spires of apartments, each ubiquitous in their design, flowed like crude circuits along an ancient motherboard. Following tight alleys in the way a hawk-bat would delicately chase the scent of granite slugs, Vrina—a mauve Mikkian who favored a headdress to obscure his head-tendrils—navigated the dank streets as if guided by intimate knowledge of the sprawling maze.

With his presence masked by way of heel-toe footfall and springing steps, he successfully traversed the ground level of Coruscant without much interference—save, perhaps, the preference of avoiding detritus that would penetrate his worn leather boots.

A cramped alleyway, its stones glossy from fallen humidity, spat the wanderer into the shoulder of a well-traveled intersection. In less time it would take to light a death stick, Vrina arrived at the entrance of Gil's Gab as an intruder of a group that had converged on top of him. He was polite in the way most strangers are: a brief nod or a disingenuous smile. Two Human women and an Iridonian male were already under the influence of some unidentifiable and ostensibly trendy drug.

They kept their wits about them as they spoke with the Trandoshan bouncer. He grumbled in Basic, "Invite only tonight."

With confidence stemming from the ether, the emboldened Iridonian raised his chest and lifted his chin. "I'm—we're friends with Wegil."

"Old myth that all Zabraks know each other." The stiff guardian severed the conversation without another thought.

Vrina broke from the group while the two women fruitlessly argued with their companion. The Trandoshan peered down to the heretofore silent man. "Good evening," the Mikkian bowed his head but maintained eye contact. "I actually do know Wegil, but I'm not too sure how much you believe me after that guy. Do you, erm, have a list?" He searched the bouncer's attire. No tablet, just a DL-44.

"Name?"

"Uh, Vrina Hon. Impressive that you can remember all of those names without, y'know, a list."

"Smarter than most of my kind. Speaking," his eyes reduced by a fraction. "Why is a Mikkian so far from home?"

Vrina crossed his arms and cocked a hip. He was not offended by the amount of venom that laced the bouncer's tone. Most transients would pose the same question for a Trandoshan who appears to have been conned into a low-paying job. "I'm here to perform comedy."

A concave of seedy individuals, each imbibing and shouting. The Mikkian traversed with soft steps through Gil's claustrophobic aisles. Though he recognized very few patrons, some were, of course, impossible to ignore due to their status. Such entities dealt with business practices he would rather steer clear from, yet a pull of his excited consciousness understood when to bow as a show of respect and when to simply ignore them.

Vrina passed the stage where he was to perform and waved at the Ithorian drummer—a talented fellow by the name of Bup Nolot who rattled away upon two snares and three cymbals of various sizes. He appeared too-focused to respond, perhaps intent on keeping a steady rhythm or altogether refused to associate himself with a glorified jester.

The backstage was a small respite from the bombardment of intermingling dialects and languages, though it was only an inch-thick drape that separated him from the rest of the club. He did not expect to be alone. Vrina was meant to open for a favored comedienne dubbed Real by the regulars of Gil's and her absence meant he would potentially have to fill her time slot.

A knock on the wall behind him. With his eyes still glued to the audience, Vrina greeted Wegil with a click of the tongue. "Looks like I'm the headliner."

A copper-hued Zabrak approached the Mikkian from behind. He joined Vrina in scanning the sea of flushed faces and spitting lips. "Do you have enough material?" The low-scratch of his voice collided with the amount of noise that polluted the club.

"Eh, well," the comedian took in a sharp breath and crossed his arms. "Let's just hope that they don't remember the first five jokes from last week. Anybody I have to worry about?"

Wegil frowned. "In what way?"

"You know. Pirates, ganglords, politicians. Anybody notable?"

"Only you would rope a politician in with pirates. Since you mentioned it, sure." The Zabrak leaned to the left and gestured a nod outward. It was as if a beacon shone from the center of the crescent-shaped bar: an antsy male Human nursed eight ounces of scarlet liquid with hunched shoulders. He kept his head down, uninterested in those who took residence next to him yet kept a subtle conversation with the barkeep.

Vrina shook his head. "I have a feeling he wasn't invited."

"He's certainly found his way in here, though. He hasn't said a single word to anyone other than the bartender, one of his own kind. I would prefer not to deal with any acts of speciesism tonight. You and Bup are the only two who can see the entire club wall-to-wall."

The Mikkian thought back to the drummer's intense focus and exhaled. "So you'll pay me for my services of doing twice the work as a comedian and taking on an additional role as a spy." He sucked on his teeth, head bobbing while mentally creating an addendum to the first half of his set.

Wegil clasped Vrina on the shoulder and forced eye contact. "I'm not paying you extra for the simple task of paying attention. If anything or anybody suspicious worms their way in…" The club owner paused and drew his head away. "Try to work in a joke about me. I won't take it personally."

"You're acting as if that wasn't half of my set. Right, understood, but what about covering for Real?"

With a sniff, the Zabrak pulled away and nodded twice. Soon, the Mikkian was once again left alone and felt the weight of the near future pressing into his skin like the heat of too-many suns orbiting a desert planet.

Vrina did not have much time to prepare for the amount of improvisation thrusted upon him. The emcee of the night, a stocky Rodian, hyped those who were listening into an enthusiastic applause. After a lengthy introduction presented in choppy Basic, he introduced the Mikkian. As they exchanged the microphone, the reptilian whispered a few words of encouragement: "If you are not funny, I will take over. No problem." He backed away with two thumbs up.

The initial warm-up dragged on as expected with very few individuals chuckling and pulling the attention of their friends to the stage. With more eyes on him, he began to feel at ease. "Everyone's heard the buzz around the eff-ess-ess, right?" He pursed his lips and made eye contact with as many who cared to pay attention. "A federation of only six systems. What an arbitrary number! How are we supposed to check if that's even correct when they won't give up who the systems are?"

For the first time all night, the Human at the bar spun his stool to face the comedian. Though the lights had been dimmed, he could make out a few key features: jet black hair and a matching beard. The Mikkian did not hesitate to continue. "If they were really trying to be intimidating, they might as well have said six-hundred. Sixteen would instill more terror for a terrorist organization!"

A quarter of the audience responded with a lukewarm chuckle—Bup's drumline accompaniment made sure the comedian's jokes never truly fell flat. A figure entered his field of vision to the right. One passive glance drank in the sight of Wegil who did not seem to find any of the Mikkian's jokes humorous in the least.

It was time for his improvisation muscles to be flexed. "Well, you want to keep the numbers small, I guess. Zipping around in taxis would be more cost efficient than buying fuel." A tight grin appeared on the Human's face. Vrina prevented himself from paying too much attention to him. "No need for a base of operations either, really. Just rent a hotel room or, perhaps, meet at a club."

A movement in the back caught Vrina's attention. The Human exited from the bar to the bathroom, pushing his way past a drunk Twi'lek who gestured unkindly to the man. The energy of the room became dense and the once idle chatter fell away to usher in silence. It was as if he had captured the attention of every single patron.

His throat closed, but he knew that, as a comedian, there could never be dead air. "Everybody here knows our lovely host, Wegil, yeah? Let's be honest, of everyone on-planet, he would be the one to house the eff-ess-ess. Watered down coolers to keep them drunk and drain them off their coffer, ill-tempered Trandoshans to keep an eye on their credit pouch." Vrina began to wonder how much of his material was rooted in truth. The Zabrak unwound from his position backstage and navigated through the back. "Safest place in all of… All of—"

A pressure settled into Vrina's skull and he promptly returned the microphone to its stand as Wegil approached the bathroom with a drawn blaster, one bouncer trailing behind him. The Mikkian hurriedly waved a good-bye to Bup as the audience began to boo them both. His lungs inflated as he twisted through the narrow tunnel behind the stage and was forced to stop by way of another Trandoshan bouncer.

"You need to finish your, what is it, comedy," the hulking figure encroached on Vrina's personal space. "If you can even call it that. Wegil's already sent the credits to your account, so I'd recommend—"

A blast shook the lobby and a wave of truncated screams pinched the Trandoshan's focus. With the bouncer's lowered guard, Vrina slipped through what little space the corridor offered and sprinted toward the stage-left exit. If his movements were deft enough, he could remain under the cover of darkness for long enough to join the growing crowd of patrons that also attempted escape.

Rubble could be made out from within the thick plume of smoke that emanated from the bathroom. Vrina slowed to a stop and examined the situation. Two bodies writhed on the ground and another was motionless. He took stock of who was left in the club: half of the patrons, the remaining bouncers… The bartender was already gone.

As the smoke began to clear, Vrina approached the center of the lobby and squinted at the bodies on the ground. A familiar skull-shape, horned and round. He debated whether he should usher the Zabrak out to safety or—

Vrina was lifted from the ground by a pair of scaly, calloused hands. The Trandoshan heaved the comedian forward and watched as he rolled over a table and barreled into several chairs. Broken glass stuck to the Mikkian's simple outfit, a few shards hid in exposed skin.

"He infiltrated our place of business," the bulky reptilian guard sneered and stepped forward. Vrina attempted to straighten himself to a seated position. Two more bouncers slunk in from the corners of the club and approached the Mikkian as well. "And staged an attack!"

"I—what? Me?" Vrina rotated his torso to face the other Trandoshans and experienced a sharp pain in his ribcage. "Ah, dosh." He seethed and grabbed his side. "H-how could I have set off an explosive if I was up on the stage?"

The main Trandoshan signaled the others to stop. He looked down at the pathetic Mikkian with racing eyes.

"Also, whoever did that is doing all of you a favor. Now, listen to me," he exhaled as the guards began to close in once again. "You are all much too talented of warriors to be stuck in here all day catering drunkards. What have you been doing all this time? What's your motivation?"

There was a moment of hesitation, though his gaze never fell away from Vrina. For a moment, there appeared to be a modicum of empathy that flashed in the Trandoshan's eyes. "We've been waiting to tear someone apart."

The Mikkian flinched and swung both palms to defend himself. A gasp from the Trandoshan as a gust of wind knocked him off of his feet. Vrina's brow furrowed but there was very little time for him to ruminate as the remaining bouncers enclosed him with clawed hands outstretched.

Several bleats of a small caliber blaster sounded from the debris-laden corner of the club. Either bouncer roared when struck in their armor, another in his arm. With their luck pressed, they each drew their heavy blasters and scattered to find cover from upturned tables. Vrina spent this time erecting himself to his feet and so did the once-fallen Trandoshan.

Now careful of his enemy, the bouncer kept his distance with two fists balled and ready for use. Vrina blinked and did the same, though both palms were flat and directed in the same fashion as before. No matter how many times he mentally willed himself to throw wind, nothing as exciting occurred. He began to doubt that it had ever taken place—a trick of the eyes, an anomaly of a pressure shift within the building.

While he was distracted processing the anomaly, the firefight behind him resulted in the dropping of both guards. A bright voice shouted: "Duck!"

Without a second thought, Vrina shrunk to the floor and watched as the second of two red bolts struck the remaining bouncer in the center of his forehead.

For a one brief moment, the Mikkian considered snatching the DL-44 from the Trandoshan's holster to take charge of the situation, to feel as if he were not helpless. The same voice called to him with an edge that convinced Vrina the scenario was not quite over. "Are you armed?"

"N-no."

"Well, why not?"

Vrina turned to face the same Human he had been instructed to spy on earlier. Almond-shaped eyes and well-groomed, about the same height and body type as he was, though somewhat more muscular. "So I should, erm, get a blaster?"

The man rolled his eyes and turned the heel of his weapon toward the comedian. It was a feeble blaster with slender design, uniform in color, but did not seem to reflect a sheen. A perfect weapon to conceal. "I assume a Jedi would know how to use one of these."

"A—" The device was shoved in his hand and the mysterious man excused himself to fetch the much more powerful DL-44 from the fell bouncer.

"It's probably a good thing they didn't know how to handle one of these, huh?" Sucking his teeth, the man looked down the unmodified sights and nodded. "I mean, I barely know how to use one of these, sure, but they were just awful."

Vrina straightened his wrist after acclimating to the surprising weight of the small blaster. "What exactly did you just call me?"

The man threw a humored side-eye at the Mikkian. "C'mon. It'd be nice to have someone who knows what they're doing by my side."

"But… I'm—oh, dosh." He watched the Human step away while offering a tight hand signal that meant nothing to the comedian.

Kept crouched and insecure, Vrina trailed behind the Human with the blaster limp and pointed to the floor. In the many patrons' effort to escape, they had made quite a mess: shattered cups and plates, food tracked under heel, abandoned death stick cartridges. The unconscious form of Wegil caused the Mikkian to pause his trail.

"Do you know him?" The Human kept his weapon pointed to the only way in or out. An expectation of being ambushed was palpable. "You have to let me know now if this is someone worth saving. Like, now."

The truth bit at Vrina's tongue. He wanted to be honest and admit that he knew very little about the Zabrak, but the fear that he would be tracked down by a vengeful conduit of illicit affairs forced his hand. "Yeah, he's worth it." The man gave him a signal to fetch the club owner.

Calling out in just above a hushed voice, "I'm surprised we haven't run into the see-ess-eff."

"Right." Vrina heaved Wegil up and balanced him on his feet. "I-find-it-surprising…" He growled while ushering the unconscious body to the door. "How-heavy-people…" A moment to catch his breath. "Actually are."

The man ignored his sentiment. "We have one shot. I'm really going to need you to muster all the strength you have." He slipped a rod-shaped comlink from his jacket pocket. A pleasant chirp sounded when he began to transmit. "Rokkna-1, critical mission failure. Resort to plan-B, but with the pick-up coordinates of Plan-A."

A woman sighed as a response. "Always with the plan-B. Copy, Rokkna-2."

The individual identified as Rokkna-1 turned to Vrina and flashed a grin. "Don't worry, the mission failure wasn't exclusively, entirely your fault."

"I didn't think it was. Wait, was it?"

"Ready up your friend."

With a shake of the head, the Mikkian stood Wegil upright and braced him. "Where are we going? What's happening?"

The whirring of an incoming shuttle paired with sirens that belonged to that of the Coruscant Security Force. "You'll be back in time for breakfast. On five."

Vrina's heart rattled in his chest. Under his breath, "Dosh."

The feminine voice called in, but the sound was muffled while the comlink was tucked in the man's jacket pocket. "Clear, Rokkna-1."

"Nevermind—FIVE!" The Human set off through the front door with large strides. His shoulder checked the door and swung it open with enough force to allow his new companion the chance to exit the building's threshold and into the dark street.

A shuttle with seamless and bulbous edges hovered several feet above ground, its ramp already dropped and open for entrance. The bearded man hopped on board with an effortless bound but fell to his knees and spun to help the Mikkian and Zabrak aboard.

The excited but passive ambiance of each street in the intersection was interrupted by the aggressive whine of hidden speeders. Rokkna-1 demanded the Zabrak first and Vrina agreed, shoving the body onto the ramp with one final expression of strength.

With the CSF seconds away, the transport shuttle began lifting away from the ground. The pilot spoke through the comlink, but there was too much distance for the Mikkian to make out any one word. The Human disappeared inside of the hull for a handful of seconds. Vrina's chest seized as if a deadly poison had finally taken hold of him.

With the ramp now several feet above his head, he could just barely jump to grab on. His feet kicked the air, his fingers without a decent grip. The first round of blue bolts swept by him but missed by mere inches.

"Hold on, friend!" Rokkna-1 returned with a silver can in his right hand. He activated the device and rolled it off the ramp while extending an arm to lift Vrina onboard.

As soon as it struck the ground, the canister popped and began to spray a viscous white smoke to obscure the underside of the ship; flashes of blue looked like lightning trapped in dense clouds. Once the Mikkian had been pulled in and was comfortable enough, the ramp inhaled and sealed with a pressurized click.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Texting & Tamarins

Cries of pain, the smell of a sickroom, the blank faces of the attendants, Jane’s cries of frantic agony, the helplessness, the fear-

  Joan’s eyes snapped open.

  No sickroom, no dying woman. Just her own cabin.

  She curled up into a ball and lay there, shivering.

  Instinctively, she reached for her phone.

  ‘R U awake?’

  Maggie teased her about using text speak but it was so much simpler when she was in a hurry. Such as now.

  The answer pinged back almost immediately: no.

  The response made her whole body sink with relief- Maggie was awake, it was all ok- and she was already starting to key in her response when she stopped herself. Maggie had said no, after all. And she HAD- very nicely- asked Joan to try to keep from texting her after midnight, in the interest of good sleep hygiene (or as she had phrased it- ‘I love you but it better be an emergency or I’m not going to have gotten enough sleep to not kill someone’.)

  Did this count as an emergency?

  True they hadn’t hashed out the finer details….but still, probably not.

  She pushed her phone back under her pillow and curled up again.

  It was fine. She’d just go to sleep and tell Maggie about the dream in the morning.

  Except.

  She just couldn’t switch off.

  The cabin felt….extra dark, somehow. More sinister. Usually, it was her bolthole from the sometimes chaotic and often crowded rest of the ship. Now though, it felt unfamiliar. Try as she might, she couldn’t shake the absolutely ridiculous feeling that there was someone there with her- there, or just outside the door…

  She rolled herself into her blankets, which helped for about thirty seconds...but then she felt just as vulnerable as before. Vulnerable- and alone. The fear that there was someone creeping up on her was mixed somehow with the feeling that she was the only one awake on the entire ship, and even though logically she knew that wasn't true, the thought made her feel oddly lonely. She thought of the sleeping ship- and of the bleak empty ocean surrounding them- and her eyes stung with tears.

  Rolling onto her stomach, she started to cry very quietly into her pillow, hating herself at the same time for being so pathetic. Even the knowledge that she’d feel like an idiot in the morning didn’t help dissipate the horrible feeling of desolation building in the pit of her stomach.

  Alone….all alone….

  The quiet knock on the door made her freeze, heart suddenly pounding. Someone was outside, She lay there, too afraid to even breathe, straining her ears- would they try the next door, or would they stick to hers? She was suddenly seized with a terrible fear that she’d forgotten to lock her door behind her- they locked automatically, of course, but what if something had malfunctioned, what if it hadn’t closed properly, what if-

  ‘Joan?’

  It was Maggie.

  Relief flooded her at the familiar voice and she scrambled out of bed, stubbing her toe in her hurry to open the door.

  As she did, her previous fears felt especially foolish- the corridor was lit as it always was, she could even faintly hear the sounds of other people still moving around. 

She surreptitiously brushed her damp face with the sleeve of her pajama top, hoping Maggie wouldn’t notice anything amiss and she’d be able to escape with her dignity (such as it was) intact.

  ‘Why were you crying?’

  No such luck.

  ‘Um...I wasn’t?’

  Maggie raised an eyebrow and Joan felt her resolve crumbling- it was hard to obfuscate with someone as frustratingly blunt and straightforward as Maggie.

  ‘It’s stupid really, I just had a bit of a bad dream and when I woke up, I kept thinking that there was someone….there with me-’ It was ridiculous that even though she knew herself to be perfectly safe, actually verbalising it all made her throat ache and her eyes sting. ‘-like in the cabin or right outside, and I kept seeing, I kept seeing Jane, I kept seeing her screaming and I could smell the blood….and I was watching her die again….and it-’ A sob tore itself, unbidden, from her throat. ‘It was just really lonely and scary-’

  She was pathetic, she knew it- to be whining like a child, after nothing worse than a dream, bothering Maggie no less. She’d been speaking to her bare feet and she was reluctant to even look up and face the guitarist- she didn’t want to see Maggie’s blank inscrutable look, her distinctly-underwhelmed face, the one she showed to audience members who complained, to passers by who passed remarks on her height, to anyone who was dismissive of the importance of the band to the success of the whole show. 

  She didn’t want to see the unimpressed stare Maggie was surely greeting her teary rambling explanation with- so it was a surprise when instead of being questioned or scolded as she expected, she felt herself being pulled into Maggie’s warm arms.

  ‘Hey, it’s ok-’ Despite being several inches shorter, Maggie still managed to exude a surprisingly protective feel. Like she would tear the throat out of anyone who tried to get too close. ‘It’s all ok-’

  ‘I’m sorry-’

  ‘Don’t apologise, you’re fine-’

  She sniffled into the shoulder of Maggie’s hoody, feeling humiliated but also comforted. 

  ‘I’m sorry I woke you up, I know it’s late-’

  ‘That’s ok, it’s ok.’ Maggie pulled back enough to look her in the eye. ‘I did say you could call me in emergencies.’

  ‘I don’t think this counts as an emergency…’

  Maggie shrugged. ‘Hey, anything that makes you cry on me in a corridor is an emergency in my book, right? I’m glad you texted.’

  ‘I stopped texting because I felt bad about disturbing you-’

  ‘Well, I mean you’d already woken me up by that point-’

  Fresh tears welled in Joan’s eyes and Maggie squeezed her hand.

  ‘Joke. Honestly, you could have carried on texting, I wouldn't have minded.’

  ‘Sorry for getting you out of bed though-’

  ‘It’s really, really ok-’ Maggie pulled Joan back into her, gently rubbing circles up and down her back. ‘Anyway, you didn’t get me out of bed, I just got….concerned when you didn’t text back so I thought I’d check on you and…..well, I was right!’

  Joan gave a watery chuckle at Maggie’s (for her) exaggeratedly self-congratulatory tone and burrowed in closer.

  ‘Now-’ There was a (small) smile in Maggie’s voice too- it vibrated in her throat where Joan’s face was buried. ‘Let’s get you back to bed and warmed up a bit- you’re shivering-’

  Joan wasn’t entirely sure if the tremors were entirely due to the night chill of the corridor or not but she didn’t feel like arguing. The adrenalin of everything was starting to wear off; she stifled a yawn.

  Maggie nudged her back towards the half open cabin door. ‘Get your pillow first- I’m done with you stealing mine in the middle of the night like you usually do…. if I go to medical with a stiff neck again, they’re going to think I’ve got an actual problem-’

  Pillow in hand, Joan joined Maggie in the corridor again.

   Maggie looked at her without speaking.

  ‘What?’

  She kept staring.

  ‘What?’

  Maggie sighed. ‘God, you’re actually going to make me say it, aren’t you? Go get your monkey thing or whatever it is. And there I was trying to be all tactful and shit-’

  ‘......she’s a tamarin.’

  There was no point trying to deny anything, after all; face burning slightly, Joan reentered the cabin with as much poise as she could muster and scooped up the slightly worn creature from where it had fallen to the floor, hiding it behind the pillow in her arms so it wouldn’t be seen in the corridor.

  ‘You don’t need to be all weird about it-’ Maggie went on as they started down the hall to her cabin. ‘As if I care that you have a stuffed marmoset or whatever- it’s not like you’re the only one-’

  Hope flared in her chest. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, Bessie sleeps with a flick knife under her pillow-’

  ‘That’s….not really the same thing….Also she’s a tamarin….’

  ‘Meh, flick knife, marmoset. Marmoset, tamarin, Potato, potahto-’

  Maggie swiped open the door of her cabin- the faint smell of (strictly forbidden) incense and (even more strictly forbidden) cigarettes enveloped them.

  Other cast members had complained about the permanence of the aroma of both contraband items but to Joan, the cabin smelled of safety.

  ‘Get comfy. And hands off my pillow, remember.’

  Maggie pulled back at the covers and motioned for Joan to get in first before climbing in after her. It was a tight squeeze but, with the wall on one side and the warm shape of Maggie next to her, Joan felt safer than she had all night. There was just no way anyone- even the most determined intruder- would be able to get past Maggie.

  Maggie’s thoughts were obviously running in the same direction. Clicking off the light, she wrapped an arm around Joan’s stomach and pulled her in close. Her breath tickled the back of her neck.

  ‘You’re ok now. I’ve got you.’

  ‘I know.’ She yawned again. Somehow in Maggie’s cabin, the dark and quiet felt soothing rather than threatening. ‘Thanks, Maggie.’

  ‘You don’t have to say thank you, you know.’

  ‘I know but-’ She struggled to find the words. ‘You came and you didn’t have to, I woke you and disturbed you, and it wasn’t even for a good reason and-’ She could feel herself getting worked up again.

  ‘Shhh.’ Maggie pressed closer to her; her hand found Joan’s in the dark and squeezed it gently. ‘It’s ok. Go to sleep. Dream some nice dreams. Dream about tamarins or some shit.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Shhh.’ A kiss was pressed between her shoulder blades. ‘It’s all ok. I love you. Just rest.’ There was a pause. ‘Slight addendum to that- it’s all still ok and I still love you but if you don’t move your monkey thing to your side of the bed, it’s going on the floor-’

  ‘....it’s a tamarin.’

  Joan drifted to sleep to the sound of Maggie’s quiet laughter.