#and while that's technically STILL true for thirteen..... there's like a lot there re: the specific notion of the timeless child

[striderepiphany]

Part 4: COMEBACK TOUR

sweat it out on the streets by swordfishtrombones

13 chapters, 82,282 words, No Archive Warnings Apply. Summary:

Eddie takes up running and goes through a lot of bodily sensations.

Notes: Oh. My. God. I didn't get to add this fic during the previous parts of this list because it was still being published but if I had this would be at the TOP. Guys...This is all-time. I've already given this author enough lip service in the last part so I'll just say this is probably one of my favorite fics ever written and leave it at that.

Do Our Gay Ballet on Ice by makesomelove

1 chapter, 7,930 words, No Archive Warnings Apply. Summary:

“Fuck no,” Richie says like Eddie’s offended him. “God, no way. Are you kidding? Those guys used to kick the snot out of me. No, fuck hockey players. This ice isn’t for them. This is sacred ice apart from their toothless barbarism. Plus they’re all ugly as fuck. Do you think I’m ugly?”

Richie frames his face angelically with his hands and grins. He’s got all of his teeth in his admittedly charming smile. Eddie shakes his head. Richie is certainly not ugly. As Richie talks, Eddie doesn’t even realize he’s being led further onto the ice.

Notes: I think this might be the shortest on this list? (I was dumb and forgot to format part 3 correctly so im not sure) But OH MAN is this cute. It's so cute. I don't usually go in for the fluff pieces but something about this one just hits so perfectly, especially right at the end. Definitely on my heavy rotation as far as re-reads go.

Now What I'm Gonna Say May Sound Indelicate by IfItHollers (UNFINISHED)

25 chapters, 374,030 words, No Archive Warnings Apply. Summary:

Eddie Kaspbrak has lived his whole life being told that he's delicate, and he's not. And nearly bleeding out in an alien fear demon's lair has helped him realize that--as well as what he can live through. It puts his priorities in some perspective.

What he is, is injured. And married. To like, a woman. And gay. And stupidly, stupidly in love with Richie Tozier, after all these years. And he'd like to use his new lease on life to act on many of these things, if only Richie would cooperate.

Notes: Okay now I really want you to hear me out on this one. Yes, this fic is technically unfinished with a completion very unlikely. BUT!!!! I don't care, and I still think you should read it. First of all it's 374k words long (the longest on this list!) so it isn't like there's not enough of it. Secondly there isn't like a huge story event that's left unresolved, and I honestly felt quite satisfied where it ends.

With that out of the way here's my normal review. Very rich narration style and explores a lot of really interesting topics! If you need a long fic to really sink your teeth into, this is the one for you.

one, two, powershift by moichi

6 chapters, 48,213 words, No Archive Warnings Apply. Summary:

Deep breaths. Eddie counts them; one, two, three, four.

He unlocks his phone and reads the text again. It's from Richie.

I don't know how to say this but i'm gay i'm sorry for not telling you when we were all together

Notes: Honestly I don't have a lot to say about this because it's been a while since I read it IM SORRY but I remember really enjoying it. Eddie Kaspbrak's midlife crisis fans I want to hear you make some noise!!!!!!!

six more weeks of summer by amleth

4 chapters, 50,900 words, Graphic Depictions Of Violence. Summary:

His name was Richie “Trashmouth” Tozier. He was thirteen years old and he lived in Derry, Maine. His best friends were Stan Uris, Eddie Kaspbrak, and Will Denbrough. His dad was a dentist and his mom wished he’d been born a girl.

All of this felt true, more or less. Like it could’ve happened before.

Or, Richie gets caught in the Deadlights and cycles through the different scripts written for IT (2017).

Notes: This ticks all the boxes for me in terms of bizarre long-form fics. It helps that time loop is like my favorite trope of all time, and this one has a twist!! Tbh another fic I haven't read in a while lol but I stand by this rec!

Crosseyed & Painless by bellbawttoms

6 chapters, 58,156 words, No Archive Warnings Apply. Summary:

Winter 1993: between being grounded for a month, Bill roping him in on his super 8 werewolf movie and Eddie getting a *girlfriend*, Richie’s one step away from blowing his fucking stack.

Notes: The sheer number of references in this blow my mind every time and I love the way the characters in this talk. So deeply entertaining. Kat you knocked it out of the park with this one and I forgive you for not finishing exploding boy (jkjk).

My favorite reddie fics masterpost

I have an absolutely insane number of reddie fics saved in my bookmarks for how recently I joined this fandom so I decided to share my absolute favorites with you. Please give these authors some love and let me know which ones are you've read and enjoyed!

the year of the goat and your kid back by derryfacts2

1 chapter, 14,838 words, No Archive Warnings Apply. Summary: The day you get the most important email of your life, there’s a new black skidmark on the wall of the stairwell, and you know exactly whose fault it is. “Margaret,” you intone to the harried, wild-haired woman in the lobby. She sighs at you as she tries to jimmy her mail key loose. “I know.” It wouldn’t even be that bad if the kid would just skateboard outside. Or get good at skateboarding. Either of those things. Maggie’s a nice lady, though, and she’s had “trying my best” scribbled all over her since they moved into 6B maybe eight years ago. So you try not to be a dick, even if her son is a gold-standard pain in the ass. He’s good for three things: smells, noise, and reminding you how big Eddie must be by now.

The first It fic I read that made me go "holy shit, this is fantastic" and remains one of my all-timers (hence why its first in this list). Really fun and unique outsider POV from Eddie's estranged gay dad, and tells a very sweet story mostly through dialogue. Young adult Eddie and Richie are very cute.

i think the clock is slow by derryfacts2 (again)

3 chapters, 15,815 words, No Archive Warnings Apply. Summary: So there was that reason that work wasn’t boring, too. There was Richie’s soppy campaign of making cow eyes at the back of Eddie’s head as he passed, gently pressing Betty for details about his personal life (“I don’t think he has one. He had this awful fiancé a few years ago, but we’re all glad that’s over”), and chasing the incomparable high of a quiet, muttered “Thanks, Rich” whenever Richie picks something up for him from the copier.

Richie is a wannabe stand-up comic daylighting as the receptionist at Eddie's office. Eddie is a tightly-wound corporate asshole. They are both disasters. Or: five times Richie watched Eddie and one that Eddie watched him back.

I really enjoy workplace dramas and this one satisfied the itch so well. So many good scenes and dialogue, this author characterizes them in a way that really works for me. The perfect read-in-an-afternoon fic.

listen to my heart (can you hear it sing?) by vampirerising

12 chapters, 137,708 words, Major Character Death. Summary: "You need to wake up now,” Stan says softly. “This isn’t real.”

“I know, but I can’t,” Richie sobs. “I don’t want to be here.” Not again. Never again. It is dead, why is It still haunting him?

Stan fixes him with one of those looks of his, the one where he can see his every thought as if it were written on his face. “That’s not true, Trashmouth.”

Alternatively: We all know Richie gets caught in the Deadlights, but do we really know what happens after?

(Deadlights, timelines, Stan’s ghostly meddling—oh, my.)

This one is fucking weird in a way that I absolutely adore. Kind of like a sci-fi novel in that it requires you to pay attention to figure out what the fuck is going on but its so good and worth it. The MCD is Stan, not Eddie, and the last couple chapters are actually a very normal domestic Eddie lives AU. One of the first reddie artworks I made was fanart for a scene from this fic that I really enjoy.

a strange sense of familiarity by Katranga

21 chapters, 103,571 words, No Archive Warnings Apply. Summary: "So Eddie, what brings you to the bar tonight?" Richie asked. "Gonna rebound from the divorce? Pick up a hot young twenty-something to feel young again?” “Fuck you,” Eddie said, jutting his chin forward. “What a terrible way to ruin the mood.” “I’m sorry, all my moods are poorly cultivated. What mood were you looking for?” A nervous lump grew in Eddie's throat. He threw back his drink to get rid of it.

Hand wrapped around the glass he’d just slammed back onto the bar, he said, “The mood that gets me leaving with a schlubby forty-something.”

Pre-chapter two, Eddie and Richie meet and don't remember each other, but have an instant connection anyway...

This one is just... so fucking good. Decently long without ever feeling like it's dragging. Part 1 is them developing their totally-casual-I-swear relationship, which blows up right when Mike calls them back to Derry. Part 2 is them navigating both killing a nightmare clown demon and the awkwardness between them. Also everybody lives! So that's nice.

change partners by avacadomoon (with podfic available)

1 chapter, 30,453 words, No Archive Warnings Apply. Summary: "Rich," Eddie says heavily. Meaningfully, and Richie holds his breath, both afraid and hopeful that Eddie is about to say something really sappy, like I always knew and it didn't matter to me, or you know I support you no matter what. Eddie takes a deep breath before he speaks, and Richie closes his eyes, braced for it. "I didn't look at your dick pics."

"Well hey, Eds, thanks," Richie says, laughing incredulously. "Thanks for that."

I LOVE THIS ONE SOOO FUCKING MUCH. I urge you to consider this as a rec for this author as well, as they have a bunch of other reddie fics I think are fantastic. I have a weakness for any reddie fic that lets them be just a little mean to each other. As a treat. (Also the podfic is very well done, you should check that out too.)

check raise by avacodomoon

1 chapter, 15,061 words, No Archive Warnings Apply. Summary: "Eddie, not a fan of stand up comedy, not a fan of his beer," Rich says, leaning back on one elbow and squinting at him, like he's lining him up in a camera lens frame, "but what is he doing drinking alone?"

"I was alone, and now I'm not," Eddie says. "Some prick sat down next to me and started yapping."

"Ah, unpleasant to talk to," Rich concludes. "Explains a lot."

I know I meant the last rec as a blanket rec for all this author's works but I'm including this one specifically because it has a twist ending that is well-foreshadowed and it slapped my dick clean off.

Things that Happen after Eddie Lives by IfItHollers

11 chapters, 107,947 words, Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings. Summary: In a world where Richie manages to save Eddie from It after the deadlights, they still have problems on their to-do list. Featuring everything from Derry to Los Angeles—Richie Tozier's murder trial, Eddie Kaspbrak's divorce proceedings, bedsharing of the platonic and non-platonic varieties, an investigation of magic, a truly disgusting séance, the quintessential morosexual road trip, and OH MY GOD THEY WERE ROOMMATES.

Definitely NOT your average Eddie lives AU. Drama! Mild peril! Psychic abilities! The ghost of Stanley Uris collect calling from beyond the grave via Richie Tozier's vocal chords! Fun and freaky and weird. Three things that make any fic a Josh favorite.

I'm going to stop there because I'm sleepy but let me know if you want more! Like I said I've got like 70 of these lovingly tucked in my bookmarks and I'm happy to share with the class.

[stillness-in-green]

The MLA(/PLF) Headcanon Post (1/2)

In response to this nice ask about whether I have any headcanon or thoughts about the current members of the MLA/PLF, I spent two weeks blithering 16.5K words of exactly that into a Word file, because when it comes to underappreciated characters I love, I do not understand restraint.  This post and its follow-up will cover all ranked ex-MLA members of the PLF, as well as Original Flavor Destro and Curious, since I wasn't going to leave them out of a project like this even if they aren't "current."

The ask only mentioned having previously read The Lore Post, the last exercise in ridiculousness that I wrote at the tail end of MLA Week, so I wrote this to summarize everything that doesn't appear there—which is to say that a lot of the material in these two posts will look familiar to anyone who's read my fanfic about the MLA cast.  There’s still plenty of new material to go around too, though!

So, I don't have much in the vein of askblog-style headcanons where I can randomly tell you stray trivia about a character’s favorite foods or their love languages or what have you; that stuff either comes up when I'm writing fanfic or it doesn't.  That said, below, please find a mix of thoughts I keep in mind when writing characters, facts that have only turned up in my fanfic/notes so far and not the Lore Post meta, and a selection of lightning round headcanon provided by cross-referencing a random number generator with some old questionnaires I keep around for OCs and tabletop characters.

In this post: Destro, Re-Destro and his advisors, and Geten.

Destro— 

General Thoughts The whole "revolutionary leader" thing came very naturally to him. He was committed, charismatic, very willing to risk his life and safety for the cause, and he cared about his people. All that said, he absolutely had a pompous, prideful streak, especially where it came to his justification for terrorism.  You only have to read his own words to see that.  Still, he was in large part reacting to the world he lived in, one of greater violence and danger than the current day. 

I like to think that—because he was genuine in wanting freedom for all—he would not approve of what became of his Army.  He'd be able to see how they got there, and he would probably have made much the same choices if he'd been there with them, but while he would have agreed that his role should be remembered—that's just Due Credit—he would never have wanted to become the nigh-on religious figure his followers turned him into. Continuing to fight the good fight for his ideals is one thing, but secret salutes and isolated villages and being raised from infancy to know your life has only as much worth as it can contribute to Liberation…  Well, it's just not what he would have wanted for his people, much less his descendants. 

Family Situation Chikara was only around 7 when his mother was killed, the event that would shape the rest of his life.  He wasn't hiding in the closet from the mob, either; he was kicking and punching and biting, his motivation to save her overflowing—but he was still only 7, and eventually overwhelmed.  His own life might well have ended there with hers, but for a group of neighborhood vigilante types (at least one of whom probably went on to a career as a hero, after legalization).

He went most of his adolescence without getting involved with anything more sinister than student newspapers, founding a secret meta-rights "club," and attending the odd larger protest, but when the government started talking about passing laws restricting the use of meta-abilities, he started getting very radical very quickly, and when some absolute snake started to use his martyred mother's words to bang the drum for banning quirk use outside the home outright, he went off the deep end.

Lightning Round (Randomly Selected Headcanons)

Favorite book genre?  Memoirs and biographies—he wouldn't have written his own if he didn't appreciate their value.  The intimacy of the personal juxtaposed against the broad scope of history appeals to both his regard for individuality and his revolutionary mindset.

Most prized possession?  Thoughts on material possessions in general?   He doesn’t generally prize material possessions—in fact, he’s something of a skinflint.  His most prized possession is an old pair of gloves that belonged to his mother, which he'd been wearing at the time of her murder.  He didn't come from money to begin with, but his mother’s story made enough of a splash that his financial situation was improved by well-meaning sorts sending along donations and contributions and the like, as well as government officials knowing they needed to be sure that he wound up somewhere at least semi-reasonable lest they court further outrage by mishandling the son of a martyred woman.  The money all went towards school and living expenses, though, leaving him quite experienced at balancing a budget, which would come in handy for that whole ‘leading a violent uprising against the state’ thing later on.

Academic Background: Got all the way through college!  Was involved in student groups as far back as middle school, and only got moreso the further in school he got.  Majored in Human Development; he was intending to go into the public health and policy sphere before the appropriation of his mother's language pissed him off so much he got into terrorism instead.

THE MODERN MLA

Re-Destro—

General Thoughts A huge amount of the way I write him is influenced by one single thing—his characterization as described in the second data book.  His personality is summed up there as "sokoshirenai yami"—bottomless darkness, or, as a friend translated it for me, "unfathomable gloominess."  That really, really stuck with me, because on the one hand, it's so opposed to virtually all of what we see of him on the page, where he's being cheerful or scornful or sycophantic; the closest he ever gets are his brief tears for Miyashita, Curious, and his other followers.

On the other hand, it makes so much sense that the man we see—the man who talks about the heavy burdens of his legacy, who was handed that legacy when he couldn't possibly have been any older than 6 or so, who willingly straps on a self-designed torture device to wring out more power, who all but worships the ground Shigaraki walks on even though Shigaraki is the reason Re-Destro no longer has legs to walk that same ground with—should be "unfathomably gloomy."  Of course he's gloomy!  He was never allowed to be his own person!  He has never in his life known true freedom, only existed as a vessel to bring that freedom to others!  And he can't really even talk to his closest friends about it, because his closest friends are still his followers, and he wouldn't want to weigh them down!

With that context, it makes all the sense in the world that he'd be so devoted to the man who relieved him of that burden.

Family Situation He loved his mother Yukie a great deal, despite knowing from early on that he was carrying the weight of the title because she believed she couldn’t.  (Perhaps growing up hearing about the martyrdom of Destro’s mother left him wanting to ensure the happiness of his own, for her happiness was very rare.)  He was 10 when she was killed in a Villain attack; she’d been on a daytrip over to a neighboring city to visit some of her erstwhile school friends.  The requisite mourning period was 49 days, and as the only surviving family member, quite a lot fell to him even before considerations of his role as Re-Destro.  it was perceived as better—for both the Army’s morale and for his own stability—for him to be involved with as much of the work of transition as possible, but obviously he couldn’t do it completely alone, nor should he.  Thus, for two months after Yukie’s death, the previous generation's Sanctum[i] stayed with him in his family home. Afterward, he moved in with Anchor (one of his grandfather's advisors), where he would spend the rest of his young adulthood until moving away for college.

Claustrophobia The name of that literal-iron-maiden deathtrap he brings to bear against Shigaraki is no coincidence: Rikiya developed claustrophobia over the course of a stint of abusive training when he was thirteen. He generally has a pretty good handle on disguising it, thanks to a combination of people being unwilling to ask him questions they don’t actually want the answers to and the fact that he had to learn how to operate through it in order to complete the training at all. He has never told anyone, largely because he’s never been able to recognize that it was abuse, and so his abuser remains a figure of some influence.

Education He was largely taught by private tutors, in his home and in theirs, rather than attending school, but I think he probably wasn't completely home-schooled.  Particularly once he'd decided that he did want to attend university—and not just some little local technical program, but a major school in a proper city—he probably attended classes a few times a week at his local high school just to get a feel for being around other people his own age. He'd been friends with Koku for several years by that point, otherwise he probably would have been pretty hopeless, but he was still a pretty odd duck by the time he got to university.

This, incidentally, is why he never pushed Geten too hard about school—his own experience of it was so weird and piecemeal that he mostly thinks of school as relevant only for the education it provides, and less so the crash course in social dynamics.  Since Geten doesn't care about getting an education (nor, indeed, about learning how not to be a rude little troll), and has a strong enough quirk that he'll never lack for a position in the Army even without a formal education, Rikiya is perfectly happy to let Geten have his way and just be minimally learnèd.

Stress His powers operate by infusing his body with the characteristic black matter of his manifested stress; he can increase his size with this (his so-called Liberated Form isn't just armored up; he becomes physically taller and bulkier), as well as throw handfuls of the materialized power.  A side effect of this is that his stress can also infuse itself into his bodily fluids. The stress matter is a highly dense particulate, so if Rikiya is not in proper control of himself, his proverbial blood, sweat and tears can be literally heavy with the weight of his power.

The Value of Life He cares very much about the lives of his followers, but those genuine feelings are filtered through both the mental compartmentalization required by an emotion-based quirk, and an upbringing that taught him to care about his underlings in the same way one would rare goods.  Valuable goods, certainly, goods worth being proud of, goods to be maintained with care, but still, ultimately, things that can be sold or traded or bartered off as necessary to further one's goals.  Even his own life, while "objectively" the most valuable of them all, isn't an exception to that policy—the Great Cause is more important than any individual life, up to and including his own.

On a Personal Note He’s something of an obvious weirdo to outsiders—his enthusiasm comes off as strident, his smiles overly polished—but despite that, he's bizarrely hard to dislike once they start spending real time with him.  He's not anywhere near as prideful about himself as he is the legacy of the MLA, for a start; he's actually pretty self-deprecating when he's not performing the whole Heir of Destro's Great Bloodline routine at people.  He's also happy to go along with other people sharing their hobbies (because he doesn't have any of his own).  The more you get to know him, the more obvious it becomes that he's a total basket case, but “total basket case” is still an improvement over “self-absorbed 1%-er CEO” that people like Spinner come in expecting.

What Are Boundaries? He has very little understanding of how to enforce boundaries around his private life, or, indeed, of why such boundaries might ever be necessary.  Oh, he can do the double life thing, keep the CEO of Detnerat separate from the Grand Commander of the Metahuman Liberation Army, but when it comes to the MLA itself, he's so groomed to devote himself to the cause that he doesn't really distinguish between the responsibilities of Re-Destro and the needs of Yotsubashi Rikiya.  Rather than being the egomaniac you might expect of a man with the absolute power over others he has, he instead struggles to assert himself as his own person at all.

Issues with boundaries are not uncommon with the MLA—they're all raised to see themselves as warriors to advance the cause before they are, like, “human beings”—but Rikiya’s are particularly exacerbated because he was raised by adults who were getting pretty paranoid about his bloodline's tendency to die young, and thus were always checking in on how he was doing, dictating his schedule, weighing in on his plans, and so on.  He just wasn’t raised with reasonable expectations for privacy.  Even as an adult, he'll give his apartment door code to pretty much anyone in the MLA who has even a semi-plausible reason to want it—certainly quite a few of the elders know it!  And it isn’t only the elders, either; Rikiya's phone and several of his accessories carry tracking chips courtesy of Skeptic, which Rikiya knows about and doesn't think is at all untoward.

While his experience dating Koku definitely taught him some hard lessons about how much he could allow himself to ask of people who would obey him without question (they broke up over Rikiya’s realization that Koku would never deny him anything, thanks to a cracked rib Koku didn’t see fit to tell Rikiya about until Rikiya hugged him a little too hard), he never learned how to value his own autonomy in turn.  Oh, he's the Grand Commander, and everyone around him has been raised to venerate his bloodline, so most of them would never even think about trying to take advantage of him as such, but it's absolutely the case that people who are bold or familiar enough to try can basically run right over him with minimal efforts made at obscuring the fact.  His life is full of people who do and have done exactly that, some to a net positive effect, and some—well.  See again the entry about his claustrophobia.

The abjectly terrible state of his sense of self-worth is also the reason the Claustro exists.  While he was relatively capable of trying to work around his phobia when he was younger, the older he got, the more it started to feel like leaving doors cracked behind him or only working in offices with big spacious floor plans and oversized windows was, in some way, Letting Down The Cause by allowing his fear to control him, rather than embracing it so he could properly stockpile it for later use.  A dinnertime chat with Curious about turning one’s trauma into a weapon for the good of others catalyzed this, leading to the development of the “burden-enhancing steel pressure mechanism,” Claustro. 

(It also means the clone of him made by Twice to handle Detnerat after Deika is bizarrely okay with its circumstances, which I will almost certainly write more about one of these days, but I’m still kind of reeling from that reveal, so more on that another time.)

Lightning Round

Religion?   He doesn't identify as being of a religious faith, but he was brought up in the same peaceful marriage of Shinto and Buddhism that the majority of Japanese people are, and like many, he adheres to a number of traditional practices more out of habit than devout faith.  There are two celebrations that demand significant emotional investment from him.  First comes the New Year's celebrations, important because the MLA prides itself on looking to a brighter, freer future, and it's a period when he can let himself think that maybe he'll be just that little bit closer to Liberation by the end of the year than he was at the start.  Second is Obon, a summer festival for honoring one's departed ancestors. Since his authority and his life's work derive entirely from his bloodline, he's obligated to care about this one, though in practice, he tends to shy away from thinking much about Destro (who he has very twisted-up feelings about indeed) in favor of less emotionally fraught waters.

What did he dream of being or doing as a child? Did that dream come true?   He never really had a significant period where he thought about being e.g. an astronaut or a doctor or a hero; in fact, it came as something of a surprise to him the first time Koku asked him what he was planning to do when he grew up.  He always just had the nebulous expectation of, "Be the Grand Commander," and the elders were happy to leave it at that until he brought it up on his own.[ii]  

How does he behave around children? He likes kids!  He’s wistful about the freedom enjoyed by happy children while also being sympathetic to ones that seem overly burdened.  He’s not the most natural person in the world with them, but most of them can tell that the awkwardness comes from a well-intentioned place, and will treat him as a funny-looking man who’ll let them bother him at length without getting mean.  It turns out he’s actually pretty good with them, then, if only by virtue of being easily bullied.  (This, notably, goes for non-MLA-affiliated children.  Everything’s much more formal within the cult, though it didn’t Geten long to suss out the “easily-bullied” part, either.)

Trumpet—

General Thoughts The largest factor in how I write Koku is, of course, the headcanon that he and Rikiya are ex-lovers, and neither of them is 100% over it even all these years later.  Beyond that, though, Koku is the most temperate of the group, the one with the most easy charisma (MLA members are more swayed by Re-Destro, but Koku does better with outsiders who aren't predisposed to hanging on Rikiya's every word).  He strives to come off as The Sensible One, and given the extremes the rest of the inner circle are capable of, it's not hard for him to maintain that title.  He's as messed up as any of them, though, second only to Rikiya in levels of childhood grooming.  He thinks of himself as a practical man, but he is deeply indoctrinated, the boundaries of his expectations very much defined by his upbringing, so he never really sees it coming when he gets clobbered by something from out of left field.

Family Situation: Koku has the largest family of the identified members.  Aside from his grandfather (called Old Man Hanabata, the founder of the Hearts & Minds Party, and passed away by the canon era), Koku has cousins, nieces, nephews and more, courtesy of his uncle, his older sister and her husband, and other extended family.

He’s also the member most accustomed to wealth, power and influence.  He's from a rural area, certainly, but being in a family of hereditary politicians (and with that family not suffering a string of untimely deaths and disappearances like Rikiya's did), he was raised from the start with ready access to money and nice things.  Still, for all his family's sway in a major branch of the MLA's operations, they're not First Families, and thus don't have any elders in their ranks, making them still somewhat subordinate to said elders when it comes to orders about the Great Cause.  (He’s working on it.)

Meeting Re-Destro Koku and Rikiya met at 12 and 10 respectively, when Koku tagged along with Old Man Hanabata for a meeting RD was likewise accompanying Anchor for.  It had been the better part of a year since Rikiya's mother passed away, but he was still strikingly melancholy for a boy that age, which—along with all the weight given to the importance of the meeting—left quite an impression on Koku.  Koku thus became Rikiya's first real friend in his own age group, a friendship heartily encouraged by everyone around them.  Koku was well-behaved, intelligent, a little older but not too much so, and set to become influential without a danger of becoming too influential; he was seen as a good choice for a friend.[iii]

The Break-Up Painful as it was at the time, there was a silver lining to his and RD's post-college break-up: it got Koku out of the elders' pocket.  He’s been groomed for one thing or another all his life, but after he became friends with Rikiya, he was always getting leaned on to report back to the First Families about how Re-Destro was doing, and to try to influence him towards actions the First Families approved of.  In a very real sense, Koku was part of the apparatus keeping Rikiya from any real freedom.  Their break-up and subsequent estrangement meant that the elders had far less to breathe down Koku's neck about, and by the time they reconciled, Trumpet had gotten his feet under him, as had Re-Destro, and they were both better able to fend off such background meddling.

This doesn't mean Trumpet's not still carrying a torch, however.  He thought he was handling his long-banked feelings pretty well—being Professional, being the advisor Re-Destro needed and as much a friend as Rikiya would allow—right up until Rikiya scared the life out of him by nearly dying in Deika.  He's all but glued himself to Rikiya since, as much as he can get away with given their respective responsibilities.

As an Advisor Other than leading the HMP, he does some work with internal politics and reputation. It's not, strictly speaking, his actual job as advisor—Re-Destro or the elders would probably be sought for more formal or critical mediations—but he and the people who report directly to him do enough travelling around to see constituents that they're often in a position to field those tensions before they get big enough to require attention from higher up.  Koku's happy to do so, in fact—not because he just loves handling petty arguments about resources, but because the HMP is a faction of the MLA in and of itself, and mediating is a boost to that faction's standing and autonomy.  (Also, it's that much less on Rikiya's ever-overburdened plate.)

Lightning Round

What would he do if he needed to make dinner but the kitchen was busy?Ahahahahaha, “make dinner but the kitchen was busy,” please.  Any time there could feasibly be someone else occupying a kitchen he has any business being in himself, it would be a housekeeper, and s/he would be making food for him/his family.  It’s not as though Trumpet has never cooked—he did live alone for some years after school—but outside of a scant few years in university, there’s never really been a time that kitchen use overlap would have been a problem for him. 

Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging. Probably gourmet cuisine, especially imported stuff. He’s had tailored clothes all his life; they’re just part of the job.  Expensive alcohol also doesn’t wow him; it wouldn’t be strange to find some sake maker whose family has been doing it for sixteen generations in the village he grew up in.  It’s a lot harder to cultivate a true gourmand’s palate out in the sticks, though, no matter how rich your family is.  Living in actual civilization affords a great deal more variety—and anyway, nice dinners are one of the few things he can reliably tempt Rikiya into accepting.  As to his feelings about indulging in general, he’s broadly For It.  He works very hard, he seldom gets real time off, and it doesn’t help the Great Cause for him to deny himself nice things, unlike some people.  (He’s maybe a bit bitter.)

Does he like to be the center of attention all of the time? Not especially.  Oh, he’s very good at it, certainly, and he doesn’t dislike it, but being the center of attention is practically always going to be tied up in The Great Work, so he desperately needs to get out of the spotlight from time to time, if only to be able to turn off the persona.

Curious—

General Thoughts There are two main factors in how I write Chitose: her practicality and her rapaciousness.  I write her as having an appreciation for good moral character in other people, especially when it makes a good story, but not considering herself particularly bound by conventional morality: her moral compass is Liberation, and she follows it unswervingly.  I also write her as predatory, lusty about a lot of things, often to the point of overstepping.  It doesn't hurt anyone that she likes hearty foods and strong alcohol, but she also doesn't have much regard for peoples' boundaries, and even less so when she thinks they have something to offer the Great Cause.

While that trait isn't without its benefits, it can get pretty ugly, too, as we see in how she treats, and talks to, Toga.  Even with Rikiya, the only person she thinks of as 'above' her in any meaningful sense, she's not at all above manipulation.  She's respectful of him, but knows him too well to always take him at his word.  He plainly can't always see what's best for him, but what's best for him is best for Liberation, and therefore, as a Liberation warrior, it's her responsibility to sometimes make decisions for him.  He'll appreciate it in the long run—he always does.  (Skeptic and Geten have similar views—Rikiya makes it easy.)

Family Situation She probably has the best actual relationship with her family of the group—her mothers are removed enough from the heart of MLA politics that her relationship with Rikiya doesn't color her family life the way Koku's does his, and she's much more sociable than Skeptic or Geten.  She doesn't get home much—just the major holidays, work permitting—but she's in frequent enough communication for a grown woman, and chats with her younger sister more often than that.

Meeting Re-Destro She met Rikiya properly when they were 21 and 27 respectively.  They were living in the same city at the time (him running Detnerat, her in university), so of course she'd seen him at the odd MLA event he turned up at, but when she landed an internship in her junior year, she cheekily turned up one day in her reporter capacity to interview him as “a local rising star of industry.”  It was the first chance they'd had to talk one-on-one, and would not be the last, as she frankly elbowed her way into his life and gradually sussed out that here was a man with Problems.  He and Koku were still in a distant patch at the time; she is largely responsible for getting them back on friendly terms as a way of showing her Pure Intentions.

The fact that her Pure Intentions both land her a square position as one of RD's advisors herself and get Rikiya to a better place emotionally is calculated, but not, therefore, untrue.  Ironically, while she was concerned about looking like a gold-digger, the MLA elders were probably thrilled and relieved to hear rumors that Rikiya was getting romantically involved again.  And with a lovely young MLA woman!  They wouldn't even need to worry about surrogacy arrangements!  (Not having grown up around the Yotsubashis, Chitose is unaware of exactly how pointed an interest the elders take in the matter of securing that bloodline.)

Feelings Today She loves Rikiya dearly, and prizes his regard more highly than anything in her life, but has not devoted much thought to the idea of being in love with him. She's married to her work, as they say, but she's also keenly aware that Rikiya would, for a great many reasons, be a lot of work to be in love with.  She's decided it's generally better for his mental well-being, and therefore also better for the Great Cause (she’s much more capable of reading that relationship reciprocally than Rikiya is), to make sure he's eating at least one good meal a week and getting some proper socialization in outside of MLA meet-and-greets.

As an Advisor She handles external politics and reputation--it's her job to prime Japan culturally for the Liberation agenda in ways more wide-reaching than Trumpet (he's head of a political party, and that's not nothing, but that party is still a small minority on the floor of the Diet).  She pulls attention to stories that benefit the MLA, and diverts attention from stories that don't.  This is far broader than just publishing Destro's memoir; it also means poking holes in the broader Hero Society narrative.  She does this by providing as broad a platform possible for stories about the tragedies of excessive regulation, the evils of quirk-related bias, the abuses of power heroes are capable of, and so on.

Lightning Round

Does she remember names or faces easier? She’s quite good with both, actually, but I’d give names the advantage because she works primarily with written rather than visual mediums.  (Also, BNHA names being the ridiculous puns that they are, you can probably tell more about a person in HeroAca Land by analyzing their name than their face anyway.) 

Is she more concerned with defending her honor, or protecting her status? Her status, absolutely.  Impugning her honor hurts no one but her; she can laugh that off because honor is a silly social construct anyway.  Threatening her status is a much more dangerous prospect—her status is long-cultivated to enable the advancement of Liberation ideology; it lets her keep an eye on Re-Destro, who needs as many people looking out for him as he can get; it’s what she’s worked for all her life. Curious will fuck you up if you threaten her status.

In what situation was she the most afraid she’d ever been? The time she got in trouble for nearly exploding some dude’s face off for stealing her purse.  She was 17, had spent very little time in non-Liberated territory before, and was not raised to wait on heroes to solve her problems.  She wasn’t afraid of the thief or the hero, really, but she was completely terrified that she might have just blown over half a century of secrecy by not performing Helpless Civilian well enough. The terror was pretty convincing to the police interviewing her about it, anyway.  On the whole, it was a very valuable learning experience!  

Skeptic—

General Thoughts Tomoyasu is a character I haven't written extensively yet, but what I think is most interesting about him so far is the contrast of his hyper-modern methods with the bone-deep zealotry for the cause.  See, Rikiya, Koku and Chitose all grew up in the sticks; Rikiya and Koku had money from a young age, but it was old money, tied up in trusts.  (Geten didn't have any of those, but Geten's a different story for other reasons.)  Tomoyasu grew up in a major city from the start; he was a technological prodigy from practically as soon as he could hold a tablet.  He has very little respect for the old ways of doing things when he knows there are newer, better ways of advancing the Cause. However, none of that makes him more likely to break from the MLA's ranks—if anything, his idiosyncratic approach just causes him to approach Liberation in really weird ways, ways no one else would ever come up with.

Pressganging Bubaigawara Jin based on a plan to clone Re-Destro?  Who else would that ever even occur to, much less such that it became the basis for an elaborate psychological assault?  But that's Skeptic in a nutshell—respect the old for what it did at the time, but don't think that means you have to use the same methods they did forever as you pick up the torch to carry it forward.

Family Situation He has an amicable but not intimate relationship with his family.  His parents are very proud of what he's done for the cause and how he won the confidence of Re-Destro, but they don't make much claim to understand how his mind works.  In turn, he recognizes the value of their support over the years—he certainly made a lot of waves with his unabashed venom for the MLA leadership's hidebound traditionalism, and his parents' staunch backing meant a lot for him being able to take the stands he did—but is not very emotionally close with them.  Might find himself with an older brother, if I ever occasion to write about his family situation in more depth.

Education He graduated a four-year university program for getting his computer science degree in two very intense years, during which he did virtually nothing for the Great Cause, his intention being to better position himself for maximum ability to advance Liberation afterward.  See above re: battles his parents fought for him while he was busy modernizing.

Meeting Re-Destro He met Re-Destro via Curious.  He was 22, just a year out of university and already climbing the chain of command at a young telecommunications company.  Rikiya was 33, working on the Claustro, and needed proprietary comms built to a higher standard of security than Detnerat was focused on.  Curious, who was always better positioned to be keeping up with the local personalities, introduced them.

Tomoyasu attempted to keep a civil tongue in his head the first few times he and RD met, but he'd been running on bile and energy drinks for years by that point and was hard-pressed to stop just because he was meeting his Grand Commander.  If anything, finding out that Rikiya was okay with his direction and his mouth eventually helped him chill the fuck out, marginally.

On that note, Skeptic is absolutely the advisor most willing to backtalk Rikiya right to his face.  (Rikiya loves him for it.)  Oh, he'll still accede to Rikiya's wishes, and Re-Destro's orders are his highest priority, but that doesn't mean he feels obligated to be diffident about it.  Like Curious, he has a highly developed sense of, "It's fine if it's for the greater good," which will and has led to him taking things into his own hands when he thinks he knows best (which is always).  He's not going to explicitly disobey orders, but he will creatively interpret them if he feels strongly about them, and he will try to "anticipate" orders before anyone has time to give him specific ones, the better to tailor his efforts towards proving his methods and goals correct rather than being stuck with orders he hates.

On Names I’ve definitely evolved some in my approach on this since I started writing the MLA cast, but at current, Skeptic and Geten are the only ones I consistently write as using and thinking mainly in terms of code names rather than given names.  Trumpet is too familiar with the public/private divide, and has too much intimate history with Rikya-the-person, to default to Re-Destro; Curious is too trained to look for The Human Heart of the Story.  Re-Destro himself, ever since breaking up with Koku, has always tried to use code names for people (himself excluded, because he has enormous self-confidence issues about measuring himself up to the original Destro), but can slip into given names when he’s vulnerable.  To Skeptic and Geten, though, the code name is the real name, for all intents and purposes.  The cover identity is a fake; the whole point of the code name is that you’re proving yourself worthy of taking up your proper place in the Army.  Of course the name you win for yourself is the name that counts.

Lightning Round

Given a blank piece of paper, a pencil, and nothing to do, what would happen? You’d pretty much have to lock him in a room with nothing but paper and pencil in it for that to be his first resort rather than whatever item of personal electronics he’d otherwise have on his person.  But assuming some actual plausible scenario—couldn’t bring his electronics into a government building, let’s say—he would find trying to do something productive on paper and pencil rather beneath him, and he’s an inveterate fidgeter.  I mostly see him folding that ludicrously tall frame of his into a chair and setting to using the pencil to poke about three hundred holes in the sheet of paper, meticulous and orderly, while muttering complaints to himself the whole time until something annoys him a bit too much and he jabs the whole pencil through the page. 

Who does he see as his best friend?  His worst enemy? I headcanon him having a very reasonable, functional, productive relationship with his No. 1 advisor, Red, and being reasonable, functional, and productive probably goes a lot farther on making you Skeptic’s “friend” than any amount of emotional intimacy.  But “best friend” is not really the kind of language Skeptic uses for his relationships; if you were to ask him who his best friend is, he’d probably tell you, “Iced coffee.”  As to his worst enemy, that’s just whoever is annoying him most on any given day, from difficult clients, to people annoying Re-Destro, stodgy elders, that hero grinning like a tool, that couple walking too slow in front of him on the sidewalk, etc. And Skeptic is pretty proactive about dealing with enemies, as much as he can be.

Has he ever been bitten by an animal? How was he affected (or unaffected)? lol he is a city boy and always has been.  He probably tried to pet a stray cat once out of curiosity, and because it seemed like the sort of thing people did, and then has never forgiven Animals In General when it bit him and then ran off. 

Geten—

General Thoughts Another one I haven’t written a great deal about yet, particularly in the present day, though I’m looking for that to change soonish.  One thing I’d like to explore is Geten when he’s not seething with rage and shame because he failed to bring Re-Destro a victory in Deika. The fandom tends to write Geten as an always-angry attack dog barely contained beneath a chilly veneer, and that’s fair—ever since we got the face reveal, ever since the MLA’s defeat at Shigaraki’s hands, Geten has been an always-angry attack dog barely contained beneath a chilly veneer.

But if you look at Geten from before we knew what was under the hood, you find a different story.  “Chilly and angry all the time” is not at all how he acted when he was fighting Dabi!  At that point, he was talkative, even chatty.  He engaged in a lot of snide smack-talk; he was obviously confident in himself and he spoke very proudly of the MLA as a collective.

He was still quiet at the dinner he attended with Rikiya and his advisors, yes, so I don’t think Geten’s done some kind of full 180 on characterization.  I do, however, think that Geten has a sense of humor in there, has a sense of camaraderie with the MLA rooted in more than just his relationship with Re-Destro, even if Re-Destro is obviously his most important person.  I don’t know if we’ll ever see that in the manga proper, given everything that’s happened, but it’s worth remembering in terms of what Geten is like when he’s solely among allies.

Family Situation Orphaned at a young age, and a problem child from then on.  He passed through a series of foster parents and state facilities before eventually crossing paths with the leader of the local MLA branch in Kesseru, Beacon (more on him next time).  This encounter would lead to him being sent to a group home with a reputation for being good with such difficult cases, giving them Structure and Companionship and Meaningful Work.  (Spoilers: It’s Liberation.)

Despite evening out considerably after a significant meeting with Re-Destro when he was 7[iv], Geten never got particularly close to his adopted family/the other kids at the group home.  He's very favored by the Grand Commander, for one thing, and he has the strongest quirk in the home for another—and since he learned the quirk supremacist stuff from them, that’s a pretty significant part of the dynamic!  Both of these factors mean there's some distance between him and the rest. Still, he's not on bad terms with them—indeed, his foster parents are quite proud of him—and he would probably tear out someone's throat with his teeth for threatening them, if only as a matter of pride.  

There are 4-6 other kids there at any given time; for the bulk of his young adulthood, there were two older than him, the others younger.  He doesn't have much time for Big Brother Pastimes, but is not completely immune to them, either, particularly where the youngest kids are concerned.  His tolerance for Little Brother Antics, however, is nonexistent—if the older kids think they can ruffle his hair and treat him like a kid, they can square the fuck up; he is Number One around here and don’t forget it.

Education Geten never went to school, but he's not completely uneducated.  He had some tutoring in the group home, some more from Re-Destro personally, and has a pile of books he keeps at his bedside, mostly strategic in nature.  He finds them vexing at times, but is slowly reading through them anyway because Re-Destro asked him to.  He’s been a bit more diligent about it since he was made a regiment leader, because lord knows Dabi isn't contributing much.

On Re-Destro Re-Destro became fond of Geten for the same reason he became fond of Skeptic and Curious—Geten was willing to push back.  He really did make some attempts early on to keep Geten at a proper distance, mindful of anything that would look too much like favoritism.  And Geten knew, in the hard-headed way of a child, that Re-Destro was being a grown-up about things, trying to be mature, trying to be impartial.  Geten just didn’t care about any of those things.  Every time, he would listen very seriously to the things Rikiya told him, nod attentively, repeat back what he’d been told, and then go on about doing his own thing anyway.  And his own thing was, typically, to keep coming back.

Of course, if there’s anything we can tell about Re-Destro from the way he treats Shigaraki, it’s that Re-Destro loves people who take the choice away from him.

Eventually, of course, Geten grew up (mostly; I peg him at 19 now), joined the MLA officially, and had to settle into the structure of the Army.  It began to lead to trouble for Re-Destro, when Geten blatantly disobeyed him; it stopped being cute.  Still, the sense that he Knows What’s Best lingers, so Geten works himself very, very hard to be everything Re-Destro needs him to be and more, so that maybe Re-Destro’s burden will be just that little bit lighter.

On Quirk Supremacy (and Re-Destro, still) Here’s the thing about Geten and the whole, “A life without a strong meta-ability has no value,” line, and this continues to drive me mad because of how people getting it wrong influences the bad takes on the MLA in this fandom: Geten is not a reliable witness.  He is not one of the leaders of the MLA, nor does he speak for its rank and file. Even if you assume the absolute worst about his implications there, far worse than is justified by the text, Geten’s very name, Apocrypha, means that he cannot be presumed to be aligned with MLA orthodoxy.

The only one of the people close to Re-Destro who wasn't born and raised MLA, he still manages to come off, in some ways, as the most zealous of the lot of them.  But really, it’s very noticeable that Geten—unlike Re-Destro himself, and unlike even Re-Destro’s close cohort—never talks about the original Destro, never even mentions him.  When he thinks about his leader, he only ever thinks about Rikiya.  Geten doesn’t follow Re-Destro because of his bloodline, because of the tenets; he follows Re-Destro because of personal loyalty.[v]

So how best to do that?  Well, think about it: Geten is not terribly intelligent, nor wealthy, nor well-connected. He and Trumpet are the ones most influenced by the quirk supremacist line of thought, Trumpet because his relatively weak quirk comes off as exponentially stronger the more he can surround himself in people it works on, and Geten because his strong quirk lets him mentally justify Re-Destro's investment in him despite his other insufficiencies.

Compare this with Re-Destro, who only ever talks about quirks in terms of freedom. Even more prominently, look at Skeptic and Curious, who are not at all defined by their quirks and how strong or weak said quirks may be.  Indeed, those two devote scarcely a thought to the matter because they contribute to the cause in much more important ways and seem to be perfectly comfortable with where that leaves them.

Geten may not be very smart or influential, but he’s very capable of looking at what strengths he does have and focusing hard on those.  That, I think, is what really lead to his embracing quirk supremacy, even in the face of evidence that he doesn’t have the whole picture: the search for a way to measure himself up to the movers and shakers Rikiya is otherwise surrounded with, and not come up drastically wanting.  

“Apocrypha” Geten has been Geten for a long time, since long before the MLA types usually take up their code names. He’s also an outlier in the MLA for having a name in Japanese instead of in English—the only one who does!  My headcanon, unless and until we get some other members with Japanese code names, is that he got the name directly from Re-Destro—possibly even in the conversation that lead to him imprinting so hard on the man when he was 7—and insisted on keeping it before any other code name that was suggested to him in later years.

But yes, he does have a normal Japanese name on file at the group home, which he’s obligated to answer to on the rare occasions that someone from Child Services is checking in or he and Re-Destro are out in public.  I don’t plan to bother coming up with it unless I need to, as I expect we’ll get it in a character profile one of these days.

His Quirk While a lot of people like the vibe of Geten and Dabi being somewhat equivalently vulnerable to their own quirks, and I agree it makes for good fanart, in truth, Geten is only as vulnerable to his ice as Endeavor is his flames.  Which is to say, he isn't immune, but he's certainly more resistant to it than the average person would be!  There’s already plenty of good material to contrast Dabi and Geten without pretending their quirks are more mirrored than is actually the case.

Lightning Round

How does he treat people in service jobs? He doesn’t, because he’s never in a position to interact with people in service jobs.  There have been times he’s gone out with Re-Destro, but in those cases he’s mostly let Re-Destro handle the human interaction.

What does he dislike in other people? Laziness; the lack of a higher purpose of some kind.  (It’s possible he’d thaw out on his disdain for Dabi considerably if he knew more about Dabi’s plans to undermine the whole of the Hero System than Dabi is inclined to tell him.)

Is he always there for a friend in need? Sure, as long as by “friend” you mean “fellow Liberation warrior” and by “need” you mean “in need of an icicle punched through one of someone else’s desperately fleshy body parts.”

Footnotes

[i]  Sanctum II's tastes being what they are, this probably means Rikiya is the MLA member most likely to be able to perform traditional Japanese tea ceremony.

[ii]  And there were elders who would have been happy to leave it at that permanently, I'm sure.  There are always going to be those regents who have trouble relinquishing power back to the boy prince when he grows up and becomes king, you know?

[iii]  And, when it eventually got out that they were dating, a relatively solid match, give or take the surrogacy arrangements that would eventually need to be made.

[iv]  I’m hoping canon gives us some details on this eventually, so I’m not planning to iron out more headcanon on the matter unless I absolutely have to.

[v]  This, incidentally, is a large part of why Rikiya does keep him around—it’s soothing to have someone around who never brings up his ancestor.  Anyway, after Geten evolved his quirk, people stopped complaining so much, even though RD never did get around to, like, giving Geten any formal responsibilities.  Geten, who knows very well that Re-Destro’s real advisors have real jobs, mostly took this as reason to be all the stronger, in hopes that he’d eventually be given one.

[fmdtaeyong]

restructuring update prompts

a prologue to officially re-introducing ash kwon // aka i decided to re-do this because i changed some parts of ash’s backstory and established career claims after i did this the first time and half of this wasn’t really true anymore rip

also there’s nowhere for me to put this in the answers anymore so i’ll put it here: circles is ash’s best song

content warning: mentions of alcohol abuse and drug use / abuse, but none of it is in-depth

assuming your muse has changed in some way, be it internally or as a result of a change of the external factors around them, how is your muse different?

for the most part, ash’s general personality and character has stayed the same. he’s the same angsty, creative, romantic dude at heart, but he’s a little more jaded in some ways.

ash moved around before he became a trainee now. he lived in san francisco, sydney, and seattle. when he lived in sydney, it was just him and his mom and he grew really close to her during that time. he doesn’t really feel like he has a home at all since seoul is the longest he’s ever lived somewhere, but he’s less happy so that’s not home either.

ash is a better technical singer now ig, being a main vocal. he focused more on singing as a trainee now instead of dancing. his ankle injury in 2018 was a little more serious now, which is why he doesn’t dance much in his solo music anymore. it’s also why he’s less interested in dance, but, at the same time, i think it leaves more potential for him to re-develop some love for it again.

he’s also now the maknae, although it’s a common joke in the fandom that he doesn’t act like it. he debuted a year and three months younger than before and he feels a lot more beholden to the industry now. has even less of an idea of what he’d be outside of it at this point, even though he got closer to actually leaving it than previous ash ever did.

he’s still had a couple of minor attitude controversies in titan’s early days caused by cultural differences. he was in public relationships in 2016 and 2019. neither were received well for their own reasons. his clubbing habit has gotten him into some controversy, though bc has never issued a statement on it beyond that one time they had to confirm the woman in a picture of him clubbing was his girlfriend because people were trying to accuse him of cheating. he has a passionate anti gallery and obsessive sasaengs that make his life a living hell.

since renewing his contract, ash has also had a few hiatuses of varying lengths due to his physical or mental health. this was true before with how he naturally developed, but it’s more tied together now as a result of generally poor physical and mental health he’s been experiencing for a few years now after his dating scandals and his ankle injury in 2018.

his image is more streamlined now too! he never really had the era of being pushed as a cleancut boyfriend that old ash had around 2018. he’s been marketed as a musical genius / sexy bad boy rockstar / artist with a tortured soul for as long as he’s been majorly pushed individually. this means he’s still very sexualized, but he hates his image a little less because he can be a little more himself as far as personal style and self-expression through tattoos and piercings goes.

what does your muse think of their company and their group?

this hasn’t really changed. ash has no real love for bc entertainment and wouldn’t really care if titan disbanded tomorrow. some of their music is good and some isn’t (though he considers less of it terrible without wolf and gorilla in the mix lmao), but he feels he’s mostly outgrown it as an artist. not that it’s below him, but it’s not what he connects with creatively, which is far more important to him now than it had been when he’d first debuted. he doesn’t hold ill will toward his groupmates unless he feels they’ve given him an individual reason to, and actually feels more guilty toward them for getting involved in scandals and taking hiatuses more than anything, but they’re also not his best friends. he views titan as a purely work endeavor and he doesn’t feel bad about the fact he got about as close as possible to leaving them without actually doing so that he could back during contract renewals. after all, they’d be fine without him. he’s a main vocal, but they’ve got two others. he’s a dancer, but they’ve got two others. he can write music, but titan has never been his main priority there and others are more than capable of doing it. he wants out of both the group and the company but is starkly aware of the fact that he did this to himself when he re-signed out of what he now perceives to have been impulse and greed.

since titan is the seniormost active group under bc, ash tries to be a good senior to his company juniors in general, but there are certainly more welcoming alternatives than him. he worries about them from a distance more than anything else.

is your muse on their first contract or their second? if they’ve renewed, what were their feelings around that at the time and what were their hopes for their second contract?

he’s on his second contract and he definitely regrets renewing. he hadn’t planned to renew for the longest time the lack of privacy and the public criticism and the hate he’d received were just too much, and he had plans that would require him to stop being an active idol, namely marrying his girlfriend of two and a half years at the time. their relationship wasn’t stable enough at the time for that to be a good idea and that was proven when they broke up shortly before final negotiations for contract renewals, but ash wanted an excuse to escape and the idea of a happy, normal life more than he wanted to be rational.

spite after the (very brief lmao) break up was part of his decision to renew, but bc entertainment also offered to support him as a songwriter and producer in addition to allowing him to regularly release solo music. he still really loved music and his first taste of promoting as a solo artist had been right before renewals as a proposal to sway him into re-signing, so he was swayed to sign on for seven more years. they followed through on their promises, but he struggles to weigh the recognition he’s earned as a solo artist and songwriter-producer against signing his life away again and doing a number on his physicla and mental health. most of his health issues and his hiatuses have happened during his second contract, as well as several behind-the-scenes situations that could have become scandals if they’d had any less luck, mostly stemming from ash drinking too much and his occasional recreational drug use, so he’s not sure bc even really feels the contract renewal was entirely worth it.

what are your muse’s goals and motivations?

if you asked ash this, he wouldn’t know what to answer. he doesn’t feel very motivated these days and pretty much feels like he only does anything because he’s contractually obligated to. making music as a form of expression has long been his main drive, and beyond that, the desire to make a mark on the world he can be remembered by through his music, but he often oscillates now between feeling like there’s not much more he can realistically achieve and the sense of hopelessness that he can try as hard as he wants, but his music’s never going to be what he’s defined by when he’s a public figure with an image.

he also feels a duty to make his parents proud. though i could argue that might be less now than it was in the previous iteration of ash, it’s still very much there. they let him come to seoul when he’d just turned thirteen to follow a dream that many never get to follow all the way through to the end and they believed in him fully. they express how proud they are of him when they do talk, but he doesn’t know that he believes them. he doesn’t feel that anything he’s done has been deserving of paying them back for everything they’ve given to him.

right now, he wants to be able to feel excited about his life and what he’s making again. he’s trying to better himself internally in regards to the way he views himself and his mental health, although he’s more prone to still taking steps backwards there than he was at this point previously. a lot of the ways ash has found to feel that excitement and creativity he wants (such as recreational drugs and excessive alcohol consumption and fleeting, sometimes toxic, relationships) do damage to his mental wellbeing, so it’s a balancing act at the moment.

what is one conflict, internal or external, that your muse is currently dealing with, has recently dealt with, or will need to deal with in the future?

i covered this partially with the last one, but one major conflict remains his internal conflict about his passion for music. this was very much where ash was before as well, but now that i’m really pushing songwriting and producing as his main career path, it presents a more equal professional and personal challenge for him.

more than having truly lost joy in making music, he’s burnt out. his latest album lovesick was emotionally exhausting because it was a partially rushed, deeply personal and vulnerable album exclusively based on an unhealthy relationship that had stretched its hold on him out over for almost six years, and then he went into making music that he couldn’t relate to at all and didn’t really fit his image all because bc thought it would sell well.

the burn out in his personal life has affected the burn out in his professional life he would be feeling anyway and made it ten times worse. it feels more hopeless because he doesn’t have much else going for him. in the past few months, his relationship with alcohol and drugs also reverted back to unhealthy after he was doing better with it for a while, not helped by a really bad stint with his mental health. all of this was at its worse in june before he went on hiatus, and in this universe, his behavior was more of a factor in his hiatus than him practically begging to leave the group because ash is more resigned to the fact that he chose to sign back on with bc and that that’s on him. instead, there was more of a push by his manager, who knew that ash was on the road to a major scandal if action wasn’t taken.

almost all of his conflicts are internal right now. he’s become successful enough that external factors other than the large umbrella of having to remain in titan can be negotiated, but he’s too tired to do so because of everything going on inside of him. there’s a lot of negative feelings going on inside of him, and he’s trying to deal with them one by one, but it’s hard to see the weight of them easing that way.

if your muse has established career claims, what are their thoughts on their career so far? if they do not, how do they feel about not having individual activities yet? what would they like to do in the future, if anything? if they don’t have ambitions for individual activities, explain why.

ash has been able to establish himself a little more as a songwriter and producer outside of his solo music. he wrote “universe” for titan in 2017, and after that, as promised, bc hooking him up with the right opportunities and connections to establish himself more. since then, in addition to his heavy involvement in his solo music (his 2020 album lovesick was entirely written/composed/produced by him alone), he’s worked on calypso’s “rollin’” in 2018, polaris’s “fake love” (a korean music awards song of the year!) and “the truth untold” in 2019, and lily’s “i’m so sick” this year. i’m planning on more being added there with these extra ecp and maybe some refunded since i think i’m going to drop some of his points claims to streamline his career better.

his canon discography creative claims reflect his progression as a songwriter, from very earnest and romantic to more sensual to very uhhh angsty and personal to developing a more polished and professional sound as he grew in experience as a songwriter and producer.

ash is praised for having several representative works as a songwriter that all speak to his individual style, and ash is happy with what he’s gotten to do since he does genuinely enjoy working as a songwriter and producer.

he’s planning to continue branching out in this direction, so look for quite a lot of ash dabbling in canon discographies in the future. before, i’d say ash’s primary push was solo music, but my plan for him is for songwriting and producing to be his main career path from now on with solo music as a close secondary.

[alarawriting]

Sleepless

I have strong opinions about Nancy Kress’ Beggars series. They are not positive opinions.

There was an experiment, to create children who would not need to sleep.

Some people think such an experiment would create supermen, geniuses who would, for some reason, be unaging. Logic says otherwise. Sleep performs a function.

If you were such a child who does not need to sleep, what would you be?

You do not sleep.

You do not dream, and lacking dreams, you lack superstition. You don’t believe things just because you’re told them or because there seems to be some correlation; you need cold hard evidence.

This does not make you a brilliant inventor or a hard-nosed business person. What it makes you is a victim of analysis paralysis. Without hard facts to back you up, you can’t guess what might be true.  When there’s a controversy and there’s evidence on both sides, you don’t know what to believe. You don’t accept things as true just because your parents say them, so you’re lucky to be alive after all the times you burned yourself on a hot stove or stuck a fork in an electric socket or jumped off a building because you wanted to confirm that what people had told you would happen actually would.

You’re good at debunking. You’re brilliant at finding bugs in code.  You can find the flaws in a scientific study, and your merciless lens turns on academic and corporate research alike. But you can’t make anything. You don’t believe in anything you can’t prove, so fiction falls flat for you – it’s unreal – and you’re not terribly empathic, because human emotions from other humans who aren’t you is a thing you can never empirically prove. You aren’t creative – you can’t come up with inventions, you can’t innovate a brilliant new coding algorithm or prove a mathematical theorem no one has ever done before. You’re just very, very good at finding the flaws in other people’s creative products.

The autistic community embraces you as one of their own, though technically you are not autistic; you are something else. Your parents, wealthy captains of industry, are disappointed; they expected you to use your extra time in a way they would appreciate. They didn’t expect someone rigid, unyielding, someone who would demand proof of everything and whose analyses could easily disprove all the lies they used to convince themselves they were good and deserving people. You end up becoming a socialist because all the evidence suggests that, of the many ways humans can organize the distribution of resources, it’s the one with the best track record of causing less misery than the alternatives. You mock people who confuse socialism and communism. You are not above trading on your parents’ names and money to have a public voice, and you’ve become famous for your ability to debunk bad science.

You will not revolutionize the world, but you have a third more time than other people and you were born with money (the experiment that created you was quite expensive). You contribute to the betterment of humanity, in your way.

After the first generation of your kind are created, there are no more; wealthy capitalist parents do not want socialist children who can only tear down flawed structures built by others and cannot build anything themselves.  Your own children, for those of you who have them, may or may not share your mutation.  Eventually your condition is classified as a disorder, after your parents’ wealth has mostly run out late into your lifetime and the world has forgotten they respected you once. Humanity goes back to ignoring you and listening to superstition and tribal beliefs… because the ability to derive a pattern from a very small amount of data is the root of both superstition and innovation, and innovation turns out to be too important to give up superstition.

You do not sleep. But sleep performs the important function of re-organizing the memories acquired during the day and correlating them with each other, prioritizing some and storing others away in cold storage or even deleting them. This function was too important to do without, so your brain was re-engineered to do it while you are awake.

This means you’re dreaming, in a way, all the time, while you’re wide awake. It makes you very creative, but very unfocused. Some of your cohort actively hallucinate, but you can all generally tell the difference between the dream-things you see or hear or feel and reality; it’s just that the dream-things are vivid enough to capture your attention, most of the time. It’s a good thing there are self-driving cars, because you probably are not safe to drive yourself.

You are not a hard-nosed business person. Some of your cohort do come up with brilliant ideas for business, and because you have rich parents, they are able to get those businesses started… but all of you are too unfocused, too distractible, too deep within your own creative minds to be good at following the bottom line. Most of the businesses either fail or get sold to other companies run by people who can actually do business, but don’t have great ideas. Most of you go into art of some kind. Writing, visual arts, comic books, music… a few do movie or film, but none of you are at your best in collaboration.

The ADHD community embraces you as one of their own, though technically you do not have ADHD; no human could maintain a tight focus when ghostly images and snippets of dream are constantly playing in their minds. Because your family is wealthy, you get a personal assistant who helps you with the paperwork parts of your artistic career, and you get a publicist when you’re still very young, and the fact that you don’t sleep means you make the news just by existing. So your artistic career is successful, and your work is well-known, but artists don’t generally get rich; you live off your parents’ money until you get sick of their snide condescension because the ability they paid millions of dollars to infuse you with has a downside that means you will never be what they wanted you to be. Then you downsize your life expectations by a lot and live modestly off your successful art career. It helps that you can be very prolific, because a third of your life has been given back to you for conscious activity.

Some of the children of your cohort inherit the ability. Some don’t. Parents tend to fawn on the grandchildren who are pure human, Sleepers rather then Sleepless, because they’re the ones who could possibly inherit business empires. That’s fine. You try your best to raise your children not to compete with one another on the basis of whether or not they sleep, but kids will be kids and not all of the siblings get along.

After the first generation of your kind are created, few others are made; most wealthy parents want a child who can be good in business rather than a child who can be a brilliant artist, but there are those who like the feather-in-cap of famous, respected children who will be known for their creativity, so a small trickle of kids like you are born every ten years or so. When it happens it generally makes the news. You reach out to those kids when they turn thirteen to offer them your knowledge and life experience. When you encounter parents who have tried to cut their children off from your community out of religious belief or misguided belief in their own ability to mold and shape children, you bring child abuse charges against them. You’re not good with the paperwork but you are good with influencing public opinion, and most of you still have assistants or interns who can handle the paper part.

You don’t regret what your parents gave you, even if they do. It’s a good life.

You do not sleep. Where other people have a third of their life where the energy hog that is consciousness is shut down, and therefore the body has more free energy to carry out tasks like growth and immune response, you don’t have that. Your consciousness is always on, always consuming 80% of the free energy your body has.

You’re thin. You can eat anything you want, but it burns off of you because your body needs so much energy. You are often tired. You can’t sleep to replenish your energy; you can rest, unmoving, but consciousness is still on even if you’re meditating or vegging out in front of the TV. When you get sick, you stay sick for a long time. You get sick a lot. It’s not enough to consider a chronic illness, but it drains you. It makes it hard for you to hold down jobs, because you don’t sleep but if you feel too miserable to go to work it’s just the same as if you slept through your alarm and never went in.

You have more time than chronically ill people; there are advantages to having 8 extra hours in a day. Most of you live off your parents’ money and do things like volunteering and activism when the work that needs doing are things like stuffing envelopes or reaching out to people on the phone, or you became independent contractors so you could make your own hours.

You take your vitamins, you eat healthy, you exercise when you have the strength for it. Maybe it helps a little bit; you can’t really tell, but it makes you feel like you’re doing something to improve your life.

Your parents sue the people who created you, because seriously, wasn’t “people who live an extra third of their day need more energy to survive” predictable? They lose, because they signed a lot of waivers. You didn’t sign any waivers, so some of you try suing, and win.

No more are created after your original cohort, largely due to the lawsuits; no one’s willing to make more of you. It’s just as well. You make the best of your life, but to be honest, you long to be able to sleep – to engage in a kind of rest where you aren’t bored, and your mind invents interesting stories to show you, and when you get up you actually feel rested and energetic? (People who sleep tell you that that second part doesn’t happen. You retort that that’s because they don’t sleep enough, and if you had the ability to sleep, you wouldn’t waste it by staying up late and waking up early!) You wish for that with all your heart, but you can’t have it, and you know it.

By the time you’re in your forties, the activism of you and your cohort has gotten your condition declared a disability, and many of you have been campaigning for disability rights for years, since you recognize the similarities with your situation when people suffer fatigue disorders or other vague and amorphous conditions that make them tired all the time. So when some of your children are born as Sleepless, you’ve changed the world to make it easier for them to maximize their own capabilities, and they get a little more done than you were able to do. And really, isn’t that what we all want for our children?

You do not sleep, and it’s perfect. You were re-engineered for a faster metabolism so that you can supply enough energy to your body and brain for the extra hours of consciousness. Your brain was re-engineered so that you don’t need to go offline and have fifteen minutes of dreaming every hour and a half for eight hours; you just need to enter an optional, meditation-like rest state for one or two hours every five days or so to get the same results. You are every bit as creative and every bit as capable of focus and have every bit as much energy as the average Sleeper, but you have eight more hours a day to do it in (except for every five days, when you only get six or seven more hours. Still a huge advantage.)

Your parents are wealthy – no one who didn’t have millions of dollars to spend on a designer child was able to make their child a Sleepless – so there are no barriers to your success. You get your education completed early because you had extra time; you developed friendships with children older than you, because those were the ones who were awake later in the evening; you learned how to make use of solitude, and all but the most introverted of you can spend most of the daylight hours interacting with people and still get a lot done at night. Whether you choose to be a scientist, an inventor, an artist, or an entrepreneur, you do well. Your parents’ wealth and your fame for being born as an exotic designer child amplifies your ability to do whatever you want.

With so much success and so much extra time and so much experience socializing, most of you find relationships and have kids before you’re 30. Some of your kids have the trait, some don’t. You try, as best as you can, not to favor the Sleepless children over the Sleepers, but it’s hard not to be frustrated at the lack of productivity your Sleeper children have.

It’s when your cohort is in its 30’s and 40’s that you learn what you really bequeathed your Sleepless children, and what your parents bequeathed to you.

A faster metabolism burns out a body faster. In your 30’s you look 30 but the aches and pains and development of chronic illnesses like diabetes are accelerating faster than they do for Sleepers of equal socioeconomic status. In your 40’s the decline accelerates; you look 50 at 45, 60 at 50, 70 at 55.

Members of your cohort start dying of old age in your 50’s. You realize you aren’t going to make it to 65, and that your Sleepless children, already in their 30’s, have much less time than you or they or anyone thought they did. In the end, you didn’t get more time than anyone else; you just got to take it all at once instead of spreading it out over time.

Many of your parents are still alive, the excellent health care that the wealthy can afford keeping them going at 80-something. You’re rapidly catching up with them, and the best medical care in the world can’t stop it. Some of you rant at your parents, or sue the company that made you, but you don’t. How could anyone have known? It didn’t happen to animals in testing, but rat lives are so short to begin with, perhaps it disappeared into data noise. You know your parents only wanted the best for you, just like you only wanted the best for your children. You reconcile with your Sleeper children, who are a trifle embittered at what they see as the favoritism you showed their Sleepless siblings, because you’re dying and they still love you even if you weren’t the best parent you could have been. Your parents apologize to you, and you forgive them. Your Sleepless children visit you constantly, knowing that you are their future, that what’s happening to you is what lies ahead for them.

You’re 62 when you die, after many surgical interventions and a decade of the best prescription drugs money could buy. The creation of more like you is made illegal a year later, but not before every parent rich enough to do it has had a Sleepless child for the past six decades.

While so many of the wealthy are dealing with the impact of Sleepless shortened lifespans and how very many of the wealthy are affected by it, society finally passes laws that redistribute income in a way where very likely, no one in the future will be able to afford a designer child for several million dollars anyway, even if it hadn’t been made illegal. Out of so many personal tragedies, the standard of living rises and the general health and happiness of the population improves. If you were still alive, you might have considered that a positive legacy.

[longsightmyth]

Myth Reads The Naming, Chapter 19

This chapter is, at fourteen pages, technically the fourth shortest chapter in The Naming, but only because two chapters have thirteen pages. This means fewer Throne of Glass chapters, for which I am thankful.

PELLINOR

So Hem has had a pretty grim life, starting, as far as he knows, with his delivery to a really terrible orphanage by a hull. One day he was called up and told that his uncle had finally gotten back from wherever and was taking him home. His ‘uncle’ wasn’t great but he wasn’t awful either unless one takes into account the fact that there were five hulls around at all times.

Said hulls eventually tried to get him to commit human sacrifice but Hem wouldn’t do it, so they locked him in a room and starved him, which was when Sharn broke into the house to steal stuff and found a Pilanel boy locked in a room. Obviously, he busted him out. I’ll talk about that in the comparison.

So they ran, and eventually the hulls caught up to them. Hem told Sharn he heard them coming earlier, but Sharn didn’t believe him, so Hem hid. The hulls tortured Sharn, who for a while said they’d sold Hem but eventually broke down and admitted that he’d run away recently, and the hulls killed everybody anyway.

Which is, of course, when Maerad and Cadvan found Hem. Since Hem mentioned that Sharn also stole some stones, Cadvan asks to see them. Hem is curiously possessive of the medallion he wears, but when Cadvan has no interest in that he forks over the stones.

They are basically mini-palantir, I guess? They let people with the corresponding partner stone hear and sometimes see what’s going on. Thankfully Maerad’s magic fire blasts blanked them out, but we know why our heroes were so easy to find earlier. Cadvan tosses the stones away and jokingly forgives Hem for almost getting them killed.

Sometimes Cadvan has a questionable sense of humor, honestly.

Anyway, then he asks to see the medallion, and Hem reluctantly lets him, at which point Cadvan goes very quiet.

“What?” demanded Maerad, after the silence had lengthened unbearably. Hem was watching them both with a mixture of bafflement and despair.

Cadvan didn’t respond at first. “Maerad,” he said at last. “Do you remember your father very well?”

Oh yeah, folks. We’re going there. Cadvan further presses, asking if Maerad remembers what Dorn looked like, whether she actually saw her brother Cai killed or not, etc. The medallion has the symbol of Pellinor on it, and it says on the back in the speech, “The House of Karn. Minelm made me.”

Cadvan starts considering both of them and their physical similarities, and he and he concludes that they could be brother and sister. Hem is the right age, and the hulls kept him around for a reason, after all.

Maerad is less cautious, declaring that Hem is definitely her brother, she can feel it, that’s why she had to go find him, etc.

“...I remember Dorn, Maerad; and Hem is unmistakably Pilanel. It would explain why the hulls were interested in him. But I might be wrong.”

“You’re not often wrong,” said Maerad with a wry smile, echoing something he had said to her long ago in Innail.

“No.” Cadvan smiled very slightly. “I am not often wrong. Mind you, when I have been wrong, I’ve been very wrong indeed.”

Sometimes Cadvan’s humor is spot on, though.

Anyway, Cadvan surmises that the hulls knew about the prophecy but grabbed the wrong kid. He tells ‘you Pellinor folk’ to nap and he’ll keep watch, since he couldn’t sleep with his headache anyway. Maerad tries and can’t, remembering Cadvan on the ground and how she’d felt about killing things after.

Darsor returns about an hour after that, Imi in tow. After Darsor imparts some encouraging words for Maerad and Cadvan, Imi comes up and apologizes for running, and Maerad tells her it was good that she did. Cadvan further assures her that there is no shame in running from what are essentially demons.

They ride some more. I know you’re shocked.

The chapter ends when they crest a hill and can see Norloch.

THRONE OF GLASS

Thirteen pages in two chapters y’all I can do this.

Apparently Cain has been getting better not because he trains every day but because he summons dark powers. He calls out a ridderak. I’m sure the ridderak has actually been mentioned before but honestly I can’t be bothered to check right now.

It was something out of an ancient god’s nightmares. Its hairless gray skin was stretched tightly across its misshapen head, displaying a gaping mouth full of black fangs.

Fangs that had ripped out and eaten Verin and Xavier’s internal organs; fangs that had feasted on their brains. Its vaguely human body sank onto its haunches, and it sl;id its long front arms across the stone floor. The stones whined under the claws. Cain raised his head and stood slowly ad the creature knelt before him and lowered its dark eyes. Submission.

I’m not saying that there was a perfectly good place to use Sarah Janet’s trademark ‘those’ instead of ‘the’ in there, but I’m not not saying it either. Also, I still don’t remember which serial killer was which in regards to Verin and Xavier. I forgot Xavier existed, so.

Anyway, Cain says it wasn’t supposed to be Celaena tonight but she’s who he’s got, so Celaena whimpers at him and draws her absolutely useless knife monstrosity, which Cain promptly relieves her of on his way out the door. Honestly, good riddance.

Celaena screams a lot and eventually runs through the secret passages, eventually making it to Elena and Gavin’s tomb, where she snags Damaris, which is a sword that becomes sort of important later. I mean, kinda. Look, I don’t know, sometimes in Kingdom of Ash Dorian uses it to find out if people are telling really obvious lies because Sarah Janet decided she needed a sword of truth up in here in the last book.

Anyway, she kills the ridderak, marking the first time Celaena has won a fight on-page and unassisted, I think, but it bit her along the way. She walks back to her rooms and then collapses, suddenly overcome by the venom. Nehemia finds her and does something and Celaena falls fully unconcious while being rocked gently by Nehemia in a bathtub.

I’m not saying you should ship it, but like. **makes Will Smith present-y hands**

Anyway, that’s the end of chapter 42. Next chapter.

Celaena wakes up to see Nehemia waiting in a chair by her bedside. It has only been three hours, but Celaena feels entirely healed. After some prodding from Nehemia, Celaena confesses her true identity (of course we (and actually Nehemia, come to think of it) are, per later book retcons, aware that it isn’t actually her true identity. More on that in the discussion). Nehemia is upset that Celaena didn’t tell her, but eventually says that Celaena is impressive because,

“...you did not let the mines harden you; you did not let it shame your soul into cruelty.”

Methinks Nehemia speaks more out of hope than actual evidence, because Celaena is a petty, cruel brat who thinks only of murder and her own self-interest at the moment who upgrades to thinking of conquering other nations ‘to spread culture’ later. Nehemia also names her ‘Elentiya’, which means ‘spirit that could not be broken.’ We all loved Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Sarah Janet, I get it. Possibly Nehemia is operating on the assumption that naming a thing determines the character of the thing. Sorry, Nehemia, I know you tried.

Celaena decides to tell Nehemia how she ended up as Adarlan’s Assassin when Nehemia asks, and that’s how we end the section but not the chapter.

Celaena admits next section that she didn’t tell Nehemia everything, because we must still Not Know that Celaena is actually a princess. We have to Not Know very hard at this point, because that’s just the kind of book Throne of Glass is. Also Celaena refused to tell Nehemia about what bit her, so basically everything is pointless.

Chaol needles her about dancing with Dorian, Celaena reflects that she killed the ridderak so the darkness is lifted from the castle, I despair.

Later they spar, and Chaol says he saw her reading poetry, which he thought she didn’t like. She says epic poetry is different because it’s not pretentious. As a fellow hater of poetry, I have to say that I agree, re: enjoyment but must note that it is Celaena who comes off as pretentious here. Anyway they round a corner and she sees the unnamed King of Adarlan and it’s presented as a dramatic reveal but like. You live in his castle, Celaena. He’s a public figure. He’s going to be around.

COMPARISON

Celaena remains a bratty twelve-year old confident in her abilities until faced with anything that might make her prove them. What else is new.

Well. I guess the idiot ball got bigger. The dude who summoned the monster is still out and about but sure the darkness in the castle has been defeated. That makes sense. (Celaena does nothing without being shoved into it, by the way: she has to be sent places by Elena, who she doesn’t ask for help, she has to be shown with actual glowing neon signs the monster that eats things, and then she has to be locked in the catacombs with it to fight it? Y’all. If she wants to rule a country later she should really display some initiative.)

Meanwhile Maerad and Hem/Cai get to be brother and sister, and since names are inherently tied into the narrative by way of bardic names already being important to the story, the fact that Hem will continue throughout the series to prefer being called Hem over Cai is an interesting twist on the later Celaena, who thinks that because she tells everybody to call her Aelin she’s an entirely different person.

Also of note is that both chapters contain human sacrifice, though Hem says that he wouldn’t kill the other boy with so little fanfare that it rounds the corner into having us go duh. I mean that in a good way: it is presented as so much the common-sense choice that it lets us the readers understand a core component of Hem. He can’t be evil. He refuses to be evil. As a child who grew up hungry and starved, he still refused to kill somebody despite the threat and implementation of starvation. The narrative doesn’t wax rhapsodic about it, either. It’s just who Hem is.

Similarly, no one waxes rhapsodic about Sharn, though I might here for a moment. Here’s a guy who broke into a lord’s house to steal valuables, found a starved little boy in a room, and said, ‘okay there is no way I’m leaving this kid here’ and stole him from evil magicians. Pellinor has a mindset and purpose of execution similar to Lord of the Rings: small, kind actions eventually cascade into larger, world-saving actions. Sometimes small good deeds are all you can do, but that’s okay. Small good deeds lead to more small good deeds and eventually the scales tip.

That only works, though, when small good deeds are the only good deeds available to you. Celaena giving Kaltain a cloak in Crown of Midnight, for instance, doesn’t tip the scales much, because Celaena is capable of so much more, and has shown it by faking the deaths of all of the (male, for the record) targets given to her by the king and helping them make their escape. That she chooses to only give Kaltain a cloak, when she is completely aware that Kaltain is regularly raped by both the guards and Perrington, when Kaltain has been consistently wronged by the same people as Celaena, is more of an example of performative compassion instead of, like, actual help. I’m just saying. Further, the whole reverent ‘she gave Ansel one extra minute before shooting at her’ is nonsense. She should have just not shot at Ansel. That would have been an act of compassion. Nobody was holding her to it. There wasn’t any sort of magical compulsion. Celaena performs the most tepid of merciful acts, and the book portrays them as Glorious Acts of Defiance and everyone is in awe over her forgiving nature. She says she doesn’t believe in slavery but never bothers to condemn it in any stronger language. I’m tired of it. I’ve been tired of it. Comparing it to The Books of Pellinor just makes me more tired of it.

In short, I despair.

STATS

Throne of Glass:

Pages: 13

Fragments: 14

Em-Dashes: 34

Ellipses: 7

Pellinor:

Pages: 14

Fragments: 6

Em-Dashes: 4

Ellipses: 12

[garykrepak]

I’m in an incredible amount of pain.

This last thirteen months has exposed every single weakness within me and broken them. Broken everything I thought I was and utterly crippled my ego. Every part of me hurts. My body, has responded to the stresses of the last year with enormous mineral deposits in my muscles. “Mothballs” as my El Paso masseuse called them as she kneaded her petite hands into the giant knots in my upper back. My neck and upper back, in seemingly perpetual downward gaze at this device I’m pecking on. It has devoured my year and my efforts upon it only netted my freshly disemboweled newborn business venture only twelve invoices of sales for the entirety of 2020.

I acquired a small amount of debt, a small amount of regret and a great deal of sorrow all laying the backing tracks for the confident, determined, creative and occasionally funny front I put on for the world to consume. All in hopes that it would summon the confidence of buyers of equipment from long-stilled factories behind borders vying new embargoes at one another.

My body aches from stress and uncertainties. My brain, is so diseased with neurological and mental and emotional ailments and these, compound the stressors and are capable of taking the best laid plans and daily ambitions and place them in an ever-lengthening queue of unfinished projects, further delaying the fulfillment of an ever-lengthening queue of bills and personal goals. I’m simultaneously blessed with the creative and technical ability to fulfill should they be sold and... cursed with the encompassing hardships of the current pandemic and my own evolving person.

This year has changed me. I no longer covet things the way I had before. I covet hours when my memory is intact. I covet licks on the face from my dogs. I covet the increasingly distant occurrences of seeing true joy in the eyes of my loved ones. Sometimes I see it penetrate through the veil of concern, resentments and stress that merely being in my constant presence, must cast upon them.

It is not my wish to be unhappy or to be the source of unhappiness or stress in those around me. My very inventory of facts and my balance sheets are enough to do this all by themselves without any word from me.

I have to live with the fact that I’m in fact quite literally suffering from a progressive neurological disorder that is notorious in its resistance to traditional epilepsy treatments and medications. That diseased mind, is also battling with bipolar disorder and it has since I was a teenager. That diseased mind. Is also HIGHLY allergic to alcohol and as of today. I’ve managed to abstain from using it for some five months since my last four hour long binge which led to the inevitable realization that I shouldn’t have picked it back up again at all. But man. It lifted those rocks right off of my mind and body for that fleeting moment. Only to have them come crushing back down on me with the added weight of disappointment from those that expect better of me. Alcohol isn’t my problem today. It’s everything else. It’s... the depression created by circumstances more than brain chemistry. Circumstances that I fight like hell to improve or at least, to improve my attitude towards them. It’s an endless effort of trying to not focus on what’s wrong with my life but to focus on the good. It’s a ceaseless attempt to ignore the many scars and consequences of my past and an attempt to be gleeful at possibilities and occasionally I still get visited by muses in my mind and we go on great dances of creative tangos of invention and travel and songwriting and re-writing and of loves of pleasures yet to be had from gains acquired. Flights of fancy and of grandeur in my head that my market cannot or will bot muster the materials to build for me. Then the crash into reality. The reality is that I’m not going to be able to do or build or record those things in order to sell them. Sell them. In order to build new things, to finally complete that dream home which in my mind, and within reason; would be worthy of being featured in glossy magazines and hippie blogs alike. Every inch of that house would be curated, sculpted and made to harmonize with everything within it and with the gorgeous land that cradles it. Right now. It’s mostly demolished on the interior. The exterior was sanded down by my sons, myself and three men that we were able to hire for a while. Every inch of the exterior was refinished. The spruce logs subtly glowing in a grey shade normally associated with English libraries. I’m powerless to proceed with its rebirth most days lately. That same mind that invents and creates and sings and plays and paints and cooks. Is burdened by a depth of depression so profound that to fully speak of it to polite company would get me shunned by many. For their lives haven’t taught them to grasp so many challenges at once. I am surrounded by well heeled entrepreneurs that are my heroes. A lot of them got an easier start to life than I did and almost every single one didn’t make the poor life decisions I did. They weren’t Rebels like me. They obeyed. They joined the clubs. They completed their assignments. They went to colleges and universities on their parents money and launched businesses with the same. They are unapologetic disciples of the Bootstrap and I don’t fault them for it. They insist that their peers overcome and persist and minimize obstacles whenever possible as to not sully their aura of accomplishment. I prefer their company than those that spend too much time empowering their challenges and blaming others for their own poor decisions that led to their particular circumstances.

I legally, legitimately, by any measure of medical analysis, qualify for full disability benefits. And I refuse to seek them out. I insist that I overcome them and rather than allowing my diseased mind from crippling my potential by resigning to it. I refuse to let temporary circumstances to permanently impede my goals. My peers and possibly my own family wouldn’t like the fact that I’m sharing this to this small corner of the internet.

My goals. Are intended to produce things that will endure for generations. I may be long gone. But my work won’t be. In the meanwhile. I’ve got to beat epilepsy. I’ve got to keep bipolar on a short leash, and I’ve got to get emotionally and physically healthy enough to keep my body and brain and partners moving forward.

I’ve got a LOT to do and I’ve got approximately forty to fifty years to get it all done.

Help me.

[scruffyplayssonic]

And the best movies of all the years I’ve been alive are... (updated for 2017!)

Hey folks, I’ve got of a bit of a tradition that I’ve started. It wasn’t a New Year’s tradition previously, but this feels like the best time to be updating

Back in August 2015, I watched a Youtube video by Jeremy of @cinema-sins, where he was answering fan questions. One question that he addressed was, “What is the best movie of every year that you’ve been alive?” While Jeremy thought this was a great question, he didn’t think one video would be long enough to explore it fully, and he wanted to find another way to answer it. This eventually was done through the Cinema Sins podcast, SinCast. Each week, the cast would discuss the movies of a certain year and then vote on which one they thought was the best, starting with 1975 in episode 14, and then working their way through another year each episode right up until episode 54, where they voted on the best movie for 2015. They then took a break for a few weeks to get caught up on some of last year’s movies that they hadn’t seen yet before finally tackling 2016 in this week’s podcast, episode 58.

I did my own picks for my favourite movie of each year back in August 2015, when I first saw Jeremy’s Q and A video. I really liked that question and was inspired to try and name my own favourites from each year. I reuploaded the updated version of this when the SinCast finished going through it last year, and I’ve been waiting for New Year’s Eve to update it again for this year. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to comment and/or argue about my choices. And thanks again to @cinema-sins, for providing me with laughs every week in the podcasts and videos they release. :)

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1982: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial This might be a bit of a cheat, since the film came out in June and I wasn’t born until October, but oh well. It’s still the same year.

1983: Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi The first Star Wars movie I was around to see the cinematic release of, although I wouldn’t see it in cinemas (or at all, shamefully) for another 14 years.

1984: The Terminator The original was pretty chilling. This still gets me every time. “Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with! It can’t be reasoned with! It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear! And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!”

1985: Back to the Future The beginning of what I still believe is the greatest movie trilogy of all time.

1986: Aliens More awesome from James Cameron.

1987: Spaceballs Well, it’s pretty funny. Plus I haven’t seen much else from this year, other than Lethal Weapon.

1988: Die Hard The original and quite possibly the best. More on that later.

1989: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade This was a tough one to pick, as Michael Keaton’s first Batman film, Licence to Kill, AND Back to the Future: Part II all came out this year. But it really has to be the onscreen chemistry of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery!

1990: Back to the Future: Part III At the time, I probably would have picked DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp. Ahhh, nostalgia.

1991: Terminator 2: Judgement Day I’m sure most of you who know me and know my favourite movies saw this one coming. This was my very favourite movie of all time for almost twenty years, but recently something has surpassed it. Silence of the Lambs would probably get second place for this year.

1992: Batman Returns It was a hard choice between this and Aladdin, which was my favourite Disney cartoon for a very long time. But since it’s not in my dvd collection and Batman is… Honourable mention goes to A Muppet Christmas Carol, my favourite of the Muppet movies.

1993: The Fugitive Another tough choice, considering that Jurassic Park also came out in 1993. But I just love the battle of wits between Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.

1994: The Lion King Another of Disney’s finest. No contest, although True Lies, Speed, and The Mask were all excellent films too.

1995: Goldeneye (007) This was another tough choice, and Die Hard with a Vengeance came very, VERY close. It’s hard to live up to the awesomeness of that first film, but the partnership with Samuel L. Jackson definitely pays off here. But Goldeneye was the first Bond film I saw in the cinema, and I remember that experience vividly. Pierce Brosnan remains my favourite Bond, even though the next three films he starred in didn’t quite live up to this one.

1996: Scream The Rock and Independence Day were my other main picks from this year, but Wes Craven made an instant classic with Scream, which inspired so many other movies and spoofs. If only they’d stopped after the first Scary Movie…

1997: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (Special Edition) It’s a bit of a cheat, but technically the original Star Wars trilogy was re-released in cinemas that year with new “special edition” footage, which is when I first fell in love with the series. From original movies that came out in ‘97, it’s a toss up between Men in Black, Air Force One, and The Fifth Element.

1998: Rush Hour Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker were hilarious in this one. The Mask of Zorro was another great movie, and Deep Impact, which was waaaaaay better than Armageddon. Of course, a Michael Bay film will be obsessed with making things go ka-boom. :P Yes, yes, I know The Rock was a Bay film too. So sue me.

1999: The Matrix Another of my very favourite movies. The effects, the plot, the action… it was just sensational. The Sixth Sense was another very clever movie, and Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me was hilarious! But… c'mon, The Matrix, man!

2000: The Whole Nine Yards I was still a big Friends fan at the time, so I loved Matthew Perry starring alongside Bruce Willis. There was also Gone in 60 Seconds, which is one of my favourite Nick Cage films, The Emperor’s New Groove, and of course, X-Men. And then there’s Mission: Impossible 2… hey, be nice. I watched this a lot when I was in Virginia and homesick for Australia :P

2001: Ocean’s Eleven Such a clever film with a great cast!

2002: The Bourne Identity Spider-Man came pretty close, but Matt Damon was amazing as Jason Bourne. …well, that most recent movie was kind of hit or miss…

2003: Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl Who would have ever guessed that a movie based on a Disneyland ride could be so good?

2004: The Incredibles It was a good year for animation - there was this one, Shrek 2, and Team America: World Police. National Treasure came out too, which I quite like.

2005: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire There was also The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (a huge improvement on the previous two movies), Batman Begins, and of course, Serenity; the movie that had Firefly fans screaming, “NOOOOOOOOO!!!” near the climax. :P

2006: V for Vendetta I just LOVE this film. Top performances from Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman and John Hurt. The Da Vinci Code was my second choice. Controversial it may be, and people tend to poo-poo Dan Brown a lot, but I loved this movie too. Tom Hanks was the perfect choice for Robert Langdon, and Ian McKellan was brilliant as always. Casino Royale also came out this year, which brought the 007 franchise back from oblivion.

2007: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I had to find a cinema playing this in English in Nanjing - no easy feat! But at least they didn’t butcher it like they did with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (my second pick, after I saw the uncut movie on DVD). Ocean’s Thirteen was pretty good too, if not as good as the original. And of course, The Bourne Ultimatum. I was on the edge of my seat for that one.

2008: The Dark Knight A no-brainer. One of the best films of the decade, let alone the year. Iron Man was a surprise hit too. Little did we know of what was to follow - and in fact, you’ll be seeing a few MCU movies coming up on the list. Taken was great. Oh, and I quite liked Steve Carrell’s take on Get Smart, even if he didn’t quite capture the original magic of Don Adams.

2009: Up One of my very favourite Pixar movies. Angels & Demons was pretty good too, although not as good as the first movie. Plus Tom Hanks cut his hair - I thought his shaggy do in the first movie suited Robert Langdon better. :P Strange that I liked Angels & Demons better of the books but The Da Vinci Code better of the movies. Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes was great too.

2010: Kick-Ass This one was a surprise, but I loved the deconstruction of the traditional superhero movie they did here. And when I read the original comic, I loved the film even more for the improvements they made. Nicolas Cage was hilariously hammy, but the major star of this one was undoubtedly Chloe Grace Moretz as the tiny killing machine, Hit-Girl. After that, there was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, and Toy Story 3.

2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 A fantastic end to a fantastic series. There was also Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which really surprised me. Excellent stuff there. The Adventures of Tintin - an amazing film that tricked me into forgetting it was animated and not live-action several times. Finally, The Muppets, which was such a fantastic return for some of my favourite childhood icons.

2012: The Avengers No surprise there. Honourable mentions go to The Cabin in the Woods, which is a delightfully insane deconstruction of horror movies, Looper, a film I still occasionally stay up late at night scratching my head in confusion over, and Skyfall, which is probably Daniel Craig’s best Bond film so far. I also loved Wreck-It Ralph.

2013: White House Down This one was definitely the film I liked best from 2013What can I say? I love Die Hard, and this was basically Die Hard in the White House, yet it felt original enough to not just be a knock-off. The other ones I liked best would be the Marvels (Iron Man 3, the Wolverine and Thor: The Dark World), Kick-Ass 2, and Gravity, which was absolutely terrifying.

2014: Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel sure knows how to get my bum into the cinema - X-Men: Days of Future Past and Captain America: The Winter Soldier are up there, but Guardians wins out for pure fun (and the delightful company I had in the cinema <3). There was also The LEGO Movie, which I thought was very clever, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

2015: The Martian When I first made this list in August 2015, my prediction was that Jurassic World would be my favourite of the year. Nope, not by a long shot. The Martian was absolutely amazing - Matt Damon’s ability to keep the audience on the edge of their seats when he’s completely alone on the screen (and on the planet) is a major credit to him as an actor. In fact, I think this film has now actually surpassed Terminator 2 to become my favourite movie of all time. Then of course we have Avengers: Age of Ultron, Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation, and Terminator: Genisys. …no, really. Stop laughing, I really enjoyed it. :P And then there was Ex Machina, which was a really intriguing film that kept me guessing the entire time.

2016: Captain America: Civil War It’s no secret that I love my comic book movies, and this was definitely my favourite of last year. Civil War (the comic) was the first instance that got me intrigued enough to actually pick up and read a Marvel comic. It really raised an interesting question for me - just how accountable should superheroes be for what they do when fighting crime? Granted, the comic really went too far and made both Cap AND Iron Man look like total dicks, and I was relieved when the film managed to not use some of the more ridiculous ideas, such as a homocidal Robo-Thor-clone or a prison for superheroes in an alternate dimension that literally saps your will to live. On top of that, the film also introduced a fantastic Black Panther, and Tom Holland really nailed what Spider-Man should be. And that airport scene was worth the price of admission all by itself.

2017: Wonder Woman Ohhhhh man, it has been a really good year for superhero movies. We’ve had Tom Holland really prove he is Spider-Man in Homecoming, and the most ridiculous-and-yet-accurate portrayal of Batman ever in the LEGO Batman Movie. Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart’s swansongs in Logan were heartwrenching. Ragnarok and Justice League were a lot of fun (yes, I liked Justice League. Fight me). The Guardians managed to surpass their first movie in Volume 2 with really great character development and humour, and that would probably have been my pick for the year if there wasn’t one other superhero movie I loved even more. But I found Wonder Woman to be truly inspirational. Patty Jenkins,Gal Gadot, Chris Pine and everyone else involved with this movie created something that took my breath away. I cheer every time I see her walk out onto no man’s land, and I scream, “FUCK YEAH!!!” every time that iconic butt-kicking theme music plays. In non-superhero movies... Coco was simply amazing, and is another of Pixar’s very best movies. Star Wars Episode VII: The Last Jedi was fantastic, and I can’t wait to go see it again. And I went into Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle with pretty low expectations, but I really enjoyed it and laughed a lot.

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I challenge any of my friends out there who are avid movie lovers to give this challenge a try - it’s not as easy as you’d think. Wikipedia is your friend though - just browse by “(insert year here) in film.” Comments telling me, “Yes, I love that film!” or, “Are you nuts? How could you forget THIS film?” are quite welcome. :)

[pebble-xo]

The Secret (3)

prologue; part one; part two; part three; part four; part five; part six; part seven; part eight; part nine; part ten; part eleven; part twelve; part thirteen; epilogue.

No matter how hard you tried, you just couldn’t get to sleep. It was nearly 3am and you still hadn’t fallen asleep, resigning yourself to just rolling around while you tried to shut your brain off for the night. And you had tried everything: doodling in your sketchbook, reading one of your mystery crime books, watching late night crap reruns. In the end, you were left lying on your back, staring up at the ceiling blankly.

Rolling onto our side, you reached for your phone to check the time just as the screen lit up with a text. A text from Baekhyun.

It had been over two weeks since you’d been reunited with your old childhood friend and you’d spent the majority of it texting or calling each other. It was different to when you had been in school. You’d both grown up a lot and changed in different ways that should have pulled you apart - technically you lived in different worlds in the same city.

But he was Byun Baekhyun and he quickly had you in the palm of his hand: eagerly awaiting his calls and smiling brightly when he sent you a text.

Baekhyun’s text popped up along with a photo of him in the back of a car bundled up in a soft-looking dark green scarf. “Whoever invented scarves was a knitting genius!” You read his message and couldn’t help but smile into your pillow. How could someone be so handsome and yet so cute at the same time?

Biting down on your bottom lip, you quickly typed back your reply. “You’re so profound in the early hours of the morning. Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

While you waited for his reply, you continued to stare at the photo he’d sent. Immediately you could spot the similarities between him and Zoe. They shared the same soft eyes that always scrunched up when smiling and the same sparkle within that made them so full of energy and life. It warmed your heart and yet tore it apart at the same time. Why couldn’t Zoe look completely like you? It would make separating her from Baekhyun so much easier.

Your smile stretched up as his reply lit up your phone bright. “I’ve just finished up rehearsals, what’s your excuse?” The text made you chuckle, reminding you of your school days when you used to stay up late studying and he’d stay up to play video games.

“Can’t seem to turn my brain off,” you quickly replied, locking your phone and leaving it on the pillow beside your face. All you wanted to do was sleep. It was hard enough getting Zoe out of bed in the mornings – you didn’t want to be absolutely exhausted as well.

Suddenly your ringtone pierced through the air, jolting you up as your phone vibrated off your pillow into your hand. Calming your heart with a couple of deep breaths, you read Baekhyun’s name on the screen and slid your thumb across to answer. “Hello?” you answered quietly, conscious of Zoe in the other room.

“Hey there bright eyes,” he said quietly, his voice sending a little shiver down your spine and yet warming you to the core. Talking to him, especially so late at night, made the whole thing feel forbidden … which only made you want it more. “You know, they say that if you’re having trouble falling asleep, it’s because someone somewhere is thinking about you.”

You laughed and rolled your eyes in the dark, putting your phone on speaker and lying back down on your pillow, the phone in front of you. “So you’re thinking about me? You couldn’t have just said that in a text?” you retorted, lifting the covers up to your chin.

It was his turn to laugh, ever melodious and perfectly pitched. “And miss the chance to hear your voice? No way,” he replied with a soft sigh down the phone, signalling he was being serious now.

“I wanted to help you fall asleep.”

You froze for a second, panicking that he was going to come over. But then you let out a bated breath. He didn’t know where you lived. Still you frowned at your phone in confusion. “What are you talking about Baekhyun?” you asked.

“Close your eyes and get comfortable,” he insisted in a soft voice that was such a contrast from his usual loud self. For him not to be shouting down the phone like an excited puppy made quite a change. A side of Baekhyun that only you got to see.

And then he surprised you completely … and started singing in a quiet voice for only you to hear.

“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high,

There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue,

And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.”

You had heard him sing a thousand times: in the rehearsal room at school, quietly under his breath when he wanted a distraction from studying, even in EXO when Zoe had them blasting loud so she could dance. But this was different. He wasn’t singing for the band or for an audition or for EXO. This time, his voice was saved completely for you and it was heavenly.

As you buried your face in your soft pillow, you focused on Baekhyun’s voice and slowly felt the pull of sleep luring you in. All your worries and stresses were momentarily forgotten, leaving you finally able to relax and drift off, Baekhyun’s honey voice filling your ears with a sweet song.

Eventually the song finished and Baekhyun’s voice trailed off into silence. However, by that point, you were already fast asleep in dreamland.

###

It had been almost over a month since you moved with Zoe to Seoul and you were finally starting to feel settled in the big city. Things at the illustrating company were busy and always kept you on your toes but you were so glad to be drawing again. The leader of your current project was very pleased with your rough sketches and now wanted you to get to grips with the digital drawing software as the next phase – so basically you spent your days doodling on a high tech tablet while you trialled different pens and techniques.

You had been worried that Zoe would struggle but city life was the making of her. According to the chats you had with her teacher in the mornings, she had made lots of friends and was excelling in her learning. As it turns out, Zoe was the least of your worries.

Instead, your old best friend who was now a famous idol was the one causing you most of your worry – particularly trying to hide his daughter from him.

After shutting him out of your life so quickly once you found out he was leaving, you loved that you were reconnecting with him again. All throughout the day you would be texting each other about your days, Baekhyun usually sending pictures too. Slowly your friendships slipped back into place but it left you feeling like you were living a double life. One where you were a mother and the other a lying best friend.

And yet you were a glutton for punishment and couldn’t leave Baekhyun out of your life.

Saving your sketches on your tablet, you grabbed your bag from under your desk and slipped your phone inside, just as it started to ring. “Typical,” you muttered under your breath, re-grasping your phone and lifting it to your ear. “Hello?” you asked, waving to everyone in your office as you grabbed your bag and headed out for lunch.

“Is it your lunch break yet?” Baekhyun asked impatiently, pouncing on you as soon as you answered.

His voice made you smile into the fluffiness of your scarf. “Just about to leave the office,” you told him, calling the lift and waiting while the numbers sped towards your floor. “What’s up?” He didn’t answer straight away which was unusual of Baekhyun. It left you curious as to what he was going to reply with.

“I’m … er … I’m parked outside your building,” he admitted, honestly sounding bashful. You could imagine him in his car, leaning against the glass of the window running a hand through his hair. “You mentioned how stressed you’ve been lately so I brought lunch.”

You balked, staring blankly in disbelief as you pulled your phone away to check it was actually Baekhyun calling. “Are you serious?” you asked, ducking your head as the doors to the lift opened. Slowly it started to drop to the ground floor.

He laughed lightly like music to your ears. “Yes,” he insisted, laughing again and leaving your heart in a flutter. “Now hurry and get down here before your coffee gets cold!” And then he hung up, not giving you time to even argue.

Still slightly confused, you rode the lift down to the ground floor and took long steps across the shiny tiles in the foyer until you were walking through the spinning doors of your building and trying to spot Baekhyun. You had no idea what he was driving and the road was packed with cars, all flashy and expensive looking. As you walked alongside them, trying to peer through the tinted windows to spot Baekhyun, you came up on a sleek black Audi with black windows that merged into the paintjob, until the passenger window started to move down.

Bending low, you looked inside and saw Baekhyun’s beaming smile. “Get in,” he ordered jokingly, beckoning you inside with a twitch of his finger.

You opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat, sitting awkwardly with your bag in your lap while Baekhyun rolled the window back up, plunging the car into silence as he shut the world outside out. “What are you doing here Baekhyun?” you asked quietly, fiddling with the strap on your bag with your gaze fixed down.

Beside you, Baekhyun moved to reach for something in the backseat, leaning towards you and intoxicating you with his aftershave. “I told you … I brought lunch!” You looked up at him, hiding slightly behind your hair, to see him holding a large coffee cup and a brown paper bag. “We’ve both been too busy to meet up but I had the morning off so I thought I’d make the effort today and surprise you.”

Immediately you shook your head, taking the coffee and bag out of his hands. “You really shouldn’t have,” you murmured quietly, taking a little sip of your coffee and feeling your sense go crazy with the shot of caffeine. “You remembered my favourite drink,” you said with a smile, licking the taste of the hazelnut latte off your lips.

Baekhyun’s face quickly morphed into a smirk. Evidently he was proud he got it right after so long. “Open the bag too,” he told you confidently, turning in his seat to face you.

Inside the mysterious paper bag was quite possibly your favourite snack of all time. “A cream cheese bagel!” you exclaimed, resisting the urge to throw your arms around Baekhyun and simultaneously rip the bag open and devour the bagel in one swift motion. “I can’t believe you remembered this,” you said surprised, picking a little piece off and savouring the soft bread on your tongue.

“You ate it every morning for three years straight on our way to school,” he replied, his cheeks turning a soft shade of pink before he tried to hide his face behind his coffee cup.

“Well thank you,” you replied shyly, taking another sip of your coffee.

Even though he was a famous idol with a life completely different to yours, he was still the same person from your schooldays in all the ways that mattered. And it warmed your heart to know your best friend was still there.

“Now how are rehearsals going?” you asked enthusiastically, turning on your side and leaning your head on the back of the seat. While you ate your bagel bite by bite, you sat back and listened to Baekhyun complain about the preparations for his new concert and how exhausting it all was. You were pretty clueless about what he was talking about but he clearly needed someone to vent to.

You just hoped he could fit it all into the one hour you had for lunch.

###

Zoe ran out of her after school club with a definite spring in her step, wrapping her little arms around your legs and jumping up and down. “Mummy!” she exclaimed excitedly. Someone had missed you.

“Hey there little one,” you said brightly, reaching down to lift her up onto your hip and bouncing around in a circle. “Did you have a good day at school?” With a quick peek in her backpack to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything, you set her back on her feet and took her hand to lead her back to the car. While you walked, she skipped beside you, happily explaining about her colouring project and the race she had with Toby around the playground.

And then all of a sudden, she jumped up at you like an excitable puppy. “And that’s not the best part of the day!” she cried, practically flying with so much excitement. She pulled you to a stop by your car and stood in front of you, trying to make herself seem as tall as possible to look at you, hands locked behind her back. “Elle is going to see EXO and she said I can go too,” she screamed, spinning enthusiastically in circles.

Meanwhile you stumbled to your car and sat on the hood to steady yourself. You knew it was selfish and it riddled you with guilt, but all you wanted to do was distance your daughter from her father. Yet here she was, trying to seek him out and becoming a fan.

Destiny worked in cruel ways.

“What am I going to do?” you muttered to yourself, just as Zoe stopped celebrating and starting pestering you for a yes.

“Please, please, please Mummy!” she begged, clapping her hands together in front of her chest and giving you her best puppy dog eyes that she knew would instantly make you melt. “Pretty please with a cherry on top!” she pleaded, pulling on your coat while her voice started to lean away from cute and sound more like whining.

Pushing yourself up off the car, you crouched down and smoothed Zoe’s hair, pressing down on her shoulders to stop her bouncing. “I’ll think about it,” you promised her, needing more time to think about it. “Right now, we need to go shopping and choose your Halloween costume,” you said as a distraction.

It worked. All Zoe could think about now was the possibility of dressing up as either a princess, a unicorn or a cyborg.

[masterlist]

[therealestatesparkblog]

Analyzing Rich Dad Poor Dad Investing Principles--Are They Still Good?

A fellow investor from Arizona, Shiloh Lundahl, posted a thread recently on the forums entitled Rich Dad investing principles good or bad? While the book Rich Dad Poor Dad is oftimes credited as having shined the light on many principles of personal finance and REI, the question is posed: Is it legit? Is the book that sold millions of copies and the advice therein actually legit? A Look Back at the Book Kidding aside, this is actually a very interesting question. Rich Dad Poor Dad was eye-opening for a lot of us. The interesting thing, though, is that while after having done a couple of deals, many of us felt like we were given the keys to the kingdom. Years and many hard knocks later, those of us still standing are now aware of how lacking (to say the least) and possibly even misleading Rich Dad Poor Dad actually is. Quite literally, unless you find a way to break away from that original mentality, your efforts could amount to treading water (if you are lucky), and lots of pain (if you are less lucky). I suppose, in the spirit of intellectual honesty, we must preface this conversation with acknowledging that Rich Dad Poor Dad was likely never intended to be a true how-to manual with any valid technical data nor viable investment advice. Likely, the book was intended only as a big-picture motivational and inspirational tool. And as such, it was a complete and total success. And I, for one, have nothing but positive commentary to offer. After all, the book certainly motivated a slew of investors. However, continuing with this line of intellectual honesty, let us acknowledge that beyond being motivated, many of us started out with the belief that within the pages of that book was a bonafide formula an actual, intellectually cohesive, mathematically stable formula for investing in rentals. If you believe that, you are shit out of luck. The image of real estate investing painted in the book is highly misleading from the technical and mechanical standpoints. And there are many items we could mention here, but there is one falsehood stand stands out more so than anything else. Frankly, I am not at all sure that even if this had been properly addressed in the book, that Id have been able to internalize it. After all, our capacity to understand is tied to our intellectual worth, which in turn is tied to our experiences. I didnt have any Thirteen years later, here are some thoughts for you. Related:Book Review: Rich Dad Poor Dad Rentals Are For Cash Flow I understood this to be the central message in the book. Whether you dont want to punch the clock (which was the case for Brandon Turner because he hated being a bank teller) or you cant work (which was the story Ben Leybovich) passive cash flow from the rentals will pay your ticket, according to the book. Even in the accompanying board game, Cashflow, winning is a function of buying enough rentals to equal or exceed the amount of monthly liabilities. Whether in the book or the game, the main message is cash flow. This was my understanding. Maybe you saw something different. But this is how my intellectual worth lead me to interpret the messaging, which influenced my thinking to focus exclusively on the cash flow. I am willing to bet this is how most of you think about rentals. Unfortunately, this is wrong.

We Buy Income Property for Appreciation This is something sophisticated players figure out sooner or later. The best way I can illustrate this to you is like this: Suppose you have a small six-unit apartment building. You bought it five years back. You financed 100 percent of it because you read articles by Ben Leybovich. It cash flows about $500 per month. Nothing special. But nothing wrong with it. Rich Dad would approve. You get an offer to sell it. You worked hard to get the building. You like having it. You were looking for cash flow, and thats what youve got. And with no money in the deal, to boot. But, you realize that between the appreciated equity and principal pay-down, you would put in your pocket a x15 multiple on your annual cash flow if you do sell. In other words, if you sell, youd get 15 years worth of cash flow prepaid. Do you sell? Or, would you hold and keep the cash flow? Dont answer yet. Related:Life-Changing Lessons From 9 Awesome Real Estate Books Time Value Maybe you already know this, but for those who dont, time value is a concept that alludes to the reality that there is a time and place when value of everything is maximized. This is as true with money as it is with food and relationships. For instance, if you read one of my articles before you are ready to internalize whats in it, not only will you miss the point, but you will likely think of me as a jerk. I promise, I am not a jerk you may simply be reading my stuff at a time that is not appropriate. Perhaps, sometime in the future, youll re-read these things and think highly of them. Time value is the concept. As this relates to money, the same $5,000 of cash flow 15 years from now is not all the same thing in terms of new preset value (NPV) as it is today. NPV essentially aims to conceive of future cash flows in terms of todays buying power and opportunity premium. What this necessarily means is that even if you were able to achieve the same level of cash flows 15 years from now as you can today, and even if you did set enough money aside for capex so that you wont need to cannibalize the cash flow, the value of these cash flows 15 years from now adjusted to net present value are much lower than youd think. Indeed, you better plan on making much more cash flow 15 years from now. Mathematically this is represented with the internal rate of return (IRR), XIRR, and modified internal rate of return (MIRR) (which allows you to select your own discount rate). But, those are more than I want to get into today. So, Do You Sell? I did. I sold that six-unit. I had bought it about five years prior. I financed it 100 percent. It made about $6,000 per year of cash flow. But, I sold it and put about $85,000 in my pocket, which I was able to reinvest in a way that doubled my cash flow. Mathematically, the reason I sold is because doing so represented infinitely higher IRR than not selling. In fact, this was about a 40 percent IRR in 5 years. But, the important syllogism here is this: Major premise: If we want outsized returns. Minor premise: If appreciation is necessary to achieve outsized returns. Conclusion: We must buy for appreciation. Conclusion With that said, our buy decision has to be based on appreciation. Which, of course, means that if youre focusing on cash flow as the goal, youre not doing it right. Cash flow has a lot to do with it, but its not the end goal. This, to me, is the biggest thing missing in Rich Dad Poor Dad. Were republishing this article to help out our newer readers.

Have you readRich Dad Poor Dad?What advice do you agree or disagree with? Share your thoughts below! https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/rich-dad-poor-dad-investing-principles-good-or-bad/

[scruffyplayssonic]

My favourite movies of all the years I’ve been alive.

Back in August 2015, I watched a Youtube video by Jeremy of @cinema-sins, where he was answering fan questions. One question that he addressed was, “What is the best movie of every year that you’ve been alive?” While Jeremy thought this was a great question, he didn’t think one video would be long enough to explore it fully, and he wanted to find another way to answer it. This eventually was done through the Cinema Sins podcast, SinCast. Each week, the cast would discuss the movies of a certain year and then vote on which one they thought was the best, starting with 1975 in episode 14, and then working their way through another year each episode right up until episode 54, where they voted on the best movie for 2015. They then took a break for a few weeks to get caught up on some of last year’s movies that they hadn’t seen yet before finally tackling 2016 in this week’s podcast, episode 58. 

I did my own picks for my favourite movie of each year back in August 2015, when I first saw Jeremy’s Q and A video. I really liked that question and was inspired to try and name my own favourites from each year. So to celebrate the SinCast crew finally completing this task, I thought that I’d re-post my list, which is now updated to include 2015 and 2016. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to comment and/or argue about my choices. And thanks again to @cinema-sins, for providing me with laughs every week in the podcasts and videos they release. :)

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1982: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial This might be a bit of a cheat, since the film came out in June and I wasn’t born until October, but oh well. It’s still the same year.

1983: Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi The first Star Wars movie I was around to see the cinematic release of, although I wouldn’t see it in cinemas (or at all, shamefully) for another 14 years.

1984: The Terminator The original was pretty chilling. This still gets me every time. “Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with! It can’t be reasoned with! It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear! And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead!”

1985: Back to the Future The beginning of what I still believe is the greatest movie trilogy of all time.

1986: Aliens More awesome from James Cameron.

1987: Spaceballs Well, it’s pretty funny. Plus I haven’t seen much else from this year, other than Lethal Weapon.

1988: Die Hard The original and quite possibly the best. More on that later.

1989: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade This was a tough one to pick, as Michael Keaton’s first Batman film, Licence to Kill, AND Back to the Future: Part II all came out this year. But it really has to be the onscreen chemistry of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery!

1990: Back to the Future: Part III At the time, I probably would have picked DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp. Ahhh, nostalgia.

1991: Terminator 2: Judgement Day I’m sure most of you who know me saw this one coming. To this day it’s still my favourite movie of all time. Silence of the Lambs would probably get second place for this year.

1992: Batman Returns It was a hard choice between this and Aladdin, which was my favourite Disney cartoon for a very long time. But since it’s not in my dvd collection and Batman is… Honourable mention goes to A Muppet Christmas Carol, my favourite of the Muppet movies.

1993: The Fugitive Another tough choice, considering that Jurassic Park also came out in 1993. But I just love the battle of wits between Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.

1994: The Lion King Another of Disney’s finest. No contest, although True Lies, Speed, and The Mask were all excellent films too.

1995: Goldeneye (007) This was another tough choice, and Die Hard with a Vengeance came very, VERY close. It’s hard to live up to the awesomeness of that first film, but the partnership with Samuel L. Jackson definitely pays off here. But Goldeneye was the first Bond film I saw in the cinema, and I remember that experience vividly. Pierce Brosnan remains my favourite Bond, even though the next three films he starred in didn’t quite live up to this one.

1996: Scream The Rock and Independence Day were my other main picks from this year, but Wes Craven made an instant classic with Scream, which inspired so many other movies and spoofs. If only they’d stopped after the first Scary Movie…

1997: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (Special Edition) It’s a bit of a cheat, but technically the original Star Wars trilogy was re-released in cinemas that year with new “special edition” footage, which is when I first fell in love with the series. From original movies that came out in ‘97, it’s a toss up between Men in Black, Air Force One, and The Fifth Element.

1998: Rush Hour Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker were hilarious in this one. The Mask of Zorro was another great movie, and Deep Impact, which was waaaaaay better than Armageddon. Of course, a Michael Bay film will be obsessed with making things go ka-boom. :P Yes, yes, I know The Rock was a Bay film too. So sue me.

1999: The Matrix Another of my very favourite movies. The effects, the plot, the action… it was just sensational. The Sixth Sense was another very clever movie, and Austin Powers: The Spy who Shagged Me was hilarious! But… c'mon, The Matrix, man!

2000: The Whole Nine Yards I was still a big Friends fan at the time, so I loved Matthew Perry starring alongside Bruce Willis. There was also Gone in 60 Seconds, which is one of my favourite Nick Cage films, The Emperor’s New Groove, and of course, X-Men. And then there’s Mission: Impossible 2… hey, be nice. I watched this a lot when I was in Virginia and homesick for Australia :P

2001: Ocean’s Eleven Such a clever film with a great cast!

2002: The Bourne Identity Spider-Man came pretty close, but Matt Damon was amazing as Jason Bourne. ...well, that most recent movie was kind of hit or miss...

2003: Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl Who would have ever guessed that a movie based on a Disneyland ride could be so good?

2004: The Incredibles It was a good year for animation - there was this one, Shrek 2, and Team America: World Police. National Treasure came out too, which I quite like.

2005: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire There was also The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (a huge improvement on the previous two movies), Batman Begins, and of course, Serenity; the movie that had Firefly fans screaming, “NOOOOOOOOO!!!” near the climax. :P

2006: V for Vendetta I just LOVE this film. Top performances from Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman and John Hurt. The Da Vinci Code was my second choice. Controversial it may be, and people tend to poo-poo Dan Brown a lot, but I loved this movie too. Tom Hanks was the perfect choice for Robert Langdon, and Ian McKellan was brilliant as always. Casino Royale also came out this year, which brought the 007 franchise back from oblivion.

2007: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix I had to find a cinema playing this in English in Nanjing - no easy feat! But at least they didn’t butcher it like they did with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (my second pick, after I saw the uncut movie on DVD). Ocean’s Thirteen was pretty good too, if not as good as the original. And of course, The Bourne Ultimatum. I was on the edge of my seat for that one.

2008: The Dark Knight A no-brainer. One of the best films of the decade, let alone the year. Iron Man was a surprise hit too. Taken was great. Oh, and I quite liked Steve Carrell’s take on Get Smart, even if he didn’t quite capture the original magic of Don Adams.

2009: Up My favourite of all the Pixars. Angels & Demons was pretty good too, although not as good as the first movie. Plus Tom Hanks cut his hair - I thought his shaggy do in the first movie suited Robert Langdon better. :P Strange that I liked Angels & Demons better of the books but The Da Vinci Code better of the movies. Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes was great too.

2010: Kick-Ass This one was a surprise, but I loved the deconstruction of the traditional superhero movie they did here. And when I read the original comic, I loved the film even more for the improvements they made. Nicolas Cage was hilariously hammy, but the major star of this one was undoubtedly Chloe Grace Moretz as the tiny killing machine, Hit-Girl. After that, there was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, and Toy Story 3.

2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 A fantastic end to a fantastic series. There was also Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which really surprised me. Excellent stuff there. The Adventures of Tintin - an amazing film that tricked me into forgetting it was animated and not live-action several times. Finally, The Muppets, which was such a fantastic return for some of my favourite childhood icons.

2012: The Avengers No surprise there. Honourable mentions go to The Cabin in the Woods, which is a delightfully insane deconstruction of horror movies, Looper, a film I still occasionally stay up late at night scratching my head in confusion over, and Skyfall, which is possibly Daniel Craig’s best Bond film so far. I also loved Wreck-It Ralph.

2013: White House Down This one was definitely the film I liked best from 2013 - and yes, that includes Frozen. You may charge with your flaming torches and pitchforks when ready. But what can I say? I love Die Hard, and this was basically Die Hard in the White House, yet it felt original enough to not just be a knock-off. The other ones I liked best would be the Marvels (Iron Man 3, the Wolverine and Thor: The Dark World), Kick-Ass 2, and Gravity, which was absolutely terrifying.

2014: Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel sure knows how to get my bum into the cinema - X-Men: Days of Future Past and Captain America: The Winter Soldier are up there, but Guardians wins out for pure fun (and the delightful company I had in the cinema <3). There was also The LEGO Movie, which I thought was very clever, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

2015: The Martian When I first made this list in August 2015, my prediction was that Jurassic World would be my favourite of the year. Nope, not by a long shot. The Martian was absolutely amazing - Matt Damon’s ability to keep the audience on the edge of their seats when he’s completely alone on the screen (and on the planet) is a major credit to him as an actor. Then of course we have Avengers: Age of Ultron, Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation, and Terminator: Genisys. …no, really. Stop laughing, I really enjoyed it. :P And then there was Ex Machina, which was a really intriguing film that kept me guessing the entire time.

2016: Captain America: Civil War It’s no secret that I love my comic book movies, and this was definitely my favourite of last year. Civil War (the comic) was the first instance that got me intrigued enough to actually pick up and read a Marvel comic. It really raised an interesting question for me - just how accountable should superheroes be for what they do when fighting crime? Granted, the comic really went too far and made both Cap AND Iron Man look like total dicks, and I was relieved when the film managed to not use some of the more ridiculous ideas, such as a homocidal Robo-Thor-clone or a prison for superheroes in an alternate dimension that literally saps your will to live. On top of that, the film also introduced a fantastic Black Panther, and Tom Holland really nailed what Spider-Man should be. And that airport scene was worth the price of admission all by itself.

2017 (so far - I’ll update this at the end of the year): Passengers I’ve only seen two films so far this year, and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter was okay, but not great. I really enjoyed Passengers though, despite all the controversy it has surrounding it. It’s definitely not the same movie the trailers made it look like it was going to be though.

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I challenge any of my friends out there who are avid movie lovers to give this challenge a try - it’s not as easy as you’d think. Wikipedia is your friend though - just browse by “(insert year here) in film.” Comments telling me, “Yes, I love that film!” or, “Are you nuts? How could you forget THIS film?” are quite welcome. :)