#anyway. i’ve always kinned in some way or another & gone back & forth on taking it seriously.

[videnoirs]

being otherkin/alterhuman was that one piece of Self Discovery i was missing from my spirituality. or something.

[paenling]

no ones saying you cant enjoy daniil? people like him as a character but mostly Because he’s an asshole and he’s interesting. the racism and themes of colonization in patho are so blatant

nobody said “by order of Law you are forbidden from enjoying daniil dankovsky in any capacity”, but they did say “if you like daniil dankovsky you are abnormal, problematic, and you should be ashamed of yourself”, so i’d call that an implicit discouragement at the least. not very kind.

regardless, he is a very interesting asshole and we love to make fun of him! but i do not plan to stop seeing his character in an empathetic light when appropriate to do so. we’re all terribly human.

regarding “the racism and themes of colonization in patho”, we’ve gotta have a sit-down for this one because it’s long and difficult. tl;dr here.

i’ve written myself all back and forth and in every direction trying to properly pin down the way i feel about this in a way that is both logically coherent and emotionally honest, but it’s not really working. i debated even responding at all, but i do feel like there are some things worth saying so i’m just going to write a bunch of words, pick a god, and pray it makes some modicum of sense.

the short version: pathologic 2 is a flawed masterwork which i love deeply, but its attempts to be esoteric and challenging have in some ways backfired when it comes to topical discussions such as those surrounding race, which the first game didn’t give its due diligence, and the second game attempted with incomplete success despite its best efforts.

the issue is that when you have a game that is so niche and has these “elevated themes” and draws from all this kind of academic highbrow source material -- the fandom is small, but the fandom consists of people who want to analyze, pathologize, and dissect things as much as possible. so let’s do that.

first: what exactly is racist or colonialist in pathologic? i’m legitimately asking. people at home: by what mechanism does pathologic-the-game inflict racist harm on real people? the fact that the Kin are aesthetically and linguistically inspired by the real-world Buryat people (& adjacent groups) is a potential red flag, but as far as i can tell there’s never any value judgement made about either the fictionalized Kin or the real-world Buryat. the fictional culture is esoteric to the player -- intended to be that way, in fact -- but that’s not an inherently bad thing. it’s a closed practice and they’re minding their business.

does it run the risk of being insensitive with sufficiently aggressive readings? absolutely, but i don’t think that’s racist by itself. they’re just portrayed as a society of human beings (and some magical ones, if you like) that has flaws and incongruences just as the Town does. it’s not idealizing or infantilizing these people, but by no means does it go out of its way to villainize them either. there is no malice in this depiction of the Kin. 

is it the fact that characters within both pathologic 1 & 2 are racist? that the player can choose to say racist things when inhabiting those characters? no, because pathologic-the-game doesn’t endorse those things. they’re throwaway characterization lines for assholes. acknowledging that racism exists does not make a media racist. see more here.

however, i find it’s very important to take a moment and divorce the racial discussions in a game like pathologic 2 from the very specific experiences of irl western (particularly american) racism. it’s understandable for such a large chunk of the english-speaking audience to read it that way; it makes sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s correct. although it acknowledges the relevant history to some extent, on account of being set in 1915, pathologic 2 is not intended to be a commentary about race, and especially not current events, and especially especially not current events in america. it’s therefore unfair, in my opinion, to attempt to diagnose it with any concrete ideology or apply its messages to an american racial paradigm.

it definitely still deals with race, but it always, to me, seemed to come back around the exploitation of race as an ultimately arbitrary division of human beings, and the story always strove to be about human beings far more than it was ever about race. does it approach this topic perfectly? no, but it’s clearly making an effort. should we be aware of where it fails to do right by the topic? yes, definitely, but we should also be charitable in our interpretations of what the writers were actually aiming for, rather than reactionarily deeming them unacceptable and leaving it at that. do we really think the writers for pathologic 2 sat down and said “we’re going to go out of our way to be horrible racists today”? i don’t.

IPL’s writing team is a talented lot, and dybowski as lead writer has the kinds of big ideas that elevate a game to a work of art, particularly because he’s not afraid to get personal. on that front, some discussion is inescapable as pathologic 2 deals in a lot of racial and cultural strife, because it’s clearly something near to the his heart, but as i understand it was never really meant to be a narrative “about” race, at least not exclusively so, and especially not in the same sense as the issue is understood by the average American gamer. society isn't a monolith and the contexts are gonna change massively between different cultures who have had, historically, much different relationships with these concepts.

these themes are “so blatant” in pathologic 2 because clearly, on some level, IPL wanted to start a discussion. I think it’s obvious that they wanted to make the audience uncomfortable with the choices they were faced with and the characters they had to inhabit -- invoke a little ostranenie, as it were, and force an emotional breaking point. in the end the game started a conversation and i think that’s something that was done in earnest, despite its moments of obvious clumsiness. 

regarding colonialism, this is another thing that the game is just Not About. we see the effects and consequences of colonialism demonstrated in the world of pathologic, and it’s something we’re certainly asked to think about from time to time, but the actual plot/narrative of the game is not about overcoming or confronting explicitly colonialist constructs, etc. i personally regard this as a bit of a missed opportunity, but it’s just not what IPL was going for.

instead they have a huge focus, as discussed somewhat in response to this ask, on the broader idea of powerful people trying to create a “utopia” at the mortal cost of those they disempower, which is almost always topical as far as i’m concerned, and also very Russian.

i think there was some interview where it was said that the second game was much more about “a mechanism that transforms human nature” than the costs of utopia, but it’s still a persistent enough theme to be worth talking about both as an abstraction of colonialism as well as in its more-likely intended context through the lens of wealth inequality, environmental destruction & government corruption as universal human issues faced by the marginalized classes. i think both are important and intelligent readings of the text, and both are worth discussion.

both endings of pathologic 2 involve sacrifice in the name of an “ideal world” where it’s impossible to ever be fully satisfied. in the Diurnal Ending, Artemy is tormented over the fate of the Kin and the euthanasia of his dying god and all her miracles, but he needs to have faith that the children he’s protected will grow up better than their parents and create a world where he and his culture will be immortalized in love. in the Nocturnal Ending, he’s horrified because in preserving the miracle-bound legacy of his people as a collective, he’s un-personed himself to the individuals he loves, but he needs to have faith that the uniqueness and magic of the resurrected Earth was precious enough to be worth that sacrifice. neither ending is fair. it’s not fair that he can’t have both, but that’s the idea. because that “utopia” everyone’s been chasing is an idol that distracts from the important work of being a human being and doing your best in a flawed world. 

because pathologic’s themes as a series are so very “Russian turn-of-the-century” and draw a ton of stylistic and topical inspiration from the theatre and literature of that era, i don’t doubt that it’s also inherited some of its inspirational literature’s missteps. however, because the game’s intertextuality is so incredibly dense it’s difficult to construct a super cohesive picture of its actual messaging. a lot of its references and themes will absolutely go over your head if you enter unprepared -- this was true for me, and it ended up taking several passes and a bunch of research to even begin appreciating the breadth of its influences.

(i’d argue this is ultimately a good thing; i would never have gone and picked up Camus or Strugatsky, or even known who Antonin Artaud was at all if i hadn’t gone in with pathologic! my understanding is still woefully incomplete and it’s probably going to take me a lot more effort to get properly fluent in the ideology of the story, but that’s the joy of it, i think. :) i’m very lucky to be able to pursue it in this way.)

anyway yes, pathologic 2 is definitely very flawed in a lot of places, particularly when it tries to tackle race, but i’m happy to see it for better and for worse. the game attempts to discuss several adjacent issues and stumbles as it does so, but insinuating it to be in some way “pro-racist” or “pro-colonialist” or whatever else feels kind of disingenuous to me. they’re clearly trying, however imperfectly, to do something intriguing and meaningful and empathetic with their story.

even all this will probably amount to a very disjointed and incomplete explanation of how pathologic & its messaging makes me feel, but what i want -- as a broader approach, not just for pathologic -- is for people to be willing to interpret things charitably. 

sometimes things are made just to be cruel, and those things should be condemned, but not everything is like that. it’s not only possible but necessary to be able to acknowledge flaws or mistakes and still be kind. persecuting something straight away removes any opportunity to examine it and learn from it, and pathologic happens to be ripe with learning experiences. 

it’s all about being okay with ugliness, working through difficult nuances with grace, and the strength of the human spirit, and it’s a story about love first and foremost, and i guess we sort of need that right now. it gave me some of its love, so i’m giving it some of my patience.

[mnogorgannik]

2 10 n 11 :)

this is basically an essay im so sorry. watch how hard i can infodump (ill put this under a cut hopefully it works bc sometimes tumblr decimates the keep reading things if theyre in asks)

2. Who’s your favorite of the Bound? What do you think of the different ideologies they have? Which of the factions are you most aligned with?

WE ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER I AM A PETER LOVER THROUGH AND THROUGH!!!!!! oh baby i love that morally questionable architect. pretty early on in getting into pathologic (it’s coming up on a year now...) i thought about peter stamatin too hard and now i’m here. but really i find him to be such a fascinating character!

the thing about pathologic that i love is how almost every character can be as complex as you want. pathologic does an excellent job of implying a lot of character traits while only exploring some in further detail, which in some games is frustrating but patho does it so well! it consistently hints at traits and lets you fill in the details yourself. peter’s character is extremely interesting to me... and maybe a little more relatable at times than i want to admit lol.

i think i’ll talk about both stamatins though! their dynamic hurts me a lot. i’ll start with andrey bc i’ve been thinking about him lately. although i’ll bounce back and forth between both stamatins.

i’ve said this before but i’ll say it again.... andrey’s role as a protector who inadvertently hurts the people he cares about really gets to me. he is not a shield but, in his own words, a battering ram. and the problem is that battering ram has a recoil.

i have to wonder how that mentality of his came about, anyways. the implication is that it’s always just been him and peter, so did he take on that role because there wasn’t anyone else to do it?

in his efforts to protect peter from... military, i believe, he kills four people. which leads to daniil getting mistaken for andrey, which leads to daniil getting shot. and almost dying. he protects peter but to a smothering extent, peter even says he’s been suffering for ten years bc of andrey which is a LOADED line. he protects on a physical level but he kinda fucks up on the emotional.

there’s a horrible irony in peter and eva being the people he cares about the most and both attempting suicide. with eva once she’s missing he immediately goes running off trying to look for her, and . ahh i can’t remember right off hand what exactly he thought happened. but ik he was probably expecting a fight. with peter he says that after that he’ll never let peter leave his side, at least “as far as his knife can fly”... it sounds cheesy but the one thing he can’t save anyone from is themself.

and god the way andrey bases his ENTIRE sense of self worth on peter fucking hurts. they’re not peter and andrey, the architects. they’re Peter And Andrey, The Architect. (thinking about “one architect, two brothers” here.) andrey thinks he’s larger than life and all but he’s constantly living in peter’s shadow. their theatre of death positions come to mind here, with peter standing up, looking down at andrey. but andrey is on his knees in front of peter, arms limp to his sides.... separated by a wooden beam...

peter’s side of this dynamic is fascinating too. his dependency on andrey is. ow. leaving all practical matters and decision making to him... there’s this resentment (That’s Fine I’ve Been Suffering For Ten Years Because Of Him) and lack of communication that especially shows through for him.

while in p2 andrey completely crumbles if peter dies, peter doesn’t seem to care...... at all....?? which hopefully is elaborated upon in p2. he’s willing to talk to aspity about worrying if andrey is angry with him but he can’t bring it up with andrey himself. when he asks how andrey is doing he stops and says andrey is a “tough man” and can handle anything. in general, while it’s definitely there for andrey, themes of dependency are really glaringly obvious for peter.

one of my favorite peter things i’ve talked about before is still his ego!!! peter has a gigantic ego!!! he really does think that even though he’s hit the ceiling and can’t go any further he is still “a true architect” and “the rock upon which is built the stairway to tomorrow”. he has a blunt edge to him and he doesn’t ever tell you more than he thinks he needs to which i love. if he doesn’t want to tell you something he isn’t gonna do it. this is a character trait i think ppl miss which is sad because it’s so good and adds another layer of depth to him!

it really does hurt me how he’s valued for his mind alone (AHEM AHEM AHEM. GEORGIY) but it’s the thing nobody understands about him. i’m nowhere near as smart as peter lol but i do know that pain of feeling like none of your ideas can be understood because you just can’t express them the way you’d like, and then feeling like you’ll never be able to make it happen.

also, here’s a little thing  i’ve picked up on. this connection probably doesn’t exist but i’m making it because the stamatins make me lose my mind and start becoming one of those people who looks for connections in everything i guess. peter standing in the theatre of death, andrey below him. peter’s loft being at a high point in the town, the broken heart being underground. peter’s loft is also higher north on the map but the broken heart is lower south. just smth interesting

i have more thoughts on them of course! but this is all getting awfully long. i feel like i’ve only just gotten to the tip of the iceberg  even though i’ve written so much skfjskfjs this just feels quite surface level or. at least what is surface level for me who thinks about the stamatins so hard.

anyways i’ll keep my answers to the other two parts of this question quick! peter and andrey’s more creative vs practical mindsets are rly neat. especially because i would actually argue peter is a little more grounded in reality in certain aspects. not all, but certain ones...... their take on the utopian ideology is interesting. hot take: peter’s version of utopianism leans a tad towards humility. and andrey /does/ feel “straightforward utopian” but i think in certain regards? this man has a bit of a termite streak..... (hi al if you’re reading this). but i won’t get into that right now i’ve already gone on so long. saving that for later.

i think all of the factions kinda suck in their own way sometimes, honestly? although all of them are well written and have their pros and cons. were i in pathologic and i had to choose one i’d probably be a termite but everyone around me seems to think i’m a utopian. is it bc i love peter so much

10. What would you be like as a Pathologic character?

this question is a hard one! i did make a self insert once, mile-a-minute, but they’ve become their own oc by now. i think i’d be very...... very afraid...... probably isolating myself why does every pathologic character break quarantine???? also you could trade beetles with me :) thats about all i’ve got sorry this is real short

11. What is something you would change, writing-wise, about either game?

UGH i’ve been gushing about pathologic because. obviously i love this game so much. but the way it handles racism & such (in both games!) leaves much to be desired :/

i see a lot of the points it’s trying to make but i think the way they’re handled can be very messy. there are moments that work very well but. a lot that don’t. (i am aware that dybowski writes partially from his own experiences)

all too often the game “validates” the kin’s oppression and... at times paints them as oddly antagonistic? i don’t like how often as artemy you’re able to be like “i’m not one of those beasts” and i think there are better ways to touch on his internalized racism. in general the constant comparisons to animals is weird. you get big vlad who is obviously explicitly racist comparing them to animals, but then sometimes it’s like “ACTUALLY calling them animals is fine :)”

i think the herb brides are kind of. Hm. in their portrayal. also using parts of the buryat alphabet to denote an accent is weird. making odongh and herb brides inhuman is weird. connecting the kin to Magic is weird.

and, listen, i’d really like to not be playing Artemy Burakh Experiences a Microaggression Simulator every time i’m playing the haruspex route. hate that you either can’t call ppl out on their shit or if you can it ends the conversation/bars you from getting necessary information. glad you at least get to drag the vlads, i guess?

i also was talking about this but wrt peter specifically, and this issue is present throughout the game but it’s especially visible with peter, i don’t like how often you can mock him for his addiction.

he’s obviously in an extremely rough patch! being able to be just so plain cruel to him about the dependency on alcohol (and iirc in p1 hallucinogens, bc aglaya mentions it) he’s formed to cope with his mental illness & trauma just feels bad. especially because yes it is not a healthy coping mechanism at all but... it still is a coping mechanism, if that makes sense?

the way you’re able to constantly rub it in his face feels awful. peter is fully aware that it isn’t good for him and shows a desire to quit. even if he didn’t it would still be awful to say because. it’s just insensitive. like you don’t just go up to someone and keep being like HEY YOU DRINK A LOT YOU SHOULD STOP DOING THAT DO YOU KNOW WHAT WATER IS? feels really bad to keep harping on something that causes him pain and that he struggles with every single day.

however peter does have moments where he tells you Not to say that, or if you pry into why he drinks he’ll outright say he doesn’t remember you being his friend, which is better than nothing.

in p1 moreso than p2 i hate how you can be like oh he’s craaaazy he’s off his rocker he’s delusional!!!! that “why, i never... an architect of schizophrenia!” comment sticks in my mind because it’s just... so genuinely mean. especially because if i remember correctly that line is from when he’s planning on LITERALLY FUCKING BURNING HIMSELF ALIVE

i think if they were going to have all of this they should have gone more in depth on how it’s really. not good that he’s treated so poorly. and i do believe that’s what they were going for, a la the art book w/ the whole “not to be made into a drunken clown, this is a tragic character”, etc. but it just doesn’t land. i’m holding out for the bachelor and changeling routes in p2 to see if they expand upon any of it but i highly doubt i’ll be satisfied in this regard.

i stand by the One time it was really fucking funny to clown on peter being the time you can tell him little girls eat raspberries and earthworms and he just believes you

[sonofkhaz]

Musing: Pathologic 2

Pathologic 2 is what you get when Russian game developers down an entire bottle of Flintstone Vitamins with some Vodka while listening to Hardbass after being awake for 72 hours straight. It’s probably one of the best games I’ve played in terms of story-telling and themes. 

It’s a great game, despite some mechanical issues. A few years ago, I got the original game off of GOG and only got about halfway through before giving up out of frustration and a little bit of boredom. The sequel fixed a lot of the problems the first game had. For starters, there’s a lot less walking back and forth; rather than having to literally walk around the whole town to check up on your patients to see how they’re doing, it now tells you at the end of each day if they’re okay, in danger of infection, or infected. It’s easier to track your character’s thoughts, the map now has markers, and you can sprint instead of walking (sprinting is now a feature, yes). You can use a ferry system to fast-travel around town at the cost of a coin called a Fingernail, and you can hold down CTRL to highlight points of interest and characters you can speak to.

Despite being praised in Russia and having very positive reviews (91% at the time of writing this) on Steam, the game didn’t get much traction upon its release in the west, with “game journalists”, a term I still don’t fully understand, comparing its difficulty to Dark Souls (yeah, some people still use Dark Souls as the litmus test for game difficulty) and claiming that it has Skyrim-inspired RPG elements. It’s as if “game journalists” have never played anything outside of Bioware games, Skyrim, Dark Souls and Pokemon.

Yeah...despite the fact that comparing a game like Pathologic 2 to something like Dark Souls or Skyrim is completely obtuse and ignorant, I think I understand where the frustration comes from, which I’ll get to later.

The game takes place in Town-On-Gorkhon, an isolated town in the steppes built upon contradictions. From a glance, the town might just look like your average early 20th century Russian town, but it’s inhabited by two groups of people: the Townsfolk, who are just becoming industrialized, and the Kinfolk, a group of Steppe nomads who hold veneration for bulls because they believe that the town rests on the back of a giant auroch, Mother Boddha. In addition, the latter group has a species of humanoids called Worms who water the ground with blood to grow plants, women called Herb Brides who dance in the steppes to make the twyre bloom, and other practices. Despite the contrasts, the two are not at complete odds at each other; rather, both cultures have meshed together.

In the first game, there were 3 different playable characters, but for now you’re only able to play as Artemy Burakh, the Haruspex. His father was a Kin doctor and his mother was a Townsfolk. After six years of medical school, Artemy is called back home by an urgent letter from his father, only to find out that he’s been murdered. See, a haruspex was someone in history who could divine the future from entrails; since Artemy is technically a surgeon who just returned to a town where cutting arteries, attacking someone with a knife, and digging holes in the ground are all considered taboo, he’s the primary suspect, so everyone hates his guts. People will initially refuse to trade with you, shopkeepers won’t sell their goods, and some people will try to attack you in the street. In the wake of this, a mysterious plague referred to only as the Sand Pest hits the town.

Pathologic 2 is like an adventure game and a “horror survival” tied into one. The imagery of the game goes from uncanny valley to flat out dark, with red pustules and moss-like substances growing on the buildings and streets of infected districts, infected townsfolk shuffling towards you to try and infect you, and plague clouds that manifest and chase you down the street. If you’re unfortunate to get infected with the plague, you hear voices in your head telling you, gently, to lay down and die so your suffering can cease. While you’re trying to find a cure and trying to save NPCs from the plague, you yourself are trying to survive.

Your overall survival is dependent on more than just your health bar. Sergei tries to shank you for your track suit and Semechki seeds, yeah, your health will go down if he manages to hit you. But then you have to factor in your hunger, exhaustion, immunity, and stamina/thirst. You’re hungry, so you eat some toast, but now your thirst meter is going up; while it’s not immediately detrimental, it affects the duration you’re able to sprint and fight. Your exhaustion meter is full, so you lay down to sleep for a few hours, but now your hunger is going back up and you’ve just spent precious hours that could have potentially have been used doing something else. Uh oh, you just got hit with a plague cloud and your immunity is dropping - do you use the immunity boosters/tinctures you were saving for patients to bring it back up, or are you going to take the risk and wait for it to slowly climb back to where it was?

Any time you die, your screen blacks out and you speak to Mark Immortell the Theatre Director, who gives you a tut-tut-tutting on dying and sends you back to your last save file with a penalty. Your maximum health/exhaustion meters are reduced, you get hungrier and more tired as time progresses, so on and so forth. These all stack, and they’re all permanent across all save files, so there’s no going back to scum save to prevent the penalties. If you die enough, you get visited by a friend who will offer to remove your current and future penalties forever...for a cost that you may not learn of until it’s too late to change your mind.

This ties back to my previous statement about how people were criticizing this game. A lot of survival games in modern gaming tend to be generous towards the player in terms of, well, survival - you have a meter that’s running low, or a supply that’s dwindling, so you stop whatever you’re doing to rectify the situation. Should you fail there’s usually an “out” by returning to a previous save. You can’t do this in Pathologic; one reason being mentioned in the previous paragraph. Another is the fact that time is always working against you - really, the only moment where time tends to stop moving is if you’re in a dream sequence or if you physically pause the game. The clock is always ticking so you need to frequently assess the efficiency of what you’re doing and if it will pay off in the long run. The game has a lot of choices, and not in Peter Molyneux’s Fable or Black and White perspectives of “choice”. The decisions can vary greatly. Let’s say that one of your friends needs a water barrel because they want to get water for the poor and impoverished in their district. Well meaning, but what if it infects the neighbors? The hospital needs the tinctures you need to boost the immunity of nameless patients; everyone will like you more if you carry the task out, and you’ll get paid the next day, but what if tomorrow means that half a dozen cast characters get infected and you don’t have the time to make more tinctures? 

Critics of Pathologic 2 have bemoaned the fact that you can’t just walk around, immune to virtually anything and everything, and talk to the NPCs while freely exploring the town to learn more about the Sand Pest and the overall story. The desire to know more about the story is a fair point, but here’s where I see the problem: There’s a genre of story-driven adventure style games, usually referred to as “Walking Simulators”, that are typically praised and lauded by the “video games are art” crowd. Games like Dear Esther, Firewatch, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Gone Home are usually put in this category.

The difference between Pathologic 2 and those games is that the latter group takes a more “hands-off” approach in their storytelling. You don’t have a lot of interactivity or mechanics that directly tie into the games. The named NPCs you speak with in Pathologic 2 are fleshed out; it’s personal because Artemy Burakh has history with them, and the decisions that you make, or don’t make, will ultimately decide their survival. Many of them have multiple outcomes; you speak with them, see their angles, see what information they may be willing to give out or abstain from initially giving, so on and so forth. The game pushes you towards investing them emotionally. Not only are you trying to save them from the plague, but you’re trying to save yourself. You’re also trying not to starve, you’re also trying not to get infected. Rather than watching a sinking ship, you’re part of the crew trying to bail the water out and plug the hole. 

Not all the mechanics are perfect. Guns and their ammo, while being extremely rare/expensive to find, have a tendency to jam up way too much and hitboxes can be choosy. Hand-to-hand combat can feel clunky, and the inventory can be a colossal pain in the ass to manage since the game does not auto-sort individual stacks and uses Diablo-style inventory management. However, I have very rarely seen things like these critiqued by the “video games are art” crowd; rather, they complain about the meter management. The problems of the town seem real because you’re in it as well. Without having to manage your meters, making sacrifices and decisions, it takes away the conditions that make moments in the game memorable.

Remember: Failure is a very real, understandable and relatable aspect of human life and society. There are times in life where you fail repeatedly before you see the light at the end of the tunnel and triumph. One of the marketing pitches of this game was, “You can’t save everybody”. For example, I spent three consecutive days treating Andrey Stamatin after he was afflicted with the Sand Pest, and it ultimately came to naught because he died anyway. Some of the game's most memorable moments and interesting dialogue come when you are unsuccessful, because the game knows that you’re going to fail at some points even when you try your best.

Overall, would I recommend Pathologic 2? Absolutely. Would I recommend it to someone who cares about story-driven games? Totally. Would I recommend it to people who have low frustration walls? No.

[lady-divine-writes]

The Prince of the Sea and his Child of Fire - Chapter 10/15 (Rated NC17)

Summary: Blaine is a water sprite, prince of the undersea kingdom and sole heir to the throne. Five days away from turning seventeen and his big coronation, he decides to take a journey to the surface, to seek out a legendary flame said to be tended by an evil witch. Instead of a witch, he finds something else entirely ...

Kurt is a fire fairy, prince of a race of fire fairies and heir to the throne. Five days away from turning seventeen (on the night of a full solar eclipse when he will transform and become king), he sees for the first time in his life a water sprite - a member of a race that he's been raised to hate.

What will happen when these two mortal enemies fall in love? Is there any way for them to escape destiny and be together?

Read on AO3.

Chapter 10

The frigid breeze off the water stings Kurt’s wings, but he pushes on, even when he begins to fear that they will become brittle and snap. The farther away from the Eternal Flame he flies, the colder he feels, as if he’s losing all the heat in his body. He has heat of his own, of course, but it’s not the same. Fire fairies come from the flame. It’s their source of life. His mother always warned him to stay in close proximity to it.

He wonders how far away from it he can go and still feel its warmth.

He tries not to think about it. Instead, he focuses on Blaine swimming below him, his body cutting through the water as he zips beneath the surface. Kurt has not seen him like this before – his strong arms and legs propelling him along, the line of his back straight so he can slice through the swells. Blaine is handsome on land, but he’s powerful in the sea.

A sea that is no longer safe for him.

Kurt wraps his arms around his torso and shivers, but thoughts of Blaine’s body keep him warm.

Blaine stops swimming so suddenly, Kurt flies past him about a mile before he can stop. Blaine breaks through the surface and calls up to his fairy.

“I’m looking for a big sea turtle! Do you happen to see her anywhere?”

Kurt looks around him at the water as far as he can see. There are only a few animals on the surface, though it would probably help Kurt if he knew what a sea turtle looked like.

“How will I know a sea turtle if I see one?” Kurt calls back.

“She’s large and round, with a broad, flat shell,” Blaine replies.

Kurt turns a full circle, surveying the animals he can see. There are four that fit that description, but he’s not too sure about any of them, and he doesn’t have time to be wrong.

“Here!” Kurt flies down to Blaine. He grabs the sprite’s arm and tugs. Blaine lifts his arms up so the fairy can loop his around his chest and lift him into the air. Kurt flies with Blaine into the sky and shows him the lay of the water.

“There!” Blaine points to the east. “Right on the surface, bobbing through the kelp! There she is!”

Kurt squints, looking at the creature sitting amid a massive bed of brown plant-looking things.

“Got it,” he says, setting Blaine back gently in the water.

Blaine takes Kurt’s arm before he can fly away and runs his hand along the fairy’s pale skin.

“You’re cold,” Blaine says, pressing his lips to the back of Kurt’s hand. It’s a small dot of warmth on a frigid landscape, but it’s enough to make Kurt want to go on.

“Yes, I am,” Kurt admits, “and I’m not getting any warmer staying here, so let’s go get to that turtle!”

Kurt shoots into the sky and takes off in the direction of the massive animal before Blaine can try to convince him to head back to land.

Kurt knows at this point it wouldn’t take much convincing.

They reach the kelp and find the turtle sitting within the thick ropes, nibbling on the leaves and soaking up the sun, eyes shut in peaceful repose.

“Oh great and powerful maiden of the sea!” Blaine starts as Kurt hovers nearby.

“Oh for crying out loud!” Sue exclaims, turning her prodigious girth in the direction of Blaine’s voice. “Nearly a hundred years I’ve gone without having to talk to any of your obnoxious kin, and now – twice in the space of a few days! What the heck do you want now, oh Fallen Sea Prince?” Blaine jerks at her taunt. The sea turtle smiles. “Yeah, yeah, I know all about that. You’ve lost your crown to your best friend. Now what are you going to do?”

“Ho---how did you know about that?” Blaine asks, embarrassed that word of his shame has gotten around so quickly.

“I have my sources,” Sue says with a wink. “None of which I’m at liberty to confirm or deny …” But she didn’t have to. Blaine has always suspected that a fish or two in their kingdom were spies for Sue. One in particular - a bubbly clown fish called Becky - seemed to have a similar calculating look as Sue does in her eyes. “So, tell me - who did I wrong in a past life to deserve the punishment of your company?”

“I have another question to ask you,” Blaine says.

“Obviously,” Sue remarks with a dramatic roll of her black eyes. She catches sight of the fire fairy hovering above her head and smirks. “Ahhh. So this is about him, huh? Your little porcelain prince?”

“P-p-pleased to make your acquaintance,” Kurt stutters, rubbing his arms to ward off the cold.

“Oh, you presume too much, little fairy,” she says, turning her attention back to Blaine. “What do you and twinkle toes want? I was hoping to nap for about fifty years, and you guys are kind of harshing my mellow.”

“My father has declared war on the fire fairies,” Blaine announces.

Sue scoffs and shakes her head. “Well, it took him long enough, I suppose,” she says, her voice more sad than sardonic, and Blaine knows he’s come to the right sea creature.

“The thing I don’t understand is why. He found out about us …” Blaine’s eyes find Kurt above his head, shivering violently. He frowns with worry at the bluish tinge to the fire fairy’s skin “… and he got angry, but why the full-scale invasion? Why this need to be rid of them?”

“Yes.” Kurt risks lowering himself so his voice can be heard. “What have we done that he feels the need to destroy us?”

Sue’s large eyes look up at the fairy, then down at the sprite.

“You don’t know?” she asks Blaine, who shakes his head. “And you don’t know either?” she asks Kurt, who shrugs with his arms still wrapped around his body. Sue blows out a breath. “You two are so vain!” the turtle scolds. “So vain and so selfish! And so ignorant! You are both princes of your kingdoms, about to be kings!” She stares at Blaine significantly. “At least, you used to be. And you know nothing about your history!”

“I’ve tried asking my mother!” Kurt cries in his defense. “Over and over! I’ve courted the depths of her anger and still I tried! But she will not tell me! There is no lore in our tomes, no other fairy who’s lived long enough to have seen it first hand! So how am I to find out!?”

Sue rolls her eyes up to Kurt, looking thoroughly unimpressed by his claims.

“And you, young water sprite. Have you asked your father, the Great King of the Sea, why this feud between your kingdoms has lasted so long?”

“No,” Blaine admits. “I have not.”

“And why not?” the turtle asks.

“Have you met my father?” Blaine counters with bitterness in his voice.

The turtle looks on him with remotely sympathetic eyes. “Fair enough.”

“But that is why we have sought you out, wise turtle!” Kurt tries. “To find the answer and stop this war!”

“I’m not sure the answer I have is going to help you,” Sue says. “In fact, it might make things worse.”

“How can things possibly get worse than all-out war?” Blaine asks, staring up at Kurt with deeper and deeper concern.

Sue sighs, paddling back and forth with her front flippers, stalling as she considers her answer. She’s usually not a creature concerned with delicacy. But this is a matter that even she agrees may require some.

“Your father, Malek,” she says, “and your mother, Elizabeth, were once much closer than you two could ever imagine.”

“How d-do you m-mean?” Kurt stutters, flitting over to a patch of sunlight, searching for warmth.

“The King of the Sea, and the Queen of the Fire Fairies are, alas, related.”

Kurt’s head snaps down as Blaine’s head snaps up, wide eyes locking.

“So, his father and my mother are … brother and sister?” Kurt asks.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, fairy,” the turtle replies.

“My name is Kurt,” Kurt offers.

“Like I care,” Sue says. “Anyway, a long time ago, at the beginning of all things, your mother and Blaine’s father were one. As a single entity, your parents were all that is good in the world. They were love and hope and creation. They had power, yes, but they were fair-minded and just …” The turtle pauses to sigh. “And beautiful. So, so beautiful.”

“What … what happened to them?” Blaine asks, wishing he could hold Kurt close since he expects the worst from the sea turtle’s tale.

“The same thing that happens to all perfect things in the history of forever. I should know …” She tosses her head back with conceit. “The gods grew jealous of them, as gods tend to. Never happy unless they’re miserable, gods are. They lied to your parents – told them one was planning to break away from the other. Overthrow them. At first, Malek and Elizabeth didn’t believe it, so in love with each other they were. But slowly the voices of jealousy picked them apart, and they believed the lies so completely that they tore themselves in two. Malek’s hate became all-consuming - so large that it took the entire ocean to contain it. And Elizabeth’s hate burned within her until it spilled over and threatened to set everything ablaze. They created this world. It depends on their maintaining balance. If that balance is hate or love, it means nothing, just so long as one does not become more powerful than the other.”

“But … that’s going to change when my father attacks!” Blaine exclaims. “Neither the sprites nor the fairies will win!”

“Meh,” Sue says, dismissing Blaine’s concern with a shrug.

“How do we fix this?” Kurt asks.

“You can’t,” Sue says. Kurt gasps and Blaine glares, but the sea turtle only rolls her eyes. “I’m sorry, but you can’t. You can’t fix your parents. And as soon as those two unleash their fury, that will be the end of it.”

“The end of the water sprites and the fire fairies,” Blaine moans. “We know.”

“No, I mean the end of it all,” Sue says. “The whole gall-darn world.”

“What?” Kurt cries. The end of the world? Of everything? No! He can’t even picture it.

“Yup. You’re going to have to start over somewhere else, on a place where fire and water can live together in peace, the way your parents did long ago.”

“You’re lying!” Blaine spits. “You’re playing games with us! If this battle means the end of the world, then why the hell are you so calm!?”

“Because, to be honest, I really don’t care,” Sue admits. “A sea turtle’s life is usually 100 years. I’m well beyond that, my tiny friend. If this is the end, that’s okay. I’ve lived long enough. I’ve had a good life. At least if I’m dead, then I might finally get some peace.”

“Where is this place?” Kurt asks, glowing red with shame at considering leaving his kingdom – his mother and sisters – to their perilous fates. “This place where Blaine and I can be together? Where we can start over?”

“Well, well, well.” Sue looks up at Kurt with a new-found respect in her cynical eyes while Kurt hides his from Blaine’s expression of shock. “Someone has a backbone now, don’t they? There is a field not too far from here, covered in white flowers made of both fire and water. They are always there, but they only bloom during the eclipse. They will release their pods into the night sky. If you catch one, it will carry you away to a star where the two of you can begin again.”

“You’re lying!” Blaine growls angrily. “There is no such place! You’re toying with us for your own amusement! I was stupid for thinking you’d actually give us a real answer!”

“You probably were,” Sue says, unfazed. “Believe what you want. Like I said, I couldn’t care less. I’m not the one about to lose the love of my life.” Sue looks at Kurt with oddly imploring eyes. “But take heed, little ones. Your time on this planet is growing short, so whatever you’re going to do, do it fast. As for me, I must bid you both adieu. I’m not particularly eager to see how this all turns out.”

Sue moves her flat fins, swirling the water in a whirlpool around her. It picks up speed, pushing Blaine farther and farther away. She ducks her head beneath the surface and disappears below the kelp. The water stops spinning, the kelp becomes calm.

And she does not resurface.

Kurt looks down at Blaine, the sprite’s golden eyes seething at the spot where the turtle had been.

“B-Blaine?” he calls softly.

Blaine doesn’t look up. “No,” he says. “I don’t believe that’s the answer. Running away? There has to be something else we can do.”

“But, what?” Kurt asks, berating himself silently for even considering it – escaping to a place where they could be together, like in his dream, at the price of leaving everyone else behind to die.

What a shameful king he’s going to be.

Kurt needs to find a way to get Blaine back on his throne. He deserves the station more.

“I don’t know yet.” Blaine looks up at Kurt, his gaze softening when he sees a frightened Kurt trembling in the air above him. “My father stopped listening. Why don’t we try your mother?”

“No!” Kurt cries. “No, Blaine! She’ll kill you if she finds out about us!”

“I’m sorry, Kurt.” Blaine reaches out a hand even though he knows he can’t risk touching Kurt while the fire fairy is so cold. “But it’s a chance we’ve got to take.”

 ***

Rachel’s arms grow heavy from exhaustion as she dances, her movements slowing, the fire flickering weakly. But she has to keep going. She has to keep moving, keep singing. She pictures her brother and her mother in her head, twirling around on the wind, their effortless grace and beauty, the way they can turn the fire colors and make the flame bend. The mulberry leaves sit in the grass where she left them shortly after Kurt and his water sprite left. All she would have to do is retrieve a couple and toss them in the flame and her brother would come home. She knows it, but she refuses. She is not so much of a selfish, silly fairy as others think her. She knows exactly what is going on. She understands why her brother left.

Their kingdom is in danger, and Kurt went off to do the right thing.

He is acting like a king.

It is time she started being a better princess … and a better sister.

Rachel doesn’t blame him about the water sprite, either. The one thing she has always dreamed of is falling in love. Not a simple love. Those aren’t any fun. But a complicated, twisted, painful, all-consuming love. Something you burn to have. Something you would happily suffer for.

She owes Kurt more than she has ever given him. He has always been patient with her, unerringly kind, even when she didn’t give him any reason to be. If their mother finds out about Kurt leaving with his water sprite, she might hurt them.

She might even kill them.

Rachel wants to stop, wants to rest for a few moments, but the fire is dying, and if it goes out entirely, their mother will see. Rachel’s bleary mind comes up with a desperate solution. If Rachel could fuel the fire with her body, with her own internal flame, she could keep it lit long enough for Kurt to return.

She just has to be strong and not succumb to the flame.

Fire fairies come from the flame, and it’s to the flame they all return.

 ***

Elizabeth gazes out the window of her palace, down to the water’s edge where her son and daughter diligently tend the Eternal Flame. There isn’t much time left for Kurt, and soon, there won’t be time left for Elizabeth at all. She’s not sure how she will tell her children this. Maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe she should quietly return to the fire when the time comes and let life continue on without her.

But now is not the time to think about that.

She sighs into the night, lets the sparkle from her own inner fire add to the landscape of stars. The fire’s pinkish hue licks at the sky, setting the surface of the water aglow. It is spectacular – so spectacular. She envies her son and daughter – their beauty and their youth. She envies Kurt most of all – at the beginning of his journey when hers is so close to an end. The only thing that he doesn’t have, that he desperately wants, is freedom. If he was any of her other children, she would let him go, let him be free to follow his whims and find love. An immense and incredible love like the one she had before … a long time ago.

As much as she hates to keep her eldest son a prisoner to their traditions and customs, it’s unavoidable. Elizabeth is tired, and regardless of the flame’s magic, she is growing older. An eternity in existence is too much, too long. She feels her own fire dimming as sadness clouds her heart. Soon, there will be little left of her but a memory.

A memory and her children.

Elizabeth gazes at the fire Kurt tends so well.

“The flame is beautiful tonight,” she says to her attendants, watching the flame dance where it hovers out of reach of the water. “But it seems so lonely … so sad.”

Elizabeth peers into the dark, trying to find her melancholy child whose sorrow influences the flame. The hue of the fire comes more clearly into view. That which she at first thought to be pink is actually red.

It’s red, and it’s crying.

“What?” Elizabeth leaps from her window and flies to the cove. She finds the fire burning on its branch, all alone. “Kurt?” she calls into the inky darkness. “Rachel? Darlings?” She spins in place, waiting for them to appear, but there isn’t a sign of her children anywhere. She puts a hand out to try and speak to the flame, see into its memory, but the flame begins to sputter.

Then suddenly, it burns out.

In its place lies a fairy - still and cold.

Elizabeth gasps, throwing a hand to her lips.

“No!” she sobs, each tear hitting the water and forming ripples, the sound echoing around the cove like the herald of an oncoming storm. “No!”

A legion of fairies answers her cries, flying down from the palace with weapons drawn. They fill the trees surrounding their grieving queen.

“What is it? What’s wrong? Your majesty? What has happened?” A chorus of tiny voices rises up around her. Cries start as more fairies crowd around and see the body of Rachel lying on the branch. “Oh no! It’s the princess Rachel! She’s dead! Rachel is dead! Where is the prince? The prince who will be our king? The prince is gone! Someone has killed the princess and kidnapped her brother!”

“Find him!” Elizabeth yells up, as if summoning the stars in the sky. “Find Kurt! Wherever he is! Whatever it takes! Bring him to me!”

“But where is he, my Queen?” one guard asks.

“Where will we begin to look?” pipes in another.

Elizabeth scans the ground, the sky, the water’s surface still upset by her tears.

The water - churning in the cove now that the fire has gone out.

No one but the water sprites would benefit from the loss of the Eternal Flame, or the death of their princess … and possibly their prince.

“The water sprites must have done this,” Elizabeth roars, turning to the body of her daughter lying before her. “They must have! We have no other enemies among the creatures of the earth. They’ve murdered my precious daughter and taken my son! And now they must pay!”

[raendown]

Pairing: MadaraTobirama Chapter: 8/18 Word count: 2165 Summary: When Tobirama is exiled from the Senju clan without warning, without even the chance to plead his case, it feels like his life is over. What does he have to live for now without his older brother to believe in him? Captured by the Uchiha in his moment of weakness, Tobirama slowly learns to live again with the last people on earth he would have ever expected to care for - or to fall in love with.

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

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Chapter 8

“Did you have an aneurysm?” Tobirama continued to stare in bafflement as Madara snorted.

“Is that any way to talk to the man offering you your freedom?” he asked. Tobirama pinched his brows together and hesitated, unsure if he should speak his mind or not.

“Perhaps not but is it the best idea to offer your worst enemy free rein of your home?”

“I wasn’t offering you free rein,” Madara corrected him with an overly casual shrug. “And you’re hardly our greatest enemy now. You’re not a threat and you’re not a bargaining piece; actually you’re kind of alright to have around, much as it pains me to admit that. So I figured I would make the offer.”

Running his fingers across the seals on his wrists, Tobirama watched the other man closely for any signs of duplicity. “The offer that I can stay and live here with you. In the Uchiha compound. In your house. As…what? Your new pet?”

“Why are you making this so difficult? Ugh, just give it here!”

Madara grabbed his arm and began to pick at the seal with his own hands, looking for the right characters to push his chakra in to in order to deactivate them. It took Tobirama clearing his throat and using his other hand to point it out for Madara to set him free with a simple press of one thumb. He took care of the second one just as quickly and then unlocked the cuff-style bracelets while Tobirama was still settling in to the sensation of being able to access his own chakra again.

Taking his arms back, Tobirama rubbed at one wrist with the opposite hand and dipped his head to stare at the ground while his mind raced.

“So you’re asking me to, what? Become an Uchiha?”

“Fire and flames, no!” Madara huffed out a startled laugh. “Half a minute ago you were in cuffs, I’m not about to slap an uchiwa on your back and call you brother right out of the gate. But…your situation is quite unique and if I must explain myself for you to understand then I have to admit I’ve grown sort of – maybe a little – fond of your presence.”

“Oh. Right.” His lip stuck when he caught it between his teeth but Tobirama paid that no mind, chewing harder with thought. “Would I be expected to…”

“No. I would not ask that of you.”

He looked up to see all traces of amusement gone from Madara’s expression, replaced with solemn understanding, and relief crashed through him with unexpected force. Until now he hadn’t realized that was even a worry but now he acknowledged that it had always been there in the back of his mind, the possibility that he might someday be forced to attend the battlefield and face his own kin.

Or the ones he used to call kin.

Nearly three months had passed since his exile, just under two months since he had been sealed and put to work around the Uchiha compound. Thinking about it now, he wondered if Madara had simply pitied him or if even then he had intended for Tobirama to stay. It wasn’t something he cared to have clarified but it was something he knew he would be turning over in his mind a great deal from now on.

“If I stay,” he began slowly, “I would like to earn my way. Just…not with laundry. I’ll stay if you promise I don’t have to scrub your dirty underwear anymore.” Something thumped pleasantly in his chest when Madara tossed his head back to roar with laughter. It felt a lot like his heart, jumping and fluttering with a feeling strangely close to fondness.

“Deal. No laundry except your own.”

“I suppose I can live with doing my own.”

“Nice!” Izuna tumbled in to the room then, entirely giving up the pretense that he wasn’t listening at the door. “Now we can spar, right? I’ve been going crazy without any good sparring partners. Aniki likes to sleep in when I like to train and Hikaku is always busy running around with the patrols.”

Tobirama tried to bite down the comment but it slipped out anyway. “Are you sure you want your ass kicked by a former slave? Can your ego even survive that?”

His old rival’s offended squawk was all but drowned out when Madara began to laugh again, bent over double with no shame and clearly not intending to defend his brother’s honor in any way. Tobirama smiled faintly at their antics. Staying here might not be the worst decision he would ever make.

Adjusting to life in the Uchiha compound didn’t sound like it should be a difficult task when he had already been here for months and yet to Tobirama it felt like removing the seals from his wrist had thrust him forward in to yet another completely foreign world. The clan members within the compound looked at him differently. Not in a friendly sort of way of course, not at first, but at least mostly without the hostility and suspicion he had almost grown used to. Moving around outside the house no longer ended with him hurrying back to avoid the stares that followed him everywhere he went. It seemed they had finally had enough time to get used to his presence.

Now he was met with cautious nods and children wound around his legs just the same as they did to all the other adults, no longer warned to stay away from him. Izuna dragged him out to an open forest clearing within the grounds specially set aside for sparring every morning that he could. And when they returned to the house they usually worked together to cook a massive breakfast for when Madara finally managed to drag himself out of bed.

During the day he spent his hours rifling through the surprisingly well-equipped library Madara unlocked for him. By the layers of dust he could tell that not many had bothered with the treasures within for a long time but they found a new life in his hands as he learned the clan’s history, learned the truth of the rumors other clans told about them to cast them as villains. When he wasn’t learning he used the ink and paper freely provided to him and painted seals – proper ones, not the slapdash copy method they had been using until now. Never anything that could specifically be called a weapon but earning his place by making things useful for travel and for everyday life. A massive difference from how he had spent his time before, his efforts going always to methods of death.

The biggest changes came at night, though.

It took weeks to get used to having one or both Uchiha brothers lounging against him like some kind of body pillow as they all ended their day in the den, sprawled out on the couch or around the kotatsu, passing the evening with easy conversation or simply spending time in each other’s presence while they each entertained themselves with something of their own. It reminded him of his childhood, the days when he had three brothers to pull his head out of the library he’d grown up in and bully him in to playing silly games with them for no reason other than that they wanted his attention for a while.

Now he was grown and there were two men with unruly hair, both of them with a bad habit of snickering to themselves or gasping out loud when they were reading a book, who seemed to understand somehow his distaste for the idea of being alone, something most people misinterpreted. While he did indeed enjoy his privacy and the time he spent with nothing but his thoughts, he had also spent his entire life surrounded by family. He needed human contact just like everyone else; he just happened to be more selective about the humans he was happy to spend time with.

Five months to the day since he had been sent away from one home Tobirama looked to his side at Madara, peacefully sleeping with his reading glasses knocked askew by the book his face was resting on, and felt his heart skip several beats at once. It was possible he had built another without realizing it just as this man had advised.

“You’ve got that panicky look on your face again,” Izuna informed him from the other side of the kotatsu, covered in cards and the small handfuls of pretzels they were using as gambling chips.

“I’ve gotten attached,” he murmured back.

“Must be a good hand.”

“Not to the cards, you idiot. Although yes, this is a fairly good hand, you should fold now if you want to keep your snacks. But that isn’t what I was talking about.” Shifting on his cushion, he looked over at Madara again. The fool was drooling on his book. It should not have been considered adorable in any way and yet that was the only word he could think of.

Frowning at his own hand of cards, Izuna waffled back and forth before dropping them to the kotatsu with a sigh. “Alright so what did you mean then?”

“I was talking about you two idiots. You know, I still say this is all a big trick. You’re lulling me in to a false sense of security, making me care about you, and then one day–”

“Bam! We attack you with hugs and affection and other disgusting things!”

“No!” Tobirama rolled his eyes but couldn’t resist the smile trying to grow.

He was about to say something else when Madara gave a light snort and jerked upright, blinked around the room and then settling his gaze on the man at his side. After the short moment it took his sleep-addled senses to recognize who he was sitting next to his whole face lit up in a way it wouldn’t have if he were fully awake. Tobirama stared back at him, feeling his insides melting. He’d never seen Madara look at anyone like that except his own brother.

“Did I fall asleep?”

“No, no,” Tobirama protested mildly. “You just closed your eyes and we shut off the whole world for you. It was no trouble, really.” Madara shook himself a little to clear his head and huffed indignantly.

“Rude.” Despite his apparent offense, he still shuffled over and draped himself against Tobirama’s side.

From what he could tell it seemed to be an Uchiha thing, showing affection through copious amounts of physical touch: leaning against each other, brushing fingers against arms during conversation, even tucking hair behind each other’s ears. The first time one of them had touched his hair Tobirama had spent the next fifteen minutes puzzling over the action before finally caving and asking what the hell just happened. Even after they explained it to him it had taken a while to sink in that they kept touching him for no other reason than that they liked him.

Which was a whole other basket of eggs to upset. The members of his own clan had oftentimes deliberately avoided him. He wished he knew what quality he had which these two seemed to enjoy that few others had before.

“If you’re tired you should go to bed,” Tobirama told the spiky black hair now resting on his shoulder.

“But I’m comfortable here.” In deliberate protest Madara snuggled even closer against him, unbothered with the way he tensed suddenly at the gesture. He still wasn’t used to being touched so easily by anyone other than Hashirama. Even Touka had projected her movements as much as possible whenever she got close to him. That was just how shinobi acted around one another.

“Unless you are planning to sleep on me I think a bed would be the better option.”

“Well, if the offer’s open…” Madara was asleep again in the next moment.

Tobirama appealed to Izuna with a confused expression but the other man only covered his mouth with both hands to muffle his pitiless snickering. When he looked back down at his shoulder he couldn’t help but notice from this angle that Madara was blessed with fantastically long eyelashes. They fluttered when his eyes moved under their lids, brushing against his cheeks, and Tobirama had to look away when he noticed his hand was halfway lifted to see if they were as soft as they looked.

Clearly he was not the only one who had gotten attached. Tobirama reached for his cards with one hand and smiled as he turned them over, revealing the crappy set he’d been holding.

“Thanks for folding; can you push the pot my way? I would hate to disturb him so soon.”

“You lied!”

“It’s called bluffing and of course I did. What sort of shinobi reveals his hand so easily?”

Staying here definitely looked as though it had been the right decision, more and more so with every day.

[vorthosjay]

GDS 3 Essay Response

In case anyone was interested, I entered the GDS. Since others seem to be posting their essays, I figured I might as well too.

If you made last night’s deadline, good luck!

1. Introduce yourself and explain why you are a good fit for this internship.

My name is Jay Annelli. I work in Emergency Management [Note, I’ve redacted more info about myself here].  As part of my job, I’m expected to deal with unexpected events at any given time and develop creative solutions to problems under severe time and financial constraints. This usually means working collaboratively in cross-cutting teams to create the best possible outcome, whether it’s a plan, a process, or the response to an event. I strongly value collaborative working environments and the pit sounds like exactly the kind of place I would thrive.

Because of my work in Emergency Management, I work well in stressful environments and roll pretty easily with sudden shifts in priorities. For instance, last year I was given five weeks to move our entire 30,000 square foot warehouse operation, a project that should have had months to plan instead had weeks. I’m used to projects being suddenly cancelled or having to re-work them from the ground up based on new directives with little time. But those same experiences have given me the skills to sell projects to senior leadership, and with government work I know how to slowly get traction for an idea while completing competing priorities.

I’ve always been a jack-of-all-trades, and thrive in positions where I have a lot of different kinds of tasks to complete. I’ve got experience in everything from legislative analysis to warehouse logistics.  And I love Magic, and have turned my hobby – passion about the lore – into a paying freelance gig. The reality is I’m not going to be the best designer ever, but you don’t need great designers because you’re not working in a vacuum, you need people who can come together and make great design teams. I’m an experienced leader and manager and work well in team environments where I can complement my teammate’s skills. More so, I recognize the process through which work gets completed is often more important than the skills of the individuals performing the work. R&D has gone through some fairly major organization shake-ups lately, and it would be my hope to help continue to improve processes.

2. An evergreen mechanic is a keyword mechanic that shows up in (almost) every set. If you had to make an existing keyword mechanic evergreen, which one would you choose and why?

Storm! Because NOTHING could possibly go wrong with that idea…

In all seriousness, Dash is such a quintessentially red mechanic that I’d like to see it appear more often. There aren’t a whole lot of current mechanics that would make good evergreen mechanics, but cards like Ball Lightning and its kin were a staple of Magic for years. Red is all about short-term thinking and temporary gains, or making moves before the outcome is determined. While Impulse Draw has been a great way to try and overcome Red’s weaknesses, there’s still pretty clearly more work that can be done. Giving Red access to low cost but temporary creature spells really plays into the same flavor for red. It also gives the player a choice when combined with Red’s traditional looting. Do you cast the creature permanently at a slightly overcosted mana cost? Or do you keep it in hand and for fuel for your later game looting effects, like Cathartic Reunion?

Existing Dash cards focused on the ability to have surprise cheap attackers, with one or two covering Enter the Battlefield effects. What I think would be interesting are abilities that punish or reward the use of Dash versus hard casting. For example, if a Dash dealt damage to its owner when it returned to its owner’s hand, or included a more powerful “at the beginning of your upkeep” ability if the player manages to hard cast it. I would argue that it could be pushed into more colors than Red and Black, as long as the abilities involved were representative of the colors.

3. If you had to remove evergreen status from a keyword mechanic that is currently evergreen, which one would you remove and why?

Defender! I’m actually surprised that defender is still around after all of these years, as it’s by far the least useful keyword ability. Now, the idea itself is fine, but with ‘unblockable’ no longer a keyword, it doesn’t make sense to me that its counterpart hasn’t been similarly de-keyworded. One of the biggest problems I see with it is that the game places all sorts of conditional “this creature can’t attack” restrictions on cards, but none of them use defender. For instance, why wouldn’t River Serpent have defender, when for all intents and purposes it has conditional Defender? Magic doesn’t keyword “can’t block”, either. Defender has gotten a little bit of “Defender tribal” in some sets, but I’m not sure there are any cases where the use of ‘Defender’ is advantageous over simply saying the creature can’t attack. There are a handful of cards that care about creatures with defender, but a switch in the wording might make them even more useful, if you concentrate on creatures who can’t attack.

Besides the templating issues I mentioned, I just don’t think the keyword is needed to accomplish the intended effect most of the time. Most of the time creatures with defender seem to just be intended to be solid blockers, and the circumstance in which someone is going to be attacking with a creature that has zero power are rare enough that I’m not sure why Kinjalli’s Caller can get away without defender but a Pride Guardian needs it. In some case, creatures with defender have evasion and there might be an issue with abilities that can actually give them power, but in those cases simply giving them the ability to block the evasion (like if Wall of Air had reach instead of flying) removes most of their attacking potential, anyway. And in those few cases where an aggressively costed creature is necessary, “This creature can’t attack” doesn’t take up much more card space than “Defender”, which usually gets its own line on the template anyway.

4. You're going to teach Magic to a stranger. What's your strategy to have the best possible outcome?

If I had an optimal environment, I would stack two decks that allowed the game play out in a mostly scripted fashion, slowly introducing concepts over the course of a game, with the game playing out in favor of the person I was teaching. I would start with the pre-game basics: explain the library and graveyard, and have us both drawn seven cards, keeping our hands revealed. I would explain the most important parts of a card: the artwork and flavor text. Wait. I want them to have the best outcome… so instead I might explain casting costs and card types. The new player’s expectation is ‘What do I do?’, so I show them the land, and how tapping the lands allows you to pay for the other cards. Ideally I’d have one-drop that the new player could cast to feel some satisfaction on their first turn. This would go back and forth, with each turn explaining a new card type.

If I’m being honest, I’m stealing this from the 7th Edition tutorial, which had you play a scripted game out against the computer while learning each part of the game. The Duels of the Planeswalkers games fulfilled a similar function, and I’m the living embodiment of that Onion joke about someone explaining the rules to a game and insisting it will be fun. So if I REALLY wanted the best possible outcome, I’d get hired by Wizards of the Coast and sketch out a plan for a contemporary update of that 7th Edition Tutorial, maybe even a short web game, which I believe also existed once, so that there’s a consistent learning environment available so people don’t have to rely on potentially not-great teachers to know the game.

5. What is Magic's greatest strength and why?

Magic’s greatest strength is its versatility. It’s amazing that there are over a half-dozen ways to play and that there’s a huge Magic fandom that’s all over the map when it comes to gameplay. The framework on which the game was build is so adaptable that I was seriously playing kitchen table magic for years before I even learned there were more formats than just casual. Most of those more competitive formats just don’t appeal to me (although I recognize their value and find them interesting). Other major competitors, like Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Hearthstone, just don’t have that. Their frameworks, in some way or another, pidgeon hole them into specific playstyles. As much as Magic’s extensive rules cause me consternation, I know they’re the building block that makes everything else work. Whereas in Magic it just means an idea needs some creative problem solving to come to fruition, other games don’t have that extensive framework and thus don’t provide players with the same layers of choices.

Versatility allows choice, and choice is the key to a fun game. You want to allow enough that players can get creative. The same card can be used in entirely different ways even in the same format. It’s something that’s always fascinated me about the competitive scene. And then between formats, the card has entirely different value. I wish this answer felt like more just vomiting back things I’ve read on the Mothership for the last decade or so, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

6. What is Magic's greatest weakness and why?

Magic’s greatest weakness is its complexity. In the last answer I talked about how the rules are an extensive framework from which a lot of different games are built, but they can also be a huge barrier to entry. Complexity is a good thing, but Magic sometimes has far too much complexity for its own good. Even learning how to parse the Magic jargon is a challenge. In my career in Emergency Management, one of the major tenets of Incident Command is to avoid acronyms and jargon, because they’re hugely cultural and often feel like learning an entirely new language.

That’s not just limited to how people and players talk about the game, but how the game talks about itself. Keyword abilities are probably the most difficult. There are dozens of evergreen keywords alone, from activate to vigilance, that a new player needs to learn as a baseline before they can even start to parse deciduous mechanics, and then set-specific mechanics. Most Magic players who engage online have long forgotten what a barrier that is, which of course creates a disconnect between new and established players. And Magic players aren’t always the most patient, so when you sit a newby who still has to ask basic questions all the time, a single negative player is going to hurt their interest level.

Most of Magic’s players aren’t engaged online or at tournaments. They play at home like I used to do, and they buy packs from sets that look cool. I had no idea Kamigawa wasn’t a resounding success until I actively engaged online. To me, it was the cool plane of Samurai. When they open a pack and it has abilities with no reminder text, that’s a distraction from the game. Stopping to look something up online costs time and goodwill, which inevitable costs players.

7. What Magic mechanic most deserves a second chance (aka which had the worst first introduction compared to its potential)?

Level Up honestly has a special place in my heart, and I can’t help but feel that there’s a whole lot of space left untapped there. I think too many of the Level Up cards didn’t make each level feel important, and I think Monstrosity stole a little bit of its thunder. One of my biggest issue with it is that each level didn’t feel like a tangible benefit. I would probably change it look more like a Monstrosity variant, a place to sink larger amounts of mana to get a progressively more impressive creature. This would especially be useful as Monstrosity has some major flavor limitations. The template seemed to have been Figure of Destiny, but I don’t think any of the existing Level Up cards capture that quite in the same way as Warden of the First Tree. Warden of the First Tree could easily have a Level Up cost of {1}{w/b} and be a very similar card (although not exactly the same).

Sets like Ixalan that need some low cmc mana sinks could instead use a mechanic like Level Up. The original flavor was meant as a nod to Zendikar’s Dungeons and Dragons “Adventure World” theme, but it could easily be expanded beyond that. There seems to be design space, like with Monstrosity, to the actual ‘Leveling Up’ process. None of the current crop use one time effects upon reach certain levels, and that seems like a great way to make each level interesting for commons and uncommons with the mechanic without them all being Warden of the First Tree levels of power or complexity.

8. Of all the Magic expansions that you've played with, pick your favorite and then explain the biggest problem with it.

I would pick Return to Ravnica, although the biggest problem is the same as the original Ravnica block. With the ten guilds, the blocks tried to do too much, and failed to make all ten guild mechanics equally satisfying. There’s a lot of nostalgic love for those sets, but honestly I think the new set paradigm is going to be far better for any future Ravnica blocks. There just aren’t ten equally interesting mechanics to go around, and at least three of the guilds felt weak because of it. Return’s biggest problem is that it introduced new mechanics when it didn’t really need to, or used mechanics with limited design space to replace mechanics with equally limited space. Not every guild needs a keyword mechanic to be engaging, and in fact I would say most don’t, especially the guilds more focused on creatures, like Boros or Gruul, that could get by with some interesting effects on various cards but whose most interesting cards rarely seem to use their mechanic - or don’t need it to be a keyword mechanic.

Conservation of space is obviously going to be an issue as we start returning to planes like Ravnica a third, fourth, or even fifth time. You can’t burn through ideas at the rate that Ravnica has been if you’re going to still have something interesting for future returns. Ravnica is a lot of fun and a very satisfying place to set a product, but I think re-using other well liked mechanics  rather than constantly trying to come up with new ones will by far serve design better.

9. Of all the Magic expansions that you've played with, pick your least favorite and then explain the best part about it.

Born of the Gods I would have to say is at least one of my least favorite sets, although it’s hard to say the definitive least favorite. Heroic and Inspired are two of my least favorite mechanics ever. But I really love the world of Theros and I think from a flavor standpoint, and the use of Bestow in Born of the Gods was stellar. It showed what the evolution of a mechanic in a second set should be, with cards like Eidolon of Countless Battles being particularly potent as both a creature and an aura. Most of the Bestow cards in Born of the Gods are simple designs that take advantage of the premise to create solid effects that work both as creatures and auras. The best designs don’t need to be fancy, they just need to make the most of a mechanic.

But the real reason I picked Bestow is because of Chromanticore, which to me exemplifies what makes Magic fun. Sure, there are more competitive cards out there, but for the casual player nothing captures the imagination more than a card like Chromanticore. Chromanticore is a big, splashy creature that demands you build around it. It has a soup of abilities that would make it appealing as a creature on it’s own, but the chance to cast it as an aura is incredibly tempting. Every set needs a card like Chromanticore that’s shiny for the casual crowd and may even entice a few more competitive players to build around it.

10. You have the ability to change any one thing about Magic. What do you change and why?

Mark Rosewater’s “Sorceries with Flash” instead of Instants really appeals to me, but I suppose he’s written about that so much that I would again just be regurgitating things I’ve read about the game online. So let’s expand on this in a way I’m not sure I’ve seen before, and talk about how to reorganize how things are typed. Supertypes always seem like a waste to me. Legendary Artifact Creatures or Legendary Enchantment Creatures usually mean the the sub-type (aka the good stuff, if you’re like me) can only support one type, maybe two if both are very short words. I’m not sure there’s really a good reason that can’t be represented some other way, either in a different frame (Legends are supposed to be different and special, after all) or with some other kind of symbolism on the card.

The sorceries with flash idea sounds really good on paper, but we get back into the issue of jargon, and another word new players have to learn. I would instead make Instant a subtype of Sorcery, opening up a few new avenues. You could also have ‘interrupt’ sorceries, that can only be cast in response to something. That’s an element of the game that was streamlined for good reason, but could open up some new design possibilities. I like otherwise how Enchantments are handled these days, so it’s really reworking supertypes and sorceries that I would change if I could change how types work. The legends issue has implications for tribal decks, so I think that’s what I would focus on, as it seems the most achievable.

[vikingwitchling]

Huldra

Assessment #6 - The child that we call Embla is growing at an alarming rate. She has gone from having the physiology of an infant to a three-year-old in mere two weeks.

Assessment #10 - Embla shows signs of great intelligence and understanding, yet she does not speak. We do not know if her mutism is selective, or if her kind can't talk.

Assessment #15 - It is becoming increasingly difficult to control Embla. The call of her people is hard for her to resist and she has tried to escape on several occasions.

Assessment #16 - We have decided to move Embla overseas where "They" cannot get to her, The United States is our intended destination. Embla's tail has been removed and destroyed in the hopes "They" will not be able to sense her anymore.

Assessment #20 - Arrived in USA. All is well.

Assessment #34 - We have injected Embla with various human diseases, such as influenza, Ebola and malaria. They seem to have no effect on her. 

Assessment #36 - Embla's ability to heal and fight off disease is extraordinary. We hope to one day transfer her "talents" to the human race. 

The Whitecoats told me the story several times. Now I know it by heart. "We found you when you were just a baby," They told me. "In a cave in the forest. You were crying, and you were all alone. So we took you with us. Kept you safe." Kept me safe. I never felt safe with them. They were many. Sometimes as many as eight. All men. All dressed in white. They would hurt me. Stick needles under my skin. Poison my body. "We know your sisters are calling for you, but you cannot go back. It's not safe," they told me. It pained me to resist. I could hear my peoples' cries. Crying for me. Searching. I've always known I am different from the Whitecoats. I can do things they cannot. Things that astonishes them and things that frighten them. 

I am different from my kin as well. I can see them sometimes, in my head. Tall and graceful, thin and covered in fur, with sharp claws and teeth. When I look at my reflection, I am no different from a human. "You changed after we found you," The Whitecoats told me. "You adapted." I adapted to the human race. I have studied anatomy books, compared the drawings with my own body. They are alike – except for my tail that the Whitecoats cut off me as a child. They thought it was the source of my power. The source of my true nature. It is not. But I miss it terribly.

When I was older, the Whitecoats increased in numbers. By two. Males, judging by their scent and appearance. "What's so special about this girl?" they asked the others. "She can't talk. Even parrots can talk. Is she retarded?" I can talk. I just haven't ever felt the need to. I know the human language. And I know my own. But the Whitecoats are not worthy of my words. "Don't be fooled," The Whitecoats said. "Don't be fooled by her angelic face and petite body. Don't be fooled by her silence. She is clever, wiser than most, and she is dangerous. Do not show her empathy, for she will feel none for you. If you give her the chance, she will kill you." And so I did. But only the ones who tried to hinder my escape. I guess the Whitecoats were right. I am dangerous. 

The sensation of fresh air is a strange one. I can't remember when I last felt it. The dark sky up above is speckled with stars. They blink at me to make me smile. I am in the forest, but I do not feel at home. These are not my forests. This is not my land. My kind has never set foot here. I am very far away. And I am very scared. 

The Whitecoats will know that I have escaped by now. And soon, they will come for me. I am their valuable treasure. One of a kind. They need me. But why I do not know. I won't go back. I run in amongst the trees to hide. Run so fast the trees sway in my wake. I run faster than the deer, and the rabbits and the foxes. I run faster than the owls can fly. The forest protects me, gives me strength. It guides me in the direction I need to go. 

Soon, there is a flickering light up ahead and I come to a stop. It is a clearing where a group of boys have lit a fire. They sit around it in a circle, cooking meat on sticks and drinking beverages from cans. They smile and they laugh. Talk loud. I sneak closer, the aroma of food stirring my hunger. When they see me, they all turn to stare. Some of them get to their feet, their mouths hanging open. They do not look armed. 

I take a hesitant step closer, looking from the puzzled faces before me to the packages of food on the ground. "Jesus Christ," someone says. I don't understand those words. "Where the hell did she come from?" another one asks. "Dude, she's naked...and hot." This is not accurate. In fact, I feel a bit cold. I take another step forward. "Did any of you order the stripper?" one of the boys laugh, only to get nudged in the ribs by his friend. "Stop that. What if she's hurt? What if something has happened to her?"

I watch this boy intently as he nears me. He moves slowly, as though afraid I will lash out. I might. I haven't made up my mind yet. He raises both his hands and shows me his palms, his smile is gentle. "It's okay," he assures me. "We won't hurt you." I narrow my eyes in suspicion. Humans always tell me that right before they cause me harm. "Are you okay?" The boy asks, only a few meters apart from me now. "Are you hurt? What's your name?"

My name? The Whitecoats call me Embla, but I do not think that is what my own called me. I am not sure. So I do not answer. "Here..." The boy says, shrugging off his shirt and holding it out for me. "Here...take this. You must be freezing." I look down my naked body, so pale in the darkness. The boys look at my body too, and I can feel heat radiate off their skin. They like me naked. Just like the Whitecoats do. But I am cold, so I reach out for the piece of clothing and snatch it away from its owner, draping it around my shoulders and closing it up, button by button. 

"Should we call the police?" One of the other boys whispers. They look at each other uncertainly. "We can't. Not until we've hidden the joints and liquor anyway," another one says. I pay little mind to their conversation. My focus is on the food. My stomach is growling. "Are you hungry," the boy who gave me his shirt asks as his friends gather in the background, talking heatedly. 

I nod, once. The boy seems relieved to receive some confirmation and turns around towards the fire. He grabs a bag of something white off the ground and holds it up for me to see. "Marshmallows? Or I can grill you some hot dogs?" I follow him hesitantly and snatch the bag from his hands, quickly moving away from him to settle down on the forest ground, eagerly shoving the sweet, sticky squares into my mouth. "She's gonna make herself sick," one of the boys says once I've almost emptied the bag, and he strides towards me to take it away. 

I growl and jump at him once he is close enough, my teeth clamping down on the front of his throat and ripping away flesh. The boy screams then gurgles. His friends panic. 

I withdraw from him and settle back down to finish my marshmallows, seemingly oblivious to the bleeding boy and his friends who are trying to save him. They are all making loud noises now, and everyone is running back and forth. When the bag is empty I crawl across the clearing to find more, helping myself to the package of cold sausages and a can containing a bitter beverage. 

I do not notice that the wounded boy is bleeding no more, and instead is lying very still, his open eyes staring emptily up at the night sky. Nor do I notice that his friends have all run away, hurriedly navigating their way through the trees to find safety. 

I notice nothing but myself, Embla, an unordinary girl who is finally free.

[backseatballads]

Murrindindi Camp

Magandang Buhay sayo lahat! 

For those of you out there who don’t know me, my name is Anthony Luis Lawang... better known as Lamaroc, the dance alter-ego that’s brought just about the same amount of joy as it has sadness haha. Who’s to say that life is meant to be smooth sailing all the time anyway? ;9 Drama’s aside, this post isn’t going to be about me, but more so about us. A concept that seems to be prevalent in all my works as an artist... even if not as apparent as my fake Filipino accent tickling your inner-ear as a call-out to the lack of brown pride of being chill and familial. 

Having spent the past month in Osaka, Japan with brother man Huy Le: “...the Poster-boy of Backseat Ballads...” as he tells me of how others view him, I thought to ask him if I could do a write-up about the crew since my fingers were getting itchy and my exit from the main social media platforms (don’t ask, it’s a long story) meant that I wasn’t writing as much as I had been since 2012. After the tumultuous year that was 2017, I felt like I’d been put through the Nutriblender enough times to finally write a piece that I can say is the smoothest, tastiest, heartfelt smoothie you can drink this side of 2018. 

Before jumping in though, the last time I ever wrote for this blog/website was back in 2015-16 for our efic “Ficnic” trip. Somehow the intentions to keep on writing and making videos of our time together instead transmuted into Huy’s passion project known as the “Pogi-SawSaw x Backseat Ballads” mixes/radio-style shows. And so through spending the past month as housemates in Osaka at my ex-wife’s house (sounds like a rom-com doesn’t it?) here we are writing about my first camping experience with my brothers and sisters at Murrindindi. *Note: soundtrack to this writing meditation is “SUPER MARIO HISTORY 1985-2010 FUN!!!

;9 ;9 ;9 <- That's three winking, smiling faces with their tongues out ;9 ;9 ;9

It’s funny how things go full-circle, albeit not as perfect as the lines meeting up. As if drawn with ultimate precision, but more like the calligraphy-style of the Japanese “Maru/丸" done with a brush the size of an adult human being. As a viewer of such simple art, you can see the amount of pressure, speed and flow that goes into the circle as you see the gradient of the ink tell you the story of the powerful miracle that is the circle. As the end of the line is deliberately disconnected from the usual perfect Maru, the opened-endedness of the circle couldn't be a more perfect example of how other's, including myself were allowed into an amazing group of loving individuals known as the BACKSEAT BALLADS.

Here I am, back in Melbourne after 3 years in Osaka. Returning from a failed marriage and beginning my own healing process. Let me state first, that the failure is not to be blamed on any individual/s but can be attributed to the circumstances that became what I've labelled it as. Logically, I jumped back into everything I once knew was, and quickly realised that things WERE not, what they used to be. Suddenly, I'm thrown back into my seat, having to contemplate how to move forward when everything around me, reminded me of what I'd built and been a part of my life prior to giving birth to our daughter. Here is an artist, who walked away from his creations, expecting that he could just walk back and pick up from where he left. How very naive of him...

Having seen and more specifically felt (through some crazy psychic sibling connection) what I was going through, my sister decided to invite me to a camp with her crew of mates. Man... I remember thinking: "I haven't been to camp since primary school, and the last camp wasn't even camp because we didn't even stay the night." So of course I was excited, and bringing a guitar with me, we departed from the area real late at night. After a bit of zigzagging and meandering through Victoria's north at breakneck speeds and a Major Laser soundtrack, here we were in pitch dark in front of the national park's camping site map. Whilst our driver Thai was discussing where to set-up with the other drivers in our entourage, the smell of fresh air almost neutralised the rolled cigarette I had in hand, and the negative-ions of the eucalyptus trees brought a sense of calm and comfort I hadn't felt in so many years.

And like a Special-Ops mission, we jumped back into the car, parked a little further up, and the whole squad of about 10 or so people switched into automatic mode, unpacking their vehicles and setting up the tent in pitch black. Slightly disorientated by the immense organisation of the crew, everywhere I looked, the members of this camp were busy setting things up in different areas of the space we were to joyfully occupy that weekend. I can almost recall the hustle and bustle of that arrival, as if it were a construction scene of a fort of some military group from the medieval times, with people zipping across the screen from all angles while our protagonist spoke to the person in-charge about what mission lay ahead. 

Here we had the sisters setting up the stove, cooking, eating area on a wooden bench, which was to be our outdoor kitchen whilst the brothers on the opposite end were effortlessly assembling the sticky, puzzle work of the tents that were to be our sleeping quarters. Stumbling back and forth to whatever I could lend a hand to, there was already efforts made to start the campfire in the centre by of course no other than the fire master himself Thai Tran. He'd brought all the wood himself and only later sourced out dry fire wood from the campsite itself... Working and sweating together to build something you can all enjoy and call your own... wow... what a way to feel part of something almost instantly.  *Note: soundtrack to this paragraph “GERUDO VALLEY" - Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Soundtrack. EPIC!!!

While I have toiled and tumbled with some of the best dance crews of the day, our environments were usually more "hostile" to say the least. We were always strategising, making tactical efforts to make a distinct plan of attack towards realms of battle like competitions and dance performances, but there hadn't been, for the better part of my memory, moments like this that were just as intense but towards a much more peaceful cause. You see, having a career in a realm that's predominantly competitive, at least in my own experience, there was hardly a time when we actually got together and worked on something with that concerted effort to bask in the fruits of our labours. It was always to represent the image and reputation of a name or value or principal to uphold, yet what I came to realise when we finally sat around the campfire and started drinking and vibing out, was that it was these moments and that sense of belonging that I had actually been yearning over all those years. 

Here was this 30 year old, nearing his birthday, amongst a group of mid-20 year olds rather, that seemingly had their shit together, having found a way to escape the hustle and bustle of the big smoke and the careers they were chasing. Like a shooting star that came in bursts, longer than a split second of being visible; new neuron pathways were going off in my mind that left me with a new vision of hope. In hindsight, what this crew of lads and ladies were presenting before me was the returning to barebones culture... a way to go off-grid, to get out of the matrix with all the cliches of popular trilogies. That first night was like rocking up to someone's place, setting up the backyard deluxe mode, drinks and music devices ready except the backyard you were going to was in Mother Nature's heavenly realm and the speakers were our voices! Haha! BOOM! Here [we] were, speaking and laughing at the top of our lungs, not concerned about noise restrictions while getting smashed on shots of the poison of choice. The guitar was out and we were singing medleys of whatever those 3 or 4 chords could muster up with all it's drunken splendour. Who would've thought that "F**kin' Problems" by A$AP Rocky was gonna be rapped over a nylon string guitar? What were these blessings from the Creator being bestowed on me, and what was this simultaneous coolness and cheesiness I was experiencing? Who the f**k were these kids and how can I suddenly be thrown into a pool of seemingly average individuals that [are] into the same shit that I was into? It was like heaven and hell merged together and God and Satan were having a brewski laughing about worldly matters and it was all good.

For just a moment, gone were my hang ups on feeling guilty of having these things... These desires to be part of a crew that seemed to tick all the boxes. Something so Filipino, yet different in all the best ways. No pretentiousness, no bitching, no self-celebratory vibes, just all-round good conversation, a soulful collaboration of singing, drinking and just being bloody merry. After polishing bottle number we've-lost-count, with guitar in hand, I could see how loose this crew was getting. Our medley had done a Hiphop Merry-Go-Round, losing our shit at how many times Joe would bring back that A$AP Rocky song back into the fold. Just when we thought we'd be taking it in another direction, here he was abruptly throwing that song back in with such conviction. We'd cracked up so much that it didn't matter that it was the 4th or 5th incarnation of that chorus... how pivotal that was for me to regain a sense of my inner-smile. 

How I could see almost every member of that camp, sing from the bottom of their stomachs and wail with all that passion, it was like seeing people vent their frustrations by yelling at the top of their lungs across an empty chasm. How much I felt the love when we sang about love, that later I would discover to be the whole crews cathartic response to the stressful world around them even if silently doing so. If only these guys knew how cathartic it was for me to observe them and being welcomed to be part of their outdoor rituals. Even if they didn't realise the healing power of what they were doing, at least subconsciously, deep down they instinctually knew why these camps provided them with a sense of relief from the ever-changing economic landscape that was Melbourne and whatever that meant to them. 

This crew had, what crews I had previously been part of had sadly lost. This usually was a result of a break-up or division between members, or groups of members within the crew where ego's clashed and where there was no returning... perhaps from not properly addressing issues as they were arising that would end up blowing up into a massive outburst, or being unable to tackle head on the feelings of honesty and the confrontation it took to sort these important underlying things out. This is perhaps why this written piece is directed at this wonderful crew I can proudly say I am a part of. After all these years of interacting with them as a tight self-contained unit, I could careless these days about anyone else who doesn't contribute to this commune... of course, with the door slightly ajar for any other potentials that could fortify the love that we create. See for me, my delusions of chivalry and community stay alive within the Backseat Ballads. The name itself is more than a literal analogy for the dramas of my life and for the better part a simple combination of two words that can tell the world about who I am... and I wonder if the crew can say the same thing about themselves in a similar context. 

Perhaps this continual commitment and support we have for each other, even if unspoken of those certain values and principals that are of the utmost importance to us is something that happens naturally when we are together. That's not to say that there aren't issues behind the scenes, and that certain people are unable to be part of the good times and bad times as often they would like to be, but really, in this narrative of holding onto what's dear and the challenges we would face doing so; it's as simple as literally setting up a camp, gathering or party and quite literally "airing out" whatever needed airing. In my experience, there's things we cannot control, but if we can control where we make time and place our foci on, then there's no reason why we can't focus on spending time together even when the glue isn't that strong.

Deep down, I hope the absence of Huy Le here in Australia and the realisation of how much effort he put into curating, hosting and organising these gatherings is something that would make us pull our pants up and pull our weight to maintain the legacy he opened up for us. More importantly, in retrospect, we should try to remember what we all contributed individually to the wonderful and timeless memories we shared... even if that meant just rocking up. Sure, we're all getting "older" and "slowing down", with more and more responsibilities popping up, financial and other, but I do hope that our affairs in the "real world"doesn't drop a veil over your eyes to say that what we do as a crew isn't just as important. 

Without making it sound overbearing, 'cos I mean our gatherings were always so laid back 'cos Huy and other key members were the magic to make it all happen, but that these camps and these gatherings, despite the splintering off of different groups within the group itself, were all essential for the intermittent escape we needed from the bullshit of the so-called "real world". As a matter of fact, I know for myself, in much more hyper-realistic circumstances, this place we know as the "real world", of contributing to a cold society that doesn't really care about you, but expects you to give it everything, was something that I allowed to become my internal-inferno those end days living in Japan. 

Unfortunately, that experience was in hindsight the end and the death of my romance of the illusions with her. If only in Japan I had such a group that I could be that close to, that could be so supportive as to being able to stand side-by-side with that I could and would savouringly build a tent with regardless of hail, rain or shine. The individuals that I may not interact with much outside these group gatherings, yet when face-to-face, I could talk to about the many different things and pour my heart out to if I needed to... while they honestly tuned in. Someone I could sit beside and sing the same lyrics with, the two of us releasing different yet powerful emotional energy through different interpretations of the same song. If that were the case, those many years ago, then perhaps, in blatant allegory, I wouldn't be here writing this little piece and still be side-by-side with my 5 year old daughter... 

As I wrap this piece up, I ask of you, even if you're not part of the crew, to take a memory of the unity you may have felt with those close to you and remember the smiles and the sense of belonging you felt, even if only temporarily... and then ask yourselves if there is still room for that in your life. Please don't replace this favourite past time of ours and make a concerted effort to keep this tradition alive. For surely, if there is still room for this in your life, even if only in thought, then one day soon hopefully, through a concerted effort, you'll all be in each other's company again, sitting around a campfire, chin up aimed at the stars, releasing and letting go of our woes and celebrating life by ironically singing: "F**kin' Problems"... Hahahaha~ what a cheesy way to finish up... let's embrace it and oh btw... you can change that song with any other anthem that means something to you and your people. 

One love truly.

Anthony Luis Lawang

[kimitak-e]

Mustard Mary

1.

the first thing Mustard Mary did when she was born was to bite her mother on the thigh with a full set of steak-knife teeth. the second thing she did was scream, at the top of her lungs, as if she herself was the one bitten. 

it was a mystery why Mary had shark’s teeth when both her parents were normal, but they did the best they could, and when she grew up they sent her to school.

on the first day of school, Mustard Mary ran up to another girl and bit her too, right on the shoulder. this time the girl was the one who screamed. then she clubbed Mary over the head.

“you can’t go around biting people,” said the girl. “biting is rude, and besides it really hurts.”

“what is ‘hurts’?” said Mary. 

“’hurts' is when something feels bad and you want to get away, but you can’t, because it’s your own body. like when you stub your toe, or fall and skin your knees.”

Mustard Mary stood very still, swaying back and forth. nobody had ever explained it like this to her before, and she felt ashamed at her own ignorance. she shrugged one shoulder stiffly. 

“when i bite somebody, i feel it on me where i put my teeth on them. is that also a ‘hurts’?”

“that’s exactly what it is.” the girl crossed her arms. “if it hurts you too, why do you do it?”

“i don’t know,” said Mustard Mary. 

but she thought about this exchange for many years after.

2.

Mary’s heart was pounding. she was naked in her boyfriend’s dorm room because they were going to have sex. she had filed down all of her shark’s teeth long ago, and she had learned to stop biting people too, because the girl from her old school told her it was rude. later, though, she had read on the internet that sometimes it was not rude to bite people, because it was sex. this time she would try something she had never done before.

“bite me,” she said, holding out her arm.

“what?” said her boyfriend.

“just this once. i want to try something out.” 

to her boyfriend, Mary looked like a holy crusader on a mission. it scared him because he couldn’t understand it, but it was hard not to do what she wanted because he loved her, even though it was plain she didn’t love him back. they had been together four months. 

“if you say so...” he replied, taking her arm carefully and putting it to his mouth. “like this?” he bit down.

“yes. but harder.”

he bit harder.

“harder.”

he bit harder.

“harder!”

this was too much. her boyfriend sat back and dropped her arm. “doesn’t that hurt?”

“of course it does.”

“then why do you want it?”

“let me see your arm.”

Mustard Mary put their naked forearms together, one with an ugly red welt, one unmarked.

“doesn’t it hurt you when you bite me?” asked Mary.

her boyfriend looked at her strangely. “what? like, emotionally? kind of, yeah.”

“no. i mean, physically. physically, don’t you feel hurt when you hurt other people.”

her boyfriend began to look at her even more strangely. “no. why would i feel that?”

“i don’t know,” said Mustard Mary. “but i think i have to go.”

3.

a few paddles out from shore, Mary pulled in the gillnet. she was Assistant Professor Mustard Mary now, shark researcher. she had let her teeth grow long again, and didn’t care what people said. she was not much like a shark, but in her mind, they were as close as anything to being like her. it was like love.

these days she liked the evening collection best, when the summer sun set the sea ablaze in a riot of passionate pinks and purples. there on the water you could be alone in your boat, and it would hold you in the centre of the sky, the past and future spanning out into nothingness all around you.

she knew she could leave the collection to her research students, but there was a skill demanded by the task that was satisfying to live up to. if there was a catch, you had to lift the line from the water quickly, without letting it scrape the side of the boat. then when the shark was in your hands -- juveniles only, no longer than a few feet -- you had to untangle it quickly, and ease it into the collection container before it could struggle.

today, though, the weight on the end of the line felt different: light and dragging, not at all lively. sometimes this happened when the net got caught on a bit of seaweed. Mary pulled it in anyway, and then sucked in a breath.

no seaweed this evening-- it was a shark: a stiff head with the eyes not just uncomprehending but unseeing, mouth set in an innocent grimace. the rest had gone missing behind the gills, save for a few bloodless rags of flesh. it was a little lemon shark. or what was left of one.

Mary held the carcass in her hands and inspected the damage. it looked like the body had been severed in one clean bite, without much struggle; eaten, most likely, by another shark. it was grisly, but she tossed the head back into the water without dwelling much longer. these things happened, after all.

to her surprise, a second, strong splash followed the plop. a gurgle came next, until a glossy head emerged from the water. 

the face she saw had eyes set wide apart, with black irises like a dog’s -- no whites at all -- and two flat nostrils that opened and closed in the air. a mop of long ragged hair drifted from its scalp in all directions, floating on the water. its skin was the colour of an old corpse, but its gaze was intelligent and alert.

“hello,” said the mermaid. 

4.

“hello,” said Mustard Mary, too shocked to do anything else. when the mermaid spoke again, it revealed a wide mouth full of steak-knife teeth, which were fuzzy with algae.

“why are you in that thing? are you hurt?” the mermaid asked. it had a pleasant, sexless voice, neither high nor low. 

“no. i’m fine. i use this boat for research.” Mary hesitated, then said, “thanks for your concern.”

the mermaid’s head bobbed up and down in the water. “no need to be so formal. if you’re not hurt, you should come and join me for dinner-- it’s not every day you see a cousin.”

“cousin?” Mary said.

“well, sure. i’d know those teeth anywhere. we’re the same.”

“i don’t understand,” Mary said.

the mermaid gazed at her contemplatively, then rose an inch above the water as if to emphasize a point. “it’s not every day you meet another mermaid,” it said patiently. “like you.” 

Mustard Mary stared at the mermaid, wondering at the statement. Mary had dry skin, clothes, and a fresh haircut: all of the things that made a person a person, with the exception of her teeth. she had always thought they belonged on an animal, or shark, but perhaps through some unknown magic she had been switched in the womb, and her teeth were as natural as anything else on her-- the birthright of a mermaid’s child. 

other possibilities presented themselves to her in rapid succession: she was dreaming; she was dying; she was victim to some sort of televised hoax, with an actor in a wetsuit. still, the situation demanded some sort of response.

she gathered up her courage said:

“that’s the thing-- i don’t know if i’m a mermaid. all my life i’ve been different from other people. i've felt things they don’t feel and had compulsions they couldn’t dream of. my teeth are made for hurting others but my own flesh bears the scars. i have never heard the words ‘we’re the same’. do you think we truly could be kin? could i really live as a mermaid?”

Mustard Mary leaned out plaintively over the boat. the mermaid, ever-impassive, looked back at her with its solemn dog eyes. after a long, thoughtful silence, it answered:

“those are good questions, and i will try to answer them well. but to begin, we mermaids have never wanted for anything, speaking as we do from the heart. our teeth are for tearing kelp from the ocean bed, not for wounding others. it is a serious matter to use your mouth in this way; perhaps that is why you are so afflicted. the thing you should have been taught from birth is that the pain you deal always comes back to you, and i am troubled that you did not know. but make no doubt about it-- we are the same. and you can come live as a mermaid if you like.”

“so-- you didn’t eat the shark?” said Mary in a small voice.

“no.” the mermaid blinked one eye, then the other. “but if you come live as mermaid, you will see.”

“and how do mermaids live?”

“forever at the bottom of the sea, ponderous in sadness, rapturous in play, eternal in grief. and alone -- mostly alone -- swimming solitary through the world’s great oceans.”

“that is a lot,” said Mary, now less sure. “that’s a lot to take in.”

“it’s just the way we are. the choice is yours to make.”

“i don’t know. i don’t know what to do at all,” said Mary.

“that’s all right. but if ever you decide to live like us, come back to this spot and call me with your heart. we’re cousins.”

“we’re cousins,” Mary repeated, feeling her heart squeezed by the word.

the mermaid nodded. “absolutely. i’m going now, but remember what i said.”

Mustard Mary watched the ragged head sink underwater again, noticing how the light on the ocean seemed to sink with it, and how all at once the night had come folding in. once more she was alone -- though not alone like a mermaid -- adrift in a boat a few paddles out from shore. the lights from the research centre winked out from atop the sand banks, and beyond that the city rose up, close and boisterous. people lived out their lives there, and below the sea they were living them too. 

somehow, everyone got by.

“what to do?” Mustard Mary asked herself.

overhead, a bright, full, moon was rising overhead.