#anyways i think ill keep drawing these two in tragic situations

[joeymiya]

[sneakydraws]

Well, here it is - a lengthy explanation of each card in my mdzs major arcana deck and what I meant to convey/what i would have changed in retrospect/what alternatives i considered! It’s a bit messy and my typing style is lazy but hopefully it will be an interesting read to some of you :)

And so you don’t say I didn’t warn you - jiang cheng’s section (11 justice) is absurdly long lmao

0 the fool  I elaborated on this in the post itself but yeah basically jin ling is kind of representative of all the damage and trauma caused by the past, and there’s a kind of danger there of him falling victim to the same vices as the older characters and repeating the same mistakes and perpetuating the cycle of war and misery (the cycle that we already see with how the jin sect became the new wen sect, and later with how jgy became the new wwx) and he has a lot of room to grow! He grows so much over the course of the novel, comes to realise the complexities of the past and gets a harsh life lesson in how nothing is as black and white as it seems. But ill save talking about his progress for the end, for now whats important is that he has room to grow and also a dog. I don’t really have a justification for the sun, i mostly just thought it looked sick? It made its way to the next card as well, where it makes a bit more sense, but then i realised it was a dumb motif to include 1 the magician I still very much like wwx for the role, and that illustration would have probably had him raising a corpse on his left and pointing threateningly to the sun on his right. I considered including the table as well, with some mdzs relevant items replacing the card suits. Anyway, like i said wwx got a few cards to himself already so i went with the alternative wq design, since i think she fits the card as well. Both she and wwx are highly skilled people, extremely driven once they set their mind to something. The card to me symbolises the creative mind as well as a general drive for action, which fits them both - wwx was famously a prolific inventor, and wq came up with a previously unheard of surgery, after all. This card strays pretty far from the rider-waite deck design, largely because i was still figuring out how i wanted to approach this series, but you can still see the influence. 2 the high priestess I was actually going to skip this card at first because I couldn’t think of a fitting character, but once i considered a qings character post death, it all fit pretty well. She was already a highly intuitive person in life, and in sharing her memories with wwx she is, in a way, relaying a kind of secret knowledge. Anyway she’s one of my fav characters so im glad i got a chance to include her. The coffins could be interpreted to be xxc and sl or xxc and xy 3 the empress Theres other mother figures in mdzs who got to be mothers for a longer time, but jyl definitely embodies the positive aspects of this card the best. She’s nurturing, kind, emotionally supportive, she already mothered wwx and jc quite a bit when she was young. Plus i liked that the rw card had both water and flowers, making an easy lotus connection. In retrospect the stars look kind of out of place and i should have replaced them with something more relevant... Also, i should have had her hold a lotus seed pod instead of a flower, haha 4 the emperor Like i said I considered jc for the role but hoching bullied me into admitting that nmj was better… they’re both more of an inverted emperor than an upright one but then again theres hardly any character in mdzs who would fit upright emperor so. Jgs was also considered but he’s even uglier than nmj so i couldn’t bear to draw him 5 the hierophant It was pointed out to me that lqr would have fit this card better and the truth if that statement haunts me to this day. Unfortunately I have no space in my brain for lqr so lxc got the role instead. My main reason was his role during the wen destruction of gusu lan, when he ran away with the contents of the library - this is why there’s bookshelves behind him. The keys, take, from the rider-waite deck, are meant to represent the gusu pendants that allow you to enter 6 the lovers Im sure many people would have chosen wangxian here but I uhh don’t really care abt wangxian personally? And also their love story is so convoluted that jyl and jzx seem idyllic by comparison lol. Also i didnt really have an idea for who to put in the angel’s place for wangxian… mme jin certainly did not get these two together in the end but undeniably she and mme yu did initially give them a chance to fall for each other so. Thats something i guess. Anyway the trees became their sects’ flowers and the mountain became the burial grounds - an omen of their tragic fate, basically 7 the chariot There might have been other characters who fit this card better but i couldn’t really think of another card for lwj and i thought it would be weird to not include him… anyway i don’t really care for current timeline lwj BUT i do like that he was clearly influenced by wwx to walk his own path in life based on his moral convictions rather than follow his sect’s rules blindly. The chariot is to me a card of self control, self determination and focused action, so it seemed fitting. The composition felt kind of empty without the actual chariot so i padded it out with the guqin, the cloud recess in the bg (it doesn’t look great but i tried to replicate the drama design….) and the bunnies which conveniently fit the colour scheme of the sphinxes in the rider-waite design 8 strength Like i said before, my interpretation of this card is more… morally ambiguous than the quote unquote official meaning, so i thought about manipulative or duplicitous characters more than kind characters whose strength is expressed through gentleness (though i did consider jyl briefly for the latter interpretation). As such, i considered both jgy and nhs, but ended up going with jgy largely because i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put the nie sect’s beast as the lion. 9 the hermit My thoughts immediately went to bssr lol. It may be an overly literal interpretation but whatever, i like it just fine. And i like that i managed to echo the rider-waite silhouette in the mountain and the tree (and even in bssr herself) 10 wheel of fortune God i love the parallels between these 2… this card to me is about how you cant trust your current situation, good or bad, to last forever, and these 2 embody that perfectly imo. Wwx went from son of a well off servant and a powerful cultivator, to street rat orphan, to adopted son of sect leader jiang, to double orphan, to MIA, to terrifying but admired warrior, to terrifying and despised traitor, to dead, to, at the very end, suddenly respected and trusted again. The dishonesty and cheapness of whatever the public’s current opinion of him is is portrayed beautifully as far as im concerned. And jgy of course claws his way up to power only to instantaneously become public enemy number one, to the point that he’s probably blamed for stuff there’s no reason to believe he had a hand in. Wei wuxian’s silent astonishment at how quickly the cultivation world turns against jgy and towards him again is a delicious moment of thematic resonance.  11 justice I settled on this card for jc after he got booted from the emperor seat but i do think it fits, in a somewhat convoluted way. I turned both the sword and the scales into visual representations of the golden core transfer (can you tell im obsessed with it). According to biddy tarot, the justice card is partly about searching for the truth, and the scene where jc finds out about the transfer is of course a big deal. I was also very influenced by the reversed meaning again - which is about being reluctant or unwilling to face or accept the consequences of your actions. I feel on an intuitive level that this fits jc but I’m not sure how well i can explain it - it’s something about how he’s a little too comfortable scapegoating wwx for things that were also, if much less so, influenced by his actions, and also something about the way he keeps wwx at an arm’s length emotionally but still leans on him and accepts his support when he really needs it, and somewhat hypocritically expects wwx to put the needs of him and the jiang sect before the needs of others. And also something about the core exchange is the consequence and proof of wwx’s deep - terrifyingly deep, even - love and care for him, which is something jc doesn’t seem to let himself acknowledge. Maybe even something about how you could argue that the way all of the jiangs acted around wwx - jfm’s favouritism that left him with the feeling of a debt he needs to repay, mme yus insistence that he be a servant more than a brother to jc, prepared to give his life for jc, and jc’s own unwillingness - or inability, he was a child after all - to clearly acknowledge wwx as an equal to himself, enabling wwx’s self sacrificial and protective tendencies - that all of this was what caused wwx’s complete and unquestioning willingness to do whatever it took to protect jc, and therefore paved the way to the golden core transfer. And i don’t mean this to be scapegoating jc - especially considering how young he was when this all went down, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this level of emotional perceptiveness, awareness and maturity of him - but i think adult jc has to grapple with the fact that the chain of cause and effect was not as simple as wwx fucking everyone’s lives up to be a martyr, and that both jc and his parents had a role in that story as well. I don’t even necessarily think this is something that jc only realised in the current timeline - i think it’s something he felt on some level this whole time, and it probably led to a lot of feelings of guilt - but the suibian reveal definitely puts it in sharp focus, and i think he’s now better equipped to handle this introspection than he was as a recently orphaned, traumatised teenager, lol. ANYWAY the window with the fabric is both a nod to the rider-waite design and a reference to the destruction of lanling - i actually did some basic ass research for this, and it seems that in ancient china fabric would indeed be hanged in a window if the normally used paper was damaged. The design of the window, as well as the very idea to use it to imply the reconstruction of lanling, was taken from this great piece of jc angst by my pal moroll1! Oh yeah also the covered window kind of works as a denial of forgiveness for jc because it’s like a halo but covered up... Also I completely forgot to put a blindfold over his eyes which would be perfectttt because blind justice and the core exchange......... ok moving on 12 the hanged man I always have issues with this card because i cant find a satisfactory summary of what it’s really about. Best i can tell it symbolises a need to hit pause, surrender or let go of something… ive also seen it tied to sacrifice? So mo xuanyu doesn’t fit perfectly, but sacrifice is definitely there in a surface level reading kind of way, and the idea that you have to surrender or let go in order to achieve your goal does fit the whole deal of getting revenge but giving up your life in exchange and not being there to see it 13 death This is probably one of my favourite cards, definitely not because I have huge issues with change or anything…. I see this card as signalling the necessity of change or putting an end to something / leaving something in the past in order to start anew? At first i considered putting past wwx, mxy and current wwx here as a kind of transformation and one cycle flowing into the next... But firstly, I’d already used mxy in the very previous card, so putting him in again would feel like overkill, and secondly, the longer I thought about it the less convinced I was that this would even fit with the card’s meaning? Because coming back from the dead doesn’t like... trigger an internal transformation within wwx or anything? Anyway, fun fact: the design I ended up going with was actually originally intended for judgement! I thought I was being very clever with the whole “figure plays an instrument and the dead rise” parallel, but apparently I’d just completely forgotten that the judgement card had a completely different composition... Truly I was boo boo the fool... But yeah anyway at the end of the day I figured the design would kind of work for death as well, with Wen Ning and the theme of transformation, (since in his case coming back as a fierce corpse does actually mark a certain transformation in behaviour) and Wei Wuxian’s protection of the Wen people essentially signifying an attempt to break the cycle of oppression if that makes any sense? Like, wwx is trying to revolutionise the way the world works a bit, if you catch my drift 14 temperance  The centrist card! Again this is probably going off track from the “official” interpretation, but to me this card has a certain “don’t commit fully; do everything in moderation; don’t take either side” flavour to it that i personally find infuriating irl and that i very much assign to lxc. It’s entirely possible that I’m misinterpreting his character because i didn’t really pay him (and the 3zun in general) much mind while reading, but hell, I’m allowed to pick favourites and choose who i want to interpret deeply vs shallowly. Again, i wish id chosen lqr for hierophant because its so annoying for a character i don’t care about to get two cards…. But oh well 15 the devil My alternative idea for this was jgy as the devil and lxc plus nmj as the figures, but since all three had been featured already (multiple times, even!) i figured I’d go with xy instead, especially since he’s among my faves lol. I think the devil signifies something along the lines of unhealthy attachment, obsession or addiction, which isn’t 100% accurate in the case of xxc and a-qing, but if i stretch it a bit to cover toxic relationships in general, and especially manipulation or negative influence, i don’t think it’s half bad. My main struggle here was to choose who amongst the xxc/sl/aq trio to choose for the human figures. 16 the tower Arguably jin zixuans death and the following massacre of nightless city were the final and most direct reason for the siege of burial mounds, and the tiger seal is good shorthand for wwx’s loss of control over his powers, which led to the deaths of jzx and jyl. When reimagining major arcana i like to feature some kind of building in this card (spoilers for a possible future project but in my rose of versailles major arcana set the tower is bastille) and even if it’s not a tower, the image of wwx looming over the gathered crowd from atop a rooftop is so good i couldn’t resist 17 the star Struggled with this one - considered both jin ling and lsz for it, as symbolising a hope for the future, but that was kind of covered by the world so it wouldn’t make sense to include here as well... As usual when I struggle with interpreting a card (as opposed to understanding it but struggling with matching a character to it, like with death or moon) I went to biddy tarot and read all the details about its meaning. What i got was that this card signifies an incoming period of introspection and inner peace following a time of turmoil, as well as a general moving on into a new, better phase of one’s life or finding new meaning and purpose. The figure also suggests someone vulnerable, but possessing a keen sense of intuition as well as a good degree of practicality and common sense. Given all those, I settled for mianmian because IM LOVE HER..... I also kind of see her as a prelude to the “just one person is enough” theme present in tgcf!! And i think her decision to abandon her sect because she saw the toxicity and corruption in it is a very inspiring action - even if it didn’t make a large visible impact, i think the appearance of her and her idyllic family at the very end of the novel - paralleling and mirroring wangxian - implies that at the end of the day, it was a meaningful one 18 the moon Another card i ALWAYS fuxking struggle with - this time less because i can’t grasp its meaning and more because I can never find a character that fits it well. I usually get fixated on the “dreams and subconscious” part, but if i lean more on the “disguise, deceit, anxiety and fear” part, i eventually figured the whole yi city arc wouldn’t be a bad fit. I say the entire arc because it really does encompass all those themes if you include both the past and the present - xue yang’s disguise, his tricks with the villagers, a-qing’s lies and even xxc’s reluctance to talk about his past as well as xue yang pretending to be xxc all fit the disguise and deceit angle, and the general mystery and creepiness of the current timeline yi city work well with the anxiety and fear - the mist, the slow uncovering of the past, even a-qing being revealed to be an ally after scaring the shit out of the protags. I definitely struggled with including all the elements and characters, and even moreso with making them vaguely fit the rider-waite composition, but i think it ended up okay ish. OH and i completely forgot to draw mist swirling around them :( 19 the sun I was considering mianmian’s family for this one, but since I used her for star, I ended up with wwx and his parents instead. Once again I’m reinterpreting the card a bit - normally I think it symbolises incoming times of pure happiness and abundance, as well as a connection with the inner child, but I gave it more of a nostalgic or sentimental twist - wwx looking back at the brief glimpse of his happy childhood. 20 judgement another card that i struggle to interpret a bit... Here i actually used the tgcf tarot zine as a reference! In it judgement is summarised as “rebirth, following duty, absolution” SO i figured that nhs, mxy and wwx all together would fit pretty neatly... wwx achieving (public) absolution through clearing his own name after being reborn, and nhs sort of calling on wwx to expose jgy’s crimes... It’s a bit messy but not bad I think! 21 the world This ties very closely to my read on mdzs as a story - which is that it’s, at the end of the day, largely about cycles, and about how hard it is to break them, but how we gotta keep trying and have hope anyway. Or maybe more precisely, that the people directly involved with and influenced by the trauma of the past might not be able to get over said trauma and that the hope for healing from it will be shouldered by the new generation. Or something like that… Basically what i mean is that jc and wwx and lwj and lxc and nhs and jgy and all these people who were in the thick of the sunshot campaign and the siege are so profoundly affected by it that it genuinely feels by the end of the story like there is little hope for them to ever truly overcome that trauma and build a better future without repeating the same old mistakes - but there is a glimmer of hope in the new generation, specifically in jl and lsz. And it’s a bit paradoxical, because they have also been directly impacted by the past tragedies - lsz having his entire clan wiped out after wwx failed to protect them, jl losing both his parents to wwx’s mistakes - but despite that loss, and despite coming from arguably the two opposing sides of the past conflicts, they are both, in the end, capable of moving past that tragedy, of recognising the complicated nature of those conflicts (jl’s moment of clarity at the end is both heartbreaking and hopeful) and forging friendships between clans in the process. I honestly think that the extra where jl is struggling to assert his authority as sect leader, to treat his subjects well and to cooperate with other sects in a truly amicable way is the single hopeful ending note for the larger themes of the novel - it allows us to imagine that maybe these kids can learn from the mistakes of their elders rather than getting sucked in by resentment at those mistakes, and actually build a brighter future for the cultivation world. And sidenote, this is also why i have a soft spot for jin ling and lan sizhui as a ship... speaking of which their poses were directly referenced from the lovers card ehehe

Looking back, I’d like to add some symbol of jin ling’s trauma so that it mirrors baby wen yuan in the tree stump... maybe his father’s sword? 

[celosiaa]

Yo Connor! I made a post a while back about this but imagine s1 archives gang: Sasha and Tim wanna play hooky to go drinking so they pretend to be sick to get sent home early. But their work gets piled onto poor poor Martin whos starting to come down with something. Cut to Tim and Sasha coming back to work to find a super sick and overworked Martin (my post has diff situations that they could come back to but basically it’s all “Martin is completely miserable”)

~ ineedmysickfix

Hello friend!!!!! Apologies for the delay!! I hope you’ll like this all the same :)

CW nausea

 “Oh, Sasha—you’re gonna hate me,” Tim drawls dramatically, draping an arm around her shoulders, causing them both to stagger. “You’re absolutely going to hate me.”

“Don’t tell me—ha! Tim—”

Sasha is broken off by a sudden, if sloppy, kiss to her cheek, the momentum of it nearly taking them both to the ground as they stumble on slightly-intoxicated legs. Well—perhaps more than slightly, after all.  It is later, much later than they had intended to be out, and dark has fully settled over the still-bustling London landscape as they attempt to make their way back to the Tube station from the pub.

Where they had been playing hooky. Gloriously.

It is a bit pitiful, how gullible their mess of a friend currently playing at being their boss could be. Shamefully, upon reflection, Sasha recalls Jon’s worried response that afternoon to the torrent of falsified coughs and sneezes he had heard from his office, before insisting that the two of them go home to rest. And to “not infect anyone else,” of course—tacked on in some feeble attempt not to care.

And go home, they had—if you can call a pub a home, that is. While it was not exactly buzzing with customers at the mid-afternoon, it had been a nice place to camp out for the day and enjoy each other’s company. Though they had lamented not letting Martin in on the plan—even if it was nice to have a evening just for themselves, something hadn’t felt right about leaving him behind. Not with the ever-growing tower of files on his desk, building up over the last week in a bit of an alarming fashion.

Sending out a quick thought for him as they walk, Sasha turns her attention back to Tim, linking her arm with his with a poorly-hidden smile.

“What have you done this time, Stoker? What else could there possibly be to make me want to kill you even more?”

“Even more? After I serenaded you at karaoke?”

“Especially after you serenaded me at karaoke,” she replies, pulling him just a little bit closer. “Bold move, especially knowing I’ve got a knife on me.”

“Yeah, a pocket knife,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Which we might have to use to break back into the Institute, by the way.”

“Tim, you didn’t!”

Groaning in dismay, Sasha stops their pace abruptly, searching his face for any sign of a joke—tragically, finding none.

“Tim. Hey, Tim.”

She grabs both sides of his face, pulling his forehead to rest against her own.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t forget your keys again.”

A nervous swallow, a flick away of his eyes—before a poorly-hidden smile laces his tone.

“I did not…do this thing.”

“TIM!”

“Alright, alright!! I may have!” he laughs as she drops her hands from his face, in favor of using them to push back against his chest. “But don’t worry! There’s no way even Jon is still there. Pretty sure he was heading home to rest after Salat al-Jumu’ah—said he hurt his knee, and he has PT in the morning.”

“Jon was going home?” Sasha asks in disbelief, her face showcasing the wild array of thoughts flitting through her mind. “First of all—concerning. Second of all—do you mean to tell me that we left poor Martin there all on his own?”

“He’s fine, Sasha,” Tim assures, throwing an arm around her to keep them walking. “Martin’s an adult, he knows he can leave any time he damn well pleases. Especially since Jon isn’t there.”

“Well, yeah, but—I dunno, he just seemed…off this week,” she replies worriedly, twisting a finger around her long locks.”

“He’s fine. We’ll make it up to him on Monday, or something.”

“Right,” Sasha sighs, leaning a bit further into his warmth. “You’re right, we can—we can get him some of that good tea that he likes, the expensive kind.”

“Alright, rich kid.”

“Shut it.”

With another peck to the cheek, both silly and giddy, they continue on their way back to the Institute—neither too displeased at having the other so close.

—

Work.

Just keep working.

Just focus.

Cold, Martin feels the cold of the archives seeping deeper into his bones with every moment that passes. Or is it heat? Too hot, suffocating, can barely catch a comfortable breath before the coughing starts up again, pounding against his skull and leaving him exhausted. Surely it hadn’t been this bad this morning—his therapist’s voice rings out in his mind, telling him it’s alright to go home, that he ought not have come in anyway—but he does not listen. Cannot listen, not with Jon out and in pain, and Tim and Sasha both out sick.

No—this was his job. Just has to push through, pick up the slack, keep going.

Someone has to.

For as much as Martin tries to tell himself that he’s not ill, that he never gets ill, he knows it’s all a lie. Sleep has come in sparse patches for him these past few weeks—and that has left him vulnerable to what he is now fairly certain is a nasty case of flu. It’s just been so much recently, with his mum intermittently calling him from the care home in Devon, and not answering the phone when he returns her calls. Though he would never want to think so poorly of his own mother—ungrateful, cruel, sad excuse for a son—he cannot help but have the thought that she’s doing this on purpose, calling him when she knows he’s busy—

Stop it.

Selfish.

Cruel.

Focus.

The stacks of files in the corners of his vision, piled so high he can barely see his surroundings beyond his desk, very nearly manage to draw out the tears Martin has so desperately been trying to hold back over the past—however long it’s been, now. Overwhelmed, he’s overwhelmed and wants nothing more than just to sleep. But Jon. Jon needs this done, Tim and Sasha need to rest—none of them need to have a miserable next week if he can just. Focus. Now.

Sniffing back against the congestion sitting heavy in his sinuses, Martin steels himself as well as he can, and drags his attention back to the piles and piles of nightmares before him.

—

As soon as they found the door to the archives unlocked, Sasha knew something was wrong.

Jon was so strangely protective of the place; always kept such a careful watch on it that it was unfathomable for him to not make certain that everything was locked, and the lights turned out at the end of each day. Surely, even if Martin had been the last one there, surely Jon would have called several times to ensure he would do the same—possibly even dragging himself back over the the dusty old basement, just to make sure.

And yet—here they are. Standing before the unlocked door to the archives.

“Can’t be good,” says Tim, running a hand anxiously down his beard.

“Not at all,” Sasha replies at once, voice low as she carefully pushes the door open.

The office beyond is almost entirely darkened, corners obscured by shadows and cobwebs and god knows what else down here. Only the light from a single lamp illuminates a desk—messy, piled high with stacks of files and reference volumes, some spilled over and scattered onto the floor. Martin’s desk. And Martin, leaning heavily against it.

Though she cannot see his face where it has been propped heavily between both of his hands, Sasha immediately takes note of of the blanket he’s wrapped himself tightly with, the bin by his feet overflowing with tissues, the row of mugs set on the floor to make room for more files. The way one has been tipped over, creating a dark spot on the carpet where it had spilled its contents, but Martin has not seemed to notice. A rarity—and a concerning one at that, for certain.

Exchanging a quick glance with Tim, who looks very much as worried as she feels, Sasha steps a bit forward, clearing her throat before calling gently to him.

“Martin? You alright, love?”

The impact is immediate—clearly, he had not heard them come in, nor seen their shadows stretching across the light of his lamp. For he jumps bodily in his seat, tipping it back with such a heavy creak that Sasha is certain it will send him to the floor completely. A gasp, loud and deep, as his wild, fever-glassed eyes meet theirs—before it turns into a fit of harsh, painful hacks that he buries hastily in what appears to be his last remaining tissue.

“Aw, Marto,” Tim says sympathetically as he strides over to him, rubbing a hand over his back as the coughing continues, Sasha following suit to grab a box of tissues from her own desk, and set it in front of him.

“Sorry, m’sorry,” he croaks, voice weathered and broken in the wake of his fit.

“Dunno what you’re talking about, mate,” Tim says softly, slipping a hand over Martin’s forehead—evidently not liking the heat he finds there, if his grimace is anything to go by. “How long have you been ill? You seemed alright this morning.”

“M’fine, Tim,” he mutters back, sniffing heavily and reaching for the new box of tissues. “Thanks, Sash—”

A sudden look of horror washes over his face as he meets her eyes, letting out a shallow gasp and covering his mouth with one hand.

“Wait, you’re—you’re ill, you’re both ill, you need these—”

“We’re not ill, Martin,” Sasha soothes at once, cursing both herself and Tim for going through with what was clearly a terrible idea.

“You’re not?”

“We wanted to skive off work,” Tim echoes, pulling Martin’s blanket back up from where it had slipped off his shaking shoulders. “We…we went out to the pub instead.”

“Oh,” is the only soft response that comes from him, as he drops his eyes back to the statement in front of him—and the guilt welling up inside Sasha is enough to break her heart.

“We would never have done that if we had known you were actually ill,” she clarifies rapidly. “We should have…we should have said. Shouldn’t have done that at all, really.”

“Yeah. Sash is right, we’re really sorry, Martin,” says Tim, wincing as the terrible coughing starts up once again, doubling him forward—and this time, he does not straighten back up.

“Oh,” he says again, miserably, squeezing his eyes shut against the apparent dizziness—enough to send Tim reaching for the empty bin from beneath his own desk, just in case.

“You alright?” asks Sasha, setting a bracing hand against his hunched shoulders.

It takes a few moments for him to reply this time, as he breathes as deeply as possible for a bit—still altogether too shallow, in Sasha’s opinion. She can hear the hitching at the back of his throat, knows that he’s trying so hard to keep from coughing again, whether for their sake or to avoid worsening the nausea, she can’t be sure.

“M’alright. Sorry,” he apologizes again, shivering hard as he does, pulling the blanket just a bit tighter around himself and sniffling. “Shouldn’t be here, you’ll probably catch it.”

“You shouldn’t be here, love,” Sasha counters, catching Tim’s gaze and jerking her head toward the breakroom—and he heads in that direction at once. “We’re going to get some water and medicine into you, and then you’re going straight home.”

“Can’t,” he whispers in return, shaking his head against the fresh tears that have sprung into his eyes, breaking Sasha’s heart to bits again. “There’s so much—so much to do, and Jon—Jon’s not well, and you—well, I suppose you’re—you’re not, heh—”

“Martin,” she says, bending crouching down to the level of his eyeline. “You do not need to be here. You do not need to do all this work yourself—if it makes you feel better, Tim and I can get some of this done over the weekend. But I highly doubt even Jon would ask you to do all of this today.”

“He—he didn’t.”

And now here come the tears, spilling hot over his cheeks, unable to be held back in with the stress the fever wracks through his body.

“I’ve—I’ve gotten so behind, this is almost a week’s worth of work, I’ve just been—I’ve not been focused, I can’t—god, I’m sorry—”

“It’s alright, Martin,” Sasha soothes, handing him another tissue which he uses to swipe at his streaming eyes and nose. “There’s something else going on, isn’t there?”

Squeezing his eyes shut again, tears leaking from beneath his lashes, Martin nods—burying his face in his hands, before Sasha wraps her arms around him.

“It’s alright, darling. Just hush, I’ve got you.”

It is to this sight that Tim arrives back from the break room, armed with medicine and a thermometer and a glass of water. Upon seeing them, his face falls in sorrow—reluctant to interrupt the stillness of the moment—before the whistling of the electric kettle from the breakroom causes Martin to pick up his head, turning his head toward the noise only to find Tim frozen in the doorway.

“Oh—thank you, that’s—” he pauses for a moment to cough behind closed lips, swiping at his eyes as he does so. “That’s really kind, I’m—I’m alright. I’m sure it’s just the flu, or something.”

“Don’t really think there’s such a thing as ‘just’ the flu, Marto,” Tim says, rolling his eyes with a smile—which, to Sasha’s immense relief, Martin returns, if still a bit watery.

“Yeah, Martin—let’s get you some meds, and get you home,” Sasha insists. “I’ll go fetch you some tea as well. Can’t send you home without something warm in your stomach.”

“I—thank you, really,” he beams, accepting the pills from Tim with his own, rather more shaky hands. “You’re—that’s really kind.”

“It’s nothing at all, Martin,” she replies at once, relieved to see him swallow the pills readily. “Let’s get you warm, and get you home.”

[commentaryvorg]

If you could change anything from Kaito's character arc in V3, what would you change?

Honestly? The short answer is nothing.

Kaito's character arc is fantastically crafted. There are so many tiny, seemingly-innocuous lines and moments that actually serve a vital purpose in either showing us what's going on in Kaito's head despite him never talking about it, or in pushing his arc along further, all of which I had so much fun talking about throughout the commentary. Granted, a lot of it is subtle and difficult to spot - but then it should be, considering how much Kaito tries to hide his issues. When you look for it, though, it is very deliberately there and not meaninglessly ambiguous at all. There's not a single part of Kaito's arc where I'm thinking “this was written badly”; even his phobia, as much as I'm sad that it gives Kaito less screentime and less being-himself in chapter 3, serves multiple purposes for the story and for Kaito's arc. Kaito's writers are the best and I adore how much care and attention they put into writing him.

I've seen a fair few people, presumably fans of Kaito, say “Kaito deserved better”, and... they're wrong. Well, unless they mean it in a purely in-universe sense, in which case of course he did, but then so did everyone, that's kind of the point. But if they mean it in an out-universe sense, in that they think Kaito deserved a better story for how good of a character he is? No! Kaito's story is amazing. He is the best-written character in this game and got absolutely everything he deserved, narratively speaking. I genuinely believe this with all of my heart. If other people don't see it, then they aren't looking hard enough - which is understandable, but also a shame when those people are fans of Kaito who presumably want to enjoy his story as much as they can. I just want to take all of these people and show them my commentary so that they can realise just how good Kaito's arc really is and love him even more like he deserves. (And I am endlessly thrilled that the commentary does seem to have had that kind of effect on some people!)

Obviously I would also love to see a story in which Kaito learns that it's okay to show weakness to his sidekicks, completely untangles his horrendous double-standard for heroes and begins to have healthy, mutually-supportive relationships with his friends. But... that was never this story. This is a story in which Kaito's messed-up view of what it means to be a hero literally gets him killed while all but destroying his sense of self-worth in the process, yet he still manages to keep fighting and make at least some kind of difference for his friends anyway, because he still is a hero despite what he might believe about himself. And that's also a fantastic story to tell!

It's kind of like something I've also considered about Ryoma. It would have been quite possible to tell a story in which Ryoma overcomes his issues and finds a reason to live and survives, and I'd have loved a story like that with him, because Ryoma is great and deserves to be happy. But the story of how he didn't manage to overcome his issues and tragically died because of them is also a compelling story that it's possible to tell with Ryoma's character - and, well, someone had to be chapter 2's victim. With characters as ripe with potential as Kaito, or Ryoma, or really any complex and well-written character in anything, there's so many different and equally compelling stories that could be told with them. But you can't tell all of those stories at once, and that's okay.

(That's why it's great that we have fanwork, to explore all of those other possible stories that couldn't be told in canon!)

With all that said, since this is about Kaito, you know I don't want to just leave it at the (very elaborated-upon) short answer. So here's a few things I thought of anyway that I might want to change if I could - all of which are really very minor nitpicks that barely matter in the grand scheme of things.

The absolute first thing I'd do is remove those four-ish lines in which Kaito is vaguely sexist in a way that is provably out-of-character for him. Gone. Expunged. Never there. Suddenly, magically, there is no longer a portion of the fandom that believes that Kaito is supposed to be sexist, and we literally only changed like four lines of his dialogue. Funny, that.

I'd also want to slightly change the parts where Kaito freaks out in a too-extreme way over ghosts once his phobia's been revealed. Not only is it not really quite in character for him to overreact that badly when he'd be doing his best to hide it, it also comes across like Kaito's phobia is being played for comedy. Which it shouldn’t be. He is literally mentally ill; that's not a joke.

These are the only two aspects of the way in which Kaito's written that I find actively bad in any appreciable way. And, yeah, they're really minor things that don't have anything to do with his actual character arc. That's kind of my point here!

...Though, admittedly, the part where Maki punches Kaito after he clings to her during his phobia-overreaction does actually play a small role in his character arc in that it seems to shift him into beginning to freak out more about his physical illness instead. Hm. Not sure what I'd do about that.

In terms of things I might change that are more meaningful and relevant to Kaito's arc, as I've said, there's really nothing that's actively bad at all. Rather, we're just getting into things where I'd maybe want to add a little bit more on top of what's already there.

Kokichi Doing The Thing in trial 4 - aka, repeatedly heaping insincere praise onto Shuichi in what's really a transparent attempt to jab at Kaito's jealousy and inferiority complex - should have continued for longer than it did instead of being weirdly confined to one specific quarter of the trial. There are plenty of moments after that that would have been perfectly good opportunities for it! And yes, this is absolutely part of Kaito's arc, shush. Not that this would have significantly affected how Kaito would respond or make his breakdown any more spectacular than it already was, mind you, because Kokichi's jabs at Kaito were not nearly as important as Kokichi wanted them to be.

Then there's the part in chapter 5 where, after being kidnapped and offscreen for a while, Kaito has evidently become okay with Shuichi being more of a hero than him and can just be openly proud of him again. There's no specific evidence indicating why this happened, even though it's a pretty important shift for Kaito. This was the only part of Kaito's arc that I speculated about in the commentary without having anything concrete to back up what I think went on there. So if possible, I'd like to add some hints at that.

...That's easier said than done, though, since Kaito gets so little screentime at this point in the story for unavoidable plot reasons, is still not willing to directly talk about his issues, and was never even really consciously aware of his toxic double-standard for heroes that was the root of this whole problem that he's finally begun to fix. It's entirely possible that this is something the writers already wanted to hint at more than they did, but they just couldn't find a way to plausibly do so in that situation. This also still wouldn't be me changing anything about Kaito's arc, just making part of it a bit more easy to notice and figure out.

Lastly - though this isn't even strictly part of Kaito's arc - I'd love to have Shuichi acknowledge more than he does that Kaito had been suffering, and for him to reflect on that and wish that Kaito hadn't been so selfless (just like he did at one point with Kaede!). Obviously I wouldn't want to make him more aware of it for most of Kaito being alive, because that'd change too much and because Shuichi's obliviousness is part of the excruciating tragedy of it all. But after hearing at the end that Kaito really was sick and dying all along, and that Kaito was jealous of him, Shuichi should have been able to recognise at least some of Kaito's vulnerability in hindsight. Having some reflection on that at the end of chapter 5 or at some point during chapter 6 would be lovely to underline and draw attention to what Kaito's story was really about from Kaito's perspective. It might even prompt more of the fandom to actually realise this and notice what an amazing arc Kaito had, which sure would be nice.

...In fact, there's a very small window of time in which Shuichi could have plausibly acknowledged this kind of thing a little more than he did while Kaito was still alive to hear it and potentially benefit from it. So, actually, now that I think of it: the one change I'd make that'd have any real impact on Kaito's arc at all? It'd be this.

[arthurflecksgirl]

Mysterious stranger /Arthur being stalked by you

This was a request by someone on Twitter :)

Arthur is being stalked by a pretty girl /YOU

I decited to write from Arthurs view and the girls view.

So it switches.

Arthur and reader

Romance

Warnings: Nothing really, mentions of mental illness,

ENJOY :) <3

ARTHUR I just woke up all sweaty in in the middle of the night one more time. My insomnia was getting bad again. I felt like it has been getting worse since mum was at the hospital. I was worried about her condition. I even forgot to take my meds yesterday, which was bad. The pills helped me to find some rest at night. Without them my mind was racing, keeping me awake. Driving me INSANE. I usually started to write in my journal when I couldnt sleep but without my medication there were just black scribbles all over the diary when I looked at the pages. The last time I was off my meds I wrote the whole night through and when I looked in my journal the next morning,there was nothing but blank pages. Nothing. So, there is a reason I shouldnt forget to take them. But too many thoughts ran through my head yesterday, I just didnt thought of anything else. First of all I thought about Penny and if I was the reason she ended up at the hospital. I felt like I am a burden to her. She always told me I was brought into the world to spread joy and laughter. But she doesnt even think i`m funny. Imagin what a disappointment I must be to her.I was born for a reason and I couldnt even fullfill my destiny. This shit really kept me awake. And some other thing... A week ago I just came home from my therapist. And when I was waiting on the tram station, there was this girl in the middle of the crowd. She just kept on staring at me like... I don`t know. She just did. And it kinda scared me.I wasnt  used to peope staring at me like that. Usually I was the one observing things around me. Watching people. I always tried to observe. I need it for my jokes. The best jokes are inspired by real life actions. Stuff you see happening on the streets. I also watched people closely to understand what they are laughing about and how they react to jokes. Sometimes I sat on a table at Pogos and made little notes about what I think is important. I really wanted people to like me. I wanted be a light for them. Gotham needs some light. I wanted to be listened to and I wanted to be seen. I`ve got a lot to say but I`ve never talked to others cuz I didn`t knew how to start a conversation.  So I watched and learned how others managed to do that. I realized that my timing is a bit off when I laughed at others jokes. I`m wasn`t sure why. I needed to find out. Anyway, I wasn`t used to someone staring at me. I always wished someone did and when I saw that girl I should have been happy that she saw me but I didnt knew what to do about it. I wasnt sure WHY she was looking at me the way she did. If it was for good or for bad reasons. And I guess thats what made me insecure about  the whole situation. As soon as I got in the tram I kinda forgot about it but two days later I saw her again. I was standing in the pharmacy and was just about to pay, when I saw her standing outside the window. She was beautiful. There is no doubt it was the same girl. She was looking at me again.  I payed and when I turned around she was gone. For a moment there I was scared it might be another episode of hallucinations. That would be really bad. But it could be. I mean... why should a pretty face like her standing there, staring at me TWICE? I`m afraid this isnt really happening. Dr Kane said I should watch out for more hallucinations, especially about girls. So I will.

YOU This city made me sick. It`s beent two weeks since I moved here and already hated it here. It was grey, it smelled and people were rude. I didnt wanted to become one of the peole here. It seemed like it was a bad desicion to move here in the first place, but I couldnt afford to pay rent anymore, so I ended up here, in this really bad neighborhood.  I felt like I screwed up my life. Sleep was something I barely remembered. Every night I was lying awake, afraid of someone might brak into my apartment. Like I said... bad neighborhood.You couldnt trust anyone here. A week ago I got so nerveous while trying to sleep that I got up, made some tea and watched out the window. Even at night people walked down the streets, mostly homeless guys. It was one ugly, rainy, cold night. I sipped on my tea and watched the raindrops falling on the dark pavement. Like the whole city was crying out loud. I burned my tongue on the hot cup . I swear I saw someone standing in the window across the street. But it was no one there. Oh great, I thought. Two weeks here in Anderson avenue and you already start to see shadowns at night. But then I saw it again. It wasnt a shadow. It was a man standing in his kitchen, smoking a cigarette. Oh, just a neighbor, no shadows. Good. I realized that I could see most of the kitchen, his curtains were kinda see though. He turned around so I could see his profile. He had almost shoulder long, bown hair, slightly curly, a beautiful jawline and high cheekbones. I could tell from the distance that he was indeed very beautiful. I turnedmy light off to make sure he couldnt see me standing at the window, looking into his. But he didnt looked out the window anyway. It looked like he was talking to someone, but as far as I could tell he was the only one in the room. I watched him puttig down his cigarette as he took off his dark red sweater. I didnt expected him to be this thin. It seemed like he stopped talking and suddenly he started to raise his hands above his head, moving gracefully. He was dancing all alone by himself. In his kitchen. I couldnt help but staring at him and started to feel kinda bad for watching this behind my curtain. But something about him was just so insanly attractive. i stared at his fragile chest, his bony ribs, his messy bed hair. I guess he couldn`t find sleep, just like me. I wondered if he was sleepwalking. The way he moved was extraordinary. Suddenly he stopped. I almost got scared because I was so drawn to his dance moves, it seemed so unnatural to just stop. I took a step back from my window because he came a step closer to his. But he just leaned over the sink now. It looked like he was crying.  Something about this hurted my heart. I didnt even knew him but I couldnt help but feeling empathy for this beautiful, fragile man across the street, He was crying harder now. I felt my eyes watering as he slapped his own face. Why would he do that? Then he watched out the window. I was hiding in the corner of my room so fast I guess my curtains moved. I hope he didnt caught me staring. My heart was racing. Was he still there? I waited two minutes till I watched out the window again. He was gone.

ARTHUR I decited to go through the pages again I had written a week ago. I have to figure out why I remembered writing something that wasnt there in the morning. I skipped though the paged and stopped at a page that didnt even looked familir to me. Little drawings of catladies smoking cigs. i don`t remenber drawing this and start to read. "Insomnia is choking me again. It wrappes its strong arms around my neck, smothering me to death. At least thats how it feels while lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. So last night I wandered around the apartment for at least two hours straight. I smoked two packs of cigs as the music started playing in my head again. There is always music in my head, well, most of the time. Sometimes it gets so loud I can`t ignore it anymore. Its just floathing althrough my body, like energy. It holds me in its warm arms and I have to obey. It wanted me to dance again last night, so I moved around the kitchen to the music and it was so tragically beautiful in between the movements it made me do, that it almost started to hurt my body. So I stopped and wished for the sound to stop but it didnt and I just stood there and started to cry. Watching my tears falling into the kitchen sink, like the rain outside. The music still playing in my head. I slapped my face. Hard. Still noisy. I watched out the window. Gotham was crying, too. The city was just as depressed as I was. I swear I could see a shadow in the window across the street. But thats impossible. The neighbors there moved out some weeks ago. Must be my visions again."

YOU I couldnt stop thinking about the man across the street since I saw him. I watched out the window for so many times but I didnt got to see him for about thee days. But then I saw him crossing the street as I was just about to go buy some food. I know it wasnt the right thing to do but I followed him. I just needed to see him closer. I kept my distance so he won`t notice me. He was walking like someone that just got beaten up, his thin body hidden behind a brown sweater , and a jacket that looked way too huge on his small shoulders. He kept looking to the ground, his brown curls hanging sweaty upon his forehead. Even though his body language looked sad, he still managed to be extremly attractive to me. He was walking to the tram station and waited on his tram to arrive as I tried to be just a face in the crowsd, so I could take a closer look at him. I passed some people standing in the way until I found the right spot. There he was. Just about some foots away from me.And suddenly, as I was staring, he was looking right at me. God, I felt like my heart just sopped. Never ever have I seen more beautiful eyes in my life. So intense, piercing right though me, green but so very sad. I dont know if it was just my mind playing tricks on me but i felt like he caught me staring. I wanted to  turn around and leave imediately but his tram arrived and he got in there before I could even react. At night his pretty face appeared in my mind. Againa nd again. I just couldnt get him out of my head.I was closing my eyes, and caught myself dreaming about kissing him.  I laughed at myself. Silly girl ! Dreaming about the mysterious new neighbor was such a clishe. But it wouldnt help. I still wanted to get to know him. there was something so mysterious about him. His little dance in the kitchen. The crying at the sink.... his eyes!   I thought about ways to just talk to him, I mean we were neigbors, right? I could find a reason to just go to him and say something. But nothing came to my mind. So I decited to follow him one more time. Maybe he would just ran into me and we would talk. Two days later I saw him leaving the house again, so I threw a jacket over my shoulder and got downstairs in a hurry. This time there weren`t much people around so it was even harder for me to follow him without getting caught. Something about watching him started to turn me on.It was fun to fantasize about someone who didnt even knew you existed. But at the same time I wanted him to know that I exist. Maybe not yet but... He went to the pharmacy. I stopped outside. I thought about going in and pretend I wanted to buy something. But I forgot my purse so this would have been embarrassing. I saw him from behind, his blue pants looked baggy on him. Everything did. And just when I thought this was a good situation to stalk him, he turned around again and I knew he saw me. He looked me right into my eyes! I captured the moment he looked at me in my mind and tought about it in the afternoon, when I was lying in my bed, dreaming about touching his beautiful face. Soon he became my fave fantasie. I couldnt even find pleasure in any other daydream anymore. He was my sexy secret and I liked it that way. But I just knew that soon this wouldnt be enough. I had to get closer. I wanted him to see me. Not just from across the street. I wanted to get to know him as a person. I needed to know his story, I needed to know why he was so sad.

ARTHUR I just couldnt figure out my very own diary anymore. Something definitaly went wrong at the moment. I guess all the lonelyness got too much. I mean, I must have been used to this  but i wasnt. It got harder every day of my life. I wished for someone to love me so much that I had visions about girls. I tend to get them a lot but then it stopped for a while and now it seemed to start again. I was kinda worried about my condition and took two more pills today. I knew I shouldnt but I thought it would be better than forgetting to take them again. The slight overdose made me sweat a lot so I was in underwear only for the whole day, just lying on the coouch, watching all my fave episodes of teh Murray Franklin show. The only thing that made me stay up was going to the kitchen to make some coffe. I watched out the window while waiting for the water to bowl. There she was again. the girls I saw at the tram stationa nd at the pharmacy. She was crossing the street. I checked my forehead for fever.  I was burning up. Must be the overdose. "She`s not really there" I whispered to myself "Arthur, she`s not real, don`t even look". But I looked. And I could swear she was looking up my window before she headed to my house. I blushed. But I guess that was also caused by the fever. God, she looked like an angel. Such a sweet girl. She would never even  give me a look in real life. I knew that. And if she did... I wouldn´t even know what to do. I`ve never been with a woman before in my whole life. I never even kissed someone before. I`m just a loner. All I have are my fantasies. And Dr Kane wants to take them away from me,too. Maybe I should just give in and accept them. What if it wasnt a hallucination this time? What if this girl really saw me? What if?

You I did it. I wrote him a postcard. I held the card in my hands for like an hour and stared at it. I thought I wasnt brave enough to actually throw it in his letter box. But I did.I sneaked into the house and when I was standing in front of the letter boxes I wondered which one could be his. Thank god  some lady just got out of the elevator and I asked her which letter box belongs to the window with the thin curtain. And she told me that they belong to apartment 8J. It just took me about some seconds to find the right box. P. FLECK. There it was. FLECK. I threw my postcard in without giving it a second thought, otherwise I would have changed my mind. I was heading back home, blushing.

ARTHUR I woke up with a bad headache. Another appointment with Dr. Kane. I wanted to take a bath but I was too lazy and decited to let it be. I just brushed my hair back, lighted a cig and went out the house. I checked the letter box and hoped for a letter from Thomas Wayne, I mean, I knew there wouldnt be one but it would make my mother happy so I still hoped for it. Somehow she was obsessed with Wayne and I didnt even knew why. My heart just skipped a beat as I saw an hand written postcard. Wayne? I started reading it. "Dear mysetrious stranger, You don`t know who I am but I saw you out on the streets some days ago and I think I fell in love with you. I even dreamed about you at night. I really hope you`re doing fine. Kisses The girl who loves you"

I just kept staring at the letters. I rubbed my eyes. the letters were still there. The girl who loves you. I must have blushed. Was this real? I let my fingers slide over the paper. It felt real. I turned the card around. A plain red heart on white background. I touched it so many times and hoped for a proof that this was eighter real or a dream. Sometimes I am not sure anymore. Who would ever send me a card? I searched for a stamp. None. Someone must have threw it in the letter boy by themself. The girl ! The girl I saw on the street. Now it all made sense to me. Was she following me? I smiled. The thought of this pretty girl having a crush on me was wonderful. But I got scared at the same time. I could never get up and talk to her. How could I? I bet she thinks I am some sexy guy who knows how to get it on. She was dreaming about me? What dreams? I imagined her touching herself while thinking about me and I giggled to myself. "Nahh she wouldnt do that" I said to myself. Reading the postcard again "Or would you, sweet strange girl?" I put the postcard close to my heart. Her fingers must have touched the paper all over when she was writing me these lines. Does she want to touchme with those fingers? Oh I would love to touch her fingers. But what if she ever comes up to me personally and I would just stand there, frozen. Not a word coming out of my mouth? The thought of this scared me a lot. My biggest fear was to laugh in her presence.The laugh that wasnt really one. My condition. That would scare her away for sure. I felt my eyes watering and a tear fell on the postcard, right on the word "kisses". It smeared, which made me even sadder. I needed this card to be perfect. I felt the urge to laugh coming up my throath. But then something else came to my mind. What if I showed the card to Dr. Kane? She could proof to me that this card truly exists. The urge to laugh was gone. I put the card into my paper bag and hurried up to see Dr. Kane.

"Hello, Arthur. How have you been thoughthe last week? Any negative thoughts?" Dr Kane was repeating her same old questions again as I smoked my cig. Next thing would be asking me about my journal. BUT I would have something much more interesting with me this time. "I brought something with me today" I said as I grabbed the card. "I wondered if you could take a look and tell me what you think about this?" Dr Kane took the card out of my hands. She read it. "Who gave it to you, Arthur?" "The girl who loves me" Dr Kane gave me that look "Arhur..." "Well... it says `The girl who loves you `  there at the end, right? "Right" "So, you see it too?" "Sure, Arthur" She gives me the card back. I smiled. It was real. The card was real. Which meant the girl was real,too. No hallucinations. No visions. "Good" "So someone send it to you?" "I found it in my letter box, it has no stamp" "No stamp? Are you sure you didnt wrote it yourself?" she looked confused. I bet she couldnt imagin someone falling in love me me eighter. "Dr Kane, you know how my handwriting looks like." "Right. Can I see it again?" I gave her the card back. Her eyes are focused on it. "No typos" she whispered to herself. "Looks like someone really likes you, Arthur. Be careful" "W-what do you mean?" "You know that you sometimes... well... you tend to lose sense of reality sometimes. It could be difficult to meet up with a girl for you". I put the card back in my bag. "You think I couldnt handle it to have a girlfriend?" "Thats not what I said..." "It is exactly what you said" I got up and left the room. "See you next week, Dr Kane. I cant do this today" I got back home and placed the card under my pillow. I wanted to sleep on it. It was the first love note I ever got and felt so special. I grabbed my Pjs out of my wardrobe and looked at the red suit hanging in there. I never put it on by now. I always felt like it is waiting for a special event in my life. But nothing special ever happens. Until now. The card. the love note. The girl. I grab the suit and walk to the mirror. Holding it in front of my body to see how it would look like on me. I felt so insecure when thinking about dating a girl. I didnt knew how to react in front of her. Maybe the suit would help? I shook my head. Nahh. Just a stupid thought. Back in bed I imagined how it would be to have a girlfriend. To go out on dates with her, walking hand in hand across the streets. I bet Gotham wouldnt be half as bad as if its now. Sharing my life with someone. My bed. Having someone to cuddle with at night. Someone to calm down my bouncing leg. Someone to have sex with, It would be sweet. I fell asleep with a smile on my face.

YOU Its been a day since I threw the card in the letter box. No answer. Of course not. He didnt even knew who I was. I watched out the window and hoped to see him in his apartment again. I got lucky this time. I saw him lying on the couch watching tv. He wora a cosy PJ and looked so cute in it. Still sexy though. I could eat him up. I wish I could just go over, knock on his door and tell him that i am the girl who send him the card. I wonder if he even got it yet. maybe he didnt open the letter box since then.  I saw him smoking, writing down some notes.   I tried to see more details of the living room. There was a clown mask and a costume hanging beside a mirror. It seemed like he had a thing for clowns, which made me think. maybe I`ll have a lil surprise for him... I searched through my stuff and  found the big, red flower that used to be part of a Clown outfit I was wearing years ago when I dressed up with my best friends. It looked brand new. Maybe he would like it. I put a little note on it and decited to put it in front of his door. Tomorrow. I couldn`t wait. The next morning I got out of bed early, to wait till he got out of the house.  When he did I sneaked into the house and waited till someone came out again, which lastet at least 50 minutes but it was worth it. I got in the elevator and walked to the door which said 8J. I hold my breath for a second. That was were he lived. He walked through that door every day. I wish I could just walk through it and go into his apartment.Looking though his stuff. I was a bit shamed of myself for having those kinda feelings. I felt like a stalker. But I couldnt stop my own thoughts from wanting him.  I put the big plush Flower down on the doormat and touched the door knob. Just to touch it. To touch what he touched  some about an hour ago. It felt sexy.

ARTHUR I just came home from work at Haha`s and felt drained. It was a long day. I got out of the elevator and saw something lying on my doormat. A big, red plush flower. Like one for clowns! My heart jumped when I picked it up. There was a little note saying "Dear stranger, if you want to meet me , I`ll be at the little fountain in the park today  at 7 O`Clock . The one with the litlle bird stature. It would be a pleasure to get to know you better. Kisses, The girl who loves you"

I bit my lips. Another note. She wanted to meet me. My hands were shaking while reading the note one more time. I actually was shaking so much I had troubles to get my keys into the lock. I threw my jacket on the couch, sat down and pressed the plushy flower to my chest. It felt so soft to the touch. A present. I never got presents. Not even when I was a kid or on my birthdays. Everything about this felt so special. I wanted to meet her so bad but at the same time I was so scared about meeting her, I stood in front of the mirror and looked at my reflection. I looked tired. Drained. Like someone sucked the life out of my. Heavy bags under my yes, from not getting enough sleep. I brushed my hair back. Better. At least a lil bit. I checked the time and realized it was already after 5 O`clock. I got no time to waste. Should I really go there? Or was Dr Kane right?

YOU I got ready for my potential date. I  didnt even knew if he would show up but i hoped so. I dressed up in my usual clothes. I wanted to be my authentic self around him. I was already waiting on the spot 30 minutes too early. I just couldnt wait any longer. I needed to know if he would come. I wanted to get to know him so bad.

ARTHUR Alright, I could never forgive myself if i wouldnt take the chance, so I decited to show up. I took a bath to feel fresh, washed my hair and put on some nice clothes. Not the red suit though. I picked dark red pants, a matching vest and a white shirt under it. I hope I looked decent in it and bought some roses before I made my way to the park. I bought them from the last dollars I had but I didnt cared. I wanted to give her some nice flowers. Gotham looked different today while watching out of the trams window. Less dark and depressing. But I guess it was just me feeling better as usual. I just wanted it to be a nice date. I just wanted her to like me for who I am. I got out of the tram, walking into the park. I saw her from a distance already. There was just one person standing at the fountain, so it must have been her. She was so beautiful, I couldnt belive she was waiting FOR ME. My hands holding the roses started to get all sweaty and I wiped them off on my pants. I stumbled right in front of her as I arrived and the flowers fell out of my hands.  "Ooooppps...I`m...I`m so sorry.. I...." my nervousness killed me. She similed at me as I picked up the flowers and handed them to her "I....um....brought you...som..something...um..." I stuttered. She gave me the sweetest hug "Thats so sweet of you...? Um... I don`t even know your name" she was blushing. "Arthur. My name is Arthur." "Hey Arthur. I`m Y/N. Nice to meet you. Thank ou so much for the roses. They`re beautiful". "Yeah... thank you for the notes...I don`t know what to say...you`re beautiful". Y/N smiled from cheek to cheek. "Thank you, Arthur. Would you like to take a walk though the park and get some coffee later? It would be a nice way to get to know each other. What do you think?" "I think this sounds just wonderful". She gently wrapped her arm around my waist as we were walking though the park. It was a late summer evening and for the first time ever I noticed the birds singing. The music in my head stopped. Maybe Gotham wasn`t as bad after all.

[hwu-adventures-blog]

Goodbye, My Ernest

(Ernest x MC):

A/N: this is a companion to my previous fic The Next Great Adventure, where at the end of the fic I said I’d probably write Ernest’s death. This is that fic. Also I was also debating when writing the previous fic about who would die first, my MC, Beatrice or Ernest. Mostly because mortality was not the greatest in 1700/1800s but then I thought Ernest has been through way too much thanks to Pixelberry and losing the MC would just be too much for the poor man and so I ended up deciding that Ernest was to go first. Anyway it’s sad, extremely sad , to the point it genuinely made me cry whilst writing it. Enjoy!

The year 1866, Ledford Park, England, eight thirty five in the morning.

By the time she was seventy, Beatrice Sinclaire was almost completely content with her life. She had a husband, whom, she loved more than the world itself, four successful living children of her own, seven brilliant grandchildren with one more due soon, and was running Edgewater Estate (and Ledford Park) quite effectively.

That being said, she most certainly was not ready to move on just yet and was certain she had plenty of summers to spend with her grandchildren and her husband left before their time to leave this mortal coil. However that didn’t mean her life was not without a few terrible tragedies, her mother’s illness and long awaited (but not long awaited in a bad way of course) passing when she was twenty years, father’s death so soon after she’d gotten to know him, the calling off of Mr Sinclaire’s first proposal due to her forced engagement to Mr Richards (which thankfully ended after an intervention from the then Queen of England, Charlotte, god rest her soul, and he was now long gone and hopefully burning in Hell), and the most tragic of them all, the loss of one of her children, one half of the twins, George, who at age six succumbed to Yellow Fever, such as his grandfather before him, only days after Mr Sinclaire’s birthday celebrations. But now, as she sat by the window of the master bedroom at Ledford, sewing a hole in one of her dresses, and reflecting on her life, she couldn’t help but worry that ankther one was soon on the way.

Ernest Sinclaire, who had been happily married to Beatrice for just over fifty years now, was laying in the bed in the middle of the room, and was watching his wife with a weak smile on his face. Old age was getting to him and he knew his time was drawing short, so he had done all the necessary things, last rights, funeral and will arrangements so that Beatrice didn’t have to worry, he’d even said his goodbyes to his children the day before, however, he just hadn’t been able to tell Beatrice, that he was dying. However, that morning, he’d started to feel himself slipping away and he knew it was time to say goodbye to the one thing he loved most in the world, even if it broke both their hearts to do so.

“You do know you can just get one of the maids to do that, if you’re struggling dear?” He spoke amused at his wife’s repetitive undoing and re threading of the needle and thread.

“I’m not struggling Ernest, it’s a simple fix”

“You could also go out and get a new dress”

“My mother taught me never to waste anything that is still in good condition, especially when there are those who are not as fortunate as us and besides the money for a new dress is going to go to those who need it more”

“I know, you’ve never wasted anything in the fifty years I’ve known you” Ernest said “I’m going to miss your generosity and kindness, Beatrice”

“What do you mean? You’re not going anywhere” Beatrice looked up from her sewing at her husband, her eyebrows frowning together in confusion, However the look she received from her husband said it all.

“No” Beatrice spoke dropping her dress to the side in shock she could not, would not fathom the situation Ernest was suggesting, Ernest knew that look well, it was the same look she’d expressed upon learning the severity of George’s illness, some thirty eight years ago, it was a look of utter refusal of reality, mixed with grief.

“Beatrice-“

“Not now”

“Beatrice, listen to me”

“No Ernest, I forbid you to-“

“Come here” he said interrupting his wife’s sentence and indicating to her side of the bed “please”

Beatrice obeyed, getting to her feet and walking over to their bed and sitting down next to him on the soft covers.

“Just hold on until the children visit again today, please, Ernest”

“Beatrice, I do not wish to worry them twice, especially when Clementine is so close to giving birth” Ernest said “and I had the last rights two days ago, whilst you were out. Better sooner than it being too late”

“But what will they think if they do not get to say goodbye to you- please Ernest, just hold on, for their sakes, if not mine”

“I said my goodbyes yesterday, all I want to do is spend my last hours with the woman I am proud to call my wife” Ernest said grasping Beatrice’s hand and giving it a weak squeeze

“Don’t leave me, Ernest, please, I know it’s selfish of me but- long ago, we told each other we couldn’t bare the thought of losing each other and now I can’t imagine a day without you,” Beatrice whispered

“We’re so old now, Beatrice, I hadn’t expected to live past forty five, you did it once a long time ago, and you’ll do it again, that being said, there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret almost trampling over you with my horse, or any of the days that followed”

That earned a little smile from Beatrice “I do not regret a single moment either”

“You’ll keep an eye on Ledford for me won’t you? I know it’s not yours in the will anymore- but Mary might need some help, since she is probably not expecting to inherit-“ Ernest suddenly was overcome by the struggle to breathe, his breath becoming more laboured

“I will, now, don’t over work yourself, you’re not as young as you used to be” Beatrice scolded her husband playfully

Ernest let out a small chuckle at his wife “I’m going to miss your sense of humour the most I think”

“I think my father was right, in a way, he said you were good and cared for me well even if you are a bit rough around the edges”

“You cared for me as well, I’m glad I ended up with you as my wife”

“You could have been worse off, you could have married Felicity Hollloway”

“And You could have married Mr Richards, which I am still thankful to Queen Charlotte, for stopping”

“We’d have found a way to be together, in the end”

“I’d have resorted to murder if I had to”

“How many times did we get close to that situation?”

“Two times too many” Ernest smiled his breathing shallower, “but I’m glad we did, or I wouldn’t have you” he said and they both knew that he was slipping away, it was a few seconds of raspy breathing from him before Ernest spoke once more “my beautiful wife and wonderful mother of my children, I love you so much my Beatrice” he raised Beatrice’s hand to his lips giving her one last kiss

“I love you too-” Beatrice smiled sadly, at her husband, fighting back the tears and giving Ernest’s hand a final squeeze, before his strength disappeared, dropping her hand, eyes fluttering close, and going still.

“-my Ernest”

And with that, Beatrice Sinclaire, wife, now widow of Ernest Sinclaire collapsed into her husband’s chest, and broke down in tears, refusing to move from him, even hours after her children had found them. And she knew, in that moment, that her heart would never be the same again.

A/N 2: the two times Ernest refers to are the situation in book 1 where Ernest rescues the MC from Duke Richards’ attempt to assault her which is also where they both said they couldn’t bare to lose each other (if you chose the diamond scene) and obviously the duel in book 2. Also, just worth pointing out, for those who don’t know, Mary, the first born daughter of Ernest and Beatrice, is the twin sister of George, and she might play a big role in the next chapter of Family Life I am currently writing and have been writing for a year (bloody writers block amongst other things) also when I say Beatrice’s own children, it’s because, I am leaving it open for the possibility of Percival Richards to be included if we are given the option to adopt him at the end of book 3 (which I am kind of hoping will happen because that boy deserves a good family and from what I can gather I’m not sure Rosalyn’s family was the best family for Percival and Ernest did say he’d grown fond of him before he had to send him to be with his family). So yeah, that’s it, hope you enjoyed reading it and thanks for doing so!

Tagged accounts (if you want to be tagged for any future Decorum and Decorum or any other choices fan fics then just let me know and I’d be happy to add you 😊): @princess-geek, @regencylady1810

[tfw-no-tennis]

huntoxhunto

we watched 2 whole more eps but we’re abt to vacay so i better recap this biz now before i forget

ok so we finished the zoldyck arc and uhhhh gotta say we werent expecting like any of that to happen lol 

ok ill back up so we start w/killuas mom (i dont think we ever heard her name) confronting gon & co....and canary (i lov her) is not dead which i assumed but thank goodness. 

zoldyck mom was totally using nen. also she is off her rocker gotta say. tho that visor is super cool, albeit confusing - is it connected to a bunch of security cameras or something? how does she see all that shit? 

granpa is wild. his tunic thing that says ‘one kill a day’ or w/e is kinda hilarious, it reminds me of the ‘apple a day keeps the dr away’ saying...a murder a day keeps the....idk away????

i love that killua makes it abundantly clear that he couldve like escaped at any time lol. also tho why didnt he just escape....baby boy just leave 

killua getting all serious and threatening milluki if he messes with gon....my boys got it BAD 

this family has so many communication issues hvbjadkfbjaskdfj nobody is on the same page at all 

the butler guy continued to remind me of kuro one piece this whole time...i was waiting for him to bust out the ridiculous cat claws

oh my GOD wait the flashbacks of EVEN BABIER KILLUA were so precious ;_; he was soooo tiny and cute oh my god. so precious. and canary was also so tiny and cute 

baby killua really just wanted a friend :(((( and canary wanted to be friends w/him but knew that mom zoldyck would kill her if she overstepped like that :( thats so tragic mannnn

also canary is so cool man. her beating up all those guys was epic

ok that whole scene with killua and his dad was like, such a rollercoaster lmao

like....it was all over the place for me...first of all the ambiance was wack, the room lighting was weird and im p sure killuas seat was an electric chair??? and the dad was in a coffin thing..???? like....interesting aesthetic choices all over the place here 

also i see now where killua got his hair and also his catboy tendencies. the zoldyck catboy genes seem to trace back to zoldyck dad, who has kinda scary cat eyes 

also im guessing that the dad is the blood zoldyck and the mom is the one who married in. they sure seem to put a lot of emphasis on like, family legacy or w/e, but the two parents certainty go abt it in different ways 

the whole convo b/w killua and his dad was wild, it totally didnt go where i was expecting it to. his dad was weirdly chill while also being super intense? 

killua happily telling stories abt gon was so sweet....baby boy baby 

and his dad telling him ‘never betray your friends’ was rlly interesting...i wonder what his reasons were for saying that 

cause then he tells killua he can leave, and killua does, but then dad zoldyck tells mom zoldyck (i rlly need to find out their names) that he thinks killua will come back on his own time....inch resting 

i wonder if dad zoldyck made killua promise that bc he was trying to set killua up for failure - as in, he tells killua to never betray his friends, thinking that killua inevitably will & be distraught abt it, and then turn back to the zoldyck family when this happens. idk

also its interesting to me that zoldyck dad wants killua to lead the family someday. like, illumi is right there, hes the oldest and clearly dedicated to being an evil assassin, and he seems p good at it...i wonder why killua is the favorite....the grandpa (i think) did say that killua is Special(tm) which...yes he is a special baby boy i love him. i wanna see more zoldyck family flashbacks/interactions so we can see what led them to this point 

oh lord that reminds me of illumi briefly appearing in the killua flashback and hes just like, suddenly there, wearing some gay ass sweater....like ok dude did you just come back from the Evil Assassin Library or st?????

that reminds me too, ruth tells me that apparently in the manga illumi and hisoka got married or something???? to which i say, thats fucking wild, but also it makes sense, those two are both horrible and disgusting and they absolutely deserve each other hbvajvhsdfjbak peak evil nasty gay rep, i love it. i cant wait to see whatever the fuck the context to that is bc, thats fucking wild

ok back to the plot so like its so wild to me how smoothly everything went hvubsjduhfbjsh like....killuas dad was rlly like ok u can leave and killua just went to the butler house and then canary woke up and was like ok gon & crew lets go to the butler house to see killua, fuck the rules, (and she didnt even get killed for ‘disobedience’ or w/e, or more likely - in most big shounen, she wouldve been attacked by the other evil butlers and gon wouldve had to fight them)

killua Rlly was like fuck this place im leaving my boyfriend and his parents are here to pick me up [puts on gayest outfit he owns and skateboards away] hvbhsjdfbjdkf

i love killuas weird gay preteen fashion so far and i cant wait to see more 

killua telling the butler guy to let him know as SOON as gon gets there cause he wants to see him AS SOON AS HE CAN ;_; bro they r....in love 

of course the butler is trickey tho lmao, any other shounen this wouldve turned into an 8 ep long fight scene sequence where gon has to fight the butlers in order to see killua 

and the of course gon is the same way, gon is like i need to see killua RIGHT NOW take me to him!!! ohhh my god babies

the whole coin game was wild, it was funny when the other butlers got involved too lmao 

when gon was like ‘hey leorio can i see your knife’ i was like OH NO I DONT LIKE WHERE THIS IS GOING. and i was right bc OWWWWW baby boy oh my god!!!! but that seems to have solved it even tho thats NOT how swelling works at ALL- 

anyways gon is a cute smart good boy and i also find it funny how killua eventually gets impatient and just busts in on this whole dramatic situation (and the tension immediately deescalates as a result lmao) 

tangent but god its so funny seeing all these butler guys deferring to killua, an actual 12 yr old....i wanna see the hilarious and hijink-filled results of killua being raised as a rich spoiled assassin prince. thats a lethal combo thats gotta result in some wildly skewed perceptions on how things work, especially paired with gon ‘probably eats dirt for fun and sleeps in trees’ freecess 

godddd gon and killuas lil reunion is SOOO cute they were so happy to see each other ;_; bro they are SO cuteeeee augh. two tiny babies

killua being like oh hi also uh kurapika andddd [looks at smudged writing on hand] lorpo 

hvhhbajfbs dont do my man leorio like that killua hes a hardworking father 

the fact that they just like. LEAVE...thats so wild. i cant believe how little fighting this arc had. this all wrapped up SO much faster than i could have ever anticipated lmao 

where the heck was alluka!? i assumed she’d show up here but uhhhh guess not......in the silhouette shot of all the zoldycks she and killua were holding hands ;_; my fucking uwus bro 

we also didnt see the grandma or great grandpa so im guessing theyll appear later 

gon being like fuck it im not using my hunters license til i punch hisoka in the fucking face hvbhahsfbjsk thats hilarious 

also a convenient way to let him have his hunters license but not utilize it til later in the story...its so early for him to have achieved that big chunk of his goal, which just shows that hxh is Not your typical shounen and isnt gonna just be centered around gons quest to become a hunter 

so we finally found out what hisoka said to kurapika....just as i thought, it was st to do w/the phantom troupe. so theres a handy setup for the yorknew city arc later. bam 

hisoka just being like ‘hey meet me in this (presumably) very large city on this date. no i will not tell you where in the city to meet me. bye seeya there’ 

tbf hisoka is very hard to miss 

god when they arrive and kurapika is just like ok well we got killua so im out lol bye everyone....bro hvbjkhgbfjhdksfhjk that felt so abrupt 

and then leorio was like oh yeah same i gotta go study time to take the fantasy MCAT or w/e

AND THEY BOTH LEFT....now gon and killua r chilling but im like oh my god no leorio kurapika come back, we need some (questionable) adult supervision over here 

and like immediately killua is like ok gon do you have money. and of Course gon doesnt have money. so killua is like well you need money and you need to train so you can deck hisoka, so lets go to a fantasy version of an underground fighting ring! this is why kurapika and leorio needed to stay 

tho they probably wouldve just gone along with it 

they did all promise to meet in yorknew city, but thats apparently like 6 months away. are gon and killua rlly gonna spend 6 months at heavens arena

the part where killua draws the diagram demonstrating how much of a n00b gon is....hvbajdkhfbhajskf

AND THEN when he drew himself into the diagram and was like :3c wow im so modest HBJHSKHDFHBJS that was so funny

it was like that post thats like ‘you can tell when a cats pupils change and they just shift into Silly Mode’ thats what killua looked like...catboy

so thats basically it i think, gon and killua are heading to heavens arena to join fight club or whatever. tournament arc time! 

PREDICTION CORNER: 

i doubt this is the last weve seen of the zoldyck family. i mean we havent even met 3 of them, and we barely saw the ones we did meet...idk when theyll come back but i suspect theyll be making some big money moves later on and fucking shit up somehow 

i think maybe illumi or someone will like, spy on killua sometimes to keep track of him. or theyll track him by other means

ill use the prediction corner to reflect on incorrect predictions so heres a few. i rlly thot killua was gonna be more edgy than he is but hes rlly just a good boy huh. like hes a gay baby assassin catboy but hes so cute and good too. he just wants to live his life and hang out with his tiny bf like... omg :’) 

also i thot hisoka held a totally different narrative role lbvahkfjhjjaksfl i thot he was like main villain guy....hes more like an annoying creepy clown dude who (probably) shows up a lot to bother the main cast. we’ll see, but thats what i think of him now

like i thought hisoka would be like p1 dio, where hed be/quickly become a powerful antagonist who would amass a bunch of followers/minions (when actually the only person he seems to hang out w/is illumi, and theyre more like equals than an evil guy/minion dynamic)...or like i thought hisoka would be very well known as a scary evil guy but nope he was just another participant in the hunter exam, albeit a weird freaky one whose rancid vibes everyone seemed to pick up on 

anyways actual predictions, i think hisoka is gonna be at heavens arena, which would be super funny. gon is like im gonna train to beat hisoka and he shows up to do that and hisokas just there like >;) hey

i think if i had to guess, the zoldycks will show up again (in a plot important way) at the end of the yorknew arc/before the greed island arc. i know basically nothing abt any of the arcs but i do know the order they go in so theres that

i do think illumi will show up earlier than the other zoldycks tho, since he seems to be out doing his own thing more than the rest. also we still really havent resolved the whole mind control thing that im still convinced of 

i think nen will finally be introduced/alluded to heavily in this arc...or like, characters will use nen and gon will be like whoa whats that 

i think killua knows what nen is...maybe? it would make sense since im sure all the zoldycks can use it (at least, we saw mom zoldyck use it, probably)

can killua use nen already? that would be pretty funny. i dont think so tho. maybe u learn nen at a certain age. i have no idea what nen is 

also isnt gons nen power the power to like, turn into a really buff version of himself or something. how the fuck does that work 

ok enough nonsense its bedtime zzzzz

[mst3kproject]

912: The Screaming Skull

This is another episode where the movie didn’t really leave an impression.  I remember the Gumby short, mostly on account of the bots’ traumatized reaction, and Tom Servo’s proboscis is one of those images that never goes away. But The Screaming Skull itself?  About the only thing I remembered about it was that it was in black and white.

Newlyweds Eric and Jenny pull up in the Electronic Car of Tomorrow outside their stately new home.  This house belonged to Eric’s previous wife, Marion, and Eric inherited it after she died in suspicious circumstances.  It doesn’t take long before Jenny begins seeing signs that Marion’s spirit is not at rest and does not approve of Eric’s decision to re-marry. Maybe it’s just Mickey, the disabled gardener who doesn’t quite understand that Marion’s dead.  Or maybe it’s Eric himself, who murdered his previous wife for her money and is planning to do the same thing to Jenny… but sssh, we’re not supposed to have seen that coming.

This movie gets one thing really, really right – and that’s the fucking peacocks.  Peacocks look pretty, but those shiny feathers cover up actual angry velociraptors who scream like the restless dead.  I stayed at a house in Italy where the owner kept peacocks and hearing them for the first time at two in the morning scared years off my life. They will also steal your food right out of your hands and drop it in the dirt without eating it, just because they’re assholes.

Other than that... my god, this is a dull, gloomy little movie.  It tries so hard to build suspense and all it builds is melatonin. Hearing a mysterious knock on the door once or twice is spooky.  Hearing it four or five or six times just draws our attention to the fact that it’s the same sound clip playing over and over.  Mickey is never believable as a threatening figure, while Eric, looming over Jenny with his I-know-what’s-best-for-you attitude, is so threatening and does things that are so obviously bad for her, you never believe in his innocence for a moment.

The fact that we know very well it’s Eric doing all the ‘haunting’ actually makes some of what’s going on quite funny.  For example, the bit with the repeated knocking.  You can picture him knocking and hiding in the bushes, counting to twenty and starting to wonder if Jenny is coming, and reaching out to knock again before once again leaping off the front step to hide.  Over and over again.  Then there’s the skull itself… is it supposed to be a real human skull?  If so, whose is it?  It can’t be Marion’s because her grave hasn’t been disturbed.  Where did he get it from?  How does the jaw stay attached?  Movies never think about this stuff.

Eric is a really repulsive figure, denying Jenny her autonomy and constantly pushing her to get worse.  Having made sure she identifies the portrait with Marion, he forces her to be the one who destroys it when she clearly doesn’t want to.  When she pleads to be put back in a safe place – the hospital – he refuses, telling her she will be happier at the house when it is patently not true.  I honestly wonder how this would have played in 1958. Did people back then honestly think a man knew what was good for his wife, particularly his mentally ill wife, more than she did herself?  Would they have seen Eric as merely overprotective instead of abusive, and been truly surprised by the reveal?  I have no idea but I hope not.

This abuser chooses as his victims people who are particularly defenseless.  Jenny has struggled with mental illness for years and has bought into the idea that being loved will cure her (Eric encourages this belief, even stating to Reverend Snow that she’ll be cured when she’s “really loved”), which leaves her incredibly vulnerable.  Eric’s chosen scapegoat, Mickey, has a disability that hampers his ability to communicate.  Eric describes him as having the ‘mind of a child,’ leading people to dismiss what Mickey says and to believe he will behave irrationally. Even if the truth comes out, Eric has every reason to be confident that people will believe the word of the able-bodied man over the disabled man or the mentally ill woman.

Eric’s behaviour and his status as unquestionable villain leaves me rather confused about one of the prominent motifs in the movie: that of The Beast in the Jungle, the story Mrs. Snow gives to Jenny.  It’s the tale of a man who only realizes he’s in love with a friend after she dies, and finds he has wasted his life.  The fact that they bother to give the story’s title and explain its plot suggests that it must be very important somehow.  I suppose we’re meant to see Eric as the hero of the story, who ignores the love of a woman and throws his life away for nothing.  But Eric is actively malicious towards the women in his life, while the protagonist of The Beast in the Jungle believes he’s cursed by a terrible fate and tries to protect his friend by not letting her get too close to him.  The two situations are not at all equivalent.

For all that, though, it’s possible to read The Screaming Skull as a feminist movie.  For the most part the movie infantilizes Jenny, treating her as somebody in need of comfort and care, yet she is also somebody who should be allowed to make her own decisions about the form that comfort and care take.  She wants a cure for her mental illness and learns that she cannot get it through the Power of Wuv.  Her tragic backstory and personal issues do not revolve around men, being rooted instead in her relationship with her mother.  Most interesting of all, Eric’s plot to get rid of Jenny involves turning her and Marion against each other – and it ultimately fails when Marion, from beyond the grave, refuses to let him!

Eric is Jenny’s only source of information about Marion. Mickey was close to her, but his handicap and his dislike of Eric keeps him from really talking to Jenny.  Eric tries in a dozen tiny ways to convince Jenny that Marion would have hated her, drawing on the fact that he already knows Jenny is prone to be jealous of other women.  All the information he gives her about Marion sets the dead woman up as a rival, right down to Mickey having liked her better and being expected to hate Jenny as a result.  But at the end of the story, Marion’s ghost arrives to speak for herself, and while she uses no actual words, her opinions are clear: she does not hate Jenny, she hates Eric, and she will not allow him to hurt his new wife.  This is a tale of women standing up for each other, even from beyond the grave!

On a practical level, unfortunately, Marion’s ghost is also where the movie falls apart.  The other characters have just discovered Eric’s deception and are discussing what to do about it, when the ghost appears in the form of a skeleton in a gown and hat and chases him across the estate before killing him!  In some movies this kind of supernatural denouement doesn’t work, being as much a deus ex machina as the dinosaur in The Beast of Hollow Mountain, but here it’s pretty satisfying.  Whether Eric actually murdered her or not (based on the information the movie gives us, we suspect this but cannot prove it), he has used Marion as a bogeyman, and she’s through with his bullshit and ready to take matters into her own spectral hands!   The problem is the ghost itself.  The skeleton in Marion’s clothes is ridiculous and the things that happen to it don’t help.

Take, for example, the moment when the skull clamps its jaws around Eric’s throat.  This looks so silly, especially when actor John Hudson is so obviously holding it there as he pretends to ‘struggle’ with it, that I laughed out loud.  My favourite part, though, is when Eric throws a chair at the ghost, and the fake skeleton goes flying apart.  Its arms were hanging from strings to keep them raised and when the prop falls apart they go sailing away in different directions!  It’s hilarious and it completely kills whatever mood of fear the movie has managed to generate.

And that’s not much, because the movie shoots itself in the foot right at the starting gate.  It opens with the infamous sequence in which the film-makers promise free burial to anybody who dies of fright while watching The Screaming Skull.  This is perhaps the ultimate example of telling the audience something you cannot show – they can’t show us a scary movie because all they’ve got is The Screaming Skull, so they tell us we’re about to see one.  The main effect of the bit, besides making the movie a couple of minutes longer, is to leave us extremely cynical.  What makes this movie think it can scare us literally to death?  As a result, we’re even less scared than what little scared we would have been anyway!

This one sucks.  It’s got some interesting subtext but that’s probably unintentional and the text is boring and predictable.  The Gumby short and Tom’s coffin delivery woes are far more interesting than anything in the feature presentation.  I fear we’re in for a succession of awful boring movies in the future because so far, when I’ve come upon a film I really don’t want to watch, I skip it and go on to something else.  Now I’m starting to run out of interesting movies.  It’s probably all downhill from here.

[fullmetalirin]

Fullmetal Alchemist: Return to Liore (OG 39-42)

I've gotten tired of the slow pacing. We're covering the whole Liore arc in one go!

Fullmetal Alchemist Episode 39: "Secret of Ishbal"

On the train ride to a military base near Lior, Mustang is dismayed to discover that Kimblee is a part of the force and has been reinstated as a state alchemist by Archer, who has been promoted to Colonel for this operation. The Elrics and Marta arrive in Ishbal, and are surprised to find that only ruins remain. There, they discover that 2nd Lts. Breda and Havoc have been spying on them, and they are brought to Mustang, who puts the Elric brothers under his supervision. At dinner, Mustang shows Ed an aerial view of Lior, which reveals that Scar, who has been dragging a giant rock around the city, gouging the earth, is creating a giant Grand Arcanum transmutation circle, which upsets Ed. Ed then goes to Colonel Archer and asks to go undercover into Lior to investigate the area for the military. Archer agrees on the condition that Al is left behind so Ed does not have the will to "go AWOL". He then leaves after giving Armstrong his silver pocket watch.

Winry doesn't want to tell Ross and Brosh any details, just vaguing that something's up with the military. Is she afraid they'll be targeted if they know?

Cartoonface when Winry tells Sheska she'll have to leave her books. I feel like Winry is carrying the plot okay, but Sheska is really dragging her down with all the awkward comedy.

Cartoonface with Al when Martel pulls a knife on Ed. Not the time.

Martel is okay with Ed killing Greed because she figured he wanted to die. That's a bit convenient.

Martel makes a quip about eating snakes being cannabilism, which is a little clever.

There's a short gag when Martel is offended when Ed calls her old. Not necessary.

We see the animals the chimeras were fused with during the flashback.

I'm not sure what Martel's reveal adds, honestly? The official inciting event was already orchestrated by Envy, if memory serves. The reveal that they incited Ishbal with an earlier attack seems redundant, and also a lot less meaningful than a single small action causing this huge avalanche.

Archer actually moves for his gun during Ed's obligatory shortness freakout gag.

Ed is hogging all the food when they eat.

Ed confronts Mustang over hiding Liore's situation from him. He feels responsible, but Mustang said he'd get too emotional.

Ed meets the bartender from the first episode when he returns to Liore. We end with Lust and Gluttony overlooking the area as they did in episode 2, before Ed runs into Scar. Meanwhile, Martel sees Kimblee and attacks him. Double cliffhanger!

I will admit that the leadup to this seemed pretty pointless – if it's common knowledge that Ishbal is in ruins, why are the Elrics surprised, and what did they expect to find there? The driving question of the past few episodes ends up leading nowhere. If the real action was taking place in Liore, the plot should have taken them there sooner. Still, things are starting to move again. I'm particularly liking that we're finally getting teeth to the threat that Ed will be forced to serve the military in the event of another Ishbal.

Fullmetal Alchemist Episode 40: "The Scar"

After arriving in Lior, Ed finds his old acquaintance Rosé, who is now called "Holy Mother" and unable to speak. He also runs into Scar, and the two of them begin battling in an alley, to be interrupted by Lust and Gluttony. Al and Marta are shocked to find Kimblee at the military base, and Marta, acting out of rage, attacks Kimblee, and after a failed attempt to injure Marta by sacrificing a soldier, Kimblee finds himself fighting Al, who is protecting Marta. The battle is broken up by Mustang. Scar reveals his past to Ed, at the insistence of Rosé and Lyra, who is acting as Rosé's voice. Before the war, Scar's brother lost his fiance due to a fatal illness, and tried to use alchemy to bring her back, but instead created Lust. His brother then went on to create the Philosopher's Stone, and it is revealed where Scar's tattooed arm comes from, and the X-shaped scar on his face. He then reveals his plans to use the Grand Arcanum to create another Philosopher's Stone, but not by sacrificing the people of Lior, but by sacrificing the soldiers of the military. Führer Bradley arrives at the military base, and has a private conversation with Kimblee, where he is given the instructions to go into Lior and cause trouble, and return with Ed's dead body. Marta overhears this and also discovers that Bradley is actually Pride, the seventh and final homunculus, whose Ultimate Eye is hidden under the eyepatch. She encounters Al and hides inside him, but Bradley comes and sticks his sword inside Al, tragically killing Marta.

Al stops Martel from killing Kimblee. Kimblee promptly throws a people-bomb at them. Al is an idiot.

Al saves Martel by grabbing her and jumping from the balcony, but… Martel is still landing on armor, that's gotta hurt.

Kimblee gloats about Martel and Al not being people, and Al fights him. He pulls out chalk to draw a transmutation circle awfully quickly, and raises pillars of stone. Kimblee immediately turns them into bombs, but Al seals him in a box, trapping him in the explosion. What happened to not killing people, Al? Kimblee conveniently survives, somehow. Mustang shows up and does not do anything despite Kimblee explicitly telling him he plans to kill Al.

Ed learns Scar killed Nina and gets angry, saying it's not their place to decide things like that.

Ed foils Scar's destruction technique by changing the metal in his automail. Shouldn't that mean Scar ought to have trouble with chimeras, too? Of course, he not only tells Scar this, but also confirms that this is messing up his automail. No, Ed, stop being dumb.

Scar manages to grab Ed's flesh arm. Ed tries to slash him, but is stopped by the homunculi. Ed spews hot steam at them, and is surprised when they regenerate.

Scar takes out the locket he dug up, which makes Lust BSOD.

We get the full flashback with Lust and Scar's brother. It seems he did use her corpse as a base, but still produced a mess. Judging from where the blood is, it appears he lost his reproductive organs? So a male version of what happened to Izumi, though he seems a lot more functional than her.

Dante-Lyra pretends to be surprised when Ed reveals where homunculi come from. She then freely divulges that Dante created a homunculus too. Why?

Ed deduces that someone must be collecting and aiding the homunculi, since they're in no condition to do that on their own when they're first created. Dante-Lyra is suspiciously silent on this.

Flashback to Kimblee attacking Scar. He gave him his scar and blew up his arm due to choosing to blow him up a piece at a time – a bit forced, but not out of character. Not sure how Scar's eyelids survived, though, since the scar passes over them.

Scar's arm absorbs Philosopher's Stones in an attempt to complete itself. If we accept that the tattoo is a special type that can absorb souls one at a time, that checks out.

Ed pieces together that Rose was raped by the military. I've heard this come up a lot as an example of why OG is misogynist, and I honestly think that's incredibly uncharitable and reductive. I mean, for one thing, we're not shown it and we're not even explicitly told; if this was really just some sadistic male fantasy, we'd be wallowing in it. But, well, this is the kind of thing that happens during war. If you're going to write a story about the evils of the military, it's not wrong to follow that to its logical if awful conclusion. Pretending everyone in an occupied territory will be fine until the heroes conveniently arrive, as Brotherhood does, is just incredibly ignorant and dishonest. If a story wants to criticize military culture and imperialism, it has to show what that actually means.

Martel holds a knife to Bradley's throat but stupidly does not kill him. She wants him to revoke the orders, but he just met in secret; if she kills him now, the orders won't go through. It's not like it would even affect the plot if she did, since he's unkillable and we're about to reveal him as a homunculus anyway.

We see Bradley effortlessly dodging Martel's lightning-fast attacks, which is a far better demonstration of the Ultimate Eye than what we got in Brotherhood, in my opinion. Bradley also has a scar under the eyepatch.

Bradley kills Martel the same way he did in Brotherhood, but there's no blood on his sword, for some reason. He covers it better by saying he thought Martel was threatening Al.

Hm. I do like that Martel gets to stick around longer than in Brotherhood, but she doesn't really do much more, and still dies pretty stupidly (though her more rational motivation is an improvement). I do think this is a much better place for the Bradley reveal, though. It happens way, way too early in Brotherhood – knowing the evilness goes straight to the top only a quarter of the way through the story kills a lot of the mystery and makes the narrative pretty black-and-white. OG has taken pains to hide Bradley's connection to the villains even as the evidence has piled up against him, giving him plausible deniability and a seemingly benevolent relationship to the characters. This is timed well as a climactic reveal showing us that no, the homunculi really do control the entire government. And it's paired perfectly with Ed informing us there's someone else pulling the strings, too!

Fullmetal Alchemist Episode 41: "Holy Mother"

Scar, speaking for Rosé, tell the people of Lior to lure the military into the city, but not to provoke them. Kimblee, with a group of chimeras, attack civilians in the city, and Scar instructs the civilians to leave the city, so that he can create the Philosopher's Stone when the military arrives. Ed sends a letter to Mustang explaining all that's happening in Lior, and advising him to keep the military from entering the city. Mustang and his group learn about what happened at Laboratory Five in Central, and how a Philosopher's Stone is made. Mustang tells Alphonse to go into Lior and find his brother. Archer prepares to assault the city of Lior, but is ordered to wait by Bradley. When Lust asks Pride why he told Archer to wait, he said he was acting upon their master's orders. Angry, Lust decides to go into Lior alone so she can help Scar create the Philosopher's Stone. Ed and Rosé help the civilians exit the city of Lior, and Wrath and Sloth confront Ed. Wrath's weakness is revealed, and Wrath then attacks Rosé, who manages to speak and call out to Ed to get his attention. Scar confronts Kimblee, and they begin an alchemic battle, causing more destruction in the city. Alphonse intercedes by trapping Kimblee, but he escapes and uses his alchemy to begin transforming Alphonse's armor into a bomb.

We open with Ed seeing the graves of everyone who died in the uprising. Ed is overwhelmed by guilt.

We flashback to discover Martel did successfully tell Al everything. Not sure why we couldn't have done that last episode.

Ed has been imprisoned. Dante visits him, and says "we humans" are weak. Ed says she smells weird, and Dante passes it off as perfume. So she's already begun to rot. Ed says he doesn't like the smell. Foreshadowing!

Ed sends a letter telling the military to stop the assault, preventing Scar from getting his ingredients. The homunculi convene and tell Bradley to do it anyway, but he says Dante has ordered him not to. I presume she gave the messenger another letter for him. Lust points out the only reason they're following Dante is for the Stone, so she's going to help Scar do it anyway.

Back in Liore, Dante insists they should make a break for it and tell everyone what happened here. Ed says it'd just become another story of a failed Philosopher's Stone, so he won't. Dante looks irritated at this, so I guess that's what she was hoping for.

Sloth delivers Wrath but does not reveal herself to Ed.

The cry of Rose's baby makes Wrath flip out.

Ed argues that homunculi are nothing but illusions who falter in the face of the real thing, which I think is nice imagery.

Wrath says he has no weakness, since his own body was used as ingredients for his resurrection. I guess homunculi have better memory than human babies. While this does address a neat loophole, it does raise the question of why it's a unique case – I should think that using the corpse ought to be the first thing anyone would try.

Al arrives to stupidly insist everyone stop fighting. Kimblee uses the opportunity to transmute Scar's arm into a bomb, so Scar tears it off. Woah. I don't like the way the blood from his stump is animated, though; looks too goopy. And shouldn't he be bleeding out, since there are vital arteries in the shoulder?

Scar runs Kimblee through, but he somehow survives long enough to throw Ed's pocketwatch at Scar. Ah, that's clever; he learned the absorption incapacitates him earlier. And this also explains why Cornello thought the pocketwatches let you transmute without a circle, actually! If they used to stuff red stones in there, that would actually be true.

Oh, Sloth does appear to Ed. She accuses him of making her wrong, which makes him BSOD.

Rose echoes Ed's own advice at him, which is a nice callback. It's actually pretty appropriate, since Ed is collapsed.

We get a bunch of still images for the final sequence, but they're intercut with proper animation, so I presume it's for coolness rather than lack of budget this time.

Fullmetal Alchemist Episode 42: "His Name is Unknown"

Al's armor is slowly transforming into an explosive compound following Kimblee's attack. With Ed helping the Liorites escape, Scar is the only one who can help Al. Scar then proceeds to turn Al into the Philosopher's Stone. Seeing that Kimblee had been killed by Scar, Archer orders the military army into Lior to take him down. After multiple gunshot wounds in protecting Lust, Scar takes his last breath and transmutes the whole city with himself and the soldiers inside. Upon seeing the destruction, Ed races to find Scar. Finding his brother alive, Ed soon realizes what Scar has done. Lust then appears, instructing the brothers to start running; that they will soon be sought after.

Animators didn't bother drawing an exit wound for Kimblee. Boo. The blood spot is also higher up on his body, in a place where it should have been immediately fatal.

Al says it's hard to talk. Ed was worried about messing up the blood seal when he repaired him earlier, so it could be that any alteration to the armor messes him up.

New, and final, OP! Kind of an odd to do that in the middle of an arc, but okay. The visuals are quite good – we get a shot of Hoenheim, a prominent shot of Dante-Lyra, and a lot of battles with the homunculi. I think I liked the previous one's melody better, though. Looking at the lyrics, the OPs do seem to follow an interesting theme: the first one is about destroying memories, the second one is about never looking back, the third one is about holding onto memories, and this one is about the dissonance between memories and self-actualization.

Sloth undulates under her clothes while she's luring Ed, which is really creepy. I wonder if she has trouble staying solid.

Sloth changes her clothes into a sexy dress. Nooot necessary, though it's ironically pretty visually similar to Brotherhood!Sloth's overalls.

Dante informs them that homunculi have more than one life, so they'll be back. And how would Lyra know that, hmmm?

Archer says there is no military without evil or corruption.

Scar turns Al into the Philosopher's Stone to save him. I'm a bit confused as to why, though; what has Al ever done for him? Scar put a lot of work into this for the same of stopping the military, but now he's just willing to abandon that for Al's sake? He should also be able to amputate the affected area, like he did for himself.

Scar successfully lures the military to attack using himself as bait. I like that it's implied Lust is helping him, as he shouldn't be able to carry Kimblee's body without arms.

Ah, Scar explains he's helping Al because he sees himself in the Elric brothers. That still feels a little weak, I mean they've done nothing but fight him and try to impede his very justified goals. I can see what the writers were going for in trying to draw parallels between them, but I think this needed more time and interactions to make it develop properly.

Unfortunately, he then goes on to say he doesn't care what the Elrics do with the Stone now that he's given it to them, which makes less sense. He was already the victim of a Stone-amplified massacre; isn't he afraid they'll give the Stone to Amestris and make them even stronger?

Lust asks Scar's name and we get the same line from BH 15 about him forsaking it. Much better placement here.

Liore is completely vaporized after the transmutation, which seems a little odd, but it fits. I guess it was dragging in all raw materials.

New ED. It's strangely slow and contemplative, though not to the same degree as the last one. I still like the second one best. There is a shot of everyone who's died – Trisha, Nina, Hughes, and Scar – which I think is a nice detail for the final stretch, especially as this upcoming arc will be about the heroes confronting their flaws and mistakes.

Conclusion

All right! It's taken a while, but the original plot is finally in full swing. The quality of the early episodes gave me motivation to stick through the slow parts, and now that faith's been rewarded. Look at all the stuff happening! Bringing the story back to where it all began! People facing the consequences of their actions! Resolution to the longstanding mystery of Scar! The heroes actually doing stuff! Major characters dying! And to top it off, the heroes have finally attained the goal stated at the start of the story: the Philosopher's Stone. But the question remains: What will they do with it now, and what comes next? Like the Fifth Laboratory, this feels like a true culmination of all that has come before, while still leaving room for the future. We've been left with many questions and answers. This is how it's done!

I also prefer this resolution for Scar over what he gets in Brotherhood. That may sound strange or sadistic, but… getting to kill Hitler and then live happily ever after just feels too neat to me. Maybe I'm weird, but, and I'll talk about this again at the end, outcomes that are too happy just make me reject them as fake. In reality, people in Scar's position typically do not survive the revolution. They don't get to be in the perfect position to avenge their people and live to fix everything afterwards. They're lucky if they can accomplish anything before they're inevitably gunned down. But Scar did! Scar succeeded at his plan. He wiped out a huge chunk of the military, saved the Liorites, and completed his brother's work. It came at a high cost, but it's a cost all revolutionaries have to be willing to pay. His resolution in Brotherhood is: I will direct my anger at the right person and be the good scary black man. His resolution in OG is: I will die to stop this. And, everything's subjective, but I find that a lot stronger, and more real.

Additionally, I think there's something to be said here that Scar does what the heroes were too afraid to do. We saw this as early as episode 7, when he gave mercy to the pained Nina when Ed froze up at the risk. Ed spends this arc trying to stop Scar, but can't really give a good reason why. You can waffle over if every rank-and-file of the military really deserves it, but the fact remains that Amestris' military is evil, and turning their own methods back upon them is a powerfully ironic revenge. Scar is in many ways a truer hero than the Elrics, willing to make real sacrifices instead of demanding the world let him have his cake and eat it too. Equivalent exchange, eh?

But he's not here to bail Ed out of his indecision anymore. From now on, Ed's going to have to make the hard choices on his own.

Oh, and, after all that stuff in Brotherhood, I am also perversely amused by how sidelined Mustang is here. This was Scar's show, and the writers knew better than to dilute that by cramming other characters in where they weren't wanted.

I did have several nitpicks, but I feel that they really are nitpicks, rather than things that truly break the story. I can't get a good grasp on Al's motivation, but his involvement isn't very important, so it doesn't feel like an idiot ball is necessary to move the plot. (It also pleases me how his constant insistence on absolute pacifism just ends up screwing everything up far worse – intentionally or not, that's a good refutation of the philosophy. See my other favorite anime, Trigun, for more on that!) Scar's motivation for turning Al into the Philosopher's Stone is a little weak, as are the mechanics of how, exactly, it's supposed to undo Kimblee's transmutation, but everything else is so wonderfully done that I am willing to give it a pass, especially given how many options it gives the story going forward.

[denu-rising]

1!! 2, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 20, 22, 30, 31, 36, 39, 41, 42, 43, 47, 49 (im so sorry whenever i send these i always send a billion numbers)

Oh my gosh,so many questions! Don’t apologise, this is awesome! Thank you so much!! =D

1:Who is your clan leader(s)? What are they like?

Myclan leader is Nana. ^^ She’s an absolute sweetheart, soft spoken andshy, who just wants to see the whole world smile. She doesn’t run theClan by herself, but with her trusted council and closest friends,Hobo and Cookie. Hobo’s more of an honorary clan leader, sincepersonality and behaviour-wise he very much resembles an excitedpupper. He has a pure heart and would follow Nana through anything.Cookie’s a lot more help thanks to her empathic ability, which allowsher to pick up on any troubles that may arise in the Clan.

2:Who’s in charge of food? Do you have dragons in charge of thedifferent factions (hunting/fishing/insect catching/harvesting)?

Idefinitely plan to have dragons assigned to these roles, yes! So far,Scarlet is the only one who does any of these, and she always comeshome with her bags full of food and her clothes full of mud (much tothe annoyance of her stylist boyfriend). Guava and Lychee sometimesbring back food from their many adventures. Sunflower is my gardener,and the main dragon in charge of the gardens and crops. She’sassisted by her husband, Watermelon, who functions as a walkingencyclopedia for all things Plant, as well as a pack mule. =P

8:Does your clan have any occultists?

Wehave magic users galore, but when it comes to finding new forms andmethods of magic, right now there’s only Fantasia (plus whoever endsup being her permamate). She’s my dream sorceress, practicing the‘dream magic’ that she discovered and continues to experiment with.You can read a bit about it in her bio, but I should really write somemore about it! To put it vaguely, dream magic is about bringing outsubconscious or hidden knowledge and making it visible.

9:Storytellers or librarians?

Doscribes counts? Because I do have those! Planned, at least. At themoment, Galaxia is my only scribe. She records Dom efforts andcollects badges. I haven’t really kept this up to date, though, andhave been considering dropping this, but she’ll still be a badgecollector with awesome stories to tell about her badges. Just not allbadges. The two other scribes I want will record (previous) clanmembers and notable events that happened, like clan renovations orMarva visiting each year.  And I need a fiction writer too. Thescribes also function as librarians and storytellers. ^^

13:What about musicians?

Alsoonly one so far! I have this nameless lady who’s quite the excellenttrumpet player. Can’t believe I forgot to add musicians to my list ofneeded clan roles, so thank you for the reminder, hehe. =P

14:Dragons involved in other arts? (Theatre, fine art, ect.)

Fiesta!This bright baby is my dancer. He looooves dancing! He teaches aweekly dance class at the familiar spa, and loves performing for themany celebrations my clan throws. When there’s no party planned ordance routine to learn, Fiesta’s often out visiting other Clans tomeet other dancers and dance with them. And Cassius will get upset ifI don’t mention him here, but he’s my pretty stylist and he’s supervain.

16:Who’s in charge of maintaining law and order? Any dragons that takeup the mantle of policing?

Toa degree, everyone is. If they witness something illegal or immoral,they’ll be sure to inform Nana, Hobo and Cookie. Any actual issuesare handled by those three, though they’ll call a clan meeting if thesituation calls for it. Overall, though, this Utopian little bunchdoesn’t have much need for actual police dragons. (They do have asort of prison hidden away in the garden, just in case, though.)There are at all times a couple dragons ‘policing’ the borders of thefloating islands, but that’s just to make sure no one and nothingfalls off and visitors are properly welcomed.

20:Which dragon has the oddest job in your lair?

Ina sense, I’d say Hobo, but that’s because he’s such an oddballhimself that being on the council is a very odd position for him. Imean, he very rarely speaks in full (short) sentences, struggles toget out words at all, and the others can have a hard timeunderstanding him. Fantasia has the oddest job in the sense that herdream magic involves a lot of tinctures and potions made from specialmushrooms and hallucinations. She’s high as a kite most of the time,because that’s her job. She loves her job.

22:Who, in your lore, is the oldest dragon in your lair? What about theyoungest?

It’sa toss-up between Cookie and Luna. Cookie is the actual oldestdragon, both date-of-birth and lore-wise. I tend to mostly followactual dragon birthdays to determine who’s oldest. Luna, however, isa ghost, and who knows how long she’s been dead before Fantasia foundher. She might be older than Cookie, she might even be ancient. Lunadied at a young age, though, so I don’t know. Is she old? Is sheyoung? Youngest would have to be the last hatchie to pop out of anegg, but since I don’t keep those, I suppose this lady’s the youngestaddition to the Clan right now, and I still have no clue as to whather personality or clan role will be. ^^;

30:Do you have siblings that live together in your lair?

YES!I love siblings so much. I had more at one point, but right now, Istill have Guava and Lychee (the first sibling pair I got). They doEVERYTHING together. They even share their boyfriends, taking turnsnesting with them. It’s a bit weird, but whatever floats their boat.^^ Then there’s Skittle and Jellybean. I don’t have any lore for themyet, but I love them. Lamia and her unnamed brother. Might actuallynot keep the brother, but Lamia’s my Shadow ambassador. Sprinkle andSmiley, from my very first dream dragon breeding project. (I got twogirls, because more genes came out and now I’m stuck deciding, so whynot both? Still waiting for the second male, who’ll be the brother ofthe first, to complete the two pairs.)

31:Any physically disabled or mentally ill dragons?

… Doesbeing dead count? 'Cause Luna’s dead, and it’s definitely a physicalstruggle when you can only materialise with a special, hard to makeelixer from Fantasia. But then, there’s also plenty of advantages tobeing dead, like never stubbing your toe or having to sleep, so Iguess it evens out. Guava and Lychee most definitely have ADHD, andwho even knows what the heck is wrong with Hobo… Overall, mentalillness, if present, isn’t something that’ll be clearly stated, like'this dragon has autism’. I struggle enough with my own mentalillnesses that I don’t want to explicitly mention it, though I candraw characteristics and personality traits from them. Also, I’d beway too anxious about accidentally upsetting or offending people. ^^;I have no objections to people giving any labels to my dragons,though! =P

36:Flight reps?

Yes,please! I have Lamia, my Shadow ambassador, and Spring is my Windpriest. I have Rose put down as a potential Ice ambassador andSunflare for Earth, but that’s it, really. I want Flight reps foreach Flight, but it’s super hard to think of what they should looklike if they have to match my lair theme. What would a Flightrepresentative look like if they needed to be XYZ with all colours in adifferent range?

39:Do you still have the first dragon you’ve ever bought?

Idon’t have the first dragon I ever bought anymore, but I do stillhave the first dragon I ever got. I got Cookie as a gift from mybrother. The week leading up to the reg window, he’d been showing meall sorts of dragons and I really loved Cookie, so I got her as agift. In a way, I’ve had her longer than my progens, even. =P

41:Who has the most tragic backstory?

Luna!I mean, she literally died and spent who knows how long all alonewandering Sornieth, unable to find any sort of peace or happiness.That said, backstories are the only real place I can add tragedy, sothere might be more tragic backstories popping up in the future. Likethe story of how Hobo became Hobo, which I’m still eternally mullingover.

42:Who is your edgiest dragon?

Idon’t have one, I think, but I want one! It’ll either be Lamia or myfuture Plague ambassador, because enforcing stereotypes, yeah! =P Ilove Shadow and Plague, but I don’t have much room in my lore foractual Shadow/Plague themes, so whatever edgy little runt thoseFlights can produce, they can just punt on over this way. That’llprobably be the backstory, anyway. =P

43:Do you have any dragons that broke the clan’s rules? What was thepunishment for that?

Well,hatchies can be quite a handful and they don’t always listen yet,but… No, not really, nothing major. Well, Cassius, greedy and vainas he can be, will sometimes steal pretty fabrics or shiny jewels,but that’s just because he’s too impatient to wait to sign anythingfor taking them. He’s had a slap on the wrist a couple times, but nowthey just let him, because he needs that stuff anyway for hisoutfits. Cassius gets a visit once a week to take stock of the stuffhe’s taken.

47:Professor/teacher dragons?

Alsostill unassigned. Yeah, I know, I need to work on my lore more. =PFiesta teaches a weekly dance class, and anyone can learn from anyoneduring the many arts-and-crafts sessions. I still need an officialhatchling caretaker/teacher. Bunnyfly supervises hatchling trips tothe familiar spa and teaches the young ones about familiars and howto maintain positive relations with familiars and beastclans.

49:Orphan dragons?

Nana,my progen. She just sort of came into being, no family or anything.Also my precious little Bunnyfly. He was found as an egg and taken inby a clan of buttersnakes, before his buttersnake mentor/fatherfigure/best friend decided to take him to Denutena’s Candyclan,because the other buttersnakes were getting increasingly anxiousabout living with a dragon, even one that looks like a bigger versionof them, and the buttersnake (he still needs a name) thought it wouldbe better for Bunnyfly to be around his own kind. They now run thefamiliar spa together. ^^