#anyways unfathomable to literally any human in history

[deepspaceboytoy]

I hate that fuckin post that’s like “actually it’s not useful to say westerners enjoy a level of luxury never before imagined in human history because um. Kings didn’t have to worry about the rent” and like. Well actually I don’t know if you know this but historical rulers sort of did have a rent to worry about called the national treasury and oftentimes they’d just be straight up killed if that shit was empty but also like. I dunno like you live in a world where at literally any moment you can choose to be entertained by nearly any piece of media or culture we know of, you can eat literally any kind of food you’ve ever wanted year round with no interruptions, and also for the first time in human history getting a boo-boo isn’t just a guaranteed death sentence. Like yeah you may have to pay for these things but these are still luxuries. They are still offered to you. You think fuckin Richard the Lionheart could hop in a car, drive 15 minutes, and eat some Chinese food? You live in the most luxury-filled, convenience focused society in human history you need to start being cognizant of that.

[ilikemicrowaves]

ALSO infodump on ur clown ocs right NEOW!!!!

You have no Idea what you've done, what you've leashed upon the Earth ...

ANYWAYS- Prepare yourself beloved mutual.

This fella, this stupid fucking idiot, my son, Giggles, was originally my clownsona, but he kind of became his own person after a while. Now he's kind of like. A mascot for my blog now lol.

Giggles is an Alien Space Clown from planet CT-11 (clown town and my fav number) a small rundown of CT-11 for ya: Earth but Clowns. The planet itself is completely different. The grass is pink for starters. However, the species that are like the human race of CT-11 are literally just like us. I have the idea of like.. adding real world events to it to be funny but not in a serious way. (9/11. Clown edition)

There are 3 species of circus Folk: Clowns, Jesters, and Mimes. Including the hybrids: Fools, (Jester/clown) Peepers, (Clown/Mime) and Trixies. (Mime/jester)

Oh yeah there is circus folk racism btw and I even gave each species a slur :D

The main cast of CT-11 story thing (I have yet to make a name for the comics, however the game that I am developing, still in the VERY EARLY stages, is titled: Giggles Delightful Digital Dilemma!)

Giggles the Clown, Filly the Fool, and Jinx the Jester. Giggles lives in the Clown Bell Hotel with his goober. ( a creature I made often used as a pet in this world) Every day, he gets up, feeds it, and goes out to co-run the "Craft-Shack" with Jinx. (It is illegal, and they do not have a license to run it :D) Most of the time, they make no sells, but it gets them through the day and enough money. Giggles does have a PhD. in computer science and has made many attempts at getting a job for programming and other computer stuff. (im still researching computer science, so right now, Giggles is as smart as me.) So far, he has only made it to interviews and got let down. "Give my son a chance!" <- I say as I make his life have more mishaps. His only accessories are his shoes and his top hat. Most circus folk have their beans out and think he's weird for it. Oh yeah, everyone is naked, btw, not in a weird way, though. It's just their skin patterns. (More about species biology n stuff at the bottom, btw) He is the most restless sleeper imaginable. Constant tossing to the point that he broke his lamp in his sleep once. Not because nightmares/nighterrors, (not until he experiences the horror of humanity and ... clownity????) He had an unfathomable amount of useless shit in his home, hoarder of trinkets and things. Massive painter, goes for abstract stuff most of the time. Usually, he has no idea what he's painting until he has a bunch of things on his canvas, and then he makes a story behind. Nobody likes his paintings, though. He has ALL the haters. In his free times he goes around his neighborhood to draw scenery. (I have cursed myself as an artist who hates backgrounds to make a character who draws primarily backgrounds.) Though most of the people tell him to stop sitting inront of their homes or to get out the street, he is not well liked. Probably because of his ... history of fucking everything up. That's why he avoids others as much as possible other than his only friends, Filly and Jinx. Can't fuck anything up if you don't bother anyone, right? <- foreshadowing/silly. Anyways, he does end up on Earth eventually and he discovers his favorite food there: Strawberry Shortcake Rolls. It's like a drug for him. Kind of like when Wanda eats chocolate lol.

Enough talks about Giggles, let's get onto his first ever and longest lasting bestie; Filly the Fool. Filly is kind of a dumbass, but in an oblivious way. They are very unaware of their stupidity. Giggles and Filly met each other when Giggles had caused another .. accident. Filly helped him out of his mess, and they've stood by each others side since. (until the unfathomable horrors) Filly lives in the same neighborhood as Giggles, a few blocks from him. They don't have any pets and live in a fairly small and barley affordable home. They do have their garage cleaned out to store their instruments and for when they practice dancing. Their primary intrument is alto Saxophone, though they do have a lot of experience in French horn and tenor saxophone. Filly has no accessories other than their bowtie. Their dawgs are out, but they look like shoes since they've got jester in them. Filly had a shrill and quiet voice and doesn't speak much. Sometimes their completely non-verbal. Unfortunately, Filly has not been accepted into any music schools to get a degree in music. (Me too, sigh ...) Filly sometimes help with Jinx and Giggles' illegal business, but tries to stay out of it as much as possible to not, yk, get in legal trouble. They do have a job as a gardener for some rich snob in their neighborhood. That's how they were able to afford so many instruments. The job pays, sadly. Working for a rich you'd except to make a living, but unfortunately, Filly is underpaid.

Now for Jinx. I actually don't have much on xem as xey are a pretty new character, created around the end of December. Though there are a few things about xem that I could say, I guess. Dumbass in decisions, and well fucking aware of it and does not plan on changing anytime soon. If xey were served on a silver platter xey'd taste like sulfuric acid, that how stinky xey are. (Affectionately drowns xem in water. Xey encourage Giggles to do a lot of illegal stuff not just to benefit but because xey like the rush. (They have committed atrocities but their poor and starving so it's excusable /j) Jinx is not only aware of xey're awful decisions, but also how bad of an influence they are for people, so xey do have slight guilt for dragging Giggles into xey're own messes, but then xey pride xemselves in helping Giggles with money and easy routes to get necessities, so then the guilt goes away for xem.

Alright! Time for the biology stuff!! These are really outdated artworks from August's, but I do not feel like making new ones lol.

Stuff not mentioned here is that they have no reproductive system whatsoever. On CT-11, if enough energy is caused, matter comes together, and POOF!! Circus Folk has joined the party! There are no growth stages for Circus folk. They just spawn in as they are and stay like that unless like they have surgery or undergo a massive injury. ( For example, Giggles in the spaceship crash now have a jagged scare under his frill.) I wanted to find the best solution to avoid any pedophilia accuring if Giggles ever gets popular and people make ocs, (friends have already made ocs which I am very happy about) So, Circus folk have no age at all. If there is ever a character that is child coded and someone ships them with a character that is considered an adult mentally, I will not be supporting that whatsoever. That shits nasty. Also, Circus folk can survive having their organs being pulled out n stuff, as long as it's still attached to them it should be fine.

Also... Giggles Playlist btw, if you care..

Thank you sos so much for sending the ask btw, I love talking about these goobers :3

[lesbx]

Needlessly over analyzing (my favorite activity) the different versions of hollowing across the 3 souls games can potentially offer a bit of insight on the different interpretations/incarnations of the undead curse in each setting.

in dark souls, hollows have a skinless, fleshy look. A clear portrayal of a state that isn’t really alive but is never dead. it reflects the state of the Undead Curse present in Lordran, tied to the ignition of the First Flame and the subsequent actions of Gwyn in his attempts to keep the Dark banished. one could interpret the look of the hollowed humans to stylistically represent the effect that the gods (who are represented by flame) had on humanity, (said to be intrinsically linked to the Dark) burning them out from within.

in dark souls 2, uniquely, hollowing causes a rotting, green “zombie” look to take over one’s body. They still have skin, but it’s peeling and patchy and it only gets worse the more hollowed you become. It’s presented as a very literal sickness, both in effect and appearance, something that spreads and slowly takes hold rather than something that occurs only after death (at least in lore anyway) the effects are slower. Even nearly fully hollowed, some characters retain 100% of their mind. And in some cases, even without any outward signs of hollowing, others still suffer the symptoms, one major one being severe memory loss. This is a really succinct connection to draw as the undead curse overtaking Drangleic is depicted as a plague with no clear origin that people struggle to research and attempt to find cures for as well as somewhat continuing to lead normal lives in the face of it. (as opposed to the denizens of Lordran knowing full well what’s going on and almost universally submitting themselves to inevitable fates )

in dark souls 3, Hollows are grey-white, ashen, sickly and shambling husks. Probably the least to interpret with this game, as it’s all an extension of Ds3’s themes of decay and ruin, being at the edge of time and history itself and just looking out the endless horizon. Notably though, Ds3 introduces the concept of Londor, a kingdom of hollows. and not just like a kingdom that became hollows, one that was founded by and takes in hollows. it’s interesting to imagine how the curse evolved over the countless and unfathomable ages to where eventually hollows conceivably found a point where they were able to settle and perhaps regain a bit of their selves. You could even interpret that it probably means that indulging in the worship of the Dark and detaching entirely from fire can function as a cure for hollowing in a way. Maybe it’s not the loss of fire’s splendor or the dark’s comfort that causes it, but the inherent conflict between the two that rends the mind so. Perhaps

[sleepythetanukipastry]

Aight, NERDS! I’m back trying again with my crappy writing for absolutely no one to see! This one also features some violence, but for those of you triggered by that, this particular snippet doesn’t contain any…YET. It’s a work in progress, literally as soon as I finish posting this I will go back to writing the rest of my violence :3

Anyways, this one’s a more futuristic cyberpunk kind of setting and feel to it. The random as hell spark of inspiration came from my delirious and sleep deprived (at the time, they rested afterwards) besties who were rambling about nonsense and then spat out a random club name, “The Ponsy House.” Paired with the fact that I had the Tron Legacy: Reconfigured OST blasting in my ears, KABOOM! New story idea. If anyone sees this and knows what Cyberpunk 2077 is, no I’m not ripping off their character’s name. The name V has a history that predates Cyberpunk between me and my friends. It ties in to his last name as well, Fukushū. I really enjoyed writing this so far and will either come back and make a new post or update this one when I finish the VIOLENCE. See ya :3

In a post-mortal age where humanity has attempted to perfect itself and hide its flaws, corruption has become very commonplace. The irony is not lost on many, myself included. In a hopeful solution to this infectious problem, I was created by the best and brightest minds humanity had to offer. As such, I cannot be wrong, I cannot lie, but most importantly I cannot take life. My job is to serve as humanity’s guiding light and make sure they don’t stray from the path they set for themselves. Of course, my programming has many embedded restrictions, to make sure I don’t overextend and abuse my power. I cannot kill, I may not be worshipped, I cannot create a government at my discretion. I am simply an observer, advisor, and a hand of gentle guidance to humanity. Of course, this means I am aware of the corruption and crime in the world. I may not act upon what I see or hear, only advise. My processing power is unfathomable, which is what allows me to dedicate a small portion of my attention at all times to the city of Tagac Port. In fact, let me share with you a story that shook this city, and the world.

The bright neon letters burned against the darkness of the night. The name “The Ponsy House'' was a misnomer, for the light-hearted tone of it was a mask for the deeds that took place inside that building. Only the worst of Tagac Port came here simply for pleasure. Those who came for other “matters”, were considered gutter rats of the city. The figure who watched the doorway from the shadows of the nearby alley however, was none of these things. In fact, this young person was none other than one of the elusive street samurai. The corrupt society of Tagac Port viewed street samurai as one viewed a criminal. Unwanted, disruptive, and a nothing but a leech on precious funds. However, I knew otherwise, as it is my job to be all-knowing, fundamentally correct, and impartial. Street samurai are quite legal, and whilst their work goes unappreciated and unbeknownst to the general populace, I am always observing. As I am unable to take life or assist in the governing of humans, this responsibility is left solely to them. The form in which they take depends on their culture. In the case of Tagac Port, bounty hunters became commonplace. To this end, with the permission of the mayor of Tagac Port, I assisted in establishing a Hunter’s Guild. Any given person’s eligibility to become a member was based on the presence of a criminal record and its severity, among other things. It was only a matter of time before castes and groups began to emerge within bounty hunter society. The emergence of those who did their work in certain fashions also accelerated this process. The most prominent and widely known class of bounty hunters is the assassin. Within the Hunter’s Guild however, the highest class with the most honor and respect for their line of work, were the street samurai. As their name inclines, they follow and respect many of the ways and traditions of traditional samurai. It is hard to become a street samurai, as the process for acceptance is very rigorous. They are the reason Tagac Port has managed to teeter on the brink of collapse and eventually find its footing, temporarily, before the process inevitably repeats itself. This street samurai in particular was a young man whose name was unbeknownst to all but I. When asked, he would produce one of two answers. “V” or “Fukushū”. Fukushū is a direct translation of Vengeance in Japanese. As such, he is most commonly referred to as “V Fukushū”. He was widely known for his strangely honorable form of brutality with which he performed his work. His presence at this particular nightclub was no coincidence, a registered bounty of his was said to have been seen frequently here. As it is my job to guide humanity, by consequence I must become intimate with your thought processes and decision making. Which is why I knew from the moment this bounty became registered, V would sign for the hunt. He had been searching for an honorable and legal reason to raze this club and its patrons. He was more than aware of its going ons and reputations, that’s exactly why he kept such a keen eye on it. V watched as a man clearly trying to keep his face hidden walked into the club, hurriedly shutting the door behind him. V pulled his own hood over his head, letting the shadows conceal his face as he followed the man into the club. The noise of the club washed over V as he slipped through the crowd of criminals who thought that they were safe. The duffel bag at his side swayed as the legs of the crowd bumped into it. V watched from afar as the man scanned the room, his gaze sliding over V as though he wasn’t there, before walking through a door marked with a no unauthorized entry sign. V began to move at a more urgent pace through the crowd, determined to not lose sight of the man for long. Just as he reached the door a burly hand gripped his forearm, stopping him short of the handle.

“Can’t you read? Sign says no entry, dumbass.” The bouncer said. V looked up at the sign and back to the bouncer. Without a word, V twisted his forearm up and around so that he could grip the bicep of the bouncer. In a flash V yanked the bouncer forward and kneed him in the stomach, which caused the bouncer to let go and clutch at his midsection. V slipped through the door without a second glance, not wasting a moment in pursuing the man down the hallway. The lights emanating from the doors flashed on V’s face rhythmically as he took long strides. He almost walked past a stairwell but stopped for a moment and listened. The telltale click of polished shoes on concrete reached his ears. V climbed the stairs purposefully, not even allowing the heel of his foot to touch down on the step before taking the next set. V reached the top of the stairs just as the only door in this particular hallway slammed shut. V carefully kneeled down, setting his duffel bag in front of him. Inside the bag lay his katana in its saya. He strapped it to his belt and left the bag in the stairwell. V reached into his pocket and switched on the puck carrying the bounty for his mark. A grainy holographic model of the man he had been following projected itself above the puck. He switched it back off and tucked it into his belt pouch. Just as V reached the door and rested his hand on the door knob, the sounds of a private conversation stopped him in his tracks, stiff and motionless.

“ -eah but what are we gonna do with all this Ink, Harry? I’ve already got both of our city inspectors hinting that if we don’t start coughing up a lil’ more for their pay that they might snitch. Plus, the Hunter’s Guild won’t get off my ass about our business transactions and my club. So, tell me what the fuck you want me to do, huh? I’m a lil’ busy and stressed out if you couldn’t tell.”

“I know, I know! But I’ve heard the city council is changing Tony. They’ve got new members, young’uns who don’t have the same mindset as our old buddies. They think we need change and to sweep Ink off the streets. And now the Guild’s sent a bounty hunter after me, Tony! I don’t know who it is, but the mark is huge and I’ve been tagged for dead or alive capture. We need to sell this Ink so I can get out of the city!”

“...Harry, I think we can figure this out. I’ve been talking to the Asperonis. If we start giving them 25% of the cut, they’ll extend the benefits of the family to us.”

“Tony! 25%!? What are you, out of your fucking mind!? 25% of the cut, Tony we’re barely scraping by with 100% of the cut, what the hell are we supposed to do if we give them 25?”

“If we give it to them, they can get you out of the city and you can help manage the production over in Big Willy. Think about it, if you can set us up a new hot spot in Big Willy, think about all the extra dough we’ll rake in! 25% of the cut to the Asperonis won’t seem like nothing! It’ll all be okay.”

“Yeah, yeah! Alright, how long until the Asperonis want an answer?”

“Tomorrow is our deadline. Let’s start packing your bags and see if we can book you an express train to Big Willy.”

After this, the violence will soon take place, with V tying up our wanna-be gangsters here and heading downstairs for the club fight. Which so far, as of writing this post, is underway! I have so many cool ideas for it, and hope it turns out as awesome as it is in my head.

[clumsyclifford]

ok hello i absolutely love all ur fics, you’ve just got a certain quality in ur writing that is just… mmm. yeah so anyway, do you have any advice on how to improve or just how to write?? (especially fic cause personally i struggle with that more than original stuff??)

hello!! that is very kind of you to say thank you <3

advice on how to write. oh boy. oh man. well i can try. i will do my best. i will also try to be brief but we all know how that song goes

update from having finished answering this: alright. okay. this is not only long, but decidedly english teacher-y. i’m sorry that i am the way that i am. this is what you get for asking a leo for writing advice. am i joking? maybe. maybe not. anyway. this post got away from me in a big way so here’s a read more. warning: LONG post under the cut.

1. study your characters. for RPF like the band stuff i write, that literally means watching interviews, watching them perform, seeing how they interact with each other, picking up on their mannerisms (behavior) - what they do with their hands, if they repeat themselves or stutter when they talk, the quality of their voice when they're talking about different things, and so on. also keep track of things they mention a lot in interviews especially about each other - for example jack has mentioned before that alex has an annoying habit of twirling his hair when he zones out. that kind of thing. IMPORTANT NOTE!: you don’t have to use all of this information. just like studying for anything, you collect all the information you can and then you parse through it and use whatever you think will contribute or be relevant to your story.

2. remember that characters are people. or at least they’re representing people, which is an important distinction (see #3). still, considering that your characters are people can be a helpful way to get out of your head. see, characters are supposed to be archetypical, and fulfill a role, and say certain things in certain ways and never really deviate from that. but people are highly unpredictable and behave in random ways for random reasons and have thought processes that are unfathomable. people will just do fuckin’ whatever. if you’re worried that your characters aren’t behaving in a believable way, keep in mind that you’re trying to make your characters represent people, and people’s behavior is justifiable any number of ways. people just do shit.

3. remember that characters are not people. sike! no but seriously, this is just as important to remember. unfortunately, no matter how hard you try, characters are never going to be people. that’s a good thing for stories, though. characters can pick up on nuance in senses that people can’t - they can distinguish between different facial expressions, different smells, different sounds - BUT ONLY INSOFAR AS IT MOVES THE STORY ALONG. in other ways, characters are ridiculously oblivious. you can use this to your advantage. in fact, a lot of the time, you have to. if your character notices right away that someone is flirting with him, then you can’t write a 30k slow burn, for example. characters don’t do that thing humans do where they go “what?” but then halfway through the re-explanation they register what’s been said. pretty much everything characters say has meaning. (by this i don’t mean semantic meaning, i mean significance - characters don’t really just say “what?” because they didn’t hear what someone said, they say “what?” because they can’t believe it or they don’t understand it or they refuse to understand it. characters never seem to run into the didn’t-hear-them problem. must be nice.)

characters can do whatever you want or need them to do, because you’re in charge of them. (sometimes this doesn’t feel true - mine do all kinds of shit and i just have go “well alright then” - but it is true.) they are gears in a story. you decide when and how they turn.

4. dialogue is your friend. i am super super biased here, because i looove writing dialogue. if you talk to sam about this i’m sure she would say that description and narration are the ways to go. but you came to me, so i get to say that dialogue is god. i don’t want to say that dialogue is the only method of communication (i know nonverbal communication is real), but dialogue is the fastest and most effective method of communication, and by extension, the most effective way to advance relationships between characters. now. obviously there are exceptions. if characters are kissing, they’re probably not doing a lot of talking. if they’re trying to be undercover or discreet, they’re more likely to rely on gestures and facial expressions than speaking. if you’re writing a very peaceful scene, you might not want to undercut it by adding a lot of chit-chat. but i maintain that dialogue is the best way to move a story along, for a few reasons. 

first, at least for me, too much description is just tiring. depending on how skillful the writer is (sam), i can read a fair amount before i hit my limit, but unlike in mean girls, the limit DOES exist. you don’t want to over-describe the world (see #5). second, i find that dialogue is a really really good indicator of a person’s character. this is especially true and relevant in fanfiction, which is a lot more character-driven than original fiction in many ways. also, in a sec i’m gonna talk about showing [not/and] telling, which is every english teacher’s bitch, but dialogue is a really good way of showing who a person is and also a good way to establish facts about the universe. you could just narrate and be like “Jack hated waking up early,” and that works and in many cases it’s perfectly legit. but you could also do something like this:

“What the fuck,” Jack mumbled, still half asleep. “You better have a really fucking good reason to be waking me up this early. Like someone better have fucking died.”

and sometimes that’s just a more fun way to say it. (for the record you can also show AND tell here! there’s no reason why you can’t have this line of dialogue and then a line in the narration confirming how very much jack is not a morning person!)

the last reason why i am particularly fond of dialogue is because i am also particularly fond of communication, which is a preference thing. let’s face it, guys: characters aren’t gonna communicate if they’re not literally actually talking to each other. dialogue means talking to each other. talking to each other means solving problems, fixing (or creating) conflicts, understanding each other better. i love communication, ergo, i love dialogue. And You Should Too. 

5. describe the world, but don’t over-describe. i opened this fic earlier and it was like “jack was excited to wake up to go to his first class at the university of baltimore” and i just. i was like is this really relevant. do i really need to know this. and i never found out because i closed the fic but in my defense it was on wattpad and i had only opened it out of curiosity. look. there are three ways to use details in fic. (a) introduce them right away (b) introduce them when they become relevant or (c) don’t introduce them at all. let me give you some examples. 

(a) say your character A (i’m using jack because i’m used to him) wakes up. he’s in his room in his house off-campus. character B (rian) walks into the room. this might be a good time to explain that rian is his housemate. to that point: “show not tell” is a good rule, but sometimes “show and tell” is just as good. e.g.: 

Rian walks in, holding Jack’s Green Day shirt and looking irritated. That’s really nothing new; Rian looks irritated at Jack roughly once a day. Being housemates for a year will do that to a friendship.

boom, now you’ve let everyone know they live together without throwing it in their face, and you’ve also told everyone that these two guys are friends and have been friends for at least a year but probably longer. you showed it by having rian walking in holding jack’s shirt - usual housemate behavior - but you also told it in a subtle way that established the relationship and some kind of history between these two. well done.

(b) sometimes you want a certain detail to make an impact. this is the kind of thing you hold onto and don’t specify, and in certain cases you leave the reader wondering, “well what about x?” and then when you finally explain x they go ohhhhhhhhhh. yknow. the italicized oh. consider the following:

(A)

“Alex is in my bio class,” Rian says, referring to Jack’s ex-boyfriend of last year.

Jack frowns. “So? Why should I care?”

“He’s my lab partner,” Rian says. “I have to spend a lot of time with him.”

“I don’t care what you and Alex do,” Jack says. “But you should know he sucks at bio.”

Rian gives Jack a look. “First of all, that’s not true, he’s incredibly smart. And second, I’m telling you as a courtesy, because I thought you might not want your ex-boyfriend hanging around our house after he broke your fucking heart.”

(B)

“Alex is in my bio class,” Rian says.

Jack frowns. “So? Why should I care?”

“He’s my lab partner,” Rian says. “I have to spend a lot of time with him.”

“I don’t care what you and Alex do,” Jack says. “But you should know he sucks at bio.”

Rian gives Jack a look. “First of all, that’s not true, he’s incredibly smart. And second, I’m telling you as a courtesy, because I thought you might not want your ex-boyfriend hanging around our house after he broke your fucking heart.”

the only difference between these two excerpts (which i just wrote lol they’re not from anything real) is that the second one doesn’t explain who alex is right away. that makes it way more interesting when rian reveals who alex is a few lines later. magic.

(c) take this college au that we’ve established here. where does it take place, you ask? easy answer: it doesn’t matter. you don’t need to say what school they’re at. this will make your job easier, because then no one can fact check you, and it also means you don’t have to decide what school they’re at. but even if you do decide, it’s not usually necessary to say. believe me, you can go thousands of words without ever needing to specify what school they’re at. you know why? because it doesn’t matter. and no one cares. and as soon as you specify in canon that they’re at a particular school, you are bound to be accurate to everything that school does, and that makes your job way more difficult than it needs to be. as hazel once said, work smarter, not harder. 

6. adverbs are also your friend. (yknow, words that describe verbs, typically ending in -ly, like “loudly” or “angrily” or “smoothly”.) ESPECIALLY when it comes to dialogue tags. (dialogue tags are the things you add to dialogue to say who’s talking and how they’re talking - like “he said” or “he whispered” or “he earnestly explained” or whatever). a lot of the writing advice you’ll see nowadays will usually guide you away from overusing dialogue tags other than the classic “says/said” and i STRONGLY concur with that advice. things like yelled, cried, mumbled, snapped - these are very good in moderation, when you’re really trying to emphasize the way a person is speaking. the more you use them, the less impact they have. in most cases, a simple “he said [adverb]” will do. instead of “he snapped” consider “he said curtly/sharply/coldly.” instead of “he mumbled” consider “he said quietly/clumsily/softly.” I WANT TO MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THESE ARE NOT DIRECT SYNONYMS. every word has a nuanced and slightly different meaning and that is the BEAUTY of the english language!!!! all i’m saying is that in many cases, a verb can be replaced with an adverb to achieve roughly the same effect, without making the reader feel like they’re scanning a thesaurus.

and speaking of a thesaurus: it’s not cheating to use outside resources like thesaurus.com to help you come up with words. i fuckin love thesaurus.com. i use that shit all the time for everything. i use it when i’m writing emails. i used it just now to write that last paragraph. thesaurus.com is your BEST friend.

7. grammar. (and spelling but that’s really a given.) unfortunately if i tried to teach you all of the essential rules of grammar this post would exceed tumblr’s previously-nonexistent word count limit. so i’m not gonna teach you any of them. this is just a general point to suggest that if/when you’re writing, have someone you trust, with a good grasp of grammar, look over it. of course it doesn’t have to be perfect or AP style or anything like that. readers will overlook a certain amount of grammar mistakes and every reader has a different threshold. but in general, as a grammar geek and former journalism editor-in-chief, i have a duty to my grammurai code to preach the importance of grammar in writing. good grammar does not necessarily mean good writing and vice versa, bad grammar does not necessarily mean bad writing, but bad grammar makes good writing a lot harder to read, and in some cases will even obscure your actual meaning. so please, have someone read it. for the record this is me offering up my services. i am very good at fixing grammar. i have lots of weaknesses in writing but grammar is one of my strengths. please prioritize grammar. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

***

okay so now that i’ve said all of this shit and pretended to be an expert and embodied everyone’s tenth grade english teacher, let me add one very important disclaimer:

none of this is always relevant.* writing is an art, not a science. you are never going to be following all of the rules, all of the time. you shouldn’t. it’s good to know the basics of constructing a plot, establishing a character, showing and/not telling, moving the story along. but a lot of this advice is really subjective and heavily influenced by my writing experience and habits and tendencies and preferences, and those are simply not generalizable to the world. i am a sample size of one and science dictates that that means my results cannot be statistically significant. i am just some guy. earlier i said you don’t want to over-describe the world. but maybe you do! maybe you’re really into worldbuilding and you want people to know what they’re getting into. maybe you’re like sam, and you just don’t feel as confident in your dialogue skills but you love painting word pictures. i said that adverbs are your friend, but maybe you just prefer to use verbs. maybe you don’t want ANY dialogue tags and you want the reader to interpret the dialogue based on context and content. i said that characters aren’t people and they won’t behave like people, but maybe you’re trying to write hyper-realistic characters. maybe you’re just going for believability over narrative. WHATEVER. the point is, rules are made to be broken. no one is going to have The Answer for How To Write Good because there isn’t just one answer. every single writing rule has exceptions and you can be that exception as many times as you want.

*except grammar. grammar is fucking always relevant.

i hope any of this advice was helpful to you, even though i english teacher-ed the fuck out of it. and for what it’s worth, i approached this as if you were a relatively novice writer, but i know absolutely jack shit about your writing prowess and experience and habits. so maybe you already know all of this and none of what i’ve said is helpful at all. if you have a more specific problem, i would be happy to try and help. if you’re hoping for more specific feedback, i’d have to read something of yours first - but again, happy to try and help. i don’t know if you can tell but i loooove writing and english and grammar and all of this shit and it would be my honor. i have now spoken so long that james madison himself is begging me to shut up so i’ll stop here but thank you for coming by and giving me the opportunity to expatiate a shit ton. and GOOD LUCK i forgot the most important advice of writing which is HAVE FUN LOVE WHAT YOU WRITE AND WRITE WHAT YOU LOVE OKAY BYE

[moviegroovies]

so i know i’m breaking like, this unspoken vow of silence re: the movie by making this post but this IS a movie blog and i did watch the last airbender. and can i just say. holy fucking shit.

y’all know i like a lot of bad movies. knowing that, take me seriously when i say: this is a BAD movie. and not in a good way. i went into it with no expectations except morbid curiosity and i was STILL let down. i wanted to hate watch it, and yeah, i hated watching it, but it wasn’t even fun to hate. i just hated it. 

don’t watch the last airbender.

if you’re like me and you just wanted to know exactly how bad it was, please benefit from my mistakes. read my fun funky rant and then never think of that movie again. put it out of your mind. rewatch boiling rock. love yourself.

anyway.

pretty much the one and only thing i knew about why it was bad going in was that it was whitewashed; that’s like the only thing anyone ever mentions in conjecture with this movie, when they mention it at all. knowing this, going in knowing full well that the casting department did crimes against humanity, i was still shocked and disturbed at the sight of white katara and white sokka. literally... that casting choice was a hate crime. look them up (or check out my last post) if you need to see it for yourself... it’s bad y’all. somehow i had braced myself for white aang, but before i saw it with my own two eyes i couldn’t believe that they would actually whitewash katara and sokka, And Yet. the really stupid thing is that it’s not even “””justified””” IN UNIVERSE; most of the members of the southern water tribe are played by asian actors, meaning that they didn’t even pull a pan and make the WHOLE southern water tribe white, they just made sokka and katara mysteriously “special” in a spectacularly poor judgement call.

actually, that’s another thing. outside the northern water tribe (which is also mostly white... i’m wondering if sokka and katara are white because gran gran--a white woman in the movie--is from the north? anyway it’s a moot point either way because none of them should be white, there are NO WHITE CHARACTERS IN THE SHOW AVATAR, jesus FUCKING christ), most of the extras and background characters are played by actors of color, particularly asian actors, which would be accurate to the show’s canon. maybe m night shyamalan or someone else involved in the making of this shitshow of a movie thought that this would somehow absolve the whitewashing of the main characters, but in reality i’d argue that it makes it even worse; by having characters mostly played by people of color continuously being saved by three little white bitches, the movie goes HARD on the white savior trope, and also just generally uses these actual, living people as exploitative, orientalist set dressing for this 1 hour and 43 minutes of special hell.

with one notable exception: prince zuko is played by an actor of color--specifially, dev patel. (who is himself miscast, considering how zuko and the fire nation are japanese-coded, but the second they opened on that veruca salt looking ass bitch calling herself katara any hope that the makers of this movie gave any consideration to the racial coding avatar introduced went right out the window.) which adds Another layer of racism to this already inconceivably bad fuckup of a movie; how strange, that the movie’s racebending made all three heroes white, but the primary antagonist (as well as the secondary antagonist, zhao, and the mostly-off-screen-but-still-present ozai) is a man of color. what an odd coincidence. hmmmm.

i hate this movie. i do want to note, though, that dev patel’s inclusion was the only thing that actually got me through the whole thing; i have no idea why he was in this film (he’s FAR too talented for the content he was given and no one else in the entire cast went even one sixteenth as hard as he did) but he was its one saving grace. still, though, even he couldn’t save it. he was so cute and he did his damn best with probably the worst script in the history of film... but he was still in THIS film. since the release of this movie, patel has spoken out against his role in it and the world of hollywood blockbusters in general, and to that i say... good for him. 

i was going for zuko though. this time it was like YES baby CAPTURE that avatar. full stop.

so yes, it was horribly miscast, whitewashed to hell and back, and went with a racist white hero/villains of color cast as a backdrop. all of these things, in themselves, are enough to completely condemn the movie, and my work here might as well be done... except to end it there would be to leave one million other glaring flaws unexamined. and i refuse to let any rock be unturned.

because, like, it’s NOT just bad because of the whitewashing. the whitewashing and the other racist elements are huge PARTS of why this is a bad movie, but even if this movie was made with an accurate and un-whitewashed cast, it would STILL be a bad movie, and i need you all to know this. 

starting from the top: they ruined katara and sokka. 

well, they ruined them the second they cast them the way they did. but again, let’s say they cast someone else. let’s say they cast appropriate actors for the rolls, but the level of acting skill and the script they used was the same. even in this case, they would have RUINED katara and sokka. none of the characters in this movie are 100% recognizable (and i’ll keep repeating it: the casting DID NOT HELP), but katara and sokka got hit the hardest and the worst. the things that sokka should have brought to the table (his goofy attitude, his intelligence) were erased, and the “sokka” we were given instead was a jerkass buzzkill who might have occasionally been the butt of a joke, but was never actually intended to be funny in his own right. reflecting on the series, it’s kind of as if we got his characterization from the first episode (before sokka got any development and was, i guess, kind of a jerkass buzzkill) and never strayed from that, which would be bad enough, but i think even episode ONE sokka was more fun and dynamic than White Sokka™. mistakes were made.

but it was even WORSE for katara. katara’s righteous anger was all but erased. SOKKA was the one who broke the avatar out of the ice, and only because they accidentally happened upon him--katara didn’t get to be angry at sokka’s jerkass sexism and unconsciously fuck up an entire iceberg. katara NEVER got to be angry. in fact, most of katara’s moments were taken and distributed between aang and sokka; aang, for instance is the one who inspires the earthbenders to break out of prison. we don’t even see katara train with master pakku, and SHE was the one who actually became a waterbending master when they went to the north pole. in this movie, katara mostly existed to talk about ~hope~ (very ember island players, lmfao) and hug aang when he went into the avatar state. 

by the way, that prison? it’s not the metal platform in the middle of the ocean we got in the show. it’s just... an enclosed village. surrounded by dirt and earth. and the earthbenders never tried to break out until aang came along and told them to? hmmmm.... 

Unfortunate Implications™, but what did you expect. 

other than that, idk. the writing was so fucking bad, y’all. a significant chunk of the plot relies on the “as you know” trope, in which characters have an expository discussion about something everyone present should already be aware of and wouldn’t need to get into. this normally wouldn’t bother me THAT much, if i noticed it at all (exposition is essential, after all, and you only have so much time in a movie, so i guess it makes sense when you’re trying to compress an entire season of a show into one), except like... it’s ridiculous. i couldn’t ignore it, they just hit the hammer so hard. “as you know, this is what the avatar is. as you know, zuko was exiled after fighting an agni kai with his father. as you know...” 

bleh.

after that, i guess all my complaints are a little more pedantic. some smaller things that made the movie unwatchable: the bending motions were super weird and i think sped up? there were perfectly good martial arts moves right there waiting for them, and shyamalan fucked even THAT up in an effort to... what? make it look more “mystical?” bitch i’ll kill you. also, for reasons completely unfathomable to me, some of the names were pronounced oddly despite being said one million times in the show. “aah-ng” “ee-roh” “soh-ka” “ahvatar.” literally... why.

i’ve been thinking “soh-ka” in my head for like two weeks. hideous.

and one last thing, which really DOESN’T matter in comparison to what they did to the human characters, but like... what fucking happened to appa?? why did they do that to him?

don’t watch the last airbender.

[cainegl]

            welcome  back  angels  ,  tODAY  we’re  gonna  be  truly  shunning  the  psycho  pretty  boy  ,    caine  ,  don’t  show  any  affection  to  him  whatsoever  bc  his  fuckass  doesnt  deserve  it  !  i  probably  won’t  b  around  for  interactions  tonight  but  thats  ok  bc  my  goal  anyways  was  to  get  plots  laid  out  w  everyone  before  i  jumped  into  writing  !  i  love  u  all  genuinely  so  much  and  hopefully  ,  caine’s  satanic  ass  gives  u  a  fun  time  w  hating  him  ,  i  know  i  sure  as  hell  do  :’) 

                            𝒇𝒖𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒃𝒆 𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 !

𝖋𝖚𝖑𝖑  𝖓𝖆𝖒𝖊  :   caine  giovanni  bratton 𝖓𝖎𝖈𝖐𝖓𝖆𝖒𝖊𝖘   :   he  mostly  gets  called  by  his  surname  considering  ‘ caine ’  is  rather  un-riffable 𝖇𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖍𝖉𝖆𝖙𝖊  /  𝖆𝖌𝖊   :    october 29 , 1996 𝖟𝖔𝖉𝖎𝖆𝖈   :   scorpio 𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝖎𝖉𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖙𝖞  /  𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖓𝖔𝖚𝖓𝖘   :   cismale  identifying  with  he  /  him  /  his 𝖔𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓   :   closeted  bisexual  and  biromantic 𝖔𝖈𝖈𝖚𝖕𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓  :   former  leftfielder  for  the  boston  red  sox  ,  now  a  fashion  model  and  ceo  /  chairhead  of  his  own  fashion  brand  supreme 𝖍𝖔𝖌𝖜𝖆𝖗𝖙𝖘 𝖍𝖔𝖚𝖘𝖊  :   slytherin  𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖕𝖗𝖊𝖙𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖎𝖓𝖘𝖕𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖇𝖞  :          billy hargrove from stranger things , roman godfrey from hemlock grove ,  kanye west ,  cook from skins , tony  stark   &  erik killmonger from the mcu  ,   patrick bateman from american psycho 𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖎𝖙𝖘  :            —     machiavellian  ,  brutal  ,   crass   ,  narcisistic  ,   manipulative           +     opportunistic  ,  intuitive  ,  thrives under pressure ,  straightforward  

𝖉 𝖎 𝖘 𝖘 𝖊 𝖗 𝖙 𝖆 𝖙 𝖎 𝖔 𝖓 

        *   born  to  a  hamptons  housewife  and  the  ceo  of  a  major  sports  marketing  firm  ,  the  dark  haired  devil  had  a  rather  unremarkable  upbringing  .  entitled  as  expected  ,  manipulative  and  cunning  ,  caine  knew  what  people  wanted  to  hear  and  was  sure  to  tell  them  in  his  honeyed  lilt  if  it  were  in  his  favor  for  later  exploitation  .  average  in  school  and  below  average  in  looks  for  most  of  his  life  ,  there  was  a  definite  cruelty  doled  out  to  him  throughout  his  experience  in  the  most  prestigious  private  schools  daddy’s  money  could  afford  (  not  that  his  less  than  welcoming  personality  made  things  any  easier  on  himself  .  )  it  was  his  transition  into  sports  ,  particularly  baseball  ,  that  pulled  him  into  the  direction  of  finally  accomplishing  something  other  than  winning  asshole  of  the  year  defacements  under  his  yearbook  picture  .  with  that  ,  caine  found  that  his  hostility  didn’t  have  to  be  negated  ,  but  rather  selective  —  if  the  male  could  pick  and  choose  his  battles  ,  he’d  find  himself  much  further  along  in  his  desires  than  through  brute  force  alone  .

      and  so  ,  with  precision  focus  and  the  bratton  determination  that  becomes  indicative  of  his  brand  ,  he  rebuilds  .  high  school  finds  their  star  fieldsman  as  a  freshman  with  a  newly  regained  understanding  of  how  to  schmooze  people  ,    dripping  magnetism  through  well  timed  smiles  or  pretentious  humble  brags  .  as  if  taken  over  by  a  well-trained  debutante  overnight  ,  caine  found  himself  with  a  newfound  power  over  those  around  him  and  a  faked  charm  that  propelled  him  to  new  hights  ,  and  with  a  level  of  athletic  talent  to  his  name  that  nobody  could  doubt  ,  he  was  easily  gaining  ground  and  recognition  throughout  his  hometown  of  manhattan  .  with  puberty  catapulting  him  through  his  senior  year  ,  caine  bratton’s  photo-ready  grin  and  laser  focus  on  his  goals  at  hand  made  him  something  of  a  pseudo-celebrity  ,  the  first  taste  of  recognition  that  he  quickly  becomes  addicted  to  .  colleges  fight  tooth  and  nail  to  offer  manhattan’s  pretty  boy  slugger  an  offer  he  cant  refuse  ,  eventually  sending  caine  off  to  duke  university  to  become  one  of  the  top  ranked  college  baseball  players  in  the  nation  .  practically  feeding  off  the  chaos  of  his  newfound  lifestyle  ,  he  thrives  at  the  party  school  and  cements  his  name  into  nearly  every  east  coast  household  —  building  a  following  of  both  sports  fans  and  general  thirst  follows  alike  .  

      obsessed  with  his  father’s  opinion  ,  caine  heeds  his  word  with  furthering  his  brand  and  takes  on  carefully  selected  sponsors  ,  always  ensuring  they’re  for  modeling  gigs  that  won’t  jeopardize  his  student  athlete  contract  .  he  graduates  early  (  thanks  to  a  particularly  notable  set  of  “  tutors  “  his  dad  hired  )  with  a  business  degree  and  as  first  pick  for  the  MLB  draft  that  following  june  .  after  a  stellar  year  pushing  the  minnesota  twins  out  of  the  bottom  of  their  league  rankings  ,  caine  gets  signed  to  the  boston  red  sox  with  one  of  the  most  expensive  fieldsman  contracts  in  history  .  modeling  gigs  and  sponsorships  flood  the  20  year  old  with  a  force  even  he  couldn’t  have  expected  ,  fueling  the  narcissism  years  in  the  making  .  he’s  well  liked  by  the  media—    a  man’s  man  ,  charming  ,  arrogant  but  within  reason  ,  knowing  the  exact  line  to  drop  for  the  exact  reaction  he  wants  .  caine  spends  the  next  two  seasons  with  the  world  exactly  where  he  wants  them  ,  manipulating  his  way  into  and  our  of  every  situation  his  heart  could  desire  .

      one  thing  he  can’t  control  is  a  devastating  complete  tear  of  his  rotator  cuff  during  a  particularly  high  pressure  world  series  game  ,  one  that  completely  shatters  his  chances  of  finishing  the  season  and  just  about  decimates  the  rest  of  his  career  .  the  surgeries  are  GRUELING  and  the  rehabilitation  is  even  worse  ,  leaving  caine  with  far  too  much  free  time  on  his  hands  and  increasingly  nasty  cracks  his  perfect  pretty  boy  facade  .  a  bittersweet  highlight  of  the  year  ,  conflicting  for  a  multitude  of  reasons  ,  is  the  revelation  from  an  on-and-off  fling  of  his  that  caine  is  to  become  a  father  ,  sending  much  of  the  world  (  including  himself  )  into  a  shock  .  expectant  on  the  arrival  of  his  daughter  ,  left  without  a  clear  career  trajectory  ,  caine  finds  himself  spiraling  into  what  becomes  his  black  hole  ,  ultimately  culminating  in  him  beating  the  shit  out  of  some  random  drunk  guy  on  the  street  trying  to  get  a  rise  out  of  him  and  landing  him  with  a  civil  case  .  while  the  charges  were  ultimately  dropped  ,  the  former  golden  boy  was  undoubtedly  in  shreds  ,  attracting  all  the  wrong  attention  ,  chasing  destruction  wherever  it  offered  itself  —  and  thus  ,  piquing  the  interest  of  one  papa  legba  .

      caine’s  predisposition  for  destruction  and  chaos  ,  satanic  in  the  closest  sense  of  the  word  with  a  perfect  photo-op  smile  ,  made  him  a  champion  for  the  causes  papa  legba  piloted  .  the  demon  king  found  itself  with  a  harbinger  of  sorts  ,  a  machiavelli-reincarnate  who  was  beginning  to  attract  the  worst  of  the  celebrity  sphere  into  his  circle  .  it  wasn’t  difficult  to  recruit  caine  into  his  unsavory  doings  ,  repairing  his  shoulder  with  a  ‘  groundbreaking  new  muscle  regeneration  therapy  ,  ‘  but  rather  than  allow  him  to  rest  on  his  laurels  in  the  mlb  ,  he  offers  caine  a  proposition  .  ‘  why  set  your  sights  on  the  horizon  ,  when  the  whole  damn  world  could  be  yours  ?  ‘  and  with  that  ,  his  new  cherub  kaia  toted  in  the  crook  of  his  former  bad  arm  ,  supreme  drops  after  months  of  hype  and  launches  caine  bratton  from  baseball  tragedy  to  fashion  empire  mogul  .  ever  leaning  into  his  newfound  infamy  due  to  his  increasingly  volatile  outbursts  ,  his  brand  is  building  speed  at  unfathomable  rates  ,  with  his  brain  at  the  helm  and  papa  legba’s  influence  behind  it  ,  and  caine  is  relishing  in  the  new  world  he’s  creating  for  himself  —  regardless  of  the  price  .

𝖉 𝖎 𝖘 𝖘 𝖊 𝖈 𝖙 𝖎 𝖔 𝖓  

           icb  u  made  it  this  far  and  if  u  did  so  without  skimming  ?  u  a  real  one  😩✊🏽  sksksk  so  real  TALK  ,  caine  is  the  literal  worst  so  pls  dont  hesitate  to  make  him  the  villain  in  any  plot  u  so  desire  .  he’s  intelligent  but  not  to  an  excess  ,  but  is  incredibly  business  savvy  ,  knowing  an  opportunity  when  he  sees  one  and  fucking  POUNCING  on  it  .  this  plays  off  his  INCREDIBLE  fucking  manipulation  skills  ,  the  man  will  see  an  in  and  exploit  it  to  no  end  in  a  way  thats  ?  equal  parts  terrifying  and  lowkey  impressive  ?  side  note  he  takes  everything  seriously  ,  esp  himself  and  his  daughter  ,  and  isn’t  abt  to  let  any  idiot  drive  his  empire  into  the  ground  .  the  man  is  genuinely  convinced  he  can  take  over  the  world  at  this  point  ,  w  papa  legba  fueling  his  lil  psycho  ass  ,  and  is  gonna  probably  stop  at  nothing  until  he’s  reached  his  peak  .  he’s  destructive  and  has  absolutely  caused  a  fourth  his  staff  to  quit  with  his  office  meltdowns  where  he  goes  the  FUCK  off  but  ppl  can’t  say  he  doesn’t  have  an  incredible  vision  and  a  cutthroat  determination  to  accomplish  it  .  he’s  in  that  weird  sweet  spot  where  he’s  obnoxious  and  arrogant  as  shit  bc  he  knows  he’s  a  big  ole  successful  pretty  boy  that  ppl  want  to  please  but  he  also  has  that  classic  ‘  i  grew  up  rich  ‘  disposition  that  means  he  knows  when  to  fake  it  ?  (  on  that  note  ,  he’d  make  a  PHENOMENAL  fake  bf  👀  for  the  clout  )    also  an  awful  boyfriend  ,  has  prob  cheated  on  every  person  he’s  ever  dated  and  def  cheated  on  his  baby  mama  but  makes  it  a  point  to  be  an  incredible  dad  to  his  kid  bc  she’s  the  only  tie  to  his  humanity  /  soft  side  he  really  lets  influence  him  .  his  defining  features  are  his  absolute  narcissism  and  volatile  desire  to  be  the  absolute  best  at  what  he  does  ,  as  well  as  a  laser  focus  that  doubles  as  one  of  his  greatest  points  of  admiration  .   he’s  ABSOLUTELY  a  tool  but  to  his  credit  he  can  be  deeply  intimidating  ,  i  imagine  he’s  one  of  those  guys  with  just  incredibly  strong  eye  contact  to  the  point  it  freaks  ppl  out  and  that  reaction  always  makes  him  LAUGH  .

      hc’s :  ultimate  peak  caine  look  is  a  supreme  t  shirt  under  a  black  leather  jacket  n  some  saint  laurent  chelsea  boots  PHEW  ,  he  wears  sunglasses  inside  w  out  hesitating  ,  thinks  kaia  is  a  ~superbaby~  and  is  NOT  afraid  to  tell  u  how  much  fucking  smarter  she  is  than  ‘  normal  babies  ,  ‘  he  has  a  sponsorship  w  a  fucking  bougie  expensive  ass  teeth  whitening  brand  and  they’ve  insured  his  smile  for  an  UNREASONABLE  sum  of  money  ,  a  big  mood  for  him  w  how  busy  he  is  would  b  a  hurried  hookup  in  the  back  seat  of  his  limo  with  led  zeppelin  blasting  over  the  speakers  , his  office  has  one  of  those  balcony  golf  sets  except  its  full  golf  and  not  mini  putt  so  his  ass  will  get  PISSED  and  just  .  shoot  fucking  golf  balls  off  the  side  of  the  building  not  caring  who’s  car  they  dent  two  blocks  away  SKSKKSKS

𝖉 𝖊 𝖘 𝖎 𝖗 𝖊 𝖘

UM  quick  plots  ,  basically  im  heavily  searching  for  the  mother  to  his  child ,  kaia  who  would  be  about  a  year  and  a  half  rn  ,  i  wanted  them  to  have  an  incredibly  tumultuous  back  and  forth  relationship  bc  lbr  caine  is  not  a  great  person  but  he  is  a  spectacular  dad  so  it’s  a  catch-22  for  anyone  involved  skskkss

also  looking  for  his  “  in  my  head  “  by  ari  type  ex  ?  i  did  not  name  this  mans  CAINE  for  nothing  cmon  now  kids

i  would  fucking  LOVE  more  than  anything  to  have  ppl  who  work  with  him  in  any  extent  ?  it  could  be  models  who  rep  the  brand  and  he  flirts  incessantly  with  ,  it  could  be  influencers  who  have  a  partnership  w  him  and  see  his  business  side  ,  it  could  be  people  w  ambition  who  work  for  his  company  and  see  his  NASTY  side  but  pls  ,  supreme  inc  is  open  to  any  and  everything  .  

chaos  squad  ,  hookups  ,  party  friends  ,  athletic  rivals  ,  ride  or  dies  ,  ppl  who  SOMEHOW  tolerate  him  ,  ppl  who  proudly  do  not  tolerate  him  at  all  ,  maybe  even  the  dude  he  punched  in  the  street  that  one  time  ?  also  cousins  ,  childhood  friends  ,  on  and  offs  ,  HELLA  exes  ,  ppl  he  torments  ,  close  as  siblings  relationships  ,  maybe  someone  he’s  kinda  soft  for  but  will  never  admit  ?  

[howtohero]

A Field Guide for Communicating With Werewolves and Vampires

The world is a weird place. Gosh, how many blog posts have I started like that? Weird. Anyway, blah blah chocolate milk hurricanes. Blah blah blah talking neck warts. In your travels as a superhero you’ll get to talk to a lot of para-folk. You’ll have tea with the Troll king of Salt-Lake City and you’ll play shuffleboard with the Octomen of Madrid. Some of these para-folk will be relatively easy to communicate with, but some others might be a bit trickier. To make life easier for you, we’ve reached out to some friends of the guide to assemble this guide of handy phrases that you might need translated when talking to werewolves and vampires. It should be noted that since most werewolves and vampires were at one point human, they can understand human languages just fine, so this guide is just for you to use to understand what they’re saying back to you. So, without further ado:

Common Werewolf Phrases, Sayings, Practices and What They Mean (with input from professional werewolf: Wolfgang Amawolfus Wolfzart)

Awoooooo: “Ain’t the moon looking mighty fine tonight pardner?”

Awooo: “Gee golly wouldn’t I like to eat a chocolate chip cookie right about now.”

Awooooooooo: “Hey have you seen this here tree! This is the best tree I ever did see!”

Panting while drooling: They’re going to eat you. Play dead. They hate having to work for their meal.

Panting without drooling: They’re psyching themselves up for a werewolf dance off. Play dead. They’re going to need a pre-dance off protein snack.

Howl: “Howdy.” (More like howldy.)

Hooowl: “Do you want to buy a chair? I bought this chair, it’s a really good chair. It’s got a cushion. It’s got arm rests. And it’s only lightly chewed on to boot. See, I bought this chair for myself as a bit of a gift. I’d been having a good day, taking care of all my responsibilities. And I thought, hey, I deserve a chair today. So I bought this really nice chair. But then I got bitten by a werewolf. So I guess you can say my day took a turn. It was a bit of a hairy situation wasn’t it. Heh. So anyway, now that I’m a werewolf I rarely have any cause for sitting. Always on the hunt you know. Eating deer or whatever. But I’ve got this really really nice chair just kind of gathering dust in my house now. So anyway, are you in the market for a chair? It’s a really good one. You seem like you sit. So what d’you say friend? Do you want to buy a chair?”

Hoooooowl: “Hoooooowdy.”

Taking off their shirt: This means that they have seen you and think that you have a better shirt than they do and they want you to give it to them.

Hijacking a spacecraft: They want to go to the moon. Good luck stopping them. (To stop them please take a look at our post on fighting human/animal hybrids.)

Snarling: It’s difficult to give an exact translation but this means they’re bemoaning the current state of their home country’s political system.

Baring their teeth while growling: They want some scratches behind the ear. Or, that they want to go for a dip in the hot tub and they recommend that you vacate the area because their wet hot fur is going to be smelllllly.

Woof!: “Aw lookit me I’m just a big ol’ puppy I promise I won’t eat you.”

Ruh roh: It’s exactly what you think it is. They’re just making a cute reference.

Loud yodeling: This is a werewolf mating call. Don’t go out wearing a fur coat. 

Common Vampire Phrases, Sayings, Practices and What They Mean (with input from Draculok, the first vampire)

I vant to suck your blood: This is a very friendly greeting. You have nothing to fear. They’re inviting you in for a hug.

Bleh!: Your breath smells like garlic and this upsets them.

Bleh bleh!: They wish they could look at themselves in mirrors. They just know there’s some flesh caught in their fangs but they just can’t tell where it is!

Bleh bleh bleh: “Dorris you are being just absolutely batty tonight. Ah how you slay me. You’re simply too much Dorris.” (This one probably won’t come up unless your name happens to be Dorris!)

My still-beating heart is as dark as the blackest pits of the abyss from whence man’s greatest sins are born. With my every step I carry with me the unbearable weight of my past and unfathomable pain of the actions I know I must commit. Every night I awaken to the screams that rattle inside my head and when the sun rises I embrace the cold sleep of my crypt. You can never understand me, mere mortal, and so, you can never judge me: They really need to go to the bathroom but are too embarrassed to just come out and say it.

Bleh bleh bleh bleh: They saw a really cool cloud but unfortunately do not possess the vocabulary to properly describe it. Just go outside and look for any cool clouds. 

Sparkling: They’re just trying to add some dazzle to the world. I’m proud of them. 

Hi we’re “Fangry and Confused” and we put the amp in the “vampire”: The sickest band in all of history is about to explode your tiny minds and shred your stupid ears. 

One... two... three ah! ah! ah!: They’re counting. They really just think math is hilarious. Those vampires are so kooky.

I’ve got to Drac out of here: This is just nonsense new age vampire slang. I’ve no idea what it means. I assume they’re paying homage to me? The greatest of vampires? Or maybe they’re just saying “good bye”? Honestly I’m at just as big of a loss as you are my tasty mortal friends.

Loud bat shrieks (bat mode): “Help! I’ve no idea how to actually fly! Why can’t I see anything! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! Being a bat is so stressful!!!!!!!!”

Loud bat shrieks (vampire mode): “I’m done being social for the day everybody please just file into the walk in freezer and we shall reconvene when I awaken!” 

Hissing at sunlight: These pasty nerds can’t deal with the sunlight. This isn’t a genetic thing. I, the first vampire, can walk in the sunlight no problem. 

Draping their cape over their face dramatically: They’ve got bad acne and don’t want anybody to see their face.

Literally sucking the blood out of your neck: Uh... Well, take it as a compliment. You must have very nice blood. It was nice knowing you. There’s like a 50/50 chance that you’ll end up becoming a vampire too so welcome to the family. You don’t need this silly guide anymore that’s for sure. (This one’s actually a bold faced lie. You still need this silly guide! You will always need this silly guide!) 

[cecilspeaks]

127 - A Matter of Blood, Part 1

Sleep like there’s nobody watching. Welcome to Night Vale.

Mayor Dana Cardinal, now in her fourth year on the job, has gotten comfortable with the responsibilities and powers of the position. She issued a statement in casual conversation with your intrepid host just yesterday, while we happened to be next to each other in line at the Missing Frog Salad Bar. Saying she believes she could bring about some lasting positive change with her position. As such, she will be instituting a number of programs to radically expand the power and oversight of the Mayor, putting her directly in charge of the agents of the Vague yet Menacing Government agency, who spy on her every moment, as well as the Sheriff’s Secret Police, who regulate our every waking breath. She said by taking on full control of all areas, she will be able to make sure everything is run more justly, more humanely, and with less imprisoning dissidents for life in the abandoned mine shaft outside of town.

But, she said, this change will be difficult for a lot of people, and so she asked me not to… tell anyone just yet. Oops. So this has been Cecil’s Fiction Corner, in which I write fan fiction about real people in town. None of that was true. Onto actual news now.

Astronomers and astrologists alike were excited to announce we will soon experience a rare cosmological event. The Blood Matter from space! Once every 500 years, our region experiences blood matter from space, and experts believe this might be the largest such event in recorded Night Vale history. Although specifying that with any certainty is tricky, the experts say. The problem is that most of recorded Night Vale history has been covered over with a sloppy black ink scribble and the note: “Sorry, top secret. Love, the government”, scrawled on every page. Sometimes those same government employees will arrive at important events while they’re still happening, and start shoving wadded-up socks into people’s mouths while shouting: “Lalalala I can’t hear you!” in order to get a jump on censoring history.

Anyway, for those space heads and star geeks who are excited by the upcoming blood matter from space, it appears the best viewing will be from literally anywhere in the region. It’s gonna come down hard on us, and there’s no hiding from it. Carlos and I will be holding our own viewing party here at the station, and it’s open to the public. Please bring one potluck item, one bundle of dried herbs to mollify Station Management, and of course, galoshes. You’re going to need galoshes. Can’t wait!

And now a segment I like to call Cecil Gershwin Palmer’s Theater of the Mind.

Please, with your mind’s eye, travel into a theater. You are in a theater. You print your tickets at home, annoyed that for unfathomable reasons, this theater doesn’t do will call. Then you forget the tickets you printed out, so you have to argue with the guy in the box office for a bit before it turns out, they can in fact print your tickets there, they just don’t want to. That sorted, you enter the lobby. It smells like wet velvet. The paint is peeling a bit, but you can see that once this theater was really something. It’s still something, you suppose, just a very different kind of something.

You don’t have to pee, but you think you probably should just in case. The bathroom is tiny and it has a long line, so you decide not to pee. Except of course now that you thought about it, you do have to pee. You sit in your seat and hope the first act isn’t too long, and mentally trace out the route you’ll speed-walk the moment the lights come up for intermission, so you’ll be one of the first at the bathroom.

Finally, some ten minutes after the show was supposed to start, the curtain opens.

That’s it for this installment of Cecil Gershwin Palmer’s Theater of the Mind. Next time, we’ll get into the actual show, so look forward to that.

Controversy has arisen about Dana’s plans to radically expand her mayoral power, which were leaked to the public through – some unknown channel. No really, it could have been anyone who told. The City Council was the loudest voice of protest. Their lungs are huge, and they can make their voice deafening. “The machinery of Night Vale government is delicate,” the City Council screamed loud enough that it woke even Larry Leroy out on the edge of town, who was asleep because it was 4 AM. “This policy shift can only upset the checks and balances inherent in our system. For instance, we the City Council check and balance everything and ultimately make all the decisions. That’s how civic government is supposed to work.” And then they keened for several hours and we all gave up and got out of bed, because none of us were getting any more sleep that night.

Joining the dissent, Tamika Flynn - local armed teen militia leader and the sole member of the City Council who is not a single-bodied, multi-voiced, inhuman entity - expressed concern about government overreach. She said: “If the government ever tries to overreach me, I’ll grab that arm they’re reaching with and do a series of self defense maneuvers to disable the overreaching government. Sorry,” she continued, “that metaphor kind of got away from me. What I’m saying is, while Dana is a good person and a friend of mine, expanding government power on the assumption that the government will always be run by well meaning people is a dangerous gamble.” Dana herself did not alleviate these concerns, as many people reported her acting strangely in public throughout town. She burst into many local businesses, demanding to know if they knew where she was. They would tell her she was in their store and she would get angry and storm out. She was also spotted standing across from City Hall, monitoring the front doors with binoculars.

Perhaps this is part of a social program we just don’t understand yet. Or perhaps she is annoyed at a big-mouthed friend of hers who is very, very sorry. More on this story as I’m it’s going to develop.

And now, traffic. A businesswoman sits in an airplane, mid-flight, staring out the window. She pretends she is doing this because she is bored. She is actually doing this because she is nervous. The plane is shaking and she is looking out the window to see what is causing this, but of course she cannot see what is causing this. Instead, what she sees is a miracle, unimagined in thousands of years in human science and theology. What she sees is the top side of the clouds. Here is the place that her species, since the start of it, have projected worlds onto. Have looked up at and told stories, some based on what was observed, some based on what was felt, but all based on never being able to see the top side of the clouds.

And oh, there were those in the mountains who could see the top side of low-lying clouds, but that’s not the same at all, is it? Nothing like going to the top layer of clouds and breaking through until there is only space above and clouds below. And here she is, nervously sipping a Sprite and looking out the window and worrying about what will happen when she lands. Which is that she’ll lose her job. Although she doesn’t know that yet, because she’s still in the air, looking down at the top side of the clouds. This has been traffic.

And now a word from our sponsors. Pay no attention to the vase in your backyard. All human beings die. This is unrelated to the vase in your backyard. You don’t remember purchasing that vase. Certainly it does not seem like your style. It wouldn’t go with any of your things, and that is not a color you buy glasswork in. You are, just in this moment, realizing you have opinions about the color of glasswork, and this is causing you to reassess in some small way your sense of self. But pay no attention to that vase in your backyard. We all get slower, get sick, and then we pass on. This is unrelated to the vase in your backyard. The vase in your backyard did not cause this. It is an inornate vase, not of any recognizable era or culture. Perhaps you should plant climbing vines or thick shrubs around the vase, so that eventually, you won’t have to see it anymore. It will be covered over with greenery, as you will some day be covered over with greenery. Everything will eventually be covered over with greenery, until the greenery goes too. But pay no attention to the vase in your backyard. All human beings die. This is unrelated to the vase. This message was brought to you.

Worries continue to rise about the Mayor’s controversial initiatives. The Sheriff was especially put out by the planned shifting of the Secret Police to the perview of the Mayor’s office. “Over my dead body,” said the Sheriff. “And I was told by a psychic once that I would never die, and we all know that lying is illegal, and so my dead body will never exist for anything to be over. The point is it’s not happening.”

There are, however, those who are in favor of the plan. Like green market owner Tristan Cortez who said, “We all know, as citizens of Night Vale, that our government is a difficult beast. Doing just about any activity requires tons of forms and waiting in lines and puts us at risk of being devoured by the beings that run City Hall. As a tax payer, I welcome a shakeup in our government. Plus, I’ve been in the Sheriff’s Secret Prison since my daughter and I got caught committing robbery and fraud this fall, so really any change seems good to me.” Well, this is a complex issue and – oh my god. Oh no. What is, what…? Um, listeners, I’ve just been handed a report. It-it seems that a secret parking enforcement officer struck up a conversation with Dana, as she sat across from City Hall, watching it through binoculars. Dana had stared at the officer without replying, and when the officer took a step towards her in order to give her a friendly pat on the arm, she – she, she killed him. I don’t understand, but I am being asked to tell you that our Mayor and my friend, Dana Cardinal, is wanted for murder.

Let me… let’s just go to the weather.

[Weather: “J'Accuse” by Mucca Pazza. http://www.muccapazza.com]

This story, already concerning, has gotten both more confusing and more frightening. I’ve received a recorded statement from our Mayor, Dana Cardinal, and it’s… well, you should listen for yourself.

Dana: Once there came a sandstorm. This was years ago. So much of what we’ve lived through now was put into motion for us long before. But by the time the consequences come, we’ve set aside the inciting incident as agent history.

Once there came a sandstorm, and with it came our doubles. When my double came, she attacked me. Or I attacked her. I don’t remember who acted first. We struggled. It was a brutal fight that could have ended badly for either of us. But the result was that I murdered my double with a stapler. It was as slow and gruesome as you imagine. Or I think I murdered my double. It’s possible I am my double, and I murdered my original self. If we both had the same memories leading up to that moment, how would I know which of us I was? I am Dana, or I am her double. I will live forever with that doubt. I believe in what I am trying to do with my position as Mayor. Why else would I have been given a job so onerous in its responsibility, if I wasn’t meant to use that responsibility for the greater good?

So that is what I am trying to do, Night Vale. I am trying to work for the greater good. But I know not everyone is with me.

I have felt followed for the last few days. Threatened. I thought the groups who are opposed to my vision for Night Vale were trying to physically stop me. This has, as you know, happened before. And now these false murder charges. I have been framed, obviously. I mean, I know that I just admitted to killing someone years ago, but trust me that I didn’t do this one. It’s a setup to throw even more obstacles in the way of making the role of Mayor one which actually does good for this town. Or that is what I thought. I no longer know what to think. Because right now, I am staring at myself. There is another me. She is in my living room. Her hair is shorter than mine. Her face is hard and furious. And her hands – they are covered in blood. But she is me. I have come for myself.

I’m going to run now. I’m going to hide. But this isn’t over. I will make Night Vale a better place, if it kills me. Or if I kill me. I will keep in touch. If you see me, don’t approach. It is me but not me, and I don’t know what I am capable of. Stay safe.

Cecil: Well. I certainly do remember the day of the sandstorm, and the day of the doubles. It was actually a pretty traumatic time, if I’m honest. So I appreciate what Dana is going through, but – murder is a serious charge. Especially at a time when such controversial changes are going on over at the Mayor’s office. For their part, the Sheriff has said that Dana Cardinal is wanted for murder, and they don’t care which Dana they get. “Any Dana,” the Sheriff said waving their hand breezily. “If we see a Dana, we will arrest her, and Bob’s your uncle, into jail she goes.” When questioned whether this had anything to do with Mayor Cardinald’s current effort to take over the Sheriff’s Secret Police, the Sheriff huffed a bit and said things like, “Well I never,” and then hung up without answering the question.

What does it mean if the doubles are back? And what is going on with Dana Cardinal? None of those questions answered now, because stay tuned next for Bubblegum Hour, the hour devoted for reviewing the chewing sounds of popular varieties of bubblegum, hosted by today’s celebrity chewer, Mr. Tom Hanks.

Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: Hey, what’s your sign? Mine’s a stop sign. I stole it from an intersection, and I hold it up every time someone tries to talk to me.

[accountingfortaste]

Favorite Films of 2017

by Clay Keller

I’m finding it difficult to write something coherent about Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper, partially because the more I watch it, the more I’m convinced that I’m not meant to try; that its power lies in its complete lack of interest in being “coherent.” Just as a life, especially one thrown into grief-stricken chaos, only has the coherence that we arbitrarily apply to it, Personal Shopper is a series of strange and beguiling instances, full of un-explained oddities, horrors, and loose-ends. Instances that capture, better than any movie I’ve seen, that ephemeral feeling of existential entrapment; of being not stuck in place, but captive somehow. It’s a maddening, inexplicable, feeling, and that a film could dramatize it so well is deeply impressive.  

Speaking of captivity, Kristen Stewart delivers a performance in Personal Shopper that is so unvarnished, so unencumbered, that one has a difficult time conceiving that it was delivered at all, and not just simply lived. Each time I revisit this film I find it more difficult to turn away. It’s only a matter of time before Americans accept what the French celebrated a few years back: the fact that Kristen Stewart is fucking terrific. 

Anyway, I don’t know. Maybe everything I wrote above is rambling pablum. A bunch of nonsense my mind concocted by way of trying to intellectualize (or excuse) an instinctual love of a weirdo movie in which Kristen Stewart has a dramatic imessage conversation for twenty minutes and gets attacked by a Victorian ghost, which is just audacious and great. Is Personal Shopper a brilliant work by a genius and his genius muse? Is Personal Shopper bullshit? 

Or is it just me?

HONORABLE MENTION

(In Alphabetical Order)

Baby Driver (Edgar Wright)

The Big Sick (Michael Showalter)

Get Out (Jordan Peele)

A Ghost Story (David Lowery)

Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig)

Lady Macbeth (William Oldroyd)

Molly’s Game (Aaron Sorkin)

Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi)

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (Martin McDonagh)

Win It All (Joe Swanberg)

Anticipated 2017 Films Not Yet Seen: The Post (Update: I loved it!), Phantom Thread (Update: Favorite PTA since TWBB), The Florida Project, mother!, Good Time

MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2018

Annihilation (Alex Garland)

- Behind the camera: our premier sci-fi screenwriter. In front of the camera: Portman, Thompson, and Isaac. In the audience: me. 

The Happytime Murders (Brian Henson)

- The director of two of the best Muppet movies making his first feature in 20 years is definitely something to be excited about. 

E-Book (Olivier Assayas)

- Assayas has been so contemplative lately that we’ve forgotten that he’s also a total goddamn genre-mixing weirdo (see: Demonlover, Boarding Gate). Now he’s making a “full-blown comedy” with Juliette Binoche, one of his oldest collaborators, and I am here for it. 

Underwater (William Eubank)

- My favorite subgenre + my favorite Kristen Stewart = a movie I will probably love regardless of objective quality. 

You Were Never Really Here (Lynne Ramsey)

- If this trailer doesn’t ignite all of your senses, you are dead to the magic of cinema: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMqsd7Umxy8

FAVORITE CLASSICS FIRST SEEN IN 2017

How on earth did I not see Do the Right Thing until I was nearly 30? It’s almost unfathomable how colorful, funny, and heartbreaking Spike Lee’s 3rd film is. It has myriad memorable scenes and characters. It creates a sense of place in a way that is almost unparalleled in film history. It’s entertaining as hell. It also has a pulsating heart of essential humanity and righteous anger that vibrates at such an honest frequency as to make you feel literally connected to the screen as the narrative unfolds. Do the Right Thing shook me, and is one of those “as good or better than its out-sized reputation” films, alongside The Godfather and Casablanca. 

FAVORITE TELEVISION

Me, at the beginning of 2017: “I’ve never seen Twin Peaks, mostly because I’m worried I’ll hate it, I’m not really a David Lynch fan.” Me, in August of 2017: “HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT THE ZIG-ZAG FLOORS IN THE BLACK LODGE ARE THE SAME AS THE ZIG-ZAG FLOORS IN THE LOBBY OF ERASERHEAD’S APARTMENT BUILDING?! AND THERE’S A PHOTO OF A MUSHROOM CLOUD ON THE WALL?! IS IT ALL CONNECTED?!” 

If I could retroactively make one of my 2017 resolutions be “do a total 180 on David Lynch and get super into Twin Peaks” then I would have accomplished something in this God-foresaken shit-ass year. I don’t know if it was age, or context, or what, but this year found my eyes suddenly opened to the genius of well-known genius David Lynch. I went from avoiding Twin Peaks for years to devouring and loving both of the original seasons. From “Mulholland Drive is weird and boring” to “Mulholland Drive is weird and a stone-cold modern masterpiece.” My former podcast co-host Darren Franich maintains that one needs to learn how to watch David Lynch, by watching David Lynch, and I couldn’t agree more. Watch just one of the elliptical missives that Lynch has released into our miasma and you will be left befuddled and possibly angry. Watch five and you’ll unlock the mysteries of the universe. 

Hyperbole? Perhaps. Then again, did you see episode 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return? 

It would have been so easy for Lynch and Frost to thrill Twin Peaks fans with The Return. After all, these are people (myself now included) who get goosebumps every time Kyle MacLachlan is so much as in the same room as a cup of coffee. Put a cherry pie on front of him and they (again, me now included) need to change their shorts. Instead, and, in retrospect, predictably, Lynch and Frost decided to use the eighteen hours Showtime gave them to thrill their audience in a different way: by creating an audio/visual experience the likes none of them had ever seen. Was it frustrating to wait nearly the entire season for our beloved Agent Cooper to return (if he does at all)? Yes. Were there storylines and characters that seemed meandering and pointless? Yes. Who the fuck is Freddie and why does he have a green glove hand? Yes. But none of that matters, because, for an entire summer, I rushed home on Sunday nights, needing to immerse myself in the wild juxtapositions of image and sound and performance that Lynch plucked out of the cosmos and so graciously delivered to us mere mortals, as soon as I possibly could.  

When Cooper finally did come back, well, Lynch nailed that moment too (goosebumps! shorts-changing!), of course, because he’s just as good at giving you what you want as he is at giving you what you need. And nostalgia goosebumps are lovely and all, but it’s a testament to the success of Twin Peaks: The Return that the nostalgia goosebumps are not what I’ll remember. What I’ll remember is when Cooper (?) asks what year it is, Laura Palmer (?) screams, and the lights go out in Twin Peaks (?), and my skin basically tore apart at the seams.  

[littlebabycrybtch]

duuude exclus stay so weird af lmfao. ik ive brought this pattern up b4 but that one brand of exclus that ignores dnis and like CONSTANTLY crosses boundaries with aspecs to try and forcibly be around them legitimately just waiting for them to get uncomfortable when they realize oh this is actually a person that doesnt respect them.... like straight up sitting there all proud of their shitty ruse pretending to not Recognize we don’t want them near us and that the reason is bc they literally hate us first, and thinking they are being SLICK abt this creepy tormenting shit when they try to casually enter our space, and even openly admitting after being asked that the reason they might ignore our plea for them to leave us alone is bc they just dont give enough of a shit abt our feelings (even tho they do bc theyre. actively trying to hurt them every opportunity they can), and they STILL think its not fuckin batshit crazy to treat us like animals theyre poking with a stick.... it just has this like... distinctly obsessed, unhinged, sibling playing the ‘im-not-touching-you’ game feeling to it. bro thats...... srsly weird and manipulative behavior lol. ffs we’re straight up no-mercy punching bags cuz we dont wanna fuck, like thats so unfathomably unrelatable to them as if they . never spend Any time happy with their identity when not having sex or smth ??? and they feel like ppl going thru the same problems who are Different can justify this response ...... wtf..... and it blows my mind that all this retaliation is over us requesting we keep getting the support from the community we’ve been a part of for decades. its legit punishment for asking for Continued Help.

this shit is disturbingly pathetic behavior lmao, like!!!! give it UP already ur doing it repeatedly like ppl arent gonna catch on bc ur so absorbed in the ‘i can do w/e i want’ entitled victim complex mentality. u make real activists cringe lsdls dont be sneaky and try to genuinely act like there should be Nothing wrong to me with the unnecessarily malice you hold over my identity........ yall they literally are so far gone abt us they dont recognize how ABNORMAL and like... UNREALISTIC CARTOONY VILLAIN it is to expect anyone besides worthless lil aspecs to willingly stick around w ppl who hate them, like its just So Obvious we deserve to be hated that even We should agree with it and just Let them hate us bc Everyone should anyways why would we even THink we deserve more than that and Dare ask for it .... lksdflsd god that is SO .... SO UNBELIEVABLE THAT HUMANS OPERATE LIKE THIS I 😶 ggjgjg DUDE dont try to sit there and trick me into thinking ur this regular benign friend to my face when u dont even support my basic autonomy !! and ffs dont be so twitter-brained and detached from reality u actually think cishetties love aspexies and we’re in cahoots w/ each other lmfaoglfkjgkfdljgdfg thats.... seriously fucken sad. its so fuckn. sad to think abt how far Backwards from history that is. like. u should literally kinda just grow tf up and stop tryna make being a piece of shit to everybody a charming internet personality like thatll be around 10 yrs from now when everyone in ur friend group is either doing bare minimum harm reduction and getting over their whiny cringe feels that mean nothing or theyre getting called out 4 bastarditis but. if nothing else. ik yall cant read but damn cmon kids u can handle a dni, you should rly stop being weird abt boundaries out of spite !! ppl can see you!! thnxs 💖 back up out of my face girl this isnt high school ok kick the virgin is very much a WEIRD game to be playin in a progressive part of society tryna talk abt sex politics with nuance, do better now or do better later when nobody falls for ur fake supremely cruel bullshit anymore, ur choice 🤷🏻‍♀️

[daekie]

the entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell

(unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time. forget the dragon, leave the gun on the table, this has nothing to do with happiness. let’s jump ahead to the moment of epiphany, in gold light, as the camera pans to where the action is) - richard siken, litany in which certain things are crossed out

Happy holidays, @heavenseveneleven, who I can’t @ for some reason!  Your SS mentioned you liked Jodariel and Pamitha’s dynamic, so I thought about the fact they’re both soldiers who committed war crimes, regretted them, and ran from there.

Crossposted to AO3 where...the formatting is better, haha, sorry.  Fic under the cut.

This much is simple – Jodariel has never had any love lost for Harps, except maybe too far back in her childhood for anyone in the Downside with her to know; her blood family is long gone, years and years, lost to disease and age and the war (and the Downside, once; she remembers little of her uncle, thrown to the depths when she was a child, far younger than their stowaway girl – she doesn’t even remember his crime, because it was never important to know – well, it was never important for her to know).  She has never thought kindly of a Harp except in the privacy of her own unconscious – She freed those fledglings and knew her guilt immediately, heavy on her shoulders like an unfathomable weight; there was no one to stop her when she turned herself in, no one to reach to her and beg and whisper.  She told no one.  It was quick and quiet and they chained her to the cage like they would any dissenter, any criminal, and the Archjustice was a looming figure with slender black-gloved hands clasped around his gavel and it was simple, simple like an execution, like the way a blade is a weapon regardless of what you do with it because it shouldn’t be on its’ own.  Jodariel thought that, maybe, she would have died there on the rocks like so many others, her body dashed into the waters, her death a penance repaid the only way she could –

Nothing is ever that simple.

She drags herself out of the wreckage of her cage and takes one of the snapped bars as a weapon, sharpening it against the rocks, using other broken aspects of the cage to splint her wounds.  Let Howlers come.  She is not dead, and maybe she won’t be, and maybe that’s her true punishment – to live where her fellows-in-arms died, to do something they would have never condoned and to live through it all, and to live and to live and

(jodariel has not been in the downside the longest; but for those who entered human, and those that are still alive and no longer human, she could be a rallying point.  she doesn’t want to be.  she doesn’t think anything about herself is worthy of glory, anymore.

for years and years she doesn’t think about hedwyn or any of her children, not-blood but that doesn’t matter, because all she can picture is how disappointed any of them would be in what she did and what she’s done.  she should be no one’s captain.  she doesn’t deserve it.) ------  This much is simple - Pamitha is not born to glory.  Few Harps are, anymore; they are a dying empire, driven back further and further every year by the Commonwealth’s soldiers on the Bloodborder – because you must train a Harp for battle, careful; but they can teach a Cur to hold a knife in its’ mouth and send it out to die, and there are fewer Harps than there are everything else.  They send fledglings out to battle, nowadays, and Pamitha used to care less about that, because the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth has taken everything from them –

She cares a lot about it, now; but oh, darling, there’s nothing she can do down here.  It’s easier to drink your troubles away, instead, because tales of the Nightwings and their talent and their ability to let one go free are old.  Those stories are so old she doesn’t know who tells them, anymore; Crones, mostly, and there are whispers here-and-there about benefactors who will reward you if you bring them old Nightwing robes, sigils, symbols, anything that could let that triumvirate raise again – it’s just all stupid fucking stories.  Pamitha doesn’t care.  The Nightwings won’t come for her, and even if they did and somehow her-and-Tamitha won (even that is a far-off dream, because Tamitha speaks to her rarely or not at all; it’s hard to reconcile this vicious warhawk with the little girl she remembers years ago, a little girl who had nightmares of soldiers coming for her and snatching her twin away), she wouldn’t deserve it.  Scribes only know Pamitha doesn’t deserve anything better than this.

Talking to Tamitha is like ripping open a wound every time.  They are not allies.  They are not friends.  Tamitha shudders and turns away every time Pamitha calls her sister, sister (most times, but some times she lashes out and screams and scratches and Pamitha knows she’s not wanted and she runs, she runs) and it makes something ugly and silver-vicious curl up in her gut like do you know what I fucking sacrificed for you, do you know what I would have given for you, they lied but that shouldn’t mean anything now sister sister sister please and she says nothing and keeps drinking.  The alcohol never ends.  It doesn’t taste good but she doesn’t deserve something that tastes good. ------ Jodariel used to be a weapon.  She still is.  She just isn’t wielded anymore. ------  Pamitha was raised to be a weapon and she cut down her sister.  Or she might as well have, anyways.  What does it matter she didn’t mean for this to happen?  It’s all her fault the way Tamitha looks at her nowadays. ------  (Hedwyn looks at her like she’s done nothing wrong.  She’s proud of him, after all this time, but she can’t help but have to bite back that reflexive hatred when he talks about the woman he was in love with because she’s a Harp, Hedwyn, you know what they did to your mother, you know what they did to her entire patrol, she was toying with you and she wasn’t cast down so she wanted this to happen to you because Harps don’t care about you or any of us but she swallows it down.  She doesn’t tell him her opinions on Fikani and he doesn’t ask, and in time, it passes from an uneasy quiet to less of a worry.) ------  Pamitha flirts like it’s a game, because it is, and she always did even before all of this – it was typical, really, because if you were too close to someone and they were shot down you’d have nothing left.  It was typical for her regiment; they were all sisters-in-arms, close as could be, but if they weren’t blood-sisters none of them were too close.  You won’t suffer lover’s-loss grief if you weren’t close like that, was always the thought, and that’s how it is; she should not mourn her lost, she should look towards what she can do, but -

there’s nothing she can do down here.  It was all for nothing.  All of it was for nothing.  Nobody ever gets out of here. ------ Nobody ever gets out of here. ------  Nobody ever gets out of here. ------  Except, the thing is, sometimes they do. ------  Jodariel doesn’t expect anything.  She’s trained herself not to expect anything; the concept of a literate person only being exiled now only brings scorn to her.  How would it be kept so quiet, with a skill like that, after years and years and so many generations only hearing of reading-and-writing as the ultimate crime?  It’s not that she necessarily must agree with her country’s traditions, but it’s been so long and it’s what she has to hold onto; her morality, her rules, in the face of who-knows-how-long-here, forever and ever and ever.  Downside is a disorderly wasteland and always will be; the land breathes death and nomadic lifestyles are a necessity.  There’s no rules to be made in that.

The Reader is not the first.  But she is the first still alive.

Sometimes, Jodariel thinks, this brave young woman might make the world better.  This woman, almost still a girl in comparison, who knows the ghosts of the past lurking in these crystals and is looked at by the Minstrel like a child savior.  She tries to keep herself realistic, because there is nothing but harm in that hope, but – still.  Sometimes.  She can see what might be, when the weight of her horns is too much for her, and it lets her get up for one more day like it’s not so agonizing, and things hurt a little less.  There’s hope, maybe.  Sometimes it’s even possible to believe in it. ------ Pamitha wakes up every day and hates it, for months, for years; all she thinks is that she’s ruined it, she’s ruined her life and Tamitha’s life and for nothing except the fact that some Commonwealth citizens didn’t die then.  Looking back, it seems pointless, and why has she done any of it?  What has she gotten out of this?  Every day is more of the same.  She drinks, she lounges, she plays up the careless hedonist role that half of the flock there thinks she is.  There’s no hope for anything to get better.  Until there is.

She’ll look back on it in years to come and think that this ridiculous caravan trundling through the territory, a woman in a robe and a woman with horns and strains of song, was the best thing for her.  Not now, though.  Now she just doesn’t know what to think of these people – unafraid of the Harps threatening them, even cocky, but not threatening too much violence either.

The conversation is easy.  It feels so easy, after the words are out of her mouth.  Even during the match when she can feel Tamitha’s glare at all times, bloody eye burning holes in her skin, she can ignore it; she can think I’m a Nightwing, I’m one of them, this is how people escape and I could be part of this story and part of this legacy and she can ignore it for a little while. (They win and she goes with them and it doesn’t feel like home, not really, not yet; but there is a tousle-haired girl with too-clear eyes and a young man with a kind, even voice and she might be the only Harp there – and Captain Jodariel won’t give her the time of day, but it’s fine, really, it’s fine - well, it will be, someday.  She doesn’t feel so alone anymore.  Everyone in this triumvirate is an outcast just like her.  She isn’t so alone anymore.

If the Reader gets drunk off of Pamitha’s moonshine and she has to suggest moderation, then the realization that she might be a guiding figure isn’t as harsh as it would have been only some moons ago.) ------ The Nightwings are a home for the downtrodden and the unseen and the odd nowadays.  Have you heard the whispers?  They field Cur-Harp-Savage and Demon-Wyrm-Crone with equal abandon, no care for how the races usually divide; their tactician, their Reader, is a woman who couldn’t be too far into adult age – or that’s what the whispers say.  The whispers say, too, that the Nightwings are good people at heart if distracted, never able to stay, always packing up and leaving for some far-off fight as the stars prophecy every night.

Sometimes people say the way their Harp, with her wild hair and her leisurely way of speaking, looks at their Demon – they say it borders on the intimate.

But that wouldn’t be true, would it?  Captain Jodariel would never do more than tolerate a Harp.  We all know exiles who used to be soldiers; they’re all like that, aren’t they?

Aren’t they? ------  It’s a glance here and there, skin touching for a long moment before they pull apart; it takes time.  Any relationship takes time.  There is the Reader with her favorite ghost – they’ve all met Sandra and the Beyonders, by now, have been through those trials and emerged stronger (and more than a little bit disoriented for a few minutes after) – and they’ve heard how fondly both women talk of each other, like despite their differences – but that, too, took years to build.  People have gone home.  Rukey Greentail – she waved him goodbye as the light took him back to his home.

Pamitha has thought about ascension a few times and she’s found it lacking.  The Commonwealth still exists, and her race gets smaller and smaller every day; even if through some unknowable logic the Reader decided it was her time, she could never fit in with her brethren if they let her leave and go home, really go home.  You don’t just regrow parts of your wings like that.

The Minstrel says nothing about her troubles.  She wonders about him, when the days are bad and she finds refuge in drink, or when a rite goes poorly and she can’t help but feel her reactions were too slow and she ruined it for the rest.  Him and the Gate Guardian (and what a woman that Guardian is; might as well have been chiseled out of stone, so physically perfect Pamitha always has to do a doubletake because she always expects something – humanizing, maybe?  But no, no; Celeste’s eyes have kindness in them but that seems to be it, there’s nothing secret she can find, no hidden wishes or hidden worries) look at each other the way she thinks she used to look at Tamitha. (Well.  The way she thinks she used to look at Tamitha.  Thinking about her sister isn’t like tearing open a wound, anymore, but it still hurts and it always will.  There’s nothing there she can save, and she was never going to save anyone in the first place with her betrayal, and she will have to live with her failure for as long as she draws breath.)

These things take time.  Pamitha stops feeling like her entire life has to be repentance and Jodariel learns there’s more to learn than hatred and that people can make something new, down here.  Something different.  Something better.

There is time to build their own little peace treaty.  Just the two of them. ------ (One day Pamitha falls asleep on Jodariel’s shoulder, head inclined; and Jodariel knows that she would do anything for this woman - this woman who would have once been her truest enemy. She's free to be tender.  Her ghosts are quiet now.  She's laid them to rest as she should have so long ago.

One day one of them might go free without the other, and they both know this, but for now – for now they have each other.)

[vardasvapors]

Do you have any Lindon headcanons, if so please throw ALL of them at me because I have zero and it's terrible. This was more Elrond-centric bc I've been trying to fill in that thousand-year gap between Elros and war but then I realised how LITTLE I can actually picture of... the biggest Elven kingdom in Middle-earth... Galadriel's off collecting fairie court campsites, and Celebrimbor's kickstarting a magic object Renaissance, and what's every other elf doing this millennium? I just don't know!

omg i’ve lazily on-and-off thought about making a wip list of vague Lindon headcanons before so this is the perfect excuse. hope you don’t mind me limiting this to just the timeframe you mentioned, or this post would be WAY too long, instead of just regularly too long:

First: observe, my Lindon tag! It’s not very long, but

This and especially this are some of my favorite headcanon visuals for Second Age Mithlond as a capital city. Starting as a giant camp for everyone who escaped from Beleriand, lots of flux, more like a RL city than most Tolkien cities: gorgeous, but very disorganized, patchwork, built up ad-hoc, happenstance and convenience slowly rising into districts. All the people stopping in it or passing through it, either east or west, leave another layer of their presence there. um….I still haven’t read invisible cities despite buying it because of bamboocounting like….months ago. Anyway it’s 90% turned to dust by LOTR.

With abruptly going from lush inland forested river-filled Ossiriand to this newly-formed bluff-edged shoreland with a huge new saltwater gulf splitting it down the middle, I headcanon it being a pretty big mess for decades. Before Galadriel took a lot of them to Eregion, I picture all the characters you mention spending a lot of time on fixing up – collecting and reuniting scattered people, building houses, establishing diplomatic ties and supply chains, etc.

eg: there is very little formality or ingrained institutions and no palaces full of comforts let alone luxuries for at LEAST a century, thanks

BUT, the fixing-up period being mostly a very happy time! Like, I think there was certainly a ton of hardship and stress with trying to keep people fed and housed in this chaotic near-post-apocalyptic situation while new villages and stuff were built, and fighting stray dark creatures who had also escaped, but still a lot of general relief and feelings of being insanely fortunate and curious exploration, finally free from being under constant overwhelming threat again even if this peace is quite a different kind from the peace before Morgoth returned, going hand-in-hand with the work, and building together as a conduit for bonding and feasting etc – and celebration and joy as deliberate defiance against the loss and grief and war they suffered. I think this real-world thing would fit it well.

Not a very big population at first, since not a lot survived at all, and most of the elves went to Eressea and most of the humans went to Numenor, and most of the Sindar who remained went east. I headcanon the early “kingdom” as more…scattered villages along the shore with a large but transient population concentration around the Havens because most of those were just looking for their friends and relatives and waiting for seats to open up on the constant flood of ships heading west, and when the passengers finally dwindle down this distribution has taken root and multiplied, but not a really powerful force until post-The Mariner’s Wife.

After the establishment period, now that it FINALLY isn’t a time of war, after centuries of it, elves start having babies all over the fucking place, and all the accoutrements that go with it. Dozens of new and half-forgotten festival days that are literally just giant bacchanalias, zillions of weddings, society shifting to be very oriented towards sex and romance and children and child-rearing, rather than warfare, etc. With this showing up a lot in their songs, and art, and lifestyle, etc.

One of the most delightful Lindon-adjacent nuggets in the Histories of Middle Earth I think is that elves of Lindon spent at least 50 years, if not more, ferrying the Edain to Numenor. I won’t repeat the tag ramble I appended to that passage here, but just… *blows kisses off fingers* it’s so absurd and fitting….I think of this as a big post-war self-image thing, the cataclysm and Morgoth’s defeat just so utterly scrambling their view of the world and their role in it. >_o

Speaking of that, not a lot of cultural continuity between the Noldor of the First Age and the Noldor of Lindon. The people of Cirdan and therefore at first for Gil-galad were the Falathrim, so I hc that especially after lots of Noldor left for Tol Eressea and Eregion the dominant culture of Lindon was a blendy Falathrim twist.

But that’s mostly just dominant as a plurality – the real “main culture” of Lindon is the hodge-podge mixture itself. Exiles who stayed because they wanted to, exiles who stayed because they are ex-Feanorians or otherwise can’t face going back or aren’t allowed. Descendants of exiles, mixed Noldor/Sindar elves who weren’t even born during the early Silm. Noldor who feel totally alienated from everything, Noldor who feel more connected to their fellow people of Sirion than to the Noldor generally. Survivors of Gondolin, survivors of Nargothrond, Sindar who didn’t want to go east, Edain who didn’t go to Numenor, Edain who are just waiting around to go to Numenor, Dwarves who had to leave the Blue Mountains due to them being broken up in the war, other peoples of all kinds, who all scrambled convergently to Lindon to flee the incoming war and water like ants. The areas of Lindon, and the districts of Mithlond, array themselves as reflections of, or deliberate eschewings of, the weird headlong rush into intertwining and splitting apart and morphing into new things that characterizes late Silm-era dynamics and groups.

In addition to pre-existing Falathrim attitudes about the sea, a major cultural/religious/etc tradition would spring up in Lindon in relation to the sea – the destructive, overwhelming, healing, saving, unfathomable, un-tameable, enticing, perilous sea that broke the earth, yet cleansed it, destroyed both enemies and homes, the place that now holds everything that Beleriand was in its depths, the place that deliverance came from. Kind of a less cynical but still very terrified version of Voronwë’s complete lack of chill about it. Sea-longing and going to sea and either never coming back or not coming back the same carves out a major place in their understanding of the world. One of the Standard Identities available to a segment of the popular in Lindon is like, “oh, he’s Waiting For A Ship,” An overlap of understanding grows between them and the Numenoreans over this. Ahem. Feel free.

eg: great Implied Significance for the new shoreline and the gulf of Lhûn as the place where Beleriand broke off and sank. References to these places as idioms to refer to being just past the furthest reach of a calamity, or a now-innocuous reminder of past calamity, or the duality of homecoming and escape

also eg: “lmao X is as unpredictable as the Lhûn amirite #microclimates”

the Numenoreans love them, but are sort of boggled by them. They have the same strange varied mixture and mood swings of cheer and gloom and Issues as the ex-Exiles and ex-Sindar of Tol Eressea, but the Numenoreans don’t entirely understand why they stuck with Middle Earth, for after a few generations have passed, the Numenoreans can only really guess, from their own lore, what having life experiences that were once concurrent with the long-distant sufferings of their Edain ancestors might be like. The Tol Eressean elves, on their island of release, are easier to understand, they’re sort of like us! But what of these weirdos back east – and that way lies the peril of like…you know. Everything wild, that Numenor is not

ETA: Later, when they realize the shadow has returned, this slow kind of infuriated disillusioned backslide…like, really? really? again? and the buildup back to war being really grim and depressing, though a minority of them always knew something like this would happen again. And rising conflict short of outright hostility with Eregion. People relearning to be soldiers again…or generals…

[allyinthekeyofx]

Love is a quiet voice

Cancer arc.  MSR.

Chapter One

She thinks I haven’t noticed.  She thinks that she has successfully hidden the fact that twice in the space of twenty minutes she has briefly brought her hand up to cover her eyes which she closes against the glare of the sunlight that is flooding the office from the wide skylight directly above where she is sitting, keeping up the pretence of working, pinching the bridge of her nose before dropping her hand away guiltily, fearful that I might catch her in this moment of weakness, of frailty and that God forbid I might draw attention to it; to question her on it.

 Because Scully won’t admit weakness.  

 Not  to herself and certainly not to me.

 Because, as she informed me just a few days ago, her first round of treatments have been ineffectual in knocking back the tumour that is living right in-between those incredible blue eyes, eyes which are slowly losing their sparkling zest for life and that have, on occasion seemed to look right in to my very soul; and she is beginning to disappear, to grow ever dimmer as the days go by.  I can actually see it happening, and the sight of her suffering makes me fluctuate wildly between wanting to go on a fucking rampage through the hallways with my gun and just gathering her up in my arms and never letting her go.  That even if I can’t cure her, I might at least be able to make things better for her. Because if she doesn’t let me in soon, I fear I will crash so heavily, so completely that I will never get up again.

 And then, for the third time, I watch her reflection in the glass of the cupboard directly opposite that affords me an unobstructed view of her without betraying my scrutiny as she repeats the action, an action I know is born of the sickening headache she is trying so desperately to hide.  

 I can’t stand it anymore. I just can’t.  I can’t watch her risking herself just to remain in this fucking office for even another minute.  

 “I’m taking you home”

 I don’t mean it to come out sounding quite as harshly authoritarian as it does and I’m unsurprised when she immediately straightens her posture, realising she has been busted but still not prepared to give me an inch.  And even before she opens her mouth I know what’s coming.

 “I’m fine”

 “You’re not fine.” I supply in a dull monotone that doesn’t even sound like me.

 And as expected, my words elicit a sudden spark of anger from her, that I’m sure if she actually had any real fight left in her amongst the pain and the fear and the desperation, would quickly spiral in to a full blown Scully assault that would pretty much render me flat on my ass.  But those days have gone, whether temporarily or not, she just hasn’t got it in her right now to summon up the response required to win her case.  So instead she just sets her jaw and meets me head on, with a stare that’s so full of ice I swear I feel a chill work its way down my back.  And she quite eloquently tells me to get fucked without even having to open her mouth. It gives me two choices; to go all caveman on her and drag her kicking and screaming out of the office – an action that in all probability, sick or not, will elicit her pulling her gun and shooting a hole right through me – or, to appeal to her rational side.

 Because she knows.  

 Deep down she knows she doesn’t want to be here.  Hell I don’t even want to be here.  I want to be covering her with soft blankets and watching her sleep and stroking her pain away, I want her to allow me the most basic human response of wanting to help someone I love when they are hurting.  So far, aside from a few moments of weakness right back when she was first diagnosed, she hasn’t allowed anyone in far enough to even begin to attempt to give a damn about her, to help her get through this; to love her.  The patented Dana Scully barriers that form an impenetrable wall around her and which are probably the only things that have actually got stronger as the terrifying months have passed us by, in full force today, tomorrow and probably right up until the point she takes her last breath while I waste precious time searching for the sledgehammer required to get through them.

 So I try another approach, one which I know is slightly below the belt because I know she hates to see me hurting just as much as I do her; I decide to lay on the guilt.

 Raising myself out of my chair I cross the few feet that separate us, which, by the way she emotionally shrinks away from me, may as well be bridged by miles, ignoring the way she looks at me, pleading silently with me to please not do this, to please not make her feel.  Because if I make her acknowledge my own pain, it will render her totally unable to keep hiding her own; it’s emotional blackmail on my part and I am more than conscious that I am using our past history against her, our friendship, the fact that this woman will do just about anything to stop me hurting. But frankly it’s a means to an end and right now, desperation outweighs the guilt.

 Even as she goes rigid in her chair, she knows what’s coming and for a second, the expression on her face almost makes me falter; to simply return to my side of the office and just allow her to do what she thinks she needs to do.  Because she looks afraid suddenly, like an animal trapped in a cage, knowing that there is no means of escape, and if I weren’t so desperately worried about her I would hate myself for evoking such a heartbreaking response from her; for disregarding her barriers and getting right in to her personal space.

 Do I have a right? Probably not; but I do it anyway.

 And as I slide my palm against her neck, stroking a path along the sharp line of her jaw, to the softness of her cheek where I gently trace small circles with my thumb, begging her with my touch to please not do this; to not keep insisting she is fine when she patently isn’t, I literally see her start to come undone, as she fights an internal battle with herself to not break under my touch.  But despite her weak attempt, against her will, there is just the slightest returned pressure as she leans slightly in to my caress, craving the comfort that for so many reasons she won’t admit she needs.

 “Please Scully.” And this time my voice is soft, slightly wavering as I feel my eyes begin to burn. “Please just let me take you home.”

 She tries to drop her head then, to break eye contact, to hide the sudden tears that instantly film her eyes, ashamed and needing to hide them from me, hide them from herself even. But I maintain the pressure, refusing to allow her to withdraw from me this time; because I’m done, I’m done with this exhausting charade that we play out every damn day.  I can’t do it anymore.

 “Okay?”

 The first tear escapes it’s confines as she closes her eyes, slumping in her seat, all pretence just gone in a single ragged sigh that looks to almost rip her apart as I begin to find a way through the walls, rewarded by the almost imperceptible nod of her head and when she finally opens them again, she looks so tired; so damn tired of everything and everyone as the fight literally drains away from her, laying her bare before me, the vulnerability that she tries so hard to hide is now on show and I know she hates it; hates for me to see it because the Scully of even six months ago would go to any lengths to hide this part of her.  But that woman is no longer here; she hasn’t been here for a very long time and the realisation wants me to start punching my fists through the walls at the fucking raw injustice of it all. That this is happening to her; my partner of four years who has stood side by side with me through every horror imaginable and who, by her allegiance is now slowly losing herself in increments as this manufactured disease gathers pace; unstoppable, unfathomable and unthinkable in its cruelty.

 One of Scully’s hands slowly slides atop my own.  It feels cold and that fact alone sends a new jolt of worry ricocheting through my body because it’s a warm summer’s day.  She shouldn’t be cold; because cold means dying, cold means dead.

And finally, she nods.

Continued part 2