#anyways whichever team wins they are still very far from us when it comes to world cup wins

[mileyscyrus]

now that brazil is out of the world cup are you rooting for argentina? you said you wouldn't root for any european teams

i'd never root for argentina, and not because of a feud between them and us, but because argentinians are extremelly racist and xenophobic, especially when it comes to football

i wont be rooting for any nt but i'll still watch the matches because they are usually really fun and i just love the wc 💜

[votederpycausemufins]

All my knowledge is of hermitcraft and the stuff people have written for the Hermit!Tommy Au but I kept having this idea and needed to write it. I also think i got a bit out of character halfway through because it was supposed to be short, but i vibed with it too much so now it’s long and maybe not 100% accurate but it’s still angst followed by fluff.

also @petrichormeraki wanted me to tag them when i posted this.

Tommy had been with the Hermits for a while now. He hadn’t really kept track of when he first arrived, but it had at least been a few months. Otherwise, time was a mess. The Hermits has all but legally adopted him and all the joy that came from them caring for him made time seem to fly by.

Doc was fun to be around because while Tommy was perfectly fine never going back to the SMP, the way the man acted gave Tommy a small bit of familiarity in a good way to his past life.

He likes hanging out with False, mainly for sparring. Never anything deadly, but even if there wasn’t a need for Tommy to constantly look over his shoulder, it was good to keep from getting too rusty.

He doesn’t really hang out with Zedaph as much as Zedaph hangs out with him. Normally the Hermit would come out of the blue with something new for Tommy to try. Flicking levers over and over for something that would normally be as simple as using a furnace just became fun for Tommy, especially if he had energy pent up.

Xisuma is someone Tommy doesn’t run into much, but the fact that he doesn’t is something Tommy finds comfort in. Even as the server admin, the man is very down to Earth. Nothing like Dream ever was.

And then there’s Grian. Tommy got along with all the Hermits fine and of course there were some he preferred over others, but Grian took the cake for him. When he first showed up, Grian was the one to give him a place to stay at his old hobbit hole. Professor Beaks had been left there and still used to the SMP and scared for his life, Tommy hid the pet bird as leverage for his own safety. When Grian found out, he mostly shrugged it off, but the tens of chickens in the hobbit hole the next day was proof of retaliation.

Tommy didn’t understand the underwhelming response at first, but responded in kind, using the eggs from the chickens Grian had left to egg the Hermit’s base. When the builder nearly broke the door to the hobbit hole, Tommy grabbed his axe, ready to fight for his life, but was taken aback by the cheerful look on Grian’s face.

After that, Grian had practically taken Tommy under his wing. He showed Tommy how to build more effectively with cobble, eventually managing to get the teen to have some variety. Grian also brought Tommy along on his various chaotic endeavors, leaving behind chickens, mycelium, and possibly some missing doors.

The two chaotic red wearing Brits got along so well that they sometimes spent entire weeks together. Because of that, Tommy was all too aware that the Hermits participated in MCC as well.

It made sense. A few of the Hermits vaguely recognised him when he showed up in Hermitcraft and a few of them looked familiar to Tommy. That had made him feel a little safer since now these people weren’t complete strangers, but it did complicate things. Every so often, the portal to MCC would open and the Hermits participating would go through. The closest Tommy would get to the portal was just before the Hermits left, occasionally giving a ‘Good luck Grine!’ or something similar to Grian as he went through. But after that Tommy stayed as far away as he could manage.

The portal there led to MCC. And from there, there was a portal that led to the SMP. If Tommy could get to Hermitcraft, others could too. And that idea was terrifying, no matter who it was. Dream was a worst case scenario, but even if it was Tubbo. Tubbo had exiled him, and even if they were still on good terms after that, Tommy could have visited at some other MCC, but he didn’t, and that idea likely wouldn’t go over well, especially since otherwise, people probably thought he was dead and Tommy didn’t care to correct them.

But compared to all those other times, today was very different. Today Tommy wasn’t at the sidelines to help send off the other Hermits, he was one of the ones being sent off. They had taken every precaution. Mumbo had rebuilt his Spookification chamber for Tommy with some alterations, specifically removing the firework method of alteration. The teen was also dressed for being on a team with Grian as the Cyan Creepers, so his familiar red and white shirt was missing. But under Tommy’s costume, he still kept the chain necklace holding his compass. He refused to part with it, though made sure he would be hard to access to keep from glancing, knowing at the championships, it wouldn’t be spinning wildly anymore.

With a comforting pat on the back from Grian, he and the other Hermits walked through the portal. The crowd of people that were on the side almost immediately overwhelmed Tommy, making him think that it was a bad idea all over again, but the sight of the two other team members for the Cyan Creepers reassured them, especially as they lined up for the cameras for some fun and silly times. Then once the games began, he was too focused on winning to think of much else.

Before long, the championships were over. They had come in fifth, which was a bit disappointing at first, but on the other hand, it was still pretty good and kept the spotlight off of him. When dodgebolt began, Tommy stood next to Grian, but with a crowd of people, a good game, and no perfect place to sit, the both of them wandered for a better vantage point.

At one point, Tommy managed to push his way right up to the edge of the viewing ledge. It was the perfect place for a while until the action moved, causing everyone to decide it was the perfect place. Enough people moved nearby that Tommy was worried about falling into the pit below, and he almost did before someone pulled him back.

Tommy was ready to thank whichever Hermit or even other player helped him but the words died in his throat when he faced the person who grabbed him. He knew that mask and neon green color. And there was no reason for him to help Tommy unless-

“I finally found you!” Dream spoke. He raised his voice to be heard over the crowd, but not too much to draw the attention of others. Tommy froze as he definitely heard the words. But there was no way for Dream to know, he didn’t look at all like normal.

“I-I’m sorry.” Tommy tried not to stutter, hoping just the situation of being grabbed would excuse it. “But I don’t think I’m who you’re looking for. I’m new here. Unless you’re greeting me for being new.” It was something he prepared before in his mind after Grian brought up the possibility, but it felt sloppy putting it to use.

“Oh don’t lie Tommy. I know it’s you. I guess you got lost, but it’s okay, you can come back now. I got rid of the exile for you. Aren’t you glad?”

Tommy was glad for the mask that covered Dream’s face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see Dream’s actual expression. “How did you-” He started to speak, but Dream cut him off, poking Tommy’s chest, right where the compass was.

“Weren’t you paying attention to the teams? Tubbo got put with me. And between games he just happened to glance at his own compass. And wouldn’t you know it, it led me right here.” Dream held up the compass that belonged to Tubbo. It looked damaged, and it was recent. Tubbo likely didn’t want to give the tyrant admin the compass, but lost it to Dream anyway.

“Give that back to Tubbo!” Tommy shouted at Dream, trying to snatch it from him.

“Feisty now, aren’t you? We can take care of that when you come back. I’ll also give it back to him if you come with me.”

Tommy froze. There was no way he was going back, but what could he do? Everyone was focused on dodgebolt, and he didn’t want his appearance to have caused more trouble for Tubbo.

Tommy glanced at the crowd one last time before reluctantly nodding. Dream grabbed his hand in a painful clench and dragged him out of the crowd towards the SMP’s portal to leave. However, just before reaching it, Dream stopped. Tommy, who had been looking back at the crowd, hoping someone would see what was going on, turned towards the portal to see Grian standing in front of it.

“Heya, where do you think you’re going. MCC isn’t over yet. Dodgebolt it still going on.”

Tommy expected Dream to just push past Grian or even give some sort of retort, but the actual reply was shocking. “Uh, n-no, just… have to head back early. Th-the game delays made things run over. A-and we’ve got to get b-back for… something else. Don’t w-want to be late for that.”

Dream’s words made Tommy so shocked he forgot to breathe. Dream was scared, no he was terrified. And he was terrified… of Grian. Tommy looked back at the Hermit who stood unflinching in front of them.

“Really? I could have sworn that you were here when I arrived, and that kid wasn’t. And he definitely came from a different portal. I know since I was keeping my eye out for my teammates. So why’s he going with you?”

“I uh…” Dream struggled, struggled, to give an answer, letting Grian continue. “That’s what I thought. C’mon kid, let’s go back to the crowd. You can stay with me until it’s over then I’ll help you find your portal back.”

And Grian took Tommy away without any retaliation from Dream. Tommy was left in awe. Grian wasn’t even an admin in Hermitcraft but Dream was terrified of him. It was amazing! But at the same time, it made Tommy spiral a bit.

When everyone returned, Grian had made sure Dream left before the Hermits and Tommy did so Dream couldn’t watch Tommy leave. Tommy stuck to False’s side as they walked through the portal, Grian being the last to come through as he continued to act as a guard. When he tried to comfort Tommy after his run-in with Dream, he understood when the teen responded he just wanted to go home. The championships were exhausting enough without a scare like that.

The next day, Tommy hung out with False. And then Zedaph, and then Doc. Grian noticed immediately, but didn’t pay much mind to it. He noticed since Tommy had spent a full week only hanging out with him, so the sudden absence of the boy was noticeable, but it made sense that he would want to hang out with the others.

After that, Grian didn’t pay too much attention to the lack of Tommy until he ran into him while stocking the barge. Tommy had been buying something at the store when Grian flew in. He nearly dropped his diamonds in trying to leave in such a hurry that it finally concerned Grian. The builder started visiting other Hermits Tommy tended to visit and ask about him. No one really noticed much other than Tommy dodging any questions about him possibly going to hang out with Grian.

Grian decided to leave it alone, and he was definitely going to, but after another run in with Tommy, he threw that decision out the window. Grian normally wouldn’t have done this, but after trying multiple times to just talk to Tommy and being unsuccessful, the builder had to essentially corner the teen.

Immediately, Grian regretted it. Tommy was trembling, obviously scared, holding a sword in his hand. He carefully tried to point out that Tommy didn’t need to have his sword out, but instead of just putting it away, Tommy just threw it on the ground, also throwing down his other gear. Grian had heard of Tommy doing this before with the other Hermits, so he immediately recognised what was going on and dived to grab the gear. It scared Tommy more, but Grian wanted to make sure nothing ended up destroyed.

“Tommy, calm down, I just want to talk. Did I do something wrong? I mean, obviously I must have, you look scared out of your mind every time I’m around you. But I can’t think or anything I did and I don’t want this to keep happening. So can I know what’s going on?”

Tommy didn’t speak for a while. He just looked defeated and terrified. Grian called in some of the other Hermits to come help Tommy calm down, though at first it didn’t help. But over time, Tommy finally did stop looking so terrified and they moved to somewhere he would feel less cornered. It took more coaxing after that, but finally, Tommy explained himself.

“He’s scared of you. Dream is… actually scared of you.”

“Yeah, I’ve killed him once or twice. Plus my full name is Lord Grian Dreamslayer, so it’s kind of in the name.” The builder tried to say it as a joke, but it didn’t seem to lighten the mood.”

“He’s the admin and he’s scared of you. And you… I’ve been hanging out with you.”

Grian nodded. “Well yeah, we do fit together well. ...Did he say something at MCC to make you think I didn’t like you?”

Tommy shook his head. “N-No. You’re right, you’re fun to be around. But dream likes… liked messing with me. And tried to train me. And I hang out with you more than I had with him, and I’m more like you. I-If you’re somehow more powerful than him-!” The rest of the words stopped in Tommy’s throat, choking him up. Stress was nearby and gave Tommy a careful hug for comfort, which helped him a little.

Grian waited a little bit for the tension to calm slightly before he spoke. “I don’t know exactly what Dream has done to you. You’ve told us a lot, but you obviously haven’t told us everything, and telling us isn’t the same as experiencing it. But let me tell you that I’m not going to do what he’s done to you. I remember how you were the first day we found you. And I see how you are now- well, how you were a few weeks ago- and I’m happy. Happy because you’ve been happy. You’ve been safe and cared for here and it shows. I don’t want to force you to be anything, I want you to be you. Sure, I’m powerful enough to kill Dream, but I’m not going to use that power on you. I’m only going to use it around you if it’s to keep him away from you.

“And! And! It’s just because of how your server is. Here we can go to the end. We don’t have a set amount of lives. We build massive structures and sell totems for a single diamond each. We fight Withers for fun and make farms with them. We farm just about anything you can think of. And Tommy.” Grian paused, making sure Tommy was paying attention. “You may be from somewhere far off that none of us old Hermits have seen, but now you’re here. And new home or not, that makes you a Hermit too. Sure you can be like me. Or you can be like False or Doc or Scar or Mumbo. But so far, you’ve been pretty you. And that you is a Hermit.”

Tommy took a few moments to process it, but the message seemed to get through to him. With that, Grian stood up with a smile. “Now I get that you probably don’t want to hang around me much right now. It makes sense. Maybe hang out with some other Hermits and learn some new stuff to get your mind off of things. Plus, I also did some talking around looking for you, and got you this.”

Tommy’s eyes practically sparkled as Grian placed down some music discs. He greedily grabbed the treasures and stuffed them in his inventory, looking up just to see Grian flying off. Taking on Grian’s idea, Tommy decided to go with Cleo and try to wrap his head around those armor stands again. While he wasn’t a pro, he did manage to make one scene of the hermits all holding weapons and surrounding an armor stand in lime leather armor. Grian was right. He was a Hermit. And he wasn’t going back. At least, not permanently, he thought, clutching his compass. Maybe, there would even be another Hermit like him.

[searching-for-arcadia]

Either 2 or 6 for Janto? I can’t decide—whichever you like more! —iianto-jones

I Can’t (Truthfully) Tell You I’m Alright

Ianto woke up to Jack’s faced pressed into his shoulder. He could feel Jack trembling and the gasping was unmistakable. He unwedged his free arm and reached over to stroke Jack’s hair, but at the first touch of his fingers, Jack jerked back, eyes wild and red-rimmed.

“Come here,” Ianto commanded softly, hand still held aloft where Jack’s head had been just moments before. He gazed steadily at Jack in the half-light, resisting the urge to trace the edges of the deep shadows cast across the planes of Jack’s face and in the valleys of his coat.

Jack just kept staring, his edges blurring in the darkness as he shook in front of Ianto.

Unluckily for Jack, Ianto wasn’t above guilt tripping him into allowing Ianto to comfort him. He stretched as far as he could before crooking his fingers and saying, “I can’t reach any further without jostling my side.”

-

Ianto brushed away Gwen’s concerned hands. She frowned. “You’re hurt.”

If breathing didn’t feel like being lanced in the side, Ianto would have laughed—the pain was turning into hysterical delirium.

“Not enough to stop.” Ianto struggled back to his feet, taking a moment to lean heavily against the alley wall, and tried not to think about the grime clinging to his person. “We need to keep going; we can’t let it get away”

Gwen looked ready to argue, so Ianto cut her off.

“You saw what it did to the SUV. You saw what it just tried to do to me. It’s heading towards a residential neighbourhood and is going to do this”—he gestured to his side, suit and shirt burned away to reveal mangled flesh—“and a lot worse to people who have no idea what is heading towards them.”

He reached out and grabbed her hand, “Once we take care of this, I’ll go to the hospital.”

“Promise?” She knew how much Ianto hated hospitals.

Ianto nodded, meeting Gwen’s eyes. The sudden thought that she had eyes like sea glass bubbled up through the pain. She held his eyes for just a moment, though time seemed to expand as Ianto got lost in her liquid gaze, before returning his nod. Ianto watched as the worry on her face melted away into determination.

“Okay,” she said, with the voice of a Torchwood agent rather than a concerned friend. “I’m going to try to get ahead of it, thank goodness it’s not the fastest thing in the world. You come up from behind and we’ll flank it.”

Gwen took off at a run. Ianto heaved himself up from the wall and gave chase.

-

Zero casualties and only an entire street to Retcon. That was a win in Torchwood’s book (and Ianto’s diary for that matter).

What was not a win was Jack showing up and yelling at him about infections while they waited for the ambulance to arrive. Ianto wanted to hold him, to take Jack’s shaking hands in his own and tell him that it was alright, but the pain had an iron grip on his throat. He knew that if he tried to talk, he’d scream, and Jack didn’t need any more of those haunting his memories.

Instead, Ianto focused on breathing shallowly and on the gravel-covered pavement under his palms. The world seemed to grey around him, the late afternoon sunlight going ashen with the smell of burnt wool, the sky disappearing behind the roaring static of Jack’s voice (shouting orders, shouting questions, shouting a million anxieties and fears without putting them into words).

Ianto was relieved when the sirens cut Jack off even though they meant that he’d soon be awash in too bright lights and the smell of dead sterile air.

-

Jack yelled at the hospital too, but at least it was down the hall rather than in Ianto’s face. When he came into Ianto’s room, expression stormy, he was silent. He just stood there glaring in the doorway before abruptly turning around and leaving.

It was Gwen who came in a few moments later to tell him that she was taking him home.

-

“Want one?”

Ianto lifted his head and saw Rhys raising a bottle of beer. He dropped his head back down, seriously considering it, but eventually he sighed and shook his head. “Not supposed to drink while on the good stuff.”

Jack would probably Retcon Rhys if anything happened to him while Rhys was looking after him and Jack was unhappy enough about the situation as it was. He’d only been discharged from the hospital because they’d pulled the Torchwood card and Jack had only agreed because they couldn’t very well use the alien burn cream if he was being monitored by a civilian medical team.

“Your loss, mate.” Rhys settled into the armchair. Ianto turned his head, not that there was anything for him to be looking at. The only things he could make eye contact with were Rhys’ feet where they were settled on the coffee table.

The TV was on, but the voices were just a steady drone that turned to cotton in Ianto’s ears. The pain made it difficult to pick the words apart and the exhaustion meant that he wasn’t particularly interested in trying. Instead, he tried to think about the cleanup, counting the number of Retcon doses left at the Hub and hoping that Jack would remember that he needed to check Myspace and the usual forums for photos. Gwen would remember, but Jack would probably insist on her going home before she had the chance to do it. No matter—he’d just remind Jack when he got back. He just had to be awake.

Seconds later, Ianto was asleep.

-

Ianto watched Jack’s face crumple, the tension and the fight fleeing Jack’s body, the subtle shifts somehow more visible when outlined in shadow. His body sagged forward and Ianto braced himself for the moment that Jack’s forearms hit the couch, determined not to let the movement force him to give away his pain.

Ianto waited until Jack placed his head back on his shoulder before letting his eyes fall closed. He didn’t need sight to hear what Jack wasn’t saying (“I could’ve lost you. I can’t lose you.”) just like he didn’t need ears to understand what Jack had been saying earlier, underneath the yelling (“You can’t leave me.”).

He played with Jack’s hair, relearning the slide of the strands between his fingers even though there were few things he knew better, and listened to their breathing fall into sync.

He didn’t need his voice to tell Jack what he needed to hear, but Ianto said it aloud anyways, “I’m here.”

[therunawayscamp]

And here's something else that winds me up about people always blaming us for everything: yes, all right, maybe it we did cause the explosion near the Shrine of Azura, and maybe there wasn't anyone else involved, but did you ever stop to consider that we might have had a perfectly good reason for it? No, you didn't, so now I'm going to explain that very reason and you'll be forced to admit that we were justified, and also that you ought to pay us some sort of reparations for the slander against the good name of the Runaway Scamp.

Over the course of a voyage, there's always a bit of a rivalry that builds up between the two watches. Sometimes there isn't much of a contest. Obviously the Ald'Varay (my watch) is superior when it comes to the art of sailing.

It's areas like mage drills where things get interesting. I'm no mage myself, so far as I'm concerned, both Mr Oran and Mr Ethysil are equally talented in their field, and the same goes for the mages under their separate commands. By the end of a voyage, however, when they've had time to train them to their full potential, they like to settle the question for themselves and the best way of doing that is through a competition.

If Oran had his way, the competition would always be settled by whichever team can blow up the biggest rock, but as Ethysil argues, this doesn't bear much resemblance to their skill in an engagement. Any ship worth its gilt will have wards cast around the hull, something I haven't noticed very often on your average rock, and it requires a bit more thought than simply hurling magic around. R'khan came up with the alternative: both teams have a camp containing an idol, and whoever finds the opposing team's idol first is the winner. They signal that they've found the idol by blowing it up because Oran threatened to mutiny if explosions weren't involved somewhere along the line, but I don't think anybody could object to a few little explosions here and there. They keep life interesting. If the other team defend it properly and prevent it from blowing up, it doesn't count. The idea is it showcases their intelligence and creativity as well as their power, but personally I think they just like having an excuse to run around on land after months at sea.

I will spare you the boring details of the hunt for the opposing team's idol. The competition took place, as I say, near the Shrine of Azura in Winterhold, so mostly it consisted of sailors climbing halfway up icy cliffs then getting knocked down again into a snowdrift, to the mirth of their shipmates. They apparently enjoyed themselves. Personally I think R'khan, myself, and the rest of the non-mage crew enjoyed ourselves a lot more sat next to a campfire on the beach singing a few songs and sharing the rum around, but what do I know about the ways of mages? Instead we'll get straight to the point.

Ethysil was the first to find the idol. Presumably working on the basis of hiding things in plain sight, or perhaps because he knew it would piss Zannammu off, Oran had tucked it between the statue's legs, propped up against somebody else's offering so that it was staring up Azura's robe. Like all of us, Ethysil appreciates these little touches, but he had a mission to complete. His reputation was at stake. Magic sparked briefly in his hand and illuminated all life in the immediate area with a glow visible to his eyes only. Nothing but a fox tearing through the undergrowth. That in itself should have been a warning – even Oran isn't stupid enough to leave his prize totally unguarded – but victory was only an arm's length away. Ethysil reached forwards.

As soon as his fingertip touched the idol, the world fell into fire. He tried to reel backwards and found the ground was gone, his feet milling aimlessly in the air, tumbling and burning. If there was any noise, he couldn't hear it. His ears rang with the aftermath of the explosion and when he finally landed, with a thud that cracked the back of his skull against the ice, his vision shook for a few minutes. Moving was not an option. He lay flat on his back and waited to see whether he would die.

Ice melted and dripped across his forehead. Eventually the cold convinced him that actually he might be alive after all, and a little while later that maybe he really ought to move if he didn't want to be soaked through. He struggled upwards, blinked a few times, and realised that the rock formation towering over him was in fact Oran. In his hand was Ethysil's idol, which ought to have been hidden safely on the beach, buried beneath the tideline. He grinned, and the idol exploded into dust in his hands, shooting a pillar of flame into the sky.

'I win.'

Things still weren't entirely straight in Ethysil's head. He let Oran drag him back to the beach, telling everyone they met along the way about his victory, and accepted a bottle pushed into his hand without questioning the contents. It certainly took the edge off the cold creeping into his bones. When half of it was gone and when he could feel his extremities again, he jabbed his elbow sideways into Oran's stomach.

'What in Oblivion did you enchant it with?'

'Modified fire rune.'

I don't know what it is about Oran, but he can do a more infuriating smug look than anybody else I know.

Undoubtedly he treated Ethysil to it now and was well-rewarded by a huff. Ethysil's breath swept across the bottle and turned to fog in the frosty air.

'You, muthsera, are a bastard. Since when do you use runes?'

He expected a smart remark, an insistence that he ought to own up to his own fault and oversight. Instead Oran conjured up some flames in his hand, surprisingly modest ones for him, and shook them onto the sand, where they burned without fuel and formed a small campfire. Such a thoughtful gesture is practically unheard of for Oran, and Ethysil stared at him with the appropriate amount of shock, although not until after shuffling forward to feel the fire's benefit.

'Maybe I learned something from you,' said Oran, and cleared his throat in the way which means people in his vicinity ought to run for the hills if they don't want to be treated to what he thinks of as poetry. 'We've been sailing together for so long now, over the aeons, through tide and tempest, forging a bond in the darkest nights and the wildest--'

'All right, all right.'

'Something was bound to rub off eventually.'

'Are you saying is that it was my influence? I rather think that means it was my victory after all.'

The campfire flared into a bonfire momentarily as Oran scowled.

'Fuck off. I won fair and square.' The flames simmered down and their faces were half darkness once again. 'What I'm saying is that I may be no House Dunmer, but I think I understand what it means. Together through hell and high water. A bond of sheer courage and unshakable faith, as the learned Sera Ravel describes it. A clan of one blood, whom one follows unto death and beyond, if such is one's calling, for they cannot deny a shared destiny which--'

'Oran. Please. Have mercy. I've still got a headache from your blasted rune and this is not helping.'

Obligingly, for once, and I can only assume Ethysil cast some sort of enchantment or tame beast spell on him because Oran has never once been obliging for me, Oran said no more. They watched the magical fire twist against the sand in a companionable silence, the only sound the rest of the crew in their own huddles and the waves hushing along the shore.

Until Luca trudged up and, in her characteristic way, shattered the moment of peace. She dropped a pile of cloth, formerly draped over her arms, at Ethysil's feet.

'Here. R'khan said it's about time you put this back on.'

It was the cloak Ethysil wears when we're in Morrowind, to cover up his Tribunal tattoos from the more zealous brand of Reclamationists. Its warmth wasn't exactly unwelcome, sat outside at night in Skyrim, but as Luca went off scuffing sand behind her, Ethysil dragged it slowly over his arms.

'I suppose I shall be wearing this for the next few months.' He fingered the sleeve distastefully. 'You know, the disrobing ceremony is far more enjoyable than the robing.'

'You'll be taking it off soon enough.'

'Will I?'

The air was cold that night. I remember. That was all it was. That's what the little pause was, the chill, the shiver. Perfectly normal. Why wouldn't it be? Skyrim is always cold. Anyway, everyone always feel a bit strange at the end of a voyage, as if something is coming to an end. Which it isn't. Obviously. It's only a feeling, and feelings always pass, given enough time.

When this feeling passed, which it did, Oran grinned behind a swig from his own bottle.

'Yeah. When you meet a certain beautiful lady you took a fancy to last time we were home. One glimpse of her dark, lustrous locks and her buxom chest and that cloak will be straight off.'

'Closely followed by the rest of my clothes?' Ethysil laughed. 'I'll drink to that, serjo.'

[takadasaiko]

Houseguest: Chapter Six

FFN II AO3

Summary: Early morning meetings and broken bones don't mix well.

Chapter Six: Painkillers and Espresso

The sound of loud clanking and an even louder curse drew Steve to the kitchen the next morning rather than heading into the gym like he'd planned on doing. He found Tony Stark, half dressed in what looked like would eventually be a three piece suit, the missing cuff links leaving the sleeves hanging open around his wrists, and hopping awkwardly on his uninjured foot. He swiped for a pill bottle on the counter and dry swallowed one before looking over towards Steve. "Yeah, laugh it up. I know I look funny."

"You should probably see a doctor about your foot if it's hurting that bad this morning."

"He'll just tell me to stay off of it, and I don't have time. It's fine. Not even swollen, just sore." Toast popped up from the toaster and Tony grabbed the slice, taking a bite out of it plain. "You still planning on sticking around?"

Tony changed subjects about as fast as he talked, and sometimes it took Steve just a beat longer to keep up, all the while trying to make sure he hadn't missed something. "As long as you're not kicking me out."

"I thought we covered that last night…. Anyway, I'm heading into the office this morning. If you're game for tagging along I thought we could drop by the site after I'm done."

"You're going in to work?" Steve asked, and he was relatively certain his expression matched his tone.

"Yeah."

"You know you look like you lost a round in a side alley, right?"

Tony reached up, fingers brushing lightly against the visible cuts and bruises on his face. "They know who I am. It's fine. I have an R&D meeting."

Steve opened his mouth to argue, but shut it again. Trying to convince him was pointless and had proven to do more harm than good. He sighed. "You're not going to listen to me if I tell you you'll regret pushing yourself, are you?"

Tony hobbled his way over to the coffee pot that had signaled it was done and poured himself a mug of it to take on the go. "Look at that. You can teach an old man."

"Funny."

"Yep. How quick can you be ready?"

"Give me ten minutes?" He received a wave in response as Tony turned his attention to limping around the kitchen and getting ready. Steve hesitated only half a moment until he was sure the other man wasn't going to land in a heap on the floor before starting back to his room to get ready.

                                               _____________________

For all the strain that his body must have been under, Tony hid it exceptionally well. Steve wasn't sure if he should be impressed or concerned, but whichever it was it didn't change that he looked much sturdier on his feet by the time they were walking into the monstrosity of an office building that was, apparently, Stark Industries' Los Angeles headquarters. The plan was simple: the meeting shouldn't take more than a couple of hours and Steve would use that time to access the footage that could be salvaged from the newly destroyed Stark facility's security cameras as well as the video that Tony's Iron Man suit had recorded during the battle. All of that would be made available on Tony's secure systems in his office that he still kept, even if rarely used.

They met a man that Tony introduced as Happy Hogan at the door who gave Tony a once over before looking like he knew fussing over him would a losing battle. Instead Hogan - Tony and Pepper's personal security, he explained, and yes, he knew how useless it was to be Tony's security these days - led Steve through the lobby, past a giant portrait of a much older Howard Stark than Steve had ever gotten to know, and up the stairs.

The office was bare, a few boxes in the corner and a desk against a wall. There was nothing about the room that indicated that it was ever used at all, except for a computer on the desk that Hogan had to access for him. "Jarvis is linked up, so he should be able to find anything for you that you need."

"Thanks."

Hogan turned to leave, pausing just a few steps away before turning. "You know, when Pepper told me that Tony had a buddy come into town, didn't even cross my mind it could be you. I mean, he hated… uh…"

"Hated me," Steve prompted, not really wanting the confirmation, but the level of awkward radiating from Hogan after sticking his foot in his mouth was painful.

"Not you, necessarily." He glanced towards the door as if making sure Tony hadn't popped up without warning. "His old man used to talk about you all the time, from what he said. Drove him nuts. I guess I just wouldn't have thought you two would click with all of that."

"Well, clicking may be a little overstated, but I, uh… I don't know. He's certainly proved to be more than he looks like at first glance."

"It takes a while to get to know Tony. I've worked for him for over fifteen years. He's a good man."

"I'm starting to see that," Steve acknowledged softly. "He reminds me of his dad."

"I wouldn't tell him that."

Steve barked a laugh, shaking his head. "Yeah, I caught onto that. I feel like we both knew two different Howards. If I hadn't seen the name on the plaque I never would have recognized the portrait of Howard down there. The man I knew was -"

"Younger?"

"Full of life. A little wild. A lot wild," he corrected with another laugh. "And obnoxious. He always knew he was the smartest man in the room and wanted to make sure everybody else knew too." A fond smile tugged at his lips with the memories. "But his heart was in the right place."

"Sounds a lot like Tony," Hogan said, and Steve couldn't help but feel like he'd passed a test of some kind. "Have Jarvis buzz me if you need anything. Well, anything not techy. I'm not great with that."

"You and me both," Steve muttered, half to himself as the other man left him alone. "Okay, Jarvis, let's get started."

                                              _____________________

He didn't typically choose to take pain medication. There wasn't much he could do if he was unconscious when a doctor decided to dose him, but if it was his call, he tended to avoid the fog that the meds soaked his brain in. With the way he'd been limping around that morning, though, he knew he couldn't avoid taking something. If he tried to hop around to avoid putting pressure on his injured foot he felt it through every cracked rib and in his injured wrist when he reached out to catch himself each time that he inevitably lost balance and went tumbling to the side. That was no way to conduct an R&D meeting, so he'd dug through his medicine cabinet until he found a pill bottle that wasn't years out of date and had swallowed a half dose to take the edge off and get him through the day. It worked, and might have even worked as intended if he'd had more than half a piece of toast and a thermos of coffee for breakfast that morning.

Tony felt his head start to swim during the first presentation. Several of his lead engineers were pitching their project ideas to him so he could decide which ones he wanted to sign off on and which ones were dead before they left the gate. He sent an intern for a cup of black coffee by the second, thought he caught most of the third, but it was the fourth that he really started to fade on.

"Mr Stark?"

He blinked hard. Had his eyes been closed? Shit. They had, and they weren't focusing very well now. He blinked rapidly to clear them and the young engineer that was giving his presentation looked part nervous and part irritated. Tony wasn't quite sure which one was going to win out as he straightened in his chair and cleared his throat. "Huh? Right…. Sorry." He'd heard something. He knew he had. Something about a hologram, connecting to the brain…. No. Yes. The hippocampus. Memories. He leaned forward and massaged the bridge of his nose. "So you're wanting to tap into memories…"

"And project them, yes. The applications are limitless. With just the right touch, you could create an entire visible world just from someone's memories, project it, and -"

"Interesting. What was your name again?"

The man - likely the head of his team - looked like Tony had taken a physical swing at him for half a second before regaining his composure. "Beck. Quinton Beck."

"I like it, Beck. Put together your cost projections and -"

"I've got those," Beck cut him off.

"Fantastic. Get them to my secretary and we'll get started." He checked his watch. "Great session, guys. I have another meeting to get to. Anything we didn't cover just… I don't know, leave it on my desk or something." He needed more coffee. Maybe a few shots of espresso. In an energy drink. That sounded like a plan.

Thankfully no one fought him too hard on slipping out early. Tony made a beeline for the coffee cart that he'd had opened in the cafeteria years before, feeling every step from his battered foot up through his still-throbbing head. He ordered a large of the most caffeinated drink that they could make before slowly limping his way up to his office.

He found Steve Rogers with his gaze fixed on the computer screen. The blond looked up as he shuffled across the room, looking him up and down. "You okay?"

"I'll live," Tony answered. "Whatcha got?"

"JARVIS is running a few searches for me, but uh… I'm curious. What's this?"

He turned the screen around and Tony saw something that had absolutely nothing to do with the case they were working on. "Those are the plans for the rebuild of Stark Tower," he said slowly, uncertain how Steve had even managed to stumble into those plans. The man was far from tech savvy, which meant JARVIS had likely steered him in that direction while he waited on something else. He really needed to have a candid talk with his AI system about boundaries.

"These rooms have our names on them," Rogers prompted and Tony delayed the expected response by taking a long drink from his coffee cup. It wasn't like he could drain the whole thing, though. Eventually Cap would expect an answer.

Tony cleared his throat. "That's, uh… What I talked to you guys about. The remodel crew needed an answer so I told them just to go with it. I thought someone would, you know, say something about it. Guess they'll just be neat rooms now. It's fine. No harm."

Blond brows drew together. "What do you mean talked to us about?"

"At lunch after the whole… space invasion… thing. Or dinner. Whatever. Shawarma."

Cap stared at him for a long moment, his gaze becoming more and more confused. "Tony…. I have zero memory of you talking about, well, anything while we were eating."

"I went on for like, ten or fifteen minutes about it!"

"Nothing. Sorry."

"Seriously?"

"We were all exhausted, Tony. A few of us concussed."

"I guess that's fair…" He ran his hand through his dark hair, thinking back on the day. Yeah. He had a few gaping holes in his memory too. If anyone else had said anything while they were eating, he had no idea.

"So you designed… whole living spaces for us in the tower without even knowing if anybody would take you up on it?"

Tony ducked his head. "Yeah, it was stupid. The contractors needed an answer…."

"That's amazing, Tony."

"Huh?"

"You redesigned the entire tower for… us. Even if there isn't an us right now."

"Thought there might be again. Someday. I don't know, it was a dumb idea."

Cap snorted and Tony was having to fight the urge to find any excuse to run out the door. "It's a compliment. I don't know anybody else that would do that."

"We made a good team."

"We did." He could feel Cap's gaze on him and he finally met it. "We still do. It's a good idea."

Tony cleared his throat hard. "What'd you find about my thieves? Anything?"

"Not a lot that it looked like you didn't already have, according to JARVIS." Tony tilted his head in question. "Just some information about our Ms Mira. Should we forward that over to the police -?"

"Nah. They've likely got it all by now. JARVIS didn't find anything in any databases that they couldn't get their hands on."

"Exactly what kind of databases does JARVIS search?" Steve asked, his tone not quite accusatory, but Tony flashed him a charming grin nonetheless, turning for the door.

"All the useful ones. C'mon. I need another espresso and then we can head out. Apparently painkillers make you sleepy. Who knew?"

He paused when he didn't hear Cap follow immediately and found the blond man still seated as his desk, that icy blue gaze fixed on him. "We should at least touch base with the police. Aren't you already stepping on their toes? Captain Ito-"

Tony squared his shoulders a little, doing his best to suppress the grimace that threatened at the movement. "I gave Captain Ito his arrest that he wanted. The rest of it - the weapons that might come out of it - that's my business."

"Tony..."

"Not everything's an alien-invasion level threat, Cap, but if people could get hurt because of a breach in the company's… in my security set up, that's where Iron Man steps in. That's why I built the suit. If you're not comfortable with that, fine. It's my fight. I can get you a ride back to the house."

There was a long moment of silence and just as Tony was ready to call Happy to have him take Steve back to Malibu, the other man heaved a sigh and stood. "I'm not going to leave you without backup."

"I do just fine on my own every other day, Cap."

"But you don't have to. Not today. I told you I'd help and I will."

It wasn't exactly a glowing endorsement of his methods, but there was something to be said about Steve having his back anyway. If Tony wasn't careful, it was something that he could get used to.

"Okay," he murmured softly, pushing hard at the thoughts before they threatened to spill over into visible emotion, and he turned back to the door. "Waiting on you now, Stars and Stripes."

                                              _____________________

TBC

Notes: Funny story, about the time I was trying to figure out what kind of injuries I could give Tony without incapacitating him I dropped something on my foot and broke some of the tiny bones there. Apparently I just needed to vent some of my pain out through Tony :P

Also, anyone notice the up-and-coming (though very prissy) engineer on Tony's team?

Next Time: Tony pushes Captain Ito too far and Ito pushes back.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Sort of an odd question, I guess, but can you think of what sorts of things helped distinguish character voice in Animorphs? I've wanted to write a series like it since I was a kid, with rotating narrators and the like, but I worry that my characters' narration gets kinda "same-y" and I remember Animorphs being pretty good about keeping them distinct. Any thoughts on the ways the kids' narration voices were differentiated?

I think where K.A. Applegate is an absolute master of character voice is the margin of unreliability within which she operates.  The characters don’t lie to the reader, and they pretty much never lie to themselves, but their attention is drawn to different details as dictated by their own biases and preferences and goals and experiences.  They can watch the same battle happen at the same time and come away with six subtly different interpretations.  One of the many, many great meta-commentaries in #54 is when Marco says:

Jake was too serious and heavy for the media… everyone acted like they wantedJake to do their show, but Jake wasn’t really into that game and the bookers for the shows knew it.Jake did not do good panel… As for Cassie, well, she was worse, if that’s possible. She had the tendency to wander around in all the moral subtext of everything. She’d take some story about a cool, rock ‘em sock 'em battle we’d been in and turn it into this mope about the morality of self-defense.

It’s a great way of summing up the character voices while gently poking fun at them as well.  Jake takes a serious, heavy view of most battles, and he focuses on all of the ways that he could have done things differently to prevent most of the risk.  That means that his perspective is very much caught up in the moment-to-moment question of what’s happening and what he has to do about it.  He doesn’t really ask the deep questions.  That said, he does break the fourth wall and talk to the reader more so than any other narrator.  Usually he’s apologizing, or trying to explain himself, or going “look, I know this makes me look bad, but here goes.”  He has the least distance from whatever’s happening in any given moment, and yet we also get the sense that his narrative voice is an older and more regretful person than the guy we meet in the first book.  If the Animorphs are running from an army of taxxon-controllers, his focus is going to be on all the ways he could’ve decided differently to avoid this situation in the first place.

Cassie, by contrast, does absolutely get caught up in the major questions and paradoxes implied by the Animorphs’ existence.  She’s the one to worry that controlling a morph is no better than controlling a host, the one who admits that she doesn’t have all the answers but asks the questions anyway.  During the down times, she worries not about the “best” way to fight the war (the way Jake does) but about the individual hosts and yeerks and baby skunks they’re harming in their effort to protect everyone.  If the Animorphs are running from an army of taxxon-controllers, her focus is going to be on the animals and civilians that are going to be harmed by the crossfire of this particular conflict.

Marco isn’t quite as blasé about the violence of the war as he makes himself out to be in that quote, but then Marco’s most characteristic narration quirk is that he is the least honest with himself and the reader.  Again, he doesn’t outright lie (the wildly-unreliable narrator was cliché in Edgar Allan Poe’s time, and that’s not even getting into the ableist tripe put out by bad Chuck Palahniuk emulators) because having a character outright lie or dream or hallucinate rapidly renders the entire story meaningless.  However, he tends to adopt whichever zoom lens will allow him to make the story funny and glorious rather than the zoom lens that runs the risk of revealing his vulnerabilities.  If the Animorphs are running from an army of taxxon-controllers, he’s either going to be zoomed way out to comment on the ridiculousness of giant Very Hungry Caterpillars running down a bunch of dumbass fursonas, or he’s going to be zoomed in far enough to complain about the fact that he already got his 10,000 steps today and yet here he is still stepping.  Either way, he’s going to adopt the perspective that almost keeps you from noticing how exhausted and terrified he is the entire time.

Rachel’s narration is all about turning situations into battles, preferably with herself on the side of righteousness and her enemies presented as the ultimate challenge.  Rachel is no bully (*cough* unlike early-series Marco *cough*) because she never ever takes on a weaker opponent, but she wants to fight everyone from her own uncomfortable emotions to God the Ellimist himself.  She tends to cast everything from bickering with Jake or hunting for bargains into a grand struggle, and she is always trying to figure out who is powerful and who is not so that she can defend the powerless through kicking ass on the powerful.  That’s a big part of the reason she’s so good to Tobias — she is gruffly affectionate or tough and defensive depending on what he needs — and part of the reason she often succeeds in supporting Marco when Jake fails to do so.  If the Animorphs are running from an army of taxxon-controllers, she’s going to be focused on turning the chase into a struggle, some kind of battle that she doesn’t even have to win, just as long as she has the chance to put the hurt on the people who would try and harm the powerless.

Ax is an interesting case in that he’s not necessarily talking to the reader; he’s talking to the Andalite War Council and possibly the entire Andalite Electorate.  A lot of the time his narration also mismatches the reality of the situation, but generally that’s because of biases in his perception rather than deliberate decisions about how to tell a particular story.  Ax has some great dramatic-irony moments during his more humorous scenes, because his narration is all about missing facets of human society that are obvious to every human reader (American ones especially) while trying to explain to his superiors that he’s doing just fine.  He has growing tension between his duty and the realization that the andalites’ imperialist bullshit is a bunch of imperialist bullshit, but he nevertheless toes the line of justifying his decisions through using what he was taught at the andalite academy.  If the Animorphs are running from an army of taxxon-controllers, he’s going to be explaining how he calmly assessed the situation and decided it would be for the best to run from the army while also noticing that it might not be The Warrior Way but it keeps them all alive and so he doesn’t necessarily care about being by the book at the expense of his team’s lives.

Tobias thinks too much.  I think it’s partially a side effect of the fact that he spends a lot of time alone — and unlike Ax, doesn’t get lonely when he doesn’t have company.  He really tries to get at the answers to the questions that Cassie just asks for their own sakes, and tends to obsess over the idea of there being moral rights and wrongs.  That said, Tobias’s distant and occasionally-detached perspective on the series means that he embraces the cheerful nihilism and darkly absurdist humor of the 2010s way ahead of the curve.  He’s the one most likely to announce casually that it doesn’t matter that the Animorphs lost a particular battle because the Earth is going to be absorbed by the sun in a total-planetary extinction event in a couple million years anyway, and the one least likely to care about needing strict definitions for his relationship with Rachel or his “half hawk, half human, half andalite” status (MM3).  If the Animorphs are running from an army of taxxon-controllers, then Tobias is going to have a literally distant perspective as he watches from overhead and herds all the others to safety, but he’s also going to have a metaphorically distant perspective as he unflinchingly assumes that this will be the last battle the Animorphs can expect to survive.

Anyway, I think that that’s what makes really REALLY good character voice.  It’s not a huge margin of uncertainty where we don’t even know what’s real and what isn’t.  (Again: 99% of those narrators are ableist as fuck, and 99% of those plots are frustratingly nonsensical to try and read.  Dream plots have never not been silly, and psychosis plots have never not been ableist.)  It’s not a tiny margin of uncertainty where we’re essentially reading a reporting of the events of the war without commentary.  It’s a more-or-less faithful rendering of the events of the war, with a focus on the aspects of any given scene that that particular character has reason to care about.  It’s subtle.  It’s complex, but simple and clean on the surface.  It’s masterfully done.

[ts-2020-olympics]

EPISODE 4 - "Tribe Swap and TBH This Couldn’t Have Gone Any Better” - Pete

Tribe swap anyone? So right off the bat, I see that Jacob C. is the tribe captain. I immediately go to him and ask him to pick me for his tribe, so that I can pick Sammy and Sammy can pick Kevin and Kevin can pick a newbie and that newbie will pick a newbie and then that newbie will pick a newbie. GUESS WHAT? It worked!!! We did exactly that, and with all of us working together to build the tribe I think I realized I can trust them for now. I still know that Sammy has an idol, and so that’s useful information. Eventually we are gonna need to get him to drain it but I think maybe it’s gone now, if he could only use it for a few rounds. That’s also probably just what he wants us to think. I also hit a bump in the road with the information I’m holding. I’m trying to play this game very game-focused and not my usual hehe social game is gonna get me there way, even though in this cast...they really don’t care so maybe social would be the way to approach it. Either way, I ended up telling Kevin what I said about Beck in my last video confessional (I know you didn’t watch it so I’ll summarize; beck wanted to exclude kevin from an alliance that was Kevin’s idea). My only regret is that it might have been too soon to plant any seeds of doubt with Kevin about Beck, and that I might be getting played by both of them. But, on the other hand maybe it was the perfect time? We are going to merge....a long time from now. Like a super super long time from now. But, I don’t know I think telling him initiates a trust between us that I don’t have with the other people in this game. I’d really like to go to the end with Jacob C and maybe a random newbie. It just feels so far out of reach at this point, theres literally like...at least 7 more premerge boots and I really hate that. I despise big casts, and especially with this twist because there’s so much time in the middle of the round where everyone is just kind of like...sitting. And I don’t do well in those types of situations. So, it’s feeling bleak right now BUT if I do make it to merge, I’ll be very happy and then if I do make it to FTC I’ll be very happy and then if I don’t win, that’s to be expected and the usual state of what happens.

This tribe has my 2 "enemies". I don't trust either, I just tried to vote out Billy again too so that's cool. I'm going to go ahead and make friends with Jordan and stoner since they are loners, and we just need one more on top of that to make a new happy family. The thing with voting me out is, when you get me going, I will demolish the game, and given I'm a lot more comfortable in a tribe of 7, it shouldn't be that hard. Taking full control premerge is one of my favorite things to do, but you need a clear cut enemy to do it effectively. I have that enemy, no one else does. Let's see what we can do here.

Alright, so here's the ordeal.   First off, Bailey got medically evacuated due to getting three strikes (which might have stated this already in past confessional, but whatever,)  and secondly, Will lost out at arena, also getting the eliminated slot.   That left 21 people, and as my suspicions were, I expected a swap to occur, and that one did.   Went in expecting probably wouldn't be one of the first round picks, but ended up getting picked on tribe quicker than I anticipated.   Anyways, I am now on a tribe with Beck, Ben, Caeleb, Juls, Karen and Tommy.   I just couldn't be more happier to be with more active people on a tribe, instead of there just being myself and two others active on my original tribe.   Now, time to hope this new tribe can end the Yushu losing streak and come out as the sole immunity winner with today's challenge.   Then, finally, in regards to the Olympic Village, four times now where I have found nothing, but I went down each end of the village, so I at least now have some sort of insight to all the paths I can take in future village searching rounds.

HELL FUCKIN YEEAAAHH TRIBE SWAP!! and tbh this couldn’t have gone any better I think. I’ve got jacob c, eve, and sammy here and if we all vote together then that’s enough to be safe. I’m also maybe forming a bond with Landen cus they seem pretty cool and maybe I might be able to land a good social position in this tribe??? Hopefully someone secretly hates somebody so i can jump on that shit to keep me safe

okay so i’m sucking ass at this maverick bird game and i’ve only really performed well in one challenge ever so i’m in danger girls. everyone else here is used to challenges and have all this experience and then there’s my dumbass who has no fuckin clue what he’s doing. i could easily be first out this tribe tonight if no one wants to rock the boat and they all just vote based off challenge strength

I hate this challenge and I hate these flash games. That is all. 🙃

so i'm gonna try to keep this short because i have lots of writing to do for a history class, but basically, i've been praying for a swap to get away from the disaster that was sonkei, and last night, i finally got my wish! I wish we had gotten a break day to talk to everyone, because those are always nice when you swap, but i think i'll be able to do fine without it. my tribe breakdown could NOT have gone better! though i didn't end up with anybody i knew particularly well, i ended up with some people i've been talking to AND getting along with. Sammy is someone i love and someone i'm even buying a shirt from lol, nothing to do with the game he just told me about some of his graphic design work and i saw his shirts and i was like... let me buy it. Jacob, i love and we have very similar music taste. Then Nicole i've chatted with a bit, we're not close or anything but i like her! Pete, Eve, and Kevin were all entirely new. I think there's a lot of potential with pete, we've already bonded over crazy people in past games and our anxiety in games. whereas with eve things started off on an... AWKWARD foot, and with kevin, well i just suck at convo and he's not great either. some people are soooo dry and i just don't get it and as far as that goes i'm honestly struggling with some of these conversations like how r ppl so dry... but that being said i get along with everyone on this team and i think it's a really strong team, so i'm hoping that when results come out in like 15 minutes, i'm not proven wrong and we win! i tried really hard on the challenge and while i like everyone on the team (Jacob/Sammy specifically may be very useful as i'm also close with caeleb and they're working together.. Could be a good lil alliance type thing, potentially. I dunno.) i'm not 100% sure how safe i will be at tribal and really i just really, REALLY want a break from tribal. i'm very much #OverIt, and at this rate i genuinely might turn into Denise like Caeleb was joking about. I'm just sick of tribal council at this rate and I really don't want to go again, the arena makes these dynamics impossible and if I'm going to keep going I'm gonna have to keep managing everyone that goes there and back too.... OH BOOM RESULTS CAME OUT DURING TRIBAL AND WE WON! Thank FUCK. But the rest of that still stands about the confusing dynamics, how things are everchanging, and how avoiding tribal... I'm happy about it and hopefully I can continue to do it? I also need to talk things over with Billy, smooth over that dynamic and get him knowing I really do want him till the FINALS. I need him to trust me and the last tribal did not work for that. So it's go time. Thanks for helping me out, Miraitowa, my bomb af run begins now.

New Yushu, new us! Honestly, I'm really pleased with the tribe, but it sucks to see one of our own go. I have to, with a heavy heart, vote for Karen to go to arena. If all goes well, and I hope it will, they'll bring home the gold for us. :) 

wooooooo i'm nervous about tribal! unfortunately tribe yushu cannot catch a break even with new tribe members. voting out karen is best for my game but i'm afraid that me pushing for them to leave shows my cards a little too much and i fear that if we go to another tribal next round i'm gonna be in a bad position. i'll do what i can to maintain the connections i have rn and hopefully keep my life in this game going!! on that note. anxiety might kill me

Well I'm so MAD I LOST THE ARENA, I WAS IN LAST PLACE LAST PLACE! Then all of a sudden I take off and I literally was in first by 10 minutes and I get STUCK on the LAST CLUE and everyone else passes me and beats me. Which leaves me with no medal. Maybe this will lower my threat level because I keep flopping in all the comps but I literally have been trying to win these challenges and I just suck. However, I did make a key social connection with Beck during my time at the arena and I think this could be a good connection for my game. Then the swap comes and I'm like :V and I start messaging Beck because it's schoolyard pick and he messages me and says "If I pick you, will you pick someone I want?" and of course in my head I'm like "Well no duh I want to be in the majority" so I agree and he says "Darcy" so I know he has a tight bond with Darcy so whichever way Beck votes Darcy may follow. Then Darcy chooses Caeleb which I thought was a bit random but maybe they had talked a little and without any hesitation Caeleb chooses Juls *side eye emoji*. Juls I get a read that she is someone who is super dangerous. She's extremely likeable and has made no enemies despite going to tribal 3 times and everytime the person voted out came back. I think she may even be my biggest threat on this tribe. I don't necessarily know if she'll come for me but I don't want to find out. Then Juls talks about bringing Landen aka her partner in crime and in my head I'm like "Please god don't let Landen on this tribe." Thankfully the tribe right before it got to us picked him and she picked Ben because we wanted challenge strength and then Ben randomly chooses Karen aka the person who I wanted out first if Shosha ever want to tribal council and who has bombed most of the challenges this season. Then to make matters worse we BOMB this Immunity, I think these OG Blue people are cursed because they have been going to tribal every round besides the first round of the game. So now my closest ally in the game on my tribe is Beck. We call and Beck tells me about the dynamic how him and Juls know each other and he backstabbed her and he thinks she may want revenge. However, I believe they are about to host an ORG together so it's going to be really hard to convince him to turn on her because then she might say something if she's voted out because they will be hosting together. At the point I was at I was fine with Karen going home over Juls first because Ben said "Let's go for Juls." Then the targets ended up switching around and now everyone wants Karen, which I was still fine with until I get a message maybe an hour later from Karen saying "I really think we should stick together." and then I'm like well I guess this means if Karen stays I'm her #1 and that's very important on a tribe that'll only get smaller, so now I don't want Karen to go home but her odds are looking so narrow that she avoids the arena. However, I think she can pull out a Gold Medal and if she does leave I hope she does come back. I kinda view the tribe as there's the three of the OG Blues (Ben, Darcy, and Beck), the duo of Juls and Caeleb, and the sorta a duo of myself and Karen but nobody really sees us as a duo. Then Juls and Beck have a strong connection, Me and Beck have a strong connection, and Beck and Darcy have a strong connection. Beck has already voiced to me about blindsiding Ben, who I don't know if I can trust but at this point I'm not against it but I rather see Juls go, she's a way bigger threat and I don't think she will return with a gold and it causes tensions if she does return between Beck and Juls and it's off of me. My plan is to just keep Beck as close as I can I need to be his #1, I'll even take a close #2. This way I'm able to secure my safety in the tribe. I'm also trying to get closer to Caeleb in the route we end up going for Juls next and she doesn't come back I think I may be able to scoop him up as a number for me while being on this tribe and developing a bond that can last a while. Ideally Juls leaves tonight however, it'll sadly be Karen with that being said my perfect scenario is Karen wins the gold medal comes back, if we go to tribal again we meaning (myself, darcy, ben, and beck possibly karen) blindside Juls/Caeleb sending Juls home and she looses in the arena, I scoop up Caeleb, keep Karen close, Beck close, and then go for a blindside against Ben using (myself, karen, beck, and caeleb) even if Ben returns I think he'll feel most betrayed by Beck, and keep my options open from there. This way I'll start taking out people I feel like are dangerous that won't be targeted and I make my threat level smaller while creating strong bonds with people, and have other people be mad at each other. Hopefully all of this while we win a few immunities so that we aren't completely decimated by the time we get to a swap.  

This swap is good, I either wanted Billy or Nik out and that seems to be happening. Nik and Sarah aren't talking to me. I'm immune. Y'all confusing

Pretty sure I sent in confessional already this round, but why not, let's send another.  I don't got too much to add since my past confessional, but my tribe lost immunity.   Seeming like the vote is going to be Karen, but who knows, could be me, or could be someone else, I am not fully certain how this vote will end up playing out.

i love my new tribe with my whole entire heart!! sm i going to tribal again? maybe so. HOWEVER, they’re all angels and i can’t wait to continue to work with them 

hello i'm retracting my previous confessional bc now i actually have a reason to vote out someone who isn't karen. the vote is flipping on ben which i'm okay with because apparently he did something that upset caeleb and i want everybody to be comfortable playing this game. so hey, at least i know i'm safe tonight

😖😖😖😠😠😠😭😭😭😭😵😵😵🤫🤫🤫🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢

Anyway so my UTR game is over and now it’s time to make a confessional! We’ve swapped tribes or whatever and of course I get swapped onto a tribe without nicole or Kevin so basically my back is against the wall /:. Anyway so I have tommy, juls, caeleb, Ben, becks and Darcy on my tribe now and they all suck at challenges apparently sjdbdjdndj like I didn’t do well on immunity but I didn’t even try which in retrospect wasn’t a good idea because now these freaks are targeting me as the weakest. So Ben and becks last night were basically like yeah we’re probably voting for you /: like first of all....fuck u, the only reason you tell me that is because you don’t think I have a chance to save myself, I don’t want your stupid pity confession, at least TRY to strategize with me. It took everything in me not to snap at them, I mean I kinda went off on becks but w/e they can’t be so naive. Anyway so I was talking to nicole and Kevin trying to save my ass and we figured out that I would have majority if I got me & tommy and the two people who were on other tribe so that was my mission for today. I think I talked enough with both caeleb and juls to convince them to work with tommy and I but I’m also a little weary /: I can’t be too sure and that scares me so anyway I’m gonna look for an idol hopefully I find something and hopefully no one is playing my ass right now or else it’s GG to me /: also becks is on board with voting Ben which like yikes if Ben finds out lol. Ben messaged me recently so I need to deal with that because I assume someone told him something ugh why do these newbies suck ):

Sooooooo I really need to keep my mouth shut sometimes. I didn't want Nik or I to go so I thought that we could avoid it, however chris didn't wanna swap. This really sucks because I didn't want Nik to go but I didn't make any effort to try and save him, which is odd for me. Had Chris and I voted out Sarah, it would've been fine. However, I'm now probably gonna be the biggest target in this tribe. BRING IT BITCHES I'M READY.

Maybe I should watch more of the actual Survivor show, but I'm now fully realizing that how well someone plays the game does not directly correlate to them winning...it's all politics and drama 🙃 

These people are literally insane. This is hilarious. I'm still on thin ice but this position is a lot better than my last one. Billy sucks. Common theme. Nik showed up at the live tribal but not to anyone's dms.

After seeing the MESSY ass tribal Sonkei just had, AGAIN, I am so glad I finally got the fuck off that tribe and onto a new one. The curse of Suckei really does exist, it's an absolute trainwreck tribe... That being said I had to laugh, and it might go down as one of the best tribes in history. Those iconic trainwrecky Survivor tribes are just.. ugh. That being said, I am SO SICK OF EMMA SURVIVING. PLEASE KICK HER ASS THE FUCK OUT OF THE GAME LIKE I HATE HER! ......Okay moving on from that outburst :) One thing this does remind me of though, is that I need to become more active in my pursuit to understand dynamics. I kinda wanted to take a step back and just observe during the swap, because usually I overplay out. And here, I just want to chill, and let people kind of forget that I ran shit on Original Sonkei. Forget that I was the leader there, who dominated everything with an iron fist (even if sometimes accidentally... Trainwreck vibes!) and just think of me as a cute derpy 16 yr old player again. That was my plan, but I'm starting to get nervous. This late in the game and I'm still in no official alliance chats, I may be losing Billy, and i'm ANXIOUS about the future. I definitely need to work harder on things moving forward, so that's exactly what I'm going to do.

IM READY TO KILL STONER AND DARCY AND BEN AND EVERYONE IN THAT ARENA EXCEPT NIK FUCK THAT TRIBE THAT VOTED HIM OUT AND FUCK THAT ARENA FUCK EVERYBODY I DONT EVEN REMEMBER WHAT TRIBE HES FROM BUT WHATEVER ITS LATE AND I WAS SUPPOSED TO SLEEP EARLIER AND NOW IMMA BE REALLY SLEEPY FOR MY ANNOYING ASS JOB THAT I KEEP DOING OVERTIME FOR CUS MY SHITTY ASS COWORKERS KEEP LEAVING EARLY I GOT OFF TOPIC ANYWAYS FUCK ARENA AND FUCK THE WINNERS AND FUCK THE RETURNEES AND FUCK SONKEI AND FUCK YUSHU FUCKIN DISCOUNT WANNABE YUJO BITCHES OKAY EVE SARAH AND I WILL GET YOUR ASSES 

psa krispy kreme is evil like they have bullshit random ass “deals” like 8 days a week for NO REASON like this one time it was New Year’s Eve so duh it’ll already be busy but corporate decided hey let’s do an annoying ass BOGO for $2 deal to torture our retail workers and I was working fucking drive thru that day and lemme tell you there have been very few times my patience and emotional strength have been toyed with by the force of god and i sure as hell wasnt prepared to have it at fucking 8 in the fucking morning i was so tempted to just tell every customer we make our donuts with bleach and orphan meat. it’s fucking 1 AM and i told myself i’d sleep at like 8 or 9 like a responsible adult but nooOOOOoo i just HAD to forget to eat so i have to make food and eat it so now i’m at midnight and gotta do this challenge or whatever so now i have fuckin 5 hours for my ugly ass to get enough beauty rest to be a lovely customer service representative of Krispy Kreme Enterprises™ and i’m gonna hate waking up i’m dreading it i have so much to do. i got off topic but yeah fuck arena fuck everyone in this game go eat a dick i’m upset and idk what else to say i ran out of angry words fuck that challenge and fuck billy dude why is he still here fuck the fuckin olympics nobody benefits from them except the greedy billionaires at the top like not even the athletes benefit that much they still gotta work average jobs like the rest of us like i always though olympic athletes were rich and shit but no they get screwed over royally and the places that host the olympics get shit on horribly it’s just an all around awful event doing nothing but spreading blind nationalism which is dangerous fuck america dude america’s a piece of shit and i’m allowed to say that i’m from florida fuck you anyways i’m tired bye fuck this  

and fuckin who the fuck is ben dude like no Nik was robbed bring Nik back fuckin ben from fuckin wannabe yujo tribe didn’t he go in a unanimous vote yikes also shoutout to whatever dumbass cancelled his vote that was a waste like why didn’t you save that shit dude fuck arena btw and fuck sonkei lmao loser ass tribe go win a challenge or something wow people are really gonna hate me when then airs but oh well i’m venting i’m at a breaking point and i don’t wanna fuckin go to work dude fuck fuckin yushu and fuck sonkei just throw the whole tribe away it’s Yujo final 3 bitches and fuck everybody else 

literally like i was added and my phone was still loading ALL the messages from all that fucking lag and already they started the round before i knew what was going on so i was just blind going in so fuckin stoner ass weee bitch got it when i wasn’t even there like ooh you won a challenge against nobody go fuck yourself by the time i could see the messages it was already over and they were like “sns you were here :/// go die i guess lmao loser” so yeah i’m a lil heated and it’s fucking 1:30 i can only get 3 and a half hours of sleep fuck this 

okay now it’s real strategy time. Nik just got robbed and I found out from Sarah that Billy’s leading the new Sonkei and wants her out next. Okay first off how the hell was he not voted out for not even doing the challenge? Second, if he’s targeting Yujo’s then he’s officially made the biggest mistake in the game. Eve and I are now on a mission to lead the Sonkei tribe to get rid of Billy as he should’ve been day 1. I think I can maybe convince Jordan and Chris, we just need 3 to have a chance. 

After swap 1

After nik got voted out

after winning arena

I’m fucking tireddddddd of going to tribal this game is not shaking out how I want it to. 

TRIBE SWAP BLESS THE TRIBE SWAP! i did truly like caeleb sammy and jacob a lot as people but like I was so going home if we lost its crazy. Now hopefully I can work with them without such tight a line keeping us together. ANYWAYS! we swap and I am in a fantastic position, i basically just took over tribe in terms of power. First thing i do is allign with stoner which is so funny to me. I realized hes someone whose general clout in the community is more disliked than me, so maybe i can make him my goat. I wonder if hes thinking the same about me. I wanted to work with billy but that guy is crazy like and that would be fine, if he was just normal crazy, but hes also the type of crazy thats like flip a vote at tribal for no reason and like I cant deal with that. I thought he had potnetial for a jordan pines minion, but sadly I think he might have to go. Anyways we lose teh challenge and em wants to target nik, em is somoene i super vibe with tbh so we get on board. HOwever she doesnt watn to tell sarah and im like OPPORTUNITY. I have had some great bonding with Sarah and think I have secured her loyaly to myself. I let her know about nik and got her to play dumb while still keeping her in the know. Now i think shes really loyal to me So after all that heres where stand. i have a 4 person alliance with me Stoner Em and Jacob which will likely take out billy if we lose again.the plan is the use sarah as a fifth on the side but my plan is a lil different. I want to keep sarah as tight to me as possible and when the time comes to take her out, do what I got to do to keep the people I think will progress me furthest in teh game. I don't think I am in danger of going this tribe swap so I need to use this opportunity to make sure I am okay for whatever comes after it.

[kusunogatari]

[ ObiRyū October | Day Eighteen: Accidental Tooth Extraction ] [ @abyssaldespair ] [ Uchiha Obito, Suigin Ryū ] [ Blood ] [ Verse: Like Magic ] [ Previous || Next ]

At first when she rises this morning, she doesn’t remember what day it is. Instead, sixth year Hufflepuff Ryū gets out of her four poster bed and dresses a bit sluggishly. It’s a Saturday, no classes, and she’s mostly planning on getting to the homework she needs to have done by Monday. Dragging a hand down her face, she makes her way down the steps to the common room. Though the atmosphere is lively, she doesn’t quite make the connection why. Instead, she makes her way straight out toward the Great Hall, too sleepy and hungry to pay it any mind.

There’s rarely a day the hall isn’t bustling, Ryū making her way through the crowds to the Hufflepuff table. The smells of good food earn a happy hum, piling up her plate with toast, bacon, eggs, and indulging in a mug of hot cocoa.

“I’m telling you, we’re gonna beat them this time!”

“But we’re bottom rank…”

“What, you don’t believe in upsets?”

“It’s not that I don’t, but when was the last time we beat them?”

“The key to keeping your head up in Quidditch: don’t think about the matches before now. Just think of now! One match at a time!”

Glancing to a few fellow classmates, it takes Ryū a moment to realize why their conversation matters. Ah, there is a Quidditch match today, isn’t there? Hufflepuff is playing the ever-favorite Slytherin.

And she knows what that means.

Looking toward the Slytherin table, they too seem all stirred up over the match. It’s a fairly rare thing that Hufflepuff ever bests Slytherin in Quidditch...and given their rowdiness, they’re just as sure of themselves as ever. Soon her gaze finds Obito, who’s shoveling his breakfast in before the match. Snorting a bit to herself, she watches and waits for him to notice her eyes on him. Once he does, looking up with cheeks full like a chipmunk, she has to actually duck her head and laugh.

He goes pink, managing to swallow down and cough a bit, grinning sheepishly once she looks back up. Ryū in turn just shakes her head with a smile.

A teammate then claps Obito on the back, clearly attempting to get him into the spirit of things. His expression shifts to a wide grin, joining in before giving Ryū a glance. Pointing, he then shifts to a thumb to the table as if to say, “You’re going down!”

Ryū just shrugs. In all honesty, she’s not that invested in the sport, not being a player herself. And with her slight distaste of house rivalries, she’s not one to really like pitting them against each other. But...she does - during games unlike today, where their houses are facing off - go and cheer for Obito during his games against Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. 

He’s her boyfriend, after all, house or no house.

Today, however, she’ll be cheering for both. While she knows it’s a longshot for her house to emerge victorious, she’s mostly just hoping for a good game. Few or no injuries, a clean match, and a genuine celebration either way. She’ll be happy for her house, or she’ll be happy for Obito. Whichever wins, she’ll be satisfied so long as no one’s hurt.

...which isn’t very likely, given the sport. But with her apprenticeship under the castle’s Healer, she gets to help patch up anyone who ends up injured. So far Obito’s not been one of them...though he’s been the cause of quite a few. Hard to avoid when you play the beater position, though. And at least it gives her some practice…?

Breakfast doesn’t take her long, and it will still be a bit of time before the match begins. Until then, she decides she might as well get back and put on her cloak as not to be cold. Maybe at least do some of her assigned reading before the possible several hours of Quidditch they’ll be watching. You never really know, after all - it all depends on the seekers.

She leaves the Great Hall at a leisurely pace, mind full of her assignments. So focused are her thoughts, she doesn’t notice someone coming up behind her until there’s a yank on her arm.

“Wha-!”

Collapsing against something, her flailing soon reveal she’s...in a broom closet? And she happened to impact against Obito!

Blinking for a moment, she then indignantly asks, “What was that for?”

He just grins at her. “What, not allowed a moment alone before the match?”

Arms fold, lips pursing in a pout. “You could have just asked me -”

“I didn’t want anyone else to notice!”

Sighing, Ryū rolls her eyes, unable to help a smile. “Well now that you’ve got me in here, what are you going to do?”

“Snogging was my first thought,” he replies cheekily.

“Your breath smells like sausage,” Ryū can’t help but laugh. “Not that mine’s likely much better, all things considered.”

“I don’t mind if you don’t.”

“...I suppose I could tolerate it,” she replies, arms finding his neck. Maybe a bit risky in case they get caught, but...just a little something before the match won’t hurt.

Obito in turn wraps arms around her waist, getting her to giggle as he hauls her up a bit against his chest. “No way I’ll lose now, eh?”

“Tell you what: if you win, you can have another,” Ryū wagers with a grin.

“Make it two and you’re on.”

“And if you lose…?”

“...uh...well, that’s not going to happen, anyway.”

“But that’s not a fair bet!”

“...I’ll think of something. Consider it an IOU.”

“Fine, fine...just be careful out there, okay? I don’t want to see you hauled off to the hospital wing.”

“No way! But I can’t guarantee I won’t send someone there…”

“You and your broom breaking habits,” Ryū chides.

“I’m a beater! What do you expect?”

“As much as I appreciate getting to practice my healing, that doesn’t mean you have to do it on purpose.”

His lips give a pout, but he can’t hold it long as she taps a finger to his nose. “I’ll try not to.”

“Thank you. Now...you better go get ready, right?”

“Right. Promise you’ll cheer for me?”

“I always cheer for you,” she assures him.

“Even when we’re playing Hufflepuff?”

“I do. I just cheer for both, in that case.”

“I guess that’s fair.” Finally setting her down, Obito gives Ryū one last peck on her brow. “See you after the slaughter.”

She gives him a look at that, waiting for him to sound the all clear in the hall. Only once its empty do they flee the closet and part ways. Ryū heads toward the Hufflepuff dormitory to fetch her cloak and gloves, and Obito to Slytherin’s changing room to ready his uniform and broom.

As usual, Ryū perches herself along the edge of the two crowds once she makes it up into the stands later - she tends to get fewer odd looks that way for cheering for someone not on her team. The cool Autumn weather keeps her bundled in her cloak, blowing warm air between her gloved hands.

Thankfully it’s not long before the teams walk out onto the pitch to thunderous applause. Ryū joins them, watching as the match borders on beginning. Then, with a toss of the quaffle, they’re off!

Hufflepuff manages to get the ball first, and the teams both make their way toward Slytherin’s goal posts. Well...most of them. The seekers mostly ignore the game as a whole, observing lightly and instead hoping for glances of the snitch. And as the quaffle is thrown and passed, the beaters do their best to use the bludgers to their advantage.

To everyone’s surprise, Hufflepuff actually scores first, putting them up ten to zero within the first minute. The honey-yellow side of the stands goes crazy, roaring in praise of their team. Even Ryū gets on her feet, jumping a bit in place with a holler.

The game, however, quickly changes momentum. Slytherin not only makes up the deficit, but ups the score to thirty within a ten minute streak. But Ryū, admittedly, doesn’t follow the points much. It’s a bit tough to make out which player is Obito at times. His build may be big, but at this distance they all look pretty small unless they swoop past the stands.

But eventually she spots him as he wallops a bludger toward a Puff chaser. They dodge with a twist and a roll, but collide with another teammate instead. Sounds of pity rise up from the stands as they manage to disentangle and regain their altitude.

Greys trained on Obito, she watches him idle for a bit, sizing up the field before launching a few more strikes. All are dodged, but help throw off the chasers to keep them from scoring. But then he seems to get a harebrained idea, diving down into the masses.

“What are you doing…?” Ryū murmurs to herself, brows wilting in worry. Sure, he’s big enough to handle himself, but...crowds can mean messes.

The field seems to condense, and tensions mount as more and more collisions take place. Hands curled against her mouth, Ryū tries to find Obito, and - there he is! He’s streaking forward, making to launch a bludger at a Hufflepuff chaster, but...one of their own beaters is on the same course. If one of them doesn’t change direction -!

“OBITO!”

There’s a sickening crunch as they both collide, refusing to give in. Almost immediately the ref blows her whistle, and by that time Ryū’s already pushing her way through the crowds to reach the railing. Rather than waste time with the stairs, she hops over the edge, casting a spell upon herself to slow her descent. 

“Arresto Momentum!”

With a flutter of her robes, she lands upon the field and wastes no time running across the pitch to the gathering crowds. Both teams have landed, pausing the match as the castle’s healer is ushered to the field. The referee has separated the two, each looking rather dazed.

Ryū’s blood chills as she sees red spilled down Obito’s front. A broken nose, maybe?

“Reckless, the both of you! And you, girl! What are you doing down here?” Breaking from her lecture, the ref turns on Ryū, who jolts.

“I...I’m one of the Healer’s interns, ma’am! I should be cleared to assist…?”

“Hmph! Well don’t start messing about until she herself gets down here!”

Nodding, Ryū moves and starts looking the pair over. The Hufflepuff actually looks fine, just a bit winded. But Obito’s got blood all over his chin. “...are you all right?”

Looking up at her and weaving a bit dizzily, he gestures for a pause. And then, with a pained flinch, he spits up...two teeth into his palm…?

Her eyes go wide.

“...that hurt…” Looking up, he gives a wavering smile. “...how bad is it?”

...both of his top front teeth are missing.

Before she can stop herself, Ryū lifts both hands to her lips in shock. “...oh my goodness. Don’t - don’t worry. I can fix that, but...we better wait until I’m cleared. Oh, Obito…”

Cradling his teeth in his hand, Obito turns as his team captain - one of the chasers - steps up. “Bloody hell, Uchiha…”

“Sorry...got a bit greedy.”

“No joke.”

All the while, Ryū watches him closely. “...I think you might have a bit of a concussion…”

“Shit, really?”

“I mean, I’ll wait to see for sure, but…”

“If you do, you’re done for the day,” the captain insists, pointing.

“But -!”

“I don’t need you gettin’ woozy and topplin’ off your broom. We’ll be fine.”

Clearly disappointed, Obito doesn’t protest as the healer makes her way over. Explaining her observations, Ryū finds herself mildly delightly at having been right.

“Come on, then - to the hospital wing with you. You need rest, and we need to settle those teeth back in place. Miss Suigin, follow me.”

Letting Obito lean on her, Ryū helps him to the castle, assisting as they settle him in a cot. “So...if I get the teeth back in place, will the Episkey charm work, madam?”

“Yes, that will do quite well.”

Nodding, Ryū washes her hands, and then Obito’s dislodged teeth. Thankfully they somehow emerged whole, roots and all. “Must have been quite the impact,” she can’t help but gently tease, using a quick spell to clear the holes in the gums. “Were you trying to use your head rather than a bludger?”

Mouth held open to let her work, Obito can only squint at her.

Once everything is ready, Ryū carefully fits the teeth back into place, holding them by hand. With the other, she points her wand, and murmurs, “Episkey…!”

A flash of heat, and then cold overcomes Obito’s top jaw. Only once Ryū withdraws her hand does he gingerly feel them.

“Sturdy?”

“...seem to be.”

“Good.” A relieved smile accompanies a light sigh.

“Now, you’re in for some much needed rest, Mr. Uchiha,” the Healer announces. “Miss Suigin, see to it you do not distract him.”

“Y...yes, madam.”

With that, she takes her leave to return to the pitch in case any other players end up hurt.

“...so, still think your team will win?” Ryū asks, sitting along his bedside with a soft smile.

“As good as I may be...they’ll be fine without me.”

“It still strikes me as odd you aren’t allowed a substitute…”

“We won’t need one.”

She gives him a look. “...I’m just glad you’re all right. I saw that blood, and I just…”

“Bah, it’ll take more than that to bring me down.”

“Your head also took a good beating, so best you just take it easy for a while, aye?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Ryū snorts.

“...will you stay?”

“Of course I’ll stay - what sort of question is that? Unless you want me to leave -?”

“No! Just...thought you might want to see the match.”

“The only reason I went to the match was to watch you play. Can’t do that if you’re in here, can I?”

At that, Obito goes a bright shade of pink, apparently unsure what to say.

“...you just focus on getting some rest,” she then gently chides. “I’ll keep an eye on you.” A hand reaches up, brushing fingers through the fringe of his hair.

“...all right.”

Between the kerfuffle and her attentions, Obito actually manages to fall asleep. As promised, Ryū keeps a watchful eye on him, ensuring he doesn’t slip. The concussion is mild enough she’s not too worried. She just keeps her perch along the edge of the cot, one knee up over the other as she tends to his hair.

Another story for them to remember.

     More HP verse! Cuz it's cute and I need more of it...and also because Quidditch was a good way for Obito to lose a tooth or two, poor guy xD      Ryū, of course, is a Healer-in-training, so she gets to assist. And give Obito tough love lectures about being more careful, bahaha~      Anywho, not...too much else to say otherwise, I s'pose. Thanks for reading!

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

So I’ve been kinda snide about the GoT finale, and that’s -- not entirely fair, because it was, I mean, fine.  It was fine, for what it was -- for what the show wanted to be, which it turns out was, “Will the Stark Kids make it out of these troubled times okay?”  And they mostly did, and it was fine (sorry, Robb).

And just so I don’t feel like the last living human without a Hot Take on Game of Thrones, I thought I’d take a shot at why, in spite of having a number of strengths and being sometimes pretty great, the overall arc and particularly the ending made me unhappy as One of Those Annoying Book Fans.  (I’m going to say all this like it’s Objectively True, which surely we all understand nothing is, so insert all the relevant in-my-opinions and all that.)

So I *love* the books, the books were a life-changing revelation for me when I started reading them back in 1997 when I was a slip of a 21-year-old lifelong fantasy fan.  And yeah, I know the reputation now is “ooooh, aren’t you a grimdark edgelord, so impressed with your gritty fantasy faux-realism,” but -- uh, I’m not sorry.  Because the thing is I wasn’t reading for “realism” in the sense of “this is like reality” -- I like *narrative,* which reality unfortunately noticeably lacks, and ASOIAF was very clearly a crafted narrative that was trying to say extremely specific things *about narrative* and about the cognitive dissonance that arises when narrative-loving human brains have to cope with narrative-indifferent reality.  That may seem like slicing the distinction pretty fine, but I think it matters.  The books weren’t just a bunch of shit happening because “in real life, that’s what would happen, just a bunch of shit.”  The specific shit that happened, and its ramifications and the way people processed said shit according to their distinctive needs and perspectives and hang-ups, was all extremely deliberate, and aimed straight at a Serious Thematic Point, which is that fantasy novels are obsessed with exactly the most irrelevant shit possible, and maybe that’s a problem.

These are books that revolve around a crisis in succession and legitimacy of kingship, like practically all high fantasy does (even more so back then, but it still seems pretty common).  An usurper sits on the throne and two legitimate heirs are in exile, and there’s this constant sense of unease, because from the perspective of our main viewpoint character, that’s -- good?  Because even though the Baratheon dynasty took over illegitimately, Robert is a better king than the last one, and Ned supports him.  Only Robert himself is uneasy and paranoid, his reign totally dependent on the goodwill of a family of rich assholes he hates and constantly haunted by the idea that the Targaryen children might come for their revenge, which by the cultural logic of Westeros, they’ll pretty much deserve.  So here you have all this palace intrigue and political skullduggery, and it’s immediately interesting because instead of being about restoring the Rightful King, it’s about propping up the guy who had the Rightful King killed, because he’s not great but the first guy was worse.

But the deeper you get into it, the more you start to realize that above and beyond the “subversive” flipped script of the idea of royal legitimacy, there’s a second and *far fucking better* subversion happening.

The point of the books is that IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER who sits on the throne.  That the entire “game” is not just flipped in the sense of “you thought this person should be the king, but really it was a different person who should be the king” -- the game itself is illegitimate, and destructive, and fundamentally absurd, a bunch of assholes wreaking limitless chaos out of their fixed ideas about cosmic order, which are, every single one of them, wildly wrong.

It happens on two prongs simultaneously -- first, the Iron Throne doesn’t matter because *whoever* is “in power” is immediately hamstrung.  They can’t actually do anything of any significance, because they’re 100% occupied from the moment they step into the bullseye with fending off eight hundred other assholes who want to be king of the hill, so no succession in the entire series can happen in an “orderly” or “legitimate” way -- every one of them is bedeviled by uprisings and invasions and civil wars and assassination attempts and legal challenges, and the point is that this will continue to happen forever, while the world just kind of trudges on.  The second arm of IT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER is the long game, because Winter Is Coming, and not one person on the entire planet is remotely prepared to put their personal bullshit aside in order to figure out what to do with an ice zombie invasion.  People are just going to keep offing each other for imaginary honors and getting knocked off in their turn, and one day they’ll wake up and realize they rule a world that’s uninhabitable and NONE OF IT FUCKING MATTERED.

That was the point of ASOIAF to my reading, and that’s what I loved about it.  Its “realism” was that it drilled down hard into the brutal reality that we saturate ourselves in stories about how great it’s going to be when the Good Leader is on the throne at last, but *that’s never going to happen,* because leaders are regular humans who run the gamut between “pretty all right” and “just the fucking worst,” but they change pretty regularly, and waiting for the Good Leader to fix it all is a sucker’s game anyway, because people don’t just show up and save the world and establish The Good Times and then the story is over.  That’s *not a real thing,* and maybe we should tell at least the occasional story that doesn’t end that way, so we won’t all be so goddamn obsessed with pinning our hopes on saviors who don’t pan out.

The thing is...I don’t know how you end a story like that.  I more than a little bit suspect that GRRM also does not know how you end a story like that.  When the whole point is that politics is an endless game with no real winners and that even the putative winners aren’t really capable of stopping the tides of history, when do you ring the curtain down?  I actually have no idea.

What I was not hoping for was a final season that is entirely, uncritically, about making sure we all feel good about who gets to be kings and queens and who doesn’t.  That -- DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER.  I mean, I almost love having Bran take the throne, because there’s this weird subtextual kind of “lol, who cares, have that guy do it I guess” baked into the meaninglessness of Bran, who doesn’t want anything or, mostly, even feel anything.  But all the literal and figurative chair-shuffling at the end of the episode about who’s going to serve on the council and who’s in charge of what, I just....  It seems like the writers really thought that was the payoff.  That what we all needed to know about the Game of Thrones is who ends up winning it.

And that’s such a baldly, drastically, jaw-droppingly bad payoff for the ASOIAF that I loved.  The suggestion that the realm will be brought to some kind of peace now that the Correct, Better Dynasty is enthroned in the allied Six Kingdoms/North is completely ass backwards from the entire point of the books.  Winter coming and going harmlessly, the Others (White Walkers, whatever) dispatched in one single-night battle, just betrays the source material so audaciously that it feels like it had to be deliberate.  That was the whole goddamn story!  That Winter Was Coming!!!!!  And then the show just -- didn’t do that, and instead built its climax around A Good Leader dispatching A Bad Leader, whereby the realm is saved, yay.

Only the point was that power operates systemically, and power itself takes in the people who would wield it, and power replicates itself in the forms that are familiar, and that the problem isn’t that we need to keep searching for the Rightful King, because *power doesn’t suddenly become benevolent when it’s invested in someone with good intentions.*  I know there are still people who will argue with me about that, and -- I mean, fine, that’s a matter of differing political philosophies, but Team Great Man Theory of History can rest assured that basically every other epic story will back up their worldview, because that worldview makes for better, more satisfying stories.

ASOIAF was written for the rest of us.  It was a big, rich, plotty, absorbing epic story about a world where people were only human and things were only ever going to get put right to the degree that the world has ever been put right, which is...not especially.  But still, the characters were *human,* and what they chose to do mattered.  At least, it mattered to exactly whichever degree you personally believe that the things people choose to do matter, and it kind of challenged you to answer that question for yourself: if you knew you were never going to win the game and never going to save the world, because it’s not that kind of a world, what would you do?  Would you still try to be a hero?  Would you take the world for everything you could get?  Would you just keep your damn head down?  Would you just chase what you loved instead of the fate of nations?  Would you try all those things at different times, as seemed right to you in the moment, and then live with the consequences?

I don’t know how the hell you make that into a tv show, or if it’s even remotely possible.  I just know that the show they made needed an ending, and the one they went with just felt a lot like every book I’ve ever read in my life *except* these books.  Which might have been inevitable from the beginning, but it’s still disappointing.

[recentanimenews]

Bookshelf Briefs 8/6/19

Dr. STONE, Vol. 6 | By Riichiro Inagaki and Boichi | Viz Media – So it turns out that the current non-turned-to-stone population are all descended from Senku’s dad and the rest of the crew of the space shuttle, which is honestly more about Byakuya’s faith in his son to eventually save the day even if it takes hundreds of years. Back in the present, Tsukasa and the followers that he’s amassed are planning to invade the village and destroy what Senku has accomplished, but little do they know that Senku has the power of RIDICULOUS SHONEN SCIENCE on his side. The best thing about this volume is that we’re starting to see the non-Senku cast actually come up with inventions—the water wheel revelation was great, and Senku knows it. Dumb fun, masquerading as smart fun. – Sean Gaffney

Farewell, My Dear Cramer, Vol. 1 | By Naoshi Arakawa | Kodansha Comics (digital only) – Midori Soshizaki and Sumire Suo played girls’ soccer for different teams in middle school, but Soshizaki is so taken with Suo’s play that she volunteers to go to whichever high school Suo chooses. Suo, accustomed to being the only one really trying on her team, feels kinship with another girl on a lousy team, and so she and Soshizaki both end up at Warabi Seinan, whereupon a couple of other talented players show up along with a new coach, since the current one sees no future in girls’ soccer and isn’t interested in doing his job. This was a pleasant start to a series, but the soccer action isn’t as easy to follow as in other titles I’ve read, and it quickly veers away from the two leads to focus on another teammate. I’ll definitely keep reading, though! – Michelle Smith

Love in Focus, Vol. 3 | By Yoko Nogiri | Kodansha Comics – I had forgotten that this was a series that ended in three volumes, but I would have remembered anyway given the rapidity with which Kei and Mako get together and just as quickly break up. “Let’s date first and fall in love later” rarely works in shoujo manga, especially when you’re the blond, who almost always loses out to the brunet. That happens here as well, as dating Kei does help Mako realize her feelings—for Mitsuru. That said, though the plot beats were very predictable, I thought Mako and Mitsuru’s dialogue was sweet and pure in a shoujo sort of way, and I also liked how the “stalker” plot was resolved. As with the author’s previous series, this was decent but not good enough for long-term. – Sean Gaffney

My Hero Academia, Vol. 20 | By Kohei Horikoshi | VIZ Media – I’m sorry to say that I just can’t muster up much interest for Gentle Criminal and La Brava, the villain and his acolyte who get in Midoriya’s way when he’s trying to get back to campus in time for class 1A’s performance at the school festival. Once their fight is finally over, though, it’s time for the feels. The focus on Jiro here is pretty brief, but oh so welcome, and that two-page spread of her smiling so radiantly while performing is incredible. And then, just a few pages later, there’s Mirio who is suddenly moved to tears because Eri, the girl he sacrificed so much to save, is having the time of her life. I love Mirio and Eri together, and I also love Aizawa rushing to be with Todoroki when his dad, now the number-one hero, is injured on live TV. Plus, there’s Hawks! This volume has much goodness. – Michelle Smith

My Hero Academia: Smash!!, Vol. 1 | By Kohei Horikoshi and Hirofumi Neda | VIZ Media – I’m not really a gag manga sort of person, so I didn’t expect much from My Hero Academia: Smash!!. But despite the warning from creator (and Horikoshi assistant) Hirofumi Neda that it was going to be crude, I actually thought it was quite fun! It follows along with the early events of the main story, up until the first attack by the League of Villains. Often, familiar scenes are subverted in some way, like All Might’s “you can be a hero” moment turning into a sales pitch for vitamins, but sometimes they’re expounded upon in genuinely intriguing ways, like showing how Yaoyorozu used her quirk in the fitness tests Aizawa devised. (I also liked that her classmates now prefer Yaoyorozu brand erasers.) Also, I think one panel features a tiny puking Jesus. To my surprise, I’m looking forward to volume two! – Michelle Smith

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes, Vol. 5 | By Hideyuki Furuhashi and Betten Court | Viz Media – This volume definitely felt like the fifth book in a four-book series, a constant danger when something gets really popular. Knuckleduster’s plot is resolved, and so he very pointedly, with one or two exceptions, withdraws from the series. Instead we see Pop Step and the Crawler trying to be vigilantes on their own and rapidly coming to a realization, which is underscored by licensed heroes yelling at them—they’re not powerful enough to do much more than get in the way. That said, I did enjoy seeing Midnight in her “casual” clothes, and the kid singers were very cute. A series that has turned a corner but not yet hit the next long straightaway. – Sean Gaffney

My Next Life As a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, Vol. 1 | By Satoru Yamaguchi and Nami Hidaka | Seven Seas – The manga adaptation of one of my favorite recent light novels didn’t have to go very far to impress me, just adapt the novel as well as it could. There’s obviously stuff that’s cut to fit (Katarina’s parents’ relationship gets a one-panel explanation), but it handles introducing the main cast well, and cuts the “alternate POV” parts which would have made the manga repetitive. Best of all is the prose short story at the end, seeing Katarina having a nightmare about the villainess her otome game self is supposed to be, and the bad choices that she makes which our Katarina can’t stop her from despite yelling inside her head. Definitely get this if you like the novels. – Sean Gaffney

The Quintessential Quintuplets, Vol. 4 | By Negi Haruba | Kodansha Comics – This is moving at a galloping pace for a romantic comedy, especially one with quintuplet heroines. There’s the bad—Ichika pursuing her dream would mean leaving school, which would mean Futaro losing tutoring money—and there’s the worse—various people getting bad, bad colds due to the weather and circumstance, which leads to a mass search for Itsuki and a bedside vigil for Futaro, whose cold of course turns out to be the worst of all. We also get another flash forward reminding us that he does eventually marry one of them, but continuing to not tell us who. Don’t expect that to be resolved till the final page of the series. For fans of harem comedy/dramas. – Sean Gaffney

Sacrificial Princess and the King of Beasts, Vol. 6 | By Yu Tomofuji | Yen Press – Anubis has finally given in and allowed a trial period for Sariphi to be Queen Consort. Unfortunately, we then see the problems that this causes, which is that the majority of the populace still isn’t ready for a human girl as the Queen. Fortunately, Sariphi is made of pretty stern stuff, and even when she’s down there are folks who can cheer her up. This allows her to resolve the fractured relationship between a mother and daughter, as well as give Amit the courage to give a token to her beloved Jor, even though as a soldier he may not be able to return that love. Honestly, this does continue to remind me a lot of Fruits Basket, but that’s not especially a bad thing. – Sean Gaffney

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san, Vol. 1 | By Honda | Yen Press – My first exposure to Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san was through its anime adaptation. I’ve not actually watched the show, but I’ve seen enough screencaps of the titular skeleton dramatically reacting to a wide range of customer service exchanges to reasonably expect that I would love the original series. And, after reading the first volume of the manga, I can definitively say that I absolutely do. To a large extent the manga is autobiographical, based on Honda’s experiences as a clerk in the manga department of a large Tokyo bookstore. It provides entertaining insights into the life of a bookseller, showing the challenges presented by customers, publishing schedules, corporate management, and just trying to keep the shelves appropriately stocked. This could be rather dry as a subject, but in Honda’s hands the portrayal of bookselling is delightfully humorous, intense, and over-the-top in a way that is both engaging and still incredibly honest. – Ash Brown

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san, Vol. 1 | By Honda | Yen Press – I’ve seen the first few episodes of the Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san anime and this is going to be one of those rare occasions where I have to admit that I kind of like the anime more than the manga. Certainly, Honda-sensei depicts the bookstore (specifically its manga department) as a place way more hectic than I ever anticipated, but that frenetic energy (and the kookiness of his often-foreign customers) just translates better to the animated medium, I think. That said, this volume has a lot to recommend it, particularly if you want a glimpse of what Japanese booksellers think of the global readership manga has obtained. Read it, but maybe watch it, too. – Michelle Smith

Waiting for Spring, Vol. 11 | By Anashin | Kodansha Comics – I’d long been wanting more basketball in Waiting for Spring, and I finally got my wish in this volume. The latest tournament has begun, and if the Seiryo boys want to repeal the no-dating rule, they have to win. They make to the finals league, where they’re up against Aya’s team, Hojo, and though Seiryo ends up losing, there’s still hope due to the structure of the tournament. Aya realizes his kind of love expected Mitsuki to never grow or change whereas her love for Asakura inspires her to try new things and set goals for herself, so he seemingly steps aside though he does talk about returning (he’s apparently moving back to American) once she’s grown up. Anyway, this is a cute series that I like a lot and though I don’t expect many surprises from its final two volumes, I nonetheless look forward to reading them. – Michelle Smith

By: Ash Brown

[parrishsrubberplant]

For the 100 word drabbles - something involving OMGCP and the Winter Olympics?

This ended up–way, way over 100 words. Sorry/not sorry?

Jack hadn’t said much about not being able to go to the Olympics. When the news was announced, Bitty had expected him to say something about how unfair it was, maybe curse Bettman’s name. But Jack didn’t say much. When Bitty showed him the picture from Twitter, he looked at the team Canada jerseys and sighed wistfully.

“It’s not like I would have been invited anyway.” Bitty was ready to protest indignantly. Jack waved a hand at him. “Did you ever hear the story of World Juniors in…whatever year it was. 2010? 2011? Before I went to Samwell.”

“No,” Bitty said.

Jack shrugged. “I would have thought Ransom would have told you–I fucked up bad.” He shook his head at the memory. “Bad.”

“It can’t possibly be as bad as falling over like a miniature fainting goat every time someone skates in your direction.”

“I shouldn’t have even said yes,” Jack said. “But I wanted–I wanted to feel like I could play again.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t ready, and I was a year out of shape, and it was bad.” He handed back Bitty’s phone. “Anyway, Hockey Canada has a long memory. I’ll have to win a Stanley Cup before they ask me again.”

Bitty folded his arms. “Sweetheart, you have won a Stanley Cup. I was there.”

Jack broke into a smile. “Now I remember. Didn’t you come rushing onto the ice and throw yourself at me?”

“Hey, now. You threw yourself at me,” Bitty said.

Jack laughed.

Remembering this now, Bitty wonders if Jack will even watch the Olympics. Will he care? Or will it be too painful to think that maybe it could have been him, skating out to play Slovakia or the USA or Germany or whoever.

The Falconers are traveling during most of the Olympics anyway, a run of games against Metropolitan Division teams. Good because Jack is mostly on buses instead of airplanes, and that means he’s more likely to respond to calls or texts. Less good because Bitty’s very, very likely to talk to Tater, Snowy, Thirdy, and most of the rest of Jack’s team. Apparently the concept of “privacy” is as nonexistent on a pro hockey team as it is at Samwell. Thanks, guys. Bitty seriously considers revoking pie privileges about once a week.

He’d never actually do it. He enjoys cooking for such appreciative eaters too much. But he definitely considers it.

By Bitty’s calculations, they’re about an hour and a half from Raleigh, maybe less depending on traffic. He goes to his Favorites and presses Call. “Jack?”

“Nope!” the voice is young and cheerful. Bitty can’t tell which of the rookies it is. “Moose?” he guesses.

“Sorry, no.” Bitty has more of a clue now: it’s one of the Canadian rookies. No one else would a) apologize or b) have a Canadian accent. “Could you put Jack on please?” he says. He’s learned that getting upset means it’ll take even longer for Jack to appear. He hears a thwap in the background.

“My phone,” Jack says, muffled. It sounds like he’s wrestling the rookie for possession of his phone.

“Cap, Jack’s being–” the muted sounds of a scuffle.

“Give me–” Jack says. More grunting and rustling in the background.

Bitty puts his phone on speaker and tidies his desk. He puts his pens and pencils back in their cup. He sticks his stylus pen back in his bag so it’s ready for his next lecture. He throws out three crumpled tissues, two empty Annie’s cups, and some lozenge wrappers. He waits for Jack to defeat the rookie. Or rookies.

“Hello?” Jack says.

“Oh hey sugar plum,” Bitty says. He hears a chuckle in the background. “Hi, whichever Canadian rookie you are. I will take away your pie privileges, see if I don’t.” The background noise drops noticeably at this. Bitty laughs to himself. “Who was that?” he asks.

“Olivier,” Jack says. “Rolly.”

“Oh, meat pie,” Bitty says. He knows Jack’s teammates by their pie orders almost as much as by their names at this point, and he’s not even sorry.

“Yeah,” Jack says. “It’s quiet where you are.”

“I’m up in my room,” Bitty says. “I just finished filming the intro and the outro for the lemon bars video.”

“Just editing left?” Jack asks.

“Yeah. Edit it together, and then I’ve got to do the bit with the recipe. I’m trying a new thing where I type up the recipe and then use this thing to make it look animated? Kind of like a cartoon? I’m not sure people will like it, but I wanted to try something new.”

“Well, the lemon bars were really good,” Jack says. “I’m sure whatever you do with the video is going to be great too. Send it to me when you’re done?”

Faintly, in the background, Bitty hears: “There were lemon bars? Zimmboni, you traitor!” in Tater’s accent. “Sounds like you’re in trouble,” he says. “And sure, I’ll send you the file before I post it, if you want. Or I can just send the link after.”

Jack laughs. “They’ll get over it. And I’ll probably have time to watch the file? Maybe share it over Drive? I didn’t pack my computer this time.”

“Sure thing, sweetheart. Where are you now?”

Jack hums, thinking as he looks out the window. “Just passing Halifax, I think. Maybe another hour? I’ll be glad to get off this bus. One of the rookies stunk up the bathroom.” Bitty hears a yelp of “Hey! Wasn’t me!” in the background. “Are you cooking tonight?” Jack asks.

“No, it’s Supper Club. Dex and Tango signed up for it. They took Whiskey’s car yesterday and came back with about ten pounds of potatoes. And a whole bunch of wings that they put in a couple different marinades. It should be pretty good. Good smells coming up the stairs so far, anyway.”

“I’m sad Supper Club became a thing after I left,” Jack says.

“You should be,” Bitty says. “It’s kind of nice. Like having a family meal.”

“And it gives you a chance to procrasti-bake,” Jack teases.

“Procrasti-cook, excuse you.” Bitty huffs. He puts Jack on speaker and rolls over onto his back. He drops the phone onto his chest. He’s not going to tell Jack he misses him. He isn’t. It’s not helpful, and Jack knows that anyway. He thinks it, thought: I miss you.

“Ready for the game next weekend?” Jack asks.

Bitty closes his eyes. “I keep telling myself there’s still time, you know? And I’m trying not to look at our standings, at just how close we are. I know it isn’t helpful. And I’m not a stats nerd at all–Tango does that. But I still–”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “You just have to keep your head in the game.”

“I know,” Bitty says. “So I’m watching the Colgate team from last year but I can’t help wondering, if they have any new people…and then I go looking on Twitter and Reddit for college hockey streams and then–”

“Yep,” Jack says.

“You did that?”

“Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep. Not really Twitter, but Reddit used to have a bunch of links.” Jack laughs. “It’s hard not to want to be as prepared as possible.”

“But at what point does it stop being ‘prepared’ and start becoming ‘obsessive?’”

“Couldn’t tell you, bud,” Jack says.

“Are you going to watch the Olympics tonight?” Bitty asks. “We’ve got a viewing party planned here.”

“We’ve got wifi on the bus,” Jack says. “A couple of guys are streaming stuff on their phones up at the front.” He sighs. “The women’s hockey game is going to be right in the middle of our game. Let me know what I should watch later?”

“I’ll text you updates,” Bitty promises.

“Of course you will.” Jack sighs. “I should go soon. Rolly looks like he’s going to steal my phone again.” Bitty thinks he hears a muffled “Was not!” in the background.

“What, you aren’t going to chirp me about how the Canadian women are obviously going to beat the American women?” Bitty asks.

Jack laughs softly. “I’m sure it’s going to be a great game.”

“Very diplomatic.”

Jack’s voice drops. “Did you want to make a bet about it?”

“Like, a sexy bet?”

“Yeah.”

Bitty turns his head. Senor Bun is sitting beside his pillow. He turns Bun so he’s facing the wall. “Nah,” Bitty says.

“You don’t trust your country-women?” Jack teases.

“Oh, I do,” Bitty says. “We’re going to wreck you.”

“Love you too,” Jack says. Bitty hears a howl of “FINE!” from the background. “Ooops,” Jack says. “Got to go.”

“Ha,” Bitty says. “I can say it. I love you! I love you so much! I love you to the moon and back! I love you!” He’s laughing as he says it.

“Goodbye, Bittle,” Jack says, and hangs up the phone. Five seconds later he texts Bitty a string of heart emojis.

“Wouldn’t want to get you in trouble,” Bitty sends back.

Jack texts him an even longer string of heart emojis. You’re so ridiculous, Bitty thinks fondly.

[patriotsnet]

What Happens If Republicans Win Midterms

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/what-happens-if-republicans-win-midterms/

What Happens If Republicans Win Midterms

Gop Lawmakers Threaten To Punish Democrats If They Win Back Control Of Congress

‘When we take the majority back in 2022, I’ll make sure consequences are doled out,’ said Rep. Madison Cawthorn.

Republicans are outraged that Democrats are governing by majority rule in the House. In retaliation, they are vowing to do the same things they now decry as unprecedented and wrong.

“Never in the history of our country has a Speaker acted like such an authoritarian,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Thursday.

He was upset that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had his request to appoint Republican Reps. Jim Banks and Jim Jordan to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. Both men voted to overturn the 2020 election results and pushed the lie that President Joe Biden only won because the election was stolen.

“Never in the history of Congress and the select committee I checked with the historian has this ever taken place, where the one party decides who’s all on the committee,” McCarthy told Fox News in a video he with his tweet. McCarthy in fact to give Republican then-Speaker John Boehner the exact same unilateral appointment power in 2014 for the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi.

But while House Republicans claim they are being mistreated because the majority won’t let them have their way, they are also promising to retaliate by turning the same actions they criticize now against Democrats in 2023.

TAGS

‘the Beast Is Growing’: Republicans Follow A Winning At All Costs Strategy Into The Midterms

Much remains uncertain about the midterm elections more than a year away including the congressional districts themselves, thanks to the delayed redistricting process. The Senate, meanwhile, looks like more of a toss-up.

House Democrats think voters will reward them for advancing President Joe Biden’s generally popular , which involves showering infrastructure money on virtually every district in the country and sending checks directly to millions of parents. And they think voters will punish Republicans for their rhetoric about the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 election.

“Democrats are delivering results, bringing back the economy, getting people back to work, passing the largest middle-class tax cut in history, while Republicans are engaged in frankly violent conspiracy theory rhetoric around lies in service of Donald Trump,” said Tim Persico, executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

But the challenges Democrats face are real and numerous.

They knew they would face a tough 2022 immediately after 2020, when massive, unexpected GOP gains whittled the Democratic majority to just a handful of seats.

“House Republicans are in a great position to retake the majority,” said Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, “but we are taking nothing for granted.”

His rural district had been trending Republican for years. Kind won re-election last year by just about 10,000 votes.

What If The Republicans Win Everything Again

Total victory for the G.O.P. would mean Trump unleashed.

Opinion Columnist

The end of Robert Muellers investigation. The loss of health insurance for several million people. New laws that make it harder to vote. More tax cuts for the rich. More damage to the environment. A Republican Party molded even more in the image of President Trump.

These are among the plausible consequences if the Republicans sweep the midterm elections and keep control of both the House and Senate. And dont fool yourself. That outcome, although not the most likely one, remains possible. The last couple of weeks of polling have shown how it could happen.

Voters who lean Republican including whites across the South could set aside their disappointment with Trump and vote for Republican congressional candidates. Voters who lean left including Latinos and younger adults could turn out in low numbers, as they usually do in midterm elections. The Republicans continuing efforts to suppress turnout could also swing a few close elections.

No matter what, Democrats will probably win the popular vote in the House elections, for the first time since 2012. Trump, after all, remains unpopular. But the combination of gerrymandering and the concentration of Democratic voters in major cities means that a popular-vote win wont automatically translate into a House majority.

I Do Not Buy That A Social Media Ban Hurts Trumps 2024 Aspirations: Nate Silver

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sarah: Yeah, Democrats might not have their worst Senate map in 2022, but it will by no means be easy, and how they fare will have a lot to do with the national environment. And as we touched on earlier, Bidens overall approval rating will also make a big difference in Democrats midterm chances.

nrakich: Yeah, if the national environment is even a bit Republican-leaning, that could be enough to allow solid Republican recruits to flip even Nevada and New Hampshire. And then it wouldnt even matter if Democrats win Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

One thing is for sure, though whichever party wins the Senate will have only a narrow majority, so I think were stuck in this era of moderates like Sens. Joe Manchin and Lisa Murkowski controlling every bills fate for at least a while longer. 

sarah: Lets talk about big picture strategy, then, and where that leaves us moving forward. Its still early and far too easy to prescribe election narratives that arent grounded in anything, but one gambit the Republican Party seems to be making at this point is that attacking the Democratic Party for being too progressive or woke will help them win.

What do we make of that playbook headed into 2022? Likewise, as the party in charge, what are Democrats planning for?

With that being said, the GOPs strategies could still gin up turnout among its base, in particular, but its hard to separate that from general dissatisfaction with Biden.

The 2024 Presidential Election Will Be Close Even If Trump Is The Gop Nominee

One very important thing we should have all taken away from both the 2016 and 2020 presidential contests is that the two major parties are in virtual equipose . The ideological sorting-out of the two parties since the 1960s has in turn led to extreme partisan polarization, a decline in ticket-splitting and and in number of genuine swing voters. Among other things, this has led to an atmosphere where Republicans have paid little or no price for the extremism theyve disproportionately exhibited, or for the bad conduct of their leaders, most notably the 45th president.

Indeed, the polarized climate encourages outlandish and immoral base mobilization efforts of the sort Trump deployed so regularly. Some Republicans partisans shook their heads sadly and voted the straight GOP ticket anyway, And to the extent there were swing voters they tended strongly to believe that both parties were equally guilty of excessive partisanship, and/or that all politicians are worthless scum, so why not vote for the worthless scum under whom the economy hummed?

The bottom line is that anyone who assumes Republicans are in irreversible decline in presidential elections really hasnt been paying attention.

Republicans Set To Rebound Big In 2022 Midterms Unless

We are just 600 short days away from the 2022 midterm elections, which means it is the perfect time to handicap the Republicans chances to win back the House, Senate and prepare a serious challenge to President Biden

Patrick Joseph ToomeyBlack women look to build upon gains in coming electionsWatch live: GOP senators present new infrastructure proposalSasse rebuked by Nebraska Republican Party over impeachment vote already have Democrats scrambling to flip those seats in much easier electoral terrain.

As I noted in The Hill last month, Republicans are on the hook to defend 20 of their seats in 2022, while Team Blue has just 14 seats to hold, all in states won by Joe Biden in 2020. Since March is a perfect month for sports analogies, a good defense provides for a strong offense when the status quo is Democrats retaining control of the upper chamber. While there is clearly a power in incumbency, FiveThirtyEight suggests that senate vacancies are actually more of a mixed bag. In election cycles since 1974, the party with the most Senate retirements has actually gained seats just as often as it has lost them. For every year like 2008, when more Republicans than Democrats retired and Republicans lost seats accordingly, theres a year like 2012, when a whopping seven Democrats retired yet the party picked up two Senate seats.

How these various Rs play out in the next few months will determine if the Rs are successful in 2022.

Rising Violent Crime Is Likely To Present A Political Challenge For Democrats In 2022

But there are roadblocks to fully enacting Democrats’ agenda. Their thin majorities in both chambers of Congress mean nearly all Democrats have to get on board with every agenda item in order to push through major legislative priorities. And without adjusting or eliminating the legislative filibuster in the Senate, Democrats need 10 Republicans to join them for various legislation a near-impossible task.

Renewable Energy And Health Care Among The Sectors That Could Get Shakeup Due To Midterms

The 2022 midterm elections are already affecting Washington, and the results could shake up sectors such as renewable energy, health care and finance.

As Democrats in Washington work to deliver on infrastructure spending and other priorities, theyre trying to make progress in large part because of a key event thats still more than a year away.

That event is the midterm elections on Nov. 8, 2022, when Republicans will aim to take back control of the House and Senate and become a more powerful check on the priorities of President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats.

What leaders are thinking about, particularly since we have unified party control, is that these midterm elections are inevitably a referendum on the governing party, said Sarah Binder, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a professor of political science at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

In that sense, shrinking time coupled with What is it that Democrats want to run on? it adds pressure on Democrats to get their priorities through the door.

Time is growing short, Binder said, because party leaders often avoid making their members vote on tough issues in the same calendar year as an election, since that can hurt incumbents in tight races. Party leaders often think primarily about what they can get done in the first year of a Congress, as opposed to counting on the second year, she said.

Sectors that could win or lose

Year

Races worth watching

Can Democrats Avoid A Wipeout In 2022

Bidens plan: Go big or go home.

The good news for Democrats who watched Joe Biden unveil a historically ambitious agenda last night is that newly elected presidents have almost always passed some version of their core economic planparticularly when their party controls both congressional chambers, as Bidens does now.

The bad news: Voters have almost always punished the presidents party in the next midterm election anyway. The last two times Democrats had unified controlwith Bill Clinton in 199394 and Barack Obama in 200910they endured especially resounding repudiations in the midterms, which cost Clinton his majority in both chambers and Obama the loss of the House.

Theres a very different strategy this time, David Price, a Democratic representative from North Carolina and a former political scientist, told me. Theres an openness now to the sense that a bolder plan, ironically, might have greater appeal for independents and others we need to attract than trying to trim and split the difference with Republicans.

Read: The GOP cheat code to winning back the House

There is this recognition of this moment and how fleeting it is, and an evaluation that, absent the trifecta of control, it is very hard to move big policy, said a senior official at one of the partys leading outside advocacy groups, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategizing. So you have to take your shot. I think thats part of what undergirds Go big.

What If Republicans Win The Midterms

March 3, 2018

WASHINGTON A sizable portion of the American population has been convulsing with outrage at President Trump for more than a year. Millions of people who previously took only mild interest in politics have participated in protests, fumed as they stayed riveted to news out of Washington and filled social media accounts once devoted to family updates and funny videos with furious political commentary.

Yet public life on the whole has remained surprisingly calm. A significant factor in keeping the peace has surely been anticipatory catharsis: The widespread expectations of a big Democratic wave in the coming midterm elections are containing and channeling that indignation, helping to maintain order.

What will happen if no such wave materializes and that pressure-relief valve jams shut?

The country was already badly polarized before the plot twist of election night in 2016, of course, but since then liberals and much of what remains of Americas moderate center have been seething in a way that dwarfs the usual disgruntlement of whichever faction is out of power. While nobody can know for sure whether Mr. Trump would have lost but for Russias meddling, many of his critics clearly choose to believe he is in the White House because Vladimir Putin tricked the United States into making him its leader.

This November, if the wave turns out to be a mere trickle, we could see the accomplishment of that goal take hold.

Poll: Republicans Set To Win House Back In Massive Landslide

Republicans are set to win back the House in a historic landslide in 2022, according to a poll conducted by NBC News.

Based on all factors, youd have to consider Republicans the early favorites for the House majority in 2022, poll tracker David Wasserman NBC.

Democrats best hope is that Bidens approval rating stays above 50 percent and that Republicans have a tougher time turning out their voters without Trump on the ballot.

reports: The NBC report cites the all-too-predictable trend of the presidents party losing House seats in midterm elections, Democrats choosing not to run for reelection in some cases, and Republicans reaping the benefits of increased online donations, which are now on par with those of Democrats.

It is early, too early, to guarantee the Democrats loss of their slim 220-212 House majority. Voters wont hit the polls for almost 15 months, and things often have a way of changing on a dime in the world of politics. But the early signs certainly arent encouraging for the Democrats, especially as President Joe Bidens approval rating has taken a hit in recent weeks. American voters are being bombarded with images of a completely bungled withdrawal of Afghanistan and headlines about increased COVID hospitalizations and deaths. Inflation is also becoming a growing concern each month, contrary to the hopes of the Federal Reserve, and the crisis at the southern border shows no signs of abating.

Colwell: Republicans Are Likely To Win Control Of The House Next Year But

Three reasons why Republicans are very likely to take control of the House next year involve things over which Democrats have little or no control.

There is, however, one reason why Democrats might be able somehow to hang on to their slim majority. And they do have better prospects of at least holding on to the 50-50 Senate tie.

Reasons for Republicans winning control of the House:

FIRST: History is on their side. The party out of the White House almost always makes big gains in the first midterm election in a new presidency. In those midterm elections since the end of World War II, the average loss for the presidents party has been 29 seats. Democrats lost 63 seats in the 2010 midterm after election of President Barack Obama. Republicans lost 40 seats in the 2018 midterm after election of Donald Trump.

Because Democrats already lost seats in 2020, even as Joe Biden won the presidency, Republicans need only a net of five seats to win the majority. Democrats cant go back to 2020 to win more seats.

Factors in midterm losses for the presidents party include voters wanting a check on the president and disillusionment over any presidents inability to bring about everything voters hoped for.

SECOND: Redistricting after the census will result in many more safe Republican seats. Thats because Republicans control state legislatures in far more states than do Democrats. Both parties gerrymander. But it is the GOP controlling district drawing in many more states.

Site Map

Republicans In Decent Shape To Win House Majority In 2022

Washington Examiner

It is never preferable to be in the minority party in a legislative body. But as far as minorities go, House Republicans are in a pretty good spot.

Between the trend of midterm elections usually the party that is not in the White House, a closely divided House, and a party apparatus ready to continue their expectations-exceeding 2020 strategy while Democrats rework theirs, Republicans are on track to winning back the House in 2022.

“It has the makings of what could be a good year for the Republicans when it comes to the House,” said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

President Bidens approval rating is around 53%, and while he is not underwater, history indicates he would need to bump that rating up by at least 10 points in order to have a shot at gaining seats. Gallup analysis found that even presidents with approval ratings of 50% during the midterm elections averaged a loss of about 14 House seats from their own party.

That would be enough to bump Republicans back into the majority. Democrats have the slimmest House majority since 1930, currently 221 seats to 210 GOP seats .

Republicans in the 2020 cycle shattered the expectations of analysts who forecasted Democrats to gain House seats in 2020. Not a single Republican incumbent lost the election, and they picked off 13 incumbent Democrats.

But it is not all smooth sailing for Republicans.

Why We Arent Going To Panic

We should all have our eyes wide open as we inch closer to the 2022 Midterms, but by no means should we give up hope. There are plenty of reasons why we can win the midterms.

For starters, Democrats appear to be quite awake to how dangerous the Republican party has become in just the past few years. And since the Republicans dont appear to be any less radicalized with Trump out of the party, I dont think Democrats are going to go back to sleep.

At this point in the election cycle, we dont have a full picture of who is retiring from Congress or who the candidates will be for these seats. Getting great candidates for crucial, must-win seats can energize voters and donors.

Presidential approval seems to have an important effect on midterms and at this point, Bidens approval rating is 15 points higher than his disapproval. If he continues to do good things for Americans and keep his approval rating high, that will help the Democrats a lot.

So, lets approach this midterm as clearly as possible: Our democracy is still on the line, and as awful as the Republicans are, they are in striking position to win back some power in Congress. Each of us needs to do everything we can to ensure that does not happen. If you arent already, consider subscribing to Political Charge as Ill be delving into specific actions we can take every month!

If you want to win the midterms, please share this post with others who want to win, too!

Republicans Will Likely Take Control Of The Senate By 2024

The usual midterm House losses by the White House party dont always extend to the Senate because only a third of that chamber is up for election every two years and the landscape sometimes strongly favors the presidential party . But there a still generally an out-party wave that can matter, which is why Republicans may have a better than average chance of winning in at least some of the many battleground states that will hold Senate elections next year . If they win four of the six youll probably be looking at a Republican Senate.

But its the 2024 Senate landscape that looks really promising for the GOP. Democrats will be defending 23 seats and Republicans just 10. Three Democratic seats, and all the Republican seats, are in states Trump carried twice. Four other Democratic seats are in states Trump won once. It should be a banner year for Senate Republicans.

Balance Of Power: 2022 Senate Races

If Democrats want to win the again, they need to win the four competitive seats they currently hold Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and New Hampshire. That or augment any loss with a gain in any of their three competitive targets Pennsylvania, , or North Carolina.

This Senate preview still holds up, but the shorter version is Democrats are easily favored in Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. They should also win New Hampshire if Chris Sununu doesnt run .

The thing is, theyre also favored to win in Pennsylvania, where they have a strong field of primary candidates and where Joe Biden won.

They have to be no worse than, and admittedly probably better than, a tossup in Wisconsin, where Republicans have candidate issues and Democrats have a strong likely nominee.

So even if New Hampshire goes Republican because of some local candidate factors, Democrats are in a good spot to win the Senate again.

That means if youre trying to make a bet, you can essentially box out two of four combinations where the GOP wins the Senate, and focus your attention on the two remaining options, if youre looking for the values.

The 1858 Midterm Election

November 2, 1858

There is always a lull after a tempest, and so the political world has subsided into an unwonted calm since the election, commented a reporter for The New York Times. The Republicans are naturally . . . exultant over their sweeping victories. Such a commentary might apply to any number of elections, but this reporter described the outcome of a particularly historic electionthe midterm election of 1858. The Republican success that year was especially remarkable because the Republican Party was only four years old.

Almost by spontaneous combustion, the Republican Party burst forth in 1854 in response to the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act. For decades, Americas political battles had been fought between the Democrats and the Whigs. By the early 1850s, however, the issue of slavery had splintered the Whigs into warring factions and divided Democrats between north and south. When Democratic senator Stephen Douglas pushed his Kansas-Nebraska bill to passage, including its proposal to settle the issue of slavery by popular sovereignty, the uproar among northern abolitionists and anti-slavery activists was too fierce to be contained by the ailing Whig Party. As one person commented, The Whigs were simply not angry enough.

The Future Could Actually Be Bright For Republicans

Ed Kilgore

The most common political narrative outside MAGA-land is that the Republican Party is screwed, and richly deserves the ignominious future it faces.

Until recently the GOP was a reasonably normal and intermittently successful center-right political party, not wildly different from its counterparts in other countries with a two-party system, despite some racist and militarist habits that burst into view in times of stress. But then America elected a Black president, and Republicans went a little crazy, according to those outside their circles. First they abetted a destructively antediluvian Tea Party Movement and then lurched into the arms of an evil charlatan who somehow got elected president and spent four years trashing hallowed conservative principles and losing both Congress and the White House before his disgraceful and violence-inflected departure.

Worse yet, in the face of huge demographic challenges that beg for a new approach, the Republican Party has now lashed itself to a Trumpian mast going forward, following the most consistently unpopular president in American history in his bizarre crusade to deny he has ever lost anything. Meanwhile a shockingly united Democratic Party is whipping a few decades worth of liberal legislation through Congress as Republicans whine about cancel culture and try to sell the idea that Joe Biden is actually Che Guevara.

[therealeagal]

Go Team Lucifer.

That’s not a reference to the show, by the way. It’s a coincidence. Tom Welling isn’t important here. Not Tom Welling. The other one. Ellis? That sounds right. Tom Ellis isn’t important here either.

Being an internet philosopher (or fauxlosopher as I like to call us) is hard work, you know. You think I just come up with this stuff in the spur of the moment? Well, actually I usually do, but then I take a while to post them. Adding some stuff. Taking out others. Weighing the odds of testing the waters and potentially stirring the ire of the in-crowd, whose talent for outrage beggars the imagination.

I work hard to stimulate your minds with only the most sophisticated and classy material.

BOOOOBIIIIEEEESSSS

Only the best of content for you, my children.

Decide for yourselves whether my words have meaning or if they are just the ravings of a madman. Whichever you decide, don’t @ me, bro, as the kids are saying these days. I’m not here to debate, I’m just here to philosophize. Or fauxlosophize, as the case may be.

Let’s begin.

I think we’ve established in our years together that the only right side is my side.

This is especially true in regards to U.S. politics, which I have a profound disinterest in. If shit goes down, shit will go down with or without my involvement, so why bother? Fuck it. I’d rather be playing Yugioh.

I don’t want to brag or anything, but I think my Predaplant deck is pretty good. Ah, Predaplant Chimerafflesia, dark flower that blooms in my heart, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

“But Eagal!” I hear you say. “What if everyone thought the way you do?”

”But Eagal!” I hear you say. “Even if you’re not interested in politics they are still interested in you!”

"But Eagal!” I hear you say. “Something something something orange man bad!"

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Oh sorry, you bored me to sleep. Tell you what. You prove to me that my decision will affect the outcome and then I’ll consider voting.

And I’m not talking about some “every vote matters” nonsense, I mean specifically my vote.

If my single personal vote can measurably determine the outcome, such that without my single personal vote the side I wasn’t going to vote for would demonstrably win, then I’ll think about it.

And before I cast my vote you will throw me a parade honoring my actions and give me a presidential medal for valorous service to the country and also I get a Nobel Peace Prize. And also, all previous winners will be stripped of their titles for being inferior to my accomplishments. So hop to it.

But I digress.

American politics is like the eternal clash between the forces of order and chaos in Shin Megami Tensei. Whichever side you choose, everyone dies horribly and the only way to win is to either aim for the bad ending early so that you can unlock new game plus and thereby remove the annoying level cap for fusing demons, or not take a side at all.

Perhaps not coincidentally, as far as those factions are concerned, not taking a side is the same as taking the wrong side.

Well, if one is forced to choose between one or the other, chaos is usually the more tolerable of the two. Comparatively speaking.

So go Team Lucifer. Anarchy is better than totalitarianism, right? A fighting chance is better than no chance, I suppose. Lucifer usually knows the score.

Regardless of my disinterest in politics, it behooves me - as a benevolent supreme overlord of all that I behold - to bow to the will of the people. It’s what a good leader would do.

So if the American people want to continue the on-going crime against humanity that is their failure to elect me as their president via mass write-in votes, then I must support them.

Seeing how this is the case, I’ll root for Team Lucifer and support Joe Biden in his bid to become next president of these United States.

Talk about burying the lede.

I support Joe with or without (preferably with, but it’s not a deal-breaker) the condition that he immediately abdicate his position and install me as his successor. He’s who all the cool kids like and I do want to hang out with the cool kids. They’re just so cool!

Go Joe! A real American hero.

Get it? Like G.I. Joe. Truly, my wit surpasses all others.

Mind you, I’m still not voting.

Voting for the next president in America is a lot like gambling, except that even in the unlikely event that you win, whether you receive the prize you’re playing for or not is determined by a dude standing outside consulting the flight patterns of birds. And also you’re in Antarctica.

I’ve got better things to do than test my luck against an outcome whose certainty is not fixed. I get enough of that nonsense trying to get Vyr’s Proud Pauldrons from that asshole Kadala.

And that’s completely aside from the fact that he-who-shall-not-be-named is going to ignore the vote and stay in power anyway.

Personally I feel my time would be better spent playing Diablo 3. My least favorite class is Crusader. Good for clearing out lots of weaklings, terrible against single strong opponents. Or maybe I’m just not playing her right.

As for my favorite, I’m leaning Wizard. Witch Doctor is a close second.

Wanna talk about cruel irony. No sooner did I collect my Firebird set from the Seasonal rewards than did I start getting drops from the very same set. Complete bullshit. I could have gotten the Monk set instead, but noooooooo. I just had to get the Wizard set. Some bullshit.

Either way, I’m having a hell of a time clearing greater rifts past the last 30s. Not helping is that all the guides online require specific set pieces AND NOTHING EVER FUCKING DROPS SET PIECES 99.999999999999999999% OF THE TIME. And then there’s the agony of collecting like 5 of the 6 pieces and you keep picking up other pieces of the set that you already have AND THE FREAKING KANAI’S CUBE NEVER FREAKING REROLLS INTO THE PIECE I FREAKING NEED AND I DON’T HAVE ENOUGH FREAKING FORGOTTEN SOULS TO WASTE ON THIS BULLSHIT.

What were we talking about? Oh yes, well, I’m rooting for you, Odds and Evens Joe, reigning Sonic Rush Adventure speedrun world champion. I’m sure you’ll get the popular vote, what little good it will do you.

As for you, my legions of wonderful followers, vote Biden, or don’t. It’s all the same in the end. But there’s probably other stuff you can vote for where your votes won’t be a complete waste of time. Probably like mayors or some shit. Governors and district attorneys and shit. I don’t know. Look it up yourself.

I don’t know how he-who-shall-not-be-named’s prospective Caesar cosplay will affect those outcomes, but your chances are probably better in those cases. Can’t be worse.

So get out there and vote in...I wanna say November? Just not for POTUS. Unless you really want to.

I’d be more inclined to go along with it if I could reload an older save when I don’t get the result I want, in case there are better things to do before the dark lord destroys the universe or whatever. Worst case scenario, we could use the extra time to recruit a ragtag group of misfits and start grinding so we can rescue the princess from the castle.

I don’t know who the princess is in this analogy.

In closing, please accept this picture of Merkabah and Lucifer with Trump and Biden’s heads copy-pasted onto them. I couldn’t use the ones from Apocalypse since Merkabah’s always flashin' dose nips.

Go Team Lucifer, am I right? Am I right or am I right? I’m right, right?

TTFN.

[survivor-tierradelfuego]

Ep. 7: “The LIES” - Amy A

Pedro A

omg so i have 10 coinssssss....and kalle has 9...she just needs to get one more coin...and we can open the jewerly box...and see whats inside....at this point i accept anything....a steal vote ..an idol..whatever...chillleeee this is a mess im going insane...and i hope we win this next challenge

Cody A.

https://youtu.be/gQAhK73mjRc

Cody A.

https://youtu.be/GGtNE0x87pQ

Pedro A

we really need to win this challenge im scared af

James Hayden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcvdxZYYvZU

James Hayden

We finished our immunity challenge about twenty minutes ago and now we wait. We got a score of 48, which I think is a solid score. Ryan was great at final guessing, Najwah and Amy were great at helping put the questions in the best order, and as a tribe we worked well together. I hope that 48 is enough for us to avoid tribal and for me to make the merge. If we have to go to tribal, I think it could be me. Let's hope 48 is enough to make me dateable. 

Ryan

Once again, I am very proud of my tribe. Honestly, if we were to lose I wouldn't mind it, I might actually rather that, maybe that will be my plan for the next challenge. We need the numbers back on Maolas side

Pedro A

omg i hope the other tribes did worste than us...cause chillleeeee im in danger Olivia A.I’m super bummed about losing but also not too worried. As long as Maddison and Grae stick w our original 3 we should be fine. It’s just a matter of whether to vote out Aimee or Sarah. I’ve grown to like them both a lot so this sucks but it is what it is I guess.

Kalle N

I didn't compete in the challenge bc I'm currently moving across the country by myself and I honestly have no idea what happened today. I know Zack was gunning hard to vote me out but we won so oh well. hopefully we merge soon.

Ryan

Soooo i am very happy with the outcome of this challenge. We don’t have to go back to tribal, but Maola do. Hopefully the pre-swap Maola can band together cause I still have faith for my relationship with Maddison and Grae, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Olivia leave (even though she’s sweet)

Ryan

sooooo... fml

Ryan

I should really stop making confessions before I know what’s happening

Ryan

AHHHHHHHHH

Zack M

oh look. another challenge that's a survivor super fan's wet dream. and again, i didn't really contribute because i hate survivor wiki. BUT WE CAME IN 2ND! so we are safe. i honestly knew that james was the biggest threat and i'm not surprised his team won. i'm glad. clap clap for you james! now that means sarah and aimee are in trouble because i don't see the original maola tribe turning on each other. truly hoping sarah has talked her way in and it's aimee unless something crazy happens. i just want my original 5 alliance to be reunited! pedro opened up a little more and said he was down to work together going into the merge. he wants revenge for john being voted out and not being part of the vote? i think. regardless, i did not watch all 4 seasons of revenge on abc for no reason. i'm here to help him get that revenge because then that also give hanuha the numbers again and BAM. back to my 5, then to my 4, and then to my 3. could this actually work? please god let it for my ego. excited to see what comes out of tribal tomorrow. 

James Hayden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3SDeVmuzJ8

Zack M

scratch that last confession. new scores and the palena tribe is going to tribal again. i think? maybe it will change again but this is the last time i'm confessing. 2 original maola and 2 original hanuha. hopefully james has the idol because i see najwah flipping so quickly. but it will be interesting to see where she stands going into the merge. i will get justice for you james if she takes you out! again, excited to see what happens at tribal tomorrow. 

James Hayden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjRxkFkAuQI

James Hayden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBg5F786DK0

Sarah

Wow! The Guess Who challenge tonight was so close and at first, we were going to tribal. After advantages and disadvantages were factored in, we were BARELY safe! 😅 During the idol hunt today, I knew that I obviously couldn’t find another idol but I knew that this challenge was going to come so close and that I needed to buy advantages to ensure that I was safe another round. I honestly don’t know where everyone’s head is at on my tribe because they are so quiet so I needed to buy those advantages because I really don’t want to have to play my idol before Merge.... Buying those advantages could be my subtle move in the game. I am so hoping for Merge time soon! I miss my alliance and I miss talking to my best friend for hours about everything. 

Ryan

I was planning on voting out Amy, but something Najwah said irked me. She seems very sure that she doesn't want to vote James, which doesn't fill me with confidence if we go to tribal again next challenge. idk what I'm gonna do

Ryan

I genuinely don't know if im cut out for this game. I'd feel alright with cutting most people, but Najwah and Amy seem so genuinely sweet, it'll break my heart to betray either of them

Amy A

This tribal is going to be INSANE. It’s 5 odd hours to tribal council and I DON’T know who I am supposed to vote for. Ryan told me he and James are voting Naj and she told me she and James are voting Ryan and then Ryan told Naj he’s voting me! I know it’s a lot to take in! The only one I’ve Not been told to vote for is James and I don’t even wanna vote him cos he was an absolute rockstar at yesterday’s tribal. I know I’m the reason we’re here so I’m kinda bummed out about it and I trusted Ryan so much I shared my steal-a-vote with him but someone has to go and fingers crossed it isn’t me. 

Amy A

Convincing the whole tribe I didn’t get the DA has been hilarious so far. Once Jay confirmed she wouldn’t reveal the name, I was set. The LIES 😂😂😂😂😂. Even insinuated Ryan cos he was scrambling so much today. Didn’t know I had it in me but I guess survivor brings out the best in you. Anyway, all the best to myself for tonight. Hope I’m still here 24 hours from now  

Pedro A

im so tired...i havent been sleeping well..i just hope the next challenge is due tomorrow....rn i feel like im fourth in the tribe, which is good

Maddison

Got some good advice on my game and looking forward to implementing strategies to minimize my threat level until the end of the game.

Ben Kessler

I am hoping merge is at 12. After tonight 13 people will be left, and who knows who will have the numbers advantage. I'm currently working on Pedro who wants revenge on his old tribe and I cannot wait to break up those 3 old maolos that are on new maolo. Hopefully if we lose Pedro will be an easy vote out. And then I can slither my way in.

Najwah Last night's challenge was a real bummer. I mean, we were SO CLOSE. It's getting harder to vote people out now and even harder to trust anyone so hopefully the plan tonight works itself out. Whichever plan that is. There are a few plans floating around. Either way, whatever the outcome, I'd just like to sleep in peace tonight. I'm tired. 

Ben Kessler

Pedro said that me and him were talking too much game and to "talk about ourselves". I didn't want to tell him I did not want to discuss the vacation that he is on. So now I need to vote him out next. People like talking about themselves I guess.

Pedro A

okay so i have talked with ben, zack and cody LOL.....and they all seem cool...one thing i noticed in bens profile ..is that he only has 2 contacts...that i have....weird...maybe im thinking too much

James Hayden

https://youtu.be/oGcQdHpBzhY

Aimee

https://giphy.com/gifs/gIlUSzpqN9xVhekR2r/html5 Whew!!! Just when I thought we lost this last challenge, Jay really went “GOTCHA” and gave us all whiplash. Looks like advantages and disadvantages really can make the difference in these challenges! This tribe swap really did provide a new opportunity for me in this game. Everyone here is so kind, fun-loving, and have similar vibes with me, I love it! We really all get along on a personal level and are bonding on things that aren’t game related, which is a breath of fresh air. Despite being in the minority on this tribe and coming into it with a tribe number disadvantage against three others who I suspect are aligned, it was still honestly such a blessing swapping out with less neurotic people that aren’t constantly draining me for their attention. I feel like a giant weight is off my shoulders and I can focus more on having fun. Even Sarah has been great now that we swapped and is more active, and is now chatting with me daily. I’m so relieved we haven’t had to go to tribal yet as I truly would work with each one of these people if we could all make it to merge!🌈💞 https://sinnohqueen.tumblr.com/post/166307617197 I love that the Hail Mary Reem guess really saved the day. She is iconic! A word we all love to say on this tribe 😊

Grae G

Thank god we didn’t have tribal! I’m really liking all the girls I’m playing w but my allegiance lies w my OG girls for now

Ryan

I think I’ve finally made up my mind

[authormitchel-blog]

SS: Part 3

It turned out that sometime was sooner rather than later. Flint had barged into Harry’s dormitory a few days later that week. Harry had spent the night before in Snape’s classroom writing lines while Snape did his best to pretend like Harry wasn’t even there. Harry was used to it though, he wrote and wrote until Snape dismissed him with a few words before trudging back to his dormitory to fall into bed.

            “Up, Potter, get some clothes on, we’re going to the pitch.”

Harry hadn’t needed any more instructions. He had thrown some clothes on, and had thankfully had enough foresight to grab one of the school broom’s from the shed because when he got to the pitch Flint was already there waiting impatiently, only his broom in hand.

            Some of the other members of the team Terrance Higgs and Adrian Pucey among them were flying around the pitch, looping and tossing what looked like a rather large medicine ball. At Flint’s feet was a large wooden chest. Harry had never been inside the stadium before. Hundreds of seas were raised in stand around the field so that the spectators were high enough to see what was going on. At either end of the field were three golden poles with hoops on the end. They reminded Harry of the little plastic sticks Muggle children blew bubbles through, except that they were fifty feet high.

            Flint opened the crate. Inside were spots for four different sized balls.

“Right,” said Flint. “The first thing you need to know is that Quidditch is everything.”

            Harry nodded obligatorily.

“That ball,” he pointed up at the other players. “is the Quaffle. The Chasers throw the Quaffle to each other and try and get it through one of the hoops to score a goal. Ten points every time the Quaffle goes through one of the hoops.”

            Flint didn’t stop to ask if Harry was following, he just plowed on.

“Now, there’s another player on each side who’s called the Keeper, they fly around the hoops and stop the other team’s members from scoring.”

            Flint clapped his hands together excitedly.

“Now, I get to show you what the Bludgers do. Take this.” He handed Harry a small club, like a small baseball bat.

            He showed Harry two identical balls, jet black and slightly smaller than the red Quaffle. Harry noticed that they seemed to be straining to escape the straps bolding them inside the crate.

            “Stand back,” Flint warned. He bent down and freed one of the Bludgers.

            At once, the black ball soared high into the sky and then pelted straight at Harry’s face. Harry swung at it with the bat to stop it from smashing into his face, and sent it zigzagging into the air, it dived around for a moment before taking off for the fliers in the sky.

            “Let’s see them avoid that thing,” said Flint more to himself than to Harry.

            “The Bludgers rocket around trying to knock players off their brooms. That’s why you have two Beaters on each team—your Gryffindor friends are the ones for Wood’s team—it’s the Beaters job to knock the Bludgers away from their teammates and toward the other team.”

            Flint looked at him expectantly.

            “The Chasers use the Quaffle to score points by putting them through the hoops. The Keeper tries to block the Quaffle. The Beaters bat the Bludgers away from the Chasers and towards the other team to prevent them from scoring.”

            “Good,” clipped Flint.

“Er….have the Bludgers ever killed anyone?” Harry asked, hoping he sounded offhand.

            “Never at Hogwarts. We’ve had a couple of broken jaws, but nothing worse than that. Now, the last member of the team is the Seeker.”

            Flint reached into the crate and took out the last ball. It was tiny, maybe the size of large walnut. It was bright gold and had little fluttering silver wings.

            “This”, said Flint. “is the Golden Snich, and it’s the most important ball of the lot. It’s fast and difficult to see, and you have to catch it before the other team’s seeker does. Whichever Seeker catches the Snitch wins his team an extra hundred and fifty points, so they nearly always win. The game ends when the Snitch is caught. Three months is the record, but I would expect any of my players to beat that if it mean getting a win.”

            Harry nodded.

“I’d mount your broom if I were you.”

            Harry did so, and Flint let the little Golden Snitch free and his eyes told Harry to get to it to. What a feeling—as he swooped in and out of the goalposts, round and round the pitch speeding up and slowing down. No longer was he concerned with his audition for the team, he was just flying. He caught up with the Snitch a few times, but he wasn’t ready to let this go yet.

            When he finally came back to the ground, Flint was looking at him with an indeterminate look on his face. Harry handed him the Snitch and Flint locked it away inside the box along with the other balls. Harry hadn’t even noticed that the other players had already left the field. Flint turned to him, and nodded.     

“Good job, Potter,” said Flint. It was the closest thing to a compliment Harry had ever heard the older boy give and he was pleased. “Now, this doesn’t guarantee you a spot on the team, mind, but you fly better than most I’ve seen and certainly better than any first year.”

Harry plucked up. “So, does that mean I’m like an alternate or something?” asked Harry.

            Flint scoffed.

“You will come to practice with the team. You will do what I ask without complaint or question, but as far as alternate?” Flint smiled. “Let’s call you more of a water boy.”

    That morning at breakfast, Harry plopped down at the Gryffindor table eager to tell Ron all about his practice with Flint, but was intercepted by the Weasley twins.          

            “You got off easy, mate,” said Fred Weasley as he sat down beside the pair, his brother taking the spot on their other side.

            “Too bad, mate,” said George. “The way Wood tells it McGonagall was raving about how good you were. We need a seeker, but I guess Wood will just have to hold tryouts.”

            “Maybe Flint will have mercy on you, let you be their water boy or something like that?” Fred suggested. Harry just shook off their good natured ribbing, not bothering to tell them how close they were to the truth. He had to be getting back to Slytherin table anyway. Blaise had been trying and failing not to eye him for the past few minutes.

            “Anyway, we’ve got to go. Lee Jordan reckons he’s found a new secret passageway out of the school.”

            “Bet it’s that one behind the statue of Gregory the Smarmy that we found in our first week. See you.”

            Harry stood. “I’ll see you later, Ron.”

“See you,” Ron said, turning back to his food.

            Back at the Slytherin table some far less welcome company than Fred and George greeted him. Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle.

            “Having a last meal, Potter? When are you getting on the train back to the Muggles?”

“You’re a lot braver now that you’re back on the ground and you’ve got your little friends with you,” said Harry coolly. There was of course nothing at all little about Crabbe and Goyle, but as the High Table was full of teachers, neither of them could do more than crack their knuckles and scowl.

            “I’d take you on anytime on my own,” said Malfoy. “Tonight, if you want. Wizard’s duel. Wands only—no contact. What’s the matter? Never heard of a wizard’s duel before, I suppose?”

            “Of course he has,” a voice says behind Harry. Neville Longbottom was standing behind him looking much more sound than he had earlier that day despite the wrap he wore around his arm. “I’m his second, who’s yours?”

            Malfoy looked at Crabbe and Goyle, sizing them up.

“Crabbe,” he said. “Midnight all right? We’ll meet you in the trophy room, that’s always unlocked.”

            Nodding to Neville, Harry watched as Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle went and sat at their part of the table.

            Keeping his face stoic, he turned to Neville. “What is a wizard’s duel?” whispered Harry. “And what do you mean, you’re my second?”

            “It’s just a formality, really,” stuttered Neville.

“You mean if I like die, or something?”

            Catching the look on Harry’s face Neville continued. “People only die in proper duels, you know, with real wizards. The most you and Malfoy’ll be able to do is send sparks at each other. Neither of you know enough magic to do any real damage.”

            “Neville,” said Harry. “I didn’t think you’d be out of the hospital yet anyway.”

Neville looked at his arm like it still hurt. “I wasn’t really ready, but I told Madame Pomfrey that I felt well enough to leave. I needed to thank you.”

            “For what?” asked Harry.

“For standing up for me when no one else did,” replied Neville. “I had to tell you how grateful I was. You, a Slytherin, standing up for me against Malfoy, I’m sure that won’t do you any favors in your house, but you did it anyway. So, thanks Harry.”

            Harry nodded, glad that at least Neville was all right before they both potentially met their deaths in a midnight duel with Malfoy and his goons.

            “So, tonight, what if I wave my wand and nothing happens?”

Neville flounders. “Perhaps we should talk to Ron.”

            Before Neville and Harry could get up something round and hard hit Harry square in the face.

            He looked up. It was Millicent Bulstrode.

“Are you mad, Potter?” she asked. “You already have detention and you want to go running around the school at night? You’ll lose more than just your place here, but a whole lot of Slytherin’s house points. Draco really should know better, but since you seem to have marginally more sense you should back out while you still have a chance?”

            No, Harry thought instantly. If there was one thing he had learned so far about being Slytherin was that any sign of weakness would be pounced on, and he didn’t need to give anyone any more reason to look at him. He was going to duel Malfoy and Neville was going to be his second. Next, they had to talk to Ron.

            Harry, Ron, and Neville had spent the majority of that night in the library preparing. Ron had spent most of the evening giving him advice such as “If he tries to curse you, you better dodge it, because I can’t remember how to block them.” There was a very good chance they were going to get caught by Filch or Mrs. Norris, and Harry felt he was pushing his luck, breaking another school rule today. On the other hand, Malfoy’s sneering face kept looming up out of the darkness—this was his chance to settle things with Malfoy face to face. He couldn’t miss it.

            “Half past eleven,” Ron greeted as Harry met him near the Gryffindor common room.

“Where’s Neville?”

            The portrait opened again. “That must be him, he said he’d be just a minute,”

“I can’t believe you’re going to do this.”

            It wasn’t Neville, but Hermione Granger, wearing a pink bathrobe and a frown.

“You!” said Ron furiously. “Go back to bed.”

            “I almost told your brother,” Hermione snapped. “When I heard you and Neville talking about it, I had hoped one of you would at least come to your senses.

            Harry couldn’t believe anyone could be so interfering.

“Where’s Neville?” he asked.

            “Please,” Hermione answered. “I put a simple charm on the stairs. By the time he figures it out it’ll be too late.”

            “Come on,” said Harry moving down the hallway, but Hermione Granger wasn’t going to give up that easy. She followed him down the hallway, hissing at them like an angry goose.

            “Don’t you care about Gryffindor,” she hissed at Ron. “Or Slytherin,” she asked Harry.

“Go away,” Ron muttered

            “All right, but I warned you, you just remember what I said when you’re on the train back home tomorrow, you’re so—“

            But what they were they didn’t find out. Hermione had turned toward the portrait hole only to find an empty painting. It’s subject having moved on, leaving Hermione locked out of Gryffindor tower.

            “Now what am I going to do?” she asked shrilly.

“That’s your problem,” said Ron. “We’ve got to go, we’re going to be late.”

            They hadn’t even reached the end of the corridor when Hermione caught up with them.

“I’m coming with you,” she said.

            After some negotiating and threatening, Hermione had fallen in line and three were heading off towards the trophy room.

            Malfoy and Crabbe weren’t there yet. The crystal trophy case glimmered where the moonlight caught them. Cups, shields, plates and statues winked silver and gold in the darkness. Harry took out his wand in case Malfoy leapt out and started at once.

            “He’s late, maybe he’s chickened out,” Ron whispered.

A noise in the next room made them all jump, but it wasn’t Malfoy.

            “Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner.”

It was Filch and Mrs. Norris.

            “I told you,” Hermione hissed, and that was all it took.

Harry ushered the two of them out leading them down another hallway and into another Filch right on their heels.  

            “Malfoy tricked you,” Hermione said to Harry. “You realize that, don’t you?” she said when they were far enough from Filch to feel somewhat safe.

            “He was never going to meet you—Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off.”

            Harry had figured that much out for himself, thank you.

“Let’s go.”

            It wasn’t going to be that simple. They hadn’t gone much more than a dozen paces when a doorknob rattled and something came shooting out of a classroom in front of them.

            Instantly, Peeves shouted, “STUDENT OUT OF BED! STUDENTS OUT OF BED IN THE CHARMS CORRIDOR! LITTLE FIRS….”

            “RUN!” Ron shouted.

Ducking under Peeves, they ran for their lives, right to the end of the corridor where they slammed the door --- and it was locked.

            “This is it!” Ron moaned, as they pushed helplessly at the door.

“We’re done for! This is the end!”

            Luckily, students weren’t the only ones that Peeves enjoyed playing with. After a bout of tantrums and double talk between Peeves and Filch, they heard Filch moving away from the door.

            “Guys?” Hermione said.

“Not now,” replied Ron.        

            “Gu…yss…”, she said again, her voice broken.

Ron turned.    

            “What’s your pro…..”

Harry turned around—and saw quite clearly what the problem was. For a moment, he was sure he’d walked into a nightmare—this as too much, on top of everything that had happened so far.

            They weren’t in a room as he supposed. They were in a corridor. The forbidden corridor on the third floor. And now they knew why it was forbidden.

            They were looking straight into the eyes of a monstrous dog, a dog that filled the whole space between ceiling and floor. It had three heads.

            Three pairs of rolling, mad eyes; three noses, twitching and quivering in their direction; three drooling mouths, slaving hanging from yellow fangs.

            They had taken it by surprise, but it was clear they were getting over that, there was no mistaking what those thunderous growls meant.

            Harry groped for the doorknob—between Filch and death, he’d take Filch. They fell to the ground, shutting the door, and standing as fast as they could and ran. And didn’t stop running until they reached the break between the Slytherin and Gryffindor common rooms.

            “Did you see that?” Hermione asked, finally catching her breath and her temper.

            “The giant three headed dog? Yeah, I think we saw that,” replied Ron, quite sarcastic after a near death experience.

            Hermione huffed. “You don’t use your eyes, any of you, do you?” she snapped.

“Didn’t you see what it was standing on?”

            “The floor?” Harry suggested. “I wasn’t looking at its feet, I was too bust with its heads.”

“No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It’s obviously guarding something.”

            She straightened, glaring at them.

“I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed ---or worse, expelled. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.”

            Ron stared after her, his mouth open.

“No, we don’t mind,” he said. “You’d think we dragged her along, wouldn’t you?”

            But Hermione had given Harry something else to think about as he climbed into bed that night. The dog was guarding something… What had Hagrid said? Gringotts was the safest place in the world for something you wanted to hide –except perhaps Hogwarts.

            It looked as though Harry had found out what the grubby little package from vault seven hundred and thirteen was.

[wiltedclown]

Episode Five: Colour

In which someone wakes up.

**********************

The fluorescent lights above me make me squint, but that’s the least of my problems. My entire body feels like it’s been ripped apart into individual molecules and hot-glued back together. Even the smallest movement accentuates the pain like it’s coloured in neon, bright and burning hot. My vision shakes, blurry with tears. I can’t scream, and it’s not just because of the cloth stuffed in my mouth. The world before us is in shades of grey and grey alone.

“look.”

I think I hear something, but I ignore it. Aural hallucinations haven’t done any good for me up until now and I refuse to acknowledge them now.

...Wait, no they haven’t? I’ve never heard things that aren’t there before in my life?

Yes, I have.

No, I haven’t.

No, I have, because remember that’s how I got here in the first place! Remember, I was walking in the forest and I heard someone calling my name, “Loreli!”, like my mum’s voice. But my name’s not Loreli, it’s Aiden. What? No, what am I thinking? I’m Loreli. Lo-re-li. Remember? Jesus, fuck this hurts.

I don’t think pain should be doing this to me. I’m not called Loreli, I’ve never met anyone called Loreli, I didn’t get here by listening to my dead mother calling me. Mum’s not dead though, why am I thinking that? She’s at home with Cecil. Fuck, she’s probably worried. What? No, mama died ages ago. Remember, I went to her grave and put those nice pink flowers on? No? I didn’t do that, I remember I talked to her, like, half an hour ago.

“Look at yourself.”

What the fuck’s happening? I feel myself begin to shake. I don’t know what’s happening. Suddenly it’s like I have twice the usual amount of memories and none of them are made-up. Is somebody in my head? No, is somebody in my head?

My face stings suddenly and I see a blur of movement out the corner of my eye. Someone grabs my face and jolts it to face them.

“Listen to me when I speak to you.”

All arguments in my head dim to an electrical buzz. I shut down. Well, whichever half of me that’s desperately afraid of physical contact does, anyway.

“That’s better.”

I’m looking at what looks like a person made of the void. They look like they’re an angel, full of soft pale colour, light reds and yellows and pinks with cyan shadows against their nose. Everything about them makes the back of my neck feel like ice. Half of my instinct says run, run, get out of there, get away from them, while the other half says stay, listen to them, they’re dangerous and will hurt you. Both halves seem to be in agreement that the person gripping my head could easily crush it and is bad news.

“Did you hear what I said?” I can’t answer. “No, of course not. I knew you’d be useless. Let me guess, you were arguing with each other over whose head it is?”

static. something about what they just said made everything burn ten times worse. the buzz in my ears turns into sharp crackles. it hurts.

“Well, whoever was winning is wrong. It’s neither of your heads. It’s your new shared head. Welcome to the world, Aideli.”

.

..;

.’13#’}{no;;.:

“Look down.”

we look down.

hovering above our body is what can be loosely defined as a soul. a more fitting word is a monstrosity. what it actually is is two souls, messily sewn together with scraps of void and space. that explains the burning.

the souls are two different colours, one dark red and one pale blue. they’ve been molded into two blobs so that they can be put together and look somewhat like one whole soul. the nightmare-coloured person flits around the workbench, prodding and poking at it, taking things out and so it’s not too large for the gaping cavity in our chest where ONE soul should reside.

“My name is Cecilia, by the way. You can call me mother if you like, although I’d much prefer you didn’t. I’m more like a… creator. There we go! Call me either Cecilia or your Creator.”

we don’t react. cecilia plucks a memory out from the middle of our now-combined soul and both halves react by screaming in pain.

“Well, at least your voice works! It sounds like just one voice, as well, rather than two discordant voices, which is what I was afraid of. I don’t want to have to put you under again!”

she took our names. she took my name and my name and now we’re just aideli. we’re one. we absolutely hate it.

“So, Aideli, I’m really sorry about all the pain. It’ll be over soon! I just need to take out two or three more chunks and then we’ll be all done and I can stitch you up!” another memory, gone. that one felt like something to do with our childhood. “I’ll be honest, you actually weren’t meant to wake up so soon, but I think it’s really for the best; this way you get to see what’s happening, at least! And I know your pain receptors are working!”

she pries out one last clump of memory and anything personal we remember is gone. how did we get here? where is here? we remember things like city names but anything about us is gone. our mother could be dead after all, but we wouldn’t know. that memory is sitting in the dish in cecilia’s hand.

“All done, Aideli! I’ll leave you to recover, shall I turn off the light?” noyesnoyesnoyesnoyes

“Nes” Cecilia pauses for a moment.

“I’ll just turn the big light off and leave the little one on my desk on, shall I?”

we’re left in darkness. our head still buzzes. we know that we had different names but we’ve forgotten them. it’s all wrong, why did she do this to us, why why why why why wh

***************************************************

We don’t know how much time passes before the pain stops. One day it just turns off and we can think coherently again. Our “soul” is back in our body again, at least. We still haven’t seen ourself but we’re afraid to, if we’re honest. All of the colours in the world are gone, replaced with monochrome and shades of grey; apparently, colour doesn’t exist in the Void. It kind of sucks, but it’s by far not the worst thing about our situation. (it is it is i hate it where are all the colours)

Cecilia’s told us a fair amount about herself, and ourself. Apparently she made us to be her friend (although we’d really rather never see her ever again) because she was a goddess cast down from the other gods and goddesses (good, she deserves it). She was exiled to the void and only recently discovered the human Soul. She took a liking to both halves of us and decided she wanted both of us, but only as one being. So she decided that she’d just… borrow our souls and make a new one. Our families “should have forgotten you exist, so don’t worry about them being scared for you! There’s no pain on either of your halves because neither of you remember each other!”. A wonderful example of her faulty logic in action. (faulty logic is an understatement.)

As it turns out, there’s a lot of pain on both of our halves. Physical and emotional. We don’t get along very well. We also detest the name Aideli. (it’s ugly like some sort of wine name) (shut up) Unfortunately, neither of us know our names. One of us prefers the first half of our name, though, and the other prefers the second half. Aid and Eli. (no, it was much nicer than Eli. it was like some sort of pretty flower name. I hate this. I want my name back.) (so do I, you aren’t special.) (at least I’m not some sort of fucking holier-than-thou asshat with a name like Aid) (my name isn’t Aid, that’s just a part of it.) (sure thing Aid) (catty bitch) (stupid dick) (we have more important things to do.)

Anyway. We’ve decided that, until we find a better name, we’ll just stay as Aid and Eli. We’re on the same team until we get out of here. Team Aideli. (that’s fucking stupid) (what’s your suggestion then, your highness?) (fuck off don’t be a dick)

(team aideli it is.)

***********************************************

After an unknown period of time, something happens. The room we’re in, chained to the table, disappears. Our entire field of vision is coated red. The black and white monochrome of the room is flooded with this new colour. We panic in two different ways; one half breaks down immediately, trying its best to scream and cry. The other half maintains its composure, searching desperately for an explanation. Both halves come to the conclusion that we’re dying. Neither half can deal with this fact and a sob works its way past our lips.

For the first time since our creation, we sit upright. This confirms our belief that we’ve died; heavy steel restraints have pinned us to the table for as long as we can remember, and they aren’t easily moved. There is no whirr of laboratory equipment, no tick-tock of the metronome on Cecilia’s desk, no static buzz of the surrounding Void. For the first time in our short life, we’re in total silence.

Standing on shaky legs, we shift ourself off the bench. Every joint clicks from lack of use, like we’re temporarily made of clockwork. The fog lifts, just a little. Shades of red surround us, the entire room bathed in a deep, bloody red. Hesitantly, a step is taken and we move forward. We have no idea where we’re going next, but we make a beeline for the door. It opens easily; bizarre, since she always locks it behind her. We aren’t complaining, though.

It seems like hours pass as we make our way up the hallway before us, trembling. Red, red, red, the only thing we see is red and silhouettes. It’s horrible, but it could be worse. We could still be trapped against that godforsaken table.

Footsteps. Our adrenaline glands overreact, pumping our bloodstream with adrenaline before we register what’s happening. We whip around to see.. nothing. We begin to run, the end of the hallway becoming clear. A red exit sign is the only source of light and we gravitate towards it like a moth. We count our steps, running in a rhythm, one-two-one-two we’re nearly there. BANGBANGBANG the footsteps sound like they’re catching up to us hurry up hurry up!

Bursting through the door, we keep running. We’re in a field and don’t try to look back. The field is still tinted red, though, so we suppose we aren’t out of it yet. Our lungs scream at us to slow down, take a breath, you can’t keep doing this but we ignore them, our broken soul begs us to lie down and just think for a moment but we can’t stop, there are still footsteps behind us and they sound metallic, organised, terrifying

“COME BACK AIDELI” we aren’t coming back “PLEASE I’M BEGGING YOU DON’T LEAVE ME ALONE” no no no no “LISTEN TO MY ORDERS AIDELI” no i’m not going back you can’t make me “I BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD I CAN TAKE YOU OUT” no don’t take me back there don’t hurt me again

My legs stop working. I turn around, ascending above fear into absolute abject terror. Something’s approaching. It’s a nightmarish version of Her.. Her hair, usually calm cloudlike puffs, has evolved into pale blue daggers, almost metallic. Her teeth are razor-sharp and the length of my arm. Her body is twisted and deformed, like someone took a model of her and melted it in an oven. Any friendly appearance she managed to keep is completely ruined. She is no longer a she. She’s a monster, a demon, a nightmare.

She approaches me agonisingly slowly. “Don’t leave me alone.” I can’t reply. She goes to touch my face nononononononodonttouchmegetawayhelpplease

the void hears your plea

Her eyes widen as black tendrils of Void emerge from the darkness and seize her by her limbs. A horrible screech fills my ears as she’s torn limb from limb, awful metallic-smelling blood drenching us as it spurts out from her torso, bones crack and crunch. Discordant screams disappear into the void as the Void swallows her in small bites. Her head is the last to go, melting back to its normal cloudlike state. A silent ‘o’ of horror rests on her lips and we look her in the eyes as we hear the awful crunch of her skull being crushed.

The red and the grey of the void smash out of existence and normal colour returns to the world. She’s gone. I’m free. I stagger backwards.

WE turn and sprint in the opposite direction. We’re crying, shaking, replaying the scene in our head. A few metres away we collapse into a ball, screaming noiselessly in the grass. we have to get away come on move we need to go come on come on you useless piece of

We pitifully drag ourself along the ground, staining our hospital scrubs with green, still crying, totally exhausted. We look up and wipe our eyes and observe the blurry landscape before us. A way away from us, we see a cave in the side of the mountain next to us. We crawl helplessly towards it, hiccoughing and crying.

Hours pass. Or seconds. We can’t tell.

We move slowly.

The sun hurts our eyes.

We can’t muster up enough energy to fight ourself.

Everything is too much.

We reach the cave.

We sleep.