sparkfly14

[doctorwhommm]

I adore how you draw the team, I think you really portray the balance betwen goofiness/cuteness and personality of that makes sense. What do you think of the hc that Ianto is autistic?

DUDE!! thank you so much this is really really lovely to hear- i think one of my favourite things about torchwood is how silly/funny they can all be which sometimes gets missed with all the insane levels of angst that also occurs. im so glad you think i get that balance!!

thoughts on autistic ianto bellow the cut so I don’t clog ppls feeds !!

i think the autistic ianto hc makes a LOT of sense in some very interesting ways!! there’s loads of little moments in the show and expanded media where i really pick up on autistic traits manifesting in iantos behaviour and thoughts and struggles- often in a subtextual way that can contextualise some of his actions.

i also think it’s especially apparent in the audios when they drop in little bits about his life- such as the stuff with him visiting his nan every weekend growing up + the routine around it (I think that’s in the last beacon?). or like all of the audio coffee lol. there’s been a few points in the audios where ive really got the impression they’re at least aware of the idea of ianto having asd bc of how they portray him. I think I remember seeing somewhere ages ago that GDL had approved of/agreed with the interpretation that ianto is autistic somewhere on twitter once- haven’t got an actual source for this tho so do take this skeptically. either way you can see ianto having autistic traits in his writing pretty clearly sometimes!!

ultimately, i do generally think with any head cannon that if people r enjoying it and not hurting anyone then it’s totally cool with me, but i do specifically have a big old soft spot for autistic ianto hcs!!! i can see how he could be interpreted either way, and am happy to swing between both interpretations, but I do think the autistic ianto hc has some rly interesting stuff going on with it ◡̈

[caffeinewitchcraft]

AITA for telling my boyfriend’s coworkers that he’s lying about his body count?

I (35f) have been dating my boyfriend (32m) for four years. It’s honestly been the best relationship until last Friday when it all went down. I feel like I’m in the right, but now I’m wondering if I overstepped.

For context, my boyfriend has been a professional Slasher for about eight months now. He’s always really admired Cryptids, Monsters, and Nightmares so when his application was finally accepted, he was over the moon even if he was starting in a lower position than he initially applied for.

At his company, being a Slasher requires a lot of travel which we knew when he accepted the position. The end goal is for him to get a promotion to at least regional Nightmare (he wants Cryptid, but that position doesn’t have a lot of turnover) but to get that he needs to be in role for at least 12 months OR meet his goals for three months in a row. Once he promotes, we plan to relocate to his new region and “start talking about our future.”

(Side note: no this isn’t about him not popping the question yet. We are both in agreement that marriage comes after financial stability. I run a small business doing scare consults and, while it’s been growing, I wouldn’t call it stable yet. So neither of us are ready.)

I told him it’s completely normal for it to take a whole year before he’s ready to promote and he really should focus on adjusting to the company before thinking about next steps. I used to work for a competitor (I’ve been retired for five years now) and I know it can be hard to go from only taking the occasional human life to having to take over half a dozen a week. It’s not a light workload, no matter how easy it looks in the movies. One of my best friends Slashes part-time and she still only averages about five lives a week despite having done it for years. Especially these days, it can be really hard to meet quota. Humans are getting smarter, no matter what the Council wants us to think.

Anyway, boyfriend didn’t do as well as he thought he would in his first couple months. Totally understandable, of course, which I told him. I suggested he ask his boss if he could be put on a couple team assignments or even a duo until he got the hang of it. That was our first real fight. He thought I was doubting his ability to kill. He brought up how I told him it would take over a year to promote and how I said that this job wasn’t for everyone (His first assignment ended with a 0% kill rate, but that’s a different story). He said it felt like I didn’t believe in him and he said that if that was the case then maybe we shouldn’t be thinking about marriage so soon.

It got pretty messy after that. I felt like he was forgetting that I’d worked in the same field and, arguably, had a lot more experience (not to brag, but I averaged a 98% kill rate). Also, four years is NOT too soon to talk about marriage. He said I didn’t understand how he needed to focus on his career right now. I told him I thought he was taking Slasher too lightly just because it wasn’t Cryptid. He accused me of not respecting him and then things spiraled from there.

We both said a lot of things we didn’t mean and I’m embarrassed that it turned into a bit of a fang measuring contest. I ended up sleeping under the bed for a few nights until he coaxed me out to apologize.

It was a rough patch, but we talked it out. We agreed that, going forward, I wouldn’t offer advice unless he asked and he would try not to take so much of his frustration home with him. He took a weekend off and we went on a recreational haunting trip in the Montana woods.

Things did get better after that. I tried not to give him consults every time he came back from a work trip. He started bringing me souvenirs like roses and cursed puzzle boxes his work said he could have. It became easier just to hang out with each other and it felt like we were back to normal.

But then, four months ago, he came home super pissed because his boss put him on a PIP. (A performance improvement plan.) Apparently, boyfriend had not been doing better at work, he had just stopped telling me when he had a bad assignment. I saw the paperwork he got (he left it in the dungeon under the house, I didn’t go through his stuff) and he’s been missing quota by a LOT. As a junior Slasher, he was supposed to be executing at least 6 people a week, but he’d been lucky to be maiming half that.

Obviously, I had to talk to him about that. We rent our house and, even though I could have afforded the rent on my own, I didn’t want to jeopardize the investments I was making in my business (I was in the process of hiring an assistant to handle my scheduling). Plus, we agreed from day one that we would be 50/50 on rent and I would take care of the rest of the bills because I earned more. I felt that if his financial situation was in jeopardy, he needed to talk to me about it.

I tried to approach him a bit differently than last time. I asked him if there was anything I could do to help. I told him about my slasher friend and how maybe she could give him advice if he didn’t want any from me. But he said he needed to figure stuff out on his own and that if he couldn’t get himself off the PIP then he would go back to work for his dad’s janitorial company.

I let it go. I was worried but I didn’t want to fight again just after patching the holes from the last blow out. It really bugged me that he thought I didn’t believe in him so I committed to giving him the benefit of the doubt. I said okay and asked him if he needed me to meal prep for both of us that week. He offered me grocery money, but I said it was fine since I’d had to deal with a lot of humans breaking in lately and I still had some leftover in the dungeon.

Fast forward a month. Boyfriend got off the PIP super fast. He worked his way off of it over Spring Break and started taking on a lot of extra assignments. In just four weeks he went to Miami Beach twice, New York City twice, and to three separate summer camps. I missed him and it was hard not having him around but I remembered how he said he needed to focus on his career and I tried not to nag.

It was hard not to nag though. With him gone, all the housework fell on me. We rent a 19th century manor, and its upkeep really does need two people. Doing all the chores plus running my business started to really drain me. Even when he was home, he forgot to banish the ghosts (my chore is to kill all invading humans, and his chore is to banish their ghosts) and he never took out the trash. I think he cleaned blood off the dungeon walls once, but then I had to basically redo it because he missed a lot of spots.

But still, I didn’t say anything because he was doing really well at work and I didn’t want to ruin that for him. Even when Humans started breaking in every week, I didn’t complain even though it interrupted my work day.

Last month though, I did ask him if we could move somewhere that needed less maintenance. There were just way too many Humans breaking in and I didn’t have the time to deal with them anymore. Even if I don’t do all the theatrics I used to as a Cryptid, killing humans through fear still takes a lot of time. He asked me if I didn’t appreciate the free meat, and I said I would appreciate it more if I wasn’t the only butchering it.

He said he didn’t want to move because he was really close to getting promoted to regional Nightmare and he didn’t want to take time off work to move. I was so surprised that I couldn’t hide how surprised I was. He saw and got offended. He asked if I still didn’t believe in him. I said that I did, but it was a huge jump to go from an 8% kill rate to getting promoted.

He got even more mad at me for bringing up his stats and he said that he had nearly 80% kill rate since being put on the PIP. I asked how many humans a week he was slashing and he told me I was being too nosy and that was proof that I didn’t believe in him.

I asked him if we could at least hire a ghoul then to keep the humans out of my office and he said he didn’t want to waste the money that we should be saving for our new house. I asked him what he wanted me to do then? I had to take phone calls for my consulting business and it was really hard to stalk humans all around the house while trying to sound like a professional to my clients.

He asked me to be patient for one more month. He said if he met quota for one more month, his boss said he’d get promoted. So I said fine and let it go.

Fast forward to now, almost a full month later.

Last Friday, I attended the Eldritch Conference. For those not in the scare field, the Eldritch Conference is the most prestigious event in our industry. It’s invitation only and is a chance to network with all the big players in the field. Mothman, the Jersey Devil, Bloody Mary and Bigfoot all spoke this year and both my former company, Grudge Industries, and my boyfriend’s current company, Forgotten Summer Solutions, were invited.

I was surprised to get an invite as a solo contributor to the field. However, my consulting firm has really been doing well and I did land a seasonal contract with the Yeti Co-op which I guess is how they heard about me. Plus, I’ve been a speaker before so I think the organizers knew I would behave myself.

I was planning on telling my boyfriend that I was going, but he was out of town on a co-ed sleepover assignment. He usually doesn’t have his phone on during his assignments, so I didn’t bother calling him. I just figured it’d be nice if we ran into each other at the conference if he made it back in time.

Which brings me to what actually happened (apologies for the long post).

So everything went great for my part of the day. I got to network with a lot of individual businesses and even got to reconnect with Blood Mary who I knew back in my Cryptid days. I told her I was dating a Slasher from Forgotten Summer Solutions and invited her to come with me to check out their booth. I thought it would be fun to grab dinner with her after since I assumed if my boyfriend was there, he’d be going out with coworkers which he often does. Plus, I admit, I was showing off a little. I don’t often get the chance to brag about my Cryptid days.

She agreed and we went over to see if my boyfriend was there.

I introduced myself to the people manning the booth. My boyfriend wasn’t there, but a few Slashers recognized my name and greeted me. They were definitely in awe of Bloody Mary (she came in full uniform) and invited us to look at their displays. They had portfolios for each Slasher on the desk as a sort of preview of what their services looked like.

While Bloody Mary looked through the portfolios, I chatted with my boyfriend’s coworkers. They said they were thrilled to work with him and that, even though he had a really rough start, it was impressive how quickly he started meeting his goals. Something about how they talked about his work kind of didn’t make sense. They were talking like he was killing a dozen humans a week, but he’d told me that he was at 80% on his assignments which typically only offer about ten humans each.

I asked them about it and they said that he’d been Slashing during After Hours which is a new goal supplement program his company launched a few months ago. Basically, anyone can sign up for After Hours and the company counts human kills done in uniform as part of their quota. I asked them if this was available to them while they were on assignment and they said no, it had to be done when they had down time. I asked them how my boyfriend was part of that when he was traveling all the time and they looked confused. One of them said that my boyfriend is still getting one assignment per week and is then supplementing his kill rate with After Hours.

At that point, I was even more confused. It sounded like my boyfriend had been lying to me then, because he told me that he was getting at least two assignments a week. If he was only getting one, then where was he going when he said he was traveling?

Bloody Mary interrupted before I could say anything and asked how their Slashers did their kills. They said that every Slasher at their company is required to use a standard issue weapon (like a machete or axe) for their kills to count. They said their company doesn’t count accidents as part of their quota (like falling or heart attacks).

Bloody Mary pulled me aside and showed me the portfolio she was holding. She said that she was going to give me a chance to explain without them overhearing and showed me the book. She said that a bunch of kills in it looked Cryptid kills. And she said, specifically, it looked like the kills I made when I was a Cryptid. I took the book from her and flipped through it and she was right, they really did look like Cryptid kills. Worse, I recognized a few of the Humans from the past few weeks. They were actually my kills!

Kill stealing is a major taboo in our industry.

I told her I didn’t know anything about this. She looked really relieved at that and said that even though I wasn’t a Cryptid anymore, it would look really bad for me if I was caught helping a Slasher cheat at their job. It could affect my business which she’d only heard good things about.

I’m embarrassed to say that I tried to defend him. He’s new to our industry so I thought it might be a mistake. He might not be trying to cheat, this could be a misunderstanding.

She said she didn’t think so because a mistake would be one or two of my kills mixed in with his, not the entire book.

I counted up how many photos were in the book and, all told, of the 146 kills, at least 100 were mine. I couldn’t really say it was a mistake at that point and I was just staring at his portfolio like an idiot. Bloody Mary asked me what I was going to do because, mistake or not, this looked really bad and could damage my reputation if it got out.

At that moment, another man walked up to booth and asked us if there was a problem. I knew that if I said anything, I would be jeopardizing my boyfriend’s job, but if I didn’t say something, I was jeopardizing my business.

I told my boyfriend’s coworkers that he was lying about his body count. I said I didn’t think that they knew he was doing it, but over half of the kills in his portfolio weren’t his and I suggested they remove it from their display before another Cryptid came by and realized it.

The other man thanked me for bringing this to his attention and asked how we knew. Bloody Mary said that she knew another Cryptid’s kills and I had to tell them that I was that Cryptid, though I was retired now. He asked me if I knew my boyfriend was doing this, and I told him no.

I told him I really didn’t want to get my boyfriend in trouble and suggested that maybe he didn’t know those kills didn’t belong to him because they happened in our house. I was grasping at straws and Blood Mary even looked sad for me. His coworkers looked skeptical but tentatively agreed. The man – who turned out to my boyfriend’s boss – said that they would investigate this thoroughly and apologized personally for his employee’s misconduct.

I was spiraling at that point so I thanked him and said I wasn’t mad, I was just looking out for both of our reputations. He promised to keep it between us and I agreed.

Then I apologized to Bloody Mary because I didn’t feel like eating dinner anymore. She said she understood and wished me well.

I went home and did a quick perimeter search of the property. Sure enough, there were human summoning stones ALL OVER the yard. Which means my boyfriend was intentionally luring humans to our house to get me to kill them so he could take credit. It wasn’t a mistake at all.

My boyfriend came home later that night in his work clothes. As soon he got inside he started yelling. He said he was suspended without pay and that all his hard work was for nothing.

I said I knew he’d been stealing my kills and he almost ruined my reputation. He said they still counted as his kills because he did all the work of luring the humans to our house.

I told him that wasn’t how it worked and he knew it. He said it was the same as setting a trap and I was taking this too seriously. I told him that, as a Slasher, he has to use a weapon to get his kills, not me. He said I was basically the same thing since I had such a high kill rate. I asked him if he was calling me an object.

(My parents exploited me by selling me as a haunted doll through a lot of my childhood and he knows I’m sensitive to being called an object.)

He backpedaled at that point and asked if I didn’t want to buy a house together. He said he was doing it for us and I should’ve understood and not said anything. I told him that when I was a Cryptid I had my pride and would’ve never done this.

He said I needed to tell his boss that he was the one who made all those kills. I said it wasn’t me who recognized them as Cryptid kills and now his boss knew too. He accused me of thinking I’m better than him because I have telekinetic powers and can move through shadows and can possess people, while he’s basically a human himself. I told him of course not and that I worked hard for those powers unlike him.

He got really mad at that and actually charged at me with his machete raised. I don’t think he was going to actually hit me, but I reacted like he was. It was all instinct. I disarmed him and I swear I heard a crack when I grabbed his wrist. I shoved him into the wall.

 He crumpled to the floor and started crying. He said sorry and sort of curled up around his wrist. He said he didn’t ever feel like he was enough for me and he didn’t even know why I was still with him. He called himself a bunch of names and said I would be better off without him.

I sort of awkwardly stood there for a minute. On one hand I wanted to assure him that he was enough and that I loved him, but, on the other, I wasn’t sure I could forgive him. He nearly ruined my reputation, and he embarrassed me in front of Bloody Mary. Plus, I still didn't know where he’d been going all those times he said he was on a business trip and apparently wasn’t.

So I ended up not saying anything. I went to our room and started packing a bag. He followed me. He was still crying as he begged me not to go. He said he would own up to his kill steals at work and he would make it right. He pleaded for me not to leave him and that he would give up slashing.

I told him I needed space to think. He tried to grab me, but I shadow walked out of the house. I heard him screaming from outside and I hurriedly drove away.

Now I’m at my friend’s house and I told her everything. She agreed I did the right thing walking away from him, but when I asked her what I should do she hesitated. She said that my boyfriend wasn’t right to kill steal but, as a fellow Slasher, she understood what he was going through. She said I wouldn’t understand the pressure to meet quota because I was always surpassing mine when I was in the field. She said that a Cryptid could never understand a Slasher.

She also said that nobody would have found out about his kills if I hadn’t brought them to his boss’ attention. She said the only time kills are on display like that is at the Eldritch Conference and by the next one, he’d have had kills of his own. She thinks that if I’d just confronted him at home, he wouldn’t be on suspension.

So now I’m worried that I overreacted when I told my boyfriend’s coworkers that he was lying about his body count.

AITA?

----

Thanks for reading! Several amazing supernatural citizens (aka my Patrons) gave great advice to our poor OP over on my Patreon! Please go check them out here (X)

(I will definitely be posting some of them here in the near future!)

My next supernatural AITA is already up to my patrons!

It's called "AITA for divorcing my vampire husband because he lied about his human job?"

Patrons get to see many of my stories a week ahead! If that interests you please check me out here (X)!

[starryblueeyesandstarryblueskies]

The Princess and The Pogue | J. M.

Pairing: JJ Maybank x reader

Summary: Your daughter comes home from school telling you about a local OBX fairytale. It turns out it’s about you and your husband.

Listen to But Daddy I Love Him for full experience

Requested by @idontevenknowbsblog

A/N: This turned out way longer and more angsty than I had anticipated but I’m a sucker for the angst. I just can’t help it. I’m sorry this took me a million years to finish!

As I am an adult, all characters I write for are written as adults. Any minor characters will be aged up to the general range of their actor’s age.

Warnings: allusions to domestic abuse, controlling parents, forced engagement, so much fucking angst, only kinda proofread

Word Count: 3.5k

~

Your daughter’s tiny feet press against the back of your seat as you head home after picking her up from school.

“Mia, stop kicking,” You laugh, “Mommy’s trying to drive.”

“Sorry, Mommy.” Your daughter giggles. “I’m just so happy today!”

“I’m so glad you're happy, Baby.” You smile at the five year old in the rearview mirror. “What did you do at school today?”

“We got to draw all our shapes today and we sang the alphabet song a bunch of times!”

“Ooh sounds like a fun day.”

She claps excitedly. “Oh and Kylie’s older sister told us a fairytale at recess!”

“A fairytale? Very cool. What was it about?”

“Did you know a princess used to live here? A long time ago. She ran away with a pogue because her evil king father wouldn’t let them be together.”

Your eyes widen at her words, a small smile forming on your face as she tells the story that takes you back to what seems like a lifetime ago.

-

“Mom, I’m headed out,” you yelled through the foyer.

“Ok, hun.” Your mom poked her head over the stairwell. “Just don’t stay out too late. We have that business lunch with the Cameron’s tomorrow and it’s very important that you be there.”

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” you promise, “besides I’m just going to hang out with Sarah.”

“We just love that you and Ward Cameron’s daughter are friends. It looks so good for your father’s business for the families to be close. Especially with you set to inherit the company someday.”

With Ward Cameron being the biggest real estate developer in the Outer Banks and your dad owning the biggest construction company, the two men worked closely on most of their deals. They were also the closest thing to friends that either of the men had. The two richest men in the island made for a powerful team.

“Glad I can help you keep up appearances,” you muttered under your breath.

“What was that, hun?”

“Always happy to help the family.” You gave your mother a forced smile and made your escape, slipping outside and into Sarah’s waiting car.

“Ready to go see your man?” She grins at you and you return the gesture.

“God, yes.“

-

You hadn’t expected to fall in love with JJ Maybank. Considering the very different lives the two of you led it was surprising the two of you ever even crossed paths, but that was one of the perks of being Sarah’s friend. When she fell in love with John B and got involved with the pogues she dragged you along with her.

It wasn’t like you had anything against the pogues. In fact, you had admired them from afar your whole life. Their freedom and adventures were something you envied, forever stuck in your kook bubble. You didn’t have a choice but to follow the plan your parents had created for you.

JJ, on the other hand, hated kooks with a passion. He had a hard enough time with Sarah joining the group and when she brought you in, arguably the even bigger kook princess with the even bigger kook king of a father, he vowed to himself he would never accept you. After all, you represented everything he hated, the life he always dreamed of but would never attain.

He would sneer and call you “princess”, his voice dripping with disdain, doing everything in his power to piss you off, but you didn’t mind. You loved his passion and the way he would do anything to protect the people he cared about. You ignored his insults, treating him just as well as you would anyone else.

Before he knew it, your soft words and beaming smile had softened JJ. He began to actually look forward to your presence in the group, feeling sad when you couldn’t get away from your parents to spend time with them. Then, one day the two of you were the only ones to show up to a pogue hang out. You ended up spending hours just talking and getting to know each other. The rest was history and you had been together from that day forward.

Unfortunately, you knew that your parents would never let you spend time around a pogue, let alone be in a relationship with one. So, like Sarah and John B, you and JJ had to keep your relationship hidden. Thanks to the help of the pogues, the two of you had been successfully seeing each other behind your parents’ backs for over a year.

-

“I’ll be back to pick you up at 8:00,” Sarah reminds you. She pulls up to the little cove where you and JJ liked to meet. “We only have a couple of hours tonight because of that lunch tomorrow. Don’t want our families to get suspicious.”

You nod. “Got it. I’ll see you then.” You slip out of her car. “Tell John B I said hi.”

“Will do.”

She pulls away as you make your way around the rocks hiding the entrance to your spot.

“Hi, princess.” Your boyfriend grins at you in the orange light of the sunset, pulling you into a hug.

“JJ,” You breathe him in, soaking up the comfort he gives you. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, baby. Four days without you is four days too much.” JJ leads you over to the blanket on the sand, sitting back so you can settle between his legs.

“I know. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t get away much this week. My parents are going crazy about this lunch tomorrow.”

“Aren’t they always crazy?” JJ jokes, poking your side. You squirm a little bit, trying to escape his prodding.

“I mean, yeah. They’re just extra crazy this week.” You settle further into his chest, JJ giving up his attack in exchange for wrapping his arms securely around you. He nuzzles his head into the side of your neck. “But, it’s okay because at least we have right now.”

“How long do we have until Sarah comes back to pick you up?”

You let out a sigh. “Two hours.”

“That’s it? Damn.”

“I’m sorry, J.” You look back apologetically, but he just shakes his head.

“Hey, don’t apologize. We just have to make the most of the time we have, like usual. It won’t be like this forever.”

“Right.” You give him a small smile, turning back to face the sunset before he can see the doubt in your eyes. You hoped JJ was right, but you had no idea how things would ever change.

As expected, your time together flew by too quickly and before you knew it Sarah was back to take you home.

JJ was reluctant to let you out of his embrace. “We’re still on for tomorrow night, right? After you finish up with all your kook business?”

“Of course, baby. I wouldn’t miss it.” You give him one last goodbye kiss, distracting him long enough to slip out from his arms. He pouts, but lets you go, knowing if it was your choice you would never leave.

-

You stare numbly at the wall, unable to will yourself to move from your position balled up on the bed. You aren’t sure how long you've been laying there looking at nothing. You didn’t feel anything, having cried out all your tears hours ago. A buzzing sounds from the other side of the room, your phone going off once again, but you don’t pick it up. It’s probably Sarah calling again to see if you’re okay after what happened at lunch. You’re not.

Having sat in silence for so long, you jump when you hear a rattling at your window. It takes you a minute to clamber over to the window with the lights out in your room. You hadn’t realized how dark it had become outside.

You peek out warily, trying to determine the source of the noise. “Shit.” You mumble under your breath as you realize JJ is perched in the tree closest to your room.

You unlatch the door so he can climb inside, turning away from him quickly. You’re thankful for the darkness in that moment as you scramble to make yourself look presentable, flattening your hair and wiping at your face. You pull down the sleeves of the massive sweatshirt you’re wearing, one you stole from JJ months ago, making sure you are completely covered.

“JJ, what are you doing here,” you whisper, “What if someone sees you?”

“I was worried about you. You were supposed to meet me hours ago, remember?” He sounds frustrated.

“Shit. I’m sorry. I totally forgot.” You run your hand down your face stressed. “I didn’t mean to stand you up.”

“You forgot? Y/N, I’ve been calling and texting for hours.” JJ moves closer, but you step back. “I thought something bad had happened.”

He takes another step back. Again you back away, trying to keep him from seeing your face. Brows furrowed, JJ moves towards you again. This time you can’t move away fast enough, bumping your dresser as you try to get away.

“Woah, wait.” JJ takes your face in gentle hands. “Have you been crying?”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.” You try to pull away, but he doesn’t let you off that easily.

“Baby, what’s going on? Is it something I did?” The worry in his eyes brings a fresh wave of tears to your eyes. You shake your head, willing them not to fall.

“No, no. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Something with Sarah?” You shake your head again.

“Your parents?” That stills you. “It is your parents. What is it? Did something happen at lunch?”

You don’t answer.

“Talk to me, baby. I can’t make it better if I don’t know what’s wrong.” JJ’s voice is so sincere and his touch so soft. He really thinks he’ll be able to fix whatever the problem is.

You gather your strength and gently pull away from him, not wanting to see the look in his eyes when you tell him.

“My father and Ward Cameron have decided that it is in the best interest of their respective businesses for our families to be officially joined.”

“What on earth does that mean?”

You feel like you're going to be sick, but you force the words out anyway. “I am set to be married to Rafe Cameron.” You keep your eyes on the floor, waiting for JJ’s response. He stays silent.

“I had no idea they had this planned until my parent’s announced it at lunch.”

“What do you mean you’re marrying Rafe Cameron?” He tries to keep his voice calm. But you can hear the venom behind his words anyway. “You can’t just marry Rafe.”

“I don’t have a choice, JJ. They practically signed my ownership papers over to Rafe right there.”

JJ is pacing your room now, hands constantly running through his hair. “He can’t just do that. You’re an adult, Y/N. Tell him no.”

“I can’t tell him no JJ.” He stops in front of you, the look on his face half shock half anger.

“What are you talking about? You can’t just tell me that your father is marrying you off to Rafe and not even try to fight him on it.” You turn from his intense gaze, unable to handle it any longer.

‘Y/N-” JJ reaches for your arm to turn you around and you flinch back hissing in pain. Your sleeve rides up, revealing a number of dark bruises.

“I tried talking him out of it, JJ. He made it clear saying no wasn’t an option.”

JJ seethes, body tense with anger. “He hurt you.” It’s not a question which is just as well because you have no response.

“I’m gonna kill him.” He growls.

You lay your palms flat against his chest. “No, you’re not. We can’t make this situation any worse than it already is.”

“He can’t just get away with this!” JJ’s voice rises with his anger and you shush him quickly, looking back at your door.

“Please, Y/N.” His voice cracks on your name. “Things can’t just end like this.”

The pain in his words breaks your heart. You let the tears fall freely, unable to hold back the emotion any longer.

“I’m so sorry, JJ.” He cradles your face in his hands like he did at the beginning of the night. “There’s nothing either of us can do to change this.” JJ brushes his thumbs against your cheeks, brushing at the tears. “You should go.”

“No, Y/N.” He has tears running down his face too. “I can’t leave you like this.”

“Please, JJ. You have to go before something wakes him up. I don’t know what he’ll do if he finds you here.”

JJ’s eyes flit down to your wrists, taking in the bruises once more before he nods slowly. He won’t be the reason your father hurts you again. You lips press against his slowly, both of you pouring all the love you have for each other into the kiss.

“I love you,” you whisper against his lips.

“I love you, too. Always.”

With those last words, he slips back out your window, closing it quietly behind him. You watch as he climbs back down the tree and crosses the property. As he finally fades out of blue, you sink down to your floor, your knees unable to hold the weight of your body as it’s wracked with sobs.

-

You don’t leave your room for days. All you can do is lay in your bed and cry, mourning the loss of the man you love and the life you had planned.

If it was up to you, you would never leave that room. Unfortunately, your parents have other plans. They parade you and Rafe all over town, making sure everyone on the island knows the two of you are “madly in love” and engaged to be married in the spring. The whole pageantry of it makes you sick.

The cherry on top of the whole ordeal is the engagement party that you parents planned for the weekend. They rented out the whole club and invited every kook on the island. You’re pretty sure it’s your own personal hell.

Sarah pins one last curl to your head. “Done. You look beautiful.”

You give her a small smile that didn’t reach your eyes. “Thanks, Sarah.” You were dressed in a white sundress that your mother had bought for the party and Sarah had done your hair and makeup to perfection. The whole look was stunning, but you just feel like a trophy being shown off.

Sarah gives you a sympathetic look. “You ready for this?”

“No. But I have to be.”

It takes everything in you to keep a smile pasted on your face as Rafe takes your hand and leads you out to the throng of people. Everyone smiles and hugs you, offering their congratulations. You do your best to seem gracious and excited, but all you feel is emptiness and the faces move before you in a blur.

You make it two hours into the party before you can’t take it any longer. The panic that has been creeping up your throat all night takes hold and you have to break away. You excuse yourself from Rafe, claiming a need to run to the bathroom. He gives you a harsh look and makes you promise to hurry back, but ultimately lets you go.

You hurry away from prying eyes, not letting yourself break until you get inside. Chest heaving, you gulp down air like you’ve just run a marathon. One of your hands is pressed against your chest, the other braced against the walls to hold you up as you stumble towards the bathroom.

Before you can make it more than a few feet an arm catches you around the waist, pulling you into an alcove you had never noticed. You stumble back, trying to pull yourself together, not wanting whoever grabbed you to see your harried state.

“Hey, hey. It’s just me.”

Familiar hands rub up and down your arms, grounding you. You look up to see the blue eyes that you love so much.

“JJ,” you whisper, breaths still coming fast and hard.

“It’s okay, baby. Just breathe.”

JJ holds you close as you will your body to calm, feeling safe for the first time all night.

“What are you doing here?”

“I had to see you, talk to you.”

You sigh, looking at him with sad eyes. “As happy as I am that you’re here, you have to go. If anyone sees you. My father, or Rafe-”

“What if you didn’t have to worry about them anymore?”

“JJ, we’ve been over this. I can’t break this engageme-”

“What if we just left? You and me. Right now.” His eyes bore into yours, willing you to see the possibility.

You can’t act like you haven’t had the same thought yourself, but you just didn’t see how it would be possible. “How would that work, JJ? My father controls my whole life. My money, my future, everything.”

“You don’t need anything he has to give you, Y/N.” His voice is pleading.

“JJ…”

“We can figure it out. You have a degree, I have experience. We’ll get jobs. We’ll make it work.” He reaches a hand into his pocket. “I know I can’t give you a life like this-”

“I don’t want a life like this.”

“-but I will do everything in my power to give you a good life, to make you happy.” He holds up a simple, beautiful band of silver. “Will you marry me?”

You stare up at him with wide eyes. “Are you serious?”

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. Say you’ll marry me. We can leave right now. I have a plan to get us off the island. Your parents won’t know until it’s too late. Just say yes, please.”

“Yes, yes.” You nod vigorously. “I’ll marry you.”

You rip off the gaudy ring currently on your hand and JJ replaces it with the silver band. He kisses you so deeply you think you see stars.

“I love you, JJ Maybank,” you whisper when you part.

“I love you too, Y/N Y/L/N, so much.”

You could stay in that moment forever, but you both know you don’t have time to waste. JJ begins to pull you to a side exit, but you stop him. There’s one last thing you have to do before you leave.

You find a piece of paper, scribbling out a few quick words and titling to your father.

Have fun explaining to the Cameron’s that your daughter ran off with a pogue

Y/N Y/L/N

You set the folded paper on the center table, placing Rafe’s ring next to it.

“Ready to get off this island?”

You grab JJ’s hand. “God, yes.”

-

JJ was right, the two of you figured it out. You both found jobs on the mainland and created a happy life for yourselves. You and JJ got married a few months after you ran off and Mia came along a few years later.

You had kept in touch with the pogues of course and they let you know when your father and Ward Cameron’s businesses had come crashing down, forcing the two men off the island. They had no power anymore, so eight years later you decided to move back to your home. People had gossiped at first, but they moved on to the next big thing when they realized that neither you nor JJ cared what they had to say. You wanted to be in the place where you grew up and fell in love, and you wanted Mia to be surrounded by the friends that you called your family.

Mia was just about bouncing in her seat by the time you got home. You hurried to get her out of her carseat so she could rush inside and see her dad. Friday’s were always her favorite because JJ got off work early and was already home by the time you brought her back from school.

She pulled you along by the hand as she continued on about her fairytale. “The evil king disappeared and they lived happily ever after.”

JJ scooped Mia up as the two of you entered the house, making the little girl squeal in delight.

“Daddy!”

“Who lived happily ever after, Mia-mine?” She giggled as he burrowed his face in her little belly.

“The princess and the pogue!”

JJ’s eyes met yours over Mia, giving you an intrigued look.

“Kylie’s older sister told her a fairytale at lunch about a couple that used to live on the island.” You tell him with a knowing grin.

“A fairytale? That’s awesome, baby.” JJ lowers Mia back down to her feet. “Hey, why don’t you go wash up and Mommy and I will make you a snack.”

“Okay, Daddy!” The little girl runs off happily.

You make your way to the kitchen, JJ coming up behind you and snaking his arms around your waist. “So the princess and the pogue, huh?” He smirks as you turn to face him.

“Who knew we’d become an OBX fairytale?” You reply.

“It makes sense. It doesn’t get much more ‘happily ever after’ than this. Right, princess?”

You give him a gentle kiss. “Right, pogue.”

~

Writing Masterlist

[felassan]

From Game Informer:

Solas plays an important role in the game as a central figure and significant character, but the game is not about Solas, hence the title change

Rather than focusing on a specific individual, the focus and centerpiece of the game is Rook's team, stopping the end of the world with this group of specialists

"I think you could argue [these companions] are the best the franchise has ever seen". We will have the opportunity to interact with them in a way that both shapes their story and also influences the main story, including having the opportunity to impact their fate

"Arguably, this game has kind of, in a way, been called Dreadwolf to some degree since its earlier days"

Excerpt:

"When I ask about Solas' role in the story after I learn his namesake is no longer in the game title, Darrah says Veilguard is still taking the Elven God's narrative in a good direction. He adds, "It allows us to, hopefully, give a good conclusion to all the varied attitudes toward Solas that are going to be coming from people who love Solas, who agree with Solas, who hate Solas, people who want to kick Solas off of a building – I think that we give you the opportunity to bring that to a close, but then tell a greater story about The Veilguard and about the world as a whole." Talking to Epler, I learn more about how Solas isn't exactly the big bad I expected before seeing the opening hours of Veilguard. There's a lot more nuance to everyone's favorite bald elf.  "The most interesting villains to myself, and honestly most people, are not just straight up, 'I want to end the world.' To them, they are the heroes of the story, and Solas is no exception," Epler tells me. "Solas always feels that he is a tragic hero but a hero nonetheless, so he's coming into this believing firmly that what he did, that which you stopped him from doing, was the right thing – that you made a mistake. But now he's trapped and can't reach out and actively affect [Thedas], so he needs to work with you. "That allows us to provide a lot of nuance to that relationship," Epler says."

Solas is literally trapped in the Fade after the game's prologue. Rook and co stop his attempt to destroy the Veil. Rook passes out and wakes up in a dream-like landscape to Solas' voice. He explains that he was trying to move Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain to a new prison because the old one wasn't containing them properly anymore. The two blighted gods are now free and roaming Thedas. Rook has to stop them, but it seems that they will have to work with Solas ("or at least listen to his guidance and advice") to do so

Excerpt:

""So one of the principles we took to when we were building the story of The Veilguard early on was we wanted the beginning of the game to feel like the final chapter of an earlier story and you're coming in right at the end, you're coming in as if you've been chasing Solas – the [Solas at the end of Dragon Age: Inquisition's Trespasser DLC] who said he was going to end the world and tear down the Veil," Epler adds.  Epler says players will see early on (and as the narrative develops across Veilguard) that Solas sees much of himself in you, the player-controlled Rook, especially "the parts that maybe he doesn't like to face." As a result, there's an interesting push and pull between Solas and Rook. He says players can define the relationship between these two characters with their choices in dialogue.  "You can continue to be suspicious and hostile towards him, or you can start to see him and find that common ground, that connection between the two of you, and really develop a different relationship over the course of the story," Epler says."

[source]

[zhoufeis]

What just bothers me simply about the discussion of TTPD being all so great is neither the fact that some reviewers literally ignore some of the very gruesome lyrics this album has to offer nor the fact that the whole album has the same tune and I could not tell apart these tracks even if I wanted to, no. After all, we can always argue that tastes are different... arguably. It's something utterly different that's bothering me.

It's three things entirely different.

1) The fact we pretend 31 break-up tracks, written entirely out of the perspective of victimhood, of some love stories are worth calling "The Tortured Poets Department". Mind you, Swift, I like love songs, I like break-up songs, I like them poetically, I like when they touch me. But writing 31 break-up songs (not entirely, right, more like 25 or so) for one album makes me wonder if there is anything deeper... more touching to write about. You stay on the surface describing relationships (romantic as well as parasocial) in which you come out as a victim. But the self-reflection is missing entirely. And if I learned one thing in language classes it's that it's poetically dull if we only ever stay on the surface. We gotta dig deeper. And I'm not referring to some poetic lines to make a song sound more beautiful. I'm talking about true depth, true self-reflection, something that makes you defenseless. Cause all this woman does is writing songs out of the perspective of defense - and victimhood. Never does she actually draw herself as defenseless or vulnerable, always knowing how to use the right words to make her fans defend her.

2) Which leads me to that other thing that really bothers me. Her PR team was more involved in this album than the persona of Taylor Swift could ever be. Or maybe Taylor Swift is only PR at this point. Maybe there is no actual person behind all of this. Cause if there's one thing that's utterly apparent, it is that this album hinges SOLELY on any media drama she was involved in. Everyone out there trying to decipher which song is about whom - is this storytelling? Is this poetry? If I only care about songs and judge them by who they are about? The beauty of music is that it binds people together, makes people feel heard or seen through the text and voice of another person. What she's doing isn't that. She is not binding people together by selling her songs as something that could happen to anyone, no, all of it is always only about one person's story - her own. She also doesn't create fictional stories to write about, things to further the limits of our imagination and tell a story that doesn't even exist, and never will. She doesn't use imagination, she doesn't try to connect to other people, she's trying only to connect people to HER. Can this album even be judged neutrally if everyone just knows about her relationships and is guessing who the songs are about? Is there one person out there like "I have never seen any of the TS relationship drama and the like, and I only like to review this album lyrically and sonically by the lyrics and tune within"? Because she is SO present in everyday media press, it is impossible to miss her relationship drama. So are we actually still reviewing Swift's album as a standalone media for its sound and lyrics? Or are we actually just reviewing TS's terrible love life which she apparently has no responsibility for? And mind you all - she knows exactly what she's doing. Don't even think for a second she doesn't know that you all are following her every footstep. Don't think she doesn't use it to her advantage. (Aside from that, she has been considered a storyteller for so long, but she seems to have a lack of stories she can come up with if the only ones she writes about are her own...)

3) Which leads to the entire capitalist thinking behind the release of this album. Not only did she publish 19 different versions of this album to be acquired, no, she also literally had millions of fans pre-ordering her (normal-length) album, only to drop an extended version right after its release. Which means that all these fans had to buy yet another album. And don't think she meant this as a surprise for her fans - she did that cause that's how you make money. Cause that's how capitalism works. And she's part of the problem.

[cadhla182]

Hey I got question how do you feel about asexual representions in comics? Both Marvel and DC. Do you think they did it well?

Yes and no.

Connor Hawke and Gwenpool had beautiful stories that touched on experiences unique to asexual people, both taking different approaches to the unique loneliness and dehumanization that comes with being asexual in a society that prioritizes sex above all else, as well as the desire to be loved and accepted in different ways. Connor's was a bit more upbeat about it but Gwen's pain does have another side to it so the hurt came with a reward.

Both stories had all ace teams and it shows, both were beautifully done and Conner has been appearing in Green Arrow ever since.

But that leads to the other issue. Gwen has had one other pride story* and it's looking like Marvel's not doing a full Pride anthology this year so I don't think she's getting another. Nadia van Dyne came out (on twitter and the fans called her ace so hard that marvel put her) in the Pride anthology last year and hasn't appeared since. Tremor said she was asexual in 2012 and has barely appeared since. There's a couple more X-men who were in a story I didn't read not long ago but they went into the background where all X-men teens go eventually, never to be heard from again.

And then there's Yelena. Arguably the first. I argue that she is the first but it was the 90s so the rep was as bad as everything else in the 90s, it rubs some other people the wrong way and they don't think she should count because it wasn't handled well and the writer throwing us under the bus to appease MCU shippers hasn't helped. What matters in this moment though is nobody's done anything with it since. She hasn't appeared in a Pride anthology. She's been in stories and not addressed it. She's a whole blank space and likely will be until the MCU crashes.

So there's potential. There's been beauty in the last couple years, I can say they have done well before. But we need more. It sill kind of feels like we're an afterthought in the grand scheme of things.

*As a point of clarity I don't mean to snub the effort of the writers on this pride story, I haven't read it yet so I can't say much. Couldn't afford the anthology last year and keep forgetting to go back to it.

[theminecraftbee]

is there anything you can share about the relationships between scar, grian, and joe? ive always been a sucker for pre-main story relationships (akihiko/mitsuru/shinjiro, yukiko/chie, ryuji/ann, etc. etc.), so im very curious!

oho, yes I DO have stuff I can share on that!

so, grian awakened his persona basically on his own, after an incident where he slipped into altered space but got more Pissed Off about it than he ended up sinking into despair about it, because he’s grian and he’s a contrary little fucker. he spent some time trying to figure out what was happening on his own until joe, a teacher at his school, noticed him, told grian that he also had seen altered space before and had some information on it, and took grian slightly under his wing.

for a little bit, it was Just Them, with grian as the only persona user. grian, being grian, often clashed with joe even then about stuff like “how aggressive we should be being” and “the general concept of authority”, but grian on his own would exhaust his resources before he could do much more than “attempt to help people he happened to come across in altered space”.

this changed somewhat when one day, grian rescued scar (although arguably that whole incident was a little grian’s fault to start with), and, to grian’s shock, scar managed to awaken a persona in the process. as soon as scar recovered grian press-ganged him into joining him in his attempts to make sense of things, and scar instantly fell into a support role, because that’s what the team needed, right?

grian and scar started to become used to being in danger together A LOT and being forced to rely on each other A LOT. while they both are seemingly good friends as a result of this, grian is known to grumble about how scar’s inefficiencies hold them back, and scar is known to grumble that grian is an asshole who refuses to communicate. they are both known to grumble this A LOT, actually. surely, there is no resentment starting to build up there—right?

scar ended up bonding much closer immediately with joe, enjoying joe’s esoteric humor and their ability to ramble at each other, as well as being less likely to clash about concepts like “authority” and “working yourself until you are about to pass out”. that said, joe is still a Weird Adult to scar, and if you REALLY dug at scar, you’d realize that, despite the arguments, grian is the one who actually trusts joe. scar just likes him, which is a totally different thing.

the three of them were working at the problem of altered space for varying lengths of time, with grian having awakened about ten months before the plot begins, scar about six, and joe becoming aware of altered space… you know, that’s funny, he’s never said, but he’s certainly implied he figured out about it around when the Vanished began to properly show up about a year and a half ago.

and that’s the pre-game relationships of the school rescue committee as they stand when joel enters the picture!

[zukosdualdao]

despite my lack of enjoyment for most of the atla post-series comics themselves, i'm very fascinated by the discussions around them because, as with many post-series comics, two of the biggest questions are: are these canon? and does that matter?

it's interesting, too, because i have never seen a single post-series comics continuation that was widely well-received. which is not to say that no one enjoys them - you can find avid supports and avid detractors for just about any property and any storytelling medium you can think of - but that the contention around them is not contained just to atla. (the buffy post-series continuation comics, for example, are pretty controversial as well.)

i think part of it comes down to fan resentment, because as much people say they want more of a certain thing, it's actually often better, at least i think, for a creative project to be self-contained and not try to keep milking the cash cow. and when creators are doing that and not delivering a story fans are happy with, it shows.

but then that also leads to this question, right, of are these post-series comics canon? i think the answer is genuinely more nuanced than some have given thought to. bryke would say yes, as they are the official creators and have been heavily involved in the production of the comics. and anyone who subscribes to the idea that the original creators of a thing hold the final word on the idea of what's canon and what's not would therefore agree also.

but if someone was more inclined to think that once a creator puts their work out into the world, they're sort of giving up the the idea that they have total control as to how people interpret the thing they've created... then it's a lot murkier.

i guess, to be clear, i do not, strictly speaking, see the atla comics as canon. i'm not the type (at least these days, there's a lot of past fandom follow-the-leader-ing i was doing that i now cringe back at, i was sixteen, it's fine) to declare something as 'not canon' if i simply don't like it. i think that's important to acknowledge because sometimes canon is worth criticizing. this is, incidentally, where i (again, these days) find myself uninterested, by and large, in deriding a character for behaving 'ooc', and instead far more interested in contextualizing and analyzing their behavior. after all, if it's in the thing, it’s in the thing.

... except the comics aren't the original thing. they are influenced and backed by the original creators and presumably a lot of people on the original team, but they're an entirely different medium, and presumably not entirely the same team, and they may well have had a very different artistic mission statement or way of brainstorming ideas, etc, etc. (also, to anyone who says the medium does not matter, i implore you to think about how different the show would be with a different musical score! for an instance. and then think about the fact for as big an influence as the music had on the series, the comics inherently cannot translate that.)

which leads me to a rabbit-hole train of thought question there is, i think, no clear answer to, but i will pose it regardless: can something made (at least in part) by the original creators be a 'transformative work'? if you're defining 'transformative' as: "adds "new expression, meaning, or message" to the original work", then i think you could easily argue that the new medium, if nothing else, constitutes a 'new expression.' but then you could also argue that the whole point of the term is to protect creators of transformative works from copyright claims made by the original creators, arguably making that irrelevant.

anyway! even more than the nebulous nature of what a post-canon comic even is, i find fan engagement - or lack thereof - pretty important to the conversation, too. because i think those of us deeply entrenched in fandom spaces tend to forget that casual viewership probably takes up a much larger percentage of most audiences than those in fandom, and that's probably true even years after a show has ended. that being the case, a lot of the audience has probably never even heard of the comics, let alone read them.

there are, naturally, nuances and variables to this, such as the idea that someone who goes back and watches a show from twenty years ago might be more likely to engage in fandom, and the way that 'fandom' has a concept has evolved (as i do think what i'd term 'casual fandom', eg. tweeting about bridgerton but not necessarily consuming or creating fan content is a lot more common now than it was twenty years ago due to social media), as well as the fact that you don't have to be involved in fandom to say, receive the comics as a gift from an uncle who knows you like the franchise.

but all of this can be true and it can also still be true that a pretty big percentage of people who have watched and even love atla haven't read the comics/have no knowledge or interest in them. and so that gets to the issue of does it matter whether they're canon or not? i've seen some KA shippers, for instance, argue that the comics 'fixed' the issue of aang kissing katara without her consent in teip because there's a comic (iirc) where he asks if he can kiss her, she says not right now, he listens, the end. and to be clear, i'm not trying to demean the creators for including that scene, as i think it's important to model healthy examples of consent for kids. but i also really empathize with the idea that it's sort of too-little-too-late because the original issue was never addressed in-show and, again! many people who did watch the show have never and will never read that comic.

so when i hear the debates back-and-forth of whether they count as canon or not, my head hurts, and i just can't find it in myself to care. who knows, right? maybe the real canon is the friends we made along the way. etc.

what it boils down to for me is this: generally speaking, i don't enjoy the comics and have no need or desire to incorporate them into my understanding of atla's series narrative. there are elements that i can appreciate, and they are largely zuko and the fn royal family backstory details, because, unlike the additive adventure narratives, it primarily serves to deepen and contextualize things we already saw in the show. i know some people see this 'i take what i like and dump out the rest' philosophy as, idk, a cheap cop-out or something. maybe they're right! i just can't find it in myself to care. at the end of the day, i think the big important thing for me is that i am able to define and decide on these things for myself. i think we should get more comfortable doing that in fandom in general, tbh.

[biomic]

Hi! I see a lot of screenshots and such from your blog for things like (I believe) Kamen Rider(?) I might be wrong please forgive me if so. I have always had a sort of vague interest in sentai media but never knew good hopping on points, do you have any personal recommendations for where an absolute beginner might jump in to watch shows like that?

if you're interested in tokusatsu, you can really start anywhere that looks cool or interesting to you! most seasons, aside from some anniversaries and the very rare sequel show, are pretty self-contained for the most part. diehard fans will make a big deal out of "good and bad starting points" but the truth is every show has been someone's first and hooked them on the genre, even the "bad" seasons (the poor quality of which is often exaggerated by fandom anyway) or the experimental entries not indicative of the wider franchise they're part of

but! if you want some real beginner friendly, you'll-probably-have-fun-with-this toku, my go-to recs for The Big Three™:

if you want to follow a team of heroes grow together as they fight evil in increasingly silly scenarios, super sentai's probably the series for you (and my favorite ^_^)

watch kiramager if you want a straightforward throwback to classic sentai. it's a back-to-basics season that gives you a good baseline of what sentai as a whole can be, while elevated enough by its stellar cast and infectious energy so as to never feel generic

shinkenger takes a more dramatic approach to the usual sentai formula, following a team of samurai recruited to serve under a lord who isn't telling them everything he knows. an incredibly stylish show that's almost sure to leave an impression

kamen rider began as a tragic hero, kidnapped by the villainous organization shocker and turned into a cyborg against his will, ultimately escaping and using his newfound abilities to put an end to their evil. since the original story, kamen rider has gone through a whole host of various different tones and storylines, arguably becoming the most versatile of the big franchises, though certain elements remain consistent like the near ever-present bug motif or our heroes using powers derived from evil for the sake of good

created in the wake of the 2011 tohoku earthquake disaster, kamen rider fourze was made with the goal to make children smile again, and that desire led to something really special. arguably The Power of Friendship™ show to end all others, and while its upbeat tone might not exactly be in line with Classic Kamen Rider™, it stands as a great entry point thanks to the passion behind it and its clear love for the genre

probably best experienced as blind as possible, kamen rider build is a rollercoaster of a series full of high stakes, mystery, intrigue, and Heated Drama Between Men™. if you want something more serialized that'll keep you on the edge of your seat throughout, build's one of the very best

i also wanna mention kamen rider gotchard, the currently airing series! we're only 8 episodes in at the time of this post, so you could catch up quick while still going through the backlog. very much a back-to-basics season, introducing pokemon-style creatures for our protagonists to catch in addition to the usual superheroics. it's been pretty cute so far :)

ultraman is a sci-fi series that typically follows a defense team created to defend the earth from aliens and kaiju, aided by the giant of light, ultraman. as opposed to the other two franchises where there's often a serial plot to follow and a centralized villain faction, ultra typically thrives with telling standalone sci-fi stories, usually aligning with a show's overarching theme and often compared to shows like star trek or the twilight zone, though recent seasons have been more willing to switch up the format

ultraman x is for anyone who's ever asked, "but... what if we could be friends with godzilla?" young XiO scientist daichi becomes bonded with the alien ultraman x and work together to protect the earth and fight for a future where humans, aliens, and kaiju can coexist. to me this is like, the platonic ideal of what ultraman is, and a perfect starting point because of it. also features several crossover episodes with past ultra seasons throughout the show, but it's all still very new-viewer friendly and could even entice you to check out some of those shows yourself!

ultraman orb, the 50th anniversary of the series, changes course by making the defense team a background component in favor of following amateur investigators and the mysterious, lone wanderer who's suddenly entered their lives (hint: he's ultraman). another iconic entry in the Heated Drama Between Men Cinematic Universe and a nice balance between ultra's classic status quo and a more modern ongoing narrative

i'd also be remiss not to mention the currently airing ultraman blazar, which i unfortunately have not been able to keep up with due to outside circumstances but have heard NOTHING but glowing praise for. it's simulcast on youtube every week with english subtitles AND an optional english dub!

pretty much all of these can be snagged over at nyaa(.)si, and x and orb can be watched legally over on tubitv(.)com!

[perfectlyineffable]

The Matchbox Trick

When I watched through season 2 for the first time, I made notes as I went along, because I'd seen that Neil wanted this to be a mystery story, and he'd wanted the episodes to be released weekly to encourage discussion and theorising. Most of my notes were jumbled and half-formed thoughts that I scribbled down before eagerly hitting 'next episode', so there's very little considered writing in there. But one of my theories I was certain on from the beginning was that of the matchbox trick.

This is a long post, so the explanation is below the cut:

The Trick

For those that don't know, the matchbox trick is a very simple example of sleight of hand magic. You have an empty matchbox, the magician puts something into it (say, a coin), says the magic words, and the thing vanishes from the box! Then they say the magic words again, and it reappears! Magic.

If you don't know how it's done: very simply, the inner box of the matchbox is divided in half, and when saying the magic words, the sleight of hand is to spin the box round, so that the other half is shown instead, whether that's empty (it disappeared!) or full (it reappeared!).

The Hints

I first thought that this season might be a matchbox trick when Gabriel's matchbox first appeared on screen - after all, it's clearly important, there's a mystery to be solved, Muriel seems shocked by it, and we know Aziraphale's a magician. I thought it'd be a trick that plays out on screen, and he'd be the one to figure it out.

I was even more convinced of it when Michael examined the box for the first time. Because she doesn't just open it at one end to see if it's empty - she opens it at both, one after the other. And yet she doesn't take the whole inner box out (that would reveal the divider and give the trick away). So I was certain this was Neil/Douglas/the team giving us a clear but subtle set-up that there would be a matchbox trick this season.

Then there are other references/hints dotted throughout the season, too:

In episode 3, the Resurrectionist pub sign has two sides to it - Aziraphale only notices one on the way in, but we're shown both, and then he notices the other one on the way out. We're being shown how the trick is done, even if the characters in the show don't understand it yet.

In episode 4, Aziraphale performs another, slightly different sleight of hand magic trick by replacing the photograph in the envelope with a pamphlet instead. This is a slightly weaker link to the specific trick of the matchbox, and arguably the gun trick has just as much sleight of hand (mouth?) in it, but since it's close-up magic I thought it was relevant, like Neil saying to us: 'close-up sleight of hand tricks are important here'.

And of course, empty matchbox, empty cardboard box, empty archangel mind. There seemed to be a thread between the three, so I thought the 'important thing to prevent something terrible happening' would be in the cardboard box, and Gabriel's memories would still be in his head, you just needed to metaphorically turn him around to get them to reappear.

So I spent most of the season convinced that Gabriel's 'empty' cardboard box with a 'this way up' sign on it held an extra-dimensional space that could only be accessed by opening it upside down (the arrows pointing downwards, the direction he'd metaphorically gone from Heaven).

And I was... half right. You did in fact need to flip the box over to figure out the trick. But you didn't need to open it, the answer was just scrawled on the bottom. Huh. Okay, fair enough. Close enough.

The Theory

I was willing to accept that half-right was close enough on the cardboard box front. Maybe the attention to the matchbox was just telling us to flip it over, not open it upside down. Maybe Michael opening both sides of the matchbox didn't really mean what I thought it meant at all, it was just a coincidence or a red herring or the only thing important about it was its existence, not it being opened. Maybe the way the show highlighted the text on the matchbox was meant to hint that you should look for writing on the cardboard box, and that was all.

Then I read this meta by @ariaste. Now, I'm not sure I fully believe in it (I've been burned before by complex fan theories), but it's certainly thorough and convincing. And if it is correct... then maybe the matchbox trick was intended to be there, as yet another setup with no payoff. Maybe it's another clue that things aren't all what they seem.

Maybe the whole of Season 2 is a vanishing act - on Gabriel, on memory, on Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship - and the answer, all that's been lost, will be returned to us in Season 3. When the quote on the matchbox will make sense, when all of the dropped threads and setups-with-no-payoffs will be cascaded into action, when the box will be opened rather than only flipped over without anything being revealed.

Maybe this is nonsense rambling. Maybe I'm seeing details that aren't there. But either way, I trust Neil. Season 3 will be worth it, I believe that much. Everything will be okay in the end.

[lostyesterday]

I’ve been particularly interested in analyzing how disability is depicted in Star Trek Voyager recently, so I wanted to make a list of episodes that involve significant representations or themes of disability and neurodivergence:

Phage, Faces, and all the other Vidiian episodes: I’m grouping these together because my opinion on them is similarly negative, both in general and from a disability perspective. Making your alien race scary because they’re visibly scarred and disabled and making that be the root of why they’re immoral is, uh… bad.

Meld: Lon Suder is pretty clearly neurodivergent, though given the fact that he’s a murderer, I don’t think this is necessarily a positive thing. Arguably, what happens to Tuvok in the episode is also disability-adjacent. I have mixed feelings on this episode and its portrayal of violence as innate, especially as that connects to depictions of neurodivergence.

Year of Hell: Not particularly disability-themed, but Tuvok is blind in the episode, and I like the way they portrayed that on the whole even if it’s reversed by the end of the episode. I’ve said this before, but I really like the accommodations Tuvok is shown using like the tactile interface for the computer console, and I really wish Geordi in TNG had been shown to require similar accommodations.

Extreme Risk: This episode intentionally portrays B’Elanna as having depression, and overall I think it’s a well-written episode that does a good job of prioritizing B’Elanna’s own perspective rather than other characters’ perspectives. I do wish B’Elanna’s depression was something that Voyager focused on outside of this episode, but I can hardly blame the one episode that actually focuses on it for its lack of focus elsewhere. I really like this episode personally.

Latent Image: There are a couple EMH episodes I considered including, but this one feels the most disability adjacent in terms of the Doctor’s “malfunction” in the episode (arguably analogous to disability/neurodivergence) and in terms of the discussion of personal autonomy in relation to that. I think this episode brings up some interesting issues and my opinion of it is positive overall.

Riddles: In which Tuvok has a brain injury that affects him both physically and mentally. I really enjoy this episode personally, but my feelings on it in relation to disability are more complicated. Obviously, Tuvok gets suddenly cured at the end of the episode which negates a lot of potentially interesting things an episode like this could do, but at the same time I’m not going to argue a show like Voyager could have done things any differently. The discussions of dependence and recovery in relation to disability here are interesting. In general, I like how Tuvok has a fair amount of agency in the story and that he primarily isn’t infantilized. I do wish the episode focused a bit more on Tuvok’s perspective over Neelix’s.

Pathfinder: Barclay is pretty clearly neurodivergent, and I like the concept of his character in theory. In practice, I wish that many episodes he’s in didn’t use his social anxiety to excuse him being an asshole, especially when the same courtesy isn’t extended to female characters and characters of color (for example, B’Elanna Torres). This episode wasn’t as bad (or sexist) as some of the TNG episodes he’s in, but still.

Good Sheppherd: Arguably all three main characters in the episode are coded as neurodivergent. The “every person adds value to the team regardless of how weird they are” message of this episode fell a bit flat for me, and the root issues related to disability/neurodivergence aren’t explored to an extent I found satisfying. I’m not going to call it a bad episode, though – it’s okay.

Fury: This one I am going to call a bad episode. Definitely one of my least favorite episodes of Voyager, but technically older Kes is depicted as disabled. I hate everything about this episode, especially the way it depicts disability as affecting Kes.

Repentance: I also dislike this episode. It has similar (but worse) problems to Meld in terms of treating tendency toward violence as innate and denying that neurodivergent people are capable of having any autonomy/control over their actions.

Many Seven/Borg episodes, particularly The Gift, One, Infinite Regress, The Voyager Conspiracy, and Imperfection: I’ve talked extensively about my disability-related thoughts on Seven and the Borg so I’m not going to list these episodes separately.

If anyone else has any thoughts on any of these episodes or suggestions of other episodes that belong on this list that I didn’t include, I’d love to hear about it!

[mllemaenad]

Is there a reason FEV keeps turning up all over the place? Or for the differences in Super Mutants between regions? I've been assuming different strains, since the virus was experimental, but there might be another explanation.

The Doylist answer to this one is "because super mutants are iconic". They're the threat the Wasteland is facing in the original Fallout, and "where the hell are the big green guys coming from?" is that game's biggest mystery.

When you think of the aesthetic of Fallout, you get: vaults and vault suits, ghouls, super mutants and power armour. So you tend to get those things in all the games. There are Fallout stories without super mutants, but they're mostly DLC. While certainly not impossible, it seems highly unlikely that you're going to go a whole game without ever seeing a super mutant.

I say this because it helps to understand the starting point when the writers are putting together the story: we're having super mutants. That's not in question. We're just inventing the horribly unethical experiment that justifies their presence in this instance.

Okay. With that out of the way ... to go more Watsonian: why is FEV everywhere? Well, because it was a big pre-war project. Arguably, it was the big pre-war project.

It starts with the "New Plague", sometimes also known as the "Blue Flu". This was ... well, I guess imagine the horrible child of COVID and bubonic plague. Big pandemic that killed a whole lot of people in the 2050s. New Plague was also rumoured to be a Chinese bio-weapon. Now, I will note that there is not a lot of strong evidence in the games that this is true. "It was a naturally occurring virus that the US government fear-mongered about for the purposes of propaganda" and "it was some other horrible US research project gone wrong and released into the general populace" might also be reasonable explanations. But the New Plague existed, and it was at least believed to be engineered as a weapon by humans.

So the plan to solve that was the Pan-Immunity Virion, which was intended to be a one-and-done vaccine for any and all viruses. Which, in fairness, does sound pretty cool. Most pre-war projects just leave you wondering who the hell could have thought this was a good idea – but I'll give them that one. That would have been an excellent use of science. But while they were tinkering with that, they found that their test subjects got bigger, stronger and (sometimes) smarter.

Unforeseen side effects began surfacing in early 2076 with the PVP. Animal test subjects began showing an abnormal growth rate accompanied by increased brain activity. The U.S. government took notice of these discoveries, and in the interests of national security, moved a team on-site to secure and oversee the project, which was now dubbed the FEV (Forced Evolutionary Virus) project. – FEV Research, Fallout

This leads me to the another big pre-war problem: resource scarcity. See, the big military advancement that was allowing the US to hold its own in places like Alaska was power armour. Now, anybody who's played either Fallout 4 or Fallout 76 knows that power armour is a pain in the arse to maintain. It has to be built; it has to be repaired; it eats through fusion cores at an alarming rate. One of the jokes in the television series is each Brotherhood knight needing a squire along just to deal with the massive amount of work that goes into keeping a person functioning in power armour. And we are in the middle of the damn Resource Wars.

So ... okay. What if, instead of putting soldiers into walking tanks, we turned them into walking tanks? Solves your power problem in one hit, right? Reduced costs, more profit. Suddenly this isn't a medical project, it's a defence project. And the important thing here is that the power armour guys and the FEV guys are one and the same: West Tek Corporation. The people who built those suits the Brotherhood of Steel love so much also made the big green guys they keep picking fights with.

West Tek, much like Vault-Tec, was deeply entwined with the US government and likely the Enclave. They had a lot of free reign to do what they wanted. And what they wanted was to dunk humans in FEV to see what would happen.

We know they tested FEV on soldiers at the Mariposa base.

Log Date January 7, 2077 Major Barnett has ordered transfer of all FEV research to the Mariposa Military Base. He plans to continue the project experiments on volunteer subjects. I am against this, and would like it noted here that research on human subjects is not recommended by myself or my staff. – FEV Experiment Disk, Fallout

We know they tested it on civilians in the town of Huntersville.

The sickness that hit us around February is getting worse. Thanks to some doctor from West Tek, we haven't had any deaths yet. Thomas McDevitt was able to convince them to lend us a hand, and they sent help. Their doctor says it's nothing to worry about, just a rare strain of the flu virus. Tell me, what kind of a flu virus makes your skin start to change color and your hair to fall out? People are starting to get scared. Maybe I'll convince Thomas McDevitt to hop into his truck and head for Charleston or something, to get more help. Come to think of it, I haven't seen Thomas McDevitt since he went to West-Tek. – Gail Meyer's Journal, Fallout 76

We know that soldiers enforced these experiments in both cases. This was government sanctioned mass-FEV exposure.

While it was never surprising, the scene in the Fallout TV series demonstrating the various pre-war corporations collaborating on the vault experiments makes its presence in Fallout 3's Vault 87 pretty much a given. Why wouldn't West Tek try to continue its most tantalising, but perhaps least consistently successful, experiment once the bombs fell?

And like I said – West Tek, Vault-Tec, all those people were caught up with the Enclave. The Enclave loves FEV. If they are in an area, you can guarantee the virus is there as well. There are two separate attempts to just kill everyone by dosing them with FEV – Dick Richardson's Enclave tried it in Fallout 2 and John Henry Eden's tried it again in Fallout 3. The Scorchbeast situation in Fallout 76 seems to have been an accident, but I think there's a fair chance they had some FEV mixed in with their flux and ultracite, given how radical the results were.

Thomas Eckhart: So you're telling me we're responsible for this thing? It's what? A mutated bird? Some kind of vulture or something? Enclave Scientist: Mister Secretary, based on the physiology we're assuming something originating from the Chiroptera order before undergoing changes… bats, sir. But it's not just a result of radiation, sir. The specimen was inadvertently exposed to our biochemical tests last year, considered a failure at the time. – Whitespring Automated Recording five-point-four-point-eight, Fallout 76

The West Coast Enclave had access to FEV by the time of Fallout 2 (around 2241); Appalachia may have had it earlier (it was easily accessible, in Huntersville). So you've got enormous pre-war companies with a heavy investment in FEV spreading it everywhere, and at least one post-war faction running around with it – and that faction does not care about anybody's wellbeing in the slightest. No wonder that crap is all over the place. I also suspect, given the lax safety standards of pre-war America, and the general chaos of the post-war period, that there's a lot more ambient FEV floating about than is actually documented.

But that brings me to the second part of this – different types of super mutant. To get back on the Doylist train again for a minute: FEV is specifically designed to be the plot device virus. It does whatever the story needs it to do. It's both highly modifiable and wildly unstable so you can have "we tried to do this wacky thing and it succeeded!" scenarios and you can also have "we tried to do a thing and this wacky nonsense happened instead" scenarios. The same exposure event produced both the Master, who is not a super mutant by any stretch of the imagination, and the whole Harold-and-the-tree situation.

That said, I have a few different lines of thought here. One: different strains of FEV seem less important than the various other things to which the victim has been exposed. Two: I don't think there's a lot of evidence for massive differences in super mutants specifically. Three: I think, as I said, that it's at least possible that FEV has been involved in some of the known "wild" mutations out there, and that this can tie those two earlier points together to create a better picture of FEV mutants.

To the first point: we know for a fact that radiation exposure is a major factor in what sort of super mutants you get. The Master figured this out by trial and error:

Oh glorious creator!! I have succeeded in spreading the complete joy of unification to another soul! Unlike the others, his total radiation count was low. I believe this is the factor we have been overlooking all this time, as it seems the conversion is more successful in the cases with less radiation damage. I have never known such glory as I felt when taking his mind into our own. – Richard Grey's audio diary, Fallout

... and the Institute confirmed the same:

This is Doctor Elliott, reporting for the BioScience division. March 2224. We just received another batch of… subjects… but as my previous report stated, we're at an impasse here. More of the same won't help. I am officially echoing the team's position: the most likely progress for our research on synthetic organics requires new avenues of exploration. The two most promising strains of FEV have been adapted to an ideal state, but… we're still missing something. Additional Commonwealth subjects will not help. It's the same problem across the board: exposure to too much radiation. We need something… someone new. There's a proposal we'll be putting forward… I am not entirely comfortable with it, but it seems the best course. – FEV Research Notes: 2224, Fallout 4

This is why the Institute needed to kidnap the Sole Survivor's son in Fallout 4. You just do not get good results when you expose post-war humans to FEV. Whatever adaptations or relatively benign mutations the radiation has caused react badly with the virus.

It's worth noting here that the Institute does actually seem to have successfully completed the original West Tek project. I mean ... synths. They're human, but with increased resilience and disease resistance, and "Coursers" specifically function as a kind of super solidier. Pre-war DNA, appropriately modified FEV, and a hell of a lot of tinkering – and that's what you get. That's exactly what West Tek was trying to do. Implanting chips into their brains to control them is a bit of Institute-specific evil, but I'm pretty sure West Tek would have approved.

With less rigorous testing, you get on the one hand people like Marcus and Lily: super mutants with minimal radiation who seem to have survived the process changed, but nevertheless as complete people. Marcus is very much just a normal guy (terrible aim with a minigun; never ever give Marcus a minigun, but otherwise ... ) and most of Lily's issues seem to be caused by stealth boy use, rather than FEV specifically. On the other hand you get people who clearly had suffered some degree of radiation exposure. This covers most of your generic super mutant foes, but also people like Gond (a super mutant NCR ranger in Fallout 2), or Grahm (a super mutant trader in Fallout 76). They have suffered some degree of brain damage – but they remain people.

Okay. So what do I mean about there being little evidence for differences in super mutants? Putting that Doylist hat back on for a second ... super mutants primarily serve the same purpose across all the games: big, tough enemies for your character to fight. This isn't just a Bethesda thing either: Fallout and Fallout 2 both used mobs of super mutants as enemy encounters. So their behaviour and characteristics have to fit with that function, and any storytelling is going to revolve around that. You could have had the FEV do something different with them, but they didn't.

Back to the Watsonian version ... once you recognise that you are only likely to get super mutants like Marcus if the victim came from either a vault, or somewhere equally protected from radiation, there's just not a lot of difference between the super mutants in general. FEV seems to:

increase aggression – and this is something even largely peaceful super mutants seem to struggle with. For example, Gail in Fallout 76 will tell you that she refrains from violence at the request of her adopted daughter.

impact speech – this is obviously a stylistic choice, as super mutants fit into the "B-movie sci-fi" aesthetic that defines Fallout. Their broken speech is less about the science of FEV and more about "how monsters talk". A few super mutants are exempt from this, obviously, but it's supposed to be shocking to hear a super mutant talk "normally".

affect memory - this may explain the former point, at least somewhat. If super mutants need to relearn speech post-infection, then their manner of speech could simply be the product of copying each other. It's noteworthy that this one seems to be true even in the least affected super mutants: Marcus's memories of his former life are hazy and Fawkes has no idea what he was doing before the FEV. It seems to be progressive, at least in some cases: Marcus's exact words are "My memories of being a human aren’t as clear as they once were"; Brian Virgil still knows who he is; Lily definitely still remembers her grandchildren. But that loss of identity is a persistent theme across most super mutants.

So with all of that, it seems like you're mostly dealing with situational differences. In addition to what are functionally super mutant raider gangs in Fallout 2 there are also many of them living peacefully in places like Broken Hills.

Fallout: New Vegas specifically deals with the interaction between super mutants derived from non-irradiated humans and irradiated ones. Tabitha, a nightkin, refers to the latter as " dumb dumbs" because ... she's helpful like that.

The radio station is fixed, and we've begun sending our message out into the desert. Marcus thinks I spend too much time in here, but what does a first gen know? Rhonda says they're just one step from dumb dumbs, and I agree. – Tabitha's Journal, Fallout: New Vegas

Super mutants in Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 occupy strategic buildings, and seem to have deliberately tamed creatures like mutant hounds and floaters. There's evidence of strategic thinking in Fallout 4: Fist was using Rex to lure more humans and the whole affair was just hilarious to every super mutant in the building (bar Strong). Likewise, Hammer clearly knew exactly what he was doing when he occupied West Everett Estates:

Fist, this is Hammer. I got a human to make the machine work. We found a good place. Already has walls and water. Some human made a tiny room under ground with many good things inside. Send more people so we can raid more. We give you these guns for trade. – Hammer's Holotape, Fallout 4

There's less of that in Fallout 76, but in its earliest version that game had zero interest in presenting functional societies of any kind. When friendly super mutants showed up, they behaved much the same as the examples in other games. There isn't a friendly super mutant town in Appalachia as of this writing, but there could be, if Bethesda ever decides to take the story in that direction. There was no peace with the super mutants in Fallout 4, either, but there could be, one day, under the right circumstances.

Aside from size and the distinctive green skin, there's not a lot of difference between a super mutant and a raider. You're looking at a bunch of angry, amnesiac people who were not likely having a great time even before they got dipped.

That handles most super mutants ... but it obviously doesn't address the elephant in the room: Fallout 3. What about the super mutants of the Capital Wasteland?

We know, absolutely, that the scientists in Vault 87 were experimenting with multiple strains of FEV:

Once again, I've hit that damn wall. At fourteen days, all of the test subjects began to exhibit severe bouts of rage and anxiety. So much so that they were a danger to my team and to this facility. I had no choice once again but to order them to be destroyed. It pains me every time we do this. The same cycle has been repeated in every strain we test. We always see superior physical adaptations, but the mental changes are their downfall. – Chief physician's terminal, Fallout 3

That could definitely account for things like their gold skin, markedly different to the prevailing super mutant green. But the key thing is that they got the same results with every strain they tried. And they were working with vault dwellers, which is supposed to make it easier. So what gives? Well, one thing we also know is that their maintenance chief had persistent problems with radiation:

Vault-Tec's crappy handiwork is at it again. I have spent the better part of a month patching and re-patching the radiation purge system that vents excess radiation from the G.E.C.K. chamber. I have no idea why this system keeps failing. I suspect the system is simply inadequate and can't handle the amount of radiation it's purging. Recommend installing a new purging system as soon as I can get one cobbled together from spare parts. Should have it ready in about a month. – Engineering terminal, Fallout 3

I strongly suspect that the residents of Vault 87 had suffered radiation exposure. Not lethal amounts – we're not talking "leave the vault door open to see what happens" levels here – but enough. They were functionally no different to surface dwellers. Thus the scientists got the exact same results with every FEV strain: aggression, memory loss and distress.

In terms of their behaviour, I think Fallout 3 is best understood as an extrapolation of the "worst" ending of the original Fallout – that is, the ending where the Master wins. You can read through them all on the wiki, and despite all the Master's big promises there's never any blissful "Unity": just a wave of super mutants washing over every settlement, wiping them away. This is what's happening in Fallout 3, and by the time the Lone Wanderer arrives on the scene there's little left.

The original inhabitants of Vault 87 were survivors of a nuclear war. They suffered tremendous loss and grief even within the vault: people who were murdered by the scientists were listed as "unexplained" deaths. They were the victims of hideous experiments that deprived them of their identities. And when they broke free, they inflicted all that grief and misery on the Capital Wasteland. They are without purpose or cause. They are just angry and confused. They don't know who they were or what happened to them.

But how different to their brethren are they, really? You can listen to some of their dialogue:

This is boring. We should be collecting more humans. We need more of us! The bucketheads have killed too many… – Super mutant dialogue, Fallout 3

That's a rational enough statement, in context. By 2277 the super mutants are locked in a decades long conflict with the Brotherhood of Steel. They are aggressively dipping people just as the Brotherhood is recruiting from the locals, to replace their numbers.

I'm hungry! I need something to eat. Meat would be good… A Brahmin head, roasted just a bit, with some… – Super mutant dialogue, Fallout 3

Perfectly reasonable. Who doesn't dream about dinner when they're hungry?

They are not mindless, and they haven't necessarily suffered more damage than an average West Coast super mutant.

Fawkes is obviously the exceptional super mutant in this case: the companion character, the one who came through all this relatively unscathed. But there is also Leo: a super mutant who has largely forgotten himself, but who has chosen peace.

And this, which makes me especially sad, from Fallout 4's terminal entries:

As the years passed, and Arthur Maxson grew, so too did his accomplishments. At age 12, while on a training patrol, he killed two Raiders and saved the squad that was supposed to be escorting him. At age age 13, he single-handedly killed a Deathclaw (and gained the large facial scar he still has to this day). But it was his victory at age 15, over the Super Mutant "Shepherd" who was attempting to re-organize the Capital Wasteland's Super Mutants, that elevated him to hero-like status. When word of this feat reached the Elders back on the West Coast, they knew the time had come… Maxson was ready. Ready to lead and, more importantly, to reunite the fragmented Brotherhood of Steel forces on the East Coast. – The Rise of Elder Maxson: Accomplishments, Fallout 4

That's a super mutant with a name. A super mutant with a drive to organise his people. I'm frankly suspicious of the idea that he was a war leader with a name like "Shepherd", but even if he was organisation of the Capital Wasteland super mutants would be broadly positive. Yes, it might make them a tougher enemy to fight ... but it could also open up the possibility of negotiation, or even peace. It would be a step away from mindless violence. Until the Brotherhood put a stop to that.

So I am not sure there is a significant distinction between the types of super mutant, specifically. Okay, but FEV definitely does some bizarre stuff. We have Harold and the Master; we have floaters, centaurs and mutant hounds; we have intelligent deathclaws (I miss them; I loved them); we have that one genius mole rat from Fallout 2.

So why would super mutants be consistent? Well, I'd suggest maybe they're not. It's just that "super mutant" is what you get when you expose a person to FEV under certain circumstances. I suspect that other mutated humans may also have an FEV component to them, and when the differences are big enough we stop calling them super mutants.

This is not meant to be exhaustive. There are a lot of mutants in the Fallout universe and this post is quite long enough. Nor is it meant to be definitive proof that these are FEV mutants. We mostly can't know. My argument is that: we know FEV gets around; we know environmental elements can have a significant impact on what you get out of FEV exposure; in some cases we know we are looking at quite extensive changes in a short period of time.

Group 1 - Psychics: There are people in several of the games that seem to demonstrate psychic ability. Sulik, in Fallout 2, is quite uncanny with his insights when communing with his grandfather's spirit. The Forecaster, in Fallout: New Vegas is able to foresee certain evrnts. Mama Murphy, in Fallout 4 takes chems to receive visions of past, present and future. We know the Master in the original Fallout experimented with an FEV "psyker" project. It did not go well. While there seem to be some side effects, the people listed above are largely fine, so this would presumably involve extremely mild exposure to FEV.

Group 2 – Trogs: "Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion" is an environmental mutation suffered by residents of the Pitt. Like classic FEV "super mutant" exposure, these individuals suffer from memory loss and aggression. Unlike super mutants, they are small (ish) and wiry, and very much built for speed. We know that radiation and toxic chemicals play a part in their mutation, and it is noteworthy that the Fallout 3 Official Game Guide makes a reference to "unidentified mutagens". It is also noteworthy that there are Trogs in Fallout 76, which begins 25 years after the bombs dropped. So whatever happened here happened fast. We're not looking at two centuries of change.

Group 3 – Mole Miners: There is very little lore on these people, but they are also a very rapid mutation: they are present in Appalachia at the start of Fallout 76. As there are "classic" super mutants in the area, these may be an interaction between FEV and the toxic air found in the mines.

Group 4 – Swampfolk: Admittedly this one is a bit of a reach, but they very much fill the super mutant niche in Point Lookout. I acknowledge that there's an unpleasant joke about "hillbillies" and "inbreeding" here, but I think it's also worth noting that these people suffered from both radiation exposure and apparently New Plague. This would be an interaction between multiple types of engineered viruses.

I know, I know: this is a lot of words. So – the "too long, didn't read" version:

FEV is everywhere because a bunch of careless and malevolent pre- and post-war groups put it there. They also dumped it in the water in at least one location, and once you've done that the stuff can get anywhere.

While there are different strains, environmental factors are probably more significant in determining what kind of mutant you get.

What we call a "super mutant" has relatively little variation, with the major factor being how much radiation exposure the person had, and consequently how much brain damage they have suffered.

There are a lot of other types of mutated human out there, and where FEV is involved you're likely looking at wild variations based on various environmental factors. But we don't call those people super mutants, because that's a very specific type of FEV mutant.

[unmanageably]

whats the tea on kd leaving the warriors? i was a casual fan at the time it happened so i don't know the situation

well... let me be brief (1/278)

lmao jk but.... well a lot! and most of it is speculation, etcetc ofc we'll never truly know until 20 years later when the last dance-esque documentary comes out about the warriors in the steph curry era lmao-- but the story goes like this:

kevin durant was the superstar of okc thunder and was steadily building up the franchise over the years to become serious contenders for a championship. they were always close, but had never quite made it. but with a good FO/org behind him, westbrook by his side, they were always really close— but again, as we all know, it was never enough (made the finals in 2012. lost. would make the playoffs but always got defeated). in 2016, they once again get really close at the western conference finals where they led the series 3-1 against the warriors. despite that they lose. a mere month later, he joins the warriors: a team that's obviously at the beginning of a dynasty— they won a championship in 2015 and made it into the finals in 2016. but more importantly, the team that beat kevin durant and okc thunder at the conference finals.

there were layers to this "betrayal" and to this day people still think this one decision "ruined the sport" (lol). people saw it as a betrayal on KD's part and it took an incredible hit to his reputation. you almost make it to the finals, you have an incredible teammate in westbrook by your side, an org that supports you and is willing to uplift you to your highest star potential, and you leave? to join the team that BEAT you? to the team that has steph curry, klay thompson, draymond green, andre iguodala?

already a hugely successful team without KD, but with him, it was undeniable. a superteam. yeah, a lot of team has duos or trios. lebron and kyrie, lebron and dwade, harden and cp3, etcetc. but this team was different levels. a whole team full. the team was 73-9 without KD. massively talented already. but now? steph, KD, klay as offensive threats. draymond and andre as defensive threats. insanely good roleplayers like shaun livingston.

everyone was livid. not just OKC fans. everyone in the league! the warriors, and KD's name specifically was tarnished. how disrespectful for the warriors to even think about creating a team like this. how disrespectful for KD to leave an org that's done so much for him. sports media was tearing into them, fans were tearing into them, they were quite literally, the most hated north american sports team. fans were burning jerseys, making videos threatening KD, etc.

we all know how KD with the warriors went. winning fixes all, right? arguably the most dominant team in nba history (2017 warriors vs 1996 bulls a common debate to this day), the warriors absolutely dominated the nba, and went on to win the 2017 and 2018 championships. KD finally gets his two rings and a FMVP. and the warriors still stay the most hated team in the league. you either loved the warriors or hated them! no in between. the narrative is that KD's rings were called into question because he "had a superteam" so they weren't "valid".

2018-2019 is when it all kinda starts falling apart. the warriors are plagued with injuries, and it's just clear they don't have the synergy and chemistry that they did before. it was most clear during a game against the clippers where draymond and kd visibly fought after a bad play at the end where draymond refused to pass to kd. draymond had allegedly yelled at kd and told him to just leave the warriors, and that they didn't need him (kd's contract was up that year as well). KD has said in later years that that argument was kind of like the ~last straw for him and the nail in the coffin for him leaving. he had already been having feelings of being "the odd man out"— though they were winning together and had good synergy on court, the core3 plus the other players were already a tight knit family long before he had arrived. after the incident with draymond, the team never really sat down and talked about it: just brushed it under the rug (dray was suspended for one game but nothing was talked about). KD felt like it was a slap in the face, all this stuff about how gsw is known for good team chemistry and good culture but they just wanted to brush that very public incident under the rug? after that he started playing more selfishly— less like how they would play as a team and more in isolation. KD gets injured during the finals, and as we know, klay gets injured as well: we lose the finals. we don't get the sought after three-peat. KD signs with the brooklyn nets and the rest is history.

i talked a lot about the beginning of KD signing on to the warriors because i feel like that was really the root of why he left. he became one of the most hated players in north american sports. his own fans tore into him. sports media all tore into him. calling him mentally weak, pathetic, etc. and does winning fix all? i feel like KD with the warriors was proof that... it doesn't. KD gets two rings that he basically sold his soul to the devil for AND two FMVPs and people still don't respect him. on top of that he wins it with the warriors: which has always been and will always be Steph Curry's Team. yeah he was integral to those wins, but you can't compete with how steph has built the dynasty, yk? what steph has given to the warriors.

so at the end of the day, the story goes like this: KD "betrays" okc by going to the team who beat him in the conference finals, creates the first real "superteam" in the nba (the superteam discourse is a whole other thing smh like teams aren't trying to do that now but i digress). the whole sports world is going in on him, he's basically sold his soul for these rings. he gets his rings, he gets his FMVP. but his legacy and reputation is still called into question: he's integral but still won his rings and his FMVPs on STEPH CURRYs team, not his. Steph's. on top of all the outside noise, internally he's not happy either. he doesn't feel protected within the team. he has beef with draymond, and steph/klay + the franchise will clearly always have their loyalty to draymond. he doesn't buy into the team culture anymore, and he feels like the odd one out. the only thing that could make him stay would be to keep winning more rings. but the two rings he has didn't fix anything. so why stay? what does he have going for him?

(he goes on to bounce between different teams, tries to build his own superteams but never comes as close as he did. meanwhile steph klay and draymond go through a tough two years, considerably the lowest two years in the steph/core3 era, and come out on top: they win the '22 finals, against a celtics team that had an 84% chance of winning the finals. they save their dynasty, their legacy. steph proves that he won a chip BEFORE KD, during KD, and AFTER KD as well.)

[descendant-of-truth]

I finished rewatching Axess today and now I'm even more mad than I already was about them not including the fact that Netto and Rockman are brothers

You're telling me that they added a whole plot about Yuriko being the long-lost twin sister of Mariko who had been presumed dead during her childhood and DIDN'T use that as an opportunity to parallel the main characters?? The main characters consisting of twins who were separated by a screen and secrecy for years of their lives while one was presumed dead by the other???

I just. it was RIGHT THERE. they had to go out of their way to make Yuriko a character with that much drama behind her and yet they couldn't be bothered to use the built-in twin drama from the original games??

Like, if there was any plot point that deserved to be expanded on in an adaptation of that series, it was the fact that Rockman was originally a human before he died and was brought back as a navi by Yuuichiro. It's a story that begs to be explored but for some reason I can't fathom, it's not included in any of the adaptations.

And it just keeps getting more outrageous because Yuriko's main purpose in the first game was to foreshadow the brother reveal. She asks Netto if he's a twin and you can respond with either yes or no, something that seems a bit silly on a surface level but might prompt the player to start asking questions.

The game actually does a really good job with hinting at it if you interact with the right people and items, rewarding your engagement with story details you might not otherwise see. And it's a right shame that we never got to see how the writers of the anime or manga might have tackled it, because it fundamentally changes so much about how you perceive the story.

Netto and Rockman being best friends doesn't lack emotional impact by any means, but it's so much more complicated when they're brothers. In the anime and manga, Rockman existing in a different world from Netto is just How Things Are, but in the games... it wasn't supposed to be that way.

There's an underlying sense of tragedy to the situation, made hopeful by the fact that Netto and Rockman are still brothers who make an amazing team despite the barrier between them (and in some cases, arguably because of it)

And there's... a little bit of that in the adaptations, I suppose? They do occasionally lament the fact that they can't live in the same world, and are overjoyed when something plot-related happens that lets them do that for a brief amount of time, but it's inherently a different conflict.

I wonder if anyone's asked about this during an interview, because it just boggles the mind how something so important and obvious to the story was left out to dry in all the adaptations

[real-life-senshi]

10 (Mostly) Spoiler-Free Reasons to Watch Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon 2003 Live Action

A countdown to the 20th anniversary of Act 1 air date!

Reason 10: The three live-action original Senshi!

Technically introducing these 3 Senshi would count as a spoiler, but not introducing them would mean I'm not doing justice in convincing people to give the live-action a try! SO I'M GOING FOR IT.

Still, anything I share here would be introductory, and I won't go into the story surrounding these characters at all. And as I mentioned basically this whole time in this series of posts, the storytelling is where it counts when it comes to the live-action!

Without further ado, I'm starting off with the most iconic original Senshi of them all:

Sailor Dark Mercury - more well-known as Darkury

Yes! We get a villain version of a Senshi! ABSOLUTELY GLORIOUS!

Ami-chan in the live-action is basically the most even-tempered person out there. So imagine the sweetest, MOST kindhearted girl going absolutely apeshit, then you are probably not too far off imagining Darkury's behaviour. And imagine the smartest person you know working against you... now that's one adversary you'd want to avoid!

The unique story surrounding Darkury holds a special place for many fans of the live-action. It's proof of the live-action's amazing writing and unapologetic differences to its original source material, and marks a joy only audience of live-action get to enjoy in the whole Sailor Moon franchise!

Princess Sailor Moon

Princess Sailor Moon is the only alternate/upgraded Senshi form the audience gets to see in the live-action series, since the show only covers one arc so there are no new forms of transformation for the Senshi. Not only she has a harp, but she also has a SWORD instead of a magic wand! HOW COOL IS THAT??!!!!! Senshi with swords/actual weapons and looking fierce is like my favourite thing!!!

She is undoubtedly powerful, and this costume of this form is stunning! I personally really love the pastel pink matched with the midnight blue!

To new viewers of the live-action, don't let the official promo picture of a smiling Princess Sailor Moon or your pre-existing knowledge of the overall franchise fool you into a sense of security of knowing what’s coming though. She is so much more than what meets the eye, and her first appearance in the show is absolutely EPIC!!!!

Sailor Luna

Yes, that is cat ears and a cat tail... Yes, this is Luna.

Luna eventually gets a human form AND a Senshi form in the live-action. It's arguable how powerful she actually is, but she certainly has her moments of cleverness, sneakiness, and... comedy.

My best guess is, that the live-action screenwriting made this version of Luna by pulling in elements from ChibiUsa's early Senshi days - where ChibiUsa often overestimates her strength, and her inexperience puts her in awkward and unhelpful positions for the rest of the Senshi. Even the actress originally thought she was cast as ChibiUsa during the audition process.

In this case though, because Luna fills the role of a trainer and adviser to the Senshi team, so as a Senshi, we see her choice of action feel less amateur in terms of battle instinct and strategy, but her actual strength is certainly secondary to being a true Senshi. The imbalance often causes some unexpected and hilarious results in battle, and no one really knows what to expect and how to react - to be impressed or to laugh!

You can watch the subbed versions of the series at:

Miss Dream Fansubs

Sea of Serenity Fansubs

The series is also on other online streaming sites, but be cautious to only visit them with good adware and firewall installed.

1 last day till the 20th anniversary of Act 1 air date!

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

[giriduck]

So far, BotW and TotK trailers have shown us several different (potential) faces of Ganondorf, coded in a variety of ways:

[Neutral] The petroglyph of him in armor, seated on his giant horse, armed with a trident, riding in to battle with Gerudo horseback archers.

[Neutral but sympathetic] A brief flash of when he was potentially captured or sacrificed below ground: his body thin and thrown backward and off balance as a mysterious, clawed hand darts for his chest.

[Neutral to Evil but sympathetic] A mummified husk of a man caught in a horrific undead stasis for perhaps thousands of years, presumably bound by that glowing clawed hand. The presumed malice around him is calmer, perhaps dormant. Once reanimated, his original eyes are replaced with malice eyeballs as tendrils of agitated malice burst from his body.

[Evil] A petroglyph panel of a huge bearded man, grinning as a horde of monsters rush toward armed people, as malice covers the land.

[Neutral to potentially Good] Character art of a very beefy Ganondorf, with echoes of warrior priest with high ronin energy, devoid of his characteristic smirk and malicious grin, crowned with a magatama similar to the one Zelda wears. He is arguably coded to appear potentially more heroic, humbled, vulnerable, and less evil. His stance and appearance looks suspiciously similar to the Ancient Hero in the tapestry from 10k years ago.

Hypothesis of Ganondorf’s involvement in TotK under the cut.

This aligns to a lot of the hypotheses from others with the release of the first trailer, but I think we’re going to get flashbacks to a more sympathetic Ganondorf from ages past, much like how the flashback system of Breath of the Wild allowed the player some insight into who Zelda was a century ago. Prior interviews with the Ocarina of Time writers mentioned that they originally wanted to make Ganondorf a fallen hero. This might be a new narrative team’s swing at doing just that: That we get glimpses of Ganondorf’s heroics and eventual downfall before we eventually face what’s left of him, tens of thousands of years later.

If this is the case, I have no good speculation around how they could insert a less-evil Ganondorf into the earlier timeline without one or more of the following: 1.) prior evil Ganondorf(s) had died but he was reincarnated / reborn into a fresh new life (perhaps at a time when Link isn’t around, so there is less of the cosmic balancing act between the Hylia / Demise influence?), 2.) at some point down the line, there was a split of Ganon from Ganondorf, 3.) multiverse shenanigans (like Termina), 4.) something something time travel hijinks.

Regardless of the underlying scenarios, I think we’re going to see an almost pre-Ocarina of Time-like arc of Ganondorf turning into a villain; an origin story of that epoch. I hope there is nuance and layers and depth to him and his whole story. Zelda certainly was portrayed in Breath of the Wild as a far more flawed and complex person than just damsel in distress; it’s about time we get more insight into who Ganondorf was / is as a person.