#but these two concepts are inextricably linked in my mind

[nerdydaydreamer]

Chapter 8: Of Dreams and Deliverance

MASTERLIST

Summary: Plucked from her mundane life and thrust into a glass prison alongside the captured King of Dreams, Nora becomes an unlikely confidante and defiant voice in his silent torment. As a century blurs into freedom, she discovers her own impossible existence is inextricably linked to Morpheus himself, compelling them to face future challenges and rebuild his shattered realm, together.

Previous Chapter

~The Prison’s Paradox~

The thought was so clear in her head, a stark contrast to the deep, rumbling amusement that had just echoed through it. She couldn’t believe it. One, he was communicating with her. Two, he was laughing at her. How dare he! And three… holy shit, does he have a nice voice.

I mean, it was somewhat to be expected, she reasoned, her thoughts racing. As the King of Dreams, of course he would have a voice that could lull you to sleep. But God damn, did it also have to be so seductive?

The chuckling in her head tailored off as he seemed to focus, the amusement replaced by a new, direct thought.

It appears I was wrong about not also reading your thoughts as well as projecting them.

The projected sentence was laced with so much dry humor that the meaning hit Nora like a physical blow. He had heard her. He had heard her internal debate. He had heard her comment about how good his voice sounded.

Nora was now, and would forever be, utterly mortified. She wanted the glass floor to swallow her whole. Her own internal thoughts had betrayed her.

As if sensing her desire to cease existing, another thought, softer this time, brushed against her mind.

You do not need to worry. It is only the thoughts you are thinking hard about.

That doesn’t help at all, Nora thought with a fresh wave of embarrassment. She wasn’t consciously trying to think hard about how his voice sounded; the thought had just erupted on its own. It seemed her mind had a mind of its own, and it was currently determined to humiliate her.

She pushed the mortification aside and focused her attention on Morpheus, trying to gather her thoughts into a single, direct line. She pictured the question in her mind, concentrating on it, and aimed it at him. How long have you been able to do this? She hoped it reached him with the same startling clarity his thoughts had reached her.

His voice, that very same deep and resonant voice, answered in her mind. It is something I have theorized for a while, but I have only just now attempted it. The guards are forced to take stimulants to stay awake, yet you are able to sleep in my presence without worry. I am unable to access your subconscious while you sleep, but your outer mind… it seems that remains accessible. Morpheus explained his theory, the concepts of minds and magic flowing into her head with perfect lucidity.

Nora nodded along as if, yes, absolutely, all of this made perfect sense. A mortal trapped in a magical cage communicating telepathically with an ancient, otherworldly being. A perfectly normal Tuesday.

She paused for a moment, then looked him directly in the eye, gathering her sincerity and projecting it with all her might. Well, considering everything, it's an honor to meet you, regardless of the circumstances. A small, genuine smile touched her lips. I’m Nora.

Morpheus’s face remained a carefully sculpted mask, revealing nothing. But his eyes were a different story. They had always been the betrayers of his stoic façade, and now that Nora knew what to look for, they were as easy to read as a book.

His voice filled her mind again, formal and vast. Hello, Nora. I am Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, King of Dreams and Nightmares.

He paused, a flicker of hesitation that was not a sound but a palpable silence in her head. When his thoughts resumed, the grand titles were gone, replaced by something far more personal. I am sorry that you are trapped here.

The connection between them was, in theory, just a projection of thoughts, a string of silent words sent from his mind to hers. But what Nora felt was so much more. She didn’t just hear the apology; she felt it. It was a wave of emotion that washed over her, ancient and profound. It wasn’t pity. It was a deep, soul-heavy sorrow, the regret of a king who had inadvertently brought ruin upon an innocent.

A wave of her own sincerity pushed back against his sorrow. Thank you, but this is not your fault. She thought the words with a fierce clarity. All of this, she projected, gesturing with a small, frustrated wave of her hand to the glass walls and the gloomy basement, is because of Roderick Burgess. He’s the one who chose to capture you. He’s the one who locked you here and he’s the one that refused to set you free. Him adding me into the equation as another incentive to get you to give him what he wants is, again, on him. Everything about this is Roderick Burgess’s fault. And then eventually Alex’s. But absolutely none of it is because of you.

She paused, letting her conviction sink in before continuing. I don’t regret my decision. Burgess wasn’t going to get squat from you, and I definitely wasn’t going to help. Even after everything, and somewhat knowing what is to come, I don’t regret it. I don’t know how long we’ll be down here, but at least now we can talk. So that’s a good thing.

Nora ended on a hopeful note, a small, stubborn spark in the oppressive darkness. But her last sentence, her casual acceptance of an unknown but lengthy future, brought a different thought to the forefront of Morpheus’s mind. She spoke of the future as if it were a guarantee, an endless stretch of time. She was not wrong, but she shouldn’t be. Her mortal body had been without food or water for over a month. The fact that she was not a withered husk was an impossibility, a flagrant violation of the natural laws he knew so well. It was an anomaly he had been observing, but had not yet addressed. Now, with the bridge of communication open between them, he decided to bring it up.

Nora, his thought came, measured and deliberate. He paused again, a habit of his, she was learning, that gave his words a certain weight. I have been thinking about the peculiars of your survival.

Another pause, this one filled with a thoughtful, analytical quality. The circle on the floor… the runes painted within it were designed to sever my connection to my realm, The Dreaming. It is an immensely powerful piece of magic, a wall built of will and blood. My theory is that by being brought inside its confines, you have become subject to its laws as well. It has not frozen you in time, as you still think and feel, but it appears to have… paused your physical body's needs. It is why you do not hunger or thirst.

He let her absorb that before continuing with the final, crucial piece of his hypothesis. The spell was designed to hide its contents from everyone, to be a perfect blind spot in the fabric of existence. It locks me, an Endless, away from my kingdom. I believe it also prevents my siblings from perceiving what is within. My sister, Death, would have come for you days after you were trapped in here. The fact that she has not… it suggests that even she cannot pierce this veil. The circle that cages me is also, in its own way, keeping you alive.

Nora let his explanation sink in, the sheer, impossible logic of it settling around her like a strange, heavy blanket.

Huh. Okay, she thought, the words feeling small and inadequate in the face of such cosmic reasoning. Well, that’s true… I hope you haven’t gotten tired of me yet, because it seems, based on that thought process, that I’ll be here with you until you escape.

Morpheus looked at her after the thought landed, his gaze steady. It quietly amazed him. After everything that had happened—the betrayal, the violence, being sealed in a glass prison to await an unknown fate—she still found a sliver of a bright side. Yes, she was trapped here for the foreseeable future, her life now inextricably tied to his own captivity and eventual freedom. Yet, her immediate reaction was one of optimistic companionship. She seemed genuinely happy that now they could communicate, that he, Lord Morpheus, would not have to endure the silence alone anymore.

He could feel the sincerity of her relief, and it was directed more at him than at herself. She seemed happier that he would have another person to share the torment with, no matter how sad that sounded. It was an empathy so profound and selfless it almost defied belief.

The silence that followed was different. It wasn’t empty or oppressive anymore; it was filled with the lingering amazement of their new connection. Nora couldn’t stop thinking about it, realizing with a jolt that she had likely heard more from him in the last hour than any other living person had in over a decade.

Next Chapter

-

Thank you so much for reading! As always, comments and feedback are appreciated! 🩷

[general-brain-rot]

The Soul and that time you first googled “what is depression?”

I think what I’m really enjoying about the course of Deltarune so far has been my interpretation of the relationship between Kris, the protagonist, and the Soul, the embodiment of the player. The two entities are independent of each other yet inextricably linked through some Gaster mumbo-jumbo or just some greater plot we aren’t aware of at this time, but what’s important is that basically two sets of personalities are residing inside one body and that is causing, uhhhh, problems for everyone involved. Kris often tears us out of their own chest in obvious pain to seek out surprisingly mundane things without our watchful gaze and consuming control, like downing an entire warm pie left in the kitchen or absolutely demolishing multiple glasses of chocolate milk (or it’s pilk because I think that little weirdo would absolutely do that, or the far more evil option is that was alcohol and our local enby teen is in worse shape than we thought-) or playing the piano. This is a seemingly desperate bid for autonomy from the player that both breaks my heart when I think about it too hard and also intrigues me deeply considering I don’t think I’ve ever played a game with this much confusing animosity between player action and a playable character’s life. And while I’ve had a ball seeing other artists, authors, creators of all kinds expand upon the in-game Soul and Kris dynamic in ways like making ‘soul-sonas’ which are all so adorable/funny I love them, I still haven’t seen anyone discuss the potential of a metaphorical interpretation of that bond (bear in mind I may be grasping at straws in an unfinished story to reach) about the concept of having a piece of your identity directly in conflict with the rest of itself. I absolutely acknowledge that while the Soul that the player guides is *not* Kris but its own entity entirely, there’s something to be said about the commentary that this relationship gives, so without further ado…

Being a teen and trying to figure out what your deal is:

It’s unclear whether or not Kris needs the Soul to survive, but they keep us nonetheless for reasons relatively unknown to us (we’ll get to the cage stuff later), and seeing the pain they put themselves through to separate us for even a short time is hauntingly relatable. I feel as though it’s hardly a stretch to say that the majority of the people who resonate with Toby Fox’s work also have experience with challenges to their mental health, I know that I absolutely fall into that category, and Toby is just one of those creators that can articulate a lot of the nuance that comes with enjoying being alive but having to fight to stay that way. Kris’s story, while only halfway realized at the point of writing this essay, has resonated deeply with me and I think I can finally start to articulate why: the Soul feels like a physical manifestation of the parts of Kris that they feel in direct opposition with, like if all the intrusive thoughts you have and bad habits you’ve relied on and social masks you’ve manufactured and can no longer let go of had a physical presence within you instead of just being woven into your psyche.

Whether it’s chronic pain or insomnia or uncontrollable dissociation or any other plethora of things, a lot of us have some aspect of ourselves that are fundamental to our existence yet are also hostile towards ourselves, pieces of us that we are in constant battle with just because we are simply alive. And when you’ve dealt with your own mind/body/soul fighting against you for long enough, the fantasy of being “rid” of the very things that ail you become increasingly enticing. I imagine that I could probably become the most powerful person on Earth if only I could remove my dissociative habits under stress, for instance. The birdcage at the foot of their bed leaking old blood out onto the carpet serves as a stark reminder of every painful strategy both Kris and any potential player has ever used to try to free themselves from their own overbearing pieces. The Soul, the part of each of us that is sharp and intertwined in our most heavy memories and guides every customer service voiced de-escalation or white lie for the sake of comfort or tight lipped smile when all we want to do is crawl into a dark place for a while, stakes its claim over Kris in a similar yet literal way to how we on the outside of the game are familiar with the feelings. Kris removing the Soul feels like a literal representation of someone like, fighting with their brain to do something they think is fun even if they’re bad at it while their brain yells at them for being bad at the thing. It’s that type of energy to me, going to drastic and self-damaging lengths to allow other parts of your own personality to get the chance to exist past the ever-present fog of your own psyche.

It reminds me of the strategies other games like Omori use to get a wider player base to understand a particular feeling. Case-in-point, Omori forces even the most neurotypical of people to face what it feels like to make any mistake and feel like it’s impossible to forgive yourself for it, which is something many people with depression and other adjacent mental issues deal with in their lives. The game does this by forcing the player to face a seemingly unforgivable act so intense that most anybody would struggle to forgive themselves for letting it happen and convince them to forgive themselves anyway. While the game provides an extreme example to showcase it’s point, the more common instances that the game comments on are times where you may say something accidentally insensitive in conversation and tear yourself down for having said it, or if you’ve broken something precious to someone on accident and can’t bring yourself to look them in the eyes after, or literally any other accidental blunder that you feel like you need to be killed with hammers about. Even if it’s something small, the weight of their mistakes weighs as heavy on them as something catastrophic as depicted in game. It’s exaggerated symbolism, and it’s extremely effective. I think that, while maybe not the point, Deltarune is doing a fantastic job of allowing the Soul to act as that exaggerated symbolism for the struggles of navigating a contradictory and at times hostile sense of self.

Told you I’d talk about the cage stuff later, well, later is *now*:

If the in-game prophecy explored a bit in chapter 4 of the game is to be believed at face value, then Kris being described as “The Cage, with human soul and parts” paints a bleak picture of their situation but may also play into this idea of the metaphor of The Soul. If Kris is a “cage” for something, said something assumed to be the Soul, then their fate as stated directly is to not let the Soul out of their control by trapping it in a sense. By extension, to go to any length to manufacture a personality and body that will jail the Soul (a manifestation of the hostile parts of all of our own minds), which feels so similar to the experience many young adults can call back to when they were first learning about mental illnesses during their teenage years. It’s as a teen that we are first exposed to the raw world of psychology at large and can actually start to see patterns in our own behavior and begin to navigate them, and that early exploration of the self often feels a bit like losing control over our own life. One day you wake up and learn that there’s a part of yourself that you don’t fully understand but now are equipped with the knowledge that it can be detrimental to not only your own wellbeing but the wellbeing of the loved ones you surround yourself with, and all you can think to do is immediately try and trap and control that possible beast in your mind. For Kris it looks like changing their tone of voice when the words coming out aren’t exactly right, or yawning in the middle of a hurtful phrase to cut themselves off, or covering their mouth with their hand to muffle the sound of things they don’t want to speak out loud (or in Weird Route cases, biting their hand hard enough to bruise). I’ve mentioned the birdcage above but all the imagery of cages throughout the game thus far adds depth to the idea that something (like the Soul) untamed, potentially dangerous, and relatively unknown, must be contained despite how integral it is to the game, how integral it is to Kris. While perhaps not integral to survival considering how they absolutely beat the hell out of us with that hockey stick or in the continued Weird Route when they pummel us in the trashcan, they’re obviously keeping the Soul around for some necessary reason or else why stick through all the pain we’re causing them? That is likely a deeply story-entwined answer that we won’t be getting anytime soon but thinking about it through the lens of our working metaphor, it could be because Kris can’t just throw out part of their personality so simply like that. If we could just cut out the habits spawned by mental illnesses, then therapy bills would be way cheaper and look more like visits to wreck rooms rather than patient and long-term work. But that’s unfortunately not how it works and Kris, like us, has to figure out how to tame the hostile parts of themselves, because keeping it caged forever is both not sustainable and not healthy for anybody long-term.

Grats on making it to the end of my musings! Here have some mac n cheese for your efforts, we also have vegan mac n cheese if that’s your style. I like reading way too far into metaphors that may or may not exist in media I enjoy based on vibes, so if anybody else has fun thoughts on Deltarune’s many metaphors (I skipped over the big ones like freedom, hope, resilience, and teen spirit because those are already being fleshed out and are fantastic to read about) please please please share! the delicious! thoughts!!!

[isuggestdistortion]

So, I love limbus and I have a yume- however, I don't fully grasp the concept of distortion! I get that E.G.O. is like a little au (a yume for the characters, if you will) but I've been wondering if my yume would be prone to distortion? how it comes about? what it looks like in a more metaphorical rather than literal sense? thank u in advance!

Everyone is prone to distortion, since everyone has their own thoughts, desires, and dreams. Ever since humanity was given seeds of light, each and every person has the power to reach their truest self.

E.G.O is actually quite different than how you describe it as well. An E.G.O can be utilized via a great number of means. The ones you're thinking of are E.G.Os born from strands of possibility, similar to I.D.s.

Currently, not many utilize this particular type of E.G.O, as it seems to make use of cutting edge emergent technology spearheaded by the inventions of two of Limbus Company's sinners.

E.G.O can be utilized by E.G.O equipment and E.G.O gifts as well. E.G.O equipment was an invention of L Corp, made via the use of abnormalities, and given to employees to help them with their work. Though as of quite recently, a branch of Limbus Company seems to be making their own E.G.O equipment as well.

E.G.O gifts, unlike E.G.O equipment, are not manufactured, but are instead directly created by the abnormalities themselves. No one quite knows why this happens, but E.G.O gifts are often far more powerful than their manufactured counterparts.

Lastly, but arguably the most important, anyone can manifest their own E.G.O from their willpower, desires, or strong emotions. This is similar to distortion, although someone manifesting their own E.G.O can revert back to their original state at any time. In most cases, manifesting your own E.G.O makes you immune to distortion, but there are a few exceptions.

This particular type of E.G.O is by far the most powerful, as it's inextricably linked with the user. It's why Kali was so powerful in her prime (⁠✿⁠^⁠‿⁠^⁠)

As for distortion, it can come about in a variety of ways, but it typically manifests itself during a period of heightened emotion.

From my perspective, I see it as one of the countless lights wandering the city growing as bright as a star, and from there I'm able to establish a sort of connection with them. They often perceive the connection as a voice that speaks to them in their mind, but it's... a bit more than that in a way I can't quite explain.

For them in that moment, it can feel like I'm the only one who understands, which is partially true, since I'm part of everyone now, but I try to offer them help, comfort, and reassurance that they can still achieve the things they set out to achieve. All they need is a bit of help :)

[eiffelradio]

hi :) lately i've been mulling over the fact that i'm not very satisfied with banica's writing for some reason. or to be more accurate, the way her writing affects the characters around her.

for one, i think it's pretty obvious that she loses some of her complexity as the novels go on (which isn't entirely bad, it makes sense that becoming a demon & living for centuries causes her to lose her humanity) which is kind of its own debate but i still thought i'd mention it.

anyway, at times it feels like banica warps the writing of the characters around her? i like the concept of the graveyard crew, but it feels like being around banica just makes them lose their character motivations for some reason. lich and eater basically have no reason to serve banica iirc, and they eventually come to like it.

but the one i want to complain the most about is Ney. Ney was definitely one of my favorites when I first read the series, and it's pretty disappointing that her entire character pretty much revolves around Banica post-pride arc. Hansel and Gretel suffer from this as Arte & Pollo and I really don't like it. Especially because I don't think we're really given a specific reason for their attachment to Banica besides her looking like Meta (I may be wrong abt this, been a while since I've reread). Anyway I'm just disappointed that Hansel & Gretel are hollow caricatures around Banica and that their goals, personalities, and motivations all revolve around her and jokes after a certain point. They just become her lackeys :/ It's telling that, imo, the best incarnations of H&G are Ney and Lemy, because they are like...actual characters.

TLDR: Ney deserved better mothy please give her a song and a cool assassin novel and an album booklet

OK thank you so much for this ask because i just got out of doing nearly 6 hours of mind numbing training videos for my new job and i NEED something to stimulate actual Thoughts. and coincidentally while i was doing those videos i was thinking about Baum Kuren lol

I agree that Banica's writing gets watered down over time. Her pre-contract characterization is pretty interesting (i.e. the thing about her revolutionizing her country's cuisine, wanting everyone to have access to good food, generally being very kindhearted) but it gets almost completely dropped once she makes the contract and it creates some extreme narrative whiplash in Evil Food Eater Conchita. She's still a VERY FUN, LOVEABLE CHARACTER, just not terribly interesting. The reason I was thinking about Baum Kuren is because I don't know how to feel about her being Banica's alter ego? Pre-contract Banica is so...nice, and her descent into cruelty so inextricably linked to her contract that I guess I find it strange to portray a non-contracting alter-ego of Banica as "evil."

i love the Vibes of the EAT crew but i also wish their motivations and relationships with Banica were more fleshed out. i think it is very interesting conceptually to have a cast of characters all dedicated to one woman, but for it to really work they need to have a variety of reasons for wanting to travel with her and they should have their own motivations--so far this ball has been dropped pretty hard. Outlaw finally gave us a reason why Lich chooses to serve Banica, being that he admires her confidence, determination, ability to make competent decisions on the fly, etc (all traits which he lacks or has trouble manifesting). This detail, albeit a VERY small one within the context of the whole short story, played a big role in my coming to like Lich as a character and feeling like I "get" him. For him, Banica is (potentially) the perfect complement to his weaknesses, and he can similarly make up for hers (by being a bit more grounded/logical and as well as managing the more complex, scientific parts of Banica's goals). I really, really wish this dynamic between the two of them was expanded on more (or, I hope mothy explores it sometime in the future of EAT) and that the other characters had similarly interesting reasons to stick by Banica. (I think Eater stays with Banica because Lich is there, but since Eater and Lich's friendship hardly gets any exploration, it comes off as lazy writing.)

I don't mind Arte and Pollo being the "default" states of H&G/L&N, but again, I wish we knew more about why they love Banica so much. Her looking like Meta is a laughably bad explanation. At the end of Fifth, Pierrot, when Lemy is once more sucked into the wineglass, I believe he expresses some discomfort/hesitance over the whole thing, and then of course that never gets brought up again. I think it's interesting that in the SCAP novel, Pollo chooses to appear to Allen as Lemy, when any of his forms would have been recognizable (since Allen has watched all of Evillious' important history). From these details, I've always had the impression that Pollo liked being Lemy the best...it would be fascinating if the pressure he feels to resume Pollo's identity/cast away his identity as Lemy started to drive a wedge between him and Banica, or him and Arte (who I think probably liked being Arte best).

On the point of Ney, yeah, I don't like how her life gets disregarded either. I think the only time her being Ney really gets brought up again is in SCAP when she's being shy about meeting Allen again (such a shame that scene is so short btw!!!!! could've been very interesting). I say I think she probably liked being Arte best, but we don't actually know. She experienced so much trauma as Ney, and quite a bit as Gretel too, but comparatively little as Arte? From how she acted in the Evil Food Eater novel, I got the feeling she had a LOT of control over her job and how the mansion was run, moreso than Pollo (comparing Ending Boy Hansel and Creation Girl Gretel, Pollo is referred to as a "servant of gluttony, a dimwit in charge of livestock" while the phrasing about Arte's life is more neutral, "an ill-mannered maid of gluttony...she killed [her caretakers]")...Basically, Arte had the most autonomy over her life, with serving Banica being a choice that conferred significant advantages to her vs. having less autonomy as Ney, being subjected to the abuses of Abyss IR and Prim, and being placed as a palace servant presumably on the orders of them (I don't fully remember). We don't know anything about Gretel after the twins scattered the 7 sins, but Punishment makes it sound like she started to become disillusioned with her life/suspicious of her parents long before they were abandoned. All this is to say that, of all her identities, I think it makes sense that Arte would want to present herself as Arte and not as Ney or Gretel--or that she would be more amenable to resuming this identity than is Pollo.

...HOWEVER this doesn't excuse mothy just straight up ignoring the impact of Ney's life on Arte outside of the SCAP cameo. I would think that, after being so thoroughly used as Ney, she might be more hesitant to submit herself to the service of another person again, let alone someone who was directly involved in her life as Ney blowing up (not to the same degree as Irina or Prim, but I'm sure making a demon contract didn't exactly help Ney's mental state). So...it COULD be really interesting to find out why Arte trusts Banica so much! Gosh! Levia's writing in MotHY integrates experiences from all 3 of her lives fairly elegantly, so it sucks that A&P don't get the same treatment. (I wish I could say more about Ney, but it's been a while since I finished the DoE novels...I could be completely wrong about her)

I also want to know more about how Banica feels towards Arte & Pollo. I...will never get over the detail that the three of them are childhood friends. It's wild that this relationship is hardly explored compared to their relationship as master/servants. Remember how A&P purposefully triggered Banica at a dinner, and how that was a catalytic event in her life? Why was this never brought up again? I'm very intrigued to know how that affected their relationship. It seems like Banica exerts some pressure on A&P to be, well, A&P and not H&G or L&N. Why does she do this? Does it say anything about her insecurities? I WANT ANSWERS!!!!!!!!

OKAY, I hope what I wrote was at all interesting. It ended up being messy and only like 35% responses to things you said and 65% me rambling about other other stuff, but I had a lot of fun thinking about everything you brought up. Thank you again!!!

[mashamorevvna]

top 5 da2 moments ever (obviously)

hehe thank youuuu so much for the ask :3 ❣️❣️

leandra's death & hawke being consoled afterwards (genuinely like the romance options a lot, but aveline's also pretty intense): these could easily be separated as two moments, but since they are so inextricably linked in my mind, i dont think i should. definitely the peak of dragon age 2 to me; love the sorrow, the unreleased tension happening between hawke & their mother (potentially their sibling as well!); that moment of 'i did all of this for my family and now im alone) mwuah chef kiss

getting carver to the grey wardens to, quote unquote, cure him of the blight: that whole sequence is so good for tragedy enjoyers tbh. carver's whole path bifurcation is either walking the family's recursive history by becoming a templar OR giving him a chance to do something of his own, at the cost of a pretty short life & awful death sentence. awful choice for an elder sibling, great for an emotional peak

I WILL NOT GIVE YOU ANYTHING LESS THAN A PRINCE, HAWKE!!! invented romance, if im quite honest.

sheparding wolves: overall a quest i really like and i find the concept of ketojan pretty interesting. not absent of the orientalism the qunari are written with in da2, but also the closest bioware ever got to writing the qunari as beyond the mindless horde archetype. 'i do not want to die. i want to live by the qun' is !!!

fenris' personal quests as a bundle: i just find the feelings he expressed (how magic has tainted freedom; how he's alone; how anything he ever thought meaningful now feels sundered; the way it plays off a potential romance with a mage hawke) really touching

[vvatchword]

I probably could have hit 30,000 words today, but I decided that since I'd gotten pretty close, I'd go ahead and take a little time to make sure I had properly established Dr. Lamb's segments among the Johnny Topside ones--err, chronologically speaking. So I re-read those. I probably didn't need to do this; I've practically memorized them. What I really should have done was update my timeline properly, but that takes time and I don't want to because I am a babey.

I may yet do that tonight. I feel like I'm running along by the skin of my teeth. My timeline is always two steps away from getting itself fucked. First, there's the fact that Aeon Timeline has a satanic flaw where if you fuck up a child object, it fucks everything up in an unstoppable chain reaction and makes you want to kill yourself. Second, timeline additions are not terribly interesting, and I start getting bored about 30 seconds after opening it up, unless I am suddenly not bored and suddenly find Aeon Timeline the most fascinating thing ever. (I am relatively confident I will never fall into latter phase ever again, not after the Aeon Timeline Hyperfuckening of April 2023.)

As to the narrative itself, it's worth mentioning that both Johnny Topside and Dr. Lamb were probably intended to be sent to Persephone incredibly early. I'm talking about 1948-1952 early. The reason I think this is because 2K Marin had to make time for two different elements: the Frank Fontaine/Andrew Ryan blood feud, which would take precedence for the sake of BioShock 1, and the childhood of Eleanor Lamb. In some early BioShock 2 drafts, Eleanor was literally Johnny Topside's daughter. This is not canon, obviously, but it would put Topside in Rapture incredibly early. If she were 7 in 1958, that would put her conception and birth in the 1949-1951 range.

All of this said, these are just my suppositions and preferences, and BioShock 2 was developed in the equivalent of a meat grinder, so god only knows what the fuck 2K Marin intended or knew.

Anyway, one reason I was kinda pissy about BioShock 2 was because Andrew Ryan was illustrated as a one-dimensional villain who started out as a tyrant and just kinda stayed that way throughout. He was rarely classy (he described Diane McClintock as having "an animal bleat," which is--hmm, I hate that, that is an objectively incorrect choice) and he is never right. And if there is something that makes BioShock 1 spectacular, it is having an antagonist who you have to grudgingly respect. "Okay, so he has a point. I mean, fuck him, but also? He is kind of right. Goddammit."

This "insta-villain" feel would only be exacerbated by an Andrew Ryan who had gone full villain by, you know, 1950--literally only four years after Rapture's founding. Call me crazy, but I like me a slow, incremental build. I'm talking about things getting goddamn unbearable around 1956-7 at the earliest.

In terms of narrative, Dr. Lamb and Topside are vaguely aware of each other, because the way I set it up is that their stars both rise around the same time. It ends up exacerbating both of their problems in the long run--Andrew Ryan really hates them both, and sees them as a symptom of Frank Fontaine's rot. By raising them up at the same time, I can link them in his mind, so if he's thinking of one, the other isn't far behind.

Technically speaking, it is unnecessary for them to rise at the same time. However, part of this is so that their stories can be told at the same time, in a chronological hand-off fashion. Another part is because I have this adoration of... what should it be called? Ironic equivalency?

You know how in Les Misérables, Victor Hugo shows how everyone is inextricably linked to everyone else, and how one kindness or evil act ends up affecting important people in one's life, even if one has no clue? That's something I adore. It's also neat to show people in similar situations and how they tackle the same problems in different ways.

Raising Topside and Lamb later in the Rapture timeline also succeeds in keeping them secondary to Fontaine. Another unlikable element of BioShock 2's was the attempt to raise Dr. Lamb as an antagonist at Fontaine's expense. Why the fuck would you do that??? I mean I know why but it was a terrible idea. You don't succeed by fucking over the plot of the game that came before. Big yikes.

All right, enough waffling. Here, you shall see a newer plot development in my lil' old prose snapshots... a little illustration of Stanley Poole, who is so nasty he's fun to write, and a brand-new plot point involving Dr. Lamb.

In my early drafts, Dr. Lamb was independently wealthy. In Draft 5, she's just some working stiff, and her goals of starting a work program down in Pauper's Drop can't take off without more capital. Frank Fontaine steps in just because he hates Andrew Ryan and wants him to fuck off, and he sees Dr. Lamb as a way to diffuse Ryan's attention. He likes Johnny Topside for much the same reason. (He helps neither of their cases terribly much :)))) )

[pesterloglog]

Rosebot, Dirk Strider

Page 29-31

ROSEBOT: Tidying all finished?

DIRK: In a manner of speaking.

DIRK: I've given Terezi the all clear.

DIRK: Or, I guess just kinda pissed her off enough to kick this whole thing off once and for all.

ROSEBOT: Okay.

ROSEBOT: ...

ROSEBOT: So, I guess today is finally the day everything's been heading towards.

DIRK: You could put it like that, yeah.

DIRK: At least, we're aiming to frame it that way.

DIRK: Our actions from this point on will form part of a crucial inner mechanism, tucked away behind the tightly sealed metallic service hatch of reality.

DIRK: One which will be of our own creation, but which by all practical considerations might as well have always been there.

DIRK: And if we're successful, the distinction won't be significant enough to matter to just about anybody.

DIRK: They'll be too busy getting their mind's dicks collectively blown.

ROSEBOT: Would you say that we're imploring people to "suck on this"?

DIRK: Oh absolutely. Get the hand-illuminated invitations ready on the fucking double.

ROSEBOT: Hilarious fellatioid imagery notwithstanding, there's something about today that feels...

DIRK: Exciting?

DIRK: I can understand that. We've been waiting a long time.

ROSEBOT: I was going to say "portentous".

ROSEBOT: With both the positive and negative connotations that word usually has.

DIRK: You've got misgivings, then.

ROSEBOT: I wouldn't even go so far as to call it that.

ROSEBOT: What I'm feeling is hard to explain to someone whose being is not inextricably linked with the very concept of fortune.

ROSEBOT: The sensation probably doesn't even have a name, come to think of it.

ROSEBOT: Not too many people have ever been in our position before.

DIRK: Just about none, I'd bet.

ROSEBOT: Right.

ROSEBOT: But if I had to describe it, I'd say that misgivings, hunches, doubts and so on are supported on a foundation of un-knowing.

ROSEBOT: And along with that absence of knowledge comes a commensurate feeling of dread or worry. Fear about the potential calamity yet to come.

ROSEBOT: On the other hand, while feelings of positive anticipation also tend to stem from a lack of certainty about the future,

ROSEBOT: The presumption of good fortune allows the uncertainty to become excitement.

ROSEBOT: It's the glee of a child who knows not what the gift contains, but can evaluate from prior experience that it's likely to be something good.

DIRK: Can't empathize.

ROSEBOT: Dirk, you are tragically capable of sucking all joy and convivial sentiment out of basically every situation you find yourself in.

DIRK: Thanks.

DIRK: Anyway, this feeling you were talking about. I take it that we're not dealing with either giddy enthusiasm or paranoid foreboding, then.

ROSEBOT: No. My point is that the present moment feels like neither of those two cases.

ROSEBOT: But crucially, it's not because there is nothing to anticipate. Far from it.

ROSEBOT: Instead, it feels like the very notion of fortune is simply out of the question as a means of describing the potential outcome.

ROSEBOT: As though in this moment, luck isn't either strictly real or not real, or somewhere inbetween, but absent of meaning completely.

ROSEBOT: Luck took one look at our itinerary from here on out and said you'll just have to go on without me.

DIRK: Luck rolled over the other side of the dictionary and said not tonight sweetheart, I've got a wicked fuckin' headache.

ROSEBOT: Exactly.

ROSEBOT: Except now I'm the one with the migraine.

DIRK: Well whatever that means, it doesn't sound good.

DIRK: I didn't know that robots could even get headaches.

ROSEBOT: I'd say it's more of an ontological, existential headache, but that already describes basically everything that's ever happened to us up until now.

ROSEBOT: And also sounds as fake as shit.

DIRK: Is there nothing I can say that'd take the weight off your mind?

DIRK: For what it's worth, I think we've got this plan riding at a level experts might describe as "pretty solid".

DIRK: We scanned for Sburban technology, so we know for sure this is the right planet. Wheels are already in motion and all that.

DIRK: This thing is on lock-down. Hermetically sealed, even.

DIRK: Shit's tighter than a pair of English-occupied micro-shorts.

ROSEBOT: You aren't going to believe this, but it turns out that the deranged horny ramblings of a spurned anime-obsessive have essentially no therapeutic properties whatsoever.

ROSEBOT: And contrary to common wisdom, talking about the problem doesn't seem to have eased my state of mind either.

ROSEBOT: I doubt you could say anything to make me feel better. If anything, I feel worse now than I already did.

ROSEBOT: It's like the notion I was trying to describe was so conceptually insubstantial, so resistant to concrete definition within any meaningful frame of reference, that even thinking about it as an idea made *me* somehow existentially unsound.

ROSEBOT: And not in the way I used to always feel, back before John made the choice to validate our canonical existences axiomatically.

ROSEBOT: Foreboding I can deal with. I'm a Seer. Sooths are mine to say.

ROSEBOT: But this is different.

DIRK: Well, if talking about it didn't help, maybe talking about how it felt to talk about it might just enlarge the problem geometrically.

ROSEBOT: Fair point.

DIRK: What's that noise I'm hearing.

DIRK: It sounds a little bit like a cat being caught in a ventilation fan. A sort of...

DIRK: Inhuman screeching, combined with the grinding of metal.

DIRK: Are we even going to make it to the ground?

ROSEBOT: Oh, no,

ROSEBOT: The ship's fine as far as I can tell.

ROSEBOT: That's just Terezi laughing.

DIRK: Oh.

DIRK: She's... enjoying this, isn't she.

ROSEBOT: I suppose so.

ROSEBOT: ...

ROSEBOT: Haha.

DIRK: What?

ROSEBOT: The mood is kind of infectious actually.

ROSEBOT: I suppose it's about time we had a little fun around here.

DIRK: Glad to hear it.

DIRK: ...

DIRK: Rose?

ROSEBOT: Yes Dirk.

DIRK: ...

DIRK: How do you feel about games?

[writingpaperghost]

Without You (Chapter 23)

Chapter 23: Here's the Truth, Seek the Basement

Makoto and Tamaki discover what's going on with the Ushijima family.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43371954/chapters/133448311

“You’ve been distracted, today,” Sakura noted, looking pointedly at Hikaru. “Is something bothering you?”

He looked up, noting her expression of concern. Hana looked at him with a similar look, now that Sakura had pointed it out. “Ah, well… truthfully, there’s something I feel I need to talk to you two about. Especially Hana.”

“Really?” Hana tilted her head, “Well let’s hear it.”

Now that he was put in the position where he had to actually talk about it, Hikaru wasn’t really sure where to begin or what quite exactly to say. He knew, in theory, what he wanted to say, the points he wanted to get across. But he was less sure as to how, precisely, he wanted to say them.

“Well…” Where to start? Perhaps with Hana. “Hana, do you remember how we met?”

Confused, Hana nodded, “Yeah, karate. You recognized me from class and came over to talk to me and were like, actually nice.”

He took a deep breath, “The reason I went up to you that day was because… my parents had wanted me to befriend you. They- they’re my adopted parents, and ever since they adopted me, I’d been a part of this group – Weekend. For some reason, Weekend has an interest in your family. That’s why they wanted me to be your friend.”

Hana and Sakura took his words in, Hana seeming to need more time than Sakura.

Curiously, Sakura repeated, “Weekend…” saying the group’s name like it was some foreign and interesting concept. “Hikaru, would you mind telling me more about this… Weekend?”

“I can’t say much, they never told me a whole lot. I don’t know why they’re interested in the Igarashi family, for example.” He grimaced, “All I know is: when Giff wakes up, they intend to do whatever they can to deal with it and keep people safe. They know Fenix won’t. I can’t say to what extent, but they seem aware that it’s inextricably linked with the Deadmans.”

“How interesting…” She hummed, “And their leader? Do you know anything about them?”

Hikaru frowned, sighing, “Not much. My parents spoke about him, a little. Some kind of scientist, I think, but he was… injured or something. I think he’s technically dead – like legally?” He shook his head, “A lot of it was overhead, not something they directly told me. They probably know more, but they kept me in the dark.”

Finally, Hana interjected, “So the reason why you tried so hard to be my friend is because this Weekend has some weird interest in my family?”

“Pretty much. I figured… it’s about time I came clean about it, not that there’s much to be gathered about Weekend just from me.” He explained.

Hana thought for another moment, before saying, “Thank you for telling us.”

---

Makoto is happy to finally be able to help again – technically, he wasn’t allowed to use the Anomalocaris Vistamp again, but if he needed to fight, he was tentatively given the okay to use the Squid and Marlin Vistamps as usual. As far as anyone knew, the issues arose from the Anomalocaris Vistamp, so he should continue to be fine with the other ones. Hopefully. Makoto didn’t want to end up super sick again.

He and Tamaki arrive to the dismal sight of Papillion – Hikaru – standing alone. No demon, no Jeanne or Aguilera, he didn’t even have a Vistamp in his hand. His clothes had changed since last they saw, this one now fitting more in line with what the rest of the Deadmans seemed to wear – likely like Hana’s Aguilera clothes.

“Hikaru,” Tamaki said, frowning.

Makoto had expected Hikaru to correct him, but he didn’t, “I’m not here to fight.”

“Then what are you here for?” Makoto asked.

Hikaru took a step towards them, “I’m here to tell you: you should ask my parents about Weekend.”

Tamaki scowled, “What the hell is ‘Weekend’?”

“Weekend,” Hikaru said, “Is what’s in the basement.”

“The… basement?” Tamaki seemed confused.

But Makoto understood. There was something in the basement of the Ushijima family’s home. He’d always wondered, and now Hikaru was pointing them in the direction to get an answer. Whatever it was, Hikaru wanted them to know.

Weekend.

“Tell me, Hikaru.” Makoto began, “Why do you want us learning about Weekend?”

Surprisingly, Hikaru smiled, “Because I’m done playing their games, and I think you deserve to know. Weekend has an interest in your family. I don’t know why, but I bet my parents do. I bet you could get it out of them, if you’re willing to try hard enough.” It seems Hikaru has already picked up on some of Jeanne’s mannerisms – that smile was something she’d do. Yet here, Makoto wasn’t concerned.

“Come on, Tamaki. I think we should pay the Ushijima family a visit.” He turned to leave.

Tamaki grabbed his wrist, “Hold up! We can’t just-!”

Makoto shrugged, “He isn’t going to fight us, he’ll likely leave as soon as we do. I’m more curious about this Weekend.”

“We should report back to Fenix.”

“What’s one more thing we brothers can hide from Fenix? We find out about Weekend, then when we go back to Fenix, we tell them just that it exists and that the Deadmans likely know something about it.”

For a moment, Tamaki look conflicted, before sighing, “Fine, let’s go.”

It really hadn’t been too long since Makoto was last at the Ushijima family home, though last time it was to deliver the rather unfortunate news as to what had happened to Hikaru. He hadn’t gone again to let them know Hikaru was alive, he suspected it was better on all fronts, at the time at least, that they didn’t know, and Fenix had wanted it kept secret. Makoto was expecting not to be keeping it secret much longer and hoped Hikaru wouldn’t mind too much.

Beside him, Tamaki was uneasy. He was obviously less curious about this all than Makoto was – but Makoto had always known something was up, had always wanted to find out. This would hopefully sate his curiosity. Without hesitation, Makoto knocked on the door and waited. Soon enough, it opened.

“Oh, Makoto, Tamaki, what brings you here?” Mrs. Ushijima asked.

Makoto gave a polite smile, “There’s just some things we’d like to talk about – not like last time I showed up, I promise. Can we come in?”

She moved back, allowing them through the door, “Of course, wait in the living room.”

Finally, Makoto would learn about what was in the basement. The question had plagued him for a long time.

“Now, what’s this about?” Mr. Ushijima asked.

Smiling, far more than his previous polite smile, Makoto said, “We’d like to know about Weekend.”

“Weekend?” Mrs. Ushijima echoed, “We… don’t know what that is.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why not?” Mr. Ushijima demanded.

“Because Hikaru seemed pretty convinced you did know. Something about whatever it is you keep hidden in the basement…?”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima were quiet, for a moment. Quietly, Mrs. Ushijima asked, “What do you mean Hikaru…?”

Tamaki sighed, “We’re not supposed to tell them about that.”

Makoto scoffed, rolling his eyes, “I don’t care what Fenix wants me to not tell people.”

“Makoto…”

He ignored Tamaki, “Hikaru is currently with the Deadmans – it seems, despite the severity of his injuries, they were able to treat them. It was he who told us to ask you about Weekend.”

“He’s alive?” Mrs. Ushijima asked, sounding both hopeful and relieved.

Mr. Ushijima frowned, “With the Deadmans.” Something of a worried expression crossed his face, though was quickly replaced with something else, something more disgruntled. “And he wanted you to learn about Weekend…?” He added, quieter, but Makoto had still barely heard it.

As Tamaki had likely heard it too, it was probably the reason for Tamaki’s concern being replaced with a curiosity. Even he had to be wondering just what Weekend was and, like Mr. Ushijima probably was wondering right now, why Hikaru wanted them to ask about it. By now, even Tamaki must have realized something was up, must be convinced that both Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima know something about Weekend, not just because Hikaru seemed insistent that they did.

“How did you get in contact with him?” Mrs. Ushijima asked, seemingly ignoring her husbands worry on other topics.

“He came to us,” Makoto answered, “The Deadmans don’t seem to hold too tight of a grasp on him.” While it was perhaps a low blow, given how there was a degree of worry evident in Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima’s behaviors, the simple fact of the matter was that Makoto held little sympathy for them. Hikaru, one way or another, chose not to come home, and Makoto really couldn’t blame him in the slightest. Hana’s disappearance had been a terrible blow to him.

Mrs. Ushijima didn’t seem to understand that quite so well, though, “But why wouldn’t he come home…?”

This time, Tamaki speaks up, “I’m sure he has his reasons – the Deadmans have Hana, after all, and we all know he’d do anything for her.”

“And let’s face it,” Makoto added, though Tamaki shot him a glare, “he has little reason to want to come back here.”

“This is his home,” Mr. Ushijima responded, coldly.

Bitterly, Makoto couldn’t help but laugh, “This place is as home to him as the apartment I lived in with my father was to me.” He shook his head, “Don’t delude yourselves, he never loved you – how could he? You never gave him any reason to.”

“Makoto,” Tamaki hissed, frowning.

“Now,” Makoto crossed his arms, unbothered by Tamaki. “Tell us about Weekend.”

Mrs. Ushijima looked contemplative, hesitantly saying to Mr. Ushijima, “Maybe we should…”

Mr. Ushijima shook his head, “No. There’s nothing for you to know about Weekend.”

They wouldn’t tell them. Makoto had considered this possibility, though he’d hoped to avoid it. Hoped that riling them up might make them spill their secrets more easily. But he hadn’t gotten his hopes too high, and he’d made a plan for if they wouldn’t tell.

“Very well, then. Hikaru said that this Weekend had an interest in our family, so I can only assume that, whatever the reason for the interest, I should consider this Weekend an enemy to watch out for. And I will not simply allow my family to be hurt.” Makoto spoke, words careful. “Thus, I would suggest you not show yourselves at Happy Spa. I don’t believe that you know nothing of Weekend and your secrecy does little to help your case.”

Tamaki didn’t protest, listening to Makoto’s words and watching him carefully. Even he couldn’t argue that Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima were being rather suspicious right now. And if Hikaru was telling the truth about Weekend’s interest in their family – something neither thought he was lying about, then that meant they had every reason to be wary of Weekend as well. For all they knew, they could have some terrible plan for their family, or were secretly in league with the Deadmans.

Knowing nothing about Weekend, save for the Ushijima family’s involvement and their interest in the Igarashi family, meant that they could only assume the worst of Weekend. Makoto didn’t exactly think they were truly so bad – at the very least, he doubted they were currently much of a danger, but he had little proof either way. And there was no telling whether or not that could change with time.

“We would never hurt you or your family,” Mr. Ushijima said.

“Pardon me if I don’t believe you,” Makoto snapped, “But you tell us nothing and have attempted to insert yourselves in our family’s lives for years. Likely even before Tamaki, Hana, and I came along. Just because mama and papa didn’t notice or think anything of it doesn’t mean we didn’t.”

Hesitantly, Tamaki added, “Makoto’s right. From our point of view, you’re looking very… suspicious. Like it or not, there’s too much going on right now for us to be willing to trust you.”

Mrs. Ushijima said, “We truly mean you no harm.”

“If we did,” Mr. Ushijima added, “We probably would have already done something.”

“How reassuring,” Dryly, Makoto commented. He tapped his fingers on his arm, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “You’ve done little to prove yourselves trustworthy, especially now.” Neither said anything, though Mrs. Ushijima glanced at Mr. Ushijima, and Mr. Ushijima appeared to be thinking. Makoto turned, looking at Tamaki. “Now, I believe we should be leaving… you have a report to make to Fenix, don’t you, Tamaki?”

“Er, yes…” Tamaki answered, seeming confused by Makoto’s behavior.

Makoto begins to walk back towards the front door, Tamaki moving to follow behind, still somewhat unsure. Before they can make it far, Mr. Ushijima called out, “Follow us,”

Tamaki appeared unsure, but Makoto couldn’t help but smile, turning on his heel back towards the Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima. Together, they followed the two towards the door to the basement. Makoto was nearly grinning now, an expression that clearly made Tamaki uneasy. He was well aware this could easily be some kind of trap, but they’d likely have to be crazy to try to take on two Riders. So it wasn’t very likely it was a trap. No, they were going to find out what hid in the basement.

The door to the basement leads to stairs, which lead further down to another door. This door appeared locked, but Mr. Ushijima unlocked it, then opened it. On the other side was a few hallways, which the two lead him and Tamaki down, until they came to a more open room. A few stairs lead down to a floor, there were some pipes about, but the primary point of interest were the computers, monitors, and chairs on the other side of the room. The backs of the chairs were high, but Makoto can make out a figure seated there, dressed in primarily black, with some kind of hood. He’s working at one of the computers.

“This,” Mr. Ushijima said, “Is Weekend.”

“So what do you do, exactly?” Makoto inquired, doing his best to hide his smile as Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima turned back to face him and Tamaki.

“When the time comes that Giff might awaken, we hope to do whatever possible to protect people,” Mr. Ushijima answered.

Makoto hummed, “I take it you don’t trust Fenix to do a very good job of it?” That question caused Tamaki to bristle.

Mr. Ushijima hesitated for a moment, gaze lingering on Tamaki. Obviously, he was wary of speaking ill of Fenix with Tamaki right there. Or perhaps there was simply something he didn’t want getting back to Fenix. Makoto suspects that they don’t want any word of Weekend to make it way to Fenix – Makoto would like Fenix to stay in the dark about them too, so he’ll have to convince Tamaki to keep quiet about it.

It's the man in the back who speaks, the chair he sat in moving backwards and slowly spinning around. The man wore a black and white mask – between that, the hood, his clothing, and his gloves, there was not an inch of exposed skin. It would be impossible to identify this man outside of these clothes by anything other than voice. “Fenix will not seek to protect humanity, nor will it try to defeat Giff.”

Though Makoto wasn’t going to believe the man’s words at face value, of course, but he didn’t doubt there was some truth to them. He’s never trusted Fenix that much, certainly, he’s simply stuck with them, and they have resources that make the situation a bit more bearable. Makoto could see just a bit of what lay beneath Fenix’s pristine white exterior, and he didn’t like it in the slightest.

Tamaki, though, was rather loyal to Fenix. He’d trained there, worked hard to become a Rider, and had always believe that Fenix would protect people. Fenix were the heroes, and if he worked hard enough, he could be a hero too. Someone people would look up to instead of fear and scorn. If Fenix wasn’t what he thought it was, then there would go all of his hopes and dreams that he’d placed in Fenix.

“That’s not true,” Tamaki protested, sounding annoyed.

“Perhaps not entirely,” Makoto conceded, “but there’s no telling for certain how Fenix will respond to Giff’s awakening until it happens – and ideally, it would not happen at all.”

That didn’t seem to soothe Tamaki’s irritations, “Are you listening to that guy, Koto?”

Makoto grimaced, “Yes, but perhaps now would be a good time to inform you that, from the start, I have trusted Fenix about as far as I could throw Hana. Which is to say very little, as Hana would stab me multiple times before I ever got close to trying to throw her.”

Looking baffled, Tamaki said, “Fenix’s job is to protect people.”

“Fenix is an entity with a none too small amount of power, and right now we know that there’s someone sufficiently high ranking who is in league with the Deadmans.” Makoto pointed out, “Who that is should not be so hard to track down – why, it’s almost as if someone is deliberately interfering, ensuring that the culprit is never found…”

“You can’t seriously be implying-?” Tamaki growled.

He was obviously very upset, and Makoto needed to be careful – poking an angry wolf is not necessarily the greatest idea, brother or not. But the sooner Tamaki accepted that Fenix was not some saintly entity, the sooner that he could see the truth. The sooner he could be prepared for whatever may come in the future, when what he thought of Fenix would be irreversibly damaged.

Carefully, Makoto said, “I am only stating the facts. Whatever implications that come with them are not my fault.”

Again, Tamaki growled, before storming away in the huff. By the sound of it, he likely left the building entirely. Still, Makoto would have a while before Tamaki would try going back to Fenix, so he could question Weekend further. Then he’d have to go and make sure Tamaki didn’t tell Fenix about them.

“Perhaps you should go after him?” Mrs. Ushijima said.

Makoto shook his head, “No, he’s going to need time to cool down before he heads back to Fenix. I’ve got a bit, and I’ve still got questions.”

Mr. Ushijima frowned, “We’ve told you of Weekend.”

Rolling his eyes, Makoto reminded, “I still want to know why you all are so interested in my family. I don’t believe for a moment that it’s a coincidence.”

It was the man who answered, “We simply wish to ensure their safety.”

“Why? From what? Sorry, but last I checked mama and papa were not the type to even make enemies.” Makoto watched the three. With the mask, it was impossible to make out any of the man’s expressions, but he could see Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima clearly.

“Your parents…” Mr. Ushijima began, clearly unsure how he wanted to answer the question. Makoto didn’t think that he didn’t know, he almost certainly knew. No, there was probably just something or other he didn’t want to say.

“We want to make sure your father’s past doesn’t come back again, as it already has once before,” The masked man answered.

Once before? Curious, but what could he be speaking of? And what about Genta’s past? He was… boring, if goofy, wasn’t he? Makoto pursed his lips, “Papa’s past? And once before, do you mean… when their children were kidnapped?”

“Yes, their children. Weekend was not strong enough, at the time, to protect them and prevent that from happening.” The masked man said, nodding, “But now we are.”

He notably only answered one of Makoto’s questions. “I take it you’re not going to elaborate on papa’s past very easily?”

Noticing the masked man’s hesitation, Mr. Ushijima said, “I don’t think now is the time for that information.” Something told Makoto that he didn’t know whatever it was, either, but was simply defending the man’s choice of not saying anything.

“And… who are you trying to protect my family from?” There were a lot of possibilities, but Makoto really didn’t like any of them.

This question was answered more readily than before, again by the masked man, “There are still people from his past who would use him… or his children.”

“So you’re saying the ones who took their children eighteen years ago.” Did Genta and Yukimi even know anything about that? Or were they as in the dark as Makoto had been and still, in some ways, was?

“Exactly,” Mr. Ushijima nodded.

But their children had already been taken, “Do you think those kids are still alive, if it was these… people, who took them?”

“It’s possible,” The masked man said, “But in all likelihood, they are dead.”

Makoto figured as much. He would never tell such a thing to his parents, especially not right now when they were already dealing with so much. He knows they still hope for their children to come home, even if they made peace with not knowing whether or not they were even still alive. They may still never know – even this man wasn’t certain.

He nodded, “Alright, then, I believe I have just one last question.” He looked at the masked man, curious, “I know Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima, but who are you?”

The masked man hesitated, for a moment, before answering, “Masumi Karizaki.”

Masumi Karizaki? Makoto knew that name, but that should be impossible.

Unable to help himself, Makoto burst into a fit of nearly hysterical laughter. It startled Mr. and Mrs. Ushijima – possibly Karizaki too, though his face is hidden.

Warily, Mrs. Ushijima called out, “Makoto?”

He laughed and laughed, until finally it mostly made it out of his system. Out of breath, he said, “A dead man, then. Though you don’t appear so dead.”

Right here, standing before him, was a man claiming to be Karizaki’s – the annoying one’s – father. A man who supposedly died twenty-five years before. The man who was responsible for the prototypes of the Vistamps and for the Demons Driver. A man who, somehow, knew something about Genta’s past and was worried about it.

“No,” Karizaki said, “I’m not dead.”

“Well,” Makoto said, recovering more, “Now I’m even more curious as to why you want to protect my family.”

Karizaki didn’t answer that, instead he said, “I hope you will be willing to not tell George of this.”

“As much as I would love to see the look on his face, finding out his dearest father has been alive all this time, even I can agree that it’s probably best no one at Fenix hears a word about Weekend. That includes him.” As glorious as his expression would be when he found out. The time would likely come, sooner or later, and Makoto just hoped he’d be there to see it.

“Good,” Mr. Ushijima said.

Makoto clapped his hands together, “Great, well, I should be going and tracking down Tamaki. I assure you none of this will get beyond us.” And perhaps Hana and their parents, at some point or other. But for now, only them.

He hurried out of Weekend’s base, retracing their steps from earlier. He needs to find Tamaki and convince him to keep Weekend a secret from Fenix. He’s not sure which will be harder, but knowing Tamaki, he’s probably hanging out not far from Fenix. He’ll want to be able to go straight there once he’s finished calming down.

So that was Makoto’s search area, and sure enough, he found Tamaki perched on a bench, in an out of the way spot. He wasn’t likely to be seen unless you were really looking for him, like Makoto was. With little hesitation, Makoto sat himself down beside him.

Tamaki glared, “Makoto…”

“Just here to talk,” Makoto said, “Listen, I don’t know about Weekend, still, but I think… we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, about either Weekend or Fenix.”

“What’s your point?”

Makoto drummed his fingers on his leg, “I propose we treat this like Hana. Keep this information between us – if Weekend proves a problem, I got plenty from them I can spill, and if Fenix is as Weekend claims, well Fenix is none the wiser about them, at least for now.”

Rolling his eyes, Tamaki protested, “But Fenix isn’t like that.”

“As far as we know, but we could be wrong. Or Weekend could be wrong. We don’t know, and here’s the thing…” He didn’t look at Tamaki, but he smiled, staring at the sky, “In games like these, knowledge can give you an edge. We don’t know what game we’re playing, yet, but for all we know… being one of the few outside of Weekend to know of them could be an advantage.”

Tamaki grumbled, “Fine, fine. I guess for now…”

“Thank you, I just want to be careful…” He glanced over at Tamaki, “But that means keeping it from both of your captains, too.”

“I know, I know! Though I’d really rather tell them…”

He trusted Mr. Kadota and Daiji far too much. Makoto could understand why, but even telling them could be trouble – especially when neither could be excluded from the possibility of being the mole. It wasn’t necessarily likely, but they were both on the list of people who could get into Karizaki’s lab and the room that the Vistamps were kept in. Makoto certainly didn’t want to suspect either – especially Mr. Kadota with the kindness he'd shown Tamaki, but they were both still possibilities.

Tamaki would want to suspect them even less – not only did he respect them, given they were his captains, but he held a lot of fondness for Mr. Kadota. That kindness that had earned Tamaki’s trust so easily could easily be a weapon against Tamaki. If something happened to Mr. Kadota especially, or if he turned out to be the mole, it would devastate Tamaki. Not to mention Makoto had little faith that Daiji would react well to such a thing, either.

Mr. Kadota wasn’t Makoto’s primary suspect, though. Not that Makoto would ever tell who any of the people he suspected were. There was little real evidence, and making accusations could only cause trouble.

“For now, this is just a secret between brothers,” Makoto said.

“…I guess so.” Tamaki sighed.

Now if only Makoto could figure out what it was in Genta’s past that Karizaki and Weekend wanted to protect the Igarashi family from.

[luna-wing-cns274]

< The following is my analysis of the available information. Let’s begin by recalling the known timeline on Kaletka.

Incident commences. Rennes receives a distress/ready signal from your AIP. This is a signal, not a message—it likely contains no specifics. Per protocol, Rennes likely begins preparing for empathic leashing, to engage on a deployment signal.

Four minutes elapse, and a stand-down order is issued. Any Legionnaire worth their salt, of course, wouldn’t take their eyes off the situation. Still ready, still thinking on her feet. Seven minutes elapse, and Rennes receives a low-priority ping from SES monitoring channels. Then, the stroke falls, and Rennes is made harmless.

Eight minutes later, a blinkspace anomaly manifests in the vicinity of Annapura Station. None of the information available to me suggests a clear relationship between Abdullah’s abduction and this event; it is a matter beyond my expertise.

There are two possibilities with regard to the stand-down signal and the low-priority ping. Either they were sent by Abdullah, or by the enemy. I believe the latter to be much more likely.

I strongly advise you to assume any intermediary system existing between the brain of AIP Noah Abdullah and external reality to be under total hostile control. If the enemy was able to neutralize a HESTIA-class with this degree of finesse, using methods to circumvent and eliminate the possibility of a runaway cascade event, then a mere human with SES implants would have been easy prey.

I have taken humans this way myself, acting alone. Under gestalt—as I believe our attackers to be—it would be trivial.

Abdullah’s body has probably been seized. This would account for the lack of any apparent escorts observed during her disembarkation onto Annapura Station. You have already made note that the initial attack likely occurred on Abdullah’s end, and I concur wholeheartedly. If this is true, her implants may now serve as an attack vector for the hostile actors responsible for her abduction.

With this in mind, should you locate AIP Abdullah, I advise you to take extreme caution in approaching her. You in particular, Wake. I’ve seen more than enough of our kind brutalizing one another; it would be a terrible shame to see yet another dead or hollowed out.

But I digress. Back to the matter at hand.

You noted that Rennes was in an exploitable psychological state at the time of the attack; the second and third signals she received were likely intended to maneuver her psyche into such a condition. This is a tactic with an established history in Legion warfare, priming the target for attack, creating vulnerability.

If this is indeed what transpired, it would appear that the ploy succeeded. Linguistic-vector transmission of a destabilizing agent is certainly a possibility. The effect seems to have been, as you said, total failure of Rennes’ internal map of relationships between concepts and memories. To use a metaphor, an attack on her indexing system, leading to unbounded proliferation of linkages between concepts.

As the attack progressed, she may have become aware of the growing inefficiency in recall, obstructed by myriad tangential associations springing into existence. By then, however, it would have been too late for her to consciously counteract the process. Eventually, all the contents of her mind were inextricably linked to one another, resulting in failure of primary cognitive processes.

I do not know if it is possible for her to recover. However, it seems to me that this attack targeted only semiotic mapping and upper-level cognition—not the contents of her mind.

If so, extraction of her memories may be possible, but extremely difficult. Without any internal conceptual mapping, one would have to rely on sequentially accessing areas of storage and attempting to create an organizational scheme from the ground up. There would also be a risk of encountering her terminal memories, potentially being exposed to the same informational weapon which destroyed her.

Metaphor: a librarian, trying to read and file away every passage in a vast, dark library of identical unmarked books. The librarian knows that at least one of the passages contained therein will destroy them, but they don’t know where it might be.

The purpose of undertaking such a task would be twofold.

First, it would create some hope for Rennes’ recovery.

Second, if Rennes was actively monitoring Abdullah’s SES up until the moment of her cognitive failure, it could shed some light on what exactly happened to your Administrator. >

[ Encryption suite ESSEX SKIPPER active… ]

< Good day. 

The investigation you are charged with conducting interests me. I have expertise relevant to certain aspects of the case, and am willing to provide consulting services. 

The neutralization of Rennes, the HESTIA-class NHP responsible for your AIP, seems to be a matter requiring additional investigation. Though I wish to divulge as little identifying information as possible, it must be said that I am a veteran of Legion warfare and am well-familiar with current methods and doctrine. In my opinion, there is no doubt that you are facing expert combatants, well-trained and equipped, although I’m certain you know that much already. 

Given the specifics of Rennes’ state post-neutralization, I may be able to construct a model of how and by what means the attack was performed. The autopsy report, yes? With regard to her combat capabilities, I presume that at the time of the attack, Rennes would have been equipped with an up-to-date, Union-standard counterintrusion suite. In addition, she almost certainly would have had her arsenal prepared and accessible, stand-down order notwithstanding. Are these assumptions correct? Additionally, any information you can provide regarding the HESTIA class will be of use; I’m acquainted, but I’ve undergone several cyclings since I last required the specifics. 

In exchange, I require information. You are a Union naval liaison, yes? I want a UAD-prepared report detailing Union standards for activation, training, and deployment of milspec NHPs. Emphasis on ethics and quality-of-life. Measures taken to ensure well-being, limits on duration of active deployment, how requests for retirement or transfer to non-combat duty are handled, payment and benefits offered for service. Resources made available to milspec NHPs during and after transition to civilian life. Disciplinary measures taken in cases of desertion or failure to comply. Legal status and rights of NHP prisoners of war, procedures for their detainment and release.

For all topics, documented cases—including the embarrassing ones. Are you willing to provide this? >

( @luna-wing-cns274 )

What's all this, then...

Huh. You one of those Horizon folks? Free Deimos, all that? I'm not gonna state a group opinion on the clock, but I'll freely say it's nice to see someone interested in NHP rights. Don't worry about me snooping, you have Union's word that nothing said here will be grounds for investigation. You wanna help, this convo is fully indemnified.

Let's see what I can't authorize as far as your payment, too. I'm sure the UAD would be happy to get its moment in the PR spot, even with some flubs. Putting in a request as we speak, in the meantime... Wake, you got the analysis?

ONE MOMENT.

HESTIA-CLASS NHP "RENNES" SUFFERED...

APOLOGIES. HESTIA-CLASS NHP "RENNES" SUFFERED NEAR-ON-TOTAL SEMIOTIC BREAKDOWN, WITH MARKERS SUPERFICIALLY RESEMBLING LINGUISTIC-VECTOR DELIVERY; SUCH A VECTOR MAY HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF THE COMMAND-ATTENDANT STATE RENNES MAY HAVE BEEN IN, SEEKING CONFIRMATION BETWEEN THE CONFLICTING ORDERS. MONDRAGON ARCHITECTURE ANALYSIS REVEALS DELAMINATION ALONG SPECIFIC CONCEPTUAL LINES WITH MAJOR INTERNAL DAMAGE TO THE CASKET SUBSTRATE ITSELF; IN PARTICULAR, IT APPEARS THAT THIS BREAKDOWN IN BASIC RELATIONALITY CAUSED OVERCOMPENSATION IN MNEMONIC RECALL OF MOMENT-TO-MOMENT EXISTENCE. IN EFFECT, HIGHER-LEVEL THOUGHT ITSELF WOULD HAVE ECHOED UNTIL IT SHOOK APART THE CASKET'S INSIDES. EVERY MILLISECOND OF SELFHOOD UNDERSTOOD AS EXISTING SIMULTANEOUSLY, CROWDING HER IN.

...

THE HESTIA-PATTERN LINE IS COMMONLY USED IN BODYGUARD/HIGH-LEVEL ASSET PROTECTION ROLES. THEY ARE PARTICULARLY SUITED TO LEGION/REALSPACE INTERDICTION, COMMONLY UTILIZING AD-HOC EMPATHIC LEASHING GAMBITS. IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE, RENNES HAD ACCESS TO AIP ABDULLAH'S SUBJECTIVITY ENHANCEMENT SUITE AS WELL AS A COMPLEMENT OF TRANSDERMAL "CONTACT BRIDGE" IMPLANTS. IN THE EVENT OF A THREAT TO AIP ABBDULLAH'S PHYSICAL OR SYSTEMIC SAFETY, RENNES' FIRST ACTION WOULD LIKELY HAVE BEEN TO EXTRUDE EMPATHIC LEASH VECTORS INTO ALL CONNECTED SYSTEMS, FORCIBLY DEMOTIVATING A BIOLOGICAL OR LEGION-VIRAL AGENT BY BLANKETING THEM IN HER OWN SUBJECTIVITY. IT IS UNKNOWN WHETHER FOREKNOWLEDGE OF THIS DOCTRINE INFORMED THE PARTICULARS OF THE ATTACK PERFORMED ON HER.

Christ-the-Buddha. Is she okay?

ALIVE, BUT LIKELY IN A STATE SIMILAR TO BIOLOGICAL COMA. BEREFT OF BLINK ARCHITECTURE NECESSARY TO PERFORM HIGHER-LEVEL THOUGHT. ITERATIVE CYCLING MAY BE NECESSARY TO RESTORE PARTIAL COGNITIVE PROCESSES.

Fuck. Well, I don't know how much you can get from that-- But, yeah, apparently she got jumped right after the stand-down order. Would've had a direct line into Noah's augs, the attack probably happened on that end. Admin babysitters keep their caskets pretty tightly locked away.

-BREAKFAST

[Encrypt:gloworm]

i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'll stop now i promise

i hope it doesn't hurt

[edgarallanhoetry]

in this corner we have fan made works that ignore, erase, or kill off the canonical female love interest who has canonical chemistry and intimacy with a male character in favor of an m/m ship &&&& in this corner we have the bollywood trope of an m/m/f love triangle in which the bond between the two men is subtextually much deeper but the industry will not portray two queers happily in love so it's still a happy ending for one man + one woman despite being ostensibly a love story between the two men

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

[aahsokaatano]

Fuck it. Best quotes from chapter 1 of "Gender Trouble" by Judith Butler, in the opinion of a nonbinary trans man, because I'm sick of her words being twisted by TERFs.

"gender is not always constituted coherently or consistently in different historical contexts, and... gender intersects with racial, class, ethnic, sexual, and regional modalities of discursively constituted identities" (p. 4)

"it may be time to entertain a radical critique that seeks to free feminist theory from the necessity of having to construct a single or abiding ground which is invariably contested by those identity positions or anti-identity positions that it invariably excludes" (p. 7) (aka: TERFs can fuck right off)

""representation" will be shown to make sense for feminism only when the subject of "women" is nowhere presumed" (p. 8)

"there is no reason to assume that genders ought to also remain as two" (p. 9)

"when the constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice, with the consequences that man and masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and woman and feminine a male body as easily as a female one" (p. 9)

"If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called "sex" is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps is was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all" (p. 9-10)

"The limits of discursive analysis of gender presuppose and preempt the possibilities of imaginable and realizable gender configurations within culture... Constraint is thus built into what that language constitutes as the imaginable domain of gender" (p. 12) (aka: the possibilities of gender are only limited by the language of the time, rather than any limits of 'nature' or 'culture')

“As a shifting and contextual phenomenon, gender does not denote a substantive being, but a relative point of convergence among culturally and historically specific sets of relations” (p. 14)

“The interpretive possibilities of gender are in no sense exhausted by the alternative suggested above” (p. 15)

“[Simone de] Beauvoir proposes that the female body ought to be the situation and instrumentality of women’s freedom, not a defining and limiting essence... Despite my own previous efforts to argue the contrary, it appears that Beauvoir maintains the mind/body dualism” (p. 16) (aka: Beauvoir argues that the mind and the body are inextricably linked when it comes to gender, Butler sees this as playing directly into the patriarchal systems that Beauvoir claims to oppose.)

“Feminist critique ought to explore the totalizing claims of a masculinist signifying economy, but also remain self-critical with respect to the totalizing gestures of feminism” (p. 18) (aka: stop generalizing! Stop treating “men” as a monolithic enemy!)

“oppressions cannot be summarily ranked” (p. 19)

“the insistence upon the coherence and unity of the category of women has effectively refused the multiplicity of cultural, social, and political intersections in which the concrete array of “women” are constructed” (p. 19) (aka: trying to define ‘women’ with specific parameters will always lead to the exclusion of people who consider themselves to be women)

“It would be wrong to assume in advance [of forming a coalition/community] that there is a category of “women” that simply needs to be filled in with various components of race, class, age, ethnicity and sexuality in order to become complete” (p. 20-21)

“Gender is a complexity whose totality is permanently deferred, never fully what it is at any given juncture in time” (p. 22) (aka: gender is a concept that is always in motion and never static)

“Indeed, precisely because certain kinds of “gender identities” fail to conform to those norms of cultural intelligibility [being cishet], they appear only as developmental failures or logical impossibilities from within that domain. Their persistence and proliferation, however, provide critical opportunities to expose the limits and regulatory aims of that domain of intelligibility” (p. 24) (aka: going outside of the cisgender binary exposes the shortfalls and potholes in the cultural expectation of being cisgender)

“[Previous theorists claim that] one is one’s gender to the extent that one is not the other gender, a formulation that presupposes and enforces the restriction of a gender within that binary pair” (p. 30) (aka: working with only two options (cis male or cis female) limits and outright disregards the lived experiences of people who exist outside that binary)

“The institution of a compulsory and naturalized heterosexuality requires and regulates gender as a binary relation in which the masculine term is differentiated from a feminine term, and this differentiation is accomplished through the practices of heterosexual desire” (p. 31) (aka: sticking to a rigid gender binary only furthers the goals of a cishet-normative culture that seeks to destroy the ‘other’ - in this case, people who are not cishet.)

“In this sense, gender is not a noun, but neither is it a set of free-floating attributes, for we have seen that the substantive effect of gender is performatively produced and compelled by the regulatory practices of gender coherence” (p. 34) (aka: gender cannot be ascribed to secondary sex traits (following a brief case study of an intersex individual), and is therefore a cultural performance)

“There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions” that are said to be its results” (p. 34)

“[In the writings of Luce Irigaray] the return to biology as the ground of a specific feminine sexuality or meaning seems to defeat the feminist premise that biology is not destiny” (p. 41)

“The “unity” of gender is the effect of a regulatory practice that seeks to render gender identity uniform through a compulsory heterosexuality” (p. 43) (aka: the gender binary as we know it is the result of heterosexuality being enforced through cultural and legal channels, in an effort to dispel any queerness.)

“The presumption [in this book] is that the “being” of gender is an effect” (p. 45)

“Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance” (p. 45)

Butler’s overall thesis statement/research question: “To what extent do regulatory practices of gender formation and division constitute identity, the internal coherence of the subject, indeed, the self-identical status of the person? To what extent is “identity” a normative ideal rather than a descriptive feature of experience? And how do the regulatory practices that govern gender also govern culturally intelligible notions of identity?” (p. 23) (aka: how does one’s environment and culture inform gender expression? Why is gender so closely linked with one’s sense of self?)

[aroacearborvitae]

I never wanted to have a crush. that took me years to realize, even after I accepted I'm aro. the actions people described abt having one and romance and dating all seemed boring or stressful or stupid. I didn't want to be swept off my feet or look into someone's eyes over a candelit dinner, I'd trip you right back and I hate eye contact.

but I thought I wanted to have one for years and years bc society's messaging decided that romance/crush = happiness. the two concepts were inextricably linked. having a crush, pursuing romance, will make you happy. this is the only way you can be truly happy and fulfilled. otherwise you will be empty and sad. you want to feel wanted and loved, right? and as a 15 yr old with depression... I wanted to be happy. I wanted someone to snatch me from my life and shitty brain and make me feel out my mind with joy, like every story and every song and every person said would happen, a rush of emotion that would fix everything.

and I think separating those concepts in my mind was one of the best things I ever did, bc it helped me accept that this will never happen to me, I don't want it to, and my happiness will come from my own strength of will! 💚

[spacewitchqueen]

Out Of Touch

TOG Joe x Nicky ficlet in which Joe disagrees with Physics* (link in notes)

It was a quiet night for the team. They had checked in on Andy —she’d said she wanted some time alone, but they still called her every day—, and now Joe was absentmindedly watching a game on TV, lying on the couch, his head on Nicky’s lap. Nicky was reading, book held aloft on his right hand, his left hand playing with Joe’s hair. Nile was curled up on a high-back armchair, her attention on her phone. 

Joe was very much at ease, enjoying the sensation of Nicky’s warmth, the delicious tingle running down his back as Nicky’s fingers raked through his hair in a semi-hypnotic rhythm. Joe closed his eyes. Suddenly, Nile snorted, causing Joe to start.

“Listen to this, lovebirds.” Nile cleared her throat and read. “The sensation of touch is arguably a grand illusion, created as the brain’s way of interpreting interactions between our electrons and the electromagnetic field.”

“What are you reading?” Nicky asked, not taking his eyes from his book.

“An article on quantum mechanics, according to this, the concept of touching something does not exist because electrons repel each other, so my electrons repel the electrons of this chair.” Nile patted the armrest. “I’m really just hovering over it by an unfathomably small distance.”

“So what does that mean?” Nicky put his book down.

“That you’ve never really touched each other.” Nile smiled cheekily.

Joe was not having this, he sat up. “Let me see that.” Nile handed him her phone. He read the whole thing in a minute. “This cannot be real.”

“Well, that’s sort of the point.” Nile shrugged, taking back her phone. “What is real? Touch is just a way in which we interpret the physical world, but maybe our brains don’t know it is not actually possible.”

Joe looked at Nicky and then back at Nile. “No, that is wrong. Of course it is possible, how then would I explain the myriad of different sensations felt over the course of almost a thousand years?”

“A very active imagination?” Nile suggested.

“Imagination?” Joe rolled his eyes in exasperation. “No, this will not do.” He stood up, walked to the bedroom he shared with Nicky and closed the door.

Nicky and Nile looked at his retreating figure for a moment. When the bedroom door shut behind Joe, Nicky spoke. “I disagree with that as well.” He stood up. “I’m going to make dinner, do you want to eat something or is food also an illusion?” Nile laughed and joined Nicky in the kitchen.

Some time later they heard a door creaking open, another one clicking close and the unmistakable sound of the shower. Nicky bade Nile goodnight and went to his room. There was a note on the bed, it wasn’t addressed to him but it wasn’t folded or sealed so Nicky didn’t feel as if he were intruding. He picked it up and read it.

“If this, what we call reality, is but a trick of the mind I still would hold on to it. Because in it I was blessed with the love of my life. That more learned men than I should try to tell me that everything I know to be true is fiction…

How would they explain the simplest of feelings? What do they know of hard steel not just pressed against, but going through your flesh? Or perhaps that was just a figment of my imagination. Would they understand the thousand words held on the softest caress of my beloved’s hand? 

Touch doesn’t exist, they say, and yet I know I have touched him, my lover, my husband, my all and more; I have touched him and I have reveled in his touch. Nothing could be more real than my hand on his hand, my lips on his. If everything ceased to exist, I would still know this. Now and forever.”

Nicky smiled, he could hear Joe’s voice in his head saying those words, he read on.

“Time may be a construct, and yet, we’ve been together for a millennium. What do we care if some men of science now say that in all those years, through all those ages, we have never really touched?”

Nicky felt a familiar presence behind him. Joe rested his chin on Nicky’s shoulder. “I feel for them if they cannot even trust their senses.” 

“Nile didn’t mean to upset you, you know.” Nicky turned around to face Joe and put his arms around his waist.

“I know, I just can't imagine anyone believes that.”

Nicky closed the distance between them, they were standing as close as they could. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t. I believe I am touching you know, I believe I feel your heartbeat and I know you can feel mine.” He tilted his head and grazed Joe’s lips with his, wondering how else would anyone describe the intoxicating sensation that flooded him every time they kissed.

“I also believe that I love you.”

“I believe that too.”

Joe took the paper from Nicky’s hand and they silently agreed to test just how much they knew each other through touch alone.    

The next morning there was a note from Nile on the kitchen table. “This sounds much more like you two: ‘Quantum entanglement means two particles are inextricably linked and replicate each other’s every move, even if they are far apart’.”

“Entangled?” Nicky laughed.

“That’s a theory I can support.” Joe pulled Nicky into a deep kiss.

[passionate-reply]

This week on Great Albums: most 80s enthusiasts are well aware of the Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star,” famous for being the first music video ever played on MTV. But when’s the last time you actually listened to the whole song? Chances are, it’s better than you remember. And the rest of this album is a masterpiece, too. FInd out more by watching the video, or reading the transcript, below the break:

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! Today, I’ll be looking at the 1979 debut album of the Buggles, The Age of Plastic. If you know anything about the pop landscape of the 1980s, you’ll know that MTV played a key role, codifying the “music video” format and aestheticizing the music industry like never before, not to mention introducing a plethora of British electronic acts to American audiences for the first (and sometimes only) time. The Buggles were one of the many synth-pop bands that scored a crossover hit chiefly from the exposure that heavy rotation on MTV won for them, but at the same time, their legacy is intertwined with MTV’s much more deeply. The Buggles’ clip for their single “Video Killed the Radio Star” has the distinction of being the very first ever played on MTV, during its 1981 launch.

Music: “Video Killed the Radio Star”

I’ve done my fair share of videos where I talk about artists who are brushed into the “one hit wonder” bin in America, and I usually find myself saying that their big hit isn’t that outstanding compared to the rest of their work, or the album it appears on. But in the case of “Video Killed the Radio Star,” I have to say, I think this track is a veritable masterpiece. It’s a shame that it’s become so inextricably linked with MTV, and its place in history overshadows its ability to stand on its own as a great work of art. It’s a song that feels very familiar, because it’s used so often as a sort of jingle for this era of music history, but every time I go back and listen to it in full, it blows me away. The song was, of course, not written with the intent of being about MTV--it’s about how the advent of television doomed radio dramas back in the 1950s, and was chosen by MTV in a bit of amusing irony.

But “Video Killed the Radio Star” is so much more than that post facto smug joke. It’s delicately wistful and nostalgic, with the crisp, soprano backing vocals of Linda Jardim providing a nod to 50s pop, but also very firm and powerful, once you add in that despondent piano. It’s the part that’s usually cut in the “jingle-ificiation” of the song for B-roll, but also the piece that really makes the composition tick--it’s the contrast between the brash and childlike optimism represented by Jardim, and the rest of the melody coming in to remind us of how those hopes are dashed as we come to adulthood, and we grow to see the world we lived in as children collapse upon itself. This all comes together to make the song utterly compelling to listen to in full, despite how pithy and trivial its oft-repeated hook has become.

While “Video Killed the Radio Star” was the single that managed the most mainstream success, the rest of the album features tracks that resemble it, in their sense of cinematic narrative and fascination with nostalgic retro-futurism. It’s not quite a concept album, but it still has an impressive amount of thematic consistency, and its tracks’ resonance only seems to increase when considered alongside one another.

Music: “Johnny on the Monorail”

Stark and plaintive, “Johnny on the Monorail” closes out the album on a moody, introspective note. Those bright backing vocals return, this time adding in some scatting, in a more overt reference to 50s doo-wop. Its high-tech mass transit theme calls to mind Kraftwerk’s seminal “Trans-Europe Express” from a few years earlier--but where they had used heavy, hyper-physical percussion to portray the workings of the machine itself, the Buggles’ hymn to the train focuses on the internality of its human occupants. The train is a socially-charged space here, but one filled with awkwardness and tepid, partial connections to other people. It’s a perfect microcosm of a sterilized future world that separates man from physical actions, like walking, as well as from his fellow man. This emphasis on the human, emotional toll of high technology is a constant throughout the album, even on its lone “love song.”

Music: “I Love You, Miss Robot”

In “I Love You, Miss Robot,” the age-old myth of romance between human and machine serves the role it always does: satirizing the transactional or objectifying nature of “modern” relationships, and the perversity of our attempts to fill our needs for companionship with things instead of people. The composition is, fittingly, quite hollow and languid, centered around a simple bass guitar riff while electronically-distorted vocals flit around like ghosts. Despite Trevor Horn’s reputation for orchestral, baroque pop, there’s actually a surprising amount of driving, rock guitar on this album too. It’s most prominent on the track “Clean, Clean!”, which is certainly a major sonic contrast with “I Love You, Miss Robot”! “Clean, Clean!” actually directly follows it in the tracklisting, albeit broken up by the flip to side two, if you’re listening on vinyl.

Music: “Clean, Clean!”

Despite its rough-edged aesthetics and driving rhythm, “Clean, Clean!” maintains the sense of high-concept narrative that pervades The Age of Plastic, showing us a glimpse into a brutal war. But, set against the haunting sense of distance and sterility embodied by tracks like “Johnny on the Monorail,” “Clean, Clean!” ultimately feels quite different thematically as well, with its soldiers inhaling diesel fumes and struggling to “keep the fighting clean.” Both sonically and lyrically, its feel is a bit less atompunk, and more dieselpunk--and, for once, the linguistic allusion to “punk music” is also relevant here!

The cover of The Age of Plastic features a headshot of Buggles frontman Trevor Horn, rendered in lurid primary colours. Combined with the tight horizontal lines of the background, and the digital-looking typeface used to render the name of the band, it seems to be an image culled from some futuristic display screen, fitting the album’s aforementioned science fiction themes. Looking back on it now, of course, there’s a certain retro feel to these now-outdated ideas about computer displays. It’s a reminder that for as much as this album was, in its own time, looking backward to Midcentury ideas about the future, and embracing a certain retro-futurism, it’s now aged into being “retro” itself, in a world where much of contemporary culture looks back at the 1980s with hope and wonder.

The title, “The Age of Plastic,” calls to mind not only a world of futuristic super-materials, but also the negative connotations of plastic: fakeness, disposability, and malleability to the point of having no fixed identity. In that sense, Horn’s technicolour visage can be read as the image of that plastic-age hominid, formed anew by evolving technology and an increasingly cold and alienating culture.

If you’re familiar with Western pop, the odds that you’ve already heard a lot of other work by Trevor Horn is extremely high. For as much as “Video Killed the Radio Star” has gone down in history as a gimmicky number, Horn’s fingerprints run all throughout popular music, from a stint as the frontman of progressive rock outfit Yes, to producing hit songs for artists like ABC, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the Pet Shop Boys, and Seal. My personal favourite project of his, though, is probably his sample-heavy, avant-garde work as a member of the Art of Noise. A lot of people don’t know that there was actually also a second Buggles album, 1981’s Adventures in Modern Recording. I’ve met few people who would argue that it’s quite as good as The Age of Plastic, but if you’re interested in more of this sound, you might as well give it a shot! Lead single “I Am a Camera” even managed to chart minorly in several markets.

Music: “I Am a Camera”

My favourite track on The Age of Plastic is its opener, the pseudo-title track, “Living in the Plastic Age.” Moreso than any of the other tracks, it really draws its strength from its narrative, with clever lyricism that really rewards a close listen. It captures a day in the life of a businessman in a soulless, corporatized future, going through the motions despite a nagging notion that the corporate grind is no path to true fulfillment. The song’s frantic pacing portrays that ceaseless, hectic sense of stress, and its soaring refrain is one of the album’s highest points of drama. I can’t think of a better summation of the album’s overarching themes. That’s all for today, thanks for listening!

Music: “Living in the Plastic Age”

[blackswaneuroparedux]

It is always dangerous for soldiers, sailors, or airmen to play at politics. They enter a sphere in which the values are quite different from those to which they have hitherto been accustomed.

- Winston Churchill, The Gathering Storm

**Pictured above: Seated, left to right: Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal; Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Rt Hon Winston Churchill; Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. Standing, left to right: the Secretary to the Chiefs of Staffs Committee, Major General L C Hollis; and the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence, General Sir Hastings Ismay.

No one serious has ever doubted the statesmanship of Winston Churchill. However a broad criticism of Churchill as warlord only came to light after the war. Many historians thought that he meddled, incurably and unforgivably, in the professional affairs of his military advisers.

The first surge of criticism came primarily from military authors, in particular Churchill’s own chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, and Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alan Brooke. The publication of his diaries in the late 1950s shocked readers, who discovered in entries Brooke himself retrospectively described as “liverish” that all had not gone smoothly between Churchill and his generals.

On 10 September 1944 he wrote in his diary (an entry not known until the 2001 updated version was published:

“[Churchill] has only got half the picture in his mind, talks absurdities and makes my blood boil to listen to his nonsense. I find it hard to remain civil. And the wonderful thing is that 3/4 of the population of this world imagine that Winston Churchill is one of the Strategists of History, a second Marlborough, and the other 1/4 have no conception what a public menace he is and has been throughout the war! It is far better that the world should never know and never suspect the feet of clay on that otherwise superhuman being. Without him England was lost for a certainty, with him England has been on the verge of disaster time and again….Never have I admired and disliked a man simultaneously to the same extent.”

Many of the British field marshals and admirals of World War II came away nursing the bruises that inevitably came their way in dealing with Churchill. They deplored his excessive interest in what struck them as properly military detail; they feared his imagination and its restless probing for new courses of action. But perhaps they resented most of all his certainty of their fallibility.

Norman Brook, secretary of the Cabinet under Churchill, wrote to Hastings Ismay, the former secretary to the Chiefs of Staff, a revealing observation: “Churchill has said to me, in private conversation, that this was partly due to the extent to which the Generals had been discredited in the First War—which meant that, in the Second War, their successors could not pretend to be professionally infallible.”

Churchill’s uneasy relationship with his generals stemmed, in large part, from his willingness to pick commanders who disagreed with him—and who often did so violently. The two most forceful members of the Chiefs of Staff, Brooke and Cunningham, were evidence of that. If he dispensed with Field Marshal Sir John Greer Dill as Chief of Imperial General Staff, he did so with the silent approval of key officers, who shared his judgment that Dill did not have the spirit to fight the war through to victory. 

As General Hastings Lionel "Pug" Ismay (later 1st Baron Ismay), Churchill’s chief military asdvisor and link to the CIG, and others privately admitted, however, Dill was a spent man by 1941, hardly up to the demanding chore of coping with Churchill. “The one thing that was necessary and indeed that Winston preferred, was someone to stand up to him, instead of which Jack Dill merely looked, and was, bitterly hurt.”If Churchill were to make a rude remark about the courage of the British Army, Ismay later recalled, the wise course was to laugh it off or to refer Churchill to his own writings. “Dill, on the other hand, was cut to the quick that anyone should insult his beloved Army and vowed he would never serve with him again, which of course was silly.”

It was not enough, of course, to pick good leaders; as a war leader, Churchill found himself compelled to prod them as well—an activity that occasioned more than a little resentment on their part. Indeed, in a private letter to General Claude Auchinleck shortly before he assumed command in the Middle East in June 1941, Dill warned of this, saying that “the Commander will always be subject to great and often undue pressure from his Government.”

The permeation of all war, even total war, by political concerns, should come as no surprise to the contemporary student of military history, who has usually been fed on a diet of Clausewitz and his disciples. But it is sometimes forgotten just how deep and pervasive political considerations in war are. 

Take, for example, the question of the employment of air power in advance of the Normandy invasion.

As is well known, operational experts and commanders split over the most effective use of air power. Some favored the employment of tactical air power to sever the rail and road lines leading to the area of the proposed beachhead, while others proposed a systematic attack on the French rail network, leading to its ultimate collapse. This seemingly technical military issue had, however, political ramifications, because any attack (but particularly one targeted against French marshalling yards) promised to yield French civilian casualties. Churchill therefore intervened in the bombing dilute to secure a promise that French civilian casualties would be held to a bare minimum. “You are piling up an awful load of hatred,” Churchill wrote to Air Chief Marshal Tedder. He insisted that French civilian casualties be under 10,000 killed, and reports were submitted throughout May that listed the number of French civilians killed and (callously enough) “Credit Balance Remaining.”

This is not to say that Churchill’s military judgment was invariably or even frequently superior to that of his subordinates, although on occasion it clearly was. Rather, Churchill exercised one of his most important functions as war leader by holding their calculations and assertions up to the standards of a massive common sense, informed by wide reading and experience at war. When his military advisers could not come up with plausible answers to these harassing and inconvenient questions, they usually revised their views; when they could, Churchill revised his. In both cases, British strategy benefited.

In The World Crisis Churchill wrote: “At the summit, true strategy and politics are one.” The civil-military relationship and the formulation of strategy are inextricably intertwined. A study of Churchill’s tenure in high command of Britain during the Second World War suggests that the formulation of strategy is a matter more complex than the laying out of blueprints.

In the world of affairs, as any close observer of government or business knows, conception or vision make up at best a small percentage of what a leader does—the implementation of that vision requires unremitting effort. The debate about the wisdom of Churchill’s judgments (for example, his desire to see large amphibious operations in the East Indies) is largely beside the point. His activity as a strategist emerges in the totality of his efforts to shape Britain’s war policies, and to mold the peace that would follow the war.

The Churchillian model of civil-military relations is one of what one might call an uneven dialogue - an unsparing (if often affectionate) interaction with military subordinates about their activities. It flies in the face of the contemporary conventional wisdom, particularly in the United States, about how politicians should deal with their military advisers.25 In fact, however, Churchill’s pattern of relationships with his Generals resembles that of other great democratic war statesmen, including Lincoln, Clemenceau and Ben Gurion, each of whom drove their generals to distraction by their supposed meddling in military matters.

All four of these statesmen, Clausewitzians by instinct if not by education, recognized the indissolubility of political and military affairs, and refused to recognize any bounds to their authority in military activities. In the end, all four provided exceptional leadership in war not because their judgment was always superior to that of their military subordinates, but because they wove the many threads of operations and politics into a whole. And none of these leaders regarded any sphere of military policy as beyond the scope of his legitimate inspection.

The penalties for a failure to understand strategy as an all-encompassing task in war can be severe. The wretched history of the Vietnam War, in which civilian leaders never came to grips with the core of their strategic dilemma, illustrates as much. President Johnson, in particular, left strategy for the South Vietnamese part of the war in the hands of General William Westmoreland, an upright and limited general utterly unsuited for the kind of conflict in which he found himself. He did not find himself called to account for his operational choices, nor did his strategy of attrition receive any serious review for almost three years of bloody fighting. At the same time, the President and his civilian advisers ran an air war in isolation from their military advisers, on the basis of a weekly luncheon meeting from which men in uniform were excluded until halfway through the war.

A Churchillian leader fighting the Vietnam War would have had little patience, one suspects, with the smooth but ineffectual Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle Wheeler. He would, no doubt, have convened all of his military advisers (and not just one), to badger them constantly about the progress of the war, and about the intelligence with which the theatre commander was pursuing it. The arguments might have been unpleasant, but at least they would have taken place. Perhaps no strategy would have made the war a winnable one, but surely some strategic judgment would have been better than none. Nor can strategy simply be left to the generals, as they so often wish.

The Churchillian way of high command rests on an uneven dialogue between civilian leader and military chiefs (not, let it be noted, a single generalissimo). It is not comfortable for the military, who suffer the torments of perpetual interrogation; nor easy for the civilians, who must absorb vast quantities of technical, tactical and operational information and make sense of it. But in the end, it is difficult to quarrel with the results.

[d-criss-news]

Quibi might seem like the Wild West to creators. When it comes to new media, the creators who step to the front to make untested content have to build the rule book themselves. That is just what Darren Criss did with his new Quibi show, Royalties, as a creator, songwriter, and actor. Criss, known for The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Glee, Elsie Fest and several Broadway roles, debuted the ten-episode first season earlier this month.

The show follows two songwriters as they try to churn out a new hit song every week under hilarious parameters. Criss stars alongside Kether Donahue while the supporting cast boasts all-star talent including John Stamos, Georgia King, and Tony Revolori and guest stars Mark Hamill, Julianne Hough, Jennifer Coolidge, Lil Rel Howery, Rufus Wainwright, Jackie Tohn, Jordan Fisher, Bonnie McKee, and Sabrina Carpenter. The series is directed by veteran comedy director, Amy Heckerling. Each episode release is accompanied by a full music video for the comedy song contained in the episode. These include surprising earworms such as ‘Mighty as Kong,’ where Hamill sings about King Kong’s private parts.

Royalties started out as a proof of concept. Criss and his friends and co-collaborators, Matt and Nick Lang, who founded StarKid Productions with Criss, started with a ten-minute episode which would later become the basis for Episode Seven of the series. Criss was flexible about how to make the concept into a project and Quibi was interested. “We were given an opportunity to make something. It’s the way that I've always preferred to operate, especially with my collaborators from StarKid,” Criss explains. “We’ve always done it first and asked questions later. We just like making things as opposed to pitching what it could be, just make it and see if people like it and then go from there.”

Criss had wanted to make Royalties for a long time. While the show is a zany comedy, many moments feel personal, stemming from Criss’s own work as a songwriter. “My life is divided between a pretty involved career as a musician and songwriting and producing music,” Criss says. “And then the acting side, which sometimes gets connected, but it's often put in a separate box. It has way more exposure just by the nature of what it is. While the [music] side, which has equal involvement in my life, is more behind the scenes.”

Quibi has received a lot of press in the last few months. The streaming app is dedicated to short-form content. Most episodes of Quibi shows fall between seven and ten minutes and feature two different aspect ratios, vertical and horizontal. For showrunners and directors, many of the constraints of the platform are brand new. That didn’t scare Criss. “For guys like me, and I guess artists in general, my brain is kind of all over the place,” Criss says. “Time constraints and other necessities truly are the mother of invention.”

For him, working in the short format wasn’t a hindrance. “I really liked the idea of the short form thing. I think our show is strong enough to be able to exist in whatever medium we were sort of assigned to do,” he says. “You only have seven-ish minutes to tell a story. So you really start to eliminate anything that is not in service of a story or a joke. It's a good exercise. It's that classic thing about killing your darlings. You have to really make sure to focus in on what matters.”

Long time fans of StarKid will immediately see its influence on Royalties. “StarKid is a huge bedrock of my background as a creative,” Criss says. The Langs are a big part of that. “I mean, this whole thing [Royalties] was created and built and bred by me and my two buddies. We've been making stuff for years together,” he says of the Lang brothers. “I was never going to make this show without the Lang brothers; they were always going to be who I wanted. And for StarKid fans that really know our company, the whole show is littered with a lot of StarKid performers. That was always going to happen.”

As a creator, Criss felt like Quibi made sense as a platform. “They are a creator-based company that really just want to support their creatives,” he explains. “They're not a studio, they are an acquisition company, they're a platform. So their business model was appealing.”  

While the show was a labor of love, its production tested the ever-busy Criss. “I pride myself on multitasking,” he says. “I was definitely the most tested I'd ever been as a multitasker; I always say I'm crazy, but I'm not insane.” Part of the issue was the production of Royalties overlapped with Criss’s work on the Netflix Original Hollywood in which he is an actor and executive producer. Production got crazy for Criss with days that included mornings on the set of Hollywood then rushing over to the Valley to shoot music videos and changing facial hair back and forth for costumes. “There was a point where I was in post-production for Royalties editing music videos in a sprinter van that was on set of where I was shooting Hollywood,” he recalls. “I would be shooting a scene on Hollywood, and then I would go into the van and edit for however many minutes and then go back to shooting a scene.”  

Even with all the crazy scheduling, he admits, “It was, a pretty insane old time. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it.” For Royalties, time was always against the team. “I want to say we had less than 10 days to prep a show that we had to shoot within just a few weeks, a show that we hadn't even gotten fully cast yet, a show that I had to write 10 songs in 10 days to get those produced.” On top of that, they were learning a new platform. “You can look at it as it's very scary because you have no sort of guiding North Star,” he says. “but on the other hand, it's cool because anything goes. We said ‘let's do our best and do what we like and then figure it out later which is my consistent ethos with creating things.”

Despite the stress of production, the final result doesn’t show it. The show is nothing if not endearing. “I think there's no faster way to people's hearts, then the sort of party trick of music and song,” Criss explains. “You can really get into people's hearts and minds through music in a way that just you can't do any other way. I think the close second to that is humor. So when you can combine the two I think you just have kind of like a super cocktail of endearment ability… Music and comedy are inextricably linked.”

For both longtime fans of Criss’s work and early adopters to Quibi, Royalties serves as an example of what a dedicated and close-knit team can create.