#but all this busywork is LITERALLY killing me

[love-lilly02]

LILLY PLS IM SUPER DOWN BAD FOR SOME TF141 DRABBLES RN

OK IDEA: HOW THEY SHOW THEIR AFFECTION/LOVE LANGUAGE 💥👊

KEEPING IT BROAD CAUSE I WANNA SEE YOU BE CREATIVE 🤭

MWAH DONT FEEL FORCED EITHER

— 🪿

RAAAA DUCK ANNON IS BACK‼️‼️‼️

i’m so sorry i didn’t see this by the way, i was cleaning😕😕

Anyways we’ll start off with Price, i think he’s definitely a words of affirmation person or gift giving. in the beginning he leaves you small things, a flower (yes, a singular flower.) with a letter saying it’s pretty like you, poems, treats hidden around your room. Once the two of you are together though he’s going all out. Flowers every week (he keeps one so he knows when it’s time to buy more), text messages with poems and paragraphs, date nights, shopping sprees. (emphasis on the shopping, you can look at something for too long and it’s in your apartment the next day.) i also don’t really see price as a touchy person, but he likes when you hold his hand or his arm (imagine period drama arm holding), ESPECIALLY around the boys.

Johnny next, this man is touchy to ALL hell. your on the counter? he’s got your ass. standing there doing ANYTHING? he’s around you, holding your waist, putting his chin on your shoulder, all of the above. In public he’s got your hand, your arm, your waist, any part of you he can grab. he’s also a flirter, to the BIGGEST extent, i mean this man will take one look at you and spew out so many compliments you think he’s got them pre written down. their also never the same compliments, ever. how he has so many you’ll never know. I don’t see him as a gifts person but if you express an intrest in certain things it will pop up from time to time.

Kyle is a bit tricky for me, because i don’t write him often. I think he’s a reassurance person, if you’re not feeling well he’s there or he’ll always say he loves you or something. Definitely someone who believes actions speak louder than words, which means everything in your house is getting done for you. dishes? he washed them an hour ago. trash needs taking out? oh don’t worry love, i got that. He just likes taking care of you, doesn’t really mind the busywork. And don’t you dare feel bad for it, he’s right there scolding you for it, saying that he wants to do those things, that he wants to help you. He’s definitely a clingy person, but not out in public. poor kid’s too shy for that, but at home he’s all over you. his favorite position is to lie with his head on your stomach, watching something on the telly while you read or scroll on your phone. definitely not because he falls asleep easier in that position.

Ghost is my favorite of them all. at first he just ignores you, i mean once this man realizes he has feelings you NEVER see him around😭 and then he gets over himself and somehow apologizes (how he got over himself, we’ll never know) and slowly starts going around you again, but that’s literally it. You don’t think anything else is wrong, wouldn’t even be able to tell something was different if it weren’t for all the people that started going missing. You complain about a co worker? their gone the next morning. some rookie is pissing you off? oddly enough he got deployed and killed in combat. you never understand it, especially when no one questions the disappearances or just where the people went. That’s how ghost loves you, by keeping you happy. Simon on the other hand, takes a much more direct approach with his love. Once ghost is done with his “i’ll kill you if you touch her” bs he’s confessing to you, buying you flowers for the first date (only then, for some reason?) taking you somewhere nice. The whole shabang for his pretty thing. He’s also a nicknames person, some of his favorite being “love, lovie, princess” and sometimes “thing” when you really make him mad. he’s just like kyle, shy in public but a fucking PUPPY at home. you try to get up in the morning, he’s got you trapped under him in seconds. you leave a room, he’s tailing after you, your cooking in the kitchen he’s right behind you, if you don’t yell at him to get off. it’s never suffocating, though. In public he’ll hold your waist or your hand, that’s about it.

i feel like i kind of got off topic at some points but those are hot takes off the top of my head🥳🥳 lmk if yall want an nsfw version

[heart-forge]

interested in yr starfield take. played a lot of skyrim as a teen as one does but am not per se a bethesda fan and am mostly bemused by how little i have seen anyone talking about starfield either way in my social circles

well listen this with the important distinction that I am a Bethesda fan. Todd wrapped his chess-master's hands around my throat as a child and has not let go, so perhaps it's me that is biased, but I've been asking for years for a Starfield-esque game and I will not complain now that they've given it to me.

The critical like friction point I think with Starfield and mainstream gaming is that it's an FPS that isn't an FPS. I rarely had to actually fight outside of space flight mechanics. Most plot-based fights could be avoided with a keen enough charisma-or-whatever-space-equivalent skill. I think overall Starfield's flaw was Cyberpunk's flaw in a much more professional setting: it didn't commit enough to what it wanted to do, and by doing so added some watered down stuff that didn't work. Starfield wanted to be an exploration game: No Man's Sky, Garden of the Sea, something that's focused on studying the flora and fauna.

But also they doubled down on settlement building, something that people only wanted to use to make themselves home bases in Fallout 4 and otherwise didn't enjoy as a method of resource management (unless there was some bethesda forum silent majority: generally I gauge whether something is broadly popular or unpopular by asking my brother if it annoyed him dsfkjhds). And then also there was combat, but not just the ship combat which was the real novelty, but also base level FPS combat? But only sometimes.

And then of course there were the procedurally generated worlds which everyone knew immediately was not going to work, because No Man's Sky had already fumbled that hurdle. Bethesda narrative structure is not suitable for random distribution: they excel with specific and focused quest lines in limited, fleshed out locations (ie Shivering Isles, particular abandoned Vault side quests in Fallout 3, Rivenspire in ESO) and become overly generic and repetitive once they remove that element (all the busywork in Skyrim, all the backtracking in Starfield).

This is a problem with a lot of AAA video games as time goes on because...they don't want to commit to genre. What if someone doesn't like that genre? Then they won't buy the game. And it's gotten to the point where games are starting to flop because the mechanics are so broadly generalized and bloated that even the interesting stuff isn't relevant enough to do more than annoy players. I love scanning things in Starfield, I loved scanning them enough that they were fully researched, I loved finding different planets with variations on gravity...but there was literally no reason to explore. There could have been: I was in a guild of explorers. They could have done so much to make it worth my while to explore planets, but instead it was a radiant quest that I didn't even get the first time I played.

I've asked for a long, long time for a video game where my core purpose was not "bloodthirsty fighter itching to kill something with a gun or several guns or a knife or a sword murder kill death death death I don't understand magic I just want to cull my enemies". I hate playing ESO and getting treated like a barbarian in every interaction. I hate being railroaded into being a combat marine in Mass Effect (and was thrilled when Andromeda gave me cool biotics like everyone else got except for Shepard even if Shepard was a biotics class). I want class variation, even if we need to take money away from fidelity and put it into narrative so I can have someone treat me like I'm not a complete drooling neanderthal even if I specifically pick a magic or stealth class.

Starfield gave me that. I was able to pick dialogue options that reflected my skills. If I had points in geology, I could reassure Barrett that the story that the mining company fed him about his husband's misconduct was implausible. I could scold people for improper storage and care of relics even without sinking any particular skills. I could choose to be in religious awe of the relic visions, I could choose to be scientifically fascinated by them, I could choose to be power hungry about them. It's the most flexibility that's ever been allowed in a Bethesda game that I've ever played, and combat was so unfocused that I frequently forgot that fighting was even an option.

I really liked building my ship. I liked that it was a bit of a puzzle when it came to connecting things. The UI was awful and there wasn't much of a tutorial, but I said already that I'm a Bethesda fan. I liked ship combat once I got the hang of it, I liked the act of flying the ship around space. A lot of people said "Starfield gets really good...twelve hours in har har har" which I don't think is strictly fair. Starfield gets good once you figure out how to do stuff and use stuff the way it's supposed to be done and used.

Overall I think Starfield was a really positive experiment in trying something new with the FPS genre. Not everything worked which is grounds for a mass murder-suicide when it comes to how level-headedly gamers react to things that are really popular that they're just not clicking with (seriously I think a lot of problems in the game industry could be at least alleviated if we unlocked the 'just because you want to like it does not mean a fundamental right of yours is being violated if you don't' skill tree), but I like that a company the size of Bethesda is still kind of trying new things. Some quests REALLY hit me in the face: there's one where you're hunting down a relic and find a permeable reality where you have to decide to canonize one particular timeline over another, which involves a lot of switching through timelines in order to advance through to the next room. That was incredible, and meant so much more to me than any generic fetch quest. Grinding mechanics are difficult: not all players like to grind, but if you leave off grinding altogether then it becomes more complicated to balance for difficulty, especially if your goal is to present specific challenges to your player.

Anyway I thought Starfield was fun, I thought the story was good, I think fidelity is overrated, I think that many problems with video games would be solved by carefully integrated accessibility features, and I watched multiple videos criticizing Starfield for things that have always been true across Bethesda games (ie "why do guards know I've stolen and what I've stolen between different planets" because that's how Bethesda has always handled theft mechanics, maybe you just don't like Bethesda games and don't have an immutable human right to frictionlessly play and enjoy every video game that your friends are also playing (not YOU anon just the general you)). There's plenty of things to criticize but at this point I think some people just start nitpicking for nitpicking's sake. It's okay that some people didn't like it. They don't have to, but much like not liking something doesn't make it evil, not liking something also doesn't make it bad.

Overall though I'm not surprised that no one has heard much about it: it ran terribly without many options outside of modding to fix that issue. Maybe things are different over on Reddit, but I'm willing to wager that a lot of PC gamers have outdated systems. I said it about Cyberpunk and I'll say it here too: it's nice that your NASA computer can run one billion fps with high detail shadows and 4K reflections. Mine needs to be able to turn that shit off or else I just can't play your game.

As far as what you haven't heard about the main plot, I'll say this: it's a very, very interesting twist on infinite replayability. Nothing is truly infinitely replayable, but Starfield makes a very bold and frankly fascinating leap into how to achieve such a thing, to the point where before I found the ending I was like "it would have been better to redirect resources from x to the ending in order to achieve this insane thing" and while it's not perfect, I was SHOCKED that they just...literally do. It's so fascinating that I'm kind of surprised that no one talked about it.

[ether-gearhead]

I’m just gonna say it: I want Sakazuki to launch a coup against the Five Elders, and I want him to team up with the Blackbeard Pirates to do it!

I know, I know: Sakazuki doesn’t work with pirates. But honestly? I think he’s willing to in order to defeat a greater evil (whether Teach is a greater evil than the Nobles remains to be seen), given his stance on the Warlords being abolished:

“I was against it, but the rulers’ decision can’t be reversed. Damn it, how can everyone be so naive?!? Justice comes at a price!”

This tells me he has no problems teaming up with pirates to fight stronger pirates. After all, Marines working with pirates is the very definition of the Warlord system in the first place. This is the price justice comes with, the price Sakazuki is willing to pay, even if he does get burned more than he gets results.

But is bringing Teach into the coup a price Sakazuki is willing to pay? If the world floods, the world’s pirates all drown, but will he tolerate civilians and Marine soldiers drowning with it? The Elders said straight to his face that the Marines are merely the public face of the World Government, which begs the question: what need do they have for that public face when most of the world has already drowned? They’re not going to put on a front for fishmen or Minks, are they? I wouldn’t think so. So ultimately, I don’t think Sakazuki has any reason to believe the Marines will be protected when the flooding ultimately comes to pass, meaning he has no choice but to rebel if he wants the Marines to be a thing in the post-flood world.

So why Blackbeard of all people? Because I still believe Kuzan’s his man, or else he would be FAR more concerned with him joining an Emperor’s crew than he showed Saint Warcury! So how I see it playing out is, Teach negoitates Garp’s life for Hachinosu’s World Government membership, Sakazuki spits on the idea of legitimizing a pirate nation, even for the literal face of the Marines, and Teach pulls his trump card: Turns out Kuzan told him about his distaste for the Elders, and wouldn’t you know it, his crew just got the ability to impersonate one of them! So Teach offers his help overthrowing the Elders in exchange for membership in Sakazuki’s World Government, which Sakazuki accepts, albeit with the intent to kill Teach afterwards instead of keeping his audacious promise.

So who actually takes part in the coup? The Ten Titanic Captains except Kuzan, who goes with Teach anSakazuki to confront the Elders, Kizaru, who has a fresh new reason to be done with the World Government, Fujitora, who hated the Government to begin with, Sengoku, who outright quit due to the Elders prioritizing face over public safety, Garp, who’s glad for a reason to finally punch the bastards, and probably Kong, though I don’t know how he feels about the Elders personally. I dunno, I feel like this would be the best excuse to show him fighting we’d get.

So how does the coup actually play out? Well, the Blackbeard Pirates slaughter many Celestial Dragons, but how many depends on whether Ryokugyu is there. Sakazuki probably gives him busywork to keep him away from the Holy Land, maybe quashing an uprising somewhere? Mwanwhile, the Admiral-level fighters confront the Elders, with Teach along for the ride, but ultimately, the coup fails because Imu is forced to intervene, who no one in the Marine camp even knew about to begin with. Teach, however, remembers the name Imu as Nerona Imu of the Twenty Kings, and sneaks out of the fracas before Imu annihilates the whole lot of them.

So what becomes of the Marines post-coup? Well, what I could see happening is Aramaki being named Fleet Admiral, Garling being named World Government Commander-In-Chief, and three Holy Knights being appointed the new Admirals. And with Garp dead by Imu’s hand, the stage is finally set for Luffy’s ultimate confrontation with the World Government.

[thisisntapainting]

and the work day stretches into the night

you just get to sit there and watch the c.l.o. do paperwork. that's it. that's the fic. written in honor of the release date of corporate clash's 1.1 update's anniversary. thank you for bringing me the woman ever AO3 MIRROR HERE

You observed the C.L.O.’s hand, carefully crafted, drop a pen onto a wooden desk with a soft clang to the metal barrel of the writing device. Her hand took a brief pause before it switched a side’s desk lamp, from dim to a brighter setting that startled your eyes that had already adjusted to the previous on setting dusk. The pen was retrieved, and there was a mild shift of her shoulder that you rested on as the C.L.O. continued the barrage of tonight’s authorization signatures and god knows what else was in there. She was a swift one with paperwork, but it seemed that having somebody watching did give her a reason to take more detail into this work.

Many a suit would kill to be in your place now, but for different reasons. To climb the corporate ladder would be one thing, but you had managed to take an alternative route to be allowed the metaphorical throne of an “emergency reassembly of individual position” to become her assistant. To go over the history now would be pointless, but you two were...close enough. There was no talk of lovers, but rumors were already blooming from the more gossipy of the company of just how you had came to be.

And now, the literal throne – the silent observation as she does those nightly tasks, ones the C.L.O. had become so used to that any sort of annoyance at how mundane the busywork had become had numbed itself. You wouldn’t be paid any sort of overtime for being here hours beyond your usual time to clock out, but that meant nothing. It was enough to just stay by her side, the same side that emits the substantial noise of a cooling fan whirring around the shoulder blades’ joints and beneath her suit, overpowering once so close, but nobody had shattered her veil of professionalism enough to hear it before.

Her chassis was both modern for a suit and the sheer opposite. Some parts updated, some not, not to mention that her entire lower half went against the humanoid structure a suit usually would have. It was best described as tank movement, treads and all.

But something about that had always picked at your processors, fascinations that were maybe shared in a different way.

And now, the admiration you had for this supercomputer of your boss was unable to be avoided. Between that and the exhaustion coming over you (had you forgotten to recharge last night?), you instinctively leaned onto her neck. The metal was cold, your own shoulder meeting the seam where plating met, narrowly above a bolt holding it together, the humanoid structure hiding a jungle of vines, mechanicals, the very soul of the C.L.O. and perhaps every other suit, but for now, hers. And that seemed to have gotten some part of her attention, as the hand that was not busy with trying to re-ink a stamp with the department’s emblem retreated from holding a paper steady. It passed and drifted across the bow that decorated her shirt collar, and nudged the other side of your body closer to her neck.

You were now surrounded by the cold metal that made up what you one day could only dream of calling a lover, behind the wooden doors of the headquarters, because suits weren’t built for such things as romance. It had become more popular now to be open about such things, but mostly within those whose careers wouldn’t be on the line for it.

But for now, those doors were shut, and it was only the two of you perhaps in this entire building, however vast it was, so there was that freedom to do this sort of thing. And maybe it was unlucky to be positioned right below her ears, decorated with yet another circular bolt colored a deep purple that almost was an earring in its own way – she could definitely hear your own fans going haywire with how overheated you felt from the situation, as much as you could feel it within your chest.

You looked up for a second to see if there’s some sort of expression on her face. Her face – the sharp nose, the bright rounded glasses that framed a long shape sculpted to perfection of a suit, the way her hair was kept short and to a side – there was never a denial to those below her that age had not rendered her any less beautiful to those who apply to care about such things. And to believe she was not married after all those years, focused so narrowly on a career, not wanting it any other way.

The C.L.O. had a small smile on her face as she kept her hand close to you.

And she almost never smiled!

She wasn’t known for being warm like the Senior V.P., or being drowned in the apathy that the stalemate against the Toons had brought the other two department heads. She still had that fury against them, that burning passion to show herself as being capable against them, no matter how many times she had been sent down a trap-door by those pests. She was rendered cold by it all, and yet, she smiled just by having someone touch her, be by her side. That was enough to break the ice when nobody was there to see it melt.

And the next morning, both of you would have to pretend this moment was not shared, but for now, it was basked in. Her hand twirled around, before a finger slipped under your own arm. And then, the pen was set down again, before she broke the silence.

“Is there a reason why you haven’t said anything?” she questioned. Your entire body somehow grew colder than the metal to metal contact already was, surrounding the warmed core.

“If you want me to,” was your only response. Stepping out of line when you’re this close to underneath her command always seemed so daunting.

“Please do. This position is isolating, to put it at that. It’d be more than welcome to hear somebody else control a conversation.”

And all you could get out of your now-even-more-flustered state was a nod, which she could probably at least kinda feel through her hands, your entire body going even stiffer than being, well, metal, already rendered it. She wanted to know more about you. How daunting, how terrifying to have to open yourself up to her. It would feel like a vivisection of yourself, the piercing of a butterfly for her to see, but beyond all the fear involved in trying to develop more of a personal relationship outside of a work one – a sinking feeling knowing it could just be worth it.

Her hand lowered down, and you re-adjusted as to not fall from the front. There was a sudden noise of the treads of her lower half pulling away from the desk – something, just something so admirable about the more abstracted machinery she was made up of. The noise accompanied that of the cooling fans and the general whirring of her insides, and as she went to the other side of the room leading to what separated her quarters from the rest of the HQ, she spoke once more, going from the unusually personal tone of voice from before to that usual commandance.

And now, the C.L.O. ordered, “Tomorrow. Same time as today was. Make sure to open up a little, however. It will be good background noise, if not more."

With the advancements of suits more software part of the brain, that would be jotted into your mental calendar. Around an hour after everyone else would be gone, in other words.

She once again reached up to your smaller chassis, opting to just pick you up entirely, reaching downwards to place you at the edge of the stand her body connected to the tank half, and used the back of her fingers to gently nudge you off. You landed onto the tiles with a bit of a bounce in your lower legs, and with a silent wave from the same hand that had led you down, you were on your own ways once again, but not for long.

[implausiblyjosh]

Been watching Superman & Lois recently, and with the 3rd season wrapping up, I wanted to talk about what I saw as "Drama Busywork" in this season.

One of the b-plots in this season is that Jordan, one of Clark & Lois's sons, is dealing with Teenage Issues. In episode S3 E12, he sees people make fun of his superhero alter ego right in front of him & he responds like most kid superheroes do in these types of shows, basically saying "so what if this new superhero is a kid and wears goggles? seems like this new superhero is kinda badass and saved some kids!"

That exchange makes his ex, Sarah, think that Jordan doesn't care about his secret and having a secret identity… despite the fact that she saw the entire conversation start to finish and saw him keep the secret, all he did was kinda go "whoa hold on peers, what if the kid hero is cool and awesome instead???" Sarah, going off of this wild interpretation of events laid out in front of her, tells her mom, Lana Lang.

But this game of telephone telephones-back? It starts as "heyyy what if the new kid superhero is cool haha", then Sarah sees this as "Jordan doesn't care about his secret, so I shouldn't have to care about keeping his powers a secret", which Lana Lang takes to Clark and Lois as "he cares too much about his alter ego", and finally Clark & Lois go to Jordan with "you don't think people knowing about your alter ego is bad". And this last point isn't in a "People should know Superman and Clark Kent are the same person" way, it's in a "People should know Superman exists" way.

So Jordan doesn't actually get to address the core problems here, which are:

1) he is a bit of a Teen Weirdo dealing with Teenage Adolescence on top of being a Teen Hero

2) His relationship with his ex, Sarah, is Bad

Watching the season finale right now, and we haven't gotten any meaningful closure on this Jordan arc. So, like, what's the point?

It really feels like meaningless drama that isn't really adding much to the story or the characters, it's just giving them something to do. Just a lot of characters handling things horribly, AND characters who aren't handling things poorly have the memories of goldfish.

One of the other characters, DOD Grandpa (cannot remember his character's name, but he's Lois Lane's dad) is the one who got Jordan on this whole alter ego track! But when everything comes to blows about Jordan wanting recognition as his alter ego, he gets to just kinda peace out of that whole conflict.

Another example from this same episode is a Clark and Kyle interaction, part of the C-Plot of Jonathan (Lois & Clark's other son) feeling kinda left out of the whole family because he doesn't have powers like his brother and he's not someone of worldwide importance like his mom.

Jonathan has been working as a firefighter in-training with Kyle, Lana Lang's ex. Recent developments have made it so Kyle knows Clark is Superman. This has had an impact on how Kyle treats Jonathan, since Kyle knows that not only is this Superman's son, but also Kyle used to be Clark's biggest bully. Clark goes to Kyle and asks to not treat Jonathan any different because Clark is Superman, and clearly and concisely states that this is about Jonathan not wanting special treatment and Jonathan wants to make it on his own merits.

Kyle would literally not be receptive to that idea from anyone other than Superman, he's still in "this man could kill me and coulda killed me in high school when I was his biggest bully" mode of thinking. So, how does Kyle take this new info to Jonathan? like Jonathan went and ratted to his dad! Even though Jonathan clearly states that's not what happened, Clark just overheard him talking about work! Jonathan's obviously comfortable talking to Kyle about these issues, or else he wouldn't expand on them and defend himself by basically saying "what, you expect me to never talk about work outside of work?"

This is the drama equivalent of worksheets. This is busywork. I don't feel like anything productive is happening here in these interactions, either as character work or as narrative. This doesn't get into the fact that a lot of underlying issues here are just… not really brought up again!

If we focus back on my two points with Jordan, there's one that's just normal High School Drama Stuff. The second is his relationship with Sarah, his ex. Despite this second point being a huge driving force in a lot of Jordan's B-Plot (I'd argue the reason he wants to be recognized as his alter ego is directly caused by this awful relationship) there isn't much movement on dealing with the relationship.

This angle is completely unresolved. The Sarah & Jordan angle starts going sour because Sarah cheats on Jordan over summer camp. They talk it out, and are still together despite it, until Sarah decides because of her own cheating she just wants to be friends. Jordan is (understandably!) heartbroken about this, and tries to continue to be friends with her and it bleeds into that first point. Now he's gotta deal with this heartbreak, on top of the usual High School Drama Stuff. It is the catalyst for all these other things in his life, and all his actions, but like… nothing satisfying is happening there!

(Additionally, this plot point hits really close to home for me! I've been on the cheated-on end of a situation, and watching all this knowing it comes from this unresolved issue that hits close to home makes watching Jordan's B-plot hard! However, that's a Josh-Issue not a Writing-Issue, but I felt it needed to be said so you can take that together with my criticisms)

Again, this all feels like busywork. I don't think any character development is happening, and I don't think the character work being done is good in these scenes. It's just… nothing. I know "Filler" gets thrown around a lot, but this feels like that! This feels like padding. It feels like taking up time to hit a word count.

Next season a lot of these characters are leaving the show. On the one hand, it sucks cause I think they're good on-screen! I don't necessarily dislike these characters! On the other, I think having a smaller cast with less of this writing baggage will likely be for the best, or at the very least we get a different type of bad writing.

[iantimony]

i once again am overwhelmed by stupid busywork. Get Me Out

listening: finished the counter/weight prequel eps! feels good to be listening to a friends at the table thing in-time with when they're released, lol. i fully laughed out loud at the heartfelt moment between aria and hymn being interrupted by austin's fucking ice machine. incredible. no notes. "people are gonna go insane about aria in this one" keith you are SO right.

music for the week was the spotify release radar! just gettin some new tunes. i'm thinking of making a playlist that's just the songs that i like from release radar and the at the end of the year i can have a New Of 2024 list, idk. i AM going to try and be more discerning about what things i post, though - it would be very easy to just drop a huge list of all the songs on there that i kinda liked with no commentary but i think it'll be more fun to do fewer songs and actually talk about them, y'know?

philadelphia (matt maltese): feels like a mug of tea. very soft. nostalgic for something i've never seen. travels (rob blivion): really does seem like it should be playing over some indie film montage of someone travelling through mists in the scottish highlands. harsh truths (lemoncello): another indie soundtrack song. i think there's a bass in the background? although in retrospect i think it's a cello. lemoncello. duh. anyways it's very good. burning down the house (paramore): this is SUCH a fun cover. what can't paramore do for real. oh no::he said what? (nothing but thieves): BOUNCY. toe tapper. i am driving down a neon highway at 10000mph. coming home song (sammy rae & the friends): back to wistful and nostalgic. feels a certain kind of way especially right now because i am in the process of finding a new apartment, entirely alone for the first time. jolene (maneskin & dolly parton): speaking of really fun covers, yes yes yes. everything i would have wanted from this.

honorable mention to love me not (emei). i do not like this song particularly. it is stuck in my head though.

reading: fallow.

watching: just like last week: with the boyf, the newest dungeon meshi, i loved the way they animated the mimic. then some kill la kill. we're up to episode 11 now, almost halfway! also went to a superbowl party sunday. basically what you'd expect. fun socializing though.

playing: only had the one dnd last weekend, the one i run! went well. definitely was kinda sleepy and not as focused as i'd like. sigh.

making: mostly fallow...i cut out some of the border pieces for my handsewing project in a nice matching solid blue during the superbowl but have not attached any of it yet. started idly crocheting a rectangular prism-shaped object to use as a mtg deck case.

drew a little birthday card for my grandma i guess? mostly watercolor pencil, some prisma marker for the background. can't be assed to rotate it the right way, sorry, lol

pottery-wise, i did not take pictures but i have some fun interesting stuff in the works! biiiiig pot for my mom (got a little busted. but i think it'll make it). mug. glazing a bowl using sgraffito to carve out some waves (my roommate accidentally dinged the rim and i'm incorporating that into the design). did not take any pictures last week but i'll get some tomorrow for the next tuesdaypost.

eating: my roommate made a truly enormous focaccia in a 9x13 glass baking dish to cut into super bowl party sandwiches. they were delicious and we are still eating them for lunch basically every day. she also made a marinated beef bulgogi-type object, served over rice with veg and a fried egg and some spaghetti squash...yumb.

misc: i can't even be like "i just have to make it through this week" because i know next week will look literally exactly like this one (homework due wednesdays for one class, fridays (plus ANOTHER assignment alternating wednesdays) for the other). really bad vibes. just gotta make it through this week this semester.

[gaypiratepropaganda]

well you see, I enjoy all those other things. they're funny and I can forgive them. the only one that made me sad was ed pushing lucius overboard but it makes sense he's got intimacy issues and lucius witnessed the first draft of his terrible breakup poetry. they're pirates. a bit of violence is to be expected.

izzy tells the navy where they are so he can legally steal their ship and ends up with ed released to his custody, whatever that means. I just think that's icky, I don't know. it's beyond regular pirate violence. he's brought the english military into their little gay interpersonal drama. who does that?

literally I can forgive torturing racists or setting them on fire, plotting to murder your husband, cannibalism, a kinky bit of stabbing between friends, and um… having passionate, consensual gay sex. but I draw the line at snitching on your own people to the english government just so you can be captain. he uses state violence to try to get his crush's boyfriend killed. and then they give him legal custody of his crush. that's fucked up on a different level, man.

I also have a hard time forgiving izzy for assigning people bullshit busywork just so he can feel powerful or whatever. that's more scandalous to me than polamory. I know it doesn't seem as bad as cannibalism, but cannibalism has so far never affected my real life, so.

he represents a lot of things that make my life worse. toxic masculinity, authoritarianism, sexism, homophobia, those guys that get a crush and make it your problem. it's an important role for a character and I understand that he's needed for the plot, but that doesn't stop me from hating him. in fact, I think that's his intended narrative role. the hateable guy with bad opinions. I think that, for once, the people writing the story actually agree with me about the characters. that never happens!

it's ok to like any character, obviously, even if they are evil. but I don't even really think he's evil, just a dick. in a special, power-hungry way that reminds me too much of real life. so I can't love him the way everyone else does. sorry.

'Izzy is evil'

Ed just pushed an innocent young man clean overboard and Stede Bonnet burned an entire ship full of people. Spanish Jackie just gave 0 fucks about one of her husbands being shot and Mary Bonnet was about to skewer hers in the ear.

Frenchie wanted to turn a man's back into a table!

Roach literally tortures people for fun.

Buttons' only joy in life is to eat people's juicy legs.

'Izzy Hands is a freak, he's disturbed'

Izzy has a sore tummy and is crying about Blackbeard, meanwhile the Swede is shaking his dumptruck ass at not one but TWO cannibals

Like ???

Ed and Stede were stabbing and shooting eachother for shits and giggles.

Lucius was having passiomate sex with like four different pirates at the same time.

Izzy could never. He's the weak link of the group. Wee John will set fire the the ship for fun before Izzy does anything scandalous or violent lol

Not even defending Izzy just he's a sad lil man, face facts.

[angel-biter]

If ur a younger high school student reading this, don’t take ap English. I’m crying over Shakespeare and how much fucking work I have to do rn

[vilkalizer]

So a slightly less sleep deprived take:

Three Hopes was fun.

Warriors gameplay isn't super complicated, but it is satisfying to chop up mooks by the hundreds and obliterate their bosses with giant flashy special moves. There's also some more elaborate options where you can order characters you aren't controlling to attack or defend specific areas or units. The weapon triangle encourages, but does not force, you to diversify your cast and try different characters.

Not only is Shez a cool and good character, but Byleth is also a lot better now that they're allowed to have the character the last game kept informing us they did but never showing off! Yeah their role is smaller here but they still get more personality in that smaller space than we're ever shown in Houses. Huge upgrade and may we never see another fucking mute player insert in a fe game ever again.

I like that the recruitments make some sense, basically everyone had a good reason to defect besides kissing Byleth's ass, and the ones who didn't… didn't. (Look, if Sylvain isn't willing to betray his county for tits this time around, that's on him, not me.)

Support conversations not existing for a decent chunk of the supports is a shame, but the ones we do get were pretty good so i'm more than willing to accept the tradeoff if it means we don't have to see the same shit repeated over and over.

All in all very solid button-mashy action, would recommend.

There are several annoyances, however. Why is the facility that sells upgrade materials separate from the one that uses them? Why can you switch classes from the camp menu, but not upgrade them? Both of these just create obnoxious busywork that didn't need to be there.

The camp, much like the monastery, wears out its welcome after a while. It is smaller, however, and takes less time to go through.

It sucks that they doubled down on gender locked classes, and it sucks even more now that they're all weapon locked too. Punchsithea has literally one option now, the shitty starting fighter one which for some reason is the only class that can use multiple weapon types - which isn't a huge deal since the stat changes are fairly minor, but it still sucks a lot!

Some characters who should really have been playable are not, and it annoys me mightily. Would it fucking kill you to give me Hanneman, game? Manuela is in, why is he not? If he and war clergy are held back to be dlc, i'm going to fucking scream.

Meanwhile, the "secret" characters you can unlock on a second+ run can only be used on replays of maps you've already beaten, not in the story mode, which makes them entirely pointless! Would if fucking kill them to let me just play the fucking game?

Also, from this one path, there are several things i wish they'd gone into more depth with, but they… don't. (Maybe on the other routes? But you'd think bird route would be the place for moleman info…) Way more seems to be left hanging than in Houses, and not in the way that og beagles did (where the campaign against the molemen postgame wasn't going to involve Fire Emblem style gameplay anyway).

But none of that makes it not a solid button-mashy action game, so.

[pedanticat-scratching-post]

Hallway Pining

Sashanne Drabble

The hallways of Saint James High School were crowded with the bustling bodies of students as dozens of conversations all intermingle to create one incoherent ramble as they discussed their plans for the weekend. While some students complained about how their parents would be grounding them due to getting a low grade on their tests or others were looking forward to attending a party, Sasha's own group of friends squealed about seeing the live performance of Titan Bones later that night.

"I still can't believe we managed to get tickets for them!" Taylor exclaimed.

Wade stretched out his arm and groaned. "After all the work we put into buying the tickets, I'm glad we did. My arms are still killing me from lifting all of Mr. Johnson's boxes. Why does he have so many damn books?"

"Well at least all you had to do was lift heavy books," Amber replied. "I spent so many nights babysitting kids. I'm telling you, some of those kids are complete monsters!"

Sasha chuckled at her friend's gripes. "Look, I know you guys would have rather spent your time literally doing anything else, but it was the only way to get the tickets. Isn't that worth a few days of busywork?"

Her friends mumbled "I suppose so," with it making Sasha chuckle some more. While she may have spent her free time doing work to afford the tickets such as mowing yards, she found that kind of work to be a breeze compared to all the hardcore training she did while she was in Amphibia (with her still maintaining that training even years later).

Though while her friends went back to discussing their excitement about the concerts, an all too familiar laugh diverted Sasha's attention from the conversation to the source of the laugh. Sure enough, the source of the laugh was Anne's from across the hall. She was currently hanging with some of her friends from the herpetologist's group she formed when the two had first entered high school. The group was surprisingly popular, and not just cause Anne's celebrity status from Frogvasion still being somewhat relevant at the time. Apparently invading robot frogs led by a giant salamander ended up sparking people's interest in amphibians. She's seen the group do a variety of activities for the past two years such as volunteering at the aquarium, hosting lectures about different types of amphibians at the library, and even holding bake sales to fund trips (they ended up becoming more successful once Anne stopped trying to sell people on pastries filled with bugs).

Yet while Anne seem to be close with all of the members, the one she seemed to be the closest with was a girl named Jasmine, as evident by how she had her arm around Anne's shoulder with her not seeming to mind at all. Even outside of the club, she always saw the two hanging out together whether it be hanging out at the mall or seeing Anne post pics of the two of them eating at Thai Go online. As far as she was aware, the two weren't dating yet she still felt flickers of anger. It's not like she was mad at Jasmine. After all, even though she never talked to her, she seemed like a nice enough person. And it's not like she couldn't ask Anne if she wanted to hang out. Yet despite knowing that, as she saw the two continue to joke around, she felt her face slowly turn into a frown.

"Hello, earth to Sasha?" Amber asked. "Are you still with us?"

Eyes snapping away from Anne and Jasmine, she turned back to her friends who were staring at her in concern. Not wanting to worry them, she put on her best fake smile. The exact same fake smile she has put on for years in order to not just others, but also herself. "Yeah, I'm all good. Just ended up daydreaming about Titan Bones is all."

[thesembers]

lyric analysis that nobody asked for

last words of a shooting star by mitski

(my personal interpretation) !!

“last words of a shooting star” is a song that describes the point of view of herslef on a plane that is unexpectly crashing; the pilot explains that they are all going to die due to the unexpected turbulence. the lyrics go in depth of how she is feeling and her last thoughts while awaiting her certain death.

there are many ways that thing song can be interpreted, firstly being the literal meaning of the plane going down. she states that she is glad that she had left her room clean so that when her family cleans out her room, they think only of her neat and ordered self. she left a good last impression on people. thats as far as that meaning goes in my opinion.

my personal belief is that this song is actually about suicide. apologies from the intercom represents the people trying to help her from her suicidal thoughts, but it had already been too late because the plane is already crashing. i am relieved that I had left my room tidy could either mean that she is content with the fact that people will think of her kindly due to her always leaving good impressions or that it is a teenage suicide because teenegers often worry about the small things like their parents having to tidy their room once they are gone.

mitski also goes on to talk about how the room that she had left clean was actually a place that she had had terrible thoughts that nobody would know about because of the way she had left it; almost like a mask that people wear to be perceived a certain way by people. in this same stanza she says that her dreams made music in the night which in my opinion, means that her only escape from the “blood sniffing sharks” in her room was sleep. i also think that those dreams made her believe that the reality of life wasn’t all that bad and that maybe she would live. this also could mean that she had very big dreams and wanted to live to achieve them.

in the third stanza she describes the connection between her and someone she loves. i believe in these lyrics, she explains how lonely it actually was to be loved. that some people don’t care much for the love for the other person but rather the idea of loving another person, hence the line “and youd say you love me and look in my eyes but i know through mine you were looking in yours.” she says that this person wasn’t looking at her, but at themselves to see if they were mirroring a good relationship partner, like in the movies.

mitski makes a note to the liberty bell being a replica because it represents a person. the idea of the fake liberty bell replicated a person who shows a completely different person on the outside rather than showing whats within. they have to be a fake person and show a bright expression for the sake of others and not ruining the fun, much like the liberty bell.

thee last stanza goes on to explain how she had wanted to die clean and pretty but was never actually able to because she is too busy, therefore being thankful that the plane is crashing unexpectedly so she didn’t have to worry about it anymore. i think this means that her thoughts were unexpected and she didn’t think she would actually do it. i think she had some regret because she said it was unexpected and she still had some work to do for herself before dying, but then realized that the work that she had wanted to do was now meaningless to her because she was going to die anyways hence the line “i couldn’t have changed anyways”

this song as a whole has a lot to do with faking perception and being perceived a certain way to hide what youre thinking within whilst also dealing with the thoughts on your own and how in this case she had dealt with them by killing herself.

it shows mental illness and i really enjoyed the way she showcased it in the scene of a plane crash. the plane crash itself can also be interpreted as she was so close to the destination also known as the “dreams that made music in the night” but before she could get there, the plane had crashed. she also said that those dreams were the only thing keeping her alive so it could also mean that her not making it to her destination (dream) would mean she had nothing else to live for hence her dying at the end.

okay this may seem a little insane but I also think that the placement of the stanzas have a lot to do with the song itself. at first she talks about the plane being announced to crash, then in the second third and fourth stanza she talked about her life story staring with her basic room where she had grown up, first relationship, how she had forced herself to be someone she isn’t throughout her life, and finally her life being filled with busywork and no time for herself. it all goes in order to explain how her life went, which this is super clever because it is assumed that your life flashes before your eyes when you know you are going to die.

[fallout-lou-begas]

You probably get this a lot lolll

But I didn't like Cass until I read your comics

Funnily enough, I do get this a lot! It just means my aggressive pro-Cass propaganda is working.

And that's actually not entirely a joke...Cass definitely seems to me the least popular human companion, at least as far as I can tell, and I can see why. She has an abrasive personality that's not endearingly sarcastic like Raul or intriguingly curt like Boone's. She's just blunt, and she doesn't give people any respect or courtesy that she feels they're not owed. But what I love about her so much is that beneath that bluntness is someone with strong principles and standards (her willingness to not only abandon Evil Karma couriers but to literally cuss your shit out before she does or even try to kill you for being too evil is the most prominent demonstration of this in-game, but my other favorite part of this is that it's canon, in-game, that she is willing to support you getting revenge on Benny because one of the "rules of the wastes" is not to fuck with who brings you your mail). She's older, she's worldly, she's well-traveled, and she has the most reactive dialogue to the player's progress and actions out of all the companions in the game (and that's not including her location-specific lines!). She's a smart woman, not smart like Arcade but very practically smart in ways of survival and business. And there's a depth to her, a sadness, from having her caravan destroyed, as she was very literally content to drink herself to death in Mojave Outpost before being convinced to come out otherwise -- and I feel like getting pulled from the jaws of death like that to get revenge on the people who put her there makes her the single most rich parallel to the courier among all the companions, an angle I lean into very intentionally in IKROAH and "Scar Tissue." It's really funny writing this volume of IKROAH, because Agnes is so soft-spoken and and deferential that it feels a lot more like Cass is the main character and Agnes is the companion! Cass certainly has more agency, and I love that about her and their relationship as companions so far. I think you'll all find the way that develops in Volume 2 to be...compelling.

I also understand people may not be familiar with her just because recruiting her in-game is a pain in the ass lmao. You have to get all the way to Crimson Caravan and then do some busywork for them before backtracking all the way to the Mojave Outpost. She's just so out of the way! In my own playthrough that inspired IKROAH I just used the console to advance that quest to where I had the buyout offer right away, rationalized as picking it up in Primm like in the comic, and if I had more modding knowledge than I did, I'd try to mod the game to make that possible organically.

[itsclydebitches]

Hello, everyone! Can you believe this is the third time I've started the recap for this chapter? Between a dying computer and a mass edit during my monthly state of, "Oh my god get rid of everything we can't let people know that we wRITE!" this project is cursed. This is the version though, I can feel it. Be positive!

Now, where were we? It's been some months (RIP) since I last posted, so I wouldn't be surprised if everyone's forgotten what's going on in this insane novel. A quick recap before the recap then: new teams have formed, no one is happy about it, Sun and Velvet went off to a shady club run by The Crown and — shock shock, surprise surprise — got themselves into a heap of trouble. That's the long and the short of it. We have to wait a while to find out what happens to them though because this chapter is focused on Coco.

We learn that Professor Rumpole has sent Coco and her new team — Team ROSC — out into the desert to take care of the grimm around the city's borders. To say that Coco is disappointed in this assignment is an understatement. We learn that they've been at this for a week straight and have gone without showering or a change of clothes that entire time (no one packed a bag?), so for a second I was hugely sympathetic. You know this vine? 

I feel this vine in my soul. Give me hot water and hot coco or give me death. Besides, work is work and dangerous, physical work without a break or basic comforts is incredibly taxing. Toss in the extreme heat of a desert and I'd be pissed at everything too, no matter how important my work was. That's human.

Yet instead of humanizing Coco like this, it turns out she doesn't care at all about the hardship involved. It's fighting grimm that she's annoyed by. She thinks that "Searching for the person or persons kidnapping innocent people for some unknown but dark purpose was way more useful than fighting Grimm far from the city" and I'm just like, Coco, honey...

Do you know what your career path is?

IT'S TO KILL GRIMM.

Okay, there's admittedly a justification here, but it's a stupid one. Coco goes on to say that "This area was called the Wastelands for a reason." She's snarky about it, saying that it wastes “her time, her talent, and her patience," but the real takeaway is that it's, you know, a wasteland. Deserted of grimm and of people. What's the point of defending an area that doesn't need defending? A huntress' job might normally be to fight grimm, but when those grimm aren't around and kidnappers are, that's a whole new set of priorities.

The problem with all this is that the Wastelands is definitely not deserted and it's definitely not as far from the city as Coco would like to imply. In just a few paragraphs an alarm is going to trip and Coco will find six grimm roaming in a pack. Then she finds a person. Then that person says she needs to get back to see someone in the city within half an hour. So there are grimm, there are people about, and this area is apparently close enough to the border that you can get back to the city proper, on foot, and then get wherever it is you’re going in a bustling metropolis... all within half an hour. By that logic these grimm aren't out in the boonies, they're right outside everyone's door.

Yet Coco isn't convinced, saying that "Post Beacon [killing grimm] had been for a noble cause, but this just felt like … busywork." I cannot possibly emphasize enough that this is the job she signed up for. Not to be a detective specializing in missing people, not a war hero always on the front lines of a battle, but one of many huntsmen who perform the daily, routine, very necessary task of protecting the people from grimm. With "protecting" covering both immediate threats and preparatory work that ensures more threats don't come about — like taking care of grimm outside before they become a larger threat. You know what would have happened if Beacon had a daily chore of students killing grimm within a few miles radius of the school? There would have been far less grimm charging a mass of unprotected students when negativity unexpectedly skyrocketed.

And, as always, I am aware that Rumpole is the likely villain here. From a writing perspective, this is very much presented as her getting Coco out of the way so that she can go about her nefarious deeds in peace... but that doesn't erase the fact that the task itself is a sound one. Rumpole's motivations don't matter here, only Coco's annoyance that she... has to do her job?

I mean yeah, everyone complains about their job to one extent or another, but can you imagine if you stumbled across a firefighter complaining about all the kitchen fires they've had to put out lately? "It's so boring! There are much better things I could be spending my time and talent on. I mean, that inferno that took out a city block last year? Putting that out was noble. But routine fires? House fires? Giving lectures on how to prevent fires in the future? Ugh, I can't believe the department expects me to do this grunt work." Meanwhile, you're sneaking off, hoping that this firefighter is never called to your house, nursing mild worries about how much they're romanticizing the recent tragedy that took so many lives...

Complaints about the job turn into complaints about the teams, which makes far more sense for Coco's character. Anyone's, really. Despite my insistence that it's a good thing they're learning to fight with people other than their three besties, that was absolutely a sudden and rather traumatizing change, just given how attached the teams already are. I'm not at all surprised that Coco is struggling to cope.

She says she misses her friends, obviously, but also "surprisingly, Coco missed being in charge."

...That's supposed to be surprising? Coco, you love being in charge! How is this in any way a revelation?

Apparently it is though, stemming from how bad Reese is as their leader. As with so many things in RWBY, I find myself disagreeing with a perspective that's presented as a fact: "She liked to lead by group vote, which wasn’t leading at all." Yes... it is? We could go down a rabbit hole of literal definitions — to lead is to direct, to direct is to regulate, to regulate is to direct again — but ultimately our understanding of a word does not adhere to the dictionary alone. It's a knowledge built on experience and I would hope that everyone's experience with the term "leader" includes that person considering multiple perspectives before making a decision. A leader doesn't impose their view on a group without due consideration of their preferences and needs — that's a dictator — a leader guides the group based on feedback and their personal knowledge. If that feedback and knowledge results in a standstill, or if their knowledge outweighs preferences, they are the deciding vote because the people have previously said, "We trust your decisions" through the act of making them leader in the first place. 

Asking for a group vote isn't avoiding leadership, it's an act of leadership. Reese decided that these situations warranted a majority rule. She further decided that whatever they settled on was indeed an appropriate course of action. Leadership skills are required to assess a situation and determine whether it's appropriate to vote on in the first place. If I announce to a group that we're voting on whether we go to the movies or the museum, I've done the work to determine that both of these choices are of roughly equal value and roughly equal availability. I haven't hit on any snags like, "The only movies playing are mindless blockbusters and I want this to be an educational outing" or "The museum is too far away. We'll never make it to dinner on time." Figuring out that a group can vote is its own kind of work. This avenue is particularly useful when the group is of roughly equal standing. With a few exceptions (like Ruby and Jaune) huntsmen classmates are all the same age, underwent the same training, and have had the same combat experiences. This isn't a case of one elite huntsmen lending their knowledge to an otherwise green party, it's a school randomly pointing at a somewhat outgoing individual during orientation and saying, "You. You're leader material, I guess, even though you've done little differently than the person standing beside you." Someone has to lead and Vacuo's switcheroo proves that anyone can be the leader if they're just put in that position. Coco claims a group vote is just "passing the responsibility off to your team" and yes! You want to share the responsibility because you are a team. They are a group of four equals working together with one person to guide them, they are not a boss with three subordinates. Why wouldn't Reese utilize the skills and ideas of those teammates? When making a decision, why wouldn't she see if everyone believes it's a good idea to do Thing A as opposed to Thing B? Unless Reese is outright ignoring her own ideas, beliefs, or gut feelings to cater to the others — which there's no reference of — this is good leadership. She's assisting her team in making decisions as a whole, rather than arbitrarily imposing her view on three others of similar skill and experience.

Yet Coco acts like because Reese doesn't go, "We're doing Thing A! End of discussion!" it's not leadership. Which, frankly, says a lot about how the RWBY-verse sees leadership as a whole.

I realize I'm rambling a great deal, so let me quickly provide a different media example. I'm currently immersed in Star Trek: Voyager and in season two, episode 14 "Alliances," Captain Janeway is faced with a difficult choice: align herself with a violent and so far untrustworthy species, or risk traveling through this quadrant of space without any allies. At first she's entirely against the idea of an alliance, going so far as to say that this isn't a democracy. She's the captain, dammit, she makes the decisions! But her first officer begs her to reconsider. Then the crew express disappointment — even disgust — that she won't consider this alternative. Then her chief of security, being a Vulcan, provides a persuasively logical argument for why an alliance is worth the risk... Long story short, Janeway finds herself in the minority and changes her decision accordingly. She attempts to garner an alliance and the fact that she was right — the species wasn't trustworthy and the alliance fails — is entirely beside the point. She realized that the majority voice matters. As far as we know, Reese is already practicing what Janeway learned.

ANYWAY the point is none of it matters because these characterizations are a mess. Coco also throws out that Reese "dressed like she was a twelve-year-old hanging out at the mall" and supposedly acts like one too. We're not given any examples of what that behavior looks like and, sorry, but I'm not personally inclined to judge someone based on their fashion sense. It would be great if this story actually engaged with some of the flaws the characters demonstrated, rather than just throwing them out to exist in this unacknowledged void.

Not that Coco's fashion-focused personality is really that important. Truly, the best thing about all this is how contradictory Coco's own thoughts are. She also listens to her teammates... except when she doesn't. She know when to go with their ideas and when to dismiss them for her own... except when she gets it totally wrong. As with so much in RWBY, this doesn't feel like the author giving Coco deliberate flaws that the story will grapple with down the line, it just comes across as a nonsense philosophy about leadership we're not meant to examine too closely. Coco gets to make references to the fact that her own, supposedly superior leadership is filled with holes, but heaven forbid she engage with that. 

She ends all this with the thought that no matter what she might decide, she trusted her team to "do what she demanded of them” and is now extending that courtesy to Reese. This I'm inclined to praise Coco for. No matter what she might be thinking, it doesn't appear as if she's tried to undermine Reese (well, not yet. More on that at the chapter’s end), and she doesn’t appear to be refusing to listen to that leadership, even if she doesn't like how it comes about. As we're about to see, Coco has her team's best interests at heart, no matter the challenges they're facing.

Her thoughts turn back to her old team and we get... this.

Velvet was with a team that didn’t recognize her awesome capabilities. Fox was withdrawing, having lost his family for the second time. Yatsuhashi was going mad with worry about Velvet and his teammates, knowing that he couldn’t be there to protect them, and worrying he would accidentally hurt someone on his new team.

This is so unnecessarily dramatic. First, how does Coco even know any of this? Because it's been heavily implied that the old teams are barely in contact with one another. See: Velvet refusing to loop anyone in about the club and Coco stuck in the desert for a week. Second, why aren't they in contact, at least those who aren't on away missions? The entire group is acting as if changing teams means they're no longer allowed to be friends — family, as Coco puts it — when the relationship between Team RWBY and Team JNPR creates the opposite expectation right at the start of the series. Clearly, people from different teams can be close. Yatsu's worry that he might stumble using his semblance with new people is the only conflict that holds up here. Everything else has fairly straightforward solutions. Velvet needs to prove herself to new people. Yatsu needs to text Velvet if he's that worried about her. And Fox "having lost his family for a second time" is a pretty ridiculous exaggeration. You're attending the same school! Your family is still living down the hall if Vacuo has dorms like Beacon! In what world are these students unable to interact largely as they did before? They're acting as if the school has outright barred them from hanging out, rather than doing what will no doubt occur the moment they graduate: force them to work with different people. Just catch up with Fox over dinner! 

Honestly, this chapter is pretty short, I'm just continually bewildered by this story.

To get back to the actual plot, something trips a sensor the group has set up and Coco responds to the situation in what I think is both a smart and empathetic manner. Previous experience has taught her that it's likely just a lizard, so she doesn't want to wake up her team for no reason. Disagreements aside, she cares enough to let them rest — "They’d probably appreciate the extra sleep." However, if it's a "rare case of something she couldn’t handle alone" she'd immediately call for help. Great plan! It's not often in this novel that I feel like I enjoy the characters, but this little moment actually had me liking Coco. Which, yes, I realize is a complicated claim. Characters should test the reader to a certain degree, mirroring all the personalities we see in real life, including biased, mean, or contradictory people. It's often a good thing to write a character that your reader is frustrated with. That can be the point! The problem with Myers' writing is that it isn't the point. Coco, as the former leader of our heroes in this tale, should be someone we enjoy spending time with and her flaws should be the basis for growth, or an acknowledgement that she is an imperfect, but well-rounded person. As it stands, flaws in this novel just sort of... exist? They bop around in the RWBY universe with almost no acknowledgement from the narrative or other characters, leaving the reader with little to nothing to take away from the text. Is Coco correct in her judgement? Is this a bias she needs to work on? Is she putting on a facade and her natural instinct to care for her team is the real Coco hidden underneath? Who knows! She’s just frustrating to read about most of the time and nothing comes of that. 

Regardless, she heads out into the desert, using the night vision glasses Velvet made her. 

Now see, this would have been the perfect thing to introduce before Velvet was fixing relay towers after the expert was injured. Remember how I said the novel didn't do enough to establish Velvet's own expertise? Not that a pair of goggles is really comparable to fixing a communications issue, but it still would have gone some way towards convincing me that Velvet is this super impressive tech gal, capable of handling any and all situations that might come her way.

But no, we get this impressive display of skill after Velvet's knowledge was needed in a pinch. 

The glasses help Coco navigate the terrain, allowing her to both see in the dark and zoom in on things in the distance. This allows her to spot the six jackalopes that tripped the sensor, as well as the woman currently fighting them: Carmine, a villain from After the Fall that I know nothing about. Ah well. Note though what I said at the start, that Coco's dismissal of this assignment is based entirely in its supposed uselessness. Yet now here we have a pack of dangerous grimm and an enemy to content with.

Also, this is where Coco moves from kindly teammate to overconfident fool. She said she'd call for backup if she needed it... and she clearly needs it! From what I can gather, all of Team CFVY lost to Carmine last time they met up. But now she wants to risk fighting Carmine alone? Go get the others!

She doesn't, of course. Carmine doesn't notice Coco at first. She's talking about how she has to get back into the city. "He’s going to kill me if I’m not back to the Mirage in thirty."

As said, this also implies that Coco isn't nearly as far out as she initially suggested. If Carmine can feasibly finish this fight, cross the desert, navigate who knows how much of the city, and meet up with the mysterious "he" all in under half an hour, then Coco is patrolling pretty much right at the walls. AKA, the area that absolutely needs to be grimm free.

Luckily for those of us who are reading the books out of order, Myers gives a quick recap of Carmine's significance. Last book she had kidnapped Gus and "held off the combined might of Team CFVY in the desert” (oh hey, I was right), presumably escaping afterwards. Now here she is again, likely up to some new, nefarious deed. 

Our of curiosity, I googled to see what she looks like and... 

WHAT IS THAT OUTFIT? 

Coco watches as she works to keep on top of the six grimm, debating whether she should help or walk away, but when Carmine is taken unawares, Coco acts without thinking, throwing herself into the fray.

Sometimes decisions were like that—your body already knew what to do while your brain was still processing the situation. Only in this case, Coco’s body wasn’t necessarily the clearest judge of character. Her brain would have said that Carmine didn’t deserve her help.

Now see, this is a scene I can get behind. The entire RWBY-verse is based around a type of superheroism: people with unnatural abilities, fantasy weapons, and extensive training devote themselves to protecting the people from various threats. Yet too often RWBY fails to convince me that these people are actually heroic, taking the standard flaws of a character and unknowingly exacerbating them to the point where I think, "Is this meant to be a commentary on the anti-hero? Or a critical look at these fantasy formulas? Because we've got the elements of that here, but no indication that the authors realize they're writing something other than that standard story." But this? This works for me. Coco, as a huntress, is so conditioned to help others that her body responds instinctively to someone being in danger, regardless of who that someone is. She outright admits that if she'd had the chance to think about it she would have decided against helping Carmine. The fact that she recognizes this and move anyway says a lot of good about her. Well done, Coco!

We see later that Carmine probably didn't need the help, but between the two of them the grimm really don't stand a chance. What's interesting though is how chummy the two are while defending themselves. Coco comments on Carmine's tendency to talk to grimm (like she does) and Carmine freely offers information about her movements, the fact that she lost her other sword, and that her partner, Bertilak, needs to "recharge a little" before getting back in the game. Carmine asks Coco if she'd like to team up with her instead (she does not) and the two have a number of flirty exchanges to top things off:

“I’ve been dreaming of a rematch with you,” Coco said.

“You’ve been dreaming about me? I’m flattered.” Carmine winked.

***

“Hot date with the Crown?” Coco asked.

“Don’t be jealous, darling.”

I bring all this up not as a criticism of the buddy-enemy dynamic (it's a favorite of mine), but simply because of something that happens next. Before we get to that though, I admit that I am on the fence about the flirting. Given that I haven't read After the Fall (assuming this characterization exists there), I know that Coco is a lesbian mostly via RWBY cultural osmosis, rather than through the text. This is one of the few (the only?) times that I've gotten a hint at her sexuality, yet it's associated with predatory behavior. Carmine, her enemy, is the one who turns an angry dream into a flattering one, the hot date with the bad guy into something to be jealous of. I'm honestly struggling to remember what, if anything, Coco has had to say about women in this book — this is what comes of such slow recapping and I acknowledge that this is entirely my fault — but I'm nevertheless discomforted by knowing Coco's canonical status, knowing RWBY's struggles with queer rep, and then reading a scene where the most overt representation thus far is the bad guy twisting Coco's words into something sexual.

I'm no purist. Give me a good enemies-to-lovers fic any day of the week, but that doesn't mean that kind of dynamic is the best to pull from in a franchise already facing heavy criticism for its queer rep.

Especially since the moment the grimm are gone Carmine turns her sai on Coco.

This is the "something that happens next" that I referenced above. It's weird to have them attacking one another after a whole scene of pretty genuine companionship. Coco doesn't help Carmine as a consequence of defending herself, she willingly gets involved. They tease one another. Carmine appears to answer her questions honestly. There's both implied and overt references to how well they work as a team. Then, suddenly, Carmine is outright trying to kill Coco, not just with her sai but by burying her alive. It's not the sort of banter that Ruby and Roman used to engage in, trading fake compliments and, in Roman's case before his death, legitimate feelings while attacking one another. Nor is Coco prepared for an attack the moment the grimm are gone, and she's not surprised by it. It’s just this sudden change that feels rather jarring. 

Though it's far from the first time BTD has failed to convey the emotion of a scene. Here's another example rnow. As said, Carmine is attempting to bury Coco alive by moving the sand with her semblance. That's horrifying enough on its own, but remember that Coco is claustrophobic. Yet none of that panic shines through here. She comes across as indifferent throughout the attack, thinking back to summers when her brother tried to bury her while she sunbathed, amazed that she could ever consider this fun. You know who Coco sounds like in this scene?

At no point during this attack did I get the sense that Coco believes she’s in serious danger, let alone that she's struggling against a long-term phobia. The only time I even remembered that claustrophobia is meant to be a challenge for her is when she throws out the oh-so casual line, "One of her worst nightmares was being buried alive." Oh really? Because it doesn't seem like it! Coco is calm enough to remember that she used to be able to hold her breath for exactly three minutes and forty-two seconds. That doesn't feel like a character fighting against her worst nightmare.

So this scene isn't exactly compelling. Which is too bad because, as said, Coco as some other nice moments in this chapter.

However, during all this we do learn a little more about Carmine. Prior to getting trapped in the sand, Coco comments on how shockingly strong she is. "Carmine should have been at least a little bit worn down from fighting Grimm," but she's not, "She seemed nearly unstoppable now." Coco hits her full in the face, but she doesn't seem fazed. Earlier in the chapter there was that comment about how she previously took on Team CFVY alone and at the end of the battle Coco observes that Carmine "still seemed as fresh as she had at the beginning of the fight. How was she even doing that?" My basic reading comprehension skills tell me that this is setup for something, likely some change enacted by the Crown. Surely the text wouldn't put so much emphasis on Carmine's strength — have Coco questioning it to this extent, framing it as unnatural — unless we were going to get an answer, right?

But this is RWBY, so I'm not inclined to count my chickens before they hatch.

The rest of Coco's team arrives and it's then that she decides to pull the super dangerous stunt to free herself. Yeah, yeah, I get that she's suffocating and needs to do something now, can't wait to be dug out I suppose, but the timing is pretty ridiculous. The cavalry has arrived, yay! Time to blow myself up.

Seriously. She blows herself up. Using her own semblance, Coco focuses on one of her gravity dust bullets and detonates it, causing all the others in her arsenal to detonate too. It gets her out of the hole and "knocked her Aura down to a dangerously low level."

So... let’s see. Coco can literally detonate a bunch of explosives on her person, after suffocating under stand, after fighting Carmine, after fighting grimm, after a week long mission, and her aura doesn't break... but Yang's does from a single Neo slash?

Okay, RWBY.

Reese and Olive try to attack Carmine together, but end up eliminating one another's attacks. I like that a team actually has some realistic difficulties for once. Coco, however, is internally an asshole, calling them "idiots" and saying that they need to learn to coordinate their attacks. Thing is, she apparently hasn't done anything over the last week to help with that. She's been too busy complaining about Reese's clothes.

Carmine runs off as more grimm show up, drawn by Coco's non-existent panic. To her credit she does thank the others for saving her... but then immediately tries to downplay that. “It wasn’t a fair fight,” Coco spat when Reese (correctly) points out that she's the one who was ambushed. She also starts giving orders and when Reese (again, correctly!) goes to point out that she's the leader, Coco talks over her, saying they can't waste any more time out here because she has reason to believe that Shade has been compromised. She needs them only because she's out of bullets and low on aura, but they definitely need her because "let’s face it, I’m the best strategist around for miles."

Coco's a strategist?

And why does she sound like a villain trying to convince the heroes to work with her? She’s already part of the team!

Putting all that aside for the moment, we're back to this prideful characterization. I liked the well-rounded Coco from a few pages ago who balanced caring for her team with the likelihood of needing backup. Now she's flinching from the idea that she'd ever need help (hello, Sun characterization too) and snatching Reese's role the moment she's given the chance. So much for respecting her position. If the book wants me to believe that Reese is unfit to be leader and this is a golden opportunity for Coco to right a wrong... how about we actually show Reese being a bad leader?

Regardless, yay working together? The chapter ends with them presumably taking out the grimm before heading back to Shade, along with an important revelation. Prior to leaving, Carmine asked Coco why Yatsuhashi and Fox weren't rushing to her aid. It's only now that Coco realizes she didn't mention Velvet. Why? Perhaps because Carmine already knows where Velvet is, which obviously doesn't imply anything good.

And that's the end of Chapter Ten! Can you tell I never know how to finish these recaps? Describing cliffhangers doesn't have quite the same punch as, you know, actual cliffhangers. You all just have to suffer through my mediocre endings with me.

But would you look at that! Turns out the third attempt at writing this was the charm! :D

See you for Chapter Eleven! 💜

[daggery]

Can I ask for Carlos De VIl, for that character ask?

send me a character and i’ll answer with the below!

also for @hersilentlanguage​ <3

first impression: it was something like, good dancer, funny scenes, i could already tell that he’s the character who fandom tends to be all “aww he’s my pure soft cinnamon roll :((” about and i was right. MISCHIEVOUS. and again FUNNY although to be fair the entirety of d1 is hilarious. good aesthetic and color scheme

impression now: like the rest of the rotten four he grew a looooot on me (i’ve probably mentioned this before but the sea three were actually my instantly-fall-in-love characters for descendants so even though i mostly talk abt the core four now i still have a big soft spot for sea3.) back to carlos I LOVE HIM DEARLY he’s caring and blunt and determined and judgmental and soft and smart and uncertain and mean and funny he’s so funny. i love that he’s into stem and i love that he loves dogs and i love that he loves chocolate and think he deserves THE WORLD even though he probably wouldn’t really want it he’d just want to be at home poking at his latest contraption gadget building project he’s working on so instead i will simply think about jay or mal or evie giving him little metal parts or jewelry or handmade clothing or kisses bc i love him and them

favorite moment: to list just a few: the part when he plops down on the lawn and is like come on!! sit down!! sit Dooown. and then immediately goes :I ok now what. WHATEVER was going on in ways to be wicked i’ve said this before but i support everything and anything that wtbw!carlos does. his entire thing there was just. off the charts insane amazing incredible. d1 museum scene “you’re welcome 🙄” and NUMBER ONE FAVORITE MOMENTS are his judgment faces. holy shit.

idea for a story: he builds a booby trap for the gang’s hideout while everybody is out, but he doesn’t tell the others because this is just another one of his many new side projects. cue one of the core four coming home earlier than expected and obliviously walking straight into the partly-finished booby trap and setting it off and probably having a near-death experience, however the trap does not work as expected because carlos had messed up a little. the person who nearly died is like WTF (not because it was a near death experience bc there are plenty of those to go around on the isle, wtf because the hideout is supposed to be a safe spot so this is totally unexpected). carlos is like omfg you almost died that was NOT supposed to happen im sorry and also a omg thanks for walking into the trap!!! that was rly helpful, now i know where there’s a problem in it so i can fix it! and there’s a in-hindsight LMAOOOO did you see the LOOK ON YOUR FACEEEEEE element to it. whats the point of writing a carlos fic where he isnt at least a little mean.. at least a little taste of it

unpopular opinion: carlos is a nerd but he doesn’t follow rules when he doesn’t care for them and the pros of breaking the rules outweighs the cons, meaning he doesn’t do his homework when he thinks it’s stupid and a useless waste of his time because he’ll rather work on his own actually useful projects. *insert [carlos never does his homework in one class because the teacher only assigns busywork but then he turned in his 100% correct extra credit assignment because the teacher had actually made the extra credit difficult and interesting] situation*. also he’s not an all-rounder the way evie is.. he doesn’t have much lasting interest in like. the humanities.

also carlos is equal parts soft and mean! i stand by this! sometimes i feel like interpretations of him lean too much one way or another but he is both! just because his arc is about overcoming his fears doesnt mean he’s not mean himself and just because he’s a vk and not an ak doesn’t mean that he can’t be soft. (also the way he treats chad vs the way he treats jane in scenes that are literally back to back in d2 is objectively hilarious it KILLS me. wonderful stuff)

favorite relationship: rotten four!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY LOVE EACH OTHER!!!!!!

favorite a headcanon: he held his own on the isle. he joined the rotten four for protection but it’s not really something he desperately needed (although maybe somebody could write a scenario where the situation dramatically changed and he needed to find allies suddenly). of course he’s safer with them because safety in numbers and all but i don’t care for interpretations where it’s like he’s so Innocent and Naive where he needs people to protect him. he joined because he wanted to. also he was the third one to join the gang!! in my head for most scenarios it’s mal and jay together first, and evie and carlos as friends, and then jay and carlos get close so carlos joins them, and evie joins last. collects books on the isle. he finds a book and evie finds a book and then they get together and play rock paper scissors and the winner gets to pick which book they want to read first. and then a week later they swap books. sometimes instead of playing rock paper scissors, they have a contest to see who can steal the most shit off mal before she notices or something like that. once jay convinced evie to let him stand in for her because he just wanted another excuse to wrestle with carlos and evie was like aw you’re adorable<3okay and carlos was like no???what a waste of time??i want my fucking book??? but evie's already left and jay's doing the *points two fingers at his own eyes and then points them at carlos and then back and forth and so on because I'm Looking At You* gesture because he knows it annoys carlos. so carlos’s like fucking fine. FINE. (carlos wins.) if carvie find a history book saying dumb things about the vks or something they tear the offending pages out and ball them up and throw them mal’s and jay’s heads for fun.

[veebs-hates-video-games]

I don't know why, but I also grabbed Torchlight 2 while it was on sale, even though I already played part of it on my computer a while ago and quit like halfway through act 2 because I wasn't having fun.

I played the first game a while ago on my potato of a MacBook, and it was pretty decent but not amazing. The most impressive thing was how well it ran on such bad hardware, especially considering that Apple didn't (and still doesn't) give two shits about games. Ok that's not fair, they don't even give half a shit. Probably around that time someone I knew at school found a reproducible crash bug in Apple's OpenGL driver, like one that actually affected commercially released games on the platform. Not only did he file a bug report, he tracked down the patch that fixed it in Intel's open source Linux driver and included that too. They never fixed it in the next few years, and probably it was still broken by the time they dropped OpenGL entirely. I could go on for a while about how poorly they supported stuff like that or how many decisions they've made that hurt game devs, especially indie ones, but...

Anyway, TL1 was kinda fun, but also it was extremely easy with the class/skill I ended up using. Based on that I defaulted to the highest difficulty on the second game, and at some point I just gave up because it apparently doesn't change anything at all beyond making enemies have tons of health and do more damage, so it was taking forever to kill things without a super optimized build.

This time around I just left it on normal so I could do my usual thing of messing around with weird combinations of things because they're silly, and it's much better. I have two characters further than I ever got before, and they're both much more fun.

The story and writing are incredibly uninspiring, to the degree that it's one of those rare games where I'm barely paying attention to the dialogue and just skim it and skip past. I just completely do not care about anything at all that's going on.

The art style generally works well though. I prefer it to the grimdark stuff that plagues the ARPG genre because of the first two Diablo games (which I just can't get into at all). It's cartoony and colorful, with flashy effects all over when you use your fancy skills.

And it's just fairly satisfying, in a brainless sort of way, to run around murdering endless hordes of whatever it is I'm fighting.

I do still have some issues with it though. Let me respec everything whenever I want, and make it free or very cheap. Don't force me to commit to stuff when I can't tell if it's going to suck or not in such a long game. Magic find is still a terrible stat, and Diablo is terrible for inflicting it on the genre. Needing to identify items before using them adds zero interesting decision-making and is a relic of the past.

(The only game I can think of off the top of my head where unidentified items genuinely created interesting situations was Nethack, which I don't particularly like playing but which has really fascinating system interactions. It has tons of really powerful items you can stumble across early if you're lucky, but also some (literally) cursed ones that can ruin your day...and you're allowed to use unidentified items. In a game with permadeath that can get really interesting. If you're stuck and don't think you can make it past where you are you can just try your best and hope you can work something out, or you can try out one of those items you haven't been able to identify yet and hope putting on that ring or drinking that potion doesn't just straight up kill you...and that you can figure out what it does do in time to take advantage of it. See, that is interesting gameplay decisions resulting from a system like that. "Oops you ran out of identify scrolls and have to wait until you're back in town to see what this does and then wear or sell it" is just extra busywork and extremely uninteresting in comparison.)

Uh, anyway...Torchlight 2 is alright. I might even finish it this time if I haven't burned myself out on it playing so much the past few days while I've been feeling crummy and needed something relatively brainless to pass the time. And maybe some day I'll get around to talking about Grim Dawn, which I find aesthetically less appealing but which does nearly everything else so much better. I'm pretty sure I've spent more time theorycrafting for that game than I've spent playing most other games...

[victorluvsalice]

Merry Christmas WeirdKev/SlyCooper&CarlosFox!

@slycooperandcarlosfox As per your brief, here is some Alice -- feeling particularly complainy about LaCroix and the Camarilla tonight -- picking up a certain newcomer to LA! And being quite surprised when she turns out to not fit the stereotypes Alice was expecting. . .

---

“Well – I suppose I should be grateful this one isn’t explicitly an attempt to kill me.”

Alice paced up and down the train platform, scowling. “Though that also makes it all the more baffling to figure out why LaCroix sent me here,” she continued, since she had nothing better to do and no one around to hear her except her Wonderland hangers-on. “Perhaps he just needed me out of the way for a night? Wanted to be sure I wouldn’t interrupt him in the middle of his other schemes?”

“It is a puzzle,” Cheshire agreed, loping along beside her. “But purrhaps you should spend less energy on pushing these blocks around. You have other tasks more meriting your concern.”

“I know, I know. It’s just. . .” Alice stopped, running her fingers through her hair. “Honestly, I think I hate these kinds of jobs more than, for example, being tasked to drag that sarcophagus out of the museum.”

“Why? The sarcophagus wasn’t there to drag, and the museum didn’t end up on fire,” Hatter pointed out. “Easy night, all things considered.”

“All right, fair enough, but – at least that mission felt important? This is more like his demands that I ruin that poor restaurant owner – busywork! Him lording over me the fact that he’s a Prince, he spared me when he could have easily had me killed–”

“Sparking off a war with the Anarchs he was unlikely to win,” Cheshire reminded her.

“All right, yes, but he still could have done it! And that’s not even getting into the whole ‘oh, I have Dominate, so you literally have to do what I say’ business.” She raked both hands over her scalp, scowling. “He sees me either as a problem he needs to get rid of or a tool to be used. A means to an end – preferably my own. And he’s so condescending about it! It gets right under my skin!” She resumed her pacing, stomping across the boards. “All I want to do is find a way to exist in this world without getting under anyone’s feet. If he’d just let me be on my way, I’d leave! Pack up with Victor and just – head out! I’m not going Anarch, not after Damsel and Skelter and Abrams! I don’t care about any of this stupid politicking! But because having me around is a wound to his precious pride–”

“Save that thought, Alice,” Cheshire interrupted, darting in front of her feet. “Your package has been delivered.”

Right on cue, the late train pulled up, dislodging passengers in a steady flow of people. Alice straightened. Right. . .okay, pink suit, pale blond hair – ah, that’s probably her there. She squinted, narrowing in on her target. Looks rich too, all manicured and tailored. . .which makes sense if she’s another Ventrue. Ugh, another pain in the ass for me to –

“Hello!”

Alice couldn’t help starting as the woman suddenly hailed her with a smile. “You’re the one sent to meet me, right?” she continued, lugging her suitcase over to her. “Alice Liddell?”

“Yes, that’s me,” Alice said, putting on a professional voice. No sense in being rude and stirring up the hornet’s nest during first impressions. There would be plenty of time for that later. “Meaning you must be Miss Phillianne Tropy.”

“That would be me,” the woman confirmed, looking – surprisingly genuine in her cheer. Huh. “LaCroix called ahead and said you woulds be my escort into the city.”

“Yes, though I’m afraid we’re going to have to go by cab,” Alice told her, leading the way past the people and into the parking lot. “I didn’t get a chance to secure my own transportation before – all of this.”

“Ah, I see – well, I don’t mind,” Miss Tropy said, still smiling as if the idea of sitting on dirty cab seats really didn’t bother her in the slightest. “I don’t like making too much of a fuss when I go places anyway.” Her mouth puckered as her gaze became a bit more serious. “You seem a bit grouchy – I’m not pulling you away from something, am I?

Just a rare night where I could spent some time with Victor and not have it feel rushed. “Not really,” Alice lied smoothly. “Your arrival has caught me in between – projects, let’s say.”

Miss Tropy gave her a searching look. “Hmmm. Well, let me make sure you’re properly compensated for your time, at least,” she said, withdrawing her wallet from her pocket. “You did come all the way out here.”

A tip? Really? Okay – won’t say no to that. “I just do what I’m told,” she said, with a small, somewhat forced smile.

“Yes, and if I know LaCroix, you don’t get a lot of thanks for it.” Miss Tropy pressed a few bills into her hand. “Here.”

“Thank–”

The words died on Alice’s lip as she suddenly registered what exactly she’d been handed. Instead of singles, fives, tens, or even twenties, Miss Tropy had dropped ten hundreds into her palm without breaking a sweat. “Um – I think you may have–” she started, trying to hand the money back.

Miss Tropy held up a hand. “No mistake. I’m rich enough to afford that – and a lot more besides.” She descended the steps, to where a familiar cab waited in a nearby spot. “And you need it more than I do, I’m sure.” She grinned and opened the back door, gesturing for Alice to get inside. “So – ready for the trip back into L.A. proper? I’d love to get to know you better.”

Alice looked from her, to the pile of bills in her hand. Then, slowly, she closed her fingers over them and put them in her pocket. “Yes – same here,” she said softly. A Ventrue – who reminds me of Victor. Hmmm. Maybe my luck’s starting to turn.