#but like i miss mace fisher

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

North To The Future [Chapter 4: Semi-Charmed Life]

The year is 1999. You are just beginning your veterinary practice in Juneau, Alaska. Aegon is a mysterious, troubled newcomer to town. You kind of hate him. You are also kind of obsessed with him. Falling for him might legitimately ruin your life…but can you help it? Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose known only as the Ice Fisher.

Chapter warnings: Language, alcoholism, addiction, murder, veterinary medicine, delicious Thanksgiving nomz, ANGST and let me repeat that last one in case you missed it ANGSTTTTTTTTT!!!

Word count: 5k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

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Here’s the thing about the Ice Fisher: he doesn’t have a type. Ted Bundy liked girls and young women. John Wayne Gacy liked boys and young men. Juan Corona liked farm laborers, Belle Gunness liked suitors who answered the marriage ads she placed in Chicago newspapers, Robert Hansen liked sex workers who he would set loose in the Alaskan wilderness and then hunt down with his Ruger Mini-14. Everyone has their preferences. But not the Ice Fisher.

The first victim was a burly mid-fifties logger and recreational hunter named Josiah Wolfenstein. The second was nineteen-year-old college student Tammy Miller; she was from Sitka and studying psychology, a choice that now strikes you as ironic. The third and most recent victim was Carol Philips: forty-three, Garth Brooks superfan, amateur baker, and beloved soccer mom. They have nothing in common except for their manner of death. They reveal no pattern. They shed no light on who the Ice Fisher is targeting, and conversely who can consider themselves safe. Everyone is a potential victim. And there is no such thing as safe.

In between veterinary appointments, you watch the local news coverage on the grainy tv in the clinic lobby, your arms crossed instinctively over your chest, your face grim.

“You want some bear mace?” Jennifer says, showing you a small black cannister attached to a keychain. “My boyfriend buys a new one for me every time someone gets murdered, so now I have extra.”

You take it tentatively. “Bear mace?”

“Yeah, but it works on people too. It has a 30-foot range. You can spray that Greek guy with it.”

You laugh and clip the bear mace to your purse: a Coach patchwork saddle bag that your parents bought you a few Christmases ago. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Chief of Police Eugene Baker, a high school classmate of your parents, is holding a press conference on the television screen. “We believe this killer to be an adult male with considerable physical strength and knowledge of the outdoors. While the first two victims were found in Dredge Lake, Ms. Philips’ remains were recovered from nearby Crystal Lake, complicating the investigation. Police are patrolling the Tongass National Forest, but we simply do not have the manpower to surveille all Juneau-area lakes at all times. We therefore will continue to ask for the public’s cooperation in submitting tips and identifying possible suspects. To this end, we have set up an anonymous 24/7 hotline staffed by volunteers; the phone number is displayed at the bottom of your screen. We advise all Juneau residents to stay vigilant, particularly around strangers, and avoid leaving their homes alone after dark…”

Outside in the violet-and-amber afternoon light, there is the sound of tires slipping on ice. Aegon’s 1985 Chevy Nova drifts sideways into a parking spot; or, rather, into a position improbably straddling three separate parking spots. He and Sunfyre exit the vehicle.

“Oh, great,” Jen grumbles. She hides behind the reception desk so she won’t have to interact with Aegon. She busies herself with cutting pieces of paper into snowflakes, impaling them with paperclips, and arranging them on the miniature Christmas tree that you obtained for the clinic.

“Hey!” Aegon announces merrily as he breezes inside. He is dressed in his light-wash Levis, black Converses, and an oversized pale green sweater with holes in it; the white of the T-shirt he has on underneath shines through the gaps like stars. Overtop he has thrown the black parka you gave him, unzipped and peppered with melting snowflakes. Half of his hair is pulled back in a messy bun. Sunfyre—still wearing his cone of shame—trots along beside him, unleashed.

“Hey,” you return, smiling. “You’re early.”

“We weren’t catching anything, there was an orca pod in the bay this morning and it scared most of the fish off. So we docked the boat after lunch.” His spots the new addition to your purse. “What’s up with that?”

“It’s bear mace. For bears…or serial killers…or you. I haven’t decided which yet. What’s up with your hair?”

“It’s a man bun,” he says, somewhat defensive. “They’re very popular in Southern California.”

“That sounds fictional.”

“I’ll have you know that in the acclaimed feature film Mulan, love interest and all-around badass General Li Shang had a man bun.”

“Literally fictional.”

“Are you going to take the stitches out of my dog’s face or are you just going to mercilessly bully me? I’m very sensitive, you know. As an Aquarius, I hide this beneath a thin veneer of rebellious behavior and inability to commit, but at my heart I am a profoundly fragile man. I’m forever just a few seconds away from disaster. I’m a Christmas ornament in the unsteady hands of a five-year-old high on the jittery, saccharine rush of Kool-Aid.”

“Tropical Punch?”

“Cherry. But knowing you, every cup would have to be a brand new flavor.”

You’re still smiling; you haven’t stopped since he walked in. Aegon smiles back. Jen peeks over the top of the reception desk with wide, curious eyes. Sunfyre whines and scratches at his cone, as if to remind everyone about the true purpose of this visit.

“Bring the beast,” you say, leading Aegon back into the exam room. He scoops up Sunfyre with a grunt and places him on top of the table; the dog’s nails click against the cool, reflective metal surface. You liberate Sunfyre from his cone, then numb his muzzle with lidocaine and remove the stitches one at a time, snipping them with surgical scissors and then pulling them out of the flesh with tweezers. Aegon watches you with his hands in his parka pockets, his expression strangely vacant.

“He’ll have a scar, won’t he?”

“Yes, a small one. But that will just make him more rugged and attractive to all the lady-dogs. Or gentleman-dogs, whatever Sunfyre is into.”

“A scar on his face,” Aegon murmurs, then shakes his pensiveness away. “What should I bring to Thanksgiving?”

“Probably nothing. I think my parents have it covered…the appetizers, the dinner, the desserts…and also, you do not strike me as someone who cooks.”

“Yeah, I eat a lot of Lunchables. But I feel like I should bring something.”

Your eyes flick to his, playful. “Are you worried about making a good first impression?”

Aegon smirks, shrugs, says nothing. Sometimes you make an appearance at Ursa Minor, sometimes you don’t; sometimes you pick up when he calls, sometimes you end up spending hours in his apartment watching the X-Files or Law & Order or 60 Minutes. Other times, you fill your time with work, family, friends, flipping through the tower of travel magazines you have stacked beside your bed. It’s not that you’re ignoring Aegon. It’s that you’re trying to figure out what being with him would be like: what you would gain, what it would cost. He hasn’t tried to touch you since that night under the Northern Lights. You haven’t tried to pry into his many mysteries. But each unanswered question is like a landmine one careless step away from eruption, and they’re filling up that space that stays between you on his threadbare floral couch. At this precise moment, Aegon seems sober, which is highly unusual. There’s something quiet and boyish about him when he’s like this, something almost vulnerable. You can picture him wandering aimlessly through the Foodland, staring at mounds of Idaho potatoes and cans of gooey apple pie filling, having no idea what to do with any of it.

“My mom really likes flowers,” you say. “And obviously she doesn’t get to see them a lot this time of year. So if you want to bring something, bring flowers.”

“Okay. Deal.”

“No rum and Cokes today?” you ask, still removing stitches with sure, deft hands.

“Not yet. But I’m counting the seconds until we’re done here, believe me.”

You recall what he told you as you sat together in Ursa Minor under Christmas lights and strands of shimmering silver tinsel: I don’t do well when I’m sober. You pull out the last stitch and pet Sunfyre’s soft fluffy head. He pants happily, his tail thumping against the table, his trusting dark eyes gazing up at you, tiny starless universes. “Why did you buy the Nova if you’re almost always too drunk to drive it?”

“So I can take Sunfyre up to the woods on nice days. He loves the trails.”

“Um, I don’t think you should be hiking out there alone.”

“Relax. Killers never get the people who deserve it.” Aegon flashes you grin, digs around in his parka pocket, tosses you a gold key that you catch in fumbling, cupped palms. “Here.”

“What is this?”

“It’s a spare. Just in case you ever want to stop by and hang out with my dog. Or, you know. Me.”

You gawk at the key, at Aegon, back to the key. “You’re giving me a…? Why would…? How…?”

“Just so you know it’s an option,” Aegon says. He lifts Sunfyre down from the exam table and leaves like the sun at dusk.

~~~~~~~~~~

You love waking up at home on holiday mornings. There is the noise of clanging pots and pans, the scents of bacon and pancakes and rising Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, the sound of one of your dad’s rock albums spinning on the record player in the living room. Today, his Thanksgiving preparation background music is Third Eye Blind; you bound down the stairs as Semi-Charmed Life drifts through the house. After a swift breakfast—your mom has already set out a plate for you, along with a glass of ice-cold orange juice and a Flintstones multivitamin—the real work begins.

The turkey is slathered with butter and herbs and placed in the oven. The neck and giblets are boiled to make stock for gravy, and then you set them aside for Sunfyre. The rolls are baked, the potatoes are mashed, the yams are smothered with brown sugar and marshmallows, the green bean casserole is topped with French’s fried onions, the stuffing is Stove Top out of the box, the cranberry sauce retains the precise shape of the aluminum can it was jiggled out of. Once you and your dad have finished setting the table, you tell him you’re heading out to pick up the mysterious friend who will be joining you for dinner.

“Your friend doesn’t have a car?” your dad asks, not critical or suspicious, merely intrigued. You have been uncharacteristically cagey about this particular friend, and with good reason. You know practically nothing besides what your parents have already surmised: male, probably single, inopportunely sexy.

“No, he does. I just told him that I’d give him a ride.” In case he gets too hammered to drive himself home, which is almost a certainty.

“Okay, ladybug,” your dad says, folding the red cloth napkins into inelegant triangles, his scruffy grey eyebrows knitted together. “Whatever floats your boat.”

When you knock on Aegon’s apartment door, he appears dressed in his most festive attire: a blue Hawaiian shirt, black jeans, combat boots, a gold chain around his neck, his white-blond hair neat and mostly straight. He is holding a bouquet of roses that have been dyed a deep sapphire color, like the ocean, like biting winter cold.

“Wow,” you say. “You look like Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet.”

“I hope I get a happier ending.” He calls Sunfyre over. The golden retriever pads into view. He is wearing a meticulously groomed coat of fur and a blue bowtie to match Aegon’s shirt.

“Hey, buddy!” you squeal in delight, squatting down to scratch Sunfyre’s ears and cover his scarred muzzle with quick smacking kisses. “You are going to be so psyched when you see what we have for you. There’s a nice turkey neck…and a heart, and a liver…and a delicious gizzard…and maybe even some nice juicy kidneys…and I’ll slice it up all up for you into easily chewable little bites…”

“Calm down, Appletini,” Aegon says, grabbing his parka. “You wouldn’t want anyone thinking you’re the Ice Fisher.”

Back at your parents’ house, your mom and dad dash to the door to meet your enigmatic friend, clamoring like teenage girls at an Enrique Iglesias concert. Aegon beams and shakes their hands, thanking them graciously for the invitation. Your dad shoots you a furtive grin: This friend IS sexy! Sunfyre presents himself for pats and high-pitched coos of adoration.

“I’m Vince, and this is my wife Debbie,” your dad says. “But you can call us Mom and Dad, that’ll make things less confusing. That’s what most of my daughter’s friends do.”

“That is so totally cool of you. I’m Aegon.”

“Aegon?!” your mom blurts out before she can stop herself.

He sighs. “It’s Greek.”

“Oh, how exotic!” she recovers tactfully, then gasps when he hands her the bouquet. “For me?!”

“It’s the absolute least I could do. I hope you like roses. The options at the Foodland were roses, roses, or…let me think…oh yeah, more roses.”

“They’re lovely,” your mom purrs. “And such a unique color!”

“They reminded me of Alaska, all the ocean, and ice, and big open sky…and also Appletini. Because I always give her the blue mug.”

Your parents blink at him, confounded. “…Appletini?” your dad ventures, smiling.

“It’s a long story,” you say, suddenly shy.

“Well, come on in,” your mom courteously deflects. “There are deviled eggs, salmon dip, Ritz crackers, and pigs in a blanket just waiting to be eaten.”

As your mom and dad bang around the kitchen putting the final touches on dinner, you and Aegon assemble your appetizer plates and loiter in the dining room, nibbling and chatting, bathed in the flickering golden light of the woodstove and humming along to the red Third Eye Blind vinyl that is still rotating on the record player like a bloody planet. There are three unopened bottles of wine on the table. Aegon keeps glancing at them, his eyes gleaming and famished.

“Would you like a tour of the house?” you say. “An authentic Alaskan house? Come March you’ll probably never have this opportunity again. You’ll be jet-setting off to some other far-flung destination, probably somewhere warm where they have plentiful Taco Bells and internet.”

“I’m not a fan of the internet,” Aegon replies, piling a Ritz cracker worryingly high with salmon dip. “But Taco Bells are a must. Yes, lead the way, oh wise and prophetic Madame Appletini.”

You show him the kitchen where your parents are laboring (floral wallpaper), the study (more floral wallpaper), the living room (wood paneling), and the backyard (adorned with a salt lick for the friendly neighborhood cow moose). Then you take Aegon upstairs to your bedroom. He ponders the details for a nerve-rackingly long time as he gnaws on slightly-too-crispy pigs in a blanket: your stack of travel magazines, your veterinary books, your dark blue bedding, the photographs taped to your mirror, the plethora of posters tacked to your walls.

Aegon speaks without looking at you, still investigating. “Has Trent ever gotten to enjoy your extensive collection of Ricky Martin posters?”

“Not yet. Preferably not ever.”

Now Aegon turns to you; he is smiling. “I feel so sorry for him.”

“Dinner’s ready, kids!” your dad shouts up the stairs, and you obediently report to the table to eat until you are in agony, which to your understanding is the primary objective of Thanksgiving.

“Drinks?” you mom inquires as she lights the tall red candles. The blue roses are in a vase at the center of the table. “There’s Tang, and Snapple, and water of course, and Pinot Noir. Martha Stewart says that’s the best wine to pair with turkey.”

“Wine, please,” Aegon says. She fills his glass. It vanishes almost immediately.

Aegon is the perfect guest: he samples everything and offers enthusiastic compliments, even when he is clearly horrified (as he is by the green bean casserole): “The turkey is so moist and flavorful!” “The yams are like dessert!” “It’s so fun to poke this cranberry sauce!” “My, what a creative use of cream of mushroom soup!” Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Sunfyre feasts on a plate of turkey organs and a few slices of white meat. You have a glass of wine, and so does your dad; your mom has two; you lose count of Aegon’s glasses after four. He becomes increasingly uncoordinated, giggly, fogged like a window. Your parents do not encourage him to drink, but they don’t try to stop him either; they ignore his drunkenness like a ghost that stands in the corner of the room, silent, waiting, set ablaze by firelight.

“Do I detect a British accent?” your dad asks Aegon pleasantly. “So this must be a new experience for you. Did you grow up abroad?”

“I grew up everywhere.” Aegon smirks evasively, swigging his wine. “And yes, my exposure to Thanksgiving is extremely limited. But I like this. I like this a lot. I’m going to have to do it every year, wherever I am. Sunfyre will rebel if I don’t. He’ll call PETA to file a complaint.”

“You do quite a bit of travelling, I gather,” your mom says. She watches Aegon with an intense, mesmerized sort of interest. It’s almost unnerving. It’s like she is searching for something: fingerprints dusted at a crime scene, gold nuggets sifted from a river.

“All over. All the time.”

“What do you do for work?”

“Everything,” Aegon says. “Here I’m salmon trolling. In San Francisco I was a dockworker, in San Diego I was a lifeguard—you don’t want to know how little training it takes to be a custodian of human lives, it’s absolutely horrifying, they’d let a great white shark be a lifeguard if it looked good in red—in Phoenix I did construction, just outside of Denver I got a job working on a cattle ranch. In Dallas I picked cotton. In Portland, Maine I caught lobsters. I’ll try anything once. I just like to keep moving. As long as I can make enough money to have somewhere for me and Sunfyre to sleep at night, I’m happy.”

“You’re just like Jack Dawson in Titanic,” your mom sighs, smiling in a way that brightens her whole face. “All you need is the air in your lungs.”

“You work on the same boat as Heather’s brother Trent, is that right?” your dad asks.

“Oh, Trent!” your mom says. “He’s a hunk. He looks just like a long-haired Matt Damon.”

You squint at her. “Yeah, if Matt Damon did steroids.”

“He’s a nice boy, that Trent,” your dad says. “I mean, he won’t be winning Who Wants To Be A Millionaire anytime soon, but he’s solid.”

Your mom nods in agreement. “Dumb as a rock.”

“He’s a great guy,” Aegon says diplomatically. “Wouldn’t hurt a fly. Unless that fly was a salmon.” He laughs overly-loudly, sloshing red wine out of his glass and staining the tablecloth like blood on snow. Your parents pretend not to notice.

After dinner, your mom brings out dessert: one pumpkin pie, one apple pie, one plate full of Tongass Forest Cookies. Aegon samples both pies and gobbles cookies until his Hawaiian shirt is littered with crumbs, washing them down with more wine. Then he gets up to pull on his parka and let Sunfyre outside. Aegon lurches as he moves, clutching walls and counters and the backs of chairs.

“I’ll go with you,” your mom offers before you can. She helps Aegon down the icy porch steps and then plays with Sunfyre in the backyard: chasing him through the snow, throwing sticks for him to fetch, tossing snowballs for him to snap between his jaws. Aegon, wobbly but in good spirits, participates as much as he can. And the way that your mom looks at him…it’s an expression you can’t recall ever seeing on her face before. It is fascination and fondness and grief all tangled up together. The light in her eyes is beautiful; it is also breathtakingly sad.

Your dad taps one of the empty wine bottles. “He’s got a problem, ladybug.”

“I know.”

“You can’t fix that for him. He has to want to fix himself.”

“I know,” you say again, your voice a brittle whisper.

Your dad sighs deeply and clasps his hands together, stares out the window, contemplates something heavy and unseen. At last, he speaks. “I’ve loved your mother my whole life. And when she and Jesse got together, I thought it was going to kill me. It wasn’t the fact that she was with another man. It was what he put her through. There were fights, there were bruises, and then there were promises and apologies, past-due bills and handmade birthday cakes, locked doors, open doors, kicked down doors. I couldn’t get her to leave him, and I couldn’t watch it keep happening. I tried everything to get away from your mother. I joined the goddamn Marines to get away from her. Four years in Vietnam and I still couldn’t sweat her out. I came back to Juneau and used my G.I. Bill to go to the University of Alaska, and…I would never admit this to anyone except you, but you need to hear it…I waited for that marriage to fall apart. And it did, but it took Jesse drowning in the Gastineau Channel.” He looks at you with miserable, glistening eyes. “Watching the way your mother suffered with a man like that was hell. Watching you go through the same thing would be unbearable.”

There is silence: a silence as thick and perilous as the ocean. Your dad studies you, searching for understanding, for a rational consensus to be reached. You study the lines in your palms. There is nothing rational about what you’re feeling. Alaska is flush with eligible men who are not temporary, not secretive, not unrepentant alcoholics: pilots, truckers, fishermen, loggers, oil riggers, scientific researchers, park rangers. You don’t want any of them. You’ve never wanted anything the way you want Aegon. It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.

The back door opens, and your mom and Sunfyre—elated and covered in snow—romp into the house. Your mom is giggling as she grabs a dishtowel from the kitchen and begins to clean the snow from Sunfyre’s fur. “You might want to…uh…retrieve Aegon,” she tells you. “It’s pretty cold out there.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Making snow angels.”

“Oh. Great.” You put on your own parka and head out into the afternoon twilight.

“Hey,” Aegon says from where he’s sprawled on the ground. He’s sweeping his arms and legs back and forth as stars rise in the sky.

“Hey. Are you having fun down there?”

“Yes.” His breath is a cloud in the frigid air. His arms and legs go still. “I love feeling small like this. Nothing matters. Not our pasts, not our accomplishments, not our mistakes. We’re all just bones with memories. We’re all just future space dust.”

“You don’t want to be remembered?”

“God no. What would be worth remembering? I want to be a whisper. I want to be the wind that blows over the ocean.” He cranes his neck to look up at you, thoughtful in that glazed, drunken sort of way. “You can remember me, I guess. I’ll allow that. But only you. No one else.”

“Assuming I outlive you.”

“You will obviously outlive me.” He holds his arms up in the air and you pull him to his feet.

“I think it’s time for you and Sunfyre to go home.”

“Oh no.” His face is filled with abrupt realization. “Do your parents hate me?”

“No, they like you. They like you a lot. They’re just worried about you.” And they’d be a lot more worried if they knew about the track marks on your arms or the fact that you can’t stay in one place longer than six months without being descended upon by maybe-metaphorical ghosts.

Aegon laughs wildly, almost hysterically. He reaches for your shoulder to steady himself and then stops short. He sways in the late-November air, his hair dripping from the snow, his hazy blue eyes all over you. You tuck his ever-errant lock of hair behind his ear. I love him, you think helplessly, like when you know you’re dreaming but can’t wake up. “Worried about me,” he muses without elaborating. “Worried about me.”

Your parents send Aegon home with warm hugs and Tupperware containers full of leftovers, including extra turkey meat for Sunfyre and a truly ludicrous helping of cookies. You drive to Aegon’s apartment building slowly so Sunfyre can stick his head out the back window and bark gleefully at every car you pass. It is dark when you get there, the sunset come and gone, the constellations visible in a rare clear sky: Gemini, Orion, Draco, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor. Your Jeep idles under the lusterless beam of a streetlight.

Aegon asks, a ghost of a smile on his lips: “You want to come upstairs with me?”

“Yes,” you reply. And if you do, you won’t leave until morning. “But not until I’ve talked to you about something first.”

“It’s important,” Aegon says softly, not a question but an observation, reading your face like a weather forecast: chance of sun, chance of storms.

“Yes, it’s important.”

“Okay. Let me take Sunfyre inside and I’ll be right back.”

“Okay.”

He doesn’t kiss you goodbye, he doesn’t even hug you. He reaches out with one hand and dusts his calloused thumbprint across your cheekbone, marveling at you like you’re a radiant horizon, like you’re ancient ruins: cave paintings older than the pyramids, pillars of stones and secrets. Then he gets out of the Jeep and staggers into the apartment building with Sunfyre scampering along beside him. He reappears moments later, his hands buried in the pockets of his parka. You were too anxious to wait in the Jeep; you pace back and forth beneath the dim ochre streetlight. Aegon watches you from several yards away, waiting for you to begin.

“Look,” you say. “I like you.”

“Cool.”

“No, I mean, I really like you.”

He smiles like the sun, like the Northern Lights. “So you are applying to be my Juneau girl.”

“Yes. But I need something from you first.”

His blue eyes are calm beneath the streetlight, beneath the starlight. “Name it.”

“I need you to get help.”

Aegon shakes his head, not understanding, his smile slowly dying. His lock of bone-white hair cuts his cheek in half like a scar. “What are you talking about?”

“You can go to rehab. I’ll help you find a program, I’ll take care of Sunfyre while you’re away.”

Everything about him changes, like the phases of the moon: his face darkens, his eyes go steely and sharp, everything you love about him is eclipsed. “I don’t need rehab.”

“Aegon, you obviously need rehab.”

He glares at you with savage distrust, with betrayal.

“I need you to get yourself together,” you plead. “I want to be with you, I want to let myself care about you, but I can’t do that when you’re killing yourself right in front of me.”

“I don’t see how it affects you.”

“It does. It will.”

“I’m a lot better now than I was two years ago.”

“It’s not good enough, Aegon.”

He looks down at his combat boots, then back at you. You barely recognize him. “So I’m not good enough.”

“That’s not what I said—”

“It’s what you meant, it’s what this whole fucking conversation is about, right?” he flares. “You not being satisfied with the kind of person I am. You thinking that you get any say at all in who I am. Are you delusional, are you that goddamn narcissistic? Have you staked some claim to me that I’m unaware of? Are you Christopher Columbus here to strip me bare and claim you discovered me?”

“Are you listening to me?! I’m trying to tell you that I l—”

“No, you don’t like me. You like some hypothetical version of me that you’re trying to convince yourself exists.”

You stare at him in heartbroken disbelief. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

“I don’t need your help. I don’t want your help.”

“But I thought…if you would just…we could…”

“When the fuck did I ever promise you a future?” Aegon flings like a blade. “When did I ever promise you anything? You think I showed up here to build you some cabin on the side of a mountain, get a desk job, give you Christmases and kids? That’s not me. That’s never going to be me. I’m not yours to use. I’m not a Ricky Martin poster to keep tacked up on your wall. I’m not the impetus to bail you out of your spineless, unfulfilling life.”

“Please stop.” Your throat is burning; there are hot tears slithering from your eyes. The icy wind stings against your face. “Please just stop.”

“I’m not the one who fucked this up,” Aegon hisses. “It was you, it was you, because I told you the truth but you refused to believe it. I’m not yours and I never was and I’m never going to be, so you better get that through your thick fucking skull. I’m not yours.”

“And why would I want someone like you?!” you scream into the darkness. He flinches away like you’ve hit him. His eyes are huge and glassy. “An alcoholic, an addict, a coward who runs away from anything worth living for? I’d rather die than waste my life on you. Wait, my mistake, waste the next four months on you, because then you’ll be fleeing to go terrorize some other girl in some other city. I don’t want you. I can’t wait to forget you.”

“Then go!” Aegon roars over his shoulder as he turns away. “Just fucking go!” He storms off into his apartment building; he disappears like the end of summer, leaving a jet-black endless void.

You retreat back into your Jeep, slam the door, and sit there under the silver-cold moonlight sobbing into empty, trembling hands.

[firesign23]

First Lines!

@kiraziwrites and @floating-in-the-blue both tagged me "recently" (I am very bad at finishing posts in a timely manner) in the first lines meme!

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written fewer than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway

The Code of the Lannisters - Game of Thrones, Jaime/Brienne, 5.7K

It began, as far too many disasters did, with the arrival of An Aunt. In this case with the indomitable termagant that was Aunt Genna Frey, née Lannister, who arrived at Jaime’s King’s Landing townhouse for their luncheon in a tizzy and an enormous fur coat.

(Technically the next is a set of drabbles from the MFMM Flashfic challenge, but there's no 'first lines' in those really)

Outback - Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Mac/Rosie, 500 words

Nobody in Melbourne is quite indelicate enough to ask why Rosie Sanderson has moved into the small house near the university, or why she shares it with a doctor who lectures there.

the road back home again - Game of Thrones, Jaime/Brienne, 27K

The Longclaw Tavern hadn’t changed. The same sawdust floors, the same shitty beer and the shelf of high quality whiskey thick with dust. Beside the bar mirror was a faded sign advertising the sourtoe cocktail, ‘the first and only in Westeros’. Jaime swilled his beer around his mouth, studied the weirwood bar heavy with water stains and pockmarks from decades of visitors to the tavern where the wilderness began.

Undisclosed Desires - Game of Thrones, Jaime/Addam/Brienne, 3.7K

She meets Addam over a sickbed. King's Landing is halfway to rubble when she arrives, and Jaime is halfway to death, and there's a man she's never met standing guard over them both.

These Foolish Things - Game of Thrones, Jaime/Brienne, 5.5K

Gravel crunches under the wheels of the phaeton as Jaime turns up the long driveway that leads to Baratheon Hall. Thick trees and red sunset skies give the journey the sense of another world, far removed from the bustle of King’s Landing, the march of progress. Old gas lamps spot the long length of the drive—to use electric would be crude, Cersei insists, but Jaime suspects she enjoys the power of sending them to be lit and extinguished at her will, the power to make Robert’s late night returns as difficult as possible in his drunken state.

come in, she said (i'll give you shelter from the storm) - Game of Thrones, Jaime/Brienne, 1.7K

There is much to do in the rebuilding of Winterfell, the buildings and its people both, and the war to the south still lingers; the Dragon Queen wishes to mobilise her forces and Lady Sansa does not, and it feels hours are wasted every day by their barbed insults and verbal clashes, a subtler warfare than swords and maces but just as deadly. It is that and only that which makes the people look warily out the windows as dusk falls far too early, as the wind begin to blow, bringing with it a driving snow that makes every moving shadow beyond Winterfell’s walls too reminiscent of— It is only the unease of the unknown, that is all. Still, when Brienne returns late to her quarters to find a supper of soup and fresh bread warming over the fire and Jaime in her bed…. Sometimes she is not certain that she did not die after all, and this is her reward.

we shall go into the land (so our children can always hold us) - Wheel of Time, Lan/Nynaeve, 1.3K

Fal Dara is nothing like the Two Rivers. Even now, late into the night with the moon high, there are torches hung on every wall, leaving fewer shadows to hide in; no one in Emond’s Field would think of such a thing, but here… Here, what were children’s tales to her are a way of life, monstrous and magical and mundane all at once.

what strange lullaby is this (that sings from its wound) - Game of Thrones, Brienne-centric, 16.3K

Six moons after the North is granted its independence, its Queen marries a young man from a House of no real repute. But he is young and his family loyal, and on the night of their wedding feast he does not object to the Queen’s silent shadow cloaked in blue armour. The North will not hold with southern wedding customs—there is no disrobing of the bride, no vicious hands or cheering spectators. Only a husband, a Queen, and the woman sworn to protect her.

the fixed foot - Game of Thrones, Jaime/Brienne, 500 words

Though it is summer, there is a chill in the night air that drives Brienne to sit before the fire in the Evenstar’s rooms. Her rooms. It still feels half a dream, the title; a life she had imagined abandoned when she had sailed from the island and had fallen upon her when she had not expected it. She is grateful that she need not bear it alone, for Jaime had followed her south and then into a sept, declaring what she had long known: she was his and he was hers, and together they would face the challenges to come.

and if tomorrow it's all over, at least we had it for a moment - Game of Thrones, Jaime/Brienne, 12.8K

Fuck loyalty. She stands there, glorious in her fury, stalwart in her declaration. Fuck loyalty. Like it is a simple request, like his loyalty is not the only virtue he has left. He might fuck his sister and try to kill a boy, he might kill a king to stop him from using wildfire and stand by when a queen does. He might be callous and sharp and rude, but he is loyal. And it means nothing to her, angry and righteous as she is, and worse still it reminds him that it is only a virtue if he is loyal to those who deserve it.

I have absolutely zero idea who has done this, so tagging @aurora-australis-tumbles @glamorouspixels @serhumfreysbrokencollarbone @samirant @scoundrels-in-love @luthienebonyx @it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined @catherineflowers29 @ladym-rules @deadhuntress

[seras-elessar]

Death’s Door - misunderstanding Souls

Death’s Door is beautiful. It suffers in the game play. Clearly made to be a souls-like it fails to grasp the nuance of souls combat and world building. There’s one winning strategy, and one only. Your dodge roll has a cool down.

Poor thematic story. Great, beautiful visuals.

And poor, oh so poor, combat.

tldr: 5/10 Didn’t like it. Can’t recommend it. More under the cut.

When Demon Souls and then Dark Souls came out the consensus among my peers was that the game was filled with unfair, trial and error challenges that would kill the player as much soon as look at them. Now that wasn’t true of Dark Souls; you’re always given enough information that even when you’re dropped into an ambush or a trap you always feel like you’ve could’ve avoided it.

Not so for Death’s Door. You’re dropped into challenges without knowing what you’re in for. The enemies spawn in in waves, giving you little to no chance to be prepared for the challenge ahead. Even bosses work this way.

Unpredictible seems to be the name of the outline for Death’s Door, not in story, but in combat. No enemy beyond the absolute basic monsters are truly readable. An example is the big, Smough-looking knights. They have a large mace they use to smash once, twice, three or four times. There is one tell for the once smash, the other’s are a guessing game. Will it hit twice or thrice? No idea, and nothing can tell me. The winning strategy is a game of tag that becomes very tiresome after the first ten times, and never lets up for the next five thousand. Attack and dodge away. Attack and dodge away. And so proceeds the combat of all the bosses and larger enemies.

To complicate this winning strategy is the aspect that the dodge roll doesn’t use stamina, instead it has a cool down. This means you can’t dance with the enemies, dodge around them the way you do in Soulsborne games, or Hades. Instead it became to me a last resort of moving away from the enemy, and no something I ever felt I could trust.

Speaking of trust. When I play an action adventure game like Souls or Hades the games build a trust in that the dodge is a dodge and the attack is an attack. This however is not so. The dodge as mentioned above need a cool down, but th i-frames seem off. Only the middle of the dodge has you actually invincible, the starting and ending frames of the dodge roll is still has your very confusing hit-box taking hits if you try to stay close to the enemy.

The enemy also have confusing animations. Sometimes an enemy lands from a jump, with an animated shockwave, and it hits the crow. Other times the shockwave does nothing. And you can never tell which is a hurty jump and which isn’t. To compare it to Elden Ring it would be like if the horn blowers sometimes just alerted the other enemies and sometimes gave you a concussion. Just not all the time, and not entirely dependant on enemy class or type.

The art is lovely though, the animations look great and there are a lot of interesting and fun character designs, but the game seems to do very little with them. I personally love the Lift Person, but you use the lift once and then just teleport between the stages. Underutilised. Same with the Fisher Man Cook that can tell you secrets over a bowl of food. He’s fun, though.

On the other hand there’s the Bard comic relief. He celebrates your victory of the third main boss by making an absolutely, disgustingly, terrible rhyme about it. I was honestly extremely disappointed when I came to that scene. Not funny or beautiful, it really points out another problem of the game.

The tone is unstable, like the creators didn’t know if they were making a game for children or for adults. The difficulty would leave any child frustrated and dejected, and the story and tone leaves me as an adult disappointed and let down. It tries to say something along the lines of “death is just a natural part of life, and going for immortality corrupts”, but it fails even at that. It feels under developed, missing the point of the Souls series story, the same way the combat misses the point of the Souls combat.

So in the end, this is a Souls-like that doesn’t understand how and why the Souls-games work, buying into the hype about the Souls “difficulty” being it’s main selling-point. And it is difficult. Very difficult. But in the trial and error bullshit that strained my patience every second of me playing it. So it’s a poor game, gorgeous, missing the very essence of what makes Dark Souls great.

[hellishfig]

finishing up the first special episode of wolf 359, “change of mind,” for the third time and god i miss the first crew of the hephaestus every day and i only had them for a little over two hours

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #427

Top Ten Saddest Deaths in Star Wars

In retrospect, I should have swapped last week's list and this one; it feels more appropriate to do a Star Wars Day thing just before May 4th, rather than the better part of a week later. But ah well.

Loads of people die in Star Wars. Off the top of my head, Empire Strikes Back – which is meant to be the dark one! – is the only film without a major character death. Daughter #1 once told me she preferred Harry Potter because not as many people die (she was only up to Goblet of Fire, bless her). So right from the start Star Wars is synonymous with characters kicking it.

So this week, to celebrate Star Wars Day last Monday, I'm honouring not the most notable, not the most epic, but the most sadder deaths a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. There’s plenty to choose from; SW is often at its best when it's being overly emotional. There are a lot of “Nooooo!”s in the franchise. But in selecting these ten bucket-kickings, I was a bit surprised by which purchased farms did not make my entirely arbitrary cut. Basically, when I sat and thought about what I felt or feel when that character carks it, just how sad did I feel? The answers may surprise you.

I wanted to do something else to tie (fighter) in to the whole May the Fourth be With You of it all (or, indeed, the Revenge of the Fifth, which is like the hipster Star Wars Day). But to be honest I'm still reeling after the cavalcade of disappointments and banal decisions that plagued Rise of Skywalker. In fact, I was going to write a piece about how all the problems in the Sequel Trilogy could be traced to decisions made in The Force Awakens, which is supposed to be the one everyone likes; but it just kept sounding whiney and sensationalist, which wasn’t my intention. I think my emotions are still running a bit too high on the subject, which obviously would make me a crap Jedi. I even thought of doing “Ten Things I Love about the Sequel Trilogy” but it ran the risk of being “the young cast” and then nine things that happen in The Last Jedi.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, people getting killed real good in a Star War. Oh, one final thing, before we commence the bloodbath: this is just the films. I've not seen nearly enough of the shows to include deaths from there too, even though The Mandalorian would definitely have featured here.

Right. Spoiler alert, natch. Don't fear the reaper.

K-2SO (Rogue One, 2016): the best droid in Star Wars dies a noble death, defending his friends, buying them enough time to complete their suicide mission, suffering multiple tragic blaster hits, proving his worth and his compassion. The Star Wars equivalent of Boromir defending the hobbits.

Han Solo (The Force Awakens, 2015): doomed from the moment he stepped onto the bridge, he risks everything to try one last time to bring his son back. Shockingly run through, his tender caress of Ben/Kylo’s cheek before his death plunge is heartbreaking.

Luke Skywalker (The Last Jedi, 2017): benefits from one hell of a twist and a superb Jedi power move, but Luke wistfully fading away beneath the image of twin suns, his legend restored and his heroism secure, after saving the Resistance and inspiring a new generation, is beautifully poetic. Pity the next film kinda made it redundant.

Padme Amidala (Revenge of the Sith, 2005): much is to be made of the failure of Star Wars’ obstetric medicine and the whole “dying of a broken heart” thing, but there is real tragedy in this superb woman – a leader, a warrior, a devoted wife – just expiring on a table having been thoroughly deceived and then abused by her husband. A darker death than the film is willing to address.

Yoda (Return of the Jedi, 1983): Yoda pretty much just dies of old age, fading into the Force before our eyes, a tired and sad-looking little figure. But even as his eyes drift closed and his voice becomes croaky, he’s still able to chastise Luke and offer tantalising hints to the future.

Owen & Beru Lars (A New Hope, 1977): they took Luke in and raised him like a son, despite the fact he was potentially dangerous. And then they’re unceremoniously killed, off-screen, and Luke barely mourns them! Tragic. But a dope pair of skeletons.

R4-P17 (Revenge of the Sith, 2005): many droids die in Star Wars, but R4’s gruesome demise – decapitated by buzz-droids during a space battle – sticks out as a nasty one. It’s made worse by Obi-Wan’s casual droid racism. He basically doesn’t care that she dies.

Aayla Secura (Revenge of the Sith, 2005): Secura is – in the films at least – essentially just a cool-looking nameless Jedi who crops up in crowd scenes and cutaways, and then dies during the “Order 66” montage. But her death is nasty. Shot in the back by the Clone Troopers she ostensibly commands is bad enough, but then her corpse is riddled with further blaster fire. Seriously grim.

Qui-Gon Jinn (The Phantom Menace, 1999): let’s face it, Qui-Gon’s fate seemed secured even before we all read the track listings on the back of the soundtrack CD. He fights valiantly against Darth Maul, but is run through, a shocked expression on his face. His sad, plaintive urgings of Obi-Wan to train Anakin have further tragic consequences.

That Ewok (Return of the Jedi, 1983): everyone bangs on about the Ewoks being silly or unrealistic or whatever, but I don’t wanna hear about it; they rock and they always will. Cute teddy bears who properly rip up the Empire? Here all day. But the moment when two of them are shot at, and one of them realises his friend isn’t getting up – will never get up­ – is really, really sad and a soft moment of quasi-naturalism among the laser fire. His friend’s resigned sinking into the earth is so touching. Kids will weep. Incidentally, Wookieepedia informs me that our deceased Ewok’s name is Nanta, and his bereaved mate is Romba. Never forget.

There we go, Star Wars’ cavalcade of tears. A litany of sadness to drown a fleet of weirdo Star Destroyers hidden in an ice planet, or whatever the hell was going on at the end of Rise of Skywalker. There are couple of Big Deaths here that I’m half-surprised I missed off; principally Leia’s sad expiration during Rise. But to be honest I was so annoyed by the film in general at that point, and the muddy nature of her death – complicated, I know, by Carrie Fisher’s tragic real-life unavailability – that it kinda rang a little hollow. I just didn’t feel it. Ditto for Ben Solo, whose death was even more stupid than his bizarre redemption. Sorry, this is turning into the sort of whiney post I was expressly trying to avoid.

Anyway, never mind. Star Wars is plenty sad already. And these are just the emotional deaths; there are all kind of cool and epic deaths, too, such as Admiral Holdo or Mace Windu or Boba Fett (falling in a hole, ha!). His dad, incidentally, nearly made the cut, because while his death is hilarious and stupid, the scene of Boba cradling Jango’s helmet (steady) is totes emosh.

That’s Star Wars, I guess: sad and silly all at the same time.

[shadowsong26x]

EPIX/Rise of Skywalker Reaction Post

So, I got back from seeing EPIX this morning, and I figured I should get all my thoughts down!

Everything spoilery is behind a cut, and this post is also tagged with the spoiler tags I’ve listed here. If you want me to add any additional tags, let me know and I will to this and any future EPIX posts.

Okay, so, before I really get into this, I should mention two relevant contextual things that probably strongly impacted my feelings on this movie.

I’m not super-invested in the sequel trilogy. I love (most of) the characters, I’m not really into the story that’s being told with them.

Given where TLJ left us, I went into the theatre expecting something between A Trainwreck with Some Delightful Moments and A Delightful Trainwreck. Basically, it was going to be a Hot Mess and I knew it, but I was pretty sure there was going to be something to love, even if the film as a whole didn’t delight me (which, honestly, is even where I stand with TLJ, which remains my least favorite film of the series). And, you know what? I got exactly that. A Sometimes-Delightful Trainwreck. I’d say it’s even towards the upper end of that Delightfulness scale.

All right, moving on to actual thoughts. I’m trying to focus on the positive here, mostly because I did overall enjoy this movie, but I also had some Problems with it.

I’m gonna talk about Kylo Ren first, mostly because I want to get this out of the way. I will say that--when I first saw TFA, I thought I could be interested in this character. I thought they were gonna maybe go the burnt-out gifted kid route with him, which would be hella interesting to explore for the child of Heroes like Han and Leia, and the Legacy he had to live up to. Obviously, they didn’t, and while the direction they went is certainly topical, it’s not super engaging, at least to me. I know it is to some people, and far be it from me to harsh anyone’s squee, but he basically doesn’t do anything for me. I personally don’t find him particularly interesting or intimidating.

Basically, I don’t particularly care about Kylo Ren. (I don’t know if I’m quite at the point where, as my roommate puts it, I aggressively Do Not Care, but the Not Caring is definitely a thing.)

Anyway, that disclaimer aside--his arc was okay, I guess? I mean...I think my general feelings on the subject are not that it felt phoned-in, exactly, but that it was mostly there because the writers thought it should be there, rather than it flowing organically from the character(s) involved. It also felt rushed, but that goes back to a problem with the movie as a whole that I will get into later in this post. But, given that, the actual beats that were involved in said arc I thought were effectively done. The bit with Han in the wreckage, in particular, was nice.

As for that Kiss though.

...I mean. I’m actually kind of pleased that the end of the film left the romantic threads dangling? It gave me plenty of OT3 feels (though I felt like, especially in the first third or so, the film was leaning more towards Rey/Poe and Finn/Rose, but there was some later stuff that seemed to hint at the full OT3 with a question mark on where Rose stands.)

But I do have a problem with the fact that the only on-screen kiss between Major Characters was between Rey and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo. That being said, I can backfill/justify it in that...you know how some people headcanon that Luke’s initial crush on Leia was some sort of “There is a Connection Here that I Cannot Name and it’s probably supposed to be Romantic given our ages and genders and presumed lack of other relationship so let’s go with that?” Between something like that and the fact that he just gave up his life for her in a very literal way (side note: the Force has always been New Powers as the Plot Demands; but the healing thing was a) if not actually in a canon novel at least strongly implied and b) ALL OVER fanon so even if I had a problem with Random Force Powers suddenly occurring I wouldn’t have an issue with this one; the Force Diad thing was ~handwave plot device~ sure fine whatever). ...anyway, given all of that, I can backfill it to a way where I don’t hate it (i.e., if he’d lived, I don’t think it would’ve been followed up on very much/they would’ve settled into a non-romantic relationship of some kind, whatever that might’ve been). Except that it’s the only one, which kind of leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Then again, he did immediately die, so...yeah, I can live with this. I don’t like it, and I don’t think I ever will like it, but I don’t hate it either and it’s not a dealbreaker for me.

Most of the other problems I have with this film come down to structure and pacing. In that, thanks to where TLJ left us, this move had to do so much to bring the story to any kind of cohesive end, and not enough time to do it in. Trying to squeeze too much plot into too small a space.

(I actually had the same problem with ROTS initially--although that was more due to the PT having pacing issues as its Primary Narrative Flaw; TPM was way too slow; AOTC actually had good internal pacing but couldn’t quite make up for it; and then ROTS was as a consequence of that really rushed. Meanwhile, with the ST, I feel like the writers are relying on “it’s all there in the manual” a little too much, so not really...trying as hard, if that makes sense? To make it all connect within the film, I mean, as opposed to depending on people going into other/outside/supplemental material to connect the dots (still not as bad as the Prisoner of Azkaban movie on that front, but it’s still Bad; and, like, all film versions of novels leave some stuff out, just look at the LOTR films; but POA left out a key plot point and that--is a rant for another post. Back to EPIX). It’ll be interesting to see what kind of deleted scenes come out, or if it’ll grow on me in future watchings. Not that it’ll ever become a favorite, I don’t think, but it might improve in my eyes.)

Anyway, basically, a lot of this felt rushed or like...introduced but not really addressed/wrapped up in any kind of satisfactory fashion? Kylo Ren’s arc in particular, as I’ve mentioned before, plus the Threepio stuff felt rushed and non-consequential, and also with Rey’s arc to an extent (it...again, all the beats worked for me/I thought it was fairly effective, but it really needed two movies to pay off as well as it could have). ...I mean, there are more plot threads I could probably mention here, but those are the three that stuck out the most.

Also, this movie needed More Rose :( I LOVE HER and she was barely here!!!!!

Another thing I would’ve liked to see is...okay, I really liked the Overlapping Voices bit, but it would’ve been nice to have more Presence from the ghosts? Like...there’s a bit at the end of season 1 of Sailor Moon where she’s in the Final Battle, the other four have died (or just been left behind, if you’re watching the English dub), and their ghosts show up and place their hands on hers and lend her their strength? A visual cue like that would’ve been great and helped the arc feel more complete. Especially since Palpatine had all of his predecessors/Sith ghosts backing him in a more visible fashion. But, then again, that’s a Personal Taste thing and while it would’ve, IMO, made that moment better, not having it doesn’t make it worse, if that makes sense?

(Also, the credits moved too fast for me to track, but I definitely saw Qui-Gon Jinn listed, though I don’t recall hearing him, and I definitely recognized Anakin/Hayden Christensen and Mace/Samuel L. Jackson and Obi-Wan/Ewan McGreggor (and Alec Guinness I’m pretty sure?) and obvs. Yoda/Frank Oz when actually listening, but I couldn’t identify the other voices--anyone have the full list? Was Ahsoka and/or Kanan and/or Ezra involved, or was it restricted to movie-only Jedi?)

But...yeah. Apart from the Kiss being very ....:/ for me, most of my identifiable problems with the film is stuff like this.

I think the other thing I want to talk about in detail is the Rey Palpatine reveal.

So, up until this movie, I was actually in my corner flying my tiny but determined Rey Kenobi flag, and the more I think about it, the more I like Rey Palpatine for some of the same reasons? Like...I don’t remember everything I’d thought through about Rey Kenobi, but it had to do with the cyclical nature of Star Wars, and bringing it back where it started--and we get that with Rey Palpatine, in a nice arc, healing some of the damage her grandfather did, both to this family and to the galaxy as a whole.

That being said--those of you who know me and my fic projects know I’ve been writing a child (daughter) for Palpatine for quite some time now, and I have no intention of stopping, lol. Am I going to take this/Lavinia’s (presumably) half-brother into account in future projects? ...probably not. But I am looking forward to/hoping we get a novel or something about him and Rey’s mother. Because that is actually a story I’m interested in--why canon!Palpatine chose to have a kid, and how said kid managed to break away and got to this point. [...y’know, I actually think Rey Kenobi’s background/thread of descent would be less interesting to me? Since I subscribe to the idea that a) Korkie Kryze is Obi-Wan’s biological son; and b) Obi-Wan had many Friends With Benefits throughout the galaxy and figuring out exactly which one Rey descends from carries less weight for me.]

...okay, I think that’s all the Detaily Bits I want to get into, so here are some bullet points of things that really stuck out to me, in no particular order:

Bawled like a baby re: everything involving Carrie Fisher. Just...yeah. Miss you Space Mommy.

LANDO! I loved his entrance, I loved him adopting Jannah at the end, I loved all of it.

Chewie’s fake-out death was also actually pretty good/well-handled. I mean. First Boom happens and I’m like DDDDDDD: but then I remember how people reacted to his death in Legends and I’m like would they really do it and then DELIGHT.

HUX. Okay. I never really cared about this dude before, and honestly I still don’t really care about this dude but at the same time, those of you who know me know I have a Thing for double-agents and defectors and I LOVE THIS WHOLE ENTIRE PLOT THREAD. I LOVE THIS SHITHEAD TURNING TRAITOR FOR THE MOST VENAL REASONS AND STILL BEING A BAD GUY/EVIL/AN UNREPENTANT JACKASS. THIS WAS PERFECT.

(Also Finn shooting him in the leg instead of the arm as requested was DELIGHTFUL)

SPEAKING OF DELIGHTFUL gotta love Zombie Skeev Palpatine Unliving His Best Afterlife. Was he as Delightful as he is in ROTS or ROTJ? No. Did I still enjoy every minute of his scenery-chewing nonsense? You bet your ass. So happy, Ian McDiarmid looked like he was having tons of fun and honestly what more could I have asked for?

The whole scene on Ahch-To was just *chef’s kiss.* Use of Yoda’s theme with the rising X-Wing, Luke being snarky and kind and beautiful, him emerging from the fire with the saber...just loved it.

LEIA HAD JEDI TRAINING AND HER OWN LIGHTSABER. BB!MARK HAMILL AND BB!CARRIE FISHER’S FACES.

LEIA TRAINING REY. REY CALLING HER ‘MASTER.’

USING THE BOND TO ARM KYLO REN okay like I said I have Mixed Feelings about the arc as a whole but that moment was SO COOL.

Poe’s ex-girlfriend was pretty great, ngl.

JANNAH AND EX-STORMTROOPERS YESSSSSSSS

HINTS OF/SHREDS OF EVIDENCE FOR FORCE-SENSITIVE FINN GIVE THEM TO ME NOW.

D-0 was pretty cute!

All of the Badass Finn.

Also that MOMENT where Finn runs up to Poe like “I NEED TO TELL YOU A THING” and Poe is all “I NEED YOU TO FIGHT WITH ME” and Finn just interrupts himself to thank Poe and they have that “General” “General” moment and it’s SO CUTE I’m love it.

The entire thing at the Lars farm at the end. Just. Burying the lightsabers, seeing the twins’ ghosts, claiming the Skywalker name, Rey having her own saber now. This movie was a Hot Mess but it definitely ended on a high note.

...that’s pretty much what I have for right now. I will probably have more thoughts after discussing it with other people/seeing it again (because I will be seeing it again). But overall...do I like it? Well, it’s Star Wars, which I love and which frankly always has some Super Dumb and/or Frustrating Stuff, and the things I disliked weren’t bad enough to Ruin It for me, so yes, I liked it. Is it my favorite Star Wars/good for a Star Wars movie? ...not really, no. It did have some gorgeous moments, but it doesn’t really hang together. Like the rest of the ST, it relies way too much on It’s All There In The Manual and, between that and the fact that TLJ didn’t do the work necessary to set it up, the movie felt rushed and a little bit...I don’t want to say hollow, maybe shallow is a better word? I mean, I know this is Star Wars and It’s Not That Deep (but the ground is soft and I’m ready to dig or however the quote goes), but this felt particularly shallow even for Star Wars. Like...cotton candy, fairly good/tasty but a little bit prone to melting away and with very little substance holding it together. On that level, I’d actually probably rank it around Solo (which, let me say, I really like)--so, better than TLJ, but still A Hot Mess of a movie. But I enjoyed myself, and I think overall my feelings are middling-to-positive on it. Even if...honestly, even like less than four hours after the movie ending, I’m already forgetting like half the plot points...? Like I said. Cotton Candy.

What did/do you guys think?

[duhragonball]

Talkin’ ‘Bout Star Wars

I just realized someone might see this title and think it’s a review of Episode IX, which I kind of forgot about.    Actually, I was gonna talk about this Count Dooku audiobook I bought, but I guess I only got back into Star Wars books because of Episode IX, so maybe I should back up.

I liked Rise of Skywalker.   I went in unsure of what to expect, because a lot of people hated Episode VIII, and I thought it was awesome, so when I saw scathing criticism of IX, I had no idea whether to take that seriously.    “Man if you thought VIII was bad, IX’s even worse.”  Stuff like that where I didn’t know how to interpret it.    

The fundamental problem with IX is that they were going to do a Leia-centric movie and Carrie Fisher died before they could get started.    I’m pretty sure this had a lot to do with why Darth Sidious is all over the movie, but maybe he would have been in it regardless.   He definitely brings a lot of star power to the movie.    He makes it feel more important than it would have been if it was just Kylo Ren horsing around as the main bad guy.    And while I enjoyed Carrie Fisher as the hardboiled-but-sensitive General Leia, she never seemed quite as comfortable on-screen in the sequel movies as Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford.   I mean, she was in VIII, but she spent most of it in a coma, and Laura Dern seemed to be her understudy.    Maybe Carrie was just waiting for the spotlight of Episode IX, and maybe she would have risen to the occasion, but if not, they would have done well to have the Emperor in the same movie, just to carry some of the load.  

I’ve seen complaints about how fast-paced Episode IX is, and how ridiculous some of the revelations are, but you know, Episode IV realllly drags for the first half-hour, so I’m happy they made a new one that caters to six-year-old me’s desire to get on with things.   As for the whole Rey Palpatine thing, I don’t know, was that any less absurd than whatever fan-theories were floating around in 2016?

I liked Rey’s character arc in this movie, where she goes from having no family to being terrified of her pedigree, to declaring herself to be “Rey Skywalker”.    Also, I dig her yellow lightsaber, even if she never got a chance to use it in the movie.   In fact, let me get a picture of that up here....

Niiiice.   Whenever I look this up, I see all these links to fan theories about what this means, or how it’s a callback to eight other characters from the comics who had yellow lightsabers, but I’m pretty sure she only ended up with this color because they wanted to give her something different and uniquely her own.    If she had a blue or green blade, fans would think she took the crystal out of one of Luke’s old lightsabers, but this indicates that she built her own from scratch.   Also, Rey even having a lightsaber is probably intended to demonstrate that she still has a mission in the galaxy, even after the First Order and Sidious are defeated.   

Anyway, the main issue I have with the movie is that it does play fast and loose sometimes.    It felt like they had a plan for Finn and a plan for Poe, but both plans sort of got lost in the shuffle, and we sort of have to take their big victory as newly minted generals to serve as a finish to their character arcs.    Leia’s big moment is basically her lying down to take a nap, and I get it, that was probably the best they could do, but still.    I read Nein Numb got killed in the movie, and that kind of pisses me off.    

Mostly, it just doesn’t hold up as well as “The Last Jedi”.   I think part of the reason “Revenge of the Sith” is the most popular prequel movie is because it pays off the thing everyone wanted to see: Anakin becoming Darth Vader.   I remember the first time I saw “Attack of the Clones”, and I was kind of surprised to see Anakin kill all the Sand People, like they were turning him evil a little too early, so that had me wondering if he might turn to the dark side in that movie, which sort of distracted me from what was actually happening on the screen. With Episode III, you knew exactly what you were getting, because they couldn’t save any big moments for “Revenge of the Sith, Part 2.”    In a similar vein, I think the big thing audiences wanted from the sequel trilogy was to find out whatever happened to Luke, and Episode VIII answered that question completely.    It sort of undercut Episode IX, and I guess that was what J.J. Abrams was complaining about.

Darth Sidious’ whole comeback is kind of a problem.   I love the character, and it makes sense that he could somehow survive and come back.    In the movie, he just quotes his line about “unnatural” abilities and that’s the only explanation we get for how he survived Endor, built his new fleet, and made Snoke.    People call it a cop out and they’re not wrong, but he’s the one character who can get away with it.    That said, his return raises far more questions than answers, and somehow he’s even stronger than he was before, which raises even further questions.    I mean, if he could just go to this secret planet and build a fleet of planet-destroying ships, why did he bother running for public office?     

I’m sure there’ll be a novel that tries to tackle some of those issues, but the bigger problem here is that Episode IX made me realize that I missed the more vulnerable Darth Sidious from the prequels.     What I love about Episode I is how you’ve got the Sith, looking very similar to the Emperor and Vader in Episode VI, except they don’t have the might of the Empire behind them.    In Episode I, Sidious can’t just force choke his subordinates when they displease him, because he needs those guys.  Darth Maul can’t send a legion of troops to capture Queen Amidala; he has to do it by himself.  They have to be sneakier and trickier than they are in the original trilogy, because they’re still trying to get the Empire set up, and that’s really fascinating to me.   Even in the original trilogy, Palpatine is supreme, but still vulnerable.    He dissolves the Senate, but only once the Death Star is available as an alternative.   He worries that Luke Skywalker “could destroy us.”       

In Episode IX, he seems to have no worries at all, I guess because he’s counting on Rey to murder him for whatever essence transfer he was planning.   I suppose this was why he finally died to his own Force Lightning, with Rey deflecting it with two lightsabers.    Critics ask why he didn’t just stop shooting lightning, but that’s kind of his deal.    He kept shooting at Mace Windu, even when it wrecked his face, and he kept shooting when Darth Vader turned on him.   I mean, if he stopped shooting lighting at Rey, what then?    His fleet would lose the battle, and Rey would refuse to kill him, and he’d just be stuck.    The Sith crave power, and power only matters when you exercise it, so it makes sense that all the Sith characters get wrecked because they bit off more than they could chew.   If you asked Sidious why he didn’t just turn off his lightning, he probably wouldn’t even understand the question.

I think it might have been cooler if Darth Sidious had been a ghost, or maybe an electronic backup of his brain, or something like that.   He looked pretty cool hooked up to that life support system, and I liked the idea that he was reduced to a shell of his former self, but even that would still be a grave threat to the heroes, especially if he got Rey or Kylo Ren to take orders from him.    Maybe he should have actually gotten to possess Rey, and then he would finally get all the gonzo powers he displayed in the movie, and Rey would have to kick him out of her body.   I dunno, maybe that’s not so different from what we actually got.   

I see fans talking about all these alternative versions of Episode IX, like that leaked script, or the concept art, etc.    They lament “Why didn’t we get this movie?” and I think that misses the point.    Maybe one version or another would be better, but in the end you really only get one movie, one shot at telling the story.   At some point, someone has to make the decision as to what makes the cut and what doesn’t.   The problem with writing a story is that the version in your head always looks better than it does in print, because in your head it’s this nebulous, ever-changing thing.    When you sit down to write it, you have to commit to one version, and decide whether to do this or that.   In this day and age, it’s a lot easier to find out about alternate versions and unused drafts.     You can watch the “This” version of a movie, and then go on the internet and see details about the “That” version they didn’t use.    And it’s easy to complain that they made the wrong call.    “Justice League” fans are convinced that there’s a secret “Snyder Cut” of the movie that would somehow be better than the version that actually made it to theaters.   That’s kind of sad, because they clearly must have enjoyed the theatrical cut to some extent, or they wouldn’t care about some other version of the same movie.   But instead of appreciating what they got, they obsess over a supposedly better version that may not even exist.   

I’m probably no better, because I sort of went into Episode IX figuring that it didn’t matter if it was good or bad, because there would be comics or novels that might expand on the stuff I wanted to see.     I think what I really want is a story of how Sidious survived Endor, and how he got set up on Exegul or however you spell it.     That, and Rey buckling some swashes with that yellow lightsaber.   Everyone’s mad about Rose Tico getting a small part in Episode IX, but to me it almost doesn’t matter, because she can be in whatever Rey comic series they make after this.   I mean, that doesn’t do Kelly Marie Tran any good, but I think she’s got a good career ahead of her, with or without Rose Tico. 

I don’t know, maybe this is why I don’t watch movies very much.   I’m mostly into franchises, where the movies themselves are just tentpoles for all the other media.   They don’t really need to be good, so long as some good lore comes out of them that someone else can use.    I was thinking the other day about how Episode II is widely considered one of the weakest Star Wars movies, but every Clone Wars story that came after it was directly inspired by that film.   And there’s a lot of good Clone Wars stuff out there.   It just makes me wonder if Episode II can really be as bad as they say it is.   Then again, it probably doesn’t make sense to say that spinoffs can retroactively fix what should be a standalone work.  

Anyway, I started this post because I wanted to talk about how YouTube keeps recommending me Star Wars meta videos, mainly about the Sith, because that’s what I’m into, and they’re usually covering stuff I already knew.   There’s at least three channels devoted to recapping stories from comics and books, or just straight up repeating information that was directly stated in the movies.    “Did you know Palpatine wanted to KILL Darth Vader?”   Yes, I’ve known since 1983.   He told Luke to kill him and he wouldn’t do it.  Then he and Vader killed each other.   It’s not complicated.   The funny thing is that I watch all these different Star Wars videos, and I can tell they’re narrated by different people, but they all sound like the Burger King Foot Lettuce guy.  

I got bored with these, so I started listening to the Dooku audiobook that came out last year.     It’s been pretty decent, but I was hoping for more Sith lore, and this book seems mostly focused on Asajj Ventress learning about Dooku’s Jedi career.   I’ve only got a half hour left in the book, and Dooku hasn’t even resigned from the order yet, so I don’t think I’ll see much of what he was up to between Episodes I and II.  

[alexia-reybrant]

Alexia’s IC Class Knowledge

D I S C I P L E S  O F  W A R

Alexia's general knowledge of and skill with weaponry is fairly broad. While she only has one Soul Crystal, she can and has applied her Dark Knight abilities to her martial training with other weapons.

GLADIATOR || PALADIN: Unskilled | Novice (shield) | Adept (longsword) | Expert | Master

Owing to her more offensive fighting style and her lack of armor in general, Alexia fares better without the shield. Nonetheless, a longsword in her hands is a dangerous weapon.

MARAUDER || WARRIOR: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

She can swing an axe well enough to still be a threat with it, but her skills with one are far outstripped by her skill with swords.

DARK KNIGHT: Unskilled | Novice | Adept (dark arts) | Expert | Master (greatsword)

Her skill with a greatsword is her strongest asset. Utilizing every aspect of the weapon, she is very versatile with it, from using the hilt as a mace to holding her hand further up the blade to gain more control. Her skill with the dark arts, in comparison, is lagging behind. She left before her training was finished, and she decided to fill in the missing pieces herself; the end result is a Dark Knight who fights with a much more offensive style, eschewing armor and defense for speed and offense. She has difficulty channeling her magic through the air, and so she sticks to augmenting her swordsmanship with her magic instead. She does, however, still possess skill with the barriers Dark Knights have come to be known for.

PUGILIST || MONK: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

The concept of fighting barehanded when one has been disarmed is not foreign to Alexia, and she can fight with her fists quite well, even utilizing punches and kicks with a weapon in her hands. But it's not her primary form of combat and she would always prefer to have her sword.

LANCER || DRAGOON: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

Alexia shows a surprising level of skill with a spear, and although it's not her first choice of weapon, she has been seen making use of it over her greatsword in some situations.

ROGUE || NINJA: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

Her skill with a dagger is fairly decent, and her stealth skills and poison knowledge have served her well, albeit they've shown more promise with her archery.

SAMURAI: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

While nowhere near as skilled as someone holding a Samurai Soul Crystal would be, a katana is still a type of sword. Alexia learned some of the basics of handling one from Gosetsu and Hien, and it's served her well enough in her time in the Far East.

ARCHER || BARD: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

Alexia was originally enlisted into the Temple Knights as an archer. Her keen eyes are great at tracking moving targets and her strength lets her use heavier bows fairly easily. She carries a bow and a quiver of arrows on her in addition to her sword, being her preferred method to engage targets from range and also to hunt with.

MACHINIST: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

While she can fire a gun, that's about the extent of what she can do in Machinistry. She prefers her bow to a gun any day as well.

D I S C I P L E S  O F  M A G I C

In stark contrast to her impressive martial skills, Alexia's magical prowess is nearly non-existent. The only form of magic she can channel is the dark arts. Whether this is owed to her Soul Crystal, or something to do with her herself, is a mystery nobody has solved.

CONJURER || WHITE MAGE : Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master ARCANIST || SCHOLAR || SUMMONER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master ASTROLOGIAN: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master THAUMATURGE || BLACK MAGE: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master RED MAGE: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

D I S C I P L E S  O F  T H E  H A N D

Alexia's craftsmanship isn't anything to write home about, save for one. She is an excellent Culinarian, having been taught from a young age by her mother and having plenty of chances to practice her skill.

CARPENTER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

Alexia's knowledge of carpentry is very limited, but she applies it for reasons practical to her; making arrows. Even if they're just sharpened sticks with feathers attached, she can make an arrow well enough to fly true.

BLACKSMITH: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master ARMORER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master GOLDSMITH: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master LEATHERWORKER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master WEAVER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master ALCHEMIST: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master CULINARIAN: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

While she has never had formal education in the culinary arts, her sense for which flavors compliment each other is keen. She puts more stock into how the food tastes than how it looks, so often-times her meals look like something a novice would put together, but the taste is excellent.

D I S C I P L E S  O F  T H E  L A N D

While she's certainly strong enough to break rocks with a pickaxe, she has no real interest in mining. However, owing much to her survival skills, she is a surprisingly good Botanist and Fisher.

MINER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master BOTANIST: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

Because her preferences lie with finding edible plants, fruits, and vegetables, she's better at harvesting than she is at logging. Nonetheless, she knows enough to know which trees make good firewood and which ones make good arrows.

FISHER: Unskilled | Novice | Adept | Expert | Master

It surprises just about everyone she meets that she's as good of a Fisher as she is. Most people would expect her to hunt for fish with a spear or a bow, but she is rather skilled at traditional fishing as well.

Welp, there’s that one done. I wasn’t tagged by anybody, but I saw it floating around a while ago and thought it was neat, so I wanted to do it myself.

Tagging @ylaziel @tenaciouswarriorxx @windsweptmuses (for Cael and Mira!) @lance-of-fury (for Rihnn and Anhe!) But if you don’t want to do it you don’t have to! This is just who I’m interested in seeing do it. :> And anyone else who wants to give this a shot too!

[itsajollyhalladay]

Tagged by @kotaline​

Rules : Tag nine people you want to get to know better

Relationship status: Engaged and stressed with wedding planning! 

Lipstick or Chapstick: I aspire to be addicted to chapstick and have amazingly soft lips. I also aspire to wear bold lipstick and look like a goddess. Instead, I lose chapsticks in every purse, and I buy lipstick and wear it once in a blue moon and check myself in mirrors compulsively to make sure I haven’t smeared it everywhere. 

Last Song I Listened To: Tbh I don’t recall because I had the radio on, but I do have “Love on the Brain” stuck in my head. 

Last Movie I Watched: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. It was Just Ok. (Knives was 2 good 4 him. He should have lost both gals at the end. The visual style was really cool though!) 

Top 3 Characters: I don’t even know how to anSWER THAT. Phryne Fisher from Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Liz Lemon from 30 Rock. Elizabeth Bennet from Pride & Prejudice. 

Top Three Ships: Lmao stares into the sun I don’t really do this much anymore, so....... Phryne&Jack from MFMM, Dr. Ogden&Murdoch in Murdoch Mysteries, NILES&DAPHNE FROM FRASIER YEAH BUDDY OTP 4EVA NO RAGRETS 

tagging people who’ve probably already done this, @five5sixers @pyxis-nautica @alissacreno @jundoe @maxxdick @chrystali @neon-mace @shushida @littlekittenbird