#but something is telling me the reason behind the cat being the narrator is sad

[waegashi-tofu]

[lolas-writings]

More Deaf/Mute BakuShin because I’m ~procrastinating~, so for all my BakuShin followers this one’s for you :3

[Part 1] [Previous]

“What were you thinking?” Aizawa asks as Bakugou tries his best to remain passably passive. He fails miserably since he can’t keep his eye from twitching, and he knows Aizawa can see through him like glass, but he’s stubborn so he keeps up the cracked facade.

“You can’t keep roughing up other students just because you think they dislike you.” Mic pipes up from beside Aizawa, holding his glasses in one hand while the other rubs the bridge of his nose, presumably staving off a headache. Which totally isn’t Bakugou’s fault, thank you very much.

“I didn’t even touch him.”

“Yeah, well both Shinsou and Midoriya say otherwise.” He can’t hear Aizawa’s tone, but the way he sighs and adjusts his new scarf tells Bakugou that he seems disappointed rather than angry. “So try again. What were you thinking?”

Bakugou scoffs and rolls his eyes, catching a glimpse of Shinsou sitting at a desk beside the window, pointedly ignoring the confrontation in favor of looking outside. Why he’s even in Aizawa’s office right now doesn’t make sense. If he’s already blabbed about their little altercation then he could just leave.

“What, I can’t go talk to my assigned partner?” Bakugou says with as much sarcasm as he can muster. At least, what he remembers speaking sarcastically feels like.

“Talk, yes. Harass, no.”

“Then fine, let me do the assignment alone.”

“No.”

“Why not? Koda got to choose to work alone, why can’t I?”

“Bakugou.” Mic waves a hand between Bakugou and Aizawa to get his attention, his phone turned so that Bakugou can see his screen. “Watch this.”

He raises his brow questioningly at his teacher, but Mic simply raises the phone in answer, staring expectantly. After a moment, Bakugou finally caves and sighs before he reluctantly looks down at the phone and waits for Mic to press play.

He notices after the opening segment that this is the video from their group assignment, the one they’re meant to analyze and write a paper on. He looks up at Mic confused, but is redirected back down to the video.

A minute passes before Mic pauses the video and asks, “What do you think the narrator sounds like?” How the fuck should he know?

“I don’t know, bored? They’re just listing off different types of fish. If I had to do that I’d die of boredom.” Bakugou crosses his arms as he speaks, subconsciously feeling small when he realizes the issue. But he won’t acknowledge it himself, he’s sure Mic is about to.

He doesn’t, surprisingly. Or at least he’s distracted before he can. Before Mic, or even Aizawa, can discuss the video, both teachers turn their head to where Shinsou is sitting. Aizawa says something along the lines of, “Say that again,” but since part of his mouth is obscured by his scarf Bakugou can’t be sure. Either way, he follows suit so see what Shinsou decided was so important to interrupt with.

“He’s sad.” Shinsou catches Bakugou’s gaze for a second before he pointedly looks at only Mic and Aizawa. “The text transcript can be misinterpreted as a standard documentary, but the narration proves that the video is a call to action. They want people to realize how endangered some marine life is and how important they are to their ecosystem.”

Once he’s said his piece, Shinsou turns back to face the window, his finger tapping on the glass where a cat sits on the other side. That’s… kind of strange, and gets weirder when the cat nuzzles against the glass like they’re trying to get to Shinsou. But that’s none of his business either, so he reluctantly turns to face Mic and Aizawa, already knowing he’s fucked.

“Thank you, Shinsou. You’re free to go.” Aizawa says as he looks straight at Bakugou, no doubt waiting for his star pupil to leave before tearing Bakugou a new one. From the corner of his eye he watches Shinsou collect his things and walk out of the office, the cat jumping from the window’s outside ledge and disappearing in turn.

“Do you see now, Bakugou?” Mic puts his phone away and readjusts his glasses. “I made this a group project for the entire class because I’m making it a group project for you.”

“If I can’t work alone why can’t I just work with Deku, or… an actual interpreter?” Bakugou grimaces at his own words. At which part, he’s not quite sure of, but either option sounds terrible.

“Because Shinsou offered.” Mic says so nonchalantly that it takes Bakugou a minute to realize how off that sounds. Shinsou willing offered to help him? For what?

“Why the hell would he do that?” He says before he can stop himself, but he doesn’t have the energy to act ashamed for the slip up.

“Because, believe it or not Bakugou, some people just do kind things for the sake of being kind.” Aizawa says this time as he sits down in his office chair. Bakugou assumes that he sighs, because he seems to do that a lot when Bakugou is around.

“He figured you didn’t want an interpreter.” Mic says as he moves to stand more directly in front of Bakugou in the spot left vacant after Aizawa moved. “I actually considered giving you an alternative assignment, but he said that would make you feel pitied and we all know that’s the thing you hate most. So he offered to partner with you as long as the rest of the class was partnered as well.”

There’s so many things about this new information that ping as off in Bakugou’s mind. Like why was Koda still allowed to opt out? And since he did, is there another person working alone or a group of three? Who the hell was Kirishima paired with because Bakugou could have easily worked with him instead.

But most importantly, why the hell is Shinsou being nice to him?

“Now that you’re aware of the reason behind our decisions,” Aizawa says as he sits up in his chair and leans forward, placing his elbows on his desk and resting his head in his hands, “you’re going to go apologize to Shinsou and you’re going to complete this assignment together. No partner swaps, no more asking to work alone, just get it done and turn it in by the due date. Am I clear?”

Bakugou huffs and looks away as he mumbles a quiet, “Fine, whatever,” not even waiting for a proper dismissal before he stalks out of the office and down the hall. Guess he better go apologize or whatever. He’s not letting his grade tank because of this stupid assignment.

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of a commonplace book

9pm, march 5, 2021

because it’s the pandemic and life is Like That now, I’m typing this in a sidescreen while attending a virtual birthday party

reading finished under heaven and immediately picked up ken liu’s the grace of kings which i’ve been wanting to read for years now, and the contrast is striking. uh is so stylized, so arch and intentional in creating a voice for the narration, each character, and the world itself--you can tell he’s going for everything being as beautifully written as possible. whereas, with tgok, the content is (arguably) more interesting and unique, true fantasy where uh is historical-fantasy, but the writing style is much more...declarative. characters get internal lives but like, not really? they have hopes and desires, but no one has...yet...a ton of personality? I’m sticking with it for the plot, and the worldbuilding.

watching @dinosauriaawesome has persuaded me to watch the mdzs donghua on youtube, and when i can get past the product placement (CORNETTO) and advertisements, i am enjoying it-- i’m on ep 5. the pacing is different, the characterizations are subtly different, and i’ve gotten past ‘hey that’s wrong >:(’ reactions and have passed into appreciating its choices for themselves. the scenery is still, always, beautiful.

listening this video of the stellenbosch university choir singing ‘baba yetu’ from civ iv has lived rent free in my head for years, and especially now that the group i’m in has begun working on baba yetu ourselves, i can’t stop thinking about. i mean, there’s no comparison really, stellenbosch not only does it better technically but it’s earned and belongs to them in a way that it never can for us (i’d thought we’d be working with a south african group to do this piece, which is part of the reason i stuck around for virtual choir this pandemic, but while we did, it wasn’t for baba yetu). anyway, this vid make me want to cry regularly.

playing spent some quality time with doctor layton again this week, and while i’m still not happy with the amount of vague or poorly-worded puzzles in this game (and seriously confused about potential glitches-- i put the same answer into one puzzle two times, and it was correct only the second time?), the rush of having solved something does, in fact, have me hooked :(  i was also soundly defeated during house game night last week during ticket to ride europe, with only the consolation of tanking G’s strategy at the same time. M continues to be smarter/more strategic than all of us, which would be disheartening if she wasn’t so damn good as a person.

making repotted a sad...aloe? succulent of some sort, which A left behind when she moved out and which the cat had spilled. its prospects don’t look great, but a little sprout also popped off of it and began putting out its own rootlets, so hopefully at least one of the two make it.

working on sat down to read geoffrey of monmouth’s history of the kings of britain from the beginning this week, to get at the non-arthurian bits i’ve never touched before, and it is wild. i have no trenchant observations, except to be sort of impressed at the amount of slaughter and destruction Brutus et al get up to.

[stxleslyds]

Part 2 of my Under the Red Hood Review

Hello! Here I am again with part two of this review, if you want to read the first part I will link it here!

Let’s continue!

Chapter eight gives us a look into the past, to when Jason was stealing the batmobile’s tires, to one of the first times Jason went out as Robin with Batman and everything was wonderful…then one of the scenes from the past show a Jason that may come off as a bit more aggressive on the job, it’s also shown that he does agree that the level of aggression was unnecessary but that the criminal deserved it anyway.

I know that sometimes people get the impression that Jason was an angry and extremely aggressive Robin, which is not correct, he was a sweetheart (and I am referring to Post-Crisis Jason because that’s what is in continuity in this story) just like Dick (he had forty years of being a sweetheart too, Marv Wolfman misses me with that angsty and angry shit) but I think what’s important here is the fact that Jason saw things differently from Bruce and that does not make him a bad Robin, it makes him a Robin with different experiences and as a human being he is allowed to change his views, also let’s be honest, hormones are a bitch so emotions are at an all-time high so he is bound to change. This does not mean that his death was his fault, Jason felt lost and wanted a mother and he made some decisions but Bruce was the adult and he should have paid more attention to him and his behavior so in this house the only ones to blame for Jason’s death will always be the Joker and Batman.  

Rant over.

Back to the issue we see Bruce, who has been doing tests and analyzing the coffin that Jason was supposedly buried in for hours, he is a whole ass mess but at some point in time he reaches a verdict…There was never a body in the coffin.

In chapter nine we meet Davis McCullen and Alfie Tisner who have a sort of meth lab in Black Mask or Red Hood’s territory, they don’t really know, and they also have a friend that is selling drugs to kids so yeah…they are in big trouble.

As I read I expect Hood to kind of appear out of thin air and kill them but that doesn’t happen, Batman is the one that comes crashing through a window and tells them that if they don’t pack their things and move they are dead because there is a wall full of C4 (that Jason implanted), Batman wastes no time and gets to work on disarming the bomb as he does that Jason makes himself known (trough a microphone) and tells the Bat that there is no way he can do it and that he better run too. Bruce says that the building is empty and there is no reason for him to blow it up which Jason is aware of and then suggests that Batman knows how much good it does to put a little fear into people and…boom.

Look at this little shit.

We soon find out that the building belonged to Black Mask, and that is not the only thing that Hood wants off the map, he is shown blowing up one of Masks trucks that is full of weapons. Here we also learn a bit more about his modus operandi, he never steals drugs or weapons for himself, he just destroys them and while they were expecting that behavior in what Hood deemed his territory, he is now doing it everywhere. We also find out that before he was trying to get Mask’s people to work for him but now he just kills them.

He is, however, taking his cut from wherever he can, so maybe he is building his own empire and his move as of now is eliminating the competition. This theory is proven true when Jason in all his glory and with a bazooka shoots Mask’s office floor.

Mask is pissed off and as he is screaming into the wind an angel answers his call…Deathstroke is here and he wants to play. This is not pleasing for Hood or Batman.  

Slade is working with the Society and Mask wants Hood “Serious dead. Head on a pike, guts on the pavement, me wearing a sweater vest made of his skin kind of dead.” So, Slade sends people to take care of the job.

Mask isn’t pleased though, apparently Captain Nazi (???), Hyena and an unknown third party aren’t enough for him but Slade assures him that they will get the job done, no worries.

The attack on Hood comes when some men are trying to send a “message” to him and here is where weirdo one and two bamboozle our boy.

The fight that ensues is good but is overshadowed by what Alfred says behind the scene, he talks about how Jason as Robin told him that Batman and the legend of what he could do didn’t necessarily scare the “dress ups” the way that it scared the street thugs, so as a consequence they were more dangerous, Alfred true to himself tried to explain that the dress ups probably believe different things about Batman but Jason told him something that shocked him, he said “They all know he won’t kill them.” Which is true, you, me and Alfred know it.

As Alfred continues “talking” the fight welcomes a new player, Batman. He narrates the fight and realizes that they need to team up which comes naturally to them both, in a second they are in synch just like they used to back in the cave all those years ago. As the fight is coming to an end the third party arrives…yep Count Vertigo is here, the fight doesn’t last long though, because there is adrenaline and hyenas and scents the fight is over in no time (I am not explaining that fight, it’s so weird). Captain Nazi is the only casualty and Batman isn’t happy but just like Jason I am okay with it, if he had to kill one of them let it be the Nazi.

Jason obviously leaves and taunts the Bat once more.

Alfred ends the monologue by saying that Jason never understood that it wasn’t Batman’s strength or stealth that scared his adversaries but his resolve.  

So, Batman makes a dramatic promise, “Time for this to end.” dun dun duuuuun

Chapter eleven part one opens with Alfred telling us about one of his and Bruce’s hobbies, they used to collect first editions of books and it soon became a tradition that Alfred then shared with both Dick and Jason…so when he finds a package for him and B that says “Just two to add to the pile. Cheers – Jason” Alfred immediately contacts Bruce.

Back to Black Mask, he apparently decided to set up a meeting with his right-hand men, they think that they are there to evaluate the idea of making a deal with Red Hood so he stops messing up their business and they are right! It’s just that the deal was made between Mask and Hood and it consisted in them being killed off.

 “Are you happy?” Roman asks.

“Getting there” Hood answers.

Back with Alfred we are able to see what is in the package. In it there is a lock of green hair with tissue included so yeah, now they know that Jason has the Joker, and he was nice enough to give them an address.

Once again with Mask and Hood well, let me tell you if Hood is just “getting there” then Mask is just not happy. They get into an argument, a big one, Mask says that killing all his right-hand men should be sufficient but Hood says it isn’t. It goes on for a while and Mask loses his marbles completely, apparently he put everything on the line for the deal but Hood really doesn’t give a fuck. A fist connects with Hood’s face and a fight ensues, while they do that they also yell at each other about the proper way of running the underworld, the fear factor, who is prettier, who is the best gangster and who looks better in biker clothing…you know, the important stuff.

I am not undermining the fight, believe me but it’s just that they talk, punch and throw each other across the room a lot. Sacrifice and what they are willing to do for Gotham or better said what they are willing to do TO Gotham are the last things they discuss.

Just as the end of the fight comes, we once again have Alfred talking in the background about the time Jason died and the time Bruce’s parents died and how different the two instances are, Bruce was a little boy and defenseless when his parents died but when Jason died he had everything, the training, gadgets and abilities the only thing that he lacked was time.

And as it turns out that’s about to happen once more…Batman is going to arrive to the place where Jason and Mask are going at it just in time to see Jason drop dead on the floor.

Don’t worry friends Jason isn’t dead (again) it’s just a random dude with a mustache and Mask is pissed about it, what’s new?

Jason is actually with the Joker, and by “with the Joker” I mean being annoyed by the Joker…he is ranting on and on about how he killed him, how good things come in threes like Batman, Robin and himself. At some point Joker decides that the sensible thing to do next is compare Jason still letting him live with Batman’s no killing rule and then to make matters worse compare Jason’s actions as Red Hood with his own.

I absolutely LOVE Jason in this moment, I swear seeing Joker’s smile fade away brings me joy, he tells him exactly what he doesn’t want to hear. Jason isn’t like the Bat he won’t stay and play his game; this man right here just scared the Joker and nobody can’t tell me otherwise.

Back to Batman, he is trying his best to shake Mask off but the man keeps questioning if he knows who the Red Hood is and why did he let him operate in such a brutal way for so long (and affecting his business, poor thing so sad). Batman basically tells him to stop playing victim, he thinks that Mask crossed a line that someone really didn’t want crossed and that at the end of the day he is just another gagster…which is exactly what Hood had said moments ago trough the helmet to Black Mask, in a moment of great intelligence Mask deduces that maybe Batman actually knows exactly who Hood is.

Batman of course doesn’t answer because he thinks he is slick but the cat is out of the bag. Among the ruble of the helmet that just exploded (yeah the helmet had a built in bomb, that detonated after Mask unmasked the mustache man) Batman finds a message from Hood, a place and “you know where”.

The east end, Crime Alley. That’s where Jason takes him because it’s “fitting”, after all it’s the place where they first met.

Jason tells Batman that the Joker is in the building next to them and that he has it wired to blow it up, so Batman being his stupid self says that he won’t let him kill the Joker (come on Jason why do you want to kill the nice clown man, he is such a sweetheart).

The fight between those two is about to start when the scene changes. An attack, a living bomb called Chemo is being dropped (by the Society) in Bludhaven, Nightwing’s city. And Batman has a front row seat to see the show.

Yep, it’s not a good time to make snarky comments Jason; as far as both of them know Dick Grayson is dead. And the emotion in Batman’s face is heartbreaking, we as the readers have seen impossible situations, characters surviving shit that they wouldn’t in real life but characters within comics don’t know that… so, Bruce just saw another one of his sons die. (Dick is alive though, don’t worry)

Now, Jason has been a little shit during the whole story, but do not think for a moment that the situation somehow brings any form of positive emotion within him, what happens is that he sees an emotionally compromised Batman and well, will there ever be a better chance to manipulate him into feeling even worse?

…If Batman leaves, the Joker dies. So, first choice for the Bat, either he goes to what’s left of Bludhaven and searches for Dick or he stays and doesn’t let Jason kill the Joker.

Batman chooses to fight, and once again they start the same dance but this time B has upgraded his gadgets (you will never catch him wearing the same thing twice! Shame on you!) Jason teases him a little bit about the cape and B burns his jacket…

Batman has a whole speech about how Jason won’t be able to save Gotham or be better than him…that he knows that he failed him and is trying not to do it again. But Jason says that the failure he talks about isn’t really were his problem lies.

There we have it. And I would like to ask the same thing, why is the Joker still alive? Would it actually be so bad if he were beaten to death by someone’s bare hands? (Check out Joker: Last Laugh #6 (January, 2002) for a surprise)  

But that’s not the point, Jason is mad because he doesn’t understand and he feels betrayed, if the mad man kills a fifteen-year-old and then continues to kill and you as Batman aren’t willing to break the cycle of:  1) Joker escapes Arkham 2) Joker does something evil 3) Batman fights and captures him 4) Batman sends the Joker to Arkham 4) Arkham is already corrupt and lets him out after a while or he corrupts/kills a few people into letting him out, then what kind of man are you?

Batman obviously has an answer as to why he hasn’t killed Joker yet. He doesn’t do it because it will be too easy and not only that but he has thought about it…not just killing him but torturing him BUT! he won’t. He can’t really, you see, If he does it once maybe he will never stop (there he goes, the man with a resolve of steel) if he walks the dark path once he will walk it forever. Basically, Batman has zero willpower and zero control…my dude no one believes you!!!! Jason doesn’t either but he does have something to say.

Heartbreaking, that’s the only thing I have to say about these panels, these are panels that have always stuck with me. If you want this conversation to reach a whole new level of emotion I suggest you watch Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010) it’s an animated movie and Jason Todd is voiced by Jensen Ackles (who plays Dean Winchester in Supernatural) which is probably the best casting ever, Jensen is excellent at showing emotion with his voice. I totally know that probably all of you have seen the movie but it’s so good that I really think it’s worth watching again.

It doesn’t matter how emotional it’s for us, Batman can’t and won’t kill him, not even when Jason slides him a gun…so here comes the second time Batman has to make a choice

And he does, well, he uses a batarang to slice Jason’s throat making him let go off the Joker. Jason falls to the floor, a pool of blood around him. As that happens Joker grabs the gun and aims for the dynamite left there (remember that the building was set to go off) and shoots. BOOM!

And that’s the end. All three of them survive although Batman didn’t know that Jason was going to survive, I mean can he actually tell the future or…maybe I am missing something.

And yes, that was the end, I understand that to some it’s just a shitty ending and I don’t blame you…but to me it’s genius.  

It ends with Batman betraying Jason. They don’t make up, Batman doesn’t try to come to an understanding with him, he just makes a choice, he would rather save the Joker before killing or letting Jason kill him, which is bullshit my friends because Jason has been killing this whole story and B has been aware of it.

Jason appears later in Nightwing issue #118 (May, 2006) to #122 (September, 2006) as Nightwing and with tentacles. Don’t worry, you don’t have to read that. After that he appears here and there but personally, I really didn’t catch up with him up until Batman: Battle for the Cowl.

 Anyway, I am going to end it here, I hope whoever takes the time to read this enjoys it, see you around!

[johannas-motivational-insults]

I'd like to read your commentary on the closet scene in Hail Mary!

Well ask and you shall receive, friend! (Commentary is bolded.)

I love this scene. Tbh I first wrote the sardines gag into an original fic I wrote in high school and I’m just nostalgic for it. But it is also a really great way to get characters in close quarters together, so... ;)

As it turns out, Adora does find Catra first. She knows her better than anyone, after all, knows how she gravitates towards small, dark, enclosed spaces for a sense of comfort. (Ah, here’s another instance of Catra behaving like a cat but hopefully in a non-distracting way.) Also, there’s the whole thing about how she used to hide in the closet at home when she was scared, or upset after a disciplinary encounter with Ms. Weaver. It was about the only place she could get privacy in that house, sharing a room with two other girls.

Adora remembers hearing her muted whimpers from behind the slatted doors, knocking gently and being yelled at to go away. She remembers sitting down leaning against said doors, guarding the space while Catra collected herself. (A lovely role reversal here!) In the times when she was scared, for good reason, Adora would eventually be torn away by threat or force, Catra would be ripped from her hiding spot, and the screaming would begin. The screaming and…

Adora prefers not to think about those times. She prefers the memories of after the danger had passed when she could just sit there, a comfort to her friend. On rare occasions Catra would not even allow her that, would shout at her until she left the room. Others, she didn’t tell Adora to go away at all, and Adora would crawl into the darkness and find her curled up on the floor, her face stained with tears. Adora would sit silently and take her head into her lap, gently scratching her scalp and stroking her hair, rubbing her back if it was safe to do so. It always calmed Catra down, and it was soothing for Adora too. It helped keep her hands busy and her mind off of what she’d just heard.

Oh hello my poor little traumatized neurodivergent children, stim to your hearts’ content. (And yes, Catra is also neurodivergent in this fic. It’s only been hinted at so far but later it’s revealed that Catra believes she’s ADHD but she never got a chance to get diagnosed because Weaver just saw her as a troublemaker. And because she’s brown many shrinks or social workers would tend to jump to that conclusion too instead of thinking maybe she has a disorder. It’s a little hat tip to the double standards and obstacles to diagnoses that neurodivergent women and POC have to deal with. And you all get to learn that early because you bothered to read this. :D)

Obviously the wave of nostalgia she’s hit by when she finds Catra once again hiding in a closet is not an entirely pleasant one. But she can’t help a small smile either, both at her victory and at seeing Catra’s face. It’s a natural side effect.

“Hey look, I won,” Adora brags when she spies Catra flattened against the wall on one side

Catra shakes her head slightly, amused. “Of course you did.”

Oh wow, I really didn’t hold back on Catra’s subtle resentment, did I?

Pulling the door shut behind her, Adora steps through the thick curtain of garments. Catra actually picked a pretty good spot - there’s a bunch of coats on that side of the closet that obscure her legs, and with how full the closet is it would be easy for someone peeking past the clothes to miss her.

The positioning may be different, the two of them on more or less equal footing and nursing no physical wounds, but Adora can’t shake the sense of awkwardness, her fear that their previous closet rendezvous are all Catra can think about too. (...Out of context this sounds a little bit like they’ve engaged in BDSM in a closet lmao but no, wrong fic.) And the idea of that is unbearable, especially if Catra’s already upset about Scorpia, so Adora takes it upon herself to break the tension.

“Look at us, back in the closet together,” she cracks, poking Catra in the ribs. “Who woulda thought, after all those Pride parades?”

This joke is stupid and I love it.

Catra brushes her hand away with a scoff. “Speak for yourself, I was never in any closet.” Despite her words of protest, she’s smiling a little. Eyeing Adora up and down, she adds, “And you were always like the ultimate sports dyke, so it’s not like people didn’t know about you either. Even if you didn’t figure it out until we met everyone’s favorite MILF.”

I will never let the Huntadora crush die. Tbh this is a little sad though because Catra doesn’t realize it’s always been her for Adora. She doesn’t let it show but she is kinda sad that from her perspective Huntara was Adora’s gay awakening, not her.

Oh, that definitely went a direction Adora didn’t expect. Brow furrowing, she purses her lips as she weighs the cost of the truth, how much she can divulge before it becomes incriminating. Her voice is quiet and eyes are down when she says, “No, I knew.”

It takes a second for Catra to respond. “What, really?”

Slowly lifting her head, Adora raises her eyebrows as she meets Catra’s confused gaze. “Just because I didn’t talk about it doesn’t mean I didn’t know.”

This is such a pivotal moment, just an understated one because it’s from Adora’s POV.  Catra thinks she knows Adora so well, and the idea that Adora not only intentionally kept something (her awareness of her sexuality) from her but was able to fool her is a shot to the ego.

A tiny scoff escapes Catra’s throat, eyes flicking away as her arms fold over her chest. “Never thought you were that good at keeping secrets,” she remarks. Finally she looks back at Adora, gesturing expectantly. “Well? How long have you known?”

Adora frowns in thought. Not because she doesn’t know the answer, but because there’s no casual way to tell your best friend ‘I’ve wanted to marry you since I knew what marriage was.’

I don’t remember what exactly possessed me to write this line, but once it did I knew it was going to murder you all in cold blood. I really enjoyed all the comments about this one. :D

“Always,” is what she says instead. “I mean I didn’t know what it was, but I was always drawn to other girls, always wanted their attention, wanted to be close to them.”

This is such a mood.

Nodding pensively, Catra stares into the darkness. After a moment she murmurs, “Yeah, me too.”

If only she was saying that to what Adora was thinking, not what she said. Because there’s no way Catra could know, right? She’s smart, but she’s not a mindreader. If she was she probably would have kicked Adora out of her room years ago for being a pervert.

Adora she means the exact same thing as you you fucking walnut!

The crack of the bedroom door opening jolts Adora from her thoughts, making her flinch.

“Shit,” she mutters, pushing forward and flattening against the wall, against Catra. In her haste she bounces off the wall slightly and starts to tip backwards, but a pair of quick hands steadies her hips, pulling her closer. Adora’s eyes flick down to find Catra’s already on her, widened in a clear order to be quiet. Adora can barely bring herself to nod apologetically, dazed by the sight. And their proximity. And the scent of sour candies on Catra’s breath.

Because being stuck in a closet together wasn’t taking advantage of the sardines gag enough, I threw this in here. And Adora’s clumsiness provided a great opportunity for Catra to touch her in an intimate way :D. And idk why but the described experience of the smell of the sour candies on top of the close up of Catra’s eyes and them being pressed together is just overwhelming. That sour candies thing gets me every time I read it.

Suppressing the urge to groan, Adora adjusts her positioning and tips her head down so her forehead is resting against the wall, removing that temptation before it can take hold. (Oh right, that’s why it gets me every time.) She breathes deeply, as quietly as possible, praying to god that Catra will interpret her pounding heartbeat as excitement purely from the game. She can feel Catra’s heart hammering against her rib cage too, can hear it echoing in Catra’s jugular mere inches from her ear. Catra’s hands are sweaty where they’ve wound into Adora’s shirt, trembling slightly in anticipation of being caught. Catra may act like she doesn’t care that much about winning and losing, but Adora knows better than anyone just how competitive she is, how wound up she gets.

Oh for fuck’s sakes Adora. I’m glad people asked for Catra’s perspective of this scene because I think confirming in the next chapter that her body was reacting to the exact same thing Adora’s was is valuable. At least a few readers bought into the ‘Catra is competitive/traumatized about hiding in closets’ thing I had going with Adora as an unreliable narrator, so it was probably best to clear it up.

The closet door opens and they both tense, not daring to breathe. The metal hanger hooks screech along the rod as the seeker parts the sea of garments, the sound making Adora wince. The light suddenly flooding their dark space doesn’t help in that regard either. She squeezes her eyes shut with the tiniest little whimper and one of Catra’s hands taps gently against her waist, acknowledging her discomfort and offering solace.

Idk how many people have noticed but I have this running theme of Adora being especially averse to sounds as a sensory sensitivity thing. And the fact that Catra knows and consistently acknowledges it in small ways just makes my heart happy.

In seconds it’s over and the person is closing the closet door, then the bedroom door on their way out. Adora expels as heavy a breath as she dares and whispers, “Phew, that was close.” She starts to pull away and lower her arms from where she’s braced them against the wall, bracketing Catra’s head. (That visual *eyes emoji*) But she doesn’t get very far.

Catra’s arms are locked in place, fingers still clinging to Adora’s shirt. Resting her elbows on Catra’s shoulders, Adora pulls her head back to get a good look at her face. She arches her eyebrows questioningly but Catra’s eyes are fixed firmly on the opposite wall of the closet, refusing to meet hers. Frowning in concern, Adora brushes a thumb over the baby hairs on the back of Catra’s neck. “Catra?”

Still Catra doesn’t respond. Not with words anyway. It’s just a tiny movement, but when her shoulders curl forward into Adora just a little bit, Adora clues in. Sometimes you just need a hug when you’re sad. She gets it.

God damnit. Catra doesn’t want to let go because she’s yearning, not because she’s sad. Why you gotta be like this, Adora? (She says as though she didn’t write it.)

Slowly leaning back in, Adora wraps her arms around Catra’s shoulders. She sighs in relief when she feels Catra respond, relaxing in her grip and slumping slightly to rest her chin on her shoulder. Squeezing a little tighter, she nuzzles into the curve of Catra’s shoulder in response, breathing her in. Catra smells… like Catra. It’s a scent Adora could never quite put a finger on, something uniquely her, but it’s the most comforting smell she knows. It smells like safety, and tenderness, and just a little bit of mischief.

Adora could fall asleep in these arms, in the peace they bring her mind. She has, many times. When they were kids Catra ended up sleeping on her bed more often than not, sprawled half on top of Adora with her head on her chest. Though technically she was usually the one holding Catra, and Catra was often the one seeking comfort, it made Adora feel safer too. It felt a little like Catra was guarding her in the night, and the pressure pinning her to the mattress felt so good. So… secure. They’ve always been better together, perfectly suited to each other’s needs. Adora can't even imagine a life without Catra as her closest companion, and she doesn't want to.

Is that a reference to the torment of canon? Yes, yes it is. Is it also foreshadowing of how agonizing it would be for Adora if she and Catra ever had a falling out? ...maybe.

Absentmindedly brushing her fingers through Catra’s hair, Adora’s pulled out of her head by Catra’s low hum next to her ear. The long lost sound makes her lips turn up. She always used to tease Catra about how she purrs like an actual cat. Not quite, but… it’s nice. It’s soothing.

Rubbing her cheek against Catra’s ear in a similarly feline fashion, Adora chuckles, “Yeah, I miss this too.”

A quiet snort is muffled in her shoulder, Catra’s back puffing out against the arm still slung across her shoulders. “Don’t ruin it.”

“Okay,” says Adora. So she holds her close, and doesn’t say another word.

Maybe this is all she’ll ever get from Catra, holding and comforting her after others have hurt her. But it’s enough. It has to be.

Adora, NO, shut up! She loves you!

Ughhhh well this scene is super cute and super frustrating, both of which want to make me throw things. But that’s very on brand for this fic.

[agent-yolk-writes]

Friends Like You and Us - Venom!Reader - Ch. 5

Successfully (hopefully) queued at the stroke of midnight to bring you the latest chapter of some spider shenanigans. Fresh off the back of AO3!

In this episode: The gang throws spaghetti at the wall until something sticks, Noir enjoys playing with the remote, you have a breakdown for five minutes, and your aunt really needs to get her shit together for important business trips.

I also made a master list! Anyone new who wants to start or the veterans who want to revisit that one part in that one chapter!

AO3 Version | Masterlist

”Welcome to the first, and hopefully only, Spider-Persons conference. First off, I would like to thank (First Name) for hosting us and fixing up drinks with what they had to work with. Our main objective tonight: get everyone back to their proper universes before we don’t feel so good anymore…” Ham eccentrically led the charge of the brainstorm session. He managed to clap the lights off and pulled down a projector screen out of nowhere, the screen flashing crude images of the four of you finding a potential solution with lines and circles everywhere. It almost looked like what football coaches had to look at. Staring down on all of you squeezed on the couch he added, ”...any ideas?” Before clapping the lights back on, shooting the screen back from where it came.

Not risking what damage you might’ve inflicted on your phone, you pursued what you were looking for on your laptop while being squished to the side of the couch. It’s loading speeds left something to be desired, but it’s still functional and you can’t complain. Venom does about the heat, but that’s out of your control.

Over the horizon of your screen, you could see Peni, seated in the middle, pulling a projection of your New York out of nowhere and zoomed in on your current location. You weren’t really paying attention to what she was saying as she played around with the map. You were internally arguing with your backseat navigator on where you say the post last, only to find out the mods did indeed removed it from the search bar. Now you’re left in a predicament.

Try finding news archives.

Oh...Oh yea...No wonder I keep you around.

Where was he when you had to take the SATs?

He was right. Spider-Man’s death was the national news! There were so many news choppers around that it almost risked the two of you being forced apart by sound alone. Because of that, as well as the risk of you getting caught, you didn’t feel it was safe enough to investigate it yourself. Thanks to the media, you didn’t have to do the heavy lifting.

“You thinking it could be Osbird?” You heard Ham ask.

“Osbird? Ain’t it supposed to be Osborn?” Noir questioned.

“(First Name)!” Peni calls to you. “Does the Green Goblin exist in this universe?”

Didn’t he...

Died with Spider-Man.

“...Exist

ed

. I think he got killed in the same explosion.” You mentally high fives your companion for being a database for most things super. Good thing your universes are very similar.

Still, that doesn’t help your allies as your enhanced ears heard Ham cursing under his breath.

To alleviate some of the pain you added, “...If it helps, I think he was working for this guy named Wilson Fisk.”

“Kingpin…” Everyone else said at the same time. “What in the Sam hell is he scheming?” Noir grimly added. Glancing at the Wikipedia page for him, apparently he has more money than god. Of course he would be living in NYC. That’s where all the corrupt billionaires live!

You wouldn't happen to know him, right?

Never met him.

Well, there goes your first potential lead. The first news article that pops up is Fisk sending his condolences to the aunt of Spider-Man, May Parker, as well as his wife Mary Jane. He released a sympathetic statement relating what it’s like to lose someone close. A jump to his Wiki states that he had a wife and son that were killed during a high-speed car crash. There were rumors for a while about the wife being the one in the speeding car, but all whispers were quickly squashed before the sun could rise the next day. Money really is an effective superpower these days.

Another article tells you that he’s been heavily involved in Alchemax, a business he acquired a few years ago. His main advisor and the one who looks after the company while he’s away is Doctor Olivia Octavius, a woman with the frizziest hair ever. You vaguely recall watching a documentary she was the main star in during your science class, but you didn’t really absorb what she was saying.

Your fingers rubbed your eyes to relieve some strain. It felt like listening to Hannah yapping non-stop about any villain Spider-man even looked at during lunch. Ever since this whole series of wacky events dragged you into this mess, you have just the right about of knowledge on at least the most popular, infamous really, supervillains.

“Welcome back to Inside Edition-” The new voice almost triggered your fight or flight responses if you didn’t look up and see that the television was on playing tonight’s Inside Edition. Wait, you didn’t turn it on. Looking to your left, you realized it was the only other person left on the couch with you and, thus, the closest one to the table with the remotes.

Squinting at Noir with tired eyes, you asked, “What are you doing?”

The monochrome detective was fixated on gripping the device in various locations. “Interesting...it doesn’t have wires, and yet it calls the huge black mirror to awake. It doesn’t run on steam or heat, not to mention it’s so tiny.” Surely they had batteries back then, right?

“Yea. That’s what remotes are.” You commented. “They were made so we don’t have to get up every time to change the channel. You can even change the volume to hear better...the long ones with the plus and minus on it.”

“And please do.” Ham waved his hand to get both of your attention. “I think something important is coming up.” You didn’t even have to question him as the television had the collapsed remnants of Spider-Man’s final stand being narrated by a blonde woman you can’t piece the name of.

“While the world still mourns the loss of Spider-Man, many are still trying to pick up the pieces of his final moments to paint a picture. Tonight, Insider Edition has gained exclusive footage from one of the first helicopters on sight of the explosion. What you’re about to see is graphic and may upset some viewers. Take a look-”

The camera switched to a shaky camera arriving on the scene. For a few seconds, you could see the East River and the Williamsburg Bridge that connects Manhattan and Brooklyn before it forces the viewers to focus on a trail of smoke coming from a crater.

“What used to be one of Wilson Fisk’s many investments is now up in smoke. There’s no word yet if there are any other casualties in the explosion. It is rumored that this building was used to hold scientific research and experimentations in the medical field. We tried contacting Fisk for a comment, but he has yet to respond.”

It cuts to another angle, and you could see a blur hiding away something red and blue. The original cameraman holding it let out a gasp and said something expletive. “We censored this for the viewers at home, but it was here that the camera crew noticed the body of Peter Parker, better known as Spider-Man, unmoving-”

The feeling in your stomach only got worse as the newsreel goes on. You felt upset to point of nausea. You wanted to tear your eyes away from all this sad news but at the same time, you don’t. You were there when the news broke out, you were at his funeral hiding behind one of the church’s spirals as his widow encouraged others wearing his mask that they too can be a hero. You could still remember the bile burning your throat that night, muttering ‘what-ifs’ to yourself as if you were the cause of his death.

You’ve only paid attention to him because he was your solstice to your new powers, but he’s now gone, leaving the two of you in the dark. You should be over this, but for some reason, you’re not.

“I-We’re going to bed. Goodnight.” With a slam of your laptop, you didn’t give them time to react before you slammed the door to your room shut and placing your desk chair under the knob as a security measure. You needed to be alone right now.

If it wasn’t for your companion supporting your body, you would’ve slammed your head on the bed frame. You were that much of a wreck that Venom had to assume control to get you safely on the bed.

“Talk to me, (First Name).” He rarely calls you by your name.

“I-I…” You got distracted with the tears streaming down your face. “I’m scared. It...It’s all coming crashing down on m-me now.” You grabbed the nearest pillow and stuffed your face in it. While anyone else couldn’t comprehend the muffled wailing through the pillow, Venom could hear you perfectly. “I don’t wanna do this! I never did!” After sobbing in silence for what could’ve been minutes, you let go of it to hug your knees. “Last month I thought about pursuing a career in journalism. How can I do that now? Now that I have a bugged alien in my system tearing me apart with him! Explain that to me, Venom!” You’re trying so hard not to alarm your compatriots outside your door, but you’re too exhausted emotionally at this point to properly check yourself at this point.

You could feel Venom’s tendrils wiping away your tears. His inky forehead bumps into yours like a cat. “(First Name), look at us. Breathe.” His voice rumbles something comforting in your chest. You couldn’t help but close your eyes and breathe alongside him. “That’s it…”

The room was quiet except for your synced breathing and the occasional sniffling. More minutes have passed and already you feel better than earlier.

“I...I’m sorry, Vee.” You whispered. “Everything just...happened, all at once. You, the other Spiders...I think this is what they call ‘imposter syndrome’ kicking in, I dunno.” Forcing out a laugh to ease the tension, you continued. “I just...felt out of place, having to put wool over our eyes to believe we’re sheep too. I hope we don’t have to suffer any longer. If everything works out, I don’t think anyone would have a clue about you...about us.”

Your symbiote friend curled himself around the pillow you were still latching onto. While it doesn’t feel like a genuine embrace, it’s the best thing you can work with.

“Do...Do you think tomorrow will be a better day?” You whisper.

“...I don’t know.” You’re not surprised at that answer. “We’re in a deep bond, we can’t lie to you even if we tried.”

“Do...Do you think it’ll affect whenever we find a way back to your home? The whole bonding thing?”

“...”

“...Vee?” You remembered him explaining about bonding briefly, when you had nightmares from his previous hosts. Symbiotes don’t really exist in this universe, so there’s no real documentation or even a tabloid piece about it.

“It's hard to say for certain. At this rate, we might die if this ’Kingpin’ lead gives us nothing to work on.”

”Yeah...That’s true.” You agreed, letting out a deep sigh. “But he has influence all over the place. He could hide anything if he waves enough money under someone’s nose.”

“Then we’ll eat them. Simple as that.” Venmo’s enthusiasm made you chuckle a bit.

“Well try not to eat their hands if there’s a fingerprint lock.”

“No promises. Now sleep.”

“Yeah yeah…” You snuggled deeper into your hugging pillow. “Night, Vee. Tomorrow’s gonna be better, I hope.”

“Goodnight, (First Name).” With that, you closed your eyes. If you went to sleep any later, you would’ve caught a conversation of two certain spiders from outside and something about a goober.

~

Outside of your room, the others were fixated on what came on after seeing the remnants of the explosion.

“Social media is blowing up over this mystery figure seen all across Manhattan. Blink and you’ll miss it, but it looks like there’s already someone taking the shape of Spider-Man!” It was a set of shaky pictures and so-called ‘tweets’ of people freaking out.

“On person tweeted quote, “Some nightmare version of Spider-Man just passed my window, i think that’s my sleep paralysis demon #fml.” Another reported saying quote, “I think I saw it ate the local drug dealer whole. gross. to think i had to witness vore at four in the morning. stay classy, nyc.””

“Our sources at PDNY say that this mysterious person, if it even is a person, is not believed to be involved in Spider-Man’s death. However, they are a person of interest in multiple disappearance cases involving convicted felons that have been released from prison ranging from drug dealers to serial killers.”

“PDNY reminds everyone that if they see something, say something.”

The trio looked at each other, an unspoken question is trying to be answered. Ham was the only one who looked at the door where you entered for the night before passing air through his lips.

“Pfft, there’s no way.” He says to Peni and Noir. “I mean, what are the chances? They’re too nice and they’re housing us. If they were harboring a murderous symbiote, they would’ve told by now...right? Right?”

~

A surprise pair of glitching and convulsions woke you up earlier that day. Not wanting to feel sick by getting up immediately, you just lied there and drifted up for two hours or so before a series of knocks jolted your sleep away.

“Rise and shine, kid!” Noir yelled.

“We got a mission!” Peni added enthusiastically. A mission? This early? A glance on your phone, however, says it’s almost 10 in the morning. So much for going to school.

You pushed your upper body off the bed with a groan. Venom pushes himself back under your body and into your ‘pajamas’.

“Mmmf...it’s too early for hero stuff..” You grumble, wiping off any remnants of sleep. “Don’t heroes have...unions, or whatever?” Was among the other incoherent grumbles as you washed up and got ready for the day.

Finishing your wakeup routine in the bathroom, you were immediately greeted with your three inter-dimensional companions bustling around as much as they can in such a small apartment. SP//dr’s hanging out on the fire escape ladder, but his visor is lighting up inside so you can barely make out Peni hard at work with something. Noir’s holding the remote, continuously surfing channels and not really stopping at all even at the channels that play classic black and white film. Ham is...stacking a tower from whatever he can find on the fridge. You pray he didn’t see the unopened package of black forest ham you know that’s in there.

Of course, Ham was the first one to notice you staring at him. “What? I’m a growing pig.” Before you could even answer that, he slides the leaning tower of breakfast into his mouth in a single bite. You couldn’t help but be impressed yet slightly jealous.

The mech’s visor slides open and out pops out Peni. “Good morning! Sorry we didn’t wake you up earlier, but the phone rang.” She explains.

“Did you...answer it?” You asked with an eyebrow popped up.

“Well…” She looks down, pushing her pointer fingers together like she’s hiding something she broke. “We tried, buuut...we couldn’t figure out how to actually answer it.”

You looked over at the home phone. It wasn’t anything special, just a wireless phone that you had to press a button in order to answer an incoming call. “...You don’t have cordless phones in your home universe?”

“Everything’s at my fingertips, so I don’t need one at home.” Was her defense.

“Mine has a sleek new design that looks like a candlestick.” Noir turned his head to add in.

You looked over at Ham. “And what’s your excuse?”

“...In my defense, we have cans with a string between them. Reception’s a hit or miss these days.” You shouldn’t be surprised at his answer, but it still doesn’t stop the double facepalm you gave yourself. Peering back to the phone, you noticed that there’s a blinking light indicating someone left a voice message. As you walked over to play it, part of you prayed it wasn’t the school asking for your unexcused whereabouts.

“You have, one, new message.” Don’t be school, don’t be school... “Hi, sweetie! It’s your aunt!” Oh, thank god. “I hope you’re doing okay on your own, but I need your help with something. I...accidentally forgot to send out a file on my work computer, and I need it for an important meeting tomorrow. Would you be a dear and head over to my office? There should be like multiple post-it notes with the file name as a reminder for me to send it.” Mary laughed as her own forgetfulness. “Your visitor pass should still be working, so use that to get in. I’m sure the guards will enjoy seeing your lovely face again. Try not to stumble onto Alchemax’s floor this time. Call back soon, love you~”

“End of message. To delete the message…”

You look back over at the trio sheepishly. “Oh, yea...forgot my aunt works in a pharmaceutical building that neighbors an Alchemax branch...Hahaaa, that’s soo weird…Now what?”

You could hear Venom sighing inside your head. Funny how things seem to go together right when you need it.

[delusional-cryptid]

Patton’s Backstory-

SS Hybrid Au part two

Tw: blood

Me - narrator - speaking character(Patton)

Legend says that Witches and Warlocks once existed. However, now, they’re scarce. A child of a human and a demon, giving birth to a creature so powerful that it can rival any other beast. They can be cunning, creative, but idealistic, reckless and overall naive…

That’s what they called me…

no, let’s not think of that, ok?

Ok.

My name is Patton DeAngelo, I am a warlock. My… type most often have traits that differentiate them from other ‘Humans’. Myself in fact I have cat ears and a fluffy tail, I don’t show them to people often. I was born in… 1788 I think? I’m not sure how old I am, but the thing with warlocks is that we’re immortal! Cool right! Well… there are downsides- but that doesn’t matter!

Anyway I used to live in the woods with all the cute little critters, but I moved out and now I’m happily living just outside of Florida!

That’s not true. There’s something he’s not telling you. Would you like to hear?

Good

The year was 1770, Patton was 12. Living in the woods in a small home with the occasional teenager who would come by on a dare or something of the sort. You see, there was a rumor that the cabin along with the woods was haunted and anything to enter that neck of the woods would never be seen again. The truth is that the woods were packed and often dark, so it was very easy to get lost. And eaten. And that’s precisely why his mother chose this place for them. Patton’s mother was a kind and caring woman, and when she found her child to be a warlock she immediately knew what would happen if anyone found out so she took her son and ran into the forest she had always been told to stay away from. Because “taking any chance is better than you, not getting a chance to grow up.” She told her son. She built the cabin and left each day to find food for the both of them. Until one day when her son was eleven, she inevitably didn’t come back.

At the time, the boy was confused. But he didn’t dare leave the safety of his home,but he soon ran out of food. So he left to find food, and hopefully his mother. Throughout the journey his ears were perked, picking up any sound that could threaten them. He wandered through the darkness for what seemed like a long while until he noticed the forest brighten and he walked toward it, hoping desperately for companionship.

But when he peaked out his eyes widened, met with a different sight. He saw a pile of bodies, people like him… but closer to him, he saw familiar caramel hair and blue shirt. His mother. Mutilated and bloody, her dead eyes looking right through him. He stifled a scream and ran in the other direction. He ran and ran and eventually collapsed to his knees, sobbing.

His mind warned him about the monsters his mom would talk about, but at the mention of his mom he sobbed harder. He sat there forever, only jolting when he felt a warmth curl around him.

He didn’t bother looking up, whatever it was could kill him without a fight.

He no longer had anything to live for.

Patton gave up and surrendered to the darkness.

He woke with a start a while later, it was already dark. The kid was confused, as he had forgotten what had happened. But as soon as he closed his eyes he saw his lifeless mother watching him and he opened his eyes wide, curling his tail around him and flattening his ears to his head in hopes ofblocking out the horrible sounds. When he felt movement behind him he turned his head, seeing a large wolf. The beast had to be at least three times the size of Patton, and a beautiful light grey with one gold eye and one ice blue one. It looked him in the eyes and he stared back, saying “hello, what do you need?” As friendly as possible

The wolf grunted back “I require your help, boy”

“With what?”

“ my cub was trapped by your faux kin”

“Oh no! Where?”

The dog seemed surprised, she had clearly not expected his help

She lead the way and cries of fear could soon be heard

Patton rushed to the pup and saw that a snare trap had been set and the cub had been caught by the neck, Patton rushes to the cub and started speaking

“Hush, hush, it’ll be okay kiddo. I’ll get you out”

As he feverishly worked at the snare, the small creature relaxed. Or so Patton had thought, I’d seems that the dog had been weakened and He finally noticed the bloody ring encasing the puppy’s neck. so when the dog was finally free he was breathing heavily and laying still.

Patton felt a tug inside of him, like words pulling on his lips. So he let himself speak and a warm feeling filled his chest. The cub whimpered and relaxed in his arms.

The cubs mother (as Patton had gathered ) came up behind him, sitting down and putting her head on his. The boy grinned up at her and says, “they’ll be ok”

Patton looked at the dog, ready to stop the blood from its neck but started as he saw that the previously bleeding ring had faded. Leaving pale, scarred flesh and dried blood around the wound. Confused, Patton glanced at the mother who mirrored his expression. “You saw it too?” The boy asked,“yeah, what did you do?”.

Tail flicking, he said “I-I dont know? But they’re breathing.” He shook his head and stared at the scarred flesh. It was real.

He slowly stood up with the pup in his arms, and said to the wolf “can you show me your den?” The wolf just stared sadly, but Patton understood. She had left her pack, she no longer had a den. “Sorry, can we go to my home?” She agreed.

He started walking, he felt like he know where he was and where he was going. Despite it being dark and him never having been out of his home.

And as they walked back he asked, “so, what’s your name?”

“I’m Adarla, my cub is Lyn. Why were you In this forest warlock?”

“Oh- wait, War...lock? What’s that?”

“You, you are a warlock. A warlock is a half demon, half human creature,” she said the word ‘human’ as If it was poisonous, “gifted with powerful magic but cursed with in-human traits” she finished

“Oh.. I guess that makes sense…”

“ but I haven’t seen you around, and I was beta. So where did you come from?”

He took a deep breath and responded “I was raised in a cabin in these woods. My m-“ he paused, feeling tears again but pushed it down and continued “mom, wouldn’t let me leave but she was hunted and I needed food.”

“... you don’t need to hide your human parts, they may be an evil race, but you aren’t one of them.”

Patton was surprised she noticed, not even knowing the reason himself, but nodded nonetheless.

When they arrived at his home he stopped, remembering he had no food.

“What is it warlock?” Adarla asked

“I don’t have any food, so I need to get some. Oh, and you can call me Patton by the way”

“I’ll hunt, just take care of lyn”

“Ok, thank you”

As Adarla left, Lyn let out a tiny whimper. As if he could tell his mother had left him. The thought made Patton a little sad, but he shoved it down and smiled at the small pup, heading into his empty house.

-Patton sat with the pup for around two hours when Adarla pawed at the door-

He got up and left Lyn where he was sleeping a nd got the door. When he did so, Adarla dragged a small deer in the door. Feeling guilty for being bothered by having to prepare an animal he pushed the disgust aside and took it to the counter. Cutting into the flank of the poor creature, but also too hungry to refuse. He gave the rest of the deer to Adarla, who had just woken Lyn who gazed at the meat hungrily. As Patton cooked the meat on a spit he finally felt the hunger of almost three days set in and as soon as the meat was done he hurriedly ate it without any seasoning or anything. Only To be reminded by Adarla to slow or he’d throw up.

Later that night he peacefully fell asleep by Adarla.

They went on living in Patton’s house for about a week when Patton’s curiosity got the best of him.

The boy walked cautiously through the forest until he found the edge of the forest. He heard shouting and poked his head out, tail swishing. What made humans so bad? He wondered as he stepped out. His ears were perked to hear any danger. There were few people around but when one noticed the short boy he shouted “witch!”

Catching the others attention who stared at him, yelling other words, some of which he had never heard. He flinched at the noise and turned an ran, tearing up, scared. He heard the noise follow him and he ran faster, he had to get away. He found his house and slammed the door.

He heard banging on the door and started smelling smoke.

Then the door broke.

He doesn’t remember much of it, only the noise the pain and then screaming. They cut into his skin and set fire to his house. He screamed in anguish as blue fire flowed around him. After they had run he lay on the scorched floor of what used to be his home. He bled, the sticky crimson liquid falling from his cuts, he knew what to say to stop the pain and blood. But he didn’t deserve it, so he only stopped the blood flow and got up with stinging cuts. He should have listened to Adarla, this was his fault. He didn’t know if she and Lyn were ok or if they had died like he should have. He took a deep breath and stared out at the blossoming sunset.

He fled after that. And he didn’t stop running until everyone from that village had died, it took 100 years to re enter society.

The year he did, he looked out on the town, a tear rolling down his cheek as he closed his eyes. Focusing on numbness. He could feel his familiar ears and tail dissipate, he cried harder. He didn’t want to lose them, but he had to. When the process was completed, he opened his eyes, bothered by the empty feeling they left.

He walked into the town, preparing himself for the horrible creatures he would encounter.

Patton backstory, part two

-Lord of Dragons and Witches-

[analogscum]

BLOODY MOON (1981, d. Jess Franco)

You can lobby a lot of criticisms at Jess Franco, and I say that as a fan of his films. Detractors have labeled him a pornographer, a misogynist, a con man, and the devil incarnate. However, when you consider the man behind the work, I can’t help but admire his integrity. Franco could’ve easily coasted his entire career, doing the sort of weirdo Hammer knock-offs that he first made his name with. But he left it all behind, moving to France to escape the censorship of his native Spain, while also foregoing the cushy budgets and box office grosses that he had enjoyed. Yes, he gave this all up to make twisted tales of bondage nuns and lesbian vampires full of gratuitous nudity and S&M, often inspired by his obsession with the works of the Marquis de Sade, which may not strike you as all that noble. But Franco’s dedication to his craft above all else embodies what I love about cult cinema: as I discussed in the Hard Rock Zombies entry, these movies were made by people who stuck to their artistic guns, no matter how noncommercial they were. Above all else, Jess Franco cared about making Jess Franco films. At least for awhile.

Even without knowing the behind the scenes story of today’s film, 1981’s Bloody Moon, you can probably tell just by watching it that this was a money for hire job. Enticed by Wolf Hartwig and Erich Tomek, a pair of German producers with some lofty promises and bucketloads of cash — which were probably very enticing at the time, given the fact that he and his first wife, Nicole Guettard, had just divorced — Franco gave in to the zeitgeist, signing on to craft an American-style teen slasher film for the German marketplace, if you can imagine such a thing. However, it didn’t quite work out that way. To watch Bloody Moon is to watch an idiosyncratic auteur thumb his nose at a genre that he obviously sees as hopelessly formulaic, while also injecting a heaping dose of breathy Eurosleaze into the proceedings, almost as if he can’t help it. In other words, Franco gonna Franco.

We open on, what else, a disco dancing party. Miguel, a Klaus Kinski-looking creepoid with a huge facial scar that resembles fried chicken, is looking at his sister all weird. His sister, Manuela, is like, yo don’t look at me like that, I’m your sister, so yeah, the movie goes THERE immediately. Bummed out over being rejected by his sister, Miguel steals a Mickey Mouse mask and starts to mack on a lady who’s not a blood relative. She invites him back to her bungalow for some horizontal bedroom dancing, but when she takes off his Mickey Mouse mask, she’s, shall we say, less than enthused about Miguel’s fried chicken face. Oh, and she thought that he was her boyfriend, so this is basically how that gag (with like twelve quotation marks around the word gag) from Revenge of the Nerds would turn out in real life. Miguel is also, shall we say, less than enthused by this young lady’s screaming, so he stabs her a bunch of times with a pair of scissors. Glad to see we’ve come so far in terms of dealing with toxic masculinity!

Cut to: five years later. A doctor, played by Jess Franco himself, is like, hey Manuela, your brother is way less murder crazy now, so I’m going to release him into your care, just make sure he’s spared from any sort of excitement, like the constant temptation of having nubile young co-eds around to murder, anyway, byeeeee! Well, oopsies, because as it turns out, Miguel and Manuela live with their invalid billionaire aunt, who leases her land out to an organization called the International Youth Club Boarding School for Languages (you graduate when you’re able to say the name of the school without getting tripped up), which is crawling with gorgeous buh-buh-buh-baaaaaabes who are always dancing sexily and lounging topless around the pool when they’re not learning Spanish for like 5 minutes a day. Great. Things nearly go to hell immediately when, on the train home, Miguel becomes fixated on a young lady named Angela, and when Manuela sees a silk scarf stuck in the window, she somehow thinks that Miguel pushed her out of the train while her back was turned for two seconds. But then Angela gets up, and explains, to these two total strangers, that she had just dropped something on the floor and was bending down to pick it up. This is going somewhere. Cue the next paragraph!

Easily the biggest problem with this movie is the dialogue. This is the rare movie that manages to both show AND tell at the same time, as if we the audience were complete dummies. Characters are constantly talking about their relationships to one another, or narrating events that just happened seconds ago. And the dubbing in this movie…good gravy. Every character talks almost nonstop, no matter what the situation, whether they’re together or alone, in these breathless, dramatically overwrought monologues, delivered at a furious clip, full of the most flowery language. It sounds as though the movie was dubbed by some alien computer technology whose language database consisted of nothing but quotes from John Waters movies.

So as it turns out, Angela is heading to the language school to join her friends in sexy hijinks, but whoops, she has to live in the bungalow where Miguel went all scissor-happy back in the day. And gosh, wouldn’t you know it, but as soon as Miguel makes the scene at this school again, people start turning up dead. Good news, though: this movie delivers on the kills. We get to see the mean old invalid aunt get burned alive in her bed, one of Angela’s friends gets stabbed in the back and the knife pokes out through her nipple, another friend is choked by some sort of like bear trap thing, and then there’s the coup de grace, when yet another friend is beheaded by a giant circular saw. Hell yeah. On the other hand, there’s a really cruel, unnecessary scene in which a snake is beheaded by a pair of garden shears. Leave the critters alone!

For whatever reason, no one believes Angela when she’s like yo all of my friends are being murdered, because she, uh, is reading a murder mystery novel, so it must be all in her imagination? It makes no sense, but then again Angela doesn’t exactly endear herself to us by running around all over creation having a nervous breakdown. I know they can’t all be Ellen Ripley, but cheese and crackers, cut the damsel in distress act, woman! Along the way, we hit all of the major slasher plot moments: the killer POV shots, the jumping cat fakeout scare, the last girl stumbling upon the intricately posed corpses of her friends, etc. You can practically feel Franco smirking each time a scene like this happens. This leads to a final act straight out of a giallo movie, full of crazy twists and double crosses and escalating violence.

And then there is the soundtrack. One lofty promise made by Hartwig & Tomek to Franco was that Pink Floyd were slated to provide the film’s soundtrack. Yes, THAT Pink Floyd. Why Franco would believe that these German snake oil salesmen had corralled the biggest rock band in the world at the time to do a soundtrack for their no-budget horror flick I honestly don’t know. The music was eventually done by an Austrian gentleman named Gerhard Heinz, and Franco has gone on record saying it is his least favorite part of the film. However, I quite enjoy it. There is a great variety of motifs and sounds, from lounge exotica to demonic strings to Stockhausen style bleeps and bloops. And then of course, there is the film’s main theme, which does indeed sound like something that could’ve conceivably been an outtake from the Wish You Were Here sessions.

To wrap up my take on Bloody Moon, I wanna cede the floor to the master himself. Click here to watch an excellent, highly entertaining interview with Franco, shot in his home for Severin’s DVD release of the film from 2007. Beginning in charming fashion with second wife and collaborative muse Lina Romay grabbing her purse and leaving for the afternoon, Franco chain smokes about a thousand cigarettes and regals us with many an entertaining anecdote from behind the scenes of Bloody Moon, including the one promise the producers did keep to him (casting Olivia Pascal as Angela), the true identity of mysterious screenwriter “Rayo Casablanca” (co-producer Erich Tomek), the fact that he indeed did treat the film as more of a tongue-in-cheek venture (much to the producers’ chagrin), and the horrifying and inaccurate title the film was saddled with for its release in Spain (get ready for it…Raped College Girls. Yikes!) It’s sad to watch the interview knowing that Franco would only be with us for another five years. But that’s the thing with artists as prolific and driven as he was: it will take a lifetime to digest the twisted feast that is his body of work. We may have covered an outlier today, but perhaps it’s enough to get you started on exploring the sumptuous, problematic, bizarre, and wonderful world of Jess Franco.

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Chapter 18-19

Chapter 18

We’re in Nor’s POV again, so prepare for edge. Though that can be said about literally every chapter in this book.

Nor is having a dream about how she’s being crushed by a small rock that feels like a bunch of very big rocks. And then she falls into an abyss (relatable), and into a big ol’ fire.

It’s very dramatic, and also? Symbolism.

Extremely symbolism. 

She wakes up.

She was so cold. Her body, coated in sweat, was attracting the frigid recycled air that clung to her like a second skin.

How does one “attract” air? I know what they’re trying to say but like, at some point you just gotta stop trying to twist more meaning and drama out of every meaningless detail. 

People say show don’t tell, but here, Shinsay follows up their telling with really dubious showing. Why do you do this? Just to pad the word count? More words doesn’t make you a better writer.

We’re introduced to Zahn, who is Nor’s bodyguard and also lover. They cuddle for a bit and Nor thinks about how nobody but Zahn is allowed to see her this vulnerable. 

“I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think, Zahn.” She lifted her prosthetic hand to her face to wipe away the tears, then dropped it, disgusted by the sight of the gold metal, of the scars marring her upper wrist. Disgusted with herself for feeling so weak.

Ah. We’re doing this now, are we?

It’s okay though, because Zahn takes her fake, disgusting hand and kisses her tears away! 

How sweet.

“You’re safe,” he said with a sigh. “I will always protect you, Nor.”

“I don’t need protecting,” she whispered.

I know this is supposed to be deep and not true, but she’s basically telling him, her bodyguard, that she only pays him to sleep with her. 

To many people, Nor was the stone-cold ruler who haunted the nightmares of her foes. But to Zahn, she was just Nor. The love of his life, as he was hers.

Cool cool. The narrative then continues to talk about how they were there for each other when the war took their families and how he’s the only one who’s seen her at her weakest and bla bla bla.

This chapter is literally just a massive infodump about this new rando. You couldn’t have woven his existence into the narrative in a more elegant way, Shinsay?

“Don’t leave me,” Nor said, looking up into his eyes. Seeing the passion mirrored there.

“I would never dream of it,” he said.

Their lips touched, and his hands slid down her bare back, gentle at first. Then hungry for more as she let him lay her back down.

“I love you,” Zahn said. “My Nhatyla.”

The lingering fear from her nightmare trickled away as a very different sort of feeling took its place.

“A very different sort of feeling,” Shinsay?

Are you two grown women or twelve actual years old, combined? Why is this so coy? You can’t have both all these MATURE and EDGY characters who are all about TEH SECKS and VIOLENS while basically giggling like tweens whenever you make a reference to fucking. 

If you don’t want to deal with the subject, why include it at all? This is YA, isn’t it? Teens can handle discussions and references to sex. You could probably even get away with sex scenes if you write them carefully and don’t make them too explicit.

If you wanted to be completely PG, why is everyone always making grody sex jokes? If you wanted them all to have amazing sex lives, why don’t you have them (and the narration) speak maturely and openly about the subject?

I do not understand the reasoning behind any of this.

Chapter 19

We’re back with Dex, who, if you recall, kissed Andi without her consent in chapter 17.

DEX HAD FORGOTTEN how fast Andi’s reflexes could be when she was mad.

Furious, actually, he thought, as he watched the shock on her face melt into a mask of pure, boiling rage.

The sentence above, my friends, is a perfect illustration of why I have such problems with purple prose and using a bunch of “pretty descriptions” that don’t mean jack shit just to show off how deep your writing is.

Allow me to be extremely nitpicky and go off on a tangent while I analyze this ... word vomit.

Melting happens when something gets warm enough to change state from solid to liquid, but without necessarily boiling. In writing, the word usually has positive connotations. ”Molten” metals are often used as eye colors for love interests, people “melt” when another person does something sweet or romantic for them, et cetera. 

It makes people think of warmth, softness, pliability. 

When Andi’s shock melts into “a mask of rage,” it implies that the rage is solidified, but also that it’s fake, because it’s only a mask. Then we’re told that it’s actually boiling still. The fact that her shock is “on” her face doesn’t help.

Now, I know what you’ll say: Eff, this isn’t literal! It’s all just a metaphor!

But metaphors have to make sense, and conflicting, confusing visuals and concepts do nothing but shine a spotlight on the author’s carelessness. They’ve picked these words because they have inherent meaning and they sound good and intense, but without understanding how to use that meaning to their advantage.

If Shinsay wanted to keep the “hot rage” angle, I’d suggest something like this:

Dex watched as the shock on Andi’s face boiled over into white-hot rage.

Jesus Christ, I’m only two sentences in.

Anywhoo, Andi beats Dex with a chair. I would’ve killed him on the spot but I’ll take what I can get.

Andi spat on the ground, then rubbed her lips with the back of her sleeve. For one moment, she looked purely Andi, angry as a wet feline and terrifyingly beautiful.

...

So uh. For future reference: Comparing to your badass, ruthles space pirate to a wet cat 

is probably the dumbest fucking thing you can do.

I guess Dex is also impressed that Andi looks like Andi. 

And here I thought standards couldn’t go any lower.

Maybe there’s a message of positivity in there? Dex loves you if you look like you, girls! Just be yourself, and also angry as a wet cat.

Then he saw the moment when Andi’s face changed. She transformed into someone else entirely; an actress playing the perfect part.

So you’re gonna describe to me how her shock melts into a mask of rage and how she looks angry like a wet cat, but you won’t tell me how Dex sees her slip into the role of an actress playing the perfect part? Something that would actually be quite interesting to witness?

Figures.

Andi starts acting like Dex cheated on her and Lira and Breck join in as the other women, which for some reason confuses Dex, the ultimate mastermind that he is. He catches on eventually as the other patrons start surrounding them in the hopes of a juicy fight.

Breck kicks him and he flies across the room, which is absolutely delightful and I love it. She kicked him into the table of the Lunamere guards (finally someone does something smart) and a fight with them breaks out. 

Dex wasn’t the tallest man by Mirabel standards, but what he lacked in height, he made up in speed and agility—and above all, the desire to win.

And as we all know, people who lose always actually want to lose, and the guards he’s fighting against just don’t want to win enough!

Makes perfect sense.

He was all grace and glory as he spun and whirled, taking out Lunamere guards as they rushed forward in hopes of sinking their knives into his gut.

Don’t make me do a GLORY count. Blease.

We switch POV to Andi. This entire chapter/fight scene is for some reason broken up into chunks, even though it’s all the same one scene and at one point we don’t even switch POVs, but the scene break is still there?

Who edited this?

[The Lunamere guard] howled and dropped, and then she was off again, leaping over his fallen form, her hands itching to raise hell, draw blood and spread the glory of her name.

The Bloody Baroness was here.

She’d make sure every single one of them knew it.

THE GLORY OF HER NAME

Note how Andi seems to just love this. I guess when the narrative needs her to be ruthless and badass, she’s all about being the Bloody Baroness and loves to SPREAD HER GLORY, but when she’s angsting, it’s all about how much she hates murder and remembers every single person she’s killed.

Cheap, Shinsay. You’re cheap and so is your book.

Another POV skip. We’re back with Dex. It’s still the same scene, same fight.

The plan was in place. Everything was glorious, beautiful, blessed disarray.

GLORIOUS

Another scene break. We’re back with Andi. Holy shit, this is such a terrible, disconnected, patchy mess. 

Dex was cornered with his back against the bar, fresh green blood oozing from a cut on his brow.

Proof that his blood is actually green, in case y’all didn’t believe me. 

Idk what this means or if it will ever be explained, but whatever.

Every part of Andi’s soul told her to get the hell out of there before the Sparks went off. She could abandon the mission. Leave Valen Cortas in prison, with Dex beside him once the warden of Lunamere caught wind of this.

But as she stood back and watched the clock tick down, some tiny part of herself, some animal thing deep down, began to claw its way back up and out into the smoky pub light.

The Bloody Baroness never turned away from a fight.

See? Andi enjoys this, and willingly chooses it when she can do otherwise. So then why does Shinsay insist on making her all angsty and sad about the people she murders?

YOU CAN’T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND FUCK IT TOO, SHINSAY.

With a sigh, she pushed herself forward, swinging her borrowed knives as if they were extensions of her body. Little pieces of heaven clutched in her hellraising fists.

With a sigh? Why is she acting like she doesn’t have a choice and this is a chore, like her mom told her to clean her room? Oh my god.

And yeah, I had to look at “little pieces of heaven clutched in her hellraising fists,” and now so do you.

Anyway, the “Sparks” (if they were explained, I didn’t pay attention) that Andi’s team set up around the bar go off and:

Then the whole world exploded around [Andi and Dex].

God, I wish they could die in the explosion.

[rachelillustrates]

A stream-of-counciousness-ish, overanalytical observation of Karolina Dean/Julie Power, from the perspective of a Xavin fangirl.

Follow up to two other overanalytical posts about Karolina and Xavin, which I highly recommend reading first.

First post here

Second post here.

(And a third mini-commentary here.)

Spoilers for the recent “Runaways” series abound, of course. 

As they established/discussed in “Avengers Academy” 27, Karolina and Julie DID feel an attraction to each other from their first encounter – waaaaaaaaaaay back in the early Runaways stuff, before Xavin even showed up. Regardless of team affiliations.

But in terms of this re-introduction to each other - it is a note of betrayal that Julie still fights back even when her team is trying to break up Karolina’s FAMILY. Yes, all sides stop fighting once they start actually talking it over, but Julie is NOT the one to initiate that. She assumes her leaders know what’s best first, and tries to understand second.

As for the “Understand” spell Nico casts in issue 28 – I am assuming that there’s a reason they show certain individuals sharing certain memories with specific other individuals. Like how Nico sees Tigra losing a love she was “supposed to have a whole life with” (doesn’t THAT open up a can of worms, wow), and Chase seeing two lovers who choose not to be together due to future memories (extra poignant considering what’s going on with him and Gert in recent issues).

And dammit, Karolina and Julie seeing what they see of each other – especially Julie seeing the breakdown Karolina had with Nico, which I wrote about in the second aforementioned post.

The fact that she sees THAT is important (and again, better writing than I expected - I am such an angry Xavin fangirl). So even though Karolina said she was only “sorta” engaged *ahem. Still bullshit* Julie herself must SEE the seriousness of that Love and the loss in Karolina’s heart.

Karolina saying “Oh my god, you are so awesome” to Julie right after the spell is also pretty telling – she saw a vision of Julie’s supportiveness to another queer comrade, a supportiveness and solidarity she herself has never experienced. Nobody else on her team has professed themselves to be anything like her, in that sense, so she’s never had that kind of support from anyone, nor been able to GIVE that kind of support. So she probably sees in Julie a validation of her own identity, and feeling of not-being-alone that must feel amazing in the face of her new loneliness.

It still bothers me that Kar speaks so flippantly about her relationship with Xavin. Maybe that’s a defense mechanism, whatever. But the knowledge Julie gains from this spell is indeed important - and what she says right after really shows that she understands the pain Karolina’s been through, and I HOPE means that she will be a solid, reassuring force in Karolina’s life. The fact that she is super gentle about asking Karolina out later in the issue is also heartening.

….I may not approve, but I do understand the emotional trauma Kar must feel, and I do want her to feel safe.

What we see of them together in issue 39 is reassuring, too, in terms of that sense of safety – it’s only a moment, of course, but they appear happy together.

When we see Karolina in college at the beginning of the new “Runaways” series (issue 3), they still seem pretty solid – in her inner-monologue-narration….thing, she describes Julie as “the kindest, most beautiful, BEST girlfriend.”

And she, herself, is trying very hard to move on from EVERYTHING – not just Xavin, but her entire old life and the family she built with the other Runaways. Everything she says in that monologue thing about her therapist’s advice, about her right to be happy, is beautiful and valid.

Buuuuuuut.

Wtf?

Is this the same Karolina that always fought so hard to keep everyone together, really?

(I DO love the fact that Gert calls her out on that, btw. “…my Karolina would never leave Molly behind!” TRUE.)

It does seem like the pain of everything – what her parents did, what happened to her people as a result, everything what happened during her time with her new family (not even just the Xavin stuff, they have all seen some weirdness) – MUST have hit her even deeper than she let on in the previous series…es. We just didn’t get to see that, as readers. Even the cover of the issue seems to imply that, with all those different hands reaching out as if to grab her (and sadly I can’t tell if Xavin is one of those hands - if anyone caught that, please let me know!).

Or maybe she herself didn’t even see it until that family broke up, and she was on her own, for real. 

Which means Julie is probably an even more stabilizing force in her life, being a constant source of love and support that is OUTSIDE of all that pain.

And I imagine that’s going to be very hard for Karolina to face, or leave – I mean, if (WHEN!!!) Xavin returns. It’s hard enough that she’s chosen to return to her family at all. They show her breaking down intensely about it in that same issue, when everyone shows up at her door and she tries to NOT go with them: First, she absolutely trashes the memory of what they all had together – “We weren’t anything real. We were just….together. We were just a bunch of scared kids who didn’t have anyone else.”

Absolute bullshit, btw, and I do not for a second think she really believes that – again, defense mechanism, probably – but OUCH.

All that therapy, all that self-autonomy and college and whatever, seems to actually be making her into a WORSE person. She seems to have been on a HUGE downward slide in that manner since Xavin left. But I digress.

And then she has a real, pillow-hugging darkness-crying breakdown when Nico leaves the room after calling her on THAT bullshit. And that mantra…. “I am a good person. I am my own person. My parents’ decisions don’t define me. I forgive myself for the mistakes I made when I was too young to know any better. I am allowed to be happy.”

I wonder how often she has to say that to herself. And I think that the difference is – when she’s with the Runaways (her FAMILY, goddammit), she is actively DOING something to address that guilt and pain inside of her. Instead of just trying to “move on” and “be happy.”

I know from personal experience that in order to be happy, you have to FACE that guilt inside yourself. Own it. And I don’t think this Karolina is doing that AT ALL.

That is, until we see her again in issue 5. She seeks out Nico on her own (with Julie’s help – more on that later), and seems resigned to being back with them. But when Nico tells her that their reunion has fallen apart, she DOES seem genuinely disappointed (and at the end of issue 6, she does say “let’s go home,” so she does seem to move from resigned to happily-accepting pretty well).

As for Julie, when Nico tries to kiss Karolina, she adamantly (as in freak-out-ishly) defends herself, almost shouting that she “has a girlfriend.” I mentioned before that that specific defense bothers me – after all, Kar “has a fiancée” still for all she freakin’ knows – but the word choice is interesting, too. She declares her relationship status, not that she doesn’t want Nico, but that she’s already taken by someone else.

(Though to be fair, it seems like Karolina is ALWAYS going to want Nico. First love and all.)

In my mind, that reinforces the space that Julie must fill for Karolina – a stable, safe space. Somewhere to belong after all the drama and trauma she’s been through with other people. God, the fact that she seems to need – and WANT – that, a shining safe happy rainbow place with no issues, makes me worry that she’s too bright and innocent for Xavin, even after all they’ve been through together. Noooooo bad thoughts.

I know this whole investigation is coming off very Karolina-negative. And I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. Even in this reread it looks like she’s been spiraling since Xavin left – and while I WANT to believe that’s a sign of how important Xavin was to her, it just reads awful (not in bad writing, I mean I’m just sad for her, and I question a lot about her with what she’s chosen to do in their time apart).

And I probably shouldn’t blame her for wanting that. We all deserve to be safe and happy. I just feel like she’s not really facing her demons and she can be- and HAS been – SO MUCH BETTER and so much MORE.

In terms of Karolina-positivity, though, she does kick ass in the fight against Molly’s grandma, and stays true to the beliefs we do know and love about her – Molly tells them not to hurt her grandma, then the cats, then her ‘mom,’ and Karolina sticks loyally to that demand (until the threat is too much, of course). THAT’S the Karolina I know and love.

Back to her connection to Julie – as I pointed out before, she does call on Julie for help, first to find Nico, then she suggests calling her when they need to contact the Avengers about Molly’s grandma. She clearly relies on her a lot, and it seems like it’s a solid situation for her. She knows she can rely on this person, and that must have been proven again and again in ways we haven’t even seen.

That shows really clearly, too, from the way Julie reacts when she can’t get a hold of Karolina in issue 7. When she doesn’t hear from her for a whole day, Julie freaks, and calls out the point that she’s allowed to freak – considering Karolina’s history and the danger she could be in at any second. I do actually find that admirable. At this point, it does seem like Karolina wants someone who will be that overprotective.

But I think if she really wants to grow, she needs someone who can and will respect that she can handle herself.

And I STILL believe Xavin is that person. They have been, for her, in the past – yes, a little overprotective in moments, but VERY aware of her own power and capabilities (I’m thinking specifically of the moment in “Dead End Kids,” in 1907, when she goes out exploring on her own and Xavin just says “Have fun. And then stop having fun and come back.”). An maybe Julie will grow into that, I don’t know, but I want my space lesbians to reunite thankyouverymuch so I AM going to be rooting for their reunion and reconciliation no matter what.

No matter how frustrated I am with Karolina’s behavior, even.

As for issue 7, again, we do get to see Karolina making a compromise with herself. She’s there, and showing up for her family, but she hasn’t given up her desires in terms of still going to school and still being with Julie. The fact that she’s skipped some classes, and will have to skip more to pick up Julie, doesn’t exactly bode well.... but for now, it seems like its working. And she does talk to Nico about HOW back she is – when Nico turns down her offer of money (also, DAMN, about her being so financially set), saying “we have to figure out how to do this on our own eventually,” Karolina immediately says “I’m part of ‘we.’ I’m part of ‘our own.’” I know I complained a lot about her fractured loyalty in her first appearance here, but I am truly glad that her need to be with her family again, REALLY be there, seems to be resolved. Even if it sounds like she still plans on living on campus, not at the Hostel.

It really does seem like a lot for her to have to figure out, and so suddenly :/

And as for that phone call, again, it is nice to see that Julie is so supportive of the fact that her family is back and THAT implies that the off-screen conversations they’ve had about it show that Kar is much more on board than it seemed at first, when her past literally came back to haunt her.

So I guess in closing, I am glad that Karolina has support and love. I am.

But I still think Xavin is better for her, especially if they’ve done the growing I hope they’ve done (as I talked about in my last post). 

If you just jump back into the new series without rereading the old runs, it seems like nothing happened with Xavin at all – all that’s been swept under the rug, and only mentioned in passing if you lump them and their love in with the comments that the monologue-thing includes about Karolina’s people and her parents’ actions. That’s not fair, and that’s not enough. I want closure, at least.

I’m worried they won’t give it to us. I guess we’ll see, with how they very Julie/Karolina-focused next issue goes. 

And I’m sure I’ll have words about that, too.

[man-i-dont-know]

BNHA Chapter 156 (some 155): Spoilers and Thoughts

Ok so I’m a week behind, I will lightly gloss over chapter 155 (though it deserves a full read) before getting into 156. So skip the first paragraph if all you want to read is stuff for 156.

Ok so first off, that is not what I expected Chrono to look like, much younger than I thought. Makes sense that they use Aizawa’s quirk as reference. Oh no, they are gonna do some creepy experimentation aren’t they? It makes sense that Eri is related to the actual boss and not Overhaul. Deku is doing his best but he’s too straight-forward, goes to show the distance between Deku, Sir, and Mirio. Mirio is still helping Eri, way to go man. I’m not gonna say I’m glad Eri went back, but it shows a consistent character who genuinely fears her captor and it felt like a real decision. (I do not like creepy hand-mouth boy). Wow, Sir is still alive? Does that mean there is hope that he can be fixed up? Not good as new but you know, alive? It’s also cool that Eri is saying that she’ll come back if Overhaul fixes everything (which he won’t but it is good to hear Eri say it). Eyyyy, we are going to see more of the girls, I’m glad they aren’t gonna just be left at the entrance. I wonder if them showing up is something Sir saw too, probably but it was so out of left field. All right, that was “brief” chapter 155.

So the big guy was handled relatively quickly but his drugged up state gave him a power boost, I wonder why it took a long time to take effect for him when others who took the drug have almost immediate reactions. Probably plot reasons... On one of the pages, the Dragon hero is protecting a group of people, and... someone is meowing? Or is there a stray cat that they happen to be protecting? I want to know more about that detail but it feels too passing for it to come up later.

I am really glad we got an explanation as to how Nejire’s quirk works. Her quirk ties in wonderfully with her personality, and that is kinda relief because her personality put me on edge a bit (probably because if I met a person like that in real life my introverted self would be completely exhausted just being in the room with them). Now I wonder how fast her shock waves are, especially when the narrator comments about the speed.

That was some clever usage of Toga’s quirk. Giving the girls a point of attack to help stop Overhaul was brilliant. I hope that was all the blood Toga had of Deku, but I doubt it. More likely than not, the League of Villains managed to mass produce Deku’s blood for Toga and maybe other villains too. That could become a very big plot point in the future, while Deku is gaining recognition from the public, Toga is going out and make him look bad, which would really dent Deku’s relationship with the masses.

The girls’ cooperation and teamwork was genuinely impressive, they seemed to have this type of fighting down pat. The scene several chapters back with the same group handling criminals with gigantification quirks was probably to make this fight seem more believable. I do think that the “Plus Ultra” moment that they had seemed a bit heavy handed, but I like Plus Ultra moments, so oh well. I’m glad when they saw Deku fighting Overhaul they were immediately suspicious of the Deku that helped them previously, they are always thinking and I love that, smart characters are great.

Speaking of smart characters, Toga and Twice are using Compress’s ability to the max. I saw Twice as a guy who might have a hard time constructing rational thoughts, but this plan is dang near genius. Making a back tunnel, finding where Overhaul is fighting, getting to the surface and getting more heroes on top of Overhaul was just so clever. I’m really loving these psychotic villains. The little villains that make these guys look like squishy dolls are the best, it isn’t fair that they are so adorable (and sad face Compress is hilarious). Also they are crazy enough to just order Compress to jump into the fray. God I love these villains.

At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about Deku telling Uravity to take care of Sir, but thinking critically it makes sense. Uravity would have an incredibly hard time fighting Overhaul with his disassemble, her need to come in contact with him for maximum effect, and her general inexperience to fights (I know she was capable enough to pin Toga but I feel the scenario and context is different here). So it makes sense.

Overhaul trying to escape through the new opening makes sense, and I was frustrated by how simple that answer is. Lemillion’s cape coming back into play is amazing and brings things full-circle. Eri latches onto the cape subconsciously because Mirio has made such a powerful impact on her. And now we get some interesting Eri information. She is the granddaughter of the head boss and was abandoned by her mother because her quirk is an abnormality mutation that doesn’t make any sense in the family tree. Oh and baby Eri might have killed her father. Mistakes happen you know?

Overhaul being the sciency type isn’t new information, but it hit me during this chapter. True experimentation on Eri first started because they wanted to know what the heck Eri was capable of. Rewinding. That seems crazy OP and incredibly fitting of the situation. She could literally fix just about anything that happened here. However the draw backs are that she has no idea how to use it, and we don’t know how draining or what the side-effects are. Maybe important rewinds, like I don’t know... Mirio and Sir? Just for starters. I’ll cross my fingers. Eri’s rewind brings up another question though, sure I could understand it’s part in the erasing of quirks serum, but it would have to be pretty heavily modified. But that is where Aizawa’s quirk comes into play, and with Aizawa at Chrono’s mercy, anyone who gets away could make leaps and bounds in the advancements of the serum. It could become much easier to produce, which would be highly dangerous to say the least.

Then the gut punch comes, Eri wants to save Deku, Mirio and everyone who came to her rescue. She tears Overaul back into his original state and jumps out of his arms, flinging herself into open air at Deku. That takes a lot of courage, or desperation, but at this point either is a completely valid reason and is totally admirable. Both Deku and Eri are holding Lemillion’s cape in that second to last panel, a link, metaphors, symbolism, awesome.

Alright, that is all for now. I am gonna admit that I prefer spelling Mirio’s hero name as Lumillion as opposed to Lemillion for a couple reasons. First, Lumillion has the sound of “illuminate”  and has the desired “million” in it, so overall a well thought out name. Lemillion on the other hand makes me think of “lemon” and it also reminds me of the le pepe meme, that may amuse Mirio but I would rather he has the stoic name than a lemon and a meme. So that’s it, thank you for toughing it out and reading this long, double post and I hope you have a great day.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

My Roommate is a Cat 7 - 8 | Shield Hero 7 - 8 | Egao no Daika 8 - 9 | Morose Mononokean 8 - 9 | Mob Psycho 8 | Spec Ops Asuka 7 - 8

I can’t believe I forgot to check whether I had all the tags on my posts...I was missing Mononokean tags all along...

My Roommate is a Cat 7

Hiroto is such a meddler…

Hmm…this reminds me of a quote I have on a bookmark. “Picking 5 favourite books is like picking the 5 body parts you’d most like not to lose.” – Neil Gaiman

Tenshindon. I think the subs previously had it as “tenshidon”, so with tenshi meaning “angel” I was wondering what sort of rice warranted the name “angel rice”…

They say that pets are like their owners, but Haru really is a cat that’s like Subaru if I ever saw one! Hahaha!

Shield Hero 7

This stuff about the Spear Hero…we’ve heard about it before…hmm…(pieces all fall together)

This is sliding into demi-human harem territory…hmm…(disapproving)

Spec Ops Asuka 7

The sign on the maid café door says something along the lines of “Closed for Today”, not “Closed for Party”!

Wakkanai.

I like Tamara already. She says good quotes and has a cool catchphrase!

Mononokean 8

Fuzzy eating cotton candy is too cute~!

Ashiya’s black thug jacket says something like “no equal in heaven nor earth” (first 4 kanji), while Abeno’s says “good at fighting” (last 4 kanji)…but part of Abeno’s is covered by his hand and likewise Ashiya’s is covered by the frame, so I can’t tell you what the entire jackets say.

Fuzzy at the top of the slide is also cute. Just give me any shot of Fuzzy that isn’t CGI and I’ll be sold!

Why do watermelons in anime have black seeds only??? Plus, why does this one have so many of them???

Mob Psycho II 8

Dosei means Saturn (the planet). No wonder the shirt image’s planet has rings.

I-Is this the first time CR has added lyrics to the theme song???

The calligraphy on the wall behind Mob says “starry sky”.

Just jog instead of sitting. That’ll get you all fit!

Relationship advice, eh? I was bang on with my OWLS post, yay!

“He’s got the stamina of a snail.” – For some reason, I find that statement relatable…is that a good thing???

Is it just me, or are Mob’s shoes on the wrong feet?

As much as I never really grokked the first season, hence its rating on my anime list being in the 80s (as of right now, it’s an 86 but it used to be 85), my heart really sunk when Sho pulled the “burn your parents and brother in a fire” card. There’s a reason this is topping my charts this season, y’know. (Interestingly, if fangirlling is indicative of grokking the show, I grokked Magic-kyun Renaissance, currently sitting at a 76. It lost due to the simplicity of its plot…and the fact I may have overreacted to Ume voicing a character I could get behind.)

Ooh, it seems the narrator of this next-ep preview is dissing people who illegally downloaded the episode! Now that’s nasty!

Egao no Daika 8

…hmm, why do I get the feeling the Empire will intercept the data Izana is sending? (But on an unrelated note, I really like Izana’s hair…LOL, that’s just me being shallow.)

Hmm? Izana is French??? That’s the biggest surprise in the entire show, right up there with Joshua dying.

My Roommate is a Cat 8

How did Hiroto deal with unsocial Subaru, come to think of it…?

As someone who did want to be an author at one point, I went at my dream a completely different way – I went to the library a tonne, I wrote a tonne and I illustrated my own books whenever possible (but only ever made one copy of each book, because illustrating is hard). I never really owned that many books until I started up a collection of my own (because I was always sharing with other people).

Also, if Subaru did a degree…what degree did Subaru do??? I wanna know!

Also…I really like that shirt Subaru’s wearing in the flashback, The one with the black collar, sleeves and button section.

Did Subaru forget to eat again? *sigh* Subaru, what are we ever going to do with you??? (LOL)

Oh? Post-credits segment…keep watching!

LOL, that was a great post-credits segment!

Spec-Ops Asuka 8

Oh…goody. It’s thug!Kyubey (Giess). (sounds kind of sad)

Magical yandere, much????

Careful with Mia, you molester (Francine)!

For some reason, “Texas Girl” and “Russian” as nicknames makes me crack up.

Sata andagi. I think I first heard of these in Mahou Shoujo Ore.

Chisato seems to be the parallel to Kurumi.

Shield Hero 8

“I’m not warm, you know.” – Oh ho ho! Naofumi really knows how to tease a girl, eh?

Morose Mononokean 9

I find it interesting Ashiya’s mother’s name has a tree radical in it.

Strangely, CR didn’t sub a line but lip reading says it’s “Sumimasen” or “Shitsureishimasu”.

Poor Fuzzy…getting energy zapped from that youkai must be harsh…

Is Sakae Ashiya’s dad???

Mononokean does Mob Psycho’s shtick…but because I don’t find it touching or hilarious, it’s worse than the other show.

Who dis woman??? Update: That’s Ashiya’s sister.

Headbutt her! Headbutt he-awwwwwwww…why the facepalm? (disappointed)

Has Abeno always had spots on the left side of his face???

Sorry for interrupting with my opinions on gender, but why does Hanae have to be blue and his sister pink???

Egao no Daika 9

For some reason, I don’t feel like Izana died last episode. Unlike Joshua, who I could get over pretty easily because he was a Shonen Hero (TM), Izana we got to know more...to the point where it almost felt like this opening was a fakeout of sorts.

This is so obviously discussing nuclear power, y’know??? The fact they come from Verde (Green, the cliched colour of nuclear power and the colour of the environment) makes it even more obvous.

I read somewhere that Stella could be the child of Layla…hmm…

Oh dear…this death…Harold’s death…was quite the sucker punch to the feels, huh?

[ambi-mag-blog]

She fit into our group so well that I don’t even remember how we first met. We were all so young and naïve – all I wanted to do was sleep, play guitar, and spend my nights at the bar with my friends, playing pinball and smoking cigarettes until the bar owners shooed us away. We’d stay up late getting stoned and planning our next big adventure, even though we all knew we’d just spend the next night doing the same thing as the one before: all of us packed into Crack’s dorm room, sitting on milk crates playing poker and smoking until the air was so hazy I could barely see Big Muck’s goofy grin flashing at me from across our little circle. Sarah was Crack’s little sister, but so feisty and smart we often forgot who was oldest. We shared plenty of laughs, had serious talks and made memories that I’ve forgotten now, but I know I’ll always remember those blue eyes and the feeling that as long as they were focused on me, I was no longer a lost boy, but instead someone worthy, someone strong. A man.

We spent the summer after freshman year stomping through the woods. I taught her to fish and find deer tracks in soft mud. She taught me how to stop searching and start looking. Time slowed that summer as I watched life through her eyes – ants climbing on a log became an insect parade, tadpoles and frogs grumbling at the pond became a swampy orchestra, and every sunrise was a painter’s palette, poised to color each day anew. We sang songs around the campfire and broke into Little Al’s uncle’s bar to steal Bud Light and play pool until 3AM. We threw rocks into the river, night breezes whispering questions in my ear the first time I took her hand.

The carousel of color and sound that was the summer of ’78 came to a screeching halt the morning of August 14. Crack knocked on the door of my mother’s house and I bounded down the stairs, ready to hop in his pickup and head out to the fields for another morning of hunting small game. My heart froze when I saw his face. I watched his mouth moving, unable to comprehend what he was saying.

I ran.

I ran past the truck idling in the driveway, past Uncle Bill’s hayfield, past Mrs. T’s pink house at the end of the road, past the WAWA on Main Street. I didn’t stop until I stood outside room 304A, West Chester Hospital.

There she was. My sweet, sweet girl, always so strong and full of life, with a laugh that filled every room and a smile brighter than a thousand suns. That Sarah was gone, replaced by a small, fragile Sarah who lay on the white hospital bed, tubes encircling her body like the tangled arms of the forsythia bush that hid us from the rest of the world the afternoon we first kissed.

In a story that seemed unending I discovered that it was a drive to my house that ended our carefree summer. As the doctor spoke, I could picture it all: her long brown hair blowing around her face, all the windows down, music blaring, her cat eye sunglasses perched low on her nose… I bet it was some stupid Beatles song we hated playing on the radio that made her look down to turn the radio dial and –WHAM.

That car crash changed everything. Just like that, the sweet, heavy smell of moss after the rain was replaced by an ever-present haze of antiseptic and sanitizer. The chorus of birds chirping and squirrels chattering morphed into the beeping of machines punctuated by the constant drip, drip, drip of an IV, feeding life into Sarah’s feeble body. The gang came around, but instead of telling stories in a circle, eating peanuts and throwing shells on the floor and jamming to The Who, we sat and waited. None of them could look at one another, none of them could look at her. But she was all I could see.

The doctors were kind and helpful, always answering our questions and letting us stay until after visiting hours were over. But they didn’t know when she would wake up – if she would wake up.

Every night around 5 we would leave, one by one. Crack would go home to update his family on how Sarah was that day. Muck and little Al would head to work. Usually, I’d stay until the nurses kicked me out. One night there was a knock at the door. My mom’s head peeked into the room, looking for me even though she knew I wouldn’t be anywhere else. She walked into the room holding my black guitar case, set it down at my feet, and kissed me on the head. As I opened the case, I heard the door click shut. I pulled out my guitar, the familiar strings comforting me with a soft twang. I slowly picked out some chords until James Taylor’s Fire and Rain spilled from my fingers. I looked at Sarah, still as could be as her chest rose and fell with each shallow breath, and wondered if she would ever sing along with me again.

That night, I went home. I hiked up the hill behind my house into the woods, all the way to the spot where we had once howled at the moon like crazy dogs, yelling our frustrations and whispering our secrets. I’m not very religious but I believe there is a balance of things. I sat on the top of the hill for a long time, pleading with the stars to bring Sarah back and wishing the darkness would swallow me up.

I didn’t go back to the hospital for 3 days. On the fourth day, I went to room 304A. I took Sarah’s hand and told her stories. I recounted the time Crack and little Al almost set Cousin Teddy’s barn on fire. I told her about the morning we all went out to the swimming hole instead of taking our Econ final and Muck told us he wanted to be a chef instead of an accountant. I described the winter when I was 7 and got so lost in the snow that it took our dog, Lolli, 30 minutes to find me and bring be back home to a warm fire, hot chocolate from Mom, and a long lecture from Dad. The day went by quickly as I narrated story after story. I stood to leave with a heavy heart. As I pushed on the door, I heard a rustle. Sarah was awake.

The next few hours were a blur as nurses and doctors bustled around Sarah’s room. It seemed like forever before she was sitting up and talking. And with that, it quickly became clear that Sarah would never be the same.

The crash had caused major trauma to Sarah’s brain. The doctors said it was a miracle she had woken up. Her speech would never be the same; her thoughts came quickly but she couldn’t articulate them with the same speed. Her movements were slow and jerky. I could see her sadness and frustration even though she tried to hide it. Finally, she was allowed to go home. Her mom fussed over her, much to Sarah’s chagrin. Everyone was relieved she was safe, awake, and home. But no one could look her in the eye. We knew her life was changed forever.

One night, I came over with my guitar, just as I had hundreds of times before. As I opened the case, she slammed her small fist on the table. I’ve never heard anyone yell the way she did that night. She screamed and cried and wailed. “I don’t want you here!” she shrieked, and those words rang through my head over and over like the tolling of a clock at midnight. My time with Sarah was up.

Her mother called me on the phone the next day. “You’re the reason she woke up,” she said. “And I love you for that. But it’s the same reason she can’t stand you now. Her life is different; her independence is gone. She can’t be with you – with anyone. Let her go.”

So I did. I finished college, moved around, got a job. I locked up my guitar case. I sold my old pickup truck and traded in Bud Light for Jim Beam and milk crates for a dining room table that’s empty more

than not. I met a girl who’s stubborn as hell, spunky and opinionated, supportive and smart. Her smile doesn’t remind me of the sun and her eyes don’t twinkle like the stars in July. She doesn’t laugh much and she sings off-key. I asked her to marry me and she said no. I asked again and she said yes. We had a daughter and for the first time since the summer after my freshman year of college I felt whole again, like I had finally done something right. Like a new man.

I still see my friends once or twice a year at cook-outs and Christmas. One year, Sarah met my wife and they got along like old friends. She sang and played with my daughter. I wonder what it would have been like if things had gone differently. But my job, my home, my family are what they are. I try to appreciate that. I tell myself this is how it was meant to be.

I was sitting in my office when I got the phone call. My heart pounded in my chest. My face felt hot and my eyes stung with tears that wouldn’t fall.

Hearing Crack’s voice took me back all those years to the moment I stood in the doorway of my childhood home and learned about Sarah’s car crash. “Sarah’s dead.” Crack’s voice whispered through the phone. “She went for a walk this morning. She fell on some ice, hit her head. By the time she got to the hospital there was nothing they could do.”

My world stopped that day, but my life didn’t. I still go to work every morning; I still pick my daughter up from school every night. I still make dinner, do laundry, pay bills, call my parents. This time, it’s not a coma. This time it’s real. It’s permanent. It’s forever. This time, she’s not waking up.

It’s been 14 years since that call. There is a sadness in my heart that numbs me; it’s a hollow ache that weighs on me day and night, heavy enough to remind me of the pain but dull enough to let me go on, unable to be erased.

Sometimes, I see Sarah in my daughter – whether it’s really there or in my imagination, I can’t say. I think of Sarah when I hear her singing in the shower, when she comes home late with mud on her feet and flushed cheeks from running in the grass, when I take her out to practice driving and her wild hair flies around her face like a halo.

No music in the car, though, that’s my rule. Because even after all this time, the memories of 1978 are still too fresh.

“This story is about an instance when neither time nor circumstance could lessen the blow of being forced to move on and let go.” 

- Aby Sobotka-Briner, University of Pittsburgh Senior  

[your-dietician]

Billie Eilish and the Pursuit of Happiness

New Post has been published on https://tattlepress.com/entertainment/billie-eilish-and-the-pursuit-of-happiness/

Billie Eilish and the Pursuit of Happiness

210413_ROLLING_STONE_06_1486_v4-billie-opener – Credit: Yana Yatsuk for Rolling Stone

From the outside, the house isn’t terribly different from others on the block: a cozy bungalow in L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood with an old lilac tree blooming near the entrance. In fact, it’s legendary: the place where a prodigal teenager and her older brother recorded the album that made Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O’Connell the queen of Gen-Z pop.

It’s a location familiar to any Eilish fan, and at first glance on an absurdly beautiful day in April, not much appears to have changed about the house in the couple of years since it became famous, along with its teenage occupant. The O’Connell family’s rescue dog, Pepper, trudges through the backyard, now joined by Eilish’s year-old rescue, Shark, a gray pit bull. Signs of home-schooling linger in common areas, like an old-fashioned pencil sharpener attached to the wall and dingy supplies precariously placed on a desk.

More from Rolling Stone

But look closer, and plenty is different. For starters, contemporary pop’s most famous home studio, set up in the childhood bedroom of Billie’s brother Finneas, is no longer a studio. Instead, the siblings’ mom, Maggie Baird, has taken over the space. “It still looks similar. There’s just no equipment,” Billie insists as she greets me in her kitchen, gathering ingredients and utensils for the cookies she wants to bake. Her mom’s added a blue rug to the bedroom and sleeps there with their cat, Misha. “We kept [the studio] for a while, then we were like ‘We don’t need this,’ ” Eilish says.

Finneas moved out a couple of years ago, settling down in Los Feliz with his influencer girlfriend Claudia Sulewski. He constructed a new studio in his basement, where he and Eilish began recording music last year. Eilish is, at first, cagey about admitting that she’s moved out as well. “I’m secretive about what’s really going on,” she offers conspiratorially, rummaging around the cabinets of her parents’ kitchen like a college student visiting home on a long weekend. “It’s been a couple of years now where I’ve been doing my own thing. But secretly, because nobody needs to know that.”

Story continues

Eilish hasn’t been totally lying about where she lives; she still spends a lot of nights in her childhood bedroom. “I just love my parents, so I want to be around them,” she says, shrugging. Maggie and her husband, Patrick O’Connell, buzz in and out of the kitchen, commenting on the cookie baking and helping Eilish use the old oven. Eilish is sporting her new blond-bombshell look. A 180 from her formerly signature black-with-green-roots ’do, the new hair caused an uproar when she debuted it on Instagram in March. Today it’s damp from a shower, and she’s cozied up in a black T-shirt from her own merch store, along with a pair of matching sweats. On today’s menu are vegan, gluten-free peanut-butter-and-chocolate-chip cookies. She’s reading off an old recipe displayed on a food-stained printout that has clearly been well-utilized over the years. Eilish used to make them whenever she was sad. “It was a therapeutic thing for me,” she explains.

It’s been a while since she’s made the cookies (“You’re seeing history,” she teases). She’s found other ways to process her feelings, namely through writing her second album, Happier Than Ever, which is due out July 30th. The title is no fiction: She has, in fact, felt happier than she ever had before. But like a lot of things in her life, it’s not quite that simple.

“Almost none of the songs on this album are joyful,” Eilish explains, refuting the possibility that her second album is the bright, cheery counterpoint to 2019’s When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? The Babadook-inspired debut conjured up vivid memories of night terrors and lucid dreams over textures ranging from industrial electro-pop to jazzy ballads. Her videos were just as dark, full of spiders and black tears covering her face.

On the surface, Happier Than Ever is a different kind of nightmare. Emotional abuse, power struggles, and mistrust — stories drawn from Eilish’s life and the lives of people she knows — take up much of the lyrics, alongside musings on fame and fantasies of secret romantic rendezvous. The sound is mellowed out from the haunted-house sprawl of her debut: lush, somber, mesmerizing electronic soundscapes trickle down your spine, right along with Eilish’s words.

And yet, even on the darkest songs there are moments of reflection, growth and, most important, hope. This is an album from someone who began to heal long before she wrote it. Or at least tried to.

“Have you ever gotten stung on your head by a bee?”

Eilish mentions she got stung “like 20 times” on a camping trip when she was eight or nine. It’s a story she’s told before. “I don’t know why that popped into my head,” she says. “Why did that pop into my head? I have no idea.”

She posed the question after a bit of mesmerized silence as we watched Shark go to town on an empty can of peanut butter. Eilish doesn’t like silence; she even narrates the cookie baking like a food vlogger. She shows me how to make oat flour (“It’s literally oats on their own; pour them in this thing [a Vitamix blender], full power”) and figuring out the right chocolate chip to peanut-butter-dough ratio. (“Some people like too many. I like too little.”)

“I can’t go to the bathroom without watching something on my phone,” she says. “I can’t brush my teeth. I can’t wash my face.” Over the past year she rewatched a lot of things: Sherlock, The Office “probably like six times,” New Girl “like four times,” Jane the Virgin. There was also time for Good Girls, Killing Eve, The Flight Attendant, The Undoing, and Promising Young Woman “like four times.”

“It’s all on my phone,” she explains. She rarely watches anything on TV, except The Twilight Saga, which she took in for the first time recently, with a friend. “I just watch it while I do anything because it takes my mind off the reality of life. I should go on My Strange Addiction,” she says, coincidentally referencing her 2019 song of the same name (which, by the way, samples dialogue from The Office).

Eilish can’t really go outside anymore. There are paparazzi and creeps waiting for her every move, and some have threatened her safety to the point that she needed a restraining order against them. The instant recognizability of her When We All Fall Asleep-era look — bright-green hair, oversize clothes, saucer-like ocean eyes — helped keep her caged. She grew resentful: “I was a kid and I wanted to do kid shit. I didn’t want to be not able to fucking go to a store or the mall. I was very angry and not grateful about it.”

billie eilish rolling stone cover

When We All Fall Asleep and the image she projected at the time marked her uniqueness from the rest of the pop world. But those things also cemented a view of her she’d love to leave behind. I mention an instruction during a musical challenge on a recent season of RuPaul’s Drag Race where a competing drag queen was told the song she was performing was “very Billie Eilish.”

“What do they think when they think that? Do they think what the internet thinks, which is whispering or whatever the fuck people say? Anytime I see an impression on the internet, it just reminds me how little the internet knows about me. Like, I really don’t share shit. I have such a loud personality that makes people feel like they know everything about me and they literally don’t at all.” She wants people to understand a few things: “That I can sing. That I’m a woman. That I have a personality.” Happier Than Ever offers a statement on all of the above.

“Anytime I hear somebody say, ‘Oh, your songs sound the same,’ it gets me. That’s one thing I really try hard to not do. I think the people that say that have literally only heard ‘Bad Guy’ and ‘Therefore I Am.’ ” Both of those songs feature Eilish’s tendency for muted, moody sing-rapping. These days, she’s channeling the jazziness in her voice, a timbre honed from years of touring, on songs like “My Future” and “Your Power.”

Eilish’s privacy was more precious than she had initially realized. She put a lot of herself out for the world to consume early in her career, when she was an “annoying 16-year-old” (her words) trying to engage with her fandom the way she wanted her favorite artists like Justin Bieber to do back when she was a preteen fan. “It’s sad because I can’t give the fans everything they want,” she says. “The bigger I’ve gotten, the more I understand why [my favorite celebrities] couldn’t do all the things I wanted them to do.”

She struggles to find the right way to frame it. “It wouldn’t make sense to people who aren’t in this world. If I said what I was thinking right now, [the fans] would feel the same way I did when I was 11. They’d be like, ‘It would be so easy. You could just do it.’ No. It’s crazy the amount of things you don’t think about before it’s right in front of you.”

Eilish describes her life as “normal as hell,” and at times, it is. She’s watching Twilight. Going on first dates again, as discreetly as possible. Getting first tattoos (she got a giant black dragon on her right thigh in November and “Eilish,” in an ornate, gothic font, in the middle of her chest the day after the 2020 Grammys). “That’s why it’s hilarious when I see, like, ‘10 reasons why we think Billie -Eilish is in the illuminati,’ ” she says. “I’m like, you know how regular I am, dude?”

She wants to share more details with her fans, but the thought makes her nervous. The songs on Happier Than Ever are buzzing with the fear of “interviews, interviews, interviews,” of the names of abusers or toxic friends being forever tied to her, of her own words coming back to haunt her.

“I wish that I could tell the fans everything I think and feel and it wouldn’t live on the internet forever. And be spoken about and called problematic, or called whatever the fuck anybody wants to call any thoughts that a human has,” she explains. “The other sad thing is that they don’t actually know me. And I don’t really know them, but obviously we’re connected. The problem is you feel like you know somebody, but you don’t. And then it’s like, yeah. It’s just a lot.”

We move outside, to the sole picnic table in the yard, and enjoy the warm, crumbly peanut butter cookies. Shark finds a particularly bright patch of sunlight to lie in. Suddenly, he hops up and runs along the fence, in response to the barks of a neighbor’s dog that he desperately wants to befriend. Eilish is a bit jealous.

“Don’t you just wish that was you?”

billie eilish rolling stone cover

“My mom was saying this yesterday,” Eilish says. “When you’re happier than ever, that doesn’t mean you’re the happiest that anyone’s ever been. It means you’re happier than you were before.”

After an adolescence plagued with depression, body dysmorphia, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts, Eilish started feeling better in the summer of 2019, while on tour in Europe. It was shortly after the release of When We All Fall Asleep, and she was seeing a therapist, had just broken up with a boyfriend, and was joined on the road with one of her best friends (as well as, of course, her parents and brother). “I was thriving,” she says. “I felt exactly like who I was. Everything around me was exactly how it was supposed to be. I felt like I was getting better. I felt happier than ever. And I tried to continue that.”

Early 2020 was a whirlwind. Eilish swept the Big Four categories at the Grammys and started a headlining tour that would have eaten up most of her year. She was more excited than she had been for previous tours, which left her with sprained ankles, shin splints, and chronic pain. She played all of three dates before the pandemic forced her to cancel the rest.

Eilish kind of got to say goodbye to the When We All Fall Asleep era (and the look that helped make her famous) at the Grammys this year, performing the one-off single “Everything I Wanted” with Finneas. Happier Than Ever was nearly complete, but she wasn’t yet ready to show off her new blond look. So she hid it beneath a green-and-black wig. “It was weird,” she reflects. “I was playing this former Billie Eilish with green hair, singing a song from a year and a half prior, while I have 16 new songs that I haven’t put out yet. The fans didn’t really even know that it was a goodbye to an era. That’s kind of heartbreaking but endearing at the same time.”

Recorded as the world went on pause, Happier Than Ever was an opportunity to dig into her personal trauma. “I went through some crazy shit, and it really affected me and made me not want to go near anyone ever,” she says, though she declines to give details.

Like everything Eilish does, the lyrics are sure to spark debate, side-eye emojis, and conspiracy theories as people ponder who she’s singing about. The songs are a mosaic of experience, ripped from her own life and those of people she knows. They juggle deadbeats, secret lovers, emotional abusers. Eilish won’t name names or get into specifics, and she’s quick to remind that this is not just her life she’s talking about. But she also says the stories in the new songs are more honest than When We Fall Asleep, which she describes as “almost all fictional.”

Eilish says she’s letting go of the Old Billie, who would tuck away her own emotions to make others feel better. “There’ve been times where I’ve been really affected by somebody, and I said to them, ‘I need to tell you how you’ve made me feel.’ And they said something that was like, ‘I can’t handle this right now. I just can’t handle this right now. This is going to be too much for me.’ ”

She says she spent so long “being fucked with” and had to realize that while the toxic traits she sings about were often born out of pain, that doesn’t make it OK. “I was talking to a friend about their life, and they told me all this crazy traumatizing shit that happened to them. And I’m like, ‘Oh, right, you don’t have to treat everyone like a piece of garbage, just because you’ve been hurt.’ It’s OK to be traumatized by something and have bad instincts, but also, there’s no excuse for abusing people. There just is not. I feel like everything is excuses all the time. Excuses, excuses.”

Album opener “Getting Older” was particularly harrowing to write. “Wasn’t my decision to be abused,” she sings over a delicately plucking synth beat. By the end, she lays bare what’s on her mind. “I’ve had some trauma/Did things I didn’t wanna/Was too afraid to tell ya/But now I think it’s time.” Eilish recognizes how shocked listeners may be by the rawness of the song. “I had to take a break in the middle of writing that one, and I wanted to cry, because it was so revealing. And it’s just the truth.”

The title track, which starts like a mopey breakup song, then fires off into an electric-guitar-driven rager, was the first thing she started writing for the album, back on the European tour where she felt like she was thriving. The rest of the songs bare different kinds of catharsis, teetering between sexy, electronic beats and warm folkiness, reminiscent of her earliest music. Each song is delicate, sensuous, and balancing naked vulnerability with a bit of self-protective confidence posturing.

Writing about her deepest emotions wasn’t easy for someone who had painstakingly kept the details of her relationships under lock and key. “I’ve been in two [relationships],” she says. “I’ve experienced a lot in what I have done. But I’ve never been in something really real and normal.” The news cycle and fan response to her Apple TV documentary, The World’s a Little Blurry, earlier this year cemented her decision not to name names or get specific about details in the new songs. People are like “ ‘Well, you’re an artist, so when you put something out there like that, you can’t expect people to not dive into it more.’ Yes I can,” she says. “You should absolutely respect me giving you this much information and saying, ‘This is all you get.’ The rest is for my own brain.”

billie eilish rolling stone cover

The most the world has gotten to see of Eilish’s romantic life was in The World’s a Little Blurry, which spanned from the final weeks of recording When We All Fall Asleep in late 2018 through the 2020 Grammy Awards. Eilish wasn’t necessarily psyched for it to come out. “I don’t like to share that part of my life, and I was not planning on sharing that part of my life ever,” she says.

Her ex, Brandon Adams, an artist who performs under the name 7:AMP, played a pivotal role in the film. The World’s a Little Blurry showcases a painful give-and-take between Eilish and Adams, who was then in his twenties. In the aftermath of the documentary, fans went after Adams and his family on social media.

Many have assumed Eilish’s chilling single “Your Power,” which mentions a relationship between a teen girl and an older man, is about Adams. Eilish — who released the song in late April, along with a statement saying, in part, “this is about many different situations that we’ve all either witnessed or experience” — strongly objects to this notion. “Everybody needs to shut up,” she says. The documentary, she insists, “was a microscopic, tiny, tiny little bit of that relationship. Nobody knows about any of that, at all. I just wish people could just stop and see things and not have to say things all the time.”

Eilish describes herself as “clingy,” but since she and Adams broke up in 2019, she’s spent the past two years trying to learn how to exist on her own. “I didn’t know how before,” she explains, “which is ironic because I had never been in a relationship that allowed me to really exist with that person anyway. My emotion always is because of somebody else’s, and that had been such a big pain in the ass.”

She’s still trying to grow out of that. “You heal eventually.”

Eilish and I actually weren’t supposed to meet at her parents’ house. She wanted me to see where she recorded Happier Than Ever, in Finneas’ basement studio. But a pipe burst, nearly destroying the space. “The room had to be completely rebuilt,” he explains later over Zoom. “But my hard drives, synthesizers, and guitars and stuff were all fine. I feel very lucky for that.”

Eilish speaks with relief at how much less draining the recording process for Happier Than Ever was compared with her debut. It was partially due to some peak-mom advice from Maggie early in the pandemic. After nearly a month of lockdown, Maggie suggested that her kids get on a weekly schedule. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Eilish would drive her matte-black Dodge Challenger over to Finneas’ house. Some days they would write songs. Other days they’d play Animal Crossing or Beat Saber. Every day they would eat good meals: “A lot of Taco Bell, homemade pizza, taro boba, Thai food,” Eilish lists. “Crossroads and Little Pine. Nic’s once. Fatburger once. It was such a reward.”

In The World’s a Little Blurry, the teen’s misery is palpable as she finishes When We All Fall Asleep. Eilish and Finneas had been largely left to their own devices, but pressure still loomed from the label. There were deadlines (the album was due right around her 17th birthday), constant meetings, and an expectation that a star was about to be born, thanks to a couple of years of growing buzz. “I hated every second of it,” she admits. “I hated writing. I hated recording. I literally hated it. I would’ve done anything else. I remember thinking there’s no way I’m making another album after this. Absolutely not.”

This time, there was no pressure. No notes from the label. No meetings. No rush to meet deadlines. “No one has a say anymore,” Billie says. “It’s literally me and Finneas and no one else.” On April 3rd, 2020, the first day of their new weekly work schedule, they wrote “My Future.” Within a couple of months, they realized that they were making an album.

She pulls out a clear acrylic sign holder with the track list written in marker, songs clearly erased and moved around. “I think I’m going to frame this,” she says, smiling. There are some water stains on it, since it got drizzled on when Finneas’ studio flooded.

The 16 songs on the album are the only 16 they worked on. The pair are completists: Once they start a song, they have to see it through with meticulous precision until it’s perfect to them. The way the album sounds is a testament to that, each song a unique, avant-pop soundscape that elevates the baroque trip-hop-ness of her debut.

billie eilish rolling stone cover

“I admire artists that can make, like, three songs in a day and keep doing that over and over,” Eilish muses. She compares songwriting to running, in that it would be “fucking exhausting” to do all the time. “Songwriting is like that for me. I’m pretty good at it, but it takes a lot out of me. I feel like I just ran a marathon whenever I write a song.”

Finneas saw the change in his sister this time around. She liked writing songs, feeling less tortured by the process than before. “It’s been awesome as a big brother to see her become more confident and feel more ownership and just to be more excited than I’ve ever seen her about the music that we’re making,” he says. “I also just think she has objectively gotten even better. That’s my opinion. If she were an Olympic gymnast or something, she would’ve gotten better. She’d be able to do a higher vault or something.”

Since “Bad Guy,” Finneas has become one of pop’s most in-demand producers, working with everyone from Tove Lo to Selena Gomez. He also has his own solo career that’s taken off, though the studio flood came at the worst time possible for it, as he was working on his debut album. Eilish has found Finneas’ career outside of being her creative partner to be “fucking great” and easy for them to adjust to. “It doesn’t interfere at all, and it’s fun for him,” she says. “He only does what he wants to do. He’s not a slave to it.”

“I scratch a lot of itches working with Billie,” Finneas continues. “I think my primary goal was to just go deeper. This was Billie’s sophomore album, you just . . . you have the opportunity to go further inward and further down in your Mariana’s Trench.”

Finneas says that their process is “50-50” creatively, and he speaks proudly about the gated tremolo and distortion that elevate songs like “Oxytocin” and “NDA,” two tracks that look at romance and hookups through the lens of a very famous person attempting to have both under the radar.

“Billie Bossa Nova” takes that theme one step further, building a fantasy around the life of a touring pop star. “We have to do a lot of goofy bullshit when we go on tour, where we enter through freight elevators in hotels and stuff, so that paparazzi doesn’t follow us to our room,” he explains.

“And so we acted as if there was also a secret love affair going on in there of Billie being like, ‘Nobody saw me in the lobby/Nobody saw me in your arms,’ as if there was a mystery person in her life during all of that.”

“I write songs with my brother, and we kind of have to plug our ears when we’re writing about desire for other people because we’re fucking siblings,” Eilish says later. Songs like “Oxytocin,” named for the hormone released in the bloodstream due to love or childbirth, has her wondering “What would people say . . . if they listen through the wall?” over a slinky beat. The folky “Male Fantasy” features her distracting herself with pornography, then meditating on the effect porn has on men.

“The thing is, we’re very open about both of our lives, so it’s not weird, really,” she continues. “It’s just fun. It’s songwriting and it’s storytelling. We just have to think about the art of it and not think too hard about [the lyrics].”

As 50-50 as they are, Finneas drives home the fact that everything is under Eilish’s name for a reason. “In many instances we’ve been asked about our relationship as a duo when it’s billed as a solo artist,” Finneas says. “It’s her life. It’s all her world. I’m helping her articulate that, but it’s really her experiences that she lived through, and on this album she let me into it a lot. But I don’t know what that’s like to go through.”

He quotes his friend, the singer-songwriter Bishop Briggs, who says writing is how she copes with everything. Finneas agrees. “Billie making this album was her working through a lot of this stuff.”

When Eilish releases a new song, she can’t listen to it again. It disappears into the universe, only to be heard by its maker if she happens to catch it as it’s played on radio every hour on the hour. “It’s not because I don’t like it anymore,” she explains. Happier Than Ever has become Eilish’s favorite album in the world, but she’s already mourning the loss of it, months before it even comes out. As we talk, it’s a couple of weeks before the first single is even public knowledge.

“I don’t know how to explain this, but all the songs on the album feel like a specific time, because they feel like when I wrote them and made them,” she explains. “It’s so funny that to the rest of the world it’s going to feel like a certain moment for them, and it’s going to be so different than mine. That’s such a weird, weird thing to wrap my head around. And I will fucking love it. I love it. That’s the reason you do this. It’s for that.”

When Eilish and I speak one last time, “Your Power” has been out for a few days. It spurred reflective conversations online, with many women sharing their own experiences with sexual or emotional abuse. The lyrics about an older partner taking advantage of a younger woman struck a particular chord, and Eilish herself is still processing that reaction.

billie eilish rolling stone cover

“I feel like people actually really, really listened to the lyrics,” she says, flopping around her room in an oversize Powerpuff Girls shirt. “I was scared for it to come out because it’s my favorite song I’ve ever written. I felt the world didn’t deserve it.”

She broke her own Instagram “like” record that weekend as well: Her shoot for British Vogue showed her in more revealing clothes than she had ever been pictured in, channeling Forties boudoir shoots. The images were a topic of internet obsession for days: Was it a betrayal of her more “modest”-seeming fashion before? Did she make the decision herself? But it’s not like her body hadn’t been up for debate even when it was clothed: Her baggy outerwear was used to shame her peers, and she was subjected to belittling, fatphobic assumptions from the too-curious. “I saw a picture of me on the cover of Vogue [from] a couple of years ago with big, huge oversize clothes [next to] the picture of [the latest Vogue]. Then the caption was like, ‘That’s called growth.’ I understand where they’re coming from, but at the same time, I’m like, ‘No, that’s not OK. I’m not this now, and I didn’t need to grow from that.’ ”

Like her fashion experiments, Happier Than Ever is not about resetting who Billie Eilish even is. It’s about expanding the definition and range. But like she feared, she stopped listening to “Your Power” after it came out. “I don’t know. Something changes,” she says, still confused by her own habit.

The song has already taken on a life of its own, so she doesn’t have many expectations for how people will react to the rest of the as-yet-unheard songs. She’d like to make a visual for each track, and plans to embark on a world tour at some point.

She has one other wish for her new music. “I hope people break up with their boyfriends because of it,” she says, with only the slightest tinge of humor. “And I hope they don’t get taken advantage of.”

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[delusional-cryptid]

Patton’s Backstory-

SS Hybrid Au part two

Tw: blood

Me - narrator - speaking character(Patton)

Legend says that Witches and Warlocks once existed. However, now, they’re scarce. A child of a human and a demon, giving birth to a creature so powerful that it can rival any other beast. They can be cunning, creative, but idealistic, reckless and overall naive…

That’s what they called me…

no, let’s not think of that, ok?

Ok.

My name is Patton DeAngelo, I am a warlock. My… type most often have traits that differentiate them from other ‘Humans’. Myself in fact I have cat ears and a fluffy tail, I don’t show them to people often. I was born in… 1788 I think? I’m not sure how old I am, but the thing with warlocks is that we’re immortal! Cool right! Well… there are downsides- but that doesn’t matter!

Anyway I used to live in the woods with all the cute little critters, but I moved out and now I’m happily living just outside of Florida!

That’s not true. There’s something he’s not telling you. Would you like to hear?

Good

The year was 1770, Patton was 12. Living in the woods in a small home with the occasional teenager who would come by on a dare or something of the sort. You see, there was a rumor that the cabin along with the woods was haunted and anything to enter that neck of the woods would never be seen again. The truth is that the woods were packed and often dark, so it was very easy to get lost. And eaten. And that’s precisely why his mother chose this place for them. Patton’s mother was a kind and caring woman, and when she found her child to be a warlock she immediately knew what would happen if anyone found out so she took her son and ran into the forest she had always been told to stay away from. Because “taking any chance is better than you, not getting a chance to grow up.” She told her son. She built the cabin and left each day to find food for the both of them. Until one day when her son was eleven, she inevitably didn’t come back.

At the time, the boy was confused. But he didn’t dare leave the safety of his home,but he soon ran out of food. So he left to find food, and hopefully his mother. Throughout the journey his ears were perked, picking up any sound that could threaten them. He wandered through the darkness for what seemed like a long while until he noticed the forest brighten and he walked toward it, hoping desperately for companionship.

But when he peaked out his eyes widened, met with a different sight. He saw a pile of bodies, people like him… but closer to him, he saw familiar caramel hair and blue shirt. His mother. Mutilated and bloody, her dead eyes looking right through him. He stifled a scream and ran in the other direction. He ran and ran and eventually collapsed to his knees, sobbing.

His mind warned him about the monsters his mom would talk about, but at the mention of his mom he sobbed harder. He sat there forever, only jolting when he felt a warmth curl around him.

He didn’t bother looking up, whatever it was could kill him without a fight.

He no longer had anything to live for.

Patton gave up and surrendered to the darkness.

He woke with a start a while later, it was already dark. The kid was confused, as he had forgotten what had happened. But as soon as he closed his eyes he saw his lifeless mother watching him and he opened his eyes wide, curling his tail around him and flattening his ears to his head in hopes ofblocking out the horrible sounds. When he felt movement behind him he turned his head, seeing a large wolf. The beast had to be at least three times the size of Patton, and a beautiful light grey with one gold eye and one ice blue one. It looked him in the eyes and he stared back, saying “hello, what do you need?” As friendly as possible

The wolf grunted back “I require your help, boy”

“With what?”

“ my cub was trapped by your faux kin”

“Oh no! Where?”

The dog seemed surprised, she had clearly not expected his help

She lead the way and cries of fear could soon be heard

Patton rushed to the pup and saw that a snare trap had been set and the cub had been caught by the neck, Patton rushes to the cub and started speaking

“Hush, hush, it’ll be okay kiddo. I’ll get you out”

As he feverishly worked at the snare, the small creature relaxed. Or so Patton had thought, I’d seems that the dog had been weakened and He finally noticed the bloody ring encasing the puppy’s neck. so when the dog was finally free he was breathing heavily and laying still.

Patton felt a tug inside of him, like words pulling on his lips. So he let himself speak and a warm feeling filled his chest. The cub whimpered and relaxed in his arms.

The cubs mother (as Patton had gathered ) came up behind him, sitting down and putting her head on his. The boy grinned up at her and says, “they’ll be ok”

Patton looked at the dog, ready to stop the blood from its neck but started as he saw that the previously bleeding ring had faded. Leaving pale, scarred flesh and dried blood around the wound. Confused, Patton glanced at the mother who mirrored his expression. “You saw it too?” The boy asked,“yeah, what did you do?”.

Tail flicking, he said “I-I dont know? But they’re breathing.” He shook his head and stared at the scarred flesh. It was real.

He slowly stood up with the pup in his arms, and said to the wolf “can you show me your den?” The wolf just stared sadly, but Patton understood. She had left her pack, she no longer had a den. “Sorry, can we go to my home?” She agreed.

He started walking, he felt like he know where he was and where he was going. Despite it being dark and him never having been out of his home.

And as they walked back he asked, “so, what’s your name?”

“I’m Adarla, my cub is Lyn. Why were you In this forest warlock?”

“Oh- wait, War...lock? What’s that?”

“You, you are a warlock. A warlock is a half demon, half human creature,” she said the word ‘human’ as If it was poisonous, “gifted with powerful magic but cursed with in-human traits” she finished

“Oh.. I guess that makes sense…”

“ but I haven’t seen you around, and I was beta. So where did you come from?”

He took a deep breath and responded “I was raised in a cabin in these woods. My m-“ he paused, feeling tears again but pushed it down and continued “mom, wouldn’t let me leave but she was hunted and I needed food.”

“... you don’t need to hide your human parts, they may be an evil race, but you aren’t one of them.”

Patton was surprised she noticed, not even knowing the reason himself, but nodded nonetheless.

When they arrived at his home he stopped, remembering he had no food.

“What is it warlock?” Adarla asked

“I don’t have any food, so I need to get some. Oh, and you can call me Patton by the way”

“I’ll hunt, just take care of lyn”

“Ok, thank you”

As Adarla left, Lyn let out a tiny whimper. As if he could tell his mother had left him. The thought made Patton a little sad, but he shoved it down and smiled at the small pup, heading into his empty house.

-Patton sat with the pup for around two hours when Adarla pawed at the door-

He got up and left Lyn where he was sleeping a nd got the door. When he did so, Adarla dragged a small deer in the door. Feeling guilty for being bothered by having to prepare an animal he pushed the disgust aside and took it to the counter. Cutting into the flank of the poor creature, but also too hungry to refuse. He gave the rest of the deer to Adarla, who had just woken Lyn who gazed at the meat hungrily. As Patton cooked the meat on a spit he finally felt the hunger of almost three days set in and as soon as the meat was done he hurriedly ate it without any seasoning or anything. Only To be reminded by Adarla to slow or he’d throw up.

Later that night he peacefully fell asleep by Adarla.

They went on living in Patton’s house for about a week when Patton’s curiosity got the best of him.

The boy walked cautiously through the forest until he found the edge of the forest. He heard shouting and poked his head out, tail swishing. What made humans so bad? He wondered as he stepped out. His ears were perked to hear any danger. There were few people around but when one noticed the short boy he shouted “witch!”

Catching the others attention who stared at him, yelling other words, some of which he had never heard. He flinched at the noise and turned an ran, tearing up, scared. He heard the noise follow him and he ran faster, he had to get away. He found his house and slammed the door.

He heard banging on the door and started smelling smoke.

Then the door broke.

He doesn’t remember much of it, only the noise the pain and then screaming. They cut into his skin and set fire to his house. He screamed in anguish as blue fire flowed around him. After they had run he lay on the scorched floor of what used to be his home. He bled, the sticky crimson liquid falling from his cuts, he knew what to say to stop the pain and blood. But he didn’t deserve it, so he only stopped the blood flow and got up with stinging cuts. He should have listened to Adarla, this was his fault. He didn’t know if she and Lyn were ok or if they had died like he should have. He took a deep breath and stared out at the blossoming sunset.

He fled after that. And he didn’t stop running until everyone from that village had died, it took 100 years to re enter society.

The year he did, he looked out on the town, a tear rolling down his cheek as he closed his eyes. Focusing on numbness. He could feel his familiar ears and tail dissipate, he cried harder. He didn’t want to lose them, but he had to. When the process was completed, he opened his eyes, bothered by the empty feeling they left.

He walked into the town, preparing himself for the horrible creatures he would encounter.

Patton backstory, part two

-Lord of Dragons and Witches-

[7r0773r]

The Plague by Albert Camus, translation by Stuart Gilbert

We gather that Tarrou was agreeably impressed by a little scene that took place daily on the balcony of a house facing his window. His room at the hotel looked on to a small side street and there were always several cats sleeping in the shadow of the walls. Every day, soon after lunch, at a time when most people stayed indoors, enjoying a siesta, a dapper little old man stepped out on to the balcony on the other side of the street. He had a soldierly bearing, very erect, and affected a military style of dressing; his snow-white hair was always brushed to perfect smoothness. Leaning over the balcony he would call, ‘Pussy! Pussy!’ in a voice at once haughty and endearing. The cats blinked up at him with sleep-pale eyes, but made no move as yet. He then proceeded to tear some paper into scraps, and let them fall into the street; interested by the fluttering shower of white butterflies, the cats came forward, lifting tentative paws towards the last scraps of paper. Then, taking careful aim, the old man would spit vigorously a the cats and whenever a liquid missile hit the quarry would beam with delight. (pp. 20-21)

***

The doctor opened the window, and at once the noises of the town grew louder. The brief, intermittent sibilance of a machine-saw came from a near-by workshop. Rieux pulled himself together. There lay certitude; there, in the daily round. All the rest hung on mere threads and trivial contingencies; you couldn’t waste your time on it. The thing was to do your job as it should be done. (p.33)

***

It is noteworthy that our townspeople very quickly desisted, even in public, from a habit one might have expected them to form; that of trying to figure out the probably duration of their exile. The reason was this. When the most pessimistic had fixed it at, say, six months; when they had drunk in advance the dregs of bitterness of those six black months, and painfully screwed up their courage to the sticking-place, straining all their remaining energy to endure valiantly the long ordeal of all they met, an article in a newspaper, a vague suspicion, or a flash of foresight would suggest that, after all, there was no reason why the epidemic shouldn’t last more than six months; why not a year, or even more?

At such moments the collapse of their courage, will-power, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak, their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet. But, naturally enough, this prudence, this habit of feinting with their predicament and refusing to put up a fight were ill rewarded. For, while averting that revulsion which they found so unbearable, they also deprived themselves of those redeeming moments, frequent enough when all is told, when by conjuring up pictures of a reunion to be, they could forget about the plague. Thus, in a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress.

Thus, too, they came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose. Even the past, of which they thought incessantly, had a savour only of regret. For they would have wished to add to it all that they regretted having left undone, while they might yet have done it, with the man or woman whose return they now awaited; just as in all the activities, even the relatively happy ones, of their life as prisoners they kept vainly trying to include the absent one. And thus there was always something missing in their lives. Hostile to the past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those whom men’s justice, or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars. Thus the only way of escaping from that intolerable leisure was to set the trains running again  in one’s imagination and in filling the silence with the fancied tinkle of a door-bell, in practice obstinately mute. (pp. 58-60)

***

Rieux stood up: his face was now in shadow. ‘Let’s drop the subject,’ he said, ‘as you won’t answer.’

Tarrou remained seated in his chair; he was smiling again.

‘Suppose I answer with a question?’

The doctor now smiled, too.

‘You like being mysterious, don’t you? . . . Yes, fire away.’

‘My question’s this,’ said Tarrou. ‘Why do you yourself show such devotion, considering you don’t believe in God? I suspect your answer may help me to mine.’

His face still in shadow, Rieux said that he’d already answered: that if he believed in an all-powerful God he would cease curing the sick and leave that to Him. But no one in the world believed in a God of that sort; no, not even Paneloux, who believed that he believed in such a God. And this was proved by the fact that no one ever threw himself on Providence completely. Anyhow, in this respect Rieux believed himself to be on the right road -- in fighting against creation as he found it. (pp. 101-02)

***

However, it is not the narrator’s intention to ascribe to these sanitary groups more importance than their due. Doubtless today many of our fellow-citizens are apt to yield to the temptation of exaggerating the services they rendered. But the narrator is inclined to think that by attributing over-importance to praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worst side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are the general rule. The narrator does not share that view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness. (p. 105)

***

‘So  you haven’t understood yet?’ Rambert shrugged his shoulders almost scornfully.

‘Understood what?’

‘The plague.’

‘Ah!’ Rieux exclaimed.

‘No, you haven’t understood that it means exactly that -- the same thing over and over and over again.’ (p. 129)

***

Rieux rose. He suddenly appeared very tired.

‘You’re right, Rambert, quite right, and for nothing in the world would I try to dissuade you from what you’re going to do; it seems to me absolutely right and proper. However, there’s one thing I must tell you; there’s no question of heroism in all this. It’s a matter of common decency. That’s an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is -- common decency.’

‘What do you mean by “common decency”?’ Rambert’s tone was grave.

‘I don’t know what it means for other people. But in my case I know that it consists in doing my job.’ (pp. 130-31)

***

So much energy was expended on filling up forms, hunting round for supplies, and queueing up, that people had no time to think of the manner in which others were dying around them and they themselves would die one day. Thus the growing complications of our everyday life, which might have been an affliction, proved to be a blessing in disguise. Indeed, had not the epidemic, as already mentioned, spread its ravages, all would have been for the best. (p. 140)

***

Our fellow-citizens had fallen into line, adapted themselves, as people say, to the situation, because there was no way of doing otherwise. Naturally they retained the attitudes of sadness and suffering, but they had ceased to feel their sting. Indeed to some, Dr Rieux amongst them, this precisely was the most disheartening thing; that the habit of despair is worse than despair itself. Hitherto those who were parted had not been utterly unhappy, there was always a gleam of hope in the night of their distress, but that gleam had now died out. you could see them at street-corners, in cafés, of friends’ houses, listless, indifferent, and looking so bored that, because of them the whole town seemed like a railway waiting-room. Those who had jobs went about them at the exact tempo of the plague, with dreary perseverance. Everyone was modest. For the first time exiles from those they loved had no reluctance to talking freely about them, using the same words as everybody else, and regarding their deprivation from the same angle as that from which they viewed the latest statistics of the epidemic. This change was striking since, until now, they had jealously withheld their personal grief from the common stock of suffering; now they accepted its inclusion. Without memories, without hope, they lived for the moment only. Indeed the Here and Now had come to mean everything to them. For there is no denying that the plague had gradually killed off in all of us the faculty not of love only but even of friendship. Naturally enough, since love asks something of the future, and nothing was left us but a series of present moments. (p. 146)

***

(Tarrou) ‘. . . In fact, it comes to this: nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity. For really to think about someone means thinking about that person every minute of the day, without letting one’s thoughts be diverted by anything; by meals, by a fly that settles on one’s cheek, by household duties, or by a sudden itch somewhere. But there are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live. And these people know it only too well.’ (p. 194)

***

(Tarrou) ‘I’m still of the same mind. For many years I’ve been ashamed, mortally ashamed, of having been, even with the best intentions, even at many removes, a murderer in my turn. As time went on I merely learned that even those who were better than the rest could not keep themselves nowadays from killing or letting others kill, because such is the logic by which they live; and that we can’t stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. Yes, I’ve been ashamed ever since; I have realized that we all have plague, and I have lost my peace. And today I am still trying to find it; still trying to understand all those others and not to be the mortal enemy of anyone. I only know that one must do what one can to cease being plague-stricken, and that’s the only way in which we can hope for some peace or, failing that, a decent death. This, and only this, can bring relief to men and, if not save them, at least do them the least harm possible and even, sometimes, a little good. So that is why I resolved to have no truck with anything which, directly or indirectly, for good reasons or for bad, brings death to anyone, or justifies others’ putting him to death.’ (p. 203)

***

He could guess that through the mists of the past years, from the depth of his fond despair, Jeanne’s young voice was rising, echoing in Grand’s ears. And he knew, also, what the old man was thinking as his tears flowed, and he, Rieux, thought it too: that a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one’s work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart. (p. 210)

***

At that moment he knew what his mother was thinking, and that she loved him. But he knew, too, that to love someone means relatively little; or, rather, that love is never strong enough to find the words befitting it. Thus he and his mother would always love each other silently. And one day she -- or he -- would die, without ever, all their lives long, having gone farther than this by way of making their affection known. Thus, too, he had lived at Tarrou’s side and Tarrou had died this evening without their friendship’s having had time to enter fully into the life of either. Tarrou had ‘lost the match’, as he put it. But what had he, Rieux, won? No more than the experience of having known plague and remembering it, of having known friendship and remembering it, of knowing affection and being destined one day to remember it. So all a man could win in the conflict between plague and life was knowledge and memories. But Tarrou, perhaps, would have called that winning the match. (p. 234)

***

. . . Dr Rieux resolved to compile this chronicle, so that he should not be one of those who hold their peace but should bear witness in favour of those plague-stricken people; so that some memorial of the injustice and outrage done them might endure; and to state quite simply what we learn in a time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.

None the less, he knew that the tale he had to tell could not be one of a final victory. It could be only the record of what had had to be done, and what assuredly would have to be done again in the never-ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts, despite their personal afflictions, by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.

And, indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town, Rieux remembered that such joy is always imperiled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it roused up its rats again and sent them forth to die in a happy city. (p. 248)