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critterbitter · 1 year ago

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I'm wheezing over Ingo and Litwick's dynamic jgjbjjxjsjwkfiisiq and TYNAMO FITTING INTO EMMET'S SCARF IS SOOO CUTE!! Love how you draw the little sbubby bois, their conductor themed outfits are soo freaking cute!!!

I have so many thoughts when it comes to them it’s insane. Glad you like the characterizations!

Here’s a quick one shot under the cut, as a treat for making it this far.

Emmet finds Tynamo three months before Ingo meets Litwick. Ingo has some thoughts.

Ingo and Emmet are part of a pair.

If Emmet is the fuck around and find out, then Ingo’s been relegated amused damage control. This has always been the case, right up until Emmet found tynamo. Then suddenly, it’s “wow emmet, you’re so responsible!” “Golly gee Emmet, what do you mean you don’t want to go exploring the cave systems after dark?” “Gee whizz, what do you mean curfew for your eel puppy?” “Why in Reshiram do you get to have a whole pokemon three months before we agreed to get starters, and i don’t?”

Ingo doesn’t say the last part. He’s a bitter world-weary twelve year old languishing about the unfairness of the pokestray distribution system, but he also loves his brother. Emmet found an injured tynamo in chargestone cave and decided to help— tynamo decided to stay. It’s every child’s film plot. Ingo being a grouchy gengar makes him objectively a terrible friend.

Oh dragons, is Ingo a bad brother?

“Ingo!”

Speak of the cold, and he shall enter. Ingo swings his whole body around to better brace for the flying tackle.

“Emmet!”

“I am emmet! You are sulking.”

Ingo clicks his mouth closed and tries not to sulk harder. He fails.

“You are not being verrrry convincing, brother dearest.”

“I do not have any idea what you are going on about,” Ingo’s traitorous mouth blurts. “Be convinced I love you and am not planning dastardly plots.”

Do not think about getting a ground typed starter. Do not think about getting a ground typed starter.

Emmet shoots him a judgemental look from under the brim of his hat. Ingo glowers back, and slowly starts leaning forward, smooshing Emmet under his weight.

“Ttttell me why you look like a crushed joltik.”

“Keep this up and you are going to be the crushed joltik.”

Anyways, Emmet is becoming more bold by the day and even actively discussing electric types with the new girl in elementary prep, Elesa. Ingo thinks she’s cool, but she flinched when he blurted a once again too loud greeting so he’s… letting that cool off. They definitely don’t have anything to talk about beyond pokemon, and Emmet and her already have pokemon. Ingo feels a bit left out.

Caught in the ennui of not having a blitzle or tynamo, Ingo slips as Emmet rolls out from under him. The two go down in an ungraceful tangle of limbs.

“Tell. Me. What’s. Wrong.” Emmet gently slaps Ingo’s face like a ripe oran berry. “You want to tell me sooo badly. Ooh.”

“Emmet- aurgh. Gerroff’”

“I don’t speak denial.”

Ingo gives up. His entire body deflates. Emmet, not expecting the sudden loss of spinal infrastructure, slides sideways and knees Ingo’s lungs.

Ingo wheezes. “I’m sulking because you were crushing my spine.”

“Tell me the truth.”

Uh oh. Ingo studies Emmet’s face. It’s the same one he looks into the mirror with, but marred with concern and self consciousness. Ingo made Emmet worry. He’s not just a bad twin. He’s the worst.

“You are Emmet.”

“I am Emmet.”

“You have Tynamo.”

“Tynamo’s charging at home.”

Smart ass! Emmet knows what Ingo means. And by Emmet’s smug grin, Emmet knows too.

Ingo struggles to explain that Emmet has Tynamo, and Elesa, and… that’s only two other individuals. He is truly the worst twin in all the land. Emmet gets two new friends and Ingo’s being an infant about it.

One day, Ingo will have his own pokemon partner and team— but right now, Ingo only gets to have Emmet.

Ingo feels this is an unfair trade equivalent, but he does not want to say it in a way that sounds rude, so he stalls.

Emmet has no such prefunctures. He squints at Ingo, who avoids eye contact and squirms. “You are… jealous?” He tilts his head in visible confusion. “What?”

Ingo covers his face with his hands, defeated.

“You arrrre jealous!” Emmet cries, bewildered. “Why??”

Ingo lets out an unintelligible wheeze. Emmet remembers he still has a knee on Ingo’s chest, and hastily sits back.

“I don’t want to be jealous,” Ingo finally bursts. “I am very happy for you Emmet! You and Tynamo are a winning combination!” His voice cracks embarrassingly. Emmet doesn’t flinch at the volume, even muffled under Ingo’s palms. “I don’t want to be a bad brother being jealous.”

“You aren’t a bad brother, Ingo.”

“I am. I am angry that you found your starter and I haven’t. I’m sad I interrupted your schedule with my inane demands. I have made you feel like you did something wrong. I apologize.”

Peeking between Ingo’s fingers, Emmet’s face falls. Ingo wants to be struck by a giga impact rather than face this. He would rather be a dusty imprint. Where is Uncle Drayden’s Haxorous when you need her?

“Ingo, Ingo listen to me.” Emmet’s hands dart forward to settle Ingo’s shoulders. The pressure is grounding. Real. This is where Emmet tells Ingo he’s being stupid.

He hears Emmet exhale.

“I’m sorry.”

Wait, that doesn’t sound right. “Pardon?”

“I wanted to train Tynamo as my conductor, and I left our two-car train unmaintained.”

“Pardon??”

Emmet looks uncomfortable and sad. It makes Ingo uncomfortable and sad. “Yesterday night. When you wanted to go to the caves. For our weekly charting. I said I’d rather help Tynamo.”

Oh. Yeah, Ingo remembers that. It had stung. “You are not obligated to say yes,” he protests. “In fact, you should say no more. You always say yes.”

“Yes.”

“What did I just say.”

“No. You’re my brother. I left you out.”

Ingo slowly puts down his hands. His face still feels warm, but he feels less scared. Now he just feels embarrassed. He can’t help but let out a meek plea slip. “Don’t go where I can’t follow, Emmet. Please.”

“I would never! We are going on our pokemon journey together, yep yep. You, me, tynamo, and whoever your starter will be!”

The two sit there on the side of the dirt road. Emmet’s declaration sounds like a dangerous promise. Ingo realizes at that moment he would do anything for his brother, who’s his best friend and confidant and world, starter or no starter. He opens his mouth to tell Emmet that.

“Wwwwwait. You are trying to go back to the caves. Ingo! Are you trying to find a starter by yourself!?”

Never mind. Emmet’s gone for his soft underbelly, and Ingo’s in pain. “Emphasis on trying,” he mutters instead. The joltik are not interested in him. The local tynamo swarm fled. A curious drilbur had sniffed him once, turned up its nose, and then trundled into the wall.

“…ah.”

Nothing had felt right for Ingo— too scared, too judgemental, or too uninterested. He’s starting to accept that maybe none of the pokemon in this town area match his truth or ideals.

Emmet was quiet for a long time. He had his thinking face on, so Ingo did not interrupt. He took the time instead to look up at the sky, watching the giant puff of clouds drift by. A plume of swabloo lazily inches their way across the horizon.

A shadow falls over Ingo. Emmet dusts himself off, and helps drag his twin to his feet. The two sway, clasping hands.

“We’ll ask Uncle Drayden,” Emmet decides, and Ingo is enthralled by the sheer truth of that statement. “He’ll let us use the subway! And you can look elsewhere, for a starter who is ideal for you. Wwwwith me and Tynamo, instead of by yourself.”

“Truly?” Uncle Drayden is a scary man.

Emmet nods. It’s easy to talk to Emmet— he just says words that Ingo would spend hours ruminating on. “I am verrrry persuasive.”

“You mean staring at him from the corner until he cracks?”

“Brother, you know me so well!”

Ingo cant help but laugh. He still feels guilty and bad for feeling envious, but a world with emmet by his side is significantly less hostile. Emmet’s hand is warm in his.“Thank you!” He cheers, startling himself with his volume. “Bravo,” he tried in a quieter tone.

“Bravo!!” Emmet replies, pointedly louder. Ingo squawks as Emmet pulls him off balance. “You are my brother! We’re going to find you a starter!”

Ingo tugs back just as fiercely. “Bravo!! We are going to harass Uncle Drayden into letting us board the train!”

Emmet leans with his whole body, dragging Ingo into the fulcrum of his centrifuge. “BRAVO! YOU ARE GOING TO HELP ME WITH TYNAMO’S TRAINING!”

Ingo digs his heels in, and then stumbles. “BRAVO, I, what?”

Emmet looked distinctly patrat-esque. “We’re in this together, Ingo. No backing out now.”

Ingo thought about it long and hard. He gets to see his brother get electrocuted. But he will, also, most likely, get electrocuted.

(Tynamo is Emmet’s starter. But maybe, it can also be Ingo’s friend.)

But brother say brother do, and Ingo’s probably obligated to run damage control if Emmet decides to, say, shove a fork into an outlet for Tynamo to snack on.

(Emmet fucks around. Ingo finds out. Even two steps apart with new people between, this is the way of their world.)

“Alright,” he crumbles. When they step this time, they step in sync. “We do this. Together.” (Enjoy this? Here's the link to the rest of my rat crimes.)

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hibiscesque · 1 month ago

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Gave my word to OOMF that I would get over my fear of y'all sophistiqué fellas on Tumblr and actually post an analysis here, so here goes nothing.

Mori and Dazai: a noncomprehensive opinion-based analysis of the most talked about parts of their relationship by me, Lily, that has been fleshed out and crossposted from Twt.

[Feat. attached screenshots of some of the interesting contributions others made when I posted this there over the summer at the end, and the links to their Twts so you can check their accounts out if you're on the hellbird app too!]

I figure the best place to start is the place where discussion about Mori and Dazai's relationship often starts and ends: abuse.

It is an unequivocal fact that Mori was in a position of power over Dazai, as his elder, superior in rank, and the doctor who saved him. I wholly agree with this piece of the fandom collective consciousness. I do have a bit of a different interpretation, however, regarding how he used this power.

I do not think Mori lorded it over Dazai to take advantage of him sexually or hurt him physically, and from my reading of it, canon seems to support that. In fact, it was in Mori’s best interest in his relationship with Dazai to do what all the best manipulative abusers do: pretend that this power does not exist at all.

He presented himself to Dazai as Dazai’s equal, a partner in a dastardly scheme to take down the Port Mafia boss. He knew Dazai would say yes—as a disillusioned boy who seemed to have no attachment to his old life, what other answer would he give?—but took deep care to give him the illusion of choice.

Maintaining the illusion that they were equals was very important, as Dazai was older and of an entirely different breed than Yosano. His old strategy wouldn’t fly here. I think this actually displays the versatility of Mori’s manipulative skills, how he was so easily able to adjust between them. Even the narrative of Fifteen, whether this was deliberate or accidental, seems to intimate to the reader that there was not the power imbalance between them that you would expect. It specifically corrects you from seeing Dazai as Mori’s son or charge, seeming to want you—or want you to see Dazai—come to the conclusion that they are, though I use this word very differently than we do when it comes to SKK, partners in crime. But that is absolutely not true. He was a fourteen-year-old playing adult games.

Mori probably figured out pretty fast that Dazai was used to being the best manipulator in the room, and that he was usually incredibly adept at hiding this from the adults around him. It was to his advantage to utilize this fact and let Dazai think that he was the one in control between them, ergo the easy agreement to giving him a painless death later on when he had absolutely no intention of ever granting him that.

That's not to entirely de-dimensionalize their relationship. I do think in some ways, a lot of ways even, Dazai had Mori wrapped around his finger. For starters, we see several examples of him being petulant or defiant to Mori that evidently amuse Mori rather than anger him. Furthermore, I think I can go so far as to say that in the early days, Mori admired Dazai, in a way. Dazai effortlessly lived an existence lacking traditionally defined humanity and empathy, something that hadn't come quite so innately to Mori. He himself hadn't had to cultivate that cold, heartless calculation until the Great War, at which point he got himself so far into this "character", for a lack of a better word, that he played to protect his country, that he'd begun to grossly overcompensate. Become the exact monster he believed he needed to be, though I don't think he'd put it in those exact terms.

But to Dazai, all of this seems to come easy as breathing in the light novels. It must have been fascinating, in a way, to meet what he spent so long striving to become in the form of a fluffy-haired, teenage attitude-filled, lower secondary schooler.

Even the fond admirenvy, however, would eventually become a tool. There's a clear logical advantage to Mori to letting himself feel regarding Dazai to the degree he did where he allowed himself be jerked around a little bit. It would make Dazai more secure in the thought that he was the one in control between them, exactly the belief paradigm Mori needed him to keep existing within to be able to maneuver him to the utmost degree of exactitude when it mattered.

Something else I do disagree with the fandom about, which you've probably been able to ascertain by now, is that Mori, so to speak, birthed the darkness in Dazai. Made him that way. Forced him to be that way. Anything like that.

This darkness, in my opinion, already existed when they met.

I think Mori sensing that, as aforementioned, is part of the reason he chose to ensnare Dazai in his web in the first place. There's a whole other discussion that could be had about the sheer coincidence of acquiring the one child in the world with an ability that could turn off the Deus ex machina we know as Corruption that existed within the second child he would acquire not a year later—and yet another about why the mafia higher ups saw Dazai as a credible witness to the old boss' death—but while no, Dazai would probably have not gone on to become a mass murderer and expert torturer were he not brought into this life by Mori, he was very likely not an angel otherwise.

To me, the adroitness with which he manipulated Chuuya into joining the mafia makes this clear. That is not something he’d picked up within the last year he’d known Mori. Seamlessly using manipulation of that caliber is a skill that usually comes from being exposed to other manipulators from a very young age and/or a natural predisposition toward it. Usually "and". It's still a skill that can be cultivated, whether on purpose or not, but it's not something that's easy to just pick up and learn intuitively unless you're pre-tuned to it for one of those reasons. I also bring up that infamous scene in Fifteen where Dazai empties a magazine of bullets into a dead body. I see many things in that instance, but primarily a hurting and psychologically disturbed child.

While watching the death of the old boss could easily have been a traumatic experience for him, I think we can extrapolate from Dazai’s other aforementioned behavior that one, he’d been exposed to the darker side of society far longer ago than when he’d met Mori, and two, he was at that point, whether by natural means or not, rather stunted in the empathy department. I’m not saying that Dazai is incapable of feeling it—simply that he does not feel it to the degree the average person does. I know a lot of Dazai fans will disagree with me on that, but I do believe this very strongly.

This all comes back to the circle of bonding him to Mori; Mori always presented himself as his equal in that way, after all. While I’m sure Dazai had met more than one unempathetic adult before him, this could easily have been the first time he'd met one who was like him in the sense that their intelligence allowed them the manipulative skills to use this "lack of compassion” to their advantage.

I think Dazai was quickly and, to steal his own word, indelibly fascinated by Mori. We can see that he’s adopted many of Mori’s mannerisms—the most obvious example being using a dramatic shtick to lower people’s guards and make himself appear more harmless. For Dazai that's his ridiculous suicide attempts that will never work and appeals to women for double suicide, and for Mori that's playing the doting, haggard father to Elise. I think they both enjoyed these roles more than they let on, especially Mori, but they do serve a purpose. Correct me if I’m wrong on this, but to this point I even believe I remember a Japanese-speaking fan saying that Dazai copied some of Mori’s speech mannerisms in the untranslated text of Fifteen that were hard to emulate in English.

I think Mori, in his own way, for the reasons I shared earlier on, is equally as fascinated by Dazai as Dazai is by him. Mori is such an enigma, however, that I’m left with a question when analyzing a certain part of canon that I think the answer to depends on how charitably you want to interpret Mori: why didn’t he just kill Dazai instead of ousting him from the mafia?

I think there are two possible answers to this. One, he knew Dazai would be useful to him in the future. After all, he wouldn't be able to use his Deus ex machina more than once without him. And of course, there's Natsume's Greater Plan, the lengths to which Natsume has gone to set dominos in place for I think we're only just starting to grasp.

But then there's also two, that he, against what anyone might expect, cared about Dazai enough that he didn’t want him dead. Perhaps it was even both. I will leave you with that to ponder. Thanks for reading! 💝

& Now... Bonus!

Thoughts from Alli omgdqzai on Twitter:

[CW: CSA, though not in the form of sexual contact between Dazai and Mori]

Thoughts from Pysta pysta_myn on Twitter:

#bsd #bsd analysis #dazai osamu #mori ougai #osamu dazai #ougai mori #cw: abuse #lilris fan era

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scrivenger-grimgar · 9 months ago

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au of an au for mdzs where canon plays out exactly as it was supposed to except

wwx became a calamity after dying and cared for his coven of ghosts in yiling before mxy summoned him for revenge.

he still elopes with lwj after solving the corpse question

supreme ghosts have a similar ability to gods taking deputies, except since they're not sharing immortality they can have a lot more of them

wwx's "deputies" are (in order) jiang cheng, the wen remnants, luo qingyang, nie huaisang, mo xuanyu, jin ling, lan jingyi, ouyang zhizhen, lan sizhui, and lan wangji.

being a calamity's "deputy" means that you are soul bonded to them, with a kind of preternatural sense of the wellbeing of the entire coven.

one of the heavenly officials decides to fuck around with time, and only other heavenly officials were supposed to remember, except extremely strong ghosts and their covens also remember because there are TWO gods married to calamities, and calamities are weirdly cooperative with each other (hc, hx, wwx, & gL discuss trade agreements over tea and artistic process over alcohol).

thus like 75 people are now in the past.

wwx's child body cant stand the power his soul has and just kinda crumbles under the weight. thats mostly fine tho cause he can shapeshift.

of course he immediately comes up with a dastardly plan to inflict as much chaos onto the sects as possible while also protecting his loved ones at the same time. he gets in contact with the wen remnants (bigger and there's more of them) and slowly moves them over to yiling while he builds places for them to live on the mountain, and then offers the people of yiling a very good deal:

"we'll deal with all your ghost problems for free, and in exchange we get discounts on food, and you tell everyone who comes asking that the Yiling Wei sect has been here the entire time."

its almost too easy to set up, too. they forge some trade agreements and other documents to place in the other sects' files, waiting to be found, with ease, bc he knows what the filing for the jiang, lan, wen, and nie looks like, and part of the story is that the jin offended them so badly that they just stopped doing business with them altogether and also tend to actively hate them with few exceptions.

meanwhile, huaisang, qingyang, and wangji will reference the Yiling Wei and act like this is something everyone knows about, and jiang cheng catches on and starts doing the same.

wwx's plan is to drive them all insane by appearing out of nowhere and acting like he's been there the entire time. make them question reality.

wen popo, at a discussion conference: i'll be standing in for my grandson so he can participate in the games

jiang fengmian, initiating polite conversation: your grandson? what happened to your son?

wen popo, internally cackling: fengmian! are you so quick to discard changze like this?! for shame!!

jiang fengmian, who has never met this lady: what

wen popo: you know i trusted him when he said he wanted to stand by his sworn brother's side but if this is how you treat his memory after he was so unwaveringly loyal to you, only ever leaving for Cangse, the love of his life, then i'll have to have you stricken from the legacy registry!

wen popo, with unfaltering confidence: good evening wen-zhongzhu

wen ruohan, who has incurable face blindness: well met Wei-zhongzhu (do i know her???)

nie mingjue is the only one who's taking any of this well and thats solely because his brother has been spoon feeding him Yiling Wei propaganda for 13 years. lan xichen has a crisis because his baby brother eloped with a clan leader he met thrice and they're having a spring wedding.

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dykesynthezoid · 26 days ago

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Actually u know what swinging a bat at the hornets nest again but it’s extremely funny that this exact circle of people got over the n word controversy w Eric Bogosian in like five minutes (which! I agree that there was nuance there and I saw some great detailed takes from Black iwtv fans, and also I don’t think you have to agree with or endorse everything a famous person has ever done to post about them sometimes)

and yet I, a person those people have personally interacted and been in community with, someone with whom these people have had a much more intimate opportunity to actually observe my character, am persona non grata, everybody block this person, callout post look out for this dangerous propagandist!!! for saying that you should listen to Jewish people and not immediately baselessly assume they love genocide when they say something you don’t find immediately digestible.

As if I were the carrier of a social disease. As if I were contagious.

Literally the logic is that “zionist” propaganda is soooo powerful that if some poor unsuspecting person tried to actually consider the content of what I was saying from a stance that was curious and empathetic, they might somehow be tricked or brainwashed by my dastardly wiles. Better to ostracize and exile me completely where I can’t hurt anyone with my dangerous evil arguments (arguments that include “just please don’t be a dick to Jews”).

Idk man maybe the thing you’re so afraid to be infected with isn’t “zionist propaganda,” maybe it’s the fact that if you treat me like a human being, you might be the next one to face a campaign of sudden and exacting social rejection without any discussion or chance to defend yourself. But whatever

#antisemitism #iwtv #the thing is I get where these people are coming from and what they’re thinking #and that’s almost worse.#bc I can see them as human beings w fears and hangups and biases and interiority #but they can’t extend me that same courtesy #and it means I know I’m being punished for *their* cowardice. for *their* inability to look inward.

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forasecondtherewedwon · 6 months ago

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It's Enough, It's Enough - chapter four

Fandom: My Lady Jane Pairing: Jane x Guildford Rating: E Chapter: 4 / 6

Summary: Five times Jane and Guildford pretend to have sex, and one time it’s for real.

read on tumblr: one | two | three

Seymour is such a dastardly prick that Guildford has felt no compunction about hating him, even before his attempted ambush at the stables. He doesn’t like that man being around his wife. Not that Jane will remain his wife. That’s not the important bit. Mainly, Guildford does not trust Seymour. The upside of having frequented the taverns wherein he built his overblown reputation for rakishness and revelry is that Guildford knows how to spot the bad sort. And Seymour is a supreme rotter.

The trick with that sort of man, Guildford knows, is not to attempt to outfox him at his own game—it’s to leave off with political maneuvering and just pick his fucking pockets. Clean and simple. Thankfully, Seymour has a certain penchant for heavy cloaks and flapping robes. These are garments that hang and bulk away from the body, making him an unusually easy mark for Guildford’s quick hands and darting reach.

Jane has told him about locked chests and boxes, so Guildford’s hoping to pluck a key from Seymour’s pocket. Because it might be quite a small one, he gives this search several attempts, putting himself in repeated close contact with the foul man. It’s tedious. It’s worse than tedious: Seymour is a slippery git, the mere sight of whom at the opposite end of a corridor is enough to make Guildford’s teeth grind together. Nevertheless, he makes his attempts, knowing Jane would do as much for him.

Jane doesn’t know, by the way. He decided before he began that she wouldn’t know unless he was successful. Best not to have her worry needlessly.

Eventually, Guildford’s fingers close around something, but it isn’t metal, it’s paper. He can’t wait to read it, stealing into an alcove and unfolding the page right then. Unfortunately, slippery Seymour’s written the damn thing in code (of course he fucking has, the shithead). Fortunately, it’s a code Guildford recognizes.

He looks for an opportunity to reveal his discovery to Jane that night, but there’s never sufficient privacy and it begins to grow late. Though they can’t discuss this, she’s become his favourite person to spend time with, so he stays with her anyway, watching her work, watching her with her sisters. He tries not to think about the family they could have been, if she meant for this to last. Eventually, all the others have gone to bed and there’s just her and him, sitting opposite one another by the fire. He thinks an even more dangerous thought: that it is so very tempting to stay. Jane is tired and kind enough to swear she isn’t tired at all, that she can talk, that he should keep his seat. Guildford is seduced by the fact of her being his wife, of the scene they make, looking so utterly regular and not like a queen and her horse consort. A normal husband could fall asleep here. He wouldn’t have to worry about what would happen if he failed to wake and creep outside before the dawn. A normal husband could watch his wife drop off to sleep in his arms, not on the other side of the table between them. He could watch her eyes open the following morning with sunlight streaming across the bed they share, feel her first stirrings in the human arms that held her fast through the night.

It's pointless dreaming.

“Go to bed,” he urges with a smile, and stands to take his leave.

For now, he stows the stolen note in the stables.

—

There’s time the next night—time to sit with Jane and explain about the cipher wheel and how he stayed up translating Seymour’s paper. The contents don’t exactly provide incriminating evidence about what happened to King Edward, but they are proof of revoltingly close ties between Seymour and Princess Mary. Guildford attempts to gloss over this in summary, focusing on what they might yet gain if they can get their hands on more of the correspondence, but Jane is keen to know everything he knows. She snatches the letter straight from his hand. As its original pickpocketer, Guildford has to admire the shortcut.

“When I stand before you in my father’s fur-trimmed robe, the same robe depicted in the portrait which stands sentinel over all our erotic acts,” Jane reads, only to interrupt herself with a noise of disgust. “Mary wears King Henry’s clothes while she and Seymour…? Ugh.”

“I know,” Guildford agrees. “Vile.”

But the words, with which he is already familiar, didn’t unsettle him on paper nearly as much as they do coming out of Jane’s mouth. He knows everything the note contains. Will she read all of it? His hands clench into anxious fists, wanting her to stop, needing her to go on.

“The kiss of its lining on my skin is as sweet to me as your voice in the throes of passion, when I know you will exclaim, ‘Mercy, good lady!’ to no avail as I spank your cheeks crimson with gauntlets of war.” Jane laughs and glances at him. “No wonder Seymour thought us tame.”

He has no chance to respond before she continues on to the part which he most fears and craves to her to speak aloud.

“When you can hardly stand, I will make you lie beneath me while I t-take”—Jane stumbles, but her pride (he assumes) prevents her from quitting in the middle of a sentence—“my pleasure.”

It’s clear she won’t read any further. She’s flushed red, and, yes, Guildford hates Seymour (hates Mary too, though that would be treasonous to say), but he’s perversely grateful for the filthy correspondence. If he forgets about that pair of lunatics and concentrates on Jane’s soft voice, it’s much harder to laugh. Hearing Jane say she would make him lie beneath her while she took her pleasure isn’t funny in the slightest. It’s all too evocative.

But he shouldn’t say it, so he won’t.

What Guildford does say is, “There will be more letters.”

“Undoubtedly,” Jane says, folding that one up. “Which means we get to discover if Seymour is equally verbose.”

“Hopefully about more relevant matters.”

“Yes.” As Jane looks away, he sees her blush deepen.

—

Later the same night, they shut themselves in the room with the chest. Though that item is still locked up tight, the room is filled with stacks of documents and other, smaller chests and boxes—plenty for them to rifle through, making sure nothing is overlooked. A weasel like Seymour has his hiding places, but Guildford wouldn’t put it past the man to also be so arrogant, so confident in his success, as to leave something important out in the open, certain it would go undetected by the eyes of the less cunning.

It really is very late. Guildford assumes Jane would usually be asleep by now. And him? He would be lying in his bed in the stables, most likely not sleeping but trying to, kept awake by the memory of how her hair smelled. He thinks about that night—the night when she sat astride him and put on a very convincing show for their peeping parents—more than he should. Most likely, it will ruin him when she leaves. It’s not the money. It’s never been the money. What Guildford expects to miss is how close they came.

God, that’s enough. He feels pathetic mourning her in this way. She isn’t dead. His heart should know the bloody difference.

He busies himself with the task at hand, as does Jane. Beginning side by side at its head, they circle the table, inspecting both sides of every page their determined hands encounter. In Guildford's opinion, the place is rather a sty—and if anyone should know, it's the man who sleeps in the stables. It takes effort to put everything back as sloppily as they find it, making it all look undisturbed. They check the chairs and floor as well, in case anything might have dropped. Now and then, they glance at one another to wordlessly inquire about progress, but mostly, there is just the sound of pages rustling, leather folios slapping open and shut, and the two of them breathing.

Having assumed most of the palace would be asleep, they're alarmed by footsteps in the corridor outside. Guildford rushes to meet Jane at the table's far end; there's no point hiding in such a small room, so it's better to be facing the door if anyone comes through it. But how will they explain their presence?

"The candle," he says, and Jane leans far forward to extinguish the flame they lit at the table's center.

With a quick gust of breath, it goes out. They're plunged into a darkness that doesn't last, their eyes adjusting to the cold radiance of moonlight pouring through the window. Jane straightens up, her back brushing her chest. In the dark, Guildford rests a steadying hand on her shoulder. She places her fingers over his. Then, they try to not even breathe, praying the steps will pass them by.

No such luck.

The door isn't locked, but it's sturdy and hanging on slanted hinges. These conditions cause it to make crooked contact with the floor instead of being suspended slightly above, allowing the door to be wedged shut if some force is applied. Guildford applied that force cautiously, working slowly so as not to make a racket, and whoever is on the other side of that door now does the same. The slow scrape is chilling.

"Guildford," Jane whispers urgently.

They have seconds.

It takes less than one of them for Guildford to choose a tactic.

"Trust me," he commands instead of asking, then puts a hand on Jane's lower back and presses her forward until she's bent over the table once again.

Not only does she not protest, she hefts her skirts in her arms. He helps her to expose the back of her chemise, though that won't be visible to the intruder around her gathered skirts. Hastily, Guildford unbuttons his leather breeches and tugs them partway down his thighs. With Jane canted over the table and his hips shoved quickly forward, his body curved over his wife's, a couple who selected a rather odd place for a tryst should be all they appear to—

"Princess Mary!" Jane gasps.

Holding her own candlestick high to throw light into the chamber, Mary looks about as surprised to see the two of them as they are to see her. Guildford anticipated her paramour. He would never have thought a woman known to be prone to nasty, rodential smiles in public and bitter fits when she believes herself out of earshot would be capable of such subtle entry. She makes Guildford's skin crawl, and he shudders behind Jane.

"My apologies... Your Majesty," Mary spits, baldly reluctant to use Jane's title and chokingly insincere. Her gaze darts to the chest and she appears relieved to find it shut. Her eyes also sweep the table, but it is impossible for her to make a thorough catalogue. Nor can she accuse them aloud. By rights, these pages belong to Jane, this room to Jane, this entire palace to Jane, as Mary is but a guest of the Queen. As much as a spider is a guest in a pitcher of milk, or a flea a guest in the seam of a jacket.

Jane stands with dignity (he mimes a fleet withdrawing and yanks up his breeches), but does not move away from Guildford. Instead, she takes him by the hand. He feels himself strengthened by their united front. They face this woman who, whether or not she acted against King Edward, almost certainly wants the new monarch dead, that she might reign herself. Jane is most vulnerable, yet she maintains her position between Guildford and the threat.

"What business brings you here?" Jane questions.

Mary's gaze moves lazily from her cousin to Guildford.

"A sickening feeling," she says, "that something was amiss."

"The only thing amiss is your presence. You see my husband and I want privacy. Leave us."

Mary's look as she inclines her head in deference is venomous, but she does as ordered and departs. There is no other reasonable action for her to take. No doubt driven by spite, she leave the door ajar. While Jane sighs in shaky relief, Guildford crosses the room to put his shoulder to the door, jamming it back into place.

"Did you mark how she looked at the chest?" Guildford checks, turning to face Jane again. "She appeared only perfunctorily interested in the visible papers, but Seymour might not have—"

The remainder of his speech is lost to the abrupt pressure of his wife's mouth on his. The way she gives her weight to him to catch and hold says she is kissing him in sheer relief. Another narrow escape.

Though that might be her feeling, Guildford's side of the kiss is infused with excitement about witnessing his wife exercise her authority over her detestable cousin. In his arms, Jane's relief in thwarting Mary feels enough like giving in to the simmering thing between them that he meets her mouth ravenously. She lets him. She accepts him. After scant moments, she equals his fervour. When Jane moans into his mouth, Guildford catches her jaw between his finger and thumb, enforcing her stillness so he might kiss her soundly. Deep and unhurried. Jane's legs seem almost to melt beneath her, but her arms hold him tightly, her fingers twisting into his hair.

Guildford wrenches his face back. Through tingling lips, he pants, "Jane. Jane, you said we would not..."

"We won't," she swears. "We're not."

But he sees her kiss-plumped lips and soft, persuasive gaze, and he knows this will not be one of the times they can end this easily. There's a difference, he thinks when their lips seal together again, between being helpless and not wanting to be helped. He isn't helpless to stop Jane, but he's tired—oh-so-tired—of being her conscience. Why should he continually advise her away from doing what at least part of her (and all of him) is dying to give in to? He's no adviser, he's her consort, ergo he'd prefer they did more consorting. Particularly in the middle of the night like this, drunk on triumph.

He fills his hands with Jane's skirts for the second time that night, though the first time in passion instead of pretense, and backs her towards the long table. When they reach it, Guildford lifts her onto the edge, encouraging Jane's legs apart to let him stand between them. She sighs, running a hand down his neck. His manhood is swollen to readiness as he presses his hips to hers.

That's when she murmurs, "Should we stop?"

"Do you want to stop?" Guildford counters, not to persuade her but to entreat Jane to be honest with herself. He releases his hold on her legs and grips the table edge.

But perhaps his rational wife isn't ready to trust her instincts. He won't attempt to convince her; he doesn't want to win her that way. After everything, he's surprised to discover that he cares how she sees him, and that he wants her to see him as a good choice. Guildford recognizes this might be unrealistic, since he wasn't any kind of choice for her, their marriage arranged by a pair of opportunists. When Jane is ready—when she allows herself to be—he doesn't want to look at her and read in her face that she came to him after suppressing her better judgement. He won't be the devil in her ear. She's thrown enough names at him: vagabond, brigand, knave, rake (repeatedly rake). He couldn't care less if that's what others think of him, but he wants to be sure Jane knows better.

"No," she says, then admits, "Yes," with a regretful wince, as he thought she would.

"It's alright," he tells her. He steps back to give her room to stand.

"You understand?"

Guildford chuckles. "I didn't say that, but until you do, it's alright."

"What don't I understand?" Jane asks defensively.

"I'm not exactly sure, but I trust you to tell me when you figure it out."

She looks as though she's deciding whether to find this insulting. Guildford returns her look levelly. Finally, Jane elects to let the comment pass. They've been doing more of this, he's noticed: lengthening one another's tether. Bickering less, or at least more strategically. Accepting that, every so often, the other person might have a point. It's softened the sharp edges they seemed to have at the start, when every cut was interpreted as intentional. The bite is something different now, something that makes him want to get closer instead of drawing back.

Guildford lets them out of the room, then escorts Jane to her bedchamber. He longs to linger in the doorway, casting suggestive looks into the room, but he finds his restraint. The task is monumental enough to deserve a special honour bestowed by the Queen. Maybe he'll tell her someday. Maybe he'll pretend to remember overcoming his desire to bed his wife as the greatest challenge of this stage of his life. He'll wave aside her recollections of Mary and Seymour and assassins in the woods and division in the kingdom, and say, Yes, but recall how I suffered before you deigned to want me back? She'll argue, of course (because they'll still be arguing then), not that he didn't suffer, but that she always wanted him, even when he didn't believe it.

He studies her for a final few seconds to see if this might be true before realizing it's no more fair for him to make assumptions about Jane in the future than for her to make assumptions about him in the present. He won't then. He'll only hope that she is there.

#my writing #My Lady Jane #MLJ #Jane Grey #Guildford Dudley #Jane x Guildford #My Lady Jane fic

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desire-mona · 9 months ago

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things abt dps i feel like we dont address enough (photos attached will be shit quality, i took screenshots from yt clips LMAO)

heavily ib @pencileraser1's post abt stuff he noticed n such

the fucking KIDS at welton. the CHILDREN. maybe its just me but i always find myself forgetting that welton isnt a highschool + there are in fact a lot more students than the ones we're focusing on. thats what makes welton so like. evil? to me? they start pushing these kids into a box EARLY.

related, i wouldve LOVED to see how(/if?) keating taught these kids, or rly any other class! he has other classes!!! i think!

ok. of course. neil is a smoker, we've touched on that. but charlie is too?? and he's the one who provides the cigs???? obviously the easy explanation is that he does it to be rebellious and stuff but also Is There Something Else. much to think abt. also wondering where he gets his cigs but thats not rly anything i dont think.

this ones just funny but when mr perry tells the boys they can take a seat and todd simply does not. i KNOW he wasnt sitting before and he needs to unpack and stuff but ITS STILL FUNNY.

"take your seats boys"

"🧍"

also my guilty pleasure is the dps but its todd being anxious video bc man usually crack videos arent my jam but unfortunately i find it so funny

also!!! neil calling his dad sir. obviously its something so glaringly obvious that we dont need to have a discussion abt how theres a disconnect between them. like wow rly thanks mona i didnt know. but come on!!! it makes me sad!!! also they shake hands later in this scene and its the most affectionate/ friendly we see these two get. and its a handshake. and i think what makes it worse is that neil is a SUPER physically affectionate person with his friends. if u watch the movie and pay attention to how often he's touching someone else then ur gonna be like man. he rly was jumping at every opportunity huh.

something about the way neil and the boys act around mr perry makes me view him as more of a drill sargent than anything. everyone immediately stands upon him entering the room. they dont sit until given permission. it rly puts the whole military school thing into perspective but NOT ENOUGH TO SATISFY ME. as much as i hate mr perry, i wanna know what his life was like growing up. this man lived thru the great depression AND wwii, theres stories.

cam's stupid fucking face when keatings behind him larping ghosts. i will never stop talking about how sassy this kid is. the dps redheads go criminally unacknowledged in terms of comedy because OH MY GOD. CAM AND MEEKS WERE SO FUCKING FUNNY??? they both pulled the most dastardly judgemental looks and they make me cackle. a bit earlier in this scene meeks goes full 🙄🤨 on sniffles (tissue kid. i call him sniffles) and it is, without exaggeration, my fav part of the movie.

the fact that i totally thought knox was gonna fall off his bike and eat shit in this scene. it would be so out of place since dps isn't exactly full of physical comedy but GOD i still fully anticipated it. either that or him getting attacked by a bird. theres totally symbolism surrounding birds in this movie btw and idk what to make of it. if any of u lovely ppl have a theory then lmk immediately.

keating so accurately calling cam out being like "is this right is this right. am i walking right." BC YESSS. i will eventually make a fully fledged cam post but to briefly touch on it, i find cam to be very confused on what is right, usually in terms of morals. a whole situation of confusing your personal values with the rules, thinking theyre one in the same, and completely abandoning what u actually believe. unfortunately i think neils death rly amplified that nd is what led him to tattle. cuz cam is still willing to break the rules in the beginning of the movie!! he's outwardly judgemental but he still does it!! much to discuss, i promise i will eventually.

keatings face after todd yawps!!! theres not much to say here he is just so proud!!! sweet little moment!!!! keatpostin!!!!!!!!

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

u guys know im an avid knox hater but this made me giggle. rip knox overstreet u wouldve loved twitch streaming.

THE SPECIFICS OF THIS SHOT. i was gonna make a post a while ago being like "idk i find it funny that the main focus of this shot isnt even one of the poets" and then i realised that WAITTTTTTT THATS THE POINT!!!! keating reached kids besides the poets!!! u didnt have to be in the dead poets society to be affected by the way he taught his classes!!! u just had to be his student!!!!! also i love the fact that the kids who stayed seated r ASHAMED. EMBARRASSED.

the ending shot. oihghgghgg. it was SUCH a choice to set it up this way and honestly i adore peter for making it. this shot is SOOOO UNCOMFORTABLE TO LOOK AT and i love it. when i first watched this i was like "uhm ok interesting choice putting todd between this kids legs but I GET IT. one of the biggest things i remember from the film classes i took is that the way u set up shots is sooo important narratively, and one way to rly push the narrative is the space around a character in a shot. for example! if u have a character on screen surrounded by a TON of negative space then it rly emphasises how alone/ isolated they are. on the other end of the spectrum (the todd spectrum), if you surround a character in a shot with other objects or obstructions, like todd and this kids legs, then it rly emphasises how trapped and confined they are. looking at this makes me feel like. claustrophobic almost, like it's genuinely a bit harder to breathe looking at it. TODD IS STILL TRAPPED IN THAT SCHOOL. YES HE STOOD ON THE DESK AND YES HE NOW HAS THE MOTIVATION TO BE MORE CONFIDENT BC OF NEIL BUT HE! IS STILL! TRAPPED THERE!

more on todd since im on a roll here.

i was also gonna add that we dont rly talk about todd personality wise outside of poetry and anxiety but then i realised, what else is there? we dont really see much about him as a person outside of that, and i think thats the point! todd is constantly overshadowed by his brother, we know that, but i dont think we realise HOW MUCH that ties in with his entire character. quite honestly, outside of poetry and anxiety, ALL we have surrounding todd is his brother and his achievements. and of course! that makes sense! his parents want him to be just like his brother, they dont care about who he is as a person. UGH.

the desk set scene rly is the most insight we'll get into todds actual personality and desires imo, and thats what kills me. he wants a car!!!! get this boy a car!!!!!!!!! we rly see him start to open up before neils death and i wouldve LOVED to get to know todd when he's actually in a place to be himself!! but of course we never got that! sobs.

anywho. thats all i have for now. PLEASE share ur thoughts if u have any pls pls pls. encouraging discussion!! i love love love hearing about the specifics nd stuff, theres soooo much to pick apart abt this movie so i wanna hear everyones thoughts.

#desire mona #media #i wanna drink this movie dude #and smoke it #and inject it into my veins #etc #dead poets society #neil perry #todd anderson #charlie dalton #steven meeks #knox overstreet #richard cameron #john keating #banger

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villainous-queen · 2 months ago

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Just finished the most nothing of a movie I've ever seen. The premise was interesting but the entire film could have actually been ten minutes if they didn't drag everything into eternity.

Said premise was that a midwestern handman has been obsessed with two things his whole life, a girl named Fisher and a specific field; the problem is the field is owned by a grumpy old man who doesn't want him near his property and the girl can't stand to be near him. He feels pulled towards both of them but the girl keeps pulling away.

So the big reveal? He is the reincarnation of a civil war solider who wrote books for his wife, who has been reincarnated as Fisher. And the field? Contains his dead wife's body who committed suicide when he died in the civil war as well as a box containing a book about her knowledge of said reincarnation.

The movie is confusing. There's a small sub-plot about another girl who likes him but he's just not that into her. The grumpy old man may have killed someone? At least that's the runour that goes no where. He might also be a bit psychic? Because he knows to make a key for a lock he doesn't know exists but will need to save his life. A whole character is clearly there just to explain shit to the handyman because how is he gonna consider reincarnation, the man pulls out a map to find coordinates instead of google maps...

Cut down this film could have been an episode of The X-Files, and totally was one (see S05E04).

#sometimes he was a little hot though #not a lot but a little #unearthing #dastardly discussions

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yuurei20 · 1 year ago

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Strange question but!! Yk how the villains are treated as heroes? How on earth did the heroes stories work if they, uh, yk, dont have the villains? Like i briefly remember TWST!Jafar hijacking Aladdin’s plan to fake being a prince, so theres not rlly any more “aladdin” story, but im curious how other stories went if u know! Are the OG heroes still treated as heroes, etc etc, that fun stuff

Hello hello! Thank you so much for this question!!

The different interpretations of history that seem exist in Twst are fascinating, and one of my favorite things is the part in Book 6 where Lilia seems to insinuate that the Disney stories that we know might not actually be what really happened, because history is written by the victors:

These "classic" stories--were they, too, twisted to suit an agenda? Is the truth closer to what is taught as history in Twst, or is it somewhere in the middle? It is so interesting to think about!

For the most part it seems that the heroes from the stories we know are not turned into villains in Twst, and the deeds that are attributed to them were actually done by multiple characters from different folklore:

For example, Harveston has stories about miners and customs based on "a young lady who made a wish at a well," a "traveler" who cleaned a stranger's home and then a tale about "some princess who wished to fall in love right away," as if the young lady, princess and traveler are three separate people.

While basing their traditions on the miners, the lady and traveler, they also deify the Fairest Queen, as if they are all independent individuals with no overlap.

One of the more interesting parts of the Fairest Queen's history, in particular, is that there is actually a "dastardly villain" in Harveston folklore that stalks a woman who is then saved by forest creatures.

The huntsman is--just like the queen--not a villain in the Twst universe. Who was who, and what really happened? 👀

For the Scalding Sands, it seems that the unnamed princess and the sultan from local stories are just as revered as the Sorcerer of the Sands himself, with the sultan known to be the person who named the Sorcerer as his vizier and retaining their connection from the story we know.

Much like in Harveston, the history of the Scalding Sands seems to attribute what we believe to be the history of just one character to multiple individuals: Kalim talks about the Sorcerer saving his country from a street rat, who was a swindler/charlatan/usurper who tried to trick the sultan and princess, in a rare case of a "hero" being vilified.

But they also have folklore about "a poor but kind-hearted young man" who shared his food with children, and whose marriage to the beautiful princess they celebrate every year with a festival.

Whereas the Disney movies make the charlatan and the kind man into one person, in Twst's history it seems they were two different people.

Diasomnia is very big on the Thorn Fairy, and they also talk about the human king who feared her, the princess whose birthday she was not invited to (Silver: "Was their king raised in a barn?") and the three presents that the princess received.

Lilia talks about a trio of fairies that were not able to break the Thorn Fairy's curses and also put an entire kingdom to sleep, while Silver comments on how Lilia is consciously, intentionally emulating the three fairies from that tale with his cooking.

Silver and Malleus discuss "some faeries" raising a child for 16 years without magic, but they do not seem to know why they did so, and it is unclear if they believe that those faeries and the three faeries that put the kingdom to sleep are the same or different people.

Heartslabyul seems to separate Alice into two different characters as well, referring to a 1-km-tall giant that the Queen of Hearts tried in court and a child that got lost in the castle as if they were two people.

The only reference we get of the "heroes" of the Lion King tale are Jack referring to the King of Beast's "rascal of a nephew" and Leona mentioning that he deposed his brother "to build a better, wiser kingdom."

While the characters seem similar to the stories we know it's possible that the timelines are slightly different, with the rebirth of the pridelands being attributed to the King of Beasts himself rather than his nephew.

The history of the Sea Witch in Twst might be the most fascinating: the characters reference the Sea Witch taking someone's voice for a contract and making a shapeshifting potion to facilitate love between a mermaid and a human, but also turning herself into a human and being proposed to by a prince the next day, with no acknowledgement that the human from the first tale and the prince from the second might have been the same person.

They also talk about the eels flipping over a boat and a mermaid princess who had trouble walking on land, but there is no mention of the princess being in the boat in the eel story.

Octavinelle even acknowledges that the Sea Witch once made herself huge and sunk a ship with a whirlpool and "some even labeled her a monster," saying that she was later lauded as a compassionate figure after turning over a new leaf. (While the less-than-pleasant deeds done by the Sorcerer, the Fairest Queen and the King of Beasts in the stories that we know are never mentioned.)

Silver's tale from Halloween seems to be an exception to this rule. Everything done by the "hero" in the tale we know is still attributed to the hero in the story that Silver knows, and the enemy army is still the enemy army.

To the initial question: it seems that the heroes from the histories that we know are still being regarded as heroes in Twst (though they tend to get separated into multiple people), while the characters that we know as villains are also highly regarded. This sometimes includes their pasts (in the case of the Sea Witch and the Queen of Hearts), being separated from their pasts (in the case of the Hunter) or with no mention of their pasts (the King of Beasts, the Sorcerer of the Sands, the Fairest Queen, the Thorn Fairy).

(Not a lot of information about the King of the Underworld when compared to the others! Idia mostly just talks about how charismatic he was. Ortho suggests something about "the truth" about him being closer to Idia's own situation than they have been taught, but Idia is not convinced.)

Also: there is a reference to a hero rescuing his ladylove from the Underworld in Book 6, so it seems the hero in that tale remains a hero in Twst as well!

#twstask

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tickety-boooo · 7 months ago

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Some good omens limericks to brighten your day!

There once was an angel divine, Whose halo so brightly did shine, From demons he fled, Pulled halo from head, Exploded to buy them more time!

There once was a demon from hell, Who didn't like people too well, But a friend he did find, In the loving divine, An angel we'll call Mr. Fell.

I grimace, my patience worn thin, "Our car!" he'd said, sporting a grin, A dastardly fellow, He turned my car yellow! With travel sweets placed in a tin!

We stand here atop a great wall, Admiring the beauty of all, Discussing the weather, He shields me with feather-y Wings, as the rain starts to fall.

The demon arrives at my shop, I argue my point to the top, He twirls and he sings, Apology things, And for that I must give him props.

These were super fun to write! I just might have to create more of them soon!

#good omens #good omens fanart #good omens writing #good omens poetry #good omens poems #limerick #poetry #poems #aziraphale #az fell #crowley #aj crowley #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman #terry pratchett #my poetry #ticketyboooo posts

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miraculouslbcnreactions · 8 months ago

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What is a character's core?

I've used this term and variants of it in a few of my posts and I wanted to take a quick moment to define it because I'm not sure how commonly discussed this topic is, but it's an important one to keep in mind when evaluating and writing certain types of media.

Most genres of fiction make use of standard character roles/tropes. The plucky sidekick, the dastardly villain, the last girl, and so on. This isn't a bad thing. The existence of this stuff is a big part of how we define genres and how we evaluate writing quality. For example, if you're writing a romance, you're going to have romantic leads. Two (or more) individuals who will be together by the end of the story. If these roles don't exist, then you don't have a romance. And if their relationship feels toxic and unhealthy? You may not have a romance. Or, at least, not a classic romance. The worse the relationship is, the more you wander into the genre of "dark romance," which is all about enjoying deeply unhealthy fictional relationships.

This brings us to Miraculous and why I feel comfortable defending Adrien and Marinette as victims of bad writing.

Unless the writers are doing something truly insane, the love square is our end game couple. The ones destined for a happily ever after. That means that everything the writers do with these two and their relationship can be evaluated through the lens of, "are you honoring the characters' roles as the romantic leads?" And if the answer is, "No?" Then the writers are failing because "romantic lead" is a defining aspect of these characters. It isn't what they should be, it's what they are. Anything that goes against them being a good couple is bad writing.

This doesn't mean that they must be perfect. They're allowed to make mistakes and have flaws. Those are the sorts of things that drive a story! But the mistakes and flaws have to be treated as such by the narrative, they have to have some sort of resolution, and they have to be maintained in balance with the whole "love interest" thing. Too many mistakes and flaws and we've gone from "romance" to "tragedy," which is what I'd currently define Miraculous as.

This role evaluation thing isn't limited to romantic leads. Any character that has a clear role in the story can be evaluated via this criteria. For example, Alya is clearly meant to be a good best friend and reliable confidant for Marinette. You can tell this because of things like her learning Marinette's identity and her helping Marinette discover the secrets of the miraculous, big story moment that are treated as positives by the narrative. So anything Alya does that makes her feel like a bad friend is bad writing. It's why I get the Alya salt, but don't participate because I can't view her as the awful person the Lila stuff makes her out to be. That's not who Alya is narratively speaking.

Generally speaking, this core/role thing is my main way of evaluating characters in genre content like Miraculous. It's the driving force behind most of the character discussion on this blog and something I strongly encourage people to think about if they enjoy reading/writing genre content as it's a great guideline! Figure out the role a character is supposed to be in, generally honor that role, and you're golden! You have room for flaws and conflicts while still having something to keep you in check from straying too far off course.

#ml writing salt #ml writing critical #writing advice

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lexicorp · 4 days ago

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Transformers Earthspark: Another Place, Another Prison

[screenshot edit thats a bit silly--the maltos are actually generally rather chill even with star being a bit of a lil shit lmao]

This chapter really shoves Starscream into a social gathering with all da peeps for a series of goofy games. Which he roasts the shit out of the majority of the time. He's more into it at the start and gets progressively more drained from it all. It's not as fun if you don't plow the competition after all--XD

just a chap with fun family shenanigans and definitely nothing sus

Previous Chapter: Bee's Good Guy Crash Course

First Chapter: The Need For Read

Next Chapter: Make or Break

Chapter 11: Family Feud

The “Malto Family Game Night”. An intriguing premise. One Bumblebee thought he should drag Starscream into, it seemed, despite the title clearly only set to invite those who are real members of their collective. It even seemed a stretch that the humans and Terrans considered Bumblebee an “honorary” member to begin with. The Terrans, as Earthen cybernetic children, theoretically shared some level of kinship with humans to an extent. As well as apparently being bonded to them on a deeper level. But both he and Bumblebee had no such connection, why should they be roped into human nonsense?

Why would they allow them to encroach on their little tradition? Perhaps this was some sort of test pertaining to the practice the bug had wanted Starscream to get, after his little lecture. A challenge to see how well Starscream could interact with them.

Well, for whatever goal the bug had, he certainly could stand a bit of competition. A chance to destroy them at their own ridiculous games? Irresistible. The anticipation of victory, especially one he could lord over the scout later, might just make the growing chaos around him bearable.

There were too many conversations about too many things being discussed in one room. He’d tried to track a few, but quickly found his audials begin to mute the chatter with a light ringing. If it hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to stop himself from calling them all into order himself.

Finally, Hashtag got everyone’s attention and pointed to the whiteboard that now held doodles of all their faceplates, separated into groups. “Alright fam! The teams we’ve decided on are: Me, J.B, and Nightshade with our name NightTagBreaker! Mom and Dad as Purple. Thrash and Mo as Mash–”

“‘Cause we’re gonna MASH the competition!” Thrash cheered as he smacked servos with his human partner.

Hashtag didn’t even seem fazed by the interruption, and scoffed without a hint of disdain. “We’ll see about that! There’s also Robbie and Twitch–”

“Their team’s name is Twobbie.” Mo said with the most dastardly smirk toward her brother, and a mocking tone to the name.

Robbie and Twitch both stood with crossed arms, the human retorting first with an air of superiority. “Uh no. Our name is Twin Blades!”

Twitch plucked her swords from her back and twirled them as an example with a proud grin. “We’ve got the blades, and we’re basically twins. And way cooler than Mash.”

Thrash gasped melodramatically with a servo to his chassis, “How dare you!”

“We’ll see who has the cooler name when we beat you!” Mo shot back with a throw of a digit in their direction. Threats so early in the competition? Bold.

Hashtag edited the name on the board discreetly, then turned to ask, “What’d you guys decide on for your name Bee? I was thinking it could be StarBee or Beam for the combo style like ours–” She gestured to her two partners– “Or BugBird, because y’know, Bee is bug coded and Starscream can fly. OR you could be Primary! Because together you have yellow, red, and blue!”

Starscream took his servo from under his faceplate to tip it at the crowd, straightening his posture with a slight tilt of his helm as he offered confidently, “Why not simply call us The Victors?” He wasn’t exactly thrilled that they had just decided that he was paired with the bug, but that wouldn’t change his plans of total domination over this strange event.

Many of them rolled their optics at Starscream’s proclamation, but Hashtag actually had to stop herself from laughing. Not entirely the correct response. Still, at least she was amused, rather than angered by his insinuation.

Bumblebee shook his helm in a way that Starscream couldn’t tell if he actually disapproved or not. “StarBee is fine, Hashtag.” He determined, then mumbled, “Even if it would be nice if my name was first…”

“Well, you always were more of just the backup, rather than a leader, scout.” Starscream pointed out haughtily. “Obviously my piece of the title would come first.”

Bumblebee glared at him, “I am not your backup! We’re partners and this is friendly competition! And please try to remember what I was telling you yesterday…” He sounded exasperated.

Starscream dropped his smirk and crossed his arms to align himself with a more professional posture. “Are you going to disclose the rubric, or will your little test be void of any comprehensible scale like all of your Autobot riddles?”

Bumblebee was about to respond, but the Malto matriarch, Dorothy, interrupted. “No tests. We are not making game night about work again. Right Bee?” The bug nodded, looking rather guilty. “We’re here to have fun.”

“Yeah!” Twitch flew up to meet Starscream’s faceplate, “So don’t you ruin it! Family time is sacred!”

Starscream leaned slightly toward her, thoroughly unamused. “Yes, how dare I encroach on your ridiculous expression of familial bonding.”

“Okay guys!” Hashtag interjected, “This isn’t exactly supposed to be the mood of this scene. Can we rein it in please?” She looked more at Starscream than her sibling, with a pleading look to her optics. Twitch backed down, as did he.

“Wonderful!” Nightshade collected a set of cards that seemed to be sized for Cybertronians. “The first game Hashtag and I decided upon from the list of requests, is Uno! Three teams will be in one group, and two in another.”

“Then we shuffle it until every team has had a chance to go against each other!” Hashtag added while shuffling the cards and splitting the deck into two stacks. “First group will be NightTagBreaker, Twin Blades, and Mash; then Purple and StarBee.”

“Would it not make more sense to put the team of three into the group with just two teams?” Starscream asked not as much for some level of fairness, but more in the hopes that he could avoid interacting with Megatron’s little spy. He’d much rather attempt their card game with Hashtag and Nightshade.

“I mean, maybe, but we’ll get there eventually.” Hashtag gave him an awkward smile, then quickly moved on. Scrap.

They all took to their tables and dealt the cards. Starscream attempted to read the rules from the little box that was cast aside, but Dorothy’s human conjunx told him that it was apparently quite simple. Same color, same number or action, and you could play your card on your turn. The wild card and plus four were clearly above all the other pathetic actions in the roster. Although the skip option was satisfyingly petty. Starscream managed to skip Bumblebee three times in a row, in fact, which he found hilarious.

The bug however, was less amused, “We’re supposed to be on the same team! Could you maybe not sabotage me and actually try and collaborate?!”

“Only one of us needs to win to get the credit. I don’t need your help to claim victory over these humans at this silly game.”

“I don’t know about that.” Dorothy tauntingly raised her singular card. “Uno.”

“WHAT?” Starscream’s wings flared and he looked over at the bug’s absurdly large set of cards, then slammed a servo on the table to get his attention. “Unleash a counterattack you fool! You must have something in that embarrassing stack in your servos!”

“Oh look who came crawling back for my help.” The scout hoarded his cards with juvenile snark.

Starscream stuttered and his optic twitched as he growled through gritted dentas. “Excuse me, but if you don’t we both lose you bit-brained idiot!”

“How about not calling your partner names, and actually asking nicely? Or just working with me instead of acting like I’m still your enemy?”

The bug was a stubborn fool. Ask nicely? Did they expect him to phrase orders as optionary as the Prime did? That’s ridiculous! And of course the bug was still his enemy! How stupid was this mech? Bumblebee had been the first to point a blaster at Starscream in the Titan. Just because the Autobots were acting as if something had changed, didn’t mean anything. This was all just another assignment for the scout.

Wait…who said that Starscream couldn’t simply take the bug’s cards and do it himself? If they were on the same team, then what did it matter who carried out the move? He didn’t know what stupid arrangement of words they wanted from him. It’d be far easier to–

Starscream forcefully snatched the cards from Bumblebee’s servos in a crimson flash, and slapped down a plus two to destroy the Malto’s hope of victory. He made sure to keep his own remaining two cards safe from getting lost amidst his stolen pile. The bug complained and tossed his servos around before attempting to steal his cards back, as Starscream pushed against his faceplate to hold him off.

Then, Dorothy cleared her throat before crossing her arms. “I win.”

“Wha–HOW?!” Starscream shoved the bug aside before pointing a digit at the human. “You lost your turn and were supposed to gain additional cards as the action dictates! You couldn't have possibly won!”

Oh, so this fleshling aimed to lecture him now? And since when could actions be placed upon one another as a means of canceling the other out? That made no sense with the rest of the rules! Sure, if you were not at the receiving end and were simply the player that is being skipped towards–but mid-action?? That was ridiculous, she made that up!

Her optical ridge rose and she tapped the card plainly placed upon the one he’d taken from Bumblebee. “My last card was a plus two, and I can stack it on yours. Maybe, you should have actually talked it out with your partner.”

Lightning flickered between his wings. He didn’t lose. She’d only crafted some absurd reason to disguise the fact that she was clearly only attempting to prove some point, and make Starscream look like an idiot. That’s what it was. But he couldn’t do anything about it. The human was Megatron’s little agent. Starscream would be scrapped if he did anything against her.

Starscream’s optics were burning as he wished again that he could set those blasted cards ablaze with only his processor. This game was just another tool for them to mock him. His vents were the same.

“Chill, it’s not like losing one game is the end of the world. Even if I am definitely blaming this loss, on you. I was just the card draw scrapyard–” Bumblebee was attempting to retrieve the scattered cards, and Starscream reflexively grabbed his wrist and pulled the scout up as he rose to his peds.

“This IS your fault!” Starscream said dangerously, even as the scout transformed out his blaster with his other servo. But as a deafening silence strangled the cavern, and Starscream stared into the bug's startled yet defiant optics…he hated it. He was doing it again.

His anger attempted to subside, replaced by something else as his grip loosened on the bug. But the curse didn’t seem to approve of that, and it instead tried to channel its power into the servo which mistakenly held Bumblebee. Starscream’s optics widened and he wrenched his servo away. Then yelped as he found Wheeljack’s little device had sent an equal pulse up his ped in some pathetic counterattack to the power. Instead of neutralizing the surge at his servo, all it did was make him fly back clumsily, and hit his helm on the ground. All while the power still felt as if his arm was being ripped apart by scraplets.

“Uh, you guys okay over there??” Twitch called from their own game.

“Ugh…Peachy.” Bumblebee commented dryly as he picked himself up after having apparently fallen back as well. “Someone is just a sore loser.”

Starscream only sat up to grip his violently shaking servo as he glared at it. He wasn’t like Megatron. “Perhaps…It was an overreaction.” He couldn’t apologize. He was too distracted. But he could acknowledge the bug’s point. Maybe that would be enough.

Bumblebee watched him a moment before a ridiculous grin came to his faceplate. “No kidding.”

The scout offered Starscream a servo, and he stared at it hesitantly as the lightning slowly died from his frame. He didn’t smack it away, but he didn’t take it either. Instead, he forced his annoyingly numb right ped to cooperate as he pulled himself up. “Besides, with the human’s knack for simply realigning the rules to her whim, how could either of us be at fault? Megatron clearly taught her well.”

“Excuse me?” Dorothy put her servos on her hips. Apparently his comment was somehow offensive. Even the buckethead’s agent detested being compared to him. How poetic.

Starscream paced to give himself enough distance from bot and human alike, before tipping a servo and his hip out in unbridled sass with an innocent vocalizer, “Oh but I’d never blame you for such a thing. In fact, I might have pulled such a stunt myself if we were more acquainted. Although that was a bit of a clumsy rule you constructed in your haste. Perhaps I could give you some advice for–”

Dorothy put her servo up to silence him. “No. I didn’t make it up. Well, not right at that moment–it’s just a common house rule for the game. It makes things a bit more interesting, and can lead to crazy close calls like that.”

“Yes we would never cheat! Especially Dottie!” Her conjunx attested with a protective servo around her shoulder, which she patted with hers. Disgusting.

Starscream’s faceplate scrunched at their show of affection, but willed himself to put on a smile. “I meant no disrespect, truly.” He gave her a half-afted bow, then began assisting the bug in collecting the cards that had fallen to the floor. “So I assume we shall be shuffling the groups now then?”

Not a moment later, there was an obnoxious uproar from the kids as the Twin Blades team celebrated their victory. They had their own argument about how it was achieved, yet it seemed more out of curiosity for their strategy. Of which they happily went into dramatized detail. They all laughed and congratulated them, with playful counters at how close it had been. No one was angry, or accusatory. The only touch they shared was gentle. Starscream stared at them, transfixed.

Sure, it was not as if he had always fought with his trinemates over such silly things. But still, there had typically been some sort of transition into a wrestling match to settle the true victor. Anything close to that here was meager at best. He wasn’t surprised…only, afflicted with a strange sense of yearning. Which was ridiculous.

“Sounds like it.” Bumblebee remarked as he placed the now reforged stack of cards on their table, then added teasingly, “Are you actually going to be my teammate this time, fly boy?”

“Yes, it seems that might be necessary.” Starscream avoided the bug’s optics as he took his seat again.

Team NightTagBreaker switched places with Purple. He didn’t quite care for the dinobot, but the other two terrans could be rather pleasant. Although it did seem that “J.B.” was far more focused on the game than attempting to bite his peds this time.

Starscream and Hashtag shared a glance, and he was the first to break the silence between them, “Do not expect us to go easy on you.” Mimicking her siblings’ manner of playful banter.

“Wouldn’t dream of it!” She responded with a theatrical tone and servo to her chassis.

“If anyone should be going easy, it is us!” Nightshade added, to which the dinobot seemed to finish the thought.

“Yeah! Because–we are three bots, and you are not.”

“Don’t think that numbers are everything kids.” Bumblebee warned as he fanned out his new selection of cards in his servos.

This time, Starscream collaborated with the bug as they discreetly disclosed which cards they possessed, and plotted how to best use them. He used his skips to instead protect his unlikely ally from unwanted card draw, until he could change the color again. As well as parrying reverses, or waiting until the other also had a plus two, as to avoid friendly fire. Perhaps that strange rule could be rather useful, when he actually knew to utilize it. Then, he also did not see why they could not stack other actions in such a way as well…

When the scout had called Uno, the dinobot attempted to skip him to postpone their victory. Unbeknownst to them, Bumblebee also had a skip card, but the bug did not place it down. A pause for dramatic effect?

Starscream cast aside his own useless cards and smacked the bug’s shoulder plating. “Reveal your card already you–eh, just what are you waiting for? We won. Cancel their action with yours!”

Bumblebee looked baffled as he stared at his card then back at Starscream. “What?? Jawbreaker skipped me, I can’t cancel that. It’s your turn. Why don’t you use that reverse card you had?”

Starscream’s wings pulled back and he ripped his cards back off the table to hit them with his other servo. “This scrap will do nothing to change it to the correct color! Why on Cybertron can you not just do as that human did before?! Countering an action of equal title mid-attack is perfectly legal in your stupid house rules! We’ve even done it multiple times this round, how is this any different?”

“Stacking only works with the plus two’s and four’s,” Nightshade attempted to explain their absurd standards, “It is not as if you can add onto one skip with another.”

“Uh-huh, you can’t do that Starscream, that’d be cheating.” J.B. insisted like a foolish child. “Right? Because, that’s definitely against the rules.”

Lightning jumped across Starscream’s frame again.

How was he the one cheating? Their “mom” had come up with it first! Noone had cared when she did it. How did it make any less sense to use the skip card in such a way than the other one? Of course the skips could be added onto one another! All they’d need to do is make it a double skip so that–if he and the scout didn’t already win–it’d send the next turn over to Hashtag. How was that concept so hard for them to understand? This game was stupid.

Bumblebee nudged him, “Hey, we haven’t lost yet!” Starscream didn’t look at him, nor say anything for a long stint of time. “C’moooon, what cards ya got huh?”

Starscream’s optics flickered red and he took in an extended vent, then hiked his wings up with a strained grin and peak to his vocalizer. “Fine, yes, of course! Let's look at what cards I have. Numbers and a single useless reverse action? That will surely lead us to victory. Especially, when as soon as I place something down, those three will no doubt begin a chain of plus two actions of which you would be defenseless against. Or a plus four. Or they could start a reverse chain between one another. Or lock us in a color neither of us have in a plot to instigate the idiotic notion of infinite card draw!”

“You don’t know what cards we have,” Hashtag seemed to be getting frustrated with him, “And besides, it’s just a game. If we outplay you, we win, it’s not that deep!”

“Well, Uno does contain a higher percentage of RNG than skill, but that is a fair point regardless.” Nightshade nodded.

“Um, so, can we just…finish the game now?” J.B asked meekly.

Starscream’s wings swiveled up and down as he forced the stupid power back into the corner of his spark. “Sure.” He could play nice for Hashtag’s sake.

The game proceeded just about as insufferably as he anticipated. He and the bug ended with far too many cards, and Nightshade claimed the win for their team. That was fine. He didn’t care.

Every other match of that accursed Uno left Starscream and Bumblebee once again so close, only for it to be ripped away time and time again. Every instance, more inane than the last. How could they have not even won once?! The last time was entirely the bug’s fault, when he’d blatantly ignored Starscream’s order. He made sure to tell the scout just how stupid that had been, but then the others only seemed to get mad at Starscream for it instead!

The next game that was chosen attempted to usurp the last in stupidity. The “tic-tac-toe” was near impossible to not end in a tie. It had to be replayed repetitively until a victor was concluded. It was boring, exceedingly plain, and the only viable strategy was far too easily thwarted. In fact, when Starscream was in the midst of cornering their opponent, they instead reversed it back onto him! Bumblebee had obviously ruined the whole thing with his insistence on starting in the middle when it was clearly best to start at a corner. Even when they finally did manage to succeed in one matchup, it was anticlimactic as slag.

The next was a quite straightforward game titled “Spot-it”. All that needed to be done was match an icon on your own card with the one in the discard. And finally, Starscream was able to dominate. Every single match, he rapidly pinpointed the correct image and practically blazed through his entire stack with only minute lapses in his speed. No one stood in his way! No one even got a chance! It was glorious!

Starscream laughed maniacally as he gained yet another point without the pathetic aid of the bug. “HAHAH you all are not even TRYING! This game is far too easy. Or perhaps you simply have a slow processor for such things, eh, Bumblebee?” He flicked the bug’s helm and fluttered his wings. Elated that he at long last obtained even a fleeting moment of triumph amongst them. “Good thing you have me to carry your constant lag.”

Bumblebee glared at him, then rolled his optics, “Riiiight. You’re taking this whole thing way too seriously.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Starscream stated in a more dismissive than questioning manner with a slight tip of his helm and a shrug. “What’s next then?”

“Pictionary!” Hashtag held up the box with far more excitement than she’d had previously. “Nightshade and I even made more little figurines and an extended board for all of us to play together!” She and her sibling began the setup, while J.B. distributed the items required for each team. “The person who draws whatever it is rotates, then the others on your team need to guess what the person is trying to show them! The color on the board determines what subject it is, and you kinda get a bit of a clue on what it is from that too.”

Simple enough, if the bug could draw a straight line. Starscream claimed the marker first, as he was far more confident in his own artistic ability. The first object he got was a “basketball”. He didn’t know what that was, but he did know how to depict a basket and a ball separately. Surely the scout could comprehend an icon based word puzzle as simple as that. Which he did. But the words only got stranger from there, and that is where their downfall began.

The worst of it was when there had been the perfect opportunity to draw himself throwing Megatron into the Pit–for the action topic of course–and the blasted timer ran out before he could finish! Apparently there needed to be some sort of middle ground in which to prioritize what details were necessary. He could make sacrifices for the sake of their victory, sure, yet it was still disappointing. How was he to find any sort of satisfaction in this game, if he could not at the bare minimum depict the buckethead getting tossed into a scrapheap?

Items like “Taylor Swift”, “Swan”, or “Cell Phone”, were ridiculous. Was he supposed to have done research before this blasted thing? They had to redraw cards in an attempt to acquire a usable item multiple times. Yet even then, there were many moments where the bug had far too much confidence in his ability to depict whatever it was he’d gotten. His illustrative skill was predictively lacking, and he was lucky Starscream had been able to make out any of it at all. At the very least, Bumblebee was adequate at determining what Starscream was forced to illustrate.

Although he would admit that this game certainly seemed the most balanced, those with their ridiculous bonds and understanding of one another, inevitably gained some sort of advantage. Which got annoying fast. Every little moment longer the scout took to guess what the item was, or the next incoherent blob he depicted, made the tapping of Starscream’s ped quicken.

Starscream growled and his wings flicked back, “NOW what is it?” He squinted as the crude image began to take some sort of shape. “The Autobots?” The bug shook his helm and gestured for it to be more general. “Cybertronians?” A gesture for him to elaborate. “What other word is there!?–” His optics flashed red, with a brief moment of his spark feeling as though it were being wrenched out of his intake, as the word came to him–“Transformers.” A disgustingly rudimentary title. Of course that was all that they were reduced to in this human game under the subject of pop culture.

He was correct. But he still felt distant from the bug’s excitement toward their apparent close call. Starscream hit a servo against his own helm in an effort to knock out whatever had possessed him. This reflex was evidently questionable, but he was easily able to brush it off. He couldn’t have his processor glitching in the midst of this event. It would not only be quite discomfiting, but would also bring more petty disruption to something the Terrans seemed to have put a great deal of effort into. He had to keep it under control.

By the end of it, he and the bug only managed to cross half of the spaces needed to win. Infuriating. Starscream despised losing. They weren’t even able to claim second best. Pathetic.

By the next game, Starscream was decidedly over it.

This “Charades” only served to make one dance around like a fool in some absurd hope at expressing the word on their slip of flimsy scrap. It was near identical to the concept of the last, but regressed into something far less tolerable. Perhaps it could be more amusing if it was less about imitating Earth creatures and instead aimed toward mimicking someone else in their group. That had been a favorite amongst his trinemates back in the more tolerable cycles amidst the Decepticons.

Bumblebee flapped his arms around stupidly as he attempted to display what he’d plucked from the pile. He looked utterly ridiculous. Starscream would never catch himself offline doing such a thing. What was the bug even supposed to be? He was acting as though he were attempting to fly, similar to how Nightshade seems to need to operate their alt mode. Clearly some form of Earthen avian, but how was he supposed to know which classification was required?

“Ugh,” Starscream rubbed his optics, “what do you call those tiny avian creatures on this planet?”

“Birds!” Twitch chirped in an oddly endearing manner.

“Right. That is what he is, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, basically.” Bumblebee halted mid motion to shrug, then whirled his arms around before finding his balance again. “Think we can count that one Alex?”

“Mmm…” Dorothy’s conjunx, Alex, squeaked his uncertainty at the notion. Obviously unsatisfied with such a vague answer.

Dorothy smacked his shoulder, although it looked like it barely connected. “I think we can give it to ‘em. Starscream hasn’t exactly gotten as acquainted with what all our little guys here are called yet.”

“I don’t need your pity points, human.” Starscream muttered in a visceral hiss. When would he have had the time to study such things? Why should he care what all these birds were labeled on this insufferable planet? He had far better things to do! Starscream had a million other exceedingly more important matters that required his brilliant processor, than reverting back to cataloging miscellaneous fauna on some backwater rock!

“Oh, I suppose it’s alright.” Alex relented, none the wiser to Starscream’s bitter comment. “Why don’t you try another one, Bee?”

Bumblebee chuckled as the timer ran out, “Sorry pal, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until next time to witness my famously flawless acting skills. How about you and Dot go next? Gotta show me your moves too!”

Starscream watched the rest of them play out what remained of the game with blank optics. The images he processed paced in a choppy framerate, and the clarity distorted to a lower quality. A moment's glance at the scoreboard told him that there was absolutely no way they would win in the larger scheme of things. It meant nothing. He couldn’t even attempt to sabotage the competition, or challenge the validity of his competitors' victories. He’d surely get caught, and only gain pointless drama that’d get him into trouble. Which he did not need more of.

Had he even passed that scout’s stupid test? Even if Starscream didn’t claim the more favorable glory he sought, it’d be worse if the failure was calculated against whatever new standard Megatron sought from him. Starscream was actually surprised his ever looming Lord hadn’t made further appearance by now. He was sure something was bound to happen soon. Perhaps this was all some sort of means to get him to let his guard down. Or to determine what could be used to force him in line. Megatron might be getting a byte more creative in his time as a traitor. Even if he was attempting some type of psychological approach, surely he’d revel in any excuse to beat the slag out of Starscream for any reason he could pull out his exhaust pipe.

This whole ordeal seemed too calm. Too casual. They all had many moments of clear annoyance towards him, yet constantly held themselves back but only a few meager remarks. It was not as if he held any particular power in this situation to warrant them to fear standing against him. They only seemed unsure, or dismissive. Even occasionally acting as if their apprehension was entirely absent. They were clearly hiding something.

Starscream had been lost in his own thoughts for so long, that he’d just about missed their little awards ceremony to conclude the night. That was until there was a crack and pop that sent a far too familiar shock through his muddled audials. He flinched and stumbled backwards away from the noise. Nearly trampling one of the Terrans but unable to utter an apology as he barely processed their presence.

It was only a device to distribute colorful material over the crowd. Their laughter was mocking him. Their celebration over their stupid series of trials that they rigged towards their own success, was disorienting.

Starscream was done. He’d played their games. He was not about to attempt to decode what they wanted next.

He stealthily retreated back into his corner of the cavern. It hadn’t been all horrible, he supposed…Regardless, he was tired. They were all too loud in the wrong way.

The curse flared with thoughts echoing some stupid impulse that’d use its power to blast them into oblivion. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about any of it. Then their threat would be neutralized.

But that wasn’t right.

Lightning flickered and stabbed across his frame as he now sat with his wings to those soaring seekers on the wall. He just wanted to leave. To fly away to a Cybertron where they were waiting for him. Where he too could enjoy such festivities. Where they’d cheer his name for his achievements. Where he could revel in their praise–perhaps even…alongside his trinemates, untainted by his mistakes.

Where…it would all feel real.

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