#different critique rings different I guess

[fallloverfic]

I'm not sure why people go into fandom tags to shit on fictional media they voluntarily choose to read. Especially when there are versions of the media made available to avoid the stuff they don't like. It seems like a weird form of self-harm and trying to be kind of an asshole to a community you seem to not like anyway.

[waywardxwords]

Empty

Summary: Ten months ago, Sam threw himself and Lucifer into the cage. While Dean went off to live happily with Lisa and Ben, you couldn’t bring yourself to live a “normal” life. While on a hunt, your trail leads to Lansing, Michigan where you get your hopes up when you stumble upon the Sam Winchester in a dive bar. Instead, bumping into the man you had fallen for years before leaves you feeling empty. Pairing: Soulless!Sam x Female Reader Word Count: ~4.1k Warnings: IF YOU ARE UNDER THE AGE OF 18, PLEASE STOP READING. THIS IS RATED M FOR MATURE. Soulless!Sam, swearing, smut (p in v, unprotected), slightly angsty, sadness, feeling used…Sam is kind of a douchebag in this (hello, he has no soul) - I would also like to preface that I'm still new at this whole ~writing smut~ thing, so please be kind but I am 10000% open to critique/feedback!

A cloud of cigarette smoke pooled above the bar as your boots clicked upon the hardwood of a little dive bar in Lansing, Michigan. It had been ten months since everything changed–Sam in the pit as Lucifer’s vessel, and Dean off living the life he had always deserved with Lisa and Ben. You were happy for him, truly. But that life wasn’t your life. Once you knew about all that went bump in the night, there was no going back. Thankfully, you had found Alice McCaffrey. Bobby had introduced you when you told him you wanted to get back out there. “You don’t hunt alone,” he had warned you. Alice was a little older than you, but you seemed to gel well. It wasn’t like hunting with the Winchesters, but it was still fine. 

The two of you found a small, round table towards the back of the bar where there were billiard tables and took your place on the stools.

“I just don’t get it,” Alice gnawed a little at her bottom lip. “We tracked that trail all the way here…there’s no way it just goes cold.” There was plenty of evidence floating around that the Shapeshifter was here, in Lansing. And when you said ‘the’, you meant the one and only: first of its kind, Daddy Shapeshifter; the one who created all shapeshifters. 

“I mean, this thing has been alive for how many years?” You toyed with a round paperboard coaster in your hands. “He could just be that good. He’s used to evading hunters for centuries.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she grumbled, but you knew she wasn’t going to let it go. That was fine by you, but in the meantime…

“I’m gonna grab a beer, you want anything?” You asked her as you thumbed to the bar.

“Yeah, one for me, too. But none of that light shit…see if they have a Guinness or something,” she pulled out her laptop and her leatherbound journal. 

Just as you turned to walk towards the bar, you caught sight of him. Him. The him you had mourned (and were still mourning, if you were honest with yourself). Your breath caught in your throat as his tall, broad frame stood over a billiard table. The bright light above the table accented each of his features–nothing had changed, really, besides his hair maybe being a tiny bit longer and it looked like he had been working out again. His eyes grazed over the green baize fabric on the table to check his next move. 

You didn’t want to make a scene, but this wasn’t possible…there was no way in Hell this man could be standing in front of you. You quickly pulled your cell phone from your pocket and dialed the familiar number. You refused to pull your eyes away as you watched for any sudden movements.

“Bobby?” You asked when he answered after just the third ring. “You got any idea why I’m standing in a bar in Michigan looking at Sam Winchester right now?”

As if on cue, Sam seemed to feel your gaze as he pulled his eyes up from the table and found yours. 

“Balls,” Bobby grumbled as you listened to his drawl through the receiver of the phone. “Listen, it’s Sam…but I didn’t say anything ‘cause I didn’t want ya to get hurt…” you weren’t sure what that meant. Sam had already started his pace over to you. There was a smile upon his lips, but it seemed different. “Something’s different about him. He ain’t been the same since he got pulled out of Lucifer’s cage. You hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear ya, Bobby,” your words were soft. “I’ll, uh, I’ll call you later.” You hung up quickly just as he approached.

Your name fell from his lips, almost inquisitively. That same old Sam Winchester half-smile tugged at the corner of his lips. 

“Sam,” you breathed in return. It was difficult to keep Bobby’s warning in the back of your mind when the man you had hunted with for so long was standing just in front of you. While hunting with the brothers, you had never allowed your feelings to see the light of day. They were professional, and they had taught you so much about what looms in the dark. But you would be a liar if you said you had never felt butterflies when Sam smiled at you, laughed at your joke, or the way it felt when his fingers grazed your skin…

“Hey, wow, it’s been such a long time,” something did feel a bit off with his words, but even more so with his demeanor. You had mapped out those hazel eyes over the two years you spent hunting with the boys, and there was a lightness missing. They just felt empty. 

“Sam, how are you here? I saw you fall into the cage myself,” the thought alone made your eyes burn. Watching Sam and the strength he had to throw himself (and Lucifer) into the cage was devastating. 

“Yeah, uh, I don’t really know?” He chuckled softly. You searched for the light, but still couldn’t find it—even behind his laughter. “I just sorta woke up and I was back…”

“God, it’s so incredible to see you,” you couldn’t stop staring at him, afraid if you blinked, he’d disappear. “Is Dean here? Are you guys trying to figure out what brought you back?”

Sam broke his gaze from yours, but only for a second. He slipped his hands into his front jean pockets. “No, uh, I didn’t want to pull Dean back in. It’s rare to get an opportunity to get outta this life. He seems happy,” he nodded. You couldn’t help but notice the lack of emotion in his tone or on his face. “I, uh, I actually found some of my mom’s family. They have a compound here in Lansing, so I’ve been hunting with them.”

You tried to hide the way his words stung. He was so stoic, you didn’t want to look like a fool. But you were hurt…he had to have known you were still hunting. It made you doubt yourself—there were probably better people to hunt with and he had found them. You had always wondered if you were just a tagalong for the Winchesters; maybe they had just felt bad for you, after all. 

“Oh, nice,” you forced a smile and a small nod. “That’s good. Hunting with family is good…” your words trailed. 

Sam matched your nod. As if he realized he should be asking you about yourself, he continued with, “What about you? Are you hunting still?”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” you turned back to your hunting buddy as she watched cautiously from your table. “This is Alice McCaffrey,” you introduced as you stepped back to the table and Sam followed. “Alice, this is Sam Winchester. Alice and I have been hunting together."

Alice’s eyes widened. “The Sam Winchester?” She asked, incredulously. 

“The one and only,” he chuckled as he shook her hand.

“Wow,” Alice’s eyes drifted to you—you knew immediately what she was thinking: shifter? Demon? Shifter-demon?

“It’s really him,” you confirmed. While you hadn’t tested him yourself, you trusted Bobby. Bobby seemed very certain. He just also made it explicitly clear that Sam was different. 

“Well, it’s nice to meet you,” she smiled. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I just…I thought you were in the pit…”

“Yeah,” Sam tucked some strands of brown hair that had fallen forward back behind his ear. “I was, but somehow got a way out. We’re still trying to figure that out.” He explained. 

“That’s great,” she seemed a little hesitant, but that was why you loved Alice. Alice was wary of anyone and everyone; she didn’t trust at face value. There were still days you wondered if you had earned her full and complete trust. 

“What brings you to Lansing?” Sam shifted the topic, his eyes on you now. 

“We’ve been trailing a shifter,” you kept the topic brief. It felt weird not delving into all the details of your case, but you couldn’t quite shake the fact that Sam had been back and hadn’t tried to connect with you. 

“Oh, the original?” He looked between the two of you. Alice narrowed her eyes at Sam. 

“Yeah, are you hunting him too?” She questioned. 

He looked between the two of you, still emotionless. “Yeah, we got him. A few hours ago, my team had him killed.” 

“You…you managed to kill him?” Alice looked at him with the same level of shock as before. 

“Sam, he was the original shapeshifter. Like, father to all shifters,” you added in, wondering if maybe he didn’t realize.

“I know,” he looked between the two of you. “He was a beast. But we’re a team of six. We had it covered.”

Alicia glanced at you—you knew the look. She wasn’t sure of this Sam Winchester guy. 

“Hey,” Sam's fingertips grazed your hand. “Would you wanna get outta here? Some place we can sit and catch up. Somewhere quiet?” Between his fingertips on your flesh, and the way his voice had dropped lowly, you shuddered internally. 

Somehow, you still seemed hesitant. Had this been ten months ago, you would have leapt out of your chair and been halfway to the door by now. But it wasn’t. And this version of Sam just felt different. You pushed past the hesitation. “Yeah, okay,” you nodded. 

“Let me just go let the guys know I’ll be back in a while,” he thumbed back to the billiard tables where you finally noticed an older man, bald and eyes that you felt like could see through your soul. You managed a quick nod before he headed back that way. 

“Can I say something and you promise it won’t piss you off?” Alicia asked as soon as Sam was out of earshot. 

You were fairly certain you knew what she had to say, but you pulled your eyes from Sam’s back and looked back at her. “Of course.”

“I listened to you go on and on about this Sam Winchester guy. Even when you didn’t realize you were talking about him. You talk about him in your sleep,” she emphasized. Warmth crept up your neck and into your cheeks. You hadn’t realized you were sleep-talking about him… “But the Sam Winchester you’ve been mourning for almost a year? Girl, that’s not him.” Her eyes bore into you. 

“I know he seems a little…rough around the edges,” you tried to reason as your eyes found him talking to the bald man in the corner. The man had returned his gaze to you as Sam spoke. “But we have no idea what happened to him in that cage. That would change anyone, Alicia.” You looked back to your hunting buddy. 

“I get that, I do,” she agreed. “I’m just asking you to be careful. A lot can change in ten months. Especially when we’re talking about someone coming back from one of the darkest depths of Hell…if not, the darkest depth of Hell.”

“I’ve got it handled,” you watched him as he moved back towards your table. “I’ll meet you back at the motel later.” You managed a quick smile and hopped off of your bar stool. 

“Ready?” Sam asked as you approached. You nodded once, but couldn’t help the feeling of the bald man watching you. Sam began to lead you away from the table. 

“It was nice meeting you,” Alicia practically yelled over the sounds of the bar. Sam nodded once nonchalantly back at her. 

“Yeah, you too,” it was strange, but then Sam’s hand snaked around yours and held it in his palm, and any uncertainty you had in your gut went out the window. 

When Sam suggested going some place quiet, you had assumed that would be a café or diner; somewhere public, but where you could get caught up. It surprised you when he pulled into a motel parking lot and had you wait in the car. He wasn’t staying here…why was he getting a room? You were smarter than this, but somehow Sam Winchester had always had a way of emitting a haze around you; a haze that more than clouded your judgment. 

“Why a motel room?” You finally managed to ask as you stood behind him while he unlocked the door. 

“I just figured it would be nice to get caught up…” you noticed his eyes trailed down the front of you. He was looking at you in a way he had never done so blatantly before; a way you had always imagined in your mind, but never experienced. Your throat ran dry as he opened the door and held it open for you to step through. Suddenly you felt nervous. 

“I really missed you, Sam,” you felt a lump of emotion knit together in your throat. Your eyes moved up his torso to find his hazel gaze. A small smile pulled at the corners of his lips. 

A surprise to you, his arms snaked around you and pulled you into his chest. “I missed you, too,” you couldn’t shake the feeling that Sam was saying it because he knew he was supposed to. 

“Sam…” you started cautiously. There were two parts of you, and they were at war: on one hand, you had wanted this moment to happen for so long–you had willed for Sam to come back. But the other part of you had so many questions that you felt needed answered before you could fully open up to him. “How long have you been back?”

“Just about ten months,” he answered with little-to-no hesitation. He seemed a little surprised when your eyes widened.

You moved away from him to sit on the edge of one of the double beds in the room. Your eyes found the multicolored carpet that lined the motel room floor. “You’ve been back almost the entire time we thought you had been gone, and you didn’t call?”

“It’s…complicated,” he breathed out as he moved to sit next to you on the bed. “Things aren’t like they were ten months ago,” he tried to explain. You kept your eyes on the carpet as he spoke. “Things are different now. The Campbells are different…” there was that word again: different. Your eyes didn’t budge until your name fell as a whisper from his lips. “I really did miss you.”

You watched as his eyes trailed over you once more. Across your face, down your neck…you felt the heat rising again. “I feel like I’ve had this dream a million times–you coming back. And now it’s real, and it just feels…”

“I know,” his words were soft again as his body shifted towards you.

Before your brain could argue with your heart again, you felt your hands pull at the collar of his plaid button-down shirt. His face moved closer until your lips crashed against each other in a hasty motion. His movements were quick, but thorough, as his hands traveled to your waist. He pulled at the hem of your cotton t-shirt until his fingers slipped underneath and grazed against the flesh of your hips, causing goosebumps to bubble on the surface of your skin. 

Your hands tangled in the locks of hair at the back of his neck just as his hands lifted you and pulled you onto his lap so your legs straddled his waist. His fingers toyed with the hem of your shirt again until you instinctively raised your arms and broke where your lips met as he tugged the garment over your head. His fingers tangled in your hair once more as he stood up with your legs secured around his waist and turned to lay you on the bed. Once your eyes fluttered to see him pulling his button-down off, your brain kicked back into gear.

“Sam,” you breathed. He was back hovered over you now, his fingertips tracing a line of goosebumps down your neck, then your clavicle, to the tops of your breasts. Your breath hitched in your throat once more. “Sam, should we…are we doing this?” You were still trying to wrap your head around the idea that this was happening.

He paused for a moment and looked back down at you; your eyes tried to find old Sam once more–even just a glimmer. But you were coming up empty, yet again. 

“I’ve wanted to do this for a long time,” his emphasis on the word ‘long’ made your heart and stomach flutter simultaneously. “I should have before. But I was stupid, and then I was saying ‘yes’ to Lucifer, and I never thought I’d see you again.”

Your brain wanted to remind him that he could have called you, hell, he could have shown up at your doorstep and you would have welcomed him back with open arms. But your heart decided against it as he leaned closer to your lips.

“I thought maybe you wanted this too,” he breathed as his lips gingerly touched against yours once more.

Words failed you, so instead you reached up and tangled your fingers in his hair once more. The way you moved your lips against his gave him your answer.

His fingers strategically moved behind you, expertly unclasping the black bra that constrained your breasts. With a quick flick of his fingers, you felt the material relax and the straps slipped off of your shoulder blades. Your eyes found his once more–the only thing you saw was want and lust. 

You relished in the feeling of his lips as they trailed from your lips to your neck, sucking on the skin just under your earlobe. You closed your eyes at the sensation; your heart allowed your fingers to move through his hair, down to the nape of his neck. He moved against you in a way that warmed you to your core. You hadn’t realized Sam had moved his fingers down to the metal button clasp on your jeans. His fingers very quickly and skillfully moved so the button popped through the denim material and loosened. As he worked, his lips trailed down to your breast and attached to your nipple. His tongue moved over the already hardened bud, massaging in a way that elicited a moan from the back of your throat.

The break of the suction of his lips from your skin evoked a pop that echoed to your ears. In one swift motion, he pulled your jeans from your hips, bringing your underwear with it. He took a moment to stand at the edge of the bed. You watched as the muscles in his fingers, hands and forearms flinched as he worked his belt and jeans from their own metal clasp. He pulled his jeans down along with his boxers until they were at his ankles and he could step out of them.

“So fucking sexy,” he breathed. Your breath hitched once more–that wasn’t something your imagination had come up with when you had thought of this moment. The burn from the pink glow you had felt on more than one occasion tonight crept back up your skin once more, but this time you couldn’t hide.

“Sam,” your breath hitched in your throat, yet again.

Sam moved back over you at that moment, no additional words exchanged. You felt his length harden just between your legs upon your thigh. Your eyes closed once more as he kissed you with a force you had never felt before–you couldn’t place it. It wasn’t passion, it was need. 

His hands moved yours just above your head so they were bent at your elbows. With one hand, he clasped them there. His other hand moved down the side of your face, down your breasts until they wrapped around his cock. You felt his knee move between your thighs to part them. His hand shifted until his fingers deftly found your center. Sam’s index finger slipped between your folds, finding out for certain just how excited you were for this moment.

“You’re already so wet for me, baby,” his breath tickled just below your earlobe as he whispered. He picked up the pace with his fingers as he rubbed your swelling nub with his thumb. He moved in small circles that made you begin to grind your hips with his motions. Without warning, he plunged a finger inside of you once, twice, three times before he added a second finger.

A gasp escaped your lips as you pressed your head back into the mattress even further, your mouth agape. “Jesus, Sam,” you couldn’t help the words as they toppled out between your lips. After a few more thrusts, he reached down to pump his hand between his legs again. Without his touch, your brain started working once more. “D-Do you have a condom?” You didn’t mean to stutter, but you were lucky to even get words strewn together that made any sense at this point.

“It’s alright, I’ll pull out,” he kissed just below your ear on your jawline. Goosebumps flooded the surface of your skin once more as his stubble trailed over you. Your brain didn't have a moment to respond.

As he lined himself up against your center, you opened your eyes to find his gaze. His eyes were dark–a dark you had never noticed before. The normal flecks of gold, green, and blue were suddenly a darker yellow, forest green and gray. It was beautiful–lustful, even–but you didn’t see any emotion. They were still just empty.

Your mouth fell agape as he pushed into you, releasing your hands above his head so he could reach down and pull your legs and hook your ankles around his back. Instinctively, you moved your hips against him, meeting him with each movement he made.

Sam ducked his head so his lips could connect with the sweet spot he had found just above your clavicle. You couldn’t be sure, but by the feeling you knew it would leave a mark; you didn’t care. You focused on the raw feeling of him inside you, the way he grunted with each thrust. You flattened your palms up his back, the feeling of his muscles under your hands adding to the pooling warmth in the pit of your belly.

Strategically, Sam reached between the two of you and pressed his thumb to your clit once more. The continuous motion of the small circles sent a shudder over you.

“Sam…” you warned. 

He nipped at the skin below your ear. “I know, baby. Let me get you there,” the words dropped from his lips in a whisper once more.

You moved your hips to the rhythm of his hand and his thrusts. The muscles in your abdomen tightened and trembled as he pushed you over the edge. The pace of his movements picked up as he removed his hand and gripped your hips again–he pumped in and out of you with such fervor, you thought you might break.

With a shallow grunt, he quickly pulled out as he found his release–and suddenly, you felt empty.

Sam removed himself from the bed quickly and retreated to the small bathroom to clean up. As he came back, he handed you a towel. While you never could have known what being with Sam would be like, exactly…this wasn’t what you had expected. 

“That was…” your voice trailed off as you tried to catch your breath. You rolled to your side and propped yourself up on your elbow as you watched him. Instinctively, you pulled the rustled sheet up just under your chin to cover yourself.

Sam’s eyes found you as he pulled up his boxers, and then his jeans. His chest heaved only slightly as he got dressed. “Yeah, that was nice,” a smile pulled on his lips. “I’m glad we bumped into each other again.” Your throat felt dry again. Words failed you; you didn’t know what to say to that. He pulled his shirt over his head and fixed some of the buttons. “I paid through the night, so you can crash here, if you want,” he gestured to the room.

“You’re…you’re leaving?” You tried to shove the emotions bubbling up so they went back down. It felt like you were underwater–Sam was different. There was no hiding it or trying to deny it anymore. 

He looked back at you quizzically, as if he couldn’t understand why you were asking him this, but then turned his attention back to his boots as he tied the laces. “Uh, yeah. We have a lot of work to wrap up, and you’re just passing through,” his words trailed off a little, but it didn’t seem to be because he felt bad. “It really was good seeing you again.”

He managed one more small smile before he grabbed his remaining belongings and walked for the door.

The emotions finally bubbled over, but all you felt was empty.

A/N: Please, please don’t hate me. If you love Soulless!Sam with zero feeling and emotion, then this might be your jam. If you prefer loving, kind, caring Sam–you’re probably wanting my head on a platter. This is part one, I have a part two in the works and I promise I’ll fix everything <3

[thesupernaturalhouse]

Sooo, world building stuff!! Rewriting hells hiarchy, mostly for the hellborn cause I really don't see the difference between imps, hellhounds, and hellborn.....I don't get it, why is there a difference in ranks?? Idk, and I don't care, so I just merged them all

Cause I always thought imps were just the wrath rings hellborn while the hellhoudns were the gluttony hellborn. Again, I don't see a difference between the hellborn-

Anyways, small list of the rings respective hellborns in my au

Pride: cannibal colony

Wrath: imps

Lust: succubus/incubus

Gluttony: hellhounds

sloth: goat-candle

Greed: skeleton jesters & reptiles(snakes, sharks, dinos, etc)

Envy: deep sea fish

Are the cannibal colony hellborn? Apparently not, unless Rosie is the only hellborn out of the entire colony

But it makes a lot more sense if they were hellborn so :/ my canon my rules!!

Moving on, I guess technically merging them does change some stuff, I mean, not really, but like- the 'pounds' are just normal orphanages, some are shitty, some are good, it depends what ring their in; pride has the worst, gluttony has the best

Pride has the worst due to the sinners being around and, of course, distruction happens. Gluttony has the best because that's where the hellhounds originate, so they got more say over what happens; sloth is all about Healthcare so their for #2, Lust is #3 since consent/safety and all that, wrath is all about family so #4, Envy is #5, and Greed is #6. With pride be 7 ofc

Greed surprisingly has okay pounds, mainly because Mammon- despite being a shit employer, loves his niece, not that he'll ever admit it, and Charlie uses that to get him to do stuff; he claims he's just 'bribing her in advance'....he is not, but again, he won't admit it

Thats...literally the only diffrence and it barely makes a diffrence

Anyways, what I feel like people ignore with they critique the hierarchy that sinners are constricted to the pride ring, so they are only above the hellborn in said pride ring and even then it's only in terms of power

Which is part of the reason I hate it when people complain about sinners being above hellborn cause like...they are only confined to the pride ring, they are only above the hellborn in the pride ring and that's due to them getting powers/form based on their sins

It goes Lucfer; Lilith, Eve, Roo, Charlie; the 7 sins; Goetia (who don't have a native ring btw); hellborn

Add roo and eve cause i think their supposed to show up eventually, and I think they'd be on par with Lilith, tho Roo might be above them since she's the literal root of all evil, amd Charlie is probably above all 3 of them since she is part angle.....doesn't matter to much, ignore my ranting

Anyway, I got a little diagram in the works right now, so hopefully, you guys will see that soon, it just for fun and world building, I'll honestly probably have a chapter in the fic for an info dump about said world building as a B plot probably

[mysteriouslover1516]

The Tables have Turned

What happens one day when a normal visit with Barry Allen turns into a confession?

y/n= your name

l/n= your last name

Jitters rings with the typical sound of a crowded coffee shop: voices ringing, coffee beans being ground, the fresh smell of baked pastries, not to mention the pleasant smell of java in general.

"Okay there, Barry?" You look at your best friend quizzically, taking in his rapidly tapping foot.

Barry looks at you with a small smile, "Huh? What do you mean?"

"Your foot," you point out. "Nerves?"

"You could say that," Barry admits in a sheepish tone.

You sit yourself down in front of him, taking a sip of your pumpkin spice latte. "Tell me more."

"Nothing to tell," Barry shrugs you off.

"Maybe it's just a side effect of being struck by lightning," you laugh.

Your ears perk up as you hear a random stranger mention the word "Flash". You fold your hands professionally on the table in front of you. "Mr. Barry Allen, what is your opinion on this new phenomenon called The Flash? Hero or menace? Protagonist or antagonist? Or perhaps a vigilante maybe?"

Barry laughs at your reporter voice, taking on his own formal voice. "Well, Ms. l/n. I find the Flash a seemingly controversial topic for many civilians. Some say he's a mutant, perhaps a normal human being caught and tortured by evil scientists. Others say it's a hoax, some sort of well done CGI in use. But me personally, I think he's a real man. Some sort of meta-human, that's for sure."

"But Mr. Allen, a meta-human in itself is defined as a human with super powers, practically the same thing as a mutant." You smile, slyly.

"Whatever he is," Barry rolls his eyes. "He has certainly preserved the city, especially from all these other meta-humans appearing."

"Very true," you say, dropping your reporter voice. "I find him interesting, in fact I wouldn't mind writing a blog about him, one in which I could record all the sightings of him."

"Iris is doing something of that nature," Barry nods. "She has a lot of viewers."

"Well shucks," you laugh. "Guess I'm once again too late."

"What do you mean once again?" Barry furrows his eyebrows.

"Oh you know, she always had some of the highest grades in school. Killed it in the creative writing classes, reporting classes, literally any class that dealt with writing. And now she once again beat me, not only in snatching a job in the news world, but in starting a blog that is sure to interest every civilian in Central City."

"Hey, you know a key essential part that she lacks in her blog?" Barry sips his coffee.

"What's that?" You say, skeptical.

"She only writes about the Flash, not about the other meta-human sightings. Not about the antagonists or villains of modern life, that's a side door still open for grabs."

You nod thoughtfully, "That's true, Barry. Good idea, I'll beat her yet!"

"You guys could collab together even, send your readers to each other's websites. It'll help you both gain more readers and therefore more views." Barry suggests.

"Oh joy, working with Iris West." You say sarcastically. "Don't get me wrong, Barry. Talented writer? Yes. A person worth befriending and collaborating with? I think not." 

Barry chuckles slightly, "You guys never did like each other, did you? Why is that, y/n?"

"Conflict of interests?" You shrug.

"That's not what I see." Barry leans over the table more, "I see it as too similar of interests, always trying to outdo one another. Always trying to show who's superior, who's the better writer. A typical girl fight." "I beg to differ," you refute.

"I thought you guys would outgrow it once we all graduated from school, got occupations, started life as adults; seems I was wrong."

"Hey, I'm happy where I'm at." You defend, "Like I may not be writing as much as I wanted to, not writing articles like Ms. Iris West over there,  but I still do what I love. I help other aspiring journalists, writers become better. I edit their work, critique it, push them to reach their full potential."

"I can't argue with that, but I still say you two are jealous of each other." Barry says simply.

"Why would she be jealous of me?" You scoff.

"Why wouldn't she be?" Barry counters, "Probably for the same reason you're jealous of her." "I'm not jealous."

"Convincing," Barry smirks.

"I don't know," you say, irritably. "Sounds to me like you already have a guess, so why not share your observations?"

"You were jealous of her once you figured out I liked her, now the tables have turned."

"Wait a minute, how-" Your eyes widen as you comprehend the last part, "What do you mean the tables turned?"

Barry's brown eyes meet yours, "I like you, y/n."

You laugh, "You're joking, right?"

"Iris and I don't meet as often, we've lost the bond we had. After she rejected me, I started to see things in a different light. It just took me awhile to realize what I saw, I saw a future, a future with you."

"So you admit I still am second best," you shake your head angrily. "It took her rejection to realize that you maybe found me attractive, that I could be part of your future."

"That's not what I'm saying," Barry sighs. "You're not making it easy, y/n. I like you, I see something different in you, something that Iris lacks. You have a pure heart, a sweet kindness in your whole being, you're amazingly funny, you're literally beautiful in every way."

By now your anger had been calmed by Barry's soft words. "You actually like me?"

"Yes," Barry laughs. "You're beautiful, gorgeous even. The way you laugh, it's adorable. The way the corner of your eyes crinkle as you smile, the way a simple blush rises to your cheeks every time someone compliments you. The way you cock your eyebrows when you decide to get cocky and show some attitude, it's honestly heart-melting."

You blush at his words, and stare hard at the table in front of you.

"See? You're even doing it right now, blushing madly. You make it hard for a guy not to fall for you."

"Could say the same thing about you," you finally say. "You make girls blush without realizing it, make girls go weak at the knees for your chivalry, charm girls with your good looks and humor, not to mention those dimples you possess." "Awww, y/n." Barry laughs, however you notice how red his cheeks have gotten.

"Kiss me?" you ask with a small smirk.

Barry leans over the table, his cologne filling your nostrils at the closeness between you two.

Your eyes close involuntarily as you feel his lips meet yours, it wasn't a needy or lust-filled kiss, more of a gentle one. "Mmmmm," you say as he pulls away.

"Like it?" Barry struggles to maintain his calm voice.

"Let's do that more often," you giggle and shyly tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

"Bet," Barry laughs as his lips meet yours once more.

[i-must-not-fear]

hi! do you happen to know any good essays of the orientalism/other critiques of dune?

Hi! First of all I wouldnt accuse Dune of Orientalism. These phrases, like cultural appropriation, are thrown around in an accusing manner and get attached to quite harmless media representations of different cultures, so much so that it waters down the truly harmful aspects of real racism.

Dune is set 10000 years in the future, cultures, people and religions have merged, changed and evolved. Dune (the books at least) also neither idealise the Fremen as noble savages nor depict them in a more derigatory way than orher civilisations.

What the books do is use a lot of SWANA culture, language and religion as inspiration. That's totally fine. It's the freedom of art and we would be much poorer if this was suddenly a bad thing.

My problem with the movies is that I dont see nearly enough of SWANA talent and culture in them. Villeneuve has cleansed Dune of much of its SWANA elements and I would love to see an indepth talk with him about that.

What I can offer you instead is this

I'm sure theres more but you can start from there I guess.

[alltimefail-sims]

Hi friends, happy Friday!

The Sims team recently collaborated with Ebonix and dropped the "Urban Homage" CAS kit on April 18th, so you guys already know I had to snatch it up and give my thoughts. I'm a week late, but I'll give you the TLDR up front: I like every item that came in this kit. Yes, I'm just as shocked as you are!

Sidenote: Don't worry, even though they aren't pictured above we will be looking at the male assets as well - they're in their own separate section under the cut!

With all that being said, let's jump into it! ↓

First, let me show you those masculine frame outfits I promised:

Okay, now I'm just going to get my minimal qualms out of the way:

I wish the female frame bodysuit labeled as a top could have also been in the full-body category. I love that it can be layered with other skirts and such, but it's soooo cute by itself and we don't have anything like it, especially for everyday or workout purposes.

Next, the joggers should have been enabled for both frames and same goes for the overalls. You can untick the "female" or "male" clothing preference in CAS and they both look fine on the opposite frame, but obviously there is some minor distortion in the chest area on fem frames when they wear the overalls.

I also wish the basketball shorts came in some simpler, sleeker swatches alongside the bolder prints and colors.

That's literally it: miniscule complaints really, and trust me when I say these complaints are nitpicky for a reason - I struggled to find critiques for this particular kit.

As for literally everything else not mentioned above: I love these clothes, and I think there are a few items that I will use over and over again.

All the bottoms are superb

The loose jersey is an item that we desperately needed in game

The dashiki swatches are stunning

The fit of every item across the board is immaculate on a wide range of body types.

The few simple items snuck into this kit - the cropped denim jacket, the tie crop shirt, the open button down, etc. are so versatile and beautifully executed.

The trendy butterfly top, the skinny pants with cutouts in the side, and the platform ankle boots (specifically the flame swatches!!) have all been tackled by cc-makers; these versions that come in this kit are right on par with the cc counterparts out there, a HUGE win for console players who cannot use cc.

Basically, these clothes look like clothes I could actually see real people wearing...unlike some items that have come in packs in the past that feel far too niche or look like leftover items that didn't fit in a different EP or GP. (I'm looking at you CAS items from Crystal Creations... I know those assets were 80% Realm of Magic rejects lmao. Not that I'm mad, I like a lot of the items, but they really aren't super versatile.)

Perhaps the most surprising treasures in this pack, however, actually lie within the accessory categories. Wild realization for me because when it comes to accessories in the sims I'm usually indifferent at best and confused if the devs have ever seen a real human out in the wild at worst (because let's be honest...that shit is usually so oversized and weird looking it's basically unusable). But I have to give these accessories their moment in the sun because WOW. I can't believe I'm uttering the words "I love" next to "kit accessories..." but Hell hath frozen over I guess. Here are some screenshots:

Every accessory (with the exception of the GORGEOUS headwrap) is enabled for masculine frame; this includes the rings (left & right), necklaces, earrings, facial piercing, and even the nails. The facial piercing shocked me the most as I've never used the piercings we've been given in other packs - they're always thick, bulky, and chunky in the worst way. But, much to my amazement, this nose piercing is sooooooo good and even come in a number of decent swatches outside of gold, silver, black! In fact, I liked it so much that I'm ditching the cc nose ring on my OC Ta'Nia and swapping it for the nose piercing that came with this kit. Even on a sim with a downturned nose tip and wider set nostrils (like the male sim I used in the screenshots) I felt like the piercing still looked great!

I only have one complaint about the accessories, and it's that I wish we were given more than one set of nails, or at least more color swatches for the nails. Black, red, and blue bases with chrome tips are just too limited to me, especially with all the vibrant colors we see in this pack! I would have liked a set of nails with intricate airbrushing/hand-drawn designs or ones that utilized gems and charms along with some variation in length and a shape outside of the trendy coffin or oval nails at medium length. I know this is picky, but cc nails are killing the game right now whereas the sims team continually plays it safe and, imo, it's boring; console players deserve to have glamorous works of art on their sim's fingers as well!

OKAY... time for my wrap-up thoughts!

Look at me saying this wouldn't be a long review... yet here we are, a whole ass Ted Talk later lol. Overall, I personally encountered zero major issues in this kit. (Please note that when I say "major" I am talking about hoodies that make eyes 3x their original size or jewelry that corrupts the body of a sim lol.) I will say that I saw some people saying they noticed some discoloration on the facial piercings that came with this pack (textures/colors bleeding from some other CAS items onto the piercings) but I didn't personally have that issue. If there are any other issues outside of the discolored piercings, I didn't encounter them and I haven't seen others talking about them.

TLDR: For me, this and the grunge kit are the standard of what a good CAS kit should look like. I think I'll be using several of these items often, and the content is easily worth $5.00 (unlike the party kit that dropped alongside this one... but that's a topic for another day). If you're going to give EA $5.00 for a kit, I confidently recommend this one.

Remember to use the creator code "EBONIX" at checkout so Ebonix can receive 5% of the proceeds when you purchase this kit!

I hope you all enjoyed my ramble. What are your favorite items from the kit? What do you think could have been better? Let me know in the replies or send me an ask; I always love hearing your guys' thoughts.

Talk to you all later! Hugs x

[alexissara]

Fire Emblem Engage: One Year Later An Anniversary Of Mid

Fire Emblem Engage is now a year old and as a massive Fire Emblem fan I want to talk about it. Engage is a game I don't like and I am nothing if not a hater so I want to talk about it more about a year out since I think being a hater that goes beyond a boring critique of hair or anime bad is more valuable.

First let's talk about where I place it in the overall series.

I am going to dive into things in a lot of detail down below. Obviously everything is subjective, blah, blah, your reading my opinions, I don't really care about being "objective" so take what you want out of this. The TLDR though is that Engage is a game that fails in every single way, there is not one thing that it is particular amazing at but it is not the worst at any particular thing either. It's a text book mid game but in some ways I like it less then things I think are worse because the squandering of some decent concepts.

Designs

Mika is an extremally talented artist with a wonderful sense of design but even she questioned why they were hiring her to do a Fire Emblem game. While I like some of the designs of the characters as general characters designs but their almost all bad character designs for story telling, for explaining a deeper sense of character, for fitting into a war setting, for fitting a diverse range of ages or bodies, etc. I don't mind Alear's hair, I think red and blue hair makes sense, that's the enemy phase and ally phase colors, it's not terrible but the outfit is a bit too white. The designs in general are simply great designs for a silly little person but not great for the wider depth of characters not creating characters you could see doing a war. If the tone was different I could see these working but it need to lean far more into comedy or cheese then it does. I really don't have a lot to say here but it kinda just had to be the first thing to address. I like them more than the average person but I still don't love them. Like Etie is supposed to like be buff and stuff but she is a twig. Saphir is supposed to be pretty old but she looks fairly young. Mika's style simply doesn't blend well with Fire Emblem despite me loving Mika's work prior to this.

Story

This is the most often critiqued part of the Fire Emblem Engage experience that even people who love it typically concede and for good reason. The story of this game is a fairly simple and basic story structure. Hero awakes and must do their fate, mother dies, protag cries, they go on a journey to collect the plot items, they collect plot items but OH NO THE ENEMY HAS PUT A WRENCH IN IT! Then they build themselves back up, collect the items and murder the big bad. Along the way you get some angsty zombie stuff but it's cheap emotions, kids complicated relationships to their parents, a theme which you'd think maybe is one of the grander themes but really isn't touched on with Sombron and Alear/Vayel despite Sombron being the main baddy.

Alear has a minor story arc, Alear is scared but then Alear isn't scared only Alear basically always stepped up so the gameplay and the story don't intgrate well here, if Alear even had one map of running away when she shoulda fought and that is why they lost emblem rings or something it would have more solidly locked in "oh Alears character flaw is that she runs away but now she knows to stay and fight" or it could have been a contrast and been like "it's a good thing that Alear knows when to run" and separate Alear from other lords in the series.

The games plot is deeply uncurious aiming for the most simple solutions down to the point where Vayel doesn't have an evil second personality [which I mean is ableist but they still make you think that] it's actually mind control evil second personality. It turns out Vayle and Alear is just goddy good Fell Dragons and all the other ones were totally naturally evil and okay to kill I guess. Vayel could have had an edge to her, there could have been redemption for the "evil" part of Vayel that would be a far more complicated set of emotions and more interesting then no one needs to forgive her because actually every bad thing she did to everyone was evil mind control and every good thing is the real her.

Then there is the DLCs plot which almost makes Engages main plot look good taking you to an everyone is dead AU where everyone is fucked up cuz their zombies I guess or they just are like this in this world but also it only is interested in exploring the lords and the "good" versions of the bad quad with an addition of two new characters. Theirs an obvious twist villain but they try and just red herring you to think it's the girl twin instead of the boy twin who is more clearly evil by showing Nel do some things that seem evil out of context. It's fairly boring, it doesn't engage what it wants to hard enough, it presents it in some fucking awful map designs and it's place in the plot being able to show up before you met the vast majority of the characters actual selves means it's possible you come in with both an army that isn't fun to do the maps with and without a good set of emblem rings but you also have no idea why it should be shocking to see a character like this. It mostly makes me wish that they had instead of making this all DLC worked some of the complicated relationships between characters into the actual plot of the game and had some more fell dragons that were a bit more complicated but redeemable potential party members.

Thematically and politically I am at a loss at what it wants to say, it doesn't even seem to want to say like war is bad or something basic like that. The only recurring theme is like parent dies and that's sad and that is like true for most people and their parents but it's not a particularly well done version of that theme. It's not really about the bounds of friendship and love because like idk there is so few scenes where people overcome things with the power of friendship of love. Like there is some tension between evil coded country and the others but like those are resolved by the future queen having a divine dragon kink and will be good because she worships the good god.

Characters

Fire Emblems cast is kind of like the cast of a Disegea game, which I typically enjoy only not over the top enough nor in a game with a tone consistently silly enough to justify the wild over the top energy of the characters. Characters all have bits and this is true of many fire emblem games but it is more rare for basically every single character to have a bit that is pretty definitive to them rather than a character trait. They are designed and written like a vtuber in a lot of ways, their meant to be cute, for you to find your fav and for you to hyper focus on that one. Only unlike a Vtuber you can't hop on and invested dozens of hours a week watching Yunaka shout Zappy as she murders someone in a video game and banters with chat.

There is a layer of depth to the characters that explain why a character is like this TM but these things typically come at the end of an A rank support which leaves you to assume "This girl sure does talk a lot about tea" if your not rushing to A with someone or if you RNG into one where ya she's mostly just talking about Tea. Again there are characters that are like this in other Fire Emblem games but few characters get the cool join situations, the cool moments in the story to really make you invest that deeply into them since the game is really focused on these lords and doesn't have a lot of interesting recruiting given every character is a lord or a servant of a lord. Not to mention that depth is usually not that deep like it's more like finding a foot bath in what you found thought was just someone spilling water rather then going into a hot tub of complex lore, character drama, and passion.

I did enjoy the characters for my time with them like a light hearted kids animated show where I go "aww these guys are fun" but like one of those I don't really think about the characters after. I enjoy when I see art of Yuanaka or the Racket of Solm fan art, I go "Oh I like those girls, their neat" but I never feel like "OMG Yes, let's fucking go!!!!!" like I do for many other characters in many other pieces of art.

Then in terms of the villains Sombron is paper then with a random new motive at the very end that is utterly uninteresting. The four hounds are fun enough characters since their allowed to be a little complicated but their also as an enemy on a map over staying their welcome for the amount of times you put swords into their bodies lealthy. The four hounds then feel under cut by the "good" versions of them that exist in the DLC which are basically what if they were boring, they are the good versions. Evil Vayel as mentioned earlier is boring because she's just mind control evil and not a real person. There is very few enemy of the map type enemies to think about and the ones that do exist are paper thin, your not going to get a stand off with a commander that you feel complicated feels about having to kill here.

Then we got to get into the endings, the lack of paired supports give everyone a static boring ending unless Alear wanted to give them a special friendship bracelet which totally doesn't mean romance HAHAHA alear doesn't want to date children or married men HAHAHA pay no attention to the man behind the mirror. It strips agency from the player, the translation no romos several romances with Alear that should be totally fine anyway, their just extremely poor at creating a sense of what you did to the world after you saved it because the world was perfect basically except Sombron was a dick. The characters don't feel like they grew in their little ending bits for the most part it's kidna like they went on to do what you'd expct them to do.

Then there is the emblem rings which are given fairly shallow interactions that range to them being pretty out of character to them saying a one line joke to them saying "remember that thing from my game." The shallow level of interaction with the rings is really unfortunate but also fortunate because it meant they didn't write a ton of these characters. They still feel like they should have beena bigger deal and been a bit more involved in the plot as well as having some deeper relationships with characters.

Also you get two fucking dragons on your team both of whom can't turn into dragons, there are these hot older women who are capable in battle but can't get recruited for the cause because I guess their not young and fuckable, there is so little interest in the world of this game outside of lords and their servants [which is a flaw in a lot of modern FE], why the literal child soldiers like Anna, there is a lot of frustrating character choices that could have been done better.

Presentation

I think the graphics are good, I think they look pretty, I like bright colors in my eyeballs and it works for me. I think graphically it's a clear step up from houses, the places look very beautiful. They make a fairly uninspired choice of diving the game into 5 themed regions with a kinda similar design principle across the maps Flower, Mountainy, Evily snow, Sand, really evil. This does take away from a kinda unquie feeling to each place you go but they don't look bad.

Music wise, the opening theme is dumb, I like it but it's corny and clearly gonna be divisive but it suits the game that it is for. As music in the game goes though it's fine, it's a fine soundtrack of fine songs that are fine. Only a few songs are really bangers though and a lot of the music doesn't stand out to me a year later I can basically just think the opening theme and the engaging an emblem remix. I am actively trying to recall another song as I write this and I end up just getting the Three Houses Monastery music in my head instead.

The animations I will simply give full marks too, the animations after many years after the GBA finally don't look bad. Crits look cool, the engage attacks look cool, there is some coolness to be had there where the more real and grounded animations since Gamecube were never my favorite. Great job engage, I hope the series keeps it up.

Gameplay

People talk about Fire Emblem Engage's gameplay being the best in the series but it really isn't and it's not like stunning SRPG design in general. Perhaps if your looking for a challenge the maddening experience is some sort of revolution but the average player of any video game will be playing on the "normal" mode which is by default the intended mode. The game features mechanics that one might think is for grinding but utterly fail at that, the loading screens between managing things make the act of building characters tedious and annoying, the mini game gameplay that optimize maps is awful, the way you can spend resources for cosmetics that you can't use in battle is awful, the lack of little touches to the smithing system like being able to alter or name your weapons is bad. These are all gameplay, these aren't the maps but there part of playing the game and while you can in future runs maybe ignore most of these things you will likely experience some of these and some things were stream lined with patches but these patches will go away and eventually getting supports between characters will go back to being fairly annoying.

Then we can talk about the beloved maps and engaging. The gameplay using the skill system is utterly flawed with the SP being so poorly distributed makes building characters utterly prone to accidently wasting SP and not being able to get a build on that character that will feel good for the rest of the run. This effects gameplay in maps as does the fact you only have two slots for said skills making for fairly small amounts of build possibilities for the wide swath of options you get especially if you get the DLC. The map design doesn't present the fun diverse set of objectives an SRPG is capable of with most maps being kill the boss or kill all the things. They do present different little map gimmicks and they do make some of the maps good but the maps fail in the biggest way that a map can in an SRPG which is to be narratively uninteresting.

I could make a whole article about the sin to the world that is Xenologue 5 which is a top contender for worst map in all of Fire Emblem. In general the Xenolouge maps really are a perfect exercise and exposing the magic of the pretty lights of Engage and going "Oh this game is awful".

It's boring to fight the same 4 dudes. Your so rarely put up against someone new and neat and the characters you are fighting don't grow much until their about to actually die. The repeating four hounds fights creates a dissonance where your people permanently die if they lose in battle but you can't get the kill on these people your doing 1000 flashy attacks on. If you can enjoy a map in isolation perhaps these maps are good, great even but it doesn't fix the issues.

The Bonus Content TM

I talked about the stuff in gameplay but I want to reiterate that the bonus parts of the game are in fact a part of the gameplay.

First off we got costumes which are utterly frustrating even outside of being locked to the hub world. The clothes are gender locked where boys where boy clothes and girls where girl clothes expect Rosado who is a special femboy and in no way a dirty tranny we make fem boys not dirty transgenders in Fire Emblem [this is sarcasm, I am trans] who gets to wear girl clothes. Never mind Jade wearing more masculine clothes in her casual outfits if she had to chose between a butler or a maid outfit clearly she'd pick to be a kawaii maid. The only kind of gender deviation being allowed in the random costumes even for Alear being the femboy fetishist at IS's pet project is pretty pathetic. Also pathetic is the gender lock applying to the amiibo lord costumes which in addition are also even more limited only being wearable by lord characters and only lords of the right gender even if Lucina clothes are mens wear their only for women and very special bloodline women. Then all of this taking resources simply damages the game further.

The mini games include a Rhythm game with no Rhythm as if Fire Emblem has no amazing songs to be playing a work out mini game to. We have a flight sim on rails shooter thing but no enemies or added depth. A fishing game that is a fishing mini game. These are boring to passable but they all give you benefits from doing them so if you wanted to truly optimize you'd need to do them between every map.

Then there is the "interactive" bonus elements talking to people at Somnel and post map, inviting people to dinner, sending people to do an activity together. I've avoided comparing this game to Three Houses until this point but I have to here, Three Houses and Engage started development at roughly the same time so Engage had many more years in development but each and every one of these things are far less in depth then in Houses. There is no voice acting for these sections, unlike houses where every map you have new voiced interactions with every character some of which are dynamically tied to choices you made you get mostly rotating lines with a few people interjecting a text box of almost nothing of value. There is no special bonus conversations for sending people to work together who might have something to say to each other. The meals and creepy bed time interactions are voiced but the interaction between characters is very limited and the lines are pretty repetitive only working with an RNG system of if the food is shit or not which is only annoying. The bedtime interactions of someone waking you up are totally RNG based meaning a character you hate might come wake you up and you have to here about the Alpaca hero and they change when you raise up supports with them meaning each special voiced interaction with sleeping requires you to go out of your way to do something of no value to hope you RNG into the character you like saying a few words less you accidently support them and miss a piece of dialogue. It feels cheap, it feels bargain basement, it feels undercooked.

The grinding here kinda feels like it wishes it was Scared Stones but the pay off for climbing the grind in this game isn't exclusive post game characters, exciting special weapons but some orbs for an optional upgrade system randomly given to you so maybe you can upgrade the weapon you want but maybe not. The bound rings gacha is not an indepth system that is fun to play with. It's just another place where things feel super under cooked despite the long development cycle on this game.

Final Thoughts

Talking about the game I actually feel a lot more negative on it then when I put together the little list at the top or when I wrote an Anniversary of mid, I kinda just feel like actually it's just bad but like it's probably mid and not bad and I am just impassioned writing all my complaints. This is a game that had a ton of potential but I feel squandered it at every opportunity.

I wish I liked Engage, I Wish I liked Fates, but if this is the direction that IS is taking their games when their the primary devs of Fire Emblem I am just not gonna buy IS developed Fire Emblem games because ultimately I got way more physic damage playing these games then I got joy. Fire Emblem is my favorite game series, the one I would say I am actually part of the fandom of and I want to love every new entry, to be hype, to fall in love, to gamble on my phone for little jpegs but I'm just not here with this.

I think Engage presented cool new ideas like the Break System which I think is great and should return but in general I fear this direction. I'd love to see something akin to Engage skills with some flashy over powered stuff. I like how these these interact with the core mechanics and I think their fun additions to the formula.

I just hope this one year anniversary set of thoughts is enough to free me of my Engage demons and I can just never think about it again and go onto playing fan games, rom hacks and replaying older games I enjoy along with new Indie SRPGs leaving this behind to simply exist for the people who love it.

If you enjoyed this look back at Fire Emblem Engage and you want to help me play more Fire Emblem or other SRPGs then Patreon and Ko-fi are a great way to support me so I can afford to talk about queer art and stuff.

[fairandfatalasfair]

Finally got around to watching some of the new Doctor Who with a friend and so far I'm finding it... not great. Which is super frustrating because Ncuti Gatwa was amazing in sex education and obviously could play this part well and I was really excited to see him do it! But besides being light on actual content of him, the writing has just been really clumsy and disjointed and hard to engage with. It just feels like somewhere along the way RTD misplaced the ability to pick an idea and stick with it long enough to pull together a satisfying narrative.

The baby one and the war one were...fine, I guess? The twist in the war one was a little predictable and the resolution was sort of narratively scrambled, but they had political commentary and didn't intentionally shoot themselves in the foot to avoid handling their themes, so fine. I'd rate them as like... middle of the road episodes, nothing I'd be excited to share with anyone but not ones I'd actively skip.

The music episode felt exceptionally flat. The mechanics of how exactly the world lost music didn't seem to have been given much thought. The exploration of the human cost of losing music felt shallow and one-dimensional. ("So no love songs! No dancing! No dance TV shows!" and...that's it. Forget lullabies and nursery songs and camp songs and work songs and protest music and folk music and cultural connection and lifting the human spirit. What matters is love songs and the TV landscape being different.) The music-notation-as-magic-ropes thing felt like the least interesting expression of that concept.

And the resolution was all over the place - it would take a genius to figure out the counter-chord! Like the beatles? No like the doctor! Who isn't really a musical genius but it's fine because he's loved and lost, he's got heart! except oops nope heart actually isn't good enough, maybe it needed a genius after all. Okay, so is he going to escape and ask the beatles for help? or remember the conversation earlier in the episode where he was given a sequence of notes? maybe we get an impassioned Doctor speech about the importance of music that helps them reconnect with their musical talent and passion despite the vague-undefined-whatever that's suppressing it and that lets them identify the counterchord?

Nope! They just wander past by accident and conveniently the notes have manifested in the air above the piano so they play the last note and it's fixed. No intention or understanding of the stakes, no passion or meaning, just "huh, hovering musical notes, I guess I'll finish that." Problem solved I guess.

And then instead of like...a moving sequence about all of the ways that music gives meaning to life, or a speech about the importance of music to the human heart, or a montage of all these older people who have been yearning for music finally being able to pick up their instruments again, we get a cheap joke and a dance number. Don't get me wrong, I like dance numbers. But this episode already wasted every opportunity for a moment of sincerity, and ending it on a wink and a pun felt like a shoot-the-shaggy-dog moment.

IDK. The bubble of silence was clever and the thing about the doctor being able to hear the theme music was cute, but they don't save the episode for me.

73 yards felt a lot like the music episode - it had next to nothing to say, and it didn't say it. The bit in the pub where they call Ruby out on mythologising Welsh people was cool. RTD doesn't know what a fairy ring is. The rest of the plot mostly served to show that Ruby kind of sucks as both a person and a companion.

Dot and bubble was real bad. Is it an extremely poorly-considered critique of social media that ignores the issue of algorithms and advertisers to focus on painting young women as stupid twits and young blond male influencers as the saviours we need? Is it a serious AI-gone-rogue plot that really really buried the lead? Is it an alien invasion story about a horrific genocide that just forgot that genocides should have emotional weight? is it a class commentary that forgot to include any identifiable markers of wealth inequality? is it an extremely shallow aesop that amounts to "racism exists but watch out because being racist might make it harder to save you in an apocalypse."?

Who knows! certainly not the show! It doesn't do a good job at being any of them, and none of them are really good or worthwhile things to be, so I guess it doesn't really matter. Idk I get that they were maybe hamstrung a bit by the need to do some doctor-light episodes, but giving us the world's most unlikeable unsympathetic protagonist and then having us just... follow her while she stumbles around not knowing how to walk (y'know, because she's always on that damn phone) and being mostly indifferent to the mass murder of everyone around her... sure was a waste of my time! and dropping in a ''look also they've been racist all along'' at the end doesn't salvage that.

[silostosstuff]

Ayeeee, let's start with a bit of critique, shall we?

(Because I definitely have nothing else to do... nooooo...)

Btw this contains spoilers, I guess

.

The things that I liked:

First of all: I love the actors. They did a really good job. Especially the portrayal of teenagers. In a lot of shows, they look like 25 year-olds, and they act like 25 year-olds, but I really had the feeling of "Yes, these are the 16/17-year-old idiots they're supposed to be".

I also liked the sets. You can see the details in the background and the little nods to their characters.

I love how Lucy can feel what Annie felt while touching the ring, and I love her exploring her powers.

Their. Bodylanguage. Like how George is switching sides and stands next to Lucy when he agrees with her. The "we look at each other like oblivious idiots".

The bonding moments between George and Lucy and George and Lockwood. It shows that he is also important to them even tho he doubts it during the events of the last episodes.

The manipulation from Joplin towards George was on point and her obsession with knowledge.

I loved Kipps (even he had robbed screen time) and the way the showed his insecurities.

I am also invested in the story-line with Norrie. She seemed like a very nice character that could be important later. Especially since they made the coma/ghost-locked thing an important aspect of the show.

The scene in the hospital where Lucy finds all the people in the coma was actually pretty fitting. I really liked the danger the ghosts can have.

And of course his whole team. Kat being an icon, Bobby being the little smart boy he is and Ned also being an active agent.

And the sarcasm was on point.

Things that could've been better:

I kinda miss some scenes that were in the book. Like the scene at the beginning of the second book (I know they didn't have the time or money for it but still). I also missed some scenes to calm down. Like them sitting together after a job and just chatting a bit. I know it's way easier to put that in a book than a show but one or two scenes wouldn't have hurt.

I also miss the ghost in Bickerstaff's house. Like how creepy it actually was and I kinda miss that Kipps' team wasn't there cause it took away their effort to win this bet.

I also think at some points in the show Lucy is a bit out of character. I mean how she actually likes working at Jacob & Co and how and during the scenes with the ghost she... didn't really fight? Cause she is a trained agent and she is talented. And I dislike that she wants the world to know about the skull cause it's more like a secret.

I also think George should've been with them at some points (like Lucy at the DEPRAC headquarters or the ball).

I also missed that Ned was the kind of guy who punches the info out of you.

And of course: the storyline with Annie was way too fast, especially the Combe Carey Hall bit. I also missed the tour and Lockwood's intelligence and Fairfax deep regret of killing Annie. That it was an accident that was made out of jealousy rather than an act of brutality and hate.

Things, where I don't know how to feel:

I'm not sure about the changes with Annie. Especially with the ring. It doesn't make a difference, but it wouldn't have changed anything to stay with the necklace.

What is going on with the skull?? Like I have to know. I hope they didn't "destroy" him.

Winkman being an absolute psycho instead of a business man. I like him as a maniac but I also miss his shop and Lucy and Lockwood's "shopping trip"

What I think overall:

I genuinely liked the show. Of course, they can't make it "perfect" but considering their budget (that we don't know) I think they did the best they could've done.

I really hope for a second season, considering it didn't have that much of a budget and only a few big actors on the show it's possible. Also considering that Netflix renews book adaptations more often than original shows we might have a chance (?)

[chilling-in-the-void-alone]

I want to make pathetic rambles about the distortion for a second,, so I’m gonna do that 👍 (if you don’t like “critique” (barely that) for the common neon colours portrayal of the distortion just scroll past I guess?)

While I am an enjoyer of the neon eye-scorching distortion/spiral,,, I won’t argue its fun to draw and its fun to look at. But it honestly isn’t how I imagined the distortion and I want to ramble about how I imagined it (before fandom changed it a bit for me I guess??) I imagined it as slightly off desaturated warm colours if that makes sense. Like the colours you find on your grandparents floral sofa, but off. Like colours that should look nice together but they are just slightly the wrong hue and saturation and end up clashing when put together. Kind of like a long hallway with warm lights that end up warping the colour of the wallpaper into something just slightly different.

(Maybe its just that I’ve been thoroughly affected by the horribly long hallway to my therapists office,, it could have come out of a horror story, one day I’ll write something based on it lol). Now for my “reasoning” eg I want to dissect why I got these vibes from the statements about the distortion. 

So in Helen’s statement (Mag 47: The New Door), which I’m pretty sure is the first time we get to know what is in the hallways properly, “the walls were papered over in a swirling green pattern. Running down the middle of the faded yellow carpet was a rug, black and thick”, the colours just read as off for me here, it does rely on the green I’m imagining but yeah weird desaturated colours that don't fit together. 

There’s also the general ties to childhood/nostalgia?? that it has a couple times, I’m not actually sure if that was intentional (as many other statements regarding the distortion don’t have this but oh well some did and I latched onto it I guess)

One statement that stands out to me is ‘Mag 146: Threshold’ with the distortion following the statement giver since childhood. The vibe of the first segment of the statement with the skipping rope, has the kind of feeling I’m talking about, "I look over, and in the weak orange glow of my nightlight, I can see the heavy wooden handle of my skipping rope moving slowly across the floorboards" its hard to find a quote that really works for it that doesn't just include me copying and pasting the first segment but yeah that part is what I'm talking about.

As I've said before, the colours you find on your grandparents floral sofa, sun bleached from time and just slightly off from what it looked like originally, currently being affected by the orange light of the kitchen in the evening before being picked up. you know, nostalgia.

Or (can't forget my favorite person to subject my friends to rambles about) Michael Shelley and how he was affected by the incident of his his friend getting taken by "something like [the distortion]" (Mag 101: Another Twist) during his childhood which caused the whole domino affect with the institute and The Great Twisting. 

It’s Warped nostalgia I guess?

Generally, I find it all really interesting seeing other peoples interpretations of how things look and such, as tma is a podcast. I guess I just wanted to throw my hat in the ring for how I imagined the distortion 👍 and explain why I think I imagined what I did during my first listening :D

also I didn't mean for this to get so long, apparently instead of writing my comparative essay I wrote this instead

[ukyou-kuonji]

I can't fully articulate my thoughts on this, so this will likely be poorly worded.

From the bottom of my heart, I do understand why the "I AM just like the other girls" sentiment rings so strongly with so many people. I did love that original comic where I first saw it. But I feel like some people on and off the internet have taken that concept to an extreme that simply doesn't reflect the way different kinds of girls are treated by society/each other.

Like, I guess being 8-14 and being a social outcast, not conforming to traditional femininity, or even a purposeful rejection of it can in extremes lead to behavior, sentiments, or comments that are misogynistic (I'm not like other girls, because they are shallow/silly/stupid). But also I think when you are a 8-14 year old girl and you are rejecting your girlhood that hard, it speaks to a genuine discomfort with the extremely narrow definition of what girlhood is supposed to be, hence the derogatory sentiments. I think not acknowledging this ignores the impossible position so many young girls are put in by society to conform to a nigh unattainable standard.

Also, I find it odd to portray like, the poor popular social conformists as attacked by the outcast tomboy loner. That's just not my experience at all. In my experience, it was the girls who were able to perform high levels of femininity who attacked the gender performance of those who didn't, for whatever reason, often with a sexist angle (calling them a duff, a dyke, a man etc). To me, that was the misogyny I observed when I was a middle school girl, and idk obvi neither manifestation is good but I find it weird to first off pin young girls as the number one perpetrators of sexism, and secondly condemn those who don't fit a narrow, often racialized, often upper-class coded cookie cutter definition of femininity as sexist for not conforming.

And again, not sure where I'm going with this but sometimes this mindset gets taken to extremes. I've been told I'm sexist for criticizing the make up industry because it's mainly a woman's pasttime, and therefor any critique I make is sexist. Similarly, my criticisms of the Twilight series for it's racism and pedophilic overtones had been shut down with "you just hate it because it's popular and aimed at girls!". Idk I just wish we could engage in nuanced ways with the way women, women's media and global industries uphold sexism. I personally feel that we as women need to learn how to critique the culture around us and individuals in order to recognize the degree to which misogyny is woven into the fabric of our lives. And I wish we could extend more sympathy to young girls who are dealing with so much social pressure to be beautiful and agreeable and perfect without condemning anyone who fails or resents the position they're in. Idk I just feel like that expectation (to be one of the girls, the very idea of what those girls are or should be) is the sexist part of this all imo.

[castleinthemist]

was talking to mum about ring of eld stuff (reviews-wise) and she was like 'you're always talking about games and such why don't you review them?' and like...i get where she's coming from in that, i don't think it's the first time she's said as much but there is a world of difference between talking about something because i enjoy it and expressing how different facets of it are interesting to me, and critically reviewing a game because talking about facets through a lense of critique is interesting to me.

The major difference is just really do not have the mental tools to do the latter...I'd love to but my writing is full of errors, I don't know how to make an 'argument' compelling or even expressing my feelings on a thing that works in a critical way? There's a bunch of reviewers/bloggers whose writing I really enjoy and if anything that's something closer to how i'd love to talk about these things (see: Kimimi, Indie Tsushin, Errant Signal, and a good few other writups) and I def don't want to take the approach that feels like....I'm talking about the thing because you should buy it!

Weird intersection between talking about games but having teeter the line of making it feel like product placement (part of the reason I don't include links to where you can buy those games in Attract mode; I'd like to avoid making it sound like...advertising...but the core concept of it maybe feels a bit close to that. I think there's better ways I could talk about the games in there that's more...attractive without sounding by the numbers I guess.)

[theater-for-jocks]

ALRIGHT.

Bloodline on bloodline crime: I wound up liking this match way more than I expected!!! I’m really glad Jey still got his own entrance, I loved the continued tension between Roman and Jey, I loved Jimmy trying to keep the peace, and I ADORED Jey trying to play peacemaker for Jimmy and Sami when the latter showed up at the end! Initially kinda shocked solo et al won but I guess that’s why we didn’t just wait for wargames. Now it makes sense.

WOMENS TAG FRENZY: I was SO expecting damage ctrl to dethrone but since this allegedly replaced Rhea on Raquel vengeance I suppose it makes sense for Bianca and Jade to retain. Once again my match of the night, tbh; everyone looked INCREDIBLE in the ring. Hopefully once Bianca and Jade go on singles runs people don’t forget how fucking GOOD the women’s tag division is!!! Keep booking it like this!!!!

Rollins on Reeds crime: okay so I figured Bronson would win here to cement him as a strong presence. However. He looked SO FUCKING GOOD that him taking the L is a-okay! I doubt this feud is 100% over anyway. Seth’s gonna make him famous, alright. Side note Seth what the fuck were those shoulder pads. Bro looked like a fuckin n64 character.

THE GIRLS ARE FIGHTIIIIING: the lack of cash-in is shocking but at least it was for good reason both in kayfabe and out of kayfabe. (Hesitation and Raquel interference in kayfabe, getting it the pop it deserves out of kayfabe, man, the women deserved more of a fucking reaction.) (And also this gives Tiffy less of a reason to cash in on Liv!) I’M SO GLAD LIV WON HERE. Some folks on Twitter say she still looked weak but she was facing Nia Fucking Jax. The Unstoppable Force. And also this is kind of what the judgment day Does. Of course she got some help. I don’t really mind. She still looked FANTASTIC and honestly deserved a belt without the paper-champion feeling that her current title run has sometimes.

The not-match: okay so uh. They never made it to the ring. KO kicked Randy’s ass so I’m counting it but legally speaking there was no match. It was fun to watch but the ending felt kinda ?????? to me. Not quite as bad as livrhea bad blood imo but still kinda funky.

Triple threat: oh my god I LIKED this match and still forgot it. LA knight retains, which I’m not gonna lie annoys me A LITTLE because it means that sick midcard feud doesn’t REALLY resolve, but whatever. Maybe we get a real match seven soon. (Wargames? Wargames PLEASE?) But they all looked real good!

White on white crime; GOT REALLY GOOD AS SOON AS I WENT TO PEE, WITH A GREAT FINISH TO BOOT. Yeah Cody won here. Unsurprising. Don’t have much to say cause it took a wHILE to get good.

SO FOR CRITIQUE:

Narrative: the matches not for the crown jewel belts had PRETTY solid lead-ups, I think, and even with the CJ belts the girls managed to bake existing feuds into it to make it interesting. The men…….tried. The US championship I was a BIIIIIT less sold on because it kinda fucked up the landing but it’s fine I guess. Depends whether this ends the melo/andrade feud or not. Within the matches themselves the stories were pretty solid too!

Logic: I had a really hard time guessing, which is partially on me (bloodline, us championship) and partially cause it could have gone either way (Rollins/Reed, tag match). As mentioned in the notes the ending for Randy/KO was kinda ????????? though. They could’ve done it a different way to the same effect.

Showcase: BEST SHOWCASE BY FAR WAS THE WOMEN’S TAG. Everyone looked pretty solid though! Shoutout to the girlies though. You deserved more cheers.

Verdict: solid showing with some stuff I wasn’t too sure on. Headachey so not too much to say. Tentatively grading aaaaa 3.75 BUT I will downgrade by .25 if melo/andrade ends here. I’m sorry I gotta.

Oh we’re two weeks out from the next thing. Uh. Lemme start predicting.

[teawinx]

The big ones

The big little babes

Ladynoire and Mister Bug! Or as I’ve renamed them Blue-Bell and Golden-Bug! I was originally gonna keep the original names, but I realised they no longer suited their new designs.

I hate canon Ladynoire’s design. I‘m sorry but I do. I think it’s because I’m tired of Marinette’s outfits all being the same skin tight catsuit with different haircuts. Where the variety? Chat Noir’s suit is really good because it’s segmented. Ladynoir honestly could be renamed Lady Gray, since they had to make her suit grey so she wouldn’t become an amorphis black void. It’s so boring. And why the green accents? Green just doesn’t suit her. Go with blue like her eyes, canon!

So she’s the most changed. I actually love her braid, but it doesn’t work in 3D. So she’s getting some Anime inspired drill buns for cat ears. My idea is for Chat Noir and Blue Bell to both be black cats, but Chat Noir is a short haired slinky cat while Blue Bell is a fluffy cat. So she has ruffles and a thicker tail cape. If they both have to be Black Cats, I still want them to be a variety of black cats.

Golden Bug. No it’s not a Tikki and Pollen unification. It’s just Tikki. I quite like canon Mister Bug, even if it’s just Chat Noir recoloured. It’s not that bad. And I didn’t want to make a couple of tiny changes. I wanted to go big. And I remembered that yellow Ladybugs exist, I had to do it. Plus in the rewrite they briefly exchange Miraculous around the time the love square is reverse. And guess what yellow Ladybug’s represent? A NEW LOVE. It’s perfect.

I got some help for Golden Bug! @gale-gentlepenguin​ gave some helpful critiques for his hair (it was originally gonna be a royal blue). And @hades-999​ for the weapon suggestion. They reminded me of some concept art for Ladybug where she creates a staff from the yo-yo. Since my Chat Noir requires a cane to walk, it fits him perfectly. And he’s yet again charmed that his weapon acknowledges and accommodates for him. But imma be real I don’t think he’d bother walking when he can fly. Just sayin’. He’s going to be so disappointed when he gets his ring back. And again I wonder if Tikki turns yellow to match her holder? I think so. And Plagg’s eyes would turn blue to match Blue Bell.

[meydia]

🎥 FOOD (1992)

11 Nov 2022 | Day 4/∞: Food (1992) - Jan Švankmajer Trigger warnings: cannibalism, auto-cannibalism, light body horror

Had a hugely busy day, so I watched a short film by Jan Švankmajer, a renowned surrealist, stop-motion Czech filmmaker. You can watch the video yourself above. This is a three-part short film, each of which I will discuss below. This is apparently a dissection of Czech life in a newly modern and capitalist society post-Velvet Revolution, which saw a non-violent transition from Communist rule, though some also claim it is a critique of food rationing in the USSR. Švankmajer's cinematography is beautiful and unsettling and his stop-motion skills are admirable - the entire film is live action but stop motion, lending an unsettling tableau-like quality to every scene. Real eye candy! His other stuff is definitely going on my to-watch list.

Onto the feast!

Breakfast follows two people who sit at a table. One appears to be a mechanical automaton with instructions hung around their neck. The other prods and enacts violence upon the other as if they were truly a machine, causing their stomach cavity to open, revealing an ascending dumbwaiter containing the least appetising meal I have ever seen (mustard, a hotdog and some bread).

It's eventually revealed that after each person consumes the meal, they become the automaton - and the previous machine regains their humanity and leaves. The final person leaves to reveal a long line of people waiting to get their meals this way. Perhaps this is a critique of the food system, whereby people exploit each other in order to receive food. It could reflect the rationing of food via tickets. Or maybe it's a reflection of a capitalistic society where we dehumanise workers to the services and goods they provide us (I'm thinking of people who treat waiters shittily).

For lunch, two people sit at a table together - one, on the left, is cultured and seemingly rich. The other is dishevelled and seems financially worse off. They both fail to catch the attention of their waiter, someone who zooms around like a machine, completely disregarding them. They fall prey to hunger. They begin to eat everything on the table, their own clothes, and eventually eat the table and their own chairs.

Throughout it all, the poor man attempts to emulate the rich man - and yet the rich man becomes less and less cultured in his hunger. Ultimately, they eat their cutlery, only for the rich man to reveal his deception - he regurgitates the cutlery, then, it is implied, cannibalises the poor man. If this isn't a commentary on class dynamics I don't know what it is, man. The waiter may represent a society that doesn't care, or a government that fails to address hunger and greed in its population.

Dinner is perhaps the most straightforward, showing people eating essential parts of themselves after much seasoning - the first man cuts off his hand and removes his wedding ring. The second is a runner who eats his own leg, then a woman who eats her own breasts. Lastly a man eats his own dick. Crazy! Something something greed and hunger in a capitalistic society makes you lose yourself / harm yourself in many ways. Sometimes literally!

Sometimes you're just hungry I guess!!! Maybe Buddhism is the way guys.

(PS: This reminds me strongly of Hylics in the transmutation of objects to different forms: everything, in a sense, to food, and the automation of human beings. Hylics, on the other hand, makes everything the same in different, beautifully sculpted shapes. Still need to finish it!)

[dauntless-gothamite]

Prove Them Wrong [2/?]

Fandom: Divergent Pairing: Eric Coulter x Fem! Reader Summary: Y/N is a Dauntless transfer from Erudite, and she has a drive, an ambition that sets her apart--it always has, even back in Erudite. She brings her perseverance (and need to prove others wrong) to Dauntless when she transfers, and she uses her mind to make her way through the initiation process. Along the way, she makes friends and enemies, and she finds herself comfortable around the man most people in Dauntless avoid at all costs: Eric Coulter. A/N: it seems this may be a little bit of a slow burn, based on the pacing and where I am in chapter three right now... Enjoy!

You woke up to the sound of metal clanging together, an unpleasant alarm if you’d ever heard one. “Get up, get dressed, and be in the training room in two minutes,” Four said, banging the metal together one last time before leaving the room. 

Everyone scrambled to get dressed in their new black Dauntless clothes, and as people entered the training area, they began to form a semicircle around Four and Eric. “Ok, let’s get started,” Four said, clapping his hands together. “There are two stages of training. The first is physical, you will push your bodies to the breaking point and you will master the methods of combat. The second is mental, again breaking point. You’ll face your worst fears and conquer them--unless they get you first. You’ll be trained separately from the Dauntless-born, but you’ll be ranked together. After initiations, rankings will determine what jobs you move into: leadership, guarding the fence, or keeping the factionless from killing each other.”

“The rankings will also determine who gets cut,” Eric cut in, rising from where he sat on a concrete slab. An uneasy whisper spread throughout the initiates. No one knew about this, and you had to admit, you were getting a bit nervous yourself. “At the end of each stage of training, the lowest-ranking initiates will be leaving us,” Eric continued. 

“To do what?” asked Al.

“Well, you can’t go home to your families, so you’ll be factionless.”

Another wave of murmurs rippled through the crowd of initiates, but it was quickly silenced by Eric’s glare. “Someone should have told us,” Christina said.

“Why? Would you have chosen differently? Out of fear?” Eric replied challengingly. “I mean, if that’s the case, you might as well get out now. If you’re really one of us, it won’t matter to you that you might fail, alright? You chose us. Now, we get to choose you.” Eric looked at each initiate, his blue eyes challenging each person to look away. Some people did, others didn’t. You didn’t. 

Instead, you held his intense gaze as the itch to prove others wrong that had been inside you since the day you were born rose up, ready to be set free. What Eric said was scary, but it didn’t matter--all your years of studying the faction system told you that they would try to scare the initiates, and while you hadn’t expected this, you had known it wouldn’t be easy. But you had worked your ass off for years to be top of the class in Erudite, and you’d be damned if you weren’t going to do the same here, in your new faction. 

--

“Everyone, get some water before we move into the next segment of training,” Four called out. It took everything in you not to bend over as some others were doing; you knew standing up straight, getting fresh air in your lungs, would make the cramp in your abdomen go away faster, even if it hurt more now. 

“Tris, stand up straight,” you whispered to your friend, who was red-faced after running twenty laps around the room, which was everyone’s warm-up for the day. 

“Just so you know, tomorrow we won’t just be running laps,” Four said, surveying all the tired initiates. “So get used to this.” 

You sighed, mentally thanking yourself for joining a small workout group in Erudite. It was fairly new, and it was only created because studies showed that after some physical activity, the brain was better equipped to come back to problems it struggled with earlier and continue working whereas remaining stagnant was more likely to result in burnout and fatigue. The workouts were nothing like this, but you were still appreciative of them.

“Alright, everyone find a punching bag and start hitting. Eric and I will be walking around correcting your form, but it’s on you to put our advice into practice. Go,” Four announced after barely even a minute of the “break” had gone by. 

Turning on your heel, you walked over to the nearest punching bag and lined yourself up. Feet spread evenly about as wide as your shoulders, then step the left foot forward just a bit. Knees bent slightly, fists raised high. Then, you get to punching. 

After what felt like an hour of hearing Four quietly critiquing other students between Eric’s shouts of disappointment at other initiates, the two trainers finally got to your area of the training room. Out of the corner of your eye you caught Four walking up to Tris, slightly adjusting her position and giving helpful tips. Another set of footsteps came to a stop behind you, which meant Eric would be the one helping you. Your shoulders tensed for a moment, but you quickly forced yourself into a more relaxed position and continued punching. Just pretend he isn’t there, you told yourself. After hitting the punching bag six times, called out “Stop” from behind you. He walked over to your side and took a fighting stance. “Make sure your hips are square, like this, so when you throw a punch with the hand that is further back, you can twist your hips and use core strength to put more power into it,” he said stoically, and you did your best to mimic his stance. “No, like this,” he said, grabbing your hips and twisting them, holding you firmly in place for a second before letting go. “Try it now,” he said. You started throwing punches again, and he nodded before silently walking away. When you paused to readjust your stance, you heard Eric yell “Did I say you could stop, Y/N? No, I did not; keep going!” You took a deep breath and began the next onslaught of punches as the room fell quiet save for the sound of fists hitting punching bags, a rhythmic thumping sound. 

“First jumper!” Eric called out, disrupting the steady beat and sense of calmness in the room. “In the ring.” Beside him, Four sighed and looked down at his feet, and you had a bad feeling about whatever was about to happen. “Last jumper,” he continued, looking at a girl with dark hair--you think you may have heard her friends call her Molly, but you aren’t entirely sure. “Time to fight.”

Tris and the girl stepped up to the ring. “How long do we fight for?” the girl asked.

“Until one of you can’t continue,” Eric said in response. 

“Or one of you concedes,” Four interjected, stepping forward. 

“According to the old rules,” Eric corrected. “With the new rules, no one concedes.”

“You really want to lose someone in their first fight?”

“Well, a brave man never surrenders.” 

“Lucky for you, those weren’t the rules when we fought.”

Eric clenched his jaw, irritated, before saying “You’ll be scored on this, so fight hard.” Tris and the other girl squared up and began to circle each other, but Eric was getting impatient. “Go!” he barked. 

After nearly falling off the mat, Tris lunged, but the other girl dodged, twisted, and retaliated with a swing of her own, landing a punch to Tris’ face. As Tris retreated, the other girl pressed her advantage, catching Tris’ waist, bending her over, and punching her stomach a few times before Tris managed to break free of her hold. Just as she reached the end of the mat and turned, Tris was met with another punch to the face, sending her to the floor. The other girl--Molly--glanced at Eric since Tris was down, and he nodded, signaling Molly to send one last blow Tris’ way, knocking her out. As you watched the fight, you felt bad for your friend; she was much smaller than Molly, and part of you wanted to speak up about the cruelty that the trainers were showing, but you shoved it down. There was no need to compromise your position right now. 

“Next,” Eric yelled, pointing to a girl named Selene and a former Candor named Peter who had made fun of Tris, calling her a Stiff several times. You secretly hoped Selene would kick his ass, but it was unlikely, he was tall and strong, plus he was willing to fight dirty--he’d admitted as much in the dorm area. Guess he still couldn’t keep his mouth shut, even though he’d left Candor.

Selene was tough; what she lacked in strength she made up for in endurance, but after a few rounds of dodging Peter’s punches, he finally landed one to her solar plexus, stunning her, allowing him to sweep her legs out from underneath her and kick her as she lay on the ground. You clenched your jaw as he did so, feeling anger rise up inside of you. Selene was unable to fight, that was the stopping point of the fights, but Peter was still kicking her. And Eric, the emotionless person that he was, didn’t do anything. 

“Peter,” you said, “stop it.” Peter turned towards you and smirked.

“What are you going to do if I don’t?” he taunted. You considered for a second before turning to Eric. 

Looking up at him, you steeled yourself. “I know we don’t get to determine the fighting order, or who we fight, but I would like to fight Peter. Now,” you said, sure to keep your voice level and maintain eye contact with the leader. 

He raised an eyebrow at you curiously, and thankfully, Peter had stopped kicking Selene when you started speaking to Eric. Selene scooted to the edge of the mat, but that was as far as she could move without assistance. “You two,” Eric yelled at two initiates, “help Four get this one,” he pointed at Selene, “to the infirmary.” Then he turned back to you. “What are you waiting for, initiate? Get up there.” For a moment you were stunned, you didn’t actually think you would end up fighting Peter, and you knew that both Eric and Peter were expecting you to lose quickly. You caught Four’s eye as he carried Selene out with the help of two initiates, and you looked around to see Christina, Tris, Will, Al, Edward, Molly, and a few other initiates staring at you like you were mad. Maybe you were, but it was too late to back out now. You stood in a low, sturdy fighting stance, just like Eric had shown you. Peter did the same. For a moment, the room was dead silent as your eyes locked with his, and then both of you whipped into action. 

Peter went right for the face punch, but you quickly blocked upward and threw a low roundhouse kick at his knee, making him wobble. He recovered quickly, and he quickly used his height to his advantage, moving to grab your shoulder and slam you into the ground. You were smart though, and you let him move you slightly before turning the downwards motion into momentum that allowed you to do a somersault, twisting his arm and landing on your feet. As he was turning around to face you, you sent a snap kick right to the back of his knee, making it buckle. You moved quickly to his other side, ready to send a few punches to his face and knock him out, but he sprung forward, wrapping strong hands around your neck and squeezing. For a moment you panicked, hitting his arms, but they didn’t move. Everyone was sure that was it for you, but you had another trick up your sleeve--Peter was overly confident this would weaken you and in the process of squeezing, he had left his own body defenseless. So you kicked him in the groin. Hard. He called out and released you, and as he leaned over in an instinctual reaction to pain, you kicked his forehead with your knee, shoved him to the side, knocking him over, and kicked him again, this time in the solar plexus. You stood there, stone-faced, and when Peter didn’t make a move to fight back, you turned to Eric, who nodded, and you jumped down from the mat. 

You landed next to Will, Tris, and Christina, all of whom were staring at you in a mixture of horror and admiration. You blushed in embarrassment and looked at the ground, thinking to yourself, What the hell did I just do? You were so lost in thought that you didn’t realize the next two initiates were on the mat and fighting, and you only came back to yourself when Eric yyelled, “Hey! Are you deaf, initiate? I said go grab some ice for your neck, I don’t want to hear complaints about it tomorrow!” 

You nodded to your friends and said “I’ll be back in a minute,” shocked at how hoarse your voice was. “Just going to… yeah,” you trailed off before walking quickly towards the infirmary. 

A/N: can you tell I love writing fight scenes? also I do martial arts and have played sports my whole life, so I love when I get to use my knowledge of anatomy and physiology two write action scenes :)

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