#fighting for anything but themselves at this point which is just a feedback loop of gaining more power and is not equatable to real

[dykedvonte]

I dislike takes that Danse would be just as conservative in modernized aus when it's clearly shown his staunch views of things come from his time in the Brotherhood and his deep-rooted desire to belong to something with a greater purpose.

Not to mention lines that show much more open-mindedness that get overlooked for his harsher sentiments when you first meet him. Like the oppurtunity to be a part of something is why Danse fell so far into Brotherhood dogma and it doesn't negate the offense things he does but I feel like it's just lazy to be like "hmmm he'd def be racist" just so it aligns to his BoS beliefs.

[rainbowoverdragon]

Thoughts on Ryo

This is an analysis of Zane Truesdale/Ryo Marufuji, focusing on his mindset as well as his relationships with other people. As I am basing this off the original Japanese version for standardization, all names likewise are their sub counterparts.

When Sho obtains a rare and powerful card from his brother, he believes he has it made. After this, Sho finds the courage to confront his bully in a duel. So after he draws Power Bond, Sho thinks he has it made. He gloats to the bully, insulting him, making outlandish claims out of the arrogant belief that he can't lose. Before he can use it, Sho is interrupted by the very person who gifted him that card. "You aren't worthy to use that card yet. Until you have what it takes to be called a duelist, I declare that card off-limits.'' Devastated by this statement, Sho proceeded to view himself as incapable of dueling for years; unworthy of Power Bond. It’s an establishing character moment for both Marufuji brothers, setting Ryo up as an impossible standard to reach in Sho’s eyes. However, for Ryo, his intentions are revealed to be more well-intentioned than Sho is led to believe. In episode 8, Sho realizes that Ryo wished for Sho to treat his own power with respect: towards both his opponent and his high-risk high-reward cards. This constant cycle of good intentions and misplaced words leads to a negative feedback loop between the brothers that seems impossible to resolve. Ryo struggles to convey his own observations to others in a way that doesn’t come off as condescending. Sho cannot take things past face value, and places his brother upon a pedestal that he cannot surpass. After all, how can you beat perfection itself?

During his years in Duel Academy, Ryo is the embodiment of perfection. He is the opposite of his brother, never missing a single mark in any area. Everyone constantly refers to Ryo as “perfect”, from his teachers to his peers to even the Kaiser himself. He even soundly beats Judai in the first duel they have together, a feat seen as impossible by the audience. But it’s this very idea of perfection that haunts Ryo, as he believes that perfection implies stagnation. If Ryo has perfect scores in class, there is no way to improve them. If he reached the peak of his potential in one duel, that means it’s all downhill from there. His greatest fears are confirmed when he loses to Edo in the Pro Leagues, starting a chain of losses that ruins his career beyond repair. Ryo is perfect. He is so perfect, that during his school years he never truly struggled against an opponent (Aside from Judai in Episodes 51-52 however he maintained the advantage for the majority of the duel). In fact, he suffered from the opposite problem. As Ryo is too powerful, he’d purposely hold back until his peers could unleash their trump cards against him. Only then did he defeat them with just enough power to avoid humiliation. His first loss wasn’t only his first loss, it was the first time Ryo found himself in a disadvantaged position. His inexperience with failure led to him associating the mere act of struggle with the idea of loss. Ryo’s inability to move past this is his own self-fulfilling prophecy. Being afraid of failure makes people play to not lose. Playing to not lose instead of playing to win causes chokes, which results in losses. Unable to break from this cycle, Ryo is abandoned by his sponsors. Which is why the idea of Underground Duels, a place where he can start over and regain his bearings is so enticing. At least, until they reveal the condition.

And at first, Ryo despises the Underground. He appeals to be released, he states it’s not what dueling is, it’s nothing like he could ever imagine. And how could it be? Ryo’s life is on the line, and for no good reason. The shock collars are there to make things fun for the audience, not for any other benefit! In his duel with Sho, who says that 'this isn't dueling', Ryo even admits he thought the same thing. It spits on the very concept of respecting your opponent. The collars humiliate you, egging you on to forget about the other person. And in general, is amoral (as well as a human rights violation). Underground Duels are almost always life or death, because nobody fights harder than people who are convinced they are going to die. And Ryo is convinced that if he duels the way that he always has, if he clings into his morals, he will die. His opponent, Mad Dog, purposely created a deck to counter him. So why should he respect him? Why should he not aim to win? Why can’t he aim to survive? After crawling from hell, nothing is the same for the Kaiser. Because every duel is another reminder that he survived. He is unable to see any match he takes for fun, every duel to him is life or death. In the real world, there are people who lose and wither away, and people who win and thrive. And by god, he wants to feel alive. He spent so long losing, something utterly unthinkable for the Kaiser of Duel Academy. Ryo was undefeated before, now he truly wishes to not experience it again. If forcing himself to feel that every fight of his is to the death, literally or mentally, then so be it. He continues dueling in the Underground, continues to utilize the shock collars he once despised. No matter what cost, health or mind, Ryo requires victory.

When Ryo is told that his health is failing from his shock collars, he doesn’t seek medical attention. Because to Ryo, being alive is more important than living. He transformed into Hell Kaiser achieved the great power that comes from becoming a monster, at the cost of self-destruction. He flirted with death, and finally has to pay the price. And he doesn’t care. As long as Ryo obtains what he wishes, he is happy. And what the Hell Kaiser wants more than anything else, is one last duel to surpass all others. Ryo would rather reach the limit of his capabilities, and die meeting them than waste away quietly to be forgotten forever. Thus he seeks Yubel, the strongest monster spirit in the Universe. If he meets an opponent of his caliber and 'shines' during the mattle, then he’d have nothing to fear in death. But he does. After entering his long-awaited match, Ryo admits to not wanting to die. He wants to live, he wants to leave a mark that can never be forgotten. Yet he doesn’t want to die. Ryo has achieved everything he wanted, shown the strongest he has been or will ever be. Before he duels Yubel, he comes to a revelation. At first, Ryo wished to fight the strongest being to win. He doesn't care anymore. Ryo is dying, win or lose the result is the same. Since he turned Hell Kaiser, Ryo only respected victory. The joy he obtained by knowing he survived another duel is utterly meaningless against Yubel. What happiness does he obtain knowing he survived….when he isn’t going to live to begin with? He understands that the duel itself is what makes Ryo feel alive, doing the most with what remaining time he has with his life. As Ryo tells Judai, his death is the end of the road for people who glorify power. And thus it’s no surprise that Ryo is taken out by the card he is associated with most: Power Bond. A card that lets you receive unthinkable amounts of power, at the price of self-destruction.

Out of all the people who save Judai from himself, the Kaiser’s impact is one of the most apparent. It takes someone who knows the suffering someone else goes through to achieve empathy, especially in Judai's case. Judai struggles with sympathy, as shown with his interactions with Sho in Seasons 1-3. Whenever Sho asks for help with his confidence, Judai gives him the helpful advice of "Don't be anxious!" Judai cannot comprehend being insecure with one's capabilities, thus he cannot help Sho directly. In contrast, Judai is more receptive to empathy. Manjoume's crisis in Season 1 revolved around the pressure others placed upon him to succeed. Judai deeply understands his strife, and helps him fight for himself. This is why Misawa's speech about accountability fails to help Judai utilize Polymerization. Misawa has no fundamental basis to understand Judai's feelings. In contrast, Kaiser's duel with Yubel awakens Judai's character growth. Ryo is Judai's cautionary tale, a warning of self-fulfilling prophecies. During the Graduation Duel, Ryo tells Judai that he possesses infinite potential compared to himself. This rings true in watching Ryo's belief of his own lack of capability to change, resulting in his inability to change because he destroyed himself beyond repair. In contrast, Judai has not fallen to this path. Watching Ryo's descent as well as his late realization means everything to Judai: especially someone so responsive to empathy. This is because they are mirrors of each other, to the point their character’s arcs are entirely parallel to one another. Both are idolized for the power they hold over others, both of them experience the loss of the pedestal they once stood upon. Both achieve the sharpest fall from grace (against an opponent with ‘Mad’ in their title), which leads to them glorifying their own power and abusing it against others. Despite their friends trying to help them, it is ultimately up to themselves to self-actualize their shortcomings. However it is Ryo, who thinks he cannot change, who succumbs upon his own revelation. And it is Ryo, who always believed in Judai’s infinite potential even in the Graduation Duel, who changes Judai’s path. Without Ryo, Judai would be unable to utilize his power responsibly. Because Judai now knows what happens to people who push themselves too far, just like how he used to. Power is not something to be afraid of or abused, but to use responsibly.

The Hell Kaiser doesn’t entirely work for others; he even states he fought Yubel out of selfish motivations. However, Ryo is also constantly associated with lighthouses. To the people that mean the most to him, Ryo is a light that tries to guide others to safety. However lighthouses are far away from the people they try to save, and thus it takes the initiative of others to help themselves after seeing the light from afar. This is shown by Ryo’s relationships with the people he’s closest to remaining fundamentally the same from his own side: regardless of his actual guidance being positive or negative. Ryo’s actions and intentions around Sho remain the same across both his younger self and Hell Kaiser: each time trying to guide Sho to become the best version of himself. "Until you have what it takes to be called a duelist, I declare that card off-limits."", is the devastating statement Ryo told Sho as kids. But Ryo believed his brother needed to understand true power in respect, guiding Sho away from arrogance and towards the light of good. His brother's weakness required defending. This concept is twisted on its head once Ryo becomes Hell Kaiser, who only views power or meaning in victory. Thus he employs the same tactic, because Ryo does not see the difference between restricting Power Bond to teach respect, and having Sho experience the same pain he did to ditch it.

Both Ryo and Hell Kaiser sing the same song. Ryo intends on ‘protecting’ his weaker brother by teaching him right from wrong. Both times, Sho and Ryo misunderstand each other. At first, Sho doesn’t comprehend the real reason why Ryo forbade Power Bond. The second time, Ryo doesn’t understand how Sho can cling to his own beliefs of respect even if he loses because of it. However, the one time Ryo’s words connect is when he saves Sho in season 3. And even then, it’s an admission of distance between the two. Ryo sees Sho’s pain inflicted by Judai far outweighs what Ryo had done to Sho. Thus Ryo advises Sho to follow Judai, since it’s what his heart truly desired all along. He then leaves, to force Sho into walking his own path. Ryo cannot spell out Sho's wishes any more than he does. And if Sho is alone, then he is forced to swim instead of sink.

Ryo’s association with lighthouses in canon directly correlates to Fubuki. As much as Fubuki is associated with darkness, Ryo is quite literally the light that shines through to him. When Fubuki was overtaken by Darkness in the first arc, we later find out that Ryo regrets being unable to find Fubuki no matter how much information and effort he scrounged up. Fubuki then replies that the mere act of trying saved him, as he could see Ryo’s feelings in spite of the darkness that consumed him. To Fubuki, Ryo is the lighthouse that guides people through the darkness. And when Fubuki is overtaken by the Darkness in an attempt to save Ryo from it, Ryo’s feelings once again vanquishes Fubuki from the dark. However, instead of the Kaiser saving Fubuki, Hell Kaiser explicitly protects him from Darkness. Because the two are friends, even after everything Ryo’s been through. This leads Fubuki to a revelation that no one else understands: Hell Kaiser is not fundamentally different from Ryo. Fubuki realizes that even as Hell Kaiser, Ryo respected Fubuki. Why else would he save him from Darkness? Indeed, every interaction of Ryo’s major interpersonal relationships are fundamentally the same. It’s simply his worldview that shifted. As much as Ryo wishes to respect others, he doesn’t think he can in a world where everyone must take advantage of their life to the fullest extent.

And Ryo, who cannot change because he thinks he cannot change, stayed as he was until it was far too late to be saved.

[kahlsflannel]

The Lost Art of Murder

Bucky Barnes is bodyguard to Mafia boss Steve Rogers. When Hydra makes plans to take New York for themselves, they send in a deadly assassin, one who takes a quick liking to Bucky and suddenly takes on the role of a double agent. 

Chapter One: Explosive Events

Hi hi hi, so I’m starting another series (which lets be honest here, I doubt I’ll finish) but if I get enough feedback I’ll hopefully stay inspired!!! Please lemme know your thoughts!!!

Word Count: 1.3K

Pairing: Mafia!Bucky x Assassin!Reader

Warnings: Swearing, guns, violence in general, mafia related activity, Natasha being hot 

"James? Can you meet me in the lounge?" Natasha's voice spoke smoothly into the ear piece that was tucked snuggly in Bucky's right ear. He reached up a hand, pressing the response button. 

"Be there in three." He did a final glance of the front lawn before stepping inside the large house in which he worked. The lounge was located at the back of the estate, nestled between the kitchen and back sunroom. When he rounded the corner, his hand instinctively flitting down to check his pistol was in it's holster on his belt loop. Natasha's tone was calm, but she was good under pressure. She'd never sound alarmed, even if a threat was apparent. His nerves were calmed as his eyes were met with a smirk and a flute of champagne in her left hand. The crystal of the glass complimented the large diamond that adorned her ring finger, a gift from Steve many years ago.

 "Good morning, James. Security report?" Bucky straightened his form, clasping his hands behind his back. An unnecessary behavior, but he was always one to push buttons of Natasha, one of which hated the formalities put into place by her husband. 

 "I did a full sweep of the house this morning when I arrived. Negative on any threats. I brought in a few packages and checked the seals on each. I don't believe there were any issues, but I followed protocol and had them sent up to Bruce so he could be sure. I did a perimeter check next, which was negative as well. And now I'm here talking to the red-headed deviant who is also known as one of my bosses." He finished with a smile, watching as Natasha took a long drink from her glass.

"Thank you, James. Steve needs you in his office. Come on," she said as she turned on her heels, the expensive robe that wrapped her figure moving in the breeze of the open french doors. A spiral staircase led up to a library, stuffed full of books from every corner of the world, Bucky's eye flitted to his favorite shelf, the one filled with the Romanian novels. Natasha pressed a small button the side of a bookcase, one that only pressed in with hers or Steve's fingerprints. The door opened quick, revealing a very stressed out Steve, one whose hair was ruffled from hours of clawing his fingers through. At the sound of the door, he looked up, eyes softening at the sight of Natasha. 

"Hey babydoll. Hey Buck. Come in, come in," he said, rolling his chair back to allow his wife to take a seat upon his lap as Bucky sat on the leather seat across from the pair. The room smelled of smoke and something metallic. Bucky scrunched his nose as he better took in his friend's appearance. Steve's eyes were bloodshot, and he had large bags forming underneath them. Natasha thumbed at the darkened skin, sighing at his state of being. 

"What's going on, Stevie?" Bucky finally spoke, eyebrows furrowing at his obviously stressed best friend. With a sigh, Steve slid forward a file, one that had a bloody set of fingerprints stamped on the brim. That explained the smell of blood, but didn't ease any worry that had started. Bucky knew his face showed confusion by the way the man across him avoided his gaze. 

"We didn't come across this easy, the guy put up an obvious fight: Sam pried it from his dead hand. Wish we could have worked it out but here we are. What's done is done," Steve spoke emotionlessly as Bucky grabbed the information, opening the manilla colored folder, glancing over the information as Steve continued. "Rumlow is hitting our men hard. Hydra is getting out of control. They want Brooklyn, but they know as long as we're here, they can't have it," he went quiet, making eye contact with Bucky before stating, "They've put out a hit for me. One I can't escape unless we get the assassin on our side over theirs. It's going to be expensive, and it's going to be hard. That's why I've put you in charge of doing it-" 

Before Steve could finish his sentence, a loud explosion sounded from the front of the house. Bucky immediately stood, gun drawn from his hip and pointed at the door. 

"You two stay here," he spoke quietly, glancing behind him before stating, "I mean it, Natasha. Stay here. I'll be back. Don't leave until I come back up here, understood? No one steps out of this room until they see my face." Both nodded, eyes wide as Bucky took a deep breath, slipping out of the door and waiting to hear the electronic whir of the lock clicking into place. He closed his eyes, accepting that he may very well be walking into his own death. 

He'd never given it much thought: dying, that is. He had always pushed it to the back of his mind. Protecting Steve was more important than anything, even his own life. Steve had been his best friend for as long as he could remember so when Steve stumbled home with a harsh brand stamped onto the side of his neck, Bucky asked no questions and joined his best friend in the underground world. As years progressed, Steve rose up in rank, taking Bucky with him as his personal bodyguard. No matter the threat, Bucky always jumped in, taking care of it before a single hair was touched on Steve's head. 

This time was no different. 

Bucky cocked the gun in his hand, breathing out sharply as he rounded around bookshelves, peeking out to ensure the all clear. He assessed his plan of action. There was no way he could make it down to the basement, where the security based their operations, without being seen. Pressing the button on his earpiece, he spoke softly. 

"I need intel, boys. What in the fuck just happened?" he was initially greeted with static before the voice of his second in command, Sam Wilson, piped up. 

"Some sort of plane flew overhead and dropped a whole lot of men, one with a bomb strapped to his chest. Blew up the front door, and now the house is littered with em. Fairly certain they have radio access, however, because my lines are not quiet so you'll have to fly solo, sir. I can't lead them to headquarters." Bucky sighed, nodding to himself. 

"Can you see me?" He waited for the yes before making eye contact with the camera. "Kill the coms, cameras, and phone lines. I'll handle them somehow. No matter what, do not give away the position of the boss or yourself. Over and out." He stayed on the line until a thick silence greeted him, telling him he was alone. He tugged the bud out of his ear, tucking it into the pocket within his jacket. The only way out of the library was the damned staircase that stuck out like a sore thumb in the lounge. Bucky shook his head, his breathing picking up as his adrenaline started to spike. He had to quick and silent, two things that he had spent years working at but still never felt quiet or fast enough.

He neared the stairs, peering down into the area below. It was deadly silent. Bucky took a deep breath and looked around, eyes landing on the new book that Natasha had been reading in the nook. He grabbed the paperback and dropped it down the stairs. No shots were fired, hopefully meaning that he could get down without suffering any bullet wounds. Slowly, he stepped down, silently hoping that the back of the house was still slightly safe. Once his full body was on the staircase, he glanced around, trained eyes scanning the room. No one was in sight, but he still didn't let his guard down as he pulled his suppressor from his back pocket, twisting it on with ease before heading out into the expanse of the estate. 

[pointlesstrashyexistence]

Every few days I think about how if Supernatural’s writers were just planning on killing of Cas and then never mentioning him again with the original ending involving the possibility of just a brief cameo of him in Heaven weirdly partying with (dead?) Kansas, I probably would’ve preferred it if Cas didn’t have a confession scene.

Ok here me out. Yes I ship DeanCas/Destiel. Yes I loved that there was at least acknowledgment of Cas’ romantic feelings towards Dean. Misha has outright said the confession was romantic and there have already been two official dubs in two different languages where the “I love you” specifically uses phrases that show romantic love. It’s not up for debate anymore if those feelings were romantic.

But if they were just going to throw that in there and get rid of Cas and never mention him again except for two scenes where he doesn’t appear and one that is just Lucifer pretending to be him to gain access to the bunker, I would’ve preferred it if Cas’ true happiness was something that I think would’ve been the ultimate acknowledgement of Cas’ transformation, which I feel would’ve been Jack calling Cas his dad and telling his dad how much he loves him. Of all three members of Team Free Will 1.0, Cas has been the most like a dad to Jack. Cas was the one who eventually helped Kelly hide, prepared a home for Jack and Kelly to live in, for Jack to be raised in safe and loved and cared for. Cas was the one prepared to go down fighting to protect Jack before Jack was even born. Cas is the one who always runs to Jack, to protect Jack, to save Jack, even if it means creating a rift between him, Sam, and Dean.

I love my Sam Winchester is Jack Kline’s Father fics, and my Dean Winchester is Jack Kline’s Father fics, and my Team Free Will 1.0 are Jack Kline’s Fathers fic on ao3 . I do. But if we’re talking about in the show, Cas is the one who is the most like a father to Jack.

Love Dean and wish that man had been given therapy and anger management and AA meetings and working to become a better, less violent person who takes accountability for what he’s done as his finale ending rather than just dying by a fucking nail through the chest, something Cordelia on Buffy The Vampire Slayer survives after like a twenty foot drop from a staircase. But Dean outright hates Jack during his widower arc and makes it known how much of a monster he thinks Jack is to the point where Jack repeatedly tries to commit suicide and then it’s just never really brought up again after Cas comes back and Dean then just goes back and forth on whether he thinks Jack is part of his family or not for the last three seasons. As much as I like the few scenes where Dean is actually bonding with Jack and calls him “their kid” and Jack referring to himself as a Winchester, Dean isn’t really Jack’s dad in the show. Do I think this probably would’ve been a different story if we got baby Jack? Yes, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now

Sam? Sam definitely tries at first. Sam gets what it’s like to feel like a monster and be viewed as one even when your not, and calls out Dean for how he acts and behaves towards Jack. But Dean just as easily calls out Sam for using Jack to try and get their mother back and trying to appear invested in Jack to get what he wants. Sam’s affection for Jack is conditional at first. He gradually grows to be more paternal to Jack but by season 14, it kind of just dwindles away. We got all this buildup of Sam and Jack’s relationship, which yes there should’ve been because here you have someone who was supposed to be the True Vessel of Lucifer, the Boy King of Hell and the Antichrist, the Son of Lucifer, and there’s not really any care given to it afterwards. That season was probably the last time the writers actually did anything interesting with Sam and tried to give him an arc in my opinion.

Cas though? Cas, who was a warrior of God that led garrisons and killed the offspring nephilim of lesser angels? Cas who grows a respect and admiration for humanity, seeing them as complex miraculous beings rather than hairless apes like the majority of the angels? Cas who defends humanity’s existence against other angels even at the cost of his life? Cas who originally thought of the Antichrist as a monster that needed to be killed to protect humanity but heard Kelly talk about how good she believed her child could be despite being the son of the devil and saw a paradise on earth when he actually communicated with Jack in the womb? Cas who separated from the only other two people he has consistently turned to for help and has provided help for in order to try and ensure Jack would be a child safe and loved even if it meant being away from the people he considered family and could die protecting Jack and Kelly? Cas who unconditionally loves and treats Jack as his child throughout the last three season? He is definitely Jack’s father.

I just think there’s something very fitting about the angel who unconditionally loved humanity despite never being able to entirely follow god’s orders raising the supposed antichrist who becomes a god that respects humanity’s free will. And I think that scene would’ve been fantastic in that Cas loves Jack as his child so much that he makes that deal with the Empty in the first place to protect Jack , but Cas loves Jack so much that Jack is the reason the deal is broken. Jack doesn’t realize Cas thinks of him as his child the same way Cas doesn’t think Jack sees him as his dad, and that recognition that they feel the same way is the most bittersweet moment in the world because their first moment where they mutually knowingly recognize each other as parent and child seems like it might be the last one they have together as they hug. Jack sobs while furiously apologizing as he sees black goo come to reach Cas who only has a few more second left to kiss the top of his child’s head and hug him close and say something like “I love you so much my son” before pushing him away while Jack watches, crying as he calls out “Dad don’t leave me” as his father get covered in black goo while smiling with tears streaming down his face before disappearing.

I’m not sure how that situation could’ve occurred. Maybe Jack and Cas are together when people start disappearing, and Jack worries about how if Chuck doesn’t consider him important enough to torment he could also be proofed away, and he wants to tell his dad how much he loves him in that way kids do when they think they might see their parents for the last time and despite being in basically an adult body Jack is still three and not really thinking about what could happen or doesn’t even think this could be Cas’ happiest moment because he always thought Cas knew Jack thought of him as his dad. I don’t know.

But that scene happens and the Empty collects Cas and then when Jack becomes god and brings everyone back, he somehow also brings Cas back from the empty. Look the writers gave absolutely no good reason for why Lucifer somehow came back from the empty in 15x19 when the Empty specifically states that Chuck has no power in her domain so why should I? But I guess if I was going to it would’ve involved Jack finding out how it got loud in the empty and bargaining with the Empty in trading demons, angels, and other nephilim in exchange for making the empty quiet again and managing to deal with what to do with all of these now revived supernatural creatures. Still frustrated that the show made God the enemy and turned Billie into a last minute villain when the Empty was right the, the Enpty was hyped up, and then it just took Cas and Billie and disappeared, and was never heard from again.

Anyways, Jack and Amara separate but they’re still functioning as a unit and are working together to fix the other universes as well as heaven and the systems of who gets sent to heaven, hell, and purgatory in a sort of season 4 of the Good Place style, and Cas takes on a major role as the celestial being with the most interaction with and understanding of humanity, especially with that time he was a homeless human under his belt to provide his own reflection on why certain people may do things that are wrong like stealing in order to provide just a basic need for themselves like stealing food to eat. It’s implied that Rowena’s involved in this too. Cas and Jack say their goodbyes to Sam and Dean. If I had it my way, the finale would end up being like the one I made up in an earlier post where Sam and Dean get their beach day but realize that their relationship isn’t healthy for either of them and separate and the viewer no longer has access to what they do with their lives afterwards because Sam and Dean now have control of their own stories and decide who gets to see it. But I guess what I made up fixes some general overarching complaints about the last three episodes. I still hate that last episode and what I feel is the assassination of 15 years of character development of Sam and Dean in order to go back to S1 with Sam as the main character and Dean as the side character interrupting his life but I just barely acknowledge it as the show’s finale.

I do love the confession scene. I really do. But if it was just going to end with Cas dying a minute after confessing his love and never being seen or acknowledged again, I would’ve much rather preferred it being that his happiest moment was being with his child in the endless feedback loop of familial love.

[midnightcinderella]

because they don’t listen to the fans at all. Worst of it all is that they seem to only listen to lucifer fans but his fans don’t do anything to fight the unfair situation. We are their consumers and without us their game will bankrupt anyway, its important to listen to your fans

It is indeed important to listen to your fans, but in this case it's the fans that are being unreasonable. Complaints about event point thresholds, distribution of event cards, and special focus on some characters (Lucifer) over others are all valid, and it's good to let the devs know your thoughts on them in a respectful manner. And it's respect and patience that much of the fandom lacks. The devs' social media are good ways to convey opinions on the game, but some people have been abusing them to say hurtful things to the devs "to their faces" in places they're sure to see it, and I doubt their private dms are much more friendly.

And it's not fair to say that the devs don't listen when the game 1) is relatively new in terms of the global server (I'm sure you've noticed that the event point thresholds have been fluctuating. This is bc the devs are still seeing what works and what doesn't), 2) has its events written way in advance (the reason why people are able to speculate about what events are coming next is due to everything already having been released in the jp server, and the devs aren't just going to throw away what they've worked so hard to create), and 3) the devs have actively been keeping us in the loop about their plans in response to player feedback (and they do it a lot more politely than some of their critics deserve).

It's easy to ignore if you're not thinking about it, but a lot more work goes into games like this than you realize. And labor comes with costs. A lot of time, effort, and money goes into paying the sprite artists, card artists, writing team, translation team, coding team, etc. And at the end of it all, even if the finished product isn't exactly what people have asked for just a week ago, it's not always possible to change things enough to meet every demand of their new English-speaking audience, especially while maintaining the servers themselves and other tech work which, believe me, is not cheap. At that point, it only makes sense to release what they have and appeal to those they can while they implement their changes on the next events that are new enough in production that the changes don't equate to an entirely new event, rather than not release anything at all and flush that money down the drain and leave the players with a dry spell with no event to tide them over while the new chapters are being prepared.

I know the impatience that comes with not having your needs met, but until the devs and the game have their roots firmly planted in a model that allows them to both create a game that people love and make enough money to keep the game going/pay their bills, it's going to be trial and error before they find that model. I'm not saying that no one is allowed to have complaints (I certainly have my problems with the game). I'm saying that people need to keep their impatience and frustration in check and be mindful of what they're saying, especially to the devs. Calling them money grubbers and accusing them of favoritism brings no good to anyone, especially if they haven't been given the time to show that they take feedback into consideration when producing new content.

[flightofaqrow]

mothering (on mother’s day)

qrow + Sun Wukong ( @ultravioletvoleur​ )

fighting clearly hadn’t been what was on the kid’s mind. maybe he just wasn’t thinkin’ at all; he definitely isn’t right now as words tumble from his mouth, barely coherent. qrow still doesn’t need to hear these things about his niece, but he’ll let this one slide.

Sun leans his back against the wall, tail swaying to and fro. His face spoke to the internal conflict he was struggling with when it came to this, “I was hoping I could actually… Ask for your advice?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Quick update, may wanna say Happy Mother's Day to your niece. ...Kaybye!"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

qrow whips open Harbinger faster than a nevermore diving upon its prey, and fires a warning shot off as Sun makes a break for it, near missing the base of his tail.

he knows the kid well enough by now, and trusts Yang even more, than to truly buy into the implications of his statement. oh, but if playing this cat and mouse game makes the cheeky monkey so happy, qrow will absolutely go a round.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“YIPE!”

That was a much faster reaction than he’d anticipated, barely making it ten feet before the crack of exploding gunpowder rang out. There was a hole smoking in the wall in front of him- dangerously close to banana height, and Sun began sweating. He turned very jerkily, with the closest approximation of a cocksure grin he could manage through his abject terror.

“Oh, uh. D-did you… Need something?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

well, at least qrow got to make a point, should he ever actually need to act on teaching the kid a thing or two. alternatively, about picking fights one may not be able to win. a similar tough past he may have, thieves at least tended to work from codes of honor. not every struggle is the same.

he prods, sarcastic, feigned anger lining the sharp curve of narrowed eyes, sword still deployed at his side, “what in all of remnant makes you think you can just say things to me?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

There is a very audible gulp as the Hunstman advances on him. Every other time they’d traded barbs, he’d gotten the sense that Qrow was something of an old glory days kind of person, who had lost their touch a bit. However, that split second action, and the pointed glare burning through his confidence like a hot knife through butter, told him a whole new story.

Qrow Branwen was what his nightmares were made of.

“Well you see I thought we were buddies and I thought you would know it was a joke I swear I haven’t laid a hand on your niece like that I would never well not never possibly in the future but definitely not right now not that I don’t think she’s attractive she’s very attractive oh but that’s not the only reason-”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

tch. forever a curse, even at his best. maybe he laid on the drama a bit too thick. honestly, he thought a bit of zeal is something Sun could appreciate. he’s far too much talk still, isn’t he? all bright light and translucent beaming rays which still questioned their own substance. he might be further ahead than he seemed at first, but still has a ways to go. …kids these days.

“of course I knew it was a joke, golden boy.” qrow folds away his weapon, drops his stance, while raising a brow. he lessens his posturing, but not his attention, hand still remaining on Harbinger’s hilt in the case of some trick.

“but I also took it as a taunt, tellin’ me you’re finally ready for a real man’s brawl. heh, guess i was wrong.”

fighting clearly hadn’t been what was on the kid’s mind. maybe he just wasn’t thinkin’ at all; he definitely isn’t right now as words tumble from his mouth, barely coherent. qrow still doesn’t need to hear these things about his niece, but he’ll let this one slide.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“What?!”

He’d almost lost his stones by way of his ass for a sassback?! Their Uncle was even more intimidating now, and he was going to die on that hill. Still, though, knowing that he wasn’t actually angry was a huge relief. The tension left his body and he slumped down with a sigh-

And then he noticed Qrow’s weapon was still out and ready.

“He-hey, uh. N-no need for that. I didn’t come here looking for a fight. I actually wanted to get you riled up so we could then use that energy into doing something for her. I- I know her situation with her mom isn’t great. I dunno the specifics, that’s for her to tell me when she’s ready, but…” He trailed off, trying to find the words.

“Well, I guess… I just want to make today lively for her, instead of having people walking on eggshells around her. Make her excited and happy that today happened, rather than add it to a growing pile of disappointing holidays.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“you moron,” finally, he fully releases, instead staring dumbfounded at the other. he really did think he could just come around and say whatever, and still get his way without consequences. what single-minded, reckless, stupid drivel. yeah, qrow had been an idiot brained teen at one point, but seriously never that bad. he didn’t have that kinda energy. different plans took different tactics, did they not teach anything at Haven or Shade anymore?

“i don’t need to be ‘riled up’ to do something for my family, kid. couldn’t you just ask like a normal person? i promise you, me bein’ jazzed up ain’t the kinda lively she needs.”

eyes now round with sadness; his chest deflates; pointed corners of his mouth turn down. it’s too close to the belligerence he used to have - unprovoked, but drunk. he’s trying so hard to be better than that. for a lotta reasons, but Yang too.

he breathes in, and out, fingers running in and out over his forehead. once satisfied in processing all these thoughts, in having switched gears, he turns to Sun once more, hopefully coming off with the same rational attitude he wants in return, “so, then, turn your brain and your sense of respect on, and just tell me what you had in mind, huh?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Well… That’s kinda the thing. I was hoping I could actually… Ask for your advice?”

He leans his back against the wall, tail swaying to and fro. His face spoke to the internal conflict he was struggling with when it came to this. In truth, he’d wanted to go about this like a normal person, more than anything. Something in him, however, be it a defense mechanism or just a general need for attention he’d never really received drove him to do everything to an excess.

Truth be told, nobody hated Sun’s antics more than he, himself.

“I… I’m going to try to be serious here, for a minute. It’s- It’s not something that comes easy.” He sighed and pinched at the bridge of his nose. “I’m… scared. I’m really, truly scared, Qrow, of how she makes me feel. How much it would hurt to lose her, or even see her hurting. I just get so caught up in my own head that I can’t think straight, and… I’ve never…”

Another sigh. “I’ve never had a family before. So I don’t know what to do to help someone who’s mourning theirs. But I see her hurting, and I want to help, and when I came to you, I swear, I wanted to just ask, but. …That would mean… Admitting I love her.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

oh, here we go. this roller coaster again. what about his look or his life or any of his choices made him seem like someone to go to for advice? qrow barely scraped his own life together, and still dropped the pieces too many times. but somewhere along the line, somewhere in just trying to do good - for his team, for Oz, for his family, for Ruby, something must have slipped in to his very psyche, huh.

Ruby somehow always knows the right thing to do. Yang had told her.

I had good role models. Ruby had told him.

he’s cursed. and he wrestles with it every damn day. and while he’d never call it a good thing, maybe some people see themselves in that same fight. maybe he sees himself in theirs and their struggle to understand and express themselves, and that’s why even in the times he wants nothing to do with other people and their decisions, and he’s sure he’ll just mess everything up, he can’t help but listen. he can’t turn them away. doing so would do nothing to mend the wounds of a broken world. and in the end, continuing to try is the only way to stick it to Salem.

he takes a spot next to the young man against the wall, knee bending and sole kicking up as he leans, crosses his arms, turns his head to Sun and fixes his gaze on him.  

“yeah. loving people is scary. probably means you’re doin’ it right.”

qrow doesn’t know a damn thing about romance. not like that, anyway. he’s never been brave enough to face that very fear, to let someone that intimately close. almost, sometimes, maybe. somehow his chances always disappear before he’s quite there, only confirming those very fears. a great and terrible feedback loop, that. although, he can’t say such words are entirely unfamiliar; admittedly, the whole conversation is nostalgic. thrice over. he laughs, a bittersweet little huff, “…you sound just like her parents.”

that kinda love he knows, found, eventually. family. and if you ask him, they’re equally as scary to think of losing. “our family has never been the typical picket fence dream either, so don’t think you’re missin’ pieces of some non-existent normal. there’s no big secret about bein’ one, kid. you just gotta be there for each other.”

a palm-down hand raises to sweep across his body in a dismissive motion, “an’ not everything has to be some grand production to top the one before. trust me, i’ve screwed that up enough times to know.” qrow looks towards the ground, slides the toe of his shoe back and forth. “Yang, she… she’s used to people comin’ and goin’ in her life. if they come back at all. so, seriously… just go to her. be with her. she’s a tough egg, and too smart. she’ll tell you what she needs if you can just shut your giant trap enough to let her.”

[morsking]

“... i decided to be sakura’s ally and not everyone else’s.”

my heart fucking bleeds at how selfishly selfless they both are for each other. sakura was convinced shirou wouldn’t fight anymore after losing his arm against the shadow but still here he is saying he’s going to fight to her frustration. sakura wants nothing more than for shirou to stop and not get hurt any more than he already has for her sake. it’s absolutely self-centered of her to want that, because real love and genuine concern can be self-centered. 

what’s even better about this scene is that shirou responds to sakura’s selfishness with his own. just as sakura is trying to stop him to keep him safe shirou is refusing to stop to do the same for her. it’s his own decision, his own desire, his own will that makes him want to save her. it’s not guilt, it’s not obligation to his father or the abstract and formless ideal he left behind. it’s the pledge a person makes to another because love exists between them and they want nothing more than to be together, no matter the personal cost.

sakura understands that she will break and she will die if they don’t win the holy grail. if she uses rider, she will die. if rin, shirou, and illya don’t fight, she will die. sakura is willing to lay down her life if it means shirou won’t get hurt anymore. there is a real struggle between her self-worth and wanting to be with shirou to the very end. she doesn’t think she’s worth fighting for, but at the same time she wants to stay with shirou for as long as possible. a person might think little of themselves but still want to be selfish, they might think they don’t deserve anything but still want everything. and that’s where sakura’s negative feedback loop keeps circulating. she loves someone more than she could ever love herself and she’s thoroughly addicted to that love to the point where shirou’s well-being is the only thing she could ever care about. she’s wracked with guilt about what she’s putting shirou through, even sometimes thinking to herself that him suffering to the point where he’ll give up fighting is the best case scenario for her, because that would mean shirou is caring for himself and thinking of his own happiness and well-being.

she’s then completely disarmed of arguments (but not reluctance) when shirou insists he won’t abandon her because he wants her just the same as she does him. sakura had resigned herself to disappearing if it meant shirou could live and be happy, but shirou doesn’t think life would make sense without her. his happiness hinges on her being in the picture with him, not the invisible frame that props it up. shirou gives sakura her word that he absolutely will not let himself die because all of this is for the sake of them being together. there is no home without her, and a home is what she deserves. shirou doesn’t think at any moment that sakura is putting him through something. on the contrary, he thinks that sakura’s the one suffering (which is the right attitude,)and so he’s taking responsibility for not saving her sooner. 

happiness is not something that is wished upon others if it means sacrificing yourself. happiness is something you share with others, because happiness is being connected to others. this is what shirou is trying to tell her: that all her suffering needs to be soothed and that she doesn’t deserve to suffer or be punished for the ugly things she feels, or has done, or that have happened to her. and doing that for her is worth far more than the risk. 

[legionofpotatoes]

My assorted musings/theories about Control in one post!! I am having a lot of fun dissecting the implications of all the information we’re getting tiny peeks at. This WILL be a thought torrent so I won’t make any literary-essay-level structuring promises; click through at your own risk of losing sanity over my tangents.

So the base axiom the lore stands on is that reality in Control is shaped by the collective human subconscious in unpredictable ways, causing altered world events, subsequently creating altered items imbued with archetypal properties in correspondence with their historic context, and generally having things go way out of whack. 

But, as seen with the whole slide projector hubbub, we also know that other realities/dimensions exist in their own right and can, by virtue of their agenda, and not that of our thought, attempt to invade our reality through resonance-based means. Their motives can run the gamut but we know that their involvement/influence can have far-reaching consequences on our reality.

(there is an argument to be made that both the Hedron and the Hiss could have been extremely potent creations/projections of Jesse and Dylan’s minds altogether, especially since Polaris exists within one of them inherently, and that the slidescapes could simply have been an extension of the slide projector’s astral power still fully fed on human perceptions. But this theory sort-of runs everything else to the ground and makes us the center of the universe, and I don’t like that too much).

This is where the Oldest House comes in! And I love its deeply rooted historic/theological implications just as much as its impression at face value. I believe that since time immemorial, the Oldest House was a stabilizing element, a kind of ward against dimensional rifts threatening our reality. And it did that by presenting itself as a guide for human thought; a house of worship, a monument to service, whichever concept happened to elicit inherent respect and trust in that period of time, allowing the House to then control (ha) our thought through belief systems. Today, it’s a brutalist office building with no windows, which is, like, so on point. But anyway.

The Board. We know that it controls the Oldest House to an extent. Whether it represents the gods and deities we once made up is hard to tell, but its influence over the House’s functions is clear. We know that it had chosen individuals in the past to possibly represent the House’s intentions (today – the Directors of the FBC), giving them access to the Service Weapon and a direct link to the astral plane. I believe these would be our Thors and King Arthurs and Greek heroes and what have you. We KNOW that the Service Weapon is, by definition, the archetypal concept of “weapon” as shaped by human thought, and that the BFC suspects its past forms may have included Mjolnir and Excalibur among others. Today, it’s a handgun. Again, the implications. Delicious.

And I think the Oldest House is the same way; constantly shifting form, shape, and even geographical location to best fit its own archetypal concept, which I conflated with place of respect and/or worship up there, but even that can change to best fit the agenda of, what I think, is stabilizing and warding our reality against foreign resonances. It does this by presenting itself as a guidebook for human thought, tapping into our inherent astral potency, and utilizing resulting constructs – the Service Weapon, the anointed Director, and certain altered items – to serve its own upkeep. As directed by The Board.

(I believe that is also part of the reason why the FBC ended up discovering the House when it did – The Board allowed it per the alignment of the Bureau’s motives with its own. They both wanted to identify, neutralize, and contain AWEs both external and internal in order to keep the public – and by extension their thoughts – fully under control. I believe this had happened numerous times in the past, as well)

But to circle back – why does The House need upkeep at all? My guess is, it’s an extension of the initial agenda, and we KNOW it is inherently tied to (read: contains) thresholds, or dimensional rifts, or just other worlds. Let’s call them other worlds. The Oldest House is an ever-shifting place of power that both shapes and is shaped by human thought, in order to keep that very human thought – our “resonance” – the sole dominating astral force in our dimension. It focuses all incoming “traffic” within its walls and creates the thresholds as bottlenecks – while the traffic it can’t focus on itself, it contains, and brings in anyway - and finally, it uses the Director to keep all these foreign rifts and aberrations in check.

We are the House’s assistant. Familiar word? There’s one person in Control who keeps calling us their assistant despite our formal title being a peg above that definition. It is the Janitor – another very common archetype of stabilization, maintenance, fixing things up; in this case, Ahti – The Janitor – is simply a way for the House, and not The Board, to communicate its intent. The Janitor is as much part of the place of power as are its walls and rooms. They are one and the same. And a Janitor is a role that would be chosen with very particular intent. He knows the House’s innards as intimately as he knows how to keep them functioning.

So to recap, again – The House both feeds on and forms human thought constructs in order to keep other worlds at bay and is very much willing to directly cooperate with people when that agenda is mutually expressed. What if this whole entire system then, of a dimensional hub, a place of power trying to keep our resonance separate from others, is in itself a construct, an ancient expression of a basic human need? Or rather, a basic human emotional response? To go a bit meta, as a story with thematic underpinnings, that would make a sensible endgame to Control’s ideas and messaging. 

The Oldest House exists because we needed it to exist, and by consequence, we saved OURSELVES from the Hiss. Among a lot of other things in the past, I’d reckon. And The Board is our “representative” in the astral plane. We made them, too. We cocooned ourselves in constructs that would protect us from all outside resonances – all outside worlds – all outside points of view.

So what am I saying? Is The Oldest House a staunch apotheosis of conservative thought given form? I’m not willing to bet my life on it, but again, it all oddly falls into place. Think about it.

TRENCH let the Hiss in. Why? We’re told the Director of the Oldest House grew irrationally scared of the Hedron’s (arguably benevolent) influence and opted to fight it with fire; with an otherworldy horror. My guess is the House made him do that. The Board, sorry, made him do it. As firm believers in isolating humanity’s resonance from all others, they feared the Hedron’s presence as a variable incompatible with that agenda, and brought the Hiss in AS A WAY of proving their point, of keeping the cycle of fear strong in humanity’s thought, by killing Hedron and then using a newly appointed, freshly brainwashed Director Faden to remove the Hiss from the equation, as well. 

Status quo restored, all branches clipped, everyone agrees other dimensions bad.

The emotional response I mentioned was fear. We created The Oldest House out of fear. Fear of the unknown. And it became a feedback loop that disallowed us to ever consider anything else outside of our world as anything other than a threat.

Oh and you know what’s a real swanky way to impose fear on a willing humanity? *guitar riff* religion babyyyyyy

To wit, The Board refers to the House as a Tree at one point. We can find a scribbling of a tree in the Foundation. Ahti hands us a cassette tape from “his old friends” – and the band that starts playing call themselves the Old Gods of Asgard. So a tree connecting worlds. A housekeeper who is a friend to Odin’s pantheon. A chosen hero wielding Mjolnir. Did the House parade as the Yggdrasil at one point? Followed by some other nexus of blind human faith or a system of belief? Or just as religion itself?! And since now we all worship capitalism or some other forms of financial labor/revenue funnels and shoot each other dead in the streets, our Oldest House is an office building smack dab in the middle of Manhattan, its Director carries a literal handgun, and together they keep us safe from outsiders.

It all makes sense with a big ole asterisk that spells out “Yikes” in the end. 

Except there’s a caveat here cause!!! Within Jesse lives a spark left behind by Hedron; within her lives Polaris, a remnant of the slidescape, of the outer worlds; a hope for maybe liberating human thought of the endless cycle of fear that keeps it under its own Control. Will we bring the Oldest House down in a possible sequel? Is Jesse a Trojan horse? A byproduct of the Board’s arrogance? I mean we KNOW the pyramid is a hyperfocused, almost blatantly jealous entity that downright bribed us with healthcare plans in order to steer us away from The Former, another extradimensional being that was trying to get in through altered items. So maybe the House itself can be preserved, and its agenda retrofitted, and it is the Board we will have to tear down. It still all fits.

The Board is our projection of fear, the Oldest House is the wall we built to protect ourselves, and Jesse is poised to bring it all down. That’s my theory in a nutshell!!!!

I think I’ll end here for now. I could be entirely wrong about EVERYTHING here but the JUICE in this story is too damn nourishing, dudes.

[impassive-aggressive]

it’s ZOIDS HEADCANON TIME

this all took me way longer to assemble into something coherent than I initially thought :V  BUT HERE IS PART 1:

ZOID BIOLOGY: All Zoids start off as Cores.  These need to be "incubated" in pools of highly metallic/nutrient-rich water that are common on Zi, and if left long enough will grow a body around them that's capable of moving about on its own.  New Cores come about via Zoids periodically budding new Cores and dumping them into pools to mature.  Wild Zoids are much smaller than man-made ones and of course don't have cockpits/pilot interfaces, etc.

Domesticated Zoids are the product of "genetic engineering", in that their Cores have been tampered with so that, when immersed in tanks of synthetic fluid, they grow bodies with cockpits and such.  (They can also be grown to a certain point and then plucked out of their maturation tanks and stuck into a pre-built body.)  They've been tweaked so that their Cores are bigger and can support larger bodies with more advanced weaponry, etc. but they're less intelligent/capable than wild Zoids were.  Their Cores are also "charged" like batteries, so they have a finite lifespan, although this can still be a couple centuries (or more, if the Zoid is taken care of).  As with any lifeform, excessive strain (forcing it to use/carry ludicrous amounts or types of weaponry LEENA), abuse, neglect, etc. can reduce this span considerably.  By contrast, wild Zoids would prey on and eat each other's Cores (or munch on also-metallic foliage) to keep themselves going.  Domesticated Zoids no longer need to eat, although all Zoids are hella territorial and naturally inclined to fight, which is why they make good war machines.  

Wild Zoids were common in the time of the Ancient Zoidians but vanishingly rare by the time CC rolled around and all but extinct by the time of NC0. Blaming the Death Saurer seems like a good idea here, so yeah.

ZOID EVE: Whereas most Zoid Cores grow bodies and crawl out of their birthing pools to go on their merry way, sometimes Things Happen and Cores fuse together.  When this happens it usually results in a) dead, malformed Cores or b) shambling monstrosity Zoids that usually don't live very long.  

However, in one particular instance it resulted in c) an entity with a weird, alien intelligence that continued to bud Cores off of itself, producing Zoids that were smarter and generally "better" than other wild Zoids.  The Ancient Zoidians discovered this and were puzzled by the gross, lumpy Core-mass entity but were also impressed by the quality Zoids it produced, and eventually a city sprang up around it.  They started calling the thing "Zoid Eve" and built a big woman statue over it to symbolize this, strung up with a bunch of wires and shit to channel its power to the growing city.  They also went ahead and tampered with Eve's basic Core-programming so that it'd start producing pilotable Zoids, because Zoidians are stupid and can't resist fucking around with everything they find.

Zoid Eve was initially seen as a scientific curiosity, and then by turns as a status symbol, a good-luck charm, a bringer of prosperity and good fortune, and eventually as a deity.  People began flocking to Eveopolis to reap the social benefits of living right next to God and to claim the Zoids it produced.  Disputes sprang up among different groups as to who was getting all these Zoids, with some groups claiming they were being cheated or overlooked in favor of others; these disputes escalated into physical attacks and then all-out war, with different factions squabbling over the right to claim more of the Eve-born Zoids.

In response to this, some neutral parties collaborated to produce the Eve Saurer, designed to basically terrify everyone into calming their tits.  It was created from an Eve-spawned Core and placed in a body so fuckoff huge and powerful that none of the warring factions could really hope to stand against it; it was also deliberately created without a pilot interface or any way to control it so that it couldn't be hijacked by any particular faction and used to force everyone else into submission.

This kind of worked insofar as the various factions tried to attack the Eve Saurer and were immediately slapped down for their efforts, but the Saurer had the unfortunate side effect of being infectiously aggressive so that it triggered insanely violent urges in most of the Zoids that came near it.  Since it only knew to respond to aggression with more aggression, it set off a feedback loop of rage that culminated in lots of people dying really fast.  The Zoidians were at last united in finding a way to stop the Eve Saurer, and deduced that the only way to accomplish this was to do something to Eve itself.  Some people were like "FUCK IT, JUST KILL EVE" and other people were like "holy shit calm down", so while the first group worked on building something that could destroy Eve the second group came up with a pair of scorpion Zoids that, individually, were less powerful than the Eve Death Saurer but marginally more controllable. 

Team Kill Eve deployed its contender, a massive aerial type armed with gravity weapons that should have been able to crush the Core-construct forming Zoid Eve, but it rebelled violently at being forced to take action against Eve, bucked control of its pilot and escorts, and wrecked a bunch of shit before fucking off into the wilderness.  Team Calm Your Tits, probably giving team Kill Eve disgusted looks from across the room, sent out its scorpion Zoids, which succeeded in holding the Death Saurer at bay long enough for them to power down Eve (namely, the big statue thing which was a conduit for her power), thus enabling them to halt the Death Saurer without killing every other Zoid on the planet.  Unfortunately the damage had already been done and Zi was left all but uninhabitable, so the Zoidians stowed their surviving Zoids for safekeeping and placed themselves and their Organoids in stasis, in the hopes that they would eventually be able to resume life in a safer world.

...but before this was done, team Kill Eve was like "nah, that was totally a good idea that we just executed poorly" so they stuck some programming mojo into a girl and her Organoid that would enable her to shut down Eve if the need ever came up.

ORGANOIDS: Organoids and Zoids arose from a common ancestor, and lived together in the wild for thousands of years.  Organoids would "tend" groups of wild Zoids for whom they acted as guards, lookouts and pack leaders; in exchange they get first dibs on the Cores of prey the Zoids took down, or of old/injured Zoids in the group that were ready to die anyway.  They would also use the Zoids' Cores to reproduce, sticking their cables into a freshly-budded Core to leave their "DNA" all over it, which would start a new Organoid forming.

When the first wave of human colonists came to Zi, they were aware of organoids but considered them just another part of the landscape to be overcome as they sought to capture and tame wild Zoids.  Organoids were undoubtedly dangerous, particularly because of how intelligent they were, but humans have a marked tendency to give no fucks about things like danger when there are Cool Things to be poked at, such as big robot animals that could help out around a growing settlement.  The humans had superior weaponry to pretty much anything else organoids had ever encountered before, and were more effective than any wild predator on Zi at repelling the protective organoids while they captured Zoids.

The first organoid to live peaceably with humans was a young individual whose burgeoning herd of Zoids was in danger of being eradicated entirely by predators; while wary of humans, it also noted that the Zoids under the humans' care were healthy and well-protected, and figured that hanging around the settlement might be worth a shot.  Since the organoid and its herd weren't causing any harm, the humans kept an eye on it but otherwise left it alone.  Both species being naturally sociable and curious, the organoid and the humans eventually started trying to interact and established a tentative sort of bond.  When the organoid started producing offspring, they were even more inclined to hang around the humans, who discovered that having teleporting psychic mechanical dinosaurs accompanying you on expeditions or keeping an eye out for threats while you tended the fields was kind of useful.  

Meanwhile, other organoids started copying the first one's example and hanging around the settlement; although naturally territorial, the organoids all forged an uneasy truce knowing that it was in everyone's best interest to play nice and keep reaping the benefits of living near humans.  More and more organoids were born in close contact with humans, and the two species became so accustomed to each other that pretty soon it was no big deal for them to live and work together as partners.  Once Zoids started being engineered to be larger and more powerful, the "domesticated" organoids would sort of naturally be drawn to certain ones and found that it was more efficient to devote their attention to a single large Zoid than to a whole group of smaller ones, particularly since that Zoid could serve as an energy source and a place to rear young, zealously protected by its human caretaker.  

While wild organoids were fairly small and drab-colored, those that grew up around humans became larger and more powerful, and the humans also kind of unconsciously selected for organoids that had bright, pretty colors.  AND THAT'S HOW WE GOT SHOW ORGANOIDS

Roughly as intelligent as humans, organoids tend to choose their partners based on personality traits and how well they mesh as individuals.  These partnerships grow and deepen over time, and once a pair is bonded it's very hard to find anything that can drive them apart short of death itself.  Losing a partner can be deeply traumatizing, as it is for anyone who loses a loved one, but it is possible to recover and forge a new bond, given enough time.  (Most humans/Zoidians don't generally live long enough to reach this point, but it has happened a time or two.)

Organoids communicate with mental bursts of imagery + emotion.  They don't have speech that utilizes words, although they may visualize written words or mentally "repeat" things that are spoken to them in the voice of whoever said them.  This includes names; although their human/Zoidian partner may assign them a word-name that the organoid recognizes as its own, the names they choose for themselves are represented by more images-and-feelings: the moons reflected in a lake while one contemplates the universe; elation during a spring day surrounded by wildflowers; the peace of solitude atop a cold mountain peak.  It may take a while for the organoid to find something it likes enough to choose as a name, and this may change subtly over time - or very radically following severe trauma.  They also tend to assign organoid-style names to their partners and Zoids.

When an organoid Core-bonds with a Zoid, it's reading/altering the Zoid's data via all the little cables it plugs into the surface of the Core, lending its superior computational capabilities to the Zoid's raw power and its pilot's intelligence and strategic abilities.  When all three are in sync, this results in a Zoid that's faster, stronger, more resilient and more powerful than others, often to a devastating degree.  Organoids can heal and evolve Zoids by "overwriting" parts of the Zoid's data to jump-start the repair process that would otherwise occur much more slowly, triggering accelerated cell growth that can result in near-instant healing or, in the case of evolution, an entirely different chassis. 

MOAR TO FOLLOW

[theheartofpenelope]

SIMPLE THINGS - Chapter four

Chapter four - excerpt : It's true what they say, 'touch has a memory'. It came flooding through her when her fingertips traced his beard and lost their way in his generous curls. It steered her to a blissful state when she felt his hand stroking her cheek before his lips adoringly pressed onto hers again and she prayed he would not leave them soon.

Tag list: @winterisakiller, @devikafernando, @scorpionchild81, @messy-insomniac-bookgirl, @smutsausage, @hiddlesbitch1 @noplacelikehome77 @wolfsmom1 @meh1217 @dina-bln @lilaeye39 @tinchentitri @fairlightswiftly @nonsensicalobsessions @wolfsmom1

Author’s Notes/Warnings: Not beta’d. And thank you in advance for feedback - would love to know what you think…

Also on AO3 through this link Bonus: click here for the pinterest moodboard (always updated)

Chapter four London – early day thirteen

1. It was already a few hours past midnight when Charlotte set foot into her hotel room again. Her initial contentment at the start of the evening was now well replaced with some sort of remorse. And the worst part was she was completely unable to explain or detect the reason for her sorrow.

She had just spend a most wonderful evening at a gorgeous garden party, talking to and laughing with very kind people. She’d been a guest that had been well looked after. She had no reason whatsoever to feel downhearted. None. It had been a perfect evening, but there had been a slight sting was in the tail.

Charlotte dropped her clutch on the writing desk with a sigh. She’d enjoyed the hospitality of the hosting couple, she had fun partaking in the pleasant antics of the tight-knit group of friends and - all right, all right - indulged some stolen glances, gentle touches and a bit of subtle flirting towards the end. But all in good fun. Nothing serious.

On autopilot Charlotte switched her mobile on flight-mode before dropping it on the table next to her purse. Her mobile, that now contained Tom’s number. Another sigh escaped her lips.

Oh Sophie, why though? And why did you have pinpoint my interaction with Tom. As if it was something more than what it really was.

Like a true gentleman Tom had chauffeured her back to her hotel. But in the car nothing of substance was spoken anymore. Worse, there were unspoken words left in between the both of them, the couple that carpooled along might have had something to do with that perhaps…  He’d parked the car up front and shut off the engine. He was an attentive escort, that was certain. He confided that he had spent a lovely evening and hoped she had as well, when the couple in the backseat gleefully chirped in to wish Charlotte a good night and successful tour. So there you have it….

Despite the heatwave, Charlotte shivered all over once more. She couldn’t warm up for the life of her. What was up with that? Tom had been nothing but sweet and attentive. And she? She’d frozen. Quite literally. Her mind was beyond tired, her emotions all thrown in a loop for reasons she could not comprehend. But Charlotte did regret ending the evening in the way she’d done. Oh well, water under the bridge right?

So long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu… Much cuter when the Von Trapp-kids sing it, though…

Charlotte idly stripped down and stepped into the sleek shower where the hot water instantaneously rinsed away all sorrow and managed to warm her up again. She brushed her teeth and gazed into her own tired eyes through the fogged-up mirror.

Silly girl.

She slid into a summery pyjama-set, consisting of nothing more than a delicate camisole-top and matching shorts and crawled under the soft white sheets. Closing her eyes and ready to retire for the night, she thought she heard someone knock on her door. Charlotte frowned and checked the clock… at this hour?

“Yes?” she croaked.

“It’s me…”

The voice was soft, low and half what muffled. Charlotte would recognize that voice anywhere, but that couldn’t be - could it?

2. Charlotte hastily threw on a cardigan to cover herself up somewhat as she curiously padded towards the door. And indeed, there he was as she swung the door open. He stood there, gazing at his feet before looking up to her.

She wasn’t quite sure how to react, only furrowed her brows and quietly ushered him inside. She wanted to ask if everything was all right, if he’d forgotten anything. Surely she had returned his jacket, didn’t she? But he beat her to it. The moment the door clicked shut, a sigh escaped his lips before he started talking.

“Ever since,” Tom paused upon exhaling loudly, “I mean - I’m fine. I’ve been fine. I àm doing just. Fine…. And then I see you. And I talk to you. And I … ” he lingered and she could see him gently clasping his fist by his side.

“… and I don’t quite remember what it is I should do next,” Charlotte whispered to herself, as she leant against the door.

“It’s probably utterly idiotic that I am standing here. Now. But I felt that I could not let you leave before I told you this. I just - I need to get it out of my system and I guess I hope that by saying it out loud, the power of it might go off,” he hesitated for a second, “or maybe it won’t – I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“There is this …. gravitational pull about you,” his hands gestured it so beautifully and, if it were physically possible, Charlotte was certain her heart would have jumped out of her chest at this confession. But she was lost for words.

“It’s hard to resist really,” his eyes lowered towards to his feet again “and believe me, I’ve tried…”

Charlotte didn't quite know what to do with herself anymore. Because this was not in the plans. She was meant to be out cementing her career. She couldn't afford to lose her focus to matters of the heart. She knew better than that; she’d followed that path before and look what good it had brought her. If anything, Charlotte was now adamant to start loving herself first, putting herself first, creating peace in her mind first.

Looking back she could see she’d come a long way. She had her own place, decorated to her liking. She ran her own office, organised to her wishes.

Her mind however was not at ease. Not anymore. So she picked up yoga first, then pilates. But to no avail. Charlotte figured it just came with the territory. Something she ought to learn how to live with.

Curling up with a good book in the safehaven that her house had become, did make a lot of things easier to bare. But there was room for improvement still. What she was clueless on, however, was on what she might be lacking.

And then he had to walk in her life and be all perfect and charming, even while adorably tipsy. Sweep her off her feet and disappear. And that part was all right, strangely enough. He'd woken her from a slumber she never realised she was in. And for that she was strangely grateful to him.

But then he would reappear when she had least expected him to. Ever perfect, ever charming, so considerate. It pained her that he could bestow so much empathy and understanding towards her, which she feared she could not ever reciprocate… That part of her was broken, jaded even, safely kept away under lock and key.

“I have been fighting it but now, tonight,” he confessed, “I catch myself wondering what it is exactly that I am fighting for? And it seems I am incapable of finding a valid reason. Or any reason for that matter.”

It was too warm for a cardigan; in fact the piece of clothing kept Charlotte’s body more than warm. To the point it just might get uncomfortably hot. Still Charlotte broke into goosebumps again and lots of them.

Her heart thundered even harder in her chest when she laid eyes on him again. Truthfully, he was not hard to look at either, which made it all worse really. So many good traits that kept her from raising her voice to chase him out.

She’d felt safe in this cool minimalistic cell she'd designed for herself, she really could do without any company. But then he had to cross her path. All calm, polite and amiable. And she had no idea how, but there he was. Now. In her room. Saying all these things she couldn’t wrap her mind around...

“Have you been mulling this over this whole time?” Charlotte finally questioned carefully. After all, quite some time had passed since he had dropped her off at her hotel.

“I confess I’ve had to drink in some courage,” he wrinkled his nose in humoristic defeat.

“Courage?”

“Yes, courage,” he murmured, “for this.” And on that note he stepped in closer to her and, before Charlotte could form a complete thought, she felt his hand slide into her hair as his lips unceremoniously brushed against hers. Unknowingly he’d had her teetering on that fine line between composure and surrender, but now - with his lips on hers, she was well lost.

It's true what they say, 'touch has a memory'. It came flooding through her when her fingertips traced his beard and lost their way in his generous curls.

It steered her to a blissful state when she felt his hand stroking her cheek before his lips adoringly pressed onto hers again and she prayed he would not leave them soon.

This is wrong, this is not how this is supposed to go.

Yet Charlotte was unable to pull away. Instead her hands greedily locked themselves around his neck and held him closer in wordless permission. In this moment she is unmistakably his. There was nowhere she could imagine herself running to. There was nowhere she would want to hide, except in his embrace. She felt she could dissolve in his arms and all worldly stress would disappear. She felt as though she could live off of every exhale of his. As long as it was his. How silly and irrational was that?

Charlotte’s eyes fluttered shut. She could feel his warm breath on her cheek and his lips momentarily ghosting over hers. The anticipation is almost too much. His lips captured hers so gently, so affectionately. And Charlotte was tired. Tired of mulling this through. Tired of thinking. She only wanted to let go now, and allow herself to just ‘feel’. She gasped at his tongue gently flicking against her upper lip and within moments their tongues gliding against each other in a glorious dance. Her hands pawed his cotton shirt in an attempt to hold him even closer to her.  

It felt a bit surreal when Tom rested his forehead against hers and confessed, “I have wanted to do this since the moment I laid eyes on you yesterday.”

While her mind tried to register all that was suddenly happening, Charlotte reached up and stroked her fingertips tenderly along his cheek, tracing his sharp cheekbones and then over his soft beard again, simply touching and exploring, towards his warm and generous lips.

“And I love your dress,” he declared, “I forgot to tell you that.”

“Shame I’m no longer wearing it,” Charlotte chuckled quietly.

In his entire stream of consciousness, Tom had been so caught up in his emotions that he hadn’t even laid proper eyes on Charlotte yet. But he was well and ready to make up for that. He delicately pushed the cardigan off her shoulders and glanced at her skimpy pyjama-set underneath.

“I can live with this as well,” he broke into a big grin before his lips engulfed hers again. Charlotte felt alive. As if she’d suddenly awakened after a long and dull slumber, which was not far from the truth really.

“I’m not here because I want to take advantage, mind you,” he muttered in between kisses, “had I known you’d be….”

Charlotte placed her index finger on his lips, “I’m glad you came back,”

“You are?”

She nodded, “I’ve been kicking myself for having acted so … nervous around you,”

“Do I make you nervous darling?”

Darling.

Charlotte smiled and placed his hand on her heart. That’s what we say, isn’t it? Although in reality his warm hand actually rested on her warm, soft and just barely covered breast. No room for pretences here.

Tom chuckled as he locked eyes with her, “well that’s quite something.”

Yes indeed, the term ‘arrhythmia’ comes to mind.

“This is so unlike me,” she frowned because this was absolutely not something she would usually do, not at all. Her boldness took her aback as well. But then again, this was not a situation she would ‘usually’ find herself in. She felt safe here with him somehow.

His clear blue eyes anxiously sought out hers, “Charlotte, I,”

“M-mm,” she muttered before sweetly pressing her lips to his again, “please don’t,” she pleaded softly, “let this be a one off.”

And with that, their mouths crashed together again, tongues lashing against one another as their hands roamed with renewed fervour and urgency. He tasted of whiskey and chocolate and she relished it. She clawed at his shirt eagerly and in return was rewarded with a lustful grope before his arms wrapped her up in an impassioned embrace.

This was a long time coming, a long time coming for sure. It felt as if the dam had been broken, all water came pouring down. A force of nature. Unstoppable.

Tom’s hands roamed over her spine and down to her silky shorts, which he proceeded to massage with a firm confidence. Charlotte was pleasantly surprised when he grabbed a strong hold of her, urging her legs to clasp around his waist. She could feel him hardening underneath her and locked her hands behind his neck, in a desperate need to hold him ever so close to her.

His strong arms lifted her up and carried her towards the small writing desk in her room. Her fingers feverishly unbuttoned his shirt and she slid her hands under the soft fabric to his back, her nails scraping lightly over his skin and making him shudder and groan into her mouth.

When their lips parted Charlotte could hear him breathing heavily in her ear before he kissed her cheek, then nibbled her earlobe and sat course down her throat towards her neckline. Her head lulled back and a whimper escaped her lips, much to his pleasure…

His fingertips wasted no time and tenderly pushed the thin straps of the camisole off of her delicate shoulders, his lips following suit, leaving a trail of adoring kisses as he sat out to explore every inch of her.

He was undoubtedly not aware of this, but the trail his fingertips left on her set her ablaze. Emotions she had held locked down for a long time came surging back to the surface in full force. Charlotte gasped slightly, her hands desperate to feel him and touch him, stroke him. Meanwhile his hands had deftly rid her off her silky shorts.  

“Please,” she whimpered. Her cheeks were flushed, her mind incoherent, she didn’t even know what she begging for. All she knew was that she wanted, no, she needed him. All of him.

“Patience, darling,” Tom spoke under a slight chuckle as he moved back up so their faces were level, “I want to take care of you first.”

He kissed her deeply, hungrily as his fingers roamed further down where they gently teased and pressed her bundle of nerves with his thumb, leaving his soft fingers to tease and tempt her into oblivion.

Her mouth fell open, her back arched while her feet sought support onto his hips. Her wanton moans grew louder until she didn’t recognise her own voice, swallowed eagerly by Tom’s open mouth. She was close, so close, … and it had been so long, far too long…

“Please,” she moaned against his skin, ready to beg him not to stop. Ever.

But his touches did ebb away, agonizingly slow, until her mind finally processed the phone on her nightstand had started ringing.

What on earth? It took Charlotte a fair moment to realise there was no Tom in her room, there had been no confession nor a kiss. Her heart however wàs beating insanely hard in her throat as she came to her senses - quite aroused and mortified at the same time.

Groggily she grabbed the phone on the nightstand, only to hear a very polite and professional hotel employee greet her with a jovial “Good morning miss Daniël. This is your 6.30 am wake up call. Would you like a follow up call in 10 minutes?”

Charlotte kindly thanked the friendly woman but refused the follow-up, instead making a beeline to the shower. While her mind advised her to take a cold, very cold shower to rinse away that sudden excitement and kick start her day, her heart wouldn’t let her.

With eyes closed, she attempted breathing the images away. Yet under the warm rain shower her hand dwelled down south, craving to meet the arousal fictional Tom had left her with headfirst and take it home. After all it had been so long, so very long. Charlotte had doubted whether or not she still had it in her. Apparently and very very clearly she still did. It didn’t take her long to finish what had been unexpectedly started in her dreamlike state earlier. A quivering mess now, she rested the back of her head against the smooth tiles, heavily panting while muttering she had issues.

Oh silly girl, be happy, her heart jabbed back, I told you you were still alive inside.

3. Later that afternoon, Tom cheerfully greeted his mother with a doting kiss on her cheek. Bobby wagged his tail merrily as he set sights on one of his favourite humans; he knèw he was in for an afternoon of loving pats, cooing words and delicious treats. His paws pitter-pattered through the house the second Tom had released him from his leash. Bobby felt well at home here and it was heartwarming to see.

“It’s so nice to see you this often, dear,” the woman smiled before tightly hugging her tall son. Was he growing still or was she shrinking?

“But you do look awfully tired,” she slanted her head as she voiced her concern, which he simply met with a cheeky smile, “you worry too much, mum.”

Now that might be true, but she wouldn’t be a proper mother if she didn’t. Are you sleeping? Are you eating? Are you winding down enough? Diana did thoroughly enjoy having her son back home and closer to her again, but she did have her apprehensions on the toll the busy life was taking on both her son’s biorhythm and his health.

She gladly linked her arm in his as they walked into the living room of his childhood home where he would soon be snooping through the magazines on the coffee table, searching for new books on the shelves and sinking into deep thought at the sight of the latest family snapshots on the dresser while his mother made tea.

“I need a new one with you as well,” Tom’s mother confessed as she caught him gazing at a framed picture of herself and his two sisters each with their own little family. It was taken somewhere over the holidays; that part was very clear. Alas Tom had been caught up in an unfortunate and quite demanding press tour…

Tom sighed and nodded his head in agreement, “we should all get together sometime soon.”

His lips curved into a smile as he accepted the cup of tea his mother had made him, but she could tell the smile didn’t quite reach all the way up to his eyes.

“Now tell me, love, what is new with you? Are you getting settled in back home yet?”

Tom was many things, but his mother was particularly proud of the fact she had raised her son to be truthful. So when he blamed his tired outlook on Benedict’s birthday party, her ever-worried mother heart was instantly eased because he might look tired, but it was for a good reason. He was getting out and enjoying himself. At least that’s what she hoped.

The boy will never be alone, she thought, but he does get lonely… That is what haunted her the most. Every time he came back home after yet another project her son seemed progressively more exhausted, saggy and drained from all energy. It took him longer to find his joy of life back, as if he needed to remember where he had put it last.

As the afternoon progressed, their conversation moved into the kitchen where Tom started clearing the mail and newspapers from the countertop so they could start dinner preparations, when suddenly his eyes fell onto an article.

“Would you look at that,” he murmured while he stroking the creases out of the paper.  

“What is it, love? You’re smiling. Is it a good review?”

“I know her,” it took him a moment for the words to sink in, “this woman.” He lifted his chin to the newspaper.”

“Who?” His mother furrowed her brows as she peered over her son’s arm. “Her? How is that, dear?”

“That is the lovely Charlotte,” he chuckled and provided his mother with the need to know basis. His eyes still glued to the editorial in front of him, he failed to detect his mother raising an inquisitive brow.

He read out some excerpts of the article to his mother, while his mind quickly drifted back to Charlotte. Lovely Charlotte. Lovely, intelligent and elegant Charlotte. Who was probably well on her way home by now. That part he left out of the conversation with his mother.

Tom had truly enjoyed spending more time with Charlotte. And in all fairness, when he adjusted her shawl last night it took him quite some willpower not to lean in and kiss her again. Just like earlier this month. But sober this time.

Thankfully he did not. What would have been the point? It was clear Charlotte was firmly set on a path of a great professional undertaking. One just needed to read this article to realise she simply breathed out fresh and new possibilities. It was no wonder her diary easily got filled in with dozens of conventions, and now the press fell to her feet as well.

Besides, what if he had made his advances; she would probably laugh it away. Didn’t she already do that earlier this month? Surely, she would want something more than just a mere actor to claim her heart. Perhaps someone was already waiting for her at home…

His mother nodded in appreciation as she heard her son recite quite some words of praise at Charlotte’s address. And with delight she detected his eyes sparkling as he read on.

“I imagine she’ll be thrilled reading this,” Tom’s mother concluded.

“Oh yes, right!” he nodded and, as if a light bulb was switched on, pulled out his smartphone. He snapped a picture of the article and proceeded to send it. To Charlotte.

Diane glanced at her son, typing away on his smartphone while she shook her head under a motherly smile. My sweet boy, lonely and alone, but always busy…

While Tom typed, he made a mental note to thank Sophie. Last night, when she suggested Tom - being the globetrotter that he was – should offer the sightseeing-advice he was offering Charlotte in writing, he unreservedly chimed in and agreed. However he did not expect Sophie asking Charlotte’s cell-phone to add his number in it. Tom had laughed the occasion away, claiming to Benedict his wife was ‘cutting his balls off’. But now, in retrospect, he wàs thankful Sophie was attentive enough to secure information he might have been wanting to get himself.  

Dear Charlotte, it seems your passage here did not go unnoticed. I thought you might appreciate this raving (!) editorial – Tom PS. I hope you got home safe.

There. Good. And in truth, it was the perfect excuse to get back in touch with her. He felt uncomfortable about the way they had said their goodbyes. Maybe this would prove there was no love lost on this end.

His mood lifted, he scuffed Bobby’s head and suggested letting him out in the garden before making himself helpful with his mother in the kitchen. Just like the old days…

His smartphone buzzed on his way to the garden.

Oh my! Thank you for this, Tom! It made my day! (Silly though, isn’t it?) And yes, safely home. Home, sweet sweet home. – Charlotte PS. Thank you for London.

He smiled to himself, indeed, there’s no place like home.

[beanmaster-pika]

@xan-xus Lae I owe you my life ty for enabling me

OKAY SO Subject X doesn’t disappear, but Lea and Isa still go with the ‘become Apprentices’ plan bc they’re Dumb Teens. Fast forward and Xehanort has everyone in the lab (including the LITERAL BABY I’m so sorry they did that to you Ienzo) all “hm yeah we should totally experiment on our own hearts nothing could possibly go wrong!” and Lea and Isa are like “wh. what the fuck. are we in a cult is this what a cult looks like”

Spoiler: it is

Now, one scene I have envisioned very vividly is a change in Saix getting his scar. I’ve read posts that suggest he got it before he became a Nobody and that’s why it didn’t disappear like Axel’s tattoos did (OR MAYBE THOSE WERENT TATTOOS. MAYBE THEY WERE CLOWN MAKEUP), so I figure it happened right before he lost heart. Why? I dunno! Maybe Xehanort realized that he had a lot of darkness in his potential to get unhealthily jealous and went “hoo hee that’s prime real estate!” and decided to set the groundwork in advance! But because I am a sucker for characters bodily shielding their loved ones, X fuckin jumps in the way of the second slash so she and Saix end up having Inverted Matching Scars. I’m contemplating having it being over her eye and giving her an eyepatch and her being really salty about matching with Xigbar bc who’d want to.

Xehanort just rolls with it because if those three hold each other dear then that’s just more material to work with in the future, kinda like when one gathers a bunch of art supplies one has vague ideas for but never ends up using, so Nort Prep™️ doesn’t happen and he turns them all into Nobodies.

Also Lea’s unconscious for all of this because of my hc that the Radiant Garden squad’s numbers go in ascending order based on who got killed first. Ya boi’s just chillin in the back, his heart floating over his body.

Anyway they’re all Nobodies now, right? No feelings, nothing. They just want their hearts back so they can become Somebodies again. Since X is right there with them, they don’t need to worry about getting Saix up the ranks to find her. They just need to carry out their missions competently enough that they don’t get turned into Dusks. A lot changes when you take the search for X out of the equation—Saix loses his hungry ambition, Axel slows down. They don’t have to fight to get ahead; they just need to stay afloat. They lose that desperate edge that ultimately knifed them apart, and it’s only the scramble for kingdom hearts that drives them now. Much of the stress and pressure they dealt with in canon is gone. So what now?

It’s these two plus X. They don’t have emotions, but they do have their memories. X’s freedom was all they had hoped for, and ironically now that she’s got it none of them have the literal heart to be happy about it, and you can bet I’m lifting that line straight into my fic probably. They know that they were friends, though they can’t feel it now, and they know that they cared deeply for each other, so logically they stick together. They even have ice cream time on the clock tower.

Here’s the fun part: regrowing their hearts. With an actual circle of friends—though it’s small—their hearts actually start to regrow healthier, like how Axel’s did once he started hanging out with Roxas and Xion. Sure, Xemnas tries to interfere because “excuse me what are you nincompoops doing that’s my future vessel” but do you think they give a fuck?? No way!! I also buy into the “X=Skuld” theory, and one of her biggest personality traits is wanting to keep her friends together, and I don’t think amnesia’s gonna change that (at least I’m pretty sure she has amnesia. Ven, Marluxia, and Larxene sure do >:0). Xemnas wants to snatch away one of her friends for Evil Business?? Try it, bitch, she’ll cUT YOU. Xemnas has appearances to keep up so he doesn’t out and out start a fight with the Teenage Girl™️ but he’s lowkey pissed but whatever.

So with that fucked up end to their teenage years they grow into adulthood, not normal but far less shitty than what could have been. Saix still becomes Mission Man because he’s got to have some administrative skill if he got the job in canon, but despite how closely he has to work with Xemnas the Norting is unsuccessful—he’s got Axel and X stabilizing him. It’s a three-way positive feedback loop with people who don’t have anything else to do or worry about, and it keeps him safe and their new hearts keep slogging on with that regrowth, unacknowledged but doing their damn best.

Now let’s talk about Days. Saix still assigns Axel to train Roxas during his first week, and Roxas still has to train Xion for memory or Keyblade reasons I think?? But things go a little differently for them this time.

Axel doesn’t do assassination in this AU—no need for it—so it’s Xigbar sent off to Castle Oblivion instead to deal with the traitors. Saix doesn’t really care since he doesn’t have a personal stake in the situation. Axel never meets Sora, but he does hang out with Roxas more, so Roxas ends up growing to be a bit more of a little shit than he is in canon. The formative weeks are very important for a new Nobody with no memories, after all. Axel doesn’t have that desperation for a real friend that pushed him to befriend Roxas in canon, but he does have a more developed partial heart and it won’t allow him to just toss this poor kid to the wolves. He brings him up to the clock tower for ice cream time and Saix is like “why is he here this is our thing” and Axel has to go “be nice he was born yesterday” Roxas is just spacing out and figuring out how eating works. Axel adopts Roxas almost immediately, X does so in good faith, and Saix eventually comes around because the other two already did it. Then there’s the whole Xion situation, and all three of them are like Axel was in canon—a bit confused, but they got the spirit. Roxas likes her, so they do too.

OH YEAH ANOTHER IMPORTANT PLOT POINT IS THAT SAIX DOESNT REFER TO A CHILD AS “IT” :)

They don’t have to sneak around as much when Xion has Keyblade problems—the perks of having an actual friend in power—and from here all I really have planned is a whole lot of the radiant trio doing their best to look after these disaster children while stubbornly denying that they themselves have hearts and emotions pushing them to do so in the first place and it’s really wholesome and also maybe theres a pinch of Axel and Saix’s redeveloping hearts leading to redeveloping but unacknowledged feelings for each other and X and the kids try to wingman them (with a side of X being a little salty because the only woman her age in the organization is dead now and also was too mean to date in the first place) because I’m biased and still high on kh3 leaisa rights.

Eventually they decide “fuck it we may not have hearts but we’re doing fine, why don’t we just uhhhhhh fuck off to some far away world with the kids so they can have an actual childhood” but before they can everything goes to shit with the whole Sora situation and now he has THREE desperate Nobodies after him trying to get their son back, and they all disagree on which method will bring results and have a huge falling out and X has to watch helplessly as one of her best friends goes rogue and the other ends up being Norted and it’s painful. 🙃 But everything gets resolved a la KH3 and that’s the AU.

[kae-karo]

Can you do an analysis on the last dan vs phil video?

hell yeah i can in the beginning…

nerds nerds nerds ‘in the beginning…..there was a tree…..’ cue phil’s lil laugh smh cowards release the footage of y’all recording this bit i would Die for it i wanna see y’all being cute-ass dorks together thanks

dan’s voice cracking tone when he’s trying to stop phil

‘n they didn’t tell anybody’ dumbasses u told three million people smh

the fucking dvp montage god this whole intro is just a testament to what dorks they are

‘emotional stability’ what the Fuck

we’re the only ones fighting for emotional stability here jfc

‘after,,,,,d- after da long ass time’ dan u spork

they pulled up the first clip of the dvp board i’m not sobbing ur sobbing

phil recognizing he’s doing the same intro voice i’m Soft

cute

dan forgetting what he was gonna say after his big ol dramatic ‘that is right everybody’ we stan a mess

“bitch there’s no space” did u mean

ahem anyway

phil ruining all dan’s dramatic storytelling gives me Life

how did i not know just dance 2 was one of their most popular vids???? it has 7.4m views??? (for anyone as curious as me, sims #1 has 8.2m and is the most popular, followed by just dance, then fnaf #1 with 7.2m then akinator of all things with 6.4m?)

phil liked yasuhati???? i stan immensely i loved yasuhati as y’all know

it’s a grand finale u spoons stop saying grand ‘final’ that just. sounds wrong lmao

dan spent an hour making that crown i’m crying he’s so cute as is phil’s reaction giggling at him 

they ran out of kitchen foil why did i need to know this

they literally fucking kept the present they crushed what’s wrong with them

‘look at what his ass did to this’ as if we don’t know what that ass do

dan keeping up the ‘i’ll ebay this’ joke i think someone’s catching the capita£ester

i love their adorable editing making each other disappear n phil chopping dan’s head off it’s endearing

cereal eating contest at least dan knows he’s lost (dan is the Actual psychic)

‘y’all fricken want us touching each other??? do you????? here ya fuckin go u animals enjoy’

me when dan makes bad innuendo puns

why does phil look so pleased with himself????

hi i know i say it every video but there is nothing more beautiful than phil looking at dan while he’s talking it just makes me weak????

he tongue

also important dan eye roll content

dnp each picking a game they think they can win and then they do win amazing

dan’s confused ‘should’ve put some in??? oh yeah i should’ve cheated’ immediately followed by his oh fuck yeah i probably should’ve

i would just like to point out that at this point we’re literally watching two dorks with their eyes shut psyching each other out for an entire thirty seconds

‘i’m getting so moist right now’ dan we already know ur kink is staring at phil okay we got it

phil looks like he knows he’s gonna win and i love him

why are they such dorks phil trying to make dan lose i’m being thrown violently back to pinof 4

also ofc dan has a strategy to win this of course he does of course i expect nothing less

i think dan,,,,,,broke the sound barrier there ;)

oi hi there lil rosy patch welcome back

caption this

‘it was the longest i’ve ever had my eyes open in my entire life’ dan is such a dramatic gay i love him like babe,,,,,,,u don’t have to hyperbolize everything okay

‘i don’t know why but i stared at u for like a minute’ ‘yeah’ 

dan screaming when phil touched the crown dan,,,,,,,do u have even one (1) ounce of chill

look i’ve never seen dan fixate so much on anything except phil

‘stop enjoying these rolling chairs so much’ hi daniel do u recall not a month ago when u wheeled ur bf around the flat bc i do recall u having a bit of fun there 

phil knowing he has noodly arms and dan immediately going ‘don’t u dare say that abt my husband’ is a mood

buster howell

dnp being terrified of snapping their arms in an arm wrestling contest is such a mood literally that’s like my reason for never ever wanting to arm wrestle

‘when i literally snap phil in half’ try not to look so pleased abt that dan

‘i’m not very good at fighting talk am i’ why did this immediately translate in my head to dirty talk katie u need to Stop with the phanfiction

oh my god they put the board down and my first concern was all the stickers were gonna get moved off or fall off or w.e

disappearing chins

sorry ik it’s been there but the cactus has fairy lights on it

nerds fighting over who moved who’s limbs

dan u can’t call phil out for leaning when ur leaning urself okay 

he looks exactly like he did in the dk vid

rosy patch, rosy patch, we love u lil rosy patch

hi phil’s lips look particularly pretty here

what’s wrong with them who gave them permission to be this cute n domestic

dan u can’t look that offended when u offered to play that game

(offended but fond is dan’s only mood toward phil)

doesn’t count what bloody doesn’t count daniel u dork

hi why are u so giggly looking at phil okay that’s not Legal

very dry eyes and an aching left arm, that’s how you know you’ve had a good time thanks dan thanks didn’t want that didn’t need it goodbye

the way he trails off into a laugh though that’s some good shit right there

“we said it at the same time” of course u did 

okay so pika @wlwphil​ said that dnp exist in a feedback loop of stupid bc they don’t talk to anyone but themselves i think this vid exemplifies that idea quite well tbh especially the rock paper scissors bit these nerds are so isolated in this lil loop that they massively psyche each other out over rock paper scissors i’m crying

“we know each other so well” hi yeah we know

i think it’s quite interesting that dan’s not interrupting phil like he usually would n talking over him? he’s letting phil talk? & waiting for a moment to interject?

dan puts in lil mind sneks does he phil does he really

dan having no plan which is his plan while phil’s got his first eight moves planned out 

dan’s lil shut up

okay okay okay hold up here i wanna talk abt this (hi anon who said i just like to talk abt everything u right son u right) these idiots are staring at each other n dan says ‘you should admit to them right now that i win most rock paper scissors’ and phil, whilst still staring at dan, says ‘he does’

phil. phil ur talking to ur audience. but ur staring at ur man. i’m just. this shook me. this truly genuinely shook me and idk i don’t even have a good explanation it’s just so,,,,,,,unlike them???? i guess??

phil nobody consented to this stop

i’m living for dan not realizing this

what,,,,,what

phil wins: face #1

face #2

break for the weird heartbeat in the background

phil trying to psyche dan out i love him

face #3:

if u notice we have a careful progression of dan going from slightly fond to more fond (but offended) to horrified but fond. phil goes from victorious to massively victorious to ‘i think the universe is about to explode from how victorious he is’

dan shouldn’t be allowed to sound so fond abt losing that’s illegal people can’t do that

the return of cannot believe

bow to me biatch

jiggly camera

i’ve invited ur mum ‘no u haven’t’ i find it super cute that literally every time there’s a ur mum joke directed at kath phil has to deny it?

dan’s sweatpants n slippers

dan pulling out the catti/bratty voices from undertale i love it

philip michael lester, with this…

oi don’t touch it!

now prance, king

dan’s cheeky lil grin

this guy

dan waiting patiently to be thanked

excuse me daniel and philip what did u cut out we went from y’all’s hands being down below shot and then they’re up next to ur face???? excuse me

hi we missed a lot that’s not allowed

cutes

sorry i love when dan does this with his lips it cute

phil has this incredible ability to deliver jokes with such seriousness i mean honestly it’s a genuine skill like???? when dan delivers jokes u Know it’s a joke but phil man,,,,,he could be completely serious if taken out of context

hi i just like that dnp called each other philip and daniel in this vid good content

yes phil all or nothings are valid

i’m here for them like indicating the other has to say some Significant thing at the end of the vids it’s real cute

[ettadunham]

A Buffy rewatch 5x03 The Replacement

aka how to handle your evil twin

Welcome to this dailyish text post series where I will rewatch an episode of Buffy and go on an impromptu rant about it for an hour. Is it about one hyperspecific thing or twenty observations? 10 or 3k words? You don’t know! I don’t know!!! In this house we don’t know things.

And today’s episode once again has me rambling about how season 5 brings us adult Scoobies (most specifically Xander in this case of course), and maybe also talk a bit about the Riley dilemma. Let’s see how far we’ll get with this.

If there’s one nitpicky thing I have about The Replacement, it’s all the red-herrings they pull to try and sell the audience on suave Xander as a body-switched demon. It might work on a first watch, but once you know the twist, you’re starting to wonder what Xander meant when he told Anya that he can relate to her sudden human fragility, and shit like that.

I also have questions about the real estate agent lady coming onto Xander. I guess suave Xander has all the asshole qualities since he isn’t shutting it down… but neither would the other Xander based on his lines??? Hoo boy.

Then again, I’m also wondering now about what power real estate agent lady has regarding Xander getting this apartment (maybe she’s actually landlord lady???), and now that’s a whole different yikes. On yet another hand though, the so-called suave Xander used a line mentioning Klingons on her, so this also seems like a very specific nerd fantasy.

But I digress.

Overall, this episode is about Xander coming to terms about his own adult life. And I know I keep going back to this word, and using it to describe the season, so I want to make a few clarifications.

When I say that the Scoobies are all adults in season 5, I don’t mean that they abandoned all childlike qualities or have fully matured. (Mostly because that never actually happens to any of us…) Buffy still fights with her sister like they’re both 5-year-olds. When it comes to Anya, Willow is petty af.

But so is Giles sometimes. Being an adult is much more about the ability to think ahead and knowing yourself, including your potential and limits. This is what Xander is faced with here - his supposedly best and worst qualities.

I do think that definig the two Xanders we see here as his strength and weaknesses is a gross oversimplification though - and one that the episode doesn’t really rectify either. It’s fun seeing confident Xander, and having this affirmation that he’s really taking charge of his life at this point… but I do wish that we’ve also had a bit of an appreciation for our other Xander. It would’ve helped driving this whole theme of how his character can’t be whole without both of these parts.

Another meh element was the gun. Buffy, the show, rarely uses guns, and when it does in a context like this - where a character is just waving it around to make themselves feel more in control -, it pretty much always leads to tragedy.

And yet… not here. The tension of the gun gets resolved without consequences. We also learn that the gun belongs to Anya, but we’ll never bring it back again. Which is just as well if you ask me. (Chekhov can go and sit in a corner for all I care.)

So I guess I actually have more than one nitpicky stuff about this episode, but overall, I still enjoyed it like most of this season. Seeing how I’ve been non-stop gushing about s5 for the last three episodes, I think it comes as no surprise that this always has been one of my favorite seasons of the show. And that opinion appears to hold up for this rewatch so far.

One of the other things I wanted to point to before moving onto the Riley section of this post, is Xander and Willow’s mention of Anya when they’re talking about Xander’s double taking over his life.

Xander:  He can take anything, but he can’t have her. I need her. Willow:  Really? Xander:  He could be with her right now! [...] I gotta find her. Willow:  Xander... You already knew he was taking over your life, and you didn’t think about Anya till just now?

The most important detail of this exchange is the tone of Willow’s voice when she says “Really?”. It’s easy to take Willow on her word when just doing a reading of the lines, accepting her perspective on Xander and Anya’s relationship… But Willow is an extremely biased narrator in this case.

And it’s all evident in the way she says that one single line. She almost seems disgusted and clearly annoyed with Xander’s sudden outburst of desperation for Anya. Willow just really doesn’t like Anya - thankfully we’ll have a whole episode this season dedicated to this where we can dissect the layers of those emotions.

On the other hand, it also doesn’t mean that Willow isn’t not right? Xander has a huge problem of not appreciating what he has in the moment, and trying to chase something new to move his life forward. But that’s why this episode is so important to him.

That last scene with Riley’s speech is just as much about Xander as it is about Riley. Xander clearly sees himself in Riley in a sort of what-could-have-been scenario. It’s debatable if he’s every got over his crush and entitlement to Buffy’s affections, but here’s this guy, who adores Buffy just as much as he used to. And he’s the luckiest guy! He’s actually got the dream girl or whatever…

…And yet he’s also just a saddest thot, ‘cause the girl of his dreams doesn’t seem to reciprocate those same affections. Because of that, i read that last close-up on Xander’s face as him realizing just how goddamn lucky he is to love someone who loves him back. And perhaps finally giving up on his last shred of daydreams about that one girl who turned him down back in high school.

On the other hand, it really is also just about him watching one of his best friends and wanting to see her happy. And realizing that that’s not the direction her relationship with Riley is headed.

Now, the problem we run into here too is that we’re accepting Riley’s perspective on Buffy’s feelings about him, and you know what? I’m not so sure about that.

Buffy definitely feels like she can’t share all of her life - especially the Slayer parts - with Riley at this point. I pointed to some signs indicating this in earlier episodes, but she actually makes it explicit here.

Buffy thinks that Riley would rather just have Buffy without the Slayer parts and so she asks him. But Riley reassures her that that’s not the case. That he loves everything about her because it’s what makes her who she is.

It’s a nice sentiment, but one can also see moments that seem to support Buffy’s instincts that Riley might be uncomfortable with the whole package deal. There’s also an argument to be made that Buffy distancing herself makes Riley blame her Slayer qualities for her detachment on some level, which in turn informs Buffy that she can’t let Riley fully in, and so on. A neverending feedback loop that’s slowly but surely expanding the rift between them.

And yet it’s not even about Riley really - Buffy this season, more than ever, struggles with understanding her Slayer powers. In that sense, her asking Riley about whether or not he wished to have been able to separate the Slayer from Buffy, is more a question to herself. Buffy doesn’t yearn for that “normal life” quite the same anymore, but she doesn’t know how the Slayer fits in with Buffy either.

Going back to theme of adulthood being about knowing ourselves, Buffy knows Buffy. She’s yet to fully understand the Slayer.

In a way, it really isn’t about Riley at all, even though he appears to think so. Riley feels like Buffy can’t love him, specifically - but in reality, her detachment goes much deeper than that.

Buffy will have trouble opening up for the remainder of the series, and Riley eventually leaving won’t help, but it’ll also just exacerbate an existing problem. Probably more on that later.

You know what I love though? College Buffy being too engulfed in her history studies to enjoy the movie. And once she does look up, she spends the whole movie criticizing the fighting strategy of the protagonist. What a nerd.

I also laughed at Riley’s line about wanting to lock the Xanders up in separate rooms and study them. You can take the boy out of the Initiative, but… wait, the show already made that joke last episode, whatever.

Meanwhile Joyce is having a headache, and Buffy and Dawn joke about which one of them gave her that. I’m sure it’s fine.

Unfortunately, Tara skipped out on this ep. She’s probably getting prepared for a visit from her evil cousin from hell, Amy Adams.

I, myself, am not sure I’m prepared for that tbh.

[rkxsungwoon-blog]

✦ — MGA4 EPISODE 5: MASH UPS #4048: HA SUNGWOON ; outfit + look [ x ] TEAM A (CELESTIAL): @suhork, @junhoerk, @rksomi, @irenerk performance: save me x starry night - bts x mamamoo / line distribution

team fresh n’ fruity survives the round of eliminations unscathed, but barely. the gravity of their situation isn’t lost on sungwoon, even as his body seems to lose all strength at the news as the week’s worth of tension finally leaves him. fourth place is fourth place—they could have easily been in the position of the fifth place team; their feedback was nearly the same. it’s fourth place, but it’s not good enough. he wonders if he’s gotten greedy after placing second with dynamiq. lighting rarely strikes the same place twice, however, and he might’ve used up all of his good luck last week. 

sungwoon doesn’t let any of his disappointment show while congratulating his team. part of being a leader means you have to make sure your teammates have confidence in themselves and their own hard work, so he hypes up their survival for all it’s worth. he doesn’t think their rank is a reflection of their shortcomings anyway; everyone did a fantastic job. the fault probably lies with sungwoon, and he accepts responsibility for it. he was the weakest dancer in their group, and maybe that’s where they lost points? either way, it was his job to make sure they shone up on that stage, and while he’s glad he was able to keep his promise to mingyu, he wishes he could’ve delivered more for his team. 

but sungwoon sets it aside for a moment to congratulate daniel. from someone who didn’t want to be here to the winner of the week’s challenge—and with a band concept too! it further affirms sungwoon’s belief that daniel is talented and deserves to be here just as much as everyone else, and that he truly shines when he gets the chance to do what he’s good at. after daniel and his team are done celebrating, sungwoon tackles him in a hug, laughing and pretending not to notice daniel’s tears. “i knew you had it in you,” he says. privately, he hopes the win will help daniel believe in himself more as well. 

if only sungwoon could believe in himself. his earlier confidence stripped, he goes back home after the filming and tosses and turns in bed before giving up on sleep and trudging to the nearest corner store to get some spicy ramen. while he eats, he runs simulations of team f’s performance in his head, attempting to figure where they went wrong or what they could’ve done better. there are too many answers, in the end, and he gives up before he can start feeling worse about himself. as leader, he should have—

but he’s not the leader anymore. tomorrow, he meets a new team and starts fresh. it’s a little terrifying; sungwoon isn’t the biggest fan of rapid change, but then again, he should’ve kept that in mind before he joined this competition. there’s nothing he can do except force himself to adapt to the circumstances and do his best. sungwoon might’ve been the weak link in his team last time, but he refuses to fall into the same complacency this week. if he works his ass off and plays to his strengths, maybe he’ll avoid ending up in the same position (or worse). 

if it doesn’t work out—well. that’s something else. 

sungwoon doubts this week will be as fun as the last one. there’s more of a learning curve associated with this challenge, more growing pains when it comes to settling in with team a. initially, he thinks he won’t be able to vibe well with them. the whole group intimidates sungwoon; they have two number one winners in junmyeon and rose, with junhoe and somi placing second together. all strong candidates, all people to watch for, while sungwoon is… not. calling it an inferiority complex would be going too far, but he’s definitely afraid of fading into the background during their performance.

he remains muted during their first meeting, not really speaking much at the beginning. with a new team comes a new building to practice in as well. all he knows of royal entertainment is sayyes, and the new practice room is strange after spending two whole weeks in the kt building. fidgeting in his seat, he looks pretends to be fascinated by his new surroundings to get away from the awkwardness. once they actually start talking, it’s a different story. everyone in team a is pretty nice and sungwoon feels foolish for assuming the worst of them. like him, they’re also people trying to do their best to survive in this competition.

loosening up considerably after that, he makes more of an effort to be involved. the first (almost amusing) obstacle they hit is that of the team leader. junmyeon, junhoe, rose, and sungwoon have all held the position before, which means the title falls on their youngest, somi. she seems a little panicked at the prospect, but the rest assure her they’ll be here to support and help out if she starts feeling overwhelmed. sungwoon feels a sharp pang of sympathy for her; it’s a lot to put on a kid’s shoulders on top of the competition itself. the rules are a bit cruel in this regard, but there’s nothing they can really do about it.

song selection comes next. they grab a couple of mashups off the internet to choose from: one is a combination of bts’ save me and mamamoo’s starry night, and the other is a combination of sistar’s i like it, twice’s heartbreaker, and red velvet’s rookie. neither tracks are really to sungwoon’s taste. truthfully, he’d want to do something like a ballad or, more dangerous but more satisfying as well, a rock song, but he decides to conform for the sake of the team and votes for save me and starry night. it’s not ideal, but he thinks it’s the more vocally interesting song of the two choices and is relieved when it wins out.

rose offers to work on the choreography with somi’s help, and sungwoon’s grateful for that. the majority of their team aren’t dancers and couldn’t pull off anything close to bts’ choreography, so adjustments are necessary. while that gets worked out, sungwoon focuses on learning the vocal parts. once again, he lost out to junhoe for the main vocal position, the same thing having happened in team dynamiq previously. he honestly doesn’t mind—junhoe is the better singer and sungwoon has no problems with the line distributions. if he wants to fight for a position like that, he’s just going to have to work harder and hone his skills.

while rehearsing, sungwoon slides over to junmyeon and, with an embarrassed laugh, asks the man for his autograph “for my sister in hong kong.” she’s only been asking sungwoon to get this since episode one aired, and while he’s been too intimidated by junmyeon to ask before, he has no excuse not to when they’re in a team together. surprisingly, junmyeon reacts shyly to the request, which throws sungwoon for  loop—he always imagined junmyeon, at least, would be used to the attention, but he’s just as embarrassed as sungwoon while giving the autograph. sungwoon laughs and asks him to throw an extra one in signed to sungwoon as well. he’s sure it’ll be worth a lot someday.

the choreography is, once again, the hard part of the week’s performance. sungwoon’s pleased to discover he isn’t the worst dancer of the group, but he’s not the best of them either. in order to make up for that, he spends every moment he can practicing, even sleeping overnight in the practice room to minimize the commute from his house to the royal building. he’s pretty sure his housemates might burn down their home in his absence, but the stakes are high this week and the expectations even higher. sungwoon even comes fully prepared, packing a pillow and his favorite pokemon blanket to bust out during the night.

junmyeon becomes his partner in dance-related struggles, his comrade in incoordination. rose and somi are helpful when it comes to learning the dance, but most of his jokes are shared with junmyeon, since he’s the one who can truly understand sungwoon’s pain here. most days, they practice right into the night in order to not bring the team down and do their parts right. one night, they just fall asleep next to each other, both too tired to even think about leaving.

the following morning, sungwoon’s woken up by a scream; somi, having come in early to set up, is shocked to find junmyeon and sungwoon asleep side by side. still bleary eyed, he yells instinctively and darts upright into a crouch vaguely resembling some kind of martial arts stance at the thought of an intruder, but it’s just their baby leader, as he’s taken to calling her.

sungwoon rubs his eyes and tries to flatten his hair while apologizing, but junmyeon doesn’t seem to be making the same efforts, instead shooting him a wink and finger guns while looking sleepy and yet effortlessly good. sungwoon feels cheated. robbed. hoodwinked. he stares into the camera like he’s on the office and says “did i ask for this? no. am i getting it? yes. am i slightly jealous god has not given me the ability to wink? also yes.” he gets the junmyeon hype now, he does. dude is just that handsome and charismatic.

the day before filming, sungwoon ducks out for a couple of hours to get his hair dyed. it’s something he’s always wanted to try after coming to seoul but could never work up the nerve to. now is as good a time as any, though, and he goes for a bold color: red. cherry red, in fact, but the descriptor just makes him think of team fresh n’ fruity. he misses them, truly. especially cherry yerim, who he learned had dropped out of the competition for personal reasons. part of him panicked at first—was it because of him? was it because they’d come in fourth?—but she’s doing what she has to and he’s proud of her for making such a difficult decision. he tries to stay in touch with the rest as much as he can, and though they’re all busy, they promise to meet up soon.

team f would’ve definitely made fun of his new hairdo, or the fact that sungwoon seriously suggested wearing jorts on stage during their performance. team a is kinder and don’t tease him about his sudden hair color change (no ronald mcdonald jokes, at least). by the end of the week, he’s relaxed more into his group, and while it’s not the fast friendships and good times of team f, sungwoon genuinely likes these people too. they’re not so different from him, and he feels dumb for thinking they were at first. he’s truly honored to have gotten the chance to work with them, and they’re in this together, for better or for worse

unlike previous fridays, sungwoon’s team is up first to perform. he’s too used to waiting till the end of the show to take the stage that he almost forgets and manages to make it onstage just in time, only a little short of breath from having sprinted to get here. they named themselves ‘team celestial’ to fit with the theme of starry night, and playing off the joke, he introduces himself as the contestant with the angelic voice. it’s a little weird, standing up here showing a different face than he usually does. his hair color has faded a little from the vibrant firetruck red to a more subdued garnet, brushed back and styled up to #freetheforehead. he’s wearing pink too, a far cry from usual fair (especially if you count empty enigma), but it suits the theme and sungwoon feels good in it. 

he feels good about this performance too. sungwoon doesn’t want to enter into this doubting himself or his team’s hard work over the course of the week. while it’s true creativity wasn’t their strongest suit, save for maybe rose, they still tried hard to put together a performance worthy of this stage. he’d be doing them a disservice if he got up there alongside them with anything but the fullest of confidence in their abilities. giving his team a nod and a grin, sungwoon takes his position and waits for the music to start. 

sungwoon gets to utilize his lower register more at the beginning, something he hasn’t really been able to during this competition. there’s a lot more to his voice that he hasn’t been able to show at all and hopes he’ll get the chance to before his luck really runs dry and he’s asked to leave. he delivers his lines smoothly, working in tandem with junhoe, his mind running on overdrive as it juggles clean vocals, choreography, and charisma all at once. he’s always going to put his voice above the other two, but working with this versatile group of people has made him reconsider some things too. 

the shadow of the darkness remaining in the deep night drawing out a light

give me your hand save me save me i need your love before i fall, fall

the overlapping chorus is busy, with each vocal getting a part of their own to sing. timing is just as important as delivery here, and no one person should overpower the rest. it’s a tough balance to strike but sungwoon thinks the team does a good job, all the while following the choreography rose made for them. he puts more faith in his dancing that previous weeks; sungwoon’s put in the work and has come to realize that, if he’s not confident in his own moves, other people won’t be receptive to them either. after watching junmyeon practice, he’s also learned how important expressions are, and does more to channel those to the camera and audience than in previous weeks. 

save me save me save me 

save me save me save me

ya ya ya yi ya

save me save me 

the girls are the rappers of this team, and sungwoon finds that really cool—he has limited experience with the genre, but he thinks they do a good job with the material they have. somi, especially, has taken on rapping in addition to vocals and the leader title; he really hopes people see all the hard work she’s put into this team despite being the youngest. he hopes people can support all of them. yes, there are people here who’ve tasted or almost tasted victory before, but now that sungwoon’s seen how much of themselves they give to their performances, he thinks it’s well deserved. no one should make the mistake of thinking they’re coasting because of mnet or anything; they’ve worked their asses off to get here. 

starry night, it’s a starry night you blow over to me

starry night 

starry night

his vocal delivery is more restrained than normal during this performance, since his parts lack the ability to really ‘go off,’ so sungwoon tries to make up for it in his energy and his dedication to the dance and making sure the stage looks good. there’s so much to being an idol that he didn’t realize before, but he’s learning slowly and surely, thanks to the efforts of the people he’s met during this competition. he wants to do well for himself, but also to honor them. he wouldn’t be here—hell, he wouldn’t be able to do this—if it weren’t for all his teammates, former and present. 

( starry night, it’s a starry night you blow over to me ) give me your hand save me save me i need your love before i fall, fall

starry night

starry night

as junmyeon utters the final line, they freeze into their ending pose, sungwoon brushes his damp hair back and fixes a smile on his face. the end of a performance always brings a lot of thoughts, primarily, have i done enough and will i make it? but if there’s one thing he’s had to come to terms with, it’s that he has no control over what happens. the only thing sungwoon can have any direct effect over is himself, and he’s done the best he could with what he was given. everything else is—random, left up to the will of the cosmos. all he can do is accept it with grace. 

[evelynfirewalks]

Who is Evelyn E. Sandhamn?

(Thank you again to @groove1121 and @rileyomalley for the awesome art, seriously!)

Backstory

Once upon a time in a city called Montreal, there was a strange child. This child lived with their uncle, a broken shambling thing of a man who took to drink and tried their best to raise a child all on their own. You see, this child was an orphan, in some sense of the word. The young infant had only known their parents for a few short days before they had returned home from the hospital, any chance of a normal familial environment shattered alongside the cars front window as it veered off the road, cheap metal rending apart and the pair almost instantly.

By sheer chance however, and to the relieved puzzlement of first responders, the infant had survived unharmed, seemingly more amused than frightened. And so the child was sent to live with their only living relative, a man of no real social responsibilties or dedication but who had deeply cared for his sister, vowing to raise the child to the best of their ability.

Unfortunately, this child would prove to be something of a handful.

Perhaps subtly influenced by some memory that dwelled back in the recesses of their mind from fateful day, the child grew to hold an unprthodox interest in all things unpleasant. This child had been a strange one with odd mannerisms, who would play with gutter trash as opposed to the other children who busied themselves with the more practical choice of toys like action figures or dolls or playsets. The child used discarded wrappers and the crushed bodies of birds as their playthings, the soaked and muddied leaves and cold their playset.

Unsurprisingly, due to their macabre and bizarre interests and unsettlingly polite and friendly nature, they became a child who was more often than not shunned, if not outright bullied. It grew to such an acceptance of the broken that the school had to repeatedly step in and try to have the child put under medicines or psychologists or aides to try and correct the bizarre behaviour, make them function properly in society.

Unfortunately, the child was for the most part perfectly and clearly mentally sound—on every level except from what they found to be a properly interesting aesthetic; a central ‘framework’ which couldn’t be altered and which was their crux for good behaviour. To tamper with it was to invite more unhealthy habits, as a few fights found. And so, given a diet of anti-psychotics and other medicines which only lasted for a short time before they weren’t able to be afforded, the child’s mindset only continued, disturbing people with a smile.

Eventually, by the time of their 13th Birthday, it became too much for the uncle of this child, a man forced to drink who had taken the child as their only family after the disastrous accident that had claimed the parents life only days after their birth. Dismayed to see at what had come to be of the only last piece they had to their sister and driven mad by drink, they decided in a fit of rage it was better for his sister to be remembered in memory as opposed to heir legacy being tarnished by this hellish child.

And so, their uncle tried to beat them to death. And the Uncle did, beat them bloodied and bruised and nearly to the point of death, as a glass bottle struck again and again with more force than anyone educated on pop culture would have cared to think it should and without shattering.

But this was not their end.

This near death experience awoke the power inside them, which had claimed the lives of the parents long ago by picking out the faults in a car and making it fall apart at the seams and fatally crash. This was a Stand unlike others, one which yearned and craved out the flaws in something and made it manifest.

This was ⌈Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me⌋, and it had harbored well in the years of this child. It grasped the head of the uncle, forcing their imperfections—the toxins inherent in their body and soul—and brought them forthwith. He died choking on a volent and vile concoction of foul poison, his organs shrivelling or bursting and his body filled with a vile and foul smelling concoction of yellow-black vile and filth.

In Evelyn E. Sandhamn’s opinion, a moniker they created shortly following this incident, they were only born then—everything before had been merely a walking dream for their true self. The death of their uncle and true awakening of ⌈Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me⌋ their ‘baptism’ as it was.

And so, they grabbed the only belongings they could find (a raincoat, overalls, boots, and a small collection of food for the trip ahead) and left, their Stand making the building collapse inwards. It would later be assumed to have been a building that had somehow evaded oversight, of a much shoddier construction than what was legally allowed. And Montreal moved on, unaware of what had been birthed and leaving on a bus, a smile on its face.

Personality

Evelyn is a perpetually friendly and upbeat individual with an almost childish outlook on the world and in actions, although that might be in turn an act they use to theow people off their game and make them seem less threatening… or it might be a coincedence. It’s uncertain as Evelyn is very flippant and coy with most personal questions, liking to leave things up to interpretation as to not alienate others and be open to everyone they meet. This is also partly why they identify as Non-Binary, if only because the concept of Gender just feels like too much bother. They don’t care whether you’re Boy or a Girl and don’t think it matters which they are, they just want to be your friend and they yours!

A belief which altough sincere and commendable, becomes deeply and distrubinly ironic given how repulsant their personal philosophy even is.

To Evelyn, Bad Things are Good. So good, that anything bad is to them by definition better than something that is inherently good to almost anyone else. Rotten wood, wet dog, decaying animals, spilled blood, these are all Good; if only because they once were or can be something greater than they are at present, and that sentiment is something Evelyn finds deeply touching. This philosophy is so deeply ingrained to Evelyn that they can find joy and solace in their own suffering or depression, in a strange paradoxical state that often enters a kind of feedback loop. In Evelyn’s opinion, these feelings and belief is the Truest thing in the world, and they see ⌈Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me⌋ as the greatest possible Stand in the whole world for being able to reveal this ‘truth’ to people.

Admittedly, their own philosophy doesn’t entirely mesh with their own mindset due to some of its complexities, and it is something of a vague philosophy that can shift on their mood, but that’s only even more fun for Evelyn. What’s not quite as fun for Evelyn (which makes it fun to them—it gets complicated) is the fact their personality means its difficult for them to truly befriend people, leaving them to being used with a smile of people being repulsed by them or trying to fight them. The usual reaction, and their own childish curiosity, also means they usually find it difficult to stay in one place for a long period of time, liking to travel from town to town through bus stops or good ol’ walking.

Appearance

Evelyn stands at 167cm and weighs around 53kg. They have short, messily and sharply cut and greasy brown hair, and dark grey eyes with noticeable bags or rings (ironic given their energetic demeanour). They have an assumedly lithe and gangly build underneath their usual attire but this cannot be easily confirmed, as Evelyn is almost always seen wearing a yellow raincoat, artichoke green overalls and muddy grey boots (usually wet from hanging out in the rain), and reacts violently to anyone who would try and make them remove these. If they were to be seen without their raincoat, it would likely be in a unisex and greasy grey swimsuit.

Evelyn, physicially, is somewhere in their early 20’s, although exact details are uncertain.

Stand

Evelyn is the User of the Stand known as ⌈Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me⌋. With middling Strength and Speed, poor durability and only being able to extend about 10 metres away from its host, the disturbing figure of skeletal and decaying corpse parts hiding underneath a tarnished and dirtied plastic membrane would be a fairly unremarkable Stand all things considered if not for its ability.

Anything ⌈Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me⌋ touches has its greatest flaws or weaknesses brought forward and pronounced, more severely the longer ⌈Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me⌋ holds onto it. These can be either physical (i.e Metal rusts, Glass cracks, Flesh decays, etc), something more abstract (if an item is associated with bad luck, it will now be very unlucky in all regards), or in the case of sapient life, by making their own toxic or crippling personality traits become notably amplified. It can also, in a manner comparable to ⌈Under World⌋, make past traumas or ‘wounds’ return to the surface.

Examples of its ability in use include

The family car breaking apart at the seams and being impossible to drive, getting thrown off the road and killing its occupants

Decay of animals and plant life

Making their uncles despair fuelled toxic personalitry traits take on a more literal and physical form

Touching a boat that had once been capsized and stuck in a frozen lake and making it grow a sheen of frost all over, despite the fact it’s in a harbor on a pleasant Spring day

⌈Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me⌋ possesses a unique and predatory personality, acting on a conciousness for the most part distinct of its User. It can summon itself at seemingly will and act accordingly, although it prefers to bluster and intimidate individuals before making any moves without its Users consent, with exceptions of do-or-die situations. This attitude is questionable for Evelyn, with it sometimes being cute and endearing, other times deeply aggravating at it trying to scare off someone Evelyn was getting along with.

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 4 (1 of 6)

Ok, I’ve been procrastinating on this for a while, so without further ado, let’s renew our look into episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation by warping into the start of the show’s fourth season, beginning with the conclusion to the ground-breaking two-part story “The Best of Both Worlds”.

Episode 1: The Best of Both Worlds (Part 2)

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The discharge fired from the Enterprise’s deflector dish has no effect on the Borg cube; Locutus reveals that the Borg had prepared for the attack using Captain Picard's knowledge. The Borg cube continues at warp speed towards Earth, with the crippled Enterprise unable to follow. Upon reporting their failure to Admiral Hanson, Commander Riker is promoted to Captain and makes Commander Shelby his first officer. The crew learns that a fleet of starships is massing at Wolf 359 to stop the Borg. Guinan suggests to Riker that he "let go of Picard", since Picard's knowledge is being used to thwart Starfleet tactics, in order to defeat the Borg and possibly save Picard's life.

 The Enterprise arrives at Wolf 359 to find that Hanson has been killed and the fleet destroyed, including the starship Riker had been offered command of in Part 1. The Enterprise then follows the cube's warp trail to an intercept point and offers to negotiate with Locutus. The request is denied, but the communication reveals Locutus's location within the cube. The Enterprise then separates into saucer and stardrive sections. Although Shelby suggested attacking with the stardrive section, Riker does the reverse and orders the saucer section to fire an antimatter spread near the cube, disrupting its sensors and allowing a shuttlecraft piloted by Lt. Commander Data and Lt. Worf to pass the Borg shields and beam aboard the Borg cube. They kidnap Locutus, although the Borg ignore this and continue to Earth.

 Data and Dr Crusher create a neural link with Locutus to gain access to the Borg's collective consciousness. Data attempts to use the link to disable the Borg's weapons and defensive systems, but cannot, as they are protected by security protocols. Picard breaks free from Borg control and mutters, "sleep". Dr Crusher comments that Picard must be exhausted from this ordeal, however Data deduces that Picard is suggesting accessing the Borg regeneration subroutines, which are less protected than key systems like weapons or power. Data issues a command to the Borg to enter sleep mode, causing their weapons and shields to deactivate. A feedback loop builds in the Borg cube, which destroys the vessel. Dr Crusher and Data remove the Borg implants and augmentations from Picard.

 The Enterprise is awaiting repairs at an orbital shipyard, and Riker, although offered command of his own ship, insists on remaining as first officer. Shelby is reassigned to a task force dedicated to rebuilding the fleet. Picard physically recovers, but is still psychologically disturbed by his ordeal.

Review:

While Part 1 was great for the first season-bridging two-part cliff-hanger of TNG and of wider Trek lore ever to be done, the second part comes to drop the ball a little on delivering follow-through to part 1’s set-up.  Granted, we still get some decent character performances and a good plot with what little decent action the episode could afford, but it’s ultimately failing to deliver on the level of action that is at times promised.  Anyone coming into this from watching some later Trek productions like DS9’s story lines with fighting first the Klingons and then the Cardassian-Dominion alliance will see just how much this episode falls short on the action front; indeed, it’s not until DS9’s pilot episode that we get to see the infamous Battle of Wolf 359 in any real detail, as opposed to a DS9 episode like ‘Sacrifice of Angels’ which is almost wall-to-wall starship action at times.

 The solution also seems to come too quickly and is almost too convenient.  Part of this is because the first part was written without a solution ‘waiting in the wings’.  If Memory Alpha is to be believe, Michael Piller waited until he knew he would be staying on as TNG’s story editor before trying to write his way out the seemingly impossible-to-escape cliff-hanger he’d created in part 1.  Now while I can understand that desire not to tie yourself into a solution to something that might not be your problem, I think in any kind of continual story-telling, early parts should always be written to leave a few options open.  Even if you’re not writing the solution because you’re doing a form of writing like TV or film where you’re not guaranteed to write the next instalment, I think it’s just good manners to fellow writers and to your audience not to write a hard-to-solve cliff-hanger.

 As it is, I can’t help feeling TNG might have benefited from extending part 2 a bit more and potentially turning this into a trilogy, much as DS9 did with its season 2 opening episodes.  Still, I suppose it ends well enough, and I’m glad this episode and later ones gave us a sense that Picard remains affected by his assimilation experience.  Not only is this ground-work that later ex-Borg characters like Voyager’s Seven of Nine would rely on simply to exist, but it’s another move by the show away from being just an unending array of one-off adventures with little to no consequences for anyone involved.  That kind of overly simplistic and unrealistic story-telling just isn’t Trek-worthy, and I’m glad it was starting to die out here.  Overall score for this episode, 8 out of 10.

Episode 2: Family

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is docked at Earth Station McKinley, undergoing repairs and refitting following its battle with the Borg. The episode follows the interactions of three members of the crew with their family members. Lt. Worf's adoptive human parents, Sergey and Helena Rozhenko visit the Enterprise, having learned about his discommendation some time ago, but also having been unable to support him as they would wish due to being lightyears apart. Worf, though embarrassed and uncomfortable with their doting behaviour at first, but in the end appreciates their concern. Dr Beverly Crusher retrieves a chest, kept in storage on Earth, containing her late husband Jack's mementos, including a holographic recording he made for Wesley when their child was only 10 weeks old. Beverly, though worried that the two of them have only recently truly come to terms with Jack's death, eventually gives the recording to Wesley. Wesley runs the recording and is given some degree of closure by the message.

 Captain Picard, recovering from his Borg assimilation, visits his family's vineyard in La Barre, France, which is run by his elder brother Robert along with his wife Marie and son René. Jean-Luc considers a position on Earth with an underwater research project called Atlantis. Robert has always been jealous of his brother's success and is concerned that Jean-Luc's presence will drive René to also join Starfleet. The two have a bitter argument and end up wrestling each other in a mud puddle, eventually culminating in an emotional reunion, with Jean-Luc breaking down and crying, admitting his sense of powerlessness and guilt at the things he was forced to do while under the influence of the Borg. Robert states that Jean-Luc will have to learn to live with what he did, regardless of where he goes. Jean-Luc decides to go back to the Enterprise. The two spend the night getting drunk as they resolve their differences. After Jean-Luc leaves, Robert decides to let René follow his dream to join Starfleet as René sits under a tree and looks up at space.

Review:

This episode really helps the previous one in terms of moving TNG away from being a series without consequence.  While Wesley’s storyline is little more than filler covering a bit more screen-time that the other plots could have made better use of, Worf’s part in the episode is our first real sense of follow-on from ‘Sins of the Father’.  At last, Worf’s discommendation gets its first notable repeat mention, and at the same time we get to see our first glimpse into the human family that raised Worf. Their part in this episode brings up some great little messages about good parenting, and as Guinnan points out, there are a lot of parents out there who could stand to learn something from the Rozhenkos.

 However, the real sign that TNG is starting to take the idea of multi-episode story-telling seriously in this episode is Picard’s story.  ‘Best of Both Worlds’ essentially hinted that Picard remained shaken by his experiences with the Borg, but that was as far as it went.  ‘Family’ brings Picard down to Earth, literally, by having him go home and be cajoled into dealing with those experiences by the only people who could do that; his family.  Ultimately, that’s the role that Picard’s family, or more accurately his brother, has to play in this episode; to be the spur that forces Picard to drop his outer reserve and let himself feel what he needs to in order to better deal with the mental trauma.

 In many ways, it’s not unlike the kind of mental cajoling and breaking through a therapist might use in helping a patient deal with mental trauma, and I think the only reason Troi doesn’t provide this is because she’s part of Picard’s crew, and there’s only so far Picard would ever go to open up around those under his command.  Ultimately, it has to be Robert that pushes his younger brother into opening up, and who points out that no matter what Picard does, the experience isn’t going to go away whether you avoid anything related to the source of that trauma or not.  It’s a great message that I imagine many people suffering with psychological traumas could identify with and take as advice themselves, which adds in what defines Trek at its best; issue exploration through metaphor. Discounting the wasted time on the Wesley plot, I’d give this episode 9 out of 10.

Episode 3: Brothers

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

A misguided prank between two young brothers exposes the younger of them to a toxic parasite that cannot be treated aboard the Enterprise, but Dr Crusher is able to stabilize his condition in a controlled environment in Sickbay while the ship sets out for a starbase that can cure the boy. As Lt. Commander Data escorts the older brother to visit his sibling, he suddenly stops and returns to the bridge where, unseen by the crew, he sets a new course for the ship and triggers a life support alarm, causing the evacuation of the bridge to be ordered. Captain Picard orders navigational control transferred the controls to Engineering while the rest of the bridge crew evacuates, but Data remains on the bridge, mimics Picard's voice and locks down control of the ship with a complex access code, preventing any interference with his actions. The crew discover Data's lock-down and manually disable the transporter's site-to-site function to prevent Data from easily moving about the ship. Once the Enterprise is in orbit about the planet Terlina III, Data creates a programmed sequence of force fields to allow him to move from the bridge to the nearest transporter room without being stopped by security, and then beams down to the planet, leaving the Enterprise still under his lock-down. Picard orders his crew to attempt to override Data's lock-down of the ship, while Dr Crusher attempts to keep the infected boy stabilized.

 Data finds himself in the home of his creator, Dr Noonien Soong. Soong states that he called Data to him using a form of automatic recall and makes a manual adjustment on Data to return him to normal. As they talk, they are joined by Lore, inadvertently also drawn by the same recall that Data received, since Soong assumed that Lore was still disassembled. Lore expresses resentment towards his creator and starts to leave, but stops when Soong tells both of his creations that he is dying and wishes to give Data an "emotion chip" he has created. Soong decides to rest before implanting the chip, leaving Data and Lore to talk. When he returns, he proceeds to implant the chip but discovers too late that Lore had managed to deactivate Data and switch clothing with him, so that he now possesses the emotion chip. Soong tries to warn Lore the chip is not meant for him, but Lore instead injures Soong and transports off the planet.

 The crew of the Enterprise find a way to beam down an away team to the planet, where they discover the dying Soong and the deactivated Data. After Data is reactivated, he cannot recall any of what he did on the Enterprise to arrive at this planet, until Soong reveals to him where he can find that information stored in his memory files. Data apologizes to Soong that he will not be able to grieve for his loss, but Soong tells him he will grieve in his own way. After Soong states that he wishes to die on the planet, the Enterprise leaves and returns to its course to the medical facility, where the sick boy is successfully treated. Data observes the brothers at play after forgiving each other for the accident, contemplating his own relationship with Lore.

Review:

This episode is the second in a trilogy that covers the concept of family, although this time we’re exploring it through Data being reunited with his creator, as well as fellow android Lore; in essence, the reunification of a somewhat dysfunctional father-and-sons dynamic that bears echoes of the Thor-Loki-Odin relationship of Marvel lore.  Not only is this a great little character piece for Data, but Brent Spiner actually plays all three members of this family.  It’s a remarkable enough technical feat to see one actor play two roles, such as when Lisa Kudrow would play Phoebe Buffay’s twin sister Ursula in episodes of Friends or the earlier TNG episode ‘Datalore’ where Spiner played Data and Lore.  Playing three characters in one episode, however, is all the more remarkable.

 The main plot is very good, albeit lacking any real issue exploration because it is ultimately just a character piece.  We also get to see some of Data’s more advanced abilities unleashed, such as his voice emulation and higher-level computer programming abilities.  For anything close to issue exploration, it’s the guest siblings, or rather the younger one, that makes the closest thing to a salient point about anything of note. When Dr Crusher is trying to convince the kid to forgive his older brother for the prank gone wrong, the lad claims he’s never played practical jokes on anyone, even for April Fools, because he feels “it’s not funny for the person being pranked.”

 As someone with autism who can’t generally separate practical jokes from bullying and sees the two of fundamentally synonymous except where the victim has behaved so poorly that a practical joke is equitable punishment, I totally agree with this kid’s assessment of practical joking.  Such pranks, outside of punishing truly horrendous people and the slapstick antics of something like Looney Toons, are little more than the cruellest, stupidest and generally most immature of all humour forms imaginable.  It’s not funny because it is essentially humour in weaponised form, laughter directed against a victim in mockery and shame, and in any truly enlightened society it simply has no place, save for an occasional punishment of necessity.  Likewise, anything that encourages practical jokes as a generally accepted form of humour like April Fools should be banned.

 Hell, April Fools only started because some idiots several centuries back refused to shift from an old model of calendars to a new one.  How the hell does that justify all the stupidity of April Fools all this time later?  The answer is simple; it never has, and the only true fools are the ones who still celebrate the custom instead of opting out. Frankly, the fact that pranks and April Fools haven’t been edited out of society by the time TNG is set is a flaw in the supposedly utopian world of Trek.  If humans are still using humour as a weapon like this by the 24th century, if we haven’t grown up properly by then, how the hell have we managed to establish the kind of world that Trek claims to be.  To say I am disappointed by this facet of this episode, and Trek as a whole, is to woefully understate things.  Because of this, what might have been a top-scoring episode despite an otherwise total lack of issue-depth becomes worth 8 out of 10.

Episode 4: Suddenly Human

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise responds to a distress call from a Talarian vessel. They rescue five teenaged crewmembers - four Talarian, and one human, Jono.

Jono keeps to himself, but shows strict obedience to Captain Picard, which together with some unexplained past injuries leads Dr Crusher to suggest Jono may have been physically abused. It is determined that Jono is Jeremiah Rossa, a long-lost Federation citizen. His grandmother is a Starfleet admiral, and he was orphaned ten years ago when his parents were killed in a skirmish with the Talarians.

 When the Captain introduces the topic of Jono's human family, Jono becomes angry. After persistent effort by Picard, Jono's memories of the attack begin to return and a friendship develops between Jono and Wesley Crusher.

 A Talarian ship arrives. Its Captain, Endar, asks for a status on his son, who happens to be Jono. Ten years ago, Endar claimed Jono after Jono's parents were killed. This is part of the Talarian custom of adopting the children of slain enemies to replace their own children who have died in battle. Endar explains Jono's injuries as the products of a boy trying to impress his father by participating in high-risk activities; Picard seems satisfied and observes that Endar seems to care for Jono. Picard allows Endar to see Jono, but when Jono says he wants to stay with Endar, Picard suspects the boy is afraid to say he wants to stay in the Federation. Endar insists that Jono will come back with him, even if the result is war between the Talarians and the Federation.

 Returning to his vessel, Endar calls for reinforcements, as Picard decides to try to convince Jono to stay. After Jono receives a message from his grandmother, Picard takes the boy to play a form of racquetball, where Jono breaks down and cries due to the sounds of the game triggering long-buried memories of his human parents being killed. The crew believes they are making progress with the boy, but that night, Jono stabs the Captain. The dagger is deflected by Picard's sternum, and the wound is minor. The problem of where Jono should live is now compounded as Jono has committed a crime.

 When Picard learns that Jono feels he cannot betray Endar by befriending Picard, the Captain realizes he has been trying to impose his wishes on the boy. Just as Endar's patience is about to run out, Picard contacts the Talarians and lets them know he will let Jono go back. Jono bids Picard farewell with a Talarian ritual that is normally reserved for family members.

Review:

This is the third episode on the trot that covers the theme of family, and again we get a different perspective.  The apparent intention behind it was to explore something the show normally looks at using Worf, namely if you raise a child of one culture in another culture, can they ever be of their birth culture or do they inevitably revert to the culture they were raised in.  However, exploration of this is partly muddled by the fact that the episode raises issues of child abuse regarding the Talarian-raised human teenager that the episode focuses on.  Some less observant and more reactionary viewers seem to think the conclusion of the episode effectively condones child abuse, since those the Enterprise crew suspect of abusing the child get custody in the end.  However, the episode clearly shows Jono’s injuries result from the physically harsh games of the world where he grows up, and as such are simply accidental injuries rather than intentional ones.

 I think if there is a message regarding child abuse and custody cases in this episode despite the intentions of the writers, it’s not to let your suspicions and the personal emotions that stem from those suspicions cloud your judgement.  While better safe than sorry is undoubtedly a wise policy for anyone to adhere to, I think that some people can be inclined to wrap their children up in cotton wool for fear that if their child gets injured even by accident, the state will use it as an excuse to label them as abusers to satisfy themselves.  Such fears are perfectly understandable, as this episode clearly shows how easy it can be even for the supposedly enlightened and more rational humanity of the 24th century to leap to the worst possible conclusions and act from those rather considering all the facts.  As soon as they see Jono is human, and once Dr Crusher finds broken bones and assumes abuse, the crew is hell-bent on winning Jono back to humanity, even when the broken bones are explained away as accidental, all because the Enterprise crew values its own assumptions over actual fact.

 I also think the episode is a victim of when it was made; the later TV franchise of CSI shows the medical examiners of their various shows identifying whether certain injuries could be accidentally or deliberately inflicted, and the earliest of those shows began about a decade after this episode.  This makes me wonder if forensic medicine had yet to develop this science far enough in 1990 that a show like TNG could capitalise on it in the same way.  After all, if early 21st century MEs can determine the difference between an accidental bone fracture and one caused by an act of abuse, you’d think a 24th century doctor like Beverley Crusher could make similar determinations.  As it is, this lack of diagnostic accuracy on Crusher’s part only adds to the error committed by Picard, and it’s only at the end when Jono is driven to violence that anyone realises ‘ok, we’ve messed up and mis-read the entire situation.’

 What makes the whole thing really stupid, however, is that Jono’s situation is something of a mirror to Worf’s, and yet Worf is among those seeking to insist upon Jono throwing off his adoptive culture for his birth one.  That seems very hypocritical coming from a Klingon who has gone into Star Fleet; if Worf were to live by the gospel of this episode, he’d have gone back to the Klingon empire as soon as he was old enough.  Has he done that?  No, he’s the tactical officer and chief of security for the Federation flagship, for crying out loud.  For someone from a race valuing honour so heavily, it’s just stupid and inconsistent to have Worf follow everyone else’s assumption and not argue in Jono’s corner. I won’t even start on the stupid howling ritual that had me muting the episode every time it came on.  Bottom line, this episode only gets 5 out of 10 from me.

Episode 5: Remember Me

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The USS Enterprise docks at Starbase 133, where Dr Beverly Crusher greets her elderly friend and mentor, Dr Dalen Quaice. After taking him to his quarters, discussing the loss of old friends, Dr Crusher visits her son Ensign Wesley Crusher in Engineering. Wesley attempts to create a static warp bubble, but the experiment appears to fail. As the Enterprise leaves Starbase, Dr Crusher finds that Dr Quaice is missing, with no record of him coming aboard the ship. As she performs a medical test on transporter chief O'Brien, she realizes that her medical staff is missing; further investigation and discussion with the crew show that she has always worked alone in sick bay.

 Dr Crusher continues to try to track down the disappearing people and finds more and more crew members that she remembers being completely unknown to the crew or the computer. At one point, a vortex appears near Dr Crusher and attempts to pull her in, but she is able to hold on to a fixture until it dissipates; the ship shows no record of the vortex's appearance when she investigates. Eventually, no one but Captain Picard and herself remain on the ship, but Picard believes that the situation is normal. Dr Crusher orders the computer to give Picard's vital signs over the ship's speakers so she knows he is still there, but shortly thereafter, even he disappears. Then, the vortex reappears, and once again tries to claim Beverly. She is blown across the bridge, but she manages to hang onto the chair for the Ops position until the vortex disappears.

 At this point, it is revealed that the actual Enterprise, where Wesley had successfully created the warp bubble and accidentally trapped his mother within it, is trying to rescue Dr Crusher. With the warp bubble collapsing rapidly, Wesley's fears lead the Traveller to appear and help Wesley attempt to stabilize the bubble. The Traveller recommends the Enterprise return to the Starbase, where the warp bubble was formed and may be more stable.

 Within the warp bubble, Dr Crusher attempts to direct the Enterprise to the home planet of the Traveller, but soon finds the ship is unable to set that destination, as it no longer exists. More of the universe she knows disappears, soon leaving only the Enterprise. She recognizes the shape as being that of Wesley's warp bubbles, and determines that she is trapped, the earlier vortex being the Enterprise crew's first attempt to save her. As the warp bubble shrinks, erasing parts of the Enterprise, she races for Engineering, the centre of the warp bubble, and finds a vortex waiting there. She jumps in at the last moment, finding herself back in Engineering along with Picard, Wesley, Geordi La Forge, and the Traveller. She embraces her son and obtains confirmation from Picard that the Enterprise's population is 1,014, including her guest Dr Quaice), which is the correct number.

Review:

Here we have another example of a cost-saving bottle episode made to save money where earlier episodes perhaps involved an over-spend.  It’s not up there with the like of ‘The Offspring’ for quality; it’s taking an item that was apparently intended for the earlier episode ‘Family’ and got for time, turning it into a stand-alone episode and then bringing back the Traveller, a guest character not seen since his only prior appearance in TNG’s first season. As a result, we get a re-hash of the ‘thoughts making reality’ premise from the Traveller’s one previous episode, albeit focused entirely around Beverley Crusher.  Gates McFadden does a wonderful job taking centre stage for this episode, but there’s only so much she can do to raise its quality; there’s simply not enough substance for her performance, and the performances of the other actors, to bring to life.  No character exploration, a recycled issue from a past episode.  The only reason I give it 6 out of 10 and not less is that we’re at least getting a break from the kind of stupid we got on the previous episode.