#gotta ruminate on de for a while

[jacquelinesbookclub]

Monks - Des Dillon

I’ve been in a Funk. A Funk with a big fat capital F. Let me explain.

I had a whole thing lined up to talk about this book, about how sometimes a story is written in such a way that it begs to be read out loud. The difficulty in teaching Shakespeare to kids in English class is that it’s not meant to be read, but heard. It’s written with performance in mind, and trying to untangle it wholly within your own head won’t give it the space it needs to express itself. Monks has an element of this as well, and I can see why Dillon took it and turned it into a play after its initial publication, it’s expressive in a way that needs to be performed. I read the first third or so of this book out loud to myself, pacing my living room gesturing wildly like I was on stage again for the first time in twenty years, and it was fun! It felt like that was exactly how it was meant to be experienced, out loud, in person, in real physical space where it can breath and shout and play, where it can exist. But then disaster, I broke my glasses.

I broke my glasses while cleaning them on my shirt, snapped them clean in two, right down the middle. Less than a week later I broke my backup pair in the exact same place in the exact same way. Broken glasses means I can’t see which means I don’t see and by don’t see I mean I’ve stopped looking. I can’t read, I can’t write, I can’t diddle away on my phone for hours on end. Driving hurts my poor soggy little brain, as does literally anything that requires focus, no riding my bike, no video games, no model kits, no painting, drawing, sketching. I can’t see properly so I’ve not even bothered trying, I’ve let the Funk in and its made itself at home.

...

And stayed there. I wrote these first two paragraphs a month and a half ago, which was two weeks after finishing the book, I’ve barely left the couch in eight weeks. I’ve had new glasses for a while now and I’m still not out of the Funk, so it isn’t that. I tried to blame the weather, it’s been below freezing in the mornings and constantly wet and dreary, but no-one believed me. “I’ve been busy”, I say from my comfy chair, they’re not buying it. I’ve gotta come clean, I’ve been depressed. Not just sad and mopey, but real, teeth in the flesh depressed. Like a bulldog’s lockjaw around my ankle, the ol’ ball and chain dragging me down. But it’s me, I’ve created this, the Funk is coming from inside the brain, and I’ve sealed all the doors and closed myself in with it.

Dillon’s unnamed protagonist continuously refers back to time spent in “the Ward” with Jimmy Brogan, and those of us who know, know that there is often very little healing to be done in places like that; locked up with your own thoughts, ruminating between bouts of sedatives, only people to talk to are like minded or trying to fix your mind like. It’s suffocating, there’s no fresh air to be had, no way to stick your head above the clouds and feel the sun on your face even for a second. You’re in with the Funk, and you’re not goin’ till the Funk is gone. But where is it supposed to go? You’re trapped in there playing hot potato with the Funk, back and forth, bouncing from hand to hand, feeding it with every touch, with every contact. The Funk has seeped into the walls, it’s a sticky film over all the furniture, the entire place reeks of it behind the bleach, you can’t get clean of it because it’s everywhere, you can’t get clean of it in there.

Breaking my glasses might have been the catalyst, but what I’ve actually done is built myself my own personal Ward, not of wood and bricks but of Funk. Dillon says “at some stage we level our eyes to the earth and don’t look up the rest of our lifes”, that’s what I’ve done, I’ve stopped looking out at the stars and turned in on myself. We’re all guilty of this, in our own way, building up walls and keeping our whole world inside. It’s scary out there, and comfortable here in here, I tell myself, but in here there’s nothing but Funk, a circuitous bubble of the same thoughts ricocheting off each other. I need to get OUT.

This is what Monks is telling us, to get out. “We’re over here to stretch our lifes. Make them bigger. Experience things”. Healing happens not in my Funk in front of the TV, but out there, in the world. It happens when I meet a neighbourhood cat, or feed some ducks. It happens when I improvise a silly song with a friend in the moment, when I say something embarrassingly wrong on the phone and the world doesn’t end. It happens when I laugh about missing a shot in a game of billiards, and when the room cheers once I get it right. It happens when I breach above the Funk for a moment and take some space for myself. Every time I get out of my comfort zone and come back safely, my zone expands. Yeah, it’s hard, fuckin’ oath it’s hard. “But strugglin’s good. Strugglin’s perseverance an indomitable spirit. Strugglin’s searching for something stronger inside. Strugglin’s what it is to be alive”. The struggle is what helps the healing, It’s like training my muscles, I push them so they can grow bigger, without resistance I’ll never grow.

So that’s what I’ll to do then, push through the struggle to get out. Get out into the world, Run up a mountain, kiss a beautiful woman, laugh with friends, have a wierd conversation with a wierd guy, share a knowing glance with a cashier at the shops, feel the cold on my face, and see that it’s real. It’s really really really real.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary331

8/16-17/24

friday - saturday

watched 2 movies today...

last night i asked my friend for a bunch of silent films to watch, one of the ones he suggested was the marriage circle, a lubitsch film, i decided to because it seemed kind of normal i suppose?? i dunno, but i ended up quite liking it, the more i think about it, the more i like it, it's just rather funny, it's not much more than rather funny as well, but i like the way it's funny, and i like how silent films thus far seem to handle guilty characters, the panic and the way others don't see it, the invisibility of the obvious guilt, the fact that you can't be so guilty something disappears, that it has to be about expressing it, coming to terms with it, making something pass, this feels different to what we see now. though that's hard to articulate because #sleepy so i'll try tomorrow. tomorrow i'll probably watch nosferatu.

the 2nd film i watched today was l'etoile de mer, by man ray, it's watchable on yt:

i love the shot that's here as the thumbnail, definitely a very beautiful short. the poem used in it has me curious about desnos, so i dled a book of his poetry, to see what that's like, has me very curious about man ray's other films, so maybe tomorrow i'll also do another one of those? or i might try the short artaud wrote. i'm very excited to uncover other surrealist films, hopefully i can find more stuff from the 20s, it feels odd to me that there's not a ton listed places but there must be more than i see, i suppose it's also a good idea to widen the search to also include dadaist films.

again i'd like to say more about the movie... there's a lot there about how it handles its procession of images, the grammar of that up against the lubitsch, for instance, here the presence of nudity, relaxed bodies, a greater sense of informality, subtlety in the acting, in lubitsch, and with most narrative films probably of the time, the actors had to do that to get themselves across, and create excitement, and it is also a meaningful and interesting way to express emotion, the actors in surrealist film, at least in man ray, they're not less weird, really, they are obviously of this time in some way, but there's more slackness, less cartoonish maybe. but in the editing and movement of the camera too, there are many differences, and then the ways all of this is organized, images fall back on themselves in man ray's film, at one point the explosion of all these simultaneous images, simultaneity in lubitsch does occur in ways, mostly for gags, and never with editing, so much as long sustained shots and then the consequences of whatever mishap. it's fascinating.

but i gotta sleep, we went out today and weren't out late just for a while, since 2 pm, and we're just so sleepy from out dumb schedules getting fixed. it was great to see our friend, and we saw our other friend at the book store she works at, we went out to eat after, i saw a kid unwrap his burrito at a restaurant and hold the tortilla over the plate, everything falling off, seeing him learn how things work wwas kind of awesome, and i made a stupid joke that inspired some writing. in the bookstore i read some books that i cannot buy... i read some of horse crazy by gary indiana, and some of the passion according to g.h. by clarice lispector, both are books i would really like to have and read all of... but cannot atm. i will pick through desnos' poetry book that i dled, i think, at least, and tomorrow try and get thru more of dennis coopers new book, and work on music. that might seem like a lot... but i can do it.

reading felt good today, it centers me a bit i think, especially gary indiana, idk why, his way of writing connects to me somewhere inside, some kind of thing to do with all the distance i feel, the ways i ruminate and all that...

gotta... sleep... i took selfies too today, i'll post them tomorrow also... promisszszsse

so

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[taiblogcomics]

It's a Dogfight-Eat-Dogfight World

Hey there, alphabet soup. We're half done this miniseries by now! I dunno why this keeps being a thing I muse on. Kind of a running theme of the blog. I guess it's easy when it's a simple number like six issues. The one positive thing about Rainbow Brite only lasting five issues is that there was nowhere in those reviews for me to stop and muse over where we were in the series. No good halfway point. And I gotta fill up this preamble somehow, don't I~?

Here's the cover:

Another kind of simple cover. At least these covers are definitely things that happen inside the comic, unlike a lot of covers I could mention. This shot happens as early as panel two, arguably! But ye, it's where we left the last issue: the heroes have stolen a plane to get to America, and are pursued/intercepted by their friends. At least this one, you can also see Dick's moustache growing in. That's something, I guess! I dunno if that'll sell new readers, but if you're coming in on this halfway through, maybe you deserve to be confused~

So, Dick and Mutt are being transformed into exaggerations by a rainbow mist dropped from radioactive drone War Pig One. After escaping potential extermination by their own government, the pair steal a plane to fly out to meet their superior himself. Meanwhile, following the president's mental de-stablisation, the General sends two other pilots, Longman and Zee, to intercept the pair on the way. But they also have been affected by the rainbow gas, and we'll have to see how that interrupts their mission…

As Dick and Mutt continue to fly towards the US, Mutt also continues to argue with Dick about the strange outburst he made while stealing the plane--namely, referring to the pair of them as "Dastardly and Muttley". Dick protests that he did no such thing, and his moustache has always been like this! The argument is suddenly interrupted by two things. One, Mutt notices something beeping on the radar. Two, when he tries to articulate this to Dick, he suddenly becomes unable to do anything but bark like the dog he looks like. Instead, he has to seize the controls himself.

Meanwhile, over in Washington, the various cabinet members are having a hearing while the Vice President is being sworn in. Yeah, the President died last issue, sliced to ribbons when he ran through the harp, and the horrors of realism meant he didn't recover. Anyway, the various senators are arguing with General Harrier, finding several things suspicious. Yeah, those two CIA guys, Nixon and Perkins? They were actually undercover Air Force personnel, sent to take out Dick and Mutt. So they're highly suspicious why Air Force personnel would be assigned to assassinate its own men.

They're interrupted by the senator from Virginia, a visibly old guy they clearly all hate talking to. But for once, he commands the room, because he points out some of the actual oddities of the story--particularly, the radioactive test that started this whole mess. For example, does Unliklistan really sound like a real country? Or Unstabilium a real element? Isn't it all sounding a little… dubious? Like said Professor Dubious, the man behind the accident? You know it's concerning when what could be plot holes become part of the actual plot.

Up in the sky, Dick and Mutt just barely manage to avoid being shot with a missile. And rather than be grateful, Dick can only point out it wouldn't be so near a miss if Mutt hadn't started barking like an idiot, or a dog, or an idiot dog. He's recovered now, but he couldn't help himself and it scares him. Before they can ruminate on that, they're hailed over comms by the opposing plane. They recognise the voice as Zee, and she's demanding they surrender or she'll blow them out of the sky. In fact, she may not even wait for the surrender and just do it anyway.

Longman (whose callsign is "Uncle", by the way, so I will switch to that for consistancy) cuts in on the comms to inform Dick and Mutt that Zee got hit by the rainbow mists and is kind of losing it. He wants them to just land, so they can talk this whole thing over. She considers this insubordination, which I guess technically it is. Uncle then cuts off access to the weapon systems, and she decides in that case she'll just ram the planes together. And if this problem's just not enough for you, Mutt starts barking again.

Well, here we go. Dick decides that the only thing to do is take everything head-on, and flies straight ahead. Likewise, Zee considers it a point of honour to never back off from a confrontation. So the two planes are headed for a direct collision. Dick decides the only hope they have is to crash the planes together in such a way that they wedge together and fuse into one aircraft. He then realises what the heck he's just said, but by then it's a bit too late. The planes crunch together with the horrible squelching of metal on metal.

Dick yells over the comms that he's cutting engines and giving Zee the control to land them safely. And she initially tries to snarl that she'll not help a traitor, but then her personality slips and she drops into the southern-twanged damsel-in-distress version of herself again. And as they hurtle to the ground, trying to reassert Zee's better half, War Pig One drifts over a zoo below, causing the animals to become ones from The Jungle Book and Kung-Fu Panda. And a satellite from space reports a fuzzy image of the Earth itself, now sporting a pair of mouse ears. Well, they always said Disney would take over the world~

We don't actually get to see it happen, but the next thing we do see is Zee having somehow successfully landed the fused planes. All four occupants are unharmed, though Zee is not in a mood to leave it that way. Mutt's regained his voice again, trying to tell Uncle of what's been happening. At the same time, Zee and Dick are about to throw down. Dick's trying to talk her down, but his personality switch slips in and he threatens her to stand down or he'll spank her. She rightfully kicks him square in the plums.

In the senate discussion or whatever, they've since dug up the file on Professor Dubious. Turns out, his birth name was Alexander DuBois. He changed it shortly after his discovery of unstabilium, which is a red flag in itself. So how did a dubious professor wielding an unstable element set up shop in a country nobody has ever heard of? He had promised General Harrier he'd solve the instability issues, and ran off with the sample when he couldn't. And the General confesses, due to his own exposure to the element, he just let him do it. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Zee keeps beating on Dick in her fury, but as she does so, the cartooniness of it takes over and his injuries never get worse than his hand swelling up and throbbing red. Classic cartoon injury. Mutt's canine instincts take over and he bites her on the rump, letting Dick crawl away for a brief moment. Fed up, she draws her gun and unloads its contents. But between the act of drawing it and firing, it's turned into a harmless cartoony dart gun, leaving the pair covered in suction cup darts instead of being riddled with bullets.

So, now that Zee's perhaps calmed down since she's technically done her duty by firing upon them, they huddle up and begin a talk. They note that it's kind of odd that nothing's affected Uncle yet, despite his being around Zee ever since she got doused in the mysterious mist. It's proven that they affect stuff just by being around it, but he's not portrayed any noted personality shifts like the others yet. So the General will still be in D.C., and they decide to go calling on him. They turn south--just in time to witness an enormous mushroom cloud erupt from the direction they were about to head, ending the issue--and probably the city as well.

Well, now we're getting into the interesting stuff, huh? (We better be, we're two-thirds of the way through the story!) We've got our backstory revealed, we've got our main characters all united and together, and we've set off a major noticable event to propel this thing towards its finale. And what a finale it'll be~

[carbootsoul]

ace attorney :•)

omg miles thank u for sending me this ask completely unprompted <3 love wins

favorite character: apollo justice :) my little guy

least favorite character: man ace attorney has so many bad characters. a whole wealth of them. that fucking pedo puppet man from turnabout big top is probably very high on the list tho

brOTP: apollo and athena r SO funny investigating together absolute trans rights with those guys. same with ema + nahyuta + simon + klavier the dynamics between the 4 of them.. hilarious. they r in laws and partners in crime and mortal enemies and also in a band

OTP: faraskye :) and lanamia but i don't talk about it much bc.. no content :(( also hear me out hear me out valant gramarye/guy eldoon. match made in heaven. valants hair kind of looks like noodles too AND they both deserve good things (aka other middle aged men with silly little tragic backstories)

OT3: hrm hrm hrm. honestly i am not rly an ot3 person. if a character has romantic chemistry w multiple other characters i usually err on the "different ppl different times of life" thing bc i think it's more dynamic. that said. sighs kristoph/phoenix/edgeworth over the 7 year gap is a little fun maybe (i am not a freak i promise).

NOTP: oh so many. i am ignoring all the actual freak stuff bc u already know it sucks. so my controversial opinion is i don't like nahyuta/ema because i think ema's a lesbian. i think it can be kinda fun if it's like nahyuta/ema/simon MAYBE but even then. shrug. they're more fun as friends.

favorite storyline: thinks about turnabout trump and blows up. that was so wild and for a first case?? insane. also obv every final case in the trilogy

least favorite storyline: turnabout big top <3

what I wish had happened but didn’t: AURGH AJ TRILOGY WOULD HAVE SOLVED ALL MY PROBLEMS OH MY GOD. can u imagine.. also UR-1 being a case that's handled in about the same way SL-9 was w a rfta type case except athena comes back sooner than ema does. actual character development for klavier.. apollo getting character growth without stealing someone elses game.. phoenix fucking off.....

what happened that I wish hadn’t: hrm. u know i really wish they hadn't made everyone sit though penumbra podcast type kissing noises when narumitsu canon that was kinda uncomfortable

[tumblezwei]

I know a lot of the loudest rw/by crit comes from bad faith and just plain old rw/de but how do you feel about people saying that the writing seems to be prioritizing plot over characterization a little too much? Lately it feels like the characters are behaving more like vehicles just to move the story forward.

I’d say I somewhat agree and disagree. On the one hand, RWBY has always had a problem with moving the story along before the characters can really catch up. Ruby hasn’t really gotten the emotional catharsis a lot of people (me) wanted her to from Penny’s resurrection, Oscar isn’t being given much focus to deal with the whole Oz situation, and Yang and Bake are just kind of coasting at the moment. It’s a problem that I mostly associate with RWBY’s limited run time and MK’s fear that if nothing is happening then people won’t like the episode. 

On the other hand, I think the characters that deserve focus are getting that focus. Ruby, as the main character, is dealing with the biggest internal and external conflict, lying to Ironwood, being a leader, and the Oz thing. Weiss is developing a conflict with Winter and her father. Ren and Nora are actually getting a conflict (which tbh I am conflicted on but I’ll save those words until I see the outcome), even Penny is growing into her own three dimensional character. 

All of those conflicts, while introduced through the plot, are a natural progression from what we’ve already seen. The characters are actually allowed to ruminate on these issues, which allows them to grow as people. 

In short, it’s a valid complaint. I’d say to what degree it’s a problem is up to personal preference, however, since I think that this has been something RWBY has always done, you’ve just gotta ask yourself “which characters are getting development this season, and which are being put on the back burner?” Because if you asked that last season, Weiss was just kind of...there. While Blake and Yang had a lot of focus. And now it’s just the opposite. 

[ask-de-writer]

POSSESSION : MLP Fan Fiction : Tales to read AFTER the lights are OUT!

Return to the Master Story Index

Return to MLP Fan Fiction

Return to Tales to Read AFTER the Lights are OUT!

POSSESSION

a prequel to REPOSSESSED

by

De Writer (Glen Ten-Eyck)

2563 words

© 2019 by Glen Ten-Eyck

Writing begun 10/19/19

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

//////////////

Copyright fair use rules for Tumblr users

Users of Tumblr.com are specifically granted the following rights.  They may reblog the story provided that all author and copyright information remains intact.  They may use the characters or original characters in my settings for fan fiction, fan art works, cosplay, or fan musical compositions.

All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

///////////////////////

The large brown colt, Sawnax, was busy bullying another colt on the school's playground.  “You don't hoof over your lunch money right now, I gonna pound you!  You know that I will, too!”

The stern voice of Miss Whinly, one of the teachers cut him off.  “No, Sawnax, you won't!  You will come with me to see Miss Cherrilee!  If you don't, I will drag you by the ear in front of all the other students!  You know that I will, too.”

Sawnax did know.  It had happened before.  Most unicorns would just grab and carry a miscreant off the playground.  Not Miss Whinly.  She had mastered the art of grabbing only an ear or other sensitive part to encourage compliance with her orders.  Being dragged by an ear was not only painful, it was humiliating.  He followed.  Steaming but he followed.

Shortly, he was resentfully following his father to the lumber and timbers yard owned by his family.  Growling under his breath, he ruminated on the unfairness of it all!  He'd been made to give back his whole day's take and apologize to each of the ponies he'd milked for the cash!  Now he had ten days suspension and he couldn't even enjoy that!  He was going to have to work!  Sorting and loading out timbers was hard!

Worse, his dad, Carver, caught him short loading a cart of timbers for young Houser!  His rear still stinging, he took the lesson to heart!  DON'T GET CAUGHT!  Might not be the lesson that they all wanted him to get, but he got it!

He grumped that Carver just did not see how it was to his advantage to short loads.  Not only was he saving expensive timbers, customer had to come back and buy them again!  Money in the till every way!  How could his dad be so dim?

There was a lull in timber loading.  Instead of cleaning up or doing some other useful thing, Sawnax looked for a quiet spot to sneak in a rest.  

He was awakened by a snarl that sounded exactly like his dad in a towering rage!  “What are you doing here?  You should be doing something useful to make bits for our business!”

Sawnax looked up insolently.  “Says who?  You ain't my dad!”

“What makes you think so?”

“First I'da known of him was the strap!  Then he'd yap at me!  Besides, he'd never say OUR business!  The Yard's HIS and he never lets me forget it!”

Sawnax chuckled mirthlessly, “If you ARE my dad, mom really was the whore that dad always accused her of being!  And I am pretty sure that she wasn't!”

The being sort of relaxed and sat in front of Sawnax.  It no longer looked like any sort of pony that Sawnax had ever heard of or seen. His fur was almost scale-like.  His jaws, easily as long as any pony's, had large piercing and rending fangs along its length, easily seen because the gaping mouth opened almost all the way back to the joint.  A pair of nearly straight horns jutted up from the top of his skull and his long and pointed ears projected out just below them. His eyes were simply black.  No white, iris or pupil.

Instead of a mane, he had spikes or spines of some sort that marched down his neck and on down his back to his tail.  That appendage was long, flexible, and covered with spikes on the top and sides Every part of his body was gaunt, almost starved looking.

Much more amicably, it said, “Good job, spotting me like that.  I am from Tartaros and I have an offer for you.  Let me use your body and I will use it to get you even with all those fools who are tormenting you.”

Sawnax scrunched up his face as he thought about it.  “Why not just go mess with them, yourself?  Why do you need me?”

The demon responded, “It is a matter of good, bad, and evil.  I can't touch the good, in fact, only a very few of them can even see me. The bad, like you, I can manifest to, but unless they consent, I can't touch.  The evil, I or one of my many associates, already own.”

Sawnax snorted, “That's why you didn't hit me with the strap!  You couldn't!”

Calm as the air before the storm, the monster replied, “Correct. However, the loophole is simple.  You, rather your body CAN do things to them all.  Your dad, with his strap and lectures about honesty, as if that meant anything besides lost bits.  Miss Whinly, with her nasty ear pinching and dragging you away from the other foals that you were collecting lunch money from.  Miss Cherrilee, with her pretense of disappointment while she gleefully chucks you out of school to keep you from collecting what you are due.  Revenge.  That is what I can give you if you let me use your body.”

Sawnax paused.  He did not want to get even.  He wanted to get ahead. “Revenge is all well and good but that ain't enough for me.  I don't want to just get even.  I wants to be so far ahead that they can't see nothing but the dust of my heels.”

The demon did not even miss a beat.  “Not a problem.  I have to admit that I like your style.  That means that we need to sort out what you mean, exactly.  Wealth?  Power?  Strike them down physically?”

Sawnax rubbed his jaw with a hoof as he thought about it.  Before this, all his ideas of getting the better of the ones he was having so much trouble with had been pretty nebulous.  Totally short on details, actually.  He looked about him and saw the yard for what it could be, for the first time.  Money.  Those timbers were effectively cash.  He would need to learn how to actually run the yard, where to get the timbers.  Money from it would put him in the position to get on the school board.  From there, he could crush both Cherrilee and Whinly. It would let him track down and pull money out of his schoolyard marks, too.  Not to mention, his dad would never beat him again.

He nodded.  “OK, here is how I want it to go down.”

He filled the demon in all that he had thought out.

The creature of Tartaros nodded thoughtfully.  “A long term contract. Your plan will take years to fulfill but it has the added advantage of making many ponies miserable and easily turned to badness and evil.  I like it.  With your permission, may I enter your body to begin this revenge?”

Sawnax asked in surprise, “What?  No contracts?  No signing in blood or other fancy rituals?”

The creature shrugged.  “We can, if you like.  Whatever you want.  None of it is necessary, though.  All that I need is your explicit permission to enter your body.  We are agreed on what you wish.  I can start to fulfill it as soon as I am in you.  It is that simple.”

Sawnax nodded gravely.  “I see.  OK, let's do it.  You enter me and we begin my revenge.”

As the demon turned to a smoke and flowed around Sawnax, he felt an almost sensuous sensation.  The smoke soaking in felt like sliding into a comfortable, warm bath.  It was the last pleasant thing that the young Sawnax felt.

His body convulsing!  Horrid heaving was bringing up thick greenish goo! Every inch of his body burned like he was being dipped into flames! He screamed!

Blubbering, he demanded, “What are you doing?  We had a deal!”

The demon inside him gloated, “Isn't it obvious?  I am killing you. Slowly.  Very slowly.  I adore the taste of your pain.”  With a sinister chuckle it added, “Deal?   Really?  What am I?  Good or Evil?”

Whining, Sawnax returned, “Evil.  You are a monster!”

With high good humor, the beast within snorted, “Correct!  I am Evil! Our deal?  My promise?  I lied!  Really now, what did you expect? Honesty?  Honor?  What part of Evil do you not understand?  Of course I lied.”

Sawnax could do nothing but scream and cry in his agony.

His screams brought Carver and his work crew.  Carver called over Sawnax's screams, “What's the matter?  We gotta get you out of there!”

More screams and crying were his father's only answer.

His father reached into the recess where Sawnax was hidden.  His face screwed up, lips pulling back and eyes squinting in distaste.  “Lyle! Go get me a priest or preacher of Celestia or the Twins.  Whatever is happening in there ain't something for a doctor.  Felt like I was reaching into a load of spiders or something crawly like that.”

Lyle paused long enough to ask, “You mean like that Hortimer feller? High Priest of Celestia, so he says.”

“NO! You see what Celestia herself says about him and his church?  Go get that new guy over at the Assembly of the Twins, what's his name? Smallflower, I think.”

Lyle took off at a run on his errand.

Shortly he returned, followed by a spare white pegasus with a flat black hat. The pegasus trotted up and pointed to Sawnax's hiding place.  “He is in there?  I shall see what is to be done.”

He reached cautiously into the nook.  Pulling his hoof back, he said courteously, “Please give me a name to call you.”

A deep voice like a load of rock rumbling down an incline replied, “Why should I?  PLEASE?  Are you trying to make me laugh?”

“No. I am Reverend Smallflower.  Do not mistake courtesy for weakness. If I do not have a name to call you by, then with the Authority of the Twins, Celestia and Luna and their Mother/Creator Skyglow, I shall cast you out and nameless you shall be destroyed.  I would rather not do that.”

Clearly shaken, the rumbling voice demanded, “Why not?  You know that I am an Evil being.”

“I do indeed.  I also now that Mother Skyglow created you.  Destroying you is to destroy a part of Her Creation.  A name, please.”

“Call me Claficus.  What would you have of me?”

“Bring forth young Sawnax and come with me to the Assembly to deal with this possession in a reasonable manner.”

“You would take me to your Holy place?”

“Over the door of the Assembly it says in plain words, All Are Welcome. That includes you.  All that live are Creations of Skyglow and ruled by the Twins.  If you can think of a greater consecration than that, I should like to know of it.”

“You are a strange one.  You have not a bell, book or candle, yet I feel in you a greater power than those symbols confer.  I will come with you, Reverend Smallflower.”

Sawnax emerged from his hiding place.  His steps uncertain and legs shaky. His eyes pleading pitifully.  He was surrounded by an aura that seemed like what disgust and vileness might appear if they were a visible miasma.

As Sawnax was following Reverend Smallflower up the streets of Ponyville, Revered Smallflower commented, “Claficus, you can stop tormenting Sawnax for now.”

Puzzled, the gravely voice of Claficus asked, “For now?  Only for now?”

“Indeed.”

Sawnax's steps became easier and suddenly sure again.

It was not long before they came to the Assembly building.  It was a rambling one story structure set about with newly planted saplings. Gesturing to them, Reverend Smallflower pointed out, “Given a few years and some minor tending, these saplings will grow to give us good shade.  There is a principle there that applies to life as well.”

Passing under the sign over the door that proclaimed, ALL ARE WELCOME, the demon looked about in wonder.  “Amazing.  You really mean that!  I can feel the binding to do no harm to any here, but I am not forbidden to come in.”

Reverend Smallflower replied, “I told you that.  This is a house of peace. So long as you observe that, you are welcome.  My office is back here, through this door.”

The office, like its occupant, it was plain, though comfortable. Hospitably, Reverend Smallflower offered, “Since you are occupying a physical body at present, would you like some tea while we sort this out?”

The demon blinked Sawnax's eyes in surprise.  “That would be very nice. Two sugars, no cream, please.”

The Reverend puttered about, fixing and steeping the tea.  After he poured and both had a chance to sip some, he stated, “You being in Sawnax is breaking the rules about possession.  You know it and so do I.”

Claficus retorted, “I can't be here without invitation and you know it! This is a rotten brat and you know that too!”

“Right, Claficus.  Unfortunately, Sawnax being bad does not excuse you taking him like this.  You should have waited.  He has to be able to understand what he is getting into.  Basic freewill issue.  He cannot make a true freewill choice if he is too young to understand it.”

“He still invited me into his body!  That makes it MINE.”

Reverend Smallflower sipped at his tea before responding, “True.  However, this was poorly done, even for one of your sort.  Remember those trees out front?  It takes time and nurture for them to grow.

“I have the simple power to cast you out.  That could easily harm both you and Sawnax.  I would rather not.  What I propose is simple.  We shall set it in writing, which if you sign it, even by this use name that you have given me, you will be bound to its terms.  

“You leave Sawnax for now due to his age.  For taking him too young, you grant him twenty years grace time.  If he should change his ways and become even as good as an average pony, you relinquish your claim. If he does not, at the end of his grace period, take him quickly and with a minimum of pain.”

The Reverend gave an expressive shrug.  “AFTER you take him, do as you will.”

Sawnax's lips curled into a smile.  “What about, um, tending the tree?  Will you be trying to steer him away from me?”

The Reverend smiled in return.  “Freewill.  NEITHER of us will do anything to alter his life course unless he comes to us without coercion.  Let him decide by his own choices.”

Claficus sat and thought it through slowly.  “Deal.  Draw it up and I will sign it.  Um, can I hang about in this body long enough for another cup of tea?”

Reverend Smallflower paused in his writing and poured.  When both had finished sipping their tea, they signed.

Claficus withdrew from Sawnax, who promptly bolted from the room and ran back towards the safety of his dad's lumberyard.

The miasma that was Claficus looked about the office and commented, “You really do mean that welcome.  Mind if I try to see if I can manage some more tea?”

Quietly pouring, Reverend Smallflower said, “Of course.  Take your time and feel free to return so long as you harm none under this roof.  Who knows?  Even you might choose to become good.  That is what freewill is all about.”

~THE END~

Return to the Master Story Index

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Return to Tales to Read AFTER the Lights are OUT!

[miximax-hell]

As always, it’s been a hot minute. But, uh, hey! I hope you’ve all been fine!

Can you believe that this is actually my 20th reference sheet? That’s crazy. I am hecking slow, but I honestly thought I’d have stopped doing this (way) before I reached the double digits. But, hey, I’m still kicking!

And, to honour such a number, it was about time to add another Raimon baby to this blog, so I’ve gone for one of my very favourites. Shishido is very dear to my heart for a variety of reasons (that I will make sure to explain thoroughly when the time for it comes) and I’ve had this miximax in mind for a very long time. In fact, I’ve been ruminating on it since @raynef-art (btw, today’s Raynef’s birthday, so go and wish her a happy birthday if you can!!) and I talked about Shishido on Skype years ago. When was that, even? 2016? 2017, perhaps? In any case, it sure has been extremely long. But, thankfully, all of that ruminating led to one of my favourite pairs in this whole project! Katrielle Layton is a fantastic fit for Shishido, and I will do my very best to explain why this is the case in this post.

So, for more on ShishiKat, please check under the cut!

As always, I like to use this first paragraph to talk a bit about random stuff, so feel free to skip it if you want. Long story short, I’ve spent the last few months (since mid-May or so) job hunting like a beast. Big ol’ companies from all around the world, like Rockstar, Revolution, The Creative Assembly/Sega or Build A Rocket Boy have shown interest in me, but it’s led nowhere so far, which is extremely frustrating. Heck, there’s a company who contacted me first and they still didn’t give me the job in the end. >:| But I did an interview last Thursday and I should get an answer soon, so let’s hope that goes well...! It’s an awesome job, close to where I live (so I wouldn’t have to move), the company is super successful and two friends are already working there. It’d be incredible to join them and keep progressing in my career. And, well, money doesn’t hurt at all either. Gotta get into the wheel of capitalism. Anyway, job matters aside, I’ve recently finished some games that have become personal favourites of mine, like Valkyria Chronicles and Hatoful Boyfriend: Holiday Star (even if the first one was arguably better), but the one that undoubtedly takes the crown is Marvel’s Spider-Man, which shaped up to be a game as brilliant as Insomniac’s previous titles, if not even more so, and has become one of my favourite games of all time. Sadly, Spider-Man isn’t originally a videogame character, so I won’t be including him in this project (as much as that pains me). So we’ll have to take other routes if we want to have a Marvel miximax here... I’m on it, but suggestions are still accepted.

So, Shishido! Who doesn’t love Shishido? He’s just so lovely. Look at him! Look at him right now! How can someone without visible eyes be so PRECIOUS? Don’t you just want to channel the annoying aunt within you and pinch his cheeks and nose? Well, we still can’t do that, but we can try and do him justice by giving him a truly awesome miximax. (The quality of the art that accompanies said miximax may vary in quality, but that’s not Shishido’s nor Katrielle’s fault--it’s entirely mine for not being better.)

So, friends who have been here for a while and have a good memory may be thinking, “Hold on a minute, you! The Professor Layton franchise has already been represented within this blog--you miximaxed Fudou with Hershel Layton himself!” And you’d be right. You might even be thinking I’m betraying my own rules by using two characters from the same franchise. Well, that isn’t the case, as PL is a Level-5 franchise and I may (and tend to) use up to two characters from each franchise made by L5. It’s all here. But, even with all of that, there’s still a question that remains and that I figure many people might have in their heads: if Fudou is already miximaxed with Hershel, isn’t Shishido basically a copy? Does Katrielle really add anything to the table?

I’m glad you asked. Well, I’m glad I asked, because that’s what led to all of this. ww And, thankfully, yes. Yes, she does. But before answering that question, we have a much more important question to ask:

Who is Shishido Sakichi?

Hino, that lovely piece of work, is actually really fricking good (when he actually tries) at something I’m unable to name, hence why I will refer to it as “scattered storytelling.” It’s similar to environmental storytelling in the sense that we’re never directly told many things, but we can still figure them out thanks to the looks of a character, the scenarios we see, audio queues, etc. Video games offer many resources to build up rich environmental storytelling, but what Hino (and probably many others--it’s not like he invented the wheel!) does is give us hints scattered across different pieces of media to try and figure out what some of his undeveloped characters are all about. And let’s be real: original Raimon is a lovely collection of undeveloped characters. So let’s check out a few things about Shishido and see where they take us.

Shishido was one of the first members of Raimon, being one of the 7 players the team had before they were forced to look for more people to have a match against Teikoku. He was, however, replaced by Kidou when he joined the team, and he stayed as a benchwarmer until he got injured by Gemini Storm. Then, as he joined the Dark Emperors, if you talk to him in the game before the match, he mentions how he’s been pushing himself past his limit for a long time, only to keep feeling like he’s mediocre. Finally, during the match between Raimon’s older and newer members, he is shown facing Kidou and getting past him despite how afraid he was of engaging directly with such a big rival.

On top of that, his in-game descriptions go like this: “He is becoming the team’s key-man by developing his own pace,” (IE1) “His laid-back personality can make him the butt of his team-mates' jokes“ (IE2) and “The Aliea crystal has given him an invincible self-belief“ (IE2 DE). Let’s admit that it’s not a lot to go by, but maybe we can get something out of all of this.

As usual, I explain this better in the heat of the moment while talking to someone who’s ready to listen, so Raynef or my girlfriend probably got the better version of what I’ll be trying to explain now. However, those conversations are so old that I'm having trouble retrieving them, so... welp. ww Let me try anyway.

Judging by what we know about Shishido, we can try to figure out what his character development has been like. We get his first in-game description as soon as we can see him in our in-game menu; that is, before the first Teikoku match even takes place. At this point, aka at the very beginning of the game, Shishido is a player that is “becoming the team’s key-man.” Slowly, perhaps, but he is on his way. However, this process is halted abruptly when Kidou joins the team, as he replaces him as a regular first-team player. Now, a valid question would be, “why did Kidou replace Shishido and not any other midfielder?”

It would make no sense to get rid of Someoka or Kurimatsu to let Kidou in the pitch, as he’s not a forward nor a defender. But, among all the midfielders in the team, why Shishido? Why not Handa, Shourin or even Max (who is technically a forward, but has been playing as a midfielder, so it’d make a lot more sense to bench him)? The most obvious answer would be that everyone else has abilities that Kidou can’t properly replace/mimic/make up for; or, in other words, that Kidou is like an upgraded version of Shishido more than he is an upgraded version of any of the other characters. And what is Kidou, exactly? A brilliant midfielder with incredible control over the ball and a great strategist overall. It’s this last part that we’re most interested in: he’s a strategist. A game-maker, that is. What one could easily call a vital part of a team or, even, in more poetic words, a key-man. What Shishido used to be, or was going to become, before Kidou showed up to steal his spotlight. Not to mention the incredible pain one must feel upon being replaced like that... (This was best explained by @mimiflieder on her fic, Change of pace--it’s about Handa and Ichinose, but the same thing applies. I totally recommend checking it out!)

This theory is further supported (in sad ways) by his in-game description in IE2. His personality remains the same (laid-back and doing his at his own pace), but he has gone from being a key-man WIP to the butt of his teammates’ jokes. Sure, the jokes are blamed on this laid-back personality, but something doesn’t quite add up. Check out his quote while he’s a Dark Emperor: he’s been pushing himself too hard to achieve nothing. Is that really what you’d call ‘laid-back’?

In the best case scenario, everyone sees him as being laid-back and chill to the point of being funny: he’s not making a fuss about being replaced in front of his teammates. However, he’s been trying as hard as possible in secret to become the best he can possibly be... only to still be eclipsed by Kidou and the other talented members of the team in every sense.

In the worst case scenario, his attempts to improve are very much obvious to his team, and the lack of results or the gap between the two key-men not becoming any smaller is what makes him the butt of jokes (but I hate this scenario because Raimon babies are all sweet and supportive boys who’d never do this. I DON’T CARE IF TEENAGERS ARE CRUEL AND STUPID BY NATURE. RAIMON BABIES ARE BETTER THAN ACTUAL TEENAGERS, OKAY, AND THEY’D NEVER DO THIS. THEY ARE PRECIOUS LITTLE ANGELS.)

In either case, he was destined to be--heck, he might have already been in non-spoken parts of the game--Raimon’s game-maker, but when Kidou came around with his superior skills, Shishido became, simply put, obsolete. That made his self-esteem sink and eventually threw him in the arms of Aliea in a desperate attempt to finally be better and stand up to Kidou. That’s why his in-game description as a DE talks about his boosted self-esteem, much like Handa’s talks about how that jack-of-all trades is using the meteorite to become master of all.

And, of course, this makes that scene during that final match ALL the more relevant: not only does it signify the triumph of hard work and resolution over sheer talent, fleeting as it might be, but it’s also the end of a long, long journey of self-deprecation, self-improvement, guts and sheer fear. Shishido was literally SHAKING when he saw Kidou running towards him, but he pulled himself together and won. He was no longer the inferior one, the replaceable one, the laughing stock. Little and unexplained as it may be, it’s a truly emotional finale to his personal and unspoken journey.

(Another and more positive way to look at it is that Shishido is meant to become Raimon’s game-maker and key-man AFTER KIDOU LEAVES, so all this time by his side has been a massive training camp of two years to learn his ways and then add his own twist to everything he’s learnt. This leaves some issues hanging, but it will at least let me sleep tonight.)

What we have here is a pretty solid theory pointing at Shishido having what it takes to become a game-maker. But, hey, that’s just a theory! A GAME THEORY! ...And what this means is that there’s evidence supporting it, but we have no way to confirm it unless one of you guys can go and casually interrogateview Hino (and if you do, that’d kind of come in handy, actually). However, the pieces fall together a bit too well to be just a coincidence, right? At least, I think so. And even if they don’t, we don’t have much more to go by, so... it’ll have to do.

Anyway, we’ve (somewhat) answered the question about who Shishido is. It is, therefore, about time to answer the main question this post laid on the table: is Katrielle a good aura to use when her father is already part of this project? And, even if she is, why would Katrielle be the best match for Shishido? Let’s start by explaining what makes Katrielle non-redundant despite bearing her father’s surname and being very similar conceptually.

In essence, Katrielle and Hershel fulfill very similar roles: a smart person who likes puzzles and is hired to solve mysteries no one else can solve. But anyone who knows anything about these characters will know that, really, they are absolutely nothing alike.

Hershel is the perfect gentleman: well-behaved, modest, calm and cold-headed regardless of the situation, polite to a fault, boasts perfect manners, and he manages to get along with even the most unfriendly people in the world thanks to his infinite patience, unwavering kindness and the smile he has on his face whenever he greets someone. Not to mention that his investigation process is long-winded and meticulous, and keeps telling Luke to not make quick assumptions when he jumps into conclusions ahead of time.

Meanwhile, Katrielle is pretty much the polar opposite: proud (heck, the first episode of the anime has her saying her skills are better than her father’s!), funny, dramatic to a fault, jumps to crazy conclusions so fast that everyone around her is always surprised by it and doubts she even put any thought into them, has a quick temper sometimes, she works as a detective just for funsies (and glory, to some extent, as she’s constantly struggling to be taken seriously by people who’d rather talk to her dad), she’s easily swayed by yummy food, instinct and imagination move her much more than hard evidence... This alone is enough to make the personalities of ShishiKat and FudoLay totally different, but, of course, this train doesn’t run on personalities, but on powers and skills. So let’s discuss not what Kat offers, but what Shishido needs.

We’ve established that Shishido was a game-maker in progress. Now, let’s keep in mind that this project includes all of the main characters from IE, IEGO, IECS and IEGalaxy, and they could all potentially be sharing a side of the field with Shishido, so let’s see whom he is competing against.

Of course, we have Kidou, the genius game-maker, the absolute commander of the pitch and, well, a living legend trained by another living legend: Kageyama. He has a miximax too, but you guys have not seen it yet. In due time.

We have Fudou, whose natural intelligence is (arguably) on par with Kidou’s and has received some training by Kageyama as well, even if he didn’t reach the same level of legend nor acted as a game-maker nearly as much as Kidou did. Fudou is, however, enhanced by Hershel Layton, whose influence upon mixitransing helps Fudou stop being such a little shit. That allows him to focus enough on the game and on his teammates to surpass Kidou as a serious and cold-headed strategist who is able to treat every situation as a puzzle and find the precise moves needed to solve it. Not to mention that, of course, Layton boosts Fudou’s intelligence as well.

Shindou has his miximax, which turns him into a "gamemaker of truth who can appraise people and the general situation, while combining both stillness and motion." Pretty self-explanatory.

Taiyou and Hakuryuu, upon mixitransing, become "midfielders of unparalleled accuracy, who can see into the future and attack the enemy's weak spots with their analytical reasoning." These two aren't technically game-makers in Chrono Storm, but Zhuge Liang was a frigging strategist and these two are given analytical reasoning through their miximax. Not to mention they were probably game-makers when they were part of their original teams.

The way the canon tried to keep Shindou and Taiyou/Hakuryuu from overlapping was by casually disregarding Zhuge Liang’s strategist side and focusing on her Keshin and ability to see the future/what no one else can see, so we can scratch Taiyou and Hakuryuu, as they won’t easily be taking the role of game-makers anymore. We can also discard Kidou, as FudoLay completely outclasses him for the time being. (Look at me, I sound like I’m writing an article on Electrode for Smogon--) So, ShishiKat’s only real challengers are FudoLay and, uh... does Shindou’s miximax have any kind of fandom name? I heard people refering to Kirino’s miximax as Kirino d’Arc, but that’s about it. Anyway, to keep it simple, I’ll call it ShinOda until someone brings up something better.

So, yeah, ShishiKat is competing against ShinOda and FudoLay. ShinOda focuses on a complete control over when to move and when not to move, arguably to preserve his teammates’ and his own stamina and maximise what everyone can do with their natural reserves of energy. FudoLay, on the other hand, uses analytical thinking to find the most efficient moves in any given situation. As I mentioned, he treats every situation as a puzzle, and, as Layton would say, “every puzzle has an answer.” One specific and perfect answer that FudoLay excels at finding, using the minimum number of steps necessary and turning the solution into pure art. He is, however, still Fudou, so he’d probably push his teammates to the limit in rough ways in order to achieve that perfection he is aiming for. And it’s still Layton, so we can expect some long-winded thought processes that take long to pay off--but when they finally do, HOO BOY.

It's good being analytical and smart, but perhaps, just perhaps, Shishido could use a little something to make him different and stick out among his peers. Something that is a bit more... proactive. Unpredictable. Slightly impulsive. But still as witty as one can ever be. He needs to combine the brains with the brawn, and blend it all together with much-needed cheerfulness, since all the game-makers we’re dealing with here are cold or outright pricks.

Shishido needs to improvise to the point of making things up for no reason and eventually making them work in almost miraculous ways. Focus less on what’s in front of his eyes and more on what other possibilities could be there. Act more on instinct than on careful observation. Give commands that are a lot more roundabout that those of Shindou, Kidou or Fudou, but end up paying off in ways that not even he could always predict. Jump into the problem head-first and solve it in-situ instead of looking at it from afar and pondering for long periods of time. And, of course, among all of that, he needs an enormous self-confidence to pull it all off, as his premises may seem utterly ridiculous and he must believe in them whole-heartedly to convince everyone else.

Katrielle Layton checks every single one of these boxes. It’s Katrielle, and Katrielle alone, who can turn Shishido not just into a replacement for the times when Kidou and Fudou aren’t around, but into a true force of nature that can assist the team at all times. It makes Shishido useful and non-redundant--which is, of course, much more than the anime did for him. Let alone the manga, where Shishido didn’t even appear. (I mean, the manga gave us Tamano bby, but still--)

And the best part is that they don’t step on each other. ShinOda is fantastic (and I won’t comment on my own ideas), but no one is objectively better at being a game-maker than the rest. Different situations will call for different approaches, so their relevance will shift as the rivals change or as the rivals adapt to one style or the other. Or, heck, they can simply all work together to keep their rivals guessing and come up with even greater strategies that combine everyone’s fortes.

Also, I’m watching Katrielle’s anime with my girlfriend and that is what made me consider her for this project in the first place, so props to her! (But sorry for butchering the design, dear ww)

[raguna-blade]

Phantom Thieves and the Shadow Self

So I’m sitting here listening to I’ll face Myself (Smash Edit) and it suddenly occurs to me, not for the first time actually but with a few extra neurons thrown in the heap as you do when you ruminate on stuff for ages, that the Phantom Thieves are LITERALLY the Shadow Selves of the Phantom Thieves.

Wait, no come back, this isn’t as stupid as it sounds I swear.

Alright, so I’ve probably mentioned this before somewhere, and I FEEL it’s obvious, and it’s explicit elsewhere, but let’s make it really real clear.

Persona’s are Shadows. There’s not a single gap of difference between the two of them, save that Shadows are wild and unconstrained, for better or worse, while Persona’s are Tamed and or at least are under control. Right up until the point you start rejecting them anyway, but that’s persona 3 and we’re playing with 4 and 5 right now (and someday, I’m gonna have to blast through 1, 2, and 2:2, and probably 3:2 but that’s another story and conversation)

But what’s the point here? You made a pretty bold claim up there that the Phantom Thieves are their shadow selves, and well...We’ve SEEN the shadow’s from Persona 4. The Personal Ones. They’re all uh...Not...Exactly...greaaaaaaat.

And that’s not untrue, but as i’ve mentioned before somewhere on here, Shadows encompass all of the aspects of yourself that are, decisively, YOU. Your good, your bad, your unrealized, what you push away. Everything that is you, but not actively engaged with or reject lives within the shadow.

That’s just neat my guy, but what’s the point? How are the Phantom Thieves at ALL their shadow selves. I, the hypothetical reader here, will accept that there’s some integration going on here, but they certainly don’t seem to be any different from their normal selves. They don’t seem...Shadowy.

Well ok, that’s kind of the point, but hey let’s dig in a bit. First things first, Yellow Eye Flash, everyone’s seent it, you can’t pretend it didn’t happen. So With that out of the way we at least have some baseline suggestions going on that yes there is something going on with the Shadow and the Persona User.

But well let’s take a look at someone who constantly draws attention in the series for being...Really WEIRD considering that her story straight up starts and deals with...Well being a sexual object, and throughout the rest of the game is kind of the de facto sexy one.

Hey it’s Anne Time! But I may have hit on this before, but she’s probably the easiest clearest example of this in the game. They Key to understanding it, since she’s very very much the oddwoman out here. After all, her whole story (not social link, but we’ll get to that some other time I think) basically has to deal with sexual abuse by a teacher, seeing VERY LITERALLY THAT SAME TEACHER, have sexual fantasies about her and then her Mementos/World of Cognition/World Behind the TV/Dark Hour Outfit is...A tight spy catsuit, with whip, her initial persona is an infamous femme fatale and...Well that just seems a bit obnoxious? I understand vidya, you need to have your cheesecake because reasons, but like c’mon. A little class.

But fly on back up like 5 Paragraphs. Remember what I said about the Shadow having all your rejected aspects? The Good, the Bad, the Ugly? That’s still true, and Anne is basically dealing with a particular aspect of herself that she’s not quite happy with, and if this were persona 4 well..It’s not even that hard to draw a line as to what Persona 4 Shadow Anne would look like. Likely, if we’re being honest, a lot like what Kamoshida envisioned her as, albeit considerably more active an agent which would be obvious given, again, Carmen.

And actually let’s look at the initial Persona again here. There’s a lot to be said about what her Cognition suit looks like and the fact that literally none of the other persona characters engage in this kind of transformation, none of them. Inaba Crew basically just had to wear some glasses but otherwise? Nothing. But The Persona Especially are useful here because they are LITERALLY SHACKLED TAMED DOWN SHADOWS.

And from 4 We See what a full on balls out unrestrained Shadow looks like both when they’re cosplaying as themselves and when they decide to just go full beast mode and ruin someone’s day.

They are, without fail, Every Single Bad or concerning aspect turned up from there to grotesque, with every good or unrealized aspect tamped down until you can barely see it. Yukiko is a weird dependent princess, Chie is some weird Dominatrix, Yosuke is a weird jealous frog thing, Teddie is a big nihilistic empty vessel, Naoto is childish and “playing pretend”, Rise is a stripper, Kanji is an entirely more complicated discussion i don’t want to get into right now, BUT THE POINT, is that without fail, the Shadows take aspects of them that are TRUE but worry them/are complicated to deal with/they believe are problems, and amp them up to terrifying proportions.

BUT

They also have the aspects of themselves that are positive there too, if hard to notice (deliberately, and warped to look bad besides). Chie’s shadow unquestionably comes off as foreboding, but Chie’s a protective gal. If you’re trying to protect someone it doesn’t exactly work if you don’t look like you have the ability to RUIN whoever you’re trying to scare off. Teddie’s is horrifying, but for all that he’s suggesting the truth is unattainable and all that, Teddie’s concern of if there is even something inside him is betrayed by Shadow Teddie DEFINITELY HAVING SOMETHING INSIDE HIM. And i’m sure i could find more but this is besides the point.

We’re talking about the Phantom Thieves, and how they’re their Shadow Selves.

But well...Look to the Persona 4 crew again. Their shadows come in generic me and Me amped up.

And now Look at the Phantom Thieves. We’ll use Anne again because she’s the really obvious one here but-

Anne>Panther>Carmen isn’t such a big difference from Yukiko>Princess>Shadow Yukiko.

There is the You, with all your aspects, your shadow, your persona’s etc, all together as one gestalt. There’s the Shadow You, The aspects that include things about yourself that you don’t acknowledge/know/deal with. There’s those aspects pumped up to 11 Which is your Persona and Shadow Proper.

And if we take it one step further...

Anne>Panther>Carmen>Hecate

You have yourself, your shadowy side, your Shadowy Side Played at Max Volume....And then you have your “perfected” self, who has integrated the shadow.

To put it simply (because this isn’t an anne post precisely, though I’ll make a proper one sometime down the line probably. Gotta build hype for ROYALE), Hecate isn’t a femme fatale. But if you look at her design well...She has the general SHAPE of a sexy attractive type (Hour Glass, tastes may vary) until you look at her a bit closer and realize everything that would easy peasy be sexy (hips, bust, legs etc) is either concealed, covered in barbs and sharp angles, or is otherwise ends in implements to cause harm. At the same time, the belly is exposed, and there’s a pretty noticeable cut out towards the hips which is...suggestive.

The difference being, as I see it, between a Femme Fatale, a role built around seduction appearance and appealing to baser behaviors, and a literal actual Goddess who while attractive (Hecate STILL appears to be wearing a mask, a feature i’m not 100% but think applies to all the Ultimate Persona’s here) has that as a secondary trait behind the fact that she can and will cancel your corporeal form if you give her an iota of a reason and she’s feeling merciful (see uh...Anne, If I kill Him it would be a kindness but holy shit she was inches from committing the phantom thieves first murder her own damn self.)

But yeah, this pattern still sticks around with all the others if you take a look at it. Ren’s actually another pretty straightforward one in the Ren>Joker>Arsene>Lucifer Dynamic which basically see’s his Suave Confident chaotic ass get aggressively more suave confident and Chaotic (see MY ULTIMATE PERSONA IS LITERALLY THE HEAD OF THE CHAOS FACTION IN SMT HOLY SHIT GUYS)

But yeah, the Phantom Thieves are totes the Shadow Selves, which makes me wonder with...a degree of trepidation of what that would look like for the rest of the persona crews.

[livinginbeauty-net]

  Our campsite tree at Myrtle Beach State Park

“While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,           As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my trailer door. Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my trailer door —           Only this, and nothing more.”

– adapted from The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe

Deer Lake Park – Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

Jim celebrated his sixty-fourth birthday on October 4th. And if that wasn’t spooky enough, we were all alone in the woods.

With the temperature in the high 20’s at night and the high 30’s daytime, we were the solitary campers in a large densely forested park during the last a few days before seasonal closing. Shuswap Lake Provincial Park was kinda creepy in a beautiful way.

Shuswap Lake Provincial Park – Scotch Creek, British Columbia, Canada

Shuswap Lake Provincial Park – Scotch Creek, British Columbia, Canada

Shuswap Lake Provincial Park – Scotch Creek, British Columbia, Canada

But good friends, old and new, warmed our rattling bones with home-cooked delights and even met us at a cheerful pub, right across the road from our campground to toast Jim’s Beatle Birthday.

64th Birthday at The Hub

Birthday at The Hub with Laura and Paul.

Pattie is a great cook!

Pilpil! Got the recipe!

Watching the salmon run was the perfect metaphor for an epic Birthday Month. Old age ain’t for sissies! Whenever the futility of life gets me down I will turn to the salmon for inspiration …

Then, we moved south to a slightly warmer climate in Sasquatch Country!

We must return to Harrison Hot Spring in June for Sasquatch Days!

Hiking in Sasquatch country

Jim performed a Vulcan mind-read on the Sasquatch!

Lost in Sasquatch country

Sasquatch live here.

Our campsite beside a natural outdoor stage with amazing acoustics.

Very Sasquatchy, if you ask me.

In a few days, we will be in Port Townsend for my birthday and I will miss the trains in Canada. Trains soothe my mind and put me in a mood to ruminate.

Warming our feet by the fire tonight in our cozy campground on Cariboo Place, we realize how these past twenty-seven months of travel have connected us to the land, our roots, long lost friends and family … and also to some unexpected encounters with the spirit world.

Interested? Pull up a chair and sit for a spell …

Our campsite tree

The Ghost Lights

We’re not paranormal enthusiasts, but now and then, one or both of us have a feeling that a place is, well, invested with an energy – sometimes good and sometimes not so good. Traveling has sharpened our senses, made us more keen and perceptive.

An example of good energy is the ghost lights of Anza-Borrego which stayed right beside us inside our tent throughout a treacherous night of flash floods, making us feel safe and protected. Only a decade later did we learn they were The Ghost Lights. We thought they were angels.

The Monticello Snake Story

After a restful night at Golden Acres Ranch near Monticello where – we had no idea at the time – one in three houses are recorded (in a somewhat legitimate way) as haunted, I felt compelled to stop the rig on a narrow country road to take pics of an intriguing cottage.

A big yeller dog roused up from the porch and raised his hackles. The home’s human occupant promptly emerged from the house and, he – an exquisite orator in the southern tradition – recited, to my delight, a popular regional snake story.

What a gift! I hung on every word. Floridians, in my book, have full rights to all snake stories and this gentleman is a master of the art. But sometimes a house wants to tell its own story like the one in Opelika, Alabama …

Spring Villa

On our way to Fort Pickens from my sister’s house in Tennessee, we’d hoped to overnight near Opelika. We pulled into Spring Villa Park and Campground on the chance they might have space for the night.

Instantly, our eyes fixed on the gorgeous old antebellum mansion and our immediate response was, “What a shame.” Poor thing needs some serious TLC.

At the check-in, a pale middle-aged ranger with a balding head and bulbous eyebags announced in a slow, gravelly baritone that the old house is haunted. Jim loved it. Thought it was an act. “Okay. That’s really cool” he said.

The ranger, unamused, held his weary “this-is-no-joke” gaze.

“So, um. Is the house being restored?” Jim asked.  “No.” replied the caretaker/ranger guy, “We can’t find anyone to do the work. Like I said, it’s haunted.”

While this continued, I took Pico on a walk and observed the other campers who seemed to be excessively goth for small-town Alabama. A lady in a flowing satin-black gown and lipstick smiled and gave me a cheerful, “Hey!” as she decorated her picnic table in black chenille with purple string lights in late-November.

But, too tired to change our minds and more concerned about the basketball-sized anthills than the superstitious southern folk, we opted to stay put.

You see, we’d just come from Costco in Birmingham, and all we wanted to do was properly stash an obscene amount of food, and present our fresh, new rosemary Christmas tree for its first night of the season.

After dinner, we settled down, watched a movie and got ready for bed.

Jim always turns in around 10 pm while I take Pico for his last walk. But on this night, Jim grabbed the leash.

I presumed he was acting in my behalf due to the creepy neighbors. “I want to check this place out,” he said.

I had half a mind to go with him and said so, but then he got in a spooky mood and let loose an Jack Nicolson “Here’s Johnny” imitation. “Sure you don’t want to go?” he said, creeping me out better than I thought he could. I said, “Uh-uh. Not playing this game. But take the phone and may unicorns and rainbows guide you.”

He speed-dialed me and off he went into the sultry Southern night on a Young Goodman Brown escapade/with chihuahua.

Pico de Gallo – a big N. Hawthorne fan.

On digital technology, I listened to their footfall through the deep wet grass as Jim slapped mosquitos off his face.

The squishy walking suddenly stopped!

“What’s going on? I asked. “Gotta ditch the headlamp … Bugs.” Then, squish, squish, squish … on they walked. Presently, Jim said, “I’m at the house.” He said it real important-like – as if he were about to set foot on the moon.

The boards creaked under his weight. Then, Pico sounded urgent warning barks. Several voices popped up in the background, women’s voices!

When Pico calmed down Jim told me the women were ghost hunters using an app to detect paranormal energy. The app told them that a presence was just inside the door. So Jim fastened his headlamp again just as … the door opened! The women screamed and ran.

“Just leave!” I said.

“Hold on,” he said, “It was probably a draft but I’m taking a photo … Sending.” The photo showed the door about three inches ajar from the inside. But what sent chills down my spine and made me scream, “Run!!!” was the shadow-play of Jim’s hand and iPhone which appeared to be a freshly dug grave and tombstone.

A sudden thunderstorm…

… on Lake Ponchartrain drove us off the designated bike lane near Fontainebleau State Park.  We took shelter in a gazebo in an old cemetery.

By all appearances, we were alone. Yet, we both felt we were being watched.

Then … Out of nowhere

(Everything happened so suddenly the details are difficult to assemble)

Out of nowhere, a young man appeared in the gazebo with us – a boy really – blue eyes, brown hair, medium build, wearing dungarees and denim shirt. Just as I noticed the number on his shirt, I spied a work truck, way back in a far corner of the cemetery with a guard and several prisoners around it. Ah, a routine maintenance program. Of course.

We exchanged hellos and his dialect suggested he was from the area. He asked if we wanted to see some bones. Bones? No! We’re just passing by, ducking the weather, we explained.

But he wouldn’t have it. Bones we would see. For mercy’s sake and politeness, we followed the young man, and upon his request, we peered between broken crypt walls to behold the bones he spoke of.

But when we looked up to ask the boy if he knew the name of the deceased, he was gone – vanished – nowhere to be seen or heard and no sign of the old truck and crew.

Natchez

And, oh, where to begin with Natchez? The ghosts outnumber the living so they all just have to to go along to get along.

Kings Tavern in Natchez – the most haunted pub in Mississippi

Boothill

But our most haunting moment was near Mount Moriah Cemetery, commonly known as Boothill where this row of tombstone clouds reminded us of the single row of thirteen civil war graves of unknown soldiers on the Natchez Trace.

Fort Pickens

We could go on and on … Fort Pickens and the bomb removal squad.

The set of LOST?

Savannah

The Old Pirate House

The Haunted “Old Pirates House” in Savannah

and Moon River Brewing Company,

The Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures featured this brewing company.

Harper’s Ferry

Harpers Ferry ghost stories…

But that’s enough. Now, it’s time to pass the Talking Stick.

Do you have a ghost story to share – one from personal or second-hand experience?

Or just a good travel yarn, perhaps?

We’re dying to hear it.

Let’s see if we can keep this campfire burning through Halloween night!

Nothing like a few ghost stories before Halloween! “While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,           As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my trailer door.

[bunnieface]

Check in!!!

Seeing how it’s break and all, I’ve got another quarter down in the books (YEET) and I only have a few months until I move to Spain(!!!!!) I thought I’d do a lil self-reflection, self check-in and just a regular lil entry in my online journalito. 

Mental Health: wow oh  my GoD I’m feeling the best I have in quite a long while!!!!! I’m quite comfortable/happy/content/satisfied with all that’s going on in my mental health. Considering it was just the wintertime, where SAD gets me (baaadly), I can absolutely say that this is the first winter probably since I was in middle school where I wasn’t suicidal or self-harmed. I haven’t really given myself the credit I deserve for this but!!! Ya bitch DID IT!!! I haven’t really felt the need to drink, smoke, or force myself into things I didn’t really want to do. Not only that, but I’ve started to kind of like who I am, actually?? I’m kind of realizing that I’m kind of a cool person(wow??). I still struggle with liking the face that looks back at me in the mirror, but like got damn!! My music taste??? A little off the beaten path, but FLEEKY. The fact that I’m a person of like, substance? Also pretty sick. The excess, wild, crazy energy that I have used to embarrass me. It makes me clumsy, I think it may come off as annoying, and I felt like I had to suppress it with everything that I had. But I’m kind of realizing that my insane, morning-centric, positive energy is a really great thing about me. Maybe it’s not for everybody. Nobody can be for everybody. But to be honest, I’ve had enough of the “too chill for literally everything” and negative vibes that are so much easier to grab onto. I like being turbo!! I like seeing the good in everything!!! I shouldn’t SEEK OUT the negative in something so that I feel like I fit in better. My ADHD is a really awesome part of me. I am learning to forgive myself for the social blunders I’ve made, and even though I still get that near-OCD rumination track on loop in my head, I’m learning to just say “okay, you’re back. How are we going to stop you?” To sum up my mental health, I’m giving myself a solid A in improvement for this quarter (and I guess the school year). (also, stop worrying about the lil weight u put on. You’ll lose it. cálmate.)

Academics/Spanish: yeet, yeet, yeet, and one more for the back: YEET. To be honest, grade-wise I didn’t end up pulling an A like I meant to in my grammar class. It’s okay tho. At the last minute I got lazy with the studying and could only focus on soccer (haha) so I only managed to get a B+ (which is verrrrry annoying considering almost everything else I did this quarter was A level work but whatevs). While I didn’t get exactly the grade I wanted in my grammar class, (my other class was P/F and my 314 I pulled an A) I feel like I improved my spanish SO MUCH. I feel actually functional now. All of my classes were taught in Spanish, and my conversation class forced me to speak in Spanish (which I didn’t really take advantage of as much as I should have, thanks to anxiety). One of the two parties I went to this quarter had quite a few Spanish speakers and I realized that after a drink or two, I’m REALLY good at Spanish! Compliments all over the place, full-ass conversations, people surprised and impressed with the fact I’ve only been learning for a year and a half, etc etc. The thing is though, it wasn’t just the compliments. I felt myself speaking well. I was understanding everything almost as if it was in English, and I was responding without thinking. (Later on, once I realized I was doing really well, I realized that I started getting self-conscious and speaking less and more slowly) SO I really gotta let go of that fear, it’s holding me back SO MUCH. But still. Slammin’ improvement. Not to mention, I can watch Club de Cuervos with only the Spanish subtitles now. I’m understanding basically everything that’s happening with the exception of some of the really colloquial stuff (I’ll pick up on it!!!). And I can watch YouTube videos in Spanish with mostly no problems depending on their accent. Mexican accents are SO MUCH EASIER to understand haha.

Friend/social life: I’ve calmed down. I’ve calmed down so much. Oh my god. I’m not anxious at neearly the same levels. I feel like I’m making connections and friends in a really healthy way and connecting with them very genuinely because I’m much less afraid to be myself. I don’t care if we’re best best buds, or whatever. I’m just happy to be around them when I’m around them and content when I’m not. I don’t really care about partying or drinking anymore. I’m pretty much done with it, except for the occasional outing. (occasional as in TWICE over the quarter), and every time that I have drank, I’ve had such a good time! No tears, no sadness, no crippling anxiety. I don’t ever want to throw all the blame on someone other than myself, and not that I’m blaming them, but god I am so so so happy that I left my old friend group. I haven’t regretted it at all, really. Nor have I regretted stepping down as BSU President. I have grown so much mentally, academically, and emotionally, since I cut ties. It’s not their fault. I was just genuinely uncomfortable to be myself around them. I didn’t feel loved or appreciated, and I don’t really think I was. But I was more than accepting of it because I didn’t think that I deserved it. I ended up chasing acceptance and love from people that didn’t really care about me. In turn, I injured a really important, caring friendship. (although that friendship definitely had its dysfunctional levels). I know there’s a lot of mental health illness in that group, and I really hope they are able to find peace and confidence soon if they haven’t already. Work stresses me out a bit. I think some people (including a bit of the adult leadership.. cough cough) are trifling and I want to avoid them because they seem like more trouble and more into drama than what its worth. But it’s fine. I hope I can catch a Seattle summer job (PIKE) and not work there over the summer.

I, Sarah: well, well, well. Sarah as a unit. Just the me. Lil ol me. I. AM. PROUD. OF. YOu. You’re doing amazing, sweetie!!!! I have the confidence to start learning things just to learn them! To do something just for the sake of doing it, and not for being the best! I’m loving soccer (thanks Club de Cuervos), and I love having the friends that want to make it all possible! I actually want to have an intramural team going, I know we’ll probably lose every game, but I don’t care because I just want to play! Team sports were a literal nightmare for me with my social anxiety, but I actually WANT to do it. I WANT to get out there and play and meet new people. I’m not scared of looking like a damn fool on the field. PUT ME IN COACH! On another note, I am so so so SO much more comfortable with my identity. I am bisexual, and I’m FINALLY accepting of it!! I’m even telling a select few people. I feel like a weight that’s been pressing me down for years has just been lifted. I’ll make a separate post about it. I have SO much I want to say. 

In all, I have a really solid foundation going for me and I’m so happy to be where I am. It’s almost weird, because I never really thought this level of stability was going to be possible for me. Being diagnosed with depression/anxiety in the fifth grade, growing up in an abusive household, and having to get over traumas both from my past and more recent present left me feeling like I was going to be a broken disaster for my whole life. Not really. I’m sure I’ll dip and struggle at times. But I made it through the darkest part of the year for me with barely a scratch. I feel like I can take on the world!! 

[cheezlogerratum]

The Grand Slam

           Eddie Baxter is dreaming right about now, about what is up in the air. He's sleeping right now, 8PM, a little strange for a boy at 16. It's a Thursday night, too, on the eve of Christmas Eve, and his mother is even deeper in slumber than he, also kinda strange. At night the house becomes a decoy of something quiet. Everyone in this neighborhood is asleep. You could only describe this place in the night as a ghost town where the ghouls' mortal forms haven't passed on yet, so a neighborhood of lingering presence, and that's all we know.

           Christmas Eve! And it's a Friday, and school is still in session for some twisted reason. Cars line up the side of Golden Lantern, starting and stopping into kids and jaywalkers hustling to class. Eddie is taking the sidewalk, surrounded front and back by parties of twos and threes, and they're walking so, so mercilessly slow, and he can't brush past without the chance of falling into the street... but he's feeling reasonably groggy today, so he takes the chance with little regard. "...uled by an intergalactic government run by John Travol..." And now the pace picks up. The crossguard gives her usual double-take of the traffic and steps into the street with her whistle and reflective octagon with a handle, and with this comes the definitive feeling of death to kick off the day...

           Eddie catches himself dozing off in Gov and eyes the room he's in and swears he wasn't here a second ago. He spots Samir up in the front writing on the board and wonders, "what the fuck". Samir stops writing at the other end of the board, strikes a pose, and walks back to his desk buddied up beside Eddie. "What were we talking about?" Again with the what the fuck, and now Eddie's foot is bouncing.

           "I don't even know."

           "Why're you so tired? Didn't you go to bed at like 9?"

           "... I dunno."

           It's lunch now, and Eddie downs some mac 'n cheese as kids pour in from entrances and stairwells on all sides of the cafeteria. He's looking around at the noise and eventually makes off to the parking lot. He looks over at the front office to see ungodly amounts of kids faking stomach flus and parents faking scheduled dentist appointments to enjoy Xmas Eve how it ought to be enjoyed, and the quasi-nurses figure they don't get paid enough for this and play along with their schemes, almost in spite. Eddie does a 360 peering through windshields and fences and walks out the back gate, and the air feels crisp further down the hill.

           The score is 3-1 and Eddie's attention fades to the doorbell, followed by a rhythmic knock. Eddie goes AFK, opens the front door, and whaddya know... "I brought it over is that alright?" Samir plops his G3 in the kitchen before helping himself to a drink: OJ, extra pulp. Samir looks up from his glass and Eddie's gone. "... Eeeddiee!"

           "WAIT."

           Samir follows the voice upstairs and finds Eddie utterly glued. He reclines on Eddie's bed and watches... which turns out to be the worst seat in the house. He gets up and half-sits on the hamper. He's only getting an angular view of the screen, but he's tired of moving around and settles the best he can, and waits.

           Come night time as the cul-de-sac settles back into ghost-mode, Ms. Baxter, or as some still mistakenly refer to her as Mrs. Baxter, opens the garage door. Both the boys' stomachs sink with a shot of adrenaline, and the mechanical hum whizzes on for what might as well be days. Samir's body flips through fight or flight and, as always, chooses flight and unplugs his Mac mid-game, his player model disappears just as quickly as he does. He somehow miraculously escapes parental confrontation and lugs the computer and himself back home under the lights strung on trees on the sides of the streets. Eddie, bracing for impact, scrambles to shut down the system. Once it obeys, he rips open his backpack and finds some vague scholarly-looking notes he took half-lucid in class to give off the appearance of hardwork. The front door sounds up to Eddie's room at the same time visceral taps of high-heels walk into the house, shutting the door. Holy shit. Holy shit.

           It turns out, luck of the draw perhaps, that Ms. Baxter never checked in on Eddie. In fact, this was almost worse, not only because he couldn't sleep due to Xmas Eve jitters, but also in anticipation of a motherly barge-in that never ever came. Thank God? And his mind wouldn't shut up, so Eddie logs back on and sees what's new in the news. Not much else other than a church shooting in Oregon... "and a happy new year!" He thinks, followed by a tinge of shame. Eddie connects to a Quake III server, where he's "auto-balanced" onto Red Team, alone, against two players on Blue. He spawns and picks up a shotgun, and out of fucking nowhere gets fragged. Now he's just pissed, so he logs off and walks downstairs to the eerie serenity of the Christmas tree, fake mind you. It takes him a minute or two of rumination to realize there are no presents under the tree... Oh mother. Eddie, desperate for slumber at this point, nukes some milk in the microwave. He tries chugging but never succeeds, so he takes his time sipping his warm milk looking up at the gray sky out the window. A nimbus of gray parts and reveals what Eddie thinks is an airplane but is really venus twinkling through the smog, which he later realizes on the fence of consciousness and slumber.

           Feliz Navidad by Jose Feliciano blasts Eddie back into reality, a song he always seems to forget plays on repeat on the radio almost all Christmas Day every damn year... but he's not complaining, necessarily. Eddie's body gravitates to his Gateway and logs in almost by autopilot. His mind drifting off around his room and out the door while his fingers check his e-mail and clicks around some images he found online a while back... what the... when did this...? Eddie doesn't even wanna know and just goes downstairs for Christmas time and... jesus christ. No presents, no relatives, no mother. He peeks around some corners and employs some half-assed investigation tactics such as leaning in a little bit towards a mug in the sink and considering how ajar a door is than usual in hopes of a lead revealing itself, but his mind comes back to his mother once his body starts climbing the stairs towards her room. What is going on? Why can't I be somewhere else? He asks. The sheets on her side of the bed are dog-eared and the lamp is still on, not illuminating much now. Eddie gets that supernatural feeling of being in your parents' bedroom, which he finds exhilerating, actually. The closet's open, the bathroom's open, a drawer's open, and her purse isn't where it should be. Eddie's heart starts pounding, but it'll take him a few minutes to catch on to that.

           Eddie's out on the sidewalk again and it's something like 90 degrees outside. His legs just sorta follow the path and adjust to the divets as he attends to matters in his mind which seem to be foggy. He's thinking and doesn't even know it. There's not a single soul out on the street except the occasional sudan racing either to their family, the hospital, or worse, work. He looks up for a moment and notices the white, searing glare of the ocean, and if he looks long enough he sees tiny individual glares appearing and disappearing at once, and he's okay. He's looking off to his right as he passes houses with families post-gift exchange hanging out inside. After ten minutes or so, Eddie just so happens to witness the moment when a little kid unwraps a Dreamcast, nearly ripping apart the whole package itself. Eddie couldn't see the kid's parents, probably behind the tree, undoubtedly real mind you, but he imagined how happy they were. Eddie's now nearing an intersection and notices the absence of clouds aboveohshit... is that...? That's his Mom. She's at the light oh fuck. Is she on the phone? Eddie turns around and brisk-walks up the hill... he thinks he saw her crying... he doesn't know necessarily why he's walking back to the house but he can't help it. Why does this happen, Eddie thought. His Mom's car catches up to his periphery and vanishes over the hill, but it's like she's waiting there. Why do I do this, Eddie thought. I don't know, Eddie.

           Eddie's almost home now and he hasn't looked up the entire way. He knows what's about to come but can't calm down no matter how much he convinces himself he can do it. Only four houses away and he just wants to explode so his body can stop flipping out. Now he's three houses away and starts to breathe-in breathe-out, since he figures he's been walking for a good half-hour but probably because he can't keep it in any longer. Two houses left and he's feeling primal and lightheaded at this point. One house to go and a car skids past him. He looks behind him and around a truck parked on the street and sees his Mom heeding no speed bump in sight. Eddie doesn't know if he's releived or even more afraid. One thing's for sure, he's gotta take a shit.

           In Eddie's absence from cyberspace, he received an e-mail from jefferymbax62@firstcontact.com. It reads:

Merry Christmas ed man!!!! i'm missing you buddy.. i'd love to see you today if you can? i also need to give you your gift i think you'll like it! let me know where you want to eat and i'll be free around 11:30ish. love you eddie, we're so proud of you! :)

Jeffery M. Baxter Marketing, FirstContact Fax: (949) 555-1448

A new species of fear took over Eddie, but it was much less menacing than the kind he felt at home. It was subdued somewhere in his body, but he responded quickly and left for the Denny's down by Doheny Beach.

The place was literally overflowing, so much so you couldn't even see the framed print of Java Dreams on the wall nor hear Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree blasting throughout the joint. Luckily, using a combination of tippy-toes and craned neck to look above the line, Eddie spotted his father sitting over in the back corner of the restaurant by the kitchen. Making any progress down the aisle whilst dodging waiters balancing pounds of various slams and specials on their fingers was a feat worth mentioning, and mentioned it was, "Aaaand HE'S SAFE!" with the umpire pose and all. Eddie chuckled a little and sat in the booth holding off the eye contact for as long as he could, which ended up being barely two seconds. His Dad started, "... Well!? What's this? Doesn't look like Christmas to me!"

"Heh, I'm sorry."

"It's okay it's okay. Well how goes it? You walk?"

"Yeah."

"That's a nice walk. Good to see ya, buddy... OH! Why didn't you remind me?"

His father pulled out a gift from what seemed like thin air and gave it to Eddie. He didn't realize how weak his hands felt until he started unwrapping it. A few trembles later and there it was, a framed photograph of Eddie and Jeffery in a bowling alley two or so years ago. Eddie didn't know what he was feeling or even thinking, he just kept looking at it with the tape hanging off the sides of the frame.

"Remember that?"

"Uh huh."

"Found that one a few weeks ago in one of the boxes in storage and thought you'd get a kick out of it."

"Yeah yeah, for sure. Thank you."

"Yeah no problem!"

"I'm sorry I didn't get you anything."

"Nah I don't need anything, don't worry about it!"

"Okay, thanks Dad."

And everything was wrong. His father started up again, "I gotta use the can, but-"

"Hey there! What can I start you guys off with?"

"Well there you go! I'll have a Coke to drink and... can we order now?"

"Absolutely!"

"Okay I'll get the uhh Grand Slam, eggs overeasy, and how about you Eddie?"

"Uh I'll just get the same I think."

"Two Grand Slams and two Cokes, is that all for you guys?"

"That does it!"

"If you need anything else just holler!"

"Well, ma'am, if you don't mind I'd rather hoot!"

He laughs back and forth at Eddie and the waitress who's laughing along with him, Eddie smiles a bit. Jeffery's still laughing, "Alright I'll be right back." The noise in the place came back to Eddie as he realized they were playing Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer through the speakers. Eddie doesn't know what to do. All he can do is feel his fingers which are still holding onto the picture frame as his legs bring him out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk.

Mom still isn't home, and Eddie supposes Samir's Xmas festivities are wrapping up right about now, so he heads on over. By the time he arrives the sky is orange and gently shining through windows and rooms of neighboring houses, which feels weirdly comforting. Samir's family has one of those fancy melodic doorbells, which was almost immediately answered by a tall man with a hell of a beard. He eyes Eddie for a second then turns to the mass of chatter coming from the entire house, "SAMIR!" Somehow Eddie heard Samir's footsteps stomping through the house and could make out exactly where he was. Eddie thanked the man and Samir took over door duty to sneak his buddy inside. Eddie took a look around and saw dozens of relatives talking around and watching movies and cooking dinner and playing cards and taking pictures and cracking jokes and... "Oh man". Samir's room upstairs was filled with six or seven cousins all chatting and drinking and paying no attention to Eddie much at all.

"So what do you wanna do?"

"Let's go down there!"

"Nononono we can't you'll get kicked out, we could play something up here if you want."

"No one would even notice me?"

"C'mon dude I don't wanna get in trouble."

"... I don't even have my computer."

"You can use my sister's probably."

"... Alright... alright. I gotta go to the bathroom though."

"NO I don't trust you, I'm coming with."

Eddie just wanted another look. Now there was music and dancing and kids running around and babies around their Mom's shoulders trying to process what's even happening, and he felt okay. Eddie bent over with elbows on knees while on the toilet and looked down at the tile floor and ruminated towards the indented corners. A knock on the door snatched Eddie from his head and got him wiping, washing, and proceeded to open the door to yet another tall man, wider this time. It wasn't until this man spoke that Eddie recognized this man was Samir's father, "What are you doing Eddie?"

"I just needed to-"

"You need to go."

"I didn't-"

"Please."

Eddie hesitated for a second then sprinted into Samir's closet spilling some beers in the process, "HEY WHAT THE oh" and Samir's father came in and grabbed Eddie from his hidey-hole and pulled him out of the room, leading him with an armpit grip down the stairs, and out the house, people staring and everything. Now the sky was really fading, and Eddie, feeling that fizzy bodily sort of sadness all around, picked himself up and walked home, never looking up.

The house was as it was except everything seemed to have a buzzing fog around it. Eddie logged onto his computer and booted up Quake to find servers full again, and he played through the night until he conked out drooling into the keys and kicked from the server. He woke up in his bed for a second all disgruntled and lost. Eddie's body shuffled around under the sheets until it hit the right spot then fell deeper into sleep, eventually noticing waves coming up ahead of him and the silhouette of Catalina blocking the last of the Sun.