#i fucking hate input element styling i fucking hate input element styling i fucking hate input element styling i fucking h

[wovenstarlight]

everything's fun and games until you spend 4 hours putting together an audio player from scratch

[goodlouse]

my thoughts on the two most recent games i've played (mouthwashing and silent hill 2 (2001)) which i've been thinking about alternately for the past few days for similar reasons

going to mention spoilers in here but this post will probably only be fully comprehensible to ppl who have experienced both games

not expecting many to read this but tumblr is quickly becoming my outlet for opinions that I can't rlly post on very public sites like tiktok where any criticism of a media means that I hate it and hate you for liking it. haterism be damned I actually got a net positive from playing both of these games!!

so I started playing silent hill 2 (original because I do not believe in/have the money to buy modern remakes) fresh off the back of silent hill 1 which is a game I REALLY enjoyed. I would EVEN say that sh1 is my number 1 cosiest game of the year.

sh2 is dirtier, bleaker and sleazier than sh1, and is lacking a lot of the occult aspects that I really liked. it's also like one of the most talked about games ever so like . i went into it with the knowledge of a few major plot beats and it took a long time playing to be able to take the game on its own terms.

i also took a little break halfway thru the game to stream mouthwashing for some curious friends. mouthwashing is a game thats very popular w streamers & youtubers and their audiences, so major plot points are also incredibly talked about. I mentioned this to a friend while setting up the game and he said I'll get something out of it anyway and then compared it to silent hill 2, which I kind of brushed off as a "psychological horror w unreliable narrator" thing (sorry choccy if you ever read this) but it turns out the two games are actually very similar in the way they draw my ire LOL

these things being: -sexual assault victim who doesn't have time in the plot to exist outside of her trauma. this is partially due to both plots being very tight and concise with no elements that don't serve a higher function BUT -this is then undermined by certain areas of gameplay dragging. for mouthwashing especially the last ~45 minutes felt very weirdly paced and unfortunately made me think of ppl who speedrun garten of banban in under 2hrs to get the steam refund, which resulted in later chapters being padded w drawn out segments.

The friends I was streaming for that have consumed more media than I have said that a lot of tropes in the game felt a bit derivative, but I don't know the things its deriding from BUT I wish mouthwashing would take more from the survival horrors its imitating in it's style. The gameplay between character interactions is limited to inputting codes you've read or corridors where there's only one correct route and everything else results in a reset - I think people that watched mouthwashing through a letsplayer might not truly get how understimulating that feels. Some more psychologically symbolic puzzles and riddles would not have gone amiss!

which brings me back around to silent hill 2, where I am legitimately just too stupid to do the 'collect and combine 3 items to progress' without a guide. because A) I don't intuitively clear out all rooms because I hate all combat encounters BECAUSE i am being too overly conservative with ammo so every enemy gets a fight to the death with melee weapons

i finished the game with a SURPLUS of ammo btw so that is partially on me for making myself struggle unnecessarily, but oh my goddd the prison/labyrinth section took so long!!

I also quite disliked eddie's plotline, which unfortunately literally just came down to his character design :/ his plot revolves around resentment over the way he's been treated for his appearance, but as a fat fuck myself my grievance was with the way he's been dressed by real world character designers that are falling on stereotypes. its juvenile in a way that betrays the subtlety of the rest of the game, and makes him seem infantile despite being so essential to james's arc. I genuinely think that a wardrobe change would have silenced my gut reaction of "what are they trying to say with this?", and its disappointing to see that the remake didn't take the opportunity when they did with maria

angela's plot was fascinating to me for depicting an abuse survivor with some imagery I've not really seen in other media! I think her character was written with a lot of respect, and her and eddie's plots feel like complimentary and cautionary tales to james, but it's very sad that ultimately her trauma was depicted as something that can't be lived with - this is something she shares with anya. I guess it's kind of disappointing that a womans struggle with sexual trauma ends in death in two games that are 20 years apart, I personally feel that theirs (and jimmy's suicide) is a bit of a tired trope

however. despite finishing extended periods of both sh2 and mouthwashing feeling annoyed and frustrated that they werent as tight as the rest of the game, but now that I've had days to process them my mind has been lingering on a few moments.

-pleasantly surprised by how legitimately startling pyramid heads introduction, really good use of unsettling imagery -sh's soundtracks always hit at the moments it counts -the last hour of sh2 had me in tears, mary's letter was bittersweet and I love how the tone completely changes depending on the ending. as someone that likes the occult stuff in the other sh games I loooove the implications of the rebirth ending but I appreciate it seems a bit left field in this standalone plot

-jim & curly's ladder conversation in the cockpit, I think that one stuck with me especially as the one defining moment in both of their outlooks, the wealth and status inequality that still leaves both of them wanting more out of their lives.. the guilt and resentment that can come of circumstantial success etc etc -similarly the dead pixel convo -swansea's honest monologue -the glitch effect after anya's suicide was REALLY cool visually, it felt like the one defining moment where mouthwashing really took advantage of its medium

TLDR I feel like I learned a bit about what I like and dislike in psychological horror by playing these two side by side, defintely interesting research while I'm drafting a horror comic with a dreamlike atmosphere... :)

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

Me: *Mentions an idea previously discussed on Tumblr about the connection between the Shiba Clan and Squad Zero*

My older son: *"Yes And..." my dumb shit...*

Because I was talking about how the transportation used by Squad Zero is the exact same as Kukaku's Flower Crane Cannon.

There was this headcanon that I really like that the Shiba Clan became one of the Great Noble Houses because of that specific contribution to the Royal Realm and Squad Zero way before the Reio's mutilation. (He was already the Soul King before Ichibei — And the Tsunayashiro Head — gave the idea to mutilate the Reio because they were afraid to lose their own power to him, I guess...)

So my son goes like:

"What if they'd started as the original Royal Guards?"

You know... Before Squad Zero starts being formed to the way we know them now...?

It makes sense that the Head of the Shiba Clan was the only one to oppose the mutilation and try to offer another way to keep the Worlds separated.

It also starts making sense that it was so easy to banish and pretty much destroy the Shiba Clan if, as another theory put it, the Shiba Clan was the only ones who tried to repeatedly try to find one amongst them worthy to become the vessel for the Reio's powers and therefore release him from that "existence"...

Let's say Ichibei held a grudge and took the opportunity to influence the outcome of events and take out the Shiba Clan almost completely...

But still, they need them. They need Kukaku and, even though the she keeps moving her house, apparently Squad Zero knows exactly where to find them to send the Tenchūren back to the Royal Realm.

Of course, because we always cannot stay on one topic... Or one aspect of the topic, I then was like:

"Hey! By the way... Have you seen Senjumaru's face?"

At first he was like:

"Her hair style kind of looks like Shinji's..."

Me: "No... Look at the face and the eyes..."

And that's when he arrived at the same conclusion I had...

Senjumaru kind of has the Kuchiki Resting Bitch Face™...

So,of course, I presented my dumb idea:

"What if she was a member of the Kuchiki Clan?"

My son: "Is that why she was the one who didn't kill herself? Because the Historian amongst the Squad Zero needs to survive to tell the story?"

Me:

I mean... Sure... It's really grasping at straws, but...

Putting it in the context of my Sunflowers And Cherry Blossoms series, it becomes even funnier...

Senjumaru was in the 12th squad — Maybe a Kuchiki...

Hikifune was in the 12th squad — The creator of the Ginkon and (in my series) the one who helped Sojun and Kaori create Byakuya through the Reishi Input Pod. A kind of Godmother figure for him.

And Byakuya fucking hates the 12th squad, mainly because of the complete lack of morals from Mayuri...

It's hilarious, actually.

There was also that thing about the Squad Zero's crest in one of the cour 2 scenes, which showed symbols for each element, and Senjumaru's needle and thread heavily evoked the Kuchiki Clan's figures of the cranes they have on their crest.

(I cannot find the picture of that Squad Zero crest... Anyways...)

I just find it interesting that there could be a possibility of Squad Zero, in its inception, having personal connections to the Great Noble Houses.

Ichibei could even be a part of that mysterious, elusive Other House we know nothing about.

My son also mentioned the hands Kukaku used to have "adorning" her house.

"Oh, like the chopped off arms of the Reio?"

And it reminded me that the Shihoin Clan became a kind of Guards Of The Heavens and the "arms" of the Reio.

Imagine if they'd taken over said responsibility directly from the Shiba Clan after their initial falling out with Ichibei?

Just you know... Random thoughts...

[catboybiologist]

Should I get armored core

I'm right at the end of chapter 1 (haven't had much time to play), so of course I may miss some things here, but here's my review. Spoiler free

It's a good, clean game. Well worth the price and far more tight and put together than most other AAA games on the market (the fact that this is a standard is a bit sad, but oh well). It's fun, and I think most people will enjoy it.

Here's whats great about it:

Movement. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, absolute butter. You truly soar in this game, both figuratively and literally, and even the tankiest of builds have a distinctive glide to them that gives the game both a unique character, and in general, a high quality. I'd love to see similar movement styles adapted to other games and other genres.

Build customization and variety. The thing everyone talks about in this game, and it deserves to be praised. Building your mech and piecing together how you're going to address a specific level or problem in your own particular way is a really fun puzzle, and the builds don't just affect numbers on a screen- they very meaningfully affect how your mech moves, which enemies they're most effective against, and what other pieces you need to pair it with. It strikes a nice balance of tailoring a build to specific levels, as well as finding signature styles that work for you.

Ignore people who say the game is ugly. It has a strong gunmetal and wasteland aesthetic, but it fits the tone of the game incredibly. It's not vibrant, but that's a deliberate, artistic choice, and it manages to have art variety even within that aesthetic. The desert mission in chapter one exhibits this beautifully.

The soundtrack fucks HARD. Probably my top Fromsoft soundtrack, and probably one of my favorite video game OSTs of all time.

That being said, I criticize things I love more than things I hate, because I understand them enough to do so. So here's my take: it's def not up to par with Fromsoft's usual lineup or output. Of the modern (post-DS1, I've never played Demon's souls) From games, its probably the weakest. There's a couple of glaring issues with the game, unfortunately:

The complexity of the missions does not match the complexity of the player's build and inputs in the slightest. This is why there's been a lot of complaints about the game simultaneously being too easy and too hard. Either the enemies are simple and don't do enough damage to kill you, or they are simple and do enough damage to kill you. Even with dodging via intricate movements, there are some parts that are flat out bullshit and some parts that are a breeze. Because of this, it often feels like I'm injecting my own fun into the game by being flashy in my own right, but the game should reward that on its own. It's interesting to note that this feels like an inversion on how Fromsoft games typically work. Most From games have pretty simple input mechanics that you're forced to push to their absolute limits with environments and bosses that are extremely complex. This is true of all mainline Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and hell, even Sekiro and Bloodborne.

The storytelling.. this ain't it, chief. I guess it's to be expected, since Miyazaki isn't the director of this one. A plot element just got dropped in right at the end of the mission I'm on now that seems like it'll make things more elaborate later on, but no matter how complex the plot itself becomes, the classic Fromsoft storytelling style isn't there. You're back to this being a game where the plot is laid out for you with monologues, direct explanation, and cutscenes. The environmental storytelling is almost absent. As much as "item description storytelling" is memed on, but combat log collection is a slap in the face substitute for that.

Building on the "environmental storytelling is absent" point, the environments themselves have no complexity and don't reward even the barest minimum of exploration. There's like... one collectathon item per level, and that's it. No hidden pockets of the maps, no character moments, no scenes in a corner that show interesting bits of lore or story, no interesting details about the world to find. This is pretty bad for me tbh. Like yes, I understand its supposed to be a linear experience, but this isn't about linearity vs open world- its about how much you're doing with the linearity. Even compared to all of the Dark Souls games, which are all linear or branching linear, there's a distinct lack of care and detail in the levels that could really be there.

It's a fun, tightly made, well put together game that is fun, flashy, and has the most fun movement of any game I've played probably ever, but there's a lot of wasted potential. I would love to see similar brands of sci fi games, or hell, even fantasy magic shooters that build on these same types of controls and level of customization. If that sounds fun to you, go for it.

[akumajoaurora]

In regards to this excellent post, I’d also like to make a post on how I designed my own logo. Zenith’s post gives an excellent breakdown of what elements go into a VTuber logo and things to keep in mind, but not so much how one gets from an idea to a finished logo. So I wanted to share my process, which goes through most of the basic process I learned while studying graphic design in community college.

Before doing anything else, I had to do research. I knew the general style I was going for; I wanted to evoke the y2k aesthetic, or at least somewhere in the late 90s/early 2000s. In particular I wanted to evoke the bright, optimistic aesthetic of certain games I played as a kid (DDR, late 90s to early 2000s Sonic games, Kirby Air Ride, etc.), as well as the Eurobeat music genre, which I’m a big fan of and is part of my overall “theme”. 

(Granted, I mostly find myself streaming gothic horror-esque games, but... A bitch can contain multitudes)

So with these ideas in mind, I spent a lot of time looking at y2k graphic design, researching different logos (for example, I looked at some racing logos as well), and eventually I put together an inspiration sheet with logos I wanted to evoke. Not all of these are from the same period, but they have a lot of similar vibes

Do you see some of the common elements? Text in dense blocks, lots of bold outlines, often a sense of motion, blobby geometric shapes, sans-serif fonts, bright colors. These were some of the things I wanted to keep in mind for my logo.

With my research done, it was time to design the emblem. I really like motorcycles, and they’re... technically supposed to be part of my theme even though I always forget to post about them... So I wanted my emblem to be a motorcycle helmet. (This also fits in with the eurobeat theme, since racing and driving fast is a common theme of eurobeat lyrics, albeit usually about cars and not motorcycles lol.) I sketched out a few variations on what I had in mind.

I incorporated my horns into the design, since they’re a big part of yknow, me. I also tried a few different decorative elements; The shooting stars are a motif sometimes seen in y2k graphic design, and the fangs are meant to emphasize the demon thing. As for the triangle stripe with the star, it’s meant to evoke the flag of Puerto Rico, but also has a classic racing flair.

After examining the various options and getting input from my friends and family, I settled on the design on the lower right. Next step was doing the black and white lineart.

This is a really important step. A good logo should, ideally, work in plain black and white. Even if you’re limited to just one color, your logo should be readable; This can be useful for things such as printing, stickers and T-shirts, things like that. Ideally you should be able to slap your logo on anything regardless of technical limitations. Am I, or you, necessarily going to do these things? No, but it’s good to be prepared anyway. You never know! So it’s always good to have a black and white variant of your logo.

This is the design I ended up with. In keeping with the y2k/late 90s/early 2000s style, I used bold lines with heavy weight variation, rounded corners, and a double outline. Now if I were really trying to be professional about it, I would have done it in a vector program rather than Medibang Paint, but I fucking hate vector programs and the only person who needs the files here is me, so I can afford to be sloppy. There’s programs out there that’ll let you vectorize black and white images anyway, so eh.

Next, it was time to add color to the emblem. Again, I had a bunch of different options, so I made several variations and asked for input from my friends and family. (I also put the BW version in the corner for reference.)

I already had some standard colors I use in my model and my graphics, so it was really just a matter of deciding how to arrange them. By the way, you can really see in the shading just how much inspiration I took from 2000s Sonic the Hedgehog art! Don’t be afraid to take inspiration from things that mean a lot to you, or... Well, inspire you, lol.

Once again, I ended up choosing the last variation as my winning design. With the emblem done, the next step was choosing a font. Zenith’s post already has some great notes on choosing fonts, so I won’t go into too much detail there, but once again I chose several options and asked for input. Getting feedback from others is a really important part of the graphic design process. It helps you to learn what works and what doesn’t, especially when other people may have different backgrounds than you (Is one of your friends colorblind? Does your art effectively convey its message to someone who doesn’t have the same knowledge of design history? Etc).

I actually chose 15 different font options, but for the sake of brevity I’ll just show four of them.

In general it’s good practice to do variants in regular caps, no caps, and all caps, but I didn’t do that because uh... I don’t remember why. Anyway, I largely looked for y2k or racing fonts. Admittedly Excelorate is super cute, but I ended up going with Hemi Head, because it’s nice and readable. I believe it’s a popular font in the Eurobeat world as well? I know Odyssey uses it in her graphics sometimes, at least. In any case, it looks nice, it’s not too generic, and it’s really easy to read.

After choosing both an emblem and a typeface, it was time to combine them both into a logo. Again, I started with black and white, both because it’s useful to have and it’s also just easiest to add color later on.

I spent quite a lot of time fiddling with spacing and such to get it to look neat and tidy. I added a line at the bottom to add balance to an empty space, as well as a sense of motion. To tie it all together, I encapsulated it all in that big chunky outline we’ve seen so much of.

Finally, color. Since I already had a colored version of the emblem, it was pretty easy to build the rest of the logo’s colors from there. I incorporated the purple and pink gradient I’ve used for header text in a lot of my existing graphics, and again I added a fun outline, and... That was it! The logo was finally finished!

Now, I’m not claiming it’s the most perfect logo in the world. I’m sure there’s things to criticize about it, and plenty of people who just won’t find it appealing. But I think it looks alright, and above all else, I hope this breakdown of how I went from square one to a finished logo is helpful to those of you who may be looking to design your own. I encourage you to do other research as well, and again, to check out Zenith’s excellent post on VTuber logos. (It’s worth noting as well that VTuber logos often have a particular look to them that I personally chose not to go for, but Zenith’s tutorial does a good job of explaining how to achieve that look.)

As a bonus, here’s this thing I made while messing around and trying out different techniques that ended up looking hilariously like the iCarly logo, lmao.

[ophelias-dive]

This 100%. What I hate most about how people are acting around AI art is that it's only an extension of how artists have always been treated.

AI art could be such a fascinating science experiment if only people understood that it's meta. It could help understand how much an AI is capable of, and how much it is limited. It could show a collective consciousness of sorts, how humanity portrays certain themes, and what elements are repeated enough to show up in the simulations. It could highlight how amazing artistry is, that only a human being who perfected their craft could see, understand and recreate hands or faces in different styles and still have them look undeniably like human features no matter how distorted by brilliant creative decisions.

But we don't live in that world, we live in this one, where people love art but have no respect for artists, and so they see AI as a cheaper substitute, they see it as an opportunity to steal from creatives, to not pay artists, to not value their creativity. We live in the world that wants to make bad AI art — that fails to depict any nuanced details or continuity — the "trending style" so they can use it in advertising. They want "art" the product, "art" the ad illustration, not art the medium, the process, the means of expression. They want to sell, not connect. They want art to look pretty but care very little about what it means, what it says, how it says.

And so we find ourselves here again, watching in real-time as once again artists get thrown under the bus for corporate profit, this time with the help of unethical tech companies who developed tools like these never once considering that artists deserve to be paid for every piece that was input into the database, the same way they got paid for every line of code in that program.

"But that's hundreds of millions of images, they can't pay everyone!"

well, then they can't afford to build this AI, can they?

Fuck AI art 🖕

This is an ai “artwork” hate blog now

[ganymedesclock]

K, N, and P for the fanfic asks please?

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

See this is a bit tricky because I have a somewhat contentious relationship with the idea of 'angst'- not as it's typically used, but that I feel like sadness is a thing you have to balance and blend just right, or you end up with something that feels exaggerated and hollow and melodramatic.

My personal pedantry aside, though, I think that the majority of stories I write have some element of darkness and certainly some elements of hurt/comfort to them, even when it's about sparing a character who dies in canon. I have this "no free lunch" corollary where if a character avoids death, I feel like it should be a near miss and have consequences. So I have a take of Maria Robotnik somewhere where the gunshot wound didn't kill her but it did permanently damage her spine and she's a paraplegic wheelchair user; PK in Refuge For Resolve not only has the facial crack his unresponsive body in canon gained but he's also got a void-related affliction he's trying to manage, and Tiso in Nos Morituri survives taking a mawlek to the entire body, but has to face the possibility of permanent disability muscling in on the strength he was so arrogantly proud of to get himself into this situation in the first place, and changing his entire fighting style as a result.

It probably isn't astonishing to say that I also am a co-author on a long-runner Zelda fic I've mentioned a few times before and scars are a huge theme in that. But I don't generally think of this stuff as 'angst'- I think it's a lot of just, what interests me personally so it's stuff I like to play with. It makes it hard for me to really tell what qualifies as Really Heavy Stuff to other people.

Of my current projects, admittedly I'd say the Zelda fanfic is probably the darkest compared to its source material- like my HK fanfiction is set in a full-stop gothic horror universe so if I have PK surviving and actually reaching the emotional health to regret a lot of his actions and make sincere effort towards a better future that's pretty darn chummy compared to HK.

But that same tone- which is again, to me, neutral, because I just really like gothic horror and it's a flavor I put in anything- really stands out in Legend of Zelda which absolutely has fucked up stuff but largely consigns it to being sorta isolated and/or forced to share a game with robots that flirt with your sword and cynical clown men whose raison d'etre is shooting people out of comically oversized cannons.

So, uh, fucked up-ness is relative? it's relative. And it feels like, presumptuous as a horror writer to crown the most fucked up of my own ideas. That's for the audience to do. Squeeze the tears back into your body and tell me how they tasted.

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you?

See this is another tricky question because I think all writers have some manner of love hate relationship with the idea of magic button that make story go brr without your input but also the pride in our creations hinges overwhelmingly on the fact that it's ours, and damn the gales or the ravages that made it hard to create.

Incidentally this is also why I rarely feel too miffed about people taking inspiration from my works or borrowing ideas to use for their own writing; technically anybody else could write another idea for me, or pick up one of the countless ideas or half-finished fics I'd discarded with time, and that would certainly be something interesting; it just wouldn't be mine, it'd be theirs instead. Which I think is a good thing about art. We can get very up in arms about faithful or unfaithful adaptations (sometimes, for very noble reasons!) but I think that in many ways the thing about ideas and stories is that even people with mutually perfect grasps of the text will have completely different notions about what it means.

And I think this is the biggest reason I like having an audience. I love hearing about what my stuff means to other people.

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

I quite frankly could afford to do a lot more planning. I don't just mean this as idle self-deprecation!

Generally, ideas come very easily and naturally to me. Putting any amount of media or content into my brain causes it to ping all over the place like kernels in a popcorn machine. Even leaving ideas to fester just boils them down into stock that feeds new ideas. It's one way that my adhd definitely works with my writing process on a formative level, and I think that it is a big connection to the way I engage and interrelate with media. At the same time, though, if it has a drawback, it's that it's always easier to run off on a new idea than stick by a current project.

In that sense, to run with the 'gardener' metaphor, I have tremendous success getting things to take seed and grow, but not so much with an actual nice or orderly garden- but I've met some people with some absolutely beautiful topiaries and ivy-encrusted fountains, and getting older and more experienced myself, I've been getting more precise with the pruning shears and thinking harder about what things are going to mean. A great comparison for this is if you compare my 'early draft', Refuse and Regret, to my current ongoing one of the same story, Refuge For Resolve, I planned absolutely nothing in Refuse and Regret. I had the VAGUEST notion of where I wanted some things to go but I was really just running with it and deciding chapter-to-chapter what I wanted to happen next and while this meant it was tremendous fun to write, in hindsight it's pretty labyrinthine and potentially directionless. RFR, meanwhile, I thought a lot more on it- if nothing else, lining it up with my friend Meta's parallel fic meant I've had to think about certain achievements or thresholds PK runs into.

Admittedly, this does mean that a lot of ideas for Refuse and Regret went to the wayside. There was a concept I entertained briefly of PK leaving the Ancient Basin by way of the Deepnest Tram Station and getting shoved off a ledge to his (temporary) death by Galien.

[frangipanidownunder]

Would you write a sequel to your last One Son fic, maybe before The Unnatural where Mulder tries to apologize? Your fic hurt me in the best kind of way.

Healing: fic

A/N You can read the original fic Superficial Burns but you don’t have to read it to understand this sequel, but it might help.

Thanks for the prompt, anon. This is set post One Son through to The Unnatural. 

They play house too soon. He presses to share the master bedroom,“to add authenticity”, but she pushes him out. She’s being petty, she knows, pointingout toothpaste tube and toilet seat misdemeanours. Still, he’s genuinely playful,attentive for a while, but she flips her gloves at him, bats away thecamcorder, turns her cheek as he goes to kiss her. Ironically, their discordonly gives them more authenticity as a couple.

She shut him out and sheshouldn’t have been surprised when he drops her home and doesn’t ask to carryher bag up. Her apartment is as empty as she feels. She goes to bed and punishesherself with the desperate noise he made when he came inside her, the way hislips pressed against the juncture of her jaw and ear lobe, the slow opening ofhis eyes, pupils dilated, surprise followed by awe followed by guilt.

She should have quit. She shouldhave walked away. He did.

Arthur Dales tells Mulder she saved his life, that she issavvy and Mulder has the good grace to look contrite. He’s mysterious about therobbery in the bank, about how he knew the female accomplice. He rambles onabout déjà vu and Scully can’t help but review the past through the lens of thepresent. Like the memory of their frantic coupling in her kitchen is trapped inthe wrong spot in her brain. Like if it only happened yesterday, she would saysomething to him, he would say something to her.

And then he admits to an onlinefriendship with Karin Berquist, a woman enamoured of him yet he acts like hecan’t see it. She wonders just how ignorant he can really be.

He fucked her in her apartmentand hasn’t talked about it since.

She saves a boy in a phonebooth.Saves a child. What she can’t do is save herself. Padgett’s words burn throughher. Agent Scully is already in love.She hates it. She fucking hates that it’s someone else telling her the secretsof her own heart. And that it is so fucking obvious.

She should have quit.

              After, Mulderbooks a motel room. He won’t leave her alone. Part of her wants to yell at himthat he’s as bad as Padgett, always there, hovering. He keeps looking at herchest like there’s a gaping hole there. It’s not that her heart is missing,that’s the thing. It’s that it’s still there. Beating. Full of a secret, hersecret. And she’s sure he can see it.

              “Scully,there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you for a while,” he says buthe’s lying across the bed with his long legs stretched out and his tee clingingto his frame and that soft expression he wears when he’s off the clock.

              “I’mtired.” She sounds like Laura Petrie.

              His lipspush out and his eyes flick to the television screen briefly. When he turnsback to look at her he sits up and rests his elbows on his knees, rubbing atthe back of his hair. He’s tired too. “I thought I’d lost you,” he says and he’salready taking a huge gulp of air in. He slaps the bed linen and she sees thathe is trembling. “I thought you were dead. In my apartment. On my floor. Yourheart gone.”

              “I’mfine, Mulder.” She’ll always be fine. Heart or not.

              Hecovers his face with his hands. Beautiful long fingers. His strangled moan is ashock. For a split second she thinks he’s weeping, but when his hands fallaway, his eyes are dry and angry. “You’re fine,” he says. “Well, that makes itall right.” The low rumbling is not, she finds out, on the television. It iscoming from him.

              Sheslips under the covers of her bed and turns out the lamp. He doesn’t move. Justgrowls like a wounded, angry Alpha.

The case in Las Vegas is nothing but a fever dream. Mulderpries her for more information but she can’t tell him anything. He accepts it,offers to buy her a bagel.

              “Realcream cheese,” he says and she laughs. It feels like her heart is beating to adifferent rhythm. A lighter one.

              Thediner is too shiny but she lets him yammer on as she tries to hide her eyesfrom the brightness. The bagel is good. Mulder is relaxed, smiling. These arethe times she knows she’ll never quit. He sips his second coffee so slowly shebegins to wonder if he’s building up to something.

              “You okay,Mulder?”

              He looksout to the street where an old couple wander past, arm in arm. “They seem happytogether,” he says. “How do you suppose that feels?”

              “Are youreally asking my expert opinion on the longevity of relationships, Mulder?”

              Hisfingers thrum on the table top, scattering grains of sugar. He chuckles. “We’reshit at this, aren’t we Scully?”

              “This?”

              “Talking.”

              “Ah,yes. That.”

              He doesthat slow blink again and she sees them in her apartment, rutting. Baseemotion. Need. The burn on her fingers.

              “Ishould have told you earlier, after…you know…that night. I was out of line.What I said to you about making it personal. Diana…she believes in me and I…”

              “Ibelieve in you, Mulder.” She stands up. He says nothing more. No scramblingbackwards, no apology, nothing. He fucked her in her apartment and then walkedaway. She holds his gaze just enough to make his lips press together. “I alwayshave.”

              He letsher leave. She should have quit.

              He callsher later. Wants to come round. She tells him she’s busy. He whispers a sorryas she cuts him off. He arrives 30 minutes later. He walks past her, goes tothe kitchen. To the same spot.

              “Why areyou here, Mulder?”

              Hestands where he stood, where he put his hands on her. Where she unzipped hispants and he bunched up her skirt. “You said that before,” he says, “And thenwe…”

              Shefolds her arms around her ribs. Covers her heart. “Fucked.”

              Heflinches.

              “It’swhat we did, Mulder. You could hardly ascribe a more romantic name to it. Didyou tell Diana?”

              “What?No!”

              His too-quickoutburst makes her feel unexpectedly superior. He fucked her and walked away.And maybe he has pushed it deep inside ever since, too.

              Hescratches his chin. “I stood outside your building for ten minutes that night, arguingwith myself about whether to turn round and go back to you.”

              “You’repretty hard to argue against,” she says. “You have this way of twistingeverything into the neat theory you’ve already designed.”

              “Scully.”It’s more resignation than warning. He leans back against the counter, one kneebent towards her. “I came here to say what I should have said then. That I’msorry I said that to you, about Diana. That I should never have reduced yourinput into our partnership to something purely emotional. I…” His hand slamshis bent thigh. “I am sorry, Scully. Truly. I never meant it to happen…”

              “Youneed to leave.”

              “Thatway,” he adds but he’s already nearly at the door. He looks back, framed in thedoorway. “I never meant it to happen that way, Scully. You mean more to me thanthat, much more.”

              He shutsthe door and she leans against it listening to him leave again. Footstepsfading. He won’t wait outside tonight.

              Shetries to sleep but her skin is crawling, burning. Her heart is red hot andheavy in her chest. She imagines strips of it peeling away, shavings of herlove falling deep into an empty cavity. But this time, she doesn’t think sheshould have quit. She knows she can never.

At 2am she drives across town.She knocks quietly. On his couch, he is backlit by the soft ocean colours ofhis fish tank. His stubble cuts a line across his jaw that is as sharp as thestabbing in her chest. Her fingers slide in and out of each other, knucklesrubbing together.

“You mean more to me too, Mulder,”she says. “And I’m sorry for asking you to leave. I…” she licks the dry patch onher lip and the couch creaks as he stands up. “I just wanted to say I’m sorrytoo. I am not good at this.” There is a tear building at the corner of one eye.It’s a weakness she dislikes. A demonstration of her vulnerability that she’sspent years trying to overcome. But he presses his thumb to it, collects hersoftness and lets it run down his wrist.

“Can we start again?”

“Ignore six years of partnership?”

His hand is a familiar comfort onher lower back as he urges her to sit. “No, use six years of partnership to ouradvantage instead of using it as wedge between us.”

One of his mollies floats to theside of the tank and she watches its graceful fins and tail fluttering in thewater. “How do we do that?”

“Doing more of that thing we’reshit at?” He laughs and she cuffs away the tears streaking her cheeks.

“And Diana? Where does she fit inall this?”

He looks ahead, at the posters onhis wall that catch the passing headlights from the street below. “Where shealways did, Scully. In the past.”

They flirt over clichés in the basement office. When hegrapples her tofutti rice dreamsicle from her hands, their skin sparks togetherin way that tingles but doesn’t burn. He kisses her lips and tells her he’sgoing to see Arthur Dales.

              “InFlorida?”

              “No, he’shere in Washington.”

She watches him for a while. The ease with which he swingsthe bat. The movement of his shoulders. He’s in his element.

              “So,uh… I get this message marked urgent on my answering service from one FoxMantle telling me to come down to the park for a very special very early orvery late birthday present. And, Mulder… I don’t see any nicely wrappedpresents lying around so, what gives?”

              It’s notuntil he tells her to “get over here, Scully,” she fully understands what thisis. Sure, it’s baseball. Sure, they flirt. Sure, it’s a date, Mulder-style. Butit’s more than the sum of its parts.

              It’shealing.

[dontcallmecarrie]

Fic Idea: The Fix-it Version [I Probably Won't Be Writing Because I Can't Do Romance To Save My Life]

Warnings: mental health issues, dubious morality, probably OOC in some places, extreme/severe Wanda bashing [which culminates in character death; if that’s not your cup of tea, sorry, maybe next time?], a JARVIS that’s uncomfortably close to Skynet, and a mindtrip of epic proportions [that can probably be classified as cruel and unusual torture, Inception-style]. Semi-canon compliant, through a certain point of view, though with shameless timeline fudging.

...On the plus side, there’s also Science Bros [kinda], and Team As Family feels? 

[The attempt at romance in here could fit with probably any pairing, I just picked this one because I used to ship it a lot harder in the past.]

Also, heads up for a very, very long post. [Sorry about that.]

Edited only to put in a cut, because I’m not kidding as to how long this is.

Tony Stark was a genius.

It was a fact of which there was no doubt, he had the test results from age three to prove it, even his greatest critics were forced acknowledge his intellect. Not to mention his impressive track record involving new patents and elements, or that one of the media's names for him was "the Da Vinci of our day"-- he was a genius, full stop.

That the world somehow forgot was another matter.

Sure, he was surrounded by superpowered people—gods and spies and doctors with breathtaking anger issues— but it still got old, the way everyone seemed to forget his multiple doctorates with each explosion. His laundry list of awards, hell, the new element he’d created, seemed to get overshadowed by the people he ran with. [To be fair, it'd be kind of hard to see past the Crown Prince of Asgard, but still.]

Point is, his brain's wired differently. It may sound arrogant, but it was true. Tony Stark had a gift that let him interact with the world on a level far beyond most mortals' ken, was able to take and assimilate data and work miracles.

Reason this all comes up is because a) that meant mental health issues were a special sort of hell, and, b) Wanda really didn't know what the fuck she was doing when she tried to screw with his mind.

What I’m getting to is this:

Tony never really snapped out of the initial mind-whammy Wanda hit him with, back in Sokovia.

It wasn't something she'd expected; she'd practiced with plenty of people, and yet the one guy she'd sworn revenge against for years gave a single panicked gasp, before slumping over and promptly going comatose.

Here's the thing: Wanda hadn't accounted for how his mind would accept the data presented. Like all other things, Tony's gift for rapidly processing and assimilating other input took this newest development, and proceeded to take it and run with it.

Tony's trapped in his head, stuck with only his inner demons and Wanda's malice. He doesn't notice; between his PTSD, and the way his greatest strengths are now being used against him, Tony only knows he's being confronted with his worst nightmares being turned reality, and the worst part is? It's a prison of his own making.

Every single subconscious fear is being dragged to the forefront, from betrayal to his own inadequacy at protecting those he loves. He's being torn down again and again by strangers wearing familiar faces, and Tony knows something's off but he can't quite pinpoint what and… and it's getting to the point where part of him's so bone-tired he sometimes can't help but wonder: would death would really be that much harder? Because as time goes by, he's getting so, so worn and he's so alone, that he's nearing his breaking point. [Just like Wanda had wanted him, in that moment when she'd thoughtlessly toyed with the very fragile and very powerful thing that was Tony's mind.]

There's just one problem: Wanda did her job too well.

See, JARVIS was the first to notice something was so, fundamentally wrong: Sir's readings had flickered erratically, but then after the female Enhanced had taken her leave, he had remained unresponsive to his increasingly desperate attempts to get his attention. Even as he notified the Avengers to this newest development, however, he set to scouring the world for the Dead Person Walking who'd dared to harm Sir. [He'd eviscerate them, would make them bleed and burn the world with a smile if it meant Sir's safety, Sir, please, wake up—]

The Avengers aren't ones to take this lying down, either.

Clint's especially vicious, at first; he's the first one to reach Tony, sees the fading traces of red in his eyes, remembers when his world had become awash with blue, and his hands don’t shake when he takes a shot at the fleeing duo [even though he so, desperately wants to]. The cry of pain he hears is vaguely cathartic, but vanishes the moment he hears Tony's first whimper and something is Not Right, this is beyond his pay grade, he needs backup stat!

Natasha's expression is blank, and that was everyone's first tip as to how furious she was. She hasn't let go of her phone, between keeping her friends updated [Pepper had cried when she'd heard Tony wouldn't wake], and scouring her contacts list for anyone who might have a shred of a clue as to how to help. She refused to give up on her friends, and Tony'd shared his coffee with her more than once at three in the morning, and they'd commiserated about tough choices and bloody pasts and second chances one too many times for her to consider him anything but.

Bruce is taking readings. He hasn't stopped, because the alternative is looking at the too-still and far-too-silent figure on the bed rather than the data, and if he does that… they'd have to deal with the Other Guy, who has some Strong Opinions as to his favorite person's current state— no, make that their favorite person: Bruce is very reserved, can't afford to be anything else, but somehow, despite everything, Tony'd managed to wriggle past his defenses with his constant chatter and Star Trek references and snacks and if he thought about it too much he'd have another Code Green, nope, focus on those brainwave patterns and see what he could do—

Thor had rushed to Asgard with the Scepter in tow, intent on returning with assistance, because Midgard was still so young in so many ways but he knew what branch of magic Lord Anthony had been a victim of, had heard Loki mention it offhandedly once or twice in their youth when showing off the power of enchantments, and there had to be a healer or magician willing to help—

Steve, meanwhile, has been taking it the worst: he'd been bantering with the team not five minutes before, and now he's seeing Clint, sharp and brittle in a way that was dangerously similar to the New York fiasco, and snarling about magic and oh god that was Tony.

Steve's heart had stuttered when he saw his body, and Natasha's bumping shoulders with Clint in an effort to help calm him down and Bruce looks like he's about as controlled as ever, but Steve's just. Drowning.

Because he's lost another friend, now; he'd just started to heal from Bucky's death, when the HYDRA reveal happened, and Tony'd been there for him afterwards, had been a good friend and helped him and Sam in their search. Tony'd been one of the last reminders of his past, had been a walking memorial of the generosity of an old friend [for all that Tony had hated to talk about his father, he was the spitting image of the man Steve had known, in some ways], and now? He's just…lost.

Steve had been talking to Natasha and JARVIS as to how to break it to Tony gently about his growing suspicions about HYDRA's involvement in Howard's death.

 [maybe it wasn't the Winter Soldier who did it, in this reality; maybe it was someone at the party who'd kept smiling and upping the alcohol content in Howard's drinks, and had sabotaged the brake fluid in his car instead. Thing is, Tony's head is a scary place, and with his growing paranoia and Wanda's influence, he can't help but jump to the worst-case scenario]

And ditto as to his possible crush that Natasha may or may not have been teasing him about for months. The crush that had merited multiple pitying looks from the team, because apparently he'd been very unsubtle in his attempts at hiding it, even if Tony had never noticed because the man was surprisingly obtuse in anything that vaguely smacked of emotions. Yeah, that crush. The one he'd put on the backburner, and was now bitterly regretting it.

So, yes, Steve wasn't doing well.

Time passes, and Thor comes and goes in his forays to seek out help. In doing so, however, the Avengers are only freaking out more and more, because with every hour that passes, Tony's condition only gets worse. His body's visibly getting more stressed, Bruce's tests have him hitting the tea more than ever before in an attempt to get a grip, and Steve hates seeing Tony like this but can't bear to leave [or let go of his hand].

JARVIS was especially distressed when, a few hours into his not-coma, Sir started to cry and call for him, and he'd never felt more helpless than when his sobs tapered off and mutters of a 'Vision' started. In his frustration, he dedicates more firepower towards finding the Dead Person Walking, and redoubles his search for anyone capable of doing anything.

It takes JARVIS less than three days, for him to find Wanda. It takes even less time, to capture her. Natasha is more than happy to aid him in interrogating her, and if the realization that she didn't know what she had done resulted in yet another corpse in a now-abandoned HYDRA bunker? Well...the instigator's death had no effect on Sir's condition meant it was no loss, at any rate. [That she'd shown absolutely no regret about having hurt Sir on such a fundamental level was only part of why JARVIS hadn't been particularly concerned about it all.]

More time passes, and the Avengers are growing increasingly desperate. Bruce had been forced to abscond to the Hulk-proof room after his latest set of readings, because Tony'd been showing all the warning signs for an impending heart attack despite their best efforts to help, and Steve's now going for a new streak in 'number of punching bags broken in an hour'.

Clint and Natasha are only marginally better off; having the knowledge that the witch was dead did something for Clint's peace of mind, but seeing Tony suffer was still grating on his nerves, and their spars grow increasingly vicious as time goes on. [If Steve wasn't even worse off, he'd have been staring in shock; as it was, he could only offer a tired smile when he saw them from his spot in the gym.]

Then, Thor returns with a name: Kamar-Taj.

Apparently, the Earth had magic as well, though it'd been hidden remarkably well. JARVIS takes this newest development, and runs with it as far as possible. The Quinjet was in India within the hour, with Bruce and Natasha calmly making their way to where JARVIS had identified a possible location. Clint's busily guarding Tony and keeping an eye on Steve, who'd wanted to go but was self-aware enough to know he wasn't the best guy for the job at the moment, and Thor was too conspicuous for it too.

Bruce knew enough Hindi to get by without too many weird looks, and the look in Natasha's eyes is enough to keep any potential muggers at bay. They find it quickly, and the wary questions they're asked means they're ushered to a darkened room in short order. Another terse few minutes of conversation finally have the Ancient One, alongside her right-hand man, walking back with the duo. [Bruce has to quell his knee-jerk reaction to run when he feels how everyone's attention when he mentions Thor's mention of 'mind magics' and something about stones? Man, he hated magic.]

A quick portal [that had the Avengers shifting and tensing uneasily when it'd opened, because hello security concerns] trip later, and Steve is a hairsbreadth away from snapping when the Ancient One surges backwards from where she'd run a few cursory hands near Tony's head.

"Who did this?" She asked, devastated fury evident in her tone and the way her companion moved to protect her. "This is an unspeakable act, punishable by death."

"They're dead." Clint replied, cold smile on his face and rolling an arrow [one of Tony's designs, one he'd been fiddling with before Sokovia] between his fingers.

"Good," the Ancient One bites out, "this is a travesty. It's mentioned in our archives, but only strong magicians with years of training even dare approach this, and only ever for healing purposes."

"Is there anything you can do?" Thor asked, "Few mages in Asgard specialize in this branch, and among that number the ones I knew who were capable of it are dead."

She looks at them, at the desperate look in their eyes, at the weariness in Bruce's face and the tension in Steve's frame and utter blankness in Natasha's expression, and smiles.

"Yes. It requires a lot of delicacy and preparation, especially for something that's lasted as long as this, but yes. Your friend is strong; it's been centuries since a human's been recorded with being under this, and they all died within three days."

Steve dented his chair when he sat back down, while Natasha merely tilted her head and replied, "It's been a week."

That added to the urgency, apparently: the Ancient One shared a look of horrified awe with Mordo, and set to work making their various preparations. Within the hour, they were ready, and when she asked if they would permit some of Kamar-Taj's students to observe the enchantment necessary for it, the team had a hurried, hushed debate.

"Please use your discretion. Only those who would not impede the process, I suppose." Natasha finally said, electing to be the Avenger's spokesperson [now that Tony was out of commission nope don't think about it—].

Steve didn't leave Tony's side until a few minutes before the ritual started; and then, he couldn't look away from the growing circle and only blinked when the light got too close to blinding even for him, and when he heard a quietly heartbroken "so was I" and a scream Thor had to help hold him down to keep from interfering.

Clint, meanwhile, shifted the entire time, antsy about magic and couldn't help but envy Bruce for stepping outside [the Other Guy was even less of a fan of magic than he was, and that took effort], and trying not to stare too openly at one of the students who'd elected to watch the ceremony. It was kind of hard, actually; he'd introduced himself as Dr. Stephen Strange, but in the minutes that it'd taken for Mordo to finish setting up the room, Clint couldn't help but notice the way the man hadn't stopped with the questions [much like Tony had with Thor nope nope he'd wake up dammit—] and it was uncanny, especially with the Van Dyke the man was sporting.

The ceremony's completed, and Tony's heart stopped partway through.

Fortunately, apparently Strange had actually been a medical doctor in the past, and between him, Bruce, and the Iron Man suit JARVIS had  commandeered to help in this endeavor, restarting it was less stressful than the past few hours had been.

"He should wake soon," the Ancient One told them, "make sure he takes it easy while he recovers, it's not often that people survive a death-curse."

The Avengers in general thanked her profusely, and JARVIS did the same. Then, at long last, they went home.

Tony wakes up to JARVIS' voice updating him about New York's weather forecast and stock prices and his relief of his latest change in status, with the familiar beeping of a heart monitor in the background. [Well, now familiar, at least, between Rhodey and Happy and nope—]

"Hey, Vision, where you at?"

"Sir, who is this 'Vision' you speak of? It is currently May—"

Tony sat up abruptly, heart starting to hammer again as he took in his surroundings. "Vision, where am I? This isn't funny."

"Sir, I am JARVIS. Do you require medical assistance?"

Tony froze from where he'd been running a hand through his hair. "JARVIS?" He breathed, and then looked around again carefully, "Oh, god. I lost it, didn't I?"

JARVIS was alarmed when Sir started laughing, and then his breath hitched and he started crying.

As such, it was perfectly understandable that he urged the Avengers to hurry; Mr. Barton and Ms. Romanov had been sparring in the gym while Capt. Rogers had been coming back from lunch, and Thor was currently in the middle of yet another Q&A session with the Ancient One concerning possible extraplanetary threats and magic.

Tony was barely getting his bearings back, and wondering what the hell was going on, when the door burst open, and what the fuck?!

He couldn't quite hide a flinch when Steve surged towards him, relief evident on his face, and…what.

Why was he being hugged? Was this another attempt to kill him, wasn't Siberia enough? What the— why was Natasha smiling? No, strike that; why was Clint smiling? Bruce was here?! And why was he hearing JARVIS' voice from the walls and not from Vision, again?

"Oh, god. I've really lost it this time, haven't I?"

The story comes out, of course.

Tony doesn’t know why Steve refuses to let him go if at all possible, but the part of him that hopes this isn't just some nervous breakdown isn't shy about enjoying the hugs [even if they got almost too tight in some parts, like when his voice broke when talking about Ultron, or the Civil War and it was all his fault—] and the way the team didn't seem to hate him [for once].

Actually…Tony isn't sure if he's really lost it, but he's also not sure if he wants to find out. Because here, JARVIS lives, and Rhodey can walk, and people actually listen to him about his worries and actually seem to care—

Clint and Natasha share a Look, the more Tony goes on. [Clearly, they'd been too merciful, when dealing with Wanda.]

Bruce greeted Tony with a smile, and then gave him some personal space: he knew him well enough to know it'd be appreciated, and what with the way the rest of the team was acting, Tony'd be lucky if he so much as went to the bathroom without an armed escort for the rest of the year.

Thor, when he arrives, tries to wrap Tony up in a hug—which makes for a dicey situation, because Steve refuses to let him go and Natasha and Clint are also a lot more likely to try to cuddle right now after the scare they all had. There may or may not be a small battle royale going on in the living room for the best spot on the couch, whenever Tony so much as gets up for a glass of water.

[aka Tony gets all the hugs]

Steve, meanwhile, is just as bad as JARVIS regarding his willingness to let Tony out of his eyesight. That is to say, he's very unwilling to do so. As in, barely willing to let him out of arms' distance, and that'd been before he'd heard about Tony's ordeal. [He hadn’t noticed Tony's flinch at first, but it's not until he heard about the 'Civil War', and Siberia that it hits home, just why he'd reacted that way, and it hurts.]

JARVIS has been in Sentry Mode since Sokovia. He has yet to let Sir out of his sensors' range, and the odds of that ever happening lower with each day that passes. Not that Sir's complaining; more than once, he'd simply called, "JARVIS?" just to hear a response, and seemed to take comfort in his updates about the situation.

Colonel James 'Rhodey' Rhodes had been in the middle of a mission, when JARVIS informed him of Tony's coma. If it hadn't been so sensitive, he would've up and vanished, but as it was he was the only thing between a warlord and a poor province until backup arrived, and though he burned to leave ASAP, he couldn't. [Tony'd never forgive him.]

The moment the op was over, though, and the people were safe, James pushed his suit to the limit to get to Tony's side, where his best friend was awake and coherent and rushing in for a tight hug just like he'd been after Afghanistan. He knows exactly why Rogers refuses to let go of Tony [even if it's for starkly different reasons; the man was not subtle at all, and if he hadn't known Tony for years, James'd wonder if he was being purposefully obtuse, because this was getting ridiculous].

He stays for as long as he can manage, and the way Tony just collapsed into his side each time means he's sharing increasingly concerned looks with the Avengers, because he's known Tony to be rather stoic about some things [ha—understatement of the year], and yet the friend he's known for decades teared up the moment he strode into the room, and what the hell happened to him?!

But no matter; he'll be there for Tony. Just like always.

Pepper's much the same way, having been dealing with investors in Japan, and able only to arrive after all had been said and done [though she'd noticed the haunted look in Tony's eyes, and made a note to talk with James and JARVIS about what actions needed to be taken to remedy this]. She wraps him up in a hug when she first sees him, and the way he'd only slowly relaxed was enough of a warning in and of itself, to her.

She's got a business meeting coming up, but in the meantime she and Tony curl up and watch old French movies with the lights off, and sharing blankets and granola without a care for crumbs. [She smiles when he finally loses that last edge of tension, when he slumps bonelessly against her and the couch, and doesn’t make a comment about the blinking earpiece he’s got, the one JARVIS likes to use whenever Tony’s out and about and needing a discreet way to stay connected. Tony was strong, he’d pull through. And she’d help him, whenever he asked it of her, as per usual.] 

Time passes, and Tony heals. 

He stops flinching at everyone’s sudden movements, stops startling whenever he hears JARVIS, gradually starts opening up again and lowering his guard, inch by inch. Slowly starts to up his chatter again, and the team’s never been more relieved than when the familiar strains of AC/DC start to filter through again, after months of silence [because Tony only ever played music when he was comfortable, when he felt safe and happy and secure with his place in the world].

Time passes, and everyone gradually moves on, though JARVIS' Sentry Mode is still a constant shadow to Tony and the Avengers' paranoia regarding magic never really goes away, not until months after Stephen Strange becomes a consultant and they see him and Tony bantering about facial hair and Arthur C. Clarke and doctorates.

Time passes, and when Thanos arrives, it's to an Earth with a set of guardians all as fiercely protective of each other as a pack of wolves, a tight-knit and cohesive unit devastating both on the battlefield and off of it.

[Suffice it is to say, Thanos doesn’t walk away from that particular encounter.]

There’s more going on in the background, of course. Exhibit A being the romance subplot [that could apply to just about any pairing in this scenario], and I’ve really skimmed just how long it takes for Tony to heal from experiencing canon events. 

Steven Strange’s part got shifted up in the timeline, and the Ancient One doesn’t die; instead, he ends up being a consultant for the Avengers, but his focus is on keeping the New York Sanctum safe. [Mordo, Wong, and James Rhodes just share a Look, the moment they first see Tony Stark and Stephen Strange in the same room. It may or may not have been one of horrified awe, of ‘oh god there’s two of them’, minutes before the first explosion started.]

...FYI, this JARVIS is basically TWiFFON’s JARVIS, and just my approach to him in general. That is to say, his focus on Tony’s safety and happiness is one of [if not the] biggest motivation for his actions, and a morality a lot more nebulous than most would probably be comfortable with, given he’s basically Skynet as is.

[kootenaygoon]

So,

It felt like driving to a battle ground.

My RAV rumbled over the exposed roots of massive trees and navigated the meandering forest road into Shambhala for the third year in a row, with Andrew Stevenson riding shotgun. I was already dressed for the part in a pair of paint splatter tights I’d borrowed from Natalya, and we were sharing a joint with dappled sunlight on our faces. A grinning skull wearing a ceremonial headdress cackled at me from the hood of a derelict truck as ghost fingers of smoke reached longingly from between the trunks. The further I immersed into the grey haze, the more I felt like I was appearing on an episode of Game of Thrones. They had just released the third episode of the seventh season, and Queen Daenerys’ continued ascent could only mean one thing: a coming conflagration of epic proportions.

It was Thursday afternoon, and we’d just put the paper to bed with the following cover story: “Shambhala dodges evacuation alert”. I’d called the Southeast Fire Centre to ask them about a 75-hectare fire that was currently raging 20 kilometres southeast of Salmo and asked them a bunch of questions: What were the chances of it coming closer? How long would it take if to reach the ranch? Was I an idiot for heading out there in person? How close does a fire have to be to trigger an evacuation? The representative reassured me that the fire was extremely unlikely to close the distance to the festival in the next four days, and promised there were plenty of obstacles in the way to keep it contained. I hung up relieved, but also skeptical. 

Guessing at the behaviour of a forest fire seemed as wrong-headed as underestimating a dragon.

Lately I’d been re-reading the Song of Ice and Fire series on my Kindle, scouring the text for new clues about the various theories I’d heard on the Internet. It amazed me how George R. R. Martin used layer after layer of world-building, doggy-piling the reader with names of secondary characters, so that each time you read it there was something new to discover. I was convinced the whole narrative was cleverly disguised science fiction, with the world’s population having regressed after an apocalyptic event. Readers who only engaged in the present tense storyline, wondering what would happen next with Jon Snow or Arya or Tyrion, were missing out on the decades and even centuries of Westeros history Martin had created to establish their current setting. There was no way the show could match this intricacy, and the quality of each episode had been diminishing dramatically since the show-runners overcame his source material.  

“Do you think I’m the villain of this story?” I asked Andrew Stevenson, as the RAV continued to splash through pot-holes. He was picking at his fingernails angrily, and didn’t look up.

“What makes you say that?”

“I started off as this blond Cupid that everyone was rooting for, now it’s like I become a shittier person the longer I stay in the Kootenays. I feel like it’s been one long plummet since Paisley left, like I’ve become this person I don’t even recognize. This pot-head asshole piece of shit.”

He snorted. “You said it, not me.”

Andrew was wearing a dirty white tank tucked into his jeans, and a pair of those cheesy wrap-around sunglasses you buy at gas stations. His hair was poorly cut, maybe by his wife, and his clusters of acne on each cheek made him look like a kid. I’d looked at Andrew Stevenson from all kinds of angles, but I never found one that truly satisfied me. I thought of him every time I came to Shambhala, because this was his town. These were the people he started out doing drugs with. It was his friends that were dropping dead of fentanyl overdoses, his people who were killing themselves with shotguns. He’d spent his entire life in the Kootenays, moving from one community to the next, and he’d fathered all his kids here. It was thoughts of them that propelled him over that bank counter, that got him swinging his shotgun around at those tellers while he shrieked like a fucking goblin.

He passed me the joint. “Once you have kids, man. It’s this whole other element. Like think what Eminem would be without his daughter, right? He’s living for her, the same way I was living for my kids every day.”

“Sometimes I worry, you know? I feel like it’s a sexual version of musical chairs and I’m going to be the one left holding my dick,” I said. “I’ve wanted to be a Dad since I understood what that meant. I feel like it’s my whole purpose, but who the fuck is going to have a baby with me?”

He snickered. “It’s going to hit you like a shovel to the face.”

As I pulled out of the forest into the yawning fields of the ranch, we were met with a security officer, who tried to send me the normal route even though I had a press pass. I argued with him, entitled, telling him that the last two years I’d come they always let me go through the back way.

“You can call Jimmy. He’ll tell you. Will Johnson from the Nelson Star.” 

The guy shrugged back a bit, cowed by the power of Jimmy’s name. At the end of the day, he was the guy. He owned the ranch, founded Shambhala and basically made this who endeavour come to life. He was like Zuckerberg, always wearing a humble T-shirt and never rocking the millionaire vibe. It looked like he still shopped at Value Village. 

“Give me a moment, I’m going to ask my manager,” he said, rounding the hood of my car and making a call through his walkie talkie. He was bouncing his chin along with a beat I couldn’t hear.

I sulked, annoyed with the delay. I wanted to get situated on the grounds with enough time to walk the ranch in daylight. It was late afternoon already, and I really didn’t want to go through with the indignity of a search. Especially because I was carrying things they could find if they did their jobs properly. While I waited for an answer, Andrew Stevenson jutted out his hip and pointed to it, grinning.

“I’m not shoving everything up my ass,” I said. “Shut up.”

Eventually the guy returned and waved me through the back way, a muddy cow-trail that led out to where all the cars were parked. It still struck me, how bizarre it was to see that many vehicles randomly parked in such an idyllic place. It was like seeing an army preparing to attack, the soldiers getting organized into rows. As I followed the smiling flaggers into the media section, I felt like Queen Daenerys as she patrolled the ranks of her invading Dothraki. When was my ascent going to be?

Once we got ourselves parked, I dug out a bottle of vodka from the dash and sat on the hood of my RAV doing shots. Some nearby campers shouted “Happy Shambs” and gave some half-hearted introductions, but mostly left us alone. I’d been feeling grateful to Andrew lately, now that the Maisonneuve story had come out, but also a little guilty. I wished I could’ve gotten an interview him him. It felt strange to tell his story without his input. Maybe he hated the article, maybe he felt I got it wrong.

All I wanted was to get it right.

Next I pulled out the provisions Niles had given me. I was meeting Steph the next day, but this evening was reserved for me. Andrew opened the Ziploc bag and handed over my share. We chased it with vodka.

“What people always forget about Daenerys is that her father’s the fucking Mad King. So who’s to say she’s not going to become the Mad Queen?”

Andrew laughed. “It wasn’t genetic. It was his reality that drove the Mad King over the edge, all his political rivals scheming and plotting to take him out. She’s in a totally different context than he was.”

“But they say all Targaryens are a little mad, right? They’ve all got that fire, that purple magic?”

He sighed. “She does seem to enjoy burning people to death.”

Taking one more shot of vodka, Andrew threw himself down on the grass and started slipping out of his boots. He pulled off his shirt to reveal a bullet-proof vest, then pulled off his scruffy jeans. He pulled on a bulky black sweater, then tight black military-style pants, followed by black boots. He threw a matching set in front of me. This was what we always wore when we were hunting rapists. It was a task I was getting increasingly ambivalent about, but Andrew pursued it with a religious glee. He wanted to find sexual wrong-doers and feed them to crocodiles. That’s what he fucking lived for.

I began to get dressed as well. “Where’re we going?” I asked.

“We’re heading to the Fractal Forest. We need to be there by 6 p.m.”

“Who’s playing at 6 p.m.?”

“It doesn’t matter who’s playing.”

“Then why do we need to be there by 6? What difference does it make?”

He turned dramatically towards me, for effect: “The difference: it’s your funeral.”

“What are you talking about, my funeral?”

“After crucifixion comes resurrection, right? Think about the Greyjoys: what is dead may never die, but rises again harder and stronger. You have to die so you can be reborn.”

“What’re you gonna do? Drown me in the Salmo River?”

He shook his head. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

Next he held out two black balaclavas. Ski masks. This was what he was wearing at the Nelson & District Credit Union, that day in 2014, two weeks before I moved to town. This was the event that had connected us, and I wanted to feel its truth. It wasn’t enough to know that he robbed that place, that he escaped on a bicycle, that he was so high he couldn’t even remember the events afterwards. I wanted to feel that urgency in my blood, that desperation, I wanted to evoke it on the page and make it so real it couldn’t be brushed aside. A full-grown human man was pushed to these lengths, felt he had no other choice but to take a blind run at crime. It was like Breaking Bad in real life. I wondered constantly what happened to his kids when their two parents went away.

We pulled on the balaclavas. Facing me, Andrew put his hands on both my shoulders and spoke through the black cloth. Maybe it made him feel more comfortable saying what he had to say next.

“Think of it as a car crash, okay? You know it’s coming, and you know that you won’t have any control over what happens. But you also know you’re going to survive it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He sighed. “Look at yourself, Will. You’re a chronic pot smoker living in your friend’s basement and doing drugs at Shambhala like you’re some rave kid, in the middle of an overdose crisis. What the fuck are you thinking?”

“I just figure, you know, when in Rome.”

“That’s the level of intellectual thought you’ve put into this: when in Rome? You’re gambling with your whole future, fucking around like this. What if you permanently alter your brain chemistry?”

“My brain was damaged to begin with. I’d rather be fucked in the head than depressed. I couldn’t deal with the sadness anymore.”

“Those are your excuses. That’s all they are.”

After a while we stopped arguing, had a couple more shots of vodka, then headed off towards the festival reunited. It was true he was like Eminem, while I was Stan, and Ryan Tapp could be our Slim Shady. We were a trifecta that way, three souls with interlinked stories. The Bank Robber, the Legend and the Holy Spirit. I wished Ryan could be there, but this was something that had to be settled between Andrew and I. And just as I was thinking that, he chose our target. I rushed up to see what would happen next.

“We’re going to make a little human sacrifice,” Andrew said, channeling Tyler Durden, as he held his black shotgun to the throat of a quivering rave kid. “Yeah, and this guy looks like he’ll please the Gods.”

“Hold on, we can’t do this here. People will hear the blast,” I said, my head whipping back and forth. There were people parading past only twenty feet away, but they weren’t looking over to where we were crouched in the shadows.

“On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

“Are you quoting Fight Club?”

“Raymond K. Hessel, you are going to die.”

He motioned for me to join him, then carefully transferred the gun into my hands. I looked down at the panicked Asian kid in front of me, who was stretching up his hands to unveil grotesque pit stains. He was 22, maybe 23.

“Ask him if he wants to die,” Andrew whispered.

“Do you want to die? Do you want me to kill you? Is that what you want?” I asked, really getting into my part now. I was really feeling it, like I was actually the guy with the gun. My whole life I’ve been the guy on the other side of the gun, but now it was in my hands. Mine mine mine. 

“No, please. I’ll do anything,” the guy said, his voice breaking. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

He blinked, confused. “I don’t know.”

After a long moment of silence, I lifted the barrel and gestured with my head. The raver kid want off into the darkness screaming with relief, and left me standing in the shadows with Andrew. He’d never killed anybody either, though he had the chance multiple times. He carried that black shotgun with him everywhere he went, but he only fired it once — into a door. He was trying to show me that he wasn’t a killer, not really, though he couldn’t admit it out loud. Much easier to embrace the guilt, to characterize yourself based on other people’s moral judgements. Much easier to be the bad guy.

By this point we were heading into the downtown of Shambhala, where all the food vendors clustered around the Pagoda Stage. I bought myself a burrito and shared it with Andrew in the dark, stumbling off towards Muscle Beach, our balaclavas pushed to our foreheads. The music was electrifying the night sky, so there was a lightning storm of purple energy reaching into the heavens. I figured sooner or later we would encounter Daenerys and her dragons, seeing as the smoke continued to billow into our faces. It smelled like campfire, like somebody was telling an increasingly grandiose story for all the gathered campers. It smelled like imagination.

“So here’s a question,” I said, as I wiped burrito off my chest. “How do you think Dany gave birth to those dragons? Was that science, or magic?”

“My money’s on science.”

“Even with all that blood sacrifice, with tying the maegi to the pyre and everything?”

“Dragons are biological creatures. They can only be birthed in a biological way. It was probably the heat from the pyre triggering some sort of genetic process or something. I don’t know, exactly.”

“Well, what about the fact that she wasn’t burned to death?”

He wagged a finger at me. “Now that’s different. That was a miracle. And that’s why people follow her: she performs miracles, just like Jesus.” 

“She’s a sexy little Jesus with a holy trinity of dragons on her side.”

“Exactly.”

I’d never really been a Daenerys fan before this conversation. It seemed too obvious, in a literary work with hundreds of characters, to go for her. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that her story resonated more strongly with my life than any of the others. I felt her familial exile, felt her frightened youth. I also knew the part of her that considered herself royalty, despite what anybody else says. She was determined to find her rightful place in this world, and that place was at the top. I grabbed ahold of two fleshy scales on Drogon’s back and soared above Shambhala with a dragon between my legs, high enough to see the forest fire on the other side of the mountain slope. It was orange, mostly, and didn’t seem especially lively. I circled around it, surveying its shape. 

“There’s no way that fire’s going to come for us,” I said, dangling from the scales as Drogon swooped. Andrew was clinging on right beside me. We were thousands of feet in the air.

“You haven’t been listening to anything I’m saying.”

The Kootenay Goon

[noiseartists]

Beauty In Chaos- U.S.A. finding beauty in the storm before the calm

Guitarist Michael Ciravolo has worked with an amazing array of musicians (see some below) over his career. As his project, Beauty in Chaos (BIC) is about to unleash its new album, The Storm before the Calm (love the title), Noise Artists meets with the head honcho.

But first let us thank Michael. Fanboys/girls that we are at Noise Artists, we are awed by the kindness Michael always had for fans like ourselves, and the time spent this article and the previous one. This is an honor.

Also a shout out to Shauna, from the Shameless Promotion PR that introduced us and represent BIC, and many other exceptional artists.

In January 2019, Michael had the gentleness to record his experience in creating and recording the songs of the first album, finding beauty in chaos, with the various featuring artists. A gem. You can find our article, Stories of an all star recording told by Michael Ciravolo , THERE.

The various artists that have been working with Michael on the BIC albums are: Simon Gallup (The Cure), Wayne Hussey (The Mission), Robin Zander (Cheap Trick), Pete Parada (The Offspring), dUg Pinnick (Kings X), ICE-T (Body Count), Michael Aston (Gene Loves Jezebel), Michael Anthony (Van Halen), Dirk Doucette (Gene Loves Jezebel), Ashton Nyte (The Awakening), Pando (A Flock of Seagulls), Evi Vine, Betsy Martin (Caterwaul / Purr Machine), Marc Danzeisen (The Riverdogs), Kevin Kipnis (Purr Machine / Kommunity FK), Rudy Matchinga (Red Scare), Johnny Indovina (Human Drama), Tish Ciravolo (StunGun/ Daisy Rock Guitars), Steven Seibold (Hate Dept.) Rafe Pearlman, Curse Mackey (My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Pigface EVIL MOTHERS), Kat Leon (Holy wars) and Adrienne LaVey

Needless to say that you should rush to buy not only the new album, but also the previous one. Some gems from great artists in a generous range of genres. You can find the music on the band’s website.

Now discover the project and the music with this interview given by Michael.

INTERVIEW

Who are the group members?

The consistent members in Beauty In Chaos is our producer Michael Rozon and myself. The ‘BIC Family’ as we like to refer to the amazing artists that have lent their talents is constantly revolving and evolving. The Mission’s Wayne Hussey and The Awakening’s Ashton Nyte amazing voices have each been featured on four songs to date. Other rock ‘luminaries’ include Simon Gallup (The Cure), Al Jourgensen (Ministry), and Robin Zander (Cheap Trick). Former Gene Love Jezebel’s drum Dirk Doucette has played on many of the tracks, and along with bassist Tish Ciravolo, have appeared in many of our videos.

In addition to Hussey and Nyte, our new album, ‘The Storm Before The Calm’ features new BIC Family members Curse Mackey, Steven Seibold, Rafe Pearlman and Holy Wars’ Kat Leon.

How did you come up with your name?

The name Beauty In Chaos was inspired by a photo I saw that some friends took of an abandoned building. While the structure was dilapidated and falling down, trees and vines had begun to almost reclaim it. Something about it struck me as ‘beauty’ in the middle of the destruction. I think each of us have both beauty and chaos in our lives … what those are my vary.

What is your music about?

I think we set the mood for light and dark, beauty and chaos. I always feel the best lyrics are the ones that are open to interpretation by not being so literal. I think all of the BIC singers do that extremely well.

What are your goals as an artist artistically/commercially?

Artistically I want to make a record that I am proud of. I feel that if I please myself, at least a few others will enjoy it. As far as commercially, that’s sort of a hot button with me. I think today there is a totally lack of ‘value’ placed on the art of making music. Maybe there is too much music out there. Maybe with some technology it seems too easy to make music. I hate the idea of streaming. To me, and I’m probably dating myself - music should be heard on vinyl. The entire experience of it. It is truly something special that many never experienced and sadly don’t care to experience. For BIC, I would just like to sell enough physical product for our label, 33.3 Music Collective to want to continue to release physical albums and CDs. I honestly don’t know if I would still do this if our only avenue was strictly digital.

What are you trying to avoid as a band?

While not being a typical ‘band’, I still try to make everything BIC does unique and different. This includes individual songs, albums and our videos … all while keeping a common thread throughout. I never want our albums, which feature different singers to sound like a ‘compilation’. It is a tall order but I think we have navigated this challenge remarkably well.

Why do you make the music you make? Is it in you? Is it your environment?

Beauty In Chaos started out for a fleeting moment as my ‘solo’ record. I wanted to prove to myself (and probably a few others) that I could do it. It quickly turned into something more … a lot more.

What inspire you for the music or for the Lyrics?

I’m inspired to create soundscapes to move our various singers to create something special. The simple phrase ‘beauty AND chaos’ is really all the input I give them. The music, which certainly contains both elements seems to set each on a path. It is almost like Christmas morning when I get their vocal parts back … which is always been a pleasant surprise!

Tell us what you are looking when trying to achieve your sounds. Do you experiment a lot or have a clear idea of what you want?

It varies. Some songs had a very clear path and some others twisted and eventually evolved. On our debut album ‘finding beauty in chaos’ I set some self-boundaries or limitations. I would play all of the guitars and there would be no synths. I wanted to create a heavily orchestrated sounding album, with lots of textures and all created with the electric guitars. Even though I think those ‘limitations’ were missed by many, I do feel we did just that. We employed so many different devices to manipulate the guitar on ‘FBIC’. 100+ guitar pedals, E-Bows, real violin bows, a crazy device call the ‘Gizmotron’ and more.

Describe your palette of sound.

Anything and everything! We certainly ‘play’ the studio, if that makes sense? I love guitar effect pedals, and in many instances the sound that happens when I step on a combination of pedals is the genius of a song.

Who would you want as a dream producer, and why?

I have my dream producer! BIC would not be possible without Michael Rozon. He pushes me, sometimes to the point of insanity … but this always leads me into doing something better than I thought possible. Besides being a world-class producer, he’s a great musician and as much as I hate ‘music theory’, his knowledge has proven invaluable. Number #2 on my ‘dream list’ is Tim Palmer (The Mission, Tears For Fears, Tin Machine, Robert Plant, HIM), and we have been blessed to have him do several remixes on our ‘beauty re-envisioned’ release. Tim is also onboard for the next ‘remix’ record (currently dubbed ‘Out Of Chaos Comes …’ which we hope for a Halloween release). Not often do you get to work with the top-2 on your list!!!

If you could guest on someone else’s album, who would it be and why? What would you play?

I’d love to play guitar on the new Cure album.

What musical skills would you like to acquire or get better at?

I think my lack of being a guitar virtuoso has led me to creating my own specific style. Not sure if that is good or bad, but it is a fact. I have started to attempt to broaden my ‘guitar chord’ repertoire. I did use some different chord voicings on some of the songs on our new album.

Which other musician/artist would you date?

Ha! I married her! My wife Tish Ciravolo, who has played bass on several tracks on our debut album and co-wrote and sung the amazing ‘Look Up’. But if you are looking for dirt I’ve always had a slight crush on Shirley Manson 

Is there a band that if they didn’t exist you wouldn’t be making the music you make?

Wow, that’s hard to say. I guess I have to look at the bands that made me want to be in a band from my teen years. T. Rex, Slade, David Bowie and The New York Dolls. These artists changed my path from wanting to play football to wanting to play guitar. I quickly learned girls liked guys in bands more than jocks!

You are from the USA, what are the advantages and inconvenient?

I was born in a very musical town, New Orleans, but have lived in Los Angeles since the mid-80s. I think everything you could want is here … and that is a blessing and a curse. There is a lot of ‘phoniness’ in Los Angeles. You do need to weed through the fake people. I think technology has leveled the playing field quite a bit. Everyone now has a chance to be heard.

What are some places around the world that you hope to play with your band?

In the beginning, I never looked at BIC as a ‘live entity’, but I have begun to wonder both ‘how’ and ‘what if’. I think BIC has a lot of fans in Europe … so I would say London, Rome, Paris and Berlin would be a great way to start. Time will tell.

When is the next album/EP due?

Our new full length ‘The Storm Before The Calm’ will be released on May 22nd, which coincidentally is World Goth Day. It is available on 180g vinyl (including a LTD Edition Black and Blue vinyl), CD and Digital. You can order any and all from our BIC STORE (www.beautyinchaosmusic.com)

Some artists you recommend.

I think any one artist that is part of our family is very worthy of delving into their individual catalogs. Ashton Nyte has made some glorious records, as has Evi Vine. We have some great singers on our new album that might not be as much of household names as some on our debut… but they sure as fuck should be! I really implore everyone to check out what they have done, as it is stunning.

Anything else you want your fans to know?

As I got on my soapbox about the lack of ‘value’ placed on music. I ask that everyone realize that Spotify and the likes do NOT allow artists to continue to make music. It is their touring, merchandise and physical product sales that support them. If you like a band or artist and you would like to hear another album from them … go see them live. Buy their T-shirt but above all . BUY their music. This is really not just in reference to BIC, I sincerely mean it for all Indie Bands.

Find Beauty In Chaos here:

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All photos by Anabel DFlux