#i guess my roundabout answer to your question is to get your folks to make more friends outside the community but like.

[deadpanwalking]

Asking this as a second gen Russian American Jewish person, how did you get your family to rethink their Zionism? I'm fighting for my life

Didn't have to lift a finger. My old man was a refusenik, but chose not to move us to a country that was supposedly a haven for Jews but still had compulsory military service—he was disgusted with the Communist regime chiefly because of the nationalism, and that's at the core of conscription, even in times of peace. I think he gave up whatever sentimental attachment he still had to ~Hatikvah back when the extremists killed Rabin in '95.

[inviberu]

music box

Confessing was no easy thing, especially for someone like Heath who could barely take a compliment without his cheeks burning red. When someone suggested he should give a gift instead, the gears inside his head started to turn. The most beautiful gift of all is one that comes from the bottom of one's heart—the question is: what was it?

Heath didn't know how to express his feelings without getting too many butterflies in his stomach to the point that he has to bend over to calm himself down or without tripping over his words and forgetting everything he planned to say. His cheeks would flare up and he would tear his gaze away from your figure as he told himself inside his head: "Not today, maybe not tomorrow either…."

Faust could barely stand the way Heath kept on backing out at the last minute during his decisions to finally confess his feelings. Faust pushed up his glasses and crossed his arms with a stern look on his face as he sighed. Heath sat up straighter, hoping that Faust wasn't about to scold him about something related to missions, unaware that Faust called him to his room to talk about more… personal matters instead of their line of work.

"I know there's a lot of stuff going on inside your head, but you shouldn't let it affect you when you're doing missions." Every word that came from Faust's lips was a lie to disguise his genuine concern for his student—roundabout, as a lot of Eastern folk are. Upon seeing Heath's face contort into one of slight panic, Faust immediately followed up with a question: "What is it that's bothering you anyway?"

Another lie. Faust already knew well what the source of Heath's worries is but he'd rather have Heath be unaware of the fact that he's been paying attention to him. Heath glanced down, a light hue of pink dusting his cheeks and Faust could already tell what this was about even if he hadn't known about Heath's countless attempts to confess to you before.

"Faust-sensei… do you know how to confess to someone?" Heath's unexpected question caught Faust off guard, his eyes widening in surprise before letting out a small cough after regaining his composure.

"C-Confess?" Faust tried his best to play dumb. "Like those love confessions?"

Heath nodded slowly, "I've been trying to confess to someone for a while now but… I keep on getting scared at the last minute. It's like the fear of being rejected suddenly walking up behind me and grabbing my shoulder."

"... You're a wonderful young man, Heath. I doubt there's anyone out there that would reject you" Faust closed his eyes as he tipped his hat slightly, trying his best to reassure him.

"Plus, you'll never know the answer unless you go for it." Faust chuckled, a smile forming on his face. Heath's eyes twinkled all of a sudden and felt his enthusiasm bounce back up as he grabbed Faust's hands into his own—Faust's expression slowly turning to one of discomfort.

"Then… Can you help me?" Heath asked hopefully.

"Me…?" Faust exclaimed, his glasses almost dropping down.

"W-Well only if you want to! I wouldn't dare force you to help me against your wishes..."

"I suppose I can try… I can't guarantee anything, of course." Faust agreed reluctantly and Heath beamed, his smile widening in happiness as he said his thanks to the Eastern teacher. "Well, first of all, if you find yourself unable to speak in front of them… don't you think there's a better alternative rather than confessing in person?"

After all this time, Heath had always tried to confess to you upfront and had never bothered to consider any other options until Faust brought it up. Heath wanted to curl up and bury himself six feet under at the sudden realization, feeling as if all this time spent was just used for needless worrying.

"Like a letter of sorts?" Heath asked carefully. Faust shook his head and merely answered his question vaguely.

"Something that comes from the heart." He pointed towards Heath's heart. "You're good at craftsmanship, aren't you? Why not make good use of that?"

A few days had already passed since Faust made that remark—living inside Heath's brain with no signs of leaving soon. A letter would've been easier but after taking it into more consideration, as well as Faust’s words, he decided to give it more thought. What was another alternative? A gift instead of a letter, perhaps? Heath ruffled his hair, deep in thought as he sat on one of the cushioned seats inside the lounge.

“Heathcliff?” A voice called out, snapping Heath out of his daze and adjusted his vision to the person in front of him—the northern wizard, White. Curiously, he asked, “is there something troubling you? Won’t you allow this old man to help if so?”

“Sir White… it’s nothing important, I appreciate the offer though.” Heath shook his head, trying to brush off White’s offer as politely as he could. White merely crossed his arms, nodding his head before a smug and knowing smile took over his face—as if he already knew what was troubling Heath without having him say anything.

“Ohoho… it’s about the matters of the heart, is it not?” Bullseye. Heath felt as if his heart was about to jump out of his chest, unable to hide the surprise evident in his expression. White didn’t wait for an answer, for he already knew he struck gold—he let out a laugh. “It’s written all over your face! A young man falling victim to love… is what your expression is saying.”

Heath covered his face by instinct, horrified at the newfound information that it was written all over his face. He wished he could keep a poker face like Lennox, perhaps that way he wouldn't be so easy to read—unaware that was precisely one of his charming points.

“Haha… is it that obvious?” Heath muttered weakly, burying his face into his palms and White only chuckled at the cute display. “Sir White, do you know of any good gifts fit for a confession?”

White rubbed his chin, deep in thought. A fitting gift for a love confession—one would normally think of something like flowers or sweets as if it was valentine's day, that was the textbook answer, though when White glanced at Heath and remembered his knack for machinery and the likes, he suddenly remembered of that one era that had a specific trend.

“It's a bit old fashioned but back in the day, music boxes were the trend. Why not make one with music that reminds you of your beloved? Wouldn't that be perfect for someone like you?” White beamed, smiling as if he gave a groundbreaking piece of advice. Heath’s eyes widened ever so slightly with his mouth agape as he thought about his words; music boxes were indeed old fashioned as you wouldn't see it normally these days.

“Me…? Make a music box?” He has never tried it before, especially not for a special someone, though he was confident he's able to make one if he tried.

“Ohoho, you’re good with machinery, are you not? Why not put those skills to use to make a heartfelt gift?” White nodded enthusiastically. Heath couldn't help but get lost in his thoughts, already trying to figure out how he was going to construct one—it seems like the young master has already figured out which gift he should give.

Heath spent his days holed up inside his room by his desk, materials sprawled all over with chunks of wood littered around after he had carved the finest wood he could get his hands on after returning to the East for a short while. A focused look adorning his face as he drowned out the noises surrounding him, immersed in his craft.

Countless music sheets were crumpled and thrown to the bin at the side which was overflowing with scrapped pieces—music pieces. Heath was no expert like Rustica when it came to music composition, he had left his seat several times to consult the Western Wizard in order to make sure the music wasn't disappointing and was able to convey his feelings, somehow.

He planned to leave the box and a note anonymously, though he already suspected it wasn't going to be very discreet as he started carving the box with the same carving he engraved into Shino’s magic tool. One look at it and you would be able to guess who did the carving, for it was named Blanchett for a reason.

He added the finishing touches, blowing the small particles of dust away that remained in the corners before opening the box as a sweet, soft melody started to play—its gears turning as it played music flawlessly. Heath smiled at the music box he created, proud. He put all of his feelings of adoration for you inside one box, only revealing itself if you decide to open it, akin to Pandora's box.

As if reciting his last prayer, he clutched it tightly as he muttered his spell under his breath before standing up and deciding to leave it by your doorstep—this time, he'll let you know of his feelings.

As he arrived at your doorstep, he quietly wished that you weren't inside your room because that would make things complicated as Heath already felt like he was doing something scandalous. His cheeks burned red as he quickly dropped the music box as well as a small note before knocking once and scurrying off back to his room where he could finally put his mind to rest.

You opened the door, greeted by no one but a mysterious box and a small note that didn't indicate whoever sent it to you for there was no name. Without much hesitation, you picked it and inspected it—the intricate design catching you off guard as you recognized it as the same one present in Shino’s magical tool. And the one who made it was none other than Heath himself, that only meant one thing—Heath was behind this mysterious set-up. You felt your chest bubble up in excitement, an uncontrollable smile forming in your face as you felt giddy.

You opened the note, it read: For you have captured my heart, I offer this gift to you.

You felt your heart leap at the words you read, scanning it once again to make sure your eyes weren't playing tricks on you, cheeks heating up as you realized what this meant. You quickly opened the box, not expecting a few blue butterflies to come out and fly around you as a soft melody played from it—a music box Heath made just for you. You could feel his magic from the box, did he imbue his magic? You suspected as much.

The longer you listened to the music, the more you felt like running to his room to tell him you felt the same way. There wasn't a single thing stopping you from doing so. With a determined look on your face, you started heading towards his room. Fortunately, you saw him walking in the hall, it seems like he hasn't arrived in his room yet.

You took the opportunity to jump at him, his arms instinctively wrapping themselves around you, panic was written all over his face when he realized it was you who threw themselves at him. With the proximity between the two of you, you placed a chaste kiss on the tip of his nose. His heart felt like it was about to explode.

“W-What are you doing!?” He grabbed you by the shoulders and tried to push you away in an attempt to calm his racing heart. You smirked as you felt like teasing him more, though the huge smile on your face was unfitting as you told him:

“You could've told me in person… but, I like you too, silly!”

[concussed-to-pieces]

The Mettle Of A Man; Part Nine

Fandom: Fallout (4)

Pairing: Eventual Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Enjoy!

Part One: ArcJet

Part Two: The Prydwen

Part Three: Orders

Part Four: Finding Brandis

Part Five: Weston Water And Oberland

Part Six: Meeting Preston And Matthew

Part Seven: Radstag And Radstorm

Part Eight: The Return To Sanctuary Hills

Paladin Danse had felt like the husband in one of those pre-war picnic advertisements the whole damn evening. After helping Codsworth carve the roast, the large man had assisted Backhand in making up plates for everyone. Roasted carrots and mashed gourd made their way onto the plates as well before the Longs had shown up to sit at the rickety old picnic table. It was a bit like taking a shift in the mess hall, though it had been several years since Danse had been required to do such a task.

  Despite Codsworth's ramshackle appliances (and the paladin hesitated to even label them as such), the robot appeared to be outstanding at making do with what it had. It easily managed the extra pot and cooking sheet, numerous arms deftly keeping everything from over or under-cooking. Danse was duly impressed. 

  Sturges arrived with an elderly woman clinging to his arm, the aforementioned Mama Murphy if Danse had to guess. She was a frail-looking thing even by Commonwealth standards, all bundled up against the balmy evening air.

  Backhand greeted her warmly, the knight drawing her into a careful hug before urging her to take a seat.

  Everyone gathered around the table and the environment was one of lax comradery, much to Danse's surprise. He had never been involved in a true family dinner, but this seemed to be something like what he had heard about. It was a little cozier than the mess hall on the Prydwen; he kept bumping elbows with Backhand and the woman kept brushing it off like it was nothing, laughing at his stern apologies. Jun plied Danse with a variety of questions about the Brotherhood which he did his best to answer, while Marcy and Sturges asked Codsworth for seconds. All the while Dogmeat begged from anyone that would offer him attention, ending the meal with his head resting on Mama Murphy's thigh as the old woman absently scratched him behind the ears.

  It was...it was nice. 

  But now, warm and well-fed, lying on the mattress he had procured, Danse found himself wide awake. His thoughts wandered to the massive machine Sturges was constructing on the outskirts of town, the molecular relay . Could it be possible that the Institute had no true physical openings to the Commonwealth proper? It seemed like a villain's scheme out of those illustrated paperback manuscripts the squires loved to read, not something that had any basis in reality.

  Though Ingram had weighed in on the matter, she had also believed it to be fantasy, entirely relegated to the world of theory. As such, she may have been a bit more wild with her calculations. A bit more willing to push the envelope. 

  Danse turned over, staring at the doorway as he considered whether he ought to bring up his concerns to Backhand. This was her son at stake. But it would do her no good to get blown to pieces by some malfunction or miscalculation. 

  Hell, they hadn't exactly covered experimental methods of travel in advanced training. The large man sighed and grudgingly slipped from the bed, digging his fatigue pants out of his pack.

  He crept across the hallway, noticing a light still shining from beneath the door of Vega's room. At least he wouldn't be waking her.

  Gingerly, Danse rapped his knuckles on the door. "Knight Vega?" There was no response. The paladin eased the door open, his words dying on his lips as he took in the scene in front of him. 

  Elizabeth was sound asleep in the bed, her hands folded underneath her chin in what Danse had come to identify as her favored sleeping position. On her bedside table a single candle fluttered in the breeze from the now-ajar door, starkly illuminating the pallid cryo burns on her forehead and chin in its yellow glow.

  Of course she was asleep. She was just as tired as he had been, if not moreso. 

  His eyes were drawn without his conscious input to the blue crib that sat empty alongside the door, the vacant area inside it a solemn, silent reminder of why he was even here in the first place.

  Jesus . Danse felt stupid. What had he been planning on doing? Vega, as your commanding officer, I'd greatly appreciate it if you would come discuss my concerns with me. Pander to my needs . He grimaced at himself, shaking his head. Just what kind of fool was he? Sure Danse, she would just sit down, have some damn tea with you and let you whine about how mechanically unsound all of this seems.

  He cautiously moved further into the room and snuffed out the candle before retreating and shutting the door. It would do her no good to burn the place down around her ears as she slumbered. 

  The paladin retraced his steps across the hall to his room, but if sleep had been reluctant before, now it was downright unobtainable . The bed was comfortable enough. Hell, it was a more comfortable bed than he had experienced in literal months . His brain simply refused to be still.

  Danse groaned, staring up at the ceiling. It seemed he was in for another night of patrol duty.

  He got fully dressed and ventured outside, closing the front door silently behind him before setting off down the main 'street' of the development. He barely got halfway to the large tree at the roundabout of the cul-de-sac when he heard someone calling his name.

  It was Sturges, Danse realized, the other main hailing him from the top of one of the houses. "C'mon up and take a load off!" The mechanic urged, patting the roof beside him.

  Danse glanced off down the thoroughfare of Sanctuary, and then shrugged. Eh, what the hell . From an elevated position he could see threats coming.

  The paladin heaved himself up the ladder and plopped down beside the mechanic, declining the cigarette when it was offered. "I come up here when I got thinkin' to do." Sturges turned his face upwards. "Everythin' seems so much smaller. More compartmentalized -ish, you know?"

  "I'm afraid I cannot sympathize, civilian." Danse replied, wishing he didn't sound quite so stiff.

  "Look up for a minute, man. Take in the view. Then try and tell me everythin' down here ain't small potatoes." 

  Danse dutifully obliged, tilting his head back to observe the sprawling cosmos high above. It was hardly his first time gazing at the stars and pretending to think deep thoughts. He said as much to Sturges, who chuckled. 

  "I used to sit up here and wonder how I got to be so good at tinkerin'. I don't remember much about where I came from, not like how other folks do. Can't recall bein' little, or havin' anyone else around. It's all just kinda' vague." He took a contemplative drag off the cigarette. "I figure I must have come from the Institute. Maybe them Railroad boys got hold of me, smuggled me out like a puppy from a pet shop." He gave Danse a lazy grin. "Of course, it don't matter much either way. Now, I'm workin' to bring 'em down. At the end of the day, I'm makin' myself useful. And if I really am a synth, I get a kick out of the idea of all them bigwigs losin' their shit over somethin' I did."

  Danse knew that his first response ought to be immediate apprehension of the mechanic, followed by interrogation and eradication. But something about what Sturges had said resonated with him, settled in his stomach like a lead weight. "You assume you are a synth merely because your early memories are not as clear as they ought to be?"

  Sturges waved him off. "Nah nah, like...they're not really there . I mean, they're there, but it's all kinda'...I 'unno, sterile . Lots of blanks in between, more than the gaps people talk about when they got trauma n' such. Can't remember losin' my first tooth. Breakin' a bone. Whether I had a family. Little things that add up." He glanced over at the other man after a few silent seconds. " Damn , you alright? You're white as a sheet. You been gettin' enough sleep?"

  Sterile . That was a word Danse had privately attributed to his own early memories long before this moment. Devoid of any defining characteristics, any instance of real impact . Just hazy, irradiated landscapes and gray ruins. Alone, always alone.

  He had known, vaguely, deep down, that most people seemed to have the ability to recall important periods from their childhood that he simply lacked. He had chalked it up to being an orphan, being forced to survive on his own from a tender, unknown age. 

  But…

  But what if it was something far more sinister?

  "I just have a lot on my mind." Danse replied finally.

  ...

  It took him four days. Four days where he was out of his armor more often than he was in it, four days of the two of them sitting in what was once her living room as they pored over tattered schematics, defunct wills and shady paper trails of all kinds. 

  Four days of watching her absently tuck a lock of hair back behind her ear. Four days of her being blissfully, wonderfully armor-free as well. Four days of just getting to be in proximity of her without anything going horribly wrong. 

  It only took him four days. 

  Vega had chosen to wear an appropriately light skirt for their less than taxing work of the day, the ragged pink fabric pooled around her as she sat on the floor and studiously sorted through yet another box of somewhat suspicious documents. The sun was setting, a radstorm hanging low on the horizon in the distance. Its green glow muted the pinks and oranges down to a dull yellow, wraith-like beams making their way through every unpatched crack they could find. The light struck the lenses of her glasses when she bowed her head to look closer at a document, the motion sending a few weak prisms scattering across the opposite wall. 

  Danse couldn't help himself, his mouth dry when he gruffly blurted out, "you look nice today."

  Elizabeth gave no indication that she noticed he had said anything, only looking up after several seconds had gone by. "Sorry, what?" She apologized, blinking behind her thick glasses as a troublesome curl slipped forward over her ear to frame her cheek. "I was engrossed in this thrilling tale of larceny."

  Danse chuckled feebly, thanking God that she hadn't heard him. "Ah, nothing. Sorry to have interrupted your reading material." His hands twitched, and then clenched on his thighs after she smiled benignly at him and returned to her reading.

  Her divorce papers had been among the many documents they sifted through. She had read them aloud, making a theatrical endeavor out of the whole thing. Backhand stood and paced, gesticulating and apparently imitating how her ex-husband had done his job in the courtroom. Danse had laughed at the time. But all the while he wondered about how Nate had treated her, and at her animosity towards the nickname that the man had apparently bestowed upon her. Their divorce was obviously far from amicable.

  A nickname. That was essentially all she had left after the divorce she had requested, that and the child which was born on the same day that they finalized the papers. 

  " He had me sign them in the hospital." Backhand had told him, her voice a little less bright. " I had just come from getting Shaun scooped out of me and he was already in my room. I couldn't even lift my arm to sign. One of the nurse robots had to help me. " Her eyes were far away when she continued, " he didn't even want to see Shaun ."

  Danse knew logically that not every human being was cut out to be a parent. Nowadays, it was enough of a struggle just to survive. But he found himself wishing, stupidly , that he had been there two hundred years ago. Wishing that he had been present to send Nate packing, with or without his damned papers.

  Finding Elizabeth wounded at Fort Independence had been bad enough. The idea of her laying limp in a hospital bed, half-dead from the effort of trying to give birth with some cretin badgering her into signing divorce papers--Danse wasn't sure how his blood could retroactively boil, and yet here he was.

  " He wanted kids ." Elizabeth had said. She never mentioned what she had wanted.

  It was becoming increasingly difficult not to think of her as simply Elizabeth, despite the paladin constantly mentally correcting himself. Knight Vega . General Vega . It was becoming increasingly difficult to stop daydreaming about a different life, where the two of them eked out a companionable existence and enjoyed tea in the evenings. 

  He was so lost. He wondered if she would let him kiss her and in the next breath scolded himself for such a ludicrous idea. She had a life already , she had her dog, Sturges, Jun and Marcy, Mama Murphy, this little settlement. She had the Minutemen and Preston. There was no room for him here. He was an assistant on her quest. He had promised to help her find her son and Danse kept his word, even if it involved things that weren't his to promise.

  Danse still couldn't reconcile with truly thinking about her like that since the police station, his body wracked with guilt every time his mind wandered a little too far south. Self control was one of the few things he had left in this world, and Danse did his best to force his thoughts to be chaste when he was alone at night, did his best not to think about what Haylen had said to him during his visit with her and Rhys.

  " It's okay to like her, you know. " The scribe had remarked, her smile soft and knowing as her fingers twined with Rhys'. " You're still allowed to enjoy your life, Paladin ."

  It was futile. It was pointless.

  But wasn't that how everything always turned out with him.

  …

  Sturges claimed that the machine was ready and Backhand couldn't resist throwing her arms around him. She knew he probably couldn't breathe. 

  "Tomorrow mornin', bright an' early, we'll fire the bitch up." Sturges grinned, slapping her on the back before pulling away. "Fingers crossed our luck holds and you'll be back with your little boy."

  "I can't thank you enough for this." Backhand murmured, taking his hands in her own. "Seriously, from the bottom of my heart Sturges, thank you ."

  "Shucks ma'am, you ain't gotta' get all sentimental on me. I'm just happy to help." Sturges replied with his easy grin. "After what you did for us in Concord, this ain't nothing."

  "Congratulations, kid." Mama Murphy said from her chair, wheezing a little. She had asked to be moved outside earlier in the day, as it was pleasantly warm in the sun. Sturges and Jun had carried her throne out by the foundation where Sturges had been constructing the 'slapdash relay' as he had dubbed it. "You'll be on top of those Institute eggheads in no time."

  "Now, I need you to know a few things for tomorrow." Sturges cautioned Vega. "There ain't no sure way to test this thing. We're flyin' blind, unfortunately. I can't guarantee your safety, General. I'd advise you to treat this like your old army endeavors. Not to be grim or nothin', but just...well, make your peace. Smoke 'em if ya' got 'em." Sturges advised, smiling wanly.

  "I'll get in touch with Preston." Backhand replied, believing she understood what the mechanic was getting at. "I won't leave you guys twisting in the wind if I get turned inside out or something." She tried to joke.

  "It ain't us he's concerned about, kid." Murphy piped up, watery eyes fixed on Vega's face. "You better talk to that man of yours. Make sure he knows."

  "Man?" Backhand asked in confusion.

  "Your gentle giant, kid." 

  "Oh. Oh! " Vega blushed furiously even as she tried to explain that Danse was only here as her sponsor for the Brotherhood, nothing more.

  Mama Murphy hummed knowingly, "kid, you can't hide nothin' from ol' Mama Murphy. It's okay that you're anxious. I don't need the Sight to know that you been through a lot." She patted Vega's hand. "Go on, kid. You'll be fine."

  It was on trembling legs that Backhand sussed out Danse after her radio conversation with Preston. 

  " You don't owe the Minutemen a damn thing, General. " Preston had said firmly. " Ronnie will be more than up to the task, if this is where we part ways. I hope you find your son, General Vega, and the Minutemen thank you for everything you've done. You gave us hope , and that isn't an easy thing to find ."

  Danse was, as ever, working on his armor. He seemed to maintain his gear almost obsessively. Currently he had one of the legs detached from the frame, painstakingly sweeping the sand and grit out of the joints so he could apply a fresh coat of grease. 

  "Paladin Danse?" Vega asked, embarrassed by how her voice squeaked. "C-Can I get a word with you?" 

  "Of course, Knight Vega." Danse replied, placing the leg off to one side and picking up a rag to wipe the excess grease away. He propped his hip up on the power armor station, looking at her expectantly.

  Backhand's words dried up and she cleared her throat. "I um, should be able to try to get into the Institute tomorrow." She managed to say.

  Danse's eyebrows rose. " Really . Sturges truly has that much faith in his machine?" The man asked, not unkindly. "I can't find any fault with it, of course. What people like he and Ingram can do has always been incomprehensible to me. I am incredibly curious to see whether the device works. Will you permit me to see you off?"

  "That's kind of what I wanted to speak with you about." Backhand said hesitantly. "Danse, I...I just wanted you to know that…"

  Oh she was a coward , just the worst kind of coward! Danse smiled after a moment. "It's alright, Vega."

  Backhand blinked up at him, stunned. "It...it is?" 

  Danse nodded. "Venturing into uncertain territory is always a tumultuous experience. Take all the time you need. I'll be here to listen." He assured her. 

  She was going to cry. Oh no , oh dammit . Backhand took a deep breath in, stalling her tears for the moment. "I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate your help." She was a coward . "I-If I don't come back."

  "You've been a breath of fresh air for me, soldier." Danse's hands landed on her shoulders, his sincere grin tearing chunks out of her stomach. "Despite our strange and rocky start, you've proved yourself ten times over in my eyes. I'm incredibly proud of what you've accomplished, and I hope our partnership continues even after you've rescued your son." 

  "Y-Yeah." Backhand sniffled, losing the fight with her tears. "Me too, Danse."

  "It is entirely reasonable to be apprehensive, Knight Vega. There is no shame in admitting your trepidation." The paladin's thumbs pressed into her shoulders, idly rubbing circles. "Don't let it eat you alive."

  Backhand felt like a creep. She wished she was brave enough to ask for a hug, while scolding herself for thinking that way. Danse had been such an anchor for her, it wasn't right to expect more out of him. "I won't. Thanks." She promised quietly. "I should probably...go. I'm sure Marcy needs...um, something."

  Danse nodded, removing his hands from her shoulders. Vega silently mourned the loss as she fled like the coward she was, certain that she had turned a violent shade of crimson.

  ...

  I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate your help.

  Danse loathed himself for clinging to those words. Loathed himself for putting his hands on her, what the fuck was he thinking? He talked a great game, but his self-control never seemed to improve. 

  He couldn't believe he had gushed like that. Telling her how proud he was, how glad he was to be able to work with her...she had rescued his team, rescued him .

  He stared up at the ceiling and rubbed his eyes, then dragged his fingers firmly down the sides of his neck in an effort to soothe away the tension that threatened to lock him in place. His trapezius muscles in particular screamed for mercy, making him grunt and dig in a little harder. After several moments of focused attention, the spasm eased. Danse hummed, relieved. He was always concerned that the next one could be his last. He hadn't exactly treated his body with tender loving care, especially when he trained himself to a pulp.

  The rush of endorphins was what did him in every time he worked out, the triumphant feeling when he pushed his body that much further past his previous limits. 

  Danse absently began to smooth his palms down his thighs as his mind wandered. When he caught himself, he tore his hands away like his own touch burned him. That was...God, it had been a fair amount of time, but…

  Danse bit his lip. But …

  The paladin shifted his weight, trying to get more comfortable and cringing every time the mattress springs squeaked. He spread his legs a little wider, one leg hanging over the side of the mattress while the other bent at the knee and pressed against the wall. 

  His touch was, as ever, function over form. Danse slid a hand between the waistband of his briefs and his stomach, hissing out a breath as he felt his body stir under his own fingers. The paladin just rested there for a selfish moment. It had been so long since he had touched himself. 

  He scrolled mentally through a catalogue of his previous endeavors and the media he had seen over the years, trying to decide on a visual to accompany his activity. 

  Cutler came to mind, as he always did. His smile, his eyes, the way a blush rose high on his cheekbones when he and Danse engaged in such pleasant diversions. Danse had never failed to tell the other man just how handsome he was, if only to watch his flustered reaction to the compliment.

  But God, Danse would give anything to have a moment to himself that wasn't tainted with melancholy recollections. He carefully put the memory of Cutler aside and continued to think, not incredibly surprised with his brain's next course of action. 

  It settled on that pre-war mag he had seen passed around in the barracks, the one full of lingerie and women who looked outstanding . One of the buxom models came to mind, her blue eyes and brown hair very similar to--

  Danse flinched, feeling like an idiot for immediately switching to fantasizing about Vega in some sleazy, delicate…

  Barely-there…

  Fuck .

  Danse bit back a groan. She was pre-war, he reasoned wildly, it was only logical that he thought of her. She had curves and real muscle that wasn't simply visible due to emaciation. God, and she was beautiful to boot. He could at least admit that much. 

  His traitorous cock decided to make the choice for him, hardening beneath his hand while he wrestled with himself over imagining Vega in something so devastatingly attractive. It didn't have to be Vega, he rationalized, it could be anyone . Just a woman who resembled her. Entirely by chance. He absolutely wasn't about to masturbate to the idea of his ward in a skimpy outfit. 

  Danse pulled his undershirt up, catching the hem between his teeth to keep it out of the way. He couldn't be loud here, so hopefully the fabric would hold his embarrassing noises at bay. 

  His hand sank to the base of his cock, encircling it and then tugging lazily upwards. Danse almost crumpled in on himself, oh God , it had been ages . He panted out a breath, teasing the sensitive head of his cock for a moment before stroking back down. No matter his guilt, some portion of him was definitely interested in Vega. Beggars couldn't be choosers when it came to stealing a private moment in the Brotherhood, and so he gave in.

  Danse jerked himself off with long, smooth motions, doing his best to keep his pace even. There was nothing worse than falling out of rhythm with his imagination.

  God, she was probably so damn warm, so wet , tight, hot . Danse choked a little when he wondered what she would sound like, utterly devoted to his fantasy now. Would she tell him to be quiet, or would she let him ramble? Let him kiss every part of her body, let him devour her, taste her on his tongue…

  Danse bit back the groan he desperately wanted to let escape at the idea of her calling his name or calling him paladin while he ate her out, " fuck ," he breathed softly, squeezing the base of his cock. 

  Elizabeth , he wanted to say her name out loud, God he wanted to say it so badly, he could feel an ache in his jaw from how hard he was biting his undershirt. He wanted to say her name until she loved it again, until whatever hurt she felt over it vanished into nothingness. He used to call me Beth . The man who was Shaun's father. The man she had married.

  Danse knew it was stupid for him to be irritated by a man who had been dead for around two hundred years. But she wasn't Beth. She was Elizabeth . 

  He wanted to bury his hands in her hair, kiss down her neck, learn every scar and mark on her body. At the same time he feared her getting to know him in that manner, really know him. How greedy and undeserving he was, how much of a failure he was. 

  It was futile to think about. Pointless, even. These feelings, these desires...nothing would ever come of them. Danse knew that. This was just a means to an end and his damned heart, his emotions were going to make a mess of everything.

  He silently spilled his release onto his stomach and then went slack, gasping for breath as his cock twitched and jumped against his belly. 

  The paladin threw an arm over his eyes, grateful at least that his body understood the age-old cue to let him get some damn rest.

  ...

  He didn't sleep well, but at least he slept. Danse was up before the sun, his eyes heavy as he ran through his gear check and suited up in his armor.

  Backhand emerged from her house, clad in her combat armor and armed only with her pistol. Danse noted that she had dark circles under her eyes as well, the young woman sipping coffee from her metal mug like it was the only thing keeping her alive.

  "Want some?" She asked Danse, darting back inside when he nodded in reply. 

  The two of them made their way to the old foundation where Sturges had built the relay, companionable silence filling the air between them. 

  Danse watched the sun rise, his eyes drifting to Elizabeth every now and again. She appeared to simply be enjoying the peace, her own eyes closed as she drank her coffee cross-legged on the foundation. 

  The paladin cleared his throat. "Knight Vega, I-"

  "Up bright an' early, eh?" Sturges called from the residence he appeared to have claimed as his own. "Be with ya' in a moment, General!"

  Backhand tipped her mug to him in acknowledgment, looking up at Danse curiously. "You were saying, Paladin?"

  If something happens to you, if you don't come back, if I don't say the things that I wish I could- - "Do you have that lucky bandanna of yours?" Danse asked instead, crushing the sentimental nonsense down. "I imagine it may prove useful for ensuring your success."

  Backhand laughed, patting her pocket. "Always carry it on me, Danse. The homeland takes care of their own."

  Danse inclined his head and fell silent once more, watching as Sturges fiddled with the control podium. Electricity began to arc and sputter from the generators placed around the site, making the mechanic frown and readjust a few dials.

  "Not sure how long I'll be able to keep it steady for once I dial in on the signal!" He called over the racket of the generators. Vega nodded, getting to her feet and dusting herself off. Danse watched as the engineer hauled her in close and pressed something into her hands, the man speaking too quietly for Danse to hear. Then, "alright General, it's now or never!"

  Vega approached the transfer plate as Sturges turned dials and punched numbers, the man's hands flying over the control panel. Danse stood off to the side, uncertain of what might happen but also unwilling to let her face this alone.

  She pressed her fingers to her lips and brushed them against Danse's helmet. "I'll be back." Vega stated with a wink.

  Danse rolled his eyes, chuckling a little. "Good luck, Knight." He said, his voice tinged with humor.

  And then she was gone. With a flash of light and a burst of noise like a thunderclap, she vanished . Sturges' delight was only dampened by every piece of equipment he had painstakingly built immediately and fatally overloading, leaving the engineer and Danse scorched and dismayed. Danse, for his part, hadn't truly expected the device to work . He had assumed it was just a pipe dream, something for her to throw herself into so that the grief wouldn't swallow her whole.

  But she had disappeared .

Part Ten

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on Obduction

[no proper spoilers, but the game is best when you go in cold]

Hey y’all I got a new laptop, and, for the first time in... ever, I could afford to make it a pretty good gaming PC. Now, maybe you get your first proper gaming PC and think, “Hell yeah, I’m gonna play that new Star Wars game, I’m gonna play Modern Warfare, let’s take this baby out for a spin!!”

I’m the guy who says, “I can finally play Obduction!”

Obduction marks the professional reunion of Rand and Robyn Miller, the brothers who founded Cyan and created Myst and Riven. Rand wrote and designed it, and Robyn wrote the music and plays the central NPC. Moreover, Obduction serves as a kind of spiritual sequel to the Myst series. I backed it on Kickstarter ages ago, but the Mac build took forever to come out and my computer’s dated specs and the port’s horrendous bugginess made it unplayable. So, naturally, it was the first thing I downloaded on the new machine.

The game’s premise is very “as Myst as you can get while being technically not-Myst.” Instead of stumbling onto a book that transports you to a fantastical world, you are touched by an alien seed that transports you to a fantastical world. Instead of finding more books to more worlds, you find more seeds to more worlds. And, instead of these worlds being constructed by a magical writer, they’re natural, alien landscapes that have been put in contact for unknown reasons. It still all feels very Myst-y, having a central, familiar hub world with a lot of overlapping designs and styles, and mysterious links to stranger worlds with their own rules.

I will say, they seem to be leaning into what makes Cyan Cyan. What if Myst, but instead of the worlds being discrete they overlap? What if Myst, but you take some of the surrounding terrain with you when you link to another world, and something from that world goes back to where you were? What if the membrane separating worlds were a puzzle mechanic? What if linking books were puzzle mechanics? What if where a book is left when you link through were important?

The worldbuilding is also a bit more... anthropological this time, where the Myst series felt architectural. Myst and Riven were very interested in how a world was built, how it fits together, how it was first imagined and then colonized by its writer. And each world was cordoned off from the next, with only select outsiders traveling between them. Obduction’s worlds, by contrast, before coming into contact existed independently of each other, having their own species and cultures. Many of the info dumps are about how these different cultures learned to coexist, how they learned to communicate, the different ways of thinking and types of technology they brought to each other. This narrative focus on complex communities makes the emptiness you find when you arrive more dissonant, but also more haunting. Call it an even trade.

Now, I could talk about design gripes. Rand is a fine designer but I’ve always preferred Robyn’s sensibilities, which took the lead on Riven, aka the best game Cyan ever made if you ask me. There’s nothing as brainmeltingly obtuse as Riven’s fire marble puzzle, but, at the same time, there’s nothing so deeply stitched into the the game’s world and narrative as the fire marble puzzle. Riven also had a lever that very obviously goes up that lets you get stuck for hours and hours if you don’t notice that it unobviously also goes down, and I can now confirm that this kinda thing is a Cyan design staple. (They also repeated their “opening a door closes off a passage you didn’t know was there and you’ll never find it unless you close the door again which you have no reason to do” trick, damn them.) In fact, every time I looked up a hint it was for something that was simple, straightforward, and poorly-clued, the kind of thing you would have spent days not knowing what to do and finally stumbled onto by accident. (This is a roundabout way of bragging that I did all the hard puzzles on my own, by the way.)

It’s also a bit less open this time around. You have to spend a lot of time in Hunrath before you find your way to Kaptar, you have to do a lot in Kaptar before you can get more than a few feet into Maray, and you have to have spent time in all three before you can get to Sorai, so, while there’s technically a stretch of the game where you can be doing puzzles in all four worlds, odds are your experience will be fairly linear. Not sure if that’s a problem, just an observation.

And there’s other stuff. I forgot that Cyan isn’t great with building to any sort of climax. You explore these fascinating worlds, figuring them out, and then, at some point, you realize... oh, I guess I’m in the endgame. You feel a sense of exploration, but not one of narrative tension; outward momentum, not forward momentum. And it’s sometimes unclear what's environmental storytelling and what’s flavor text, so, come the ending, I got answers to things I didn’t realize were questions and found some answers I’d expected weren’t coming. The natural arc of the ending is: cutscene, then credits, then visit the wiki.

But, all that being said... can I just talk about how good it feels to be in a Cyan world again?!?! For all the folks who bit their style, they remain peerless. Nobody builds environments like them. They’re beautiful and enigmatic and drenched in mystery. I spent 14 hours in this game and at least half followed a steady progression of “aha” moments. But not even “aha” moments, more like “what the hell?!??!” moments. The narrative is doled out much better than in Myst or Riven, so every few hours I’d realize the world is more complicated and interesting than I’d previously thought. You see the game with new eyes at regular intervals. Truly remarkable.

Sometimes a game you played at a young age has been in your memory so long it’s hard to remember what it actually felt like when you played it the first time. Spiritual successors are a way of recapturing that feeling, and that’s not always a good thing. Thimbleweed Park, for instance, reminded me how frustrating Monkey Island 2 was. But Obduction does the opposite, in the best way possible: it reminded me how wonderful Myst and Riven were.

I can’t wait to see what Cyan does next.

[paintedrecs]

For the fandom talk meme thingy: C (not trying to start drama I swear), I, K, R, and X. =D

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Hmmm, there are a few ways of answering this. One is by listing all my NOTPs, which would be excessively long and ultimately boring because it essentially boils down to “anyone else with either member of my OTP.” I monoship my primary pairings, so I’m pretty strict on what I do and do not like. 

(With the way fandom is now, I should clarify that NOTP means that I personally do not like a ship and I therefore go out of my way to avoid it - by muting terms, carefully filtering tags and search results, curating my own space, etc. It doesn’t mean I think the ship is badwrong or that anyone else should stop shipping it. It just means I do not ever want to see it.)

This feels a little less specific on that front, though, maybe more just: people like this and I’m meh about it?

So Allydia comes to mind. I don’t hate it, and if the Sterek’s good enough I’ll still read a fic with them as a background pairing, but I don’t ever like it as a romantic ship. While I ship Lydia with lots of different characters, including Cora, I’ve always seen Allison as straight, so I suppose that’s part of it? And I love Lydia & Allison as bffs - I see them as entirely platonic, like Scott & Stiles, so introducing romance just doesn’t work for me.

Another one is Sheriff Stilinski/Peter Hale. I...I don’t understand it. Unlike the last answer, this background pairing will prevent me from reading a Sterek-central fic.

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

This turned into a complicated and kind of roundabout answer, so I’m putting the rest of the questions under a long-post cut!

I stopped frequenting tumblr for two main reasons:

that whole weird purge thing that made me think everyone was leaving, so I just gave up, which might’ve been premature cause it seems like folks are still going strong on here

the emergence of antis, specifically within the Voltron fandom (although they’re everywhere at this point)

There’s a saying in fandom now: 

“Why is the younger fandom generation like this?!??” “Tumblr raised them.”

For me, for years, tumblr was a really wonderful space where I had a lot of great conversations and read very thoughtful threads that helped me to learn some important things about myself, other people, and a world much wider than my own.

But I was an adult when I joined this site, and it really does seem like there’s a whole new crop of kids who have no actual context for ideas like social justice, the need for canonical representation in our media, and a lot of other things that eventually got folded into a big ball of disconnected rhetoric that they now fling as hard as they can at the heads of fandom creators who are committing the ultimate sin of creating content for ships they don’t like.

It’s late, and I don’t feel like getting into a whole Essay Rant about all that.

So on an entirely personal level, I quit running appreciatejack (my Check Please/zimbits/Jack Zimmermann blog) because someone sent me really vile hate for daring to ship Shiro/Keith from Voltron (two unrelated adults in a cartoon). It’s why I turned my ask boxes/anon/chats off on most of my blogs, and then eventually just...got tired of running them.

When I started up appreciatederek, I got a couple asks from people who wanted to know if it was going to be multiship or just Sterek, and when I said it was Sterek, they presumably went off to find other things they were into, because I never heard from them again. Y’know, the reasonable reaction. And then the rest of it was wonderful: finding content for it, and getting responses from people who enjoyed that content.

I thought appreciateshiro would be similar, but it was all so messy from the very start. The Sheith tag was FULL of hate. I was initially checking it every day, trying to find artists and writers and gif-makers to reblog and encourage and support, like I’d done in Sterek fandom, but instead I’d spend literal hours blocking people who came into that tag just to talk about how much they hated the ship.

Every day, I’d look for content for my OTP, and every day I’d come away from it angry and sad and frustrated. I never seemed to run out of people to block. And they never, ever seemed to run out of hate.

It was exhausting. It made me reluctant to go on tumblr at all. And eventually I just...sorta stopped.

So the answer to this question is more, I guess, “fandom made me stop liking tumblr, and in the process I stopped liking most fandoms.”

I’m sure you can kinda tell from the fandoms I’m currently the most invested in.

I love Sterek, and I will always love Sterek. Part of that’s the ship itself, of course, and part is because I had an incredible fandom experience with it. People within this fandom are still really great - always so welcoming and super excited about new content, even so many years on.

Otherwise, my current fandoms are kiiiiinda tiny:

Xanatowen (Gargoyles), which currently consists of exactly 2 people and 12 fics (3 of which are mine).

Trevorcard (Castlevania), which only has ~200 fics on AO3.

Taibani (Tiger & Bunny), which is an oldish fandom with only ~600 fics on AO3.

Remember, I came from a fandom that has SIXTY THOUSAND fics.

So while I feel very lonely and very sad about the low content levels in these fandoms, they’ve also given me the space to let go of some of my fandom hurt & anger and remember what it’s like to just...peacefully love something. I really miss just loving things and talking about loving those things and searching for other people who also love those things without running into....thousands upon thousands of people who HATE that you love that thing.

(Until I wrote all that out just now, I actually hadn’t realized how much this had still been hanging over me, or why I was so hesitant to come back to “reclaim” a space I’d once been super active and happy in. Essay over! Next questions.)

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Answered here!

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

Answered here! 

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Found family. This is probably a big part of why Sterek was my first real fandom, because the idea of Pack makes it incredibly natural to build out relationships beyond just the central romantic pairing. 

It doesn’t have to be a werewolf thing, though. I’m honestly not hugely fond of the whole puppy piles concept - I’m less interested in “biological urges make characters literally physically all snuggle up together in bed” than I am in the actual build of the friendships, and the concept of choosing people who will become the family you’ve been missing for whatever reason.

Maybe it’s reconnecting with biological family, or maybe it’s discovering that your friends have been filling that space for you all along, without you even fully realizing it. (The concept of “home” is another big one for me. Home is where your heart is etc etc.)

And hey! Now I can pull back in another question from earlier: about “pairings” that I might not have initially considered. As I suspected, I do have more! Mostly platonic.

For instance: Derek and Sheriff Stilinski becoming bffs. I thiiiink I can probably tie my ABSOLUTE LOVE of this concept back to HalfFizzbin’s can't be hateful, gotta be grateful. And then Cupboard Love really has to be the source of ALL my alive!Hales feels, which also includes folding Stiles into their family.

Fic is largely responsible for building out Derek’s relationship with Boyd, Erica, Isaac, his sisters...making them into an actual pack and friends and family in the way the show never bothered. And frankly while I don’t like canon!Scott at all at this point, I love his friendship with Stiles in fics, and I absolutely believe Stiles and Lydia would be amazing friends once he got past his crush on her. I’d point to another fic here, owlpostagain’s will to follow through, as the ultimate source for major Team Human feels.

So yeah. I’m always going to be drawn to stories about family, in whatever form that takes, particularly if it’s one that’s a little bit off the normal white-picket-fence path.

In Tiger & Bunny, it’s Barnaby joining the Kaburagi family, and learning how to be a dad and a friend to his new husband’s daughter.

In Gargoyles, I’m completely obsessed with the (canonical!) idea of a family that consists of a man, his wife, their son, and the chaotically loyal fae babysitter/tutor/third parent. It is not a stretch to tweak this the tiiiiiiniest bit to turn it into a nontraditional family structure of a man, his wife, his son, and his fae boyfriend. Honestly.

In Castlevania, the fic that made me sob my eyes out at one point does something the show would absolutely never. It gives Alucard the time to rebuild his physical home while befriending the people in the little town that crops up around it. It’s about Trevor and Alucard falling in love, but it’s also about them making a place for themselves in a world where that kind of comfort and stability and friendship is so badly needed.

I think we all kinda need that in our world right now. So I love being able to find it in fic, for the characters who’ve grown to mean something to me.

[dazaiapologism]

uhhh i will probably edit and add to this but hey wanna see what i wrote today its kinda fun. answers the question: what might happen if the ADA were out for drinks and then some port mafia folks also show up after a bad day and dazai knows exactly what it feels like when chuuya is mad enough to cause tiny localized earthquakes when he walks.

    Dazai freezes as a sudden chill goes up his spine. For a second, he’s quiet, listening intently to the surrounding threads of conversation, hopping from table to table as he confirms each topic is as inane as he’d expect this late on a Friday. A cursory scan of the guests confirms he and his ADA colleagues are the most dangerous group of office workers seeking to drink the stress of the day away in their general vicinity. 

    Still, something felt unmistakably wrong. He stares blankly at his half finished drink, ice mostly melted into the liquor by now. The last lingering clump of ice ripples gently in the glass and for a moment it almost feels like the earth itself is shivering to an unsteady beat, rhythm barely held in time but still achingly familiar. As seconds pass, it seems to grow stronger and stronger, until the sensation is far too tangible to be drunk imagination.

    With that observation, Dazai’s subconscious sense for danger links with conscious thought and he knows exactly why the rhythm is familiar. Before he can act on that knowledge, his phone is buzzing in his pocket. Across the table, Kunikida is watching him with a bit too serious of an expression for Dazai’s taste. He waves cheerily and reaches for his phone. 

    The new message is from Kunikida, who lately had been developing a frustrating knack for recognizing Dazai’s thoughts. As roundabout a means of communication as it was, Dazai still feels a little touched that he’s trying so hard not to announce to the rest of the table that Dazai is on high alert.

DO NOT ANSWER: what happened

You: i was just watching the last bit of ice melt in my drink! It was really poetic actually i think i had a little epiphany about what it means to have a mortal existence

    Kunikida scans the text and frowns, then does the same sweep Dazai had just done. His frown deepens as he comes to the same conclusion Dazai had - no one in this bar seemed like trouble. What Kunikida lacks is a careful attunement to the way the earth shakes minutely in response to the more intense emotions of the Port Mafia’s rising star executive, Nakahara Chuuya. Kunikida can’t know that, judging from the current rumble, said executive was going to walk through the door any second now.

    Like clockwork, the door swings wide and several high ranking mafia members stride in just behind the worst possible person to have to share a bar with. Kunikida notices the newcomers a beat later, with an eyebrow raised as he noted Dazai’s near psychic detection of a potential threat. 

    Again, Kunikida is missing a critical piece of information, though he could hardly be blamed for it. Port Mafia executives’ identities were a closely guarded mafia secret that many people would kill to get their hands on, so it would’ve been a shock to everyone if he had been able to immediately identify the shortest member of the group as the most urgent threat in the room. 

     The identities of the two others alongside Chuuya were far less restricted information, Tachihara and Hirotsu. Kunikida must have seen them in person a few times by now, so he should know what organization they represent. The only question now is how he’ll respond. 

     Without looking away from the door for a moment, Kunikida pushed away from the table and crossed the open floor space unnervingly fast. Dazai was too far away to hear what Kunikida was saying to the group now, but judging from his stance it was something confrontational. Dazai sighs and finishes the last watered down sip of whiskey.

     “Dazai, what’s wrong?” Atsushi’s voice breaks through the jumbled crosstalk of the rest of their group. Without a word, he pointed gloomily in the direction of Kunikida, who now seemed on the verge of losing his composure entirely. Atsushi’s eyes widen in surprise, without a hint of fear either, Dazai notes. “Those are really important mafia members, aren’t they?” He nods once, almost imperceptibly to keep from drawing even more of his coworkers into the impending chaos. He’d had a hunch that the admirable mafia team that Atsushi had once glimpsed while falling through the sky might have been Chuuya’s, but his reaction now cemented it as the truth.  

    “- like you have no business in this law abiding establishment.” Kunikida’s raised voice finally reaches across the room. 

    “The mafia owns this bar, dumbass.” Chuuya announces, still loud enough to cut over the general noise of the bar. Unfortunately, the room had already fallen silent as their disagreement grew loud enough to catch the other patrons’ attention. The bartender coughed loudly from behind the counter. Chuuya glanced at the sound, then at the rest of the room, then took half a step back and tried to regain some composure. 

    Dazai fervently prays that if he sits still enough, Chuuya won’t catch sight of him as he takes stock of how many people who overheard him. Probably most of the room, since this was a small place. He’d of course known the bar was mafia owned, that was half the reason he’d picked it. The other reason was its casual atmosphere, it hardly seemed like the kind of place to find a mafia executive, which made it seem ideal at the time. 

    Upon further examination, it really should’ve occurred sooner to him that an unpretentious hole in the wall bar would actually suit Chuuya’s true taste if he was feeling particularly sick of mafia business for the day. Why had the ADA come here? Why had any of the other people come here? They were all just groups of coworkers looking to drink the stress of the day away. It was hilariously obvious, now that he stopped to think about it. 

    For the first time that night, Dazai laughs. It draws the attention of his colleagues, who in turn look in the direction Dazai’s been staring for some time now. 

    “Ah, Kunikida’s gone and gotten himself in trouble!” Dazai exclaims gleefully. Kunikida is talking in hushed tones with the bartender, who is undoubtedly informing him that they don’t want any trouble with the mafia and could he please refrain from aggravating their important guests or otherwise, take his business elsewhere? 

    Another person noticed Dazai’s laugh though, and as they finally made eye contact from across the room Dazai felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on him. Still, he had appearances to keep up so he just waved back sunnily, throwing in a wink for good measure. 

    “Hey Chuuya!” Dazai greeted him brightly as he approached. “Crazy seeing you here, huh?” Chuuya glowered back at him without saying a word. “Anyways, since I got here first I think you all should be the ones to find a new place to drink, okay?” The rest of the table had fallen silent, everyone’s eyes flicking back and forth between Dazai and the unknown but obviously dangerous mafia member that had approached them.

    “The fuck are you doing here, bastard?” 

    “Oh you know, just out spending some quality time with my favorite coworkers!” Atsushi yelps as Dazai throws an arm around his shoulders to emphasize how much fun they were all having together. “You’re having fun, right Atsushi?” 

    “I guess you could say that,” Atsushi answers weakly, looking a little unhappy to be abruptly drawn into what seemed like a tense conversation. Dazai lets him go.

    “I’m not in the mood to start shit. You stay in your corner and we’ll stay in ours and it’ll be like neither of us is here, okay?” For all the angry expressions he was making, Chuuya sounds surprisingly tired. Suddenly, antagonizing a Port Mafia executive in public with all his new colleagues right in the line of fire didn’t seem like a good use of energy this evening.

    “Sure, sure.” Dazai looks away, bored and dismissive. “Just keep it down, I don’t need my evening further interrupted by barking dogs.” Chuuya’s fist tightened in frustration, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned back to his companions and found a table out of the direct line of Dazai’s sight.

    The ADA table sits in uncomfortable silence for a moment, until Kunikida comes slinking back after being firmly scolded by the bartender. Dazai pokes fun at Kunikida’s natural inclination for aggression, the table laughs, and finally Dazai feels in control of the situation again. He lets out a deep breath he had barely realized he was holding, and finally relaxes into the evening again. 

+++

and the upcoming sequel when you go out for drinks with your coworkers and everyone else is done but youre an alcoholic so you stay for another drink and then another and now it’s just you and your ex rival whatever that means in a silent arms race of who will cave first and eventually you start talking because you are finally drunk. and broke.

[bruno-in-barovia]

Session Five, Part One

Krezk is heavily fortified. The gatehouse was the only point of entry. The kids’ legs were getting tired as we approached, so I picked Myrtle up and Haku carried Freek for the last bit of it. Elliott and Lith took the lead to call to the guards and request they let us in. It took some persuading with the first guard, and he said we’d better be out by nightfall because they won’t have any of our “kind” in town. It wasn’t clear which of the party he was referring to, but I got my hackles up a little at that. Elliott challenged him on it, and he said he’d go get “Dmitri” to talk to us. As he scurried off, the other guards watched us, especially me, with fearful expressions. Ugh. I’m so sick of this.

While we waited for “Dmitri,” most likely the burgomaster of Krezk, Haku wandered off and started doing some kind of dance. At the end of it, he started talking to a crow that had landed nearby. Weirdly enough, the bird seemed to be talking back to him. He told us afterward that he’d been asking if anything out of the ordinary was going on in the area. He said the crow told him something about a “sheep-biter.” So I guess Haku talks to birds now. Okay. The bit of information he got is interesting, though.

Around that time, Dmitri finally showed up with the guard who’d gone to get him. Elliott negotiated with him for our entry to the town, also trying to find out if someone in town might take the kids into their home. He slipped up a little, I think, by alluding to our beef with Strahd. Yeah, he must have misread that, because Dmitri was not into the idea of welcoming folks who might attract the wrath of Strahd to Krezk. I get that. It’s a reasonable concern.

I was getting nervous that at this rate we’d be stuck outside the wall come nighttime, so I stepped up and added that we were just looking to pass through to the abbey, if that affected… anything... I trailed off, seeing his expression. I really hate the way people look at me here. I moved to the back of the group.

Elliott moved on to offering our services in town in exchange for being allowed to come into town. I sort of appreciated his emphasis to Dmitri that our whole party was “a package deal,” but Lith’s added “including these ones” with a gesture in mine and Haku’s direction made me bristle all over again.

Dmitri named some possible tasks we could perform for the town, and a little more smooth talking from Elliott secured our permission to enter.

The town guards hurried us through Krezk, but we got some information on the way. Elliott asked, once again, about the possibility of finding a hatmaker in the area. No dice. Haku told them he’d heard there were some problems with “sheep-biting stuff” and asked what was going on. They were, understandably, confused but said that there had been some livestock missing lately, more than usual, and to ask Dmitri if we wanted to know more. The guards left us at the start of the path that climbed up to the abbey on the other side.

We carried the kids on the way up so their legs wouldn’t give out on them. The switchback path gave us a great view of the whole area, and the thing that most stuck out to me was a large pool in a higher corner of the town that some folk bustled around next to.

A pair of strange-looking people met us past the iron gate of the abbey. One had a cloak pulled over their head to hide their face. The other was short, crouched over, holding a shovel in what looked to be a human hand, but they had a wolf snout, a wolf ear, and monstrous legs.

The wolfish one came up to us and held out their hand. Haku looked around, shrugged, and kissed it. The creature said something garbled and stood a little taller. Fair enough, I guess. 

The cloaked one spoke up and asked who we were. Elliott, of course, took the lead to introduce us and our—the party’s—purpose. He tried to ask the nature of their appearances in a roundabout way, but didn’t seem able to get his question across.

Haku asked why one could talk and their friend couldn’t.

“He’s fine. He just had his work done, and he couldn’t talk afterwards,” the cloaked one said. 

Elliott talked with them a bit more, and they agreed to show us the way to meet with the abbot. 

The rest of the party didn’t seem overly fazed by any of this. They were pretty focused on getting Zazear’s body reanimated. Obviously I still wasn’t on board with this, but I had a thought on the way in, and it kept me moving forward.

Maybe this abbot could tell me more about vampires. How to destroy them, their powers, their vulnerabilities. I’ve left undead creatures alone on three separate occasions already. I’m a terrible grave cleric.

I stayed in the back of the group as we were told to wait in the abbey courtyard. There was a small humanoid chained to a post. It had bat wings and spider mandibles. Screams emanated from sheds around the courtyard edges. Um. This was not good.

Opal reassured us that none of the beings around us were undead. She said that there was a celestial presence nearby. A celestial on this plane? Huh.

The people we met before returned to the courtyard. They were followed by the abbot.

He was a young man dressed in white robes. He looked at us with a gentle smile and asked what we were doing.

I asked if there was anywhere I could wait for the group to be done with this… undertaking, hoping that maybe I could focus on the notes I had taken from Father Donavich’s study rather than taking part in this sacrilege. The abbot stared at me for a moment and then said he would rather I stay. Something in his voice made me hesitate to disobey.

...Athros forgive me for being part of this.

Lith took over explaining the Zazear predicament to the abbot. That he had died a few days ago and the party was hoping to, you know, resurrect him. Sigh.

The abbot got distracted from Lith’s explanation when he saw Ireena. He got this odd look on his face. Lith noticed him staring and brought up a new question: what happens when a vampire bites a human?

Now this I did need to know.

The abbot said usually, nothing. Lith pushed, asking what the “unusually” would be. If a vampire bites more than once, he answered, some “other strange things” can happen. Had anyone been bit?

“Several,” I jumped in, remembering Strahd’s inhumanly fast movements as he bit not only Ireena, but Lith and Haku as well.

Lith shot me a glare, so I clammed up rather than pointing out who’d been bitten. What? They seemed perfectly happy to trust this man to perform an impossible sacrilege. “We just want to make sure that we’re protected.”

The abbot said that the only time to really worry about it is if someone dies from a bite. Then some strange things can happen.

Shit. That means Father Donavich… shit. I really wish I had learned all this sooner.

Things got weird after that. The abbot said some stuff that, frankly, I’m pretty sure was all bull. But I’m going to put it down anyway.

He said Ireena was “the spitting image of Strahd’s love.” Tatyana, from the letter.

He said he believed Ireena is the reincarnation of Tatyana. That souls in Barovia don’t leave; they’re simply recycled.

What. 

“How do you know?” I demanded, stepping in front of Ireena.

“I have been taught,” he said, “many things. As a matter of fact, I have seen portraits of Tatyana, and they are identical.”

Please. That’s ridiculous. Believe it or not, it got more ridiculous.

He asked us to help him recover Ireena’s memories of Tatyana. Why? “Because that is the only way to free the people from their terrible curse. You see, they’re ruled by a despot. The only real way to deal with it, obviously, is to find a good ruler to rule the area.” 

Lith asked what about killing Strahd, and Opal asked if he meant Tatyana, but my mind was racing elsewhere...

I was pulled back into the discussion when Opal asked what would happen to Ireena if she remembered being Tatyana. Gods, were they really going along with this reincarnation hogwash?

The abbot said he hadn’t done this before, so he couldn’t be certain.

Opal asked Ireena how she felt about all this. Ireena answered that the only person who’d ever called her Tatyana was Strahd. She also said that she worried she wouldn’t have space for herself if these memories came back.

I scoffed. “Souls never leave Barovia.” Hah. What a line.

“I want what is best for the people,” the abbot said. “You want your friend raised from the dead. We can—”

“Do we?” I muttered. Lith shushed me.

“—we can both get what we want.”

All he wanted, the abbot said, was for us to keep Ireena with us on our journey, so that her memories would have the opportunity to come back on their own as she encountered familiar places.

He said we’d have to trust that he knew what he was talking about. Which seemed like a direct contradiction to what he’d said just a moment before.

“We don’t have to trust anything,” I argued. “You haven’t given us anything at this point.”

“How is getting Tatyana’s memories back in Ireena’s head going to get rid of Strahd?” Elliott asked.

The abbot said that Strahd’s personal failing was tied to Tatyana’s death and that part of the curse on the land was directly tied to Strahd himself. He said that removing Strahd’s piece of the curse should break the curse on the land and “give them a better ruler.” Again with that phrase. I don’t know what to make of that...

“What if he still wants to rule?” Lith asked.

He said we’d cross that bridge when we came to it. Hmm.

Elliott had more questions for the abbot, about Ireena, but we didn’t get any new information. Finally, it was time for the abbot to do his part in the party’s sacrilege. It was time to “raise” Zazear.

Moment of truth. This was my time to intervene. To stop this mockery. If they went through with it, if Zazear came back, I might have to deal with him. Because it wouldn't be him, not really. But if I stopped this before that took place, my party would never understand. They’d never forgive me. Would it break my connection to Athros if I allowed this to happen? No, he would understand. He sees that it’s better to let them learn for themselves.

I didn’t shut up about how bad of an idea this was, but I didn’t try to stop it, either.

Please let that be the right choice.

[nowitsdarkfic]

chapter thirty-three (the ghostly subway again)

“When I am king, you will be first against the wall. With your opinion which is of no consequence at all.” -“Paranoid Android”, Radiohead

Sandra is quick to the lock on the handle of the front door to keep the scorpions out there, and then she turns the sign in the window to prove that Smell the Magic is in fact closed for the New Year. Marcia and Sonia close the display case; meanwhile, Lars and I are huddled in the corner once again with the radar detector and that book opened over another milk crate right next to my left knee. The rain is coming down in torrents now—I think it might flood because there's already a good sized river running around the roundabout outside of the bakery here.

“There are drones utterly everywhere,” Lars informs me.

“All those little donuts—” I gesture to the dish, which is utterly littered with those markings indicating the drones. Down at the bottom, it gives a key to what's what: the scorpions, meanwhile, are indicated by tiny chevrons. And where there isn't a donut, there's a chevron. Which means we're surrounded by these damned things.

I can only imagine what the scorpions look like. Are they mutants like the banana slugs? Or are they massive like the spiders? Either one gives me the heebie jeebies. Those big lobster claws, those faceless plated bodies, and of course, those tails. I'm giving myself the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.

My throat's dry, but at least the pressure is off my stomach a bit. It's gotta be from all of this happening at the moment. That guy downstairs wouldn't give me a glass of milk, I still can't believe that!

Marcia and Sonia duck into the kitchen right at that moment; the former leans over the stove top of the lead oven to switch it off. The latter squats down in between us and eyes the radar detector.

“How you boys doing?” she asks us.

“Thirsty,” Lars replies.

“And a little tense,” I add to it.

“What's—all that?” She nods to the dish.

“The drones and the scorpions headed our way,” he says. “See, there's a key down here—this thing is smart. Picking up—nearly everything that's got a trace of radar or radio waves to it. I only had to point it at the ceiling one time to get this reading—here, let me do it again—”

He picks up the radar detector by the handle and points it up to the ceiling. If I didn't know, I'd swear he's pointing a label maker at the ceiling. There's silence, except for the rain on the roof over our heads. Then there's a quiet beep.

He lowers it to better examine the dish and gestures to the top.

“Yeah, see? It's recalculating—and it did. Wonder how the scorpions are being picked up. Looks they've backed off—unless they're underneath us.” He lifts his gaze to me and I shake my head.

“I didn't see any downstairs,” I confess to him.

“Wonder where they could be,” Sonia wonders aloud. Another pause. Then—

“Oh, my God in heaven.” It dawns on me. And Lars, too, as he gapes at me and his eyes widen.

Sandra then yelps out from the front room. Marcia leaps back as she barrels into the kitchen.

“Scorpions!” Sandra shouts as she shuts the door behind her with her apron in hand. Her face is as white as a sheet. “They're crawling all over the outside of the windows.”

“The only thing more terrifying than a bunch of giant spiders is a bunch of giant scorpions,” I say aloud.

“I think both are pretty horrifying, Joey,” Lars points out.

“See, the thing with scorpions is you don't know what happened,” I continue on. “Yeah, they're desert creatures,” Sonia tacks on. “It's weird to see them in New England, whereas spiders you can find anywhere in the world.”

“What should we do?” Marcia asks us. Sandra, who's fanning herself and trying to calm herself down, turns to me.

“What's it like downstairs?”

“Aside from the idiot who wouldn't give me a glass of milk? Chilly. And a little wet. Forgot to tell you ladies, I fell on my ass into a puddle down there and my butt's all wet.”

“Oh, man!” Sonia declares.

“Yeah, I'll say. At least it's warm in here, though.”

“Well, I was thinking we could go down there because that's where the stash is,” explains Sandra, “the staples. The dairy, the bread, and the potatoes.”

“Yeah, that's where the smell of potatoes is coming from!” I say to Lars. “I should tell Angeline that.”

I stop for a second. I don't know if it's the presence of the drones all around us or what.

“Angeline!”

“What about her?” Lars chews on his bottom lip.

“The drones are in the City! If there's an infestation here, there's gotta be one there 'cause we're so close!”

“Oh, SHIT!”

“She also told me if I have any questions, I should ask her.”

“Well, let's go ask her 'cause—we have tons of questions!”

“How are we gonna get to New York City, though?” Marcia demands to us as the three of them are now all gathered around us. “It's pouring rain outside and there's scorpions trying to get in.”

I turn to my coat, folded over on another milk crate, and I pry into the pocket on top. I take out the arrowhead pendant.

“Of course!” Lars exclaims, switching off the radar detector and sticking it back into the burlap sack.

“What is that?” Sandra asks me.

“No ordinary pendant, that's for sure,” I tell her, and I can't resist the grin on my face. I return to Lars. “I just have a question. Can you take stuff with you through the wormhole?”

“Oh, yes,” he answers, putting the book back in there. “I found that one out pretty quickly after I got my place down in New Orleans.” He slings the sack over his shoulder.

“Have at it, Joey.”

I make a wormhole over the empty racks, one that's big enough for all of us to climb through. I focus on the headquarters for the New York Times as I stand to my feet and dive through it with my stomach sucked in. But then I realize I don't remember exactly where it is in the City. I only know it's in the City.

Shit. Ah, shit.

It's the French Quarter all over again, especially when I look up and I see I'm in the subway.

God, not the subway.

I look behind me to find Lars had landed right on his ass on the cold floor, right next to Marcia and Sonia. And I realize I'm laying face down on a bench. Not a good position to be laying in when the stomach's full of pastries. Sandra, meanwhile, landed upright on the bench next to me.

“The subway, Joey?” Lars demands to me, his voice echoing over the floor and the walls.

“Apparently so,” I confess to him. It's cold down here, and I don't know if it's from the rain outside or the fact the tunnels are haunted. I raise my head and lift myself onto my elbows so I'm laying on the bench like a sphinx. I not only landed on a bench but on a disheveled copy of the New York Times itself. I turn it over to the back page: there at the bottom is the address. I lift my head up to examine the wall behind us.

“Where are we?” I wonder aloud. “Like—what terminal is this? Sandra, is there a plaque over there by you?” She leans to her right.

“Yeah, right here.”

“What's it say?”

“125th Street and Lexington.”

“125th?”

“Yeah.”

I glance back down at the paper.

“The New York Times is down on 41st and Eighth Avenue—which means—”

“Manhattan?” Lars wonders aloud, climbing to his feet.

“This here says we're in Harlem,” Sandra continues.

“Yeah, 41st is down in the heart of Manhattan. I know that from all the times I hung out with Anthrax.” I turn my head to find Lars, Marcia, and Sonia already to their feet; Sandra stands up from the bench in front of me. Ugh. Fine. The subway it is.

My chest aches from landing on such a hard bench as I pick myself up and straighten myself out. I stand to my feet and guide them towards the platform. The whole station is deserted: we're the only souls in here. Or least, the only souls in here with fleshly bodies. Even the railway is empty.

“I don't even know if it's in operation right now,” I confess to them, stuffing my hands into my pockets.

“It's New Year's Eve,” Lars points out as he adjusts the burlap sack over his shoulder, “it's bound to be.”

“Okay, so how far are we going?” Sandra asks me. “I just want to know.”

“Basically we're going all the way down towards Time Square and then before we get there, we're hanging a right.”

“We're definitely not in Portland anymore,” Marcia declares.

“Not at all. When I was with Anthrax, I found pretty quickly that you better get disoriented easily in order to get lost here, especially once you realize the blocks are organized the way they are. It just seems like a lot if you're an outsider or if you're on foot, on a bus, or in a cab. Five minutes upstate or in over Portland for that matter seems like forever down here. If we're standing here on the one hundred and twenty fifth block of—basically a grid, like the one we saw on the radar detector—assuming there aren't any stops, it's not gonna take very long to get down to forty one. Add to this, you guys don't have to deal with the chilly city folk, too.”

“Yeah, the worst thing we've gotta deal with is bicyclists who aren't paying attention,” Sonia laughs.

“There's just—one problem with the subways, though,” Lars says in a low voice.

“What's that?” asks Sandra.

“The tunnels are haunted.”

“They're haunted?”

“Totally,” I answer for him. I glance down one side of the terminal, down the pitch black tunnel. Nothing there. I take a glimpse down the other way. Nothing there. “He and I were down here the other day—we went through Grand Central, which is right near there—and we actually saw… a ghost.”

“A boy with no hands and no face,” Lars joins in, shifting his weight. “Glowing bright like a glow stick.”

“Oh my God.” She sounds appalled by that. “Where did he come from?”

“No idea,” he confesses. “Not a single idea where he could've come from. I guess there's a whole community of ghosts down here, too. Like—” He stops and I turn to have a look at him pointing to the left of us. “—I believe that's one right there!”

There's a pale white light emerging from the darkness to our left. It's getting bigger as it's coming closer.

And then we hear the ungodly metallic shriek of brakes grinding it to a halt.

“It's the train, Lars!” I shout over it slowing to a stop before us.

Once it does, the doors slide open and the five of us file into this car near the front. As we're taking our seats on the hard benches, I think back to what Candace had told us about the ghosts down here. And I remember that sign I saw in the Bronx that day I came down here. Yeah, I have no doubt that they like to prey on kids in particular, so I'm riding with my guard fully up and the lapels of my coat covering the bottom half of my face. I still feel like a kid sometimes after all. A kid who's lost in the City.

When the doors close, I sigh through my nose and close my eyes. Aside from the fact the tunnels are haunted, I really don't know why I'm so nervous. Sonia, who along with Marcia is sitting across from Lars and me, shows me a little smile.

“You look like a secret agent, Joe,” she cracks.

“He kinda does,” Marcia joins in.

Lars mouths something to them and I don't what he said, especially since the train is starting up again and whirring down the pitch dark tunnel. I'll admit it, I'm a little paranoid right now. There's a myriad ghosts down here and we've got a metric shitload of scorpions that may or may not be of unusual size coming after us.

Once we pass through Grand Central, I feel I've calmed down a great deal and I fold my collars over so I can breathe again. At one point, I look around the car, and I lean past Lars to better examine the one behind us.

“I just realized we're the only ones in here,” I declare. “That's probably why we're making such excellent time.”

“We are,” he notes as he takes a look around himself. “Where is everyone?”

“Also, who's driving the train?” asks Sandra. I take a look to my right to the other side of the car: we're two behind the lead one. Usually there's a guard or someone on board with us, but it's just us. As far as I can tell, there's nobody there.

“I—I don't know,” I confess to her.

“Do you know where we're getting off, Joey?” Marcia asks me. There's no signs lit up in here, and usually there is, but it's as if we boarded a train that's out of service that's going nowhere.

“Here!” I exclaim. “Ring the bell, Lars—”

Lars reaches up behind him but before he can even touch the thing, there's that shriek of the brakes again. He grips onto the pole next to him and I brace myself. I don't trust this thing. I don't trust whoever's driving, that is if there is anyone there.

The lights of this next terminal flood into the car. I don't even know where we are.

“Here?” Lars repeats.

“Yes!” And I don't hesitate once the doors slide open: he follows me out, then Marcia, Sonia, and Sandra. We gather around a bench in the middle of the platform to regather our bearings, but I keep walking to check out who's up in the front of the car. The windows are dark but as far as I can, there is in fact, nobody there. We were riding on a ghost train. I return to them right as Lars is slinging the burlap sack over his shoulder.

“Do you know where we are?” Sandra asks me.

“I don't, but there should be a sign somewhere around here that should tell us—”

Indeed, there's one on the wall down towards the stairs.

“42nd Street Bryant Park,” Lars reads aloud. “Where’s that?”

“If I remember correctly,” I tell them, “I think Angeline's office is right near here. If it is, we're good. If not, you guys can blame me for royally fucking things up.”

We make our way over to the stairs and ascend into the City, the heart of I think is Manhattan, which is lit up to the brightest neon I have ever seen in the wake of the incoming night. It's like the University District of Seattle all over again but much bigger and with far more overkill. Everything has some trace of neon on it. Everything. Even the crappy bus stop behind us and even the payphones on the corner. I raise a hand to my face to shield my eyes it's so bright.

“Bloody hell,” Lars remarks, squinting against the bright light.

“Yeah, I'd say Maxwell has maxed out here,” I declare. “Let's walk. I think we got off at the wrong place. It's not easy to get lost here but it is easy to get turned around, though.”

“I think we did in fact get off at the wrong place, Joey,” Lars adds as the five of us start walking up the street, “because there's Grand Central, also known as 42nd Street. And we should've gotten off there!”

“Like I said—you guys can blame me for royally fucking things up, 'cause I'm a country boy. I ain't from the City.”

[lilietsblog]

GHOST TRICK: THE BIG FINALE

so I finished the game yesterday all on my lonesome without internet

why yes I am perfectly fine and not emotionally compromised in the slightest

enjoy my screaming

IT'S GHOST TRICKING TIME which is to say it's ghost tricking time without internet so I'm doing this in wordpad tumblr really needs an 'import rtf' function >_>

SO from what I remember, when last we left off I was about to try to figure out how the fuck a knitted cap and a helmet are going to help me stop a bullet LET'S DIVE RIGHT BACK INTO THIS FOLKS

I still love how Sissel just ignores the dog's little 'WHATS A HOSTAGE O NO' instead of digging into explaining it

oh thank god the game DOES remember ive read this text before

...oh, I forgot how I did this the last time O WELL

all right, so I remember swiveling the lamp and dropping the hard hat, then when the knitted cap is over here I can swap it with the book and get it on the hook but how did I get the knitted cap over here

aha, he looked away for a moment, the helmet part is done what the fuck do i do now

AHA okay, so now i very quickly cart the ladder back and forth, I think I remember this

fuck, he noticed me, okay don't swivel the lamp while he's watching, swivel it while he's still looking away

I gotta note the 'I don't know why you're wearing my face' part HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

fuck, nope, I can't swivel the lamp back at that moment because he notices it clattering and turns right around FUCK OKAY LET'S TRY TO DO IT WITH THE LAMP THERE

ugh, if only I could do shit during the cutscene while he rolls away >_>

OK I SHOULD HAVE HAD MORE TRUST IN MISSILE HE IS GREAT AND A VERY GOOD DOG AND CAN AIM FOR SPLIT SECOND TIMING OF A BULLET BEING IN THE AIR OKAY

haha, and the knitted hat still hit Cabanela with enough velocity to knock him over I love this and I particularly love his dramatic leg up in the air he doesn't evne know what's happening he just aims to be the most dramatic possible at all times and it's really helping us out <3

'i love knitted hats... so warm, and most of all, so SOFT' <3 <3 <3

god Missile is so good this is pain IS THE DAWN DEADLINE A LIE MAYBE DID RAY JUST SAY THAT TO GET SISSEL'S BUTT MOVING I DON'T KNOW

oh yeah Cabanela's still got broken bones all over I kind of forgot about that

oh ok, looks less like broken and more like just really fucking bruised, becuase in that movement he's put pressure on all limb bones and nothing bent out of shape, so that's good

lmao and Cabanela's just like 'BUT IF I WAS KILLED IN THAT EXPLOSION THE SITUATION WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER' I I don't think it would necessarily work out that way, considering how much difficulty our protagonist was having saving just the professor :x

oh hey we've got our next source of information! should be quite a wellspring if Sissel remembers everything he should ask

yeeep Cabanela you FUCKED UP

oh, the gun :x

HON IM PRETTY SURE THE FIRST PART IS MORE IMPORTANT THE PART WHERE YOU TRIED TO SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF HIM CORNERED RATS BITE THIS IS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY YOUR FAULT, ALL OF IT

aha, those cases, okay

and Cabanela was doing the thing because of Jowd that makes sense -_- kind of

yep, that one little snag kind of puts a question mark on the whole thing alright, that almost makes sense? kind of? makes Cabanela kind of a selfish butt doing this for his own obsession rather than for personally Jowd but makes sense

ok, the bringing him to justice minister to buy time thing actually does make a lot of sense it wasn't A LOT of time that he bought but it was just enough and that's what counts

oh hey, this guy used to have the job that the blue fake stole? (and yeah sounds like blue guys are just foreigners -_- bc they couldnt find spies that didnt stand out visually or anything)

hum not a scratch, huh regenerating dead body, okay

oh come ON Sissel don't be surprised now that part was obvious from the moment he said the corpse disappeared the meteorite's radiation, okay, quite interesting :D

"it was like a meteorite had struck me on the head" so, has that been a cause of death today yet, because if it hasn't, this looks like foreshadowing -_-

hum, so the gun would have been loaded because he controlled Kamila, which she then wouldn't have a clear memory of makes sense

HI LYNNE JUST IN TIME

arrest her to keep her safe, that actually makes perfect sense IF ONLY IT HAD WORKED LMAO no wonder pigeon guy roasted him for that in the deleted timeline XD

"while he was at it" <3 <3 <3

awwww pigeon guy was friends with him too <3

hee right on top of his striped jumpsuit honestly he looked less escaped-from-prison-ish in the paint-splattered robe thing XD

a present, huh?

awww see Sissel you don't feel lonely and that's what counts

ALRIGHT THEN :D LET'S FUCKING GO :D AND, UH, DO SOMETHING, I GUESS I love how out of proportion Sissel's powers are rewind time, talk to dead people... and move small objects a little

so, uh, Sissel, are you sure there's answers for YOU over there or did you just get into habit of telling this to yourself to feel better

okay well how the fuck did Jowd infiltrate a fucking SUBMARINE like, I just want to know the physics of how this happened?

omfg the bullet had a radio transmitter well, I have a newfound respect for Cabanela, I gotta admit like I already respected him but I just figured he shot the guy out of a desperate 'can't do anything else might as well try this' urge to do SOMETHING but nope he had a plan (which would have worked even with him dead)

wow, and he actually gave the thing to Jowd beforehand n i c e

wow, okay, that's stealthy

aha, and he can totally leave his body and wander around freely I think that was already confirmed but it's nice to know for even surer

wow, okay, what the fuck re: that thing reaching up from below that definitely looked like... something else for a moment there 0.0

aand okay the meteorite is possible to extract from his body I wonder if evil!Sissel actually knew that... or if that actually did anything to him :D

okay, what the FUCK and how many more people are dead now

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW MISSILE IS HERE TOOOOOOOO

the phone is ringing, how convenient :D

ooohkay this is tricky

so, why the fuck were there baseball and basketball balls hanging in nets under the ceiling on a submarine ... ... you know what I don't want to know

wait, Kamila can't hear him? oh, right, over the phone ghosts communicate by close range telepathy

aaand this makes the FIFTH time Lynne's dead tonight! or is it sixth? did i lose track somewhere?

AWWWW THIS SCENE IS LIKE AN OVERDOSE OF CUTE

'i wonder what happened THIS TIME' yep lmao

no actually 'i dont remember what happened after that' sounds like evil!Sissel to me, personally

but do you know what this wheel does Sissel are you sure turning it is a good idea

"I just sort of blacked out, the next thing I knew, I was dead" <3 <3 <3

"now it's all making even less sense than before" AND THAT'S SAYING *SOMETHING*

but actually okay yea this does kind of sound like an explosion that killed Lynne and knocked Kamila out

aaand nope I was absolutely correct )=

can this guy only puppet one body at a time? couldn't he have just possessed Lynne and had her slit her own throat or shoot herself or hang herself or something? that sounds a lot more productive than having a little girl fight her I mean, even if he only can puppet one body at a time, puppetting Lynne would have been a lot more productive overall, is there a reason he can't?...

or does he just love to do things in the most convoluted and roundabout manner typical to villains everywhere -_-

"nobody ever calls the dead" ARGUABLE a number of phone calls has been made this night specifically for the purpose of putting our!Sissel on the line

aand okay :D looks like the blue assholes saved Lynne just in time, sort of ...for a certain definition of 'saved'

so anyway this guy said something like 'you cannot possibly comprehend my suffering' so it would be funny if he was just a random dumbass that a bad thing hapened to one (1) time, which granted also killed him, but all the misery since then has been of his own making and he's put every single person involved in the events through worse just over the course of tonight, and simply has no sense of scale, perspective or proportion I think that would be great if the story went there XD EDITOR'S NOTE IN RETROSPECT: the story didn't go there and that was not fucking okay (it's dead women in the fridge again!)

and Sissel can't understand revenge as a concept SOUL TWINSIES WITH ME OR WHAT

lmao Lynne is starting to get touchy about how many times she's needed rescue lately XD

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE WHY CAN'T I REACH FOR ANYTHING YET also, interesting to note that in the 4 minutes ago past, neither Lynne nor Kamila have a core looks like Sissel's interaction with this realm is limited after all, and not only by phones there's v interesting existential fuckery going on here, of the exact sort I ABSOLUTELY LOVE

oh THERE we go 'nobody ever calls the dead' ARGUABLE again and I love Lynne's signature instant-snap-into-hands-over-head animation + pose Good Reflexes

ALRIGHT, FIDDLING WITH RANDOM SHIT WITHOUT KNOWING WHAT IT MIGHT DO TIME ...and that sure worked fast

hum, a random mechanic, alright

oh hon that's a, um, what's the opposite of exaggeration I know this word in Russian >_> over...littlification? that 'restless ghosts onboard' THAT'S ONE WAY TO PUT THAT

lmao that was one odd fate change

alright, found the temsik fragment capsule, I see yay unexpectedly strong wastebucket lids (seriously, that's a whole freaking basketball, there's a reason the nets worked like that lmao)

alright, just watching the cutscene for now, that's fair this guy sure looks like he's going to abandon his entire crew and blow up the sub or something

"farewell, sir" WELL THAT DID NOT SOUND QUITE RIGHT

alright, and we're left in the capsule rather than the fragment which apparently did not have a core of its own for some reason

OMFG THERE'S A LITTLE RAT IN THE TORPEDO ARE WE GOING TO HAVE A RUBE GOLDBERG MACHINE INVOLVING A SMALL RODENT AGAIN BECAUSE THOSE ARE THE BEST KIND BUT ALSO THIS IS NOT HOW TORPEDOS WORK BUT ALSO HI RAT!!!

yeah exactly thanks Sissel! how the FUCK did it get here also I love that the characters DO pay attention to the wellbeing of innocent rats in this game <3

well, you COULD just try to get it to blow up earlier, in the water you'd be stuck but you'd be heroes, or something well, Lynne would go back to her body, Sissel would be stuck :D oh, and the rat would die, that's the bad news

YEAH LET'S SAVE THE RATTIE FIRST if this time the rat is going to be in the way rather than helping, well, I REALLY DO RESPECT THAT LET'S SAVE THE RAT

alright, after some trial and error I DID manage to get both weights in the same position (mostly by luck) and throw off the rat NOW TO SAFETY

alright, this looks promising OKAY IT ALSO LOOKS LIKE KAMILA AND LYNNE MIGHT BE SAFE FROM EVIL!SISSEL NOW THAT'S GOOD NEWS

yusss caring about rats ftw <3

that's what missiles do, huh they're unstoppable i dont know who it is i hear there but Missile is great yes

well, whatever this is, our!Sissel just turned it on maybe it's pumps to remove water!... not that they'll do much against an unplugged breach but

aha, okay, won't move for long

this movement through a machine's gears feels like the purest expression of the game's premise since the junkyard tricks at the very beginning <3

the way Kamila's speech kinda fades in from white? that worries me

...eeeyup

god but I love this game's animation. this little one of Lynne hoisting Kamila up on her back? it feels, like, PERFECTLY balanced with their weights and Lynne's strength and everything <3 <3 <3

oh my god Lynne why couldn't you just... be able to swim not that it would help much with Kamila unconscious but

oh my god Lynne is literally right here why do I still have trouble moving around freely???

oh, found it!

wow, she's climbing one-handed while carrying Kamila, that's some serious upper body strength <3

W E L P

YEP THAT'S SOME SERIOUS STRENGTH THAT SHE DIDNT JUST FUCKING FALL NOR DROP KAMILA

yeeep okay WOW

ARE YOU BOTH GOING TO DIE NOW OR WHAT okay, no, just fall, and not even in the water that's good news

LYNNE THIS IS NOT A POSE YOU WANT TO BE IN RIGHT NOW unless you're actually holding yourself against that shit in the background with your left hand and I just can't see it I guess

...nope, she was holding her chin LYNNE NO

MISSILE HURRAY

okay, the fan thing makes sense

now to swap around a bunch of broken pipes so they don't get in lynne's way, got it

FOR FUCK'S SAKE I REALLY DON'T SEE A WINNING COMBO HERE

aand I fucking lost but at least I got Sissel in position -_-

alright, now with one pipe turned off it actually works out easily it just... took me really long to realize I'd need Sissel for this one -_-

Lynne honey but have you considered: you have no fucking clue what's behind that door although presumably submarine has only been breached in one place and it's this room?

holy shit with the hook Sissel managed to hoist the combined weight of Lynne and Kamila now THAT's a nifty trick

SISSEL FOR FUCK'S SAKE SHE CAN'T MUSTER LEVERAGE FOR THIS BECAUSE SHE HAS TO HOLD HERSELF AND KAMILA UP AND SHE'S TIRED SHE CAN ASK FOR HELP EXCLUSIVELY IN SWAHILI SWEARS AND IT'D STILL BE A WAY THAT YOU HAVE TO PUT UP WITH

aww, someone's saving us!!!

someone who commented on unstoppable missiles earlier, perhaps?

right, the truth... that's still relevant. while on a sinking submarine. yep

haha sinking submaries i have just been playing oxenfree haha

oh wow that's an improvised mechanism made out of garbage sticking in a close range telekinetic field nifty shit

oh oh okay that explains absolutely nothing evil!Sissel is not evil now, or what?

lmao this is getting more confusing, but like... in a very satisfying way <3

evil!Sissel still seems to have SOME amount of powers, at least, though possibly not the manipulating humans ones? but this amount of telekinesis is still incredible

so okay our Sissel's name possibly IS Sissel, but this dude's isn't I'm more confused than ever before I doubt there are three of them, so...

ahh, Lynne making Kamila more comfortable <3 <3 <3 and again, animation is fucking excellent. just, the timing of everything? it's better than 90% of all 3D animation I've ever seen in games

power and time, okay, got it so the dawn deadline IS real, just not for him wait, possibly not for Sissel and Missile, either?

I see he still fell in his signature ridiculous pose it's less funny now, overall

ah, okay, so the time effect is different too it seems to have been the same for Sissel and Missile though? is this a personality powers deal?

I love that Missile is perfectly comfortable with weird shit because as a dog, that's about the amount of understanding he has of his everyday surroundings, too <3

oh, hum so the moment this guy actually 'died' is the moment that blue guy took out the fragment?

wipe out everybody, huh

okay, so the shooting is as we knew, kind of

the first shot missed the mark, huh? quite curious, quite curious stray bullets are known to be deadly :D

alright, so that's a conversation that mostly confirmed what we already knew we have a new ally though, sort of

aand Lynne's empathy saves the day -_- like I said earlier, this guy's feelings aren't like... unique or anything, he just sucks at theory of mind

Kamila!!! so hey kiddo this guy in front of you is the guy who killed your mom

anyway, I'm still pretty sure Sissel hadn't yet introduced himself to you when you started calling him "Sissy" so there's that lead

and Kamila makes herself comfortable <3 I love this Little Lady so much <3

AWWWW THE RADIO THING <3 <3 <3

'and what about a torpedo' WHAT ABOUT A TORPEDO LYNNE THIS SOUNDS EXTREMELY UNSAFE

KAMILA ARE YOU KIDDING ME YOU'RE TOUGH AS FUCK

OMG IT'S A GRAPE SERVING MACHINE I LOVE THE LUXURIOUS FUCK THIS WAS MADE FOR

alright, torpedo room, that works

swap  the switches to get them unstuck!!!

so I'm going to guess everyone there died, too, and Sissel's going to have to prevent that, too that makes perfect sense

that 'understand exactly how he feels' thing our!Sissel and evil!Sissel are really fucking different in this particular respect :D

awww and the girls convince the doggo <3 <3 <3

so, does Kamila know about the dawn deadline for all ghosts, or

oh thank god I didn't need to control that hop this game really has a policy of not having a permaloss option <3

Yomiel, huh so that's his name

alright, and 'Sissel' is an alias ...I'm just going to keep using it for the protag, just to make things slightly less confusing

ah, so this guy had access to national secrets, and that's how he did the singer thing

and he was proven innocent offscreen <3 <3 <3 stylish

stylish animation, nice

didn't help anybody? did you ever try? because our!Sissel sure figured that shit out quickly

welp, the blue guys are assholes but then, they were also kind of dealing with an asshole I can imagine why they didn't think he was reliable to deal with :x

awww, I like the leaflet guy so much <3 <3 <3

I love how Jowd's like 'well, I'm dead, are you happy now' and Sissel's like 'so anyway about that' FUCK death not tonight, not when Sissel's here <3 <3 <3

alright, and this guy's a robot that still doesn't quite he's pretty human-like >_> I am not a fan of the blue guy in charge is all I'm saying also lmao I nicknamed this one 'iron man dracula' i didn't mean it that way but

ah, remote-controlled, alright that 'farewell' was odd then

'your country's use of technology is just plain off' I LOVE THIS

could there have been two pieces of meteorite in this guy's body? okay, nope still!

OH WOW FOUR MINUTES BEFORE HIS DEATH THAT'S THAT'S ACTUALLY EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED FROM THE VERY BEGINNING EVEN THOUGH I THOUGHT THIS BODY BELONGED TO THE WRONG 'WHOM' THIS IS SOMEWHAT MORE AMBITIOUS THAN PLANNED BUT

...okay, no, his 'death' would actually be before the control room was launched, not all those years ago STILL THIS IS THE -EXACT- THING

alright anyway this is plenty of buildup WHO THE FUCK IS OUR PROTAGONIST it's funny how so far absolutely 0 of what we've seen has pointed to that I have plenty of odd thoughts in my mind ofc 'that guy from another point of time' being the prime one as a homestuck, the possibility of there being multiple ghosts of the same person doesn't faze me in the slightest in fact it seems like an intuitive conclusion BUT THEIR PERSONALITY SURE IS DIFFERENT

anyway, :D :D :D

Final Chapter

...aha! so it counted ten years ago after all! dang :D

aha, I see that mascot thing I see baby Lynne!!!

I note how for someone threatening to shoot the kid, Yomiel's gun sure is pointing in the wrong direction AND he's holding out the kid to the side, not between himself and Jowd SOMEONE sucks at hostage taking lmao

a kitty, huh

and then a meteorite, okay

I note the lamp

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Yomiel is thinking 'so maybe I'll die in another way and all this will have not happened, that's a better outcome anyway' isn't he god his faces are Sissel faces and look this game knows EXACTLY what it's doing with its visuals exactly one facial exression of Yomiel's has not matched Sissel's I doubt it's because of lazy artists

alright, so a good plan would be swapping the mascot and the lamp

but seriously, WOW Yomiel sucks at taking hostages this game's animation is always stellar and brilliant, there's NO fucking coincidence there he was absolutely not willing in any way to put baby Lynne in actual danger, even if he pretended he did and it worked on Jowd

anyway how the fuck do we get to the lamp

'we can talk about all this later' ARGUABLE TBH the entire, like, THING is going to change oh man is everyone going to go back to their bodies 10 years ago with their new memories because that's fucking hardcore was Kamila even BORN yet

augh I DONT KNOW I CANT REACH I THINK I CANT REACH ANYTHING WHAT DO I DO MISSILE IS IN THE SWEET POTATO ON THE FOUNTAIN SISSEL IS IN THE NOZZLE BUT NOT THE CENTRAL ONE AND CANT REACH THE CENTRAL ONE WHAT DO I DO

okay sounds like I missed my chance let's try that again

ghhhh okay I think I have figured this sequence out even though I have to rewind again 1) rock the basket 2) jump into nozzle to launch the potato 3) Sissel jumps into the potato and then from the potato to the central nozzle 4) Missile jumps into the potato 5) launch the potato x2

okay, Mino fell into the fountain, not that I know how this can help because AGAIN, Missile can't reach Mino from the lantern :x and Sissel can't do absolutely fucking anything

annd the finale is a cutscene alas

alright, let's try that again...

hum we didn't get a FATE CHANGE registered after dropping Mino might this mean we have to do something right in the process?

AW YEAH THAT DEFINITELY JUST HAPPENED LMAO

are we going to kill everyone by dropping Mino on them instead XD

trick time, huh Sissel still can't reach anywhere Missile can swap two identical lanterns, not that this does anything he can talk to Sissel, for what THAT's worth

aha, the lantern dropped, Missile can move around now, that's good

Sissel still can't do shit though

well, that's the detective's LEG, not... anything else or anything

oh man, yeah... YOUNG JOWD IS A DUMBASS man, even Yomiel isn't aiming at him anymore, he's like 'hey dude are you okay' so the theory that Sissel is alternate!Yomiel is really gaining steam in my head not that it wasn't the primary one all along but

AW FUCK YEAH MISSILE THE BULLET CATCHING BADASS DOGGO!!!

anyway sweet potato?

BOO YAH um or not

OR YES ACTUALLY THAT WORKS

OH MY FUCKING GOD YEP THE LAMPPOST FUCKING MINO

awwwwww and finally the trauma of remembering your death is brought up!!!! Sissel cares <3 <3 <3 (and Yomiel doesn't at the moment NOT THAT I CAN'T UNDERSTAND THAT IN CONTEXT) (then again I'd understand it if Sissel didn't either but he's the purest being in existence so)

awwww Yomiel is finally going to contribute!!!

omfg lmao "Make it spray as if your life depended on it!" "Uh, I'm dead though" Yomiel is winning ALL the sensitivity awards tonight <3 <3 <3

I I think that Yomiel hasn't done anything yet oh, okay, we're still winning time

holy FUCK Yomiel that was definitely a thing you just did

dear Young Jowd, Yomiel is the one who saved her. Not gods

awwww and he gave baby Lynne a detective's badge <3 <3 <3 he's so good with children <3

so, can Yomiel be alive please :x ALRIGHT, HE IS THAT WORKS

THE KITTY DID THE METEORITE KILL THE KITTY

wait wait wait is is Sissel the kitty is that why he has no idea how guns work or anything else like that that that is truly fucking incredible f y'all's i AND I GUESS IT FITS WITH HIM AND MISSILE JUST GOING AROUND SAVING PEOPLE TOGETHER LIKE A BADASS DUO AND IT FITS WITH HIM GETTING KILLED BY LYNNE'S FIRST SHOT ON ACCIDENT I HONESTLY CONSIDERED A RAT OPTION FOR LIKE A SPLIT SECOND THERE

OMG OMG OMG OMG YE S AND HIS NAME REALLY IS SISSEL

god jesus fucking christ this this fucking game i just im howling this this definitely is a thing that just happened it owned me so hard im so fucking owned right now

yep hes the cat he's Yomiel's cat

aaaaaaaaaawwwwwwww there's a good reason he had identity confusion in all this they WERE confusable as one being for a while

'her' huh?

oh man wow THIS particular part of the story sucks

so Sissel was a girl's name all along? okay

but also, FUCK no wonder he went bonkers specifically about being unable to die

'his powers couldnt help anybody' more like they couldn't help ONE SPECIFIC PERSON

so that bag is a kitty carrier huh and Lynne's miss accidentally killed the kitty

LMAO THE PART WHERE WE ALL THOUGHT LYNNE HAD KILLED THE PROTAG WASN'T WRONG

I DAMN FUCKING REMEMBER THAT CAT JUST FOR YALLS I I ABSOLUTELY REMEMBERED THERE WAS A CAT THERE I JUST NEVER LINKED IT TO ANYTHING I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS A VERY PRETTY RANDOM STRAY

anyway Yomiel that's what you get for playing with guns they're deadly weapons and result in death you're fucking welcome

so anyway who the fuck is Ray

but anyway kitty Sissel saved everyone...

okay but hold on hold on hold on I didn't quite get the implications about the fiancee the first time around WHAT THE FUCK CAPCOM i was just recently thinking how fucked up it was that I remembered the last name of Polly Jenkins, just because of how much her brief story shook me

and uh I think is that also the implication here because that's not fucking okay

anyway so did Yomiel die as the result of that or nay bc that looked fucking deadly if not instantaneously so

god but this ffucking game

this fucking... game

oh Missile I'm pretty sure YOU are going to see HIM alright lmao wasn't Jowd taking him home

but also damn the original events of these ten years, as remembered by - a dog and a cat - Detective Jowd and Kamila (but not Alma, who never was brought back to life directly) - Lynne - Cabanela - the medical examiner - the minister of justice AND NO-ONE ELSE ...wait, no ALSO THE GUY FROM THE FUCKING PARK ...yep that's a thing we're doing

so another important thing is that the rock star kid is going to be okay and the curry guy, too nothing bad happened to them in this timeline, right?

ALRIGHT HI RAY WHAT/WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU

(right now my bet's on 'a rat')

oh, Sissel also killed two people tonight, that happened

lmao and in this version of evens Missile died in the presence of Temsik

omfg and Ray is alternate!Missile this is fucking amazing <3

lmao his ghost aged and lost its powers?

also the dawn deadline was a lie he just wanted to get Sissel's butt moving I FUCKING KNEW IT

I love how Sissel's just "I DID WHAT" even though he's been doing that all evening this time around too

yup doggie's a fucking liar the only real time limit is the lifetime they would have had if they were alive huh damn

but seriously I called that before I started this section of the liveblog even if I think I never actually made that post 'what are the odds Ray is a fucking liar' I don't think I ever wrote that I kept getting distracted but yep I fucking called this

THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART GOD I AM ;U; THIS DOGGO

anyway one participant of the events who definitely wasn't born yet 10 years ago is indeed Missile 0.0 how's that... gonna work...

but I do love that just... the justice minister, of all people, is also going to be in possession of those 10 years

OH MY FUCKING GOD LYNNE IS ABOUT TO HAVE A FUCKING HEART ATTACK I KNOW THERE'S NO GUN BUT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

KAMILA WHAT THE FUCK DON'T FUCKING DO THAT THAT'S ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING

aawwwwwww IT WORKED THIS TIME AROUND

'nice to meet you' OH BOY OH BOY I GET HOW IT WORKS NOW I THINK ...uh, I'm not sure how Lynne knew to flee from the junkyard then, but either way it looks like they're only getting back their memories at the PRESENT and that's why Kamila didn't fUCKING KNOW AND REMEMBER WHAT THE FUCK WAS WRONG WITH DOING THAT JUST NOW

LMAO SOMETHING'S GOING TO EXPLODE TONIGHT

oh, nevermind, it's not that yet :D but it really does sound like it's going to :D right... about... dawn? :D

aww Jowd actually carries toy badges with him everywhere <3 <3 <3 'child handling tools'

still a kitten, huh yeah, that whole Temsik thing :D

aww, and here's her, all alive and everything

SO BIG MEMORYSPLOSION PLEASE

(at dawn) (it's fucking coming that's my headcanon and you can't beat it) (a bunch of people are going to become really fucking traumatized tonight)

hey!!! Missile!!! Cabanela brought him, huh

so, what's up with Yomiel, anyway

COME ON SISSEL MAKE NICE WITH MISSILE HE CAN'T CLIMB UP THERE

that guy's imitating Cabanela lmao

Memry <3 <3 <3

very best customer, huh

AWWW ITS THIS GUY HI GUY YOU'RE OKAY NOW WITHOUT YOMIEL TO RUIN EVERYTHING YOU'RE JUST FINE

hah, and these two

.............................................yup. they died

'the indescretions of a minister perhaps?' I LOVE THIS FUCKING LADY I LOVE HER I LOVE HER

ah, these two what deal is it this time

the little rock sinter guy!!! yeah!!!!

hi medical examiner guy <3 guess you're not doing medicine after all huh

HI LEAFLET PARK GUY YOU ARE STILL CUTE

HI BAILEY

oh man oh man Yomiel :D hey are talking about Yomiel :D

SHOW ME HIS FIANCEE YOU COWARDS

lmao he's the painter this time even the robe sits the same

SO SHOW ME

OH YEAH OH YEAH HE REMEMBERS THATS THE PICTURE OF THE FUCKING CAT AND NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT

YUP YUP THIS IS IT lmao that crane i sure do remember it well it murdered two people tonight <3 <3 <3 kitty <3 <3 <3

aw yeah! in that picture with Missile!!!

[braindamageforbeginners]

Day 52

I woke up, feeling pretty good. I’m starting to sleep better, so maybe there is something to be said for giving cancer patients a little time to recover from the treatments. I tended to shrug off the assorted, lesser symptoms and stiffness during those first six weeks because I was highly functional (those of you who know me personally are probably chuckling at me using the word “functional” to describe myself). I solved a few more bureaucratic problems surrounding me being a sick person - someone from the doctor’s office called to say that, even though they’d filled out their portion of the DMV stuff, there was some segment I had to sign. Which, like everything else about this disease, is just another minor, 10%-harder-than-it-needs-to-be aggravation/annoyance. Still, I’ll figure that one out; I’ve made it this far. I’ll admit, that wasn’t my initial mental reaction, I briefly wanted to wail and gnash my teeth - fortunately, those last vestiges of surface-dweller have been overtaken by my inner kraken, so I just calmly asked the nurse to e-mail me the forms in question. Also as of this writing - late late evening Friday, 2/10/18, the forms haven’t arrived; so, pro-tip if you plan on ever being seriously ill or infirm, assume a one-business-day delay for all administrative/communications issues). Again, it’s kind of overwhelming and upsetting how many bureaucratic hurdles you have to overcome when you’re sick, even with the best care and people on your side (there will be entire blog posts about that issue, trust me). And I scheduled a dental visit, which, again, probably sounds pretty pedestrian to you, but I found thrilling.

Speaking of which, I spent most of yesterday tracking down and getting authorization/release for a prescription renewal, which, while annoying and unpleasant, never felt overwhelming; BUT, I did, finally, get a call yesterday evening from some creepy insurance robot saying that I did get the okay to pick that one up.

I also got a very sweet call from someone on the Radiation Team the other night saying they’d read my thank-you letter in the latest staff meeting, and thanking me for writing it; which is great, but I still feel that if those fine people ever feel unappreciated for a second, something is seriously wrong with society (there will be entire blog posts about what is wrong with society, too)(for starters, decent people allow themselves to be pushed around and let jerks rise to the very top; but I digress), Still, it does feel cool to know I might be able to do that for other people.

All of which is a rather roundabout way of updating you all on the various broad categories of after-hours calls you may receive in the abyss: 1. Very, very bad medical news 2. Very, very good medical news 3. Medical people calling to update you with various, random paperwork or lab results 4. Creepy, female health bureaucracy Terminators from the drug/insurance/whatever Universal Health Corporation updating you about the latest in your ongoing health paperwork quagmire (at this point, it kind of does feel like the insurance forms might well kill me long before cancer does). 5. People from along the abyssal journey calling to remind you that you’re an awesome kraken. You can guess which one is my favorite (it’s creepy insurance fembot; she sounds kind of hot).

Continuing that ever-growing theme of my life of showing gratitude when it’s due, thanks to all the neighbors and family friends who came out to wish me well this evening. Kudos to Ingrid, Kaydee, Roger, Jaime, Spencer, Amelia, Elise, Brinlee (I hope I spelled that), and everyone else I’m leaving out. Thanks for showing up, folks. And Roger, thank you for that delightfully absurd vision of a man walking into the dark, playing the accordion (and reader, if that mental image doesn’t make you smile, check to see that you are still alive).

Anyway, the thought-du-jour concerns headaches (the physical kind); the sort that you have, and I have. When you get a brain tumor, everyone wants to know if you have a headache. I am always asked if I have a headache. And I always try to answer honestly; and I’m sure the question is diagnostically accurate if they ask it. But, at the same time, there is a part of me that became recently aware, as I started feeling better, of the weird paradox of that question. In order to appreciate it - this is an audience participation exercise - I need you, reader, to sit still (but comfortably), in a quiet place without any distractions. And, now, in that position of relative comfort and health, let me ask, “Do you have a headache?” You probably don’t, but, even if you didn’t five minutes ago, there’s a solid chance some of you are reaching for the aspirin.

ANYWAY… WEIGHT: 218 lb CONCENTRATION:Not bad; I completed this thing and helped Mother Dearest in a variety of random tasks. APPETITE: Good, but slightly depressed. ACTIVITY LEVEL: Excellent; I went to the gym SLEEP QUALITY: Excellent. I’m dropping dead at a late hour, and waking up 7-ish hours later, feeling perfectly physically fine. COORDINATION/DEXTERITY: Excellent, although I still have a twitch in my left wrist and hand. MEMORY: Patchy. I can recall something with extreme detail; I had a little trouble keeping the neighbor kids straight, but I had that difficulty when I was healthy, And there were 20 of them, so it’s hard to keep rack (including, as it turns out, three feral children who just slipped past the guards). PHYSICAL: Not too bad. My head’s still sore, though that’ less of a dull ache, and more like stabbing, intermittent sensations SIDE EFFECTS: Nothing new.

[firstfootingscotland]

Bogha-frois Conversations: Joseph Peach

Early this year during Glasgow’s Celtic Connections Festival I had the pleasure of joining a host of incredible LGBT+ artists for a performance and a panel around the theme of Bogha-frois: LGBT+ Voices in Folk. A brainchild of Pedro Cameron (Man of the Minch), Bogha-frois began as a workshop at the Scottish Storytelling Centre and takes its name from the Gaelic word for “rainbow.” The energy around Bogha-frois has enacted a metamorphosis - far beyond a standalone workshop, panel, or critically-acclaimed gig, Bogha-frois is a movement celebrating gender and sexual diversity within traditional and folk music, song, and dance in Scotland. Following the events in Glasgow, I wanted to continue these conversations and proposed a series of monthly blog posts. It’s hope this series will be a place for dialogue around the intersections of traditional arts, identity, and each artists’ path as a LGBT+ person. Our final Bogha-frois conversationalist is Joseph Peach! 

Tell me a story... what was a moment when you felt both your identity as a traditional musician and your identity as a LGBTQIA+ person were in focus? (1)

This is such a rare thing, so far at least. Until very recently, I haven't really seen even that a meeting of these two aspects of myself might be necessary, or indeed possible. The Bogha-frois gig at Celtic Connections was certainly one of these times though, it was an amazing and beautiful celebration. I was really surprised by how profoundly moving it felt to be part of a big group of LGBTQIA+ folkies playing music together, and for this aspect of our identities to be what had brought us there. Thinking about it, music- traditional music in particular, has so far been the biggest factor in making my identity, far more than the fact of being an LGBTQIA+ person. I think that's for a couple of reasons. I've been playing music since before I can remember, but I've only been aware and accepted that I was gay for a comparatively short amount of time. I've found understanding and reconciling this fact to be a process that is much more complex, and definitely still ongoing. To me, being a musician is everything: It's a passion, art, creating, a purpose in life, and way of life. If it was only a job, I'd be doing something else like practicing law, and being paid far more to work far more regular hours. More than ever before, the past few years have been a time of discovery creatively; finding worlds of artists and work to listen to, read, see and watch; things to admire, and be moved and inspired by. They have also been a time of doing more learning, playing, and making music. And what I’m really starting to understand, from work that inspire me, and the work that I make, is that for this whole notion of doing something like this only works if everything feeds in quite unfiltered. In a very roundabout way, I guess what I'm trying to say is that as getting comfy with the LGBTQIA+ aspect of myself continues, that of course there needs to be much more space and consideration for these two identities overlap.

How do you identify? What are the pronouns, descriptors or other words you like to use, if any, to describe yourself in regard to your LGBTQIA+ status.

I'm a (mostly) gay, cisgendered man I suppose, and the pronouns I use are he/him/his.

(photo of Joseph Peach by Somhairle MacDonald)

Talk about your perceptions of LGBTQIA+ identity (both yours and others) within your experience playing traditional music in Scotland.

Perception, especially self-perception is something I find very hard. I'm prone to being quite negative in how I see myself, and massively overthinking (usually in a negative way) my own notion of how other people see me- as a musician, person, and everything else. This is probably going to be a bit of a left field (and very long) answer, but relevant I think. It’s quite telling that when first reading the question that my mind immediately went towards anxiety. I think that for me, so much of what causes and triggers anxiety is to do with being a musician, and being gay. So, the musician thing. To me it is such a deeply personal thing, playing an instrument. How and why you do it is something wrapped up in the very fabric of you. And the nature of doing it for a living is one of always putting yourself out there- putting this really personal thing in all sorts of situations where people can hear and judge it. This is a bit terrifying sometimes, and it becomes a challenge not to be totally overwhelmed by the swirling thoughts that come with thinking about it too much- mainly that I’m doing a shit job, and that the people around me can see and hear that. This can present a major problem, but thankfully not all of the time. One of the things I love the most about the bands and collaborators with which I’m most regularly and seriously involved, are the levels of friendship, support, understanding, and trust which make these emotions fade in to the background, and make the space to focus on the things that are actually important. It’s all a question of perspective about perception I think, and there’s a real challenge in that.

And the gay thing. To my knowledge, there’s never been a better time to be LGBTQIA+, and arguably, in terms of rights, protection, and legislation, you’d struggle to find a better place than Scotland. Sadly, you don't have to look too far, to see very present, worrying and heartbreaking examples where being LGBTQIA+ is literally a threat to your life. So I’m extremely lucky to be where I am, when I am. In the great scheme of things though this comfort and protection is a very recent thing. Even in this progressive country we’re emerging from centuries of this sort of otherness being feared and abhorred- an abomination and illegal; something society said to be ashamed of. Thankfully, for all sorts of reasons that I really don’t know enough about, it feels that as society we’re moving away from this pretty quickly, and have been for a while. But certainly when I was growing up (and I’m sure being from a small rural place is part of it), I always had the impression that being some form of LGBTQIA+, (probably not described in such sympathetic terms) was something to be ashamed of. I was told that, saw it in the complete absence of any such people in the community, and heard it in the way such folk were talked about. Of course it’s a problem far bigger than that specific place. A problem it’s hard to see an end to until we stop raising children to expect that they’ll be straight and cisgendered.

I’m really interested in the Suzuki method. Much of it is based on the notion that it is possible to learn music in the same deeply natural way one learns their native language- by immersion, observation and impersonation. And it's so true- we do learn our first language like this. As a child, you become an expert in speaking your language through this deep and unconscious process. By this same principle, I managed to pick up a whole bunch of shame about being gay. My teenage years were spent agonizing about it, resenting it, and feeling quite isolated because of it; worrying about how others would see me, and tying myself in knots about how I saw myself. These things are ongoing I suppose- it's a lot to unlearn. The understanding and perspective that time and learning brings are hugely helpful, but working on my perception of myself in this way is definitely also still a work in progress.

(trailer for Joseph’s forthcoming record Air Iomall with fiddler Charlie Grey made in collaboration with filmmaker Hamish Macleod)

In what ways do you feel your identity as a LGBTQIA+ person and a traditional musician intersect, overlap, engage?

I’m really attracted to music that's quite absolute, just existing to be a wee world of its own, on its own terms, and that makes you go fuck, that’s amazing as an entity in its own right, not as an abstraction of something else. To me that’s lots of piano music, classical things, electronic things, and of course, much of traditional music.

My attitude until quite recently has been that it'd be hard to make any sort of explicit overlap between this sort of music and anything LGBTQIA+. If it is just music for its own sake, how can you make it queer, straight, or anything else for that matter? This is maybe the wrong way of looking at it though- if everything feeds in to music in some way, so being LGBTQIA+ must, even in small ways.

One place this is maybe quite concretely the case is in how I speak and move. It’s an idea that’s crossed my mind quite recently, when I was watching back a film that involves a lot of chat. I don’t often hear myself speak outside of my own head, so watching I was quite struck by how my voice sounded- it was quite camp. I don't mean that negatively- camp as an insult is bullshit from a toxic notion of heteronormative masculinity.

And I notice it too when I see myself playing the piano, the same sort of campness. Granted, I think being quite anxious can make me pretty hyper-aware, so maybe it's not so obvious to other folk. But playing music is a physical thing, so it’s maybe actually really nice that there are ways using my body to do that, or my voice to speak about it that come from an LGBTQIA+ identity. Noticing and valuing these small things already feels like something quite profound.  

Talk about your experience connecting with other LGBTQIA+ folks both inside and outside the traditional arts.

I'm extremely lucky in the community around me in Glasgow- I feel very part of something musically and socially. For me, connecting with LGBTQIA+ people is never something I've really consciously sought out- as with everyone else, it just happens over the course of day to day life. Other than accidentally ending up at Pride in Vienna a few years ago, and deliberately going to the Glasgow one once, the Bogha-frois gig was the only time really I’ve been involved in a gathering centered around LGBTQIA+ identity, and certainly a first time it’s been about music. And there was something unexpectedly and completely amazing about that.

If you’re comfortable sharing, talk about any incidents of homophobia or transphobia that you’ve witnessed both inside and outside the traditional arts.

I've been very lucky, sheltered, or possibly both in how little of this I’ve experienced, to my face at least. Within the scene within which I live and work, it's barely ever more than some off-colour jokes. When I was young, I think there was a lot of homophobic language, in school and in the community in which I lived- again this rarely amounted to more than off-colour jokes, but sometimes you’d know the sentiment was serious.

In all honesty, the worst homophobia I've experienced was probably levelled at me by me, during the younger years of coming to terms with my sexuality. That feels like quite a drastic thing to write, and when I think back to that time my inclination is to downplay it, but this is definitely no overstatement.

How do you see the traditional arts changing in regard to LGBTQIA+ people? What are the further changes you would like to see?

Malin Lewis said something really interesting in their answer to this question, about a link between some of what we’re talking about here, and the much needed discussion around women in traditional music that's been a big topic in trad scene over the past couple of years. My mind was really blown when the conversation started a couple of years ago. I had so little idea of the privilege I was enjoying in comparison to my female counterparts. It was quite an eye opener in a much wider way towards the workings of privilege in the world around us. It's kind of everywhere- systemic and entrenched societally, but also very individual- on the scales of privilege and disadvantage we all win and lose in different ways. It's a bit of a fucked situation, and I don’t know what the answer is, but what I don't think helps is denial. I think the most useful thing, for our own folky world, but also in the widest possible way, is simply acknowledging the privileges you have, being aware that they might be what allows you to occupy your space, and that they might well create a barrier that prevents other folk from also occupying that space.

You can learn more about Joseph and his music at www.joseph-peach.com.

First Footing is a collaboration between dancer and dance researcher Nic Gareiss, the Traditional Dance Forum of Scotland, University of Edinburgh Moray House School of Education, and the School of Scottish Studies with support from Creative Scotland. For engagement opportunities check out the First Footing website.

(1) Following methodology developed by Fiona Buckland in her book Impossible Dance: Club Culture and Queer World-making, I began each conversation asking artists to tell me a story. This, Buckland reminds us, redistributes significance to the voice of the artist, rather than the anthropologist/researcher/interviewer. In Buckland’s words, “the meanings they made from the practices are more crucial than whatever meaning I impose with the theoretical tools in my standard issue doctoral utility belt.” (Buckland 2002, p. 11) This feels incredibly important when collaborating with folks whose voices have so often been underheard or marginalized.

[the-bookler]

85 questions

Rules: Answer these 85 statements and tag 20 people.

I was tagged by @honoraryshadowangel thank you so much! Honestly i’m still getting to know people so tagging uuhhh @quillbit-reads @coffeebooksorme @happybibliosaurus honestly i’d tag more but it’s 2am and im tired sorry!

the last 1. drink:omg pink lemonade with tamova vodka, not good. Kids, drink expensive vodka it makes the world of difference 

2. phone call: A friend at 1am last night via FB messenger because my dog escaped and was heading her way 

3. text message: uuuuh i dont use my phone’s intrinsic functions ie calls and texts so last person I messaged via FB messenger was my friend Jack about an award ceremony we were both at 

4. song you listened to: haven’t the foggiest, I didn’t listen to music today

5. time you cried: I was drunk and upset over a friend who committed suicide in April I believe, would have been in June

6. dated someone twice: lmao i’ve dated one person properly and wouldn’t go near that person again with a ten foot pole if I was at gunpoint so sorry nope 

7. kissed someone and regretted it: bahahah march i got into a fight with him he was demanding and i don’t care for people i barely know demanding large swathes of my time seeing as im so busy but apparently he’s cursed so i haven’t kissed anyone since it’s awful

8. been cheated on: November 

9. lost someone special: April, RIP Rafa <3 

10. been depressed: It was last bad in November, guess why

11. gotten drunk and thrown up: June it’s the second time i’ve ever been that drunk I hate it so much I usually just have a can or two and float around smiley and fun tbh 

3 favourite colours 12. Green 13. Lilac 14: Pink

in the last year have you 15. made new friends: oh god yeah, at least 100 new people in my life and i’d count at least 50 of them as very good friends now 

16. fallen out of love: hmmm not love i don’t think 

17. laughed until you cried: yepppp

18. found out someone was talking about you: people always talk about me i’m great ;D no but like... of course people talk about you? not maliciously probably in my case 

19. met someone who changed you: Yep!

20. found out who your friends are: totally 

21. kissed someone on your Facebook list: ahahaha yes a lot of them, we had a game of spin the bottle in November some time. I’m also a bit of a devilish rake by American standards but that’s just how youths in Ireland are.

General: 22. how many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: I know of them all but i’d say there’s about 30 i’ve never met in person or been introduced to 

23. do you have any pets: Sascha the cat and his brother Charlie the Jack Russell!

24. do you want to change your name: I kinda instigated a change of it from megan jane to megjay but other than that nah

25. what did you do for your last birthday: went to a silent disco, had several complimentary jaegermeister shots, stayed overnight in my uni city instead of going home like i usually do, oh also a drama society quiz we failed spectacularly

26. what time did you wake up: this morning was about 12.30pm D: i’m bad in summer...

27. what were you doing at midnight last night: running around my neighbourhood and the surrounding roads and fields after my runaway dog in the lightning. I wish I was lying 

28. name something you can’t wait for: To move to my uni city and get started on my second year of college!

29. when was the last time you saw your mom: like two hours ago

30 has vanished? mysterious 

31. what are you listening to right now: nothingggg other than the cars on the road

32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: huh. not that i’m aware of, they’re all tomás or thomas here.

33. something that is getting on your nerves: people chewing loudly, people expecting me to help them without asking or being roundabout in the way they look for help like just being sneaky 

34. most visited website: not sure tbh

35. hair colour: blonde

36. long or short hair: mine is mid length it’s growing, I usually keep it short for practicality but im a poor college student who cant afford cuts and i have mad curly hair so my friends cant do it for me, so it’s gonna be long soon lol

37. do you have a crush on someone: kiiiinda? im suppressing it, it’s a Bad Idea.

38. what do you like about yourself: everything, i’m glorious 

39. piercings: i’ve two in each lobe 

40. blood type: No idea, I waited 4 hours to donate blood and find out once but turns out my veins are too slim and i’m banned from giving blood now :) :) :) 

41. nickname: megjay, megs, meggy, nutmeg

42. relationship status: single af

43. zodiac: Virgo

44. pronouns: she/her

45. favourite tv show: I don’t watch tv,.... maybe criminal minds? i like Reid

46. tattoos: not yet!

47. right or left handed: right

48. surgery: nothing yet but i feel like i’ll need work done to my knees sooner or later

50. favorite sport: volleyball! i’m hopeless at it despite being a spikeball coach lol

51. favorite vacation: Denmark or London

52. favorite pair of trainers: The pink ones i stole from my sister ;) 

MORE GENERAL

53. eating: nothing 

54. drinking: nothing

55. I’m about to: sleep

56. waiting for: second year of college wooooop

57. want: sweets 

58. get married: idk i don’t really want to but i might change my mind

59. career: stage manager or actor or playwright or something related 

WHICH IS BETTER:

60. hugs or kisses: both, i’m a slut for human contact come kiss and hug me i love it 

61. lips or eyes: eyes

62. shorter or taller: taller pls 

63. older or younger: older

64. nice arms or nice stomach: love makes you blind ie you dont really care like im not gonna pick someone to love based on their anatomy

65. hookup or relationship: relationship

66. troublemaker or hesitant: troublemaker, im a bit shy i need someone to get me into my mad situations 

HAVE YOU EVER:

67. kissed a stranger: yea lol i got to know him later though

68. drank hard liquor: i dont even know what qualifies as hard... jaeger?

69. lost glasses/contact lenses: no

70. turned someone down: yeah tinder is rife with... interesting folk

71. sex on the first date: nope 

73. had your heart broken: kinda

74. been arrested: no

75. cried when someone died: yes

76. fallen for a friend: yep! it ended really poorly i do not recommend!

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

77. yourself: 100% 

78. miracles: nope

79. love at first sight: kinda 

80. santa claus: no

81. kiss on the first date: lol yep im loose with my affections 

82. angels: nope 

OTHER:

84. eye colour: blue 85. favourite movie: Kingsman!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[junker-town]

Football helmets are the hot new accessory at Paris Fashion Week

Yeah, we don’t know either.

It’s officially Fashion Week in Paris, and while you’re probably wondering why me, a college football writer, cares about that, well, let me tell you.

It’s because in Paris, it appears that football helmets are now considered A Look:

View this post on Instagram

Game on “Public Television”

A post shared by DC2 (@chicagodonc) on Jan 16, 2019 at 5:53am PST

Yep, that is a Los Angeles Chargers and Texas Longhorns helmet. Those aren’t the only teams that have been featured in Paris — Clemson and Iowa have been, too:

View this post on Instagram

Off-White Fall/Winter 2019 Men’s Collection.. Featuring Playboi Carti And Offset #asapmob #celebritynews #supreme #supremenyc #supremeforsale #yeezyboost350v2 #outfitoftheday #luxury #boxlogo #kicks #menswear #hypebeast #hiphop #streetstlye #streetwear #kicksonfire #streetfashion #fearofgod #skatebording #highsnobiety #sneakernews #sneakerheads #ianconnor #offwhite #sneaker #gosharubchinskiy #palaceskateboards #fashion #suprememarketplace #vlone

A post shared by HypeNeverDies (@hypeneverdies) on Jan 16, 2019 at 6:59am PST

View this post on Instagram

This show was @stevie_dance @virgilabloh #offwhite

A post shared by Tamsir Thiam (@tamsirthiamm) on Jan 16, 2019 at 7:03am PST

Wait, why in the hell are there football helmets in Paris?

OK, so all of these looks are by a designer named Virgil Abloh, whose line is called Off-White. He’s also the artistic director of Louis Vitton. While it’s unclear why exactly these football helmets are featured in certain looks, Abloh did attend Wisconsin, where he graduated in 2003. Here’s Abloh wearing a Wisconsin t-shirt during a 2016 event:

Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images for Coach

Abloh got his degree from UW in engineering in 2003, and creatively applied what he learned to an entirely different occupation:

At the UW, Abloh studied civil engineering at the advice of his father. Though he was “sort of irreverent” toward the major, he doesn’t regret it. “Everything I did, in some way, made this result happen,” Abloh explains. In studying engineering, he learned how to multitask and problem-solve — the basis of his career. “I have a philosophy on problem-solving, I guess,” he says.

A pause. I ask what that philosophy is.

“There’s … remnants of juxtaposition,” Abloh posits. He expatiates on the idea that functionality and modern humor are part of his approach to design, and that each solution should serve a purpose. “Sort of vague answers,” he concludes, “but that’s, like, a vague question.”

Abloh’s vague response to questions about his achievements may be a Wisconsin thing. He sounds a little like Badgers football head coach Paul Chryst trying to explain what makes his program so consistent.

From my colleague Louis Bien’s profile of Wisconsin’s 2017 team:

“Right?” he says. “But I think I do agree that there is a formula or a blueprint — or whatever, that’s even too fancy — but there’s a way to do it that I think is right and kind of time-tested for this place. You always want to try to improve that, but you don’t want to drastically change.”

[...]

”And we talk about this all the time: The best part of football is playing the game. And you only win the game at the end of the game,” Chryst says. “So if all you’re concerned about is winning the game, you missed the best part of the game, and that’s playing.”

Fashion designing aside, Abloh goes by DJ Flat White in the music world, and he is also really good pals with Kanye West.

Just last summer, Abloh shared a hug with Yeezy after his Louis Vuitton line debuted:

View this post on Instagram

@virgilabloh & #kaynewest Emotional! @louisvuitton show

A post shared by Takashi Murakami (@takashipom) on Jun 21, 2018 at 6:27am PDT

West helped Abloh get into the fashion industry, and the two actually go way back:

His entry into fashion happened in a roundabout way. Abloh, who studied civil engineering and architecture, got his foothold in the industry as West’s creative director (though he’s always been reticent about the job so his exact contributions have been hard to define), after the two struck up a partnership in the early 2000s. When he, West, and their crew went to the Paris shows in 2009, Abloh felt distinctly like an outsider. “We got into about 60 percent of the shows,” he recalled to W Magazine. “We were a generation that was interested in fashion and weren’t supposed to be there.”

But he and West had already made names for themselves through music, and being young and eager to learn, were able to get internships at Fendi. “We ain’t get to do nothing,” West said of the experience in an interview earlier this year. ”We were just happy to have a key card.”

We’ve reached out to Off-White regarding why football helmets were included in certain looks, and are eagerly awaiting a reply.

For now, some conspiracy theories about why the helmets are in Paris that are completely my own:

1. Fellow Wisconsin alumnus Melvin Gordon plays for the Chargers, so perhaps Gordon hooked him up there.

2. Abloh did release a line with Nike last summer, so maybe he’s just a football fan who who wants to include the sport with his work!

3. Texas is back folks, and everyone knows it — that includes Paris Fashion Week attendees.

4. Clemson just won the national championship, so being invited to the White House for fast food and getting your helmet shown at Paris Fashion Week is fitting.

Stay tuned as we further investigate football helmets at Paris Fashion Week.

[leftpress]

Anti-Fascist Sports, Autonomen, and PhDs: An Interview with Gabriel Kuhn

thecollective | anarchistnews.org | March 3rd 2017

From Freedom

Published March 2, 2017

Gabriel Kuhn has been writing political books from the late ’90s on topics ranging from women pirates to football and the State. In this interview Freedom reviewer Luther Blisset talks to him about the Autonomen, workers’ councils and the history of anti-fascism in sport.

LB: You graduated with a PhD at a young age, at least for the US. Did you know that you wanted to do philosophy for a long time? How did you get interested in philosophy and radical politics? And why go for a PhD instead of just an undergraduate degree?

GK: I knew that I wanted to study philosophy already in high...

school. It was simply a fascination with questions that seemed central to our existence: is there a God or not? What is good and what is evil? What is the meaning of life? Why does something exist and not nothing?

The interest in politics developed a little later, but it quickly became very strong and, inevitably, influenced my take on philosophy. Political philosophy and ethics became the fields I was mostly interested in. During the early 1990s, when I did my studies, there was a bit of an upheaval in the humanities, at least in Europe. For many, the fall of the Soviet Union had discredited Marxism, which was still the leading ideology among left-wing academics. Interest in poststructuralist leftists — such as Michel Foucault, Jean-François Lyotard, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari — soared. I remember the period as exciting, even though much of poststructuralist-inspired work today has degenerated into nonsensical gibberish.

The reason I did a PhD was because it was an easy thing to do in Austria. It didn’t cost you anything (university education was free and still is for the most part) and I hardly had to do any courses. All I needed to do — so to speak — was to write a thesis, which wasn’t a big sacrifice since I always enjoyed writing. That’s why I saw the project through, although I had no interest in an academic career. I’ve never had a job in academia.

LB: I remember reading that you were involved with the Autonomen for several years. How would you describe your activities? Demos? Publishing? Outreach? Could you share several of the lessons you learned from the experience?

GK: The autonomous milieu was pretty much where all radical leftists in the German-speaking world found themselves in if they didn’t want to be involved in party politics. It was very diverse and ideologically quite open. For some years, I was part of a collective in a smaller Austrian town that contributed to and distributed the country’s biggest autonomous newspaper; I guess in more modern language you’d call it an affinity group. We also went to demonstrations together and were involved in different protests — against the first Gulf War, the rise of the FPÖ (a right-wing party, today one of the country’s biggest), real estate speculation, Austria joining the European Union (at the time, opposition to the EU was a mainly leftist issue — today, it has been taken over by the nationalists). We also were involved in starting a pirate radio station, which opened the path for legal non-commercial radio projects that still exist. In 1994, I left Austria and I can’t really claim that I have been active in the German-speaking autonomous movement since, although I’ve always been following the developments and discussions and it’s still the milieu I move in when I go visit. A few years ago, I was involved in a German publishing project that tried to reevaluate the autonomous movement in the new century.

What did I learn from those experiences? Interesting question, I have never given that much thought. Obviously, it introduced me to autonomous organising, for better or worse. I learned about militant protest and direct action, security and legal issues, the publishing and distributing of literature, the dynamics of radical collectives, and about building broader alliances or at least trying to. Plus, there were many debates about goals, strategies, and tactics. I think I mainly gathered impressions for a few years and had in no way reached any particular conclusion when I left the country to travel and then live abroad. I guess what I took me with me was the feeling that you can have an impact even as a small group, as long as you’re connected to a broader movement through regular discussion and common action. If that connection is lost, however — as I feel is increasingly the case for radical collectives, at least in Western and Northern Europe — it’s easy to fit the image of an isolated social club with radical pretensions.

LB: Given your background, reading, and networks, have you seen any phenomenon or organising in the US that resembles any of the iterations of the European Autonomen? If so, could you elaborate or discuss a bit?

GK: I think that the anarchist subculture I experienced studying and travelling in the U.S. between 1994 and 2005 in many ways resembled that of the Autonomen. This concerned everything from what people wore to what they ate to the music they listened to and to the way their homes and social centres looked. All of that was very familiar. And despite certain differences in focus, the main political topics were also the same: gender, racism, anti-capitalism, and so on. Add to that the shared enthusiasm for direct action, Black Blocs, and related forms of protest and you have very similar scenes.

The strongest differences probably concerned ideology. The Autonomen were still fairly influenced by Marxism — even if it was a Marxism of the “left communist” or “operaist” variety — and I didn’t see much of that in the U.S. I hate to employ overused stereotypes, but I felt there were fairly strong anti-intellectual strains in the radical circles I encountered there. All of this might have changed, however. I haven’t been able to travel to the country since 2005 due to immigration issues.

LB: You edited a book of key source documents on Workers Councils. How did you first run into the material? And how did you decide which documents to translate into English — that must have been incredibly hard! I’m very curious about what relevance you see in getting these documents published. What have you specifically learned from working with this body of documents?

GK: The book came about in roundabout ways. Originally, I was interested in the role of the anarchists Gustav Landauer and Erich Mühsam in the Bavarian Council Republic, which existed for a couple of months in the spring of 1919. Mühsam had written a personal account of the period, and an American friend, who wanted to publish it as a pamphlet, had asked me to translate it. The pamphlet never appeared, but talking about the project with other English-speaking friends, it seemed there was a more general interest in the German Revolution of 1918–1919, especially in the radical, that is, the anarchist, syndicalist, and communist currents. The folks at PM Press were among those I talked to, and this is how the book was conceived.

The material wasn’t difficult to find. The period is well covered in German literature. I chose the texts for the English edition according to their overall importance and to how representative they were for the currents I wanted to focus on. Of course I wanted to include the most influential texts, but I also wanted to tell a story. Anthologies — in particular academic ones — all too often consist of individual texts that might be of great quality but are only loosely connected; it can be hard to identify a thread that runs through them all. For me, it seemed important to tie the individual parts together and create a narrative. So that’s what I tried to do.

As far as the relevance of publishing historical material is concerned, there is a standard answer: we need to learn from history to make the future better. More specifically in this case, the question of revolution remains unresolved. Fortunately enough, there are still a lot of people who want a socialist society; but few of us know how to even begin the discussion about how to get there. Looking at earlier attempts seems like a good starting point.

LB: How many languages are you able to translate with/across?

GK: Basically, I translate between German, English, and Swedish, although the translations into Swedish require more time and editorial help. I can also translate from French (albeit slowly) and — by default, as they are so close to Swedish — from Danish and Norwegian. I cannot translate into those languages, my active command of them is simply too poor.

I enjoy translating. It’s like writing, only that you can fully focus on the technical aspects of it, since someone else already has done the thinking for you. If you like writing and have an interest in language, it’s a great thing to do.

LB: When I saw your work about sports and anti-fascism, I was a bit surprised, honestly. Normally, in the US, sports is run by and with nationalism. Often other ugly forms of chauvinism appear. Anti-fascist sports strikes me in many ways like anti-racist or communist skinheads: a rare exception or novel idea. What motivated you to work on and write about this? How has the work been received? Do you play sports yourself?

GK: I play a lot of sports and have always done so. Next to family and politics (which includes the work I do), sport is the most important part of my everyday life. This is also what motivates me to write about it.

Of course you are right, there is plenty of ugliness in sports, especially in the professionalised and commercialised varieties: competition, chauvinism, exploitation, unhealthy body norms, you name it. But sport is not only a big part of my life, it’s a big part of many people’s lives, and it won’t go anywhere in a liberated society, and neither should it, because there is plenty of beauty in it as well.

Essentially, sport is the combination of physical activity and play, which are both essential for our well-being. If the environment is right, sports can be great fun, they bring people together, and they teach us social values. The challenge for radicals is to create an environment that brings out the best in sports instead of the worst.

It is true that good examples are not always easy to find, but they exist: from the workers’ sports movement of the early twentieth century to sport’s role in the civil rights struggles of the 1960s to antifascist organising among sports fans today. Sport has tremendous political significance and th

[criticsofcolour]

‘The Canary and the Crow’s Daniel Ward: “There’s a lot of gig theatre out there now but Middle Child were one of the first companies that championed it”’ by Lizzie Akita

Hull-based theatre company Middle Child are making a name for themselves as creators of gig theatre. Theatre that combines original live music with new writing; it’s an immersive experience that many may not have seen before. Their latest offering is ‘The Canary and the Crow’ which made its debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year. Before one of its evening performances, I met with writer and lead performer, Daniel Ward, to discuss the show and the exciting space that gig theatre currently occupies.

In many theatres that you enter, the stage is concealed by a curtain; it’s a decorative barrier which keeps the audience at a distance. But when you take your seat at the Roundabout @ Summerhall to see ‘The Canary and the Crow’, there’s a different kind of atmosphere. Prez 96 who plays ‘The Cage’, hypes up the crowd in the in-the-round theatre, dancing and getting the audience to chant along just as an act would do ahead of a gig. It’s inviting, liberating and charges you up for the evening ahead.

“Gig theatre is quite an exciting space to work in because nobody really understands what it is. I think people understand if you’re going to go and see musical theatre what it is. If you go see a traditional play, or a comedy gig or a music gig, people kind of inherently understand what it is. It’s an exciting space to work in because no one has the answers.”

In Ward’s semi-autobiographical piece, directed by Paul Smith, a black ten-year-old boy secures a scholarship to a prestigious private school. The boy, known as ‘The Bird’ and played by Ward, is thrust into a world where the majority of the students and teachers are white and he is seen as an ‘other’.

“I started writing to music with the idea of two conflicting [types of] music in mind. The classical cultural music verses the grime, jungle hip hop that we used to listen to.” Ward explains. The conflicting music styles described captures this tension where The Bird is at odds and out of step with the majority. As he attempts to adjust, there is a cost as he starts to lose touch with those he grew up with. “In the play, there are the lessons which make up the piece and there are the tracks. Every time I wrote a lesson, I wrote it to a musical track.”

When Middle Child agreed to take on the show, shaping the production and the music was a collaborative process. “Sometimes I could play the music or give an impression of what kind of feel the track should have and then James Brewer [co-composer], would go okay and make something based on that feel or Laurie [actor-musician] may pick up a cello and Nigel [co-composer aka Prez 96] would say I think I get this beat. It was a real ensemble effort where we kept trying things out. It was a lot of fun and trial and error. I’m not trained in music, I can only say it feels like this and then they understood it, that’s all they needed.”

Ward’s first experience of gig theatre was four years ago at the Edinburgh Fringe when he saw ‘Weekend Rockstars’ created by Luke Barnes and Middle Child. “It was on at midnight and it was rock music. They were playing their guitars and were angry, talking about how there was nothing to do in their town. But at the weekend, they’d grab a pint and be able to go out and be rockstars. It wasn’t my experience, but I knew this was how I wanted to tell my story.”

“There’s a lot of gig theatre out there now but Middle Child were one of the first companies that championed it. A music gig appeals to broader audiences while theatre doesn’t. Middle Child’s goal is to look at the elements of a comedy or a music gig and see how we can incorporate this to bring new audiences and younger audiences into the theatre.”

In the opening of the show, Ward takes us back to the experience which inspired its creation. A black guest speaker specifically requests to talk to the BAME (black, asian and minority ethnic) students at Ward’s drama school. A friend of the speaker, also a black actor, had suffered a breakdown and an identity crisis which stemmed from his experience at drama school years before. The speaker was worried that the students in the room were at risk of having something similar happen to them.

The person in question is British actor David Harewood. Originally from Birmingham, Harewood trained at RADA in London where he was one of the very few students from a minority background. He has spoken publicly about his identity crisis and mental health breakdown, most recently in the BBC documentary ‘Psychosis and Me’. This experience planted the seed for ‘The Canary and The Crow’. “When that conversation happened, I was thinking about it and I wanted to write something that acknowledged this weird feeling that I couldn’t quite articulate about my educational experience, both at drama school and at Wilson’s [Ward’s secondary school]. But I didn’t know what it was.”

This weird feeling which is explored in the play is the idea of becoming an ‘acceptable black’. This is the notion that when in the minority, you leave your cultural identity behind to become tolerable to the majority. This feeling of not belonging is one which Ward is more than familiar with. Ward comes from a working-class background and a single parent family household and went to a grammar school where he was surrounded by people who were different to him. “I was always aware that people were very affluent. Wallington is a catchment area of private schools and grammar schools, all in really close proximity to each other. It’s a really nice area and I guess there’s just a lot of wealth around.”

This experience is not just unique to Harewood or Ward, but can be said of anyone who finds themselves in a setting where a certain characteristic or feature places them in the minority. Do you talk a certain way? Is your hair ‘neat’? This all determines whether the majority will warm to you or not. Through the lens of a young boy, Ward touches on the daily confrontations you are likely to face when you don’t quite belong with painful accuracy.

At various points in the play, Ward returns to this analogy where a comparison is drawn between the canary and the crow. The canary sings a pleasing melody, representing that which is ‘acceptable’ and the screeching crow irritates and has a harder time fitting in. This idea originates from fables and can be found in French and Turkish literature, Hebrew texts and even in native American folk tales. “Fables are magical and exist for a reason. Dehumanising the story allows people to have their own interpretations of what it means to them. I didn’t want it to be preachy and I didn’t want it to be definitive. But people should be able to come away and form their own ideas and opinions.”

Since Ward first finished writing the show, it has travelled a long road before eventually being picked up. “It was a long process of getting rejected, being told that it didn’t have an audience and that it would need to broaden its target demographic. And I thought nahh don’t think so.” The flood of positive responses that the show has already received from people from various backgrounds being able to connect with Ward’s story suggests that he was right to stick to his guns. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers out there? “I would say just get to the end of your play and send it out, get some feedback and just persevere. All it takes is one, one person to say that this is good and I believe in it, to become something and for it do well. Then all the other rejections don’t matter. It’s an industry of rejection and people have to be prepared to deal with that”.

Following its run at the Paines Plough Roundabout @ Summerhall, The Canary and The Crow will embark on a UK tour starting on 7 Sep 2019 at the time of writing.

Photo Credits: © The Other Richard

Lizzie Akita 

Website: https://myfairtheatregoer.com/ , Theatre Reviews and Why We Tell The Story interviews // Twitter: @myfairtheatre // Instagram: @myfairtheatregoer

[pinkiepieaddict]

Entitlement Vs Economics

Over the last couple of years I’ve noticed quite a few oddities regarding not only my local townie population, but liberals in general, and one of the starkest and most telling things that I’ve seen is that many of them have a poor grasp of economics. Moreover, the worse their grasp of economics the more likely they are to be entitled.

Or, to put it succinctly: the worse their understanding of the value of something, the more likely they are to believe that they have a right to everything. This isn’t to say that these people are “unintelligent”. At least in the traditional sense of the word. They may be perfectly able to solve complex math problems, or to compose beautiful pieces of music. It’s just that they have this blind-spot. Possibly a cultural one. That affects their perception of the value of objects or services. Particularly when said value is liable to change in relation to certain factors that townie\liberal have been known to virtue signal in the past. I also noticed something else in connection to this, which I will come to a little later on. Anywho. To put all of this into context, a while back I was at a convention back east and I was dealing with several customers looking for costumes from a certain movie that had just been released. I didn’t have the exact costumes, but I did have the ones from the comics on which they were based, and I was showing them my catalog and taking some basic measurements (I have quite a large library, so I tend to take a small range of outfits to sell, plus a range of samples to demonstrate what I can do to conventions, and to take orders which I then ship out to customers), and I was confronted by one lady who demanded to know why I wanted to charge her $150 more than the catalog price. I started to explain that the catalog price was “From ...”, and that the price shown represented an off the shelf costume in either small, medium or large. Whereas what she wanted was a custom-made 6XL costume (I did say it was back east). I also tried to explain that a costume in her size needed to be custom-made. It required a lot more material and careful measurements, and that the price included both under-wiring and a corset. Which added considerably to the complexity of the outfit. Pretty much as soon as I started talking a certain expression appeared on her face. I’m not really certain how to describe it, but it’s one that I’ve seen on both townies and liberals before. It falls somewhere between “I’m just trying to order a dress, so why are you trying to explain quantum propensity to me?”, and “I’m pretty sure that’s not a valid reason to commit genocide”. There was also a little bit of “Does this mean that you’re not just going to give me …?” thrown in for good measures. Essentially, they just didn’t get why a custom-made costume was more expensive than a regular one, or why making something larger made it more complicated to make, and thus also more expensive. Not understanding the economics of the cosplay industry, particularly the relationship between the difficulty in manufacturing a product and the end price of a product isn’t something that’s unique to liberals. Conservatives are just as capable of being idiots as liberals. But most conservatives don’t do what this lady did next. Which is what marked her out as a liberal: She raised her finger, jabbed me in the chest, and declared “You can’t charge me more, that’s racist”. She then proceeded to have a rather public meltdown. Which largely consisted of her jumping up and down on the spot, waiving her arms around and screaming words to the effect of it being “unconstitutional to charge her extra”, and that “the customer is always right”. And how she was going to call the FBI and tell them how racist I was being. I should mention that we’re both white. But for some liberals calling people racist is almost a reflex action. She could just as easily have called me sexist. Which would have been equally inaccurate. By this time a crowd had started to gather, and mall security was hovering around the peripheral waiting for a good moment to intervene. Which makes what she did next all the more stupid. Now, if you remember my introduction, you will remember that I mentioned a second observation regarding entitled liberals. That observation now comes into play, and is that the more entitled a person is the more likely they are to react aggressively when confronted with the realities of economics. I should also mention that I wasn’t alone on my stand. The vendors group that I’m with has a “youth initiative”, which is supposed to help younger people get a start in selling their wares. It’s how I started out, and essentially consists of a more experienced vendor (AKA, Me) sharing their stand with somebody who would otherwise be too young to have their own table, and who needs adult supervision (I’m technically an adult, at least In the eyes of the law. So long as the law doesn’t look at my juvenile record). Anyway. I was sharing my stand with a girl who was about 13 or 14 years old. She was a talented painter who had come along with some excellent watercolor of various comic book characters that she was hoping to sell. For reasons that I cannot fathom the lady decided to assault the girl. She stepped forwards and shoved her in the chest with both hands for absolutely no reason. Sending her flying backwards. The girl landed on her backside, whimpered for a moment, then started crying loudly. Which was when mall security decided to act (Mall security act much faster when there is the risk of them being sued than they do when there is a risk of them getting punched). The girl was OK. Or at least as OK as you can be after landing on your rear end and crying in a public place. The Mall offered her free ice cream and about $200 in gift certificates. Which didn’t really make up Mall security being so slow to react. Her dad did press against the lady, and he did extract some money out of the Mall, which I guess kinda did make up for Mall security being so slow to react in a roundabout way. On the other hand, I had to deal with a crying child. As you’ve probably guessed I’m not the nurturing type. I’m much better at making children cry (usually on purpose, occasionally by accident) than I am at stopping them crying. My reaction when anybody on the farm starts to cry like that is to tell them that if they don’t stop sniveling I will really give them something to cry about. Which is usually pretty effective. I’d have offered her a plushie to hug, but … they’re technically merchandise, and I’m cruel and heartless (Technically, I have a heart. But it’s widely reputed to be made of ice). I also had to deal with some of the other vendors, and to pose the question “why didn’t you (who are mostly men over the height of 6’) step in to help me (A girl just over 5’), when that landslide of a lady started kicking off?” The answer that I got back was universally “Because we wanted to see you smack her one”. Which I guess is mostly my own fault, on account of me having a habit of not being a helpless little girl (It’s very hard to leverage sympathy from an audience that’s seen you kick a shoplifter in the loot box on more than one occasion). While this is somewhat of an extreme example, and while physical violence is quite rare (either giving or receiving), I have seen this type of situation over and over again. Liberals not understanding that extra effort means extra cost, or that premium products come with premium price tags for a reason, and becoming angry when this is explained to them. I have been to literally hundreds of gun shows where my uncle had a stand, and have seen all manner of conservatives - from regular folk to white supremacists that make me want to shower with bleach just from spending 30 seconds in their presence – and I’ve never seen this kind of thing from them.

You know that society is messed up when Neo-Nazis are the adults in the room, and white supremacists behave better at gun shows than liberals in a mall comic book convention. They might have insane social views, and a take on history that is wrong on more levels than I care to think of, but at least they understand economics.