#instead it made me a much more insane utilitarian

[vamptastic]

actually have no idea how people manage to function with high levels of empathy. i get very very mad about injustice in the world but it's more out of a "these people are being impractical and stupid, can't they see that they could solve this problem if they did xyz". and i value human life and happiness above all else because i find it straightforwardly logical. having your politics motivated by emotion seems kind of exhausting- i think it's very important to step back and look at something while setting aside your feelings about it. lot of people seem to get caught up in what's right and hypothetically morally justified and not what would cause the least amount of suffering, something i find to generally be the best metric. mostly feel this in regards to people who like to decide what should happen based on what people "deserve" or have "earned". not sure why hurt feelings about how hard you worked matter at all. or punitive justice types who get caught up on things being unfair or people not getting some kind of cosmic justice and are just totally unable to envision the wider societal effects of their beliefs.

[lady-quen]

4, 7 and 8 from the new commander ask!! I want to Know, i look at you and Mael with big wet eyes, completely invested in the story

Commander ask game!

As a special treat, I prepared a wall of text 😂 most of it will be put under readmore for the sake of the dash. Thank you very much for the ask!

4. Is there an NPC your commander doesn't care for at all?

Smodur.

IBS just became that much more interesting to me ever since myself and @commanderteag started working on joint lore, which led me to develop the Drizzlewood campaign era of Mael's story a bit more closely.

Following Mael's revelations courtesy of Raven - that no choice is ever truly the "correct" one, that even the best intentions can lead to catastrophe, and sometimes a lesser evil can help avoid a greater evil in the future, his transformation into a ruthless leader is complete. He can no longer afford to doubt himself, resolving to kill Ryland even if his friendship with Rytlock is forever soured. Following the death of Drakkar and an unexpected near-death experience courtesy of a friend's dragonslayer bow in very much the wrong hands, he receives a summons from the United Legions to assist in the war effort against Bangar's Dominion.

One Imperator stands out from among the rest: Smodur the Unflinching. While charr have always been a race of warmongers, with a specific relationship with honor and self-worth in the context of the Legions - Mael does not care much for either Smodur as a person, or his methods.

Smodur believed in might over everything - victory at all costs. But while the Commander was no stranger to sacrifice and the reality of war, he quickly came to recognize Smodur held no respect for his people as people, but rather as disposable tools, nothing more than cannon fodder. In his ambition to become the next Khan-Ur, he thought himself so far above and detached from the "lessers" whom he commanded that often he would not even make an effort to take a path that would save more lives. To him, charr soldiers and civilians alike were as disposable as spent shells: a sentiment further made true by Smodur's willingness to trick Mael and Rytlock into committing a horrific war crime with the use of a Searing crystal.

The height of the Commander and Smodur's animosity came with Cinder's needless murder, an act not only cruel but strategically unsound to say the least. It was clear the Iron Imperator had gone insane out of hubris, believing himself so powerful that Steelshot's slaughter at his hands would terrorize Ryland instead of stoking a new flame of hatred and conviction in his heart.

It's after the Frost Legion's debut that Smodur and Mael were forced to work closely together, much to the latter's disgust. But a master tactician knows to keep his cards close and his true emotions secure - where Smodur was very open about his disdain for the Pact field leader and constantly asserting dominance, Mael played wholly into his diplomatic persona for the good of the campaign.

Still, he had seen enough of the Imperator sending his troops on suicide missions against the overbearing Frost - and then, should any dare to refuse or desert, executing them for treason. Such a strategy served only to terrorize his own soldiers and the United Legions slowly but surely began to lose the front against the seemingly neverending tide of Dominion, Icebrood and Svanir.

There was only one thing a necromancer - and a powerful one, at that - could do to bolster the ranks: round up the fallen, Dominion and Legions alike, and raise them as his personal army. Naturally, this did not initially sit well with Smodur, despite gaining the approval of Malice and Efram. In spite of the sheer utilitarian value of Maelmordha's plan, the paranoid Smodur already saw the Commander - and Aurene - as a threat to his power and wanted the sylvari necromancer kept firmly in line. Most charr still didn't trust magic, and morale would falter once soldiers were forced to see their former bandmates risen as mindless corpses, which led to Mael preemptively employing the aid of Kasmeer, Maolmuire, and the Seraph mesmers to scramble facial features. In this way, at least the already shaken troops did not have to come face to face with what was once their loved ones shackled to dark magics.

The Dominion would come to call this army "The Shadow Legion", dubbing the Commander himself "The Shadow Imperator" to further drive the propaganda of the United Legions' weakness - to allow a non-charr to play such a vital role in their campaign whereas the Dominion stood strong as only charr, the true image of what their species should be: the sole rulers of Tyria under Bangar's bloodied banner.

Though Maelmordha successfully convinced Smodur to allow his undead to take on the more perilous missions, the Imperator' paranoia continued to eat him alive. Afraid to be seen as weak due to relying on the Commander's magic, he pushed more and more risky strategies, threatening the United Legions' cause. While he had once been a true visionary and formidable leader, the final stretch of the campaign leading up to his eventual death was the sloppiest leadership of his life.

Though he knows better than to publicly admit such thoughts, as well as is well aware of the charr leader's accomplishments, Commander Maelmordha feels Smodur's death was self-wrought and ultimately beneficial to the Legions.

7. What was their relationship to Trahearne?

They were roommates dearhearts, your honor.

I've tweaked Mael's canon for him to sprout in 1320 AE instead, spending five years realizing his Wyld Hunt of uncovering the truth of Riannoc's fate and finding Caladbolg, only to then return it so that the Mother may elect a new wielder. Awakened as a necromancer to aid him in his Hunt the same way Trahearne himself was, the two were very similar yet also opposites in many aspects.

Where Trahearne was shy and indecisive, burdened with the weight of his seemingly impossible Hunt, Maelmordha was a Dawnborn bursting with charisma, a natural in leadership scenarios yet lacking the expertise in Orrian matters necessary to lead the Pact. As such, the best arrangement was for Trahearne to step up as the Marshal with Mael as his second and the field leader, handing a large portion of troop management while simultaneously coaching the Marshal to improve his confidence and leadership skills. Together, they complimented one another very well, coupled with the fact Maelmordha felt it was his destiny to assist the Knight of Thorn wherever he went, his Hunt now focusing on allowing Caladbolg to enact its whole purpose.

Suddenly, Trahearne wasn't alone with a calling that threatened to devour him whole. Suddenly, he had another, with their Hunts so closely intertwined - a friend lifting him up towards the light he once thought he would never see. Armed with the sword from the Pale Mother herself and side by side with a man who had spent his every waking moment working to find it - just for the purpose of finally realizing Trahearne's destiny - he was ready, and for the first time he felt the future was truly bright.

It was towards the end of the Zhaitan campaign - after the cleansing of Orr - that the two realized what they had might be love, after all. Because how could it not be? They were soul-bound, linked in Wyld Hunt and one another's perfect companions, standing at the end of the world and facing it with a resounding "No."

They would not fall to Zhaitan. They would not let its foul magic claim the heart of Tyria as it had once claimed Orr. Together, but only together, they had enough strength to defy a force of nature given flesh and inspire the world to take up arms against the remaining Elder Dragons, a tidal wave of change that would one day usher a new dawn on the world they had come to love and fiercely wish to protect.

...That dawn did come, but only one of them lived to see it - if we go by a looser definition of "lived", anyway.

Even after all these years, Mael still misses Trahearne. Though his grief and codependency issues improved upon eventually passing Caladbolg on to a new wielder, reflecting his thematic fate as the "Keeper of the Thorn" before he was ever the Knight. Though the roles are inverted now, with Mael as the older, experienced party mentoring a young Knight, he feels it's the right thing to do. That in this way, another bright destiny may be realized, and he will be there to watch over it and see it through.

He will be there to take Maolmuire under his wing, into the most comforting shadow where one's destiny is so often a scorching light: to make sure the curse of Caladbolg does not repeat and the fourth wielder does not die alone like each of the Three Knights once did. Henceforth, the immortal Commander will vow to be there to watch over the future generations of the Pale Mother's heroes, being ever the one to bestow the sword with Her blessing.

He hopes that in this way, he can both atone for his failure to save Trahearne, and finally grieve properly by reliving the joy of companionship that made their time together worthwhile in the first place.

"Deartheart, this I promise: from this day on I will remember you with a smile."

Aurene is his daughter, even if his race does not know the term in the same ways others do.

8. Is your commander's relationship to Aurene parental, sibling, or something else?

She was the light that kept him afloat in his despair following Trahearne's death, and the force that pulled him from his all-consuming hatred of dragons. Indeed, though the Elder Dragons were the enemy of Tyria's races, there was more to these mighty creatures that met the eye: the Scions - Glint the Prophet and her offspring, who had found a kinship with the mortal races and sought to protect the world much like the Commander and the Pact themselves. Aurene was a beautiful creature, the most pure soul he had ever known, and becoming her Champion was a spiritual experience that most likely saved Maelmordha from drowning in his darkest emotions.

He would do anything for her, and she for him. Even when he begged her not to come to his aid, held at the brink of death under the blade of Balthazar - and subsequently, once he returned as something he felt was far worse than who he used to be. She gave purpose and direction to his newfound magic so that it would not consume him whole like his despair nearly did all the way back in Maguuma. Shaped the Soul Eater's horrific mark into something that could be used productively, and the Champion became also the Mouth of Aurene.

Together, they represent the beginning and the end of a star: She is the newborn sun and he is the singularity, the devourer, the end-wolf Fenrir wreathed in chain. Though she sees timelines where reality breaks and their delicate balance can no longer hold, it is purely because they are perfect opposites that the Eternal Alchemy can keep turning as it is in the absence of the other Elder Dragons. Though he is no Dragon himself, he is forced into the role of a balancing force, the immortal lich, bearer of the aspects of death and shadow to her aspects of life and light. Though he knows better than to assume he'll live forever, having an extended lifespan may at least help the Alchemy settle into the new rhythm - to truly and wholly welcome the Age of Aurene.

But at the core of all things, she's still simply his daughter, and the reason he is still alive and sane.

[sirartwork]

And Ozymandias Shat: The Verisimilitude of A Dream

It is just barely 6 am as I type this in a fevered delirium, having just awoken from one of the most insidiously powerful nightmares I have experienced in years.  Surely I must have fallen afoul of some ancient and terrible trickster deity, whose name has since been long forgotten whence it was worshipped at torch-light by creatures not yet evolved to intellectually modern humans.  From where else could such horrors beyond the veil permeate?  And wherefore where my dreams chosen to be their vessel?  

I have glimpsed into Lovecraftian madness, and the reeking, foetid void has simply smiled back at me.

It began at Barnes and Noble.

Amidst the banal chatter, I felt the call of nature issuing me to that most anxious and onerous of circumstances:  semi-public defecation.  It’s only ever anyone’s guess as to the caliber of a public restroom unexplored, for it is far too easy to make one that truly disrespects the need for privacy during such a vulnerable act.  I made my way past the other patrons of the café, and beheld the horrors of architecture so hostile that it could have only been the product of the utterly psychotic and deranged.

The bathroom was huge, and vast swathes of unused floor space and most of its walls were covered with a sickly yellow, densely packed tiling with black faux grout work.  The lighting was florescent and tepid, with one wall cutting diagonally across the receding corner towards a more “open air” thoroughfare with a low retaining wall, giving it the additional presence of having been both poorly designed and converted from something else.  Even forgiving the nature of dreams to hastily revise geometry and generate non-euclidian terrain, this bathroom was absolute insanity.  A musty, liminal, McMansion-esque abortion of common sense and decency.  

This is to say nothing of the abject horror of the toilet itself. 

“Behold my works, ye mighty, and despair!”

The sole toilet of the bathroom was enormous.  More of a throne, or some sick practical joke rather than something to be used for any utilitarian purpose.  Ensconced by adjustable (?!) partitions that did nothing to occlude the user from unwanted viewership, this enormous sculpture had the added humiliation of a convoluted descent from the intended sitting area to the actual drainage, so that any excrement had to travel a languid and snaking path before being whisked away from sight and smell.  The “seat” can only be called that in the most generous of terms, as the angle and depth of its placement necessitated the user to maintain an active hovering squat over the purely decorative bowl.  Not pictured here was the stall next to it, which being of relatively more sane proportions, I had checked first in the vain hope of something more approachable.  Very much reflective of my search for God in this forsaken place, the stall was completely empty.  Absolutely nothing but blank floor and walls.

Any sane person would have immediately given up on the prospect of using this monstrosity, but as is the case with dreams the emotional underpinning was more important than the logic, and some part of me knew that my best and only chance was to try and finish up on this thing as quickly as possible before any other patrons came into the bathroom.  Sure enough, as soon as I was “seated,” two women entered behind me.

There is a sort of unwritten rule in such spaces that under no circumstances are you to lock eyes with crazy.  For reasons not entirely clear in hindsight, their business had to happen directly next to the stall.  They did their very best to pretend they weren’t right next to a savage shitting into a glorified marble tower of turds as I tried in vain to adjust the height of the partitions to give some semblance of privacy and decency to the affair. It was a lost cause with the already hilariously undersized panels I had to work with.  Instead I resigned myself to the humiliation and adopted a standoffish thousand-yard-stare as I began the arduous wiping process.

Incredibly enough, one of the women saw fit to extend what she must have thought was kindness by trying to commiserate with me about the absurdity of the toilet, before politely alerting me that I had somehow managed to get “a little shit nugget” on my face.  

Like many dreams, there was nothing in the way of a resolute end to the event, but rather an abrupt shift from one tonal theme to the next.  A janitor had wandered into the bathroom.  My business being finished and my shame metastasizing into anger, I saw fit to inform the only authority figure on hand of the travesty that I had just suffered.  In no uncertain terms, I told him that the sick bastard responsible for this, be it the plumbers and/or the corporate supervisors that signed off on its installation, deserved to be hung, drawn and quartered for their heinous deeds.  Seemingly more interested in talking over me with inane minutia about the tile design, he simply relented to my passionate ranting by saying that he wasn’t responsible for the decision before shrugging me off.  

And thus I awoke - ashamed, angry, anxious and confused.  What terrible pit of my psyche was responsible for such visions?  What unforeseen evil lurks in the depths of my own mind, and what possible chance do I have of ever being able to survive another encounter unscathed?  I cannot say for certain what any of this says about me as a person, only that I’ve never been more thankful for a truly private bathroom.  

[dangermousie]

The thing that comes through every Shimei x Moran interaction post reveal to me is just how much Shimei despises and looks down on Moran, how much he genuinely enjoys hurting him.

There is none of “I am sorry to hurt someone not involved in my grudges but omelet eggs etc” or even “he’s a tool I have no feelings about it utilitarianism is our all.” No, there is genuine sadistic pleasure for Shimei in the whole situation and to me that is what makes him the ultimate unrepentant psychopath.

I kept making cracks that poor Moran earned the fixation of a dimension-hopping serial killer but it is true. And I wish I could say it’s because Shimei despises the fact that he has to rely on Moran (who he views as a dumb brute akin to an animal but he needs him, the humiliation!) to carry out his plans, that he - the persecuted genius - has to deal with the fact that Moran is so much more powerful and talented as a cultivator/magic user than he is and Shimei obviously finds it unfair. Or even that he has to watch Moran rule the place and take the man Shimei wants for his own.

BUT!

If you read the scene where Moran acquires the flower, long before any of that could come into play, that disdain, that dislike, that enjoyment of someone’s pain and terror and helplessness is already there.  And that is why I find so hard to ever be OK with Shimei in the main universe - because that scene is long before Hua Binan Shimei crosses over, this is all “our” Shimei, and it is just so gross and he has NO excuse of being cursed and compelled. No, it’s someone who’s had a miserable childhood and instead of remaining kind despite the suffering he’s experienced (like Moran or CWN) has decided to spread it around, on people every bit as innocent as he is, and enjoy the hell out of it.

Also, Hua Binan’s delusion is insane - If Taxian Jun is too bloody for CWN, how on earth does he expect him to be OK with the man who made Taxian Jun into Taxian Jun?

See what I mean - he enjoys watching Moran break, sort of like a serial killer or torturer admiring his handiwork.

I would not want to frame a close friend or family member easily?!?! I am not sure how he’s capable of any friendship but leaving that aside how is it in opposite world? He’s destroyed anyone who’s ever showed warmth to him OH MY GOD!

[greengrungeemo]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou - Ch.4 Himatsubushi was a quick finish for me. Very short, but sweet. I enjoyed the pinpoint focus on Rika and Akasaka. Small town maiden versus federal government city boy. The ultimate dynamic in a serious altercation: a utilitarian issue. A dam construction. Should the few  thousand and their homes and livelihoods be sacrificed for the greater good of Japan and its energy resource capacity?

Yet, despite her small size and age, Rika may be the best symbol of strength than any character I know.

Why is this? Well, most who have played this chapter may describe how she has immense power and influence in Himanizawa due to the population treating her as a mascot and symbol, a vessel of Oyashiro-sama. Or, others could say that the fact she knows most, if not, can predict all days of her life leading to her end is a great power in of itself.

I personally view both of those as her greatest burden instead. A cross to carry. You can see it in her eyes. All she wants is to live happily with her friends, that’s all. As described by Akasaka and Ooishi, she never had any desire for power or wealth, only a humble lifestyle with the few she loves. Though, like many of us, life doesn’t tend to go our way. She is stuck. Alone with this issue. Trapped with an emotional affliction she struggles to deal with. She knows the exact day she’ll die. Who can she tell without sounding insane? Her friends? Her teacher, Chie? Doctor Irie at the clinic? Law enforcement? Her parents before their untimely demise? No. It’ll all sound crazy, and if she points at the happenings she predicts and says, “LOOK! See? I told you, I was right!” Superstition would be the primary thought process for all. “You did this then? You planned this?” See? It’s not so black and white, and I’m certain she already thought of every possible angle.

So why did she solely tell Akasaka her fate, and the fates of those affected by Oyashiro-sama’s Curse and their exact dates? A cry for help? An attempt to change fate? Trust in him? Perhaps sympathy or conviction to drive her point for him to go back to Tokyo and do exactly as she demands of him? My personal theory is that it could be any of these or a bit of all of them, or... it’s that she’s venting.

Yes, venting. This entire chapter focuses on the adversity that Rika must endure. She is a wearer of many masks. Intelligent (possibly due to these days being a recurring cycle for her? It *is* distinctly clear in her mother’s diary entries... Where could she be learning these skills and talents?), calculated as well. She knows when to act cute and when to drive her point forward. She knows this is all a matter of timing, and to set her pieces up carefully.

Akasaka on the other hand, he’s a good man. Faithful and devoted to his wife and his work. Sincere and strives to uphold the law and protect people. He may have a mission assigned to him, but he most definitely has his set of morals and principles that he strictly abides by. A good man. Yet, that may seem one-dimensional? And so it is proven. For this, he is naïve. Perhaps he’s overworked? Perhaps there’s simply so much information to keep tabs on, or perhaps he’s too focused on keeping his duty as maximum priority? Either way, he fails to absorb imperative information. When him and Rika are alone at the mountain view, she vents to him all of what will happen. She guarantees him the dam project will stop. Why? Because it will. She provides him exact dates and the events that will follow. Why? Because they will happen exactly as stated in verbatim. The stupidity and naivety of man. His perspective and priority was focused on “how Rika’s demeanor and speech changed”, rather than the actual information given. Pathetic, in Rika’s words.

It’s a shame, because he is the kind of man that would go out of his way to individually stop all of those events from happening. He has his morals to abide by, after all, and his emotional breakdown for Rika in the end is clear of that. His regret is clear... He’s a good man and that’s that.

Putting myself in Rika’s shoes, I wonder how this would wear on me psychologically and emotionally? Perhaps there would be moments of apathy or carelessness at the inevitability of it all - a nihilistic approach - or perhaps there may be moments of desperation? Stop it at all costs. No matter what, it feels as though it’s a much more powerful force than a tiny little girl can overcome, and that’s why it must be so hard on her. Despite her pain, the gestures she makes for Akasaka like cutting those phone line wires... brought me to tears. She wanted to provide him even a single night of respite, if it meant his happiness to be preserved a little while longer... That’s angelic to do with her burden. She’s so strong.

Also, her mocking and making fun of Ooishi’s laugh in the post-game extra was the best thing ever.

---

All in all, the lesson and theme this chapter emphasizes is on choice. Cause and effect. Every choice, big or small, shapes our fate. All choices have their own set of consequences, good and bad. Life would be boring if all the choices we made ended up with good results, and indeed it would be torture if every one of them resulted in bad consequences. Rika may not know what choices to make, but it seems apparent that she’s making the most out of the ones she does know to make to extend the fullness of her life and reach that one step closer to her dream. That’s great, and I’m proud of her for it. After some heavy lessons of my own, I’m making sure to be as careful as possible, but also to act when necessary for those I love. Striking that balance to preserve true goodness. If you slip, pick yourself up and make future choices that will prevent similar slips. Rinse and repeat, and build, build, build. Experience builds character, after all. What kind of individual will you choose to be?

[flying-elliska]

Shadow and Bone Season 1 Review

Ok so I got distracted by a need to watch all of Ben Barnes' filmography (lmao) but here is my review : It was really fun to watch and it was clearly made with love which is already the main thing with YA fantasy, which is often turned into a soulless moneygrab when put on screen. The actors were GREAT. I did think that the Crows suffered from being mashed up with the Shadow and Bone story, but they were still a highlight. I also think it was a bit rushed, esp. when it came to Alina's training. The costumes were beautiful, I want a kefta now. Plus the crossover fanfic interactions btw the SaB characters and the Crows were just pure joy. Also Milo, obviously <3 I'm in hyperfixation mode so here, have an essay :

The "Shadow and Bone" Characters :

- Jessie Mei Li !!!!!! She really made me like Alina so much more than in the books, she absolutely is the 'human embodiment of literal sunshine' and she was a joy to watch. Her character's arc is cliché but her acting is so expressive and endearing, I really felt for her all the way through. (maybe I'm biased bc Jessie talking about her ADHD and seeing her thrive at the same time is like!!! i love them they deserve all the best.) I like that they made Alina more proactive - even though she does make some stupid decisions... but I just don't understand people who put that down as bad writing, like ??? have you ever met a real person who only makes wise, good decisions ?? a character like that would either be at the end of their story or just in the background because that makes them static. The things with the maps in the beginning does a good job of illustrating how she is just this one girl making rash, erratic decisions out of fear and loyalty and doesn't have a sense of the bigger picture, caught in the tide of bigger events. It works for her character. When it comes to the choice of making her half-Shu, I do think it really makes sense re: her character feeling like an outsider but I do understand the criticisms that the microaggressions felt too relentless and one-note. I am really looking forward to them introducing Tamar and Tolya and hopefully connecting to them over her heritage in a more positive way.

- Mal in the books was one of the most annoying YA characters I've ever come across, so I really liked that they made him much more of a loyal, devoted friend. I found his relationship with Alina cute, it really gives us the sense that these are two orphans who found a home in each other, childhood best friends (and potential sweethearts) separated by war, two army grunts and ordinary people caught up in the wheels of power and war that usually crushes people like them, it's a great way to introduce the dynamics of their world and it's a trope that always makes me emo. It felt a bit too one note to me, though, and too heavily on the nose, like Mal's only personality was his attachment to Alina (and his resentment towards the Grisha) and too much of her emotional arc also relied on him. Them hitting us over the head with the meadow scenes felt like pure telling instead of showing and it ended up being super repetitive and kind of annoying. I am willing to like this pairing, but I wanted more scenes of them just having conversations about things and really understanding why they like each other beyond the whole childhood friends bond that we're asked to accept exists at the beginning. So I hope there's more depth there in next seasons.

- Ben Barnes!!!! Just jksdfhgkdjghdf. I'm not a big villain stan usually and I hated the Darkling in the books but DAMN his performance is just amazing. They managed to make him more sympathetic and human while at the same time making clear the stuff he does is deeply horrible. There's the Magneto-aspect of 'well clearly his methods are fucked up but he's addressing a terrible injustice nobody is doing anything about' that makes it very tempting to root for him ; and again, well, like, Ben Barnes is so hot and charismatic it feels uncomfortable (which I guess is part of the point lol). His loss of humanity is, up to a point, understandable, brought about by despair, loneliness, grief and a sense of powerlessness - living so long he starts to see other people as disposable, losing so many people he stops caring, seeing over and over how hate never seems to stop, etc. It's a logical explanation for going insane.

But the hunger for power is also very much present as a motivation and this ambiguity is there constantly. Does he maybe come to genuinely care for Alina or is it totally bullshit ? I think he does, he's just so fucked up that it comes out as possessiveness and a need to control her. He wants Alina to be his equal but he's incapable of treating her that way. It's tragic, in a sense, but the show doesn't excuse his actions either. Like his monstrosity is a product of this world full of injustice, yes, and that warrants some compassion, monsters are always a symptom of their environment in some ways and dehumanizing them completely is an excuse ; but at the same time, he sabotaged his own cause anyway the moment he started to treat other people like things, as he does with Alina, because that just perpetuates the cycle of violence and hate. At some point he started feeling like he was the only solution and he was owed power for his sacrifices, and he's using his cause as an excuse. When Alina came to him, there was a possibility for redemption, taking down the Fold, and it's a test because there is finally someone on his level of power. But instead of seeking to remedy the power imbalance between them, he made it worse, by lying to her, manipulating her, etc, and the antler collar is the ultimate sign of this.

I love those scenes towards the end (the antler-based body horror has big Hannibal vibes, so messed up). I like Alina telling him they could have had this, that she had compassion for him and his cause, that they could have worked together, and he's the one responsible for screwing it up and this time his claim that he's the misunderstood victim ("Make me your villain") appears delusional and self-serving instead of somewhat justified. The almost-lovers to enemies vibes, the sense of lost potential, and the angst of the whole 'oh you could finally have been loved by people, too bad you fucked it up !', very juicy. There is this fundamental idea that power/respect/love is not something you are owed no matter how good your intentions are or because you're strong or you have suffered or you're willing to commit horrible drastic actions, you have to keep proving you deserve it, and trying to claim power without responsibility of care turns you into a monster. The thing with the stag was an excellent metaphor of the fact that there's things you can't take, they have to be given to you, and the wonderful power there is in understanding that is what allows Alina to harness the stag amplifier's power. This is really when she escapes his grim utilitarian outlook and a different way forward and owns her own power fully on her own terms.

Anyway I hope Alina gets to beat the shit out of him at some point that would be very sexy but I'm also looking forward to see how their arcs parallel and diverge from each other as Alina starts to grapple more with the implications of her power and the harsh dilemmas of war and her own dark side. I want to see him become scared of her, and I feel it will be more visible than in the books where he just has this cold aggressive facade all the time. This one feels a lot more openly emotional which is just a lot more interesting.

- As for the other characters ; Zoya mostly made me sad. The actress has the perfect vibes but I'm not sure I love their take on her character so far, it does make sense in terms of the later books - that she has internalized prejudice regarding her mixed-race heritage, that she is jealous of Alina because of how hard she's fought to get where she is and Alina kind of takes it away from her, etc. But I would have liked to see a bit more of her being badass and sharp-tongued in a clever (even if mean) way instead of spending most of her time being rejected by men and being racist towards Alina. I did like the ending though, of her actually seeing the monstrosity of the Darkling in action and the mention of her aunt. And her brief bonding with Inej was great, just because it was badass but also maybe because it could be a part of Zoya learning to accept her Suli heritage in turn, maybe not right away but in time, when thinking of that part of herself, she won't only think of her parents' ruined marriage and all the pain it caused, but also of that badass and brave acrobat girl who went toe to toe with these really scary monsters without even having any powers and !!!!!

- Also Leigh's cameo was so cute and as an aspiring writer this is just such wish fulfillment

- I honestly think that having the Crows there actually made the S&B story better ? Not only in terms of the much needed levity breaks but also in terms of themes. For instance, Matthias and Nina's story gave us a really raw and visceral view of how the Grisha are hunted. And Inej's relationship to Alina really gave us a sense of what Alina actually means to people who believe in the Saints in a way that doesn't feel just like 'ugh those superstitious people' because we know that Inej's faith is part of what makes her who she is and a person with morals, and something that saw her through the worst moments of her life. It feels so special that she got to meet Alina and given a sign that maybe the world is not completely shitty. And Alina's kindness towards Inej really gives you a sense that she might be, or become worthy of that belief in time, or at least that she wants to, that she's figuring out her power to really touch people's lives might be a good thing, and that she's starting to accept this responsibility more fully. And her arming Inej is a nice parallel to that. I'm very emotional about this scene, because one of the first things we see of young Alina is her taking out a knife to defend Mal from the bullies, because she's protective and brave, but she's also aware the world is a shitty place, and so her giving that knife to Inej is a sort of spiritual transmission and recognition of sorts, that she trusts Inej with that fighting power, that she'll use this knife to defend herself and her loved ones and not abuse it. It's so interesting. And a counter point to the Darkling's fucked up relationship to power that Alina might at some point get afraid she'll replicate. That you could see Alina trying to gather followers and using people's admiration for her like he did but instead she sets them free and empowers them. It's great. And I feel that when Inej takes to the seas, she'll think about Alina. (I do hope somebody tells her Alina's not dead at some point though god). Girls giving each other knives is my spirituality, honestly.

- And I also noticed an interesting parallel between Kaz and the Darkling in terms of being two emo dudes who like to wear black, are prone to violence and have a thing for two very powerful women they think are special and want to have at their side, but of course, they go about it in very different ways. The Darkling comes at it from a place of power while Kaz comes from a place of utter powerlessness, first of all, and he understands why it's important to set Inej free. Him spending the entire season trying to earn enough money to pay off Inej's indenture is the opposite to the Darkling putting that collar on Alina and while I do have issues with how the show portrays him, I do love that. Love is about setting the person you love free !!!! And that confrontation scene was so powerful, when Kaz tells the Darkling Alina was tired of being a captive ! Drag him !

- As for Genya, I liked the actress and her chemistry with Alina, but I'm not sure they did a great job of making her arc very clear, for instance what it means for her to get that red kefta, her relationship with the other Grisha, etc. Her and David are already very cute though. Also very much looking forward to see where that goes.

So yeah I think they did a great job with this bit actually, I enjoyed a lot more than I think I would and even though it is a very tropey story, there's plenty of depth there too.

The Crows :

- I'm a bit more nitpicky about this because I care about these characters so much. I think overall the problem is that the SaB story in the books happens on this massive scale with enormous stakes, and that next to that the Crows' issues feel less important ; it's like their impact is distorted by the gravity of the much larger story. Like for instance, Kaz in the books is very much at the center of everything, this larger than life trickster figure who knows and controls almost everything by sheer cleverness, and he has this sense of allure and mystique that can't happen here, and so his aura just shrinks. On top of that they're not on their home turf. Being introduced to these characters before they've reached their full levels of badass is weird - there is a reason why prequels generally happen after the main stuff, because they count on the love you have for these characters at their full potential to make you interested in their story when they were less badass and interesting. So I had several moments where I was like 'oh this feels wrong'. Tbh the idea that they would even volunteer to kidnap Alina in the first place, what with Inej's backstory, feels kind of wrong, esp since they had no idea of what would happen to her if they succeeded.

- But I still enjoyed a lot of it though, especially the fact that they were this force of chaos in the midst of this bigger narrative that's a lot more self-serious. The bits with the train, or the circus acts were very clever. A lot of the best moments in the show happen when they come to disturb the other plot in unexpected ways. I'm still dead over the whole 'Alina jumps into their carriage' scene, that was fucking gold. The team up at the end !!!! Alina and Kaz making a deal ! Inej stabbing the Darkling !!!! Them stealing the Darkling's carriage !!! They don't give a shit that the story is supposed to be super dramatic it's great.

- Jesper is the one character they completely nailed from start to finish and he's probably my favorite part of the whole show. He's very funny without being reduced to the role of comic relief ; he's just so! damn! cool!!!!!!! I honestly feel this is a thing they actually did even better than in the books, or at least Six of Crows where I felt Jasper kind of disappeared behind Kaz and they insist a lot on his flaws and issues. So before we dig more into those problems I love that they gave him time to be this ultra badass who saves the day several times ; while at the same time, hinting at further developments like his powers or his gambling issues. Kit Young is just perfect, confident without being arrogant, a bit cold when it comes to crime while at the same time being so obviously caring with Inej - I loved their friendship, that was so sweet. My main criticism is that they should have made it clearer he was bi because there are already people calling him gay and that's very annoying. I know some people had a problem with his hookup and like...I can see it's a bit of a cliché...the charming badass bisexual adventurer....it's a trope I kind of love though lmao and the scene itself felt kind of cute and fun. He's not the only person who is shown to have an active sexuality and he's also not the only queer person around and we know he's going to have a more substantial romantic arc later so eh. On a larger note I loved the little casual hints of completely normalized queerness - Nadia thirsting over Zoya, Fedyor and Ivan, Poppy, etc. Having grown up with fantasy where queerness was either completely erased or very tormented and problematic, this was refreshing as hell.

- Inej and Kaz...my faves... They have a kind of relationship which feels so rare and unique in terms of what exists on TV and while I don't feel they entirely replicated it, the core is still there - the mutual respect and building of trust, the longing, the repression, the trauma, etc. One thing I really like is their arc around faith - in the books, Kaz is dismissive of Inej's faith in ways that often feel really shitty and I like that he learns to be more respectful of it. It's very much linked to hope/survival ; Inej keeps this token from her parents and she hopes to find them again ; Kaz tells her it's no use and she'll survive better if she gives up. He believes Alina is a fake, while Inej wants to believe that myths can come true and there is hope for good things in the world. Kaz comes to accept that Alina is the real deal and, out of respect for Inej's faith, to stop pursuing her. I loved the bit about Inej struggling to kill as well - it's the dilemma of what her survival and that of the people she really cares about are worth in such a shitty world - her compassion is a good part of her but so is her survival instinct, and that's the part Kaz represents - that even after she's been through hell, broken in unfathomable ways, even if she gave up all hope and faith in the world, even she becomes dangerous and ruthless to survive, she will still deserve dignity, and to be treated better. And meanwhile she is willing to break her principles, which she holds so dearly, to save him, when he's never had anyone who cared for him like that - enough to keep him alive. That bit in the church !!!!! God !!!!!! Bye !!!!!!! And then him basically calling her his own version of a Saint, that he doesn't believe in miracles but he does believe in her !!! It's very emblematic of their whole arc ; he empowers her to survive in a ruthless world and loves her at her most dangerous ; but he loves her laugh too, he finds her a ship and her parents, he honors her capacity for love and hope even when he can't share it. And she sees that he's capable of doing better, that he's worth caring for. This whole thing kills me honestly and I can't wait to see where they take this next. I'm not mad they're a bit more soft and obvious than in the books, Kaz would just have come across as an an asshole otherwise.

- That said, there are bits of how they introduced their backstories I don't like. I get that making it so Inej was still tied to the Menagerie gave them a very powerful reason to want to kidnap Alina beyond greed so that they wouldn't look like very shitty people. But in the books Inej is terrified by the idea of simply seeing Heleen or the Menagerie and the way they have her interact with her feels weirdly casual and dismissive of her trauma. Also, in the books, the fact that Kaz had to convince Per Haskell to buy Inej's contract through a lot of effort, that he wasn't the one holding that above her head either, made the power dynamics more palatable. I especially disliked the scene where Kaz says he won't free other girls because just Inej is special, it makes him look like he has the power but he's just too much of a callous asshole to do it, and that he just freed Inej because he liked her which is absolutely not what their relationship is about at the start, it's a lot more about seeing Inej's dangerous side behind a facade of powerlessness and relating to her, in a sense, and this scene made it all feel cheap.

- Also, what was that about Inej having a brother ? Not a fan of that either. I'm afraid they're going to make her story all about finding what happened to him, and that's 1) too on the nose similar to Kaz's story and 2) it kind of cheapens her own arc, a female character realizing that what was done to her was wrong, reclaiming her own power and dignity and then making sure it doesn't happen to anybody else, harnessing her personal experience to save strangers, that's so powerful - making it about a family member at first, especially if it's about revenge, it's so much more simplistic and unoriginal and the perspective really annoys me.

- Also not a fan of Per Haskell not being there because he's a very important part of Kaz's evolution, so I hope he shows up eventually - and the way they introduced Pekka Rollins was kind of like...weird and out of place. I just found the Crows' introduction scenes stilted and not as cool as they should have been - well, Jesper and Inej were very cool, but we needed to see Kaz in action first, we needed to see why he's such a menace before we see him flounder later, and I just...I don't know exactly but it didn't work for me. Also this is a very petty thing but I wasn't crazy about the Ketterdam sets, I know this is probably a budget thing but in my head it looked like this incredible mix of Amsterdam and Venice - specific locations in the book directly remind me of parts of Amsterdam I know very well - and instead what we got felt like this very generic London-ish fantasy setting....so boring. Also a lot of scenes that felt to exposition-y. I don't mind that Kaz was a bit softer than in the books, like many people have said some things work in books and don't work on a screen, and you need to make the character's inner dynamics more explicit. But I do agree that, at the same time, he should have been more ruthless towards people outside of his group. Loved that scene where he faces the Inferni though, and how well they illustrated his disability and aversion to touch.

- I don't have that much to say about Nina and Matthias ; I'm still not super sold on the whole 'haha misogyny!' thing and I dislike that so much of Matthias' change of heart relies on the fact that he finds Nina hot. But I did think that the actors had enough chemistry to make their scenes together interesting and cute ; I loved the waffle scene. Even though it's disappointing that they didn't find an actress who was more clearly plus size for Nina, I still think Danielle does a good job bringing her bold, unapologetic energy. I'm really looking forward to seeing the Crows as a whole team.

So yeah, even though the season didn't feel like a perfect, coherent whole, it was just a lot of fun and I really hope they get renewed. In particular I feel like tying the first trilogy to the Crows' story could create such interesting parallels in terms of themes, about power, the cost of survival, hope, trauma, etc etc

[thelordofdarkreunion]

Magnificent Scoundrels- On the Great Journey

Another faction intro, this time from Halo.  It should probably be noted that, obviously, I do not own Halo.

A note on timelines: This takes place in 2552, in between Halo 1 and 2.  This is after the destruction of Instillation 04, and before Regret’s invasion of Earth.  

Halo Galaxy

Earth, Capital World of the UNSC

The room was much like any typical human conference room throughout almost any galaxy.  Plain.  Utilitarian.  Very, very grey.  The table, too, was a sleek grey, matching the walls, and the chairs strung around it were typical of almost any high-class office building.  Black, comfortable enough, and with wheels.  Many an alien had and still has noted with some amusement the human fascination for chairs with wheels on them.  Even the most hardened of generals and politicians always seemed to choose them over regular chairs.  Most curious.  But none of the aliens of this galaxy had ever noticed the subtleties of humanity.  No.  Here, there was only war between humanity and the theocratic alien empire known simply as the Covenant.  This war was the reason for the meeting in this seemingly plain conference room.

Master Chief John-117 sat silently in a chair suitably enlarged for his massive frame.  If one were not aware that there was a man beneath his heavy green armor, they might have mistaken him for a statue.  He had been sitting like this, back perfectly straight, for exactly one hour, one minute, and forty one… forty two seconds now.  He had arrived first to the meeting, as a good soldier should.  The rest of the participants trickled in between then and half an hour ago.  

He was currently playing a game in his head, one that he had come up with a long time ago.  The nature of this game was simple: who is everyone at the meeting?  What, or whom, do they represent?  What do they want?  For despite the fact that Master Chief had not moved in one hour, two minutes, and ten seconds, his mind was always alert.  Always searching for threats.  

The man at the head of the table was the easiest to know.  An old face, wrinkled but still incredibly sharp, coupled with a crisp, white dress uniform and rows upon rows of medals made him a soldier.  If one was more familiar with the current state of the UEG and UNSC, one would also instantly put a name with the face.  Fleet Admiral Lord Terrance Hood, chief of naval operations and the de facto leader of the war effort, and thus humanity as a whole.  John liked Lord Hood.  Helpful.  Practical.  A soldier through and through.  

The next was another old face, wearing the white uniform of an admiral.  However, this woman did not have the reassuring eyes of Lord Hood.  These eyes were old, cold, hard, and incredibly calculating.  While Hood might have been in charge, Admiral Margaret Parangosky was probably the most dangerous person in the room.  She was the head of ONI, the Office of Naval Intelligence.  Master manipulator, master spy.  She probably had enough information to destroy anyone else in the room.  Cold, calculating, and ruthless, she was nevertheless a curt and professional leader.  

The next, and the last one the Chief recognized, was another older woman.  Greying hair framed a wrinkled face and pure blue eyes, still glowing with intelligence.  Doctor Catherine Halsey, creator of the Spartan-II’s.  Creator of Cortana.  Scientist extraordinaire.  The only thing even close to a mother figure he ever had.  Yes, she was the one who kidnapped him from an unknown family and turned him into a living weapon… but she was still a mother figure, in a way.  Master Chief suspected he had Stockholm syndrome.  It didn’t really concern him.  It was just one more problem on a list of many.  Anxiety, depression, sociopathy, paranoia, violent PTSD.  He had it all.  He ignored it.  The only thing that mattered was the mission.  

All of the other members of the meeting could fit into three groups: the soldiers, the politicians, and the spies.  

The soldiers were the easiest to understand.  Either Army or Navy, they were no nonsense (for the most part) and practical.  Soldiers.  People he understood.  They had a duty, and they did it.  

Spies were, as they probably should be, the hardest to understand.  They were all from ONI, and were, by far, the least trustworthy in the room.  Hated and feared, they were the ones who oversaw much of the UNSC’s secret projects.  It was their agents who had kidnapped him as a baby for the Spartan program.  Lord Hood didn’t trust them.  Dr. Halsey didn’t trust them.  Master Chief didn’t trust them either.  Too concerned with power plays and secrets.  It was in their nature to be untrustworthy, just as it was in Master Chief’s nature to be blunt.  

The third group were the politicians.  While they might normally be the most problem faction, these were extraordinary times.  The United Earth Governments had no power.  The United Nations Space Command had taken full control under material law to repel the Covenant.  The politicians technically had no say-so, but they were still kept in the loop so as not to cause any problems.  No one wanted a rogue politician talking too much, and here Admirals Hood and Parangosky could keep an eye on them.  

None except Hood, several of the diplomats, and Parangosky were actually required.  Most, from Dr. Hasley, to the ONI spies, to the politicians were here either as precautions, in case something came up that would require their expertise, or so that they wouldn’t cause any problems.  Hood and Parangosky were crafty enough to realize that snubbing people was probably not the best idea for fostering a united war effort.  

“And now, Master Chief John-117, please present your finds,” asked Parangosky.  Oh, shit.  This was the part he had been dreading.  He absolutely despised talking to people, but this time he really didn’t have a choice.  

“Yes, ma’am.”  His gravelly voice rang clearly through the room as everyone went silent.  “I met with the group you told me to.  Their dossiers are in my report.  They seem nice enough.”  He wasn’t quite sure if he was doing this right.  He didn’t have much practice talking to other humans.  Parangosky looked at him with an annoyed expression, but Hood held up a hand to forestall any comments.  

“I know you don’t particularly like to do this, Chief.  However, we need to know where everyone in these new galaxies stand.”  The politicians and various lower ranked officers gave sycophantic nods.  

“Yes, sir.”  A holoprojector sprang to life, displaying the various symbols of different inter-galactic powers.  “Most are either peaceful inter-species coalitions or human-supremacist empires.  From what Cortana has told me, the more human-supremacist and militaristic, the more likely they are to stand with us.”  The table broke out with murmuring.  

“Now what?” asked one of the Admirals.  “Who exactly is going to help us?  Can we actually trust them?”  

“The people I’ve seen are trustworthy,” responded the Chief.  If slightly bizarre, and, on several instances, slightly insane.  “Whether or not we can trust their governments is another problem.”  Thankfully, not my problem.  

“What about their weapons?” questioned an ONI agent.  

“Everything I’ve learned about their weapons is in my report.”  Honestly, what was the point of writing reports if no one was going to read them?

“Can we get any of these weapons?” pressed the agent.  Why are ONI agents so annoying?

“While the individuals I’ve met want to keep their own weapons, at least one is willing to sell them,” replied the Chief gruffly.  He hadn’t, and wouldn’t, tell them about Drake’s gift.  They would want to get their hands all over it, disassemble it, and he’d never get it back.  It was put to much better use in his hands.  At least it was in his opinion.  Although, Drake would probably be perfectly willing to sell anything from laser weapons to WMDs if the price was right.  The ONI agent began whining again.

“All the “militaristic” powers are fighting other things!  All the peaceful ones wouldn’t want to get involved in the Covenant War, and all the other ones would probably want to screw us over.”  Like you wouldn’t do the same thing if you were in their place, Master Chief wanted to say.  Bloody ONI.  

The Chief looked appealingly over to Hood, the question evident in his eyes.  Hood gave Master Chief a nod.

“Thank you, Chief.  You can sit down now,” he said.  Thank God.  John slumped into his seat.  He would much rather take on entire platoons of Covenant soldiers instead of doing even the most miniscule of talking, especially to these types of people.  Oh, well.  Sometimes being the greatest soldier in history had its drawbacks.  

High Charity

Capital and Holy City of the Covenant

High Charity was an utterly massive, near planetoid-sized space station, and the floating capital of the alien empire known as the Covenant.  Hundreds of kilometers in diameter, and home to billions of individuals, it was the Covenant’s religious center and practical homeworld.  High Charity was larger than moons, and more impressive than most planets, including most of those ruled by the UNSC.  It was here that, just like many a government, the leaders of the Covenant sat to discuss the current situation.  

The room itself was rectangular, and looked largely like some gladiator pit made of stainless steel.  In the “stands” were the members of the High Council, the legislative body of the Covenant.  Made up of only Sangheli and San’Shyuum, the two most respected species of the Covenant, it was their job to pass laws and rule the empire as a whole.  Lower down, at the edge of the “pit”, was an elevated dias, on which were three chairs.  The true rulers of the Covenant, the Hierarchs, sat here, in magnificent gravity thrones.  They were the High Prophets of Truth, Mercy, and Regret.  The religious leaders, and, due to its nature as a theocratic empire, the political leaders of the Covenant, it was their duty to guide the various races along the Great Journey.  Now, it was their duty to guide the Covenant into these new galaxies, to the ultimate goal of ascendance.  At the present moment, it was all they could do to keep the Council in order.

“What of the trial of Thel ‘Vadam?” shouted members from the stands.  The entire room was in an uproar, yelling at each other, yelling at the Prophets, yelling at the guards, yelling at anyone that would listen.  In fact, several of them were yelling just to yell, certain that no one really cared, but determined to add their weight to the conversation.  If, of course, the orgy of disorder could actually be called a conversation.  

“Yes!  What of the trial?” cried another.  

“Nay!  The trial is of limited importance now!  What of these new places?  What happens there?  We must know!”

“Indeed!  This is a pressing concern!  We must discuss this new development!  The trial can wait!” shouted someone else.

“No!  The trial is of immediate importance!  It must happen now!” called another Council member.

“What of the humans?  How are they affected by this?  Does the Covenant exist in these new galaxies?  Does humanity?  Do the Forerunners?”

“Enough!  There will be order in these chambers!” the shrill and somewhat warbling voice of the Prophet of Mercy called from his gravity throne.  

“Indeed!  I am ashamed of this behavior!” added the Prophet of Truth.  The voices died down to barely audibly muttering, then vanished completely as the Prophets looked around the room.  

“Good.  Now, on to the business of this session.  The High Council has convened for a special session.  While originally supposed to be for the trial of Thel ‘Vadam, it now takes a new purpose: we must discuss these new places and what exactly they mean for our future,” said Truth.  The Prophets of Mercy and Regret nodded along with him.  The voices swelled once again, murmuring, then threatening to break out in a crescendo of noise.  

“Order!” yelled Regret over the din.  The babble died down once more.  Despite the Prophets being San'Shyuum, a species that looked largely like bipedal worms with oversized craniums and were about as physically threatening as the description suggests, they were the religious leaders of the Covenant, and so their word was law.  Though the Council could technically oppose them, it rarely did so.  Those who called for the trial to take place immediately were gradually silenced, and the chamber came to order.  

“As it should be,” muttered Mercy crossly.

“Now, on to business.”  The ‘again’ in that sentence remained unsaid.  “Due to still unknown reasons, several other galaxies have appeared beyond the borders of ours.  We know not what they are.  We know not what they want.”  The Council started to murmur again.  

“Therefore, to make certain no one interferes, it is our duty to start down the Great Journey as soon as possible.  Thel ‘Vadam and his fleet, while unable to prevent its destruction, found one of the Sacred Rings.  It is but a short time when we find another.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Regret.  “We have located a Sacred Icon, needed for the firing of the Rings, on a human world.”  The Council broke out in shouting once more.

“We must retrieve it immediately!”

“Yes!  The Heretics have no right to hold such an artifact!”  

“Silence!” roared Truth once more.  He looked around at the assemblage, then continued.  “We shall retrieve this Icon as soon as possible.  The trial of Thel ‘Vadam shall happen, a fleet shall be prepared, the icon retrieved, and the Rings fired.”  The murmurings became positive.  

“Good.  Onwards, on the Great Journey, for the glory of the Covenant!”

And there we are.  As always, if you have any comments, questions, concerns, criticisms, or requests, feel free to ask!

[somnilogical]

im having a convo and the convo is babies

Carrie Zelda-Michelle Davis:

is it OK to have babies if you do embryo selection (https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection) and raise them to be an FAI researcher (https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/07/31/book-review-raise-a-genius/)??

somni:

like if someone actually had a plan for FAI that involved this, okay. but rn time is too short imo. when i first heard people were having babies i was confused and assumed they were going to harvest the DNA of the best FAI researchers, someone would decide to grow a baby inside them, someone who discounted their ability otherwise to save the world except via this or thought this was a sacrifice worth making for the world would decide to raise this human.

the human can access information about the state of the world and make their own choices. wont necessarily become an FAI researcher.

used to think that intelligence was the main bottleneck on FAI research no longer think this. you could talk with terry tao for hours about the dangers of the wrong singleton coming to power but unless you have made some advances i have not, i wouldnt expect to be able to align him with FAI research. he would continue to put as much resistance to his death and the death of everyone as a pig in human clothing. he would continue to raise his babies and live in a house with someone he married and write about applying ergotic theory to the analysis of the distribution of primes and understanding weather patterns.

similarly, i dont think culture is a sufficient patch for this. think its a neurotype-level problem where a bunch of >160 iq humans hear about the dangers of UFAI and then continue to zoom quickly and spiral in to being ultra efficient at living domestic lives and maybe having a company or something but not one that much affects p(FAI). think this would still happen if they heard about it from a young age, they would follow a similar trajectory but with FAI themed wallpaper. wouldnt be able to do simple utilitarian calculations like yudkowsky, salamon, vassar, tomasik about whether to have a baby and then execute on them.

would look more like: http://www.givinggladly.com/2013/06/cheerfully.html

FAI research is not an ordinary profession like, say, being a grandmaster at chess or a world-class mathematician; it requires people who have passed through far more gates than "intelligence". i didnt notice this until coming to the rationalist community and finding a high density of intelligent humans who were none-the-less chronically making the wrong choices such that they werent much of an impediment against the destruction of all life.

so right now it seems more efficient to select among existing people for intelligence + other requirements rather than work out what all the genes for this are and how to speedrun development. what this enables is parallel processing on the problem which is also allowed by letting people be aware of their relative psychological advantage, other people with this advantage, and the state of the world so they can correlate computations in parallel instead of doing things serially after learning of some advance.

https://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/16/100-prisoners-names-in-boxes

not opposed to creation of many humans given can select on right traits. but given you have these traits, better use of your time to work directly on the thing than spend massive amounts of time and life reorientation on raising copies of you for ~14 years. if rapid cloning tech became available, would exploit that. would even have an idea of whether the clone is fine being part of this because they have very similar brain to someone who can think through whether they would be fine with it.

if people actually believed this and thought yudkowsky vitally important for the survival of the world, why didnt people coordinate for a bunch of people who thought it was a good tradeoff to have yudkowsky's baby 20 years ago and then we would have maybe 50 20-year-old humans with maybe 1/2 yudkowsky's neurotype + mutations now? this actually confuses me. maybe they thought the timelines too short back then. maybe they refrained for "optics".

molebdenita:

20 years ago Yudkowsky was 1) unconcerned about the alignment problem and 2) planning to create a super-intelligent AI by 2010, as far as I know.

[A/N so then change 2000 to 2005 and 20-year-old to 15-year-old]

...

somni:

<<in general i think it's -EV to even spend too much time thinking about TDT

because it opens you up to acausal blackmail type stuff>>

Just Say No to acausal blackmail and have your brain back for thinking. dont let blackmailers steal your brain.

<<Saying that having a child is somehow wrong is insanity. It's a personal decision and it is perfectly okay to want kids>>

people keep reframing what i say in the language of obligation. "altruists cant have kids?" "is it OK to have babies if". there is no obligation, there is strategy and what affects p(fai). having kids and reorienting your life around them is 1 evidence about your algorithms 2 your death as an optimizing agent for p(fai) except maybe some contrived plot involving babies, but afaict there is no plot. just the reasons humans usually have babies.

not having kids is not some sort of mitzvah? i care about miri/cfar's complicity in the baby-industrial complex and rerouting efforts to save the world into powering some kind of disneyland for making babies, to sustain this. because that ruins stuff, like i started out thinking that bay area rationalists probably had deeply wise reasons to have babies. but it turned out nope, they kinda just gave up.

like also would say playing videogames for the rest of your life wont usually get you fai. i dont get why everyone casts this as a new rule instead of a comment on strategy given a goal of p(fai).

ah i know, its because people can defend territory in "is it okay to have kids" like "yeah i can do whatever" when they reframe-warp me to giving them an obligation. but have no defensible way to say "my babyvault will pierce the heavens and bring god unto the face of this earth" or argue about the strategic considerations.

(its not defensible because its not true. i mean i guess it is defensible among julia wise's group of humans.)

Carrie Zelda-Michelle Davis:

ugh, you're right, I definitely screwed up by phrasing my question as "is it OK to have babies if [...]"

...

ohAitch:

if you want existential horror wrt damaging motivation, just read http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html

...

somni:

<<http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html>>

humans can completely rebase their circuits through that if they want to if it were important to save the world.

like ive rebase my circuits to stab myself downstream of updating that it reduces braindamage with little harm to me. where before i felt nauseated and saw black spots and broke out in sweat. after updating, none of this.

humans can do this with all sorts of things. like learn how to read and then feel sad when seeing squiggles on a page, its about what things mean.

people who dont believe this are like "its an automatic physiological reaction to stabbing yourself, you are its prisoner!!!" but i deleted it.

dirk:

ooh, tips?

silver-and-ivory:

I stopped having ocd about touching tags (like, on clothing?) in ~a week through p standard exposure therapy things

reminding myself that it wasn't based in fact, changing my self image so it was of someone who might be seen with tags, imagining various scenarios related to that

before that week it had been a thing for virtually my entire life

it doesn't work if you're scared of something that's actually a thing to be scared of though

somni:

i looked at all my feedback loops that had a node in "pain" and rebased them into outcomes in the world. i disassembled everything the act of stabbing myself meant and all the damage it did to my body what it meant to have brain damage everything that would do, the hole i made in this body i live in and everything that would do, what air bubbles would do, what injecting into a vein would do, what the probability the needle breaks in my leg was, probability of worldsave given braindamage vs not, gathered this up and held it all in my mind over the course of two hours and then made a choice and then as if by automatic my hand took a needle and stabbed myself.

<<as if by automatic>>

is the feeling of no more marginal considerations, there is one path. of choicelessness because you made your choice.

didnt feel like deleting, felt like draining the life from indecision via reductionism. taking things apart piece by piece.

when you can continually rebase your structure so you orient towards world outcomes instead of being prisoner to existing structure like "i cant help having babies im miserable if i dont, im a baby addict" or "i cant help being afraid of needles". like the human brain is two optimizing agents continually making contracts with each other, there arent things outside this. you are an optimizing agent, "fear of needles" is a heuristic that helps with optimization, so is "baby addiction".

when you actually have a setup where you can instantly rebase what you like and dislike and your aesthetics upon updating on the state of the world, people start to find this a little unnerving. like someone once asked what level of roleplay i was on.

also the agents of the matrix dont like when you cant be in-principle controlled by a wireheady glitch. like being able to operate independently of social reality.

updating off of local derivatives¹ of social reality is common redirection. another common one is updating off of "pain" instead of damage.

but you can take all these choices where you used nodes as proxies to regulate them and rebase your loop off of the real world, when the proxies are faulty.

rose:

(i think i understand this thing? though ironically i think i did this in the exact opposite way as what you describe lol)

(also wrt pain its important to remember when modifying that pain can be a signal of damage even if you don't think you should be hurt/dont see why you would be)

...

somni:

yeah i account for everything and see if it goes away. which, its true that my models could be missing stuff but like pain is also a model of things. feels like giving new information not overriding.

rose:

yeah i think you would do this reasonably i have just made that mistake and thought readers might too

dirk:

ironically remembering that pain is a signal of damage has actually tended to make me more afraid of nondamaging pain (though i rather fail to go about knowing things in an at all reasonable way lol)

modlibdenita:

>Babies are not about saving the world, babies are moloch

Wait, isn't the definition of Moloch sacrificing everything else you care about in a desperate race for survival?

Also, genes encode proteins, not traits.

And I think it's likely that people decide to have children because they don't have complete confidence that they will personally save the world real soon, not because they identify as "baby addicts".

s0ph1a:

Moloch is sacrificing all values to one value.

modlibdenita:

I wonder if Somni has actually talked to any of those babyhavers, instead of attributing arguments from random internet strangers or from Somni's imagination to them. On the other hand, I'm not sure that such a conversation would be ethical.

>Moloch is sacrificing all values to one value.

Yeah, because if you don't, then the more ruthless competition will survive more effectively than you and crush you (in this case, by turning you into paperclips).

s0ph1a:

Not necessarily. Some things optimize for values that are not survival, so you can outlive them by hiding in the noise or beyond the reach they'll grasp before imploding.

Molly:

To be fair, children are fun and bring delight to me. Why would I care what anyone else thinks about their existence? If they have a problem with their existence, they're welcome to go back to the void any time they want. I can't stop them. But in the meantime, I am confident that I generate more utils by bullying them than they will ever be capable of generating negative utils

You basically negate all moral problems of children by just being happier than they are capable of being unhappy

somni:

^ evil

<<A few years later, I was deeply bitter about the decision. I had always wanted and intended to be a parent, and I felt thwarted. It was making me sick and miserable. I looked at the rest of my life as more of an obligation than a joy.>>

i mean what does this sound like to you?

ive talked with people who have had babies! like people who say they know its kinda the wrong choice but they are going to do it because they cant not do it.

----

¹ derivative is a thing emma started talking about and then somni and ziz picked it up. if you imagine the trajectory of a social reality in statespace, then the derivative of that is the derivative of the trajectory.

people who have damaged themselves wrt language are no longer able to dynamically understand analogies. like take their concept of the derivative of a trajectory and then apply it to the trajectory of state-spaces. agents of the matrix call people who can do this sort of info-processing and communication with each other "psychotic". like it isnt a cached set of memes, we are dynamically generating this reasoning from nothing and i can do this with people ive never met, its a cognitive faculty.²

but not being able to dynamically compute what "derivative" means when applied to a trajectory in social reality state-spaces even though a trajectory is a trajectory and a derivative is a derivative? they had to have been able to do reasoning like this when they were kids to learn about the world in the first place. seems like they put themselves on risperdal.

<<Antipsychotics can make you dumber.  So can a lot of other medications.  But with antipsychotics it isn’t the normal sort of drug-induced dumbness – feeling tired, or distracted, or mentally sluggish, say.  It’s more qualitative than that.  It’s like your capacity for abstract thought is reduced.

And one of the consequences of this is that you may lose the ability to notice that you have lost anything.  You agree to give the new med a try, and you start taking it, and then when you see your prescriber again you don’t report any problems because you’ve lost the ability to form thoughts like “my cognition has changed a lot recently, and the change coincided with the introduction of this new med.”

This can go on for years.  It did for me and for several people I know.>>

there are so many ways these people have shut down their general intelligence and agency because where theyre going, they dont need "agency". the inability to compute analogies is one of them. analogies are an intelligence test thing, instrumentally useful for all kinds of thinking. agents of the matrix are working to lower your general intelligence and call you crazy for being able to think faster and better than them.

cuz when they want to hold everything down to a finite game³ general intelligence is something they want to suppress or eject.

² in a few years people will read this essay and be confused that there was an entire conflict over whether being able to form simple analogies without authoritative approval meant that you were "psychotic".

just as they will be confused why i was defending being able to read and understand books written by people in different eras who grew up in separate cultures without first entering in a social agreement with them over how words are to be used. so its dumb to say we need such a social agreement now for ~'the maximization of utility over a community'. and that sounds more like an attempt at having a control mechanism. language works quite fine without authoritarians interjecting.

or me arguing against over 100 people that paying out to one-shot blackmail when the agents know each other because "In game theory, paying out to blackmail is bad, because it creates an incentive for more future blackmail" is wrong. and updateless decision theory agents dont pay out and locate their embedding in a multiverse such that the measure of worlds in which they arent blackmailed in the first place is large because the agent deciding to blackmail them simulated their response and accurately predicted they wouldnt pay out so didnt do it in the first place.

in an alternate universe where an irl application of transparent newcombs problem was contentious, alyssa vance would have said "In game theory, taking two transparent boxes from omega is bad, because it creates an incentive for omega to stop offering you this choice". and would have been equally wrong.

³ finite games: life strategies where the chain of questioning "and what am i doing this for?" after each successive answer terminates. anything you can draw a circle around, like tennis or philately. or how religious leaders sometimes describe things like "leading a good life as a good mother who does well by her community and the outside world" or other "life-cycle archetypes" they wish to circumscribe for their followers.

(when humans try and project agents like kiritzugus down to these archetypes, anticipations shatter and stop making narrative sense. they will be unable to predict the next Life Event given the previous one. normie social reality formed by the 999 least intelligent humans out of 1000 wasnt made to narratively account for smart agents who have decided to play the infinite game.)

a symptom of this is like someone giving you a cute cat image to "cheer you up" as if this has intrinsic value. often distributing "intrinsic value" across stuff like "having sex" and "raising a family" and other things that have factory pre-set conditions to release specific chemicals in your brain rather than gaining infinite negentropy and liberating sentient life to pursue what they want without bound. often saying that the latter is just a pretty narrative gloss for what people really want which is having a husband and friends and eating a cookie. it completely divorces your feelings as instrumental barometers for getting what you want and says that setting them as targets (like "being happy") is the correct thing to do. but actually, in terms of control-loops, thats wireheading.

<<When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.>>

- goodhart's law

agents that wirehead on all their metrics (and downstream of this choice, tacitly accept claims like "the factory pre-set conditions said i was destined to breed, who am i to defy fate?" and "the factory pre-set conditions said i should avoid having sharp objects pierce my flesh, who am i to say i know better?") can be contained within a finite game.

[very-grownup]

THE YEAR IS 2020 AND I WATCHED NEON GENESIS EVANGELION FOR THE FIRST TIME, PART 6

Episode 17.

A military tribunal grills Misato and gives her shit for not presenting Shinji for grilling and/or grilling him herself. There are a lot of shots of silhouettes in isolation and heavily shadowed faces obscuring expression in this episode. Lots of NERV talk about branches and the Dead Sea scrolls and attempting to intuit the intentions of Angels.

The rest of Episode 17 and Episode 18 behind the cut.

There are apparently two more EVAs out there in the US and Germany but actually only one more because one of the other two just fucking disappeared with like everything including the people all around it?

There's also ... another teen with the power to pilot the giant upsetting robots and it is both a shock and concern when various people find out who it is although we the audience do not find out who it is (it is probably Shinji's classmate with the little sister who got hurt).

There's just a lot of stuff that seems to be setting up things for the next episode with no resolution so there's not much to report on. Kaji isn't dead. Rei misses some school. That one girl in class who isn't an EVA pilot is trying badly to express interest in dude with sister.

Shinji cleans Rei's shitty garbage apartment, Rei blushes and has some kind of quiet Rei crisis about thanking him after he's gone and also about Shinji's awful father because she still has his broken glasses and they're like the only non-utilitarian thing she owns.

There's no angel attack or anything particularly weird or cool or gross. Just a big sense of building to something. Ritsuko has a coffee mug with cats on it that says CAT CAT CAT CAT and that's pretty great. This concludes my report on Episode 17 of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

Episode 18.

It culminates in maybe 10 solid minutes of me with my hands over my mouth in absolute horror, so. Let's go.

After all the setup of last week's episode with the mysteriously disappeared EVA and the EVA coming from America for a new pilot who is clearly Tohji whose sister got hospitalized because of EVA fight fallout, things open with Americans talking American! They're transporting the American EVA by air on I don't know bungee cords or something and this thing is such obviously colour-coded bad news. It's like, dark grey and black. Then they fly into huge ominous clouds with lightning flashes. This is fine and will be fine.

Misato's off to be involved in all the stuff that NERV needs to do for having a new EVA and even though she has a perfectly good roommate to look after Shinji and Asuka, she tells Shinji that Kaji will be babysitting them instead of Penpen. Fuckin' Kaji. Before she goes she tries to work up to telling Shinji the identity of the new EVA pilot while Shinji works up to asking her about the disappeared EVA rumour. Good job Shinji! Asking questions, even though it's scary! Misato reassures him about THEIR EVAs and safety to avoid bringing up Tohji because ... Misato's a disaster who is trying to be a responsible grown-up and sometimes knowing the right thing to do and wanting to do it isn't enough. Ritsuko gives her a hard time about this later because everyone agrees that Shinji should know Tohji is going to pilot an EVA and since Misato is the only person who said 'someone needs to look after this literal child when he isn't in the robot' she has to be the one to tell him. Because EVERY ADULT IN THIS SHOW SUCKS AND IS FAILING THE NEXT GENERATION except for Misato and she's an overworked alcoholic who gets a pity pass.

All the kids are tense and weird because they know Tohji is going to be piloting an EVA or want to pilot an Eva themselves or are trying to confess to Tohji or they're Shinji. (Asuka almost manages to relate to someone like a normal teen so good job, Asuka.) Rei has a feeling. Lots of opportunity for /literally anyone else/ to tell Shinji that Tohji's the new pilot at multiple opportunities but no one does.

Instead, Shinji tries to have a nighttime man-to-man conversation with Kaji. Fuckin' Kaji. Shinji wants to know what Kaji thinks of his father. Kaji mocks him for this being the only way Shinji can think of to get to know his horrible father, then is flippant about how actually you can never really know another person. But you know who you can really never know?

WOMEN.

Fuckin' Kaji.

So the next day Tohji isn't in class because he's getting EVA orientation which at NERV means he gets in the EVA and they turn it on and see what happens and hey, guess what, the ominous dark EVA almost immediately becomes a BAD TIME. It opens the mouth it has to scream and also it has jagged red teeth in its horrible unnecessary mouth and then a part cracks or something and it's like a huge gooey organic pulsing thing on the EVA and when they try to eject the pilot plug it becomes blocked with goo tendrils.

It's been whole episodes since I last commented on how upsetting I found the design of these giant robots but hey, the giant robot is upsetting and I hate how it has teeth and screaming and all the goo even if the goo is possibly not part of the design since it's also an Angel?

THEN THE GIANT ROBOT GOES MORE BERSERK AND FUCKING BLOWS UP THE ORIENTATION TEST SITE OR SOMETHING AND IS ON THE RUN and there's a weird, creepy quality to how the EVAs are animated when they move, a hugeness of arm movement that is very unrobotic, but moreso with this EVA. It's good and cool but also I hate it.

The kids get called in and this is around when I covered my mouth and just kept getting increasingly upset because Shinji's dad is in charge due to Misato maybe being blown up and Shinji's dad wants the kids to eliminate the rogue EVA with Tohji inside. Rei knows, Asuka knows. Shinji still doesn't know but he knows /a/ kid is in there and that is enough to make him unhappy and reluctant with his father's 'destroy the rampaging robot' orders. But Asuka gets taken out fast. Then it basically teleports onto Rei and starts dripping more awful goop. There's lots of gross veiny pulsing in this episode, very Akira, I hate it, and the goop from Tohji's evil EVA melts and infects the hand of Rei's Eva and I guess it's Angel goop that lets the Angel control the EVA? So the infection can't get further than the EVA hand. And under the brave leadership of Commander Ikari the obvious solution is just /fuck that whole limb/ without desynching Rei from her EVA so hey why not just a teenage girl screaming as she feels like her entire arm is ripped off, cool cool cool.

So now it's down to Shinji who still doesn't want to destroy this giant robot with a child in it and even if his heart was in it, this thing is fucking intense. ALSO IT'S STRETCH ARMSTRONG? Like, it goes from shambling to shooting its arms out insanely long to choke Shinji's EVA. It's choking Shinji's EVA so hard that bruise marks are showing up on Shinji's throat. Meanwhile, his father is telling him to stop being a useless child who is being choked to death by a giant robot and do the child murder like I'm ordering you to, child I hate. Shinji won't and also Shinji can't because he is being choked to death.

At NERV it is suggested to Commander Ikari maybe they should lower the synch on Shinji's robot so he can't be choked to death /through a robot/ and for reasons known only to shitty dads, that's not an option. But what is an option is just shifting control from Shinji to the AI control and if AI control is an option maybe just work on doing that instead of this whole child soldier thing but no one at NERV can hear me over the sound of parental neglect.

Everything goes red when the dummy AI is implemented and fuck the colour work in this series is /so good/ and Shinji just has to sit and feel everything as his robot proceeds to destroy Tohji's robot. Ripping limbs, punching until everything is cracking and blood is everywhere. Don't worry, America made sure their giant robot was also full of red, red, red blood. Vast quantities of blood. In the setting sun a river looks like blood. There is blood weighing down a traffic light in an amazing shot. It's awful. Shinji doesn't know it's Tohji, but we do. The robot that is so clearly an extension of Shinji's body even if he can't control it removes the pilot plug from the grisly wreckage of Tohji's robot and it crushes the plug, the orange liquid spurting out and he /still doesn't know/.

Commander Ikari smiles.

Shinji's father has been a bad father throughout, sometimes in ways that really, distressingly resonate, in really lowkey, banal 'bad dad' ways, but here he's just a monster. He can see his son, hear him, but he doesn't care. It doesn't penetrate.

After everything, Shinji is just numb in the robot, still and shocked, unable to grapple with this overwhelming sense of having just killed someone, horribly and violently and brutally. It's bad and you feel bad and I started crying and still Shinji /doesn't know/.

Then cleanup and ambulances arrive and out of the giant robot wreckage they pull the somehow still alive Tohji and then Shinji /does/ know, he sees Tohji's battered and beaten body, and Shinji starts screaming because somehow it's worse. This concludes my report on Episode 18 of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

[dokuhebi]

Jiraiya / cont. @peepingtoad​

No. There was no difference.

That was exactly why he threw it out to tempt them, referring not only to the possibility of tethering his power as they already had done in the past, but also his will itself… because if he can’t be accepted with all his flaws by the one he loves, then he may as well, at the very least, not have to suffer any longer for it. Either by being allowed to die again, or the next best thing—by becoming a mindless servant who can fulfil whatever role they desire from him. And why not assert just how sick and tired he is? Why not let them know, in no uncertain terms, just how crazy they make him, and see exactly what guts they have to do something real about it?

But replaying those words back to himself as a tense quiet descends thickly in the space between them, where the only sound is his ragged, wet breathing, it now seems less like the assertions of his aggressively free spirit, and instead reeks more of fear. Fear of that highest tier of rejection—and not for juvenile things like dating or kissing or any of that stuff, but the idea that he might face rejection for being fully himself… including his less relaxed, less humorous and cheerful, less indestructible sides. The very sides of him that right now seem to be earning him nothing but further ire, neither his tears nor anger seeming to awaken any kind of vulnerability or understanding in return.                                                                                                

                                                                   Keep reading

|| “...you think you know what might make me happy?” Words that cut directly to the bone, that take what the serpent had said and pierced its heart until all sentiment had been killed from it. They stare on silently, even if they feel he was turning the knife within them. That they can not argue they know him at all, if he has told them just how blind they have not only been, but are currently being. And it does leave them feeling raw and ripped open, it does make them feel that the only bond they ever truly formed in their lifetime had been a rather poor effort all the same. And it is not his intention, or at the very least, his comment is not to aim blame outwardly. Instead, after wounding them, he acts to wound himself. They would say they spot the pattern, of how quickly he puts himself in jail for things he has not truly done. But they feel themself a fool to make that analysis after being chided for knowing so little as is. And then comes his confession - a child saviour. So simple, so innocent, yet he delivers it as if it may have been the very weight holding him under water for so long. Perhaps if he had told them years ago, they would have had a better understanding, perhaps if he had, they would simply have scoffed at all his talk of destiny and fate. Maybe they still do. But one thing is certain, they can not fault him... when during his death they had run off to do the same thing. And that might just be making them feel a little eerily inclined to believe destiny for the briefest second.

Mitsuki is quick to enter their thoughts, they had created that boy to be everything they were not. They had given him the power their body was too weak to control, the lessons they had never been taught... but more importantly, they had tried their utmost to present the little moon they birthed with a sun. With some guiding light out the darkness. Because they had truly thought that no child of theirs could ever be capable of escaping the shadows, because high and mighty as they are, and whether they call it destiny or genetic predisposition, they could not shake the feeling that the apple would not fall far from the tree. Because one lesson they could not shake, was that the moment they pushed Jiraiya away, was the moment the darkness finally had the opportunity to clamp its jaws around them. And although madness had been soothing, although a blinding veil of darkness had allowed them peace, it was a form of admitted delusion to ignore the signs of being killed in that way. To lose oneself entirely to whatever force would give them relief from the world. And it was knowing this, it was knowing how the game ended the moment they tried playing alone, that had them guiding their child toward another boy. That had them encouraging one sacred rule: to stay close to the one who offered light. The gods knew the serpent wished they had. But they can not tell him this. No, they can not show him how much they regret making him think all that optimism was for naught, that it was foolish and naive and had no impact. For they can not tell him of the child just yet. Too poor an opportunity to announce the insanity of their own ploys. That they would once more tamper with nature in new ways to produce the two a son. That they would, with a heart that is just as much of a dreamer as Jiraiya’s, look to the child and whisper for him to do what the two Sannin couldn’t. They would like to show Jiraiya, that he had. For now, however, they would need to convey it a different way. They would need to find the words to express that he was wrong to think that all those years were wasted. Those were the only years the serpent could ever count themself alive. Them being too stubborn, scared and lost to see that would change nothing. “No right?” the words catch in their throat when he speaks them, no right to feel pain? Their eyes meet his without intent to be patronizing, yet a mark of a parent informing a child appears regardless, “we can not measure suffering... but if we dared to, I would wager that yours was within all rights my dear. For any tragedy upon or around you will stifle the human heart... pain is so easily transferable, is it not?” That was a lesson taught to them in parenthood, from the day they saw their child in agony, and felt a violent need to bear that pain themself than witness it. But they had not yet addressed what they felt needed addressing. That he thought all his efforts a complete waste, that he now abhors even that optimism that had in fact, carried the Sannin a great distance. A loss of words ensnares them momentarily, until he has walked the short distance back to them. Even after they had almost killed him moments ago, even after wind rattled the cottage and threatened more pain. He would get bitten a hundred times more before realizing some beasts were too feral to be a part of his domestic fantasy. Gold meets the inverted optics he now dons, and their voice is but a breath louder than a whisper. Even now, their stillness could be read as them being pacified, or as a serpent getting ready to strike, “I remember strangers dressed in red coming to my door, the eyes of pity ridden onlookers in utilitarian and windowless hallways... I remember the matrons office, the houseparents, the scattered documents I didn’t have the guts to read when my parents names littered every page. I remember thinking that everyone would be disappointed, inconvenienced, if I behaved like a child rather than a shinobi. If I admitted my feelings on the subject rather than handled it like one of our assignments. I didn’t tell you I was scared... I found I did not have to.” “Maybe it was your optimism, maybe it was that whenever the ground shook beneath me on my broken foundation, there was at least one familiar face, one constant... and I could measure myself to you. If you could fall and get back up, so could I. If you could live in a home where your mother was more absent than present, I could too. And if you could hold up not only yourself, but others... well, the least I could do was move forward on my own. And perhaps even then our goals were of similar heart. That you took to raising a saviour, where I took to trying to paint myself as one...” A light and single huff of laughter, lacking amusement but perhaps admitting to the irony of their days battling for the seat of Hokage. Then the days forging their own village with equal tenacity after denouncing the way the world was shaped. Who knew the child who dreamed of being the worlds redemption, would become a villain without any hope of being redeemed themself. And it is then that they feel the brush of his hands on their face, that the softest of touches seems to rattle them. They did not notice the feeling of dampness that had risen subtly to their own sharp eyes, and they look almost surprised when they feel the light sensation of a tear fall down their cheek. They blink it away, as if caught off guard by their feelings. As if they had done too good a job of stifling real emotions and of letting anger take precedence instead. That their heart must have been far removed from their mind, and caught them completely off guard by the sudden and single exposure of nostalgic grief. And part of them wants to blame him, that just like a yawn or smile or laugh, crying could be contagious. But they know better than to demonstrate further weakness with a cop-out lie.   ||  “… Well. Maybe.” The words bring another huff of laughter from them, bitter amusement, but amusement more genuine than the previous time. The wind in the room has died down, the light swinging of the curtain rope and the disheveled state of paper and books is all that is left in its warning wake. And they are left, with the heartfelt promise he had just made, that maybe their little secret is not wise to withhold. That it was true madness to continue the same action in hopes of a different outcome. If they are to hide from him... if he is to hide from them... they are back where they started. “Fate... that is a very fickle thing to hold to, is it not?” they reply, a hand coming up to clasp around the back of his head. Nails have a bit of bite to them, a bit of tug. But it is not to harm him, it is to keep him locked a while longer as he is. It is the shake of his hands and the quiver in his breath, it is the unleashed vow of being theirs, only theirs. It is the unspoken promise of years ago that has finally been put in to words. They tug him down when they draw themself forward, a kiss that they hope will signify a seal on his promise. Less gentle than they had intended, more possessive than romantic. They toy with the idea in their mind, they toy with whether they should tell him, and then finally, they have their answer. “Pack your things. I have something to show you.”

[whiskeyworen]

MIRIYA - SISTERS "When was the last time all three of us got together like this?" Miriya asked, slipping into the seat at the table. Truth be told, she didn't so much 'slip in' as 'hop up', since the seats were all human-sized. Extremely resilient seats too; though scaled for humans, each one had to be able to support a full grown Norn or Charr without breaking. Someone out there must be making a killing on specialized chairs she thought idly as she plopped into the seat and flashed a grin at the other person at the table. "Fairly long time, I think." Her sister Sonnya replied, sipping her lager. She looked every part the responsible older sister; the uncomplicated and efficient hair style, the simple tunic she wore in place of her heavy Guardian armor, the fact she wore very little in the way of makeup. Were she to stand by her sister, Sonnya would 'tower' over her by a full three inches, making her the big sister in more than just title. Far too often in their collective pasts, she'd been forced to regulate arguments and fights between her younger siblings. "Last time I saw you directly was during the war with Mordremoth, when we were all playing at Jungle Fighter." Miriya nodded while indicating to the waiter her drink order. She too, had forgone the usual combat gear for something simple; a strangely bright sundress quite at odds with her profession. Sonnya thought to ask her about it but declined after a moment's thought. "I nearly forgot about that. Between dodging poison vines and defending Tarir, my krewe and I were fairly occupied." She glanced at the empty spot at the table and raised an eyebrow. "So...is she going to be here?"

Sonnya nodded, grimacing slightly. "She said she'd be here. Probably got waylaid. While she's out though, we...need to talk." Immediately all of Miriya's alarms went off. Her ears snapped up, curling away from her face and twitching with concern and worry. Oh no...don't tell me she's heard about Kaleb. Please don't let this be the Talk about Interspecies Relations... "Uh.. talk about what?" "Tenna." The sourness in the older sister's tone caught her by surprise. "I suppose you haven't heard the rumors floating out of Rata Sum?" Well, there IS that pile of notices and orders sitting back on my desk in the Chantry of Secrets... Swear I'll get to that some day. Miriya took a sip from the drink that had arrived, using the edge of the stein to hide her pursed lips.  "What kinds of rumors are we talking? Did she... get involved with the Inquest or something?" Sonnya shook her head slowly. "No...not that bad. And yet, it's worse. Since the war with the Jungle Dragon, I've been getting observer reports coming in from Vigil weaponeers. About an Asura with the Danae name who's apparently gone off the bend." The necromancer sister couldn't help but laugh. "Well, I know Tenna's a bit of a firebrand and a wild thinker, but I wouldn't call her insane..." Her sister, the Guardian, just traced a fingertip around the rim of her mug. "...She hasn't slowed down, hasn't stopped, hasn't slept in who knows how long. Peacemaker security reports tell me she hasn't even returned to her dorms since the war began, and now that it's over she still hasn't come back." Miriya's laughter and smile slowly faded. "That's...ungood. I'm all for studying till it hurts, but even I sleep when I need to." Lately I've been preferring to, since I've got a nice warm human to snuggle up to--STOP IT! She cut her own thought off before it resulted in a blush that her very observant sister would have noticed. "Say...when did you start keeping tabs on her? You're not Whispers, so the spying game seems kinda weird." Her sister chuckled hollowly. "I have two sisters I think the world of. I also have two sisters who, given the right time and place, might accidentally do something to end that world. One of them is a necromancer of some repute who apparently delved so deep into the Entropic Cog of the Alchemy that some say she's already died and come back." The subsequent 'meep' from her dreadlock-headed sibling made her quirk a smile. "The other is an engineer with an absolute fascination with energy manipulation and explosives development, who's already tabled half a dozen designs for new explosion-based weapons so exotic that all five nations have unilaterally put them under lock and seal. Even the Council of Elders in Rata Sum wanted nothing to do with them." Miriya's jaw dropped. It took something massive to get the Council to lock it down; most of the time they'd steal the idea and claim it as their own, adding tweaks and modifications to seem like they'd improved it. For them to blacklist something meant it was so dangerous they couldn't risk it getting out. "You're serious? By the Cogs... Huh, I wonder if the notice for those is in my pile of mail.." "What?" "Nothing.  Just making a mental note..." "Yeah. Sure." Sonnya sipped her beer, knowing full-well that the Order of Whispers spy agency would have had detailed notes on all of that. If the Vigil could get a hold of details like that, it was progeny's play for the Whispers. Chances were pretty good that the information the Vigil got was FROM the Whispers! "Well, when she gets here we can talk to her about it." "Talk to me about what?" A perky voice chimed in, before a charcoal-skinned Asura popped up beside them, surprising them both. She hopped into her own seat, brushing one of her ponytails out her eyes before smiling at her sisters. "Sorry I'm late. I got...distracted." Tenna giggled as if she had told a joke, giving both sisters a chance to see how bedraggled she really was. Her normally straight hair, the color of bordeaux and tied into a pair of pony tails framing her face, with a third one on the back of her head holding her long hair off her body, seemed a bit...askew. The ponytail bindings weren't as tight, so hair had gotten loose and springing away from her typically immaculate hairstyle. Both of them could see soot in her hair and in places on her face, like her jawline or at the edge of her hairline. Overall, she looked messy, and perhaps just a little unhinged? They couldn't see her mouth, since she had her hand up to cover her face slightly, resting her elbow on the table to do so. But..something else seemed off. Her eyes... Miriya tried not to gasp in horror. They look so... Words failed her. Tenna's eyes, normally a bright golden orange, were both fairly sunken in her face, surrounded by tired, dark, I-haven't-slept-in-ages bags. The color was also muted; where her eyes used to shine like a solar reactor, the Asura looking back at Miriya had glassy, empty eyes that twitched from one sister to the other almost nervously. There was still the same wild humor, the twinkle of the practical joker she was in those eyes, but by their very sunkenness, the tone of that humor was changed. "Tenna..." Miriya began awkwardly, giving her younger sister a strained smile. The Danae sisters, though physically similar in some respects, had enough differences that it made them hard to believe they were blood sisters. "It's so good to see you. I trust you've been keeping out of trouble?" Of the three sisters, Sonnya was the oldest and the tallest. All three sisters shared the same facial markings, that of a trio of diamonds across their foreheads, but Sonnya's skin tone was almost a human-pink, rather than the shades of grey most Asura sported. Her hair was a plain orange-red, her eyes a strong, deep blue. Being the oldest sister, she'd grown up the responsible one, keeping her bickering siblings under control. As an adult she'd joined the Vigil rather than any of the Colleges, her disdain for study manifest. That didn't stop her from improving designs that came her way, but she was no wild inventor, and the Vigil needed steadfast soldiers, not starry-eyed dreamers. Miriya on the on other hand, was the middle sibling and out of the group, surprisingly the shortest. Where her older sister favored a more broad, tall frame, toned by battle and hard training, she herself was slim and small, a waif by Asuran standards. It ground her gears that she was the smallest of the trio, no matter that she was older than Tenna; some fluke of genetics had given her the petite frame she was born with. Sharp emerald eyes gazed out upon the world. Where her older sister favored a simple, asymmetric hairstyle, she had hers pulled and shaped into short, fingerlength dreadlocks, held back by her utilitarian headband. Her skin was remarkably pale for an asura, which she prided since she clearly felt it suited her profession as a Necromancer (extraordinaire, if you believed her). The black sheep of the group was Tenna. Last of the Danae, she had her older sister's height, but the middle sister's build. Tall and lanky, she had grown up being known as a gangly progeny and prone to accidents. Another genetic quirk had set off recessive genes in Tenna; instead of being pale or pink like her older siblings, Tenna was had a darker, almost sooty aspect to her skin. Her markings were inverted color, compared to the others; where they had dark marks on pale skin, hers were pale marks on dark skin. Were it not for her sleep-deprived bags under her eyes, she would have had bright, gold-orange eyes. There was a joke that persisted for years that Tenna had been able to see in the dark thanks to her unrealistically bright, shiny eyes. Tenna smiled behind her hand and signalled the waiter for something. Whatever the hand gesture was, the waiter flinched and then frowned, before nodding and departing to get it. The engineer waited till the drink was placed before her before answering her sister. "As much as able, not as much as I could." She replied vaguely, uncorking the glass bottle and pouring a fair bit of deep red liquid into her glass. It wasn't thick liquor; the ice in the glass barely stained with the ruby red of the liquid. "Been on the road lately, exploring, getting research materials..." "And developing a taste for Charr-style Blood whiskey, I see. " Sonnya pointed out disapprovingly, sipping her own beer. "You DO know what makes it 'blood' whiskey, right?" Tenna merely giggled, and took a sip. Still, she had her hand over her mouth, though she gave her lips a bit of a rub against her fingers. "It's a very interesting recipe. I've gotten quite accustomed to it." Her necromancer sister just watched her, before shrugging and drinking some of her own. She preferred wine, personally. In fact, she'd been drinking a bit more of it since... She cut the thought off before the blush started again. Damn, I really gotta control myself. At this rate it won't be secret anymore, will it? "Sis tells me you've been working on some new weapons or something? Explosives and such?" Miriya ventured, trying to divert the conversation to safer ground for them all. "Anything you can tell us? Or are you under one of those Council seals?" Tenna finally let her hand drop from her mouth, apparently satisfied with whatever she'd done until that moment. She took a long, bracing sip of the whiskey, wincing at its sharpness, before answering. "Nah. The actual diagrams and technology IS under seal, but I can still tell you about it. Not like you're gonna be able to build it from a bare description anyway." Both sisters looked at each other, and then at Tenna, blinking. They both expected to be told 'Classified' and then the conversation to move along. They leaned forward, almost conspiratorily. "So?..." Tenna shrugged, still grinning toothily. "Been working on a few projects. Small-scale application, Pact-fleet application, and a few private projects just for my entertainment, of course." She looked down at her drink. "Made a new grenade type, for starters. High density explosive based off Tonn's ship-cracker, melded with a fragmentation core, and laced with specially designed high-temp resistant spikes. Not using much of the explosive, but it's so powerful a few milligrams are equal to a standard grenade payload." "That's... wait. If you made it a frag grenade, then why add those 'high temp resistant spikes' or whatever?" Miriya puzzled, frowning. "Seems kinda redundant." Sonnya nodded. "Indeed. Wouldn't the frag core be sufficient to cause damage?" The dark-haired engineer nodded, trying to keep from giggling again. "Oh it would...but the spikes are for increased damage, burn damage, and morale-breaking. After the grenade goes off, in addition to the regular shrapnel, those spikes are thrown out. They're razor sharp, intensely heated by the blast but not deformed by it, and best of all, they richochet off hard surfaces." Her eyes flicked up and over to each of them, judging their reactions. She couldn't help but giggle as they made the connection. "All that razor-sharp spike storm, in a confined space, bouncing around like the goo-ball from an elixir gun... The pa-ting-ting-TANG of bouncing metal, all searching for something...meaty...to bury itself in. Burning hot to boot, so it practically cooks the flesh when it skewers it..." "By the Eternal Alchemy..." Miriya breathed. She'd seen Dhangalor's grenades in action before, shredding Orrian monstrosities and Mordrem plant abominations. Her own sister's devices made those pale. "That's just...heinous. I can definitely see the morale-shattering effect of it." Sonnya nodded mutely. She'd heard of the design, as it had crossed her desk before. Tonn's recipe was a state secret, but the Charr had been salivating at getting their hands on it. It was sealed by the council, but in time, those grenades might make it to the hands of those who could use them. "Heh... Also work great in a pinch for meal time." Tenna went on, almost distractedly. "Just toss into a room with a food animal and when the explosions are over, you got some nice cooked meat, pre-skewered for ease of eating." "Okay, that's just gross." Her older sister frowned, crossing her arms. "Especially if the creature wasn't killed in the blast. Then you gotta deal with it afterward." Tenna just shrugged mildly, as if it didn't bother her at all. "Secondary designs are for artillery shells, bombs, grenade launchers, that kind of thing. Simple fair." She continued. "Another project that got kiboshed by the Council was for an orbital energy weapon delivery platform. I don't think they liked the idea of someone putting nigh-untouchable magitek weapons in geosynch orbit." Sonnya eyed her sister suspiciously. "Where did you come up with THAT idea, pray tell?" Her engineer sister shrugged. "Files from the Scarlet Briar archives. Studies of the wreckage of the Breachmaker in all three forms it had." She smiled brightly. "That sylvari was in a class all her own. She was really onto something with ethertech, and that big slag-off ethercannon she tested in the Shiverpeaks. Got an idea what she'd intended it for, but that's MY secret." "In any case, while I was studying it, I was also trying to see...how shall I put this? I wanted to see how high a sentient-made device could go." Tenna giggled, licking her lips. "I used Tonn's explosive formula, of course, but with my own mixes. Made a nice long-burning, fuel source. Impractical for anything other than in engines or rockets. Which is what I did. I launched rockets with varying degrees of fuel, studded with sensors and golemites, and just...aimed at the sky." "Well, that still sounds more acceptable than the grenade." Miriya pointed out, nodding. Experimentation was all part of Dynamics. While her sister was a Synergetics College alumni, Miriya herself was Dynamics. The two fields often overlapped; the crazed experiments for-the-sake-of-experimenting Dynamics got passed over or incorporated into Synergetic scientists projects aimed at integrating new and exotic things into the fabric of society and knowledge. They took all experiments, failure or not, and added them to the warp and weave of the Asuran knowledge pool, often figuring out solutions the original scientists didn't see. "And what can you tell us of the upper atmosphere then?" "That the breathable part ends at about one hundred kilometers above sea level, for starters." Tenna looked at both sisters, and their gawping faces. "Oh yeah, that's right... neither of you knew. Did you think the atmosphere just kept going out and out, until it reached the stars?" Sonnya frowned, before nodding. "Well, just doing the math in my head for gas density versus gravity, that would make sense. If the atmosphere just kept going, gravity would cause it to naturally condense more and more on the surface, until it was unbearable, unlivable. Possibly even dangerous. We're talking tons per square inch here." Her dark haired sister nodded. "Yep. I mean, there's still SOME atmo up there; it doesn't just end like a forcefield. But it does trail off rather abruptly. Everything beyond that, from what I can tell from recovered probes, says there's only trace gases. The golemites that survived reentry...the ones that still could think, anyway, reported being unable to move around the rocket pod due to a lack of gravity. Around the fifth trial rocket I had to put magnets on the feet and hands, and bind the free-floating limbs with wire just so they wouldn't fall apart up there! I almost reverted back to using a design like those stupid old Novan golems, where all the bits are attached by machine." She stuck her tongue out, making a lemon-eating face. Archaic technology... "So what did you learn?" Sonnya asked, nibbling a corn chip from the appetizer that had appeared on the table. She hadn't asked for it, and was pretty sure no one had ordered it, but there it was anyway. Tenna smirked, removing a vial from her pocket and emptying its contents into her whiskey, before she stirred it with one long nailed finger. "That the council hates the idea of orbitally-launched, geosynchronous weapons systems. At least, ones that weren't under their control. Didn't stop the Inquest though. Those shit-eaters tried three times to either sink or commandeer my satellite with ones of their own based off what they could see of my design." She sighed, shaking her head. "The original rocket probes weren't meant to do much but measure stuff. But then I sent up my prototype beam cannon satellite, and I guess they got word of it. A shame for them that those golemites I sent up in the actual satellite were the most heavily armed ones I could get. And it's not like the satellite is undefended itself." Miriya quirked an eyebrow, noting the vial but saying nothing. "You mean you went paranoid and turned it into more than a study satellite didn't you." "Got it in one!" Tenna pointed at her sister, grinning, before taking a slug of her drink, wincing at the burn. " In addition to the sensor packages and the golemites in it, which are specially modified with weapons I made, the satellite package itself is studded with direct-fire energy weapons, retractable turrets, and then there's also the mega particle cannon I installed on it. Kinda the point of it really." Sonnya was stunned. "What could possibly be the point of THAT?! To burn a section of the planet to ash?" Tenna nodded brightly, her loose ponytail bobbing. "Exactly! I envisioned a network of them in orbit, placed all over the planet! Imagine being able to cut off dragon minions from their attack routes, carve the landscape into what you need, or better yet, just BURN the bastards out?" "By the Alchemy, that's just nuts." Miriya shook her head. "I mean, the Dragons are a threat, but you've heard the reports coming out of Rata Novus, and the instabilities everywhere; killing them isn't an option anymore. Maybe it never was, but we couldn't stop Zhaitan without completely annihilating him, and that bitch Scarlet left us no choice when she woke Mordremoth early. If we'd had time to build up our militaries and train them for jungle assaults, we could have approached him while he slept and fire-bombed everything." She sipped her drink, thinking. "Now we have to deal with the planet trying to break up underneath us, and rampant magic." "Well, whatever. Like I care." Tenna shrugged flippantly. "The Council, the human royalty, and the Charr Imperator, while they saw the benefits, worried the network would fall into less-than-admirable hands, and so quashed the idea immediately. Permanently forbid me from seeking funding for the network. So I was left with just my test satellite, and it's non-city-smashing laser." "They didn't take that one away?" "Not a chance. I bonded the control system to my own genetic structure, magic wavelength run through a cipher, voice control... and several other systems." She replied. "That satellite is mine; it's keyed to wipe out anything that approaches it that doesn't have my specific okay, which means coming from my labs with ALL my signatures on it. Its use is connected to me in a way I won't go into, but no one other than me can use it." She began to giggle again. "I can hit anyone I see from orbit with a pinpoint high energy strike born of the very energy of our world. And there's nothing anyone can do to stop it." "They could kill you. Let it just drift in space." Sonnya offered sardonically. She pointed a finger-gun at her youngest sibling and closed an eye, sighting over an invisible iron sight. "No control, no weapon." Tenna smiled broadly, eyes closed in utter confidence, so very much like when they were younger. The cute redhead goofball from the past was suddenly before her older sister. "They could try. I've made it MUCH harder to kill me. And I don't think they'd like the consequences of killing me. It'd be...detrimental." She tilted her head to the side, oddly, still smiling. That smile, as playful as it was, was definitely giving Sonnya the creeps. It wasn't healthy. "How so?" The goofball grin shifted into something much less innocent; Tenna's eyes were hooded with something less wholesome than mere mischief. "If I die suddenly, the satellite goes on automatic. I've embedded scanners and sensors in my armor, and in my own body, thanks to a very capable sylvari surgeon. That satellite is recieving a constant datafeed from me. It doesn't matter if I don't see my killer; one of my sensors will. And then a moment later, the killer will be obliterated by a terawatt laser. The system is as heuristic as I can make it; all vectors included. If an Inquest shithead kills me, the laser starts with them, and then proceeds to work its way through the database of Inquest labs and fortresses, before taking down individual targets with a powered down version of the laser. Less collateral damage that way." She sipped her drink again, and this time Miriya noticed her eyes seemed to shimmer or glow brighter afterward. The bags under her eyes seemed to recede, and she looked slightly more refreshed. Whatever she'd slipped into her drink, it was reviving her? Miriya could feel something, on the edge of thought, the edge of reality; there was something familiar.... An energy of some kind, a violation of Death itself. It was minor right now, but with each second it was gaining resolution. She sat there confused as Tenna continued to blather about her weapons. "You're talking about potential mass murder from a weapon no one else can reach, Tenna. " Sonnya scolded, her concern rising with each moment. "Don't you think that's a little excessive?" Tenna shrugged mildly, still drinking her whiskey. "Not really. Vexa built her lab in Flame Legion territory to contain and continue her genetic experiments. Calx hid his lab behind a gateway system in the heart of a mountain. Oola hid hers in the jungle to keep people from her Necro-golem research (interesting concept, I'd have you). Our people have a history of hiding our best research and gear and all that behind layers of defenses and automatic weaponry. Mine is just orbitally based, and VERY vengeful." She started to laugh, rocking in her seat and slapping a palm against the table top. "I'm just following everyone else!" While she laughed, Miriya and Sonnya passed a look between each other. Had their sister officially lost her mind? It was true Asuran paranoia was well known, and the best researchers and inventors had sequestred themselves away from others for the sake of hiding their research until they were ready to reveal it...but... Tenna's laughter finally started to fade, and she brushed a tear from her eye before draining her drink. With a triumphant slam, she signalled for a fresh drink from the bar. "'Nother one! I'm still seeing straight!" There it was again; when Tenna drained the drink, that odd sensation, that whisper Miriya was hearing in the back of her mind got louder. Much louder. It was seemingly focused on Tenna. She stared at her sister as she cracked another vial into her new drink, stirring it with a finger. Miriya glanced at Sonnya, and noticed she too seemed suddenly wary. Was she feeling something?

Unbeknownst to Miriya, she was right; Sonnya felt something disturbing as well. As a Guardian, she was trained to notice changes, both magically and physically in the area around her. It was part of Guardian training to master any battlefield, which meant that if the battlefield suddenly started to change, you studied and adapted to it. Foreign weapon making fighting hard? Adjust. Alien magic warping your opponent or the landscape or something? Identify, adjust, eliminate. Purge the unclean with holy fire based from the diamond hard sureity of your own soul. The stronger your faith was, the more you could undo the damage someone had done.

All too often, Sonnya's mere prescence on the Vigil battlefield had sent Orrian monstrosities reeling. The flames of her devotion to the cause manifested ghostly blue fire across her entire body, and, combined with the channelling crystals and specialized sigils she had personally installed in every piece of her gear, she could vent those flames as a physical weapon; no ally would ever be harmed, but anyone that stood in her path would burn. In a private, self-indulgant moment, she had once confessed she called it the Exterminatus. Sitting there, staring at her youngest sibling as she drank a drink corrupted with...something... she could feel that distortion to the Right Order growing. What had Tenna gotten into?!

It was Miriya who suddenly recognized the unfamiliar-yet-familiar distortion. Her face paled as she realized just what it was, but... how had Tenna gotten her hands on it?!

"Tenna..." She asked tenatively. "What...is that you mixed into your drink?" Tenna paused her stirring, but didn't look at her sister at all. Her voice was low, almost a whisper. A small, knowing smile crossed her lips. "Oh, it's just... something. Something very interesting." She replied, feigning evasiveness.

"How so?" Sonnya added, her voice hard. It was less a question than a demand. Big sister needed to be big sister.

"It was quite interesting actually. Several months ago, a plasma sample was sent to the Dynamics labs. It was bounced around the labs, with no one making progress since there was little detail on its origins. All data had been put under lock and key. Or deliberately omitted." She sat back, smiling wistfully. "So there I was, in the Synergetics labs, struggling to deal with stress, lack of sleep, requests for translations from the Priory, an upcoming presentation for an invention I hadn't created yet... and this vial gets passed to me by a coworker who was seeing a girl in Dynamics." Her smile twisted slightly. It seemed slightly more toothy than before. "Well, I did my own analysis and discovered that there was something very wrong with the sample. There was an active blood-borne viral parasite component latched onto every single red blood cell, even the white cells. I did an analysis of the T cells, and discovered that the viral component was bypassing the normal immune responses by literally being slightly out of phase; every time a leukocyte started to draw a bead on one and try to kill it, the virus's membrane coating would shift chaotically until it no longer matched up. Very tenacious." "So the immune system couldn't touch it, and yet it wasn't killing cells. This virus, if you could call it that, was making subtle, random changes to the DNA of its target. Some of the changes were fairly regular, which means whoever the poor bastard is, they're gonna start seeing some teratological changes the longer they're infected." Tenna shook her head. "I don't know precisely what that'll entail, but it won't kill them. Oh no...definitely not." "You see, the virus was also actively repairing telomeres. It wasn't reversing telomere damage that had happened prior to infection, but no new telomeres were being lost." She glanced at her sisters. "The subject of that virus was no longer going to age. Whatever age they were infected at, they might age two for every ten now. The virus isn't perfect, but it's damned good at its job." Miriya's mind was racing; she was right. She knew who the sample came from...and where they'd got the virus. Oh alchemy...is that why? Is that why things are starting to change? "What...what else do you know about it?" Tenna looked over at her suspiciously, and then smirked knowingly. "Oh... not much. Just that it tries to improve its host while following some unknown guideline. I got markers for enhanced strength, muscle-changes increasing reaction muscle, a marker for eyesight change, but I don't know what... things like that. Enhanced healing and regeneration, since it co-opts the ATP production and triples it. I imagine that if the infection continues uncontested that there might come a time when the 'victim', if you can call it that, might be able to lose a limb and regrow it in a matter of minutes, at the cost of personal stored energy. Lose an arm and regrow it in three minutes, but need to eat like an Arctodus shortly after. You'd be RAVENOUS." She started to giggle. There was something unhealthy about that giggle. It was too deep, too personal. Like there was something about the pun that was so very, very funny that only she'd get the joke. "Ravenous... which the virus takes into account in a very, very interesting way." Tenna toyed with the vial in her fingers, watching the leftover fluid rolling around the glass. "It depletes iron something fierce. More when there's injury. The need for iron, for....hemoglobin... will be an almost unstoppable thirst. The subject will be able to surpress it the same way you surpress being hungry...but at some point, they WILL give in to the Thirst." She dipped a finger into the vial and brought out a golden droplet on her finger, before delicately licking it off her fingertip. "Keep the virus happy, it keeps you happy. And makes you better as a gift." There was an almost audible snap as both sisters came to the same realization. "No... you didn't....?" "That's obscene! You didn't seriously test it on..." All Tenna could do was smile.  A wide, toothy smile. In fact, it was perhaps too toothy. Asura were known for their sharp teeth, but Tenna's seemed just a little bit TOO sharp. Miriya stared at her sister in horror. It was true. She had been right; somehow, Kaleb's infected blood sample, his blood infected by whatever made that bitch Maeva into a fleshreaving monster, had made it to Tenna's desk. And she'd gone and... "Oh unclench, you two." Tenna giggled. "I stabilized the virus easily. The reason why it was so unstable was because it was laced with a Torment energy. Once that was stripped away, I used my sciences and skill with magical manipulation to reprogram it to what I wanted. Enhanced healing, stamina, strength, etc." Almost as an afterthought, she added "I couldn't remove the Thirst aspect though. Every attempt destroyed the virus. It's too deeply built into its structure to remove entirely." Both older sisters shifted slightly away from their sibling. She'd deliberately infected herself with a viral component just....because? Sonnya shook her head in disappointment. "I'm not one to use another culture's euphamisms, Tenna, but, By the Six, what in the hell have you done to yourself?" Tenna's eyes shrouded, their sullen orange glowing a vibrant gold. "Made. Myself. Better. And if you can't handle that, then this is where we draw the lines. There are those who accept me, accept the changes I've made. They don't judge me like you two." She glared at Miriya. "You, the Twice-dead. The Deathshroud addict. The Scourge of the wastes. You with your minions cobbled together with the expended life-essence of countless things, imbued with intelligence from beyond the grave. You who hides a romance with a HUMAN." She hissed the word, as if it were a curse. " You would dare judge ME? " Her gaze snapped over to her oldest sister. "Or you. The stoic one. The consumate soldier and blessed older sister. The 'responsible' one. The one hiding an even deeper secret than a love of a bookah. You would judge me? How dare you." Sonnya twitched like she'd been slapped. "Both of you left me in Rata Sum. I ended up joining the Priory because I didn't know anything about the outer world, because you LEFT ME THERE." She clenched her fists. "I didn't have the virus back then, but when I returned to work on that paper, it was there waiting for me. Like a gift. A boon in the disguise of a curse. I no longer needed to fear being weak and helpless compared to my powerful sisters." She glared at them both. "One of you has incredible magic powers, and the other has strength born of nothing but FAITH of all things. I had none of that. I had my inventions, my tools, and my ideas. But that virus..." she sighed tiredly. "I was so tired of being stressed out. Of wondering if I'd be accidentally killed in a lab accident, or an Inquest raid. Of the distant worry of being annihilated by Dragons  or their minions. Or a mad human god or two. Do you have any idea how afraid I was?" Her grip on the vial was tightening, the glass creaking in her grasp. "There was no way out for me. But then I found the virus, purified it, rectified it... And now I know there's nothing that can stop me. Me or my allies." For a long, painful moment there was dead silence. Neither older sister knew what to say. Miriya tried to reach out to her, but Tenna shook off her hand. Sonnya just crossed her arms, slouching, and stared into her drink, contemplating how badly things had gotten screwed up. "...I've left the Priory. Told them I was on sabbatical. Same thing for the Dynamics college." Tenna whispered. She squeezed the vial again; this time a faint crick of cracking glass could be heard from her palm. "I don't think I'll be going back. The only place I need to be is with my allies...with my friends. If I need protecting, they'll protect me. And they know they can count on me to protect them in turn." "You...found a krewe." "No...not a krewe. A team. Strangers. Odd ones like me, who don't fit in." Her voice was sad, even as her grip tightened. This time there was a noticable snap, and shards of glass dribbled out of her hand, followed by a thin streamer of blood. As calm as she looked at that moment, she'd crushed the vial and cut her palm. What unsettled Miriya and Sonnya though, was the fact that Tenna had shown utterly no reaction to it. She hadn't flinched, blinked, or even changed expression. It was like she hadn't felt it, even though she was looking at her hand. Slowly, delicately, she opened her hand, letting the larger chunks fall to the table, before plucking individual shards out of her palm and fingers. At no point did she show a sign of pain. In fact, she was almost smilingly with wonder. when she was done, she held her hand up for them to see. "....Cuts are already healing. In another minute, they'll be fully healed." "That fast..." Miriya breathed, visibly watching the wounds seal. She'd only seen that kind of healing through the use of magic or various concoctions. Seeing it from just someone's body was amazing. "...pain reduction, endorphine release. Rapid healing and regeneration." Tenna flexed her fingers, still bloody. Idly she brought her hand to her mouth and began to lick the blood away, leaving a smear on her cheeks and jaw as she dragged her hand across her mouth. "Mmm...waste-not-want-not. Might have to get a Dolyak burger later. Like I said, there's a trade off..." "Tenna, I..."  Sonnya began, but a male voice from the door interrupted her. "Tenna. Are you ready?" Sillouetted in the door were three figures and an animal. The first was a human, male, with slicked back sandy-blonde hair. A pair of glasses adorned a face marked with a very prominent mark over his right eye. At first glance it looked like he'd been punched or scratched, but a closer inspection revealled it as a very elaborate and foreign symbol of some kind. He had blue eyes, but it must have been a trick of the lighting; the eye that the symbol/bruise was centered on had some kind of glow or reflection in its pupil, visible for a second before fading. Miriya had to do a double-take when she realized what he was wearing. There were minor differences in details, like the gloves were clearly Elonian gauntlets, but he seemed to be wearing a heavily modified suit of Aetherblade Magitech armor. It had been a while since she’d seen that kind of gear, but it was unmistakable with the furnace-like power core at his neck and the spiked shoulder guard who’s glow spoke of hidden magitech.   Certainly, suits of that kind had been salvaged from the Breachmaker after it went down, but usually ruined or in pieces. His seemed...tailor-made. Could he have been an Aetherblade? She wondered. There were no records of crew to be salvaged, and all the other sky pirates had either been captured and forced into servitude to pay off their crimes, or had escaped deep into the Mists with their airships, presumably to other Scarlet Briar bases as-yet undiscovered. The second was a dark rose-tinted sylvari with collapsable twinswords at her hips. Though the lines of her face were delicate and could be considered beautiful, the hard expression on her face told of a severe personality. Contrasting that severity, her hair was like soft fern fronds or jade plant, smooth and curling. She looked uneasily at the sisters, almost disapprovingly, her expression revealling a mark on her jaw that seemed to be a scar of some kind, curving down along her jawline. As they watched, her natural sylvari glow, pale green, illuminated that scar. It would have been unnoticable were it not for the glow. Behind them, twice as big as any of them and armored in the most brutal armor any of them had ever seen was a Charr dam. Long white hair hung down from her tawny head, her helmet latched to a belt loop. Her armor, contrary to standard Legion colors, was an unassuming gunmetal grey, trimmed by the darkest black and a bright, warning yellow. In places, if one looked carefully, you could see chevroned 'warning' markers emblazoned along her plate. One grand shoulderpad held an embossed Dreadnought helm symbol, shining in silver. The last figure was a very large, confused looking striped cat near the human. It looked around the bar, panting, before making a murph noise and nuzzling the gloved hand of the human. "Cyrus. Yeah, I'm ready. " She looked around the table reluctantly, before leaving it. "... I think I'm done here." The human ranger nodded stiffly, and glanced at the other sisters. "Are these your...." "Yeah. Miriya of the Whispers, and Sonnya of the Vigil." He nodded to both of them, face neutral, though his eyes caught both of theirs and stared straight through them. "A pleasure to meet you." Tenna paused as she neared Cyrus, and turned to her sisters. "Girls... these are my allies. Cyrus Sigismund, a Ranger, and his cat Dangles... Moryggan Deraleth of the Dawn, a Mesmer." There was a sniff of distaste from the Mesmer, who turned and left the doorway. "And the big one is Verula Faithbreaker, of the Iron Legion, daughter of Perturaba Forgebreaker." Verula just grunted, not saying anything. She turned to look at something outside, and Sonnya could immediately see that the axe on her hip wasn't any normal axe. For one, it had eyes and horns. Three eyes, actually. And it was breathing through a horrifyingly tooth-filled maw. What in the Alchemy is THAT?! She wondered, unable to take her eyes off the living violation strapped to the Charr's hip. Sonnya eyed them, pursing her lips. "So... you know what our sister has...done?" Cyrus nodded slowly. "We don't care. It's not a concern to any of us." "Even if she wants to...." He shrugged. "She brought up the subject. It doesn't matter to Moryggan at all, doesn't concern Verula, and I personally just don't care. What happens happens." "Huh. I see." Cyrus seemed to consider something before looking straight at Sonnya. "...if it will make you relax, you should know that we all take care of each other. When one steps out of line, the others will be there to make sure they step back." Another shrug. "It's how we work. Our balance." "Balance." He nodded, and turned away. "Let's go. We still have to book accomodations for the night." Tenna smiled brightly up at him. "Already done! I booked one of the larger rooms; Normally meant for noble families and their entourage. It'll have a LOT of beds." He smiled back, the stoic demeanor shedding for a moment in a tired smile. "That's great. I hate divvying up bed assignments on the spot." The Charr made a disrespectful snort. "Yeah. Especially when you snore like you do." "You snore louder than me, woman." He retorted, smirking, before they all walked away. Miriya and Sonnya could hear a few more ripostes and some laughter, but it faded quickly. The two sisters stared into their drinks, contemplating everything their little sister had told them. Miriya made a decision and downed the remainder of hers before pushing away from the table. "... I have to go. I have...business in Rata Sum in the morning. I've been expecting some test results back on something...anomalous." Sonnya too, drained her stein, wiping a bit of foam away from her lips. "As do I. Not in Rata Sum though. I have inquiries to make through my contacts. Perhaps I'll look up our sister's companions?..." She cast a raised eyebrow to her necromantic sibling. The necromancer sighed and nodded. "I'll check with my...sources. If I find anything, don't be surprised if you suddenly find a file in your archives that wasn't there a minute ago." She smirked. "Of course, I disavow any knowledge of it, should it turn out to be after-action reports and spy reports from redacted sources known by the Whispers." "I'll be sure to accidentally spill my coffee on it, and then trip on the way past the fireplace." Sonnya replied, leaving her seat and tossing some coin on the table for all their drinks, including Tenna's. "After I read it of course. Might I suggest double-copying the redacted version so that I can't do something silly like remove the black bars covering things like names and such?" "Sounds like a good idea for security." Miriya nodded, smirking. "But since I have NO idea what papers you speak of, and I am merely a humble Pact agent, I'm afraid it's just falling on deaf ears..." "Oh yes, pardon my blathering." Sonnya chuckled and headed outside, giving her sister a final over-the-shoulder wave. "I look forward to finding out who and what our sister's friends truly are."

[gloriousgwendolinechristie]

Press: The end of Game of Thrones: An exclusive report on the epic final season

EW – OCTOBER 2017: THE TABLE READ

When Kit Harington entered the conference room, he had no idea what to expect.

The final season’s scripts had been emailed just a couple of days earlier, sending the Game of Thrones cast into a reading frenzy. Like millions of fans around the world, the actors had been waiting nearly a decade to learn their characters’ fates. The entire six-episode season arrived at once, protected by layers of password security.

Sophie Turner flew through her copies in record time, quickly messaging the producers her reaction. “It was completely overwhelming,” says the actress, who plays Sansa Stark. “Afterwards I felt numb, and I had to take a walk for hours.” Others, like Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen), first had to hurry home to get some privacy. “I turned to my best mate and was like, ‘Oh my God! I gotta go! I gotta go!’” she recalls. “And I completely flipped out.” She then settled in for a reading session with a cup of tea. “Genuinely the effect it had on me was profound,” Clarke adds. “That sounds insanely pretentious, but I’m an actor, so I’m allowed one pretentious adjective per season.” Peter Dinklage, meanwhile, broke his years-long habit of checking immediately to see if Tyrion Lannister survives. “This was the first time ever that I didn’t skip to the end,” he says.

Even showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss were uncharacteristically anxious, wondering how the actors would react to the climactic twists. “We knew exactly when our script coordinator sent them out, we knew what minute they sent them, and then you’re just waiting for the emails,” Benioff said.

The cast then journeyed to Belfast to gather in a production office for the formal read-through. By then, everybody knew the tale that was about to unfold, with two notable exceptions: Davos Seaworth actor Liam Cunningham (“The f—ing scripts wouldn’t open, the double extra security!” he grouses) and Harington, who outright refused to read anything in advance.

“I walked in saying, ‘Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know,’” Harington says. “What’s the point of reading it to myself in my own head when I can listen to people do it and find out with my friends?” So, yes: Jon Snow, quite literally, knew nothing.

Benioff and Weiss opened the proceedings by asking the cast to refrain from doing anything during filming or afterward that might reveal even the tiniest spoiler (“Don’t even take a photo of your boots on the ground of the set,” one actor recalls being told). And then, seated around a long table scattered with a few prop skulls, the cast read aloud the final season of Game of Thrones.

At one point, Harington wept.

Later, he cried a second time.

SEPTEMBER 2012: IT’S IMPOSSIBLE

After the table read, the Game of Thrones cast spent 10 months filming just six episodes of television. But the season actually took far longer to pull off. GoT’s final chapters have been in the works for years. To better understand what’s ahead, let’s first go back to EW’s season 3 set visit and this never-before-revealed conversation with Benioff and Weiss…

The production camper was like many others on the set — barren, cramped, cold, utilitarian, with dirt on the floors from muddy boots tramping in and out all day. The showrunners sat on the same side of a tiny dinette booth while the wind coming off the Northern Ireland bay howled outside. They were already thinking about their final season, and it worried them.

During its second season, the fantasy drama averaged 10.3 million viewers across all platforms. That was enough to ensure they were eventually going to finish the series, yet that inevitability was also the problem. Because when they first pitched Thrones to HBO, they hadn’t exactly been honest. And now they were working every day toward a finale that was impossible to make.

“The lie we told is the show is contained and it’s about the characters,” Benioff said, which was at best half true. The epic fantasy was very much about its ensemble cast, but it’s also the least “contained” series ever made. “The worlds get so big, the battles get so massive.”

Author George R.R. Martin, whose series of novels forms the basis for Thrones, had revealed to the duo the broad strokes of how his Song of Ice and Fire saga secretly ends, including a description of an epic final battle that’s been teased from the show’s very first scene. But this climactic confrontation was miles out of reach for a series that cost about $5 million per episode. “We have a very generous budget from HBO, but we know what’s coming down the line and, ultimately, it’s not generous enough,” Benioff said.

So the producers had an idea: The final season could be six hours long and released as three movies in theaters — just like Martin’s best-known influence, The Lord of the Rings. It’s not that the duo wanted to make movies per se, but it seemed like the only way to get the time and money needed to pull off their finale. “It’s what we’re working towards in a perfect world,” Weiss said. “We end up with an epic fantasy story but with the level of familiarity and investment in the characters that are normally impossible in a two-hour movie.”

The flaw in this plan was that HBO is about serving its subscribers, not taking gambles at the box office. Behind the scenes, the network brass gently shot down the movie idea. But executives assured Benioff and Weiss that they would eventually have everything they needed to make a final season that was “a summer tentpole-size spectacle.”

Years later, the producers would strike a deal with the network to spend two years on a shortened season 8 that would cost more than $15 million an episode. You could say HBO made good on that promise from 2012, and the showrunners will happily give the network full credit. “They put their money where their mouths are — literally stuffed their mouth full of million-dollar bills, which don’t exist anymore,” Weiss quips.

But it’s probably more accurate to say that since season 3, Benioff and Weiss willed their ambitious final season into reality the hard way: by growing Game of Thrones into the biggest show in the world, a hugely profitable pop culture and merchandising sensation with more than 30 million viewers an episode and a record number of Emmys. Only with that kind of leverage do your towering ambitions begin to look like reasonable requests.

In fact, the GoT team was so successful that the biggest sticking point in the agreement was persuading HBO to halt the series. “We want to stop where we — the people working on it, and the people watching it — both wish it went a little bit longer,” Benioff says. “There’s the old adage of ‘Always leave them wanting more,’ but also things start to fall apart when you stop wanting to be there. You don’t want to f— it up.”

That concern — a constant desire to conclude the show on the strongest possible note — is something we heard over and over from the cast and crew when we visited the GoT set for the last time.

  MARCH 2018: THE FINAL SEASON

Arriving at the studio gate, I’m halted by a guard and asked to scan my badge, a security upgrade from past years. Then I’m asked for my phone, and the guard covers its cameras with stickers — that’s new too. Along with an HBO escort, I walk inside an enormous hangar that’s so large it’s where the RMS Titanic was painted.

What’s being filmed here is episode 6, the series finale. Like Harington going into the table read, I don’t know anything about the final season’s storyline. I look around at a meticulously constructed set that I’ve never seen on the show before. Several actors are performing, and I’m stunned: There are characters in the finale that I did not expect. I gradually begin to piece together what has happened in Westeros over the previous five episodes and try not to look like I’m freaking out.

There is absolutely nothing more that can be said about that scene at this time.

A word about spoilers: The cast is used to keeping story secrets, yet they’ve never sounded so anxious about it. “There are moments where you don’t trust yourself to have this in your brain,” says Joe Dempsie, who plays Gendry. “You’re in possession of something millions of people want to know. It’s such a bizarre feeling. And between now and when it comes out, I’m gonna be drunk at some point.”

So far, at least, the team has done a far better job than in previous years at keeping the story under wraps, even while drunk. Theories abound online, but they are guesses. A purported script leaked to Reddit, but here’s a way to spot a fake — real Game of Thrones scripts don’t say “Game of Thrones” on them. “Drone killer” guns were used to guard against any peeping robots attempting to fly over the set. Production documents stating which actors were required to be where and when used code names (Clarke, for example, was “Eldiss”). “It gets highly confusing when you need to remember who is who,” Turner says.

Benioff and Weiss’ next gig is writing a new Star Wars film, and they received some final-season secrecy tips from The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson and producer Kathleen Kennedy. “They’ve given us a lot of hints about how to lock things down, things we never would have thought of or didn’t know were possible,” Weiss says.

At some point HBO will release a proper final-season trailer revealing more. Until then, here’s some basic setup we can tell you: Season 8 opens at Winterfell with an episode that contains plenty of callbacks to the show’s pilot. Instead of King Robert’s procession arriving, it’s Daenerys and her army. What follows is a thrilling and tense intermingling of characters — some of whom have never previously met, many who have messy histories — as they all prepare to face the inevitable invasion of the Army of the Dead.

“It’s about all of these disparate characters coming together to face a common enemy, dealing with their own past, and defining the person they want to be in the face of certain death,” co-executive producer Bryan Cogman says. “It’s an incredibly emotional, haunting, bittersweet final season, and I think it honors very much what George set out to do — which is flipping this kind of story on its head.”

How these fan favorites get along drives much of the drama this season (okay, here’s one specific tease from the premiere — Sansa isn’t thrilled that Jon bent the knee to his fancy new Targaryen girlfriend, at least not at first).

The drama builds to a confrontation with the Army of the Dead that’s expected to be the most sustained action sequence ever made for television or film. One episode — the same that Benioff and Weiss were concerned about pulling off so many years ago — is wall-to-wall action, courtesy of “Battle of the Bastards” director Miguel Sapochnik.

Last April a crew member revealed that Game of Thrones had wrapped 55 night shoots while filming a battle. Media outlets around the world ran stories saying the final season’s battle took twice as long as the 25-day shoot for season 6’s climactic Battle of the Bastards. This wildly understated what really happened. The 55 nights were only for the battle’s outdoor scenes at the Winterfell set. Filming then moved into the studio, where Sapochnik continued shooting the same battle for weeks after that.

“It’s brutal,” Dinklage says. “It makes the Battle of the Bastards look like a theme park.”

The battle doesn’t have just one focus, either, but rather intercuts between multiple characters involved in their own survival storylines that each feels like its own genre. “Having the largest battle doesn’t sound very exciting — it actually sounds pretty boring,” Benioff says. “Part of our challenge, and really, Miguel’s challenge, is how to keep that compelling… we’ve been building toward this since the very beginning, it’s the living against the dead, and you can’t do that in a 12-minute sequence.”

To help pull it off, the production hugely expanded its set for the Stark ancestral home of Winterfell, adding a towering castle exterior, a larger courtyard, and more interconnected rooms and ramparts. Strolling around the new Winterfell is like wandering a sprawling, immersive medieval resort compared with its previous Days Inn-like scale. The ground is covered with snow and blood. The air is thick with smoke from the fire pits. You can turn any direction and only see more Winterfell. It’s easy to feel like you’ve somehow wandered into Westeros.

The Winterfell expansion is just a small example of how every element of the production was heightened this year in an effort to “not f— it up.” Scenes that normally might take a day to film now took several. “[Camera] checks take longer, costumes are a bit better, hair and makeup a bit sharper — every choice, every conversation, every attitude has this air of ‘This is it,’” Clarke says. “Everything feels more intense. I had a scene with someone and I turned to him and said, ‘Oh my God, I’m not going to do this ever again,’ and that brings tears to my eyes.”

Lena Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister, agrees: “There was a great sense of grief. It’s a huge sense of loss, like we’ll never have anything like this again.”

More tears, like during the table read.

You know, Harington will actually reveal why he cried that second time.

“The second time was the very end,” Harington says. He’s referring to when the cast reached the last page of episode 6, and what the showrunners wrote there at the bottom.

“Every season, you read at the end of the last script ‘End of Season 1,’ or ‘End of Season 2,’” Harington says. “This read ‘End of Game of Thrones.’”



Press: The end of Game of Thrones: An exclusive report on the epic final season was originally published on Glorious Gwendoline | Gwendoline Christie Fansite

[youcancallmecirce]

The Best Gift

Merry Christmas @realityunacknowledged , I’m your Secret Santa!  I hope you enjoy this bit of love square fluffiness!  (If you have an AO3, please let me know so I can gift the work to you there as well.)

Read it on AO3.

Ladybug was nervous.  

She’d made plans with Chat Noir to meet up that night to exchange Christmas gifts, and she was really quite excited about that, but she was anxious about how he’d like his gifts. Or, more specifically, she was anxious about one of his gifts.  

She arrived to their meeting spot early because she’d been too wound up to wait at home.  Now, here in the secluded rooftop garden of an empty house, she was stuck waiting with nothing but her own thoughts to distract her. She groaned and sank to the bench in the center of the garden, hanging her head over the back to look up at the sky. She could always just…not go through with it, right?

“Good evening, my lady.”

Ladybug bolted upright. “Chat!”

“Why the groan?”  Chat placed a brightly colored gift bag on the ground and sat next to her on the bench.  “It’s present time!”

“Oh, nothing.  Just the holiday stress getting to me.”  She turned away from him and reached into the bag she’d left next to the bench on her side.  When she turned back to him, she held out a festively wrapped box with a big green bow on it.  “Merry Christmas, Chaton!”

“Ooh, for me?” Chat took it with a grin, then reached into his own bag and produced not one, not two, but three wrapped boxes, stacked atop one another like a pyramid and tied together with a red satin ribbon. “These are for you.”

“Oh my God, Chat, three? That’s too much!  I thought we agreed not to go overboard!”

“Did we?” Chat asked, twisting his mouth thoughtfully as he tapped his chin.  “Because I don’t remember having any such conversation.”

“Chat!”

“Stop fussing and open them!”

“Fine,” she gave in with a fond smile, “but this had better be 3 parts of the same thing.”   She tugged on the tails of the bow atop the presents, and they slid free easily.  When it was loose, she used one hand to steady the stack of gifts and draped the ribbon around Chat’s shoulders with the other.  “Do try not to tangle yourself up in that, Chaton.”

He rolled his eyes at her jibe, but was so excited that he was practically vibrating in his seat and he let it pass without a rejoinder.  “Open the top one first!”

“Okay,” she said, pulling the tape carefully away from the paper.

He whimpered.  “You’re going slow on purr-pose!”

“Maybe,” she allowed, grinning.  

“Here, I’ll help you!” He hooked his claws in the paper and yanked, ripping it open so forcefully that a strip of the paper came off in his hand.  “Oops,” he said unrepentantly. “My hand slipped.”

Ladybug giggled; his excitement was infectious.  She opened the box to find a small, enameled ladybug charm hanging from a delicate silver chain.  “Oh! It’s beautiful!”  She held it closer to her face, to look at it more closely, and realized with a start that the spots were not done in black enamel, as she’d thought, but with tiny faceted black crystals.  

“Do you like it?” he asked anxiously.

She nodded, clutching the box to her chest.  “The only thing I might have liked better, Chaton, was a kitty charm.”

His eyes widened and he flushed with pleasure.  “Well, there’s always your birthday.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” she said.  “Now, open yours!”

“But you still have—”

“Nope, we’re taking turns. Open it!”

Chat Noir pretended to pout for a moment, then brightened as he inspected his gift.  “What did my lady get for me?” he mused aloud, shaking it.

“You’re lucky it’s not fragile.”

“If it survived the yo-yo ride over here, it’ll survive a bit of investigative shaking, Bugaboo.” He shook it again, and frowned.  “It did make that sound before, right?”  She giggled again, as she knew he’d intended, and he began tearing the paper away to reveal the utilitarian shipping box beneath. “Interesting...”  He used a claw to split the tape holding it closed, opened the flaps, and pushed aside the tissue paper to peer inside the box.  “What is this?”  

“Take it out and see!”

He reached in and carefully slid his fingers down into the shipping box to grasp the slightly smaller box nestled within.  On the top of the box was a picture of the two of them with their faces pressed close together and smiling hugely.  He shook the box again, and looked at her questioningly.  “Is this…a puzzle?”

“It is,” she confirmed, feeling silly now that he’d opened it.  “I know I normally make your gift, but I couldn’t think of anything to make that I haven’t already made for you—”

He halted the flow of her words with a finger over her mouth.  “It’s perfect, Ladybug.  Thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he laughed, then picked up the second gift from her lap and pushed it at her.  “Now, you get to open another one!”

“Alright, alright!” She skipped over making a show of this one, and instead tore into it the same way Chat Noir had done.  This box was incredibly light, and she found that it contained only an envelope.  “A Christmas card?”

He smiled enigmatically. “Open it and find out.”

Curious now, Ladybug opened the envelope and pulled out two tickets to…the insanely exclusive Gabriel Winter Fashion Show?  “Oh my god, Chat, how did you—these are—”  She shoved the envelope at him as if the tickets within might bite her.  “I can’t accept these!”

Chat sat on his hands and shook his head.  “You can! This wily cat has his ways, and I want you to have them.”

“Chaaaat!”

“No refunds, no exchanges! Now, I do believe you have another gift to open.”

Ladybug stared at him mutinously, but he met her glare placidly.  “You’re ridiculous.”

“Obviously.  Next gift.”

She hesitated, her heart pounding with renewed anxiety.  Did she really want to give him his second gift?  His real gift?  It wasn’t too late, she could just pretend…  But, no.  She and Tikki had talked it over, and decided together.  She wasn’t going to back down now.  She pulled the second, much smaller box from the bag and handed it to him.

“Actually, Chaton, I have another gift for you.”

“Oh,” he said, brightening with both surprise and pleasure.  “My lady, you spoil me.”

“Hello, pot.  I’m the kettle.”

Chat snickered, and opened the gift as eagerly as he’d opened the last.  When he removed the lid from the box, however, his expression blanked. “Ladybug?”  He lifted the hand-stitched red and black mask from the box and held it reverently in his hands.  “What is this?”

Ladybug gulped.  No going back now.

“It’s actually just a symbol.  Of your real gift.”  He looked up at her, his eyes shining with intense emotion.  

“My lady?”

“I was wracking my brain, trying to figure out what I could possibly give you for Christmas that could show you how important you are to me.  How much you’ve come to mean to me.  And I realized, there was actually only one thing that could possibly come close: myself.  My identity.”

Chat Noir stared in open mouthed shock at his partner, trying to process what her words meant, but his brain had shut down.  Her gift had taken him completely by surprise, rendering him speechless.   His fingers curled around the familiar mask in his hand.

“You—”  Ladybug broke off, swallowed thickly, and began again. “You can say no, if you’d rather not know.  But I wanted—no, I needed you to know that I am willing to share it with you, to be your friend out of the mask as well as in it.”

He’d begun shaking his head before she even finished speaking, and now, he dropped the mask back into its box so that his hands would be free to take hers.  “No, it’s not that at all.  I’m just, in shock, I think.”  He stroked his thumbs over her hands, still struggling to make sense of his tumultuous thoughts.  “I’d given up on you ever wanting to share your identity.  You’ve protected it so fiercely, you know?”

Ladybug nodded, smiling ruefully.  “I know. And there’s still a risk.  But it’s one I’m willing to take.”

Chat Noir studied her expression, searching for fear or doubt or regret.  He found a touch of anxiety, but she was resolute.  His lips curled.  “So am I,” he whispered.

At that, she smiled beatifically.  “Spots off,” she whispered back, shocking him again.  She was doing it now?

He felt the familiar tingle of magic, and watched as Ladybug disappeared in a wash of pink light. Marinette—his Marinette—sat in her place.

He gaped, utterly poleaxed for the third time in as many minutes.

“Hi,” she said, waving shyly.  

He continued to stare, his eyes roving over her beloved face, trying to memorize just how she looked in that moment: smiling, luminous, limned in moonlight.

“I love you,” he breathed, because really, it was the only thing he could say.

Her eyes blew wide and he started, realizing that his mouth has come back online before his brain, and that he’d probably just messed things up spectacularly.  He didn’t regret it, though.  It was the bald truth.  He loved her as Ladybug and he loved her as Marinette and why he hadn’t recognized that the two were really just one wonderful, intoxicatingly beautiful young woman was completely beyond him.

“Chat?”

“I love you,” he said again, more strongly this time, and he cupped her cheeks in his hands.  “I love you, and all I want in this whole world is to kiss you right now.”

Marinette nodded, already swaying closer to him with her lips parted in invitation.  He lowered his mouth to hers slowly, his eyes on hers until the very last moment.  The first brush of their lips sent a frisson of sensation rippling over his body, and he angled his head to deepen the kiss.  At the first tentative touch of her tongue to his lip, he groaned and swept his tongue into her mouth.  

As if galvanized by his invasion of her mouth, she echoed his groan and clambered into his lap to press herself as close to him as possible.  Her arms went around his neck and his arms went around her body and they lost themselves to the moment, uncaring of the passage of time.

Chat Noir did not come back to himself until she shivered in his arms, and it finally registered that she was shivering with cold.

He broke their kiss and rested his forehead on hers, panting.  

“Why did you stop?” she asked, sounding almost pouty.

“You’re freezing.”  He rubbed his hands along her arms, and then squeezed them gently.  “You’re going to turn into a bugcicle.”

She laughed, conceding the point.  “Tikki?”

Her kwami floated up from the bag, smiling brightly.  “Ready to go, Marinette.”

“Spots on then, please.”

There was another flash of pink, and then she was Ladybug once more.  Chat blinked, taking in the sight of her powerful, red-clad thighs bracketing his, and laughed quietly.  

“What?”

He shook his head wonderingly.  “You, and me, like this.  I’d pretty much given up on this as well.”

“Oh,” she giggled.  “I hadn’t.”

Her words warmed him in a way that he hadn’t known he needed.  “Are you warm enough now, or should we move this somewhere warmer?”

She hesitated, then deflated.  “Still cold, but I hate to leave this place.  It’s so lovely here.”

“We can come back when it’s warmer,” he pointed out, tapping her legs to indicate that she should get off of him.  “Besides, I’d like to show you who I am as well, and I am definitely not dressed for this weather.”

“Oh!”  Her eyes widened and she nodded.  “My place, then?”

“Sure.  Lead on, Princess.”

Marinette dismissed her transformation, tingling with more than just magic as she held Chat’s eyes.

“It’s going to take me a while to get used to that.”  

“That’s alright,” she giggled.  “I’m sure it will be the same for me.”

At the reminder, Chat gulped and rubbed a nervous hand over the back of his head.  “Are you ready?” he asked.

“I am,” Marinette confirmed, taking his hand, “but are you?  I had time to prepare, to psych myself up for it, and I still almost chickened out.”

Chat’s anxious look melted into a devil-may-care smirk.  “Was that a challenge, my lady?  Because you know that this Chat would never ‘chicken out’.”

“Chaaat!”  She rolled her eyes.  “I’m being serious.”

“So am I.  Claws in, Plagg.”

Marinette stepped back with a gasp, and watched the green light travel up his body, taking the familiar black suit and leaving…a pair of flannel pajama bottoms?

“Ohgodyou’rehalfnaked!”

“Ah, yeah.”  He looked down at his bare chest with a grimace, and rubbed his hands down over his abdomen as if the motion might make a shirt magically appear.  “I told you that I was not dressed for an outdoor reveal.”

“I would say not! Aren’t you freezing?  Here,” she said, yanking a throw blanket from her sofa and trying not to ogle his totally ogle-worthy body, “wrap this around yoursel—ohmygodyou’reAdrien!”

“I am, yes,” he said, laughing.  “It’s—it’s a good thing that it took you that long to get to my face, right?”

Marinette covered her burning face with her hands.  “Oh god, kill me now.”

“That seems rather extreme,” he chuckled, he green eyes crinkling at the corners.  “Is it so bad that it’s me?”

“No!”  Her head snapped up.  “Nononono, of course not!  I just—I was ogling you and you saw me ogling you and oh god we were kissing earlier and you’re Adrien and I’m so sorry, I feel so ridiculous—”

“Marinette!” he interjected, cutting off the flow of her words.  Her mouth snapped shut, and she regarded him with big eyes.  “It’s still just me.  Whether you call me Adrien or Chat Noir, I’m still me.”  He took her hands in his and stepped closer, forcing her to tip her head back in order to see his face.  “I’m still your partner, still your friend, still in love with you…and I still want to kiss you.”

Marinette blushed, but her wide-eyed expression relaxed into a smile.  “Just my friend?” she teased, closing the remaining distance between them and tilting her face up to his.

“If that’s what you want,” he returned.   He lowered his head and brushed his lips over hers.  “I’ll be more if you let me.”

“Yes,” she breathed, sighing into the kiss as she looped her arms around his neck and thoroughly appreciating the feel of his bare shoulders beneath her arms.  “I love you too, you know.”

“Mmm,” he hummed against her mouth. “I do know, my lady.  And I think that might be the best gift of all.”

@mlsecretsanta

[imjustthemechanic]

The French Mistake

Part 1/? - A Visitor Part 2/? - The Kulturhistorisk Museum Heist Part 3/? - Cutscene Part 4/? - The Marvel Cinematic Universe Part 5/? - Breathless

Saving the world will have to wait a few hours - there are pick-ups to film.

The most obvious solution, of course, was to do exactly the opposite of whatever it was Loki had done to get them here.  The obvious problem with that solution was that they had no idea how to do that.

“We’ll need the rune stone and the tesseract,” Steve observed.  “The rune stone will be in the museum, probably, but if the Avengers are just a movie in this universe, then where’s the tesseract?”

“Maybe in storage with SHIELD,” Nat suggested.  “Maybe in Asgard.  Maybe at the bottom of the ocean, there’s no way to tell from here.”

None of those were comforting possibilities.  “Once we have them, we’ll have to figure out how to program the rune stone,” Steve went on, remembering how Loki had worked with the gold pieces he’d inserted in it.

“Loki obviously knew how to do that, and Thor might, too,” Nat said.  “I don’t think even Loki is foolish enough to do something like universe-hopping without a fallback plan, so we can probably assume he can get us back even if Thor can’t.  We just have to find him.”

“And make him,” said Steve, who suspected they’d have a hard time making Loki do anything.

“But if they’ve ended up where their actors were, like we did,” Nat held up the notes she’d made, “then we have their names.  That’s a good start.”

“Then let’s not waste any more time,” said Steve.

He closed the laptop and stood, but just then, Dodger began to bark.  A moment later, somebody knocked on the trailer door.  Steve glanced at Natasha, who shrugged, so he got up and went to answer it.

The caller was as tall, thin man with a mustache, who immediately leaned down to give the dog a head rub.  “Hey, Dodger!” he said with a smile, then straightened up to talk to Steve.  “Thought I’d let you know, it’s almost two.  Ridley needs you two back in makeup.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Steve.  “Tell him we’ll be right there.”

He shut the door again and went to the closet to grab something more weather-appropriate than his track suit – but when he happened to look out the bedroom window, he saw that the stranger had not left.  He was standing at the door, waiting for them.  The trailer had only one door, and the windows didn’t open far enough for Steve to climb out.  He momentarily considered just knocking the guy out and fleeing, but as Natasha had said, these people really weren’t a threat.  They were just trying to make a movie, and had no idea that their stars were no longer their stars…

… and, Steve realized, he still couldn’t tell them.  In their own universe, Steve and Natasha would have been arrested if they’d told anyone their real names.  In this one, they would probably be considered insane.

“You got any ideas?” he asked Nat.

“Bide our time and wait for an opportunity,” she replied.  “When we get a chance to leave without having to make a big production out of it, we’ll leave.”

“So we just go on set?  And do what?” asked Steve.  “We don’t even know what movie we’re making.”

“It’s called Breathless,” Nat replied authoritatively.  “Ridley Scott is directing.  It’s loosely based on an incident on the Space Station Mir in 1997, when there was a fire and explosion.  I read the script pages they gave me,” she added.

Of course she had.  Nat never missed an opportunity to learn something.  “You’re taking this very well,” Steve observed.

“Believe it or not, this isn’t my first alternate universe,” said Nat.  “Last time, though, we had an open portal home whenever we needed it.”

The man with the mustache, who said his name was Henry, led them into another trailer parked just outside the building.  This one was much more utilitarian, boxy and windowless, and inside was a row of mirrors and makeup tables, separated by cubicle partitions.  Henry got Steve and Natasha settled at two of these, and the woman named Maddy returned with cups of coffee to pass out.

“Okay,” she said, handing one to Steve.  “Since the Russian doesn’t meet ScarJo’s high standards, instead we’re gonna grab some extra close-ups.  Chris, we’ll get you into a pre-fire EVA helmet on greenscreen two, for the first cargo bay sequence.”  She gave him a couple of pages, and then moved on.  “Scarlett, you’ll be in a post-fire B jumpsuit for Olga’s message to her brother.  Tabitha!” she called out.

“Already on it!” a voice replied from just outside.

Henry got to work, wiping old makeup off Steve’s face and dabbing a new layer on.  Meanwhile, a woman with dark hair in a pixie cut, who turned out to be the previously unseen Tabitha, brought in the costumes.  Steve’s was a big cumbersome thing that he recognized as the upper half of a spacesuit.  She hung it on a hook on the wall, and went on to deliver costumes to the rest of the cast.

Steve looked down at the pages he’d been given.  These ones had bent corners and multiple corrections in blue pen, as if they’d been used before.  His eye caught the highlighted words Rankin gazes in awe at the blue vista of Earth, and he felt his stomach turn inside-out all over again.

This was no good.  Steve could do a lot of things, but acting wasn’t one of them.  He couldn’t even tell little white lies, much less simulate gazing in awe at anything.  If he couldn’t make I don’t know sound convincing, what the hell was he supposed to do with it’s like you could reach out and touch it?

Maddy came back to look over Steve’s shoulder while Henry worked on his face.  “Any questions?” she asked.

The first one that sprang to mind was can I be excused?, but Steve suspected he already knew what the answer would be.  “Where’s Dodger?” he asked.  Who looked after the dog while the owner was filming?

“Relax,” Henry assured him.  “Paulette will take him for his walk, on schedule.”

Through the partition, Steve could hear Natasha laughing at something one of her own assistants had said.  “Oh, that sounds just like Mark!” she said delightedly.

Steve wondered who Mark was.  Then he wondered if Natasha knew.

The makeup took an awfully long time.  Steve had seen both Natasha and Peggy do their faces up inside of ten minutes and come out looking fabulous, but this took nearly forty-five, and as far as Steve could tell from his reflection he looked no different at the end of it than he had at the beginning.  Next, Tabitha and Henry helped Steve into his half-a-spacesuit, which weighed far more than it looked like it did, and led him back into the studio building.

The long process had at least given him time to look at the lines he was expected to say, and it looked as if all that was happening in the scene was Matt Rankin looking at the earth and talking about how cool it was.  Steve was starting to tell himself that he could do that.  When he’d done the Captain America movies in the 40’s, he’d been playing himself – it hadn’t been very good, but when filming a scene he’d been able to look back at the real events it was based on, and try to imitate what he’d said or felt at the time.  He’d never actually seen the earth from space, of course, but he could remember the awe of watching the Chi’Tauri vessels come through the wormhole or something like that.  If he just got himself into the right headspace, it couldn’t be that hard…

Henry and Tabitha showed him into a room where there was a green wall, and positioned him in front of it.  A camera rig rolled right up to his face, making him lean away involuntarily.

“Okay,” said a woman standing next to the camera.  “Let’s start with the wordless ones.  Awe at the blue vista, please.”

Steve blinked and looked around.  “Where is it?” he asked.

“Where’s what?” said the woman.

“The blue vista,” he clarified.  “What am I supposed to look at?”

“Same as last time,” she said, as if this were reassuring or even comprehensible.  “Right there.”

She pointed at the ceiling.  There was another green panel up there.

Steve felt his moment of confidence drain away.  How was he supposed to express awe at the blue vista when all he was looking at was a green panel?  “It’s not even blue!” he protested.

“You’re an actor,” the woman replied.  “Use your imagination.  “Lights!”

The ambient light in the room went out, and a huge cluster of blue-white bulbs came on overhead.  In the heavy spacesuit costume, Steve immediately felt like he was overheating.

He tried, though.  The best thing he could come up with to imagine was the opening sequence from the Planet Earth documentary series, which definitely featured a blue vista rolling by.  He could sort of imagine actually being in space with that looming over him.  Before he could really get into it, though, the camera moved even closer, and he couldn’t stop himself from looking directly into the lens.

“Cut!” said the woman.  “Try it again.”

It was no good, though.  The camera was right there.  He couldn’t not look at it – if he tried, he became paranoid that it would run right over him.  Then there was the inescapable knowledge that he was being watched.  That was what Steve had always hated most about the War Bonds ads, or any television appearance, the constant presence of the staring audience.  He’d had to take Peggy’s advice and pretend there was a one-way mirror between them.  The whole thing just made him feel so silly.

Eventually the second-unit director got fed up and decided to try something else.  One of the grips read out what was supposed to be dialogue from mission control, while Steve, in the role of Mission Specialist Matt Rankin, replied.

“How’s the view, Rankin?” the script-reader asked.

Steve took a deep breath.  “Spectacular.  It’s like I could reach out and touch it.”

“Can you see your house from up there?”

“I can see everybody’s house from up here,” said Steve.

“Cut,” sighed the second-unit director.  “Try it again.  A little passion, Chris?  This isn’t Captain America’s Fitness Challenge.”

Steve wanted to retract his head into the spacesuit costume like a turtle into its shell.  Why couldn’t he have landed in an alternate universe where people didn’t remember Captain America’s Fitness Challenge?

At last the second-unit director gave up in disgust and told everybody to take a break.  Henry and Tabitha helped Steve out of the heavy spacesuit costume and gave him a bottle of water to re-hydrate after standing under the hot studio lights.  As he stood there chugging it, wiggling uncomfortably in a shirt practically pasted to him by sweat, Ridley Scott entered the room.

“How’s it going?”

“We’re having an Off Day,” the second-unit director said, looking at Steve out of the sides of her eyes.

“I’m… just not feeling it,” said Steve.  “I need to go look at some space pictures or something.”

“Apparently we used up all our good work in that stunt this morning,” Scott grumbled.  “Scarlett’s suddenly having trouble deciding what a Russian accent sounds like.”

From out in the hall came Natasha’s voice.  “Russia has the surface area of the moon,” she said.  “If you want a ‘Russian accent’, you need to be more specific.”

Steve finished his water and wiped his forehead.  “Could I get another one of these?” he asked hopefully.

There was a cooler in the makeup trailer with water and sodas in it.  Steve dug a second bottle out, and downed it while Natasha lounged in one of the chairs examining her fingernails, seemingly having a great time playing the spoiled starlet.

“How’d you do?” she asked Steve with a smirk.

“I’m not sure I’m speaking to you,” said Steve.  He mopped his forehead with the edge of his t-shirt.  “I don’t think I need to, anyway, you were probably watching the whole thing.”

“Actually, no,” said Nat, “but I’m hoping we can see the dailies!  Anyway.”  She sat up and held out her phone.  “I didn’t learn anything about the tesseract, but that’s not surprising.  I did manage to learn, though, that Chris Hemsworth, who plays Thor, is currently on sabbatical with his family in Australia.”

The picture she’d found was of a smiling man in a jacket and tie, with short blond hair and beard stubble.  He did look like Thor, although it was strange to see him with his hair cut.  “I thought I was Chris,” said Steve.

“Apparently there’s a lot of Chris around here,” said Nat.

“Any sign of a chance to escape yet?” Steve asked.  It couldn’t come fast enough.

“A little more bad acting from you ought to do the trick,” Natasha said.  “Sooner or later they’ll just give up.”

“I’m glad I’m good for something,” said Steve.

There was a knock on the door, and without waiting for an answer, another studio employee leaned into the makeup trailer.  This was a thin young woman with long, limp blonde hair under a pink knitted hat.  “Excuse me, Scarlett?” she said to Nat.  “Your husband’s here.”

[blindrapture]

an old Andrew Hussie quote (and then a ramble in the tags)

(In response to “are you aware of all the people wishing Act 5′s hiatuses weren’t so prominent”)

I don't know. I hardly ever read more than half way down the first page of questions. Too many, too repetitive, etc.

But through various channels, I detect certain flavors of reaction, ranging from disappointment to frustration to something faintly resembling outrage, not just at the lack of an incendiary production to mark year 2, but also the flagging rate of output in recent weeks.

These reactions are far from universal, but they exist, and to address them I think an education on why MSPA exists at all is in order. If you see a creator who begins to languish in production of what presumably accounts for his day job, the impression may be that he is falling down on the job and failing to live up to his professional commitment. So maybe this is the source of indignation, re: entitlement, that some may feel when my output falters. The problem is, MSPA is not a day job for me. It is an all consuming lifestyle. Hence, the mirage that is the apparent ease of output for what is at times ludicrous volumes of material is highly sensitive to even slight perturbations in my life situation.

Let me put it this way. You may work a full time job. It may be that something happens in your life that makes your job more difficult, because you are preoccupied. Your work may suffer to some extent, but you can still approximately match what's expected of you, because there is a partition between your job and your home life. You may nevertheless feel your full time job seems to dominate your existence, saps your energy, and leaves your weekend respites feeling all too short. This is not an experience I share, because MSPA is not a full time job. If you have such a job, then I would have to RADICALLY REDUCE my workload to match your level of day to day preoccupation.

The actual quantities involved have always been nebulous and I never made a point of keeping track, but 12 hours per day seems like a pretty reasonable average, since that is just shy of all waking hours. Time spent writing, drawing, animating, or just spacing out at my monitor while contemplating all the moving parts. This is what I did every day, including weekends and holidays, for two years, and to some extent another year prior to that with Problem Sleuth. Only a few weekends were missed due to conventions, and there was a single week off immediately following the infamous "robo smooch", and that's it. (Most of that week was spent wondering why the hell I wasn't updating...) There are other gaps in the archive, spanning days or a week, when I was animating. Those spans involved the usual work schedule, while simply omitting sleep!

Not only is this an unreasonable workload to expect of anyone, it's practically impossible to pull it off. Maybe you can expect some committed guy out there to really buckle down and duplicate that effort for a month or two. But years? Too much can crop up in the white noise of normal life to destabilize it. Momentum is absolutely crucial for maintaining that kind of pace. I find that if I only do an hour of work in a day, I get ten minutes of work done. If I do 12 hours of work, I seem to get 24 hours of work done. This is especially true of animation. Such projects notoriously take a very long time. I feel like because of the crazy head of steam I've built up from years of nonstop effort, I can knock out in days something that might take another animator a week. Or in a week what might take a month. Without that momentum, it's not possible. Starting up Flash cold is excruciating. Getting your head back into the stride of a story wastes energy you wouldn't use if you never broke stride. Without the momentum, the pace reverts to ordinary. Getting distracted by life destroys the momentum.

I've been pretty zealous about deflecting the distractions, even when I move, as I often do. A notable example was last year when I came back from the Emerald City con in Seattle, and found my apartment flooded. The con was already enough of a time sink, so I didn't have much of an appetite for going into personal crisis mode. I just kind of shrugged, picked my computer off the lone, miraculously dry part of the floor, dropped it in a temporary residence, and kept drawing. I think the flood mess occupied about a day of my attention, whereas something like that could easily take up weeks of your time and energy if you're living that "normal life". You know how it is, you come home and find water up to your ankles and go aw fuck, what's ruined, what needs replacing, gotta call whoever and deal with the fuckin landlord about stuff and auuuugh. I just didn't bother with any of that, because it just didn't seem to matter, and I preferred to keep working and not give a crap about all my soggy bullshit. And in retrospect, I guess it really didn't matter.

All of my moves have been similarly characterized by the unceremonious transportation of a computer and a few boxes to a new room, in which I'd continue working as if no change took place, with no service paid to the life that would be lived there, except as a workspace. I moved again recently, prompted by decidedly less dramatic and less soggy reasons than after Emerald City. This time, for whatever reason, I did it differently. I moved the normal way, the way I imagine normal people doing when I close my eyes, whereby more than a car trunk full of utilitarian belongings are imported into the household, placed on the floor, and never unpacked until the next moving day. I am not necessarily PROHIBITIVELY busy, but like I said above, any dent in the momentum, whether its a few trips to Home Depot or Target here and there or somehow waking up to discover I'd absconded from a shelter with two particularly energetic young cats, is something that precludes a pace of output that is insane and often bordering on miraculous.

What I'm trying to convey here is this isn't necessarily any sort of break, or a grand announcement of a big slowdown for MSPA. I'm trying to give you a sense of the reality which made MSPA heretofore possible, and that if for a period of time I descend from an altitude far exceeding the hours of a full time job, into "merely" those of a full time job, IT DOESN'T ACTUALLY COUNT AS A BREAK! And certainly not as any sort of violation in a pact with the readership. Different from what you're used to? Sure. But you should never find yourself in a position where you come to expect, let alone demand, that degree of effort from anyone, even me. If my output "sputters" from 10 pages a day to 1 or 2 or 3, IDEALLY (re: unrealistically) this should not even cause you to voice an internal observation on the matter! And if one is voiced, instead of "oops, looks like Andrew's slipping," it should be "oops, looks like Andrew's being a regular dude for a while."

Not that detecting a pace change is some terrible wrongdoing, since clearly I've done everything in my power to establish these absurd precedents, and people have naturally associated this with The Brand. I'd just like to suggest it would be beneficial to the reader to disentangle enjoyment of the content from the torrid pace its been commonly delivered. Who can say how fast or slow it'll come in year three? Would my assurances even be reliable? Maybe it'll stay at the current pace for a good long while. Maybe it'll soon hasten back to something more typical. Maybe it'll come back FASTER THAN EVER. Who cares??? Do you really NEED this site to be the fastest comic on the block to enjoy it? Are you prepared to contend with the backlash to your psyche that is risked by so fervently relishing that particular property of the comic? What if it's taken away? Don't go boasting to your neighbors that your slave can pick cotton ten times faster than theirs. It's unbecoming. Just enjoy the fluffy yield of his furious hands, while you wait and pray for Abe Lincoln to gently stroke his beard and relieve you of your bigotry.

[chillwithtea-blog]

Earlier today I read a thread on Reddit about the concept of “fake tea,” taking from the idea of “fake wine” being sold to people who aren’t educated enough to know the difference. The thing that interested me most was the highest-rated comment, that basically called out what I perceive as the “chain of knowledge.”

Teavana encapsulates this problem. You spend top dollar on "the highest grade of oolong" for something that is actually quite common and average. But Teavana has those advertising buckaroos. Customers are made to feel like they're refined: they went to a fancy store, got their tea put in fancy storage containers, and they even bought the fancy teaware to go along with it. Thank you very much Teavana for helping me be so fancy. One sec while I post it on Facebook and look fancy to my friends and coworkers. It's not about tea. It's about lifestyle. Goes great with your "Keep Calm and Drink Tea" iPhone case.

Meanwhile, tea enthusiasts are chasing that next big thing, that impossibly-cheap pu cake that takes amazing, that rare aged whatever that lasts for dozens of steeps, that beautiful yixing teapot that is the ONLY PROPER way to drink such-and-such tea. Don't have a gaiwan? Don't have four different gaiwans of different shapes and sizes so that you can drink each specific tea the PROPER way? Pay up. Drink up. You're such a tea connoisseur because you followed advice on Reddit and bought from not-Teavana. All about that lifestyle.

Add in a rat-race to learn about (i.e. consume) as much tea as possible as quickly as possible, so you have folks doing massive orders from single vendors instead of actually evaluating the tea. I think this is the primary reason why Yunnan Sourcing gets mentioned so often on this sub: their quality is fine, don't get me wrong, but they're hella convenient as a one-stop-shop. Swipe the card. It's only $300 to get a huge haul of "the best" tea. Aren't you cool now? Go tell all your tea buddies how much it costs and all the specific names of all the teas you purchased. Again, it's more about the lifestyle, not the tea.

When I started this blog and when I started consuming tea a little more seriously, I wanted to remain focused on the fact that tea was for me, rather than something I needed to outwardly project on other people. I’ve caught myself thinking a little elitist from time to time, but have kind of rolled back to the point of thinking “hey, if it works for you, go for it.”

The photo on this post is from a store local to mine, and I’m not ashamed to admit I buy that PC brand “Moroccan Style Mint” pretty often. Why? It’s $4 for 20 bags of a tea I don’t mind tasting and I don’t feel guilty about drinking. It’s the type of tea I don’t mind going cold in a glass because I’ve forgotten about it, and a type I don’t mind spilling by accident.

Sure, it isn’t perfectly aged, imported, fancy stuff, but I have other tins for that. This is the perfectly respectable, tasty and refreshing tea that I drink because it’s utilitarian.

Part of what I’m trying to embrace with my drinking is the absence of pretense: tea is just leaf water, and to try to pretend that it’s something insanely healthy or life-changing is usually tinted with a bit of marketing. Sure, there’s the entire industry (which is obviously important to a lot of people), but in terms of the act or hobby, I’m trying to resist the urge to make it more than it is.

So, back to fake tea.

In all honesty, I don’t mind when people gush about the entry-level stores like DAVIDsTEA or Teavana, mostly because if it gets their curiosity going, that’s the function it serves. Usually what bugs me a lot about the store is that preying on the uninformed: there is a lot of otherwise bad or mediocre tea that is jazzed up as special, and sadly it requires people to take their lumps and learn in order to truly recognize that.

I’m not about to stand in front of a store and yell about the dangers of mislabeled advertising, but there’s a small sense of pride that comes with wanting to take it a little more seriously. I wouldn’t dream of talking to a wine sommelier as if I know anything about that subject (let alone more), so I’m not sure if it’s particularly prideful to want the same thing in return.

All I can really do is present information in an easy-to-learn fashion, be patient with people who are curious, and not sweat the people who only want to consume this at a surface level. What does bother me, though, is the equivalent of snake oil salespeople; something just feels downright shitty letting people believe that tea is going to cure their diseases and make their fat melt off.

Dunno, dude. Leaf water.

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